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Theological Seminary, | 


PRINCETON, N. J. 


No. Case, Ὀνίου, ---τοςς οι oes 
No. Shelf. a: 


The John M. Krebs Donation. 


COMMENTARY 


ON THE 


GOSPELS AND EPISTLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. . 


BY DANIEL WHITBY, D.D, 


CHANTOR OF THE CHURCH OF SARUM. 


THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN. 


BY MOSES LOWMAN. 


WROTE CADMAS πο ee, 


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MA OPES Yea, YR “ 


Α 


CRITICAL COMMENTARY 


AND 


PARAPHRASE 


ON THE 


OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT 


ἘΠ gl Sa uae 


BY 


PATRICK, LOWTH, ARNALD, WHITBY, AND 
LOWMAN. 


A NEW EDITION, WITH THE TEXT PRINTED AT LARGE, 
IN FOUR VOLUMES. 


VOL. IV. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
CAREY AND HART, 126 CHESNUT STREET. 


NEW YORK: 
WILEY AND PUTNAM, 163 BROADWAY. 


. 1845. 


STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON. 


PRINTED BY T. Κ. & P. G. COLLINS, PHILADELPHIA. 


BESIDES THE PARAPHRASE AND COMMENTARY, 


THIS WORK CONTAINS, 


Finsr, A Preface to the Reader, being a discourse concern- 


ing the genealogy of St. Luke, and the Cainan men- 
tioned in it. 


Secondly, A General Preface, proving the truth and divine 


authority of the Scriptures of the New Testament, and 
the certainty of the Christian faith. 


Thirdly, A Preface to the Four Gospels, proving that they 


only ought to be received, and that they have been 


handed down to us uncorrupted; and inquiring whe- 


\ 


ther the Gospel of St. Matthew was originally written 
in Hebrew or in Greek. 


Fourthly, A General Preface to the Epistles, proving the 
truth and certainty of the Christian faith. 
With Nine other Prefaces, viz. 


I. 
Il. 


Il. 


Ἐν: 


VII. 


To the Gospel of St. Mark, 

To the Gospel of St. Luke, — 

Asserting their authority, and divine assistance 
in the writing of them. 

To the Gospel of St. John, showing that the Apostle 
was the true author of that Gospel, and when he 
writ‘it: with a Postscript, proving, 

First, That the descent of the Holy Ghost on our Sa- 
viour, mentioned John i. 33, was the same with 
the descent of the. Holy Ghost on him at his 
baptism. 

Secondly, That he did not begin his private ministry 
as to preaching, baptizing, and working miracles, 
long before his own baptism. ¥ 

Thirdly, That the Passovers during his ministry 
were only four. 

To the Acts of the Apostles, showing that they con- 
tain evident demonstration of the truth of the 
Christian faith. 

To the First Epistle to the Corinthians, asserting 
the resurrection of the same body that dieth, and 
answering the objections against it. 

To the Epistle to the Galatians, concerning the na- 
ture of faith, #hd touching justification by faith. 
To the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, con- 

cerning the man of sin. 


To the Epistle to Titus, concerning the episcopal | 


jurisdiction of Timothy and ‘Titus, and the suc- 
cession of bishops in all Christian churches. 

To the Epistle of St. John, inquiring whether this 
proposition, That Jesus is the Christ, be all that 
is necessary to be believed to justification, or to 
make a member of Christ’s church and body. 


And Seventeen Appendixes, viz. 


I. 


ΤΙ. 


IIL. 


XVI. 


XVII. 


An Appendix to the second chapter of St. Mat- 
thew, concerning the import of that phrase, ἵνα 
πληρωθῇ, “that it might be fulfilled.” 

To the fifth chapter, inquiring, Whether Christ 
there added to the moral law, or only corrected 
the false glosses of the scribes and pharisees con- 
cerning it. 

To ch. vi. 16, inquiring, Whether fasting be a duty 
incumbent upon Christians, and a part of divine 
worship. 

To ch. xii., concerning the nature of the sin against 
the Holy Ghost. 

To ch. xxiv., concerning the time of which Christ 
speaks in that chapter. 

To ch. xxvi., answering an objection of Crellius 
against Christ’s satisfaction. 

To the second chapter of St. Mark, ver. 19, con- 
cerning the baptism of infants. 

To ch. xiv., concerning the day on which our Lord 
did eat the passover with his disciples. 

A Sermon on John vii. 47—49, in answer to the 
Guide of Controversies. 

To Acts ii. 26, 27, concerning Christ’s descent into 
hell. 

To the eleventh chapter to the Romans, proving 
that there will be a general conversion of the 
Jewish nation to the Christian faith. 

To 1 Cor. i. 30, concerning the imputation of 
Christ’s perfect righteousness to us for justifica- 


tion. 
To the sixth chapter of the Second Epistle to the 


Corinthians, touching the necessity of divine 
assistance for the due performance of our duty, 
and explaining the reason and the manner of it. 

An Advertisement, relating to the Preface to the 
Epistle to the Galatians. 


_ To the first’ chapter of the Second Epistle to the 


Thessalonians, proving that the eternal punish- 
ment of those who die in their sins, is well con- 
sistent both with the justice and the goodness of 
God. 
A Discourse by way of inquiry, Whether the 
“apostles in their writings spake as conceiving the 
day of judgment might be in their days. 
A Parallel betwixt the Jewish and the Roman 
antichrist. 
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Α 


PARAPHRASE AND COMMENTARY 


ON 


THE FOUR GOSPELS, 


AND 


THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


TO 
THE QUEEN’S 
MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 


Mapam, 

Among the laws that God gave by the hand of 
Moses, one was, that the king who should rule over 
his people should have continually before him “a 
copy of the law,” and that he should “read in it all 
the days of his life,’’ that, having learnt ‘to fear the 
Lord his God, and to observe the words of his law,” 
he might “ prolong his days in his kingdom.”’? And 
when he made Joshua the captain of his host, and 
the governor of his people, he spake thus to him, 
«The book of the law shall not depart out of thy 
mouth, but thou shalt meditate in it day and night, 
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that 
is written in it; for then thou shalt make thy way 
prosperous, and thou shalt have good success” (Josh. 
i. 8). King David made these testimonies ‘his de- 
light and his counsellors ;” and because public affairs 
employed him in the daytime, he made them his 
study in the night; and thus he became “ wiser than 
his enemies,” and of ‘more understanding than all 
his teachers.” 

It therefore having pleased the divine providence, 
to the great joy and satisfaction of the whole nation, 
to appoint your Majesty the governor of his people, 
and the “nursing mother” of his church; the law of 
Christ contained in the New Testament must be both 
the rule of your Majesty’s government, and of the 
obedience of your subjects. 

We hope that God hath raised up your Majesty to 
be, as Queen Elizabeth was formerly, a signal blessing 
to this nation, and a great advancer of its happiness ; 
» a bulwark to the protestant religion, and a scourge 
and terror to its enemies: and that if any thing hath 
hitherto been wanting, to render us a truly religious, 
and so a happy people, and a glorious church, your 
Majesty is reserved to put the finishing hand to that 
blessed work ; which, by rendering this law of Christ, 
as David did the law of Moses, your counsellor and 
your delight, you will most happily perform. 

Having, therefore, with as much diligence as I 
could, finished this Commentary on the New Testa- 
ment. I humbly lay it at your Majesty’s feet, as being 
the defender of the faith contained in it; in which 
my only design was, to be a poor instrument to pro- 
mote the glory of God, and the good of others. 

May your Majesty’s regard to this sacred law, by 

Vor. IV.—1 


which you also must be judged, be such, that it may 
prolong your days in your kingdom, make your way 
prosperous, and your affairs successful: that as it was 
said of the immortal Elizabeth, that «in wisdom and 
the happiness of her reign, she exceeded all that 
went before her;’’ so your Majesty may exceed her 
in wisdom to govern, in length of days, successful 
undertakings, great ministers, and obedient subjects, 
to the joy of all your people, and the support of all 
your allies. 

May your Majesty’s study of this royal law of love, 
this gospel of peace, this perfect bond of unity, direct 
you to promote the peace and union of your subjects, 
and excite your zeal to allay the heats, and silence 
the unhappy contests, which, to the scandal of reli- 
gion, and the great reproach of the church, have been 
of late so warmly prosecuted, and so perniciously 
fomented, that as the first Christian emperor,* born 
in your Majesty’s dominions, finding the clergy ac- 
cusing and condemning one another, did by his wis- 
dom, his powerful persuasions, and his mild behea- 
viour, reduce them all to a happy union, and entire 
concord in all things ; so may this be the great felicity 
of your reign in the present, and your lasting charac- 
ter and glory in succeeding ages. 

And when you have made this church glorious, and 
this nation happy, by your auspicious reign; after a 
length of days, in which you have governed to the 
glory of God, and to the welfare of your people, may 
you enter late upon the Christian recompense of all 
your labours, that crown of glory which fadeth not 
away. So prayeth, 

Dread sovereign, 
Your Majesty’s most faithful 
And most humbly devoted subject, 


DANIEL WHITBY. 


PREFACE 
TO THE READER. 


Covrreovs Reaper, 

Though what I offer to thy perusal is the result of fifteen 
years’ study, yet have I found it deficient in two things 
especially :— 

I. In an exact and particular account of all the places 
mentioned in this commentary, and especially in the Acts 


* Ruseb. de Vita Constant. lib. iii. cap. 13 
A 


2 PREFACE TO 


of the Apostles; and this defect I have endeavoured to sup- 
ply by a map of them drawn by a kind friend of great 
ability in those matters, and by an alphabetical table of 
them, with some brief remarks relating chiefly to the New 
Testament. 

And finding a chronology of the New Testament done 
to my hand by a very exact and learned prelate of our 
church, from which my commentary nowhere differs, I 
have added that also for the reader’s use. 

II. Whereas it may be deemed a defect in this comment- 
ary, that I have said nothing of the two great controversies 
concerning the genealogy of St. Luke; 

First, Whether Cainan did originally belong to it, or in- 
deed ought to do so; 

Secondly, Whether St. Luke intended there to give us 
the genealogy of Joseph from Nathan, as St. Matthew had 
given it from his brother Solomon; or rather the genealogy 
of the Virgin Mary from her father Heli, as is of late 
imagined ; 

I do ingenuously confess, with venerable Bede,* that I 
declined these controversies, and more especially the first, 
propter ingenii tarditatem, for I had seen this controversy 
handled with exact judgment, and great variety of learning, 
by the reverend Dr. Mills upon the place; and knowing 
that I must not be permitted to blow upon his book, I de- 
spaired of doing it so well as he hath done, and so declined 
the doing it at all, till that very valuable book should be 
made public; which being not yet done, I shall present the 
reader with my present thoughts upon the two foremen- 
tioned questions: 

First, Whether Cainan was originally in the genealogy 
of St. Luke, or ought to be accounted a part of it? And 
because the decision of this question depends much upon 
another, whether this Cainan (who is not to be found in the 
Hebrew copies, either in the tenth or eleventh chapters of 
Genesis, or in 1 Chron. i., or in any of the Jewish Targums, 
or owned by any Jewish writer of that time) was to be 
found in the exactest copies of the seventy interpreters 
from the beginning, or rather was wanting in the first and 
the best copies of the Septuagint, as well as in all Hebrew 
copies ; I shall begin with the discussion of that controversy. 
And that he was not originally there, or was designedly put 
in there, will be made probable from these considerations : 

1. That Josephus declares that Shem had only five sons 
(Siva πέντε γίνονται παῖδες, Antiq. lib. i. cap. 7), and not six, 
as he must have had if Cainan were his son. He adds, 
that Abraham} was the tenth from Noah, and that Berosus, 
who lived before the seventy interpreters, spake of him as 
of one born δεκάτῃ yeved,t “in the tenth generation” from 
the flood. Eupolemus in Eusebius§ asserts the same thing ; 
and Philol| adds, that as Noah was the tenth from Adam, 
so Abraham was δέκατος, “the tenth” from Noah; whereas, 
if Cainan be to be reckoned betwixt Arphaxad and Salah, 
Abraham must be the eleventh generation from the flood. 
Whence it is easy to collect, That neither the Jews of Jeru- 
salem, nor of Alexandria, though they used the Greek ver- 
sion, owned this Cainan ; but by their received computation 
that Abraham was the tenth from Noah, and was born two 
hundred and ninety-two years after the flood, must exclude 
him: and that, seeing both Philo and Josephus usually 
follow the Septuagint in other matters, and yet so plainly 
depart from them in this, we have cause to believe that 
they, who thought this Cainan was not to be inserted be- 
twixt Arphaxad and Salah, found him not so inserted in 
the exactest copies of the Septuagint, or knew that he was 
put in by design. 

2. The Chronicon of Eusebius gives a particular account 
of the sons of Shem from Africanus, from the Septuagint 
and from the Samaritan translation: and this account runs 
thus,—* Arphaxad,{ being a hundred and thirty-five years 
old, say Africanus and the Septuagint, a hundred and thirty, 


* Preefat. Comment. in Acta Apost. 

TABpatip ὃς δέκατύός ἐστιν ἀπὸ Neixov, δευτέρῳ δὲ ἔτει καὶ 
ἐννενηκοστῷ πρὸς διακοσίους μετὰ τὴν ἐπομβρίαν ἐγένετο. Tbid. 

+ Ibid. cap. 8. 

§ Prepar. Evang. lib. ix. cap. 17. 

|| L. de Congress. p. 342, B. 

« ᾿Αρφαξάδ γενόμενος ρλέ (pr Σαμὰρ.) γεννᾷ τὸν Σαλὰ, p. 9, 10. 


Ὕ 


THE READER. 


saith the Samaritan translation, begat Salah.”’ And 'Theo- 
philus,* who understood only Greek, and so must have his 
account from the Septuagint, says, “ Arphaxad being a hun- 
dred and thirty-five years οἱ, ἐτέκνωσε Σαλὰ, begat Salah,” 
taking no notice of Cainan in the Greek; though he is in- 
serted into the Latin translation: whence also we may rea- 
sonably infer that Theophilus, Africanus, Eusebius, living 
among the Jews, the one at Antioch, the second at Nico- 
polis, the third at Cesarea in Palestine, either found him 
not in the exacter copies of the Septuagint, or found reason 
to believe he should not have been there. Moreover, St. 
Jerome, in his book of Hebrew traditions, saith, «The sons 
of Shem were Elam, Assur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram, 
and that Arphaxad begat Selah,’ making no mention of 
Cainan: whence also I infer, he either did not find him in 
the Septuagint, or thought he should not have been there; 
but rather, that as the Septuagint added so many hundred 
years to the account, which Moses had given of the age of 
the world before and after the flood, so also did they de- 
signedly add this Cainan to swell up the account, and make 
it to accord the better with the large computations given of 
it by the Egyptians and Chaldeans. Add to this, 

3. That as this Cainan is not to be found in all the Old 
Testament, either in the Targums, or in any version besides 
that of the Septuagint, nor in the Samaritan, the Vulgate, 
the Syriac, or Arabic, so neither is he to be found in the 
recapitulation of these genealogies, 1 Chron. i., in any copies 
of the Septuagint, save only that of Alexandria. Now, if 
the authors of these versions had believed that Moses had 
put in this Cainan in Genesis, why do they always leave him 
out, both there and in this recapitulation? And why is he 
left out in the translation of the Septuagint in this recapitu- 
lation? ‘This, as it seems to intimate that the translation 
of this recapitulation was made by another hand from that 
which gave us the Greek version of the five books of Moses, 
so also to confirm the truth of the remark made by Proco- 
pius Gazeus,+ that the Hebrew hath it thus; “ Arphaxad 
begat Salah,” and that, que deinde in medio ponuntur obe- 
lisco notata visuntur, “the Cainan put between them in 
some copies of the Septuagint was marked with an obe- 
lisk,” or with a note of reprobation. 

Now hence it follows, that St. Luke could have no reason 
to insert this Cainan into his genealogy, because he found 
it in the Septuagint, it being not found in the Samaritan 
version, though it follows the Septuagint in speaking of the 
age of Arphaxad, Salah, and others, before they begat child- 
ren, nor in the copies of the Septuagint owned by Philo or 
Josephus, who follow them in other matters, and being 
noted with a mark of reprobation, where it was found, to 
intimate that it was designedly put in by them. 

But then the Jews must have had a considerable objec- 
tion against the veracity of St. Luke, had he so plainly added 
to their scriptures, and their most ancient 'l'argums, and 
their received genealogies, which surely must agree with 
their own scriptures. And seeing neither the Alexandrian 
Jews, nor their own priest Josephus, nor any other Jew we 
read of, owned this Cainan in our Saviour’s days, it must 
be a great stumbling-block to them to see that owned by a 
writer pretending to divine inspiration under the New Tes- 
tament, which two of their inspired writers so plainly had 
disowned and reprobated. 

Moreover, the two first Christian authors, which de- 
signedly give us an account of this matter, are Theophilus, 
bishop of Antioch, and Julius Africanus, bred up at Alex- 
andria, and living afterward at Emmaus, or Nicopolis, in 
Palestine; and they both show, by their chronology, that 
they owned not this Cainan, though doubtless neither of 
them could be ignorant of what St. Luke had said concern- 
ing him, seeing the latter hath a set discourse of the differ- 
ence, which seemed to be betwixt the genealogies of St. 
Matthew and St. Luke ; and, therefore, had St. Luke canon- 
ized this Cainan, and rendered him authentic in his gene- 
alogy, they could not (we may reasonably suppose) have 
thus varied from what this evangelist had delivered, without 
some mention of St. Luke, or some reason assigned why 
they thus differed from him. And, 


* Ad Autolycum, lib. iii. p. 134. { F. 72, B.C. 


+ In Gen, xi 


PREFACE TO THE READER. 3 


Thirdly, Ireneus,* who also lived in the second century, 
not only saith, that “the genealogy of St. Luke containeth 
seventy-two generations ;” for that this is the true reading 
appeareth against Isaac Vossius, not only from the note of 
Mr. Grabe upon the place, but also from the reason follow- 
ing: viz. That this was done, “ according to the seventy-two 
languages of all nations, which Christ recapitulated in him- 
self;” this being, as Mr. Grabe there notes, the received 
opinion, that the languages then used in the world were 
seventy-two. Now, if you so compute this genealogy as to 
exclude (πὸ 24), Matthan and Levi, and (ver. 26) Cainan, 
or to exclude Jesus and Adam, as St. Peter doth Adam and 
Noah, when he saith, 2 Pet. xi. 5, that « Noah was the 
eighth from Adam,” the generations mentioned in this genea- 
logy will be just seventy-two, whereas if Cainan be inserted, 
they must be seventy-three or seventy-five. 

But then how this Cainan should so come into the text of 
St. Luke as to be found, though not in all MSS., there be- 
ing several, saith Grotius,t which owned him not, yet in all 
versions from the Greek, is very difficult to conjecture ; 
though, if we may credit able critics, it neither is without 
example nor without probability that it might be so. 

It is not without example; for if we may credit the great 
Bochart,} some like unskilful hand, instead of Jacob, who 
bought the field near Shechem (Gen. xxxiii. 18, 19), hath 
putin Abraham (Acts vii. 16), which criticism being allowed, 
the whole difficulty of that text is removed, and the disa- 
greement of it with the records of the Old Testament is 
taken away. - 

Nor doth it want its probability ; for, seeing the Christians 
generally from the second century went into that false opinion, 
that the translation of the Septuagint was made by divine 
inspiration, as you may read in the preface to St. Matthew, 
they finding this Cainan in the vulgar editions of the Sep- 
tuagint, might put him in the margin, and afterward insert 
him into the genealogy of St. Luke. Nor will this lessen 
the authority of the New Testament in other places, in which 
we cannot have the like reason to suspect any alteration. 

To proceed now to the second question, Whether St. 
Luke gives us the genealogy of Joseph from Nathan, as 
Matthew had given it from his brother Solomon, viz. the 
genealogy of Joseph from Heli his legal father, or rather 
the genealogy of Mary from her father Heli? ΤῸ which I 
answer by these considerations: 

First, That an account of a genealogy, which gives the 
plain and literal sense of the author’s words, deserveth much 
to be preferred before another, which puts a manifest force 
upon them. Now if you make this of St. Luke a genealogy 
not of Joseph, but only of the Virgin Mary by her supposed 
father Heli, you put a manifest force upon his words; for 
then “ Christ was ὡς ἐνομίζετο υἱὸς "Iwai rod ᾿Ηλὶ, as Was sup- 
posed the son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli,” must be 
thus filled up, ὄντως δὲ τῆς Μαρίας τῆς θυγατρὸς τοῦ ᾿Ηλὶ, “ but 
was indeed the son of Mary, the daughter of Heli.” Now 
is it probable, that if St. Luke had intended to signify all 
this to his reader, so exact a Grecian as he was should have 
done it so obscurely, and so unintelligibly from his words, 
that totius antiquitatis opinio, “the whole stream of antiquity,” 
saith Maldonate,§ should, with a full consent, follow the con- 
trary opinion of Africanus, that this was the genealogy of 
Joseph by his legal father, according to which interpretation 
the sense of St. Luke’s words is plain and literal? Add to 
this, that the words ὧν ὡς ἐνομίζετο may be well rendered 
thus, “ being as the law allows,” or “in the sense of the law, 
the son of Joseph” (as I shall prove in the note upon these 
words, οὐ ἐνομίζετο zpossnxy εἶναι, Acts xvi. 13). Now thus 
Christ was assuredly the son of Joseph, all law allowing the 
fruit of the wife’s womb, if it be male, to be reputed and 
called the son of the husband,|| and then St. Luke will accord 


* « Propter hoc Lucas genealogiam, que est ἃ generatione 
Domini nostri ad Adam, septuaginta duas generationes 
habere ostendit,—significans quoniam ipse est qui omnes 
gentes—et universas linguas—in semetipso recapitulans est” 
(Lib. iii. cap. 33). 

{ [πὶ locum. + Hieroz. lib. ii. p. 436. § On Matt. i. 16. 


| Ta γὰρ ἐκ γυναικός twos χωρὶς πορνείας τικτόμενον, υἱός ἐστιν 


exactly with St. Matthew in declaring Christ to be the son of 
Joseph, because he was the husband of Mary, ἐξ ἧς, “of 
whom was born Jesus called Christ” (Matt. i. 16). 

And, secondly, Whereas it is said that the genealogy of 
Joseph is nothing to the purpose, since that will not avail 
at all to prove that Christ was of the seed of David; I answer, 
that this objection seems neither true nor well grounded. 

1. It is not true, for both the evangelists do in effect de- 
clare that they intended only to give us the legal or supposed 
genealogy of Christ from Joseph, by virtue of his being the 
husband of Mary, of whom Christ was born; and, therefore, 
though Matthew says, “Jacob begat Joseph,” he does not 
say, and Joseph begat Jesus, who is called Christ; but only 
that he was the husband of Mary, of whom Christ was born ; 
and Luke saith he was, “as was supposed,” or in construction 
of law, “the son of Joseph:” if then all this be nothing to 
the purpose, both these inspired writers must have been 
moved by the Holy Ghost to write that which was nothing 
to the purpose. Again, it was taken for granted by all the 
Jews, that Joseph was as truly the father of Christ, as Mary 
was his mother, as we learn from Matt. xiii. 55; Luke iv. 22; 
John vi. 42; what then could be more to the purpose of the 
authors of these genealogies, than to prove that, according 
to their apprehensions of him, he might be, yea, he must 
be, the son of David, as Joseph was? especially since they 
well knew the Jews would never grant, or aver, to invali- 
date this argument, that Christ was miraculously born of a 
virgin, since that must prove he was the Son of God, and 
their Messiah, and so by certain and avowed consequence 
the son of David. 

2. I add, That this objection seems not to be well 
grounded ; for though it be commonly supposed these ge- 
nealogies were designed to prove, that Jesus was the son 
of David according to the flesh, I see no cogent reason to 
believe or grant that supposition: for, 

1. It is certain that these genealogies could never be de- 
signed to prove that which they do not prove, for then these 
sacred writers must have failed in their design ; if then they 
do not prove this, but only that “Jesus was the son of Jo- 
seph” by being the son of his wife Mary, they could not be 
designed to prove more. Moreover, the genealogy of St. 
Matthew could never prove this to the Jews, unless they 
owned that Mary was of the family of David: and if this 
was then owned by the Jews, what need was there to prove 
that to them, which so infallibly followed from it, that the 
fruit of her womb was of the same family? The genealogy 
of St. Luke doth not prove it, because there is not one word 
of Mary, or any other woman in it; nor would the express 
saying in it, that “ Mary the mother of Jesus was the daugh- 
ter of Heli,” prove it, unless they own her so to be; which, 
had they done (as the proof of this to them would have been 
needless, so) why is it that the kindred of our Lord deli- 
vered a contrary tradition to this? Why do Africanus, 
Eusebius,* Epiphanius,t St. Jerome,+ all born or living in 
Palestine, run into that opinion which is so inconsistent 
with it, viz. that Joseph himself was only in construction 
of law the son of Heli?’ Why is it that none of the ancient 
Christians ever owned it? To oppose against this tradition 
and unanimous consent of Christians an impious and lying 
vision of the Talmud of a doubtful construction, as Dr. 
Lightfoot confesseth, is as if I should oppose to the tradi- 
tion of all Christians, that our Saviour was born of a virgin, 
the blasphemous tales of the same Talmud,§ that Mary was 
a whore, and that Christ was the bastard of one Pandeira. 

2. There was no need to prove this by genealogies, because 
it was more fully and demonstratively done by those mira- 
cles to which our Saviour still appealed, as the great evidence 
that he was the Messiah promised to the Jews; for the Jews 
owned this as evident from scripture, by saying, “ Hath not 
the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David?” 
(John vii. 42.) “Hence,” say the scribes and pharisees 


ἐξ ἀνάγκης τοῦ ἀνδρὸς καὶ τῆς γυναικὸς, 3 τρόπῳ Boirerat Θεὸς 
δοῦναι υἱὸν τῷ ἀνδρὶ, ἢ διὰ συναφείας, ἢ χωρὶς συναφείας (Pseudo 
Just. qu. et resp. qu. 133). 
* Busebius, H. Eccl. lib. i.cap. 7. + Her. 30, sect. 29 
+ In Matt. i. § See Buxtorf in the Stada and Pandeira. 


4 THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


dogmatically, “« Christ is the son of David” (Matt. xxii. 42). 
Nor was any thing more notorious to the Jews; whence 
the blind men ery out, “Jesus, thou son of David, have 
mercy on us,” Mark x. 47, 48; so doth the woman of Ca- 
naan, Matt. xv. 22; so did the multitude, singing at Christ’s 
entrance into Jerusalem, “ Hosanna to the son of David,” 
Matt. xxi.9. 15. Wherefore, those miracles which demon- 
strated Christ was the true Messiah promised to the Jews, 
must as effectually prove to them, that he was “the son of 
David according to the flesh.” 

3. The Jews confessed that Mary was the mother of Jesus 
(Matt. xii. 46, xiii. 55, John vi. 42), and that Joseph was 
his father; if, therefore, they had then certain genealogical 
tables of the family of Joseph and Mary, they must suffi- 
ciently show to them of what family Christ was; if they 
had not, why do St. Matthew and St. Luke appeal to them 
to prove the family of Joseph? Hence doth St. Peter, in 
his discourse to the men of Israel, take this for granted, 
«That Christ was the fruit of the loins of David,” Acts ii. 
30, 31, and St. Paul twice asserts it, Rom. i. 3, 2 Tim. ii. 8. 
Nor do we find that this assertion met with the least con- 
tradiction from the mouth of scribe or pharisee, or any other 
Jew; for though they say, “ Doth not the Scripture teach, 
That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the 
town of Bethlehem?” (John vii.42,) they say not one word 
against our Saviour’s being the Christ upon the first account, 
and thereby tacitly confess, that they could not deny it, but 
only doubt he was not of Bethlehem, but came out of Gali- 
lee, whence arose no prophet (ver. 41. 52). Indeed, all 
that the latter Jews say against this, they argue from these 
very genealogies, as being either not sufficient to prove it, 
or inconsistent the one with the other. 

Add to this, first, That it is certain from the scripture, to 
the Christian, that Mary, of whom Christ was born, was 
of the family of David; for thus the angel speaks to her, 
Luke i. 31, 32, “Thou shalt bear a son, and shalt call his 
name Jesus, and the Lord shall give him the throne of his 
father David :” now she must be a daughter of the house of 
David, of whose son David was the father. The inspired 
hymn of Zacharias declares, that God, by giving them this 
son of Mary, had “raised up for them a horn of salvation 
in the house of his servant David” (ver. 69). This son of 
Mary was therefore of the house of David. Secondly, All 
the fathers, saith Maldonate,* do with one mouth assert 
that Joseph and Mary were of the same tribe and family ; 
and this the Jews never gainsaid, though they must, by 
their genealogical tables, know the truth or falsehood of it. 
Now this being once granted, nothing could be farther 
wanting, when it was proved that Joseph was the son of 
David, to prove, if that were the design of these sacred 
writers, that our Lord sprang from Abraham and David 
according to the flesh; nor is it to be wondered, that they 
should rather give us the genealogies of Joseph than of 
Mary, if either of them proved the same thing; and gene- 
alogies among the Jews were never made from women, but 
always from the men. : 

And lastly, Whereas it is represented (in opposition to 
the account which Africanus, and from him all the ancients, 
give us of the conciliation of these genealogies) as a thing 
highly improbable, and even next to impossible, that at so 
great a distance of time, as was from Solomon and Nathan 
to Jacob and Heli, that Jacob and Heli should be brethren; 
I answer, That as none of the ancient Christians, who ge- 
nerally followed Africanus, perceived this impossibility, so 
doth Africanus} himself sufficiently clear his opinion from 
it, by saying, as it were in answer to it, That the families 
from Solomon and Nathan were so mixed, partly by se- 
cond marriages, partly by raising up the name of the dead, 
(according to the law, Ley. xxv. 24, 25, Ruth iv. 5), and 
partly by raising up seed to the dead (according to the law, 
Deut. xxv. 5), that we may reasonably conceive the same 
persons might be brethren in both. 


* On Matt. i. 16. 
Τ Συνεπεπλάκη γὰρ τὰ γένη----ἀναστάσεσιν ἁτέκνων, καὶ devre- 
ρυγαμίαις, καὶ ἀναστάσεσι σπερμάτων, ὡς δικαίως τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἄλλοτε 


ἄλλων νομίζεσδαι (Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 7). 


THE 
GENERAL PREFACE, 


CONCERNING 


THE DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
AND OF 


THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


CONTENTS, 


§. I. The general proposition, that the apostles and evan- 
gelists indited these scriptures by the assistance of the 
Holy Ghost. This proposition is explained by a compa- 
rison of this assistance with the gift of prophecy vouch- 
safed to the penmen of the Old Testament. 8. I. How 
far this assistance is asserted, as to an inspiration of sug- 
gestion, and as to an inspiration of direction. §. III. No 
slips of memory, no determination of matters of prac- 
tice from human wisdom only, without the intendence 
or direction of the Holy Spirit, no arguments that are 
inconclusive, must be admitted in these sacred writings, 
8. IV. This divine assistance is proved (1.) From what 
they do assert concerning their own writings, doctrines, 
and directions. §. V. (2.) From the assistance of the 
Holy Ghost vouchsafed to them. §. VI. (3.) From our 
Lord’s promise to lead them by this Spirit into all truth. 
§. VII. (4.) From the end for which they were indited, to 
be a rule of faith and manners to all ages. 8. VIII. (5.) 
From the testimony of the Christians of the first ages, 
who still owned and received them as such. §. IX. In 
confirmation of the truth of Christianity it is alleged, 
(1.) That if a Messiah was to come from Judea at that 
time, according to the general expectation of the East, 
he must be our Messiah. (2.) That no reasonable per- 
son, who was not the true Messiah, would have under- 
taken to fulfil the prophecies of the Old Testament con- 
cerning the Messiah. (3.) That none but the true Mes- 
siah could accomplish the things declared in the New 
Testament to be the characters of the Messiah. §. X. 
Secondly, This is argued from what is said in the New 
Testament, of what Christ, and what his apostles, and 
those who believed in him, should do in his name ; where 
is showed the vanity of all that is offered by way of com- 
parison of what was done by others, with what was done 
by Christ and his disciples; and also of the pretence, 
that Christians did the things which they performed by 
the art of magic. §. XI. Thirdly, From the truth and 
certainty of our Lord’s resurrection from the dead. 
8. ΧΗ. and XIII. Fourthly, From the manifold predic- 
tions of our Lord, exactly verified; and especially from 
those which concerned the destruction of Jerusalem, and 
the judgments which should come upon the Jewish na- 
tion for their infidelity. 


Tuart these sacred writings may have their due effect 
and influence upon us, I shall endeavour, as well as I am 
able, 

First, To establish their divine authority : whence it will 
follow, 

Secondly, That the doctrines and instructions delivered 
in them, are to be owned as the rules and doctrines of our 
Lord, and so are necessary to be believed and practised by 
all that bear the name of Christians. My first assertion 
therefore is, 

§. I. That the apostles and the evangelists indited these 
scriptures by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, and that, as 
the immediate succeeding ages did, so we at present se- 
curely may, rely upon them as a rule of faith. And here I 
shall consider, 

1. How this assistance may fitly be explained. 

2. How far it is necessary or reasonable to assert it. 

3. What evidence may be offered to confirm it. 

For explication of this divine assistance, let it be consi 
dered, 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 5 


1, That prophecy is sometimes represented as the word | (Acts x. 19, 20). 


of the Lord, and he is said to speak to the prophet; and, 
Suitably to this metaphor, some illustration of the assist- 
ance of the Holy Spirit may be made from the analogy it 
bears to human conversation, thus: ‘That we convey our 
thoughts one to another by such words as, by the organs 
of hearing, make such a motion on their brain to whom we 
speak, as gives them an idea of the words we utter, and by 
them of the things which by those words are signified; and 
so it is the impression made upon their brain, which doth 
communica'e our thoughts to them; so, when it pleaseth 
God to reveal his will to any person, it seemeth only ne- 
cessary that he talk inwardly with them, that is, that he 
make such a motion on their brains as giveth them a deep 
and clear idea of that which he intended to make known 
unto them; only the impression must be then made in such 
a manner and degree, and with such circumstances, as may 
make it certain to the inspired person, that it derives from 
God. Now seeing, when we hear the voice of any one or 
receive a letter from him, we may be certain from the know- 
ledge we have of his voice, or his hand-writing, that it is 
he indeed, who speaks or writeth to us; we may very well 
conceive, that God ean easily give such distinctive marks 
of what he inwardly speaks to us, or “writes upon the 
tables of our hearts,” as shall enable us to discern what he 
imprints upon them, from any impression that shall other- 
wise be made upon them. 

2. Sometimes the prophet is in scripture styled @ seer, 
and his word a vision; and then the parallel, or the ana- 
logy, runs thus: As we see, by virtue of a light reflecting 
the species of things upon the retina of the eye, and thence 
deriving a peculiar motion to, and making a distinct im- 
pression on, the brain; so may the prophet be supposed to 
see what God reveals unto him, by a like motion of the 
Holy Spirit made upon his brain concerning it. And as it 
is as easy to propose a material object to the view, as to 
describe it by our words, so must it be as easy for God to 
dart such an impression or inward light upon the brain of 
the prophet, or spiritual man, as shall give him a more 
bright and sensible idea of things, than if he did perceive 
them by the ear, or even-view them by the eye. And as we 
more exactly discern a sensible object by the view, than 
we know it by a description of it without that view; so the 
Jews say, that prophecy x 03 in vision, is more excellent 
than that which comesonly syona by dream, or in a dream, 
in which we seem to hear one talking with us. 

Now though this impression may be sufficient to con- 
vince the prophet and inspired person, that his revelation 
did indeed derive from God: yet, since this revelation was 
intended not for himself, but for the use of others, he, with 
the revelation, must be enabled by some convincing proof, 
to evidence to those who were concerned to embrace it, 
that he was sent indeed by God with such a message to 
them. Now of this they only could be satisfied by some 
outward marks or notes, of which they, by their senses, 
were enabled to judge; viz. the miracles wrought for con- 
firmation of his testimony, or some prophetical prediction 
of something future and contingent, exactly verified in the 
event. And thus, saith the apostle, was their preaching 
confirmed to the world; “God bearing witness to them, 
both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and 
gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his will” (Heb. ii. 4). 

The ways of prophecy, under the Old Testament, seem 
to be comprehended under these four heads; viz. either the 
prophets received their revelation in a dream or trance, or 
in a vision, or by a voice from heaven, or by the secret sug- 
gestions of the Holy Ghost. 

Now some of the apostles had their visions either by 
day, as Peter; for an ecstasy fell upon him, and he saw the 
heavens opened, and he heard a voice saying to him, “ Arise, 
Peter, kill and eat” (Acts x. 18) ; and this is called ὅραμα, a 
vision, ver. 17, and by this, saith he, God taught me “to call 
no man common or unclean,” ver. 28; or by night; thus a 
vision of the night was seen by St. Paul, and a man speak- 
ing to him “in the vision of the night” (Acts xvi. 9). They 
had also the Spirit speaking to them; for the Spirit said to 
Peter, “ Behold, three men seek thee. Arise therefore, and 
go wk them, nothing doubting: for I have sent them” 


And sometimes they had visions and 
revelations of the Lord, either by way of rapture to them 
(2 Cor. xii. 2), or of converse with them; as when Christ 
said to St. Paul, « My grace is sufficient for thee” (ver. 9). 
Here then are three kinds of revelation granted to the apos- 
tles: but then these things were mostly occasional and acci- 
dental to them, in respect of their apostolical function. 

Only the case of the apostle Paul must here admit of an 
exception; for it being necessary for an apostle, that is a 
witness of Christ’s resurrection, to have seen the Lord 
risen from the dead, according to those words, “Am I not 
an apostle? have I not seen the Lord?” (1 Cor. ix. 1) and 
for an “apostle, not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus 
Christ” (Gal. i. 1), to receive his message immediately from 
the Lord Jesus, Christ speaks thus to him, “I have appeared 
unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a 
witness both of those things which thou hast seen, and of 
those things in the which I will appear unto thee” (Acts 
xxvi. 16): which words contain a promise of an immediate 
instruction from Christ in his apostolical function. Whence 
this apostle declares, confirming that his declaration with 
an oath, “'The gospel, which was preached by me, was not 
after man; for I neither received of man, neither was I 
taught it (by man), but (only) by the revelation of Jesus 
Christ (Gal. i. 11,12). He therefore had his message from 
Christ as Moses had from God, Christ speaking to him 
“mouth to mouth,” &c. (Numb. xii. 7). 

But yet that which enabled them for the inditing of these 
writings, as a rule of faith to all succeeding ages, was the 
internal and powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit. 

§. II. To proceed then to the second inquiry, How far 
it is necessary or reasonable to assert the divine assistance 
of the Holy Spirit, or his inspiration to these sacred writers. 
To this I shall answer, by premising a distinction of the 
Jews between those sacred writers who were prophets, 
properly so called, and the chetwhim, or holy writers, who 
penned their compositions by the assistance of the Holy 
Ghost. 

To the prophets, properly so called, they ascribe an im- 
mediate suggestion and representation in their fancy and 
imaginations of the things which they delivered as from the 
mouth and in the name of God, he keeping still alive upon 
them the images and resemblances of the visions which 
they saw, till they were penned, and imprinting on their 
memories the messages which they delivered by his com- 
mand to the people. Hence, when the roll of Jeremy was 
burnt, he was enabled to dictate again to Baruch “ the same 
words” (xxxvi. 32). And this I believe to be true, concern- 
ing all the visions they declare they saw, and all the mes- 
sages they deliver with this preface, “Thus saith the Lord,” 
or “The word of the Lord” came to N. N. “saying;” but I 
do not think it necessary, with reference to the historical 
things related in the writings of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
Kings, which the Jews style the former prophets, or with 
respect to the historical relations contained in the prophecies 
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, &c. 

To the chetubim, or holy writers, who penned their writ- 
ings by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, they ascribe, 

1, An impulse from God to write or compose them, but 
such as left them to the use of their own words, and to the 
exercise of their reasons. 

2. A superintendency of the Holy Spirit over them, and 
a divine assistance still cleaving to them in those composi- 
tions, so that they should not be obnoxious to any error or 
mistake in what they did indite ; that assistance which they 
ascribe to their prophets by latter writers is called “an in- 
spiration of suggestion ;” the second, or the assistance of the 
chetubim, “an inspiration of direction” only. 

And this assistance was thought inferior to that of pro- 
phecy, not as to the certainty of the revelation, or the sub- 
ject matter, but only as to the degree and measure of it; 
for, because there was in these compositions no visum pro- 
pheticum, i. e.no vision exhibited, nor did they speak in this 
high strain, “Thus saith the Lord,” therefore they thought 
they were not to be styled prophets, in the proper accepta 
tion of the word. And I conjecture that it is for this latter 
reason only that they put the prophet Daniel not among the 
prophets, but the hagiographi, or sacred writers ; because 

a2 


6 THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


he never uscth these expressions, “ Thus saith the Lord,” or 
saith, « The word of the Lord came unto me 3” since other- 
wise in visions he was scarce inferior to any of the other pro- 
phets. Nor is it easy to conjecture in what this way, whe- 
ther of revelation, or divine assistance, and inspiration by 
the Holy Ghost, should be inferior to the former. For, 

First, Sure it is no disparagement to this way, that per- 
sons acted by it do not express themselves in* parables, si- 
militudes, and riddles, but use a more familiar language, and 
appear in a more simple undisguising dress, and so more 
advantageously condescend to the capacity of the reader. 
Nor, 

Secondly, That it doth not act so much on thet imagina- 
tion and the fancy, but is principally seated in the higher 
and purer faculties of the soul, which is the second differ- 
ence assigned between them. Nor, 

Thirdly, That it chiefly} moveth the inspired person to 
dictate matters of true piety and goodness, of virtue, wis- 
dom, and prudence; these differences, if assigned truly, 
seem to me to be advantageous of this assistance, above 
that which usually was afforded to the ancient prophets, 
rather than tokens that it was really inferior to the inspira- 
tion they enjoyed. 

And this will be more evident, if we compare this assist- 
ance of the Holy Spirit with that gradus Mosaicus which 
the Jews generally account the highest or supreme degree of 
prophecy, and is recorded in these words, “If there be a pro- 
phet among you, I the Lord will make myself known to 
him in a vision, and will speak to him in a dream. My ser- 
vant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house. With 
him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not 
in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he 
behold” (Numb. xii. 6—8). Whence the Jews gather these 
several excellences of the prophetic gift of Moses above 
what was vouchsafed to the other prophets; viz. 

First, That all other§ prophets prophesied by dream or by 
vision, but Moses prophesied when he was waking, and stand- 
ing. Now this also did the spiritual person, moved by the 
Holy Ghost. 

Secondly, That other] prophets prophesied by the hand 
of an angel, and therefore saw what they saw in{ parables 
and dark speeches; but Moses spake immediately from the 
mouth of God, and without parables or dark speeches; and 
so also did the spiritual person speak under the gospel dis- 
pensation, not by any angel, but by that spirit which search- 
eth the deep things of God; not in parables and dark rid- 
dles, but with “ great plainness of speech.” 

Thirdly, That all the prophets were afraid, and troubled, 
and fainted, but Moses was not so: nor was it so with 
our apostles. Moreover, there was strength, say they, in 
Moses to understand the words of the prophecy ; and so was 
there also in the prophets to understand the revelations of 
the Spirit. So that you see this way of assistance gave to 
the penmen of the New Testament all these prerogatives of 
Moses above the other prophets; and so I know not why it 
should be reckoned inferior to their way of prophecy, upon 
those very accounts for which the way of prophecy vouch- 
safed to Moses is preferred above them, especially if we con- 
sider that St. Peter lays this as the true foundation of their 
credibility, that “they spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost” (2 Pet. i. 21). 

But it is of no great moment to insist on this comparison, 
since the sacred writers of the second order, styled hagio- 
graphi, are said to be so far attended with the divine assist- 
ance in their compositions, as that they could not be ob- 
noxious in them to error or mistake in what they writ, 
which is abundantly sufficient to render all their composi- 
tions a certain and unerring rule of faith, in what they have 
delivered as the object of it. 

To proceed then to the consideration of the distinction 
hinted before ; viz. of inspiration by suggestion, and inspi- 
vation of direction only. I say, then, 

First, That where there is no antecedent idea or knowledge 
vf the things written for the good of others, to be obtained 
from reason, or a former revelation, an inspiration of sug- 


* Dr. Smith of Prophecy, ch. 7, p.231. + Ibid. + Ibid. 
§ Dr. Smith of Prophecy, ch. 11. 
Ε Maim. Fund. Leg. cap. 7. « Ibid. 


gestion must be vouchsafed to the apostles, to enable them 
to make them known unto the world, But where there is 
an antecedent knowledge of the things to be indited, it can 
only be necessary that God should either immediately, or by 
some special occasions, excite them to indite those things, 
and should so carefully preside over and direct their minds 
whilst writing, as to suggest or bring into their memories such 
things as his wisdom thought fit to be written, and should 
not suffer them to err in the delivery of what was thus in- 
dited in his name, or as apostles of God the Father and our 
Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, 

Secondly, In all their revelations of mysteries, or things 
which could not otherwise be made known to them, either 
by natural reason or antecedent revelation, they must be ac- 
knowledged to have had them by an immediate suggestion 
of the Holy Spirit. Hence of these things the apostle says 
negatively, that “the natural man” who only judges of 
things by his natural reason “cannot know them, because 
they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. ii. 14) ; i. 6. they, be- 
ing mysteries, can only be discerned by the revelation of the 
Spirit ; and positively, that «they speak the wisdom of God 
in a mystery, even the wisdom hid from former ages, which 
eye had not seen, nor ear heard, nor had it entered into the 
heart of man to conceive” (1 Cor. ii. 7); and that because 
“God had revealed these things to them by his Spirit (ver. 
9), they having received the Spirit of God, that they 
might know the things which are freely given us of God” 
(ver. 10). Thus was the mystery of calling the gentiles 
into an equality of privileges with the believing Jews made 
known unto them; for “God by revelation,” saith St. 
Paul, “ made known to me the mystery of Christ, which in 
other ages was not made known as it is now revealed to his 
holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the gentiles 
should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and par- 
takers of his promise in Christ by the gospel” (Eph. iii. 3—6, 
i. 9, vi. 19; Col. i. 26, 27, ii. 2, iv. 3, 4): so they knew 
the “mystery” of the recalling of the Jews (Rom. xi. 25, 
26); the “mystery of the resurrection,” i. e. the quality of 
the bodies to be raised, and the order of it, with all the 
other special circumstances mentioned 1 Cor. xv., 1 Thess. 
iv., and the apostasy of the latter times; “for the Spirit 
speaketh expressly,” saith the apostle, “that in the latter 
days men shall depart from the faith” (1 Tim, ἵν. 1). This 
inspiration of suggestion must also be allowed to St. John, 
the author of the Revelation; for he speaking only what 
was represented to him in visions, or by angelical discourses 
or apparitions, must have that assistance which suggested 
these ideas to him. But, 

Thirdly, As for those things which they did know already, 
either by natural reason, education, or antecedent revela- 
tion, they needed only such an assistance or direction in 
them as would secure them from error in their reasonings, 
or in their confirmation of their doctrines by passages con- 
tained in the Old Testament; and therefore a continual 
suggestion must be here unnecessary. And indeed one 
great work they had upon their hands, both in preaching 
the gospel and writing these gospels and epistles, being to 
convince the unbelieving Jew, or to confirm the wavering 
Jew, or rectify the errors of the Judaizing Christian, the gift 
of knowledge of the scriptures of the Old Testament was 
very necessary to them, and therefore is deservedly reckoned 
among the primary gifts of the Holy Ghost; and being so, 
we have reason to believe, that either the Holy Ghost sug- 
gested to their memory those scriptures which they used in 
these sacred writings to convince them, or else presided so 
over them as not to suffer them to make any inferences from 
them which were not agreeable to the true intent and mean 
ing of them; though, at this distance of time, we may not 
always be able to discern the strength and clearness of the 
consequence. And, 

Fourthly, In writing the historical parts of the New Tes- 
tament, or matters of fact relating to themselves or others, 
it is only necessary, that what is there delivered as matter 
of fact should truly be performed, as it is said to have been 
done; but it is not necessary that they should be related in 
that order of time in which they were performed, unless that 
also be affirmed of them; for this must be sufficient to 
assure us of the truth of what they thus delivered. 

Moreover, in writing the discourses contained in these 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 7 


books, it is not necessary that the very words should be sug- 
gested or recorded in which they were first spoken, but only 
that the true intent and meaning of them should be related, 
though in diversity of words. Though the promise made to 
the apostles by our Lord, that “the Holy Spirit should bring 
to their remembrance, πάντα, all things which he had said 
unto them,” John xiv, 26, doth fairly plead for this exact- 
ness in what they have delivered of our Saviour’s sermons ; 
it being scarce imaginable their memory, without divine 
assistance, should exactly give us all that was spoken in 
such long discourses. 

And hence we may account for the objections against this 
divine assistance, arising from the seventh of the Acts; for 
though I have shown in the note on ver. 15, 16, that there 
is no real mistake in the words of the proto-martyr, yet 
were it granted, that there is an error in his account of the 
sepulchres of the patriarchs, yet that affects not the autho- 
rity of St. Luke at all, provided he exactly hath related what 
was then, said by St. Stephen, who was not chosen to be a 
penman of the Holy Scriptures. 

Lastly, From what is thus discoursed, it may appear, that 
I contend only for such an inspiration or divine assistance 
of the sacred writers of the New Testament, as will assure 
us of the truth of what they write, whether by inspiration of 
suggestion, or direction only: but not for such an inspira- 
tion as implies that even their words were dictated, or their 
phrases suggested to them by the Holy Ghost. This in some 
matters of great moment might be so, St. Paul declaring, 
“that they spake the things which were given them of God 
in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth,” 1 Cor. ii. 13, 
if that relate not to what the Holy Ghost had taught them 
out of the Old Testament. But that it was not always so 
is evident, both from the consideration that they were hagio- 
graphers, who are supposed to be left to the use of their own 
words, and from the variety of the style in which they write, 
and from the solecisms which are sometimes visible in their 
compositions; and more especially from their own words, 
which manifestly show, that in some cases they had no such 
suggestions from the Holy Ghost as doth imply that he had 
dictated those words unto them. For instance, when St. 
Paul declares his will and purpose to do what he was hin- 
dered by the providence of God from doing; as when he 
saith to the Romans, “ When I go to Spain, I will come to 
you,” xv. 24, “I will come by you into Spain,” ver. 28. 
For though he might, after his enlargement, go into the west, 
where St. Clemens* saith, he preached ; and even into Spain, 
as ΟΥ̓] Ὁ Epiphanius+ and Theodoret§ say he did; yet it 
is certain he did not designedly go to Rome in order to an 
intended journey into Spain. And when he saith to the 
Corinthians, “I will come to you when I pass through Mace- 
donia,” 1 Cor. xvi. 5, and yet confesseth in his second 
epistle, 2 Cor. i. 15—17, that he did not perform that jour- 
ney; for it is not to be thought that the Holy Ghost should 
incite him to promise, or even purpose, what he knew he 
would not perform. This also we learn from all those 
places in which they do express their ignorance or doubtful- 
ness of that which they are speaking of; as when St. Paul 
saith, “I know not whether I baptized any other” (1 Cor. 
i. 16): and, again, τυχὸν παραμενῶ, “perhaps I will abide, 
yea, and winter with you” (1 Cor. xvi. 6): and when St. 
Peter saith, “by Sylvanus, a faithful brother, as I suppose, 
have I written to you” (1 Pet. v. 12): for these words 
plainly show, that in all these things they had no inspiration 
or divine assistance. This, lastly, may be gathered from all 
those places in which they only do express their hope, and 
that conditionally, of doing this or that—as in these words ; 
«TJ hope to see you in my journey” (Rom. xv. 24): “I will 
come unto thee quickly, if the Lord will” (1 Cor. iv. 19); 
“T hope to stay some time with you, if the Lord permit” 
(1 Cor. xvi. 7) : “I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy 
quickly to you” (Phil. ii. 19. 23); and «I trust that I my- 
self also shall come quickly” (ver. 24): “these things I 
write, hoping to come to thee quickly, but if I should 


* Κῆρυξ γινόμενος ἐκ τῇ ἀνατολῇ καὶ ἐν τῇ dice. Ep. ad Cor. 
sect. 6. 

+ Cyril. Catechis. 17, p. 204, C. 

+ Epiph. Her. 27, p. 107, C. 

§ Theodoret. in 2 Tim, iv. 17, et prefat. in Ps. cxvi. 


tarry that thou mayest know how to behave thyself in the 
church of God” (1 Tim. iii. 14, 15): “I hope by your 
prayers to be given to you” (Philem. 22). “This will we do 
if the Lord permit” (Heb. vi. 13) : «I hope to come to you” 
(2 John 12; 3 John 14). For, (1.) Spes est incert@ rei no- 
men, the word hope implieth an uncertainty, whereas the 
Holy Spirit cannot be uncertain of any thing; nor can we 
think he would inspire men to speak so uncertainly, And 
(2.) There can be no necessity or even use of a divine as- 
sistance to enable a man to express his hopes, seeing all 
men do by natural reflection know them. 

§. III. And having thus declared what I do allow, I 
now proceed to show what in this matter I cannot admit 
of :-— 

First, then, I can by no means grant any slips of me- 
mory in the compilers of these sacred books of the New 
Testament; for though these are allowed by* some in matters 
of small consequence, as they are pleased to style them, 
yet it is of great consequence that we do not own them: 
for, if you grant they have thus slipped at all, by what rules 
can we be assured they have not slipped above a hundred 
times, or even in the most of their historical relations? For 
instance, if St. Matthew could slip in citing the words of the 
prophet Jeremiah, by mistake, for the words of Zechariah, 
Matt. xxvii. 9, why not also in citing the words of the pro- 
phet Isaiah, or of any other prophet? If one of those sacred 
writers might be subject to these slips, why not all? 
If once, why not often? And can we think it no prejudice 
to the divine authority of these sacred writings, that they 
should so oft be subject to false citations, and produce 
false stories, contradicting the truth of the Old Testa- 
ment? Would not this yield a great advantage against 
our rule of faith, both to the unbelieving Jews, and to the 
sceptics and antiscripturists, which too much abound among 
us? Nor, 

Secondly, Can I grant that the apostles determined any 
matters of practice merely from rules of human prudence, 
without the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. It is 
pretended, this is done by St. Paul in these words, «To 
the rest speak I, not the Lord” (1 Cor. vii. 12): and again 
in these, “ Concerning virgins I have no commandment of 
the Lord, but I give my judgment or advice, as one that 
hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be found faithful: I 
judge therefore this to be good for the present necessity” 
(ver. 25, 26): and a third time, “She is happier if she so 
remain, after my judgment, and I think also that I have the 
spirit of God” (ver. 40). This is not, saith one,t spoken 
with the authority of a teacher sent from God, or an apostle, 
but in such a style as implies only an ordinary assistance, 
such as any pious skilful pastor may expect. 

Ans. To this I answer, 1. That what the apostle speaks 
of here, from ver. 12 to the 24th, seemeth to be no slight 
matter, but of great importance to the good of societies, 
and to the honour of Christianity; for sure it would have 
been a signal blemish to the Christian faith, should it have 
tended to dissolve the bonds of matrimony, or given men or 
women license to quit that sacred tie purely because they 
were termed Christians. And hence we find that the apostle 
had taken special care to prevent this imputation every where, 
by ordaining the very same thing in all other churches, 
which he here prescribes to the Corinthians. Though then 
he who had said before, “«'T'o the married speak not I, but 
the Lord,” 1 Cor. vii. 17, because that case had been par- 
ticularly decided by Christ, Matt. xix. 9, says afterward, 
“To the rest say I, not the Lord;” he says not this to inti- 
mate that this direction only was given by him as a man 
using his natural reason, only to direct them to what he 
thought best, but not as delivering the mind of Christ, for 
he had before declared the contrary, by saying, “ We have 
the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. ii, 16), and after doeth it in 
these words, “If any man think himself a prophet, or spi- 
ritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto 
you are the commandments of the Lord” (xiv. 37) ; but only 
to declare our Lord, in his discourse of divorce, had not de- 
cided the case de imparibus conjugiis, of the marriage of a 
believer with an infidel, but had left this to the decision of 


* Mr. Lowth’s Vindie. p. 45. 
+ Mr. Lowth’s Vindie. p. 51. 


8 THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


those apostles to whom he had promised the assistance of 
the Holy Ghost “to lead them into all truth” (John xvi. 
13). 

ne 2. In the words cited with relation to the case of 
virgins, though the apostle owns he had no particular com- 
mandment of the Lord, as he had in the case of married 
persons, yet doth he say sufficient to convince us, that he 
advised in the matter not only as a man assisted by his 
natural reason, but also as one assisted by the Spirit of 
God: for, 

First, Though, saith he, as to this, “I have no particular 
command, I give my advice in it as one who hath obtained 
mercy of the Lord to be found faithful” (in the discharge 
of my apostolical office). Now this, saith he, is all that is 
required of a minister of Christ, and “steward of his mys- 
teries, that he be found faithful” in administering the grace 
of his apostleship (1 Cor. iv. 12). And this fidelity was 
still attended with the power of Christ, assisting them, as 
appears from these words, “I thank Jesus Christ our Lord, 
who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, put- 
ting me into the ministry” (1 Tim. i. 12). So that this 
phrase doth not imply that the apostle had only an ordinary 
assistance in this advice, such as any skilful pious pastor 
may expect. And this is still more evident in those words, 
«She is happier if she so abide, after my judgment; and I 
think I have the spirit of God” (enabling me to form that 
judgment) ; for they who say, this is not spoken with the 
authority of an apostle, or a teacher sent from God, seem not 
to have considered that the apostle was writing to them who 
are apt to question his apostleship, and required “a proof 
of Christ speaking in him’ (2 Cor. xiii. 3) ; and to them it 
was proper to say, Whatsoever you may conceive of me, “I 
suppose I have the spirit of God,” i. e. the spirit of wisdom, 
and knowledge to enable me to make this advice. Moreover, 
the words coxa ἔχειν may be rendered, “I have the spirit of 
God;” so in this epistle, 6 ἑοκῶν εἶναι φιλόνεικος is, “ he that 
is contentious” (xi. 16), and εἰ ris δοκεῖ προφήτης, “if any 
man be a prophet” (see the note there). ‘Nor, 

Thirdly, Do I grant that St. Paul any where implies that 
he doth not always use the best arguments, but sometimes 
such as are best fitted to the capacities and notions of those 
he writes to; for if so, by what rules shall we be able to 
distinguish betwixt his arguments on which we may safely 
rely, as being absolutely true, and those which only are 
accommodated to the notions of those with whom he had to 
do? St. Paul doth indeed say, dvOpurwoy λέγω, “I speak 
after the manner of men,” or what is common to men, “ be- 
cause of the infirmity of your flesh” (Rom. vi. 19); but 
he speaks not this by way of excuse for not using the best 
argument he could in this affair, but he speaks this hy way 
of illustration of his argument, or exhortation. The sense 
which the ancients put upon these words is this, τῇ φύσει 
μετρῶ τὴν παραίνεσιν, “I frame my exhortation with a due con- 
sideration of the infirmity of your flesh,” requiring only that 
you should do that service now to God, which you have 
formerly done to sin. I rather think the apostle discourseth 
to this effect: In this discourse of their being servants for- 
merly to sin, and their obligation to be servants of righte- 
oushess, I speak that which all natural men must have had 
experience of by reason of the infirmity of the flesh, and of 
which they may thence take a just idea, requiring only that 
as they have formerly yielded their members instruments to 
sin, so they would now yield them instruments to righteous- 
ness. 

As for the arguments they use ad hominem, as they are 
very few, so is it only requisite that they should truly be 
convincing upon the principles which such men owned and 
received, there being nothing more intended by them, than 
to convince them, that such an inference doth naturally fol- 
low from their principle, and that they must either quit the 
tenet or admit the interence. For instance, when the apos- 
tle saith, “Else what shall they do who are baptized for 
the dead?” 1 Cor. xv. 29, he is there disputing against some 
of the Corinthians, who said, “There is no resurrection of 
the dead.” Now here he all along disputeth ad hominem, 
and on supposition; as, v. g. “Then is Christ not risen from 
the dead” (ver. 13): “'Then are we false witnesses of God” 
(ver. 15): “Then is your faith vain” (ver. 17): “Then 
they that sleep’ in Christ are perished” (ver. 18): “Then 


are Christians of all men the most miserable” (ver. 19, &c.) 
All which suppositions are really false, but then they follow 
from the foresaid tenet of those Corinthians; so that all 
this discourse is only an argument ababsurdo. But that the 
apostles any where use such arguments ad hominem, as pro- 
ceed only on such principles as were generally admitted in 
their age, without considering whether they were true or 
false, I utterly deny. 

§. IV. Having thus premised these things for the right 
stating and explication of the controversy, I proceed to lay 
down the arguments, which prove, that in these writings the 
apostles were assisted and preserved from error by the Spirit 
of God, and therefore were enabled to deliver to us an un- 
erring rule of faith. 

And, First, I argue for the divine assistance of the in- 
diters of these sacred records, from what they do assert con- 
cerning their own writings, and what they say touching the 
declarations made, the doctrines delivered, and the direc- 
tions given in them. And, 

As for the writers of the gospels, St. Luke declares he 
writes his gospel to Theophilus, that “he might know the 
certainty of those things in which he had been instructed ;” 
and St. John declares his gospel was written, “that they 
might believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.” 
Now it is plain, that neither Theophilus could be certain of 
the truth of what he had been taught by any writing, which 
was not absolutely certain in itself; nor could others be in- 
duced by what St. John had written, to believe «that Jesus 
was the Christ,” unless they could be certain that he spake 
the truth throughout his gospel. Now if we do consider 
how many things contained in the beginning of St. Luke’s 
gospel he must have by hearsay ; and how many long dis- 
courses, both he, St. Matthew, and St. John deliver, as 
spoken by our Lord and others, of which we can have no 
assurance, after so many years before the writing of them, 
on the mere strength of human memory, so as to ground an 
article of divine faith upon the very words in which they 
are delivered—we must be forced to conclude that, upon 
this account, we cannot depend upon the very letter and 
minute circumstances of every discourse related by them, 
unless, according to Christ’s promise, they had the assistance 
of the Holy Ghost “to bring these things to their remem- 
brance :” wherefore this promise is made to them in very 
general and comprehensive terms: viz. “'The Holy Ghost 
shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have 
said unto you” (John xiv. 26). And then there being 
nothing considerable in St. Mark, which is not also in St. 
Matthew or St. Luke, or both, the certainty of all that is 
contained in them, must make us also certain of the truth 
of what St. Mark delivers in his gospel. Moreover, the 
word spoken and indited by them is styled “the word of 
God.” Men, saith the apostle, could not believe the gospel 
unless they heard it preached to them; nor could they hear 
it preached unless some were commissionated to preach the 
gospel; for “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the 
word of God” (Rom. x. 14—17): and, “for this cause,” 
saith he, “thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye 
received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received 
it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of 
God” (1 Thess. ii. 13) : «I am made a minister of Christ,” 
saith he, “according to the dispensation of God which is given 
to me to fulfil (i. 6. fully to preach) the word of God” 
(Colos. i. 25). 2. It is called the “commandment of God ;” 
“for my gospel,” saith St. Paul, and the preaching of Jesus 
Christ, is made manifest, and according to the “ command- 
ment of the everlasting God, made known unto you for the 
obedience of faith” (Rom. xvi. 25, 26); which faith is 
always built on a divine testimony. And again, “If any 
man be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that 
the things I write unto you are the commandments of the 
Lord” (1 Cor. xiv. 37). 3. It is declared to be the “ wis- 
dom of God,” 1 Cor. 1. 24, for “we preach Christ to vou 
that are called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God, 
and the wisdom of God; we speak the wisdom of God in a 
mystery, even that wisdom which God hath revealed to us 
by his Spirit” (1 Cor. ii. 7.10). 4. It is the testimony of 
God; for “I came not to you,” saith he, “in excellency of 
speech, declaring to you the testimony of God” (1 Cor. ii. 1). 
5. It is the gospel of God: for St. Paul styles himself the 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 9 


minister of Jesus Christ to the gentiles, “ministering the 
gospel of God to them” (Rom. xv. 16): “ We preach,” 
saith he, “the gospel of God freely” (2 Cor. xi. 7): “ We 
were bold to preach to you the gospel of God; we were 
willing to have imparted to you not the gospel of God only, 
but also our own lives” (1 Thess. ii. 2. 8, 9), even “the 
glorious gospel of the blessed God committed to my trust” 
(1 Time i. τ 6. It is the gospel of Christ ; « for I come,” 
saith he, «to '’roas to preach Christ's gospel” (2 Cor. ii. 12) : 
“we sent Timotheus, our fellow-labourer in the gospel of 
Christ” (1 Thess. iii. 2). 7% It is the mystery of his will 

Eph. i. 9): “The mystery of God the Father, and of 

Shrist” (Col. ii. 2): “The mind of Christ, made known 
to the apostles” (1 Cor. ii. 16): and “the word of Christ, 
which must dwell richly in believers” (Col. iii. 16). 

Now sure it cannot rationally be conceived, that the apos- 
tles should be ignorant of that assistance by which they 
were enabled to indite these records; if then they were as- 
sured of that assistance of the Holy Spirit, which they chal- 
lenged, then must the gospel, which they both preached and 
indited, be received as the “word of God and Christ, the 
mind of Christ, the gospel of God and Christ, the mystery 
of God the Father and of Christ, the commandment and 
the testimony of God;’ which is the thing I am concerned 
to make good; and then it highly must concern all persons 
to be “ mindful of the commandments of the apostles of our 
Lord and Saviour” (2 Pet. iii. 2). If they had no such as- 
surance of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, they grossly 
did impose upon the world, in thus pretending, that they 
preached the gospel “by the assistance of the Holy Spint 
sent down from heaven.” If they were not assured that in 
those writings they delivered only those doctrines, which 
God required all men to believe, those precepts he required 
them to do, they must be very confident, in daring to make 
this the preface to some of their epistles, « Paul an_ apostle, 
according to the will and the commandment of God” (1 Cor. 
i. 1, 2 Cor. i. 1, Eph. i. 1, Col. 1.1, 1 Tim.i.1, 2 Tim.i. 1); 
and saying with so much assurance, “If any be a prophet, 
let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are 
the commandments of God” (1 Cor. xiv. 37): and much 
ynore, in declaring to all Christians thus; ‘ We are of God: 
ne that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God 
heareth not us: by this we know the spirit of truth, and the 
spirit of error’ (1 John iv. 6). For this seems equal to 
what their master himself said in the like words, « Why do 
ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth the words 
of God: you therefore hear them not, because you are not 
of God” (John viii. 46, 47). Yea, they must be false wit- 
nesses of God, by styling human writings, the word, the 
gospel, the command, the testimony, the mind, the mystery, 
of God and Christ, and by requiring others to receive it, 
“not as the word of man, but as the word of God,” even 
that word “ by which they must be judged at the last day” 

Rom. ii. 16) : which again runs as high as those words of 
Shrist, “The word that I have spoken, shall judge him that 
believeth it not at the last day” (John xii. 48). 

If here it be replied, that these things are rather said of 
the gospel which they preached, than of the gospels and the 
epistles which they writ: I answer, 

First, That St. Peter saith of all St. Paul’s epistles, that 
they were written “according to the wisdom given to him” 
(2 Pet. iii. 15, 16), even that wisdom which he styles « the 
wisdom of God,” and ascribes to the apostles in the gene- 
ral, saying, “ We speak the wisdom of God,” το. (1 Cor. ii. 
6, 7); that St. Paul himself requires all spiritual persons to 
acknowledge “ the things he writ unto them were the com- 
mandments of the Lord.” 

Secondly, I ask, whether the doctrines of faith, and rules 
of life, delivered in the gospels and epistles, be not as much 
a part of the gospel, or the law of Christ, as any thing they 
preached? ΤΡ they be a part of it, all these assertions must 
equally be true of their gospels and epistles written, and 
their sermons preached: if they be not, where shall we find, 
and how shall we be assured, that we have the gospel of our 
Lord ; since we know nothing of it but from what is left on 
record in that New Testament, which contains all we have 
left of their preaching after the Spirit, promised to lead 
them into all truth, was fallen upon them? Or, why did 
all Christians, of that and the succeeding ages, depend upon 

Vou. 1V.—2 


them as their rule of faith? Moreover, that the apostles 
were assisted as fully by the Holy Ghost in what they writ 
as in what they preached, will be apparent from the con- 
sideration of their office, they having this assistance as being 
Christ’s apostles, his ambassadors, the ministers of Christ, 
and “stewards of the mysteries of God.” Now in the pre- 
face to their epistles, they take care to let the reader know, 
they who sent these epistles were apostles and ministers of 
Christ, “according to the will and the commandment of 
God” (2 Tim. i. 1), “ for (declaration of) the promise of 
life which is in Christ Jesus, for the faith of God’s elect, and 
the acknowledging the truth which is after godliness” (‘Tit. 
i. 1). If therefore they had this assistance, because they 
were the ministers of Christ, the teachers of the Jew and 
gentile, in faith and verity ; men “who received grace and 
apostleship from Christ to the obedience of faith,” and had 
“the word of God committed to them according to the com- 
mandment of our God and Saviour; and they were truly 
discharging their office as well when they indited as when 
they preached the gospel ;—they must be equally assisted 
in both. 

This, lastly, will be evident from the consideration of the 
common end and design both of their writing and preaching: 
for the reason why this assistance attended them in preach- 
ing was, the benefit and edification of the church, the build- 
ing her up in her most holy faith, “ the perfecting the saints, 
the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the 
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
unto a perfect man;” for to this end, “ Christ gave some, 
apostles; some, prophets and evangelists” Cu iv. 1I—13). 
Now, do not all these reasons equally belong to their writ- 
ings? Were they not also intended and used for these very 
ends in all succeeding ages of the church? Did they not 
in them write the same things which they had preached, 
because this was for their safety? (Phil. iii. 1,) that, after 
their decease, “ they might have these things always in re- 
membrance” (2 Pet. i. 15), and that “they might be mind- 
ful of the commandments of the apostles of our Lord?” 

iii. 1, 2.) Had they not the promise of the Spirit to assist 
them in their preaching, that they might guide their hearers 
into all truth? and doth not the same reason hold more 
strongly for their writings, partly because they were to re- 
main when the apostles were dead, and could not be con- 
sulted, as they might be whilst living, when any scruple did 
arise touching their doctrine, and to serve for the instruc- 
tion, not of one age only, as their preaching did, but of all 
ages of the Christian world? And, indeed, their preaching, 
without writing, could not have answered the design of pro- 
pagating the Christian faith to future ages ; experience hav- 
ing taught us, that what is handed only by tradition to us 
is subject to the greatest change and innovations: it being 
the pretended traditions of the Jewish church, which cor- 
rupted and “ made void the commandments of God” (Matt. 
xy. 6), and the pretended traditions of the Romish church, 
which have turned their Christianity into a system of super- 
stition and idolatry: for, as it is truly observed by Origen,* 
«That which only is delivered by word of mouth, quickly 
vanisheth, as being of no certainty.” So that if our blessed 
Lord designed the continuance of his gospel to the end of 
the world, he also must design the assistance of his apostles 
in the writing of it. 

Now from this argument we may return an answer to that 
cavil, which some have made against the inspiration of the 
writings of the New Testament, That we meet not in them, 
as we do frequently in the Old, these words, “'Thus saith 
the Lord,” or, “The word of the Lord,” by such or such a 
prophet. For, 

1. We mect not with these words in all the chetubim, or 
the hagiographa, which yet all the Jews acknowledge to be 
written by the assistance of the Holy Ghost. Moreover, 
our Lord speaks of prophets sent by him, Matt. xxiii. 34, 
which implies, that they must be assisted in delivering their 
message by the Holy Ghost, as the prophets were. 

2. When we meet with it in the prophets of the Old Tes- 
tament, it is chiefly, if not only, when these prophets have 
a message from the Lord to the people; and when Christ 


* Ta γὰρ ἀγράφως λεγόμενα παὔύεται per’ λίγον, οὐκ ἔχοντα 
ἀπύῤειξιν. Dial. contr. Marcion. p. 59. 


10 


sends his message to the seven churches, we find words of 
like import still repeated; viz. «He that hath an ear, let 
him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches” (Rev. ii. 
7; iii. 22) ; which whole phrase occurs not elsewhere, but 
only in the Revelation, or the words of the prophecy of St. 
John. 

3. It is surely of like import to say, “ This I write to you 
by the word of the Lord” (1 Thess. iv. 15): “The word 
you received from us, is not the word of man, but of God” 
(ii. 13) ; and I who preach it am his minister “to fulfil the 
word of God” (Col. i. 35): 'The word made known unto 
you for the obedience of faith, “is the command of the 
everlasting God” (Rom. xvi. 25, 26): “The things I write 
unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. xiv. 
37). For the phrase ἐν λόγῳ Κυρίου, is the phrase used by 
the prophets of the old Testament ; viz. the prophet said 
unto him, ἐν λύγῳ Κυρίου, “by the word of the Lord, Smite 
me,” 1 Kings xx. 35, see xiii. 1, 2. 5. 9. 32, and equivalent 
to it are these sayings. In fine, we read of John the Bap- 
tist, that “the word of God came to him, and he went forth 
preaching the baptism of repentance” (Luke iii. 2, 3); 
which is the very phrase used of the prophets of the Old 
Testament (see the note there). Seeing then our Lord 
hath taught us, that though he was “the greatest of the 
prophets before Christ, yet the least of the prophets in the 
kingdom of heayen is greater than he” (Matt. xi. 11); can 
we reasonably conceive, that this forerunner of the Messiah 
should speak the “word of God,” as did the prophets of 
the Old Testament; and that the prophets and apostles of 
the New Testament, on whom the Holy Ghost descended, 
to enable them to teach the mind of Christ to all future 
ages of the church, should not speak and write what they 
delivered as the rule of faith by the like divine assistance ? 

§. V. Arg. 2. They who, when they indited these writ- 
ings, were assisted by the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, 
indited these records by divine assistance; for the things 
God spake to his servants, the prophets, are styled the 
things which “I commanded ἐν Πνεύματί μου, by my Spirit” 
(Zech. i. 6). But the apostles were thus assisted ; this they 
in terms, or by just consequence, assert. For St. Peter 
saith of them all in general, that “they preached the gospel 
by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven” (1 Pet. i. 12). 
And, is not this as much as he said of the prophets of the 
Old Testament, when he declares, they “spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost ?” (2 Pet.i. 1). St. Paul asserts, 
in the same general expressions, that those great things be- 
longing to the gospel, which “ neither eye had seen, nor ear 
had heard, nor heart was able to conceive, God had revealed 
to them by the Spirit” (1 Cor. ii. 10): that they had «re- 
ceived not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of 
God, that they might know the things which were freely 
given to Christians of God ;” and that these things they 
taught “ not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but 
which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things 
with spiritual” (ver. 12,13). In which place, the very 
design of the apostle is to prove against the Greek philoso- 
phers, how unreasonable it was to reject the gospel; be- 
cause it came not in the way of demonstration to human 
reason, but by way of revelation from God, and so requireth 
faith; as of necessity it must do, since it contained such 
things concerning the design of Christ’s salutary passion, 
his resurrection, ascension, and a future judgment at the ge- 
neral resurrection, which no natural man could know by the 
utmost improvement of his human reason ; and such disco- 
veries of the counsel of God concerning man’s justification, 
as depended upon his good pleasure, which was known only 
to that Holy Spirit, which searcheth all things, even the 
deep things of God. It is this Spirit, saith he, that we 
have received, and by this Spirit hath God revealed these 
things unto us, and we accordingly do teach them to the 
world, not in the words which human wisdom teacheth, but 
“which the Holy Ghost teacheth,” comparing the revela- 
tions made to us by the Spirit, with the revelations made to 
the prophets in the Old Testament by the same Spirit, and 
finding that the revelations made to us do far exceed what 
was discovered to them ; for, what the eye of those prophets 
had not seen in vision, nor their ear heard in dreams, nor 
can the heart of man conceive without a revelation, even 
these things hath God revealed to us by his Spirit. Thus 


THE GENERAL PREFACE, 


did they speak the word of God “in demonstration of the 
Spirit :” whence he declares, that if any man despise their 
testimony or instructions, he despiseth not man only, but 
God also, who had given them his Spirit (1 Thess, iv. 8), 
they being not sufficient for this work of themselves, but 
their sufficiency was of God; who, by this ministration of 
the Spirit, had made them able ministers of the New Testa- 
ment (2 Cor. iii. 5,6). And thus, saith he, “that God, 
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness” (and 
who illuminated the prophets, by shining upon their imagi- 
nations and their understandings), “hath shined in our 
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6). In his 
epistle to the Ephesians, he declares, that the mystery of 
Christ was made known to him by immediate revelation, and 
not to him only, but to the rest of the apostles and pro- 
phets of the New Testament; “for God,” saith he, “hath 
made known this revelation to us the apostles and prophets 
by the Spirit” (Eph. iii. 3.5). And hence he speaks to the 
Corinthians in this language, “If any man be a prophet, or 
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto 
you are the commandments of God” (1 Cor. xiv. 37). 
Here then the argument runs thus: 

They who had a like assistance to that of the prophets 
under the Old Testament, must write by the direction of the 
Holy Ghost; “for holy men of old spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost,” and the scripture they indited 
was of divine inspiration ; and their words are cited in the 
New Testament as spoken by the Holy Ghost: but the 
apostles had a like assistance, for in the words now cited 
they style themselves apostles and prophets ; they challenge 
a like illumination, or “ shining of God upon their hearts,” a 
like revelation of their gospel by the Holy Spirit; and they 
pretend to teach it to others in words taught them by the 
Holy Ghost. In all which sayings they must be guilty of a 
false testimony concerning God, and must impose upon the 
church of Christ, if no such assistance of the Holy Spirit 
was imparted to them. 

§. VI. A third argument for the infallible assistance of the 
apostles in delivering the truth of the gospel to posterity is 
taken from our Saviour’s promise to them, he having engaged, 

First, To send the Comforter to be for ever with them, in 
these words: “1 will ask the Father, and he shall give you 
another Comforter, to be for ever with you” (John xiv. 16) : 
and to be always with them when they were executing his 
commission “ to make disciples in all nations, teaching them 
to observe whatever he had commanded them” (Matt. xxviii. 
19, 20). 

« τ» saith he, shall be my witnesses of these things;” 
and that you may be qualified to be so,“ Behold, I send 
the promise of my Father upon you” (Luke xxiv. 48, 49). 
Hence I infer, that they had always the assistance of the 
Holy Spirit with them in the discharge of their apostleship. 

Secondly, he adds, that this Spirit that should thus abide 
with them was “the Spirit of truth, which the world could 
not receive” (John xiv. 16, 17). Now why doth he choose 
to characterize him by this epithet, but to inform them that 
they might expect from him the certain knowledge of that 
whole doctrine they were, as his apostles, to declare unto the 
world, and leave to future generations as the rule of faith ? 
That this is indeed the reason, we learn from these follow- 
ing words (ver. 26), “ But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, 
whom the Father shall send in my name, he shall teach 
you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things 
which I have said unto you,” i. e. the things I have com- 
manded you to teach, he shall faithfully bring to your re- 
membrance ; and as for those “ many things I have to say 
unto you, which now ye cannot bear,” he shall teach them 
all. ‘That this is the true import of this promise, we learn 
from the ensuing words (xvi. 12, 13), “I have yet many 
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now: but 
when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you 
into all truth, and he shall show you things to come.” He 
shall guide you into, and therefore shall secure you from 
erring from, or going out of the way of truth: he shall thus 
guide you into all truth, which it concerns you, as his apostles, 
to deliver to the Christian church, or any of her members to 
know, in order to the performance of their duty, or the ob- 
taining the end of their faith, the salvation of their souls, 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


Hence, then, first, we may be sure, that all the sermons or 
discourses of our Lord to his disciples, recorded in the evan- 
gelists, are faithfully delivered by his apostles, as to the 
sense and genuine import of them ; for, otherwise, the Holy 
Spirit did not “ bring to their remembrance all things which 
he had said unto them,” but suffered them to record some 
of his sayings otherwise than he had delivered them ; nor 
were they faithful in execution of the charge committed to 
them, which was, “to teach all nations all things which he 
had commanded them.’”’ Secondly, Hence also we may 
rest assured, that what the apostles taught in any of the 
epistles directed to the Christian churches, they taught by 
the direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit; for since 
they were indited by them, as the apostles of the Lord, for 
the instruction of the church of that and the succeeding 
ages, if the Spirit of truth did not guide them into all truth, 
but suffered them to err in the composing of them, then 
was not this promise of our Lord fulfilled unto them; no, 
not then, when they undertook to be “teachers of the 
church in faith and verity,” and so were more especially 
concerned to have this guidance of the Holy Spirit. More- 
over, Christ declares, that “he who heareth them, heareth 
him” (Luke x. 16); “he that receiveth them, receiveth 
him” (Matt. χ. 40). Now to receive the “ apostles even ag 
Christ Jesus” (Gal. iv. 14), no man could be obliged, unless 
they were entirely assisted by the Spirit promised «to lead 
them into all truth,” in the discharge of their apostleship. 
And this seems plainly to be the import of Christ’s addresses 
to his Father (John xvii. 17), “ Sanctify them in” or by 
“thy truth, thy word is truth ;” for he himself was sancti- 
fied by the Holy Spirit to his prophetic office (Luke iv. 18, 
John x. 36) ; so must they, who were apostles and prophets 
sent by him (Matt. xxiii. 34, Luke xi. 49), and therefore 
he saith, “ As the Father hath sent me, so send I you: re- 
ceive the Holy Ghost” (John xx. 21, 22); and prays that 
they may have the same Spirit, “that the world might be- 
lieve, and know the Father had sent him; and had loved 
them, as he had loved him” (xvii. 21. 23, see the note there). 

§. VIL. Arg. 4. These sacred records, which were indited 
to be a standing rule of faith throughout all ages of the 
world, the gospel contained in these scriptures being made 
« known to all nations for the obedience of faith” (Rom. vi. 
26), they must in all things propounded in them to our 
faith contain a divine testimony, or a revelation of the will 
of God. For as human faith depends upon the testimony 
of man, so divine faith is that which depends on the testi- 
mony of God: and as obedience to men consists in doing 
the will of men, so our obedience to God consists in con- 
formity to the will of God. Again, if we must all “be 
judged by this law of liberty” (James ii. 12) ; if Christ at 
the last day will “judge the secrets of men’s hearts” (ac- 
cording to the gospel of St. Paul, Rom. ii. 16) ; if “he will 
come in flaming fire, taking vengeance of all that obey not 
his gospel”—then must this gospel and this law of liberty 
be a rule of faith until Christ’s second coming; for upon 
that account alone can men be bound under this dreadful 
penalty to yield obedience to it, and be judged by it. 

§. VIIL Arg. 5. Lastly, That the apostles and writers of 
the books of the New Testament were assisted both in their 
preaching and writing by the Spirit of God, the Christians 
of all ages from the beginning do attest. St. Clemens,* in 
his epistle to the Corinthians, saith, “ That the apostles de- 
livered the gospel to us from our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
Christ from God ; and that being filled with the Spirit, and 
having the word of God committed to them, they went out 
preaching the kingdom of God.” He adds,+ “That the 
Scriptures are the true words of the Holy Spirit :” and that 
“St. Paul writ to them by the Spirit, touching himself, and 
Cephas, and Apollos.” Polycarp: tells his Philippians, 


* Οἱ ἀπύστολοι ἡμῖν εὐαγγελίσθησαν ἀπὸ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ" 
᾿Ιησοὺς 6 Χριστὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Παραγγελίας οὖν λαβόντες καὶ πλη- 
ροφορηϑέντες διὰ τῆς ἀναστάσεως rod Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 
καὶ πιστευϑέντες τοῦ λόγῳ τοῦ Θεοῦ μετὰ πληροφορίας Πνεύματος 
ἁγίου, ἐξῆλθον εὐαγγελιζόμενοι τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ. Sect. 42. 

i; ᾿Ἐγκύπτετε εἰς τὰς γραῤάς τὰς ἀληθεῖς ῥῆσεις Πνεύματος τοῦ 
ἁγίου. Sect. 45, Ἐπ’ ἀληθείας πνευματικῶς ἀπέστειλεν ὑμῖν περὶ 
αὐτοῦ τε, καὶ ᾿Απόλλω. Sect. 47. 

Ἐξ Ὃς καὶ ἀπὼν ὑμῖν ἔγραψεν ἐπιστολὰς, εἷς ἃς ἐὰν ἐγκύπτετε, 
δυνηϑήσεσϑε οἰκοδομεῖσϑαι εἰ; τὴν ῥοϑεῖσαν ὑμῖν πίστιν. Sect. 3. 


11 


«That none could attain to the wisdom of St. Paul, who 
had writ epistles to them; by looking into which they 
might be built up in the faith delivered to them.” In 
Justin’s* time the gospels were known by the name of 
εὐαγγέλια, both to Jew and gentile; and they were read in 
their assemblies as the holy prophets, as being writ by men 
μεστοῖς Πνεύματος ἁγίου, “full of the divine Spirit” (Dial. 
cum Tryph. p. 226, 227). 

Treneust informs us, “'That the Lord of all things gave 
to the apostles authority to preach the gospel, and that by 
them we have known the truth, that is, the doctrine of the 
Son of God; to whom he said, He that heareth you hear- 
eth me: that this gospel they preached, and after, by the 
will of God, committed to writing, to be the foundation 
and pillar of our faith ;” and adds, “'That all the apostles 
knew the truth by revelation as well as Paul: for as St. 
Paul was an apostle not of men, neither by men, but by 
Jesus Christ, and God the Father, so were they.’’+ 

Theophilus§ declares the consent there is betwixt the 
things spoken by the prophets, and in the gospels, “be- 
cause they both spake by the same Spirit.” 

Clemens| of Alexandria, speaking of the woman who 
anointed our Saviour’s feet with ointment, saith, “'This 
may be a symbol, τῆς διδασκαλίας τῆς κυριακῆς, of our Lord’s 
doctrine; for the feet anointed with sweet-smelling oint- 
ment signify θείην διδασκαλίαν, the divine doctrine; for the 
apostles, partaking of the Holy Spirit, betokened by the 
ointment of sweet odour, are the feet of our Lord anoint- 
ed.” The apostles are, with him, “the disciples of the 
Spirit.” And “we may well call them prophets,” saith he, 
“the prophets and apostles being both acted by one and 
the same Spirit." And “we who have the Scriptures are 
taught of God, being instructed by that Son of God.’’** 
He adds, that the Scriptures which we have believed are 
ἐξ αὐθεντίας αὐτοκρατορικῆς, “ established by God’s authority” 
(Strom. iv. p. 475); and that the Psalmist said, περὶ πάσης 
γραφῆς τῆς καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς, “ of our whole Scripture, Hear my law, 
O my people!” And the apostle, “ We speak the wisdom 
of God among them that are perfect” (Strom. v. p. 557). 

Origent{ is most express, that the sacred books are not 
the writings of men, but proceed from the afflatus of the 
Holy Ghost, and came to us by the will of the Father 
through Jesus Christ; “ΤῸ them,” saith he, “ that believe 
this, and adhere to the canon of the heavenly church of Jesus 
Christ, by succession from the apostles, we shall show the 
appearing ways, viz. of distinguishing betwixt the spirit and 
the letter.” “It becomes us,” saith he,++ “to believe, that 


* Ap. ii. p. 98. 

7 Dominus omnium dedit apostolis suis potestatem 
evangelii, per quos et veritatem, hoc est filii doctrinam, 
cognovimus, quibus et dixit Dominus, Qui vos audit, me 
audit :—lib. iii. prefat. Quod quidem evangelium tunc 
preconiaverunt; postea verd per Dei voluntatem in Scrip- 
turis nobis tradiderunt fundamentum et columnam fidei 
nostre futuram. Cap. 1. ΄ 

+ Sicut ergo Paulus apostolus non ab hominibus, neque 
per hominem, sed per Jesum, et Deum patrem; sic illi, 
filio quidem adducente eos ad patrem, patre verd revelante 
eis filium. Lib. iii. cap. 13. V. lib. ii. cap. 47. bis. 

§ 'AxddovSa εὑρίσκεται καὶ τὰ τῶν προφητῶν καὶ τῶν εὐαγγε- 
λίων ἔχειν, διά τὸ τοὺς πάντας πνευματοφύρους ἑνὶ Πνεύματι Θεοῦ 
λελαληκέναι. Lib. iii. p. 124, 125. 

|| Οἱ πόδες of τοῦ Κυρίου, οἱ μεμυρισμένοι ἀπύστολοί εἰσι, προφη- 
τεία τῆς εὐωδίας τοῦ χρίσματος, ἁγίου μεταλαβόντες Πνεύματος. 
Pedag. lib. ii. cap. 8. p. 175. Οἱ τοῦ Πνεύματος μαθηταί, 
Strom. i. p. 29, B. 

4 Προφῆτας γὰρ ἅμα καὶ δικαίους τοὺς ἀποστόλους λέγοντες εὖ 
ἂν εἴποιμεν, ἑνὸς γὰρ καὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐνεργοῦντος διὰ πάντων ἁγίου 
Πνεύματος. Strom. v. p. 565, A, B. 

** Θεοδίδακτοι yap ἡμεῖς ἱερά ὄντες γράμματα παρὰ τῷ Υἱῷ τοῦ 
Θεοῦ παιδευόμενοι. Strom. i. p. 311, Ὁ. : 

TT Διόπερ τοῖς πειθομένοις μὴ ἀνθρώπων εἶναι συγγράμματα τὰς 
ἱερὰς βίβλους, ἀλλ᾽ ἐξ ἐπιπνοίας τοῦ ἁγίου. Πνεύματος, βουλήματι 
τοῦ Πατρὸς τῶν ὅλων διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ταῦτας ἀναγεγράφθαι καὶ 
εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐληλυθέναι τὰς φαινομένας ὁδὲδοὺς ὑποδεικτέον, ἐσχομένοις 
τοῦ Kavovos τοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ κατὰ διαδοχὴν τῶν ἀποστύλων οὗ- 
ρανίου ἐκκλησίας. Philocal. Ρ. 7. 

$$ Πρέπει γὰρ τὰ ἅγια γράμματα πιστεῦειν μηδεμίαν κεραΐαν 
ἔχειν κενὴν σοφίας Θεοῦ, ἐκ γὰρ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ λαβόντες οἱ 


12 


in the Holy Scripture there is not one tittle void of the wis- 
dom of God; for the prophets spake, receiving from his 
fulness; and there is nothing in prophecy, or the law, or 
the gospel, or the apostles, which is not from the fulness.” 
He adds,* “That there is nothing unequal or distorted in 
the oracles of God,” but a sweet harmony of the old Scrip- 
tures with the new, of the legal Scriptures with the prophe- 
tical, the evangelical with the apostolical.”” He adds, that} 
“ We must either say, as the infidels do, that because they 
are not useful they are not divinely inspired; or as the 
faithful do, that because they are profitable, they also are 
divinely inspired.” In particular, he places the gospels in 
the number of writings,+ ἐν πάσαις ἐκκλησίαις Θεοῦ πεπιστευ- 
μένων εἶναι θείων, “received as divine by the whole church of 
God,” and that they are στοιχεῖα τῆς πίστεως τῆς ἐκκλησίας, 
«the principles of the church’s faith.” But it is needless 
to cite more passages from the fathers of the first three cen- 
turies, since by them they are constantly styled,§ «the 
divine Scriptures, the oracles of God, the wisdom of God, 
the voice of God, the divine oracles ;” they say, that all the 
“Scriptures are the perfect and well-tuned organ of God, 
giving from differing sounds one saving voice to those who 
are willing to learn.” 

Secondly, They add, That|| “both the prophets of Old 
and the writers of the New Testament spake by one and 
the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit, by the providence of God, 
through the divine Word, enlightening these ministers of 
truth, the prophets and the apostles.” 

Thirdly, They not only read those writings from the be- 
ginning, on the Lord’s day, for the instruction of the people, 
but made their§ inferences and exhortations from them to 
all Christian duties, and very early made their comments 
on them. 

Fourthly, They proved all their** doctrines from these 
scriptures, and thence inferred, that they retained the true 
rule of faith, because they delivered only what was con- 
sonant to the doctrine contained in the evangelists, and 
the epistles of the apostles, as is evident from all their 
writings. 

Fifthly, From these scriptures of the New Testament 


προφῆται, λέγουσι, διὸ πάντα πνεῖ τῶν ἀπὸ πληρώματος, Kai οὐδὲν 
ἐστὶν ἐν προφητείᾳ, ἢ νύμῳ, ἢ εὐαγγελίῳ, ἣ ἀποστόλῳ, δ οὐκ ἐστὶν 
ἀπὸ πληρώματος. Philocal. p. 19. 'Ὃ δεδωκὼς τὸν νόμον δέδωκε 
καὶ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. 1914, p. 21. 

* Οὐδὲν ἐν τοῖς θείοις λογίοις ἔτι ἐστὶ σκολιὸν οὐδὲ στραγγαλιῶ- 
des, γίνεται δὲ ἡ συμφωνία καὶ εἰρῆνη τούτων, ἤτοι παλαιῶν πρὸς 
καινὰς, ἢ νομικῶν πρὸς προφητικὰς, ἣ εὐαγγελικῶν πρὸς ἀποστολικὰς, ἢ 
ἀποστολικῶν πρὸς ἀποστολιπὰς. Philocal. cap, 6. p. 30. 

ἡ Δεῖ σὲ. παραδέξασϑαι ἐπὶ τούτων τῶν γραφῶν, ἢ dre οὐκ εἰσὶ 
θεύπνευστοι, ἐπεὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν ὠφέλιμοι, ὡς ὑπολαμβάνει ἂν ὃ ἄπιστος, 
ἢ ὡς πίστος παραδέξασθαι, ὅτι ἐπεὶ εἰσὶν ὠφέλιμοι, θεύπνευστοί εἰσιν, 
cap. 12. p. 41. 

+ Com. in Joh. p. 4, 5. 

§'O πιστεῦσας τοίνυν ταῖς γραφαῖς ταῖς θείαις, τὴν τοῦ τὰς 
γραφὰς δεδωρημένου φωνὴν λαμβάνει Θεοῦ. Clem, Al. Strom. i. 
p- 363, D. “Ev γὰρ τὸ τέλειον οἷδε καὶ ἡρμοσμένον ὄργανον εἶναι 
Θεοῦ πᾶσαν τὴν γραφὴν, μίαν ἀποβαλοῦν ἐκ διαφόρων φϑόγγων 
σωτήριον τοῖς μανθάνειν ἐδέλουσι φωνὴν. Orig. Philocal. cap. 6. 
p: 31. vide p. 23. 30. 37, 38. 43. Majestas Spirittis Sancti. 
Tert. de Resur. cap. 34. 

|| Od μόνον δὲ περὶ τῶν πρὸ τῆς παρουσίας ταῦτα τὸ Πνεῦμα 
φκονύμησεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἅτε τὸ αὐτὸ τυγχάνον καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑνὸς Θεοῦ, τὸ 
ὅμοιον καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν εὐαγγελίων πεποΐηκε, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἀποστόλων. 
Orig. Philocal. cap. 1. p- 12. ‘O σκότος τῷ φωτίζοντι Πνεύματι 
προνύια Θεοῦ, διὰ τοῦ ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν Λόγου, τοὺς διακόνους 
τῆς ἀληϑείας προφήτας καὶ ἀποςτύλους ἦν, Sc. p. 11, bis. 

{ Τὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστύλων, ἢ τὰ συγγράμματα τῶν 
προφητῶν ἀναγινώσκεται" εἶτα παρεστὼς ὃ διὰ λόγου τὴν νουθεσίαν, 
καὶ πρύκλησιν τῆς τῶν καλῶν τούτων μιμήσεως ποιεῖται. Just. 
M. Apol. 2. p. 98. D. Treneus. Melito in Apocal. Ta- 
tian. Catena Evang. Pantenus. Clem. Alex. in Epistolas 
Canon. 

** Cyprianus librum testimoniorum ad Quirinum com- 
ponit ex divinis magisteriis, ex Scripturis sanctis Vet. et N. 
Testamenti, ex divine plenitudinis fontibus, ex universis 
librorum spiritualium voluminibus, prefat. et preeepta domi- 
nica et magisteria divina ex eisdem. Prefat. ad lib. tertium. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


they remonstrated against and confuted all the* heretics 
which arose in those times, declaring, That they were later 
than those apostles who delivered to them the rule of faith, 
and that they taught things contrary to, or alien from, the 
doctrine delivered by the apostles of our Lord. 

Lastly, That the scriptures of the New Testament were 
divinely inspired, was a truth so received by all Christians, 
that even some of the heretics durst not deny it; and they 
who did, were looked upon as infidels, says Origen, and 
others. Thus, speaking of the disciples of Theodotus Co- 
riarius, who corrupted the scriptures, “ What wickedness,” 
saith an ancient author, “is this?} For either they believe 
not the holy scriptures to be divinely inspired, and then 
they are infidels; or they pretend to be wiser than the Holy 
Ghost, and then they are mad, or possessed.” 

Now if persons so near the times of the apostles, that 
some of them conversed with them, some of them were 
themselves inspired with spiritual gifts, some of them were 
acquainted with the immediate successors of the apostles ; if 
the churches which received these writings from the very 
hands of the apostles, and kept still the original, or the 
authentic copies of them, did so unquestionably receive them 
as inspired writings, and own them as the rule, pillar, and 
ground of their whole faith; if they read them together 
with those writings of the prophets, which were on all 
hands owned as the word of God; proved from them all 
the doctrines of the Christian faith; received them as the 
perfect rule of Christian duty; confuted all heresies and 
erroneous doctrines from them; and represented those as 
infidels who questioned or denied their inspiration by the 
Holy Ghost ;—they doubtless must be well assured that 
they were delivered to them as such by the apostles, or the 
sacred penmen of them; and then, what reason can these 
latter ages have to question what was so universally ac- 
knowledged by those who lived in that very age in which 
those books were written and sent to the churches of Christ; 
or who received them under that character from men, who 
in that very age had owned them as written by the conduct 
and assistance of the Spirit of God 1 

8. IX. Having thus established the divine authority of 
these sacred records of the Christian faith, I should proceed 
to show, 

1. The truth and certainty of the Christian faith. 

2. The seasonableness and the necessity of that revela- 
tion. Upon which two heads I have gathered so many ob- 
servations as cannot be comprised in a preface, and my eyes 
failing, I cannot promise that I shall ever perfect that great 
work. J therefore shall at present only mention some few 
peculiarities concerning the Lord Jesus, and the doctrine 
taught by him, and propagated through the world by his 
disciples, which may conduce to the establishment of the 
truth of the Christian faith. And, 

First, It may deserve to be considered, that if a Messiali 
were to come when our Lord did, he could be no other 
than our Jesus; for even the Jews pretend not that any 
other, who assumed that title, was the Messiah promised 
to them. 

Now that a Messiah was, according to the prophecies of 
the Old Testament, to come about that time, we learn from 
the raised expectation of him, not only in the whole Jewish 
nation, but also through all those eastern nations among 
whom they were dispersed; for they were then expecting 
that the kingdom of God should immediately appear 
(Luke xix. 11) ; they were looking for “the consolation of 


Aliunde scilicet, logui possunt de rebus fidei nisi ex literis 
fidei? Tert. Prescript. cap. 15. Iren. 1. 3. per totum. 

* In tertio ex Scripturis inferemus ostensiones—ita 
plenissimam habebis ἃ nobis adversus omnes hereticos 
contradictionem. Iren. Pref. ad librum tertium. Omnibus 
heresibus unum Deum ostendimus. Τὰς γραφὰς αἷς πεπισ- 
τεύκαμεν κυρίας οὔσας ἐξ αὐθεντίας παντοκρατορικῆς ἐπιδείξοντες. 
Clem. Alex. Strom. iv. p. 475, A. vide Strom. vii. p. 783, 
C. p. 741, C. 

TH yap οὐ πιστεύουσιν ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι λελέχθαι τὰς θείας 
γραφὰς, καὶ εἰσὶν ἀπιστοὶ, }) ἑαυτοῦς ἡγοῦνται σοφωτέρους τοῦ ἁγίου 
Πνεύματος ὑπάρχειν, καὶ τὶ ἕτερον ἢ δαιμονῶσιν. Parv. labyr. apud 
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 28. p. 198. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


Israel” (Luke ii. 38). ‘Their own Josephus* doth confess 
there was a prophecy found in their scriptures, ds κατ᾽ 
ἐκεῖνον καιρὸν, that “about that time one of their country 
should reign over the earth,” and that this animated them 
πρὸς πόλεμον, to enter upon the war against the Romans; 
und that πόλλους βασιλεῖαν ὃ καιρὸς ἀνέπειθε, the time per- 
suaded many to take upon them the title of Aing: and as 
their Messiah is by the prophet Haggai styled, “the desire 
of all nations,” ii. 7, so we find the wise men of the east, 
at the birth of our Jesus, coming to inquire, “ Where is he 
that is born king of the Jews?” (Matt. ii. 2.) For, as Sue- 
tonius} doth inform us, “a constant and an old opinion 
had obtained, that about that time, Judea profecti rerum 
potirentur, that some from Judea should obtain the govern- 
ment.” It was, saith Tacitus,§ another Roman historian, a 
persuasion which had obtained among many, that this thing 
was contained antiquis sacerdotum literis, “in the ancient 
writings of the priests.” And this opinion was so rooted 
in the Jewish nation, viz. that their Messiah was to come 
about that time, that when they rejected our Jesus, they fell 
into one of these two opinions, either that their Messiah 
was then come, and lay concealed,” according to the words 
of the Targum on Micah iv. 8,| or, that the time of his 
coming was deferred “by reason of their sins;” both which 
opinions are hinted by Trypho,§ in his Dialogue with 
Justin Martyr, declaring, that “either Messiah was not yet 
born, or at least it was not known where he was.” This 
therefore is the first thing peculiar to our Jesus; 

That no other pretended prophet ever came at a time 
when there was such a general expectation, arising from a 
long succession of pretended prophecies both among Jews 
and gentiles, that such a prophet was then to come into the 
world. 

Secondly, Consider, that whoever came into the world 
asa Messiah, must come as the Messiah of the Jews, be- 
cause no other nation did expect or pretend to the promise 
of a Messiah. Moreover, whoever came as the Messiah 
of the Jews, must at the least pretend to answer the cha- 
racters of their Messiah, plainly delivered by the prophets of 
the Jews in their authentic records ; because, they being by 
the Jews received as divine oracles, they could admit no 
person as their promised Messiah, who answered not those 
characters. 

Thirdly, No man of reason, besides the true Messiah, 
would have pretended to have answered these characters, 
or could have long supported that pretence, they being such 
as required he should “open the eyes of the blind, unstop the 
ears of the deaf; that he should make the lame man leap as 
the hart, and the tongue of the dumb to sing” (Isa. xlii. 7, 
Iv. 5, 6) : and yet that he should be «despised and rejected” 
(Isa. liil. 3), “should pour out his soul unto death, and be 
numbered with the transgressors” (ver. 12): that after this 
he should rise again ; for “his life was not to be left in the 
gtave nor was his body to see corruption” (Ps. xli. 10) : 
and then he was to erect an everlasting kingdom, so that 
“the heathen should be given to him for his inheritance, 
and the utmost parts of the earth for his possession” (Ps. 
ii. 8, xxii. 27): he was to “famish” all the gods of the 
earth, so that “all the isles of the heathen should worship 
the true God” (Zeph. ii. 11); and « from the rising of the 
sun to the going down of the same, his name shall be 
great among the gentiles” (Mal. i. 11); and that “a king- 
dom, and dominion, and glory, shall be given to him, so 
that all people, and nations and languages, should serve 
him” (Dan. vii. 14): so that if Christ were not an idiot, 
he must be the Messiah promised to the Jews. 

Fourthly, No man besides the true Messiah, were he ever 
so willing, could have answered those characters which the 
scriptures of the New Testament have represented as the 
characters of the Messiah delivered in the Old Testament; 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31, p. 961. 

+ Lib. i. profat. p. 705, D. et lib. cap. 6, G. 

+ In Vespas. cap. 4. § Hist. lib. v. p. 621. 

1 Tu autem Christe Israelis, qui absconditus es propter 
peccata ceetis Sion, tibi venturum est reenum. Vide Bux- 
torf, cap. 80, p. 720, 721. 

J Χριστὸς de εἰ γεγενῆται, καὶ ἐστὶ ποὺ ἄγνωστός ἔστι. Dial. 
226, B 


13 


for he was, say these writers of his life, to be “ born of a pure 
virgin” (Matt. i. 22, 23), “of the seed of David, and in the 
town of Beth-lehem” (John vii. 42); he was to be betrayed 
by one that “did eat bread with him” (John xiii. 18), and to 
be delivered up to the chief priests, and elders, and scribes, 
and by them to be condemned, and given up to the gentiles; 
he was to be mocked, scourged, spit upon, buffeted, and 
crucified by them (Mark x. 33, 34, Luke xviii. 31—33), 
to have his hands, feet, and heart, pierced (John xix. 37) ; 
to “rise again the third day” (Luke xxiy. 46); to “ascend 
into heaven” (ver. 26) ; to “draw all men after him” (John 
xii. 82); to “cast the devil out of his kingdom” (ver. 31, 
xvi. 11); to “baptize them,” who believed in him, “with 
the Holy Ghost” (Matt. ili. 11, Acts i. 5); and to erect his 
own kingdom by the preaching of the gospel through. the 
then known world (Matt. xxiv. 14, xxvi. 13). Here then 
are these things peculiar to the holy Jesus: 

First, That it was never foretold by any prophet of the 
Jews, or by any pretended prophet of the gentiles, that such 
aman should be born at such a time, in such a city, who 
should do great miracles, and yet should be despised, and 
rejected, condemned, and die as a deceiver, by the means 
of those very persons to whom he came, and among whom 
he did his miracles; and who should after three days rise 
again, and then be owned as the Lord and Saviour of the 
world through all the earth. 

Secondly, Much less was it ever known that any one, 
pretending to be a prophet, laid the foundation of the truth 
of his pretensions upon his being despised and rejected, and 
even crucified as a deceiver by them to whom he was sent, 
and among whom he performed all his miracles, and upon 
what should be done by others at his death, as to the man- 
ner and the particular circumstances of it, and upon what 
should not be done to him when dead, though it were 
usually done to others dying as he did; and, 

Thirdly, Upon what he would do after his resurrection, 
not by himself, but by the preaching of others in his name, 
to draw those very people to an acknowledgment of him, 
and make himself to be adored and owned as their Lord and 
Saviour throughout all nations. Maimonides,* I confess, 
informs us of one who appeared in Arabia in the twelfth 
century, pretending to be the forerunner of the Messiah, 
and upon that account to act by a divine commission, of 
whom the king of Arabia demanding a sign or a miracle in 
proof of his commission, he answered, “Cut off my head, 
and I will rise again, and live as before ;” this the king did, 
and the imposture ended with his life, no man pretending 
that he ever rose again; whereas the resurrection of our 
Jesus was not attested only by the twelve apostles, by five 
hundred witnesses, by St. Paul, a bitter enemy of the Chris- 
tian faith, converted to it by the appearance of this Jesus 
to him; but the truth of it was presently believed by many 
thousand Jews who lived upon the place, where they had 
seen him crucified, and many myriads of gentiles, who gave 
so firm a credit to it, that they confirmed it with the loss 
of life and all the comforts of it. 

Fourthly, As for the characters of the Messiah delivered 
in the gospels, and the great works he promised that his 
disciples should perform, it seemeth necessary to suppose 
that almost all these things were done before they were in- 
dited. For the tradition of the church runs thus,—that St. 
Matthew wrote his gospel eight, St. Mark ten, St. Luke 
fifteen, St. John thirty-two years after our Lord’s ascension : 
and therefore, had not the things contained in these writings 
being performed before, they must have ministered to all 
considering persons a strong objection against the truth of 
what they saw recorded in them. For instance, had not the 
apostles been “filled with the Holy Ghost before,” they 
could not have begun their testimony, the Lord having en- 
gaged that they should be “ endued with power from on high 
not many days after” his own ascension, and commanded 
them “to stay at Jerusalem till this was accomplished.” 
Had not believers, which then were very numerous, been 
both enabled and accustomed to cast out devils, heal diseases, 
and to speak with tongues, it would have been natural to 
inquire why the Lord’s promise was not made good to them. 
There could have been no truth in all the Acts of the Apos 


* Epist. ad Judwos Marsilienses. 
B 


14 


165, had they not been before enabled to do the greatest 
wonders, even such as had not been performed by our 
Lord; viz. the conversion of thousands by one sermon, the 
giving of the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands, the heal- 
ing diseases by their shadow, and by clothes sent from 
them. But yet let these things be as false as any infidel 
can imagine; since they are all recorded of our Jesus by his 
own witnesses, and are contained in those histories, which 
they delivered to the world as the true records of his words 
and actions, they must stand bound to make them good, 
and persuade all believers they were certain truths, or be 
convinced from their own words that their Jesus failed of 
what he promised and foretold, and therefore was not a true 
prophet. 

Now peruse the records of all nations, and show me one 
impostor who ever did pretend that such things should be 
done by his disciples after his death: or what disciples of 
the most subtle cheat ever obliged themselves by such expe- 
riments to testify the truth of what their master did pretend 
to? And if never any impostor in his wits, or, if not one 
abettor of them, ever pretended to such things, we have 
great reason to believe this Jesus and his followers were 
no impostors. Should any one have said, when Christ was 
nailed to the cross, that many thousands of his bloody mur- 
derers should in a few days become his converts, and ven- 
ture all their present and eternal interests upon the truth 
of his pretended resurrection; should they have said that 
throughout all the Roman empire he should be owned as 
that King to whom “all power both in heaven and earth 
was given,” and as that Jesus who alone could give salva- 
tion ; should they have added that all this should be done in 
spite of all the power of wit and policy, of eloquence and 
of the sword, the interests and lusts, the superstitions and 
corrupt opinions, and the reputed wisdom of mankind, by a 
few mean unskilful men, who were the hatred and derision 
of the place they lived in, because “God would bear witness 
to their doctrines by mighty signs and wonders, and distri- 
butions of the Holy Ghost ;’”’ I say, should a thing seeming 
so extravagant have been then vented, it would surely have 
passed for an idle brain-sick dream, as little to be heeded as 
that twelve cripples should besiege, storm, plunder, and de- 
stroy, the strongest and best-peopled city. And yet the 
apostles in effect not only said much more, but so con- 
firmed their sayings, as that the records in which they were 
contained have ever since obtained as the faith of Chris- 
tians, and been the rule of their whole lives. 

§. X. Let us pass on to the consideration of the miracles 
performed by the holy Jesus. Now they are represented in 
these records 5 

First, As excceding many, even so many that the chief 
priests and pharisees, who bore the greatest disaffection to 
him, are forced to confess, “this man doth many miracles,” 
insomuch that “if we let him alone all men will believe on 
him” (John xi. 47, 48), and the multitude cry out, « When 
Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than this man hath 
done ?”’ (John vii. 31, see note on John xxi. 25.) 

Secondly, His miracles, as they were very many, so were 
they also very great and powerful, and so assuredly per- 
formed by the finger of God; even Herod styles them 
“mighty works” (Mark vi. 14). Nicodemus, when he had 
only begun to do them, acknowledges that “no man could 
do such works as he did, except God were with him” (John 
iil. 2). And he himself saith, “If I had not done among 
the Jews those works which never man did, they had not 
had sin” (John xv. 24). 

Thirdly, The apostles do with great confidence avow to 
Jew and gentile, that this Jesus had done great wonders to 
confirm his doctrine, and that this was a thing well known 
to them, and by these sayings they converted those that 
heard them: Thus in the sermon of St. Peter’s, which added 
to the church ‘three thousand souls,” Jesus of Nazareth is 
said to have been “ a man approved among them by miracles, 
wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst 
of them ;” for which he presently appeals to their own con- 
sciences, saying, “ This ye yourselves know” (Acts ii. 24). 
And the same apostle appealeth in like manner to the know- 
ledge of this by the centurion and his friends, saying, « Ye 
know the thing done throughout all Judea; how Jesus 
being anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, went 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the 
devil; for God was with him” (Acts x. 37, 28). Now 
here these things may be observed ; 

First, That these records, contained in the first three gos- 
pels, being writ, saith tradition, within fifteen years after 
our Lord’s ascension, or at the least before that destruction 
of Jerusalem, of which they all speak as future, and before 
which it is probable they died; many of those nine thou- 
sand who were miraculously “fed with a few loaves and 
two little fishes,” and many who were healed in every city 
where Christ and his disciples came, must be surviving wit- 
nesses of the truth or falsehood of these writings. : 

Secondly, That notwithstanding this, we find not one 
thing delivered by them, as done by Christ or his apostles, 
either among Jew or gentile, which they ever proved, or 
even declared, to be false; we find indeed in these records 
the pharisees declaring that “he cast out devils by Beelze- 
bub” (Matt. ix. 34, xii, 24), and saying in their own writ- 
ings, that* “ By virtue of the name Shem Hamephorash, 
which he stole out of the temple, he raised the dead, 
and walked upon the waters, and cured the lame, and 
cleansed the lepers.” The wiser heathens, Celsus, Porphyry, 
Hierocles, and Julian, confessed that our Lord did miracles, 
that he healed the blind and the lame, and cast out devils; 
but then they add, that he did these things “by that art of 
magic, which he had learnt from the Egyptians, and by some 
names of powerful angels he had learnt in Egypt,” and the 
same they affirmed of his disciples. “The Christians,” saith 
Celsus,t “seem to prevail, δαιμόνων τίνων ὀνόμασι, καὶ κατακ- 
λήσεσι, by virtue of the name and invocation of some de- 
mons.” And because St. Paul was more especially enabled 
“by mighty signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy Ghost 
to make the gentiles obedient in word and deed” (Rom. xy. 
18, 19), Julian¢ says of him, that “he did ὑπερβάλλειν 
πάντας πανταχοῦ τοὺς πώποτε γόητας, καὶ drarsdvas, exceed 
every way all the cheats and jugglers which ever were.” 
Which by the way demonstrates, that neither the malicious 
Jew nor subtle heathen was ever able to confute the facts 
contained in the gospels or the Acts; for had they been able 
to have shown the falsehood of them in one point, they 
would have had no cause to fly unto this artifice, it being 
sufficient for their purpose to have shown the falsehood of 
any thing delivered in these records of the Christian faith ; 
whereas they only did pretend to balance the miracles of 
Christ and his apostles, and the cures performed by them 

as Pharaoh did the miracles of Moses), by opposing to 
them the miracles done by Pythagoras and Apollonius; and 
the cures done by their gods and the heathen exorcists. 
Now here consider, 

First, That Christ not only did these miracles himself; 
but whilst he was with them he sent out first the twelve, and 
after them the seventy disciples, ‘to heal all manner of dis- 
eases, and cast out devils in his name” (Matt. x., Luke x.). 

Secondly, He engaged his truth, that after his departure 
from them, his apostles should do “ greater works than these 
because he went unto the Father” (John xiv. 12). 

Thirdly, He promised that these signs should follow them 
that believed, «In his name they should cast out devils, heal 
diseases, and speak with new tongues” (Mark xvi. 17, 18). 

In answer to what the heathens offer to invalidate the 
strength of this argument, 

1. It isconfessed that both Jews and heathens pretended 
to the power of casting out devils, as truly as the Christians 
did, and both had their exorcists for that very purpose ; but 
then we find not one of them who ever promised, or pre- 
tended, that those who would believe in them should do 
this in their name, as did our Jesus; not one who ever at- 
tempted to silence them at their oracles, and expel them 
from their temples, and force them to confess, before those 
very men who worshipped them as gods, that they were but 
devils ; and yet from Theophilus to Eusebius, i. 6. from the 
second to the fourth century, the Christians triumph in this 
argument, and promise, upon pain of death, to extort this 
confession from them, and speak of it as a thing known even 
to the very heathens, hec omnia sciunt plerique, pars ves- 
trim, ipsos demonas de seipsis confiteri, that “the devils 


* Raym. Pug. Fid. p. 290. + Apnd Orig. p. 7. 
+ Apud Cyril. Alex. lib. iii. p. 100. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


are forced by us thus to confess what they are, must know, 
and even some of you,” saith Minutius; credite illis quum 
verum de se loquuntur, qui mentientibus creditis, “ you who 

“believe their lies, believe them speaking thus the truth 
against themselves,” saith Tertullian. 

2. It is confessed that many heathens did plead in an- 
swer to the Christians triumphing in the gift of healing con- 
ferred upon the meanest Christians by their Lord, that « their 
gods also did, multorum hominum morbos, valetudinesque 
sanare, heal the diseases of many,” but never any sent their 
disciples, as our Jesus did his apostles, and afterward the 
seventy disciples by two and two, through all the cities of 
Judea, or any other country, to cure all diseases in his name, 
as it is recorded in St. Luke’s gospel, wrote within fifteen 
years after the thing was done, and so whilst myriads of 
Jews were living to testify the truth or falsehood of this 
thing; yea, many who had actually been healed by them. 
Never did any promise, as our Saviour did, that they who 
would believe in him should do the same, and that his own 
apostles should do “ greater works” than he. Never did any 
enable others to bestow this gift upon believers by imposi- 
tion of their hands, or by baptizing them in his all-powerful 
name, asthe apostles did. This then is such an eminent de- 
monstration of the truth of Christian faith as hath no pa- 
rallel. 

3. It is confessed that many of the heathen magi pre- 
tended to work many miracles. And hence Pythagoras, 
by Porphyry and Jamblichus; Apollonius Tyaneus, by 
Hierocles; and Apuleius, and others, are compared to our 
Jesus; but then, 

First, All their pretended miracles were done to none or 
evil purposes, as being done to establish the barbarous, ob- 
scene, and foolish rites of heathen superstition, which was 
the grand design of Apollonius, and also of Pythagoras, who 
taught all men, saith Jamblichus, τὸ μένειν ἐν τοῖς πατρώοις 
ἔθεσι καὶ νομίμοις, “to continue in the rites and customs of 
their country ;” and this we learn from his Golden Verses ; 
and consequently it is certain that a holy God could never 
countenance what was so opposite both to his nature and his 
honour; but it was the concernment of the devil thus to 
endeavour to confirm that brutish and idolatrous worship by 
which his kingdom was upheld and propagated, and to op- 
pose the prevalence of the Christian faith: whereas the 
miracles of Christ and his apotles were all salutary and 
highly beneficial, and were designed to advance the know- 
ledge of the true God upon the ruins of idolatry, “to 
turn men from Satan to God ;” to teach them to excel in 
purity and virtue, in piety to God, in truth and justice, cha- 
rity and mercy, towards others, and so was worthy of the 
concernment of a pure and holy God, as being the most 
lively transcript of his own prefections. 

Secondly, All the great things ascribed to these persons 
have suddenly been blasted, and they like comets have 
blazed for a while to the amazement of the world, and pre- 
sently have set in darkness; which is a pregnant evidence 
that they derived from the prince of darkness, and only 
feigned a commission from that King of heaven, who neither 
wanteth power nor wisdom to accomplish his designs; whilst 
Christianity was like the rising sun, which “shineth more 
and more unto the perfect day.” St. Paul informs the 
church of Rome and Colosse, that in the space of thirty 
years the gospel had been preached throughout the world, 
and brought forth fruit in every nation, on which account it 
quickly did obtain the name of ἡ κρατοῦσα διδαχὴ, or, “ the 
prevailing doctrine,” as Porphyry and Julian do confess. 
Now surely to abolish all idolatry, to reform the vices of the 
world, and to enable a few illiterate persons by mighty signs 
and wonders, by admirable gifts and dispensations of the 
Holy Ghost, to subdue the world to the belief of the whole 
Christian faith, and to the worship of a man, condemned by 
his own nation as a false prophet and a malefactor, as the 
God and Saviour of the world, must be a vain attempt, 
though managed by the most subtle and improved impostor. 
But, 

Thirdly, None of these persons ever pretended to trans- 
mit this power, which they vaunted of, to any other person, 
as our Saviour did: or to leave behind them those who, by 
like actions, should attest the truth of what they did de- 
liver in his name, or suffer for the cause they owned. The 


15 


demon in the statue of Apollonius did for a little while, by 
uttering oracles, persuade men to worship Apollonius as a 
god; but the same author® adds, that God αὐτὸν τὸν dotpova 
ἐφίμωσε, καταργῆσας αὐτοῦ τὰς μαντείας, “struck dumb this 
demon, making void or abolishing his oracles ;’’ whereas this 
power was not only imparted by our Lord to his apostles, 
and promised to those who believe in him, but also was, by 
the imposition of the hands of these apostles, or by their 
baptism in the name of Jesus, conferred upon them, and 
promised to them ; as in those words of Peter, “ Repent, and 
be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and ye shall 
receive the Holy Ghost.’ And hence Arnobius, having 
summed up the miracles our Jesus did, adds, That he not 
only did them by his power, but, which was more sublime, 
multis aliis facere sui nominis cum adjectione permisit, 
“empowered many others to do them in his name: nor 
did he any of those miracles which raised astonishment 
in others, which he enabled not his little ones, and even 
rustics to perform.” And then he triumphs over the hea- 
thens thus, “ What say you, O ye stiff and incredulous 
minds, alicuine mortalium Jupiter ille Capitolinus hujus- 
modi potestatem dedit? did ever that Jupiter whom the 
Romans worship in the Capitol give the like power to any 
mortal?’ and then most rationally concludes, that «to 
transfer this miraculous power to a man, and give authority 
and strength to a creature, to do that which by their power 
alone can be done,” super omnia site est potestatis, “is an 
evidence of one whose power presideth over all things, and 
who hath all the creatures at his beck.” 

And, lastly, To the pretence that Christ and his apostles 
did all their miracles by magic arts ; I will not answer as 
Origen doth to Celsus, that all who ever did converse with 
Christians know this to be a lie, not any of them finding 
that they ever used, but that they constantly abhorred, those 
arts ; nor yet inquire with Arnobius, potestis aliquem nobis 
demonstrare, ex omnibus illis magis qui unquam fuere per 
secula, consimile aliquid Christo millesima ex parte qui fece- 
rit? Nor will I represent it as an absurdity, to think our 
Lord could learn these arts in Egypt, when he was but /wo 
years old: nor will] ask whether these Christians were assist- 
ed in these arts by good or evil spirits, it being as improbable 
that evil spirits should promote Christianity to the destrue- 
tion of their kingdom, as that good angels should promote 
a lie, or countenance a wicked cheat; I only ask, how came 
these Christians to convert the Egyptians, and even those 
magi from whom they are supposed to have learnt these 
arts? 2. Seeing the art of magic was then at the height in 
Ephesus, Samaria, Judea, and through the heathen world, 
by what means came those Christians, who by the heathens 
were still called idiots and mechanics, to be so dexterous in 
these infernal arts, that all the skill and learning in the 
world could neither equal nor detect their subtlety? Seeing 
the Jews swarmed both in Ephesus and Egypt, why did none 
of them ever attain to the like skill; how is it that none of 
the Egyptian sorcerers did ever contend with Christ or his 
apostles, as they did of old with Moses, or manifast these 
sleights to the deceived world, with which they were so well 
acquainted? How is it that those many who did desert the 
Christian faith, did never once confess their skill in magic, or 
discover one book, or one instruction they had learned from 
Christ or his apostles, to produce such wonderful effects? 
Lastly, the apostles and first Christians could not be deceivers 
but others who did embrace, and successively promote and 
spread their doctrine, must know that they were so, and be 
instructed in the same arts of falsehoods by them, for they 
could never propagate their cheats without great falsehood 
and hypocrisy, nor prevail on any that were not willing to be 
their confederates, and learn their artifices for the imposing 
of this faith on others. Now how incredible is it that so 
many myriads, throughout three ages in which these mira- 
cles were done, should all conspire in an unprofitable and 
known lie, from whence they did and could reap nothing but 
loss and poverty, persecutions, imprisonments, and death, and 
not one single person be induced to divulge the cheat, let any 
reasonable person judge; especially if we consider, that the 
only motives which Christianity did offer to engage men to 
perseverance in that faith, were the inward consolations of 


* Qu. et Resp. qu. 24. 


16 


the Holy Spirit, and a future recompense ; neither of which 
could belong to, or reasonably be expected by, men, who 
knew themselves promoters of a vile pernicious lie. 

Hence, therefore, we may argue thus; they who neither 
had, nor could have, any motive to believe, continue in, pro- 
mote, or suffer for the Christian faith, besides the inward con- 
solations of the Holy Ghost, and the expectations of the 
blessings promised in the life to come, cannot reasonably be 
supposed to be wilful cheats: the reason is, because the 
Spirit of God could not give any inward consolations to those 
who were promoting a notorious falsehood by infernal arts; 
nor was it possible that they who knew they used these 
arts, should expect on that account to be for ever happy in 
the enjoyment of that holy God, “ who loveth truth in the in- 
ward parts,” or to be raised by him to an inheritance unde- 
filed. Seeing then even the light of nature and reason of 
mankind assure us, that not one of, much less all, those my- 
riads which believed Christianity, could do it without any 
motive; since the light of Scripture doth assure us they 
could then have no other motives to believe, than those of 
the internal consolations of the Holy Spirit at present, and 
the hopes of a blessed resurrection to eternal life; seeing, 
thirdly, the attributes of God and the nature of the Holy 
Ghost assure us, that they who propagated an imposture by 
magic and infernal arts, or by delusions, should never have 
these inward consolations of the Holy Ghost, or expectations 
of eternal happiness, as the reward of their impostures or 
delusions, it is impossible they should be cheats. 

In fine, the wonders which accompanied our Saviour’s 
death, were as remarkable and glorious as were the actions 
of his life; for when the traitor Judas came to apprehend 
him, he did but say unto them, “I am Jesus,” and straight- 
way both the traitor, and all that did attend him, were 
“stricken down to the ground” (John xviii. 6) ; and when 
Peter had stricken off the ear of Malchus, he healed it with 
a touch (Luke xxii. 51) : even when he hung upon the cross, 
and when he had given up his spirit, the heavens were over- 
spread with darkness at noon-day, which is a thing observed 
by the very heathens, and from their records handed down to 
us; the earth quaked, the rocks split, the veil of the temple 
was rent, the graves were opened, and many that were dead 
arose, and came into the city, and appeared to many (Matt. 
xxvii. 51—53). Now we read nothing of this nature con- 
cerning either Pythagoras, or Apollonius, though Philostra- 
tus tells us, that Apollonius died not, but was translated into 
heaven. 

§. XI. Again, as our Lord frequently foretold, that being 
dead, after three days he would rise again, so have we certain 
demonstration that he arose accordingly, from the considera- 
tion of the persons engaged to attest it, and the absurdity of 
thinking they should all conspire to attest a lie: for, 

1. The dead body of our Lord could not continue in the 
grave after three days; for had it visibly lain dead there 
after that time, this had been sufficient to have proved our 
Saviour a false prophet, because he promised so oft that 
he would rise again the third day (Luke xxiv. 46, Acts x. 
40, 1 Cor. xv. 3); yet if our Lord was not then risen from 
the dead, his body must continue there or be conveyed 
thence by somebody. 

2. It is not reasonable to believe that persons uncon- 
cerned for this Jesus, or who believed not well of him, 
should remove his body thence, since no man can imagine 
why they should attempt it, or what motive they could 
have to do it; and therefore this never was pretended or 
affirmed by Jew or gentile. Moreover, either they did this 
without acquainting Christ’s disciples of their enterprise : 
and then how easy was it for them, by producing the dead 
body, to confute the testimony of his disciples, and how 
unlikely was it that these disciples would have begun to 
testify a thing which might, for any thing they could know 
to the contrary, be presently confuted by producing that very 
body they said was risen from the dead? or, secondly, they 
acquainted Christ’s disciples with the fact, became confede- 
rates with them, and engaged to conceal the body; and then 
upon the strength of this confederacy and promise must de- 
pend all the hopes which Christ’s disciples had, that they 
should be successful in this testimony, and not be proved 
cheats by ocular demonstration. Now is it reasonable to 
conceive that in this matter they should trust to the fidelity 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


of those men, who, in this very business, in which their si- 
lence could alone befriend them, were the worst of cheats? 
It is, lastly, more incredible, that persons of this temper 
should still go on to stifle and conceal the matter, and not be 
tempted by the pleasure of the thing, the service they might 
do to their religion, the hopes of a considerable reward, or by 
the hatred of a cheat so gross and palpable, to manifest the 
shame and infamy of those who forged it. Or, 

3. His dead body within that time must be conveyed from 
the sepulchre by Christ’s disciples, as the Jews said it was. 
Now against this vain pretension of the Jews we have the 
strongest evidence imaginable, the evangelists and sacred 
writers having so contrived this testimony, that it was incre- 
dible they should attempt, and, in the nature of the thing, 
impossible they should effect it, had it been a lie, or a contri- 
vance of those men who had their Lord’s dead body in their 
hands. 

For, First, The testimony they delivered was this, «That 
the same Jesus whom the Jews had crucified as a false pro- 
phet, was declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection 
of his body from the dead.” Now it hath been shown (note 
on 1 Cor. xv. 35) that the resurrection of the dead was by 
the gentiles deemed a thing incredible. The resurrection of 
that very person whom the Jews had so lately condemned, 
and crucified as an impostor, was that which they of all men 
would be most unwilling to believe, seeing it was a testimony 
which not only did acquit this Jesus from all the calumnies 
and false aspersions of the Jews, but also pronounced their 
greatest rabbies an evil brood of hypocrites, fools, and blind 
serpents, and vipers, a wicked and adulterous generation, a 
devilish, damned crew, nay, their whole nation guilty of the 
most horrid crime that could be charged upon man, even ‘he 
murder of the Lord of life, and which assured them there 
was no salvation to be hoped for but from that very person 
whom “ they had taken, and by wicked hands had crucified 
and slain,” and that “ all power both in heaven and earth was 
given to him:’’ and therefore it was not to be expected it 
should gain credit among Jews, or gentiles, unless it was 
confirmed by the greatest miracles. : 

Secondly, As our Lord often told, not only his disciples, 
but the Jews also, that he would shortly return to his Father ; 
that he should “ascend up where he was before” (John vi. 
62), “and go to him that sent him” (John vii. 33, 34) ; that 
“ within a while, they should see the Son of man sitting on 
the right hand of Power” (Matt. xxvi. 64), and that he would 
“come in the glory of his Father, and reward every man ac- 
cording to his works:” so doth this testimony declare, that he 
was now “exalted to the right hand of God,” and that 
«God had made him Lord of all things” (Acts ii. 36) ; 
that he had “exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour” 
(Acts v. 31), nor was “salvation to be expected by any 
other” (Acts iv. 12), and, lastly, that by his resurrection he 
had demonstrated that he was to be the judge of the quick 
and the dead (Acts xvii. 31). Now it seemed foolishness 
both to Jew and gentile, that such a one, who seemed to 
them to be without all form or comeliness, all outward 
splendour or grandeur, one branded for a rebel and impos- 
tor by his own nation, and as such condemned by so greata 
power, should be declared to be the Son of God, the Lord 
of all things, the author of salvation to all men, the sove- 
reign object of their adoration. And, 

Thirdly, As an immediate consequence of this, it was a 
testimony which never could be owned in any part of the 
whole heathen world, but they must thereupon renounce 
all the religion established among them by law and custom, 
discard the gods which they and their forefathers had so long 
worshipped, as devils and dumb idols, and own the God of 
Israel as the only true God, submit to those doctrines of the 
holy Jesus, which required them so entirely to renounce their 
sinful pleasures, which were so grateful to the flesh, and those 
vices which they had so long indulged, and henceforth live a 
life of highest purity and separation from the pleasures and 
enjoyments of this world, to be employed in acts of self-de- 
nial and mortification, in taking up the cross, and suflering 
patiently the worst of temporal evils, only in hopes of future 
blessing from a crucified Jesus, and a reward to be conferred 
upon them by him, after a more incredible resurrection of 
their bodies from the grave. Now it is certain from reason 
and experience, that a new doctrine, which stands obnoxious 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


to a great many prejudices both of the judgment and affec- 
tions, and which contains many things that seem to render 
it incredible to the one, and many more which render it un- 
pleasant to the other, is most unlikely to prevail upon the 
world, in opposition to all other doctrines. (2.) That men 
are not easily induced to reject those principles which they 
received from their education, but still are backward to ad- 
mit new faith, to confess their errors, and condemn themselves 
and pass hard sentences upon the state of their beloved 
friends, relations, and ancestors. (3.) That men are natu- 
rally wedded to their lusts, and bear a passionate affection to 
the pleasures and enjoyments of the world; and therefore, 
that which suddenly prevails upon them to renounce them 
all, must be of greater power, and of more prevailing efficacy, 
than the temptations of the world. (4.) ‘Thatit is not easy 
to prevail upon the world to quit a present and important in- 
terest, only in hopes of future good, or to expose themselves 
to the worst of sufferings in confirmation and pursuance 
of those hopes, without the most concluding grounds of hope, 
much less in contradiction to them. (5.) ‘That men of the 
lowest birth and education, and such as were great sufferers 
both in their reputation and their persons, were men unlikely 
to prevail upon persons of all sorts and conditions whatso- 
ever, to quit their religion and their habitual lusts, their 
worldly interests, and their alluring pleasures, and their 
espoused tenets; much more their lives and dearest rela- 
tives, and to expose themselves to those evils which are 
most contrary to the desires of human nature and to the 
designs of mere natural men. 

Again, They tell us, they were sent to preach this testi- 
mony to all nations, and to baptize them into the faith thus 
preached, to publish it to the Jews, Samaritans, and to the 
uttermost parts of the earth (Acts i. 8). Now, could they 
convert great numbers of all nations from darkness unto 
light; persuade them to discard their own religion they had 
so long embraced; quit all the worship and the rites they 
had received from their forefathers; renounce all the evil 
customs and manners they had so long indulged in ; only to 
worship and expect salvation by one condemned by his own 
nation, where his pretended miracles were wrought, as a false 
prophet and a vile impostor? They were to turn them “ from 
the power of Satan unto God,” and therefore, were to destroy 
that strong man armed, to overthrow his kingdom, to stop 
the mouth of his oracles, destroy his temples and his worship, 
to cast out devils where they came, and make his kingdom 
“fall like lightning.” How could they convert those nations, 
whose languages they understood not, without the gift of 
tongues; which, if they wanted, they must stand mute 
among them, without one word to say in propagation of this 
testimony ? How could they work so great a change upon 
them, or prevail with them to suffer so much, as their con- 
verts by their own confession were obliged to do, for the 
sake of this their testimony, without the greatest evidence 
that what they told them was a certain truth? and how 
could they afford this evidence to any, without a confluence 
of miracles to confirm their sayings? Hence, 

Fourthly, They so often tell us, that their Lord promised 
to enable them, in confirmation of this testimony, to work 
“ greater miracles than he himself had done” (John xiv. 12), 
and that they who believed this testimony should be enabled 
“to heal the sick, to cast out devils, and speak with new 
tougues:” that for the propagation of this testimony, “he 
would give them a mouth and wisdom, which all their adver- 
saries should not be able to gainsay,” that they should 
have no need, when they were before princes and rulers on 
the account of this testimony, to premeditate ; because “the 
Holy Ghost wonld teach them in that hour what to say :” 
(Luke xii. 12, xxi. 15), that he promised that they should 
be enabled for this work “ by the power of the Holy Ghost 
descending on them, and convincing the world of their sin 
who believed not in him, and of his righteousness, because he 
went unto the Father; and of a future judgment, because 
the prince of the world should by them be condemned, and 
cast out of his kingdom” (John xvi. 8—11). They intro- 
duced him, praying to his Father that they might thus be 
assisted by this Holy Spirit, “that the world might believe 
that he had sent him” (see the note on John xvii. 21—23), 
and promising the Holy Ghost to them that would believe 
in him (John vii. 37—39). Whence it must necessarily 

Vor. IV.—3 


17 


follow from their own words, that they must have received 
this miraculous assistance, and these distributions of the 
Holy Ghost, for confirmation of this testimony ; or else that 
Jesus, whose resurrection they proclaimed, must be a false 
prophet. Hence it is evident beyond all contradiction ; 

First, That a power of doing mighty miracles, and of 
exercising and distributing the gifts of the Holy Ghost to 
believers, was absolutely necessary, in places where they 
came, for confirmation of this testimony, and planting any 
Christian church in any nation ; it being absolutely necessary, 
to make this testimony effectual, that both the apostles, who 
gave in this testimony, and they who did believe it, should 
be assisted by the power of miracles, and be endowed with 
the miraculous gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost; 
and yet, 

Secondly, It is as certain, that if this Jesus was not risen, 
or, being risen, had failed in all his promises of such miracu- 
lous assistance, that his disciples could have no motive to 
begin this testimony, or never could be able thus to confirm 
what they affirmed. 

1. They could have then no motive to begin this testimo- 
ny; for if he were not risen, or if he had failed in all these 
promises, they must conclude him an impostor; and then 
what motives could they have to publish him “the Saviour 
of the world,” who, after he had called them, “to leave all, 
and follow him,” and made such ample promises unto them 
of “judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. xix. 28), 
left them so sadly in the lurch, exposed to shame and infa- 
my? How could they hope “by mighty signs and wonders, 
by gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit,” great and numerous, 
to give in evidence to his resurrection (as they confidently 
pretended they were empowered to do), had he been still 
reserved under the power of death, and only by his own or 
others’ arts removed from his sepulchre? How is it, that 
they never thought within themselves,—He could not save 
himself, and whence shall we expect salvation? He could 
not by his miracles of power and goodness prevail upon one 
nation to believe his doctrine; and can we, though destitute 
of all that power which resided in him, think to reduce the 
world into obedience, or to impart the Holy Ghost to others, 
when we ourselves have the spirit of delusion only?) Who 
can imagine, were this so, they would have said so boldly at 
the first entrance on this testimony, to men, who wondered 
at them, “ Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the 
name of the Lord Jesus, and you shall receive (these gifts 
of) the Holy Ghost; for the promise (of the Holy Ghost, 
recorded by the prophet Joel) is (made) to you and to your 
children, and to as many as the Lord your God shall call ;” 
or say so confidently before the Jewish Sanhedrin, their 
mortal enemies, “« We are witnesses of these things, and so 
is the Holy Ghost which God hath given to those that be- 
lieve” (Acts v. 32), if there were no such thing? ΝΟΥ, 

2. Could they confirm their testimony by any miracles or 
divine assistance ; for if their testimony were a lie, they had 
no reason to expect the least assistance for the propagation 
of it, but had just reason to conceive, that all the powers, both 
in earth and heaven, should be engaged to confound it; for 
sure they could expect no help from him whom they declared 
to be risen, if in their consciences they knew he was still 
under the power of death; they rather had great reason to 
expect that God should cross them in those designs which 
they profanely vented in his name, making him witness to 
a lie; they could not hope to be assisted by the powers of 
darkness, seeing their doctrine did so plainly tend to the 
subversion of Satan’s kingdom; they could not rationally 
hope, that either Jew or gentile would befriend them in the 
promotion of a cheat, which they were concerned both in 
interest and honour to detect : what therefore could embolden 
them to enter upon the propagation of this cheat, in oppo- 
sition to all the powers both of heaven and earth? 

To strengthen this argument, let us consider the success 
of this testimony ; our Lord had declared, that after he had 
been lifted up, “he would draw all men after him” (John 
xii, 32), and that then his kingdom, from a small beginning, 
should increase as a grain of mustard seed, and be like leaven 
leavening the whole lump (Luke xiii. 19.21). Accordingly 
we find that this testimony, when it was first declared to the 
world on the day of Pentecost, prevailed at one sermon over 
three thousand and at another on five thousand of those 

B2 


18 


very persons who had seen him crucified, to believe that he 
was risen from the dead. He sent them forth to preach this 
doctrine to the world, with a promise that “he would be 
with them” (Matt. xxviii. 20). And accordingly it is said, 
“ they went forth preaching this doctrine every where, the 
Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs 
following” (Mark xvi. 20), and that “ with great power gave 
the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” 
(Acts iv. 33), and that “ God bare witness to the word of his 
grace, both with signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and 
gifts of the Holy Ghost” (Heb. 1i. 4), and of the truth of 
this, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles written to the 
churches planted by them, the miracles done by many my- 
riads of Christians, and the gifts daily exercised in their as- 
semblies, are a demonstration ; yea, the speedy and wonderful 
success and prevalency of this testimony confirms the truth 
of what they delivered; for if men were not then infatuated, 
how could it come to pass, that so great a part of the world 
as was so suddenly converted by their testimony, should 
without any proof or other evidence than the bare relation 
of such ignorant unlearned persons, give credit to their fic- 
tion; or that persons of all ranks and conditions should 
not only yield a firm assent to such a proofless fable, but 
readily should sacrifice their lives and fortunes to maintain 
that faith ? 

For farther demonstration of the truth of this testimony, 
let us reflect a little upon the persons commissioned by 
Christ to preach it to the world; and we shall find, 

1. That they were persons who had no advantages of 
birth, wealth, or worldly interests, which might enable them 
to manage or promote this work, no wisdom to contrive, no 
policy to carry on such cunningly-devised fables, as being 
both according to their own report, and the objection of the 
heathen world, ἀγράμματοι, και ἰδιῶται, “illiterate and simple 
men;” and is it easy to conceive, that men, so few, so meanly 
qualified as to condition, endowments, or ability of mind, 
without all supernatural assistance, should so skilfully con- 
trive, so courageously maintain, and so successfully manage, 
such a story, as quickly to engage the faith of many myriads 
to yield a firm assent unto it? 

2. They could have no motive from any worldly interests 
to propagate this lie throughout the world, but they had all 
imaginable reasons to decline it, if it were not true; for all 
those things which the allurements of the world can signify, 
they willingly abandoned for the sake of this one testimony, 
incurring both the loss of honour, pleasure, and of all worldly 
interests, in prosecution of it; nay, they declared, that this 
very Jesus, whose resurrection they attested, had foretold 
that this should be their portion, that “in this world they 
should have tribulation,” that they should “be hated of all 
nations for his name’s sake,” that they should be “ delivered 
up to be afflicted, and even killed for this testimony : so 
that they could not possibly avoid those evils but they must 
by so doing overthrow their own testimony, and prove this 
Jesus a false prophet; and much less had they reason to ex- 
pect any blessings in the world to come for propagating such 
a lie by false pretences of divine assistance, to the dishonour 
of Almighty God, and the destruction of so many myriads 
deceived by them. Since then the moralists conclude, that 
it is impossible for men to act without appearance of some 
good to be procured by that action; since love of life, and a 
desire of self-preservation, are common to us with the very 
brutes; and it is natural to them and us, to avoid misery and 
torments,—the apostles could not thus abandon all the en- 
joyments and expectations of the blessings both of this and 
of another world, and wilfully subject themselves to all the 
miseries and torments which creatures could endure, in pro- 
pagation of a testimony from which they could expect no 
profit or advantage, but they must be bereft of common 
sense, renounce the natural instincts of mankind, and be in 
love with ruin and destruction. I confess, it is possible for 
men to lay down their lives for false opinions, provided they 
believe them to be true; but if the apostles were guilty of 
any cheat at all, they must be guilty of a known imposture, 
and so must sacrifice their lives for falsehood, i. e. for that 
from which they could expect no good at all; which seems 
so inconsistent with the principles of common reason and 
self-love, that nothing can be more incredible. 

3. Consider that they continued constant in this testimony, 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


and never could be moved by any checks of conscience, any 
hopes of gain, or any fears or sense of sufferings, to disavow 
this testimony, or to detect the falsehood of it. Now, that 
so many persons should persevere immoveably in an extra- 
vagant resolution to maintain a lie, so that no threats, no 
perils, no pains or troubles from without, no regret or dissa- 
tisfaction from within, should drive them from it, but that 
they should die with it in their mouths, 15. 50 incredible, that 
nothing can be more; it must be therefore truth alone that 
could uphold them steady in the profession of this thing; 
so unanimous a consent, so clear a confidence, so firm a re- 
solution, so insuperable constancy and patience, nothing 
but the sense of truth could inspire them with, nothing but 
a perfectly good conscience could sustain. Consider, 

4, That they were persons who professed to all their 
converts great sincerity in what they did, declaring, that 
“they had renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not 
walking in craftiness, not handling the word of God deceit- 
fully, but, by manifestation of the truth, commending them- 
selves toevery man’s conscience in the sight of God.” More- 
over, in their writings, they frequently condemned all false- 
hood, craft, hypocrisy; commanding us “to lay aside all 
guile, hypocrisy ; to put away all lying, to speak every man 
truth with his neighbour,” denouncing hell and damnation 
against those who “loved and made a lie” and yet, if they 
indeed promoted a cunningly-devised fable, they whom they 
spake and wrote to could not be ignorant of their hypocrisy 
and lying, when they spake so much of their own miracles 
and gifts of the Holy Ghost received by believers, and of the 
gifts of healing, casting out of devils, and of tongues, pro- 
mised and vouchsafed to them; for these things they still 
mention in their epistles directed to their converts, as things 
frequently done by and exercised among them. Now, if 
their converts did enjoy these admirable gifts, it is not to be 
doubted, but God himself, who is the only author of them, 
did set his seal to the apostles’ testimony; if they did not 
enjoy them, they must then know that the apostles who 
made these promises, and who indited these epistles, were 
guilty of notorious untruths, and so could have no motive 
to believe, but rather to detest their doctrine. 

5. Consider that the doctrine they delivered in the name 
of this holy Jesus, was such as highly tended to the promo- 
tion of piety and virtue in the world; for none, who are ac- 
quainted with this doctrine, can deny, that it doth evidently 
tend to the advancement of true goodness, righteousness, 
love, charity, peace, quietness, and mercy. Now, can it 
reasonably be conceived, that men should in the same de- 
sign be guilty of the greatest virtue and the greatest villany 
in the world; that the same men should die martyrs to the 
worst imposture and the best institution in the world; that 
they should sacrifice their lives to the interest of holiness and 
virtue, and the credit of blasphemy and imposture? It is 
common, I confess, for men of bad designs to make very 
good pretences, but still they do this to carry on designs 
far different from their pretences: but we have shown that 
the apostles could have no designs in propagating their doc- 
trine, but that it should be believed; and, therefore, if they 
did not really design to make men believe the doctrines they 
taught for the advancement of the interests of piety and 
virtue, they could have no end at all in losing both their 
lives and fortunes to promote those doctrines; which con- 
tradicts the principles of human nature. 

He then who doubts the sincerity of these assertors of 
our Lord’s resurrection, must be forced to admit what is 
much more incredible, as being more repugnant to human 
nature and the course of things; viz. he must believe that 
persons, otherwise through their whole lives blameless, and 
strictly virtuous in their conversations, as the apostles 
were; men who appealed to their proselytes, “how holily, 
and justly, and unblameably they had behaved themselves 
amongst them,” should yet, against the clearest dictates of 
their conscience, commit so great a villany as this imposture 
doth imply; that men, all whose discourses and demeanours 
did evidently tend to the advancement of God's glory, and 
the promotion of true goodness, should in their hearts defy 
God, and detest all goodness, as they must do if they were 
wilful cheats; that they, who otherwise did teach these 
doctrines, and practise those things, which showed the great- 
est kindness and good will to men, were only striving to 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


abuse and betray them by false promises and hopes, into 
the worst of miseries; that men of so great wisdom as they 
showed, both in their writings and the success of their at- 
tempts, should zealously drive on a vain and senseless pro- 
ject, with more unwearied industry labouring to maintain 
and disperse a lie, than any men besides did ever use for 
confirmation of the greatest truth: he must believe, that 
men in all respects so impotent, should be so strangely pre- 
valent, without the least assistance, as to cause the world to 
run into them; that naked weakness should overthrow the 
strongest might; that pure simplicity should baflle even the 
sharpest wits, the subtlest policy, and deepest learning ; 
that rude speech, void of all strength and ornament, should 
even force men to embrace an uncouth and unpleasant 
story, against the finest rhetoric backed with the force of 
truth. He must believe, that a crew of vile persons should 
so inseparably be linked together only by the bonds of 
fraud, no truth, no virtue, no real interest, uniting them, 
that nothing could untie the knot. Lastly, He must be- 
lieve, that men of sense should, for no end, no visible ad- 
vantage here, no future hopes, voluntarily embrace, and 
patiently endure, all that can be distasteful unto human na- 
ture, freely exposing themselves, they knew not why, to all 
the fury upon earth, and all the flames of hell; eagerly 
sacrificing their fortunes, credits, lives, and souls themselves, 
to the ghost of a condemned malefactor and false prophet. 
And if so, why doth philosophy inform us, that self-pre- 
servation, the love of life and ease, is rooted in the very 
principles of human nature, and that it is not possible for 
any man deliberately to choose to be miserable, or to refuse 
to be happy, or not desire so to be? To conclude, if this 
relation were untrue, either the apostles were besides their 
senses when they did believe it, or besides their wits when 
they affirmed, and did endeavour to confirm, what they did 
not believe, with loss of life and fortunes; and if so, what 
shall we say to that vast multitude of Christians, who, 
notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary, so readily 
embraced, so stedfastly believed, the doctrine of those men, 
who had so little reason to believe themselves ? 

§. XII. Let us consider, lastly, the predictions of our 
Lond, relating partly to his own disciples, and what they 
were to do after his resurrection, and partly to the Jewish 
nation, and what was to befal them for their infidelity, and 
their rejecting and condemning their Messiah. As for his 
disciples, 

1. He promised and foretold, that not only the twelve 
apostles should be endued “with power from on high,” 
and should receive “the promise of the Holy Ghost,” but 
also that they who believed in him should be baptized with 
the Holy Ghost, should receive him, and be enabled by him 
“to speak with tongues” (Matt. iii. 11, Mark xvi. 17, 18, 
Luke xxiv. 39, John vii. 37, 38, Acts i. 8); and that this 
promise was admirably fulfilled, not only by the gifts of 
tongues and prophecy, conferred on the apostles at the day 
of Pentecost, and by their baptism, preaching, and laying 
on of hands on others, but by the gifts of prophecy, and 
tongues, with the interpretation of them, and by the gift of 
discerning spirits, and knowing things secret, exercised in 
all Christian churches, shall be fully proved in the preface 
to the epistles, from §. I. to the sixth, and from the ele- 
venth to the fourteenth. 

2. He foretold that the kingdom of Satan should be 
cast down by them, and should « fall like lightning” be- 
fore them, and said, “« Behold, I give you power over all 
the power of thu snemy” (Luke x. 18, 19); and how glo- 
riously he fulfill this promise, and made good this pre- 
diction, shall be fully demonstrated in the same general 
preface, §. X. 

3. He foretold that the gospel of the kingdom should be 
preached by them throughout the world (Matt. xxvi. 13) ; 
yea, that it should be preached to all nations within the 
space of forty years, or before the destruction of Jerusalem 
(Matt. xxiv. 14); that the increase of his kingdom should 
be like that “of a grain of mustard-seed” (Mark iv. 32), 
and that he being lifted up “ would draw all men after him” 
(John xi. 32). Which came to pass so wonderfully, that 
in the space of twenty-four years after Christ’s passion, St. 
Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, saith, “the sound of it 
was gone out into the uttermost parts of the world” (x. 18) ; 


19 


and in the Epistle to the Colossians, writ twenty-nine years 
after, that it was “preached to every creature under hea- 
ven” (i. 6.23), “ We see,” saith Clemens Romanus,* “ the 
world beyond the ocean (i. 6. the British islands), subject to 
the commands of Jesus.” —* The contagion of this supersti- 
tion,” saith Pliny, in his epistle to Trajan, writ in the close 
of the first century, “hath spread itself not only over cities, 
but even villages and fields.” —« There is no rank of men,” 
said Justin Martyr,+ “ whether Grecians, or barbarians, or 
called by any other name, in which praise and thanksgivings 
are not offered up to the Father in the name of Christ cru- 
cified ;”’ “so that a whole race of Christian nations seemeth,” 
saith Origen,§ “to be born at once; and who,” saith he, 
“will not admire the prediction of our Lord, when he sees 
it thus fulfilled in every nation under heaven, Greeks and 
barbarians, the wise and unwise, and all mankind being 
overcome by it, so that there is no kind of men by whom 
this doctrine is not received?” (lib. ii. p. 68, 69). 

The predictions which concerned the Jewish nation were 
these following :-— 

1, “That the kingdom of God should be taken from 
them, and given to another nation bringing forth the fruits 
thereof” (Matt. xxi. 43); and that “the things which did 
belong to their peace, should be shortly hid from their eyes” 

Luke xiii. 28, 29, xix. 42) : that «many should come from 
the east, and from the west, and should sit down with Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God; but the 
children of the kingdom should be cast out” (Matt. viii. 11. 
13): and that all these things “should come upon that 
generation.” Accordingly, we find the apostle Paul, in 
his Epistle to the Romans, sadly bewailing that “spirit of 
slumber,” which was come upon them (Rom. xi. 8), speak- 
ing of their “rejection” (ver. 15), “the breaking of these 
branches off through unbelief” (ver. 19, 20), “their blind- 
ness” (ver. 25), and saying, that “God had concluded them 
all in unbelief.” 

2. Our Lord foretold, that Satan, cast out from them, 
should “return with seven devils more wicked than him- 
5617 and that he did so, the history of Josephus will not 
suffer us to doubt: for he declares, that soon after our Sa- 
viour’s time, they were become the worst of men (see note 
on Rom. ii. 2). 

§. XIII. Lastly, The things which Christ foretold con- 
cerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and the calamities 
which shortly were to happen to that nation, were of that 
signal nature, and mentioned such various events, then 
future and contingent, and yet were so exactly and so par- 
ticularly fulfilled, as to afford us a most pregnant demon- 
stration of the truth of Christ’s prophetic office. And, 

First, Our blessed Lord foretelleth the destruction of the 
Jewish temple, after it had stood well nigh five hundred 
years, in these words, “Seest thou these great buildings? 
there shall not be left one stone upon another which shall 
not be thrown down :” to complete which prediction, Titus 
commands his soldiers, saith Josephus,|| τὴν τὲ πόλιν ἅπασαν 
καὶ τὸν νεὺν κατασκάπτειν, “to dig up the foundations both of 
the temple and of the city ;” and both the Jewish Talmud 
and Maimonides** add, that Terentius Rufus, the captain 
of his army, “did with a ploughshare tear up the foundation 
of the temple,” and more signally fulfilled those words of 
Micah, iii. 12, “Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be 
ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and 
the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.” 
And here two things seem worthy of our observation; viz. 

1. The exact time when this was done; viz. on the same 
month and day on which it formerly was burnt by Nebuzar- 
adan, the captain of the king of Babylon, which therefore 
by Maimonides is styled «the fatal day of vengeance ;” 
and which is by Josephus}} reckoned to be a matter of just 


* Ep. ad Cor. p. 19. 1 Lib. x. Ep. 97. 

+ Dial. cum Tryph. 345. 

§ Contr. Cels. lib. viii. p. 405. 

| Lib. vii. cap. 1. p. 970, B. 993, A. 

© Taanith. cap. 4. Hal. 6. | ** Maim. Taanith. cap. 5. 

+} Θαυμάσαι δ' ἂν ris ἐν αὐτῇ τῆς περιύδου τὴν ἀκρίβειαν, καὶ 
μῆνα γοῦν καὶ ἡμέραν ἐπετήρησε τὴν αὐτὴν ἐν ἦ πρότερον ὑπὸ Baby 
λονίων ὁ ναῦς ἐνεπρήσϑη. Lib. vii. cap. 26, p. 957, E. cap. 27, 
p- 958, F. 


20 


admiration, and a plain indication that this so happened 
by divine appointment. 

2. That this destruction and conflagration of the temple, 
happened against the will, command, and the endeavours 
of Titus to prevent it; for he calls heaven and earth to 
witness, that he would never violate that sacred place, un- 
less the Jews compelled him so to do; yea, saith he,* «I 
will preserve your temple against your own wills:” and 
when his own generals declared it necessary to destroy 
that temple, he answered, “I will never suffer such a struc- 
ture to be destroyed by the flames:” and when the fire 
began to seize upon it, he calls, he beckoneth to, yea, he 
commands his soldiers to extinguish it, but they, not 
hearkening to his commands, do animate one another to 
the burning of it: Thus, saith Josephus,t “was the tem- 
ple burnt against the will of Cesar, God himself assisting 
with the Romans to the ruin of it; that so the words of 
Christ might be verified, «He will send forth his armies 
and destroy those murderers, and burn up their city.” 

3. Observe, that they who had accused} our Saviour and 
his disciples of polluting and of designing to destroy this 
temple, were the very men who did horribly pollute it with 
the blood of Jews and gentiles, and even forced the Ro- 
mans to destroy it; “they hastened the slow fire,” saith 
their own Josephus,§ “and even drew it to the temple ;” 
the inflammation of it, saith he, “had both the cause and 
the beginning of it from themselves,” the providence of 
God still ordering matters so, that they should bring upon 
themselves those evils of which they falsely did accuse 
our Lord and his apostles. 

Secondly, Our Lord foretells with like exactness and 
particularity the ruin of their famous city, declaring (Luke 
xxi. 54), that “Jerusalem should be trodden down of the 
gentiles, until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled ;” and 
again, “the days,” saith he, “shall come upon thee, that 
thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass 
thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay 
thee even with the ground, and shall not leave in thee 
one stone upon another” (Luke xix. 43, 44). Now, that 
the event completely answered to these plain predictions, 
is evident from their own historian, who doth expressly 
say,|| “ Titus having commanded his soldiers to dig up the 
city and the temple, this was so fully done, by levelling 
the whole compass of the city, except three towers, that 
they who came to see it were persuaded it never would be 
built again. The same historian§ informs us, that when 
Vespasian besieged Jerusalem, his army “compassed the 
city round about, and kept them in on every side,” and 
though it was judged a great and almost impracticable 
work, to compass the whole city with a wall, “yet Titus 
animating his soldiers to attempt it, they in three days 
built a wall of thirty-nine furlongs, having thirteen castles 
on it; and so cut off all hopes that any of the Jews within 
the city should escape.” 

Thirdly, Whereas our Saviour saith, “ Jerusalem shall 
be trodden down, πατουμένη, possessed,” and trodden by the 
feet of the gentiles, this so exactly came to pass, that Ves- 
pasian,** (1.) commands the whole land of Judea to be 
sold to those gentiles that would buy it; and (2.) Ha- 


* Τηρήσω τὸν ναὸν ὑμῖν καὶ μὴ ϑέλουσι, lib. vii. cap. 10, p. 
949, G. 990, A. Καταφλέξειν πότε τηλικοῦτον ἔργον, cap. 24, 
Ρ. 957, τὸ mip σβεννύειν, cap. 26, p. 958, A,B,C,D. 

T Ὃ μὲν οὖν ναὸς οὕτως ἄκοντος Καίσαρος ἐμπιπρᾶται, cap. 26, 
Ρ. 958, F. Θεὸς ἄρα Θεὸς αὑτὸς ἐπάγει μετὰ Ῥωμαίων καϑάρσιον 
αὐτῷ πῦρ, cap. 8, p. 948, F. 

+ Mark xiv. 58, xv. 29, Acts vi. 13, xxi. 28, xxiv. 6. 

§ Καὶ μόνον οὐχ et\xvoay ἐπὶ τὸν ναὸν βράδυνον πῦρ, lib. vi. 
cap. 27, p. 933, Β. Λαμβάνουσι δ' αἱ φλύγες ἐκ τῶν οἰκείων τὴν 
ἀρχὴν καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν, lib. vii. cap. 26, p. 957, E. 

|| Τὸν δὲ ἄλλον ἅπαντα τῆς πόλεως περίβολον οὕτως ἐξωμάλισαν 
οἱ κατασκάπτοντες, ὡς μῆδε πώποτε οἰκηθῆναι πίστιν ἂν ἔτι 
mapacxetr τοῖς προσελϑοῦσι, lib. vii. cap. 1, p. 970, Β, C. 

Tots dé οὔπω τὰ Ρωμαίων φρονοῦντας εἶργεν ἡ στρατία παντα- 
χόϑεν τὴ" πόλιν περιέχουσα, lib. v. cap. 26, p. 893, Β. Περι- 
τειχίζειν ὅλην τὴν πύχιν μέγα καὶ δυσῆνυτον τὸ ἔργον, lib. vi. cap. 
31, p. 936, F. Τὸ μὲν οὖν τεῖχος ἑνὸς déovrog τεσσαράκοντα στα- 
δίων ἢν----τρισὶ δ᾽ φὠκοδομήϑη τὸ πᾶν ἡμέραις. hid. p. 937, B. 

ἘΣ Πᾶσαν γῆν ἀποδύ;ϑαι τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων, lib, vii. cap. 27, p. 983. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


drian,* about sixty-three years after, makes a law “that no 
Jew should come into the region round about Jerusalem,” 
as Aristo Pelleus, who was himself a Jew, and flourished in 
the times of Hadrian, relates : thus, saith Eusebius,+ it came 
to pass, that the “Jews being banished thence, and there 
being a conflux thither ἀλλοφύλου γένους, of aliens, it became 
a city and colony of the Romans, and was in honour of the 
emperor named Ailia.” (3.) Jerusalem, saith Christ, shall 
be thus trodden down, or subject to the gentiles, «till the 
time of the gentiles be fulfilled ;” that is, till, by conversion 
of the Jews unto the Christian faith, the fulness of the 
gentiles, to be converted to it, should come in with them; 
“ for blindness” saith the apostle “hath happened to the 
Jews, till πλήρωμα τῶν ἔθνων, the fulness of the gentiles shall 
come in, and then all Israel shall be saved” (Rom. xi. 25, 
26), and with them also the yet heathen gentiles; «for if,” 
saith he (ver. 15), “the casting away of the Jews was the 
reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them 
be to it, but even life for the dead?”’ And again, “if the 
fall of them were the riches of the world” (ver. 12), «and 
the diminishing of them the riches of the gentiles, how 
much more shall their fulness be” the fulness of the gen- 
tiles? Now here it is especially observable, that Julian 
the Apostate, designing to defeat this prophecy of Christ, 
resolved on the rebuilding of the city and temple of Jeru- 
salem in its old station, which was till his time left in its 
ruins, #lia being built without the circuit of it; for in 
his epistlet to the community of the Jews, he writes thus, 
“The holy city of Jerusalem, which you have so long de- 
sired to see inhabited, rebuilding by my own labours, I 
will dwell in.’ This he began with an endeavour to build 
that temple, in which alone the Jews would offer up their 
prayers and sacrifices, but the immediate hand of Provi- 
dence soon forced the workmen to desist from that un- 
happy enterprise. Ammianus Marcellinus,§ a heathen, 
who lived in those very times, gives us the story thus,— 
That “Julian endeavoured to rebuild the temple at Jeru- 
salem with vast expenses, and gave it in charge to Aly- 
pius of Antioch to hasten the work, and to the rector of 
the province to assist him in it ; in which work, when Aly- 
pius was earnestly employed, and the rector of the province 
was assisting, terrible balls of flames bursting forth near the 
foundations, with frequent insults, and burning divers times 
the workmen, rendered the place inaccessible ; and thus the 
fire obstinately repelling them, the work ceased.” The story 
is very signal and remarkable for many circumstances; as, 
Ve g 
1. The persons that relate it—Ammianus Marcellinus, 
a heathen, Zemuch David, a Jew, who confesseth that Ju- 
lian was divinitis impeditus, “ hindered by God,” in this 
attempt: Nazianzen and Chrysostom among the Greeks, 
St. Ambrose and Ruffinus among the Latins, who flou- 
rished at the very time when this was done: Theodoret, 
and Sozomen, orthodox historians, Philostorgius,an Arian, 
Socrates, a favourer of the Novatians, who writ the story 
within the space of fifty years after the thing was done, 
and whilst the eye-witnesses of the fact were yet surviving. 

2. The time when it was performed, not in the reign 
of Christian emperors, but of the most bitter enemies of 
Christians, when they were forced to hide, and had not 
liberty of speaking for themselves. Observe, 

3. With what confidence the Christians urge the matter 
of fact against the Jews, as a convincing demonstration of 
the expiration of their legal worship, and of the certainty of 


* Πᾶν ἔϑνος ἐξ ἐκείνου καὶ τῆς περὶ τὰ 'Ἱεροσόλυμα γῆς πάμπαν 
ἐπιβαίνειν εἴργεται. Euseb. H. Eccl. lib, xxi. cap. 6. 

1 Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 6. 

+ Τὴν ἐκ πολλῶν ἐτῶν ἐπιθυμουμένην rap’ ὑμῖν, οἰκουμένην 
πύλιν ἁγίαν “Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐμοῖς καμάτοις ἀνυικοδομήσας οἰκήσω. 
Ιουδαίων τῷ κοίνῳ. Ep. 25. 

§ Ambitiosum quoddam templum apud Hierosolymam 
sumptibus immodicis instaurare cogitabat, negotiumque 
maturandum Alypio dederat Antiochensi; cim itaque rei 
idem fortitér instaret Alypius, juvaretque provincie rector, 
metuendi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebris in- 
sultibus erumpentes, locum, exustis aliquoties operantibus, 
inaeccessum fecére, hocque modo, elemento obstinatitis re- 
pellente, cessavit inceptum,—lib. xxiii. ab initio, , 


THE GENERAL PREFACE, 


the Christian faith against the heathen philosophers, inquir- 
ing,* “what the wise men of the world can say to these 
things ;” and against the emperor Theodosius,t to deter him 
from requiring them to rebuild the synagogue, which had 
been lately burnt by a Christian bishop. 

4. And, lastly, the unquestionable evidence of the thing. 
This, say the Christians,} “all men freely do believe and 
speak of, it is in the mouths of all men, and is not denied 
even by the atheists themselves; and if it seem yet incredible 
to any one, he may repair for the truth of it both to wit- 
nesses of it yet living, and to them who have heard it from 
their mouths; yea, they may view the foundations lying 
still bare and naked ;§ and if you ask the reason, you will 
meet with no other account besides that which I have given; 
and of this all we Christians are witnesses, these things being 
done not long since in our own time.” So St. Chrysostom. 

Thirdly, Our blessed Lord is as express and circumstan- 
tial in the prediction of the miseries which should befall that 
sinful nation. For, 

1. He in the general foretells that their calamities shall 
be so great as to admit no parallel; “There shall be,” saith 
he, “ great tribulation, such as never happened from the be- 
ginning of the world to this (present) time” (Matt. xxiv. 
21). Which words] Josephus seems to have transcribed, 
when he saith that “never any nation was more wicked, μῆτε 
πόλιν ἄλλην τοιαῦτα πεπονθέναι, nor ever did a city suffer as 
they did.” He was no stranger to the history of the destruc- 
tion of the old world by water, or of Sodom and Gomorrah 
by fire from heaven, or to the sufferings of his own nation 
under Antiochus Epiphanes, and yet he scruples not to say, 
that¥ “all the miseries which all mankind had suffered from 
the beginning of the world, were not to be compared with 
those the Jewish nation did then suffer.” 

2. Our Saviour adds, that in those days “the sun shall be 
darkened, and the moon shall not give her light; and the 
stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers of heaven shall 
be shaken” (Mark xiii. 14). These, I confess, are meta- 
phorical expressions, occurring often in the prophets, but 
still in the same sense; viz. to signify an utter desolation, 
and terrible havoc and destruction brought upon a nation : 
for in this language the prophet Isaiah speaks of the destruc- 
tion of Babylon, saying (xiii. 9,10), “The day of the 
Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay 
the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof 
out of it: for the stars of heaven and the constellations 
thereof shall not give their light, the sun shall be darkened 
in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to 
shine :”’ of the destruction of Idumea he speaks thus (xxxiv. 
2. 5), “The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, he 
hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the 
slaughter, the mountains shall be melted with their blood, 
and all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heaven 
shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall 
fall down as the leaf falleth from the vine :”’ the destruction of 


* "Erc οὖν ἁμφισϑητεῖς, ὦ Ἰουδαῖε, καὶ τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ Χρισ- 
τοῦ προῤῥήσεως, καὶ τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν πραγμάτων ἀποδείξεως μαρ- 
τυρίαν cov ὁρῶν καταψη ῥιζομένην ; Chrys. Hom. 2 in Jud. tom. 
vi. p. 335, et Hom. 60, p. 639. Πρὸς ταῦτα τί φήσουσιν οἱ 
αἰῶνος τοῦ robrov σοφοί; Nazianz. Stelit. p- 83. 

{ Non audisti, imperator quia ctim jussisset Julianus 
reparari templum Hierosolymis, quod divino, qui faciebant 
repagulum, igne conflagrarunt? Epist. lib. v. epist. 29. 

+ Τὸ δ' οὖν περιβόητον πᾶσι θαῦμα, καὶ οὐδὲ τοῖς ἀθέοις αὐτοῖς 
ἀπιστούμενον λέζων ἔρχομαι, Soz. p. 81. ὍὋ δὲ ἅπαντες ἤδη καὶ 
λέγουσι, καὶ πιστεύουσιν, p. 83, Καὶ τοῦτο πρὸς πάντων ἀδεῶς 
λέγεται, καὶ πιστεύεται, καὶ παρ' οὐδενὸς ἀμφιβάλλεται" ταῦτα 
ὅτῳ πιστά οὐ καταφαίνεται, πιστούσθωσαν οἱ παρὰ τῶν ϑεασαμένων 
ἁκηκοάτες ἔτι τῷ Bud περίοντες, πιστούσϑωσαν δὲ καὶ ᾿Ιουδαίοι καὶ 
“Ἕλληνες ἡμιτελὲς τὸ ἔργον καταλίποντες. Soz. Hist. Eccl. lib. 
y. cap. 22, p. 632, D. 633, B. 

§ Kai νῦν ἐὰν ἐλϑῆς εἰς ᾿Ιεροσόλυμα, γυμνὰ ὄψει τὰ ϑεμέλια" 
κἂν τὴν αἰτίαν ζητήσεις, οὐδεμίαν ἀλλ' ἢ ταύτην ἀκούσεις, καὶ τούτου 
μάρτυρες ἡμεῖς πάντες" ἐφ' ἡμῶν γὰρ οὐ πρὸ πολλοῦ ταῦτα γέγονε 
χρόνου. Chrys. adv. Jud. Orat. 2, p. 394. 

| Lib. vi. cap. 27, p. 933, B. 

4 Τὰ γοῦν πάντων dx’ αἰῶνος ἀτυχήματα πρὸς τὰ ᾿Ιουδαίων 
ἠττᾶσθαί μοι δοκεῖ κατὰ σύγκρισιν. Proleg. ad Bell. Jud. p. 
706, 1). 


21 


Egypt is represented by Ezekiel in these words (xxxii. 7, 8), 
«Τ will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark ; 
I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not 
give her light, and the bright lights of heaven will I make 
dark over thee:” this therefore (saith reser ps a isa 
proverbial expression, “importing the destruction and utter 
ruin of a nation.” “The sun darkened or turned into 
blood, and the stars falling, or disappearing,” saith Artemi- 
dorus,f “import the destruction of many people.” Now in 
this sense it is almost incredible which their historian relates 
of the destruction of the Jews; for he informs us that 
“eleven hundred thousand perished in that siege;’’} and it 
is still more incredible which their Talmud and other Jew- 
ish writers mention of this slaughter, which Hadrian’s§ army 
made of them fifty-two years after, when they rebelled 
under Barchochebas, and were besieged in the city Bitter, 
the most modest computation being quatuor mille myriadas, 
and the most extravagant, octoginta mille inyriadas. And 
yet our Saviour having farther said, that “ wherever the car- 
case was,” i. e. the nation of the Jews, rejected now and 
loathed by God as a dead carcase, “ there would the eagles,” 
i.e. the Roman army, “be gathered together,” to prey upon 
them (Matt. xxiv. 28, Luke xvii. 37) ; they were accordingly 
harassed and destroyed throughout the Roman empire; 
when, saith Josephus, the Romans had no enemies left in 
Judea, “the sense and danger reached, πολλοῖς καὶ τῶν dru 
τάτω κατοικούντων, to many of them living the remotest from 
it;” for many of them perished at Alexandria, at Cyrene, 
and in other cities of Syria; in a word, Eleazar§ in Jose- 
phus, having reckoned many places where they were cruelly 
slaughtered, concludes thus, μακρὸν ἂν εἴη viv ἰδίᾳ περὶ ἑκάστον 
λέγειν, “it would be too long to speak of all these places in 
particular.” 

Again our Saviour adds, that “they should be led captives 
into all nations” Luke xxi. 24); accordingly Josephus** 
doth inform us, that “the number of their captives was 
ninety-seven thousand,” that of them “Titus sent many to 
Egypt, and most of them he dispersed into the Roman pro- 
vinces,” and so exactly fulfilled this prediction. 

Fourthly, Our Lord foretells the “many signs” preced- 
ing this destruction, declaring that there should be φοβητρὰ, 
“fearful events, or sights, earthquakes, and signs from hea- 
ven” (Luke xxi. 11). Now to omit the frequent earth- 
quakes which happened in other places in the times of Clau- 
dius and Nero, Josephus{} doth inform us, that there hap- _ 
pened in Judea and Jerusalem, “an immense tempest and 
vehement winds, with rain, and frequent lightnings, and 
dreadful thundering, and extreme roarings of the quaking 
earth, which manifested to all, that the world was disturbed 
at the destruction of men,” and that these prodigies por- 
tended no small mischiefs. Josephusi+ has a select chapter 
of the manifest signs of their approaching desolation, which 
Tacitus,$§ a Roman historian of that age, doth almost thus 


* Quando vyaticinatur Esaias de gentis alicujus destruc- 
tione. vel de populi alicujus magni interitd, ait stellas 
cecidisse, ccelos interiisse, et contremiscere solem obscura- 
tum, terram vastatam et commotam esse. More Nevoch. 
Ρ. 265, 266. 

{ Ἥλιος ἁμαυρὸς ἢ ὕφαιμος----καταπίπτοντες ἐπὶ γῆν of ἁστέρες ἣ 
ἀφανιζόμενοι πολλῶν ὄλεθρον μαντεύονται. Oneirocrit. lib. i. cap. 36. 

$ Τῶν δὲ ἀπολλυμένων κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν πολιορκίαν μυριάδες ἕκατον 
καὶ δέκα, lib. vii. cap. 45, p. 968, D. 

§ Buxt. in voce Bitter. 

| Lib. vii. cap. 36, p. 99, A. et cap. 37, ibid. cap. 38, p. 996. 

4 Cap. 34. p. 992. 

** Tos δέ λοιποῦ πλήθους τοὺς ὑπὲρ Exraxaidexa ἔτη δήσας 
ἐπέμψε cis τὰ κατ᾽ Αἰγύπτου ἔργα, πλείστους δὲ εἰς τὰς ἐπαρχίας 
διεδωρήσατο Τίτος, lib. vii. cap. 44, 45, p. 968, C, D. 

TH Καὶ συνεχεῖς ἀστραπταὶ, βρονταί τε φρικώδεις, καὶ μυκήματα 
τῆς γῆς σειομένης ἐξαίσια. Πρύδηλον δ' ἦν ἐπ᾽ ἀνθρύπων ὀλέθρῳ τὸ 
κατάστημα τῶν ὕλων συγκεχυμένον καὶ οὐχὶ μικροῦ τις ἂν εἰκάσαι 
συμπτώματος τὰ τέρατα, lib. iv. cap. 17, p. 881, A, B. 

+¢ Lib. vii. cap. 31. 

§§ Evenerant prodigia, vise per ccelum concurrere acies, 
rutilantia arma, et subito nubium igne collucere templum, 
expasse repente delubri fores, et audita major humana vox 
excedere Deos, et simul ingens motus excedentium. Hist. 
lib. v. p. 621. 


22 


epitomize; “Armies seemed to meet in the clouds, and 
glittering weapons were there scen; the temple seemed to 
be in a flame, with fire issuing from the clouds, and a divine 
voice was heard, that the Deity was quitting the place, and 
a great motion as of his departing :” these seem plain tokens 
of God’s departing from them, of the burning of the temple, 
and their own desolation by the Roman army. Josephus 
adds what Tacitus doth also touch upon, that the great gate 
of the temple, which twenty men could scarcely shut, and 
which was made fast with bolts and bars, was seen αὐτομάτως 
ἀνεῳγμένη, “to open of its own accord, to let in their ene- 
mies;” for so their wise men construed the omen, saith 
Josephus. He farther saith,* a sword seemed to hang over 
the city, and a comet with its fiery tail pointed down upon 
it for a whole year, which plainly seemed to portend their 
ruin by the sword. And {Πα} “before the sun went down, 
there were seen in the clouds armies in battle array, and 
chariots compassing the country, and investing the cities; a 
thing so strange,” saith he, “that it would pass for a fable, 
were there not still men living to attest it;” so expressly 
have we an account of the fearful sights, and signs from hea- 
ven, mentioned by our Lord, and of the “sign of the Son 
of man coming in the clouds of heaven, μετὰ δυνάμεως καὶ 
ἑόζης, with a glorious host, or with power and glory ;” ac- 
cording to our Lord’s prediction, Matt. xxiv. 30. 
Secondly, Our Lord proceeds to say, that “ false Christs 
and false prophets should arise, and that many should come 
in his name, saying, I am Christ, and should deceiye many” 
(Matt. xxiv. 5.11, Mark xiii. 6, 21, 22, Luke xxi. 8). 
“False Christs” are they who falsely would pretend to be 
the Christ or the Messiah promised to the Jews: now such 
were, 1. Simon Magus,+ who declared that he was the per- 
son who among the Jews “appeared as the son of God, and 
was conceived to have suffered in Judea; and§ he prevailed 
for a time to deceive some with his magical operations.” 
2. Dositheus,|| contemporary with him, who said “ he was 
the Christ foretold by Moses, and the son of God, and he 
also found disciples ;” and is by Origen reckoned among 
them who performed wonderful things: from these, saith 
Hegesippus, came false Christs and false prophets: there 
arose, saith Hippolytus,{ “some saying, I am Christ, as 
Simon Magus, and the rest, whose names I have not time to 
reckon up:” and these all, saith Ireneus,** magias perfi- 
ciunt, exorcismis et incantationibus utuntur, “use magical 
operations, exorcisms, and incantations.” Our Lord also 
foretold of another that should “come in his own name” 
(John v. 43); that is, without authority from God, and be 
received by the Jews as their Messiah : accordingly Barcho- 
cheba did actually thus come, as appears both from the event 
and destruction of him and his followers by Hadrian’s army ; 
and by the confession of the Jews, who when they found 
themselves deceived by him, called him Bar Choziba, the 
“son of a lie.” And that he was generally received by 
them, we learn from their own histories, declaring that their 
great R. Akiba, who had twenty-four thousand disciples, 


Ἐ 'γπὲρ τὴν πόλιν ἄστρον ἔστη ῥομφαίᾳ παραπλήσιον, καὶ παρα- 
τεῖνας ἐπ᾿ ἐνιαυτὸν κομήτης, lib. vii. cap. 18. 

ἡ Πρὸ γὰρ ἡλίου δύσεως ὥφθη μετέωρα παρὰ πᾶσαν τὴν χώραν, 
ἅρματα καὶ φάλαγγες ἔνοπλοι διάττουσαι τῶν νέφων, καὶ κυκλουμέναι 
τὰς πόλεις, ibid. p. 990, G. 

+ Simon Samarites—universam magiam amplits inscru- 
tans ita ut in stuporem cogeret multos hominum—docuit 
seipsum esse qui inter Judeos quidem quasi Filius ap- 
paruerit—passum autem in Judeis putatum, cim non 
esset passus. Iren. lib. i. cap. 20. 

§ Kai τότε μέν ἡπάτησε. Orig. contr. Celsum, lib. i. 
p. 44. 

| Σίμων τὲ Σαμαρεὺς Μάγος καὶ Δοσίθεος---- μὲν ἔφασκεν αὐτὸν 
εἶναι δύναμιν Θεοῦ, τὴν καλουμένην μεγάλην, ὃ δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς υἱὸς τοῦ 
Θεοῦ, lib. vi. Pp, 282. Ὅτι αὐτὸς εἴη ὁ προφητευύμενος ὑπὸ ΜΙώσεως 
Χριστὸς, καὶ ἔδοξε τίνων τῇ ἑαυτοῦ διδασκαλίᾳ κεκρατηκέναι, lib. i. 
cap. 14. Habentes in se etiam quasdam virtutes mirandas. 
Hom. 27. in Matt. f. 52, G. ᾿Απὸ τούτων ψευδύχριστοι καὶ 
ψευδοπροφῆται, Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 22. 

Ἵ ᾿Ανέστησάν τινες λέγοντες, ἐγὼ εἶμι ὃ Χριστὸς, παθὼς ὑ Σίμων 
ὃ Μάγος, καὶ οἱ λοιποί. De Consum. Mundi. 

** Lib. i. cap. 20. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


said, at the sight of him, “Behold, this is the Messiah ;” 
and that then the Jews in the city Bitter crowned him, 
and chose him for their king, and shook off the Roman go- 
vernment, killing an innumerable multitude of Greeks and 
Romans, in Eeypt, Alexandria, Cyprus, and thereabouts ; 
until Trajan sent Hadrian against them, who slew more of 
them, say they, than Titus had done in the preceding wars 
(see Buxtorf in voce Bar Choziba). 

As for the false prophets,* Josephus tells us of an “ Egyp- 
tian false prophet and magician, who gathered together about 
thirty thousand of the Jews, whom he had deceived ;” and 
of one “'Theudas,t a magician, who, declaring Himself a 
prophet, deceived many ;” of another prophet,+ “ who bid 
them go into the temple, where God would show them ma- 
nifest signs of a deliverance ;” adding, that there were then 
πολλοὶ προφῆται, “many prophets, who taught them even to 
the last to expect help from God.” Our Saviour had fore- 
told, that they should then say, “Behold, he is in the de- 
sert” (Matt. xxiv. 26): pointing to the very place where 
these false Christs and prophets should appear; or whither 
they should lead their followers. Accordingly, Josephus§ 
saith, “that many impostors and magicians persuaded the 
people to follow them into the wilderness, where they pro- 
mised to show them manifest signs and wonders done by 
God ;” pretending a divine impulse, and promising deliver- 
ance from evils, if they would follow them into the wilder- 
ness. 

Thirdly, Our Lord foretells, that his gospel should be first 
preached throughout the world, i. 6. throughout the Roman 
empire, styled οἰκουμένη, or in all places whither the Jews 
were dispersed ; for, saith he, “'The gospel of this kingdom 
shall be first preached in all the world for a witness to all 
nations, and then shall the end come” (Matt. xxiv. 14). 
Accordingly St. Paul declares of them, who preached the 
gospel of peace, that “their sound had gone forth into all 
the earth” (Rom. x. 18), “and their words, εἰς πέρατα τῆς 
οἰκουμένης, to the ends of the earth.” He tells the church 
of Rome, that “their faith was spoken of throughout the 
whole world” (Rom. i. 8), the church of Colosse, that 
“the truth of the gospel was come, not to them only, but 
to all the world,:and preached to every creature” (i. 6. 23). 
St. Clemens, who was bishop of Rome in the twelfth yeaz 
of Domitian, saith, «That the nations beyond the ocean 
were governed, ταῖς ἐπιταγαῖς τοῦ Δεσπότου, by the precepts of 
the Lord.” Origen§ speaks of the Christians as of a nation 
“born all at once.” Eusebius** saith, “The word of God 
shone suddenly upon the world as a ray of the sun, and was 
on that account styled by the very heathens, ἡ κρατοῦσα 
dJaxh,¢t the prevailing doctrine ;” and the Christians, by 
Julian the apostate, are styled of κρατοῦντες, “ the prevailing 
sect” (Misopog. p. 99). 

Fourthly, He mentions the especial care he would then 
have of his own faithful servants, declaring, that “they who 
endured to the end should be saved” (Matt. xxiv. 13), and 
that “not one hair of their heads should perish” (Luke xxi. 
11); i.e. that none of them should be involved in that 
ruin, which was to come upon the unbelieving Jews: ac- 


* Περὶ τρισμυρίους μὲν ἀθροίζει τῶν ἡπατημένων, lib. ii. cap. 23, 
p- 797, A. Ant. lib. xx. cap. 6. 

if Τότε τις ἀνὴρ Θευδὰς ὀνόματι πολλοὺς ἠπάτησεν, προφήτης yap 
ἔλεγεν εἶναι. Antiq. lib. xx. cap, 2, p. 689, G. 690, A. 

+ Ψευξοπροφήτης τίς κατέστη Kar’ Exeivny κηρύξας Thy ἡμέραν ὡς ὃ 
Θεὸς ἐπὶ τὸ ἱερὸν ἀναβῆναι κελεῦει δεζομένους τῆς σωτηρίας. De 
Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30. p. 960, A, B. 

§ Οἱ δὲ γόητες καὶ ἀπατεῶνες ἄνθρωποι τὸν ὄχλον ἔπειθον αὐτοῖς 
εἰς τὴν ἐρημίαν ἕπεσθαι" δείξειν γὰρ ἔφασαν ἐναργῆ τέρατα, καὶ 
σημεῖα κατὰ τὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ πρόνοιαν γενομένα. Antiq. lib. xx. 
cap. 6, p. 960, E. πΠροσχήματι θειασμοῦ δαιμονᾶν τὸ πλῆθος 
ἀνέπειθον καὶ προῆγον eis τὴν ἐρημίαν. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 
23, p. 796, G. Ei βουληθεῖεν ἕπεσθαι pexpi τῆς ἐρημίας αὐτῷ. 
Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 7, p. 697, B. 

| Ep. ad Cor. sect. 20. 

4 Τὸ κατὰ τὴν ἀθρύαν γένεσιν ἔθνους Χριστιανῶν ὡσπερεὶ τεχθέν- 
τὸς εἰσάπαξ. In Celsum, lib. viii. p. 405. 

** Ola τις ἡλίου Gon τὴν σύμπασαν οἰκουμένην ὃ Σωτήριος 
κατηύγαζε Aéyos. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 3. 

{{ Prep. Evang. lib. ix. eap. 10. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


cordingly, Eusebius* and Epiphaniust have left it upon re- 
cord, that “before the beginning of the war, when the city 
was ready to be taken, the disciples of our Lord were ad- 
monished by an angel, or by an oracle, to depart from the 
city, and to fly beyond Jordan, to the city Pella, in the re- 
gion of Perea, where they were preserved.” ‘This refers to 
the time when Cestius came to Jerusalem, and took the 
lower city, and, saith Josephus, “ might have taken the up- 
per city, and have presently put an end to the war;” and 
so punctually agrees with our Lord’s premonition, “ When 
you see Jerusalem compassed about with armies, and the 
abomination of desolation standing where it ought not (viz. 
in the holy city), then let them that are in Judea flee to the 
mountains” (Matt. xxiv. 15, Mark xiii. 14, Luke xxi. 20, 
21). But that the Christians might have time to fly and be 
preserved, he suddenly quits the siege without any visible 
cause, and so gives the Christians leave to depart: and even 
Josephus} notes, that “then many fled out of the city as 
from a sinking ship;” and, of that number, doubtless the 
Christians made a part. That they then fled into the moun- 
tains, may also be observed from Josephus; for of Perea, 
whither they are said to fly, he saith, that it was ἔρημος καὶ 
τραχεῖα τὸ mAéov,§ “mostly mountainous and a desert;” 
and, being beyond Jordan, and under the government of 
king Agrippa, was free from war. 

Lastly, Our Saviour fixed the period of time within which 
all these things should happen, in these words, “ Verily I 
say unto you, this generation shall not pass away until all 
these things be fulfilled” (Matt. xxiv. 34). Accordingly, they 
were all fulfilled within forty-two years after they had been 
spoken. In fine, he hath specified the very reason why all 
these things should come upon Jerusalem; viz. because “ she 
knew not the time of her visitation, and the things which did 
belong unto her peace” (Luke xix. 42.44): “because she 
killed the prophets, and stoned them that were sent unto 
her” (xiii. 34): “because they killed the Son of God” 
Cue xx. 38). This hath been gathered by the primitive 
athers; First, From the continuation of this desolation, by 
which wrath seemeth “to be come upon them to the utter- 
most:” for whereas they wandered in the wilderness but 
forty years, and their captivity in Babylon continued but 
seventy years, since the rejection of our Jesus, they have 
been visibly cast off by God for sixteen hundred years and 
upwards. Secondly, From the nature of the punishments 
they suffered; for God having so long time laid waste that 
temple to which their worship was confined, and was the 
place in which he dwelt among them, and from which he 
blessed them, and so deprived them of those sacrifices by 
which they made atonement for their sins, and were purified 
from their uncleanness, and banished them out of the land of 
promise, hath by these dispensations fully shown, that he no 
longer doth allow that way of worship, which was confined 
to that nation and that temple. Thirdly, From the conse- 
quences of these judgments, and from their ignorance of 
any time of respite and deliverance from them. For God 
by his prophets was pleased to foretell the measure and du- 
ration of their former judgments, and when they should give 
place to mercy ; that their Egyptian thraldom should expire 
in two hundred and fifteen years after their going down to 
Egypt; that after seventy years they should return from 
Babylon, that three years and a half would work deliver- 
ance from the more cruel fury of Antiochus Epiphanes; 
but of their deliverance from the calamities they now lie 


* Τοῦ λάου τῶν ἐν ἹἹεροσολύμοις ἐκκλησίας κατὰ τίνα χρησμὸν 
τοῖς αὐτόθι ἑοκίμοις δι ἀποκαλύψεως δοθέντα πρὸ τοῦ πολέμου 
μεταναστῆναι τῆς πύλεως καὶ τίνα τῆς Περαίας πόλιν οἰκεῖν κεκα- 
λευσμένου. Πέλλαν αὐτὴν ὀνομάζουσιν. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 
iii. cap. 5. 

T Ἡνίκα yap ἔμελλεν ἢ πόλις ἁλίσκεσϑαι ὑπὸ τῶν “Ρωμαίων, 
προεχρηματίσθησαν ὑπὸ ἀγγέλου πάντες of μαθηταὶ μεταστῆναι ἀπὸ 
τῆς πόλεως, μελλούσης ἄρδην ἀπόλλυσθαι" οἵτινες καὶ μετανάσται 
γενόμενοι (ἄκησαν ἐν Πέλλη τῇ προγεγραμμένῃ πόλει πέραν τοῦ 
Ἰορδάνου. Epiph. de Mens. et Pond. §. 15, et de Her. Na- 
zaren. §. 7. 

+ Ἤδη dé πολλοὶ διεδίδρασκον ἀπὸ τῆς πόλεως ὡς ἁλωσομένης 
αὐτίκα. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 39, 40, C, Ὁ. cap. 40, 
p- 821, F. “Ὥσπερ τῆς βαπτιζομένης νεώς. 

§ Lib. iii. cap. 4, p. 833, B. 


23 


under, by any other way than that of turning to the Lord, 
there is no word of prophecy. In a word they are utterly 
deprived of their Shechinah, their prophets, and all the 
other tokens of God’s peculiar presence with them; after 
this sin, God did entirely desert them, and transfer his Holy 
Spirit, his prophets, his revelations, his miracles, to those 
assemblies which embraced that Jesus as their Saviour, 
whom they had wickedly condemned as an impostor; which 
shows their church and temple were destroyed to give place 
to Christianity. Moreover, that, after their rejecting our 
Messiah, they were by God appointed to destruction, they 
who were the great promoters, or were eye-witnesses of 
that war, which brought upon them these calamities, were 
forced to confess. Eleazar,* one of their great captains, 
declared, that “God had established this decree against 
them, that they should not live ;” that he had laid a neces- 
sity upon them, that they should die, and that they might 
not only conjecture, but even know, by what they suffered, 
that God had condemned his once beloved nation to destruc- 
tion. Josephust is frequent in this observation: when Cestius 
besieged them, “he might have taken the city,” saith he, 
“and put an end to the war, but that διὰ τοὺς πονηροὺς ἀπεστραμ- 
μένος 6 Θεὸς, God, being angry with them for the wicked, hin- 
dered it.” When he was persuading them to yield to the 
Romans, he concludes thus;} “ Why do I persuade them 
against their fate, καὶ rods ὑπὸ Θεοῦ βιάζομαι κατακρίτους σώζειν, 
and strive to save them, who are condemned of God? for, 
who knows not the writings of the old prophets, καὶ τὸν 
ἐπιῤῥέποντα τῇ ἐλεήμονι πόλει χρησμὸν ἤδη ἐνεστῶτα, and the 
oracle impendent on the miserable city, to be instant? 
Θεὸς ἄρα Θεῦς αὐτὸς ἐπάγει, God, even God himself, brings 
upon them this purging fire, and with it burns up the city 
so full of wickedness :§ God,” saith he, “had condemned 
their city to the fire; they attended not,” saith he, “nor 
gave credit] rots ἐναργέσι, και προσημαίνουσι τὴν μέλλουσαν 
ἐρημίαν τέρασιν, to the manifest signs portending their future 
desolation ;” and he brings in Titus speaking to his sol- 
diers thus ;’§ that “God favoured them in the war against 
the Jews;’ their famine, sedition, and the fall of their walls 
without any machine, being nothing else but Θεοῦ μῆνις, “a 
demonstration of the wrath of God against them.” Now 
our Lord having so expressly said, that God would “ mi- 
serably destroy those husbandmen, for casting his Son out 
of the vineyard, and slaying him” (Matt. xxi. 3742) ; and 
that the guilt of the blood of all his prophets, from righteous 
“« Abel to that generation, should be charged upon them, 
because they would persecute and kill those apostles, pro- 
phets, and wise men he would send unto them, and so fill 
up the measure of their sins” (Matt. xxili. 32—36), we 
Christians cannot doubt, but that these dreadful judgments 
came upon them on this account. 

This also may be farther argued from the exactness of 
the parallel betwixt the punishments which they inflicted 
on the holy Jesus, and those they after suffered for so 
doing ; and betwixt the crimes, for which they did con- 
demn our blessed Lord, and those which they themselves 
were after guilty of, and for which tremendous judgments 
fell upon them. For, 

1. Whereas they by their clamours to Pontius Pilate 
“crucified the Lord of life,’ they, many of them, perished 
by the same kind of death; for many Jews of the eques- 
trian order, and of Roman dignity, were treated thus by 
Florus,** saith their own historian; and “ Titus crucified 
so many of them, that he at last could find no more crosses 
for their bodies.” 

2. They crucified him at the feast of the Passover; and, 
being the true paschal Lamb, he expired at the very hour 
when the paschal lamb was to be slain ; but then their own 
Josephus}+ hath observed, that “at that very feast the whole 


* Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vii. p. 992, 993. 

{ Lib. ii. cap. 29, p. 280. + Lib. vii. cap. 8, p. 948. 

§ Ibid. cap. 26. {| Cap. 30. « Ibid cap. 4. 

ἘΞ Φλῶρος ἐτύλμησεν ἄνδρας ἱππικοῦ τάγματος μαστιγῶσαι πρὸ 
τοῦ βήματος καὶ σταυρῷ προσηλῶσαι, lib. ii. cap. 25. Καὶ διὰ τὸ 
πλῆθος χώρα τε ἐνελείπετο τοῖς σταυροῖς, καὶ σταυροὶ τοῖς σώμασιν, 
lib. vi. cap. 12. Sub Felice τῶν ἀνασταυρηϑέντων ἄπειρόν τι 
πλῆθος ἥν, lib. ii. cap. 29, 

tt Tore ye μὴν ὥσπερ εἰς εἱρκτὴν ὑπὸ τῆς εἱμαρμένης πᾶν συν- 


24 THE GENERAL PREFACE. 


nation was enclosed in Jerusalem, and that the war com- | “they had a prophecy that one of their country should then 


passed the city when it was thus stuffed with men, and so 
the slaughter of them became incredibly great. God’s pro- 
vidence,” which he styles fate, “so ordering matters,” saith 
Eusebius,* “that at that time, when they had crucified the 
holy Jesus, they, being shut up all as in one prison, should 
receive the punishment of that iniquity.” τὰ 

3. They not only chose a thief, ἃ murderer, and a seditious 
person, before Christ, but also crucified him “between two 
thieves; and many of them,” saith Josephus, “were misera- 
bly harassed and destroyed by the ληστρικὸν τάγμα, band 
of thieves which rose up among them.” And when Felix 
had destroyed these thieves, then, saith he, “there sprang 
up among them ἕτερον εἶδος ληστῶν, another kind of thieves, 
called the Sicarii, who slew many of their fellow Jews at 
broad day, in the middle of the city, and especially at the 
feasts ;” and these thieves also were seditious as well as 
murderers, “threatening death to them who obeyed the 
Romans ;” and of them one Jesus was the leader. 

4, They condemned our Lord “as worthy to die” (Mark 
xiv. 64), and they themselves were forced to confess, that 
«God had condemned their whole nation to death,” as hath 
been proved before. 

5. They say of Christ, « We have a law, and by our law 
he ought to die” (John xix. 7), and they were so infatuated 
as to conceive, that “by their law they ought to die rather 
than yield to the Romans.” Josephus; doth himself confess 
it, saying to Vespasian, “I am not ignorant of the Jewish 
law, καὶ πῶς στρατηγοῖς ἀποθνήσκειν πρέποι, and how our com- 
manders ought to die ;” and when he refused to die with his 
companions, they cry out, ᾽Ω πάτριοι vépo.!§ “ What is now 
become of our laws?” Eleazar exhorting them to kill them- 
selves rather than fall into the hands of the Romans, cries 
out, Tadd’ ἡμᾶς οἱ νόμοι κελεύουσι, “Our laws command us to 
do this.” 

§. They condemned him as an enemy to Cesar, and they 
themselves all perished for that crime ; for Josephus, speaking 
of the sect of Judas Gaulonites, who allowed μόνον ἠγέμονα 
kai δεσπότην Θεὸν, and chose rather to die than acknowledge 
Cesar, he saith,{ “they laid the foundation of all the cala- 
mities which fell upon their nation ;” they indeed instigated 
the people, and even forced them to that war by which they 
were destroyed. 

7. They condemned him as “a false prophet, and a 
deceiver of the people;” and their own** Josephus often 
testifies, that their “false prophets and deceivers” were the 
very causes of their ruin. 

8. They laid their accusations against him and his fol- 
lowers, as persons who “ profaned,” and who designed to 
“destroy” their temple; and they themselves, as hath been 
shown already, first horribly profaned it with the blood of 
Jews and gentiles, and then forced the Romans to destroy 
it; they “hastened the slow fire,” saith Josephus, “and 
even drew it to the temple.” 

9. They thought it expedient he should be put to death, 
“Jest the Romans should come and take away their place 
and nation ;” and this expedient brought upon them those 
very Romans who took away their temple and their city, 
sold πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν, “their whole land,” saith Josephus,{{ and 
would not suffer them so much as to come into Judea, or 
to the ruins of Jerusalem. Josephus++ doth inform us, that 


ἐκλείσθη τὸ ἔθνος, καὶ ναστὴν ὃ πύλεμος τὴν πόλιν ἐκυκλώσατο" πᾶσαν 
γοῦν ἀνθρωπίνην καὶ δαιμόνων φθορὰν ὑπερβάλλει τὸ πλῆθος τῶν 
ἀπολωλότων, lib, vil. cap. 45, 46, p. 968, G. 969, A. Vide 
lib. 11. cap. 20, p. 794, Ὁ. 

* Hist. Eccl. lib, iii. cap. 5. 

{ Lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 780. Ibid. cap. 23, p. 796, E. p. 
797, B. lib. 111. cap. 31, p. 857. B. lib. iv. cap. 11, p. 871. 
lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 985. 

+ Lib. ili. cap. 27. 

| Lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 993, F. 

Ἵ Tov αὖθις κακῶν καταλειφύτων ῥίζας ἐμφυτεύσαντο. Antiq. 
lib. xviii. cap. 1. p. 617, B. vide lib. vil. cap. 30, p. 984. 
cap. 34, p. 989, cap. 37, p. 995. 

** Αἴτιοι τῆς ἀπωλείας. Lib. vil. cap. 30, Pp. 960, A. lib. 
1. cap. 23, p. 796, G. 797, A, B, C. 

Tt Lib. vii. cap. 26, 27. 


$$ ‘Qs κατὰ καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον ἀπὸ 


§ Cap. 25. p. 851, F. 


χώρας τις αὐτῶν ἄρξει τῆς 


reign over the whole earth; that this caused many to take 
upon them to be kings, and animated the people to that war, 
which brought this ruin on their nation.” 

Lastly, They rejected that Jesus, who came with the glad 
tidings of salvation to them, and would not hear him preach- 
ing the words of life unto them; and they were forced, about 
seven years together, to hear another Jesus sounding forth 
continually, σκυθρωπὴ ἡ κληδὼν, “Sad is the omen which 1 
bring from God unto you.” Josephus, speaking of the 
dreadful prodigies, or, as he styles them, τῶν τοῦ Θεοῦ xnpvy- 
μάτων, “God’s warning of their approaching desolation,” 
concludes with this as τὸ πάντων φοβερώτερον the most terrible 
of all; that four years before the war, when the city was in 
peace and plenty, “one Jesus began at the feast of taberna- 
cles to cry, Φωνὴ ἐπὶ Ἱεροσόλυμα, καὶ τὸν ναῦν, φωνὴ ἐπὶ τὸν λαὸν 
πάντα, A voice against Jerusalem and thetemple, and against 
all the people; and thus he went about the city, crying day 
and night, and being whipped, so that his flesh was torn to 
the very bones, he neither wept nor begged mercy, but at 
every lash cried out,* Αἱ, At, Ἱεροσολύμοις, Woe, woe to Je- 
rusalem, the temple, and the people; and that, crying thus 
above seven years, he never waxed hoarse nor weary.” 
Whence even Josephust concludes thus ; “If any man con- 
siders, he will find that God by many ways shows to men 
the things which do belong to their peace, especially to our 
nation, but that they perish through their own madness and 
their wilful sins.’ Now hence we learn, 

That Christ was certainly a “prophet sent from God,” 
even that prophet, who, according to the predictions of all 
the Jewish records, was to come into the world: against 
many other proofs brought to confirm this truth, the sceptics 
of our age object, that they are founded on records made by 
the followers of Christ, or the professors of Christianity ; and 
so by persons who might be tempted, in honour of their Lord, 
and for the credit and advantage of Christianity, to magnify 
the things which they related. But here the argument is 
almost wholly built upon records and testimonies of Jews 
and gentiles, the two great enemies of Christian faith, and 
so will not admit of this evasion. Will they then say, as 
Porphyry did of the prophecies of Daniel, Surely the book 
was written after the things were done? It is manifest from 
history, that the three Evangelists, who writ the history of 
these predictions of our Lord, were dead before the desola- 
tion of Jerusalem; which surely is sufficient to exclude that 
only refuge they can fly unto. 


PREFATORY DISCOURSE 


CONCERNING 


THE FOUR GOSPELS IN GENERAL, 


AND THE 


GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW IN 
PARTICULAR. 


CONTENTS. 


§. I. The tradition of the church from the beginning of the 
second century shows that the gospels, then received, were 
only the four gospels which we own. §. Π. The other 
gospels mentioned in church history do not invalidate, but 
rather strengthen, this tradition, they being only mention- 
ed after these were received, and that as gospels not au- 
thentic, not received by the church, or as composed by 
heretics. 8. ILI. Other considerations offered to strengthen 
this tradition. 8. IV. That these gospels have been 
handed down to future generations uncorrupted in the 
substantials of faith and manners. §. V. Concerning the 


οἰκουμένης, lib. vii. cap. 31, p. 961, Ε΄. Συχνοὺς βασιλεῖαν ὃ 
καιρὸς ἀνέπειθε, lib. i. p. 705, D. lib. ii. cap. 6,G. Τὸ δὲ πείσαν 
αὐτοὺς μάλιστα πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἣν χρησμύς, lib. vii. ibid. 

* Lib. vii. cap. 31, A, B, C, D. 

J Ταῦτά τις ἐννοῶν εὑρήσει τὸν μὲν Θεὸν ἀνθρώπων κηδόμενον καὶ 
παντοΐως προσημαίνοντα τῷ σφετέρῳ γένει τὰ σωτήρια, τοὺς δ᾽ ὑπ ἀνοίας 
καὶ κακῶν αὐθαιρέτων ἀπολλυμένους, lib, vii. cap. 91, p. 961, E. 


PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS. 


gospel of St. Matthevy it is inquired, whether it was ori- 
ginally writ by him in Hebrew or in Greek; reasons to 
suspect the tradition, that it was first writ in Hebrew only, 
and afterward translated into Greek; First, From what 
is delivered by the chief authors of it. §. VI. Secondly, 
From the tradition itself. §. VII. An objection answered. 


Concerntye the authority of the four gospels,” unques- 
tionably owned as sacred scriptures indited by those apostles 
and evangelists whose names they bear; and the reason why 
they, and they only, have obtained to be received as the 
authentic records of what our Saviour did, and spake, let it 
be noted, 

First, ‘That Ireneusf informs us concerning Polycarp, 
that he was made bishop of Smyrna by the apostles, and con- 
versed with many who had seen the Lord. Now from him 
Victor Capuanus} cites a passage, in which we have the 
names of these four gospels, as we at present do receive 
them, and the beginning of their several gospels. 

Secondly, That Justin Martyr,§ who, saith Eusebius,|| 
lived jer’ οὐ πολὺ τῶν ἀποσπόλων, “ not long after the apostles,” 
shows that these books were then well known by the name 
of gospels, and as such were read by Christians in their 
assemblies every Lord’s day ; yea, we learn from him that 
they were read by the Jews, and might be read by heathens; 
and that we may not doubt that by “the memoirs of the 
apostles, which,” saith he, “we call gospels,” he meant 
these four received then in the church, he cites passages 
out of every one of them, declaring that they contained the 
words of Christ. 

Thirdly, That Ireneus,§ in the same century, not only 
eites them all by name, but declares that they were “neither 
more nor less” received by the church, and that they were 
of such authority, that though the heretics of his time com- 
plained of their obscurity, depraved them, and lessened their 
authority, saying, “they were written in hypocrisy, and in 
compliance with the errors of those to whom they wrote, 
and with whom they conversed,” yet durst they not wholly 


* "Qpryévns ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ τῶν eis τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖον εὐαγγέλιον, 
τὸν ἐκκλησιαστικὸν φυλάσσων κανόνα, μόνα τέσσαρα εἰδέναι εὐαγγέ- 
λια μαρτύρεται, ὧδε πῶς γράφων ὡς ἐν παραδόσει μαθὼν περὶ τῶν 
τεσσάρων εὐαγγελίων, ἃ καὶ μόνα ἀναντίῤῥητά ἐστιν ἐν τῇ ὑπὸ τὸν 
οὐρανὸν ἐκκλησία τοῦ Θεοῦ. Eusebii Eccles. Hist. lib. vi. cap. 
25, p. 226. Eadem ponit Eusebius inter τὰς κατὰ τὴν ExkAn= 
σιαστικὴν παράδοσιν ἀληθεῖς καὶ ἀπλαστοὺυς καὶ ἀνωμολογουμένας 
ypapas, lib. iii. cap. 25, p. 97. 

7 Adv. Her. lib. iii. cap. 3, ed. Ox. 203. 

+ Rationabilitér evangeliste principiis diversis utuntur, 
quamvis una eademque evangelizandi eorum probetur in- 
tentio. Mattheus, ut Hebreis scribens, genealogie Christi 
ordinem texuit, ut ostenderet ab ea Christum descendisse 
progenie, de qué eum nasciturum universi prophet cecine- 
rant. Johannes autem ad Ephesum constitutus, qui legem 
tanquam ex Gentibus ignorabant, ἃ causi nostre redemp- 
tionis evangelii sumpsit exordium, que causa ex eo apparet 
quod Filium suum Deus pro nostra salute voluit incarnari. 
Lucas vero ἃ Zacharie sacerdotio incipit, ut ejus filii mira- 
culo nativitatis et tanti predicatoris officil divinitatem 
Christi Gentibus declararet; unde et Marcus antiqua pro- 
phetici mysterii competentia adventum Christi declarat, ut 
non nova sed antiquittis prolata ejus predicatio probaretur. 
Vide notas Grabii in Ireneum, p. 205. 

§ Οἱ γὰρ ἀπόστολοι ἐν τοῖς γινομένοις ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ὑπομνημονεῦ- 
μασιν ἃ καλεῖται εὐαγγέλια οὕτως παρέδωκαν, Ap. 2, ed. Ox. 
sect. 86, p. 190. Καὶ τῇ τοῦ ἡλίου λεγομένη ἡμέρα πάντων κατὰ 
πόλεις ἢ ἀγροὺς μενόντων ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνέλευσις γίνεται, καὶ τὰ 
ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων Ty τὰ συγγράμματα τῶν προφητῶν 
ἀναγινώσκεται, §. 87. "Eyot γὰρ ἐμέλησεν ἐντυχεῖν αὐτοῖς, Tryph. 
Dial. p. 227, et Apol. 1, p. 52, vide ἃ sectione 17, ad sect. 
23, et per totam secundam Apol. 

|| Hist. Eccles, lib. ii. cap. 13. 

“ Tanta est autem circa Evangelia hec firmitas, ut et 
ipsi heretici testimonium reddant eis, et ex ipsis egrediens 
unusquisque eorum conetur suam confirmare doctrinam.— 
Cum ergo hi, qui contradicunt nobis testimonium, perhibe- 
ant et utantur his, firma et vera est nostra de illis ostentio, 
heque autem plura numero quam hee sunt, neque rursus 
pauciora capit esse Evangelia, Lib. iii. cap. 11, p.220, col. 2. 

Vou. 1V.—4 


25 


disown them, or deny them to be the writings of those 
apostles whose names they bore. Moreover, he cites pas- 
sages from every chapter of St. Matthew and St. Luke, from 
fourteen chapters of St. Mark, and from twenty chapters 
of St. John. 

Fourthly, That Clemens of Alexandria,* having cited a 
passage from the gospel according to the Egyptians, informs 
his reader, that “it was not to be found in the four gospels 
received by the church.” 

Fifthly, that Tatianus,} who flourished in the same cen- 
tury, and before Ireneus, wrote συνάφειάν τινα καὶ συναγωγὴν 
τῶν εὐαγγελίων, “a catena, or harmony of the gospels,” 
which he named, τὸ διὰ τεσσάρων, “the gospel gathered out 
of the four gospels.” And that the “apostolical constitu- 
tions” name them all, and} command “that they be read in 
the church, the people standing up at the reading of them.” 

Sixthly, That these gospels, “being written,” saith Ire- 
nus, “by the will of God, to be the pillars and foundation of 
the Christian faith,” the immediate successors of the apostles, 
who, saith Eusebius,§ did great miracles by the assistance 
of the Holy Ghost, as they performed the work of evan- 
gelists in preaching Christ to those who had not yet heard the 
word, made it their business, when they had laid the foun- 
dation of that faith among them, τὴν τῶν ϑείων εὐαγγελίων παρα- 
διδόναι γραφὴν, “ to deliver to them in writing the holy gospels.” 

§. Π. The mention of other gospels bearing the names of 
other apostles, or of gospels used by other nations, is so 
far from being derogatory from, or tending to diminish the 
tradition of the church concerning these four gospels, that 
it tends highly to establish and confirm it, as will be evident 
from these considerations :— 

Tirst, That we find no mention of any of these gospels 
till the close of the second tentury, and of few of them till 
the third or the fourth century ; i. e. not till long after the 
general reception of these four gospels by the whole church 
of Christ. For Justin Martyr and Ireneus, who cite large 
passages from these four gospels, make not the least mention 
of any other gospels mentioned either by the heretics or 
by the orthodox. ΄ 

Secondly, They who spake of them in the close of the 
second, or in the following centuries, do it still with this 
remark, that “the gospels received by the tradition of the 
church were only four,” and that these belonged not to them, 
nor to the evangelical canon; v. g. Clemens of Alexandrial 
is the first ecclesiastical writer who cites “the gospel accord- 
ing to the Egyptians,” and he doth it with this note, that the 
words cited thence “ are not to be found in the four gospels.” 
Tn the same book he cites another passage quoted by the 
heretics, as he conjectures, from the same gospel; but 
then he adds, these things they cite of πάντα μᾶλλον } τῷ 
κατὰ ἀλήϑειαν εὐαγγελικῷ στοιχήσαντες κανόνι, “who had rather 
follow any thing than the true evangelical canon” (ibid. p. 
453,D). Origen is the next that makes mention of them, 
and he doth it with this censure, that they were “ the gospels 
not of the church, but of the heretics;” among these he 
reckons, “ the gospel according to the Egyptians, the gospel 
of the twelve apostles, the gospel according to St. Thomas and 
Matthias, and others ;” but saith he, “there are only four, 
from whence we are to confirm our doctrine, nor do I ap- 


“Ey τοῖς παραδιδομένοις ἡμῖν τέσσαρσιν εὐαγγελίοις οὐκ ἔχομεν 
τὸ ῥητὸν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τῶ κατ᾽ Αἰγυπτίους, Strom. 3, p- 465. 

1 Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. 

$ ᾿Αναγινωσκέτω τὰ εὐαγγέλια ἃ ἐγὼ MarSatos καὶ ᾿Ιωάννης 
παρεδώκαμεν ὑμῖν, καὶ ἃ οἵ συνεργοὶ Παύλου παρειληφύτες κατέλειψαν 
ὑμῖν Λουκὰς καῖ Μάρκος, καὶ ὅταν ἀναγινωσκύμενον ἢ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον 
πάντες οἱ πρεσδύτεροι, καὶ of διάκονοι, καὶ πᾶς ὃ λαὸς στηκέτωσαν, 
lib. ii. cap. 57. 

§ Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 37. ]] Strom. 3, p. 465. 

{ Ecclesia quatuor habet evangelia, hereses plurima; ὁ 
quibus quoddam scribitur secundim Egyptios, aliud juxta 
duodecim apostolos——Quatuor tantum sunt evangelia 
probata, ὁ quibus sub persond Domini et Salvatoris nostri 
proferenda sunt dogmata. Scio quoddam evangelium quod 
appellatur secundum Thomam et juxta Matthaim, et alia 
plurima legimus ne quid ignorare videamur, propter eos qui 
se putant aliquid scire siista cognoverint; sed in his omnibus 
nihil aliud probamus nisi quod ecclesia, id est, quatuor tanttim 
evangelia recipienda. Hom. 1.in Procem. Luce, fol. 93. Ὁ 


26 


prove of any other.” Whence we may learn that, though he 
often cites “the gospel to the Hebrews,” which, saith St. 
Jerome, was the same with that according to the “twelve 
apostles,” and “the gospel according to St. Peter,” yet he 
approved of none of them. , 

Eusebius* is the next ecclesiastical writer who speaks 
of other gospels; viz. “ The gospel according to St. Peter, 
St. Thomas, and Matthias,” and also “ of the acts of Andrew, 
St.John, and other apostles;” but then, as Origen had told 
us, that the heretics only had them, so he saith, that “they 
were published by them,” and “that they had no testimony 
from those ecclesiastical persons who continued down the 
ther gospels in a succession to them, and that the doctrine 
contained in them was much different from the catholic 
doctrine :” whence he concludes, that “they are the inven- 
tions of heretics, and are not so much as to be ranked 
among spurious books, but are to be rejected as wicked and 
absurd.” And, 

First, To begin with the gospel of St. Peter; it was, 
saith Eusebius, “published by the heretics, and is by no 
means to be placed among the catholic gospels:” “it is 
manifest,” saith Serapion,t “that we received it not from 
our ancestors, but those who learnt and read it were the 
Docete, and the Marcionites who sprang from them :” it was 
“the gospel used by the Nazarenes,” saith Theodoret.¢ 

Secondly, The gospel according to St. Thomas, men- 
tioned by Origen and Eusebius, was, saith St. Cyril,§ “the 
work not of St. Thomas the apostle, but of another Thomas, 
who was a Manichean heretic ;” on which account he de- 
sires “all Christians not to read it.” 

Thirdly, From the same heretics proceeded the gospel ac- 
cording to St. Philip, saith Leontius.|]| “It was the fiction 
of the Gnostics, “saith Epiphanius.{ 

Fourthly, The gospel of Matthias was, as Clemens of 
Alexandria intimates,** “the work of the Basilidians or 
Carpocratians.”” 

Fifthly, The Proto-Evangelium of St. James is first men- 
tioned by Pope Innocent the aoa among the gospels 
feigned by Lucius the heretic; this he doth in a decree, in 
which he condemns all these false gospels, and declares 
who were the authors of them. 

Lastly, The gospel of “the twelve apostles,” according to 
St. Jerome, is the same with “the gospel according to the 
Hebrews,” of which we are to speak hereafter. 

Seeing then these four gospels were received, without all 
doubting or contradiction, by all Christians from the be- 
ginning, as the writings of those apostles and evangelists, 
whose names they bear, and they both owned and++ testi- 


* Kai τὰς ὀνόματι ἀποστόλων πρὸς τῶν αἱρετικῶν προσφερομένας 
ἤτοι ὡς Πέτρου, καὶ Θωμᾶ, καὶ MarSaiov, ἡ καὶ τίνων παρὰ τοῦ- 
τοὺς ἄλλων εὐαγγέλια παρεχοῦσας: ᾧ οὐδὲν οὐδαμῶς ἐν συγ- 
γράμματι (fcr) τῶν κατὰ διαδοχὰς ἐκκλησιαστικῶν τις ἀνὴρ eis 
μνήμην ἀγαγεῖν ἠξίωσεν --------------οὐδὲ ἐν νύϑοις αὐτὰ κατατακτέον 
ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἄτοπα πάντα καὶ δυσσεδῆ παραιτητέον. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. 
cap. 25, p. 97, 98. 

Ἵ Τὰ δὲ ὀνύματι αὐτὼν (Petri et aliorum Apostolorum) 
ψευδεπίγραψα ὡς ἔμπειροι παραιτούμεθα, γινώσκοντες ὅτι τὰ τοι- 
αὔτα οὐ παρελάβομεν. ἐδυνήθημεν yap rap’ ἄλλων τῶν ἀσκη- 
σάντων αὐτὸ τοῦτο τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, τουτέστι παρὰ τῶν διαδόχων τῶν 
καταρξαμένων αὐτοῦ, obs Δοκητὰς καλοῦμεν, χρησάμενοι παρ᾽ αὐτῶν 
διελθεῖν, apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 12, p. 213, 214. 

+ Her. Fab. lib. 2, cap. 1. 

§ Ἔγραψαν καὶ Mavixaior τὸ κατὰ Θωμᾶν εὐαγγέλιον. Catech. 
iv. p. 98,3. Μηδεὶς ἀναγινῶσκέτω τὸ κατὰ Θωμᾶν εὐαγγέλιον" 
οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἑνὸς τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων, ἀλλὰ ἑνὸς τῶν κακῶν τριῶν 
τοῦ Μάνη μαθητῶν. 

|| De Sectis, p. 432. 

“ Προςφέρουσι dé eis ὄνομα φιλίππου εὐαγγέλιον πεπλασμένον, 
Her. 26, 8. 13, p. 95. 

** Λέγουσι γοῦν καὶ τὸν Νατθαίανοὕύτως διδάξαι, Strom. 3, 
p- 406. 

Τί Cetera autem, que vel sub nomine Matthie, sive 
Jacobi minoris, vel sub nomine Petri, et Joannis, que a 
quodam Lucio sunt scripta, vel sub nomine Andrex, que 
a Nexocharide et Leonide philosophis, vel sub nomine 
Thome scripta sunt, et si que sunt alia, non soliim rejici- 
enda, vertim etiam novitatis esse damnanda. Decret. 27. 

++ Per quos evangelium pervenit ad nos, quod quidem 


PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS. 


fied that they were delivered to them by “the apostles as the 
pillars, foundations, and elements, of their faith,” and divine 
writings, even by those who preached that very gospel to 
them, which in these writings they delivered, or rather by 
that God that enabled them to preach, and directed them 
to indite these gospels for that end: (2.) seeing they were 
delivered by the immediate successors of the apostles to 
all the churches they converted or established, as a rule 
of faith: (3.) seeing they were read from the beginning, 
as Justin Martyr testifies, in all assemblies of Christians ; 
and that, not as some other ecclesiastical writings were, 
in some assemblies upon some certain days, but in all 
Christian assemblies on the Lord’s day, and so must 
early be translated into those languages, in which alone 
they could be understood by some churches; viz. the Sy- 
riac and Latin: (4.) seeing they were generally cited in the 
second century for the confirmation of this faith, and the 
conviction of heretics, and the president of the assembly 
exhorted those who heard them to do and imitate what 
they heard: (5.) seeing we never heard of any other gospels 
till the close of the second century, and then heard only 
of them with a mark of reprobation, or a declaration that 
they were ψευδεπίγραφα, falsely imposed upon the apostles, 
that they belonged not to the Evangelical Canon, or to the 
gospel delivered to the churches by succession of ecclesi- 
astical persons, or to those gospels which they approved, 
or from which they confirmed their doctrines, but were to 
be rejected as wicked and absurd, and the inventions of 
rank heretics; all these considerations must afford us a 
sufficient demonstration, that all Christians then had an un- 
questionable evidence that they were the genuine works of 
those apostles and evangelists, whose names they bore, and 
so were worthy to be received as the records of their faith. 
And then what reason can any persons of succeeding ages 
have to question what was so universally acknowledged by 
those who lived so near to that very age in which these 
gospels were indited, and who received them under the 
character of the holy and divine scriptures ? 

§. III. And yet even to this general and uncontrolled 
tradition we may add farther strength from these consider- 
ations ; 

First, That since our Jesus was a prophet, or a teacher 
sent from God, he must have left unto his church some re- 
cords of his Father’s will; this king Messiah, being to reign 
for ever, must have some laws by which his subjects must 
be for ever governed; this Saviour of the world must have 
delivered to the world the terms on which they may obtain 
the great salvation purchased by him; or he must be in 
vain a Prophet, King, and Saviour; and so some certain 
records of those laws and those conditions of salvation 
must be extant. Now unless these gospels and other 
scriptures of the New Testament contain these laws, they 
must wholly be lost, and we must all be left under a ma- 
nifest impossibility of knowing, and so of doing his will, 
and of obtaining those blessings he hath promised to them 
that do it. For to say tradition might supply the want of 
writing, is to contradict experience; since the traditions of 
the Jews made void that word of God they had. received 
in writing, and then how reasonable is it to believe they 
would have much more done it, had no such writing been 
delivered? Moreover, our blessed Lord spake many things 
which were not written; he taught the multitude “by the 
sea,” Mark ii. 13, “beyond Jordan,” Mark x. 1, “in the 
synagogues of Galilee,” Luke iv. 15, “at Nazareth,” ver. 22, 
“at Capernaum,” ver. 31, “out of Simon’s ship,” Luke v. 3, 
and very often “in the temple,” John vii. 14, viii. 2. He 
interpreted to the two disciples going to Emmaus “ through- 
out all the scriptures the things concerning him,” Luke xxiv. 
27. He discoursed to his disciples after his resurrection, 


tune preconiaverunt, postea verd per Dei voluntatem in 
scriptis nobis tradiderunt fundamentum et columnam fidei 
nostre futurum. Iren. ady. Her. lib. iii. cap. 2. Quid 
autem si neque apostoli scripturas nobis reliquissent, cap. 4. 
Στῦλος δὲ καὶ στήριγμα ἐκκλησίας τὸ εὐαγγέλιον----ἐξ ὧν φανερὸν 
ὅτι of τῶν ἁπάντων τεχνίτης Λόγος----ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν τετράμορφον τὸ 
εὐαγγέλιον, cap. 11, ed. Ox. p. 221, col. 1, 110. x. Στοιχεῖα τῆς 
πίστεως ἐκκλησίας" ἐξ ὧν στοιχείων ὃ πᾶς συνέστηκε κῦσμος ἐν 
Χρίστῳ καταλλαγεὶς τῷ Osc. Orig. in Joan. edit. Huet. p. Ὁ, 


PREFACE ΤῸ THE GOSPELS. 


“ touching the things of the kingdom of God,” Actsi. 3. St. 
John assures us there were exceeding “many miracles that 
Jesus did which were not written,” xx. 30. Now whereas 
all those miracles and sermons which were written are entirely 
preserved, and firmly believed, tradition hath not preserved 
one miracle or sermon to us which was never written, and 
therefore can be no sure record of the doctrine or the laws of 
Christ. In a word, it is evident that even the church catho- 
lic hath lost a tradition delivered to her by St. Paul; for, in 
his second Epistle to the Thessalonians, ii. 5, 6, he saith, «I 
told you these things” concerning antichrist “when I was 
with you, and now ye know what letteth,” or hindereth, his 
appearance ; he also intimates in this epistle, and by his ex- 
hortation to hold fast these traditions, ver. 15, that they were 
of great moment to be known, and be retained; and yet 
these traditions have neither been retained by the Roman 
nor by the catholic church ; and it is confessed by Anselm,* 
and by Esthius on the place, that “though the Thessa- 
lonians knew it, yet we know it not;” so that the tradition 
which the church received from this apostle touching this 
matter is wholly lost ; how therefore can she be relied on as 
a sure preserver, and a true teacher of traditions, which 
hath confessedly lost one of great moment deposited with 
the Thessalonians and the primitive church ? 

Secondly, That it was necessary that the Christian doc- 
trine or revelation should be preserved in some writing, may 
fairly be concluded from the Holy Scriptures; for if St. 
Paul thought it necessary to write to the church of Rome, 
“to put them in remembrance of the grace given to them” 
(Rom. xv. 15), as also to send to his Corinthians in writing, 
“the things they had heard, and did acknowledge” (2 Cor. 
i. 13), and to write “ the same things” which he had taught 
to his Philippians (iii. 1): if St. Peter thought it needful to 
write to the Jewish converts, to “ testify to them that it was 
the grace of God in which they stood” (1 Pet. νυ. 12), and 
“to stir up their sincere minds by way of remembrance, that 
they might be mindful of the commands of the apostles of 
our Lord and Saviour’ (2 Pet. iii. 1, 2), though they at pre- 
sent “ knew them, and were established in the truth” (2 Pet. 
i. 12, 13); and St. Jude to write to the same persons, “ to 
mind them of the common salvation” way 3): if the be- 
loved evangelist closeth his gospel with these words, “'These 
things were written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the 
Christ, and, believing, might have life through his name ;” 
surely these persons could not but think it necessary that 
the essential doctrines of Christianity should be written ; and 
yet we are sure they only have been written in those gos- 
pels and other scriptures contained in the canon of the books 
of the New Testament: and therefore we cannot reasonably 
doubt of their authority. Add to this, 

That the apostles, and that Holy Spirit who did assist 
them in the inditing of these gospels for the church’s use, 
could not be wanting in causing them to be transmitted to 
those Christians for whose use they were indited ; because 
they could not be wanting to pursue the end for which they 
were indited: for they being therefore written that they 
might know “the certainty of those things in which they 
had been instructed” (Luke {. 4), and partly to engage them 
more firmly to believe that Jesus was the Christ, they must 
very early commit them to those churches for whose sake 
they were written. 

Thirdly, It is evident that the immediate succeeding age 
could not be ignorant of what was thus delivered to them 
by the church from the apostles, as “the pillar and the 
ground of faith ;” nor is it easy to conceive that either they 
would have thus received them, had the apostles given them 
no sufficient indication of them, or that they would have 
been esteemed so presently the charters of the Christian 
faith, had not the apostles delivered them unto the churches 
under that character. 

Lastly, We have good reason to suppose that the provi- 
dence of God, which was so highly interested in the propa- 
gation of the Christian faith, and making of it known to the 
world, would not permit false records of that faith to be so 
early and so generally imposed upon the Christian world. 

§. IV. From the same tradition we, with the strongest 


* Nos nescimus quod ilh sciebant. Anselm. Noverunt 
utique Thessalonicenses, at nos nescimus. Esthius. 


27 


evidence of reason, may conclude, that these four gospels, 
and the other scriptures received then without doubt or con- 
tradiction by the church, were handed down unto them un- 
corrupted in the substantials of faith and manners. For, 
1. These records being once so generally dispersed through 
all Christian churches, though at a great distance from each 
other, from the beginning of the second century. 2. They 
being so universally acknowledged and consented to by men 
of curious parts and different persuasions. 3. They being 
preserved in their originals in the apostolical churches, 
among whom, saith Tertullian,* authentiee eorum liter» 
recitantur, “their original letters are recited :’”’ it being not 
to be doubted but they who received the originals from the 
apostles, and who had authentic copies of them given to 
them by their immediate successors, would carefully pre- 
serve them to posterity. 4. They being multiplied into 
divers versions almost from the beginning, as we may ra- 
tionally conclude; because the church of Rome, and other 
churches which understood not the original Greek, being 
founded in the apostles’ days, could not be rationally sup- 
posed to be long without a version of those Scriptures which 
were to be read by them in public and in private. 5. They 
being esteemed by them as digesta nostra, their “law books,” 
saith Tertullian, } libri deifici deifice scripture, “books which 
instructed them to lead a divine life,” say the martyrs, and 
believed by all Christians to be ϑεῖαι γραφαὶ, “ divine scrip- 
tures,” saith Origen,+ and therefore as the records of their 
hopes and fears. 6. They being so constantly rehearsed in 
their assemblies by men whose work it was to read and 
preach, and to exhort to the performance of the duties they 
enjoined. 7. They being so diligently read by Christians, 
and so riveted in their memories, that Eusebius§ mentions 
some who had them all by heart. 8. They being, lastly, so 
frequent in their writings, and so often cited by Ireneus, 
Clemens of Alexandria, and Origen, as now we have them, 
it must be certain from these considerations that they were 
handed down to succeeding generations pure and uncorrupt. 
And indeed these things render us more secure, that the 
scriptures were preserved entire from designed corruption, 
than any man can be that the statutes of the land, or any 
other writings, histories, or records whatsoever, have been so 
preserved ; because the evidence of them depends upon more 
persons, and they more holy, and so less subject to deceive, 
and more concerned that they should not be corrupted, than 
men have cause to be concerned for other records ; and so we 
must renounce all certainty of any record, or grant that it 
is certain these are genuine records of the Christian faith. 
Moreover, this supposed corruption of the word of God, or 
substitution of any other doctrine than what hath been de- 
livered by the apostles, could not be done by any part or 
sect of Christians, but they who had embraced the faith and 
used the true copies of the word of God in other churches of 
the Christian world, must have found out the cheat; and 
therefore this corruption, if it were at all effected, must be 
the work of the whole bulk of Christians ; whereas it can- 
not rationally be supposed that the immediate succeeding 
ages should universally conspire to substitute their own in- 
ventions for the word of God, and yet continue stedfast in, 
and suffer so much for, that faith which denounced the se- 
verest judgments against them who did corrupt this word ; 
or, that so many men should, with the hazard of their lives 
and fortunes, avouch the gospel, and at the same time make 
such a change even in the frame and constitution of this 
doctrine, as made it ineffectual both to themselves and their 
posterity ; nor can it reasonably be thought, that they should 
venture upon that which, were the gospel true or false, must 
needs expose them to the greatest evils whilst they continued . 
abettors of it. Lastly, that these sacred records of the word 
of God have not been so corrupted as to cease to be a rule 
of faith and manners, we argue from the providence of 
God; for nothing seems more inconsistent with the wisdoin 
and goodness of God, than to inspire his servants to write 
the scriptures for a rule of faith and manners for all future 


* De Prescript. cap. 36. 

+ Adv. Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 3. Passio S. Felicis Episc. 
Fabyz. ed. Ox. p. 47, 48. 

+ Adv. Cels. lib. iii. p. 138. 

§ Vales. Hist. Eccl. lib. viii. p. 336, Johannes, p. 344. 


28 


ages, and to require the belief of the doctrine, and the prac- 
tice of the rules of life plainly contained in it, and yet to 
suffer this divinely-inspired rule to be insensibly corrupted 
in things necessary to faith or practice. Who can imagine 
that that God, who sent his Son out of his bosom to declare 
this doctrine, and his apostles by the assistance of the Holy 
Spirit to indite and preach it, and by so many miracles con- 
firmed it to the world, should suffer any wicked persons to 
corrupt and alter any of those terms on which the happiness 
of mankind depended? This sure can be esteemed rational 
by none but such as think it-not absurd to say, that God 
repented of his good-will and kindness to mankind in the 
vouchsafing of the gospel to them, or that he so far maligned 
the good of future generations, that he suffered wicked men 
to rob them of all the good intended to them by this decla- 
ration of his will: for, since those very scriptures which 
have been received as the word of God, and used by the 
church as such from the first ages of it, pretend to be the 
terms of our salvation, scriptures indited by men commis- 
sionated from Christ, and such as did avouch themselves 
“by the will of God,” and his command “for the delivery of 
the faith of God’s elect,” and “for the knowledge of the 
truth which is after godliness, in hope of life eternal,” they 
must be in reality the word of God, or Providence must 
have permitted such a forgery as rendereth it impossible for 
us to perform our duty in order to salvation; for if the 
scripture of the New Testament should be corrupted in any 
essential requisite of faith or manners, it must cease to make 
us “ wise unto salvation,” and so God must have lost the end 
which he intended in inditing it. The objections which the 
papists make on account of the various lections, I presume 
are fully answered by Dr. Mill; and can be answered by 
him alone, since others must not be allowed to blow upon 
his learned book upon that subject. 

§. V. And this is all which I think necessary to be said 
concerning the four gospels in the general. I proceed now 
to the consideration of that great question, “« Whether the 
gospel of St. Matthew was by him writ in Hebrew, or in the 
Syriac language, and only was by others afterward translated 
into Greek ?” 

Mr. Du Pin* informs us, that all the ancients with one 
consent assure us that he “ wrote in Hebrew;” Papias, St. 
Treneus, Origen, Eusebius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Epipha- 
nius, St. Jerome, St. Austin, St. Chrysostom, the author of 
the Latin Commentary on St. Matthew, which is ascribed to 
St. Chrysostom, and the author of the Synopsis of the Serip- 
ture, which bears the name of Athanasius, are a cloud of 
witnesses, “who depose that St. Matthew wrote his gospel 
in Hebrew:” but then he adds that “the original Hebrew 
of the gospel according to St. Matthew was lost; and after 
the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, becoming useless, 
there was no care taken to preserve it,” and saith, p. 36, 
“It is certain that the Greek version we have is as ancient 
as the times of the apostles, that it was published from the 
beginning of the church in all Christian nations, that it was 
looked upon as good as an original by the Greeks and La- 
tins, that it was preserved without any alteration, and always 
looked upon as authentic and canonical, whereas the ori- 
ginal Hebrew continued not long the same that it was left 
by St. Matthew.” 

Now as for this cloud of witnesses, I shall, first, consider 
the chief of them apart, and then discourse of this sup- 
posed tradition in the bulk. Now, 

The first witness is Papias, “ that man of fables,” saith 
Enusebius,t who voucheth, that «St. Matthew writ his ora- 
cles in the Hebrew tongue, ἡρμήνευσε δὲ αὐτὰ ἕκαστος ὡς ἠδύ- 
νατο, and every one interpreted them as he was able ;” from 
which words it is evident, that he knew nothing of any au- 
thentic version of this gospel approved by the apostles, and 
looked upon as authentic and canonical by the church; for 
after that, every one could not be left to interpret the He- 
brew as he could. He also plainly in this passage doth 
suppose, that the Hebrew copy of St. Matthew was neither 
then lost nor adulterated and corrupted by additions, defal- 
cations, or interpolations, or must own that every one then 


* History of the Canon, vol. ii. chap. 2, p. 28. 
ἡ Kat τινὰ ἀλλὰ παρατέθειται μυθικ drepa. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. 
cap. 39, p. 112. 


PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS. 


used a copy so corrupted; and if he could be ignorant or 
mistaken in matters of so great importance, why might he 
not be so in saying, this gospel was first written in a lan- 
guage he understood not? 

Trenezus* is the second witness who saith, that St. Mat- 
thew put forth his gospel among the Hebrews, τῇ ἰδίᾳ dta- 
λέκτῳ αὐτῶν, “in their own tongue ;” and that the Ebionites 
used eo evangelio quod est secundum Mattheum, “that 
very gospel according to St. Matthew, which was writ in 
Hebrew ;” this he saith twice,t without any intimation that 
it was interpolated or corrupted by them. Now here, saith 
the learned Mr. Grabe,+ “the Nazarenes and Ebionites 
easily imposed upon Ireneus and other fathers who under- 
stood not the Hebrew tongue.” But after more mature 
consideration of the matter, he saith, “ He thinks with Ire- 
neus, that the Ebionites did use the gospel of St. Matthew, 
though not entire and uncorrupted, and finds, that Eusebius 
and St. Jerome, and our modern writers, were mistaken in 
making the gospel to the Hebrews which the Nazarenes 
used, and the gospel which the Ebionites abused, one and the 
same.” And yet Epiphanius§ expressly saith of the Ebion- 
ites, “they used only the gospel of St. Matthew, and called 
it the gospel according to the Hebrews, as it truly is.” So 
that either Eusebius, Epiphanius, and St. Jerome, must be 
mistaken in this matter, which is sufficient to invalidate their 
testimony, or Ireneus must be himself mistaken ; and then 
he much more might be so in speaking of a language that he 
understood not. 

Origen|| is the third witness, who indeed saith that “the 
first gospel was writ by St. Matthew, and that he gave it to 
the Jewish converts composed in the Hebrew tongue;” but 
he doth not say, it was written either first, or only in that 
tongue: thus therefore I am willing to compound the mat- 
ter, that the gospel of St. Matthew, being written for all 
nations in the Greek, as a tongue common to most of them, 
was also given for the use of those Jews who only under- 
stood their mother-tongue in Hebrew. 

Eusebius is the next witness, who saith that “ Matthew 
delivered his gospel to the Jews in their own tongue ;” but 
then that the gospel then retained in Hebrew was indeed 
the gospel according to the Hebrews, or the same gospel of 
St. Matthew which the Ebionites used, and called « the gos- 
pel according to St. Matthew,” is plain from** comparing 
the words of Eusebius and Theodoret with those of Ireneus; , 
though I confess Theodoret seems to make a distinction 
betwixt the Ebionites,—who held that our Lord was born of 
Joseph and Mary, who used the gospel according to the 
Hebrews; i. e. that gospel of the Nazarenes from which, 
saith Epiphanius,t} they had cut off the genealogy of St. 
Matthew,—and the Ebionites, who held that “ Christ was 
born of a virgin ;” and saith they used the gospel according 
to St. Matthew: and yet of this distinction Ireneus saith 
nothing, and Eusebius plainly contradicts it, such a confu- 
sion and conflict are there among the ancients in this mat- 
ter. Eusebius++ proceeds to tell us, that “they of the Jews 
who received Christ, chiefly embraced τὸ καθ᾽ 'EGpaious εὐαγ- 
γέλιον, the gospel according to the Hebrews ;” and that He- 
gesippus, a man of the first succession from the apostles, 


* Ady. Her. lib. iii. eap. 1. 

ἡ Lib. i. cap. 26, et lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 220, col. 2. 

+ Sicque Irenzo et aliis patribus Hebraic lingue igna- 
ris facilé imposuerunt ut crediderint eos ipso Matthwi 
Eyangelio uti. Spicil. Patrum primi seculi. p. 21, et Not. 
in Ireneum, lib. i. cap. 26. 

§ Δέχονται piv καὶ αὐτοὶ τὸ κατὰ ΝΙατθαῖον εὐαγγέλιον, τούτῳ 
γὰρ αὐτοὶ χρῶνται" καλοῦσι δὲ αὐτὸ κατὰ ᾿Ἑ)βραίους ὡς τὰ ἀληθῆ 
ἐστιν εἰπεῖν. Her. 30, sect. 3. 

|| Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 225. 

4 Ilarpia γλώττη γραφὴ παραδοὺς τὸ Kar’ αὐτὸν εὐαγγέλιον. 
Hist. Eccl. lib. ill. cap. 24, p. 95. 

** Ebionai eo evangelio quod est secundum Mattheum 
solo utentes. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 11. Solo autem eo quod 
est secundiim Mattheum evangelio utuntur. Ἐβιωναίΐοι δὲ 
εὐαγγελίῳ μόνῳ τῷ καθ᾽ "EGBpaious λεγομένῳ χρώμενοι. Hist. Eccl. 
lib. 111. cap. 27. Μόνον δὲ τὸ κατὰ “ESpatoug εὐαγγέλιον δέχονται. 
Her. Fab. lib. ii. cap. 1, et paulo post, εὐαγγελίῳ δὲ τῷ κατὰ 
Ματθαῖον κεχρῆνται μόνῳ. 


tt Her. 27, 9. 29. ++ Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 2 


PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS. 29 


cited passages* ἐκ τοῦ καθ' Ἑβραίους εὐαγγελίον, “ from the 
gospel according to the Hebrews.’ Now these things 
show, that though he knew this gospel contained many 
things, which were not in the Greek copy of St. Matthew, 
yet was it free from any additions which did corrupt the 
faith; for otherwise he could not have spoke so honoura- 
bly of Hegesippus, or so mildly of those other Christians 
which made use of it: and therefore though he saith that 
“some put the gospel according to the Hebrews amongst 
the books contradicted,” as they did also the Revelation 
of St. John; yet by saying this he plainly insinuates that 
other ecclesiastical writers owned it; nor doth he rank it 
amongt τὰς ἐν ὀνόματι ἀποστύλων πρὸς τῶν αἱρετικῶν προφερομένας, 
“ἀπὸ scriptures introduced by the heretics under the name 
of the apostles,” as he doth the gospels of St. Peter, St. 
Thomas, and Matthias, as knowing, what St. Jerome doth 
assure us, that it was called, or esteemed by most men, 
“the gospel according to St. Matthew.” 

Epiphanius} is another witness, who saith, “ The gospel 
of St. Matthew was writ in Hebrew ;” but then he adds, 
that “the Nazarenes had the fullest copy of it and kept it 
till his time, as it was first written in the Hebrew tongue.” 
Now be it, as Mr. Grabe and Petavius affirm, that in this 
he was deceived by them, and that it was the fault of it to 
be so full; yet as this shows that it passed then under the 
name of St. Matthew’s gospel, so doth it also show, how easy 
it was for these witnesses to be imposed on in this matter. 

St. Jerome§ is another witness, that “the gospel of St. 
Matthew was writ in Hebrew words and letters: and 
then he adds, 

First, That “it was” in his time “ uncertain who trans- 
lated it into Greek.” 


* Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 22. 

ἡ Ibid. lib. iii. cap. 25. + Her. 29, §. ult. 

§ Mattheus apostolus primus in Judea, propter eos qui 
ex circumcisione crediderant, evangelium Christi Hebrai- 
cis literis verbisque composuit, quod quis postea in Gre- 
cum transtulerit, non satis certum est; porro ipsum He- 
braicum habetur usque hodie in Cesariensi bibliotheca, 
quam Pamphilus Martyr studiosissimé confecit. Mihi 
quoque ἃ Nazareis, qui in Berea urbe Syrie héc volumine 
utuntur, describendi facultas fuit; in quo animadverten- 
dum quod ubicunque evangelista sive ex persona sui, sive 
ex persona Domini Salvatoris veteris Scripture testimo- 
niis utitur; non secutus septuaginta translatorum aucto- 
ritatem, sed Hebraicam. Cat. V. Mattheus. 

In Evangelio juxta Hebreos, quod Chaldaico quidem 
Syroque sermone, sed Hebraicis literis scriptum est, quo 
utuntur usque hodie Nazareni, secundtiim apostolos sive, 
ut plerique autumant, juxta Mattheum, quod et in Cesa- 
riensi habetur bibliothec4, narrat historia, Ecce mater Do- 
mini et fratres ejus dicebant ei, ecce Johannes Baptista 
baptizat in remissionem peccatorum, eamus et baptizemur 
ab eo; dixit eis, Quid peccavi ut vadam et baptizer ab eo. 
Ady. Pelagian. lib. iii. fol. 106, K. 

In evangelio quo utuntur Nazareni et Hebionite, quod 
nuper in Grecum de Hebreo sermone transtulimus, et quod 
vocatur ἃ plerisque Matthei authenticum, homo iste, qui 
aridam habet manum, cementarius scribitur istiusmodi 
vocibus auxilium precans :—Cementarius eram manibus 
victum queritans, precor te Jesu ut mihi restituas sanita- 
tem, ne turpitér mendicem cibos. In Matt. xii. 13, vide 
eund. in Isa. xi. f. 22, B. in Matt. xxvii. f. 38, Ὁ). 

Evangelium quoque quod appellatur secundim Hebreos, 
et ἃ me nuper in Grecum Latinumque sermonem transla- 
tum est, quo et Origenes sepe utitur, refert, Dominus 
cium dedisset syndonem servo sacerdotis, ivit ad Jacobum, 
et app? uit ei, juraverat enim Jacobus se non comesturum 
panem ab illd hora qua biberat calicem Domini, donec vi- 
deret eum resurgentem ἃ mortuis. Catalog. V. Jacobus. 

In evangelio eorum quod Hebreo sermone conscriptum 
legunt Nazarei, hec scripta reperimus ; factum est autem, 
cum descendisset Dominus de aqua, descendit fons omnis 
Spirits Sancti, et requievit super eum, et dixit illi, Pili 
mi, in omnibus prophetis expectabam te ut venires, et re- 
quiescerem super te, tu es enim requies mea, tu es Filius 
meus primogenitus qui regnas in sempiternum. In Isa. 
ch. xi. ἢ 22, B, and f. 67, L, and f. 188, I. 


Secondly, That “the very manuscript was till his time 
preserved in the Cwsarean library, gathered by Pamphilus 
the martyr; and that the Nazarenes, who used it at Be- 
rea, gave him the liberty to transcribe it, and that this 
very book was by most thought to be the gospel according 
to St. Matthew.” 

Thirdly, That “ the scriptures cited in this gospel, both 
in the person of the evangelist and of our Lord, were ex- 
actly according to the Hebrew, and not according to the 
Septuagint,” as it might reasonably be expected it would 
be in a Hebrew gospel, written for the use of them who 
only owned the Hebrew Bible as authentic. 

Fourthly, That “he himself not only transcribed it from 
the Cesarean copy, but after turned it into Greek and 
Latin.” 

Fifthly, From this Hebrew gospel, he cites these pas- 
sages; First, “'The mother of our Lord and his brethren 
said to him, John the Baptist baptizeth for the remission of 
sins, let us go and be baptized of him; and he answered, 
In what have I sinned, that I should go and be baptized 
of him?” Secondly, «The man who came to Christ with 
the withered hand was a mason, and said to Christ, I am 
a mason, who get my living by my labour; I pray thee heal 
me, that I may not be constrained to beg.” Thirdly, “That 
the apostle James had sworn, after he had received the 
sacrament from the hands of Christ, that he would not eat 
bread till he had seen Christ risen from the dead; and that 
therefore our Lord appeared to him.” Fourthly, That in 
this gospel “it was reckoned amongst the highest crimes, 
to make sad the heart of our brother.” Fifthly, That in this 
gospel it was said, “not only that the vail of the temple 
was rent at our Lord’s death; but also that the lintel over 
the temple being very great was broken.” In fine, he saith, 
that “ Jesus being come out of the water, the source of the 
Holy Ghost descended upon him, rested on him, and said 
to him, My Son, I expected you in all the prophets, to the 
end, that being come I might rest upon you; for you are 
my rest, and my first-born Son, who reigns for ever.” 
Now this is the only place which seems to vary from the 
doctrine of the church; and this Origen expounds (Com. 
in Job. p.58,D). ‘The other fathers which seem to avouch 
this tradition come too late, and are not considerable 
enough to be examined apart: I therefore shall only make 
some remarks on what St. Jerome hath delivered. And, 

First, Whereas he says, “It was uncertain who trans- 
lated this gospel of St. Matthew, writ in Hebrew, into 
Greek ;” hence we observe, that there is little reason to 
depend on what later writers have said on this matter; 
and therefore Mr. Du Pin freely confesses, p. 36, that 
whereas it is said in the abridgment of the Scriptures as- 
scribed to Athanasius, that it was made by St. James, 
bishop of Jerusalem; by Theophylact* is ascribed to St. 
John; and by Anastasius the Sinaite is ascribed to St. 
Luke and St. Paul; all this is spoken without ground. 

Secondly, Whereas he says, ‘« This was the copy which 
the Nazarenes and the Ebionites used, and that most per- 
sons did esteem it the gospel and the authentic copy of 
St. Matthew :” hence it must follow, that they had then a 
copy, which then passed commonly under the name of 
“the gospel according to St. Matthew.” 

Thirdly, Whereas he citeth from this gospel many pas- 
sages, which are not, as he cites them, to be found in the 
gospel of St. Matthew approved by the church; hence it 
must follow, they had added to St. Matthew’s gospel many 
things from tradition which were not recorded in the authen- 
tic gospel of St. Matthew; and this seems probably to 
the thing Eusebius intended, when he said, that “ Hegesip- 
pus cited many things from the Hebrew gospel, and from 
the unwritten traditions of the Jews;” so that “this gos- 
pel according to the Hebrews,” seems not to me, as_ Ir. 
Grabet and Du Pin do conjecture, to have been a go σ᾿ 
wholly different from that of St. Matthew, writ or transl 
by him into Hebrew for their use, as were, saith Epipha- 
nius,+ “the gospel of St. John, and the Acts of the Apos- 
tles ;’’ but only the gospel of St. Matthew used by the Ebi- 


* In verbo Matth. Prefat. in Matt. Serm. 8, in Gen. 
{ Spicileg. Patrum primi sec. p, 22—24, 
+ Her. 30, sect. 3, vide infra. 

c2 


ὧν 
* 


30 PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS. 


onites, who denied that Christ was born of a pure virgin, 
and therefore struck out the genealogy of St. Matthew; 
and the same gospel used by the Nazarenes, with many 
additions they had received from tradition, and upon that 
account placed by many ecclesiastical writers among the 
writings contradicted, and, in those matters in which it 
differed from the Greek and authentic copy, was of no 
authority in matters which concerned the Christian faith. 

§. VI. To proceed therefore to the consideration of this 
tradition in the bulk, let it be noted, 

First, That this is a tradition that an inspired apostle 
wrote a large gospel by the afflatus of the Holy Ghost in 
Hebrew, and yet that Providence which hath preserved all 
the other canonical books both of the Old and of the New 
‘Testament in their original languages, and that church 
which hath handed down all the other books of the New 
Testament, even those which are comprised in one single 
chapter, in the same language, have suffered the original 
of this large gospel to be lost within forty years, saith Mr. 
Du Pin, after it was written; as if it had been only writ- 
ten to be buried in the tomb of Barnabas, according to the 
tale of Theodoret Lector* in the sixth century; or to be 
carried by St. Bartholomewy unto the Indians, on that 
account more fortunate than other Christians; and yet 
unfortunate in this, that when they had it, they understood 
not a word of it; whence, even Du Pin saith, there is no 
appearance of truth in that story, p. 32. 

Secondly, Itis a tradition of a gospel written in Hebrew 
by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, for the use of the con- 
verted Jews; and yet, “after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
it became useless,” saith Du Pin, “and so no care was taken 
to preserve it:” yea, it was a gospel written for their use, 
and to supply the absence of St. Matthew; and yet, as far 
as doth appear, none of them ever had, or used it, unless it 
also was the gospel according to the Hebrews; for the con- 
verted Jews used that gospel, saith Eusebius; and Hege- 
sippus appears, saith he, “to have been one of the Jewish 
converts ; because he cites all his passages out of the gospel 
according to the Hebrews:” the Ebionites, say Eusebius, 
Epiphanius, and Theodoret, used only “ the gospel accord- 
ing to the Hebrews;” this was the gospel, saith St. Jerome, 
«which the Nazarenes read,” and which both they and the 
Ebionites used: and yet this gospel is put among the books 
“contradicted” by Eusebius. “It is of no authority to 
prove any matter of faith,” saith Origen,+ and may be re- 
ceived or not. To avoid these consequences, Du Pin and 
Mr. Grabe contend, that the gospel according to the He- 
brews was distinct from the gospel according to St. Mat- 
thew ; but this is evidently to contradict the testimonies of 
Ireneus and Theodoret, who say, “the Ebionites used the 
gospel of St. Matthew ;” and of Epiphanius, who says, 
“they used the gospel according to the Hebrews, and call- 
ed it the gospel according to St. Matthew;” and of St. 
Jerome, who saith, “it was by most reputed the gospel 
according to St. Matthew.” It was not indeed the true 
authentic gospel of St. Matthew, received without contra- 
diction by the church, for that was only the Greek copy ; 
it was not a copy of St. Matthew’s gospel, free from addi- 
tions and interpolations, which they had put into it from 
tradition, which is all that the arguments of Du Pin 
and others prove; but yet, I say, it was that very gospel 
which the Nazarenes read, and which was kept in the 
Cesarean library as the gospel according to St, Matthew, 
and which the Ebionites used as such; nor can any man 
prove from antiquity, that either the Christian fathers 
knew of, or that the Jewish converts ever used, any other 
Hebrew gospel according to St. Matthew. 

Epiphanius indeed saith,§ “That the Nazarenes had the 
gospel according to St. Matthew, πληρέστατον “EGpatcri, most 


* Collectan. lib. ii. p. 184. 
} Hieron. V. Barthol. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 10. 
Ξ In evangelio quodam quod dicitur secundim Hebrzos, 

si tamen placet alicui recipere illud non ad auctoritatem, 
sed ad manifestationem proposite questionis. Hom. 8, in 
Matt. f. 21, Ὁ). 

§ Ἔχουσι δὲ τὸ κατὰ MarSatov εὐαγγέλιον πληρέστατον “EGpa- 
tari, map’ αὐτοῖς γὰρ σαφῶς τοῦτο, καθὼς ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἐγράφη “EBpa- 
ικοῖς γράμμασιν, ἔτι σώζεται, οὐκ οἶδα δὲ εἰ καὶ τὰς γενεαλογίας ἀπὸ 
τοῦ ᾿Α βραὰμ ἀχρὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ περιεῖλον. Her. 29, sect. ult. 


full in Hebrew, and that they had preserved it from the be- 
ginning, as it was writ in Hebrew, till his time:” but Pe- 
tavius* truly notes that this was his mistake, « that gospel 
not being pure, but depraved, and was indeed no other 
than the gospel according to the Hebrews:” and that this 
was so, is evident partly from his own confession, that 
“for any thing he knew to the contrary, the Nazarenes had 
cut off from it the genealogy from Abraham to Christ ;” 
and partly from the additional passages so often cited by 
St. Jerome from that gospel, which the Nazarenes read 
and used; and this also confutes another salvo, which 
some have invented by a distinction, which, without 
ground, they make betwixt «the gospel according to the 
Hebrews,” and “the gospel according to the Nazarenes.” 

Now, from what I have thus discoursed, I argue thus, 
Hither the gospel of St. Matthew, supposed to be originally 
written in Hebrew, contained in it the passages cited from 
the gospel of the Nazarenes, or the gospels according to 
the Hebrews, or it did not; if it did not, then it is certain, 
that the gospel retained in Hebrew by the Nazarenes and 
Ebionites, as the gospel according to St. Matthew, was 
not the same with his original gospel. Then, Secondly, 
Seeing St. Jerome twice informs us, that “it was the very 
authentic copy of St. Matthew, and was by most judged 
to be so;” and Eusebius saith that this gospel according 
to the Hebrews was only by some rejected, as also was 
the Revelation of St. John; it follows, that most Chris- 
tians as to the matter must be then mistaken. 

But if the original gospel of St. Matthew did contain 
these passages, then it is certain, that the Greek copy 
approved by the apostles, and received by the universal 
chure&, cannot be the fruwe or authentic gospel of St. Mat- 
thew, seeing it must be then deficient in many things 
contained in the true Hebrew gospel; and so it must be 
granted, that the apostles approved, and the church re- 
ceived, a gospel, which wanted many passages contained 
in the original, according to St. Matthew, written by the 
assistance or inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 

Thirdly, It was written in Hebrew, saith this tradition, 
for the use of the cireumcision ; and yet it was not writ- 
ten by St. James, the “bishop of the circumcision,” nor 
by St. Peter or St. John, the “apostles of the circumci- 
sion,” but by St. Matthew, the publican; yea, it was writ- 
ten in Hebrew for them for whom both their own bishop 
and these apostles of the circumcision wrote in Greek. 

Fourthly, It was written, saith this tradition, by the 
direction of the Holy Ghost, and interpreted, saith the pre- 
tended Athanasius, by “James the brother of our Lord;” 
saith Anastasius Sinaita, by St. Luke; by St. John, saith 
Theophylact, upon hearsay; and all of them without 
ground, saith Du Pin, p.36. “It is unknown by whom it 
was translated,” saith St. Jerome; “It was not trans- 
lated,” saith Papias, “but every one interpreted it as he 
could ;” and yet that of Baroniust is certain, that “if the 
Hebrew alone was the original of St. Matthew, we cannot 
say the Greek is the true copy of St. Matthew, but by our 
assurance that it agrees with the original.” Now if it 
were not at all translated, as Papias saith, or were trans- 
lated only by an unknown hand, as St. Jerome saith; or 
if we have only one single person of a later date, who 
ascribes this version to an apostolical person, and he both 
doth it without ground, and is contradicted by two, who 
attribute this version to another,—can this be any sure 
foundation that we have any copy which agrees with the 
original ? 

It is said, indeed, that the apostles approved of the Greek 
version; I answer, that they and the whole church approved 
of the Greek gospel of St. Matthew, I believe; but what 
single authors say they approved of any version? yea, 
what author before St. Jerome and the false Athanasius 
speaks of any version from the Hebrew? ΑἹ] antiquity 
cite this gospel according to the Greek, and speak of the 
gospel according to the Hebrew as a thing not of authority, 


* Neque verd purum Matthei Evangelium, ut existi- 
masse videtur Epiphanius, sed ab illis depravatum, quod 
Evangelium κατὰ ’E8paiors appellat Eusebius. Nazareo- 
rum Evangelium nequaquam Matthei germanum fuit. 
Not. ad Her. 29, N. 9. 

+ An. 35, Num. 165. 


PREFACE TO THE GOSPELS. 


or not received without contradiction ; but I know not one 
who saith the gospel used by the church was a version from 
the Hebrew; and from this long silence, and from the dis- 
cord and ungrounded sayings of those single witnesses, who 
after the fourth century speak of a version, I conclude the 
Greek we now have was no version, but the original gospel 
of St. Matthew, written by him for the use of the whole 
church of God; and that the Hebrew copy, if he wrote any, 
was written for the use of the circumcision only; so that it 
being in the hands of the Jews only, and understood by 
them alone, and they being, saith Justin Martyr,* “the 
worst sort of Christians,” i. e. retainers of Judaism with 
Christianity, and they in whose hands the gospel chiefly 
was, being Nazarenes and Ebionites, might, from the tradi- 
tions which obtained among them, add to it, or from their 
principles be induced to change and to corrupt it. Or, 

Lastly, ‘To speak freely what I conceive most probable, as 
the canonical books of the Old Testament were written ori- 
r Ἴ in Hebrew, but when the pure Hebrew became un- 
1 .ligible to the vulgar, and when the dispersion of the 
Jews had distinguished them into Hebrews, which used 
their mother-tongue, and Hellenists, who understood only 
the Greek tongue, the Chaldee version was used in the sy- 
nagogues of the Hebrews, and the Greek by the Hellenists; 
so this distinction continuing after Christ’s ascension, some 
of the Scriptures, written originally in the Greek for the use 
of both Jew and gentile, were translated into the mixed 
Hebrew; and as they had, saith Epiphanius,t “ the gospel 
of St. John and the Acts of the Apostles in Hebrew ;” so 
had they before the gospel of St. Matthew turned into the 
same language, and perhaps with the same liberty of making 
additions to it from tradition, which we find in the Chaldee 
paraphrast and the translation of the Septuagint ; which ver- 
sion the primitive Christians among the gentiles, who were 
ignorant of that language, finding in their hands, they from 
the likeness of the thing, and the pretensions of the Jews, 
might think it an original written for their use. Thus some 
of them upon the same account inform us, that “the epistle 
to the Hebrews was first written in Hebrew, and was trans- 
lated into Greek by Clemens,¢ or St. Luke ;” and yet that 
in this matter they were mistaken, we learn from St. Je- 
rome,§ telling us for certain, “that the whole New Testa- 
ment, excepting only the gospel of St. Matthew, was first 
writ in Greek.” For, 

First, St. Jerome and Epiphanius are the only persons 
who speak of this authentic Hebrew gospel, kept till their 
time by the Nazarenes, which that it was not the original 
gospel of St. Matthew hath been fully proved. 

Secondly, St. Jerome saith of this Hebrew copy, which 
he received from them and translated into Greek and Latin, 
that “ the citations contained in it, when the evangelist spake 
in his own person, or in the person of our Lord, were ex- 
actly according to the Hebrew, and not according to the 
Septuagint ;” and yet it is certain this is not true of the 
Greek copy we now have, as appears from ii. 6. 18, iii. 3, 
iv. 15, v. 21. 31. 43, xi. 10, xii. 20, 21, xiii. 14, xv. 8, 9, 
XXvi. 31, xxvii. 9. 

§. VIL. If it be here objected, that by calling in question 
a thing so generally asserted by so many fathers, I 
weaken the tradition of the church concerning the canon of 
the Scriptures, and other matters handed down to us by 
tradition ; 

I answer, That I have sufficiently obviated this objection 
in a particular discourse! upon this subject, in which I have 
showed what traditions are to be received, and what may ra- 
tionally be questioned, and that we have sufficient ground 


* ᾿Αληξεστέρους τοὺς ἐξ ἐδνῶν τῶν ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων καὶ Σαμαρέων 
Χριστιανοὺς εἰδότες. Apol. 2, p. 88. 

Γ Καὶ τὸ κατὰ Ἰωάννην μεταληφθὲν εἰς Ἑβραίδα ἐμφέρεται ἐν 
tuts τῶν Ιουδαίων γαζοῤυλακίοις,----οὐ μὲν ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν πράξεων τῶν 
ἀποστόλων τὴν βίβλον ὡσαύτως ἀπὸ Ἑλλάδος γλώσσης εἰς ᾿Εδραΐδα 
μεταβληθεῖσαν λόγος ἔχει. Her. 30, sect. 8. 

+ Γεγράφθαι “EBpaios, “Εὐραικὴ φωνῆ. Clem. Alex. apud 
Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 14. Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 38. 
‘Theodoret. Proem. in Ep. ad Heb. Hieronymus, V. Paulus. 

§ De Novo Testamento Grecum esse non dubium est, ex- 
cepto Apostolo Matthro. Prefat. ad quatuor Evangelia. 

| Treatise on Traditions. 


31 


from reason to rely on the tradition of the canon of the Old 
and the New Testament. 

Secondly,” I have shown that the fathers have been im- 
posed upon by the Jews in other things received from them 
by tradition, and asserted by more testimonies of ancient fa- 
thers that are avouched to prove that the gospel according 
to St. Matthew, was first written in Hebrew; as v. g. First, 
In the story of the cells of the Seventy, in which they who 
translated the Old Testament are said to have been seve- 
rally placed; or, as Epiphanius will have it, two together, 
when they translated the old ‘Testament from Hebrew into 
Greek, and yet by inspiration, or prophetical impulse, to 
have performed this translation all in the same words; these 
things, saith Justin Martyr,t “we report to you gentiles, 
not as fables, or feigned stories, ἀλλὰ rap’ αὐτῶν ἐκεῖ ὡς τὰ 
πάτρια mapsiAnpbrwy ἀκηκούτες ταῦτα παραγγέλλομεν, but as a re- 
ceived tradition delivered to us from the inhabitants of the 
place.” ‘The same traditions, touching the cells, is delivered 
as certain by Irenwus,t by Clemens of Alexandria (Strom. 
1, p. 342), by Cyril§ of Jerusalem, and by Epiphanius (de 
Ponderibus et Mens. p. 160—162), and by St. Austin (De 
Civ. Dei. lib. xvi. cap, 42, 43). 

And as all these fathers confirm the story of the cells, and 
consequently speak of this performance as done, ϑεία δυνάμει 
κατ᾽ ἐπίπνοιαν Θεοῦ, ἐκ Πνεύματος ἁγίον, “by the power and af- 
flatus of the Holy Spirit, or by that Spirit who spake these 
things by the prophets ;” so doth 'Tertullian|| speak, de sen- 
tenti2 communione, of “their conspiring in their senti- 
ments;” Eusebius saith, that it was ϑεύθεν οἰκονομηθεῖσα 
ἑρμηνεία, “an interpretation ordered by God ;” “it was done 
by them,” saith St. Hillary,** spirituali et ccelesti scientia 
“with spiritual and heavenly knowledge ;” μὴ δίχα τῆς θείας 
ἐπιπνοίας, “not without divine inspiration,” saith Theodo- 
ret :}{ and this they say by reason of the great sympathy 
which was in their interpretation ; and yet Bellarmine+ saith, 
that “in this the Jews imposed on Justin Martyr, and the 
succeeding fathers might give credit to Justin.” Du Pin,§§ 
that it is a “fiction of the Jews,” and that “it is well known 
how frivolous and uncertain these pretended popular tradi- 
tions are, and especially among the Jews :” Father Simon||| 
saith, “we must not here so much consider what the fa- 
thers said, as what reason they had to say so ;” and that St. 
Jerome{ { “gives them all the lie.” And to the other pre- 
tence of their inspiration, he answers (p. 115), de rebus 
sibi incognitis quidquam certi definire non potuerunt, “ they 
could say nothing certain of things unknown to them- 
selves,” and therefore could say nothing certain in the case 
before us. 

Secondly, The appearance of Elias the Tishbite in person, 
before the second coming of Christ, is delivered by the fa- 
thers unanimously as a tradition of the church: but this 
they did partly from the tradition of the Jews, partly from 
the mistaken sense of the words of Christ, and partly from 
the authority of the Septuagint, without all ground, as hath 
been fully proved (Treat. of Trad. ch. 5, from §. 1 to §.5). 

Thirdly, They generally taught, for four centuries toge- 
ther, that “the good angels, styled the sons of God, Gen. vi., 
were transported with the love of women, and begat of them 
giants and evil spirits;” this is taught by Justin Martyr, 
Ireneus, Clemens of Alexandria, and Athenagoras, in the 
second century; by Tertullian, Minutius, St. Cyprian, and 
Methodius in the third ; by Lactantius and Sulpicius in the 
fourth; and this they did from the traditional interpretation 
of the Jews recorded in J osephus*** and in Philo{y and in 
the first book of Enoch, De Egregeris; and yet in the fifth 
century the authors of this opinion are represented by 
Chrysostom}++ and Theodoret, as “ stupid teachers of fables 


* Ibid. cap. 1, sect. 8. 

+ Exhort. ad Gr. p. 13, 14. 

§ Catech. 4, p. 37. 

|| Apol. cap. 18. { Prep. Ev. lib. viii. cap. 1. 

** Prol. in Ps. p. 635. tt Pref. in Psalm. 

++ De verbo Dei, lib. ii. cap. 6. §§ Hist. of the Canon, p.174. 

11 Disq. Crit. cap. 15, p. 109. 

“Ἴ Nescio quis primus auctor septuaginta cellulas men 
dacio suo exstruxit. 

*** Antiq. lib. x. cap. 4. {{{ De Gigant. p. 284, 285. 

3#+ Vid. Grab. Spicil. 1 Cent. Ρ. 347, ἄς. 


+ Lib iii. cap. 25. 


32 A PARAPHRASE ON T 


and blasphemers,”’* as hath been proved; and if in these 
things the fathers were so easily imposed on by the Jews, 
why might they not be imposed on likewise in saying that 
the gospel according to St. Matthew was written in a lan- 
guage that they understood nothing of, and of which they 
could say nothing certain from their own knowledge ? 
Notwithstanding, if any man like not this opinion, he 


* Treat. of T'rad. part 2, cap. 12, 8. 7. 


HE NEW TESTAMENT. 


may compound the matter with the fathers thus, that St. 
Matthew might deliver that gospel which he wrote, as well 
in Hebrew to the Jews, who understood that language only, 
as in Greek to the Hellenistic Jews and to the gentile con- 
verts. And since it is agreed on all hands that he left Judea 
to preach to the gentiles, what is more reasonable than to 
conceive he left tat gospel he had preached to them, and 
wrote by the assistance of the Spirit, as a rule of faith to 
all nations, in a language which those nations understood ? 


ΡΑΒΑᾺΑΡ 


A 


HRASE 


ON 


THE NEW TESTAMENT, 


ΤῊΣ καινῆς διαθήκης ἅπαντα, all the books of the New Tes- 
tament.] It is observed by the Rev. Dr. Hammond,* that 
this title refers to the “consent of the catholic church of 
God, and the tradition which giveth testimony to these 
books, as those, and those only, which complete the canon 
of the New Testament; and the word ἅπαντα, all, signifies, 
as in the titles of other authors, ἅπαντα ra διδόμενα, ‘all 
the books which have been written,’ and by God's provi- 
dence derived to the church, so as to be received into the 
canon, or into the number of writings which were confess- 
edly indited by the apostles and disciples of Christ.” I 
cannot indeed find that this title is of any considerable an- 
tiquity ; but the more ancient title of ἡ καινὴ διαϑήκη, “the 
New Testament,” prefixed to these books, doth plainly in- 
timate the full and general persuasion, that in these books 
was comprised that whole new covenant of which the 
blessed Jesus was the mediator, and the apostles were the 
ministers and the dispensers; and then surely they must 
contain all that is requisite for Christians to believe or do 
in order to salvation, or in order to their performance of 
the conditions on which salvation in this new covenant is 
tendered ; there being nothing which can be deemed a more 
necessary and essential part of the new covenant, than the 
conditions upon which salvation is to be obtained by it. 

And that the ancients thus conceived of these books, is 
evident from the other title of the “rule and canon of 
scripture,” given to them even from the time of Treneus,t 
who styles the Scriptures τὸν ἀκλινῆ τῆς ἀληθείας τὸν κανόνα, 
“the invariable rule of truth.” A canon, saith Phavorinus, 
is a perpetual rule, a measure that cannot be false, πᾶσαν 
πρόσθεσιν καὶ ἀφαίρεσιν μηδαμῶς ἐπιδεχόμενος, “and which by no 
means admits of any addition to it, or subtraction from it.” 
A canon and a rule, saith St. Basil,¢ if it want nothing to 
make it truly such, οὐδεμίαν πρασϑήκην eis ἀκρίβειαν ἐνδέχεται, 
“admits of no addition to the exactness of it; for addition 
belongs to that which is somewhat deficient, or imperfect ; 
whereas,” saith he, “if rules and canons be imperfect, 


* Preface. + Lib. i. ed. Ox. p. 44. 
+ Ady. Eunom. lib. i. tom. i. p. 701. 


they do not well deserve that name.” «ΤῸ a canon,” 
saith G, Nyssen,* “belongs ἡ τελειότης, such perfection as 
hath nothing wanting or abounding ;” and therefore of the 
canon of the Scriptures he asserts, that it is κριτήριον ἀςφαλὲς 
τῆς ἀληθείας ἐπὶ παντὸς δόγματος, “an infallible rule of truth 
in every doctrine.” Upon those words, “As many as 
walk by this canon” (Gal. vi. 16), Theodoret saith, «He 
calls the doctrine propounded by him a canon, as having 
μήτε ἐλλεῖπόν τι μήτε περιττὸν, nothing wanting or superfluous :” 
and upon those words, Philip. iii. 16, « Let us walk by the 
same canon,” Chrysostomy saith, “A canon neither ad- 
mits of addition or diminution, otherwise it loseth the 
property of a canon.” Elsewhere+ he saith, that “it is 
easy to judge of the controversies in religion, having the 
scripture for our canon.” Theodoret,§ on the place, saith, 
“The apostle calls the preaching of the gospel the canon ;” 
adding, that “a canon is a boundary of night, wanting 
nothing.’ &cumenius saith, “The apostle speaks of 
faith ; for as to a canon or rule, if you add any thing to it, 
or diminish from it, the whole is spoiled ; so is it with re- 
spect to faith.’ So that in the judgment of the fathers, 
the Holy Scriptures being the rule and canon of faith, no 
article of faith can be wanting in them, or ought to be 
added to them. Hence also, by just consequence, we infer 
the perspicuity of scripture in all the necessary articles of 
Christian faith, and rules of life; for a perfect canon must 
as well be plain as full: a rule by which I am to regulate 
my actions and my faith must be clear; for if it be not 
plain and intelligible, I cannot, by attending to it, know 
what I am obliged to believe and do: and therefore Chry- 
sostom saith, “There needs not much inguiry where there 
is a rule to which all things must be adapted ; but it is easy 
to perceive who takes wrong measures” (Hom. 35, in Acta 
Apost. tom. iv. p. 800). 


* Ady. Eunom. Or. 3. tom. ii. p. 552, et Or. 1. p. 346, 

ἡ Ἐπεὶ τὸ Κανὼν εἶναι ἀπόλλυσι. 

+ Tom. iv. Hom. 34, in Act. Apost. 

8 Ὃ δὲ Κανὼν cil ry725 ὅρος, μηδενὸς προσδεχόμενος" οὕτως Kat 
ἐπὶ τῆς πίστεως. 


THE 


GOSPEL OF 


She? MAT PEE: 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Tue book of the generation! of Jesus Christ (who 
was according to the flesh, Rom. ix. 5), the son of 
3 David, (Acts ii. 30, and) the son of Abraham (és on 
this wise). 

2 Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob ; 
and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren ;* 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Βίβλος γενέσεως, the book of the generation.] i. e. 
As the Syriac well expresses it, the writing, narrative, or 
rehearsal of the generation or birth (ver. 18) of Jesus; for 
though the word γένεσις is elsewhere of that latitude, as to 
comprise also the history of our Lord’s life, and death, and 
resurrection; yet it is here to be restrained to the birth of 
Christ, as appears, first, from the parallel phrase, αὕτη ἡ 
βίβλος γενέσεως ἀνθρώπων, “this is the book” or the rehearsal 
« of the generation of men from Adam to Noah” (Gen. v. 1). 
Secondly, From the design of the apostle here, which is to 
set down the descent of Christ from Abraham, and his alli- 
ance to king David by his father Joseph: and, thirdly, 
from the eighteenth verse, which, after this narrative of it, 
proceeds to show the manner of his birth, by saying, “ Now 
ἡ γένεσις the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise.” 

2 The son of David, the son of Abraham.) i. e. The son 
of both, as “ Aholibamah the daughter of Anah, (and) the 
daughter of Zibeon” (Gen. xxxvi. 2). This sense being 
most suitable to the design of the apostle, which is to prove 
Christ was the son of both, and that in him were fulfilled the 
promises made to both. And David is first named ; first, 
because the promise to him was fresher in memory, more 
plain, and more explicit; God had promised to Abraham 
in general words, that “in his seed should all the families 
of the earth be blessed’’ (Gen. xii. 3, xxii. 18), And that 
this seed was Christ, we learn from the apostle Peter, Acts 
iii. 25, 26, and from St. Paul, Gal. iii. 16. But to David 
God promised, that in “his seed would he establish the 
throne of his kingdom for ever” (2 Sam. vii. 16) ; that his 
seed would he establish for ever, and “ build up his throne 
to all generations” (Ps. Ixxxix.4). Now this being a pro- 
mise, that “ of the fruit of his body he would raise up Christ 
tosit upon his throne” (Acts 11, 30), was more suitable to 
the notions of the Jewish nation touching the king Mes- 
siah, and to their inclinations. ‘The prophets also prophesy 
of him, as one to “sit upon the throne of David for ever” 
(Isa. ix. 7), that he shall be a “righteous branch” raised 
up to David, and a “king that shall reign and prosper, in 
whose days Judah shall dwell safely” (Jer, xxiii. 5, 6), 
that they “should dwell in the land for ever, and David 
shall be their prince for ever” (Ezek. xxxvii. 24, 25, see 
Isa. lv. 11, Amos ix. 11). Accordingly, the angel speaketh 
of one who should “ reign on the throne of his father Da- 
yid, over the house of Jacob for ever” (Luke i. 33). And 
the Jews pray to him thus, “ Jesus, thou son of David, have 
mercy on us’ (Matt. ix. 27, xv. 22, xx. 30); and make 
their acclamations to him thus, “Hosanna to the son of 
David.” Others add, that Abraham is put after David, be- 
cause the apostle was to begin his catalogue from Abraham, 

3 Ver. 2. Kai τοὺς dde\gois αὐτοῦ, and his brethren.) Per- 
haps interpreters might save themselves the trouble of giv- 
ing a reason of many things contained in this catalogue, by 
saying St. Matthew here recites it as he found it in the 
authentic copies of the Jews, who doubtless had preserved 

Vou. IV.—5 


3 And Judas begat Phares and Zara ‘ of Tha- 
mar;° and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat 
Aram; 

4 And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab be- 
gat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; 

5 And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab 5 (the harlot) ; 


some known and approved genealogy of their descent from 
Abraham, the father of their nation, in whom they somuch 
gloried, and from whose loins they expected the promised 
Messiah, ‘Thus, for instance, when it is said, “ Salathiel 
begat Zorobabel,” it may be sufficient to justify the apostle 
in this, that the Jews do still represent Zorobabel not as 
the son of Pedaiah, but of Salathiel. So we read of “ Zo- 
robabel, the son of Shealtiel,’’ Neh. xii. 1, Hag. i. 12. 14, 
ii. 21. 23, Ezra iii. 2. 8, v. 2. Josephus* likewise says, the 
captain of the people was 6 Σαλλαθιέλον παῖς Ζοροβαβέλος, 
« Zorobabel the son of Salathiel;’’ and with great reason 
must he follow the sentiments of three persons of so great 
authority as Ezra, Nehemiah, and the prophet Haggai, the 
contemporaries of Zorobabel. So also may we say, that 
the kings left out in this genealogy were therefore omitted 
by St. Matthew; because he found them omitted in the 
genealogy used by the Jews, and that these words, “and his 
brethren,” are added, as being also added in their genealogy. 
But to omit this, “his brethren” may be added to comfort 
the dispersed tribes, which were not yet returned out of cap- 
tivity, as Judah was, in their equal interest in the blessing 
of the seed of Abraham, they being all adopted children of 
God, which is not true of Ishmael or Esau, the brethren of 
Isaac and Jacob: moreover, these brethren of Judas might 
well be mentioned, as being patriarchs, “heirs of the pro- 
mise” and heads of that people whence the Messiah was 
to proceed; and therefore Stephen also speaks thus of 
them, “ Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and 
Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs,” Acts vil. 8. 

4 Ver 3. And Zara.] Mentioned with Phares, as being 
born at the same time, and striving with him for primo- 
geniture, Gen. xxxviil. 28—30. 

5 Of Thamar.] It is observed here by some, that only 
four women are mentioned in this genealogy till he comes 
to Joseph, and all of them noted for some infamy, as 
Thamar for incest, Rachab for being a harlot, Ruth for 
heathenism, Bathsheba for adultery ; nor were they thus 
mentioned, because sinners, to teach us that Christ came 
to save such, or to be born of such; for why then were 
the three descents of Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah omit- 
ted? but because in them only that law was departed 
from, which was given generally to the heirs of the pro- 
mised blessing, that they should take them wives of their 
nearest kindred; and perhaps to obviate the cavils of the 
Jews against the mean condition of the mother of our Lord, 
their ancestors being descended of women whose qualities 
rendered them meaner than she was. 

6 Ver.4. Of Rachab.] 'That Rachab was married to some 
prince of Israel, the tradition of the Jews assures us; but 
whereas, in contradiction to St. Matthew, they say, that she 
was married to Joshua, this is said in flat opposition to 
their own tradition, that Rachab was “the mother of eight 
priests and prophets ;” for Joshua was neither of the tribe 
of Judah nor of Levi, but of the tribe of Ephraim (Numb, 


* Antiq. Jud. lib. xi. cap. 4, p. 363, F. 


84 


and Booz begat Obed of Ruth (the Moabitess) ; and 
Obed begat Jesse; i 
6 And Jessebegat David the king;’and David the king 
begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias ;* 
7 And Solomon begat Roboam ; and Roboam begat 
Abia; and Abia begat Asa; 


MATTHEW. 


8 And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat 
Joram; and Joram begat Ozias ;° 

9 And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat 
Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias ; 

10 And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses 
begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias ; 


‘iii. 8). That Rachab was one of the idolatrous nations with 
which they were forbidden to marry (Exod. xxxiv. 16, Deut. 
vii. 3), hinders not this marriage of Salmon with Rachab, she 
being first made a proselyte of justice; the reason of that 
law being this, lest they should tempt them to idolatry ; 
which reason ceased when they once owned the God of Is- 
rael; whence we find that Boaz married Ruth (iv. 13), and 
thought himself obliged so to do, and David married Maa- 
chah, the daughter of the king of Geshur (2 Sam. iii. 3). 
But here seems to be a great objection both against Salmon 
and against Obed, how it can be true that only Boaz, Obed, 
and Jesse, should intercede betwixt Salmon and David, 
when the time betwixt them must be at least three hundred 
years in the mildest computation ; and so Salmon must be 
one hundred years old when he begat Boaz, Boaz as old 
when he begat Obed, and Obed as old when he begat Jesse ; 
whereas it is looked upon as miraculous that Abraham at 
one hundred years should beget Isaac, Gen. xvii. 17, xxi. 5. 
To this objection it may be answered from the Targum upon 
Ruth, that these three were men of an extraordinary cha- 
racter for justice and piety ; Salmon is styled “ Salmon the 
just,” of whom it is said, that “his works and the works of 
his children were very excellent ;” that Boaz was “a right- 
eous person, by whose righteousness the people of Israel 
were delivered from the hands of their enemies : and by 
“whose prayers the famine ceased from the land of Israel ;” 
that Obed “served the Lord with a perfect heart,” and that 
he begat Jesse, “in whom was found no iniquity or cor- 
ruption for which he should be delivered to the angel of 
death,” and “he lived many days, and only died at last by 
reason of the sentence passed upon Adam for eating the 
forbidden fruit’ God therefore might vouchsafe to men 
of such extraordinary piety a longer life than ordinary, and 
strength to beget children in their old age. Thus Caleb 
at eighty-five, and Moses at one hundred and twenty, had 
not their natural strength abated (Deut. xxxiv. 7, Josh. 
xiv. 11); whereas Abraham’s body was then dead (Rom. 
iv. 19). Dr. Alix saith there were but three hundred and 
sixty-six years from the first of Joshua to the birth of 
David; and this is certain, because from the going of the 
children of Israel out of Egypt to the building of the tem- 
ple in the fourth year of Solomon, passed four hundred and 
eighty years. Now if you add to three hundred and sixty- 
six the forty years the children spent in the wilderness, the 
seventy years of David’s life, mentioned 2 Sam. v. 4, and 
the four years of Solomon, they make exactly four hundred 
and eighty years: he therefore supposes that Salmon begat 
Boaz when he was ninety-six years old; Boaz begat Obed 
when he was ninety years old; Obed, when he was ninety, 
begat Jesse; and Jesse, when he was eighty-five, begat 
David. 

7 Ver. 6. David the king.] To whom the promise was 
made to the king Messiah, to stablish his throne for ever, 
Ezek. xxxvil. 25, and from him the kingdom is styled the 
“house of David,” and the kingly throne, “the throne of 
the house of David,” Ps. exxii. 5. 

8 Of her that had been the wife of Urias.] To show that 
that crime of David being repented of, was so far from hin- 
dering the promise God made to him, that it pleased God 
by this very woman to fulfil it. 

9 Ver. 8. Joram begat Ozias.] It is certain, from the his- 
tory of the Kings and Chronicles, that Ozias was the son of 
Amaziah, 2 Chron. xxvi. 1, Amaziah of Joash, xxiv. 27, 
Joash of Azariah, xxii. 11, Azariah of Joram, ver. 1. But 
according to the language of the Hebrews, and their maxims 
relating to this matter, “the children of children are re- 
puted the children not only of their immediate parents, but 
of their ancestors,” and these ancestors are said to beget 
those who are removed some generations from them: so 
Isaiah saith to Hezekiah, xxxix. 7, “Of thy sons which 
shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take 


away ; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king 
of Babylon ;” which prediction was fulfilled only in the days 
of Jechonias, long after the days of Hezekiah. But the 
great question here is, Why Azariah, Joash, and Amaziah, 
are left out of the catalogue of the kings of Judah? To 
this it is answered, 1. Negatively, that the reason could not 
be because they were great sinners, since Manasseh and 
Amon, who were greater sinners, were retained in this 
catalogue, ver. 10. It therefore may be said, 

First, That the Jews had their tabule censuales, in which 
the stems of the kingly family of David were written ; and 
in these catalogues these three kings might be left out. 
That even to the time of Christ they had such tables even 
of their families and tribes, is evident from Josephus,* who, 
having given us the genealogy of his family, saith, Τὴν μὲν 
οὖν τοῦ γένους ἡμῶν διαδοχὴν, ὡς ἐν ταῖς δημοσίαις δέλτοις ἀναγε- 
γραμμένην εὗρον, οὕτως παρατίθεμαι, “I give you this succes- 
sion of our family as I found it written in the public tables ;” 
and if so, the Jews, not the apostles, are to account for this 
omission. Secondly, It is no new thing to find the like 
omissions in the books of the Old Testament; thus Cain 
and his whole posterity are omitted in the book of Chroni- 
cles; Simeon is omitted in the blessing of Moses, Deut. 
xxxill. for his cruelty at Sychem. The writer of the book 
of Chronicles reckons up all the sons of Jacob; but in the 
account of their posterity, he omits the account of Zebulun 
and Dan; and when he begins with the sons of Judah, he 
omits Zarah, 1 Chron. ii. 3, iv. 1. The penman of the 
books of Samuel, when he recounts the worthies of David, 
omits Joab, because of his bloodiness to Amasa and Abner. 
In the book of Ezra there are reckoned from Seraiah to 
Aaron only sixteen generations (ch. vii.), whereas, in the 
book of Chronicles, from Aaron to the same Seraiah are 
reckoned twenty-two (1 Chron. vi.), so that six must be 
omitted in Ezra: so that there is no more reason to suspect 
the evangelist, than the Jews have to question their own 
scriptures on this account. But still it may be inquired, 
why these three in particular are omitted: and to this it is 
answered (1.) That the omitting these three cannot in the 
least concern the chief design of the apostle, which was to 
show that Jesus was of the lineage of David: now by pass- 
ing from Joram to Ozias he keeps still in the same line, and 
so sufficiently shows that Jesus was of the house and family 
of David. (2.) The reason why these three are passed by 
rather than others seems probably to be this, that they are 
the posterity of Joram, an idolater, and one who married 
the daughter of Ahab (2 Kings viii. 18), and so was joined 
to an idolatrous family, and by this provoked God to have 
destroyed his family, had he not preserved it because of the 
covenant made with David, 2 Chron. xxi. 7. God there- 
fore cuts off all these three, omitted here, by an unnatural 
and untimely death, to punish the idolatry of this king, and 
of the house of Ahab in his posterity to the third genera- 
tion, according to his threat in the second commandment; 
and for this reason these three kings might be here passed 
over in silence. It is by others farther said, that St. Mat- 
thew finding the generations in the first period exactly four- 
teen, he passed over some in his second account, to make 
that to answer to the first ; but this will by no means please 
Mr. Cl. who first, against all reason, talks of ten omitted 
out of the number of fifty, to make the divisions into four- 
teens; and then adds a bold conjecture, “ that St. Matthew 
met with a genealogical book of David’s family that was 
defective, and accidentally observing these three classes of 
fourteen generations between these three great periods of 
time, viz. before the setting up of the regal government, 
during its continuance, and after its fall, was thereby moved 
to make such a division in the account of Christ’s lineage, 
which he would not so much as have thought of, if he had 


* De Vita Sua, p. 998, D. 


CHAPTER I. 35 


11 And Josias ® begat Jechonias and his brethren, 
about the time they were carried away to Babylon: 
12 And after they were brought to Babylon, Jecho- 


nias begat Salathiel ; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel ; 
13 And Zorobabel "™ begat Abiud; and Abiud be- 
gat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor; 


made use of an entire book; nor, saith he (in the name of 
his friend), is it to be wondered that a genealogical book 
should be corrupted, because a very great and considerable 
error, that had perplexed the ancients, had crept into the 
eleventh verse of St. Matthew’s text itself’ Now as for his 
imaginary error in the eleventh verse, I shall account for it 
there; but to make a divine author, assisted by the Holy 
Ghost, as St. Matthew was always esteemed by all Chris- 
tians, in a matter of so great import as the true descent of 
the Messiah, take up with a defective and corrupt book, 
and give to all Christian ages a catalogue thus liable to the 
exception of the Jews, because he accidentally did light on 
such a one, and knew not of a better, is plainly to accuse 
the ignorance, suspect the care, and weaken the authority of 
this great apostle ; it had therefore been better to have con- 
cealed this wild conjecture of his friend, than to have offered 
it to an age unhappily disposed to depreciate the sacred 
writings. 

10 Ver. 11. Ἰωσίας δὲ ἐγέννησε τὸν ᾿Ιεχονίαν, καὶ τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς 
αὐτοῦ. And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren.) 
Against this it is objected, That Josias did not beget Je- 
chonias, who was the son of Jehoiakim ; and to this it is 
answered, That Jechonias, in the eleventh verse, is not the 
same person with Jechonias, ver. 12, but is indeed Jehoia- 
kim the son of Josias, and his first-born. For though the 
people of the land made Jehoahaz, the second son of Josias, 
king after his father, yet that the kingdom by birthright be- 
longed to Jehoiakim is evident; because Jehoahaz was 
only “ twenty-three years old when he began to reign,” and 
reigned but three months: whereas Jehoiakim, who imme- 
diately succeeded after his deposition, was “ twenty-five 
years old when he began to reign” (2 Kings xxiii. 31. 36). 
Hence Josephus* saith of Pharaoh-nechoh, who made 
him king and changed his name from Eliakim to Jehoia- 
Kim, Πρεσβυτέρῳ αὐτοῦ ἀδελφῷ ὁμοπατρίῳ ὄντι τὴν βασιλείαν 
παραδίδωσι. “Ηρ gave kingdom to Eliakim, his eldest bro- 
ther by the same father.’ Hence doth St. Matthew take no 
notice of Jehoahaz, because he reigned only three months, 
and that by usurpation of the kingdom. That this first 
Jechonias was indeed Jehoiakim, is proved, first, From 
these words, Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren ;”’ now 
Jehoiakim indeed had two brethren begotten by Josias, 
viz. Jehoahaz, who reigned before him, and Zedekiah, who 
reigned after him; and therefore being kings, were fit to be 
thus mentioned by St. Matthew; but it appears not that 
Jechonias, the father of Shealtiel, had any brethren ; and if 
he had, they must be begotten not by Josias, but by Jehoi- 
akim his father; nor is there any reason why they should 
be thus mentioned, ver. 12, when then we read, that “ Josias 
begat Jechonias and his brethren,” this can belong to none 
but Jehoiakim: and when we read that “ Jechonias begat Sa- 
Jathiel,” this must be understood of Jechonias the son of 
Jehoiakim; for this agrees with the Old Testament, 1 
Chron. 15—17. Secondly, This interpretation makes up 
the fourteen generations exactly in the second and third 
series; whereas, they who make Jechonias, ver. 11, 12, to 
be the same person, leave only thirteen in the second 
series, if Jechonias be added to the third ; or in the third, if 
he be reckoned to the second: when therefore the apostle 
saith, by way of inference, “So all the generations from Da- 
vid, until the carrying away into Babylon, are fourteen ge- 
nerations” (ver. 17), he leads us to this interpretation, be- 
cause this would not be true, were Jechonias, ver. 11, and 
Jechonias, ver. 12, one and the same person. Thus Je- 
romej saith expressly, that in evangelio secundum Mat- 
theum secunda τέσσαρα δέκας in Joacim desinit filio Josiz, 
tertia incipit 4 Joacim filio Joachim. And again, Sciamus 
Jeconiam} priorem ipsum esse quem et Joachim, secundum 
autem filium, non patrem. 

Obj. If it be here objected, that they carry both one name 
and so must be one person ; 

Ans. It is answered, first, That the names in the original 

* Antiq. lib. x. cap. 6, p. 336. ἡ In Dan. i. 
+ In Matt. i. 


differ very little, the one being ppyn», the other »pym, 
which difference is so little, that both are translated by the 
Septuagint, Ιωακεὶμ, so is Jechonias translated, Jer. 111. 31, 
twice. So Josephus®* saith that Nebuchodonosor, 'Iwaxyov 
interfecit et ᾿Ιωάχιμον τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ κατέστησε βασιλέα “ slew 
Joachim, and made Joachim his son king;’’ and Clemens 
of Alexandria, that after Ἰωακεὶμ who reigned eleven years, 
ὃ ὁμώνυμος αὐτοῦ ᾿Ιωακεὶμ τρίμηνον βασιλεῦει, “Joachim of the 
same name reigned three months.” Τὸ this add that of 
Irenzus, lib. iii. cap. 30, that in the account St. Matthew 
gives of the generation of Jesus Christ, Joseph, Joachim et 
Jechoniz filius ostenditur. 

Obj. Through the whole chapter, the person who is first 
said to be begotten and then to beget is the same person, it 
therefore seemeth reasonable to think so here. 

Ans. So also it is here; for it is expressly said that 
Josias begat Jechonias, i. e. “ Joachim and his brethren ;” 
i.e. he begat also Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, named also 
Jechonias, and these three continued to reign till the cap- 
tivity, at which time Jechonias was carried away into Ba- 
bylon; and after they were brought to Babylon, « Jecho- 
nias begat Salathiel.” But here comes in a fresh objection, 
that God had sworn Jechonias should be childless (He- 
brew, stripped or naked), a man that shall not prosper in 
his days; for no man of his seed shall prosper sitting on 
the throne of David. Now hence it appears, first, That 
the Hebrew, sry from the root yyy or ~ny, may as well 
signify, stripped, solitary, naked, rooted up, as childless ; 
and accordingly it is rendered by the LXX. ἐκκηρυκτὸς, an 
abject, abdicated person. Secondly, He might be thus 
childless, or stripped of his offspring, by his children 
dying before him, as well as by his having none. And, 
Thirdly, This sense is certain both from the preceding words, 
“He and his seed are cast out into a land which they 
know not” (v. 28), and from the reason following, “ for 
none of his seed shall prosper.” And lastly, from 1 Chron, 
iii, 17, where his sons are reckoned Assir and Salathiel. 

Obj. It farther is objected, that whereas it is here said, 
that Salathiel begat Zorobabel, he was indeed the son of 
Pedaiah, the son of Salathiel, or Shealtiel, 1 Chron. iii. 19. 

Ans. To this I have already answered, That St. Matthew 
here follows the style of the Old Testament, and of the 
Jewish writers, in which Zorobabel is still called the son of 
Salathiel. Secondly, Were he not the immediate son of 
Shealtiel, but of Pedaiah, yet is this suitable to the language 
of the Jewish nation, to count the grandson the son of the 
grandfather: thus Sarah is called the daughter of Terah, 
Gen. xx. 12, as being the daughter of Haran, the son of 
Terah; and the same with Iscah (Gen. xi. 28, 29); thus 
Laban is called the son of Nahor, Gen. xxix. 5, as being the 
son of Bethuel, who was the son of Nahor (xxiv. 47), and Je- 
horam is called the father of Jehoash, 2 Kings xii. 18, as being 
the father of his father Ahaziah ; and Maacah, the daughter 
of Abishalom, is said to the mother of Asa, 1 Kings xv. 10, 
because she was his father’s mother (ver. 2). Considerable 
here is the observation of Mr. Whiston, tirst, That there is no 
other instance in this genealogy, but what speaks of a truly 
natural generation. Secondly, That in all other places of 
the Old Testament, Salathiel is said to have begotten Zoro- 
babel; and therefore we have cause to follow the Alexan- 
drian MS., which, in the place of the Chronicles cited, makes 
not Pedaiah but Salathiel the father of Zorobabel ; or to say, 
that Salathiel might have one son of that name, and Pedaiah 
another; or lastly, that Pedaiah begat Zorobabel of the 
wife of Salathiel, and so he was the natural son of Pedaiah, 
but the legal son of Salathiel. So the bishop of Ely. 

τ Ver. 13. Zorobabel begat Abiud.] Against this it is 
objected, That among the sons of Zorobabel reckoned up, 
1 Chron. iii. 19, there is no mention of Abiud. 

Ans. To this it is answered, first, That it is not evident, 
that Zorobabel in Matthew and in Chronicles is the same 
person, and then he in St. Matthew may be the son of Sa- 
lathiel the brother of Pedaiah. Secondly, That Abiud is 


* Antig. lib. x. cap. 8. 


86 


14 And Azor “begat Sadoc ; and Sadoc begat Achim; 
and Achim begat Eliud ; 

15 And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat 
Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob ; 

16 And Jacob begat Joseph ® the husband of Mary, 
of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. 


MATTHEW. 


17 So “all the generations from Abralam to David 
are fourteen generations ; and from David until the car- 
rying away into Babylon are (reckoned up by me) four- 
teen generations; and from the carrying away into 
Babylon unto Christ (inclusively) are (also) fourteen 
generations. 


mentioned in Chronicles under the name of Meshullam, it 
being certain that many persons in the Old Testament, and 
especially about the time of their captivity, had other 
names in Babylon than what were used in their own land: 
and it is the ingenious conjecture of Dr. Lightfoot, that 
this son was called Abiud, in remembrance of his father’s 
glory ; and Meshullam, either in memorial of Solomon, the 
glory of whose house was transferred to him, or from the 
significancy of the word, which importeth requited: for 
whereas Jechonias was called Shallum, that is finished, 
because the race of Solomon ended in him, when a recom- 
pense of the failing of that is made, by the succession of 
Salathiel in its stead, well might Zorobabel, in whom it 
first appeared, call his son Meshullam, or requited. 

12 Ver. 14.] Here it is required, whence St. Matthew 
had this genealogy, there being nothing of it to be found 
in scripture. 

Ans. I answer, from the authentic genealogical tables, 
kept by the Jews, of the line of David; for it appears from 
the taxation mentioned Luke ii. that they had genealogies 
of their families and tribes, since all went to be taxed, 
every one to his own city (ver. 3); and “ Joseph went to 
Bethlehem the city of David, because he was of the house 
and lineage of David:” and this is certain. touching the 
_ tribe of Levi; because their whole temple service, the effect 
of their sacrifices and expiations, depended on it: and there- 
fore Josephus being a priest, not only confidently depends 
on these genealogical tables for the proof of his descent 
ἄνωϑεν ἐξ ἱερέων, “in a long series from priests ;” but adds, 
that “all their priests were obliged to prove,* ἐκ τῶν ἀρχαίων 
τὴν διαδοχὴν, their succession from an ancient line,” and if 
they could not do it, they were to be excluded from offi- 
ciating as priests, and that in whatsoever part of the world 
they were they used this diligence: and again, Christ being 
promised as one, who was to proceed out of the loins of 
David, and therefore called “the son of David,” it was ab- 
solutely necessary, that the genealogy of the house and 
lineage of David should be preserved that they might know 
that their Messiah was of the seed of David, according to 
the promise. Hence the apostle saith to Timothy, “Re- 
member that Jesus Christ of the seed of David, was raised 
from the dead” (2 Tim. ii. 8): and Eusebiusf from Afri- 
canus saith, according to the version of Ruffinus, Omnes 
Hebreorum generationes descripte in archivis templi se- 
cretioribus habebantur, “That all the successions of the 
Hebrews were kept in the secret archives of the temple, 
and thence they were described, ἐκ τῆς βίβλου τῶν ἡμέρων from 
their emphemerides, by the kinsmen of our Saviour.” It 
therefore doubtless was from these authentic records that St. 
Matthew had his genealogy, for otherwise he would have ex- 
posed himself to the cavils of the Jews: and hence the author 
to the Hebrews represents it as a thing evident to the Jews, 
that “our Lord sprang out of Judah” (Heb. vii. 14). 

13 Ver. 16. Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was 
born Jesus.| It was necessary that the genealogy of Jesus 
should be deduced from Joseph; because it was so generally 
received by the Jews, that Jesus was the son of a carpenter 
(Matt. xiii. 55), the son of Joseph (John vi. 42) : so that if 
Joseph had not been acknowledged to have been of the 
tribe of Judah, and of the family of David, they would not 
have failed to have objected this as a just prejudice against 
all Christ’s pretences to have been the Messiah; wherefore 
the divine wisdom was pleased to direct this apostle to re- 
move that stumbling-block. Secondly, It was also neces- 
sary, by reason of that received rule among the Jews, that 
“the family of the mother is not called a family ;” and it 
was not fit that St. Matthew in this matter should recede 
from the constant rules and customs of that nation, the 
families being always preserved and continued in the males 
of Israel, and all their genealogies being reckoned from them. 


Obj. But still it may be said, that Joseph being not the 
natural, but the reputed father of the holy Jesus, this can- 
not be sufficient to prove, that Jesus came from the loins 
of David (Acts ii. 30), or was the fruit of his body accord- 
ing to the promise (Ps. exxxi. 11). 

‘Ans. To this it is answered, that Joseph and Mary were 
of the same tribe and family ; and therefore by giving us the 
genealogy of Joseph, the apostle did at the same time give 
us the genealogy of Mary, and consequently of Jesus the son 
of Mary, and show that he was of the seed of David. Hence 
several of the ancients, inquiring why Jesus was conceived 
of a virgin espoused, and not of one perfectly at liberty, say, 
this was done, that “by the family of Joseph the family of 
Mary might be shown ;” and this will be made highly pro- 
bable from scripture, and from history. For though those 
words (Luke i. 27), “ The angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin, 
espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of 
David, and the virgin’s name was Mary,” do not prove this 
of themselves, because it may be Joseph and not the virgin, 
who is said to be “of the house of David; yet may they 
also be translated thus, “ ΤῸ ἃ virgin of the house of David, 
espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, and the virgin’s 
name was Mary;” and this translation is confirmed from 
the following words of the angel to her, “'Thou shalt con- 
ceive in thy womb, and bear a son, and the Lord God shall 
give him the throne of his father David;” she therefore, who 
conceiveth this son, must be “ of the house of David:” and 
this is farther proved from the taxation mentioned, Luke 
ii. 3—5. Whence it appears, (1.) That all went to be taxed, 
women as well as men; for “Joseph with his espoused 
wife Mary went up to be taxed ;” which troublesome jour- 
ney she, who was so near the time of her travail, would 
not have taken had it not been necessary, (2.) That every 
one, men and women, went up to their own city to be 
taxed (ver. 3). (3.) That Joseph went to Bethlehem, the 
city of David, to be taxed, ‘ because he was of the house 
and lineage of David” (ver. 4). Since therefore Mary went 
up to Bethlehem with him to be taxed, she must do it for 
the same reason, because she also “ was of the same house 
and lineage.” Add to this, that Domitian having given out 
a command to destroy all that could be found of the house 
or family of David, some, descended from Judas the bro- 
ther of our Lord, were brought before him,* ὡς ἐκ γένους 
ὄντα; Δαβιδ, “as being of the family of David,” which they 
freely owned (see more upon this subject in the Bishop of 
Bath and Wells’s Demonst. of the Messias, part ii. ch. 13). 

A new and strange opinion is advanced by Mr, Whiston, 
That this genealogy was chiefly designed “to show that 
Christ was born at Bethlehem,” only because it is inquired 
thus by the Jews (John vii. 42), « Hath not the scripture 
said, that Christ should be born in the town of Bethlehem 
where David was?” But, 

First, Hath not the same scripture as expressly said, 
That “he was to be of the seed of Abraham and David?” 
Can therefore any man reasonably imagine, that a genea- 
logy beginning thus, “The generation of Jesus Christ, the 
son of David, the son of Abraham,” should not be primarily 
designed to prove he was “the son of David, and of Αὐτὰ» 
ham?” 

Secondly, The second chapters of St. Matthew and St. 
Luke do indeed prove that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, 
because they do expressly say it; but this genealogy saith 
nothing of it: and therefore, abstracted from them, it proves 
nothing of it: and can it be the chief design of this long 
genealogy to prove that which it doth not prove at all, and 
which is only proved from what follows in another chapter, 
and in another evangelist? And, 

Thirdly, The very last clause of this genealogy, that 
«Joseph was the husband of Mary, of whom was born 
Jesus, who is called Christ,” is all that can relate to Christ’s 


4 Lib.i. contra Ap. p. 1036. — Eccl. Hist. lib. i. cap. 6. 


* Hegesip. apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 19, 20. 


CHAPTER I. 37 


18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise 
or after this extraordinary manner) : When as his mo- 
er Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came 
together, she was found with child (by the power) of 
the Holy Ghost (overshadowing her, Luke i. 45, of which 
thing Joseph knew nothing). 

19 Then Joseph her (espoused) husband, being a 
just man, and (therefore one, who durst not retain her, 
whom he esteemed an adulteress, and yet being) not 
willing to make her (whom he loved) a public exam- 
ple, was minded to (give her a bill of divorce, and so to) 
4 put her away privily. 

20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the 
(an) angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, 
saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take 
unto thee Mary thy (espoused) wife (though found with 
child) - for that which is conceived in her is (not the 


being born in Bethlehem; and all that goes before is evi- 
dently impertinent to that matter, and therefore can have 
no subserviency to that design: whence we may rest assured, 
that it was not intended by the Holy Ghost for such an end, 
seeing he never could design to proye a thing by an account 
of any thing impertinent, and which hath no relation to it. 

4 Ver. 7. Πᾶσαι οὖν αἱ γενεαὶ, so all the generations.) It 
is here observable, that the apostle saith of the generations 
from Abraham to David, that they were “in all fourteen ;” 
but when he comes to the second interval, he does not say 
as before πᾶσαι af yeveat, the fourteen mentioned by him were 
«the generations” of that interval, as knowing that for good 
reasons he had omitted three belonging to that interval ; but 
only that the whole number of those which he had named 
was fourteen, as really they were. Secondly, That in every 
one of these several intervals, they were under a several and 
distinct manner of government, and the end of each inter- 
val produced some alteration in the state; in the first they 
were under judges and prophets, in the second under kings, 
and in the third under Asmonean priests; the first fourteen 
brought their state to glory in the kingdom of David; the 
second to misery in the captivity of Babylon; and the third 
to glory again in the kingdom of Christ. The first begins 
with Abraham, who received the promise, and ends in 
David, who received it again more clearly. The second 
begins with the building of the temple, and ends in the 
destruction of it. ‘The third begins with their peeping out 
of misery in Babel, and ends in their accomplished delivery 
by Christ. 

15 Ver. 19. Λάθρα ἀπολῦσαι αὐτὴν, to put her away privily.] 
That is, to give her a bill of divorce privately into her hand, 
or into her bosom, before two witnesses only; this he was 
minded to do, saith the text, “because he was a just man,” 
that is, a strict observer of the rites of his nation, saith Mr. 
Selden,* who held it infamous to retain an adulteress ; and 
this was all he could do, for though the law required that a 
married woman found lying with a man should die, i. e. be 
strangled, say the Jews; and an espoused virgin for the 
same crime was to be stoned (Deut. xxii. 22—24), yet 
neither was Joseph certain that she was guilty of this crime 
after the espousals, nor had he two witnesses of the fact, 
without which she could not be subject to the punishment 
by the Jewish canons, though she might be divorced after 
espousals, without proof, by witnesses or otherwise, of such 
defilement: thus, in the judgment of Dr. Lightfoot and Mr. 
Selden, δίκαιος ὧν, “a just man,” here retains its proper 
signification (see note on Rom. iii. 26). 

16 Ver. 23. Ἢ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει a virgin shall be 
with child, and shail bring forth a son.] That the Hebrew 
alma is duly rendered παρθένος, a virgin, we prove against 
the Jews (1.) From the authority of their own Septuagint, 
who so rendered it above three hundred years before St. 
Matthew wrote his gospel. (2.) From the derivation of the 
word alma from nby, to hide, or cover ; for virgins, accord- 
ing to the custom of the eastern nations, were kept in secret 
apartments from the company of men as recluses; whence, 
by the author of the books of the Maccabees, they are styled 


* Us. Heb. lib. iii. cap. 23. 


on of whoredom or adultery, but) of the Holy 
host. 

21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt 
callhis name JESUS (7. e. the Saviour): for he shall 
save his people from their sins. 

22 Now all this was done (by the Holy Ghost over- 
shadowing this virgin), that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken of the Lord by the prophet (Jsaias), 
saying (vii. 14), 

23 Behold, a virgin 15 shall be with child, and shall 
bring forth a son, and " they shall call his name (or 
his name shall be called) Emmanuel, which being inter- 
preted, is, God with us. 

24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep (and per- 
ceiving that the dream was from God) did as the angel 
of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him 
(Mary) his wife : 


αἵ κατάκλειστοι τῶν παρθένων, * the virgins that were shut up” 
(2 Mace. ili. 19) : and by Philo, ϑαλαμευομέναι παρθένοι, * the 
virgins kept in chambers” (Orat. in Flace. p. 757, A). And, 
@) This promise is made as a sign or miracle, to confirm 
the house of David in God’s promise, made to him of the 
perpetuity of his kingdom: now what sign or miracle could 
it be, that a woman should be with child after the ordinary 
manner? Where is the sign or wonder in this? Had no 
more been intended, what need was there of those words, 
“ The Lord himself shall give you a sign?” What need of 
that solemn notice, “Behold!” there being nothing new or 
strange in all this? 

1 Kai καλέσουσι τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ᾿Εμμανουήλ' and they shall 
call his name Emmanuel.| Here is, 

First, A verb personal put for an impersonal: “they 
shall call his name,” for, “he shall be called :” so Gen. xvi. 
14, therefore xp “the pit was called.” Exod. xv. 23, there- 
fore ΝΡ, “the name of the place was called Marah.” Isa. 
ix. 6, Nap), “and his name shall be called Wonderful.” So 
also, Jer. xxiii. 6, “this is the name yN>p) wN by which he 
shall be called” (see Ainsw. in Gen. xvi. 14, and Neh, ii. 
7, Isa. xliv. 7, Mic. ii. 4, Amos iv. 2. εὐ So in the New 
Testament, Luke xii. 20, “Thy soul shall be required of 
thee,” ἀπαιτοῦσι. Ch. xvi. 9, δέξωνται ὑμᾶς, “you may be 
received” (see Dr. Ham. there). Note, 

Secondly, That in the scripture phrase “to be called,” 
and “to be,” is the same thing; so, “ My house shall be 
called a house of prayer,” Isa. lvi. 7, i. e. is, or shall be so, 
Luke xix. 46. Isa. ix. 6, “ His name shall be called Won- 
derful,” i. e. he shall be a wonderful person. And Jer. xxiii. 
6, “he shall be called the Lord our Righteousness,” i. e. 
he shall be so. This being 50, it is no objection against the 
application of these words to Christ, that he did not bear 
this name, if really he was “ God with us,” which is the 
import of it. And Philo* having said, Ἰησοῦς δὲ σωτηρία τοῦ 
Κυρίου, “that the word Jesus signifies the salvation of God;” 
he that is called Jesus, must in effect be called Emmanuel. 

Obj. And whereas the Jews farther object, that this pro- 
mise, being made to Ahaz as a sign, must have relation to 
a child born in his time, and therefore not to our Jesus born 
above seven hundred years after his death,— 

Ans. This objection is founded on a mistake; this pro- 
mise or sign being not given to Ahaz, who refused to ask a 
sign, Isa. vii. 12, but “to the house of David,” according to 
the following words, “ Hear ye now, Ὁ house of David, the 
Lord himself will give you a sign :” now the house of David 
being then in great danger of being cut off and extinguished 
(ver. 2), because the kings of Israel and Syria were come 
against them; the promise of a Messiah, who was to be of 
the seed of David, and to sit upon his throne, was a great 
security that the house of David should not be extinguished, 
and so a proper remedy against those fears. It is inquired 
farther, whether this name given to Christ be any certain 
argument of his divine nature, as it seems to be, for Christ 
is called -y32 5x, “the mighty God,” Isa. ix. 6. Now he 
who is properly called ΕἾ, and is also really Emmanu, 
«with us,” he must infallibly be that Emmanuel, who is 


ee ΓᾺΝὲσπτΠτ-ςι.-΄΄᾿᾿ἅ͵Ύ ἅ.Ῥ-- 


* De Mut. Nom. p. 823, E. 
D 


38 
25 And (but he) knew her not * till she had brought 


MATTHEW. 


forth her first-born son: and he called hisnameJ ESUS., 


«God with us’ But to this the Socinians answer, That 
God is said to be “a God with us,” when he gives us some 
special tokens of his grace and favour to us, as Josh. i. 5, 
Jer. i. 8, Acts xviii. 10, Rev. xxi. 3. Since then Christ 
came to be our Jesus, “to save us from our sins,” and give 
us life eternal, he may well on that account be called 
«“ Emmanuel,” seeing God, by sending him to us for these 
great ends, was, in the most signal manner, present with 
us: and therefore it is first said, “His name shall be called 
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins;” and 
then it is added, that “this was done that it might be ful- 
filled, which was spoken by the prophet, His name shall 
be called Emmanuel.” 

They add, that divine names are given to things and 
places on the account of things done or to be done there ; 
the place in which Abraham offered Isaac, is called “ Jeho- 
vah-jireh,” the “ Lord hath seen,” Gen. xxii. 14, the place 
where Jacob wrestled with God, “ Penuel,” Gen. xxxii. 30, 
the place in which God appeared to him, “ Bethel,” Gen. 
xxvili. 19, the altar which Moses built, « Jehovah-nissi,” 
Exod. xvii. 15, the city of Jerusalem, “ Jehoyah-shammah, 
the Lord is there,’ Ezek. xlviii. 35. This divine name there- 
fore, say they, might in like manner be given to Christ ; be- 
cause of the great things God designed to do by him for us. 

18 Ver, 25. “Ἕως οὗ ἔτεκε τὸν υἱὸν αὑτῆς τὸν πρωτότοκον, till 
she had brought forth her first-born son.] The person that 
first opens the womb being in scripture styled the first-born, 
whether any other birth did follow or not; as in those 
words, “ Sanctify to me all the first-born,” i. 6. whatsoever 
openeth the womb, Exod. xiii. 2; xxxiv. 19, it cannot from 
this word be gathered, that the blessed Virgin had any other 
offspring. 

But then it is not so easy to answer to the argument taken 
from these words, “He took unto him Mary his wife, but 
he knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born ;”’ 
for to “know his wife” in the scripture phrase, still signi- 
fies to cohabit with her as a wife (see Gen. iv. 1. 17. 25, 
xxxviii. 26, Judg. xix. 25,1 Sam. 1.19). Secondly, Joseph 
was a just man, and tenacious of the Jewish rites; where- 
fore it being certain, that the marriage duty* was by the 
law, and by the canons of the Jews, to be paid by the husband 
to the wife, Exod. xxi. 10, and the angel having commanded 
him to take her as his wife, without any intimation that he 
should not perform the duty of a husband to her, it is not 
easy to conceive he should live twelve years with her he 


* Vide Seld. de Uxor. lib. iii. cap. 4, G. 


loved so well, and all that while deny that duty, which by 
the law was not to be diminished when the wife was less 
beloved: and whereas if is said, that the words ἕως οὗ, “ he 
knew her not until,” &c. do not imply he knew her after- 
ward; because the like expression is used, when it cannot 
be concluded that was done afterward, which was said not 
to be done till then: it seemeth evident, that scarce any of 
the places cited seem truly parallel to this. For, 1. Most 
of them speak of a thing not done afterward; because it 
could not be done as when it is said, “ Michal had no child 
till the day of her death” (2 Sam. vi. 23). «Samuel came 
not to see Saul till the day of his death” (1 Sam. xv. 35, 
so Job xxvii. 5, Isa. xxii. 14). Or, because the cause 
ceased afterward, as when it is said, Gen. viii. 7, “The 
crow returned not till the waters were dried up ;” there was 
no reason for his returning afterward; and when Christ 
saith, Matt. xxviii. ult. «I will be with you (teaching all 
nations) to the end of the world ;” i. e. to the end of teach- 
ing them. So when God said to Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 15, 
«JT will be with thee, I will not leave thee till I have done 
that which I have spoken to thee of,” if that refers to the 
blessing promised to his seed, “that it should inherit the 
land of Canaan,” he could not leave him afterward, he 
being long before that with God, and so it is an instance of 
the first kind; or, if it refers to his being with him going 
down to Padan-aram, till he had brought him safe from 
thence ; then the reason of that promise ceased after his re- 
turn : or, lastly, because the reason of the thing still remains, 
as when it is said of the sepulchre of Moses, “ No man 
knoweth of it to this day” (Deut. xxxiv. 6). For the same 
reason, no man doth, or without a revelation will, know of 
it for ever; whereas certain it is, that it was not impossible 
in the nature of the thing, for Joseph to know his wife after 
she had brought forth her first-born. And, secondly, The 
reason why he should know her at all, being, because she 
was his wife, that reason ceased not after the birth of her- 
first-born; nor did she conceive any second son of the 
Holy-Ghost; and so the reason why he knew her not till 
she brought forth her first-born, remained not. I there- 
fore conclude with St. Basil,* that till she had brought forth 
her first-born, her virginity was necessary, that a virgin 
might cqnceive, and bare a son, τὸ dé ἐφεξῆς ἀπολυπραγμώτατον 
τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ μυστηρίου καταλείψομεν, “but what she was after- 
ward let us leave undiscussed, as being of small concern 
to the mystery.” 


* Fol. 1, p. 509. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of 
Juda in the days of Herod the king, behold, there 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IL. 


1 Ver. 1. Μάγοι, wise men.] Though the Greek word 
signifies magicians, yet seeing in the ancient times that word 
was not appropriated to that evil sense which now it bears, 
but generally signified men of wisdom and learning, skilled 
in the knowledge of things natural and divine; and more 
especially in that sort of learning which relates to the sun, 
moon, and stars, as we learn from Porphyry,* Apuleius,+ 
Dio Chrysostomus,+ and others: and, seeing the evangelist 
seems to have given them that name, not as a note of infamy, 
but as an honourable title; therefore doth our translation 
style them “wise men,” such as the old Greeks named σοφοὶ, 


* Παρὰ μὲν τοῖς Πέρσαις of περὶ τὸ θεῖον codoi—xai τοῦτου 
ϑεράπεντες Μάγοι μὲν προσαγορεύονται" Porphyr. de Abst. lib. 


iv. §. 16. 
: Ἵ Maycia—icri δὲ τοῦτο ϑεῶν Sepaneia. Plato apud Apul. 
Apol. p. 290. 
+ Μάγος οὖν 6 ϑεραπευτὴς τῶν ϑεῶν, ἢ ὃ τὴν φῦσιν ϑεῖος. Dio, 


Orat. 36, f.449. Vide Brisson. de Regno Persarum. lib. 
ii. ἃ p. 178 ad 186, Laert in Proem. 


came wise men! from (Arabia in) 5 the east to Jeru- 
salem, 


the sages of their time, The Arabians of the east, espe- 
cially the sons of Teman, being renowned for wisdom (1 
Kings iv. 30, Jer. xlix. 7). 

As for the dignity and number of these men, the tradi- 
tion of the Roman church saith, that for number they were 
three, and all of royal dignity : hence in their office for Epi- 
phany, they apply that of the psalmist to them, « The kings 
of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts :” but had they been 
of so great quality, we cannot reasonably think the evan- 
gelist would have omitted a circumstance of so great mo- 
ment, both for their honour and our Lord’s ; we also should, 
in likelihood, have had some mention of their royal train 
and equipage, and all Jerusalem would have been moved 
as much to see them come, as they were at the hearing 
their question: Herod would likely have received them 
with more respect, and not have let them go alone to Beth- 
lehem; much less would he have laid upon them his com- 
mands to return back and give him an account of the child 
found, This therefore is an instance of the uncertainty 
and vanity of the traditions of that church. 

2'Axd ἀνατολῶν, from the east.) Hence the opinior. of 


| some, that the wise men came from Chaldea, a country re- 


CHAPTER II. 


2 Saying,® Where is he that is born King of the 
Jews? for we have seen his star (being) in the east, 
and 4 are come (thence) to worship him. 

3 When Herod the king had heard these things, 


nowned for magicians and astrologers, may be confuted ; 
because the ancient prophets, who foretold the destruction of 
Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, tell us, that they lay not east, 
but north of Jewry, and came from thence upon them. 
Hence they are called “the families of the north,” and “an 
evil breaking out of the north,” Jer. i. 14, 15, “a people 
coming out of the north country,” Jer. vi. 22 (see Joel 11. 20). 
It is therefore more probable they came from Arabia, which 
was, saith Tacitus,* “the bound of Judea eastward: and 
hence, in the scripture, the Arabians are sometimes called 
“the men of the east.” So Judg. vi. 3, “The children of 
the east came up against them,” that is, the Arabians. Job 
i. 3, “This man was the greatest of all the men in the 
east.” Moreover, the gifts which these men offered, were 
the native commodities of Arabia; “the gold of Sheba in 
Arabia,” Ps. Ixxii. 15. Frankincense and myrrh of the 
same place, according to that of the poet, Molles sua thura 
Sabei. Add to this, that much of Arabia was in the land 
of Canaan; whence David and Solomon, to whom the pro- 
mise of having the land of Canaan was made good in its full 
extent, dilated their dominions over these countries, even to 
Euphrates; and they who lived there were of the seed of 
Abraham, Now it is more likely, these first-fruits of the 
gentiles should be brought to do homage to the king of the 
Jews, from a country which did as much to David and So- 
lomon, the types of Christ, than from a foreign nation, and 
to conceive that they were of the seed of Abraham rather 
than of another race. Nor is it to be wondered that the 
magi should be said to come from the east, since Porphyryt 
informs us, that Pythagoras went into Arabia to acquire 
wisdom : and Grotius here cites Ptolemy, saying, That Ara- 
bia was magorum sinus, “ the receptacle of the magi:” and 
Pliny+ saith, “this art toto terrarum orbe, plurimisque 
seculis valuit, obtained through many ages in the whole 
world; that it prevailed in most nations, et in oriente 
regnum (1. regum) regibus imperet, and in the east ruled 
over kings of kings” (see Examen Millii here). 

3 Ver. 2. Ποὺ ἐστὶν ὃ τεχθεὶς βασιλεὺς τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων ; εἴδομεν 
γὰρ αὐτοῦ τὸν ἀστέρα. Where is he that is born king of the 
Jews ? for we have seen his star.] Here the inquiry is, How 
these men could know that this was “his star,” or that it sig- 
nified the birth of a king? Most of the ancients§ answer, 
‘That they learned this from these words of Balaam (Numb. 
xxiv. 17), “There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a 
sceptre shall arise out of Israel, and shall smite through the 
princes of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth; and 
Edom shall be a possession to him.” But evident it is, that 
these words speak not of a star that should arise at any 
prince’s birth, but of a king, which should be glorious and 
splendent in his dominions, as stars are in the firmament, 
and who should vanquish and possess those three nations, 
as David did. Moreover, from this text they might have as 
rationally expected to have seen a sceptre as a star; it being 
as expressly said, “a sceptre shall arise out of Israel,” as that 
“a star shall come out of Jacob.” Add to this, that we know 
of no record in which this prophecy was preserved, but the 
books of Moses, which these nations neither read nor believed. 
Others do therefore say, these wise men were by a revelation, 
or by an angel, told the meaning of this star: and one among 
the ancients cites an apocryphal history, saying,| «'This star 
appeared in the form of a child, holding a cross in his hand, 
and telling them, that Christ was born, and that they should 
go to Jerusalem to worship him.” But these conjectures 
are-all sufficiently confuted by this one consideration, That 
the wise men gave not this as the reason of their coming, 
that they had seen an angel, a vision, or had a revelation of 


* Terre finesque que ad Orientem vergunt Arabia ter- 
minantur. Hist. lib. v. ed. Lips. p. 617. 

7 In vita Pythag. p. 185. Cyril. contr. Julian. lib. x. 

+ Lib. xxx. cap. 1. 

§ Orig. Hom. 13 in Numb. Lit. M. Ambr. lib. ii. cap. 15. 
Iren lib. iii. cap. 9. Tertul. adv. Marc. cap. 28. 

1 Auctor operis imperfecti in Mattheum. 


39 


he (knowing that the Jews were then expecting Messiah, 
their king, to rule over them, and throw down all other 
kingdoms) was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 

4 And when he had gathered all the chief priests 


this matter, but that they had seen ὦ star. For the true 
resolution, therefore, of this question, let it be considered, 
That Tacitus* and Suetonius} inform us, That “through the 
whole east it was expected, that about that time a king was 
to arise out of Judea, who should rule over all the world.” 
Nor could it well be otherwise, since from the time of the 
Babylonian captivity, we find the Jews dispersed throughout 
all the provinces of the Persian monarchy (Esth. iii. 8), and 
that in numbers sufficient to gather themselves together, and 
to defend themselves against their enemies in those provinces 
Ltn ix. 2, 16), and many of the people of the land became 
ews (Esth. vill. 17). And after their return into their land 
they increased so mightily, as that they were dispersed 
throughout Africa, Asia, and many cities and islands of Eu- 
rope; and, as Josephus saith, wherever they dwelt, they made 
many proselytes to their religion (see the note on James i. 1, 
and on 1 Pet. i. 1). These wise men therefore living so near 
to Judea, the seat of this prophecy, and conversing with 
the Jews, i.e. among them who were every where expect- 
ing the completion of it at that time; they being also 
skilled in astrology, and seeing this star or light appearing 
in Judea, might reasonably conjecture, that it signified the 
completion of that celebrated prophecy touching the king 
of Jewry ; over the centre of which land, they, being in 
the east, then saw it hang. And sure it was a better way 
to read this lesson to them, by setting this light upon the 
very place where the king that it betokened was born, ra- 
ther than in the east part of heaven, where it might seem 
to denote something among the Indians or other eastern 
nations, rather than among the Jews. The learned Dr. 
Alix saith, the Jews believed that there were prophets 
in the kingdom of Saba and Arabia, they being of the pos- 
terity of Abraham, by Keturah, as you may learn from the 
note of the Bishop of Ely, on Gen. xxv. 2, 3, and that 
they prophesied, or taught successively in the name of 
God, what they had received by tradition from the mouth 
of Abraham. And so when Solomon was exalted to the 
kingdom, these Sabeans said, perhaps he is the Messiah, and 
therefore came to him ; for this he cites Bereschith Rabba 
Moses Haddarson, cap. 25, B. Now if this tradition conti- 
nued with them to these times, as in all likelihood it might, 
seeing, as Philostorgius relates, αὐκ ὀλίγον πλῆϑος ᾿Ιουδαίων 
αὐτοῖς ἀναπέφυρται, “a considerable number of the Jews was 
mixed with them ;” here is a more plausible account, both 
of the coming of the Arabian magi, and of their faith in the 
king Messiah. What this star was, see note on ver. 9, 10. 
4 Kai ἤλθομεν προσκυνῆσαι αὐτῶ, and are come to worship 
him.] Here the inquiry is, when they came to Jerusalem, 
whether within thirteen days after the birth of Christ, as the 
received time of celebrating the Epiphany imports, and as 
most Christians have from the fifth century supposed ; or, 
whether they came only in the second year of Christ’s age, 
as some conjecture from these words, ver. 16, “ Herod sent 
forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and 
all the coasts thereof, from two years old, and under, accord- 
ing to the time he had diligently inquired of the wise men.” 
For resolution of this question, observe, That it seems evi- 
dent, from comparing St. Matthew and St. Luke, that the 
wise men. came within forty days after our Saviour’s birth; 
for St. Matthew expressly saith, they found Christ at Beth- 
lehem ; whereas St. Luke informs us, that “ when the forty 
days of his mother’s purification were accomplished, they 
brought the child to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ;” 
and after that we never read of their return with him to 
Bethlehem, and therefore have no reason to presume they 
did so (Luke ii. 22), but on the contrary we are told, that 
“when they had performed all things according to the law 


* Pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis sacerdotum literis 
contineri, eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens, profec- 
tique Judea rerum potirentur. Tacit. Hist. lib. v. p. 621. 

+ Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio, 
esse in fatis, ut eo tempore Judea profecti rerum potiren 
tur. Suet. in. vitd Vesp. cap. 4. 


40 


and scribes of the people together, he demanded of 
them where (7. e. in what place) Christ (their expected 
Messiah and King) should be born. 

5 And they said unto him, (he zs to be born) In 
Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written by the 
prophet (Micah ; saying, v- 2), 

6 5 And thou Bethlehem, zm the land of Juda, art 
not (to be reputed) the least among the princes (or 
thousands) of Juda: for out of thee shall come a 
Governor, that shall rule my people Israel (and this 
shall render thee truly great). 

7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise 


MATTHEW. 


men, (he) enquired of them diligently what (was the 
exact) time (at which) the star appeared (to them). 

8 And (having done this) he sent them to Beth- 
lehem, and said (40 them), Go and search diligently 
for the young child; and when ye have found him, 
bring me word again (Gr. fell me of zt), that I may 
come and worship him also (though his intention was 
not to worship, but to destroy him, ver. 16). 

9 When they had heard the king (say this), they 
departed; and, lo, ® the star, which they saw (or had 
seen, being’) in the east (of Judea), went before them, 
till it. came and stood over (the house) where the 


of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their own city 
Nazareth” (ver. 39). Arabia then being so near unto Ju- 
dea, that much of it belonged to the land of Canaan, the 
wise men having also their swift dromedaries to ride upon, 
and the same cause to say as did the shepherds, when the 
light shone from heaven upon them, “ Let us now go and 
see this thing which is come to pass” (Luke ii. 15), I sce 
no reason why these wise men might not come within the 
compass of these days to Jerusalem, and so no certain 
ground to think this festival hath been misplaced by the 
church. 

Obj. Against this it is said, that immediately after these 
wise men’s departure, the angel appeared to Joseph (ver. 
13), and dispatched them to Egypt; which could not be 
before the time of Mary’s purification, for then they went 
up to Jerusalem (Luke ii. 22), and so not to Egypt; nor 
after their retum from Egypt, could they go up to Jerusa- 
lem for this end; for the text saith expressly, that Joseph 
then was “ afraid to go into Judea,” and therefore receded 
to Nazareth; nor could they go up to Jerusalem after the 
departure of the magi, for that had been to cast themselves 
into Herod’s hands at Jerusalem. 

Ans. But (1.) the text doth not say that the angel 
appeared to Joseph immediately after the departure of the 
wise men, but only that ἀναχωρησάντων αὐτῶν, he did so, 
“they being returned,” leaving the time indefinite; seeing 
therefore there is a necessity of saying, the angel appear- 
ed a considerable time after their departure, I therefore 
conjecture, that he appeared to Joseph with this message, 
being not at Bethlehem, but at Jerusalem or at Nazareth, 
and that thence he fled into Egypt. 

(2.) Ladd, that going to Jerusalem after the magi were 
departed, when the days for the purification of his mother 
came, could not be casting themselves into the hands of 
Herod; because he knew nothing of this being the child 
they came to worship ; and so, they staying there so little 
time, might be as safe there as elsewhere. Nay, had Herod 
known which personally was the child they worshipped, 
why should he slay all the young children in Bethlehem 
without distinction? As to the second objection from ver. 
16, see what may be answered to it in the note there. 

But, after all, I confess there is one circumstance that 
seems to make it probable, that the angel spake to Joseph 
to depart from Bethlehem into Egypt ; whence it must fol- 
low, that after the purification of the Virgin-mother, they 
returned to Bethlehem; viz. that Herod’s seeking to destroy 
the child, is assigned as the eause of their flight. Now we 
find not, that he ever made or designed any other attempt 
to destroy him, than by slaying the young children at Beth- 
lehem. But to this the answer is easy ; That Simeon hay- 
ing made such an honourable mention of this child at his 
appearance in the temple, as of the “Lord’s Christ” (ver. 
26); and Anna the prophetess speaking of him as such, 
“to all that looked for redemption in Jerusalem” (ver. 38), 
where perhaps Herod stayed for the answer of the wise 
men: this must render Christ’s stay at Jerusalem, or in 
Herod’s jurisdiction, very dangerous; and so might give 
occasion to the message of the angel to Joseph, to depart 
thence quickly with him into Egypt, lest Herod hearing 
this fame of him should attempt to slay him. Moreover, 
Herod might have inquired what children might have been 
byrn in Bethlehem in the time of the enrolment, whose 
parents lived elsewhere, and so might have come to the 
knowledge of this supposed son of Joseph: and this might 
make it necessary that he should fly with him into Egypt. 


5 Ver. 6. Kai σὺ Βηθλεὲμ, γῆ "Iotda, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ 
ἐν τοὶς ἡγεμόσιν ᾿Ιοῦδα" And thou Bethlehem, in the land of 
Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah.) 
These words are cited from Micah v. 2, where, according 
to the original, they run thus, «Thou Bethlehem-Ephra-- 
tah, though thou art little among the thousands of Judah.” 
And to make them agree perfectly with St. Matthew’s ver- 
sion, observe, 

First, That Bethlehem-Ephratah and Bethlehem-Judah, 
are both names of the same town, as appears from these 
words, “ And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to 
Ephratah, which is Bethlehem ;” and it is called “ Bethle- 
hem-Judah,” Judg. xvii. 7, xix. 2, in these words, “ And 
the husband of Naomi was a man of Bethlehem-Judah,” 
Ruthi. 1. Yet of Boaz, who married Ruth, to raise up seed 
unto him, it is said, “ Do thou worthily in the house of Eph- 
ratah” (Ruth iv. 11), and it is so named to distinguish it 
from another Bethlehem in the tribe of Zebulun, mentioned 
Josh. xix. 15. Here also David’s father lived, and he him- 
self was born < Sam. xvii. 12, John vii. 42). Note, 

Secondly, That “the thousands of Judah,’ and the 
“princes or governors of Judah,” are in sense the same ; 
for thousands are mentioned in allusion to the custom of 
the Israelites, of dividing their tribes into thousands, over 
every one of which thousands was a prince or chief (Exod. 
xviil. 25, 1 Sam. x. 19) : so that to say, “ among the thou- 
sands” or “princes” is all one. Note, 

Thirdly, That the Hebrew word -yyxs, which is rendered 
little, Micah v. 2, signifies also great, or of great note and 
esteem. Hence R. 'T’anchum renders the place thus, ‘Thou 
shalt be chief, prince, or ruler,’ among the thousands of 
Judah: so pyysp pp, “the little horn,” Dan. viii. 9, is 
rendered by the LXX. κέρας ἰσχυρὸν, and by the Arabic cornu 
forte, “a strong horn.” So Jer. xlvili. 4, mys “his 
little ones,’’ is in the Chaldee, sultanum, “ his rulers;” and, 
Zech. xiii. 7, pynyyn is rendered by the LXX. zoipeves (see 
MSS. Alex.), by the Syriac, “superiors.” 

6 Ver. 9. Kai ἰδοὺ ὃ ἀστὴρ, ὃν εἶδον ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ προῆγεν 
αὐτοὺς" And, behold, the star which they saw in the east went 
before them, till coming over the place where the child was, 
it stood.) Hence it is evident, this star could not be one of 
the heavenly orbs, but only some new and extraordinary ap- 
pearance, seated only in the air: (1.) Because it actually 
did, and was designed to show the place of Christ’s nativity, 
the very house of his abode, which no celestial star could 
do: because they never hung over one country more than 
another, and much less over any certain place. (2.) Because 
it moved so as they do not, by intervals, moving sometimes 
and sometimes standing still; whereas they move perpe- 
tually, their motion also is from east to west, whereas 
the motion of this star was from north to south. It there- 
fore seems probable this seeming star appearing to the 
wise men of the east, might only be that glorious light, 
which shone upon the Bethlehem shepherds when the angel 
came to impart unto them the tidings of our Saviour’s 
birth; for that this light was exceeding great, is clear 
from that expression which styles it “the glory of the 
Lord ;” that it was a light from heaven hanging over their 
heads, the Greek assures us; emicuit ex alto, “it shone 
upon them from on high,’’ the Latin saith. Now we know 
that such a light at a great distance appeareth like a star, 
or at least after it had thus shone about the shepherds, 
it might be lifted up on high, and then formed into the 
likeness of a star. This body of light, or another like it, 
when they journeyed to Jerusalem, was formed into t 


CHAPTER II. 


young child was (i. e. till coming over the house where 
the child was, it stood still). 

10 (4nd) when they saw the star (again thus con- 
ducting them to, and then standing over, the house where 
the child was), they rejoiced with exceeding great joy 
(for the divine conduct). 

11 { And when they were come into the house, they 
saw the young child with Mary his mother, and 

they) 7 fell down, and worshipped him: and when 
they had opened their treasures, they presented unto 
him gifts ; (viz.) gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. 

12 And being warned of God in a dream that they 
should not return to Herod, they (in obedience to the 
divine command) departed into their own country an- 
other (and more private) way. 

13 And when (or after) they were departed, behold, 


likeness of that star they had formerly scen, and went be- 
fore them in the air to Bethlehem, and then sunk down so 
low as to point out the very place where the babe lay. And 
if this should be so, the star the wise men saw must have 
appeared to them the very day of Christ’s nativity ; for of 
the light appearing to the shepherds, St. Luke informs us 
(ii. 8. 11), that it was then seen the very day and night 
of Christ’s nativity. 

7 Ver. 11. Kat πεσόντες προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ, καὶ προσήνεγκαν 
αὐτῷ δῶρα, χρυσὸν, καὶ λίβανον, καὶ σμῦρναν, and falling down 
they worshipped him, and when they had opened their trea- 
sures, the Wek to him gifts, gold, frankincense, and 
myrrh.) Of the import of the word προσκυνεῖν, “ to worship,” 
and that it doth as well signify civil as religious worship, 
even when it is performed by prostration, see the notes on 
Matt. viii. 2. But though this word will do us no service 
against the Socinians, it is worthy our observation, that the 
Christians from the beginning, either from this adoration, 
or the gifts offered, did collect even then that Christ was 
God, or at the least, that both were fitly given to him, as 
being truly God, whatever the wise men might think of 
him. Thus Justin Martyr* teacheth that Christ being 
God, could not receive the Holy Ghost as wanting him, or 
his assistance, and saith, of this we have a testimony from 
the magi of Arabia, who, “as soon as the child was born, 
eame and worshipped him.” TJreneust saith, “the wise 
men, by the gifts they offered, showed who he was that 
was worshipped ; offering myrrh, because he was to die 
for mankind ; gold because he was a king, whose kingdom 
should have no end; and frankincense, because he was God.” 
Tertullian¢ saith, they honoured him with these gifts, 
quasi Deum et regem, “as a God and king: and when 
Celsus laughed at the wise men as προσκυνοῦντες ἐπὶ νήπιον 
ὡς Θεὸν, “ worshipping Christ whilst an infant, as God ;” 
Origen§ answers, “that they brought gifts to him com- 
pounded, as it were, of God and man; gold, as an ensign 
of his kingly power; myrrh, as to one that was to die; 
and frankincense, as to a God.” It also may deserve to be 
observed that Kimchi on those words of Isaiah, Ix. 6, « All 
they of Sheba shall come, they shall bring gold and in- 
cense,” &c. saith, “They shall bring them for an offering 
to the king Messiah.” 

5 Ver. 15. Ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου, Out of Egypt 
have I called my Son.) This is cited from Hos. xi. 1, and 
not from Numb. xxiv. 8, for the words in Numbers are the 
words of Balaam, whom the evangelists would not cite by 
the honourable name of a prophet without any distinction 
from the prophets sent by God to the Jews; nor doth he 


* Ὑπὸ τῶν ᾿Αραβίας Μάγων οἵτινες ἅμα τῷ γενηθήνα τὸ παιδίον 
ἔλθοντες προσεκύνησαν αὐτοῦ, Dial. cum Tryph. p. 315, C. 

ἡ Per ea que obtulerunt munera ostendisse, quis erat qui 
adorabatur ; myrrha quidem quod ipse erat qui pro mortali 
humano genere moreretur ; aurum vero quoniam Rex cujus 
regni finisnon est ; thus verd, quoniam Deus, lib. iii. cap. 10. 

+ Ady. Marcion, lib. 111. cap. 13. Adv. Jud. cap.. 9, 
p- 196. 

§ Orig. contra Cels. p.45. épovres μέν δῶρα ἃ συνθέτῳ τίνι 
ἐκ ϑεοῦ καὶ ἀνθρύπου ὡς βασιλεῖ τὸν χρυσὸν, ὡς δὲ τεθνηζομένῳ τὴν 
σμῦρναν, ὡς δὲ Θεῷ τὸν λιβανωτόν, ». 46. See Caten.in Matt. 

. 18 


Vor. IV—6 


Al 


the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, 
saying [Ὁ him), Arise, and take the young child and 
his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there 
until I bring thee word (that thou with safely mayest 
return): for Herod will seek (after) the young child to 
destroy him. 

14 When he arose (from his bed), he took the 
young child and his mother by night, and departed 
into Leypt: 

15 And was there until the death of Herod: that 
(by his abode there) it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken of the Lord by the prophet (Hosea xi. 1), 
saying, ὃ Out of Egypt have 1 called my Son. 

16 1 Then 9 Herod, when he saw that he was mocked 
of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth 
(Ais officers), and (they having received commission 
say, as Hosea doth word for word, “I have called my son 
out of Egypt.” 

Secondly, Note that it cannot be truly said, that these 
words are by St. Matthew mentioned as belonging to Christ 
only by way of application or accommodation, though the 
Holy Ghost, who spake to them by the prophets, intended 
not they should again be fulfilled in him: for this cannot 
answer what is here said by St. Matthew, that Christ was 
called out of Egypt, “that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken of the Lord by the prophet ;” for certainly these 
words can import no less than that the calling of Christ out 
of Egypt, was by God intended as a completion of these 
words, and that till he was called thence, they had not 
their full and ultimate completion. Note, 

Thirdly, That Israel was a type of Christ, as being by 
God called “his Son, his first-born,’ Exod. iv. 22, and 
God bearing the relation of a father to Israel, Jer. xxxi. 9, 
hence Israel is put for Christ, Isa. xlix. 3, in these words, 
“Thou art my servant, Ὁ Israel, in whom I will be glori- 
fied ;’ and what is in the Hebrew, “ Behold my servant, 
whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth,” 
Isa. xlii. 1, is in the Chaldee, “ My servant the Messiah ;” 
and in the Greek, “Jacob my servant, and Israel mine 
elect :” now as a prophetical prediction is then fulfilled 
when what was foretold is come to pass; so a type is then 
fulfilled when that is done in the antitype which was done 
in the fype before. Note, 

Fourthly, That the words run in the time past. Out of 
Egypt “have I called ;” and that not only because this is 
the way of prophetical predictions, to speak of those things 
as already done, which shall be as certainly accomplished, 
as if they were already done; but because they had already 
been fulfilled in the type. Note, 

Fifthly, That St. Matthew cites only these words of Ηι - 
sea, “ Out of Egypt have I called my Son,” as words to be 
fulfilled in Christ, and not any more, making Israel a type 
of Christ only in this regard, that they were called out of 
Egypt, as he was to be; so that it doth not hence follow, 
that any other words in this prophecy are to be referred to 
Christ, and so no argument taken from the following words, 
which do not belong to him, can be of any validity to prove 
that these do not, which here the Holy Ghost applieth to 
him. Nor is it any objection against what hath been said, 
that the Jews could not understand this intendment of these 
words, for they were not concerned to understand it till the 
completion of these words in Christ; and then sure they 
who abounded with mystical interpretations of the law and 
the prophets, could not reasonably object against this appli- 
cation of these words to God’s calling his own Son out of 
Egypt. The Jews have no cause to blame the evangelist 
for ascribing these things to the Messiah, which, in their 
literal sense, belong also to the people of Israel, it being the 
manner of their nation so to do. So the author of Midrash 
Tehillim, on Ps. ii. 7, saith, “The mysteries of the king 
Messiah are declared in the law, the prophets, and the ha- 
giographa. In the law, as it is written (Exod. i. 22), Israel 
is my Son, even my first-born.” Hence R. Nathan, in 
Schemoth Rabba, on those words speaks thus: “ As I made 
Jacob my first-born, as I said, Exod. iv. 22, so have I made 
the Messiah my first-born; as it is said, Ps. Ixxxix. 28. 1 
will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the 


v2? 


ἐν: 


42 


fr him so to do) slew all the children that were in 
ethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two 
years old and under, according (or even) to the time 
which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. 

17 © Then was fulfilled (by another more eminent 
completion) that which was spoken by Jeremy the pro- 
phet, saying (xxxi. 15), 

18 In Rama (near to Bethlehem) was there a voice 
heard, (of) lamentation, and weeping, and greatmourn- 
ing, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not 
be comforted, because they are not (i. e. because they 
were dead ). 

19 4 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel 
of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph (being 
then) in Egypt, 


MATTHEW. 


20 Saying (to him), Arise, and take the young 
child and his mother, and go (back) into the land of 
Israel: for they are (Ke is) dead which sought the 
young child’s life. 

21 And he (accordingly) arose, and took the young 
child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. 

22 But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in 
Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid 
to go.thither: notwithstanding (Gr. but), being warned 
of God in a dream (so to do), he turned aside into the 
parts of Galilee (where Herod Antipas was seated, from 
whom there was less apprehension of danger) : 

231And he came and dweltin a city called Nazareth: 
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the pro- 
phets,He shall be called (by way of reproach)a Nazarene, 


earth.” And since God delivered this people out of Egypt, 
with respect to the Messiah, who should be born of them, 
those places, which do immediately respect the people of 
Israel, may well be thought to have a farther respect to 
that Messiah who was to be born of them. 

9 Ver. 16. Then Herod... sent forth, and slew all the 
children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts 
thereof, ἀπὸ διετοῦς Kai κατωτέρω, κατὰ τὸν Χρόνον, ὃν ἠκρίβωσε 
παρὰ τῶν Μάγων, from two years old and under, according 
(or even) to the time that he had diligently inquired of the 
wise men.] Hence some infer that it must have been above 
a year after our Saviour’s birth, that the wise men came to 
Jerusalem, or that they gave an account to Herod of the 
appearance of the star; for why else should Herod slay the 
children “from two years old and under?” And why is he 
said to have done this “according to the time that he had 
learnt exactly from the wise men?” but this seems not cer- 
tain from these words; for (1.) ὀιετίζειν is only to live a 
year : thus of some wasps Aristotle* says, οὐ διετίζουσι, “ they 
live not a whole year,” but all die in the winter, and the like 
he saith of the fish polypus; and in Hesychius and Pha- 
vorinus, he is dirs “who lives, dc’ ὅλου τοῦ ἔτους, a whole 
year;” and if so, these words may be rendered, “from a 
year old and under ;” even so much under as κατὰ τὸν χρόνον, 
“even to the time of the appearance of the star,” of which 
time he had diligently inquired ; and if the words will admit 
of this construction, it is evident they afford no semblance 
of an argument, that the wise men came above a year after 
our Saviour’s birth. But let διετὴς signify two years, yet if 
kara τὸν xpévoy refer not to it, but only to the word xarw- 
τέρω, “under, even so far under as to, or according to, the 
time of the star’s appearing,” we cannot from these words 
collect, how long it was after Christ’s birth before these 
wise men came to Jerusalem. There is little account to 
be given of the actions of a tyrant who slew three of his 
own sons, and it is reasonable to conceive he would endea- 
vour to make sure work, and so might be induced to slay 
all born in Bethlehem, a year before and more, even to 
the time of the star’s appearing to declare the birth of this 
King ; thus, though the Jews had told him from the oracle, 
that Christ was to be born in Bethlehem, he is not content 
to slay the infants there, but shed their blood “in all the 
coasts thereof.” 

It is much admired why Josephus, who relates his mur- 
der of some youths when he was only governor of Galilee, 
and the cry of their mothers for justice against him for it, 
should yet say nothing of the slaughter of these infants. 
But Josephus; being only born in the first year of Caius, 
and the thirty-eighth of Christ, and writing his History of 
the Jewish Wars in the fifty-sixth+ year of his age, and this 
slaughter of these infants being not likely to be preserved 
in the Jewish records, it is not so much wonderful, that he 
who wrote ninety-four years after the fact was done, should 
make no mention of it. It is sufficient that it is preserved 
in Macrobius,§ who saith, that “when Augustus had heard 


* Hist. Anim. lib. ix. cap. 41, cap. 37. 

+ De Vita sua ab initio. + Antiq. lib. xx. cap. ult. 

§ Cum audivisset (Augustus) inter pueros quos in Sy- 
ria Herodes rex Judeorum infra bimatum jussit interfici, 


filium quoque ejus occisum, ait, Melius est Herodis poreum 
esse, quam filium. Saturn. lib, ii. cap. 4, p. 279. 


that among the children, which under two years old Herod 
the king had slain in Syria, his own son was one, he passed 
this joke upon him, It is better to be Herod’s hog than his 
son;” though it must also be confessed that Macrobius is 
mistaken in the circumstances of this story. 

10 Ver. 17, 18. Τότε ἐπληρώϑη τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ ἹἹερεμίου τοῦ προ- 
φήτου, λέγοντος, Φωνὴ ἐν “Papa ἠκούσθη, ὅδε. Then was ful- 
jilled that which was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, 
saying, A voice was heard in Rama, Rachel weeping for 
her children, and would not be comforted, because they 
were not.] Here note (1.) that it is not here said, as ver. 
15, ἵνα πληρωθῆ, “ this was done that it might be fulfilled,” 
but rére ἐπληρώθη, i. 6. “then that happened which gave a 
more full completion to those words of Jeremy,” and so a 
greater occasion to Rachel to weep for her children than 
before, which the providence of God foreseeing, his Spirit 
might have a reference to it in these words. For (1.) Ra- 
chel being dead so long before the captivity, she may as 
well be introduced weeping here as there. (2.) The 
slaughter of the Bethlemites might well be styled the 
slaughter of “her children,” she being buried there (Gen. 
χχχν. 19), and the Bethlemites being descended from her 
husband and her own sister. (3.) The slaughter of the 
innocents being not restrained to Bethlehem, but extended 
“to all the coasts round about,” and Ramah being in the 
tribe of Benjamin, which sprang from Rachel, and not far 
from Bethlehem, the voice of her weeping may be well 
said to be heard in Rama, 

Secondly, Note, that this weeping for her children was, 
saith the prophet, chi ainnu, “ because they were not” (Jer. 
xxxi. 15). Now the import of this phrase is this, “they were 
dead,” or taken away from the land of the living (Gen. ν. 
24, xlii. 13, Ps. xxxix. 13, civ. 35, Jer. x. 20, xlix. 10, Lam. 
vy. 7). Accordingly, though the Jews then undoubtedly had 
embraced the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, yet 
saith the son of Sirach (xvii. 28), “ Praise perisheth ἀπὸ 
νεκροῦ ὡς μηδὲ ὄντος, from the dead, as not being;” and in 
that very chapter in which Josephus* asserts the perpetual 
duration of the soul, he saith, We have received from God 
our being, καὶ τὸ μηκέτι εἶναι πάλιν ἐκείνῳ δίδομεν, “ and to him 
we render again our not being;’” that is, as the context 
shows, we return that soul which he hath given us; and 
this being not literally true of her own children gone into 
captivity, from which, saith God, they shall come again to 
their own borders (ver. 16, 17), why should it be thought 
strange that so literal a completion of these words should 
also be referred to by the Holy Ghost? 

π Ver. 23. “Ὅπως πληρωθῇ. τὸ ῥηδὲν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν, ὅτι 
Ναζαραῖος κληδήσεται, He dwelt in his own city Nazareth, 
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, 
He shall be called a Nazarene.| Here note, 

First, That, because that is here’said to be fulfilled, which 
was spoken by the prophets, τὸ ῥηθὲν, not that which was 
written, some here think it enough to say, there was among 
the ancient prophets a belief that the Messiah should be a 
Nazarene, and that this was delivered down by tradition. 
But I cannot acquiesce in this; for (1.) the foundation of 
this criticism is false, the phrase τὸ ῥηθὲν being used thirteen 
times in this gospel, and but once elsewhere in the New Tes- 
tament; and it is always used of that which is written. It 


* De Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 25, p. 852. 


CHAPTER II. 


is twice so used in this chapter, ver. 15. 17, once i. 22 (see 
iv. 14, viii. 17, xii. 17, xiii. 35, xxi. 4, xxii. 31, xxiv. 15, 
xxvii. 9, and Mark xiii. 14). (3.) How comes any one to 
know that any such tradition was delivered by the ancient 
prophets to the Jews, when they themselves knew nothing 
of it; and therefore upon this account accuse St. Matthew 
as citing what was nowhere to be found! nor find I any of 
the ancient Christians, who mention this supposed tradition ; 
but either say the apostle refers to some writings of the pro- 
phets, which were then extant but are now lost, or to some 
writings not put into the canon, or some interpretations of 
their writings. Let it be therefore noted from St. Jerome, 

Secondly, That St. Matthew doth not cite any particular 
prophet for these words, as he had done, i. 22, and here v. 
15. 17, and in other places above cited, but only saith, this 
was spoken by the prophets in general,* pluralitér autem 
prophetas vocans ostendit, se non verba de scripturis sump- 
sisse, sed sensum, “and thereby shows he took not the 
words from the prophets, but the sense only.” Note, 

Thirdly, That all the interpretations, which refer this to 
Christ's being called Netzer, «the Branch” (Isa. xi. 1, Jer. 
xxiii. 5), or the “ Holy One,” or one “separated from the 
faults of mankind,” fail in this, that they give no account 
how this was fulfilled by Christ’s being at Nazareth ; he be- 
ing as much the Branch, the Holy One, when he was born 
at Bethlehem, and before he went to Nazareth, as after. 

Fourthly, Note therefore, that ὁ Ναζωραῖος, “ the Nazarite,” 
was a name of infamy put upon Christ and Christians, both 
by the unbelieving Jews and gentiles. There was among 
the Jews a celebrated thief, called Ben Nezer, and in allu- 
sion to him, they gave this name to Christ. So Abarbanel 
saith, the little horn, mentioned Dan. vii. 8, is Ben Nezer, 
that is, “Jesus of Nazareth.” And this title of Nazarzan, 
both the Jews and the enemies of Christianity gave always 
hy way of contempt to our Jesus, and that because he was 
supposed to come out of this very city ; yea, his very going 
to dwell there, was one occasion of his being contemned, 
despised, and rejected by the Jews. Thus when Philip saith 
to Nathanael, “ We have found Jesus of Nazareth of whom 
Moses spake :” Nathanael answers, “Can any good thing 
come out of Nazareth?” (Johni. 47) and when Nicodemus 
seemed to favour him, the Sanhedrin spake thus to him, 
“Search and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet” 
(John vii. 52). Note, 

Fifthly, That most of the prophets speak of Christ as of 
a person that was to be reputed vile and abject, despised and 
rejected of men. ‘Thus the psalmist saith of him, « For 
thy sake have I suffered reproach, shame hath covered my 
face, smn np, I was an alien to my brethren, and a 
foreigner to my mother’s sons; for the zeal of thine house 
hath eaten me, and the reproaches of them that reproached 
thee fell on me” (Ps. Ixix. 9,10). Isaiah saith of him (liii. 
3), “He was despised and rejected of men ; he was despised, 
and we esteemed him not.” Here then is a plain sense of 
these words; the angel sent him to this contemptible place, 
that he might thence have a name of infamy and contempt 
put upon him, according to the frequent intimations of the 
prophets. 

At the close of this chapter, I think it proper to consider 
two new opinions of Mr. Whiston, who, in his Harmony of 
the Gospels, asserts, 

First, That “ Herod slew the infants at Bethlehem the 
same day that he cut off his son Antipater ;” that is, saith 
Josephus, but five days before his death. 

Secondly, 'That “Joseph fled into Egypt, and returned 
thence before the purification of the virgin Mary in the 
temple at Jerusalem.” Now the second opinion is demon- 
stratively false; for the virgin-mother coming to Jerusalem 
with her offering, “when the days of her purification were 
accomplished” (Luke ii. 23—34), must come thither before 
her flight into Egypt, or not at all, seeing at their return 
from Egypt into the land of Israel, St. Matthew hath ex- 
pressly told us, that “ Joseph was afraid to go into Judea” 
(ii. 22), and that, by a divine admonition, he was diverted 
from any thoughts of doing so, and ἀνεχώρησε returned, or 
went back into Galilee to his own city Nazareth;” and how 
absurd is it to imagine, that after his own fears, and the 


* Joseph. Antigq. lib. xiv. cap. 8, p. 475. 


43 


divine admonition to the contrary, he should go on, not only 
into Judea, where Archelaus then reigned (ver. 24), but even 
to Jerusalem, where he continued till he took his journey 
to Rome. Nor is Joseph bid to return back into “ the land 
of Judea,” but into the land of Israel (Matt. ii. 20); that 
is, as that message is farther explained, ver. 22, 23, “into 
Galilee to his own city Nazareth.” 

Obj. But it is said, that he could not pass from Egypt to 
Nazareth but through the land of Judah, 

Ans. The way from Pelusium to Nazareth was by Gaza, 
Azotus, Joppa, and so on by the sea-side till you turn up 
to Nazareth. Now, though in the division of the tribes, 
Gaza was added to the tribe of Judah, they did not possess 
it, but it was in Samuel’s time a city of the Philistines 
(1 Sam. vi. 17), and was afterward by Pompey made a free 
city, and annexed to Syria; and though he in his journey 
might pass through either the city or the desert, he might 
not hear that Archelaus reigned till he got to Azotus in the 
tribe of Dan, and so might fear to go into Judea. 

Obj. St. Luke saith (ii. 39), that “when they had per- 
formed all things according to the law of the Lord, they - 
returned into Galilee into their own city Nazareth.” 

Ans. First, This place seems rather to confute than to 
establish this assertion, as showing that when the days of her 
purification were accomplished, they brought him not out of 
Egypt, but from Bethlehem, to present him to the Lord ;” 
for, ver. 15, the shepherds go to Bethlehem to see him; 
and, ver. 21, he is circumcised still at Bethlehem, and then 
immediately it follows, ver. 22, that “they brought him to 
Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ;” i. 6. they brought 
him from Bethlehem to Jerusalem; no other place of his 
abode, nor any intimation of his removal thence before, 
being mentioned. 

Ans. Secondly, St. Luke having brought them up from 
Nazareth to Bethlehem to be enrolled, he here informs us, 
that after this purification, they returned not to Bethlehem, 
as some have imagined, to abide there, but that their future 
abode was their own city, in which they formerly had dwelt, 
but that nothing happened between this purification and 
their settled abode there, or that they fled not after from 
thence into Egypt, he saith not. All, therefore, that St. 
Luke saith may be true, though Joseph fled after this purifi- 
cation from Jerusalem, or from Nazareth into Egypt; but 
what St. Matthew saith cannot be true, if Joseph came with 
him from Egypt to Jerusalem before he went to Naza- 
reth. In fine, as St. Luke saith nothing of their going any 
whither after the purification of the Virgin, but to Galilee, so 
he says nothing of their going any whither after Christ’s 
circumcision, but to the temple at Jerusalem at the purifica- 
tion ; so that the argument from St. Luke’s silence can be no 
stronger for their flight into Egypt before, than after the pu- 
rification. 

Obj. 3. Had this flight and slaughter been deferred till 
after the purification, that was a thing so public, and attend- 
ed with such public circumstances in the temple, that it was 
not possible for Herod to be ignorant of it. 

Ans. First, He who makes this objection should have 
considered, that he earnestly contends that Herod was not 
then at Jerusalem, but at Jericho, under the extremity of 
his numerous distempers, and so there was no fear of his be- 
ing instantly advertised thereof what was done in the tem- 
ple; but to wave this, I answer, that Herod, though he was 
then at Jerusalem, neither repaired to the temple, into which 
he could have no admittance, nor troubled himself with any 
thing done there, unless it were done in a riotous, seditious 
manner, and much less with the talk of one old man and wo- 
man, not regarded that we read of, by any but Joseph and 
the virgin-mother. We find another story published by the 
shepherds, of the appearance of angels, declaring that “one 
Christ the Lord was born in that very city of David,” which 
made all the people “ wonder at the things which they had 
spoken,” and yet Herod takes no notice of it. 

Ans. Secondly, Herod knew nothing either before or after, 
that this was the child the magi came to worship; for then, 
why should he slay all the young children about Bethlehem 
without distinction, and so they, staying there so little time, 
might be safe there as elsewhere ; though, lastly, the possi- 
bility that these things might come to his ear, or that his cu- 
riosity might move him to inquire what children were born at 


44 


Bethlehem during the time of the taxation, and removed 
thence to other places, was perhaps the occasion of the an- 
gel’s being sent to Joseph to hasten his flight from Jerusalem, 
or Nazareth, into Egypt. For, whereas some imagine, that 
the text of St. Matthew seemeth to imply, that the angel 
appeared to Joseph immediately after the departure of the 
wise men; and, therefore, whilst he was at Bethlehem, the 
text doth not enforce this inference, for it saith only that 
ἀναχωρησάντων αὐτῶν “they being returned ;” he did so, leav- 
ing the time indefinite (see Woltzogenius on Matt. ii. p. 105 
—107). 

ae 2. Moreover, Josephus* saith expressly, that Herod 
had sent messengers to Rome concerning the conspiracy of 
Antipater before the disciples of Judas and Matthias attempt- 
ed to pull down his eagle ; for which, after examination and 
imprisonment for some time at Jericho, they suffered death 
upon the 3d of March, old style, and that these messengers 
returned with letters from the emperor but five days before 
his death. Now can any man imagine, they should spend 
nine months in such a journey to Rome and back again, 
which even in winter might be performed in less than two? 
And yet this evidently must be done, if Herod died not till 
the 25th of November following, and yet died in five days 
after their return. 

It therefore is highly probable, and will appear so to any 
one who reads Josephus carefully, that Herod died some 
time before the passover, which that year happened on the 
5th of April, in which interval Archelaus might do all that 
was requisite to celebrate his father’s funeral, and yet come 
to Jerusalem, as Josephus; saith he did, a little before the 
passover. Now if his father died the 25th of November, he 
must spend four full months in celebrating his funeral ; which 
sure must seem incredible to any, who considers that he was 
ἔχων τάχος, “intent upon the quickest performance” of his 
journey to Rome for confirmation of his royal dignity: for 
though in hereditary kingdoms, where the successor is pro- 
claimed the same day that the king dies, and hath no com- 
petitor, these funeral solemnities may be deferred for some 
considerable time ; yet seeing the validity of that will which 
made Archelaus king, depended absolutely upon the plea- 
sure of the emperor, and a competitor was ready, and ap- 
peared as quick as he at Rome, to contest the matter with 
him by virtue of a former will, it cannot reasonably be 
thought that Archelaus would make so long a stay before he 
took his journey to Rome. 

Obj. Against this argument it is objected, that the funeral 
could not be performed in so short a time, because the very 
journey from Jericho to Herodion was, saith Josephus, two 
hundred stadia, that is, twenty-five miles; and saith the 
same Josephus, they went only eight stadia, i. e. one 
mile per diem, and so must be twenty-five days in going to 
Herodion. 

Ans. First, This objection is upon this account highly im- 
probable, that it must either find them a town at every mile’s 
end, suflicient to contain so great a concourse as then at- 
tended on the corpse of Herod, or make them lodge many 
days in the open field or wilderness, in the winter time, pro- 
vided Herod died on the 25th of November. 

Ans, 2. Secondly, It is built upon a false foundation ; for 
though Josephus+ doth expressly say, that Herodion was 
two hundred stadia distant from Jericho, i. 6. the castle of 
Herodion was at that distance from it; he doth not say they 
went but one mile a day, but only that ἥεσαν de ἐπὶ ᾿Ηρώδου 
στάδια ὀκτὼ, “they came (viz. the first day) within eight sta- 
dia of Herodion:” i. e. they came to the town there built by 
Herod, which was eight stadia from the castle, it being, saith 
he, a large town like a city, from which there was an ascent 
of two hundred marble steps to the Mammea, or place of his 
interment. This being so, 1 am of the opinion of Kepler, | 
Dr. Alix, and Langius, that all that Josephus mentions 
after the eclipse till the death of Herod may be comprised 

* Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 8. 


εἶ Ibid. cap. 11. 
+ De B. Jud. lib. i. cap. 21, p. 774, E. 

§ Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 10, p. 600, E. 

|| Omnia illa que Josephus de morbo Herodis ab illa 
eclipsi usque ad mortem ejus recenset, commodissimeé intra 
20 dies, etiam itinere ad thermas simul incluso, fieri potu- 
erunt. Kepl. 


MATTHEW. 


within twenty or twenty-two days, which is the interval 
betwixt the 13th of March and the 5th of April, new style ; 
especially if we consider that Eusebius* saith, that what was 
done after the 19th of March, was done παραύτικα παραχρῆμα, 
by the divine vengeance very suddenly, till the time of his 
death. 

Arg. 3. Thirdly, We are assured from Josephus,t that it 
was after the disease of Herod had been some time upon 
him, that Judas and Matthias moved their scholars to cut 
down the eagle Herod had placed upon the great porch of 
the temple, as being contrary to their laws, judging this time 
of Herod’s distemper καιρὸς ἐπιτηδειότατος, “ the fittest time” 
for the enterprise; and that they moved this the more confi- 
dently, upon a report that “ the king was dying:” that when 
he sent to the principal men of the Jews to assemble about 
this matter, he was carried to them in a bed, ἀδυναμία τοῦ 
στῆναι, “ being so weak that he was not able to stand ;” that 
instantly after the 13th of March, he lay under such a com- 
plex of diseases that all men thought he could not live long, 
a violent inward fever burning up his bowels, attended with a 
boulimia, or perpetual voracity, which must needs feed his 
fever, ulcers in his bowels, cholic passions, an asthma, con- 
vulsions in all parts, a putrefaction in his scrotum breeding 
worms, so that he stank alive ; and when presently he went 
to the hot baths at Callirhoes, he had there a deliguium, and 
was for some time dead, and had no hopes left of life, and 
was, saith Josephus, ἀπίων τοῦ βίου, even “ departing” when 
he shut up the Jews in the Hippodromium at Jericho. Now 
can any man think he should live above eight months after 
this, and keep the Jews shut up there all that time, as he 
must have done if he had lived till the 25th of November 
following? especially if we consider that the next thing Jo- 
sephus mentions of him is, that he endeavoured to stab him- 
self with a knife, and then kills Antipater, who hearing this 
attempted to escape from prison ; and in five days after dies. 
Now isit reasonable to conceive, that an angel should be sent 
to command Joseph to fly into Egypt but seven days, as Mr. 
Whiston’s computation hath it, before the death of Herod 
(when his whole body was full of torment, and his heart of 
grief, and his head full of other employments), to avoid He- 
rod’s future attempts to slay the child, when he might have 
been as secure any where in the land of Israel for so short 
a time, and could scarce get thither before his death ? 

Mr. Whiston indeed saith in answer to this, that there is 
no time set for the duration of the disease of Herod ; but in 
opposition to this, Josephus} expressly affirms, that he did 
εἰς νόσον ἐμπίπτειν, “fall into his disease” after the time that 
he had sent messengers with letters to Rome concerning the 
condemnation of Antipater; and that upon the receipt of 
an answer to them, he killed Antipater, and five days after 
died: allowing then two months for the going and return of 
his messenger, he must die within two months and five days 
after he fell sick, and so could not live from the 13th of 
March, when his disease increased, till the 25th of No- 
vember. 

Arg. 4. Fourthly, According to Mr. Whiston’s opinion, 
Herod must be near eight months at Jericho before he died ; 
for he went thither, saith Josephus, soon after the slaughter 
of Judas and Matthias with their disciples, and there con- 
tinued till his death; and yet the history of St. Matthew, 
especially according to his supposition, that it relates to 
what happened only two weeks and a few days before the 
death of Herod, plainly proves the contrary ; for he informs 
us, that “the wise men came to Jerusalem,” adding that, at 
their coming thither “ Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem 
with him ;” that he inquired “ of the chief priests and scribes,” 
whose residence was there, ‘where Christ should be born,” 
and of the wise men then at Jerusalem, “ what time the star 
appeared to them ;” and this, saith Mr. Whiston in his Har- 
mony, Ρ. 159, “was a consultation at Jerusalem.” From 
thence therefore he sends them to Bethlehem; when there- 
fore he bids them bring “him word again when they had 
found the child,’ must he not bid them bring him word to 
Jerusalem, the place where he consulted with them? Must 
he not there expect them? When, therefore, being frustrated 
of his expectation of their return thither, ἐξαπέστειλεν, “ he 


* Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 8, 


ΗΝ { Απᾷᾳ. lib. xvii. cap. 8. 
+ Ibid. cap. 9. 


CHAPTER IL. 


sends forth” his officers to slay the infants of Bethlehem, 
must not he send them from Jerusalem; and is not all this 
sufficiently intimated in their divine warning, μὴ ἀνακάμψαι, 
“not to return back” to the place from whence they came 
to Bethlehem? How, therefore, could it be that the wise 
men should come to him at Jerusalem but two or three 
weeks before he died? or, why doth he now deny that Herod 
was then at Jerusalem when he sent forth to slay the in- 
fants? Why also doth he say, in contradiction to his former 
self, “I believe the famous and unexampled summons of all 
the chief of the Jews a little before Herod died, in Josephus, 
was the very same summons mentioned in St. Matthew for 
the inquiry of the place where the King of the Jews was to 
be born upon the coming of the magi, and that by conse- 
quence the summons was to Jericho, and not to Jerusa- 
lem?” Which is as great an instance of a man resolved to 
say any thing, though never so improbable, ὀουλεύειν ὑποθέσει, 
to serve an hypothesis which otherwise must fall, as can be 
offered: he is the first, and I believe will be the last, who 
ever entertained such a vain imagination. For, (1.) That 
the wise men came to Jerusalem, and that at their coming 
thither “ Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him,” 
the text saith expressly ; and can it then be reasonably said, 
that Herod was not then at Jerusalem? (2.) The men shut 
up in the Hippodromium were the ἐπίσημοι καὶ ἀξιόλογοι ἀφ' 
ἑκάστης κώμης, “the nobles of every village” (who were then 
at court) ; nor was there was one word said unto them when 
they were thus shut up. The men convened in St. Matthew 
were only high-priests and scribes, whose residence was at 
Jerusalem, and inquiry is made of them where “ Christ should 
be born.” (3.) When Herod* was dead, Salome and Alexas 
sent these men home, ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀγροὺς, “into the fields, or vil- 
lages, to mind their own business,” whereas the high-priests 
had no business to do there. And, (4.) Herod shut them 
up, ἤδη τελευτῶν, καὶ ἀπίων τοῦ βίου, when he was adying, 
and ready to depart this life,” saith Josephus: and was this 
a time for him to say to the wise men, “ Bring me word of 
the child, that I may come and worship him?” Ina word, 
there is not one word of St. Matthew’s story in Josephus, 
or of the story of Josephus in St. Matthew ; and can it then 
be reasonable to think they relate to the same thing? To 
conclude, this new opinion confounds the general doctrine of 
the fathers, from Origen to Theophylact, that Herod fell into 
that disease which so tormented him, ob cedem infantum, 
“for the slaughter of infants,” seeing, according to this 
opinion, he must have lain long under these torments, and 
had been ready to expire with them, before he did this fact, 
it being done, saith this opinion, but five days before his 
death. ΤῸ come now to consider what Mr. Whiston offers 
to confirm his opinion ; 

First, He saith, that in the ancient account of the Jew- 
ish feasts and fasts, viz. in the Megillah Taanitz, we find the 
seventh day of the month Chisleu, which answers to our 
25th of November, recorded for an anniversary holiday, be- 
eause “ Herod the king,’ who hated the wise men, “ died 
on that day.” 

Ans. Dr. Alix in his answer to Bishop Usher concerning 
the true date of the death of Herod, saith, that “had Bi- 
shop Usher seen this book, he would never have cited it; 
for it is not the Megillah Taanitz mentioned by the Mischna, 
but a late fabulous, ignorant author, not known to, and 
much less credited by, the Jews, who do not follow or agree 
with him in this matter, and who mentions a feast in the 
month Chisleu not known to the Jews, not extant in their 
calendar published by Mr. Selden, nor by Buxtorf, among 
their occasional feasts; and which would never have been 
permitted by Herod’s family, who governed till the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem.” 

Mr. Whiston saith farther, that this is wonderfully con- 
firmed by the circumstances of Herod just before his death ; 
and “by the words of Augustus concerning his barbarity to 
his children recorded by Macrobius,” it appearing by Jose- 
phus, “that Herod was in a strange fury and rage but a few 
days before his death.” 

Ans. Here the point in dispute is so plainly and so fully 
given up, that if Mr. Whiston will abide by his own words, 
it must be at an end: for it is evident from the words of 


“+ Joseph. Antig. lib. xvii. cap. 10, p. 630, B. 


45 


Josephus, that “he fell into this rage, or ἐζηγίωσεν ἀκράτῳ 
τῇ ὑργῇ, Was exasperated to the utmost rage, upon suspicion 
of the contempt of the Jews; and that he was confirmed in 
this suspicion by the following attempt of the disciples of 
Judas and Matthias ;” who thereupon are taken by one of 
Herod’s captains,* examined by Herod, then sent to Jeri- 
cho, and after consultation with the chief men of the Jews, 
they are slain on the 13th of March. If therefore Herod 
fell into his rage but “a few days,” yea even “just” before 
his death, it is certain that he must die sobn after this 13th 
of March, as indeed he did, and therefore could not live till 
the 25th of November, that is, eight months after. He there- 
fore elsewhere contradicts himself, i. e. saith, p. 154, that 
“Herod burnt these men alive some considerable time be- 
fore his death;” though it is plain from Josephus, that he 
did it “after that rage,” which, saith he, happened « just,” 
or “a few days,” before it. 

Secondly, To proceed to the words of Macrobius,+ they 
run thus, “When Augustus had heard that among the 
children within two years old, which Herod king of the 
Jews had commanded to be slain in Syria, his own aon was 
killed, he said, It is better to be Herod’s hog than his son.” 
It is observable here : 

First, That as Strauchius saith, there are not men want- 
ing, who look upon this story of Macrobius as a “mere 
fiction ;” as also doth Grenobius in his notes upon these 
words; (1.) Because no Roman historian whatsoever, be- 
fore Macrobius, who lived almost four hundred years after 
Augustus, nor any Christian writer, though both historians, 
commentators, and homilists, speak largely of the cruelty of 
Herod towards the infants of Bethlehem, make any men- 
tion of this jest, which gives just reason to suspect it is a 
fiction ; like to that other in Philo’s book of chronology, that 
“ Herod had then a son of two years old, begot by one Sa- 
lome, of the line of David, whom he then slew.” Or (2.) 
We may say with Grotius,} that Macrobius finding that the 
Christians kept the solemnity of Innocents’ day, when, saith 
Origen, Horum memoria, ut dignum est, in ecclesia cele- 
bratur, “the memory of these infants is deservedly cele- 
brated in the church,” he out of error applied the jest of 
Augustus to it. 

Secondly, These words contain no testimony of Augustus 
about this matter; he only says, “It is better to be Herod’s 
hog than his son;” and this he might say rather upon occa- 
sion of Herod’s slaying his two sons, Alexander and Aristo- 
bulus, against his advice, to which Dr. Alix refers this speech, 
than his slaying Antipater; which being done with his per- 
mission, he had no just occasion to pass this jest upon him 
for doing that which he himself allowed. Moreover, Anti- 
pater being slain by Herod but five days before his death, 
Augustus could not hear of it till he heard also of his death, 
and then it seems too late to pass this jest upon him; 
whereas Alexander and Aristobulus being slain long before, 
might give a just occasion for it. And he who contradicts 
the full assertion of so many fathers of the second and third 
century, saying, that our Saviour was baptized “when he 
began to be thirty years old,” as St. Luke also doth; may 
permit us to question the authority of Macrobius as to the 
occasion of a jest made four hundred years before, and men- 
tioned by him alone. 

Thirdly, It is evident, that if any son of Herod’s was 
slain inter pueros, “among the infants of Bethlehem,” it 
could not be Antipater, he being neither slain among them, 
nor near Bethlehem, but alone ata castle far distant from it. 
Nor, secondly, could he be slain at the same time with 
these infants; for it plainly appears from Josephus, that 
Antipater was slain soon after the eclipse, which happened 
on March 13th, the infants, saith Mr. Whiston, were slain 
Nov. 20. Antipater was slain not long before the return of 
Archelaus to Jerusalem, the five days of his father’s life 
and his funeral solemnity only intervening; and, yet we 


* Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 8. 

+ Cum audivisset Augustus inter pueros quos in Syrid 
Herodes rex Judzorum infra bimatum jussit interfici, filium 
quoque ejus occisum, ait, Melius est Herodis porcum esse, 
quam filium. Saturnal. lib. ii. cap. 4. 

+ Videtur Macrobius errore quodam duas historias ejus- 
dem temporis miscuisse. Grot. 


“| om 
Es 
oe a 


46 


learn from Josephus,* that Archelaus came thither, ἐνστάσης 
τῆς τῶν ἀζύμων ἑορτῆς, “the passover being then at hand.” 
Lastly, The infants were slain whilst Herod was at Jeru- 
salem; for thence he sent forth to slay the children at 
Bethlehem, whereas he had left Jerusalem, and was gone 


* De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 2. 


MATTHEW. 


to Jericho before he slew Antipater; though therefore it 
might so happen that Augustus might hear of the relation, 
or discourse of both these acts of cruelty at the same time ; 
it is impossible that they should happen both at the same 
time. 

(See the appendix to this chapter at the end of this 


gospel. ] 


CHAPTER III. 


1 In those days (viz. in the fifteenth year of Tibe- 
rius, Luke iii. 1) came John the Baptist, preaching 
in the wilderness of Judea ! (and about Jordan, Luke 
iii. 3), 

2 ia saying, Repent ye ὅ (and amend your lives) : 
for the kingdom of heaven (7. e. of the Messiah) is at 
hand (that so ye may be prepared to receive the blessings 
of that kingdom). 


3 (And this he did according to what was foretold of 
him ;) For this (John) is he that was spoken of by 
the prophet Hsaias, saying (xl. 3), The voice of one 
erying in the wilderness (shail be this), Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make his paths straight ὃ (and of 
whom God by Malachi had said, iii. 1, Behold, I will 
send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before 
me, Mark i. 2). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver, 1. Ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ τῆς Ιουδαίας, preaching in the wil- 
derness of Judea.) Ἔρημος, a “wilderness” among the 
Jews, did not signify a place wholly void of inhabitants, 
but a place in which they were fewer, and their habita- 
tions more dispersed, than in villages and cities: hence 
we read of six cities with their villages in the “ wilder- 
ness,” Josh. xv. 61, 62, that Nabal dwelt in the “ wilder- 
ness of Paran,” 1 Sam. xxv. 1, 2, and Joab had his house 
in the “ wilderness,” 1 Kings ii. 34. 

2 Ver. 2. Μετανοεῖτε" ἤγγικε γὰρ ἢ βασιλεία τῶν. οὐρανων, 
Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.) Of the 
repentance here mentioned, see ver. 8. But to treat here 
more largely of the “kingdom of heaven” mentioned here, 
and elsewhere frequently in the gospels, let it be noted, 

First, That the kingdom “of heaven” and the kingdom 
“of God” signify the same thing, as will be evident from 
the variation of the word: «“ Blessed are ye poor, for yours 
is the kingdom of heaven,” Matt. v. 3; “the kingdom of 
God,” Luke vi. 20; “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” 
Matt. iv. 17; “the kingdom of God,” Mark i. 15; “the 
least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John,” 
Matt. xi. 11; “in the kingdom of God,” Luke vii. 28; to 
you it is given “to know the mysteries of the kingdom of 
heaven,” Matt. xiii. 11; “of the kingdom of God,’ Mark 
iv. 11. So Matt. xix. 14, and Mark x. 14. The reason 
seems to be, because this kingdom is erected by the “ God 
of heaven ;” and in scripture phrase it is the same to be 
from God and to be “from heaven,” Matt. xxi. 25, Luke 
xv. 18. And p pw “Heaven” is the name of God, Dan. 
iv. 26, and among the rabbinical writers frequently (see 
Buxt. Lexi. Talmud. in voce). Note, 

Secondly, That the «kingdom of heaven” in the gospel 
sometimes unquestionably signifies that heavenly kingdom 
in which all piows persons shall enjoy endless felicity with 
God as their reward in heaven: as when it is said, « Blessed 
are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. v. 10) ; i.e. “great 
is their reward in heaven” (ver. 12). “Not every one that 
saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father’ (Matt. 
vii. 21). To the rest I will say “in that day, I know you 
not,” &c. (ver. 22, 23). “It is better to enter into the 
kingdom of heaven with one eye, than having two eyes to 
be cast into hell,’ Mark ἴχ. 46, 47. See Matt. xii. 40. 43, 
xxv. 34. 46, Luke xii. 32, 33. Note, 

Thirdly, That it very frequently in the gospel signifies 
the coming of the Messiah to erect his spiritual kingdom, 
or that evangelical state ond government of the church he 
was to set up, with the benefits belonging to them, who 
should by faith in him become members of this kingdom, 
and would be governed by his laws ; this is undoubtedly 
the import of the phrase, (1.) when the kingdom of God 
is said to be “at hand,” as here and Matt. iv. 17, x. 7, 
Luke x. 9, that the “kingdom of God is near,” Luke xix. 
31, that it was “presently to be manifested,” Luke xix. 11, 


that it was “among the Jews,” Luke xvii. 21, that it was 
“come to them,” Matt. xii. 28, that devout men expected 
it, Mark xv. 43, that the pharisees asked “when the king- 
dom of God would come,” Luke xvii. 20, and when Christ 
said, “There are some standing here, who shall not taste 
of death till they see the kingdom of God come with 
power,” Matt. xvi. 28, Mark ix. 1, Luke ix. 27. (2.) 
When it is said that « Jesus preached the gospel of the king- 
dom of God,” Mark i. 14, that “from the days of John the 
Baptist the kingdom of God was preached,’ Luke xvi. 16, 
that “ Christ preached the gospel of the kingdom,” Matt. iv. 
23, ix. 35, that he preached “the kingdom of God,” Luke 
iv. 43, and spake to them “ of the kingdom of God,” Luke 
ix. 11, that he sent his “ apostles to preach the kingdom of 
God,” Luke v. 2, and told the Jews “the kingdom of God 
should be taken from them,” Matt. xxi. 43. (3.) This sense 
it also bears in almost all the parables which speak of “the 
kingdom of God,” as Matt. xiii. 11. 31. 33, 44, 45. 47, xviii. 
1. 3,4, xx. 1, xxii. 2, xxv. 1. (4.) It seems to bear this 
sense, when it is said “the least in the kingdom of heaven 
is greater than John the Baptist,” Matt. xi. 11, that “the 
kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it 
by force,” ibid. ver. 12, that “to the disciples was given to 
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,’’ Matt. xiii. 
11, see ver. 19. 52; “to thee will I give the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven,” Matt. xvi. 19, when the mother of 
Zebedee’s children asks for her two sons that “they might 
sit on the right and left hand in his kingdom,” Matt. xx. 
21. This is the kingdom which the scribes shut men out 
from, Matt. xxiii. 13, which the scribe was not “far from,” 
Mark xii. 34, and of which it is said, “ Blessed is he who 
shall eat bread in the kingdom of God,” Luke xiv. 15. 

Fourthly, In other places I am yet doubtful whether it 
refer to the times of the preaching of the gospel, and the 
erecting of Christ’s kingdom, or to the first and higher sense 
of the kingdom of heaven, as it imports the kingdom into 
which the righteous shall enter at the great day of recom- 
pense, viz. Matt. v. 3. 19, 20, vi. 33, viii. 11, xix. 12. 24, 
Mark x. 14, 15. 28—25, Luke xviii. 29, xxii. 29, 30. 

3 Ver. 3. ‘Eromdcare τὴν ὁδὸν Κυρίου, εἰθεΐίας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρί- 
βους αὐτοῦ, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his 
paths straight.) From these words compared with Mark i. 
2, Mal. iii. 1, some prove that Christ is God, even the same 
in essence with the God of Israel, because the way of which 
Isaias speaks (xl. 3), is myay yn5 or the “way of Jehovah,” 
the path which he requires to be made straight is the path 
τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν, “of our God.” And it is the God of Israel 
who saith, Behold, “I send my messenger before my face,” 
or before me (Mal. iii.1). Now this messenger is by Christ 
himself declared to be John the Baptist (Matt. xi. 10), and 
he is said to be sent πρὸ προσώπου cov, “before the face of 
Christ to prepare his way”’ (ibid. and Mark i. 2, Luke vii. 
27); this therefore, say some, is an evident proof that 
Christ is one God with the Father, and that in Christ God 
came, and was manifested in the flesh. But to this the 
Socinians answer two things, which seem to lessen the 
force of this argument, viz. | 


CHAPTER ΤΙ. 


4 And the same John (who thus cried) had his rai- 
ment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his 
loins 4 (as Elias whom he represented, had) ; and his 
meat was locusts and wild honey. * 

5 Then (after notice of his proclaiming the approach of 
the Messiah) went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, 
and all the region round about Jordan, 


‘eo 


41 


6 And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing 
their sins δ (and promising the reformation of their lives). 

7 4 But when he saw many of the 7 Pharisees and 
Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, 
O generation of vipers, § who hath warned you to 
(make use of this means to) flee from the wrath to 
come? (if indeed you would escape it.) 


First, That the Baptist was sent before the face of God, 
but not of God only, but of Christ also, for he was sent to 
call the people to “repentance towards God,” and so he 
went before God “to turn many of the people to the Lord 
their God” (Luke i. 16, 17). He was also sent to bear 
witness to Christ, “that all men might believe in him” 
(John i. 7); and so “he went before the face of Christ to 
prepare his way.” 

Secondly, They add, that this messenger may well be 
said to go before the face of God, as being sent before the 
face of this great prophet and ambassador of God, who 
therefore sustained his person, and was his image and re- 
presentative in a more excellent manner than a prophet or 
any angel mentioned in the Old Testament; yea, say they, 
“ God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 
Cor. v.19) ; which shows that Christ in a more perfect man- 
ner represented him, so that the messenger sent before 
Christ’s face, might well be said to be sent “ before the face 
of God.” For if he, who persecutes the members of 
Christ, persecutes Christ himself (Acts ix. 4), he that « de- 
spiseth Christ’s messengers,” despiseth him, and he that 
despiseth him, despiseth him also that sent him (Luke x. 
16), and he that lied to the apostles lied to God (Acts v. 
4); and if he that received them, received him (Matt. x. 
40), and he that shows an act of charity to his members, 
shows it to him (Matt. xxv. 40); then in like manner, he 
that goes before God’s great prophet and ambassador, may 
be said to go before God also. These answers must be 
confuted before we can depend upon the strength of this 
argument (see also note on Luke iii. 4, 5). 

4 Ver. 4. Εἶχε τὸ ἔνδυμα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τριχῶν καμήλου καὶ ζώνην 
δερματίνην περὶ τὴν ὀσφὺν αὐτοῦ, &e. And this John had his 
raiment of camel's hair, anda leathern girdle about his 
loins, &c.] It is very true, as Ctesias, Apollonius,* and 
/Blian declare,t that some garments made of “ camel’s 
hair” were very soft and fine, and therefore worn by priests 
and noblemen; these, saith Paulus Venetus, in Tartary are 
called zambilottes, lib. i. cap. 63, and by us chamblets ; but 
doubtless the garment of the Baptist was made ex villis, 
“of the long and coarse hair” of camels, that he might in 
habit, as well as in spirit and office, resemble Elijah, who 
was a “hairy man,” and girded with a girdle of leather 
about his loins’ (2 Kings i. 8). 

5'H dé τροφὴ αὐτοῦ iv ἀκρίδες καὶ μέλι ἄγριον, and his meat 
was locusts and wild honey.| That some locusts were clean 
meat we learn from these words, Lev. xi. 22, “of these ye 
may eat, the bald locust after his kind.’ That locusts were 
a common meat, not only in the eastern and the southern 
parts, but even in Palestine itself, is fully proved by Bo- 
chartus, Hieroz. par. ii. lib. iv. cap. 7, Eustath. in Dionys. 
p- 37, and by Ludolphus in his Ethiopic History, and in 
his dissertation de Locustis: so that vain are all the criti- 
cisms to change the word ἀκρίδες. 

6 Ver. 6. Kai ἐβαπτίζοντο ἐν τῷ Ἰορδάνῃ ὑπὸ αὐτοῦ, ἐξομο- 
λογούμενοι τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν. And were baptized of him 
in Jordan, confessing their sins.) In the river Jordan, 
Mark i. 5 (see note on ver. 16). Of this confession of sins, 
Maldonate owns it could not be auricular confession, be- 
cause that was not yet instituted: moreover, it was a con- 
fession of them not to John, but unto God, much less was 
it a confession of all their offences made secretly in the ears 
of John; for how could one man have sufficed for that 
work, when all « Judea and Jerusalem went out unto him?” 
but only a general confession that they were sensible of their 
sins, and so repaired to his baptism, professing their repent- 
ance for them: and such were the professions we meet with 
in the Old Testament (Ezra ix., Neh. ix., Dan. ix.), and that 
made by the high-priest on the day of “atonement of all the 
iniquities of the children of Israel” (Lev. xvi. 21). It was 


* Mirab. cap. 20. { Hist. Animal. lib, xvii. cap. 34. 


a confession not of those who had been baptized concern- 
ing sins committed after baptism, but of those who were 
to be baptized: and, lastly, it was not a confession required 
of them by the Baptist, but made freely of their own ac- 
cord; in all which circumstances it differs from the awricu- 
lar confession of the church of Rome. 

7 Ver. 7. ᾿Ιδὼν δὲ πολλοὺς τῶν Φαρισαίων καὶ Σαδῥουκαίων 
ἐρχομένους ἐπὶ τὸ βάπτισμα αὐτοῦ. And seeing many of the 
pharisees and sadducees coming to his baptism, &c.| ‘That 
these pharisees and sadducees not only came to the place of 
baptism, but also actually were baptized by John, is proved, 
(1.) Because as much is said of them here, as of the multi- 
tude, Luke iii. 7, “« they came to be baptized,” and of the 
publicans, ver. 12, ἦλθον βαπτισϑήναι, “they came to be bap- 
tized.” And the same admonitions and words are spoken 
to the multitude there (ver. 7, 8), as to the pharisees and 
sadducees here. Now the multitude and publicans were 
actually baptized; only observe, that many of them are 
said to come to his baptism not comparatively, as if but 
few refused, for St. Luke saith (vii. 30) that “the pharisees 
and lawyers rejected the counsel of God towards them, 
being not baptized of John ;” but absolutely, they being 
not a few who were baptized. Now from this example of the 
Baptist admitting this generation of vipers to his baptism 
upon their profession of repentance, and a desire to escape 
the wrath to come, we may learn that such professors may 
be admitted to the sacrament, as have been very bad, upon 
the like profession, provided we do warn them as the Bap- 
tist did these men, that as they do make profession of re- 
pentance and amendment, so they would be as careful to 
“bring forth fruits worthy of repentance.” 

8 Tis ὑπέδειξεν iptv; who hath warned you to flee from 
the wrath to come 5] This is not, as Mr. Clerc conceives, 
a negative, or declaration that none had warned them to 
do this; for, doubtless, the prophets of the Old Testament, 
and their own consciences, must warn them to avoid im- 
pendent wrath : but it is a who of admiration, like that of 
St. Paul to the Galatians, “ Who hath bewitched you?” 
iii. 1, where sure he did not intend to say that no man 
had done it (see the like, Isa. xlii. 19, xlix. 21, lili. 1, bx. 
8, lxiii. 1, Matt. xxi. 10, Luke v. 21, ix. 9, Rev. xiii. 4) : 
and is as if he should have said, “ How wonderful is it that 
such men should do things so alien from their temper and 
inclinations !” 

9 Ver. 8. Ποιήσατε οὖν καρποὺς ἀξίους τῆς μετανοίας. Bring 
forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance. ἱ. e. A change 
of the mind from the approbation or good-liking of sin, as 
seeing in it something we conceive desirable, to the aver- 
sion and alienation of the mind from it, as being convinced 
of the vileness and the destructive nature of it; and this is 
properly μετάνοια, repentance, and to be thus affected is dva- 
νεοῦσϑαι τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ νοὺς ἡμῶν, “to be renewed in the 
spirit of our mind” (Eph. iv. 23); and because hence 
naturally follows a change of the will and the affections from 
love to the hatred of sin, and so from choosing to the re- 
fusal of it: hence it is well defined by Phavorinus, ἡ πρὸς 
τὸ κρεῖσσον ἐπιστροφὴ Kat γνησία ἀπὸ πταισμάτων ἐπὶ τὸ ἐνάντιον 
ἀγαθὸν ἐπιστροφὴ, “a conversion from our evil ways to the 
contrary good, or to that which is better; and because, 
where these ruling faculties are truly thus affected, we shall 
“cease to do evil, and learn to do well” br i. 16, 17), 
so that “if we have done iniquity we will do it no more” 
(Job xxxiv. 32), therefore it is styled μετάνοια ἀπὸ νεκρῶν ἔργων, 
“repentance from dead works” (Heb. vi. 1), and “repent 
ance to salvation’’ is styled dyerapé\nros (2 Cor. vii. 10), 
i. e. “such as is not reversed” by any voluntary returning 
to, or relapsing into, our former sins. And seeing God is 
unchangeably holy and righteous, and must for ever hate ini- 
quity with a perfect hatred, it is certain from his very nature 
that he cannot be reconciled to, or have communion with, 
the sinner till he cease from sin, and a change is wrought in 


48 


8 Bring 9 forth therefore (then) fruits meet for re- 
pentance : 

9 And think (1) not (suffictent) to say within 
yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I 
say unto you, that God (rejecting yow) is able of these 
stones " (before your eyes) to raise up (suck who be- 
lieving as he did, shall be accownted by him) children 
unto Abraham. 

10 And (to engage yow so to do, consider that) now 
also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees : therefore 
every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is (to 
be) hewn down, and cast into the fire. 

11 J indeed baptize you (only) with water 15 (calling 
you by this rite) unto repentance: but he that cometh 
after me is mightier than I, (being one) whose shoes 
1.1 am not worthy to bear (7. 6. whose servant I am 
not worthy to be): he shall baptize you (who believe in 


his conversion from sin to righteousness; for a change there 
must be either in God or man: now since God’s nature is 
immutable, it cannot be in him, and so of necessity must be 
in man. Now it is evident both from reason and experience, 
that confession of sins, a present sorrow for them, and dis- 
pleasure against them, and a warm resolution to forsake 
them, is neither necessarily nor always attended with this 
change, and so that these alone cannot be “ fruits meet for 
repentance ;” and, oh! how necessary was this admonition 
for the men of that age, who, as Dr. Lightfoot notes, placed 
their repentance in a mere “ oral confession of their sins,” 
as the schoolmen and some Latin fathers did in a mere 
groan; saying, Si ingemueris, salvaberis. And I wish this 
note were not as necessary for too many of our age. 

10 Ver. 9. Kai μὴ dégnre λέγειν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, πατέρα ἔχομεν τὸν 
᾿Αβραὰμ: And begin not to say within yourselves, We have 
Abraham to our father.| There seems no necessity of 
making δοκέω here, or ἄρχομαι Luke iii. 8, an expletive ; for 
the sense runs clearly thus, When you are called to “ bring 
forth fruits meet for repentance,” begin not to obstruct the 
efficacy of the admonition with those thoughts so common 
among you, that you are secure from wrath by being the 
«children of Abraham.’ How prone they were to such 
vain imaginations you may learn, note on Rom. ii. 13, and 
from these words of Justin Martyr,* calling the Jews to 
repentance, and desiring them not to be deluded by their 
rabbins and masters, who told them, that though they con- 
tinued in their sins, yet if they knew God, οὐ μὴ λογίζηται 
αὐτοῖς ὃ Ἰζύριος ἁμαρτίαν, God “would not impute their sin 
to them.’ And conceiving that “being Abraham’s seed, 
though they continued in their disobedience to God, and in 
infidelity, the kingdom of heaven should be given to them.” 

1 “Ὅτι δύναται ὃ Θεὸς ἐκ τῶν λίθων τούτων ἐγείραι τέκνα τῷ 
Αβραάμ, for God is able out of these stones to raise up 
children to Abraham. I see no reason for the interpreta- 
tion of Clemens Alexandrinust here “ out of these stones,” 
that is ἐκ τῶν λίϑοις πεπιστευκότων ἐδνῶν, “ out of the gentiles 
who worshipped stones,” or that of Jerome on the place, 
Lapides ethnicos vocat propter cordis duritiem, “He calls 
the heathens stones for the hardness of their hearts,” though 
almost all the ancients concur with them; unless perhaps 
it might be thought he pointed to the heathen soldiers 
standing there; the sense seems rather to be this, That 
God, who raised Adam from the earth, and children to 
Abraham from the dead womb of Sarah, can from these 
stones create such persons, whose faith shall render them 
more truly and acceptably “ the sons of faithful Abraham” 
than you are (see the note on Luke xix. 40). 

2 Ver. 11. ᾿Εγὼ μέν βαπτίζω ὑμᾶς ἐν ὕδατι εἰς μετάνοιαν, 
Lindeed baptize you with water to repentance, &c.] They 
seem to be much mistaken, who think the “ baptism of John” 
was for substance the same with that which afterward Christ 
did institute to admit disciples into the Christian church ; 
for (1.) John neither did nor could baptize disciples “in the 


* 'Ὑπολαμβάνοντες ὅτι πάντως τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς σπορᾶς, τῆς κατὰ 
σάρκα, τῶν ᾿Αβραὰμ οὖσι, κἂν ἁμάρτωλοι Gat, καὶ ἄπιστοι, καὶ 
ἀπειϑεῖς πρὸς τόν Θεὸν, ἡ Βασιλεία h αἰώνιος δοθήσεται. Dial. cum 
Tryph. p. 368, cap. 370, D. 

} Protrept. p. 3. 


MATTHEW. 


him) with the Holy Ghost, and with fire (ἡ. 6. appear- 
ing in the emblem of fire) - 

12 rae he is one) whose ™ fan is in his hand, and 
he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his 
wheat (the sincerely penitent) into the garner; but he 
will burn up the chaff (the wicked and the unbelievers) 
with unquenchable fire : 

13 4 Then (while John was thus preaching and bap- 
tizing) cometh Jesus from (Nazareth of ) Galilee to 
Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. 

14 But John (being a prophet full of the Spirit from 
his mother’s womb, Luke i. 15, and by the afflatus of 
that Spirit knowing who he was) forbad 15 (or would 
have hindered) him, saying, I have need to be baptized 
of thee (with the Holy Ghost), and comest thou to me 
(to receive my water baptism) ? 

15 And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer ἐξ 


name of the Holy Ghost,” as the apostles did; because 
“the Holy Ghost was not yet given” (John vii. 39), and 
much less could he baptize them “ with the Holy Ghost,” 
as here he saith Christ would, and yet Christ makes both 
these baptisms necessary to our entrance into the kingdom 
of God, John iii. 5. τὴ John did not baptize in the name 
of Christ; for had he done so, there could have been no 
doubt “ whether he himself were the Christ” or not (Luke 
iii, 15), nor any occasion for the question, « Why baptizest 
thou, if thou be not the Christ?” (John i. 25.) He only 
admonished those he baptized in general, that “they should 
believe in him that was coming after him.” So that he 
baptized only those who as yet believed not in Christ; 
whereas the baptism instituted by Christ was in his name, 
and belonged only to them who believed in him. And, 
lastly, St. Paul baptizes them again, who had before re- 
ceived the baptism of John, to fit them for the reception of 
the Holy Ghost (Acts xix. 6, 7). 2 

18 Οὗ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς τὰ ὑποδήματα᾽ Bacracat, whose shoes I 
am not worthy to carry.) i. 6. Whose servant I am not 
worthy to be (see note on John i. 27, and Grotius here). 

M4 Ver. 12. Οὐ τὸ πτῦον ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ" Whose fun is in 
his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and burn 
the chaff with unquenchable fire.| That which we render 
here “a fan” from vannus, is, say Hesychius and Phavo- 
rinus, “a sieve,” in which they separate the wheat from 
the chaff. It is, say Didymus and Eustathius (in Tliad. 
v.), τὸ λικμητικὸν, “a Winnowing instrument,” by which they 
shake the grains together, ἀναχωρίζοντες τοῦ ἀχύρου, “ sepa- 
rating them from the chaff.” Now the wheat or other 
grain thus cleansed was put into the granary ; to the chaff 
they put fire, to prevent the winds blowing it back into the 
threshing-floor, and that fire burnt on, till it had consumed 
it, without being quenched; and to this practice do these 
words refer. 

15 Ver. 14. Ὃ δὲ Ἰωάννης διεκώλυεν αὐτόν. But John forbade 
him.| To the question, how the Baptist knew him to be 
the Christ, before the Spirit descended on him? it is an- 
swered by almost all the commentators on the Gospel of 
St. Matthew, that John the Baptist being a “ prophet filled 
with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb” (Luke i. 15), 
knew by the afflatus of that Holy Spirit, that he, who then 
came to him, was the person on whom the Holy Ghost should 
descend so plentifully, and on whom he should abide, that 
he might impart him to others, such matters being frequently 
imparted to prophets by an immediate intimation of the 
Holy Spirit. So Simeon being told that “he should not 
die till he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke ii. 26), had 
an afflatus declaring to him that our Lord was that Christ 
(ver. 27, 32). So Anna the prophetess, being one of them 
who expected his coming, by a like afflatus, was moved 
“to speak of him” as the promised Messiah (ver. 38). So 
Samuel being told by God, that “on the morrow a man 
should come to him to be the captain over his people Is- 
rael” (1 Sam. ix. 15), when Saul appears, hath another afila- 
tus, resembling that of the Baptist’s here, viz. “ Behold che 
man of whom I spake to thee” (ver. 17), and on whom thou 
mayest expect to see the signal promised. Thus, though 
Moses knew before from the mouth of God, and many other 
antecedent evidences, that he was by him designed to bring 


we 


CHAPTER III. 


to be so now: for thus it becometh 15 us to fulfil all 
righteousness (¢. ¢. to own every righteous institution 
of God). Then he suffered him. 

16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, " went up 


his people out of Egypt, yet God speaks thus to him, “This 
shall be a sign to thee, that I have sent thee, when thou 
hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve 
God upon this mountain” (Exod. iii. 12). In a word, the 
Baptist being to preach, when he baptized with water, that 
another should baptize them with the Holy Ghost, God tells 
him, that of this he should see an evidence, by the visible 
descent of the Holy Ghost upon him, who from his fulness 
was to impart this Spirit to all true believers ; and when our 
Saviour came to be baptized tells him again this was that 
very person. 

1 Ver. 15. Οὕτω γὰρ πρέπον ἐστὶν ἡμῖν πληρῶσαι πᾶσαν 
δικαιοσύνην, for so it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness.) 
i. e. To own every divine institution, and so to show my 
readiness to comply with all God’s righteous precepts, and 
to justify God and approve his counsel (Luke vii. 29), and 
celebrate his wisdom in sending thee to prepare his and 
my way, by calling men to repentance, and by so doing to 
fit them for the blessings of my kingdom, and the avoiding 
of the wrath to come. So the Apostolical Constitutions 
(lib. vii. cap. 22), say that Christ was baptized, “not that 
he needed any purgation, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα καὶ ᾿Ιωάννῃ ἀλήϑειαν προσ- 
μαρτυρήσῃ, καὶ ἡμῖν ὑπογραμμὸν παράσχηται, but to testify the 
truth of St. John’s baptism, and be an example to us.” 

7 Ver. 16. Kai βαπτισθεὶς ὃ ᾿Ιησοὺς ἀνέβη εὐθὺς ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος" 
And Jesus being baptized came up straightway out of the 
water.] The observation of the Greek church qs this, that 
he who ascended out of the water, must first descend down 
into it: “baptism therefore is to be performed, not by 
sprinkling, but by washing the body ;’’* and indeed it can 
be only from ignorance of the Jewish rites in baptism that 
this is questioned ; for they, to the due performance of this 
rite, so superstitiously required the immersion of the whole 
body in the water, that if any dirt hindered the water 
from coming to any part of it, the baptism was not right, 
and if one held the baptized -by the arm when he was let 
down into the water, another must dip after him, holding 
him by the other arm that was washed before ; because his 
hand would not suffer the water to come to his whole 
body (see Lightfoot here, on ver. 6, and Selden, de Jure 
Nat. et Gent. lib. ii. cap. 2, p. 14). Note also, that the 
divines hence infer, that baptism may rightly be received 
by, and administered to, a subject incapable of many of the 
chief ends of it, provided he be capable of some other end 
for which it was also designed. For Christ being “ with- 
out sin,” could neither repent nor promise amendment of 
life; being “the wisdom of the Father,’ he could be 
taught nothing ; being the Christ, he could not profess he 
would “ believe in him that should come after him,” that 
is, in himself. He therefore was baptized, to testify that 
he owned the Baptist, as one commissioned by God to do 
this office; and, (2.) that by this rite he might profess his 
willingness “ to fulfil all righteousness ;” and (3.) that by 
this rite he might be initiated to his prophetical office, and 
consecrated to the service of God; though therefore, say 
they, infants can neither be taught nor believe, nor give 
“the answer of a good conscience at baptism,” yet may 
they be baptized. (1.) That they may by this ceremony 
be obliged to observe the laws of that Jesus in whose name 
they are baptized, even as the circumcised infant, by virtue 
of that rite, became “ a debtor to observe the law of Moses,” 
Acts xv. 5, Gal. v. 3. (2.) That by this rite they might 
enter into covenant with God, and become federate child- 
ren of God, of which they are declared capable by Moses, 
Deut. xxix. 11. And so, when by their parents that cir~ 
cumcision wns neglected, they are said to have “broken 
God’s covenant,” Gen. xvii. 14. And seeing parents 
might consecrate their children to God’s service from the 
womb, as in the case of Samson (Judg. xiii. 5), and of 
Samuel (1 Sam. i. 11. 22. 28), why might not God ap- 
point that this might be done to children, by that only rite 


* 'Ave6n ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕδατος, δῆλον δὲ ὅτι κατέβη" ἰδοὺ οὖν κατάδυσις 
καὶ οὐ ῥαντισμός. Hieron. Patriarch. cap. περὶ μυστηρίων. 
Vot. IV.—7 


49 


straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens 
were opened unto him, and (both) he (and John Bap- 
list, John i. 32) ® saw the Spirit of God descending 
like (as) a dove (descends), and ® lighting upon him: 


which he instituted under the old and the new covenant, for 
entering any into the number of his federal servants? And, 

(3.) By this rite to consign unto them aright to the king- 
dom of heaven, and to a blessed resurrection ; of which, if 
infants of believing parents are not capable when dying in 
their infancy, they are lost for ever. Now they all being 
the offspring of Adam, and therefore all obnoxious to death 
by reason of his sin (Rom. ν. 12), they cannot be delivered 
from this death but by the grace of God, which Christ hath 
purchased, and promised to them only who are made some 
way members of his body, and children of God: why there- 
fore should we not conceive they should obtain this favour 
by that baptism which is alone say by Christ for mak- 
ing any one a “member of his body” (1 Cor. xii, 13), and 
entering any one into the “kingdom of God” (John iii. 5). 

18 Kai εἶδε τὸ Πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ καταβαῖνον ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν, and 
he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove.] See the 
note on Luke ili. 22. 

19 Kai ἐρχύμενον ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν, and lighting upon him.) Here 
the Socinians object thus: 

Obj. If Christ had been God as well as man, he could 
not have needed this descent of the Holy Spirit upon him, 
as being able, by the divinity residing in him, to do all 
those things for which the Holy Ghost can be supposed to 
descend upon him. “What is it,” saith Crellius, «that 
the high God could not do himself? or, what help could 
the Holy Spirit give unto him? If you say, his human 
nature needed the assistance of this Holy Spirit, how can 
that be, seeing it is supposed to be personally united to 
the divinity, and to have the whole ‘fulness of the God- 
head dwelling in it?’ or, why should Christ be rather said 
to cast out devils ‘ by this Spirit of God,’ than by his divine 
nature; or to be ‘endowed with wisdom, counsel, know- 
ledge, fortitude, and the fear of the Lord’ by the Spirit, and 
not by his divine nature ?”’ (Woltzogen upon the place, 
and Crellius, de uno Deo Pat. b. i. §. 2, cap. 33.) 

Ans. In answer to this objection, it is to be observed, 
first, that the most ancient fathers have taken notice of it 
as a specious objection against the received doctrine of the 
divinity of Christ, and have attempted to return divers an- 
swers to it; which is a demonstration, that the doctrine, that 
Christ was truly God, was then received by the church of 
Christ. Trypho, in his dialogue with Justin Martyr, asks 
this very question of the Socinians, “ Why Jesus Christ, 
whom Justin owned to be God, should have the Spirit rest- 
ing on him, ὡς ἐνδεὴς τούτων ὑπάρχων, as needing his assist- 
ance?’ Justin Martyr* replies, that he accurately and 
prudently made this inquiry; this being a just cause of 
doubting in this case; and then he tells him, that “the 
graces of the Holy Spirit, mentioned Isa. xi. 2, did not de- 
scend upon him, as if he needed them; but to testify they 
were to rest upon him, and be accomplished in him: so that 
these prophetical graces should no longer be in the Jewish 
church.” Jrenweus,t} speaking of the same thing, saith, « As 
to that nature by which Christ the word of God was man, 
the Spirit rested on him, and he was anointed to preach the 
gospel; secundiim autem quod Deus erat, but as he was 
God he knew all men, and what was in man” (John ii. 24, 
25). Now hence the answer to this argument is this, that 
Christ as God could not need this unction of the Holy Spi- 
rit, but as he was to execute the prophetic office, it was 
needful for him ; because a prophet, being not to speak “in 
his own name,” but “in the name of God,” and what he had 
suggested to him by “the Spirit of God,” this prophetic 
office was to be performed not by the divine nature of our 
Lord, but by the afflatus of the Holy Spirit (see to this 
effect the discourse in the preface to St. John). It was also 


* Tabras ris κατηριθμημένας τοῦ Πνεύματος δυνάμεις, οὐκ ὡς ἐνδεοῦς 
αὐτοῦ τούτων ὄντος, φῆσιν ὃ Adyos ἐπεληλυθέναι ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς 
in’ ἐκεῖνον ἀνάπαυσιν μελλούσων ποιεῖσϑαι, τοὔύτεστιν, ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῦ πέρας 
ποιεῖσθαι τοῦ μηκέτι ἐν τῷ γένει ὑμῶν κατὰ τὸ παλαιὸν ἔϑος xpoby 
ras γεννήσασϑαι. Dial. cum Tryp. p. 314, B, C. 

+ Lib. iii. cap. 10, p. 254. 3 


50 


17 And loa voice (was heard) from heaven, saying, 


MATTHEW. 


20 This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 


needful for the execution of his priestly office, that he, by 
the Spirit sanctifying him from the womb, might offer him- 
self a lamb without spot to God (Heb.ix. 14). So that in 
all the actions relating to his prophetic office, the divinity 
of Christ must be supposed quiescent, and Christ must be 
said to perform his miracles to confirm the doctrine which 
he delivered, “by the Spirit of God,” by which also he was 
assisted to “ speak the words of God” (John iii. 34): and 
seeing all the orthodox allow that the divinity was quies- 
cent in Christ till he was thirty years old, why may they 
not allow it was quiescent also after, in all the actions relat- 
ing to the execution of his prophetical office here on earth ? 

Duoditius* indeed exclaims, not against this hypothesis, 
but against the words of Irenzus, that Christ suffered, ἡσυ- 
χάζοντος τοῦ Λόγου, “ the divine nature being quiescent,” as if 
the Λόγος, or divine nature, must be then a deserter of the 
human nature, as not assisting it in his agonies, calling this 
a “ portentous and impious opinion.” But this is only a vain 
exclamation; for that Christ did not suffer because he wanted 
power to repel his enemies, or to deliver himself from death ; 
but because he was willing to give up his life an offering for 
sin, and to obey his Father’s command, “to lay down his 
life for the sheep” (John x. 18), and shed his blood for the 
redemption of mankind, is evident from this, that he who by 
a word struck back his adversaries to the earth and by a 
touch healed the ear of Malchus (John xviii. 6, Luke xxii. 
51); he that had power to reassume his life when he had laid 
it down (John x. 18), must sure haye power to preserve his 


* Inter. Epist. Socin. p. 512. 


life, if it had pleased him so to do, Shall we then say, 
Christ was a deserter of himself, because he was not pleased 
to do this?’ Does he not say, “he could call for twelve 
legions of angels deliver him?” (Matt. xxvi. 53.) Must 
we then call him a deserter of himself, because he did not 
do it? Is it not plainly said, “he had the Father dwelling 
in him” (John xiv. 10), and had “the Spirit without mea- 
sure ?” (John iii. 34). Shall we then say, the Father and 
the Spirit deserted him, because they, after all his cries, 
permitted him to suffer on the cross? If not, why should 
we say, the divine nature did desert him, because it per- 
mitted him, according to the predictions of the prophets, 
and the counsel and decree of the Father, to suffer for the 
salvation of mankind, and would not rescue him from that 
death on which depended our redemption, sanctification, 
and salvation? (Heb. ix. 13, x. 9.) 

20 Ver. 17. Οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ υἱός μου ὃ ἀγαπητὸς, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα. 
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.| Here 
note, (1.) That this is introduced with an ἰδοὺ, “ behold!” 
as being spoken in the audience of the Baptist, that he 
might testify this of him, that he was the Son of God, 
Note, (2.) That this voice was directed to Christ himself, 
and therefore, Mark i. 11, Luke iii. 22, the words run thus. 
“Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased :” i. ὃ. 
thou art the person sanctified by this descent of the Holy 
Ghost upon thee to declare my will to the world, according 
to the prophecy concerning him, Isa. xlii. 1, and whose 
words and doctrine it therefore concerns all men to hear 
and obey (Matt. xvii. 5), as a person highly favoured by me, 
and commissioned to teach what he delivers in my name. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Tuen was Jesus led up of the Spirit! (with which 
he was filled, Luke iv. 1, farther) into the wilderness 
to be tempted of the devil (that we by his example 
might learn how to resist temptation). 

2 And when he had (by @ miraculous assistance) 


fasted forty days and forty nights (and was, during 
that time, invisibly tempted of the devil, Mark i. 13, Luke 
iv. 2), he was afterward an hungred. 3 

3 And when the tempter 3 came to him, he said 
(Greek, and the templer coming (then visibly) to him 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 

1 Ver. 1. Τότε ὃ Ἰησοῦς ἀνήχϑη εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ὑπὸ τοῦ Πνεῦ- 
ματος, πειρασϑῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβύλου.ς Then was Jesus led up 
of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.} 

y the Spirit, i. 6. by that Holy Spirit, with which he was 
filled (Luke iv. 1). Now, doubtless, there must be some 
very great and good ends, why the Holy Spirit should thus 
move our Lord to repair into the wilderness for that end, 
amongst which, saith Theophylact, this was one, “to teach 
us, that, when by baptism we have consecrated ourselves 
to God's service, we must expect temptation :” and, (2.) to 
teach us in our Lord’s example, how we may best and 
most effectually resist them, even by an unshaken faith 
S Pet. v. 9), and “by the sword of the Spirit, which is 

e word of God” (Eph. vi. 17). 

2 Ver. 2. Ὕστερον ἐπείνασε, And when he had fasted forty 
days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.] 
Hence we may learn how vain a thing it is, to institute or 
to pretend to keep a fast of forty days in imitation of this 
example of our Lord; for it is certain, that so great and so 
Jong abstinence is inconsistent with the frailty of our na- 
tures, and so can be no duty; it is also certain that our 
Saviour felt no hunger all this while; for “he was” only 
«hungry afterward,” saith St. Matthew, and so his fasting 
was miraculous. Moreover, his fast was not intended to 
chastise or to subdue that body which never was irregular, 
or to prepare him for those spiritual duties, which “ by the 
unction of the Holy Ghost,” he was abundantly fitted for ; 
and upon these accounts can give no precedent to our 
fasts, which should afflict the body, and are intended for 
the ends aforementioned. To conclude, hence our obliga- 
tion to a more than ordinary temperance for forty days, is 
to place “morality in numbers,” and to introduce an end- 
less heap of “superstitious follies ;” for by like reason, we 
toust deem ourselves obliged to ride upon an ass, in token 


of our humility, or to renounce our title to our temporal 
estates, and throw away our money to be like him who 
had not where to lay his head, nor could procure sixpence 
without a miracle. Better here is the note of Theophylact 
and others, that “we are then especially to expect tempta- 
tions when we are alone, and when we are in straits and 
exigencies, from which we see see no ordinary way of de- 
liverance ;” which was the case of Christ, he being hungry 
in the wilderness, and fed at last only by angels minister- 
ing to him. 

3 Ver. 3. Kat προσελθὼν αὐτῷ ὃ πειράζων, εἶπεν, And the 
tempter coming to him, said, &c.] From this and the first 
verse, where Christ is said “ to be led into the wilderness to 
be tempted of the devil,” the Socinians raise two objections 
against the divinity of Christ. 

Obj. 1. If Christ were God, why should he be thus 
tempted? Wasit to show, that God was able to sustain and 
overcome the temptations of the devil? Could there be any 
doubt of this? If it be here said, that he was only tempted 
as he was man; they still reply, That seeing his human na- 
ture was personally united to the divine, it must be still su- 
perfluous to show, that even his human nature, thus 
strengthened and assisted, should be able to resist and 
baffle the assaults of Satan; nor will his doing this by a 
divine assistance afford us any comfort, who can expect no 
like assistance when we do grapple the tempter. 

Ans. To this I answer, that the ancient fathers were not 
ignorant of this objection, made, as it seemeth, by the Ebion- 
ites, the elder brethren of the Photinians and Socinians. 
And therefore Irenzus,* in answer to them, lays this for the 
foundation, That never any of the sons of Adam were ever 
in the scriptures called God or Lord, but he who, Preter 
omnes qui tune fuerunt homines, Deus, et Dominus et Rex 
zternus, et unigenitus, et Verbum incarnatum predicatum et 


* Lib. iil, cap. 21, p. 287. 


EN. 


CHAPTER IV. 


said), If thou be (indeed) the Son of God, command 
τιον these stones be made bread (to satisfy thy present 
ger). 

1 Bat he answered and said, It is written (Deut. 
viii. 3, that) Man shall not live by bread alone, but 
by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of 
God (i. e. by any other thing which he hath appointed 

or his nourishment). 

5 Then (when this temptation succeeded not) the devil 
taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on 
a pinnacle of the temple, 


a prophetis, et apostolis, adest videre omnibus, qui vel modi- 
cum veritatis attigerint, “of all men then in being, was only 
by the prophets and apostles declared to be God and Lord, 
and the eternal King, and the only begotten, and the Word 
made flesh, as they who have little insight into the truth may 
easily perceive; and these things,” saith he, “the scriptures 
would not testify of him, si similitér ut omnes, homo tan- 
tiim fuisset, &c., had he been only a man as others were, but 
because he had an excellent generation from God the Fa- 
ther, and another in the womb of the Virgin ;” the scriptures 
testify of him, “ both that he was one without form, and sub- 
ject to sufférings, one that rid upon the foal of an ass, had 
gall and vinegar given him to drink, was despised of the peo- 
ple, and humbled himself to death ; and also, that he was 
the holy Lord, the wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God 
(Isa. ix. 6), coming upon the clouds to be judge of all men.” 
And having premised these things, he answers thus to the ob- 
jection of the Ebionites, That* “as he was man, that he 
might be tempted, so he was the Word, that he might be 
glorified; the Word being quiescent, that he might be 
tempted, crucified, and die.’ Which words, being pre- 
served and cited by Theodoret, show, that the latter fathers 
approved of this solution of this difficulty. Among the rea- 
sons assigned of our Lord's temptation, this is one, viz. the 
consolation of his members conflicting with the adversary of 
their souls, and that upon these two accounts: (1.) That he 
“suflered being tempted, that he might afford suitable help to 
us when we are tempted” (Heb. ii. 17, 18, iv. 15, 16), and, 
Se That we have the same Spirit in us which was in him, 
and who “is greater than he that wasin the world” (1 John ii. 
14, iv. 4), and so may combat him with the same weapons, 
and overcome him with the same assistance, by which he in 
his human nature did it. Now this ground of comfort will 
be wholly taken from us, if Christ did only overcome him by 
virtue of that nature by which he was ἀπείραστος κακῶν, “ in- 
capable of being vincible by temptation.” But, if with Tre- 
nus we affirm that the divinity was then quiescent, and 
that he overcame him by virtue of the Spirit given to him, 
we, who have the same “ unction from the Holy One,” may 
also hope to do it by his aid ; and, since even the most or- 
thodox do grant, that the divinity in Christ was so quiescent 
for the space of thirty years, as to afford no specimen of its 
residence in him, why might it not be quiescent also in these 
things, which did particularly relate to his prophetic office 
here on earth, and to that grand exemplar in which we stand 
obliged to follow his steps. In a word, that our Lord could 
not be overcome of Satan, was the result of the union of 
the human nature to the divinity; that he repelled all his 
assaults, might be, because he was anointed, and “ filled 
with the Holy Ghost.” 

Obj. But the Socinians do still inquire how a spirit, so 
wise and subtile as the devil is, should venture to assault, 
and should assay to tempt, the great God, especially to so 
vile an action as to fall down and worship him, seeing it is 
scarce imaginable he should not know it was impossible to 
succeed in this temptation, or that he should attempt a thing 
he beforehand discerned impossible to be effected ? 

Ans. To this, after a jocular reply, that this argument 
depends upon the modesty and other virtues of the devil, 
Bisterfield saith thus, That the malice of the devil hath oft 
prevailed upon him to attempt things very foolish and im- 
possible ; for what could be more so, than for a creature to 
attempt “to be like God,” or to annul the truth of the pro- 


'Ωσπὲρ γὰρ ἣν ἄνθρωπος ἵνα πειρασθῆ, οὕτῳ καὶ Adyos ἵνα ἑοξ- 
ἄσθη, ἡσυχάζοντος μὲν Adyon ἐν τῷ πειράζεσϑαι, καὶ στα"ροῦσϑαι, 
εαὶ ἀποθνήσκειν. 


51 


6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, 
east thyself down: for it is written (Ps. xci. 11), He 
shall give his angels charge concerning thee (to keep 
thee): and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest 
at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone (incur 
any damage). 

7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again (Gr. again 
it is written), Thou shalt not tempt‘ (ἡ, e. distrust) the 
Lord thy God (as I must do, if after a Sth heaven, 
saying to me, Thou art my beloved Son, Mark i. 11, I 
should require any farther experiment of that matter). 


phecies concerning Christ? What could be more pernicious 
to him than the death of Christ for the redemption of man- 
kind, which yet he by all means did attempt, though it was 
«impossible he should be held under the power of death” 
(Acts ii. 24, 25), And hence Petavius retorts this argument 
upon the head of Crellius thus: Whatsoever Satan might 
conceive of Christ, he could not but certainly know from the 
scriptures he was to be “ the redeemer of mankind,” and the 
author of salvation to them, that he should “ bruise his head,” 
that he should “sit upon the throne of David, to rule there 
for ever ;” and knowing this, he could not hope to prevail in 
his temptations of Christ, unless he could believe that he 
was able to reverse both tHe decrees and oath of God. To 
this the fathers add, (2.) That the devil was ignorant of 
this mystery, when he tempted Christ. ‘Thus Ignatius 
saith that the “virginity of Mary,” καὶ 6 roxerds αὐτῆς, and 
he that was born of her, and the death of our Lord, were 
three mysteries concealed from Satan ;” where by 6 roxerds 
he cannot understand our Lord’s nativity of the blessed Vir- 
gin, since in that very section he styles him Θεὸν ἀνθρωπίνως 
φανερούμενον, “a God appearing after the manner of a man.” 
And Origent observes, that ciim ab ipso diabolo tentaretur, 
nusquam confessus est Dei se esse filium, “when he was 
tempted of the devil he had never confessed himself to be 
the son of God.” And since this was so great a mystery, 
that even “angels desired to look into it” (1 Pet. i. 12), 
and learned somewhat of it from the church (Eph. iii. 10), 
what wonder is it the devil either should not know or should 
doubt of it? All his temptations show he looked upon our 
Saviour not as a God, but only as one who might be dear 
unto him; whence he assays to tempt him “with the glo- 
ries of the world.” This argument doth therefore prove, not 
that our Saviour was not truly God, but only that the devil 
did not then know him so to be. 

4 Ver. 7. Οὐκ ἐκπειράσεις Κύριον τὸν Θεόν σου Thow shalt 
not tempt the Lord thy God.] It is here well noted by Dr. 
Hammond, that “to tempt the Lord’’ doth not in scripture 
language signify, to presume too much on the divine 
ness, but rather to distrust his power, truth, or providence, 
after sufficient demonstrations and reasons given for our 
encouragement to depend upon them ; and consequently “to 
tempt God” here must be, as it relates to Christ, to doubt 
whether he was the son of God, after the voice from heaven 
had said unto him (iii. 17), “Thou art my beloved Son :” so 
the phrase signifies throughout the Old Testament. Thus, 
when the Jews murmur against Moses for the want of water, 
saying, “Thou hast brought us out of Egypt to kill us, and 
our children, and our cattle, with thirst :’’ Moses replies, 
“Why do you tempt the Lord?” (Exod. xvii. 2, 3), and 
calls the name of the place Massah, i. e. “temptation,” be- 
cause “they tempted the Lord, saying” (after he had dried 
up the Red Sea, and provided manna for them, and gone 
before them in the cloud, the symbol of his presence), “Is 
the Lord among us, or not?” doubting of his goodness to, 
protection over them, and presence with them, after so 
many signal evidences of these things; and to this relate 
the words here cited by our Lord from Deut. vi. 16, “Thou 
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God;” i. e. thou shalt not 
question his presence with thee, or distrust his providence, 
“as ye tempted him in Massah.” So again God saith, “ Be- 
cause these men, which have seen my glory” (in the cloud) 
“and the miracles which I did in Egypt, and in the 
wilderness” (after all these demonstrations of my presence 
with them, and of my power and readiness to rescue them 
from the hands of their enemies), “have tempted me now 


* Ep. ad Magn. 8. 19. ἡ Hom. 6, in Lucam. 


52 


8 5 Again, the devil (being baffled in this second as- 
sault) taketh him up into an exceeding high moun- 
tain, and (there) sheweth him (in a landscape) all the 
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them (in a 
moment re Luke iv. 5); 

9 And (fe) saith unto him, All these things will I 


MATTHEW. 


give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me (for 
they are given to me, &c. Luke iv. 6, 7). 

10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, 
Satan: for it is written (Deut. vi. 13), Thou shalt 
worship the Lord thy God,® and him only shalt thou 
serve. 


these ten times; therefore they shall not’ (personally) 
“enter into the land of promise” (Numb. xiv. 22). Now 
thus they tempted him by not believing God could and 
would make good his promise of bringing them into that 
land, but thinking they should die by the sword of those 
giants which were in that land (ver. 2, 3); and therefore 
God speaks thus, “ How long will this people provoke me? 
How long will it be ere they believe me, after all the signs 
which I have showed among them?” (ver. 2, 3.) And to 
such instances of their distrust as these, refer those passages 
of the psalmist ; “'They tempted God and limited the Holy 
One of Israel,” not believing that his power was sufficient 
to do those things which he had promised, and showed that 
he was able to perform (Ps. xxviii. 41); for they thus 
limited and tempted him, because “ they remembered not his 
hand, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy : 
how he had wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in 
the field of Zoan,” ver. 42, 43 (see also ver, 18—20) ; and 
this being spoken of them when “they turned back into 
Egypt” (ver. 41), relates to the tempting of God mentioned 
Numb. xiv., to the temptation mentioned Exod. xvii.; re- 
lates to these words, Ps. evi. 14, 15, “ Though he had dried 
up the Red Sea for them, and saved them from the hand of 
their enemies, they soon forgat his works, and lusting in the 
wilderness, they tempted God in the desert :” and to those 
in Ps. xev. 8, 9, “ Harden not your hearts, as in the provo- 
cation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your 
tathers tempted me, and provoked me, gam rahu, though 
they saw my works;” i. 6. how I delivered them at the Red 
Sea, made bitter water sweet, and sent them bread from 
heaven. Whence the apostle’s inference is this (Heb. iii. 12), 
« Take heed there be not in you an evil heart of unbelief.” 
So Judith viii. 12,“ Who are you that ἐπειράσατε τὸν Θεὸν, ye 
tempt God,” by limiting him to such a time as “five days,” 
as if he could not help you, if he did it not within that time ? 
(ver. 15.) This also is the import of these words of Ahaz (Isa. 
vil.12), “I will not ask a sign, neither will I tempt the Lord ;” 
as may be gathered by comparing them with the like words 
of Gideon, asking a sign of the fleece, “ Let not thy anger be 
hot against me” (for being thus slow of belief), πειράσω δὴ ἔτι 
zag, “let me try or tempt thee yet once more ;’ i. e. let me 
have this farther sign for confirmation of my weak faith 
(Judg. vi. 39). This also is the constant import of this 
phrase in the New Testament. So Acts xv. 10, « Now there- 
fore” (after God hath given so full a discovery of his re- 
ceiving the uncircumcised gentiles, upon their faith, into 
his grace and favour, as the effusion of the Holy Ghost 
upon them, ver. 8) “why tempt you God” (by distrusting 
this testimony of his favour to them, and desiring still) « to 
put this yoke” (of circumcision) “on their necks ?” (1 Cor. 
x. 9.) “Neither tempt ye Christ the Lord’ (by distrusting his 
readiness to support you under, and to give a happy issue 
from, your temptations, ver. 13), “as some of them”’ (i. 6. 
the Jews) “tempted him,” by saying, God had brought them 
out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, because they wanted 
bread and water (Numb. xxi. 5) “and” (therefore) “ were 
destroyed of serpents” (ver. 6). Thus to “tempt the Spirit 
of the Lord” (Acts ν. 9), is to question or distrust his wisdom 
to discover what Ananias and Sapphira had concealed. 

5 Ver. 8. Πάλιν παραλαμβάνει αὐτὸν 6 διάβολος. Again 
the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, 
and shows him all the Cada of the world, and the glory 
of them.] Mr. Clerc, in his note on the first verse, saith, 
“What is here related may more safely be conceived to 
have happened to Christ in a vision or dream, than really ; 
it looks, methinks, very odd,” saith he, “that an evil spirit 
should be permitted to have such a power over our most 
holy Saviour, as to carry him through the air; and then this 
prospect ‘of the kingdoms of the whole world’ could no 
more be showed from a mountain than from a plain; for 
what can be seen from a mountain besides woods, fields, 
rivers, villages and towns,which are not used in any language 


to signify ‘ the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them ?” 
This glory consisting rather in their splendid attire, guards 
and attendants, and their costly edifices.’ But this is a 
vain dream, and a vision of his own brain, and that which 
robs us of all the practical improvement of our Lord’s tempt- 
ation; for why should Christ be led into the wilderness to 
have this dream, or vision? Did he fast only in a vision 
forty days and forty nights? That sure was a long dream 
or vision. Or, why isit said that he “afterwards was hungry?” 
Why isit said, “the devil said to him,” “the devil set him upon 
a pinnacle,” and “ upona high mountain?” And Lukeiv. 13, 
that «when the devil had ended all his temptations, he de- 
parted from him for aseason?” Must not these words un- 
avoidably import, that either the devil did really thus tempt 
him, or else did frame this vision in his brain? And looks it 
not far more odd to give the devil power over the fancy of 
our Lord to raise such imaginations in him and suggest such 
dreams to him, than barely to give him that power over our 
Lord’s body, which neither did nor could do him any hurt ? 
Secondly, As God caused Moses to see the whole land of 
promise from the top of Nebo, either by strengthening his 
eyes to see it thence, or else by representing it to him, as 
it were in a large plan or map, in all the valleys round about 
him, so might the devil in the valleys round about that “ high 
mountain” upon which Christ stood make a large draught 
of the stately edifices, the guards and attendants of kings, 
appearing in their splendour, visible to the eyes of Christ, 
which appearance could not be so well made unto him, or 
advantageously seen, had he been in a plain. 

6 Ver. 10. Κύριον τὸν Θεόν cov προσκυνήσεις, καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ 
λατρεύσεις. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and 
him only shalt thow serve.) ἴοι these words, compared 
with other like scriptures, it appears that Christ is not a 
creature; because the worship and service due to God 
alone cannot be duly given toa creature, that being to own 
him equal in dignity with God: and the sin of idolatry 
chiefly consisting in giving that worship to a creature which 
is due only to the God of heaven: and therefore religious 
adoration and service being here said to be due to God 
alone, cannot be given duly, or without idolatry, to Christ, 
provided that he be only a creature. Seeing then God doth 
require, “ That all men should worship the Son, even as they 
worship the Father” (John ν. 23) ; and “ when he brought 
the first-born into the world, said, Let all the angels of God 
worship him” (Heb. i. 6) : and seeing that this is the cha- 
racter of Christians, that “ they serve the Lord Christ” (Col. 
iii. 24), it is certain that he cannot be a creature only, but 
must be truly God. 

To this the Socinians answer, that God alone is to be 
worshipped as the first and supreme cause of all things, 
and the chief cause of our salvation, but yet religious wor- 
ship and service may be paid to Christ as the immediate 
cause of that salvation, which God intended by him to pro- 
cure, and bring to pass for us. But as there are no foot- 
steps of this distinction in the holy scriptures, so there 
are many things contained in it which seem to contradict 
it. And it is plain the devil here doth not require to be thus 
worshipped as the first and supreme cause of all things, for 
he frankly owns that in all the power he had over the king- 
doms of the earth “was given to him,” and yet our Lord re- 
jecteth his temptation, not by saying, as the Socinians do, that 
he was an “impudent liar,” no such power being given to him, 
but by opposing to him this command, “Thou shalt worship 
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” Again, 
all the angels are ministering spirits, “ sent forth to minister 
to them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. i. 14) ; and 
the papists, who worship them with religious adoration, doit 
doubtless as they conceive it is to the glory of that God 
whose ministers they are; and, notwithstanding, must we 
not condemn that worship in them? Moses and Aaron 
were intermediate causes of the preservation and happiness 
of the Jews, whom God by them brought out of Egypt 


CHAPTER IV. 


11 Then the devil (having ended all his temptations) 
leaveth him (for @ season, Luke iv. 13), and, behold, 
angels came and ministered unto him (food). 

12 Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast 
into prison, he departed (from Judea) into Galilee (to 
avoid the envy of the pharisces, John iv. 3, and to continue 
the preaching interrupted by John’s confinement) ; 

13 And leaving Nazareth (by reason of their infi- 
delity, Luke iv. 29), he came and dwelt in Capernaum, 
which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zabulon 
and Nephthalim : 

14 That it might be fulfilled? which was spoken by 
Esaias the prophet, saying (ix. 1, 3» 

15 The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephtha- 
lim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan (which ts 
called) Galilee of the gentiles ; 

16 (.fre) the people which sat in darkness (but after- 
ward) saw great light; and to them which sat in the 
region and shadow of death light is sprung up. 

17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to 
say (to the people), Repent (ye) - for the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand (ἡ, e. from the time of John’s im- 
prisonment, he began to preach upon that subject, ver. 
23). 


they by their supplications and intercessions preserved them 
many times from present death; and might they therefore 
pay religious worship to them, provided it was directed 
to the glory of God whose ministers they were? Might 
they do this to Joshua, who carried salvation in his very 
name? The apostles are styled συνεργοὶ Θεοῦ, “ workers to- 
gether with God” for our salvation, 1 Cor. iii. 9, their doc- 
trine is called the “savour of life unto life,” 2 Cor. ii. 16, 
and they are said to “save those that hear them,” 1 Tim. iv. 
16. Must we therefore*pay religious adoration to them as 
the papists do? Vain therefore is this subterfuge, by which 
the Socinians endeavour to justify their religious adoration 
of that Jesus, whom they maintain to be a creature only, 
and whose divinity they deny ! 

7 Ver. 14. Ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηδὲν διὰ ᾿Ησαΐου τοῦ προφήτου, 
&e. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias 
the prophet, saying, the land of Zabulon and Nephthalim, 
&c.} [see here no reason for saying with some learned men, 
that this whole passage of Isaiah is by the evangelist applied 
to Christ’s preaching in the borders of Zabulon and Nephtha- 
lim, only by way of accommodation, and not in any mystical 
sense intended by the Holy Ghost; for it is very easy to 
discern, that upon occasion of our Lord’s leaving Nazareth, 
a town in the lower Galilee, in the tribe of Zabulon, and 
going to Capernaum in the higher Galilee, in the tribe of 
Nephthalim, which was called “ Galilee of the gentiles,” as 
being partly inhabited, saith Strabo,* by Egyptians, Arabians, 
and Pheenicians, he valy takes the names of these places 
from Isa. ix. 1, having no farther consideration of the place, 
than to show they are the people of whom the prophet said, 
“the people that sat in darkness had seen a great light :” let 
this now be understood in the prophetic style, representing 
things surely to be accomplished in their season, as done 
already, of which we have an instance, ver. 6, in these words, 
«for unto us a child is born, to us a son is given ;” and then 
the prediction will run thus; The people sitting in darkness 
shall see great light, and to those who sit in the region and 
shadow of death shall the light arise: as we know it did, it 
being in Chorazin and Bethsaida, situated in lower Galilee, 
that Christ did his mighty works mentioned Matt. xi. 21, and 
it being Capernaum that was “ exalted up to heaven,” by his 
dwelling there, and preaching in their synagogues (ver. 23). 

§ Ver. 18—21. Elie dio ἀδελῥοὺς, Σίμωνα, καὶ 'Avdptav, Kc. 
He saw two brethren, Simon, surnamed Peter, and Andrew 
his brother, casting their nets into the sea, Kai προβὰς ἐκεῖϑεν 
εἶδεν ἄλλους dio ddcApod;, ᾿Ιάκωβον, &e. Going thence he saw 
two other brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his 
brother, with Zebedee their father, mending their nets ; and 
he called them.] So also we read, Mark i. from ver. 16, to 21. 
The history of Simon and Andrew’s coming, mentioned 


* Lib. xvi. p. 523, 


53 


18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee,’ saw 
two brethren, Simon (afterward) called Peter, and 
Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea (to 
wash it, Luke y. 2): for they were fishers. 

19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will 
make you (to become) fishers of men (by gaining them 
to the faith, or bringing them ‘within the net of the 
gospel). 

20 And they straightway left their nets, and fol- 
lowed him. 

21 And going on from thence, he saw other two 
brethren (viz.) James the son of Zebedee, and John 
his brother (returned now to, and) in a ship with 
Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he 
called them. 

22 And they (also) immediately left the ship and 
their father, and followed him, 

234 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in 
their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the 
kingdom (shortly to be erected), and healing all man- 
ner of sickness (es) and all manner of disease (s, which 
were) among the people. 

24 And his fame went throughout all Syria: and 
they brought unto him all sick people that were taken 


John i. 41—43, is plainly different from that of St. Matthew 
and St. Mark, and so cannot be said to contradict what is 
here said. For (1.) here Christ sees them, and calls them 
both together ; there they hear Christ, and follow him home, 
and Andrew after finding Peter leads him to Christ, from 
ver. 37—42. (2.) Here it is noted, that Simon was already 
summamed Peter; there it is said, Thou shalt be called 
Peter (ver. 43): there they abide with Christ only one 
night (ver. 40), and that uncalled; here they are called 
and follow him as his apostles, being always with him (John 
xv. 27). As for the history, Luke v. from ver. 1 to 11,1 
conceive it to be the same with this in St. Matthew and St. 
Mark, because it happened at the same place, at the “lake 
of Gennesareth” (Luke v. 1), i. 6. at “the sea of Galilee” 
(Matt. iv. 11) ; the same persons heing present, and following 
him, having left all to do it (ver. 10, 11; Matt. iv. 20. 22). 
But then I place the story thus: “ He saw these fishermen,” 
two of them, viz. Simon and Andrew, “washing their nets” 
(Luke νυ. 2), i-e. “casting them into the sea to wash them” 
(Matt. iv. 18), and the other two mending their nets, where 
they were broken (ver. 21), and then he spake to them both to 
follow him. And presently the multitude resorting to him, to 
hear the word of God (Luke v. 1), he enters into the ship of 
Simon; and when Simon, at his request, “thrust it a little 
from the land, he sat down and taught them ;” then speaks 
he to Peter to “Jet down his net into the sea,” for that draught 
which filled both the ships of Simon and of the sons of Ze- 
bedee, and struck them all with great amazement, insomuch 
that Peter was afraid to follow him, or to be with him; but 
Christ bidding him not to fear, they drew their ships to land, 
and leaving both ships and fishes with Zebedee, and others 
that were with them (Mark i. 20), forsaking them all they 
follow him (Luke v. 11). It is no objection against what 
is said, that m St. Luke we find no mention of St. Andrew, 
it being certain from St. Matthew and St. Mark, that Andrew 
was then with Peter, though Simon only be named by St. 
Luke; because Christ spake only to him. Thus it is easy 
to remove those manifold disagreements which some mention 
betwixt the history of this matter in St. Luke and in St. Mat- 
thew and St. Mark. For, according to the series of the story 
thus placed, St. Luke, being to supply what was not told by 
St. Matthew and St. Mark, begins where they ended, and St. 
Mark having only said in the general that Christ came thither 
« preaching the gospel of the kingdom,” St. Luke shows how 
he went on with the work; and this puts an end to Mr. 
Whiston’s four first differences. His fifth is grounded on an 
evident mistake: for in St. Luke he doth not assure them, 
that from henceforth they should catch men, but said this 
only to Simon, astonished at the miracle, and desiring Christ 
“to depart from him,” repeating to him in particular, what 
he had said more generally to all, that he might remove his 
fears. The last is indeed no difference, it being the same 
R2 


84 


with divers diseases and torments, and those which 
were possessed with devils, and those which were 
lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed 
them. 


MATTHEW. 


25 And there followed him great multitudes of 
people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from 
Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jor- 
dan. 


thing to leave all that were then with them, and all they had 
there, and follow him, as St. Luke says they did; and to 
leave nets, ship, father and hired servants, to follow him, as 
in St. Matthew and St. Mark they did. 

Ver. 24. Καὶ δαιμονιζομένους, and men possessed with the 
devil.| Dr. Lightfoot gives two reasons why Judea then 
especially abounded with such persons. (1.) Because they 
were then advanced to the very height of impiety ; the truth 
of which assertion Josephus fully proves. See the note on 


Rom. ii.1. (2.) Because they were then strongly addicted 
to magic, and so, as it were, invited evil spirits to be fami- 
liar with them; and it seems strange to find men, at this dis- 
tance of time, questioning the truth of that which neither 
pharisees nor sadducees then doubted of, or ever did object 
against the pretensions of Christ or his apostles, to cast them 
out; and both Josephus and the Acts of the Apostles (xix. 
13, 14) speak so positively of Jewish exorcists (see the pre- 
face to the Epistles, §. xiii.). 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Ann ' seeing the multitudes, he went up into a 
mountain: and when he was set (down, as the Jewish 
doctors did when they taught, see Luke iv. 16. 20), his 
disciples came unto him: 

2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, 
saying, 


3 Blessed are* the poor in spirit (ἡ. 6. the humble 
and lowly-minded); for theirs is the kingdom of heaven 
(they are filted to enter into it here and to enjoy it here- 
after). 

4 Blessed are ὃ they that mourn (for their sins, with 
that godly sorrow which works repentance not to be 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 

1 Ver. 1. Ἰδὼν δὲ τοὺς ὄχλους ἀνέβη εἰς τὸ ὅρος, καὶ καϑίσαν- 
ros αὐτοῦ, &c. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into 
a mountain ; and sitting down, his disciples came to him.] 
Here note (1.) That Christ seeing the multitude, taught 
them ; for though his disciples may be especially concerned 
in some few verses of this fifth chapter, yet it is certain from 
these words in the close of this sermon, “the multitudes 
were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one 
that had authority,” that the multitude not only heard, but 
were taught the things contained in this sermon, according 
to those words of Chrysostom, μὴ τοῖς paSnrats μόνον αὐτὸν 
νόμιζε διαλέγεσϑαΐ, ἀλλὰ καὶ δι’ ἐκείνων ἅπασιν. 

Moreover it deserveth to be noted, that the whole multi- 
tude of them who attended on his doctrine, and thought 
well of him, are called his disciples, and not the twelve 
apostles only; so doth St, Luke inform us, by saying, “he 
called to him his disciples, and out of them he chose the 
twelve,” Luke vi. 13, and ver. 17, «that the whole multitude 
of his disciples were then with him.” So John vi. 66, 
“From that time many of his disciples went back, and 
followed no more after him;” and ver. 67, he said “to the 
twelve, Will ye also go away?” What therefore was here 
spoken to his disciples, might also be spoken to the multi- 
tude. @) This sermon was spoken upon the mount, which 
he made choice of, saith Dr. Hammond, that as the law had 
been delivered from mount Sinai, so might the preaching of 
the gospel begin from a mountain : say others, that he might 
be the better heard by his auditors, instructing us by his 
example so to form this service, as may be most conducing 
to the advantage of the hearers. 

‘The question here raised by interpreters whether this 
sermon be the same with that which we find mentioned 
Luke vi. or only a like sermon spoken at another time and 
place, is of some concern for the right understanding of the 
words; for if the sermon be the same in both, and it were 
spoken only once by Christ, though it be set down twice by 
the evangelists, the words of one evangelist must be inter- 
preted in a sense agreeable to the other, or else they cannot 
both be true. Whereas, if our Lord spake the words re- 
corded by St. Luke at any other time and place than the 
discourse related by St. Matthew was delivered at, we may 
give different interpretations to their words; and that this 
was so seems highly probable, 

First, Because St. Luke omits so many things recorded 
by St. Matthew as parts of this discourse, viz. all the fifth 
chapter from ver. 13 to 39, the whole sixth chapter, and ch. 
vii. from ver. 6 to 16, that is, he omits the greatest part of 
this sermon; and therefore it is probable he did not intend 
to set down the same sermon: since otherwise it must be 
granted, that he had performed what he intended very 


imperfectly ; and also added many woes of which St. Mat- 
thew makes no mention. 

Secondly, As for the time, St. Matthew doth sufficiently 
inform us that his sermon was delivered before the healing 
of the leper, for “as Cnrist came down from the mount, the 
leper came to him,” viii. 2, whereas St. Luke, though he 
promiseth to discourse in order of what Christ did, gives us 
the story of the leper, v. 12, and the history of Christ’s 
sermon, vi. 17. Again, St. Luke reckons Matthew amongst 
those whom Christ had chosen to be of the twelve, and ver. 
17, he adds, that Christ went down with them and preached 
the following sermon, whereas the sermon mentioned by St. 
Matthew was preached long before his calling to be one of 
Christ's disciples ; for after Christ was come down from the 
mount, had healed the leper and the centurion’s servant, 
and had done many other things; “he saw a man sitting at 
the receipt of custom, named Matthew, and said unto him, 
Follow me,” ix. 9. Whence it appears, that he was called 
long after the preaching of this sermon on the mount, and 
yet before the preaching of the sermon mentioned by St. 
Luke. Lastly, St. Matthew’s sermon was preached on the 
mount by our Lord, calling his disciples up to him; where- 
as St. Luke informs us, ver. 17, that our Lord “came down 
with his disciples from a mount,” and stood in the plain, 
and from thence preached what he recorded: wherefore the 
difference of these sermons being so great, both as to matter 
and to circumstance of time and place, it seems most rea- 
sonable to conceive that they were severally spoken, and 
therefore may admit of divers senses. Yet seeing soon 
after both these sermons we find him entering into Caper- 
naum, and healing the centurion’s servant (Matt. viii. 5, 
Luke vii. 1), it may be probably conjectured, that he 
spake the sermon in St. Matthew, whilst he was “sitting 
on the mount,” to his disciples, and that in St. Luke, 
when he afterward “came down into the plain with them” 
(Luke vi. 17), “in the audience of all the people” (Luke 
vil. 1). 

2 Vor. 3. Μακάριοι of πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεῦματι" Blessed are the 
poor in spirit.) Here note, 

First, That by the “poor in spirit” we are not to under- 
stand, as many Romish commentators do, such persons 
as, having riches and plentiful possessions, do voluntarily 
quit them, and choose a state of poverty as most con- 
ducing to the free exercise of religion, as did some eremites 
and monks of old, and as the mendicants or begging friars 
of that church pretend now to do; for it is assuredly the 
duty of all men, who would obtain this bliss, to be poor in 
spirit; whereas it cannot be the duty of all Christians to 
turn monks and friars mendicant to this end, for then all 
other Roman catholics must be excluded from the kingdom 
of heaven. Nor, 

Secondly, Doth our Lord here pronounce this blessing 


CHAPTER V. 


repented of, 2 Cor. vii. 10), for they shall be comforted 
(with the assurance of the pardon of their sins, and with 


the ἼΝ of future happiness). 
5 Blessed are the ὁ meek (7. δ. the men of a sweet, 


55 


quiet, affable, and courteous disposition): for they shall 
inherit the earth (enjoying what is needful for them with 
the greatest quiet and tranquillity, and with most comfort, 
satisfaction, and contentedness of mind). 


on the poor properly so called, that is, on such as have no 
riches and possessions in this world, as being the most 
likely persons to embrace that gospel which calls for the 
forsaking all that they have, which they who have but little 
will be most easily persuaded to do, and so will be most 
ready to enter into the kingdom of God. a) Because 
our Lord expressly limits this beatitude, not to the poor in 
purse, or in externals, but to the poor in spirit. (2.) Be- 
cause Christ actually pronounces that the poor he speaks 
of are blessed, and that theirs is the kingdom of heaven; 
which is not true of all, or of the most part of those who, 
as to temporals, are poor; for by experience we find they 
are often discontented with their state, are apt to steal, lie, 
flatter, and use sordid arts to get a penny, and have but 
little sense of piety, and but little knowledge of, and less 
concernment for, religion. (3.) This interpretation seems 
to exclude the rich, who do not actually quit their tempo- 
ral enjoyments, from any interest in the kingdom of hea- 
ven; whereas St. Paul only requires them to be “rich in 
good works,” that they may lay hold of eternal life (1 Tim. 
vi. 18, 19). And therefore, 

Thirdly, The most received and best interpretation of 
this phrase is—that by the “poor in spirit,” our Saviour 
understands the man of a true, humble, lowly spirit; this 
being the usual expression by which the scriptures and the 
Jewish writers still represent the humble man, that he is 
shephal ruach, i. e. poor, low, or contrite in his spirit. So 
Prov. xvi. 19, “ Better is it to be shephal ruach, of an hum- 
ble spirit with the meek, than to divide the spoil with the 
proud;” and xxix. 23, “The pride of man shall humble 
him, but, shephal ruach, he that is of an humble spirit 
obtaineth glory.” So Isa. Ixvi. 2, «To whom will I look 
but to the poor in spirit?” which, lvii. 15, is shephal ruach, 
“to the man of an humble spirit.” Accordingly, in their 
Pirke Avoth,* they have these instructions, “Be thou 
shephal ruach, humble in spirit towards all men; he that 
is shephal ruach is worthy of honour, and the Holy Ghost 
will rest upon him. And great are the humble in spirit in 
the sight of God.”’+ And they who are thus poor in spirit 
are blessed, because their humility rendering them teach- 
able, submissive, contented, and obedient, prepares them to 
enter into Christ’s kingdom, and makes them living mem- 
bers of his body ; and seeing they who are thus holy shall 
be also happy, they must be also meet to enter into the 
kingdom of glory hereafter. 

3 Ver. 4. Μακάριοι of πενθοῦντες, Blessed are they that 
mourn.| Here note, 

First, That by the “ mourners” here, I do not think it 
reasonable to understand men whose condition in this world 
is sad and lamentable, as being destitute of all those out- 
ward things which render this life comfortable, and per- 
haps also under great afflictions, which some conceive to 
be the import of these words, because a like beatitude in 
St. Luke runs thus, “Blessed are ye that weep now, for 
ye shall laugh.” For (1.) if this mourning did only import 
a condition sad and lamentable as to outward circum- 
stances, then must the laughter in St. Luke opposed to it, 
be only a promise of outward temporal felicity, which, as 
it is no gospel promise, so is it far from rendering any per- 
son truly blessed. (2.) Because either we must then pro- 
nounce all blessed who are in such a lamentable state, 
which is far from being true, there being many who fall 
into it by their own sin and folly, and many who being in 
it are nothing better by it, as to the inward frame and dis- 
position of their spirit; or else we must restrain this to 
them, who do thus suffer for the name of Christ, and for 
the sake of righteousness; and then it will not be the im- 
port of the second but of the eighth beatitude. Nor, 

Secondly, Do I think, as some of the fathers did, that the 
mourners here are those who mourn for the sins of others, 
for the iniquities committed by the professors of Christianity, 
and especially for the sins committed in the place and na- 


* Ch. iv. 8. 4. 10. v. 19. ἡ Buxt. Floril. p. 17. 


tion where they live; for though when men thus weep out’ 
of a fixed hatred to sin, from a true zeal for God, and a 

sincere affection for the souls of men, this must be highly 

acceptable in the sight of God, and therefore matter of just 
comfort to them also; yet the word “ mourn” is general, and 
therefore seems not fit to be restrained unto such mourners 
in particular. ‘The mourner therefore here intended is the 

person filled with that “ godly sorrow which works repent- 
ance to salvation not to be repented οἵ or not reversed 
by our return again to the like sins (2 Cor. vii. 10): this 
person must be blessed in the pardon of his sins, for 
“blessed is he whose iniquity is forgiven, and whose sin is 
covered” (Rom. iv. 6—8). He also will be comforted with 
the assured hope of future happiness ; this true repentance 
being styled, “repentance unto life,” Acts ix. 18, “ repent- 
ance unto salvation,” 2 Cor. vii. 10. 

4 Ver. 5. Μακάριοι οἱ πραεῖς. Blessed are the meek.) 1. 6. 
The men of such a happy frame of spirit as renders them 
averse from wrath, even when they are provoked to it by 
the injuries they have received from others, and from reta- 
liation, or recompensing evil for evil; but, on the contrary, 
are inclined rather to remit something of their right, and 
overcome evil with good; and by the sweetness, friendli- 
ness, and affability of their conversation, to reconcile and 
win their brother to a good-liking and kind affection to 
them. The blessing promised to these meek persons is this, 
that “they shall inherit the earth;” which words being 
taken from Ps. xxxvii. 11, cannot admit of that strained 
exposition of some of the ancients, who by the “earth” 
understand heaven, as being eminently “the land of the 
living ;” for it is evident to a demonstration, that David did 
understand this of the present earth, or of the land of Ca- 
naan ; for the tenor of this whole thirty-seventh psalm is de- 
signed to show, that wicked men shall by God’s judgments 
suddenly perish, whilst righteous men live easily and quietly 
in the land of Canaan. So ver. 9, “ Evil-doers shall be cut 
off, but they that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit 
the earth; for yet a little while and the wicked shall not be, 
but the meek shall inherit the earth. They that are blessed 
of him shall inherit the earth, and they that are eursed of 
him shall be rooted out.” So ver. 34, “ Wait on the Lord, 
and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee, τοῦ κληρονομῆσαι 
τὴν γῆν, to inherit the earth: when the wicked are destroyed, 
thou shalt see it.” It is therefore well observed by Chry- 
sostom upon the place, that because the Jews had been oft 
taught this lesson in the Old Testament, our Saviour ad- 
dresses himself to them in the language they had been ac- 
customed to: this Son of David repeateth and confirmeth 
to them the promise made by David. And thisI judge to 
be the most natural and truest exposition of these words. 

But then it must be noted, (1.) that our Saviour doth 
not here promise to advance the meek into an affluence, 
or great abundance of things temporal, to make him great 
in power, or rich and wealthy in the world. For a “man’s 
life,” i. e. the true comfort and satisfaction of it, “consists 
not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” 
(Luke xii. 15); and so we have no reason to expect those 
things which are not needful to the comfort and satisfac- 
tion of our lives. Experience shows that this is not the 
ordinary portion of the meek, and therefore doth sufficiently 
instruct us, that this is not the blessing promised by that 
God, who cannot lie or fail of the performance of his pro- 
mise; and therefore positively this phrase seems rather to 
import, that meekness 1s the best way to the most sure 
enjoyment of these things, as far as they are needful and 
convenient; and (2.) to enjoy them with the greatest quiet 
and tranquillity, without that strife, debate, anxiety, and 
trouble, which embitter the enjoyment of these things, to 
others; and (3.) with the truest comfort, satisfaction, and 
contentedness of mind. 

5 Ver. 6. Μακάριοι of πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες τὴν δικαιοσύνην, 
ἄς. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness.) The righteousness here mentioned is by some thought 
to be the righteousness of faith, by which we, being justified, 


56 


6 Blessed are they which 40 5 hunger and thirst 
after righteousness (7. e. are as concerned to be righteous 
before God, walking in all the commandmenis of the Lord 
blameless, as is the hungry person to have meat, or the 
thirsty to have drink): for they shall be filled (7. e. be 
satisfied with the enjoyment of at here, and the completion 
and reward of zt hereafter). 

7 Blessed are § the merciful (who out of pity to 
others under all their infirmities, wants, miseries, indispo- 
sitions of soul or body, are ready not only to forgive, and 
bear with their infirmities, but to their power to relieve, 
instruct, support, comfort, and reclaim them from their 
evil ways): for they shall obtain mercy (at the great 
day of their accounts). 

8 Blessed are 7 the pure in heart (they whose hearts 
are cleansed from evil thoughts, evil concupiscences, and 
evil passions) : for they shall see (and enjoy) God (here 
and hereafter). 

9 Blessed are ὃ the peacemakers (who being them- 
selves of a peaceable temper, endeavour to promote peace 
among others): for they shall be called (2. 6. shall be, 
see note on i. 23, and shall be owned as) the children 
of God (and as such rewarded). 


or freed from the guilt of sin, have peace with God; and 
this undoubtedly is a fit matter of our spiritual thirst and 
hunger: but yet I think this cannot be the proper import 
of the words; (1.) because the word δικαιοσύνη, “righteous- 
ness,” bears no such sense in the gospel; but only in the 
epistles of St. Paul; (2.) because the Jews, to whom Christ 
speaks, had no idea of this righteousness, no apprehension 
that their Messiah was to die, and much less that they 
should be justified by his death; and therefore had Christ 
spoken of this righteousness, none of them could have un- 
derstood his meaning, as we may learn from his discourse 
on this subject, John vi., for the Jews could not understand 
it; wherefore the righteousness here intended is that inhe- 
rent righteousness, which consists in a sincere endeavour to 
practise all those duties which God requires at our hands, 
and to eschew that evil which he hath forbidden: in which 
sense Zacharias and Elisabeth are said to be “both righteous 
before God, walking in all the commandments of the Lord 
blameless” (Luke i. 6); and it is represented as our duty, 
to “serve God in righteousness and holiness before him all 
the days of our life” (ver. 74, 75) ; and here it is said, that 
“except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the 
scribes and pharisees, we can in no case enter into the 
kingdom of God” (ver. 20). To hunger and thirst after 
this righteousness, is to be as sensible of the want of it, as 
fervently desirous to have it, as industrious to obtain it, as 
restless and incessant till we do enjoy it, as men usually 
are when they are pinched with hunger and thirst. And 
they, who stand thus affected to it, shall be satisfied with 
it; i.e. they shall have all the means and aids required to 
make them thus righteous here, and shall have the reward 
of righteousness hereafter, and so shall be blessed: for see- 
ing it is God himself, who by his word and Spirit raises in 
them this disposition towards righteousness; since he in- 
viteth every hungry soul to eat of this spiritual food, and 
saith to every thirsty soul, “Come drink of these waters 
of life :” seeing this righteousness renders them so accept- 
able and well-pleasing in his sight; and, lastly, seeing he 
hath promised them this satisfaction, they all on these 
accounts may rest assured, that they shall obtain this food 
of the soul (see note on John vi. 27). 

6 Ver. 7. Μακάριοι of ἐλεήμονες, Blessed are the merciful.) 
i. 6. They who from an affecting sense of sympathy with 
others, anda charitable affection and good-will towards them, 
are ready to relieve them, as they are able, under all their 
wants; to pity them in their infirmities; to comfort and 
support them under their calamities; and ready to forgive, 
and to show mercy to them when they have offended ; and 
10 pray to their heavenly Father to give them those sup- 
ports and consolations we are not able to afford them; and 
who especially have this compassion for their souls, by en- 
deavouring to instruct the ignorant, and to reclaim the 
wicked from their evil ways: such merciful persons shall be 


MATTHEW. : 


10 Blessed are they which are 3 persecuted for 
righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven. 

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and 
persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against 
you falsely, for my sake. 

12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is 
your reward in heaven (who do thus patiently suffer for 
my name's sake upon earth ; your case being like that of 
the holy prophets, who are now in Abraham’s bosom, and 
sat down with him in the kingdom of heaven, Luke xiii. 
28): for so persecuted they (of this nation) the pro- 
phets which were before you. 

13 4 Ye are (designed by me to be as) ™ the salt of 
the earth (to preserve men’s manners from corruption, and 
give a good savour to their actions) : but if the salt hath 
lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? (7 you 
in example and conversation should become unsavoury, there 
would be no recovering of you; and so it would be with 
you, as) it is (with unsavoury salt, which is) thenceforth 
good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden 
under foot of men (and so you must expect to be cast by 
me into outer darkness). 


blessed both in the inward comforts and satisfaction they 
shall find arising from those dispositions which render 
them so like to their heavenly Father, and also from that 
mercy they shall obtain from him at the great day of their 
accounts. 

7 Ver. 8, Μακάριοι ot καϑαροὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ, Blessed are the pure 
in heart.| They whose hearts are pure from those evil 
thoughts and reasonings, those evil desires, lustings, and 
affections, those evil passions and perturbations, and from 
those evil intentions, devices, and machinations, which de- 
file the soul, are blessed; for they are fitted to enjoy com- 
munion with God here (1 John iii. 3), and happiness with 
him hereafter (Heb. xii. 14). 

8 Ver. 9. Μακάριοι of εἰρηνοποιοὶ, Blessed are the peace- 
makers.) i.e. (1.) The men of a peaceable mind; for as 
he that is inclined to lying is said “to make a lie” (Rev. 
xxii. 15), and he that is inclined to sin ποιεῖν ἁμαρτίαν, “ to 
do, make sin” (1 John iii. 8), so he that is disposed to fol- 
low after the things which make for peace, may be styled 
a peacemaker: (2.) they who endeavour in their stations, 
and as occasions do present themselves, to preserve peace, 
love, and friendship, and to prevent contentions, quarrel- 
lings, and discords among Christian brethren: and (3.) 
they who labour to promote the peace and quiet of the 
public, both in church and state, are blessed, because they 
shall be called, i. e. they are and shall be owned by God, as 
sons, by reason of their likeness to the God of peace 
(1 Cor. xiv. 33, 2 Cor. xiii. 11, Phil. iv. 9, 2 Thess. iii, 16, 
see note on 1. 23), and being sons shall be “heirs of God, 
joint heirs with Christ” (Rom. viii. 17), such as shall reign 
with him in glory ; they shall be “sons of the resurrection” 
(Luke xx. 36), and shall receive υἱοθεσίαν the blessing con- 
sequent on this sonship, or adoption, to wit, “the redemp- 
tion of their bodies from corruption” (Rom. viii. oh 

9 Ver. 10. Μακάριοι οἱ δεδιωγμένοι ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης, Blessed 
are they which are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.) 
Or for Christ’s sake, &c. 1. 6. (1.) for persevering patiently 
and steadfastly in the profession of the Christian faith: or 
(2.) for the performance of that duty which they owe to 
God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and to our Chris- 
tian brother for their sakes: or (3.) who are persecuted ; 
because they do not own that as an article of faith, or any 
part of the Christian duty, which God hath not declared to 
be so: for seeing this cannot be done without making pro- 
fession of a lie, or saying we believe what we can see no 
reason to believe, to suffer for this cause is evidently to suf- 
fer because we will not play the hypocrite, or give the lie 
to our own consciences; and therefore this in St. Peter’s lan- 
guage is to suffer “for conscience towards God,” and to suf- 
fer wrongfully or unjustly. Yea, seeing this cannot be done, 
but we must own another teacher, lawgiver, and author of 
our faith, besides the Lord Christ, our sufferings for refusing 
to do this are truly sufferings “ for the sake of Christ ;” and 


CHAPTER V. 


14 Ye "are (appointed to be) the light of the world. 
(And as) a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid (so 
neither in this eminent station in which you are placed, 
can the light of your doctrine or manners be concealed). 

15 Neither (should you endeavour to conceal them, for) 
do men light a onic and put it under a bushel 
(? surely no), but on a candlestick ; and (then) it giveth 
light unto all that are in the house. 

16 (Accordingly) 15 let your light so shine before 
men, that they may see your good works, and (on the 
account of them may have cause to) glorify your Father 
which is in heaven. 

17 1 (And though I preach a more spiritual doctrine, 
than is contained in the letter even of the moral law, yet) 
5 think not that Iam come to destroy (7. e. to dissolve 
or loose you from the obligation of ) the law, or the pro- 
phets: (for) Iam not come to destroy, but to fulfil 


such as make us happy sufferers, since Christ hath promised 
them the blessings of this heavenly kingdom, and hath as- 
sured that “ great is their reward in heaven :” and therefore, 
as their state on earth under these persecutions doth render 
them conformed to their head, and like to the holy prophets 
and apostles; so shall they hereafter be like to them in 
glory (Rom. viii. 17, 2 Tim. ii. 11). 

0 Ver. 13. Ὑμεῖς ἔστε τὸ ἅλας τῆς γῆς» Ye are the salt of 
the earth.} Sal sapit omnia, “Salt is given to make things 
savoury,” according to that question of Job (vi. 6), “Can 
that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?”’ and also 
to save them from putrefaetion (see note on Mark ix. 49) : 
so that the import of this metaphor is this; Ye are ap- 
pointed by that pure and holy doctrine, which you are to 
preach, and by the savour of your good conversation, to 
purge the world from that corruption in which it lies, and 
represent them to God as “a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling 
savour, holy and acceptable to God ;” but if you yourselves 
should lose the savour of your good conversation, and be- 
come putrefied members in my body, you would be wholly 
useless to these good ends; and therefore can expect nothing 
but to be rejected by me, and cast off, as unsavoury salt is 
cast unto the dunghill. 

Ver, 14, Ὑμεῖς ἔστε τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου, Ye are the light 
of the world.) The effect of light is to make things mani- 
est (Eph. v. 13), and to direct us in the way in which we 
are to walk. So that the import of this metaphor seems to 
be this;—I haye appointed you to manifest to the world 
my doctrine, which will discover to them what is “ the good, 
and acceptable, and perfect will of God,” and so direct their 
feet into the way that leadeth to eternal life, and will ena- 
ble them to “walk as children of the light:” and if you do 
not hide this light from them, but cause it to shine forth 
both in your doctrine and Christian conversation, the light of 
it is so clear and radiant, that it cannot be hid from them. 

2 Ver. 16. Οὕτω λαμψάτω τὸ φῶς ὑμῶν, &c. So (therefore) 
let (this) your light shine before men, that they may 
(from your conversation, as well as from your doctrine) 
see your good works and (then they will see cause to) glo- 
rify your Father which is in heaven.] Hence note, 

First, That though Christ’s twelve apostles are chiefly 
concerned in these metaphors, yet are they in some measure 
applicable to all Christians ; for it is the duty of all Chris- 
tians to “shine as lights in the world” (Phil. ii. 16). And 
Christ having said, “ He that forsaketh not all he hath, can- 
not be my disciple,” presently subjoins, “Salt is good, but if 
the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted ?”’ 
(Luke xiv. 33, 34.) Note, 

Secondly, That the good works here mentioned must be 
such as by the light of nature seem good and honourable in 
the sight of men; because they must give occasion even to 
heathens to think well of Christianity: these works may 
therefore be performed to be seen of men, provided we desire 
this not for ostentation, but for God’s glory, and their edifi- 
cation ; that they, discerning the holiness, justice, and good- 
ness of his precepts, and the excellent effects they have on 
those who embrace them, may thereby be convinced that 
they are derived from a God, just, holy, and full of kindness 
and good-will towards men. 

13 Ver. 17. Μὴ νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὸν νόμον, ἢ 

Vou. [V.—8 


5T 


(them, to give you the full sense and the spiritual import 
of the moral law, and also to fulfil the types and predic- 
tions of the law and the hets). 

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth 
pass (away), one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass 
from the Ae (or the propels), till all be fulfilled 
(which was both typified in the law, and foretold by the 
prophels). 

19 Whosoever therefore ™ shall break one of these 
least (Gr. the least of these) commandments, and shall 
teach men so (to do), he shall be called the least in the 
kingdom of heaven (. e. he shall not be admitted as a 
true member of my kingdom): but whosoever shall 
do and teach them, the same shall be called great 
(i. e. he shall be an eminent person) in the kingdom of 
heaven. 

20 (and let it not be thought a sufficient excuse that 


τοὺς προῤῆτας" Think not that Iam come to destroy (Gr. 
dissolve) the law or the prophets.) Our Lord hath taught 
us that all the law and the prophets are comprehended in 
these two precepts, “Thou shalt Jove the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart,” &c. and “thou shalt love thy neighbour 
as thyself” (Matt. xxii. 40) ; St. Paul, that «he who loves 
his neighbour as himself, νόμον πεπλήρωκε, hath fulfilled the 
law” (Rom. xiii. 8) ; and that “the whole law, πληροῦται, is 
fulfilled” (Gal. v. 14), or is perfected (James ii. 8), in this, 
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself :’” it is not there- 
fore to be thought that Christ came to dissolve the moral 
law, or any rules of morality delivered by the prophets, but 
he came rather “ that the righteousness of the law, tAnpwq, 
might be fulfilled by us, who walk not after the flesh, but 
after the Spirit” (Rom. viii. 4). And that this is the law 
chiefly intended here, may be concluded, (1.) because Christ 
only undertakes the true interpretation of the precepts which 
respect the moral law ; in these alone can he be rationally 
conceived to require “ our righteousness should exceed that 
of the scribes and pharisees,” not in the literal observance 
of the ritual precepts, in which they were exactly scrupu- 
lous, whilst they neglected judgment, mercy, and the love 
of God. And of them only could he say, that “ he who brake 
the least of them, and taught men so to do, should be the 
least in his kingdom” (ver. 19, 20): since otherwise the 
apostle Paul must have been chief in that number. (2. 
As for the rituals of the law and prophets, our Lord declares 
“the law and the prophets were till John” (Luke xvi. 16), 
and says the time was coming, when “ neither in Samaria 
nor in Jerusalem should they worship the Father,’ but 
should worship him every where in a more spiritual manner 
(John iv. 22—24). Yea, he foretells the dissolution of that 
temple and Jewish polity on which their ritual and judicial 
precepts did depend (ch. xxiv.). St. Paul informs us, that 
the law was only given “till the promised seed should come” 
(Gal. iii. 19), and that he being come, we were no longer 
under the pedagogy of the law ; that Christians were “ dead 
to the law through the body of Christ” (Rom. vii. 4) ; that 
they were “loosed from the law, that being dead under 
which they were held” (ver. 6); that it was evacuated 
(2 Cor. iii. 11) ; that they were redeemed from it by Christ 
ἐδ iv. 5), and that they ought no more to be subject to 
at “yoke of bondage,” or return to those “ beggarly ele- 
ments” (ver. 9 and v. 1) ; that Christ had broken down this 
“ partition-wall,” and evacuated that law of commandments 
(Eph. ii. 14, 15); that he had “blotted out that hand- 
writing of ordinances, and took it out of the way, nailing it 
to his cross’’ (Col. ii. 14) ; that it was only to continue “to 
the time of reformation’ (Heb. ix. 10) ; that «the priest- 
hood being changed, there was a necessity of a change of the 
law” (vii. 12); and that there was “a disannulling of the 
commandments going before, because of the weakness and 
unprofitableness of it” (ver. 18). Which things seem in- 
consistent with the doctrine that Christ came not to dissolve 
that ceremonial law from which he freed all Christians, and 
made them dead to it, by his body, evacuating this “ hand- 
writing of ordinances, and taking it out of the way,” by 
nailing it to his cross, Nor seems it here sufficient to say, 
This law was not abolished by Christ, but vanished by the 
maturity of the time appointed for the continuance of it, 


58 


your scribes and pharisees thus teach;) For 15. I say 
unto you, That except your righteousness shall ex- 
ceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees 
(who by their tradition exempt themselves and others, 
in many cases, from the observation of this law, Mark 


MATTHEW. 


vii. 8, 9), ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom 
of heaven. . 

21 4 ® Ye have heard that it was said by them of old 
time (Gr. to them of old), Thou shalt not kill (Exod. 
xx. 13); and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger 


seeing it therefore only vanished because Christ came to eva- 
cuate it by his death and cross; and what he came to take 
away, he came also to dissolve. But (3.) these rites may 
be considered, as they were, typical of things future, and 
were a “ shadow of good things to come by Christ” (Col. ii. 
17, Heb. x. 1). The prophets also may be looked upon as 
foretelling his days, and speaking of the things he was to do 
and sufler, and of his future glory, and the glad tidings of 
the gospel (Acts ili. 24, 1 Pet. i. 10—12); of the conver- 
sion of the Jews at the close of the world, the fall of anti- 
christ, the coming in of the fulness of the gentiles, and the 
final judgment ; and in this sense Christ came not to dis- 
solve the law and the prophets, but “to fulfil them,” by 
exhibiting the antitype and substance of which these rituals 
were the types and shadows and fulfilling these prophecies, 
and taking care the truth of these things should not fail ; 
nor should the law and the prophets cease to have their force 
till these things were accomplished ; and so the phrase ἕως 
πάντα γένηται occurs, importing the performance of what was 
typified by the law and foretold by the prophets. So Luke 
Xxi. 32, “ This generation shall not pass away, ἕως ἂν πάντα 
γένηται, till all things foretold by me be done” (Matt. xxiv. 
34, Mark xiii. 30). And (4.) many of these ritual precepts 
had a spiritual sense; as the “circumcision of the flesh” 
denoted the “spiritual circumcision of the heart;” the 
“rest of the sabbath,” a “rest remaining for the people of 
God,” &c. on which account the apostle declares, not only 
that the “law was holy, just, and good,” but that it was 
also “spiritual” (Rom. vii. 12. 14). And in this sense 
Christ came “not to dissolve the law, but to fulfil,’ esta- 
blish, and perfect it, by changing him that was a’ Jew out- 
wardly, to one inwardly; and the “circumcision of the 
flesh” in the letter, to the “circumcision of the heart in the 
spirit” (Rom. ii. 29) ; and by circumcising us, “not with 
the circumcision made with hands, but with the circumcision 
of Christ” (Col. ii. 11), that we might be the “true cir- 
cumcision, who serve God in the spirit” (Phil. iii. 3). And 
(5.) by one iota, or “tittle of the law,” I understand one 
precept of it, according to that saying of the Jews, “It 
were better one letter of the law should be razed out,” i. e. 
one precept of it should be violated, “ than that the name of 
God should be openly blasphemed.” And as for those 
words, “till heaven and earth pass away,” they must be un- 
derstood only of the moral law, or else must bear the sense 
which St. Luke gives of them (xvi. 17), “ Sooner may hea- 
ven and earth pass away,” than God fail of accomplishing 
the things typified by the law, or foretold by the prophets. 
Moreover, some of these types relating not only to spiritual, 
but to heavenly things; the rest of the sabbath being typi- 
cal of “the rest remaining to the people of God” (Heb. iii. 
iv.) ; the tabernacle being a “ shadow of the heavenly taber- 
nacle made without hands,” and the law being “ the shadow 
of future good things” (Heb. x. 1) ; and the prophets fore- 
telling those things which were not to be completely fulfilled 
till the end of the world, or the day of judgment, our Sa- 
viour might well say, “ Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but one jot or tittle of the law shall not pass away till all 
things be fulfilled ;” some of the things typified by the law 
and foretold by the prophets being then only to be fulfilled 
when heaven and earth were to pass away. 

M Ver. 19. Ὅστις ἐὰν οὖν λύσῆ, ὅτο. Whosoever therefore 
shall break one of these least commandments, he shall be 
called the least in the kingdom of heaven.] ᾿Ἐλάχιστος κλη- 
θήσεται, “he shall be called least,” i. e. he shall be unwor- 
thy to be reckoned one of the members of my kingdom. 
So “1 am the least of the apostles,” is, «I am unworthy 
to be called an apostle” (1 Cor. xv. 9). Note also, that 
Christ is speaking not of the precepts of his new law, but 
of the precepts of the moral law, of which he had discoursed 
in the two preceding verses, as is apparent from the illative 
particle οὖν, “ therefore.”” Moreover, it seems harsh, either 
to refer this to the beatitudes, which ended ver. 12, or to the 
following precepts, of which Christ had yet spoken nothing. 


And, lastly, it is probable that Christ may here reflect on 
those scribes and pharisees, who by their traditions exempted 
themselves, and taught others not to observe some of those 
moral precepts, and might hint, that how highly soever they 
were valued by themselves, or others, for their skill in the 
law, such teachers of it should be of no account in his king- 
dom. 

15 Ver. 20. Λέγω yap ὑμῖν, For I say unto you, Except 
your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes 
and pharisees.] i. 6. Except (1.) you observe all the pre- 
cepts of the moral law, not making any of them void by 
your traditions, not leaving undone the “more weighty mat- 
ters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith,” as they do 
(Matt. xxiii. 23), not thinking to atone for the neglect of 
some of them by your observance of the rest: see notes on 
James ii. 10. (2.) Unless you do observe this law, not only 
according to the outward man and in the letter, but also in 
the spiritual sense, and so as to cleanse your hearts from 
those inward dispositions which are in God’s sight violations 
of it, and “defile the man,” you will not be fitted to enter 
into my kingdom. And that in both these things the legal 
righteousness of the scribes and pharisees was deficient, is 
clear, (1,) from our Saviour’s care to teach them, it was not 
sufficient to observe what was said to them of old, according 
to the letter only, but that they were to regard the higher 
and spiritual sense of it, not only not to “kill, but not to be 
angry without cause,” &c. (2.) that adultery might be com- 
mitted in the heart as well as in the outward action (ver. 28), 
and that “what cometh out of the heart defileth the man :” 
which doctrine the pharisees were so unacquainted with, that 
they were offended at it (Matt. xv. 12). And Josephus, 
who was well acquainted with their doctrine, declares Poly- 
bius mistaken, when he saith Antiochus Epiphanes perished 
because he would have robbed Diana’s temple of its trea- 
sure; for, saith he,* To γὰρ μηκέτι ποιῆσαι τὸ ἔργον βουλευ- 
σάμενον, οὐκ ἔστι τιμωρίας ἄτιον, “He deserveth no punish- 
ment for what he only would have done, but did ποῖ." And 
Kimchi, on these words of David (Ps. Ixvi. 18), “If I re- 
gard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me,” 
comments thus, “He will not impute it to me for sin; for 
God does not look upon an evil thought as sin, unless it be 
conceived against God or religion.” 

16 Ver. 21. ᾿Ηκούσατε ὅτι ἐῤῥέθη τοῖς ἀρχαίοις, &e. Ve have 
heard it hath been said by (to) them of old, Thow shalt not 
kill ; ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν, but 1 say unto you, Whosoever is an- 
gry with his brother, &c.] That τοῖς ἀρχαίοις is here to be 
rendered in the dative case, may be concluded (1.) from the 
words “I say unto you,” where ὑμῖν is undoubtedly the da- 
tive case. (2.) Because the word ἐῤῥήϑη elsewhere is always 
joined to this case; so Rom. ix. 12, ἐῤῥήϑη αὐτῇ, “it was 
said to her,” and ver. 26, ἐῤῥήϑη αὐτοῖς, “it was said to them ;” 
Gen. iii. 16, “the promises τῷ ᾿Αβραὰμ ἐῤῥεϑησαν, were 
spoken to Abraham ;” so Rev. ix. 4. 11, And where mention 
is made of a thing spoken by another, the phrase is still τὸ 
ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ, or τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ. (3.) Because the words thus cited 
by our Lord are words spoken “ to them of old,” as, “ Thou 
shalt not commit adultery,” ver. 27, “Thou shalt not for- 
swear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths,” 
ver. 33, and here, “Thou shalt not kill,” Exod. xx. 13, 
and, “ Whosoever killeth, shall be obnoxious to the judg- 
ment,” Gen. ix. 6. Numb. xxxv. 31, “ You shall take no 
satisfaction for the life of a man, ἐνόχου ὄντος dvatpeSivat, 
worthy to be cut off by the hand of judgment, he shall die.” 
Of the question, whether Christ here adds to the law of 
Moses, or rather declares those things belong to the true 
scope and intention of it, which the scribes and pharisees 
never thought, or at least taught not their scholars so to be? 
see the appendix to this chapter. I incline to this last opi- 
nion, and therefore give this sense to the words: You have 
heard it said by Moses to them of old, thou shalt not kill; 
and understand not that by this precept you are obnoxious 


* Antiq. lib. xii. 13, 


CHAPTER V. 


of the judgment (Gen. ix. 6, Numb. xxxv. 31, and 
are taught by your scribes, that by this precept you 
are not obnoxious to guilt for any thing but mur- 
der) δ 

22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry 
with his brother without a cause shall be in danger 
of the judgment (or anger of God): and whosoever 
shall say to his brother, Raca (¢. ὁ. thou art an empty 
worthless fellow, fit to be whipped, or punished as an 
idle drone), shall be in danger of the council (7. e. of 
being punished by them, for vilifying and reviling one 
of the seed of Abraham): but whosoever (from the 
tke rancour af spirit against his brother) shall say (to 
him), Thou fool (ἐν e. shall censure him as a profane 


to guilt for any thing but murder: but I say unto you, that 
by the genuine import of it, all causeless anger against our 
brother, all contemptuous expressions and treatment of him, 
all rash judgment of him as a profane and wicked person, 
are forbidden, as being either dispositions to murder, or to 
neglect the welfare of our brother’s life and soul: and there- 
fore say, 

7 Ver. 22. Ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ εἰκῆ, That 
whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall 
be obnoxious to the judgment.) St. Jerome here notes, that 
in quibusdam codicibus legitur sine causa, cwtertim in veris 
definita sententia est, as if εἰκῆ “ without cause” had not been 
in the true copies: but how little St. Jerome is to be trusted 
in these matters, is evident from this and many other in- 
stances of like nature; for certain it is, that we find this 
word in Justin’s epistle ad Zenam, &c. p.311, D. Nor is 
it any objection against this reading, that in his second 
Apology, p. 83, the word εἰκῆ is omitted, the whole citation 
there running thus, ὅς δ᾽ ἂν dpyicSn, ἔνοχος ἐστὶν εἰς τὸ πῦρ, 
for this is only a brief recapitulation of the whole: and you 
may as well argue that neither “ Raca” nor μωρὲ was in that 
verse, as that εἰκῆ was not there. A like instance I find in 
Ireneus, who, when he gives a brief recapitulation of our 
Saviour’s words, saith that instead of these words, “Thou 
shalt not kill,” he commandeth, ne irasci quidem, “not to 
be angry :’’ yet whenever he cites these words (as he doth 
thrice, viz. lib. ii. cap. 56, p. 189, col. 1, lib. iv. cap. 27, p. 
314, cap. 1, &c. 3, p. 320, col. 2), he always adds, sine causa, 
“without cause ;” so also doth St. Cyprian, Test. lib. iii. p. 
64, Constit. Apost. lib. ii. cap. 52, p. 199. So Chrysostom, 
Euthymius, Theophylact, without any hint of a various 
reading; so also reads the Syriac. And this, with what I 
have added, Exam. var. Lection. 1). Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1. 
n. 1, I think sufficient to justify this reading. For explica- 
tion of these words, note (1.) that they may seem not rightly 
to interpret these words, who refer them to the judgment 
of the three Sanhedrins of the Jews; (1.) because the 
Sanhedrin is only mentioned in the second gradation: for 
(2.) it did not belong to the lower court of three men to 
judge of capital causes; and so those words, “the murderer 
shall be obnoxious to the judgment” (ver. 21), cannot be- 
long to them, and therefore the words here repeated can- 
not belong to them: nor (3.) can fell-fire be properly ap- 
plied to the judgment of the highest Sanhedrin. Let it be 
therefore noted, (2.) that the Jews held that many murderers 
were not to be punished by the judgment of the Sanhe- 
drin, but only the judgment of the hand of God; and that 
the word “ Raca,” which signifies a vain, empty fellow, was 
used as a word of scorn and contempt. Now the vilifying 
a Jew was a thing punishable by the Sanhedrin: the word 
fool, both in the scripture and the Jewish phrase, signifies a 
profane and wicked fellow, or, as we say, “a hell-hound;” 
for, “the wicked shall be turned into hell :’”’ so in those words, 
Ps. xiv. 1, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no 
God.” This then may be the import of these words, “" He 
that is subject to unjust and causeless anger, shall be obnox- 
ious to the anger and judgment of God; he that publicly 
reviles his brother, shall be obnoxious to the public censure 
of the council; and he that represents and censures him 
as a child of hell, shall be obnoxious to hell-fire: accord- 
ing to that saying of the Jews, “He that calls another 
bastard, let him be punished with forty stripes ; but he that 
calls him fool, let him descend with him into his life,’’ i. e. 
into his misery. Note, (3.) that these words, vain and 


59 


person, or a hell-hound ), shall be in danger of hell fire 
(the portion he assigneth to his brother). 

23 8 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar 
(to make atonement for thy sin), and there remem- 
berest that thy brother hath ought against thee (7. 6. 
hath received from thee any injury of this or any other 
kind ) ; 

ἫΝ Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy 
way; (and) first (use thy endeavour to) be reconciled 
to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (## 
being not acceptable for the atonement of thy sins com- 
mitted against God, till thou hast thus endeavoured to 
make satisfaction for thy faults committed against thy 
brother). 


foolish, when they are used by men assisted by the Spirit 
of God, or speaking by virtue of their office, out of a 
spirit of charity, and an ardent desire to make men sensible 
of their folly, do not render them obnoxious to this guilt: 
not St. James, when he calls the Solifidian, “vain man’’ 
(ii. 20) : not St. Paul, when he saith, “ O foolish Galatians” 
(Gal. iii. 1), and much less Christ, when he styles the 
pharisees, “fools and blind” (Matt. xxiii. 17), and when he 
saith to his disciples, “O fools and slow of heart” (Luke 
xxiv. 25); but only then when they proceed from rash 
and causeless anger, rancour of spirit, and ill-will towards 
men. Note, (4.) that God in forbidding murder forbiddeth 
also those things which tend and dispose us to it; all rash 
anger, hatred, rancour of spirit, malice, all that contempt of 
others, which may make us not to value their lives, and so not 
fear much the dispatching them out of the way ; all that re- 
proachful language, which begets such strifes as too often end 
in blood; « Ye fight and kill” (James iv. 2 : that, in forbid- 
ding the outward act, he forbids all inward workings of the 
heart towards that act, all desires, machinations, and con- 
trivances, all purposes or resolutions so to do ; “ out of the 
heart come evil thoughts, murders” (Matt. xv. 19): and that 
by forbidding us to kill, he commands us to do what we are 
able to preserve our brother’s life (see note on Luke vi. 9) : 
and lastly, that by forbidding us to “kill the body,” he 
much more doth forbid us to “kill the soul,” or suffer that to 
perish, as did the scribes and pharisees; suffering the sin- 
ner and the publican to perish, by their refusal to converse 
with them, though it were to “save that which was lost,” 
or to “call sinners to repentance.” Note, (5.) from those 
words, “ He that is angry with his brother without a cause,” 
that some anger may be just and lawful, not as it is defined 
to be ὄρεξις ἀντιλυπέσεως, “a desire of revenge,” or doing evil 
to another purely because he hath done so to me; we be- 
ing forbidden to “ avenge ourselves” (Rom. xii. 19), or even 
to say, “we will do to others as they have dealt with us” 
(Prov. xxiv. 29) : but as it is an inward commotion and dis- 
pleasure of the mind, arising from the apprehension of some 
evil done to me, or others for whom I am concerned, with 
a desire to remove the evil; and in this sense anger cannot 
be always sinful: 

First, Because some anger hath been found even in that 
Jesus “ who did no sin” (1 Pet. ii. 22), as when the cause 
of God and piety were much concerned; for, “he looked 
upon the pharisees with anger, being grieved for the hard- 
ness of their hearts” (Mark iii. 5). 

Secondly, Because anger is a passion implanted in us by 
the God of nature; if therefore it were wholly evil in its 
exercise, that God, who is the author of it, must be the 
author of our sin, whereas the just avenger of it can never 
be the author of sin. 

Thirdly, Because we are only bid to be “slow to anger,” 

James i. 19), and not to be “hasty in our spirits” to exert 
this passion (Prov. xiv. 29); whereas that which is always 
evil we ought not only to be slow to do, but always careful 
to avoid. 

18 Ver. 23. ᾿Εὰν οὖν προσφέρης τὸ δῶρόν cov ἐπὶ τὸ ϑυσιαστήριον. 
If therefore thow bringest thy gift unto the altar, &c.| Here 
note, 

First, That it was customary with the Jews, who lived at 
some distance from Jerusalem, to reserve theiroblations till the 
next feast, at which they were obliged to attend, and then to 
offer them; so that they might easily comply with this precept. 

Secondly, The scribes and pharisees held, That the gifts 


60 


25 (And if there be any person to whom thou art in- 
debted, and who upon that account may implead thee 
before the judge,) agree with thine adversary quickly, 
whiles thou art in the way (to the judge) with him; 
lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the 
judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer (ap- 
pointed for that purpose), and (so) thou be cast into 
prison. 

26 Verily I say unto thee (7f thou permit things to 
go so far), Thou shalt by no means come out thence, 
till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing (and so will 
it also be if thou neglectest to be reconciled to God, and so 
he cast thee into the infernal prison). 

27 4 Ὁ Ye have heard that it was said by (Gr. ἐο) 
them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery 
(Exod. xx. 14): 

28 But (Anow this is not all which is forbidden by 
that precept, for) 1 say unto you, That whosoever look- 
eth on a woman to lust after her hath committed 
adultery with her already in his heart. 

29 And if (then) thy right eye offend thee (by thus 
lusting), pluck it out, and cast it from thee (7. e. sup- 
press all such impure lustings): for it is profitable for 


and sacrifices brought to the temple, were sufficient to 
expiate for all offences, which were not to be punished by 
the judge (except those which required restitution to be 
made first, and that without amendment of life) ; and there- 
fore Christ here teacheth, in opposition to them, that no 
sacrifice, or other worship, could be acceptable to God, 
without justice and charity, and a mind reconciled to our 
brother; and that they did in vain attempt to propitiate an 
offended God, till they had made satisfaction for the inju- 
ries done to their brother: and that, therefore, when they 
had injured him by causeless anger, reproachful language, 
or undue and uncharitable censures of his state, or any other 
way, they should endeavour to be reconciled to him before 
they sought to render God propitious to themselves; at 
least, by doing all things on their part necessary to give 
him satisfaction, and obtain his friendship: so that if they 
prevail not, the fault shall be in him, and not in them. Note, 

Thirdly, That the duties of justice andgcharity are more 
acceptable to God than sacrifices, or any other part of out- 
ward worship; these being only of positive institution 
(whilst the others are duties required by the law of nature), 
and so to be left undone, that we may do the other. 

19 Ver. 25, Ἴσϑι εὐνοῶν τῷ ἀντιδίκῳ cov ταχὺ, Agree with 
thine adversary quickly, &c.] Episcopius here saith, These 
words cannot be properly understood, because rash anger, 
reproachful speeches, and calling a man a fool, could not 
be punished with imprisonment ; but it is evident, that our 
Saviour is not now speaking of these things, but having told 
us what we ought to do to gain our brother’s favour, when 
we had given him just cause of offence ; he here counsels 
us what to do when we lie.at his mercy for our debts due 
to him, viz. to do all we can amicably to compound the 
matter, lest being brought before the magistrates, we should 
be put in prison. Now these magistrates were to be in 
their gates (Deut. xvi. 18), that is, in all their cities; (if 
the city were small, it had only the consistory of three 
judges; if large, that of twenty-three; and both these are 
styled ἄρχοντες, Luke xii. 58); and from them the creditor 
might appeal to the higher Sanhedrin, here styled “ the 
judge” by way of eminency; and these consistories had 
their schoterim, officials, apparitors, or executors of their 
sentence, called here ὑπήρεται, and Luke xii. 58, πράκτορι, 
who carried him to prison who was sentenced thither, or 
inflicted the punishment to which the consistory adjudged 
him. Here then δι᾿ ὑπονοίας is insinuated, how much more 
it concerns us in time to repent of our offences against 
God, and to endeavour to be reconciled to him, lest we be 
cast into the infernal prison, according to that good advice 
of the son of Sirach, “ Before judgment examine thyself, 
and in the day of visitation thou shalt find mercy ; humble 
thyself before thou beest sick, and in the time of sins show 
repentance, and defer not until death to be justified” (Ec- 
clus. xviii. 20—22). 


MATTHEW. 


thee that one of thy members should perish, and not 
that thy whole body should be cast into hell (ἡ. e. it 

is better for thee to want these delights at present, than 

by enjoying them to plunge both soul and body into 
ell). 

30 And if thy right hand offend thee (by minister- 
ing to this or any other sin), cut it off, and cast it from 
thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy 
members should perish, and not that thy whole body 
should be cast into hell. 

31 51 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away 
his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: 
(and this being permitted for the hardness of your 
hearts, you think may lawfully be done for any cause, 
Matt. xix. 3.) 

32 But I say unto you, That (according to the pri- 
mitive institution of marriage) whosoever shall put 
away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, 
causeth her to commit adultery (by giving her this 
occasion to go and be married to another) : and whoso- 
ever shall marry her that is (thus) divorced commit- 
teth adultery (with her). 

33 J Again, 3 ye have heard that it hath been said 


2 Ver. 27. ᾿Ηκούσατε ὅτι ἐῤῥέθη τοῖς dpxators, οὐ μοιχεύσεις, 
Ye have heard that it hath been said to them of old, Ye 
shall not commit adultery.] And this the rabbins interpret 
strictly, calling it the thirty-fifth precept, « forbidding to lie 
with another man’s wife : on which account our Lord 
proceeds to say, It is also a prohibition of all incitements to 
adultery, called by St. Peter, “the adulterous eye” (2 Pet. ii. 
14), and by the poet, adultera mens, the adultery of the heart, 
in lusting after any woman; only thisseems not to be meant 
of every sudden desire arising in us before we are aware, 
and suppressed and contradicted as soon as it is observed ; 
but of morose desires, which we consent to, and entertain 
with pleasure, without retracting them; and more espe- 
cially of such desires which are followed with contrivance 
how to accomplish what we thus desire, and which we are 
only restrained from the accomplishment of by want of op- 
portunity ; in the first case, lust hath conceived and “ brought 
forth sin,” a sin against this precept, as it forbids all incen- 
tives to adultery ; in the second, it is finished in the will, 
and hath “brought forth death ;” and doubtless will be so 
esteemed by that God, who, as he estimates our good ac- 
tions rather from our good minds, purposes, and inten- 
tions, than from the act itself, which ofttimes it is not in 
our power to perform; so will he estimate our evil actions 
more from the full consent of the will, which makes them 
morally evil, than from that fact which only renders them 
more evil in the same kind, as adding to them scandal, and 
injury to others. And therefore the words, “ adultery in his 
heart,” are not here used to diminish the adultery, or sig- 
nify it less truly such, but to show the true interpretation of ἡ 
the precept. And though many things are produced from 
the Talmudists, to show some of their rabbins condemned 
this looking on a woman asa very vile thing, yet nothing is 
produced from them to show they held it forbidden by this 
precept. Pertinent here is-the observation of St. Jerome 
on this place : Dixerunt jurisperiti, si videat quis mulierem 
quam in deliciis pre uxore habeat, uxorem demittat, atque 
eam ducat; “Their expositors of the law said, If a man 
sees a woman whom he loves better than his wife, let him 
divorce his wife and marry her.” This adulterous eye our 
Lord here styles adultery ; and ver. 31, 32, severely taxes 
their divorces upon any cause (see note on Rom. ii. 22). 

21 Ver. 31, 32. Ἐῤῥέϑη δὲ ὅτι ὃς ἂν ἀπολύση τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, 
It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, δος. 
Here Christ saith not, as before, “It hath been said to 
them of old,” but only “it hath been said ;” to note, that 
this was not a precept given by Moses to divorce their 
wives, as the pharisees suggested, xix. 7, but only a per- 
mission in some cases so to do, as our Lord there answers, 
ver. 8. Of what farther relates to this and the following 
verse, see note on xix. 7. 9, (see Examen Millii.) 

2 Ver. 33. ᾿Ηκούσατε Gre ἐῤῥέϑη τοῖς ἀρχαῖοις, οὐκ ἐπιορκῆσεις, 


Ye have heard it hath been said to them of old, Thow shalt 


CHAPTER V. 


by (Gr. to) them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear 
thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths 
(Exod. xx. 7, Lev. xix. 12, and this you think is all 


not forswear thyself.) For explication of which words let it 
be noted, 

First, That Christ, by this prohibition, must not be sup- 
posed to forbid all swearing as a thing absolutely evil; 
for, in those writings which were indited by the Holy 
Ghost, St. Paul doth often seal the truth of what he deli- 
vered with an oath, saying, “ God is my witness, that without 
ceasing I make mention of you in my prayers” (Rom. i. 9). 
In the Epistle to the Galatians, he gives a large account of 
his conversion and apostleship, which concludes thus, “ Now 
the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie 
not” (Gal. i. 20). Having given the Corinthians a cata- 
logue of his great sufferings for the gospel’s sake, because 
it might be thought incredible that any sober person would, 
or that the stoutest person could, endure so many and so 
dreadful sufferings, he concludes thus, “'T'he God and Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ knoweth that I lie not” (2 Cor. xi. 
31). To confirm his tender love to the same cnurch, he 
saith, “I call God to record upon my soul, that to spare you 
T come not yet to Corinth” (ἔτος i.23). To manifest his 
passionate affection to the Philippians, “ God,” saith he, “is 
my record, how greatly I long after you” (Phil. i. 8). Now 
these examples prove, that blessed Paul, and that good 
Spirit by which he was directed thus to write, did not con- 
ceive all swearing to be forbidden by our Saviour’s words, 
but that it was still lawful, when the matter was of great im- 
portance to the welfare of the souls of men, and could not 
be confirmed any other way, to seal it with a voluntary oath. 
Now undoubtedly St. Paul well understood the mind of 
Christ in this his prohibition; and therefore, had he con- 
ceived it so univcrsal as some contend it is, he would not 
have encouraged others, by his example, to transgress it. 

It is confessed the words, both in the prohibition of our 
Saviour and St. James, are universal ; “Swear not at all; 
swear not by heaven, nor by earth, or any other oath :” but 
it is also certain, that Christ and his apostles do often use 
such general expressions, which yet must necessarily ad- 
mit of limitations. Thus 1 Cor. vi. 7, we meet with an ex- 
pression, which in the Greek is fully parallel to this, viz. 
ὅλως ἥττημα, “it is altogether faulty in you, that you go to 
law one with another; why do you not rather suffer your- 
selves to be defrauded ?”’ which notwithstanding, no man, 
except some few Socinians, thinks it unlawful to go to law, 
for preservation of his own family, or to secure the goods of 
orphans, widows, or the poor committed to his trust, when 
those things cannot be secured or preserved by any other 
means. Christ hath expressly said, « Give to every man that 
asketh of thee, and of him that taketh away thy goods, ask 
thou not again” (Luke vi. 30) ; and yet as God himself gives 
not to them that ask amiss, that they may make provision 
for their lusts (James iv. 3), so neither must the Christian 
give to such an asker; and it is evidently repugnant to the 
law of nature and self-preservation, tamely to bear the loss 
of all that is necessary to our subsistence here, without en- 
deavouring to preserve or to recover it when taken from us. 
As therefore these, and many other passages of scripture de- 
livered in universal terms, must be restrained by other scrip- 
tures, that so they may not seem to enjoin absurdities, or 
thwart the law of nature, or the voice of reason: so must 
the words we now discourse of be restrained and limited by 
others, which we meet with in the word of God. Especially 
if, secondly, we consider that Christ himself, after this prohi- 
bition given, seems to swear; for, Mark viii. 12, we read thus, 
“ Verily I say unto you, εἰ ὀοξήσεται τῇ γενεᾷ ταὔύτη σημεῖον, 
ifa sign shall be given to this generation,” which is a Hebrew 
form of swearing, and imports thus much, “ Let God punish 
me, or let me not live, if a sign be given to this generation.” 
So Deut. i. 35, “The Lord was wroth, and swore, saying, εἰ 
ὄψεται, ne vivam, If any of these men shall see the good 
land of promise.” Ps. xev. 11, «So I sware in my wrath, εἰ 
εἰσελεύσονται, mentiar, if they shall enter into my rest.” So 

1 Sam. iii. 14, «I have sworn touching the house of Eli, εἰ 
ἐξιλασϑήσεται, if the iniquity of the house of Eli shall be 
purged with sacrifice for ever.” So Ps. Ixxxix. 35, “ Once 
have I sworn by my holiness, εἰ Weécouat, if Γ fail David ;” in 


61 


that is criminal in oaths, viz. lo swear falsely by the 
name of the great Jehovah): 
34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all (in your 


all which passages, interpreters agree, God sweareth by his 
life or truth. And Ps. exxxii. 2, 3, “Lord, remember Da- 
vid how he sware εἰ εἰσελεύσομαι, if 1 go into my tabernacle, 
εἰ ἀναβήσομαι, if I climb up into my bed, εἰ δύσω, if I give 
sleep to mine eyes, till I find out a temple for the Lord ;” 
i.e. let me not prosper if I do not this; wherefore the words 
of Christ, being exactly parallel to all these, which are ex- 
pressly styled oaths, may very reasonably be deemed a form 
of swearing. 

Secondly, These words must not be so interpreted as to 
forbid all promissory oaths, in which we do engage, by calling 
God to witness, we will be faithful to our promises, or will do 
this or that hereafter. For (1.) were it unlawful to use a 
promissory oath, it must be so, because it is unlawful to en- 
gage, as we expect God’s favour, for the performance of things 
future ; this being the whole difference betwixt an assertion 
had a promise confirmed upon oath, that an assertory oath 
hath always for its object something past or present; whereas 
a promissory oath hath for its object something future, which 
oath some therefore think unlawful, because we may forget 
our promise, or lie under such evil circumstances as render us 
unable to perform it. But notwithstanding these considera- 
tions, that it is not simply unlawful to take a promissory oath 
is evident (1.) from the examples of such oaths, recorded and 
approved in holy scripture. For the Lord made his people 
enter into an “oath to serve him, and to keep his covenant” 

Deut. xxix. 12.14). King Asa made all Judah swear that 
they would seek the Lord with all their hearts” (2 Chron. xv. 
14) ; and this was so acceptable to God, that he was “ found 
of them, and gave them rest round about” (ver.15). Ezra en- 
gaged the priests and Levites, and “all the house of Israel, 
to swear that they would put away all their strange wives and 
children” (Ezra x. 5). And Nehemiah called the priests, 
and “took an oath of them to do according to their promise” 
(Neh. v. 12). Moreover, he engaged all the nobles and peo- 
ple “to enter into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God's 
law, and to observe and do all his commandments” (x. 29) ; 
and having done these things, he saith, “Remember me, 
O Lord, for this, and wipe not out the good deeds that 
I have done for the house of my God.” And, lastly, “I have 
sworn,” saith David, “and I will perform it, that I will keep 
thy righteous judgments” (Ps. cxix. 106). ΑἹ] these were 
promissory oaths made by direction, or with the approbation 
of the God of Israel, to strengthen the good resolution of a 
backsliding people, and to increase their obligations to per- 
form their duty; and can it rationally be conceived that the 
holy Jesus should forbid what wholly was designed and 
really tended to strengthen and confirm us in the performance 
of our holy purposes? Can he be thought to do it who hath 
laid upon all Christians the baptismal vow, and the dpxos 
στρατιωτικὸς military oath, to fight under his banner, and 
hath obliged us to renew this vow at every sacrament? (2.) 
If Christ did by these words forbid all promissory oaths, no 
prince may thus confirm a league with other states and 
princes; whereas both Abraham and Isaac made a promis- 
sory oath unto Abimelech, that they would still retain a 
perfect friendship with him (Gen. xxi. 24, xxvi.31). Again, 
according to this exposition of the words, no magistrate or 
officer of justice may exact a promissory oath of any Chris- 
tian subject, nor could a Christian soldier or trustee give any 
promissory oaths of his fidelity. Now had the Christian law 
untied and freed all its professors from these bonds of govern- 
ment, this must have much reflected on the wisdom of its 
constitutions, and given occasion to the infidels to say, that 
it exposed all government, by this exemption of the subject 
from those obligations to obedience which lay before upon 
them, to the greatest hazards; it being formerly the duty both 
of Jew and heathen, to keep the king’s commandments by 
virtue of the oath of God. (3.) That which directly tends 
to the advancement of society, cannot rationally be supposed 
to be forbidden by our Saviour, because the current of the 
Christian precepts does most peculiarly tend to the promo- 
tion of the public good; but promissory oaths, as well as as- 
sertory, directly tend to the advancement of society, and the 
promotion of the public rey a being instrumental both 


62 


common conversation) ; 8 neither by heaven; for it is 
God’s throne (and so by swearing by it, thow swearest 
by him who sits upon it, Matt. xxii. 22) : 

35 Neither by the earth; for it is his footstool 


MATTHEW. 


(and he that sweareth by it, sweareth also by him whose 
footstool zt ts): neither by Jerusalem; for it is the 
city of the great King (and he that sweareth by it, 
sweareth also by him that dwelleth in it). 


to put an end to these contentions, which tend to the destruc- 
tion of society, and to the confirmation of men’s minds, 
touching the truth of what another promises; and therefore 
to encourage them in making those contracts, which are of 
absolute necessity to human commerce: and all this the apos- 
tle seemeth to insinuate by saying, that an oath “is for confir- 
mation,” and for the ending of all strife among men (Heb. 
vi. 16). For that the apostle in that passage speaks chiefly 
of a promissory oath, is evident from the occasion of it ; 
viz. the promise of a signal blessing God had made to Abra- 
ham, and had confirmed with an oath. And (4.) if all pro- 
missory oaths be utterly unlawful by virtue of Christ’s pro- 
hibition, then must it be unlawful to adjure a Christian to per- 
form any action we require of him; for to adjure by God, is 
to engage him, under the curse of God, or under the penalty 
of forfeiting God’s favour, and incurring his displeasure, to 
do what we require of him. Now that in matters of great 
concern, the Christian may be thus adjured by his superior, 
is evident from the example of St. Paul, who writes unto the 
Thessalonians thus, δρκίζω ὑμᾶς τὸν Κύριον, “ I adjure you by 
the Lord, that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren” 
Gas v.27). The words I render thus, because I find 
this is the constant import of this phrase in the Old Testa- 
ment. Thus, Gen. xxiv. 37, ὥρκισέμε ὃ κύριος μου, “ My master 
made me swear, saying, Thou shalt not take a wife to my son 
of the daughters of Canaan ;” and ver. 41, “ When thou 
comest to my kindred, if they will not give thee a wife, ἔση 
ἀθῶος ἀπὸ τοῦ ὑρκισμοῦ pov, thou shalt be clear from my oath,” 
Thus in the case of jealousy, dpxiet ἱερεὺς, “the priest shall 
charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and shall say 
unto her, The Lord make thee a curse among thy people,” 
&c. (Numb. v. 19. 21). Thus ὥρκισεν ‘Ingots, “ Joshua adjured 
the people, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord, that 
riseth up, and buildeth the city of Jericho” (Josh. vi. 26). 
And “ Saul adjured the people, saying, Cursed be the man 
that eateth any food till the evening : that is, dpxicas ὥρ- 
κισε τὸν λαὸν, “ he charged the people with an oath,” 1 Sam. 
xiv. 24, and ver. 28, “the people feared the oath.” Thus 
also Solomon speaks to Shimet, οὐχὶ ὥρκισά ce κατὰ τοῦ Κυ- 
piov, “ Did I not make thee swear by the Lord, that thou 
wouldest not go out of Jerusalem; wherefore then hast 
thou not kept τὸν ὄρκον Κυρίου the oath of the Lord?” (1 
Kings iii. 42, 43). If therefore Christians may be bound 
by others under a curse or oath, to the performance of 
something future, which they had not promised; much 
more may they be thus obliged by the magistrate to pro- 
mise, and confirm that promise by an oath. 

And, thirdly, hence it clearly follows, that our Lord doth 
not here condemn judicial oaths, imposed by magistrates 
and by superiors in matters testimonial : for it is observa- 
ble in judicial oaths, the custom which obtained among the 
Jews was this; not for the person who came under the ob- 
ligation of an oath to pronounce the words of swearing 
with his own mouth, but an oath was exacted of him by the 
‘magistrate, and he became obliged to answer upon oath, by 
hearing φωνὴν δρκισμοῦ, “ the voice of adjuration,” or swear- 
ing from his mouth; so the law saith expressly (Lev. v. 1), 
«If a man hear the voice of swearing, and is a witness, 
whether he hath seen or known any thing, if he do not utter it, 
then he shall bear his iniquity.” ‘To which custom that pas- 
sage of the Proverbs evidently refers, ““Whoso is partner with 
a thief, hateth his own soul: he heareth τὸν the adjuration 
of the magistrate, and bewrayeth it not” (Prov. xxix. 24), 
i.e. doth not discover what he knows; if, hearing ὅρκου προ- 
τεϑέντος, the oath pronounced, he doth not declare it, say 
the Septuagint and the Targum. Now hence it follows, 
that Christ could not forbid in these words such judicial 
oaths; (1.) because it was not in the power of the Jews, to 
whom he spake, to avoid them, they being subject to them, 
by hearing the voice of swearing pronounced by the judge. 
(2.) Had Christ by this injunction condemned all judicial 
oaths, he must have dissolved the law of Moses in this par- 
ticular ; and so have given just occasion to the pharisees 
to complain of him, both as teaching contrary to the law of 
Moses, and stirring up the people to disturb the govern- 


ment. ‘Then (3.) after his declaration made against such 
oaths, he should not have answered when adjured by the 
high-priest, to tell whether he were the Son of God ; because 
he ought not so far to have countenanced this sinful action : 
wherefore, by breaking of his former silence, and taking the 
adjuration upon himself, he showed that he did not con- 
ceive it sinful to answer upon oath before a magistrate. 
(4.) This prohibition therefore only doth forbid all voluntary 
oaths in common conversation and discourse; this (first) 
clearly follows from the removal of those other glosses 
which have been put upon the text; and (secondly) from what 
our Saviour adds, by way of explication of it, viz. ἔστω δὲ 
ὃ λόγος ὑμῶν, “let your discourse or talk be yea and nay ;” i. e. 
let it suffice, that in your ordinary discourse you use a 
single affirmation or denial, or, if occasion do require, a 
reduplication of them, and do not on your own voluntary 
motion, call God to witness the truth of what you ordinarily 
say. (Thirdly,) This is apparent from the distinction which 
the Jews observed betwixt such oaths as were imposed by 
the magistrate in doing justice, and voluntary oaths: in the 
first kind of oaths, they reckoned it unlawful to swear by 
any name but that of God; it being written, that “when a 
cause of parties comes before the judge, then shall the oath of 
Jehovah be betwixt them” Exod. xxii. 11): wherefore this 
prohibition of swearing, “ by the heavens, the earth, or any 
other oath,” could not relate to their judicial oaths; because 
in them God only was invoked: it therefore must respect 
those voluntary oaths, which were in frequent use among 
the Jews, and were less scrupled by them; because they did 
not swear by God, but by the creatures, accounting that far 
more excusable than swearing by the name of God. - And 
that this also is the meaning of the prohibition of St. James, 
is evident; because in the foregoing words he had exhorted 
Christians patiently to bear afflictions, and not to be pro- 
voked to anger by them; and knowing that our impatience 
under sufferings, and our unbridled passions, do often vent 
themselves in oaths, he therefore adds (ver. 12), “But 
above all things, brethren, swear not.” 

3 Ver. 34, 35. Μήτε ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, μήτε ἐν τῇ γῆ ὅς. Nei- 
ther by heaven, nor by earth, nor by Jerusalem.) That these 
forms of swearing were very usual among the Jews, we learn 
from the Jewish writers, saying,* By heavens so it is; By 
heaven you have brought this to my memory. It was also 
customary with them, to swear by the heavens and earth 
together, or by them separately. And accordingly Philoft 
forbids men to swear “ by the Supreme cause :” but, saith he, 
“if there be a necessity of swearing, call to record, γῆν, ἥλιον, 
ἀστέρας, οὐρανὸν, the earth, the sun, the stars, the heavens.” 
They also swore by Jerusalem, and by the temple. But then 
observe they did not look upon these as binding oaths. So 
Maimonides saith,+ “If any man swear by heaven, or by 
earth, yet this is not an oath.” And R. Judah,§ « That he 
that saith by Jerusalem, it is nothing, unless with an intent 
purpose he shall vow towards Jerusalem ; and this Martial 
intimates in that known distich, 

Ecce negas, jurasque mihi per templa Tonantis : 
Non credo: jura, verpe, per Anchialum. 


And hence our Lord informs them, that this was their great 
mistake, all these oaths being in effect oaths made by God, 
and so as binding as those in which he personally was named. 
And seeing an oath is a solemn appeal to what we swear by 
as a witness of the truth, and an avenger of the falsehood 
of the testimony, it follows, that all our oaths made by 
insensate creatures must in effect be oaths made by that God 
whose creatures they are, or none at all. And therefore St. 
Jerome here truly notes, that Judei per angelos et urbem 
Jerusalem, et templum, et elementa jurantes, creaturas, 
resque carnales venerabantur obsequio et honore Dei. 
“The Jews are guilty of idolatry in swearing by angels, 
the temple, and by other creatures.” And therefore, by 
parity of reason, the papists, who swear by saints, images, 
and relics, must be guilty of the like idolatry. 


* Buxt. Ley.in voce pypy { De special. legib. p. 594, C. 
+ See Light. in loc. § In Shevaoth, cap. 12. 


CHAPTER V. 


36 Neither shalt thou swear ™ by thy head, be- 
cause thou canst not make one hair white or black 
(for the preservation of that life, of which the head is the 
fountain, is not in thy power, but depends on him by 
whom we live ; and therefore to swear by il, ts in ¢ffect to 
swear by him who hath the power of life and death in his 
hands). 

37 ἜΝ let your communication be, 5 Yea, yea; 
nay, nay (an ordinary, or at the most a redoubled affirma- 
tion, or negation): for whatsoever is more than these 


63 


cometh of evil (1, e. from some evil principle, as want 
of reverence of the great name of God, or from that evil 
one who is the enemy to God, and to his honour). 

38 4 * Ye have heard that it hath been said, (that 
he who maimeth any body, shall restore) An eye for an 
eye, and a tooth for a tooth (Exod. xxviii. 24, if the 
maimed person shall require the judge to execute this pun- 
ishment on the offender, and wil not admit a pecuniary 
compensation) = 

39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil 


% Ver. 36. Mire ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ, &c. Neither by thy head, 
for thou canst not make one hair white or black.| This 
also was a usual form of swearing among the Jews, who 
said to their neighbour, Swear to me ἽΨΝ wna" “ by the 
life of thy head ;”’ now, saith Christ, the preservation of 
that life, of which the head is the fountain, is not in thy 
power, but depends entirely upon him by whom we live; 
and so to swear by it is, in effect, to swear by him who 
hath the power of life and death. 

% Ver. 37. Τὸ δὲ περισσὸν τούτων, ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ ἔστιν, For 
one is more than this cometh of evil.| These words import 
either, 

First, That swearing in our common discourse proceeds 
from some inherent evil, as certainly it doth from an un- 
hallowed heart, from a soul void of reverence to God, and 
therefore prone to vilify his sacred name; or, 

Secondly, That it proceeds from Satan, and that he it is 
who tempts us to mix them with our common talk. And 
this interpretation well comports with the signification of 
the word ὁ πονηρὸς, being most frequently used in the New 
Testament to signify this wicked one: thus ἔρχεται ὁ πονηρὸς, 
“the wicked one cometh and snatcheth away the seed,” 
Matt, xii. 19, the devil doth it, ver. 39. Cain is declared 
to be ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ, from the devil ; “ God’s children have 
overcome” τὸν πονηρὸν ; they “keep themselves’? so that 
ὃ πονηρὸς, “ the evil one doth not touch them.” Now, this 
is a full demonstration of the vileness and horrid nature 
of this sin, that we are most particularly excited to it. by 
him who is the worst of beings, and bears the greatest 
hatred and opposition to God’s glory ; and therefore, if he 
be so diligent to tempt us to the commission of it, we may 
be assured it is, because he knows it highly tends to the 
dishonour of God, and to deprive us of that reverence to 
his most sacred name, which can alone restrain us from 
the commission of the worst of evils. 

23 Ver. 38, 39. ᾿Ηχούσατε, &c. You have heard it hath been 
said to them of old, An eye for an eye, δος. But I say unto 
you, Resist not evil.] Of this law of talio, let it be observed ; 

First, From Grotius, that it bound not the party damaged 
to require the like punishment, but left him free, either to 
forgive or take a compensation ; but if this penalty was re- 
quired by him, it bound the judge to inflict it. For to the 
judge only it is said, “thy eye shall not spare or pity him, 
but eye shall go for eye,” ἄς. (Deut. xix. 18.21). And 
hence it follows, secondly, that the party hurt or damaged 
could not himself be the executioner of this law; but was 
obliged, if he would require the punishment, to repair to the 
magistrate for the execution of it; for this punishment was 
to be executed by the judges (ered Xxi. 22, 23), and there- 
fore, as the words, “thou shalt not pity” (Deut. xix.), relate 
only to the judge; so also the words, “as he hath done, so 
shall it be done to him” (Lev. xxiv. 19), relate to the same 
person, as if it had been said, “so shall it be done to him-by 
the judge ;” but they oblige not the injured party to require 
the judge so todo. Now hence it follows, that they mistake 
Christ's meaning in the following words, opposed to this 
law, who say, Christ only doth forbid that resistance of evil, 
and return of injuries, which private persons do themselves 
attempt, without repairing to the magistrate for redress; for 
private vengeance or execution of punishment upon offend- 
ers, was never permitted to the Jews themselves; whereas 
those words, “but I say unto you,” seem plainly to evince 
that Christ forbids the Christian something which was per- 
mitted to the Jew. Note, thirdly, that the Jewish doctors 
generally maintain that the punishment of “an eye for an 
eye, or a tooth for a tooth,” might be redeemed by money, 


* Talmud. Sanhed. cap. 3, Hal. 2. 


or that safisfaction might be made by a pecuniary mulet ; 
Josephus* is express, that “the law allowed him that was 
hurt to estimate his own damage, and that if he would not 
take a pecuniary satisfaction, he was deemed severe or cruel.” 
Hence the Targum of Jonathan renders the words thus, “The 
price of an eye for an eye, the price of a tooth for a tooth,” 
&c. both in Exod. xxi. 24, in Lev. xxiv. 20, and in Deut. 
xix. 21. All these, say the Hebrew doctors (except life for 
life), “may be redeemed by money ;” and this they gather 
from Numb. xxxv. 31, “ Ye shall take no satisfaction for the 
life of a murderer ;” so that the other maims or hurts are not 
forbidden to be satisfied for: and in respect of satisfaction, 
it is said, Deut. xix. 21, “ Thine eye shall not pity” (Maim. 
Treat. of Hurts, cap. i. sect. 3,4). So of the Roman law 
of the twelve tables, A. Gelliust asks what cruelty is in it, 
cum habeas facultatem paciscendi, “ when liberty is granted 
tocompound the matter, and there is no necessity of suffer- 
ing the law, where men do not choose to do 501 And 
this seems very reasonable in many cases, there being some 
cases in which the law of tadio is impossible—as, if he that 
has lost his own teeth should strike out the teeth of another ; 
some, in which it seems impracticable, as in “breach for 
breach, wound for wound ;” for how difficult is it to make 
a wound neither deeper nor wider than that the other hath 
received ; to break a bone, or make a rupture in the scro- 
tum, or elsewhere, just like another made already: and 
sometimes it seems unmerciful to do it, as in the case men- 
tioned by Diodorus Siculus,¢ and by Aristotle, Rhetor. lib. 
i. cap. 7, of the man with one eye; for would it not seem 
unmerciful to make him stark blind, because he hath casu- 
ally, or in a sudden fit of anger, struck out his brother's 
eye; or tocut off the right hand of a painter ora scrivener, 
by which he maintains himself and family, because he hath 
cut off the right hand of a songster, or one who suffers little 
in his calling by the loss? Lastly, I cannot think that God 
allowed this to be done by the damaged person out of revenge, 
he having so expressly said (Lev. xix. eee Thou shalt not 
avenge, or bear any grudge against the children of thy peo- 
ple;” nor as a remedy of his grief, it being an unreasonable 
and ill-natured thing to desire to ease my grief by causing 
grief to another, nor will either my pain or loss be less, be- 
cause another suffers the like pain or loss : this therefore only 
seemeth to be granted as it tends to the public good, by 
causing men to be more careful how they offend in this kind. 

Secondly, That which Christ here forbids, in opposition 
to what has been granted to the person injured by this law, 
is ἀντιστῆναι, “to resist” evil in kind, by requiring the exe- 
cution of this law of retaliation upon him; as being that 
which tended not to the diminution of the Christian’s pain 
or loss, and therefore seemed not suitable to Christian cha- 
rity. (2.) In matters easy to be borne, rather to suffer 
them with Christian patience, than to contend before a 
judge about them, or to require compensation of him for 
them. For it is to be noted, 

(1.) That the “striking” of a freeman “on the cheek” 
with open palm, was only matter of disgrace ; and he that 
did it was, by the law of the twelve tables,§ to pay twenty- 


*'O πηρώσας πασχέτω τὰ ὅμοια, στερομένος οὗ τὸν ἄλλον ἐστέρησε, 
πλήν εἰ pire χρήματα λαβεῖν ἐδέλησεν ὃ πεπηρωμένος, αὐτὸν πεπον- 
ϑότα κύριον τοῦ νύμου ποιοῦντος τιμήσασθαι τὸ συμβεβηκὸς αὐτῷ 
πένθος καὶ συγχωροῦντος, εἰ μὴ βοῦληται γίνεσϑαι πικρότερος. Antiq. 
lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 128, C. 

+ A. Gell. lib. xx. cap. 1. + Lib. xii. p. 298. 

§ Lucius Peratius pro delectamento habebat os hominis 
liberi mantis sue palma verberare et quemcunque depalma- 

| verat, ei numerari secundtim duodecim Tabellas quinque 
| et viginti asses jubebat. A. Gell. lib. xx. cap. 1. 


64 MATTHEW. 


(i. e. oppose not violence to violence): but whosoever 
shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the 
other also (ἡ. 6. bear rather that disgrace redoubled pa- 
tiently, than give him stroke for stroke). 

40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and 
take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also (7. e. 
suffer one small and reparable wrong after another, rather 
than contend by law with him). 


41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, 
go with him twain, (rather than maintain thy liberty by 
forcibly opposing his compulsion). 

42 (And if men do not use force, but only ask, or de- 
sire to borrow of thee), 1 give to him that asketh of thee 
(what thou hast to spare), and from him that would bor- 
row of thee turn not thou away. 

43 4 3 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou 


five asses, or halfpence; and by the Jewish canons, to pay, 
if he gave one blow upon the cheek, two hundred zuzees ; 
if he gave him another, four hundred; and these mulcts 
were established and inflicted by the judge (see Dr. Light- 
foot). But Christ will rather have both these injuries borne 
patiently, than that his servants should contend before the 
jadge for reparation of the disgrace put upon them. 

(2.) As for the taking the outward coat, that seems but 
asmall loss to him that hath an inward coat remaining: 
for the Baptist requires him that hath “two coats, to give 
to him that hath none” (Luke iii. 11), and Christ suffers 
not his disciples to provide two coats for their journey 
(Matt. χ. 10). Though, therefore, by the Jewish canons, a 
maulet of four hundred zuzees was allowed for this, Christ 
requires those who, being so well provided, may reasonably 
be supposed able to repair the loss of both, to do it rather 
than contend, or wage law for the reparation of his loss be- 
fore a heathen, or a Jewish magistrate: so St. Paul also ; 
«Why do you not rather suffer wrong?” (1 Cor. vi. 7.) 

(3.) If the king’s officer will ἀγγαρεῦειν, “compel or press 
thee,” who hast a privilege or immunity from these aflairs, 
as the Jews thought the disciples of the wise and students of 
the law had; yet, saith Christ, I require my disciples rather 
to waive this privilege, than to contend for this immunity : 
so that, according to this sense, Christ here requires his 
disciples to remit tolerable injuries, relating either to their 
reputation, as in the first instance, or their possessions and 
estates, as in the second, or to their privilege and freedom, 
asin the third, rather than to contend at the law about 
them. If this exposition be not liked, it is observable, that 
κοίνεσϑαι and κρινεῖν is also to contend by fighting, or striv- 
ing with another, or using force to repel the injury. So 
Eccles. vi. 10, «A man cannot, κριϑῆναι, strive or fight with 
one that is stronger than himself” So 2 Mace. xv. 17, 
κρῖναι τὰ πράγματα, is to “try the matter by conflict, or to 
fight it out ;” in which sense Christ may be supposed to 
command, rather that his servants should patiently suffer 
these things, than fight and strive with those who offer 
such aflronts and injuries to them. 

τ Vel. 42. Τῷ αἰτοῦντί ce δίδου, καὶ τὸν ϑέλοντα ἀπό cov 
δανείσασξαι μὴ ἀποστραφῆς, Give ὁ) him that asketh; and 

rom him that would borrow of thee, turn thow not away.) 
Here it is certain, 

(1.) That Christ by saying (Luke vi. 35), “ Give to every 
one that asketh,” doth not require us to give to every one 
that asketh whether he need or not, nor whether we can 
spare it or not, but only to give to him that asketh out of 
need, what we are able to bestow, and do not ourselves 
want: so Paul, by asking the charity of the Corinthians, for 
the distressed Jews, saith, “I mean not that others be eased 
and you burdened, but that your abundance be a supply for 
their want,” 2 Cor. viii. 13, 14, (2.) hese words may have 
respect to the precedent, and be intended to teach Christians, 
not to be unwilling to give to others, because they have dis- 
graced or unjustly taken something from us ; nor to upbraid 
them in their wants, with their deportment towards us, and 
call upon them first to restore what they have taken from 
us, but even to show kindness to them, as if they had not 
thus offended. (3.) I see no reason from changing our 
translation from, “'Turn thou not away,” into « Turn not 
him away ;” for as men, dizocrpepspevor τὴν ἀλήϑειαν (Tit. 1. 14), 
are men “turning away from the truth:” so τὸν ϑέλοντα, 
μὴ ἀποστραφῆς, May be ἀπὸ τοῦ ϑέλοντος μὴ στραφὴς, 
“from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.” 

2 Ver. 43. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou 
shali love thy neighbour, καὶ μισήσεις τὸν ἐχϑρόν cov, and shalt 
hate thine enemy.] Here note, (1.) that these words, “Thou 
shalt hate thine enemy,” are not found in the law of Moses; 
though nothing is more frequent in the Jewish canons, no- 
thing more certain in their practice, than that they had, as 


Tacitus observes, intestinum odium adversus omnes alios, 
“a deadly hatred against all that were not of their religion ;” 
which affords a strong argument, that Christ here is not 
correcting or adding to the moral precepts of the law ; but 
opposing the corrupt interpretations of the scribes and pha- 
risees, of which we have this farther argument, That the 
law expressly doth require this love of enemies and the love 
of strangers in the highest measure, saying (Lev. xix. 18), 
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself ;” and (ver. 34), 


!«'The stranger that sojourneth with you, shall be as one 


home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself 5 
for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Now here it 
cannot be truly answered, as the Jews and some Christians 
do, that the “ neighbour” (ver. 18), is only a Jew, and not 
a stranger ; for both our Saviour and St. Paul, speaking of 
these very words, do plainly show the contrary, as is fully 
proved, note on Matt. xxii. 39. Moreover, every Egyptian 
man and woman isa neighbour (Exod. xi. 2), and so is every 
other man (Deut. xxii. 26). And even Kimchi on Ps. xv. 3, 
saith truly, “A neighbour is every one with whom we have 
any dealing or conversation ;” and so also the word “ neigh- 
bour’” must signify in the tenth commandment, if it do not 
leave the Israelite free to covet the wife of the gentile. Nor 
(2.) can it be truly said, the “stranger” mentioned ver. 34, 
is only a proselyte of justice, or one who had obliged himself 
to observe the law of Moses. For (1.) the text speaks of 
such strangers as they themselves were in the land of Egypt, 
where they were strangers of a different religion from the 
Egyptians: so again (Deut. x. 18, 19), “God loveth the 
stranger in giving him food and raiment ; love ye therefore 
the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt:” 
which words afford another argument for the love of all 
strangers permitted to be among them, though they were 
not of their religion; because in this affection they were to 
imitate God’s love to strangers, which extended not only to 
those of their religion, but even to all that conversed with 
them, “in giving food and raiment to them’ (see xxiv. 22). 

Obj. It is objected, That God’s commands concern the 
seven nations, that they should “utterly overthrow them” 
(Exod. xxiii. 24); that they should “smite them, and ut- 
terly destroy them ;” that they should “ made no covenant 
with them, nor show mercy to them” (Deut. vii. 2). That 
of the Ammonite and Moabite it is said, “Thou shalt not 
seek their peace, nor their prosperity, all thy days for ever” 
(Deut. xxiii. 6); and of the Amalekites, «Thou shalt blot 
out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou 
shalt not forget it’ (Deut. xxv. 19). Habemus ergo hostes, 
habemus et odium; “Here we find the enemies, and the 
hatred,” saith Grotius. 

Ans. Here is indeed an instance of God’s hatred of, and 
severe displeasure against, these nations, whom he com~- 
manded them thus to root out and destroy, without that 
mercy and pity which might preserve them from that de- 
struction he had decreed against them for their abominable 
impurities and idolatries; but here is no instance of a com- 
mand given to the Jews to hate them. For, 

First, It is observable, that the war waged against them 
is called the “Lord’s war,’ and he promiseth to destroy 
them ; and their neglect of doing it, even to aman, is styled 
“disobedience against the Lord.’ This is extremely evi- 
dent in the case of the Amalekites, God having said, he 
would “utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek, for 
ever,” and sworn, “he would have war with Amalek, from 
generation to generation” (Exod. xvii. 14. 16). Accord- 
ingly, when the Lord sent Saul to smite Amalek and ut- 
terly destroy them, and “spare them not, but slay both man 
and woman, infant and suckling” (1 Sam. xv. 3), it was no 
argument of Saul’s hatred to them that he went to execute 
this command of the Lord, but an act of disobedience that 
he spared Agag, and the best of the sheep. And in like 


CHAPTER VI. 65 


love thy neighbour, and (this by the scribes and phari- 
sees t3 interpreted as a permission to) hate thine enemy. 
44 5 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless 
them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, 
and pray for them which despitefully use you, and per- 
secute you (i. 6. be kindly affected towards your enemies, 
and ready to do good to them for evil, and the good you 
cannot do yourselves, pray that God would do for them) ; 
45 That (so) ye may (appear to) be the children of 
your Father which is in heaven (by your likeness to him): 
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the 
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 


46 For if ye (restrain your) love (to) them (only) 
which love you, what reward have ye? (i. e. what rea- 
son to expect any reward from God for so doing ? for) do 
not even the publicans (whom you look upon as men de- 
serted by God, do) the same? 

47 And if ye salute (or kindly treat) your brethren 
only, what do ye more than others? do not even the 
publicans so (also) 3 

48 Be ye therefore perfect (in your charily and 
mercy to others), even as your Father which is in hea- 
ven is perfect (and then your eminent good works will 
eminently be rewarded by him). 


manner the war against the seven nations was the “ Lord’s 
war ;”’ and the Israelites which fought against them were 
the “ Lord’s hosts” (Josh. v. 14) ; and the destruction of 
them he ascribes to himself, saying, “I will destroy all the 
people to whom thou shalt come” (Exod. xxiii. 27). “I 
drive out before thee the Amorite” (Exod. xxxiv. 11, see 
Deut. vii. 12). So that the Jews were only the executioners 
of God’s vengeance upon these nations for their abominable 
idolatries, beastly lusts, and horrid cruelties; and sure an 
executioner may do according to the sentence of the judge, 
without hatred of those he executes; nor is it any sign of 
hatred to them that he spares not them of whom the judge 
hath said, “Thou shalt not spare them.” Moreover, the 
reason given why they should not “show mercy” to them 
in sparing their lives, being this (Deut. vii. 4), “For they 
will turn away thy son from following me, that they may 
serve other gods ; so will the anger of the Lord be kindled 
against you, and destroy thee suddenly.” This sparing 
mercy towards them would have been not only disobedience 
to God’s commands, but also cruelty to themselves and 
their posterity ; and so it proved in the issue. And, lastly, 
whereas it is said of the Ammonite and Moabite, “ Thou 
shalt not seek their peace, nor their prosperity, all thy days 
for ever ;” the import of these words is this, saith Grotius, 
Thou shalt not do it by entering into leagues of friendship, 
mutual assistance, and conjugal society, with them, and that 
by reason of the danger they might suffer by their friendship 
with them, who, being their near neighbours, would watch 
all opportunities to ensnare and disturb them. This pre- 
cept therefore was to be observed, not so much out of hatred 
or ill-will to them, as out of friendship to themselves, and 
regard to their own good. 

9 Ver. 44. ᾿Εγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν, ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν, 
But Isay io you, Love your enemies, &c.} ΤῸ thisrestrained 
affection of the Jews, to their own brethren, and men of 
their religion, Christ here opposeth his excellent precept of 
loving enemies. And that (1.) by showing a sincere affec- 
tion and good-will to them who bear enmity or ill-will to us, 
and by expressing our beneficence to them who, by their 
actions, show their hatred to us; and in our works, by 
doing good to them for evil ; and in our words, by blessing 
them who with their mouths curse us; and praying for 
God's blessing upon them who revile and persecute us as 
his enemies. And this affection he recommends to us, 

First, From the plain absurdity of the Jewish doctrine, 
which made them no better in this respect than those sin- 


ners, publicans, and heathens, whom they allowed them- 
selves to hate. For, “if you only love them who love you, 
what reward have you? Do not even the publicans the 
same, even sinners ?”’ saith St. Luke, vi. 36, “ If you salute 
your brethren only, what excellent thing do you? Do not 
even the publicans,” or, as some copies have it, “ heathens, 
so?” Which words being so directly levelled against that 
hatred the Jews allowed themselves to these three sorts of 
men, shows that the foregoing words, “Thou shalt hate 
thine enemy,’ are not to be restrained to the seven na- 
tions. 

Secondly, That they who boasted of this as their proper 
title and their peculiar glory, that they were “the sons of 
God,” might show they really were so, by their resemblance 
of his goodness, who is “ kind to the unthankful and to the 
wicked” (Luke vi. 36). For, “he maketh his sun to rise 
on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and 
on the unjust” (ver. 45). So Seneca, Si Deos imitaris, da 
et ingratis beneficia, nam et sceleratis sol oritur; “If thou 
wouldest imitate the gods, be kind to the unthankful, for 
the sun rises on the wicked” (De Benef. lib. v. cap. 25). 
«“ The immortal gods,” saith Antoninus, “ not only patiently 
bear with the wicked men, but also κήδονται αὐτῶν παντοίως, 
take all manner of care of them; and shalt thou, a mortal 
man, be weary of bearing with them, καὶ ταῦτα, εἷς ὧν τῶν 
φαυλῶν, when thou art one of them?” Lib. vii. §. 70 (see 
Gataker in Anton. p. 291. 316. 331). 

Thirdly, That this will render us complete in this great 
duty of love and mercy to others; ver. 48, “ Be ye (in this) 
perfect, as you heavenly Father is perfect.” That this 
command is thus to be restrained, we learn (1.) from the 
parallel words, Luke vi. 36, “Be ye therefore merciful, as 
your heavenly Father is merciful ;” and (2.) from the pre- 
ceding words, which call not on us to resemble God in ho- 
liness, justice, fidelity, but only in beneficence and mercy, 
as well to the evil as the good: so that there is no reason 
to extend this perfection here beyond the subject matter, 
though it be true, that in all other perfections in which we 
are required to imitate him, we are to come as near unto 
him as we can, truly resembling that pattern, which we 
cannot, nor by this precept are obliged to, equal; for imi- 
tatio stat citra exemplar, “imitation falls below the pat- 
tern” (see here Examen Milli). 


[See the appendix to this chapter at the end of this 
gospel.] 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 ! Taxe heed that ye do not your alms before men, 
to be seen of them: otherwise (ἐγ that be your induce- 
ment to perform them) ye have no reward of your 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 

1 Ver. 1. Προσέχετε τὴν ἐλεημοσύνην ὑμῶν μὴ ποιεῖν ἔμπροσθεν 
τῶν ἀνθρώπων, πρὸς τὸ θεαθῆναι αὐτοῖς. Take heed that ye do 
not your alms before men, to be seen of them, &c.] Christ 
in this chapter teacheth, that those works, which are other- 
wise good in themselves, are not acceptable to God when 
they are done out of vain-glory ; because they are done, not 
for God’s sake, but for our own: not with respect to his glory, 

Vou. IV.—9 


Father which is in heaven (because then you do alms, 
not out of obedience to his commands, or in resemblance 
to his goodness, but rather from vain-glory). 


which ought to be the chief end of every action (1 Cor 
x. 31, 1 Pet. iv. 11), but that we may obtain glory from, 
and favour with, men. But here note, 

First, That Christ doth not forbid us to perform those 
works of charity, which, being in their nature public, tend to 
procure respect and good reputation among men, since they 
fall under the general precepts of “ providing τὰ καλὰ things 
honourable in the sight of all men” (Rom. xii. 17), and 
approved of men (xiv. 18), and of « thinking of those things 

F2 


66 


2 Therefore when thou doest tine alms, do not 
sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do 
(proclaiming their actions) in the synagogues and in 
the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily 
I say unto you,? They have their reward (¢. e. that 
applause of men they seek for, and no more). 

3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand 
know what thy right hand doeth: (but do them so) 

4 That thine alms may be in secret: and (then) thy 
8 Father which seeth in secret (the sincerity of thy love 
to others for his sake) himself shall reward thee openly 
(before men and angels). 


which are good, virtuous, lovely, honourable, of good report, 
and are praiseworthy” (Phil. iv. 8), and which St. Paul, in 
the distribution of the Corinthians’ alms attended to (2 Cor. 
viii. 21), provided these things be done, not chiefly because 
they are “commendable in the sight of men, but,” because 
they are “acceptable to God” (Rom. xiv. 18) ; not that they 
may gain glory fo ws, but to God, and our redigion (1 Pet. 11. 
12), and remove all occasions of bringing any scandal on it 
ie ii. 8, 1 Pet. iti. 16). Nor, secondly, doth he absolutely 
orbid us to do these things, that men may see them, pro- 
vided we desire not they may be seen from ostentation or 
vain-glory ; but that men “seeing our good works, may glo- 
rify our Father which is in heaven” (vy. 16, 1 Pet. ii. 9). 
Nor, thirdly, doth Christ forbid us to do these things, so that 
others seeing us, may profit by our example, and be excited 
to good works, or so as to seek a good reputation among 
men, provided we desire it, only for the public good, that we 
may be more instrumental to promote God’s glory, and that 
others may more freely hearken to our good admonitions ; 
for in these cases we do not properly intend our own ad- 
vantage, but God’s glory, the welfare of souls, and the public 
good; nor have we our own praise and glory, but those 
higher ends, for the scope of all such actions. Moreover, 
it being not apparent from any of their writings, that it 
was customary with the Jews to “sound a trumpet” when 
they distributed their alms; this seems only a proverbial 
expression, for making a thing known or public, as both 
Jews and heathens were used to do by the sound of a 
trumpet, calling the multitude together, saith Phavorinus, 
by it, using it in their triumphs, and before they began to 
act their tragedies or comedies (see Examen Milli here). 

2 Ver. 2. ᾿Αμὴν λέγῳ ὑμῖν ἀπέχουσι τὸν pecSdv αὑτῶν, Verily, 
I say unto you, They have their reward.) It is the observa- 
tion of the Jews, that “God punishes all the light evil deeds 
of good men in this life, that he may reward them in the 
next, and that he rewards all the good actions of bad men in 
this life, that he may punish them in the next.” He often 
gives them the outward things they set their hearts upon; 
sensual pleasures, wealth, honour, and glory, with men, and 
thus “they have their good things’’ and their “ reward” in 
this life; and this is very truly and very equitably so. For 
these things, which can only be enjoyed in the body, and 
during this present life, are the things they chiefly prize, have 
their desires and affections set upon, and most industriously 
pursue, comparatively despising the things above, and ne- 
glecting their future interests, and so they very properly are 
styled “their good things,’ Luke xvi. 25. And happiness 
being the general end of all men, they who thus chiefly 
prize, and above all other things pursue, these sensual plea- 
sures, honours, and enjoyments, must chiefly place their 
happiness in them, and look upon them as the most com- 
fortable, most satisfactory, and most desirable, reward of all 
their labours, and so in the enjoyment of them “ they have 
their reward.” They therefore cannot charge God with 
hardships to them, they having done no good thing for which 
he hath not rewarded them according to their hearts’ desire. 
He hath given them the good they chose for their portion, 
and made them as happy as they would be; he hath given 
them the things they above all things loved and delighted 
in, and in which they placed their chief happiness, and 
only lets them want the things which they despised, as not 
worth their labour; which, being offered upon reasonable 
terms, they scornfully neglected and refused; and of which, 
by this refusal and neglect, they have rendered themselves 
both unworthy and incapable. 


MATTHEW. 


5 ¥ And (dikewise) when thou prayest, thou shalt 
not be 4 as the hypocrites are (doing this out of vain os- 
tentation) : for they love to pray standing in the syna- 
gogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may 
be seen of men (and be deemed devout persons by them). 
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 

6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, 
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
which is in secret (and invisible, both in his nature and 
operations) ; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall 
reward thee openly. 

7 But when ye pray, 5 use not vain repetitions (or 


5 Ver. 4. Αὐτὸς ἀποδώσει σοι ἐν τῷ φανερῷ, And thy Father, 
who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.] "Though it 
be true which Grotius here observes, that God doth often 
visibly reward the sincere charity of pious persons, per- 
formed from true love to him, with temporal blessings in 
this life, yet will he chiefly do it in the sight of men and 
angels in the world to come (Matt. xxv. 35, Luke xiv. 14), 
And it is observable, that the very thing we are forbid to 
seek from men on earth, is part of that reward we shall re- 
ceive at that great day, when our faith and charity shall 
be found to “ our praise, honour, and glory” (1 Pet. i. 7) ; 
and that good men, by patient continuance in well-doing, 
are said to seek for “glory” and “honour,” as well as 
“immortality,” Rom. 11. 7, and have the promise of it, ver. 
10 (see Examen Millii here). 

4 Ver. 5. Kai ὅταν xpoceixn, οὐκ ἔσῃ ὥσπερ of Sroxpirat, ὅτι 
φιλοῦσιν. And when thow prayest, thow shalt not be as the 
hypocrites : who love to pray standing in the synagogues 
and in the corners of the streets.| Christ doth not here 
condemn all prayer made in the synagogues, seeing both 
he and his disciples often prayed with the Jews in the 
synagogues (Luke iv. 16), nor any public devotions in the 
house of God ; but speaking only here of private prayer, he 
would have that performed agreeably to the nature of it, and 
so in secret; and condemns them only who affected to do 
this in public places, that others might take notice of them, 
and look upon them as devout, religious persons for so doing. 

5 Ver. 7. Προσευχύμενοι δὲ μὴ βαττολογήσητε, ὥσπερ of ἐθνικοι" 
δοκοῦσι γὰρ ὅτι ἐν rH πολυλογίᾳ αὑτῶν εἰσακουσθήσονται. But 
when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathens do: 
Sor they think they shall be heard for their much speaking.) 
What we here render “vain repetitions,” is, in the Greek, 
battology ; which seems not well rendered by Chrysostom 
and Theophylact, φλυαρία, “trifling, in asking little tempo- 
ral things ;” nor by Hesychius or Phavorinus, ἀλογολογία, 
ἀκαιρολογία, “speaking vainly and unseasonably ;” but is 
well rendered by Suidas, πολυλογία, “much speaking ;” for 
(1.) our Lord seems plainly thus to explain himself, “ use 
not the battology of the heathens, who think to be heard 
for their much speaking :’’ (2.) so doth the Arabic, “ mul- 
tiply not words ;” so the Vulgar, nolite multim loqui, “do 
not speak much:” and (3.) this is agreeable to the like 
precept of the preacher, Eccles. v. 2, “God is in heaven, 
thou on earth, therefore let thy words be few ;” and of the 
son of Sirach (vii. 14), μὴ δευτερώσῃς λόγων ἐν προσευχῇ cov, 
“ Multiply not words in thy prayer:” and (4.) this seems 
to follow from the short form of prayer prescribed, in op- 
position to this heathen practice, and introduced with an 
οὕτως οὖν, “so therefore pray ye.” But still it remaineth 
difficult to give a determinate sense to this “much speak- 
ing,” and say precisely when this δευτέρωσις, or “ repetition 
of the same words,” is vain. For, 

First, We cannot reasonably conceive our Saviour here 
condemns all repetition of the same words in prayer ; espe- 
cially when it arises from a deep sense of our necessities, 
and a vehement desire of divine grace. For he himself 
prayed thrice, in the same words, to be delivered from the 
bitter cup. It is also highly probable that, as David com- 
posed it by the Spirit of God, so Christ sung the hymn called 
hallel magnum, beginning at Ps. exv. and ending at Ps. 
exviii. where in the first four verses the same words frequently 
occur. It was also usual for prophets, and men of excellent 
and raised devotion, to use the same words in the same 
prayer; so doth Daniel, ch. ix. saying, ver. 5, « We have 
sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done 


CHAPTER VI. 67 


words { the same import, lo lengthen out your prayers), 
as the heathen do. for they think that they shall be 
heard for their much speaking. 

8 ® Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your 
Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before 


wickedly, and have rebelled; ver. 17, “O our God, hear 
the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications;” ver. 18, 
«Ὁ my God, incline thine ear, and hear;’’ and ver. 19, “Ὁ 
Lord, hear; O Lord, hearken.” How oft doth the royal 
psalmist say (Ps. exix.), “Teach me, Ὁ Lord, thy statutes, 
ordinances, commandments, judgments, the way of thy 
statutes?’ In Ps. evil. we have four times these words, 
“Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness” 
(ver. 8. 15, 21. 31), and in Ps. cxxxvi. the same words are 
repeated twenty-six times. 

This repetition, therefore, can only be accounted vain, 
when it is not requisite to heighten the devotion, or when 
it is used, as the heathens did, to lengthen out devotion, or 
as the comedians have it, Deorum aures contundere, “ to 
stun the ears of the gods,” as if we thought they could not 
hear or understand, nisi idem dictum sit centies, “ unless 
we say the same thing over and over;” and this seems to 
have been the design of the Baalites, in crying out from 
morning to noon, “Ὁ Baal, hear us” (1 Kings xviii. 26). 

Secondly, It also seems not agreeable to scripture, or 
reason, to assert that all long prayers are forbidden by these 
words of Christ; though many things which make them so 
may be here by analogy forbidden, as coming under the 
reason of the prohibition ; I say, all prayers continued to a 
considerable length seem not forbidden; for the prayer of 
Solomon at the dedication of the temple was such, and so 
is that in Neh. ix. where we are also told “ that they con- 
fessed and worshipped for three hours.” In the New Tes- 
tament (to omit the example of our Lord, who, according 
to our version, “continued all night in prayer,” as not con- 
clusive, because it may be rendered, he “continued all night 
in a synagogue, or house devoted to the service of God;” 
see the note on Luke vi. 12, and yet not wholly impertinent, 
because Matt, xiv. 23, Luke vi. 12, he went up thither “to 
pray,” and therefore may be reasonably supposed to have 
spent much of that time in that duty) we find the church 
thus praying for the deliverance of St. Peter; for as the 
prayer itself is styled προσευχὴ ἐκτενὴς, “prayer extended”’ to 
a considerable length; so when St. Peter came to the 
house, he found them still “praying” (Acts xii. 5. 12). 
We also find St. Paul “ praying night and day,” and that 
ὑπὲρ ἐκπερισσοῦ, “more abundantly,” that he might see his 
Thessalonians (1 Thess. iii. 10); and also praying and 
giving thanks, and making mention of other churches in 
his prayers “incessantly” (Rom. i.9, 1 Cor. i. 4, Eph. i. 16, 
Phil.i.4, Col.i. 3, 1 Thess. i. 2, ii, 13, 2 Tim.i. 3), which 
sure must render his supplications of a considerable length. 
And, thirdly, he requires these churches xpocxaprepeiv, to 
“continue instant in prayer,” Rom. xii. 12, to “ pray always 
with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, ἀγρυπνοῦντες, 
watching thereunto with all perseverance, and supplication 
for all saints,’ Eph. vi. 18, to continue “in prayer, ypnyo- 
podvres, watching in the same with thanksgiving,” Col. iv. 2, 
to “ pray without ceasing,” 1 Thess. v. 17, and makes it the 
duty of the widow (after the example of St. Ann, Luke ii. 
37), προσμένειν, to “continue in prayers and supplications 
night and day,” 1 Tim. v.5; which precepts seem plainly to 
suppose their prayers should sometimes be extended to a 
considerable length; and therefore that he did not think 
that length was inconsistent with the injunction here de- 
livered by our Lord. But then positively (first) these words 
seem plainly to condemn prayers lengthened out upon this 
apprehension, that we shall be the sooner “heard for our 
much speaking ;” because this is the very thing in which we 
are forbidden to be like the heathens; and yet this seems te 
have been also the misapprehension of the Jewish doctors, 
when they lay down these rules,* “That every one that 
multiplies prayer shall be heard,” and that the “ prayer which 
is long shall not return empty.” And (secondly) all that 
much speaking must be vain, by which we hope with our 
fair speeches to incline, or by our arguments to move, or by 


* Buxtorf, Flor. p. 281. 


ye ask him (and is still ready to grant the desires which 
come from a sincere and honest heart ; so that he needs 
neither your words to inform, nor your persuasives to 
move, him; and so your requests to him may be absolved 
in few words). 


pathetical entreaties to persuade, God to grant us our re- 
quests, whilst we continue in our sins, and so are indisposed 
to receive a gracious answer from him. And indeed, what 
is it to attempt to move him by arguments, but to think to 
move him by something he doth not know, or hath not 
considered already? What is it to assay to incline him by 
fair speeches, and by importunity, but to look upon him 
rather as a man, that changeth without cause, than as an un- 
changeable God, who cannot vary from the just methods of 
his government, to gratify the importunity of his creatures ? 
And yet experience shows, that when men have thus flat- 
tered and importuned God with their lips, they are apt to 
think that he on this account will hear them, and that what 
is thus prevalent with men cannot be lost when tendered to 
a gracious God. And (thirdly) the form and exemplar given 
us being so short and concise in its addresses for the ad- 
vancement of God’s honour, and of his kingdom, and our 
obedience to his will, for pardon of sin, and preservation 
from it; that we in it only request in general terms things 
of so vast importance, leaving the distinct matter, and man- 
ner, and measure, according to which they should be dis- 
posed, to the wisdom and goodness of God; I say, this form 
seems to instruct us, that in our daily and customary ad- 
dresses to God for the same blessings which we daily want, 
we should use words as comprehensive, general, and free from 
needless repetitions as we can, and then of necessity our 
prayers must be concise, and our words few and well digested. 

6 Ver. 8. Be not ye therefore like unto them, οἷδε yap ὁ 
πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὧν χρείαν ἔχετε, for your Father knoweth what 
things ye have need of before ye ask.) If this argument 
against speaking much be good, said some heretics* of old, 
“why should we pray at all, seeing God knoweth all our 
wants before we pray?” ΤῸ this St. Jerome answers, that 
“we do not pray to declare our wants, but supplicate for 
the relief of them:’’ and we may ask any thing of him, who 
doth already know we want it; and if we know he is kind, 
and ready to supply our wants, may therefore ask with 
greater confidence. Origent answers, that “he who knows 
all our needs before we ask, knows also that it becomes not 
him to give what we do want, who do not think it worth 
their while to ask what they do want, and he alone can 
give;” because by this neglect they do not own him as the 
donor of the things they want. But, though this may suffice 
to answer this objection of the heretics, for the due under- 
standing of this text it may be necessary to add, (1.) that 
this being offered as a reason why we should not be like the 
heathens in speaking much in prayer to God, seems only to 
import we should not do it on the accounts on which they 
did it; viz. as questioning God’s omniscience, and therefore 
speaking thus to impart to him what he did not know, or to 
inculcate what he might not presently attend to, or suggest 
again what he had forgotten. For (1.) Cicero; himself 
denies God's omniscience, declaring that “he did not think 
that God himself could know things casual and fortuitous.” 
(2.) They thought it not fit to allow of a God “so curious 
as to attend all things, to take care of all things, or to think 
all things belonged to him.”’§ And they thought it as well 
impossible as insufferable in the God of the Christians, that 
he should «diligently inspect the manners, actions, words, 


* Si Deus, antequam oramus, scit quibus indigeamus, 
frustra scienti loguimur. Hieron. in locum. Τίς οὖν χρεία 
ἀναπέμπεσθαι εὐχὴν τῷ καὶ πρὶν εὔξεσθαι ἐπισταμένῳ ὧν χρήζομεν. 
Orig. περὶ Εὐχῆς, p. 15. 

+ Ibid. p. 22. 

+ Mihi ne in Deum cadere videatur, ut sciat quid casi 
aut fortuito futurum sit. De Divin. N.12—14. 

§ Imposuistis cervicibus nostris sempiternum Dominum, 
quem dies et noctes, timeamus, quis enim non timeat om- 
nia providentem, et cogitantem, et animadvertentem, et 
omnia ad se pertinere putantem, curiosum et plenum ne- 
gotii Deum. Cicero de Nat. Deorum, lib. i. n. 39, et Acad. 
Qu. lib. ii. 11, 112. 


68 


MATTHEW. 


9 7 After this manner therefore pray ye: (saying, | when ye pray, Luke xi. 2), § Our Father which art in 


and secret thoughts of all men, and be every where present 
with them.”* Nor is it to be wondered that they should 
have such apprehensions of many of the gods they wor- 
shipped, when they had so many of them, their celestial, 
aerial, and terrestrial gods; their profitable and hurtful, 
their universal and topical gods; their gods eternal by na- 
ture, and their gods born and made of mortal men; and 
made it the business not of the swpreme God, but of their 
demons, genii, and heroes, to receive all their prayers and 
return answers to them. But, 

2.) By comparing these words with ver. 30, where we 
are forbidden to be anxious about what we shall “eat or 
drink, or wherewithal we shall be clothed, for after all 
these things do the gentiles seek ; and your heavenly Father 
knoweth you have need of all these things :” it may be con- 
jectured, that these words also do refer to the same matter, 
to wit, the heathens’ solicitude about, and their continual 
teazing of the gods in long harangues for, these things. 
This being, in the opinion of the Greek fathers,t the “bat- 
tology,” and much speaking here reproved in the heathens 
by our Lord, to wit, the being thus ardent in their desires 
after little and earthly things. And then this will be suit- 
able both to the philosophy of Plato,t who commends the 
short prayer of the Lacedemonians, who were never heard 
to say more than this, τὰ καλὰ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἀγαϑοῖς ϑεοὺς διδόναι, 
“that the gods would give them things good and honour- 
able;” which prayer, saith he, the oracle preferred before 
the long addresses and pompous sacrifices of the Athenians, 
who quarrelled with the gods because they were not 
heard for their “much speaking;” and adds, that tem- 
poral things were not positively to be asked, because no 
man knew whether he should use them ill or well, and so 
whether they would be good or hurtful to him; and to the 
opinion and practice of Socrates,§ who prayed to the gods, 
saith Xenophon,|| ἁπλῶς τὰ ἀγαϑὰ διδόναι, only to give him 
good things in the general, leaving the particulars to them 
who knew best what was good for him, and disapproved of 
them who prayed for gold, silver, and for government, as 
being things which might be as well hurtful to, as good for, 
them: and more suitable to the Christian theology, which 
allows us to ask these things only conditionally, with sub- 
ordination to the divine will, and if his wisdom sees they 
will be good for us; and according to the ancients, not to 
pray for them at all, as knowing that as far as they are 
good, they shall be added to them who “seek first the king- 
dom of God and the righteousness thereof ;” to which pur- 
pose they often cite a passage from this chapter, not at 
present to be found in it, viz. “ Ask great things, and little 
things shall be added unto you.” 

7 Ver. 9. Οὕτως οὖν προσεύχεσϑε ὑμεῖς, So therefore pray ye.] 
Here observe thatthe word οὕτως hinders not this from being 
a command to utter the same words, as is apparent from 
these words of St. Luke, xi. 2, « When ye pray, say, Our 
Father ;” for the same word is used where a form of words 
is certainly prescribed: thus in the form prescribed for the 
Aaronical benedictions, οὕτως εὐλογήσετε, “50 shall ye bless,” 
saying the words following (Numb. vi. 23) ; and when God 
put a word into the mouth of Balaam, which he should 


* Christiani Deum illum suum confingunt in omnium 
mores, actus, omnium verba denique, et occultas cogita- 
tiones diligentér inquirere, discurrentem scilicet, atque ubi- 
que presentem molestum illum yolunt, inquietum, impu- 
dentér etiam curiosum, siquidem adstat factis omnibus, 
Jovis omnibus interest, cam nec singulis inservire potest 
per universa districtus, nee universis sufficere, in singulis 
occupatus. Cecil. apud Minut. p. 10. 

Ἷ Βαττολογοῦσι yap κατὰ τὴν λέξιν τοῦ εὐαγγελίου μόνοι ot 
ἐϑνικοὶ, οὐδὲ φαντασίαν μεγάλων ἔχοντες ἤ ἐπουρανίων αἱτημάτων, 
Orig. 
περὶ Eixiis, p» 63. O8 βαττολογητέον οὖν, οὐδὲ μικρὰ airnréov, 
Ibid. p. 25, Chrysostom. et 


πᾶσαν εὐχὴν τῶν σωματικῶν Kal τῶν ἐκτὸς ἀναπέμποντες. 


οὐδὲ περὶ ἐπιγείων προσευκτέον. 
Theophylact. in locum. 
+ Alcib. 2, p. 458, B, C. 
§ Ibid. p. 453. || Memorab. lib. i. 571. 
4 Αἰτεῖσϑε, φησὶ, τὰ μεγάλα, καὶ τὰ μικρὰ ὑμῖν προστεθήσεται. 


Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 346, B. Orig. περὶ Εὐχῆςν p. 54. 


speak to Balak, God saith to him, οὕτως λαλήσεις, “so shalt 
thou speak,” which is the same with ra δὲ λαλήσεις, “ these 
words thou shalt speak” (Numb. xxiii. 5.16). So in God’s 
words directed to the prophets, οὕτως λέγει 6 Κύριος, “Thus 
saith the Lord,” Isa. viii. 11, xxviii. 16, xxx. 15, xxxvii. 
33, ΧΙ], 5, xliii. 1. 14. 16, lil. 4, Ixv. 8, Ixvi. 1, is the same 
with τάδε λέγει 6 Κύριος, “ These things saith the Lord,” Isa. 
xxx. 12, xxxvii. 21, lii. 3, Ivii. 15, Ixv. 13, Ixvi. 12, and so 
in the other prophets. And had not Christ intended this, 
he would not have given his disciples a form of prayer, but 
the heads only of the things they were to pray for. Se- 
condly, The disciples request him to teach them so to pray, 
“as John had taught his disciples” (Luke xi.1). Now it 
is highly probable that John taught his disciples to pray 
as the Jewish masters taught their scholars, by giving 
them a form called kaddish magistrorum, from which they 
used not to vary. But though this be admitted, yet it is 
still disputed whether this form were only given by Christ 
to his disciples, to be used whilst they were infirm and 
weak, and before the Holy Spirit fell down upon them, 
and was plentifully effused upon the church, or whether it 
were given as a standing form to be used by Christ’s dis- 
ciples, or by all Christians throughout all ages of the church, 
as by the practice of the church, at least from the third cen- 
tury, they seem to have been conceived. Two reasons are 
alleged to the contrary; viz. 

First, That though we read in the Acts of the Apostles, 
of prayers made by the church, or by particular members 
of it, yet we find not any intimation that they ever used 
this form of prayer. We read that they prayed (Acts i. 24) 
that God would show them whether Joseph or Matthias 
was to be chosen in the place of Judas (Acts ii. 42) ; 
that those who were converted continued in the doctrine 
and fellowship of the apostles, and in breaking of bread 
and in prayers (Acts ix. 24. 30). So we find the whole 
church praying that God would enable them to “speak the 
word with boldness, and would stretch out his hand to 
heal, and to show signs and wonders through the name of 
his holy child Jesus” (see vi. 6, viii. 15, xii. 5, xiii. 3, xx. 36), 
But in none of these places have we the least intimation 
that they ever used the Lord’s prayer. In the martyrology 
of Polycarp is inserted a large prayer made by him after his 
condemnation; but it concludes not with this form, but 
with the usual form of our collects. 

Secondly, Because the second petition in this prayer 
being this, “thy kingdom come,” they do not think it rea- 
sonable to continue a petition for that which is come 
already ; God’s kingdem being come, and erected from the 
time that our Saviour ascended into heaven, and sat down 
at the right hand of glory. To this latter argument I shall 
give a full answer when I come to that petition. 

To the first objectiun, an answer may be returned froma 
known rule, that “a negative argument is of no validity ;” 
indeed in matters of doctrine the argument is always good ; 
we read of no such doctrine in the scriptures, therefore it 
neither is nor can be any article of faith, because we have 
no other rule of faith besides the holy scriptures; but 
then in matters of practice this rule will not hold good, the 
sacred penmen being under an obligation to deliver the 
whole rule of faith, but under no obligation to give us a 
full history of all that the apostles did: we never read that 
the apostles prayed, or were baptized before our Lord’s 
resurrection ; and shall we therefore say they never prayed, 
or that they refused “the counsel of God,” as did the pha- 
risees, “in being not baptized of John?” After our Lord’s 
ascension we never read that any of the apostles, save Paul 
and Peter, did baptize any; we read not that they ever did 
receive the sacrament; we read not that half of them ever 
preached the gospel to any nations; and shall we therefore 
say they did none of these things? St. John informs us, 
that there were “many things which Jesus did, which were 
not written” (xx. 30, xxi. 25); what wonder, therefore, is it 
there should be many things which his apostles did, which 
are not written? Secondly, In most of the texts cited from 
the Acts, we read not one word of ‘the matter of their 
prayer, but only in general that they prayed, and so no 
semblance that they did not use the Lord’s prayer. In the 


CHAPTER VI. 69 


heaven (i. e. who, being in heaven, from thence beholdest 


all our wants, Ps. xi. 4, and must be able to relieve 


first instance the whole consists but of one verse; in the 
second, but of two. Now after every collect or short eja- 
culation, no man thinks it necessary or even proper to add 
this prayer; but only that in some of our most solemn ad- 
dresses, public or private, we should use this prayer. For 
we are Christ’s disciples as well as they to whom this prayer 
was given, and so must very fitly use that prayer which is 
the badge of a disciple of this Lord. The prayer itself is of 
all others the most excellent and comprehensive, and as plain 
as it is full; it is so short that any man may learn it, so 
clear that all may understand it, so full as to’ comprehend 
all our wants, and so exact as to instruct us what we should 
be, as well as what we should ask, as being, saith ‘Tertullian, 
breviarium evangelii, “an epitome of the gospel.” It was 
composed by him who had the Spirit above measure, as a 
direction how and for what to pray, and so, as Cyprian says, 
we hope, ut facilitis audiamur, “to be more readily accepted 
by our heavenly Father, when we come to him with the 
words of his only Son.” ‘The learned farther do observe, that 
this prayer is taken out of the Jewish liturgies, in which we 
wholly find it, excepting only these words, “as we forgive 
them that have trespassed against us.” “ Our Father which 
art in heaven,” is in their Seder Tephilloth, or form of 
prayers; “let thy name be sanctified, and the kingdom 
reign,” in their form called Kaddish; “let thy memory be 
glorified in heaven above, and in earth beneath,” in the 
Seder Tephilloth ; “forgive us our sins,” in the sixth of 
their eighteen daily prayers ; “deliver us not into the hand 
of temptations,” and “deliver us from the evil figment,” in 
that and the book Musar: “ for thine is the power, and the 
kingdom, for ever and ever,” is, saith Drusius, their usual 
doxology. And, as hence Grotius notes, how far this Lord of 
the church was from affecting novelty, or despising any thing 
because it was a form; so others do hence justify the dox- 
ology contained in the close of this prayer, which some 
think to be an addition of the Greek fathers, because it is 
wanting in the Latin, in St. Luke, and in many Greek copies 
(see Examen Var. Lect. Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1. ἢ. 2). 

Note, lastly, that this prayer consists of three parts, a 
preface excellently fitted to prepare us for prayer, by filling 
our hearts with charity to our brother, who bears the same 
relation to our common Father, with reverence to him whose 
“throne is in heaven,” seated over all, and with faith and 
humble confidence in him, who being to us a Father, must 
be ready to do his children good, and being “ our heavenly 
Father,’ must, “looking down from heaven upon the 
children of men,” see all our wants, and must be able to 
supply them. “The Lord’s throne is in heaven,” saith the 
psalmist, “he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him.” Secondly, 
It consists of six petitions, the three first of which call wpon 
us to pray for the sanctification of his name, the advance- 
ment of his kingdom, and the performance of his will, teach- 
ing us to make the glory of God, and the advancement of 
his Son’s kingdom, the chief end of all our actions; and 
having first done his will, then expect provision and protec- 
tion from him, and preservation from all evil. The three next 
respect, (1.) our daily sustenance, as bemg that without 
which we cannot be able to promote his glory, or to do his 
will: (2.) the remission of our past sins, that they may not 
obstruct his blessings, and preservation from them for the 
future, that we may not lose his favour: and, lastly, an 
agnizing the supreme dominion, the power fit to be 
ascribed to, and the glory due to God for ever. 

8 Πατὲρ ὑμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς" Our Father which art in 
heaven.) This being spoken to his disciples, who were Jews, 
and had no distinct notion of a Trinity, must be understood 
in the usual notion of the Jews, who styled the God of 
Israel y3y38 our Father ;” and so must signify the first per- 
son in the blessed Trinity, they being not able to apprehend 
it otherwise. Moreover our Lord still calls the God of 
Israel his “heavenly Father” (Matt. vii. 21, x. 32, 33, xi. 
25, xii. 50, xv. 13, xvi. 17, xviii. 10. 19. 35, Luke x. 22), 
clearly distinguishing himself in person from that “ heavenly 
Father” with whom in essence he was one. _ This phrase 
must therefore necessarily signify a distinct person from the 
Son, nor is it certain that it ever bears any other sense in the 
New Testament. 


Now God is called “Father,” first, by right of creation, 
“he having made us, and not we ourselves,” according to 
that question of Malachi, ii. 10, “ Have we not all one 
Father, hath not one God created us?” On which account 
the scriptures style him “the Father of our spirits” (Heb. 
xii. 9). Secondly, By right of providence and preservation, 
for he “upholds our souls in life,” according to that ques- 
tion of God to his own people; “ [5 he not thy Father which 
hath bought thee, hath he not made thee and established 
thee?” (Deut. xxxii. 6) he being that “one Father who is 
above all things” by his power and essence, goes' through 
all things” by his providence, and is “in all” by his pre- 
sence (Eph. iv. 6). Thirdly, By right of vocation and adop- 
tion, we being called to that faith in Christ, which consti- 
tutes us “the sons of God” (John i. 12); we being all the 
«children of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. iii. 
26), and by the renovation of the Holy Spirit, who enables 
us to cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom. viii. 18) and testifies 
to our spirits, “that we are the sons of God” (ver. 16) ; 
“for as many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of 
God” ver. 14); in which sense he is styled “the Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven 
and earth isnamed sons” (Eph. iii. 14,15). The angels, who 
by the Jews are styled his “ family above,” being oft called 
“the sons of God” (Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7), and good 
men who are styled “his family on earth,” being made so by 
adoption. Yet, though this be the most excellent notion of 
a son, and in this sense especially God is the Father of the 
Christian ; yet seeing, as the heathens have well noted, God 
is communis humani generis parens, “the common Father 
of mankind ;” seeing he owned himself the Father of the 
whole nation of the Jews, and styled them all his sons,— 
the notion of a Father here must be extended to all the 
senses mentioned, or at the least to all to whom God is a 
Father, by calling them unto the faith ; since otherwise per- 
sons of tender consciences, who doubted of their renovation 
in the Spirit, and of their right to claim the privileges of the 
adopted sons of God, could not recite this prayer in faith. 
And, also, (2.) then only could we pray for the regenerate 
in this form of prayer, and so it would be only an imperfect 
form; we being bound in charity to pray for all men, that 
they may “hallow his name,” and “do his will.” 

Moreover, as this relation to God as our Father calls for 
our reverence of him, our fear to offend him, our zeal for 
his honour (Mal. i. 6, 1 Pet. i. 17), our obedience and kind- 
ness to our “heavenly Father” in purity and holiness (1 
Pet. i.14, 15, Phil. ii. 15, 1 John iii. 2, 3), and in love to all 
mankind (Eph. v. 1), even to them that are our enemies, and 
«despitefully use us” (Matt. v. 44. 48) ; and, lastly, our 
patient submission to all his fatherly chastisements (Heb. 
xii. 9, 10); so doth it naturally tend to cherish our faith, 
and raise our hope of speeding in our sincere, fervent, and 
reasonable addresses to the throne of grace; our Lord 
having taught us to conclude, that “if earthly parents, 
being evil, will give good things to their children, much 
more will our heavenly Father give good things to those 
that ask him” (Matt. vii. 9, 10). 

The word “our” is joined to Father, saith St. Chrysos- 
tom, Ἵνα κοινὸν πατέρα ἔχειν διδαχϑέντες ἀδελφικὴν πρὸς ἀλλήλους 
δεικνύωμεν τὴν εὔνοιαν, “«“'ΤῊ ΔΓ being taught, we have one com- 
mon Father, we may dove as brethren,” and pray for all the 
members of the church; though this hinders not, but in our 
private devotions we may use the singular number, and 
desire the supply of our own particular wants, provided we 
also intercede for others as well as for ourselves; so David, 
«Ὁ Lord, thou art my God,” &c. It is added, “which art 
in heaven,” not to signify that his essence is included there, 
for “he fills heaven and earth” (Jer. xxiii. 24), undoubt- 
edly with the same presence, seeing “he is not far from any 
of us” (Acts xvii. 25. 27); and whether we “go up to 
heaven or down to hades, or fly to the ends of the earth,” 
we can never fly from his presence (Ps. cxxxix. 7,8): and 
Solomon declares, that “the heaven of heavens is not able 
to contain him” (1 Kings viii. 27). Vain therefore is the 
note of Woltzogenius here, that when God is said to be 
any where but in heaven, we are to understand it, “not of 
his essential presence, but of his efficacy, operation, and om 


70 


them, 2 Chron. xx. 7, Ps. exv. 3, and being our God 
and Father, must be inclined so to do), ° Hallowed be 
thy name (7. 6. may all men so speak, and so think of 


MATTHEW. 


thy divine majesty, and so deport themselves towards thee, 
that thou mayest be glorified in their words, thoughts, and 
actions). 


niscience ;” for, if the “heavens cannot contain him,” the 
earth must; if he “fill heaven and earth,” why not with 
the same presence? And seeing his power and essence is 
the same thing, and never can be separated, how can it be 
conceived that he should act where he is not? He is there- 
fore said to be in heaven, because there is his glorious pre- 
sence, where he dwells “in light inaccessible:’” and by this 
phrase is signified, (1.) the high majesty and supreme ex- 
cellency of God, and his dominion over all creatures; as in 
those words of Jehoshaphat, « Art thou not God in heaven, 
and rulest not thou over all the kingdoms of the heathen ?” 
And Ps. ciii. 19, “The Lord hath prepared his throne in 
heaven; his kingdom ruleth over 81}. And so we owe to 
him the highest reverence (Eccles. v. 2), and most exact 
obedience. (2.) His power, whereby he is able to “do for 
us above what we can ask or think” (2 Chron. xx. 6): 
« Art not thou God in heaven? and in thy hand is there 
not power and might, so that none is able to withstand 
thee ?” (Ps, exy. 3.) “Our God is in heaven, he hath done 
whatsoever he pleased;” and this engageth us to fear him 
above all, “who is able to destroy both soul and body in 
hell-fire.” (3.) His “ omniscience, by which he sitteth in 
heaven, beholdeth all that is done upon the earth” (Ps. xi. 
4); «The Lord’s throne is in heaven, his eyes behold, his 
eye-lids try the children of men” (Ps. xxxiii, 13—15. 
«The Lord looketh down from heaven, he beholdeth all 
the sons of men; he fashioneth their hearts alike; he con- 
sidereth all their works:” and this should teach us sincerity, 
and a regard both to our words and thoughts at all times, 
but more especially in our address to him. Lastly, His 
infinite purity and holiness: Deut. xxvi. 15, “ Look down 
from thy holy habitation from heaven, and bless thy peo- 
ple.” Hence is he styled, “the high and lofty One, who 
inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy” (Isa. lvii. 15); 
and teacheth us “to be holy for the Lord our God is holy.” 

9 "Α γιασϑήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου" Hallowed be thy name.] Note, 

(1.) That by “the name of God,” we are to understand 
himself, considered not precisely as to his essence; for of 
that we may inquire with holy Job, « Canst thou by wisdom 
find out God?” But, as he is made known to us by his 
creating all things, to be “ God over all,” infinite in power ; 
by the beauty and exact order in which he hath placed all 
things, and the wise ends for which he hath adapted them, 
to be a God of infinite wisdom and knowledge; by the law 
of truth, equity, and righteousness, which he hath impressed 
upon our spirits, that he is a God of truth and righteous- 
ness; by the purity and holiness of his precepts, that he is 
a God of purity ; and by the rich provisions he hath made, 
both for the present and the future happiness of man, that 
he is a God rich in mercy and plenteous in goodness to the 
sons of men, and a true lover of souls. For as in scrip- 
ture, τὸ ὄνομα, the name of any one is often put for his per- 
son (Acts i. 15, Rev. iii. 4, xi. 13), or the glory and ma- 
jesty of him that bears that name (Eph. i. 21, Phil. ii. 9, 10, 
Heb. i. 4), so here the name of God signifies the divine 
majesty of God himself, as he is made known unto us by 
his attributes; in which sense, to “ call upon the name of 
God, or Christ” (Gen. iv. 26, 1 Kings xviii. 24, 2 Kings v. 
11, Ps. exvi. 17, Joel ii. 32, Zeph. iii. $), to “ love the name 
of God” (Ps. lxix. 36, Isa. ἵν]. 6, Heb. vi. 10), to « blas- 
pheme and profane his name” (James ii. 7, Rev. xiii. 6), 
is to do this to God himself. 

Note, (2.) That to “sanctify” or “hallow,” when it is 
ascribed to things capable of being changed to the better, 
signifies either to consecrate and set them apart from a 
profane to a sacred use; in which sense, the vessels of 
the sanctuary, set apart to God’s service, were hallowed; 
and the priests and Levites, consecrated to God’s service, 
are said to be sanctified; or else to be adorned with such 
inward habits and dispositions, as render them inwardly 
pure and holy; and thus we are said to be “sanctified 
through the Spirit in the inward man.” Now the divine 
majesty being infinitely holy in himself, and exalted above 
all that we are able to conceive, cannot be hallowed or 
sanctified in eithe: of these senses, but by analogy to them. 


He is then sanctified by us, when we do separate him from, 
and in our conceptions do exalt him above, all other things, 
and when we do ascribe unto him the excellences of his 
divine majesty, and treat him suitably to them. According 
to that of St. Chrysostom, τὸ ἁγιασθήτω ἀντὶ τοῦ dofacSirw, 
“hallowed,” that is, “glorified be thy name.” Now, how 
this may most effectually be done, we cannot better learn 
than from observing how God himself acts for his glory 
and the sanctification of his holy name; now this he does 
by the discovery of those perfections which naturally tend 
to raise within us a fear and reverence and love of him, 
trust and affiance in him, and render us obedient to him, 
and in which it is our duty and our perfection to be as like 
to him as we can. And therefore (1.) God glorifies his 
name and sanctifies himself by the discovery of his mighty 
power, rendering him able to do exceedingly “ above what 
we can ask or think.” So Ps. evi. 7, 8, “ He saves them 
for his name’s sake, that he might make his power to be 
known :” and Isa. xliv. 23, “ The Lord hath redeemed Jacob, 
and in Israel δοξασϑήσεται, will be glorified.” (2.) By ren- 
dering his judgments conspicuous against presumptuous 
sinners, and those whose hearts are hardened from his fear ; 
according to that saying of Solomon Jarchi on Numb. xx. 
23, «The holy blessed God sanctifies himself before his 
creatures by the exercise of his judgments on them.” Thus, 
saith he, Exod. xiv. 4. 17, ᾿Ενδοξασϑήσομαι, “I will get me 
glory upon Pharaoh, and all his host ;” i. 6. I will show my 
power and justice in their destruction. And when God 
had broke forth upon Nadab and Abihu, for offering strange 
fire, Moses saith, “ This is that which the Lord had pro- 
nounced, I will be sanctified in those that come nigh me; 
and before all the people I will be glorified,’ Lev. x. 3, 
see also Isa. v. 16, Ezek. xxviii. 22, xxxvill. 23. (3.) By 
rendering conspicuous his truth and faithfulness to his pro- 
mises ; as when the psalmist saith, Ps. exxxviii. 2, “1 will 
praise thy name for thy loving-kindness and truth, for thou 
hast magnified thy truth above all thy name:” i. e. thou 
hast been chiefly glorious in the punctual performance of 
thy promises: see Jer. xiv. 22. (4.) By showing the 
riches of his grace, mercy, and goodness to the sons of 
men: so when God had declared to Moses that he was “a 
God merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in 
goodness, and forgiving iniquity” (Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7), he 
is said to make “ his goodness pass before him,” and “to 
show him his glory” (Exod. xxxiii. 22,xxxiv. 5,6). Only 
it ought to be observed from the fathers,* that the great end 
of all God’s glorious works and dispensations, in which these 
excellences are displayed, cannot be this, that he may be 
admired and applauded by his creatures, It is vain to 
think the all-wise God can be concerned whether such 
blind creatures as we are approve or disapprove of his pro- 
ceedings, or that he really can suffer any diminution of his 
glory by our dislike, or is advanced in honour by our ap- 
probation of his dispensations. We detract from his ma- 
jesty if we conceive that he is tickled with applause, or 
aims at reputation from us in any of his glorious actions; 
that therefore such as we should think well of him, can be 
no farther his concern, than as these apprehensions may 
engage us to that affection and obedience to and imitation 
of him, which tends to the promotion of our happiness. 
God, therefore, in discovering the divine perfections,; must 
be supposed to design as well the benefit and happiness of 
manas the advancement of his honour. Thus, when he dis- 
covers all those attributes which represent him good and 
merciful, kind and obliging to the sons of men, he doth it 
with design, and in a manner proper to lay the highest obli- 
gations on us to returns of love and gratitude, and to engage 
us to that imitation of his goodness and mercy to our fellow 
creatures, which renders us the children of our heavenly Fa- 
ther (Matt. v. 45). When he gives signal demonstrations 


* Οὐ γὰρ χρείας ἕνεκεν ὃ Θεὸς πεποίηκε τὸν κοσμὸν ἵνα τιμὰς 
πρὸς τε ἀνθρύπων, καὶ πρὸς θεῶν τῶν ἄλλων, καὶ δαιμύνων, φησὶν ὃ 
Πλάτων, xaprotro. Clem. Alex. Strom. ν. p.585, Β. Theo- 
dor. ady. Grec. Serm. 4, p. 535. 


CHAPTER V1 


10 © Thy kingdom come (may thy gospel be gene- 
rally entertained by men with due faith and obedience ; 
may all men receive thy son Jesus Christ as their king 
oat saviour, and humbly submit to his laws; may the 


71 


Christian religion obtain every where, as well in reality 
as profession, the minds of all men being subdued to the 
obedience of faith). ™ Thy will be done in earth, as it 
7s in heaven (ἡ. ὁ. may all men with sincerity, alacrity, 


of his almighty power and his great wisdom, he designs by 
this to teach us that he is able to foresee and to divert the 
evils which may at any time befall us, and to confer the 
greatest blessings on his servants, that so he may encourage 
us to trust in him at all times, to repair to him in the time 
of need, and serve him faithfully, in expectation of his fa- 
vour and protection. When he manifests himself to be a 
God of truth and faithfulness, one who will punctually per- 
form his promises, and execute his threats upon us, he doth 
this chiefly to affright us from those sins which make it ne- 
cessary for him to be severe upon us, and to provoke us to 
the performance of those duties to which he hath annexed 
the greatest blessings. When he informs us that his holiness 
and justice cannot permit the wicked to escape his judg- 
ments, or any upright soul to want the tokens of his love or 
the reward of his sincere obedience, his great design in all 
this is, that sin, which is the rise of all our miseries, may be 
avoided, and holiness, which is the true advancement and 
best accomplishment of human nature, may be more ear- 
nestly pursued by us: so that God’s acting for his glory is 
also acting for the good of his first noble creatures ; it is 
only recommending himself to their good-liking and αῇδο- 
tion, that so he may the more effectually advance their hap- 
piness. Hence therefore we may learn, 

1. That we sanctify or glorify God with our mouths, when 
we declare and do acknowledge these hisexcellences; when 
we offer up our prayers and praises to him as the author of 
“every good and perfect gift,” ascribing all the good we do 
receive or hope for to him alone, and «tell of all his won- 
drous works.” 

2. We sanctify him in our hearts, when we conceive 
aright of him, as a God infinite in all these excellences, and 
consequently have such impressions on our spirits as cause 
us truly to fear and reverence him, to believe all his reve- 
lations, trust in his promises, behave ourselves before him 
with all sincerity of heart, and uprightly design the promo- 
tion of his glory. 

3. We sanctify him in our lives and actions, when the 
consideration of these divine excellences engages us to obe- 
dience to his holy will, and to act suitably in all our dealings 
to our belief of them; when we show forth his imitable 
perfections in our lives (1 Pet. ii. 12), by our sincere en- 
deavour to resemble him in them; when we are “fruitful 
in all those works of righteousness which are, through Jesus 
Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. i. 11); and 
let our “ works so shine before men, that they seeing them, 
may glorify our Father which is heaven.” 

When then we say, “ Hallowed be thy name,” we pray 
that all men may so speak, so think of the divine majesty, 
and so deport themselves towards him, that he may be thus 
glorified in their words, hearts, and actions; and that all 
worship of idols and devils may wholly be abolished; and 
that this honour, as it is due, so may it be ascribed to him 
alone. 

10 Ver. 10. ᾿Ελθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου Thy kingdom come.} 
This cannot be understood of that general kingdom by 
which God ruleth over all the world, that being always 
come, and capable of no amplification, and so we cannot 
wish rationally, in any sense, that it may come. And it 
seems probable that it is not primarily and directly to be 
understood of the kingdom of glory in the heavens; we 
praying this kingdom may come to us, that we may do his 
will on earth. But considering that this phrase in the 
prayer, as well as in the language of the Jews, respects the 
kingdom of the Messiah, which they then thought “should 
immediately appear” (Luke xix. 11), and which they were 
then expecting (Mark xv. 43), and were waiting fur (Luke 
ii. 38), and which they daily prayed for in those words,* 
«Let him make his kingdom reign, let his redemption flou- 
rish, and let his Messiah come and deliver his people :’”’ (2.) 
that this is chiefly the import of the kingdom of God, when 
our Lord in the gospels speaks of it to the Jews, as is 


* See Vitringa de Synag, Vet. lib. iii. p. 2, cap. 8, p. 962. 


shown, note on Matt. iii. 2, 2, and (3.) that this prayer was 
composed for the use of Christ’s disciples, when this king- 
dom of God was approaching; and both the Baptist, our 
Lord, and his disciples began to say unto the Jews, “ Re- 
pent ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand ;’—I think our 
Saviour, in the direct and immediate sense of the words, in- 
structs them out of zeal to God’s honour, and that his 
name may be hallowed, and his will be done on earth, to 
pray that his gospel might be generally entertained by men 
with due faith and obedience ; that all might own and wor- 
ship God in truth, receive his son Jesus Christ as their king 
and saviour, and humbly submit to his laws; or, in the 
words of the Jews, “ Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matt. 
xxi. 9), “ Blessed and prosperous be the kingdom which 
cometh in the name of the Lord” (Luke xix. 38): and 
consequently, that it may reign in the hearts of all who 
do profess to own it, disposing them to an entire subjection 
to and ready compliance with its precepts, and working 
in them those fruits of “righteousness, and peace, and joy 
in the Holy Ghost,” in which this kingdom does especially 
consist (Rom. xiv. 17). This being the kingdom of God 
intended, when it is said, ver. 33, “Seek ye first the king- 
dom of God, and the righteousness thereof,” we therefore, 
in this petition, by parity of reason, are to pray that all 
men may become subjects to the kingdom of God erected 
by Christ; that the knowledge of the Christian faith may 
come to all nations; that the “kingdoms of this world 
may be the kingdoms of our Lord Christ” (Rev. xi. 15), 
“all kings and nations, people and languages, doing him 
service” (Ps. lxxii. 11, Dan. vii. 14, 27) : that his kingdom 
may be advanced ΟΥ̓ the “coming in of the Jews,” and 
by the “fulness of the Gentiles ;” that the Christian reli- 
gion may obtain every where, as well in reality as profes- 
sion; the minds of all men being subdued “to the obedi- 
ence of faith,” and they showing forth the virtues of it in 
their lives. 

1 Τενηϑήτω τὸ ϑέλημά cov, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς" 
Thy will be done, as in heaven so on earth.) Note here, 

irst, That we pray not here that God may do his own 
will and pleasure, for he will always do “whatsoever he 
pleaseth in heaven and on earth” (Eccles. viii. 3): and, 
“who hath resisted his will?” (Rom. ix. 19.) hether 
therefore we pray thus or not, he will do all his pleasure 
(Isa. xlvi. 10), and so it is needless to call upon him so 
to do. Nor, 

Secondly, Do I think we here desire his providence may 
be done upon us, and that we may cheerfully submit to it; 
though in this consists the life of Christian patience and 
self-resignation ; for we here pray to do God’s will on 
earth, as it is done in heaven, where there is perfect hap- 
piness, endless and necessary bliss, and therefore no occa- 
sion or possibility of submitting in adverse providences to 
the will of God. Nor, 

Thirdly, Do we here pray we may on earth be equal to 
the blessed angels, in the perfection, readiness, and alacrity 
of our obedience, it being not in the power of imperfect 
creatures to do God perfect service ; or of them who have 
in them flesh still “Justing against the Spirit,” the world 
still soliciting, Satan still tempting, and the corruptible body 
pressing down the soul, to pay continually that ready, cheer- 
ful, and complete homage, which blessed spirits, freed from 
all these imperfections, conflicts, and temptations, yield: 
and therefore such obedience which it is impossible for us to 
pay, must also be unreasonable for us to desire. It is almost 
needless to add, 

Fourthly, That we pray not here that God would necessi- 
tate or inwardly compel us to do his will; for this is not to 
pray his will may be done by us, but by him in us, nor could 
we then desire “not to be led into temptation: but not- 
withstanding, by desiring his will may thus be done by us, 
we consequentially must desire all that grace and that assist- 
ance of his Holy Spirit, which is on God’s part requisite to 
enable us thus to do his will. Now of these angels in hea- 
ven, we read, 


72 


and readiness, yield obedience to thy holy will, and imi- 
tate the blessed angels in an entire compliance with it, 
without hesitation or retinency). 

11 ” Give us this day our daily bread (7. 6. be pleased 
continually to afford us what thou seest needful for us, 


MATTHEW. 


and give thy blessing both upon our labours to procure 
it, and our food to afford nourishment and strength to 


12 8 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 
debtors (1. e. give us upon our repentance, the pardon 


First, that “they stand continually before the face of 
God” (Matt. xvi. 10), as being always ready to receive 
and prepared to execute his holy will: hence are they re- 
presented as having wings, and “ flying swiftly” with them 
whither he is pleased to send them, to show the readiness 
and alacrity with which they do his pleasure. 

Secondly, That they are styled “ ministers of his to do 
his pleasure, obeying his commandments, and hearkening 
to the words of his mouth” (Ps. ciii. 20,21). This there- 
fore seems to be the import of this prayer, that with as 
much readiness, alacrity, perfection, as the imperfection of 
human nature will admit of, we may yield obedience to his 
holy will, and imitate the blessed angels in a sincere com- 
pliance with it, without hesitation or retinency ; and that 
in order to this end he would vouchsafe us those divine 
assistances which may enlighten our understandings, rightly 
to discern “ what is the good, and acceptable, and perfect 
will of God,’ and powerfully incline our wills, and 
strengthen all our executive faculties, to a cheerful, ready, 
constant, and sincere obedience to it. 

12 Ver. 11. Tov ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον, 
Luke xi. 8, τὸ καθ᾽ ἡμέραν: Give us this day (or, day by 
day) our daily bread.) Here let it be observed, 

irst, that under the name of bread is doubtless compre- 
hended all that is necessary for sustaining human nature, 
and so, meat, drink, and clothing: these things, saith Christ, 
“your heavenly Father knoweth to be needful for you” 
(ver. 32) ; and these things he hath promised to those who 
“seek first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness 
thereof” (ver. 33), and therefore will undoubtedly provide 
them. Having this “food and raiment,” the apostle enjoins 
us “ to be content” (1 Tim. vi. 8). And thereby he defineth, 
saith heophylact, what is sufficiency ; with this food Jacob 
terminates his wishes; for he desires only that God would 
give him “ food to eat, and raiment to put on” (Gen. xxviii. 
20). And Agur only asks, that God would order for him 
τὰ δέοντα, καὶ τὰ αὐτάρκη, “ what he wanted, and would suf- 
fice” (Prov. xxx. 8). Moreover, seeing the reason of ask- 
ing thus our daily bread is the necessity of it for sustaining 
human life, it follows that all other things must be comprised 
in that word which are as needful to sustain it; to wit, 
that money, health to labour, and that blessing on our 
labours and our callings, which are necessary to procure this 
food and raiment; and that habitation, or house, which is 
necessary to preserve us from the injuries of the weather ; 
and that seasonable weather which may enable us to reap 
the fruits of the earth, and so preserve us from perishing 
by dearth or famine; it also, doubtless, must comprise those 
things which are not only necessary for the sustaining of 
ourselves, but of our family ; for seeing charity requires us 
to ask these things as well for others as ourselves, it more 
especially requires us to desire them for them to whom we 
are so intimately related, and for whom we are required to 
provide them. All these things seem to be necessaries con- 
tained under the name of “ bread,” or “ food and raiment ;” 
and with a sufficiency of these to sustain life commodiously, 
we must rest contented. But yet I doubt not that many 
other things may be comprised under this head, provided 
we do only ask them with submission to the divine wisdom, 
and if he sees them needful and convenient for us, submit- 
ting our concerns about them to his providence. Thus, v. g. 

First, under the name of “ bread,” may be comprised all 
those things which providence hath given and designed for 
the nourishment of man; flesh, fish, fowl, wine, oil, milk, 
honey, the fruits of the earth, corn, roots, herbs, and of the 
trees that grow upon it; for all these things “hath God 
created, to be received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. iv. 3), 
He hath given all these things to man “to eat” (Gen. i. 29, 
ix. 2,3), “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and 
herbs for the use of man, that he may bring forth food out 
of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, 
and oil to make his face to shine, and bread to strengthen 
man’s heart” (Ps. civ. 14,15). And this is the import of the 


word bread, when Abraham said (Gen. xviii. 5), “Iwill fetch 
a morsel of bread, and comfort your hearts ;” for he brought 
with it “butter and milk,’ and “the calf” that he had 
dressed, and set it before them (ver. 8). Thus Joseph 
saith, «Set on bread”? (Gen. xlili. 31), when they “slew 
cattle” (ver. 16), and had “ messes of meat,” and “store of 
good wine” (ver. 34, see 1 Sam. ix. 7, 1 Kings xxi. 7). 
And, in like manner, under the name of “raiment,” may 
we understand all those things which nature hath provided 
for no other use we know of, but to clothe and adorn us, flax, 
wool, hair, silk; and which, by using to these ends, we only 
use unto those purposes to which they were designed by the 
God of nature. And, 

Secondly, That we may have “food and raiment” in this 
sense, we must have all things necessary to this end; some 
having flocks of sheep, some herds of cattle, some employed 
in husbandry, some in gardening, some in dressing vineyards 
and oliveyards, some in clothing, some in other trades, which 
provide instruments necessary for these employments; and 
if all these things are “sanctified to us by prayer and 
thanksgiving,” then may we ask God’s blessing on our honest 
labours to procure them, and tender our thanksgivings to 
him for his blessings on these labours to that end. Note, 

Thirdly, That the bread we are bid to ask is styled, 6 
ἐπιούσιος, that is, either “the bread of the day present,” or 
“coming on:’’ as when the wise man advises us not to say, 
αὔριον ἑώσω, “I will give to-morrow, when we can at present 
do it” (Prov. iii. 28), and not to “boast of to-morrow” 
(Prov. xxvii. 1), “because we know not, τὶ τέξεται ἧ ἐπιοῦσα, 
what a day will bring forth,” or what will be on the morrow. 
So Chrysostom and Ongen, τὸν ἄρτον τὸν ἐπιούσιον, τουτέστι 
τὸν ἐφήμερον" and St. Jerome confesses, that some expound 
it, de presenti cibo, “of food at present,” because, say 
Theophylact and others, “ we are forbidden to be solicitous 
for the morrow :” so also is the phrase interpreted by Pha- 
vorinus,* Suidas, and St. Chrysostom. Others interpret it 
the bread, τοῦ ἐπιόντος χρόνου, “of the time to come,”’ or of 
that future life God shall please to afford us, which seems best 
to comport with St. Luke, saying, “Give us, τὸ καθ᾽ ἡμέραν, 
day by day, or after day, our daily bread ;” and so σήμερον 
may also signify, as ppw doth, Ps. xiii. 3, de die in diem, 
“from day to day ;” and so the sense will be, « Lord, give 
us day by day that which shall be sufficient for the re- 
mainder of our lives ;” both senses are good, and may be 
joined together, though I incline most to the first. 

They who render this with the Vulgar, panem supersub- 
stantialem, as they do not consider that it is in no sense, 
ἄρτος ἐπιούσιος “daily bread,’ but ὑπερούσιος, more than we 
need for sustentation; so neither (2.) that this sense of the 
words, relating to sacramental bread, obliges all Christians to 
receive the sacrament daily : (3.) that this sacrament was not 
then instituted, nor did the apostles for whom this prayer was 
made know any thing of it: and, lastly, that our petitions for 
spiritual bread are fully contained in the foregoing precepts. 
Note, 

Fourthly, That the rich, as well as the poor, have need 
to put up this petition, not only by reason of the mutability 
of their affairs, and the uncertainty of those enjoyments, 
which may be quickly taken from them, but also from the 
insufficiency of their abundance to feed and nourish them 
without God’s blessing on it, which they are therefore daily 
to implore; we are therefore from this petition taught, 

First, How moderate our appetites should be towards 
these outward things, both as to quality and quantity, we 
being here directed to ask τρύφην οὐ τρύφην, “bread or food, 
not delicious fare;” our necessary food, not superfluities ; 
our daily food, not full barns, or treasures to lay up for many 
years; a moderate provision to be dealt to us as we need it. 

Secondly, By directing us daily to apply ourselves to God 
for these things, we are taught to own our continual de- 


* Ὃ ἄρτος ἐπιούσιος ὃ τῇ ἑκάστη οὐσίᾳ ἡμῶν ἁρμόζων, ἣ καϑημε- 
ρινὸς, τὸν σήμερον ἡμῖν ἀρκοῦντα μόνον. Tom. v. p. 187. 


CHAPTER VI. 


of our sins commitied against thee ; for we, in obedience 
to thy command, freely, and from our hearts, forgive the 
offences of others against us). 


73 


13 ™ And lead us not into temptation (suffer us not 
by the assaults of Satan, or the subtraction of thy graces, 
or by putting us for our punishment into such circum- 


pendence on him for our being; that we owe all we have or 
can expect, not to our industry or wisdom, to the support of 
friends or our own stock, but purely to the conduct and 
blessing of his good providence; esteeming his providence 
our best estate, his bounty our surest treasure, his fatherly 
care our only certain and comfortable support: and therefore 
praying, that from the riches of his goodness, he would con- 
tinually afford us what he sees needful for us, and give his 
blessing both upon our labours to procure it, and on our food 
to afford nourishment and strength unto us. 

18 Ver. 12. Kat ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν (τὰς ἁμαρτίας 
ἡμῶν, Luke xi. 4) ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν 
(Luke καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίεμεν πάντι ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν)" And forgive 
us our trespasses (sins), as (for) we forgive (every one of ) 
them who trespass against us.] Here note that this petition 
supposeth these several things, viz. 

First, That we, who put up this petition, are sinners, and 
want God's mercy in the pardon of our offences against him. 
For seeing Christ requires all his disciples thus to pray daily, 
he must exclude himself out of that number, who says he 
wants not this forgiveness. Hence Solomon informs us, 
“there isno man that sinneth not” (1 Kings viii. 46) ; “none 
who can truly say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure 
from sin” (Prov. xx. 9); and that “there is not a just man 
upon earth, who doeth good and sinneth not” (Eccles. vii. 
20). And holy Job inquires, “ What is man that he should 
be clean, or he that is born of a woman that he should be 
righteous?” (Job xv. 14, xxv. 4.) The prayer of the 
Psalmist is, “Enter not thou into judgment with thy servant, 
O Lord: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” 
(Ps. exliii. 2). St. James saith, that “in many things we 
offend all” (James iii. 2); and St. John, that “if we say 
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in 
us” (1 John i. 8. 10); by all which scriptures it is evident 
against the Pelagians and the Cathari, that this remission of 
sins is necessary not-for a few only, but for all Christ’s dis- 
ciples, that they are not only humbly but also truly to con- 
fess they are sinners, and that if they deny it, “they lie, and 
the truth is not in them.” 

Secondly, This prayer supposes also that these our sins, 
should God deal with us according to the merit of them, 
must render us obnoxious to his just displeasure, and that 
we therefore want the pardon of them. For seeing every sin 
is a transgression of God’s holy law, it must render us guilty, 
et an act of grace we have obtained the remission of it. 

nd, 

Thirdly, It supposeth that we are humbly to confess our 
sins to God, for he that begs pardon must be supposed to 
own his offence. And in requesting pardon for our sins, we 
confess ourselves to be sinners, and to need God’s mercy. 
This petition also teacheth us, 

First, to lay the foundation of our devotions in humility ; 
and when we are addressing to God for spiritual or temporal 
blessings, to acknowledge our own unworthiness to receive 
them, that so we may more magnify his goodness in afford- 
ing them to those “ who are less than the least of any of his 
mercies.” 

Secondly, This being the first spiritual petition we make 
for ourselves, it shows how much we are concerned to obtain 
it; our happiness depending wholly on the favour of God, 
and our misery on his displeasure; and that being obnoxi- 
ous to his wrath by our omissions of what he hath enjoined, 
and our commission of what he hath forbidden, we are first 
and especially concerned to obtain the pardon of our sins, 
and get him reconciled to us, especially if we consider that 
any iniquity unpardoned will obstruct the efficacy of our pe- 
titions for other things, and turn his face and his “ ear from 
us that he will not hear.” 

Thirdly, The condition annexed to our petitions, in that 
clause, “as we forgive,” or the reason of it in those words, 
“for we forgive,” shows us how necessary it is, that we may 
speed in this petition, that we come to pray with a heart 
full of charity and good-will to all men, and free from any 
grudge, ill-will, any rancour or regret against our brother, ac- 
cording to that counsel of our Lord, « When ye stand pray- 

Vo. IV.—10 


ing, forgive, if ye have any thing against another, that your 
heavenly Father may forgive your trespasses’” (Mark xi. 
25); seeing our own forgiveness depends upon this dispo- 
sition, nor shall we be forgiven without it (ver. 14, 15). 
Yea, we come to God with a lie in our mouths, when we say 
to him, “ forgive, for we forgive others their trespasses,” and 
pray that we may not be pardoned, when we say, “ forgive us, 
as we forgive others their trespasses,” if we do not from the 
heart forgive them. What this forgiveness on our part doth 
require, see note on ver. 14, 15, 

M Ver, 13. Kai μὴ εἰσενέγκης ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμὸν, And lead 
us not into temptation.| Temptations being of two kinds, 
first, such as are sent for trial of our faith and constancy, 
or the improvement of our graces, and the example and 
encouragement of others; and that Christ speaks not pri- 
marily of these, interpreters conclude, (1.) because they, 
by the wisdom of Christ, are made the portion of all Chris- 
tians, who are to take up their cross and follow him, and 
must through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of 
God (Acts xiv. 22) ; they are appointed to them (1 Thess. 
iii. 3), and if they will live godly they must suffer perse- 
cutions (2 Tim. iii. 12). (2.) Because these trials are 
sometimes necessary for us, we falling into them only εἰ 
déov ἐστὶ, if need be” (1 Pet. i. 6), and are sent for salu- 
tary ends by God; viz. ‘to make us partakers of his holiness, 
and to work in us the comfortable fruits of righteousness” 
(Heb. xii. 10, 11), and render us “ conformed to our head” 
(Rom. viii. 29), and so are represented as the gifts of God 
(Phil. i. 28): and it seems not reasonable that Christ 
should advise us to pray against those things which are so 
needful for, and salutary to us. (3.) Because we are bid te 
“count it all joy when we fall into these tribulations” (James 
i. 2), are said to be “blessed and happy” when we “do en- 
dure them for the sake of Christ” (ver. 12, 1 Pet. iv. 14), 
and believers “rejoiced” in them (Rom. v. 5). We are 
therefore only to pray against them, when they fall so heavy 
on us, as to be strong inducements to “ make shipwreck of 
faith and a good conscience,” as in the case of the Thessa- 
lonians, to whom the apostle sends to “ know their faith, lest 
the tempter should have tempted them, and made his labour 
vain among them” (1 Thess. iii. 5); in which case, as 
they are called καιροὶ πειρασμοῦ, “times of temptation” to fall 
away (Luke vii. 13), ὥρα τοῦ πειρασμοῦ, “ the hour of tempta- 
tion” which was to come upon the earth, from falling by 
which, Christ promiseth to keep the church of Philadelphia 
(Rev. iii. 10), πύρωσις πρὸς πειρασμὸν, the “ fiery trial” (1 Pet. 
iv. 12), which made so many of the Jews fall off from 
the faith: so in this sense our Saviour suffering himself to 
be tempted, “that he might succour us when we are 
tempted,” Heb. ii. 18), doubtless we may pray that God 
“would not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able, 
but would with the temptation make a way for us to escape, 
that we may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. x. 13), that he 
would so strengthen our faith, and so assist us by his Holy 
Spirit, that we may be able to “repel all these fiery darts of 
Satan” (Eph. vi. 16), and may “stand in the evil day” (ver. 
13), and that he would either keep us from, or preserve us 
from falling in, this “hour of temptation ;” for the epistles 
are full of such prayers made by the apostles for the 
churches, or with directions thus to pray; and this is only 
praying that “we may not enter into temptation,” or may 
be delivered, when under it, “from evil.” Secondly, Temp- 
tations are such as lead to sin, and such are the temptations 
of Satan, suggesting evil things unto, or raising evil motions 
in us; or of our fleshly lusts, by which we are “ drawn away, 
and enticed” to covet that which is forbidden (James i. 14), 
And these are the temptations which we are here especially 
directed to pray against, the other sort being so only to be 
prayed against as they fall in with these, as being strong 
temptations to sin. For he, who had taught us in the pre- 
cedent words to pray for the pardon of our past sins may 
rationally be thought here to direct us to pray, that we may 
be preserved from them for the future. And this may also 
be concluded from the following clause, “ but (when we are 
thus in danger of it) deliver us from evil ;” as we shall see in 

G 


74 


stances as may prove snares and stumbling-blocks to us, 


MATTHEW. 


to be led into, or overcome by, the power of temptation ; 


the interpretation of those words. And in this sense the 
word πειρασμὸς, temptation,” occurs in Christ’s exhortation 
to his disciples to “ watch and pray, lest they enter εἰς πειρασ- 
pov into temptation” (Matt. xxvi. 41); when St. Paul bids 
the spiritual man “restore those that are overtaken with a 
fault, in the spirit of meekness, considering himself lest he also 
be tempted” (Gal. vi. 1), when he saith, “they that will be rich 
fall into temptation, εἰς πειρασμὸν, and a snare” (1 Tim. vi. 9). 
Now by praying we may not “enter into” these temptations, 
we cannot but rationally be supposed to pray that we may 
not be obnoxious to any solicitations or temptations to sin; 
for whilst we carry flesh about us, this “ flesh will lust against 
the spirit” (Gal. v. 17) ; and the whole life of Christians is 
a continual warfare and conflict against “Satan and spiritual 
wickednesses” (Eph. vi. 12), against the “flesh” (1 Pet. ii. 
11), and against the allurements of that world, in which we 
do converse; and therefore, to pray absolutely to be freed 
from these temptations, is to desire to be freed from the com- 
mon lot and condition of all Christians. 

Yet, because there be sometimes cases in which we are 
more than ordinarily solicited to sin, as Joseph was by the 
daily importunity of his mistress; either by Satan’s more 
impetuous assaults, as when our Saviour being hungry was 
tempted by the devil to make experiment “whether he 
was the Son of God,” by “commanding stones to be made 
bread ;” or by some circumstances and allurements of the 
flesh: or of the world concwring with our inward lustings, 
as when the young man is tempted by the harlot to lust, 
or the indigent by his companions to theft or robbery ; and 
in these cases we, by reason of our frailty and proneness 
to these vices, lie under great temptations to offend, and 
to be overcome by that εὐπερίστατος ἁμαρτία, “sin which 
doth too easily beset us;” in all these cases we are especially 
to pray we may not enter into temptation, this being only 
to desire we may not be obnoxious to the continual peril of 
offending, and to the fierce assaults of a temptation. Note, 

Thirdly, That “to be led,” or “enter into temptation,” in 
the scripture sense, is to be drawn by the allurements of a 
temptation to commit iniquity. In this sense Christ ad- 
viseth his disciples to pray, not that they might not fall 
into times of temptation, for they were then come; not 
that Satan might not vex or tempt them to evil, for this he 
told them they were to expect; but that they might not 
“fall into temptation,” i. e. they might not be overpowered 
by the incursion of it; in which sense the apostle saith to 
the spiritual man “restore thy brother in the spirit of meek- 
ness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted” (Gal. 
vi. 1), i. 6. lest thou also fall by a temptation (see the note 
there) : and to his Thessalonians, “I sent to know your 
faith lest the tempter should have tempted you, and my 
labour be in vain” (see the note there). And if we do 
consider that this petition, in the Jewish phrase, runs thus, 
“bring us not into the hand, or power, of temptation,” we 
shall be easily induced to believe, this is the primary import 
of these words, though they may also secondarily request, 
that the providence of God would not subject us to those 
circumstances, which lay us under a great peril of offending ; 
or when he doth think fit to do so, that he would not deny 
us strength sufficient to repel the violence of those assaults. 

Fourthly, That we may understand in what sense it is fit 
to pray, that God would not lead us into temptations of this 
kind, we must know, 

1. That God cannot be supposed to lead any man into 
temptation to sin, either by infusing any evil principle into 
his heart, or by inclining, exciting, or enticing, any man 
to sin, or by laying upon any man a necessity to commit it 
(see note on 2 Thess. ii. 11), seeing in all these cases he would 
be certainly the author of it, as much as Satan and our own 
concupiscence can be supposed so to be; and we in vain 
should ask of him, not to “be led into temptation,” who is 
disposed to do those things which will infallibly subject us 
to it. And hence St. James speaks thus unto us, “ Let no 
man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for 
God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any 
man” (James i. 13). God therefore can be only said to 
lead us into temptation upon such accounts as these: (1.) 
That he is pleased to remove those restraints which he had 


laid on Satan, and to let loose his chains, so that he may 
freely assault and try his strength upon us; for it is carefully 
to be observed, for our comfort, tliat Satan cannot tempt us 
at his pleasure, but only when and so far as God shall be 
pleased to permit him; as is apparent in the case of Job, 
whom Satan could not touch without permission from God ; 
and the example of the apostles, whom Satan first begged 
leave “to winnow,” before he could assault them (Luke xxii. 
31). And surely he who durst not enter into the swine till 
leave was given him by Christ, can much less fall on his dis- 
ciples without leave. And when God in his wisdom seeth 
fit to grant it, he himself is said to do what he permitted 
Satan to effect. So when he permitted Satan, by his minis- 
ters, to destroy the substance and the children of Job, Job 
said, “God gave, and God hath taken away” (Job i. 21). 
And God himself speaks thus to Satan, “Thou movedst me 
to afflict him without cause” (ii. 3). So in the case of David 
numbering the people, “Satan rose up against David, and 
moved him to number the people” (1 Chron. xxi. 1). Yet be- 
cause God permitted him to do it, it is said, 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, 
that “the fury of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he 
moved David to say, Go number the people.” The coming 
of antichrist is said to be, “ with the operation of Satan, in 
all power, and signs, and lying wonders, with all deceivable- 
ness of iniquity to them that perish” (2 Thess. ii. 9, 10). 
But because he doth this by God’s permission, towards them 
“who received not the truth in the love of it, that they might 
be saved, but had pleasure in unrighteousness ;” therefore 
it is said, that “God sent them strong delusions to believe a 
lie”’ (ver. 11, 12) : because God did not only permit this, but 
did so for the punishment of their infidelity and impiety ; 
so God designing the destruction of a wicked Ahab, per- 
mitteth Satan to be a “lying spirit” in the mouth of all his 
prophets, and saith to him, “Thou shalt deceive him and 
shalt prevail, go forth and do so” (1 Kings xxii. 20. 22), 
giving him full permission soto do. (2.) That he is pleased 
to withdraw that grace which hath in vain been given, and 
take those talents from us which have been hidden in a 
napkin: according to that rule of God’s proceedings, “ ΤῸ 
him that hath (i. e. improveth what he hath) shall (more) 
be given; but from him that hath not (i. e. who by not 
using it, as if he had not), shall be taken away that which he 
hath” (Matt. xiii. 12, xxv. 29). Here therefore note, (1) 
that we are not sufficient for ourselves, without divine as- 
sistance, to repel and overcome the temptations of the world, 
the flesh, and the devil, and to yield constant and sincere 
obedience to the will of God; for were this so, why should 
we be daily asking that of God, which he already hath put 
into our own hands: This hath been owned even by the 
wisest of the heathens,* that there was never a good man 
without a divine aid; and that the imperfection of the hu- 
man nature requires this aid, to regulate our passions, and 
conquer the difficulties of a virtuous life. And this is fully 
evident from all those places in scripture, in which it 15 
ascribed to God alone to be able to “keep us from falling” 
(Jude 24), to be able to “stablish us” (Rom. xvi. 25), κα- 
ταρτίσαι “to confirm us in every good work to do his will, 
working in us what is good and acceptable in his sight” (Heb. 
xiii. 21), and to work in us “both to will and to do of his 
good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 13) : and from those places, which 
require us to pray “that we enter not into temptation” 
(Matt. xxvi. 41), that we “may be able to stand against the 
assaults of Satan” (Eph. vi. 11), that we may have “wisdom 
to direct us how to bear them” (James i. 5), and that we may 
“keep ourselves in the love of God” (Jude 20,21). For 
these things evidently show God’s grace preventing us is ne- 
cessary to make us truly willing, and his assisting grace to 


* ED γὰρ χρὴ εἰδέναι, ὅτι πὲρ ἄν σωϑῇ τε καὶ γένηται οἷον δεῖ, ἐν 
τοιαύτη καταστάσει πολιτειῶν, Θεοῦ μοῖραν αὐτὸ σῶσαι. Plato de 
Repub. lib. vi. p. 677, C. Vide Epin. 1014. 

Multos et nostra civitas et Grecia tulit singulares viros, 
quorum neminem nisi juvante Deo talem fuisse credendum 
est. Nemo igitur vir magnus sine aliquo afflatti divino un- 
quam fuit. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. ii. ad finem. Vid. Ar- 
rian. in Epict. lib. iii. cap. 21, p 306, Max. Tyr. Diss. 22, 
p- 218. 


CHAPTER VI. 


but grant us such a measure of thy grace, as may preserve 
us from falling by them), ™ but deliver us from (the) 
evil (of sin, and from those dispositions and inclinations 
which make us prone unto it; and from the assaults of the 
evil one): ® For thine is the kingdom (we desire may 
come), and (thine is) the power (thus lo assist, provide 


make us able to perform our duty; and that we are not 
able to bear up against and overcome these temptations 
without the divine aid. (2.) Observe that this aid is not 
to be expected without diligent seeking it by fervent prayer, 
and knocking for it with daily importunity (Matt. vii. 7, 
Luke xviii. 1): nor will it be continued to us without our 
diligent endeavours to make some due improvement of 
it; it rather is to be supposed that he, who doth not rightly 
ask it, shall not have it, and that from the slothful and 
unprofitable servant it should be wholly withdrawn. And 
then, (3.) from the withdrawing of that which is so ne- 
cessary to preserve us from falling by temptations, and to 
enable us for tne performance of our duty, it certainly will 
follow that we shall fall by them, and shall neglect our 
duty. Now because God denies or withdraws his grace, 
by way of punishment of our iniquity in resisting, or ne- 
glect in asking it, or sloth in not improving it when granted 
to us, he may on this account be said “ to lead us into tempta- 
tions,” although he doth not otherwise concur unto it, than 
by withdrawing or not affording his abused grace to per- 
sons so neglectful, and therefore so unworthy of it; be- 
cause by giving us thus up into the hand or power of the 
temptation, we shall as certainly fall by it, as if he him- 
self led us into it. ‘Thus because when the “gentiles knew 
God they did not glorify him as God,” but fell into all 
manner of idolatry, God also gave them up to “ uncleanness,”” 
through the lusts of their own hearts (Rom. i. 24): he 
gave them up “to vile affections” (ver. 26): he gave them 
up “to a reprobate mind” (ver. 28), as a physician gives up 
his patient to do what he will, when he finds he will not fol- 
low his prescriptions (see the note there). So, though 
Ahithophel gave Absalom that wicked counsel, of going 
in to his father’s wives, and his own wicked heart inclined 
him to commit that incest (2 Sam. xvi. 21, 22); yet, be- 
cause God permitted Satan to inject this counsel into the 
heart of Ahithophel, and gave up Absalom to his own 
heart’s lust, and did all this for the punishment of David’s 
murder and adultery ; he by his prophet saith, “I will raise 
up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will give 
thy wives to thy neighbour, and he shall lie with them: I 
will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun” 
C Sam. xii. 11, 12). And, lastly, because the Jews shut 
their eyes against the gospel, and “ seeing would not see, and 
hearing would not understand” (Matt. xiii. 14, 15), the gos- 
pel was spoken to them in parables (ver. 13), and afterward 
taken from them, and God is said to have “given them a 
spirit of slumber,” Rom. xi. 8 (see the note there). 

And, thirdly, God is sometimes said to do this, by leav- 
ing them under those circumstances, or by his providence 
placing them in a condition, which he foresees will, through 
the wicked inclinations of their own hearts, render them 
subject to temptations, and prone to yield to them, or fall 
by them. Thus was he pleased to send his prophet to 
anoint Hazael king of Syria (1 Kings xix. 15) though he 
knew the evil he would do to the “children of Israel, by 
slaying their young men with the sword, dashing their 
children in pieces, and ripping up their women with child,” 
when he was once advanced to that station (2 Kings viii. 12, 
13): because he was permitted to do this for the punishment 
of the sins of Israel. And because by the flight of David 
and the conspiracy of Absalom, occasion was given to 
Shimei to curse David without fear of punishment, the 
king speaks thus, « Let him curse, because the Lord hath said 
unto him, Curse David” (2 Sam. xvi. 11); i. e. he by his 
providence hath given him an opportunity of venting thus 
nis malice without fear of punishmemt. Thus God is said to 
have “turned the hearts of the Egyptians to hate his people” 
(Ps. ev. 25) : not by infusing hatred into their hearts, but 
by “increasing his people continually, and making them 
stronger than their enemies” (ver. 24). Thus Jeremiah saith 
“Ah Lord God! surely thou hast greatly deceived his peo- 
ple” (Jer. iv. 10); i. e. as the Chaldee paraphrast well in- 


75 


for, and protect us), and (thine is and will be) the glory 
(of so doing), for ever. Amen. 

14 (And with great reason do I teach you to say, 
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive others): Ἵ For if ye 
forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father 
will also forgive you: 


terprets it, “ by suffering the false prophets to say to them, 
Peace, peace, when there was no peace” (vi. 14, xxiii. 17). 
And the church speaks thus to God, « Why hast thou caused 
us to err from the way, and hardened our hearts from thy 
fear ?” (Isa. Ixiii. 17) though he had only conctrred to this, 
by withdrawing the Spirit, against whom they had rebelled 
{ 10); by withholding those blessings and tokens of his 
avour, by which they were encouraged to fear him (ver. 
12. 15); and by subjecting them to the power of their ene- 
mies, whose service made them alien from his fear re 
17, 18). So, lastly, is he said to “lay a stumbling-block in 
the way of the righteous, departing from his righteousness, 
and committing iniquity” (Ezek. iii. 20), when he doth not 
recall him by his chastisements, but leaves him to his own 
heart’s lusts, and to the temptations of Satan and his evil 
companions. 

So then the import of this petition is to this effect ; Suffer 
us not, O Lord, either by the assaults of Satan, or the sub- 
traction of thy grace, or by putting us, for the punishment 
of our sins, into those circumstances, which may prove 
snares and stumbling-blocks unto us, to be led into and over- 
come by the power of temptation; but be thou pleased to 
afford us always such a measure of thy grace as may keep 
us from falling by temptations; or if we fall into tempta- 
tions, may so support us under them that we be not foiled 
by them; or if we slide, may be erected quickly by thy 
power, and stand more firmly for the future. 

15 ᾿Αλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ rod πονηροῦ, But deliver us from 
evil.] The temptations we desire not to be led into, being 
temptations to sin, the evil from which we here request to 
be delivered, must be either that of sin, or Satan, the great 
tempter to it; if by 6 πονηρὸς, we understand with Tertullian, 
Origen, and Chrysostom, the devil, who isa malicious, subtile, 
powerful, and diligent tempter, and therefore one against 
whose assaults, that we may stand firm, we are to “pray 
always with all prayer,” and“ watch thereunto with all per- 
severance :” or our own evil concupiscence, vicious inclina- 
tions, and distempers of mind, by which we are enticed and 
drawn into sin; this very properly is added to the former 
clause, as the most sovereign expedient to preserve us from 
being “led into temptation,” and so we may well pray, that, 
in order to that end, God would graciously preserve us from 
those evil frames of heart, and dispositions of spirit, which 
render us so prone to yield to a temptation, and from the 
violent assaults of Satan, who, being once let loose upon us, 
will not fail to hurry us into sin. 

16 "Ὅτι σοῦ ἔστιν ἡ βασιλεία, καὶ ἡ δύναμις, καὶ ἡ δόξα, for 
thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.) It must 
be owned that this clause is not in St. Luke, nor in many 
copies of St. Matthew, yet are there sufficient reasons to re- 
ceive it as part of the Lord’s prayer, as being in the Syriac 
version, and owned in the Greek liturgies, and being in most 
ancient copies, and a familiar doxology of the Jews; and, 
lastly, because it is very unlikely the holy fathers of the 
Greek church should presume to add their own inventions 
to a form of our Lord’s own composing; but it is probable 
that our Lord, delivering this form twice upon different oc- 
casions, might add this clause at the first time, and leave it 
out at the second, and that the Latin copies, which are full 
of errors, might leave it out in both, lest the evangelists 
should seem to differ in a matter so considerable. But of 
this, see more in Examen Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1, n. 3. Now 
the import of this clause seems to be this, We pray thy 
kingdom may come, and that thy name may be hallowed, 
and thy will be done by all men, for thine is the kingdom, 
and all men are concerned to honour thee, and to obey thy 
holy laws; we pray for temporal blessings to be derived 
from thee, for the pardon of our past sins, and preservation 
from them for the future, for thine is the power thus to pro- 
vide for and protect us, and thou alone canst pardon our 
offences; we pray for all these, for, by thus hallowing thee, 
owning thy kingdom and doing thy will; by thus pardon- 


76 


15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, nei- 
ther will your Father forgive your trespasses. 

16 4 Moreover ® when ye fast, be not, as the hypo- 
erites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure: their 
faces (putting on sad and mournful looks), that they 
may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, 
They have their reward. 

17 But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, 
and wash thy face (as the Jews do on ordinary days); 

18 That thou appear not unto men to fast, but 
(only) unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy 


MATTHEW. 


Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee 
openly. 

19 ¢ © Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt (hem), and 
where thieves break through and steal : 

20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where 
thieves do not break through nor steal (this being the 
only means to be heavenly-minded ): 

21 For where your treasure is, there will your 
heart be also. 


ing, providing for us, and protecting us, “thine will be the 
glory for ever and ever. Amen.” 

7 Ver. 14. "Ew γὰρ ἀφῆτε, &c. For if you forgive men 
their trespasses.| Note here, that God promiseth in these 
words remission of sins, to him that forgiveth others; not 
that this virtue can alone obtain favour with God, where 
other Christian duties are neglected: for though negative 
precepts are absolute, and he that “forgiveth not, shall 
never be forgiven,” yet affirmative promises admit this limi- 
tation, si cetera sint paria, if no other condition of salvation 
shall be wanting. So, v. g. “ He that heareth not (the gos- 
pel revealed to him) shall be damned,” is absolutely true ; 
but “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” is only 
true, if he perform the condition of his baptismal covenant, 
when he is in capacity to do so. Or, (2.) this promise is 
made to him who from his heart forgives his brother, be- 
cause he who doth thus forgive the offences of his brother, 
in obedience to God’s commands, and from a sincere desire 
to obtain forgiveness of God, will by the same motives be 
induced to do whatever else is necessary to obtain favour 
and acceptance with him. Now to this true remission it is 
requisite, 

First, That our minds be fully freed from all desires of 
revenge, or of returning evil to our brother, according to that 
admonition of St. Paul (Rom. xii. 19), “ Avenge not your- 
selves, but rather give place to wrath: for God hath said, 
Vengeance is mine; and I will repay it.” “See to it, that 
none render evil for evil” (1 Thess.v. 15, 1 Pet. iii. 9). 
This being to do that ourselves, which it belongs to God to 
do. And hence it follows, that we must not desire God to 
revenge our quarrels, seeing this shows a mind desirous to 
be avenged of our brother. 

Secondly, That we do not rejoice in any evil that befalls 
our brother, according to that admonition of Solomon, « Re- 
joice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart 
be glad when he stumbleth” (Prov. xxiv. 17). 

Thirdly, That we do not so retain the evil done unto us 
in our memory, as to reproach him for it, or upbraid him 
with it, this being an indication that we have not from the 
heart forgiven him. Thus the Jews say, that “he who being 
desired by one to do that for him,” which he refused to do 
to him, answers, “I will not deal with thee as thou hast 
dealt with me; he, though he lends what is desired, doth not 
forgive.” 

Fourthly, That we still be inclined to show kindness to, 
and be still ready to help and do him good; for what the 
Jaw required the Jew to do to the beast of his enemy (Exod. 
xxiii. 4, 5), the gospel doth assuredly require the Christian 
to do to his enemy; and if we by consideration of the injury 
done to us be restrained from helping him, we have not 
from the heart forgiven him. 

And so far we must go in our forgiveness of all persons 
at all times, even though they do not ask forgiveness. 
When this is done sincerely, then, 

Fifthly, We are to admit our offending brother into 
friendship and familiarity again; for if we “from the heart 
forgive him,” our heart must be towards him as formerly it 
was. Moreover, this remission must be, 

First, Without delay, “before the sun goes down,” saith 
the apostle, before we go to our devotions; “for when you 
pray,” saith Christ, “forgive” (Mark xi. 15): seeing we 
pray to God for forgiveness at present, and if we do not 
thus forgive, we cannot say “forgive us as we forgive.” 

Secondly, It must be an entire forgiveness of all, even the 
most heinous crimes; for this the example of the “ten 
thousand talents” forgiven by our Lord requires (Matt. 


xviii, 24). And otherwise, when we pray “to be forgiven 
as we ourselves forgive,’ we pray that our greatest crimes 
may not be forgiven. 

Thirdly, This forgiveness must be extended to our bro- 
ther, though he doth frequently offend (Luke xvii. 3) ; for 
we pray daily to God for the remission of our daily sins. 

18 Ver. 16—18. “Ὅταν dé νηστεύητε, μὴ γίνεσθε ὥσπερ ob 
ὑποκριταὶ, but when ye fast, be not as the hypocrites.) i. e. 
Do nothing which may signify you fast to gain applause 
from men (see the discourse of fasting ; appendix the third 
at the end of this gospel). 

19 Ver. 19. Μὴ ϑησαυρίζετε ὑμῖν θησαυροὺς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, &e. 
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, but lay up 
treasures in the heavens.) 'These and the following words 
to the end of this chapter, contain an excellent dissuasive 
from an inordinate affection to, and from an anxious solici- 
tude about, the good things of this present life; taken, 

First, From the consideration of the nature of them, they 
being fading, and subject to casualty (ver. ὃ) 

Secondly, From the mischiefs of them, when our hearts 
are set upon them, and our minds are anxious about them. 
For, (1.) they take off our hearts from those true, spiritual, 
and lasting blessings, ver. 20, 21, which we should primarily 
and chiefly prosecute, ver. 23. (2.) They corrupt all our 
actions, and turn them into deeds of darkness, ver. 22, 23. 
(3.) They rival God, and take off our affections from him, 
ver. 24, (4.) They show great want of faith, and trust in 
God, ver. 80, (5.) They add to the evils of this present 
life, ver. 34, discruciating the mind with cares, which are, 
C) fruitless, ver. 27, (2.) needless, seeing our heavenly Fa- 
ther knows our wants, ver. 32. And he who isso liberal in 
making provision for the grass of the field, and for the fowls 
of the air, will not be wanting in his provisions for the ne- 
cessities of his children, ver. 26. 28—30. And, (3.) they 
are heathenish, “for after all these things do the gentiles 
seek,” ver. 32. 

Note, also, that by the word “ treasure” we are not to un- 
derstand every thing which we lay up for the future, pro- 
vided we be ready, when the glory of God, or the duties of 
charity, require us to part with it, for merchandise and hus- 
bandry cannot be carried on without something laid up in 
store; but that is in the forbidden sense our treasure, which 
we chiefly prize, delight in, and set our heart upon; as we 
may gather from those words, “ For where your treasure is, 
there will your hearts be also” (ver. 21) ; and which we do 
chiefly spend our time and study to pursue and prosecute, 
with the neglect or to the hazard of our heavenly treasure, 
as appears from the opposition here: that which “we seek 
first” (ver. 33), and are concerned for, “though we be not 
rich towards God” (Luke xii. 21). 

20 Ver. 22. ᾿Εὰν οὖν ὃ ὀφθαλμός cov ἁπλοῦς, If thy eye be 
single, thy whole body will be full of light ; ἐὰν δὲ ὃ 6pSad~ 
μός cov πονηρὸς, &c. but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body 
will be dark.] That by the “single eye,” the liberal per- 
son, by the “evil eye,” the covetous man, is intended, ap- 
pears, (1.) from the connexion of the words: for the pre- 
ceding words are a dissuasive from “ laying up treasures on 
the earth ;” the following from the “love of riches:” and 
therefore the intermediate words most probably relate to the 
same thing. (2.) From the like use of the phrase, both in 
the sacred writers and among the Jews, who say proverbi- 
ally, “« He that gives a boon, let him do it with a good eye,” 
i. e. freely and liberally; and, “give thy first-fruits ἐν 
ἀγαϑῷ 6fSa\w5, with a good eye” (Ecclus. xxxv. 10): so 
ψυχὴ ἁπλῆ, is “the liberal soul” (Prov. xi. 25), and to give 
ἁπλῶς and ¢ ἁπλύτητι, is to give “liberally 5 (James i. 5, 


CHAPTER VI. 


22 The light of the body is the eye (by which we 
are directed how to guide the body in our walking, as is 
the eye of the mind the light by which we discern our 
duty) : if therefore thine eye be single (7. δ. fee from 
covétousness, and ready to relieve Christ's needy members), 
thy whole body shall be full of light (7. 6. this charity 
will lead thee in the way to life, and will direct the actions 
both of thy soul and body aright). 

23 But if thine eye be evil (ἐγ ἐξ be an envious, covel- 
ous eye), thy whole body shall be full of darkness (7. e. 
all its actions will be deeds of darkness). If therefore 
(then) the light that is in thee be darkness, how great 
is that darkness ! (¢. 6. if the inward light, which should 
direct thy actions, be darkness, how great and fatal will be 
that darkness in which thou walkest !) 

24 4 (And that your affection to these earthly things 
may not thus blind you, consider, that) no man can 
2! serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, 
and love the other; or else (which is the consequent of 
that affection) he will hold to the one, and (compara- 
ae despise the other. (So that) ye cannot serve 
(40th) God and mammon. 

25 Therefore I say unto you, * Take no thought for 
(the things necessary to preserve) your life, (fo wit) what 
he shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your 
body, what ye shall put on. (fbr) is not the life more 
than meat, and the body (more) than raiment? (He 
then who gave this life and body, will be concerned to make 
provisions for them). 

36 Behold (how it is with) the fowls of the air (which 


Rom. xii. 8, 2 Cor. viii. 2, ix. 11. 13). 
trary, ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρὸς, “the evil eye,” is the covetous eye 
that envies others any share of its good things. So Prov. 
xxviii. 22, “ He that hasteth to be rich is a man py p> of an 
evil eye;”’ and xxiii. 6,“ Eat not the bread of him that 
hath an evil eye; for the evil eye, ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρὸς, is en- 
vious for his bread, and he is a niggard at his table” (Ec- 
clus. xiv. 10, Tob. iv. 16) ; “ Give alms of thine abundance, 
and let not thine eye be envious when thou givest alms ;” 
and Matt. xx. 15, ὀῤδαλμός cov πονηρὸς, “is thine eye evil, 
because Iam good?” So that the import of these words is 
this; As the eye gives light to the body to lead it safely in 
the way, so the eye or mind free from covetousness, and 
ready to relieve the wants of Christ’s needy members, will 
be a light to the Christian to lead him in the way of life; 
whereas, covetousness being “the root of all evil,” he that 
hath this evil eye, must be led by it into evil, and walk in 
darkness, and in that way which leads to utter darkness; 
for “the friendship of this world is enmity to God’ (James 
iv, 4), and “he that loveth this world, the love of the Fa- 
ther is not in him” (1 John ii. 15). Now our affections 
are inordinately set upon the things of this world, 

First, When we are not contented with those things that 
we at present do enjoy, though we have what is necessary, 
fo wit, “food and raiment” (1 Tim. vi. 8, 9) : for this man 
15 ὃ βουλόμενος πλουτεῖν, “ one that cannot be contented with- 
out being rich” (see note on Heb. xiii. 5). 

Secondly, When being not satisfied with things needful, 
we are solicitous for superfluities, Luke xii. 15 (see the 
note there). 

Thirdly, When we cannot freely give of our superfluities, 
when the necessities of Christ’s members do require our 
charity ; but we do this grudgingly and sparingly ; and our 
charity is extorted from us by shame or importunity, and 
comes not liberally and freely from our hands, for then it 
is imparted ὡς ἐκ πλεονεζίας, “as of covetousness, and not of 
good-will,” 2 Cor. ix. 5 (see the note there). 

21 Ver. 24. Οὐδεὶς ὀύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις ῥουλεῦειν, No man 
can serve two masters.) Here is an excellent rule, by 
which we may infallibly discern what we do prevalently 
love in any case, even that which we cleave to, with neglect 
of that which stands in competition with it. And hence it 
follows, that we love mammon more than God, (1.) when 
we pursue it by unlawful or forbidden means; by a lie, as 
Ziba and Gehazi, by fraud, oppression, theft, violence, or by 


And, on the con- 


77 


are less considerable than you are): for they sow not, 
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your 
heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much bet- 
ter than they? (and so more assuredly will be provided 
or. 

27 And) which of you by taking thought can add 
one cubit unto his stature? (or make your body taller ? 
how much less will your solicitude preserve the whole) ? 

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consi- 
der the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil 
not, neither do they spin: 

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in 
all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the 
field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the 
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of 
little faith ? (if you distrust his care in making these pro- 
visions Ἢ you). 

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall 
we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal 
shall we be clothed ? 

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) 
(but ye who are under a more peculiar providence need not 
do it) : for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
need of all these things (and sure his providence will 
never suffer you to want what he sees needful for ὅσην: 

33 But sgek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 
righteousness (viz. that righteousness which will render 
you acceptable in his sight) ; and (then) all these things 
(as far as they are needful) shall be added unto you. 


false testimony: for in all these cases we despise God’s 
authority to obtain mammon. (2.) When our labour and 
concernment for these temporals do cause us to neglect or 
be remiss in the performance of our duty to God, then are 
We ἀμελήσαντες, despisers, and neglecters of his invitation, 
out of regard to our fields, our yoke of oxen, or our married 
wife (Matt. xxii. 5). And, (3.) when we cannot part with 
them for God’s sake, but choose rather to make “ shipwreck 
of a good conscience,” and quit our interest in spiritual than 
in temporal blessings; for then we certainly cleave to them 
more than God, and him do we comparatively despise. 

2 Ver. 25. Μὴ μεριμνᾶτε τῇ ψυχῆ. Take no thought for 
your life: Ver. 34. Μὴ μεριμνήσητε eis τὴν αὔριον" Take ye no 
thought for the morrow.) We are not to imagine that 
Christ doth here forbid our provident care and diligence in 
providing, by our honest labours, things necessary for this 
present life, or even all care of improving ourselves, or σοῖς 
ting wealth by this means; for God hath commanded us to 
“labour with our hands,” both for provisions for ourselves 
and others (Eph. iv. 28). ‘This also is the reward God 
hath promised to the “diligent hand,” that it shall “ make 
us rich;” and these enjoyments are useful, not only for the 
offices of charity, but also for the flourishing estate of king- 
doms and commonwealths; and therefore cannot absolutely 
be forbidden. Nor can we reasonably think Christ here 
forbids all provident concernment for the future, i. e. not 
only for the morrow, but the next month or year; all laying 
up provisions of corn, wine, oil, money, which economical 
wisdom doth require, and prudence in all governments 
instructs men to do. The solicitude therefore about these 
things forbidden here, is, (1.) a solicitude arising from a 
want of faith, or a surmise that divine goodness may be 
wanting to us in things his wisdom seeth needful for us, 
ver. 30, (2.) A regard to these things more than spirituals, 
and with a comparative neglect of them, “ you cannot serve 
God and mammon;” διὰ τοῦτο, and “for this cause I say 
unto you, “ Take no thought,” ἄς. (3.) Such a solicitude 
for these things as makes us anxious, rends and afflicts our 
hearts with fears lest we should want them; as may be ga~ 
thered not only from the import of the word μεριμνᾶν, but 
from the reason assigned of this precept, “ Sufficient for the 
day is the evil thereof;” i. e. the cares and troubles which 
necessarily attend each day. 

And, lastly, let it be noted, that though generally speak- 
ing it be true that the gentiles, ἐλπίδα μὴ ἔχοντες, “having 

ee? 


78 


MATTHEW. 


34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow (be | take thought for the morrow when it comes ; add not there- 


not beforehand importunately solicttous for your future 
subsistence): for the morrow shall take thought for 
the things of itself (z. e. you may have time enough to 


fore to the cares of each day, for) sufficient unto the day 
is the evil thereof (7. e. the necessary trouble which attends 
each day). 


no certain hope of future blessings,” sought thus after these 
things, yet some of their philosophers have used the same 
arguments against this solicitude, declaring, 

First, That a philosopher and servant of God ought not 
to be solicitous for these things, δεδοικὼς μὴ οὐ σχοίη τροφὰς 
αὔριον, “as fearing he might want food to-morrow” (Arrian. 
lib. iii. cap. 9, p. 109, cap. 36, p. 348). 

Secondly, That a good man ought to believe God will 
provide things necessary for him; for, saith Epictetus in 
Artian. p. 350, Φοδεῖ ris ἀνὴρ ἀγαϑὸς μὴ λίπωσιν αὐτῷ τρύφαι ; 


“Doth any good man fear he may want food? Will he, 
who is not wanting to the blind and lame, be wanting to 
good men? Doth God so neglect his servants and his wit- 
nesses of his care and providence ?” 

Thirdly, ‘They add, that this fear renders us worse than 
brutes, ὧν ἕκαστον αὐτὸ αὐτῷ ἁρκούμενον οὔτε τροφῆς ἀπορεῖ τῆς 
οἰκείας, “which are content with their portion, and want 
nothing necessary for the preservation of their lives” (lib. 
111. cap. 9, p. 108. See Examen Millii here). 


CHAPTER VII. 


11 Jupee-not (severely, and without charity and | 
mercy), that ye be not judged (accordingly, James 
ii. 13). 

2 Yor with what judgment ye judge (men), ye shall 
be judged (of God): and with what measure ye mete 
(to them), it shall be measured to you again. 

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy 
brother’s eye (ὦ. 6. his lesser failings), but considerest 


not the beam that is in thine own eye (7. 6. thy own 
greater crimes) 2 
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother (without 
shame and self-condemnation), Let me pull out the mote 
out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own 
eye? 
a Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of 
thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII. 


1 Ver. 1. Μὴ κρίνετε, ἵνα μὴ κριϑῆτε. Judge not, that ye be 
not judged.| Here note, 

First, That Christ cannot reasonably be supposed in these 
words to forbid the magistrate to sit in judgment on the 
criminal, or to condemn notorious offenders, since by his 
own authority it is that “kings do reign, and princes decree 
judgment.” They are the ministers of God, ordained for the 
execution of his wrath upon the evil-doer, and the defence, 
encouragement, and reward of well-deserving subjects, which 


office they can never execute, unless they have authority to 
judge who are the persons that do good or evil, and to pass 
sentence on them according to their actions. Moreover, we 
are obliged to pray for magistrates, that “under them we 
may live peaceable and quiet lives ;” which, in effect, is to 
desire that they may judge, restrain, condemn, and punish 
the factious and profane, seditious, and ungodly person (see 
Prov. vill. 15, Rom. xiii. 4,1 Tim. ii. 2). That, therefore, 
cannot be forbidden here, which is the duty and design of 
magistracy, and which all Christians are obliged to pray for. 
Secondly, It cannot reasonably be thought, that Christ 
doth here forbid church governors to judge, condemn, and 
pass the censures of the church upon notorious and scanda- 
lous offenders, because he hath himself enjoined the execu- 
tion of her censures upon those who will not hear the church 
when she requires them to repent of, and satisfy their Chris- 
tian brother for, any trespass done against him (Matt. xviii. 
17). He hath committed to them an authority to bind and 
loose, retain or to remit offences, as upon due examination 
of the fact they shall find cause to do so (Matt. xvi. 19); 
which office doth suppose a power to judge not only who 
offend, but what offenders may deserve to be condemned, and 
to proceed according to their judgment in those matters. 
St. Paul himself doth in the general declare, that it belong- 
eth to the church to judge of them who are within the pale 
of her communion, that he himself had judged the inces- 
tuous person, and that it was the duty of the church to put 
out or exclude from her communion, that “ wicked person” 
1 Cor. v. 3. 12.15). And to deny the rulers of the church 
this power, is wholly to dissolve her discipline, to lay upon 
her a necessity of giving “holy things to dogs,” which their 
great Pastor here forbids, and render her unable to remove 
the precious from the vile, which they who are God’s mouth 
unto the people are obliged to do (Jer. xv. 19). 
Thirdly, Christ doth not here forbid the Christian to pass 
a judgment on the manifest or notorious actions of his 
Christian brother, seeing he doth enjoin such duties as can- 
not be performed witho at this judgment; v. g. he enjoins 


him to “ reprove his brother, and not to suffer sin upon him” 
(Lev. xix. 17) ; to “have no fellowship with the unfiuitful 
works of darkness, but reprove them’? (Eph, v. 11); to 
“withdraw himself from every brother that walks disorderly, 
and not according to the traditions received from the apostles” 
(2 Thess. iii. 6) ; to “ mark them who caused divisions and 
offences, contrary to the doctrines they had received from 
them, and avoid them” (Rom. xvi. 17) ; to “turn away from 
them who, though they had the form, denied the power of 
godliness” (2 Tim. iii. 5); not to “communicate with him 
who, being called a brother, is a fornicator, or idolater, or a 
drunkard” (1 Cor. v.11). Now it is impossible that any 
Christian should perform these duties, who does not judge 
who “walks disorderly,’ who commits deeds of darkness, 
who “is a fornicator, or idolater,’ who “make divisions,” 
and the like; and therefore, to forbid this judging is conse- 
quently to forbid the practice of these Christian duties. 
But positively, 

First, The reason of the prohibition shows, that judging 
and condemning others must be here forbidden, which will 
render us obnoxious to judgment and condemnation from 
God ; now such is all rash and uncharitable judgment, and 
all the judgment we pass upon our brother, without suffi- 
cient ground; viz. (1.) that judgment which we pass upon 
his person, state, or actions, when we have no right or autho- 
rity to do so by virtue of our office, or that relation which 
we bear unto him, or the discharge of any duty which Chris- 
tianity doth call for at our hands; for such a one doth 
meddle with a matter which belongs not to him, and doth 
usurp the office of him who is his proper judge ; and there- 
fore must offend. ‘T’o this effect is that inquiry, Rom. xiv. 
4, “Who art thou who judgest another man’s servant,” 
when thou hast no commission from his Lord to do so? 
(2.) Such is that judgment or censure which we pass upon 
another without sufficient evidence ; as, when we judge that 
action evil, which may, for any thing we know to the con- 
trary, be good; that action done upon corrupt and evil 
principles, which perhaps was well intended, and free from 
any ill design; or when we judge that person hypocritical 
and obstinate, who perhaps only sins through weakness and 
infirmity, or want of better information. This rule I gather 
from those words of the apostle (1 Cor. iv. 5), “Judge no- 
thing before the time, until the Lord come, who will bring to 
light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the 
secrets of the heart ;’’ what therefore is not manifest, as the 
hypocrisy or obstinacy of our brother in many circumstances 
cannot be; what doth depend upon his inward thoughts, as 
the intentions of our brother do, when they are not revealed 
by his words, is by this rule to be reserved to God's judg- 


CHAPTER VII. 


out the mote out of thy brother’s eye (ἡ, δ. reform first 
thy own greater sins, and then thou wilt be belter fitted to 
reprehend the failings of others). 

6 1 (But then, that being thus filted to correct the vices 
of others, you may not labour in vain, or run inlo ha- 
zards without cause,) * Give not that which is holy unto 
the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest 
they trample them under their feet, and turn again and 


79 


rend you (i. 6. continue not to preach the gospel to those 
whom you find refractory, and pertinaciously confirmed in 
their infidelity, and so addicted to their evil habits, that 
they will rather revile and persecute you on that account 
than hearken to you). 

7 4 (And that ye may never want what is necessary to 
the performance of your duty as Christians or apos- 
tles,)* Ask (in faith), and it shall be given you; seek 


ment, and we, by passing our verdict in such cases, must be 
too forward, and guilty of rash judgment. Such (3.)is that 
judgment which doth aggravate the actions of our brother 
beyond their just demerit, or passeth a more heavy censure 
on him than he hath deserved; for so far is our judgment 
false, and without ground, as it exceeds the nature and the 
demerit of the fact. 

Secondly, Our Lord here plainly seemeth to forbid that 
judgment of our brother, which is void of charity and mercy, 
and which is not consistent with the forgiveness of him. This 
may be fairly gathered from the connexion of the words, for 
the preceding words are these (Luke vi. 36), “ Be ye merciful 
as your heavenly Father is merciful ;” the following words 
run thus, “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven” (ver. 37) ; 
and also from that saying of St. James (ii. 13), “ He shall 
have judgment without mercy, who showeth no mercy.” 

Thirdly, That judging must be here condemned which be- 
gets in us a contempt of others, and makes us to despise and 
vilify them, as may be gathered from that question (Rom. iv. 
10), “ Why dost thou judge? why dost thou set at nought 
thy brother ?” 

Lastly, Christ, by this prohibition, must be supposed to 
condemn our forwardness to judge and censure others, whilst 
we ourselves are guilty of far greater crimes, it being plain 
hypocrisy to pretend a zeal against the lesser faults of others, 
and yet allow much greater in ourselves. ‘This plainly fol- 
lows from the connexion of the words, “ Judge not, that ye 
be not judged; and why beholdest thou the mote that is in 
thy brother's eye, when, behold, a beam isin thine own eye?’ 
The Jews themselves used this proverb familiarly in this very 
case, against those who reprehended the least offences in 
others, when they themselves were guilty of very heinous 
crimes (see Cartw. Mellif. and Lightfoot here). 

2 Ver. 6. Μὴ dare τὸ ἅγιον τοῖς κυσὶ, ἕο. Give not that 
which is holy to dogs, neither cast you your pearls before 
swine.) By “dogs and swine,” here we must not understand 
all that are wicked and profane, either through ignorance or 
vicious habits; for Christ preached the gospel to publicans 
and harlots, and sent his apostles to preach it to the heathen 
world, which “lay in wickedness,” and “was dead in tres- 
passes and sins ;” but such wicked persons only, as by ex- 
perience they found, after the gospel was preached and con- 
firmed to them by miracles, were still refractory, and perti- 
naciously continued in their filthy lusts, after they had 
received the knowledge of the truth, and were so far from 
embracing it, that they resisted and blasphemed it, and were 
ready to persecute and destroy the professors of it; among 
such persons, saith Christ, spend not much time, seeing 
your labour will not be only lost to them, but hazardous to 
yourselves. Such were those Jews to whom St. Paul having 
preached the gospel, they “ contradicted and blasphemed” it, 
and, therefore, he “turned from them to the gentiles” (Acts 
xiii. 41. 46) ; such were especially the scribes and pharisees, 
and rulers of the Jews, who, seeing that Christ did cast out 
devils, said, he did it by confederacy with Beelzebub « the 
prince of devils” (Matt. ix. 34, xii. 24) ; who, being reduced 
to silence by his miracles, were “ filled with madness” (Luke 
vi. 11), and “took counsel how they might destroy him” 
(Matt. xii. 14), and confessing that he did many miracles, 
conclude thence, he was “ to be taken off” (John xi. 47. 53), 
and consult of cutting off Lazarus also, because “ by reason 
of him many believed in Christ” (John xii. 10, 11) : and be- 
mg assured of Christ’s resurrection, by the testimony of 
those very soldiers whom they had placed as a guard about 
his sepulchre, corrupt these witnesses with money, to disguise 
it with a barefaced lie (Matt. xxviii.). Note also that this 
saying was proverbial among the Jews." 

8 Ver. 7. Αἰτεῖτε καὶ doSicerat ὑμῖν" &e. Ask, and it shall 


* Buxt. Flor. p. 306. 


be given you ; seek, and ye Selin’ ὅε. ifs every one that 
asketh receiveth.| To understand aright this promise, let it 
be observed, that to enable us to pray with such an assurance 
of faith, that what we ask we shall receive, some things are 
requisite in the party praying, some as to the matter, and 
some as to the manner of his prayer. And, 

First, The person who expects his prayer should find ac- 
ceptance with God must not persist in any way of sin, his 
heart and his affections must be taken off from every evil 
way; for, saith the Psalmist, “If I regard iniquity in 
my heart, God will not hear my prayer’ (Ps. lxvi. 18). 
And otherwise in our addresses to God for preservation from 
sin, we do but « flatter him with our lips, and dissemble with 
our double hearts,” we being not disposed or willing to for- 
sake that sin we pray against. 

Secondly, He must begin at least to be a “ doer of God’s 
will; one, who sincerely doth desire to fear him, and who 
doth uprightly purpose and resolve that he will keep his right- 
eous precepts ; for “if any man be a worshipper of God, and 
doeth his will, him he heareth” (John ix. 31) : when once 
this holy fear is rooted in our hearts, his ear will be still open 
to our prayers, for “he will fulfil the desires of them that 
fear him, and when they call he will answer them (Ps. cxlv. 
19). And whilst we do persist in the sincerity of our obe- 
dience, we shall retain this humble confidence of our ac- 
ceptance; for “if our hearts condemn us not (of insince- 
rity) then have we confidence with God, and we know that 
what we ask we receive, because we keep his command- 
ments” (1 John iii. 21, 22). 

To clear both these particulars, consider that true prayer 
is attended with a strong desire, that we may enjoy the 
blessing we pray for, and also that we address to God for 
the assistance of our weakness and inability to compass the 
desired blessing by our own industry, without the divine 
assistance ; so that in all our addresses to God for preserva- 
tion from, or strength against, any temptations, or assaults 
of sin, or the mortification of any evil habit which we have 
contracted, we solemnly profess to him, we are very willing 
and desirous to mortify that sin, and be preserved from that 
temptation ; and in all our supplications for grace, to per- 
form our duty, or to increase in any virtuous habit, we de- 
clare that we are truly willing to perform that duty, we ear- 
nestly desire to advance to higher measures in that Christian 
virtue, and that we therefore sue to him for power to enable 
us to do according to those good desires, Now these pro- 
fessions made to God must be hypocritical and false, ard 
therefore cannot render one of our prayers successful; or 
else we must be truly willing and desirous to break off our 
sins by repentance, and to perform that duty which we owe 
to God, before we do address to him for strength for the per- 
formance of our duty and preservation from sin. 

Again, seeing that God to whom we pray is in himself 
immutable, and in the holiness and perfections of his nature 
is unchangeable; seeing he always acts agreeably to those 
standing rules of righteousness he hath declared in his word 
—it must be vain for us to hope by argument to move, by 
fair speeches to incline, or by pathetical entreaties to per- 
suade him to do any thing which is not suitable to this purity 
of his nature, and to the justice of his government; when 
therefore we ask pardon for those sins we are not willing to 
forsake, when we desire his friendship or protection, whilst 
we continue violaters of his holy laws and rebels to his go- 
vernment, it is impossible we should prevail in our addresses ; 
because it is not consistent with the honour of a just and 
holy God to grant what we desire: we pray against the de 
clarations of his holy will, against the laws of his government 
and the perfections of his nature, and so we cannot hope 
that our desires should be granted: since then God changeth 
not, if we desire that our prayers should find acceptance with 
him, the change must be in us; in our affections, from a love 


80 


(diligently), and ye shall find; knock (perseveringly), 
and it shall be opened unto you: 

8 For every one that asketh (duly) receiveth; and 
he that (thus) seeketh findeth ; and to him that knock- 
eth (thus) it shall be opened. 

9 (And of this you may be assured from the kindness 
of earthly parents, for) * Or what man is there of you, 
whom if his son ask bread (of him), will he give him 
a stone ? 

10 Orif he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent 


MATTHEW. 


(2. 6. will he give him what is unprofitable for or hurtful to 
him) ὃ 

11 If ye then, (though) being evil, know how (and 
are inclined) to give good gifts unto your children, 
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven 
give good things to them that (duly) ask him Ὁ 

12 (4nd as I have thus taught you how to obtain 
what you would have God to do for you, so do I now 
teach you the best way to obtain what you would rea- 
sonably desire of men;) 5 Therefore all things whatso- 


to a hatred of every evil way, from a dislike to an approba- 
tion of the ways of piety ; in our wills, from a perverse and 
disobedient to a willing mind; and then that God, who is 
immutable, will therefore be disposed to hear us; for he un- 
changeably is willing to show kindness to his friends, and 
give assistance to every soul that uprightly desires to fear 
and serve him. 

Thirdly, He must be one who doth forgive his brother’s 
trespasses, that he may be disposed to obtain the pardon of 
his own. “A man,” saith the son of Sirach, “beareth ha- 
tred against another, and doth he hope for pardon from the 
Lord? He showeth no mercy to a man that is like himself, 
and doth he ask forgiveness of his own sins?” (Ecclus. xxviii. 
3, 4). “When ye stand praying,” saith our Lord, “ forgive 
if you have aught against any man, that your heavenly 
Father may forgive you; for if you forgive not men their 
trespasses, neither will your Father which is in heaven for- 
give your trespasses” (Mark xi. 25, 26). 

Fourthly, He must be free from all injustice, injury, and 
wrong, done to his neighbour, or ready to make satisfaction 
for it, according to that resolution of the Psalmist, «I will 
wash mine hands in innocency, and so will I compass thine 
altar” (Ps. xxvi. 6). We must not offer our oblation to God 
till we have offered, or are resolved, as we have opportunity, 
to offer, reasonable satisfaction to our brother; for “if thou 
bringest thy gift to the altar,’ saith our Lord, “and there 
rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee ; leave 
there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way ; first be re- 
conciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” 
(Matt. v. 23, 24). To proceed to the matter of our petitions: 

First, What we ask must be agreeable to the holy will of 
God; “for if we ask any thing according to his will he 
heareth us” (1 John ν. 14). And this must be the limit of 
all our acceptable desires, it being neither possible in na- 
ture that he can, nor fit in reason that he should, permit our 
foolish wills to thwart the counsel of his wisdom. It must 
be also something which comporteth with and tendeth to 
his glory, that being the great end of all our rational desires 
“that God in all things may be glorified.’ And hence 
observe, that even spiritual blessings may be asked amiss, 
and so as not to be obtained; because we are not fitted to 
receive them in that way in which alone it is for God’s 
glory to confer them. As when we would enjoy the end, 
but will not use the means by divine wisdom appointed 
for the obtaining that end: v. g. he that desires to be 
saved, desires what is agreeable to his will, “ who would have 
all men to be saved;” but if he will not also, “by con- 
tinuance in well doing, seek for glory and immortality,” if 
he will not “work out his salvation with fear and trem- 
bling,” if he will not have “his fruit unto holiness,” the end 
can never be “eternal life ;” because God hath made holi- 
ness the means, and obedience the condition, of salvation: 
and it is in the nature of the thing impossible, that an im- 
pure soul should be prepared for the enjoyment of a holy 
God; nor is it for his honour to confer this blessing on the 
disobedient, or to admit unholy souls into his blissful pre- 
sence. And though our gracious God be willing we should 
pe saved, he is not willing we should be so whether we 
will or no; he is not willing we should be saved though 
we use not the means appointed by him to obtain sal- 
vation. Again, it is certainly agreeable to the mind of 
God, that we should abstain from that iniquity which 
is a provocation to the pure eyes of his glory, and it is 
doubtless for his honour that we should do so; but though 
we pray to be preserved from it, yet, if we add not our sin- 
cere endeavours, if we do not “ watch as well as pray, that 
Wwe entcr not into temptation,” and, as much as in us lies, 


avoid the occasions of, resist the temptations and solicita- 
tians to it, our prayer for preservation will not be successful ; 
because we are not uprightly disposed to use the means for 
preservation from it, which God hath put into our hands. 

Secondly, What we thus ask must be what is truly good 
for us, and were we entirely wise, we should not be capable 
of tendering to God a request which doth not minister to 
this end; because good is the adequate object of all our ra- 
tional desires, and when we ignorantly put up addresses 
for what he in his wisdom seeth not to be good for, but ra- 
ther hurtful to us, it is out of pure kindness and concern for 
us that he denieth our requests. To proceed, 

Thirdly, To the manner requisite to render these our 
prayers successful ; 

First, we must pray in faith, that is, with an entire per- 
suasion that God is able to supply all our wants, that divine 
wisdom discerneth all our real needs, and knows how to re- 
lieve them; sees all our miseries and troubles, and knows 
how to convert them to our good, or work deliverance from 
them in the fittest season, that he will be exactly true to all 
his promises, and so “ will not withhold any good thing from 
them that lead a godly life; that, lastly, he is a God of 
immense goodness, and therefore willing to bestow upon his 
servants all that his wisdom seeth good and necessary for 
them; “what things soever you desire in prayer, believe 
that you shall receive them, and ye shall receive them” 
(Matt. xxi. 22); if you have faith, καὶ μὴ διακριθῆτε, “and 
doubt not” (ver. 21), if ye ask in faith, μὴ διακρινόμενοι, 
“not doubting” of his power or will to do what is for his 
glory and your good (see note on Jamesi. 6), “ask, and you 
shall receive.” 

Secondly, If our petitions be not instantly granted, we 
must pray (for spiritual things especially) with perseverance, - 
and wait with patience till he will be gracious ; for we must 
“pray always, and not faint” (Luke xviii.1, Eph. vi.18). And, 

Thirdly, We must pray (at least for spiritual blessings) 
with fervency of spirit; we must “knock,” saith the meta- 
phor here, we must dywvitew, be in “ agonies” of devotion 
for them (Col. iv. 12), to show how much we prize them, 
the fervent being the availing prayer (James v. 16). 

4 Ver. 9. Ἢ τίς ἐστιν ἐξ ὑμῶν ἄνθρωπος, ὃν ἐὰν αἱτήση----μὴ 
λίθον ἐπιδώσει αὐτῷ] For the construction of these words, 
let it be noted from Stephanus, that ἢ at the beginning of a 
sentence, no other particle preceding, signifies, an ; so Judg. 
Xiv. 15, ἢ ἐκβιᾶσαι ἡμᾶς xexAjxare; “ Have ye called Samson 
to do us violence?” 1 Sam. x. 12, ἢ καὶ Σαοὺλ ἐν τοῖς προφή- 
ras; “Is Saul also among the prophets?’ So Matt. xx, 
15, ἢ οὐκ ἔζεστί-τ--ἢ ὃ ὀφθαλμός cov; “Is it not lawful for me 
to do what I will with my own? [5 thine eye evil because 
Iam good?” 1 Cor. xiv. 36, ἢ ἀφ᾽ ὑμῶν ὃ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐξῆλ- 
Sev, ἢ εἰς ὑμᾶς μόνους κατήντησεν ; “Came the word of God 
from you, came it to you only?” So here, ἢ ris, “is there 
any man among you, ὃν ἐὰν αἰτήση----ἄρτον ; of whom his 
son shall ask bread?’ Μὴ is only the sign of an interroga- 
tion. So Gen. xviii. 14, μὴ ἀδυνατήσῃ ; “Shall any thing be 
too hard for God?” ver. 17, μὴ xpipw; “Shall I hide from 
Abraham?” ver. 23, μὴ συναπολέσης ; Wilt thou destroy the 
righteous with the wicked ?” Judg. ix. 9. 11. 13, μὴ απολεί- 
Waca; “Shall I leave my fatness? Shall I leave my sweet- 
ness? shall I leave my wine ?”’ Jer. xxxii. 27, μὴ κρυβήσεται; 
“Shall any thing be hid from me?” (see Gen, xxvii. 38, 
xxx. 15, xxxi. 14, xli. 38, xliii. 7). So that the whole verse 
runs thus, “Is there any man among you of whom his son 
shall ask bread, will that man give him a stone ?” 

5 Ver. 12. Πάντα οὖν ὅσα ἂν ϑέλητε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν of av 
ϑρωποι, οὕτω καὶ ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς, Whatsoever you woula 
that men should do to you, do you even so to thein, &c.] 


CHAPTER VII. 


ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even 
so to them: for (in) this (rule) is (comprised the sub- 
siance of ) the law and the prophets. 

13 4 Enter δ ye in at the strait gate (that leadeth unto 


81 


life, ver. 14); for wide is the gate, and broad is the 
way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be 
which go in thereat (with ease; but there is great need 
of industry, and much striving to get into the other) ; 


Here the critical note is this—that we are not to look for a 
connexion of these words to the former, though they be in- 
troduced with the particle οὖν, “therefore ;” that being, saith 
Phavorinus, often dpysv,an expletive, or serving only by way 
of transition from one thing to another. Others connect the 
words thus; viz. that in the immediate preceding words our 
Lord instructs us, by a comparison taken from men, that we 
may reasonably expect our heavenly Father will confer upon 
us all those blessings which he sees needful for us, and we 
can reasonably desire, provided that we ask them with faith 
and importunity, and do with diligence seek them: and 
hence, saith Grotius, our Lord infers that we, who stand en- 
gaged to be “followers of God as dear children,” should be 
as ready to afford to others all needful aid, which they, on 
the account of equity, humanity, and Christian charity, desire 
of us; this being only that which, in like cases, we expect 
from others. Hence in St. Luke, vi. 30, our Lord is intro- 
duced, saying, “ Give to every one that asketh;” and “as 
you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
them” (ver. 31). But for explication of this rule, note, 
First, That it was a rule which obtained both among Jews 

and gentiles, and was delivered by them in some variety of 
words, but with great harmony of sense; first positively, as 
here, 

Quod tibi fieri vis, fac alteri. 

Γενοῦ πᾶσιν ὥς σοι Sédets πάντας. 
And also negatively, 


Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. 

Quod damnaturus sis in aliis, in te non admiseris. 

“Ὅπερ σὺ μισεῖς rap" ἑτέρῳ σοι γένεσϑαι, eis ἑτέρους μὴ ποίει. 

"A πάσχοντες ὑφ᾽ ἑτέρου ὀργίζεσθε, ταῦτα τοῖς ἄλλοις μὴ ποιεῖτε. 
Isocr. ad Nicocl. Or. 3. 


And in those words of Hillel, “Do not thou that to thy 
neighbour, which thou hatest when it is done to thee;” 
which rule in Tobit (iv. 14), is expressed thus, 6 μισεῖς μη- 
devi ποιήσης, “do that to no man which thou hatest.” 

Secondly, That this rule being given as the sum of the law 
and the prophets, as an abridgment of the rules of justice 
prescribed by them, can never duly be so construed, as to 
subvert any of the laws and orders established by them, or 
thwart the proper rules of charity or justice. And there- 
fore this rule admits these limitations: 

Thirdly, Whatsoever I desire with a well-ordered or regu- 
lated will, that is, what I desire, agreeably to the dictates of 
right reason, or to the principles of Christian religion, should 
he done or not done to me, that I must do or not do to others. 
Tt therefore will not follow from this rule, that if 2 pot com- 
vanion will give me drink to excess, that I must give him 
drink to excess, or that, if Socrates would lend his wife to 
his friend, that friend should do the like to him; because 
that which is here prescribed asa rule of charity and justice 
among Christians, could never be intended to countenance 
what is opposite to charity and justice, to the law and the 
prophets, and more especially to the precepts of Christianity. 
And so, as to the negative part of this rule, though a criminal, 
or guilty person, would not have the judge condemn him, or 
the witnesses give in testimony against him, but would be 
pardoned atter condemnation; yet he who is a judge, were 
he such a person, must not forbear to condemn, or always 
pardon, the condemned criminal, since this practice would 
take away vindictive justice, and let offenders go unpu- 
nished. 

Fourthly, This rule must be interpreted as a rule of pro- 
portion, binding us to do, or not to do that to others, which in 
like state, condition, or relation, we would, or we would not 
have done to ourselves ; v. g. it requires not the master to 
obey his servants, because he would have them obedient to 
him, but to be as obedient to his masters as he can reason- 
ably expect they should be to him, and to treat his servants 
as kindly and favourably as, if he were a servant, he could 
reasonably desire to be treated by his master; the prince 
must not be subject to his people, as he would have them be 
to παῖ τς ἘΝ ττσας treat them with that equity and kind- 

ἴοι, LY.— 


Nilus. 


ness, which, if he were a subject, he reasonably might ex- 
pect from a prince duly regardful of his subjects’ weal ; and 
so proportionably in the relations of father and children, 
man and wife, master and scholar, pastor and flock, &c. 

Fifthly, This rule must not be extended to every thing 
which another may lawfully do to me, and therefore I de- 
sire he would do; but only what I may desire of him, or 
expect from him as his duty, on the account of equity and 
justice, charity, friendship, or relation. Thus, if a poor 
man would desire that some very wealthy person would 
give him out of his estate enough to make him rich; though 
were this rich man poor, he would be glad if somebody 
would show the like kindness to him, yet he is not obliged 
by this rule, though lawfully he might do it, to make this 
poor man rich, because he stands not bound by any law of 
charity or justice so to do. And, 

Sixthly, Note that this rule, as it is positive, respects not 
only our outward actions, but even our words and thoughts, 
requiring us to speak, think, and judge of others, as in like 
circumstances we may in equity and reason expect they 
should speak, think, or judge of us. As it is negative, it 
must require us not to speak, think, or judge of others, as 
we conceive that in like circumstances they ought not to 
speak, think, or judge of us; for there is an equity to be 
observed in our words and thoughts of others, as well as in 
our actions, and a judgment of charity, and a righteous 
judgment, as well as a labour of love, and a righteous deed ; 
and also an evil word and thought, and a wrong judgment, 
which therefore ought to be forborne from principles of love 
and equity. 

6 Ver. 13, 14. Enter in at the strait gate, &c.] Of the 
metaphor of a “strait gate,” see note on viii. 11, and note 
that the way of virtue and felicity is represented by the hea- 
then sages under the like metaphor; thus Cebes saith, that 
there is at the entrance of it Sépa ris μικρὰ, “a little gate,” 
and ἀνάβασις στενὴ πάνυ, “ the way hath a very strait ascent,” 
and is a way not trodden in, which πάνυ ὀλίγοι πορεύονται, 
“very few walk in,” as seeming to be difficult, zpaxete καὶ 
πετρώδης, “rough and rocky.” And yet this is no contra- 
diction to those scriptures which represent the ways of wis- 
dom as “ways of pleasantness,” and “the yoke” of Christ 
as “easy,” and his “commandments” as “not grievous ;” 
for this way is only rough and grievous at our first entrance 
into it, when we have many old acquaintance and seeming 
friends to part with, and evil habits to put off, and till faith 
and patience have smoothed it to us; but then we can “re- 
joice in tribulations, and take pleasure in infirmities,” and 
love will make it pleasant to us. “ When temperance and 
patience,” said Cebes, have lifted us to the top of the hill, 
then is it dds καλή re καὶ ὑμαλὴ καὶ εὐπόρευτος, “a way that is 
pleasant, smooth, and easy to be trod, free from all evil, and 
leading to the regions of felicity.” And whereas it is added, 
ὅτι στενὴ ἢ πύλη, “ because strait is the gate,” ὅτι there should 
be rendered but, for so the Hebrew 55, which answers to it, 
often signifies, and is therefore rendered by the Septuagint, 
ἀλλὰ or add’ ἢ but, viz. 2 Chron. xx. 15, Ps. xlii. 3, Dan. ix. 
11, Amos vii. 14. And sometimes ὅτι in the sense of but ; 
so 1 Kings xxi. 15, “Naboth is not alive, np »> ὅτι πέθνηκε, 
but dead;” 2 Kings i. 4, “ He shall not descend down from 
his bed mypn ny 2 ὅτι Savére ἀποθανῇ, but shall die.” So 
Numb. xxvii. 3, Deut. xi. 7, Judg. i. 19, ii. 17, 1 Sam. xvii. 
47, 2 Sam. xxiv. 24, and in many other places (see Noldius 
de partic. Heb. p. 404). 

7 Ver. 15. Προσέχετε ἐὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ψευδοπροφετῶν, Ver. 16. 
ἀπὸ τῶν καρπῶν αὐτῶν ἐπιγνώσεσθε airots. Beware of false pro- 
phets,—by their fruits ye shall know them.) They who ex- 
tend the word “ false prophets” to all teachers of false doc- 
trines, will scare be able to show, how they, who teach the 
doctrine of the millennium, or that the promises of the law 
were only temporal, or that the baptism of infants may be 
deferred till they come to years of discretion, or that the 
sabbath-day is still to be kept holy, can be proved to be 
“false prophets” by the evil tendence or consequents of 
their doctrine: moreover, it must be noted that Christ here 


82 ; 

14 Because strait 7s the gate, and narrow 7s the 
piel which leadeth unto life, and few there be that 

nd it. 

15 (And that you may not be led out of it,)" Beware 
of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s cloth- 
ing (as the old prophets did), but inwardly they are 
ravening wolves. 

16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. (For) do 
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 
(Surely no.) 

17 Even so (it is not to be expected that ye should 
receive good from such persons; for) every good tree 
bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth 
forth evil fruit. 

18 § A good tree (whilst it continues so) cannot bring 
forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth 
good fruit. 


MATTHEW. 


19 (And yet it ts of great importance that your 
fruit should be good; for) every tree that bringeth 
not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the 
fire (the punishment reserved for such false prophets and 
evil workers). 

20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them 
(whom I thus bid you beware of. For) 

21 4 9 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, 
(or calls himself one of my prophets or disciples), shall 
enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he (only) that 
doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven (and 
thus will it appear to be in the great day. For) 

22 1 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, 
have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy 
name have cast out devils? and in thy name done 
many wonderful works ? 

23 And then willl profess unto them, I never knew 


speaks to the multitude (ver. 28, 29), and to the ears of the 
people (Luke vil. 1): they therefore must beware of them, 
and so be able to know them by their works, as “the tree 
is known by its fruits” (ver. 20), from the works of ini- 
quity they do (ver. 23), not from their doctrines; for that 
would render our Lord’s words ridiculous; viz. “ Beware 
of teachers of false doctrines; by their false doctrines ye 
shall know them.” 

Obj. But you may say, Christ owns they shall appear 
“in sheep’s clothing,” that is, in a fair appearance of piety 
and innocence, and so it must be difficult to pass a judg- 
ment on them by their works. 

Ans. It is not necessary that their coming “in sheep’s 
clothing” should signify their seeming innocency, but only 
their appearance in the habit of prophets. For so Elias 
wrapped himself ἐν τῇ μηλωτῆ αὐτοῦ, “in his sheep’s skin 
mantle” (1 Kings xix. 13), and when he ascended, ἡ μηλωτὴς, 
“his mantle fell from him” (2 Kings ii. 13). This there- 
fore may be the true import of this phrase, ‘They shall ap- 
pear in the habit of prophets. But (2.) admit it signifies 
their hypocrisy and dissimulation ; things feigned and dis- 
sembled only, will in a little time be easily discerned from 
that which is sincere and real; when such hypocritical pre- 
tenders have got once a liberty to do it, when their advan- 
tage requires it, when persecutions for the faith arise, they 
will soon put off the mask, and discover themselves to be 
counterfeits. 

Moreover, “false prophets,” both in the Old and the 
New Testament, do always signify such persons as falsely 
pretend a commission from God for what they teach, or who 
promise or foretell things falsely in his name; as will ap- 
pear from all the places of the New Testament where this 
word occurs, Matt. xxiv. 11, Mark xiii. 22, Luke vi. 26, 
Acts xiii. 6, 2 Pet. ii. 1, Rev. xvi. 13, xix. 20, xx.10. That 
such “false prophets” were suddenly to come into the 
world, our Lord foretells, Matt. xxiv. 11. That many of 
them were come, we learn from St. Peter and St. John, 1 
John iv. 1. And, 

Lastly, The apostles teach, agreeably to Christ, that such 
“false apostles” and “false prophets’ are to be discovered, 
not only by their doctrines, but by their works, as being 
“ravenous wolves, not sparing the flock” (Acts xx. 29); 
“teachers of what they ought not for filthy lucre’s sake” 
(Tit. i. 11); such “as count gain, godliness” (1 Tim. vi. 
5); “lovers of money” (2 Tim. ili. 2) ; “ through covetous- 
ness by feigned words making merchandise of others” (2 
Pet. ii. 3); “admiring persons for gain” (Jude 16); such 
as may be known by the evil works they did, and taught 
others to do, as being “lovers of pleasure” (2 Tim. iii. 4) ; 
“abominable” (Tit. i. 16); “defiling the flesh, and turn- 
ing the grace of God into lasciviousness”’ (2 Pet. ii. 10, Jude 
4. 8); and, lastly, such as insisted upon questions which 
had no tendency to advance godliness, but rather to “ nour- 
ish strife, and to subvert the hearers” (1 Tim. i. 4, iv. 7, 
2 Tim. ii. 16. 23, Tit. iii. 9). 

8 Ver. 18. Οὐ δύναται δένδρον ἀγαϑὸν πονηροὺς καρποὺς ποιεῖν, 
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an 
evil tree bring forth good fruit.) i. e. While they continue 
such. Hence some make two inferences, which are false 
and alien from the mind of Christ : 


First, That he who once is regenerate can never cease to 
be so; which no more follows, than that he who is once 
wicked cannot cease to be so; and therefore that it is vain 
to call sinners to repentance, or bid them “make the tree 
good,” as Christ doth, Matt. xii. 33. 

Secondly, That an irregenerate person can do nothing 
that is good, because he is an evil tree, and so he must be 
purely passive in his whole conversion; which is as if I 
should argue, that a good man cannot sin, because, being a 
good tree, he cannot bring forth evil fruit. Good here is the 
note of St. Jerome, that “Judas, being once a good tree, 
brought forth bad fruit, when he betrayed his Master. And 
Saul, being once a bad tree, brought forth good fruit, when 
he became a vessel of election:”? Tamdiu ergo arbor bona 
fructus non facit malos, quamdiu in bonitatis studio perse- 
verat; et mala arbor tamdiu manet in fructibus peccatorum, 
quamditi ad penitentiam non convertitur. “So long then 
as the good tree persevereth in its goodness, it bringeth not 
forth evil fruit ; and the evil tree continues to bring forth the 
fruits of sin, till by repentence it is turned into a good tree.” 

9 Ver. 21. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, 
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, &c.] Of the im- 
port of this phrase, “the kingdom of heaven,” see note on 
iii. 3, And note hence, that faith and purposes of obedi- 
ence, without actual obedience to the commands of God, as 
long as we live and have opportunity to do so, will avail no 
man to salvation. 

0 Ver, 22. Many shall say in that day, Lord, οὐ τῷ σῷ 
dvépart προεφητεύσαμεν, &e. have we not prophesied, cast out 
devils, and done many mighty works in thy name?) I 
grant that it cannot be certainly inferred from these words, 
that any persons will thus plead at the day of judgment ; but 
only that such pleas, if made, will be of no account with 
God from workers of iniquity: but yet it will hence follow, 
that such persons might be workers of iniquity, and also 
that they might have some expectations of favour from 
Christ, on the account of these things performed in his 
name. And that such miracles were actually performed by 
such men in the name of Christ, we learn from Origen,* 
who saith that «so prevalent is the name of Christ to cast 
out devils, ὡς ἐσθ᾽ ὅτε καὶ ὑπὸ φαύλων ὀνομαζόμενον ἀνύειν, that 
sometimes (as Christ said) it avails when named by wicked 
Christians.’ And Pseudo-Justin} confesseth of the here- 
tics, ἐνεργεῖν twig ἐν αὐτοῖς δυνάμεις, that some miracles were 
wrought by them.” For though true miracles cannot be 
wrought in confirmation of a “false doctrine,” yet, seeing 
miracles wrought by “the name of Jesus,” are wrought not 
to confirm either the doctrine or piety of him that doth them, 
but only to confirm his doctrine in whose name they are 
wrought, I think it no absurdity to grant, that evil Chris- 
tians may do them in his name. Thus God put many true 
prophecies concerning his people into the mouth of that 
Balaam, “who loved the wages of unrighteousness ;” and 
Judas was one of those twelve to whom Christ gave 
‘power to cast out unclean spirits, and to heal all diseases” 
(Matt. x. 1). 

Nl Ver. 24. Πᾶς οὖν ὅστις ἀκούει τοὺς λύγους robrovs, καὶ ποιεῖ 
αὐτοὺς, &e. Every one that heareth these words, and doeth 


{ Qu. 5. 


* Contr. Cels, lib. i. p. 7. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


you: (ἡ, δ. never approved of you as my disciples, there- 
Sore) depart from me, ye that work iniquity. 

24 { " Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings 
of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise 
man, which built his house upon a rock : 

25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and 
it fell not: for it was founded upon. a rock (so also 
will the obedient person stand firm in the day of trial). 

26 And every one that heareth these sayings of 
mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a 


83 


foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 

27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it 
fell: and great was the fall of it (7. e. so will it be with 
him who lives not suitably to my peered 

28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these 
sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine : 

29 For he taught them 13 as one having authority 
(from God to teach them), and not as the seribes (who 
only taught them what were the traditions and expositions 
of their fathers). 


them, will I liken to a wise man.] Hence it appears, (1.) 
that this sermon on the mount contains those rules of faith 
which are sufficient for salvation; since otherwise Christ 
could not promise it to them who observed and practised 
these his sayings. 

(2.) That a man may be disposed to yield this obedience, 
it is necessary, (1.) that he believe Christ was “a teacher 
sent from God” into the world, to propound these rules of 
life and death in his name, and by his authority; faith being 
the principle and root of all obedience. (2.) ‘That he hath 
a sufficient knowledge of these rules, and doth retain them 
in his memory ; for what he doth not know he cannot, and 
what he retains not in his memory he will not do. We 
must add to “our faith, knowledge” (2 Pet. i. 5); and 
“keep in memory the things we have heard,” 1 Cor. xv. 2. 
(3.) That he firmly believe and frequently reflect upon the 
motives to perform these rules; viz. the blessings promised 
to the observers of them, and the great evils threatened to 
the neglecters of these rules: for the serious and frequent 
consideration of these things will not only animate us to the 
performance of our duty, but will strengthen us against all 
the temptations and allurements of the world, to divert us 
from it; whilst we perceive that the advantages we shall re- 
ceive by living according to these rules, are infinitely greater 
than any which the world can tender; and the evils which 
will certainly ensue on our neglect to do so, are far more 
formidable than any we can suffer from a persecuting 
world. 

2 Ver. 29. "Hy γὰρ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων, The 
multitude were astonished at his doctrine; for he taught 


them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.) 
They certainly mistake, who interpret these words thus, 
“He taught them as the author of the doctrine he preached, 
and one who had authority in his own name, to propound 
the terms of life and death,” and therefore saith not, as the 
prophets, “Thus saith the Lord,” but “I say unto you.” 
This being not only contrary to the nature of his prophetic 
office, but to his frequent declarations, that “the doctrine 
which he taught was not his own, but his that sent him ;”’ 
that “he spake not of himself, or in his own name, but as 
he had heard from his Father, and as he had commanded 
him to speak” (John vii. 16, viii. 28, xii. 49, xiv. 10, xvii. 
18). This interpretation therefore of St. Jerome, Theophy- 
lact, and others, is to be rejected. Others think this relates 
to the confirmation of his doctrine by miracles; for when 
he had cured all manner of diseases, demoniacs, lunatics, 
and paralytics, the people flock to him from all quarters 
(Matt. iv. 24, 25), and then he begins his sermon, So 
Mark i. 27, “They all marvelled, saying, What is this new 
doctrine ? for κατ᾽ ἐξουσίαν with authority he commandeth 
the unclean spirits, and they obey him :” and Luke iy. 32, 
“They were amazed at his doctrine; for his word was ἐν 
ἐξουσία, attended with the power of miracles” (ver. 36). 
And, thirdly, because it is here said, “they were astonish- 
ed,” not at his miracles, but “at his doctrine ;” others inter- 
pret the words thus, “He spake as a prophet, having 
authority from God to deliver his message to them ;” not as 
the scribes, who pretended only to deliver the traditions of 
their forefathers, and to teach only what they had learnt 
from Hillel, Shemaia, Abtalion, &c. So Lightfoot. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 Wuen he was come down from the mountain 
which he delivered this divine discourse), great multitudes 
followed him. 

2 And, behold (when he was in or near one of 
the cities, Luke vy. 12), there came a leper and ! wor- 
shipped him, (Aneeling, Mark i. 40, and falling 
down before him, Luke vy. 12, and) saying, Lord, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 


' Ver. 2. Προσεκῦνει aire, worshipped him.] The Jews paid 
civil adoration both to kings and prophets, either by bending 
of the knee, or by prostration, or falling down before them: 
so Abigail fell down before David, and bowed herself to the 
ground, 1 Sam. xxv. 23.41; so also the Amalekite fell to 
the earth before him, and did obeisance, 2 Sam. i. 2; so 
Mephibosheth fell on his face, and did him reverence, 2 
Sam. ix. 6; so the woman of Tekoah, 2 Sam. xiv. 4; Na- 
than, 1 Kings i. 23; so the whole congregation “worship- 
ped the Lord and the king,” 1 Chron. xxix. 20. Thus 
also they reverenced the holy prophets: so Saul stooped 
with his face to the ground to Samuel, 1 Sam. xxviii. 14. 
Obadiah fell on his face before Elijah, 1 Kings xviii. 7, see 
2 Kings i. 13, and Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face before 
Daniel, ii. 46. Whence I conclude, that the adorations 
given to our blessed Saviour by those Jews and gentiles who 
knew nothing of his divinity, could be no argument of his 
divine nature, but rather were paid to him as the Messiah, 
or és a prophet sent from God, or as the “ King of Israel.” 

2 Ver. 3. Kai ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα ἥψατο αὐτοῦ ὃ Ἰησοῦς. And 
Jesus, stretching forth his hand, touched him.] The Jews 
cannot reasonably object that our Lord violated the law, 


if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 

3 And Jesus (having compassion on him, Mark i. 41) 
? put forth his hand, and touched him, saying (¢o him), 
I will; be thou clean, And immediately his leprosy 
was cleansed. : 

4 And Jesus (straitly charged him, and forthwith sent 
him away, Mark i. 43, and) saith unto him, 3 See thou 


either by touching the leper here, or by touching the bier of 
the dead (Luke vii. 14) ; for, as the effect wrought upon 
both demonstrated, that the God who gave these laws ap- 
proved both these actions, they being done by “ the finger 
of God,” so was it a received rule among them, “ That a 
prophet might vary from, or even change a ritual law :”* so 
did Elijah, who took the woman’s dead son out of her bosom, 
and carried him up to his bed, and stretched himself upon 
him three times (1 Kings xvii. 19. 21); so did Elisha, when 
he lay upon the Shunammite’s child, and put his mouth 
upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands 
upon his hands (2 Kings iv. 34). Whence Theophylact+ 
observes, “That our Lord touched the leper, to show it 
was not necessary that he should observe those lesser mat- 
ters of the law, and that a pure person is not defiled by 
touching one unclean ;” but that it is the leprosy of the soul 
which doth indeed defile (see note on ver. 8). 

3 Ver. 4. “Opa μηδενὶ εἴπῃς, See thou tell no man.) viz. That 
thou wast healed by me, till thou hast offered thy gift to the 
priest; and he, by receiving it, hath owned thee to be clean 
from thy leprosy, lest they, hearing that thou wast cleansed 


* Neve Shallom, lib. ix. cap. 19. 
7 In Luke vii. 14. 


84 


tell no man (who hath done this); but go thy way (first, 
and) 4 shew thyself to the priest, and offer ( for thy 
purification, Mark 1. 44, Luke ν. 15) the gift that 
Moses commanded, for ἃ 5 testimony unto them: (but 
he going from him, published it so much, that the multi- 
tude hearing of it came from every place to be healed of 
their infirmities, Mark i. 45, Luke v. 15). 

5 4 And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, 
Sthere came unto him (by the elders of the Jews, Luke 
vii. 3) a centurion, beseeching him, 

6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick 
of the palsy, grievously tormented (and nigh to death ; 
1] desire thou wouldst come and heal him, Luke vii. 3). 

[Luke vii. 4. And when they came to him, they be- 
sought him instantly, saying, That he was worthy for 
whom he should do this: Ver. 5, for he loveth our nation, 
and hath built us a synagogue. ] 

7 And Jesus saith unto him (7. 6. to the messengers 
sent by him), I will come and heal him. (And having 
said this, Jesus went with them, and when he was now not 
Sar from the house, Luke vii. 6,) 

8 The centurion (hearing that Christ was coming to 
him, sent other friends to him, by whom he) answered 
and said, Lord, (trouble not thyself to come to me; for) 
Iam not worthy that thou shouldest come under my 


by me, should, out of envy to me, refuse to own that thou 
wast cleansed. This sense, the words “ Offer the gift for a 
testimony to them,” seem to require; for that which was 
always to be concealed from them, could be no testimony 
to them of the divine mission (see note on ix. 30). 

4 Σεαυτὸν dsitov τῷ ἱερεῖ, Show thyself to the priest, &c.] 
Here it is well observed by Dr. Lightfoot, that though the 
priesthood was much degenerated from its primitive insti- 
tution and office, and many human institutions were added 
to God’s law, touching the priest’s examination of the leper 
who pretended to be clean; yet doth Christ send this leper 
to submit to all these human inventions, as knowing that 
they did indeed corrupt but not extinguish the divine insti- 
tution. 

5 Bis μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς, For a testimony to them.] This some 
interpret thus, “Offer thy gift for a testimony unto them, 
that thou art cleansed from thy leprosy,” which must be the 
import of these words, if Christ had absolutely forbid him 
to declare who it was that cured him of his leprosy ; but in 
all other places where this phrase is used, it imports a tes- 
timony to the truth of Christ’s mission or his doctrine, and, 
therefore, most probably, here signifies, that by pronouncing 
the man clean, they may have a testimony that I am the 
Christ, or am a prophet sent from God; they themselves 
owning that the leprosy can only be cured by the finger of 
God (2 Kings vy. 7), and, therefore, not suffering a physi- 
cian to attempt to cure it: so v. g. Matt. x. 18, «Ye shall 
be brought before governors and kings, εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς, 
for a testimony to them and to the nations :” Matt. xxiv. 
14, « This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all 
the world, εἰς μαρτύριον, for a testimony to all nations:’’ Luke 
ix. 5, “If they receive you not, shake off the dust of your 
feet, εἰς μαρτύριον én’ αὐτοὺς, for a testimony against them.” 
Hence the lepers cleansed, Matt. xi. 5, are made the sign of 
the advent of the Messiah. 

6 Ver. 4. Προσῆλϑεν αὐτῷ 6 ἐκατόνταργος παρακαλῶν αἁτὸν, 
There came to him a centurion, beseeching him.) Luke vii. 
3, he sent to him the rulers of the Jews; and, ver. 8, the 
centurion answered and said; Luke vii. 6, “the centurion 
sent friends to him, saying,” (see these things reconciled, in 
note on Luke vii. 1). It is conjectured by St. Chrysostom, 
καὶ αὐτὸν μετὰ τὸ πέμψαι τοὺς φίλους παραγενύμενον, that he him- 
self, as Jesus came nearer to his house, came out of civility 
to meet him ; because Christ says unto him, “Go thy way, 
as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee,” ver. 13; but 
of that also, see note on Luke vii. 1. 

7 Ver. 3.8. Θέλω, καθαρίσϑητι, I will, be thow clean.] Here 
the note of Woltzogenius is this, Hic veré divina Christi vis 
elucet; “Here shines forth the divine power of Chist, that 
he could do so great things only by his command :” so also 
Moses says, the world was “created by God, saying, Let 
there be light, and there was light’ (Gen. i. 3), And on 


MATTHEW. 


roof (wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come 
unto thee, Luke vii. 6, 7): but? speak the word only, 
and my servant shall be healed. 

9 For I am a man under authority, having (also) 
soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and 
he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh ; and 
to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. (How much 
more canst thou, who hast all power in heaven and earth, 
command one of the ministering spirits to come and heal 
my servant !) 

10 When Jesus heard tt (this saying), he marvelled, 
and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, 
Ihave not found so great faith, no, not in Israel (the 
people to whom I was promised, and to whom I am sent). 

11 And I say unto you, That § many shall come 
from the east and west (from the north and from 
the south, Luke xiii. 29), and shall sit down with 
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, (and with all the pro- 
phets, Luke xiii. 28) in the kingdom of heaven (1. e. 
shall be partakers of the blessings promised to these pa- 
triarchs). 

12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast 
out into outer darkness: (so that) there shall be weep- 
ing and gnashing of teeth (among them thus excluded 
from the blessings of this kingdom). 


those words, ver. 8, “Only say the word, and my servant 
shall be healed,” &c. he saith, he represents the faith of the 
centurion, concerning our Lord’s divine power, thus: If I, 
who am subject to the power of another, have so much 
power over my servants, that they instantly do whatever I 
would have them, how much more shall all things which 
thou requestest be done at thy word and command, qui 
nullius potestati subjectus es, who art subject to the power 
of none? And how can he deny him to be God, in whom 
shines forth that divine power which God exerted in the 
creation of the world, and at whose word all things that he 
commandeth must be done, and who “is subject to the 
power of none?” Surely this faith of the centurion may 
induce us to conclude with St. Jerome on the place, Quod 
intra corporis tegmen divinitatem latentem videret. 

8 Ver. 11,12. Λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν, ὅτι πολλοὶ ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν καὶ 
δυσμῶν ἥξουσι, καὶ ἀνακλιϑήσονται μετὰ ᾿Α βραὰμ----ν τῇ βασιλείᾳ 
τῶν οὐρανῶν, And I say unto you, That many shall come 
from the east, and from the west, and shall sit down with 
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, 
&c.] For the right understanding of these words, note, 

First, that to “lie down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
in the kingdom of heaven,” doth not here signify to enjoy 
everlasting happiness in heaven with them, but only to be- 
come the “sons of Abraham through faith” (Gal. ili. 7), and 
so to be blessed with faithful Abraham” (ver. 9) ; “to have 
the blessing of Abraham coming on them, that they may re- 
ceive the promise of the Spirit” (ver. 14) ; “through faith 
in Christ to be the seed of Abraham, and heirs according ta 
the promise” (ver. 29) ; viz. the promise made to Abraham 
(Gen. xii. 3), renewed to Isaac (Gen. xxvi. 4), and confirm- 
ed to Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 14), and to be, according to Isaac, 
“the children of the promise” (Gal. iv. 28). This, saith 
Christ, shall be the blessing of the believing Gentiles, they 
shall be “sons of Abraham, and heirs of the promises” 
made to the patriarchs, and mentioned by all the prophets 
of the Old Testament ; whereas the unbelieving Jews, want- 
ing the faith of Abraham, shall be deprived of the blessings 
promised to his seed; for “they who seek to enter, and 
shall not be able, because the Master hath shut to his door’ 
(Luke xiii. 24, 25), are those Jews who “sought for right- 
eousness by the works of the law, and not by faith,” and 
therefore found it not (Rom. ix. 31, 32, xi. 7); who “en- 
tered not into the rest prepared for them, by reason of their 
unbelief” (Heb. iii. 18, 19, iv. 2. 5), and “from whom the 
kingdom of God was taken away” (Matt. xxi. 43): they 
are they who shall say to Christ, “ We have eaten and drunk 
before thee, and thou hast taught in our streets” (Luke 
xiii. 26), which could be said only by the Jews. 

Secondly, Observe that this kingdom of God is repre- 
sented here, and elsewhere, as a nuptial solemnity, or a 
banquet at which the guests sit down with the master of the 


CHAPTER VIII. 


13 And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; 
and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. 
And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour (and 
they that were sent, returning to the house, found the ser- 
vant whole that had been sick, Luke vii. 10). 

14 4 And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, 
he saw ® his wife’s mother laid (upon a bed), and sick 
of a fever (for they had told him of her, Mark i. 30). 

15 And (he stood over her, and rebuked the fever, 
Luke iv. 39, and) he touched her hand, and the fever 
left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them 
(what was necessary for their entertainment). 

16 § When the even was come (so that the sun 
was set, Mark i. 32, Luke iv. 40, and the sabbath ended), 
they brought unto him many that were (sick, and many) 
possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with 
his word, and (laying his hands upon them, Luke iv. 40) 
healed all that were sick : 

17 That (in this sense also) it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying (lili. 


feast. Now these banquets were usually made at night, and 
continued long in the night; hence were they called cen» 
convivales, suppers,* ὀψὲ γάρ δειπνεῖν ἀπὸ πράξεων, “ because 
they were wont to sup late, after they had done their busi- 
ness,” saith Plutarch; thus have we mention of a “great 
supper,” Luke xiv. 16, of «the supper of the Lamb,” Rey. 
xix. 7, and of “the bridegroom coming at midnight to his 
supper,” Matt. xxv. 6. Hence at those suppers the house 
of reception was filled with lights, called diades, λαμπάδες, 
λυχνοὶ, φάνοι, in Athenzusy and Plutarch,} i. e. “torches, 
lamps, candles, and lanterns ;” and so they who were ad- 
mitted to the banquet had the benefit of the light: but they 
who were shut out, or could not enter, were in darkness; 
whence the unhappy state of those who were excluded from 
the kingdom of God, or from a state of future happiness, is 
frequently expressed by, their being “cast out into outer 
darkness,” ver. 12 (see Matt. xxii. 13, xxv. 30), and because 
they who were thus shut out from the marriage feast were 
not only exposed to shame, but also to cold and hunger, 
therefore is it added, “there shall be weeping, and wailing, 
and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. xiii. 42, Luke xiii. 28). And 
oh! how contrary is this prediction of our Lord to the vain 
opinions of the Jews, who were wont to say that «all Israel 
should have a portion in the world to come; but the hea- 
thens,” say they, “are to be fuel for hell-fire”’ (Pirk. Eliezer, 
eap. 9, sect. 4); whereas our Saviour here declareth, that 
these “heathens should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; and they, the children of 
the kingdom, should be cast into outer darkness.” 

Thirdly, Observe, for explication of other places relating to 
these banquets and nuptial feasts, that they who were invited 
to them entered by a gate designed to receive them; whence 
Christ, by whom we enter into this marriage feast, compares 
himself to a gate, John x. 1, 2. 7.9. Now this gate, at the 
time when the guests invited were to come, was made nar- 
row, the wicket only being left open, and the porter stand- 
ing there, that they who were not bidden to the marriage 
might not rush into it. Hence Christ exhorts the Jews to 
“enter in at the strait gate” (Matt, vii. 13, 14, Luke xiii. 
24); i. 6. to “strive to enter” into the kingdom of heaven, 
and be made partakers of the blessings of it, before it was 
taken from them. Lastly, when all that were invited were 
once come, the door was presently shut, and was not to be 
opened any more to them who stood knocking without: so 
after the “wise virgins” had entered with the bridegroom, 
the “gate was shut,” and was not opened to the “ foolish 
virgins” who stood knocking without (Matt. χχυ. 11). And 
in this sense are we to understand those words of Christ 
(Luke xiii. 24, 25), “ Many shall seek to enter, and shall 
not be able;” viz. not for want of any grace sufficient on 
God’s part, but because of their coming too late, after the 
gate is shut and the bridegroom is entered; as is apparent 
from the reason of that admonition, “Strive to enter in at 
the strait gate, for many will seek to enter in and shall not 


* Symp. lib. viii. p. 6. 7 Lib. xv, p. 699. - 


+ Symp. lib. iv. p. 93. 


85 


4), " Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sick- 
nesses. 

18 4 Now when Jesus saw great multitudes about 
him, he gave commandment (to his disciples) to de- 
part unto the other side (of the lake Gennesarcth, Luke 
viii, 22). 

19 And (as they were preparing for their departure) a 
certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will 
follow thee whithersoever thou goest. 

20 And Jesus saith unto him (/f thou resolvest thus, 
upon prospect of any temporal advantages in my king- 
dom, thou wilt be frustrated in thy expectation, for) the 
foxes haye holes, and the birds of the air have nests; 
but the Son of man hath not where to lay Ais (own) 
head (aod, therefore, much less any accommodations for 
his followers). 

21 And another of his disciples (or attendants, being 
bid to follow him, Luke ix. 59) said unto him, Lord, 
suffer me first to go and (abide at home till) bury my 
father. 


be able, when once the master of the house is risen up, and 
hath shut the door.” 

9 Ver. 14. Else τὴν πενϑερὰν αὐτοῦ, &e. And when Jesus 
came unto Peter’s house, he saw his wife's mother laid, 
and sick of a fever.) Learn hence, saith ‘Theophylact, that 
marriage is no hindrance to virtue, since “the chief of the 
apostles” had his wife. Brugensis here notes, that it is 
written “of Peter only” that he had a wife; but that this is 
not exactly true, see note on 1 Cor. vii. 8, and on ix. 5. 
Moreover we read in the interpolated Ignatius,* περὶ Πέτρου 
kai Παύλου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀποστύλων τοῖς γάμοις προσομιλησάντων, 
“of Peter and Paul, and other apostles that were mar- 
ried.” St. Basil; reckons among those that were married, 
Πέτρου καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς τῶν ἀποστύλων, “ Peter and the rest of 
the apostles.” And St. Ambrose¢ saith, that omnes apos- 
toli, exceptis Johanne et Paulo, uxores habuisse dicuntur, 
“all the apostles, except John and Paul, are said to have 
wives.” See many other testimonies in Cotelerius’s notes§ 
on the epistle of Ignatius to the Philadelphians. 

10 Ver. 16. ‘Owias δὲ γενομένης, and when the even was 
come.| The Jews kept their sabbath from evening to even- 
ing, according to those words (Lev. xxiii. 32), “from even 
to even shall ye celebrate your sabbath;” and therefore, 
when it began to be dark, before the sabbath, Nehemiah 
commands the gates of Jerusalem to be shut (Neh. xiii. 19) ; 
and the author of Cosril saith, non ingreditur nisi occum- 
bente sole, “the sabbath doth not enter but when the sun 
is set,” as St, Mark and St. Luke speak (see Lightfoot on the 

lace). 
ἢ μ Ἢ 17. Αὐτὸς τὰς ἘΞ Τρ τε τς Ἀρβηθδαῖ it nee 
be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, He 
he took our infirmities, ple Nr our sicknesses.) This 
is one of those places from which interpreters conclude, a 
prophecy is said to be fulfilled only by way of accommoda- 
tion, though not according to the intention of the prophet. 
But I conceive without just ground: for, first, the Jews 
themselves did think this passage of the prophet related to 
the curing their diseases, as well as the procuring remission 
of their sins; for thus they speak, “The name of the Mes- 
siah is the leper of the house of Rabbi, as it is said, Surely 
he bore our infirmities ;” and, We esteemed him, y)a3 Isa. 
lili. 4, quasi leprosum, as a leper, saith St. Jerome and the 
Vulgar, ἀφημμένον ἐν ἀφὴ ὄντα, Symmachus and Aquila; now 
ἀφὴ, say Hesychius, Suidas, and Phavorinus, is ἡ χροία τῆς 
λέπρας, “the colour of the leprosy” (see Lev. xiv. 32. 35). 
And again, “If the Messias be among the living, Rabbona 
Hakkedosh is he, as being one who bears our infirmities :” 
and seeing Christ, by healing our diseases, took away the 
temporal punishment of our sins (see the note on ix. 2), 
and said to some of them, be healed, “ Thy sins are forgiven 
thee,” why might not this prophecy be twice fulfilled, when, 
by taking away their diseases, he took away the temporal 
punishment of their sins, and when, by suffering on the 


* Ad Philad. sect. 4, 
+In 2 Cor. xi. 
| Part ii. p. 88. 


ἡ Περὶ ἀποταγῆς βίον, tom. ii. p. 234. 
§ P. 473, 744. 


H 


86 


22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me (now) ; 
15 and let the dead bury their dead (7, δ. let those who 
are unconcerned for the things of God, and unfit to engage 
in the promoting them, do such offices, which they may do 
as well as others ; but do thou, who hast begun to follow 
me, and to attend upon the doctrine of the kingdom of God, 
go on without diversion in that work ; for no man having 
put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the 
kingdom of God, Luke ix. 62). 

23 4 And when he was entered into a ship, his dis- 
ciples followed him. 

24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the 
sea, insomuch that the ship was (sometimes) covered 
with the waves: but he was asleep (in the hinder part 
of the ship, Mark iv. 38). 

25 And his disciples came unto him, and awoke 
him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. 

26 And he saith unto them, 3 Why are ye fear- 
ful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked 
the winds and the sea (saying to them, Peace, be still, 
Mark iv. 39); and there was a great calm. 

27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner 
of man is this (and how great is his power), that even 
M the winds and the sea obey him! 


cross, he procured a full remission of the guilt of their ini- 
quities ? 

2 Ver. 22. Καὶ apes τοὺς νεκροὺς Saat τοὺς ἑαυτῶν νεκροὺς, 
And let the dead bury their dead.| That οἱ νεκροὶ, «the dead,” 
in scripture doth often signify, not those who in a natural 
sense are dead by dissolution of the soul and body, but those 
who in a spiritual sense are so, by being alienated from the 
life of God, and “dead in trespasses and sins,” see note on 
1 Pet.iv. 6. ‘Thus Clemens of Alexandria* saith, that, ἐν 
τῇ βαρβάρων φιλοσοφία νεκροὺς καλοῦσι τοὺς ἐκπέσοντας τῶν doy- 
μάτων, καὶ καϑυποτάξαντας τὸν νοῦν τοῖς πάθεσι τοῖς ψΨυχικοῖς, 
‘the philosophy of the barbarians called them dead who 
deserted their doctrines, and subjected their minds to sen- 
sual passions ;” and Origen,y that the Pythagoreans placed 
coffins in their room, symbolically to represent that death ; 
and Philo styles this “the death of the soul, ἐντυμβευο- 
μένης παθέσι καὶ κακίαις ἁπάσαις, entombed in passions and 
all wickedness” (Legis Alleg. lib.i. p. 45). Here then Christ 
teacheth, that when we are called by him to the promotion 
of the gospel, and the salvation of men’s souls, we should 
not suffer earthly business, which may be done as well by 
others, who are unfit to be employed in spirituals, to give 
us the least hindrance from setting instantly upon that work. 

13 Ver. 26. Τί δειλοὶ ἐστε, ὀλιγόπιστοὶ 5 Why are ye fear- 
ful, O ye of little faith 5] Here I conceive it may be use- 
ful to lay down the indications of a weak and little faith, 
that we may guard ourselves against them. And, 

First, he fears and jealousies of pious persons betray 
the weakness of their faith, as is apparent from this ques- 
tion, «« Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” Now such 
are not only those evil fears which terrify us from the per- 
formance of our duty, but our irrational and superstitious 
fears of being left alone, or in the dark, the fear of evil 
spirits, and the like; and also all anxious and tormenting 
fears of what hereafter may befall ourselves, our Christian 
brethren, or the sincere and living members of Christ’s 
body: a fear of caution, which renders us industrious to 
prevent the evil, may be useful in this case; but a fear of 
diffidence becomes not the good Christian; “He,” saith 
the psalmist, “ whose heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord, 
will not be thus afraid of evil tidings” (Ps. exii. 7). 

Secondly, Our doubtings and despondings in the time of 
peril demonstrate the weakness of our faith, according to 
that saying of our Lord to Peter when he began to sink, 
«0 thou of little faith, wherefore dost thou doubt?” (Matt. 
xiv. 31.) They then who doubt ef God’s assistance in the 
time of danger, or do suspect he may desert them in the 
needful hour, are weak in faith. 

Thirdly, Our anxious solicitude for any temporal concern, 
and our perplexing cares for these enjoyments, show we are 


* Vide Grotium. 


ἡ Cont. Cels. lib. iii. p. 142. 


MATTHEW. 


28 4 And when he was come to the other side into 
the country of the Gergesenes (see note on Mark v. 
1), there met him 15 two possessed with devils, com- 
ing out of the tombs, (one. which was) exceeding 
fierce, so that no man might (safely) pass by that 
way (for no man could tame him, or bind him so effec- 
tually with chains or fetters, that he could not break them ; 
and night and day he was in the mountains, or among the 
tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones ; and seeing 
Jesus afar off, they ran unto him, and worshipped him, 
Mark y. 3—6). 

29 And, behold, they (7. e. the unclean spirits in 
them) cried out, saying, 16 What have we to do with 
thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? ” art thou come hither 
to torment us before the time (appointed for our pun- 
ishment ? i. e. the fierce one said this, the other being 
pres with him: and this he said after that Christ 

ad said to the unclean spirit in him, Come out of the 

man; and Jesus asking, what was his name? he had 
answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are 
many ; and (farther) had besought him much that he 
would not send them away out of the country, Mark v. 
8. 10). 

30 ana there was a good way off from them (in the 


men of little faith, “for our heavenly Father knoweth (how 
far) we have need of these things;” and hence our Saviour 
argues thus, “If God so clothed the lilies of the field, (if he 
feed) the fowls of the air, will he not much more clothe 
and feed you, O ye of little faith?’ (Matt. vi. 30.) He 
therefore who suspects the kindness of his heavenly Father 
in these inferior concerns, either mistrusts his power, as did 
the unbelieving Jews, saying, “Can God prepare a table in 
the wilderness ?”’ or else conceives his goodness to his faithful 
servants may be less than to the meanest of his creatures. And, 

Fourthly, Our impatience under trouble argues our want 
of faith; “for he that believeth will not make haste” (Isa. 
xxviii. 16). Our due persuasions of God’s paternal love 
towards us will engage us to possess our souls in patience, 
and tarry the Lord’s leisure, and wait contentedly for any 
blessing he hath promised, as knowing it will surely come 
in its most proper season, and when the wisdom of our hea- 
venly Father sees we are best fitted to enjoy it. 

4 Ver. 27. Οἱ ἄνεμοι καὶ ἡ ϑάλασσα ὑπακούουσιν αὐτῷ, The 
winds and the sea obey him.] It being so often made the 
property of God «to still the raging of the sea” (Ps. lxv. 7, 
cvii. 25. 29), it is not to be wondered that Christ’s disciples 
should conceive there must be a divine power in him who 
could perform such things. 

15 Ver. 28. Ὑπήντησαν αὐτῷ dto δαιμονιζόμενοι, There met 
him two possessed with the devil, Mark ii. 5. A man pos- 
sessed with an unclean spirit, so Luke viii. 27.] See this 
reconciled in note on Mark v. 2. 

16 Ver. 29. Τί ἡμῖν καὶ cot; What have we to do with 
thee 2] Schmidius here shows, that this is not a form of 
speaking proper to the Jews and Hellenists only, it being 
used py the Greek authors who had no converse with them. 
So Arrian upon Epictetus, τί ἡμῖν καὶ αὐτῷ 3 “ What have 
we to do with him?” (Lib. i. cap. 1, p. 85.) 

17 "H)Se¢ ὧδε πρὸ καιροῦ βασανίσαι ἡμᾶς; Art thou come hi- 
ther to torment us before the time 5] That βασανίσαι should 
here signify only to imprison these demons, or send them to 
the place of their restraint, a reverend person argues, be- 
cause the word βασανίζω sometimes signifies fo imprison, and 
βασανισταὶ gaolers (Matt. xviii. 34). And, secondly, because 
they entreat, Luke viii. 31, that he would not command 
them to go out, cis ἄβυσσον, that is, “into hell.” But (1.) 
βασανίζω never signifies to restrain but in order to punish- 
ment or torment, to extort the truth; and βασανιστὴς only 
signifies a gaoler, because it is his office to torture and to 
punish men. And (2.) they who do afterward entreat not 
to be sent into the abyss, had formerly entreated not to be 
tormented, ver. 28, which shows that to be tormented, ver. 
28, and to be sent to the abyss. ver. 31, were two different 
things. That it rather signifies to torment and punish them, 
may be gathered from the words of another unclean spirit, 
parallel to these, « What have we to do with thee? art thou 


CHAPTER IX. 


mountains, Luke viii. 32), an herd of many swine 
(even two thousand, Mark vy. 13) feeding. 

31 So the 8 devils besought him, saying, If thou cast 
us out, ™ suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. 

32 And he said unto them, (7 suffer you to) go. And 
when they were come out (of the men), they went into 
the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of 
swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, 
and perished in the waters. 


87 


33 And they that kept them fled, and went their 
ways into the city (and villages), and told (hers) every 
thing (that Christ had done), and what was befallen to 
the (men) possessed of the devils. 

34 And, behold, the whole city came out to meet 
Jesus: and when they saw him, they (being terri- 
fied at what he had done, and grieved for their loss) 

esought him that he would depart out of their 
coasts. 


come, ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς, to destroy us?’ Mark 1, 24, Luke iv. 
34, (2.) From these words, πρὸ καιροῦ, “ Art thou come to 
do this to us before the time of torments?” For though the 
devils 4o at present “believe and tremble” (James ii. 19), 
yet are they not at present tormented in the flames prepared 
for the devil and his angels, but only are “reserved in chains 
of darkness to the day of judgment to be punished’’ (2 Pet. 
ii. 4, Jude 6); then Satan is to be “cast into the lake of 
fire and brimstone” (Rev. xx. 21); at present “he walks to 
and fro through the face of the whole earth” (Job i. 7), and 
“goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may de- 
vour” (1 Pet. v. 8). 

8 Ver. 31. Of δὲ δαίμονες παρεκάλουν αὐτὸν, The devils en- 
treated him.) Some are of opinion, that the persons repre- 
sented in the New Testament as demoniacs, were only per- 
sons afflicted with some strange diseases, fits of the mother, 
convulsions, falling sickness, and the like: but this cavil 
may be evidently confuted, 

First, From the scriptures and ecclesiastical writers, which 
make a constant and a plain distinction betwixt these two 
things, the curing diseases, and the casting out of devils. 
So Matt. iv. 24, “They brought to him all sick people, that 
were taken with divers diseases, and those which were pos- 
sessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and had 
the palsy, and he healed them;” and Matt. x. 1, “He gave 
to the apostles power against unclean spirits, to cast them 
out, and to heal all manner of sickness and diseases ;”’ 
Mark i. 34, “ He healed many that were sick of divers dis- 
eases, and cast out many devils.” So also Luke iv. 40, 41. 
“The Christians,” saith Ireneus,* “truly cast out devils, 
and heal the sick by imposition of hands.” «'They cast out 
devils, and heal many diseases,” saith eget “How 
many honest men have by us been healed, or freed from 
devils?” saith ‘Tertullian.+ 

Secondly, This will be farther evident from many circum- 
stances relating to the devils to be cast out, or actually re- 
jected, as, v. g. that “Christ suffered not the devils to 
speak, because they knew him (Mark i.34) to be the Christ” 

Luke iv. 41); that they said, “Thou art the Christ, the 
Son of God” (Luke iv. 41); that they expostulate with 
Christ, saying, “ What have we to do with thee, art thou 
come to destroy us? art thou come to torment us before the 
time?’ and pray that “he would not torment them ;” that 
they ask his leave to enter into the swine, and being enter- 
ed, hurry them down into the sea, and beg they may not be 
sent out of the country: that they acknowledge that their 


* Lib. ii. cap. 56, 57. 
+ Contra Celsum, lib.i. p. 34, 
+ Ad Scap. cap. 4. 


name was Legion, there being many of them which pos- 
sessed one man (Mark v. 1. 14, Luke viii. 27. 33). Now 
to make all these sayings the effects of a disease, or to con- 
ceive that Christ speaks thus to a disease, is too great an evi- 
dence of one that is himself diseased. For, 

Thirdly, Christ sometimes puts questions to these demons, 
asking their names, sometimes commands them to be silent, 
and sometimes to “come out of a man,” and “enter no 
more into him” (Mark i. 25, ix. 25, Luke iv. 41). 

Fourthly, This we may argue from the symptoms of these 
demoniacs, their being of such strength that no chain or fet- 
ters could bind them (Mark ν. 3). Nor could the diseased 
persons fear to be destroyed, tormented, sent out of the 
country, or into the abyss, by Christ. 

Obj. If it be said that we find no mention of persons thus 
possessed with the devil among Jews or gentiles before our 
Saviour’s advent, nor have we any experience of any such 
thing, either among the Christians or in the heathen world, 
and therefore cannot easily believe it was so then: 

Ans. I answer, that the falsehood of this suggestion, that 
men possessed with evil spirits were not known among the 
Jews in former ages, hath been proved from the plain testi- 
monies of Josephus, Justin Martyr, and Ireneus, in the 
general preface to the epistles. 

And that among the heathens there were persons thus 
possessed, is there proved also from the testimonies of Plu- 
tarch, Lucian, Justin Martyr, and Origen; so that it is cer- 
tain that the history of Christ and his apostles casting out 
devils in Judea, and of Christians casting them out through- 
out the world, was therefore never questioned by Jew or 
gentile ; because they had among themselves in every place 
pretenders to it. 

Obj. 2. Whereas it is objected, That “ to have a devil, and 
be mad,” are joined together as the same thing, John x. 20, 
and to be “lunatic, and have a devil,’ Matt. xvii. 15. 18, and 
is hence inferred that these diseases were the same as “ de- 
vils ;” and, according to the Jewish phrase, gave occasion to 
the being said, “ such persons were possessed with a devil:” 

Ans. To this I answer, That I have sufficiently confuted 
this cavil in this note, by showing both from the sacred re- 
cords and the writings of the fathers, that there is a constant 
and plain distinction betwixt these two things, the curing of 
diseases, and the casting out of devils. 

19 "ExizpeWov ἡμῖν, Suffer us.] He only therefore sent them 
into the “herd of swine” (Mark v. 12), by permitting them 
to enter into them; and this he did, saith Grotius, to con- 
vince the Greeks, who lived in this place, and kept these 
swine, of the sacredness of the Jewish laws, which they 
ridiculed, especially on the account of the prohibition to eat 
swine’s flesh. 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 Anp he entered into a ship, and passed over (a 
part of the sea of Galilee), and 1 came into his own city 
(Capernaum). . 

2 And (α rumour being spread, that he was in the 
house, Mark ii. 1, as indeed he was, sitting and teaching 
a multitude so great, that the house and porch could not 
receive them ; and healing them by his divine power, in 


presence of the pharisees and doctors of the law, who 
came from Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem, Luke v. 17), 
behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, 
lying on a bed (carried by four persons, who being not 
able to come to him for the press, they uncovered the 
roof of the upper chamber where he was, and let down 
the bed to him: see the note on Mark ii. 3): ᾽ and Jesus 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 
1 Ver. 1. Eis τὴν ἰδίαν πόλιν, Into his own city.] That is, 
into Capernaum (Mark ii. 2); “ Christ having left Naza- 
reth, to go to dwell at Capernaum” (Matt. iv. 13). 


2 Ver. 2. Kai ἰδὼν 6 Ἰησοῦς τὴν πίστιν αὐτῶν, And Jesus see: 
ing their faith.) i. ὁ. The faith of those who let down the 
sick of the palsy: whence it is evident, that the faith of 
others may prevail for the obtaining temporal and corporal 


88 ΜΑΤΤΗΕΥ͂,. 


seeing their faith ® said unto the sick of the palsy; 
Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. 

3 And, behold, certain of the seribes (and pharisees 
sitting there) said within themselves (ἡ. 6. in their 
hearts, Mark ii. 6, and in their private discourses, 
Luke vy. 21), This man blasphemeth (making himself 
@ god, for who can forgive sins, but God only? Luke 
v. 21). 

4 oa Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Where- 
fore think you evil in your hearts (concerning me for 
these words) 2 

5 For 4 whether is easier to say, Thy sins be for- 
given thee; or to say, Arise (take up thy bed), and 
walk? (which is a certain indication that the sins, which 
brought upon him that disease, are pardoned, or that this 
punishment of them is remitted). 

6 But (7 choose to say the first) § that ye may know 
that the Son of man hath power (even whilst he 73) on 


earth to forgive sins, (then (turning from them) saith 
he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, 
and go unto thine house. 

7 And he arose (took up his bed), and departed to 
his house. 

8 But (and) when the multitudes saw ἐΐ, they mar- 
velled, and glorified God, which had given such power 
unto men (acknowledging they never saw it so before, 
Mark ii. 12). 

9 ¥ And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw 
Sa man, named Matthew (or Levi, the son of Alpheus, 
Mark ii. 14, Luke v. 27), sitting at the receipt of cus- 
tom (or toll-booth): and he saith unto him, Follow me. 
And he (leaving all things) arose, and followed him 
(and made him a great supper in his house, Luke ν. 29), 

10 q And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in 
the house (of Matthew), behold, many publicans and 
simners came and sat down with him and his disciples. 


blessings. Thus, in the preceding chapter, ver. 13, the faith 
of the centurion prevails to heal his servant; and here, ver, 
33, the devil is cast out of a dumb and deaf man, who had 
no tongue to ask it, through the faith of them that brought 
him. ‘Thus the daughter of Jairus is raised, Luke viii. 50, 
and the unclean spirit is cast out of the son, by the father’s 
faith, Mark ix. 22, 23. Note also, that Theophylact here 
adds, καὶ αὐτοῦ τοὺ παραλυτικοῦ, “and the faith of the paraly- 
tic ;” for, saith he, had he not believed he should be healed, 
he would not have consented to their action. 

3 Eze τῷ παραλυτικῷ, ἀφέωνταί σοι αἱ ἁμαρτίαι cov, He 
said to the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins are forgiven 
thee.| “Showing,” saith Theophylact, “that diseases, and 
chiefly palsies, proceed from sin, he first speaks of forgiving 
them :” but then it must be noted, that our Lord here speaks 
of remission, not of the eternal punishments, but of the 
temporal punishments, inflicted for sin. (1.) Because this 
remission is obtained by the faith of others; whereas, the 
enjoyment of spiritual and eternal blessings in persons ca- 
pable of faith, depends on their own faith alone. (2.) Be- 
cause our Saviour saith, it “is as easy to say, They sins be 
forgiven thee; as to say, Rise up and walk?” which conse- 
quence seems not to be good, if we take remission of sins 
in the highest sense; since, by the example of the apostles 
and seventy disciples, it appears they might have power of 
healing such diseases, who had no power of forgiving the 
eternal punishments of sin. Moreover, it is usual in scrip- 
ture, and was so among the Jews, to represent bodily afilic- 
tions, miseries, and diseases, as the effects of sin, according 
to the common proverb, Nisi essent peccata, non essent fla- 
gella; «Were there no sins, there would be no chastise- 
ments:” hence is the inquiry of the disciples,“touching the 
man born blind, “« Who hath sinned, he or his parents, that 
he should be born blind ?” (John ix. 2) and to the paralytic, 
Christ, having heard him, speaks thus, “Behold, thou art 
made whole: sin no more lest a worse thing come upon 
thee” (John v. 14). For the law of Moses threatened va- 
rious kinds of diseases to the transgressors of it, Deut. xxviii. 
21, 22, and when they were remitted, these diseases were 
removed; according to those words of Isaiah (xxxiii. 24), 
“The inhabitants shall not say that they are sick; the peo- 
ple that are there shall be forgiven their iniquity :” and it is 
also usual in the Old and New Testament, to intimate 
deliverance from corporal diseases by remission of sins; as 
when the prophet saith to David, 2 Sam. xii. 13, “The 
Lord hath taken away thy sin; thou shall not die” for it: 
and, 2 Chron. vii. 14, “TI will be merciful to their iniquities 
and will heal their land:” so what is worded thus, Matt. 
ix. 22, “ Thy faith hath saved thee,” is Mark. v. 34, “Thou 
art made whole.” 

4Ver. 5. Τί γάρ ἐστιν εὐκοπώτερον εἰπεῖν; Whether is it 
easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or to say, Rise wp, 
and walk 5] They who here tell us, it is therefore easier to 
say the first; because he cannot so easily be disproved, 
who promiseth a thing invisible, as he who engageth to do 
that which is the object of our senses; do not compare to- 
gether the things to be done, but only the ways of know- 
ing when they are not done: they therefore interpret these 


words better, who say, that it must be as easy to say, Do 
the one, as to say with effect the other; it being indeed the 
same thing to say, Thy sins, that is, the temporal punish- 
ments of them, are forgiven; and to say, Be thou healed, or 
Rise up and walk, effectually; seeing by being freed from 
the disease, which was the temporal punishment of sin, it 
was manifest that sin was thus far forgiven. 

5 Ver. 6. Ἵνα δὲ εἰδῆτε bri ἐζουσίαν ἔχει ὃ vids τοῦ ἀνθρώπου 
ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀφιέναι τὰς ἁμαρτίας, but that ye may know the 
Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.] i. e. Of 
absolving or releasing men from the temporal punishments 
of sin, whilst he is in his state of humiliation ; for that Christ 
speaks here only of the temporal punishments of sin, is 
evident, not only from what hath been already said, but 
also from the effect; Christ only giving him power to “rise 
up, and walk.” Moreover, that Christ here speaks of a 
power inherent in him, and not only of the power of God 
assisting him, as it did the apostles, when they healed dis- 
eases, is evident; because, had Christ only pronounced, 
that the sins of this paralytic were remitted by God, and 
the cure performed by his power, the pharisees could have 
had no cause to be offended with him, and much less to 
have accused him of blasphemy. 

Lastly, Observe, that by this power the distemper of 
this paralytic was healed instantly ; which shows the power 
that did effect it was divine: that power only being able 
instantly to cure diseases by a word. Hence do the fathers 
conclude, our Lord was God as well as man: so Ireneus,* 
«Ἐν remitting the sin, he cured the man, and manifestly 
showed who he was; for, if none can remit sins but God, and 
yet our Lord did remit them, and cure the man, it is mani- 
fest that he was both the Word of God, and the Son of 
man, receiving power of remission of sins from his Father, 
as God and man:” and Novatian.t “If only God can remit 
sins, and yet Christ remitted them, merito Chiistus est Deus, 
he is truly God.” The Jews here say, that it was proper 
to God to forgive sins; and this Christ denies not, but only 
proves, that the Son of man had this power also, leaving 
them to make the inference. The multitude, indeed, “ glo- 
rified God who had given this power to men ;” in which words, 
though there were a mistake in thinking that Christ wrought 
his miracles as the prophets did; not by an internal power 
residing in them, but only by the assistance of the power 
of God; yet seeing even this acknowledgment tended to 
the confirmation of Christ’s prophetic office, and so to in- 
duce them to embrace all Christ’s doctrines and instrue- 
tions, as the word of God, they by this glorified God, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Theophylact here adds, 
That our Lord bid the paralytic carry his bed, partly wa μὴ 
φαντασία δύξη, “to show the cure was real,” and not imagi- 
nary only; and partly to convince the multitude of the 
miracle thus done by ocular demonstration. 

8 Ver. 9. A man named Matthew.| That this Matthew 
here was the same with Levi, in St. Mark and Luke, see 
note on Luke v. 27. 


* Lib. v. cap. 17. t Cap. 13. 


CHAPTER ΙΧ. 


11 And when the Pharisees saw ἐΐ, they (murmuring) 
said unto his disciples,7 Why eateth your Master with 
publicans and sinners? (why doth he, who professeth 
himself a prophet, and a holy man, defile himself by 
touching, and vilify himself hy conversing with, such 
men ? 

12 put when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, 
(such more especially need my help, for) They that be 
whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 

13 But (for your farther satisfaction in this matter) 
go ye and learn what that (of the prophet Hosea, vi. 6) 
meaneth, 51 will have mercy, and not sacrifice (and 


7 Ver. 11, Acari μετὰ τῶν τελωνῶν καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν ἐσθίει ὃ 
διδάσκαλος; ὑμῶν; Why eateth your master with publicans 
and sinners 2| The pharisees looked upon publicans and 
great sinners as if they had been heathens, thinking it a sin 
even to converse with them, though it were to convert them 
from the evil of their ways; objecting this to the reproach 
of Christ, that he was a “friend to publicans and sinners” 
(Matt. xi. 19): hence saith our Saviour of him that would 
not “hear the church, Let him be to thee as a heathen and 
publican ;” i. e. abstain from any farther converse and fami- 
liarity with him (Matt. xviii. 17). “And if you love them 
that love you only, or lend to them only that lend to you 
again, what do you more than others? do not publicans and 
heathens (Matt. v. 46), and sinners (Luke vi. 32, 33), the 
same?” And they bore the same character among the hea- 
thens: so the scholiast* upon those words of Aristopha- 
nes, καὶ τελώνην, καὶ φάραγγα, καὶ xapuBdiv dprayis, “a pub- 
lican, and a whirlpit, and a gulf of rapine:’”’ and Suidas 
notes that ῥιαβέβλητο τὸ τελνώου ὄνομα παρὰ τοῖς παλαιοῖς, 
“the very name of publican was infamous to the ancients.” 
Vheocritus says, that bears and lions were the most savage 
beasts in the mountains; but in the cities, τελῶναι, “ publi- 
cans and sycophants” (Apud Stob. Serm. 2. p. 31). And 
in Apollodorus they are joined with thieves and dissolute 
men, κλέπτει, τελωνεῖ ῥαδιουργεῖ (Stob. Serm. 44. Ῥ. 307). 
Cicerot declares, The name and office was very grievous 
to the Greeks, and insinuates, that it was not much less 
abhorred among the Romans; and well it might be, since 
Suidas out of an old author agrees so exactly with Aristo- 
phanes, declaring that the life of a publican was παῤῥησιασ- 
μένη Bia, ἀνεπιτίμητος ἁρπαγὴ, “an open and free violence, and 
unpunished rapine, ἀναίσχυντος πλεονεξία, dvaidns ἐμπορὶα, πραγ- 
ματεία λόγον μὴ ἔχουσα, a shameless covetousness, an impudent 
merchandise, an unreasonable negotiation :” whence Taci- 
tust not only speaks, de novis acerbitatibus, et illicitis exac- 
tionibus publicanorum, “ of the new grievances and unlawful 
exactions of the publicans;” but adds, that Nero therefore 
was consulting, whether he should take away all tributes, 
idque pulcherrimum donum generi mortalium daret; and 
St. John the Baptist requires them “to exact no more than 
that which was appointed” (see Dr. Hammond on the place). 

8 Ver. 13, Ἔλεον ϑέλω καὶ οὐ ϑυσίαν, I will have mercy and 
not sacrifice.) i.e.“ rather will have mercy than sacrifice :” 
so Gen, xly. 8, οὐκ ὑμεῖς, you have not sent me but God ;” 
οὐ γὰρ rad’ ὑμῶν, “your murmuring is not against us, but 
against God,” Exod. xvi. 18; Prov. viii. 10, “Receive in- 
struction, καὶ μὴ ἀργύριον, and not silver; and knowledge ὑπὲρ 
before gold ;” Joel ii. 13, “Rend your heart, and not your 
garments” (see John vi. 27, 1 Cor. i. 17). For that these 
words are not to be understood absolutely, is evident, be- 
cause God had commanded sacrifices, and therefore could 
not absolutely say, “he would not have them.” 

9 Οὐ yap ἦλθον καλέσαι δικαίους, ἀλλ᾽ ἁμαρτωλοὺς εἰς μετάνοιαν" 
For I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repent- 
ance.) Where by the “righteous,” we are not to understand 
those who are only righteous in their own conceits, such 
as the pharisees were, “who justified themselves before men” 
(Luke xvi. 15), and “trasted to themselves that they were 
righteous, and despised others in comparison of themselves” 
(Luke xviii. 9): for such are not “whole” but have great 
need of the spiritual “physician” (ver. 12); and such espe- 
cially, the gospel calleth to repentance (Matt. iii. S—10, 


* P. 300, 301. 
+ Annal. lib. xiii. 
Vor. IV.—12 


i Ep. ad Quintum Fratrem, lib. i. p. 216. 
ed. Lips. p. 300, 301. 


89 


and how it suits with this action of mine): ® for I am not 
come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance 
(and must not be diverted from such acts of mercy by your 
rules). 

ne Then (it being a day on which the disciples of 
John and the pharisees fasted, Mark ii. 18) came to him 
the disciples of John, saying (to Jesus), Ὁ Why do we 
and the Pharisees fast oft (even twice a week, Luke 
Xviii. 12), but thy disciples fast not (but eat and drink 
on our fasting days? Luke y. 33). 

15 And Jesus said unto them, ™ Can the children 
of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom 


Rev. iii. 17). Moreover, the word “sinners” here imports 
such persons as live in a customary practice of sin; so that 
the tenor of their lives is wicked, and who are therefore to 
be called to that repentance, which consists in the change 
of their lives, from the service of sin to holiness, from 
slavery to Satan to the fear of God; and therefore, by the 
righteous who need no repentance, we are not to under- 
stand those who are entirely free from sin; for, so “there 
is not a just man upon earth” (Job ix. 2, Eccles. vii. 20), 
“nor any man who is not a sinner” (1 Kings viii. 46, James 
iii. 2, 1 John i. 8); but those who are truly and sincerely 
righteous, have truly reformed their lives, who carefully en- 
deavour to abstain from all known sins, and set themselves 
sincerely to the performance of their whole duty both to 
God and man, and so are righteous and accepted in the 
sight of God; in which sense Job “was righteous, and 
eschewed evil;’’ Zacharias and Elisabeth “ were righteous, 
walking in all the commandments of God” (Luke i. 6) ; and 
Simeon (Luke ii. 25) ; and so they needed not that repent- 
ance which consists in the change of the life, from a course 
of sinning to living unto God. So that the argument here 
is double; (1.) That though familiar converse with sinners 
was in the general to be avoided, yet was that only on this 
account, that we may not encourage them in sin, or be de- 
filed by them; and so it could not hinder that great act of 
charity and mercy to their souls, which was directed to the 
conversion of them from their evil ways; the avoiding of 
familiarity with them, being only as the precept of sacrifice, 
and therefore not to be regarded so as to obstruct that 
more important duty of showing mercy to their souls. (2.) 
That Christ was the great spiritual physician sent to heal 
these sin-sick souls, and call them to repentance ; and there- 
fore, in conversing with them, in pursuance of this end, he 
was so far from transgressing his Father’s precepts, that he 
was doing the great work for which he was sent by him 
into the world. Note, also, that this of the physician was 
a proverbial saying; for, when Antisthenes* was asked, 
«“ Why he conversed with wicked men?” his answer was 
Kat οἱ ἰατροὶ μετὰ τῶν νοσούντων εἶσιν, ““ Physicians are with the 
diseased :” and “when Diogenes,” saith Stobeus,t “ when 
Pausanias,” saith Plutarch, “was asked, Why he praised 
the Lacedemonians, but staid not with them ?” he answered, 
"Ort οὐδὲ iarpot rapa” rots ὑγιαίνουσιν, ὅπου δὲ οἱ νοσοῦντες διατρίβειν 
εἰώϑασιν, “ That physicians conversed not among the healthy, 
but among the sick” (see Examen Millii here). 

10 Ver. 14, Διατί ἡμεῖς καὶ of φαρισαῖοι νηστεύομεν πολλὰ; Why 
do we and the pharisees fist much, but thy disciples fast 
not 91 It is here said, by Mr. Clerc, that it was not the de- 
sign of St. John’s disciples to inquire simply, Why the dis- 
ciples of Christ did not fast, but why they did not follow the 
example of all devout men among the Jews, who did fast 
often? But (1.) this seems to be a mistake; for they ask, 
why they did not fast at all? and our Saviour’s plea for them 
is for an entire exemption from that duty whilst he was pre- 
sent with them, (2.) Were it as Mr. Clere would have it, 
yet is the observation of the reverend Dr. Hammond true 
and pertinent, That the disciples of John intended not to 
ask the reason, why they themselves fasted often? they be- 
ing so well satisfied with the reason of that, that they won- 
dered why Christ’s disciples did not as they did ; this being, 
saith he, truly the meaning of their question ; Since we fast 
so devoutly, why do not thy disciples do this as well as we? 

M Ver. 15. Μὴ δύνανται of υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος πενθεῖν, Se. 


* Apud Laert. p. 139, { Serm. 11. ᾿Αποϑεγμ. Aax. p. 290, 


90 


is with them (is this fit or usual in such cases)? but (as 
Sor my disciples) the days will come, when the bride- 
groom shall (by death) be taken from them, and then 
shall they fast. 

16 (And he said also by way of parable, Luke v. 36,) 
Ἰ No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old 
garment, for (?f so) that which is put in to fill it up 
taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. 

17 Neither do men put new wine into old (Jeather) 
bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth 
out, and (so) the bottles perish: but they put new 
wine into new bottles, and both are preserved (so in 
like manner my young disciples, taken not from the 
schools or academies, as perhaps those of John and the 
pharisees might be, but from their fishing-trades, must not 
presently be put to such severe tasks, for which they are 
not yet strong enough, lest they should be discouraged, and 
fall from me). 

18 7 While he spake these things unto them, be- 
hold, there came a certain ™ ruler (of the synagogue, 
Jairus by name, Mark xv. 22, Luke viii. 41), and wor- 
shipped him, saying, My daughter “ is even now 
dead (Gr, ἐς dead by this time, for when I came from my 
house she was at her last gasp, Mark ν. 23): but come 
and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. 

19 And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did 
his disciples (and a great multitude who pressed upon 
him, Mark v. 24, Luke viii. 42). 

20 4 And, behold, a woman, which was diseased 


MATTHEW. 


with an issue of blood twelve years (and had spent all 
that she had upon the physicians, and was nothing better, 
but rather grew worse, Mark vy. 26, Luke viii. 43), 
came behind Azm, and touched the hem of his gar- 
ment (and presently the issue of her blood was stawnched, 
Mark νυ. 29): 

21 For she (had) said within herself, If I may but 
touch his garment, I shall be whole. 

22 But Jesus (knowing that virtue was gone out of 
him) turned him about (to the multitude, and said, Who 
touched me 3), and when he saw her (that had done so, 
and heard her tell the reason why she had done it, Luke 
vill. 45. 47), he said (unto her), Daughter, be of good 
comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the 
woman was made whole from that hour. 

[Luke viii. 49. While he was thus speaking, there 
cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, 
saying to him, Thy daughter is dead, trouble not the 
Master. Ver. 50. But when Jesus heard it, he answered 
him, saying, Fear not, believe only, and she shall be made 
whole. | 

23 And when Jesus came into the ruler’s house, 
and saw the minstrels and (heard) the people making 
a noise (as at a funeral solemnity), 

24 He said unto them, Give place: for 16 the maid 
is not dead, but sleepeth (7. 6. she shall be raised from 
it, as it were out of sleep). And they laughed him to 
scorn. 

25 But when the people were put forth (Peter, 


Can the children of the bridechamber mourn as long as the 
bridegroom is with them 2] 'The sons of the bridechamber 
are those who are admitted into it, styled by the Grecians 
παράνυμφοι and πρόχοροι: by the Latins, pronubi; by the 
Jews, shoshebinim ; and their business was, to enter into 
the bridechamber, and to rejoice and exhilarate themselves 
with the bridegroom, during the time of the marriage festi- 
val; which was, saith Dr. Lightfoot on the place, «seven 
days;” and these were usually φίλοι τοῦ νυμφίου, the “ friends 
or kindred of bridegroom ;” whence St. John the Baptist 
represents himself, as rejoicing to hear the voice of the 
bridegroom, as being one of his friends (John iii. 29). So 
then the argument runs thus: I am the bridegroom, and the 
church is my bride; as long as I am here, lasts the mar- 
riage feast, and my disciples are the children and friends 
of the bridegroom, and so are not to mourn, but to rejoice 
with me whilst this time lasts; at my death and departure 
from them, this bridegroom will be taken from them, and 
then will be the time for them to fast and mourn. 

2 Ver. 16, 17. Οὐδεὶς δὲ ἐπιβάλλει ἐπίβλημα ῥάκους dyvidov 
ἐπὶ ἱματίῳ παλαιςῦ, No man putteth a piece of new cloth to 
an old garment.) It is the opinion of many fathers and in- 
terpreters, that Christ by these two similitudes intended to 
show he thought it not fit at their first entrance, and before 
the Holy Spirit was come down upon his disciples, to im- 
pose the burden of fasting on them, because they were not 
fitted to bear it, by reason of their infirmity, and that they 
might be tempted by such austerities, as were frequent fast- 
ings, imposed on them, to fall off from him. And hence 
they add, that Christ by his example, recommends this con- 
descension to weak and infirm consciences to his disciples, 
and to the ministers of the gospel; viz. not to impose upon 
them that βάρος ἐπιταγμάτων, “weight of ordinances,” which 
they cannot bear: but against this exposition Episcopius 
objects, That no reason can be assigned, why Christ’s dis- 
ciples should be less able thus to fast than the disciples of 
the Baptist, or the pharisees. To which objection I an- 
swer, That there were among the Jews, not only sects of 
the essenes and pharisees, who led an austere life, but also 
schools of the prophets;* and those frequently lived in 
mountains and deserts, and were also many of them Naza- 
rites, and consecrated to the service of God; they had also 
(heir academical and private schools, to train up men in 


* Campeg. Vitring. lib. ii. cap. 7. 


discipline; and from these might come disciples to John 
in the wilderness, and disciples to the pharisees, who might 
be trained up in those duties; whereas it is certain, that the 
disciples of our Lord were chosen from their fishing-trade, 
and so came to him wholly unacquainted with and so unfit- 
ted for those austerities. His interpretation is therefore this, 
That it is unfit or unseemly for his disciples to fast, whilst 
he is present with them, as it is to sew a new piece of cloth 
to an old garment, or to put new wine into old bottles; in 
which interpretation I cannot acquiesce, because it is mani- 
fest from both these similitudes, that our Lord represents 
not the unfitness, but the hurt or damage of doing either 
of these things, viz. that the doing of the first would make 
the rent worse; the doing of the second would endanger 
the breaking the bottles, and the spilling the wine ; to which 
danger the sense given by Episcopius hath no respect. 

15 Ver. 18. ἔάρχων, a ruler.) This ruler being in St. Mark 
and Luke, ἀρχισυνάγωγος, “a ruler of the synagogue,” it is 
not reasonable to conceive, as some do, that he was one of 
the twenty-three judges that were constituted in every city, 
but rather that he was the head or ruler of the synagogue 
which was at Nazareth; of which rulers we have mention, 
Acts xiii. 15, xviii. 8. 17, Luke xiii. 14 (see note on Mark 
Vv. 22). 

M4 ote ἐτελεύτησεν, ts now dead.| This being in St. Mark 
ν. 23, ἐσχάτως ἔχει, “she is at the last extremity ;” the 
words must be rendered as in the paraphrase, “she is by 
this time dead,” and this is evident from the story ; because, 
as Christ was going to the ruler’s house, a messenger comes 
from it to tell him that his daughter was now dead (Luke 
viii. 49): which shows, that at his coming to Christ she 
was not so, but only at the last extremity. 

15 Ver. 20. Προσελθοῦσα ὄπισϑεν, coming behind him.] The 
woman having “an issue of blood,” which rendered her 
touch defiling, according to the law, seems therefore to have 
come behind him, as fearing she might not have been 
permitted to touch him, had her distemper been made 
known. 

16 Ver. 24. Οὐ γάρ ἀπέϑανε τὸ κοράσιον ἀλλὰ καθεύδει, For 
the maid is not dead, but sleepeth.] From this place the Je- 
suits contend for their equivocations and mental reservations ; 
by which they certainly deceive the hearer, who knows not 
what in their minds they do conceal, alleging, that when our 
Lord here saith, “She is not dead,” he reserved in his mind, 
“in respect of my power,” or so as to remain under the power 
of it. But the words of Christ were plainly spoken to those 


CHAPTER IX. 


James, and John, and the father and mother of the dam- 
sel being only left, Mark vy. 40), he went in, and 
took her by the hand (and said unto her, Daughter, 
arise ; and her spirit returned unto her), and the maid 
arose (and walked, being twelve years old; and he com- 
manded that something should be given her to eat, to 
strengthen her, and confirm them that she was alive, Luke 
viii. 54, 55). 

26 And the fame hereof went abroad into all that 
Jand (though he straitly charged them to tell no man of it, 
Luke viii. 56). 

27 {1 And when Jesus departed thence, two blind 
men followed him, erying, and saying, Thou son of 
David (of whom the prophet Isaiah hath foretold, that he 
should open the eyes of the blind, xxix. 11, xxxv. 5, xlii. 
7), have merey on us. 

28 And when he was come into the house, the blind 
men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe 


91 


ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, 
Lord. 

29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According 
to your faith be it unto you. : 

30 And their eyes were opened; and Jesus straitly 
charged them, saying, See that no man know it. 

31 But they, when they were departed, spread 
abroad his fame in all that country. 

32 4 And as they went out (of the city), behold, they 
brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. 

33 And when the devil was cast out, the dumb 
spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was 
never so seen in Israel. 

34 But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils 
through (Beelzebub, Luke xi. 15, who is) the prince of 
the devils. 

35 And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, 
teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gos- 


who were preparing for her interment, and performing the 
funeral rites belonging to it, and, therefore only intimate, 
she was not so dead as that they needed to make these 
preparations, he being come to awake her as out of a sleep. 

1 Ver. 30. ‘Opare μηδεὶς γινωσκέτω, See that no man know 
tt.) That Christ should take this care, that his miracles in 
healing persons, and casting out of devils, should not be 
known, only to avoid vain-glory, seems not very reasonable ; 
this being done sufficiently by the declaration, that he did 
this “by the finger of God” (Matt. xii. 28); and that 
by these works, “he sought not his own glory, but the 
glory of his Father” (John. v. 41, vii. 18). Let it then be 
noted ; 

First, That when he doth his miracles among the heathens, 
or upon them that dwelt among them, such as were the Sy- 
ropheenician woman, and the woman of Paneas, or Cesa- 
rea Philippi, he never imposeth silence on the person healed, 
but sometimes, on the contrary, bids them declare what God 
had done for them; so when he had cured the demoniac at 
Gadara, he bids him go to his house and his acquaintance, 
and tell them what things the Lord had done for him, and 
how he had showed mercy even to a heathen (Mark v. 19). 
And though he charged his disciples to tell no man among 
the Jews that he was the Christ, till his resurrection (Matt. 
xvi. 20), he doth himself declare to the Samaritan woman 
that he was the Messiah (John iv. 25, 26), because these 
things would prepare these heathens and Samaritans, when 
Christ was preached to them by his apostles, to receive their 
testimony. 

Secondly, Observe that the things which he forbid his dis- 
ciples to declare, were not his miracles, but either his trans- 
figuration on the mount (Matt. xvii. 9), or that he was the 
Christ (Mark viii. 29, 30). And this he only bade them to 
conceal, till he was risen from the dead ; and this he did, not 
only that their testimony of him might not be looked upon 
as a thing compacted between him and them, but chiefly be- 
cause they were not fitted to be his witnesses of these things 
till they had received power from on high, by the coming down 
of the Holy Ghost to do it (Actsi. 8). For he received be- 
fore the testimony of John, and appealed to it (John v. 33), 
because he was sent by God to bear witness of him (John i. 
6, 7), and because the blazing these things abroad by his dis- 
ciples—that he was the Messiah, sent by God to be their Sa- 
viour, and that God, by a voice from heaven, commanded 
all men to obey him—would have so far comported with that 
imagination of a temporal kingdom to be erected by him, 
and looked so like the sending his disciples as his heralds, to 
proclaim him king, as that it would have given too much 
occasion to the government to suspect that he designed some 
such thing, and too much colour to the accusation of the 
Jews, that he forbade men “to give tribute to Cesar, saying 
that he himself was Christ a king” (Luke xxiii. 2). Now 
from the first observation we learn, that the reason why he 
was thus concerned to have his miracles concealed, must be 
somewhat peculiar to the Jewish nation ; and, from the se- 
cond, that he did this chiefly to avoid all suspicion that he 
intended to set up any temporal kingdom, or to give occa- 
sion to any innovation, sedition, or disturbance, upon this 
account. We therefore say, 


First, With the reverend Dr. Hammond, that he did this 
to avoid the malice of the scribes and pharisees and Herodi- 
ans against him, who were so far from being convinced by his 
miracles, that they not only did blaspheme them, but oft con- 
sulted how they might entrap him in his words, and get some- 
thing out of his mouth, by which they might accuse him as 
an enemy to God and Cesar. So when he had pronounced 
his woes against them, the scribes and pharisees began to urge 
him vehemently, laying snares for him, and “seeking to get 
something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him” to 
the government (Luke xi. 53,54). When, in the parable of 
the kingdom of heaven, he had told them what was like to 
be their fate, “ they send out their disciples with the pharisees 
to entrap him in his words,” and to put the question to him, 
“Ts it lawful to give tribute to Casar or not?” (Matt. xxii. 
15.17.) And when he doth but covertly declare himself to 
be “the son of God,” they are ready to stone him for it 
(John viii. 59, x.31). And at his miracles they were so in- 
censed, as to think of nothing less than cutting him off; and 
thus, when he cured the man that had the withered hand, 
the pharisees and Herodians “ take counsel together how 
they might destroy him” (Mark iii. 6). Thus when the peo- 
ple, hearing his words, and seeing his miracles, began to be 
convinced by them, and to say that “he was the Christ :” the 
pharisees and high-priests hearing that they murmured such 
things concerning him, send forth their servants to appre- 
hend him (John vii. 30—32). When he had raised Lazarus, 
the chief priests and pharisees conclude that “it was expe- 
dient that he should die,” and send forth their commands, 
“ that if any one knew where he was, he should declare it, 
that they might take him” (John xi. 47. 49, 50.57). That, 
therefore, they might not take him off before his time, and 
that they might have less occasion to do it for his popularity, 
or the resort of multitudes unto him, he commands his mira- 
cles should be concealed ; and when they could not be so, he 
departs from the multitudes into desert places ; and when his 
fame was spread forth in any one country round about, he de- 
parts thence into some other place. But, 

Secondly, His chief design in thus concealing that he was 
the Christ, and giving charge not to divulge his miracles, was 
this—that he might not indulge that pernicious conceit, 
which had obtained among them, that their Messiah was to 
be a temporal king; for the very name of their Messiah be- 
ing still m their Targums, “ Messiah the king;” and they 
speaking so much of his kingdom and dominion over the na- 
tions, his delivering Israel, and subduing their enemies ; had 
our Lord openly declared himself the Messiah before his 
resurrection, and exaltation to the right hand of God, they 
would easily have made this inference, that therefore he must 
be their king, their deliverer, and the subduer of their ene- 
mies, and would have attempted by tumults and seditions to 
set up his kingdom; thus, when he had fed five thousand 
with five little loaves and two small fishes, they gathering 
hence that he was able to make provisions for an army, pre- 
sently conclude “that they would take him by force, and 
make him a king” (John vi. 15). Andthis causeth him to 
depart from them intoa mountain alone. And his miracles 
being so great a conviction, that he was that “ prophet that 
should come into the world,” this was thought warrant eao:zh 

n2 


92 


pel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness, and 
every disease among the people. 

36 4 But (and) when he saw the multitudes (that 
followed him), he was moved with compassion on them, 
because they fainted (or strayed), and were scattered 
abroad, as sheep having no shepherd (and he taught 
them many things, Mark vi. 34). 


for this attempt (ver. 14). Christ’s kingdom, therefore, not 
being of this world, and therefore not to come with that pomp 
or observation, or to the ends which they expected, and it be- 
ing his great concern, that no sedition or disturbance of the ci- 
vil government should be laid either to his person or doctrine, 
this seemeth to have been his chief reason, why he gave charge 
to those healed not to make his miracles known, and to his 
disciples not to declare that he was the Christ. 

18 Ver. 36. “Ore ἦσαν ἐκλελυμένοι, they fainted.) Tt is cer- 
tain that Chrysostom and Theophylact read here ἐσκυλμένοι, 
they were “ tossed and wearied,’” either with the burdens of 
the scribes and pharisees, or with going from one of these 
false guides to another ; from those that bound, to those that 
loosed the same thing. But our reading they were “ scattered 
from one another,” comports best with the similitude of 
being as sheep without a shepherd. 

19 Ver. 37. 'O piv ϑερισμὸς πολὺς, The harvest indeed is 
great, but the labourers few, &c.] From this discourse of 


MATTHEW. 


37 Then saith he unto his disciples, 8. The harvest 
truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few (i. e. there 
be many who are willing to receive instruction, but few 
who-are fit to give it to them); 

38 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that 
he will send forth labourers into his harvest (to instruct 
those aright who are ready to receive instruction). 


Christ we learn these things, worthy to be regarded by all 
the pastors of Christ’s flock, viz. 

First, That he who doth not instruct his flock in the “sin- 
cere milk of the word,” and acquaint them with the things 
belonging to their eternal peace, from a heart full of love to 
God, and to the souls committed to his charge, deservés 
not the name of a true shepherd; for the want of these 
things in the scribes and pharisees, made Christ complain 
that the Jews were “as sheep without a shepherd.” 

Secondly, That where the harvest is great, and there be 
many who are “ white for the harvest” (John iv. 35), or ready 
to receive instruction, we should be the more diligent and 
laborious to afford it to them. 

Thirdly, That in such cases, when either we are not called 
to that work, or are placed in another station, we should 
pray fervently that God would raise up men fitted for their 
instruction, and zealous for his glory and the good of 
souls. 


CHAPTER X. 


1 Anp when he had called unto him his twelve dis- 
ciples, he gave them ! power against unclean spirits, 
to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness 
and all manner of disease (as they went preaching in his 
name). 

2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these ; 
the 3 first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his 
brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his bro- 
ther; 

3 Philip, and Bartholomew ; Thomas, and Matthew 
the publican; James the son of Alpheus, and Lebbeus, 
whose surname was Thaddeus ; 


4 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who 
also betrayed him. 

5 These twelve Jesus sent forth (by two and two, 
Mark vi. 7), and commanded them, saying, Go not 
(at present) into the way of the Gentiles, and into any 
city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 

6 3 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel (fo whom this doctrine of salvation is first sent, and 
is to be first preached, Acts iii. 26). 

7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of 
heaven is at hand, (@. e. the kingdom of the Messiah is 
now to be set up. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν πνευμάτων ἀκαθάρτων, He 
gave them power against (or over) unclean spirits, to cast 
them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all man- 
ner of disease.] ‘Efovcia πνευμάτων here is genitivus objecti, 
say grammarians ; “ power of unclean spirits,” being put for 
“ power over, or against” them. So βλασῥημία τοῦ Πνεύματος, 
Matt. xii. 31, is expounded, ver. 32, “blasphemy against 
the Holy Ghost” (see Isa. iii. 14, Joel iii. 19, 1 Cor. ix. 12). 
But that which chiefly is to be observed here is this, that 
Christ here delegates power to the apostles, and afterward to 
the seventy disciples (Luke x. 9. 17), and after his resurrec- 
tion to believers in the general, to do this in his name (Mark 
xvi. 17, 18). And though the apostles were not at present 
empowered to impart these gifts to others, yet after our 
Lord’s resurrection they were enabled to do it, by baptizing 
and laying their hands upon them; which is so eminent a 
demonstration of the truth of Christian faith, as hath no 
parallel in any history, excepting that of Moses, who “ laid his 
hands upon Joshua, and he was filled with the spirit of wis- 
dom” (Deut. xxxiv. 9) ; and of Elisha, on whom the “ spirit 
of Elijah” rested (2 Kings ii. 15). Though this was done, 
not by any power they had to communicate to others the vir- 
tue which resided in them, but in the case of Joshua by the 
particular command of God (Numb. xxvii. 19, 20), and in 
the case of Elisha by the will of God; and wasa signal con- 
firmation that they were both prophets sent by God; and 
much less was it done, as here, by invocation of their names. 
For among all the accounts the heathens have given us of 
their famous magicians, and workers of wonders, there is not 
one to be found who ever pretended to a power to delegate 
their virtue to others, or to impart their power to them, upon 
the invocation or using of their names, or belief of their 


doctrine. And hence Amobius,* having summed up the 
miracles our Saviour did, adds, that he not only did theia by 
his power, verum, quod erat sublimius, multos alios experiri 
et facere sui nominis cum adjectione permisit, ‘“ but permitted 
many others to do them, by invocation of his name ; nor did 
he any of these miracles which raised astonishment in others, 
which he enabled not his little ones and even rustics to per- 
form.” And then he triumphs over the heathens thus, 
«“ What say you, Ὁ ye stiff and incredulous minds? Ali- 
cuine moritalium Jupiter ille capitolinus hujusmodi potesta- 
tem dedit? Did ever that Jupiter, whom ye Romans wor- 
ship in the capitol, give the like power toany mortal?” And 
then he concludes this to be the evidence of a true divine 
power ; “for to transfer your miraculous power to a man, 
and to give authority and strength to a creature, to do that 
which you alone can do, supra omnia site est potestatis, 
continentisque sub sese est rerum omnium causas, is an evi- 
dence of one who hath power over all, and hath the causes 
of all things at his beck.” 

2 Ver. 2. Πρῶτος Σίμων, first Simon.] It is the observation 
of many of the fathers and interpreters here,j that Simon is 
here reckoned “the first” of the apostles, not as being so in 
dignity, but as being first called : for which see Matt. iv. 18, 
Mark i. 16, and therefore this word is omitted both by St. 
Mark, iii. 16, and St. Luke, vi. 14, which sure they would not 
have done, had they imagined it to be so remarkable, for es- 
tablishing St. Peter’s monarchy, as the papists do. 

3 Ver. 6. Πορεύεσθε δὲ μᾶλλον πρὸς τὰ πρόβατα τὰ drow 
λύτα οἴκου Ἰσραὴλ, But go rather to the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel.| He calls all Israel sheep, though they were not 
obedient to the voice of the Shepherd, as being all God’s 


* Adv. Gentes, lib. i. p. 30, 31. 
+ Quem primum Dominus elegit. Cypr. Ep. 17, ‘0, πάν- 


CHAPTER x. 


8 And in confirmation of this) heal the sick, cleanse | 
the lepers, ‘ raise the dead, cast out devils: δ freely ye 
have received (this power from me), freely give (the 
benefit of it to others. 

9 Then he commanded them to take nothing by the way, 
Mark vi. 8, saying,) Provide neither gold, nor silver, | 
nor brass, in your purses, 

10 Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, 
neither shoes, ὃ nor yet staves: for the workman is 


93 


worthy of his meat (and therefore you may reasonably 
expect to find it among them, for the benefit of whom you 
labour). y 

11 And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, 
enquire who in it is 7 worthy (or prepared to receive in- 
struction); and there abide till ye go thence (or from that 
town). 

12 And when ye come into an house, salute it (say- 
ing, Peace be to this house). 


chosen people; he calls them lost sheep, because they were 
in so great peril of being lost and ruined by the ignorance 
and wickedness of their guides (so Ps. cxix. 176, Isa. liii. 
6, Jer. i. 6). To them the apostles are sent, because they 
were “children of the kingdom” (Matt. viii. 12), to whom 
the promise of the Messiah was made (Gen. xvii. 1), and the 
“ adoption and promises” especially belonged (Rom. ix. 4). 
Whence the apostle saith, the gospel ought first to be 
preached to them (Acts xiii. 46). ‘They who by sheep here 
understand the elect by a secret decree of God, must, con- 
trary to the tenor of the New ‘I'estament, make Christ and 
his apostles to be sent to none who rejected the gospel; yea, 
they make Christ send his apostles to them, whom they 
could never find; it being not possible for them, without a 
revelation, to know who were thus the elect of God. 

4 Ver. 8. Nexpods ἐγείρετε, raise the dead.] Dr. Mill here 
notes that these words are wanting in many manuscripts; 
and, because the apostles raised none from the dead before 
Christ’s resurrection, he conjectures, that they have been 
added to the text: but, against this imagination, let it be 
noted, that these words are to be found in the Vulgar, Sy- 
riac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions, and left out only in the 
later version of the Persic ; and the argument which he and 
Grotius use for the excluding these words from the text, 
would exclude also the cleansing of the lepers, for we read 
of none cleansed by them in that interval: but it is to be 
observed, that the words in this chapter reach to their mis- 
sion after Christ’s resurrection, and many of them were not 
fulfilled before: for then only was it, that they were “ brought 
before councils, and scourged in the synagogues, and brought 
before kings and governors, for Christ’s sake (ver. 17, 18) ; 
then only was “the Spirit given them to teach them how to 
speak” (ver. 19, 20) ; then were they “hated of all men for 
his name.” Note, therefore, that there was a double mis- 
sion of the apostles. The 

First, Was to the Jews only, exclusively to the gentiles 
and Samaritans (ver. 5), and thus they were sent, “two 
and two,” (Mark vi. 7), to go through the cities and vil- 
lages of Israel to preach, saying, “’The kingdom of heaven 
is at hand” (here, ver. 7. 23, Luke ix. 5, 6), which mission 
they completed before our Saviour’s death” (Luke ix. 10. 
22.35); and in this they were only empowered to “heal 
diseases, and to cast out devils” (Matt. x. 1, Mark vi. 7. 13, 
Luke ix. 1, 2). But, 

Secondly, They had a second mission after our Lord’s re- 
surrection, conceived in these words, “as my Father sent 
me, so send I you” (John xx. 21). And this was to be 
executed after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them, 
by being “his witnesses in Jerusalem, and all Judea and 
Samaria, and to the utmost ends of the earth” (Acts i. 8), 
and to this mission relates this commission, “to cleanse the 
lepers, and to raise the dead ;” for besides the many things 
already mentioned, which cannot possibly relate to their 
first mission, most of the things mentioned in this chapter 
are the very things spoken in our Lord’s prediction of the 
destruction of Jerusalem, and are there mentioned as things 
to be done then (Matt. xxiv. 9). And these words (ver. 22), 
“ He that endures to the end shall be saved,” are the very 
words which Christ useth when he speaks of the destruction 
of the Jewish polity (Matt. xxiv. 13, Mark xiii. 13); and 
therefore it is observable that St. Mark and Luke, who re- 
late only what appertained to their first mission, speak no- 


τῶν τῶν μαϑητῶν προκριθείς. Basil. de Jud. Dei. p. 268. 
Axap\yh τῶν ἀποστόλων. Method. ap. Photium, Cod. 275. 
Primus credidit, et apostolatiis est princeps. Hilar. in 
Matt. Can. 7. Προτίθησι δὲ Πέτρον καὶ ᾿Ανδρξαν, διότι καὶ πρω- 
τύκλητοι. Τὶ heoph. in Joe. 


thing, in the chapters mentioned, of their commission to 
“cleanse the lepers and to raise the dead ;” or from ver. 15 
to 31, as knowing that these things belonged to their se- 
cond mission (see Examen Millii, lib. ii. cap. 1, n. 4). 

5 Δωρεὰν ἐλάβετε, δωρεὰν dére, freely you have received, 
freely give.) Though these words are by latter fathers ex- 
tended to both the sacraments, according to those words of 
Tertullian, Nulla res Dei pretio constat, “ We receive no- 
thing for the things of God ;” yet, from the connexion of 
them with the commission given to “cure diseases, cast out 
devils, and raise the dead ;” and from the words of [renwus,* 
saying, “The church did all these miracles, neither seducing 
any man, nor taking money for them, ὡς γὰρ δωρεὰν εἴ- 
Ande παρὰ Θεοῦ, δωρεὰν rai διακονεῖ, for as she hath received 
them freely of God, so she freely ministers them;” I say, 
from these things it is evident, that these words only relate 
to the dispensing of miraculous gifts, and they do assuredly 
wrest, and very much abuse them, who plead from them 
against the maintenance of the ministry: for (1.) Christ 
sending the seventy on the same errand, and investing them 
with the same power, bids them, “into whatsoever house 
they entered, to eat and drink what was set before them, 
because the labourer was worthy of his hire” (Luke x. 7). 
And many of the apostles, when executing this commission, 
even the brethren of our Lord, and Cephas, did so (1 Cor. 
ix. 4,5). St. Paul also, who did not use this liberty, not 
only justifies his right to do so, but requires them who are 
“taught the word to communicate to him that teacheth in 
all good things” (Gal. vi. 6, see the note there) ; and pro- 
nounceth him that “labours in the word and doctrine wor- 
thy of double honour,” that is, maintenance; and saith, 
“The Lord hath ordained, that they who preach the gospel, 
should live of the gospel” (1Cor. ix. 14). 

6 Ver. 10. Μηδὲ ῥάβδον, nor yet staves.) That the reading 
of Theophylact and many MSS., μηδὲ ῥάβδους, “nor staves,” 
is the true reading, is evident from Mark vi. 1, Luke ix. 3, 
where they are permitted to carry one staff. And by this 
precept our Lord taught them, when they were employed 
in his service, to depend upon his providence for the provi- 
sion of what they wanted; and therefore he speaks thus to 
them, “ When I sent you forth, lacked ye any thing?” 
Luke xxii. 35. It follows, “for the labourer is worthy of 
his meat ;” and therefore, even when they were dispensing 
these miracles, our Lord allows them to receive it: only 
Theophylact here notes, that Christ here says, he is worthy 
τροφῆς, ob τρύφης, “of his food, not of dainties; for it be- 
comes not a teacher to fare deliciously.” 

7 Ver. 11. ᾿Εζετάσατε ris ἐν αὐτῇ ἀζόις ἐστι, inquire who in 
it is worthy.] So ver. 13, “ And if the house be not wor- 
thy.” Here Cameron pronounces them innovators who 
conclude hence, “that the reason why one is rather called 
than another is in men themselves,” i. e. in any disposition 
in them to receive the word ; that is, he pronounceth all the 
ancients innovators; for that they were of this opinion is 
evident from Dally’s Testimon. Veterum,t and from Vos- 
sius in his Pelagian history, lib. vii. cap. 2, and is demon- 
strable from these words of Christ; for he sends his apostles 
to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” i. 6. to those 
who had strayed from the salutary pastures of “the law and 
the prophets,” to them whom he calls “to repentance” 
(Mark vi. 12), to whom the gospel was to be preached 
(Luke x. 9). He speaks therefore not of them who are 
called already, but who were to be called to Christ's sheep- 
fold, to the kingdom of heaven, and to faith and repent- 
ance, as the preparations for entering into it. (2.) In those 

* Lib. ii. cap. 57. 
ἡ Apol. ἃ p. 753 ad p. 946, 


94 


13 And if the house be worthy, let your peace come 
upon it (your blessing shall rest on it) : ὃ but if it be not 
worthy, let your peace return to you (é. e. they shall 
receive no advantage by zt). 

14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear 
your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, 
§ shake off the dust of your feet, (for a testimony against 
them, Mark vi. 11, Luke ix. 5, that you count them as 
unclean and unfit to be conversed with any more, because 
they have rejected the word of life propounded, and by 
your miracles confirmed to them). 

15 © Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolera- 
ble for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the (great) 
day of judgment, that for (the people of) that city; (be- 
cause the means of knowledge rejected by them have been 
greater, Xi. 23, 24). 

16 4 Behold, I send you forth as (7) sheep (were 
sent) in the midst of wolves (7. 6. on an employment 
full of peril from the men of the world): be ye there- 
fore wise as serpents (7. e. as prudent and wary as they 
are to preserve themselves from danger), and harmless 
as doves; (that, giving no offence to any man, you may 
give them no occasion to do evil to you: see Rom. xvi. 
19: 

a 4 But (and especially) beware of (the) men (of 


MATTHEW. 


this age and nation): for they will deliver you up 
to the councils (of the Sanhedrin), and they will 
scourge you in their synagogues (for preaching in my 
name ); 

Ale ye shall be brought before governors and 
kings for my sake, for a testimony against (Gr. 10) 
them and (fo) the Gentiles (who believe not the gospel 
preached to them, that the kingdom of God was come to 
them, Luke x. 9). 

19 But when they deliver you up (to these men), 
® take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it 
shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall 
speak. 

20 For it is not ye that speak (from your own abili- 
ties), but (2t 5) the Spirit of your Father which speak- 
eth in you. 

21 And (know this, that when the gospel is thus preached 
by you, the effect of it will be this, that) the brother (who 
believeth not) shall deliver up the (Christian) brother to 
death, and the father the child: and the children shall 
rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put 
to death (as being Christians). 

22 And ye (also) shall be hated of all (the) men (of 
the world) for my name’s sake: but he that endureth 
to the end (of these days of persecution from the unbe- 


who are thus to be called, Christ manifestly supposeth some 
would be found by the apostles ἄξιοι “worthy,” some un- 
worthy ; bidding them to inquire who were such, and who 
not, and accordingly to deport themselves towards them: 
now, whence should they know this, but from such disposi- 
tions found in some which render them fit for the kingdom, 
or from whom they might hope they should not labour in 
vain in calling them to repentance, and preaching the king- 
dom of God to them? so also when he sends his seventy 
disciples on the same errand, bidding them say “ Peace” to 
the house they came to; and promising that “if a son of 
peace were there, their peace should rest upon it” (Luke x. 
6); what can this “son of peace” be, but one disposed to 
receive such persons peaceably and kindly, and to hearken 
to their admonitions? and is not this the very thing which 
fitted them for the divine benediction? This will be still 
more evident from the consideration of the persons opposed 
to the “worthy,” and the “sons of peace;” for they were 
not such as were disposed to hearken to the word, or to re- 
ceive the preachers of it (Matt x. 14, Mark vi. 11, Luke 
x. 10), for which they were to look upon them as impure; 
yea, for which Christ pronounces their punishment would 
be “greater in the day of judgment than that of Sodom 
and Gomorrah ;” and must not such dreadful judgments be- 
fall them, for want of such dispositions as might and ought 
to have been in them towards the “ gospel of the kingdom,” 
and those who came to them with the kind offer of the 
blessings of it? They therefore, by refusing to receive the 
word, “ judged themselves unworthy of eternal life” (Acts 
xiii. 46), when they might and should have done the con- 
trary; and for want of those good dispositions which others 
had, and they might have had, fell short of the salvation 
tendered to them. 

8 Ver. 13. ᾿Εὰν δὲ μὴ ἢ ἀξία, but if it be not worthy, let 
your peace réturn unto you.| That is, they shall not obtain 
the peace you wish them, or receive any benefit from your 
wishes ; so this phrase signifies in those words of the psalm- 
ist, “ My prayer returned into my bosom,” Ps. xxxv. 14 (see 
Isa. lv. 11). 

9 Ver. 14, ᾿Εκτινάξατε τὸν κονιορτὸν τῶν ποδῶν ὑμῶν, Shake 
off the dust from your feet.| The Jews thought the dust 
of the heathen lands polluted; so that the import of this 
phrase is this, Look upon such as those heathens whom I 
have forbidden you to preach to; when therefore ye depart 
from them, shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony 
that you so esteem them. 

10 Ver, 15. ᾿Ανεκτύτερον ἔσται γῇ Σοδόμων καὶ Τομόῤῥων ἔν 
ἡμέρα κρίσεως, Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tole- 
rable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than 
for that city.] ‘The gloss which some have put upon these 
words, viz. that the punishment of that city shall be greater, 


when Christ comes to execute his judgment on the Jewish 
nation, than that which Sodom and Gomorrah suffered for 
refusing the preaching of Lot, doth certainly pervert the 
import of these words. For (1.) Christ saith not, It hath 
been more tolerable for Sodom, but ἔσται, “it shall be” so; 
which shows he had respect, not to the past, but future suf- 
ferings of Sodom and Gomorrah, (2.) Christ adds, It shall 
be more tolerable for Sodom, &c. “in the day of judgment:” 
now, though the times of the destruction of the Jewish na- 
tion are sometimes styled “the days of vengeance,” yet 
never are they called the “day of judgment:” but that 
phrase still relates unto the final judgment and perdition of 
ungodly men (2 Pet. iii. 7), that day to which the wicked 
are reserved to be punished, 2 Pet. 11. 9 (see Matt. xii. 36, 
1 John iv. 17). So also doth the phrase ἐν τῇ κρίσει, used by 
St. Luke (x. 14), concerning the same persons, always sig- 
nify (Matt. xii. 41, 42); so that the Sodomites shall cer- 
tainly receive a future judgment: according to these words 
of Theophylact, ἐκεῖ. μετριώτερον κολασθήσονται, “and they 
shall be punished more moderately.” And who can ration- 
ally conceive that men, polluted with such unnatural lusts, 
should be fit.to come into that place, into “which nothing 
enters that is polluted or defiled?” (Rev. xxi. 27.) Here 
also it is well noted by Grotius, that the sin of those who 
reject the gospel, rendering them obnoxious to greater pu- 
nishment than Sodom and Gomorrah were to suffer at the 
day of judgment, because committed against greater light, 
and greater confirmation of the truth, must be a wilful sin, 
which it was in their power to avoid, 

1 Ver. 17. Προσέχετε δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, But beware of 
men.} i. 6. Avoid, as much as in you lies, the persecutions 
you may suffer from them. For, as Theophylact here 
notes, this is to be wise as serpents, viz. to be circumspect 
in declining their snares, and giving them no just occasion 
to afflict us; and to be harmless as doves, is to offend no 
man by word or example, and so give them no occasion to 
do evil to us. 

2 Ver. 19, 20. Μὴ μεριμνήσητε πῶς ἣ τί λαλήσητε, &e. Take 
no thought how or what you shall speak: for it is not 
you that speak, but the Spurit of my Father which speak- 
eth in you.) Christ promising here to his apostles immediate 
assistance from the Holy Spirit, forbids them, προμελετᾶν, 
“to meditate beforehand what they should say” (Luke xxi. 
14). Vain therefore are the papists, who ascribe the same 
assistance to their fathers met in councils, saying, “It is not 
they that speak, but the Holy Ghost that speaketh in them ;” 
and yet make prayers and disputations, and many other 
things requisite to an infallible decision. Vain also are the 
anabaptists, quakers, and whosoever do now expect the like 
assistance in prayer and preaching, after these extraordinary 
gifts are ceased, as the apostles had by virtue of them; they 


CHAPTER X. 


lieving Jews) shall be saved (from the dreadful destruc- 
tion coming on them). 

23 But when they persecute you in this city (ἡ. 6. 
in any one aly)» flee ye into another: for verily I say 
unto you, ™ Ye shall not have gone over the cities of 
Israel, till the Son of man be come; (with his Roman 
army to destroy that nation, and to burn up their cities. 

24 And to arm you against these persecutions, consider 
that) the disciple is not (to expect to be) above his mas- 
ter, nor the servant (¢o be) above his lord. 

25 It is enough for the disciple that he be as his 
master, and (for) the servant (o be) as his lord. If 
(then) they have called the master of the house Beel- 
zebub, how much more shall they call (or proportion- 
ably revile) them of his houshold? 

26 % Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing 


may as well pretend to speak with tongues and cast out de- 
vils, as the apostles did, by virtue of the same assistance. 

3 Ver. 23. “Ὅταν δὲ διώκωσιν ὑμᾶς, &c. But when they 
shall persecute you in this city, flee to another.) It follows 
not from these words, that a pastor who is fixed to a parti- 
cular congregation may fly from it in times of persecution, 
their case being not the same with that of the apostles, whose 
commission was to go “ through all the cities of Judea, be- 
ginning at Jerusalem” (Acts i. 8): so that they only fled 
from one part of their jurisdiction to another, and were still 
executing the office and trust committed to them. 

14 Οὐ μὴ τελέσητε τὰς πόλεις τοῦ ᾿Ισραὴλ, ἕως ἂν ἔλθῃ ὃ υἱὸς τοῦ 
ἀνθρώπου, I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the 
cities of Israel till the Son of man be come.| This Dr. 
Lightfoot understands as spoken of their first mission, and 
says the meaning of the words is this, You shall not have 
finished it till the Son of man rise from the dead. But, 
First, In that first mission they met with no persecution in 
any city; but, where they were not received, left it of their 
own accord (ver. 11), Secondly, They presently returned 
from their first commission to their Lord, and told him all 
that they had done and taught in prosecution of it, as we 
read, Luke ix. 10, Mark vi. 30. Thirdly, this phrase, “the 
coming of the Son of man,” doth never, that 1 know of, 
signify our Lord’s coming at his resurrection, but either his 
coming with the Roman army to destroy the Jews, as Matt. 
xxiv. 27. 30. 37. 44, xxv. 13, Mark xiii. 26, Luke xviii. 8, 
xxi. 27, or else his coming to the final judgment, Matt. yvi. 
27. And seeing the apostles were none of them to live till 
the day of judgment, it seems necessary to understand this 
of his coming to avenge his quarrel on the Jewish nation. 
And to this sense lead the following words; And if you 
meet with great obloguies and persecutions from the Jewish 
nation, whilst you are thus spreading the gospel through 
Judea (as they did even to the beginning of the war ;* 
James, the brother of our Lord, and other Christians, being 
slain by Ananus the high-priest but three years before the 
war broke out), it is only what wasdoneto your Lord; and 
therefore what you have equal reason to expect, “ for the 
disciple is not above his master” (ver. 24—26). 

15 Ver. 26. Μὴ οὖν φοβηθῆτε αὐτοὺς" οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐστι κεκαλυμ- 
μένον, ὃ οὐκ ἀποκαλυφθήσεται Fear ye not them therefore: 
ior there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed.) 

hese words are capable of two good senses: First, Let not 
the dread of these persecutors aflright you from preaching 
of the gospel, as despairing of the success of it; for though 
at present it seems to be hidden from the world, and it is 
like to be obscured awhile by the calumnies of the Jews 
and others, I will cause it to shine through all the world, 
and dissipate all the clouds they cast over it, and break 
through all the obstacles, and will render it “mighty, to 
cast down every high thought that exalts itself against the 
knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought 
to the obedience of Christ’”’ (2 Cor. x. 5) : or thus, Secondly, 
Fear not the calumnies with which they shall load you (as 
they did your Master, calling him Beelzebub, ver. 25), for 
I will make the innocency and excellency of your doctrine 
as clear as the light; and your integrity in the dispensing 
of it, and your patience in suffering for it, to redound to 


* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 698, B. 


95 


covered, that shall not be revealed ; and hid, that shall 
not be known (i. 6. for my doctrine, which now seems 
obscure and hidden from the world, shall in time be re- 
vealed to all nations, and overcome all the calumnies 
with which it is loaded, and all the opposition it shall 
meet with). 

27 15 What (therefore) I tell you in darkness (or 
parabolical expressions), that speak ye in light: and 
what ye hear (from me) in the ear (ἐν 6, more private- 
ly), that preach ye (publicly, and as it were) upon the 
housetops. 

28 7 And fear not them which (can only) kill the 
body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather 
fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body 
in hell. 

29 (Moreover, you who are so highly valued by God, 


your praise, honour, and glory, throughout all ages, and 
especially at the revelation of our Lord from heaven (1 Pet. 
i) 

᾽ Ver. 27. Ὃ λέγω ὑμῖν ἐν τῇ σκοτία, εἴπατε ἐν τῷ φωτὶ, 
&c. What I say to you in darkness, speak ye in the light ; 
and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the 
housetops.] 1. e. What I have said to you in private, and in 
obscure parables, and almost as the Jewish doctors, whose 
custom it is to whisper into the ear of one who is to speak 
what he thus whispers aloud to others (sve Dr. Lightfoot 
and Dr. Hammond on this place), that speak ye openly and 
clearly in the audience of all, and, as it were, after the man- 
ner of the Jews, who, having battlements οὐ the tops of 
their houses over which they could look (Deut. xxii. 8, 
2 Sam. xi. 1, Acts x. 9), did often from them preach to the 
people. And so, saith Hegesippus,* they carried “James 
the Just to the top of the temple, to preach to the people at 
the passover.” 

17 Ver. 28. Kai μὴ φοβηθῆτε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτεινόντων τὸ σῶμα, τὴν 
δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι, And fear not them who can 
kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, &c.] These words 
seem to contain a certain evidence that the soul dies na 
with the body, but continues afterward in a state of sensi« 
bility: for, First, That which it is allowed that men can do 
to the body, it is denied that they can do to the soul; theres 
fore Christ speaks not in these words of death eternal (for 
that men cannot inflict upon the body, or hinder its resur- 
rection) : therefore it is spoken of a temporal death. Note, 
Secondly, That they who, by killing the body, make the 
soul also to perish, till the reunion and reviviscence both of 
soul and body, do also kill the soul, and so do more than 
they who can kill the body only: and they, who by killing 
of the body, render the soul or spirit of a man insensate, and 
deprived of all possibility of thinking, or perceiving any 
thing, do also kill the soul; for it is not easy to perceive, 
how an intelligible, thinking, and perceiving being, can be 
more killed, than by depriving it of all sensation, thought, 
and perception ; the body itself being killed by a total pri- 
vation of its capacity of sense and motion: since therefore 
in St. Luke xii. 4, Christ saith, the adversaries of the Chris- 
tians can “ only kill their bodies ;” and here, that they can- 
not kill their souls; it remains, that the soul doth not perish 
with the body, nor is it reduced into an insensible state by 
the death of it. And, Thirdly, Our Lord may well be 
supposed to speak here, as the Jews would certainly under- 
stand his words; now they would certainly thus understand 
him, this being their received opinion, That the soul after 
the death of the body, was capable of bliss or misery, and 
therefore did continue in a state of sensation ;{ “ Man,” say 
they, “fears an earthly king, who may die to-morrow, should 
punish him; and doth he not fear him, in whose hands his 
soul is, both in this life and the future?’ And the author 
αὐτοκράτορος λογισμοῦ saith,¢ “Let us not fear them who 
seem to kill the body; for them who die by the law, Abra- 


* Apud. Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 53. 

+ Buxt. Floril. p. 364, Eben. Ezr. in Ex. xx. 3. 

+ Μὴ φοβηθῶμεν τὸν δοκοῦντα ἀποκτείνειν τὸ σώμα, οὕτω γὰρ 
θάνοντας ἡμᾶς ᾿Αβραὰμ, ᾿Ισαὰκ, καὶ Ἰακὼβ ἀποδέζονται" μέγας δὲ 
τῆς ψυχὴς κίνδυνος ἐν αἰωνίῳ βασανισμῳ κείμενος παραβαίνουσιν 
τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ. cap. 19. 


96 


and live under such a peculiar conduct of his providence, 
have no cause to fear what they can do to the body, for) 
are not two sparrows sold for a farthing (as being birds 
of little value) 2 and 18 one of them shall not fall on the 
ground (or die) without (the providence of) your Father. 

30 But (yet this providence is more particularly con- 
cerned for you, for) the very hairs of your head are all 
numbered (7. 6. your minutest concerns are under the 
especial conduct of his providence). 

31 Fear ye not therefore, (for) ye are of more value 
(in the sight of God) than many sparrows. 

32 Whosoever therefore shall (by these considerations 
be encouraged still to.) confess (or own) me (and my doc- 
trine) before men, him will I confess also (or own at 
the great day as my faithful servant) before my Father 
which is in heaven. 

33 But whosoever (notwithstanding these encowrage- 
ments) shall (to avoid their persecutions) deny me before 
men, him will I also deny (and disown at the great day) 
before my Father which is in heaven. 

34 (And) ® think not that lam come to send (or 
cause) peace on earth (and so to free you from these per- 
secutions ; for) 1 came not to send peace, but a sword. 

35 For Iam come to (preach that doctrine which will 
rather) set a man at variance against his father, and 
the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in 
law against her mother in law. 

36 And (thus zt shall happen, that) a man’s foes shall 
be they of his own household. 

37 (4nd this dispensation of providence will discover who 


MATTHEW. 


is worthy to be owned as my disciple, for when this happen- 
eth,) he that loveth father or mother more than me (i. e. 
moved by his regard to them to disown me, or disobey my 
precepts) is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son 
or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 

38 And he that taketh not (up) his cross, and fol- 
loweth after me, is not worthy of me. (See note on 
Luke ix. 23.) 

39 (And know that by refusing thus to follow me, men 
will be the greatest losers, for) he that (by deserting me in 
time of persecution) findeth his life (preserved for a little 
while) shall lose it (probably here, and certainly here- 
after): and he that loseth his life for my sake shall 
find it (happily improved into life eternal, and so shall be 
the greatest gainer. 

40 4 Nor shall my kindness be confined only to those who 
show this affection to my person, but) ® he that receiveth 
you (preaching in my name, shall be esteemed as he that) 
receiveth me, and he that receiveth me (as he that) re- 
ceiveth him that sent me. 

41 (And) he that receiveth a prophet in the name 
of a prophet (7. 6. as one sent from God, and doth accord- 
ingly attend to him), shall receive a prophet’s reward ; 
and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of 
a righteous man (7. 6. out of true love to his righteousness) 
shall receive a righteous man’s reward. 

42 And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of 
these little ones (7. 6. the meanest of my disciples) 2 a cup 
of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I 
say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. 


ham, Isaac, and Jacob, receive ; but they who transgress the 
law of God, subject the soul to a great danger of endless 
torments.” 

8 Ver. 29. A sparrow falls not to the ground without 
your Father.) This, as Buxtorf* hath observed, is like that 
saying of the Jews, Avicula sine celo non perit, quantd 
minus homo: « A bird perisheth not without the providence 
of God, much less a man.” 

19 Ver. 34. Mi νομίσητε ὅτι ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἐπὶ τὴν yu— 
ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν, Think not that I came to send peace upon 
the earth, I came not to send peace, but a sword, ver. 35, 
36.] The usual import assigned to these words is this: 
Though all my exhortations and institutions tend to con- 
ciliate the most endearing love, and to establish the firmest 
and most lasting peace in the world; yet the event of it, 
through men’s ignorance and wickedness, will be great va- 
riance and discord, even between nearest relatives and per- 
sons of most intimate acquaintance and familiarity : yet is 
the exposition of Dr. Lightfoot very ingenious and true, That 
he came to send upon the land of Judea, not that peace and 
those haleyon days which they expected at the coming of 
their Messiah, but a sword, and continual war, and discords, 
to. destroy them, not only by their enemies, but by their own 
hands: of which Josephus gives us a full comment in his 
history of the continual wars the Jews had with the Greeks, 
the Syrians, and the Samaritans, which were, saith Euse- 
bius,t from him, στάσεις καὶ πόλεμοι καὶ κακῶν ἐπάλληλοι 
μηχαναὶ, “continual wars, and seditions, and machinations 
of evil,” with the prognostications of them by a kind of 
“flaming sword hanging over Jerusalem for a year” (see note 
on ch. xxiv.). He adds,+ that ἐκινεῖτο ἐν ἑκαστῆ πόλει ταραχὴ 
καὶ πόλεμος ἐμφύλιος, “there arose in every city tumults and 
civil wars; and no sooner had they any respite from the 
Romans, but they turned their hands against one another;” 
giving us tragical accounts of the fearful outrages, spoils, 
murders, devastations of robbers, cut-throats, zealots, and of 
their amazing cruelties, beyond example, especially of the 
three adverse parties in the temple and city of Jerusalem. 


* Lex. Talmud. p. 553. 
+ Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 6. 
+ Be Bel. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 10. 


20 Ver. 40—42. 'O δεχόμενος ὑμᾶς, ἐμὲ δέχεται, He that 
receiveth you, receiveth me.) Here Christ comforts his dis- 
ciples by promising a blessing and reward to every one that 
shows the least kindness to them, or any of those who were 
employed in the same work with them; viz. the prophets, 
mentioned among spiritual persons in the first epistle to the 
Corinthians, and of whom Christ speaketh thus (xxiii. 34), 
“Behold, I send you prophets, and wise men;” or even to 
any of his righteous servants ; which, as it is a great incite- 
ment to others to express their kindness to Christ’s minis- 
ters and faithful servants, so is it also to his ministers, to 
apply themselves to his service with a ready mind, and with 
the utmost diligence, in execution of their pastoral charge. 
To receive them “in the name of a prophet,” is to receive 
them on that account, that they are such. As to learn the 
law lisemah,* «in the name of the law,” is to learn it upon 
that account; and to do a thing αἱ shem,j or leshem, in or 
for the name is, saith he, to do it upon that account; as 
when they say, “ Let all thy works be done, leshem sham- 
maim, in the name of heaven,” that is, with respect to God, 
and to his glory. Moreover, when he saith (ver. 39), “ He 
that loseth his life for my sake shall find it, and he that 
findeth (or preserveth it by deserting me, and my doctrine), 
shall lose it ;” this is exactly true, according to the Chris- 
tian doctrine, which promiseth a resurrection of the body to 
eternal life to those who are faithful to Christ to the death, 
and threateneth eternal death to those who desert him to 
preserve this momentary life ; now sure he with a witness 
“loseth life,” who is deprived of that eternal life he in the 
body might enjoy, and he as surely finds it whose body is 
raised to a life incorruptible. 

21 Ver. 42. Ποτήριον ψυχροῦ, a cup of cold. Sub. water. 
So xi. 8, τὰ μαλακὰ are soft raiments; and Luke xii. 47, 
δαρήσεται πολλὰς, “he shall be beaten with many,” supply 
πλήγας, stripes. This illipsis of the substantive, as the gram- 
marians note, is very frequent in the Old Testament. So 
3 Sam. xxi. 16, “He was girded with a new” add sword ; 
Ps. x. 10, “That the poor may fall by his strong,” add 
paws; Ps. Ixxiii. 10, “The waters of a full,” add cup, 
“were wrung out to him” (see Gloss. de Nomine, Can. 12), 


* Lex. Talm. p. 903. 


+ P, 2431 


CHAPTER XI. 


2 AND it came to pass, when Jesus had made an 
end of commanding his twelve disciples, (whom he had 
sent to preach, before his coming to the cities of Israel, 
Matt. x. 23, Luke x. 1), he departed thence (from 
Capernaum, Matt. ix. 1) to teach and to preach in 
their cities. 

2 Now when John had heard in the prison (of Ma- 
cherus) the works of Christ, (being told of them by his 
disciples, Luke vii. 18,) he sent two of his disciples 
(whom he had called to him for that purpose, Luke vii. 
19), 

3 And (they, in the name of their master, Luke vii. 
20) said unto him, ! Art thou he that should come, or 
do we look for another ? 

4 (And in that same hour, that the disctples of John 
came with this question, Christ cured many of their in- 
Jirmities, and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto 
many that were blind he gave sight, Luke vii. 21, and 


therefore) Jesus answered and said unto them, Go, 
and shew John again those things which ye do hear 
(Luke vii. 22) and see: 

5 2 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead 
are raised up, and the * poor have the gospel preached 
to them. 

6 And ‘ blessed is he, whosoever shall not be of- 
fended in me. 

7 4 And as they departed (or, when they were gone), 
Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning 
John (that they might not doubt of the testimony John 
had given to him, by reason of his inquiry, which seemed 
to render him now doubting, of what he before had tes- 
tified; When you went forth into the wilderness to be 
baptized of John), What went ye out into the wil- 
derness to see? (WWas it to see) a reed shaken with the 
wind ? (¢. 6. α man wavering in his testimony, and turn- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1 Ver. 3. Art thou ὃ ipxspevos, he that cometh, or look we 
Jor another ? 

Note here (1.) that ὁ ἐρχόμενος, “he that is coming,” was 
in those days the common style for the Messias: so is he 
styled by St. John himself, 6 ἐρχόμενος ὀπίσω pov, “he that 
cometh after me” (Matt. iii. 11, John i. 15. 27): so by the 
multitude, saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed 
is ὃ ἐρχόμενος, he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” 
Matt. xxi. 9, xxiii. 39, or as it is, Luke xix. 38, 6 ἐρχόμενος 
βασιλεὺς, “the king coming:’’ and this name of the Messiah 
they received from Habakkuk where he is styled 5 ἐρχύμενος, 
“he that shall come” (Hab. ii. 3); and from Daniel, where 
he is styled 6 ἐρχόμενος, “he that cometh with the clouds 
of heaven,” vii. 13 (see Matt. xxiv. 30, xxvi. 64, Heb. 
x. 37). 

Note, (2.) that the Baptist could not make this inquiry 
on his own behalf, or doubt whether Christ were the Mes- 
siah or not, for he was sent to that very end to bear witness 
of Christ (John i. 6—8) ; he was taught from heaven a sign 
by which he certainly might know him (yer. 33); he pro- 
claims him “the Son of God” (ver. 24); “the Lamb of 
God” (ver. 36); he “bare witness” to him (iii. 26. 33) ; he 
declared of him, that he was “come from above,” from hea- 
ven, that “ he spake the words of God,” that “God had not 
given him the Spirit by measure,” and that “he who re- 
ceived his testimony had set fo his seal that God is true” 
(John iii. from ver. 29 to the end). It cannot therefore be 
imagined, that, after all this,he should doubt whether he 
were the Messiah or not. Much less can we imagine, with 
many of the fathers,* that the sense of this inquiry should 
be this, Tu es qui venturus es in infernum? “ Art thou he 
that art to come to hades, whither I am going, and should I 
preach thee there?” Chrysostom indeed produces, but ap- 
proves not this opinion; but Origen bids us “not to fear 
to assert it,” and proves it from this place. Dr. Lightfoot 
and others conceive that John might imagine, as the Jewish 
nation did, that Christ’s kingdom should be temporal and 
splendid, and so expected that Christ should deliver him out 
of prison; and that therefore Christ saith to him, “ Blessed 


* Non ait, Tu es qui venisti, sed Tu es qui venturus es, 
et est sensus, Manda mihi, quia ad infenum descensurus 
sum, utriim te et inferis renunciare debeam, qui enunciavi 
cuperis. Hieron. in locum. Joannes ait, Tu es qui venturus 
es in infernum sine dubio. Ruff. in Symb. Διὰ τοῦτο εἶπε, 
Xv εἴ ὃ ἐρχόμενος ; τουτέστιν, ὃ εἰς @dqv μέλλων καταβαίνειν. 

T Μὴ φοβοῦ λέγειν ὅτι ᾿Ιωάννης cis ddov καταβέβηκε προνηρύσσων 
τὸν Κύριον ἵνα προείπη αὐτὸν, κατελευσόμενον διὰ τοῦτο ἐπυνθάνετο, 
Οὐχὶ cv εἶ 6 ἐρχόμενος ; Com. in Lib. Reg. edit. Huet. tom. i. 
p- 34 A, et p. 35, A. In hanc sententiam maxima pars 
vetei um concessit. Maldonat. in locum. 

Vou. [V.—13 


is he that shall not be offended in me.” But seeing σκαν- 
δαλίζεσθαι, “to be offended,” still signifies to be so scandal- 
ized as to “ fall off from the faith,” and it is by no means 
credible, after the testimonies that John had given of Christ, 
he should be guilty of such apostasy, or infidelity, espe- 
cially since his disciples after his death resort to Christ, and 
cleave to him (xiv. 12), it is most propable that John sent 
these disciples not for his own, but for their satisfaction in 
this matter, and that Christ said to them, “Blessed is he 
that shall not be offended in me.” 

2 Ver. 5, The blind receive their sight, &c.] That he 
should make “the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf 
to hear, and preach the gospel to the poor,” was prophesied 
of the Messiah, Isa. xxix. 18, 19, xxxv. 5, 6, Ixi. 18, but of 
the “lepers being cleansed, and the dead raised,” by the 
Messiah, we read nothing in the prophets; these therefore 
were the things they heard done at Nain, where the widow’s 
son was raised (Luke vii. 18), and saw done before their 
eyes, when Jesus cured many τῶν μαστίγων of their “ plagues :” 
for leprosy is often styled ny yaa “the plague of leprosy,” 
and the word ya) is by the Septuagint rendered πλήγη and 
μάστιξ" it is styled the «plague of leprosy,” Lev, xiii. 2, 8, 
9. 20. 25. 31. 47. 49. 51. 59, xiv. 3. 32, 34, and it was 
looked upon by the Jews as an immediate chastisement 
sent from God (see note on yiii.4. See Examen Milli). 

3 The poor have the gospel preached unto them.| Though 
“the poor” here may signify the poor and humble in spirit, 
to whom the gospel was preached with the best success, 
they being best fitted for, and so most ready to receive it; 
yet I see no reason to recede from the obvious sense of the 
words, ‘That whereas the men of mean condition were by 
the proud scribes and pharisees and learned rabbies neg 
lected, and contemned as “ people of the earth” (John vil. 
49), Christ chose chiefly to converse with and instruct them; 
and the divine wisdom saw it fit, that when the things of the 
gospel were hid from these men, who were indeed blind 
guides, though wise and prudent in their own conceits, they 
should be revealed to these babes (ver. 25, 26). And, in- 
deed, as the subject of the doctrines of the scribes and 
pharisees was chiefly vain traditions, everting the law of 
God (Matt. xv.), and the things they imposed upon them 
“heavy burdens,” and the disputes in their Bethi Midrashoth 
vain janglings; so did they teach in such a manner by ca- 
balistical deductions and allegorical interpretations, as tran- 
scended the capacity of the vulgar, so that they could profit 
very little by repairing to their schools, or hearing their ex- 
positions upon the law or prophets; as any one may learn 
from almost all their expositions cited from their Talmuds, 
and their learned rabbies; and therefore our Sayiour, in the 
close of this chapter, calls them from them to “learn of 
him” (see note on ver. 28). 

4 Ver. 6. Blessed is he who shall not be offended in me.] 
i. e. Disbelieve, or fall off from me, by reason of my mean 

I 


98 


ing this way and that way, as a reed shaken with the 
wind doth). 

8 But what went ye out for to see? (Was zt) a man 
clothed in soft raiment? (a courtier, or a parasite, apt 
to flatter, and speak rather what will please others than 
what truth requires?) behold, they that wear soft cloth- 
ing are in kings’ houses (ἴ. 6. such persons may be ex- 
pected rather in kings’ palaces, than in deserts). 

9 But what went ye out for to see? (Was it to see) 
a prophet? yea, I say unto you, and (one that 15) more 
than a prophet (Ais doctrine being more excellent, and 
his office being not only to foretell, but to prepare the way 
of the Messias). 

10 For this is he, of whom it is written (Mal. iii. 1), 
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which 
shall prepare thy way before thee. (See note on Matt. 
iii. 3. 

11 Verily I say unto you, Among them (7. e. those 
prophets) that are born of women, there hath not risen 
Sa greater than John the Baptist (on the accounts 


circumstances in this present world, or because of those af- 
flictions he may suffer for my sake, or for adhering to my 
doctrine. 

5 Ver. 11. A greater than John.] His office being more 
excellent than that of other prophets, to prepare the way of 
Christ, and to fit the people to receive him, by calling them 
to “bring forth fruits worthy of repentance,” that they 
might receive remission of sins, and baptizing them in the 
name of him that was to come after him, that was, of Christ, 
Acts xix. 4. (2.) His doctrine being more excellent than 
theirs, the gospel of God beginning then to be preached 
(Luke xvi. 16), the highest precepts of Christian charity 
propounded (Luke iii. 11) ; Christ the true light being then 
attested to by John, “that all men might believe in him” 
(John i. 7), and he being by him declared to be “the Lamb 
of God that taketh away the sins of the world” (ver. 29), 
and who should “ baptize them with the Holy Ghost” (ver. 
33), was the greatest of prophets. He was so (3.) by 
reason of the success and efficacy of his doctrine, almost the 
whole nation flowing in to his baptism, and confessing their 
sins (Matt. iii. 5, 6) ; whence it is added, that from “the 
days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffers vio- 
lence” (ver. 12). 

6 ὋὋ δὲ pixpéreoos, But he that is least in the kingdom of 
heaven is greater than he.] Not the meanest Christian, but 
the meanest evangelical prophet, or preacher of the Christian 
doctrine, is greater than he. (1.) In respect of his office, 
which was to preach “Christ crucified,’ his resurrection 
from the dead, his exaltation to the right hand of God, the 
blessings tendered to those that should believe in his name ; 
and therefore, also, (2.) in respect of his doctrine, which was 
more spiritual and heavenly than that of John, and more 
express in the revelation of the new covenant established in 
the blood of Jesus, and “founded upon better promises,” 
Heb. viii. 6. (3.) In respect of that divine assistance by 
which their doctrine was confirmed, for John “ did no mira- 
cle” (John x. 41), whereas “they went forth preaching 
every where, the Lord working with them and confirming 
the words with signs following” (Mark xvi. 20). “The 
Holy Ghost was not yet given” (John vii. 39), and so it fell 
not upon John; whence he, comparing himself with Jesus, 
who was from above (John iii. 31), and had the « Spirit 
above measure” (ver. 34), saith of himself, “ He that is of the 
earth speaketh of (or from) the earth” (ver. 31), whereas the 
evangelical prophets spake by the gifts and afflatus of the 
Holy Ghost, which Christ sent down from heaven on them. 

7 Ver. 12, And the violent take it by force.) i.e. And 
they who by their continual attendance on the doctrine of it 
preached to them, their care to understand it, and readiness 
to receive it, show their ardent desires to be made partakers 
of it, and do ἀγωνίζεσθαι contend for an entrance into it, do 
by these means prevail. There is another exposition of 
these words to this effect; i. e. the publicans and sinners, 
and the meaner crowd of the Jews, who are looked upon by 
the scribes and pharisees as persons who have no right to 
the blessings of the Messiah, and so as violent persons, and 


MATTHEW. 


forementioned): notwithstanding, he that is least in 
the kingdom of heaven (the least prophet belonging to 
the gospel dispensation) is ὃ greater than he. 

12 And from the days of John the Baptist until 
now the kingdom of heaven (as it were) suffereth vio- 
lence (by reason of the great concourse of people that fly 
tnto it with a fervour like that which is used by a multi- 
tude assaulting a city or castle), and the? violent take it 
by force. 

13 (Isay, from the days of John the Baplist ;) for all 
the prophets and the law prophesied (of the Messiah, 
and were the teachers which the people were to hear, Luke 
xvi. 31) until John: (and, ἀπὸ τότε, from that time 
the kingdom of God was preached καὶ πᾶς ὃ βουλόμενος 
εἰσελθεῖν, and every one that is willing to enter presseth or 
rusheth violently into it, Luke xvi. 16, which seems to 
justify the exposition of ver. 12). 

14 8 And if ye will receive it, (or him as such, I tell 
you truly) this (person) is (thal) Elias, which was for 
to come (according to the prophecy of Malachi). 


invaders, and intruders, embrace the gospel, and as it were 
take it by force from the scribes and learned doctors, who 
challenge the chiefest place in this kingdom, according to 
those words of Christ to them, “The publicans and harlots 
go before you into the kingdom of God; for ye believed not 
John coming to you in the way of righteousness, but the 
publicans and harlots believed him” (Matt. xxi. 31, 32) ; 
and that which renders this interpretation the more consi- 
derable is this observation, that in the parallel place, Luke 
vii. 283—30, instead of these words, “ the kingdom of heaven 
suffers violence,” we have these, “and all the people and the 
publicans justified God, being baptized with the baptism of 
John, but the pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of 
God, being not baptized of him.” 

8 Ver. 14, Kai εἰ Sédere détacSat, αὐτός ἐστιν ᾿Ηλίας 6 μέλλων 
ἔρχεσϑαι" And if you will receive it, this is that Elias, 
which was for to come.) Here note, 

First, That it was the general tradition of the Jewish na- 
tion, that Elias the Tishbite was to come in person, as the 
forerunner of the Messiah of the Jews; that he in person 
was to anoint him, and make him known unto the people ; 
and that, before the advent of the Son of David, Elias was 
to come to preach concerning him. This is the import of 
the question put to John (John i. 21), “ Art thou Elias?” 
and of the saying of the scribes, “ Elias must first come and 
restore all things” (Matt. xvii. 10) ; of the interpretation of 
the LXX. “Behold, I send unto you, ᾿Ηλίαν τὸν Θεσβίτην, 
Elias the Tishbite” (Mal. iv. 5), and of that saying of the 
son of Sirach (Ecclus. xlviii. 10), “Elias was ordained for 
reproofs in their times, to pacify the wrath of the Lord’s 
judgment before it brake into fury, and to turn the heart of 
the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob.” 
And suitably to these assertions, Trypho* the Jew declares, 
That ἡμεῖς πάντες προσδοκῶμεν τὸν ᾿Ηλίαν χρῖσαι αὐτὸν ἐλθόντα, 
“all we Jews expect Elias to anoint Christ at his coming.” 
It also was the general tradition of the writers of the Chris- 
tian church, even from the second century, that Elias the 
Tishbite, by virtue of those words of Malachi, is to come 
in person before our Lord’s second advent, to prepare men 
for it. This opinion of the coming of Elias, tradit tota pa- 
trum antiquitas, “all the ancient fathers have delivered,”’ said 
De la Cerda.t Constans est patrum, omniumque consenst 
receptissima ecclesie opinio, “It is the constant and most 
received opinion of the church, and all the fathers,” saith 
Huetius.; Constantissima semper fuit Christianorum opinio ; 
“Jt was always the most constant opinion of Christians that 
Elias was to come before the day of judgment,” saith Mal- 
donate.§ “It is,’ saith Mr. Mede,|| “well known that all 
the fathers were of this opinion.” “He is to come,” saith 
Petrus Alexandrinus,% κατὰ τὴν τῆς ἐκκλησίας παράδοσιν, “ ac- 
cording to the tradition of the church ;” saith Arethas Ce- 


* Dial. p. 268. 

+ In Tertul. de Resur. Carn. cap. 23. 
+ Not in Orig. 

|) Disc. 25, p. 48. 


§ In locum. 
4 In Apoe. xi. 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


ὁ. hath judgment to 


15 He that hath ears to beans f- 
truth), let him hear 


discern, and is disposed to receive 
(and embrace it). 


sariensis, “according to the unanimously received opinion 
of the church.” Note, 

Secondly, That in opposition to this received tradition of 
the Jews, Christ here asserts two things. (1.) That John 
the Baptist was the very person of whom it was written, 
« Behold, I send my messenger before thy face’ (ver. 10). 
St. Mark assures us of the same thing, by saying, that the 
beginning ef the gospel of Jesus Christ was by the preach- 
ing and baptizing of this John, “as it was written of him, 
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face who shall pre- 
pare thy way before thee,” Mark i. 1. 4, (2.) That this 
messenger described by the prophet Malachi, il. 1, as one 
to be sent before the face of the Lord, was the very same 
person promised by the same prophet, in these words, iv. 5, 
«Behold, I send you Elijah the prophet before the great 
and terrible day of the Lord come;” and therefore, that Elijah 
could be no other than John the Baptist; for, when de- 
scending from the mount, Christ said to his disciples, «Tell 
no man of the vision till the Son of man is risen from the 
dead” (Matt. xvii. 9). They thinking, suitably to this tra- 
dition, that this Elias, who appeared in the mount, was 
visibly to appear among them, to anoint the Messiah in the 
sight of all the people, and order all things belonging to his 
advent, ask this question; Seeing, according to the doctrine 
of the scribes, “ Elias must first come’’ (ver. 10), and do 
these things, why is it thou forbiddest to speak of his ap- 
pearance? ΤῸ this inquiry our Saviour answers, that it is 
very true there is a promise of an Elias to come, and « re- 
store all things” (ver. 11) ; « But I say unto you,” the Elias 
promised, ἤδη ἦλδε, “hath come already,” and the scribes 
knew him not, “but did unto him whatsoever they would” 
(ver. 12). And then it follows, that his disciples « under- 
stood that he spake to them of John the Baptist” (ver. 13). 
They therefore understood what the fathers did not, and 
others would not, learn from Christ’s plain words, that John 
the Baptist was the Elias promised, as the forerunner of the 
great and terrible day of the Lord; whence it doth plainly 
follow, that they who do not think John the Baptist, and he 
only, was the Elias mentioned by the prophet, must mistake. 
For our Lord plainly saying that that Elias, of whom the 
scribes made mention as the forerunner of his advent, was 
“already come,” and giving them no intimation that any 
other was to be expected after the coming of this one, there 
can be no pretence from the tradition of the scribes, or from 
the saying of the prophet, to expect any other. Moreover 
our Lord, as if he had foreseen and designed to confute this 
Jewish fable, speaks here more plainly thus, “ All the pro- 
phets and the law prophesied until John, and if you will 
receive,” i. 6. attend to and believe it, “this is that Elias 
which was for to come.”* By which words he most plainly 
teacheth, that that Elias of whom the prophets spake, as of 
one for to come, was come already ; and makes it manifest, 
that all that was in Malachi, or any other prophet, spoken 
of Elias, was made good in the Baptist, who came “in the 
power and spirit of Elias” (Luke i. 16), and was to be un- 
derstood of him alone, as much as if he had in express 
words asserted, that he only was the Elias that was to come, 
and they were not, by virtue of any prophecy, to look for or 
expect another. For thus our Saviour speaks : The prophet 
Malachi saith, “ Behold, I send my messenger before thy 
face :” now, I assure you, the Baptist is the very person of 
whom this is written; the same prophet saith, « Behold, I 
will send you Elias the prophet,’ &c. whence your scribes 
teach you to expect the personal appearance of Elias the 
Tishbite, as the forerunner of your Messiah; but if you 
will receive the true interpretation of those words from me, 
St. John the Baptist is that Elias, which, according to that 
prophecy, was to be his forerunner. 

Obj. 1. But against this plain assertion of our Lord it is 
objected, that in the translation of the LXX. the words run 
thus, “ Behold, I will send you ᾿Ἡλίαν τὸν Θεσβίτην, Elias the 
Tishbite,” which denotes Elias in person, and cannot be 
applied to St. John the Baptist. 

Ans. To this I auswer, That this argument is of no force, 


* Vide Pocock in locum. 


99 


16 4 But whereunto shall Γ liken this generation ? 
It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and 
calling unto their fellows, 


appearance of the Tishbite obtained then among the Jews; 
but hence it will not follow that it was true, any more than 
that the doctrine of the millennium, and of Christ’s temporal 
kingdom must be true, because they were received by that 
nation as such. (3.) By the same reason and figurative 
way of speaking, the Baptist may as well be called “ Elijah 
the Tishbite,” as “ Elijah the prophet,” that only showing 
the country of that prophet, as the other doth his office ; so 
that if the Baptist deserved to be called «Elijah the pro- 
phet,” because he came “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” 
he must deserve to be called «« Elijah the 'Tishbite,” on the 
same account, seeing Elijah the prophet was Elijah the 
Tishbite. But, 

Obj. 2. It is objected, that the day mentioned, Mal. iv. 5, 
as the time of the coming of Elijah, is styled “the great and 
dreadful day of the Lord,” which seemeth proper to the day 
of judgment; whereas the day of Christ’s first coming is 
not so called, but rather “an acceptable day,” and “a day 
of salvation.” 

Ans. To this I answer, That the day of our Lord's first 
coming, considered as reaching to the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, was indeed a very dreadful and terrible day. Thus 
in the prophet Joel, we read of “a day of the Lord” de- 
scribed in the same expressions: “The sun shall be 
turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the 
great and terrible day of the Lord come ;” and yet St. Peter, 
speaking of what was done after our Lord’s ascension, and 
citing these very words, saith, “This was that which was 
spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts ii. 16). Moreover, our 
blessed Lord, speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, and 
of the miseries that should befall that very generation, saith, 
« These shall be the days of vengeance,” such days of tribu- 
lation “as never were from the beginning of the world, and 
never shall be afterward’’ (Matt. xxiv. 21, Luke xxi. 22). 
Yea, the tradition of the Jews doth in their Talmud make 
mention of such great afflictions which should happen in the 
days of their Messiah unto Israel, that happy should he be 
who did not see them.* Which notwithstanding, this day 
might be styled “an acceptable day, a day of salvation,” to 
them, who received our Jesus as their Saviour, believed in 
him, and obeyed his sayings; according to the words of the 
prophet Malachi, « Behold, the day cometh which shall burn 
as an oven, &c., but to you that fear my name shall the Sun 
of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” (Mal. iv. 1, 
2). Whence after this most terrible description, our Lord 
speaks thus to his disciples, Luke xxi. 18, 19, “Be not ye 
terrified, when these things shall happen : in patience possess 
your spirits, for there shall not one hair of your heads perish ; 
when these things come to pass, then look up, and lift up 
your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh” (ver. 28). 

Obj. 2. It is farther objected, that John expressly denies 
that he was Elias; for when the Jews from Jerusalem and 
the priests and Levites were sent to him, saying, “ Art thou 
Elias?” he said, “I am not” (John i. 21). 

Ans. If this objection be of any force, it will also prove 
that John the Baptist was no prophet; for to the following 
inquiry, “Art thou a prophet;” he still answers “No ;” 
whereas our Saviour attested, that he was “a prophet, yea, 
and more than a prophet” (Matt. xi. 9), and all the people so 
accounted of him.; His meaning therefore is only this,—I 
am not that Elias in person whom you expect, nor am I such 
a prophet, as in the days of the Messiah you expect to rise 
from the dead. And expositors tell us, he chose to answer 
thus out of modesty, that he might not commend or bear 
witness of himself, thinking it more convenient that Christ 
should thus bear witness of him, than that he should ascribe 
so great a dignity to himself. 

Obj. 4. It is objected, that after St. John was beheaded, 
our Saviour saith, “ Elias truly shall first come and restore 
all things ;” now, how, say they, can this be spoken as a 
thing future of John the Baptist then? This therefore must 


* Vide Dr. Pocock in Mal. iii. 2. { Dr. Pocock, ibid, 


100 


17 And saying (by way of complaint to them), We 
have 9 piped unto you (as they use to do at festivals), and 
ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you (as 
2t is usual in funerals and times of sadness), and ye have 
not lamented (7, 6. you will neither follow us when we 
excite you to mirth or sadness). 

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking (in the 


MATTHEW. 


usual manner; his meat being only locusts and wild 
honey, Matt. iii. 4, and his drink only such as the wil- 
derness afforded), and (because of this austerity) they 
(who refuse and reject his baptism, Luke yii. 30) say, 
He hath a devil (7. 6. he is possessed by some melancholy 
sptrit). 

5 10 The Son of man (on the other hand) came eating 


be understood of some other Elias to come thereafter. This 
is the ground on which'this doctrine is established by Justin 
Martyr, that our Lord taught it saying,* ᾿Ηλίας ἐλεύσεται, 
“that Elias shall come.” And in this he is followed by 
Theodoret, and many of the ancients. 

Ans. After that our Lord had uttered these words, not in 
the future, as the Vulgar reads them, but in the present 
tense, “ Elias cometh,” or “ Elias coming first restoreth all 
things” (Matt. xvii. 11, Mark ix. 11), he adds, immediately 
of the same Elias, of whom he had said, “ he cometh,” or 
“he shall come first,” that ἤδη ἤλθε, “he is now come,” ὅτι 
ἐλήλυθε, that indeed “he was come” (Matt. xvii. 12). And 
again, If you will receive it, this Baptist is that Elias, 6 μέλ- 
λων ἔρχεσϑαι, “ who is for to come ;” and when he said these 
words, then his disciples understood that he spake of John 
the Baptist; i. 6. that he meant him and no other, when he 
spake of an Elias who was for to come. 

So that the meaning of our Lord’s words is plainly this, 
True it is, as the scribes say, Elias is to come before the 
Messiah, and it is also true, that John is that Elias which 
was, when Malachi spake those words, to come afterward ; 
but then he was not yet to come when our Saviour spake 
ef him; but, as he saith expressly, “was already come;” 
though they who said Elias “ must first come,” knew him 
not when he was come. And truly had our Lord spoken of 
one Elias, viz. John the Baptist, and the prophet Malachi 
of another; had Christ spoken of an Elias to come at his 
first advent, and the prophets and the scribes of one to 
come at his second advent, he had not answered his dis- 
ciples’ question, but deluded them. And that the Elias 
here spoken of was to appear at our Lord’s first coming, is 
apparent from the inquiry of the disciples; Why say the 
scribes, Elias must first come before the Son of man? for 
the tradition of the scribes was, that Elias was “to anoint 
the Messiah, and make him known unto the people.” And 
itis as evident from our Lord’s answer, “ Elias cometh first ;” 
i. 6. before my resurrection, of which I now speak; from 
this place, therefore, it never can be proved, that any other 
under that character is to appear before his second coming. 

Obj. 5. It farther is objected, That the Elias men- 
tioned by Malachi was to turn the hearts of the fathers to 
the children, and was, aecording to our Saviour’s acknow- 
ledgment, to restore or set all things in order; which seem- 
eth not to have been done by the ministry of the Baptist, 
who continued but a short time, and did no such things as 
these words seem to imply ; it remains, therefore, that these 
words should be fulfilled by an Elias, who should be the fore- 
runner of Christ’s second advent. 

Ans. To this I answer, That all who will not give the lie 
unto the angel sent to Zachary, must be obliged to confess 
the Baptist did fulfil the prophecy of Malachi. For of the 
Baptist he thus speaks, “ He shall be great before the Lord, 
and many of the sons of Israel shall he turn unto the Lord ; 
for he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to 
turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the dis- 
obedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people 
prepared for the Lord.” If then John the Baptist did not 
fulfil the words spoken by the angel, we must confess the angel 
was deceived, and Zachary deserved not the punishment 
he suflered for disbelieving his testimony; but if he did 
fulfil these sayings of the angel, he also must fulfil the words 
contained in the prophet Malachi, because the angel speak- 
eth in the very words of Malachi. 

Again, our Saviour, acknowledging that an Elias was to 
come before him, “and restore all things,” adds that he who 
was to come, “ to restore all things,-was already come,” and 
was the Baptist: he, therefore, must have “restored all 
things,” or it must be confessed, that he did net execute his 
office, or fulfil what was written of him. Moreover, the 
Holy Ghost, by the mouth of Zacharv, speaks thus con- 


cerning John, “ And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet 
of the Highest; for thou shalt go before the Lord to pre- 
pare his way” (Luke i. 76); which is the very thing the 
prophet Malachi declares to be the office of his messenger. 
And whosoever shall consider what in the gospel is said of 
John the Baptist, and shall compare those things with what 
the prophet Malachi, and even the scribes averred, that the 
Elias promised should do, will easily perceive all that was said 
or prophesied concerning Elias was so punctually fulfilled by 
the Baptist, as to cut off all farther expectation of the com- 
pletion of this prophecy, by any personal appearance of 
Elias, before our Saviour’s second advent. For the pro- 
phet saith,* “Behold, I will send Elias;” and the gospel 
saith, “ There was a man sent from God, whose name was 
John ;” and that this John was that Elias “which was for 
to come.” The prophet saith of his Elias, that he was to 
come “before the great and terrible day of the Lord :” and, 
in the gospel, John is said to come “when the day of wrath 
Was coming,’ when the “axe was laid to the root of the 
trees, and every tree that brought not forth good fruit was to 
be hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matt. iii. 13) ; when 
he was now appearing, “ whose fan was in his hand, to 
purge his floor, and gather the wheat into his barn, and to 
burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. iii. 12): 
he came at the time, when, saith our Saviour, “ their house 
was to be left unto them desolate” (Matt. xxiii. 38) ; when 
the “desolation of their city, nation, and temple,” was 
irreversibly at hand; when the enemies of Jerusalem were 
“to east a trench about her, and lay her even with the 
ground, and her children within her” (Luke xix. 43). Here 
it is said, That this Elijah should “turn the hearts of the 
fathers to the children,” &c. i. e. that he should preach to 
young and old conversion and repentance : and, in the gos- 
pel, it is said of John, That he should “turn many of the 
children of Israel to the Lord their God;” that he should 
“turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and of the 
disobedient to the wisdom of the just;” that he preached 
to all the baptism of repentance (Lukeiii. 3), and that with 
such success and good effect, that Jerusalem, and all Judea, 
and “all the regions round about Jordan, went out to him, 
and were baptized of him, confessing their sins” (Matt. iii. 
5, 6): that “all the people and the publicans justified God, 
being baptized of John” (Luke vii. 29). So effectual was 
his ministry, that many of the scribes and pharisees came to 
his baptism (Matt. iii. 7), and even the soldiers and the 
publicans to be instructed by him (Luke iii. 13, 14). He 
prevailed generally with the Jews to unite in one common 
baptism, that of repentance ; and whereas the tradition of 
the scribes taught, that Elias was to anoint the Messiah, and 
make him known to the people; John did baptize, and de- 
clare unto the people that he was “the Lamb of God” 
(John i. 29), and at his baptism by St. John, he was anointed 
by the Holy Ghost (Matt. iii. 16). 

What, therefore, better can agree than the prophecy in 
Malachi, and the matter of fact in the gospel? 

What can be farther requisite to show, that the person 
who is characterized thus by the prophet, and who so punc- 
tually answered to that character in the gospel, is one and 
the same person, and that no other ought to be expected by 
virtue of this prophecy ? 

9 Ver. 17. Hidjcapev ὑμῖν, &e. ἐθρηνήσαμεν ὑμῖν" We have 
piped to you,—we have mourned to you.) The Jews had 
their fibix, or pipes, saith Buxtorf, for two uses; for joy 
and for great lamentations. Hence, saith the prophet Je- 
remy, “ My heart shall sound for Moab like pipes,” xlviii. 
35); saith Isaiah, “like a harp” (xvi. 11); so R. Salomon 
saith, Tibie adhibentur in nuptiis et in funeribus, “ Pipes 
are used at marriages and funerals ;” thus we read of the 
αὐληταὶ, or tibicines, present at the death of the ruler’s 
daughter (Matt. ix. 23), καὶ ἀλαλάζοντας πολλὰ, and Ja- 


* Dial. cum. Tryph. p. 268. 


* Vid. Pocock, p. 105. { In Ezek. xxvir 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


and drinking (ἐπ the usual manner), and they (who reject 
him and his doctrine) say (of him), Behold a man g ut- 
tonous, and a winebibber, (and by his converse with them) 
a friend of publicans and sinners. But (Gr. and) wis- 
dom is ™ justified of her children. 

20 ¥ Then began he to upbraid the cities, wherein 
most of his mighty works were done, because they 
repented not (at his saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom 
of God is at hand, though he confirmed his doctrine with 
the greatest miracles, saying thus to them), 

21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Beth- 
saida! for if the mighty works, which were done in 
you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would 
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 


101 


22 But (or therefore) I say unto you, It shall be 
more tolerable for T'yre and Sidon at the day of judg- 
ment, than for you. 

23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto 
heaven (i. 6. advanced highly above others by my presence 
with thee, and my miracles wrought in thee), shalt be 
brought down to hell (ἡ, e. into a slate of extremest mise- 
ry): for if the mighty works, which have been done 
in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have re- 
mained until this day. 

24 But (therefore) I say unto you, That it shall be 
more tolerable '! for the land of Sodom in the day of 
judgment, than for thee. 


menting much ;” which Greek word seems plainly to be de- 
rived from τη a pipe; and the Jews say, “'That a poor 
Israelite is bound to procure two minstrels and one woman 
to lament at his wife’s funeral.’’ To this double use of pipes, 
which children imitated, our Lord, saith Buxtorf, referreth 
in these words (In voce 5yq p. 766). 

10 Ver. 19. Kai ἐδικαίώϑη ἡ copia ἀπό τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς, But 
Wisdom is justified of her children.] The common inter- 
pretation of these words is this, that καὶ, and, is here put for 
out; as it is frequently in the Old Testament, viz. Gen. 
xxxi. 7, Exod. i. 17, Numb. iv. 20, Deut. i. 43, Josh. i. 8, 
1 Sam. i. 13, Ps. iv. 3, ix. 8; and in the New Testament, 
Matt. xii. 43, xiii. 22, xvi. 4, xvii. 12, John v. 40, Acts x. 
28, 1 Thess. ii. 18; that wisdom is the doctrine of St. John, 
and of Christ, the “wisdom of the Father;” that the 
“children of wisdom” are those who study and seek after, 
true wisdom, as those who study physic are medicorum filii, 
the “sons of physicians ;” and those who followed and learn- 
ed of the prophets, are styled filii prophetarum, “the sons of 
the prophets” (2 Kings ii. 3. 15); and these do justify her, 
i. e. do approve of and receive her doctrines: according to 
which interpretation the sense runs thus, ‘That though the 
scribes and pharisees reject my doctrine, and that of my 
forerunner, and revile those that preach it, yet the wisdom 
of it is discerned and approved by those who bear a true 
affection to wisdom, and are disposed to obey her precepts: 
or else this may be looked upon as a continuance of the scoff 
of the pharisees, thus, And they say also that wisdom is jus- 
tified of her children ; i. 6. This Jesus who pretends to be a 
teacher of the highest wisdom, and represents our wise 
men as fools, behold the fruits of his wisdom, gluttony and 
drunkenness, whilst we fast twice a week ; behold, what as- 
sociates he draws to him, and converses with publicans and 
sinners, those whom our wise men will not touch, and much 
less eat and drink with: from these fruits and these asso- 
ciates, who attend upon his doctrine, and may be called 
his sons and his disciples, you may judge of his wisdom, 
for true wisdom may be discerned by its works: and to 
strengthen this interpretation, it may be observed, from St. 
Jerome on the place, that in quibusdam evangeliis legitur, 
Justificata est sapientia ab operibus suis; and that they who 
were taught by any doctor were called his children (see the 
note on 1 Cor. iv. 15). 

1 Ver. 24. Ὅτι γῇ Σοδόμων ἀνεκτότερον ἔσται ἐν ἡμέρα κρίσεως, 
ἢ σοί, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in 
the day of judgment than for thee.] Here note, from these 
words, “ because they repented not,” the power of miracles 
to confirm the truth of Christ's doctrine, and to prevail with 
those that heard him to repent sincerely, according to his ex- 
hortation, “ Repent ye, for the kingdom of heayen is at hand ;” 
for had not the miracles he wrought among them been a 
sufficient means to induce them to this repentance, Christ 
must not only have upbraided, but pronounced the hea- 
viest judgments against these cities, for not doing that 
which they Had no sufficient means afforded them to perform. 

Secondly, Those words, “ If the works that have been done 
in thee, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have 
repented,” seem to bear this sense; If the exhortations to 
repentance, and the threats made against Tyre and Sidon 
for their sins, by the prophet Isaiah, xxiii. 1. 4, Jeremiah, 
xxv. 22, xlvii.4, Ezekiel, xxvi. xxviii., Zechariah, ix. 2—4, 
had been confirmed to them by such miracles as I have done 
in these two cities, they would have wrought in them sin- 


cere repentance; for that our Lord here speaks of such 
repentance is evident, (1.) because he says, “they would 
have repented in sackcloth and ashes ;” which is the usual 
description of the most full repentance, as in the case of 
Nineveh, Jonah iii. 5. See Isa. lviii. 5, Jer. vi. 26, Lam. 
ii. 10, Dan. ix. 3, Judith iv. 15. (2.) Because the Lord here 
speaks of that repentance which his doctrine and miracles 
were designed to produce in those cities, and for the want 
of which he there upbraids them; which sure must be the 
want not of external, hypocritical, but inward and sincere 
repentance; nor doth our Saviour say, It may be, or, It is 
likely they would have repented, but, categorically, They 
would have done it. Note, 

Thirdly, That “to be exalted up to heaven,” and “be 
brought down to hell,” are allegorical expressions taken 
from the Old Testament, and signifying the highest exalta- 
tion, and the lowest depression. So Isa. xiv. 13. 15, «Thou 
hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, &c. but 
thou shalt be brought down to hell:” and lvii. 9, « Thou 
didst debase thyself to hell:” and, lastly, from these words, 
«Tt shall be more tolerable for Sodom, and for Tyre and 
Sidon, in the day of judgment :” to that which had been 
noted on x. 15, add, that this seems to be spoken to sup- 
press the pride of the Jewish nation, and the severity of 
their judgment upon others; they being wont to say, that 
the whole Jewish nation, saving some few heretics and 
apostates, should be saved, but that the people of Sodom 
should have no portion in the world to come; whereas our 
Lord declares, that even the Sodomites should have a milder 
doom on that great day than the unbelieving Jews. 

Ver. 20. 24. If the works had been done in Tyre and 
Sidon, they would have repented, &c.] Excellent here are 
the words of Mr. Thorndike :—* Though Grotius and Jan- 
senius make these words signify no more than that in pro- 
bability they would have repented at the sight of such 
miracles; yet so I find no good reason to infer, as our 
Lord doth, that positively Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Caper- 
naum shall be tormented more than Tyre and Sidon, So- 
dom and Gomorrah, because they probably would have 
repented at the sight of such miracles. The same I say to 
others, who would have our Lord only say thus; That had 
these miracles been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would 
have repented, but not from the heart; for, in conscience, 
is there reason that Chorazin and Bethsaida should fare 
worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, because Tyre and Sidon 
would have repented as hypocrites; continuing no less 
sinners than they that repented not? And to say as 
others do, that had God ordained these miracles to be done 
at Tyre and Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah, he would have 
determined their wills by his immediate act to be converted, 
is to say, that our Lord, by a mental reservation, says that 
whereof he expresses not the reason, and so cozens them 
who satisfy themselves with the reason which he ex- 
presseth.” Moreover, were this immediate act necessary 
to render even miracles effectual to induce men to repent, 
why doth our Saviour say, that Tyre and Sidon would have 
repented, had the like miracles been done among them? 
Or why doth he pronounce these woes upon Chorazin and 
Bethsaida, and declare their punishment more intolerable 
in the day of judgment, than that of the most unnatural 
sinners, and most vile idolaters, for want of that repent- 
ance which, notwithstanding all the mighty works that he 
had done among them, he knew it was impossible for them 

12 


102 


25 ὅ At that time Jesus 15 answered and said, I 
thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, be- 
cause thou hast 13 hid these things from the wise and 
prudent (in their own esteem, and the conceit of others), 
and hast revealed them unto (those whom they account) 
babes (Rom. ii. 20). 

26 Even so, Father (hath the event been in my preach- 
ing): for so it seemed good in thy sight. 

27 4 All things (appertaining to my office) are deli- 
vered unto me of (7. 6. by) my Father: and no man 
knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth 
any man the Father (’s will aright), save the Son, and 
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. 

28 J % Come (therefore) unto me, all ye that labour 
(under the bondage and condemnation of the law) and are 


to perform, for want of that immediate act he was not 
willing to afford them? Why, lastly, doth he do this for 
a reason which did not in the least remove this disability ? 
(See also Examen var. Lect. Milli, lib. ii. cap. 1. n. 1.) 

12 Ver. 25. ᾿Αποκριθεὶς εἶπεν" answering said.) This phrase 
is often used in the New Testament, when nothing had 
gone before to which an answer could be accommodated ; 
and therefore then it only signifies, that such a one spake 
with relation to such a matter, saying ; so it occurs, Matt. xxii. 
1, Mark ix. 38, xi. 14, Luke xiii. 14 (see the note there). 

8 Because thow hast hid, δες. Here our Saviour doth 
not thank God that he had hid these things from the wise, 
but that, having done so, “he had revealed them to babes.” 
So the apostle saith (Rom. vi. 17), “God be thanked that 
ye were the servants of sin, but now ye have obeyed from 
the heart the form of doctrine delivered to you;” that 
whereas formerly ye were the servants of sin, ye have now 
been obedient to the laws of Christ. 

The “wise and prudent” are not men truly and spi- 
ritually wise, but men possessed with carnal worldly wis- 
dom, and with a swelling conceit of their proficiency in 
wisdom, both which things indispose men to embrace true 
spiritual wisdom, and from these God is therefore said to 
have hid the wisdom of the gospel, because he permitted 
them to continue in that selfconceit and worldly-minded- 
ness, which caused them to reject it, as being not agreeable 
to their inclinations and mistaken sentiments. 

The “babes” are those humble, modest persons, who 
having a low esteem of their own wisdom, gave themselves 
up to the divine wisdom, and being free from carnal and 
worldly affections, and having nothing in them to oppose 
this spiritual wisdom, are fitted to embrace it when it is 
revealed ; it being therefore suitable to the wisdom and the 
good pleasure of that God who “resists the proud but 
giveth grace to the humble,” to make known his will to 
persons so prepared to receive it, our Lord adds, “so it 
seemeth good in thy sight.” 

M Ver. 27. Πάντα μοι παρεδύϑη ὑπὸ τοῦ Πατρός pov, All 
things are delivered tome of my Father.] Here the note of 
the reverend Dr. Hammond is this, “That all things here 
seem to belong to persons, rather than to things; for of 
those he peculiarly speaks under the title of babes: nor is 
the neuter gender any objection against this, it being ordi- 
narily used for persons:” so τὸ ἀπολωλὸς, “that which is 
lost,” xviii. 11, is the “little one,” ver. 14, “the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel,” x. 6, so Heb. xii. 13, 1 John v. 4, 
and so his paraphrase runs thus; “ All that come to me and 
believe on me are, by my Father enlightened and stirring 
up their hearts, and using all powerful and proper means 
for that end, brought to me (Jobh vi. 37.44, 45) : and none 
acknowledgeth me but the Father, and they who, by the 
miracles which the Father enableth me to do, are attracted 
by me; as on the other side none acknowledgeth the Father 
in that manner as he now requires to be acknowledged, but 


MATTHEW. 


heavy laden (with the burdens of pharisaical impositions), 
and I will give you rest (ease and deliverance from these 
burdens). 

29 Take my yoke upon you (become my disciples), 
and learn (not of those blind guides, but) of me; for I 
am (not like those severe and supercilious doctors, which 
despise you as people of the earth, and will not vouchsafe 
even to converse with publicans and sinners, for their 
reformation, but I am) meek and lowly in heart (and 
full of pity to every burdened soul): and (so by coming 
to me) ye shall find rest (peace, quiet, satisfaction, and 
refreshment) unto your souls. 

30 For my yoke és (not as theirs is, burdensome and 
galling, but it is) easy, and my burden is light. 


the Son, and he who believes his doctrine concerning him” 
(see John i, 18, 1 John ii. 23, v. 20). 

15 Ver. 28. Δεῦτε πρὸς μὲ πάντες οἱ κοπιῶντες καὶ πεφορτισμένοι 
κἀγὼ ἀναπαύσω ὑμᾶς, Come unto me all ye that labour and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.] For explication 
of these words let it be noted, 

First, That “to come to Christ,’ in the phrase of the 
New Testament, is to believe in him, and become one of 
his disciples ; thus, ‘He that cometh to me shall not hun- 
ger,” John vi. 35, is in the following words expounded thus, 
“He that believeth in me shall not thirst.” Again, «If any 
man thirsteth, let him come unto me to drink,” saith Christ, 
John vii. 37; “for he that believeth in me, out of his belly 
shall flow rivers of living water,” ver. 38. Thus, when our 
Saviour had complained of the Jews, “that on him whom 
God had sent, they would not believe,” John v. 38, he, ver. 
30, changeth the phrase thus, “ you will not come unto me 
that you may have life.” Note, 

Secondly, That the taking the “yoke” is a juridical 
phrase, their doctors speaking frequently of the yoke of the 
law, the yoke of the commandments, and the yoke of the 
kingdom of heaven, which is Christ’s yoke. Note, 

Thirdly, That the law of ceremonies, imposed on the 
Jews by Moses, is styled by St. Paul, ζύγος δουλείας, “ ἃ yoke 
of bondage” (Gal. v. 1), and by St. Peter, “a yoke which 
neither they nor their fathers were able to bear” (Acts xv. 
10), by reason of the long and frequent journeys to Jerusa- 
lem, and the great payments of tithes and offerings it im- 
posed upon them; and the burthens which, besides this, the 
pharisees laid upon them by their traditions, are styled by 
our Lord φορτία βαρέα καὶ δυσβάστακτα, “heavy burdens and 
grievous to be borne.” Note, 

Fourthly, That all these ceremonial performances, when 
observed most exactly, could not perfect the observer as to 
his conscience, or take away the guilt of sin, and so could 
give no peace or rest unto the soul, whereas “ being justi- 
fied by faith (in Christ), we have peace with God” (Rom. 
ν. 1). This is the thing the apostle designs to establish in 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, and this is that to which the 
words, ἀναπαύσω and ἀνάπαυσις, “rest to the soul,” seems 
plainly to refer; thus Noah had his name from ΠῚ to rest, 
because, say they, αὐτὸς διαπαῦσει ἡμᾶς, “He shall give us 
rest from our labours” (Gen. v. 29); that is, saith Aben 
Ezra on the place, “from the troubles of our minds.’ And 
when after the deluge Noah had sacrificed, God smelled 
an odour of rest,” saith the Hebrew; ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας, “an 
odour of sweet savour,” saith the LXX.; that is, saith the 
Targum, “he rested from his anger, and was appeased.” 
Here then our Saviour, who gave up himself for a “ sacri- 
fice and oblation of sweet savour” (Eph. v. 2), with which 
the Father was well pleased, represents himself as a second 
Noah, to give rest to men, from the labours and troubles of 
their minds, and procure them peace and favour with God, 
as Noah by his sacrifice had done. 


103 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 Ar that time Jesus went (viz.) on the sabbath 
day ( following the second day of the passover, Luke vi. 1, 
see the note there) through the corn; and his disciples 
were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, 
and (rubbing them with their hands, Luke yi. 1) to eat 
(of the corn). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. 


1 Ver. 2. Οἱ μαθηταί cov ποιοῦσιν ὃ οὐκ ἔξεστι ποιεῖν ἐν σαβ- 
βάτῳ, Thy disciples do that which it is not lawful to do on 
the sabbath-day.] I shall here in one view give all the ex- 
ceptions of the Jews against our Saviour and his disciples 
for violating the rest required on the sabbath-day, and our 
Lord’s defence against them. And, 

First, They here declare that Christ's disciples by “rub- 
bing of the ears of corn,” and eating that which they had 
rubbed out, did that which was not lawful to be done upon 
the sabbath-day. And this, saith Maimonides, was forbid, 
because “ plucking the ears of corn was a kind of reaping ;” 
where, by the way, observe, that they seem to be mistaken, 
who think the fault objected to the disciples was this, that 
«they did break their fasts before they had celebrated the 
public offices,” against the common custom of the Jews 
(Ace ii. 15): for as it is not intimated at what time of the 

ay they did this, so was it against the Jewish canons, at 
what time soever of the day it was done: moreover, the ac- 
cusation is not, that this was not “lawful to be done before 
the morning-service was ended,” but that it was not lawful 
to be done on the sabbath-day ; and our Lord’s whole de- 
fence respects that only, and not the other supposed accusa- 
tion; nor is our Saviour’s argument from what the priests 
did on the sabbath-day applicable to that purpose, for 
though they were employed about the sacrifices, they might 
abstain from eating till the morning-sacrifice was offered. 
This action of his disciples our Lord defends, (1.) by the ex- 
ample of David and his followers, who did eat of the shew- 
bread, which the law had appropriated to the priests, and 
made unlawful for the laity to eat of; for if the hunger of 
David and his followers made the violation of that ritual law 
justifiable, the hunger of his disciples must equally justify 
their violation of that ritual command touching the sabbath, 
And even according to the Jews,* this example of David 
contains two things, tending to excuse the violation of the 
sabbath. (1.) That they suppose that David with his men 
thus fled upon the sabbath-day, and yet were not guilty of 
violating the rest of the sabbath. For thus they teach, 
«Our masters think it lawful for him whom the gentiles or 
thieves pursue, to profane the sabbath for preservation of his 
life ; for so we read of David, that when Saul sought to kill 
him, he fled, and escaped ;” and that he did this on the 
sabbath-day, they collect from those words, 1 Sam. xxi. 7, 
that “ Doeg was detained that day before the Lord;” i. e. 
by the religion of the sabbath. (2.) That their own canons 
allowed the laity to eat of the shew-bread for the preservation 
of life; for thus speaks Kimchit on the place, “ Our rab- 
bins of blessed memory say, that he gave him of the shew- 
bread,” ἄς; their interpretation also of the clause, “yea, 
though it were sanctified this day in the vessel,” is this, « It 
is a small thing to say, It is lawful for us to eat the bread 
removed from the table, it would be lawful for us in this ex- 
treme hunger even to eat the bread now sanctified upon the 
table, if there were no other;” and indeed this opinion, that 
it was lawful to violate the sabbath for the preservation of 
life, seems plainly to have obtained before the translation of 
the Septuagint, who render the words thus, Exod. xii. 16, 
“Ye shall do no servile work on it, πλὴν ὅσα ποιηθήσεται 
πάσῃ Ψυχῆ, τοῦτο μόνον ποιηθήσεται ὑμῖν, but that which shall 
be done for the sake of life, that only shall be done by you.” 
(2.) Christ’s second argument is taken from the work per- 
formed morning and evening by the priests, in preparing 
and offering the sacrifices; this, saith Christ, by virtue of 


* Midbar Rabba Seder 95x sypz Parasch. 23. 
ἡ Sam. xxi. 10. 


2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto 
him, Behold, ! thy disciples do that which is not law- 
ful to do upon the sabbath day. 

3 But he said unto them, Hats ye not read (a like 
case in) what David (and his followers) did, when he 
was an hungred, and they that were with him ; 


the same law, and the authority of the same lawgiver who 
commanded the rest of the sabbath, was done by the priests 
upon each sabbath-day ; whence it is evident, that far more 
laborious work was to be done by God’s command, upon the 
sabbath, to obey the ritual precepts which concerned the 
sacrifices; and much more might my disciples do that lesser 
work of rubbing out some ears of corn to satisfy their hun- 
ger, which is a work of charity, and to fit them for that 
higher work of attending me in preaching of the gospel. 
And to this agree those sayings of the Jews, cited by Dr. 
Lightfoot on the place, “There is no sabbath at all in the 
temple, and the servile works which are done about holy 
things are not servile.” In confirmation of this argument, 
our Saviour adds, that all that work by which the Jewish 
priests profaned the sabbath, was done only for the service 
of the temple, whereas the service done by his disciples to 
their Lord, was service done to one much “ greater than the 
temple,” both in respect of dignity, as being a divine per- 
son, and of sanctity, as being not only relatively holy, but 
sanctified even in his human nature, by inhabitation of the 
Spirit, and of the “fulness of the Godhead” in him; what 
therefore might be done for the service of the temple, might 
much more be done for the service of one much “greater 
than the temple.” (3.) Our Saviour argues still 4 compar- 
atis, by way of comparison, thus; The observation of the 
rest prescribed by the law, was only the observance of a 
ritual command, like that of sacrifice; the feeding of the 
hungry was a moral precept, God therefore by declaring 
“he would have mercy” rather than “sacrifice,” sufficiently 
declared he would dispense with these ritual precepts, when 
the observation of them did obstruct the rules of charity and 
mercy ; and this was also suitable to that declaration of the 
Jews, that “to love our neighbour as ourselves, is more than 
all burnt-offerings and sacrifices,’ Mark xii. 33. (4.) 
Christ argues thus, That which is instituted for the sake of 
another thing, must yield to the good of that for whose sake 
it was instituted; but the rest of the sabbath was instituted 
for the sake of man, tired with the labours of the week; 
therefore it is to yield to the good of man. (5.) The words 
following, “For the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath ;” 
or as they are Mark ii. 18, ὥστε Κύριός ἐστιν ὃ vids τοῦ ἀνθρώ- 
που, καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου, are differently interpreted by learned 
men ; Grotius conceives, that the phrase, “the Son of man,” 
hath no relation to Christ, but only signifies man in gene- 
ral; his reasons are these; the first is taken from the con- 
nexion of these with the foregoing words in St. Mark, thus, 
«“ The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath ; 
therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.” 
Now this consequence will not follow from the preceding 
words, if by them we understand Christ ; but it directly fol- 
lows from them, if by that phrase we understand mankind 
in general. (2.) Did this relate to Christ's authority over 
the sabbath, it seems to be an intimation of his power to 
abrogate or dissolve the sabbath, which power he was so far 
from asserting, that he declares “he came not to dissolve 
the law, but to fulfil it.” And they who were so highly 
offended with him for the works of charity he did upon the 
sabbath-day, had he openly asserted his power to abrogate 
it, would have been much more offended with him, and 
would have needed no lesser matter of accusation against 
him; this being by their law a capital crime. And, (3.) be- 
cause this would have been a plain asserting, that he was 
the Christ ; whereas he never spake thus to the people, or 
the pharisees, nor would he suffer his disciples to declare it. 
But the reverend Dr. Hammond and Dr. Lightfoot com- 
ceive this phrase must signify him who is the “Son of 
man,” κατ᾽ ἑζοχὴν, by way of eminence. 2 Because this 
phrase is used eighty-eight times in the New Testament; 


104 


4 How he entered into the house of God (or the 
court of the tabernacle), and did eat the shewbread, 
which (11) was not lawful (otherwise) for him to eat, 
neither for them which were with him, but only for 
the priests ? 

5 Or have ye not read (what is contained) in the 
law, how (i requires) that on the sabbath days the 
priests in the temple (should do those works, which being 
done by others would) profane the sabbath, and are 
blameless ? 

6 But (and moreover) I say unto you, That in this 
place is one greater than the temple (so that if the 
temple service would excuse their labour from being a 
profanation of the sabbath who attend on it, much more 
will the service which my apostles owe to me excuse them 
from profanation of the sabbath, by eating of the ears of 
corn, as they pass along, that they may be the better able 
to attend wpon my service). 

7 But if (therefore) ye had known what this mean- 
eth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice (or that God 
prefers charity towards them that are in need, even before 
his own ritual instructions), ye would not have con- 
demned the guiltless ; 

(And he also said unto them, The sabbath was made 
for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of the 


and in all other places doth unquestionably signify our 
blessed Lord. (2.) Because, where this phrase occurs, 
Dan. vii. 13, all the ancient Christians, and even the Jews, 
expound it, not as Mr. Clere here doth, of man in general, 
but say expressly, this is the king Messiah; and that the 
rabbins did rightly expound the words of Daniel concerning 
him: Christ, therefore, speaking of himself still in this lan- 
guage to the Jews, must be supposed to use it in the sense 
they understood it in Daniel; and so he plainly seemeth to 
interpret himself, by saying, “ Hereafter shall ye see the 
Son of man coming in the clouds” (Matt. xxvi. 64): he 
saying this in answer to the question of the high-priest, Art 
thou the Christ? ver. 63. And, (3.) he who before had 
argued that his disciples might lawfully do this in his ser- 
vice, because “ one greater than the temple was here” (ver. 
6), might also argue from his power, as the prophet sent 
from God to the Jews, for the exemption of his disciples in 
cases of necessity, and greater good from the rest of the sab- 
bath, especially since Christ was only “greater than the 
temple,” as being emphatically the “Son of man.” Nor is 
it difficult to answer the arguments of Grotius. For, (1.) 
if we render the word ὥστε, denique, as Brugensis and Mal- 
donate; or adhe, “moreover,” as it is sometimes used in 
Homer, there will be in these words of Mark no consequence 
from the former, but a new argument, like to that of St. 
Matthew, ver. 6, “ Here is one greater than the temple.’ 
But, (2.) according to the ordinary import of that word, the 
consequence runs plainly thus, The sabbath was made for 
the good of man; so that “the Son of man, who came not 
to destroy men’s lives, but to save them,” must have power 
in such cases as concern the good and welfare of mankind, 
to dispense with the strict rest required by the law of the 
sabbath. 

And this affords a sufficient answer to the second argu- 
ment of Grotius; it being not asserted, that Christ here 
challengeth a power to abrogate or dissolve the sabbath, but 
only such a power as the Jews allowed to their own pro- 
phets in cases of necessity, and of higher importance, to 
dispense with the rest from labour required by the letter of 
it, as he sufficiently does by justifying the works of mercy 
he did on that day, by this aphorism, that “it is lawful to 
do good on the sabbath-day.” 

To his third argument, I answer, that our Saviour not 
only permits others to assert he was the Christ or the Mes- 
siah, as in the case of Andrew, John i. 42, of Philip, ver. 
26, of Nathanael, ver. 50, and especially of John the Bap- 
tist, who was sent on purpose to bear witness to him, that 
he was the Son of God; but he himself sufficiently and 
often doth it, declaring not only to the blind man (John ix. 
35. 37), that he was “the Son of God,” but also to the 
pharisees and Jews, insomuch that they attempt to stone 


MATTHEW. 


sabbath ; and so the rest required by it must yield to the 
necessities of man.) 

8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath 
day ; (i. 6. he who is emphatically so styled is so: see 
note on ver. 2). 

9 And when he was departed thence, he (on another 
sabbath-day, Luke vi. 6) went into their synagogue 
(and taught): 

10 4 And, behold, there was a man which had his 
hand withered, (and they watched him, Mark iii. 2). 
And 5 they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on 
the sabbath days? that (7 he did, by words or actions, 
justify the doing this) they might accuse him; (as not 
of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath-day, John x. 
16, and might have a plausible excuse to kill him, for 
violating the rest required on that day, John vy. 16. 

Then he, knowing their thoughts, said unio the man 
who had the withered hand, Stand forth in the midst ; 
and he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto them, 
Iwill (also) ask you one thing (in answer to your ques- 
tion), Js it lawful on the sabbath-day to do good, or to do 
evil, to save life, or to destroy it? Luke vi. 8, 9, and they 
held their peace, Mark iii. 4). 

11 And he said unto them, What man shall there 
be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall 


him for it (John x. 31); and saying to them, “If ye be- 
lieve not that I am he, ἔγώ εἰμι (John viii. 24. 28), ye shall 
die in your sins,” which is as much as, “I am the Christ ;” 
for what is absolutely, ἐγώ εἰμι, Mark xiii. 6, Luke xxi. 1, 
is, “I am the Christ,” Matt. xxiv. 5. So that our Saviour 
only did forbid his disciples to divulge this before his resur- 
rection, for the reasons assigned note on ix, 30. 

To these arguments, used by our Saviour here, we may 
add two others in St. Luke, where, xiii. 15, 16, Christ argues 
thus: That if they loosed their ox or ass from the stall on 
the sabbath-day, “and led him to water,” much more might 
he loose a daughter of Abraham, who had been “bound by 
Satan eighteen years” on that day. And again, xiv. 5, 
Seeing when your ox or ass falls into a pit on the sabbath- 
day, you draw him out of it on the same day, much more 
may I cure an hydropic man on that day; where the argu- 
ment is plainly 4 minori ad majus; it being a greater 
charity to work for the benefit of man on that day, than for 
the good of beasts; where Christ again, as Capellus and 
Lightfoot have observed, argues from the Jewish canons, 
which permitted them not only to draw water for their 
beasts, but also to lead them out to water on the sabbath- 
day ; and though the latter Jews, from hatred to Christ, 
will not allow the drawing of a beast out of a pit on the 
sabbath, yet is it certain, both from those words of Luke, 
“they could not answer him a word” (xiv. 6), and from 
their canons, cited by Dr. Lightfoot on the place, that they 
anciently allowed this. And this is still more evident from 
the words cited from the Septuagint, allowing them to do 
what was requisite, πάση ψυχῆ, “ to preserve all life ;” from 
whence Tertullian* and St. Jerome have observed, “that 
the law allowed them to do on the sabbath, quod fiet omni 
anime, et que ad animi salutem pertinent, those things 
which belonged to the preservation of life.” 

Our Lord’s last argument is taken from the law of cir- 
cumcision, which required that their children should be 
circumcised on the eighth day, though that were the sab- 
bath; and circumcision was a work of considerable labour : 
If then, saith Christ, the rest of the sabbath might be broken 
for the circumcision of an infant, though that were a ritual 
precept, surely it may be so, to restore health to a man who 
hath been diseased thirty-eight years: and this was also 
suitable to the canons of the Jews; their wise men speak- 
ing thus, “ They do all things necessary to circumcision on 
the sabbath-day, though this may seem profane on that day” 
(Pirk. Eliez. cap. 29, p. 65). 

2 Ver. 10. ᾿Ἐπηρώτησαν αὐτὸν λέγοντες, ἕο. The asked 
him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath-day 3] 


* Adv. Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 12, et 1. adv. Jud. cap. 4, 5 
in Isa. lviii. f. 97, M. 


CHAPTER ΧΗ. 


into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on 
it, and lift it out (on that day) 3 

12 How much then is a man better than a sheep ? 
Wherefore it is lawful to do well (/o men) on the sab- 
bath days. 

13 Then (looking upon them with indignation, Mark 
iii. 5) saith he to the man, Stretch forth thy hand. 
And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, 
like as the other. 

14 4 Then the Pharisees (were filled with madness, 
Luke vi. 11, and) went out, and held a council against 
him, how they might destroy him. 

15 But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself 
from thence (with his disciples to the sea, Mark ili. 7) : 
and great multitudes followed him, and he healed 
them all (see Mark iii. 7—11): 

16 And charged them that they should not make 
him known (to the pharisees, who had consulted how they 
might destroy him): 

17 ° That (by this deportment) it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying 

xlii. 1), 

( 18 Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my 
beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put 
my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to 
the Gentiles. 

19 He shall not strive, nor ery; neither shall any 
man hear his voice in the streets (7. e. he shall not be 


This is not contrary to what St. Mark, iii. 4, and St. Luke, 
vi. 9, say, that “Christ asketh them;” for both are true, 
that they asked him, « Whether it were lawful to heal?” 
and he replies by saying, “I will ask you, also, whether it 
be not lawful to do good on the sabbath-day ?” 

8 Ver. 17—19. That it might be fulfilled, which was 
spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Behold my servant, 
whom I have chosen—He shall not strive, nor cry.| Here 
many phrases are to be explained for the due understand- 
ing of these words: as, : 

First, “I will put my Spirit upon him, and he shall show 
judgment to the gentiles ;” where the showing κρίσιν, “judg- 
ment,” being the effect of his having the Spirit upon him, 
must respect all the righteous laws he was to deliver by vir- 
tue of this unction, in his Father’s name, according to the 
usual acceptation of the word κρίσεις, “ judgments,” for the 
laws of God in the Old Testament; as when God is said to 
have given to his people, δικαιώματα καὶ κρίσεις, “ statutes 
and judgments,” Exod. i. 25, Deut. iv. 5, to teach, ver. 14, 
and command them to keep his “ statutes and judgments” 

Deut. xxx. 16). Now it is observable from Mark iii. 6, 7, 
that when the pharisees held a council to destroy him, he 
recedes from them to the sea of Galilee, whither came to 
him a great multitude from Galilee, from Idumea, and 
beyond Jordan, and from the parts about Tyre and Sidon ;” 
and by teaching them, and doing his miracles before them, 
“he showed judgment to the gentiles.” 

“He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any: man 
hear his voice in the street;” i. e. he shall not be conten- 
tious, nor set forth himself with noise or tumult, or ostenta- 
tion of his doings: and this was here fulfilled by his ceasing 
to dispute any longer with those pharisces, who, when they 
“could not answer him a word,” consult «how they may 
destroy him ;” and, by his strict charge to the multitudes he 
had healed, “that they should not make him known.” 

“A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax 
shall he not quench.” Here, saith St. Jerome, Qui pecca- 
tori non porrigit manum, et qui non portat onus fratris sui, 
“he that stretcheth not forth his hand to the sinner, and he 
that beareth not the burden of his brother, he breaks the 
bruised reed; et qui modicam scintillam fidei contemnit in 
parvulis, and he that condemneth the small spark of faith 
in little ones, quenches the smoking flax.” Now, though 
Christ went from that place to avoid the rage of the phari- 
sees, the text informs us, that he ceased not to heal the 
multitudes, and to instruct them, ver. 15, Mark iii. 10. 
And by continuing still such acts of charity to the souls of 
all that were disposed to hear, though they were yet weak 

Vo. IV.—14 


105 


contentious, or set forth himself with noise, tumult, or 
ostentation, of what he ren 

20 A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking 
flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment 
unto victory (7. e. he shall not cease to exercise all acts of 
charity to the souls of them who are any way disposed to 
receive it, though they be weak in faith, till he hath plant- 
ed the evangelical dispensation completely in the world, or 
till the time come that he shall execute his judgments upon 
the unbelieving, stubborn Jews). 

21 And in his name shall the Gentiles trust. 

22 4 Then was brought unto him one possessed 
with a devil (who had cast him into a disease, that made 
him) blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch 
that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. 

23 And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not 
this the son of David? 

24 But when the 4 Pharisees (and scribes which came 
from Jerusalem, Mark iii. 22) heard it, they said, This 
fellow (hath a devil, Mark iii. 22, and) doth not cast 
out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils 
(he being a violater of the sabbath, and an enemy to our 
traditions, which are more weighty than the law). 

25 And Jesus knew their thoughts (and called them), 
and said unto them (in parables, How can Satan cast out 
Satan? Mark iii. 23, for) Every kingdom divided 
against itself is brought to desolation; and eyery city 
or house divided against itself shall not stand : 


in faith, and by healing all that came unto him for relief, 
he fully answered this character. 

Ἕως ἂν ἐκβάλη εἰς νίκος τὴν κρίσιν, “ till he bring forth judg- 
ment unto victory ;” i. 6. according to most interpreters, till 
he had made his gospel and his righteous law victorious 
over all its enemies: and to this sense, the words of the 
prophet (Isa. xlii. 4), “till he hath established judgment in 
the earth,” agree. But the please, εἰς νίκος, doth often sig: 
nify “to the end, to the utmost, or for ever” (see the note 
on 1 Cor. xv. 54): whence others probably interpret the 
words thus, Till the time come, that he shall execute his 
judgment on the stubborn unbelieving Jews, so that wrath 
shall come upon them to the utmost; and they being thus 
rejected, the gospel being taken from them, and their house 
left desolate, “in him shall the gentiles trust.” 

4 Ver. 34. Οἱ dé φαρισαῖοι εἶπον, Οὗτος οὐκ ἐκβάλλει δαιμόνια, εἰ 
μὴ ἐν τῷ Βεελζεβοὺλ, &c. But the pharisees said, He only 
casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.] 
That which made the pharisees thus to calumniate our 
Saviour’s miracles, was this, that they found the people in- 
duced by them to believe he was “the Son of David” (ver. 
23), or “the Christ ;’ thus, when they heard the people 
murmuring (John vii. 31), “the chief priests and pharisees 
sent men to take him” (ver. 32); and this they did, not 
only from an apprehension that, if this belief obtained, it 
might bring the power of the Romans upon them (John xi. 
48), but chiefly, because it would put an end to their credit 
with, and authority over the people, they being still repre- 
sented by our Lord as “blind guides,” and the worst of 
“hypocrites.” 

The word “ Beelzebul,” or, as St. Jerome hath it better, 
“ Beelzebub,” signifies “the lord of a fly: which was a 
name the heathens gave not only to Hercules, but even to 
Jupiter, the prince of their gods; as both Pausanias in 
Eliacis,* and Clemens Alexandrinust in his Prophetics, and 
the epithets given to him, testify. ‘Though it is more pro- 
bable that the Jews took this name from the Philistines, 
where Beelzebub was worshipped (2 Kings i. 6), as ‘the 
god of Ekron;” and what the heathens fabulously write of 
the temples of Hercules and Jupiter, divinitus ill6 neque 
canibus, neque muscis ingressus est, “that the deity kept the 
flies from them ;”’ that the Jews say of their temple, that in 


* Λέγονται δὲ κατὰ ταῦτα καὶ ᾿Ηλεῖοι Stew τῷ ἀπομύιῳ Ait 
ἐξελαύνοντι τῆς "HAsias ᾿Ολυμπίας τὰς potas. Eliac. prior. 

ἡ ᾿Απυμύιῳ A ϑύουσιν ᾿Ηλεῖοι, Ῥωμαίοι δὲ ἀπομύιῳ ᾿Ἡρακλεῖ. 
Protrep. p. 24, C. 

¢ Solin. cap. 1, Plin. lib. x. cap. 39. 


106 


26 And if Satan cast out Satan (if he assist me in 
this work, whose doctrine is plainly contrary to the con- 
cernments of his kingdom, and who by these miracles cast 
him out of it), he is divided against himself; how 
shall then his kingdom stand ? 

27 And (moreover) if I by Beelzebub 5 cast out 
devils, (det me ask you) by whom do your children 
(who exorcise them in the name of the God of Abraham, 
Lsaac, and Jacob) cast them out? therefore they shall 
be your judges ({. 6. your judgment, that they do this by 
the power of God, shall condemn you, who ascribe the same 
thing, done by me in my Father's name, to the assistance 
of the devil). 

28 But if I (who profess myself to be the Messias) cast 
out devils by the δ Spirit of God, then the kingdom of 
of God is come unto (among) you. 

29 Or else, how can one enter into a strong man’s 
house, and spoil his goods (as I spoil these prin- 
etpalities and powers by these miracles), except he first 
bind the strong man (Satan)? and then he will (be 
able to) spoil his house. (J therefore, who thus oppose 


MATTHEW. 


his interests and designs, and defeat his power, can be no 
confederate with him.) 

30 7He that is not with me (contending against 
Satan’s kingdom) is against me; and he that gathereth 
not with me (subjects to God’s kingdom) scattereth 
(men) abroad (from zt). 

31 4 Wherefore (this being so) I say unto you, All 
manner of (other) sin and blasphemy shall be for- 
given unto men: ὃ but the blasphemy against the 
Holy Ghost (which is to come after me) shall not be 
forgiven unto men. 

32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the 
Son of man (the Messias, appearing in these humble cir- 
cumstances), it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever 
speaketh against (the following dispensation of) the 
Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, ® neither in 
this world, neither in the world to come, (but he shall 
be obnoxious to eternal judgment, Mark iii. 29). 

33 (Therefore I say unto you,) Hither (take care to) 
make the tree good, and (then) his fruit (will be) 
good; or else (you will) make the tree corrupt, and 


domo mactationis non conspecta est musca, “a fly was not 
seen in the slaughter-house” (Pirk. Avoth. cap. 5—8). 
Note also, that as the Jews* held there was one who was 
caput omnium diabolorum, «the chief of all the devils :” so 
also did the heathens, for Porphyry + saith, that “they who 
did evil by enchantments, τούτους μάλιστα Kat τὸν προεστῶτα, 
αὐτῶν ἐκτιμῶσι, chiefly worshipped them and their president,” 
and that ἡ πρωεστῶσα αὐτῶν divas, the power that presided 
over them would be deemed the greatest god.” 

5 Ver. 27. Kai εἰ ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ Βεελζεβοὺλ ἐκβάλλω τὰ δαιμόνια" 
&e. And if I by Beelzebub cast owt devils, by whom do 
your children cast them out 2] That it was the custom of 
the Jews to cast out devils by the invocation of the name of 
the Most High, or of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, we learn from Justin Martyr, who speaks to Trypho} 
the Jew thus, “If any of you do exorcise devils by the 
name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, perhaps 
he will obey you.” And from Ireneus,§ who saith, « All 
things are subject to the Most High, and by invocation of 
his name even before the advent of our Lord, men were 
saved from evil spirits, and all kinds of demons.” Jose- 
phus| informs us, that God gave this art to Solomon against 
devils, that he should teach it, εἰς ὠφελείαν καὶ ϑεραπείαν τοῖς 
ἀνθρώποις, “ for the profit and healing of men,” and that he 
left behind him, τρόπους ἑξορκώσεως, « those ways of exorcising 
by which those devils were so effectually cast out, as never 
to return again.” Thus when our Saviour seems to argue; 
You doubt not but your exorcists, who use the name of God, 
“the God of Abraham,” &c. do cast out devils by virtue of 
that name, it will then be matter of your condemnation, who 
pass so favourable a judgment upon them, to pass such an 
unjust censure upon me, in whom you see so far greater evi- 
dences of “the finger of God,” in casting out all manner of 
evil spirits, and healing all kinds of diseases. And whereas 
Episcopius objects against this interpretation, that it is not 
certain that these “exorcisms were used by the Jews in 
Christ’s time ;”’ this is an evidence he had not read these 
authors: for Josephus doth expressly say, καὶ αὐτὴ μέχρι viv 
παρ' ἡμῖν ἡ Sepaneia πλεῖστον ἰσχύει, “that this way of curing 
demoniacs did even then prevail among them;” and gives 
an instance of one Eleazar, who, before Vespasian, his sons, 
and soldiers, τοὺς ὑπὸ τῶν δαιμονίων XpBavopévors ἀπολύοντα 
τούτων, “ delivered them from demons who were possessed 
with them.’’ And Ireneus saith in the forementioned place, 
Judei usque nunc hae ipsa advocatione demonas fugant, 


* Buxt. in voce Sammael. 

+ De Abstin. ab Animat. lib. ii. sect. 41, 42. 

+ El ἄρα ἐξορκίζοι τὶς ὑμῶν κατὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ ᾿Αβραὰμ, καὶ Θεοῦ 
Ἰσαὰκ, καὶ Θεοῦ Ἰακὼβ ἴσως ὑποταγήσεται. Dial. cam Tryph. 
p. 311, C. 

§ Et hujus invocatione etiam ante adventum Domini nos- 
tri salvabantur homines ἃ spiritibus nequissimis, aut ἃ de- 
moniis universis; lib. ii. cap. 5. Vide Grotium in locum. 

|| Arch. lib. viii. cap. 2, p. 257. 


“the Jews to this day expel devils by this invocation.” The- 
ophilus,* that οἱ δαιμονιῶντες ἐνίοτε καὶ μέχρι τοῦ δεῦρο ἑζορκίζον- 
ται κατὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ ὄντος Θεοῦ, “till that very time 
those that were possessed were exorcised by the name of the 
true God.” And Origen, that “the name of the God of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, being used by the Jews, ἐν τῷ 
κατεπάδειν δαίμονας, in the incantation of devils, did great 
miracles ;” and therefore was used to this effect not by 
them only, but by all others who used magic and enchant- 
ments. We read, Luke ix. 49, of one among the Jews, 
who did cast out devils by the name of Jesus, though he 
neither followed him, nor his disciples; and some conceive 
this question of our Lord relates to such, it being a strong 
presumption of the divine power, and the mission of Christ, 
that his name was so powerful even in their mouths who 
did not own him ; but because we read of one only that did 
this, and find not that the pharisees thought better of him 
than of Christ himself, I prefer the former exposition of 
these words. 

6 Ver. 28. Ei δὲ ἐγὼ ἐν Πνεύματι Θεοῦ ἐκβάλλω τὰ δαιμόνια, 
ἄς. But if I by the Spirit of God do cast out devils, 
no doubt the kingdom of God is come unto you.) How 
Christ did miracles, and cast out devils, by “the Spirit of 
God,” see note on ch. iii. The inference of Christ from this 
is clear, that he was the Messias promised to set up the 
kingdom spoken of by Daniel; for seeing in their own opi- 
nion their Messias was to erect this kingdom, that divine 
assistance which proved that he was now come, who was 
the Messiah, must also prove the kingdom of God was come: 
and seeing that the kingdom of Satan was by this power 
overthrown, they reasonably might think the kingdom of 
God was ready to be set up, and that one stronger than he 
was come among them (ver. 29). 

7 Ver. 30. 'O μὴ ὧν per’ ἐμοῦ, κατ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐστι. He that is 
not with me, is against me.] He that sides not with me, 
contending against Satan and his kingdom, is against me, 
as being unwilling that his kingdom should be destroyed. 
And he that in doing this work is not against me, but 
“casts out devils in my name,” though he doth not yet fol- 
low me, is for me (Luke ix. 49, 50). 

8 Ver. 31. Ἢ δὲ τοῦ Πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου βλασφημία ovr 
ἀφεθήσεται ἀνθρώποις. But the blasphemy against the Holy 
Ghost shall never be forgiven unto men.) Against the 
Holy Ghost, i.e. against the miracles done by him, Theoph. 
(Of this blasphemy, see the Appendix at the end of this 
Gospel). 

9 Ver. 32. Οὔτε ἐν τούτω τῷ αἱώνι, οὔτε ἐν τῶ μέλλοντι, 
Neither in this age, nor in the age to come.] Hence the 
papists argue for the remission of some sins in purgatory, 
after this life is ended, which are not by God remitted here. 
But the scripture knows only two times for the remission of 
sins, one here upon earth (Matt. ix. 6), to the believer and 
penitent person; and the other at the day of judgment, 


* Lib.ii. p.87 C. —  Lib.iv. contr. Cels. p. 183, 184. 


CHAPTER XII. 


(so) his fruit (will be) corrupt: for the tree is known 
by Ais fruit (and so you will be known by the corrupt 
judgment which you pass on me, and on these operations 
of the Holy Ghost, which shall testify of me). 

34 O (you that are a) generation of vipers, how can 
ye, being (thus) evil, speak good things? for out of 
= abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh: (so 
that) 

35 A good man, out of the good treasure of the 
heart, bringeth forth good things: and an evil man, 
out of the evil treasure (of Ais heart), bringeth forth 
evil things. 

36 But (whatever you may think of those malicious 
and blasphemous words you speak against me) 101 say 
unto you, That every idle word that men shall (thus) 
speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of 
judgment. 


when the great Judge shall pronounce the sentence of abso- 
lution to all his faithful servants, when “the times of re- 
freshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 
iii, 19, 20): and “they shall find mercy in that day (2 
Tim. i. 18). Christ therefore saith, this blasphemy of the 
Holy Ghost shall neither obtain remission now, nor at the 
great day of our accounts; that is, it shall not at all be re- 
mitted ; for that this is the true import of this phrase, is evi- 
dent from St. Mark, saying, “he that doth thus blaspheme, 
οὐκ ἔχει ἄῤεσιν εἰς αἰῶνα, shall never find remission” (iii. 29), 
but is obnoxious to eternal judgment: and from St. Luke, 
declaring absolutely, οὐκ ἀφεθήσεται, “he shall not be for- 
given” (xii. 10): this being a common mode of speaking 
among the Jews; thus R. Eliezer* proves, that “the Sama- 
ritans have no portion in the world to come,” because it is 
said, “it belongs not to you to build with us in this world, 
nor in the world to come ;” and a sick man is introduced, 
requiring his son to give him the water and meat which the 
physician had forbidden, threatening if he refused “ not to 
forgive him in this world, nor in the world to come,” i. e. 
never to forgive him. And indeed the Jews thought that 
the pangs of death might expiate sins, but they held, nul- 
lam esse peccati expiationem post mortem, “that there was 
no expiation for sin after death; and therefore could not 
use this phrase in the popish sense. 

10 Ver. 36. Λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν, ὅτι πᾶν ῥῆμα ἀργὸν, &e. But I 
say unto you, That of every idle word that men shall 
speak, they chall give an account at the day of juds- 
ment.) Agreeable to this is that of Plato,} κούφων καὶ πτηνῶν 
λόγων βαρυτάτη ζημία, “ grievous is the damage of light and 
volatile words, for a divine nemesis is appointed to oversee 
these things:” now the light idle words in Plato are plainly 
words spoken of their parents, or to the defamation of per- 
sons they ought to have in veneration; here then is one 
sense of the phrase, that scandalous, slanderous reviling of 
those we ought to venerate, and who have well deserved 
well of us, will render us obnoxious to condemnation at the 
day of judgment; and to this sense the very context Jeads: 
the scandalous, defamatory words the pharisees had here 
spoken of our Saviour’s person and miracles, giving occa- 
sion to these words. Cicero} farther saith, that appellatur 
a philosophis ἀργὸς λόγος, cui si pareamus, nihil omnind est 
quod agamus in vita, “the philosophers call that an idle 
word, which if we hold to, there is nothing left for us to do, 
no service to the gods, no acts of virtue or charity ;” so that 
what is obstructive to piety and goodness, as was this say- 
ing of the pharisees to the admission of our Saviour’s doc- 
trine, on which the true love of God and of our brother did 
especially depend, is emphatically ἀργὸς λόγος. Others think 
that ῥήματα ἀργὰ here signifies “ false words,” because in the 
Hebrew oydv3 09735 “ vain words,” hath this signification ; 
as when they say, that “ prophecy contains the pure truth, 
but in dreams are px5p3 ov72" false things contained :” to 
be sure the words here intended must not simply be words 
unedifying, or which do not directly tend to the glory of 


* Pirk. Eliez. sect. 38. 
+ De Legib. lib. iv. p. 832, Εἰ. 
+ De Fato, p. 310, n. 22. 


107 


hey be good) thou shalt be ~ 


37 For by thy words (if # 
wigs ἐμ (if they be evil) thou shalt 


justified, and by thy wor 
be condemned. 

38 § Then certain of the seribes and of the Phari- 
sees answered (spake), saying, Master, ' we would 
see a sign (from heaven) from thee. 

39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil 
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and 
there shall no sign be given to it, but ® the sign of the 
prophet Jonas (/ying three days in the whale’s belly, and 
then rising out of it): 

40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in 
the whale’s belly ; ® so shall the Son of man be three 
days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 

41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with 
this generation, and shall condemn it: because they 
repented at the preaching of Jonas (though he did no 


God; from which men of great business and conversation 
cannot be wholly free ; but wicked words proceeding from 
an evil heart ; for our Lord, having heard these words of the 
pharisees, speaks thus to them, “Ὁ generation of vipers, how 
can ye, being evil, speak good things? since out of the abun- 
dance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” ver. 34, and 35, 
“an evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth 
forth evil things;” and then connects them thus, “I say 
unto you therefore ;” whence it is evident, that the words 
here styled “idle words,” were such as demonstrated the 
speaker to be an evil man, out of an evil heart speaking 
evil words (see Kettlewell of Groundless Scruples, lib. v. 
cap. 5. 

Ml oe 38. Θέλομεν ἀπὸ cod σημεῖον ἱδεῖν, We would see 
from thee a sign.] They had seen a withered hand made 
whole (ver. 13), a devil cast forth, and a blind and dumb 
man see and speak (ver. 22): the sign which they require 
farther must therefore be a “ sign from heaven,” as we read, 
xvi. 1, Luke xi. 16, viz. “ the sign of the Son of man coming 
in the clouds of heaven” (Dan. vii. 13). In this our Sa- 
viour doth at present refuse to gratify them, the time of his 
coming thus being after his resurrection, even when he was 
to come to the destruction of their nation (Matt. xxiv. 30): 
and therefore at his death he speaks thus unto them, “ Ve- 
rily I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man 
sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds 
of heaven” (Matt. xxvi. 64). 

2 Ver. 39. The sign of the prophet Jonas.) Of Jonah 
and his preaching these things seem here considerable: First, 
That as Jonah was sent to preach to the gentiles, so Christ 
here insinuates, that through the infidelity of the Jews, it 
should be so with his disciples. Secondly, That as Jonah 
prevailed upon the Ninevites, by surviving after he had been 
so long in the whale’s belly, this miraculous escape, with 
which they doubtless were acquainted, confirming to them 
the truth of his prophetic office; so Christ, whilst living, 
with all his miracles, prevailed but little; but as he had 
foretold, John xii. 32, after his death he “ drew all men after 
him.” Thirdly, As Nineveh repenting then at the preach- 
ing of Jonah, relapsed afterward to their old sins, and there- 
fore, according to the computation of Bishop Usher, verified 
the words of Jonah in the prophetic style, a day for a year: 
so the nation of the Jews, after they had received the bap- 
tism of John, calling them to believe in him that should 
come after him, perished by their infidelity, about forty 
years afterthe preaching of the Baptist to them. 

18 Ver. 40. Οὕτως ἔσται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τῆς 
γῆς τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας. So shall the Son of man be 
in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.) 

Obj. Against the truth of these words it is objected, That 
Christ was in the sepulchre only two nights, one whole day, 
and two parts of a day, and so could not be there “three 
days and three nights.” 

Ans. In answer to this objection, note, 

First, That the Hebrews began their computation of a 
natural day from the evening or night preceding. So we 
read, Gen. i. 5, “and the evening and the morning were the 
first day :”’ so Dan. viii. 14, “ unto two thousand three hun- 
dred evenings and mornings shall the sanctuary be cleansed :”” 
so Ley, xxiii. 32, “ from evening to evening shall ye cele 


108 


miracle to convince them that he was a prophet); and, be- 
‘hold, a greater than Jonas és here. 

42 The queen of the south (2. 6. of Arabia and Saba, 
lying south of Jerusalem) shall rise up in the judgment 
with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she 
came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the 
wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a ™ greater than 
Solomon 7s here. 

43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, 
he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and find- 
eth none. 

44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from 
whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth 
it empty, swept, and garnished. 

45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven 
other devils more wicked than himself, and they enter 
in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is 
worse than the first. Even "5 so shall it be also unto 
this wicked generation. (Satan, cast out by me and my 
disciples, finding nowhere else such pleasant desirable ha- 


bitations, or persons fitted to receive him again, as you of 


this nation are, shall come back to you; and finding that 
Christ, whose doctrine shall be entertained by the hea- 


MATTHEW. 


thens, hath found no admission among you, shall take 

a more durable possession of you, and render you 

ops times more the children of Satan than you were 
ore ). 

Ds 2 While he yet talked to the people, behold, his 
mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to 
speak with him; (and they could not come at him, be- 
cause the multitude sat round about him, Mark iii. 32, 
Luke viii. 19). 

47 Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother 
and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with 
thee. 

48 But he answered and said unto him that told 
him, (and by him to the rest, Mark iii. 33, Luke 
vili. 21), Who is my mother? and who are my 
brethren ? 

49 And (looking round about on them that sat round 
him, Mark iii. 34) he stretched forth his hand toward 
his disciples, and said, Behold (those whom I esteem as) 
my mother and my brethren! 

50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father 
which is in heaven, the same is (as dear to me as) my 
brother, and sister, and mother. 


brate your sabbath :” hence both St. Mark and Luke ob- 
serve, that Christ taught in the synagogue on the sabbath- 
day (Mark i. 21. 32, Luke iv. 40), and “when the sun was 
set,” and so the sabbath ended, “they brought their sick 
unto him:” so that in their phrase to say, “so many even- 
ings and mornings, days and nights,” is the same as to say 
so many “natural days ;” for in the measuring of any time 
which contains in it both days and nights, a day is always 
taken in that sense in which it includes both day and night. 
Moreover, the Greek language hath its compounds, and so 
is able to express a natural day by the word νυχϑήμερον, but 
the Jews have no such compound words, and therefore can- 
not otherwise express a natural day but by these two words, 
“day and night.” So Gen. vii. 4, «I will cause it to rain 
upon the earth forty days and forty nights:” 1 Sam. xxx. 
12, that Egyptian “ did eat no bread, nor drink water, three 
days and three nights: Exod. xxiv. 18, « Moses was in the 
mount forty days and forty nights.” 

Secondly, Note that it is a received rule among the Jews,* 
“that a part of the day is put for the whole;’” so that what- 
soever is done in any part of the day, is properly said to be 
done that day ; since then our Lord was in the grave one 
whole natural day, and part of two other natural days, he 
might truly be said, according to their computation, to be 
in it three days and three nights. Note, 

Thirdly, That it is very usual to reckon that to be done 
in so many days, or so many days and nights, which is 
done so as that the action begins in any part of the first, 
and ends in any part of the last day: so 1 Kings xx. 29, 
« They encamped against one another seven days, and in 
the seventh day the battle joined.” And Esther saith, iv. 
16, “Fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, 
night or day; I and my maidens will fast also, and then 
will I go in unto the king ;” and yet (v. 1) she goes in to 
the king “on the third day.” So Luke ii. 21, “ When 
eight days were accomplished for the circumcision of the 


* See Dr. Lighfoot and Grotius. 


child, they called his name Jesus ;” and yet the day of his 
birth and of his circumcision were two of these eight days, 
and the complete days were only six. So St. Luke saith, 
that “about eight days after these words, he took Peter, 
John, and James, and went up into the mount” (Luke ix. 
28): but St. Matthew, xvii. 1, and St. Mark, ix. 2, tell us 
it was “six days after;’’ i. 6. including the day he spake 
the words, and the day he went up into the mount, it might 
be reckoned eight, excluding them it was only six. Since 
then our Saviour was in the grave part of Friday, and the 
evening or night before must, by the Hebrew computation, 
be accounted to that day; seeing he was in the grave all 
Friday night and Saturday ; seeing he was in the grave all 
Saturday night, and part of the morning of the day follow- 
ing, and that morning, with the precedent evening, make a 
third natural day, he may, according to the Hebrew com- 
putation, be truly said to have been “three nights and 
three days in the heart of the earth” (see note on Mark 
Vili. 31), 

M4 Ver, 42. Πλεῖον Σολομῶντος ὧδε, A greater than Solomon 
is here.) God therefore having promised to Solomon such 
wisdom that, as there was none like him before (among 
mere men), so should there after arise none like unto him 
(1 Kings iii. 12), he that was greater in wisdom than Solo- 
mon must be more than a man. 

15 Ver. 45. Οὕτως ἔσται καὶ τῆ γενεᾷ ταύτη τῇ πονηρᾷ" So 
shall it also be to this wicked generation.| These words 
seem plainly to apply the preceding parable to the unbe- 
lieving Jews of that age, and therefore to import, that the 
devil, who by the labours of Christ and of his disciples had 
been cast out of so many of them, finding no rest among 
the heathens, from whose persons and temples the Christians 
would every where expel him, and finding the Jewish nation, 
by their prodigious wickedness and obstinate incredulity, 
still more prepared than ever to receive him, would return 
unto, them, and render them more incredulous, contuma- 
cious, and obdurate, more impure and wicked, hypocritical 
and blasphemous, than they were before, till he had brought 
them to destruction. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


1 Tse same day (that his mother came to him, Matt. 
xii. 46) went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the 
sea side. 

2 And great multitudes were gathered together unto 
him, so that (to avoid the pressure of the multitude) he 
went into aship, and sat (near the land) ; and the whole 
multitude stood on the shore. 


3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, 
saying (Hearken, Mark iv. 3), Behold, a sower went 
forth to sow; 

4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way 
side (and were trod upon, Luke viii. 5), and the fowls 
(of the air, Mark iv. 4) came and devoured them up: 

5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not 


CHAPTER XII. 


much earth (to feed and cover the root): and forthwith 
they sprung up (and withered, Luke viii. 6), ' because 
they had no deepness of earth (to take root in): 

6 And (so) when the sun was up, they were 
scorched; and because they had no (deepness of ) root, 
they withered away. 

7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns 
sprung up (with them), and (overgrowing them) choked 
them (and so these seeds yielded no fruit, Mark iv. 7) : 

8 But other (seed) fell into good ground, and 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


1 Ver. 5. Εὐθέως ἐξανέτειλε διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν βάθος γῆς" It 
orthwith sprang up because it had no deepness of earth.) 
Thus Quintilian saith of the “rath-ripe wit,” that it rarely 
comes to maturity, comparing it to those seeds, which, being 
sown on the surface of the earth, spring up quickly ; because 
the root goes not deep into it: Illud ingeniorum precox ge- 
nus non temeré unquam pervenit ad frugem—non multim 
prestat, sed cito—nec penitis immissis radicibus nititur, ut 
que summo solo sparsa sunt semina celeritis se effundunt 
(Instit. lib. i. cap. 3, p. 16, 17). 

2 Ver. 8. Ὃ piv ἑκατὸν» Some an hundred-fold, &c.] See 
note on Mark iv. 8. 

3 Ver. 9. O ἔχων Sra ἀκούειν, ἀκουέτω" He that hath ears to 
hear, let him hear.) This is a proverbial expression used 
by Christ, when he spake of matters of great importance, 
which deserved a serious consideration (Matt. xi. 15, xiii. 
43, Rev. il. 7. 11. 17. 29, iii. 6. 13, xiii, 9); by which 
he excites them who had good inclination to, and a good 
judgment and perception as to things divine, thoroughly to 
weigh and consider of the thing spoken. 

4 Ver. 10. Διατί ἐν παραβολαῖς λαλεῖς αὐτοῖς 5 Why speakest 
thou to them in parables 2) It is certain, not only that the 
Jewish doctors and all the wise men of the east taught by 
parables, Οὐ sbwn, παραβάλλοντες παράβολας, “ expressing 
their minds by parables,” as St. Mark speaks in their own 
phrase (τ. 30), but also that some of our Lord’s parables, as 
that of the rich glutton, Luke xvi., that of the foolish virgins, 
Matt. xxv., and others, were taken from the Jews (see 
Sheringham, Pref. ad Joma). Yet, because this way of 
teaching had in it somewhat of obscurity, and the doctrine 
contained under the covert of these parables was not so easy 
to be apprehended by the vulgar sort, the disciples here in- 
quire, “ Why speakest thou to them in parables?” and to 
this question, for the satisfaction of others, I shall give a 
larger answer: let it be noted, then, 

First, That albeit this way of teaching was somewhat 
cloudy and obscure, yet it was intelligible to the attent and 
searching auditor, as will appear from that expression with 
which our Saviour doth so oft conclude his parables, viz. 
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear :” accordingly, our 
Lord being to instruct the multitude by parables (Matt. xv. 
10), he saith unto them, “Hear, and understand:” and 
when his disciples asked the meaning of that parable, he 
reprehends them, saying, ᾿Ακμὴν καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀσύνετοι ἔστε ; “ Are 
ye also without understanding?” intimating it was not so 
much the obscurity of his words, as their own dullness and 
want of understanding, which made them not perceive the 
import of his doctrine; and again, Mark iv. 13, he speaks 
by way of admiration to them, saying, “ Know ye not this 
parable ?” 

Secondly, This method of instruction was not without its 
uses and advantages, seeing hereby it was visible who were 
the υἷοι τὴς σοφίας, “the sons of wisdom,” who had a cordial 
love to divine things, and an inflamed desire after them, and 
thought it worthy of their care and pains to search them out, 
and so were persons fitly qualified for the reception of the 
gospel light. It was the custom of the disciples of the Jew- 
ish doctors, whem they understood not the meaning of their 
parables, to go unto their rabbies to inquire the meaning of 
them; as did our Lord’s disciples ask of him the meaning 
of those parables they understood not. And this Christ’s 
hearers might have done, had they not been indisposed to 
receive the doctrines which he taught, and chosen rather to 
be held in error by the scribes and pharisees, than to receive 
instruction from the mouth of Christ. (2.) Such lessons, as 


109 


brought forth fruit (according to the goodness of the 
ground ),* some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some 
thirty fold. 

9 (dnd having said this, he added, Mark iv. 9, Luke 
viii. 8, He) ® who hath ears to hear, let him hear (see 
x1, 19). 

10 And (when he was alone, Mark iy. 10) the disci- 
ples came, and said unto him, 4 Why speakest thou 
unto them in parables? (and also asked him the mean- 
ing of the parable, Luke viii. 9.) 


they are best remembered, so having once attained to their 
sense, they will stick closer to us; for the time spent in the 
unfolding of them, makes the idea the more fixed and last» 
ing in the brain. 

Thirdly, That Christ thus speaks to them in parables, did 
not proceed from his unwillingness to instruct them, but 
from their indisposition to receive his doctrine, delivered 
more plainly to them: of this St. Mark informs us, by say« 
ing (iv. 33), “ He spake the word to them in many parables, 
as they were able to hear it.” For those parables the scripe 
ture mentions, were either such as were obvious in them- 
selves, as that of Dives and Lazarus, of the rich man pulling 
down his barns (Luke xii. 16), their choosing the uppermost 
seats at feasts (xiv. 7), or such as would, had they with 
greater plainness been delivered, have soured and enraged 
the leading Jews, and stirred them up to a more violent op- 
position to his doctrine, and a more quick endeavour to de- 
stroy his person; they being either such as did proclaim 
him the Messiah, and the Son of God, which they still looked 
upon as blasphemy; as that which styles him “the good 
Shepherd,” and concludes them wolves and robbers; or, 
such as contradicted their traditions, and told them it was 
not the uncleanness of the hands, or outward man, but the 
defilement of the heart, which made them loathsome in the 
eye of God; which doctrine did much offend the pharisees 
(Matt. xv. 12); or, such as did upbraid their stubbornness 
and disobedience, as did the parable of the vineyard, planted 
by the husbandman; the parable of the two sons, of which 
the eldest promised fair, but did not what he promised ; or 
such as taxed their pride and self-conceit, as did the parable 
touching the arrogant thanksgiving of the pharisee (Luke 
Xvili. 9); or else such as told the great propagation and 
increase of the gospel among the heathens, as did the pa- 
rable of the leaven, and of the grain of mustard-seed ; or, 
such as did foretell the ruin and unchurching of the Jewish 
nation, as did the parable of cutting down the unfruitful 
fig-tree, and the decree, that they who refused upon inv 
tation, to come to the wedding-supper, should not taste 
thereof; or such as prophesied, that “the kingdom of God 
should be taken from them ;” or, that their sloth in not im- 
proving the talents that they had received already, should 
be punished with the utter deprivation of them. Now all 
these things were so offensive to the pharisees, as had they 
plainly been delivered to them, they would have provoked 
them to that rage, which might have quite discouraged his 
young disciples, and hindered the performance of those works 
which were preparatory to his resurrection, and to the glo- 
rious appearance of his kingdom. Besides the parables al- 
ready mentioned, we have only those recorded here, and in 
the parallel chapter of St. Mark; of which two only re- 
corded were spoken to the multitude, viz. the parable of the 
seed, and of the tares; the rest, when he had sent the mul- 
titude away, to his disciples (ver. 36) ; and both might pro- 
bably reflect upon the Jews, as being the bad ground and 
the tares mentioned in them. . 

Lastly, Consider that what Christ thus delivered here, did 
not contain the fundamental precepts and doctrines of the 
gospel, they being delivered in the audience of the people 
with sufficient clearness, Matt. v.—vii., but only the myste- 
ries relating to the progress of the gospel, and the event of it 
among Jews and gentiles: now even the Jews acknowledge 
that the predictions of this nature were usually taught in 
allegorical, improper, and parabolical expressions, they being 
not so needful to be known as were the fundamental rules 
of faith and manners. Moreover, the reason here assigned, 
why our Saviour spake so obscurely to them, was their own 
wickedness and a ΤΑΡΙΟΙ indisposed them to re- 


110 


11 He answered and said unto them (I speak not to 
you, who prize and improve the doctrine I impart in para- 
bles), Because unto (such as) you it is given to know 
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (or what is 
obscurely delivered concerning it), but to them (who slight 
and neglect what is plainly taught them) it is not given 
(to know them). 

12 5 For whosoever hath (7. 6. duly improve the 
knowledge which he hath), to him shall be given (more), 
and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever 
hath not (2. 6. who, by making no use of it, is as if he 
had it not), from him shall be taken away even that 
he (unprofitably) hath. 

13 (Whence you may learn, that) therefore speak I to 
them in parables: because (they are like to those incon- 
siderate and slothful men, of whom it is proverbially said, 
because of their neglect to act according to their knowledge, 
that) they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, 
neither do they understand. 

14 ® And (so, by their shutting thus their eyes against 
the light, and stopping their ears against instruction) in 


MATTHEW. 


them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, 
By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand ; 
and seeing ye shall (or will) see, and shall (or will) 
not perceive (ἠέ being with them now, as it was with the 
same people then): 

15 For this people’s heart is waxed gross (hath been 
made thick or condensated, so that the word cannot pierce 
into it), and their ears are dull of hearing (Gr. they 
have heard heavily with their ears), and their eyes they 
have closed (against the light); lest at any time they 
should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, 
and should understand with their heart, and should be 
converted, and I should heal them (and their sins should 
be forgiven them, Mark iv. 12). 

16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and 
your ears, for they hear (the things belonging to this 
kingdom, well worthy of your regard ). 

17 For 7 verily 1 say unto you, That many prophets 
and righteous men have desired to see those things 
which ye see (the advent of the promised Messias), and 
have not seen them; and to hear those things which 


ceive profit by his more plain discourses: “for therefore,” 
saith Christ, “speak I to them in parables, because they 
seeing, see not: and hearing, do not hear or understand.” 
Now this, both in the scripture and in other authors, is a 
proverbial expression, concerning men so wicked and so sloth- 
ful, that either they attend not to, or will not follow, the 
clearest intimations and convictions of their duty; thus, to 
“a revolting and rebellious people, which had cast off the 
fear of God,” the prophet Jeremiah speaks thus (v. 21), 
« Hear now this, Ὁ foolish people, and without understand- 
ing ; which have eyes and see not; which have ears and 
hear not ;” and God speaks to Ezekiel thus, “Son of man, 
thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have 
eyes to see, and see not: they have ears to hear, and hear 
not; for they are a rebellious house” (xii. 2), This is a fre- 
quent form of speech in Philo,* who, speaking of those that 
were addicted to wine and sensual pleasures, saith, ‘Opavres 
οὐκ δρῶσι, kat ἀκούοντες οὐκ ἀκούουσι, “they seeing, see not; and 
hearing do not hear.” And again,t ‘Opavres ἐστιν ὅτε οὐκ ὁρῶ- 
μὲν, “it sometimes happens, that seeing we see not, and 
hearing we hear not, viz. when the mind is more intent upon 
other things.” Demosthenes; mentioned this as a παροιμία, 
ora proverb, ᾿Ορῶντας μὴ ὑρᾷν καὶ ἀκούοντας μὴ ἀκούειν" yea, 
sometimes this phrase is used in a good sense, to signify men 
who will not hearken to any solicitations to wickedness, but 
stop their ears and shut their eyes against them. Thus, Ὁ 
βαρύνων τὰ Sra, “he that stoppeth his ears from hearing of 
blood ; καμμύων τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς, he that shutteth his eyes that 
he may see no evil, he shall dwell on high” (Isa. xxxiii. 15, 
16). Now, hence it evidently follows, that the phrase, «to 
them it is not given to know the mysteries of the kingdom,” 
only imports, That to them I allow or vouchsafe not a 
clearer knowledge of these things, whom I find too much 
disposed to slight and to neglect, but indisposed to receive 
and profit by them; and therefore, by the rule of contraries, 
“to you it is given to know them,” can only signify, to you 
I think fit to allow and vouchsafe the knowledge of them, as 
finding you disposed to attend to and to improve them; nor 
is there any sense more frequent in scripture of the phrase, 
“1 give, or give not,” than this, I allow, vouchsafe, permit, 
or think fit, that such a thing be done or not done; this be- 
ing the sense of the phrase, when mention is made of “the 
days of life which God hath given us,” Eccles. v. 18, viii. 
15, ix. 9, of “the sore travail which God hath given (i. 6. 
allotted) to the sons of men,” Eccles. iii. 10, « Give not thy 
Holy One to see corruption,” Ps. xvi. 10. “Give not my 
feet to slide,” Ps. Ixvi. 1. “Give not thy mouth to cause 
thy flesh to sin,” Eccles. v. 6. “Give not thy strength to 
women,” Proy. xxxi. 3. “Give not sleep to thine eyes,” 
Ps. cxxxii. 4, Prov. vi. 4. And when we say such a oneis 
“given to wine and to women;” i. e. he allows himself 
those liberties or licentious practices. 


* Alleg. lib. ii. p. 72, Ὁ. 


j { Lib. iii. p. 850, E. 
+ Orat. in Aristog. 8. 127. 


5 Ver. 12. "Ὅστις yap ἔχει: For whosoever hath, to him 
shall be given.| From the words, “whosoever hath not, 
shall be taken away that which he hath,” it is manifest, 
that “not to have,” is not to have profitably, and to im- 
provement; for what a man absolutely hath not, cannot be 
taken from him. Whence it must follow, that τὸ ἔχειν here, 
must be so to have, as to improve it duly, So Phavorinus 
saith, That ἔχειν “to have,” is ἐπιμελεῖσϑαι καὶ φυλάσσειν, “to 
take care of and preserve.” Casaubon observes, that ἔχειν, 
in the Greek, doth sometimes signify, to have a thing with 
increase; so Sophocles, in Ajace, πρὸς yap τὸν ἔχοντα ὃ φθόνος 
ἕρπει, “He that abounds is envied; where the scholiast 
notes, that ἔχειν is put for εὖ ἔχειν: and in Democritus θαυμά- 
Sew τοὺς ἔχοντας, is “to admire the rich.” So “not to have,” 
is not to use what we have, as in that of the Proverbs, xiii. 
7. ‘There are who are rich, μηδὲν ἔχοντες, “and having no- 
thing,” as not having power to eat of their labours: thus 
Aristotle saith,* that “a man who hath knowledge and 
useth it not, as being drunk or mad, may be said ἔχειν πῶς, 
καὶ μὴ ἔχειν, to have it in a manner, and not to have it” (see 
Matt. xxv. 29). 

Καὶ ὃ ἔχει, ἀρϑήσεται, From him that hath not shall be taken 
away what he hath.) Some think the reading should be 
here, and Mark iv. 25, as it is in Luke viii. 18, καὶ ὃ δοκεῖ 
ἔχειν, “what he seems to have :” because, say they, a man 
may seem to have what he hath not, but cannot truly have 
what he hath not; but how then can that be “ taken from 
him?” Besides our exposition, which renders the sense 
thus, What he unprofitably, or without improvement, hath, 
is fully confirmed from Christ’s application of these words 
to the “unprofitable servant,’ who improved not his talent, 
Matt. xxv. 29, and from the reason he assigns, why he spake 
to the Jews in parables; to wit, because they would not 
improve the light which they had received already. Whence 
Jerome’s note upon this place is this, “'That we might not 
suspect this grossness of heart and heaviness of ears was 
the effect of nature, and not of choice, subjungit culpam 
arbitrii et dicit, Et oculos suos clauserunt, he subjoins the 
fault of the will, saying, Their eyes have they shut.” 

6 Ver. 14, Kai ἀναπληροῦται ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς" And in them ts ful- 
filled the prophecy of Isaiah, &c.] The apostle Paul in- 
forms us, that “ what the law saith, it speaks to them of all 
times and ages that are under the law” (Rom. iii. 19). So 
what the prophets of the Jews said must in like cases be- 
long to the Jews of all times, though ex’ αὐτοῖς may be here 
rendered “concerning them;” and so the meaning may be 
only this, That what was said by Isaiah of the men of his 
times, was as truly fulfilled concerning the Jews of our Sa- 
viour’s time; they being as indisposed to hearken to the 
words of this great prophet, as were the former Jews to 
attend to the words of Isaiah. 

7 Ver. 17. Πόλλοι προφῆται καὶ δίκαιοι ἐπεθύμησαν ἰδεῖν ἃ βλέ- 
πετε, καὶ οὐκ εἶδον, Verily Isay unto you, That many prophets 


* Nichom. lib. vii. cap. 5. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


ye hear (the mysteries of the kingdom of God revealed), 
and have not heard them. 

[Mark iv. 13. And he said unto them, Know ye not 
this parable? and how then will ye know all parables, as 
it becometh them to do, who are to reveal the mysteries of 
this kingdom to others ?] 

18 4 Hear ye therefore the (meaning of the) parable 
of the sower; (He that soweth is the Son of man, the 
seed sown is the word of God, Luke viii. 11). 

19 § When any one heareth the word of the king- 
dom (of God), and understandeth ἐξ not (ἱ, e. considereth 
not of it), then cometh the wicked une (the prince of the 
air, Eph. ii. 2), and catcheth away that which was 
sown in his heart. This is he (¢. δ. the person signified 
by ro which received seed by the wayside. 

20 But he that received the seed into stony places 


and wise men have desired to see the things that ye see, and 
have not seen them.] i.e. Many prophets, who prophesied 
of the coming of the Messiah, and many righteous men, to 
whom God familiarly showed h’mself, as he did to Abraham 
and the patriarchs ; many kings (Luke x. 24), from whose 
seed he was to spring, and whose kingdoms and persons were 
types of the Messiah, desired to see before their eyes the 
things which ye thus see, and have not so seen them, they 
only seeing them afar off in the promises made to them con- 
cerning these days (Heb. xi. 13), and «to them it was re- 
vealed, that not to themselves, but to our times, they minis- 
tered the things which are now revealed” (1 Pet. i. 11, 
12). 

a 19, Παντὸς ἀκούοντος τὸν λόγου τῆς βασιλεῖας, καὶ ph 
συνιέντος" When any one heareth the word, and understand- 
eth it not.) Christ cannot here intend to signify that his word 
ever becomes unprofitable to any, either through the natural 
weakness of their understanding, which renders them unable 
to discern his mind, or through the darkness or obscurity of 
the word preached; since this would lay the reason of the 
unprofitableness of it, not in the hearers, who cannot be 
supposed blameworthy, because the understanding God hath 
given them is weak; but in the preacher, who taught it so 
obscurely that they were not able to discern it. The Greek 
word συνίεναι, which we render “understand,” here signifies 
to ponder, to consider of, to lay to heart, and to observe in 
order to action ; so Prov. xxi. 12, covet δίκαιος, “The right- 
eous man wisely considers the house of the wicked;” Ps. 
xli. 1, « Blessed is he that considereth the poor” (Gr. ὁ συν- 
ιῶν ἐπὶ πτωχὸν), Ps. evi. 7, “ Our fathers in Egypt, οὐ συνῆ- 
καν, considered not thy wonders.’ And that thus it here 
signifies, appears, (1.) because the following degree of hear- 
ers are such as are affected something with the word preach- 
ed, for they “receive it with joy” (ver. 20) : the first degree 
must, therefore, comprehend such men as are not thus 
affected with it, it making no impression on their hearts. 
(2.) Because the devil is said to “snatch away this word, lest 
they should believe it.’ Now faith being an act of the un- 
derstanding, he could not fear they should believe what he 
knew they did not understand; and this industry of Satan 
to snatch the word out of our hearts, as it discovers his en- 
mity against the progress of the gospel, so doth it highly 
commend the excellence and efficacy of it: for were it not 
of great importance to preserve it there, he would not be so 
industrious to snatch it thence; and were it not, when 
there, a powerful instrument to work within us, “that faith 
which purifies the heart,” why doth he do this “lest we should 
believe?” Why is it then that men do call this quick and 
powerful word, this word of life, a dead letter? And when 
they daily by experience see that the persuasions, both of 
themselves and others, are often prevalent, why do they 
think that God’s can be of no effect without a miracle? 

9 Ver. 20. Οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ τὸν λόγον ἀκούων, καὶ εὐθὺς μετὰ χαρᾶς 
λαμβάνων αὐτὸν. This is he who hears the word, and anon 
with joy receives it.) Here he who is represented by the 
stony ground, (1.) hears the word, and doth πρὸς καιρὸν πισ- 
τεύειν, “for a time believe it” (Luke viii. 13); but then he 
only doth so for a time : and hence we lear, that it is not 
sufficient that we at present do believe, profess, and practise 
suitably to the truth delivered, unless we do continue so to 
do unto the end, and bring forth fruit with patience (Luke 


111 


(Gr. but he that is sown upon stony places), the same is 
he Ge e. he is the emblem of him) that ® heareth the 
word, and anon with joy receiveth it; 

21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but (having not 
received his seed fully into his heart, nor duly constdered 
what he must do and suffer to retain it there, he) dureth 
(only) for a while: for when tribulation or persecu- 
tion ariseth because of the word, by and by (ἱ. e. pre- 
sently) he is offended. 

22 He also that received seed among the thorns is 
he that heareth the word; Ὁ and the care of this 
world, and the deceitfulness of riches, (and the plea- 
sures of life, Luke viii. 14, and the lusts of other things 
entering in, Mark iv. 19,) choke the word, and he be- 
cometh (so far) unfruitful (as to bring no fruit unto per« 
fection). 


viii. 15) ; for by comparing the evangelists, we learn that it 
is in effect all one to be ἀκάρποι, “unfruitful” (Matt. xiii. 
22, Mark iv. 19), and to “bring no fruit to perfection,’ 
Luke viii. 15. (2.) He receives the word with joy, and is at 
present much affected with it, though afterward he is offend~ 
ed at it, whence also it appears, that it is not sufficient, to 
render us good Christians, that we at present are somewhat 
affected with the word, receive it with some joy, delight, and 
pleasure, unless it doth produce sincerity and constancy in 
our obedience to all its precepts, even those which are most 
grievous to flesh and blood. 

10 Ver. 22. Καὶ ἡ μέριμνα τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, καὶ ἡ ἁπάτη τοῦ 
πλούτου, and the care of this life, and the deceitfulness of 
riches, καὶ ἠδονῶν τοῦ Biov, and the pleasures of life, Luke 
vili. 14, καὶ αἱ περὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ἐπιϑυμίαι, and our lustings after 
other things, Mark iv. 19, entering in, choke the word.] 
Here are enumerated all those things which choke the word 
of God, and render our profession of religion unprofitable to 
the welfare of our souls. 

First, Ἢ μέριμνα τοῦ αἰῶνος τοὔτου, Such a concernment for 
this present life, as renders us distracted and tormented with 
the fears of losing it; so that we cannot think of parting 
with it without horror, which makes us falter in the practice, 
and even fall off from the profession of it; or af μερίμναι, 
those distracting worldly cares which fill our heads so full of 
contrivances, and so employ our time, that we are not at lei- 
sure seriously to think upon, and carefully pursue, the con- 
cernment of our souls. 

Secondly, The love of the “ deceitful riches” of the world ; 
for when they so far enter into our hearts, as that we are 
βουλόμενοι πλουτεῖν, “ very desirous to be rich ;” this eagerness 
to have them tempts us to sin that we may gain them, and 
sin again that we may keep them, and will not suffer us to 
part with them as we ought, either for the relief of others 
or for the welfare of our own souls; whence saith our Lord, 
«Ye cannot serve God and mammon ;” “ and he that loveth 
the world,” saith St. John, “the love of the Father is not in 
him; for the friendship of this world is enmity with God” 
(James iv. 4). 

Thirdly, «The pleasures of life,” i. 6. either those which 
are the works of the flesh, and so exclude us from the king- 
dom of heaven, as “ fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 
drunkenness, gluttony ;” or those which, though they be not 
sinful in their nature, or such as Christianity restrains us 
wholly from, as v. g. the pleasures of the stage and theatre, 
of gaming, and of recreations of like kind; yet, when our 
desires are strongly carried out after them, when we spend 
that time in the pursuit of them, which makes us neglect our 
duty to our God, our neighbours, or our own calling and con- 
cerns; when they minister temptations to fraud, to eovet- 
ousness, to contention, passion, swearing, fretfilness, or 
idleness; or often cast us into the company of loose, pro- 
fane, debauched persons, by whose example and conversation 
we may be endangered; and notwithstanding we are so en- 
slaved to, or so much under the power of them, that we can 
not deny ourselves these liberties, then we are φιλήδονοι, 
“overs of pleasures more than God.” 

Fourthly, Αἱ περὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ἐπιϑυμίαι, “oer lustings after 
other things ;” as (1.) the lusts of the eyes, or our desires 
of gay apparel, rich furniture, stately buildings, great at- 
tendance and equipage, or such as by St. John are styled the 


112 


23 But 11 he that (és represented as one that) re- 
ceived seed into the good ground is he that heareth 
the word, and understandeth ἐξ (and receives it into a 
good and honest heart, Luke viii. 15); which also 
beareth fruit (with patience, ibid.), and bringeth forth, 
some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. (What 
ts here added, Mark iv. 21—24, zs here accommodated to 
this parable.) 

24 ¢ Another parable put he forth unto them, say- 
ing, The kingdom of heaven (the success of the gospel 
is (may be) likened unto (that of ) a man which sowe 
good seed into his field: 

25 But while men (to whom the management of this 
feld was committed) slept, ¥ his enemy came and 
sowed tares (or cockle) among the wheat, and went his 
way (and this was not presently perceived). 

26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought 
forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 

27 So (Gr. then) the servants of the housholder (to 
whase conduct this field was committed), came and said 
unto him (whose servants they were), Sir, didst thou not 
sow (only) good seed in thy field? from whence then 
hath it tares ? 

28 He (answering) said unto them, An enemy (to 
me and the good seed) hath done this. The servants 
(then) said unto him, 3 Wilt thou then that we go and 
gather them up? 

29 But he said, Nay (do not this now); lest, while 


MATTHEW. 


ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat 
(growing) with them. 

30 Let both grow together until the (time of) har- 
vest : and in the time of harvest I will say to the reap- 
ers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them 
in bundles to burn them: but (then) gather the wheat 
into my barn. (The parable inserted Mark iv. 26—28, 
is there explained.) 

31 4 Another parable put he forth unto them, say- 
ing (Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God, and 
with what comparison shall we compare it 2 Mark iv. 30), 
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard 
seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field (or 
garden, Luke xiii. 19): 

32 Which indeed (when zt is sown, Mark iv. 31) 
js the least of all seeds : but when it is grown (up), 
it is the greatest amongst herbs, and becometh a tree, 
so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the 
branches thereof (Luke xiii. 19, and like to this will be 
the progress of the gospel). 

33 4 Another parable spake he unto them; (saying,) 
The kingdom of heaven (the doctrine of the gospel) is 
like (for ts powerful influence) 15 unto leaven, which a 
woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the 
whole was leavened (by zt). 

34 All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude 
in parables (as they were able to hear, Mark iy. 33); 
and without a parable spake he not unto them (‘hough 


pride of life, desire of popular applause, or of high estima- 
tion in the world, of advancement to high posts and great 
places above others; or, lastly, our excessive love unto our 
relatives, our parents, wives, our children, or our friends; for 
when these affections prove temptations to sin, as the excess 
of them still doth, they will be then obstructive of that in- 
fluence the word of life should have upon us: St. John 
informs us, that “all these are not of the Father, but of the 
world ;” thatif we love or set our hearts upon them, “the love 
of the Father is not in us” (1 John ii. 15, 16): and, therefore, 
Christ requires us to deny ourselves in all these things, to 
hate, i. e. to love them less than him, that we may be his dis- 
ciples. 

N Ver. 23. ὋὉ dé ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν τὴν καλὴν σπαρεῖς, but that 
which is sown upon good ground, is he who heareth the 
word, and considers of it.| And brings forth fruit, Luke 
Vill. 15, οἵτινες ἐν καρδίᾳ καλὴ καὶ ἀγαθῇ κατέχουσι, καὶ καρποφοροῦσιν 
ἐν ὑπομονῆ, “ Who retain it in a good and honest heart, 
and bring forth fruit with patience.’ What this good and 
honest heart of man that hath it, is, we may learn from 
heathen authors. Thus Aristotle* tells us, that this name, 
καλὸς καὶ ἀγαθὸς, was by them given ἐπὶ τοῦ τελείως σπουδαίου, 
“to one that is entirely good,” ᾧ τὰ ἀγαθὰ πάντα ὄντα ἀγαθὰ 
ἔστι, * who approved of all things that were truly good, and 
who was not corrupted by riches and dominion ;” and from 
the requisites in him, which were wanting in all the other 
grounds: for whereas he, who was represented by the seed 
sown by the way-side, did not συνιέναι, consider of it, he that 
receives the word into a good heart is συνιὼν, “one that con- 
siders” duly of it; he lays before his eyes the benefits he 
may receive, and the afflictions he may suffer, by adhering 
to it; what he must do to enjoy these blessings, and what 
he must be ready to part with that he may secure them. 
(2.) Whereas in the stony ground the seed was only re- 
tained for a while, and then cast out, it soon rose up, and as 
soon withered, the seed sown in the good and honest heart, 
κατέχεται, “is there retained, and brings forth fruit with pa- 
tience:” and (3.) whereas in the thorny ground it is so 
choked as to become unfruitful where it is, or οὐ τελεσφορεῖ, 
“it brinfes forth no mature fruit;” no fruit that can prevail, 
or get up above these thorns; in the good heart it brings 
forth “fruit unto perfection,” prevails and triumphs over 
all sensual and worldly appetites, over our love to life, and 
our most near relations, and becomes fruitful, “ abounding 
in all the works of righteousness, which are through Jesus 
Christ unto the glory and praise of God” (Phil. i. 11). 


* Mag. Mor. lib. ii. cap. 9. 


12 Ver. 25. 'O ἐχϑρὸς ἔσπειρε ζιζάνια ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σίτου, 
The enemy sowed tares in the midst of the wheat.] Hence 
some collect, that even the tares must be members of the 
church of Christ, as well as the good seed, which, if it only 
signify they by profession may be so, is in itself true; but 
if it be designed to prove that they are true members of 
that body, of which Jesus Christ is the head, that cannot 
follow from these words; for (1.) our Saviour saith ex- 
pressly, “the field is” not the church, but “the world;” (2.) 
the seed sown in the field by Christ is good seed, “the 
children of the kingdom” (ver. 38), “the just” (ver. 43) ; 
they therefore only can belong to him because they only are 
sown by him; the tares were sown in it by the envious man, 
that is, the devil (ver. 28), the enemy of Christ and of his 
church (ver. 25); they are sown while the overseers of the 
church were asleep, and are expressly called “the children 
of the devil” (ver. 38). And is it reasonable to conceive 
that the devil, the great enemy of the church and of its head, 
should beget members to his church, since “there is no com- 
munion betwixt Christ and Belial” (2 Cor. vi. 15), or that the 
devil's children should be the members of Christ’s body 1 

13 Ver. 28, 29. Θέλεις οὖν ἀπελϑόντες συλλέξωμεν αὐτά ; ὃ δὲ 
ἔφη" οὔ, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up 2 
And he said, Nay.) Vain hence is the collection of the Eras- 
tians, that the wicked, and those that cause offences, are not 
by excommunication to be excluded from the communion 
of the church, seeing the field in which these tares spring 
up is not the church, but the world ; and Christ, in the red- 
dition of the parable, takes no notice of this question, or of 
the answer to it. Nor doth this place prove, that the ma- 
gistrate may not cut off evil-doers, seeing this was not 
spoken to them, but to the ministers of Christ’s church. 

14 Ver. 82. "O μικρότερον μέν ἔστι πάντων τῶν σπερμάτων, 
Which ἐδ the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the 
greatest among herbs.) The Jews give a wonderful account 
of the growth and increase of this seed; viz. “There was 
a stalk of mustard-seed in Sichin, from which sprang out 
three boughs, of which one was broke off, and covered the 
tent of a potter, and produced three cabs of mustard. R. 
Simeon Ben Caliphat said, A stalk of mustard-seed was in 
my field, into which I was wont to climb as men do into a 
fig-tree” (Buxtorf. in voce chardal). 

5 Ver. 33. The kingdom of heaven is like to leaven.] St. 
Jerome here by this kingdom understands the doctrine of 
the gospel, and saith it leavens the whole man, consisting 
of a rational faculty of irascible and concupiscible passions, 
by directing his reason to embrace and approve true wisdom, 
turning his anger into a hatred against sin, and his desires into 


CHAPTER XII. 


he after interpreted all these parables to his disciples, Mark 
iv. 34): 

35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
by the prophet (David), saying (Ps. lxxviit. 2), I will 
open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which 
have been kept secret from the foundation of the 
world. 

36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went 
into the (a) house: and his disciples came unto him, 
saying, Declare (explain) unto us the parable of the 
tares of the field. 

37 He answered and said unto them, He that sow- 
eth the good seed is the Son of man; 

38 The field is the world; the good seed are the 
children of the kingdom an obey the precepts of it); 
but the tares are the children of (Satan) the wicked 
one (whose works they do, John viii. 44) ; 

39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the 
harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are 
the angels. 

40 " As therefore (at the time of harvest) the tares 
are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in 
the end of this world. 

41 (For then) the Son of man shall send forth his 
angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all 
things that offend, and them which do iniquity ; 

42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: (and) 
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun 
in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to 
hear, let him hear. 

44 4 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like * unto 
treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath 
found, he hideth (or conceals his finding it), and for joy 
thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth 
that field. 

45 4 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a 
merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: 

46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great 


a love of, and longing after, virtue; and these three faculties 
are, saith Theophylact, the three measures mentioned in 
the parable. 

16 Ver. 35. "Ὅπως πληρωθῆ τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ τοῦ προφήτου, That it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, 
1 will open my mouth in parables, Ps. Ixxviii. 2.] Here 
Mr. Clere notes from St. Jerome on this place, that he had 
read in some copies, quod dictum est per prophetam Esaiam, 
“which was speken by the prophet Isaiah ;” and because 
no such thing was found in that prophet, “I believe,” saith 
he, “it was taken away by some prudent man; but I am 
apt to think that it was first written, per Asapham pro- 
phetam, the seventy-seventh psalm being entitled, A Psalm 
of the prophet Asaph; and that the first transcriber not un- 
derstanding what was meant by Asaph, thinking it a mistake 
in the writer, corrected it by putting in the word Isaiah ;” 
and in his notes on the seventy-eighth psalm, he saith, “This 
was objected by Porphyry against the evangelist St. Mat- 
thew, that he was so ignorant as to say, quod scriptum est 
per Isaiam, which was written by Isaiah ;” but yet he is 
forced to confess, that in all the ancient copies there are no 
footsteps to be found of the reading which St. Jerome speaks 
of ; neither Chrysostom, Theophylact, nor any of the ancient 
fathers, except Jerome, makes any mention of it; it is not 
extant in any of the ancient versions, nor saith Jerome any 
thing of Porphyry in his genuine work upon St. Matthew. 
And this I think sufficient to justify our reading against 
some single corrupt Latin copy, in which St. Jerome, if we 
may believe him, found it otherwise. The sense therefore 
may be this, “ Our Saviour spake in parables, that what Da- 
vid, filled w {th a prophetic spirit, said of himself, might be 
fulfilled also in that Son of David of which he was a type.” 
For he being our great lawgiver, might more truly say, 
“Hear my law, O my people.” 

7 Ver. 40. Ὥσπερ οὖν συλλέγεται τὰ ζιζάνια, καὶ πυρὶ κατα- 
καίεται, οὕτως ἔσται ἐν τῇ συντελείᾳ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦτον" As there- 


Vor. IV.—15 


113 


price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it (so 
must those who desire the blessings of the kingdom of hea- 
ven be ready to part with all their earthly blessings, to 
possess and secure it to themselves). 

47 4 ® Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto 
a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of 
every kind (good and bad fish): 

48 Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, 
and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but 
east the bad away. 

49 So (likewise) shall it be at the end of the world: 
(for) the angels shall come forth, and sever the wick- 
ed from among the just, 

50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: 
and) there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth 
or, the extremity of misery). 

51 (Then) Jesus saith unto them, Have ye under- 
stood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord. 

52 Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe 
which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like 
unto aman that is an housholder, which bringeth forth 
out of his treasure things new and old (to feed his fa- 
mily ; for, so must you produce from Moses and the pro- 
phets, and from the doctrines belonging to this heavenly 
kingdom, what you see needful to feed God’s family and 
household). 

53 § And it came to pass, that when Jesus had 
finished these parables, he departed thence. 

54 And when he was come (thence with his disciples, 
Mark vi. 1) into his own country, he taught them in 
their synagogue (on the sabbath-day, Mark vi. 2), inso- 
much that they (who heard him) were astonished, and 
said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these 
mighty works (which are done by him) 2 

55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? (Mark vi. 3, the 
carpenter ; see the note there;) is not his mother called 
Mary? and (are no?) his ® brethren (called) James, 
and Joses, and Simon, and Judas ? 

56 And his sisters, are they not all with us (bear- 


fore tares are gathered together, and burnt in the fire ; so 
shall it be in the end of the world.) From this, as well as 
other places, it seems probable, that the wicked shall not be 
cast into everlasting fire till the end of the world, that being 
the time when “ Christ will place the goats on his left hand, 
and say unto them, Depart from me, ye wicked, into ever- 
lasting fire” (Matt. xxv. 41) ; and when those “ whose names 
are not in the book of life, are to be cast into the lake of 
fire” (Rev. xx. 15. See the note on 2 Tim. iv. 8). 

18 Ver. 44. To a treasure hid.] This treasure, saith St. 
Jerome, is either Jesus Christ, “in whom are hid all the trea- 
sures of wisdom and knowledge ;” or the holy scriptures, 
which are “able to make us wise to salvation,” and which 
contain the hidden wisdom of God (1 Cor. ii. 7, see Examen 
se 

Ver. 47. The kingdom of heaven is like to a net, &e.] 
Because this net contains both good and bad fish; hence 
some conclude, that bad men are members of that church 
which is Christ’s body as well as good. But (1.) it is nei- 
ther the church visible nor invisible, διδασκαλία τῶν ἁλίεων 
ἀποστύλων, “the doctrine of the apostles, made by Christ 
fishers of men,” which is here compared to a net. So Theo- 
phylact. (2.) These bad fish are no sooner pulled unto the 
shore, but the fishermen sit down, and cast them away, and 
thereby show they belonged not to this kingdom. Moreover, 
the scope of this parable is not to show who do at present 
belong to Christ’s kingdom, but who hereafter shall be ex- 
cluded from the kingdom of heaven. 

Ver. 55. Kai of ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ, &c. And are not his bre= 
thren James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas 2) It is now 
passed into a matter of faith among some that call them- 
selves Christians, that the Virgin Mary was ἀεὶ παρθένος, “ ever 
a virgin,” and hath by them been styled a heresy to hold the 
contrary ; whereas I know not how it consists with good di- 
vinity, to make that an article of divine faith which is 
founded on no divine revelation ? or with our sixth artic'e 

K2 


114 


ing no marks either of like power or wisdom) ? whence 
(then) hath this man all these things ? 

57 And they were offended in him (or scandalized 
at him, by reason of his mean original and humble cir- 
cumstances). But Jesus said unto them, A prophet 


MATTHEW. 


is not without honour, save in his own country, 
and in his own house (there usually he is most despised ). 
58 And he did not many mighty works there (save 
only that he laid his hands upon a few sick persons and 
healed them, Mark vi. 5) because of their unbelief. 


religion, to make that necessary to be believed, which con- 
fessedly is not contained in holy scripture. St. Basil* 
plainly distinguishes it from things necessary to be believed, 
and leaves it among the things not curiously to be inquired 
into, as his words plainly intimate. And though Origent 
saith, “'That they who say she after married, do not prove it, 
and that the Virgin had no other son but Jesus, κατὰ τοὺς 
ὑγιῶς περὶ αὐτῆς dofdcovras, according to those who thought 
soundly of her,” yet he lays no brand upon the contrary 
opinion. However, it is certain that these words do not 
prove that “Mary the mother of our Lord” had any off- 
spring; but, say all the ancients before St. Jerome, they 
were the children of Joseph, by a former wife, which died 
before his espousal to the blessed Virgin. St. Jerome at- 
tempts to prove, that James and Joses here mentioned were 
not the children of the Virgin-mother, but of her sister, 
“Mary the wife of Cleophas;” for John xix. 25, we read 
thus, “There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and 
his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary 
Magdalene.” There were there, saith Matthew, xxvii. 50, 
and Mark, xv. 40, «Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother 
of James the less, and of Joses;’’ whence he concludes, that 
James and Joses, styled here “the brethren of the Lord,” 
were not the sons of Mary his mother, but of her sister, Mary 
the wife of Cleophas; and hence infers, that they are only 
called his “brethren,” according to the language of the Jews, 
as Lot is called « Abraham’s brother,” Gen. xiii. 8, as being 
the son of his brother, Gen. xii. 5, and as the word “ brother” 
is used, Gen. xxix. 12, Ley. x. 4, i. e. because they were his 
cousin-germans. But this will not necessarily follow ; for 
they might be the sons of Joseph by the wife of Cleophas, 
who, saith Theophylact, dying without issue, “ Joseph, ac- 
cording to the law, took her to himself, and of her begat 


* Μέχρι γὰρ τῆς κατὰ τὴν οἰκονομίαν ὑπηρεσίας, ἀναγκαία ἡ παρ- 
θενία, τὸ δὲ ἐφεξῆς ἀπολυπραγμόνητον τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ μυστηρίου κατα- 
λείψωμεν. Tom. i. Hom. de Nativ. p. 509. 

+ Quod asserunt eam nupsisse post partum, unde appro- 
bent non habent. In Joh. p. 6. Οὐ γὰρ εὔφημον ἄλλη παρ᾽ 
ἐκείνην τὴν ἀπαρχὴν τῆς παρθενίας περιγράψασϑαι. In Matt. p. 
229, C. 


James and Joses, Simon and Judas’”’ But Antonius de 
Dominis, in a very accurate discourse upon this question, 
gives us a better answer to this argument of St. Jerome, by 
saying the “mother of Jesus,” in St. John, is the same 
person with the “mother of James and Joses,” in St. 
Matthew and St. Mark ; and that Mary the wife of Cleophas, 
called by St. Mark, “Salome,” and by St. John, “the sister 
of the mother of our Lord,’ was the “mother of the sons 
of Zebedee ;”’ for, saith he, it seems evident, that the three 
women named by the three evangelists, were in all of them 
the same persons; as therefore Mary Magdalene is the 
same, so “ Mary the mother of the sons of Zebedee,” and 
Salome, so called by St. Mark from her family, and “the 
sister of the mother of our Lord” must be the same, and 
then “ Mary the mother of our Lord,” and the mother, i. e. 
stepmother, of James and Joses, must be the same also. 
And this answer I like best, (1.) because it retains the pro- 
per signification of the word “brethren,” which is always 
retained both in the Old and the New Testament, when 
there is professedly an enumeration of brethren. (2.) Be- 
cause it seems plain, that the Jews speak still of his “bre- 
thren and sisters,’’ even in the ordinary sense of the word, 
even as they esteemed him the “carpenter’s son,” and Mary 
his mother (so here, and xii. 46, Mark vi. 3, John vi. 42). 
And James here mentioned, is by Josephus* expressly 
styled ἀδελφὸς Ἰησοῦ, “the brother of Jesus called Christ.” 
(3.) They seem also to have lived with his mother ; whence 
we find them so oft together, as when it is said, “Thy mother 
and brethren seek thee,” Matt. xii. 46, “His mother and 
brethren, are they not here with us?” i. e. do not they dwell 
at Capernaum? “He went down to Capernaum, and his 
mother and his brethren,” John ii. 12. (4.) This agrees 
best with antiquity ; for Dr. Pearson confesseth this was 
always the concurring judgment of antiquity till St. Jerome’s 
time; that these were indeed “the brethren of our Lord :” 
and Spalatensis shows that many of the fathers embraced 
the opinion, that the “mother of our Lord” in St. John, 
was the same person whom St. Matthew styles the “ mother 
of James” (De Repub. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 2, p. 114—117), 


* Antiq. lib, xx. cap. 8. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


1 Ar that time (that Christ had sent out his disciples, 
to preach the gospel, to cast out devils, and to heal diseases, 
and they, by virtue of his name, had been successful in 
that work, and thereby spread his name abroad, Mark vi. 
12—14, Luke ix. 6, 7) Herod the tetrarch (of Galilee, 
Luke iii. 1) } heard of the fame of Jesus, 

2 And (after some hesitation and inquiry, Luke ix. 7, 
8 he) said unto his servants (J incline to their opinion, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV. 


1 Ver. 1. Heard of the fame of Jesus.] Interpreters 
here inquire, why he heard not of the fame of Jesus sooner, 
and say, the reason might be this; Because he was at 
Rome at the beginning of our Saviour’s preaching, and 
when he wrought his former miracles: but the true reason 
why Herod then began to take notice of the fame of Jesus, 
seems rather to be this, that now these miracles were wrought 
not only by himself in person, but by others in his 
name. 

2 Ver. 2. Οὗτός ἐστιν Ἰωάννης, This ts John the Baptist.) 
So St. Matthew and St. Mark; but St. Luke saith, he was 
perplexed, διηπύρει, “he doubted, he inquired, because it was 
said of some, that John was risen from the dead,” and spake 

f that to his servants as the most probable opinion, de- 


who say), * This is John the Baptist; *he is risen from 
the dead ; and therefore (though before he did no miracle, 
John x. 41, now) mighty works do shew forth them- 
selves in him (to clear his innocence and confirm his mission. 

8. And he had cause to be thus anxious, and perplexed 
at this matter); For Herod had laid hold on John, 
and bound him (with a chain), and put him in prison 
4 for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife, (who 


siring notwithstanding to see him (Luke ix. 9), that so he 
might more perfectly discern whether he was John or not. 
8 Ἠγέρθη, He is risen from the dead.] Hence it appears, 
that this was said by Herod, and some others, not from 
any belief of the Pythagorean metempsychosis, or transi- 
tion of souls from one body to another, after the death 
of the first body ; for this cannot be called, in any propriety 
of speech, a resurrection of the body; nor could the soul 
of John now dead enter into the body of Christ, which had 
for thirty years been informed with another soul: neither 
the Jews nor the philosophers ever maintained any such 
transition of souls: this therefore must be understood of 
the ἀναβίωσις, or reviviscence of the Baptist, whom all the 
Jews accounted as a prophet (ver. 5); it being the opinion 
of the Jews, that some of their prophets should arise at the 
coming of the Messiah; and it seemed less wonderful to 


CHAPTER XIV. 


hawng agreed with Herod to divorce herself from her own 
husband, at Herod’s return from Rome was married to 
him, and cohabited with him as his wife, Mark vi. 17, 
Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 7, p. 626, C.) 

4 For (she was thus incensed against him because) 
John (had) said to him, It is not lawful for thee to 
have her thy wife). 

5 § And when (at the instigation of Herodias) he 
would have put him to death, (he could not think fit to 
do so, for) he feared the multitude, because they count- 
ed him δ as a prophet. 

6 But when Herod’s birthday was kept, the daugh- 
ter of Herodias danced before them (that were present), 
and Ger dancing) pleased Herod. 

7 Whereupon he promised with an oath to give her 
whatsoever she would ask, (even to the half of his king- 
dom, Mark vi. 23). 

8 And she, being 7 before (she asked any aires in- 
structed of her mother, said, Give me here John Bap- 
tist’s head in a charger. 

9 And the king was sorry (that she asked a thing so 
ungrateful to the people, so ungrateful to his birthday, and 
so dangerous to himself): nevertheless for the oath’s 
sake (which he had made), and (for the sake of ) them 
which sat with him at meat, he commanded i to be 
given her (i. e. that it should be given to her). 


them that they who raised others whilst they lived, as did 
Elias and Elisha, and whose dead bones revived a dead 
corpse (2 Kings xiii. 21), should do so. 

4 Ver. 3. For Herodias’s sake, his brother Philip's wife.] 
That Josephus here differs from the evangelists, making 
Herodias the wife not of his brother Philip, but of another 
brother named Herod, ought not to make us doubt the 
truth of what St. Matthew here, St. Mark, vi. 17, and St. 
Luke, iii. 19, unanimously assert, touching a metter so well 


known when they writ, that they could not be ignorant of* 


it; especially if we consider, that the Jewish Chronicles* 
and Gorionides agree with the evangelist; for Gorionides 
saith, Herodias was first married to Philip, and then taken 
away from him by Herod Antipas. The old Hebrew Chro- 
nicley saith, Uxorem fratris sui Philippi ipso vivente junxit 
sibi matrimonio, que liberos ex fratre ejus susceperat, et 
tamen is eam duxit uxorem; and an old Chronicle; of the 
second temple saith, Antipas Philippi fratris sui uxorem 
accepit, ex qua ille liberos ante genuerat;” i. e. “ Antipas 
married the wife of his brother Philip, he being yet living, 
and having had children by her.’ This Philip mentioned 
by Josephus§ died, saith he, in the twentieth year of Tibe- 
rius, and therefore must be living, at the least four years 
after this time (see Orig. in Matt. p. 230, Euseb. H. Eccl. 
lib. i. cap. 11, Jerome in locum). Which agrees with what 
Josephus saith of his other Herod, ᾿Ηρωδίας dé ἐπὶ συγχύσει 
φρονήσασα τῶν πατρίων ᾿Ἡρώδη γαμεῖται, rod ἀνδρὸς ὁμοπατρίῳ 
ἀδελῳῦ, διαστᾶσα ζῶντος, “ Herodias, in contempt of the laws 
of her country, married again to Herod, the natural brother 
of her husband, separating herself from him whilst living, 
and having had a child by him ;”|| she therefore was guilty 
both of incest and adultery by the law of Moses, in thus 
agreeing μετοικίσασϑαι πρὸς αὐτὸν, “to divorce herself from 
her former husband,” yet living, and to marry to Herod 
Antipas; and therefore the Baptist might well say to him, 
«Tt is not lawful for thee to have her for thy wife.” 

5 Ver. 5. Καὶ ϑέλων αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι. And when he would 
have put him to death.) To reconcile this with Mark vi. 19, 
where it is said, that Herodias “would have put him to 
death,” but could not prevail with Herod so to do, it may 
be said, Herod was willing enough to do it, but was with- 
held from the action, partly out of fear of the people, and 
partly by the checks of his conscience, as knowing John to 
be a just and holy man, whose death might therefore be 
avenged on him by a righteous God, as the Jews, saith Jo- 
sephus,§ thought it was by the destruction of his army. 


* Chap. 62. + Chap. 36. 
§ Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 6, p. 625, F. 
| Ibid. cap. 7, p. 628, Ὁ. 


+ F. 54, cap. 4. 
§ Antiq. lib. xviii. 


115 


10 And (aeconiaer he sent (an executioner, Mark 
vi. 27, and he went) and beheaded John in the prison. 

11 And ὃ his head was brought in a charger, and 
given to the damsel: and she brought ¢¢ ¢o her mother. 

12 And his disciples came, and took up the body 
(of the Baptist), and buried it, and went and told Jesus 
(what had happened to him). 

13 4 When Jesus heard of it (and the account which 
his apostles sent forth by him, x. 5, gave of all that they 
had done and taught, Mark vi. 30, Luke ix. 10), 3 he 
departed (with them) thence by ship into a desert place 
apart (from the mullitude, which came so continually to 
them, that they had not time to eat, Mark vi. 31): and 
when the people had heard thereof (or whither he was 
gone, viz. to the desert of Bethsaida, Luke ix. 10), they 
(took a compass by land, and) followed him on foot out 
of the cities ; (seeing the signs that he had done, John vi. 
2; and they got before him to the place where he was to 
land, Mark vi. 33). 

14 And Jesus went forth (out of the ship into a 
mountain, and there sat with his disciples, John vi. 3), 
and saw a great multitude (come to the place), and was 
moved with compassion toward them (and spake unto 
them of the kingdom of God, Luke ix. 11), and he 
healed their sick. 

15 7 And when it was evening (after that Christ had 


8 'Q¢ προφήτην, i. 6. for a prophet.) This being, as the an- 
cients note, ὡς οὐκ ὁμοιώσεως, ἀλλὰ βεβαιώσεως, “not of simili- 
tude, but of confirmation :”’ so Neh. vii. 2, αὐτὸς ὡς ἀνὴρ ἀληθὴς 
“he was a true man,” and one that feared the Lord (see the 
note on Rom. ix. 32). 

7 Ver. 8. Προβιβασϑεῖσα, before admonished.) i.e. Before 
she asked any thing, but not before the offer made by He- 
rod: for St. Mark, who relates the whole story more fully, 
in many other circumstances, says, that upon it she went 
out, and said to her mother, “ What shall I ask?” and came 
in again by her instruction, to ask the head of the Baptist. 

8 Ver. 11. And his head was brought, &c.] Note here, 
that very remarkable seems the providence of God, in aveng- 
ing the death of this holy man upon Herod, Herodias, and 
her daughter. For, 

First, As the war betwixt Herod and Aretas, king of 
Petrea, was caused by Herod’s wicked contract with He- 
rodias, to reject the daughter of Aretas his lawful wife, and 
to marry with Herodias his brother Philip’s wife; so Jose- 
phus declares, that the Jews looked upon the putting John 
to death as the cause of the miscarriage of Herod’s army, 
“God being angry with him for the death of John the 
Baptist.”* 

Secondly, Herodias envying the glory of king Agrippa, 
who had that honour given him by Caius, prevailed with 
her husband to go to Rome, and accuse Agrippa: where- 
upon Caius deprived Herod of his government, and her of 
her money, and gave both to Agrippa, banishing Herod and 
Herodias to Lyons, in France; which, saith Josephus,t was 
«done in punishment of her envy, and of his readiness to 
hearken to her solicitations.’ And, 

Thirdly, Of her daughter it is related, that she going 
over the ice in winter, the ice brake, and she slipped in up 
to the head, which at last was severed from her body by the 
sharpness of the ice; Idque non sine Dei numine, God re- 
quirmg her head for that of the Baptist’s she desired, 
which, if true, was a wonderful providence. 

9 Ver. 13. ᾿Ανεχώρησεν ἐκεῖθεν, &c. He departed thence 
into a desert place.) To avoid the fury of Herod, say in 
terpreters; teaching us, by this example, to avoid dangers 
by all lawful means (see xii. 15). But there seems no 


* Tots dé ᾿Ιουδαίος, δύξαν ἐπὶ τιμωρίᾳ τῇ ἐκείνου τὸν ὄλεθρον ἐπὶ 
τῷ στρατεύματι γενέσϑαι, τοῦ Θεοῦ κακῶς ᾿Ηρώδη ϑέλοντος. ‘Owe 
λέναι τὸν ᾿Ηρώδου στράτον ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ μάλα δικαίως τιννυμένου 
κατὰ ποινὴν Ἰωάννου τοῦ ἐπικαλουμένου Βαπτιστοῦ. Antiq. lib. 
xviii. cap. 7, p. 626. F. 627, A. 

ἡ ᾿Ἡρωδιάδι μὲν dh φθόνου πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφὸν καὶ ᾿Ηρώδη γυναικείων 
ἀκροασαμένῳ κουφολογῶν δίκην ταύτην ἐπιτίμησεν 6 Ocos. Ibid. cap 
9, p. 639, A. 


116 


inquired of Philip making trial of his faith for that was 
done when Jesus saw the multitude, John vi. 5), his dis- 
ciples came (together, Luke ix. 12) to him, saying, 
This is a desert place (where no victuals are to be had), 
1 and the time is now past (or, the day is spent); send 
the multitude away, that they may go into the vil- 
lages, and buy themselves victuals. 

16 But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart 

to buy victuals); give ye them to eat, (having learnt 
of Andrew what meat was there, John vi. 9). 

17 And they say unto him, (Shall we go then and 
buy two hundred pennyworth (i. e. six pounds five shil- 
lings’ worth) of bread for them to eat? .He saith unto 
them, How many loaves have you here? And they upon 
inquiry say) We have here but five (barley) loaves, 
and two (small) fishes. (And what are they among so 
many 2 John vi. 9). 4 

18 He said, Bring them hither to me. 

19 And he commanded (Azs disciples, Mark vi. 39, 
to make) the multitude to sit down on the grass 
(ty hundreds, and fifties in a company, Luke ix. 14, 

ark vi. 39, 40), and (when they were thus sat down, 
he) took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and look- 
ing up to heaven, " he blessed (or, gave thanks to 
God for them), and brake (the loaves, Mark vi. 41), and 
gave the loaves (thus broken) to his disciples, and 


MATTHEW. 


the disciples (gave them) to the multitude (and tne two 
Jishes divided he among them all). 

20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and (when 
our Lord had said to his disciples, Gather up the re- 
maining fragments, that nothing be lost, John vi. 12) 
they took up of the fragments that remained twelve 
baskets full. A 

21 And they that had eaten (of the five loaves and two 
small fishes) were about five thousand men, beside 
women and children. 

22 q And straightway Jesus (knowing that the mul- 
titude designed to make him a king, John vi. 15, and 
that this might be pleasing to his disciples) constrained 
his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him 
unto (Capernaum, on) the other side (Bethsaida), while 
he sent the multitudes away. 

23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he 
went up into a mountain apart to pray: and ® when 
the evening was come, he was there alone. 

24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, 
tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. 

25 % And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus 
(seeing them toiling in rowing, Mark vi. 48) went unto 
them, walking on the sea (and seemed willing to have 
passed by them). 

26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the 


reason in the context why he should be afraid of Herod, 
who had done nothing to incense him; it therefore seems 
more probable, from the collation of these words with those 
in St. Mark, that he went to this desert to give some respite 
and refreshment to his wearied disciples. 

10 Ver. 15. Ἢ ὥρα ἤδη παρῆλθεν, The day is now spent.) 
“Ὧρα, both in Greek and Latin, signifies “a day;” so the 
Greek word often signifies, especially among the physicians: 
so Galen, lib. vii. cap. 2, ψύχονται ὥραν μίαν, “ they are chill 
an hour,” is presently interpreted ἐπὶ ἡμέραν μίαν, “ for one 
day ;” so in Virgil,* Nunquam te crastina fallet hora, i. e. 
dies postera. So hora ultima, hora mortis, is “the day of 
death.” 

Ver. 19. Εὐλύγησε, he blessed.| ere it is disputed, 
whether Jesus by this benediction multiplied the loaves and 
fishes by a miraculous power; or whether he gave thanks 
to God for them: that Christ multiplied the bread and fishes 
by a miraculous power, all allow; but the question is, 
whether this be intended by the word εὐλύγησε, “ he bless- 
ed ;” or, whether, the import of this word be this, “ he gave 
thanks to God for them:” that it is the latter will be evident 
from these considerations; (1.) That what is here εὐλόγησε, 
“he blessed,” is in St. John, εὐχαριστῆσας διέδωκε, “ giving 
thanks he gave the bread:” and what is in this chapter, 
εὐλύγησε, “he blessed,” is in the following chapter in the 
like case, taking the seven loaves and two fishes, eixapicriicas, 
“giving thanks, he brake and gave to his disciples” (ver. 
36); and so in like manner in St. Mark, viii. 6. (2.) That 
Christ blessed, looking up to heaven, which is an indica- 
tion, that this action was directed not to the bread, but to 
his heavenlv Father. (3.) In the institution of the Lord’s 
supper, that which in St. Matthew and St. Mark is εὐλογήσας, 
“he blessing, brake the bread,” is in St. Luke and St. Paul, 
eixapiorfioas, “giving thanks he brake it” (see Matt. xxvi. 
26, Mark xiv. 22, Luke xxii. 19, 1 Cor. xi. 24). Yea, 
both St. Matthew (xxii. 27) and St. Mark (xiv. 23), speak- 
ing of the cup, say εὐχαριστήσας, that Christ “ giving thanks, 
gave it to them;” which shows that εὐλογεῖν and εὐχαριστεῖν, 
“to bless,’ and to “give thanks,” are in sense the same 
thing. And whereas it is objected, that St. Luke plainly 
refers this benediction to the bread, by saying εὐλύγησεν αὐτοὺς, 
“he blessed them” (Luke ix. 16), it may be answered, that 
in some ancient MSS. the words run thus εὐλόγησεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτοὺς, 
“he blessed over the loaves ;” which agrees well with the 
sense given of the words. (4.) That this is an elliptical 
form of speech to be supplied thus, εὐλόγησεν Θεὸν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῶν, 
‘she blessed God over them; it being familiar both with 


* Georg. i. 425, 


the Greeks and Hebrews to put εὐλογεῖν τίνα for εὐλογεῖν Θεὸν 
ἐπὶ τινὸς, “to bless a thing,” for “blessing God over it.” 
So 1 Sam. ix. 13, εὐλογεῖν ϑυσίαν, “to bless the sacrifice,” is 
to give thanks to God for the peace-offering before they 
dined upon it. So 1 Cor. x. 16, “the cup of blessing,” ὃ 
εὐλογοῦμεν, “ which we bless,” is the cup for which we give 
thanks, according to the custom of the Jews, with whom 
the beracoth, or the benediction of the bread, is conceived 
in these words, “ Blessed art thou, O Lord our God the 
King of the world, who producest bread out of the earth :” 
the benediction of the wine runs thus, “Blessed art thou, 
O Lord, the king of the world, who createst the fruit of the 
vine ;”’ and so in the benediction of their table and of their 
fruits (see Buxtorf. de Cena Domini, 8. 46. 74, de Synag. 
Jud. 12, p. 254, 255). Lastly, This is confirmed by these 
words of St. John (vi. 23), “ Other ships came by the place 
where they had eaten bread, εὐχαριστήσαντος τοῦ Κυρίου, the 
Lord having given thanks.” 

2 Ver. 23. 'Owias δὲ γενομένης, the evening being come.] 
We learn from this and other places, that the word evening 
sometimes imports the time from the declining of the sun, 
sometimes the time in the beginning at sunsetting, or when 
it began to be dark; the one was called δείλη πρώϊα, or “ the 
first evening,” say Eustathius* and Phavorinus, the other 
sera vespera, or the “latter evening,” when the sun is set- 
ting. So “thou shalt kill the passover between the two 
evenings,” Exod. xii. 6. “About the going down of the 
sun,” Deut. xvi. 6. So Josh. x. 26, “They hanged upon 
the trees until the evening ;” and ver. 27, “at the time of 
the going down of the sun, they took them down.” At the 
first of these evenings, the disciples desire Jesus to dismiss 
the multitude, for the day was declining, ἤρξατο κλίνειν, “ to 
begin to decline,” Luke ix. 12, or dinner-time was past; in 
the second of them Jesus is left alone, and his disciples 
were got to sea, How Christ’s praying is consistent with 
his Deity, see John xi. 41, 42. 

8 Ver. 25. In the fourth watch of the night.] Which are 
thus numbered, “at even, at midnight, at cock-crowing, and 
in the morning” (Mark xiii. 35). So that it began to be 
morning before he came to them; hence he both saw them 
toiling from the land, and they him also walking on the 
sea. Note, that to walk upon the sea, is made the property 
of God, who alone spreadeth the heavens, “and treadeth 
upon the waves of the sea” (John ix. 8). 


* Διττὴ κατὰ τοὺς παλαιοῦς ἣ detAn* dia μὲν γὰρ δείλη τὸ τέλευ- 
ταῖον φασὶ τῆς δείλης μέρος, τὸ περὶ ἡλίου δυσμὰς" ἑτέραδὲ δεΐλη πρώϊα 
τὸ εὐθὺς ἐκ μεσημβρίας, in Odyss. xvii. 'Δείλη πρώϊα, ἡ μετ᾽ 
ἄριστον ὥρα" detdn ὀψία, ἡ περὶ δύσιν ἡλίου. Phay. Hesych. 


CHAPTER XV, 


sea (nol perfectly discerning in the twilight who he was), 
they were troubled, saying, It is “a spirit (or an ap- 
parition); and they cried out for fear. 

27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, 
Be of good cheer; it is 1; be not afraid. 

28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it 
be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water (for 
having thy commission, I believe I may safely do it). 

29 And he said (unto him), Come. And when 
Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on 
the water, to go to Jesus. 

30 But when (his mind diverting him from the con- 
sideration of Christ’s power) he saw the wind boister- 
ous, Cerra to them) he was afraid; and beginning 
to sink, he cried (¢o Jesus), saying, Lord, save me, 

31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, 
and caught him, and said unto him, % O thou of little 
faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? 


4 Ver. 26. A spirit.] That the Jews had then an opinion 
of hurtful spirits walking in the night, is evident from the 
LXX. who render “ from the pestilence walking in darkness, 
ἀπὸ ταράγματος πνεύματος διαπορευομένου ἐν σκότει, from the fear 
of the devils that walk in the night, καὶ ἀπὸ δαιμονίου μεσημ- 
βρινοῦ, and from the noon-day devil,” that which is in the 
Hebrew, “ from the destruction at noon-day,” Ps. xci. 6. 

15 Ver. 31. ᾿Ολιγόπιστε, O thou of little faith.] Of the 
indications of this little faith, see the note on Matt. vi. 30. 
Christ suffered Peter thus to doubt, say interpreters, that 
finding by experience the weakness of his faith, he might 
by prayer and industry endeavour to increase it, and ascribe 
the whole strength of it to God. 

16 Ver. 33. ᾿Αληθῶς Θεοῦ vids et Truly thou art the Son 
of God.) Episcopius here expounds this phrase, Truly thou 
art the Messias, or that king to whom God hath given 
divine power to help us: for, saith he, it is probable the 
apostles then knew nothing of the eternal generation of the 
Son of God; and truly it may be, they had no accurate 
idea of such an eternal, necessary generation of the Son of 
God, as the schools mention; nor do I believe that any of 


117 


32 And when they (Christ and Peter) were come 
into the ship, the wind ceased (and the ship was 
presently at the land whither they went, John vi. 
21). 

33 Then they that were in the ship came and wor- 
shipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of 
God. 

34 4 And when they were gone over (the sea of 
Galilee, from Bethsaida back to Capernaum, John vi. 17), 
they came into the land of Gennesaret (see the note 
on ver. 22). 

35 And when the men of that place had knowledge 
of him (he having been with them before, Luke v. 1), 
they sent out into all that country round about, and 
brought unto him all that were diseased ; 

36 And besought him that they might only touch 
the hem of his garment: and as many as touched (7) 
were made perfectly whole. 


the unbelieving Jews had such a notion of this phrase ; and 
yet we find them accusing our Lord of blasphemy, and 
making himself equal with God, by saying that he was the 
Son of God. Seeing then our Saviour had given so many 
instances of his omnipotence and divine power by multi- 
plying loaves and fishes so wonderfully, as none could do 
but he who had power to create; (2.) by walking on the 
water, and causing the wind instantly to cease; why might 
not the apostles from all these evidences conclude that the 
Divinity resided in him? Even the Gergesenes seem to 
have had some such extraordinary opinion of him, when 
they believed their sick should be healed only by touching 
the hem of his garment. ‘This, saith Woltzogenius, was an 
evidence of their belief of a divine power residing in Christ. 
Now where the divine power is, there must be the Divinity, 
and where the power of God is, there is God. 

1 Ver. 36. And besought him that they might only touch 
the hem, &c.] If these were the Gergesenes, who lay on the 
other side of the sea of Tiberias, and who formerly desired 
him “to depart out of their coasts” (Matt. viii, 34), their 
faith was thus increased with the fame of Christ’s miracles. 


CHAPTER XV. 


1 (When Christ had miraculously fed five thou- 
sand, and was gone thence to Capernaum, John vi. 17,) 
Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were 
of Jerusalem, (who, seeing some of Christ’s disciples eat 
bread with unwashen hands, found fault, Mark vii. 2,) 
saying, 

2 ' Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition 
of the elders? for they wash not their hands when 
they eat bread: (whereas the Pharisees and all the Jews, 
except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV. 


1 Ver. 2. Διατί of μαθηταΐ cov παραβαίνουσι τὴν παράζοσιν τῶν 
πρεσβυτέρων. Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition 
a the elders 2? for they wash not their hands when they eat 

ead.) Of this tradition of the elders, let it be noted, 

First, That they held it a thing plainly unlawful, and 
highly criminal, to eat meat or common bread till they had 
washed their hands; hence do the pharisees find fault with 
Christ’s disciples, and style their hands “ unclean,’”’ because 
they were not washed (Mark vii. 2). Hence doth the pha- 
risee, who invited Chnist to dinner, wonder that he washed 
not his hands before dinner (Luke xi. 38). For their canon 
saith, “ Whosoever despiseth the washing of hands is wor- 
thy to be excommunicated, he comes to poverty, and will be 
extirpated out of the world.” And Buxtorf* citeth from 
their Talmud this expression, that “he that eats bread with 
unwashen hands, does as bad as if he lay with a whore.” 


tradition of the elders; and when they come from the 
market, except they wash they eat not; and many other 
things there be which they have received to hold, as the 
washing of cups, brazen vessels, and of tables, Mark vii. 
3, 4. 

3 Bat he answered and said unto them, (J have 
greater reason to ask) Why do ye also (Gr. even ye, 
who pretend to so much strictness in observing the com- 
mandments of men) transgtess the commandment of 
God by your tradition? (as certainly ye do.) 


And they say, Rabbi Eliezar Ben Hazar was excommuni- 
cated by the Sanhedrin, because he contemned the washing 
of hands; and that R. Aquiba being in prison, and not 
having water enough to drink and wash his hands, chose to 
do the latter, saying, “It was better to die with thirst, than 
transgress the tradition of the elders.” Note, 

Secondly, That this washing of hands before meat was 
not required by any written law of God, and so the neglect 
of it could not be unlawful by virtue of any divine law, but 
only as being a transgression of the tradition of the elders; 
hence Christ ranks it among “ the traditions of men,”’ ver. 9. 
And Maimonides* saith, that it depended on the words of 
the scribes; and it is by Christ, speaking to the pharisees, 
called “your tradition,” ver. 3. 6. And yet they held it as 
a thing necessary, because, say they,t “the words of the 
scribes are lovely above the words of the law, and more 
weighty than the words of the law or the prophets.” 

Thirdly, They placed a great piece of religion and sanctity 


* Tn voce sz 1335. 


* In Mikvaoth, cap. 11. { Lightfoot in loc. 


118 


4 For? God commanded, saying, Honour thy father 
and mother: and (also said, Exod. xxi. 17), He that 
curseth father or mother, let him die the death (show- 
ing that the violation of this law deserved death). 

5 But 3 ye (following your own vain traditions) say, 
Whosoever shall say to Acs father or Azs mother, Jt is 
a gift (Jet it be no less forbidden to give it to thee, than 
to give of a thing devoted to God), by whatsoever thou 
mightest be profited by me; 

6 And (having said this) honour not his father 


MATTHEW. 


or his mother, he shall be free (he doth only that which 
he ought to do, pronouncing him not only free from, but 
obliging him not to observe this precept, Mark vii. 12). 
Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none 
effect by your tradition. 

7 Ye “ hypocrites, 5 well did Esaias prophesy of 
you, (by) saying, (that which, being spoken of the Jews, 
and agreeing as much to you of this, as to them of that 
age, respecteth as well you as them, viz.) 

8 This people draweth nigh unto me with theirmouth, 


in washing thus their hands, and looked upon them who 
neglected this as men of a defiled soul. ‘hus Maimonides 
saith, “The religious of old did eat their common food in 
cleanness, and took care to avoid all uncleanness all their 
days, and they were called pharisees; and this is a matter 
of the highest sanctity, and the way of the highest religion, 
namely, that a man separate himself and go aside from the 
vulgar, and that he neither touch them, nor eat or drink 
with them; for such separation conduceth to the purity of 
the body from evil works; the purity of the body conduceth 
to the cleansing of the soul from evil affections, and the sanc- 
tity of the soul conduceth to the likeness of God.” Hence 
they reckon this among the means to obtain eternal life, say- 
ing, “ Whosoever hath his seat in the land of Israel, and 
eateth his commmon food in cleanness, and speaks the holy 
language, and recites his phylacteries morning and evening, 
let him be confident that he shall obtain the life of the world 
to come :” and against this our Saviour teacheth, that « to 
eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man,” because it 
defileth not the heart. Thus have you seen how the phari- 
sees taught these “commandments of men for doctrines,” 
i. e. things necessary to be believed and done, and parts of 
God’s worship; and so how free the ceremonies of the 
church of England must be from this guilt, they being 
reckoned not as necessary, but in themselves “ things indiffer- 
ent:” not used for sanctification, but only for order and de- 
cency ; not reckoned as any parts, but only circumstances of 
worship (see Bishop Sanderson’s Serm. on Matt. xv. 9). 

2 Ver. 4. Ὁ γὰρ Θεὸς ἐνετείλατο, λέγων, Tina τὸν πατέρα cov καὶ 
τὴν μητέρα cov, καὶ ὃ κακολογῶν πατέρα, &e. For God command- 
ed, saying, Honour thy father and thy mother ; and he that 
eurseth father or mother let him die the death.] Here observe, 

First, That the commands of Moses are to be received as 
the commandments of God; for what is here “God com- 
manded,” is, Mark vii. 10, “Moses commanded.” 

Secondly, That to honour parents is not only to reverence 
them, but to afford them all the necessaries of this present 
life, according to that of the Jerusalem Targum on Deut. 
xv. 4, Honorare est viaticum providere, “To honour is to 
make provisions for him.” And, according to the Jewish 
canons, a son is bound to afford his father meat, drink, and 
clothes, “ to cover him, to lead him in and out, and to wash 
his hands, face, and feet.” And, according to Hierocles,* 
he is to “honour them σώματος ὑπηρεσίᾳ καὶ χρημάτων χορηγία, 
with the service of his body and his goods ;” and this, saith 
he, “justice required him to do readily and bountifully.” 
Philot declares that παίδων ἴδιον οὐδὲν 6 μὴ γονέων ἐστιν, 
“children have nothing which is not their parents’,” as hav- 
ing either received it from them, or having received from 
them the faculties by which they procure it; that therefore 
they can never recompense them, and are both inhuman and 
ungodly if they neglect to succour them; and that the very 
heathens taught the same: and that this is the frequent 
import of the word τίμη, see note on 1 Tim. v. 3. 8. 

Thirdly, That which we render “ curseth,” is in the Greek 
κακολογεῖν, to slight, contemn, or set light by, father or mo- 
ther. So Ezek. xxii. 7, Πατέρα καὶ. μητέρα ἑκακολόγουν, * they 
set light by father and mother;” and that death should be 
the punishment of those who abused their parents is suit- 
able to the laws of heathens, τὸν ὑβρίζοντα τὸν αὐτοῦ πατέρα μὴ 
μετέχειν τῆν οὐσίας. “ that he who reviled his father should not 
live” (Sopater ad Hermogenem). 

3 Ver. 5. Ὑμεῖς δὲ λέγετε: Ὃς ἂν εἴπη τῷ πατρὶ ἣ τῇ μητρὶ, 
Adpor, ὃ ἔαν ἐξ ἐμοῦ ὠφεληθῆς" But ye say, Whosoever shall 
say to his father or mother, It rs a gift, by which thou 
mayest be profited by me, δες.) This phrase, δῶρον, or corban, 


* In Carm. Pyth. p. 54. ἡ De Decal. p. 586, 587. 


doth not import that he who said this had consecrated his 
goods to sacred uses, or obliged himself to do so; but only 
that he had, according to the doctrine of the scribes, by 
vow, obliged himself not to give any thing to him to whom 
he thus spake; for δῶρον ἔστω, is the same with wx among 
the Jews, which signifies a thing forbidden, and so imports, 
it is no less forbidden to give thee any thing of this, than if 
it were a corban, or any thing consecrated to God. So Mai- 
monides* saith, Sit mihi corban ista massa panis, i. e. “ Let 
it be as much forbidden as what is consecrated; let that 
mass of bread be to thee a sacred thing.” ‘So that whoso- 
ever said, Let it be corbun, whereby I may be profitable to 
thee ; they, by their theology, declared him bound by a vow 
not to relieve him to whom he had said thus, though he was 
his father, unless they would absolve him from his vow: and 
by thus not suffering him to do any thing to his needy pa- 
rents, by reason of this rash and wicked vow, they “ made 
the commandment of God void,” and suffered them to slight 
and despise their parents, by their tradition. Note also, that 
the following words running thus, Καὶ οὐ μὴ τιμήση ἤ τὸν 
πατέρα αὐτοῦ, ἣ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ. Καὶ ἠκυρώσατε τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ 
Θεοῦ: the whole perhaps may be thus rendered: “ But ye 
say, Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, Let it be 
a gift by which thou mayest be profited by me, he shall 
not then honour his father and his mother; therefore you 
make void the commandment of God by your tradition ;” 
καὶ signifying both then and therefore. St. Mark adds, ver. 
13, Καὶ παρόμοια πολλὰ τοιαῦτα ποιεῖτε, And many such-like 
things do ye.” Thus Philot speaks of some, so xara φύσιν 
ἄμικτοι καὶ ἀκοινῶνητοι, “ unsociable and uncommunicable by 
nature, or so transported by anger, that opxd τὴν ἀγριότητα 
πιστοῦνται τῶν ἡθῶν, they confirm their inhuman manners by 
an oath, saying, that they will not receive such a one to 
their table, or under their roof, ἢ πάλιν τῷ δεῖνι μὴ παρέξειν 
ὠφελείαν τίνα, or that they will afford no help to such a one.” 
And Dr. Pocock} saith, they have a canon to this effect, 
vota cadere in res mandati, « That vows reach even to things 
commanded, or take place as well in things required by the 
law, as things indifferent: and that aman may be so bound 
by them, as that he cannot without great sin do what God 
had by his law required to be done. So that if he made a 
vow, which laid upon him a necessity to violate God’s law 
that he might observe it, his vow must stand, and the law 
be abrogated.” 

4 Ver. 7. Ὑποκριταὶ, Ye hypocrites. Our Lord, here and 
elsewhere, calls the pharisees “hypocrites,” not only be- 
cause they placed the worship of God, and great sanctity, 
and religion, in ceremonies of human invention, and, pre- 
tending to a regard to purity and religion, did nothing out 
of pure respect to God’s glory, but did “all their works to 
be seen of men” (Matt. xxiii. 5), and to procure glory from 
them (Matt. vi. 2); but also because, being so supersti- 
tiously careful to avoid the outward pollution of the body, 
by abstaining from touching any thing that was unclean, and 
washing their hands when they thought they might have 
done it, and even their “ pots, and cups, and beds ;” they left 
that which was within, viz. their hearts, “full of hypocrisy 
and iniquity, uncleanness, extortion, and excess” (Matt. 
xxiil. 25—27, Luke xi. 39). Only here note, that we must 
not be forward, from Christ’s example, to pronounce men 
hypocrites, because we have neither that authority nor know- 
ledge of the heart which he had, to authorize us so to do. 

5 Καλῶς προεφήτευσε, &e. Well prophesied Esaias of you.] 
See note on Mark vii. 6. 


* De Cult. Div. tr. 9, cap. 4, §. 9. 
+ De Special. Legib. p. 595, D, E. 
+ Miscel. p. 415. 


CHAPTER XV. 


end honoureth me with their lips; but (yet) their 
heart is far from me. 

9 But in vain they do (think to) worship me, (by) 
teaching for doctrines the δ commandments of men (as 
doctrines necessary to be observed for acceptance with 


me). 

10 4 And (hercupon) he 7 called the multitude, and 
said unto them, Hear (all yes and understand : 

11 Not that which ὃ goeth into the mouth defileth 


6 Ver. 9. Μάτην δὲ σέβονταί pe, διδάσκοντες διδασκαλίας ἐν- 
τάλματα ἀνθρώπων" But in vain do they worship me, teach- 
ing for (or as) doctrines the commandments of men.) 'The 
“commandments of men” here are things enjoined by mere 
human authority, as is plain from these rds of St. Paul, 
Col. ii. 21, 22, Touch not, taste not, handle not, which are 
all ἔντάλματα ἀνθρώπων, the commandments of men,” though 
they come from their chocmim, or “ wise men,” though they 
be the traditions of the elders or governors of the church 
(ver. 2), though they come from those scribes and pharisees 
which “sat in the chair of Moses’ (Matt. xxiii. 2); yet, 
without a divine institution, they are only “the command- 
ments of men.”’ To teach these commandments of men as 
“doctrines,” is to enjoin them, or impose them on the con- 
sciences of others, as things necessary, or things to be ob- 
served for their goodness, as the pharisees did this washing 
of hands, counting those sinful and defiled who neglected so 
to do; and as parts of God’s worship, for otherwise they 
could not strictly and properly be said to “ worship God in 
vain,” by teaching and observing these things. Seeing then 
it is certain that the Romanists have many ecclesiastical 
constitutions, in which they place great sanctity, and which 
they judge necessary to be observed, and that as parts of 
religious worship, which yet are only the traditions of their 
elders, or of those who sit in St. Peter’s chair, as did the 
scribes and pharisees in that of Moses, and which do also 
make void the commandments of God, as doth the doctrine 
of the worship of images, communion in one kind, and 
prayer in an unknown tongue; in vain must they also wor- 
ship God, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 

7 Ver. 10. Kat προσκαλεσάμενος τὸν ὄχλον: And calling the 
multitude, he said unto them all, Hear, and understand.] 
From these words, spoken to all the multitude, and the 
words, Mark vii. 16, spoken to the same persons, “He that 
hath ears to hear, let him hear; it is evident that in our 
Lord’s judgment the whole multitude was capable of under- 
stanging those things which the pharisees did not, and by 
which the traditions of the scribes, pharisees, and elders were 
overthrown, and that for this nothing more was requisite 
than “ears to hear,” or good attention to Christ’s sayings. 
Moreover, if these things, parabolically spoken, coulde and 
ought to be understood by the multitude, as from this ex- 
hortation to the multitude, and the reproof of Christ’s dis- 
ciples for not apprehending this, is manifest; much more 
must those things which concern their duty, and are deli- 
vered plainly, be easy to be understood by them. And from 
those words, “they are blind guides,” and “if the blind 
lead the blind, they will both fall into the ditch,” it follows, 
that sometimes the multitude neither ought, nor can, with- 
out their utmost peril, follow the guidance of their ecclesi- 
astical superiors. 

8 Ver. 11. Οὐ τὸ εἰσερχόμενον εἰς τὸ στόμα κοινοῖ τὸν ἄνϑρωπον" 
That which goeth into the mouth polluteth not the man, i. e. 
by touching him.] i. 6. The man is not unclean in God’s 
sight because such meat or drink hath touched him, and so 
he needed not to be washed from that defilement. If it de- 
file at all, it doth it either from the quality, as being by God 
forbidden, and so the disobedience; or from the quantity, and 
so the excess defiles. Whence, by the rule of contraries, it 
follows, that nothing can sanctify by being touched, which 
confounds all worship of redics ; and that nothing by enter- 
ing into the mouth can make us holy, that is, more pure or 
acceptable in the sight of God; and so the sacramental ele- 
ments do not sanctify the body by the touch, but the soul 
only, by the due disposition of mind with which we receive 
them, because they go not into the heart, they operate not 
upon the spirit of man. Christ himself, whilst he was upon 
earth, made many whole, as to their bodies, by touching 


119 


aman (for there is nothing from without a man that (by) 
entering into him can defile him, Mark vii. 15); but that 
which (being in the heart) cometh out of the mouth, this 
(J say) defileth a man. (He that hath ears to hear, let 
him hear, Mark vii. 16.) 
12 Then (he being entered into the house from the peo- 
le, Mark vii. 17) came his disciples, and said unto 
1im, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were ® offended, 
after they heard this saying ? 


them; and many, by virtue of their faith, were healed by 
touching him; but we read of none whose minds or hearts 
were sanctified only by touching of his sacred body. Cere- 
monial and Judaical sanctity sometimes required freedom 
from touching a polluted body ; ὁσιότης τῆς ἀληθείας, Chris- 
tian holiness is the work only of the Spirit, and consists 
wholly in the renewal of the mind, and of the bent and in- 
clinations of the heart, and so ariseth not from the corpo- 
real, but the spiritual manducation of the sacred elements ; 
and were it otherwise, why would not the sacrament sanctify 
as well by being received into the hand, or laid upon the 
breast, as by being put into the mouth? or why should it 
more sanctify the heart it comes not to, than the draught 
through which, even by the confession of the Romanists,* 
it sometimes goes, as in case of a lientery? This doctrine is 
expressly taught by Origen} in these words, Τό ἁγιαζόμενον 
διὰ λόγου Θεοῦ καὶ ἐντεύξεως οὐ τῶ ἰδίῳ λόγῳ ἁγάιζει τὸν χρώμενον, 
“That which is sanctified by the word of God and prayer, 
sanctifies not him that useth it on its own account, for then 
it would sanctify him that receives it unworthily ;” nor 
would any upon that account be “ sick, weary, or fall asleep,” 
as St. Paul saith some did (1 Cor. xi. 30). Καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἄρτου 
τοΐνυν τοῦ Κυρίου ἡ ὠφελεία τῷ χρωμένῳ ἐστὶν, ἐπὰν ἁμιαντῷ τῷ 
νῷ καὶ καϑαρᾷ τῆ συνειδήσει μεταλαμβάνει τοῦ ἄρτου" and so “in 
the receiving the Lord’s body, the profit ariseth by receiving 
the bread with a mind undefiled and a pure conscience ; 
καὶ τό ἁγιαζόμενον βρῶμα διὰ λόγου Θεοῦ καὶ ἐντεύξεως, κατ᾽ αὐτὸ 
μέν τὸ ὑλικὸν eis τὴν κοιλίαν χωρεῖ, καὶ els ἀφεδρῶνα ἐκβάλλεται, 
and so the meat sanctified by the word of God and prayer, 
according to its material part, goes into the belly, and is 
cast out into the draught.” And here it is to be wondered 
that the learned Huetius} should say, this is to be under- 
stood de solis speciebus sive accidentibus, “ only of the acci- 
dents inhering in the substance of the bread,” for if the 
substance of the bread remains after consecration, then tran- 
substantiation is by him denied; if it be annihilated, how 
can the accidents inhere in that which is not? Moreover, 
can the mere accidents be truly βρῶμα, meat 2? Are they the 
“bread consecrated by the word and prayer,” or that which 
may be eaten “ unworthily Ὁ Are they ὕλη τοῦ ἄρτου, “ the 
substance of the bread,” or σῶμα τυπικὸν καὶ συμβολικὸν, 
“Christ’s typical body ?” Let Huetius show one instance 
from primitive antiquity where mere accidents are so called, 
or confess he wrests these words to a sense of which Origen 
never thought. 

9 Ver. 12. Of φαρισαῖοι ἀκούσαντες τὸν λόγον ἑσκανδαλίσϑησαν" 
The pharisees hearing this word were scandalized.] i. 6. 
They were induced by it, not to reject their own, but Christ’s 
doctrine, and to deny him to be the true Messiah : and this 
scandal seems to have had its rise from a false opinion which 
obtained among them, that the meats forbidden them by the 
law of Moses were therefore forbidden, because, as Maimo- 
nides§ saith, alimentum habent vitiosum, “they yield a 
Vicious or corrupt nourishment ;” or, as Josephus|| saith, 
“because the things they were permitted to eat, were τὰ μὲν 
oixewwSnobpsva ἡμῶν ταῖς ψυχαῖς, accommodated to, or conve- 
nient for, their souls; but the things forbidden were τὰ évav- 
τιωθησόμενα, contrary to them;” and they by eating them 


* Si ob aliquem morbum species descenderet in ventrem, 
consequentér et ipsum corpus descenderet, et emitteretur ; 
pudor enim non debet esse in causé negandi veritatem. 
Soto in 4 Sent. Dis. 12, qu. 1, art. 3. Paludan. in 4 Sent 
Dis. 9, qu. 1, art. 2. 

ἡ In Mat. tom. xi. apud Huet. p. 253, E. 254, A, B, C. 

+ Origeniana, lib. ii. qu. 14, p. 178. 

§ More Nevoc. lib. iii. cap. 48. 

|| Lib. de Maccab. cap. 5. 


120 


13 But he answered and said, 1 Every plant (Gr. 
nursery of plants), which my heavenly Father hath 
not planted, shall be rooted up (these blind guides, and 
usurpers of that authority over men’s conscience, which 
they have not received from God, shall by him be rooted 
out). 

14 " Let them (therefore) alone (to the divine judg- 
ment ; for) they be blind leaders of the blind. And if 
the blind lead the blind, both shall (αὐ /ast) fall into 
the ditch. 

15 Then answered Peter (and by him the disciples, 
Mark vii. 17) and said unto him, Declare unto us (the 
meaning of ) this parable. 

16 And Jesus said, 5. Are ye also yet without un- 
derstanding ? 

17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever en- 
tereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is 
cast out into the draught? (and so cannot defile the 
man, because it entereth not into the heart, to raise wp 
evil motions there, or it affects not the mind, Mark vii. 
18, 19.) 

18 But those things which ™ proceed out of the 


did μιαροφαγεῖν, “eat that which defiled the soul:” they 
therefore were scandalized at our Saviour’s doctrine, because 
they judged it contrary to the law (see the note on Matt. 
Xvili. 6). 

10 Ver. 13. But he answered and said, Maca φυτεῖα, 
Every (nursery of) plant (5) which my Father hath not 
planted, shall be rooted out.| That is, saith Theophylact, 
Tas τῶν πρεσβυτέρων παραδόσεις, καὶ τὰ ᾿Ιουδάϊκα ἐντάλματα λέγει 
ἐκριζωϑῆναι, “ He speaks of the extirpation of the traditions 
of the elders, and of the judicial precepts ;” and this is cer- 
tainly true of those commandments of men: but the context 
inclines us to interpret this of the hypocritical sect of the 
pharisees, for they are the persons “ scandalized,” ver. 12, 
and the “ blind guides,” ver. 14, and therefore are in likeli- 
hood the φυτεῖα, or plantation, mentioned in this verse. For 
though I find them in the chair of Moses (Matt. xxiii. 2), 
I find not that they had any divine commission to be teach- 
ers of the people ; though what they or any man truly taught 
from Moses was to be observed. Our Saviour seems rather 
to compare them to “ thieves or robbers,” John x. 1 (see the 
note there). And whatever might be their first institution, 
they were so degenerated from it into blind and pernicious 
guides, as not to be of God’s planting, and therefore to be 
rooted out. 

Every plant which my Father hath not planted shall be 
rooted out.| Hence some infer, saith Jerome, that the plant 
which God hath planted cannot be rooted up: but let them 
hear, saith he, the words of the prophet, speaking thus in 
the name of God (Jer. ii. 21) ; “1 had planted thee a true 
vine: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of 
a strange vine? Plantavit quidem Deus, et nemo potest 
eradicare plantationem ejus, sed quoniam isto plantatio in 
voluntate proprii arbitrii est, nullus alius eam eradicare po- 
terit, nisi ipsa prebuerit assensum: God plants, and no 
other man can root up his plantation; but this plantation 
being in the free will of man, he himself can do it.” 

Dr. Mills, in this chapter, rejects the text in four places, 
without just ground, and against plain evidence for the 
reading of the text; v. g. in those words, ver. 4, τίμα τὸν 
πατέρα cov, he saith, cov is wanting in many MSS,, in Ire- 
neus, and Chrysostom; but it is in Origen, on Matt. p. 244, 
and in Theophylact, in the Syriac, and Arabic: and though 
it be wanting in the Latin Irenezus, as being not in the Vul- 
gar, yet Chrysostom saith expressly there, τίμα yap, φῆσι; 
τὸν πατέρα cov, and the words following, καὶ μὴ τιμήση τὸν 
πατέρα αὐτοῦ, Show that σοῦ is to be retained; nor can the 
words bind us to honour any other father save our own. 
2, Whereas, ver. 8, the text saith, ἐγγίζει μοὶ ὁ λαὸς οὗτος τῷ 
στύματι αὐτῶν, kat τοῖς χείλεσί pe τιμᾷ" the genuine reading, 
saith the Doctor, both here and in Isaiah, Cod. Alex. and 
March. is this, & λαὸς οὗτος χείλεσί μὲ τιμᾷ. But Origen,* 
after all his labours about the Septuagint, knew of no such 


* Py 24, 


MATTHEW. 


mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the 
man (in the sight of that God, who loveth purity in the 
inward parts). 

19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts (or 
reasonings), murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, 
false witness, blasphemies (covetousness, wickedness, 
deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, pride, foolishness, Mark 
vii. 22): : 

20 These are the things which defile a man: but 
to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. 

21 4 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into 
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon (and he entered into a 
house, and would have no man know it, but he could not 
be hid from them, Mark vii. 24). 

22 "αὶ And, behold, a woman of Canaan (whose young 
daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and) 
came out of the same coasts (and fell at his feet, 
Mark vii. 25), and cried unto him, saying, Have 
mercy on me, Ὁ Lord, thou son of David; my daugh- 
ter is grievously vexed with a devil (I beseech thee cast 
him forth). 

23 But he answered her not a word. And his dis- 


reading, either here or in Isaiah; for in his commentary on 
these words of St. Matthew, he teacheth, that our Lord 
being willing to destroy all the traditions of the pharisees 
by a testimony from the prophets, λόγον παρέϑετο ῥητὸν ἀπὸ 
τοῦ ᾿Ισαίου ὅσπερ αὐταῖς λέζεσιν αὕτως ἔχει, Kai εἶπε 6 Κύριος, 
ἐγγίζει μοὶ ὃ λαὸς οὕτως ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν, καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς" “he 
produces a passage spoken by Isaiah which occurs there in 
these very words, ἐγγίζει poi,’ ἄς. And indeed these words 
are found there, both in the Hebrew and the Septuagint ; 
and so our Saviour here producing them from thence thus, 
“Well said Isaiah, prophesying of you, λέγων, saying,” 
doubtless produced his words as he found them there. 3. 
On these words, ver. 26, οὐκ ἐστὶ καλὸν" καλὸν, saith he, is 
added to the text; and yet it is found in Chrysostom, St. 
Jerome, Theophylact, the Vulgar, Syriac, and Arabic. 4. 
Ver, 30, he rejects κωφοὺς, and ver. 31, κυλλοὺς ὑγιεῖς, as ad- 
ditions to the text, against the evidence of the words: for if 
κωφοὺς Were not in the thirtieth verse, how comes κωφοὺς λα- 
Nodvras into ver. 31? and if κυλλοὺς be the true reading, ver. 
30, κυλλοὺς ὑγιεῖς must answer to it, ver. 31. 

1 Ver. 14. “Agere αὐτοὺς, Let them alone.] Regard not 
what they say or do against me or my doctrine, seeing they 
say and do it out of the blindness of their minds. Hence 
observe, 

First, That the scandal of wicked and perverse men is 
only to be avoided, as that we do not cease to do our duty, 
or as to refuse their pernicious doctrines and destructive 
courses. 

Secondly, That sometimes the vulgar are obliged not te 
believe or comply with the rules of their ecclesiastical supe- 
riors; because it is their duty never to follow them “into 
the ditch.” 

12 Ver. 16. ᾿Ακμὴν καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀσύνετοί ἐστε; Are ye also still 
without understanding ?| That therefore this parable was 
not understood by them, must be ascribed not to the obscu- 
rity of it, but to the prejudices and slowness of understand- 
ing that were in his disciples. 

13 Ver. 18. Ta dé ἐκπορευύμενα----ἐκ τῆς καρδίας κοινοῖ τὸν ἄν- 
θρωπον: But the things that come—out of the heart, they 
defile the man.] See note on Mark vii. 20, 21. 

M4 Ver. 22. Καὶ ἰδοὺ, γυνὴ Kavavata: And, behold, a woman 
of Canaan; Mark vii. 26, γυνὴ 'Ἑλληνὶς καὶ Συροφοίνισσα, a 
gentile Syrophenician.] The same person, who is called 
“one of Canaan” in the Hebrew, is in the Septuagint “a 
Pheenician.” . So Exod. vi. 15, we read of “ Shaul the son 
of a Canaanitish woman ;” LXX. Σαοὺλ ὃ ἐκ τῆς Φοινίσσης" 
Gen. xlvi. 10, τῆς Κανανίτιδος: Exod. xvi. 35, “ they came 
unto the borders of the land of Canaan;” ΤΠ ΧΑ, eis μέρος 
τῆς Φοινίκης" Josh. v. 12, they did eat of the fruit “of the 
land of Canaan,” éxapricavro δὲ τὴν χώραν τῆς Φοινίκης. Now 
seeing Pliny* doth inform us, Syria circumfundi Phenicem, 
that “ Pheenicia is comprehended in Syria,” the Pheenician 


* Lib. v. cap. 12. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


ciples came and besought him, saying, (Grant her 
request, and so) send her away; for she (sil) crieth 
after us. 

24 But he answered and said (to them) % 1 am not 
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel (/o 
preach to, and work miracles first among them). 

25 Then came she (the second time) and worshipped 
him, saying, Lord, help me. 

26 But he answered and said (lo her, Let the 
children first be filled; Mark vii. 27, for) ® it is 
not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it 
to dogs. 

27 And she said, " Truth (Gr. J beseech thee), Lord : 
yet (xai γὰρ for even) the dogs eat of the crambs which 
fall from their master’s table (or of the children’s crumbs, 
Mark vii. 28). 

28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O 
woman, * great 7s thy faith: be it unto thee even as 
thou wilt (the devil is gone out of thy daughter ; and 
when she was come to her house, she found it so, Mark 
vii. 29, 30). And her daughter was made whole from 
that very hour. 

29 And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh 
unto the sea of Galilee? and went up into a mountain, 
and sat down there. 

30 And great multitudes came unto him, having 
with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, 
and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet ; 
and he healed them: 

31 Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when 


121 
they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, 
the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glo- 
rified the God of Israel. 

32 4 Then (the multitude being very great, and having 
nothing to eat, Mark viii. 1) Jesus called his disciples 
unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multi- 
tude, because they continue with me now three days, 
and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them 
away fasting, lest they faint in the way (for some of 
them cone from fe Mark viii. 3). 

33 And his disciples say unto him, Whence should 
we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so 
great a multitude ? 

34 And Jesus said unto them, How many loaves 
have ye? and they said, Seven, and a few little fishes. 

35 And he commanded the multitude to sit down 
on the ground. 

36 And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, 
and gave thanks te God for them), and brake them, 
and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the 
multitude. 

37 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they 
took up of the broken meat that was left seven bas- 
kets full. 

38 And they that did eat were four thousand men, 
beside women and children. 

39 And he sent away the multitude, and took ship, 
and came into the 19 coasts of Magdala (or Dalmanu- 
tha, Mark viii. 10, which was within the bounds of 
Magdala). 


woman must be a Syropheenician woman; and Phoenicia 
being also Canaan (Bochart. Phaleg. lib. iv. cap. 34. 36), 
she must be a Canaanitish woman (see the note of Dr. Ham- 
mond here). 

15 Ver. 24. Οὐκ ἀπεστάλην" I was not sent but to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel.) By the “lost sheep of Is- 
rael,’ we are to understand the whole nation of the Jews, 
who being as sheep dispersed, having no shepherd, are there- 
fore called “lost sheep,” Matt. ix. 36, x. 6. ‘To them the 
Messias was first promised, to them he first came J ohn i. 
11). He is styled “a minister of the circumcision,” Rom. 
a 8, and was first to be preached to the Jews (Acts xiii. 
46). 
6 Ver. 26. Jt is not meet to take the children’s bread, 
καὶ βαλεῖν τοῖς κυναρίοις, and to cast it to dogs.) He calls them 
dogs, saith Theophylact, διὰ τοὺς ἐϑνικοὺς ἀκάϑαρτον βίον ἔχειν, 
“because the gentiles led an impure life, and were conver- 
sant about the blood of things offered to idols ;” or perhaps 
he doth so far comply with the language of the Jews, as to 
call this woman “ dog,” because he is here representing of a 
Jew, or a pharisee: (1.) not vouchsafing her one word of 
answer ; because they thought such persons wholly neglected 
by God, and unworthy to be regarded by them: and (2.) 
calling her “dog,” according to the common saying of the 
Jews, that “the nations of the world were likened to dogs,” 
whereas they were “God’s sons and daughters’’ (see the 
note on Luke xv. 1, 2, and on Phil. iii. 2). 

"Ver. 27. Ἢ δὲ εἶπε, Nai Κύριε’ But she said, I beseech 
thee, Lord.) The word vai as the Hebrew δ), imports be- 


seeching ; as they say, “nay is not put, but in the way of 

tition:”’ so Gen. xviii. 30, 32, “I pray thee, let not my 

ord be angry ;” Gen. xix. 7, x) $x “I pray you, brethren, 
do not so wickedly ;’ Numb. xii. 13, a9 ΝΣ ΝΡῸ δ), “Lpray 
thee, heal her; Philem. 20, vai ἄδελφε, “I pray thee, bro- 
ther:” so also is it used in profane authors: so Aristo- 
phanes,* vai πρὸς τῶν ϑεῶν" “1 pray thee, by the gods;” so 
Euripides, vai πρὸς σῆς τῆς detias εὐωλένου, “J pray thee, by 
that fair right hand.” 

18 Ver. 28. Μεγάλη cov ἡ πίστις" Great ts thy faith} 
That having no promise to rely upon, and suffering so 
many repulses with such seeming contempt, thou still re- 
tainest a good hope of my kindness and mercy, great is thy 
faith. The faith of those who firmly rely upon God’s pro- 
mise, and are not by great temptations and afflictions moved 
from their confidence, is praiseworthy ; but highly excellent 
is their faith, who, depending only on his goodness, do place 
an humble confidence in God: whence we may learn, that 
the faith of gentiles is not only pleasing to God, but some- 
times more excellent than that of those to whom the pro- 
mises belong; viz. when upon a lesser motive it brings forth 
equal fruits, 

19 Ver. 39. Καὶ ἤἦλϑεν εἰς τὰ ὅρια Μαγδαλὰ. He came into 
the coasts of Magdala.] Mark viii. 10, “into the parts of 
Dalmanutha,” which was, saith Dr. Lightfoot, a particular 
place within the bounds of Magdala (Chorograph. Decad. 
on Mark v.). 


* Num. act. 2, §. 1, p. 167. 7 Hip. V. 605. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


1 Tue Pharisees also with the Sadducees came 
(Gr. and the pharisees and sadducees coming), and 
! tempting (Atm) desired him that (Gr. they tempting 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI. 


1 Ver. 1. Πειράζοντες αὐτὸν, Tempting him.] i. e. Making 
trial whether he was able to do this, or not; or doubting 
whether he could show such a sign as the Son of man, ac- 
cording to Daniel, was to do (see the note on Matt. iv. 7, 
xii. 38). And because they came to him with an appear- 

Vor. [V.—16 


him, desired that) he would shew them a sign from 
heaven. 
2 He answered and (Gr. but he answering) said 


ance of their willingness to be convinced that he was the 
Messiah, could they see proofs sufficient of it; whereas 
| they had already resisted the clearest evidence that he was 
| the Christ, and so indeed came not to be convinced that he 
was so, but hoping he would fail in the attempt, and so ap 
pear not to be so, therefore Christ calls them both “hypo- 
crites.” 4 


122 


unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be 
fair weather: for the sky is red (and bright without 
clouds). 

3 And in the morning (ye say), Jt will be foul 
weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering (the 
clouds obstructing the brightness of the sun.) O ye 
hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky (have 
skill enough to discern what kind of weather it is like to 
be, by what at present ye observe in the colour of the 
sky); but can ye not discern (can ye not then discern) 
2 the sions of the times? (Can you not discern from 
the heavenly doctrine which I preach, and the mighty 
miracles by which I confirm it, the sign of the Son of 
man coming among you? It is a sure sign of your 
hypocrisy, that after all this, you are still doubting of it, 
and requiring farther signs to confirm this. TI therefore 
say to you, not without grief of spirit for your unbelicf, 
Mark viii. 12, that) 

4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after 
a sign; and there shall no (farther) sign be given 
unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas (for as his 
being preserved three days in the whale’s belly, and then 
cast out safe on the dry land, was a sign of his being 
a true prophet, sent to preach to Nineveh, and call them 
to repentance ; so my being buried three days in the earth, 
and then rising up thence, shall be to you a sign that I 
am also a prophet, sent from God to call you to repentance). 
And (having said this) he left them, and (going in a 
ship to the other side of the sea, Mark viii. 13, he) de- 
parted (from them). 

5 And when his disciples were come (to him) to the 
other side, they had forgotten to take bread (having but 
one loaf with them in the ship, Mark viii. 14). 

6 4 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and 


MATTHEW. 


’ beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the 
Sadducees (7. ε. of their doctrines and manners, which 
swell and sour its disciples, as leaven doth the bread with 
which it is mixed ). 

7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, Jt 
is (he speaks thus to us) because we have taken no 
bread. 

8 Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, 
O ye of little faith, why reason ye (¢hus) among your- 
selves (as if ye were like to famish), because ye have 
brought no bread (and are bid to beware of the leaven of 
the pharisees) 3 

9 Do ye not yet understand (mor consider), neither 
remember the five loaves (which fed the number) of the 
five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up 
(even twelve) ? 

10 Neither the seven loaves (which fed the number) 
of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took 
up? (even seven: have you your hearts yet hardened 3 
having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? 
Mark vili. 17, 18. Jf it be otherwise) 

11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake 
it (this) not to you concerning bread, that ye should 
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sad- 
ducees ? (as knowing by these instances, I cannot be wn- 
able to provide bread for myself and you, and therefore 
could not upon that account speak of bread.) 

12 Then understood they how that he bade them 
not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine 
of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. 

13 4 When Jesus came (with his disciples, Mark 
viii. 27) into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked 
his disciples (being alone with them, Luke ix. 18), say- 
ing, 4 Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 


2 Ver. 3. Σημεῖα τῶν καιρῶν": The signs of the times.] 
That is, say Grotius and the Syriac, the signs of these times; 
but this seems needless, οἱ καιροὶ, the times or seasons, both 
in the Old and New Testament, signifying set times and 
seasons, appointed by God; and those were either ordinary 
and stated times, as when the luminaries of heaven are 
said to be appointed εἰς σημεῖα καὶ καιροὺς, “ for signs and for 
seasons” (Gen. i. 14, Ps. civ. 19), and God is said to have 
given to the heathens, προτεταγμένους καιροὺς, “the seasons 
appointed’’ from the beginning of the world (Acts xvii. 26) ; 
or extraordinary seasons, in which God had determined to 
visit his people, either in mercy or in judgment; so καιρὸς, 
and καιροῦ πέρας, “time” and “the period of time,” are 
often used in Daniel, vii. 22, viii. 19, xi. 27. 29. In the 
New Testament, Christ is thus said to come “ in the fullness 
of time,” and “in the dispensation τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν, 
of the fullness of times” (Eph. i. 10); and at his advent 
the phrase runs thus, πεπλήρωται 6 καιρὸς “the time is ful- 
filled” (Mark i. 15): so when Christ’s apostles ask, “ Wilt 
thou now restore the kingdom to Israel?” Christ answers, 
“Tt is not for you to know χρόνους ἢ καιροῦς, the times or 
seasons” (Actsi.17). In this sense the apostle saith to 
the Thessalonians, It is not needful to write to you περὶ τῶν 
χρόνων καὶ καιρῶν, “ of the times and seasons” (1 Thess. v. 
1): in this sense it is said of Christ’s signal coming to de- 
stroy Jerusalem, 6 καιρὸς, “the time is near” (Luke xxi. 8. 
24). Now all such seasons had their prognostics, which 
are here styled “the signs of the times.” 

Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but 
can ye not discern the signs of the times 5] Here Jerome 
again saith, Hoe in plerisque codicibus non habetur ; whereas 
though the word “hypocrites” be wanting in Chrysostom 
and the Vulgar, and some versions, yet the sentence is in all 
the Greek scholiasts, and in all the versions; so little rea- 
son have we to depend upon his testimony here. More- 
over, the word “hypocrites” is in Theophylact, the Syriac, 
and Arabic, and in the parallel place, Luke vii. 56, and so 
was certainly the word used by Christ, since otherwise St. 
Luke must have added to his words. 

3 Ver. 6. Προσέχετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν φαρισαίων καὶ cad- 


ουκαίων" Beware of the leaven of the pharisees and of 


the sadducees.| Mark viii. 15,“ And of Herod,” (see the 
note there). This leaven is, ver. 12, interpreted to be the 
doctrine of those sects, as διδαχὴ imports both doctrines to 
be believed, and traditions or ordinances to be received from 
them ; and so it is a caution to avoid the precepts of those 
men who place the sum of their religion and worship in 
outward performances, which avail nothing to the sanctifica- 
tion of the soul: and such were the traditions of the scribes 
and pharisees ; and also such doctrines as tended to subvert 
religion, by cutting off all hopes of future blessings after this 
life, and turning the kingdom of God into an earthly and 
a worldly kingdom, as did the doctrines of the sadducees. 
Dr. Lightfoot saith, that leaven in the notion of the Jews 
did seldom signify doctrines, but generally affections, and 
pravity of heart, which signification also it generally bears 
in scripture ; sometimes relating to hypocrisy, as in a like 
place, Luke xii. 1, “ Beware of the leaven of the pharisees, 
which is hypocrisy ;” and sometimes to “the leaven of ma- 
lice and wickedness,” opposed to sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 
v. 8). This being fitly compared to leaven, because it ρα ΠΣ 
eth up our spirits, and sours our tempers (see note on 1 
Cor. v. 8). 

4Ver. 13. Τίνα pe λέγουσιν of ἄνθρωποι εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ 
ανϑρώπου; Whom do men say that I the Son of man am 3] 
Some look upon these words, τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπον, “the Son 
of man,” as a gloss crept into the text, but it is read by Ire- 
nexus, lib. iii. 20, by Epiphanius, by Chrysostom, St. Jerome, 
Theophylact, and all the versions, and therefore it is unrea- 
sonably questioned; others look upon these words as of no 
special signification, because wot mentioned by St. Mark or 
Luke, the first saying only, “ Whom do men say ?” (viii. 27), 
the other, “ Whom do the people say that I am? (ix. 18.) 
Asif I should say, the words “given,” Luke xiv. 19, or 
“broken,” 1 Cor. xi. 23, 24, were of no special significa- 
tion, because they are not mentioned by the evangelists St. 
Matthew and St. Mark (Matt. xxvi. 26, Mark xiv. 22). 
Dr. Lightfoot’s conjecture is, that Christ here inquires not 
barely whether the people thought him the Christ, but 
what kind of person they thought him to be, the Jews then 
doubting of his original, who was to be the Messiah, and 
whether he was to come from the living or the dead. And 


CHAPTER XVI. 


τ 14 And they said, Some say that thow art § John 
the Baptist (risen from the dead); some, (that thou 
art) Elias (the forerunner of the Messiah) ; and others, 
(that thou art) Jeremias, or one of the prophets (they 
thinking none alive holy enough to be a prophet sent from 
God). 

15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I 
am? 

16 And Simon Peter answered and said, δ Thou art 
the Christ, the Son of the living God. 

17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed 


123 


art thou, Simon Bar (Heb. the son of) Jona: for 
7 flesh and blood hath not revealed it (thzs) unto thee, 
but my Father which is in heaven (this faith thou 
couldest not learn from the testimony of man, but only 
Srom divine testimony, that of my doctrine, and my mira- , 
cles, which the Father that is in me enables me to teach 
and do). 

18 And (as a suitable return to this confession) 1 
say also unto thee, That thou art (by name) ® Peter 
(that is, a rock), and upon (thee who art) this rock I 
will build my church (/aying the first foundation of it 


evident it is, that the word riva often relates to the quality. 
So John viii. 53, τίνα, “whom makest thou thyself?’ 1 
Sam. xvii. 55, sp 12 the son of what kind of person is this 
youth? and thus it may retain its usual import. 

5 Ver, 14, Οἱ piv ᾿Ιωάννην τὸν Βαπτίστην, ἄλλοι δὲ ᾿Ηλίαν, 
ἕτεροι δὲ "Ἱερεμίαν, &e. Some John the Baptist ; others, Elias ; 
others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.) Perhaps they 
who held Christ to be Elias, did not think him the promised 
Messiah, but only his forerunner; this being the received 
opinion of the whole nation, that Elias was to come before 
the Messiah, and to anoint him when he came. ‘They who 
thought he was “John the Baptist risen from the dead,” 
speak suitably to the opinion of the pharisees, who, saith 
Josephus,* held there was for good men, ῥαστώνη τοῦ ἀναβίοῦν, 
“an easy return to life again:” that he was “ Jeremias, or 
one of the prophets,” was the consequent of an opinion that 
prevailed in that nation, that the Messias was to come, “ not 
from the living, but from the dead,” they thinking none of 
that age of piety sufficient to bear him, and thinking that the 
resurrection was to begin with his kingdom, might easily be 
induced to think he should be one that should rise from the 
dead. And then God haying said peculiarly of Jeremiah, 
“ Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before 
thou camest out of the womb I sanctified and ordained 
thee a prophet to the nations,” i. 5, and ver. 10, «See, I 
have set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to 
root ouf, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw 
down, to plant, and to build ;” and this being, in their opi- 
nion, the great business of the king Messiah, to pull down 
all the nations that ruled over them, and make them tribu- 
taries and servants to the Jews; for this cause might they 
pitch on him as the fittest person to be their Messiah. And 
then in these words, I see no footsteps, of a metempsychosis, 
but only of a resurrection, according to those words of St. 
Luke (ix. 19), « Others say, that one of the old prophets 
Was risen again.” 

δ Ver. 16. Σύ εἶ ὁ Χριστὸς, ὃ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ ζῶντος, Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God.] Here let it be noted, 

First, That what Peter here professeth, was before the 
faith, and the acknowledgment of all Christ’s disciples ; for 
they coming out of the ship, said, ἀληθῶς Θεοῦ υἱὸς et, «Truly 
thou art the Son of God” (Matt. xiv. 33). And therefore 
Peter himself saith of them, as well as of himself, « We 
know and have believed that thou art that Cnrist, the Son 
of the living God” (John vi. 69). 

Secondly, But whereas some conclude, that these words, 
“the Son of the living God,” signify nothing more than the 
Messiah ; because St. Mark relates the answer of Peter 
thus, “Thou art the Christ of God ;” and what in St. Mat- 
thew (xxvi. 63) runs thus, “ Art thou the Christ, the Son 
of the living God?” is in St. Luke (xxii. 67), “Art thou 
the Christ ?” I own that hence it may be gathered, that he 
that was the Christ, was also the Son of God; but yet I 
think there is this difference betwixt the two phrases, that 
the one respects his office, the other his original; though 
perhaps neither Nathanael (John i. 50), nor the other Jews, 
nor the apostles, used it in that sublime sense in which the 
Christians did afterward take it. 

7 Ver. 17. Σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα οὐκ ἀπεκάλυψέ σοι. Flesh and blood 
hath not revealed this to thee, but my Father which is in 
heaven.) That flesh and blood, both in the scripture and 
the Jewish writers, constantly signifies man, as being com- 
pounded of flesh and blood, see the note on Gal. i. 16. So 
that the import of the words is this, What others say of me, 
thou hast learnt from men, but this faith thou hast professed 


* Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 2. 


concerning me, though it required in thee an attention, ora 
due consideration of, and an assent to the proofs given of it, 
yet these proofs being the doctrine taught from God, and the 
miracles wrought in confirmation of it being wrought by the 
finger of God, the faith itself must be acknowledged to be 
the result, not of human industry or wisdom, but of divine 
revelation; and in learning of it thou must be said to be 
Ocodidaxros, “taught of God ;’’ the doctrine believed being 
the words of God, and the miracles which confirm it being 
wrought by the power of God. They who carry this higher, 
and say that Peter had a peculiar revelation of this matter, 
not vouchsafed to any others, and that without this he could 
not have owned and embraced Christ as the Son of God, 
must not only suppose the like special revelation given to 
Nathanael, contrary to our Lord’s own words (John i. 50), 
«“ Because I said, I saw thee under the fig-tree, believest 
thou?” and to the centurion, who, “seeing the earthquake, 
and the things which were done” when Jesus gave up the 
ghost, said, “Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. xxvii. 
54), and to all others who had the same faith ; but must ex- 
cuse all those Jews who did not believe this, it being not in 
their power to do so, for want of this peculiar revelation ; 
whereas our Saviour still appeals to the works that he had 
done among them, as to sufficient testimonies that he was 
“the Christ, the Son of God” (John v. 36, 37, viii. 18, x. 
25. 38, xiv. 11); and also saith, “ Except ye believe that I 
am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John viii. 24). 

8 Ver. 18. Ka yw dé σοὶ λέγω, drt od εἰ Πέτρο: And I say 
unto thee, Thou art Peter.] Here note, 

That in these words, our Lord doth speak not in the ge- 
neral to his apostles, but in particular to Peter; and that 
that promise was made particularly to him, seems evident 
from these considerations ; 

First, That the text informs, that Simon Peter, “Simon 
the son of Jona,” made that confession, which gave occasion 
to these words, and that our Lord εἶπεν αὐτῷ, “did answer 
him” as followeth: as if he should have said, “ As thou 
Peter hast said of me, that I am Christ, so say I now of 
thee, that thou art Peter;’’ if therefore of the rest of the 
apostles it cannot properly be said, “thou art Peter,” much 
less that they were “sons of Jona,” our Lord must speak 
only to him who properly was so: and if the text saith ex- 
pressly, that our Lord spake to him, and doth not mention 
any others that were spoken to, it is a plain addition to the 
text to say, that our Lord equally did speak to others. More- 
over, when our Lord put the question to them all, « Whom 
do men say that lam?” and they in general replied, « Some 
thought that he was John the Baptist, some said he was 
Elias, some Jeremias, or one of the prophets;” our Lord 
inquires farther, ὑμεῖς δὲ, “ Whom do you apostles say I 
am?’’ Now to this question, had they continued all to an- 
swer, as some imagine they in the person of St. Peter did ; 
why is it not said as before, of δὲ εἶπον, “ they said,” but only 
St. Peter answered? Why doth not Christ continue, as be- 
fore, to speak to them in the plural number, but so pecu- 
liarly direct his speech to the “son of Jona?” 

Secondly, Moreover, that Christ here promised to build 
his church upon St. Peter, seems farther evident; because 
these words contain a manifest allusion to the name of Peter, 
and to that Syriac name of Cephas, which our Lord had 
given him, both which do signify a rock or stone, as if our 
Lord had said, Thou art by name a rock, and suitable to 
that name shall be thy work and office ; for upon thee, i. ο. 
upon thy preaching, as upon a rock, shall the foundation of 
my church be laid: now the whole grace of this allusion is 
entirely lost, unless we do expound this passage of St. 
Peter’s person, and not of his confession, or the object of it. 


124 


wpon thy preaching to the Jews, Acts ii. 41. 47, and to 
the gentiles, Acts x. 5. 44. 48, xv. 7); and the 3 gates 
of hell (ὦ. 6. death itself) shall not prevail against it 


MATTHEW. 


(so as to hinder that resurrection to eternal life, which I 
have promised to those that believe in my name, John vi: 
39, 40. 44. 54. 


As therefore when God said to Abraham, “'Thy name shall 

* be called Abraham; for a father of many nations have I 
made thee” (Gen. xvii. 5): and to Jacob, “'Thy name 
shall be called Israel: for as a prince thou hast prevailed 
with God and men” (Gen. xxxii. 28) ; the following words 
are still the reason of the name : so may it rationally be con- 
ceived, that when Christ said to the son of Jona, “'Thou art 
Peter,” the following words which are joined to them with 
a conjunction copulative, “and on this rock will I build my 
church,” contain the reason of that appellation. 

Thirdly, The demonstrative article this, contained in the 
words “this rock,” doth plainly intimate, that our Lord pro- 
mised to build his church upon that rock he had now men- 
tioned; now of what rock did he make mention in any other 
words than the foregoing ? “Thou art Peter ;” i.e. thy name 
doth signify a rock. 

Fourthly, It cannot rationally be doubted but that our 
Lord intended to say something singular to Peter, as the re- 
ward of his so singular confession, if we consider either the 
words preceding, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona; for 
flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee:” or the 
immediate preface of them, κἀγὼ δέ σοι λέγω, “ And 1 do 
also say to thee, That thou art Peter; but had Christ 
spoken not of St. Peter, whom he had formerly called 
Cephas, when he made mention of the rock on which he did 
intend to build his church, but either of himself or the con- 
fession of St. Peter, he had said nothing singular concern- 
ing this apostle; Christ’s building of his church upon him- 
self, or on this truth, that he was the Messiah, or the Son of 
God, being no singular reward of Peter. 

Lastly, When our Lord adds in the ensuing words, « And 
I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven;” i. 6. 
I will cause thee first to open the kingdom of heaven by 
preaching tu the Jews and gentiles, and laying the founda- 
tion of a church among them; it is evident by the connex- 
ion of the words he speaks to Peter. When therefore he 
had said in the foregoing words, “Upon this rock I will 
build my church,” why should we not conceive he speaks of 
the same person? But then also let it be noted, that by this 
explication of the words which I contend for, all the pre- 
tences of the pope of Rome, to be successor of St. Peter, are 
not established, but most effectually overthrown ; as will be 
evident, if we consider the promise, that our Lord would 
build his church upon him, and how that promise was fulfilled. 

First, then, Observe that our Lord speaks here of his 
church, not as a thing in present being, or as a building 
now erected, but as hereafter to be raised, and therefore 
doth not say, οἰκοδομῶ, “I build” at present, but ofxodopjaw 
upon this rock “I will” hereafter “build my church,” the 
Christian church commencing after our Saviour’s resurrec- 
tion and ascension ; of such a church to be hereafter founded 
by St. Peter’s preaching to the Jew and gentile, and the 
baptizing of men converted by his preaching, our Lord 
here plainly speaks in this text. If then the pope would 
be St. Peter’s successor in this affair, he must not sit at 
Rome lording it over God’s heritage, but must in person go 
to the unbelieving Jews and heathen world, as Peter did, 
and labour by his preaching to convert the Turk, the Jew, 
the infidel ; and when he had so done, and settled Christian 
churches there among them, he may then have a better 
title to be St. Peter’s successor than now he hath. 

Secondly, Observe this promise punctually was fulfilled, 
by our Lord’s using St. Peter’s ministry, in laying the foun- 
dation of a Christian church among the Jews and gentiles, 
and in his being the first preacher to them of that faith 
which he doth here confess, and making the first proselytes 
to it: we therefore, suitably to this promise, find that Peter 
laid the first foundations of a church among the Jews, by 
the conversion of three thousand souls (Acts ii. 41), who, 
when they gladly had embraced St. Peter’s doctrine, were 
all baptized, and then we first find mention of a Christian 
church in these words, “ And the Lord added daily to the 
church such as should be saved” (ver. 47). And the same 
apostle laid the first foundation of a church among the gen- 
tiles, by the conversion of Cornelius and his friends (Acts 
x.). For though we read before of persons in Samaria 


converted and baptized by Philip the evangelist, he being 
one of them who were dispersed though the regions of Judea 
and Samaria, upon the persecution that arose concerning 
Stephen, yet doth the Holy Ghost inform us, that they who 
were thus scattered “ preached the word to none, but only to 
the Jews” (Acts xi. 19); nor could they, suitably to their 
avowed principles, do otherwise, seeing they deemed it a 
thing unlawful to go in to, or to converse with, the uncir- 
cumcised (Acts xi. 3), and had no apprehensions that God 
would grant repentance unto life to the gentiles Oa 18). 
Wherefore, to qualify St. Peter for this work, the Lord doth 
by a vision convince him of the lawfulness of preaching the 
glad tidings of salvation to the heathen world, and of con- 
versing with them for that end; and in pursuance of this 
promise made to Peter, he commands Cornelius to send, 
not to Jerusalem to James and John, not to Damascus for 
St. Paul, but to Joppa for St. Peter, whom Christ had by 
this promise appointed for that work, that from him “he 
might hear those words by which he and his whole house- 
hold should be saved.” And in relation to this promise of 
our Lord, as well as the completion of it by the conversion 
of Cornelius, it seems to be that this apostle doth, in the 
synod met at Jerusalem, speak thus, « Men and brethren you 
know how that a good while ago, ἀφ᾽ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων, God 
chose me out among you, that by my mouth the gentiles 
should hear the word” (Acts xv. 7). He therefore was as- 
suredly the person who first preached the gospel fo the 
gentiles, and by doing so opened the kingdom of heaven to 
them; he was the person chosen by Christ to perform this 
work; he was chosen by him ἀφ᾽ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων, “from the 
beginning of Christ's preaching,” when he was called Cephas 
with relation to it, Nor is this exposition any new fancy 
of my own; it is as ancient as Tertullian,* who saith that 
Christ did personally confer this honour on St. Peter, say- 
ing, “ Upon thee will I build my church; sic enim exitus 
docuit, in ipso ecclesia exstructa est, i. e. per ipsum, ipse 
clavem imbuit, so the event doth teach, the church was 
built on him, that is, by him, he hanselled first the key :” he 
preached that sermon by which three thousand Jews were 
brought into the faith, he laid the first foundation of a 
church among the gentiles, he first by baptism gave them 
entrance into “ the kingdom of heaven.” He was, saith Am- 
brose, “styled the rock, because he laid the first foundations 
of faith among the nations.’ I conclude, therefore, that the 
plain import of these words is this, That the apostle Peter, 
by preaching first to the Jew and gentile, and by baptizing 
those to whom he preached, should lay the #rst foundations 
of the Christian church, and that against the church thus 
planted by him, “the gates of hell should not prevail.” This 
being so, it is evident that in this matter St. Peter neither 
hath nor can have a successor, and that it is absurd to claim 
a title of succession to this prerogative of St. Peter; this 
being in effect to say, that the foundations of the church of 
Christ are not yet laid, and to pretend to a commission to 
perform at present what was fully done above a thousand 
six hundred years ago. 

9 Kat πύλαι δου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς, And the gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it.] Here by the “gates of 
hades,” some understand the prevalence of schism and heresy, 
of wickedness and vice; so Jerome, Ego portas inferi reor 
esse vitia et peccata, νοὶ eerté hereticorum doctrinas: others 
do understand the subtlety of Satan, the power of his temp- 
tations and assaults: but if we do examine the import of 
this phrase, “the gates of hades,” as it is used by all the an- 
cient Greeks, the Jewish writers, the Old Testament, and 
the translation of the seventy interpreters, we shall be sa- 
tisfied that it is never used by them to signify the power of 
heresy or schism, sin or Satan, and therefore cannot be ra- 
tionally supposed here to bear that sense ; but it constantly 
is used by them to signify the state of death, the place or 
receptacle of the dead, into which souls departed enter, or else 
the entrance into that place. To make this evident, consider, 

First, That the Hebrew sheol, and Greek déns, which 
answers to it in the translation of the LX-X. doth signify, 


* De Pudicitia 


CHAPTER XVI. 


19 © And I will give unto thee the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven (the power of making laws to govern 
my church): and whatsoever thou (assisted by my Spirit) 
shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and 
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed 
in heaven (7. e. thy doctrine taught by that Spirit con- 


both in the scriptures, the Jewish writers, and the ancient 
fathers, and more ancient heathens, the place and receptacle 
of the dead; ἀΐδην νεκρῶν χωρίον exponunt Greci, saith the 
learned Windate; “the Greeks call the place of the dead 
hades :” dtdns 6 τάφος, “hades is the sepulchre,” saith Hesy- 
chius: by sheol is not meant the place of the damned spi- 
rits, saith Mr. Ainsworth, but of all that go out of the world: 
whence in the Chaldee paraphrase it is styled “the house 
of the grave,” or “the place of burial.” Accordingly the 
ancient Greeks assigned one hades to all that died, whence 
they so often say ravras ὁμῶς θνητοὺς ἁΐδης ὀέγεται, “all that 
die are in hades, all men shall go to hades;” ἐν ddov συνέχονται 
ψυχαὶ δικαίων τὲ καὶ ἀδικων" “ both just and unjust go to hades,” 
saith Caius, a Roman presbyter. 

Thirdly, This place of hades is generally represented as a 
great house, or receptacle, which hath doors, and bars, and 
keys, and gates, by which the dead are said to enter; hence 
in the poets we find frequent mention of the “house of 
hades,” and the “gates of hades: hence Job cries out, 
sheol bethi, “hades is my house; and they who die are 
said, κατέλθειν εἰς a@dov δόμους, in Euripides, εἰς dap’ atéao, in 
Homer, i. e. “to go to the house of hades.” 

Thirdly, The place or receptacle of the dead being thus 
represented by the ancients, as a house that hath its doors 
and gates; death in their language is represented as the 
gate or entrance into hades; to die or to descend into the 
grave, is, in their language, “ to go down, to be brought down 
to, and to pass through, the gates of hades,” as in those 
words of Homer, ἔχθρος yap μοι κεῖνος ὅμως ἁΐδαο πυλῆσιν, “1 
hate him to the gates of hades, which does not speak as he 
thinks ;” where the scholiast informs us, that this is περί- 
φρασις ϑανάτου, “a periphrasis of death ;” τὴν ἁϊδάο iNav ἀράζει, 
“he shall knock at the gates of hades,” that is, he shall 
die, saith Theocritus ; and thus Theognis, bewailing the mi- 
series of human life, concludes, “it is best of all not to be 
born, or being born, ὥκιστα πῦλας ἁΐδαο περῆσαι, to die as 
soon as may be.” Accordingly “to live again” is in their 
language to leave, or “open the gates of death, or hades :” 
thus in Euripides the chorus sings that if Zsculapius were 
there, Alcestis might then leave dtéov πύλας, “the gates of 
hades,” and return to life, “for he can raise the dead : and 
when Menippus came from the grave he speaks thus, “ That 
he came from the gates of hades.” And suitably to this old 
notion of the gates of hades, is the constant usage of the 
phrase in the Old Testament and Jewish writers. The 
writing of Hezekiah after his recovery begins thus, “I said 
in the cutting off of my days, πορεύσομαι ἐν πῦλαις a'dov, I 
shall go to the gates of hades; I am deprived of the residue 
of my years, I shall no longer be in the land of the living” 
(Isa. xxxvili. 10, 11). And what is in the Hebrew 
mio pw, “the gates of death,” is by the LXX. translated 
πυλωροὶ ἀ δου" for so God puts the question to Job, « Will the 
gates of death open to thee?” i. e. Canst thou command 
the dead to live? or “ Hast thou seen the gates of hades?” 
(Job xxxviii. 17). Thus they who are even at death’s door 
are in the language of the psalmist said, ἐγγίζειν ἕως τῶν 
πυλῶν θανάτου, “to draw nigh to the gates of death” (Ps. 
cvii. 18). And when Ptolemeus Philopator threatened 
καταπέμψειν πρὸς ἄδην ᾿Ιουδαίους, “to kill all the Jews,” and 
the elephants were ready to fall in upon them; they cried to 
the Lord to have mercy upon them, ἤδη πρὸς πύλας @dov καθεσ- 
τῶτες, “being just at the point of death” (Mac. iii. ult.). 
And when God shows his power in restoring men from such 
a state, he is then said to “lift them from the gates of 
hades;” as in those words, “ Thou hast the power of life 
and death, κατάγεις εἰς πῦλας ἀδου καὶ ἀνάγεις, thou bringest 
down to the gates of hades, and raisest up again” (Wisd. 
xvi. 13). Accordingly, when Theodosius had pardoned 
some, whom justice had condemned to die, Themistius tells 
him he raised them to life, ἐκ τῶν πυλῶν dxépovros, “from the 
gates of hell.” Nor did Eusebius* doubt the truth of 


* Prep. Evang. lib. i. cap. 3, p. 8, C. 


125 


cerning things required, forbidden, or allowed to Chris- 
tians, shall be confirmed there). 

20 " Then charged he his disciples that they should 
tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ (ti// after his 
resurrection, ch. XvVii.). 

21 4 From that time forth (that they might not be 


this exposition of the words ; for he declares, “That God had 
hereby promised that the church should not be overcome by 
death,” and that by virtue of this one voice, “ Upon this 
rock. . . and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; 
the church continues not subdued by her enemies, nor yield- 
ing to the gates of death.” St. Cyril,* of Jerusalem, gives 
the same import of the words, saying that Christ called 
Lazarus ἐξ ddov πυλῶν, “from the gates of hades,” or death’s 
door: and Photius that when the dead are drawn τῶν πυλῶν 
déov, “from the gates of death to life again,” this is a de- 
monstration of divine virtue. Theodorett saith he was 
cast into so great peril by the heretics, as to be brought εἰς 
αὐτὰς τοῦ a'dov πύλας, “even to the gates of hades.” So that 
in all languages with which I am acquainted, this seems to 
be the plain and constant import of the phrase; and there- 
fore in these words it seemeth reasonable to conceive it is a 
promise that even death itself should not prevail against 
the genuine members of Christ’s church, or that they should 
enjoy a happy resurrection. Now from this exposition we 
may learn how vainly these words are produced, to prove 
that any church or council is infallible, or that the church 
of Rome hath a just title to that privilege; for if the gates 
of hades do never signify, in any ancient writer or any 
eastern language, heresy or error; to interpret these words 
of a security from error promised to the church, must be to 
wrest them from their plain and constant sense, to such an 
import as they never had in any language then in use. 

10 Ver. 19. Kai δύσω σοι τὰς κλεῖς τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, 
And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.) 
Here note, 

First, That our Lord, by giving these keys to St. Peter, 
cannot be reasonably supposed to give him a supremacy 
over the rest of the apostles, or over the whole church of 
Christ, because the text informs us that these keys were 
given to St. Peter, that with them he might bind and loose; 
now, whatsoever binding and loosing may import, it is sure 
doth equally belong to all the rest of the apostles; Christ 
having said to them in general as fully as he did to Peter, 
“ Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth 
shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose 
on earth shall be loosed in heaven,” Matt. xviii. 18 (see the 
words expounded there). Note, 

Secondly, That the use of a key being to open a door or 
gate, Christ here promises to Peter, that he should be the 
person who should first open the gate of the kingdom of 
heaven both to Jew and gentile, by making the first con- 
verts among both, and letting some of both into the church ; 
but then it is evident that both James and John exercised 
this office independently of Peter, in converting those of 
the circumcision as well as he; and that St. Paul was by 
way of excellency, and by virtue of his mission, the apostle 
of the gentiles (Rom. xi. 13, xv. 16, Gal. i. 16, ii. 8,1 ‘Tim. 
ii. 7, 2 Tim. i. 11), and opened the kingdom of heaven to 
far more gentiles than ever Peter did (Rom. xv. 18—22), 
and therefore had this key of the kingdom of heaven given 
to him as much as to St. Peter. 

And what thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in 
heaven.] Here St. Jerome notes that “hence some bishops 
and presbyters did assume to themselves somewhat of the 
haughtiness of the pharisees; ut vel damnent innocentes, 
vel solvere se noxios arbitrentur, clim apud Deum non sen- 
tentia sacerdotis, sed reorum vita queratur.”” And he ob- 
serves from Lev. xiv. 7. 11, that “as the priest is said to 
make him clean or unclean, whom he pronounceth, upon 
ocular inspection, so to be; so the bishop or priest is here 
said to bind or loose.” 

1 Ver. 20, Then charged he his disciples, ἵνα μηδενὶ εἴπωσιν 
ὅτι αὐτὸς ἐστὶν Ἰησοῦς ὃ Χριστῦς, that they should tell no man 
that he was Jesus the Christ.) i. e. Till after his resurrec 
tion, when they were by office to be his witnesses, and to 
declare to others that he was the Christ, because then they 


* Catec. 5, p. 43. ἡ Tom. iii. ep. 81, p. 954, 
2 


1. 


126 


shaken in this faith by what should afterward befall him,) 
® began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he 
(the Son of man) must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer 
many things (and be rejected) of the elders and chief 
priests Baines, and be killed, and (notwithstanding 
that, he should by God) be raised again the third day 
(and this he said to them openly, Mark viii. 32). 

22 Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, 
saying, ” Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be 
unto thee. 

23 But he tumed, and (looking on his disciples, 
Mark viii. 33) said unto Peter, 4 Get thee behind me, 
Satan (thou who art to me a tempter, and to the good of 
men an adversary): thou art an offence to me (as being 
a solicitor to me to disobey the will of my Father): for 
thou (én this) savourest not the things that be of God, 
but those that be of men (regarding more what is pleas- 
ing to men than God). 


’ MATTHEW. ° 


24 4 Then said Jesus unto his disciples (and to the 
multitude, Mark viii. 34), 15. If any man will come 
after me, let him (resolve wpon it that it will be neces- 
sary for him to) deny himself, and take up his cross 
(daily, Luke ix. 23), and (so only will be prepared to) 
follow me. 

25 16 For whosoever will (choose rather to) save his 
life shall lose it: and whosoever will (be ready to) 
lose his life for my sake (and the gospel’s, Mark viii. 
35) shall find it (etther graciously preserved here, or 
improved into life eternal. 

26 And this it behoveth all to do,) For what is a man 
profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his 
own soul (or life) 2 or what shall a man give in ex- 
change for his soul? 

27 7 For the Son of man shall come in the glory 
of his Father with his (holy) angels; and then he 
shall reward every man according to his works (being 


could do it, not only without suspicion of confederacy, but 
with greater advantage and better success, after that Christ 
had taken possession of his kingdom, and had testified this, 
by his sitting down at the right hand of power, and by 
sending down upon them the Holy Ghost, to enable them 
to confirm this testimony ; and when he was no longer to 
be subject to those humble circumstances, and to that death, 
which might divert them from receiving him under the cha- 
racter of “the Son of God ;” whereas, had his own disciples 
publicly declared him to be “the king of the Jews,” and 
«the Son of God,” whilst he was on earth, as this would 
have looked like a confederacy between them and their mas- 
ter, so might it have encouraged the attempt of the Jews to 
come and “make him a king” (John vi. 15), especially 
when he was shortly to go up to Jerusalem in royal triumph 
(xxi. 8, 9). 

12 Ver. 21. ᾿Απὸ τότε ἤρξατο ὃ ᾿Ιησοὺς δεικνύειν τοῖς μαϑηταῖς 
αὐτοὺ, ὅτι det αὐτὸν ἀπελθεῖν εἰς ᾿Ιεροσόλυμα, &e. From that 
time began Jesus to show to his disciples, that he was to go 
up to Jerusalem, and to suffer many things of the elders.] 
To what hath been hinted in the paraphrase, that he was 
to go up to Jerusalem, because a prophet could not suffer 
out of that city (Luke xiii. 33), he being to be tried by the 
Sanhedrin which sat there; add also, that he was to be con- 
demned by the rulers, and those who had the authority of 
life and death, that so, being condemned and put to death 
by them, who bore the title of God’s vicegerents, he might 
more properly be said to be “ smitten of God, and afflicted” 
ΤΕΣ 1π|.. 4), though also, in a higher sense, “it pleased the 

ord to bruise him, and to put him to grief, by laying on 
him the iniquity of us all” (ver. 6). 

15 Ver. 22. “Ἵλεώς σοι, Κύριε, Far be it from thee, Lord.) 
This is a phrase very frequent in the Old Testament, and 
always used by way of admonition and abhorrence, answer- 
ing to 44 dyn in the Hebrew; and it is always rendered 
either μηδαμῶς σοι, as Gen. xviii. 25, 1 Sam. iii. 30, xii. 23, 
Xx. 9, xxii. 15, xxiv. 6, or μὴ γένοιτο, Gen. xliv. 7. 17, Josh. 
Xxil. 29, xxiv. 16, 1 Kings xxi. 3, i. e. absit, or nequaquam, 
and so is well rendered by us, “far be it from thee.’ A 
like phrase, sb τυ is thrice rendered by the Septuagint, 
"Trews pot, 2 Sam, xx. 20, xxiii. 17, where it is rendered, 
« Par be it from me” (see 1 Mace. ii. 21); and when Jeho- 
vah is added to it, and it is Ἵλεώς poe ὁ Θεὸς OF μὴ γένοιτό μοι 
παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, 1 Kings xxi. 3, it is rendered, “My God, for- 
bid it,’ 1 Chron. xi. 19, and this, some think, is the full 
import of the words here, 6 Θεὸς being understood, and 
therefore render them, “God be merciful to thee, Sir.” 

4 Ver. 23. Ὕπαγε ὑπίσω pod Σατανᾶ, Get thee behind me, 
Satan. It is somewhat strange, that Origen, Hilary, Je- 
fome, and St. Austin, should conceive that Christ should 
only mean, Sequere meam sententiam, “ Follow my opinion 
rather than thine own.” These words being doubtless a 
reprehension of St. Peter, with some vehemence and indig- 
nation, as, under a pretence of charity, showing himself an 
adversary to Christ, as the word “ Satan” signifies, Numb. 
Xxii. 32, 2 Sam. xix. 23, 1 Kings v. 4, xi. 14, Psalm εἶχ. 6, 
and doing the work of Satan by tempting him to disobey 
his Father’s will and command (John x. 18), and to decline 
a work so necessary for the salvation of souls; and being 


more concerned for the advancement of that temporal king- 
dom the Jews expected from their Messiah, than for the 
glory of God and the good of souls. 

15 Ver. 24. Ἐ τις ϑέλει ὀπίσω μοῦ ἐλθεῖν, If oe man will 
come after me, let him deny himself, &c.) See note on 
Mark viii. 34, and on Luke xiv. 27. 

16 Ver. 25, 26. Ὃς γὰρ ἂν ϑέλῃ τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ σῶσαι, 
ἀπολέσει αὐτὴν, For whosoever will save his life shall lose it.) 
That the word ψυχὴ should be here rendered Jife, rather 
than soul, in the sublimer acceptation of the word, seems 
highly probable from these considerations: (1.) because 
Christ, who came to save men’s souls, could not require of 
any persons, that they should lose their souls in the worst 
sense, but only that they should lay down their lives for his 
sake. (2.) Because in the Old Testament this phrase con- 
tinually occurreth in this sense, where τηρεῖν τὴν ψυχὴν, 
Prov. xiii, 3, xvi. 17, xix. 16, xxiii. 14, σῶσαι τὴν ψυχὴν» 
Amos ii. 14, 15, is “to preserve life;” λύσαι τὴν ψυχὴν; 
Ps. vi. 4, vii. 1, 2, is “to deliver us from death ;’’ ἀπολέσαι 
τὴν ψυχὴν, Ps, xxvi. 9, «to lose life, or die.” (3.) Because 
it frequently occurs in profane authors in this sense, as when 
we read in Agathias,* “ What if we gain all Persia, τάς δὲ 
ψυχὰς ἐζυμιωμένοι; but lose our lives?” And Achilles in 
Homer} says, Οὐ yap ἐμοὶ ψυχῆς ἀντάξιον ἄλλο, “ Nothing is 
comparable to my life.’ Lastly, The benefit which will 
accrue to us by losing of this life, follows in the reward such 
persons shall receive at Christ’s coming: and I humbly con- 
ceive our Saviour’s argument may be to this effect; It is 
natural for all men to have the greatest regard for the pre- 
servation of their lives, whence they so frequently declare 
τιμιώτερον οὐδὲν, οὐ φίλτερον &X)o,+ that nothing is more pre- 
cious or desirable, nothing is fit to be given in exchange 
for it; he therefore will act most suitably to this natural 
principle, who continues steadfast in the Christian faith and 
doctrine, for his life will be prolonged happily for ever; 
whereas, he that forsakes it will lose his interest in this pro- 
mise of eternal life. For “the Son of man will come to 
render to every man according to his works,” to them who 
have been faithful to him to the death, eternal life; whereas 
the unbelievers and apostates shall not see this life, but 
shall be certainly obnoxious to the second death. 

17 Ver. 27. Μέλλει yap ὃ vids τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔρχεσθαι ἐν τῇ δοξη 
τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ, μετὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων αὐτοῦ, For the Son 4 
man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, 
&c.] I do not think that there is any necessity of interpret- 
ing these words of the destruction of Jerusalem, to make 
them comport with the verse following: they seem more 
plainly to relate to the day of judgment. For (1.) the ex- 
pressions are parallel to those which are elsewhere unques- 
tionably meant of that great day, as Matt. xxv. 31, «The 
Son of man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels 
with him, and shall place the goats on his left hand,” &c. ; 
2 Thess. i. 7, “In the revelation of the Lord Jesus from hea- 
ven, with his host of angels, the wicked shall be punished 
with everlasting destruction from the glory of his power.” 
See Matt. xiii. 41. 49, Jude 14. (2.) The words, “then 
shall he render to every man according to his works,” can- 


+ Ii. 401. 


* Lib. iii. p. 80. + See Grotius bere, 


CHAPTER XVII. 


ashamed of, or not owning them who are ashamed of him, 
or of his words, in this wicked and adulterous generation, 
Mark viii. 38, but rewarding them who profess him, and 
adhere to his doctrine). 

28 8 Verily I say unto you, There be some stand- 
ing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see 


127 


the Son of man coming in his kingdom (or the eS 
dom of God coming with power, Mark viii. 39, and the 
Son of man giving a plain ewperiment of his intended 
future judgment, by the severe punishment he will exe- 
cule upon the unbelieving and disobedient Jews of this 
age). 


not relate to the Jews only; those words, in all other places, 
plainly relating to the day of judgment: as Rom. ii. 6. 16, 
Rev. xxii, 12, whereas, at the destruction of the Jewish 
nation, he only rendered to them according to their works. 
The words may therefore be thus paraphrased; There is no 
cause why any man should fear to lose his life for my sake, 
or think himself wise in preserving it, by denying me: for 
the Son of man will come in the glory of his Father, who 
hath made him judge both of the quick and the dead; and 
then he will render a reward of eternal life to them who 
have suffered for his sake, and subject them to eternal death 
who have been ashamed of him and of his words; nor have 
you cause to doubt of his power, thus to judge and inflict 
punishments on men, since he will shortly give a signal 
experiment of it, in inflicting the severest punishments on 
the unbelieving Jews. For, 

8 Ver. 28. ᾿Αμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, εἰσί τινες τῶν ὧδε ἑστηκότων, ἄτα. 
Verily I say unto you, There are some of them who are 
standing here, who shall not taste of death till they see the 
Son of man coming in his kingdom.) It seems wonderful, 
that some, both ancient and modern interpreters, should 
conceive this passage relates to our Lord’s transfiguration 
on the mount, mentioned in the following chapter; since 
(1.) the seeing that, could not be the seeing Christ’s. coming 
in his kingdom; his kingdom being not begun till after his 
resurrection, when “all power in heaven and earth was given 
to him,” Matt. xxviii. 18. (2.) It was as true of all the 
apostles, as of Peter, James, and John, that they should not 
taste of death till after that vision, which happened but six 
days after these words were spoken (xvii. 1) : nor did Christ, 
at his transfiguration, render to any one according to his 
works. Nor (3.) can these words be understood of the 
great day of judgment; there being none standing there who 
did not die long before that time; and “to taste of death,” 
in the Jewish phrase signifies no more: thus, when Christ 
said, “ He that believeth in me, shall never die; the Jews 
Tepeat his words thus, “He shall never taste of death” 


(John viii. 52): and to be sure, it can import no more, 
when it is said of Christ, “ He tasted death for every man” 
(Heb. ii. 9). Accordingly the Jews say, The first Adam 
was worthy not to taste of death. Nor (4.) can we under- 
stand this of Christ’s resurrection and exaltation to the right 
hand of God, and the mission of the Holy Ghost; for this 
being said not long before his passion, it is not reasonable 
to conceive Christ should with an asseveration say, Some 
standing here shall not taste of death till they see that 
which was to happen in less than half a year. It is there- 
fore more probable, that this is spoken of Christ’s coming 
after forty years, to the destruction of Jewish church and 
nation, and to render to them according to their works; for 
this was to happen in that generation (Matt. xxiv. 34), and 
St. John, and many standing there, might see it; that also 
is represented as the παρουσία, or “coming of the Son of 
man,” Matt. xxiv. 3. 27. 39. 44; then was the Son of man 
“to come,” John xxi. 22, Heb. x. 37, “with power,” Matt. 
xxiv. 30, “and great glory,” Mark xiii. 26, and “ with his 
angels,” Matt. xvi. 27, and to come “in the clouds,” Rev. 
i. 7, and then was “the kingdom of God near,” Luke xxi. 
31. Well therefore might this glorious advent of the Son 
of God, in so great majesty, and such resemblance of his 
second coming at the day of judgment, be introduced as a 
just ground to believe, and to expect that day ; viz. a time 
when Christ should punish with destruction from his pre- 
sence all that did not believe and obey his gospel, as he had 
then punished the unbelieving Jews; and that he should. 
afterward say to all his enemies, as he then signally did to 
the Jews, “Bring these mine enemies that would not I 
should reign over them, and slay them before me” (Luke 
xix. 27). And this interpretation fully agrees with those 
words of Christ, Matt. xxiv. 30, “Then shall they (185 
Jews) see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven 
with great power and glory;” and, Matt. xxvi. 64, “ After 
a while ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand 
of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


1! Anp after six days (from the discourse had with 
his disciples, till the day of his ascent, see note on 
Mark ix. 2)? Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John 
his brother, and bringeth them up into an high moun- 
2, apart (which he ascended, to pray there, Luke ix. 

’ 

2 And (whilst he was praying, Luke ix. 29, he) was 
transfigured before them: and his face did shine as 
the sun, and his raiment was white (and shining, Luke 
ix. 29) as the light. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII. 


Ver. 1. Kai μεθ᾽ ἡμέρας Ἐξ. And after six days.] See note 
on Mark ix. 2. 
2 Παραλαμβάνει ὃ Ἰησοὺς τὸν Πέτρον, &e. Jesus taketh with 


him Peter, James, and John.) These being afterward to be | 


great “pillars” of the church, especially of the circumcision 
(Gal. ii. 9), Christ changes their names, admits them here 
to this viciun in the mount, he takes them with him when 
he raises the ruler of the synagogue’s daughter to life (Mark 
y. 37), and in his agony (Matt. xxvi. 37). 

3. Ver 3. Kai idod, ὦφθησαν αὐτοῖς Μωσῆς καὶ ᾿Ηλίας μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ 
συλλαλοῦντες. And, behold, there appeared to them Moses 
and Ehas talking with him.| Because Christ commands 
his disciples to tell no man, τὸ ὅραμα, “the vision” (ver. 9), 
hence some conjecture, that Moses and Elias were not 
truly tnere, or seen by them, but only that they had in 


3.3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses 
and Elias talking with him Co his decease, which he 
should accomplish at Jerusalem, Luke ix. 31). 

4 Then answered (7. 6. spake) Peter, and said unto 
Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, 
let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and 
one for Moses, and one for Elias. 

5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud over- 
shadowed them: and behold a voice (came) out of the 
cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom 


their fancy or imagination an appearance of them: but this 
is very improbable: for St. Luke saith expressly that “ these 
two talked with him, and spake of his exit, which he was to 
accomplish at Jerusalem ;” and that all this was done whilst 
these disciples were asleep, and had seen nothing, adding, 
that after they were awake, “they saw two men standing 
with him, Luke ix. 30—32 (see also Mark ix. 4). And 
therefore this by St. Luke is styled, not ὅραμα, “a vision ;” 
which, when it is represented to the fancy, happeneth rather 
to men in a sleep, than after they awake, but ὀπτασία, “a 
representation” of the thing to their eyes: it is therefore 
probable, that God might preserve both their bodies to this 
end; for the body of Elias was carried up into heaven (2 
Kings ii. 11), the body of Moses “ was not found: it disap~ 
peared,” saith Josephus:* “he ascended,” say the Jews, 


* Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 132, 


128 


Iam well pleased; hear ye him (according to the pre- 
diction of Moses, Deut. xviii. 15, him shall ye hear). 

6 And when the disciples heard ἐΐ, they fell on 
their face, and were sore afraid. 

7 And Jesus came and touched them, and said, 
Arise, and be not afraid. 

8 And when they had lifted up their eyes (which 
were heavy with sleep, Luke ix. 32), they saw no man, 
save Jesus only. 

9 And as they came down from the mountain, 
Jesus charged them, saying,‘ Tell the vision to no 
man (no, not to your fellow-disciples), until the Son of 
man be risen again from the dead. 

10 And (upon this charge) his disciples asked him, 
saying, (Jf the appearance of Elias must be so great a 
secret, even till thy departure,)® Why then say the 
scribes that Elias must first come (to anoint the Messias, 
and make him manifest to Israel) ? 

11 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias 
truly shall first come, and restore all things (7. e. he 
indeed is to come first for this end, according to the words 
of the prophet Malacht, iv. 6). 

12 But (then) I (also) say unto you, That (the) 
Elias (of whom he spake) is come already, and they 
knew (é. 6. acknowledged ) him not, but have done unto 
him whatsoever they listed; (the pharisees rejecting his 
baptism, and blaspheming him as one that had a devil, 
Luke vii. 30. 33). Likewise shall also the Son of 
man suffer of them. 

13 Then the disciples understood that he spake 
unto them of John the Baptist (as of that Elias which 
was for to come). 

14 4 And (the day following, Luke ix. 37) when 
they were come to the multitude, (he saw them about 
his disciples, and the scribes questioning with them, and 
asked them, What they inquired about ? Mark ix. 14. 16, 
and) there came to him a certain man, kneeling down 
to him, and saying, 

15 Lord, have merey on my son, (my only son, 


MATTHEW. 


Luke ix. 38): for he is lunatick, and sore vexed (with 
a dumb spirit, Mark ix. 16): for (this spirit taketh him, 
and suddenly he cries out, and he shakes him; so that he 
foameth again, and bruising him, hardly departeth from 
him, Luke ix. 39, yea) ofttimes he falleth into the fire, 
and oft into the water. 

16 And (in thy absence) I brought him to thy dis- 
ciples, and they could not cure him (and this raised 
the question betwixt the pharisees and lawyers and thy 
disciples). 

17 Then Jesus answered and said (wnto these phari- 
sees and scribes,) ὃ Ὁ faithless and perverse generation, 
how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer 
you? bring him hither to me (Luke ix. 42. And as 
he was yet coming, the devil threw him down—and he 
fell on the ground and wallowed foaming, Mark ix. 20. 
And Jesus asked his father, How long is it ago since 
this came to him? And he said, Of a child, ver. 21. 
But if thow canst do any thing, have compassion on us, 
and help us, ver. 22. And Jesus said unto him, If thou 
canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth, 
ver. 23. And straightway the father of the child cried 
out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe, help thou my 
unbelief, ver. 24). 

18 And (when) Jesus (saw that the people came run- 
ning together, Mark ix. 25, he) rebuked the devil; and 
(saying to him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee 
come out of him, and enter no more into him; the spirit 
erted, and rent him sore, and) he departed out of him 
(but so as to leave him as one dead, insomuch that many 
said, He is dead ; but Jesus took him by the hand, and 
lifted him up, and he arose, Mark ix. 24—26) ; and the 
child was cured from that very hour. 

19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart (when he 
was come into the house, Mark iv. 28), and said, Why 
could not we cast him out ? 

20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your 
unbelief: for verily I say unto you, 7 If ye have faith 
as a grain of mustard seed (a small degree of active 


“and ministered to God in the heavens :” but the text say- 
ing expressly that “he was buried in a valley in the land of 
Moab, over against Beth-peor;”’ or, as the Hebrew, “ He,” 
i. e. God, “buried him, ἀπὸ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων, by his holy 
angels;” saith Epiphanius,* his body must be raised, or 
miraculously appear; and to this burial by angels, perhaps, 
refers that altercation mentioned by St. Jude, betwixt 
Michael and the devil «touching the body of Moses.” The 
coming of these two great prophets, one the deliverer, the 
other the restorer, of the law of Moses, when God said of 
Christ, «This is my beloved Son, hear him ;” showed that 
the law was henceforth to give place to the gospel preached 
by him. Moreover, that these were two men, as St. Luke 
speaks, their eyes informed them: that they were Moses and 
Elias, their talk together might declare; for how else Peter 
should learn who they were, but either from their discourse 
with Christ, or Christ’s discourse with him and his asso- 
ciates, as he went up into the mount, that he was going to 
meet with them, I am not able to imagine. 

4 Ver. 9. Μηδενὶ εἴπητε τὸ ὅραμα, Tell no man the vision.] 
The thing that ye have seen ; not the residue of the disciples, 
that they be not troubled that they were not admitted to see 
it; not those believers that now follow me, that they be not 
scandalized at my sufferings after so glorious a transfiguration. 

5 Ver. 10—12. Why say the scribes, &c.] See note on 
Mark ix. 11—13. 

6 Ver. 17. “2 γενεὰ ἄπιστος Kai διεστραμμένη" ἄς. O faith- 
less and perverse generation, how long shall I be with 
you 2? &c.) That Christ said not this to his apostles, appears 
(1.) from those words, “ Bring ye him to me,” they being 
spoken not to them but to the multitude (Mark ix. 19), 
among whom were the scribes, ver. 16. (2.) Because if 
Christ had spoken thus to them, they could not have been 


* Her. 9, p. 28, Her. 64, p. 600, B. 


ignorant of the reason why they could not cast out this devil, 
and so they could not have put the question to Christ, 
« Why could not we cast him out?” (ver. 28), the reason 
of it, if these words were spoken to them, being clearly given 
here, viz. their want of faith. Nor (3.) doth Christ speak 
this to the father of the lunatic; for (1.) he was not faith- 
less, but only ὀλιγύπιστος, “ one of little faith.” (2.) It seems 
not proper to say to one man, “Ὁ faithless generation !” 
(3.) There seemeth to be nothing in the father which de- 
served this sharp rebuke, he coming very humbly on his 
knees to Christ, to beg his mercy for his son (ver. 15), and 
saying to him with such ardour, “ Lord I believe ; help thou 
my unbelief” (Mark ix. 24): upon which saying his son 
was straightway cured. 

It is therefore to be noted from St. Mark, ix. 14. 16, that 
the scribes were then disputing with Christ’s disciples, and 
perhaps insulting over them, as having found out a distem- 
per which could not be cured by his name and power ; 
whence Christ asks them, “ What it was about that they 
disputed?” (ver. 15.) It therefore seems most probable 
that Christ spake this to them, to whom at other times he 
used the same language, styling them “a wicked and adul- 
terous generation” (Matt. xii. 39, xvi. 4, Luke xi. 29). 

7 Ver. 20. Ἐὰν ἔχητε πίστιν ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως, ἐρεῖτε τῷ ὄρει 
τούτῳ: If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye may 
say to this mountain—and nothing shall be impossible to 
you.| By “faith asa grain of mustard-seed,” some under- 
stand a faith that groweth and increaseth as a grain of mus- 
tard-seed (Matt. xiii. 31, 32), or faith as strong and active 
in the heart as mustard-seed is on the palate; and that be- 
cause Christ elsewhere, for “ the removing of a mountain,” 
i. e. to perform things most difficult (see note on Matt. xxi. 
21), requires πίστιν Θεοῦ, “ faith in God,” which seems to 
signify an excelling faith (Mark xi. 22, 23), «faith with- 
out doubting,” Matt. xxi. 21. (2.) Because St. Paul reckons 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


growing faith), ye shall say unto this mountain, Re- 
move hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; 
and nothing (relating to your office) shall be impossible 
to you, (1. 6. you shall through faith be enabled to do very 
extraordinary things for the promotion of the gospel, and 
to remove the greatest obstructions to the progress of it, 2 
Cor. x. 4, 5). 

21 § Howbeit this kind (of oe goeth not out but 
by (faith, acquired by) prayer and fasting. 

22 4 And while they abode in Galilee (as they were 
privalely going through it, Mark ix. 29), Jesus said 
unto them, The Son of man shall be betrayed into the 
hands of men: 

23 And they shall kill him, and the third day he 
shall be raised again. And they (not understanding 
what he meant by the death and resurrection of the Mes- 
siah, Mark ix. 32, Luke ix. 45, or how to reconcile it 
with their received notion, that the Messiah should not die, 
John xii. 34) were exceeding sorry. 

24 1 And when they were come to Capernaum 

where Christ and Peter dwelt, Matt. viii. 14), they 
at received tribute money (that every Jew yearly paid 


faith “able to remove mountains,” as an indication of the 
strongest faith (1 Cor. xiii. 2). 

Now according to this exposition the sense runs thus, 
Did your faith increase according to the examples of God’s 
power you have had before your eyes; as a grain of mus- 
tard-seed grows up to be the greatest of all herbs, so would 
your faith transmount and grow superior to all difficulties. 

But Buxtorf, in the word chardal, doth inform us, that 
a “grain of mustard-seed” was proverbially used among the 
Jews, pro re minima, “for the least thing,” as he there 
shows by many examples ; and therefore it is probable that 
Christ, speaking to them who were accustomed to this 
phrase, used it in their sense for the least sincere faith in 
God, which they who fear (Mark iv. 40) or doubt (James i. 
6) seem not to have. So that the import of these words 
seems to be this, If you, who are commissionated by me, 
and by the Father which sent me, to work all kinds of mi- 
Tacles needful to confirm my doctrine in my name, had the 
least measure of that faith which casts out fear and doubt- 
ing of success in the discharge of your office, you might 
perform things most difficult, and even this faith in its effect 
would be most mighty. 

"Epetre τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ, Ye shall say to this mountain, Be 
thow removed, &c.] That is, saith Origen, to this lunatic 
devil, περὶ ob ἐζητήσατε, “ of whom you have propounded this 
question.” For confirmation of this exposition, let it be ob- 
served from Buxtorf, and the note on 1 Cor. xiii. 2, that in 
the Hebrew idiom, to be a “ remover of mountains,” seems 
only to import to be a doer of those things which are ex- 
ceeding difficult, and beyond the power of nature to per- 
form ; when therefore Christ saith here, and Mark xi. 13, 
«“ Whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed,” 
&c. there being no particular mountain mentioned or pointed 
to in these words, it seemeth reasonable to interpret them 
as I have done in this paraphrase, viz. Whosoever shall, 
with a strong faith in God, attempt the most difficult things 
or the promotion of the gospel, shall, whilst the gift of mi- 
racles remains, be successful in so doing. 

Ver. 21.] That this verse belongs to St. Matthew, and 
that καὶ ἐλυπήϑησαν σφόδρα belong to the text, ver. 23, see 
proved against Dr. Mills, Exam. Milli. ibid. 

58 Τοῦτο δὲ τὸ γένος οὐκ ἐκπορεύεται, εἰ μὴ ἐν προσευχῆ καὶ νησ- 


128 


to the temple) came to Peter, and Said (lo him), Doth 
not your master pay tribute ἢ 

. 25 He saith, Yes. And when he was come into 
the house (of Peter), Jesus prevented him, saying, 
What thinkest thou, Simon? 9 of whom do the kings 
of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own 
children, or of strangers (7. 6. of others only, who are 
not of their sons, or of their own family) 3 

26 Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith 
unto him, Then are the children free (7. 6. then this 
tribute, which is paid to God for his temple, belongs not to 
me to pay, who am his Son). 

27 0 Noteithataiding, lest we should offend them 
(i. e. seem to them who know nothing of this reason of 
my exemption, to contemn the temple, and the service of it, 
for which this tribute is designed), go thou to the sea, 
and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first 
cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, 
thou shalt find a piece of money (worth two shillings 
and sixpence, or two half shekels): that take, and give 
unto them (as the two half shekels due) for me and thee 


(who dwell at Capernaum). 


τεία. But this kind ieee not out but by prayer and fast- 
ing.] i. ὁ. But by faith which is to be acquired by prayer 
and fasting. And this is not said to express the pertinacy 
of this kind of devils, or the power which the great sins 
of the possessed had given them over him; this person 
being thus possessed παιῤίοθεν, “from his youth,” or child- 
hood: but to inform his disciples that this miraculous 
faith, being the special gift of God, was to be sought for 
by flagrant devotion, that it might never be wanting to 
them. 

9 Ver. 25. Οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς ἀπὸ τίνων λαμβάνουσι r2dn5 
&c. Of whom do the kings of the earth receive tribute or 
custom, of their own children, or of strangers ?| That our 
Lord speaks here of the half shekels paid every year by all 
Jews above twenty years old, to the temple, for the buying 
the daily sacrifice, and other things riecessary to the worship 
of God, appears (1.) from the word δίδραχμα, used ver. 24 ; 
for the Jews, saith Josephus,* δυὸ dpaypis ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος εἰς τὸν 
ἐν Ἱεροσολύμοις νεὼν συνετέλουν, “ paid yearly two Attic drachms 
for the use of the temple at Jerusalem ;” and this they did 
according to the precept requiring of them the half shekel, 
called by the Septuagint τὸ δίδραχμον ἅλιον, Exod. xxx. 13, 
Neh. x. 32. (2.) Because our Saviour’s argument why he 
should not pay this tribute, as being the Son of that King 
to whom it was paid, holds not with reference to the other 
tribute paid to Cxsar, he being not the son of Cesar, but 
of God. 

10 Ver. 27. Ἵνα δὲ μὴ σκανδαλίζωμεν αὐτοὺς" Lest we should 
offend them.] i. e. Give them occasion to say that I despise 
the temple and its service, and teach my disciples so to do, 
pay a σπατὴρ, or a piece of money of the value of two drachms, 
saith Phavorinus, for me, being here at Capernaum, and for 
thee, having thy house there (Matt viii. 14); by which ex- 
ample Christ teaches us to avoid the scandal and sinister 
suspicions of men, though they be groundless, with some 
detriment to ourselves ; especially when they have not means 
sufficient clearly to convince them, that as the Son of God, 
he had his freedom: the scandal of the pharisees proceed- 
ing not from ignorance, but pure malice, he is not thus 
concerned to avoid (xv. 12). 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 7, Antiq. lib. xviii. cap, 12. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


1 1 Ar the same time (‘hat Jesus spake of his death 
and resurrection, xvii. 22, 23) came the disciples unto 
J.snas, saying (among themselves), Who is (to be) the 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII. 
“Ver. 1. Ἐν ἕκεινῦ τῇ ὥρα προσῆλθον of μαϑηταὶ τῷ ᾿Ιησοῦν 
ἄς. At that time came the disciples of Jesus to him, saying, 
Vou. IV.—17 


eatest in the kingdom of heaven? (7. 6. who shall 
have the chief place of dignity and advantage in the king- 
dom of the Messiah ?) 


Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven 2] St. Mark saith, 
Christ puts this question to them, and “they held their peace” 
(ix. 33) ; St. Luke, that they had been a disputing this point 
among themselves, and Christ knowing the reasoning of their 


130 


2 And Jesus (being willing by this emblem to satisfy 
this dispute, as far as it was useful to them) called a 
little child unto him, and (taking him up in his arms, 
(Mark ix. 35, he) set him in the midst of them, 

3 And said, Verily I say unto you, ? Except ye be 
converted (from these ambitious and covetous desires), 
and become as (free from them, as are) little children, 
ye shall not (be fit 10) enter into the kingdom of hea- 
ven (which chiefly requires of its members humility, and 
a contempt of the world). 

4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself (and 
be) as (free from all thirst after worldly dignities and 
honours as is) this little child, the same is greatest 
(and most useful) in the kingdom of heaven (for this 


MATTHEW. 


frame will render him willing to minister even to te 
meanest of its members). 

5 And (that you may not be unwilling thus to minister 
to those my little ones, know that) whoso shall receive 
one such little child in my name (though in this respect 
also he be a little child, as being lately born anew, and 
yet tender in the faith, shall be respected as one that) re- 
ceiveth me. 

6 5 But whoso shall offend (and drive from the faith) 
one of these little ones which believe in me, 4 it 
were better for him that a millstone were hanged 
about his neck, and that he were drowned in the 
depth of the sea (7. 6. that he suffered the surest temporal 
destruction). 


hearts, “took a child” (ix. 46,47). Now these seeming 
differences are to be reconciled thus; that Jesus, going to 
Capermaum, the disciples followed him, λέγοντες πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς, 
« discoursing among themselves (Mark ix. 33), who of them 
was to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ;” and when 
they came to him into the house, Jesus, knowing what was 
still upon their hearts, and they were still pondering among 
themselves (Luke ix. 47), asks them, “ What was it you 
discoursed of in the way ?” which they being ashamed to tell 
him, kept silence (Mark ix. 33, 34): then Christ, who un- 
derstood well what it was, endeavours by his example of a 
little child, to cure this distemper. That the participle 
λέγοντες relates not here to Christ, as if they put the ques- 
tion, but to themselves, as I have here expounded it, is evi- 
dent, (1.) from their silence, when asked touching this 
matter; and St. Luke’s note, that Jesus, “perceiving the 
thoughts of their hearts,” did this: for had they put that 
question to Christ, how could they, or why should they, hold 
their peace ; or what need was there of saying, “ Jesus, know- 
ing their hearts,” did this, in a matter which they uttered 
to him with their mouths? (2.) To a question it is usually 
said, Jesus answered, or answering did so or so, which is 
not here said; thus, when he rebuked the winds, the apos- 
tles wonder, λέγοντες, “ saying among themselves, What 
manner of person is this ?”’ (Matt. viii. 27,) the multitude 
wondered, λέγοντες “saying among themselves, We never 
saw it thus before” (ix. 33). So xiv. 26, xvi. 7. 19. 25, 
xxi. 9, 10, and ver. 25, of δὲ διελογίζοντο παρ' ἑαυτοῖς λέγοντες. 
“and they reasoned, saying among themselves:” xxii. 23, 
then came to him the sadducees, of λέγοντες, “ those who say 
there is no resurrection” (so xxiii. 16, xxvi. 8, xxvii. 54). 
2 Ver. 3, ᾿Εὰν μὴ στραφῆτε καὶ yévnoSe ὡς τὰ παιδία, &e. 
Except ye be converted, and become as little children, you 
cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.) In that temporal 
kingdom of the Messiah, which the Jews expected, they 
thought they should have rule over all nations, having them 
for their servants, and all their wealth flowing in to them ; 
and then the twelve must naturally think, that they should 
have the preference above other Jews, and be advanced to 
higher posts of honour and grandeur, and have a greater 
affluence of outward blessings, than other Jews; and see- 
ing the king Messiah must have some officers of highest 
rank, they conclude it must be some of them, though they 
could not agree who of them were the fittest for, or best de- 
served, these high posts of honour: now our Saviour’s king- 
dom being not of this world, and therefore nothing of this 
nature being to be expected from him; but rather that his 
followers, and the apostles more especially, should suffer 
the loss of all things, and lie under the utmost infamy, 
Christ plainly tells them, that these inclinations, desires, 
and expectations were inconsistent with their being mem- 
bers of that spiritual kingdom which he was to erect; since 
they who followed him chiefly on these accounts, when they 
saw no such thing could be expected from him, but rather 
the quite contrary, must desert him; and therefore he re- 
quires them to fit them for this kingdom, to become as to 
these things like little children, who are absolutely free 
from all contrivances and designs of this nature, never con- 
cerned in the least for empire and dominion over others, or 
for increase in wealth or great possessions, and know not 
what a post of honour, or what wealth, means; this, saith 
our Lord, being that which will remove all that obstructs 
your entrance into my kingdom, and make you the most 


eminent subjects of it (ver. 4), and so shall be regarded 
by me; for to encourage all men to show the greatest 
kindness to them, I let them know I will accept, and will 
reward, all kindness done to them, as if it were done to my 
own self, and will severely punish all that shall offend them 
(ver. 5, 6). 

3 Ver. 6. “Os δὲ ἂν σκανδαλίσῃ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν τούτων τῶν 
πιστευόντων εἰς ἐμέ" But whoso shall offend one of these little 
ones that believe in me.] It seemeth needless to note that 
Christ here speaketh not of little ones by age (they being both 
incapable of faith and free from scandal), but by quality and 
temper of spirit. To scandalize one of these little ones is to 
occasion his ruin, and falling off from the faith, by our sinful 
actions, as is apparent (1.) from these words, ver. 14, « It is 
not the will of their heavenly Father, that one of those 
little ones shall perish.” (2.) From the severity of the woe 
and punishment here threatened to him that scandalizeth ; 
“it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck,” 
&c. even so much better, saith St. Jerome, as it is to suffer 
a short than an eternal punishment, the offending eye and 
hand causing us to be cast into hell-fire (ver. 8, 9) : and this 
sense the word usually beareth in the gospel, as when Christ 
saith, Matt. xi. 6, “ Blessed is he that shall not be offended 
in me ;” and xiii. 21, that the stony ground when persecution 
comes “is presently offended,” i. 6. falls off from the faith ; 
that when “tribulation ariseth, many shall be offended” 
(Matt. xxiv. 10) ; i. 6. their charity shall wax cold, nor will 
they persevere to the end (ver. 12, 13) ; that the hand and 
eye do scandalize, when they cause the whole body “to be 
cast into hell-fire” (Matt. v. 29, 30). So the Jews were 
scandalized at Christ’s mean rise and parentage (Matt. xiii. 
57, Mark vi. 3, Luke vii. 23), and at his words (ver. 12) the 
pharisees, (Matt. xv. 12) the multitude, and many of his dis- 
ciples (John vi. 61, 62. 66). So Christ’s disciples were scan- 
dalized for a season at his passion, their faith then failing 
(Matt. xxvi. 31. 33, Luke xxiv. 21), and Christ forewarns 
them of what they were to suffer, that they should not be 
scandalized (John xvi. 1). And that this is the constant 
import of this phrase in the New Testament, see note on 
Rom. xiv. 21. False therefore is it, that they who truly do 
believe in Christ, and are of the number of those whom God 
would not to perish (ver. 14), cannot be so offended, as to 
fall from the faith and perish. And were this so, wherein 
lies the force of this pathetical discourse, and why are such 
dreadful woes and punishments denounced to deter men 
from doing what not only is itself impossible, but which 
they also who are thus threatened must believe to be so? 

4 It were better ἵνα κρεμασϑῇ μῦλος ὁνικὸς ἐπὶ τὸν τραχηλὸν 
αὐτοῦ, &c. that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
and he cast into the depth of the sea.| Grotius here thinks, 
that this refers to a custom of drowning among the Sy- 
rians ; but for this, he cites only from Eusebius instances of 
men drowned in the sea, and of a stone hung at the feet of 
the martyr Agypius, but not of any persons who had amill- 
stone hung about their necks. Jerome, upon the place, 
saith, that he speaks “according to the custom of the pro- 
vince ;” the punishment of greater criminals among the an- 
cients being this, that they should be drowned in the deep, 
with a stone bound about them. Now of this custom, saith 
Dr. Lightfoot, there is no mention either in the law or in the 
rabbins; but Dr. Alix saith, it was customary for them, 
ἀναθέματα in mare Sodome dejicere, lapide annexo, “ to cast 
execrable men into the Dead Sea, with a stone tied to thew ;” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


7 7 Woe hegre) unto the world because of of- 
fences! (2. e. of scandals which obstruct the receiving of, 
or cause weak persons to desert the faith:)® for it must 
needs be (through the unrestrained iniquity of men) that 
offences (of this kind should) come; but woe to that 
man by whom the offence (which procures this ruin 
either to himself or others) cometh ! 

8 Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend (or be 
means of scandal to) thee (or others, so as to bring this 
woe upon thee), cut them off, and cast them from thee : 
(ἡ. δ. quit whatsoever causeth this scandal, how dear and 
useful soever it may seem to be, for) it is better for thee 
to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having 
two hands or two feet to be cast into Fre: fire. 

9 And (likewise) if thine eye offend thee, pluck it 
out, and cast ἐξ from thee: it is better for thee to enter 


and that there be divers places in the Mischna which prove 
this. And certain it is from Diodorus Siculus,* and others, 
that this was the ancient punishment of sacrilegious per- 
sons, to be cast into the sea. ‘That this custom obtained in 
Greece, we learn from the scholiast in Aristophanes,t who 
saith, that when they drowned any one, “they hanged a 
weight about his neck.” To which custom the poet alludes,+ 
by saying, he would hang a litigious man about his neck. 
And Suetonius saith of the tutor and servants of Caius, 
that Augustus superbe et avaré in provincia grassantes one- 
ratis gravi pondere cervicibus precipitavit in flumen (in 
Oct. Aug. cap. 67), “for the pride and covetousness by 
which they infested the province, cast them into the river 
with a great weight about their necks.” 

5 Ver. 7. ᾿Ανάγκη γάρ ἐστιν ἐλθεῖν τὰ σκάνδαλα, &c. It is 
necessary that offences should come, but woe to the man 
by whom the offence cometh.] The necessity here mentioned 
is not a necessity arising from any act of God’s ordaining or 
procuring that scandals should come, or withdrawing or not 
affording that grace which is absolutely necessary to prevent 
their coming, since otherwise it could be no offence to scan- 
dalize, i. 6. to do what it was not in my power to help; nor 
could it deserve such severe woes and dreadful punishments, 
since no man deserves punishment for doing what he could 
not help, and God himself made necessary for him to do; 
nor could there be any force in, or ground for, the following 
exhortation, “See that ye despise not one of these little 
ones ;” for to admonish any one not to do what is necessary 
that he should do, and what I who admonish him declare 
to be so, seems palpably absurd. The necessity here men- 
tioned is therefore only conditional, on supposition of the 
wickedness of men not hindered, the subtlety and malignity 
of Satan, and the self-denial required of all who would em- 
brace the gospel; whence nothing could be expected but 
that many should be scandalized at, and be unwilling to 
embrace, the gospel upon these terms, and many who had 
once embraced it should flee off from it. And this seems to 
be hinted in those words, « Woe to him by whom the scan- 
dal comes ;” which represents him as the proper cause of 
it; and from the words thus varied by St. Luke, xvii. 1, 
ἀνένδεκτόν ἐστι, “it is not to be expected” that offences 
should not come; which word makes this sense preferable 
to that of Grotius, that this is necessary ratione finis, to the 
ends of divine providence; for though it be necessary that 
God should permit men to do that which he hath foretold 
shall happen, as in the crucifixion of our Lord; yet other- 
wise, as saith the son of Sirach, “God hath no need of the 
sinful man” (Ecclus. xv. 12), to accomplish the designs of 
his providence, but rather, foreseeing that he will be so, he 
makes him his instrument to fulfil them. Note also, that 
from the descants of the fathers and commentators on these 
words, we learn how far they were from thinking that the 
liberty of a viator, or of persons in a state of trial, was well 


* Onomarchum Philippus suspendit, τοὺς δὲ ἄλλους ὡς 
ἱεροσύλους κατεπόντισε, lib. xvi. p. 529. 

ἡ Ὅτε κατεπόντουν τινὰς, βάρος ἀπὸ τῶν τραχηλῶν ἐκρέμων. In 
Equit. 

+ "Apas μετέωρον eis τὸ βάραθρον ἐμβαλῶ ἐκ τοῦ λάρυγγος 
ἐκκρεμασας ὑπέρβολον. Suidas in verbo ὑπέρθολος. 


131 


into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to 
be cast into hell-fire. 

10 Take heed (therefore) that ye despise not one of 
these little ones (as not regarding whether ye offend them 
or not); ὃ for I say unto you, That in heaven their an- 
gels do always behold the face of my Father which 
Is in heaven ; (7. e. the angels of heaven, which are minis- 
tering spirits to them, stand always in the presence of God 
ready to receive his commands concerning them, so highly 
are they valued by them ; I say, despise them not,) 

11 For the Son of man is come to save that which 
was lost, (and so by scandalizing them to their ruin, you 
will act in contradiction to the designs of his advent, and 
of him that sent him ; for) 

12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, 
and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave 


consistent with a necessity of doing good or evil; for Chry- 
sostom and Theophylact here observe, that Christ saith this, 
οὐ τὸ αὐθαίρετον τῆς ἐξουσίας ἀναιρῶν, οὐδὲ τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς προ- 
αἱρέσεως, οὐδὲ ἀνάγκῃ τινὶ πραγμάτων ὑποβάλλων τὸν βίον, ““ not 
to take away the freedom of our faculties, or the liberty of 
our election, or to subject the actions of our life to any ne- 
cessity.” St. Jerome here saith, that “if it were necessary 
for a man to scandalize, sine culpa esset, he would be with- 
out blame in so doing.” He also well observes the neces- 
sity of this caution to the apostles, contending then for dig- 
nity ; for saith he, Si in hdc vitio permansissent, poterant 
eos quos ad fidem vocabant per suum scandalum perdere, 
dum apostolos viderent inter se de honore pugnare: 
“Had they continued in this vice, they might have given 
scandal to those whom they called to the faith, by contend- 
ing among themselves for honour.” 

6 Ver. 10. For I say unto you, ὅτι οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτῶν ἐν οὐρα- 
νοῖς, &c. That their angels in heaven do always behold the 
face of my Father which is in heaven.) Here St. Jerome’s 
note is this, “ Great is the dignity of these little ones, see- 
ing every one of them from his birth hath an angel dele- 
gated to preserve him.” This many of the fathers did as- 
sert, as Jerome,* of all souls; but others said, this was the 
privilege only of the just, as you may see in Petavius; and 
yet I think that neither of these opinions concerning one 
particular angel having the custody of one soul, as his con- 
tinual charge, hath any good foundation in the holy scrip- 
tures; certain it is, that in this place Christ saith not their 
“angel,” but “their angels behold the face of God;” nor 
says he, that these angels belong to all, but only to “ these 
little ones;”” nor that they always do attend upon their 
persons; but that they stand “before the face of God,” 
ready to receive his commands, either to help them in their 
exigencies, or punish them who injure them: hence then it 
follows, not that they have always an angel present with them, 
but only that the angels in general, are “ ministering spirits 
to them” (Ps. xxxiv. 8, Heb. i. 14, see the note on Acts xii. 
15). And whereas these angels are said “to behold the face 
of God continually,” that only seems to signify their inti- 
macy in the court of heaven, expressed by Raphael by “ go- 
ing in and out before the glory of the Holy One” (Tob. xii. 
15), and their attendance on him as his retinue, servants, or 
as “messengers of his, that do his pleasure” (Ps. ciii. 21). 
Thus speaks the angel Gabriel of himself, «I am Gabriel, 6 
παρεστηκῶς ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ, “who stand before God” (Luke 
i. 19); and so the queen of Sheba, of Solomon’s servants, 
« Blessed are thy servants, of παρεστηκότες ἐνώπιον σοῦ δι᾽ ὅλου, 
who stand always before thee” (1 Kings x. 8). 

Ver. 11. The Son of man is come to save, &c.] Hence it 
seems plainly to follow, that they may be lost, through their 
own neglect to cut off their offending members, or through 
the offence which others minister, whoin Christ came to save: 
as also from ver. 14, that they may perish through the 
offence of others, whom God would not have to perish; and 
therefore hath not, by his own decree of preterition, designed 
for destruction, or left inevitably to perish. 


* Magna dignitas animarum, ut unaqueque habeat ab 
ortti nativitatis in custodiam sui angelum delegatum. Vide 
Petav. de Angelis, lib. ii. cap. 6. 


182 


the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, 
and seeketh that which is gone astray ? 

13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto 
you, He rejoiceth more (at the finding) of that sheep, 
than (at the seeing) of the ninety and nine which went 
not astray. 

14 Even so (7s the joy of God for the recovery of a lost 
sinner) it is not (therefore) the will of your Father 
which is in heaven, that one of these little ones 
should perish (by any scandal put before them), 

15 J (And tn this concern to save others, it becomes you 
to imitate him ;) 7 Moreover if (then) thy brother shall 
trespass against thee, go (first) and tell him his fault 
(friendly) between thee and him alone: if he shall 
(so) hear thee (as to confess and amend it); thou hast 
gained thy brother. 

16 But if he will not (thus) hear thee, (do not pre- 
senly give him over, but) then take with thee one or 


MATTHEW. 


two more, (ἐξ being said, Deut. xix. 15, One witness 
shall not rise up against any man for iniquity, but) that 
in (at) the mouth of two or three witnesses every 
word (or matter relating to his condemnation) may be 
established. 

17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto 
the church (7. e. make tt a matter of public cognizance): 
but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto 
thee as an heathen man and a publican (among the 
Jews, one wholly neglected by thee, and not thought fit to 
be conversed with). 

18 8 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever (things) ye 
shall (thus) bind on earth (declaring them actions ren- 
dering men obnoxious to God’s displeasure) shall be 
bound in heaven (7. 6. shall make them guilty before 
God): and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth (or by 
this means shall exempt from guilt) shall be loosed in 
heaven. 


7 Ver. 15, ᾿Εὰν δὲ ἁμαρτήσῃ εἰς σὲ ὃ ἀδελφός σου" &e. If then 
thy brother shall trespass against thee, go, and tell him his 
Sault betwixt thee and him alone. Ver.17. Let him be to 
thee as a heathen man, or a publican.) i. 6. The Son of 
man being come “to save that which was lost” (ver. 11); 
and God being unwilling “that one of these little ones 
should perish:” when thou seest any one in danger to be 
lost, or perish by his sins committed against thee, use this 
method to reclaim him ; and if it fail, let him be to thee as 
a heathen or publican is to the Jews. So I interpret these 
words, because Christ neither neglected publicans nor hea- 
thens, but freely conversed with both, in order to their con- 
version, never ceasing to attempt the cure of any till they 
became incorrigible, as, in this case, the brother admonished 
so oft in vain is supposed to be, and therefore to be one of 
whose salyation we have as little hope as the Jews had of 
heathens and publicans. 

“The papists hence argue for the infallibility and final 
decisions of all doctrines by the church catholic; concluding 
thus, If he who will not hear the church is in the judgment 
of God himself to be held as a publican or heathen, merely 
because he doth not hear her; and if God will ratify in 
heaven her judgment here on earth, as is asserted in the 
following verse ; then cannot the church err in any matter 
belonging unto faith, because it is impossible that God 
should approve her error in any matter of faith, or require 
us under this penalty to hear her.” 

But, the command to tell the offence of our private bro- 
ther, is not a command to tell it to the church catholic met 
in council ; for then this precept could not have been obeyed 
for the first three centuries, no such council ever meeting till 
the time of Constantine. Then (2.) the church must always 
be assembled in such a council, because doubtless there are, 
and will be always persons thus offending against their 
Christian brethren. And (3.) then every private person 
must be obliged at what distance soever he be from it, and 
how unable soever he may be to do so, to travel to this 
council, and lay his private grievances before them : all which 
are palpable absurdities. Christ therefore only commands 
the offended person to tell this to the church, or particular 
community of which he is a member, as will be evident from 
the like rule prescribed among the Jews, and practised by 
the primitive Christians. Thus in the book Mischar Hap- 
penenim* the wise man saith, “If thy brother offend against 
thee, reprove him between him and thee alone, and if he hear 
thee, thou hast gained him; if he hear thee not, take with 
thee one or two brethren, who may hear it; if then he hear 
thee not, count him a vile person.” And in the book 
Musar, “ He that reproves his brother, must do it first with- 
out witnesses, betwixt his brother and himself alone; if he 
amend, it is well; if not, take some companions, that thou 
mayest shame him before them; if neither this way suc- 
ceed, he ought to shame him, and lay open his fault before 
many ;” nor is any thing more common among Jewish wri- 
ters, than to excommunicate the obstinate person, publico 
preconio, “-yith proclamation made in the synagogue.” 
And therefore this telling it to the church, is, in Justint Mar- 


* Buxt. Florileg. p. 297. t Ep. ad Zenam. p. 508. 


tyr, admonishing him, when his obstinacy needs it, xara 
κοινὸν, publicly ; and the consequent excluding him from the 
society, being done according to St. Paul’s direction to his 
Corinthians, συναχϑέντων ὑμῶν, “when they were gathered 
together” (1 Cor. v. 4), is therefore styled by him, ἐπιτιμία 
ὑπὸ τῶν πλείονων, “ the punishment inflicted by many” (2 Cor. 


ii. 6). 
8 Vier, 18. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever things ye 
shall bind on sant ἐσταὶ δεδεμένα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, shall be bound 
in heaven ; and whatsoever things ye shall loose on earth 
shall be loosed in heaven.) For explication of these words, 
let it be noted, 

First, That Christ saith not, “ what persons ye shall bind 
on earth,” but ‘what things;” which seems to intimate 
that our Lord speaks primarily of things, and only conse- 
quentially of persons to be bound and loosed, as having 
contracted guilt by, or as being absolved from the guilt of, 
those things. Note, 

Secondly, That λύειν, to Joose, in scripture and the Jewish 
writers, hath relation to sin and the pardon of it. So Job 
xlii. 9, “ Job prayed for his three friends, and God accepted 
the face of Job, καὶ ἔλυσεν ἁμαρτίαν αὐτοῖς, and forgave their 
sin.” So Ecclus. xxviii. 2, “ Forgive the injury of thy bro- 
ther; and so when thou prayest, ἁμαρτίαι σοῦ λυθήσονται, thy 
sins shall be forgiven.” And then, by the rule of contraries, 
τὸ δῆσαι, “to bind,” must be to retain their sins, or leave 
them under the guilt and obnoxious to the punishment of 
them. Thus, because a vow or oath renders us obnoxious to 
punishment upon a transgression of it, the person thus vow- 
ing or swearing is said “ to bind his soul by a bond,” Numb. 
χχχ. 4.11. And in the Jewish phrase, “to bind,” is to for- 
bid, under the penalty of God’s displeasure; so Numb. xi. 
28, “ Moses, master forbid them ;” esarnwm, “bind them,” 
saith the Chaldee; and “to loose,” is to permit the doing 
this or that, and to pronounce them free from sin and punish- 
ment, or God’s displeasure, though they do it. So in this 
very chapter: “the lord of that servant had compassion on 
him; and ἀπέλυσεν, he loosed him, and forgave him the 
debt :”’ and the woman that had a spirit of infirmity is said 
to be loosed from it (Luke xiii. 12) by the remission of the 
temporal punishment inflicted on her for her sin. This being 
premised, these words may have a threefold interpretation. 

First, The first is that of the fathers, that whosoever doth 
thus admonish his brother as our Lord commands, if he re- 
fuse to hearken to his admonition, and therefore be esteemed 
by him as a heathen, “he is bound by him, and shall be 
bound in heaven; and being moved by his admonition to 
that repentance which obliges his brother to remit his sin, 
shall be loosed in heaven.” So Origen.* “He speaks not 
thus,” say Chrysostom and Theophylacty “to the ruler of 


* Δικαίως γὰρ ἤϑησεν ὃ τρὶς νουϑετῆσας καὶ μὴ ἀκουσϑεὶς τὸν 
κριθέντα εἶναι ὡς ESvixdv—xat ὃ ἅπαξ νουθετηθεὶς λυθεὶς διὰ τῆς 
νουθεσίας κερδήσαντος αὐτὸν καὶ μηκέτι σειραῖς τῶν ἁμαρτίων dede= 
μένος λελυμένος κριθήσεται, ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν οὐρανοῖς" Orig. in Mat. 
tom. xiii. ed. Huet. p. 336, B, C. 

Ἴ Οὐκ εἶπε τῷ προέδρῳ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, δῆσον τὸν τοιοῦτον, ἀλλ᾽ 
ἐὰν dons, αὐτῷ τῷ λελυπημένῳ τὸ πᾶν ἐπιτρέπων. Chrysost. 
"Edy ov, φησὶν ὃ ἀδικηθεὶς, Sec. Theoph. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


133 


19 (And if he, being thus convinced of his sins, desires | our doctors gather from these words, For three transgres- 


you to join in prayers with him, your prayers shall be 
accepted ; for) ® again I say unto you, That if two of 
you shall agree on earth as touching any on that 
they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father 
which is in heaven. 

20 For where two or three are gathered together in 
my name (requesting a blessing for my sake), there am I 
in the midst of them (ἐν e. with them, to speed their 
petitions). 

21 4 © Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, 
how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I for- 
give him? (shall it be) till seven times? (as some of 


the church, but to the injured person ;” for not he whom 
the priest alone, but those whom the offended persons bind 
or loose, are bound and loosed. And when thou,” saith 
St. Austin,* “holdest thy brother a heathen, or a publican, 
thou hast bound him upon earth ; when thou hast procured 
his amendment, solvisti eum in terra, thou hast loosed him 
upon earth.” Now this solution and ligation, which, saith 
Origen, agree best with the context, being the work of any 
Christian who doth thus thrice admonish and reprove his 
brother, and who, being the person injured, is the most pro- 
per to loose or pardon the offence, can be no evidence of 
any infallible authority annexed to it, unless we do suppose 
all private Christians to be infallible; and so, according to 
this import of them, these words cannot be fitly used to 
plead for an infallible authority in the governors of the 
church. 

* Secondly, Others say with St. Jerome here, These words 
are spoken to the apostles, to whom our Lord directeth his 
discourse in this whole chapter; and this may be confirmed 
from St. Luke, who tells us, that when our Lord had warned 
them against giving scandal to his little ones, and bid them, 
when their brother sinned against them, to rebuke him (xvii. 
5), that the apostles said unto him, “ Lord, increase our 
faith :” when therefore he saith here, λέγω ὑμῖν, “1 say unto 
you,” he must speak to the apostles. 

Moreover, our Lord had spoken these very words to St. 
Peter, xvi. 19, where they can have no relation to this mat- 
ter of reproof, and therefore may be well supposed here to 
give the like authority to his apostles in the general. Let 
it be then remembered, that “to bind,” is to declare a thing 
forbidden; i. e. not to be done, under pain of the divine 
displeasure ; “to loose,” is to absolve from obligation to do, 
or to abstain from such an action, or to say, God will not 
hold us guilty for the doing or omitting of it. In which 
sense Isis in Diodorus Siculus} seems to sav, Ὅσα ἐγὼ δήσω 
οὐδεὶς δύναται λῦσαι, “I am the queen of this country, and 
whatsoever things I bind (require or forbid, under pain of 
my displeasure) no man can loose (or exempt you from 
punishment upon disobedience) ;” and then the sense of these 
words will run thus: Nor shall you only in these cases have 
power as Christians to loose your repenting and bind your 
obstinately offending brother; but, as you are my apostles, 
to whom I have promised my Spirit, “to teach you all 
things, and lead you into all truth” (John xvi. 13, xiv. 26), 
whatsoever things ye shall bind on earth, or shall declare to 
be forbidden under pain of my displeasure, shall render 
them indeed obnoxious to my wrath ; and whatsoever things 
ye shall loose on earth (though once required by divine au- 
thority of those who owned the law of Moses) shall be loosed 
in heaven, and men shall be allowed to do them without in- 
curring my displeasure. And in this sense, this promise is 
the foundation of our obligation to believe and obey all the 
commands and doctrines of the apostles, and of the cessation 
of the ritual precepts of the law of Moses. 

Thirdly, Others conceive these words were spoken to the 
apostles and their successors, and that they give them power 
to excommunicate the stubborn criminal, and to absolve the 
penitent: but then (1.) It is confessed on all hands that 
this power of excommunication and absolution belongs seve- 
rally to every priest; according to those words of Lombard,+ 
Omnes et sole sacerdotes recipiunt potestatem clavium, “ All 

* In locum. { Lib. i. Ὁ. 16. 

+ Sent. 4, Dis. 19. 


stons, and for four, Amos i. 2) 

22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee (as 
they do), Until seven times: but, Until seventy times 
seven. 

23 q ' Therefore (in this) is the kingdom of heaven 
likened unto a certain king, which would take account 
of his servants. 

24 And when he had begun to reckon (with them), 
one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thou- 
sand talents (2. 6. 875,000/.) 

25 But (and) forasmuch as he had not (where- 
withal) to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, 


priests, and they alone, have the power of the keys ;” and 
then surely it makes nothing for infallibility. (2.) The text 
plainly speaks of matters criminal, which are the only ob- 
jects of the church’s censure, and not of articles of faith. 
Now even Romanists themselves acknowledge that the 
church may err in passing judgment of these things, be- 
cause, in cases of this nature, she depends on human testi- 
mony ; and therefore it is certain that nothing can be hence 
concluded concerning the infallibility of councils, or any 
articles of faith defined by them. 

9 Ver. 19, 20. Πάλιν λέγω ὑμῖν, ὅτι ἐὰν δύο ὑμῶν συμφωνήσωσιν, 
&c. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree 
upon earth, as feachied tay ‘ind thee fe, shall tak ee 

or where two or three are gathered together in my name, 
&c.] Here again, 

First, One ancient exposition of these words refers them 
to the offended person, and the injurious person repenting of 
his sin, of whom it may be reasonably supposed that he will 
not only ask God pardon for his sin, but will entreat his 
offended brother to assist him in so doing; and then these 
words assure him that the prayer of faith put up in the 
name of Christ shall obtain his pardon; the prayer of faith 
being effectual, not only for the recovery of the sick, but 
also for the remission of his sins (James v. 14,15). This 
exposition of the words we find twice in St. Basil* and in 
other fathers; but it is liable to this objection, that it re- 
strains these words to one particular, viz. the pardon of the 
penitent; whereas it is, περὶ παντὸς πράγματος, “ concerning 
any thing that they shall ask.” And therefore, 

Secondly, Others restrain these words to the apostles, 
looking on them as a promise peculiarly made to them; 
as those words, “I say to you,” seem to insinuate; so 
Chrysostom,t Euthymius, and Theophylact: and then the 
coherence will run thus; viz. And you may be assured of 
this assistance of the Spirit in any matter respecting the dis- 
charge of your apostolical function, if you unanimously 
consent to ask it in my name; i. e. by interceding to the 
Father in my name; according to those words of Christ, 
“ Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye 
shall receive,” John xvi. 24; and ver. 26, “In that day 
shall ye ask the Father in my name:” thus do they pray 
for “signs and miracles to be done in the name of Jesus ;” 
and doing this, “they were all filled with the Holy Ghost’ 
(Acts iv. 29—31). Now, according to either of these inter- 
pretations, it is evident that these words can afford no argu- 
ment for the infallibility of councils in their decisions. 

1 Ver. 21. Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, 
Ποσάκις ἁμαρτήσει εἷς ἐμὲ 6 ἀδελφός pov, καὶ ἀφήσω αὐτῷ ; ἕως 
ἑπτάκις ; how oft shall my brother offend against me, and I 
forgive him? till seven times 91 The determination of the 
rabbins in this case runs thus, “ That three offences are to be 
remitted, but not the fourth ;” and this they gathered from 
those words, “ For three transgressions, and for four, I will 
not turn away my wrath” (Amosi. 3). St, Peter puts the 
three and four together, as perhaps others of their doctors 
did, and asks, whether he must forgive “till seven times?” 
Of this forgiveness, see note on Matt. vi. 14, 15, 

M Ver, 23, Διὰ τοῦτο ὡμοιώθη ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν, The 


* Περὶ συμφωνίας μετανοοῦντος πρὸς τὸν ἐπιμελοῦμενον αὐτοῦ τῆς 
ψυχῆς γέγραπται ἐπὶ τῶν τοιούτων. Reg. Brev. 4. 15, tom. ii. Ρ. 
629, et q. 621, p. 715. 

ἡ Διὰ τοῦτο φήσιν, ἐξ ὑμῶν τῶν évapirwv, &c. Chrysostom et 
Theophylact. κα 


134 


and his wife, and children, and all that he had (as 
the eastern manner was, Lev. xxv. 39. 41, Isa. 1. 1, 
Neh. y. 5. 8), and payment to be made (by the sale of 
them). 

Ἢ The servant therefore fell down (at his feet), and 
worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with 
me, and 1 will pay thee all. 

27 Then the lord of that servant was moved with 
compassion (towards him), and loosed him, and 
(frankly) forgave him the debt. 

28 But the same servant (who had thus kindly been 
dealt with by his master) went out, and found one of 
his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence 
(z. €. 31, 28. 6d. a Roman penny being sevenpence half- 
penny): and he laid hands on him, and took him by 
the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest (me). 

29 And his fellowservant fell down at his feet 
(likewise), and besought him, saying (as he had done 
to his master), Have patience with me, and 1 will pay 
thee all. 
kingdom of heaven may be likened to a certain king, &c.] 
i. e. So will God deal with Christian professors sad the 
gospel, as this king did with his servants. From this parable 
some inferences may be practically, some doctrinally made. 
The practical inferences are these: (1.) from ver. 33, οὐκ 
ἐδεὶ καί ce, since “I forgave thee ten thousand talents, ought- 
est not thou to have forgiven thy fellow-servant his hundred 
pence?” We learn the equity of this unlimited forgiveness 
of our brother here required, because our God and Saviour 
have forgiven us more numerous and heinous sins than our 
brother is capable of committing against us. (2.) The lord 
forgiving here his servant, because he “had not wherewith 
to pay” (ver. 26, 27), and being angry with him because he 
would “not have compassion on his fellow-servant,” but 
went and cast him into prison, not having patience with him 
till he should pay the debt; this seemeth to bear hard on 
those unmerciful and unchristian creditors, who cast poor 
men, who they know have nothing to pay, into prison for 
their debt, augmenting thus their debt by the gaoler’s fees, 
and rendering them less able to pay than they were before ; 
and so rendering their brother’s state more miserable, and 
their debt from him as desperate as ever. For sure, he that 
bids us “lend, hoping for nothing again,” will not allow us 
to imprison, where nothing can be hoped for; and it is to be 
feared, that men so unmerciful may find but little mercy at 
that day: for if it be a crime that will be then objected to 
our condemnation, that we “ did not visit Christians when in 
prison,” what will it be to cast them into prison 1 

The doctrinal observation, which truly seems to be infer- 
rible from this text, is this, that sins once forgiven may, by 
our forfeiture of that pardon by our misdemeanours, be again 
charged upon us; for after this lord had forgiven his servant 
the whole debt (ver. 27), he being angry with him for his 
unmerciful deportment towards his fellow-servant, “ delivers 
him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due to 
him” (ver, 34) ; and then it follows, “so likewise will my 
heavenly Father do to you” (ver. 35). The conclusion from 
this place, saith Dr. Hammond, is this, that God’s pardons 
in this life are not absolute, but, according to the petition of 
the Lord’s prayer, answerable to our dealings with others, 
and so conditional, and are no longer likely to be continued 
to us than we perform the condition. 


MATTHEW. 


30 And (buf) he would not (bear with him): but 
went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the 
debt. 

31 So when his fellowservants saw what was done, 
they were very sorry (for both him that thus suffered, 
and the unkindness of this servant to him), and (they) 
came and told unto their lord all that was done. 

32 Then his lord, after that he had called him, said 
unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all 
that (great) debt (which thow owedst me, merely) be- 
cause thou desiredst me (so to do)- 

33 Shouldest not (‘hen) thou also have had com- 
passion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on 
thee ? 

34 And his lord was wroth (with him), and deliver- 
ed him to the tormentors (gaolers), till he should pay 
all that was due unto him. 

35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also 
unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one 
his brother their trespasses. 


Obj. It remains only that I answer the objection of Crel- 
lius from this place, against the satisfaction of our Lord, viz. 
that in this parable God is compared to a king remitting a 
great debt to his servant, without satisfaction or payment 
made, only because he desired him, and requiring others to 
imitate his compassion towards their fellow-servants ; whereas 
if God remits no sin without requiring satisfaction, he is not 
duly represented by a king that remits a debt merely because 


his servant begged him so to do; nor can we by this example: 


be induced to a free forgiveness of our brother’s sins without 
a satisfaction made to us: for how can we be moved to such 
forgiveness by his example, who will not forgive our sins 
without satisfaction made to his justice? 

Ans. To this a plain and satisfactory answer will arise 
from these considerations : 

First, That all a governor can inflict, on the account of 
sin, is punishment; all that the sinner can undergo by rea- 
son of it is some penal evil; and therefore, all that for- 
giveness of the sinner can imply, is the exempting him from 
punishment, ar from the evil to which he was obnoxious by 
sin. 

Secondly, That by admitting another to suffer in my 
stead, I am as much forgiven as I could be, did he not 
suffer in my stead, because I am as much freed from suffer- 
ing any punishment on the account of my offence; and, 
how can I be more forgiven, than I am by such an act, as 
removes from me the whole punishment, as much as if I 
never had offended? That God requires such conditions 
as faith and repentance, in order to our freedom from the 
guilt of sin, is by the Socinians themselves allowed to be no 
bar to the freedom of God’s grace and mercy in the pardon 
of it: the reason is, because there is nothing of suffering 
contained in these conditions, and so nothing by way of 
satisfaction or punishment for sin required. Hence then 
it is evident, that the example of this forgiveness may rea- 
sonably induce us to require no satisfaction of him who 
hath offended us, because God required none of us when 
we had offended. And the parable here may well press us 
to a free forgiveness of our brother, by the example of that 
God, who hath required no suffering at all from us in order 
to the pardon of our sins. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


1 Anp it came to pass, that when Jesus had 
finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and 
came into the coasts of Judea, beyond Jordan (to the 
place where John was baptizing at the first, John x. 
40) ; 


2 And great multitudes followed him; and (he 
taught them as he was wont, Mark x. 1, and) he healed 
them there. , 

3 41 The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting 
him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX. 


1 Ver. 3. And the pharisees came unto him, tempting 
him, and saying, Ei ἔξεστιν ἀνθρώπῳ ἀπολῦσαι τὴν γυναῖκα 


αὐτοῦ κατὰ πᾶσαν αἰτίαν ; Is it lawful for aman to put away 
his wife for every cause?] The school of Hillel taught 
that a man might put away his wife for any cause; because 
this divorce was permitted, “if she found not grace in his 


CHAPTER XIX. 


put away his wife (as some of our doctors say) for every 
cause? 

42 And (but) he answered and said unto them, 
Have ye not read, that he who made them at the be- 
ginning (of the creation, Mark x. 6) made them male 
and female, 

5 And said (also), For this cause shall a man leave 
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and 
they twain shall be one flesh ? 

6 Wherefore (by virtue of this institulion) they are 
no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God 


135 


hath joined (thus) together, let not man (by divorcing) 
put asunder. 

7 ® They say unto him, (Jf this be so) why did Moses 
then command to give (to the woman) a writing of di- 
vorcement, and (50) to put her away? (He answering 
(to this) saith wnlo them, What did Moses command you ? 
Mark x. 3. Then they said, Moses permitted (us) to 
wrile a bill of divorcement, and so send her away, ver. 4. 
Then 

8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hard- 
ness of your hearts (writ that commandment unto you, 


eyes” (Deut. xxiv. 1); and this was suitable to the current 
practice and exposition of these words. For that which 
we render, “ The Lord saith he hateth putting away,” Mal. 
ii. 16, is by the Chaldee and the Septuagint rendered thus, 
“The Lord saith, ἐὰν μισῆσας, ἐξαποστείλης, if thou hatest 
thou shouldest put her away.” And the son of Sirach saith, 
xxv. 26, “If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her 
off from thy flesh, give her a bill of divorce, and let her 
go.” And Josephus saith,* the law runs thus, “He that 
would be disjoined from his wife, καθ᾽ ἃς δηποτοὺν αἰτίας, 
πολλαὶ δ᾽ ἂν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις τοιαυταὶ γίνονται, for any cause 
whatsoever, as many such causes there are, let him give her 
a bill of divorce.” And he confesseth,t that he himself 
τε put away his wife after she had borne him three children, 
μὴ ἀρεσκόμενος αὐτῆς τοῖς ἔϑεσι, because he was not pleased with 
her behaviour.” The school of Shammah determined on the 
contrary, that the wife was only to be put away for adultery ; 
because it is said, “ Because he hath found some unclean- 
ness in her.” The pharisees seek the resolution of this 
question from Christ, tempting him, i. e. to induce him to 
decide this question, either against the law of Moses, or else, 
as he must do, against the determination of one of these 
two famous schools, and so to render him offensive to them. 
2 Ver.4. But he answering, said unto them, Have ye not 
read, that he who made them at the beginning made them 
ἄρσεν καὶ ϑῆλυ, male and female ;—xai ἔσονται of δύο εἰς σάρκα 
μίαν, and they two shall be one flesh 3} i. 6. God, by mak- 
ing them at first male and female, made them so, that they 
might cleave together so as to become one flesh ; and when 
they have, after a mutual consent to enter into that relation, 
done so, they are “no more two, but one flesh ;” and there- 
fore are not to be separated, unless, by cleaving so unto an- 
other, they have made themselves one flesh with that other. 
That this is the effect of this conjunction with one another, 
seems evident (1.) from those words of the apostle, 1 Cor. 
vi. 16, “ Know ye not, that he that is joined to a harlot, is 
one body with her? for two, saith he (i. e. God), shall be 
one flesh;” and (2.) from the inference ὥστε, “so that 
they,” after this conjunction, “are no more two, but one 
flesh :” and those whom God from the beginning hath thus 
framed, and of whom he hath thus spoken, let no man put 
asunder. God himself, who binds, may see cause to permit 
in some cases the solution of this obligation, to prevent 
cruelty and other mischiefs, as he did to the Jews, by rea- 
son “of the hardness of their hearts,” allowing a divorce ; 
but, without such permission, no man ought to do it. There 
seems to be something like this in that of Hierocles,+ that 
ἐπὶ γάμον ἐζοτρύνουσα ἡ φῦσις, nature prompts us to mar- 
riage, in that she hath made us συνδυαστικοῦς, so that two 
should live together, and have one common work to beget 
children.” And that tale of Plato,§ in his Convivium, that 
“man at first was made male and female, and that Jupiter 
cleft them asunder, and so there was a natural love one to 
the other, ἐπιχειρῶν ποιῆσαι ἕν ἐκ δυοῖν καὶ ἰάσασϑαι τὴν φύσιν 
τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην, endeavouring to make one again of two, and 
to heal human nature,” seems to be only a corruption of the 
story in Genesis, that Eve was made out of Adam’s rib. 
Ver. 5. Kai εἶπεν, And he said, For this cause shall a man 
leave father and mother, &c.| Here also, say the Greek 
scholiasts, it was not God, but Adam, who said this; other 
interpreters conceit that Moses said this by divine inspira- 


* Antigq. lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 125, G. 
{ In Vita sud, p. 1031, F. 

+ Apud Stob. Serm. 65, p. 414. 

§ Serm. 64, p. 412, 413. 


tion, and so God said it by him; hence the Jews, saith Mr. 
Selden,* represent this as alaw against incestuous marriages. 
Or else these may be the words of Christ, who, ver. 4, εἶπεν 
αὐτοῖς, Said to them, “He that made them in the beginning 
made them male and female, καὶ εἶπεν: and he said also, 
For this cause,” &c. citing the words recorded, Gen. ii. 24, 
and this seems probable from Mark x. 6, 7, where the 
whole words are plainly ascribed to Christ. 

3 Ver. 7. They say unto him, Ti οὖν Μωσῆς ἐνετείλατο 
δοῦναι βιβλίον ἀποστασίου, καὶ ἀπολῦσαι αὐτῆν; Why then did 
Moses command to give her a bill of divorcement, and put 
her away 3] Here it is to be noted, that Moses commanded 
no man to divorce his wife, but only ἐπέτρεψεν, “ he permitted 
in some cases the doing of it ;” but then he acting in this as 
God’s minister, it must be a divine permission. Note, (2.) 
That it was a limited permission, viz. only to do it after 
such a manner, viz. by “writing a bill of divorcement, and 
putting it into her hand:” for, if this might have been done 
by word of mouth, or otherwise, it might have occasioned 
a great evil on both sides; for the woman might have pre- 
tended, when she liked another better than her husband, 
that she had been divorced, and so might marry him; and 
the man might rashly have divorced his wife upon any little 
quarrel, and never be in a condition of having her any 
longer as his wife: to prevent which divorces upon such 
a sudden pet, it was the custom to ask the person who 
came for a bill of divorce, before they delivered it to him, 
τ Whether his yea was yea?” i. e. whether he continued in 
a settled resolution to put away his wife (see note on 
2 Cor. i. 17). But the great question is, Whether this per- 
mission excused this divorce from sin, or only from pu- 
nishment? That it could not excuse him that divorced his 
wife from sin, is argued, (1.) because our Saviour decides 
this question negatively, and that by reason of God’s own 
institution founded upon nature, (ver. 4, 5), and represents 
the permission mentioned by Moses as contrary to =. 
(ver. 8). Now all transgression of divine law is sin 3?) 
because Christ saith, this permission was only granted to 
them “for the hardness of their hearts :” now whatsoever is 
done upon that principle, is sinful: (3.) and, especially, 
since otherwise it follows, that divorces are only evil be- 
cause forbidden, and so are only sins against a positive 
command; and not forbidden, because evil, or because 
contrary to the law of nature; and then, either adultery 
can be no sin against the law of nature, or else Christ 
could not truly say, that “he that putteth away his wife, and 
marries another, committeth adultery against her.” 

But on the other hand, That this permission excused 
those Jews, who made these divorces according to the law, 
not only from punishment by man, but also from fault 
before God, and more especially from being guilty of adul- 
tery, is evident, (1.) from the permission given to the woman 
thus divorced to marry with another, Deut. xxiv. 2, which 
plainly shows, the bond of matrimony must by it be dis- 
solved, since otherwise this must be a permission to be an 
adulteress. (2.) From the prohibition of the person thus 
divorcing her to receive her again as his wife; which yet he 
was bound to do, if the bond of matrimony still continued, 
and she was still in truth his wife. And (3.) because 
otherwise, the whole commonwealth of Judea, by a divine 
permission, must be filled with adulteries, and with a spu- 
rious offspring. To answer therefore the former arguments : 

First, It is granted, that, as our Saviour says, these di- 
vorces were indeed contrary to the equity and genuine in- 


* De Jur. Nat. et Gent. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 562. 


136 


Mark x. 5, by which he) suffered you to put away 
your wives: but from the beginning it was not so (no 
divorce being allowed or practised before). 

9 4 And (therefore) 1 (who came to reduce things to 
their primitive perfection) say unto you, (That under 
the gospel dispensation) whosoever shall put away his 
wife, except if be for fornication, and shall marry 


MATTHEW. 


another, committeth adultery (with that other): and 
whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit 
adultery (with her). 

10 ¥ His disciples say unto him, δ If the case of 
the man be so with Ais wife (that he must be still bound 
to her), it is not good to marry. 

11 But he said unto them, ® All men cannot re- 


tention of God’s primitive institution of matrimony; but 
then it must be added, that God by Moses dispensed with 
his own institution; and that Christ only says, that under 
his new law, this dispensation should not obtain, but that 
he would have his disciples to act according to the primitive 
institution. 

Secondly, In answer to the second argument, it may be 
said, that what was permitted to the Jews, by reason of 
the hardness of their hearts, was no less permitted than what 
they were allowed to do, by reason of the indifference 
of the thing: whatsoever therefore was the cause of this per- 
mission, it is certain that which was permitted could not at 
the same time be forbidden, and therefore could not be a 
fault, or that which God would punish in them. 

Thirdly, To the third argument, it may be answered, that 
a thing may be said to be according to the law of nature 
two ways: (1.) because nature doth direct us to it by the 
provisions it hath made for such an end; in which sense, it 
is natural for women to give suck to their children; or, by 
the relation in which it hath placed us; in which sense the 
apostle saith, that even nature teacheth the woman to be 
covered in the church assemblies, and to wear long hair 
(see the note on 1 Cor. xi. 13), or, by the frame and con- 
stitution of things; in which sense man and wife are one 
flesh, and therefore ought not to separate from one another : 
and Christians ought, where greater reason doth not inter- 
vene, to act according to that which is thus suitable to the 
law of nature. Or, (2.) because the law of nature doth re- 
quire it as necessary in reason to be done, or doth forbid it 
by reason of some meral turpitude, which always of neces- 
sity adhereth to the action; in which sense it may be said, 
that divorces and polygamy are not against a law of na- 
ture, but only against a positive command. And whereas 
it is objected, that then adultery will be no sin against the 
law of nature; I answer, that as adultery imports the 
lying of a husband with another who is confessedly not 
his wife, or of a wife with another whom she knows to be 
not her husband, it is unquestionably a sin against the law 
of nature, as being contrary to the faith plighted by them; 
contrary to justice, as being giving that to others which is 
not your own; and contrary to the good of families and 
commonwealths, as filling them with a spurious offspring, 
and loosing the bonds of consanguinity and affinity. But 
then, if the polygamist then used only those to whom by 
matrimony he was contracted, there was not the like in- 
jury or injustice done: nor can I think that Abraham, 
Jacob, David, and other pious men, would have had more 
wives, or wives and concubines, had this been a plain vio- 
lation of the law of nature ; nor would God have so highly 
approved of them, had they lived in adultery. And, if di- 
vorce untied the bond of matrimony, it gives that liberty to 
each party which cannot be allowed of whilst that bond con- 
tinued ; and so there could not be the same cause of blame 
or guilt in their cohabiting with another: it therefore may 
be granted, that these were rather sins against a positive 
or natural directive, than a moral precept or law of nature. 

4 Ver. 9. And I say unto you, "Os ἂν ἀπολύση τὴν γυναῖκα 
avron, el μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ καὶ γαμήση ἄλλην, μοιχᾶται, Whosoever 
shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and 
shall marry another, committeth adultery.) Here it seems 
evident that Christ prescribes a new law, which had not 
before obtained among the Jews; divorce being permitted 
to them for other causes: for though it be said, Deut. xxiv. 
1, he must find “some matter of uncleanness in her ;” yet 
that cannot signify fornication or adultery, seeing for these 
things she was by the law to die by stoning, if she committed 
fornication before her marriage was completed, Deut. xxii. 
24, by strangling, say the Jews, in case of adultery, ver 22. 
(2.) Because this divorce was permitted to all, except the 
person who falsely pretended he found her not a maid; 
for that law so peculiar to him, “he may not put ker away 


all his days,” Deut. xxii. 19, shows that others were per- 
mitted so to do: now adultery being a sin against the law 
of nature, could be permitted upon no account. And (3.) 
any other, excepting only the high-priest (Lev. xxi. 7), 
might marry her who was thus put away (Deut. xxiv. 2) ; 
whereas it could be lawful for no man to commit adultery 
with her (see also the note on Mark x. 10, 11). 

Moreover, whereas all commentators I have met with, 
by fornication here do understand adultery, or the defiling 
of the marriage-bed; I incline rather to take the word in 
its proper sense for fornication committed before matri- 
mony, and found after cohabitation. (1.) Because Christ, 
speaking of this divorce here and elsewhere, doth never 
use the words μοιχεία, which signifies adultery, but always 
πορνεία. (Matt. v. 32), which word, both among Jews and 
gentiles, doth properly import the sin of unmarried per- 
sons lying one with another, and so being made one body 
(1 Cor. vi. 16): it is not therefore likely that Christ re- 
ceded from the known and common acceptation of the 
word. (2.) The punishment of adultery after marriage was 
strangling; after sponsalia, stoning; divorce not being 
mentioned in either case; but simple fornication was not 
thus punished by the Jews. And (3.) by this interpreta- 
tion, the law of marriage is by Christ reduced to its pri- 
mitive institution; that conjunction with another makes 
them both one flesh; and so the woman who had thus 
transgressed was to be dismissed, because she before was 
one flesh with another, and therefore could not be so with 
the man to whom she afterward did marry. Note also hence, 
that, according to either interpretation, where it is lawful to 
put away the wife, it is so to marry again: for (1.) such 
were the divorces of the Jews, of which Christ speaks; and 
(2.) Christ by pronouncing such divorces as were not, for 
this cause, adulterous in him that married another, doth 
plainly insinuate, there was no such crime committed in this 
case ; and then the marriage must be dissolved by that act. 

Ei μὴ ἐπὶ πορνεία, except for fornication.) St. Jerome 
here saith, that if the woman hath committed adultery, non 
debet teneri, “she ought not to be kept by her husband,” 
lest he fall under condemnation, he being pronounced a fool 
and a wicked person, qui adulteram tenet, “who retains an 
adulteress,” as the Septuagint reads, Prov. xviii. 27. The 
Greek fathers say, almost generally, it is καλὸν ἐκβάλλειν, an 
honourable thing to cast her out: and St. Austin* having 
said it was permitted, but not commanded so to do, retracts 
that saying, as being contrary to the words of Solomon. He 
that retains her, say the Apostolical Constitutions, is φύσεως 
θεσμοῦ παρανόμος, “a transgressor of the law of nature” (lib. 
vi. cap. 14). 

5 Ver. 10. If the case of a man be so with his wife, it is 
not good to marry.) If under the prohibition of divorce 
that of polygamy had not been contained, there would have 
been no cause for this inference of Christ's disciples; seeing 
they might have had a remedy, by taking one or more other 
wives, whom they loved better; nor would there have been 
any ground for Christ’s discourse, of making themselves 
eunuchs for the kingdom of God. 

Ei οὕτως ἔστιν ἡ αἰτία. Grotius, Casaubon, and Bois, ren- 
der αἰτία here “the condition,” in which sense it is fre- 
quently among the Latins: but seeing αἰτία is in Hesychius, 
τὰ kar’ ἀρχῆν πράγματα ; and in Phavorinus, ἀρχὴ ἣ myn, the 
beginning or original of the thing; and Christ is here speak- 
ing of the original of matrimony, or of what it was, dz’ ἀρχῆς, 
and reducing things to that state; why may not the apostles 
be conceived to speak thus?—TIf this be indeed the original 
of matrimony, and thou intendest to take from us the liberty 
of divorces, which Moses granted, and to reduce marriage 
to its first original, it will not be good to marry. 

6 Ver. 11. Οὐ πάντες χωροῦσι τὸν λόγον τοῦτον, All men 


* Retract. lib. i. cap. 19. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


ceive this (thal) saying, save (bul) they (only) to 
whom it is given (7. δ. they only can lead a pure single 
life, who by a special gift of God are enabled so to do; 
some indeed must do it). 

12 For there are some eunuchs, which were so 
born from their mother’s womb: and there are some 
eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and 
(some resolve upon it, that they may be fitter to serve 
God without distraction ; for) there be eunuchs, which 
have made themselves (as) eunuchs for the kingdom 
of heaven’s sake. (“πῶ here the rule is this,) He that 
is able to receive it, let him receive it. (He that by 


cannot receive this saying.) i. e. All men cannot live single 
and abstain from matrimony. Whence it follows, that men 
and women are not by monastical vows to be obliged so to 
do; because none ought to be by vow obliged to do that 
which they cannot perform without sin. (2.) By adding, 
that they only can do this, “to whom it is given ;” he shows, 
this is a special gift; according to these words of St. Paul, 
“1 would have all men to be as I am: but every man hath 
his proper gift” (1 Cor. vii. 7). Now that which all men 
may obtain by prayer, temperance, and fasting, and such-like 
ordinary means, cannot be called a special gift, or a gift 
proper to some. And (3.) some, saith Christ, “have made 
themselves eunuchs ;” i. e. abstained from matrimony for the 
kingdom of heaven ; i. e. to be more expedite in preaching 
the gospel, or more fit to regard only the things of the Lord 
(1 Cor. vii. 34): “He that can receive it, let him receive 
it;” which last words sufficiently intimate, all men cannot 
do so. 

7 Ver. 13, 14. They brought unto him little children, that 
he should put his hands upon them, and pray.) 'This being 
the gospel used by our church at the celebration of infants’ 
baptism, it will be necessary to show the fitness of it for 
that purpose. Note therefore, 

First, That these little children being styled τὰ βρέφη 
“jnfants” (Luke xviii. 15), and taken up in Christ’s arms, 
(Mark x. 16,) it is plain that they were children not yet 
come to the age of discretion ; for βρέφος, according to Eu- 
stathius and Phavorinus, is τὸ ἄρτι γεγονὸς ταιδίον καὶ τρεφό- 
μένον ἀπὸ τήθης “a new-born child nourished from the teat, 
from his birth, till he be four years old’ (so 1 Pet. ii. 2): 
whence they do not come to Christ but are brought to him. 

Secondly, They seem to be brought to Christ by those who 
believed he was a prophet sent from God, not by those who 
had other thoughts of him; for why should they desire for 
their children his prayers, or the imposition of his hands ? 

Thirdly, These children were not brought to be healed 
of any bodily distemper, for then the disciples would not 
have hindered them, but “that he should bless them, and 
pray over them ;” which shows that they were capable of 
spiritual blessings, and may receive advantage by prayers; 
and “that he might lay his hands upon them.” Now this 
imposition of hands could not be to prepare them for any 
office, nor seems it designed to procure to them any remis- 
sion of sin, of which the Jews conceived infants not guilty 
(though this would prove them capable of some means by 
which their sins might be pardoned) ; but to obtain for them 
some spiritual blessings appertaining to the kingdom of 
God; or as Dr. Lightfoot saith, by this rite to admit them 
into the number of his disciples, or to own them as belong- 
ing to his kingdom. And, 

Fourthly, From the reason why Christ would have them 
suffered to come to him, viz. “ for of such is the kingdom of 
God,” it appears there is something in little children, why 
they should not be hindered from coming to him, besides 
their being emblems of humility ; for this they are as much 
when they come not, as when they come: now what can 
that be, but the fitness of them to be early dedicated to the 
service of God, and to enter into covenant with him by rites 
appointed by him for that end? And hence the ancients 
looked upon this as a sufficient ground for infants’ baptism," 


* Barrilere ὑμῶν καῖ τὰ νῆπια' Agere yap, φησὶ, τὰ παιδία ἔρχεςϑαι 
πρὸς μὲ, Const. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 15, p. 380, C. Ait Do- 
minus, Nolite illos prohibere venire ad me. 

Vox. IV.—18 


137 


this special gift of God is enabled to retain his virgin, 
may do well to do so.) 

13 4 7 Then were there brought unto him little 
children, that he should (touch them, and) put his 
hands on them, and pray (over them): and (but) the 
disciples rebuked them (that brought them). 

14 But Jesus (being much displeased at this action 
of his disciples, Mark x. 14) said (unto them), Suffer 
little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: 
for of such is the kingdom of heaven; (nor shall an 
man enter into it, who becomes not like unto them, Mar 
x. 15.) 


as appears even from Tertullian,* whilst he shows his dis- 
like of the custom. 

Obj. But, say the antipmdobaptists, Christ neither did 
baptize them, nor command the apostles to do it. 

Ans. That is not to be wondered at, if we consider that 
they had entered into covenant with God by circumcision 
already, and Christian baptism was not yet instituted; and 
(2.) that the baptism thus used by John and Christ's disci- 
ples was only the baptism of repentance, and faith in the 
Messiah which was for to come (Acts xix. 4), of both which 
infants were incapable, but not of being consecrated to God 
from their infancy, as Samson, Judg. xi. 7, and Samuel, 1 
Sam. i. 11, or of entering into covenant with God, Deut. 
xxix. 11. 15, as all the male infants of the Jews did by cir- 
cumcision. (3.) Christ here speaks not of those children 
only, but of children in general, “Suffer little children to 
come to me;” he adds a reason common to them all, “for 
of such is the kingdom of heaven ;” which if it import they 
are fit to be admitted into Christ’s church and kingdom as 
they were into the Jewish church, they must be fit to receive 
Christian baptism, that being the only means of entering into 
Christ’s kingdom. If he means only that they are fit em- 
blems of humility, what reason can be hence given why 
they should on this account be brought to Christ that he 
might lay his hands upon them? Or, why should he be so 
displeased that they should be forbidden to come to him? 

Then they brought unto him little children.) To the argu- 
ment here used for the baptizing of young children, it may 
be answered, that they were brought to him, that he might 
put his hands upon them and heal them; for Mark x. 13, 
Luke x. 15, they were brought, ἵνα ἅννηται αὐτῶν, “that he 
might touch them; now as the prophets under the Old 
Testament healed by laying their hands on the diseased, 
and praying over them (2 Kings ν. 10), so more certainly 
were persons healed by the touch of this great prophet; for 
“as many as touched him were made whole” (Mark vi. 56), 
and upon that account, as many as had diseases sought “ to 
touch him” (Mark iii. 10, see Mark v. 23. 39. 42). 

But to thisI reply, that when any came thus to Christ to 
touch him, or to desire him to lay his hauds upon them, in 
order to a cure, we find either express declaration, or suffi- 
cient intimation, that they accordingly were healed ; whereas 
there is not the least intimation of any bodily cure wrought 
upon these infants, but rather an intimation of some spiri- 
tual benediction; it being not here said, ἐθεράπευσεν, “he 
healed,” but εὐλόγησεν, “he blessed them.” (2.) Christ doth 
not say, Suffer little children that are diseased, or sick, to 
come unto me, but, without limitation or distinction, Suf 
fer them to come. Nor (3.) doth he say, Suffer them to 
come, for they need to be healed as much as those of riper 
years, but for a reason which equally belongs to all children 
born of parents who are in covenant with God, viz. “ for of 
such is the kingdom of God.” 

It may be farther said, that they brought them to Christ, 
as the Jews do now their children to their famous doctors; 
or as we do ours to the bishop, to receive his blessing. But 
to this I answer, that had that custom then obtained among 
the Jews, neither could the disciples reasonably have for- 
bidden them, neither would our Lord have assigned this as 
a reason why they should not be forbidden, “for of such is 
the kingdom of God.” 


* Tertul. de Baptismo, cap. 18. Author Quest ad An 
tioch. q. 114. Ambr. De Virg. lib. iii. tom. i. p. 124 
“2 


138 


15 And he laid Ais hands on them, and (blessing 
them) departed thence. 

16 7 And, behold, one came and said unto him, 
Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that 1 may 
have eternal life ? 

17 And he said unto him, 8 Why callest thou me 
good? (i.e. Why givest thou me a title not ascribed to 


MATTHEW. 


your renowned rabbins, nor due to any mere man? 
Thinkest thou, there is in me any thing more than hu- 
man, or that the Father dwelleth in me? This thou 
oughtest to believe, if thow conceivest that this title truly 
doth belong to me, seeing) there is none good but one, 
thal is, God: but (to thy question, I say) 5 if thou wilt 
enter into life, keep the commandments, 


8 Ver. 17. Τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν ; οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς, εἰ ph εἷς, ὃ 
Θεὸς, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, 
that is, God.| Here it is acknowledged, that many of the 
most ancient fathers* read, “God my father.” That other 
reading of some fathers,t “ Why askest thou me concern- 
ing good?” is neither in the Syriac, nor in any of the evan- 
gelists, and so it seemeth to be only of a later date. Now 
from this place the Socinians argue thus against the deity 
of Christ: He to whom the title of good doth not belong, 
cannot be God most high; by our Lord’s own words this 
title belongs not to him, but only “to God the Father;” 
and therefore God the Father must be God alone. And 
whereas some of the Post-Nicene fathers answer, that this 
young man said, “Good Master,” out of flattery or igno- 
rance, looking upon Christ as a mere man, and so Christ 
answers, “ Why callest thou me good, whom thou dost not 
acknowledge to be God?” this, say they, is an addition to 
the text, without any ground from Christ’s words, yea, in 
opposition to them, he saying that “one thing only was 
lacking to him ;” viz. that he should sell all, &c.; whereas 
the knowledge that Christ was God must also be lacking to 
him, and so two things, according to the Trinitarian hypo- 
thesis. To this it might be answered, that when our Lord 
saith, “One thing is lacking to thee,” he respects not his 
knowledge, but his practice, intending not to say what was 
lacking in him, as to the knowledge of himself; for it ap- 
pears not this young man owned him as the promised Mes- 
siah; but to instruct him what was yet lacking to perfect 
his obedience to the commandments of God. Or (2.) that 
the deity of Christ, being not revealed so fully as afterward 
it was, might then not be necessary to be believed to salva- 
tion. But not to insist farther on this answer, I reply, 

Secondly, That Christ may be supposed to speak to this 
young man thus; Thou givest me a title which is never 
given to your most renowned rabbins, and which agrees to 
God alone; dost thou therefore think there is any thing in 


me more than human, or that the Father dwelleth in me? | 


This thou oughtest to believe, if thou conceivest this title 
truly doth belong to me, seeing there is but “one that is 
good, that is, God.” To confirm this interpretation let it be 
considered, that Christ in preaching to the Jews asserted 
two things of himself; (1.) that he was a prophet sent from 
God, even that prophet that should come into the world. 
(2.) That he had given them clear evidence of his commis- 
sion from his Father, by the works done by the power of 
God, which manifestly showed that God dwelt in him, and 
that “he was in the Father, and the Father in him,” so 
that he and the Father were one; for so he speaks, “I and 
the Father are one; and if I do not the works of my Fa- 
ther, believe me not; but if I do, though you believe not 
me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that 
the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (John x. 30. 37, 
38, xiv. 8 10); which words the Jews so apprehended, 
that they pronounced him guilty of blasphemy ; “ for that 
being a mar he made himself God” (John x. 31. 33). He 
therefore nught well say to this young man, “ Why callest 
thou me good Master ?” unless thou believest I am a teacher 
sent from God, seeing he who falsely pretends this cannot 
be a good master or teacher of truth; nor canst thou own 
me as a prophet sent from God, but from my works; from 
which I have proved, that “I am in the Father, and the 
Father in me;” yea, that “I am one with the Father,” and 
so partake with him of the title of “good.” 


* Tta Just. M.'O Θεὸς ὃ πατήρ μου, Dial. p. 338. A. Iren. 
lib. i. cap. 17, p. 105. Clem. Alexandr. p. 118, Ὁ. et 733, Ὁ. 
Orig. Com. in Joh. ed. Huet. p. 39, B, C, et lib. v. contra 
Celsum, p. 238. Exhort. ad Martyr. p. 169. 

Ἷ Τί με ἐρωτᾶς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ; August. De Concil. Evan. 
lib. 11, cap. 63. Vulgatus interpres et Hieron. in locum. 


Thirdly, Maresius well answers, that the Father being the 
fountain of the whole Deity, must in some sense be the 
fountain of the goodness and wisdom of the Son. The Son, 
saith Dr. Bull, is rightly styled, “the perfect and adequate 
image of his Father’s goodness, as he derives that goodness, 
as he doth all his other attributes, with the divine nature 
from the Father?” and thus to be the fountain of good may 
belong only to the Father. Hence even the heathens have 
declared, that of all the perfections of the Deity, that of 
ἀγαθὸς, good,’ was the most proper, he being only styled 
by them good, who was* ὁ πάντα διδοὺς καὶ μηδὲν λαμβάνων, 
“he who gave all to others, but derived nothing from them ;” 
and thence they placed goodness, ἐν μόνῳ dyevirw, “in him 
only who was unbegotten.” And in this sense many of the 
Ante-Nicene fathers owned that the word did signally, and 
most excellently, agree to the Father, and to Christ only by 
reason of the goodness derived with the divine nature to him 
as being God of God; or ἐκ τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους σχέσεως, “ from 
the essential relation they had to each other ;’ as Clemens 
Alexandrinust well explains,the matter, thrice saying, that 
the “Father alone is good and just,” and yet “that the 
Son,” καθὸ δὲ ὃ λόγος ὧν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ πατρὶ ἔστι, “as being the 
Logos, as he is in the Father, is just, τὸ δὲ δίκαιον ἀγαθὸν, 
and what is just is good ;” and concluding, Θεὸν ἕνα μόνον 
εἶναι ἀγαθὸν, δίκαιον, δημιουργὸν, υἱὸν ἐν πατρὶ, “that there is one 
only God, good, just, the maker of all things, the Son in 
the Father.’ Novatiant answers to them who objected to 
the orthodox that they owned two Gods, that if Christ being 
Lord hinders not that of the apostle, “there is one Lord;” 
so neither did Christ’s being good, and God, hinder « there 
being one God, and one that is good.” 

9 Ei δὲ ϑέλεις εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν ζωὴν, τήρεσον τὰς ἐντολὰς, But if 
thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.) 'This 
being Christ’s answer to the young man’s question, “« What 
good thing shall I do, that I may inherit eternal life?” 1 
cannot think, as many seem to do, that Christ here directs 
him to that way to obtain that life, which neither was nor 
cotid be sufficient for that end; it being certain Christ else- 
where saith the same thing. For to the lawyer inquiring, 
« What shall I do to inherit eternal life 1 Christ answers, 
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
thy neighbour as thyself; this do and thou shalt live” (Luke 
x. 25. 28). Now when men came seriously to inquire of him 
the way to life eternal, who can imagine he would deceive 
them by directing them to a way which he well knew was 
not sufficient to obtain that end? Moreover, it is very evident 
that God in the Old Testament promiseth life to them who 
observe his commandments, and pronounces them such as 
“he that did them should live by them” (Lev. xviii. 5, 
Ezek. xx. 11), promising to those who observe them, that 
“ they shall surely live, and not die” (Ezek. xviii. 21, xxxiii. 
15) ; i.e. not die eternally, seeing he cannot be supposed to 
promise that they who walked before God, as Zacharias and 
Elisabeth, “in all the commandments of God blameless,” 
were righteous in his sight (Luke i. 6), and were said to walk 
before him with an upright and perfect heart (Ps. xviii. 21. 
24), and to love him with all their heart and all their soul 
(see note on xxii, 37). _ It is therefore certain that all pious 
persons under the Old Testament obtained a right to life 
eternal, by this observance of the moral precepts of the law. 

Obj. 1. But against this it is objected, that when the 
young man had said, “All these have I kept from my 
youth,” Christ yet requires him to “sell all that he had, 
that he might be perfect, and have treasure in heaven.” 

Ans. True; but then this one thing was contained in the 
precept of loving, honouring, and obeying God with all his 


* Merc. Trismeg. in Pemandro, cap, 2, n. 86, n. 2. 
+ Pedag. lib. i. p. 118, 119. 
¢ Cap. 30. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


18 He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, (Thou 
knowest the commandments to be these,) Mark x. 19,) 
Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit 
adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear 
false witness, ᾽ 

19 Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 

20 The young man saith unto him, (Master) All 
these things have I kept from my youth up: what 
lack I yet? 

21 Jesus (then beholding him, loved him, Mark x. 
21, and) said unto him, (One thing ts yet lacking to thee,) 


139 


0 Tf thou wilt be perfect (fully instructed in the highest 
duties of my doctrine, they are these), go and (now I re- 
quire 7!) sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and 
thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and 
follow me (taking up thy cross, Mark x. 21). 

22 But when the young man heard that saying, he 
went away (from Christ) sorrowful: for he had great 
possessions (on earth, which he could not part with for 
treasures in heaven). 

93. 4 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I 
say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into 
the kingdom of heaven. 


heart; for sure he loves not God above all things, who will 
not, when he doth require him, part with all things to enjoy 
God in heaven; nor doth he obey him sincerely, and with a 
perfect heart, who, when he is required by his ambassador to 
forsake them and follow him, refuseth so to do. 

Obj. 2. It is farther objected, that the law required “ per- 
fect obedience,” and could not absolve the sinner from the 
guilt of sin. 

Ans. 'T'o this I answer, That to require perfect obedience 
to his laws is a thing absolutely necessary on the part of 
God, both under the old and the new covenant; for sin being 
the transgression of the law, and perfect and unsinning obedi- 
ence being the same, if God require under the new covenant 
that I should not transgress any of his laws, as he most cer- 
tainly must do, he must require me not to sin against them, 
and so he must require perfect, that is unsinning obedience ; 
and as sincere obedience, which is the condition of our ac- 
ceptance with God under the new covenant, doth not procure 
the pardon of our sins committed under that covenant, but 
“the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin” upon our re- 
pentance ; so though the obedience to the moral law, required 
under the old covenant, could not absolve the sinner from the 
guilt contracted by the violations of that law: yet doth God 
there also promise expressly the like pardon to the penitent, 
that “when the wicked man turneth away from his iniquity, 
he shall not die, but live” (Ezek. xviii.) ; that when he “ ceas- 
eth to do evil, and learneth to do well, though his sins were 
as crimson, he shall be white as wool” (Isa. i. 17, 18) ; and 
that their offerings, which before were vain oblations, should 
become sacrifices of sweet savour, and procure an atonement 
for their sins, if not by virtue of his institution, yet certainly 
by virtue of the “Lamb slain from the beginning of the 
world.” And that God required no obedience to his law as 
necessary to salvation, but that which pious Jews, by virtue 
of that grace which he was ready to afford them, might be 
able to perform, is hence apparent, that he not only promises 
life to them who did obey this law, but by the sacred penmen 
doth pronounce them blessed, saying, “ Blessed is the man 
who meditates in this law day and night” (Ps. i. 6) ; « Bless- 
ed are they who always keep judgment, and do righteous- 
ness” (Ps. cxix. 1, 2) ; that he that keepeth the law is bless- 
ed (Prov. xxix. 18); and that “in keeping of it there is 
great reward” (Ps. xix. 12, see Ps, cxix. 1, 2, Prov. 
vili. 32. 34). This blessing, therefore, and reward, all 
pious persons did, and had just reason to expect; and yet 
itis certain they could not expect it on the performance 
of what it was not possible for them to do; though there- 
fore God said to them, “cursed (i. 6. obnoxious to a curse) 
is every one that continueth not in all things written 
in this law to do them:’’ they might be certain from the 
expiation and atonement he had appointed to be made 
for sin, and from the gracious promises made by him 
to the penitent, that they should be exempted from the 
guilt, and consequently from the curse, due to those trans- 
gressions, though they might not expressly know that this 
redemption was to be procured by the death of their 
Messiah. 

Obj. 3. But doth not the apostle intimate that “the law 
could not give life,” by saying, “If there had been a law 
which could have given life, verily justification should have 
been by the law (Gal. iii. 21); that “the law worketh 
wrath” (Rom. iv. 15); and that “as many as are under the 
law are under a curse?” (Gal. iii. 10.) 

Ans. All these things prove, that the transgressions of this 
law did render them obnoxious to punishment for the guilt 


of it, and that the law itself, only requiring obedience, could 
not absolve the sinner from the guilt of his disobedience to it, 
and therefore could not procure justification to life for the 
sinner without an act of grace temperating the rigour of the 
law: but yet this proves not there was no pardon to be ob- 
tained for the sinner, upon his repentance and faith in God, 
allowing an atonement for his sin: for then there could have 
been no place for repentance, or a propitiatory sacrifice un- 
der the law, and so no justification not only by the law, 
which is all St. Paul asserts, but no justification, that is, no 
freedom from the penalty denounced by it. As therefore 
under the gospel our justification, or absolution from the 
guilt of sin, ariseth not from works, but grace through faith ; 
and yet good works and sincere obedience are the conditions 
requisite to salvation, and the means necessary to obtain it; 
and therefore of our love to God and to our neighbour as 
ourselves, it may still be said, “ Do this and live :” so under 
the law, obedience to the moral precepts of it was the con- 
dition of, and the means requisite to obtain, the same life; 
and therefore of sincere obedience to it it might well be 
said, “ Do this and live,” especially seeing under the law 
faith and repentance were required for the remission of the 
violations of it. 

And as it is necessary, from the perfection of the divine 
nature, and his relation to us as a governor, to require that 
we should not sin, i. e. transgress any of his laws; so it is 
also necessary, through the imperfection of human nature, 
that if he will enter into covenant with lapsed sinful man, 
that that covenant should be a covenant of grace, or should 
admit of favour upon his repentance ; seeing all other cove- 
nants would depend, on man’s part, on an impossible condi- 
tion, which is apparently equivalent to none at all; it being 
in effect the same to promise or engage for nothing, as only 
to promise something upon a condition I cannot perform. 

10 Ver. 21. Ei θέλεις τέλειος εἶναι, &e. If thow wilt be per- 
fect, sell that thow hast, and give unto the poor.) That to 
be perfect is to be fully instructed in our duty, is proved in 
the note on 1 Cor. ii. 6, “ We speak wisdom among those 
that are perfect,’ i. 6. saith Theodoret, παρὰ τοὺς εἰλικρινῆ καὶ 
τελείαν δεξαμένους πίστιν, “ among those whose faith is sincere 
and entire:’’ hence “to know in part” is opposed to τὸ 
τέλειον perfect knowledge” (1 Cor, xiii. 9,10). In this sense 
the word "22 is used by the rabbins, as when they say, “they 
constitute a judge who was not gomar,’ i. 6. fully instructed 
in the knowledge of the traditions of the fathers; and tell 
us that one came to Hillel to be made a proselyte, and he 
said, “ Do not that to another which is odious to thyself; 
that is the whole law, go thy perfect way ;” i. e. fully in- 
structed in thy duty (Cod. Talm. Shabbath. f. 31). Now 
(1.) hence then we may discern the vanity of the popish 
gloss upon this text, viz. If thou wilt be perfect, that is, If 
thou wilt obtain a higher degree of eternal life, I give thee 
this counsel, not simply necessary to salvation, but to at- 
tain a higher measure of it. For sure the young man need- 
eth not have gone away so sorrowful, if, without obeying this 
counsel, as they are pleased to call it, he might have ob- 
tained that eternal life he inquired after, and which con- 
tained the whole of his desire. Note, 

Secondly, That seeing Christ here requires him not only 
to withdraw his heart from an inordinate love of his posses- 
sions, but actually to sell all, and give the money to the 
poor, we may be sure that this was only a particular com- 
mand to this young man, to convince him of the insincerity 
of his pretended love to life eternal, and not a precept com- 
mon to all Christians. For that there were rich men in the 


140 


24 And again I say unto you, 1" It is easier for a 
camel (or a cable-rope) to go through the eye of a 
needle, than for a rich man (who trusteth in his riches, 
Mark x. 24) to enter into the kingdom of God. 

25 When his disciples heard it (this), they were 
exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved 2 

26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, 
With men this is impossible ; but with God all things 
are possible (7. 6. human persuasion can hardly thus take 
off men’s hearts from the world, but the power of God can 
do it). 

27 J Then answered Peter and said unto him, Be- 
hold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what 
shall we have therefore ? 

28 And Jesus said unto them, Verily 1 say unto 


MATTHEW. 


you, That ye which have (thus) followed me (now) 
¥in the regeneration (or this new state of things), 
when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his 
glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging 
the twelve tribes of Israel (z. δ. you shall be the chief 
ministers in my kingdom, to preach that doctrine to the 
Jews, by which they shall be judged, Luke xxii. 29 ; see 
the note). 

29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or 
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or 
childrens, or lands, for my name’s sake, ™ shall re- 
ceive an hundredfold (now in this life with persecution, 
Mark x. 30, 7. e. they shall have more and greater bless- 
ings than they part with here), and shall inherit ever- 
lasting life (hereafter). 


church, we learn from 1 Tim. vi. 17, James i. 10, ii. 2; the 
apostle John had his own house; Peter permits the Chris- 
tian to retain his own (Acts v. 4); nor doth the apostle bid 
the Corinthians sell all and give alms, but only requests 
them to give “of their abundance” (2 Cor. viii. 13) ; so that 
if riches fall into the hands of one who knoweth how to use 
them to God’s glory, and the relief of indigent Christians, 
as well as to the supply of his own needs, it seems a contra- 
diction to conceive that God doth require him to part with 
them, and thereby divest himself of any farther opportunity 
of promoting his glory, or doing good to his needy members. 
We are therefore only to do this upon the like occasions, viz. 
an express command from God; or when we find them an 
impediment to the securing our eternal interests: for then 
we must part with our right eye or hand. 

1 Ver. 24. Εὐκοπώτερόν ἐστι κάμηλον διὰ τρυπήματος ῥαφίδος 
διελθεῖν. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle, &c.] There is no necessity of reading κάμιλος for 
κάμηλος, for that both signify a “cable,” or thick rope used 
by the mariners in casting anchors, Euthymius, Theophylact, 
and Phavorinus* testify ; and that a camel is not here to be 
understood, Bochartus argues, (1.) because the Hebrew pro- 
verb speaks only of an elephant, not of a camel. (2.) Be- 
cause the Syriac and Arabic versions here mention not a 
camel, but a cable. (3.) Because the Jews, as Buxtorft 
notes, use the same proverb of a cable rope; and (4.) be- 
cause there is some analogy betwixt drawing a thread and a 
rope through the eye of a needle, but none at all between a 
camel and a thread (Bochart. Hieroz. par. 1. lib. ii. cap. 5, 
p- 91, 92). 

2 Ver. 28. Ἔν τῇ παλιγγενεσία, &e. In the regeneration, 
when the Son of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory, 
ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of 
Israel.) I know that Justin Martyr and Irenezus speak of a 
παλιγγενεσία, Tegeneration, or renovation, which relates to 
their supposed millennium, and others would refer this to 
the stoical renovation of the world after its conflagration ; 
but it is evident that neither of these opinions can here take 
place; not the supposed renovation of the world after the 
conflagration of it, since that must burn up all that remain 
of the “twelve tribes of Israel,’’ and so leave none of them 
remaining to be judged by Christ’s apostles. Dr. Lightfoot, 
finding that this judgment of the twelve tribes is promised 
to begin “when the Son of man sits upon the throne of his 
glory,” which he began to do soon after his ascension, exer- 
cising his authority in heaven by sending down the Holy 
Ghost on his disciples, thinks they then “ sat on these twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” when they 
preached that gospel to them in Jerusalem, Judea, and 
throughout their dispersions, by which they were to be judged, 
and for contempt and disbelief of which they were rejected, 
condemned, and exposed to the severest punishment. Christ 
being mentioned throughout the book of the Revelation, as 
sitting on his throne from the time of his conquest over 
death and his ascension into heaven, the doctrine of the 
apostles preached to the twelve tribes by the apostles, and 
sent to them in their epistles, may be said to judge and to 


* Κάμηλος καὶ τὸ παχὺ σχοινίον ἐν 3 δεσμεύουσι τὰς ἀγκύρας 
οἱ ναῦται, ὡς τὸ ἐν εὐαγγελίῳ κάμηλον διὰ τρυπήματος ῥαφίδος 
διελθεῖν. Phav. 

+ Lex. Talm. Ὁ. 1719, 


condemn them, as the law of Moses is said to do so, John v. 
45, and the word of Christ, John xii. 47, 48, 1 John iii. 17, 
18. And this seems to be confirmed by Christ’s words to 
them, “1 appoint to you a kingdom, and ye shall sit upon 
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” But, 

Secondly, I grant the παλιγγενεσία here mentioned may 
be referred to the consummation of the world, and to the 
“new heavens and earth” of which the prophets speak ; but 
then I add, this παλιγγενεσία, or “new birth,” is only that 
of the church of Christ, that ζωοποίησις, or “new life,” that 
ζωὴ ἐκ νεκρῶν, “life from the dead,” she shall receive when 
all Israel shall be saved, and “the fullness of the gentiles 
shall flow in to them.” For, 

First, The persons here to be judged are only the “ twelve 
tribes of Israel,” which makes it more than probable that 
the whole promise made to the apostles respects their govern- 
ment over these tribes, coming in at the close of the world, 
after the fall of antichrist; and that not by a resurrection 
of their persons, but by a reviviscence of that spirit which 
resided in them, and of that purity and knowledge which 
they delivered to the world, and chiefly by admission of their 
gospel to be the standard of their faith, and the direction of 
their lives. 

Secondly, It is observable, that the delivery of the Jews 
from their former captivities and miseries is always repre- 
sented as a ζωοποίησις, “a giving of life,” and “a resurrec- 
tion” to the Jews. Seeing then their return from their cap- 
tivity is in the style of the prophets usually represented as a 
παλιγγενεσία, “a reviving, or new life,” why may not the 
time of their most glorious conversion, and collection from 
all the corners of the earth, be by our Saviour here repre- 
sented under that known metaphor? moreover, the Greek 
interpreters here generally say, παλιγγενεσία τὴν ἀνάστασιν 
νοεῖ, “ regeneration here signifies the resurrection.” But (1.) 
we read of no assessors with Christ then, but rather that all 
shall “stand before the judgment-seat.” (2.) The apostles 
here are only said to judge “the twelve tribes of Israel ;” 
whereas, as they preached the gospel both to Jew and gen- 
tile, so by their doctrine shall they then judge both Jew and 
gentile (Rom. ii. 16). Some of the Latin fathers put a 
stigma after regeneration, and interpret the words thus: 
« You that have followed me in the regeneration,” that is, 
“in faith and holiness ;” but this interpretation is confuted 
by the parallel place, Luke xxii. 20, which makes this the 
reward of their abiding with him in his temptation, not of 
their new birth, in which they could not follow Christ at all. 

8 Ver, 29, 30. Shall receive a hundred-fold, &c.] i. e. 
They shall have more and greater blessings than they part 
with, viz. a full content of mind; the comforts of an up- 
right conscience; the joys of the Holy Ghost; increase of 
grace, and hopes of glory; and shall have God for their 
Father, and be rich towards God; and have Christ for their 
spouse, and all good Christians bearing that warm affection 
to them which will render them more closely united to, and 
more affectionately concerned for them, than those who were 
allied to them by the strictest bonds of nature. And that 
these words cannot reasonably be interpreted of blessings to 
be conferred upon them after their resurrection, will be evi- 
dent from this, that they that are “ thought worthy to be the 
sons of the resurrection,” saith our Lord, “neither marry, 
nor are given in marriage” (Luke xx.35). Whence there- 
fore should they have these mothers and these children, not 


CHAPTER XX. 


30 “ But many ¢hat are (now) first shall be last; 
and (they that are now) the last shall be first (7. e. the 
Jews, to whom the blessings of this kingdom are first to be 


to add wives, a hundred-fold? they are made like to the an- 
gels at their resurrection; and what should such angelical 
persons do with, what advantage will they reap from, a hun- 
dred houses, or a like increase of land on earth ? 

If you reply, that these words of our Saviour relate not to 
the first resurrection, of which this text, which speaks of 
wives and children, is to be interpreted, but only to the se- 
cond and general resurrection ; I answer, that the words are 
general, and therefore must include all that are sons of the 
resurrection. Moreover, by admitting this double resurrec- 
tion, the first, in which they that are raised might marry, or 
have wives and children, and the second, in which they could 
not; the objection or inquiry of the sadducees is partly left 
unanswered : for this distinction doth suppose a resurrection, 
in which the ground of their inquiry might take place. 

Secondly, ‘This wonderful increase is promised viv, at 
present,” ἐν τῷ καιρῷ, “in this time of life,” Mark x. 30, 
Luke xviii. 30, in opposition to what they shall receive in 
the age to come. Now the millennium is still placed by 
Dr. Burnet in the age to come, after the conflagration of the 
world; this promise therefore cannot refer to his millennium, 
nor yet to any other which begins after the resurrection of 
these persons; for that time can with no propriety of speech 
be said to be now, nor can the bessings then received be said 
to be received in this life. Moreover, these blessings are to 
be received μετὰ διωγμῶν, with persecutions, it being the 
known observation of critics and grammarians that μετὰ 


141 


offered, shall be the last that shall partake of them ; and the 
gentile, to whom they are to be offered after them, shall 
Jirst enjoy them). 


with a genitive case signifies with, and denotes τὸν αὐτὸν 
καιρὸν, “the same time,” and only with an accusative case 
signifies after, and denotes ὑστεροχρονίαν, “ ἃ following time ed 
so that these persecutions must be contemporary with the 
enjoyment of these blessings; whereas a general peace, and 
freedom from all persecutions, is made a necessary character 
of the millennial state. 

Lastly, These words afford an argument against the doc- 
trine of the millennium; because, according to them, the 
only blessing to be received ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τῷ ἐρχομένῳ, “in the 
age to come,” is life everlasting ; which blessing is confined 
to heaven, and not to be enjoyed on earth, our house “ eter- 
nal (being) in the heavens” (2 Cor. v. 1), and our “inhe- 
ritance eternal reserved in the heavens forus:” and therefore 
they to whom the promise is here made, are not in the world 
to come to live a thousand years on earth, or to enjoy the 
temporal blessings promised here; because they are not to 
be enjoyed in the world to come, but now, in this present 
life ; and because the only blessing promised in the world to 
come, is not to be enjoyed on earth, but is reserved in the 
heavens for us (1 Pet. i. τὴν ᾿ 

4 Ver. 80. But many that are first shall be last.) Christ 
speaking here of the blessings which belong to his kingdom, 
and saying, that as to the participation of them, the Jews 
shall be the last, seems to confirm the doctrine of St. Paul, 
that the Jewish nation should be converted at the close of 
the world, or the last age, when the millennium shall begin. 


CHAPTER XX. 


1 For (this, that the first shall be last, may be con- 
Jirmed to you by this parable,) 1 the kingdom of heayen 
1s like unto a man ¢hat is an housholder, which went 
out early in the morning to hire labourers into his 
vineyard (as Christ went first to call the Jews to come 
tnto zt). 

2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for 
a penny a day (i. e. had told them what should be their 
wages), he sent them into his vineyard. 

3 And he went out about the third hour (by his 
apostles, sent first to preach in their cities and villages, 
Matt. x.), and saw others standing idle in the market- 
place, 

4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vine- 
yard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And 
they went their way. 

5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, 
and did likewise (preaching by his apostles, assisted by 
the Holy Ghost, first to the Jews in Judea, and then in the 
dispersions). 

6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 


1 Ver. 1. The kingdom of heaven is like to a man that is 
a householder.) Something like this parable being to be 
found in the Jerusalem Talmud, as are many other of these 
parables in some of their ancient books, Mr. Clerc thinks it 
fitter to say, “they afterward used them in imitation of 
Christ,” than that Christ, who was an inspired teacher, 
should take them from the Jews. But (1.) whoever consi- 
ders the hatred they bore to Christ, will scarce believe they 
would be concerned to imitate his sayings ; and seeing this 
inspired teacher made frequent use of their proverbs, and, 
as some learned men aver, took almost the whole Lord’s 
prayer from the prayers used by the Jews; why might not 
he, who used their parabolical way of teaching, by his di- 
vine wisdom apply such of their parables as he saw proper 
for that purpose, to resemble the spiritual matter of his 
kingdom, they being such as would be less offensive, and 


found others (i. e. the gentiles) standing idle, and 
saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day 
idle? 

7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired 
us (i. δ. the gospel hath not yet been preached to us). 
He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; 
and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. 

8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard 
saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give 
them {heir hire, beginning from the lst unto the first. 

9 And when they came that were hired about the 
eleventh hour, they received every man a penny (7. 6. 
the gentiles had equal privileges and advantages with the 
Jews). 

Ἢ But when the first (the Jews) came, they sup- 
posed that they should have received more ; and (but) 
they likewise received every man a penny. 

ΠῚ And when they had received 7?, they murmured 
against the goodman of the house (that he had no more 
regard to them than to other believers), 

12 Saying, These last have wrought but one 


better be remembered because used by them, and familiar to 
them? ‘To proceed then to the critical remarks upon this 
parable, and so on to the import of it: note, 

First, That these words, these last, μίαν ὥραν ἐποίησαν, are 
well rendered, “have wrought one hour,” for so ποιεῖν signi- 
fies, as Dr. Hammond notes in these words of the book of 
Ruth, ποῦ ἐποίησας, “where hast thou wrought?” (Ruth ii. 
19), and “she showed her mother ποῦ ἐποίησε where she 
wrought,” and the name of the man pS’ οὗ ἐποίησε, “ with 
whom she wrought ;” and in the book Ecclesiastes ποίημα is 
still α work, and ποιεῖν to work; so τὸ ποίημα τὸ πεποιημένον 
ὑπὸ τὸν ἥλιον is, “the work wrought under the sun,” Eccles. 
ii. 17, iv. 3, viii. 9, and iil. 9, so profit is τοῦ ποιοῦντος, “to 
him that worketh in that which he laboureth.” Note, 

Secondly, That ὀφθαλμὸς dyads, ver. 15, is a liberal or 
bounteous eye. So Ecclus. xxxv. 8, “Glorify God ἐν ὀφθαλ- 
μῷ ἀγαθῷ, by thy bounty.” So aw py is benignus oculus, 
(see Buxt. in voce γ}, see Dr. Hammond, note &.), and 


142 


hour (7. 6. these gentiles were only called at the last), 
and thou hast made them equal unto us (Jews), which 
have borne the burden and heat of the day (2. e. have 
Paik 80 long the sons of God, and the children of Abra- 

m). 

13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, 
I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for 
a penny? 

14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give 
unto this last, even as unto thee (who dost not less par- 
take of the blessings of the promised Messiah, because the 
gentiles also do it). 

15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with 
mine own? (to confer the blessings I have purchased, as 
well upon the gentiles as on thee? or) is thine eye evil, 
because I am good (towards them) ? 

16 So the last shall be first, and the first last (7. e. 
so the gentiles believing in, and thankfully receiving 
Christ, shall become his church and people, whilst the 
Jews, murmuring and falling off from Christ, because 


MATTHEW. 


of this his kindness to the gentiles, shall be excluded, 
and cast out from this kingdom till the last): for 
(though) many (of them) be called (by the preaching 
of the gospel), but few (of them will be) chosen (or pre- 
vailed upon by believing to become the elect of God, Rom. 
xi. 5. 7). ; 

17 Pad Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the 
twelve disciples (who followed him, fearing what might 
befall him and them there, Mark x. 32) apart in the 
way, and said unto them, 

18 Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of 
man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto 
the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, 

19 And shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock, 
and to scourge, and to crucify him: and the third day 
he shall rise again; (for all these things being written 
of him must be fulfilled, Luke xviii. 31.) 

20 4 2 Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s 
children with her sons, worshipping Aim, and desiring 
a certain thing of him. 


ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρὸς is “the envious eye” (see note no Matt. vi. 
22). 

hirdly, That the κλητοὶ here, are those who were called by 
Christ and his apostles to the marriage-feast or supper of 
the gospel, offered to them with all its benefits, and yet 
slighted and refused by them, Luke xiv. 18. The ἐκλεκτοὶ 
those among the Jews who embraced this call, and so are 
called by St. Paul ἐκλογὴ “ the election,” and a remnant, κατ᾽ 
ἐκλογὴν, “according to the election of grace” (Rom. xi. 6, 
7); and by St. Peter, “the elect” (1 Ῥεῖ. 1. 1, ii. 3). For 
the import of this parable seems to be this,—that the Jews, 
who were first called to be God’s people, and to whom the 
gospel was first preached, and the blessings of the Messiah 
first offered, shall be, for their unbelief, rejected from being 
God’s people, and so shall be the last in God’s esteem, and 
shall be only made partakers of these blessings at the 
last; but the gentiles, who therefore came not in before, be- 
cause they were not called before, shall accept the gracious 
offer, and so become God’s church and people, and be pre- 
ferred before the Jews, and first partake of the blessings of 
the gospel: so that they who gloricd in the title of being the 
first-born of God, and those who had served him so long, and 
therefore murmured that the gentiles should be admitted to 
the same privileges and favour with them, and that without 
circumcision or ob@flience to the law of Moses, and did on 
that account reject the gospel, shall themselves be rejected, 
and put last; for, though many of them are called both in 
Judea, and throughout their dispersions, yet few of them do 
or will accept that call, or embrace the Christian faith. 
That this is the true import of this parable, we learn (1). 
from the connective particle yap for, which begins this chap- 
ter, and thereby shows this parable is designed to prove what 
was said in the last verse of the former chapter, and is 
repeated in the close of this parable, ver. 16, viz. that 
“many which were first shall be last, and the last shall be 
first.” And that this relates to the calling in of the gentiles, 
and the rejection of the Jews, is evident from these words, 
Luke xiii. 283—30, “So there shall be weeping and gnash- 
ing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you your- 
selves cast out. And they shall come from the east and the 
west, from the north and south, and shall sit down in the 
kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall be 
first, and first which shall be last.’ For in these words 
Christ plainly shows that the gospel should be received by 
the gentiles dispersed through all parts of the earth, and they 
should become the seed of Abraham by faith, whilst the 
Jews should be excluded from that kingdom, and by this 
“the last shall be made first, and the first, last ;’ and the rea- 
son of this, added ver. 16, “for many are called, but few 
chosen,” must respect the same Jews. Moreover, that this 
parable cannot relate to the rewards of another world, is evi- 
dent from this, that amongst them who receive those rewards 
there can be no murmuring as here against God, ver. 11, no 
«evil eye,” or envy at the felicity of, or kindness shown to 
others, as here, ver. 15. But the very preaching of the gos- 


pel to the gentiles was a great mystery (Rom. xvi. 25, 26, 
Eph. iii. 4—6, 1 Tim. iii, 16); for even the first believers 
preached only to the Jews (Acts xi. 19). St. Peter durst 
not do it till God by a vision told him that he should (Acts 
x.), and when he had done it, those of the circumcision con- 
demn him for it (Acts xi. 2,3). ‘The unbelieving Jews could 
not hear it from St. Paul, without crying out, « Away with 
such a fellow, it is not fit that he should live” (Acts xxii. 21, 
22): and therefore they forbade the apostles “to preach to 
the gentiles that they might be saved” (1 Thess. ii. 16). Yea, 
even the believing Jews murmured at their admission to the 
like privileges with them, without circumcision, and the ob- 
servance of the law of Moses, and made great schisms in all 
the churches of the gentiles upon that account; and the un- 
believing Jews were enemies to the gospel for their sakes 
(Rom. xi. 28). This therefore seems to be the cause of the 
murmuring, and “evil eye,” mentioned in this parable, 
which, saith Christ, was wholly without cause, since they 
had not the less share of the blessings of Abraham, and 
of the Messiah, because the gentiles also, through God’s 
free grace and favour to them, were made partakers of 
them. Note also, that the words, “I will give to these 
last as unto thee,” do not signify that God would give the 
blessings of the gospel to these murmuring Jews, “the king- 
dom of God being to be taken from them,” and they being 
to be “cast out into outer darkness ;” but only that they 
should be offered to both equally, and conferred upon them, 
on the same terms of faith, there being no “ distinction be- 
twixt Jew and gentile” in the gospel dispensation, as under 
the law there was. 

The kingdom of heaven is like, δες. The two exposi- 
tions of the fathers, viz. (1.) that they who were called at 
the first hour were Adam and Eve, or Enoch and Noah; 
they at the second, were Abraham and the patriarchs; they 
at the sixth, were Moses and the Jews; they at the ninth, 
the prophets: or (2.) that this relates to the seyeral ages of 
man; to those who are called in their infancy, as Samuel 
and the Baptist; or in their youth, manhood, middle age, 
old age,—cannot be true. Not the first, though it be as an- 
cient as Origen, if not as Ireneus; because this is a parable 
of “the kingdom of heaven,” and therefore can only respect 
those times when the kingdom of heaven was come among 
them: (2.) because of those many that were called, “few 
were chosen ;” which is not true of those said by this expo- 
sition to be called at the first, third, and the ninth hour: 
not the second; because this plainly is a parable relating to 
the Jewish nation (ver. 16), and therefore not to all per- 
sons called in all ages and places of the world. 

Ver. 15. Ἔν τοῖς ἐμοῖς. This, saith Dr. Mills in his Vulgate, 
is commentarius non textus, “a commentary added to the 
text;”’ but these words are found in Origen on Matt. p. 407, 
in Chrysostom, Theophylact, and in all the other versions. 

2 Ver. 20,21. Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s 
children, desiring that her two sons might sit one on his 


* Lib. iv. cap. 70. 


CHAPTER XX. 


21 And he said unto her (speaking for them as they 
desired), What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant 
that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right 
hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. 

22 But Jesus answered and said (to them), Ye 
know not what ye ask (as being ignorant of the state 
of my kingdom, which will rather call you to suffer- 
ings, after the example of your Lord, than to temporal 
advantages). 3. Are ye (then) able to drink of the cup 
that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the bap- 
tism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, 
We are able. 

23 And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed 
of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I 
am baptized with (7. e. shall suffer as I must. do): 


143 


‘but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not 
mine to give, but it shall be given to them (Gr. save 
to them) for whom it is prepared of my Father (i. e. the 
highest gifts, and greatest ministries in my kingdom must 
be dispensed by me, according to the good pleasure of my 
Father). 

24 Xna when the ten heard it ({, 6. what these had 
asked), they were moved with indignation against the 
two brethren (for thus allempting to get that which they 
thought themselves as worthy of as they). 

25 But Jesus (percetving this) called them unto 
him, and said, δ Ye know that the princes of the Gen- 
tiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are 
great exercise authority upon them (at their pleasure, 
and so you expect it will be in my kingdom, especially 


right hand, the other on his left in his kingdom.) How this 
is to be reconciled with Mark x. 35, see there. To “sit on 
his right hand and on his left,” is to have the most eminent 
places of dignity and honour after him; thus Solomon 
placed his mother “on his right hand” when he sat upon 
the throne, 1 Kings ii. 19, to which alludes that of Ps. xlv. 
9, “ upon his right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir ;” 
and that among the Persians was μεθ᾽ αὐτὸν few προσεδρίαν, 
“to have the first seat after the king” (Joseph. Antiq. lib. 
xi. cap. 4), δεύτερον καϑίζεσϑαι Δαρίου, “to sit next Darius,” or 
ἐχύμενος οὐτοῦ, “to sit by him” (Esd. iii. 7, iv. 42). This the 
mother might be encouraged to ask, because of their alli- 
ance to Christ, and because she was a continual follower of 
him, and served him so diligently; and she might expect 
they should be eminent in his kingdom, because Christ had 
called them “sons of thunder” (Mark iii. 17), and had ad- 
mitted them and Peter at his transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 1), 
and at other times (Mark ν. 37), when the rest of the disci- 
ples were excluded : however, the rest hearing of this am- 
bitious request of the two brethren, and being as desirous, 
and, in their own opinion, as worthy of the same honour, 
as their frequent contentions about it testified, they had 
“indignation against them” (ver. 24). Now from this whole 
matter it appears, that none of Christ’s disciples imagined 
he had promised the supremacy to Peter, by those words, 
“Thou art Peter ;” for then neither would these two per- 
sons have desired it, nor would the rest have contended for 
it afterward (Luke xxii. 24). 

3 Ver. 22. δύνασθε πιεῖν τὸ ποτήριον, ὃ ἐγὼ μέλλω πίνειν, καὶ τὸ 
βάπτισμα, &c. Can you drink of the cup that I am about to 
drink of, and be baptized with the baptism with which I 
shall be baptized 51 The word cup, among sacred and pro- 
fane authors, signifies the portion whether of good ur evil 
which befalls men in this world; expressed by Homer and 
others by ¢wo cups in the hands of Jupiter, of which 


Δοιοὶ yap re πιθοὶ κατακείαται ἐν Διὸς οὔδει 
Be aad oe SI we EP 
Δώρῶν, οἷα δίδωσι κακῶν" ἕτερος δὲ ἑάων. 


Il. α΄, 525. 


(See Plutarch περὶ “Ῥυγῆς, p. 600, C). Accordingly the 
psalmist saith, “In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, 
and the wine is red, and he poureth out the same ;”’ ἔκλινεν 
ἐκ τοῦτου εἰς τοῦτο, “ he poureth out from one into the other,” 
saith the Septuagint; “but the dregs thereof shall the 
wicked drink” (Ps. lxxv. 8), “fire and brimstone, storm 
and tempest, being the portion of their cup.” “To drink of 
this cup,” is to have a measure of afflictions; and to drink 
of the same cup, is to have the same measure of afflictions; 
as in these words of Plautus,* Ut senex hdc eodem poculo, 
quo ego bibo, biberet, “That the old man might drink of 
the same cup with me” (see the use of this phrase, Isa. 
li. 17. 22, Jer. xxv. 15. 17. 28, Lam. iv. 21, Ezek. xxiii. 
31—33, Matt. xxvi. 39.42, John xviii. 11, Rev. xiv. 10, 
xvi. 19, xviii. 6, and Taubman on Plautus, Rudent. iii. 5). 

This phrase among the Jews, from whom we have reason 
to conceive our Lord received it, signifies, lethale poculum 
bibere, or “to taste of death :” as when Christ saith, « Fa- 
ther, if it be thy pleasure, let this cup pass from me.” 
Thus R. Caiia comforts R. Lakis, concerning the death of 
his child, by saying, “of this cup, multi biberunt, multi 


* Cas. act. 5, sect. 2. 


bibent, many have drank, and many shall drink.” It fol- 
lows, καὶ τὸ θάπτισμα ὃ ἰγὼ βαπτίζομαι, βαπτισθῆναι ; which 
words, saith Dr. Mills, belong not to St. Matthew, but St. 
Mark ; they being wanting in the Vulgar, St. Jerome, and, 
saith he, in Origen, who, after he had cited these words, 
ὀύνασϑε πιεῖν τὸ ποτήριον ὃ ἐγὼ μέλλω πιεῖν, adds, ἤ ὡς ὁ Μάρκος 
ἀνέγραψε, ὃ ἐγὼ πίνω, καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς" though 
there it be uncertain, whether Origen cites Mark for the 
omission of the latter clause, or only for the change of 
μέλλω πιεῖν into πίνω. However, these words are found both 
in the twenty-second and twenty-third verses in Chrysostom 
and Theophylact, and in Basilius Seleucensis, hom. 24, p. 
134, And again in Chrysostom, ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 381, 
382, and in the Syriac and Arabic versions. And seeing 
they are introduced by St. Mark thus, “ But Jesus said unto 
them, Can ye drink, &c. and can ye be baptized,” ἄς. they 
were certainly spoken to them by our Lord ; and why then 
should not St. Matthew relate them as our Saviour spake 
them? 

The metaphor of baptism, or immersion in waters, or be- 
ing put under floods, is also familiar in scripture, to signify 
a person overwhelmed with calamities ; as when the psalmist 
complains “that the waves had gone over him,” Ps. xlii. 7, 
that he was “come into deep waters,” Ps. Ixix. 2, see Ps. 
Ixxxviii. 7, Cant. viii. 7, Jer. xlvii. 2, Ezek. xxvi. 19, Dan. 
ix. 26, Jonah ii. 3. And in this sense Christ saith of his 
death, “I have a baptism to be baptized with” (Luke xii. 
50). Of this cup the apostle James drank when he was 
killed by the sword of Herod (Acts xii. 2) ; and St. John, 
when he was put into a furnace of hot oil, exiled to Patmos, 
and suffered many other things for the name of Jesus. 

4 Ver. 23. But to sit on my right hand and on my left, is 
not mine to give ; οὔκ ἐστιν ἑμὸν δοῦναι, ἀλλ᾽ οἷς ἡτοίμασται ὑπὸ 
τοῦ πατρός pov, but to them for whom it is prepared of 
my Father.] The Arians of old, and the Socinians at pre- 
sent, hence note, that Christ here signifies that there is some 
power which the Father hath reserved to himself, and hath 
not committed to him ; whence, say they, it follows, that he 
cannot be the same God which the Father is; because he 
hath not the same power which the Father hath. But to 
this it is answered, that Christ cannot be here supposed to 
deny this power to himself, for then he must contradict 
himself when he says (Luke xxii. 29, 30), I dispose to youa 
kingdom,—that you may sit on twelve thrones, judging the 
twelve tribes of Israel;” and (Rev. iii. 21), “To him that 
overcometh will I give to sit upon my throne, as I have 
overcome, and sit with my Father on his throne ;” and 
surely he to whom “all power in heaven and earth is given,” 
must have power to appoint the ministers of his kingdom; 
whence the apostle saith, “there be divers administrations, 
but the same Lord” of them (1 Cor. xii.5). Christ there- 
fore only saith, he could give this to them only for whom 
it was appointed of his Father; and this he says not to sig- 
nify a defect of power, but a perfect conformity to his Fa- 
ther’s will; and that he could not do this without the motion 
and energy of the divine nature, which he calls the Father, 
abiding in him; saying, “The Son can do nothing of him- 
self, but what he sees the Father do” (John v.19, 20), and 
can speak only what he hath heard from the Father (John 
viii. 38) ; which rather shows that the divine essence abideth 
in him, than that there is any want of power in him. 

5 Ver. 25. Ye know that of ἄρχοντες τῶν ἐθνῶν πατακυ- 


144 


as to the gentiles, that you Jews shall be lords over them, 
and they shall be your servants). 

26 But (let me tell you) it shall not be so among 
you (én the administration of my kingdom): but whoso- 
ever will be great among you (πη my kingdom), let him 
be your minister ; 

27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let 
him be your servant (for the chiefest officers in my king- 


MATTHEW. 


dom are only the doing the greatest services to, and minis 
ters for the good of others): 

28 (It therefore must be with them) even as (it zs 
with) the Son of man (who) came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister, ὃ and to give his life a 
ransom for many. 

29 And as they departed from Jericho, a great mul- 
titude followed him. 


ριεύουσιν αὐτῶν, καὶ οἱ μεγάλοι κατεζουσιάζουσιν αὐτῶν, the rulers 
of the gentiles have dominion over them, and they that are 
great exercise authority over them: but it shall not be so 
among you.] Here, saith Woltzogenius, we may clearly 
perceive that Christ, in the person of his apostles, under- 
stands all his faithful people, and forbids them, who will.be 
his subjects, the exercise of all civil dominion ; which is cer- 
tainly false, since then he had forbid the dominion of pa- 
rents over their children, and of masters over their servants; 
the contrary to which is evident from Eph. vi. i. 5, Col. iii. 
22,1 Tim. vi. 1, where the power of parents over their 
children, and of masters over their servants, is confirmed. 

Secondly, If by these words the civil magistracy should 
be forbidden in a Christian commonwealth, all order, all 
defence of good men, and punishment of evil-doers would 
be taken away. For what must be done in this case ; must 
the civil government of Christians be put into the hands of 
heathens? “TI see no cause,” saith Schlictingius, “why a 
Christian should not rather exercise it than any other man ; 
for who is better than a Christian? Who, in the use of this 
authority, will be more just and moderate? Who more di- 
ligent in defending the good, and especially those Christians 
who are God’s peculiar people? Who is fitter to promote 
Christian truth and piety?) When the whole realm is Chris- 
tian, can it be better to commit the government to an adver- 
sary, than to an abettor of Christianity? Since God would 
have kings themselves ‘to come to the knowledge of the 
truth,’ would he require them at the same time to lay aside 
their government? What could render them more alien 
from the Christian faith, or be a greater reproach to Chris- 
tianity, than to say it forbade them that government which 
is instituted by the law of nature, and is so necessary for all 
people? And how contrary is this to that prediction, that 
‘kings should be their nursing fathers!’ Moreover, it is 
certain that the exercise of this civil power can be no evil 
thing; since he who doth it is God’s vicegerent, ‘ the ordi- 
nance of God, the minister of God for good;’ who then 
would have all Christians discharged from what is lawful in 
itself, and highly beneficial to them, and not rather wish that 
all kings were Christians, or that only Christians might be 
kings?” And whereas Woltzogenius adds, that this empire 
consists not with Christian humility, which calls us to min- 
ister to others ; now to command and minister is inconsist- 
ent; I answer, that government is so far from being incon- 
sistent with ministry, that all government, whose end is not 
our private, but the good of others, is, in respect of them, a 
ministry ; hence is the highest power styled the “ minister 
of God for good to them,” and said λειτουργεῖν to serve,” or 
officiate, for that very end (Rom. xiii. 6). 

But why then, saith he, did not Christ, the head and king 
of the church, exercise this office? I answer, who knows 
not that he is “ King of kings, and Lord of lords,” and is 
now in the actual exercise of his kingly office? He did not 
indeed exercise this dominion upon earth, because “ his 
kingdom was not of this world,” and he would give no um- 
brage to Cesar or the Jews, that he affected such a thing ; 
and partly because he was to exercise his prophetic office 
upon earth, and go from his sufferings to the glory of his 
kingdom, and leave us an example of patience and humi- 
lity, and of contempt of worldly grandeur. 

Secondly, It is certain that this text cannot condemn all 
ecclesiastical government, that being as necessary to an ec- 
clesiastical society or community as civil government to a 
civil society; hence among gifts distributed for the use of 
the church, we read of governments, 1 Cor. xii. 28, we find 
the apostles had their rod, 1 Cor. iv. 21, and power given of 
the Lord, 2 Cor. x. 8, xiii. 10, to deliver to Satan, 1 Cor. v. 
5, 2 Tim. i. 20, and “to revenge all unrighteousness,” 2 Cor. 
x. 6. And we have mention of those who “are over us in 


the Lord,” 1 Thess. v. 12, and who are ἡγούμενοι, “ govern- 
ors,” to whom we must yield obedience, and “submit our- 
selves,’ Heb. xiii. 7. 17, and without this, that Christian 
discipline, on which the welfare of the church depends, 
could not be exercised. Nor, 

Thirdly, Do 1 think Christ only here forbiddeth such do- 
minion as is attended with tyranny, oppression, and con- 
tempt of their subjects, as some collect from the words xara- 
κυριεύειν and κατεξουσιάζειν, which, say they, bear that sense, 
Neh. v. 14, 15, ix. 37, Ezra vii. 24, Ps. x. 5. 10, Ecclus. 
xx. 8. (1.) Because St. Luke, xxii, 25, uses only the words 
κυριεύειν and ἐξουσιάζειν, which bear no such ill sense. (2.) 
Because kings and governors among the gentiles, and much 
less among the Jews, were not always guilty of this mal- 
administration. And (3.) because Christ does not oppose 
unto their government a just dominion, but a ministry only. 
(4.) Observe, that ἐξουσιάζειν, Neh. ix. 37, doth plainly sig- 
nify, to “ govern’’ them according to their will; and this 
was plainly the government which obtained in the eastern 
nations, the will of those kings was their law; and for this 
reason were they styled αὐτοκράτορες. Whereas your office 
being only to make known my will, you, saith Christ, shall 
have no such government, no dominion over the faith of 
others (2 Cor. i. 24), shall command nothing for mere will 
and pleasure, but your whole office shall consist in being 
ministers for the good of others. Whence, saith the apostle, 
“What is Paul, what is Apollos, but διάκονοι, ministers by 
whom ye believed ?” (1 Cor. ili. 5), « And we ourselves are 
your servants,” saith he, “for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. iv. 5). 
Hence are they so often styled “ministers,” and their work 
a “ministry to the saints,’ to the gentiles, to the church. 
And therefore, saith Christ, all the office any man can have 
in my kingdom can only bea larger ministry to others; and 
in this he truly will resemble me, who “came not to be 
ministered to, but to minister.” 

6 Ver. 28. Even as the Son of man came not to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister; καὶ δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ 
λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, and to give his life a ransom for many.] 
Here note, 

First, That whereas it is said here, that « Christ gave his 
life a ransom for many ;”’ and, xxvi. 28, that his blood was 
shed “for many :” and, Heb. ix. 28, that Christ “ was once 
offered to take away the sins of many:” it doth not hence 
foilow, that Christ died not for all; the word πολλοὶ, 
“many,” being in other cases used where all are certainly 
included. Thus when it is said, Dan. xii. 2, that “many who 
sleep in the dust shall arise, some to everlasting life, and 
some to everlasting shame,”’ this is certainly equivalent to 
that of Christ, John v. 28, 29, “The hour cometh, that all 
that sleep in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of 
man, and shall come forth; they that have done good, to 
the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to 
the resurrection of condemnation ;” when it is said, Rom. 
ν. 15, that “through the offence of one, many died ;” this 
is equivalent to that of the same apostle, that “in Adam all 
men died,” 1 Cor. xv. 22; and when it said, ver. 19, that 
“by the disobedience of one, many were made sinners,” 
this is certainly equivalent to what is said, ver. 12, « Death 
passed upon all men, through that one man in whom all 
have sinned.” Note, 

Secondly, That from these words, “he gave his life, 
λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, a ransom for many,” it is evident, that 
Christ suffered in our stead, and gave his life instead of our 
lives, obnoxious to death, the wages of sin, as is largely 
proved, note on those words, 1 Tim. ii. 6, “he gave himself, 
ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων, a ransom for all;” and will be far- 
ther evident from the like expressions in scripture, in Jew- 
ish, and in heathen authors. Thus, Josh. ii. 14, the agree- 
ment betwixt Rahab and the spies runs thus, 4 ψυχὴ ἡμῶν 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙ. 


30 ¢ And, behold, two blind men sitting by the 
way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried 
out, saying, Have mercy on us, Ὁ Lord, thow son of 
David. 

31 And the multitude rebuked them, because (λα!) 
they should hold their peace: but they cried the more, 
saying, Have mercy on us, Ὁ Lord, ‘how son of David. 


tis Savarov, “ Let our lives die instead of yours, if ye utter 
not our business.” So when Eleazar died, he is intro- 
duced by Josephus* speaking thus, Καθάρσιον αὐτῶν ποιῆσαι 
τὸ ἡμῶν αἷμα, καὶ ἀντὶ ψυχῶν αὐτῶν λάβειν τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχὴν" 
that “ God would accept his blood as a propitiatory sacrifice 
for the Jews, and take his life instead of their lives.’ So 
Alcestist saith to Admetus, “In honour of thee I die, 
that thou, ἀντὶ ris fuiis ψυχῆς, mightest live instead of me.” 
And Porphyry,¢ from Asclepiades, says, that “the first 
sacrifices were offered, ὑπὸ τίνας καιροὺς Ψυχὴν ἀντὶ ψυχῆς 
αἰτουμένους, ON SOMe Occasions requiring life for life” (see 
more of this, Outram de Sacr. lib. i. cap. 22, and Pears. 
Vindiciw Ignat. par. ii. cap. 15, p. 206—208). This being 
then the constant opinion both of Jews and gentiles, that 
their piacular victims were λύτρα and ἀντίλυτρα, “ ransoms” 


* L. de Maccab. p. 1090, C. 
ἡ Eurip. Alcest. v. 282. 
+ De Abst. lib. iv. ξ. 15. 


145 


32 And (then) Jesus stood still, and called them, 
and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you? 

33 They say unto him, Lord (our request is), that 
our eyes may be opened. 

34 So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched 
their eyes : and immediately their eyes received sight, 
and they followed him. 


for the life of a sinner; and that he who gave his life for 
another, suffered in his stead, and to preserve him from 
death ; they could not otherwise judge, but that our Lord 
intended by this expression to signify that he gave his life 
instead of the lives of those for whom he suffered. Vain 
here are the Socinians, when they say this price was to be 
paid to Satan, who detained us captive; for the price is 
only to be paid to him that retains the captive when he 
doth this for gain, to make money of him, as the Turks now 
do at Tripoli and Algiers, not when a man is detained in 
custody or prison, for violation of a law; for then it is not 
the gaoler, but the legislator, to whom the price of his re- 
demption must be paid, or satisfaction made. And Crellius 
in vain denies that this price was paid to God, for Christ 
became our ransom, as he offered up his life and blood for 
us; now “he gave himself a sacrifice and oblation to God” 
(Eph. ν. 2); “he offered himself without spot to God”? 
(Heb. ix. 14) ; he therefore paid the price of our redemp- 
tion to God. 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙ. 


1 Anp when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and | ix. 9), saying, 


were come (through Bethany) to Bethphage, unto the 
mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two (of his) disciples 
(Mark x. 1, Luke xix. 29), 

2 Saying unto them, Go into the ! village over 
against you, and straightway (entering into it) ye 
shall find * an ass tied, and a colt ((éed) with her (on 
which never man sat, Mark xi. 2): loose them, and 
bring them unto me. 

3 And if any man say ought unto you (asking, why 
you do this, Mark xi. 3), ye shall say, The Lord hath 
need of them; and straightway (hearing that) he will 
send them. 

4 All this was done (by Christ), that it might be 
3 fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet (Zachary, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI. 


1 Ver. 2. Πορεύθητε εἰς τὴν κώμην, τὴν ἀπέναντι ὑμῶν: Go to 
the village over against you.] This could not be Jerusalem 
that was against Christ and his apostles, as some gloss the 
words; that being not a village, but a city; but as the 
Arabian geographer* informs us, it was “a little village 
two miles distant from the mount of Olives towards the 
south” (see Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 17, col. 210), 

2 Εὐρήσετε ὄνον δεδεμένην, καὶ πῶλον per’ αὐτῆς, Ye shall Jind 
an ass bound.) Seeing all the other evangelists testify that 
the colt was bound, the words of St. Matthew must be 
filled up thus, “ And a colt bound with her.” 

Note also, that the other evangelists make mention only 
of the colt, because our Saviour sat upon him only (see 
note on ver. 7). Note also, here, a wonderful instance of 
Christ’s prescience in the minutest matters, viz. 1. You 
shall find a colt; 2. on which no man ever sat; 3. bound 
with his mother; 4. in bivio; 5. as you enter into the vil- 
lage ; 6. the owners of which shall at first seem unwilling 
that you shall unbind him; 7. but when they hear the 
Lord hath need of him, they will let him go. 

3 Ver. 4. All this was done, ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ τοῦ 
προφήτου, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the 
Ltd peepee and sitting, ἐπὶ ὄνον, καὶ πῶλον, upon an ass, 
and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.) John xii. 15, “Sitting 
ἐπὶ πῶλον ὄνου, upon the foal of an ass,” which makes it rea- 


* Clim. 3, ar. 5, 
Vox. IV.—19 


5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King 
cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and 
(that is) a colt the foal of an ass. 

6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus com- 
manded them (and they found the colt tied by the door 
without, in a place where two ways met, and they loosed 
him, Mark xi. 4. And the owners of the colt standing 
by, said, Why do ye loose the colt? ver. 5. And the 
disciples answered, We do as Jesus, who hath need of 
them, commanded us ; and then they suffered them, ver. 6, 
Luke xix. 31. 34), 

7 And (so they) brought the ass, and the colt, and 
put on (one of) 4 them (lo wit, the colt) their clothes, 
and they set him thereon. 


sonable to conceive that καὶ here signifies, id est, as vau oft 
does (see note on Col. i. 2). Moreover, here note, (1.) that 
the ancient Jews refer this place of Zachary ix. 9, to the 
Messias. So Midras Coheleth, in Eccles. i, 9, “Such as 
our first redeemer was (i. e. Moses), such shall be the last 
(the Messiah) ; the first set his wife and children upon an 
ass (Exod. iv. 20), and so shall it be with the last; of 
whom it is said (Zech. ix. 9), He is poor, and sitting upon 
an ass.” Nachmonides in Midras, upon Gen. xlix. saith. 
«The Messias is he of whom it is said, He is poor, and 
sitting upon an ass.” This was a thing so well known, that 
they in the Talmud* introduce Sapores, king of the Per- 
sians, speaking thus to the Jews, “ You say that your Mes- 
sias shall comeupon an ass, I will send him a horse.” See 
more to this purpose in Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 17, 
col. 213, 214. Note also hence from St. Chrysostom,} an 
argument that our Jesus was their true Messiah; they being 
not able to show any other that came thus to them (see 
Examen Milli here). 

4 Ver. 6,7. They brought the ass and the colt, καὶ ἐπέθη- 
καν ἐπάνω αὐτῶν, and set him upon them.) 'Ex' αὐτῷ, “upon 
him,” Mark xi. 7, ἐπὶ τὸν πῶλον, “upon the colt,” Luke xxix. 
35, it seeming not probable to most interpreters, that in 
so short a journey Christ should ride upon them both; and 


* Sanhed. cap. 11, f. 98. 
if ᾿Ερώτησον τοΐνυν τὸν ᾿Ιουδαῖον, ποῖος Βασιλεὺς ὀχούμενος ἐπὶ 
ὄνου ἦλϑεν εἰς Ἱερουσαλὴμ, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἂν ἔχοιεν εἰπεῖν ἀλλ᾽ ἣ τοῦτον 
μόνον. 
Ν 


146 


8 And a very great multitude 5 spread their gar- 
ments in the way; others cut down branches from 
the trees, and strawed them in the way (as before a 
king. And as he was going down to the mount of Olives, 
the whole multitude of his disciples began to praise God 
with a loud voice, for all the wonderful things that they 
had seen, Luke xix. 37). 

9 And the multitudes that went before, and that 
followed (after), cried, saying, (as they did usually at 
the feast of tabernacles,) Hosanna to the son of David: 
Blessed zs (be) he that cometh in the name of the 
Lord; Hosanna in the highest (wishing prosperity to 
him, and his kingdom, from him that dwells in the 
highest heaven). 

10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the 
city was moved, saying, Who is this? 

11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the pro- 
phet of Nazareth (a city) of Galilee. 

12 4 And Jesus went (the next day, Mark xi. 12) 
into the temple of God, and § cast out all them that 
sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the 
tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them 
that sold doves, 

13 And said unto them, It is written, 7 My house 
shall be called the house of prayer (for all nations, 


three evangelists mentioning only one, it seems necessary 
here, to admit of the figure called enallage numeri, frequent 
in other places: so the ark rested upon the mountains of 
Ararat, Gen. viii. 3, i.e. upon one of them; the cities in 
which Lot dwelt, Gen. xix. 29, i. e. in one of which (see 
Gen. xxiii. 6, Josh. vii. 1, Matt. xxvii. 44, Luke xxiii. 39, 
John xii. 14). St. Matthew seems to add both, either in 
compliance with the words of the prophet, or because he 
sat upon the colt, the ass going along with him, though 
Theophylact saith they set him ἐπάνω τῶν ἱματίων, “upon 
the garments.” 

5 Ver. 8. And a very great multitude, ἔστρωσαν ἑαυτῶν τὰ 
ἱμάτια ἐν τῇ δὲῳ, strewed their garments in the way ; others 
cut down branches.] Here observe, that this strewing of 
clothes, flowers, and branches in the way, were ceremonies 
used towards great men, and especially to kings and em- 
perors: thus, saith Herodotus,* they went before Xerxes, 
passing over the Hellespont, μυρσίνησι aropodvres τὴν bddv, 
‘strewing the way with myrtle-branches:” thus when Cato 
left his soldiers to return to Rome, ὑποτίθουσι τὰ ἱμάτια τοῖς 
πύσιν ἡ βαδίζοι, “« they laid their garments in the way,” which, 
saith Plutarch,t “was an honour then done only τῶν αὐτο- 
κρατορῶν ὀλίγοις, to few emperors.” And when the captains 
proclaimed Jehu king, “they put their garments under him” 

2 Kings ix. 13). This therefore the people do now to 

esus, as being to proclaim him the king Messiah. (2.) 
Observe, that at the feast of tabernacles, it was the cus- 
tom of the Jews, not only to sing hosannas with the great- 
est joy, but also to carry branches in their hands, desiring, 
as the Jews still wish to do at this feast, that they may 
thus rejoice at the coming of their Messiah ; whence, own- 
ing Jesus for the person, they use the hosannas and the 
rites observed at that feast, wishing prosperity to him and 
his kingdom, from him that dwelleth ἐν τοῖς ὑψιστοῖς, “in the 
highest heavens” (Luke xix. 38). 

§ Ver. 12. And Jesus went into the temple of God, καὶ 
ἐξέβαλε πάντας τοὺς πωλοῦντας καὶ ἀγοράζοντας ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ and 
cast out all those that bought and sold in the temple, and 
overthrew the tables of the money-changers, &c.] Christ 
seems not here absolutely to forbid this permutation; it 
being almost necessary for them, who lived far from Jeru- 
salem, to bring up money to purchase sacrifices and obla- 
tions there, rather than to bring them so long a journey; 
and suitable in equity to the law concerning tithes (Deut. 
xiv. 24—26). But he condemns the avarice of the priests, 
who, when these things were bought before in the shambles 
and markets of Jerusalem, had, for their sordid gain, now 
brought this merchandise into the house of God; and that 
this was done in honour of that sacred place, is evident from 


* Lib. vii. cap. 56. t In Cat. Min. p. 764. 


MATTHEW. 


Isa. ἵν]. 7); but ye (by these practices) have made it a 
den of thieves (7. e. by turning it into a place of un- 
just gain, you have verified the complaint of the pro- 
phet Jeremy, vii. 11, that it was become a den of rob- 
bers). 

14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the 
temple; and he healed them. 

15 And when the chief priests and scribes saw the 
wonderful things that he did, and the children erying 
in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of 
David; they were sore displeased, 

16 And said unto him, Hearest thou what these 
say? (Rebuke them for it, Luke xix. 39.) And Jesus 
saith unto them, Yea; (J hear them fulfilling the pro- 
phecy of the Psalmist ; for) ὃ have ye never read (the 
words, Ps, viii. 2), Out of the mouth of babes and 
sucklings thou hast perfected praise? (They therefore 
are excited by him to do that which your malice will not 
suffer you to do for the glory of God.) 

17 1 And (having said this) he left them, and went 
out of the city unto Bethany; and he lodged there 
(with his disciples, Mark xi. 11). 

18 Now in the morning as he returned into the 
city, he hungered. 

19 And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came 


the words following, Mark xi. 16 (see the note there). 
The money-changers sat there not only about the payment 
of the half-shekel to the sanctuary, but chiefly for the re- 
turn of money from remote places (this payment being 
made even by the Jews in their several dispersions); that 
so they, who came to Jerusalem to worship, paying it to 
merchants at home, might have it safe from thieves, and 
from the trouble of carriage, at Jerusalem. 

7 Ver. 13. And saith unto them, It is written, My house 
shall be called οἶκος προσευχῆς, @ house of prayer (to all na- 
tions, Mark xi. 17), and ye have made it a aon of thieves.] 
God said by the prophet, “ My house shall be called a house 
of prayer for all people,” Isa. lvi. 7, so Isa. Ix. 7, 1. 6. a 
house dedicated to my worship; of which prayer was es- 
teemed an eminent part, as is evident from Solomon’s 
prayer at the dedication of the temple; which supposes 
God’s people should continually pray in or towards that 
house ; and that they did so at the time of offering incense, 
we read Luke i. 10. Thither also went the pharisee and 
the publican to pray, Luke xviii. 10. Thither also went 
the heathen proselytes of the gate, and therefore had a court 
styled, “the court of the gentiles;” and this made it a 
“house of prayer for all nations.” But you, saith Christ, 
by turning it into a place of unjust gain, 1. 6. of gain got by 
exactions tending to the loss and damage of the people, have 
given just occasion to apply to you those words of Jeremy, 
vii. 11, « My house is become a den of robbers in my eyes;” 
you making a gain of that service which you ought freely to 
attend upon, having your tithes from them, and a share of 
their offerings for that very end. . 

Ye have made it a den of thieves.] To the note here 
add, Origen here saith, that besides the reward they expected 
for the change of money, they gave ἀργύριον ἀδόκιμον, “ base 
money,” instead of good, in Matt. p. 442, and in Joh. tom. 
li. p. 178. ! 

8 Ver. 15,16. Have you never read, that out of the mouths 
of babes and sucklings I have ordained praise 2) 1 do not 
see reason to say Christ cites these words as a prediction 
of the things here done to him; but only to say, what was 
there said might well be accommodated to this action: For 
if, when that young stripling David, whose son, according 
to the flesh, I am, and who was an eminent type of me, 
conquered Goliath, that great enemy of God’s people, all the 
women, probably attended with their children, came out of 
their cities, dancing and singing praise to God (1 Sam, xviii. 
6): is it not reasonable, that the multitudes should sing 
“ Hosanna to the Son of David,” coming to vanquish the 
devil, that great enemy of his church? and now that God 
“hath raised up a horn of salvation for them in the house 
of his servant David, to deliver them from their enemies, 
and from the hands of all that hate them” (Luke i. 68. 74), 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙ. 


to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and 
(Ae) said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee hencefor- 
ward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered 
away (by this example showing, that the Jewish nalion, 
which, being watered with the gospel, brought forth no 
answerable fruit, was nigh unto cursing, and would sud- 
denly be rejected by God, Heb. vi. 8). 

20 And when (Peter, Mark xi. 21, and) the disci- 
ples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the 
fig tree withered away ! 

21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I 
say unto you, *If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye 
shall not only (be able to) do this which is done to the 
fig tree, but also if ye shall say to this mountain, Be 
thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall 
be (so) done. 

22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in 
prayer, believing, ye shall receive. 

23 ¢ And when he was come into the temple, the 
chief priests and the elders of the people came unto 
him, as he was teaching, and said, By what autho- 
rity doest thou these things? and who gave thee this 
authority (thus to control us, and reprove our practices, 


that they should sing “Glory to God in the highest,” and 
wish prosperity to the kingdom he is now erecting ? 

9 Ver. 21. ᾿Εὰν ἔχητε πίστιν, καὶ μὴ διακριθῆτε, If ye have 
faith, and doubt not,—xa'v τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ εἴπητε, of é shall 
say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast 
into the sea, it shall be done.| That μὴ διακριθῆναι, signi- 
fies “not to discriminate,” or put a difference, see note on 
Rom. xiv. 23. And so here it may import, If you have 
such a faith, as puts no difference between things you can, 
and things you cannot do, but makes you fully persuaded 
you can do any thing which tends to the glory of God, and 
is requisite for the promotion of the Christian faith, you 
shall be able to perform the most difficult things; for that 
is the meaning of that phrase, “to root up mountains :” 
it being said by the Jews of their doctors, which were able 
to solve the most difficult questions, Such a one is “a 
rooter up of mountains” (see note on 1 Cor. xiii. 2). 
Though, therefore, Nyssen saith, that Gregory, of Neoce- 
sarea, and Jerome, that Hilarion removed mountains; yet 
I prefer the allegorical exposition, especially considering 
that what is here “a mountain,” is, Luke xvii. 6, “a syca- 
more-tree.”” 

Note also, That these words must be restrained to the 
age of miracles, and to the persons to whom they were 
spoken, the apostles, and first propagators of the gospel; 
it being certain from experience that this is no ordinary and 
perpetual gift of Christians. And that the thing here pro- 
mised was extraordinary, appears from the faith required to 
it, called by St. Mark, “the faith of God;” i. 6. either the 
greatest and most excellent faith, as πύλις μεγάλη τῷ Θεῷ, is 
“a very great city,” John iii. 3, and ἀστεῖος τῷ Θεφ, “a very 
comely person,” Acts vii. 20. So “wrestlings of God,” 
Gen. xxx. 8; “mountains of God,” Ps. xxxix. 7; “cedars 
of God,” Ps. Ixxx. 11. Or else faith, that doth certainly 
persuade us of God’s extraordinary assistance: and that this 
respects the apostles is evident; because Christ elsewhere 
speaks this to them, on the account of that defect of faith, 
which made them fail in casting out a devil (Matt. xvii. 
19, 20). 

10 Ve. 23. Ἔν ποία ἐξουσίᾳ ταῦτα ποιεῖς ; By what autho- 
rity doest thow these things, and who gave thee that autho- 
rity?) This the chief priests and rulers ask; because the 
ordinary authority of teaching in the temple was to be de- 
rived from them, of teaching elsewhere from their doctors. 
But yet it was a vain question, after they had seen his mi- 
racles, and knew he claimed a commission from God, and 
had told them that “the works he had done in his Father’s 
name bore witness of him” (John v. 36). 

ἢ Ver. 25. Τὸ βάπτισμα ᾿Ιωάννοῦ πόθεν ἦν 3 ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, ἢ ἐξ 
ἀνθρύπων: The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven, 
or of men 2) From heaven, i. 6. from God; for heaven here 
is not opposed to earth, but to men. So “to sin against 
heaven,” Luke xv. 18—21, is to “sin against God” (see the 


e® 


147 


to whom the government of the temple and of the people is 
committed ) ? 

24 And Jesus answered and said unto them, I also 
will ask you one thing, which if ye tell me, I in like 
wise will tell you by what authority I do these things 
(or, you may discern this without my telling you, for 
John bore witness to me, John vy. 33). 

25 The " baptism of John, whence was it? from 
(the God of) heaven, or of men (only)? And they 
reasoned with themselves, saying, tt we shall A 
From heaven; he will say unto us, Why did ye not 
then believe him? 

26 But if we shall say, Of men; we fear (Jest we 
should be stoned by) the people; for all hold John as a 
prophet. 

27 And they answered Jesus, and said, We cannot 
tell. And he said unto them, Neither tell 1 you by 
what authority I do these things. 

28 § But what think ye (of the parable, which filly 
represents your stubbornness in rejecting the doctrine of 
John)? ™ A certain man had two sons; and he came 
to the first, and said (to him), Son, go work to day 
in my vineyard. 
note there). John was a voice crying in the wilderness, 
« Prepare ye the way of the Lord” (Matt. iii. 3): he bap- 
tized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people, 
that they should believe in him that was to come after him, 
“that is, in Christ Jesus” (Acts xix. 4): he came to give 
testimony to Christ (John i. 7. 15), declaring that he was 
“the Lamb of God, that took away the sins of the world” 
(ver. 29): whence itis evident that the chief priests and 
pharisees could not own the baptism of John to be from 
heaven, but they must also own Christ to be the Son of God, 
and him concerning whom God had testified by a voice from 
heaven, and by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him, 
that he was “the beloved Son in whom he was well pleased :” 
whence these great doctors chose rather to pretend ignorance 
than to confess that truth which would condemn them. And 
whereas it is added, ver. 26, that all held John ὡς προφήτην, 
“asa prophet,” this as doth not import similitude, but that 
he was truly so; as when it is said, “ We have seen his 
glory, ὡς μονογενοῦς, as of the only-begotten of the Father,” 
John i. 14; ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων, as having authority,” Matt. 
vii. 29 (see note on Rom. ix. 32); hence he is said to be 
“a prophet,” Luke xx. 6, and ὄντως προφήτης, “truly a pro- 
phet,” Mark xi. 32. 

2 Ver. 28—31. A man had two sons.) By the “rst of 
these two sons, all the interpreters I have read understand 
the publicans; by the second, the scribes and pharisees : 
because Christ, in the close of this parable (ver. 32), seems 
so to interpret it. But yet it seems to me a probable con- 
jecture, that by the first son we may understand the gentiles, 
represented by the prodigal son, Luke xv. For it hath been 
noted on ver. 1, 2 of that chapter, that publicans by the 
Jews were ranked with the heathens, and that the heathens 
were represented by the Jews as πόρναι, “ harlots,” and “ born 
of harlots” (see the note on John viii. 41). And when 
Christ came among them, or they came to him, he found 
them still more ready to believe in him than the Jews, and 
more especially than the scribes and pharisees ; he not find- 
ing such faith in Israel as in the centurion, Matt. viii. 10, 11, 
and in the Syropheenician woman, Mark vii. 29 (see xiv. 
34—36, John xii. 20. 23, 24). So the import of it may be 
this: You Jews, who style yourselves the sons of God, and 
you scribes and pharisees, who pretend to so much religion 
and so great zeal for God, and to be guides to others in the 
way of life, are not only more alien from it, when taught 
you by me and my forerunner, than the publicans and har- 
lots, but than those gentiles are whom you represent as 
such. 

And in this interpretation I have the suffrage of Origen* 
upon the place, who saith, “In my judgment the parable 
contains τὸν περὶ τοῦ ἀπειθήσαντος ᾿Ισραὴλ τῷ Θεῷ λόγον, καὶ 
τὸν περὶ τοῦ πιστεύσαντος λαοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐθτῶν, a discourse of the 


* Apud Huet. tom. i. p. 456. 


148 


29 He answered and said (fo his father), 1 will not: 
but afterward he repented (of Ais undutiful denial), and 
went, 

30 And he came to the second, and said likewise. 
And he answered and said, I go, sir: and (but he) 
went not. 

31 Whether of them twain did the will of his 
father? They say unto him, The first (on/y). Jesus 
saith unto them, (You fitly resemble the second son ; and 

blicans, whom ye so much despise, are liker to the 
first ; for) verily 1 say unto you, That the publicans 
and harlots (hearing John, saying, Repent, for the king- 
dom of heaven is at hand; and repenting) go into the 
kingdom of God before you (who are so far from going 
before them in obedience to this command of God by John, 
that you despise tt). 

32 For 15 John came to you (fo instruct you) in the 
way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but 
the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, 
when ye had-seen (them do) it, repented not afterward, 
that ye (also) might believe him. 

33 4 Hear another parable (resembling God’s kind 
dealings with you, and your evil returns to him): There 
was a certain housholder, which planted a vineyard, 
and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in 
it, and built a tower (ἐπ it), and let it out to husband- 
men, and went into a far country : 

34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he 
sent (successively) his servants to the husbandmen, that 
they might receive the fruits of it. 

35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat 
one, and killed another, and stoned another (as you 
have dealt by the prophets, Mark v. 12). 

36 Again, he sent other servants more than the 


MATTHEW. 


first: and they did unto them likewise (in this also re- 
sembling you; for which of the prophets did not your 
fathers persecute? Acts vil. 52). 

37 But last of all he sent to them his (only) son, 
saying, (Perhaps) they will reverence my son. 

38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they 
said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us 
kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. 

39 And (accordingly) they caught him, and cast 
him out of the vineyard, and slew him (as you will do, 
xx. 18). 

40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, 
what (think you) will he do unto those husbandmen ? 

41 15 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy 
those wicked men, and will let out Ais vineyard unto 
other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits 
(of tt) in their seasons. 

42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the 
scriptures (those words recorded, Ps. exviii. 22), The 
stone which the builders rejected, the same is become 
the head of the corner; this is the Lord’s doing, and 
it is marvellous in our eyes? (Wow you are those 
builders, and I, whom you reject, am that chief corner- 
stone. 

138 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of 
God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation 
bringing forth the fruits thereof. 

44 And whosoever shall fall on (or stumble al) 
this stone (or through ignorance, or the prejudices he hat 
received from you, shall continue in his unbelief) shall be 
broken (by it): but on whomsoever it shall fall (in 
vengeance, as it will heavily upon you), it will grind 
him to powder. 

45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had 


infidelity of Israel, and of the belief of the gentiles.” Of the 
same opinion are Theophilus Antiochenus, Hilary, Can. 22 
in Matt., St. Jerome, Opus Imperfectum, Chrysostom, and 
Theophylact. 

18 Ver. 32. For John came to yow in the way of righte- 
ousness, and ye believed him not, &c.|-So saith Josephus,* 
that the Baptist came to teach them virtue, and to come to 
his baptism, exercising τὴν πρὸς ἀλλήλους δικαιοσύνην Kai πρὸς 
τὸν Θεὸν εὐσεβείαν, “ righteousness towards one another, and 
piety towards God.” It follows, But the publicans and har- 
lots “believed on him, and you afterward repented not that 
ye might believe,” ὥς. Christ here saith that the publicans 
and harlots προάγουσιν, “go before you into the kingdom of 
God” (ver. 31) ; not that the scribes and elders of the people 
of the Jews followed after them, for those scribes and pha- 
risees “received not the baptism of John,” Luke vii. 39, but 
that by their example they showed them the way they ought 
to follow. Now from this parable note, 

First, That the scribes and pharisees and other Jews 
might and ought to have been moved by the admonitions of 
the Baptist, and the example of the publicans, to repent- 
ance and faith; for why else doth Christ here blame them, 
that they were not prevailed on by these means to believe 
and repent ? 

Secondly, That therefore an internal, irresistible force or 
power cannot be necessary to produce this repentance and 
this faith. For if the publicans and harlots were thus moved 
to repent, what wonder is it that they went before the scribes 
and pharisees, who, having no such powerful impulse, were 
left under an impossibility of repenting? Why is it that 
it is represented as their crime, that they did not repent at 
the preaching of John, or follow the example of the publi- 
cans, since the event shows that no such irresistible motive 
to repentance was contained either in the Baptist’s preaching 
or in their example ? 

1 Ver. 33. There was a certain householder, &c.] For 
explication of this parable observe, that in it is represented, 

First, The favour and providence of God towards the 
Jewish church and nation, as being the vineyard he himself 


* Antig. lib. xviii. cap. 7, p. 626, G. 


had planted, and had watered with his heavenly dew, the 
waters of life, i. e. the doctrine of the law and the prophets ; 
he also had enclosed it and hedged about it, not only by his 
care and providence, but by his covenant of circumcision, 
and his presence with them, and his owning them for his 
own people above all the nations of the earth. Note, 

Secondly, That the husbandmen to whom this vineyard 
was let out were the priests and Levites, doctors and rulers 
of that church and people; who are here represented, not 
only as wanting in their duty, which was to make this vine- 
yard fruitful, and to prepare it to receive his prophets and mes- 
sengers with due reverence, and especially to receive his Son 
and their Messiah with faith, reverence, and obedience, but 
even consulted with and spurred on the people to offer the 
most vile affronts unto them, and even to destroy his Son 
and their Saviour; for though Christ spake this parable to 
the people (Luke xxix. 2), the priests and pharisees per- 
ceived that “he spake of them’ (ver. 45). When therefore 
it is here said, « They will reverence my son” (ver. 37), these 
words, as Theophylact notes, Christ spake, not being igno- 
rant what really they would do, ἀλλὰ τὸ ὀφεῖλον πραχθῆναι 
καὶ τὸ εἰκὸς λέγων, * but showing what was fitting to be done,” 
and they ought to have done; and therefore, Luke xx. 13, 
the phrase is varied thus, ἴσως, “ Perhaps they will reverence 
my son when they see him.” 

Thirdly, That this deportment of the husbandmen, and of 
the people led and excited by them to this murder of his 
Son and treatment of his prophets, would render them ob- 
noxious to the heaviest of divine judgments. 

15 Ver. 41. They say unto him, He will miserably de- 
stroy those wicked men.] How this is to be reconciled with 
St. Luke,.see Luke xx. 16. 

16 Ver. 43. Aca τοῦτο ἀρθήσεται ap’ ὑμῶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ 
Θεοῦ. For this thing, i. 6. the builders refusing this stone, 
the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, &c.] Hence 
it is evident that God deserted the Jewish church, and let 
this stone so fall upon them as to grind them to powder, 
because of their rejecting the Messiah. The evidence that 
this affords to the truth of the Christian faith, see in the 
Preface to the Gospels. 

7 Ver, 44. And he that falleth on this stone shall be 


CHAPTER XXII. 


? 


149 


heard his parables, they perceived (at ἠδὲ last) that he | they feared the multitude, because they took him for 


spake of (what should befall) them. 
46 But when they sought to lay hands on him, 


a prophet (and this at present restrained them from so 
doing). 


broken, &c.] i. ὁ. He that stumbles on this stone, whilst he 
is here on earth, being offended at his doctrine, life, or death, 
shall be broken by his fall upon it, as is the person stoned, 
by the sharp stone he falls upon; but he on whom this 


stone shall fall, when he is elevated to his throne of glory, 
shall be more violently shattered by it, as is the person 
stoned by the great stone, as big as two men can lift, thrown 


down violently upon his breast. 


“- 


CHAPTER XXII. 


1 Anp Jesus answered (with relation to them) and 
spake unto them again by parables, and said, 

2 The (doctrine of the) ! kingdom of heaven (preach- 
ed to this nation) is like (to find a success answerable) 
unto (‘hat of) a certain king, which made a marriage 
for his son, 

3 And sent forth his servants to call them that were 
(to be) bidden to the wedding (viz. the apostles, and the 
seventy sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Matt. x. 
6, Luke x. 1): and (being thus lovingly invited) they 
would not come. 

4 (Wherefore) again, he sent forth other servants 
(viz. the apostles, and the hundred and eight on whom the 
Holy Ghost fell), saying, Tell them which were bid- 
den, Behold, 1 have prepared my dinner: my oxen 
and my fatlings are lulled, and all things are ready: 
come (J pray you) unto the marriage (feast). 

5 But they made light of it (7. e. the invitation), and 
went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his 
merchandise : 

6 And the remnant (of them) took his servants, 


and entreated them spitefully, and slew (some of) 
them. 

7 But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: 
and he 3 sent forth his armies, and destroyed those 
murderers, and burned up their city (and so will this 
spiritual King deal with those of this nation, who not 
only refuse his invitation to partake of the blessings of the 
gospel, but also kill his messengers; he by the Roman 
army will destroy them and their capital oily) 

8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding 
(feast) is ready, * but they which were bidden were 
not worthy (and therefore shall not taste of this feast). 

9 Go ye therefore into the 4 highways (to the dis- 
persion of the Jews and to the gentiles), and as many as 
ye shall find, bid to the marriage. 

10 So those servants went out into the highways, 
and gathered together all as many as they found, 
both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished 
with guests. 

11 ¥ And when the king came in to see the guests, 
he saw there a® man which had not on a wedding 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII. 


1 Ver. 2. The kingdom of heaven is likened ἀνθρώπῳ Ba- 
σιλεῖ, ὅστις ἐποίησε γάμους, toa king who made a marriage 
Jor his son.) That γάμος signifies a marriage-feast we learn 
from Phavorinus* and others, on those words of Homer, Od. 
A’. 225, εἰλαπένης γάμος (see Dr. Hammond on Matt. ix.). And 
because these feasts continued sometimes a week or more, as 
we learn from those words of Laban to Jacob, Gen. xxxi. 
27, “Fulfil her week,” i.e. keep a seven days’ feast for her 
marriage; and from Samson, who at his marriage ἐποίησε 
πότον ἡμέρας ἑπτὰ, “ made a feast seven days, for so used the 
young men to do” (Judg. xiv. 10); therefore the word is 
γάμους in the plural, there being not many marriages, but 
many wedding-feasts at a marriage. This sense of the word 
is evident from ver. 4, “My oxen and fatlings are killed, 
come, εἷς γάμους, to the marriage-feast.”” The king here re- 
presents God the Father, the son the Lord Jesus Christ, 
described often as the spouse of his church, Matt. ix. 15, xxv. 
1, John iii. 29, 2 Cor. xi. 2, Rev. xix. 7, the servants sent 
to call them that were bidden, i. e. the Jews invited by the 
Baptist, and our Lord, calling them to repentance, because 
“the kingdom of God was at hand,” might be the apostles 
and the seventy disciples, sent at first only “to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. x. 5, 6, Luke ix. 2, 
x. 1); the servants sent again, after the fatlings were killed, 
were the same apostles and other spiritual persons, sent after 
our Lord’s resurrection with a new commission to be Christ’s 
witnesses in Jerusalem “and throughout all Judea” (Acts 
1. 8) ; for the words “son’’ and “the kingdom of heaven,” 
represented by this parable, will not permit us to say these 
servants were the prophets sent before to the Jews. 

Yer. 3. The kingdom of heaven is like to aman who sent 
his servants.] Here note, that though all the ancients from 
Origen, except St. Hilary, say that the servants first sent 
out were the prophets of the Old Testament, yet this seems 
plainly contrary to the text; first, Because this also is a 
parable concerning “ the kingdom of heaven,” and therefore 
respecting only those times when that kingdom was come. 
Secondly, It is a parable “of a king making a marriage for 


* "Opipos ob τὸ ἔργον μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν ἑστίασιν γάμον καλεῖ. 


his son,” which is generally interpreted of Christ the bride- 
groom of his church, and therefore only can respect the 
times of his advent. Thirdly, The servants sent out the 
second time were sent to the same persons to whom the first 
were sent (ver. 4) ; and yet it is granted that the servants 
sent out the second time were the apostles of our Lord. 

2Ver. 7. The king was wroth, πέμψας τὰ στρατεύματα 
αὐτοῦ, ἀπώλεσε τοὺς φονεῖς ἐκείνους, καὶ τὴν πόλιν αὐτῶν ἐνέπρησε, 
and sending his armies destroyed those murderers and burnt 
up their city.| i. e. Upon their refusal, he decreed to send 
the Romans to destroy the Jews and burn their temple and 
their city; which they so fully performed as to destroy dur- 
ing those wars, saith Josephus, eleven hundred thousand 
Jews; to burn their temple; consume, and so lay waste 
their city, as that all men conceived, saith Josephus, “ it 
never could be built again.” 

3 Ver. 8. Οἱ δὲ κεκλημένοι οὐκ ἦσαν ἄξιοι, But they that 
were called were not worthy.| ‘They were not well disposed 
to receive the gospel, not willing to repent and believe, and 
entertain the preachers of it kindly, which is the indication 
Christ gives his apostles, who were ἄξιοι, “ worthy” (Matt, 
x. 11, 13, 14); they were ἀμελήσαντες, “despisers’” of this 
spiritual banquet, out of love to their secular interests; here, 
ver. 5, they loved other things more than Christ, and the 
blessings of his kingdom; which he that doth, saith Christ, 
οὐκ ἐστί μου ἄξιος, “is not worthy of me,’ because he will not 
take up his cross and follow me (Matt. x. 37, 38). 

4 Ver. 9. Πορεύεσϑε οὖν ἐπὶ τὰς διεζύδους τῶν bday, &e. Go 
therefore into the highways, &c.] i. 6. To those of the dis- 
persion ; for after they had begun at Jerusalem, and preached 
through Judea, they also were to preach the gospel to the 
other Jews, the seed of Abraham ; this salvation being to be 
tendered to the “ Jews first, and also to the gentile” (Rom. 
i. 16, ii. 10). Hence Paul saith thus to the Jews of Antioch, 
“Tt was necessary the gospel should be first preached to 
you” (Acts xiii. 45, 46, xviii. 6, xxviii. 28) ; and afterward 
τοῖς ἔξω, “to those who were without the covenant made to 
Abraham.” 

5 Ver. 11. Eidev ἐκεῖ ἄνθρωπον οὐκ ἐνδεδυμένον ἔνδυμα γάμου, 
He saw there a man not clothed with a wedding-garment.] 
Faith alone cannot be here the wedding-garment, since te 
receive the invitation and to come to the wedding-supper, 

x2 


ee 


MATTHEW. 


150 


garment (i. e. a faith and conversation answerable to the 
design of the gospel): 

12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou 
in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was 
(as one) speechless. 

13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him 
hand and foot, and take him away, and cast hizm into 
outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing 
of teeth (so shall it be with the Jews, the children of the 
kingdom, Matt. viii. 12, Luke xiii. 28). 

Ἢ For ® many (of the Jews) are called, but few (of 
them) are chosen (1. 6. believers of the gospel, see note 
on 1 Pet. ii. 9). 

15 4 Then went the Pharisees (perceiving that this 
pour was designed against them), and took counsel 

ow they might entangle him in Ais talk. 

16 And (accordingly) they sent out unto him their dis- 
ciples with the 7 Herodians, saying (with insidious 
Jiaitery), Master, we know that thou art true, and 
teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou 


must import believing. By the man therefore who had not 
on this garment, I conjecture we are to understand the false 
brethren of the Jewish nation, who preached Christ « not 
sincerely but out of contention” (Phil. i. 15)); contending 
for the necessity of circumcision, and of the observation of 
the law of Moses to justification, and who by this “sub- 
verted the souls” of others (Acts xv. 1. 24), made Christ to 
die in vain (Gal. ii. 21), Christians to fall from grace (Gal. 
v. 14), and the apostles to labour in vain among the gen- 
tiles (Gal. iv. 11), and of whom the apostle saith, “Their 
end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. xi. 15). That 
this man must represent the Jews is evident, (1.) because he 
is “cast out into outer darkness, where is weeping and 
gnashing of teeth,” which Christ applies to the Jews, the 
sons of the kingdom, Matt. viii. 12, Luke xiii. 28, whilst 
the gentiles are said to come to this supper. (2.) Because 
the reason assigned of this punishment is this, that « many 
are called, but few are chosen” (ver. 14); for that this be- 
longs peculiarly to the Jews, see note on xx. 16. (3.) Christ 
had said in the former chapter, that the “kingdom of God 
should be taken from them;” and here proceeding to dis- 
course of the same thing, as appears from the connective 
particle, ver. 1 of this chapter, he shows how worthy the 
Jews would be of this punishment, as being either wholly 
refractory to God, calling them by his Son to the participa- 
tion of these blessings, or coming to them without due pre- 
parations, as the false apostles and deceitful workers did ; or 
else by casting off that wedding-garment they had once put 
on, as did those Jews whose “ charity waxed cold” (Matt. 
xxiv. 10—12), and who being scandalized fell off from the 
Christian faith. It remains then that these backsliders, or 
these false apostles, must be the persons represented by the 
man “not having on his wedding-garment.” 

Ver. 13. Bind him hand and foot.) Theophylact here 
notes, that this present time is the only time of working; 
in the future all the:practical powers of the soul are bound, 
καὶ οὐκ ἐστὶ ποιῆσαι τι ἀγαϑὸν eis ἀντισήπωσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, 
“and then we can do nothing good to make a compensation 
for our sins.” 

6 Ver. 14. Many are called, but few are chosen.] This 
parable, saith Theophylact, respects the Jews who were 
called, but not elected, ὡς μὴ ἀκούσαντες, “as not hearkening 
to God’s call;”? whence he infers, that μετὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ καλεῖν" 
τὸ ἐὲ ἐκλεκτοὺς γένεσϑαι, ἢ μὴ, ἡμέτερον ἐστι, “our calling is of 
God, but that we are elect or not is from ourselves.” 

7 Ver. 16. Μετὰ ᾿ΗἩρωδιανῶν, with the Herodians.] Here 
Jerome notes, that some of the Latins ridiculously thought 
they were called Herodians who thought Herod was the 
Christ,* though he himself, in his Dialogue against the Luci- 
ferians, hath these words, Herodiani Herodem regem susci- 
pere pro Christo, “received Herod the king for Christ ;” this 
also was the opinion of Tertullian, in his book de Prescript. 
cap. 47, of Epiphanius, Her. 7, and of Philastrius, cap. 48. 
And Origen conjectures that they were called Herodians 
who taught τελεῖν τὸν φόρον Καίσαρι, “that tribute-money was 


“oR. 12; ΒΣ 


for any man (’s person): for thou regardest not the per- 
son of men, 

17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou (in this 
case)? Is it 8 lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, or 
not? (that if he had said no, they might represent him as 
an enemy to Cxsar ; if yea, as no friend to the nation.) 

18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness (i. 6. their 
evil design), and said (to them), Why tempt ye me, ye 
hypocrites (endeavouring to ensnare me under pretence of 
reverence to me) ? 

19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought 
unto him a (ftoman) penny. 

20 And he saith unto them, Whose zs this image 
and superscription (that this money bears) 2 

21 They say unto him, (it is) Cesar’s. Then saith 
he unto them (this being an evidence that Czxsar’s go- 
vernment hath oblained among you), Render therefore 
unto Cesar the things which are Cesar’s; and unto 
God the things that are God’s (7. e. the tribute due to 
his temple). 


to be paid to Cesar;” the soldiers were so called by the 
pharisees, saith St. Jerome here, quia Romanis tributa sol- 
vebant, “ because they paid tribute to the Romans.” And 
sure this opinion must seem ridiculous to them who con- 
sider that Herod was an alien, not a Jew of the seed of 
Abraham, or of the root of David, and was dead before 
Christ’s return out of Egypt; whereas all thought that 
Christ was to be found not among the dead but the living, 
and many that he should never die (John xii. 34, see the 
note on Matt. xvi. 6). 

8 Ver. 17. Ἔζεστι dodvat κῆνσον Καίσαρι, ἣ ob; Is tt lawful 
to give tribute to Cesar, or not 2? &c.] Here note, 

First, That though the question be only proposed thus, 
ἔζεστι ; “Is it lawful to give tribute to Cxsar, or not?” yet 
the decision in the affirmative, that it was lawful to pay it 
to Cesar, was plainly a decision of the right of Cesar to 
receive, and therefore to demand it, as being to them the 
minister of God. (1.) Because St. Paul hath plainly told 
us, that “ therefore pay we tribute” to him to whom we law- 
fully do pay it, “because he is the higher power and the 
minister of God” (Rom. xiii. 6). And also “because it is 
his due;” for so it follows, “Render therefore to all τὰς 
ὀφειλὰς, their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due ;” and this 
is more evident from those words of Christ, “Render to 
Cesar the things which are Cesar’s, and to God the things 
which are God’s;” where Christ seems to me even to strike 
at the root of that corrupt opinion of the Gaulonites and 
zealots, that they, being God’s people, were not to own any 
other as their Lord, by this distinetion betwixt things be- 
longing to Cesar, viz. tribute, and things belonging to God, 
viz. the shekel of the sanctuary. But, to omit this, either 
Christ, when he said, “ Render to Cesar the things which are 
Cesar’s,” spake to the purpose, and by way of answer to the 
question proposed, or he did not; to say he did not, is in 
effect to say he spake impertinently, which I hope no Chris- 
tian will affirm; if he spake to the purpose of the question, 
seeing he said, upon their owning the tribute-money to bear 
Cesar’s image, by way of inference, ἀπόδοτε οὖν, “ Render 
therefore to Cesar the things which are Cesar’s,” he as 
plainly intimates the tribute-money did of right belong to 
Cesar, as by saying, “Render to God the things that are 
God’s,” that what he styled the things of God did of right 
belong to God. For those Jews who held that tribute was 
not to be paid to Cxsar, did co because they apprehended it 
unlawful to own any other as their lord and governor but 
God, or one of their own nation whom he had appointed to 
rule over them (see the note on 1 Pet. 11. 16). 

I therefore cannot think with Grotius, that Christ here 
leaves the matter of right undecided; or with Mr. Clere, 
that he doth not by his answer own that tribute was rightly 
demanded by Cesar, seeing Christ could not then have said 
by way of inference, “ Render therefore to Cesar the things 
which are Cesar’s;” and this right of Cesar had its rise 
from their own act of submission to the Roman government, 
as formerly they had done to the Assyrian; which national 
submission with promise of fidelity, having obtained now 
about a hundred years, was a just ground for Cesar’s 


CHAPTER XXII. 


22 When they had heard these words, they mar- 
velled (at his wisdom), and left him, and went their 
way. 

23 4 The same day came to him the 3 Sadducees, 
which say that there is no resurrection (of the body), 
and asked him, 

24 Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, hay- 
ing no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and 
raise up seed unto his brother. 

25 Now there were with us seven brethren: and 
the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, 
having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: 

26 Likewise the second also, and the third, (and so 
on) unto the seventh. 

27 And last of all the woman died also. 

28 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall 
the be of the seven? for they all had her. 


151 


29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, 
not knowing the scriptures (declaring that there shall be 
a resurrection), nor the power of God (enabling him to 
effect it). 

30 (And as for your argument against it, it is 
grounded on a false supposition ;) for in the ® resurrec- 
tion they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but 
are as the angels of God in heaven (in that they cannot 
die, Luke xx. 36, and so can need no reparation by new 
births). ὰ 

31 But as touching the ' resurrection of the ’ 
(this, I say, is denied by you, because ye know not the 
scriptures; for) have ye not read that which was 


spoken unto you by God, saying, 

32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of 
Isaac, and the God of Jacob (and so I own them still 
as my sons and children? now) God is not the God of 


right. And therefore king Agrippa® tells them, that of τὸ 
piv ὑπακουεῖν ἐκ διαδοχῆς εἰληφότες, “ they who had received 
this subjection by succession from their ancestors, could not 
rebel without contumacy.” And Josephus} tells them, that 
“to seek now to shake off the yoke, καὶ μακροῖς εἴξαντας χρόνοις, 
when for a long time they had yielded to it,” would subject 
them to an evil death. Note, 

Secondly, That our Lord answers from the received 
maxim of the Jews, that wherever the money of any person 
was owned as the current coin of the kingdom, there the 
inhabitants owned that person as their lord and governor ; 
that is, they acknowledged him to be the higher power, and 
the“ minister of God” in respect to them: whence he that 
doth adulterate, diminish, or counterfeit this coin, becomes 
guilty of the crime, les majestatis: and David, though 
anointed by Samuel, is declared not to be their king whilst 
Saul lived; because numisma Saulis adhuc obtinet, “the 
coin which had the image of Saul upon it was still the cur- 
rent coin.” So that these captious men could take no ad- 
vantage against him from this answer; because it was 
founded upon their received principles. Note, 

Thirdly, That Christ justly calls these persons “hypo- 
crites ;” because they pretended to own him as a just per- 
son, and one who bore no respect to persons, and yet came 
with design to accuse him for an unjust decision : and (2.) 
because they, saith St. Luke, xx. 20, “feigned themselves 
to be” such as they were not, and to have that opinion of 
him which was far from their hearts ; both which are mani- 
fest indications of gross hypocrisy. 

9 Ver. 23. Προσῆλθον αὐτῷ σαδῥουκαῖοι, of λέγοντες ph εἶναι 
ἀνάστασιν, The sadducees came to him, saying, There is no 
resurrection.] It is true, that the Gailideees Fala that there 
was “neither angel” of any permanent, “ or spirit” of any 
separate existence from the body (Acts xxiii. 8): for their 
opinion, saith Josephus,+ was, that death, τὰς Ψυχὰς cvva- 
φανίζει τοῖς σώμασι, “extinguishes souls together with the 
bodies ;” and that they rejected ψυχῆς dé τὴν διαμονὴν, “ both 
the duration of the soul, and future punishments and re- 
wards :” but then it is true also, that the sadducees say, μὴ 
εἶναι ἀνάστασιν, “ that there is no resurrection” (Acts xxiii. 8). 
And hence the Jews introduce them, saying§ “The cloud 
fails and goes away ; so he that descends into the grave re- 
turns not from it.’ Nay, they denied, or at least knew not, 
that the power of God was sufficient to raise the dead ; for, 
«Ye err,” saith Christ, “not knowing the scriptures, nei- 
ther the power of God” (ver. 29). And therefore, St. Paul, 
speaking of the resurrection of the dead, asks, “ Why it 
should be thought a thing incredible for God to raise the 
dead?” (Acts xxvi. 7, 8.) 

10 Ver. 30. Ἔν τῇ ἀναστάσει, In the resurrection they 
neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but ὡς ἄγγελοι τοῦ 
Θεοῦ ἐν oipaves εἰσὶ, are as the angels of God in heaven.] 
They are as the angels, not in all respects, but as to immor- 
tality and incorruptibility ; and so they need no marriage 
to perpetuate their generations in the world: so saith St. 


* Apud Joseph. de Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 28, p. 805. 
+ Ibid. lib. vi. cap. 26. 

+ Antiq. lib. xviil. cap. 2, p. 617, cap. 2. 

§ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788, G. 


Luke, “They can die no more, but are ἰσάγγελοι, equal to 
the angels” (Luke xx. τὴν And that in this, especially, 
consists their likeness to the angels, we learn from the like 
words of Philo, concerning Abraham,—that leaving the 
world,* προστίϑεται τῷ Θεοῦ awd, καρπούμενος ἀφϑαρσίαν, ἴσος 
ἀγγέλοις γεγονὼς, “he was gathered to the people of God, 
having obtained incorruptibility, being made like to the an- 
gels.’ Vain therefore is the inference of the papists hence, 
that the souls of the just see God as the angels do, and 
know of the conversion of sinners: this likeness to the an- 
gels relating not to the qualities of their souls, but to the 
freedom of their bodies from corruption. Hence also it is 
evident against Heinsius, and others on this place, that 
ἀνάστασις, even when it is not joined with flesh, or body, sig- 
nifies the resurrection of the flesh, or body; and when the 
resurrection of the dead is mentioned, as here, it never 
bears any other sense. 

1 Ver. 31, 32. Περὶ δὲ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῶν νεκρῶν, but con- 
cerning the resurrection of the dead,—I am the God of 
Abraham, &c.| Those learned men are very much mistaken, 
who say, that Christ designed not here to prove the resur- 
rection of the body, but only the ἀναβίωσις, or life of the soul 
after death. For (1.) the argument of the sadducees being 
taken from the supposition, that if there was a resurrection, 
there must be a marriage, and the persons raised must be 
man and wife as they were before, shows plainly, that they 
put the question concerning the resurrection of the body ; 
for marriage belongs not to separate souls, but only to 
persons in the body: and therefore, if Christ said any thing 
pertinent to their objection, and opposed his argument to 
that which they designed to disprove, he must speak of, 
and prove the resurrection of the body, and therefore 
Methodius well notes, that “if Christ had not done this, 
but only had asserted the permanency of the soul, he had 
not answered, but confirmed the reasoning of the saddu- 
cees” against the doctrine of the pharisees. (2.) Christ 
here declares the sadducees thus erred, “ not knowing the 
power of God” (ver. 29) : now, that consists not in sustain- 
ing an immortal soul in life, but in raising the body from the 
dust to life (Acts xxvi. 8, Eph. i. 19, 20, Phil. iii. 21, Heb. 
xi. 19), And (3.) this is extremely evident from the very 
words of Christ, both here and in St. Mark and Luke; for 
(1.) the question put to Christ is not put thus, “If their 
souls live, whose wife is she?’ but, ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει, ὅταν 
ἀναστῶσι, &c. “in the resurrection, when they shall arise, 
whose wife shall she then be?” (Mark xii. 23). To which 
Christ answers thus, [Ὅταν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστώσιν, “ When they 
arise from the dead (ver. 25), when they partake τῆς ἀνασ- 
τάσεως τῆς ἐκ νεκρῶν, of the resurrection from the dead (Luke 
xx. 35), they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” 
Now a time so determined, and respecting what should be 
hereafter, cannot refer to the present state of their souls, 
which in no sense are raised from the dead, but only to the 
future condition of their bodies. (2.) Christ manifestly de- 
clares the question was περὶ τῶν νεκρῶν, ὅτι ἐγείρονται, “ concern- 

* 'T'anchum, fol. 3. 

T Ὃ οὖν Χριστὸς, εἰ μὴ ἦν ἀνάστασις σαρκὸς, ἀλλὰ μόνον ἐστώζετσ 
ἡ ψυχὴ, συνέδετο ἄν αὐτοῖς καλῶς καὶ ὀρδῶς φρονοῦσι. Apud 


| Epiph. Her. 64, § 35. 


152 


(them who are to continue in the state of ) the dead, but 
of the living (his children being the sons of the resurrec- 
tion, Luke xx. 36). 

33 And when the multitude heard this, they were 
astonished at his doctrine. 

34 § But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put 
the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 


MATTHEW. 


35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer (7. ε. an 
interpreter of the law), ¥ asked him a question, tempting 
him (7. e. making α trial of his skill), and saying, 

36 Master, which zs the great commandment in the 
law? 

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt 8 love the Lord 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 


ing the dead, that they rise again” (Mark xii. 26), touch- 
ing the resurrection of the dead here; and that this was the 
thing he was to prove, from what they had read concerning 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Luke xx. 37). And the argu- 
ment from them will appear strong and convincing, upon 
consideration of these following particulars. 

First, That God is the God and Father of them only who 
are his sons: thus, when God had chosen Israel to be his 
people in covenant, and promised to be their God, ὁιακριτι- 
κῶς, Or, in distinction from others, he styled them his sons, 
saying, υἱοὶ ἐστὲ, “« Ye are the sons of the Lord your God” 
(Deut. xiv. 1, xxxii. 18, Isa. xlv. 11): or else his son, “Israel 
is my son, my first-born; say then to Pharaoh, Let my son 
go” (Exod. iv. 22, 23, Jer. xxxi. 20, Hos. xi. 1): and in 
the New Testament, ἔσομαι αὐτῷ Θεὸς, kai αὐτὸς ἔσται μοὶ υἱὸς, 
“1 will be to him a God, and he shall be to me a son” 
(Rev. xxi. 7) ; “I will be to you a Father, and ye shall be 
to me sons and daughters” (2 Cor. vi. 18). Note, 

Secondly, That this vioSecia, or sonship, imports the re- 
demption of the body from corruption ; for we wait, saith the 
apostle, “ for the adoption, that is, for the redemption of the 
body” (Rom. viii. 23); ‘the revelation of the sons of God” 
expected (ver. 19), is their deliverance from “the bondage 
of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God” 
(ver. 21). And the apostle proves that our mortal bodies, 
dead because of sin, shall be raised by the Spirit of God 
dwelling in them; because “they who have the Spirit of God, 
are the sons of God” (from ver. 11 to 17). And in this very 
argument, St. Luke expressly saith that “they that are 
thought worthy of the life to come, and of the resurrection 
from the dead,” are υἱοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες, “ the 
sons of God, as being children of the resurrection” (xx. 36). 
Hence, because God, who is not the God of the dead, but of 
the living, is called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,* 
Treneus infers, that “without doubt they live to God, cam 
sint filii resurrectionis, being the sons of the resurrection ;” 
and it is the same with him to be “a son of God,” and 
hereditatem consequi incorruptele, “to enjoy an incorrup- 
tible inheritance.’ Hence the apostle saith, « The sons of 
God (must be the) heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ’”’ 
(Rom, vii. 17): St. John, that they “shall inherit all 
things” (Rev. xxi. 7): the author to the Hebrews, that 
«“ God was not ashamed to be called the God of Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, because he had prepared for them a 
kingdom” (Heb. xi. 6). Nor were the Jews unacquainted 
with this notion of “a son of God,’ as one who was to be 
rewarded by him after death, or of a son of Abraham, who 
was to be partaker of a happy resurrection. For thus the 
book of Wisdom introduceth the wicked, speaking of the 
good man, μακαρίζει τὰ ἔσχατα δικαίων καὶ ἀλαζονεύεται πατέρα 
Θεὸν, “ He pronounceth the latter end of the just blessed, 
and boasts that he hath God for his Father; let us cut him 
off with a shameful death: εἰ yap ἐστιν ὃ δίκαιος vids Θεοῦ, for 
if the just man be the son of God, he will receive him ; and 
by his word there will be a visitation of him” (Wisd. ii. 16. 
20). Thus, saith he, “they spake because they knew not 
the mysteries of God, nor hoped for the reward of holiness, 
nor discerned the recompense of blameless souls; for God 
made man ex’ ἀφθαρσία, for incorruption, and to be an image 
of his own immortality” (ver. 22, 23). And again, “The 
souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, καὶ ἡ ἐλπὶς 
αὐτῶν ἀθανασίας πλήρης, and their hope is full of immortality ; 
in the day of their visitation they shall shine” (iii. 1. 4. 7). 
And a third time, “Then shall the righteous stand with 
great boldness before the face of them who afflicted them; 
and they shall say, We fools counted his life madness, and 
his end to be without honour; how is he numbered, ἐν υἱοῖς 
Θεοῦ, among the sons of God, and his portion is with the 
saints!” (v. 1.4, 5). The seven sons mentioned in the 


a 


* Lib. iv. xi. cap. 80. 


Maccabees, are by Josephus still called 'ABpaap παῖδες, 
“children of the stock of Abraham;’’ and as the book of 
Maccabees still introduces them, declaring, that God dvac- 
τήσει ἡμᾶς εἰς αἰώνιον ἀναθίωσιν ζωῆς, “ would raise them up to 
life eternal” (2 Mace. vii. 9. 23). And Josephus* intro- 
duces their mother, comforting them with those words of 
Solomon, “ Wisdom is a tree of life to them that do her 
will;” and those of Ezekiel, ci ζήσεται τὰ ὀστᾶ τὰ ξηρὰ; 
“Shall these dry bones live?” and those words of God in 
the song of Moses, “1 kill, καὶ ζῆν ποιήσω, and I will make 
alive:” so he also declares of these martyrs,} that, dying for 
God, they also ζῶσι Θεῷ, ὅπερ ᾿Αβραὰμ, καὶ ᾿Ισαὰκ, καί ᾿Ιακὼβ, 
“lived with God, as do Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all 
the patriarchs, and} ran ἐπ᾿ dSavacias δόὸν, in the way of im- 
mortality,” and that§ “ Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob received 
them dying.” He mentions a παλιγγενεσία, “ reviviscence 
of all that observe the law of Moses, though they die for it,” 
saying, that “to them] ἔδωκεν 6 Θεὸς γένεσϑαι τὲ πάλιν καὶ 
βίον ἀμείνω λαβεῖν ἐκ περιτροπῆς, God hath granted to them to 
live again, and to receive a better life in reversion,” or at 
the revolution of all things. So then Christ’s argument 
tuns thus, Those of whom God after their death is the God 
and Father, they shall rise again (for they must be the 
“sons of God,’ and therefore sons of the resurrection, to 
whom belongs the adoption of sonship, i. e. the redemption 
of their bodies from corruption) ; but God is the God of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, therefore they shall rise again. 

Here Theophylact observes, that as the sadducees made 
their objection against the resurrection from the law of Moses, 
so Christ confirms that doctrine from the law and from the 
words of Moses. 

2 Ver. 35, ᾿Επηρώτησεν εἷς ἐξ αὐτῶν ὃ νομικὸς, A lawyer 
asked him (see note on Mark xii. 28), ποία ἐντολὴ μεγάλη ἐν 
τῷ von; Which is the great commandment in the law ?] 

his was a famous question among the Jews; some con- 
tending that the precept of sacrifices was the greatest, as is 
insinuated, Mark xii. 33 (see Pirke Eliezer, cap. 16, p. 33) ; 
others were for the precept of the phylacteries, to whom 
Christ answers from what was written in the phylacteries. 

13 Ver. 37. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart.] Note here, 

First, That this is a precept given to the Jewish nation, 
and so it follows that it ought to bear that sense, which is 
the certain import of it in all those other places of the 
Old Testament, where it only doth occur; it being only 
found in the New Testament as a citation thence. It is 
therefore certain, that it doth not require us to love God in 
perfection of degrees, or in the elevated sense contended for 
by some, but only to love him with a sincere and a prevyail- 
ing love. For, 

First, God’s servants entered into a covenant to serve the 
Lord after this manner; thus Asa gathered all Benjamin and 
Judah, and “they entered into covenant to seek the Lord 
with all their heart, and with all their soul” (2 Chron. xv. 
12): and good Josiah, with all his people, « made a covenant 
before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his com- 
mandments with all their heart, and with all their soul” 
(2 Kings xxiii. 3). Nor if in this covenant they promised 
to love God with every degree of every power; i. e. with the 
whole possibility of the soul, to make him not only the prin- 
cipal, but the only object of their love, they promised what 
they knew they never could, what to be sure they never did 
perform. And why then is it said, that « the people stood 
to the covenant,’ and that “God was found of them?” 
But if they only promised love of sincerity, and love to God 
above all other things, and that they would adhere to him 
and his service, then may this phrase import no more. 


* De Maccab. p. 1101, E, F. 
+ P. 1098, A. 
| Cont, Apion. lib. ii. 1076, A, B. 


+ P. 1100, Ὁ. 
§ P. 1097, D. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


with all thy mind (ἡ, e. above and before all other things, 
affecting them only with relation and subordination to 
roi ). 


Secondly, This God required them to do, to render them 
the objects of his grace and favour, promising to have mercy 
on them in their captivity on this condition: “If from 
thence.” saith Moses, “thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, 
thou shalt find him; if thou seek him with all thy heart 
and with all thy soul” (Deut. iv. 29). And again, “If thou 
shalt return to the Lord thy God with all thy heart and 
with all thy soul, then the Lord thy God will turn thy cap- 
tivity, and have compassion on thee, and will bring thee into 
the land which thy fathers possessed ; and thou shalt possess 
it, and he will do thee good” (Deut. xxx. 2,3). And upon 
this condition only doth Solomon desire this mercy, saying, 
“Tf they turn to thee with all their heart, and all their soul, 
in the land of their enemies, then hear thou their prayer and 
supplication” (1 Kings viii. ἘΣ Now is it reasonable to 
conceive that God required such an absolute perfection of 
degrees in their affection and obedience, to qualify them for 
his favour under their captivity? If so, they must for ever 
have continued captives. Or would he promise to restore 
them to their good land, and to do them good, upon a con- 
dition that would not permit them either to desire that plea- 
sant land, or any other temporal enjoyments as their good? 
Sure the suspension of his favour upon this condition, is a 
clear evidence, that this phrase bears a milder sense. 

Thirdly, God doth acknowledge that some of them did 
actually love him thus, that king David had kept his com- 
mandments, and “followed him with all his heart, saving in 
the matter of Uriah,” 1 Kings xiv.8. And yet we find him 
guilty of mistrust of God’s own promise, by saying, “TI shall 
one day perish by the hand of Saul,” 1 Sam. xxvii. 1; of 
lying to Abimelech, xxi. 2; of a rash oath, in swearing to 
cut off the house of Nabal, xxv. 22; of injustice, in giving a 
deceitful Ziba half the goods of Mephibosheth, 2 Sam. xix. 
29; and of pride in numbering the people, xxiv. 1. God 
also testifies of good Josiah, that “he turned to the Lord 
with all his soul, and all his heart, and all his might,” 2 
Kings xxiii. 24, 25. Since therefore God himself declares 
of men thus subject to imperfection, that they did thus love 
him, that love cannot require a perfection of degrees, but 
only a sincere and prevalent affection to him. This precept 
therefore must imply three things. 

First, That we are to love God above all things appre- 
tiativé ; i. e. so as to prize him in our judgments above all 
things, to esteem him more valuable in himself, more bene- 
ficial to us, than all things else we can enjoy ; according to 
that saying of the psalmist, “ Thy loving-kindness is much 
better than is life itself” (Ps. Ixiii. 3) ; to esteem him as the 
only felicity of our immortal souls; the chief and most de- 
sirable good; the only being in whom is perfect rest, entire 
complacency, and full satisfaction to be found; and con- 
sequently to look on all things else as “loss and dung,” com- 
pared to him. And whilst we retain this value for him, we 
can never prize or be concerned for any thing so much as his 
favour, nor refuse to part with any thing which tendeth to 
deprive us of it; we can never value any thing so much as to 
permit it to rival him, who is exceedingly more precious in 
our eyes, and more desirable to our souls, and so we cannot 
overvalue any worldly thing. This therefore may be truly 
styled, “the loving him with all our mind.” 

Secondly, That we are to love God above all things com- 
parative ; i.e. with a superlative affection, so as to be ready 
always to prefer his favour before all other things. And 
this affection, this cleaving of our hearts unto him, must 
follow from the forementioned estimation of him: for if 
we fully are convinced that there is infinitely more excel- 
lency in God, more happiness to be expected from him, 
than all the honours, pleasures, fvofits, interests, relations, 
and satisfactions the world can tender, and so the highest 
reason that he should always be preferred before them, 
and that we should still cleave unto him in opposition to 
any other thing; it is certain he can have no rival in our 
hearts, nothing that stands in competition for our love, no- 
thing we do not truly hate and despise comparatively to his 
favour; nothing that can tempt us to depart from him, or to 
do the thing which will hazard his favour, or provoke his 

Vor. [V.—20 


153 


38 This is the first and great commandment. 
39 And the second is like unto it, (viz.) Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 


displeasure ; and may we not then be said to love him with 
an entire and undivided heart ? 

Thirdly, That we are to love God above all things infen- 
sive; that is, our desires must be more ardently inclined 
towards his favour, and the enjoyment of him; we must 
long, thirst, and pant more after him; rejoice more in hi 
favour than any other thing, be more concerned to retai 
than to secure any worldly blessings, and be more satisfied 
in it than in “ marrow and fatness :” and what more can the 
love of God with all our souls import? For seeing such a 
prevalence of our desires towards him, and delight in him, 
will not permit us to desire any thing in opposition to him, 
or against his will and pleasure; but will constrain us to 
quit all other interests, that we may happily retain our in- 
terest in him we thus desire and delight in above all other 
things; it follows, that by thus loving God with all our 
souls, our love unto or desire of the creature can never be 
inordinate or irregular, and so can never be offensive to 
God; and then it cannot be forbidden by the command to 
love the Lord our God with all our souls. In these things 
seems to be implied, or from them certainly will follow, that 
endeavour above all things to please him, that industrious 
care to serve and obey him, that vigorous employment of 
all other faculties in his service, which will demonstrate 
that we comparatively -do not labour “for the meat that 
perisheth,” do not permit our secular employments, or our 
pursuit of any temporal enjoyments, to impair our diligence 
in the securing our eternal interests; and therefore that, in 
the true import of the phrase, we love God “ with all our 
might:” all other senses of it being inconsistent with that 
diligence in our calling, and that industry in our civil affairs, 
which God himself requires of us. And, 

Fourthly, Hence it follows, that we are to love all other 
things only in way of relation and subordination to God; 
for if we do co-ordinately love any other thing, we love it 
equally with God. And certainly if God requires us to love 
him “ with all our hearts and all our souls,” our love to other 
things must virtually be comprised in our love to God, or 
be dependent on it, or subservient to it, or else we must 
deprive him of some portion of the heart he calls for. More- 
over, God being our ultimate and chiefest good, all other 
things can only be good as they conduce to the enjoyment 
or service of him, and so are to be loved for him; that is, 
we must love them as they relate to him, as they enable us 
to serve him, as they are or may be instrumental to his glory 
or to our enjoyment of him. 

And of this exposition of these words we cannot reason- 
ably doubt, if we consider that our Lord himself doth 
plainly seem to favour and approve of it, making that ser- 
vice, and so that love which he requires from us, to consist 
in that prevalence of affection which enables us, in any 
competition betwixt the love of the world and the love of 
him, to cleave to God, and despise the world. This evidently 
is the import of these words, “ No man can serve two masters 
(when their service and commands do interfere), for he will 
either hate the one and love the other, or he will cleave to 
the one and despise the other; ye cannot (therefore) serve 
God and mammon” (Matt. vi. 24). 

Again, Christ places the due love of himself in the pre 
valence of our affections to him above other things, saying, 
“ He that loveth father or mother, son or daughter, ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ 
above me, is not worthy of me” (Matt. x. 37). Whence it 
must follow, by the rule of contraries, that he who loveth 
Christ more than father or mother, son or daughter, or any 
worldly interest whatever, must be worthy of him. From 
these two places it is therefore evident, that to love God so 
as to despise and to forsake all other things, to cleave unto 
him; to love God superlatively, so as to have our affections 
more powerfully carried out after him than any other thing 
that is most dear unto us, is, in the scripture sense, to love 
God with a whole and entire heart. And surely, if I love 
God so as to love nothing which is contrary to him, or which 
he forbiddeth me to love, I can do nothing contrary to the 
love [ owe to him. If I love him, so as to prize neither 
friendship, relations, fame, honour, pleasures, riches, life 


154 


40 On these two commandments 15 hang all the law 
and the prophets (these being an abridgment of what is 
contained in them both). 

41 4 While the Pharisees were (thus) gathered to- 
gether, Jesus asked them, 


MATTHEW. 


42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is 
he? They say unto him, (He 7s) the son of David. 

43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in 
(the prophetical afflatus of the) spirit call him Lord, 
Saying, 


or any temporal concernments, so as to offend him by pre- 
serving them, I do not inordinately love them ; for obedience 
being the true test of love, where there is no neglect of obe- 
dience, there can be no want of love. Moreover, if I prize 
nothing in comparison with God in my mind, if I cleave to 
nothing in competition with him in my will, if I desire no- 
thing in comparison with him in my affections, if I pursue 
nothing but with relation to his glory and in subordination 
to his sacred will, how can I be wanting in my duty to him? 
And if I be not wanting in my duty to him, how can I sin 
against him 1 

4 Ver. 39. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.) 
Here note (1.) that by our “neighbour” here, we are to un- 
derstand every other person who is capable of kindness 
from us, and stands in need of help. So St. Paul expounds 
it, Rom. xiii. 8, “Owe no man any thing, but to love one 
another, for ὃ ἀγαπῶν τὺν ἕτερον, &c. he that loveth another 
hath fulfilled the law,” which saith, «Thou shalt love τὸν 
πλησίον, thy neighbour as thyself.” This will be evident, 

First, From our Lord’s answer to this inquiry,.“ Who is 
my neighbour?” for such a case did he propound in demon- 
stration of this point as did extort from a great rabbi this 
frank confession, that even a Samaritan discharging a great 
office of humanity towards a Jew, acted the part of a true 
neighbour to him, and consequently that such humanity 
and mercy was also due from any Jew to a Samaritan. 
Now scripture and the Jewish records do inform us, that 
there was the greatest strangeness and averseness betwixt 
the Jew and the Samaritan, they would have no converse 
together, they would receive no kindness one from another ; 
witness the question which the woman of Samaria puts to 
Christ, “ How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of 
me, who am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no 
dealings with the Samaritans” (John iv. 9). Hence saith 
the son of Sirach, “Two nations doth my soul hate, the 
Samaritans and the Philistines” (Ecclus. 1. 26). And hence 
that proverb of the Jews, that “to eat flesh with a Samari- 
tan is as bad as to eat swine’s flesh.” Now hence it clearly 
follows that Christ, by showing that the Jews and the Sa- 
maritans were neighbours, must teach us that no difference 
of nation or religion, no alienation of affections, can exempt 
us from owning any person as our neighbour; and that by 
saying, “Go thou and do likewise,” our Lord obligeth us to 
love them as we love ourselves, and to be helpful to them 
in their need, according to our power. 

Secondly, This is apparent from all those evangelical 
commands which do extend this duty to all men, and 
thereby show that all men are to be beloved as neighbours; 
such are these exhortations, “ As you have opportunity, do 
good to all men” (Gal. vi. 10) ; “See that none render evil 
for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, 
both among yourselves and to all men” (1 Thess. v. 15). 
To this intent are those directions, to “follow peace with 
all men,” to “be patient and gentle towards all men:” 
such, lastly, is that fervent supplication of St. Paul to 
his Thessalonians, “'The Lord make you to increase in love 
towards one another, and towards all men:’’ all which ex- 
pressions make it evident that the affection of the Christian 
must extend to all men, and that his neighbourhood is uni- 
versal and unlimited. 

Thirdly, This also will be evident from the example we 
are called to imitate in this affection, viz. the love and 
mercy of our God and Saviour ; for we are to be “ followers 
of God as dear children, and walk in love, and to be perfect 
as our heavenly Father is perfect.” Now “ God is good to 
all, and his mercies are over all his works ;” he is “ the Sa- 
viour of all men ;” this kindness he is willing to vouchsafe, 
this saving health he freely tenders, and joyfully imparts to 
the greatest of repenting prodigals; he is “kind to the un- 
thankful and the wicked, and maketh his sun to rise upon 
the just and the unjust;” and in this he expecteth to be 
imitated by us, if ever we desire to be deemed his children, 
1 ‘» enjoy the blessings he hath prepared for them alone: 


thus our great Teacher doth instruct us, “I say unto you, 
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to 
them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use 
you, that you may be children of your Father which is in 
heaven.” Moreover, the kindness of our Lord to all his 
brethren, partakers of the same nature with him, disposed 
him to “taste death for every man,” and purchase their re- 
demption with his precious blood ; for he « gave himself a 
ransom for all.” Since therefore we are called to imitate 
the love and kindness of our God and Saviour, our duty 
must be answerable to the divine grace, our charity must 
follow the example of our blessed Lord ; and therefore every 
man must be our brother, not only as he is derived from the 
same common stock by nature, but as by grace we are par- 
takers of the same universal and redeeming love. And, 

Fourthly, If Christianity obligeth us to bear a brotherly 
affection towards the worst of enemies, to treat them with 
the greatest love and kindness, if without this affection to 
them we vainly do pretend to act as Christians, then must 
all men become the objects of the Christian’s love. For as 
for friends, even nature and gratitude oblige us to bear af- 
fection to them, and if we do no more, our Lord informs us 
that we do nothing which can entitle us to a reward from 
him, or show we are advanced above the rank of publicans 
and sinners; “For if you only love them which love you, 
what reward have you? do not even the publicans the same ? 
And if you only do good to them who do good to you, what 
thanks have you, for sinners also do the same?” (Matt. v. 
46, Luke vi. 33.) If then the worst, the most despiteful, 
and disobliging of our enemies must, by the Christian, be 
thus loved, and therefore owned as his neighbour, what man 
can be excluded from that appellation ? 

To love this neighbour as ourselves, (1.) it is not neces- 
sary that we should love him from the same inward prin- 
ciples and dispositions which excite our affection to ourselves ; 
for we by nature are so framed, that we are forcibly engaged 
to avoid that which is evil and afflicting to us, from that 
quick sense of pain and trouble it createth to us, and to pur- 
sue that which doth gratefully affect us, from the experience 
of that inward pleasure, joy, and satisfaction which we reap 
from the enjoyment of it; but we find no proportionable 
inward sense of pain from that which is afflictive to our 
brother, nor yet of pleasure from what is advantageous and 
grateful to him; and therefore cannot from the same inward 
principles be moved so strongly to prevent the pain, want, 
infamy, he may labour under, or to procure his pleasure and 
advantage: and therefore the divine wisdom saw it meet to 
supply this defect, by deterring us from the neglect of our 
regard towards our brother in his misery, by threatening the 
severest punishments to this want of mercy ; and therefore, 
by the consideration of the greatest evils which might befall 
ourselves for that neglect, and to engage us to all the acts 
of kindness, charity, and mercy to our brother in his misery, 
by the promise of the most excellent rewards, or of the 
choicest blessings, and so to move us to these duties from 
the like principles of self-love. 

Secondly, This rule doth not engage us upon pain of God’s 
displeasure to an absolute equality in our affection to our 
brother and ourselves, but only to make that affection which 
we bear to ourselves the rule and the direction for the ex- 
pression of our love unto our brother; it saith, sicut teip- 
sum, non quantum teipsum; it enjoins us to love our bro- 
ther in all the instances in which we do express our love unto 
ourselves, but not in equal measure: for certainly my love 
unto myself must have priority unto the love I bear unto 
my brother in all equal circumstances. For instance, if I 
see my brother in danger of his life, am not bound to put 
my own in equal danger to preserve him, but only to do all 
I can, without incurring the like danger, to prevent his 
death. If I perceive he is in want, the law of charity will 
not oblige me to put myself in equal want, but only to im- 
part to him what I do not want: it doth not bind me to 
quench his thirst, or to allay his hunger, with the meat or 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


44 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my 
right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? 
45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? 


drink I want as much as he, but only with those viands I 
can minister without like sense of want. If he be in the 
pest-house, or labours under an infectious disease, I am not 
bound to venture the procuring the same fatal malady, to 
comfort or relieve him under it, but only to afford him what 
comfort and relief I can, without endangering myself. The 
reason is apparent from this very rule, because we cannot 
thus affect ourselves, and therefore cannot be obliged thus to 
love our brother; that is, no man can put his life in danger 
to prevent the danger of his life; no man can supply his 
own wants by parting with that he equally wants ; and there- 
fore no man can be obliged by this rule to this deportment 
towards others, nor can we rationally desire that others 
should do so for us, and therefore we cannot be obliged to 
do so for them. But then we absolutely are obliged by it, 

First, ὁ the greatest freedom from all hatred, ill-will, or 
malice to our brother, all alienation of mind, or averseness 
from doing offices of kindness to him; for “no man hateth 
his own self ;” or is averse from doing kindness to himself 
(Eph. v. 29). 

Secondly, To be careful that we never do him any injury, 
οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἑαυτῷ κακὰ βουλήσεται, for no man wisheth evil to 
himself, and “ love worketh not evil to our neighbour” (Rom. 
xiii. 10). 

Thirdly, That we still retain a kind affection to him, and 
a readiness to do him good, for we have always this good-will 
to our own selves; and this is necessary, both that our cha- 
rity may be acceptable to God, and that we may both seri- 
ously desire, and, as we have opportunity, promote, his good. 
And therefore, 

Fourthly, We are to be as helpful to him as our circum- 
stances will permit, both in our words, our prayers, instruc- 
tions, advice, admonishments, and consolations, and in our 
works, the labours of our hands, our bodies, and the expenses 
of our purse, that by thus serving and “bearing one ano- 
ther’s burdens, we may fulfil the law of love” (Gal. v. 14). 

Fifthly, We are to sympathize with, and commiserate him 
in his afflictions (1 Cor. xii. 26), and do what in us lies to 
alleviate his burdens (Gal. vi. 2) ; and to rejoice with him 
in his prosperity : for we in our prosperity rejoice, in our ad- 
versity are sorry. ‘This therefore is a rule we are not only 
“taught of God” (1 Thess. iv. 9), but we are taughtit from 
our own selves; this being the great advantage of this rule, 
that it sends us not to learn our duty from the great doctors 
of the world, but only to the law written on all our hearts, 
or to that celebrated rule of the philosophers, Nosce teipsum, 


155 


46 And no man ™ was able to answer him a word 
(to that inquiry), neither durst any man from that day 
forth ask him any more questions. 


“ Know thyself,” reflect upon the inward motions of thy 
heart, and observe thy demeanour to thyself; and this will 
faithfully admonish thee, and make thee skilful to discern 
what is the love and kindness which thou owest to others, 
and will enable thee to judge aright in all the instances of 
justice and humanity. ΕἸ 

15 Ver. 40. On these two commandments hang all the law 
and the prophets.) This is a metaphor taken from the cus- 
tom, mentioned by Tertullian, of hanging up their laws in a 
public place, to be seen of all men; and it imports, that in 
them is compendiously contained all that the law and pro- 
phets do require in reference to our duty to God and man: 
for though there be some precepts of temperance which we 
owe to ourselves, yet are they such as we may be moved to 
perform from the true love of God and of our neighbour; 
for if we truly love God, we cannot be wanting in them, for 
the love of God will make us humble, contented with our 
portion; it will preserve us from all intemperance, impa- 
tience, and even lustings ; it will make us watchful over our- 
selves to keep a good conscience, and solicitous for our eter- 
nal weal; and the love of our neighbour will free us from all 
angry passions, envy, malice, and other perturbations which 
arise against him (see Examen Millii here). 

16 Ver. 46. Kai οὐδεὶς ἐδύνατο αὐτῷ ἀποκριθῆναι λόγον" And 
no man could answer him a word.| Hence it is plain, that 
the artifices which the Jews now use to evade this place, by 
saying these words belong to Abraham or David, or, as Jus- 
tin Martyr* testifies, to Ezekiel, had not then obtained : for 
if it had not then been the received opinion that this psalm 
belonged to the Messiah, Christ would not have alleged it to 
this end, much less would he have put the scribes and pha- 
risees to silence by so doing. And whereas Woltzogenius 
here notes, that this place proves Christ is not God, because 
he is here distinguished from God, by sitting at his right 
hand: this we grant, according to that human nature from 
which alone he is said to “sit at the right hand of God ;” 
and though, as he replies, the human nature is no person, 
whereas it is the person of Christ which sits at the right 
hand of God; this is nothing to the purpose: for though it 
be Christ personally taken who sits at the right hand of God, 
yet he is not said to sit there according to his divine, but 
human nature ; thus is it “the Lord of glory,’ who was 
“ crucified,” 1 Cor. ii. 8, yet he was not crucified as the Lord 


of glory. 


* Dial. p. 256. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


1 Tuen spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his 
disciples, 

2 Saying, ' The scribes and the Pharisees sit in 
Moses’ seat (ἡ. δ. are the received interpreters of the law 


of Moses): 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIII. 


1 Ver. 2, 3. Ext τῆς Μωσέως καθέδρας ἐκάϑισαν of φαρισαῖοι, 
πάντα οὖν ὅσα ἃν εἴπωσιν ὑμῖν τηρεῖν, τηρεῖτε καὶ ποιεῖτε. The 
scribes and pharisees sit in the seat of Moses ; and there- 

‘ore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do.] 
1. 6. saith Theophylact, “ All that they require, ἐκ τῶν Μωσέως 
βίβλων ἣ ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ νόμου, from the books of Moses, or 
the law of God :” which interpretation must be allowed of, 
(1.) because Christ elsewhere requires his disciples to « be- 
ware of the leaven,” that is, the doctrine, “of the scribes 
and pharisees” (Matt. xvi. 6. 12); and that-because “ they 
taught for doctrines the commandments of men, and by their 
traditions made void the law of God’’ (Matt. xv. 6. 9), and 
were “blind leaders. of the blind into the pit” (ver. 14) ; 
bidding them to understand, that “ nothing from without a 
man defiled a man : than which nothing could be more 


3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe 
(according to that law), that observe and do: but do 
not ye after their works: for they say, and do not 
(themselves that which they teach to be the duty of 
others). 


contrary to their doctrines and traditions: and elsewhere, 
refuting their doctrine touching divorce, ch. xix., and touch- 
ing oaths, ver. 16, &c.: he therefore could not here say, with- 
out this restriction, that they should do and observe all their 
commands, without a contradiction to his own frequent 
doctrine. (2.) He speaks of those things which these doc- 
tors ought to have done, but did not (ver. 3), whereas they 
would have deserved no reprehension for not doing that 
which was not required of them by the law. Thus the word 
πάντα, “all things,” must be restrained, when the apostle 
commands servants to obey their masters, and children 
their parents, κατὰ πάντα, “in all things” (Col. 111, 20, 22); 
and wives to be subject to their husbands ἐν παντὶ, “sn every 
thing” (Eph. v. 24). Thus Isidore Pelusiota* teacheth us 


* Jubet iis auscultari, μὴ rots κατ᾽ ἰδίαν προσταττομένοις, 
εἰ μὴ τοῖς χρησμοῖς συνάδει ἐν τοῖς οὐρανίοις, ἀλλὰ τῇ ὀιδασκαλια 


156 


4 ? For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to 
be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but (are 
so forgetful of the mercy required of the law, that) they 
themselves will not move them with one of their 
fingers (7. 6. they will do nothing to remove those burdens 
from them that are oppressed with them). 

5 But (and) all their works they do for to be seen 
of men: (7. 6. for ostentation of piety ; to which end) 
3 they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the 


MATTHEW. 


borders of their garments (as men highly concerned to 
remember the commandments of the Lord, writ upon these 
phylacteries, Numb. xv. 38, 39), 

6 And (they) love the uppermost rooms at feasts, 
and the chief seats in the synagogues, 

7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of 
men, Rabbi, Rabbi. 

8 4 But be not ye called Rabbi (guides, but only 
teachers and ministers of the word, which ye have learned 


to interpret those words. Note also, that Christ speaks not 
here of the great Sanhedrin, or the chief priests ; for when 
mention is made of them in the New Testament, this is still 
under the name of priests, elders, rulers, or princes of the 
people ; of whom here is no mention, but only of the scribes 
and pharisees, who are said to sit in the seat of Moses, be- 
cause they undertook to interpret the law of their great pro- 
phet Moses, either publicly to the people, or privately in the 
schools; and whilst they determined things doubtful and 
undetermined in the law, not contrary to the precepts of it, 
their decisions were to be observed for order’s sake. Hence, 
of the tithing mint and cummin not mentioned in the law of 
Moses, but prescribed by them, Christ saith, ταῦτα ἔδει ποιῆσαι, 
“These things ought to be done” (ver. 23). 

2 Ver. 4. Δεσμεύουσι yap φορτία βαρέα καὶ δυσβάστακτα, &c. 
For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, 
&c.] These heavy burdens, saith Theophylact, were rapa- 
δήσεις ἐπέκεινα τοῦ νόμου, “their traditions added to the law,” 
and called by their own writers, pw17p midp, “the strokes 
of the pharisees,” as being such as made the service of God 
burdensome. But then, when I consider how punctual they 
pretended to be in the observance of them, what a reverence 
they had for them, even above the law of Moses, and how 
highly they were offended with Christ and his apostles, for 
not walking according to them, I am apt, with Menochius 
and Maldonate, to interpret those words, “they will not 
move them with one of their fingers,” not of their neglect 
to observe them themselves, but of their tenacious exacting 
of them without mercy, even from those whom they saw 
grieved and oppressed with these burdens; and to refer those 
words, “they say, and do not,” to the things taught by them, 
according to the law, mercy, judgment, and the love of God 
(see Examen Milli here). 

3 Ver. 5. Πλατύνουσι δὲ τὰ φυλακτήρια αὐτῶν. They also do 
make broad their phylacteries.| What great holiness they 
placed in putting on the phylacteries, we learn from the 
Targum on Cant. viii. 3, which introduceth the Jews speak- 
ing thus, “I am chosen above all people, because I bind my 
frontals to my head, and my left hand, and my parchment 
is fixed to the right side of my gate, or door, so that a third 
part of it comes up to my bed, that the evil spirits may not 
hurt me:” and yet very learned men think these phylacte- 
Ties are not commanded, Exod. xiii. 9. 16, but that those 
words are only metaphorically to be understood, as a com- 
mand to have God’s laws perpetually before their eyes, 
and his deliverance always in remembrance; according to 
the like metaphor of Solomon, when he saith of the precepts 
of wisdom, “ Bind them about thy neck, and write them on 
the tables of thy heart” (Prov. iii. 3): and that the like 
words (Deut. vi. 8, 9), are to be expounded by the foregoing 
words (ver. 6), “The word which I command thee this day 
shall be in thy heart ;” and xi. 18, “« Ye shall put my words 
in vour heart, and in your soul.” For since these words, 
Deut. vi., refer to the whole law of Moses, it seems not rea- 
sonable to think that God required them to write all the pre- 
cepts of it upon their phylacteries, or the posts of their 
doors. 

Ver. 6. They love the uppermost rooms in the synagogues. | 
There showing their pride, saith 'Theophylact, where they 
ought to have taught others humility. 

4 Ver. 8. Ὑμεῖς δὲ μὴ κληθῆτε ῥαββὶ, ὁδηγοὶ, καθηγηταὶ, Be not 
ye called rabbi, fathers, guides.] Here note, 

First, That Christ cannot reasonably be supposed to for- 
bid either fathers to be so called by their children, this ap- 


μόνῃ τῇ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν γινομένη" διὸ καὶ καθέδρας ΜΙωσέως 
ἐμνημύνευσε τῆς τοῦ νομοθέτου" τότε γὰρ οὐ τὰ ἑαυτῶν ἀλλὰ τὰ τῶν 
γραφῶν φράζουσι Cat. p. 691. 


pellation being frequent in the sacred writers; or aged and 
spiritual persons to admit that title in the vulgar acceptation 
of it; for thus St. John styles the aged, “fathers,” 1 John 
ii. 13, and St. Paul styles himself a “father” to the Corin- 
thians, 1 Cor. iv. 15, and to the Galatians, iv. 19. These 
titles therefore, which men inspired by the Holy Ghost did 
use, after these words were spoken by our Lord, cannot be 
reasonably thought to be the thing forbidden by Christ. 

Secondly, Nor doth Christ here forbid these titles, only 
because they savoured of pride and affectation, but because 
they were a great intrenchment on God the Father and the 
Son, ascribing to those men, who had usurped these names, 
what properly belonged to their heavenly Father (so the rea- 
son here assigned shows, viz. “ Call no man your father upon 
earth, for one is your Father which is in heaven;” i. 6, to 
whom alone belongs that title) ; and attributing to earthly 
guides and masters, what was only due to Christ our teacher 
and spiritual guide; “Be not ye called rabbi, for one is 
your Master, even Christ” (ver. 8): “Neither be ye called 
masters (guides, or leaders), for one is ὑμῶν 6 καθηγητὴς, your 
leader, even Christ” (ver. 10). Note, 

Thirdly, That the words, rabbi, father, guide, master, or 
teacher, were the titles which were then usually by the Jews 
conferred on their wise men, the fathers of tradition, or the 
men of the greatest understanding in the law of Moses; 
such persons they thought fit to salute not in a common 
form of words, but by these pompous titles. Thus of Je- 
hoshaphat they tell us, “ that when he saw a disciple of the 
wise, he would rise from his throne, embrace him, kiss him, 
and say to him, Abba, abba, rabbi, rabbi, mori, mori,” that 
is, “ My father, my rabbi, my guide, or teacher.” These 
titles were so esteemed due to them, that they say the 
Sanhedrin did twenty-four times excommunicate those who 
gave not the honour of a master to their rabbins. Now by 
the word rabbi, they understood such a teacher whom they 
stood bound to hearken to, depending on his words, and not 
disbelieving, swerving from, or doubting of the truth of what 
he taught. Hence doth Gamaliel advise the ignorant among 
the Jews to “get themselves rabbies, that they may no 
longer doubt of any thing:” and R. Eliezer saith that « he 
who separates from the school of his rabbi, or teacheth any 
thing which he hath not heard from his master, provokes 
the divine majesty to depart from Israel.” Maimonides 
saith that “men of the degree of rabbi, were also called 
abba, i. e. father ;” and they took to themselves this title as 
well as that of rabbi; now to these fathers they ascribed the 
same high and incontestable authority. Hence Maimonides 
saith that “he that will be holy, must perform the words of 
the fathers ;” and they declare that the words of Cabala, or 
the traditions of their fathers, were “ equal to the words of 
the law, and more to be regarded than the words of the pro- 
phets; that a prophet was not to be believed, except he 
could show a sign, or a miracle ; but as for these elders, or 
fathers, they were to be believed without them : it being said 
of them, Deut. xvii. 11, According to the sentence of the 
law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judg- 
ment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do.” The word mar, 
καθηγητὴς, Which they used in Babylon to signify one who in 
Judea was called rab, with them signifies a guide and leader in 
the way of happiness: and of this, saith St. Paul, they are con- 
fident, that “they are guides to the blind, a light to them that 
sit in darkness, instructors of the simple, and masters of babes” 
(Rom. ii. 17—19) ; and that so certainly, that their decisions 
were not to be doubted of, but were to be reputed of equal 
authority with the determinations of the prophets; “for,” 
saith Maimonides,* “if a thousand prophets, who were equal 


* Prefat. in Seder Zeraim, Po. p 32 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙΠ. 


from Christ): for one is your Master, even Christ; and 
all ye are brethren (or equally his servants in this 
ministry). 

9 And call no man your father upon the earth (ἡ, e. 
be swayed by no man in matters of faith, as children are 
by the will of their fathers): for one is your Father, 
which is in heaven (to whose will and precepls alone you 
owe an cbsolute subjection). 

10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your 
Master, even Christ (from whom ye receive what you 
communicate to others, and so ye have no power over 
the faith of men, as masters have over their servants, 
a are only stewards and dispensers of the mysteries of 
Christ). 

11 But he that is greatest among you shall be 
your servant (for the sake of Christ, 1 Cor. ili. 5, 2 
Cor. iv. 5). 


157 


12 And whosoever shall exalt himself (by acting 
not as a servant, but a lord and master) shall be abased; 
and he that shall humble himself (to the meanest office 
in this ministry) shall be exalted. 

13 4 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, (who 
are) hypocrites! for § ye shut up the kingdom of hea- 
ven against men (by your example, doctrine, and autho- 
rity): for ye neither go in (to if) yourselves, neither 
suffer ye them that are entering (énto if) to go in. 

14 ὁ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pre- 
tence (that ye may be more trusted by them, γὴ make 
long prayer (as devout persons): therefore ye shall (for 
this hypocrisy) receive the greater damnation. 

15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, (who are) 
hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land (go to all 
the regions of your dispersions) to make one proselyte 


to Elias and Elisha, bring one interpretation, and a thousand 
and one wise men produce one contrary to it, we must in- 
cline to the most, and be obliged rather to act according 
to the sentence of these wise men than that of the thousand 
prophets.” In his explication of the thirteenth treatise of 
the Sanhedrin, he distributes men, who interpret the sayings 
of the wise men, into three ranks; (1.) those who say their 
words are to be interpreted according to the letter, as thinking* 
sapientes in omnibus indubitats veritatis in dictis suis, &c. 
“the wise men in all their sayings of undoubted truth, meant 
only what they perceive by their words.” (2.) Those who 
elude the words of the wise, judging themselves more wise 
and perspicacious, and saying} that “they were deceived :” 
these he pronounces fools, and accursed, for saying these 
things against those great men, of whose wisdom they were 
well assured: the words of the scribes, according to their 
blasphemous sayings, being “more amiable than the words 
of the prophets, and more weighty ;” and, “the words of 
the Cabala equal to the words of the law.” And even Jo- 
sephus§ saith, that “they who were of the sect of the phari- 
sees followed their guide, and thought it necessary to ob- 
serve and contend for whatsoever he would command” the 
sadducees held it a virtue to doubt of, or contend against, 
the teachers of the wisdom which their traditions contained ; 
“but they yielded such honour to their ancestors, that they 
durst not be so bold as to gainsay any thing that they had 
introduced as fit to be observed ;” where we have the diddc- 
καλοι in express words, xaSnynrat in the word ἡγεμόνες, 
“guides,” and “ fathers” in the τῇ ἡλικίᾳ προήκοντες, or “ the 
ancients ;”” and all of them represented as persons, of whose 
doctrines none ought to doubt, and whose sayings no man 
should gainsay. And again, the pharisees delivered νόμιμα 
πολλὰ, “many things to be received as laws,” which were 
not in the law of Moses; from which though the sad- 
ducees dissented, yet when they came to the magistrates, 
they were forced to subscribe to them,]| διὰ τὸ μὴ ἄλλως ἐνεκ- 
τοὺς γένεσϑαι τοῖς πλήϑεσιν, “since otherwise they would not 
be endured by the multitude; among whom, so great was 
their authority, that though they spake against the king, or 
the high-priest,§ eiSis πιστεύεσθαι, they were presently be- 
lieved.” And even the scripture informs us, that they 
“taught for doctrines,” or for things necessary to be ob- 
served, “the commandments of men” (Matt. xv. 9), and 
pronounced them accursed who held contrary to their senti- 
ments (John vii. 47—49), The import therefore of these 
words seems to be this: 

First, That no man was to be called « father upon earth,” 
so as that we should yield an absolute subjection to his will 
and pleasure, or be absolutely swayed and governed by it. 


* Pp. 144, t P. 146, 147. 

+ Lightf. in Matt. xv. 2. 

§ "Exovrae τῇ ἡγεμονίᾳ, περιμάχητον ἡγούμενοι τὴν φυλακὴν ὧν 
προαγορεύειν ἠθέλησε" τιμῆς γε τοῖς ἡλικίας προήκουσι παραχωροῦσιν, 
οὐδὲν ἐπ᾿ ἀντιλέξει τῶν εἰσηγηθέντων ταῦτα ϑράσει ἐπαιρόμενοι. An- 
tig. lib. xviii. cap. 1. Σαδῥουκαῖοι δὲ πρὸς τοὺς διδασκάλους σοφίας, 
ἣν ae ἀμφιλογεῖν ἀρετὴν ἀριθμοῦσιν. Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 8, 
ἕ { Lib. xviii. cap. 2, p. 617. 

q P. 453, B. lib. xiii. cap. 23, p. 263, B, C. 


Secondly, That we should call no man “ guide,” or “mas- 
ter upon earth,” no fathers, no church, no councils, s0 as ab- 
solutely to submit ourselves, in the concernment of our eter- 
nal interests, to the conduct of their judgments, or give them 
dominion over our faith and conscience ; Christ being the 
sole guide and teacher of his church, commissionated by his 
Father to reveal his will, and teach us what is needful to be 
known, believed, or done, in order to salvation; and even 
his apostles being only to be looked upon as the ministers 
and ambassadors of Christ, and only to be credited as, by their 
gifts, and by the miraculous powers derived from him, they 
taught men those things he had commanded, and by his 
Spirit had revealed to them. 

5 Ver. 13, Κλείετε τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, Ye shut up 
the kingdom of heaven against men.) 'he business of a 
key being to open and give entrance into a place, they who 
obstructed this entrance are here said to “shut the kingdom 
of heaven against men:” and this the scribes and pharisees 
did, (1.) by their example; for, pretending to be guides to 
others, they themselves refused to go into it, and so obstructed 
the entrance of others, by saying, “ Have any of the scribes 
or pharisees believed on him?” (John vii. 48), they made 
good that of Christ, “You enter not in yourselves.” (2.) 
By their doctrine; they cavilling at all that he said, and 
endeavouring to render the truth of it suspected, rejecting 
him as not of God, because he kept not the sabbath (John 
ix. 16), and accusing him of blasphemy, and casting out of 
devils by Beelzebub (Matt. xii. 24), and by their vain tradi- 
tions, which he deservedly rejected, putting a bar to the 
spiritual doctrine of his kingdom; thus did they “shut up 
the kingdom of heaven against men.” (3.) By their autho- 
rity; excommunicating and maliciously persecuting them 
who owned his doctrine, and decreeing that “they should 
be cast out of the synagogue” (John ix. 22), and professing 
to have an authority to pass judgment on true and false pro- 
phets. 

6 Ver. 14. Οὐεὶ ὑμῖν γραμματεῖς καὶ φαρισαῖοι, ὑποκριταὶ. 
These words, saith Dr. Mills, Origen and Eusebius do not 
own; “they seem to be put in here from St. Mark and Luke” 
(Prol. p. 42, col. 2). If we may judge of Eusebius, from 
whom no place is cited, by what is said of Origen, the 
doctor must mistake in both; for Origen expressly cites 
these words, Hom. 15 in Jer. p. 145, and citing ver. 15, 
in Matt. p. 326, he styles the words, “the second woe de- 
nounced in the gospel of St. Matthew against the scribes and 
pharisees.” They are also owned by Chrysostom, Theophy- 
lact, and by all the versions. 

KarecSiere οἰκίας τῶν χηρῶν, καὶ προφάσει μακρὰ προσευχό- 
μένοι, Ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make 
long prayers.| “This sect,” saith Josephus,” « pretended to 
a more exact knowledge of the law, οὗ χάριν ὡς τὸ ϑεῖον xpoo= 
ποιουμένων ὑπῆκτο ἡ γυναικωνῖτις ON which account the wo- 
men were subject to them, as pretending to be dear to God.” 
And when Alexandrat obtained the government, they in- 
sinuated themselves into her favour, as being the exactest 
sect of the Jews, and the exactest interpreters of the law, 
and abusing her simplicity, did, as they listed, “« remove and 


* Antigq. lib. xvii. cap. 3. p. 685, F. 
+ De Bello Jud, lib. 1. cap. 4, p. 716. 
0 


158 


(to your religion), and when he is made (so), ye 
7™make him twofold more the child of hell (more oppo- 
sile to the gospel and the professors of tt) than your- 
selves. 

16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, 
8 Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing 
(obligatory); but whosoever shall swear by the gold 
of the temple, he is a debtor (7. 6. he is obliged to per- 
form his oath) ! 

17 Ye fools, and blind: for (since ye swear by some- 
thing sacred, let me ask) whether is greater, the gold, 
or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? (¢. e. makes it 
more sacred than any common gold.) 

18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar (you 
say), it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the 
gift that is upon it, he is guilty (#f he do not perform 
his oath). 

19 Ye fools, and blind: for whether is greater, the 
gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? (which is 
therefore sacred, because offered on it.) 

20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, swear- 
eth by it, and by all things (all gifts laid) thereon 
(and by him to whom they are offered ). 

21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth 
by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. 

22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by 
the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. 


dispose, bind, and loose, and even cut off men.” They were 
in such vogue for their “long prayers,” which they continued 
sometimes three hours, that perhaps they sold them, as do 
the Roman priests their masses, or pretended others should 
be more acceptable to God for them; and so might spoil 
devout widows by the gifts or salaries they expected from 
them. Now this being only a hypocritical pretence of piety, 
must be hateful to God, and so deserve a greater condemna- 
tion (see Examen Millii here). 

7 Ver. 15. Ποιεῖτε αὐτὸν υἱὸν γεέννης διπλότερον ὑμῶν, You 
compass sea and land to make one proselyte—and ye make 
him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves] It was 
the complaint of the Jewish nation, that the proselytes were 
“scabs of the church,” and hindered the coming of the 
Messiah, as being ignorant of the law, and bringing in re- 
venge. Justin Martyr* informs us of them, that these 
“proselytes did not only disbelieve Christ’s doctrine, ἀλλὰ 
διπλότερον ὑμῶν βλασφημοῦσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, but were 
twice more blasphemous against him than the Jews them- 
selves, endeavouring to torment, and cut them (i. e. the 
Christians) off wheresoever they could, they being in this 
the instruments of the scribes and pharisees.” 

8 Ver. 16. Ὃς ἂν ὁμόση ἐν τῷ ναῷ, οὐδέν ἐστιν, Woe to you 
which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple it is no- 
thing, &c.] Of this see the notes on v. 36, and observe, (1.) 
that τὸ ὀφείλειν signifies to “be obliged to perform his oath,” 
so that they thought that other oaths might be violated 
without sin. (2.) That they so valued swearing by the gifts 
of the altar, ver. 18, because they brought in gain to them. 
(8.) Observe that those words, « He that sweareth by the 
altar, sweareth by it, and by all things upon it,” are to be 
thus understood,—that he sweareth by him whose altar it is, 
for the accessory follows the principal; and an oath must 
be supposed to be by something which can testify to the 
truth, and punish the falsehood of it; and so he that thus 
swears, must in all reason be supposed to swear by that God 
also to whom the altar doth belong. 

9 Ver. 23. Kai ἀφήκατε τὰ βαρύτερά τοῦ νόμου, &c. And omit 
the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and 
faith.| This is indeed the bane of all religion and true 
piety to prefer rituals and positive institutions before the 
precepts of natural religion, which are always good and 
necessary upon their own account, and not only because 
commanded ; and human institutions before divine; and 
this is a certain sign of gross hypocrisy. Faith in, or the 
love of, God (as it is, Luke xi. 42), is the foundation of all 


* Dial. p. 350, D. 


MATTHEW. 


23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
erites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cum- 
min, and have * omitted the more weighty matters of 
the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye 
to have done (because your own constitutions require 
them), and not to leave the other undone (which God 
especially requires). 

24 Ye blind guides, which ™ strain at a gnat (7. e. 
who scruple things of the least moment), and swallow a 
camel (ὦ. 6. but venture freely on the grossest sins). 

25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
erites! for ye (act as men intent to) make clean the 
outside of the cup and of the platter (to appear clean 
in the eye of men), but within they are full of extor- 
tion and excess. 

26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is 
within the cup and platter (the inward motions of thy 
heart), that the outside of them (7. e. thy actions) may 
be clean also. 

27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites! for" ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which 
indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full 
of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness (and 
therefore have a white mark set upon them, that they may 
be avoided). 

28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto 
men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 


piety ; mercy, of all that charity we show to our brother; 
and judgment, of all righteous dealing. Now, that the 
pharisees wanted this faith and love to God, was visible 
from their hypocrisy ; that they were full of rapine and 
injustice we learn from ver. 25; that they were a crafty sort 
of men, prone to envy and hatred, from Josephus, Antiq. 
lib. xvii. cap. 3. 

10 Ver, 24. Of διυλίζοντες τὸν κώνωπα, τὴν δὲ κάμηλον καταπί- 
vovres, Who strain at a gnat, but swallow a camel.) Vain is 
here the suspicion of Cajetan, that “camel” cannot be the 
true reading, because no man can swallow it; he might as 
well have suspected the “ beam” mentioned ch. vii. because 
no man’s eye can contain it. This the rulers and the 
pharisees did, in not admitting the thirty pieces into the 
treasury, because it was the price of blood; and yet with 
those very pieces hiring Judas to procure the shedding that 
blood ; and by scrupling to “enter the judgment-hall lest 
they should be defiled,’ but not scrupling to shed the blood 
of the innocent (John xviii. 28). 

1 Ver. 27. Παρομοιάζετε τάφοις κεκονιαμένοις, Ye are like 
to whited sepulchres.] Luke xi. 44, ‘Qs τὰ μνημεῖα τὰ ἄδηλα, 
“as graves that appear not.’ For explication and recon- 
ciliation of the words of the evangelists, note, (1,) that 
they who touched any part of a sepulchre were by the law 
of Moses polluted by it, Numb. xix. 16. (2.) That there- 
fore to avoid this pollution, the Jews were wont to put 
some sign or mark upon it, by which it might be discerned 
to be a sepulchre, and so might be avoided; for so their 
canon runs, that “if any man finds a sepulchre, he is bound 
to put a mark upon it, that it be not an offence to others,” 
since otherwise they might be in perpetual danger of con- 
tracting uncleanness: this mark they made with lime ma- 
cerated with water, which made them appear “white ;” and 
when these marks were worn out, and so the sepulchres 
become ἄδηλα, “indiscernible,” the grass being grown over 
them, and the herbs that grew upon them making them 
cpata, “beautiful,” as to outward appearance, and like to 
other earth, so that men were in danger of being polluted 
by them, they were again marked and made white with 
lime: they are therefore said to “appear beautiful to men,” 
by St. Matthew, for the same reason that they are styled 
ἄδηλα, “ indiscernible,” by St. Luke, because the white mark 
was worn out, or so covered over with grass and herbs, that 
it could not be discerned. Such, saith Christ, are ye pha- 
risees, appearing outwardly specious and fair to men, whilst 
yet “ your inward parts are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” 
Vain then is the imaginary pretence of any contradiction in 
what Dr. Hammond here offers from Dr. Pocock, the 
“whited sepulchres” being sepulchres which at first had 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites! 15 because ye build the tombs of the prophets, 
and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 

30 And say, If we had been in the days of our 
fathers, we would not have been partakers with them 
in (shedding) the blood of the prophets. 

31 Wherefore ye be witnesses to (against) your- 
selves, that ye are the children of them which killed 
the prophets. 

32 Fill ye up then (Gr. and ye will fill up) the 
measure of your fathers (sins, and show greater malice 
against the prophels now sent by God to you). 

33 (For) ye (are) serpents, ye (are a) generation 
of vipers (ὦ. δ. more venomous against me and my dis- 
ciples than even your forefathers were against the old 
prophets), how (hen) can ye escape the damnation of 

ell? 


received this white mark, or cippus : but yet the sight of it 
was lost by the herbs growing up high enough to cover it, 
or by the rain washing it away. 

2 Ver. 29, 30. Ὅτι οἰκοδομεῖτε rods τάφους τῶν προφητῶν, καὶ 
κοσμεῖτε τὰ μνημεῖα τῶν δικαίων, Woe unto you—for e build 
the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of 
the righteous.) “ Wherefore ye be witnesses to yourselves 
(i. e. you yourselves witness), that ye are the children of 
them which killed the prophets (ver. 31, 32) ; fill ye up then 
καὶ πληρώσατε, and ye fill up the measure of your fathers’ 
cruelties in this kind :” being now fitly compared to serpents 
and vipers for the venomous hatred you bear to me, the 
prophet promised by Moses, and those sent among you in 
my name, and will thereby show you are their children, as 
well by disposition as by natural descent. The words in 
St. Luke, xi. 47, 48, run thus: Woe to you, for ye build 
up the sepulchres of the prophets, whom (you acknowledge 
that) your fathers killed; ἄρα μαρτυρεῖτε, you therefore by this 
testify that you are by nature the children of those fathers, 
for they (i. e. their fathers) killed them, and you (the chil- 
dren of them) build their sepulchres” (καὶ συνευδοκεῖτε τοῖς 
ἔργοις τῶν πατέρων ὑμῶν), and by your hatred against me 
and mine, you farther show your likeness to them in dis- 
positions also: so that I foresee, that of those wise men 
which I send to you, “some of them you will persecute, and 
some of them you will kill and crucify,” and so will so far 
fill up the measure of their sins, that upon you may justly 
fall the punishment of “all the blood of the prophets and 
righteous men” shed by your fathers, and by you their chil- 
dren in iniquity. All that can be objected against this 
paraphrase, which makes the words of Luke so plain, and 
so exactly to agree with the words here, is, that it puts 
these words καὶ συνευῤοκεῖτε τοῖς ἔργοις τῶν πατέρων ὑμῶν, * and 
ye allow of the works of your fathers,” in a parenthesis ; of 
which we have examples in the New Testament sufficient 
to justify the doing this; so Mark xii. 12, “They sought 
to lay hold upon him (ἔγνωσαν γὰρ ὅτι πρὸς αὐτοὺς τὴν παρα- 
βολὴν εἶπε, for they knew he spake this parable against them), 
but they feared the people:” xvi. 3, 4, “They said, Who 
shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre 
(«αἱ ἀναβλέψασαι δεωροῦσιν ὅτι ἀποκεκύλισται ὃ λίθος, and look- 
ing up, they saw it was rolled away ;) for it was very great” 
(see Mark xiv. 22, 24, Luke ν. 15, 16. 27, Rom. iii. 5. 8, 
Rey. xx. 12, 13, see the like in the Old Testament, Gen. 
xiii. 10, Exod. xii. 15, Cant. i. 5). 

8 Ver.34. Wherefore I send among you prophets and wise 
men : and some of them ye shall kill and crucify ; and some 
of them ye shall scourge, &c.] This they did, stoning Ste- 
phen, Acts vii. 59, cutting off James with the sword, Acts 
xii. 2, seourging Peter and the apostles, Acts v., and perse- 
cuting Saul and Barnabas “from city to city” (see note on 
Luke xi. 49). 

M Ver. 35. “Ὅπως ἔλθη ip! ὑμᾶς πᾶν αἷμα αἀδικαιον, ἐκχυνόμενον 
ἐπι τῆς γῆς, That upon you may come (the national punish- 
ment of) all the blood shed in the land.) i. 6. That it may 
come upon you, taking pleasure in the works of your fathers, 
and by the said bloody actions filling up the measure of their 
sins by killing your Messiah, the chiefest of all prophets, 
and the wise men he sent last of all to offer terms of pardon 


159 


34 4 55 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you pro- 
phets, and wise men, and scribes (7. e. true interpreters 
of the law and the prophets): and some of them ye shall 
kill and crucify ; and some of them shall ye scourge 
in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to 
city : 

35 ™ That upon you (dius outdotng the malice of your 
forefathers against the prophets sent to you by God) may 
come (the punishment of) all the righteous blood (of 
God’s prophets) shed upon the earth, from the blood 
of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of 
Barachias, whom ye slew (i. 6. stoned, 2 Chron. xxiv. 
22) between the temple and the altar. 

36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall 
come upon this generation. 

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thow that killest the 
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, 


and salvation to you: and this rendered their punishment 
not only equitable, but almost necessary ; for it being the 
observation of their own wise men, from Gen. xv, 16, that 
“ God taketh not vengeance of a nation till they have filled 
up the measure of their sins;” the Jews of that generation 
doing this to the utmost, and by their εὐδοκία, i. 6. the plea- 
sure which they took in doing not only the like, but even 
more bloody actions, they becoming ex post facto partakers 
with their forefathers in their sins; and being not deterred 
from the like actions by all the punishments which they had 
suffered by them in the captivity of their whole nation, they 
made it both equitable and necessary this punishment should 
fall upon that generation. 

15 ᾽Απὸ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ δικαίου “ABEd ἕως τοῦ αἵματος Ζαχαρίου 
υἱοῦ Βαραχίου: From the blood of righteous Abel (the first 
prophet and preacher of righteousness, Heb. xi. 4, 2 Pet. ii. 
5) to the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias.| Here 
two things need to be explained; viz. who was the son of 
Barachias, and why he is mentioned rather than any of those 
righteous persons who were afterward destroyed by the Jews. 
To the first question I answer, (1.) that he could not be 
Zacharias, vids Bapaxov, “the son of Baruch,” mentioned by 
Josephus,* as μισοπόνηρος, “a hater of wicked things and 
persons,” and therefore slain by the zealots ἐν μέσῳ τῷ ἱερῷ, 
“in the midle of the temple.” For (1.) the name seems 
not the same; for as Baruch in Jeremiah and the Apocrypha 
is always called by the Septuagint, Βαροὺχ, so “22 is still 
rendered by them Bapaxias, Isa. viii. 2, Zech. i. 1.7; and Neh. 
111. we find Bapayias, ver. 4, and Βαροὺχ, ver. 20, which shov 4 
they were not the same names. (2.) The blood of the su of 
Bapaxias was the blood of a prophet (Luke xi. 50, 51>, whereas 
the son of Baruch mentioned by Josephus was no prophet, 
nor doth it appear that he was a righteous person, he being 
an unbeliever, and one of those who rebelled against Cesar ; 
and (3.) Christ speaks here of the prophets whom ἐφόνευσαν, 
“they had slain,” not of one who was only to be slain a 
little before the destruction of Jerusalem, for then none of 
the people could have understood his meaning. Nor (2.) 
could he be Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist; for 
as he was not owned by the Jews to be a prophet, nor was 
he sent by God unto the Jews under that character, so 
Origen} confesseth that it cannot be proved from scripture 
either that he was the son of Barachias, or that he was slain 
between the temple and the altar. And indeed that he was 
the son of Barachias is only said by Nicephorus out of Hip- 
polytus; that he was slain in the temple is a tradition more 
current among the ancients,+ but yet St. Jerome saith, it is 
only taken ex quibusdam apocryphorum somnis, “ from some 
dreams of apocryphal writers.” And indeed the tradition is 
false in the foundation, that he was slain for placing the vir- 
gin Mary in that apartment of the temple which was proper 


* De Bello Jud. lib. iv. cap. 19, p. 883, 884. 

Ostendere non possumus per scripturas canonicas, nec 
quod pater Johannis fuit filius Barachie, nec quod scriba 
et pharisai interfecerunt eum inter templum et altare. In 
Matt. hom. 20, f. 49. Niceph. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 3. 

+ Origen. ibid. Basil. de Chris. Hum. Gen. tom. 1. p. 509 
et 510. Vide Hammond in locum. 


160 


16 how often would I have gathered thy children to- 
gether, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under 
her wings (i. 6. have treated you with the most ten- 
der affection), and ye would not (embrace my kind 
offers) ! 

39 Behold (therefore now), your house is left unto 
you desolate. 


MATTHEW. 


39 ΠΤ For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me hence- 
forth (Gr. after a while), till (the time cometh that) ye 
shall (would gudly) say, Blessed is he that cometh in 
the name of the Lord (ἡ. 6. it would be joyful news to 
you indeed, to hear of a Messiah coming to deliver you 
from the impendent vengeance, and then you shall see him 
coming, not as a saviour, but a severe avenger). 


to the virgins; whereas, though there was the court of women, 
yet there was no peculiar apartment for the virgins. Nor 
(3.) could it be Zacharias, one of the minor prophets, he 
living when the temple was in its ruins, and neither temple 
nor altar was set up again; nor do any of the Jewish histo- 
rians say that he was slain at all, much less that he was slain 
“between the temple and the altar.’ It remains therefore, 
(4.) that we here understand that Zecharias of whom we read 
2 Chron. xxiv. 20, that “he said to the people, Why trans- 
gress ye the commandments of God, that ye cannot prosper ? 
because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath forsaken you ;” 
and that “the people stoned him in the court of the house 
of the Lord ;” and ver. 22, that dying he said, «'The Lord 
look upon it, and require it.’ But against this it is 
objected, 

Obj. 1. That he was Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, ver. 20; 
this here was the son of Barachiah. 

Ans. St. Jerome testifies that the gospel of the Nazarenes 
read the son of Jehoiada ; and the word Barachiah signify- 
ing “praise God,” as Jehoiada doth, why might not that be 
translated into Greek, vids Bapayiov, which was spoken in 
Syriac, “the son of Jehoiada?’” Moreover, it is common 
among the Jews to change proper names, especially when 
they have any thing of the Shem Hamporash, or Jehovah, 
in them, into words of like signification ; so for Judas some 
use Thaddeus, of the same import and from the same root 
at, and Jehoiakim is the name given by the king of Egypt 
to Eliakim, 2 Kings xxiii. 34, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 4, that is, he 
tumed ΕἾ into Jah ; and why then may not here Jehoiada 
be turned into Barachiah ? 

Obj. 2. But since Christ begins with Abel, the first pro- 
phet and righteous person which was slain, why should he 
end with one slain before the destruction of the temple, and 
not with one near the time when he spake ? 

Ans. That Christ, speaking here of prophets slain by the 
Jews, doth come to the lowest instance, no other prophet 
beiig slain after by them; for if the tradition touching Esaias 
be true, he was slain, not by consent of the Jews, as was 
the son of Jehoiada, but only by the cruelty of Manasses. 
2. There could be no fitter instance than this was for our 
Saviour’s purpose, whether we consider the occasion of this 
prophet’s death, the manner of it, or the judgments which 
ensued upon them for it. For, 

First, He died, as Christ and his apostles were to do, for 
reproving the Jews for their transgression and revolt from 
God, and was the son of one who had showed great kindness 
to them. 

Secondly, He dying said, “The Lord look upon it and 
require it;”’ foretelling that God would, or desiring that he 
would, require his blood at their hands; which prayer God 
answered so fully, that in a year all the princes of Judah 
and Jerusalem were destroyed by the Syrians, and the spoil 
carried to Damascus (2 Chron. xxiv. 23), and Joash, who 
commanded this murder, was slain by a conspiracy of his 
own servants (ver. 25). And from this very time the state 
of Judah and Jerusalem grew worse and worse, till at last 
the city was broken up, the temple burned, and the people 
captivated by Nebuzar-adan, “who,” say the Jews, “ finding 
the blood of this prophet bubbling up in the temple, inquired 
whose blood it was; and when the Jews answered it was the 
blood of a prophet slain by them, who had foretold all they 
had suffered by Nebuzar-adan, he slew ninety-four thousand 
of the rabbins, priests, and members of the Sanhedrin to 
appease it.” Hence the Jews speak of it as of blood pro- 
voking God to anger; “ He will call to remembrance their 
iniquity, that they may be taken.” This, saith Midrash Co- 
heleth, is the blood of Zachariah. And when Jeremiah 


introduceth the Jews speaking thus (Lam. ii. 20), “ Behold, 
O Lord, and consider, shall the priest and the prophet be slain 
in the sanctuary of the Lord?” the Targum introduces the 
house of judgment answering, “ Was it fit for you, even in 
the day of propitiation, to kill a priest and a prophet, as you 
did Zachariah the son of Iddo, in the house of the sanctuary 
of the Lord, because he would have withdrawn you from 
your evil ways?” 

16 Ver. 37, 38. ποσάκις ἠδέλησα, How oft would I have 
gathered your children,—xai οὐκ ἠθελήσατε, and ye would 
not.] Here note, that by Jerusalem we are to understand 
not only the inhabitants of the city, but of all Judea, as ap- 
pears, (1.) because this is the import of the word elsewhere, 
when neither the city is mentioned, nor is it taken metapho- 
tically for the heavenly Jerusalem; as 2 Kings xix. 21, 2 
Chron. xxviii. 10, Isa. xxxvii. 22, Lam. ii. 14, 15, Ezek. ix. 
9, Joel iii. 6, Luke ii. 28, xxiii. 28. (2.) From the punish- 
ment denounced upon her, since that belongs to all whom 
Christ would have gathered (ver. 37), and to whom he wished 
that «they had known in their day the things belonging to 
their peace.” Whence it follows, 

First, ‘That Christ did very seriously desire the conversion 
of those Jews who continued in their impenitence and un- 
belief, as here he shows by the similitude of the affection of 
a hen to her chickens; and Luke xix. 41—43, by his weep- 
ing over them. 

Secondly, That they whom he so seriously desired to con- 
vert would not be converted when they might have been so; 
for therefore were they not converted, because they would 
not be gathered. 

1 Ver. 39. I say unto you, that οὐ μή pe ἴδητε dx’ ἄρτι, ἕως 
ἂν εἴπητε, εὐλογημένος ὃ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Kupiov, ye shall not 
see me from henceforth (Gr. after a while), till ye shall say, 
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.) These 
words by the connexion of them with the former thus, “ Be- 
hold, your house is left unto you desolate, λέγω yap, for I 
say,” &c., seem manifestly to relate to the time of the de- 
struction of the Jews, and to bear this sense; You, who have 
now with so much indignation heard the children and people 
saluting me thus, “ Blessed is he that cometh in the name of 
the Lord,” after a while shall lie under so great calamities 
for the punishment of your infidelity, that you would be glad 
of a deliverer to whom you might say these words. This may 
be also gathered from the words dz’ Zor, “after a while ;” 
for after Christ’s ascension they saw him not till he came to 
the destruction of Jerusalem, which in the following chapter 
is so often styled “the time of the coming of the Son of 
man,” the time when dz’ ἄρτι, “after a while they should see 
the Son of man coming in the clouds” (Matt. xxvi. 64). 
And Josephus informs us, that when the Jews were nigh to 
destruction, they earnestly expected their Messiah, or one 
coming in the name of the Lord to deliver them, and readily 
followed those false prophets and deceivers,* who promised 
them deliverance, and bid them προσμένειν τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ 
βοήθειαν, “expect help from God.” If this exposition be not 
allowed, I would willingly refer this to the time mentioned 
by St. Paul, Rom. xi. 26, “« When the Deliverer shall come 
out of Sion, and turn away iniquity from Jacob, and so all 
Israel shall be saved,” by their conversion to the Lord, and 
saying, “ Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ;” 
till which time “ their house shall be left to them desolate” 
(Luke xxi. 24). And thus it is acommination, that after a 
while the kingdom of God should be taken from the Jews 
of that age, and this calamity should continue long on their 
posterity. 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 960. 


161 ie! 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


1 Ann Jesus went out, and departed from the tem- 
ple: and his disciples came to Aim for to shew him 
the buildings of the temple. 

2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these 
things? ! verily I say unto you, There shall not be 
left here one stone upon another, that shall not be 
thrown down. : 

3 4 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the 
disciples came unto him privately, saying, * Tell us, 


when shall these things be? and what shall be the 
sign of thy coming (¢o do these things), and of the end 
of the world ? (or, τοῦ αἰῶνος, of this age.) 

4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take 
heed that no man deceive you. 

5 8 For (before this happeneth) many shall come in 
my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive 
many. 

6 And (when) ye shall hear of wars and rumours 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIV. 


1 Ver. 2. Verily I say unto you, οὐ μὴ ἀφεθὴ ὧδε λίϑος ἐπὶ 
λίθον, ὃς οὐ μὴ καταλυθήσεται, There shall not be left here one 
stone upon another, which shall not be thrown down.) The 
exact completion of the things foretold in this chapter, touch- 
ing the destruction of the temple, city, and people of Jeru- 
salem, being an eminent confirmation of the truth of Christ’s 
prophetic office, and of the Christian faith, I shall, as they 
occur, take notice of them. And (1.) To complete this pre- 
diction, Josephus* doth inform us, that “Titus commanded 
the soldiers, τῆν re πόλιν ἅπασαν καὶ τὸν νεὼν κατασκάπτειν, “to 
dig up the foundations both of the temple and city.” Elea- 
zar, in Josephus,t speaking of this house of God, saith, 
πρόῤῥιζος ἐκ βάθρων dvipracra, “it has been rooted up from 
the very foundations.” The Jewish Talmudt and Mai- 
monides add, that “Turnus (i. 6. Terentius) Rufus, cap- 
tain of the army of Titus, did with a ploughshare tear up 
the foundations of the temple, and thereby signally ful- 
fil those words, Micah iii. 12, Therefore shall Zion for your 
sakes be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become 
heaps, and the mountains of the Lord as the high places 
of the forest.” And, saith Josephus,§ we may well ad- 
mire the exactness of the time, for the buming of the tem- 
ple, καὶ μῆνα καὶ ἡμέραν ἐπετήρησε τὴν αὐτὴν, happened on the 
same month and day on which it formerly was burned by 
the Babylonians.” 

2 Ver. 3. Εἰπὲ ἡμῖν, πότε ταῦτα ἔσται, καὶ τί τὸ σημεῖον τῆς 
cis παρουσίας, καὶ τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος, Tell us when 
these things shall be, and what shall be the sign of thy 
coming, and of the end of the world.] Gr. αἰῶνος, “of the 
age.’ This in St. Mark runs thus, “Tell us when these 
things shall be, καὶ τί τὸ σημεῖον ὅταν μέλλῃ πάντα ταῦτα συν- 
τελεῖσϑαι, and what is the sign when these things shall be 
accomplished ?” (Mark xiii. 4.) In St. Luke thus, “ When 
shall these things be, and what is the sign, ὅταν μέλλῃ ταῦτα 
γίνεσθαι, when these things are to be done ?” (Luke xxi. 7.) 
From which places, compared with this, it appears, that the 
three things here mentioned relate to the same time, and are 
only an inquiry to this effect; When wilt thou come to de- 
stroy the temple, and to put an end to the Jewish church 
and age ? for what is “ the sign of thy coming” in St. Mat- 
thew, is “the sign when these things shall be done,” in St. 
Luke; what is in St. Matthew συντελεία “the end of the 
age,” is in St. Mark, “the time when these things are about 
συντελεῖσθαι to be accomplished. ὯΝ Christ so answers to 
the question touching the sign of his coming, as manifestly 
to show it contemporary with the desolation of the temple 
and polity of Jerusalem, saying, ver. 27, “ As the lightning 
cometh from the east and shineth to the west, so shall be ἡ 
παρουσία, the coming of the Son of man;” for, ver. 28, “where 
the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together ;” 
i. e. the Roman army, whose ensign was the eagle: so that 
the coming of this army to destroy them, and “ the coming 
of the Son of man,” must be contemporary. And again, ver. 
37. 39, “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall be ἢ πα- 
povcia, the coming of the Son of man: for two shall be in 
“the field,” ver. 40, “ two grinding at the mill,” ver. 41, “the 
one shall be taken, and the other left ;” which words are fol- 


* De Bello Jud. lib. yii. cap. 1, p. 170, B. 

+ Cap. 16, p. 693, A. 

+ Taunith. cap. 4, Hal. 6. Maim. Taunith. cap. 5 
§ Lib. vii. cap. 26, p. 957, E. cap. 27, p. 958, F. 
Vou. IV.—21 


lowed in St. Luke with these, “ where the carcase (or body) 
is, there shall the eagles be gathered together,” Luke xvii. 
34. 37. (3.) This will be farther evident by comparing other 
words of Christ with those contained in these three chapters 
of St. Matthew, Mark, and Luke; for Christ saith, Mark 
ix. 1, « There are some standing here who shall not taste of 
death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom,” 
or, according to some copies, “in his glory.” And xxvi. 
62, “« Within a while ye shall see the Son of man sitting at 
the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of hea- 
ven.” When therefore it is said, Matt. xxiv. 30, Mark xiii. 
26, Luke xxi. 27, “ Ye shall see the Son of man coming in 
the clouds with great power and glory ;” this advent must 
be while some were living that stood by Christ, and « within 
a while,” and so not at the end of the world. And in like 
manner, that the συντελεία rod αἰῶνος, or “the end of the 
age,” is the same with the end of the Jewish state, appears 
from these words, “ You shall hear of wars and rumours 
of wars, ἀλλ᾽ οὔπω ἐστὶ τὸ τέλος, “but the end (you inquire 
after) is not yet,” ver. 6, Mark. xiii. 7, Luke xxi. 9, and ver. 
13, “he that endureth εἰς τέλος to the end shall be saved,” 
and ver. 14, “the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached 
through the world, for a testimony to the gentiles, and then 
ἥζει τὸ τέλος, the end shall come : for what is in St. Mat- 
thew and St. Mark “the end,” is Luke xxi. 20, ἡ ἐρήμωσις 
αὐτῆς, “the desolation of Jerusalem” by the Roman army, 
compassing her about. Nor is it to be wondered that the 
apostles, who had learned that the coming of the Messiah, 
and the end of the then present world, should be together, 
should thus inquire of them together; or that this should 
be styled the end of the Jewish age, Christ being styled 
“the Father of the age to come,” Isa. xi. 6, the age of 
Christianity “the age to come,” Heb. vi. 5, and “the end 
of the ages,” 1 Cor. x. 11. 

3 Ver. 5. Πολλοὶ yap ἐλεύσονται ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι pov, λέγοντες 
ἐγώ εἰμι ὃ Χριστός, Many shall come in my name, saying, I 
am Christ; and, ver. 11, Many false prophets shall arise, 
and deceive many.] So Mark xii. 6, Luke xxi. 8. A dis- 
tinction is to be made betwixt false Christs and false pro- 
phets: they properly are termed “false Christs,’ who took 
upon them to be the Christ, and came under that name, as 
the words here show. Such as Dositheus,* who said, αὐτὸς 
εἴη ὃ προφητευόμενος ὑπὸ Μωσέως Χριστὸς, “he was the Christ 
foretold by Moses.’ And Simon Magus,+ who said, “he 
appeared among the Jews ὡς υἱὸς, as the son of God.” And 
such perhaps were those many, whom, saith Josephus,+ 
βασιλεῖαν ὃ καιρὸς dvérecSe, “the time of the advent of their 
king Messias prevailed with to set up for kings.” From 
these, saith Hegesippus,§ “came false Christs and false pro- 
phets.” «There arose,” saith Hippolytus,| “some, saying, 
Tam Christ, as Simon Magus, καὶ of λοιποὶ, and the rest whose 
names I have not time to reckon up.” ‘The false prophets 
were such as promised or foretold false things ; and such were, 
saith Josephus,{ (1.) an “Egyptian false prophet and ma- 
gician, who gathered together about thirty thousand Jews, 
whom he had deceived.” (2.) One Tneudas,** “a magi- 

* Onig. adv. Cels. lib. i. p. 44, in Joh. tom. xiv. ed. Huet. 

, 219. 
ἡ Id. adv. Cels, lib. vi. p. 282. 

+ De Bello Jud. lib. i. p. 705. 

§ Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 22. 

| De Consum. Mundi. 

4 Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6. "" Cap. 2, p. 689, G. 690, A. 

02 


1602 


of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these 
things (or this) must come to pass, but the end (of the 
Jewish age and polity) is not yet. 

7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom 
against kingdom: 4 and there shall be famines, and 
pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. 


MATTHEW. 


8 All these are the beginning of (their pangs of) 
sorrows. 

9 5 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, 
and shall kill (some of) you: and ye shall be hated 
of all nations for my name’s sake. 

10 And then shall many be offended (ἡ, e. fall off) 


Cian, xpopirns γὰρ ἔλεγεν εἶναι, for he said he was a prophet, 
and deceived many.” (3.) ¥evdorpopiirns τις» “a certain false 
prophet, who bid them go into the temple, where God would 
show them manifest signs of a deliverance.” He adds, that 
«there were then* πολλοὶ προφῆται, many prophets, who taught 
them even to the last to expect help from God” (see the 
note on ver. 24, 26). 

4 Ver. 7,8. There shall be λιμοὶ, καὶ λοιμοὶ, καὶ σεισμοὶ κατὰ 
τόπους, famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers 
places ; λιμοὶ καὶ ταραχαὶ, famines and tumults, Mark xiii. 
8, 9, φοβητρά τε καὶ σημεῖα ἀπ᾽ οὐρανοῦ μεγάλα ἔσται, there shall 
be fearful sights, and great signs from heaven, Luke xxi. 
11,1 To speak particularly of the wars, rumours of wars, 
and tumults, which then happened, would be to transcribe 
a great part of the history of Josephus. But, 

First, There was a famine in the fourth of Claudius, ac- 
cording to Eusebius; which, saith he, “ oppressed τὴν oikov- 
μένην, the Roman empire, but more especially Palestine,” 
Acts xi. 28, “by which,” saith Josephus,} “ many perished 
for lack of food :” and this we learn even from profane his- 
torians, referred to by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 8, 
from Suetonius, in Claudio, cap. 18, where Scaliger saith, 
there were two famines in the reign of Claudius; from Dio, 
lib. Ix. 

Secondly, I find Josephus saying that when one Niger 
was slain by the Jews, “he imprecated λιμόν τε καὶ λοιμὸν ἐπὶ 
πολέων, famine and pestilence upon their cities, ἃ δὴ πάντα 
κατὰ τῶν ἀσεβῶν ἐκύρωσεν 6 Θεὸς, all which God brought upon 
them” (De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 23, p. 885, D, E). 

Thirdly, Grotius reckons up many earthquakes, which 
happened in the reigns of Claudius and Nero, at Crete, 
Smyrna, Miletus, Chios, Samos, Laodicea, Hierapolis, and 
Colosse ; in all which places the Jews lived. There hap- 
pened in Judea, saith Josephus, “ vehement winds, dreadful 
thunderings and lightnings, καὶ μυκήματα σειμένης τῆς γῆς 
ἐξαίσια, and vast movings of the shaken earth, which, in the 
judgment of all, portended no small evil” (De Bell. Jud. 
lib. iv. cap. 17). 

Fourthly, Josephus, in his preface to his history of the 
Wars of the Jews, undertakes to record the miseries, cala- 
mities, and desolations, which then befell them, καὶ πρὸ ταῦ- 
τῆς σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα, “and the signs and prodigies preceding 
them.” In his seventh book,+ cap. 31, he reckons up 
ἐναργῆ kat προσημαΐνοντα τὴν μελλούσαν ἐρημίαν τέρατα, “ the 
prodigies which manifestly imported their future desola- 
tion ;” as, v. g. that ὑπὲρ τὴν πόλιν ἄστρον ἔστη ῥομφαίᾳ παρα- 
πλήσιον, καὶ παρατείνας, ἐπ' ἐνιαυτὸν κομήτης, “a sword seemed 
to hang over the city, or a comet pointing down upon it 
for a year, which plainly seemed to portend their ruin by 
the sword:” and that “before the sun went down, ὥφθη 
μετέωρα περὶ πᾶσαν τὴν χώραν ἅρματα καὶ φάλαγγες ἔνοπλοι διατ- 
τοῦσαι τῶν νεφῶν, καὶ κυκλουμέναι τὰς πόλεις, there Were seen in 
the clouds, armies in battle-array, and chariots encompass- 
ing the country and investing their cities, which there are,” 
saith he, “men still living to attest:” that “the great 
gate of the temple, which twenty men could scarcely shut, 
and which was made fast with bolts and bars, αὐτομάτως 
ἡνεωγμένη, Was seen to open of its own accord, to let in 
their enemies; for so,” saith he, “our wise men construed 
that omen :” that “at the ninth hour of the night at the 
feast of unleavened bread τοσοῦτον φῶς περιέλαμψε τὸν βωμὸν 
καὶ τὸν Padv, as great a light shone upon the temple and the 
altar as if it had been noon-day :” that “at the feast of Pen- 
tecost, when the priests went at midnight into the temple 
to attend their service, first they heard a kind of a noise, 
as of a movement from the place, and then a voice saying, 
peraBaiveopev ἐντεῦθεν, Let us go hence.” And these things 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 960, A, B. 

T Λιμοῦ τὴν ᾿Ισυδαίων πόλιν πιεζοῦντος καὶ πολλῶν ὑπ᾽ ἐνδείας 
βρωμάτων φϑειρομένων. Antiq. lib. x. cap. 2, p. 686. 

+P 708, C. 


Tacitus,* a Roman historian of that age, doth thus epito- 
mize: “ Armies seemed to meet in the clouds; weapons 
were seen glittering; the temple seemed to be on a flame 
with fire issuing from the clouds, and a divine voice was 
heard, That the deity was quitting the place, and a great 
motion as of his departing.’’ Josephus adds, as τὸ τούτων 
φοβερώτερον, “a thing more terrible, that four years before 
the wars, one Jesus began at the feast of tabernacles to cry, 
φωνὴ ἐπὶ Ἱεροσόλυμα καὶ τὸν ναῦν, φωνὴ ἐπὶ τὸν λαὸν πάντα, A 
voice against Jerusalem and the temple; a voice against all 
the people, Woe, woe to them;” and that he continued 
crying thus about seven years.’ So express is the account 
of the τὰ φοβητρὰ, “ frightful things, and signs, from heaven, 
mentioned by our Lord ;” and of the sign of the Son of 
man coming in the clouds of heaven, μετὰ δυνάμεως καὶ δόξης, 
“with a glorious host, or with power and glory,” according 
to our Lord’s prediction, ver. 30. 

5 Ver. 9—12. Τότε παραδώσουσιν ὑμᾶς ets ϑλίψιν καὶ ἀπο- 
κτενοῦσιν ὑμᾶς" Then shall they deliver you up to affliction, 
and shall kill you, &c. Ver. 10. Then shall many be of- 
fended, and betray others. Ver, 12. And because iniquity 
shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.) « Before 
all these things (are accomplished) they shall lay their 
hands upon you, and shall persecute you, delivering you up 
to the synagogues, and to prisons” (Luke xxi. 12), “« They 
shall deliver you up to the Sanhedrins, and you shall be 
beaten in the synagogues, and shall be brought before kings 
and governors for my name's sake” (Mark xiii. 9. 14). 
Christ begins here to foretell what should happen to his 
apostles and disciples, and to others before the destruction 
of Jerusalem ; the troubles and persecutions which should 
come upon them, both from their enemies and seeming 
friends, and what event these persecutions should have on 
some unsound and temporizing Christians, and what deli- 
verance would be vouchsafed to those who persevered to 
the end: and that all these things exactly came to pass, we 
learn from scripture and church history, For, 

First, They suffered “a great fight of afilictions,” Heb. 
x. 32, 32, being persecuted by those of their own nation, 1 
Thess. ii. 14, 15, and suffering “fiery trials” from them, 1 
Pet. iv. 12, “I persecuted them,” saith St. Paul, “to 
strange cities,” Acts xxvi. 11. 

Secondly, They were imprisoned; Peter, Acts iv. 3, 
Paul and Silas, Acts xvi. 23, 2 Cor. vi. 23; “I delivered 
up to prison men and women,” Acts xxii. 4, “I shut up 
many of the saints in prison,” saith St. Paul, Acts xxvi. 10. 

Thirdly, They were “ beaten in the synagogue ;” St. Paul 
and Silas, Acts xvi. 23, 2 Cor. xi. 23—25, Peter and John, 
Acts v. 18 (see note on Mark xiii. 9). 

Fourthly, They were “brought before councils and San- 
hedrins ;” Peter and John, Acts iv. 3. 6, the disciples, Acts 
viii. 3: “before kings;” James and Peter before Herod, 
Acts xii. 1, 2, Paul and Peter “before Nero:”’ “ before 
tulers;” Paul before Gallio, Felix, and Festus, Acts xviii. 
12, xxiii. 33, xxv. 6. 

Fifthly, They were killed ; Stephen by the judgment of 
the council, Acts vii. 59: James the Greater by Herod; 
Acts xii. 1; the Less, by Ananus the high-priest ; yea, mul- 
titudes of Christians were persecuted to the death by Saul, 
Acts xxii. 4, by Nero, Tacit. Annal. 15, p. 363, by the Jews, 
Justin. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, 235. 

Sixthly, As we learn from the Jewish Talmud,} That in 
the days of the Messiah, “the son should afflict the father, 
and a man’s enemies should be those of his own house;” 
so do we learn from Tacitus, in the place forecited, that 


* Evenerunt prodigia, vise per ccelum concurrere acies, 
rutilantia arma, et subito nubium igne collucere templum, 
expasse repenté delubri fores, et audita major humana vox 
«“excedere Deos,” simul ingens motus excedentium. Hist, 
lib. v. ed. Lips. 521. 

+ Chart. in Matt. x. 34. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


from the gospel), and shall betray one another, and 
shall hate one another. 

11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall 
deceive many. 

12 And because iniquity (and persecution) shall 
abound, the love of many (to me and my doctrine) 
shall wax cold. 

13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same 
shall be saved (7. e. preserved from this destruction). 

14 © And this gospel of the kingdom (of God ) shall 
be preached in all the world for a witness unto all 
nations (‘hat I am the Christ); and then shall the end 
come (of thal church and polity) 

15 7 When ye therefore shall see the abomination 
of desolation (* e. the Roman army, Luke xxi. 20), 
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy 


163 


place, (whoso readeth let him understand) (what the 
prophet there intends): 

16 5 Then let them which be in Judea flee into the 
mountains (take this opportunity lo flee thence with the 
greatest expedition): 

17 Let him which is on the housetop not come 
down to take any thing out of his house: 

18 Neither let him which is in the field return back 
to take (up) his clothes. 

19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to 
them that give suck in those days (and so are not 
in condition to fly swiftly and speedily out of this 
danger)! 

20 9 But (and) pray ye that your flight be not in 
the winter, neither on the sabbath day (not in winter, 
when long and hasty journeys are most difficult ; not on 


« Christians were delivered up by their parents, brethren, kins- 
folk, friends:” from Josephus,* that « contention sprang up 
ἐν οἰκίαις, in their very houses;” and that the “Idumeans 
slew πολλοὺς τῶν συγγενῶν, many of their own kindred ;” and 
from the scripture, that the “Jews persecuted those of their 
own country” (1 Thess, ii. 14), 

Seventhly, That upon occasion of these persecutions, « the 
love of many waxed cold,” and many Jews revolted from 
the Christian faith, see the preface to the second epistle to 
the Thessalonians, sect. 7, and on ii. 3. 

And, Lastly, Of the care of God in preserving his faithful 
servants in this time of imminent danger, Eusebiust informs 
us, saying that “before the war all the faithful of the church 
of Jerusalem were astonished, κατὰ τίνα χρησμὸν τοῖς αὐτόϑι 
δοκίμοις δ᾽ ἀποκαλύψεως δοθέντα, μεταναστῆναι τῆς πόλεως, by an 
oracle delivered by revelation to men approved there, to de- 
part from the city, and to get over Jordan, and go to Pella ;” 
and Epiphanius,+ declaring that προεχρηματίσθησαν in’ dyyé- 
dov, “they were forewarned by an angel to depart from the 
city, as being now ready to perish.’ The occasion of this 
departure was, saith Dr. Hammond, wonderful: for Cestius 
Gallus then besieged the city ; and if he would, saith Jose- 
phus,§ “he might easily have taken it, and put an end to the 
war; but he without cause raising the siege, and going 
from it, πολλοὶ τῶν ἐπιφανῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων, ὥσπερ βαπτιζομένης νεὼς, 
ἀπενήχοντο τῆς πύλεως, Many eminent Jews fled from the city, 
as from a sinking ship;” among whom doubtless, were those 
Christians who remained, saith Epiphanius,| after the de- 
struction of Jerusalem. 

6 Ver. 14. Kat κηρυχϑήσεται τοῦτο τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας 
ἐν ὅλη τῇ οἰκουμένη----καὶ τότε fife τὸ τέλος. And this gospel of 
the kingdom shall be preached in the whole aed ane 
then shall the end come.) That it was thus, before the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, spread through the Roman empire, 
styled, ἡ οἰκουμένη, “the world,” St. Paul informs us, saying 
of the preachers of it, « their sound had gone forth into all 
the earth, and their words εἰς πέρατα τῆς οἰκουμένης, to the 
ends of the world” (Rom. v. 18). He also tells the church 
of Rome, i. 8, that their “ faith was spoken of throughout 
the world;” and that of Colosse, i. 6. 23, that “the truth of 
the gospel was come, not to them only, but to all the world, 
and preached to every creature.” And Clemens,§ bishop 
of Rome, his contemporary, saith, “'The nations beyond the 
ocean, ταῖς ἐπιταγαῖς τοῦ δεσπότου Διευϑύνονται, Were governed 
by the precepts of the Lord.” Now this he only truly could 
foretell, who, having “all power in heaven and earth,” was 
able to effect it. 

7 Ver. 15. Ὅταν οὖν ἴδητε βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημύσεως, When 
then ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of 
by the prophet Daniel, stand in the holy place (he that 
readeth, let him understand): that is, saith St. Luke, xxi. 
20, When ye see Jerusalem compassed about with the 
Roman armies, then know and understand that her de- 
solation draweth nigh.| This army might be called an abo- 
mination, as being so to the Jews,** by reason of the images 


* De Bello Jud. lib. iv. cap. 10. 18. 

+ Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 5. + De Mens.et Pond. §. 15. 
§ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 39. 1 Cap, 4. p. 821, F. 

§ Ep. ad Cor. §. 20. 


** “Anav τὸ εἴδωλον καὶ πᾶν τύπωμα ἀνθρώπου παρὰ τοῖς 


of Cesar and an eagle in the ensigns of it, “ the abomina- 
tion of desolation,” because it was to lay the country, city, 
and the temple desolate; and to stand in the holy place, as 
standing within the circuit of the holy city Jerusalem, as it 
is styled Matt. iv. 5, 1 Macc. x. 31, and was esteemed by 
the Jews (see Ainsw. in Numb. v. 3). How exactly this 
army fulfilled our Lord’s prediction, by encompassing this 
city, see note on Luke xix. 43, Dan. ix. 27. 

BéAvypa τῆς ἑρημώσεως, the abomination of desolation.) 
To the note there add; it is said by some that the argument 
used against the Jews, from the completion of the weeks of 
Daniel, that their Messiah must be come, was not taken no- 
tice of by any of the ancients before Tertullian; nor did 
the apostles ever use it to that end: but though it be not 
mentioned by the apostles, yet was it urged by Clemens 
Alexandrinus in the close of the second century, Strom. i. 
p- 330, 331; and it seems here plainly to be referred to by 
our Lord in these words, « When you see the abomination 
of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in 
the holy place; he that readeth, let him understand ;” viz. 
the completion of that prophecy ; and that this was the sense 
of the ancient Jews we learn from Josephus, who saith, 
that, at the same time, καὶ περὶ τῶν Ῥωμαίων ἡγεμονίας ἀνέ- 
γραψε, καὶ ὅτι ὑπ᾿ αὐτῶν ἐρημωθήσεται" sup. τὸ ἔϑνος ὑμῶν: “he 
writ concerning the government of the Romans, and that the 
Jewish nation should be brought to desolation by them ;” 
and that these things were left on record that the readers, 
τὰ συμβάντα σκοποῦντες, “seeing them accomplished, might 
admire the honour conferred upon him by God” (Antig. lib. 
x. cap. 12, p. 355). 

8 Ver. 16. Τότε of ἐν τῇ Ιουδαίᾳ φευγέτωσαν ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη" 
Then let them who are in Judea flee to the mountains.] 
This respects the time when Cestius Gallius came with his 
army even to the upper city: for when he withdrew it 
thence, πολλοὶ διεδίόρασκον ἀπὸ τῆς πύλεως ἁλωσομένης αὐτίκα, 
“many fled from the city, as if it would be taken presently,” 
saith Josephus.* And then the Christians fled to Pella in 
Perga, a mountainous country, and other places under the 
government of king Agrippa, where they found safety. 

9 Ver. 20. Προσεὔύχεσϑε δὲ ἵνα μὴ γένηται ἡ φυγὴ ὑμῶν χειμῶνος, 
μηδὲ ἐν σαθβάτῳ: And pray that your fight may not be 
in winter, nor on the sabbath-day.] Not in the winter, the 
ways then being scarce passable; nor on the sabbath-day, 
lest you be exposed to the indignation of the Jews for tra- 
yelling on that day, or hindered from doing it by your own 
superstition : for Josephus,t in his Life, informs us their laws 
would not suffer them either to travel or to fight on that 
day ; “having sent,” saith he, «armed soldiers from Tarichee, 
Τ would recall them, though I needed them much, because 
they could not on the sabbath ὅπλα λαβεῖν, κωλυόντων ἡμᾶς 
τῶν νόμων, take up arms, the laws forbidding us.” And he 
informs us,} that the Romans chose that day to fight against 
Jerusalem : because “they found them more slow to fight 
upon that day, διὰ τὴν ϑρησκείαν, because of their religion.” 
‘The Nazarene Christians also observed the law ; and most of 
those who remained in Judea till the time of Hadrian, as we 


Ἰουδαίοις BdéAvypa ἐκαλεῖτο. Chrys. Orat. 2 adv. Jud. tom. vi. 


Ρ. 333. 
* Lib ii. cap. 40. + P. 1011, B 


+ De Bello Jud. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 719, G. 


1604 


the sabbath-day, when your flight will render you ob- 
noxious to the displeasure of the Jews): 

21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as 
was not since the beginning of the world to this time, 
no, nor ever shall be (afterward, and so your flight will 
be more hazardous). 

22 1! And except those days should be shortened, 
there should no flesh be saved (or escape): but for the 
elect’s (ὦ. e. the Christians’) sake those days shall be 


MATTHEW. 


shortened. _ (That this is the true import of the elect, see 
note on Mark xiii. 10.) 

23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here 
is Christ, or there (he is); believe zt not. 

24 For there shall (then) arise 15 false Christs, and 
false prophets, and (they) shall shew great signs and 
wonders; insomuch that, if ἐξ were possible, they 
should deceive the very elect (¢. e. do all that possibly 
they can to deceive even Christians by them). 


learn from Sulpitius Severus, lib. ii. §. 45, and Eusebius’s 
Chronicon and Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 6. Christ therefore 
doth not by this precept establish the Jewish sabbath, but 
speaks this to prevent any mischiefs believers might suffer 
from the hatred of the Jews, or their own superstition. 

10 Ver. 21. There shall be then great tribulation, οἵα οὐ 
γέγονεν ἀπ᾽ ἀργὴς κόσμου ἕως τοῦ νῦν, οὐδ᾽ οὐ ph γένηται, Such as 
never was from the beginning of the world, no, nor ever 
shall be.] ‘These words seem to be a familiar form of ex- 
pressing a thing that is exceeding great, or perhaps the 
greatest in its kind, rather than a prediction that no future 
calamity should be like it. So Exod. x. 14, “ Before them 
there were no such locusts, neither after them shall there be 
such :” and Joel ii. 2, “ A day of darkness and of gloomi- 
ness; there hath not been ever the like, nor shall there be 
after it.” Now Josephus,* speaking of the same destruc- 
tion, saith, μῆτε πόλιν ἄλλην τοιαῦτα πεπονθέναι, “No other 
city ever suffered such things;” and again, τὰ γοῦν πάντων 
Gx’ αἰῶνος ἀτυχήματα πρὸς τὰ Ιουδαίων ἡττᾶσϑαΐ μοι δοκεῖ κατὰ 
σύγκρισιν; 7 “All the calamities which have ever happened to 
any from the beginning, seem not comparable to those 
which befell the Jews.” 

N Ver, 22. And if those days had not been shortened, 
no flesh could be saved; but διὰ τοὺς ἐκλεκτοὺς, for the elect’s 
sake those days shall be shortened.] That by “the elect” 
here we are to understand, not the Jews, but the Christians, 
see note on Mark xiii. 20. And so perilous were those 
times by reason of the sicarii and the zealots, as well as of 
the Romans, and so hard was it with the Christians flying 
to the mountains, and being there without houses and with- 
out necessaries, that they could not have long subsisted ; 
and therefore God in his providence shortened those days 
by their mutual slaughters, the burning their granaries, and 
the famine, and by enfeebling the Jews; so that Titus 
himself confessed that ὁ Θεὺς ἦν ὃ τῶνδε ἐρυμάτων ᾿ἸΙουδαίους 
καθελῶν,Ἐ “it was God who deprived the Jews of those for- 
tresses.” 

® Ver. 24, False Christs and false prophets shall arise, 
καὶ δώσουσι σημεῖα μεγάλα, καὶ τέρατα" «ὥστε πλανῆσαι, εἰ δυνατὸν, 
καὶ τοὺς ἐκλεκτοῦς, and shall show great signs and won- 
ders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive 
the very elect.) That the false Christs and prophets, men- 
tioned note on ver. 5, did great wonders, is certain ; for the 
scripture testifies of Simon Magus that he “bewitched the 
Samaritans so with his sorceries that they all gave heed to 
him,” Acts viii. 9, 10: and church history is very large in 
the accounts they give how he prevailed by them to be wor- 
shipped in many places: and Dositheus, saith Origen,§ did 
τερατεύεσϑαι, “do prodigious things.” ‘This is true also of 
the false prophets mentioned by Josephus, they being still 
represented by him as μάγοι καὶ γύητες, “magicians and 
sorcerers” (see the note on 2 Thess. ii. 9). 

As for the phrase, “they shall deceive, εἰ δυνατὸν, if it 
were possible, the very elect,” that it doth not argue the 
perseverance of believers to the end, and that it is impos- 
sible they should fall away, will be apparent from these 
things: 

First, Because Christ so solemnly exhorts them to use the 
greatest caution that they be not seduced by these men, 
saying, ver. 4, 5, “ let no man deceive you: for many shall 
come in my name, saying, I am Christ: and shall deceive 
many,” ver. 11: and again, “If they say, Here is Christ, 
or there, believe it not, ver. 23, for many false Christs and 
false prophets shall arise, to deceive the elect; look ye 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap, 27. 
+ Lib. vii. cap. 43, p. 967. 
§ Cont. Celsum. p. 289. 


ἡ Pref. p. 706. 


therefore to it, behold, I have foretold you all things,’ Mark 
xiii. 22, 23. Now is it suitable to the wisdom of our Lord 
to exhort Christians to use so great diligence and caution, 
lest they should be deceived by these men, and at the same 
time to assure them it was utterly impossible they should 
be deceived? Moreover, I ask to whom doth he direct this 
exhortation—to the elect? Then must he do it to them 
who could not possibly be deceived, and so his words must 
bear this uncouth sense, Be very careful, lest ye be deceived 
by these men; for I assure you, it is absolutely impossible 
they should deceive you. Or was he thus concerned only 
for reprobates? And why then did he from all eternity decree 
that they should finally miscarry, and never should have 
grace effectual or sufficient to preserve them from those 
deceits ? 

Secondly, In the same chapter our Lord exhorts them to 
see to it, to watch and pray, lest that day of affliction, that 
hour of temptation, coming suddenly, should find them 
sleeping, and “lest their hearts should be overcharged with 
surfeiting and drunkenness, and that day should come upon 
them unawares; to watch and pray, that they may be ac- 
counted worthy to escape all these things, and stand be- 
fore the Son of man” (Mark xiii. 33. 35, 36, Luke xxi. 
34. 36). Now are these suppositions which can agree 
to men who cannot possibly be found “sleeping” in this 
spiritual sense, on whom the day of Christ cannot come 
thus unprepared, who never can be “unworthy to stand be- 
fore the Son of man?” Can there be any need of such 
vehement exhortations to constant prayer and vigilance, 
heed and circumspection, to prevent what could not possibly 
befall them? Or was our Saviour thus concerned only to 
exhort them, who he well knew could never possibly avoid 
these things ? ν 

Thirdly, Christ here declares, that by reason of the ex- 
treme affliction of those times, many should be offended, 
i. e. should fall off from the faith (see note on Matt. xviii. 
6); and adds, that “because iniquity shall abound, the 
love of many shall wax cold, but he that endures to the end 
shall be saved,” ver. 12, 13: where, that Christ speaks not of 
a hypocritical outward profession of affection to him, may 
be gathered from his styling of it, not pretence, but love; 
his supposition that it was fervent love, for what was never 
hot cannot wax cold; yea, such love, in which had they 
endured, they would have certainly been saved; and yet he 
doth not only intimate that some would not continue in this 
love to the end, but plainly doth foretell that it in many would 
wax cold. ‘To answer, therefore, directly to the argument 
urged from this text, I say, 

First, That the phrase εἰ δυνατὸν, “if it be possible,” or, “if 
it may be,” doth not denote an absolute impossibility, but 
only a great difficulty in the performance of an act possible. 
So Acts xx. 16, “Paul hastened εἰ δυνατὸν αὐτῷ, if it were 
possible for him, to be at Jerusalem before Pentecost,” and 
yet sure he made not all this haste to do what was im- 
possible. The apostle commands, εἰ δυνατὸν, “if it be pos 
sible, as much as in you lieth, have peace with all men” 
(Rom. xii. 18) ; and yet doth not exhort us to use our ut- 
most endeavours to do what was impossible; εἰ δυνατὸν, “If 
it be possible, let this cup pass from me,” saith Christ, Matt. 
xxvi. 49, and yet he adds, “all things are possible to thee, 
O Father,” Mark xiv. 35, 36, and hence the phrase is 
changed by St. Luke into εἰ βούλει, “if thou wilt.” Now, 
that the deceiving of Christians in those times of miraculous 
endowment was very difficult, is evident from that speech 
concerning a thing hardly feasible, ϑάγτόν τις τοὺς ἀπὸ Χρισ- 
τοῦ μεταδιδάζεις, “Sooner may a Christian be turned from 
Christ.” 

Secondly, This phrase imports, not what the event would 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


25 Behold, I have told you before (ver. 5. 12, of 
these things). 

26 Wherefore 13 if they shall say unto you, Behold, 
he (i. e. Christ) is in the desert; go not forth (to seek 
him there: or if they shall say,) behold, he is in the 
secret chambers (of the temple); believe it not. 

27 For (the coming of the Son of man will nol be secret 
or obscure, but) “as the lightning (which) cometh out 
of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall 
also the coming of the Son of man be. 

28 For wheresoever the carcase is (ἡ. e. the Jews 
are), there will the eagles (‘he Roman armies, whose 
ensign ts the eagle) be gathered together. 


be upon the elect, but the vehemence of the endeavours 
of the seducers, that they would do the utmost they 
could possible to shock the Christian, and seduce him from 
his steadfastness, as is evident from the words of St. Mark, 
xiii. 22, “They will show signs and wonders, πρὸς τὸ dro- 
πλανᾶν, εἰ δυνατὸν, to deceive, if they are able, the elect.” 
Now, to say such a one will do you mischief if he can, or 
if hg be able, is surely no security that he can do you none. 
And, 

Thirdly, Should this phrase respect the event, it may 
do it not absolutely, but only with relation to the means 
here mentioned; i. e. “they shall show great signs and 
wonders,” which shall prevail to seduce Jews, heathens, and 
Samaritans, and even Christians, were it possible for impos- 
tors by lying signs and wonders to deceive them, who are 
invested with the power of working true and greater signs 
and wonders by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, and will 
attend to the things wrought among them or by them. 

B Ver. 26. If then they shall say to you, ἰδοὺ, ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ 
ἐστί" μὴ ἐξέλθητε, Behold, he is in the wilderness; go not 
forth.| Here Christ points to the very place where those 
false prophets should appear, or whither they should lead 
their followers. Accordingly Josephus saith, “Many im- 
postors and magicians persuaded the people, εἰς τὴν ἔρημον 
ἔπεσϑαι, to follow them into the desert, where they promised 
to show them manifest signs and wonders done of God” 
(Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6, p. 695, De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 23, 
p- 796, G). 

M Ver. 27, 28. “Ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡ ἀστραπὴ, &e. For as the light- 
ning goeth from the east to the west, so shall the coming 
of the Son of man be.) i. e. You will then need none to 
instruct you where Christ is, or to say to you, He is here, 
or there ; for by the Roman army, which shall pass through 
the territories of the Jews like lightning, his coming to take 
vengeance on that nation shall be manifest ; and wherever 
the Jews, who like dead carcases shall be devoured by the 
Roman eagles, are, thither shall he fly with them, to tear 
and to devour them. 

6 Ver, 29. Εὐθέως, Immediately after the tribulation of 
those days, ὃ ἥλιος σκοτισϑήσεται, καὶ ἡ σελήνη ob δώσει τὸ φέγγος 
αὑτῆς, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not 
give her light, &c.] It being here foretold that this should 
happen immediately after the wasting of the Jews by Ves- 
pasian’s army flying quickly through Galilee, Idumea, and 
Judea; this cannot be taken literally, because no such thing 
then happened either to the sun, moon, or stars. It must be 
therefore a metaphorical expression, to signify, as it doth 
frequently in the Old Testament, and other wniters, an utter 
desolation, and terrible destruction brought upon a nation, 
and upon their capital cities, compared to the sun and 
moon: for in this language the prophet Isaiah speaks of 
the destruction of Babylon, saying, xiii. 9, 10,“ 'The day 
of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, 
to lay the land desolate ; and he shall destroy the sinners 
thereof out of it: for the stars of heaven and the constel- 
lations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be 
darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause 
her light to shine.” The indignation of God against the 
Idumeans is represented in like dreadful words, Isa. xxxiv. 
3, 4; so is the destruction of Sennacherib and his people, 
Isa. li. 6; so is the destruction of Egypt, Ezek. xxxii. 7. 
And in these words this very destruction is foretold by 
Joel, «The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and 
the stars shall not yield their light” (Joel iii 15, ii. 31). 


165 


29 ¥ (2nd) κα immediately after the tribulation of 
those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon 
shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from 
heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken 
(ὦ. e. all the government both in church and state shall be 
overthrown, as it was by the zealots): 

30 And then shall appear the ® sign of the Son of 
man (who ts) in heaven (i. e. the Roman army coming 
lo the destruction of the city, the temple, and people of 
Jerusalem): and then shall all the tribes of the earth 
(or land) mourn, and (then) they shall see the Son of 
man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and 
great glory. 


This, therefore, saith Maimonides,* “is a proverbial ex- 
pression, importing the destruction and utter ruin of a 
nation.” Artemidorusf also saith, that “ the sun darkened 
or turned into blood, and the stars falling, or disappearing, 
import the destruction of many people.” And in this sense 
it is almost incredible, which Josephus saith, viz. that eleven 
hundred thousand perished in that siege (De Bello Jud. lib. 
vii. cap. 45, p. 968, D). 

Another exposition of these words is this, That then 
there shall be a destruction of their ecclesiastical and civil 
state, and of the rulers of them both; according to those 
words of Maimonides,+ “This metaphor imports, that men 
who for their state and dignity might be compared to the sun, 
moon, and stars, shall suddenly fall down as a leaf from the 
vine and from the fig-tree.” And this happened a consider- 
able time before the destruction of Jerusalem, when the 
thieves and zealots, saith Josephus,§ “kept all the nobles, 
and rots κατὰ χώραν προὔχειν δοκοῦντας, Tulers of the country, 
in close custody ;” when the zealots|| “ slew and consumed 
τὸ γενναῖον, the nobility, and made it their business τὸ μηδένα 
τῶν δυνατῶν καταλιπεῖν, to leave none of the men of power 
alive,” and when “twelve thousand of the nobility perished 
after this manner ;§ when the high-priests, and among them 
Ananus, were destroyed by the Idumeans, which Josephus 
reckons** as ἀρχὴ τῆς ἁλώσεως, “ the beginning of their capti- 
vity ;’{+ when they “abolished the families of the high- 
priest by succession, καὶ xaSicracav ἀσήμους Kai ἀγεννεῖς, and 
placed in their room men ignoble and unknown, who nei- 
ther belonged to the priesthood nor knew what the office of 
high-priest meant.” That this was to happen before “ the 
great and terrible day of the Lord,” or at that time, we learn 
from the prophet Joel, saying, that “then shall the sun be 
darkened,” ἄς. This therefore cannot be referred to any 
time after the destruction of Jerusalem. 

16 Ver. 30. Kai rire φανήσεται τὸ σημεῖον τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνϑρώπου 
ἐν τᾷ οὐρανῷ, &e. And then shall appear the sign of the 
Son of man in heaven, and they she see the Son of man 
coming in the clouds with power and great glory.| Some 
think that “the sign of the Son of man in heaven,” and 
“in the clouds,” must note some visible sign of his appear- 
ance in the heavens; and they refer this to the fearful sights, 
“the sword and comet hanging over Jerusalem,” and “the 
armies and chariots seen in the clouds ;” but these things 
happened, according to Josephus,++ πρὸ τῆς ἀποστάσεως, καὶ 
τοῦ πρὸς τὸν πύλεμον κινήματος, “before their revolt from the 
Romans, and the beginning of the war,” and therefore cannot 
be the thing intended here. Our Saviour’s coming here seems 
therefore to import his coming by the Roman army to be- 
siege and to destroy Jerusalem and the unbelieving Jews; 
for so Christ seemeth plainly to interpret this “ coming of 


* More Nev. lib. ii. p. 265, R. 

Ἢ Ἥλιος ἁμαυρὸς ἢ ὕφαιμος, καταπίπτοντες ἐπὶ γῆν ot ἁστέρες 
ἢ ἀφανιζόμενοι, πολλῶν ὄλεθρον μαντεύονται. Oneirocrit. lib. ii. 
cap. 36. 

+ Idem est ac si diceret, viri qui, statiis et dignitatis sue 
ratione, similes fuerunt stellis, et extra omnem fortune mu- 
tationisque aleam positi videbantur, subito deciderunt instar 
folii ἃ vite vel fictis cadentis. More Nev. p, 267. 

§ De Bell. Jud, lib. iv. eap. 11, M. 

| Lib. v. cap. 20, p. 885. 

« Lib. iv. cap. 19, p. 883, G. 

** Cap. 18, p. 882, G. 7 Lib. iv. cap. 11, 12, p. 872. 

++ De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31. 


166 


31 And ™ he shall send his angels with a great 
sound of a trumpet (7. 6. his messengers with the trumpet 
of the gospel), and they shall gather together his elect 
(among the gentiles) from the four winds, from one end 
of heaven to the other (Luke xiii. 28, 29). 

32 Now lear a parable of (from) the fig tree; 


MATTHEW. 


(For) when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth 
leaves, ye know that summer is nigh : 

33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these 
things (come to pass), know ® that it (i.e. the ruin 
foretold) is near, even at the doors. 

34 © Verily I say unto you, This generation shall 


the Son of man,” ver. 27, “The coming of the Son of man 
shall be as the lightning shining from the east to the west; 
ὅπου yap, for wheresoever the Jews are, thither shall the Ro- 
man army be gathered” (see ver. 27, above): his coming 
therefore must be with the Roman army. And this inter- 
pretation will not seem strange if we consider, (1.) that 
God’s coming to destroy, or execute his vengeance on a 
wicked generation, is represented as his coming “in the 
clouds of heaven.” So 2 Sam. xxii. 8, “The earth trem- 
bled, and the foundations of heaven shook, because he was 
wroth:” and, ver. 10, “He bowed the heavens, and came 
down; and thick darkness (or a dark cloud) was under his 
feet ;” Ps. xcvii. 2, 3, “ Clouds and darkness are round about 
him: a fire goes before him, and devours his adversaries round 
about ;’” and, Nahum i. 3—5, “The Lord hath his way in 
the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust 
under his feet. Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the 
flower of Lebanon languisheth. The mountains quake, and 
the hills melt, and the earth is burnt at his presence, yea, 
the world, and all that dwell therein.” And this great day 
of the Lord is thus described by Joel, ch. ii., as “a day of 
darkness and gloominess, of clouds and thick darkness,—a 
great people and a strong;” i.e. the Chaldeans coming 
against Jerusalem to destroy the city and the temple, and 
after them the Romans to do the same thing. And of this 
destruction by the Chaldeans, the author of the Lamenta- 
tions saith, i. 13, “« He sent a fire into my bones 9)ynp from 
on high;” “from heaven,” saith the Targum. And St. 
John, in the Revelation, speaking of things that were to be 
done ἐν τάχει, “quickly,” 1..1, and of καιρὸς ἐγγύς, “a time 
that was near,” ver. 3, which is the expression used of this 
destruction, ver. 7, saith in these very words, “ Behold, he 
cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they 
also which pierced him: and then shall the tribes of that land 
mourn.” Which words seem plainly to relate to this very 
time, and might be a vision seen by John before the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, though the following prophecies were 
imparted to him afterward. I confess many of the fathers, 
from the fifth century downwards, interpret this of the sign 
of the cross; but that fancy is sufficiently confuted from the 
event, there being no such appearance in the heavens before 
the destruction of Jerusalem: it also is rendered improbable 
from the silence of Josephus and Eusebius, which two his- 
torians have given us the fullest narrative of all the cireum- 
stances relating to that terrible destruction. In fine, a late 
author* hath eased us of all our disputes about this sign, by 
showing, that as “the sign of Jonas the prophet,” Matt. xii. 39, 
is the sign which is Jonas the prophet ; so “ the sign of the Son 
of man” inquired after, Matt. xxiv. 3, is “the Son of man com- 
ing in the clouds of heaven.” And this interpretation is con- 
firmed from the parallel places, Mark xiii. 26, Luke xxi. 27, 
where, instead of the sign of the Son of man mentioned here, 
we read thus; “ Hereafter shall they see the Son of man com- 
ing in the clouds:” and from Matt. xxvi. 64, « From henceforth 
ye shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven.” 

7 Ver. 31. Kai {τότε Mark xiil. 27), ἀποστελεῖ τοῦς dyye- 
λους αὐτοῦ μετὰ σάλπιγγος φωνῆς μεγάλης, S&C. And (then) 
will he send forth his angels with the trumpet of a great 
sound, or voice, and they shall gather his elect from the 
four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other.) 
Here the τότε then, in St. Mark, so plainly shows that this 
relates to the same time mentioned in the foregoing verse, 
that no explication of these words, referring them to a long 
time after the destruction of Jerusalem, ought to be admitted 
as the true sense of them. Dr. Lightfoot gives the sense 
of these words thus; When Jerusalem shall be reduced to 
ashes, and that wicked nation cut off, then shall the Son of 
man send his ministers (Christians) of several nations from 
the four corners of the heavens; so that God shall not want 


* John Buxtorf. 


a church, although that ancient nation be rejected and cast 
off, the churches of the gentiles succeeding to her. ‘To 
strengthen this interpretation, let it be considered, 

First, That God’s prophets, messengers, and ministers, 
both in the Old and the New Testament, are styled οἱ ἄγγελοι 
αὐτοῦ, “his angels.’ So 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15, «God sent his 
prophets ;” but, ver. 16, «they mocked τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ, 
his messengers.” So Haggai is ἄγγελος Κυρίου, “the mes- 
senger of the Lord,’ i. 13. So is the priest, Mal. il. 7, the 
Baptist, Mal. iii. 1, Matt. xi. 10, Mark i. 2, Luke vii. 27. 

Secondly, That their preaching is represented as a voice, 
yea, as the voice of a trumpet. As in these words, « Lift up 
thy voice like a trumpet,” Isa. lviii. 1 (seeJer. vi. 17, Ezek. 
Xxxiii. 3—6). And the preaching of the apostles is φωνὴ, 
“a voice going through the earth,” Rom. x. 18. 

Thirdly, That the calling and coming in of the gentiles 
at the casting off the Jews is represented as their coming in 
«from the four winds,” or “ the four corners of the earth.” 
“Many shall come from the east and from the west” (Matt. 
viii. 11): “ but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out 
into outer darkness” (ver. 12). “You shall be cast out: 
And they shall come from the east, and from the west, from 
the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in my 
kingdom” (Luke xiii. 28, 29). : 

Fourthly, That the destruction of Jerusalem and the unbe- 
lieving Jews, in this extraordinary manner, was so exact a 
completion of our Lord’s prediction, so great a demonstra- 
tion of his indignation against unbelievers, of his protection 
of his faithful servants, and such a justification of this pro- 
phet against their accusations, and such an evidence of their 
sin who crucified and rejected him, that it might well pre- 
pare the gentiles more freely to embrace the Christian faith. 

18 Ver. 38. Ὅτι ἐγγύς ἐστίν, ἐπὶ ϑύραις, That it is nigh, even 
at the door.) This I have interpreted, in compliance with our 
translation, of the ruin of the Jewish nation. I now think 
it more agreeable to this phrase in scripture to understand 
οὗτος, tlle. “ He,” the Son of man mentioned ver. 30, “stands 
at the door ;” for so St. James plainly interprets this phrase, 
by saying, ἡ παρουσία τοῦ Kupiov ἤγγικε, “ The coming of the 
Lord draweth nigh, ὁ κριτὴς πρὸ τῶν ϑυρῶν ἕστηκεν, the Judge 
standeth before the door” (v. 8,9). And St. Luke, by 
varying the phrase thus; “ Know that the kingdom of God is 
nigh” (Luke xxi. 31); i.e. the coming of Christ to execute 
his kingly office on the Jews, and give his kingdom, thus 
taken from them, to the believing gentiles (Matt. xxi. 43). 

19 Ver. 34. Verily I say unto you, ob ph παρέλθη ἡ γενεὰ 
αὕτη, ἕως ἂν πάντα ταῦτα γένηται" This generation shall not 
pass away, till all these things be fulfilled. These words, ἡ 
γενεὰ αὕτη, “this age, (or generation,) shall not pass away,” 
afford a full demonstration that all which Christ had men- 
tioned hitherto was to be accomplished, not at the time of 
the conversion of the Jews, or at the final day of judgment, 
but in that very age, or whilst some of that generation of 
men lived; for γενεὰ αὕτη, “this generation,” never bears 
any other sense in the New Testament than the men of this 
age. So Matt. xi. 16, “To whom shall I liken γενεὰν ταύτην, 
the men of this age?” xii, 42, “The queen of the south 
shall rise up in judgment, μετὰ γενεᾶς ταύτης, with the men 
of this age;” and, ver. 45, “So shall it be τῇ yeved ταύτῃ τῇ 
πονηρᾷ, with the wicked of this age :” Matt. xxiii. 36, « All 
these things shall come ἐπὶ τὴν γενεὰν ταύτην, upon the men 
of this age:” Mark viii. 12, τί ἡ γενεὰ rairn; “ Why do the 
men of this age seek a sign? No sign shall be given, τῇ ysved 
ταὔτη, to the men of this age:” Luke vii. 31, «To whom 
shall I liken the men τῆς γενεᾶς ταύτης of this age ?” Luke 
xi. 29, “The Son of man shall be a sign τῇ γενεὰ ταύτῃ to 
the men of this age :” so again, ver. 30—32. 50, 51, xvi. 8, 
and Acts ii. 40, “Save yourselves ἀπὸ γενεᾶς τῆς σκολιᾶς ταῦ- 
της, from this froward generation.” (2.) This is farther evi- 
dent, because the kingdom of God was then instant, and at 
the door (Luke xxi. 29. 31). And having showed, trom 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


not pas3, till all these things be (assuredly) fulfilled. 
For 

τ Heaven and earth shall pass away (at the end of 
the world you inquire after), but my words shall not 
pass away (unperformed ). 

36 4 But™ of that day and hour (when they are thus 
to pass away, you are not to inquire ; for of that) know- 
eth no man, no, not the angels of heaven (nor the Son, 
Mark xiii. 32), but my Father only. 

37 But (know in general,) as (in) the days of Noe 
were (the flood of which he prophesied was unexpected ), 
so shall also the coming of the Son of man be (at both 
these times). 

38 For as in the days that were before the flood 
they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving 
in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the 
ark, 

39 And knew not until the flood came, and took 
them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son 
of man (then) be. 

40 2 Then (shall the providence of God be so remark- 
able in preservation of his faithful people, that) shall two 
be in the field; the one shall be taken (by the Roman 
army), and the other left. 

41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the 
one shall be taken, and the other left (and the like dis- 
tinction will the angels make at the great day of judg- 
ment, XXV. 32). 

42 4 ~ Watch therefore: for ye know not (at) what 
hour your Lord doth come. 


Josephus, how punctually these predictions were fulfilled, I 
may conclude with Eusebius,* cuyxpivas dé τις τὰς τοῦ Σωτῆρος 
ἡμῶν λέξεις ταῖς λοιπαῖς συγγράφεως ἵστορίαις περὶ παντὸς τοῦ 
πολέμου" “He that shall compare the words of our Saviour 
with those of Josephus concerning the war of the Jews, can- 
not but admire the wisdom of Christ, and own his predic- 
tions to have been divine.” 

20 Ver. 36. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, 
&c.] See the note on Mark xiii. 22. 

Ver. 39. Καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν, And knew not till the flood came.] 
It is certain that they of the old world had sufficient intima- 
tion of the judgment threatened to them from Noah, “a 
preacher of righteousness” to them (2 Pet. ii. 5), and from 
the ark he prepared for the preservation of himself and of 
his family before their eyes (Heb. xi. 7) ; from the striving 
of his Spirit, by his prophets, with them, and from the term 
of a hundred and twenty years assigned for their repentance 
(8: vi. 3). They are therefore here said not to have known 
this, because they did not savingly improve their knowledge 
of it to the preventing of that judgment. So after all our 
Saviour’s instructions of them in the way of life, the Jews 
are said not to have known the time of their visitation, or 
the things which belong to their peace (Luke xix. 42). 

21 Ver. 40. Τότε δύο ἔσονται ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ, ὅτο. Then two shall 
δὲ in the field; the one shal be taken, and the other left, 
&c.] This, by Dr. Hammond, seems to be well referred to 
the especial providence of God, discernible in those times, 
in rescuing some, who seemed equally exposed to danger, 
from the destruction which shall fall on others; for that it 
relates not to the final judgment, but to the time of the de- 
struction of the Jews by the Roman army, is evident from 
the same words recorded by St. Luke, xvii. 35, 36. For 
there the disciples ask their Lord where this shall be ? and 
Christ answers (ver. 37), that “where the carcase”’ (i. 6. 
the Jews) are, “there will the eagles” (i. 6. the Roman 
army, whose ensign was the eagle) “be gathered together.” 
And hence it is also evident, that the following words being 
connected to these by the copulative οὖν, thus, “« Watch 
therefore,” must refer to the same subject. 

2 Ver. 42. Διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὑμεῖς yivecSe Frotpor, Watch 
therefore: Ver. 44. Therefore be ye also ready.) It is pro- 
bably conjectured by Dr. Lightfoot, that the discourse of 
Christ upon this subject, ended at ver. 42 or 44, as in St. 


* H. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 7. 


167 


43 But know this (this ye know), that if the good- 
man of the house had known in what watch (of the 
night) the thief would come, he would have watched, 
and would not have suffered his house to be broken 
up. 
44 Therefore be ye also @ ready: for in such an 
hour as ye think not (sf) the Son of man cometh. 

45 Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom 
his lord hath made (a) ruler over his houshold, to give 
them meat in due season (instruction suitable to their 
exigencies) ? 

46 Blessed 7s that servant, whom his lord when he 
cometh shall find so doing (7. ὁ. employed in preserving 
them from apostasy in this hour 9 Geena: 

47 Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him 
ruler over all his goods (7. 6. shall amply reward his 
Sidelity)- 

48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his 
heart, My lord delayeth his coming (and so begin to 
doubt the truth of it); 

49 And (by reason of this backsliding heart) shall 
begin to smite his fellowservants (7. e. Christians), and 
to eat and drink with the drunken (7. e. indulge himself 
in sensual pleasures on this account, 1 Cor. xv. 32) ; 

50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day 
when he looketh not for Aim, and in an hour that he 
is not aware of, 

51 And (for his perfidiousness) shall * shall eut him 
asunder, and appoint Aim his portion with the hypo- 
crites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 


Mark and St. Luke it seems to do: and that the words fol- 
lowing were, as St. Luke places them, xii. 39, spoken at 
another time, and upon another occasion ; but because they 
well accord also with this place and this occasion, and 
do there, as well as here, follow the exhortation given 
ver. 43, St. Matthew hath added them to this chapter. 
Note, 

Secondly, That the metaphor of Christ’s coming “as a 
thief,’ i. e. unexpectedly, doth not prove that these words 
must respect Christ’s coming to the final judgment only, 
they being used touching his coming unexpectedly, to exe- 
cute any judgment on a church or nation; as when Christ 
saith to the church of Sardis (Rev. iii. 3), “ Watch, or I 
will come to thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know the 
hour when I will come upon thee,”’ And some probably 
conjecture they are used by St. Paul, 1 Thess. v. 2, with a 
particular relation to this judgment inflicted on the Jews, 
which being the most signal preludium to and proof of that 
final judgment which shall be exercised on all the enemies 
of Christ’s kingdom, may well be represented in a similitude 
used by St. Peter, 2 Pet. iii. 10, and by our Lord, Luke xii, 
32. 40, with relation to it. 

23 ει. 45. Tis ἄρα ἐστίν ὃ πιστὸς δοῦλος καὶ φρόνιμος; Who 
therefore is that faithful and wise servant, &c.] i. 6. The 
servant who continues constant in the service of his Lord, 
under all the persecutions and abounding iniquities of those 
times, “he shall make him ruler over all his goods;” i. 6. 
shall greatly reward his faithfulness, as this phrase signifies, 
xxv. 21. 23, for that this phrase cannot import his advance- 
ment to the highest dignities in the church, is evident from 
this, that then all that continued faithful to Christ in those 
times of trial must have been made bishops. The evil ser- 
vant here mentioned seems to be the apostatizing Jew, who, 
having deserted the faith himself, was instrumental “ to smite 
his fellow-servants,” and to betray them to the enemies of 
Christianity, as our Lord foretold it would be, Matt. x. 21, 
xxiv. 10. And that which induced them thus to apostatize, 
was this very imagination, that “our Lord delayed his com- 
ing” to deliver them, and execute the judgments here fore- 
told, 2 Pet. iii. 4, whence the apostle encourages them to 
perseverance by saying, “It is but yet a little while, and he 
that cometh will come, and will not tarry,” Heb. x. 27, and 
that “the Judge stands at the door,” James v. 9, and “the 
coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” ver. 8. 

% Ver. 51. Καὶ ὀιχοτομήσει. And shall cut him asunder.] 


168 


This was the punishment inflicted by Samuel on Agag, the 
enemy of God’s people, 1 Sam. xv. 33, and by David on 
the Ammonites, 2 Sam. xii. 31, and by Trajan* the Roman 
emperor on the rebellious Jews; it was by Nebuchadnezzar 
threatened to the blasphemers of the true God, Dan. iii. 29, 
and by young Daniel to the false accusers of Susanna, ver. 
55.59, It was used of old, to those who were false to their 
creditors, saith Tertullian,t to rebels and betrayers of their 
country, and that not only in the east, but among the Ro- 


* Πολλοὺς δὲ καὶ μέσους ἀπὸ κορυφῆς διέπριον. Traj. 14, p. 255. 
1 Apol. cap. 3. 


MATTHEW. 


mans, as we learn from Suetonius* in the life of Caius, 
from Horace,t and from Dio; and by the Greeks, as we 
learn from Homer, from Sophocles, and from Aristophanes ; 
and in Egypt, as we learn from Herodotus, lib. ii. cap. 39. 
And therefore this punishment, saith Christ, will I inflict on 
those who are perfidious in their covenant of baptism, and 
enemies to my government. 


[See the appendix to this chapter at the end of this 
gospel. ] 


* Cap. 27. Serm. 1, Sat. 1. + Odyss. v. 338, 
Ρ sd 


CHAPTER XXV. 


1 Ten ! shall the (persons admitted into the) king- 
dom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took 
their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 

2 And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. 

3 They that were foolish took their lamps, and (ut) 
took no oil with them (to replenish them when the oil in 
them was spent): 

4 But the wise took oil in their vessels with their 
lamps. 

5 (And) while the bridegroom tarried, they all 
slumbered and slept. 

6 And at midnight there was a ery (or proclamation) 


made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to 
meet him. 

7 Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed (ar, to 
trim) their lamps. 

8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of 
your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 

9 But the wise answered, saying, Wot so; * lest 
there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather 
to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. 

10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom 
came; and they that were ready went in with him to 
the marriage (feast): and the door was shut. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXV. 


1Ver. 1. Τότε ὁμοιωθήσεται ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν δέκα παρθένοις, 
Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened to ten virgins.] 
Here note, 

First, That the kingdom of heaven sometimes signifies the 
kingdom of the Messiah, or the gospel dispensation; as when 
this kingdom is said to be come to the Jews, or they are bid 
to pray that it may come ; and when it is said to be at hand, 
and they are advised to enter into it, and pronounced fit or 
unfit to do so. Sometimes it signifies the doctrine, or the 
preaching of the doctrine of that kingdom, or, as it is Matt. 
ΧΙ, 19, 6 λόγος τῆς βασιλείας, “the word of the kingdom;” 
Matt. xxiv. 14, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας, “ the gospel of the 
kingdom ;” as when Christ or his apostles are said to speak, 
τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ Θεοῦ, “the things which concerned 
the kingdom of God,” Acts i. 3, viii. 12, xix. 8, to “preach 
and testify the kingdom of God,” Acts xx, 25, xxviii. 23. 
31, Rom. xiv. 17, 1 Cor. iv. 20, εὐαγγελίζεσϑαι, to “ evange- 
lize the kingdom of God,” Luke iv. 43; and when Christ 
threateneth to the Jews, that “the kingdom of God should 
be taken from them,” Matt. xxi. 43. But when it is said, 
«the kingdom of heaven is like,” or may be likened to this 
or that, the meaning seems to be chiefly, So will it be in 
reference to the preaching, the propagation, or reception of 
the gospel or doctrine of the kingdom; as in the parable, or 
the similitude and resemblance of the good seed propounded; 
v. g. when this good seed is sown, it will by some be trod 
under feet, in others choked with worldly cares, in others 
withered by the cold blasts of persecution, but in some it 
will bring forth fruit to perfection; when it is sown, the 
enemy will come and sow tares among it; when men are 
invited to it, some will make excuses why they do not ac- 
cept the invitation, some will persecute the messengers of it, 
some will come to it without a wedding-garment, some with- 
out oil in their lamps, some improving the talents given, 
and some hiding them in a napkin, and the like. Note, 

Secondly, That this parable, or something very like it, is 
to be found in the Jewish records; so in Reschith Cochma, 
we read thus, “ Our wise men of blessed memory say, Re- 
pent, whilst thou hast strength to do it, whilst thy lamp 
burns, and the oil is not extinguished; for, if thy lamp be 
gone out, thy oil will profit thee nothing :” our doctors add 
in Midrash,* that the holy blessed God said to Israel, « My 
sons, repent, whilst pawn pw, the gates of repentance 


* See Campeg. Vitring. lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 679. 


stand open; for I receive a gift at present, but when I shall 
sit in judgment in the age to come, I receive none.” An- 
other parable of theirs runs thus,* “ This thing is like to a 
king who invited his servants, but appointed no set time; 
those that were wise adorned themselves, and sat in the 
porch of the palace; those that were foolish went about 
their own business.—{The king on a sudden called his ser- 
vants ; the first went in adorned, the second undressed : the 
king was pleased with the wise, and angry with the foolish, 
and said, They who are prepared, shall eat of my banquet; 
they that are unprepared, shall not eat of it.” Note, 

Thirdly, That Origen,+ St. Chrysostom,§ and St. Jerome, 
and others of the ancients, say, that this parable is designed 
against late repentance, and declares, it will be invalid to 
them who live under the gospel; as will be evident, if we 
consider, that from this parable our Lord concludes for the 
necessity of constant vigilance (ver. 13), and for the neces- 
sity of assiduous prayer and vigilance against all the cares of 
this life (Luke xxi. 34. 36), and of fidelity in doing the 
work of the Lord (Matt. xxiv. 45, 46). For what great 
necessity can there be for so great vigilance, such assiduous 
prayer, such fidelity in doing the Lord’s work, if the neglect 
of all those duties, till God calls us hence, will not prejudice 
our eternal interests? This also is evident from the design 
of the like Jewish parables; and note, that “the door was 
shut” (ver. 10) seems to be an allusion to the Jewish 
phrase of shutting the “gates of repentance ;” as when the 
priests offered their oblations, and they found no acceptance 
because the governor of the world had “shut the gate of 
repentance ;” and the same we learn also from the parable 
of the talents. Good therefore is the advice of the son of 
Sirach, “ Humble thyself before thou beest sick, and in the 
time of sins show repentance, and defer not till death to be 
justified” (Ecclus. xviii, 21, 22). 

2 Ver. 9. Μήποτε οὐκ dpxéon, Perhaps it will not suffice for 
us and you.| Here μήποτε is used for fortasse, “ perhaps,” as 
I have shown, note on 2 Tim. ii. 26. 

Ver, 13.] See the defence of the reading here, Examen 
Milli. 


* Kimchi inIsa. Ixy. 13,14. { Midrash Cohel. ad cap. 2. 9. 

+In ipso autem exitil vite sue, dum disponunt discere, 
comprehenduntur ἃ morte, et propterea non ingrediuntur 
cum Verbo ad sponsam Ecclesiam. In Matt. hom. 32. 

§ Ποῦ νῦν εἷσιν of διὰ παντὸς μὲν rod Bod ῥάθυμο. Chrys. in 
v. 10. Μωραὶ καϑὸ τότε ἐζήτουν τὸ ἔλαιον, ὅτι οὐκ ἔτι καιρὸς 
πραγματείας. 'ΤΏΘΟΡΗ. 


CHAPTER ΧΧΥ. 


11 Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, 
Lord, Lord, open to us (also). 

12 But he answered and said, Verily I say unto 
you, I know you not (¢. e. J own not such slothful and 
tmprovident persons as fit lo be received to my feast). 

13 Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day 
nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. 

14 ¥ For the kingdom of heaven (or the coming of 
the Son of man) is as a man travelling into a far coun- 
try (as Christ might be said to do, going to heaven to re- 
ceive a kingdom, Luke xix. 12, and to return at the time 
of the restitution of all things, Acts iii. 21), who at his 
departure) called his own servants, and delivered unto 
them his goods. 

15 3 And unto one he gave five talents, to another 
two, and to: another one; to every man according to 
his several ability ; and straightway took his journey. 

16 Then he that had received the five talents went 
and traded with the same, and made (the increase of) 
them other five talents. 

17 And likewise he that had received two, he also 
gained other two. 

18 But he that had received one (only) went and 
digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. 

19 After a long time the lord of those servants 
cometh, and reckoneth with them (7. e. Christ comes 
rom heaven to take an account of men’s actions). 

20 And so he that had received five talents came 
and brought other five talents, saying (fo his lord), 
Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I 
have gained beside them five talents more. 

21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thow good 
and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over (zn) 
a few things, I will (therefore) make thee ruler over 


3 Ver. 15. Kai ᾧ piv ἔδωκε πέντε τάλαντα, ᾧ δὲ δύο, ᾧ δὲ Ev: 
And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to an- 
other one.| Of this parable, as it respects the master travel- 
ling into a far country, and the servants to whom the talents 
were delivered, see note on Luke xix. 12, where it is also 
proved that it relates to the Jewish nation, and therefore is 
here mentioned after Christ’s prediction of the dreadful 
judgments which should befall that nation for murdering 
their Messiah, and not improving the day of their visitation. 
Here, therefore, I shall only add these few short notes: 

First, That the master here distributes his talents, xara 
τὴν ἰδίαν δύναμιν, “ according to the several abilities’ of his 
servants, which in some were greater, and so they were fit- 
ted to manage a greater sum; in some less, and so they 
were intrusted with a lesser, and accordingly he is satisfied 
with a less increase in them: so, v. g. Christ gave to his 
disciples a clearer and fuller knowledge of the mysteries of 
the gospel, Mark iv. 11, but spake to other Jews in parables, 
καϑὼς ἠδύναντο ἀκούειν, “they were able to hear” (ver. 33). 
So Origen* here, κατὰ γὰρ τὴν ἑκάστου δύναμιν, ὦ piv δίδονται 
πέντε τάλαντα, ὡς δυναμένῳ διοικεῖν τὰ τοσαῦτα" ἄλλῳ δὲ dbo ὡς μὴ 
χωροῦντι τὰ πρὸ αὐτοῦ" ἄλλῳ δὲ ἕν, ὡς καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου ὑποδεεστέρῳ, 
« According to each man’s ability he gave his talent; to one 
man five, as being able to traffic with them; to another 
two, as being not sufficient to manage more; and to a third 
one, as being still more infirm.” 

Secondly, That these talents were spiritual, and given for 
a spiritual end ; that they who used them well, might have 
more, and “ might enter into the joy of their Lord,” or re- 
joice with him in his banquet, or the marriage-feast prepared 
for them; and that they who did not improve them might 
have their talents taken from them, and they be cast into 
utter darkness. And, because banqueting and nuptial-feasts 
were still attended with great joy, insomuch that the Hebrew 
word anwn, which signifies a banquet, and a nuptial-feast, 
is by the LXX. rendered sometimes ὠσχὴ, “a banquet” (Gen. 
xxvi. 30, Esth. i. 3, v. 4. 8. 12. 14), sometimes γάμος, “a 
marriage-feast” (Gen. xxix. 22, Esth. ii. 18, ix. 22), and once 
χαρὰ, “joy” (Esth. ix. 17); therefore the entering into this 


* Ed. Huet. tom. i. p. 344. 
| Vor. 1V,.—22 


169 
many things (7. ¢. will greatly reward and dignify thee). 
enter thou into the joy of thy lord (¢.¢. thou shalt re- 
joice wilh me in bie 

22 He also that had received two talents came and 
said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: be- 
hold, I have gained two other talents beside them. 

23 His lord said unto him (also), Well done, (thow) 
good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful 
over a few things, I will make thee ruler, over many 
things: enter thou (also) into the joy of thy lord. 

24 Then he which had received the one talent came 
and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, 
reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering 
where thou hast not strawed (7. e. requiring an in- 
crease far exceeding what thou gavest): 

25 And I was afraid (that I should not be able to im- 
prove my talent to such advantage as thou mightest expect), 
and (therefore) went and hid thy talent in the earth 
(whence now I bring it to thee): lo, there thou hast that 
is thine. 

26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou 
wicked and slothful servant, (thou professest that) thou 
knewest that I reap where 1 sowed not, and gather 
where I have not strawed (7. ε. that I expected some 
profit from the talents I commiited to thee): 

27 Thou oughtest therefore (that thow mightest not 
be condemned by thine own mouth) to have put my mo- 
ney to the exchangers, and ¢hen at my coming I 
should have received mine own with usury (or tm- 
provement. Then saith he to his other servants,) 

28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give ἐξ 
unto him which hath ten talents. (They say to him, 
Lord, he hath ten pounds already, Luke xix. 25, the lord 
answers, Therefore I give him more.) 


marriage-feast, or supper, prepared for this lord, is here 
styled, “entering into the joy of his Lord.” Note, 

Thirdly, That none to whom these talents were imparted, 
wanted power to improve them for the advantage of their 
master, and so to receive the reward of their industry; for 
Christ saith to them all, « Negotiate till I come,’ Luke xix. 
13. All therefore could have done so. 

Hence, he who did not improve his talent is styled not 
only a slothful, but a wicked servant, and is accordingly 
punished: now there can be no iniquity in not doing what 
he could not do, nor any punishment due upon that account; 
this being to punish because he did not an impossibility. 

Fourthly, That ἔχειν “to have,” here is εὖ ἔχειν, “to im- 
prove ;” and not to have, not to improve, see note on Matt. 
xiii. 12. 

Fifthly, When it is said here, ἤόεις, “Thou knewest,” 
or “knewest thou, that I was an austere man, reaping what 
I did not sow,” this is not a concession that the master was 
truly so, but an argument out of his own mouth to condemn 
him, for not acting suitably to his own hard conceptions of 
his Lord (Luke xix. 22). Nor do these words, “Thou 
oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers,” show 
that Christ approved of usury; but only that he who 
thought so sordidly of his master should have used his 
talent agreeably, that so he might have had his own with 
usury. 

Ver. 27. Thou oughtest to have put my money to the 
usurers.] That is, saith Jerome, ceteris doctoribus, quod fe- 
cerunt apostoli, per singulas provincias presbyteros et epis- 
copos ordinantes: i. 6. “to other teachers, as the apostles 
did, ordaining bishops and presbyters in every province :” 
which words, though they contribute nothing to the meaning 
of the text, yet they afford a plain testimony, that, even in 
St. Jerome’s judgment here, bishops were placed in every 
province by the apostles themselves. He also adds, that 
hinc intelligimus gentilium et philosophorum bonam vitam 
recipere Dominum; “henee we understand, that our Lord 
approves of the good life of heathens and philosophers :” 
I suppose, because this is the best improvement of their ta- 
lents, and all that could be reasonably expected from them ; 
God having given them no age tule to walk by and so 


170 


29 For unto every one that hath (so as to improve it) 
shall be given (more), and he shall have abundance: 
but from him that hath not (or doth not improve what 
he hath) shall be taken away even that which he hath. 

30 And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer 
darkness : (where) there shall be weeping and gnash- 
ing of teeth. 

31 4 (So likewise will it be at my coming, for) 4 when 
the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the 
holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the 
throne of his glory (as a righteous Judge): 

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: 
and he shall separate them one from another, as a 
shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats : 

33 5 And he shall set the sheep (who are to receive 
the sentence of absolution) on his right hand, but the 
goats (who are to receive the sentence of condemnation) on 
the left (hand). 

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right 
hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, ὃ inherit the 
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world (or from the creation of man): 

35 For I was an hungred, and ye 
was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: 
and ye took me in: 

36 (J was) naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, 
and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto 
me (ye exercised all offices of charity towards my members). 

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, 
Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee ? 
or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee 
in? or naked, and clothed thee ? 


ve me meat: I 
was a stranger, 


MATTHEW. 


39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and 
came unto thee ? 

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, 
Verily I say unto you, 7 Inasmuch as ye have done it 
(or this) unto one of the least of these (whose faith in 
me has rendered them as dear as, Matt. xii. 50, and 
whom, by taking their nature upon me, and dying in it 
to purge them from their sins, I have made and treated 
as, Heb. ii. 11) my brethren, ye have done zt unto 
me (these members of my body being one with their 
head). 

ie Then shall he say also unto them on the left 
hand, 8 Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared (not originally for you, but) for the devil 
and his angels: 

42 (This being the just reward of your impiety and 
unmercifulness, which have made you like them :) 5 For 1 
was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was 
thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, 
and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye 
visited me not. 

44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, 
when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, 
or naked, or sick, or im prison, and did not ministe: 
unto thee ? 

45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say 
unto you, Inasmuch as ye did ἐξ not to one of the leas* 
of these (my members), ye did zt not to me (for had 
you borne a kind affection to me, you would have thus 
ministered to my members for my sake). 

46 And these shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment: but the righteous (shall go) into life eternal. 


requiring no more of them than their sincere conformity to 
that law of nature he had given them. 

4 Ver. 31. Ὅταν δὲ ἔλϑη ὃ vids rod ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῇ δύξη αὐτοῦ, 
&c. When therefore the Son of man shall come in his glory, 
and all the holy angels with him.] It is to me a wonder, 
that men should imagine this refers not to the general day 
of judgment, but either to the time of exercising judgments 
on the Jewish nation, or to the setting up a triumphant 
kingdom here on earth; seeing (1.) here is a more clear 
description of Christ’s coming to judgment in words and 
circumstances elsewhere acknowledged to relate to the great 
and final judgment: for here he comes in majesty and glory 
attended “ with all the holy angels, and sits down upon the 
throne of his glory;” and thus will he be attended, when 
he comes to “render to every one according to his works,” 
viz. “in the glory of his Father, with his holy angels” 
(Matt. xvi. 27); “when he shall come in flaming fire to 
take vengeance on all that obey not his gospel, and to be 
glorified in his saints,” 2 Thess. i. 7—9, Jude 14,15. (2.) 
He speaks here of the time when he shall « gather before 
him all nations” (ver. 23), all “sheep” and “ goats” (ver. 
33), all that shall receive a sentence of bliss or condemna- 
tion (ver. 34. 41), and of the time when they that are the 
blessed of the Father shall “receive the kingdom prepared 
for them,” and when the wicked shall “ go into everlasting 
punishment” (ver. 46) ; which are manifest indications of 
the final judgment. 

5 Ver. 33. Kai στήσει τὰ piv πρόβατα ἐκ δεζιῶν abrov, τὰ δὲ 
ἐρίφια ἐξ εὐωνύμων, And he shall set the sheep on his right 
hand, but the goats on his left. Here seems to be an allu- 
sion to the received custom of the Jews in capital causes, to 
place them who were to receive the sentence of absolution 
on the right hand in the Sanhedrin, but those who were to 
receive the sentence of condemnation on the left, as Maim- 
onides* saith, They that stand on the right hand are the 
‘just: they on the left, the guilty : Kimchi on 1 Kings xxii. 
19, “On his right hand is life, on his left death.” So R. 
Eliezer, cap. 4, §. 4. 

6 Ver. 34. Κληρονομήσατε τὴν ἡτοιμασμένην ὑμῖν βασιλείαν ἀπὸ 
καταβολῆς κύσμου, Inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the beginning of the world.) The Jews say, that God 


* Tract. Synedr. cap. 1. 


prepared paradise from the beginning, even before the earth 
was made; and this they gather from Gen. ii. 8, “and the 
Lord God planted a garden,” py pn, dz’ ἀρχῆς, Aquila, ἐκ 
πρώτης, Symmachus, “ from the beginning” (see Pirk. Blie- 
zer, cap. 3, §. 3). fe 

7 Ver. 40. 45. Ἐφ᾽ ὅσον ἐποιήσατε ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἀδελφῶν pov 
τῶν ἐλαχίστων, ἐμοὶ ἐποιήσατε, Inasmuch as ye have done it 
to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
unto meé.| For so close is the union betwixt Christ and his 
members, that he looks upon the favours conferred on them 
as done to himself, and promises accordingly a reward for 
them (Matt. x. 42) ; and also threatens punishment to them 
who do neglect, and are injurious to them, as if they had 
been so to him {ἐπ 45). And therefore he speaks to a 
persecuting Saul thus, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
me?” (Actsix.4). And, oh! how highly ought we to esteem 
of him, who so esteemed us! 

8 Ver. 41. Πορεύεσϑε cis τὸ rip αἰώνιον, τὸ ἡτοιμασμένον τῷ 
διαβόλῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ, Depart from me into everlast- 
ing fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.) The rab- 
bins often say that “hell was created the second day” (see 
Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 4. §. 1): the fathers, on the contrary, 
viz. Origen, Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylact, ob- 
serve (1.) that Christ saith not of the punishment, as he 
doth of the blessing here pronounced, that it was prepared 
from the beginning of the world, lest it should be thought 
that God designed men’s punishment before they sinned. 
(2.) That though Christ saith, « Come, ye blessed of my 
Father,” he said not, “Go, ye cursed of my Father;” be- 
cause God is the author and procurer of men’s happiness, ~ 
but man only is the author of his own misery. And (3.) 
that he speaks of this eternal fire as designed originally not 
for man, but “for the devil and his angels;” but man, by 
giving himself up to the thraldom of that evil one, and 
working himself up to his likeness, sinks himself down to the 
infernal regions, and becomes like to him in torments, whom 
in manners he hath so much resembled. 

9 Ver. 42. I was hw , and you gave me no meat.) 
Here Theophylact well observes, that it is not sufficient to 
preserve us from that dreadful sentence, “ Depart from me,” 
&c. that we have done no evil, if we have been deficient in 
those acts of charity and mercy we owe to the members of 
Christ’s body. 


171 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


1 Anp it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all 
these sayings, he said unto his disciples, 

2 Ye know that ! after two days Is the (lime of the 
Jews’) feast of the passover, and the Son of man is 
(then to be) betrayed (Gr. delivered up) to be crucified. 

3 Then (¢. ε. two days before the passover) assembled 
together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the 
snes of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, 
who was called Caiaphas, 

4 And (they) consulted that they might take Jesus 
by subtilty, and kill hem. 

5 But they said, (Let us) not (do this) on the? feast 
day, lest there be an uproar among the people (for 
they feared the people, Luke xxii. 2). 

6 | Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house 
of Simon the leper (whom Christ had healed of his 


leprosy), 

7 There came unto him a woman haying an alabas- 
ter box of very precious ointment, and (she taking it) 
poured it on his head, as he sat at meat. 

8 But when (some of, Mark xiv. 4) * his disciples 
saw it, they had indignation, (and murmured against 
the woman, Mark xiv. 5) saying, To what purpose is 
this waste (of the ointment made)? 

9 For this ointment might have been sold for much, 
and (the money might have been) given to the poor. 

10 When Jesus understood it (i. e. Anew that they 


thus murmured), he said unto them, Why trouble ye 
the woman (without cause)? for she hath wrought a 
good on charitable) work upon me. 

11 For ye have the poor (for whom you pretend 
such kindness) always with you (and when you will 
you may do them good, Mark xiv. 7); but (as for) me 
‘ye have not always (a like opportunity of showing 
kindness to me, I being shortly to be taken from you. 

12 She therefore hath piously chosen the present op- 
portunity,) for in that she hath poured this ointment 
on my body, she did ἐΐ (though unwitlingly, as a his 
paration) for my burial (nor shall her charity be lost ; 


or 

13 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel 
shall be preached (as it will be) in the whole world, 
there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be 
told for a memorial of her (to all future ages). 

14 4 Then 5 one of the twelve, ΠΕΣ Judas Isea- 
riot (Satan being entered into him, Luke xxii. 3), went 
unto the chief priests, 

15 And said unto them, What will ye give me, and 
I will deliver him unto you? (and they were glad, and 
promised to give him money, Mark xiv. 11,) and they 
covenanted with him for δ thirty pieces of silver. 

16 And from that time he sought (an) opportunity to 
betray him. 

17 4 Now the’ first day of the feast of unleavened 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVI. 


1 Ver 2. After two days is the passover, and the Son of 
man shall be delivered up to be crucified.] Here Grotius 
notes, that it is a tradition of the Jews, which appears yet 
in the books of their cabalists, that in the days of the Mes- 
siah they should be redeemed on the very day that they came 
out of Egypt; which is true if it respect the day of their 
coming out of Egypt, that being the fifteenth day of Nisan, 
but is not true of the fourteenth day, on which the paschal 
lamb was offered, Christ being not crucified on Thursday, 
but on Friday. 

2 Ver. 5. Ἔλεγον δὲ, μὴ ἐν τῇ ἐορτῆ, ἵνα μὴ ϑόρυβος γένηται ἐν 
τῷ λαῷ, And they said, Not on the feast-day, lest there be 
an uproar among the people.) Maimonides* saith, it was 
the custom among the Jews to punish those who rebelled 
against the sentence of the judge, or the high-priest, or were 
notoriously criminal, at one of the three feasts ; because then 
only, by reason of the public congress of people, all might 
hear and fear, according to the law, Deut. xvii. 12,13. From 
this received custom, the fathers of the Sanhedrin seem will- 
ing to recede for fear of the multitude; but having so fair 
an offer made by Judas, they embrace that season. 

3 Ver. 8. Ἰδόντες δὲ of μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἡγανάκτησαν, &c. But 
when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To 
what purpose is this waste 2) This was only said by Judas, 
and that out of covetousness (John xii. 3. 6). Some of the 
disciples seemed to like the motion by reason of the specious 
pretext of charity under which it was covered (Mark xiv. 5), 
and the rest did not contradict it, but seemed rather by their 
silence to approve it, and therefore are here mentioned, 
without exception, as copartners with him ; but Christ calls 
this a good work, ver. 10, as being in itself lawful, and done 
out of a good end and intention; and justifies this from an 
argument a pari, that had she laid out this expense on his 
dead body; they who did customarily use such ointments 
and sweet odours at their funerals could not have reason- 
ably found fault with it, and therefore had no ground to do 
it now, his body being shortly to be buried; to the pretence 
of Judas he answers, that by reason of his approaching 
death this must be shortly done to him, or not at all; whereas 
they, having the poor always with them, could never want 


Sua: * De Rebell. cap. 3, §. 8. 


objects of their charity ; and that good work which was to 
be done now or never, was then preferable to that for which 
they had perpetual occasions. 

4 Ver. 11. ᾿Ἐμὲ dé οὐ πάντοτε, But me ye have not always.) 
These words destroy the doctrine of transubstantiation ; for 
if Christ were, as to soul, body, and divinity, truly in the 
host, that being always with them of Rome, they would have 
Christ always with them, and might at any time spend their 
money in adorning their host, or upon the oblation of it, 
and so Christ’s reason for doing that then would be invalid. 
Note also from the words following, ver. 13, that this good 
deed should be mentioned, “wherever the gospel was 
preached, for a memorial of her,” that we may laudablv 
prosecute that which will procure us a good name, μα 
spread our reputation to future ages. 

5 Ver. 14. Τότε πορευθεὶς εἷς τῶν δώδεκα, Then one of the 
twelve went to the chief priests.) He is noted to be one of 
Christ's disciples, to aggravate the foulness of his crime, and 
to denote the completion of the prophecy, “He that eateth 
bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me” (Ps. xli. 
9). The time when Judas thus betrayed him is hinted in 
the particle rére, then ; viz. according to the tradition of the 
church, the consultation of the Sanhedrin with him, and 
his agreement to betray Christ to them, was on Wednesday, 
this being assigned as one reason why they fasted on Wed- 
nesday and Friday,* “because Christ was betrayed on 
Wednesday, and he suffered on Friday.” 

6 Ver. 15. For thirty pieces of silver.) i.e. For thirty 
shekels, that is, 3/. 15s. of our money, saith Dr. Hammond. 
This, as Mr. Ainsworth and Maimonides observe on Exod. 
Xxxi. 32, was the price paid for a man or a maid-servant 
when, being smitten by an ox, they died; so vilely was he 
esteemed by them who shed his precious blood for them! 
Of Satan’s entering into Judas, see note on Luke xxii. 3, 4, 

7 Ver. 17. Τῇ δὲ πρώτῃ τῶν ἀζύμων, &e. Now the first day 
of unleavened bread came his disciples to him, saying, 
Where wilt thou that we prepare the passover, &c.] Of the 
time when our Saviour kept the passover, see the appendix 
to the fourteenth chapter of St. Mark. Here note, first, 


* Τὴν τετράδα καὶ παρασκευὴν νηστεύομεν" τὴν μὲν, διὰ τὴν προ- 
ἑοσίαν" τὴν δὲ, διὰ τὸ πάθος. Const. Apost. lib. v. cap. 15, lil. 
vii. cap. 23. Epiph. Expos. Fidei, p. 1104. Augustin. ad 
Casulanum Ep. 86, p. 392. 


112 


bread (being come, two of) the disciples came to Jesus, 
saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare 
for thee to eat the passover ? 

18 And he said, Go into the city to such a man 
(who will meet you carrying a pitcher of water, Mark 
xiv. 23, follow him, Luke xxii. 10), and say unto him, 
The Master saith, My time is at hand; I will keep 
the passover at thy house with my disciples (where 
therefore is the room where I may eat it with them2 
Luke xxii. 11, and when he hath showed you the room, 
there make ready, ver. 12). 

19 And the disciples did as Jesus had appointed 
them; and (finding that it was as he had said, Mark 
xiv. 16) they made ready the passover. 

20 Now when the even was come, he sat down 
with the twelve. 

21 And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto 
you, that one of you shall betray me (for the hand of 
him that betrayeth me is with me in the dish, Mark xiv. 
18, Luke xxii. 21). 


MATTHEW. 


22 And they were exceeding sorrowful, and began 
every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I (that 
shall do this thing) ? 

23 And he answered and said, 8 He that (now) dip- 
peth λὲβ hand with me in the dish, the same shall be- 
tray me. 

24 The 3 Son of man goeth (to suffer death,) as it is 
written of him: but (seezng God’s foreknowledge how 
wicked any man will be, if left to act according to those 
evil dispositions which he hath wilfully contracted, lessens 
no mans guilt ; notwithstanding) woe unto that man 
by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been 
good for that man if he had not been born (:t being 
better not to be, than to be miserable). 

25 Then Judas, which betrayed him, answered and 
said, Master, is it I (that shall betray thee)? He said 
unto him, (/t zs as) thou hast said. 

26 4 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, 
and 19 blessed zt, and brake if, and gave it to 
the disciples, and said, Take, eat; 11 this (broken 


from the word ἀνέκειτο, “he Iay down,’ ver. 20, that Christ 
observed not the paschal supper in that manner or gesture 
im which it was instituted at first, viz. that they should eat it 
standing, &c., Exod. xii. 11, but did eat it lying down, or 
inclining on the left side, as it was the manner of the Jews 
then to do; and though the Jewish doctors required and 
imposed this rite as a significative ceremony of their rest in 
Canaan, to which they were but going, or travelling, when 
they celebrated the passover in Egypt, and of their redemp- 
tion, and upon that account would* permit none to eat it 
otherwise than in this posture, yet Christ used it: whence 
we may learn that our blessed Lord was not so scrupulous 
as some men are, who dare not use a significant ceremony, 
or to receive the eucharist kneeling, because that was not 
the posture used at the first institution of it, though they do 
receive it sitting, and therefore not in the posture used by 
Christ and his apostles when it was first instituted. (2.) 
Upon these words, “ Where wilt thou that we keep the 
passover ?” Dr. Lightfoot observes, that the houses of Jeru- 
salem were not then to be let, but were of common right for 
any that would eat the passover in them. 

8 Ver. 23. 'O ἐμβάψας per’ ἐμοῦ ἐν τῷ τρυβλίῳ τὴν χεῖρα, &e. 
Fe that dips his hand with me in the dish, the same shall 
betray me.] Hence it appears that Judas was present with 
them at the celebration of the paschal supper; and that he 
continued with them at the celebration of the other sacra- 
ment, is evident from the words following the institution and 
distribution of it, “ But, behold, the hand of him that be- 
trayeth me is with me on the table” (Luke xxii. 21). 

9 Ver. 24, The Son of man goeth as itis written of him: 
but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed ! it were good 
for that man that he had not been born.] Hence two things 
clearly follow: (1.). That the prediction of this event, that 
Jesus should thus suffer, and that by the treachery of Judas, 
did lay on Judas no antecedent necessity of doing this ac- 
tion; because it did not lessen the woe due to him for it, 
but only doth suppose in God a knowledge how the will of 
man, left to his own freedom, will determine or incline it- 
self. Of this, see note on Luke xxii. 22. (2.) That Christ, 
by saying, “it were good for that man that he had not been 
born,” sufficiently shows this cannot be the portion of all 
men, except some few elect, as some men think, and as it 
follows, from the supposal of an immutable decree, that 
such persons only should be saved, and all others left under 
such a preterition as will infallibly render it better for them 
never to have been born; and would have made this the 
condition of Judas though he had not done this, provided 
he was none of God’s elect. 

10 Ver. 26. Jesus took bread, καὶ εὐλογῆσας, ἔκλασε, and 
blessed it, and brake it.) That εὐλογεῖν, “ to bless,” here and 
in St. Mark, is the same as εὐχαριστεῖν, “to give thanks,” in 
St. Luke and St. Paul, and that the bread was only blessed 


by giving thanks over it, see proved on Matt. xiv. 19. And 
that the breaking of the bread to be distributed is a neces- 
sary part of this rite, is evident. For (1.) the continual 
mention of it by St. Paul and all the evangelists when they 
speak of the institution of this sacrament, shows it to be a 
necessary part of it; according to that observation of the 
council of Toledo,* That Christ, by breaking the bread, 
and distributing it broken to his disciples, id sine dubio egit, 
quod nos in posterum facturos edocuit, did doubtless teach 
us hereafter to do as he did. (2.) Christ said, «Take, this 
is my body broken for you” (1 Cor. xi. 24) ; whereas, where 
the elements are not broken, it can be no more said, “This 
is my body broken for you,” than where the elements are 
not given, “This is my body given for you.” (3.) Our 
Lord saith, “Do this in remembrance of me;” i. e. Eat this 
bread broken, in remembrance of my body broken on the 
cross: now, where no body broken is distributed, there no- 
thing can be eaten in memorial of his broken body. Lastly, 
the apostle, by saying, “The bread which we break, is it 
not the communion of the body of Christ?” sufficiently in- 
forms us, that the eating of his broken body is necesary to 
that end (1 Cor. x. 16). Hence was it that this rite of dis- 
tributing bread broken continued for a thousand years, and 
was, as Humbertusy testifies, observed in the Roman church 
in the eleventh century. 

11 Ῥοῦτό ἐστι τὸ σῶμά pov, This is my body.| Here let it 
be observed, (1.) that these words contain not all that our 
Lord said, for our Lord spake these words but once; and 
therefore they who say, as do St. Luke and the apostle Paul, 
his words were these, “ This is my body given, or my body 
broken, for you,” can say no more than our Lord said at the 
first institution of this sacrament; for otherwise they must 
aver that Christ then said what he really never said. When 
then St. Matthew and St. Mark inform us that he said, 
“This is my body,” they must say the truth, but not the 
whole truth; that being, as St. Luke and St. Paul inform us, 
«This is my body given, or broken, for you.” Moreover, it 
is to be observed, that neither the evangelist nor the apostle 
uses the future, but both the present tense, saying, “ This is 
my body, τὸ διδόμενον, given, τὸ κλώμενον, broken; this is my 
blood, ro éxxvvdpevov, shed.” Now, from these observations 
it is manifest, that these words cannot signify, This is sub- 
stantially and really my body broken and my blood shed for 
you; for this being spoken before Christ’s body was broken 
on the cross, and before his blood was shed, Christ could not 
say, in the literal and proper sense, This is my body broken, 
or my blood shed, for you; but he might say, This bread is 
broken to represent to you my body, which shall be broken, 
and my blood, which shall be shed, for you. For so the 
scripture usually speaks in sacramental matters; saying of 
circumcision, even before Abraham was circumcised, “This 
is my covenant betwixt me and thee” (Gen. xvii. 4. 19. 23. 


* Azyma comedimus recumbentes, quia recordatic est re- 
demptionis; et rursis tenemur ad accubitum dum comedi- 
mus, ut comedamus more regum et magnatum, 


* A. D. 693, Can. 6. ’ 
ἡ Baron, tom. xi p. 1008. Humb. contra Gree. ibid. p. 
971. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


bread) is (the memorial of) my body (Luke xxii. 


173 
19, and broken for you, 1 Cor. xi. 24). 


36), and of the paschal lamb, “ This is the Lord’s pass- 
over,” before God, passing over the Israelites, had smitten 
the Egyptians (Exod. xii. 11). And this was therefore thas 
affirmed of these two sacraments, before the celebration of 
them, because they were then instituted as rites to be ob- 
served by his people when they did celebrate these sacra- 
ments. And in like manner the bread, in the first institu- 
tion of this sacrament, is called Christ's “ body broken,” as 
being instituted then to represent to all future ages his body 
which was to be broken for them; and the wine is styled 
his “blood shed,” as being instituted then as the perpetual 
representation and memorial of his blood shed and separated 
from his body on the cross; so that there is no need of the 
criticism of Grotius and others here, that the present tense 
is put for the future, “broken” for that which “shall be 
broken,” and “shed” for “shall be shed.” Nor could this 
way of speaking either seem harsh to, or otherwise be under- 
stood by, Christ’s disciples, who had even then been eating 
of the paschal lamb, which they who laid before them were 
said, apponere corpus paschatis, “to place before them the 
body of the passover,” or paschal lamb, called also by them, 
corpus paschatis, “the body of the passover ;” and they who 
ate of it were said, comedere de corpore paschatis, “to eat 
of the body of the passover,” or of the lamb eaten in memo- 
rial of it: and when they ate of the unleavened bread, they 
said, Hic est panis afflictionis, quem comederunt patres nos- 
tri in terrd Al gypti, “ This is the bread of affliction” (i. e. 
the representation and memorial of that bread) “ which our 
fathers did eat in the land of Egypt.” What therefore could 
men accustomed to such sacramental phrases think of the 
like words of Christ, «This (bread) is my body ;” but that 
it was to be the representation or memorial of it? More- 
over, how could the apostles think that they had eaten 
Christ’s broken body, or drank his blood shed for them, 
when they yet saw his body whole before them, and knew 
his blood was in his veins? How could they have been 
persuaded to drink blood, against the express letter of the 
law, or to have eaten human flesh, or swallow their Lord 
and Master down their throats? This being so absurd in 
the opinion of all mankind, not excepting Lanfranc, Alge- 
rus, Guitmund, and others, who first stickled for an absur- 
dity beyond all example, that they ingenuously confess, 
« That did their senses perceive what their faith doth oblige 
them to believe, the horror of it would be so great, that* 
rarus esset qui ab hdc sacramento non abhorreret, almost all 
persons would abhor the receiving this sacrament.” Hence 
they give these two notable reasons why, though they do 
substantially eat the flesh, and drink the very blood which 
our Lord shed upon the cross, yet they do this “ under the 
covert of the accidents of bread and wine ;” viz. 

First, “That human piety might not abhor the sacra- 
ment,t as they then would do; for,” say they, “should they 
see the colour of human flesh, and the colour of human 
blood, and taste the savour of them, the horror of it would 
hinder the receiving of the sacrament, or the profit of so 
doing.” 

Secondly, That this was digna causa, “a just reason” 
why our Lord’s body and blood should lie thus concealed 
under the species of bread and wine,+ “lest it should be 
known to the infidels, and lie open to their blasphemies ; 
lest the action should be ridiculous to them, scandalous, in- 


* Hugo Ling. 

+ Impediretur perceptionis hujus commoditas pre humani 
corporis comedendi horrore. Allg. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 19. Si 
carnis et sanguinis humani colorem videret, et saporem sen- 
tiret fidelis, humana pietas abhorreret. Lib. ii. cap. 3, p. 73, 
75. Ne percipientes cruda ct cruenta, horrerent. Lanfr. f. 
133, B. Si cruor in calice fieret manifestus, et si, ut in ma- 
cello, Christi ruberet caro, rarus in terris esset qui hee non 
abhorreret. Hugo Ling. ed Erasm. 

+ Ne scilicet infidelibus pateat, et eorum blasphemiis vi- 
lescat, neve nos judicent inhumanos et crudeles, utpote hu- 
mani corporis comestores, et sanguinis bibitores. Alger. lib. 
il. cap. 3, p. 75. Ut veritas non desit in sacramento, et ri- 
diculum nullum fiat paganis, qudd cruorem occisi hominis 
bibamus. Pasch, cap. 36. Ne per hoc fieret execrabile, quod 


human, and execrable.” And indeed this being not only 
dvSpwropayia, “the eating of man’s flesh,” and drinking 
human blood, but also @copayia, “the eating of their God,” 
who knows not that on both these accounts the Christian 
faith was and is still execrable, both to Jew and gentile, to 
pagan and Mahometan? For, 

First, The Apologies of the primitive Christians tell us, 
this was one of the great accusations which the heathens 
made against the Christians, that they did eat human flesh. 
This Trypho owns to be a common imputation upon Chris- 
tians, though he judged it incredible. Justin Martyr,* Ire- 
neus, Tertullian, Minutius, and others, take notice of it, and 
refute it, and constantly reject it, as the vilest calumny, and 
an abominable thing, saying, “ We Christians, ἀνθρωπίνων 
σαρκῶν βορὰς od γινώσκομεν, do not own eating of human flesh; 
it is an infamous thing, and falsely is reported of us.” “This 
is,” saith Theophilus,} “the most wicked and inhuman of 
all crimes objected to us, σαρκῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἡμᾶς ἐφάπτεσθαι, 
that we partake of human flesh: it is not possible that we 
should be guilty of so vile a thing.” “ Amongst us there is 
no eating of human flesh,” saith Tatian ;§ ‘you are false 
witnesses who thus accuse us.” “No man,” saith Athena- 
goras,|| “who is not mad, can charge us with this thing ; οὐ 
γὰρ ἐστι πάσασθαι κρεῶν dvSpwrivey, for we may not eat human 
flesh.” “It is the calumny of the devil,” saith Minutius. 
« You may be ashamed to object it to us,” saith Tertullian. 
Whereas, had they received this as an article of faith, that 
they did daily eat the flesh of the man Christ, and thought 
his word obliged them to do this; with what sincerity could 
they, without all limitation or distinction, not only have de- 
nied, but even detested the doing so? But that which makes 
it certain and beyond all doubt that they conceived that 
Christ had never taught them properly and substantially to 
eat his flesh and drink his blood in the sacrament, is the 
memorable history of Sanctus and Blandina, two Christian 
martyrs, written by Irenus,** and preserved to us by Gicu- 
menius; viz. that “the heathens having apprehended the 
servants of Christians, catechised, and used force with them, 
that from them they might learn something secret; the ser- 
vants, having nothing else to say that might be pleasing to 
their tormentors, having heard from their masters that the 
sacrament was the body and blood of Christ, told this to the 
inquisitors ; who apprehending that the Christians had done 
this very thing, gave notice of it to other heathens, who en- 
deavoured to force the martyrs, Sanctus and Blandina, to 
confess it; to whom Blandina readily and boldly answered, 
How should they endure those things, who so fast as not to 
enjoy lawful flesh? Now had the ancient Christians believed 
this doctrine, that they did truly eat Christ's flesh and blood 
in the sacrament, how could Irenzus have represented it as 
a plain mistake, both in those servants and the heathens, to 
think the sacrament was really Christ’s flesh and blood, or 
have introduced Blandina refuting this imagination, had it 
been the sentiment of the church of Christ then, since by so 
doing she must have rejected one article of Christian faith ? 
Or how could Gcumenius have put these words into his 
commentary, without endeavouring to explain or reconcile 
them to the doctrine of oral manducation, had it then ob- 


per fidem debemus credere esse desiderabile. Ibid. Vel 
fidem lederet, vel ad scandalum quorumlibet corda possit 
movere. Petr. Clun. ed. Erasm. p. 215, B. 

* Objecerunt Christianis ἀνθρωπίνων σαρκῶν βοράν. Just. 
M. Apol. 1, p. 50. Creditis vos, inquit, ὅτι δὴ ἐσϑίομεν ἀνθρώ- 
πους: Respondet Trypho, Περὶ δὲ ὧν of πολλοὶ λέγουσίν οὐ πισ- 
τεῦσαι ἄξιον" ποῤῥω γὰρ κεχώρηκε τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως. ial. 
p- 227. Nihil objiciunt, θυέστεια ἀεῖπνα, Athenag. p. 4. 
Theophilus, lib. i. p. 119, 126. Tatian, p. 162. Tertul. Apol. 
cap. 9, ad Nationes, lib. i. cap. 15. Minutius, p. 32. Euseb. 
Eccl. Hist. lib. v. cap. 1. 

+ Just. M. Apol. p. 50, ii. p. 70. 

+ Ad Autol. lib. iii. p. 119, 126, 

§ Contr. Gent. p. 162. 

9 Ap. cap. 9. 

** Αὐτοὶ νομίζοντες τὸ ὄντως αἷμα καὶ σάρκα εἶναι τοῦτο ὡς αὖ- 
τύχρημα τελεῖσϑαι τοῖς Χριστιανοῖς. Tren. apud (συμ. in 
1 Pet. ii. 12. 


| Legat. p. 32. 


P22 


114 
27 And he took the cup (after supper, Luke xxii. 


MATTHEW. 


20), and gave thanks, and gave ἐξ to them, saying, 


tained? Let us then again consider, whether that ought to 
be received as an article of faith, owned by all Christians 
from the beginning, which from the beginning was so ex- 
pressly denied to be ὄντως καὶ αὐτύχρημα, “indeed, reality, or, 
in the thing itself, the flesh and blood of Christ; which 
made all the apologists for, and first defenders of the Chris- 
tians, deniers of the truth ;-and to represent that as a false 
report, an infamous thing, a calumny of the devil, which 
was the plain and evident result of their own faith, and of 
the words of their great Master, as they ate now interpreted 
by the church of Rome. 

But then, when we advance to the consideration of this 
doctrine, not only as it makes the Christian to eat human 
flesh, and drink of. human blood, but as it is the eating of 
that “very God we worship,” as the Trent council* hath 
defined ; this renders it absurd, ridiculous, and blasphemous, 
For, 

First, The very heathens owned this as the absurdest and 
most abominable thing, to be abhorred more than death. 
«When we call wine Bacchus,” saith Cicero, “and our 
fruits Ceres, we use the common mode of speaking, sed ec- 
quem tam amentem esse putas qui illud quo vescatur deum 
credat esse? but can you think any person so mad as to 
imagine that which he eats to be a god?”—« The Egyp- 
tians,” saith Origen,+ “think a brute creature to be God; 
and therefore they do μέχρι Savdrov φυλάξασϑαι ἀπὸ τοῦ τῶν 
ζώου κρεῶν γεύσασϑαι, abstain from eating of his flesh more 
than from death.” We read, Gen. xliii. 32, that it was 
“an abomination to the Egyptians to eat bread with the 
Hebrews; because,” say Onkelos and Jonathan, “the He- 
brews did eat those cattle which the Egyptians worshipped :” 
and Moses would depart from Egypt before he sacrificed to 
the God of Israel; lest he should sacrifice to him “the 
abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes” (Exod. 
Vili. 26), i. 6. the beasts which the Egyptians worshipped, 
and therefore did abhor to kill, or to see killed before their 
eyes (see Bochart. Hieroz. par. i. lib. ii. cap. 34, 35, par. ii. 
lib. iv. cap..16). Averroes§ was a learned heathen, who 
flourished in the eleventh century, when this portentous 
doctrine first obtained, and it forced him thus to blaspheme 
the Christian faith : «I have inquired into all religions, and 
have found none more foolish than the Christians, because 
that very God they worship they with their teeth devour :” 
and thus he concludes, Quandoquidem Christiani id come- 
dunt quod adorant, &c., “ Because the Christians eat what 
they do worship, let my soul go to the philosophers.” And 
Bellarmine! himself confesseth, that this, among the hea- 
thens, was always judged stultissimum paradoxum, “the 
most foolish paradox, as,” saith he, “from the words of 
Averroes doth appear.” Hence as the highest infamy which 
the Mahometans can cast upon us, we are by them re- 
proached as “ the devourers of our God,” as M. la Boulay{ 
informs us; and they affirm, that by thus eating of Christ’s 
flesh, the Christians use him worse than did the Jews; be- 
cause, say they,** it is more savage to eat his flesh and 
drink his blood than only to procure his death. 

Secondly, That the Jewish sentiments as to this matter 
were the same, we learn from the epistle of the prophet Je- 
remy to the captive Jews; for he informs them, that what 
the Babylonians worshipped should afterward be eaten; 
and, “ by this,” saith he, “ ye may know they are no gods,” 
Baruch vi. 72. Nor can we doubt of this, if we believe 
what is so often declared by the Christian fathers, that this 


was God’s design in making the distinction betwixt clean and 
unclean beasts, to secure his people from idolatry ; “ because, 
in Egypt, all beasts were deified,” saith Pseudo Justin, “ ex- 
cept swine ; God therefore calls some of them unclean, some 
clean, and did permit them to sacrifice the clean beasts, and 
forbid them to eat of the unclean;* δεικνύων αὐτὰ ἀνάξια 
ὄντα τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ προσηγορίας re καὶ τιμῆς καὶ διὰ τοῦ ϑύεσϑαι 
καὶ ἐσϑίεσϑαι, by both these things showing they were un- 
worthy the name and honour of a deity ; because they were 
sacrificed and eaten; and because they were called unclean.” 
—<“God,” saith Theodoret,t “pronouncing some beasts 
clean and others unclean, persuades us not to think that 
any of them could be gods; for how,” saith he, “can any 
man of sense think that to be a god which he abominates 
as unclean, or which is offered to the true God, and eaten 
by himself;” and this he frequently repeats. St. Jeromet 
informs us that Moses did beat the golden calf to powder, 
and then made the Jews drink of it: ut discant contemnere, 
quod in secessum projici viderant, “that the people might 
learn to contemn what they saw went down into the 
draught.” Now, could the same God who had taken such 
care under the Old Testament to teach the people that that 
could not be their God which they did eat and sacrifice, 
appoint under the New Testament, that the Christians’ 
God should be continually sacrificed and eaten? But, 

Thirdly, Nothing is more certain, than that the Christian 
apologists, or fathers, continually ridiculed the heathen for 
worshipping such deities as might be eaten and sacrificed, 
and pronounced it the highest absurdity to do so. And, 

(1.) They declaim against the thing itself, as infinitely 
absurd and foolish, declaring that it was§ ἀβελτερίας ἐσχάτης 
τὸ ἐσϑιόμενον προσκυνεῖν, “the extremity of madness to wor- 
ship what we eat ;” that “no man of sense can think that 
a God which is παρ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ écSiopevov, eaten by himself ;”’|] 
that “the great lawgiver of the Jews commanded them to 
eat what other nations worshipped as gods, ἵνα εὐκαταφρόνητα 
φαίνηται ὡς παρ᾽ αὐτῶν écSiépeva, that they might appear despi- 
cable in their eyes, as being eaten by themselves ;”{ that 
“these things must be unworthy the name and honour of 
a god, διὰ τὸ écSiecSar, because they were eaten.” 

(2.) They upon this account deride the ignorance and 
folly of the heathens, and look upon this as a sure indica- 
tion of it, that they did worship what was eaten. “I'he 
Greeks through ignorance,” saith Clemens** of Alexandria, 
σέβονται καὶ ἃ δέδωκεν αὐτοῖς sis βρῶσιν ὃ Θεὸς, “ worship even 
those things which God hath given them to eat, and so be- 
come ungrateful to him.”—Nonne et Apim bovem cum 
Egyptiis adoratis et pascitis? “Do not you,” saith Minu- 
tius,{{ “with the Egyptians, worship and also feed upon 
an ox, which you call Apis? And is not this as great a 
folly as the worship of an ass’s head, which without reason 
you object tous?” This Athanasius$} looks upon as “an 
instance of the abominable worship of the Egyptians, that 
the same flesh, which some of them did consecrate as a god, 
was made the food of others. The Egyptians adore a calf, 
the Lybians worship sheep, both which, in our nations, are 
sacrificed and fed upon; this,” saith he, “is a certain indi- 
cation of the folly of the heathen worship.’—*« The hea- 
thens,” saith Theodoret,§§ “should have considered, ὡς τοῦ- 
των τὰ μὲν ἐσϑίουσιν, that some of these things they eat ἀλλ᾽ 
ἐξ ἀθελτερίας καὶ παραπληξίας ἐσχάτης καὶ ὧν ἤσϑιον rds εἰκόνας 
ἐθεοποίησαν, but through extremity of folly and stupidity, 
they consecrate the images of those things themselves did 


* Nullus itaque dubitandi locus relinquitur, quin omnes 
Christi fideles, pro more in catholica ecclesia semper recepto, 
latrie cultum, qui vero debetur Deo, huic sanctissimo sacra- 
mento in veneratione exhibeant, neque enim ideO minus 
adorandum est, quod fuerit ἃ Christo ut sumatur institutum. 
Concil. Trid. Sess. 13, cap. 5. 

ἡ De Nat. Deor. lib. ili. n. 28. 

+ Cont. Cels. lib. i. p. 40. 

§ Apud. Pezroon de Euch. lib. iii, cap. 29, p. 973. 

| Lib. ii. de Euch. cap. 12, 8. 2. 

Ἵ Voyage, par. i. cap. 10, p. 21. 

ἘΣ Achmed B. Edris apud Hottinger, H. Hee. §. 16, par. 
ii. p. 160. 


* Qu. 35, p. 412, 413. 

ἡ Mas γὰρ dures σωφρονῶν ἢ τὸ ἀκάϑαρτον ὀνομάζοι Θεὸν 3 μυ- 
σαττόμενος ἀποστρέφεται, ἢ τὸ τῷ ἀληθινῷ Θεῷ προσφερόμενον καὶ 
rap’ ἑαυτοῦ ἐσθιόμενων. Qu. 11 in Levit. p.124, D. Qu. 55 
in’Gen. p. 44. Serm. 7 contr. Gree. ed. Sylb. p. 150. 

+ Ep. ad Fab. Ol. Ep. tom. iii. f 20, A. 

§ Theodoret in Gen. ix. 55. | Qu. 11 in Levitie. 

4 Serm. 7 de Sacr. tom. iv. p. 585. 

** Strom. vi. p. 635, C. D. TT P. 32. 

$$ Τῶν παρ᾽ ἄλλοις λεγομένων θεῶν γίνονται θυσίαι καὶ σπονδαὶ, 
καὶ ἄλλων αἱ θυσίαι ἄλλων ἔμπαλίν εἰσι θεοί. Orat. contra Gent. 
8. 24. 

§§ Rom. i. 23. 


CHAPTER XXV1. 


® Drink ye all of it (this cup); 

28 For this (wine, given separate from the bread) is 
(the memorial of ) my blood of the new testament, 
which is shed for many for the remission of (their) 
sins. 

29 But I say unto you, ™ I will not drink hence- 
forth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I 
drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom (i. e. 
till the kingdom of God come, Luke xxii. 18, and you eat 
and drink with me in my kingdom, ver. 30). 

30 And when they had sung an hymn, they went 
out into the mount of Olives. 

31 Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be ™ of- 


eat” (see Tatian, p. 149, Orig. contr. Celsum, lib. v. p. 249). 
Now can it possibly be conceived, that all these fathers 
should ridicule and expose the religion of the heathens, for 
that very thing which made so great a part of their own re- 
ligion? That they should look on it as an abominable and 
repugnant thing in heathens, only to worship that which 
others did eat, if it had been a constant custom of all Chris- 
tians to worship as God what they themselves did cat? 
Could they brand that as the extremity of madness, stu- 
pidity, and folly, when done by heathens, which their faith 
taught them was the highest act of religious worship, when 
performed by themselves? Surely these things give us suf- 
ficient reason with Scotus* to admire, “why such an inter- 
pretation should be put upon this one article as makes our 
faith contemptible to all who are gaided by reason.” Nor 
can we abstain from thinking, with Petrus Cluniacensis’st 
carnal man, that “it is against humanity, against piety, to 
break with our hands, to tear with our teeth, and to devour, 
as we do common meat, the flesh and blood of Christ, or 
that God and man should be devoured by men, the Master 
by his disciples, the Lord by his servants, and Christ by 
Christians.” - 

12 Ver. 27. Πίετε ἐξ αὐτοῦ πάντες" Drink ye all of this.] 
From these words it is evident, that all who come to the 
holy communion are by Christ’s precept obliged as well to 
drink of the cup as to eat of the bread: for, whereas most 
Romanists pretend, that Christ said only, “ Drink ye all of 
this,” to them to whom he said, when speaking of the bread, 
“Do this;” and that those words were only spoken to his 
apostles, whom he then made priests: to this I answer, 
that we have clear and convincing evidence that these 
words, “Drink ye all of this,” are to be applied to others 
besides the apostles; as, v. g. (1.) From Christ’s institution ; 
whence I argue thus, Christ instituted no other supper than 
that which he administered to his disciples: if then he did 
not institute that for all believers capable, they have no 
tight to any part of it by virtue of Christ’s institution ; it 
can be to them no sacrament for whom it was not instituted 
by Christ, since, by the definition of the Trent council,¢ the 
sacraments of the New Testament were all instituted by 
him; they expect no blessing from it, since that depends 
upon Christ’s ordimance; nay, they must be esteemed sacri- 
legious usurpers, as laying claim to that sacrament which 
never by Christ’s institution did belong to them. If Christ 
did institute that sacrament for all believers capable, that 
is, to be a standing ordinance, by which, as his disciples then 
did, so all believers capable should afterward eat of what he 
called his body, and drink of what he called his blood; then 
did he institute it to be received of all that were fitted for, 
and capable to receive it, and in it said unto them, “ Drink 
ye all of this.” 

‘This appears farther, from the reason annexed to the re- 
ceiving of the sacrament by Christ’s apostles; for, since 


* Quare in héc articulo, qui non est principalis articulus 
fidei, debeat talis intellectus asseri, propter quem fides 
pateat contemptui omnium sequentium rationem? In 4 
Sent. distinct. 11, q. 3, lit. 

+ Est contra humanum morem, contra pietatem, carnem 
Christi vel sanguinem, imo Deum et hominem ab hominibus, 
magistrum ἃ discipulis, dominum ἃ servis, Christum ἃ Chris- 
tianis, manibus frangi, dentibus atteri, et, escarum more 
communium, devorari. Ed. Erasm, f. 215. 

+ Sess. 7, cap. 1. 


175 


fended because of me this night: for it is written, I 
will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock 
shall be scattered abroad (Zech. xiii. 7, and this will 
be fulfilled in you). 

32 But after I am risen again, 1 will go before you 
into Galilee. 

33 Peter answered and said unto him, Though all 
men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never 
be offended (on that account). 

34 Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, 
That this night, before the cock crow (in the morn- 
ing), thou shalt deny me thrice. 

35 Peter said unto him (again), Though I should die 


that reason equally concerns all believers capable and 
fitted to receive it, the institution must concern them all. 
Now the reason why Christ said to his apostles, “ Take and 
eat” what I have broken, is by himself declared to be this; 
because it was his body broken, or his body given for them : 
“Take it,” saith Christ, “this is my body given for you.” 
This therefore being the reason why they were to take and 
eat; and this reason concerning all believers capable and 
fitted to receive it, as much as the apostles and succeeding 
priests, the institution or command to take and eat must 
equally concern them. This argument transferred upon 
the cup runs thus: The reason of the participating of the 
cup, viz. because “it is the blood of the New Testament, 
which is shed for the remission of sins,” doth concern laics 
as well as priests, his blood being equally shed for both; 
therefore the command, “ Drink ye all of this,” to which 
the reason is annexed, concerns them also. Again, another 
reason why Christ said to his apostles, “ Eat this bread and 
drink this cup,” was that by so doing they might remember 
his death, his body broken, and his blood shed for them, saith 
St. Luke ; and “ show it forth till his second coming,” saith 
St. Paul. No this, as St. Paul clearly shows in his dis- 
course to the Corinthians, and all the world believes, as 
well concerneth all believers as it doth priests; and there- 
fore the drinking of the cup, by which, as well as eating of 
the bread, this commemoration is by our Lord’s institution 
to be made, must equally concern them. 

18 Ver. 29. I will not henceforth drink of the fruit of the 
vine, §c.] Of this and the following verse, see note on Mark 
xiv. 25, 26. 

M Ver. 81. Πάντες ὑμεῖς cxavduNoSioecSe. All ye shall be 
offended,—for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, &c.] 
It is certain that these words, “ All ye shall be offended be- 
cause of me,” must signify a great sin in his disciples; viz. 
that of deserting their Lord, and ceasing to own themselves 
his disciples, which was a virtual renouncing their Master ; 
for σκανδαλίζεσϑαι ἐν ἐμοὶ, “to be scandalized because of me,” 
never bears any other sense in the New Testament (see 
the note on Matt. xi. 6, xviii. 6). The words of Zachary, 
xiii. 7, seem primarily to be understood of an evil shepherd, 
or of such evil teachers to whom God threateneth the sword. 
Christ therefore seemeth here to mention them, not as a 
prediction concerning him and his apostles, but only as a 
proverbial expression, or rather an argument ἃ majori, that 
if this would happen on the account of smiting an evil shep- 
herd, much more at the smiting the good and great shepherd 
of the sheep. 

5 Ver. 34. Πρὶν ἀλέκτορα φωνῆσὰι, Before the cock crow, 
πρὶν ἢ dis φωνῆσαι, before the crow twice, Mark xiv. 30.] 
Here note, that there is a double crowing of the cock men- 
tioned by heathen authors, Ammianus,* Aristophanes,+ 
and Juvenal ;} the first was about midnight, the second at 
the fourth watch of the night, or the breaking in of the day; 
and this latter, as being the louder and more observable, in 
the enumeration of the times of the night, is that which is 
properly called ἀλεκτοροφωνία or cock-crowing: so Mark 
xiii. 35, “ Ye know not when the Son of man comes, in the 
evening, or at midnight, ἢ ἀλεκτοροφωνίας, or at cock-crow- 


* Lib. xxii. 

ἡ Ὅτε τὸ ὀεύτερον ἀλεκτρυὼν ἐφθέγγετο ἐκκλησ. p. 735. 

+ Quid tamen ad cantum galli facit ille secundi. Sat. ix. 
ver. 106. 


116 


with thee, yet will I not deny thee. 
also said all the disciples. 

36 J Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place 
ealled Gethsemane (situate between the river Cedron, 
mentioned John xviii. 1, and the mount of Olives, ver. 
20), and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I 
go and pray yonder. 


(And) likewise 


ing, or in the morning.” So Censorinus* and Macrobiust 
reckon “ from midnight to cock-crowing, and from thence to 
the morning ;” and Julius Pollux+ says the same. Of this 
crowing of the cock is St. Matthew and the ether evange- 
lists to be understood, when they relate Christ’s words thus, 
“ before the cock crow” (i. 6. before that time of the night 
which bears that name, and that crowing of the cock which 
is emphatically so called), “thou shalt deny me thrice,” as 
appears from St. Mark, saying, that “the cock crew” after 
his first denial of Christ, xiv. 68, and crew the second time 
after his third denial, ver. 72. 

16 Ver. 38. Περίλυπύς ἐστιν ἡ Ψυχή pov ἕως Savdrov, My 
soul is exceeding sorrowful, even to death.] There be many 
circumstances in our Saviour’s passion which seem to show 
his sorrow was exceeding great, and much surpassing the 
common sorrow of many who have been condemned to die. 
As, ν. δ: 

First, The emphatical expressions by which the scrip- 
ture represents these sorrows; for, to express the greatness 
of them, they are here styled deadly sorrows: it was sor- 
row which reached to and surrounded his whole soul, it 
filled him with grief of heart, for ἤρξατο λυπεῖσϑαι, “he be- 
gan to be grieved,” saith St. Matthew, ver. 37, ἐκϑαμβεῖσϑαι, 
“to be filled with fear and anguish,” saith St. Mark, xiv. 33, 
ἀδημονεῖν, “ to be faint and restless in his spirit,” say they both. 

Secondly, The greatness of the sorrows he endured, may 
be concluded from his importunate petitions to be delivered 
from what he feared; for he pathetically cries out, «O my 
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:” this 
prayer he thrice repeats upon his knees, and falling flat upon 
his face, to show the strength and vehemence of this desire ; 
and yet St. Luke adds, that being in an agony, he prayed 
ἐκτενέστερον, “with greater venemency” than before (Luke 
xxii. 24): he put up prayers and supplications with strong 
cries and tears (Heb. v. 7); and sure that cup must be ex- 
ceeding bitter, which he so highly dreaded, and, with such 
cries and tears and humble importunities, desired to be de- 
livered from. 

Thirdly, This will appear if we consider the agonies he 
suffered in the garden upon the apprehension of this bitter 
cup; for such was then his sorrow, that it forced open all 
his pores, and made even clots of blood to issue from them ; 
now if a sudden watery sweat shows an extremity of fear 
and consternation of the mind, who can sufficiently conceive 
the greatness of that horror which produced these clots of blood? 

Fourthly, This will be farther evident from the conside- 
ration of that angel, which, by God’s commission, came from 
heaven to strengthen and support him under the apprehen- 
sion of his sufferings; for sure that burden must be very 
weighty, which our Lord seemed thus unable to sustain, and 
under which his Father seemed so concerned to support him. 
And, 

Fifthly, This may be probably concluded from that pa- 
thetical expression with which his soul expired, viz. “My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (see the note 
on xxvii. 46. 

I add, that this excess of sorrow could not arise merely 
from the apprehension that he was to die, that his soul was 
for a season to be separated from his body, or that he 
was to suffer a death full of pain and ignominy. For (1.) the 
apostle doth inform us that “he was heard,” i. e. delivered 
from his fear (Heb. v. 7, see the note there): and yet we 


* Apud Macrobium occurrit mediz noctis inclinatio, deinde 
gallicinium, deinde diluculum. Saturnalium, lib. i. cap. 3. 

+ Incipio ἃ media nocte, quod tempus postremum est diei 
Romani: tempus quod huic proximum est vocatur de me- 
did nocte, sequitur gallicinium, cum galli canere incipiunt. 
Censor. cap. 19. Inter partes noctis enumerat. 

+ Pollux μέσον vixros ἀλεκτρυόνων ὠδὰς καὶ τὸ ὄρϑρον. 


i. cap. 7, §. 8. 


Lib. 


MATTHEW. 


37 And he took with him Peter and the two sons 
of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy 
(and afraid, Mark xiv. 33). 

38 Then saith he unto them, ® My soul is exceed- 
ing sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and 
watch with me (against temptation). 

39 And he went a little farther (about a stone’s- 


know he was not delivered from the pain and ignominy of 
the cross, but suffered death uponit. (2.) If this excess of 
sorrow and consternation of his soul proceeded only from 
the fear of such a death as any mortal man might suffer, 
for which he knew he should be gloriously rewarded, and 
from which he knew he should in three days be delivered; 
we must confess he was more troubled at the apprehension 
of it than Socrates and many other philosophers of old, 
who had learned μὴ ἐν ταῖς συμφοραῖς περιλύπους ὑπάρχειν, 
“not to be much afflicted with calamities : who suffered 
death with an undaunted courage, and waxed not pale at the 
divulsion or breaking of their limbs, though they had no such 
encouragements to suffer as he had; and that he was far 
more timorous than were those martyrs who, with un- 
daunted courage, suffered for his sake the greatest cruel- 
ties: and yet it is very difficult to assign any other cause 
of this excess of sorrow which then seized him; it being 
certain, 

First, That he could not lie under the sense of any anger 
or indignation God had conceived against him ; for sure he 
could not think God was then angry with him, when he 
was doing an act of most profound obedience to him, for 
which he had declared his Father loved him, and for which 
he knew he would reward him; nor is this well consistent 
with his commending his soul into the hands of his affec- 
tionate Father, his assurance he should go to paradise, or 
his constant faith that he was still “the Son of God, in 
whom his soul delighted.” And hence it follows, 

Secondly, That he could not lie under any doubtings of 
his Father’s love, or any despondings upon that account; 
for he still addresses to him as his God and Father, and 
commends his spirit into his Father’s hands; he declares 
his “ Father therefore loved him, because he laid down his 
life for his sheep” (John x. 17). And he thus suffered in 
prospect of “the joy” or the reward of these his sufferings 
from God “ set before him.” And this demonstratively fol- 
lows from this consideration, that had he then doubted of 
God’s love and favour to him, he could not at the same time 
have believed that he was “the Son of God in whom he 
delighted ;” and so, though Satan did not prevail upon him 
at the first, he must have in this last temptation induced him 
to doubt of this particular. Nor, 

Thirdly, Can I believe that God laid any grief or punish- 
ment upon the soul of Christ by his immediate hand. I 
have declared my opinion that it is not necessary to say 
the future evils which the souls of wicked men shall suffer 
come from God’s immediate hand; and endeavoured to 
show that they may be accounted for, by considering their 
perpetual exclusion from a state of happiness, their eter- 
nal duration, and from the natural workings of their con- 
sciences in such a state; and what God doth not do to the 
wicked, doubtless he did not to his own beloved Son, when 
he became obedient to the death at his command. And, 
secondly, I am not able to conceive what he could suffer 
from the immediate hand of God; could God withdraw 
from him the sense of his favour, and yet not only highly 
love him at the same time for this very action, but set before 
him the joy and the reward he would confer upon him for 
thus suffering ? If there were any seeming diminution of the 
sense of the divine love, and of that sense of joy and con- 
solation which deriveth from it, that may be better attri- 
buted to his excess of sorrow, which so possessed him, as 
that his human nature could not as formerly attend to the 
consideration of it: and this being innocent in itself, and 
sometimes incident to the most pious men, might then 
befall our Saviour, when he was “in all things, sin only ex- 
cepted,” to be “made like to us, that he might succour us 
when tempted” (Heb. ii. 17, 18, iv. 15, 16). Or did he raise 
within him any sense of what might justly be inflicted on 
him for the sin of man, when he thus undertook to suffer 
in his stead? This surely must be needless, in respect to 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


cast from them), and ™ fell on his face, and prayed, 
saying, O my Father, if it be possible (that thy glory 
and the salvation of men may equally be promoted 
otherways), let this cup pass from me: nevertheless 
(be it) not as I will, but as thou w/t. (Then an angel 
appeared to him from heaven, to strengthen him, Luke 
xxii. 43, 44.) 

40 And (then) he cometh unto the (hree) disciples, 
and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, (Why 
sleep you 2) What, outd ye not watch with me one 
hour? 

41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into tempta- 
tion (so as to be foiled by it): the ® spirit indeed ts 
willing (to make good resolutions, ver. 35), but the flesh 
ts weak (and so unable to perform them without divine 
assistance, to be obtained by prayer, and improved by 
vigilance). 

42 He went away again the second time, and (being 
heard, in that he feared, Heb. v. 7, he) prayed, saying, 


177 


| O my Father, if this enp may not pass away from me, 
except I drink it, thy will be done. 

43 And he came (back to the disciples) and found 
them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy (and 
they knew not what to answer him, Mark xiv. 40). 

44 And he left them, and went away again, and 
prayed the third time, saying the same words. 

45 Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto 
them, " Sleep on now, and take your rest (for by your 
watching ye can show no farther kindness to, or concern 
fi me): behold, the hour (of my apprehension) is at 
rand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands 
of sinners. 

46 Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that 
doth betray me. 

47 4 And while he yet spake, lo, Judas, one of the 
twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with 
swords and stayes, from the chief priests and elders 
of the people. 


him who had the clearest view of the desert and heinous- 
ness of sin, and the most perfect knowledge of what God’s 
law had threatened to it. This apprehension I conceive 
most likely to have been the ground of this our Saviour’s 
bitter agony ; but then this was the product not of God’s 
immediate hand, but of his perfect knowledge, purity, and 
hatred of sin. Thirdly, Add to this, that the scripture 
seems to be wholly silent in this matter; it saith, indeed, 
“The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all,” or “made 
our sins to meet upon him” (Isa. lili. 6): but surely they 
then only were thus laid on him when he bare them. Now 
St. Peter doth assure us, that “he bare our sins in his own 
body on the tree : and that by the stripes with which he was 
there smitten, “we are healed” (1 Pet. ii. 24, 35). Again, 
it is said, “He gave his soul an offering for sin” (Isa. liti. 
10): but then it is evident to a demonstration, that “his 
soul” there only signifies his life; for so it follows, ver. 12, 
“He poured forth his soul unto death;” in which sense 
Christ himself declares that he did δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ, 
“give his life a ransom for many” (Matt. xx. 28). It is 
farther said, that “he was made a curse for us” (Gal. iii. 13) : 
but then it is declared expressly, that he was only so by 
being “ hanged on a tree,” or by suffering that death which 
all that suffered were by the law pronounced accursed (see 
the note there). Lastly, It is often said, “He suffered for 
our sins, the just for the unjust:” but then it well deserves 
to be observed, that the scripture represents him as doing 
the great work of redemption, rather by what he suffered for 
us in the body than by what he suffered in his soul; for it 
informs us that “he bare our sins in his own body on the 
tree,” that “we are sanctified through the offering of the 
body of Christ once,” that “he died, and suffered for our 
sins” (Heb. x. 10, 1 Pet. ii. 24); and yet it was not his 
soul, but his body only which was subject to death; that 
“he shed, he poured out his blood for the remission of our 
sins,” that “ he washed us from our sins in his blood,” that 
“he made our peace through the blood of the cross,” that 
“he obtained eternal redemption for us by his own blood,” 
that “ he sanctified us by his own blood,” and by it “ cleans- 
eth us from all sin,” that “we have redemption through his 
blood, even the remission of sins,” and that “ he is our pro- 
pitiation through faith in his blood.” The sacrament we 
are to celebrate in thankful remembrance of what he suffered 
for us, doth only call us to remember that “his body was 
given or broken for us, and his blood shed for the remission 
of our sins;” so that if we would speak according to the 
constant language of the Holy Ghost in scripture, we must 
ascribe the work of our redemption to our Lord’s sufferings 
in the body for us; in which it is certain that he could 
suffer nothing answerable unto the punishment of damned 
spirits, but only “gave his life a ransom for many.” 

1 Ver. 39. “Exezev ἐπὶ πρόσωπον: He fell upon his face, 
&c.] At first he fell upon his knees, and afterward upon 
his face, saying, “ Father, εἰ δυνατὸν, if it be possible” (i. e. 
if it be so, not in the nature of the thing, for thus he de- 
clared, “all things were possible” to his Father, Mark xiv. 
35, 36, but according to his decree, and the divine wisdom, 

Vox. IV.—23 


if that saw any other way, by which his glory, and the sal- 
vation of men, might equally be consulted), “let this cup 
pass from me;” and when he saith (ver. 42), “if this cup 
cannot pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” 
As this prayer is in effect the same with the former, it being 
said, that he prayed thrice, “saying the same words,” so 
the import of it seems to be to this effect; Though the con- 
dition of human nature prompts me to desire freedom from 
this bitter cup, yet seeing, “for this end came I to this 
hour” (John xii. 27), and had a body prepared for me, that 


being obedient in it to the death, I might “do thy will, O 
God!” (Heb. v. δ. 7,) I submit my natural to thy divine 
will. 

My Father, if it be possible, let this cup ‘sone from me.) 
W oltzogenius here notes, that it is evident that Christ could 
not be truly God ; because he could not deliver himself from 
death, but was forced to pray to his Father for that deliver- 
ance. I answer, that hence indeed it follows, that he would 
not do this; but that he could not do it, is evidently false : 
for he who, with a word, struck all those who came to ap- 
prehend him to the ground, could certainly have escaped 
out of their hands, had he so pleased. 

18 Ver. 41. Τὸ πνεῦμα πρόϑυμον, ἡ δὲ σὰρξ ἀσϑενῆς" Watch 
and pray, &c. the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.] 
What it is to enter into temptation, see note on Matt. vi. 
13. Christ therefore here bids them to pray, not that they 
might not be tempted; for that this should befall them, our 
Lord assured them when he said, “Satan had desired to 
sift them as wheat (Luke xxii. 31); but that they might 
not give place to it, or fall by it into sin. The following 
words, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” are not 
intended as an excuse, or mitigation of their sin, but as a 
motive to this prayer and vigilance ; as if he should have 
said, You have all made large promises that if you should 
die with me you would not forsake me, and this you said 
readily, and with a purpose so to do; yet let me tell you 
that when the temptation actually assaults—when fear, 
shame, pain, the danger of punishment, and death, are 
within view, and present to your sense, the weakness of the 
flesh will certainly prevail over these resolutions, if you use 
not the greatest vigilance, and do not pray with fervency for 
the divine assistance. 

19 Ver. 45. Sleep on ow, &c.] For by your watching 
you can show no farthe: kindness and concern for me, who 
am now to be delivered into the hands of them who are 
emphatically styled sinners of the gentiles, Gal. ii. 15. Or, 
καθεύδετε τὸ λοιπὸν, “ sleep hereafter, and take your rest:” 
behold, now is no time of sleeping, for the hour of your and 
my temptation is at hand. So Phavorinus saith, τὸ λοιπὸν 
ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀκολούθως, the word λοιπὸν signifies hereafter : it sig- 
nifies, saith Stephanus, deinceps, postea. So may τὸ λοιπὸν 
well be rendered, Acts xxvii. 20, 1 Cor. i. 16, 2 Cor. xiii. 11, 
2 Tim. iv. 8, Heb. x. 13... And this interpretation seems to 
be confirmed by the word ἀπέχει, added by St. Mark, ch. 
xiv. Itis enough that you have slept already: or if, with 
the Vulgar, the Glossaries, and our Bois, we here interpret 
τὸ λοιπὸν, jam, now, as our translation doth, these words, 


178 


48 Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, 
saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: 
hold him fast (and lead him away securely, Mark xiv. 
44. See John xviii. 8. 12). 

49 And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, 
master ; and kissed him. 

50 And Jesus said unto him, Friend, wherefore art 
thou come? (Js tt to betray the Son of man with a kiss? 
Luke xxii. 48.) Then came they, and laid hands on 
Jesus, and took him. 

51 And, behold, one of them which were with 
Jesus (to wit, Simon Peter, seeing what was done, said, 
Master, shall I smite with the sword? Luke xxii. 49, 
and straightway he) stretched out Ais hand, and drew 
his sword, and struck a servant of the high priest’s, 
and smote off his (right) ear (and the name of that ser- 
vant was Malchus, John xviii. 10). 

52 Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy 
sword into his place: # for all they that take the 
sword shall perish with the sword (see the note here). 

53 Thinkest thou that 1 cannot now pray to my 
Father, and he shall presently give me more than 
twelve legions of angels (for my defence) 2 

54 But (should I do this) how then shall the scrip- 
tures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? (or, how can ἢ 
refuse the cup which my Father hath given me to drink ? 
John xviii. 11.) 

55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes 
(sent to apprehend him), Are ye come (now) out as 
against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? 
(whereas) I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, 
and ye laid no hold on me (but this is your hour, and 
the power of darkness, Luke xxii. 53). 


being rendered interrogatively, give the sense thus: Do you 
sleep now, and take your rest, when the hour of temptation 
and the traitor is at hand? ᾿Απέχει, it is enough that you 
have slept so long; “arise now, and let us go hence.” 

20 Ver. 48. Hold him fast.) See note on Mark xiv. 14. 

21 Ver. 52. Put up thy sword into its place, ravres γὰρ οἱ 
λαβόντες μάχαιραν, ἐν μαχαίρᾳ ἀπολοῦνται, for all that take the 
sword shall perish by the sword.| St. Austin here tells us, 
Gladium. accipit quisquis, magistrati legitimo non conce- 
dente, eo utitur ad sanguinem proximi fundendum; “ He 
takes the sword, who uses it to shed his neighbour's blood, 
without license from the magistrate: which certainly is 
true of private persons in all cases, seeing self-defence against 
the assault of another private person is permitted by the 
magistrate: for if it be once granted that private persons, 
when they conceive that they are injured by him, may take 
up the sword against the magistrate, and repel force by force, 
tumults will be endless, and the authority of laws and the 
decisions of judges will be precarious, it being ordinary for 
private persons, and for all sects and parties who are re- 
strained by the laws, to think that they are injured ; but yet 
it is not certain that this is the true import of these words, 
which Grotius and others thus interpret, “Put up thy 
sword,” thou needest not to use it in my cause against the 
injuries of the Jews, for, by God’s sentence and decree, they 
that take the sword to shed the blood of the innocent, shall 
perish by the sword; and this the Jews will find by that 
tremendous vengeance the sword of the Romans shall exe- 
cute upon them for this fact. And this interpretation is 
confirmed from the like words used, Rev. xiii. 10, viz. “ He 
that killeth (you) with the sword, shall be killed with the 
sword (of Christ) ; here is (the ground of) the faith and 
patience of the saints ;” viz. that that God, “to whom ven- 
geance belongeth,” will plead their cause, and recompense 
vengeance to their enemies (Rom. xii. 19). 

2 Ver. 57. To Caiaphas.| See note on Mark xiv. 53. 

3 Ver. 59, 60. They sought false witnesses, and found 
none.| See note on Mark xiv. 55, 56. 

2 Ver. 62. Τί οὗτοί cov καταμαρτυροῦσιν 5 What ts it that 
these witness against thee?) Note here, that τί is frequently 
put for διὰ τι; why 2 so Matt. vill. 26, τί δειλοί ἐστε 5 & Why 
are ye fearful?” Luke ii. 48, τί ἐποίησας ; “ Why hast thou 


MATTHEW. 


56 But all this was done, that the scriptures of the 
prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples 
forsook him, and fled. 

57 4 And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him 
away to (Annas first, John xviil. 13, 14, and thence to) 
2 Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the 
elders were assembled. 

58 But Peter followed him afar off unto the high 
priest’s palace, and (being introduced by another dis- 
ciple, John xviii. 15, 16) went in, and sat with the 
servants, to see the end (of ths matter). 

59 Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the 
council, sought false witness against Jesus to put 
him to death ; 

60 But found none: yea, though many false wit- 
nesses came, yet found they none (thal could testify any 
thing against him which deserved death). At the last 
came two false witnesses, 

ΟἹ And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy 
the temple of God, and to build it in three days. 

62 And (then) the high priest arose, and said unto 
him, Answerest thou nothing? 4 what zs it which 
these witness against thee? (Gr. Why do these wit- 
ness (thus) against the2, if it were not true? 

63 But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest 
answered and said unto him, *I adjure thee by the 
living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the 
Christ, the Son of God (or not). 

64 Jesus saith unto him, (Z 7s as) Thouhast said: 
% nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see 
the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, 
and coming in the clouds of heaven (%. ε. you ask me 
whether I am the Christ, and will not believe that I am 


dealt thus with us?’ John i. 25, τί οὖν Barriers ; “ Why 
then baptizest thou?” Mark ii. 16, τί ὅτι ; “ Why is it that 
he eats with publicans?” (see more examples in the note 
there.) So that these words seem to be better rendered, 
either as in the paraphrase, or, “to what end do men wit- 
ness against thee, if thou wilt answer nothing ?” 

25 Ver. 63. ᾿Εξορκίζω σε κατὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ" I adjure thee by 
the living God, that thow tell me, whether thow art 
the Christ, the Son of God?) That this adjuration was 
equivalent to an oath, is proved, note on Matt. ν. 34, 1 
Thess. v.27. This question in St. Luke runs thus, “Art 
thou the Christ?” (xxii. 67.) Whence it is highly proba- 
ble, that, in the Jewish sense, to be “the Christ,” or “the 
Messiah,” and to be “the Son of God,” was the same 
thing. } 

26 Ver. 64. 'An’ ἄρτι ὄψεσθε τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καθήμενον 
ἐκ δεξιῶν τῆς δυνάμεως, καὶ ἐρχόμενον ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, 
From henceforth ye shall sce the Son of man sitting on the 
right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.) 
Here note, (1.) that “the right hand of power,” or great- 
ness, as it is in Heb. i. 13, viii. 1, is the right hand of God, 
who by the Jews is called Power. So Buxtorf in the word 
ΠΛ saith, the word is used by the rabbins and the cabal- 
ists as an epithet of God, it being usual with them to say, 
This comes p7)3I7 ‘pp, i. 6. from the mouth of God. So 
Kimchi on Josh. vii. what was said to Moses, lepani hage- 
tara, before God: and Ainsworth on Numb. vil. informs 
us, that Solomon Jarchi saith, Moses received not the offer- 
ings of the princes at the dedication of the tabernacle, « till 
he was commanded by the mouth of the Power,” that is, of 
God (xxii. 69). Note, (2.) that to come in or with the 
clouds of heaven, was by the Jews looked on as a certain 
indication of their Messiah: so the Targum on 1 Chron. iii. 
24, « And the sons of Elioenai are Hodaiah »3)p) and Anani, 
He is the king Messiah, who is to be revealed.” So Tan- 
chum, He is the king Messiah: for it is said, Dan. vii. 13, 
(ΟἹ saw in a vision of the night, and behold, »33y ay he comes 
with the clouds,” or, “as the Son of man ;” and in the Tal- 
mud, in the treatise of the Sanhedrin, the Messias is called 
Bar Nepheli, “the Son of the clouds,” which, saith R. 
David Cohen de Lara, is the Greek word νεφελαὶ, clouds, an- 
swering to hananim, and that the Messiah is so called, be- 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


80; but ye shall shortly be convinced of it by the mission 
of the Holy Ghost from heaven, and by my coming in 
the clouds of heaven to tale vengeance on you for your 
bet 

65 en the high priest 7 rent his clothes, saying, 
He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have 
we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his 
blasphemy. 

66 What think ye (of it)? They answered and 
said, He is guilty of death. 

67 Then did they (who were officers of the court) spit 
in his face, and (they) buffeted him; and others (of 
them) smote him with the palms of their hands, (speak- 
pica blasphemous words against him, Luke xxii. 65, 
a 

68 Saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is 
he that smote thee ? 

69 4 Now Peter sat without in the palace; and %a 


179 


damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with 
Jesus of Galilee. 

70 But he denied (7/) before them all, saying, I 
know not (any thing of ) what thou sayest. 

71 And when he was gone out into the porch, 
another maid saw him, and said unto them that were 
there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth. 

72 And again he denied (7/) with an oath (saying), 
I do not ~ know the man. 

73 And after a while came unto him they that stood 
by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of 
them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. 

74 Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I 
know not the man. And immediately (afler he had 
said this) the cock crew. 

75 And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, 
which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt 
deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly. 


cause it is written in Daniel, “ Behold, one like the Son of 
man came with the clouds of heaven.’ Now hence we 
learn how apposite Christ’s answer is to the question of the 
high-priest; viz. You ask me whether I am the Christ, and 
will not believe that I am so, but you shall shortly be con- 
vinced of it to your great sorrow, when you see me coming 
with the “clouds of heaven,” to take vengeance on you for 
your unbelief. Note also, that these words cannot relate to 
the final day of judgment, because it is said dz’ ἄρτι, within 
a little while,” and by St. Luke, ἀπὸ τοῦ viv, “from this 
time,” shall ye see the Son of man coming, &c. Moreover, 
as his sitting at the right hand of Power was visible to them 
by the effusion of the Holy Ghost, so. was his coming to the 
destruction of Jerusalem (see note on xxiv. 30). 

27 Ver. 65. Then the high-priest rent his clothes.] This 
is expressly forbidden the high-priest, not only as to his sa- 
cerdotal vestments, but also as to his other garments (Lev. 
xxi.), because he was not to appear before God in the habit 
of a mourner; but they by their traditions had so qualified 
that precept, as to allow the high-priest to rend his clothes 
at the bottom, but allowed him not to do it from the top to 
the breast ; so Cuneus de Rep. lib. ii. cap. 3, though others 
say, he only was forbidden so to do in the time of his min- 
istry: for Jonathan the high-priest rends his clothes, 1 
Mace. xi. 71, and in Josephus* we read twice in one chap- 
ter, that “the high-priests τὰς ἐσθῆτας διεῤῥῆξαντο, rent their 
clothes.” 

23 Ver. 69. Peter sat without in the hall, καὶ προσῆλθεν 
αὐτῷ pia παιδίσκη, and a damsel came to him, &e.] To re- 
concile the seeming contrarieties in the evangelists, observe, 

First, ‘That whereas St. Matthew says, “Peter sat,” St. 
John, that he “stood,” he might do both, being sometimes 
sitting, and sometimes standing. 

Secondly, Whereas it is said here he “sat without,” and 
yet, ver. 58, that he followed Christ “into the high-priest’s 
palace,” both are true; he being without that place where 
Christ was examined by the council, but not without the 
door of the house of Caiaphas; for afterward he went out 
of it (ver. 75). 

‘Thirdly, Whereas the damsel here saith to Peter, “Thou 
wast with Jesus;” but the person in St. John, xviii. 25, 
« Art thou not one of his disciples?” it may be answered, 
that the question in St. John, according to the Hebrew way 


* De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 26, 27. 


of speaking, is equivalent to an affirmation ; and his disciples 
being all with him when he was apprehended, to be then 
with him, and to be one of his disciples, must be the same. 

Fourthly, Whereas here in Matthew, and St. Mark, the 
second person who said, “This man was with Jesus,” was 
ἄλλη, “another woman,” ver. 71, παιδίσκη, “a damsel,” 
Mark xiv. 69, in Luke, ἕτερος, another person said, “Thou 
art one of them,” Luke xxii. 58, I think not fit, in an- 
swer to this, to say ἕτερος may signify another, whether man 
or woman, as some do; for Peter’s answer is, “ Man, I am 
not.” The text affords us a better answer, viz. that the 
damsel said the second time, “This man was with Jesus ;” 
but then she said this, not to Peter, but τοῖς ἐκεῖ, ver. 71, 
τοῖς παρεστηκύσιν, “to the standers by,” Mark xiv. 69, and 
said only οὗτος, “this man” was one of them; upon this, a 
man of the company accosts him personally, saying, σὺ, 
«Thou art one of them.” 

29 Ver. 72. Οὐκ otéa τὸν tvSpanov, I know not the man.] 
Very frivolous is the excuse of Hilary* here, and St. Am- 
broset on Luke xxii., which they make for Peter, saying, 
“He lied not in saying, I know not the man; because he 
knew him to be God :” for this is, saith St. Jerome,+ “so 
to defend the servant as to accuse his Master of a lie :” for 
if St. Peter did not deny him, Christ must have falsely said, 
“Thou shalt deny me thrice.” Cornelius ἃ Lapide ingenu- 
ously confesseth, that he sinned mortally, by denying Christ 
with his mouth, and by that denial “fell from grace ;” and 
it is certain, that by confirming this denial “ with an oath,” 
and adding horrid execrations to it, his sin was highly aggra- 
vated. I therefore would not willingly say, as our best di- 
vines do, that his sin was a sin of infirmity ; it being hard 
to conceive he could do all this without great checks of his 
conscience; but rather, that his bitter weeping, and his 
quick repentance, after Christ looked upon him, made atone- 
ment for it. 


[See the appendix to this chapter at the end of this 
gospel.] 


—— 


* Nec enim mentiebatur qui eum hominem se ndsse ne- 
gabat, quem Deum cognoscebat. In Matt. con. 31. 

ἡ In Lucam, p. 155. 

+ Hoc autem est ita defendere apostolum, ut Deum men- 
dacii reum faciant ; si enim iste non negavit, mentitus est 
Dominus, qui dixerat ei, Ter me negabis. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


1! Wuen the moming (of the second day of the 
paschal feast) was come, all the chief priests and elders 
of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to 

eath : 


2 And (accordingly) when they had bound him, 
they led him away (from the house of Caiaphas to the 
judgment-hall, John xviii. 28), and delivered him to 
Pontius Pilate the governor (as one who by their law 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVIL. 


1 Ver. 1. Πρωΐας δὲ γενομένης, When the morning was 
come.) This was the morning of the 15th of Nisan, and so 


the first day of the feast, as to the holy convocation; but 
the second'day as to the putting away leaven out of their 
families, which was to be done on the fourteenth day on 
the evening (see the appendix to ch. xiv. of St. Mark). 


180 


was to die as a blasphemer, John xii. 7, and by the Roman 
laws, as one who forbade the people to pay tribute to Cxsar, 
and made himself a king in prejudice to Cxsar, Luke 
xxiii. 2, John xii. 12). 

3 4 Then Judas, which had betrayed him (to them), 
when he saw that he was condemned (by them, and 
rescued not himself out of their hands), repented him- 
self, and (Gr. repenting) ? brought again the thirty 
pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders (which 
he had received from them, that he might betray him to 
them), 

4 Saying (do them), 1 have sinned in that I have 
betrayed the innocent blood. And they said (to him), 
What 7s that to us? see thou fo thal. 

5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the tem- 


MATTHEW. 


ple, and departed, and went and ὃ hanged himself (exe- 
culing upon himself that judgment which he had deserved 
Sor that fact). 

6 And the chief priests took (up) the silver pieces, 
and said, It is not lawful for to put them (again) into 
the treasury (among the oblations consecrated to the ser- 
vice of God), because it is (the sum given as) the price 
of blood, 

7 And they took counsel (together), and bought 
with them the ( field, called the) potter’s field, to bury 
strangers in (ἡ. e. which they allotted for strangers to 
bury their dead in). 

8 Wherefore that field (being bought with that money 
which was the price of blood) was called, The field of 
blood, unto this day. 


2 Ver. 3. ᾿Απέστρεψε τὰ τριάκοντα ἀργύρια" Judas, when 
he saw that he was condemned, repenting, returned the thirty 
pieces of silver to the chief priests. It seems to me not im- 
probable, that Judas when he betrayed Christ might have 
imagined, as the disciples did, and as the Jews thought of 
their Messias, that he would not have died, but either would 
have conveyed himself out of the soldiers’ hands, as he did 
from the multitude, when they sought to stone him, or cast 
him down a precipice ; or, by some other miraculous way, 
would have preserved himself; and of this opinion, saith 
Theophylact, on ver. 5, were some of the fathers. And 
when he saw it was otherwise, he is not only sorry for what 
he had done, but confesses his sin, throws back the money 
as unlawfully got, and therefore not to be retained, but 
renounced together with the sin; quod enim scelere partum 
est, non debet retineri, sed cum ipso scelere abjici; and pro- 
claims the innocency of his Lord; yet, that his sorrow was 
not that “godly sorrow that works (true) repentance,” is 
evident from our Lord’s declaration, xxvi. 24, that “it had 
been better for him he had not been born;” and from his 
“going to his own place” (Acts i. 25). Moreover, it also 
seems to be a wonderful sign of the stupidity of the chief 
priests and elders, that they could answer, “ What is that to 
us ?” for could they think it no sin to hire a man to betray 
innocent blood? do they not confess, this very money was 
the price of blood? ver. 6, and, was it not the very money 
they gave to purchase that blood? and, was not the field 
they bought with it styled, upon this account, “the field of 
blood ?”’ and, was not this a lasting testimony of their guilt, 
whose money purchased this blood? and therefore, Stephen 
roundly tells them, that they had been οἱ προδόται, “the be- 
trayers and murderers of that just one” (Acts vii. 52), and 
they themselves, when the miracles done in Christ’s name 
had awakened them, begin to be troubled, that the apos- 
tles should bring “this man’s blood upon them” (Acts vy. 
23). 

} Ver. 5. Kai ἀπελθὼν, ἀπὴγξατοι And gomg away, he 
hanged himself:| That this is the proper import of these 
words, we learn from a parallel place in Arrian, upon Epic- 
tetus,* viz. that “It is no intolerable thing to be hanged; 
for when any man judges it reasonable so to do, he goes 
and hangs himself.” It bears no other sense in Tobit, when 
Sara, the daughter Raguel, is said to be so sorry ὥστε ἀπάγ- 
ξασϑαι, as to think of hanging herself, iii. 10, or in the words 
of Job, vii. 15, « My soul chooseth strangling,” that violent 
kind of death, “rather than life.” This is evident (1.) from 
the provocation which caused this grief, viz. that her maids 
reproached her as ἀποπνίγουσα, “having strangled her seven 
husbands ;” and seeing they were thus dead, “ bade her go 
after them,” ver. 8, 9, by these words putting this very 
thought into her head; whence it follows, that hearing 
these things, she was so troubled, ὥστε drayfacSa, as to 
think of strangling herself. (2.) This is still farther evident 
from the consideration that restrained her, not from her 
grief, but from doing as they bade her, ver. 9, “If I shall do 
this, I shall be a reproach to my father; not surely by 
being grieved and melancholy, but by cutting off myself by 
such a kind of death as is the punishment of great male- 
factors, ver. 10, And, (3) that her grief and melancholy, and 


* 76 δ᾽ ἀπάγξασθαι, οὐκ ἔστιν ἀφόρητον" ὅταν γοῦν μάϑη ris ὅτι 
εὔλυγον, ἀπελθὼν ἀπήγξατο, lib, i. cap. 2. 


her desire of death, continued still as long as ever, appeareth 
from her following prayer to God, εἶπον, ἀπολῦσαί pe, which 
is not to be rendered as Mr. Clere doth, “I said, Take me 
away ;” for the words preceding, καὶ viv Κύριε, will not admit 
of that translation, “and now, O Lord, I said,’ &c. but they 
are to be rendered in the imperative thus, “And now, O 
Lord, command, or speak, that I may be taken away, and 
may not hear any more these reproaches” (ver. 13) ; and, 
“fit pleases thee not to kill me, ἐπίταξον ἀπολυθῆναι, com- 
mand that I may be delivered” (ver. 6). So again is the 
phrase used of Ahithophel, 2 Sam, xvii. 23, ἀπῆλθεν καὶ ἀπῆγ- 
ξατο, “ He went away, and hanged himself ;” not dying with 
excess of grief and melancholy, as some think; since that, 
in all likelihood, would have hindered him from setting his 
house in order, or giving such a solemn charge concerning it: 
as for the Hebrew, pon, that it very properly signified such a 
violent suffocation, is apparent, in that this chanak;, or chin- 
nuk, is one of their four kinds of death inflicted upon male- 
factors, and that they used proverbially to say,* “Ifthou would 
be strangled, hang yourself upon a great tree.” Nor is it ne- 
cessary that the word should bear any other sense in ASlian,t 
when he says, σκώμματα οὐ μόνον ἐλύπησε ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀπέκτεινε, 
“ scoffs have not only made men sad, but killed them ;”’ for 
though Socrates being scoffed at, laughed; yet, Poliager, 
ἀπήγξατο, “ hanged himself :” for these scoffs might be said 
to kill him, which caused him thus to slay himself. But 
then it will be asked, how this hanging himself can be recon- 
ciled with St. Peter’s account of the death of Judas, that 
πρήνης γενόμενος, “ falling down headlong,” or, as some copies 
have it, ἀποκρεμάμενος, “thus hanging, he burst asunder, and 
all his bowels gushed out:’’ suspensus crepuit medius, saith 
the Vulgar ; that is, “ leaping down, or precipitating himself 
from the tree on which he hanged himself,” he had a rupture, 
by reason of the great jerk of that fall, which broke his pe- 
ritoneum, and made his bowels fall into his scrotum: which 
frequently happens upon leaping or other violent motions of 
the lower parts. And, if this reading of the Latin and some 
Greek copies be allowed, St. Peter’s account will be only an 
improvement of what St. Matthew said, and a declaration of 
what followed upon hanging himself: or, if we retain πρήνης 
γενόμενος, that is, saith Stephanus, in caput se dejiciens ex 
alto seu πρηνιχϑεῖίς, and may be rendered pecipitatus, or se- 
met precipitans crepuit medius, “and precipitating himself, 
he burst in the middle;” and then the halter which made 
him πρήνης, or in caput propendens, will be still hinted at by 
St. Peter. Or, if the falling of his bowels into the scrotum 
be not thought sufficient to answer to those words, “ his 
bowels gushed out,” the rim of his belly being burst, I know 
not why, in this extraordinary instance, we may not admit of 
a more than ordinary providence, to render the death of this 
traitor the more remarkable. Thus of Herod Agrippa, St. 
Chrysostom} saith, that because he gave not glory to God, 
διεῤῥάγη καὶ ἐξεχύϑη τὰ σπλάγχνα αὐτοῦ, “he burst asunder, 
and his bowels gushed out.’ Pleasant here is the imagina- 
tion of some of the fathers, that Judas knowing that Christ 
was to descend to hell to bring thence the souls that were 
there, went and hanged himself, that his soul might get thi- 
ther before him, and so might be thence delivered with 


* Buxt. in voce chanak. 
+ Lib. v. cap. 8. 
+ In Heb. hom. 26, p. 564, lib, xxviii. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


(9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by 
‘Jeremy the prophet, saying (in the words recorded, 
Zech. xi. 12), And they took the thirty pieces of sil- 
ver, (which was) the price of him that was (so) valued, 
whom they of the children of Israel did value (as a 
slave, or servant : see note on xxvi. 15) ; 

10 And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord 
appointed me.) 

11 And Jesus stood before the governor: and the 
overnor asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the 
ews? And Jesus said unto him, (// is as) thou sayest. 

12 And when he was accused of the chief priests 
and elders, he answered nothing (as knowing it was to 
no purpose to speak to them, Luke xxii. 63). 

13 Then said Pilate unto him, Hearest thou not 
how many things they witness against thee? (yet 
thou answerest nothing.) 

14 And he answered him to never a word; inso- 
much that the governor marvelled greatly. ie 

15 Now at ¢hat 5 feast (of the passover, John xviii. 
39, kept in memory of their redemplion a Egyplian 
thraldom) the governor was wont to release unto the 
people a prisoner, whom they would (desire). 

16 And they had then a notable prisoner, ealled 
Barabbas (guiliy of robbery, John xviii. 40, sedition, 
and murder, Luke xxiii. 19). 

17 Therefore when they were gathered together, 
Pilate (hoping they would be ashamed to release such a 
villain) said unto them, Whom will ye that I (should) 
release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called 
Christ (the King of the Jews? Mark xv. 9.) 


181 


18 (2nd this notorious malefaclor he proposed to them, 
lo preserve Jesus ;) for he knew that for envy they had 
delivered him (. e. Jesus, into his hands). 

19 4 When he was set down on the judgment seat, 
his wife sent unto him ( messenger), saying, Have 
thou nothing to do with ( he condemnation of ) that just 
man: for I have suffere many things this day in a 
dream because of him (which convince me it will be 
dangerous for thee to condemn him). 

20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the 
multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and (destre 
the governor to) destroy Jesus. 

21 (Then) the governor (being willing to release 
Jesus, Luke xxiii. 20) answered and (ἀποχριϑεὶς, speak- 
ing again) said unto them, Whether of the twain 
(mentioned) will ye that I release unto you? They 
said, (Let tt be) Barabbas. 

22 Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then 
with Jesus which is called Christ? They all (in 
compliance with the chief priests and elders, ver. 20) say 
unto him, Let him be crucified. 

23 And the governor said, Why, (J find no cause of 
death in him, Luke xxiii. 22,) what evil hath he done 
(ὦ deserve it)? But they cried out the more, saying, 

et him be crucified. 

24 4 When Pilate saw that he could prevail no- 
thing (in behalf of Christ), but that rather a tumult 
was made, 5 he took water, and washed Ais hands be- 
fore the multitude, saying, (J by this ceremony declare, 
that) Tam innocent of (from) the blood of this just 
person: see ye to tt (that it lie not heavy upon you). 


the rest (so Theophanes, hom. 27, p. 202, Theophylact, in 
locum). Better is their note upon his returning the thirty 
pieces of silver, viz. that quod scelere partum est, non debet 
retineri, sed cum ipso scelere rejici: “that which is got by 
wickedness, ought not to be retained, but returned, and re- 
jected with the sin.” 

4 Ver. 9. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken, διὰ 
Ἱερεμίου τοῦ προφῆτον, by Jeremiah the prophet.) Against the 
truth of this the Jews object, that the words cited here are 
not to be found in Jeremy, but only in the prophet Zachary. 
To which the learned answer: 

First, That it is not certain that the word Jeremy was 
in the original copies; for the Syriac and Persic versions 
have it not: so when this objection was made in St. Augus- 
tine’s* time, he answers, “Let this objector know that all 
copies read not, By Jeremy the prophet, but some only, By 
the prophet; we may say therefore, those copies are most to 
be relied on which have not the name of Jeremy ;” but then 
he ingenuously confesses that he durst not depend upon this 
answer, because most of the Latin and most Greek copies 
had the word Jeremy; and it is not to be thought, they 
would have put in a word to make the scripture faulty. 

Secondly, Dr. Lightfoot says, the prophecy of Jeremiah 
was placed first in the volume of the prophets, and so be- 
came the running title of that whole volume: so that what 
was writ in any of them, might be said to be written by Je- 
remy the prophet; but, though Jeremy might be placed 
first, I can hardly think that Jeremy the prophet should 
signify the prophet Isaiah ; and finding no other words of 
other prophets cited thus in the whole New Testament, I 
can hardly believe these words cited after this manner. And 
therefore, 

Thirdly, Observe, that St. Jeromet expressly affirms, 
that these very words, “were writ,’ and read by him “in 
an apocryphal book of the phophet Jeremy.” And seeing 


* Primo noverint non omnes codices evangeliorum habere 
quod per ‘ Jeremiam’ dictum sit, sed tantummod6 pér ἐ pro- 
phetam ; possumus ergo dicere, his potitis codicibus esse 
credendum, qui Jeremiza nomen non habent. De Consens. 
Evang. lib. iii. cap. 7, tom. iv. p. 485. 

¢ Legi nuper in quodam Hebraico volumine, quod Naza- 
rene secte Hebreus mihi obtulit, Hieremie apocryphum, in 
quo hee ad verbum scripta reperi. Hieron. in locum. 


we find, 2 Mace. ii. from ver. 1—9, many words spoken 
by the prophet Jeremy, which are not in the book of his 
prophecy, why might not these words also have been spoken 
by him, and kept in memory, or in some writing, till the 
time of Zachary? Of whom it is observable, that he loved 
to use the words of Jeremy, as will appear by comparing 
Zech. i. 4 with Jer. xviii. 11, and Zech. iii. 8 with Jer, 
xxiii. 5. Hence the Jews used to say, “the spirit of Jere- 
my was in Zachary,” and so both made but one prophet; 
and the Bishop of Bath and Wells and Mr. Mede think it 
highly probable that Jeremiah wrote the ninth, tenth, and the 
eleventh chapters of Zechariah, in which last chapter these 
words are. 

Ver. 14. “Ὥστε ϑαυμάζειν τὸν ἡγεμόνα λίαν. See the defence 
of these words, Exam. Millii hic. 

5 Ver. 15. Kara δὲ τὴν ἑορτὴν εἰώθει ἡγεμὼν ἀπολύειν, At the 
feast he was wont to release.) There being no such release 
made by the governor at the other festivals of the Jews, but 
at this only; and because a release was then κατὰ ἑορτὴν, 
“according to the nature of the paschal feast,” kept in me- 
mory of their release from Egyptian bondage (see note on 
Mark xv. 6) ; it is not here so proper to observe, that it was 
the custom among other nations to release their prisoners 
on festival days, especially if we consider, that, at least at 
other festivals, it was the custom of the Jews to punish cri- 
minals (see note on xxvi. 5). 

6 Ver. 24. Λαβὼν ὥδωρ, ἀπενίψατο τὰς χεῖρας, He took wa- 
ter, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, Ζ 
am clean from the blood of this just man.) He did this, 
saith Origen,* according to the custom of the Jews, or ex 
consuetudine Judaica, volens eos de Christi innocentia non 
soltim verbis, sed facto instruere; “being willing to assert 
Christ’s innocency to them not in words only, but by deed.” 
Thus, in the instance of unknown murder, the elders of 
the city were “to wash their hands, and say, Our hands 
have not shed this blood” (Deut. xxi. 6, 7); and the 
psalmist having renounced all confederacy with wicked 
and mischievous men, saith, “I will wash my hands in 
(testimony of my) innocency” Fe xxvi. 6). And Wa- 
genseil} upon Sota, thinks that Pilate had respect to this 
rite; but others think he rather did it according to the cus- 
tom of the gentiles, who thought to purge themselves 


* Hom. 35, in Matt. f. 861. +P. 910. 
Q 


182 


25 Then answered all the people, and said, (What- 
soever guilt there is in shedding) his blood (may zt) be 
on us, and on our children. 

26 4 1 Then. (lo gratify the multitude, Mark xv. 15), 
released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had 
scourged (Gr. scourging) Jesus, he delivered him (up 
to them) to be crucified. 

27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus 
into the common hall, and gathered unto him the 
whole band of soldiers. 

28 And they stripped him (of his own garments), 
and ὃ put on him a scarlet robe (such as was worn by 
kings). j 

29 2 And when they had platted a crown of thorns, 
they put it upon his head, and (instead of a sceptre, they 

t) a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the 

nee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King 
of the Jews! 

30 And they spit upon him, and took the reed (out 
of his hand), and smote him on the head (with zt). 

31 And after that they had (thus vilified and) mocked 
him, they took the robe off from him (dethroning him 
from his pretended kingdom), and put his own raiment 
on him, and led him away to crucify him. 

32 And as they came out, they found a man of 
Cyrene, Simon by name (coming from the field, Mark 
xv. 21): ὃ him they compelled to bear his cross (with 
him, who through weakness was not sufficient to bear it to 
the place of execution). 

33 And when they were come unto a place called 


MATTHEW. 


” Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a (the) skull 
(where, saith tradition, the first Adam was buried), 

34 1 "They gave him vinegar to drink mingled 
with gall (0 intoxicate him, and take off the sense of his 
pain): and when he had tasted (thereof, or what it was), 
he would not drink. 

35 And (when) they (had) crucified him, and parted 
his garments (except his woven coat, into four parts, 
John xix. 23, 24), casting lots (for his coat): that it 
might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet 
(Ps. xxii. 19), They parted my garments among them, 
and upon my vesture did they cast lots. 

36 And then sitting down they watched him there ; 

37 And (Pilate) set up over his head his accusation 
written Si Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, Luke xxiii. 38), 
Tuis 1s Jesus THE Kine or THE Jews. 

38 ” Then there were two thieves crucified with 
him, one on the right hand, and another on the left 
(and so that scripture was fulfilled which said, He was 
numbered with the transgressors, Mark xy. 28). 

39 q And they that passed by reviled him, wagging 
their heads, 

40 And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, 
and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be 
the Son of God, (and) come down from the cross. 

41 Likewise also the chief priests mocking Aim, 
with the scribes and elders, said, 

42 He saved others; (but) himself he cannot save. 
If he be (indeed) the King of Israel, let him now come 
down from the cross, and we will believe (in) him. 


from bloodshed by washing. So the scholiast* upon Sopho- 
cles in Ajace, iii. 1, saith, “It was the custom among the 
ancients when they had killed a man, or shed blood, to wash 
their hands in water, to purify them from their defilement.” 
And M®neast in Virgil speaketh to the same purpose (see 
Examen Millii here). 

7 Ver, 26. Τότε ἀπέλυσεν αὐτοῖς Βαραββᾶν, Then he released 
to them Barabbas.| This Barabbas was imprisoned for se- 
dition and murder (Luke xxiii. 35); so that if this were 
customary at this feast to release such criminals, then the 
law concerning the shedding of the blood of the wilful 
murderer, Numb. xxxv. 31, 32, must admit of some dis- 
pensation. 

8 Ver. 28. Περιέθηκαν αὐτῷ XAapida κοκκίνην, They put on 
him a@ purple robe.) Some think the soldiers did this by 
advice of the Jews, intending by this purple to deride 
Christ’s pretence of being their Messiah ; it being a tradi- 
tion with them, that when their Messiah comes, “he shall 
be clothed with fine purple” (Moses Haddarf. in Bereschith 
Rabbi, cap. 49, 11). But this consultation of the Jews with 
them being mentioned by none of the evangelists, I think 
the soldiers rather did it in derision of his title to be “ King 
of the Jews.” The κάνδος ἁλιπόρφυρος, and χιτὼν πορφύρεος 
μεσύλυκος, “the sea-purple coat, and purple mixed with 
white, being proper to the kings of Persia” (see Brisson de 
Reg. Pers. lib. i. 37, 38). 

9 Ver, 32. Τοῦτον ἡγγάρευσαν ἵνα ἄρη τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ, The 
found a man of Cyrene,—him they compelled to bear his 
cross.| Τὰ was the custom, that he that was to be crucified 
should bear his own cross, as Lipsius+ proves from Artemi- 
dorus and Plutarch; and so our Saviour for some time did, 
for “he went forth, βαστάζων τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ, bearing his 
cross” (John xix. 17, Heb. xii. 2) ; but then ἐξερχόμενοι, going 
out with him, and finding it too burdenous for him, they 
compel this Simon to bear it either with or for him. 


* Ἔθος ἦν τοῖς παλαιοῖς, ὅταν ἣ φόνον ἀνθρώπου ἢ ἄλλας σφαγὰς 
ἐποίουν, ὕδατι ἁπονίπτειν τὰς χεῖρας eis κάθαρσιν τοῦ μιάσματος, 
p- 20. i 

Sacra mani, patriosque penates, 
Me bello é tanto digressum et cede recenti 
Attrectare nefas, donec me flumine vivo 
Abluero. Bn. ii. ver. 718. 
3 Lib. ii. de Cruce, cap. 5, p. 39, 40. 


10 Ver. 33. And when they were come to a place called 
Golgotha, ὅς ἔστι λεγόμενος κρανίου τύπος, that is to say, The 
place 4 ὦ skull.] “It is,” saith Theophylact,* “a tradition 
come down to us from the fathers, that Adam was buried 
here; and therefore,” saith he, “ Christ, who was to heal the 
fall and death of Adam, was here crucified, that where the 
beginning of death was, there might be the dissolution of 
it:” his witnesses of this tradition are Origen, Tertullian, 
Epiphanius, Athanasius, and St. Augustine; St. Jerome 
only on this place saying, “ This is a favourable interpreta- 
tion, and pleasing to the ears of the people, nec tamen vera, 
but not true.” 

1 Ver. 34. “Edwxav αὐτῷ πιεῖν ὅξος μετὰ χολῆς μεμιγμένον, 
They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall.| « They 
gave him (Mark xv. 23), οἶνον ἐσμυρμισμένον, wine mixed 
with wormwood,” which differs not from this account, for 
mayb, which signifies wormwood, is by the LXX. rendered 
χολὴ, Prov. v. 4, Lam. iii. 14, and so merora, which hath 
its name from bitierness, is rendered, Job, xvi. 13, xx. 14. 
This kind of wine was given to intoxicate the condemned, 
and so to take away the sense of pain, whence it is called 
οἶνος κατανύξεως, “ the stupifying wine” (Ps. Ix. 3) : on which 
account our Saviour, who needed none of these arts to di- 
minish his sense of pain, that he might show his patience 
and readiness to suffer, refused to drink it (see note on Luke 
Xxili. 36). 

2 Ver. 38. Then were crucified with him δύο λησταὶ, two 
thieves: and, Ver. 44, οἱ λησταὶ, the thieves upbraided him.] 
And yet one of them only did upbraid him (see note on 
Luke xxiii. 40). So “the soldiers” brought him vinegar, 
Luke xxiii. 36, John xix. 29, one of them did it, Matt. 
xxvii. 48, Mark xv. 36, “the disciples had indignation,” 
Matt. xxvi. 8, some of them, Mark xiv. 4, one of them, 
John xii. 4. So Mark xvi. 5, Matt. xxviii. 2, there is men- 
tion of one angel only, but Luke xxiv. 4, John xx. 12, there 
is mention of two. 


* Παράδωσίς ἐστιν εἰς ἡμᾶς φϑάνουσα ἐξ ἁγίων πατέρων Gr b 
᾿Αδαμ ἐκξι ἐτάφη. Venit ad me traditio talis, Orig. Hom. 
35 in Matt. f.87, F. Epiphanius, Her. 46, §. 5, p. 394. 
Athanasius de Cruce et Pass. Domini, tom. i. p. 1003. Ba- 
silius Seleuc. Orat. 38, p. 199. Basil. M. Hom. 5 in Isa. 
Ambros. lib. v. ep. 19, Augustin. tom. x. Hom. 71 de 
Tempore, p. 738. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


43 He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if 
he will have him (or delighteth in him, Ps. xxii. 9): 
for he said, I am the Son of God. 

44 (One of) the thieves also, which were crucified 
with him, cast the same in his teeth (saying, Jf thou 
be the Christ, save thyself and us; but the other rebuked 
him, &c., Luke xxiii, 39—43). 

45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness 
over all the land (of Judea) unto the ninth hour (‘he 
sun being darkened, Luke xxiii. 45). 

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a 
loud voice, saying, 13 Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that 
is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou (so) for- 
saken me (as to give me into the hands of my enemies) 3 

47 Some of them that stood there, when they heard 
that, said, This man calleth for Elias. 

48 And straightway ™ one of them ran, and took a 
spunge, and filled it with vinegar (which the soldiers 
drank), and put it on a reed, and gave (7?) him to 
drink (to recreate his spirits). 

49 The rest said, Let be (Gr. let him alone), let us 
see whether Elias will come to save him. 

50 J Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud 


183 


voice, (said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit ; 
and having said this, John xix. 28—30, he) yielded up 
the ghost. 

51 And, behold, % the veil of the temple (which 
parted the holy place from the most holy) was rent in 
twain from the top to the bottom (Christ having, by 
his death, procured for us an entrance into the cat of 
holies, Heb. x. 20); and the earth did quake, and the 
rocks rent; 

52 And the graves were opened; and ® many bodies 
of the saints which slept arose, 

53 And came out of the (their) graves after his re- 
surrection (who was the first-born from the dead, Col. i. 
28), and went into the holy city, and appeared unto 
many. 

54 Now when the centurion, and they that were 
with him, watching Jesus (viz. the soldiers, ver. 36), 
saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, 
they feared greatly, saying (some of them), " Truly 
this was the Son of God; (and others, This was a just 
man, Luke xxiii. 47, and all that were present, smiting 
their breasts departed, ver. 48). 

55 And many women were there beholding afar 


3 Ver. 46. Θεέ pov, Θεέ pov, ἱνατί pe ἐγκατέλιπες; My God, 
my God, why hast thow forsaken me?) Wonderful are the 
tragedies some make, and the scruples they have raised upon 
these plain words; when yet, 

First, It is certain that in the Hebrew way of speaking, 
God is said to leave, or forsake any person, when he suffers 
him to fall into great calamities, and lie under great mise- 
ries, and doth not help him out of them, And therefore 
Zion being long afllicted is brought in by the prophet 
Isaiah thus complaining, ἐγκατέλειπέ pe Κύριος, «The Lord 
hath forsaken me, Κύριος ἐπελάϑετύ μου, the Lord hath forgot- 
ten me” (xlix. 14). And the psalmist, as he is frequent in 
the same complaint (viz. Ps. x. 11, xlii. 10, xliii. 2), so doth 
he manifestly thus explain himself in the following words, 
« Why art thou far from my prayer,” so that though “I cry 
in the day-time thou hearest not ?” (Ps. xxii. 2—4.) Nor 
could David have any other meaning, when he calls God so 
fiducially his God, as Christ also here doth, and even 
breathes his last in these words, “ Father, into thy hands I 
commit my spirit ;” and saith of his suffering condition, « It 
is finished,” and doubted not but his soul should that day 
be in paradise: so impossible is it that in these words he 
should intimate any failure of his trust in God, or any per- 
turbation of spirit arising from the sense of divine wrath. 
This being certain and allowed, let men say, if they please, 
that now Satan was let loose upon him, because, after his 
first temptation, he receded only from him “for a season” 
(Luke iy. 13), and this was the hour of the “prince of dark- 
ness;” provided they still own, that the « prince of darkness 
coming, found nothing in him” for his temptation to work 
upon (John xiv. 30). Let them add, if they please, that 
the divine glory parted from him, provided that they under- 
stand this κυριοπρεπῶ, “in a sense becoming our Lord ;” either, 
as Dr. Hammond hath it on Ps. xxii. 2, that “the divinity 
suspended its influence so far as to deliver up his body to 
death ἢ or that the sense of what he suffered was so great, 
as that he could not then attend, as formerly, to that sense 
of divine favour, or receive the joy and consolation from it, 
which he did before; the experience of the highest sorrows 
aud the sublimest joys at the same time, being not well 
compatible even with the innocent infirmities of human 
nature: these things are, perhaps, gratis dicta, but not dis- 
honourable to our blessed Lord. 

τῷ Ver. 48. One—taking a sponge, filled it with vinegar, 
καὶ περιθεὶς καλάμῳ, ἐπότιζεν αὐτόν, and putti: it upon a reed, 
gave him to drink.) So Mark xv. 36, whereas St. John 
saith, ὕσσύπῳ περιθέντες, “ putting it upon hyssop, they put it 
to his mouth” (xix. 29), which words the critics would 
without reason change into ὑσσὸν, “a javelin;” whereas St. 
John’s hyssop may not only signify the leaves which by 
the smell do recreate, but also the stalk or stem which might 
support the sponge, that being, as their mustard-seed, much 
greater in those countries than it is with us. 

15 Ver 51. Τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ ἐσχίσθη cis δύο, The 


veil of the temple was rent in twain.) They built no parti- 
tion-wall, saith Maimonides, in the second temple between 
the holy place and the most holy, though in the first temple 
there was a wall built betwixt them of the thickness of a 
cubit; but they were divided by two veils, one from the ex- 
tremity of the most holy place, another from the extremity 
of the holy, with a void space of a cubit. And so likewise 
was it, saith Josephus,* in the temple restored by Herod, 
in which there were two veils, one for the holy place, an- 
other for the adytum: this veil, saith the apostle, signify- 
ing, “that the way into the holy of holies was not yet 
opened ;” Christ’s death procuring “a new and living way 
into it’ (Heb. ix. 8), and therefore, he having suffered, this 
veil is rent. 

16 Ver. 52. Καὶ πολλὰ σώματα τῶν κεκοιμημένων ἁγίων ἡγέρϑη, 
And many bodies of the saints which slept arose, &c.] 
Here note, ‘ 

First, That according to the opinion of the Jews, when 
their Messiah came, there should be a resurrection of some 
pious men (Albo in libro Ikarim, par. iv. cap. 35). Note, 

Secondly, That it is here expressly said, these saints 
arose out of their sepulchres, μετὰ τὴν ἔγερσιν αὐτοῦ, “ after 
Christ’s resurrection,” he being the first-born from the dead : 
by this example Christ would confirm them in his great 
promise, that he would raise all that believed in him to 
eternal life. And} some say they were raised to live in pa- 
radise with Enoch and Elias. 

Thirdly, Who were the persons raised after this manner, 
it is not easy to conjecture. Ignatius: saith, “ they were 
the holy prophets, who were his disciples, and expected 
him,” and who are said to “enter into the kingdom of God, 
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (Luke xiii. 28). My con- 
jecture is, they might be some of those who believed in 
Jesus, as old Simeon did, and died before his resurrection ; 
for it is observable from St. John, that Christ not only pro- 
mised a resurrection to all that believed on him, at the last 
day, but also said, “ The hour is coming, and now is, that 
the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of man” (John v. 
25). And that this resurrection was both a proper resur- 
rection, and was to precede the general resurrection, is 
proved in the note on that place, and so could be no other 
than the resurrection mentioned here. Moreover, of these 
persons it is said, that “they went into the holy city, and 
appeared to many :” whence it is probable they were per- 
sons known to them to whom they did appear ; and if so, they 
must be men who lived in the time of their knowledge, 

7 Ver. 54. ᾿Αληϑῶς Θεοῦ vids ἦν οὗτος, Truly this man was 


* Τὸ δὲ ἐνδότατον μέρος διεΐργετο ὁμοίως καταπετάσματι πρὸς τὸ 
ἔζωθεν. De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 918, 

+ Author Q. et Resp. ad qu. 85. 

+ Οὗ καὶ of προφῆται μαϑηταὶ ὄντες τῷ Πνεύματι, ὡς διδάσκαλον, 
αὐτὸν προσεδόκουν, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο, ὅν δικαίως ἀνέμενον, παρὼν ἤγειρω 
αὐτοὺς ἐκ νεκρῶν, Epist. ad Magnes. 8. 9. 


184 


off, which followed Jesus from Galilee (to Jerusalem), 
ministering unto him (of their substance). 

56 Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary 
the mother of James (the /ess) and Joses, and the mo- 
ther of Zebedee’s children. 

57 When the even was come, there came 18 ἃ rich 
man of Arimathea (an honourable counsellor, Mark xv. 
43), a good and just man, who expected the kingdom of 
God, and consented not to the counsel or deeds of them that 
condemned. him, Luke xxiii. 50, 51), named Joseph, 
who also himself was Jesus’ disciple : 

58 He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus 
(6 it might not be buried with the malefactors). Then 

ilate (inquiring of the centurion, and being certified by 
him that Jesus was dead indeed, Mark xv. 44, 45), com- 
manded the body to be delivered (to him). 

59 And when Joseph had taken the body, he 
wrapped it in a clean (fine) linen cloth (and Nico- 
demus, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, of about a 
hundred pound weight, they wrapped up the body in the 
linen cloths, with the spices, as the Jews use to bury, John 
xix. 39, 40), 

60 3. And laid it in his own new tomb, which he 


MATTHEW. 


had hewn out in the (a) rock (and wherein was never 
yet man laid, John xix. 41): and he rolled a great 
stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. 

61 And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other 
Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre (who beheld 
where he was laid, Mark xy. 47, and prepared spices and 
ointments for his body, Luke xxiii. 56). 

62 4 Now the next day, that followed the day of the 
preparation (viz. the sabbath-day in the morning), the 
chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, 

63 Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver 
said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will 
rise again. 

64 Command therefore that the sepulchre be made 
sure until the third day, lest his disciples come by 
night, and steal him away, and say unto the people, 
He is risen from the dead: so the last error shall be 
worse than the first. 

65 Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch: go 
your way, make it as sure as ye can. 

66 So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, 
sealing the stone (as Dan. vi. 17), and setting a 
watch (2. e. a guard of sixty Roman soldiers). 


the Son of God.] It seems apparent from these words, that 
“ the Son of God,” did not always signify one that was so by 
virtue of an internal and eternal generation, but one that was 
his beloved and adopted son ; for what is here “ the Son of 
God,” is in St. Luke xxiii. 47, this was “a just man,” and 
ver, 43, they spake thus, “He trusted in God ; let him deli- 
ver him, if he delighteth in him: for he said, I am the Son 
of God.” The Jews knew very well from Ps. ii. that their 
Messiah was to be the Son of God ; but that they did not know 
him to be so in this higher sense, seems evident, because they 
did not know how David could call him Lord (xxii. 46). 

18 Ver. 57. Joseph of Arimathea.] See the note on Mark 
xv. 49, 


19 Ver. 60. Καὶ ἔϑηκεν αὐτὸ ἐν τῶ καινῷ αὑτοῦ μνημείῳ, And 
put it in his new tomb.] What follows here tends highly 
to the confirmation of the truth of our Lord’s resurrection ; 
for his body being put into a tomb, in which no man had 
lain before, if any one rose from it, it must be our Lord. 
(2.) The tomb being hewed out of a rock, there could be 
no digging through it to convey Christ’s body thence. (3.) 
There being a band of sixty soldiers placed there as a watch 
to preserve the body from being stolen, it is not to be sup- 
posed that the disciples should beat this band, and so there 
could be no ground of suspicion that our Lord was not 
truly risen. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


1 In the ' end of the sabbath, as it began ? to dawn 
toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magda- 
lene and the other Mary (mentioned xxvii. 56) to see 
the sepulchre (having with them spices to embalm his 
body, Luke xxiv. 1, and about the sun-rising they got 
thither, Mark xvi. 2). 

2 And, behold (while they were consulting by the 
way who should roll away the great stone from the sepul- 
chre, that they might get to him), there was (before 
they came thither) a great earthquake: for the (an) 
angel of the Lord (Aad) descended from heaven, and 
came and rolled (Gr. and coming rolled) back the 
stone from the door (of the sepulchre), and sat upon 
lt. 


3 (And) his countenance (or appearance) was like 
lightning, and his raiment (was) white as snow : 

4 And for fear of him (and by reason of the earth- 
quake) the keepers (of the sepulchre) did shake, and 
became as dead men. 

5 And the angel answered (7. 6. spake) and said unto 
the (affrighted) women, Fear not ye: for I know that 
ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. 

6 He is not here (where you expected to find his body): 
for he is risen, as he said (he would; and for your satis- 
faction that it is even sv) come (nearer to the sepulchre, 
and) see the place where the Lord lay. 

7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples (and Peter 
in particular) that he is risen from the dead; and, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVIII. 


1 Ver. 1. ‘Ove δὲ caBBarwv, In the end of the sabbath.) 
Or rather, “after the sabbath;” so di τούτων, “after these 
things,” ὀψὲ νυκτὸς, “after night;” see many examples of 
this in Stephanus: and so this perfectly agrees with the 
other evangelists, who say, this was done, “the sabbath 


being ended,” Mark xvi. 1, or “the first day of the week,” | 


Luke xxiv. 1, John xx. 1. And perhaps St. Matthew men- 
tions sabbaths in the plural, because there were two sab- 
baths in that week, the paschal sabbath on Friday, and the 
ordinary sabbath on Saturday. 

2 ᾿Επιφωσκούση εἰς μίαν σαββάτων, when it bezan to dawn 
into the first day of the week.] i.e. To Sunday, or the 
Lord’s day, for μία τῶν σαββάτων always signifies “the first 
day of the week,” or the Lord’s day, or the day of his re- 
surrection from the dead; and thus the word μία usually 
signifies in the Septuagint, when it is joined with days, 


weeks, or months; as “the evening and the morning were 
ἡμέρα pia, “the first day,” Gen.i.5. So ἡμέρα μία τοῦ μηνὸς, is 
“the first day of the month,” Exod. xl. 2, Ezra iii. 6, x. 17. 
And 80 is pia τοῦ μηνὸς, Lev. xxv. 24, Numb. i. 1. 18, xxix. 1, 
XXxxiii. 38, Deut. i. 3, Ezek. xxvi. 1, xxxii. 1, xlv. 18, Hag. 
i, 1, ii. 1 (see note on 1 Cor. xvi. 2). Upon this day in the 
evening Christ appeared to the twelve, John xx. 19, and 
again, ver. 26, and to the two disciples, Luke xxiv. 13. It 
is also reported of the Christians by Pliny,* that they used, 
stato die ante lucem convenire, “to meet upon a set day 
before it was light;” and this day from the beginning was 
called ἡ κυριακὴ, “the Lord’s day,” and was by Christians 
from the beginning employed in acts of religious worship 
(see the former note). So Ignatius exhorts Christians “not 
to sabbatize with the Jews, but to live κατὰ κυριακὴν, accord- 
ing to the Lord’s day,” in which our life arose with him. 


* Ep. 97. + Epist. ad. Mag. §. 9 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


behold, he goeth before you into Galilee (as he said to 
you, Matt. xxvi. 32, Mark xiv. 28); there shall ye 
see him: lo, I have told you (the truth). 

8 And they departed (Gr. departing) quickly from 
the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run 
(Gr. ran) to bring his disciples word (of what they had 
seen and heard ). 

9 4 And as they went to tell his disciples, behold, 
Jesus met them, saying, All hail (¢. e. be joyful). And 
they (when they were satisfied it was Jesus) came and 
held him by the feet, and worshipped him. 

10 Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid : (but) 
go tell my brethren (¢. e. my disciples) that they go 
into Galilee, and there shall they see me. 

11 § Now when they were going (gone), behold, 
some of the watch came into the city, and shewed 
unto the chief priests all the things that were done. 

12 And when they were assembled with the elders, 
and had taken counsel (what was to be done to disguise 


185 


the matter), they gave large (sums of) money unto the 
soldiers (that watched), 

13 Saying, (Having received this) say ye, ® His disci- 
ples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. 

14 And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will 
persuade (or pacify) him, and secure you (from harm). 

15 So they took the money, and did as they were 
taught: and this saying is commonly reported among 
the Jews until this day. 

16 4 4 Then (and) the eleven disciples went away 
( from Jerusalem) into Galilee, to a mountain where 

esus had appointed them (0 meet him). 

17 And when they saw him, they worshipped him : 
but some (of the company) doubted (whether it was he 
indeed, or not). 

18 And Jesus came (nigh) and spake unto them, 
saying, © All power is given unto me in heaven and 
in earth (and so you need not doubt of my protection and 
assistance). 


So the true Gnostic, saith Clemens of Alexandria,* κυριακὴν 
ἐκείνην τὴν ἡμέραν ποιεῖ, “observes the Lord’s day, glorifying 
in himself the resurrection of our Lord, when he casts away 
every evil thought, and receives the true knowledge.” Ιτὸ- 
neusf saith, that τὸ ἐν τῇ xvpiaxp μὴ κλίνειν γόνυ, “not to 
bend the knee on the Lord’s day was a symbol of the re- 
surrection.” Melito Sardensis wrote a book περὶ κυριακῆς, 
“of the Lord’s day.” See more largely the divine original 
of the Lord’s day vindicated, preface to the second part of 
Traditions. Of the following words to ver. 13, see the notes 
on Mark xvi. 

3 Ver. 13. Eirare, ὅτι of μαϑηταὶ αὐτοῦ νυκτὸς ἐλθύντες ἔκλε- 
Wav αὐτὸν, ἡμῶν κοιμωμένων, Say, That his disciples came by 
night and stole him away while we slept.) Τῇ this history of 
the soldiers be true, it is the greatest confirmation of our 
Lord’s resurrection ; for then they must not only have been 
convinced of it by the earthquake, and the vision of the 
angel which struck them with the greatest terror, but must 
have told all these things that were done in the city (ver. 
11), and so have raised all men’s curiosity to go and see 
whether Christ’s body was yet in the grave ; besides, here 
the whole body of the Sanhedrin or elders of the Jews are 
charged with a most execrable fact, viz. the hiring the whole 
band of soldiers to tell a lie against their certain knowledge, 
and their former declaration made in the city ; yea, to tell 
a senseless lie, viz. that the disciples stole away Christ’s 
body while they slept: for if they were indeed asleep, they 
could not tell that his disciples came at all; if they were 
not asleep, they lied in saying that they were. Now is it 
easy to believe that the Sanhedrin, who had these men so 
oft before them, and under examination, for this very tes- 
timony, that Christ was then risen from the dead, should 
never say one word to vindicate themselves from this vile 
imputation, so expressly charged upon them, within eight 
years after the thing was done; or that money should so 
corrupt a band of soldiers, that not one of them should 
ever after this divulge the truth? Besides, how unlikely it 
was that the apostles either would attempt to steal away 
their Master's dead body, or having done this, to continue 
testifying that he was risen from the dead, or that they 
should succeed in this attempt, hath been already shown in 
the general preface to this work. 

4 Ver. 16. Οἱ δὲ ἕνδεκα paSnrai ἐπορεὔύϑησαν cis τὴν Γαλι- 
λαίαν, &c. Then the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto 
a mountain, where Jesus had appointed them.] That Christ 
promised after his resurrection “ to go before them into Ga- 
lilee,” we read, xxxvi. 32; thither the angel here, ver. 7, 
and Christ himself directs them to go and see him, ver. 10, 
but there is not the least mention of any mountain in 
Galilee to which he bade them go to see him; and there- 
fore these words, “ where Christ had appointed them,” refer 
not to the fnountain, but to Galilee; but there being a 
mountain which Christ frequented, and on which he had been 
before transfigured, this moved the disciples to go to that 
mountain. Moreover it is observable, that they went not 
into Galilee till above eight days after Christ’s resurrection ; 


ὙΡᾺ { Fragm. 


* Strom. vii. p. 744, 
Vor. IV.—24 


for Christ appeared to them at Jerusalem eight days after 
(John xx. 19). And when they went, doubtless they went 
not alone, but the curiosity of those that were with them 
(Luke xxiv. 9. 33) would likely move them to go to the place 
where he had appointed to be seen; and they and the other 
disciples which were then in Galilee make up the five 
hundred brethren of which he was seen at once (1 Cor. 
xv. 6). 

5 Ver. 18, "Ed6Sn μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, All 
power is given me in heaven and in earth.| That this 
power was given to Christ is, saith Woltzogenius, a certain 
argument that he is not God, for the most high God judgeth 
and commandeth by his own power, which he always had, 
received from none ; whereas Christ received this power from 
his Father, and that in time, viz. after his resurrection. 

Ans. To this I answer, That it is true that this power was 
given to Christ, “because he was the Son of man” (John 
ν. 27), i. e. because he in his human nature had exercised 
the office of a prophet, and after of a priest; but then it 
was exercised by the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in 
him. So all the blessings of the Jews are said to come out 
of Zion, or from the sanctuary, but they came thence because 
the divine majesty dwelt there; now the human nature of 
Christ is the temple of the Deity, or the tabernacle in which 
the Aéyos dwells, and from it all the blessings are derived on 
the church by virtue of the Deity united to him. And this 
will be apparent from the concessions of Woltzogenius* 
here, that Christ hath obtained an unlimited empire over all 
things, a divine power over the bodies and souls of men, 
and wisdom to discern their hearts and reins; for he to whom 
any office duly is committed, must have sufficient power and 
wisdom to discharge that office. Now to govern all things 
in heaven and earth, belongs only to him who is the Lord 
and Maker of them, and therefore is known by this title, 
both in scripture and among the heathens (see note on Rom. 
ix. 5, and Ps. xxxiii. 18, xcvii. 5. 9). To have power over 
death, and to be able to raise the dead, is to have that power 
which is proper to God alone (see note on Phil. iii. 20) : and 
to have power over the souls of men, and to have the 
knowledge of all hearts, belongs to God alone (1 Kings viii. 
39, Jer. xvii. 10). 

Obj. Phere was no need this power should be given to hu- 
man nature, seeing he had received it by virtue of the hy- 
postatic union. 

Ans. He had before received the power by which he doth 
still exercise this dominion, but he could not exercise it 
whilst he was in the state of his humiliation, and in the form 
of a servant, as now he doth, being exalted in this nature to 


* Christum illimitatum regnum atque imperium super 
omnes creaturas in ccelo et terra existentes adeptum esse, 
etiam super mortem et diabolum, immo consecutum esse 
divinam sapientiam ut possit scrutari corda et renes. Apoc. 
ii. 13. E quibus omnibus liquido constat, potestatem istam 
Christo communicatam esse prorstis divinam, que se super 
omnia que in ccelo et terra et sub terrd sunt (solo tantum 
Deo excepto) extendit ; non tantim super corpora, sed 5" 
pra animos hominum. 5 

« 


186 


19 4 δ Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, bap- 
tizing them in the name (or into the belief) of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 


MATTHEW. 


20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 
I have commanded you: and, 7 lo, 1 am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. 


the right hand of majesty, and placed on the throne of 


ory. 
᾿ Obj But Christ’s human nature is no person, whereas to 
govern and judge are actions proper to a person, 

Ans. So to eat, drink, and sleep, are in us personal ac- 
tions, and yet they agreed only to Christ’s human nature. 
To speak in the language of the schools, the principium quod 
of these actions is God and man, or Christus ϑεάνθρωπος, but 
the principium quo is sometimes the divine, and sometimes 
the human nature of Christ; v. g- Christ walked upon the 
sea, i. e. he walked by virtue of his human nature, he sus- 
tained himself from sinking by the divine, and he who thus 
walked was God and man. 

6 Ver. 19. Μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, Teach all nations.) 
Ma&nrevew here is “ to preach the gospel to all nations,” and 
to engage them to believe it in order to their profession of 
that faith by baptism; as seems apparent (1.) from the 
parallel commission, Mark xvi. 15, “Go preach the gospel 
to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall 
be saved.” (2.) From the scripture notion of a disciple, that 
being still the same as a believer: as in that question of the 
blind man, “ Will you also be his disciples?” i. e. will you 
believe he is a prophet sent from God? and in the answer 
of the pharisees, “ We are the disciples of Moses, for we 
know that God spake by him,” and therefore believe what he 
spake in the name of God (John ix. 27—29). Hence we 
find many, besides the twelve, who were ealled Christ’s dis- 
ciples, even as many as assented to his doctrine, and judged 
him a prophet sent from God. And we find many of his 
disciples murmuring and crying out, “ This is a hard saying, 
who can bear it?” John vi. 60, 61, and many of his dis- 
ciples “ departing from him,” ver. 66, and many of his dis- 
ciples going with him to the city of Nain, Luke vii. 11, 
though it is probable that these disciples did not yet believe 
that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, as the 
twelve did (John ix. 27). And even the disciples of the 
Baptist are called disciples; i. e. professors to believe in that 
Christ who came after John, though they had no knowledge 
of the Holy Ghost, nor had received Christian baptism (Acts 
xix. 2. 6). And in this sense the holy Jesus made many 
disciples, and by his apostles baptized them into the faith of 
the Messiah coming after John (see the note on John iii. 22, 
and iv. 1, 2), though he would not suffer his disciples to 
publish that he was the Christ, “the Son of the living God,” 
till after his resurrection (Matt. xvi. 20): after which time, 
all that believed on him had no other name for a season, but 
that of his disciples (Acts. ix. 1. 10. 19. 26. 38) ; as when it 
is said, “the disciples were multiplied” (Acts vi. 1, 2. 7), 
though afterward at Antioch the disciples began to be called 
Christians (Acts xi. 26). 

If here it should be said that I yield too much to the 
antipedobaptists, by saying, that to be made disciples here 
is to be taught to believe in Christ, that so they might be 
his disciples; I desire any one to tell me how the apostles 
could μαϑητεῦύειν, “ make a disciple,” of a heathen or unbe- 
lieving Jew, without being μαϑηταὶ, or “teachers” of them; 
whether they were not sent to preach to those that could 
hear, and to teach them to whom they preached that “ Jesus 
was the Christ,” and only to baptize them when they did 
believe this? This is so absolutely necessary in the nature 
of the thing, till a Christian church among the heathens or 
the Jews was founded, and so expressly said by Justin 
Martyr* to have been the practice in the first ages of the 
church, that to deny what is confirmed by such evidence 
of reason and church history, would be to prejudice a cause, 
which, in my poor judgment, needs not this interpretation of 
the word μαϑητεύειν ; nor needs it be asserted that infants 
are made disciples, any more than that they are made be- 
lievers by baptism, but only that they are and ought to be 
admitted into the Christian church and kingdom of God, and 


* Ὅσοι ἂν πεισθῶσι, καὶ πιστεύουσιν ἀληθῆ ταῦτα, τὰ ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν 
διδασκόμενα, εἶναι, καὶ βιοῦν οὕτως δύνασϑαι ὑπισχνῶνται, ἄγονται 
ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν ἔνϑα ὕδωρ ἐστὶ, καὶ τρόπον ἀναγεννήσεως, ὃν καὶ ἡμεῖς αὐτοὶ 
ἀναγεννήθημεν, ἀναγεννῶνται, par. ii. p. 99, 


into the new covenant, by baptism, if they be children of be- 
lieving parents. Now against this I presume it is no objec- 
tien, that the unbelieving Jews and gentiles were first to be 
taught and believe the Christian faith, before they were bap- 
tized, and could not be baptized without it, or that infants 
cannot be taught or believe whilst they continue such. 


A DISSERTATION 


ADDED TO THE FOREGOING NOTE. 


Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost.] In the note here I have asserted, and I think 
proved, that paSyrevew here signifies “to make disciples,” 
by teaching the nations to believe in Christ, that so they 
might be his disciples. But then I took care to add the 
cause of infant-baptism needed not this interpretation of 
the word paSnreiews nor was it needful that infants be 
made disciples, any more than that they be made believers hy 
baptism, but only that they be admitted, if they be children 
of believing parents, into the Christian church by baptism ; 
and that it was no objection against this admission, that in- 
fants, whilst they continue in their childhood, cannot be 
taught or believe the Christian faith. And to confirm these 
assertions, I shall endeavour to prove, 

First, That there is nothing in this, or any other passages 
of scripture, which proves that infants are incapable of 
Christian baptism. 

Secondly, That this commission, delivered to the apostles, 
is virtually a commission to baptize the children of believing 
parents, or of parents making a visible profession of the 
Christian faith. 

My first assertion is, that there is nothing in this, or any 
other passages of scripture, which proves that infants are 
incapable of Christian baptism. And, 

To remove the arguments offered against the baptism of 
infants, from their supposed incapacity to be fit subjects of 
that ordinance, I assert, 

Prop. I. That no argument taken from the baptism used 
by the Baptist or our Lord’s disciples, can be sufficient to 
prove that infants of believing parents are to be excluded 
from Christian baptism. First, Because neither of them by 
baptism admitted any persons into covenant with God, or 
into church-membership, but only called them of the Jewish 
nation by baptism to repentance who were in covenant with 
God, and members of his church already. Secondly, Nei- 
ther of them baptized in the name of Christ; not the Bap- 
tist, for had he done so, there would have been no question 
whether he himself were the Christ or not, as we find there 
was (Luke iii. 15); nor any occasion for that question, 
“Why baptizest thou, if thou be not the Christ?” (John i. 
25). He only called them to repentance for the remission 
of sins, and admonished them in general, that “they should 
believe in him who was coming after him” (Acts xix. 4). 
And the baptism of his disciples was not into this belief, that 
their Master was the Christ, for that he forbids them to di- 
vulge till he was risen from the dead (Matt. xvi. 20, xvii. 
9); and therefore hath not before allowed or authorized 
them to do it in that solemn manner: they therefore only 
did baptize as John had done, into the faith of the Messiah 
which was to come, and with that baptism of repentance 
which prepared the Jews for the reception of his kingdom ; 
so that both of them baptized those who as yet believed not 
in Christ: whereas the baptism instituted by Christ was in 
his name, and belonged only to them who believed in him, 
and to their children. It is not therefore to be wondered 
that they baptized not those infants who could not by an ac- 
tual repentance prepare themselves for the coming of that 
Messiah, who was then at hand. Thirdly, John’s baptism 
was begun and ended before the covenant of grace was tv 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


the death of our\Mediator confirmed and ratified, and there- 
fore cannot be reasonably thought so fully to seal that cove- 
nant, or to assure us of the blessings of it, as doth that of 
Christ; as many as are “ baptized into Christ being baptized 
into his death” (Rom. vi. 3). 

Prop. If. I add, That as the incapacity of an infant for 
doing that which is required of an adult person to salvation, 
cannot render an infant, dying so, incapable of salvation ; so 
neither can it render him incapable of baptism, that he can- 
not do all that is required of an adult person, not yet own- 
ing Christ, in order to his baptism; for if that faith, repent- 
ance, and obedience, which is required of an adult person to 
his salvation, cannot be required of an infant in order to his 
salvation, so as that the necessary absence of it shall ex- 
clude him from a capacity of salvation, provided that he 
dieth in his infancy or his minority ; then, by parity of rea- 
son, that faith and repentance which is required of an adult 
person in order to that baptism by which he is made a 
member of Christ, and is admitted as a subject of his king- 
dom, cannot be required of an infant in order to his being 
made a member of Christ, or his being admitted as a subject 
of his kingdom. 

Vain therefore are all those arguments which are taken 
from the examples in the holy scripture of adult persons 
baptized only upon their faith and repentance; v. g. St. 
Peter says to the Jews and proselytes who heard the apostles 
speak with tongues and prophesy, “ Repent ye, and be bap- 
tized in the name of Christ Jesus for the remission of sins ;” 
and Ananias to Saul, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash 
away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts ii. 
38, xxii. 16). But to argue hence that infants cannot be 
baptized, because they cannot repent or call upon the name 
of the Lord, is as if I should argue thus, The same apostle 
saith, “Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be 
blotted out” (Acts iii. 19); therefore the sins of infants who 
cannot repent cannot be blotted out: and St, Paul says, 
« Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be 
saved” (Rom. x. 13) ; therefore infants, who cannot do this, 
cannot be saved : Christ also saith to the same Jews to whom 
St. Peter said, “ Repent, and be baptized,” “ Except ye re- 
pent, ye shall all perish” (Luke xiii. 3. 5); and this re- 
pentance is styled repentance to life and to salvation, Acts 
xi. 18, 2 Cor. vii. 10. Must therefore infants perish or be 
incapable of salvation for want of that repentance, which to 
adult persons is the condition of life and salvation? if not, 
why are they thought incapable of baptism, because, whilst 
infants, they cannot repent? 

When it is said by Mr. Tombs, That from these words of 
Philip to the eunuch, Acts viii. 37, «If thou believest with 
all thy heart, thou mayest be baptized ;” it appears neces- 
sary that the baptized person should declare his own faith ;— 
it doth as much appear from those words of St. Paul, «If 
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from 
the dead, thou shaft be saved” (Rom. x. 9), that it is ne- 
cessary for him that is saved to confess with his mouth, and 
believe with his heart, the resurection of the Lord Jesus 
Christ; and therefore to infer that no infant can be saved. 
Hence, therefore, it doth only follow that the baptized per- 
son, provided he be such as the eunuch was, a gentile, to 
whom the gospel was first preached to beget faith in him, 
must declare his faith, but not that infants of believing pa- 
rents are to be excluded from baptism, for want of such a 
declaration of their faith. 

When he argues thus, He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved ; that is, he only, no other, not otherwise :— 
this gloss must damn all infants dying such; yea, it must 
damn them for not being baptized, that is, for not receiving 
the ordinance of which Christ himself, according to the doc- 
trine of these men, hath declared them incapable. More- 
over, to argue thus, An infant must believe before he be bap- 
tized, because believing in these words is set before baptizing, 
is no better than to argue thus: The infant that is saved 
taust be baptized, because baptism is set before salvation. 

When others argue thus, “ We are all made the children 
of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. ili. 26), and there- 
ture infants cannot be made the sons of God by baptism, 
because they have no faith; they might as well argue thus: 
“By grace we are saved through faith” (Eph. ii. 7), but in- 


187 


fants have no faith, therefore they cannot be saved : or thus, 
“He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark xvi. 16) ; 
infants do not believe; ergo, all infants shall be damned. 
The apostle plainly speaks there of persons converted from 
heathenism to Christianity, who therefore were baptized, 
being adult persons: and so also he speaks to them in the 
epistle to the Ephesians, and in the gospel of St. Mark. This 
place therefore can with no more reason be applied to the 
case of infants, than the places cited from that epistle, and 
from the gospel of St. Mark. 

Prop. III. A present incapacity as to some ends of bap- 
tism cannot render the children of believing parents unfit 
for or incapable of baptism, provided they be capable of 
some other ends of that ordinance: this will be evident, 

First, From the example of our Saviour repairing to the 
Baptist to receive his baptism, though he was incapable of 
the chief ends for which it was designed, with respect to 
others. For Christ, being without sin, could neither repent 
nor promise amendment of life ; being the “ wisdom of the 
Father,” he could be taught nothing; being the Christ, he 
could not profess to believe in him that was to come after the 
Baptist; that is, in himself: and yet he comes to baptism, 
to profess his willingness to “fulfil all righteousness ;” and 
also that by this rite he might be initiated into his pro- 
phetic office, and consecrate himself to the service of his 
Father. 

Secondly, From the example of circumcision among the 
Jews, which laid an obligation on all adult proselytes, as 
well as the Jews, to obey the whole law of Moses (Gal. v. 
2), and to advance to the spiritual circumcision of their 
hearts, but could lay no such present obligation on their in- 
fants so to do. So likewise the same proselytes were first to 
be taught the precepts of the law; and then, upon the pro- 
fession of their faith and their promise of conformity to them, 
were to be baptized; but this could not be required of their 
children, who notwithstanding were baptized with them. 
And therefore to represent it asa thing repugnant to reason, 
that a divine institution should belong to persons incapable 
of understanding the nature and ends of it, must highly re- 
flect upon the wisdom of God, in appointing circumcision 
for children eight days,old, they being then as incapable of 
understanding the ends of it, as our children are of under- 
standing the ends of baptism. 

Prop. IV. Infants are capable, whilst such, of some ends 
of baptism; as, first, of a solemn and obliging dedication to 
the service of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: for if pa- 
rents, in cireumcising of the male child, obliged him after- 
ward to own the God of Israel as his God in covenant, and 
yield obedience to his law (Gal. v. 2) ; if the vow of Sam- 
son’s parents obliged him to be a Nazarite for ever (Judg. 
xvi. 17) ; if the vow of Hannah, to which her husband gave 
consent, that Samuel should be lent to the Lord for ever, 
devoted Samuel for ever to his service-—why should we 
think the dedication of the Christian parent insufficient to 
pass an obligation on his child to serve that God who made 
him, that Jesus who redeemed him, and that good Spirit by. 
whom alone he can be sanctified?) Why therefore might not 
God appoint this to be done for children, by that only rite 
which he had instituted under the new covenant for entering 
any into the number of his federal servants? That they are 
capable by this rite of entering into covenant with God, so 
as to be enrolled in the number of his chosen generation, 
and peculiar people, and his holy nation, is evident; be- 
cause the Jewish infants obtained this privilege by virtue of 
their circumcision on the eighth day; which therefore St. 
Paul reckoneth among their privileges (Phil. iii. 5). And 
hence, when by their parents this circumcision was neglected, 
they are said to have broken his covenant (Gen. xvii. 14) : 
yea, that children are capable of entering into covenant with 
God, we learn from these words of Moses to all the people, 
Deut. xxix. 11, “ You stand this day before the Lord your 
God, you and your little ones, that thou shouldest enter into 
the covenant of the Lord thy God, that thou mayest be a 
people to him, and he may be thy God:” and if exclusion 
from the covenant was a loss to the child, as is apparent 
from those words, “ The infant not circumcised shall be cut 
off from my people,” which in the mildest sense must signify 
that he shall not be owned as one of them; surely it must 
be a blessing to him to enter into this covenant, 2. As they 


188 


are capable of obligation, by entering into covenant, so are 
they, by it, capable of those blessings which they want whilst 
children. Christian baptism is appointed for an entrance 
into the kingdom of God; “ for without that,” saith Christ, 
“we cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John iii. 5). 
By this we become members of his body, we being “all 
baptized into one body” (1 Cor. xii. 13) ; this is the “laver 
of regeneration,” by which we are born anew (Tit. iii. 5) ; 
this is the water instituted for the washing away of sin, and 
for procuring the remission of it (Acts ii. 38, xxii. 18): by 
this, lastly, we are put into a state of salvation (Tit. iii. 5), 
in the way to escape death, by the virtue of our interest in 
the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; for, 
saith St. Peter, baptism answers to the ark of Noah, which 
saved him and his children, for it now “saveth us” from 
death, “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Now either 
infants are made capable of those ends of baptism, or they 
are not; if they are not, they cannot, by the ordinary means 
appointed by God, be born again, and therefore cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God; they cannot be members of 
Christ's body, and so cannot be saved by him, who only is 
the “Saviour of his body,” or obtain remission of sins; 
they cannot be interested in Christ's death, and so can have 
no share in a happy resurrection from the dead. If they 
are capable of these blessings, it must be either by or with- 
out that baptism which is by Christ appointed for the ob- 
taining of these blessings; if only by baptism, the cause is 
gained; if without baptism, they who assert this must as- 
sign some other cause which procures them a right to these 
blessings, which I believe they cannot do. Moreover, in- 
fants of believing parents, being all the offspring of Adam, 
and therefore all obnoxions to death by reason of his sin 
(Rom. v. 12), they being “born of the flesh,’ and there- 
fore flesh (John iii. 6), and wanting a new birth on that ac- 
count, they being without Christ, and strangers to the cove- 
nant of promise (Eph. ii. 12), till they enter into covenant 
with God and Christ they cannot be delivered from this 
death, be born anew, or be in Christ, but by the grace of 
God, which Christ hath purchased for and promised to them 
only who are made some way members of his body and 
children of God. Why therefore should we not conceive 
they should obtain this favour by that means which is alone 
appointed by Christ for making any one a member of his 
body, and be born again by that water and Spirit, without 
which, saith our Lord, none can enter into the kingdom of 
God? In a word, seeing the infants of the Jewish parents 
were to be cut off from his people, and from a covenant re- 
lation to God, for want of circumcision, why should we think 
the children of Christian parents should enjoy all, or any of 
the blessings of the new covenant, without baptism 1 

Prop. V. I add, that no objections can be valid against 
the right of infants born of Christian parents to Christian 
baptism, which do not equally destroy the right of Jewish 
infants to circumcision; because they, by divine institution, 
had a right to circumcision. It is therefore no good arzu- 
ment against their right to baptism, 

First, That the end of baptism, viz. to be a visible sign 
of invisible grace, is wanting in the baptism of infants; 
baptism ceasing before the thing represented by water is 
signified to the infant: for, according to this argument, cir- 
cumcision could be no sacrament to a Jewish infant dying 
before he could perceive the signification of it, or know it 
was a seal of the covenant. Secondly, Though I own that 
baptism by water is baptism by a sign of some invisible 
grace, viz. the purifying of the soul from the guilt and pol- 
lution of sin; yet I deny that this is, by divine appointment, 
any end of baptism. ‘Thirdly, It is not necessary, by virtue 
of this school definition of a sacrament, which is not founded 
upon scripture, that a sacrament should, de presenti, be a 
sign to the recipient; for so it would not be to the person 
circumcised on the eighth day: but only that it be a sign, or 
an assurance to the parents and congregation, of God’s grace 
to, and favourable acceptance of, the child, and his admis- 
sion into the flock of Christ, who, by appointing for them the 
outward sign, shows he is willing to confer upon them the 
grace of baptism. 

When, Secondly, it is said, That “except the person to 
be baptized must be a believer and a penitent, there can be 
nig way to show who is to be baptized or not, nor any reason 


οι MATTHEW. 


to be given for the exclusion of any person whatsoever :” 
this also will be answered from the consideration of the prac- 
tice and institution concerning circumcision ; for that belong- 
ing to all children that were capable of that rite, baptism, by 
analogy, belongs to all children born of Christian parents, 
admitted into that covenant, where there is no difference of 
male and female (Gal. iii, 28), and are as capable of bap- 
tism as the male children of the Jews were of circumcision ; 
all born in holiness, i. e. seminally holy, as being the off- 
spring of them who were equally “a holy nation, a chosen 
generation, a peculiar people” (1 Pet. i. 9), and therefore 
as fit to be admitted into that covenant which made their 
parents so. Moreover, the practice of admitting proselytes 
to circumcision, from the first institution of it, seems to plead 
fairly for the admission of Christian infants to baptism. For 
as in the first institution of that rite, God commanded that 
he that was born in Abraham’s house, or bought with his 
money, should be circumcised; not that he was to be com- 
pelled to it (seing that would have been a profanation of 
that sacrament), but that Abraham was to persuade them to 
it; or if he could not do it he was to dismiss them; so that 
no adult person was to be circumcised without his free con- 
sent, and his instruction in the nature of the covenant into 
which he entered; and yet upon his entrance into covenant 
by circumcision, his children also were to be circumcised ; 
so may we reasonably conceive it is with reference to Chris- 
tian baptism. Now hence it follows, that infants are not to 
be excluded from baptism, 

First, By reason of their incapacity, whilst they continue 
infants, to understand the nature or the ends of baptism; 
the Jewish infants being as incapable, whilst they con- 
tinned so, to understand the nature or the ends of circum- 
cision. Or, 

Secondly, Because they cannot enter into covenant by 
their own personal consent, nor promise sincere obedience 
to the laws of Christ; for the Jewish infants entered into 
covenant with God without their personal consent, and 
were obliged to obey the law of Moses without this pro- 
mise. 

Thirdly, When therefore the antipedobaptists argue thus, 
That which makes baptism saving is the stipulation of a 
good conscience towards God (1 Pet. iii. 23); therefore 
baptism cannot be salutary to infants, who cannot make 
this stipulation:—this is as if I should say, The true cir- 
cumcision before God is not “the outward circumcision of 
the flesh, but the inward circumcision of the heart and spirit” 
(Rom. ii. 29); therefore the Jewish infants, for want of 
this, were not to be admitted into covenant with God by 
circumcision ; for the argument is plainly parallel; the an- 
swer of a good conscience is required that the baptism may 
be salutary, therefore they only are to be baptized who can 
make this answer; and the inward circumcision is required 
as the only acceptable circumcision in the sight of God, there- 
fore they only are to be circumcised who,have this inward 
circumcision of the heart. 

Prop. VI. The institution of baptism delivered in these 
words, “ Go, teach all nations, baptizing them,” &c. (Matt. 
xxvii. 19), or those, “He that believeth, and is baptized, 
shall be saved” (Mark xvi. 16), doth not infer an indirect 
or consequential prohibition of infant-baptism; because 
these words were not intended to exclude them from their 
former right of being admitted into covenant with their 
parents, but only to declare what was required of their 
parents to obtain a right of baptism, both for themselves 
and for their children. For (1.) had the commission given 
to Christ’s apostles run in these words, “Go, teach all na- 
tions, circumcising them,” would they have thought that 
infants of those nations had been excluded from circumcision 
by it, because they were incapable of being taught? could 
they especially have understood him thus, who knew their 
infants were circumcised at an age incapable of knowledge? 
Why therefore should we judge they thought infants excluded 
by these words, “Go, teach (or proselyte) all nations, bap- 
tizing them,” since it was equally the custom, in making 
proselytes to their religion, to teach them the fundamentals 
of the Jewish law; and upon their profession of the belief 
of it, not only to baptize them, but their infants also? The 
ger berith, or proselyte of the covenant of justice, was first 
to be instructed in the fundamentals of the law, the weight 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


or burden of it, the penalties and the rewards or blessings 
contained in it; and then to promise his submission to it; 
and yet none of these prerequisites excluded the infants of 
those proselytes, then born, from baptism or circumcision ; 
why therefore should the like conditions required of the 
J adult Christian proselyte exclude his children? Or, why 
should we imagine that those apostles should so apprehend 
these words, who knew full well that these conditions were 
required of the Jewish proselyte adult; and yet that by the 
sentence of the Sanhedrin, they stood obliged to baptize 
his children, as having right to baptism, by his parents’ 
faith? « 15 it reasonable,” saith Dr. Stillingfleet, “to think 
that when our Saviour bade the apostles gather the Jews and 
gentiles into a church-state, they should imagine infants 
were to be excluded from it; when the only nation that 
was in such a state, and all that were at any time admitted 
to it, had their infants so solemnly admitted?” ‘To this 
Mr. Tombs answers, (1.) That they who were born of that 
nation, were by birth, not by circumcision, visible members 
of that church. Now, ( were this true, it would evi- 
dently prove, that the infants of Christians are also visible 
members of Christ’s church, as having the same title to it 
as the Jewish infants had to be members of their church, to 
wit, that they are born of Christian parents; and why then 
are they admitted into that state of baptism, when they are 
adult? (2.) This is impertinent, it being certain that they 
could not continue members of that church without circum- 
cision, since the want of it renders them violaters of God’s 
covenant, and upon that account to be cut off by death, or 
by exclusion from that church. And (3.) this assertion 
contradicts both the words of the institution and the con- 
stant opinion which the whole Jewish nation had of it: for 
the words of the institution ran thus, Gen. xvii. 11, « This 
is my covenant;” i. e. the rite by which you shall enter into 
covenant with me: “ Ye shall circumcise the flesh of your 
foreskin ; and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me 
and you:” and ver. 13, “The child of the house shall be 
circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh.” The 
syndic or sponsor who held the child in his arms till it was 
circumcised, was called baal berith, the “ master of the cove- 
nant;” and when the child was circumcised, the father said, 
« Blessed be the Lord who hath commanded us to cause this 
child to enter into the covenant of Abraham ;” so certain it 
is that the whole Jewish nation thought they entered into 
covenant by this rite. 

Mr. Tombs saith that our Saviour’s words, Matt. xxviii. 
19, are to be expounded not according to the apprehensions 
of the apostles at first, for they mistook him, Acts x. 14, 
but as the words did express his meaning. 

Now I grant that the apostles mistook the meaning of 
those words, “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them,” think- 
ing the former words related only to the teaching of the Jews 
dispersed through the world, and to the proselytes of all na- 
tions they had made (Acts xi. 19). But this is much to 
our advantage: for sceing they did this in compliance with 
the received tradition of their own nation, that it was un- 
lawful to converse with the gentiles, as being uncircumcised 
and unclean, we may be more assured that they acted in 
baptizing them according to the received tradition of their 
nation, that rite being used by them to make the gentiles 
clean. 2. Our Lord was pleased to correct their error 
about the persons to be taught, by a miraculous vision 
vouchsafed to Peter: seeing then we read of nothing done 
to correct their other supposed error, we have no reason to 
believe it was an error, but rather to judge it a true inter- 
pretation of the extent of their commission. It being there- 

fore unquestionable among those disciples to whom our 
Lord directed this commission, that the children of the Jews 
and proselytes were admitted to enter into covenant by the 
same rite and ceremony by which their parents did so; 
though they were as incapable of understanding the ends 
of the institution, or doing what was required of the parents 
to fit them for the institution, as our children are; that 
being thought sufficient for their admission, quod ἃ parenti- 
bus eorum factum fuit, “which the parents did by their own 
free choice and faith:” it being also evident that our Lord 
chose that baptism for the admission of persons into his new 
covenant and church by which their proselytes were cleansed 
and fitted to enter into the Jewish church ; what cause have 


189 


we to think either that Christ’s disciples would not so under- 
stand his commission, as to extend it to the same persons 
who formerly were admitted by the same rite, or that Christ 
did not intend it so, as to include the infants of believing 
parents? And then the admission of them must not be 
thought an alteration of Christ’s institution, or an addition 
to it; but only a right understanding of it, and as an insti- 
tution of baptism, instead of that circumcision, which was 
to cease under the new covenant, it being only a rite ap- 
pointed for the entrance into the old. In fine, suppose 
some persons sent to the Indians from churches which retain 
infant-baptism, with this commission, Go, teach the Indians, 
baptizing them; could they who were thus sent conceive 
the intent of this commission was to exclude the infants of 
believing Indians? If not, then must it not be thought our 
Saviour’s pyrpose to exclude them by the like words spoken 
to them, who baptize the infants of believing parents, and 
which were necessary for such a commission as sent them to 
the unbelieving world. For though this commission, as Mr, 
Tombs says, went from our Saviour, and not from the Jewish 
church ; yet since it was a commission given to persons, who, 
even after they had owned the true Messiah, and had re- 
ceived the Holy Ghost, were very tenacious of their Jewish 
rites: and since it concerned a rite of common use in their 


| church, and by which they cleansed the infants of all those 


who came into covenant with God as proselytes, applying to 
them the same rite by which their parents were fitted to 
enter into covenant; our Lord in this his institution ex- 
pressing no dislike to that way, and saying nothing of the 
unsuitableness of it to a gospel-state, must, in all reason be 
supposed to approve the doing of it after the manner of 
that church, And, lastly, this will farther be confirmed by 
returning a clear answer to the arguments produced to prove 
that infants are excluded by the words of this commis- 
sion. As, 

Arg. 1. It is not lawful (saith Mr. Tombs), where 
Christ hath assigned the thing to be done, expressing the 
qualification of the person, to do it to others, or otherwise : 

[ answer, Hence it only follows, that no heathens are to 
be baptized till they be first taught to believe in Christ: 
extend it farther, and, (1.) it cuts off all the members of a 
Christian church from baptism: for the argument runs as 
strongly thus, Where Christ hath appointed the thing to be 
done, and expressed the qualification of the person, it is 
not lawful to do it to others; but the only persons assigned 
in this commission to be taught and baptized, are τὰ ἔϑνη, 
the heathens or unbelieving gentiles; therefore it is not law- 
ful to teach or baptize a Jew, or any persons who were 
never heathens: and so the quakers and Socinians, who 
deny water-baptism to be a standing ordinance, must be 
in the right. (2.) It was not lawful for the Jews either to 
baptize or circumcise a heathen till he was taught the 
fundamentals of the Jewish law; but will it hence follow, 
that it was unlawful either to baptize or circumcise their 
children before? And yet the case is parallel: for teach- 
ing was undoubtedly the qualification assigned for the 
adult heathen to be admitted a proselyte of justice, and 
therefore by this rule it was not lawful to admit his children. 

Arg. 2. They who are to be baptized must be taught 
to observe all things which Christ commanded his apostles. 

Ans. 1. The text doth not say they must be first taught 
all these things, but rather they must be first taught to 
believe in Christ, then baptized, and after taught to ob- 
serve all Christ’s commands; and this interpretation is certain 
from the practice of the apostles, who instantly baptized 
whole houses on the belief of some, or all of them, that 
« Jesus was the Christ,” without any farther teaching. 2. 
The heathen who was to be admitted as a proselyte of justice, 
was to be first taught the fundamentals of the law of Moses, 
before he either was baptized or circumcised: but was it 
therefore requisite that his children should first be taught? 
Again, all that were born in Abraham's house, or bought 
with his money, being his own, are to be circumcised ; as for 
those taken in war, Abraham was to persuade them to it; 
and if they would not be persuaded, to dismiss or sell them ; 
if, being of age, they consented to be circumcised (for to 
compel them to receive circumcision had been a profanation 
of that ordinance), must therefore their children be circum- 
cised only when they could consent? ᾿ 


190 


Arg. 3. “Go, teach all nations, baptizing them,” cannot 
be meant of them whilst infidels, but when taught to believe, 
and so when made disciples. 

Ans. It was as absolutely necessary that heathens should 
be first taught to renounce their idolatry, and to believe in 
Christ, before they were baptized in his name, as it was ne- 
cessary for idolatrous heathens to own the true God, and to 
believe the law of Moses, before they were admitted pro- 
selytes of justice, and so baptized and circumcised: but as 
it was not therefore necessary that their children should so 
believe, that they might enter by the same rites into the same 
covenant; so neither is it necessary for children born of be- 
lieving parents under the gospel-state. 

Arg. 4. To be baptized in the name of Christ, is to own 
Christ, as it appears from the words of the apostle, “ Were 
you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor. i. 13.) 

Ans. 1. This argument is built upon a false, or, at the 
least, an unnecessary interpretation of the apostle’s words, 
which may well bear this sense, Stand you obliged by bap- 
tism to have Paul for your master, to yield obedience to 
him, or Christ? And then, as the infant was obliged by 
circumcision to yield obedience to the law of Moses, so may 
the Christian infant be obliged by baptism to yield obedience 
to the law of Christ. 

Secondly, The apostle here plainly speaks of those he 
had converted from heathenism to the faith of Christ, and 
therefore must be obliged by their baptism to own Christ as 
their Saviour ; but hence it will not follow, that their child- 
ren may not be baptized till they could do so. The adult 
persons who were admitted as proselytes to the Jewish re- 
ligion, were first obliged to own the God of Israel as the 
true God, and the law of Moses as derived from him: but 
yet when they had done this, their infants were admitted 
both to baptism and circumcision, though they could do 
neither of these things. 

Prop. VII. Had Christ intended to exclude the infants 
of believing parents from this sacrament, there was great 
reason for his especial prohibition, but little indeed of his 
command upon his intention to admit them, or of express 
naming them in a commission to baptize, directed to the 


members to the Jewish church, to whom pedobaptism, saith 
Dr. Lightfoot, was so well known, usual and frequent in the 
admission of proselytes, that nothing almost was more known 
or frequent. 

First, “ There was no need,” saith he, “to strengthen it 
with any other precept than that which converted baptism 
into an evangelical sacrament; for Christ took baptism into 
his hands, and converted it into an evangelical precept, as 
he found it; this only added, that he might promote it to 
a more worthy end and nobler use. ‘The whole nation 
knew well enough that little children used to be baptized, 
there was no need of an (express) precept for that which 
had ever by common use prevailed. If a royal proclama- 
tion should now issue out in these words, ‘ Let every one 
on the Lord’s day resort to the public assemblies in the 
church,’ would it be reasonable thence to argue, that prayer, 
hearing of sermons, singing of psalms, were not to be per- 
formed in the public on the Lord’s day, because there was 
no mention of them in the proclamation? there being no 
need to make mention of the particular kinds of divine 
worship to be celebrated there, when they were always and 
every where well known, and always in use before the pro- 
clamation. The case is the very same in baptism; Christ 
instituted it for an evangelical sacrament, whereby all should 
be admitted into the gospel covenant, as heretofore it was 
used for admission of proselytes to the Jewish religion : the 
particulars belonging to it—as, the manner of baptizing, the 
age, the sex to be baptized, &c. had no need of a special 
rule, because they were by common use of them sufficiently 
known to the most ignorant men.” 

On the other hand, there was need of a plain and open 
prohibition that infants and little children should not be 
baptized, if Christ would not have them baptized; for 
since it was common before for the whole nation of the 
Jews to baptize them, had Christ designed to have that 
custom abolished, “it is reasonable to presume he would 
have openly forbid it: therefore his silence, and the si- 
lence of the scripture in this matter, is a confirmation of 
the received practice.’ This Mr. Tombs retorts thus, “If | 


MATTHEW. 


Christ had intended to continue infant-baptism, had there 
not been great reason he should have positively told us so?” 
But had he considered that Christ spake not to us, but to 
them who were Jews, and that he did this when he was giving 
this commission to them whom he found still very tena- 
cious of their formers rites, he would have seen it more rea- 
sonable to conceive, that had Christ intended a prohibition 
of that rite for the future, and by it so great an alteration of 
the state of infants in reference to their church-membership, 
he had far greater reason positively to say he intended that 
alteration of the state of infants, than by his silence tacitly 
to permit them to go on still in the observation of that rite : 
since they who were so unwilling to understand his plain 
commission of preaching to the gentiles, contrary to their 
received traditions, would be more unlikely to understand 
his silence as a prohibition of the like tradition. 

Prop. VIII. We have great reason to conceive that 
Christ and his apostles did admit of infants’ baptism, and 
thought the practice of it lawful and suitable to the gospel- 
state: for, (1.) it is certain that our Lord’s disciples thought 
Christ’s command “to teach all nations” concerned only the 
Jews and proselytes of justice of all nations, for they still 
looked on all the gentiles as unclean, though they were 
proselytes of the gate, and deemed it unlawful to go in to 
or converse with the gentiles (Acts x. 28, xi. 3). And this 
opinion they held after they had baptized thousands; and 
could they then imagine that his commission excluded 
those who by the law of Moses were admitted to cireum- 
cision, and by their constant custom were baptized toge- 
ther with their proselyted and believing parents? Since, 
notwithstanding the teaching prerequisite to the admission 
of adult proselytes of justice, and their especial caveat de 
iis non nisi sponte circumcidendis, “ of not cireumcising them 
without their consent,” they both baptized and circumcised 
their infants, must they not also be supposed to have dealt 
thus with the infants of their proselyted parents to Chris- 
tianity ? especially considering that they thought of nothing 
less than of the changing the customs and traditions then 
received among them (Acts xx. 21) : among which this was 
one, That he is no proselyte who is not baptized as well as 
circumcised,* and that without this he is still a gentile, and 
unholy. (2.) That baptism is a rite of initiation to Christians, 
as circumcision was to the Jews, appears from the apostle’s 
declaration, Col. ii. 12, that “in Christ we are circumcised 
with the circumcision made without hands, and consisting in 
the putting off the body of sin,” we being “buried with 
him in baptism,” and thence concluding we do not need the 
circumcision of the flesh ; whence it may justly be inferred, 
that baptism is Christ’s ordinance for the admission of in- 
fants of believing parents into the church of Christ, as cir- 
cumcision was of old for the admission of the infants of the 
Jews into his church and covenant: for ifit had been other- 
wise, and the infants under Christianity had not been received 
by any federal rite into covenant with God, the objection 
of the necessity of circumcision as to them would have been 
still in force, they entering into covenant by no other rite, 
and so remaining strangers from the church, and as much 
aliens from the adoption, the covenant, and promises, as 
the gentiles were; which sure the Jews would have objected 
to the reproach of Christianity, if truly they could have 
done it; for the more averse to Christianity they were the 
more ready would they be by such arguments as these to 
show the imperfection of that institution, and the advantage 
of the Jew on this account above the Christian. For in- 
stance, it was hotly disputed, Acts xv., whether the believing 
gentiles were to be received into the church by circumcision 
or not; and this question, as far as it concerned the be- 
lieving gentiles, was carried by the council in the negative : 
they then who were concerned for the affirmative, being 
Christians, must either think the children of such persons 
about whom they disputed were to be admitted by some 
other way, or not; if so, what other way, besides that of 
baptism, can be imagined? if not, they must conclude them 
unclean, excluded from God’s church and favour, and from 
all the blessings they ascribed to circumcision. The Chris- 
tian institution therefore must, for the satisfaction of their 
believing parents, afford some wav of sanctifying these in- 


* Seld. p. 39. 25. 


APPENDIX. 


fants, or of admitting them into the number of God’s peo- 
ple ; which being confessedly no other than that of baptism, 
it must be supposed to allow that to them; that by it, in 
the phrase of Irenwus, infantes et parvuli renascantur in 
Deum ;* infants and little children may be regenerated. 

In a word, infants are thought capable of the remission 
of sin, and therefore of that baptism which is instituted for 
the remission of sin ; they being “ born of the flesh, are flesh,” 
and therefore need some way or other to be born anew; 
and since they cannot be thus begotten by the word, what 
more likely way can be imagined than that this new birth 
should pass upon them by the “ laver of regeneration” (Tit. 
iii. 5), or that they should be born again “ of water and of 
the Holy Ghost,” that they may be members of Christ’s 
body, he being only “ the Saviour of his body,” and therefore 
must be capable of that ordinance by which we are all 
“baptized into one body?” They are capable of entering 
into the kingdom of God, into which they cannot enter, 
saith our Lord, except they be “born of water and the Holy 
Ghost ;” they may obtain a blessed resurrection, and there- 
fore must be buried with Christ in baptism. Deny all, or 
any of these things to infants, and they are lost for ever. 
Christ must have died as to them in vain, they being yet in 
their sin, and without Christ, in their unregenerated estate, 
incapable of entering into the kingdom of God, and of a 
blessed resurrection; and so it must have been better for 
them, dying in their infancy, that they had never been. 
Christ must have no real kindness for them, and their con- 
dition must be far worse under the gospel than it was under 
the law, when they had both the seal and promise given to 
them that “God would be their God.” That they are capa- 
ble of all these blessings, by virtue of their baptism, pro- 
vided they be capable subjects of it, is evident from those 
scriptures, which ascribe all these blessings to persons duly 
receiving baptism, and do not, by any unworthy act, render 
themselves unworthy of them. 

7 Ver 20. ᾿Εγὼ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας, ἕως τῆς 
συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος, And, lo, I am with you always to the 
end of the world.| That these words contain a promise of 
Christ’s presence with and assistance of the ministers of the 
gospel throughout all ages of the world, is evident from the 
words πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας, “at all times” (or always): for had 
our Lord made this promise with relation to the apostles’ 
only, he would have said πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας ὑμῶν, “all your 
days:” and it is still more evident from the following words, 
ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος, for that they are duly rendered, 
“to the end of the world,” is evident from the continual use 
of them elsewhere, especially in this evangelist, who in one 
chapter uses this phrase three times concerning the general 
judgment, which is to be at the end of the world, viz. xiii. 
39, 40. 49, and xxiv. 3, of that time which the Jews 
thought contemporary with the general resurrection, and so 
with the end of the world. For, as Dr. Lightfoot notes on 
the place, the Jews held, that at the coming of the Messiah 
the whole world should be destroyed, and there should be a 
renovation of it. And (3.) this may be farther argued from 
the apparent falsehood of the new exposition of these words, 
Behold, Γ will be with you till the end of the Jewish age, 
or till the destruction of Jerusalem; seeing, according to 
this interpretation, Christ, sending servants to preach his 
gospel to all the heathen nations, doth only promise his pre- 
sence with them till the Jewish church was subverted ; but 
not when, after the subversion of it, the churches of the 
gentiles were chiefly to be erected : yea, then no person, no, 
not the evangelist St. John, had any commission from 
Christ to preach the gospel to the heathen nations any 
longer, nor any promise of Christ’s assistance with them ; 
which yetis plainly false, seeing the promise of Christ’s mira- 
culous assistance made in the parallel place, Mark xvi. 16. 18, 
continued sensibly till the beginning of the fourth century. 


APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. IL. 


Concerning the import of that phrase, ἵνα πληρωθῇ, 
“That it might be fulfilled,” &c. 


Hene being many things said to be done, ἵνα or ὅπως πλη- 
* Lib. ii. cap. 39. 


191 


ρωθῇ, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the 
prophet, saying,” thus or thus; I think it needful to say 
something of the true import of that phrase, by way of in- 
quiry, Whether it sometimes only notes that such an action 
may by accommodation be said to be the fulfilling of the 
words of the prophet cited; because they were more sig- 
nally accomplished by that action than by the actions to 
which they in the prophet do relate, though no such thing 
was by the prophet, or by the Spirit of God, intended, when 
the words were spoken? Or, Whether it be necessary, b 
virtue of those words, to say the Holy Ghost intended that 
those words should be more signally accomplished by some 
actions or passages which were afterward to happen? In 
answer to which question I say ; 

First, That when the phrase runs thus, “ This was done 
ἵνα Or ὄὅπῶς πληρωθῇ, i. 6. to this end, that such or such a 
prophecy might be fulfilled ;” I think it necessary to say, 
that the very completion of it by that action should be in- 
tended by the Holy Ghost, since otherwise that action can, 
in no propriety of speech, be said to be performed for that 
end. 

Obj. The only considerable instance to the contrary is 
taken from those words of St. John, xii. 38, 39, «But 
though he had done so many miracles among them, they be- 
lieved not, ἵνα πληρωθῆ, that the saying of Isaiah might be 
fulfilled, viz. Who hath believed our report?” &c. For seeing 
the prediction of the prophet could be no cause of their in- 
fidelity, it seems improper to affirm that they believed not 
that this prediction might be verified. 

Ans. To this I answer, That in all predictions of evil ac- 
tions to be performed by free agents, or agents capable of 
being diverted from them by providential actions, or strong 
impressions made upon their spirits, there is not only a fore- 
knowledge that the actions, if providence interpose not, will 
be done, but a decree or declaration that providence will not 
interpose to hinder them, but will permit such persons to 
act according to their evil inclinations. So that the import 
of these words may be only this: That God, foreseeing the 
infidelity of the Jews, left them to the blindness and hard- 
ness of their own hearts, permitting them to continue in it, 
that the saying of Isaiah might be fulfilled. So that though 
the prediction was not the proper and internal cause of their 
infidelity, yet was the completion of it the final cause of the 
divine permission ; and therefore the action, though he be 
no way productive of it, or obliged to hinder it, yet being a 
permission by way of punishment of men’s evil dispositions, 
in such cases is ascribed to God; as when God is said to 
“send among men strong delusions to believe a lie, because 
they receive not the truth in the love of it, but had plea- 
sure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. ii. 10—12). 

Secondly, Of the places where this phrase ἵνα or ὅπως 
πληρωϑῇ, “That it might be fulfilled,” occurs, I thus distin- 
guish; that in some of them the Jews might know, before 
the doing of the action, that such a thing was by the pro- 
phet intended or designed to be fulfilled by the coming of 
their Messiah ; as, v. g. that “a virgin should conceive and 
bear a son,” Isa. vii. 14, Matt. i. 23, that “their Messiah 
was to die for the sins of the people,” Isa. liii. 7, 8, Matt. 
xxvi. 54, that he should “come riding on a colt, the foal of 
an ass,” Zech. ix. 9, Matt. xxi. 4, 5, that his side should be 
pierced, Zech. xii. 10, John xix. 37, it being natural for the 
Jews to inquire touching such words as these, “ Of whom 
speaketh the prophet this?” And hence we find their 
doctors by tradition did expound these words of the Mes- 
siah. 

Moreover, it being so expressly foretold, and generally 
received among the Jews, that their Messiah was to be the 
“Son of David,’ and therefore to resemble him, that no- 
thing is more common in their writings than to apply to 
him the words of David, and even to call him David, after 
the example of the holy prophets, Ezek. xxxiv. 23, 24, 
xxXvii. 24, 25, Hos. iii. 5, saying of their king Messiah, 
David shemiah, « David is his name” (see Dr. Pocock on 
Hos. iii. 5, and Pugio Fidei, par. ii. cap. 5, §. 8): I say, 
this being so, it could not be difficult for them to believe or 
conceive the words spoken by or relating to David might, 
by the intention of God, have a higher or more eminent 
completion in this second David their king; thus that, by 
his speaking in parables (Matt. xiii. ΝΣ that of the psalm 
ist might be more eminently fulfilled, «I will open my 


192 
mouth in parables” (Ps. Ixxviii. 2); that by the providen- 
tial preservation of his bones from being broken, that which 
the same psalmist saith of the righteous man should be more 
eminently fulfilled in him, “He keepeth all his bones, so 
that not one of them is broken” (Ps. xxxiv. 20); that by 
the treachery of Judas in betraying his master (John xiii. 
18), that which was spoken of Ahithophel’s counsel against 
David might have a more eminent completion in our Lord, 
viz. “ He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel 
against me.” In all these things, I say, there could be no- 
thing strange to the Jews, who, as their Targum on the 
Psalms demonstrates, do expound places more obscurely, if 
at all relating to him, of their king Messiah. And this they 
had greater reason to believe, when, by their own confession, 
the psalm from which the words are cited, doth relate to 
Christ, and the words cited were not verified of David; as 
when, by the soldiers’ parting of Christ’s garments, and cast- 
ing lots for his coat that was without seam, John xix. 24, 
that of Ps. xxii. 19 is said to be fulfilled, “They parted my 
garments among them, and for my vesture did they cast 
lots.” F 

But then in other instances it was not necessary that the 
Jews should understand, nor is it easy to conceive how, 
without teaching, they could understand, they were to be 
accomplished in their Messiah ; or by these actions done by 
him, to which they are applied by the evangelist; as, v. g. 
that the words of Hosea, xi. 1, “ @ut of Egypt have I called 
my son,” should be accomplished by God’s calling his Son 
Christ out of Egypt (Matt. ii. 15) ; or how that which was 
said by the prophets, of Christ’s being despised and re- 
jected, should be made good by Christ’s dwelling at Naza- 
reth (ver. 23); or that by the coming of the Messiah to 
them, the land of Zabulon and Nephthalim should be en- 
lightened (Matt. iv. 15); that by the doing of his miracles 
in such secrecy, and without contention, that of the prophet 
should be fulfilled, “ He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor 
cause his voice to be heard in the streets” (Isa. xlii. 2): all 
these, I say, are things the Jews could never know, unless 
they did receive it by tradition that they were things re- 
lating to the Messiah promised to them. 

But then I add, that there was no necessity they should 
beforehand know that any of these things were thus in- 
tended by the prophets, they being not produced by the 
evangelists to prove our Jesus must be the Messiah pro- 
mised to the Jews, or to convince the infidel; but only as 
instances which they, by the same Spirit which spake by 
the prophets, were assured did belong unto him; and of 
this all the believing Jews and gentiles might be assured by 
the authority of the evangelists, whom they saw assisted by 
the same Spirit which moved the prophets, and thereby 
equally enabled to give us the true interpretation and in- 
tendment of them. From what is here laid down it fol- 
lows, 

First, That it is no sufficient objection against this asser- 
tion, that if these mystical senses were intended by the pro- 
phets, or by the Holy Ghost speaking by them, the Jews 
could never understand these prophecies before the event. 
For it was sufficient that they might be understood by them 
in the primary and literal sense of them before, and that 
after the event they might be understood by them in the 
mystical sense also, by virtue of that explication which 
men, assisted by the same Spirit which did at first indite 
them, gave of them, or in which they averred they were 
again fulfilled. And I hope it is no objection against the 
predictions contained in the Revelation of St. John, that 
we do not at present understand them, it being sufficient 
that Christians shall understand them in those times in 
which they are to be fulfilled. Nor, 

Secondly, Is it advisedly said, that the authority of the 
apostles is not in these passages produced as that which 
added strength to their reasonings: for in these passages they 
never do pretend to reason, but barely to assert; and surely 
the authority of men delivering these things by virtue of the 
Spirit “sent down from heaven to teach them all things,” 
and “lead them into all truth,” must be sufficient to prove 
the truth of what they say concerning all these places: 
now this authority the apostles and evangelists must ascribe 
to themselves in all these writings, or the whole church of 
Christ must be continually mistaken in receiving the gospels 


MATTHEW. 


written by them as the word of God, and the unquestion- 
able rules of faith; for if you only have recourse to their 
honesty in relating things, you never will persuade men to 
believe, that by the strength of memory they could record, 
not only all they could have delivered of Christ’s actions, 
but all his sermon on the mount, and his long discourses in 
St. John, especially ch. vi. and ch. xiii. to xvii. so exactly, 
as that we can be certain they did in nothing vary from the 
true meaning of the words of Christ; especially if the gos- 
pel of St. John was written, as is supposed, almost seventy 
years after the words recorded in it had been spoken by our 
Lord. It therefore either must be said, that the Holy 
Spirit promised to them for that end did “ bring these things 
to their remembrance,” and did enable them, by “compar- 
ing spiritual things with spiritual,’ thus to apply these 
places to their particular events; or it must be owned that 
these gospels, in which these passages are so applied, and all 
these long discourses are recited, are of no certainty, and so 
can be to us no rule of faith. 

Moreover, let it be noted, that they neither did nor could 
they take it for granted, that any of these places should be 
so explained, by reason of any received tradition of the 
Jews; there being no such explication of them to be found 
in any of their Targums, or cited by those who have con- 
versed most in the rabbinical and cabalistical expositions of 
the Jews. In a word, either these supposed traditionary ex- 
positions were intended by the Holy Ghost, or they were 
not; if they were, the apostles delivered a certain truth, 
when they said these things were done “that it might be 
fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets;” if they were 
not, they must be guilty of a manifest untruth, in declaring 
they were done that the scriptures, or the sayings of the pro- 
phets, might be fulfilled; when, by the doing of them, only 
the false and extravagant traditions of the Jews were accom- 
plished, but nothing at.all was done which the Holy Ghost 
intended in the inditing of those scriptures. 

Thirdly, I add, that when the words run only thus, τότε 
ἐπληρώθη, “Then was fulfilled” such a thing spoken by the 
prophets, though I see no necessity of so doing, we may 
admit of a completion by way of accommodation. That 
there is no necessity of granting this, I hope I have made 
appear in my notes on Matt. ii. 17, xxvii. 9, the only places 
where this phrase is used; yet, since the end of doing such 
an action is not here expressed, and therefore the same rea- 
son of any farther intention of the Holy Ghost doth not 
here obtain, I say, we may in these cases admit of an ac- 
commodation. And having thus said what doth sufficiently 
answer all that Mr. Clere and Woltzogenius say on this sub- 
ject, I proceed, with all due respect both to the piety and 
learning of Mr. Dodwell, to consider what Mr. Clere here 
citeth from him. And, 

First, Whereas he supposes God did intend the prophe- 
cies which were committed to writing, and enrolled in the 
public canon of the church, should be understood by the 
persons concerned in them:—I grant this, when they are 
concerned in them, i. e. when they are fulfilled by the 
event: but will any man hence infer that the Jews must 
rightly understand in every age the prophecies of Jacob, 
Gen. xlix.; or the song of Moses, Deut. xxxiii.; or EzekiePs 
description of the temple, from ch. xl. to the end; or Daniel’s 
prophecies, ch. ix. and xi.; or that the Christians must 
in all ages understand the contents of the Revelations of St. 
John, which were to be sent to the churches, and which un- 
doubtedly concern what should befall them? Old Jacob 
saith to his sons, “ Come, I will tell you what shall befall 
you in the last days,” Gen. xlix. 1, then he prophesies of 
Simeon and Levi thus; “I will divide them in Jacob, and 
scatter them in Israel:” of Judah, that “he is a lion’s 
whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up,” ver. 9; 
that “Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two 
burdens,” ver. 14; that “Dan should judge his people,” 
viz. by Samson, of the tribe of Dan, ver. 16, and he should 
be “a serpent in the way, and an adder in the path,” &c. 
ver. 17; of Gad, that “a troop should invade him,” i. e. 
the Ammonites and Moabites, and that he should «over- 
come at the last,” viz. by Jephthah, the Gileadite, ver. 19 ; 
that “« Naphtali is a hind let loose, he giveth goodly words,” 
ver. 21. Now what necessity is there, or what probability, 
that his sons, or the Jews, should presently understand the 


APPENDIX. 


import of these mystical expressions, which were to be ful- 
filled by such persons as Samson and Jephthah, of whom 
they could have no knowledge ; and by such providences as 
the choosing the tribe of Levi to be God’s inheritance, and 
settling the sceptre in the line of David, of which they then 
knew nothing? ‘These prophecies must therefore, many of 
them, be expounded only by the event. 

Secondly, When he adds, That prophecies committed to 
writing, and designedly propagated to future ages, must 
needs have been of a general and permanent concernment : 
I beg leave to say, it is sufficient that they be of concern- 
ment to those ages in which they are to be fulfilled; for 
otherwise experience shows the Jews had no just notions 
of Ezekiel’s visions, or of Daniel’s prophecies, or the pro- 
phecies of Zechariah; nor have the Christians any certain 
interpretation of many prophecies contained in the Reve- 
lation. If indeed they be prophecies designed for the sup- 
port and comfort of his people under their circumstances, as 
the prophecy of the return of the Jews from their captivity 
in Babylon, after seventy years; or prophecies containing 
any promise respecting the coming of the Messiah, and 
pointing out the time when they were to expect him, as that 
of their Messiah suddenly coming to his temple, Mal. iii. 1, 
and the Desire of all nations filling that house with glory, 
Hag. ii. 7, these being prophecies by which their faith was 
to be strengthened, and all their hopes erected, it may rea- 
sonably be expected that in such cases they should have 
some present knowledge of the import of them, though 
much inferior to that which the event and actual completion 
of them would afford. And therefore as many “ prophets 
and righteous men desired to see these things,” and there- 
fore understood the import of them, Matt. xiii. 17, so saith 
St. Peter, was it “revealed, that not unto themselves, but 
unto us, they did minister those things” (1 Pet. i. 11, 12). 
But then, when the predictions were of things merely typical, 
and related not to the literal and primary import of the 
words, but only to a mystical sense of them, to be accom- 
plished by an event which afterward should happen, it is suf 
ficient that they might know this mystical import of them by 
the event. So, ν᾿ g. when Jacob saith of Simeon and Levi, 
«J will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel” 

Gen. xlix. 7), it was sufficient that they then understood 
the meaning of these words, when it so fell out, that the pos- 
terity of Simeon had no separate inheritance by themselves, 
but only a portion in the midst of the tribe of Judah (Josh. 
xix. 1. 9), and when the tribe of Levi was dispersed among 
all the tribes; nor have we any reason to believe they un- 
derstood this before. 

Thirdly, When he adds, That “the church concerned in 
these prophecies cannot be only those ages which were to 
survive the accomplishment, but also those before, because 
the only momentous reason that must be conceived concern- 
ing these as well as other revelations, must be some duty 
which could not otherwise be known ;” I desire him to show 
upon what duty, which could not otherwise be known, 
depended the true interpretation of Ezekiel’s visions, or 
Daniel’s prophecies, or the words of Jacob now cited, or 
many passages in the Revelation which are yet mysterious: 
and why this postnate knowledge might not serve to illus- 
trate the divine prescience, so as to confirm the Christians 
in what they did believe already, and for the conviction both 
of Jews and infidels, when the event was, by men so mira- 
culously assisted by the Holy Ghost, declared to be a com- 
pletion of these prophecies; the author of the Revelation 
having said, that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of 
prophecy” (Rev. xix. 10), I do not understand. 

And whereas he insists much on the word « revelations,” 
which name he thinks these prophecies could not deserve, 
unless they could be understood by ordinary means without 
new revelations: I answer, that as the writings of Ezekiel 
and Daniel are never called revelations, but only visions, and 
those of the Revelation are so styled, not as made known, 
as to their import, to the churches, but as revealed to St. 
John; so it is evident from the New Testament, that there 
was need of a new spirit of prophecy to understand the 
mysteries of the Old ‘Testament; and of a revelation or ex- 
traordinary assistance of the Holy Spirit, to know that such 
passages of the prophets belonged to such actions of our 
Lord, and such transactions relating to the »ropagation of 

Vor. IV.—25 


193 


the gospel ; nor will any man be able to establish the appli- 
cation made of them to such passages on any other foot; 
and in like manner, when the fullness of the gentiles shall 
come in, and the body of the Jews shall be gathered to the 
Christian faith, I know not why a new effusion of the Spirit 
may not be expected. 

In a word, when I shall see this learned person, by his 
skill in oneirocrities, expounding either Ezekiel’s visions, or 
the Revelation of St. John, from ch. vi. to xx. then only 
shall I begin to think it not incredible, that skill in the art 
of oneirocritics was the means by God designed for the ex- 
pounding those visions, prophecies, and revelations (see 
Grotius on Matt. i. 22). 


APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. V. 


Relating to the question, viz—Whether the duties there 
enjoined by Christ did really belong to the scope and in- 
tention of the moral law, and rather were corrections of 
the misapprehensions of the scribes and pharisees about 
it, than additions to it; or were indeed precepts not con- 
tained in, but by himself superadded to the moral law? 


Iv answer to this question, I say, 

First, Whatsoever Christ doth here, it must be confessed, 
that elsewhere he hath added to the law of nature, or the 
moral law, viz. when he commands Christians to “love one 
another, as he hath loved them;” i. e. so as “to lay down 
their lives for the brethren” (1 John iii. 16). For I know 
no law of nature or Moses that required this before, nor 
did the reason of it, viz. Christ’s laying down his life for us, 
obtain before ; and therefore this is styled his commandment 
by way of excellency, John xv. 12, 13, yea, his “new com- 
mandment,” John xiii. 34, 1 John ii. 8 (see the note there). 

Secondly, I grant that Christ hath added to the permis- 
sive laws of Moses, or rather hath restrained Christians from 
acting suitably to those permissions; v. g. whereas the law 
of Moses permitted a man to divorce his wife, if such “ found 
not favour in his eyes,” by reason of “some matter of un- 
cleanness in her” (Deut. xxiv. 1); that is, as the Jews in- 
terpret that clause, something that rendered her disgusted 
by and offensive to him: Christ plainly hath forbidden all 
divorces upon any other cause than that of fornication ; but 
then he doth this, not by introducing a new law, but by re- 
viving an old one, and showing, that “no man ought to put 
asunder those whom God,” by his first institution of matri- 
mony, had joined together and “ made one.” 

He hath also added to the law of retaliation; but then, 
according to the constant doctrine of the Jews, that law, 
though it bound the judge to execute it, when by the suf 
ferer he was required so to do, yet it bound not the sufferer 
to require that execution; and therefore in respect of him 
it only was permissive, and this permission Christ seems to 
have restrained, not by imposing any new law, but by pre- 
ferring to it the laws of charity and mercy, and of a peace- 
able disposition, under lesser and therefore tolerable injuries ; 
which thing is suitable to the law of nature: and by restrain- 
ing us from gratifying our revenge, or our displeasure against 
any person, or desiring his hurt, when we receive no benefit 
or advantage by it, and from resisting force by force to our 
greater damage; or going to law for lesser matters, to the 
scandal of our profession, or the impairing of brotherly cha- 
rity and friendship. 

Moreover, there seems to be, even in the words of Christ, 
this signal difference betwixt his manner of speaking of the 
permissive laws of Moses and of the precepts of the de- 
calogue ; for treating of the latter, he still saith, “ Ye have 
heard it hath been said to them of old;” but of the former 
he only saith, “ Ye have heard that it hath been said” (ver. 
31. 38. 43): which by the way shows that those words, 
“Thou shalt hate thine enemy,” are not preceptive, but per- 
missive only ; and that they contain a permission not given 
by God, but by the pharisees to do so (see the note on ver. 
43 


Now this concession gives a sufficient answer to that ob- 
jection, that Christ here doth not oppose the doctrine of the 
scribes and pharisees, but the permission of divorce and ef 

R " 


194 


retaliation, allowed by the law of Moses; it being granted 
that Christ hath given precepts transcending these permis- 
sive laws of Moses, occasioned by the stubborness of the 
Jewish nation, and by “the hardness of their hearts,” and 
denied only that he hath added any thing to the true scope 
and intention of the moral law. 

So also when it is added that Christ gives such precepts 
of which we find no footsteps in the law of Moses, as those 
of not resisting evil, but rather turning the other cheek; 
and therefore in them seems not to explain the old, but to 
have given a new law: 

It is granted, that in these words he gives a new law op- 
posed to the positive permissive law of ¢alio ; but then it is 
denied that he, discoursing of the preceptive moral laws, hath 
added any thing to them which was not virtually contained 
in them. And therefore, 

Thirdly, I add, that according to all the rules given by di- 
vines for the interpretation of the decalogue, what our Lord 
adds unto the letter of the third, the sixth, and the seventh 
commandments, must be contained under the genuine import 
of those precepts: for these are two known rules relating to 
that subject, viz. 

First, That where any vice is forbidden, that must be con- 
sequentially forbidden which is a natural means, an ordi- 
nary occasion of a provocation, inducement, an temptation 
to that sin; it being, say civilians, the property of a good 
law, non solum tollere vitia, sed etiam occasiones vitiorum : 
and this may be confirmed from the very nature of means ; 
for they receive their name and their morality from the end 
We aim at; and so, if they be such as have a proper ten- 
dency to what is good, then are they styled good; but if they 
do thus tend to what is evil, they must be evil also. 

Secondly, That when any evil is forbidden in the deca- 
logue, the least degree of that evil action is forbidden; for 
gradus non mutat speciem: so that the least degree of sin 
is sin, and sin is the transgression of the law, and therefore 
of that law which doth forbid that kind of sin. Now hence 
it follows, 

First, That vain swearing, or swearing in our ordinary dis- 
course, must be forbidden in the command requiring us not 
to swear falsely, or take the name of Godin vain. For (1). 
the reason of the prohibition of false swearing is this, be- 
cause it is a horrid profanation of the sacred name of God, 
as is apparent from those words, Ley. xix. 12, “Thou shalt 
not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the 
name of thy God.” Now by swearing in our common dis- 
course, we make the sacred name common, and therefore do 
profane it. (2.) Because this custom of swearing in our 
common discourse doth naturally lead us to the sin of per- 
jury : it being the observation both of Hierocles* a heathen, 
of Philot a Jew, and St. Austin a Christian, that ἐκ πολυ- 
opxias Wevdopxia, “from the custom of swearing men quickly 
slide into perjury :” and what can be expected from a com- 
mon swearer, but that he sometimes should swear falsely, 
and as well violate as profane the oath of God, since by his 
frequent swearing he shows that he esteemeth not an oath as 
sacred, nor looks upon it with due reverence? And he 
that doth not reverence an oath, it is his chance and not 
his care is to be thanked, if he be not perjured. More- 
over, not only Christians, but even Jews, have always 
thought that swearing lightly, or upon frivolous occasions, 
and without necessity, was here forbidden. Hence, “'Thou 
shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” is, 
saith the Septuagint, Thou shalt not use it ἐπὶ τῷ ματαίῳ" 
saith Aquila, εἰς εἰκῆ, “vainly or rashly ;” Thou shalt not 
swear ῥᾳδίως, “easily,” saith Philo; “not without cause,” 
saith the Targum: nor is it reasonable to conceive God 
should permit the Jews to swear thus lightly by his name, 
seeing the heathens,+ by the light of nature, did condemn this 
practice; and yet we find no precept in the law of Moses 
in which this practice is so likely to be forbidden as in this. 

Secondly, Hence it doth also follow, that all causeless 
anger and rancour of spirit against others, and all the ex- 


* In Carm. Pythag. p. 34. { De Decal. p. 584. 

$ Πάντως μὲν δὴ καλὸν ἐπιτήδευμα Θεῶν ὀνόματα μὴ Xpaivew 
ῥαδίως. Plato, de Legib. lib. xi. p. 966. Nam et in totum 
jurare, nisi ubi necessé est, gravi viro parim conyenit. 
Quintil. Instit. Orat. lip. ix. cap. 2, p. 419. Hierocles in 
Carm. Pythag. p. 33, 34. 


MATTHEW. 


pressions of it, by provoking language and reviling censures, 
must be consequentially forbidden by those words, “Thou 
shalt not kill,” because they tend and do dispose us to those 
contentions which often end in blood, and to that contempt 
of others which makes us not to value their lives, and there- 
fore not much fear the taking them away, and, lastly, to 
beget in us that hatred which in divine construction is ac- 
counted murder; for, “he that hateth his brother is a mur- 
derer” (1 John iii. 15). And, 

Thirdly, Hence it also follows, that all lustings of the heart 
after the forbidden enjoyment of a woman, and all such usage 
of the eye, the hand, or other senses, which naturally are in- 
centives to any filthiness of the flesh, must be forbidden by 
those words, “Thou shalt not commit adultery ;” the last, as 
being plain incentives to that uncleanness which is forbidden 
under that name ; the first, as being a kind of adultery ; for 
seeing “out of the heart,” saith Christ, “come fornications 
and adulteries” (Matt. xv. 19), they must be in it first; and 
in it they cannot be, but by the lusting of the heart towards 
these actions. 

Here then is a plain demonstration that Christ, in his dis- 
course on these three precepts, hath made no addition to 
them ; for what is certainly contained in these command- 
ments and forbidden by them, can be no addition to them. 

Secondly, Against these supposed additions to the moral 
law contained in the decalogue, I argue thus: Christ hath 
not added to the duties formerly belonging to the first or to 
the second table, therefore he hath not added to this law: 
to suppose that Christ hath added to the moral precept of 
the first table, is to suppose that he hath added to perfec- 
tion; for that required the Jew “to love his God with all 
his soul, mind, heart, and strength” (Deut. vi. 5) : and even 
the voice of nature will instruct us that he is worthy thus to 
be beloved. And is not this as much as Christ requireth of 
the Christians? Could the Jew comply with this precept 
in its greatest latitude, without exerting his utmost vigour 
in his service? and doth Christ require more? Will he not 
accept the engagement of our whole heart, mind, and spirit 
in his service? Doth he require that our obedience should 
exceed our strength? 

Nor can it reasonably be supposed that Christ hath added 
to the duties of the second table, since that requires us to 
“love our neighbour as we do ourselves’’ (Matt. xix. 18, 19) 
Now the apostle Paul assures us, that all the command- 
ments of the second table, and every other precept relating 
to our duty to our neighbour, is comprised in that one word 
or precept, “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Rom. 
xii. 9), and that “love worketh no evil to our neighbour ; 
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (ver. 10, see the 
note there). But against this it is objected, 

First, That if Christ had intended in this discourse to have 
corrected the imperfect or false interpretations which the 
scribes and pharisees had made of these commandments, he 
would have named them, as you do in the interpretation of 
his words. 

Ans. This he sufficiently hath done by saying (ver. 10), 
“« Except your righteousness (i. 6. your obedience to the moral 
law) exceed the righteousness of the seribes and pharisees, 
you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God ;” and 
then proceeding forthwith to show how and in what particu- 
lars we must exceed their righteousness. And, indeed, had 
our Lord designed to teach us, that in order to our entrance 
into his kingdom we must exceed the righteousness prescribed 
in the moral law, why doth he only say, “ Except your right- 
eousness exceed that of the scribes and pharisees,” who did 
in many cases evacuate the law, and who are branded by him 
with hypocrisy for omitting “the weightier matters of the law?” 

Obj. 2. It is objected, that had our Lord designed not to 
add any thing to the moral law, but only to expound it better 
than the scribes had done, he would not, after the recital of 
the law, have added, “ But I say unto you;” but rather 
would have said, «The law of Moses farther saith unto you.” 

Ans. To this I answer that, let our Saviour’s preface to 
these expositions of the words cited by him be considered, 
and then we may discern sufficient reason for these words ; 
for having said, ver. 17, “I came not to destroy the law, ἀλλὰ 
πληρῶσαι, but to establish and confirm it,” he, in the follow- 
ing instances, may rationally be supposed to show how he 
did this, viz. by producing first the law, and then by adding, 
fer the establishment and confirmation of the true import of 


APPENDIX. 


it, «But 1 say to you:” and when he saith, ver. 19, that 
“he that looseth one of the least of these commandments, 
and teacheth others so to do, shall be accounted least in the 
kingdom of heaven ;” he, by “the least of these command- 
ments,” seems not to understand any command expressly 
written in the decalogue, since none of them can be called 
little, but the lesser degrees of offence against them; and 
then, by adding of these words, “ But I say unto you,” he 
shows how we should teach men to observe them. 


APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. VI., VER. 16. 


I this appendix I shall endeavour briefly, and I hope 
clearly, to state these two questions :— 

First, Whether fasting be a duty now incumbent on 
Christians, or a thing left indifferent under the Christian in- 
stitution ? 

Secondly, Whether it be any part of divine worship or not? 

In answer to the first inquiry, Whether fasting be a duty, or 
a thing indifferent under the Christian institution, I answer, 

First, That as fasting signifies, in the grammatical import 
of the word, abstaining only for a time from the meat we 
ordinarily take at other times, it is undoubtedly a thing in- 
different ; for in this sense, “ if we eat not, we are not the 
better,” for God accounts no man the better purely because 
his stomach is more empty: and if we eat somewhat even 
on our days of fasting, when the impotency or indisposition 
of our bodies doth require it, “ we are not the worse.” But 
as it in the scripture signifies a day or time set apart for 
«the affliction of the soul,” and calling it to an account for 
our past sins, in order to our godly sorrow for and reforma- 
tion of them; or a day set apart for prayer, and humbling of 
ourselves, in order to the averting divine judgments, or the 
obtaining any public or private blessings from God’s hands; 
I think it continues a duty still, and a thing highly accept- 
able to God, when it sincerely is performed in prosecution 
of these ends. 

Secondly, It is certain that under the old covenant public 
fasts were commanded by God, and one of them with that 
severity, that the punishment of him who did not “then 
afflict his soul” was excision (Lev. xvi. 16) ; and when any 
adversity befell them, which made this duty proper, not only 
pious kings (2 Chron. xx. 3), but God also, by his holy pro- 
phets, called upon them to “sanctify a fast’? (Joel i. 14, 
i. 12.15). This also pious persons voluntarily did upon 
extraordinary occasions: “I wept,” saith David, “and hum- 
bled myself with fasting” (Ps. Ixix. 10, see Ps. xxxv. 13, 
cix. 24). Nehemiah fasted when he heard of the affliction 
of the people at Jerusalem (Neh. i. 4): so did Daniel (ix. 
3). These fasts they sanctified, 

(1.) To avert the impendent wrath of God (Joel i. 14, 
15, ii. 17), and to render him propitious to them in their 
distress, that he might be “jealous for his land, and pity his 
people” (Joel ii. 18). Thus did the people of Israel fast, 
when they were twice smitten by the Benjamites (Judges 
xx. 26) ; Jehoshaphat and his people, when distressed by the 
Ammonites (2 Chron. xx. 3) ; the Jews, when in danger of 
death from the contrivances of Haman (Esther iv. 16). 

(2.) To beg pardon for and reform their offences ; as when 
they fasted for their idolatry at Mizpeh, and did put away 
Baalim and Ashtaroth, and “serve the Lord only” (1 Sam. 
vii. 5, 6), and when they “separated themselves from their 
strange wives” (Neh. ix. 1). 

(3.) To beg especial mercies of God ; as when Ezra and 
his company fasted “to seek of God a right way” (Ezra 
viii. 21): and all this they did with good success, and so as 
to obtain God’s blessing. These fasts, when duly celebrated, 
are styled such fasts as God hath chosen (Isa. lviii. 5, 6), 
“an acceptable day to the Lord” (ver. 5), “a sabbath, a day 
holy to the Lord, and honourable” (ver. 13), and fasting 
thus was indeed « fasting to the Lord” (Zech. vii. 5). 

And as for voluntary and private fasts, I have observed 
that pious persons still used them as occasion did require. 
Anna the prophetess “fasted and prayed night and day,” 
and “served God” as well by fasting as by praying (Luke 
ii. 37). And in our Saviour’s time the disciples of John and 
of the pharisees fasted often ; and this was thought so ne- 
cessary a piece of devotion, that they admire and look upon 


195 
it as a great defect in Christ’s disciples, that they did not the 
like (Matt. ix. 14). 

Thirdly, Observe that Christ is so far from disapproving 
these times of fasting as unsuitable or unnecessary under the 
Christian dispensation, that he declares “ the time was coming 
when his disciples should fast” as well as others (Matt. ix. 
15). He teacheth all Christians after what manner they 
ought to fast, that their fastings might be acceptable to God, 
promising a reward from God on them who do so, and being 
no less solicitous that they might fast than that they might 
pray, and do their alms, so as to be rewarded by God for 
them (Matt. vi. 16), and lets his disciples know, that their 
want of faith in casting out a devil proceeded from their 
want of seeking it by “prayer and fasting” (Matt. xvii. 21). 
Now surely he who declares that his «disciples should fast” 
after he was taken from them, he who is solicitous they might 
perform this duty without hypocrisy, and who excites them 
to it by the promise of a reward from God, and who informs 
them that their want of faith proceeded from their want of 
fasting, sufficiently demonstrates he looked upon this as a 
duty to be performed by his disciples under the gospel dis- 
pensation. And, therefore, 

Fourthly, That Christ’s apostles and disciples did so es- 
teem it, we learn sufficiently from their practice ; they being 
“in fastings often” (2 Cor. xi. 27), and approving themselves 
as the ministers of God, by “fastings,’ as well as other 
Christian duties (2 Cor. vi. 4,5) ; this being also the usual 
preface to “the imposition of hands,” they doing this « with 
prayer and fasting” (Acts xiv. 23), and in commending the 
ministers of the gospel to the Lord for his assistance (Acts 
xiii. 3) ; and married Christians being permitted to separate 
from one another for a season, “ that they might give them- 
selves to prayer and fasting” (1 Cor. vii. 5). Note, 

Lastly, That fasting is not a ceremonial precept, there 
being no command under the law for voluntary fasting, or 
public fastings on extraordinary occasions, but only for one 
stated fast on the day of expration; it therefore must be 
ranked among those moral duties or precepts of the law of 
nature, which Christ came “not to dissolve, but to fulfil.” 
And this appears, because it was the practice not only of the 
Jews and devout proselytes (Acts x. 30), but even of the 
heathens also. These days of fasting to avert judgments, 
obtaining not only among the eastern nations (Jonah ili. 5), 
but among the Egyptians, the Greeks, and Romans, and 
being part of their sacred rites, at which times they were 
σίτων ἄμοιροι, ΟΥ̓ἄγευστοι, that is, “fasting.” In a word, it 
is owned by them who contend fasting is a thing indifferent, 
that it is a help to the worship of God, and an instrument 
of piety. It is by Phavorinus defined to be “the mother of 
health to the body, and the preservative of the soul ;” and 
surely that which is a help to devotion, and a means of pro- 
moting piety, must be as much required to those good ends, 
as are the helps and means of sober living required by the 
command of temperance. 

That I may answer to the second question, I must pre- 
mise the distinction so frequent in the schools, betwixt an 
imperate and an elicit act of worship. An elicit act of wor- 
ship is an act which hath God for its immediate object, and 
solely is designed to do him honour, or to agnize some divine 
excellency or perfections. Thus an act of faith is an elicit 
act of religious worship; because it doth, and is designed 
purely to acknowledge the divine power and veracity ; and 
prayer is an elicit act of divine worship, because by it we do 
acknowledge the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, 
Whereas, an imperate act of worship is that which hath 
another object besides God, and only hath relation to him 
because it is performed in obedience to his command: thus 
charity hath for its object our indigent or our afflicted bro- 
ther, and only hath relation to God, as it is done to others in 
obedience to his command; and justice is an imperate act 
of worship only, because it immediately relateth to what 
belongeth to our brother, though we deal justly with him 
from the consideration of that God “who is the avenger of 
those who do defraud or overreach their brother.” Now to 
apply this distinction to our present purpose; they who 
deny that fasting is an elicit act of worship, do freely grant 
it to be an imperate act of worship, as being serviceable to 
prayer and that repentance towards God, which are imme- 
diate acts of worship. Here therefore note, 


196 


First, That even Mr. Dally grants, that fasting was a part 
of divine worship under the Old Testament; whence we 
may gather that it must be so also under the New Testa- 
ment, since under both it hath the same object, end, and 
reasons, and so must be as much an act of religious worship 
under the New Testament as it was under the Old; where 
to observe it was “to sanctify a fast,” to keep “a day holy 
and acceptable to the Lord,” and as much λατρεύειν, “to 
serve God by fasting” as by prayer (Luke ii. 37). 

Secondly, It is confessed that fasting, considered as a 
help to prayer, repentance, or pious meditations, is only an 
imperate act of religion ; but as it is an act of revenge upon 
ourselves for our offences done against the divine majesty, 
and an acknowledgment that we are by them become un- 
worthy to receive from him our daily bread ; and as it is a 
part of our time consecrated to the service of God, I see 
not why it should be less esteemed an act of religious wor- 
ship than the observation of a sabbath, or a day of thanks- 
giving. 


APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. XII. 


‘Concerning the nature of the sin against the Holy Ghost, 
and the reason why it is said to be such as will never be 
forgiven. 


First, for explication of this subject, I do not think it 
proper, with the learned Grotius, to mollify the severity of 
this sentence, by saying that what is absolutely spoken by 
the Lord must be comparatively understood, and cnly inti- 
mates, that it is very difficult to obtain the pardon of this 
sin, not that it will admit of no forgiveness : for our Saviour 
says expressly of this sin, both negatively, that “it shall 
never be forgiven,” and affirmatively, that the person guilty 
of it “shall be obnoxious to eternal judgment,” and con- 
firms all this with an asseveration, “ Verily I say unto you, 
He that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost hath never 
forgiveness, but ἔνοχός ἐστιν, is liable to eternal judgment” 
(Mark iii. 29). Much less are we to admit of Dr. Ham- 
mond’s descant on the words, that this sin shall not be par- 
doned but upon a particular repentance, for that is as true 
of every known and wilful sin, as of the blasphemy against 
the Holy Ghost; and therefore this interpretation makes no 
discrimination of this from any other wilful sin, which yet 
our Saviour plainly designed by those words to do, More- 
over, against both these expositions it is observable, that our 
Lord saith expressly of all manner of other sins against the 
Son of man, or the Messiah, that “ they shall be forgiven ;” 
and yet, doubtless, men’s blasphemies against the Saviour 
of the world, and other heinous crimes, will not be pardoned 
without particular repentance, and it is very difficult to bring 
such grievous sinners to repentance. Let it be noted, 

Secondly, That from our Saviour’s words it plainly seems 
to follow, that this sin consists, or is completed, not in our 
thoughts or in our works, but in our words, for it is, “he 
that speaketh,” ver. 32, “he that blasphemeth against the 
Holy Ghost,” that shall not be forgiven. Simon, the ma- 
gician, conceived as vilely of the Holy Ghost as we can well 
imagine, when he thought “he might be purchased by mo- 
ney” (Acts viii. 18, 19) ; for this was to conceive the Holy 
Ghost was given only by some higher art of magic than he 
had attained to; and yet St. Peter exhorts him to “ pray, 
that the thoughts of his heart might be forgiven” (ver. 22) ; 
and they who, by uncleanness, fornication, and adultery, 
despised the commandments which God had given them by 
his apostles, to possess their vessels in sanctification and 
honour,” are said to have “despised not only man, but God, 
who also had given them the Holy Ghost” (1 Thess. iv. 8) ; 
and yet St. Paul supposes such persons might “ repent of 
the uncleanness, fornication, and lasciviousness they had 
committed” (2 Cor. xii. 21). This sin must therefore be 
committed, not only by our evil thoughts and works, but 
also by our blasphemous words against the Holy Ghost. 

Thirdly, Observe, that it is not any blasphemy against the 
Spirit in his miraculous operations, such as were casting out 
of devils and healing of diseases, which is here styled the 
“blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,” this being here done 
by the pharisees against the Son of man; for he declareth, 
ver. 28, that “he did cast out devils by the Spirit of God ;” 


MATTHEW. 


they therefore must blaspheme that Spirit by which our 
Saviour did this, by saying, “he cast out devils by Beelze- 
bub, the prince of the devils;” and yet our Saviour saith, 
that even “this blasphemy against the Son of man should 
be forgiven,” but it was properly the “blasphemy against 
the Holy Ghost.” And therefore, 

Fourthly, Let it be noted, that there is a plain difference 
in scripture betwixt the operations of the Spirit and the gifts 
or distributions of the Holy Ghost; all the miraculous ope- 
rations which were done upon others, viz. the casting out of 
devils, the healing of diseases, the curing of the lame, the 
blind, the dumb, the maimed, the raising of the dead, were 
the extraordinary operations of the Spirit; but all the in- 
ward gifts, by which the understanding was enlightened, and 
was enabled to perform things which by nature it could not 
do without the immediate working of the Holy Spirit, are 
styled the gifts or distributions of the Holy Ghost; as, v. g. 
the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, prophecy, discerning 
of spirits, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of them. 
‘That there is ground for this distinction will appear from 
these considerations : 

(1.) Because our Saviour, whilst he was upon earth, gave 
to his apostlés and the seventy disciples power to “ heal the 
sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils, and to raise the 
dead” (Matt. x. 8, Luke x. 9); and yet St. John informs 
us, that “the Holy Ghost was not yet come, because that 
Jesus was not glorified” (vii. 39) : and Christ informed his 
disciples, that “if he did not go away, the Comforter,” that 
is, the Holy Ghost, “ would not come” to them; but “ when 
I go,” saith he, “I will send him to you” (John xvi. 17, 
xiv. 16): and St. Peter tells the Jews that our Lord, being 
exalted to the right hand of God, received the promise of 
the Holy Ghost, and sent him down upon his apostles (Acts 
ii. 33), The Holy Ghost must therefore signify something 
distinct from the power of working miracles. 

(2.) The apostle John, producing his witnesses to prove 
that Jesus is the Son of God, saith thus: “ There are three 
that bear witness upon earth, the Spirit, the water, and the 
blood ;” and there be “three that bear witness from heaven, 
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost” (1 John ν. 7, 
8), clearly distinguishing the witness of the Holy Ghost 
from the testimony of the Spirit. 

(3.) Throughout the history of the Acts of the Apostles, 
where St. Luke hath occasion to mention the miracles which 
the apostles and other Christians did, he always useth the 
words τέρατα, σημεῖα, δυνάμεις, “ wonders, signs, and powers ;” 
but where he speaks of persons prophesying, or speaking 
with tongues, he doth as constantly ascribe this to the Holy 
Ghost descending on them. i 

And (lastly) where the scripture mentions these things 
together, it puts a manifest distinction betwixt signs and 
wonders and the gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost. 
Thus the apostle speaks of the things God had wrought by 
him, “in the power of signs and wonders,” and “in the 
power of the Spirit of God,” or “of the Holy Ghost,” as 
other copies read (Rom. xv. 19): and God, saith St. Paul, 
“bare witness to the doctrine which the apostles preached, 
by signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts of the 
Holy Ghost” (Heb. ii. 4). Hence observe, 

Fifthly, That this blasphemy of the Holy Ghost neither 
was nor could be then committed when our Saviour spake 
these words, or whilst he was upon earth, because the “ Holy 
Ghost was not yet come,” saith the evangelist (John vii. 39) ; 
nor was he to be sent till « Jesus was glorified ;” i. 6. till he 
was risen from the dead, and was exalted to the right hand 
of the Father. And therefore, after our Lord’s resurrec- 
tion, he breathes on the apostles, and saith unto them, 
“Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (John xx. 22); and farther 
promises, at his ascension, that “within a few days” they 
should receive the power of the Holy Ghost descending 
down from heaven, to render them able witnesses of our 
Lord’s resurrection ; and that after his departure from them, 
“the Comforter,” that is, the Holy Ghost, “should come,” 
and should “convince the world of sin, because they be- 
lieved not in him, and of his righteousness, because he went 
unto the Father” (John xvi. 9, 10.) Though therefore our 
Saviour entered upon this discourse upon occasion of that 
saying of the pharisees, “He casts out devils through Beel- 
zebub,” yet his design seems chiefly to be this, to terrify 
them from going on from the blaspheming the Son of man, 


APPENDIX. 


and of that Spirit by which he wrought his miracles, to the 
blaspheming of the ensuing dispensation of the Holy Ghost, 
which was the last he ever would vouchsafe, to call them to 
that repentance which would procure the remission of their 
sins. ‘These words may therefore be thus paraphrased :— 
You have represented me as a winebibber, and as a friend 
of publicans and sinners, and as one who casts out devils by 
Beelzebub; and you will still go on, after all the miracles 
which I have done among you, to represent me as a false 
prophet and a deceiver of the people; but, notwithstanding, 
all these grievous sins shall be forgiven you, if that last dis- 
pensation of the Holy Ghost, which I shall after my ascen- 
sion send among you, shall prevail with you to believe in 
me: but if, when I have sent the Holy Ghost to testify the 
truth of my mission, and of my resurrection, you shall con- 
tinue in your unbelief, and shall blaspheme the Holy Ghost, 
and represent him also as an evil spirit, yoursin shall never 
be forgiven, nor shall there any thing be farther done to call 
you to repentance. That this is the true import of our Sa- 
viour’s words is evident, 

First, Because they still run in the future tense, respect- 
ing not what had been done already by the pharisees or 
others, but only what hereafter should ‘be done ; “ whoso- 
ever shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost” (Mark iii. 
28, Luke xii. 10). 

Secondly, Because the blasphemy here mentioned in these 
words, “ He casteth out devils by Beelzebub,” or by confe- 
deracy with Satan, was certainly a blasphemy against the 
Son of man; and therefore such to which the promise of 
forgiveness is here made, and could not be the blasphemy 
of the Holy Ghost, because he was not yet come. And, 

Thirdly, Had the pharisees been guilty of this blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost, by this saying of our Lord, “ He 
casts out devils by Beelzebub,” our Saviour could not after- 

ward have prayed for their forgiveness, or offered to them 
any farther terms of mercy or salvation ; whereas he on the 
cross prays thus, after the pharisees and rulers had moved 
Pilate to crucify him, “Father, forgive them; they know 
not what they do” (Luke xxiii. 34) : and in this very chap- 
ter he promiseth one farther sign for their conviction, even 
that of his death and resurrection the third day ; and farther 
saith, that he would send the Holy Spirit to convince them 
of their sin, in that they believed not on him, and of his 
righteousness. St. Peter also saith, both of the people and 
the rulers, who so importunately sued to Pilate that he 
might be crucified, “I know ye did it ignorantly, as did also 
yourrulers” (Acts iii. 17.19). And then he calls upon them 
to “repent, and be converted, that their sins may be blotted 
out;” thereby clearly insinuating they had not yet commit- 
ted that offence which could not be forgiven. And St. Paul 
in the thirteenth chapter of the Acts tells them, “he preach- 
ed the gospel, and offered remission of sins to all among 
them that would believe” (ver. 32. 39. 46). 

And having thus considered the nature of this sin, I pro- 
ceed to show the difference betwixt it and all the blasphe- 
mies which the Jews vented against our blessed Lord whilst 
he was here on earth, and why they were all pardonable, or 
such as might be forgiven unto men ; whereas the blasphemy 
against the Holy Ghost is here pronounced such as should 
never be forgiven 

It is therefore to be observed, that though the Jews still 
represented the blessed Jesus as “a winebibber and a glut- 
ton,”’ because he used not that abstinence, and severe diet, 
and those frequent fasts, which John and his disciples did ; 
though they styled him a “ friend of publicans and sinners,” 
because he freely did converse with them for their good; 
though they styled him a blasphemer, because he called 
himself «the Son of God; though, lastly, they crucified 
him, and pronounced him worthy of death, as a false pro- 
phet, and deceiver of the people: our Saviour not only 
promises pardon of these things to them who should be- 
lieve after his resurrection, but even prays for them upon 
the cross, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know 
not what they do.” Now this he did upon these two con- 
siderations : 

First, Because the meanness of his birth and education, 
state and condition upon earth, caused many to be offended 
at him, and indisposed them to believe such high things of 
him as that he was “the Son of God,” and was to be “ the 


197 


King of Israel.’ Thus, when they were amazed at the 
divine doctrine which he taught, and the mighty miracles by 
which he had confirmed it, and thereupon inquire, “ Whence 
is this wisdom given to him, and these mighty works done 
by him?” the thought that he was “the son of a carpen- 
ter,” and of a poor woman called Mary, caused them to be 
“offended at him:” and when he represents himself as a 
person coming down from heaven, they do not believe him 
on the same account, but say, “Is not this Jesus, the son of 
Joseph? Know we not his father and his mother? how 
therefore saith he, that I come down from heaven?” (Jahn 
vi. 42.) This, therefore, being so specious a pretence for 
their rejecting of and not believing on him, our Saviour 
promiseth the pardon of their infidelity, till, by his resur- 
rection, and the mission of the Holy Ghost, he had quite 
taken off the force of the objection, and showed by his re- 
turn unto the Father, and his sitting down at the right hand 
of God, and sending of the Holy Ghost from heaven, that 
he was indeed “the Son of God.” Hence is he said to be 
declared “the Son of God with power by the resurrec- 
tion from the dead’ (Rom. i. 4), of which, saith the 
apostle Peter, “we are witnesses; and so is also the Holy 
Ghost, which he hath given to them that believe” (Acts v. 
32): and Christ himself declares, that when this Holy 
Ghost was by him sent from heaven, he should “convince 
the’ world of their sin, who believed not in him, and of 
his righteousness, because he went unto the Father” (John 
xvi. 8, 9). 

Socata Christ thought their case more pitiable, till 
after his resurrection and ascension, and till this mission 
of the Holy Ghost, by reason of those prejudices which 
their whole nation had entertained against his person and 
his doctrine, and which were not entirely removed till he 
had thus ascended: now they were such as these, (1.) That 
they were very well acquainted with his birth and parent- 
age; but “ when Christ cometh, no man can know,” saith 
their tradition, “whence he is,” John vii. 27. (2.) That 
Elias did not come in person to usher in his advent, ac- 
cording as it was foretold by Malachi, iv. 5. Thus when a 
voice from heaven had declared him to be the Son of God, 
in the audience of St. Peter, James, and John, they still 
object against it, the tradition of the scribes, “that Elias 
must first come” (Matt. xvii. 10). And, (3.) that they had 
got a general tradition that their Messiah was “ to abide for 
ever” (John xii. 34), whereas Christ still declared, he was 
to be “lifted up,” and die an ignominious death; a doctrine 
so distasteful to his own disciples, that Peter, after his 
confession that he was the Christ, rebukes our Saviour for 
it, saying, “ Far be it from thee ; this shall not happen unto 
thee” (Matt. xvi. 22). And though he very frequently and 
plainly told them that he was to suffer, yet do St. Mark 
and St. Luke inform us, that “they understood not this say- 
ing, and it was hid from them” (Luke ix. 45); yea, that 
“they understood not these things, nor knew they what was 
said” (xviii. 34) : and yet Christ's words were plain enough, 
only they could not reconcile them with their tradition, 
that the Messiah was to adide for ever, and set up a 
temporal kingdom among them. For, (4.) this was the 
great prejudice their whole nation laboured under, that 
their Messiah was to come in a triumphant manner, to 
subdue nations under them, and make the Jews to lord 
it over all their enemies, and to continue this his king- 
dom over them for ever; their prophets having still re- 
presented him as a “great King over all nations:” his 
own disciples were so fully possessed with this opinion, 
that after our Lord’s resurrection they presently inquire, 
«“ Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ?” 
(Acts i. 6.) It is not therefore to be wondered, that this 
so strong and pleasing apprehension should prejudice their 
minds against a person seemingly so mean and despicable, 
who spake so often of his sufferings, declared that his 
“kingdom was not of this world,” and that he came 
“not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Now by 
our Saviour’s resurrection, ascension, and sending of the 
Holy Ghost, all these objections were fully solved, and all 
these prejudices were removed. For when our Lord was 
thus “declared to be the Son of God with power, by his 
resurrection from the dead,” then must they be convinced, 
that besides that human nature, which he received from his 

R2 


198 


parents, he had another, according to which they “knew not 
whence he was,” and “neither knew him nor his Father” 
(John viii. 14, 19). When at his ascension “all power in 
heaven and in earth was given to him,” and he was there to 
“reign till all his enemies were made his footstool ;” then 
might they easily perceive, how this Messiah was to “ abide 
for ever, and to reign over the house of Jacob for ever’’ 
(Luke i. 33). Hence, from this exaltation to the right 
hand of power, St. Peter makes this inference, “Therefore, 
let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath 
made this Jesus, whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ” 
(Acts ii. 36). They from his resurrection were assured his 
former sufferings were well consistent with his kingdom; 
and from his ascension into heaven, that his kingdom was 
not to be a temporal kingdom upon earth, but a spiritual 
and heavenly kingdom, and that he was to rule not over 
men’s bodies, but their souls and consciences; and when 
they saw this kingdom so powerfully erected by the Holy 
Ghost assisting the apostles in the preaching of the gospel, 
and making numerous converts throughout the heathen 
world, they could not but discern how it was foretold by the 
holy prophets, that he should “reign over all nations: or 
how John the Baptist, who had pointed him out, and said, 
« Behold, the Lamb of God, and Saviour of the world,” and 
had foretold he should “ baptize them with the Holy Ghost,” 
was that Elias, which was to come as his forerunner. And 
thus you see why our Saviour puts this distinction betwixt 
the blasphemies committed against him in this state of hu- 
miliation, and the blasphemies committed against the Holy 
Ghost he promised to send down from heaven after his exal- 
tation to the right hand of Majesty in the heavens. 

It remains to show how the blasphemy against the Holy 
Ghost becomes unpardonable, and why it was so rather than 
any sin committed against Christ whilst in the state of his 
humiliation ; now this it was upon several accounts ; 

First, Because this was the last and chiefest evidence 
which God designed to make use of, to cure the infidelity 
of that perverse and stubborn generation, or to prevail upon 
them, and upon other nations, to believe in Christ: in all 
the other evidences, which came before to win men to that 
faith in Christ, on which the pardon of their sins depended, 
God had still a reserve, and resolved upon some farther 
means when they had proved ineffectual. If the testimony 
of John the Baptist that he was the Christ, if the innocen- 
cy of our Saviour’s life, if the wisdom of his words, the 
heavenly nature of his doctrine, and all the miracles by 
which it was confirmed, proved ineffectual to persuade that 
perverse generation to receive and own him as their pro- 
mised Messiah; God still resolveth, yea, he had promised 
to send this Holy Ghost, as a more powerful evidence to 
“convince the world of sin, because they believed not in 
him,” and of the righteousness of him whom they had 
hitherto rejected. Hence, when the Holy Ghost in this 
miraculous manner had fallen down on the apostles, and 
enabled them “to speak with tongues, and prophesy ;” “ this 
is that,’ saith St. Peter, “which was spoken by God in 
those words of Joel; In the latter days I will pour my 
Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters 
shall prophesy” (Acts ii. 16, 17). And again (ver. 38, 
39), “Repent, and be baptized in the name of the Lord 
Jesus for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the 
Holy Ghost: for the promise is to you and to your chil- 
dren.’ When therefore the apostles, being endued with this 
power from on high, had been Christ’s witnesses “ through- 
out Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” God 
had done all that he designed to bring men to the faith of 
Christ; so that when many would not be persuaded by it, 
but, instead of being convinced and reclaimed, proceeded 
to slight and despise, yea, to revile and blaspheme it, 
God was unalterably resolved to strive no more with them, 
but to let them “die in their sins:” and therefore it is ob- 
servable, that when the Jews had thus resisted the “ Holy 
Ghost, contradicting and blaspheming” that Holy Spirit by 
which they preached unto them (Acts xiii. 45), they give 
«hem over as desperate, and persons in whom that of the 
prophet was fulfilled, “Behold, ye despisers, and perish” 

‘ver. 41), and therefore “turn unto the gentiles” (ver. 46, 
Xxvili. 28): and St. Paul represents them as persons “ given 
up to a spirit of slumber,” and judicial blindness (Rom. xi. 


MATTHEW. 


8, 9); and so rejected from being any more God’s church 
and people. 

And as this was the last, so was it the most powerful 
evidence: as for the working of miracles and casting out of 
devils, the heathen priests aud exorcists, and many of the 
Jews, pretended to them; our Saviour also foretold of the 
“false Christs and false prophets,” that they should work 
“signs and miracles” sufficient to “seduce, if it were possible, 
the very elect”? (Matt. xxiv. 24); and the apostle, that Sa- 
tan should come among those who “received not the truth 
in the love of it, with strong delusions, and with all deceiv- 
ableness of unrighteousness, with all power, signs, and lying 
wonders” (2 Thess. ii. 8—10). But yet none ever did or 
could pretend unto these inward gifts and operations of 
the Holy Ghost, such as enabled the illiterate to speak 
with all kinds of unknown tongues, and to interpret the 
tongues of others, and to discern the secrets of men’s 
hearts, and “understand all mysteries,’ by an internal in- 
spiration and illumination; and much less to confer gifts 
on others by imposition of their hands, as the apostles did : 
when, therefore, Christians saw those gifts exercised con- 
tinually in their assemblies, and daily conferred on persons 
at their baptism, they could scarce have a stronger evidence 
of the truth of the Christian faith, and therefore could not 
blaspheme those gifts by which it was so wonderfully 
confirmed, without the utmost degree of infidelity. And 
therefore, 

Secondly, This sin is represented as unpardonable; be- 
cause the faith of such perverse and stubborn persons is 
impossible, they having rejected all the evidence that can 
be offered for their conviction, and all the motives that can 
be rendered to provoke them to repent of their infidelity. 
So St. Paul speaks in case of those, who, living under this 
dispensation of the Holy Ghost, did yet apostatize from 
Chnistianity to Judaism, or heathenism; “Let us not go 
about to lay again the foundation of repentance and faith 
towards God,” which were the doctrines they first preached 
to Jew and gentile: «of baptism,” by which believing they 
made profession of the Christian faith, and covenanted to 
perform the duties it required of them; “of imposition of 
hands” of the apostles, by which they after baptism received 
the Holy Ghost ; “ of the resurrection of the dead,” which was 
the glorious promise by which all Christians were encou- 
raged to be “ steadfast, immoveable, and always abounding 
in the work of the Lord ;” and “of a future judgment,” by 
which they were terrified and affrighted from falling off 
from that obedience; “for it is impossible,” saith the apostle, 
“for them who have been once enlightened,” as Christians 
were in baptism (which, therefore, from the beginning of 
Christianity, was called “illumination,” as appears from the 
testimonies of Justin Martyr, Ireneus, and Clemens of 
Alexandria), “and who have tasted of the heavenly gift, 
and have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost,” which 
they received by the imposition of hands, “and who have 
tasted of the good word of God,” i. 6. have been acquainted 
with that gospel, which affords the promise of remission of 
sins and of justification here, and of a resurrection to eternal 
life hereafter, “and have felt the powers of the world to 
come,” i. e. the powerful persuasions which the doctrine of a 
future judgment administers to repentance, a new life, and 
steadfast perseverance in the Christian faith; and after all 
these engagements to persevere in the profession of it, fall 
away from it by apostasy to Judaism, or to heathenism— 
“to renew them to repentance” (Heb. vi. 2—7): because 
you cannot lay again any other motive or foundation to it 
than hath been already laid; you cannot call upon them to 
repentance and to faith in God by any other arguments 
than by those miracles by which they were at first induced 
to believe; you cannot incite them to be true to their pro- 
fession by any other engagements than those which they 
had made in baptism; you cannot give them any higher 
evidence of the truth of Christianity, than that of their par- 
ticipation of the Holy Ghost; no greater motive to continue 
steadfast in the Christian faith, than is the promise of a 
happy resurrection to eternal life; nor propose any thing 
more dreadful to affright them from apostasy, than are the 
terrors of a future judgment; and so you can do nothing to 
renew them to repentance which hath not been already in- 
effectually performed in order to that end. 


APPENDIX. 


FIRST APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. XXIV. 


Gnorivs, in his notes on the third verse of this chapter, 
makes these three questions to refer to three several epochas ; 
viz. 

1. The question, “ When shall these things be?” to the 
time of the destruction of the temple: and this, saith he, 
our Saviour answers to, ver. 23. 

2. The question concerning his παρουσία, or advent, to set 
up his kingdom, he refers to the time of Constantine; but 
others, to the time of the general conversion of the Jews and 
the millennium; and of this time, say they, Christ speaks 
from the twenty-third to the thirtieth verse. 

3. The question concerning “ the end of the world ;” and 
of this, saith he, Christ speaks from the thirtieth verse to 
the end of the chapter. 

I on the contrary do assert, that at least to the thirty-fourth 
verse, Christ speaks only of the destruction of the temple, 
the city, and people of Jerusalem, and of the Jewish nation. 

Now, that the παρουσία, or “advent of the Son of man,” 
belongs, not to his coming to destroy Jerusalem, but to an- 
other coming of this Son of man to set up his kingdom, he 
proves ; because the words here, from ver. 22 to 27, are like 
those in which our Lord speaks of his kingdom, Luke xvii. 
22 to the end: but that Christ there, from ver. 22 to the end, 
is speaking of the time when the Jews should be in “ great 
distress” by the Roman army, and should perish by it, and 
when Christ should come to execute his vengeance on them, 
is exceeding evident from the words, and is there also con- 
fessed by Grotius. For, say St. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 
« When you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with ar- 
mies, let him that is on the housetop not come down to take 
any thing out of his house; nor let him that is in the field, 
&e. for these are the days of vengeance.” And the words 
of the same St. Luke, xvii. 31, run thus; “On that day, 
he that is on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let 
him not come down to take it away ; and likewise he that is 
in the field’ Who sees not now that “that day,” Luke 
xvil., is the same with “the days of vengeance,” ch. xxi.? 
Now this one observation confounds all these several epochas 
into which some have divided this chapter. For, 

First, Hence it appears, that the time when they should 
say, “See here, and see there is the Son of man,” Luke xvii. 
22, 23, viz. he that is “to deliver Israel,’ Luke xxiv. 21, 
“to save them from their enemies,” Luke i. 71. 74, is the 
very time preceding the destruction of the Jewish nation. 
For, when those days of tribulation come upon them, saith 
St. Mark, xiii. 19. 21, St. Matthew, xxiv. 21. 23. 26, then 
shall they say to you, “Lo here is Christ, and there is 
Christ.” And this is still more evident from Matt. xxiv. 
26, “ When they shall say, Behold, he is in the desert; go 
not forth :” for this they often said before their destruction 
(see the note there). 

Secondly, Hence it must follow that the « false Christs 
and false prophets” mentioned Matt. xxiv. must also be con- 
temporary with the times of tribulation preceding that de- 
struction, and that they must rise up as false Christs, by 
pretending to deliver Israel; and as false prophets, by de- 
claring to them salvation as from God; for the appearance 
of these very persons to deceive, is given as the reason why 
they should not follow or believe them who said, “Lo, 
Christ is here; or, Lo, he is there” (Matt. xxiv. 23, 24, 
Mark xiii. 21, 22). 

Thirdly, Hence it appears, that the παρουσία, “ coming of 
the Son of man” like lightning, must be at the same time; 
not only because it is given in St. Matthew as a reason why 
Christ was not then to be looked for in deserts, or in secret 
chambers; and, Luke xvii. 24, as a reason why they should 
not follow them, who would then say, “See, he is here; or, 
See, he is there ;” but also, because St. Matthew assigns this 
as the reason of that conspicuous appearance, that “ where- 
ever the body (of the Jews, the carcase) is, there would thé 
eagles (1. 6. the Roman army) be gathered together,” to 
prey upon and to destroy them. 

Fourthly, Hence it appears, that when it is said, Matt. 
xxiv. 37—39, “ As it was in the days of Noe, so also shall 
the coming of the Son of man be:” this also must refer to 
the same time, though these words may also refer to the 


199 


day of judgment, and be then accomplished ; for the same 
words, Luke xvii. 26,27, are mentioned by Christ; and 
then it follows, “In that day (vize of his coming) he that is 
on the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come 
down to take it away ;” which, as we have proved, respects 
the time preceding the destruction of Jerusalem. wee. 

Fifthly, Hence it appears, that the words following in 
St. Matthew, ver. 40, 41, “Then shall two be in the field, 
two grinding in the mill, the one shall be taken, and the 
other left,” refer to the same time also, as well as to the day 
of judgment: for when Christ had said these words to his 
disciples, Luke xvii. 35, 36, they inquire, “ Where, Lord, 
shall this be?” And he answers that “wherever the body 
is, thither shall the eagles be gathered together,” which, as 
proved already, refers to the same time. r 

Hence then it is manifest there can be no such interval 
in this prophecy as some imagine, viz. an interval of above 
seventeen hundred years betwixt what is spoken of the de- 
struction of Jerusalem to ver. 23, and what is spoken of the 
millennium from thence to ver. 30. 

Arg. 2. Moreover, that what is assigned as a second 
epocha to follow the first, according to Grotius, three or four 
hundred years after ; and, according to others, almost seven- 
teen hundred years after, was indeed to happen in, or about 
the first period, is evident from most passages recorded from 
ver. 23 to 34. Of the twenty-third, twenty-sixth, twenty- 
seventh, and twenty-eighth verses, this hath been proved 
already. 

That these words, ver. 24, “For there shall arise false 
Christs and false prophets,’ belong to the same period, as 
it hath been proved already from the connective particle, 
jor ; which shows this verse is introduced as a reason of 
what was said in the foregoing verse: so also it is proved 
from the words following, ver. 25, “Behold, I have told 
you before,” viz. ver. 5, by saying, “ Many shall come in my 
name (i. 6. as false pretenders to be the Christ, and that 
Prophet which should come into the world), and shall deceive 
many ;’’ which words undoubtedly belong to the first inter- 
val. So when St. Mark had introduced Christ speaking the 
same words, ver. 22, he adds, ver. 23, “See to it; behold, I 
have foretold you all things,” viz. all that related to these 
persons, ver. 6, and therefore St. Luke having given us 
Christ’s words thus, xxi. 8, “ Many shall come in my name, 
saying, I am Christ, and the time draweth near ;” he adds 
those words, “Go not after them :” which are the same in 
sense with those that go before, and follow in St. Matthew, 
τε Believe them not ;” and upon that account he doth not at 
all repeat those words, as do St. Matthew and St. Mark. Ὁ 

Secondly, St. Mark saith, ver. 24, in those days, after this 
tribulation (mentioned ver. 19), “the sun shall be dark- 
ened;” it shall be thus immediately after this tribulation, 
saith St. Matthew, ver. 29. Now, can that which was not 
to happen till seventeen hundred years “after this tribula- 
tion,” be said to happen either “immediately after” that 
tribulation, or “in those days?” 

Thirdly, They both go on, and say, “ And then shall ap- 
pear the sign of the Son of man coming in the clouds,” 
viz. “in those days,” and “immediately after that tribula- 
tion ;” Matt. xxiv. 30, “ Then shall they see the Son of man 
coming in the clouds with power and great glory,” surely 
not seventeen hundred years after the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem: for why then did our Saviour say to them that cruci- 
fied him dz’ ἄρτι, “ Within a little while shall ye see the Son 
of man coming in the clouds” (Matt. xvi. 64)? 

Fourthly, The thirty-first verse following thus in St. Mat- 
thew, “And he shail send;” and in Mark thus, καὶ rire, 
“ And then he shall send his angels, and shall gather his 
elect ;” show evidently, that the gathering of the elect there 
mentioned must happen then. 

Fifthly, The thirty-third verse follows thus, “ When all 
these things shall come to pass, then know ye ὅτι ἐγγύς ἐστι, 
that it is near.’ Now these words, if they be rightly ren- 
dered by our translation, it “is near,” do necessarily refer to 
the destruction of Jerusalem, mentioned Luke xxi. If they 
refer to the coming of the Son of man, as is more probable 
from the words of St. Paul, Phil. iv. 5, ὁ Κύριος ἐγγὺς «The 
Lord is at hand;” and of St. James, v. 7—9, “ The com- 
ing of the Lord ἤγγικε, is at hand, and the Judge standeth 
at the door;” they also must refer to the coming of the 


200 


Son of man to the dsstruction of Jerusalem, as they do in 
St. James, v. 7 (see the note there) ; and as we have proved 
“the coming of the Son of man” doth in the foregoing places 
of this chapter, and in St. Luke, ch. xvii. And this is 
still more evident from the variation of the phrase in St. 
Luke, “ Lift up your heads, for the kingdom of God draweth 
nigh ;” for as this, being given as an encouragement to 
Christ’s disciples then to persevere under these tribulations, 
and to “possess their souls in patience,’ must respect those 
of that generation, and not those Christians which were to 
live above seventeen hundred years after ; so “ the kingdom 
of God,” mentioned by St. Luke, enforceth the same sense, 
since Christ, in all these three evangelists, had told them, 
«“ There were some then alive that should not taste of death 
till they saw the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matt. 
xvi. 28); or “till they saw the kingdom of God coming in 
power” (Mark ix. 1, Luke ix. 27). 

Lastly, Our Saviour adds, ver. 34, « This generation shall 
not pass away till all these things be fulfilled ;’ which shows 
that this relates to that which was to be done in that age: 
for “this generation,” saith Grotius, is, ejus etatis homines, 
“the men of his age,” as hath been fully proved there; and 
this, saith he, Christ spake, templum ostendens, “ showing 
them the temple;” and surely then he spake this of the 
destruction of the temple. 

Obj. 1. But against this opinion it is objected, first, That 
these words of St. Matthew, “Then shall all the tribes of 
the earth (or land) mourn, and then shall they see the Son 
of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great 
glory,” cannot relate to the destruction of Jerusalem, be- 
cause St. John, who writ his prophecy long after the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, saith thus, Rev. i. 7, “ Behold he 
comes with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they 
who pierced him: and all the tribes of the earth shall weep 
because of him.” 

Ans. But to this objection Grotius himself gives a suffi- 
cient answer, by saying, Novum non est eadem verba, pra- 
sertim ex prophetis petita, diversis rebus aptari; “It is no 
unusual thing to adapt the same words taken from the pro- 
phets,” as these are from Zech. xii. 12, to divers events, 
especially when they respect the same subject, and relate to 
the same people. Now, after the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, in the eighteenth of Trajan, the Jews became sedi- 
tious again in Libya, Cyrene, Egypt, Alexandria, Mesopo- 
tamia, and that war extinguished πολλὰς μυριάδας ᾿Ιουδαίων, 
“many myriads of Jews” (Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 12) : 
and after that, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth of Ha- 
drian, they rebel again ; and then an innumerable multitude 
of men, women, and children perished with Barchochebas 
their leader; and they are utterly suppressed, and from 
thenceforth not permitted to see Jerusalem (cap. 6). And 
had not St. John, seeing those things by the spirit of pro- 
phecy, sufficient occasion, upon these accounts, to adapt 
these words of Zachary to the like calamities befalling the 
same persons? 

Obj. 2. St. Matthew and St. Mark say, « Of that day and 
hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels of heaven, nor 
the Son, but the Father only” (Matt. xxiv. 36, Mark xiii. 
32): which seems not to be true of the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, foretold so punctually by Daniel, but only of the 
day of judgment, of which the ancients did generally inter- 
pret these words. 

Ans. About the time to which these words refer, I shall 
not much contend; for the preceding words being these, 
“ Heaven and earth shall pass away,’’ these words may bear 
this sense, But of the time when heaven and earth shall 
pass away knoweth no man: and therefore in the para- 
phrase I have so interpreted the following words, as to 
relate to both these times; the destruction of the Jewish 
nation being an argument and a symbol of the general 
judgment. 


APPENDIX 


IN ANSWER TO MR. WHISTON’S DISSERTATION 
ON MATTHEW XXIV. 


My notes upon the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, 
and my appendix to that chapter, seem to me to depend upon 


MATTHEW. 


such solid and strong reasons, that Mr. Whiston durst not 
formally attack, and so they need no defence against his 
dissertation on that subject; yet, because he seems to 
have made a shift to evade some few things there said, I 
shall first propound the difference in this matter betwixt 
his sentiments and mine, and then consider his several 
observations, and show there is no strength in them, either 
to confirm his own opinion, or to invalidate the argu- 
ments which I and Dr. Hammond have produced against it. 
And, 

First, He delivers his opinion thus: « That the question 
which gave occasion to this discourse is double, or really 
two distinct questions; viz. the one, When these brave 
buildings of the temple were to be destroyed? the second, 
What should be the sign of his coming to judgment, and of 
the end of the world?” I, on the contrary, have asserted, 
and proved by three arguments, that the question is indeed 
but one, and concerns only the destruction of the people, 
and the temple, and the polity of the Jews, and the signs 
when this was to happen. ° 

That two distinct questions are offered to our Saviour, 
he proves from the account given of them by St. Matthew, 
whose first question, “ Tell us when these things shall be ?”’ 
relates to the destruction of the buildings of the temple; 
his second, “ What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of 
the end of the age?” relates, as Mr. Whiston thinks, to the 
signs and tokens of Christ’s coming to judgment, and of the 
end of the world. To which I answer, That there be indeed 
two questions in St. Matthew, but then they both relate to 
the same thing; viz. when these things should happen to 
the people and temple of the Jews (Luke xiii. 34, 35, xix. 
43, 44), and what signs should precede or accompany that 
desolation : for, 

Arg. 1. First, though the words of St. Matthew are 
larger than the words of the other evangelists, yet, being 
all inspired persons, they cannot contradict or thwart each 
other. Now St. Luke saith expressly, xxi. 7, that the 
questions of the disciples were these two ; “ When shall these 
things be, and what is the sign when they shall come to 
pass?” St. Mark, xiii. 4, saith as expressly they were these ; 
“Tell us when these things shall be, καὶ τί τὸ σημεῖον ὅταν 
μέλλη πάντα ταῦτα συντελεῖσϑαι, and what is the sign when 
all these things shall come to pass?” Seeing then that Mr. 
Whiston* grants, that ταῦτα, ταῦτα πάντα, “these things,” 
and “all these things,” refer particularly to the buildings of 
the temple, which are to be destroyed in that age, without 
any relation to the day of judgment, and the signs thereof: 
and seeing both St. Mark and St. Luke expressly say, that 
the second inquiry was when πάντα ταῦτα, “ all these things” 
were to come to pass, or συντελεῖσθαι, “to be consummated,” 
it is evident they must either contradict St. Matthew, in say- 
ing this was the second inquiry of the disciples, or else their 
second inquiry in St. Matthew must relate to the same thing, 
to wit, to the destruction of the people and the temple of 
the Jews. 

Arg. 2. My second argument, for confirmation of my 
opinion, is this: Christ so answers to the questions, touch- 
ing the signs of his coming, as manifestly to show they were 
contemporary with the desolation of the people, polity, and 
temple of Jerusalem, saying, ver. 27, “As the lightning 
cometh from the east and shineth to the west, so shall 4 
παρουσία the coming of the Son of man be,” Matt. xxiv. 27, 
for, ver. 28, “where the carcase (i. 6. the Jewish people) is, 
there shall the eagles be gathered together;” i. e. the Ro- 
man army, whose ensign is the eagle: so that the coming of 
that army to destroy them, and “the coming of the Son of 
man,” must be contemporary. And again, ver. 37—39, 
«ΑΒ it was in the days of Noe, so shall ἡ παρουσία the com- 
ing of the Son of man be: for two shall be in the field, two 
grinding in the mill, the one shall be taken, and the other 
left,’ ver. 40, 41, which words are followed in St. Luke 
with these, “« Where the carcase is, there shall the eagles be 
gathered together,” xvii. 34. 

Now to this Mr. Whiston replies only by this sorry shift, 
that the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth verses in St. 
Matthew are misplaced, and belong to their fellows, ver. 
37 of the same chapter; which if men say at pleasure, all 


* Pp. 292. 


APPENDIX. 


certainty from the connexion of the words in scripture is 
destroyed. 

Secondly, Why doth he say that they are placed here 
without any visible connexion? when the connexion runs 
jso clearly thus, Hearken not to them who say that Christ 
is in the secret chambers, for the coming of the Son of 
man will not be secret and obscure, but bright as the light- 
ning, &c. 

Thirdly, The same words in St. Matthew follow the same 
words, Luke xvii. 27, as will be evident by comparing 
Matt. xxiv. 23 with Luke xvii. 23, and μὴ εξέλθητε, Matt. 
xxiv. 26, with μὴ ἀπέλθητε, Luke xvii. 23, so that if the 
words of Christ be not misplaced there, they cannot be mis- 
placed here. 

And, Fourthly, Place them where you will, the argument 
hath still the same force to prove that the coming of the 
Son of man must be contemporary with the coming of the 
Roman army to destroy the people of Jerusalem ; this being 
given as the reason why the coming of the Son of man 
should be so conspicuous, that where the Jews were, there 
ra the Roman army be gathered together to destroy 

em. 

Arg. 3. My third argument is this: By comparing the 
words of Christ elsewhere with those contained in these 
three evangelists, this will be farther evident; for Christ 
saith, Mark ix. 7, « There be some standing here, who shall 
not taste death, till they see the Son of man coming in his 
kingdom ;” and, Matt. xxvi. 62, “ Within a while ye shall 
see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of Power, and 
coming in the clouds of heaven.” When therefore it is said, 
Matt. xxiv. 30, Mark xiii. 26, Luke xxi. 27, “ Ye shall see 
the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great 
power and glory ;” this advent must be whilst some were 
living that then stood by Christ, and “ within a while,” and 
so not at the end of the world. 

Now in reply to this, behold a notable criticism, viz. the 
word in all these places is not παρὼν, but ἐρχόμενος, not “ pre- 
sent,” but “coming; and what then? Will he not be 
παρὼν present, when he is come in hiskingdom? Will not 
his παρέλευσις be παρουσία, bis advent be his coming? But, 
saith Mr. Whiston, no example can be given out of this dis- 
course, of the using the word παρουσία in any other sense, 
but of the presence and appearance of Christ at the last 
day. I answer, 

First, Let him produce examples of Christ’s “coming in 
the clouds of heaven in power and great glory ;” and I 
will undertake to prove his παρουσία used in another sense 
elsewhere. 

Secondly, I have proved already, that it is used of Christ’s 
coming to destroy the people of the Jews, Matt. xxiv. 27, 
Luke xvii. 24. I have proved also, that it must bear this 
sense, when St. James speaks twice of the παρουσία τοῦ 
Κυρίον, coming of the Lord, v. 7, 8.* And when I come to 
vindicate my interpretation of 2 Thess. ii., I shall prove 
that it bears the same sense there, ver. 8. And, 

Thirdly, St. Mark, ix. 1, brings in Christ speaking thus: 
« Verily, I say unto you, There be some standing here, who 
shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God 
come in power ;” and St. Luke, ix. 27, “I say to you of a 
truth, There be some standing here, who shall not taste of 
death, till they see the kingdom of God come.” Whence it 
is evident, that kingdom must come while some of that 
age were living: when the same St. Luke saith, xxi. 34, 
« When you see these things come to pass, know that the 
kingdom of God is near ;” if he speaks of the same kingdom 
of God, then must that also come in the same age: if of the 

| day of judgment, why doth he immediately add, “ Verily I 
say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all 
these things be fulfilled?” which words, saith Mr. Whiston, 
have no relation to the day of judgment, p. 292. 

That συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος signifies “the end of the world,” 
he attempts to prove from the signification of the word. 
But, 

First, It appears from St. Mark, that what in St. Matthew 
is σημεῖον συντελείας rod αἰῶνος, “the sign of the end of the 
age,” is the same with what is the sign, ὅταν μέλλῃ πάντα 
ταῦτα συντελεῖσϑαι, “ when all these things shall shall be accom- 


* See the note there. 
Vor. IV.—26 


201 


plished :” and that it is the same with the end of the Jewish 
state appears from the whole thread of our Lord’s answer. 
For to this inquiry he answers, Matt. xxiv. 6, Mark xiii. 7, 
Luke xxi. 9, “ You shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, 
ἀλλ᾽ οὔπω ἐστὶ τὸ τέλος, but the end (you inquire after) is not 
yet;” and, ver. 13, “he that endureth, εἰς τέλος, to the end 
shall be saved ;” and, ver. 14, “the gospel shall be preached, 
ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένη, through the whole Roman empire, καὶ 
τότε ἥξει τὸ τέλος, and then shall the end come;” that is, ἡ 
ἐρήμωσις αὐτῆς, “the desolation of Jerusalem” (Luke xxi. 
20). Now the gospel was preached thus throughout the 
world, saith St. Paul, Col. i. 6. 23, about eight years before 
the destruction of Jerusalem. ‘Till, then, Mr. Whiston can 
find any other end mentioned by the apostles, to which our 
Lord returns this answer, he must be forced to grant that 
this is an answer to their question, περὶ τῆς συντελείας τοῦ 
αἰῶνος, i. 6. “concerning the end of the age” they inquired 
after. Moreover, when the apostle says that Christ appeared, 
ἐπὶ τῇ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων, “at the consummation of ages, 
to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself,’ Heb. ix. 26, 
and then adds, that he shall come, ἐκ δευτέρου, “a second 
time without a sacrifice for sin, for the salvation of them that 
expect him :” must not the συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων, “ at the end 
of ages,” signify a time as distinct from the day of judgment, 
as was our Lord’s passion from that day which is yet to 
come? and, lastly, why is he thus confident, when he hath 
not returned one word of answer, either to Dr. Hammond, 
on this chapter, note,* or to Dr. Lightfoot, on the place ? 

Secondly, Moreover, Mr. Whiston owns that “the apos- 
tles looked upon these two questions as belonging to the 
same time; and imagined that our Saviour would not de- 
stroy Jerusalem, and its temple, till he came to put an end 
to the present state of the world, at the day of judgment : 
and this,” saith he, “appears by the words of the question, 
set down in St. Mark and St. Luke, which evidently show 
that they did not distinguish them in their own thoughts, 
but looked upon them as coincident.” Now though it doth 
not follow hence, that these things really were coincident ; 
yet it doth follow that, to inform them of the time and signs 
of the destruction of Jerusalem, was all our Saviour had 
to say, in satisfaction to their question; for surely he an- 
swers fully, who answers to all that they intended to inquire 
after. Add to this, that it neither is nor can be proved, 
that Christ in these three chapters gives any one sign of 
the coming of the day of judgment; for the signs he men- 
tions evidently relate to the ϑλίψις, or affliction of the Jews, 
and are immediately connected with them, as will instantly 
be proved: it is therefore certain, that in these chapters 
Christ doth not answer to this question, “ What is the 
sign of thy coming, and of the,end of the age,” in Mr. 
Whiston’s sense. 

Thirdly, Though he is very confident that the Jews had 
no notion of any age to succeed after that of the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem; yet, seeing their evangelical prophet 
speaketh of Christ as of the father, τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, “ of 
the age to come,” Isa. ix. 7: seeing St. Paul, in his epistle 
to them, speaketh to them of an οἰκουμένη μέλλουσα, “a 
world to come,” ii. 5 : seeing the prediction of their renowned 
Elias runneth thus, That as there were two thousand years, 
tohu, or before the law, so should there be two thousand 
years of continuance of the law, and two thousand years of 
the Messiah; and St. Paul saith, in allusion to these three 
ages, That upon the Christians of his time were come, ra 
τέλη τῶν αἰώνων, “the end of the ages” (1 Cor. x. 11); and 
that Christ had appeared ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων, “at the end 
of the ages, to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 
ix. 26); and seeing the Jewish writers spake so frequently 
of a holam habba, and vetter, or “an age future and to 
come” in the days of the Messiah;—why might not the 
apostles speak in their own phrase of the consummation of 
the Jewish age? 

The second thing in which we differ is this, That he as- 
serts that only what occurs in this chapter, from the fourth 
to the twenty-eighth verse, is to be expounded of the de- 
struction of Jerusalem; whereas I assert, that from thence 
to the thirty-fifth, and probably to the forty-third verse, all 
is to he expounded of the destruction of the temple, polity, 


* See above, xxiv. 40, 


202 


and people of the Jews, and of the signs and occurrences 
relating to that destruction. 

Now here let it be noted, that if the discourse in St. 
Matthew concerning the destruction of Jerusalem ends at 
the twenty-eighth verse, it must end in St. Mark at the 
twenty-third, and in St. Luke at the twenty-fourth verse ; 
because the twenty-fifth verse in St. Luke, and the twenty- 
fourth in St. Mark, answer directly to the twenty-ninth in 
St. Matthew. Now against this I have made a particular 
dissertation in my appendix to Matt. xxiv., to which Mr. 
Whiston hath not returned one word of answer: to which 
I add, that the arguments produced against his opinion 
in the notes on that chapter, seem to be demonstrative, 
especially these two. 

First, The argument taken from the plain connexion of 
the words following, ver. 29, with the words preceding, which, 
saith Mr. Whiston, every body will allow are to be ex- 
pounded of the destruction of Jerusalem: for St. Matthew 
having said, ver. 21, that “then there shall be ϑλίψις μεγάλη, 
great tribulation ;” adds, ver. 39, that εὐθέως μετὰ τὴν θλίψιν 
τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐκείνων, “immediately after the tribulation of 
those days, the sun shall be darkened,” &c. And St. Mark 
having spoken of this ϑλίψις, “tribulation,” that should 
happen in those days, ver. 19, saith, ver. 24, that ἐν ἐκείναις 
ταῖς ἡμέραις, “in those days, after this tribulation, the sun 
shall be darkened,” &c. St. Luke saith, ver. 23, « Woe to 
them that are with child, and give suck in those days; for 
(in those days) there shall be great affliction and wrath upon 
that people ; and they shall fall by the edge of the sword.” 
And, ver. 25 (In those days) “there shall be signs in the 
sun, and in the moon,” &c. St. Matthew goes on, and 
says, ver. 30, καὶ rére, “and then (i. 6. immediately after 
that affliction) the Son of man shall appear in the hea- 
vens.” St. Mark says, ver. 26, καὶ τότε, and then (in those 
days of tribulation) shall they see the Son of man coming in 
the clouds with power and great glory.’’ St. Luke, ver. 27, 
saith, that rére “ then shall they see the Son of man com- 
ing,” &c. Is it not therefore evident to a demonstration, 
that all these things, which Mr. Whiston refers to the day 
of judgment, were to happen immediately after that tri- 
bulation, and not almost two thousand years after it? St. 
Mark adds, ver. 27, τότε ἀποστελεῖ, “ then shall he send his 
angels to gather his elect,” &c., plainly connecting the send- 
ing of them with that time, and so demonstrating that the 
same words, Matt. xxiv. 31, must belong also to that time. 
Moreover, our blessed Saviour saith to the Jewish Sanhedrin, 
Matt. xxvi. 64, dx’ ἄρτι, “ within a while :” and in St. Luke, 
XXli. 69, ἀπὸ τοῦ viv, « from this time shall ye see the Son of 
man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the 
clouds of heaven ;” which assures us that the like words 
mentioned in all these chapters of the three evangelists, can- 
not relate to his coming at the day of judgment, but only 
to his coming at or about the time of the destruction of Je- 
tusalem. Now from these things we may easily discern the 
inconsistency of Mr. Whiston’s sense of the words of St. 
Luke, xxi. 24, “ Jerusalem shall be trodden down till the 
times of the gentiles be fulfilled, καὶ ἔσται σημεῖα, and there 
shall be signs in the sun ;” viz. that the fullness of the gen- 
tiles was to come in before these things should happen: for 
he doth not say, that pera τὴν πλήρωσιν τῶν tSvav, “ after 
the fullness of the gentiles is come in,” there shall be signs ; 
but, that there shall be in those days signs; and that “ then 
shall they see the coming of the Son of man in the clouds ; 
which, as it is proved, cannot relate unto Christ’s second 
coming. 

Secondly, My second argument is this, That after our 
Lord had spoken of all these things, which, Mr. Whiston 
saith, relate unto the day of judgment, he adds these words, 
ver. 34, “ Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not 
pass away, till all these things (before-mentioned) be ful- 
filled.” Where it is observable, that these words, in all the 
three evangelists, follow the words which, Mr. Whiston saith, 
are spoken of the day of judgment: whence it is evident, 
that they cannot relate only to the destruction of Jerusalem, 
unless all the things mentioned before relate to that period, 
ΟἹ to some season which was to follow in that very age ; for 
otherwise, to make our Saviour, after he had said so many 
things relating to the day of judgment, add with an asseve- 
ration, “ Verily I say unto you, ‘This generation shall not 


MATTHEW. 


pass away, till all these things are fulfilled,” is to make him 
aver, with an asseveration, a manifest untruth; and surely 
that interpretation must be false, which gives the lie unto 
our Saviour. And, indeed, his paraphrase on these words,* 
“1 have given you the signs of the desolation of Jerusalem ; 
but as for your other question about the time and signs of 
the great and general judgment, do not think to confound 
them with the other :’’ that I confidently say is not a para- 
phrase upon any words of the evangelists, but a plain addi- 
tion to the text, and the pure invention of the brain. I 
proceed now to answer what Mr. Whiston offers to the con- 
trary. And, 

First, Whereas he observes,t “ That in that part of the dis- 
course which belongs to the destruction of Jerusalem, our 
Lord still speaks in the plural; but in that part of it which 
directly belongs to the day of judgment, the second person 
plural is not once used :” 

The falsehood of this observation appears from Matt. xxiv. 
32, ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς συκῆς μάθετε, “Learn a parable from the fig- 
tree :” and, ver. 33, οὕτω καὶ ὑμεῖς, “even so ye:” so Mark 
xiii. 28, 29, and Luke xxi. after the evangelist had said, ver. 
27, “Then shall they see the Son of man coming in the 
clouds ;”” he adds, and “when these things come to pass, 
ἀνακύψατε, καὶ ἐπάρατε τὰς κεραλὰς ὑμῶν, look up, and lift 
up your heads, because your redemption draweth nigh :” 
and then follows the parable of the fig-tree in the plural 
number. But, saith Mr. Whiston here, our Saviour returns 
to caution them about the observation of the signs before 
the destruction of Jerusalem; so apparently doth he beg 
the question, that between him and us being only this, Whe- 
ther our Lord, in the intermediate words, from ver. 28 to 
33, speaks of the day of judgment, or of the destruction of 
Jerusalem; and so indecently doth he make our Saviour, 
without any intimation, leap from one thing to another. 
In fine, if the preceding words relate to the day of judg- 
ment, the parable of the fig-tree must relate to the same 
time, as the connexion shows: for both in St. Matthew and 
St. Mark, after these words, “'Then shall he send his angels, 
and gather his elect from the four winds,’ which are the words 
most likely to refer to the day of judgment; immediately fol- 
low these words, ἀπὸ δὲ συκῆς, “therefore from the fig-tree 
learn a parable.” Indeed, the whole of this doughty obser- 
vation comes at last only to this; That there be three verses 
in which Christ speaks not in the plural number, from ver. 
28 to 32, exclusively. And for this rare invention I return 
him this; That there be five verses, viz. from 9 to 15, in 
which he doth the like: Mr. Whiston, therefore, hath only 
the glory of being an inventor of an observation manifestly 
false, and not worth a rush were it as true as the gospel. 

His second observation is like unto the first; viz. “That 
in all this discourse our Saviour useth different numbers of 
the nouns, when he speaks of the desolation of Jerusalem, 
and of the miseries of the Jews, either antecedent or conse- 
quent, and when he speaketh of the day of judgment. In 
the former case, he always styles them the days of vengeance, 
in the plural; but in the latter, he speaks only of one great 
day, and one great hour, which in the phrase of the Jews, 
and ours ever since, have been confined to the end of the 
world and the day of judgment.” 

Ans. I am not willing to spoil the good man’s observa- 
tions; yet first, I must tell him, that I doubt the truth of 
his first observation, that the great day and hour, both in the 
phrase of the Jews, and of us Christians, have been still con- 
fined to the end of the world and the day of judgment. 
For Joel ii. 31, ἡμέρα τοῦ Κυρίου ἡ μεγάλη καὶ ἐπιφανὴς, “the 
great and terrible day of the Lord” is mentioned ; and this 
St. Peter plainly interprets of the day of Christ’s first com- 
ing, Acts ii. 20. The prophet Malachi, iii. 1, speaks of a 
messenger to be sent to prepare the way of the Lord, and of 
the Lord’s coming after him to his temple; and then in- 
quires, ver. 2, “ Who shall abide the day of his coming? 
And who shall stand when he appeareth?”’ Which verse, 
saith Dr. Pocock, relates to the destruction of the country, 
city, and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans, about the 
seventieth year of Christ: and iv. 5, he adds, “ Behold I 
will send you Elijah the prophet, πρὶν ἐλθεῖν τὴν ἡμέραν Ku- 
piov τὴν μεγάλην καὶ ἐπιφανῆ, before the great and terrible day 


* Page 300. ἡ Page 296. 


APPENDIX. 


of the Lord cometh :” which, again, the doctor understands of 
that coming of Christ against the nation of the Jews, which 
ended in the destruction of the unbelievers among them: and, 
ver. 1, “ Behold,” saith he, “the day cometh, that shall burn 
as an oven; and all the proud, and all that do wickedly, shall 
be as the stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them 
up:” which, saith Dr. Pocock, is a description of the final 
judgment of the Jews, and can be applied to the day of 
judgment only by way of accommodation. For, to the na- 
tion of the Jews did Malachi then speak, as a messenger pe- 
culiarly sent to them, to reprove them for their sins, and to 
declare to them such things as concerned them, and not im- 
mediately such things as were common to the whole world. 

And this, I hope, may be sufficient to show him that, in 
the phrase of the Jews, one day, even of the Lord’s coming, 
is not confined to the end of the world and the day of judg- 
ment. Nor, 

Secondly, Is it so in the New Testament: for thus our 
Saviour speaks ; “ Verily I say unto you, That the hour is 
coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of 
the Son of God, and they that hear shall live: for that 
those words cannot be meant of the day of judgment, is 
proved in the note there. So Rom. xiii. 11. This do, 
εἰδότες ὅτι Opa, “ knowing that now is the hour to awake out 
of our sleep ;” which I suppose Mr. Whiston does not in- 
terpret thus, “knowing now is the day of judgment.” 

Again, It is not true, that when Christ speaks of the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, he always speaks of it in the plural 
number; for he speaks twice of it in the singular number, 
Luke xvii. 24, “So also shall be the coming of the Son of 
man in his day;” ver. 30, So shall it be, ἔν 7 ἡμέρα, “in 
that day, when the Son of man is revealed ;” and, ver. 3], 
ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρα, in that day, he that is upon the house, and 
hath his stuff in his house, let him not descend to take it 
away:” which words answer to Matt. xxiv. 17, 18, and 
therefore by Mr. Whiston’s confession must relate to the 
destruction of Jerusalem. 

Lastly, It is not true, according to Mr. Whiston’s opinion, 
that our Lord always speaks of the day of judgment in the 
singular number. For St. Luke saith, xvii. 26, “As it was 
in the days of Noe so shall it be, ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις, in the 
days of the Son of man ;” which words exactly answer to 
those in Matt. xxiv. 37, «As it was in the days of Noe, 
οὕτως ἔσται ἡ παρουσία, so shall be the coming of the Son of 
man ;’’ which, saith Mr. Whiston, “must be spoken of the 
day of judgment 2” and, Mark xiii. 24, ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέ- 
pas, “In those days shall the sun be darkened,” &c., 
which words, saith he,* «I do interpret the day of judg- 
ment ;” though indeed he doth it without the least sha- 
dow of reason: for the same or more tragical expressions 
being used of the destruction of the land of Babylon, Isa. 
xiii. 9, 10, of the Idumeans, Isa. xxxiv. 3, 4, of Senna- 
cherib and his people, Isa. li. 6, of the destruction of 
Egypt, Ezek. xxxvii. 7, and that in words as plain, and free 
from mystical expressions, as the words of Christ ; and this 
very destruction being foretold by Joel, in the very words of 
Christ, ii. 31, iii. 15, why should not that tribulation, which, 
saith our Lord, was such as “ was not from the beginning of 
the world to that time, nor ever should be after’’ (Matt. 
Xxiv. a0): be represented in the like tragical expressions? 
In fine, his observation is also on this account impertinent ; 
that where that day and hour occur, we allow that the words 
may be interpreted of the day of judgment; though who- 
soever seriously considers Matt. xxiv. from ver. 37 to 42, 
and Luke xxi. 34—36, will see cause to think that they pri- 
marily refer to the desolation of the Jewish nation. 

We also grant that the latter part of the twenty-fourth 
chapter of St. Matthew, and the whole twenty-fifth, belong 
to the day of judgment. But then note, 

First, That Dr. Lightfoot very probably conjectures, that 
the discourse of Christ upon this subject ended at ver. 42, 
or 44, as in St. Mark and St. Luke it doth; and that the 
words following were, as St. Luke places them, xii. 29, 
spoken at another time, and upon another occasion, though, 
because they also well accord with this place and this occa- 
sion, and do there, as well as here, follow the exhorta- 


* Page 295. 


203 


tion given ver. 43, St. Matthew hath added them to this 
chapter. 

Secondly, This dreadful judgment of God upon the 
wicked, unbelieving, and impenitent Jews, being the most 
signal preludium to, and lively emblem and example of, 
God’s dealing with the like sinners at the great day, and a 
full proof of that final judgment which shall be upon all the 
enemies of Christ’s kingdom; it is no wonder, that our 
Lord immediately passes from it to a discourse on that day ; 
it being his usual manner, upon occasion offered, to advance 
to a discourse on matters of the highest moment. 


APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. XXVI. 


In answer to an objection of Crellius against Christ’s satis- 
faction. 


Tue great objection which Crellius makes against Christ's 
satisfaction, is to this effect, That the death Christ suffered 
for our sins was only temporal ; the punishment we deserved, 
and therefore should have suffered in our persons for them, 
was eternal death: Christ therefore did not suffer the pu- 
nishment of our iniquities, because he did not suffer an eter- 
nal punishment. ‘To this I answer, 

Ans. 1. By confession, that our Lord did not suffer the 
torments which the damned shall hereafter suffer; for that 
in the midst of all his agonies, he lay not under any despera- 
tion, or under any sense of the anger or indignation of God 
against him, is evident from what hath been discoursed on 
ver. 38 of this chapter. 

2. It is also confessed, that he could not suffer death eter- 
nal or eternal punishments; for his sufferings and death 
lasted not three days ; to say, he suffered these punishments 
intensively, is (1.) to speak improperly, seeing eternity ap- 
plied to punishments plainly respecteth the duration, not 
the intention of them. (2.) It is certain our Lord suffered 
only in his human nature; now that was not capable of 
such intensive punishments as could be equal to the eternal 
punishment of the whole world, for which he died ; nor can 
the dignity of the person be considered here; for though 
that makes the sufferings more valuable, it doth not make 
them either more durable, or more intense ; seeing a peasant 
suffers as much, and as long, by hanging on a cross, as dotha 
prince. And (3.) wherein did he suffer such intensive pu- 
nishments as could be any way equivalent to the eternal tor- 
ments of the damned? Not in his soul ; for, could that soul, 
which knew no sin, lie under remorse of conscience for any 
thing that he had done? Could the. worm that never dies 
lodge in his sacred breast? Could he who, « for the joy that 
was set before him, endured the cross,” lie under any sense 
of God’s unchangeable displeasure? under an absolute de- 
spair of any better state? Could he, who knew “his soul 
could not be left in hades, nor should his body see corrup- 
tion,” lie under any apprehension of an unayoidable pain, or 
of no release from what he was to suffer? Now in these 
things consist the miseries and torments of the damned spi- 
rits; and, since it was impossible the holy Jesus should thus 
suffer in his innocent and spotless soul, it was impossible 
that he should suffer in his soul those punishments which 
are equivalent to the punishments of damned spirits; nor 
could he suffer these eternal punishments in his body, for 
that could only die, by what he suffered on the cross. 

Again, as it was impossible that Christ should suffer death 
eternal, so was it unnecessary that he should do it. It was 
unnecessary that he should do it for the sake of the impeni- 
tent and unbelievers ; for they in their own persons are, by 
the order and decree of God, to suffer eternal death; and 
why should our Lord suffer that for them, which, notwith 
standing all that he had suffered, they must in their own 
persons actually suffer? No sacrifice for sin, nor even that 
of our blessed Lord, can avail any thing for the impenitent 
and the ungodly ; because it cannot, merely as being offered, 
render them pure from habitual sin, it cannot “ create in 
them the clean heart,” it cannot give them a divine nature, 
or a likeness to God, and so it cannot fit them for a state of 


204 


happiness, or exempt them from being everlastingly excluded 
from the face of God, and so for ever miserable. Why there- 
fore should our Saviour suffer such direful punishments for 
them who could receive no benefit from what he suffered ? 
As for true penitent believers, Christ came to save them 
from the wrath to come, by suffering, to obtain grace and 
mercy for them in the pardon of their sins, and to establish 
that new covenant in his blood, in which God promised « to 
be merciful to their iniquities, and to remember their sins no 
more, and to justify them freely by his grace, through the 
redemption that is in Jesus.” Now, had Christ suffered for 
them death eternal, or all that justice could demand by way 
of punishment, for them in whose stead he suffered, what 
need had he to suffer to procure this rich grace and mercy, in 
the pardon of those sins for which he had already paid the 
utmost farthing? Or, how then did he establish a new and 
better covenant of his blood, seeing no covenant did or could 
require more than the full punishment which our sins de- 
served. Or, how was this a covenant, to be merciful to our 
iniquities? Where, lastly, is the grace and freeness of that 
justification which, after a full payment, imputeth only to 
me nothing of that debt, which is entirely discharged ? 

Ans, 2. I shall not insist upon it, though it be very true, 
that the words “death eternal” are never mentioned in the 
Old or the New Testament; but only shall observe from 
Covarruvias, and others, that to a surrogation in the case of 
punishment, it is not requisite the substitute should suffer 
what is accidental, but only that which is essential to the 
punishment. Now to apply this to our purpose, let it be 
noted, 

First, That death is accidentally to us eternal, because 
we have no power, being dead, to raise our bodies unto life ; 
nor have we any promise that our dying bodies “ shall not 
see corruption ;” or, because sin had given Satan a power to 
detain us in that state till Christ had made satisfaction for it, 
death neither was nor could be so to Christ, who knew no 
sin, because he had this power to reassume his life, and had 
a promise that “his body should not see corruption ;” but 
still his death was both as truly, and as much death, as that 
which sinners suffer in the body ; because it was as much the 
dissolution of the soul and body, and the cessation of the 
functions of human life in Christ, as it is in them: that 
therefore our Lord Jesus should redeem us from eternal 
death, it was not necessary that he should suffer the same 
death, but only that he should atone for that sin which made 
us subject to death, and procure for us a blessed resurrection 
by his death, which he hath done ; « For as by man came 
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead; and 
as in Adam all men die, so in Christ shall all be made alive” 
(1 Cor. xv. 21, 22). 

Secondly, Most of the evils which the soul suffers after 
death are also accidental, and may more properly be styled 
the necessary consequents, than the formal and positive pu- 
nishments of sin. For instance, that souls departed are de- 
prived of the love of God, are objects of his wrath, and are 
excluded from his presence, is not merely because they are 
souls separated from the body ; for pious souls, when sepa- 
rated from the body, are entirely exempted from these evils; 
but this ariseth from the natural purity and holiness of God, 
and the defilement and impurity which these unhappy souls 
lie under; it is, because God “ is of purer eyes than to be- 
hold iniquity, neither shall evil dwell with him;” there be- 
ing no “communion betwixt light and darkness ;” and be- 
cause “nothing which is defiled or unclean can enter into 
the New Jerusalem,” or be capable of enjoying happiness 
from God. The worm of conscience, the despair, and dire- 
ful expectations, which follow this sense of loss, and the 
exclusion from God’s presence, are also natural results of 
the soul’s separation in an impenitent state and an unsanc- 
tified condition, and of its being conscious of its own doom, 
and of those wilful follies, which did subject it to that doom : 
Christ being then the Lamb of God, not having “spot or 
blemish,” he being such “a high-priest who was holy, harm- 
less, separate from sinners,” he could not be exposed to the 
evils consequent to the separation of unholy souls. And 
that his members might also be exempted from them, he 
was not only to suffer for them, since, as I have observed, 
the sufferings of another for us can never of themselves 
render us holy, renew our natures, and make us like to God; 


MATTHEW. 


but he was also to make them holy by his word and Spirit, 
“by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
Ghost ;” whence we are said to be “justified by the name 
of the Lord Jesus,” but to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit 
of God” (1 Cor. vi. 11). And upon this sanctification de- 
pends our interest in the blood of Christ; for “if we walk 
in the light, as God is in the light, we have communion with 
him, and the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin” qd 
John i. 7). And though Christ doubtless suffered “to re- 
deem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar 
people zealous of good works;” yet it is said, that he gave 
himself to the death for us, that he “ might cleanse us by 
the washing of water and the word” (Eph. ν. 26). His 
death is indeed a most powerful motive to holiness of life, 
but yet it is the immediate fruit of his Holy Spirit, and his 
word. It was also necessary for this end, that he should 
purchase for us an entrance into the holy of holies, that he 
should there appear before God with it; for by this, saith 
the apostle, we obtain a liberty of entrance into the holy 
place (Heb. x. 19). 

Thirdly, The resurrection of the bodies, and union of the 
souls of wicked men to them, is the natural result of that 
impartial justice, which will “render to every man according 
to what he hath done in the flesh;” that being raised, and 
sentenced to condemnation, and punished with everlasting 
separation from the presence of the Lord, they are torment- 
ed in the flames, which will then seize upon that world which 
is “reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, and per- 
dition of ungodly men” (2 Pet. iii. 5), happeneth, because 
they are not able to convey themselves out of those flames, 
and are not worthy to be snatched up to heaven, and live 
“for ever with the Lord.” That then Christ might exempt 
the members of his body from these punishments, it was not 
necessary that he should descend to hell, or be cast into those 
flames ; but only that he should free them from comdemna- 
tion at that day, as he most certainly hath done, “there be- 
ing no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus ;” 
and that they should be “caught up by him into the clouds, 
to meet the Lord in the air, and so to be for ever with him,” 
as the apostle saith they will (1 Thess. iv. 17). 

Ans. 3. I add, that though Christ did not undergo eternal 
punishments, yet he did suffer such evils as contained some 
analogy, and bore some resemblance to those which sinners 
do, or are to suffer; and which he would not otherwise have 
suffered, had he not been punished for our sins. For, 

First, As the sinner lieth under the sentence of condem- 
nation, and is sure to find a public exemplary judgment; 
so was our Saviour solemnly condemned, an@ sentenced 
as a malefactor, not without semblance of justice, and of 
law, to warrant their proceedings; for we, say the Jewish 
doctors, would not deliver up this Jesus, were he not a noto- 
rious malefactor. They lay upon him the imputation of an 
impostor, a seditious person, a perverter of the nation, a 
rebel unto Cesar, and a blasphemer against God, pretending 
to desire his execution out of pure zeal unto their law; 
“for by our law,” say they, “he ought to die, because he 
maketh himself the Son of God:” thus was he “numbered 
with the transgressors.” 

Secondly, As sinners will be exposed to shame and igno- 
miny at the great day of judgment, before men and angels, 
so did Christ suffer a very ignominious and shameful death ; 
the punishment he endured, was servile supplicium, that pu- 
nishment which only slaves did suffer by the Roman law;* 
it was attended with all the mockeries and flouts, affronts 
and obloquies, his enemies could cast upon him; as for the 
tulers, ἐξεμυκτήριζον, “they reviled, and snuffed up their 
noses at him,” and they that went by, ἐβλασφήμουν, “ wagged 
their heads,” and with their tongues “ vented their blasphe- 
mies” against him (Luke xxiii. 35,36). He himself de- 
clares to his disciples, that he ought to suffer these indignities, 
that he ought dzodoxacSiva, to be “reprobated by the 
chief priests and elders of the Jews” (Luke ix. 22), éov- 
δενοῦσϑαι, “to be vilified and set at nought by them” (Mark 
ix. 12). This condemnation, and this shame, was therefore 
part of what he was designed to suffer for us. And, 

Thirdly, Whereas sinners are obnoxious to sufferings in 
their bodies, he suffered in his body a death so painful, that 


* Dr. Pearson on the Creed, p. 206. 


PREFACE TO MARK. 


the most exquisite afflicting torments are styled eruciatus, 
from the cross, And surely, he must suffer sharp and pun- 
gent grief, when his hands were pierced and nailed to the 
cross, sustaining thus the weight of his whole body ; and, by 
that burden, suffering a continual rack and torture, when all 
his bones were out of joint, by being stretched upon the 
cross; when he, being stretched out thus, was nailed to it, 
and left to die no other death, but what the sharpness of his 
pains and the excess of torments would produce. 

Fourthly, He suffered in his soul most dreadful agonies ; 
for he himself declares that he was “troubled in spirit” 
(John xii. 27, xiii. 21), at what he was to suffer; and that 
his soul was full of deadly sorrow (Matt. xxvi. 38, see the 
note there). This we may learn from those strong, earnest, 
and repeated cries he uttered, to be delivered from this 
bitter cup; for “ being heard in what he feared’? (Heb. v. 
7), and yet not freed from suffering death, we may imagine, 
that his fears were greater than the impressions of mere 
death could make upon him. 

Lastly, Are sinners then to suffer from the hand of God? 
So do the scriptures teach us, that our Saviour suffered from 
his hand, that “he delivered him up for us all” (Rom. viii. 
32), and that “he made him sin for us, who knew no sin” 
(2 Cor. v. 21); that is, he in his providence ordered, that 
he should be dealt with as a criminal, or sinful person, for 
our sakes, who in himself was wholly innocent: it was by 
men who acted in his name, and claimed his authority, that 
he was sentenced to death; it was by them who sat in 
Moses’ chair, that he was judged worthy of death, and by his 


205 


vicegerents that he was delivered up to be crucified ; and there- 
fore he tells Pilate, he “could have no power over him, had 
it not been given him from above” (John xix. 11). “It pleased 
the Lord to bruise him,” saith the prophet, “ and to put him to 


| grief, and to make our sins to meet upon him ;” and what 


men did against him, was only that which “ God’s hand and 
counsel determined before to be done” (Acts iv. 28). So 
that, although I dare not say that he was smitten by the 
immediate hand of God, yet do these scriptures seem to 
teach, that what he suffered from the hand of man, befell 
him by the overruling providence of him “who orders all 
things according to the counsel of his will.” Now from 
this fair resemblance betwixt what our Lord actually suffered, 
and what sinners had deserved to suffer, there seems sufhi- 
cient ground to say, he bore the punishment of our iniquities, 
and suffered in our stead, although he hid not undergo what 
accidently the sinner was to suffer, and what it was im- 
possible for him to suffer, being innocent and perfectly holy : 
had not our Lord been holy in perfection, and separate 
from sinners, he must have suffered for his own sins; and so 
he could have been no Saviour to us, by his sufferings; and 
being thus holy, he could not be obnoxious to the punish- 
ments I say he did not suffer. Now, is it not unreasonable 
to say, Christ could not suffer in our stead, or for our sins, 
unless he suffered that eternal death we had deserved? 
since this is plainly to affirm, he could not suffer in our 
stead, had he not been a sinner as we were; i. e. had he 
not been incapable of suffering for us, and liable to suffer 
for his own offences. 


THE 


GOSPEL“ OF ΡΟ MARK, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Ix confirmation of the authority of these two ensuing 
Gospels, let it be considered, First, That two things have 
been already proved in the general preface to the Gospels; 
viz. (1.) That all the four Gospels were received from the 
beginning, by the whole church of Christ, as genuine, and 
never questioned by any besides heretics. (2.) That they 
were owned as their rule of faith, and writings of divine in- 
spiration: and that therefore* copies of these Gospels were 
carried by the disciples of the apostles, or apostolic men, 
into all countries whither they went to build up the churches 
planted by their hands. 

Secondly, Eusebiust farther adds, that it was related, 
that the three other Gospels being come to the knowledge 
of all men, and so to St. John’s knowledge, he approved of 
them, and gave in his testimony to the truth of them. 

Thirdly, Concerning this Gospel of St. Mark in particular, 
Eusebius¢ informs us, from Clemens of Alexandria and 
Papias, that when it was indited by him, St. Peter, being 
informed of the writing it by the revelation of the Holy 
Ghost, confirmed it as a writing to be read in the churches; 
which sure he would not have done, had he not found it 
an exactly true and authentic record of the things related in 
it. And as for the Gospel of St. Luke, Origen§ declares 
that it was τὸ ὑπὸ Παύλου ἐπαινούμενον εὐαγγέλιον, “the Gospel 
praised by St. Paul,” plainly referring to those words of the 
apostle (2 Cor. viii. 18), “The brother, οὔ ὁ ἔπαινος ἐν τῷ 


* Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 37. 

ἡ Lib. iii. cap. 24, p. 95. 

$ Κυρῶσαι τὴν γραφὴν εἰς ἔντευξιν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις. Hist. Eccl. 
lib. ii. cap. 5. 

§ Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib, vi. cap. 25. 


εὐαγγελίῳ διὰ πασῶν τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν, Whose praise is in the gos- 
pel throughout all the churches.” 

Now if these things be true, we must allow the truth of 
what Tertullian* saith, ‘That these apostolical men wrote 
these Gospels, sed non soli, sed cum apostolis; but this they 
did not alone, but with the apostles, and that the Gospel 
of St. Mark, Petri adfirmetur, might be styled the Gospel 
St. Peter; and that of St. Luke, qued Paulo adscribere so- 
lent, which the ancients ascribed to St. Paul, might truly 
bear those titles; not as being dictated by, or being any ex- 
tract or compendium of, the doctrine which they preached 
to the churches, but as being approved by them; and then 
the authority of St. Mark’s Gospel depends on the authority 
of St. Peter, and the authenticness of St. Luke’s on the au- 
thority of St. Paul, and both upon the approbation of the 
apostle John. As then this axiom obtained among the 
Jews as an unquestionable rule, that he is to be admitted 
as a prophet whose prophecy is confirmed by the testimony 
of an undoubted prophet ; so, by parity of reason, he must 
be admitted as a true evangelist, whose gospel is approved 
by an apostle of whose authority to indite a gospel there is 
no doubt; which is, according to these testimonies, the case 
as to the Gospels of St. Mark and Luke. But I confess I 
cannot fully acquiesce in this last ground of the canonical 
authority of these two evangelists, for reasons which will 
do nobody any good, therefore shall do nobody any hurt; 
and upon this account I shall endeavour, in the preface to 
St. Luke’s Gospel, to found the authority of these two 
evangelists on principles which to me seem more certain. 

As for the time and place when and where this Gospel 
was indited, we are wholly in the dark: for all that Theo- 
phylact saith of this Gospel, that it was written ἐν Ῥώμῃ 
μετὰ δέκα ἔτη τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀναλήψεως, “in Rome ten years 
after our Lord’s ascension,” is certainly a mistake, and in- 


* Contr. Marcion. = iv. cap. 2 et 5, 


206 


consistent with all the accounts of the church historians give 
us, that it was written at the desire of the Roman converts, 
as an extract of what St. Peter had preached there; it 
being certain, that St. Peter never came to Rome till some 
years after (see the preface to the Epistle to the Romans, 
and note on i. 15). If he died in the eighth of Nero, as 
St. Jerome, Dositheus, and Theophylact affirm, Ireneus* 
must mistake in saying, that he writ his Gospel after the 
death of Peter, who suffered only in the thirteenth or four- 
teenth year of that emperor; or pera τὴν ἔξοδον, “after the 


* Lib. iii cap. 1. 


MARK. 


departure” of St. Peter and St. Paul from Rome, seeing St. 
Paul went not thence till the ninth of Nero; I therefore 
leave this matter uncertain, as I find it, inclining to the 
opinion of Valesius,* that we have nothing certain touch- 
ing the Gospels from the ancients, but that they were four, 
and were written by those authors whose names they bear, 
quo autem tempore, et quam ob causam scripta sunt, parum 
constat; but at what time, and upon what occasion they 
were written, it doth not appear. 


* Annot. in Euseb. lib. v. cap. 6. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Tue ' beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God (was from the preaching of John the 
Baptist, Luke xvi. 16); 

2 As it is written in the 2 prophets, (Malachi, say- 
ing, iii. 1) Behold, I send my messenger before thy 
face, which shall prepare thy way before thee, (and 
Isaiah, saying, xl. 2, 3, that when the Messiah was 
about to come to save his people from their sins, there 
should be) 

3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ὃ Pre- 
pare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 
(And accordingly) 

4 John (who was the very person spoken of by those 
prophets, being sent of God for that end) did baptize in 
the wilderness, and preach the ὁ baptism of repentance 
for the remission of sins (and so endeavoured to prepare 
men for the coming of that Messiah, who was to save his 
people from their sins). 

5 And (so disposed were the people to receive his bap- 
tism, that) there went out unto him all the land of 
Judea, and they of Jerusalem (and all the region round 
about Jordan, Matt. 111. 5), and were all baptized of 
him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


Ver. 1. Αρχὴ εὐαγγελίου τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ. Χριστοῦ, υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, 
The beginning of the gospel, &c.]- So saith St. Mark, be- 
ginning his history from John the Baptist, by the fathers 
styled “the beginning of the gospel;” because he began 
his office by preaching repentance as the preparation to re- 
ceive it, and faith in the Messiah the subject of it ; so Christ 
himself plainly testifies, by saying, “The law and the pro- 
phets were until John, from thence the kingdom of God 
εὐαγγελίζεται is preached” (Luke xvi. 16). This gospel he 
styles “the gospel of the Son of God,” who was or “is in 
the bosom of the Father” (John i. 18), and came down 
from heayen (John iii. 13), to reveal his Father’s will unto 
us, that so we might have worthy thoughts, both of the gos- 
pel, as being the revelation of it, and of the author, as 
being so intimate with and so nearly related to the Father. 

2 Ver. 2. 'Ως γέγραπται ἐν τοῖς προφήταις, As it ts written 
in the prophets.) Other copies read ἐν ᾿Ησαίᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ, 
“in Isaiah the prophet;” so do Iren. lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 
259. Orig. in Cels. p. 60, and in John, p. 14. But then it 
is to be noted, that the former reading is in Ireneus twice 
before in the same chapter thus; Marcus initium evangelice 
conscriptionis fecit sic, Initium evangelii Jesu Christi Filii 
Dei quemadmodtm dictum est in prophetis, p. 256, and 
after, Marcus ait, Initium, quemadmodum scriptum est in 
prophetis, &c. 18. So reads the Arabic, so the Alexandrian 
copy, so most MSS., so Theophylact; and this reading is to 
be preferred, (1.) because it is not so proper to say, “ As it 
is written in Isaiah the prophet,’ when the citation immedi- 
ately following is not in Isaiah, but in Malachi; nor is there 
one instance of any thing so cited in the New Testament. 
(2.) It is the common phrase among the Jews, when they 
cite many passages of the prophets, to say, “As it is writ- 
ten in the prophets :” but it is without all example, when 


6 And (this) John (being a preacher of repentance, 
and coming in the power and spirit of Elias, Luke i. 17, 
resembled him in habit, 2 Kings i. 8, for he) was clothed 
with (a garment of ) camel’s hair, and with a girdle of 
a (/eathern) skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts 
and wild honey ; 

7 And (he) preached, saying, There cometh one 
mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I 
am not worthy to stoop down and unloose (7. 6. whose 
servant Iam not worthy to be). ᾿ 

8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he 
shall baptize you with the ® Holy Ghost (sent down 
from heaven, the promise of him being made to you and 
to your children, Acts ii. 39). 

9 And it came to pass in those days (of John’s bap- 
tism at the river of Jordan), that Jesus came from Naza- 
reth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. 

10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he 
saw the heavens opened, and the (Holy) Spirit like a 
dove descending upon him (2. 6. in that hovering man- 
ner which a dove useth when she descends or resis upon 
any thing) : 

11 And (then) there came a voice from heaven, 


two testimonies are taken from two prophets, to cite only 
the last. And hence St. Jerome saith, Nomen Esaiz puta- 
mus additum scriptorum vitio (Com. in Matt. iii.). 

Obj. But Grotius objects, 'That if this had been the true 
reading, there can be imagined no reason for the alteration 
of it; whereas if the other were so, the reason of the change 
is manifest, viz. because St. Mark cites testimonies out of 
the prophets. 

Ans. The reason of the change seems very manifest, it 
being done in compliance with Matt. iii. 3, Luke iii. 4, John 
i. 23, for all these evangelists citing expressly what is writ- 
ten in Isaiah the prophet, they would have had St. Mark 
do so also. 

3 Ver. 3. Prepare ye the way of the Lord.] See note on 
Matt. iii. 3. 

4 Ver. 4. Βάπτισμα μετανοίας, The baptism of repentance.] 
This baptism, saith Dr. Lightfoot, may belong to children, 
though it be the baptism of repentance, and they know not 
what repentance means; for it requireth not their repent- 
ance at the receiving of this sacrament, but it engageth them 
to it for the time to come, viz. when they shall come to the 
use of reason, and the knowledge of the engagement. And 
so was it with the children that were circumcised, for they 
by that sacrament became debtors to observe the whole law 
(Gal. v. 3), when they knew not what obedience or the law 
meant, but that bound them to it when they came to years 
of knowledge and discretion. 

5 Ver. 8. Βαπτίσει ὑμᾶς ἐν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, He shall baptize 
you with the Holy Ghost.] Kai πυρὶ, “ and with fire,” Matt. 
ui. 11, Luke iii. 16, i. 6. whose symbol is fire or flame: so 
he descended on the apostles, Acts ii. 3, so Justin Martyr 
saith, that when Christ was baptized, rip ἀνήφθη ἐν τῷ ᾿Ιορδάνῃ, 
“a fire was kindled in Jordan ;” and the gospel of the Na- 
zarenes, and the liturgy of the Syrians, that περιέλαμψε τὸν 
τόπον φῶς μέγα, “a great light shone round the place.” 


CHAPTER I. 


seying: Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
eased. 

12 And immediately the spirit © driveth (/eadeth, 
Luke iv. 1) him into the wilderness. 

13 And he was there in the wilderness 7 forty days, 
(which being ended, he was visibly) tempted of Satan; 
and was with the wild beasts; and (when Satan had 
ended his temptation, Matt. iv. 3. 11) the angels minis- 
tered unto him. 

14 Now after that John was put in prison (by 
Herod), Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gos- 
pel of the kingdom of God, 

15 And saying, The time ppoesield for the coming of 
the Messiah) is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at 
hand: repent ye (therefore), and believe the gospel. 

16 Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw 
Simon and Andrew his brother (going out of their ship, 
and) casting a net into the sea (to wash it, Luke v. 
2): for they were fishers. 

17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, 
and I will make you to become fishers of men (7. e. J 
will enable you to draw them into the net of the gospel). 

18 And straightway (upon his call) they forsook 
their nets, and followed him. 

19 And when he had gone a little farther thence, 
he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his bro- 
ther, who also were (now) in the ship mending their 
nets (which they had washed ; see Luke v. 2). 

20 And straightway he called them: and they (upon 
his call) left their father Zebedee in the ship with the 
hired servants, and went after him. 

21 And they went into Capernaum: and straight- 
way on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, 
and taught (them). 

22 And they were astonished at his doctrine: for 
he taught them as one that had authority (from God to 
do 30), and not as the scribes (who only told them what 
were the traditions of their fathers). 

23 And there was in their synagogue a man ( pos- 
sessed) with an unclean spirit; and he (the evil spirit) 
cried out, 

24 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with 
thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy 


207 


us (before the time appointed for our punishment)? I know 
wi ev. thou art, (to voy the Holy One of God. 

25 And Jesus (being not willing to receive testimony 
from Satan, ver. 34) rebuked him, saying, Hold thy 
peace, and come out of him. 

26 And when the unclean spirit had torn (Gr. and 
the unclean spirit shaking or moving) him (see note on 
ix. 18, so that he fell down, Luke iv. 35), and cried 
with a loud voice, he came out of him. 

27 And they were all amazed, insomuch that they 
questioned among themselves, saying, What (sfrange) 
thing is this? what new doctrine 7s this? for with 
authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, 
and they do obey him (which is an indication that his 
doctrine is allended with more than ordinary power). 

28 And immediately his fame spread abroad through- 
out all the region round about Galilee. . 

29 And forthwith, when they were come out of the 
synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and 
Andrew, with James and John. 

30 But (Gr. and) Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick 
of a fever, and anon (2. 6. presently) they tell him of 
her (condition). 

31 And (or then) he came and took her by the hand, 
and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, 
and she (being recovered) ministered unto them. 

32 And at even, when the sun did set (and the sab- 
bath was ended), they brought unto him all that were 
diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. 

33 And all the city was gathered together at the 
door (of Simon’s house). - 

34 And he healed many that were sick of divers 
diseases, and 5 cast out many devils; and suffered not 
the devils to speak, because they knew him. 

35 And in the morning, rising up a great while be- 
fore day, he went out, and departed into a solitary 
place, and there prayed. 

36 And Simon and they that were with (7. e. be- 
longed to) him 3 followed after him. 

37 And when they had found him, they said unto 
him, All men seek for thee. 

38 And he said unto them, Let us go into ” the 
next towns, that I may preach there also: " for there- 


6 Ver. 12. Τὸ Πνεῦμα αὐτὸν ἐκβάλλει, The Spirit driveth 
him out.) Ἤγετο, “he was moved’ by the Spirit inwardly 
to go into the wilderness; so Luke iv. 1, ἀνήχθη, “he was 
led up” from the plains of Jordan by the Spirit into the 
mountains of the wilderness; so Matt. iv. 1, the Spirit 
ἐκβάλλει, “sends him away” into the wilderness; so the 
word signifies, ver. 43, Jesus ἐξέβαλεν αὐτὸν, “sent him 
away” (see Matt. ix. 38, xii. 35, xiii. 52). 

7 Ver. 13. ‘Hyépas τεσσαράκοντα, πειραϊόμενος, Being forty 
days tempted of Satan,—and the angels ministered to him.] 
These forty days, saith Dr. Lightfoot, the holy angels min- 
istered to Christ visibly, and Satan tempted him invisibly ; 
at the end of them Satan puts on the appearance of an 
angel of light, and pretends to wait on him, as they did. 

Ver. 14. Now after that John was put into prison, Jesus 
came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of 
God; Ver. 15, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand.] So Matt. iv. 12, «When 
Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed 
into Galilee;” and, ver. 17, “ From that time he began to 
preach, and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of God is at 
hand :” till that time, say the fathers and the scholiasts, 
ἀνέμεινε αὑτὸν μαρτυρῆσαι περὶ αὐτοῦ, “ he waited for John’s 
testimony concerning him.” Accordingly St. Peter repre- 
sents Christ as beginning thus to preach from Galilee, pera 
τὸ βάπτισμα ὃ éxiprtey ὃ ᾿Ιωάννης, “ after the baptism which 
John preached” was ended (Acts x. 37). Now hence is it 
evident, that his coming into Galilee, mentioned Luke iv. 
14, must refer to the same time, so that all the evangelists 
may accord together, as appears farther from the following 
words, ver. 15, “He taught in the synagogues, and was 


glorified of all;” and, ver. 31, “ He went into Capernaum, 
and was teaching in their synagogues on the sabbath-day.” 
For we learn from Mark i. 21, 22, that this was done after 
that John was put in prison, ver. 14, and also from the 
words of St. Luke, which say, ver. 14, that “a fame went 
out through the whole region concerning him ;” for we are 
assured, from Matt. iv. 12, 14, that this also followed St. 
John’s being cast into prison. 

8 Ver. 34. He healed many that were sick, and cast out 
many devils.| Hence it is evident that the devils cast out 
were not diseases; as also appears from iii. 11. 15, v. 12, 
vi. 12 (see note on Matt. viii. 28). 

9 Ver. 36. Kai κατεδίωξαν αὐτὸν, And Simon and they that 
were with him followed him.] Here the critics note, that 
τὸ διώκειν, When it respects persons, is usually to pursue in 
a hostile manner (except here and Luke xvii. 23), but 
when it respects things, it is to prosecute with a desire to 
obtain them; as when we are bid to follow after charity 
and hospitality,’ Rom. xii. 13, xiv. 19, 1 Cor. xiv. 1, Phil. 
iii. 12. 14, 1 Thess. v. 15, 1 Tim. vi. 11, Heb. xii. 14, 1 Pet. 
iii. 11. 

10 Ver. 38. Eis ἐχομένας κωμοπόλεις, To the adjoining 
towns.) Kaporddes, towns, saith Dr. Lightfoot, are villages 
which had a synagogue in them; κώμαι, villages which had 
none; πόλεις, fowns girt about with walls. 

11 Eis τοῦτο yap ἐξελήλυϑα, for therefore came I forth.) Eis 
τοῦτο ἐπέσταλμαι, Luke iv. 43, “For therefore was I sent.” 
Whence it may be granted, that “ going forth,” and being 
“sent to preach the gospel,” are the same thing; but not 
when it is said of Christ, ἐξελήλυϑβα, “I came forth from God, 
and return to God” (see the paraphrase), 


308 


fore came I forth (from this house, being sent by my 
Father to preach to them also, Luke iv. 43). 

39 And he preached in their synagogues through- 
out all Galilee, and cast out devils. 

40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, 
and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If 
thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 

41 And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth 
Ais hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; 
be thou clean. 

42 And as soon as he had spoken (this), imme- 
diately the leprosy departed from him, and he was 
cleansed. 


MARK. 


43 And he straitly charged him, and (Gr. and being 
earnest with him to repair instantly to the priest, he) forth- 
with sent him away ; 

44 And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to 
any man: but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, 
and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses 
commanded, for a testimony unto them (that thow art 
cleansed ). 

45 But he went out, and began to publish ἐΐ much, 
and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus 
could no more openly enter into the city, but was 
(forced to be) without in desert places: and they came 
to him from every quarter. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Anp again he entered into Capernaum ! after 
some days; and it was noised (reported) that he was 
in the house (of Simon, i. 29). 

2 And straishtway many were gathered together 
{about it), insomuch that there was no room to receive 
them, no, not so much as about the door: and he 
preached the word unto them. 

3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of 
the palsy (in a bed), which was borne of four (men). 

4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for 
the press, they ? uncovered the roof (of the upper cham- 
er, see the note) where he was: and when they had 
broken ἐξ up, they let down (to him) the bed wherein 
the sick of the palsy lay. 

5 When Jesus (by this instance) saw their faith, he 
said unto the (man) sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins 
(which brought this disease upon thee) be forgiven thee 
(as to the temporal punishment of them; see note on 
Matt. ix. 9). 

6 But (and) there were certain of the scribes sit- 
ting there, and (upon occasion of these words, thus) rea- 
soning in their hearts, 

7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies 
(aseribing that to himself which is proper to God alone? 
for) who can forgive sins but God only ? 

8 And immediately when Jesus perceived in his 
spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said 
unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts ? 

9 (For) whether is it easier to say to the sick of 
the palsy, Thy sins (as to their temporal punishment) 
be forgiven thee; or to say (effectually, that which is a 
certain indication of it), Arise, and take up thy bed, 
and walk ? 

10 But (J choose to say the first) that ye may know 
that the Son of man hath power (even whilst he is) on 
earth Cis) to forgive sins, (and then) (he saith to the 
sick of the palsy,) 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IL. 


Ver, 1. Av’ ἡμερῶν, After some days.] So Theophylact, 
δύ ἡμερῶν, ἀντὶ τοῦ, διελθούσων ἡμερῶν τινῶν, “ After days, that 
is, when some days were passed.” So Gen. iv. 3, in pro- 
cess of time, μεϑ' ἡμέρας, “ after days it came to pass.” 

2 Ver. 4. ᾿Απεστέγασαν τὴν στέγην ὅπου ἣν, They uncovered 
the roof where he was.) Dr. Lightfoot upon the place shows, 
that there was a door in every roof by which they went from 
the ὑπερῷον, or “ upper chamber” upon the roof; now these 
men knowing that it was this upper chamber to which the 
Jews customarily went up when they discoursed of the law, 
or religious things, ascend by stairs or ladders to this roof; 
and not finding the door wide enough for the man’s bed to 
go down at, they widen it, by loosening some stones about, 
and so let down the paralytic. 

Ver. 7.] The reading εἷς ὃ Θεὺς, and, ver. 15, ἁμαρτωλοὶ, 
are defended, Examen Millii ibid. 


11 I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and 
go thy way into thine house. 

12 And immediately he arose, took up the bed (on 
which he lay), and went forth before them all; inso- 
much that they were all amazed, and glorified God, 
saying, We never saw it on this fashion (before). ° 

13 And he went forth again by the sea side; and 
all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught 
them. 

14 And as he passed by (from thence, Matt. ix. 9), 
he saw Levi the son of Alpheus sitting at the receipt 
of custom, and (he) said unto him, Follow me. And 
he arose and followed him. 

15 And it came to pass, that, as Jesus sat at meat 
in his house, many publicans and sinners sat also to- 
gether with Jesus and his disciples: for there were 
many (of them), and they followed him. 

16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat 
with publicans and sinners, they (judging them unwor- 
thy to be conversed with, and a defilement to those who did 
so) said unto his disciples, ὃ How is it that he (your 
Master, who professeth himself a prophet and a holy man) 
eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners ? 

17 When Jesus heard it (the pharisees speak thus), he 
saith unto them, (These it is most necessary to converse 
with, for) they that are whole have no need of the 
(spiritual) physician, but they that are sick : (and this 
is more especially the business of my prophetic office, for) 
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to re- 
pentance. 

18 And (then) the disciples of John and of the Pha- 
risees used to fast (Gr. were fasting): and they (the 
disciples of John, Matt. ix. 14) come and say unto him, 
Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees 
fast, but thy disciples fast not ? 

19 And Jesus said unto them, ‘ Can (it be fit for) 
the children of the bridechamber (to) fast, while the 


3 Ver. 16. Τί ὅτι; How is τὲ that he eateth? &c.] Ti for 
or διά re; “Why is it?” or “ wherefore is it?” is very frequent 
both in the Old and New Testament; examples from the 
Old are numerous: see Gen. xxi. 29, xxxviii. 29, Exod. xiv. 
15, xvii. 2, Josh. vii. 25, Judg. viii. 1, 2 Kings vi. 33, vii. 
3, Isa. i. 11, iii, 15, Lam. iii. 39. In the New, see Matt. 
viii. 29, xix. 17, xxii. 18, Mark ii. 24, viii. 17, x. 18, xii. 
15, Luke ii. 48, 49, vi.'41. 46, xxii. 46, John i. 25, vil. 19, 
ix. 27, x. 20, xiv. 22, xviii. 21. 23, xx. 13. 

4 Ver. 19. Μὴ δύνανται; Can the children of ‘the bride- 
chamber fast 2] Because there is little to be observed in 
this chapter which hath not been explained already, till we 
come to the twenty-sixth verse, I shall here observe the 
various acceptations of the phrase, μὴ δύνανται 

And (1.) it signifies that which is unfit, incongruous, or 
inconvenient to be done, as not suiting with the rules of 
decency ; as when Moses says, Exod. viii. 26, οὐ δυνατὸν, “It 
is not meet” to do so; so Luke xi. 7, οὐ δύναμαι, “I cannot 


CHAPTER II. 


bridegroom is with them? as long as they have 
f bridegroom with them, they cannot (decently) 
ast. 

20 But the days will come, when (7) the bride- 
groom shall be taken away from them, and then shall 
they (Aave occasion to) fast in those days. 

21 (And he said also by way of parable, Luke v. 36,) 
No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old 
garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh 
away from the old (this being tender and that strong), 
and (so) the rent is made worse (¢. 6. greater). 

22 And no (sh#/ful) man putteth new wine into old 
¢. e. weak) bottles: else the new wine ( fermenting) 

oth burst the bottles, and (so) the wine is spilled, 

and the bottles will be marred (broken or rent): but 
new wine must be put into new bottles (see Matt. ix. 
16, 17). 

23 And it came to pass, that he went through the 


209 


corn fields on the ( frst) sabbath day (after the passover, 
Luke vi. 1); and his disciples ® began, as they went, 
to pluck the ears of corn (and, rubbing them in their 
hands, to eat of the corn, ibid.). 

24 And the Pharisees (seeing this) said unto him, 
Behold, why do they (by thy permission) on the sab- 
bath day that which (according to our traditions) is not 
lawful (lo be done upon that day) ὃ 

25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read 
what (is sufficient to justify that action of theirs, viz. that 
which) David did, when he had need, and was an 
hungred, he, and they that were with him? 

26 How he went into the house of God in the ® days 
of Abiathar the high priest (see the note), and did eat 
the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the 
priests (ἐν e. of which it is not lawful for any but the 
priests to eat), and gave also (of 1) to them which 
were with him ? 


rise, and give thee ;” and, vi. 42, πῶς δύνασαι λέγειν ; “ How 
canst thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out 
of thine eye?” 

(2.) That which cannot justly, or without violation of 
some law or rule of equity and justice, be performed. 
So Deut. xii. 17, οὐ δυνήσῃ φαγεῖν, «Thou mayest not eat 
within thy gates the tithe of thy corn:” so Acts x. 47, μητὶ 
τὸ ὕδωρ κωλῦσαι divaraé ris; Can any hinder water that these 
should not be baptized?” 1 Cor. x. 21, οὐ ὀύνασϑε, « Ye can- 
not drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils;” 2 
Cor, xiii. 8, οὐ yap δυνάμεθα, “ For we can do nothing against 
the truth.” 

(3.) That which is not agreeable to the divine economy, 
counsel, or will, ‘So Gen. xix. 22, οὐ yap δυνήσομαι, «For I 
can do nothing till thou be come thither:” Matt. xxvi. 42, 
εἰ οὐ δύναται, “If this cup cannot pass from me, unless I 
drink it;” and in this sense Christ often saith, οὐ δύναται 6 
vids, “ The Son cannot of himself do any thing, but what 
he sees the Father do” (John v. 19. 30). 

(4.) That which we cannot do by reason of the trouble 
of it, or because of some other employment which interferes 
with it; so the children of Jacob say to Joseph, οὐ δυνήσεται 
τὸ παιδίον, “The lad cannot leave his father,’ Gen. xliv. 22, 
and to Jacob, οὐ δυνησόμεϑα καταβαίνειν, “ We cannot go down 
without our brother :’”? so we read of Christ, μηκέτι δύνασϑαι 
αὐτὸν, that “he could not openly enter into the city,” Mark 
i. 45, and of his disciples, μὴ δὔνασϑαι αὐτοὺς, that « they could 
not eat bread” (iii. 20), i. 6. they had no opportunity to do 
it: of Herod, that he would have killed John, καὶ οὐκ ἠῤύνατο, 
“and he could not do it for fear of the people,’ Mark vi. 
19, 20, so, “I have married a wife, and therefore, οὐ δύναμαι 
ἐλθεῖν, I cannot come,” Luke xiv. 20. 

(5.) That which cannot be done, not for want of power 
in the agent, but upon account of some defect or fault in the 
patient; so Christ οὐκ ἠδύνατο, “could do no mighty works, 
because of their unbelief,” Mark vi. 5, 6: so Luke xvi. 2, 
οὐ δύνηση, “Thou canst be no longer steward :” so Christ 
spake to the Jews, καϑῶς ἠδύναντο ἀκούειν, as they were able 
to hear him,” Mark iv. 33. And in this sense Christ in- 
quires πῶς ὀύνασϑε ; “ How can you believe, who receive ho- 
nour one of another?” John v. 44. 

(6.) hat which cannot be done by reason of some dis- 
position in us which renders us averse to, and unwilling to 
do any thing till it be removed. So Joseph’s brethren οὐκ 
ἠδύναντο, “could not speak peaceably to him,” Gen. xxxvii. 
4; “Behold their cars are uncircumcised, and οὐ δυνήσονται 
ἀκούειν, they cannot hear,” Jer. vi. 16. So πῶς divacde; 
« How can you, being evil, speak good things?” Matt. xii. 
34, οὐ δύναται, “The world cannot hate you,” John vii. 7; 
οὗ dévacSe, “ You cannot hear my word,” John viii. 43 5 οὐκ 
ἠδύναντο, “ Therefore they could not believe,’ John xii. 39 ; 
“The world οὐ δύναται, cannot receive the Spirit,’ John xiv. 
17; “They that are in the flesh, οὐ dévavrat, cannot please 
God,” Rom. viii. 8. And so concerning a good disposition 
we read, that “a good tree οὐ ἐύναται, cannot bring forth evil 
fruit,” Matt. vii. 16; of the disciples, ot δυνάμεϑα, * We can- 
not but speak the things which we have heard,” Acts iv. 20; 
of him that is born of God, that οὐ δύναται ἁμαρτάνειν, “he 
cannot sin,” 1 John iii. 9; and Christ saith of the church 

Vor. IV.—27 


of Ephesus, οὐ δύνη, “Thou canst not bear them that are 
evil,” Rev. ii. 2. 

5 Ver. 23. “Hptavro, Began.) That in the Hebrew phrase 
to begin to doa thing, and to do it, is the same, see the 
note on Actsi. 1, though I do not think that ἄρχομαι is 
wholly an expletive in this and other places, but it signi- 
fies 10 desire, to be willing, to covet, or be pleased with a 
thing ; and answers to the Hebrew xy. So Josh. xvii. 12, 
ἤρξατο 6 Χαναναῖος κατοικεῖν ἐν τῇ yn, * The Canaanite would 
dwell in the land:” so when Micah had promised the Le- 
vite a salary, ἤρξατο παροικεῖν, “he was willing to dwell with 
him,” Judg. xvii. 11; so 2 Sam. vii. 29, and now ἄρξου καὶ 
εὐλόγησον, “let it please thee to bless the house of thy ser- 
γαηΐ : so also 1 Chron. xvii. 27 and Hos. v. 11, ἤρξατο πο- 
ρεύεσϑαι, “ he willingly walked after vain things ;” and, Judg. 
1. 35, ἤρξατο ὃ Χαναναῖος, * The Canaanite would dwell in the 
mountain,” i. e. the mountain of the Amorites, near the 
tribe of Dan, of which tribe was Samson, Judg. xiii. 2. 
Note, also, that the reading of the Septuagint here gives us 
an answer to the inquiry where Samson had his foxes; 
even from this mountain, ἐν ᾧ ἀλώπεκες, “in which,” say 
they, “ were foxes,” they reading perhaps pybpw not pyabyw 
as we now read. 

6 Ver, 26. ‘Ext ᾿Αβιάθαρ τοῦ ἀρχιερέως, In the days of Abi- 
athar the high-priest.) That Ahimelech was then high-priest 
seems evident, (1.) because Abiathar, who succeeded him, 
was, and is here styled high-priest ; for he being the father, 
and Abiathar his son (1 Sam. xxi. 20. 22, xxii. 6), if Ahime- 
lech had been only an ordinary priest, his son Abiathar could 
not have been high-priest, that office then succeeding orderly 
from father to son. It is indeed by Mr. Whiston said, that 
that Abiathar that escaped from Doeg never was high-priest : 
but he is so called, first, by the Septuagint, saying that 
“Solomon made Zadok ἱερέα πρῶτον ἀντὶ ᾿Αβιάθαρ, high-priest 
in the room of Abiathar,” even of that Abiathar who “bare 
the ark of the Lord before David,” and who was “ afflicted 
with him in all things,” 1 Kings ii. 26. 35, Secondly, He 
is so called thrice by Josephus,* who says, they had “ the 
catalogue of their high-priests preserved from two thousand 
years.” (2.) Because Ahimelech his father is accused by Doeg 
of inquiring of the Lord for David, 1 Sam. xxii. 10, and he 
himself seems to confess, ver. 15, that he had often done the 
same thing before without blame; whereas the high-priest 
alone having on the ephod of judgment, had not Ahimelech 
been the high-priest he could neither have done this, nor 
reasonably been accused of doing it. To this it is said, that 
Ahimelech might assist David in inquiring of the Lord, but 
not by urim. I answer, that I find no way of inquiring of 
the Lord but by a prophet, or by a high-priest wearing 
the ephod in which was the urim, or by a dream, of which 
we read nothing here. Moreover, that the ephod was then 
with him is certain, because when Ahimelech was slain, 
Abiathar went down to David “ with the ephod in his hand,” 
1 Sam. xxiii. 6. And that he speaks of the high-priest’s 
ephod is manifest, because he doth not call it a linen 
ephod, such as the priests wore, but “the ephod;” and be- 


* Antiq. lib. vii. cap. 11, p. 247, B, Ὁ. p. 248, B, G. lib. 
i, contr. Apion, p. 1056, ‘ 
8 


210 


27 And he said (moreover) unto them, The sabbath 
was made for (the sake of ) man, and not man for the 
sabbath (now that which was instituted for the sake of 
another thing, must yield to the good of that for whose 
sake it was instituted): 

28 Therefore (dove, so thal) the Son of man (who 


MARK. 


came to save men’s lives, and promote their good) is 
(doubtless so far) Lord also of the sabbath (as to dis- 
pense with the strict rest of it, when he sees it necessary 
Sor their good). 

(For the exposition of these six last verses, see the note 
on Matt. xii. 1.) 


cause David inquires by it, ver. 9, xxx. 7, which shows it 
was the high-priest’s ephod in which was the wrim and the 
thummim, which by express precept was never to be sepa- 
rated from the ephod; since otherwise no inquiry could 
have been made by it. Thirdly, Because he is styled 
«“Ahimelech the priest ;” for it is a certain truth, though 
not observed by many, that from the end of the book of 
Deuteronomy to the end of the book of Chronicles, not one 
person is by name styled N. N. “the priest” who was not 
a high-priest ; and though Jehoiada is called the high-priest 
where he is not named, viz. 2 Kings xii. 10, 2 Chron. xxiv. 
11, vet is Hilkiah alone styled “ Hilkiah the high-priest,” 
during that long interval. Now what reason is there to 
deny that Ahimelech hachoen signifies here, as in like case 
it always did before from the days of Eleazar hachoen, 
“the high-priest?” Lastly, Because Josephus, who, being 
a Jew and a priest, must be supposed a competent witness 
in this case, calls him six times high-priest, viz. lib. vi. cap. 
14, p. 196, B, C, F. 197, A, G. 

The ancient solutions of the fathers are summed up 
by Theophylact thus: We must say therefore either that 
Abiathar had two names, being called also Ahimelech ; or 
that Abiathar was then with Ahimelech; or that τοῦ υἱοῦ is 
to be understood, and the words to be read thus, ἐπὶ 
᾿Αβιάθαρ τοῦ viod rod ἀρχιερέως, “in the days of Abiathar the 
son of the high-priest;” or that Abiathar is mentioned ὡς 
ἐπισημότερος, “as most celebrated in the days of David.” 
The second of these opinions, viz. That Abiathar being 
there with him, and made high-priest by the death of his 
father but a few days after this action, it might well be 
said to be done in the days of Abiathar the hich-priest, 
though he was not then actually so, is embraced by the 
learned Bishop of Ely on 1 Sam. xxi. 6, this being said to 
be done in his days, as things may be said to have been 
done in the days of Henry the Eighth, or any other king 
of England, which came to pass but a little before he 
began to reign; to which may be added the criticism of 
Dr. Hammond, that ἐπὶ is to be rendered before, so ἐπὶ 
μετοικεσίας must be rendered “before the captivity,” Matt. 
i. 11, Jechonias and his brethren being begotten not under, 
but before the captivity. Dr. Lightfoot falls in with the 
two last solutions, rendering the words “in the days of 
Abiathar the son of the high-priest,” as τοῦ "HXi is “the son 
of Eli,” Luke iii. 23, and so on to the end of the chapter; 
and saying, that he therefore is named, rather than Ahime- 
lech, because he brought the ephod to David, 1 Sam. xxii. 
6, and by him inquiry was made by wrim and thummim, 
1 Sam. xxi. 2. 4. 9.11, 12, xxx. 7, 8, 2 Sam. ii. 1. 5, xix. 
21, whence it was usual, saith he, for the Jews by Abia- 
thar to understand the wrim and the thummim ; this there- 
fore seems to give some advantage to this instance, to say it 
was done under that Abiathar who had the ordering of that 
divine oracle, and so might be supposed to do this by divine 
direction. But because this also is very rare, I offer, Thirdly, 
that interpretation which saith, that by the high-priest here 
we are to understand, not him who was strictly so called, but 
one who was an eminent man of that order, this being the 
import of the word, 

1, When mention is made of power given ἀπὸ or περὶ τῶν 
ἀρχιερέων, from or by the high-priests, Acts ix. 14, xxvi. 
10. 12. 

2. Of high-priests gathered together, Matt. ii. 4, xxvi. 3, 
xxvii. 62, John xi. 47, xii. 10. 

3. Of the chief priests coming to Jesus, Matt, xxi. 15. 23. 
40, and that Christ ought to suffer by the chief priests, Matt. 
xvi. 21. 

4. Of Judas coming to the chief priests, Matt. xxvi. 14. 
47, Mark xiv. 10. 43, Matt. xxvii. 3. 6. 1£. 20. 41, John 
xviii. 3. 

5. Of the chief priests and scribes, Mark viii. 21, x. 33, 
xi. 18, xiv. 1, xv. 1. 


6. Of the chief priests and elders, John vii. 32, Acts iv. 
23, xxv. 15. 

7. Of all the high-priests, Matt. xxvii. 1, Mark xiv. 53. 
See the like expressions, Mark xiv. 1, xv. 3. 10, 11. 31, 
Luke xxiii. 4. 18, 23, xxiv. 20, John xviii. 35, xix. 6. 15. 
21, Acts v. 24, ix. 21, xxii. 30, xxiii. 14. 

πὶ ᾿Αβιαθὰρ τοὺ ἀρχιερέως, In the days of Abiathar the 
high-priest.] Good Mr. Whiston has given us an ingenious 
treatise upon this place, in which he attempts to show that 
neither the Ahimelech nor the Abiathar, mentioned in the 
history of David’s eating the shew-bread, was high-priest 
at all, but another Abiathar, not mentioned at all there, but 
2 Sam. xiv. 3, was then high-priest: and I, who never am 
backward to yield to evidence, will give him the honour of 
having found out the best solution of this difficulty that I 
have yet seen, when he hath answered these ensuing argu- 
ments. 

Arg. 1. That Josephus, who, being a Jew and a priest, and 
who mentions the genealogy of their high-priests carefully 
preserved to his days, and so must be supposed a competent 
witness in this ease, styles that very Ahimelech who gave 
David the shew-bread, and who was slain by Doeg, six 
times “ Ahimelech the high-priest.” Abiathar his son is 
also several times styled the high-priest by the same Jose- 
phus. It is no sufficient answer to this, to say, as Mr. 
Whiston doth, that “neither Ahimelech nor Abiathar is 
styled high-priest; but the one is Ahimelech the priest, the 
other Abiathar the priest.” For it is a certain truth, that 
from Eleazar the son of Aaron, in the book of Deuteronomy, 
to Hilkiah, in the close of the book of Chronicles, not one 
person is by name styled N. N. “the high-priest,” though 
there was all that while a high-priest in being. Now what 
reason is there to deny that Ahimelech hachoen signifies 
« Ahimelech the high-priest,” when no other name is given 
to any high-priest in scripture, for above four hundred 
years? Of less importance is it to say, that we read not 
that either of them officiated as high-priest in the great day 
of expiation,” when we read not of any gone that did so in 
the books of Samuel, Kings, or Chronicles. 

Arg. 2. That Ahimelech was high-priest is proved from 
the accusation which Doeg lays against him, that «he in- 
quired of the Lord for David,’ 1 Sam. xxii. 10, and from 
Ahimelech’s own confession, that he “had done the same 
thing before,” ver. 15, and by the testimony of Josephus,* 
saying, that he did πολλάκις προφητεῦσαι, oft consult the oracle 
for him: whereas the high-priest alone having on the ephod 
of judgment, had not Ahimelech been high-priest, he neither 
could have done so, nor could he reasonably have been ac- 
cused of doing it. 

To this it is answered, that Ahimelech prayed, or inquired 
of God for David; but no circumstances being mentioned, 
it does not appear whether it was any thing more than af- 
fording David a place in the public prayers of the taberna- 
cle, or the lending him the sacred garments, and giving him 
proper opportunities for his own inquiries (as a prophet) 
of the Almighty. 

But sure it is better to say nothing, than to use such sorry 
shifts as these ; “ He inquired of the Lord for him ;” that is, 
he prayed for him, or gave him a place in the public prayers 
of the tabernacle, or he lent him a linen ephod to inquire 
in. Let him show one instance of any priest that is ever 
said to inquire of the Lord besides the high-priest, and he 
will say something to lessen the force of this argument, which 
is yet left in its full strength ; let him show one of the con- 
secrated ephods that was lent to a layman, or where lending 
one an ephod, or giving him a place in the public prayers of 
the tabernacle (if then there were any such prayers, or any 
such usage), signifieth shaal lo bejehovah, i. e. “to inquire 
for him from Jehovah,” and he will say something pertinent 


* Antig. lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 196, 


CHAPTER II. 


to this objection. As for Rebecca, she inquired not of a 
riest, but, say the Jews, of a prophet; and this she did 
= before there was any high-priest wearing an ephod by 
God appointed for this very end. And, saith the bishop of 
Ely, it is most reasonable to think that she went herself, and 
inquired at the shechinah, or a place of the divine presence, 
and the Lord answered her by an angel (Gen. xxv. 23). 

Arg. 3. That Ahimelech had then the ephod to inquire 
by is evident, because when Abiathar his son fled thence to 
David, he carried “the ephod in his hand ;” he went down, 
saith the Septuagint, ἔχων dfodd ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ, “ having 
the ephod in his hand ;” and that this was the very ephod 
to which the breast-plate was annexed, the bishop of Ely 
proves, (1.) because it is not styled “ἃ linen ephod,” such 
as the priests used, but emphatically “the ephod.” (1.) Be- 
cause when David was about to inquire of the Lord, he 
speaks twice to Abiathar thus, “Bring hither the ephod” 
(1 Sam. xxiii. 9, xxx. 7); whereas, had it been only a linen 
ephod, it could have done him no service in his inquiries. 
This being so, if David himself inquired of the Lord by this 
ephod, he invaded on the priest’s office, and so was guilty 
of the highest sacrilege ; but if he made this inquiry by the 
mouth of Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, who was slain at 
Nob, then was Abiathar high-priest, and so Mr. Whiston’s 
scheme is overthrown. Some think, saith the bishop of Ely, 
that David put on the ephod, and then asked the Lord's ad- 
vice; but that is a great mistake: for the high-priest was the 
person appointed by God to ask counsel of him for the su- 
preme governor (Numb. xxvii. 21); therefore David spake 
these words by the mouth of Abiathar. When therefore it 
is said that David inquired of the Lord, it is reasonable to 
conceive that he did this, both in the places mentioned and 
2 Sam. ii. 1. 5. 19, by the person appointed by God to ask 
counsel for him, i. e. by Abiathar the high-priest; these being 
cases all concerning war, in which the ordinance of God ap- 
pointed the chief governor to ask counsel of him (Josh. xxvii. 
20, 21) ; and hence this very phrase is used, when other men 
asked counsel of the Lord in the like case; so Judg. i. 1, 
“The children of Israel asked counsel of the Lord, Who 
shall go up for us against the Canaanites?”’ and, xx. 18, 
«“ They arose, and went up to the house of God, and asked 
counsel of God, saying, Who shall go up first to the battle 
against Benjamin ?” and again, ver. 23. But that they did 
this by Phinehas the high-priest, is evident from these words, 
ver. 27, 28, “ And the children of Israel inquired of the Lord, 
for the ark of the covenant was there in those days; and 
Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before 
it in those days.” So Saul asked counsel of the Lord, 
1 Sam. xiv. 37, but this he did by Ahijah the high-priest, 
ver. 36 (see ver. 18). 

Obj. But, saith Mr. Whiston, “The high-priest in the 
latter end of Saul’s reign, was with Saul and not with David: 
for Saul, a little before his death, ‘inquired of the Lord, and 
the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, not by wrim, 
nor by prophets’ (1 Sam. xxviii. 6), which words surely 
imply, that Saul had caused inquiry to be made by urim, 
which, being peculiar to the high-priest, doth show that the 
Jewish high-priest was then with Saul, which we know Abi- 
athar the son of Ahimelech was not.” 

Ans. This is a considerable objection; to which I shall 
not answer as some do, that Saul had caused another ephod 
to be made, or that he sent to David to inquire of Abiathar 
in his behalf; for there is no evidence for the second, and 
the first could do him no service, he having no high-priest to 
inquire by. But I answer, that though it be said that God 
“answered not Saul by uvim,’” that only is put in because 
it was one usual way of answering, not because Saul had 
tried that way; for he himself speaketh to Samuel thus, 
“God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, 
neither by prophets, nor by dreams,” ver. 15, making no 
mention at all of his not answering by urim. And David 
observes, 1 Chron. xiii. 3, that Saul, after the evil spirit came 
upon him, “inquired not” at the ark, as formerly he had 
done (1 Sam. xiv. 18): so that this passage, as it is trans- 
lated, seems only to say, that God gave him no answer at all 
by any of the usual ways: not by dreams, because the 
Spirit of the Lord was long since departed from him (1 Sam. 


211 


xvi. 14) ; not by any direction of his prophets, because he 
had slain the Lord’s prophets; not by urim, because he 
neither had the breast-plate of urim, nor a high-priest to 
consult; and lastly, translate the words thus, “Saul feared 
vejescheal, for he had inquired of the Lord,” viz. since the 
time of his being rejected of God, “and the Lord had not 
answered him’ by any of these ways, and then this text 
is impertinent: and of such translations of the Hebrew the 
instances are very many (see Glassius de Verbo, lib. iii. tr. 3, 
canon 46). 

Arg. 4. That Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, who was 
slain at Nob, was high-priest, is proved, first, because Jose- 
phus three times calls him so, viz. lib. vi. cap. ult. p. 207, 
lib. vii. cap. 11, p. 247, 248. Secondly, Because he who was 
removed by Solomon from the high-priesthood was the same 
Abiathar who was with David in his exile; for he was that 
Abiathar “who bore the ark before David,” and “who was 
afflicted in all the things in which David was afflicted’ 
(1 Kings ii. 26), which agrees only to that Abiathar who 
was the son of Ahimelech slain at Nob. 

To this Mr. Whiston answers, “ that there was an Abiathar 
who was the son of Ahijah, who was high-priest in the days 
of Saul, when David and his men did eat the shew-bread : 
that he had a son named Ahimelech, who was high-priest in 
the days of David, and this is the Ahimelech mentioned 
2 Sam. viii. 17, in these words, ‘And Zadok the son of Ahi- 
tub, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar were priests ; and 
this Ahimelech had a son named Abiathar, who was high- 
priest after him, and this was the Abiathar removed by 
Solomon, and not Abiathar the son of Ahimelech of Nob.” 

Now to this I reply, that he offers no proof that his first 
Abiathar was the son of Ahijah, or that his Ahimelech had 
a son named Abiathar, or that either of the three was high- 
priest. ‘The text now cited saith, that “Zadok and Ahi- 
melech the son of Abiathar were priests ;” but that cannot 
signify that they were high-priests, because there could not 
be two high-priests together ; and therefore the bishop of Ely 
and the generality of commentators say, these two were the 
chief of the family of the priests, next to the high-priest, 
which was Abiathar, and who were called « secondary priests” 
(2 Kings xxv. 18). And whereas Mr. Whiston saith of his 
supposed Abiathar, that he was afflicted with David, by un- 
dergoing the peril of a spy in the time that Absalom was in 
Jerusalem, and David was fled from him; let any reason- 
able person judge whether, on the account of the peril of so 
few days, if indeed he lay under any peril, he could have 
been said to have been afflicted, δεοοί, “in all the things in 
which David had been afflicted.” Sure the words of the 
bishop of Ely here are much more agreeable to the history, 
viz. that this Abiathar “ underwent all the hardships which 
David endured in his exile.” 

But, saith Mr. Whiston, “If that Abiathar who was de- 
prived by Solomon was the Abiathar of the family of Itha- 
mar, and son of Ahimelech of Nob, supposing that he began 
his office at thirty, as the priests did, and continued with 
David forty years, he must be a very old man, almost eighty 
years old before he died; whereas this contradicts God’s 
threat against the family of Eli, that «all the increase of his 
house should die in the flower of their age,” and “ that there 
should not be an old man in his house for ever” (1 Sam. ii. 
33). 

Now to this I answer, First, in the words of the bishop of 
Ely on 1 Sam. ii. 33, that this threat did not belong to all 
the family of Ithamar, but only to the family of Eli, Se- 
condly, Seeing king David died when he was seventy years 
old (2 Sam. v. 4), and seeing there could be no age set for 
the high-priest’s entrance on his office, that depending on the 
death of his father, Ahimelech coming to an untimely end, 
Abiathar might be very young when he first entered upon 
his office, and begin it as priests after did at twenty, and so 
be not much above sixty when David died: and, lastly, when 
that threat had been executed in such a dreadful manner by 
the slaughter of the priests at Nob, we may reasonably con- 
ceive that one single person, made an exile, and afflicted in 
all that David was, might, for the service he had done te 
that good king, and the affliction he had already suffered, 
have his life prolonged above sixty or seventy years. 


212 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Awp he entered again into the synagogue (of. Ca- 
ernaum, i. 21); and there was a man there which 
had a withered hand. 

2 And they (asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal 
on the sabbath-day ? Matt. xii. 19, and) watched him, 
whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that 
(if he did so) they might accuse him (as one that pro- 
faneth the sabbath). 

3 And he saith unto the man which had the wither- 
ed hand, Stand forth (in the sight of the synagogue). 

4 And (then) he saith unto them, 'Is it lawful to 
do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save 
life, or to kill (by refusing to preserve it on that day? 
And this question he put to them by way of answer to their 
question,) but they held their peace. 

5 And when he had looked round about on them 
with anger, ? being grieved for the hardness of their 
hearts (which would not yield to all the conviction he 
had given them, that it was lawful to do good on the 
sabbath-day), he saith unto the man (who had the 
withered hand), Stretch forth thine hand. And he 
stretched ¢/ out: and his hand was restored whole as 
the other (was). 

6 And (this being done) the Pharisees went forth, 
and straightway took counsel with the Herodians 
against him, how they might destroy him. 

7 But*® Jesus (his time of suffering being not yet 
come) withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: 
and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and 
from Judea, 

8 And from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and from 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IIL 


1 Ver. 4. Ἔζεστι rots σάββασιν ἀγαϑοποιῆσαι, ἢ κακοποιῆσαι; 
&c. Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath-days, or to do 
evil? to save life, or to kill?) Hence it seems to follow, 
that he who doth not do good to his neighbour when he 
can, doth evil to him; it being a want of charity, and there- 
fore evil, to neglect any opportunity of doing good, or 
showing kindness to any man in misery; and that not to 
preserve his life when it is in danger, is to transgress that 
precept which saith, “'I’hou shalt not kill;’’ because, by this 
delay, so much is taken from the pleasure of his life; and, 
saith the aphorism, Non est vivere sed valere, vita. Hence 
the tradition of the Jews informs us, “The hands of Moses 
were heavy, because when Amalek came against them he 
deferred their deliverance till the morrow (Exod. xvii. 9), 
and was not ready on that very day to give redemption to 
Israel” (B. Uzziel. in Exod. xvii. 12). 

2 Ver. 5. Καὶ περιβλειψάμενος αὐτοὺς per’ ὀργῆς, And looking 
on them with anger.| Hence we learn that anger is not 
always sinful; this passion being found in him in whom 
was no sin. But then it must be noted, that anger is not 
properly defined by philosophers, ὄρεξις ἀντιλυπήσεως, “a de- 
sire of revenge,” or causing grief to him who hath provoked 
or hath grieved us; for this desire of revenge is always evil; 
and though our Saviour was angry with the pharisees for 
the hardness of their hearts, yet he had no desire to revenge 
this sin upon them, but hada great compassion for them, 
and a desire to remove this evil. Anger is rather an inward 
motion and serious displeasure of the mind, arising from 
the apprehension of some injury done or intended to our- 
selves, or others for whom we are concerned, with a desire 
to remove the injury (see note on Matt. v. 22). 

3 Ver. 7. Καὶ ὁ ᾿Ιησοὺς ἀνεχώρησε, And Jesus withdrew him- 
self with his disciples to the sea.) When Christ by his doc- 
trine and miracles could do no good upon men, by reason of 
the hardness of their hearts, ver. 5, but they consult how 
they may destroy him, ver. 6, he usually departs and con- 
ceals himself, that he may give place to their wrath, and 

ure himself from their malice (see Matt. xii. 15, John viii. 


beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, (I 
say) a great multitude, when they had heard what 
great things he did, came unto him. 

9 And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship 
should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they 
should throng him. 

10 For he had healed many; 4 insomuch that they 
pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had 
plagues. 

11 And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell 
down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son 
of God. 

12 And he straitly charged them that they should 
not make him known. 

13 And he goeth up into a mountain, and ealleth 
unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. 

14 And he ordained twelve, that they should be 
with him (as his attendants), and that he might send 
them forth to preach, 

15 And (preaching in his name) to have power to 
heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: 

16 And (they were) Simon (whom) he surnamed Peter; 

17 And James the son of Zebebee, and John the 
brother of James; and he surnamed them ® Boanerges, 
which is, The sons of thunder: 

18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and 
Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alpheus, 
and Thaddeus, and Simon the Canaanite, 

19 And ὃ Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him : 
and they went into an house (in Capernaum, li. 1). 

20 And the multitude cometh together again, so 


59). Whence we learn, not only that in such cases it is 
lawful thus to consult our safety, but that when men are so 
perverse, we, by concealing of the truth, do not betray it, 
but rather do comply with our Lord’s precept, “ not to cast 
pearls before swine” (Matt. vii. 6). 

4 Ver. 10. Ὥστε ἐπιπίπτειν αὐτῷ, Insomuch that they press- 
ed upon him.] Dr. Hammond says, They fell down before 
his feet, requesting that they might touch him, or in order 
to the touching of him, as they did, vi.56. But the pressing 
on him seems more agreeable to the reason why he desired 
a ship, viz. that they might not throng him. 

5 Ver. 17. Kai ἐπέθηκεν airois ὀνόματα Boavepyis, And he 
named them Boanerges, which is, Sons of thunder.) Con- 
cerning the derivation of this word see Dr. Lightfoot and 
Grotius. Christ seems to have given them this name from 
a foresight of the heat and zeal of their temper, of which 
they quickly gave an instance in their desire to call down 
fire from heaven, or thunder and lightning to consume the 
Samaritans (Luke ix. 54): and John also showed his zeal 
in forbidding him that cast out devils in Christ’s name, be- 
cause he followed not them. Hence we find, in the Acts 
of the Apostles, Peter and John are the chief speakers and 
actors in the defence and propagation of the gospel; and 
the zeal of James and Peter seems to be the reason why the 
one was slain by Herod, and the other imprisoned in order 
to the like execution. 

6 Ver. 19. ᾿Ιούδαν ᾿Ισκαριώτην, And Judas Iscariot, who also 
betrayed him. 'Vhe wisdom of Christ saw fit to admit Judas 
amongst his disciples, that by him the counsel of God, in 
giving up his Son to the death, and the scriptures might be 
fulfilled (Acts i. 16). And he is by him sent to preach, to 
cure diseases, and to cast out devils, who had himself a 
devil (John vi. 70), to teach us, that the mission of a per- 
son may be valid, though he be not sanctified; and that we 
should hearken to, and, in things belonging to their minis- 
terial office, should obey even such persons. Origen,* 
indeed, declares his belief that Judas γνησίως πύτε ἐπεπιστεύκει, 
“was once a sincere believer:’ for, saith he, had Christ 


* Tom. ii. in Joh. ed. Huet. p. 393. 


CHAPTER IV. 


that they could not so much as (have leisure to) eat 


21 And when his friends heard of ἐΐ, they went out 
to lay hold on him: for they said, He is 7 beside him- 
self (Gr. he is faint by spending his spirits). 

22 4 And the scribes which came down from Jeru- 
salem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of 
the devils casteth he out devils. 

23 And he called them unto him, and said unto 
them in (two) parables (first), How can Satan cast 
out Satan? 

24 And (for) if a kingdom be divided against itself, 
that kingdom cannot stand. 

25 And if a house be divided against itself, that 
house cannot stand. 

26 And if (then) Satan rise up against himself, and 
be divided, he cannot stand, but (Ais Aingdom) hath 
an end. 

27 (And again in another parable he said,) No man 
can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his 
goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and 
then he will ‘ able to) spoil his house. 

28 (Then he added these words,) Verily I say unto 


213 


you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, 
and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blas- 
pheme (me upon earth): 

29 But he that shall blaspheme against (the follow- 
ing dispensation of) the Holy Ghost hath never for- 
giveness, but is in danger of (Gr. obnoxious to) eter- 
nal damnation : 

30 (And thus he spake) because they said, He hath 
an unclean spirit. 

31 4 There came then his brethren and 5 his mother 


| (to the place where he was), and (they), standing with- 


out, sent unto him, calling him (to them). 

32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said 
unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren with- 
out seek for thee. 

33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mo- 
ther, or my brethren ? 

34 And he looked round about on them which sat 
about him, and (pointing to his disciples, he) said, 
Behold my mother and my brethren ! 

35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the 
same is (by me valued as dearly as) my brother, and 
my sister, and mother. 


found him at the first to have been a thief, he would not 
have committed the bag to him, when he had found him so 
to be, and his apostleship, even after he had pronounced 
him a devil (John vi. 70), for he fell from it only by his 
transgression in betraying his Master (Acts i. 25). I see no 
necessary reason why he might not appoint him the bag, even 
though he knew he was addicted to theft. Secondly, He 
also argues thus—Christ sent him as he did the rest of his 
apostles, attended with the power of miracles, and with com- 
mission to say to any city where he came, “ Peace be to this 
city ;”’ and with a promise, that if «a son of peace was there, 
that peace should rest upon him ;” if not, “it should return 
into their bosom ;”’ which, saith he, Christ would not have 
done, had not Judas then been a son of peace. But, (1.) 
Christ hath informed us that miracles might be done even by 
the “workers of iniquity,” Matt. vii. 22, 23. (2.) The 
twelve disciples were sent by “two and two,” Mark vi. 7, 
and so one of them being sincere, and a keeper of the word 
of God (John xvii. 6), this prayer for peace might come 
upon them that were worthy for his sake, rather than for the 
sake of Judas. This opinion therefore of Origen, as it is 
not certainly true, so neither can it certainly be disproved. 
7 Ver. 31. Ἔλεγον γὰρ, ὅτι ἐξέστη, And when his friends 
heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him ; for they said, 
He is beside himself.) This is spoken upon the occasion of 
the multitude’s coming so fast upon him, as that he had not 
time to take any food to recreate his weary spirits; and so 
that interpretation which renders the words thus, “They 
said, He is fainty,” or, may fall into a deliquium by spend- 


¢ 


ing thus his spirits, hath nothing I can see to render it im- 
probable; this being frequently the import of the word in 
the Old Testament. So when the brethren of Joseph told 
Jacob that his son was living, ἐξέστη τῇ διανοία, “ Jacob’s 
heart fainted,” (Gen. xlv. 26), and afterward his spirit re- 
vived (ver. 27): so Rahab saith, When we heard that God 
had dried up the Red Sea for you, ἐζέστημεν τῇ καρδία ἡμῶν, 
“our hearts fainted, nor did there remain any breath in us” 
(Josh. ii. 11): so when the kings of Syria and Israel con- 
spired against Ahaz king of Judah, ἐξέστη ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ, 
“his heart fainted, and the heart of his people” (Isa. vii. see 
xxxiii. 3), and of Emath and Arphad, Jeremiah saith, xlix. 
23, ὅτι ἤκουσαν ἀκοὴν πονηρὰν, ἐξέστησαν, “ When they heard 
evil tidings, their heart fainted” (see also Gen. xlii. 28). 
This interpretation I like best; because it is absurd to say, 
that Christ did, either in his gesture or his actions, show any 
symptoms of transportation, or excess of mind: nor could 
his kindred have any reason to conceive thus of him, who 
had never given the least symptoms of any such excess, 
though they of them who believed not in him (John vii. 4), 
might have such unworthy thoughts of him. 

8 Ver. 31. Ἢ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ, And his mother.) Hence Theo- 
phylact taxes her, κενοδοξίας, “of vain-glory and of guilt, in 
endeavouring to draw him, ἀπὸ τῆς διδασκαλίας, from teaching 
the word :” Tertullian* pronounceth her guilty of “incredu- 
lity :” Chrysostom, “of vain-glory, infirmity, and madness,” 
for this very thing (Hom. 27 in Matt. tom. ii. p. 191). 


* De Care Christ. cap. 7. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Anp he began again to teach by the sea side: 
and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so 
that he entered into a ship, and ' sat in (it on) the sea; 
ase whole multitude was by the sea (side) on the 
and. 

2 And he taught them many things by parables, 
and said unto them in his doctrine, 

3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to 
sow: 

4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some (seed) 
fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and 
devoured it up. 


: ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1Ver. 1. Καθῆσθαι ἕν τῇ ϑαλᾶσσῃ, Sat in the sea.] That is, 
in a boat upon the sea, at a little distance from the shore. 


5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not 
much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because 
it had no depth of earth (and so could not be long co- 
vered by it): ’ 

6 But (and) when the sun was up, it was scorched ; 
and because it had no (deep) root, it withered away. 

7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns 
grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. 

8 And other (seed) fell on good ground, and did 
yield fruit that sprang up and increased ; and brought 
forth, 2 some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hun- 
dred (fold increase). 


2 Ver. 8. “Ev τριάκοντα, καὶ ἕν ἑξήκοντα, καὶ ἕν ἑκατὸν, Some 
thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred.| The fathers of 
the fourth and fifth centuries were superstitious admirers of 
virginity, and so allotted here the hundred-fold increase to 


214 


9 And he said unto them, He that hath ears to 
hear, let him hear. 

10 And when he was alone (7. 6. retired from the 
multitude), they that were about him with the twelve 
asked him (the meaning of) the parable. 

11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to 
know the mystery of the kingdom of God (the effect 
and progress tt will have among men): but? unto them 
that are without (and not prepared to receive the doc- 
trine of this kingdom), all these things are done in 
parables (they having shut their eyes, and hardened their 
hearts, Matt. xiii. 15) : 

12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive ; 
and hearing they may hear, and not understand}; lest 
at any time they should be converted, and their sins 
should be forgiven them. 

13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this pa- 
rable ? 4 and how then will ye know all parables ? (as 
might be reasonably expected from you, who should have 
ears ta hear, ἡ. 6. discerning spirits in such things. 

14  Tuke then the sense of this parable thus:) The 
sower (7s he who) soweth the word. 

15 And these are they (who are represented by the 
seed sown) by the way side, where (among whom) the 
word is sown; but when they have heard (7¢), § Satan 
cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that 
was sown in their hearts. 

16 And these are they likewise which are (repre- 
sented by the seed) sown on stony ground; who, when 
they have heard the word, immediately receive it with 
gladness ; 

17 And (yet) have no root in themselves, and so 


MARK. 


endure but for a time: (and) afterward, when afflic- 
tion or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, imme- 
diately they are offended. 

18 And these are they which are (represented by 
seed) sown among thorns; (do wit,) such as hear the 
word, 

19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitful- 
ness of riches, and the lusts (or desires) of other things 
entering in (to the heart), choke the word, and (so) it 
becometh unfruitful. 

20 And these are they which are (represented by the 
seed) sown on ® good ground; (do wit,) such as hear 
the word and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some 
thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred. 

21 4 7 And he said unto them, Is a candle brought 
to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not 
(rather) to be set on a candlestick? (i.e. Do I give you 
this light into my doctrine, that you may conceal it? 
Surely, no.) 

22 For there is nothing hid (as being spoken by me 
in obscure parables), which shall (should) not be mani- 
fested; neither was any thing kept (Gr. made) secret 
(by me), but that it should come abroad. 

23 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear (7. e. 
let these things be duly understood, and accordingly per- 
formed by you). 

24 And he said unto them, 8 Take heed what (7. e. 
how you attend to what) ye hear: (for) with what 
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and 
unto you that hear shall more be given (7. 6. according 
lo your proficiency in hearing, will the word be dispensed 
to you). 


virgins ; the sixty-fold, to widows that married not again; 
the thirty-fold, to those who lived in wedlock: so Athana- 
sius, Ep. ad Ammun. St. Jerome, in locum, et lib. i. adv. 
Jovin. lit. K. et Apol. ad Pammachiun, f. 37, lit. G. This 
did St. Jerome, saith Erasmus, durior in nuptias; and others, 
iniquiores nuptiis. 

3 Ver. 11. Τοῖς ἔξω". To them that are without.) It was 
customary for the Jews to give this title to the heathens; 
our Saviour, therefore, by applying it to them, scems to hint 
to them, That in a short time the kingdom of God would 
be taken from them, and they themselves would be οἱ ἔξω, 
them that were without (Matt. viii. 12, Luke xiii. 25. 28, 
see note on Luke viii. 10). 

4 Ver, 13. Kai πῶς ; How then ?) For καὶ here is not only 
copulative, but illative; and so the words are to be rendered, 
«“ How then?” or, “How therefore?” So Ps. ii. 10, καὶ 
viv, “ Now therefore ye kings, be wise ;” Ps. vii. 7, καὶ ὑπὲρ 
ταύτης, “For their sakes therefore return on high;” Ps. 
XVill. 42, καὶ λεπτυνῶ, “ Then did I beat them as small as the 
dust.” This sense it bears in the Septuagint, Gen. xiii. 16, 
xxiv. 41, xxviii. 21, xxxi. 8, xlii, 34. 38, Exod. vi. 1, vii. 9. 
11, Lev. iv. 3. 14. 23, 28, v. 5, vi. 4, Numb. v. 15. 21, 
Deut. vi. 21, viii. 10, Josh. i. 15, xxiv. 20, 1 Sam. i. 11, vi. 
9, Joel ii. 18, Micah vii. 9, Mal. ii. 2, and in the New Tes- 
tament, Mark x. 26, καὶ ris; “ Who then can be saved?” 
Luke ii. 15,“ When the angels were gone up to heaven, 
καὶ, then the shepherds said ;” Luke xii. 29, “Seek ye not 
therefore what ye shall eat; 1 Cor. v. 13, καὶ ἐξαρεῖτε, 
“Therefore put away the evil person.” 

5 Ver. 15. Ἔρχεται ὃ Σατανᾶς, Satan cometh.] The “birds 
of the air,” ver. 4. Ta πετεινὰ rod οὐρανοῦ, of δαίμονες οἱ τὸν 
ἄερα κατέχοντες, “ The birds of the air represent Satan, be- 
cause his habitation is in the air’ (Theoph.). 

5 Ver. 20. Οἱ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν τὴν καλὴν, Upon good ground.] 
‘Opa γοῦν πῶς σπάνια τὰ καλὰ, καὶ ὀλίγοι οἱ σωζόμενοι, “ See,” 
saith Theophylact, “how rare are good men, and how few 
are saved ;” for only the fourth part of the seed fell upon 
good ground, and was preserved. Observe here also the 
gradation: the seed sown in the highway comes not up at 
all; the seed sown upon stony ground comes up, but in- 
creaseth not; the seed sown among thorns increaseth, but 
bears no fruit; the seed sown on good ground brings forth 
fiuit to perfection. 


7 Ver. 21, 22. Kai ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς" μήτι ὃ λῦχνος ἔρχεται, &e. 
And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under 
a bushel, &c.} These words being only spoken to Christ’s 
disciples, when he was alone with them, and both here and 
in Luke viii. 16, 17, subjoined to the explication of this pa- 
rable, I think it best to explain them accordingly; as if 
Christ had said, I give you a clear light, by which you may 
discern the import of this and other parables; but this I do, 
not that you may keep it to yourselves, and hide it from 
others, but that it may be beneficial to you, and by you be 
made beneficial to others; and that having thus learned, 
you may instruct them how they ought to hear, and to re- 
ceive the word heard in good and honest hearts (ver. 20). 
And though I give you the knowledge of these mysteries of 
the kingdom of God, καταμόνας, “ privately,” I do it not 
that you may keep them so; for there is nothing (¢hus) 
hid which should not be made manifest, neither was any 
thing made secret (by me) but that it should (afterward) 
come abroad. 

Hence also observe, that had Christ’s apostles so ob- 
scurely delivered or writ the gospels, and those other scrip- 
tures which contain the rule of faith even in things necessary 
to be believed or done unto salvation, as the Romanists 
pretend they did, they must have hid the “candle under 
a bushel,” and not have manifested it to the world, as 
Christ here requires them to do. 

8 Ver. 24. Βλέπετε τί. Luke viii. 18. Βλέπετε οὖν πῶς 
ἀκούετε, Take heed what (Luke, how) you hear: for with 
what measure you mete, &c.] I think these words are well 
paraphrased by Theophylact thus,—Let not any thing you 
have heard slip from you, but lay it up in your heart; for 
according to that measure of attention and readiness of 
mind you use in hearing of the word, and your diligence in 
pondering it, and care to practise suitably to what you 
know already, will be your farther proficiency in knowledge : 
and he that hath προϑυμίαν καὶ σπουδὴν, δωθήσεται αὐτῷ Kat 
ὠφελεία, “ this readiness and care, shall profit by it:” that 
τὶ signifies πῶς, we learn from these words, τί γὰρ οἶδας, 
«How knowest thou, Ὁ husband, or, Ὁ wife?” 1 Cor. vii. 
16. 

Ver. 24, 25.] Moreover, what can be more evident than 
this inference from these verses, that the word of God read 
and preached being the ordinary instrument of our conver- 


CHAPTER V. 


95 For he that (émproveth what he) hath, to him 
shall be given (more): and he that hath not (improved 
his present knowledge), from him shall be taken even 
that (Anowledge) which he hath. 

26 4 And he said, ®So is (it with the doctrine of) 
the kingdom of God (received into a good heart), as if 
a man should cast (good) seed into the ground ; 

27 And (having done so) should sleep, and rise night 
and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he 
knoweth not how (as indeed it is with respect to the seed 
sown in the earth). 4 

28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; 
first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in 
the ear. 

29 But when the fruit is brought forth (¢o matu- 
rily)s immediately he putteth in the sickle, because 
the harvest is come. (So when, by the preaching of the 
word, men are made ripe for the harvest, i. e. prepared to 
receive the gospel, the apostles will come and gather them 
into my kingdom.) 

30 ¥ And he said (a/so), Whereunto shall we liken 
the (doctrine of the) kingdom of God? or with what 
comparison shall we compare it? 

31 Jt is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when 
it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that 
be in the earth: 

32 But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becom- 
eth greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great 
branches ; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under 
the shadow of it. (Even so the kingdom of the Messiah, 
before his death and burial in the earth, will have only 


215 


a small and insensible increase, but after his resurrection 
it will spring up, and become the greatest of all kingdoms). 
33 And with many such parables spake he the word 
unto them, as they were able to hear tt (without offence). 
34 But without a parable spake he not unto them: 
and when they were alone, he expounded all things 
(which he thus spake) to his disciples. 

35 And the same day, when the even was come, he 
saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side 
(of the lake). 

36 And when they had sent away the multitude, 
they took him (along with them) even as he was (sleep 
ing) in the ship (for he went first into the ship, and his 
disciples afler him, Matt. viii. 22). And there were 
also with him other little ships. 

37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the 
waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. 

38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep 
on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, 
Master, carest thou not that we perish ? 

39 And (then) he arose, and rebuked the wind, and 
said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And (cnstantly) the 
wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 

40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? 
how is it that ye have no faith ? 

41 And (this he had cause to say, for) 1) they feared 
exceedingly (though he was present with them, and they 
had such experience of his power), and (seeing that the 
wind ceased at his word, they) said one to another, What 
manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea 
obey him? 


sion, and “a savour either of life unto life, or death unto 
death,” conversion must depend partly on our attention to 
it, our care to meditate upon it, and fix it in our hearts, and 
to act suitably to it in our lives; and that Christ, by adding 
these words as a motive to take heed to what we hear, that 
to them that thus hear shall more be given, doth plainly 
teach us that the salutary efficacy of the word of life depends 
partly on our affection to and our improvement of what we 
have heard, and partly on the disposition of the hearer; to 
wit, his freedom from a prevailing love to those enjoyments 
and pleasures of the world, which avert our thoughts from 
this attention, and so choke the influence of the word, and 
hinder our reception of it into “ good and honest hearts :” 
and also that our neglect so to improve it, is our own wilful 
fault, or our neglect to do that which God hath enabled us, 
or would upon this care enable us to do; and therefore is 
thus threatened with the removal of those means of grace 
we so unprofitably do enjoy (see the note on Matt. xiii. 19). 

9 Ver. 26. Kai ἔλεγεν, οὕτως ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ, And 
he said, So is the kingdom of God.] This parable is men- 
tioned only by St. Mark, and it seems to me to relate to the 
good ground ; for that only brought forth ripe fruit, or fruit 
unto perfection: I therefore paraphrase it thus, What I 
said of the seed sown upon good ground, may be illustrated 
by this parable, That the doctrine of the kingdom of God, 
received into a good and honest heart, is like seed sown by 
aman in his ground, manured and tilled, and so prepared 
to receive it; for when he hath sown it, he sleeps and 
wakes day after day; and looking on it, he sees it spring 
and grow up through the virtue of the earth in which it is 
sown, though he knows not how it doth so; and when he 
finds it ripe, he reaps it, and so receives the benefit of the 
seed sown: so is it here; the seed sown in the good and 
honest heart brings forth fruit with patience, and this fruit 


daily increaseth, though we know not how the word and 
Spirit work that increase; and then Christ, the husband- 
man, who sows this seed, at the time of the harvest sends 
forth the angels, his reapers, and gathers this good seed, i. e. 
the sons of the kingdom represented by it, into his celestial 
mansions (see Matt. xiii. 38.43). I see no necessity of in- 
quiring here how Christ may be said to sleep and rise day 
and night; Christ being like to this husbandman only in 
sowing and reaping of his seed; nor can it be said of him, 
his seed “ grows up he knows not how;” nor yet would I 
depend much on that remark of the fathers, that here is a 
proof of man’s free-will and power to do good of himself, 
the seed being only sown, and no farther care taken of it: 
for as seed sown in the earth is only fruitful by being wa- 
tered from heaven and ripened by the sun, so a like influ- 
ence of the word and Spirit upon the heart of man seems 
requisite to bring the seed sown in it to perfection. 

10 Ver. 31. ‘Qs κόκκῳ σινάπεως, The kingdom of God is like 
to a grain of mustard-seed.] i.e. The kingdom of the Mes- 
siah may fitly be compared to a grain of mustard-seed, which 
before it is cast into the earth, is the least of all seeds, but 
being sown in it, it groweth up, and becomes the greatest 
of herbs (see note on Matt. xiii. 31): so this kingdom of 
the Messiah before his death and burial in the earth, which 
is called the sowing the body in the earth (1 Cor. xv. 42, 
43), will have only a small and insensible inczease, but will 
afterward spring up and become the greatest of all kingdoms, 
for being “lifted up, he will draw all men after him.” 

1 Ver. 41. Kai ἐφοθήϑησαν φύβον μέγαν. These words I 
would join to the former, thus, “ He said to them, Why are 
you so fearful? &c., for they feared exceedingly ;” and begin 
the last verse thus, “And they said one to another, What 
manner of man is this?” &c. for this accords best with Matt. 
viii, 27, Luke viii. 25. 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Anp they came over unto the other side of | the sea, into the country of the ' Gadarenes. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VY. 
tVer. 1. Eis τὴν χώραν τῶν Γαδαρηνῶν, Into the country of 
the Gadarenes.] Theophylact here saith, τὰ ἀκριβέστερα τῶν 


ἀντιγράφων eis τὴν χίόραν τῶν Tepyeonvav; the exactest copies 
read “Gergesenes,’ as St. Matthew doth, viii. 28. But 
both St. Mark here, and St. Luke, viii. 26, read the “ Gada- 
renes;” and therefore it is better answered by Dr, Light- 


216 


2 And when he was come out of the ship, imme- 
diately there met him (coming) out of the tombs a 
2 man with an unclean spirit, 

3 Who had Azs dwelling among the tombs; and no 
man could (effectually) bind him, no, not with chains: 

4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters 
and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder 
by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could 
any man tame him. 

5 And always, night and day, he was in the moun- 
tains, and in the tombs, crying (oul), and cutting 
himself with stones. 

6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran (¢o him) 
and worshipped him, 

7 And (the wnelean spirit in him) cried with a loud 
voice, and said, 3 What have I to do with thee, Jesus, 
thou Son of the most high God? 1 adjure thee by God, 
that thou torment me not. 

8 For he (Jesus had) said unto him, Come out of 
the man, ¢how unclean spirit (and this made him fear 
that Christ might torment him). 

9 And he (Christ) asked him, What zs thy name? 
And he answered, saying, My name zs Legion (a4 name 
of multitude): for we are many. 

10 And he besought him much ὁ that he would not 
send them away out of the country. 

11 Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a 

eat herd of swine feeding. 

12 And all the devils besought him, saying, Send 


MARK. 


us into the swine, that (by thy permissivn) we may 
enter into them. 

13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And 
(then) the unclean spirits (of the man) went out (of 
him), and entered into the swine: and the herd ran 
violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were 
about two thousand ;) and were choked in the sea. 

14 And they that fed the swine fled, and told it 
(ὦ. ὁ. what was done) in the city, and in the δ country. 
And they went out to see what it was that was done. 

15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was 
possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, 
and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were 
afraid (what one of so great power might farther do). 

16 And they that saw ἐξ told them how it befell to 
him that was possessed with the devil, and also con- 
cerning the swine. 

17 And they (being troubled for the loss of them) be- 
gan to pray him to depart out of their coasts. 

18 And when he was come into the ship, he that 
had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he 
might be with him. 

19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto 
him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great 
things the Lord hath done for thee, and (how he) hath 
had compassion on thee. 

20 And he departed, and began to publish in Deca- 
polis how great things Jesus had done for him: and 
all men did marvel. 


foot, that both say true, for the region of the Gergesenes was 
of broader extent than that of the Gadarenes, and the region 
of the Gadarenes was included in it. 

2 Ver. 2. ἔΑνθρωπος ἐν πνεύματι ἀκαθάρτῳ, Luke viii. 27, aviip 
τις, Aman with an unclean spirit.) St. Matthew saith there 
were δύο δαιμονιζόμενοι, two possessed with the devil,” viii. 
28, which difference, saith the reverend Dr. Hammond, hath 
nothing of weight in it; for Matthew, which names two, 
saying the truth, the other evangelists, who name but one, 
not denying there were more, must necessarily say the truth 
also. Yet curiosity will not rest here, but will inquire, 
why, there being two, and both λίαν χαλεποὶ, very fierce, St. 
Mark and St. Luke name only one? Dr. Lightfoot ingeni- 
ously conjectures, that one of these two was a Gergesene, and 
a Jew; and so, in casting the devil out of him, our Lord did 
only what he frequently had done in Judea ; but the other was 
a Gadarene, i. e. one of a heathen city, as Josephus testifies, 
and as may be collected from the swine they kept, it being by 
the Jewish constitution an unlawful thing for any Jew to keep 
swine (see Dr. Lightfoot, Harm. p. 32). Now of this one, 
St. Mark and Luke chiefly take notice, as being a more re- 
markable and rare instance ; this and that of the Syropheeni- 
cian woman being the only instances of cures wrought upon 
the heathens: that he was a heathen he probably conjectures, 
(1.) from the city he inhabited, (2.) because the devils re- 
quest, both that he would not torment them, and that he 
would not send them out of the country (which elsewhere 
they do not) ; for being among heathens, they thought they 
were among their own, and not in Christ’s jurisdiction, as 
being not among his people. But (3.) the text yields a more 
certain answer, viz. that of these two, only one was ἄνθρωπος 
ἐν ἀκαθάρτῳ πνεύματι, “a man possessed with an unclean spi- 
rit.” (4.) He was the man whom the inhabitants oft at- 
tempted to bind, but could not effectually do it, he breaking 
all the bands and chains that they could lay upon him (ver. 
3, 4, Luke viii. 29). Of these two remarkable circumstances, 
and of his being unclothed, and cutting himself with stones, 
St. Matthew makes no mention; and therefore Mark and 
Luke give us the history of him more largely, omitting the 
other, in whom there was nothing so remarkable. 

3 Ver. 7. Τί ἐμοὶ καί σοι; What have Ito do with thee?) 
This is not a Hebraism, as some think, from 2 Kings iil. 
13, &c. but a form of speaking used in the Greek tongue. 
So Arrian in Epictetus,* τι ἡμῖν καὶ αὐτῷ, “ What have we 


* Lib. i. cap. 1, p. 85. 


to do with him?” (see more instances in Schmid. on Matt, 
viii. 29.) 

4 Ver. 10. Ἵνα μὴ αὐτοὺς ἀποστείλῃ ἔξω τῆς χώρας, That he 
would not send them away out of the country. It is ob- 
served by Grotius here, that in this country there were 
many apostates from the Jewish faith, over whom the 
devils exercised their power; as under the Christian eco- 
nomy they became subject to the power and chastisement 
of Satan, who either denied the fundamentals of, or by their 
wicked deeds became a scandal to, the Christian faith 
(1 Cor. v. 5, 1 Tim. i. 20, Vide Tertul. de Spectaculis, 
cap. 26. Cyprian, de Lapsis ed. Ox. p. 132, 133). 

5 Ver. 14. Kai εἰς τοὺς ἀγροῦς, Told it in the city and in 
the country.] Or rather, in the little villages, where the 
houses were few and apart. See vi. 36, “ Send them away 
that they may go into the country and villages, and market- 
towns, and buy bread.” So again, ver. 56. 

Many here are the practical observations of Theophylact 
upon this history, which I will briefly represent. As, (1.) 
From the devils’ asking leave to go into the swine, he ob- 
serves, that they could not hurt them, much less can they 
hurt man, without the divine permission. (2.) That as 
having leave they instantly hurry these swine to destruc- 
tion, so much more would they deal with men, did not the 
hand of Providence restrain them. (3.) That he who had 
been possessed with the devil, desired to be with Christ, as 
fearing lest at his departure the devil might seize on him 
again; and that Christ permitted him not, partly to avoid 
the suspicion of vain-glory, of which he might haye given 
some umbrage, had he carried about with him those upon 
whom his greatest miracles were wrought; and partly to 
show that in his absence he was able to protect those that 
believe and trust in him, from the malice of all evil spirits. 

4.) From those words of our Saviour, “ Go, tell what great 
things the Lord hath done to thee,” we learn, saith he, from 
Christ’s example, when we do any good not to ascribe it 
to ourselves, but give God the glory of it. Note, lastly, 
that Dr. Hammond in his paraphrase gives three rea- 
sons why our Saviour permitted the devils to enter into 
the swine; (1.) That the people might see the virulency 
of these devils, if not restrained by him, and so the mercy 
done to those that were possessed. (2) The mercy 
now approaching to their country by the coming of Christ, 
if they would accept of it. And (3.) to try whether 
their love to their swine was greater than that to their own 
souls, 


CHAPTER V. 


21 And when Jesus was passed over again by ship 
unto the other side, much people gathered unto him: 
and he was nigh unto the sea. 

22 And, behold, there cometh δ one of the rulers of 
the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw 
him (Christ), he fell at his feet, 

23 And besought him greatly, saying, My little 
daughter lieth at the point of death: 7 pray thee, 
7 come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be 
healed ; and (7 am cunfident if thou doest this) she shall 
live. 

24 And Jesus went with him; and much people fol- 
lowed him (Jesus), and thronged him. 

25 And a certain woman, which had an issue (a 
flux) of blood twelve years, 

26 And had suffered many things of many physi- 
cians, and ὃ had spent all that she had, and was no- 
thing bettered, but rather grew worse, 

27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press 
behind, and touched his garment. 

28 For she said (in her heart), If I may touch but 
his clothes, I shall be whole. 

29 And straightway (upon this touch) the fountain 


217 


of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body 
that she was healed of that plague (7. e. disease). 

30 And Jesus, immediately ® knowing in himself 
that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in 
the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? 

31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the 
multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who 
touched me? 

32 And he looked round about to see her that had 
done this thing. 

33 But (een) the woman fearing and trembling, 
knowing what was done in her, came and fell down 
before him, and told him all the truth. 

34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath 
made thee whole; go in peace, and be (5141) whole 
of thy plague. 

35 While he yet spake, there came from the ruler 
of the synagogue’s house certain (persons) which said, 
Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master 
any further? 

36 As soon as Jesus heard the word that was 
spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the synagogue, Be 
not afraid, only believe. 


6 Ver. 22. Eis τῶν ἀρχισυναγώγων, One of the rulers of the 
synagogue.] The word ἀρχισυναγώγος, or “ruler of the syna- 
gogue,” is mentioned both in the scriptures, the Jewish 
writers, and the Imperial Constitutions; in which sense it 
appears from scripture, that the “rulers of the synagogue” 
were more than one, as may be gathered (1.) from these 
words, “ One of the rulers of the synagogue,” to wit, at Ca- 
pernaum ; for that in Capernaum there was but one syna- 
gogue is probably collected from the words of St. John, vi. 
56, “ These things spake Jesus in the synagogue, teaching 
in Capernaum.” (2.) From the express words of St. 
Luke, who saith that when Paul and Barmabas were entered 
into the synagogue at Antioch, οἱ ἀρχισυνάγωγοι, “the rulers 
of the synagogue said to them, If ye have any word of ex- 
hortation to the people, speak” (Acts xiii. 15): and also 
from the mention of Crispus and Sosthenes, as ἀρχισυνάγωγοι, 
“rulers of the synagogue” at Corinth (Acts xviii. 1. 17): 
or else more strictly to import the person who was the 
president, the head, or the master of the synagogue; and 
in this sense he was but one, as when St. Luke saith, xiii. 
14, 6 ἀρχισυνάγωγος, “ the ruler of the synagogue” answered 
with indignation (see this more fully in Capeg. Vitringa de 
Regim. Synag. lib. ii. cap. 11). But, whereas some learned 
men conceive that the word “ synagogue” here signifies, not 
the house of prayer, or of reading and expounding the law, 
but the consistory of twenty-three, appointed in every city, 
who were able to punish offences not capital, to scourge, 
&c. because our Saviour says, “they shall deliver you up, 
sis συνέδρια, to the councils, and they shall scourge you in 
the synagogues” (Matt. x. 17, xxiii. 34): « Behold, I send 
to you prophets and wise men, and some of them ye shall 
kill, and some ye shall chastise in your synagogues ;” this I 
think is a mistake: for, (1.) in the tenth chapter our Sa- 
viour mentions the synagogues, in which the Christians were 
to be scourged, as distinct places from the synedria, or 
councils to which they were to be delivered. And (2.) St. 
Paul declares once and again, that he did beat the Christians 
in their synagogues (Acts xxii. 19), that « he punished them 
throughout all the synagogues” (xxvi. 11), and that this 
flagellation, and “the rebels’ beating,” were used in the 
synagogues, is fully proved by Campeg. Vitringa de Regim. 
Syn. Vet. lib. iii. par. i. cap. 11, p. 774. 

7 Ver. 23. Aéywv—iva ἐλθὼν ἐπιθῆς, Saying, Come and lay 
thy hands on her.) It is observable that there is frequently 
an ellipsis of some verb or sentence before the particle ἵνα, 
as here δέομαι, “I pray thee,” is wanting: so ch. xiv. 49, 
ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα πληρωθῶσιν, “ But τοῦτο ἐγίνετο, this was done that 
the scriptures might be fufilled:” so 1 John ii. 19, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα 
φανερωϑῶσιν, “ But this was done that they might appear not 
to be of us:” Eph. v. 33, ἠδὲ γυνὴ ἵνα, uxor autem videat 
sive det operam, “ Let the wife see that she reverence her 
husband.” 


8 Ver. 26. Kai daravijcaca τὰ παρ᾽ ἑαυτῆς πάντα, And had | ———- 


spent all that she had.) Here comes to be considered a 
Vor. [V.—2s 


story introduced by Eusebius* with an ἔλεγον, “It is report- 
ed, that by the gate of this woman’s house was erected a 
brass. statue, bearing the effigies of this woman upon her 
knees in the posture of a suppliant; and, opposite to her, 
the effigies of a man in brass, resembling Jesus stretching 
out his hand to the woman; and that at the feet of it an 
unknown plant sprung up, which reaching to the borders of 
his brass doublet, or coat, became a present remedy against 
all manner of diseases.” And therefore Asterius, in his 
homily upon this woman, declares that Maximinus, ἂν βίλετο 
τῆς πολίκνης τὸ χάλκον, “ took away this brazen statue from 
that city” (Cod. 271, p. 1508). Now that there might be 
two brass statues in that city, built according to the hea- 
thenish custom, I deny not; but that they were either 
erected by this woman, or contained the resemblance of 
Christ, or that any such herbs growing thus up, became a 
present remedy to all diseases, I find cause, with Charlemain, 
to say, Si tamen facta est, that is to doubt the truth of the 
relation: for, not to insist on the silence of all the three evan- 
gelists, who mention this woman, and could not be ignorant 
of a thing so famous, or silent in a matter which so much 
tended to the confirmation of the Christian faith; not to 
insist upon it, that neither Justin Martyr, who was born in 
Palestine, where Paneas or Cesarea Philippi was; nor 
Origen, who conversed many. years at Tyre near this place ; 
nor Ireneus or Tertullian, who speak of this very woman, 
makes the least mention of this brazen statue, or this mira- 
culous herb; nor, thirdly, that this herb having then only 
its miraculous effects when it touched the border of our 
Saviour’s garment, smells rank of the superstition of the 
latter times: to omit, I say, all these things, how should a 
woman, who as all these evangelists inform us, “had spent 
all that she had,” be able to erect two such costly statues as 
were sufficient to exhaust the fortunes even of wealthy per- 
sons? or how can we imagine that the Jews, in all their 
wars, and the gentiles, both bitter enemies to Christianity, 
should suffer such a confirmation of it to remain even to 
the days of Eusebius? 

9 Ver. 30. Kai ᾿Ιησοῦς ἐπιγνοὺς ἐν ἑαυτῶ τὴν δύναμιν ἐξελ- 
θοῦσαν, And Jesus knowing in himself that virtue had 
gone out of him.) From these and the like words, that 
δύναμις nap’ αὐτοῦ, virtue with him, went out, “and healed 
them all” (Luke vi. 19), it is evident that the virtue 
which did these miraculous cures resided in Jesus, which 
is never said of any of the prophets or apostles: the divine 
virtue by which these prophets and apostles did their mira- 
culous cures is ascribed to God; as in these words, δυνάμεις 
τε οὐ τὰς τυχοῦσας ἐποίει 6 Θεὸς, “And God did special 
miracles by the hands of Paul” (Acts xix. 11, 12); but 
the miracles done by Christ, to the divine virtue dwelling in 
him; whence he so often declares, that “the Father abiding 
in him did the works” (John xiv. 10). 


* Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 18, 
μὰ 


218 


37 And he suffered no man to follow him (into the 
place where the daughter was), save Peter, and James, 
and John the brother of James, (and her father and 
mother, Luke viii. 51). 

38 And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the 
synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept 
and 10 wailed greatly. 

39 And when he was come in, he saith unto them, 
Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not 
(so) dead, but (that she shall presently arise from her 
bed, as one that) sleepeth. 

40 And they laughed him to scorn. But when he 
had put them all out, he " taketh the father and the 


MARK. 


mother of the damsel, and them that were with him 
{see ver. 37), and entered in where the damsel was 
ying. 

41 And he took the damsel by the hand, and said 
unto her, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, 
Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. 

42 And straightway the damsel arose and walked ; 
for she was of the age of twelve years. And they 
were astonished with a great astonishment. 

43 And he charged them straitly that no man should 
know it; and commanded that something should be 
given her to eat (to show, saith Theophylact, that she 
was really alive). 


10 Ver. 38. Κλαίοντας καὶ ἀλαλάζοντας πολλά, He sees the 
multitude weeping and wailing greatly.) ᾿ Αλαλάζειν, ordina- 
rily signifies to make a joyful sound; but it is often used 
by the Septuagint to signify the voice of lamentation; as 
when the prophet Jeremy says, xxv. 34, ἀλαλάζετε of ποιμένες, 
“Howl, ye shepherds, and ery; and wallow yourselves in 
ashes, ye principal of the flock ;” and, ver. 36, “ A voice of 
the cry of the shepherds, καὶ ἀλαλαγμὸς, and a howling of 
the rams of the flock shall be heard;” and the prophet 


Ezekiel, xxvii. 30, ἀλαλάζουσιν ἐπί σε, “They shall cause 
their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly :” 
so also, Jer. iv. 8, xlvii. 2, and these two senses hath the 
Hebrew halal, from which it seems to be derived. 

1 Ver. 40. Παραλαμβάνει τὸν πατέρα καὶ μητέρα" He taketh 
with him the father and the mother, &c.) 1. e. As many wit- 
nesses as were sufficient to confirm the fact, and no more, 
lest he should seem desirous of vain-glory. 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 Anp he went out from thence (i. e. from Caper- 
maum), and came into his own country (Nazareth, 
Luke iv. 16); and his disciples follow him. 

2 And when the sabbath day was come, he began 
to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him 
were astonished (at his words), saying, From whence 
hath this man these things? and what (Kind of ) wis- 
dom 7s this which is given unto him, (and how is it) 
that even (Gr. also) such mighty works are wrought 
by his hands ? 

3 Is not! this the carpenter, the son of (Joseph and) 
Mary, (zs he not) the brother of James, and Joses, and 
of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with 
us? (in all whom we find no such marks of power or wis- 
dom). And (by reason of his mean alliance) they were 
offended at him. 

4 But (then) Jesus said unto them, A prophet is 


not without honour, but (Gr. zs not despised, save) in 
(and for) his own country (Galilee, John vii. 52), and 
among his own kin, and in his own house (or for 
them). 

5 ‘ind he ? could there do no mighty work (because 
of their unbelief), save that he laid his hands upon a 
few sick folk, and healed them. 

0 3 And he marvelled because of their unbelief. 
And (leaving them) he went round about the villages. 
teaching. Ν 

7 J And he called unto him the twelve (apostles), 
and began to send them forth by two and two; and 
gave them power over unclean spirits ; 

8 And (he) commanded them that they should take 
nothing for ¢hetr journey, save 4 a staff only ; (vz.) no 
scrip, no bread (for victuals), no money in their purse 
(to buy it): 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


1 Ver. 3. Οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ τέκτων ; Is not this the car- 
penter 5] So Justin Martyr* not only speaks of him as the 
son of a carpenter, καὶ τέκτονος νομιζομένου, “and reckoned as 
a carpenter,” but saith, ταῦτα yap τὰ τεκτονικὰ ἔργα εἰργάζετο 
ἐν ἀνθρώποις, ὧν ἄροτρα καὶ ζυγά, “ that being among men, he 
made rakes and yokes, which were the works of carpen- 
ters.”{ Origen therefore seems to have forgot himself when 
he so positively says, ὅτι οὐδαμοῦ τῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις φερομένων 
εὐαγγελίων τέκτων αὐτὸς ὃ ᾿Ιησοῦς ἀναγέγραπταὶ, “ that it was not 
written in any of the gospels which the church received, 
that Jesus was a carpenter.” It seems not only true, but 
even requisite, that he should be of some trade, since by the 
Jewish canons all fathers were bound to teach their children 
some trade; and their most celebrated rabbins thought it 
a great reproach not to be of some trade; and also, that he 
might give no example of idleness, and take off all suspi- 
cion of being bred up in curious arts. 

2 Ver. 5. Kai οὐκ ἡδύνατο, &c. And he could do there no 
mighty works, because of their unbelief.) For Christ still 
requiring faith in the patient, in order to his cures, where 
this was wanting, he could do no mighty works; not that 
he wanted power to do them, but that they wanted that 
condition which only made it fit that he should do them. 
So God saith, Jer. xv. 1, “My mind cannot be towards this 
people,” not for want of kindness or good-will in him, but 


* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 316. 
+ Cont. Celsum, lib. vi. p. 269. 


for want of those dispositions in them which might render 
them fit objects of his favour. 

3 Ver. 6. ᾿Εϑαύμασε διὰ τὴν ἀπιστίαν αὐτῶν, And he won- 
dered because of their unbelief.] So when the centurion by 
his answer had showed the strength of his faith, Christ mar- 
velled and said to them that followed him, “I have not 
found so great faith, no not in Israel” (Matt. viii. 10): 
whereas, had not God vouchsafed sufficient power to those 
of Israel to believe, as well as to the centurion, what ground 
can we imagine for this marvelling? for sure Christ could 
have no sufficient cause to marvel either that faith should be 
found where it was, or not found where it was not, if be- 
lieving depended on an omnipotent act of God, producing 
faith in all that did at any time believe (unless that could 
be just ground of marvelling, that God by his omnipotence 
could work faith in whom he pleased), or that man should 
not do more than he had power, or than God would enable 
him to do. 

4 Ver. 8. And he commanded them, that they should take 
nothing for their journey, εἰ μὴ ῥάβδον μόνον, save a staff only.) 
St. Matthew, x. 10, saith μηδὲ ῥάβδον, “not a staff:” but 
Theophylact there reads, μηδὲ ῥάβόους, “nor staves;” and 
this reading is confirmed not only from many MS. copies, 
but from St. Luke, who, ix. 3, hath it μηδὲ ῥάβόους, “nor 
staves :” it being common for those who were to travel a 
considerable journey, to take with them two staves, as well 
as two coats. The prohibition of ὑποδήματα, “ shoes,” there 
ver. 13, contradicts not the permission of sandals here, 
the sandals being made of harder leather, the shoes of softer ; 
the sandals so open, that you might put your foot into them 


CHAPTER VI. 


9 But (that they should) be shod with sandals ; and 
not put on two coats. 

10 And he said unto them, In what place soever ye 
pe into an house, there abide till ye depart from that 

ace. 

11 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear 
you, when ye depart (Gr. departing) thence, shake off 
the dust under your feet for a testimony against them, 
(that you count them as unclean ; and) verily I say unto 
you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Go- 
morrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. 

12 And they went out, and preached that men 
should repent. 

13 And they cast out many devils, and δ anointed 
with oil many that were sick, and healed them. 

14 And king Herod heard of him ; (for his name was 
spread abroad:) and he said, That John the Baptist 
was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works 
do shew forth themselves in him. 

15 Others said, That it is Elias. And others said, 
That it is ® a prophet (raised from the dead), or as one 
of the (old) prophets. 

16 But when Herod heard thereof (7. 6. of his fame), 
he said, It is (tha!) John, whom I beheaded: he is 
risen from the dead. 

17 For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold 
upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias’ 
sake, his brother Philip’s wife: for he had married 
her (Ais brother being yet living). 

18 For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful 
for thee to have thy brother’s wife. 

19 Therefore Herodias 7 had a quarrel against him, 
and would have killed him; but she could not (prevail 
with Herod so to do): 

20 For Herod feared (to take away) John, knowing 
that he was a just man and an holy (person), and 
8 observed (συνετήρεν he ἘΠῚ him (from the malice of 
Herodias: or, he was formerly observant of him); and 
when he heard him, he did many things (which John 
taught), and heard him gladly. 

21 And (but) when a convenient day was come 
(for her malicious purpose, viz. the day) that Herod on 
(celebrating) his birthday made a supper to (for) his 
lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee; 


before or behind, whereas you could put it into the shoe 
only one way (see Lightfoot on Matt. x. 10). And this 
command Christ laid upon them, to give them a manifest 
document in this their first mission (which was only « to the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel,” to prepare them to re- 
ceive the Messias, when he should manifest himself unto 
them) of the divine providence providing for them all things 
necessary ; and this they thankfully acknowledge, Luke xxii. 
35, by saying, that when he thus sent them forth, they 
wanted nothing. But then, that this was a temporary pre- 
cept, respecting only this very mission, and not reaching 
to their whole apostolical function afterward, is evident, 
(1.) from the nature of their mission, which was only to 
the cities of Judea, and was performed in a short time; 
for, ver. 30, we find them returned, and telling their Master 
what they had done; and this also sufficiently appears from 
our Lord’s words, “ When I sent ye forth without scrip or 
shoes, lacked you any thing?” (Luke xvii. 35.) Hence Christ 
himself had one that bore his bag (John xiii. 29): and St. 
Paul sends for his cloak that he had left at Troas (2 Tim. iv. 
13). 

er. 11, 33. 36. 51.] The reading of the text is defended 
Examen Millii hic. 

5 Ver. 13. Kai ἤλειφον ἐλαίῳ, &c. And anointed with oil 
many that were sick.] That it was usual with the Jews to 
prescribe oil as a fit thing to anoint the sick in order to their 
recovery, Dr. Lightfoot here and elsewhere fully proves; 
nor do I think the apostles, having no command of Christ 
to do so, would have used this ceremony, had it not been 
customary for them so to do; but whether they did this 


219 


22 And when the daughter of the said Herodias 
came in, and danced, and pleased Herod (Gr. coming 
in, dancing and pleasing Herod) and them that sat with 
him, the king said unto the damsel, Ask of me what- 
soever thou wilt, and I will give ¢ thee. 

23 And he sware unto her, Whatsoever thou shalt 
ask of me, 1 will give it thee, unto the half of my 
kingdom. 

24 And (then) she went forth, and said (Gr. goin 
forth said) unto her mother, What shall Task? An 
she said, (As) the head of John the Baptist. 

25 And she came in straightway with haste unto 
the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give 
me by and by in a charger the head of John the 
Baptist. 

26 And (then) the king was exceeding sorry; yet 
for his oath’s sake, and for their sakes which sat with 
him, he would not reject her. 

27 And (so) immediately the king sent an execu- 
tioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and 
he (the executioner) went and beheaded him (John) in 
the prison, 

28 And brought his head in a charger, and gave it 
to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother. 

29 And when his disciples heard of it (1. 6. of his 
death), they came and took up his corpse, and laid it 
in a tomb. 

30 And (about that time) the apostles gathered 
themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all 
things, both what they had done, and what they had 
taught (in pursuance of the commission he had given 
them). 

a0 And he said unto them, (After such a long and la- 
borious journey)Come ye yourselves apart into a desert 
place, and rest a while: for there were many coming 
and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 

32 And they departed into a desert place by ship 
privately. 

33 And the people saw them departing, and many 
(of them) knew him (and whither he was going), and 
(so they) ran afoot thither out of all cities, and out- 
went them (viz. Christ and his disciples), and came to- 
gether unto him. 

34 And Jesus, when he came out (of the ship), saw 


symbolically, in hope of obtaining to the patient “the oil of 
gladness,” or only medicinally, it is certain that the virtue 
which attended it, when used by the apostles, could not be 
natural or inherent in the oil, but must be supernatural, 
and derived from him who sent them; since by this unction 
was produced a certain and constant cure of all whom they 
anointed. 

6 Ver. 15. Προφήτης, i) ὡς εἷς τῶν προφητῶν, Others said, 
That he is a prophet, or as one of the prophets.) 1 see no 
necessity of questioning or changing the reading here into 
προφήτης, “the prophet,” by way of excellency: for when 
we find the disciples declaring what the Jews said of 
him Matt. xvi. 14, and Luke ix. 19, there is no intimation 
of any of them who owned him as the Christ; nor is there 
any need of leaving out the ἢ ὡς, the Jews being of both these 
opinions ; some saying that he was a prophet, Jolin iv. 19, 
ix. 17, “a great prophet risen up in Israel,” Luke vii. 16, 
others, that he was “one of the old prophets risen from the 
dead,” Luke ix. 8, and in particular, that he was the pro- 
phet Jeremy, Matt. xvi. 14. 

7 Ver. 19. Herodias, ἐνεῖχεν, had a quarrel against him.] 
The word primarily imports adverso erat animo, “she was 
in mind averse to him,” viz. after his apprehension of Herod; 
and because the natural consequence of that averseness is 
anger and hatred, arising from the conceived injuries which 
make us thus averse to any man, therefore it is well ren- 
dered by Hesychius and Phavorinus, ὀργίζεται μνησικακεῖ, 
“she is angry, and bears a grudge against him.” 

8 Ver. 20. Συνετήρει αὐτόν. He observed him.] i. 6. Saith 
Dr. Hammond, he kept him guarded from the malice of 


220 


much people, and was moved with compassion toward 
them, because they were as sheep not having a shep- 
herd (to lead them into wholesome pastures): and he be- 
gan to teach them many things. 

35 And when the day was now far spent, his disci- 
ples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, 
and now the time (of the day) is far passed : 


36 Send them away, that they may go into the | 


country round about, and into the villages, and buy 
themselves bread : for they have (here) nothing to eat. 


37 (But) he answered and said unto them, Give ye | 
And they say unto him, (How shall we | 


them to eat. 
do this?) Shall we go and buy two hundred penny- 
worth of bread, and give them to eat? 

38 He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? 
go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, 
and two fishes. 

39 And he commanded them to make all (the people) 
sit down by companies upon the green grass. 


40 And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and | 


by fifties. i 

41 And when he had taken the five loaves and the 
two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed (God, 
see note on Matt. xiv. 19), and (then) brake the loaves, 
and gave them to his disciples to set before them ; 
and the two fishes divided he among them all. 

42 And they did all eat, and were filled. 

43 And they took up twelve baskets full of the 
fragments (of the bread), and of the fishes. 

44 And they that did eat of the loaves were about 
five thousand men, 


45 And straightway he constrained his disciples to | 


get into the ship, and to go ( from the desert on the cast side 
of the sea of Galilee) to the other side (of thai sea) before 
(him), unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people 
(though the contrary winds made them land at Capernaum, 
ver, 53). 


MARK. 


_ 46 And when he had sent them away, he departed 
into a mountain to pray. 

47 And when even was come, the ship was in the 
midst of the sea, and he (was) alone on the land. 

48 And he saw them toiling in rowing ; for the wind 
was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch 
of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the 
sea, and (continued walking so as if he) would have 
passed by them. 

49 But when they saw him walking upon the sea, 
el supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out (for 

ear): 

50 For they all saw him, and were troubled. And 
immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, 
Be of good cheer: it is 1; be not afraid. 

51 And he went up unto them into the ship; and 
the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in them- 
selves beyond measure, and wondered. 

52 For they considered not the miracle of the loaves 
(which was done now before their eyes, and was sufficient 
to convince them, the same power might enable him to walk 
on the sea, and to calm the wind): for their heart was 
hardened (ὦ. e. through incogitance was not convinced by 
sufficient evidence ; see vill. 17). 

53 And when they had passed over, they came into 


| the land of Gennesaret, and drew (the ship) to the 


shore (of Capernaum, John vi. 13). 

54 And when they were come out-of the ship, 
straightway they (of that country) knew him. 

55 And ran through that whole region round about, 
and began to carry about in beds those that were sick, 
where they heard he was. 

56 And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or 
cities, or country (towns), they laid the sick in the 
streets, and besought him that they might touch 9 if 
it were but the border of his garment: and as many 
as touched (11) were made whole. 


Herodias, who would have killed him; but this seems not 
to agree with his desire to kill him, Matt. xiv. 5. 1 there- 
fore think it may relate to his regard to him and his say- 
ings, before he was incensed against him, by reason of his 
reprehension, as the words following do insinuate. 


9 Ver. 56. Καν τοῦ κρασπέδου, At least they might touch 
the hem of his garment.] So κἀν signifies, Acts v. 15, kav 
ἡ σκιὰ that “at least the shadow of Peter might overshadow 
some of them ;” and 2 Cor. xi. 16, xdv ὡς ἄφρονα δέξασθέ ps 
« Yet as a fool receive me.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


1 Tuen came together unto him the Pharisees, and 
certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem. 

2 And when they saw some of his disciples eat 
bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, 
hands, they found fault (with them for so doing). 

3 For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they 
wash their hands ! oft (Gr. up to the wrist), eat not, 
holding the tradition of the elders. 

4 And when they come from the market, except 
they wash, they eat not. And many other things (of 
this kind) there be, which they have received to hold, 
as the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and 
of tables (Gr. χλινῶν, of beds, on which they did eat, as 
now upon tables). 

5 2 Then (therefore) the Pharisees and scribes asked 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII. 


1 Ver. 3. ᾿Εὰν μὴ πυγμῆ νίψωνται, Unless they wash their 
hands oft.) i.e. If they wash not the hand up to the wrist ; 
for Mr. Le Clerc is certainly out, when he interprets a word 
plainly relating to the Jewish customs, and therefore only 
to be interpreted by those customs, out of Hesychius and 
Phavorinus, who knew nothing of them (see Dr. Lightfoot, 
in locum). 

2 Ver. 5. Ἔπειτα, Then.] Or rather, idcircd, therefore: 


him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the 
tradition of the elders, but (transgress them, for they) 
eat bread with unwashen hands ? 

6 He answered and said unto them, 8 Well hath 
Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written 
(for what he testified of the people of that age, from the 
mouth of God, must equally respect all people of all ages, 
that do as they did), This people (of the Jewish nation) 
honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far 
from me. 

7 Howbeit in vain do they (think to) worship me, 
(by) teaching for doctrines (necessary to be observed) 
the commandments of men, 

8 For laying aside the commandment of God (by 
obedience to which he is truly honoured), ye hold (to) 


so Xenophon, ἔπειτ᾽ οὐκ ote; “ Do you not therefore think 
that the gods take care of men ?” 

3 Ver. 6. Καλῶς προεφήτευσεν περὶ ὑμῶν, S&e. Well hath Esaias 
prophesied of you, as it is written.] He doth not say, Isaias 
prophesied of the Jews of that age in which Christ lived, 
or that he then said what by accommodation might be ap- 
plied to them, but only what he well said of the hypocrites 
of his age, that which was true of the like hypocrites in any 
age; and therefore Dr. Hammond well paraphraseth tho 
words thus, You are that very sort of Jewish hypocrites of 
which Isaias prophesied, i. e. you do resemble them. 


CHAPTER VII. 


the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and 
cups: and many other such like things ye do; (which, 
who hath rezuired αἱ your hands ? 

9 And he said unto them, 4 Full well ye (or, ye do 
well to) reject the commandment of God, that ye may 
keep your own tradition. 

10 (4s it is plain ye do,) For Moses said, Honour thy 
father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth (or re- 
vileth) father or mother, let him die the death : 

11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or 
mother, Jt is (be it as a) Corban, that is to say, (as) a 
gift (consecrated to God), by whatsoever thou mightest 
be profited by me; he shall be free (i. e. he is bound 
by that vow not to succour his parents). 

12 And (therefore) ye suffer him no more to do 
ought for his father or his mother ; 

13 Making (thus) the word (7. e. the fifth command- 
ment) of God of none effect through your tradition, 
which ye have delivered (in this manner to the pémple) : 
§ and many such like things do ye. 

14 4 And when he had called all the people (pre- 
sent) unto him, he said unto them, Hearken unto me 
every one of you, and understand : 

15 There is nothing from without a man, that (by) 
entering into him can defile him: but the things 
which come out of him, those are they that defile 
the man. 

16 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear (i. e. 
he that hath understanding to perceive this, let him take 
notice of it). 

17 And when he was entered into the house from 
the people, his disciples asked him concerning the 
(meaning of the) parable. 

18 And he saith unto them, Are ye so without un- 
derstanding also (as to need farther instruction in this 
thing)? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing (it 
is) from without (that) entereth intothe man, i/ cannot 
defile him (as to his heart and soul)? 

19 Because it entereth not into his heart (to raise 
up evil thoughts there), but (only) into the belly, and 
goeth out into the draught, purging all meats (by car- 
rying off the dregs of them)? 

20 And he said, That which cometh out of the man, 
that defileth the man (in the sight of God). 


4 Ver. 9. Καλῶς dSeretre, Full well ye reject the com- 
mandment of God.| Here it is proper to observe from Sui- 
das, that the word καλῶς is used ἐπὶ παραιτήσει, καὶ ἀρνήσει, 
“by way of refusal and denial :” so the scholiast, upon the 
word καλῶς, used by Euripides, in Ranis, saith, τὸ καλῶς 
ἐπὶ παραιτήσει ἀποστρεφόμενος di, καὶ παραιτούμενος ὁ Ἐϊὐριπίδης 
λέγει καλῶς, “ The word is here used by Euripides by way of 
averseness and refusal” (see also the text vindicated, ver 16. 
31. Examen Millii ibid). 

5 Ver. 13. Καὶ παρόμοια τοιᾶυτα πολλὰ ποιεῖτε, And many 
such-like things do ye.) i. e. Such things as make the word 
of God of none effect by your traditions: accordingly Dr. 
Pocock* cites from them this ancient canon, “That vows 
take place even in things commanded by the law, as well as 
in things indifferent; and that any one is so bound by them, 
that he cannot without great sin do that which is com- 
manded :” so that if he makes a vow which cannot be rati- 
fied without breaking a command, his vow must be ratified, 
and the commandment violated. 

δ Ver. 21. Ἔσωθεν γὰρ ἐκ τῆς καρδίας, &c. For from 
within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts.] 
The things here mentioned, as coming from the heart and 
defiling the man, are either the sins committed against the 
second table of the law, as they are reckoned up by St. Paul, 
Rom. xiii. 9, or the incentives and dispositions which incline 
us to them: 

Against the sixth commandment, as murders and the 
evil eye; 


* Miscell. p. 415, 


221 


21 For δ from within, out of the heart of man, pro- 
ceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, 

22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasci- 
viousness, an evil eye, blasphemy (or evil speaking), 
pride, foolishness : 

23 All these evil things come from within, and (so) 
defile the man. 

24 4 And from thence he arose, and went into the 
borders of ‘Tyre and Sidon, and (Ae) entered into an 
house, 7and would have no man know ἐξ: but he could 
not be hid. 

25 For a certain woman, whose young daughter 
had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell 
at his feet: 

26 The woman was a Greek (as to religion), a Sy- 
rophenician by nation; and she besought him that he 
would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. 

27 But Jesus said unto her, Let the children (of the 
kingdom, Matt. viii. 12) first be filled: for it is not 
meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto 
the dogs (7. 6. to them who are without the kingdom, 
Rey. xxii. 15). 

28 And she answered and said unto him, Yes, 
Lord: yet (Gr. vai Κύριε καὶ yap, I pray thee, Lord ; 
for even) the dogs under the table eat of the children’s 
erumbs (and in like manner thou mayest show a little 
favour to the gentiles). 

29 And he said unto her, For this saying (showing 
a more than ordinary faith) go thy way (satisfied ; for) 
the devil is gone out of thy daughter. 

30 And when she was come to her house, she found 
the devil gone out (of her), and her daughter laid upon 
the bed. 

31 4 And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre 
and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through 
the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. 

32 And they bring unto him one that was deaf, § and 
had an impediment in his speech (or was tongue-tied ); 
and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. 

33 And he took him aside from the multitude, and 
® put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched 
his tongue ; 

34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed (at the 
consideration of the miseries of human life), and saith 


Against the seventh, as fornication, adultery, lasciviousness; 

Against the eighth, as theft, deceit ; 

Against the ninth, as false testimony, blasphemies, or 
evil-speaking ; 

Against the tenth, as covetousness. 

The evil frames and dispositions of spirit, which in- 
cline us to these vices, are (1.) ᾿Αφροσύνη, as that imports 
in the Old Testament not only an incogitancy and careless- 
ness as to good things, but also a want of reverence to or 
awe of the divine majesty: and (2.) Πονηρία, a wicked dis- 
position, inclining us to hurt or to do evil to another. (9.) 
"Yrepndavia, that pride which makes us to contemn and 
overlook our brother as unworthy our regard, and highly to 
resent the least affront or seeming injury: and, (4.) Δια- 
λογισμοὶ κακοὶ, evil thoughts or reasonings. 

7 Ver. 24. Οὐδένα ἤϑελε γνῶναι. And would have no man 
know {1.1 Lest he should seem industriously to resort to 
and converse with heathens, neglecting the Jews. So Grotius. 

8 Ver. 32. Κωφὸν μογιλάλον, One deaf and tongue-tied.] 
That he was dumb as well as deaf, is argued, not only from 
the words of the Jews, who saw this miracle, “He maketh 
both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak,” ver. 27, but 
also from Matt, ix. 33, Luke xi. 14, if they speak of the 
same person: for, say they, when the devil was gone out, 
ἐλάλησεν ὃ κωφὸς, “the deaf man spake ;” which shows that 
before he could not move his tongue to make an articulate 
sound ; and in this sense is the word poy:Ad\os used, Exod. 
iv. 10, Isa. xxxv. 6. 

9 Ver. 33. Ἔβαλε τοὺς δακτύλους αὑτοῦ εἰς ra ὦτα αὐτοῦ, 
He put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched 

T2 


222 


unto him, Ephphatha, that is,-(Let thine ears) be 

opened. 

. 35 And straightway his ears were opened, and the 

string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. 
36 And he charged them that they should tell no 


MARK. 


man: but the more he charged them, so much the 
more a great deal they published 71 ; 

37 And were beyond measure astonished, saying, 
He hath done all things well: he maketh both the 
deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. 


his tongue.] Christ often uses visible signs, to represent that 
divine invisible virtue which he had in him, and would 
exert: thus, because deaf persons seem to have their ears 
closed, he puts his fingers into this man’s ears, to intimate, 
that by his power he would open them; and, because the 
tongue of the deaf seems to be tied, or through drought to 


cleave to the palate, Christ touches his tongue, and mois- 
tens it with spittle, to intimate that he would loose and 
give free motion to his tongue. The Jews here also desire 
Christ “to lay his hands upon him,” because the ancient 
prophets laid their hands on those they healed (2 Kings 
v. 11). 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 In those days (of his abode by the sea of Galilee, 
vii. 31) the multitude (that heard him) being very 
great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his dis- 
ciples unto him, and saith unto them, 

2 lhave compassion on the multitude, because they 
have now been with me three days, and have (had) 
nothing to eat: 

3 And if I (should) send them away fasting to their 
own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of 
them came from far. 

4 And his disciples answered him, From whence 
can a man Satisfy these men with bread (whilst we 
are) here in the wilderness ? 

5 And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? 
And they said, Seven. 

6 And he commanded the people to sit down on 
the ground: and he took the seven loaves, and gave 
thanks (to God), and brake (them), and gave to his 
disciples to set before them (7. e. the people); and they 
did set them before the people. 

7 And they had a few small fishes: and he blessed 
(God over them), and commanded (his disciples) to set 
them also before them. 

8 So they did eat, and were filled: and they (of 
Christ’s retinue) took up of the broken meat that was 
left seven baskets. 

9 And they that had eaten were about four thou- 
sand: and (having thus filled them) he sent them 
away. 

10 q And straightway he entered into a ship with 
his disciples, and came into the parts of Dalmanutha 
(which were within the coasts of Magdala, Matt. xv. 
39). 

11 And the Pharisees came forth, and began to 
question (or dispute) with him (about his office), seeking 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 

1 Ver. 3. Καὶ ἐὰν ἀπολύσω αὐτοὺς νήστεις, ὅδε. And if T send 
them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint 
by the way.| Had there not been such danger, saith Theo- 
phylact, Christ had not wrought this miracle, that they might 
not follow him for loaves ; and having done this, he straight- 
way leaves them (ver. 10}, that he might avoid their at- 
tempts to make him a king (John vi. 15). 

2 Ver. 12. ᾿Αμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, εἰ δοθήσεται τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτῃ 
σημεῖον, Verily I say unto you, If there ghall be a sign given 
to this generation.) i. 6. Let me not live, or let me not be 
deemed a true prophet. That this is a form of swearing fre- 
quent in the Old Testament shall be shown, note on Heb. 
ii. 11, And we find it more fully, Ezek. xiv. 16, in these 
words, ζῶ ἐγὼ εἰ υἱοὶ ἢ ϑυγατέρες σωθήσονται, ““ As I live, they 
shall neither deliver sons nor daughters ;” whence it must 
follow that our Lord cannot be reasonably supposed to for- 
bid all swearing, Matt. v. 34 (see the note there). 

3 Ver. 13. Kai ἀφεὶς αὐτοὺς, And he left them, and went 
into the ship again.) He left them as incorrigible, saith 
Theophylact: for where there is hope of doing good, there 
We are to remain; but when ἀδιάρϑωτον τὸ κακὸν, “ the evil is 
incorrigible” to depart. 


of him (for confirmation of his pretensions to be the Mes- 
stah) 3 sign from heaven, tempting him (as doubling 
wheter he could give them that sign of the Messiah pro- 
mised, Dan. vil. 14). 

12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit (by reason of 
their infidelity), and saith, Why doth this generation 
seek after a sign? verily I say unto you,? («i δοθήσεται» 
May I not be true, if-a sign be given, or) there shall no 
sign be given unto this generation (save that of the 
prophet Jonas, Matt. xvi. 4). 

13 5 And he left them, and entering into the ship 
again departed to the other side (of the sea of Gali- 
lee). 

Ἢ 4 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread 
(with them), neither had they in the ship with them 
more than one loaf. 

15 And he charged them, saying, Take heed (to 
yourselves, and) 4 beware of the leaven of the Phari- 
sees, and of the leaven of Herod (7. 6. of the doctrines 
of the pharisees, making the commandments of God of 
none effect by their traditions, and of the doctrine of Herod, 
concurring in sentiments with the sadducees, Matt. xvi. 


16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, 
It is (z. e. this caution is, a reprehension of our negli- 
gence,) because we have (taken) no bread (with us). 

17 And when Jesus knew it (Gr. and Jesus know- 
ing that they reasoned thus), he saith unto them, Why 
reason ye (thus, as if ye were like to famish) because 
ye have no bread (and are bid to beware of the leaven 
of the pharisees)? perceive ye not yet, neither (do ye) 
understand (by the two late instances before your eyes, 
that I am able to provide bread for you)? have 5 ye 
your heart yet hardened (or unconvinced by these mi- 
racles)? 


4 Ver. 15. Βλέπετε ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν φαρισαίων καὶ τῆς 
ζύμης Ἡρώδου, Beware of the leaven of the pharisees, and of 
the leaven of Herod.) It is certain that Josephus never re- 
presents the Herodians as a sect of the Jews; whence it is 
certain that “ the leaven of the Herodians” here, is only the 
leaven of the sadducees, as may be gathered from St. Mat- 
thew, who gives us this caution in these words (xvi. 16), 
« Beware of the leaven of the pharisees and of the saddu- 
cees.’ It may also be noted, that as the pharisees were in- 
clined to the sect of the Galileans, and thought they ought 
not to be tributary to the Romans (Matt. xxii. 16) ; so the 
chief of the sadducees concurred with Herod in consenting 
to and approving that tribute as just and equal, and assisting 
him in the collecting of it, whence they might be styled also 
Herodians, or men of that sect. Ἶ 

5 Ver. 17. Ἔτι πεπωρωμένην ἔχετε τὴν καρδίαν, Perceive ye 
not yet, neither understand ye, have ye your hearts yet 
hardened 3] So Mark vi. 52, « They considered not the mi- 
racle of the loaves, ἦν γὰρ καρδία αὐτῶν πεπωρωμένη, for their 
heart was hardened ;” and xvi. 14, he upbraids in them 
their unbelief, καὶ σκληροκαρδίαν, “and hardness of heart.” 
Now, hence it follows, (1.) that the heart may be hardened 
without any divine influx concurring to that effect, unless it 


CHAPTER VIII. 


18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear 
ye not? and do ye not remember (what T have done? 
1] ask you, then,) 

19 When I brake the five loaves among five thou- 
sand (persons), how many baskets full of fragments 
took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. 

20 And when the seven (loaves were broken) among 
four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments 
took ye up? And they said, Seven. 

21 And he said unto them, How is it (hen) that ye 
do not understand (that I could not, upon that account, 
speak of bread)? 

22 4 And he cometh to Bethsaida; and they bring 
a blind man unto him, and besought him to touch him. 

23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and 
5 led him out of the town; and when he had spit on 
(Gr. info) his eyes, and put his hands upon him (7. e. 
his eyes), he asked him if he saw ought. 

24 And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, 
walking (z. e. J see men walking, but I see them so im- 
keel that they seem to me rather like trees than 
men). 

25 After that he put Azs hands again upon his eyes, 
and made him look up: and (then) he was restored 
(to perfect sight), and saw every man clearly. 

_26 And he sent him away to his house, saying, 
7 Neither go into the town, nor tell ἐξ to any (who 
dwell) in the town. 

27 4 And Jesus went out, and his disciples, ( for 
Bethsaida, ver. 22) into the towns of Cesarea Phi- 
lippi; and by the way he asked his disciples, saying 
unto them, Whom do men say that I am? 

28 And they answered, (Some say that thou art) 


223 


John the Baptist: but some say, (Thou art) Elias; 
and others, (Z'hou art) one of the prophets. 

29 And he saith unto them, But whom say ye that 
Iam? And Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou 
art the Christ. 

30 And he charged them that they should tell no 
man (this) of him. 

31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of 
man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the 
elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be 
killed, and after three days § rise again. 

32 And he spake that saying openly (7. 6. in the 
hearing of the people). And Peter took him, and began 
to rebuke him (for it, saying, Far be it from thee ; this 
shall not be to thee, Matt. xvi. 22). 

33 But when he had turned about and looked on 
his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, " Get thee be- 
hind me, Satan (as in this being to me a tempter, and 
to men an adversary): for (in this) thou savourest 
not the things that be of God, but the things that be 
of men (respecting not the will of God, that I should 
die for the salvation of men; but the vain traditions 
of men, that the Messiah, the Son of David, shall not 
die). 

44 4 And when he had called the people unto him 
with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever 
will come after me, let him (not expect to receive tem- 
poral advantages from me, as King of the Jews; but let 
him be ready to) deny himself, and take up his cross, 
and follow me. 

35 For whosoever will (to) save his life (refuse 
thus to follow me, he) shall lose it; but whosoever (by 
thus taking up his cross) shall lose his life for my sake 


can be thought that God himself, by a peculiar influx, har- 
dened the hearts of Christ’s apostles. 

τῷ That the heart is then said to be hardened, when af- 
ter full and sufficient evidence of what we ought to do, or to 
believe, we neglect to do, or to believe it. Now this may 
happen either through incogitance, or want of the considera- 
tion of that evidence, as in the case of the apostles here, and 
vi. 52, in both which places the hardness of their heart is 
ascribed to this, that “they considered not the miracle of 
the loaves ;” or through the weakness of their faith, as when 
they are upbraided with it, xvi. 14, “because they believed 
not them who had seen him risen ;” in both which cases it 
only seems to have been a sin of infirmity: or this proceeds 
from that perverseness of the will, or from those evil dispo- 
sitions and affections of the soul, which renders us averse 
from the performance of what is required, or the belief of 
what is revealed ; as when it is said of the Jews, that « their 
hearts were hardened” (John xii. 39, 40), and then it is a 
wilful sin. | 

6 Ver. 23. ᾿Εζήγαγεν αὐτὸν ἔξω τῆς κώμης, He led him out 
of the town.) Declaring those of Bethsaida, who had seen so 
many miracles in vain, unworthy to behold this miracle (see 
Matt. xi. 21): whence he permits him not to tell it in the 
town (ver. 26). 

7 Ver. 26. Μηδὲ εἰς κώμην εἰσέλθης, He sent him away to 
his house, saying, Neither go into the town, neither tell it 
to any one in the town.] The reading of the Vulgar, Si in 
vicum introieris, and of some Greek MSS. seems only to 
have had its rise from a conceit, that this man’s house was 
in the city, which the words of Christ seem to contradict ; 
viz. “ And many that wanted cures came to him from other 
places,” whilst he abode there: the Syriac, Arabic, the 
Alexandrian copy, and Theophylact, read as we do. 

8 Ver. 31. Kai μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἀναστῆναι, And after 
three days to rise again.] Here note, First, That it is ten 
times expressly said, that our Lord rose, or was to rise again 
“the third day ;” viz. Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 23, xx. 19, Mark 
ix. 31, x. 34, Luke ix. 22, xviii. 23, 24, vii. 48, Acts x. 40. 
And so the expression which is most used, both in our Lord’s 
predictions before his death, and in “his and his apostles’ 
language after his resurrection, being this, either that he did 
or should rise again the third day, and the history of our 


Lord’s resurrection agreeing fully with it, these other forms 
of speech, which are but once or twice found in scripture, 
must be interpreted so as to accord with the expression so 
frequent in the holy scripture. 

Secondly, Observe, that according to the language both of 
the Hebrew and the Greek, that is said to be done after so 
many days, months, or years, which is done in the last of 
those days, months, or years. So Deut. xiv. 18, “At the 
end of three years (LXX. μετὰ τρία ἔτη, after three years), 
thou shalt bring in all the tithing of thy increase :” and yet, 
Deut. xxvi. 12, “the third year is the year of tithing.” 
So Deut. xxxi. 10, pera ἔπτα ἔτη, “ After seven years, in 
the solemnity of the year of release, thou shalt read the 
law ;” and Deut. xv. 1, and yet it is plain, that the year of 
release began with the seventh year, for so we read, xv. 12, 
«Thy brother shall serve thee six years, and in the seventh 
year thou shalt let him go free.’ Thus Rehoboam said 
unto the people, “ Come again after three days,’ 2 Chron. 
x. 5, and yet, ver. 12,“ The people came again the third day, 
as the king bade them, saying, Come again the third day.” 
So, Luke i. 46, “ After three days they found Christ in the 
temple,” that is, on the third day; for they spent one day 
in their journey, on the second they returned to Jerusalem, 
and the next day they found Jesus in the temple. 

Note, Thirdly, that it is evident, that both the Jews and 
the evangelists understood this expression, “ After three 
days,’ to signify no more than on the third day. The 
Jews did so; for having told Pilate that Christ had said, 
« After three days I will rise again,” they desire only that a 
watch might be kept ἑὼς ris τρίτης ἡμέρας “till the third 
day.” And this is as plain of the evangelists ; for what St. 
Mark here rendereth thus, “ He taught, that after three days 
he should rise again: St. Matthew and St. Luke record 
thus, “ He taught, that he should rise again the third day.” 
And even Mark ix. 31, x. 34, brings in our Lord teaching, 
that “he should be raised the third day.” 

39 Ver. 33. Ὕπαγε ὀπίσω pov, Σατανᾶ, Get thee behind me, 
Satan.] He calls Peter, Satan, saith Theophylact, as savour- 
ing of the things of Satan, it being only Satan who would 
peti our Lord should suffer for the salvation of man- 
kind. 

10 Ver. 35. Ὃς yap ἂν ϑέλῃ, Whosoever will come after 


224 


and the gospel’s, the same shall save it (most likely 
here, most certainly hereafter; and this surely will be 
his wisdom). 

36 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain 
the whole world, and lose his own soul (or /ife) 3 

37 Or what shall a man give in exchange for his 
soul? (ἡ. e. what shall it profit a man to have saved his 
temporal life by being thus ashamed to own me, since 


MARK. 


| this will cause me to be ashamed of him when all men 
shall be doomed to eternal life or death " 

38 11 Whosoever therefore (for whosoever) shall be 
ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous 
and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of 
man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his 
Father with the holy angels. 


me.] Here the note of Athanasius* and Theophylactt is 
this, ϑεοσεβείας μὲν ἴδιον ph ἀναγκάζειν ἀλλὰ πείθειν, “ It is the 
property of religion not to compel, but to persuade; for our 
Lord himself not offering violence to any, but giving place to 


* Ep. ad Solit. Vit. Agentes, p. 856. 
{ Theoph. in locum. 


human choice, said to all, If any man will come after me, 
οὐδένα yap βιάζομαι, for 1 compel none.” 

1 Ver. 38. “Os yap ἐπαισχυνθῆ, For whosoever shall be 
ashamed of me.) i. e. To own and to confess me and my 
doctrine (Matt. x. 32, 33) ; for, saith Theophylact, we be- 
ing compounded of an outward and an inward man, both 
must be sanctified, the inward man by faith, the outward by 
confession of it (Rom. x. 18). 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 Anp he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That 
there be some of them that stand here, which shall 
not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of 
God come with power (to take away their lives, who 
would destroy mine to preserve their own, John xi. 50). 

2 4 And after ! six days Jesus taketh with him 
Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up 
2 into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he 
was transfigured before them. 

3 And his raiment became shining, exceeding white 
as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them 
(ὦ. e. like the inhabitants of heaven, clothed with white 
raiment, Rey. iv. 4). 

4 And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: 
and they were talking with Jesus (and by their talk 
they knew them to be Moses and Elias). 

5 And Peter answered (ὦ. 6. spake with relation to 
what he had seen, see note on Luke xiv. 3) and said 
to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and 


(xat, therefore) let us make three tabernacles ; one for 
thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. 

6 For he wist not what to say; for they were sore 
afraid (ἡ. e. and this he said, being the most forward of 
them to speak, though, being struck with the same dread 
that seized on the other two, he knew not whether he said 
well or ill, or what was indced advisable or not). 

7 And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: 
and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my 
beloved Son: hear him. 

8 And suddenly, when they had looked round 
about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only 
with themselves. 

9 And as they came down from the mountain, he 
charged them that they should tell no man what 
things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen 
from the dead; 

10 And they kept that saying with themselves, 
questioning one with another * what the rising (of 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 


1 Ver. 2. Mc’ ἡμέρας ἕξ, After sia days.) So also Matt. 
xvii. 1, ὡσεὶ ἡμέξαι 6x75, “ About eight days after,” Luke ix. 
28, for Matthew and Mark computing only the days betwixt 
this discourse of Christ, and the day he went up into the 
mount, style them six only; but St. Luke, including both 
the days of his discourse and his ascent, saith they were 
eight. And this is evident from the word ὡσεὶ, which, when 
a sum is mentioned, is always added to signify it is not ex- 
act, but wanteth something to make it complete ; thus Christ 
Was ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα, 1. 6. beginning to be thirty, Luke iii. 
23. It was ὡσεὶ ὥρα ἕκτη, inclining to the sixth hour, Luke 
xxiii. 44 (so Matt. xiv. 21, Luke i. 56, xxii. 59, John iv. 6, 
xix. 14, Acts ii. 41, iv. 4, v. 36, x. 3). 

2 Into a high mountain.| That this was mount Tabor, an- 
tiquity hath constantly taught and believed; yet Dr. Light- 
foot questions the truth of this tradition upon two accounts; 
(1.) That Christ, in the story going before, was on the 
coasts of Csarea Philippi (Matt. xvi. 12, Mark viii. 27, 
Luke xix. 18), and can we think, says he, that he travelled 
thence to Tabor through almost the whole length of Galilee ? 
Ans. This he might do with ease in the space of six days; 
and that he did so, is made very probable from the very 
words of the same chapter, which represent him and his 
disciples as ἀναστρέφοντες, “returning thence,” Matt. xvii. 
22, and “going through Galilee,” Mark ix. 29. As for what 
he adds, that the evangelists mention no change of place, 
will be answered by his note on x. 1, for, saith he, however 
it seems to be intimated by our evangelist, and by St. Mat- 
thew, that when he had finished these words, forthwith he 
entered upon his journey, yet in truth he went before to Je- 
rusalem, through the midst of Samaria, to the feast of taber- 
nacles (Luke ix. 51), and again from Galilee, after he had 
returned thither through the cities and towns to Jerusalem 


(Luke xiii. 22), to the feast of dedication (John x. 22), and 
again beyond Jordan indeed (John x. 40), but first taking 
his way into Galilee, and thence beyond Jordan; so that 
hence we see, the silence of the text is no sure evidence that 
Christ made no such journey. ‘The other things he offers 
seem too little to deserve consideration. 

3 Ver. 10. Συζητοῦντες, τί ἔστι τὸ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι. And 
they kept that saying to themselves, questioning among them- 
selves what the rising from the dead should mean.| They 
questioned not the general resurrection; for that all the 
pharisees believed, Acts xxiv. 15, that Martha owned, John 
xi. 24; nor could they be ignorant of the meaning of the 
rising of a particular person from the dead, for they had in- 
stances of it in the Old 'l’estament, had seen an example of 
it at the gates of the city of Nain with their eyes; but being 
taught out of the law, that “ Christ was to abide for ever” 
(John xii, 24), and that “the Son of David should reign 
over the house of Jacob for ever,’ and “of his kingdom 
there should be no end” (Luke i. 33), they knew not how 
to reconcile this with the death of Christ, supposed in that 
saying, “'The Son of man shall rise from the dead.” Thus 
again, when Christ had told them, “ The Son of man shall 
be killed, and after that shall rise from the dead,” ver. 31, 
they understood not that saying, ver. 32, and yet doubtless 
they knew what it was to be killed, and that our Saviour 
spake of his own death; whence these words made them 
very sorry, Matt. xvii. 23, and yet St. Luke saith, ix, 45, 
that “they understood not this saying, and it was hid from 
them, that they perceived it not;” and, xviii. 34, “they 
understood none of these things,” and “knew not what was 
said ;” and here “they understood not the saying,” i. 6. they 
knew not how to reconcile this death of the Son of David 
and their king Messiah, with the predictions of their pro- 
phets, and their own conceptions touching his temporal king- 
dom. Hence, when Christ was dead, their hopes died with 


CHAPTER IX. 


the Messiah) from the dead should mean (i. 6. how it 
could be reconciled with their tradition, that the Messiah 
the son of David should not die, John xii. 34). 

11 4 And they asked him, saying (Jf thou hast done 
already what was required of the Messiah, and so art 
about to die),4 why say the scribes that Elias must 
first come (to anoint the Messiah, and make him known 
to the People? ἷ ; 

12 And he answered and told them, © Elias verily 
cometh first, and restoreth all things (ἡ. e. doth all 
things requisite to prepare the Jews for the reception of 
the Messiah, calling them to repentance, that they might 
be fited to believe in him, pointing him out to the peo- 
ple, and baplizing him with that baptism in which he 
was anointed with the Holy Ghost); and (in answer to 
their first doubt he told them) ὃ how it is written of the 
Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be 
set at nought. 

13 But (as to your inquiry about the coming of Elias) 
I say unto you, 7 That (the) Elias (who was to do these 
things) is indeed come, and they have done unto him 


whatsoever they listed (rejecting his baptism, Luke vii. | 


30, and his testimony, Mark xi. 31), as it is written of 
him (that he should come). 


him, i. e. their “trust that he had been the redeemer of 
Israel” (Luke xxiv. 21), and revived again at his resurrec- 
tion, they presently inquiring, “ Wilt thou at this time restore 
the kingdom to Israel ?”” 

4Ver. 11. And they asked him, saying, ὅτι λέγουσιν ot 
γραμματεῖς, ὅτι ᾿Ηλίαν det ἐλθεῖν πρῶτον; Why say the scribes 
that Elias must first come?) That ὅτι must signify why is 
evident ; because the same question in St. Matthew, xvii. 10, 
Tuns thus, τί οὖν ; “ Why therefore say the scribes ?”” ὅτι here 
therefore must be put for dire; so ver. 28, ὅτι ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἠδυ- 
νήϑημεν ; * Why could not we cast him out?” So Homer, 
Odyss. xix., they asked him οὐλὴν, 6 τι πάξοι ; “why he had 
that scar?” and Aristophanes, Plut. i. 19, dre τῷδ᾽ ἀκολουθοῦ- 
μέν ποτε; “ Why do we follow him?” ‘This may suffice for 
the grammatical import of the words; but it is more difficult 
to assign the reason of this question. My conjecture is, that 
it relates to that title of the Messiah, Dan. vii. 13, “the Son 
of man,” here used, and to the voice from heaven, saying, 
“This is my beloved Son ;” as if they should have said, If 
thou art indeed the king Messiah, and the Son of God, and 
hast so far accomplished thy office as to talk of a death which 
thou must suffer at Jerusalem, why is not Elias come to 
anoint thee, and to preach of thee? For the tradition of the 
scribes was, (1.) That before the coming of the Son of David 
Elias was to come to preach of him: Lightfoot in Matt. 
xvii. 10. (2.) That « Elias was to anoint the Messiah to his 
office,” and that “ before that unction the Messiah could do 
nothing, he being to manifest him to the world,’’* saith Try- 
pho. ‘To this inquiry our Saviour first answers, in the fol- 
lowing verse, and then to their scruple about his passion. 

5 Ver. 12. And he answered and told them, ᾿Ἡλίας μὲν 
ἐλθὼν πρῶτόν, ἀποκαϑιστᾷ πάντα, Elias verily cometh first, 
and restoreth all things.] How Elias did this, see note on 
Matt. xi. 14. And note, that the Jews themselves did not 
conceive that Elias should do this work so effectually as to 
turn all the Jews to God, but only so as to deliver them from 
the terrible day of the Lord, who would turn to him. So 
David Kimcehi,t « When God shall bring Elias to life in the 
body, he shall send him to Israel before the day of judg- 
ment, which is the great and terrible day of the Lord; and 
he shall admonish both the fathers and the children together 
to turn to God, and they that turn shall be delivered from 
the day of judgment.” 

6 Kai πῶς γέγραπται, And how it is written.) i.e. And in 
answer to their other scruple, how the Son of man could die; 
he told them also from the scriptures, how it was foretold 
that he should suffer many things. 


* Odd? ἔχει divapw τίνα μέχρις ἂν ἐλθὼν Ἤλίας χρίσῃ αὐτὸν Kai 
φανερὸν πᾶσι ποιήσῃ, Trypho apud Just. Dial. p. 226. Πάντες 
ἡμεῖς προσδοκῶμεν τὸν ᾿Ηλίαν Xpicac αὐτὸν ἐλθόντα, p. 268, A. 

On Mal. iv. 
ox. [V.—29 


+ 225 


14 § And when he came to his disciples, he saw a 

eat multitude about them, and the scribes question- 
Ing with them (whether the power of their master did 
extend to the casting out of devils). 

15 And straightway all the people, when they be- 
held him, were greatly amazed (seeing some remainders 
of the splendour of his transfiguration in his visage), and 
running to him (they) saluted him. 

16 And he asked the scribes, (2bout) What question 
ye with them ? 

17 And one of the multitude answered and said, 
Master, I have (now) brought unto thee my son, which 
hath a dumb spirit (7. 6. ἃ spirit which takes away his 
speech) ; 
eae ‘aa wheresoever he taketh him, ® he teareth 
him (or throws him down): and he foameth, and 
gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth (or fainteth) 
away: and I spake to thy disciples, that they should 
cast him out; and they could not; (this raised the 
dispute betwixt them and the scribes. 

19 .And) he answereth him and saith (to the scribes), 
O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? 
how long shall I suffer you (x ineredulity)? bring him 
(that ts possessed) unto me. 


7 Ver. 13. But I say unto you, καὶ ᾿Ηλίας ἐλήλυϑε, καὶ 
ἐποίησαν αὐτῷ ὅσα ἠἡϑέλησαν, καϑὼς γέγραπται ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν, Elias 
is indeed come (and they have done to him whatsoever they 
listed) as it is written of him.) Since we find nothing in the 
Old Testament which foretells of any thing the Jews should 
do, either to Elias in person revived, or to John the Baptist, 
it seems requisite to place these words, “and they have done 
to him as they would,” in a parenthesis, and to admit here 
the figure σύγχυσις, or such a transposition of the words as 
is usual in other places both of the Old and New Testa- 
ment: so Gen. xii. 10, “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and 
beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered 
every where (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomor- 
rah), even as the garden of the Lord :” Exod. xii. 15. 20. 
22, 2 Sam. iii. 27, Josh. xxiv. 26, “ Whosoever eateth lea- 
vened bread (that soul shall be cut off from Israel) from the 
first day until the seventh day :” Mark xii. 12, « And they 
sought to lay hold on him (for they knew that he had spoken 
the parable against them), but they feared the people, and 
they left him :” Rom. i. 13, “I purposed to come to you 
(but was let hitherto), that I might have some fruit among 
you” (see Cant. i. 5, Mark xvi. 3, 4, Acts viii. 7): so that 
the sense of these words seems to be this,—Elias is come, as 
it is written of him in Malachi, and they, the scribes and 
pharisees, “ have done to him whatsoever they listed,” re- 
jecting his baptism (Luke vii. 30), and refusing to believe 
his doctrine (Matt. xxi. 25), or to own him as a prophet sent 
from God, saying that “he had a devil” (ver. 26); and it is 
probable that both they and the sadducees did this because 
he had styled them a “generation of vipers’ (Matt. iii. 7). 
And though we do not read that they gave occasion either 
to his imprisonment, or to his death, yet may we reasonably 
conceive, that they who thus thought and spake of him were 
well pleased at it; whence Christ might say, “ they did unto 
him what they listed;” it being not for fear of them, but 
only of the multitude, who accounted him as a prophet, that 
Herod for a season was restrained from killing him (Matt. 
xiv. 3). 

§ Ver. 18. It teareth him, and he foameth, and gnasheth 
with his teeth, καὶ ξηραίνεται, and pineth away : Luke ix. 39, 
καὶ σπαράσσει αὐτὸν, μετ᾽ ἀφροῦ, It teareth him that he foameth 
again.] Here note, (1.) that the word ῥήσσει αὐτὸν, and ἔῤῥη- 
tev αὐτόν, Luke ix. 42, being spoken of an epileptic person, 
are not well rendered “he teareth him,” but rather signifies, 
as Hesychius and Phavorinus say, τύπτει αὐτὸν, “he beateth 
him, or makes him fall to the ground, beating himself against 
the earth ;” or, as Eustathius and Phavorinus say, the word 
in Homer signifies σφοδερύτερον τὴν γῆν πόσι παίειν, i.e. the evil 
spirit working with, or taking advantage of, his disease, makes 
him beat himself against the earth; ἐδαφίζει καὶ προσκροῦει 
τῇ ya, “He throws him upon the ground,” saith Theophy- 
lact. So Wisd. iv. 19, the author, speaking of the wicked, 


2206. 


20 And they brought him unto him: and when he 
saw him, straightway the spirit tare (or shook) him; 
and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming. 

21 And he asked his father, How long is it ago 
since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. 

22 And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and 
into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do 
any thing (to deliver him from this evil spirit), have 
compassion on us, and help us (me and him. 

23 And) Jesus said unto him, *If thou canst believe 
(that Iam able to do this), all things are possible to 
him that (thus) believeth. 

24 And straightway the father of the child cried 
out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou 
mine unbelief (or what is wanting to my faith). 

25 When Jesus saw that the people came running 
together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, 
Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out 
of him, and enter no more into him. 

26 And the spirit cried, and rent him sore (or shook: 
him much), and (then) came out of him: and he was 
as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead. 

27 But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted 
him up; and he arose. 

28 And when he was come into the house, his dis- 
ciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast 
him out ? 

29 And he said unto them, This kind can come 
forth by nothing, but by (that faith which is to be pro- 
cured by) prayer and fasting. 

30 1 And they departed thence, and passed through 
Galilee ; and he would not that any man should know 
at (that the concourse of the multitude might not retard his 
journey to Jerusalem, where he was to suffer). 

31 For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, 
The Son of man is (to be) delivered into the hands of 
men, and they shall kill him ; and after that he is killed, 
he shall rise (again) the third day. 

32 But they understood not that saying, and were 
afraid to ask him (what the import of it was). 

33 4 And he came to Capernaum : and being in the 


MARK. 


house he asked them (bout) what was it that ye dis- 
puted among yourselves by the way ? 

34 But they held their peace: for by the way they 
had disputed among themselves, who should be the 
greatest. 

35 And he sat down, and called the twelve, and 
saith unto them, If any man desire to be first (in my 
kingdom), the same shall be last of all, and servant of 
all (the highest office in my kingdom tending not so much 
to dignify and advantage any man in this world, as to 
render him the more @ servant and minister to all). 

36 And (having said this) he took a child, and set 
him in the midst of them (as a fit emblem of that humi- 
lity and freedom from that worldly-mindedness he required 
in them): and when he had taken him in his arms, he 
said unto them, 

37 Whosoever shall receive one of such children 
(ἡ. 6. any of my servants so free from pride and love of 
the world as they are) in my name, receiveth me: and 
whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me (only), 
but (a/so) him that sent me. 

38 q And John answered him (to those words spoken 
of receiving him), saying, Master, ® we saw one cast- 
ing out devils in thy name, and (buf) he followeth not 
us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. 

39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no 
man which shall doa miracle in my name, that can 
lightly (2. 6. eastly be induced to) speak evil of me. 

40 For he that is not against us (in beating down 
the kingdom of Satan) is on our part (and so is to be 
owned as one that doth me service, and so as one whom 
God will reward). 

41 " For whosoever shall give you a cup of water 
to drink (or do you the least service) in my name, be- 
cause ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he 
shall not lose his reward. 

42 And (on the other side) whosoever shall offend 
one of these little ones that believe in me (and so dis- 
courage them from continuing in my doctrine), it is bet- 
ter for him that a millstone were hanged about his 
neck, and he were cast into the sea. 


saith, ὅτι ῥήξει αὐτοὺς πρηνεῖς, God will cast them down head- 
Jong, and shake them out of their foundations.” (2.) The 
word ξηραίνεται signifies, not only to be dried up, and so pine 
away, but also to be under a consternation, and to faint ; 
Isa. xxxvii. 27, “They were of small power, they were dis- 
mayed,” καὶ @npavSncav: Zech. x. 2, ἐξηράνθησαν ὡς πρόβατα, 
“as the flock they were troubled ;” whence it is rendered by 
Theophylact, λειφοϑυμεῖ, “he is in a deliquium.” The word 
σπαράττειν also signifies, not only to tear and discerp, but 
also to move and shake: so Phavorinus, σπαρασσύμεϑα, ra- 
ραττύμεϑα" so Ps. xviii. 8, “'The foundations of the moun- 
tains, ἐταράχϑησαν καὶ ἐσαλεύϑησαν, were troubled, and 
shook ;” that is, 2 Sam. xxii. 8, καὶ ἐσπαράχϑησαν" Jer. iv. 
19, “My heart maketh a noise, or moveth in me ;” LXX. 
σπαράσσεται ἡ καρδΐα pour so here, ver. 20, ἐσπάραξεν, “The 
spirit shook him.” 

9 Ver.,23. Τὸ εἰ δύνασαι πιστεῦσαι, If thow canst believe 
this.| viz. That I can help thee; or, if thou canst believe 
this thing. So Rom. xiii. 9, τὸ yap, “For this, Thou shalt 
not commit adultery ;” Eph. iv. 9, τὸ δὲ ἀνέβη, “ But that he 
ascended ;” Luke xxii. 24, there was a contention, τὸ, viz. 
“this, who should be greatest?” So Justin Martyr, τὸ πῶς 
περὶ Θεοῦ λέγειν, “It is an argument of incredulity to say of 
God, how?” and τὸ μηδὲν ἄγαν, “ This saying, ne quid nimis, 
much delights me.” 

This the grammarians call τὸ ὁρικὸν, or dptorixdy, i. 6. arti- 
culus definitivus, as defining or particularizing the thing, 
which before was spoken of more generally ; and then it 
signifies nimirtim, videlicet, “ to wit, that is to say : and 
thus we find it four times used in one chapter, Luke xxii. 4, 
« Judas consulted with the high-priest, τὸ πῶς αὐτὸν παραδῷ, 
to wit, how he might betray ἴτε: ἢ ver. 23, « And they began 
to question among themselves, τὸ, ris ἄρα εἴη ἐξ αὐτῶν, to wit, 
who of them it should be that would betray him ;” and, ver. 


24, «And there was also a contention among them, τὸ, τίς 
αὐτῶν δοκεῖ εἶναι μείζων, to wit, which of them should be the 
greatest ;” which, ix. 46, is varied thus, τὸ, τίς ἂν εἴη μείζων 
αὐτῶν : and ver. 37, “That which is written of me must be 
fulfilled ; τὸ, καὶ per’ ἀνύμων ἐλογίσϑη, to wit, that scripture 
which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.” 
And accordingly the words may be here rendered, “ And 
Jesus said unto him, to wit, If thou canst believe,’ &c. 

10 Ver. 38. Btdonév τινα ἐν τῷ ὀνύματί cov ἐκβάλλοντα δαιμό- 
via, &e. We saw a man casting out devils in thy name, and 
we forbade him because he follows not us.) That this man 
did truly cast out devils, Christ’s answer supposes, and his 
disciples saw with their eyes: it is also certain that he did 
this in the name of Christ; but that he did it by invocation 
of the name of Jesus of Nazareth, is not so certain; for he 
might be a disciple of John, and so do this in the name of 
Christ shortly to come; for if he steadfastly believed that 
Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, it is hard to give a reason 
why he did not follow him, or join himself to Christ’s dis- 
ciples. However, it was no small confirmation of the truth 
of Christianity, that his name was thus powerful even among 
those that did not follow him, and therefore could do nothing 
by compact with him. This man, saith Christ, do not forbid ; 
fer he that pursues the same end with us, the beating down 
of Satan’s kingdom, cannot be against us, but rather for us ; 
and he that finds so sensibly the power of my name, cannot 
speak evil of me (see Examen Millii). 

1 Ver. 41. Ὃς γὰρ ἂν ποτίση ὑμᾶς ποτήριον ὕδατος, &c. For 
whosoever shall give you a cup of cold water in my name, 
because you belong to Christ, verily I say to you, He shall 
not lose his reward.| The particle γὰρ shows the connexion 
of these words with the preceding, which seemeth to be thus : 
Even the least service done to me, by owning any one for 
my name’s sake, shall be rewarded, and much more the 


CHAPTER ΙΧ. 


43 And (therefore) if thy hand offend thee, cut it 
off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, 
than having two hands to go into ” hell, into the fire 
that never shall be quenched : 

44 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
quenched (7. e. where the body is consumed and the soul 
tormented for ever). 

45 And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is 
better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two 
feet to be cast into hell, (¢. e.) into the fire that never 
shall be quenched : 


227 


46 Where their worm dieth not, and (where) the 
fire is not quenched. 

47 And if thine eye (i. δ. or any thing that seems 
most dear and useful to thee) offend thee (ἡ, e. hinder 
thy entrance into life), pluck it out: it is better for 
thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, 
than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire : 

48 Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
quenched. 

49 ™ For every one (that thus offends) shall be 
salted with fire (so as to endure for ever ina state of 


labour which this man shows in divulging the honour of 
my name, and assisting me in beating down the kingdom 
of Satan. 

2 Ver. 43, 44. ᾿Απελϑεῖν εἰς τὴν γέενναν, εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἄσ- 
βεστον" ὅπου ὃ σκώληξ αὐτῶν οὐ τελευτᾶ, καὶ τὸ πῦρ οὐ σβέννυται, 
Than having two hands to be cast into hell, where the worm 
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.) 'These words seem 
plainly taken from Isa. Ixvi. 24, where they exactly may be 
found ; and it seems reasonable to interpret them according 
to the received opinion of the Jews; since otherwise our 
Lord, by using this expression frequently in speaking to 
them, who would be sure to understand it in the usual sense, 
without saying any thing to show he did not understand it as 
they did, must have strengthened them in their error. Now 
it is certain, 

First, That gehenna was by them still looked on and re- 
presented as the place in which the wicked were to be tor- 
mented by fire: so the Jerusalem Targum* represents 
gehenna, which is prepared for the wicked in the world to 
come, as a “furnace sparkling and flaming with fire, into 
which the wicked fall.” And the Targum upon Ecclesiastes 
speaks of the “fire of hell,” Eccles. ix. 15; of the “sparks 
of the fire of hell,” x. 11; and of the “wicked who shall go 
to be burned in the fire of hell,” viii. 10. Accordingly our 
Lord speaks here, ver. 47, and Matt. ν. 22, of the wicked 
being “cast into the fire of hell,’ and of their being “ cast 
into a furnace of fire,” Matt. xiii. 42. 

Secondly, The ancient Jews held that the punishment of 
the wicked in hell should be perpetual, or without end; so 
Judith saith, that κλαύσονται ἐν αἰσϑήσει ἕως αἰῶνος, “ they 
shall weep under the sense of their pains for ever,” xvi. 17. 
Josephust informs us, that the pharisees held « the souls of 
the wicked were to be punished, ἀϊδίῳ τιμωρία, with perpetual 
punishment,” and that there was appointed for them cipypos 
ἀΐδιος, “a perpetual prison.” Philo} saith, the punishment 
of the wicked person is ζῆν dzoSavévra ἀεὶ, “to live for ever 
dying 3” and αἰωνίζειν ἐν ἀλγηδόσι καὶ dvias, καῖ συμφοραῖς ἀδιασ- 
τάτοις, “to be for ever in pains and griefs, and calamities 
that never cease :” accordingly our Lord continually’saith of 
them, that “they shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment,” and that “their worm dieth not, and their fire is not 
quenched,” and that God will “destroy their soul and body 
in hell-fire,” Matt. xviii. 8, xxv. 41, Luke iii. 17. Whence 
I collect, 

First, That though it is not to be doubted that “the 
worm not dying” is to be taken tropically for the worm of 
conscience, yet shall the bodies of the wicked suffer in fire 
properly so called; this being suitable not only to the tra- 
dition of the Jewish and the Christian church, but to the con- 
stant phraseology of the scriptures, declaring that the “ tree 
that brings not forth good fruit, the fruitless branch, the 
chaff, shall be cast into the fire, and burnt with unquench- 
able fire,” Matt. iii. 10. 12, xiii. 50, John xv. 6, that the 
wicked “shall go into everlasting fire ;’ their souls and 
bodies shall be “cast into hell-fire”’ Matt. x. 28, xxv. 45, 
that they shall be “ punished with flaming fire,’ 2 Thess. i. 
8; “sufler the vengeance of eternal fire,” Jude 7; “the 
heavens and earth being reserved to fire for the punishment 
of ungodly men,” 2 Pet. iii. 10. 

Secondly, That the punishment of wicked men shall be 
eternal. ‘That this was the constant opinion of the Chris- 


* In Gen. xv. 17. 

fF De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788. Antig. lib. xviii. 
cap. 2. 

+ De Prem. et Peen. p. 713, D, E. 


tian church, see note on Heb. vi. 2, and that this punish- 
ment is consistent with divine justice and goodness, see 
appendix to 2 Thess. ch. i. 

3 Ver. 49. Πᾶς yap πυρὶ ἁλισϑήσεται" καὶ πᾶσα ϑυσία ἁλὶ 
ἁλισϑήσεται, For every one shall be salted with fire, and every 
sacrifice shall be salted with salt.) 'These words may be re- 
ferred to the preceding, respecting the punishment of those 
wicked men who will not cut off those offending eyes, feet, 
or hands, which render them obnoxious to future punish- 
ments; and then the import of them will be to this effect: 
Every wicked man shall be seasoned with fire itself, so as to 
become inconsumable, and shall endure for ever to be tor- 
mented ; and therefore may be said to be salted with fire, 
in allusion to that property of salt, which is to preserve 
things from corruption. To strengthen this interpretation, 
consider, 

First, The connexion of the words, “where the worm 
dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched, πᾶς γὰρ 
αὐτῶν, for every one of (them) shall be salted with fire;” 
where the illative particle yap, for, shows, that these words 
are designed as a proof of the words preceding. Consider, 

Secondly, From whence those words, “their worm dieth 
not, and their fire is not quenched,” are taken, viz. from 
Isa. Lxvi. ult. where they run thus: “They shall go forth, 
and look upon the carcases of those men who have 
transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, 
nor shall their fire be quenched ;” which words plainly 
belong to the wicked, and to them alone; and so the 
proof of them in this verse must belong to them only. 
Note, 

Thirdly, That the word πᾶς must refer therefore to the 
same persons; as if it had been said expressly, πᾶς yap 
αὐτῶν, “ For every one of (them) whose fire is not quenched, 
shall be salted with, or in the fire,” i. e. preserved from cor- 
Tuption in or by it; so xii. 44, πάντες γὰρ, “for all,” 1. 6. 
πάντες of πλούσιοι οὗτοι, “all those rich men” cast in out of 
their superfluities; so Luke xvi. 16, The kingdom of hea- 
ven is preached, καὶ πᾶς, “and every one (viz. who believes) 
presseth into it: and Luke xxi. 32, This generation shall 
not pass away, ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται, “till all things be done,” 
i. 6. πάντα ταῦτα, “all these things” now mentioned, Matt. 
xxiv. 35, Mark xiii. 30 (see many other instances in Gro- 
tius). Note, 

Fourthly, That these words καὶ πᾶσα ϑυσία, &c. may be 
rendered thus: “ For every sacrifice shall be seasoned with 
salt,” even the whole burnt-offerings (which answer here to 
the whole body), as well as others; and then they will be 
a proof of the former, from the precept concerning sacri- 
fices, Lev. ii. 13. ‘That the particle καὶ frequently signifies 
for, appears from many examples: so Exod. v. 23, καὶ dg’ 
οὖ, “for from the time that I spake to Pharaoh ;” Josh. i. 5, 
καὶ ὥσπερ ἤμην, “for as I was with Moses;” see also xxii. 255 
1 Sam. ii. 15, καὶ οὐ μὴ λάβω, “for I will not take sodden 
flesh; Psalm eviii. 12, “Send us help from trouble, καὶ 
ματαία, for vain is the help of man;” Isa. Ixiv. 5, “Thou 
wast angry, καὶ ἡμεῖς, for we have sinned ;” Micah vii. 8, καὶ 
ἀναστήσομαι, “ for I shall rise up again.” Note, 

Fifihly, That it is the property of salt to preserve things 
from corruption; hence a “ covenant of salt” is put for an 
everlasting or inviolable covenant: so Numb. xviii. 19, 
διαθήκη ἁλὸς αἰωνίου ἐστὶν ἔναντι Κυρίου, “it is a covenant of 
salt for ever before the Lord;” and 2 Chron. xiii. 5, God 
gave David and his sons kings over Israel for ever, “by a 
covenant of salt.” Whence the Jews say, salt was to season 
all their sacrifices, to signify that “they preserved their 
souls from corruption, as the salt did the sacrifice.” Philo, 


228 


torment), and every sacrifice (saith the βογίρίιγθ, even 
the whole burnt-offering) shall be salted with salt (dhe 
symbol of incorruption). 

50 Salt is good (to make things savoury, and to pre- 
serve them from corruption): but if the salt have lost 
his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? (Cf by 


MARK, 


keeping these offending members, or corrupt affections, 
you corrupt yourselves, and become unsavoury, and like 
a sacrifice without salt, you can never be acceptable 
to God.) Wave (therefore) salt in yourselves, and 
have peace (the bond of unity) one with another. 


that “salt is a symbol, διαμονῆς τῆς τῶν συμπάντων, of the 
perpetuity of all things, preserving that on which it was 
sprinkled” (de Victimis, p. 647, F): and on those words, 
« With every oblation you offer salt, δι᾿ οὗ τὴν εἰσάπαν δια- 
μονὴν aivirrerat, φυλακτήριον. γὰρ ot ἅλες σωμάτων τετιμημένοι 
ψυχῆς δευτερείοις" “ By this,” saith Philo,* “he signifies the 
perpetual duration of them; salt being the preservation of 
bodies next to the soul itself; for as the soul is the cause 
that our bodies are not corrupted, so is salt, preserving them 
for a long time, καὶ τρόπον τινα ἀθανατίζοντες, and rendering 
them in a manner incorruptible :” if then, by keeping these 
offensive members, or corrupt affections, you render your 
Christianity such as hath lost its savour, and like a sacrifice 
without salt, you can never be acceptable to God; retain 
therefore your Christian wisdom or piety, and preserve peace, 
the bond of unity, among yourselves. 

Others interpret the words thus: Let it not seem a hard 
saying, that I require your abscission of those offensive 


* Περὶ Θυόντων, p. 659. 


members; for every sacrifice, that it may be grateful and 
acceptable to God, must be salted with fire; for “the fire 
must prove every man’s action,” and it will not receive its 
reward till it hath passed through the fire of tribulation 
(1 Cor. iii. 13, 14), and he be purged from his dross by it as 
gold is, διὰ πυρὸς ὁοκιμαζόμενον, 1 Pet. i. 7, see iv. 12. It 
is then more desirable here to endure this trial by fire, 
and communion with Christ in his sufferings, that ye may 
rejoice at his appearance, than to fall into that fire, which 
will never be extinguished; it is therefore good to have 
this salt in yourselves, this Christian wisdom, which will 
preserve you from corruption, and that peace, which will 
preserve the Christian body from it. Like this is that ex- 
pression of Josephus, concerning one of the seven child- 
ren roasted in the fire; ὥσπερ ἐν πυρὶ μετασχηματιζόμενος 
εἰς ἀφθαρσίαν, “He is transformed into incorruption as it 
were by fire” (Lib. de Mace. p. 1093, Ὁ). And in this 
sense Ireneus saith, “ Tribulation is necessary for the child- 
ren of God, ut igniti sint ad convivium regis, that being 
salted with fire, they may be fit for the banquet of the king” 
(lib. v. cap. 28). 


CHAPTER X. 


1 Anp he arose from thence (from Capernaum, ix. 
33), and cometh into the coasts of Judea by the far- 
ther side of Jordan: and the people resort unto him 
again; and, as he was wont, he taught them again. 

2 g And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, 
Ts it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting 
him (ὦ. e. by that question, thinking he might be induced 

τ to speak something against the law of Moses). 

3 And he answered and said unto them, ! What did 
Moses command you ? 

4 And they said, Moses suffered (ws) to write a bill 
of divorcement, and (so) to put her away. 

5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the 
hardness of your heart (which would not suffer you to 
perceive and yield to the first institulion of matrimony) 
he wrote you this precept (that if you would put away 
your wife, you should do it by giving her a bill of di- 
vorce). 


6 But from the beginning 5 of the creation God | 


(showed he would have it otherwise ; for he) made them 
male and female, (saying, Gen. xxii. 24,) 

7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and 
mother, and cleave to his wife ; 


8 And they twain shall be one flesh (so as they are 
not one flesh with father or mother): so then they 
(after the matrimonial duty) are no more twain, but one 
flesh. 

9 What therefore God hath (thus) joined together, 
let no man (under the gospel dispensation presume to) put 
asunder. 

10 And (when he was) in the house his disciples 
asked him again of the same matter. 

11 And he saith unto them (according to the primi- 
live institution of matrimony), * Whosoever shall put 
away his wife, and marry another, committeth adul- 
tery against her, (she being by that institution still his 
wife, and she having the sole right over his body, 1 Cor. 
vil. 4.) 

12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, 
and be married to another (as hath of lale been done 
among you), she committeth adultery (against him, as 
being still his wife, and not having power over her own 
body, but the husband, ibid.). 

13 ¥ And they brought young children to him, that 
he should touch them: and ἠὲ disciples rebuked 
those that brought them. “ 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. Χ. 


1Ver. 3. Τί ὑμῖν ἐνετείλατο Μωσῆς; What did Moses 
command you 2] There seems to be a difference here betwixt 
St. Matthew and St. Mark not much taken notice of by in- 
terpreters ; St. Mark introducing Christ as asking them what 
Moses commanded in this case; St. Matthew introducing 
them as asking Christ, “ Why then did Moses command us 
to write a bill of divorce?” &c. But this seeming difference 
may be removed, by saying, They first asked him why did 
Moses command? And then our Saviour asked them, 
What were the words of Moses in this case?’ And when 
they had repeated them, he tells them the reason why 
Moses gave them this permission. 

2 Ver. 6, ᾿Απὸ δὲ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως, From the beginnin of 
the creation.] The word κτίσεως is found in the Alexandrian 
copy and in Theophylact, and is interpreted by the Vulgar 
and the Arabic, and extant in most copies, and therefore is 
not to be suspected, because not found in Beza’s copy, or in 


the Syriac, or in the parallel place, Matt. xix. 4, for ἀπ᾿ 
ἀρχῆς, being in sense the same, St. Matthew might say no 
more, but St. Mark could not well add more if Christ had 
said no more. 

3 Ver. 11. Ὃς ἐὰν ἀπολύση τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοὺ, καὶ γαμήση 
ἄλλην, μοιχᾶται ἐπ᾿ αὐτήν, Whosoever shall put away his 
wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.] 
Though, this discourse of Christ be originally about divorce, 
yet it seems plainly to evince that polygamy must be un 
lawful, especially under the Christian economy, for, (1.) 
from Christ’s saying, “He that putteth away his wife, 
and marries another, committeth adultery against her,” it 
clearly follows, that he who, having not put her away 
marries another, must be guilty of the same crime, seeing 
he must have at least the same power to marry another, 
when the first is put away, as when she is not. (2.) He 
who commits adultery against his wife, by marrying another, 
could have no power to do so while she lived, since no man 
can be supposed to have power to commit adultery. And 


; CHAPTER X. 


14 But when Jesus saw (7. 6. perceived) tt, he was 
much displeased, and said unto denis Suffer the little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of 
such is the kingdom ὁ of God. (And if of such as re- 
semble them in disposition, why should they whom they 
are to resemble be unfit for that Revive 3) 

15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not re- 
ceive the kingdom of God as a little child (¢. e. with 
the same freedom from vain-glory, and the love of the 
world, which is in them), he shall not enter therein, 

16 And he took them up in his arms, put his hands 
upon them, and blessed them. 

17 § And when he was gone forth into the way, 
there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked 
him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit 
eternal life? 

18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me 
good? (seeing) there is none good but one, that is, 
God. (Dost thou own me as one commissionated by him 
to teach the way of life? I shall then do it according to 
his will, by saying,) 

19 Thou knowest the commandments, (viz.) Do 
not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do 
not bear false witness, 5 Defraud not, Honour thy 
father and (thy) mother; e this and thou shalt live.) 

20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all 
these things have I observed from my youth. 

21 Then Jesus beholding him δ loved him, and said 
unto him, One thing thou (yet) lackest (to render thee 
my disciple): go thy way, (and at my command) sell 
whatsoever thou hast, and give (zt) to the poor, and 
thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and (then) come, 
and take up the cross, and follow me. 


229 


22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away 

ieved: for he had great possessions. 

23 4 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto 
his disciples, 7 How hardly shall they that have riches 
enter into the kingdom of God! 

24 And the disciples were astonished at his words. 
But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, 
Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches 
to enter into the kingdom of God. 

25 It is easier for a camel (or cable) to go through 
the eye of a needle, than for a rich man (thus trusting 
in riches, as in things which make him happy) to enter 
into the kingdom of God. 

26 And they (who heard this) were astonished above 
measure (al it), saying among themselves, Who then 
can be saved ? 

27 And Jesus looking upon them, saith, With men 
it is impossible (7. e. human persuasion cannot work 
men off from this love of the world), but (this is) not 
(impossible) with (10) God: for with God all things 
are possible. 

28 4 And Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have 
left all, and have followed thee. 

29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto 
you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, 
or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or 
lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, 

30 But he shall receive an hundred fold now in this 
time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, 
and children, and lands (7. e. shall find men more affec- 
tionate to him than these relations, and receive greater 
blessings than he parts with here), with persecutions ; 
and in the world to come eternal life. 


(3.) he who by marrying another commits adultery with 
her, must marry her whom he had no power to marry. (4.) 
Since to commit adultery is to violate the bed of another 
person, he that commits adultery against his wife must 
violate her bed, which no husband can do, only by doing 
that which a husband lawfully might do. Since then a 
right to polygamy is a right to marry more wives than one, 
he that hath this right cannot violate the bed of his first 
wife, by assuming another to it. It therefore must be ac- 
knowledged, either that the husband under Christ’s institu- 
tion, and by the original law of matrimony, had no such 
right, or that he that marrieth another cannot by that com- 
mit adultery against his first wife. 

4 Ver. 14. Τοιούτων, Of such is the kingdom of God.) 
That is, saith Theophylact, of those who have by exercise 
τὴν ἀκακίαν ἣν παιδία ἔχουσιν ἀπὸ φύσεως, “that innocence 
which children have by nature.” In his note on Matt. xviii. 
5, he saith, we are to be like children, κατὰ τὸ ἄκακον, 
οὐχὶ κατὰ τὸ ἀνόητον, “not as to their ignorance, but as to 
their innocence.” And xix. 14, “Of such is the kingdom 
of God; that is,’ saith he, τῶν ἀκάκων καὶ ἀπονηρῶν, “of 
those who resemble them in innocence and freedom from 
sin,” > 

5 Ver. 19. Μὴ ἀποστερήσης, Thou shalt not defraud.) Dr. 
Hammond here saith, that the tenth commandment is ren- 
dered by the LXX. and by St. Paul, Rom. vii. 7, οὐκ ἐπιθυ- 
pices, “Thou shalt not covet;” by Christ here, «Thou 
shalt not defraud,” and Matt. xix. 19, “Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself:’’ whence he concludes, that the com- 
mandment contains the importance of all these phrases; 
obliging us so to rest satisfied with that lot God hath 
afforded us, and so to desire the good of others as well as 
of ourselves, as not to desire or endeavour to gain any thing 
to ourselves by the loss or diminution of another, but to 
think others as worthy to enjoy what belongs to them, as we 
are to enjoy what belongs to us: all which is very tgue. 
Mr. Clerc also here well notes, that there be two ways of in- 
juring our neighbour, (1.) by theft, whether privately, or by. 
force against the will of the owner, and by taking away 
what belongs to another, without any pretence of right or 
justice, which is forbidden in the eighth commandment; or 
(2.) by secret and cunning devices, where the law, and a 


pretence of right is made use of to cover the injury, which 
is forbidden in the tenth commandment, and here expressed 
by μὴ ἀποστερήσης, “ Thou shalt not defraud: and surely 
all such endeavours to defraud must show a very covetous 
mind, inclining us, against the dictates of our consciences, 
and to the damage of our precious souls, to defraud another 
of his right: only let it be noted, that the word ἐποστερεῖν 
in scripture is of a greater latitude, and signifies also to de- 
tain, and keep back a thing when it is due. So Exod. xxi. 
10, “Her food and raiment, and the duty of marriage, οὐκ 
ἀποστερήσεις, thou shalt not keep back.” So the word signi- 
fies, Numb. ix. 7, Deut. xxiv. 14, οὐκ ἀποστερήσεις μισϑὸν 
πένητος, “Thou shalt not keep back the hire of the poor, at 
his day thou shalt give him his hire,” ver. 15, and so we ex- 
pound the word ἀπεστερημένος, used James v. 4, by “kept 
back;” Ecclus. iv. 1, τὴν ζωὴν τοῦ πτωχοῦ μὴ ἀποστερῆσης» 
“ Detain not the life of the poor, and make not his eyes to 
wait long;” and xxxiv. 21, 22, « The bread of the poor is 
his life, 6 ἀποστερῶν αὐτὴν, he that detains it is a man of 
blood ; 6 ἀποστερῶν μισθὸν μισϑίου, he that detains the wages 
of the hireling sheddeth blood: and surely they who de- 
sire thus to detain that which belongs to others, and they 
know they much want, must covet to have for that time 
what is another’s. And here especially the rule of the ci- 
vilians obtains, Minus solvit, qui tempore minus solvit, “ He 
pays less than he ought, who pays not in due time, or when 
he ought to do it.” 

6 Ver. 21. ᾽Ἢ γάτησεν αὐτὸν, And Jesus looking upon him, 
loved him.] He loved not only virtues, but even the 
of them; the one so as to reward them, the other so as to 
encourage, and minister to their growth. 

7 Ver. 23. Πῶς δυσκύλως of τὰ χρήματα ἔχοντες, Hour hardly 
can they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God !} 
The example of this young man shows that ἔχειν here im- 
ports not only to possess riches, but also to retain such an 
affection to them as that we cannot well bear the thoughts 
of losing them, or parting withthem. The interpretation of 
Christ, that they who trust in riches, ver. 24, cannot do it, 
is the consequence of that affection ; for this affection must 
be built upon the apprehension of the goodness of them, the 
conveniences and advantages we trust we shall receive by 
having and retaining them. 


230 


31 8 But many that are first shall be last; and the 
last (shall be) first (see the note here). 

32 4 And they were in the way going up to Jeru- 
salem; and Jesus went before them: and 3 they were 
amazed (that Christ would thus go into the mouth of 
the Sanhedrin, who had resolved to kill him) ; and as 
they followed, they were afraid (of what might befall 
them, being his disciples). And he took again the 
twelve, and began to tell them what things should 
happen unto him, 

33 Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and 
the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief 
priests, and unto the seribes; and they shall condemn 
him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles : 

34 And they shall mock him, and shall scourge 
him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and 
the third day he shall rise again. 

35 J 1 And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, 
come unto him (by their mother), saying, Master, we 
would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we 
shall desire. 

36 And he said unto them, What would ye that I 
should do for you? 

37 They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may 
sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left, 
in thy glory. 

38 But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what 
(it ts) ye ask (the highest place in my glory being the 
reward of the highest sufferings:) can ye (then) drink 
of the cup that I (am to) drink of? and be baptized 
with the baptism that I am (to be) baptized with? 
(ὦ. 6. can ye suffer as Tam to do?) 

39 And they say unto him, We can. And Jesus 
said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I 
drink of; and with the baptism thatI am baptized withal 
shall ye be baptized (¢. 6. shall suffer for my sake): 

40 But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand 
Nis not mine to give (to any others); but ἐξ shall be 
given to them for whom it is prepared. 


8 Ver. 31, Πολλοὶ δὲ ἔσονται πρῶτοι, ἔσχατοι, &e., But many 
that are first shall be last, and they that are last shall 
be first.) 1. e. But as it is with this Jew, so will it be with 
the generality of that nation; though they shall have the 
first offer of this kingdom, they shall generally refuse to en- 
ter into it; whereas many of the gentiles shall gladly em- 
brace it upon these terms, and shall be admitted into it, and 
so preferred before the Jews to whom these blessings prima- 
rily belonged. That this is the true import of these words, 
see the note on Matt. xx. 1. 

9 Ver. 32. Kai ἐθαμβοῦντο, καὶ ἀκολουθοῦντες ἐφοβοῦντο, They 
were amazed; and, following, they were afraid.| They 
were amazed that, the Sanhedrin resolving to kill him, John 
xi. 53, and sending out their pursuivants and injunctions to 
apprehend him, ver. 57, he would run himself into the 
mouth of that danger he seemed formerly to decline; and 
they were afraid what might befall them, who bore the cha- 
racter of his disciples, for his sake. 

10 Ver, 35, Kai προσπορεύονται αὐτῷ ᾿Ιακωβὸς καὶ ᾿Ιωάννης, 
And James and John came unto him.) viz. By their mo- 
ther, as their mouth, Matt. xx. 20. And so Christ insinu- 
ates by answering not to the mother, but to them coming 
with her on this errand, “ Ye know not what ye ask,” ver. 22. 

11 Ver. 40, Οὐκ ἔστιν ἐμὸν δοῦναι, ἀλλ᾽ οἷς ἡτοίμασται" It is 
not for me, &c., who never vary from my Father’s will, to 
give it to others than to them for whom it is prepared by 
my Father.] Οὐκ ἔστιν ἐμὸυ, τοῦ δικαίου κριτοῦ, It is not for 
me, a righteous judge, and distributor of recompenses, to 


MARK, 


41 And when the ten heard zt, they began to be 
much displeased with James and John (for desiring 
precedency above them in Christ’s kingdom). 

42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto 
them, Ye know that they which are accounted to 
rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them 
(commanding them as their servants); and their great 
ones exercise authority upon them (at their pleasure). 

43 But so shall it not be among you: but whoso- 
ever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 

44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall 
(by that office) be (-come the) servant of all. 

45 For even the Son of man came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ran- 
som for many (and so must it be with his disciples). 

46 4 And they came to Jericho: and as 13 he went 
out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number 
of people, blind Bartimeus, the son of Timezus, sat by 
the high way side begging (and another with him). 

47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Naza- 
reth (that came that way), he began to cry out, and 
say, Jesus, thow son of David, have merey on me; 
(and so said the other also, Matt. xx. 30.) 

48 And many charged him that he should hold his 
peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son 
of David, have mercy on me. 

49 And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to 
be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto 
him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. 

50 And he, casting away his garment, rose, and 
came to Jesus. 

51 And Jesus answered and said unto him, What 
wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man 
said unto him, Lord, (J ask) that I might receive my 
sight. 

52 And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith 
hath made thee whole. And immediately he received 
his sight, and followed Jesus in the way. 


give to any by favour or affection to their relations or them- 
selves, but to those who are prepared for it according to the 
will of my Father. (Theophylact.) . 

12 Ver. 42. Οἱ δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν τῶν ἐθνῶν, They who are ac- 
counted to rule over the gentiles.) This is, Matt. xx. 26, 
οἱ ἔρχοντες τῶν ἐθνῶν, “the rulers of the gentiles;” Luke 
xxii. 25, of Gaci\cis τῶν ἐθνῶν, “the kings of the gentiles.” 
So that this shows that doxéw is sometimes an expletive, as 
has been noted on 1 Cor. viii. 40. 

13 Ver. 46. Kai ἐκπορευομένου αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ Ἱεριχὼ, Βαρτίμαιος ὃ 
τυφλὸς, &e. And as he was going from Jericho, a blind 
man named Bartimeus sat by the way-side.| Luke xviii, 
35, ἐν τῷ ἐγγίζειν αὐτόν cis Ἱεριχὼ, When he was near to Je- 
richo, a certain blind man sat,’ Matt. xx. 30, dio τυφλοὶ, 
“two blind men.” There is no reason from these seeming 
differences to think the story different of which the evange- 
lists speak. For as to the first, St. Luke saith, indeed, that 
Christ was yet “near to Jericho;” but then, so is he who 
is gone a little from it, as well as he who is come near to it, 
which St. Luke doth not say. To the second it may be an- 
swered, that he who saith there was a certain blind man 
celebrated by the name of Bartimeus, saith not there was 
no more, but only that there was no other so noted and dis- 
tinguished by that name; and he that mentioned his desire, 
and Christ’s answer, doth not exclude the other from making 
the like request, nor from an interest in Christ's answer, but 
only shows he thought it sufficient to take notice of him as 
the most celebrated of the two. 


231 


CHAPTER XI. 


1 Anp when they came nigh to Jerusalem (ποὺ 
unto ' Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount of Olives, 
he sendeth forth two of his disciples, 

2 And saith unto them, Go your way into the vil- 
lage over against you: and as soon as ye be entered 
into it, ye shall find a colt tied, ? whereon neyer man 
sat; loose him, and bring him (to me). 

3 And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? 
say ye that the Lord hath need of him ; and straight- 
way he will send (ἡ, 6. will quietly permit you to bring) 
him hither. 

4 And they went their way (lo the village), and 
found (there) the colt tied by the door without in a 
place where two ways met; and they loose him. 

5 And certain of them that stood there said unto 
them, What do ye, loosing the colt? 

6 And they said unto them (We do) even as Jesus 
had commanded : and (upon this) they let them go. 

7 And they brought the.colt to Jesus, and cast 
their garments on him; and‘he sat upon him. 

8 And many spread their garments in the way: and 
others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed 
them in the way. 

9 And they that went before, and they that fol- 
lowed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that 
cometh in the name of the Lord (let prosperity attend 
on the Messiah): 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1Ver. 1. Eis Βηθφαγὴ καὶ Βηθανίαν, To Bethphage and 
Bethany,| So most copies read; though, as St. Matthew 
leaves out Bethany, so the Vulgar and, as Origen* informs 
us, St. Mark here left out Bethphage. These two places 
were conterminous, the bound of Bethany, through which 
they went to go from Jericho to Jerusalem, reaching to 
Bethphage, whither our Lord was come. Now this Beth- 
phage, saith St Jerome, was sacerdotum viculus situs in 
monte Oliveti, “a little village of the priests situated in 
mount Olivet.” It was according to the Jews, “a place out 
of Jerusalem’”’ near the mountain of the temple, in quo co- 
quebant oblationes, “in which,” saith the Talmud, “they 
boiled their offerings” (Tract. Berachoth, cap. 11, f. ee 

2 Ver. 2. Ἐφ᾽ ὃν οὐδεὶς ἀνδρώπων κεκάθικε, Upon which no 
man ever sat.) Here Grotius truly notes, that such ani- 
mals as had- not been employed in the use of man, were 
wont to be chosen for sacred uses; for even the heathens 
thought those things and sacrifices most proper for the ser- 
vice of the gods which had not been put to profane uses. 
Thus the Philistines return the ark in a new cart, drawn by 
heifers never before put into the yoke (1 Sam vi. 7). ΤῸ 
Minerva the heathens sacrificed injuges boves, “oxen not 
put into the yoke;” and in Virgil we read thus (in. 
vi. 36), 


Nune grege de intacto septem mactare juvencos 
Prestiterit 


«Tt is best to offer seven heifers not yet brought from the 
flock :”” which Macrobius} calls hostias injuges, “ sacrifices 
not accustomed to the yoke ;”’ they thinking them polluted, 
saith Turnebus,+ by being put to profane work; and it 
seems to have been a miracle that such a colt should so 
patiently suffer Christ to ride upon him; to be sure there 
was a completion of the prophecy of Zachary, ix. 9, the 
Jews themselves applying those words to the Messiah ; for 
R. Joseph said, “May the Messiah come, and may I be 


* O Μάρκος δὲ xara τὸν τόπον οὕτω ἀνέγραψε, καὶ ὅτι ἐγγίζου- 
cu——is Βηθανίαν. In Matt. tom. xvi. 

+ Saturn. lib. iii. cap. 5. 

Ξ Lib. xviii. cap. 2. 


10 8 Blessed be the kingdom of our father Davia, 
that cometh in the name of the Lord (may the kingdom 
flourish which God is to erect according to his promise 
made to David): Hosanna in the highest (/et prosperity 
be from heaven on this King and kingdom). 

11 And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the 
temple: and when he had looked round about upon 
all things (and cured the blind and lame, Matt. xxi. 14), 
and now the eventide was come, he went out unto 
Bethany with the twelve. 

12 4 And on the morrow, when they were come 
from Bethany, he was hungry : 

13 4 And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves 
(which the common fig-trees then had not, Matt. xxiv. 
32), he came (fo zt), if haply he might find any thing 
thereon: and when he came to it, he found no- 
thing but leaves; for the time of (other) figs was not 

et. 

14 And Jesus answered (7. 6. upon this disappoint- 
ment spake) and said unto it, (Let) no man eat fruit of 
(ὦ, e. from) thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples 
heard zt. 

15 § And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went 
into the temple, and began to cast out them that 
sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the ta- 
bles of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that 
sold doves; 


worthy to sit under the shadow of the tail of his ass” (San- 
hedrin, cap. 10, in Gemara). 

3 Ver. 10. Εὐλογημένη ἡ βασιλεία ἐρχομένη ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου, 
τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Δαθὶδ, Blessed be the kingdom of our 
father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord.) i. e. 
Let the kingdom be happily begun and flourish, which God 
is to erect according to his promise made to our father 
David ; let the prosperity be from heaven to the king Mes- 
siah, and to his kingdom (see Examen Milli). 

4 Ver. 13. And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, 
he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon ; and 
when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, οὐ γὰρ ἣν 
καιρὸς σύκων, for the time of figs was not yet.) Here it is 
inquired, why Christ should curse this fig-tree, because it had 
not figs upon it before the time of figs? The criticism οὗ yap 
ἦν, “for where he was it was the time of fruit,” and that of 
Dr. Hammond, that “it was not καιρὸς σύκων, a good or sea- 
sonable year for figs,” are both confuted by this one observa- 
tion, that Christ did this on the eleventh of Nisan, that is, 
five months before figs were ripe; for “about summer,” 
saith our Lord, “the branch of the fig-tree is yet tender, 
and putteth forth leaves” (Matt. xxiv. 32, Mark xiii. 28). 
“From the time of production of leaves to the green figs,” 
say the Jews, ‘is fifty days; from thence to the falling off of 
the buds, fifty ; and from thence to ripe figs, fifty.’ And in 
Canticles, the entrance of the summer is described by the 
“fig-trees bringing forth green figs,” πὴ i. e. grossos, ἐλύνϑους 
αὐτῆς, “her unripe figs: not as Mr. Clerc here renders the 
words, “she hath brought her figs to perfection ;” nor do 
either Theophrastus or Pliny make mention of any figs in 
Syria, which were gathered till after the dog-days, that is, 
about the latter end of August ; and had there been a sort of 
figs, which, as Mr. Clerc fancics, might have been ripe at the 
passover, before which Christ spake these words, St. Mark 
could not truly have said, “the time of figs was not yet.” 
There is another ingenious exposition of a reverend and 
learned bishop, that 6 καιρὸς σύκων is “the time of gathering 
in of figs,” of which signification of the word καιρὸς he gives 
two or three instances; and then it seems reasonable for our 
Saviour to expect some figs upon this tree, they being not yet 
gathered in, and to curse it for having none upon it, when 
none had been taken from it; and could I find it proved 
that any, even the diccaroth, or first ripe figs, mentioned 
Jer. xxxiv. 2, and Hosea ix. 10, were fit to be gathered in 


232 


16 And would not suffer 5 that any man should 
carry any vessel through the temple. 

17 And he taught (them who did these things, how 
contrary they were to scripture), saying unto them, Is it 
not written, ® My house shall be ealled of all nations 
the house of prayer? (Gr. a house of prayer to all nations, 
and so that very court of the gentiles you thus profane is, 
dedicated to his service :) but ye (by employing it to these 
uses) have made it a den of thieves. 

18 And the seribes and chief"priests heard ἐξ, and 
(instead of being moved by what he said from the scrip- 
ture, to reform this abuse, they) sought how they might 
destroy him (privily): for they feared (to do this openly 
to) him, because all the people was astonished at his 
doctrine. 

_19 And when even was come, he went out of the 
city. | 

20 4 And in the morning, as they passed by, they 
saw the fie tree dried up from the roots. 

21 And Peter calling to remembrance (the words of 
Christ) saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree 
which thou cursedst is withered away. 

22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have (a 
strong) faith in God. 

23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall 
say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou 
cast into the sea (7%. 6. whosoever of you shall attempt 


MARK. 


the greatest difficulties respecting your office, in confirm- 
ing the truth of my doctrine to Jew and gentile, and 
bringing them to the faith); and shall not doubt in his 
heart (of God’s power and readiness to assist him), 
but shall believe that those things which he saith 
shall come to pass (Gr. shall be done); he shall have 
whatsoever he saith (it shall be to him according to what 
he saith). 

24 Therefore I say unto you, (for the confirmation 
of your faith), What things soever ye desire, when ye 
pray (or ask in prayer), believe that ye receive them, 
and ye shall have them. 

25 And when ye 7 stand praying, forgive, if ye 
have ought (any just matter of complaint) against any 
( ie what they have done to you): that your Father 
also which is in heaven may forgive you your tres- 
passes. 

26 But (for) if ye do not forgive (them), neither 
will you Father which is in heaven forgive your tres- 
passes. 

27 J And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he 
was walking in the temple, there come to him the 
chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, 

28 And say unto him, By what authority doest thou 
these things ? and who gave thee this authority to do 
these things ? 

29 And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will 


at the passover, I should acquiesce in this interpretation ; 
but the words cited from Cant. ii. 13, and Matt. xxiv. 32, 
seem to prove, that the fig-tree only began to put forth her 
leaves and her green figs at the entrance of the summer. 
Wherefore let it be noted, that St. Mark doth not by these 
words, “for the time of figs was not yet,” design to give a 
reason why our Lord found no figs upon this tree, but why 
he only went to this one tree, which had leaves on it, and« 
so was of that kind of figs which, saith [Theophrastus,* was 
ἀεὶ φύλλον, Semper comantibus foliis,t “a fig-tree that had 
always leaves,” and why he expected to find fruit on that, 
which upon the other ordinary fig-trees abounding there he 
could not expect, the time of ordinary figs being not yet: for 
this kind of fig-tree being ever green with leaves, had, saith 
Theophrastus, ἅμα καὶ τὸν Evov καὶ τὸν νέον κάρπον, “ old and 
new fruit hanging on it together ;” the fruit of the year past 
and present, say the Jewish doctors. Accordingly Julian+ 
the Apostate, speaking of the fruits of Damascus, saith, some 
of them were but of a short duration, μόνῳ δέ τῷ σύκῳ καὶ 
ὑπερενιαυτίζειν ἔξεστι, καὶ τῇ τοῦ μέλλοντος κάρπου γένεσει. συνενεγ- 
θῆναι, “only the fig-tree carries its fruit above a year, and it 
hangs on with the fruit of the following year.” And thus 
was this fig-tree a fit resemblance of the Jewish nation, to 
whom alone Christ came in person, and from whom alone 
he could then expect fruit; whence are they in another 
parable represented by a fig-tree, from which the husband- 
man three years expected fruit, but found none, Luke xiii. 
7, and therefore is there ordered to be cut down; and here 
they are emblematically cursed for their barrenness, “the 
kingdom of God being shortly to be taken from them, and 
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matt. 
xxi. 43). Origen§ saith, this fig-tree was δένδρον τοῦ λαοῦ, “a 
tree representing the people of the Jews,” saying, ἔμψυχος 
ἣν ἡ αὐτὴ συκὴ, “This was a living fig-tree, and therefore heard 
a curse suitable to its condition :”’ for dua τοῦτο ἄκαρπός ἐστιν 
ὃ ᾿Ιουδαίων συναγωγὴ, καὶ τούτο γίνεται αὑτὴ Ews τῆς συντελεΐας 
τοῦ αἰῶνος ἕως τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἐϑνῶν εἰσέλθη, “therefore the 
synagogue of the Jews is unfruitful, and shall continue so 
till the fullness of the gentiles doth come in.” 

5 Ver. 16. Καὶ οὐκ ἤφιεν ἵνα τὶς διενέγκῃ σκεῦος διὰ τοῦ ἱεροῦ, 
And he suffered not any one to carry a vessel through the 
temple.] In this our Lord approved of the received doctrine 
of the Jews, who, saith Josephus, held, quod ne vas qui- 
dem aliquod portari in templum liceat, “ that it was not law- 


* Hist. Plant. lib. iv. cap, 2. 
ἡ Pliny, lib. xiii. cap. 8. 

§ Ed. Huet. tom. i. p. 446, 
]] Cont. Ap. p. 1066. 


+ Ep. 24. 


ful to carry any vessel into the temple ;” and this was. part 


of that reverence they thought due to it by virtue of that 
precept, “Thou shalt reverence my sanctuary” (Lev. xix. 
30). But whereas the rabbins extended this to their syna- 
gogues, yea, even to a synagogue laid waste, that none should 
make them a thoroughfare, in this they seem to have ex- 
ceeded ; there seeming not to be the same reason for things 
instituted by them, for their convenience of meeting for 
religious worship, as for that house which the Lord “hath 
chosen to put his name there” (Deut. xii. 5), and in which 
the divine Majesty dwelt; though they being houses of 
prayer, a reverence was to be observed in them, whilst they 
engaged in that worship. 

6 Ver. 17. Καὶ ἐδίδασκε, λέγων αὐτοῖς" οὐ γέγραπται, ὅτι ὃ 
οἶκός μου οἶκος προσευχῆς κληϑήσεται πᾶσι τοῖς ἔϑνεσιν: And 
he taught them, saying, Is it not written, My house shall be 
called a house of prayer to all nations 81 In the temple 
there were three courts—the court of the priests, where the 
altar of incense stood; the second was that into which the 
clean Jews, and the proselytes of justice who had embraced 
circumcision and the whole law of Moses, entered; and 
this was parted from the third court (which was called « the 
court of the gentiles,’ because the unclean Jew, and the 
gentile who owned the true God, were permitted to come 
and worship there), by a step or low wall, having this in- 
scription on it, μὴ δεῖν ἀλλόφυλον ἐκτὸς τοῦ dyiov παριεναι, “ that 
no alien was to enter into the holy place ;”’ where Josephus,* 
by adding τὸ γὰρ δεύτερον, ἱερὸν ἅγιον ἐκαλεῖτο, “ for the second 
court was called holy,” seems to intimate, that the court of 
the gentiles was by them not deemed holy, but profane; and 
therefore thither they brought sheep and doves to sell; and 
hence it appears how appositely our Saviour argues, that the 
house for all nations was God’s house, and therefore must be 
sacred and not to be polluted. Mr. Whiston must therefore 
be mistaken, when he conjectures that our Lord did this 
twice in the week before his passion; once driving these 
hucksters and their merchandise out of the inner temple, 
and the next day out of the outer temple; for Christ drove 
out the oxen and the sheep, as well as the men (John ii. 
15). Now can we think that they who had so great a reve- 
rence for the inner temple, as to make it death for any gen- 
tile, though a proselyte of the gate, to come into it, would 
themselves bring sheep and oxen to dung in it? It is true 
that St. Mark speaks of this as done the day after he came 
into the city, and discoursed with the pharisees; but that he 
did this only by recapitulation, St. Austint proves; but let 


* Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 18, p. 916. 
+ De Consens, Evangelist. lib. ii. cap. 68. 


CHAPTER XII. 


also ask of you one question, and answer (you) me, 
and (then) I will tell you by what authority I do these 
things. 

30. The baptism of John, was it from (the God of ) 
heaven, or of men (ἀπ answer me. 

31 And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If 
we shall say, (Jt was) from heaven; he will say, Why 
then did ye not believe him? (and from his testimony, 
John iii. 21. 34, learn that I also came from God ?) 


233 


32 But if we shall say, Of men, (this may be ha- 
zardous ; for) they feared (this might incense) the peo- 
ple: for all men counted John, that he was (fo be) a 
prophet indeed. 

33 And they (therefore) answered and said unto Je- 
sus, We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith unto 
them, Neither do 1 (think fit to) tell you by what autho- 
rity I do these things. 


this be done twice, provided he brings not his merchants 
and merchandise into the inner temple (see Maldon. in 
Matt. xxi. 12), 

7 Ver. 25. Kat Grav στήκητε προσευχόμενοι, ἀφίετε, And 
when you stand praying, forgive if ye have aught against 
any,) That it was ordinary with the Jews to pray stand- 
ing, see note on Matt. vi. 5, yet in their solemn days of fast- 
ing they did kneel, and even prostrate themselves before the 
Lord; but the first Christians usually kneeled down and 
prayed (Acts ix. 40, xx. 36, xxi.5). The command here to 
forgive those that offend us before we pray, not only shows 
that no resentments of what our brother doth should stick 


long upon our spirits, because they indispose us for that duty 
we are continually to be prepared for; but also, that there is 
some kind of forgiveness to be exercised towards him, though 
he do not ask it, or show any tokens of repentance; of 
which, see note on Matt. vi. 14, 15. And seeing I am to 
pray not only for myself, but for him also (Matt. v. 44), 
and that out of love to him, I must be free from all displea- 
sure against him, that I may lift up pure hands without 
wrath. I must be inclined and ready to do him any good: 
for how else can [heartily desire it of God, and wish well to 
him, which in effect I do by praying for him ? 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 Anp he began to speak unto them by parables ; 
(saying), A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an 
hedge about i/, and digged a place for the winefat, 
and built a tower (in zt), and let it out to husbandmen, 
(the Jews, Isa. y.) and (then) went into a far country 
(ὦ. e. left them to manage it for him, so as that he might 
tn their season receive the fruits of it). 

2 And (accordingly) at the season he sent to the 
husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the 
husbandmen (the guides and rulers of the Jewish church) 
of the fruit of the vineyard. 

3 And (but) they caught Aim, and beat him, and 
sent him away empty. 

4 And again he sent unto them another servant; and 
at him they ! cast stones, and wounded him in the 
head, and sent him away shamefully handled. 

5 And again he sent another; and him they killed, 
and (so they dealt with) many others (2 Chron. xxxy. 
15, 16); beating some, and killing some (of them). 

6 Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, 
he sent him also last unto them, saying, (Jt may be) 
they will reverence my son. 

7 But those husbandmen said among themselves, 
This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and (then) the 
inheritance shall be our’s. 

8 And (accordingly) they took him, and killed him, 
and cast him out of the vineyard. 

9 What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do 
(to those men? Surely) he will come and destroy 
the (se) husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto 
(be cultivated by) others. 

10 And (ἐγ ye doubt this, ye understand not what these 
hushandmen deserve,) have ye not read (or, nor have ye 
read with attention) this scripture; (which saith, Psal. 
eXxviii. 22,-23,) The stone which the builders rejected 
is become the head of the corner: 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1Ver.4. Αἰϑοβολήσαντες ἐκεφαλαίωσαν, καὶ ἀπέστειλαν ἡτιμωμένον" 
Again he sent to them another servant, and at him they 
cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him 
away shamefully treated.] That ἐκεφαλαίωσαν here cannot 
signify capite, i. 6. vitd eum mulctarunt, “they beheaded 
him, or took away his life ;”” but, as St. Luke interprets it, 
τραυματίζοντες, “they wounding him” (x. 12), to wit in the 
head, “ cast him out of the vineyard ;” τὴν κεφαλὴν ἔτυψαν, 
“they beat him on the head:” so Theophylact; and this is 
evident from the words following, “ They sent him away 

Vor. [V.—30 


11 This was the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous 
in our eyes? 

12 And (when he had said this) they sought (occa- 
ston) to lay hold on him, but (they) feared the people : 
for they knew that he had spoken the parable ? against 
them: and (threugh this fear) they left him, and went 
their way. 

13 4 And they send unto him certain (persons) of 
the (sect of the) Pharisees and of the Herodians, to 
eatch him in (and get advantage against him from) his 
words. 

14 And when they were come, they say unto him, 
Master, we know that thou art true, and carest for no 
man (’s person): for thou regardest not the person (s) 
of men, but teachest the way of God in truth: (tell us 
therefore) Is it lawful to give tribute to Cesar, or not? 

15 Shall we give, or shall we not give? (that if he 
said no, the Herodians might represent him as an enemy 
to Cesar ; if yea, the pharisees might represent him to the 
people as no friend to the nalion)« But he, knowing their 
hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me (ye hy- 
pocrites)? bring me a (Roman) penny, that I may see zt. 

16 And they brought 7. And (then) he saith unto 
them, Whose is this image and superscription (that is 
upon this money)? And they said unto him, (/t7s) Cesar’s. 

17 And Jesus answering said unto them, Render 
(then) to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and to 
God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled 
at him (that he had answered from their own received 
principles, and yet so wisely, that they could take no ad- 
vantage from his words).’ 

18 4 Then come unto him the Sadducees, which 
say there is no resurrection (of the body); and they 
asked him, saying, 

19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother 
die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no child- 


dishonoured, or shamefully treated :” so in Aristophanes,* 
θένειν τὸν κρόταφον κεφαλαίῳ ῥήματι, is to “smite the skull with 
a blow upon the head,” or “to strike one upon the head 
with a radish root” (see Examen Milli). 

2 Ver. 12. They knew that he spake this parable, πρὸς 
αὐτοὺς" 50 Luke xx. 19, against them.] So λέγειν πρὸς αὐτὸν, 
is to say what they could against him, Acts xxiii. 30; “to 
kick πρὸς κέντρα, against the pricks,” Acts xxvi. 14; “to 
fight πρὸς τὰς μεθοδίας, against the machinations of Satan,” 


* In Ranis, act. iii. sc. 2, 
U 


᾿ 


234 
ren, that his brother should take his wife, and raise 
up seed unto his brother. 

20 Now there were (τού ws) seven brethren: and 
the first (of them) took a wife, and dying left no seed. 

21 And the second took her, and died, neither left 
he any seed: and the third likewise. 

22 And (so) the seven had her, and left no seed: 
last of all the woman died also, 

23 In the resurrection therefore, when they shall 
tise (from the dead), whose wife shall she be of them? 
for the seven had her to wife. 

24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not 
therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, nei- 
ther the power of God? (nor yet the state in which they 
that are raised from the dead shall be.) 

25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they 
neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as 
the angels which are in heaven. 

26 And as touching the dead, (to prove from the 
scriptures, which you own,) that they rise: have ye not 
read (what is written) in the book of Moses, how in 
the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God 
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob 1 (and yet,) 

27 He is not the God of the dead (7. 6. of them that 
are so dead as not to be the sons of the resurrection), 
but the God of the living (7. e. of those whom he will 
raise to life again): ye therefore do greatly err. 

28 q And one of the ὃ. scribes came, and having 
heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he 
had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first 
commandment of all ? 

29 And Jesus answered him, The ‘ first of all the 
commandments zs, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God 
is one Lord : 

30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 

31 And the second is like (to zt) namely this, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none 
other commandment greater than these. 

32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou 


MARK. 


hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there 
is none other but he: 

33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all 
the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all 
the strength, and (for a man) to love his neighbour as 
himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and 
sacrifices. 

34 And when Jesus saw that he answered discreet- 
ly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from (being pre- 
pared to enter into) the kingdom of God. And no man 
after that durst ask him any question. 

35 q And Jesus answered (their questions) and said 
(to them by way of question), while he taught in the 
temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the son of 
David ? 

36 For § David himself said (of him) by (the afflatus 
of) the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit 
thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy 
footstool. 

37 David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and 
whence (how) is he then his son? And the common 
people heard him gladly. 

38 § And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware 
of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and 
love (to have) salutations in the marketplaces, 

39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the 
uppermost rooms at feasts : 

40 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pre- 
tence make long prayers: these shall receive greater 
damnation. 

41 4 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and 
beheld how the people cast money into the treasury : 
and (saw that) many that were rich cast in much. 

42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she 
threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 

43 And he called wnto him his disciples, and saith 
unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor wi- 
dow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast 
into the treasury : 

44 Por all they did (on/y) cast in of their abundance; 
but she 5 of her want did cast in all that she had, even 
all her living (7. 6. her livelihood for that day). 


Eph. vi. 11; “to strive πρὸς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, against sin,” Heb. 
xii. 45 “to fight πρὸς υἱοὺς, against the children of Ammon,” 
Judg. x. 3; “to speak πρὸς Κύριον, against the Lord,” Isa. 
xxxii. 6, Ezek. xiii. 9. 

3 Ver. 28. Kat εἷς τῶν γραμματέων, And one of the scribes 
eame : so Luke xx. 39, but Matt. xxii. 25, εἷς ἐξ αὐτῶν νομικὸς, 
one of them being a lawyer.] Now, in this diversity of 
words, there is no difference in sense; for the scribes were of 
two sorts, or had at the least two offices ; the one was to “ sit 
in the chair of Moses,” i. e. to read and to interpret the 
law of Moses to the people, Matt. xxiii. 2, the other was to 
expound and to deliver to the people the traditions which 
they pretended to have received from their forefathers; the 
first name of “scribe” they seem to have had from Ezra, 
who is so often styled γραμματεὺς, “a scribe of the law of 
the Lord” (Ezra vii. 12, Neh. xii. 36), who “ read in the book 
of the law, and expounded” (Neh. viii. age they being 
also teachers of the traditions, which were called νύμιμα, or 
“laws.” and binding these heavy burdens upon the people, 
were thence called νομικοί, see the note on Matt. xxii. 23. 
And this scribe is said to speak to Christ πειράζων, « tempt- 
ing him,” or making an experiment of his wisdom, whether 
it was such as fame reported; as the queen of Sheba came 
(1 Kings x. 1) πειράσαι, “to tempt king Solomon,” i. 6. to 
try whether his wisdom was equal to the fame she had heard 
of it. 

4 Ver. 29. And Jesus answered, ὅτι πρώτη πασῶν τῶν évro- 
λῶν, &e. The first of all the commandments ts this, The Lord 
thy God is one God.] For this is necessary to be known, that 
we may worship him alone in opposition to all heathen gods, 
and own that he alone is God, who is the maker of heaven 
and earth. Here Woltzogenius objects, that this lawyer hav- 


ing said that there is one God, and that there is no other 
God beside him, our Lord acknowledges that he had answered 
wisely ; whereas he could not have given him this commen- 
dation, if he had been obliged to own him also as God, or 
to have owned a trinity of persons; as if he had not heard 
that Thomas, who held the unity of the Godhead as much as 
any other Jew, yet styles our Saviour, “my Lord and my 
God; and is commended for his faith, John xx. 28, 29. And 
since all that assert a trinity of persons, do as unanimously 
assert ἃ unity of essence, and of the Godhead, I know not 
why this answer might not be commended by him; though 
perhaps our Saviour’s commendation might especially respect 
his prelation of the love of God and our neighbour to all 
burnt-offerings and oblations; of which see the note on Matt. 
xxii. 35, and of which one of the Jews saith thus, “ The do- 
ing acts of beneficence is more acceptable to God than all 
the victims and oblations which the Israelites offer on the 
altar; he having said, I will have mercy and not sacrifice” 
(Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 16, p. 33. See here and ver. 27, Examen 
Millii). 

5 Ver. 36. Αὐτὸς yap Δαβὶδ εἶπεν ἐν τῶ Πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ, 
For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, &c.) 1. 6. By a 
divine afflatus, or the spirit of prophecy ; for elsewhere we 
read, that “God spake by the mouth of David,” Acts 1. 16, 
iv. 25. Nor is any one cited in the New Testament, as 
speaking by the Spirit, or by the Holy Ghost, who was not 
thus assisted by a divine afflatus; and this deserves to be 
noted by them who deny that the Psalms of David were 
written by the spirit of prophecy. 

6 Ver. 44. Αὕτη δὲ ἐκ τῆς ὑστερήσεως αὑτῆς πάντα ὅσα εἶχεν, 
ἔβαλεν, ὅλον τὸν βίον αὑτῆς, But she of her want did cast in all 
she had, even all her living.) Or, all that she had to live 


CHAPTER XIII. 


235 


upon that day. Hence it appears, that a person may be | μιν, “above what he can well spare” (2 Cor. viii.2,3 See 
sometimes liberal, even in giving what he wanteth for him- | here Grotius). 


self, or being ready to expend in works of charity, ὑπὲρ déva- 


CHAPTER XIII. 


1 Anp as he went out of the temple, (is disciples 
came to him, to show him the buildings of the temple, 
Matt. xxiv. 1, and) one of his disciples saith unto him 
(in the name of the rest), Master, see what manner of 
stones and what buildings are here! 

2 And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou 
these great buildings? there shall not be left (¢o them) 
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down 
(or dissolved ). 

3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over 
against the temple, Peter and James and John and 
Andrew asked him privately (¢. e. apart, not from the 
rest of his disciples, but from the multitude, 

4 Saying,) Tell us, (Master, Luke xxi. 7) when 
shall these things be? and what shall be the sign 
when all these things shall be fulfilled ? 

5 And Jesus answering them began to say, Take 
heed lest any man deceive you: 

6 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am 
Christ ; and (by that pretence) shal] deceive many. 

7 And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of 
wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs 
be; but the end (of the polity and temple of the Jews) 
shall not be yet. 

8 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom 
against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in 
divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles : 
(all) these (things) are (only) the beginnings of sor- 
rows (to them). 

9 ¥ But take heed to yourselves: for (then) they 
shall deliver you up to councils; and in the ! syna- 
gogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought 
before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony 
against (Gr. fo) them (that the kingdom of God is come). 

10 And the gospel must first be published among 
all nations (before the end of these things). 

11 But when they shall (thus) lead you, and deli- 
ver you up (fo these rulers), * take no thought before- 
hand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate : 
but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that 


speak ye: for it is not ye that speak (from your own 
wisdom), but the Holy Ghost (who teacheth you what 
to speak). 

12 Now (at this time) the brother shall betray the 

his) brother to death, and the father the son; and 
the children shall rise up against their (believing) pa- 
rents, and shall cause them to be put to death. 

13 And ye shall be hated of all (sorts of) men for 
my name’s sake: but (yet possess your souls in patience, 
Luke xxi. 19, for) he that shall endure unto the end 
the same shall be saved ὡς of this calamity). 

14 4 But when ye shall see the abomination of de 
solation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet (ix. 27), 
standing where it ought not, (ἢ. e. the Roman army 
compassing Jerusalem, Luke xxi. 20), (let him that 
readeth understand) (that her desolation draweth near, 
ibid., and) then let them that be in Judea flee to the 
mountains (of Perea): 

15 And (then) let him that is on the housetop not 
go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take 
any thing out of his house: 

16 And let him that is in the field (and hath laid 
aside his garment) not turn back again for to take up 
his garment (7. e. let not your regard for your clothes, or 
goods, cause you to delay your flight, but do it with your 
utmost expedition). 

17 But woe to them that are with child, and to 
them that give suck in those days (of vengeance, Luke 
xxi. 22, and so are not in a condition to fly from it)! 

18 And 3 pray ye that your flight be not in the 
winter (when the ways be scarce passable). 

19 For in those days shall he affliction, (even) such 
as was not from the beginning of the creation which 
God created unto this time, neither shall be (aflerward, 
so that ye cannot hope to escape without hazard). 

20 And except that the Lord had shortened those 
days, no flesh should be saved: but 4 for the elect’s 
(i. ε. the Christians’) sake, whom he hath chosen (out 
of the world,) he hath shortened the (se) days (of ven- 
geance). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


1Ver. 9. Kai εἰς συναγωγὰς δαρήσεσϑε, And ye shall be 
beaten in the synagogues,] It is certain, both from the scrip- 
tures and the Towns writers, that whipping and the rebels’ 
beating were punishments used in the synagogues of the Jews. 
Thus Paul saith, he punished the Christians κατὰ πάσας τὰς 
συναγωγὰς, “ throughout all the synagogues,” Acts xxvi. 11, 
and that he did “ beat in the synagogues those that believed,” 
xxii.19. And that it was usual to whip both their wise men 
and their disciples, when they had done perversely in their 
synagogues, is fully proved by Campegius Vitringa de Synag. 
Vet. lib. iii. cap. 11. 

2 Ver. 11. Μὴ προμεριμνᾶτε τί λαλήσητε, μηδὲ μελετᾶτε" οὐ 
γάρ ἔστε ὑμεῖς οἱ λαλοῦντες, ἀλλὰ τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, But when 
they shall lead you (before) and deliver you up (to these 
tulers, ver. 9), take no thought δὲ what you shall 
speak, neither do ye Peeeaet tate ; but whatsoever shall be 
given you in that hour, that speak ye ; for Iwill give you a 
mouth and wisdom, which all. your adversaries shall not be 
able to gainsay, Luke xxi. 14, 15.] From these two places col- 
lated together, it is evident (1.) that this promise is peculiar to 
the apostles, to whom alone Christ here discourseth : and (2.) 
that it belongs to them alone, when they were brought be- 
fore kings and rulers, to plead the cause of Christ, and leave 


before them a testimony of the truth of it (Matt. x. 18) ; 
and therefore there can be nothing more ridiculous than the 
quakers applying this to their extemporary effusions, their 
senseless prayers and harangues: of which it cannot, without 
blasphemy, be said, “It is not you that speak, but the Holy 
Ghost speaketh in you;” seeing, if so, all their foolish and 
ignorant harangues must be as sacred, and as worthy to be 
preserved, as the inspired scriptures (see Examen Milli). 

Ver. 14. Τὸ fnSiv ὑπὸ Δανιὴλ προφήτου. This reading is 
vindicated, Examen Milli, in locum. 

3 Ver. 18. Προσεὔύχεσθε δὲ ἵνα μὴ γένηται ἡ φυγὴ ὑμῶν xe 
μῶνος, Pray therefore that your flight may not be in the 
winter.| Hence it seems plain, that even when tribulations 
come by the decree of God, the circumstances of them may 
be mitigated by our prayers (sce the note on Matt. xxiv. 10. 
See Examen Milli). 

4 Ver. 20. ᾿Αλλὰ διὰ τοῦς ἐκλεκτοὺς os ἐξελέξατο, ἐκολύβωσε 
τὰς ἡμέρας, But for his elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen (out 
of the world), he hath shortened those days.] That in the 
New Testament all Christians called to the knowledge and 
belief of the faith are styled the elect, as being γένος ἐκλεκτὸν, 
“a chosen generation,” see the note on 1 Pet. ii. 9. These 
are the elect our Saviour speaks of, when he saith, « Many 
are called, but few are chosen,” Matt. xx. 16, and “ Shall he 
not hear his elect, which cry unto him day and night?” Luke 


236 


21 And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here 
is Christ; or, lo, he zs there; believe him not: 

22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, 
and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if (it 
were) possible (or 2f they can), even the elect. 

23 But (therefore) take ye heed: behold, I have fore- 
told you all (these) things. 

24 4 But in those days, after the tribulation (of 
which I have spoken), the sun shall be darkened, and 
the moon shall not give her light, : 

25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers 
that are in (or the hosts of ) heaven shall be shaken 
(ἡ. ε. the dissolution of their government in church and state 
by the zealots, shall be a sign of their approaching ruin, 
Luke xxi. 25). 

26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming 
in the clouds with great power and glory (μετὰ δυνά- 
Meas πολλῆς καὶ δόξης, with a great and glorious host, 
viz. the Roman army). 

27 And then shall he send his angels (the messengers 
of the gospel), and (they) shall gather together his elect 
(among the gentiles) from the four winds, from the ut- 
termost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven 
(2. e. from one end of the earth to the other). 

28 Now learn a parable of (from) the fig tree; 
(For) when her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth 
leaves, ye know that summer is near: 


MARK. 


29 So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these 
things come to pass, know that it (viz. the desolation I 
speak of ) is nigh, even at the doors. 

30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall 
not pass (away), till all these things be done. 

31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my 
words shall not pass away (unperformed ). 

32 45 But of that day and ¢hat hour knoweth no 
man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither 
the Son (who hath the Spirit without measure), but the 
Father (only). 

33 Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not 
when the time is (to be). 

34 For the Son of man is [these words are not in 
the original, and so this verse may begin thus:| (And in 
this exhortation to watch, Iam) as a man taking a far 
journey, who left his house (Gr. as a travelling man 
leaving his house), and gave (Gr. giving) authority to 
his servants, and to every man his work, and (who) 
commanded the porter (as I do you) to watch. 

35 Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the 
master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, 
or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: 

36 Lest coming suddenly, he find you sleeping (and 
therefore unprepared for his advent). 

37 And what I say unto you I say unto all (my dis- 
ciples, 7. e.) Watch. 


xviii. 7. And this was also the phraseology of the primitive 
Christians: thus Clemens* tells the Corinthians, that their 
sedition was ἀλλοτρία καὶ ξένη τοῖς ἐκλεκτοῖς τοῦ Θεοῦ, “alien 
from, and strange to the elect of God ;” and exhorts them to 
come to God with holy souls, lifting up pure hands to him, 
and loving our kind and merciful Father, ὃς ἡμᾶς ἐκλογῆς μέρος 
ἐποίησεν ἑαυτῷ, “who hath made us a part of his election.” 
Ignatiust writes to the church of Ephesus, ἐκλελεγμένη, 
“elected ;” and the author of the Martyrdom of Polycarp 
saith, the common people admired the difference there wast 
peratd τῶν ἀπίστων καὶ τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν, “betwixt the heathens 
and the Christians :” and among the aphorisms of the apostle 
this is one, ἐὰν ἐκλεκτοῦ ὁ γείτων ἁμαρτήση ἥμαρτεν ὃ ἐκλεκτὸς, 
«Tf the neighbour of a Christian hath sinned, he hath sinned 
also.” 

5 Ver. 32. Περὶ δὲ τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης καὶ τῆς ὥρας οὐδεὶς οἶδεν, 
οὐδὲ οἱ ἄγγελοι, οὐδὲ ὃ υἱὸς, εἰ μὴ ὃ πατὴρ. But of that day 
and hour knoweth no man, neither the angels which are 
in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father. att. xxiv. 36, 
but my Father only.) 1 dare not here say with St. Ambrose, 
lib. v. de Fide, cap. 8, that these words were added by the 
Arians, seeing I find them owned by Ireneus, lib. ii. cap. 
48, and by Origen, in Matt. hom. 30, f.64,A. But for ex- 
plication of them, note, 

First, That these words περὶ δὲ τῆς ὥρας éxetvns, “of that 
day and hour,” may refer, not to the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, but, as the fathers generally thought to the immediate 
precedent words, “heaven and earth shall pass away,” but 
of that day and hour when they shall pass away, none know- 
eth but the Father. Note, 

Secondly, That 6 vids here is Christ, considered as a 
prophet sent into the world to reveal his Father’s will; 
and therefore as delivering to the world not what the Aéyos 
knew or taught, but what the Spirit of God revealed to 
him, according to his frequent declarations concerning him- 
self, that “he spake nothing of himself, but the Father 
which sent him gave him commandment what he should say 
and what he should speak,” John xii. 49 ; « My doctrine is 
not mine, but his that sent me,” vii. 16; “The word which 
I speak, I speak not of myself, but the Father which abideth 
in me,” xiv. 10; “The Father loveth the Son, and showeth 
him all that he doth,” John v. 20, which by the Baptist 
seems to be expounded thus, “He that is of God speaketh 
the words of God: for the Father giveth not him the Spirit 
by measure: for the Father loveth the Son, and hath put all 


Tt Sect. 1. 


* Sect. 16, + Sect. 29. 


things (relating to the revelation of his will) into his hands,” 
(John iii. 34, 35). Though therefore he revealed this doc- 
trine as “the Son of man,” as the nature of the prophetic 
office absolutely required, yet he is placed here, as to his 
knowledge of the mind of God, deservedly above the angels, 
as being by this Spirit residing in him without measure, more 
fully acquainted with the mind of God than they; and yet, 
saith he, “the knowledge of this day and hour” being no 
part of my prophetic office, even I, “the Son of man,” 
know it not; it being one of “ those times and seasons which 
the Father hath put in his own power” (Actsi.7). Excellent 
to this purpose are the words of Dr. Lightfoot on this place : 
“(1.) It is one thing to understand the Son of God barely 
and abstractly for the second person in the Holy Trinity ; 
another to understand him for the Messias, or the second 
person incarnate. To say that the second person in the 
Trinity knows not something is blasphemous; to say so 
of the Messias is not so, who nevertheless was the same 
with the second person in the Trinity. For although the 
second person abstractly considered, according to his mere 
Deity, was coequal with the Father, co-omnipotent, co- 
omniscient, co-eternal with him, &c. yet Messias, who was 
God-man, considered as Messias, was a servant, and a mes- 
senger of the Father, and received commands and authority 
from the Father: and those expressions, ‘The Son can do 
nothing of himself,” &c. will not in the least serve the 
Arians’ turn, if you take them in this sense, which you must 
necessarily do; Messias can do nothing of himself, because 
he is a servant and a deputy. (2.) We must distinguish be- 
tween the excellences and perfections of Christ, which flowed 
from the hypostatical union of the two natures, and those 
which flowed from the donation and anointing of the Holy 
Spirit. From the hypostatical union of the natures flowed 
the infinite dignity of his person, his impeccability, his in- 
finite self-sufficiency to perform the law and satisfy the 
divine justice. From the anointing of the Spirit, flowed his 
power of miracles, his foreknowledge of things to come, and 
all kind of knowledge of evangelic mysteries: those rendered 
him a fit and perfect redeemer, these a fit and perfect minis- 
ter of the gospel.” 

Now, therefore, the foreknowledge of things to come of 
which the discourse here is, is to be numbered among 
those things which flowed from the anointing of the Holy 
Ghost, and from his immediate revelation; not from the 
hypostatic union of the natures; so that those things which 
were revealed by Christ to his church he had them from the 
revelation of the Spirit, not from that union. Nor is it 


CHAPTER XIV. 


any derogation or detraction from the dignity of his person, 
that he saith, “δ knew not that day and hour of the de- 
struction of Jerusalem :” yea, it excellently agrees with his 
office and deputation, who being the Father's servant, mes- 


237 


senger, and minister, followed the orders of the Father and 
obeyed him in all things. 

See another answer to this objection, Tract. de vera Christi 
Deitate, p. 124, 125. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


1 Arver two days was the feast of the passover, 
and of unleavened bread: and (then) the chief priests 
and the scribes sought how they might take him by 
craft, and put Aim to death. 

2 But they said, (Let) not (this be done) on the feast 
day, \est there be an uproar of the people. 

3 4 And (/e) beingin Bethany in the house of Simon 
(formerly) the leper, as he sat at meat, ' there came a 
woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spike- 
nard very precious; and she brake (or shook) the box 
(of ointment), and (then) poured zt on his head. 

4 And there were some that had indignation within 
themselves (at this which the woman had done), and said, 
Why was this waste of the ointment made ? 

5 For it might have been sold for more than three 
hundred pence, and (the money might) have been given 
to the poor. And they murmured against her. 

6 And (but) Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble 
ye her (without cause)? she hath (in doing this) 
ie a good work on me. 

7 For ye have the poor (for whom ye pretend so 
much kindness) with you always, and whensoever ye 
will ye may do them good: but me ye have not al- 
ways (my departure from you being at hand, which will 
_ off all farther opportunity of showing kindness to my 

y)- : 

8 She hath done what she could ((o testify her affec- 
tion to me: for) she is come aforehand to anoint my 
body (in order) to the burying (of it; nor shall her cha- 
rity be lost ; for) 

9 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel 
shall be preached (as 7 assure you it will be) through- 
out the whole world, th?s also that she hath done shall 
be spoken of for a memorial of her. 

10 7 And (then) Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, 
went unto the chief priests, to betray him unto them. 

11 And when they heard it, they were glad, and 
promised to give him money (for so doing, covenanting 
with him for thirty shekels). And ayn this promise) 
he sought how he might conveniently betray him. 

12 1 And (on) the first day of unleavened bread, 
when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto 
him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare (fur 
thee), that thou mayest eat the passover ? 


13 And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and 
saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and (when you 
are come into it) there shall meet you a man bearing a 
pitcher of water: follow him. 

14 And wheresoever he shall go in (go ye in after 
him, and) say ye to the goodman (the Leet of the 
house, The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, 
where I shall (may) eat the passover with my disci- 

les? 
᾿ 15 And he will shew you a large upper room fur- 
nished and prepared (Gr. a great upper room strewed, 
ready to reccive guests): there (shall ye) make ready 
for us. 

16 And his disciples went forth (from Bethany, 
ver. 3), and came into the city, and found as he had 
said unto them: and they made ready the passover. 

17 And in the evening he cometh with the twelve 
(to eat of it). 

18 And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily 
T say unto you, One of you which eateth with me (at 
the table) shall betray me. 

19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto 
him one by one (severally), Is it 1? and another said, 
Is it I? 

20 And he answered and said unto them, Jf zs one 
of the twelve, (he) that (now) dippeth with me in the 
dish (Matt. xxvi. 23). 

21 (Vow) the Son of man indeed goeth (to suffer), 
as it is written of him: but (yet) woe to that man by 
whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for 
that man if he had never been born (at being better not 
to be, than to be miserable for ever). 

22 4 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and 
blessed (zt), and brake (zt), and gave ({{) to them, and 
said, Take, eat: this is my body (given for you). 

23 And he took the cup, and when he had given 
thanks (over it), he gave 7t to them: and they all 
drank of it. 

24 And he said unto them, This is (the memorial of ) 
my blood (that blood) of the new testament (or coves 
nant), which is shed for many. 

25 Verily I say unto you, * I will drink no more of 
the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new 
in the kingdom of God (¢. e. till afler my resurrection). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV. 

1 Ver. 3. Ἦλθε γυνὴ ἔχουσα ἀλάβαστρον μύρου, vapdov mo- 
τικῆς πολυτελοῦς" καὶ συντρίψασα τὸ ἀλάβαστρον, κατέχεεν αὐτοῦ 
κατὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς, There came a woman having an alabaster 
bos of ointment of spikenard, very precious ; and she brake 
the box, and poured it upon his head.] Either the πιστικὴ 
answers to the Syriac pistica, and then it may be rendered 
nardus spicata, or “ ointment made of the spikes of nard ;” 
or, if it be a Greek original, I think Theophylact well ren- 
ders it, πιστικὴ i) ἄδολος καὶ μετὰ πίστεως KarackevasSeica, 
that is,* “nard unadulterated, and faithfully prepared ;” 
the great price it carried, tempting many to adulterate it, as 
Dioscorides and Pliny tell us, according to these words of 
Vadianus,t Dignum autem cognitu quod, lib. xiii., Plinius 
tradit, viz. novem herbarum species esse que nardum imi- 
tentur, et adulterent. Unde intelligimus in tanta fraudis 
materia usum loquendi obtinuisse, ut ‘ pistica’ nardus dice- 


* St. Jerome on Matt. xxvi—Verum et sine dolo, “ unso- 
phisticated nard.” 
t Epist. de Insulis Maris Mediter. p. 476, 477. 


retur, que sincera et absque vitio esset, ἀπὸ τῆς πίστεως, ἃ 
fide, et plané ἄδολος, hoc est germana et nulla arte vitiata. 
Moreover, it is the conjecture of Dr. Hammond, that ow- 
τρίψασα here signifies, not to break the alabaster, that being 
not easily done, but to shake it, to liquefy the ointment, and 
make it fitter to run out; the old glossary rendering cvv- 
τρίβω, conquatio. Now Mr. Clerc owns that the word doth 
not always signify to break; but when the discourse is 
about a vessel that may be broken, he saith it must so sig- 
nify ; as if a vessel might not be shaken as well as broken; 
or the vessel might not be put for the ointment in it, it 
being that which was poured out on Christ’s head; or else 
the vessel might be only broken as we break a flask, by 
striking off the head of it, and then we may easily perceive 
how, after it was thus broken, the ointment might be poured 
on his head. 

2 Ver. 25. Οὐκέτι οὐ μὴ πίω ἐκ τοῦ γεννήματος τῆς ἀμπέλου, 
ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης, ὅταν αὐτὸ πίνω καινὸν ἐν τὴ βασιλείᾳ Θεοῦ" 
pik ys I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, till the 
day that I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God.) 
Hence we may argue thus against the doctrine of transub 


238 


26 4 And when they had sung an 3 hymn, they 
went out into the mount of Olives. 

27 And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be of- 
fended because of (or scandalized in) me this night: 
for (it will be as) it is written (Zech. xiii. 7), 1 will 
smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. 

28 But after that I am risen, I will go before you 
into Galilee. 

29 But Peter said unto him, Although all shall be 
offended (at thy passion), yet will not I (be offended). 

30 And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto 
thee, That this day, even in this night, before the 
cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. 

31 But he spake the more vehemently, If I should 
die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Like- 
wise also said they all. 

32 And they came to a place which was named 
Gethsemane : and he said to his disciples, Sit ye here, 
while I shall pray. 

33 And he taketh with him Peter and James and 
John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very 
heavy ; 


MARK. 


34 And (fe) saith unto them, My soul is exceeding 
sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch. 

35 And he went forward a little, and fell on the 
ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour 
(of his present temptation) might pass from him. 

36 And he said, Abba, (that zs) Father, all things 
are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: 
nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt (be 
done). 

37 And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and 
saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? (after all thy 
confidence) couldest not thou watch one hour? 

38. Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into tempta- 
tion. (For) the spirit truly is (may be) ready (to make 
good resolutions), but the flesh 7s weak (and so unable to 
perform them, without that divine assistance which is to be 
obtained by prayer, and improved by vigilance). 

39 And again he went away, and prayed, and spake 
the same words. 

40 And when he returned, he found them asleep 
again, (for their eyes were heavy,) neither wist they 
what to answer him. 


stantiation : that which after consecration remains “ the fruit 
of the vine,” is not substantially changed into the blood of 
Christ; therefore that which Christ gave the apostles to 
drink was not substantially changed into his blood: the 
consequence is evident, because Christ calls that which he 
gave them to drink, “the fruit of the vine;” for that Christ 
spake this after the consecration of the elements, St. Mat- 
thew and Mark unanimously testify; nor doth St. Luke 
contradict them, but only saith, our Lord spake this also 
after the giving of the paschal cup. Nor can St. Matthew 
or St. Mark be understood of any cup, but of that which 
they only mention; now they make mention only of the 
cup given at the eucharist, and therefore can be only under- 
stood of that. Hence doth the Romish catechism inform us, 
that from these words, “TI will not drink of the fruit of the 
vine,” the catholic church hath always taught that our Lord 
used wine in the institution of this sacrament; which yet 
she could not teach from these words, unless they were 
spoken of the sacramental cup, seeing the accidents of wine, 
without the subject, cannot be called “the fruit of the vine.” 
And seeing wine is styled αἷμα σταφυλῆς, the blood of the 
grape,” Deut. xxxii. 14, and by the heathens αἷμα βοτρύων, 
Achill. Tatius, lib. ii, why may it not by a like metaphor 
be styled Christ’s blood? Moreover, the ancient fathers 
from these words confuted the heresy of the Encratite, or 
Aquarians, who consecrated only water at the celebration of 
the sacrament; declaring that by these words our Saviour 
showed the thing, which had been blessed, was wine, and 
therefore was carnis potus, “the drink of the flesh,” saith 
Treneus. Now had not the sacramental cup after the con- 
secration remained wine, this argument could have no force, 
since then the orthodox could no more have drank it in the 
eucharist than the Aquarii (see Iren. lib. v. cap. 33, Clem. 
Alex. Padag. lib. ii. cap. 2, p. 158, Chrysost. Hom. in Matt. 
xxvi. p. 511, Theodoret. dial. 1, p. 17, 18, and many others 
cited by Albert. 1. de Euch. cap. 17, p. 112). 

The following words, “Till I drink it new with you in the 
kingdom of God,” are by St. Luke thus varied, «Till the 
kingdom of God come” (xxii. 18), or “until it be fulfilled 
in the kingdom of God;” and therefore only seem to sig- 
nify “till I rise again from the dead ;” for the kingdom of 
God here, and the kingdom of the Father in St. Matthew, 
being certainly the same, viz. the kingdom and the power 
given to Christ, the exercise of his kingly office being given 
to him of the Father, when one of these is come, the other 
must be come also. Now (1.) Christ calling the Jews to re- 
pentance, because “the kingdom of God is near” (Mark i. 
15), upbraiding the scribes and pharisees because they suf- 
fered publicans and harlots to enter into the kingdom of 
God before them (Matt. xxi. 31), and threatening that the 
kingdom of God should be taken from them and given to 
other nations: Matt, xxi. 43. (2.) The Jews expecting 
then the kingdom of God (Mark xv. 43), and thinking it 
should suddenly appear (Luke xix, 11), and inquiring of 


him when it should come (Luke xvii. 20), and speaking of 
eating bread with him in it (Luke xiv. 15), and wishing 
prosperity to it as then coming: Mark xi. 10. (3.) Christ 
having told them that the kingdom of God was near (Luke 
xi. 2, 20), that it was to come to them (Matt. xii. 28), that 
it was among them (Luke xvii. 21), that some of them 
should not die till they saw the Son of man coming in his 
kingdom (Matt. xvi. 28), that is, till they saw the king- 
dom of God (Luke ix. 27), till they saw the kingdom 
of God come with power (Mark ix. 1); and having spoken 
so many parables relating to this kingdom of God, or state 
of the gospel (Mark iv. 30, Luke xiii. 18. 20): and, lastly, 
the doctrine which he preached being the gospel of the king- 
dom of God (Mark i. 14), the word of the kingdom (Matt. 
xiii. 19), the mystery of the kingdom of God (Mark iv. 11), 
the preaching of it being the preaching of the kingdom of 
God (Luke iv. 43, viii. 1, ix. 2. 11. 60, xvi. 16): Christ 
also after his resurrection speaking to his apostles of the 
things relating to the kingdom of God (Acts i, 3), and they 
preaching to others the things belonging to the kingdom of 
God (Acts viii. 12, xix. 8, xx. 25, xxvill. 23. 31), exhorting 
their hearers to enter into the kingdom of God (Acts xiv. 
22), and telling believers they were translated into the king- 
dom of God (Col. i. 13): on these accounts, I say, I cannot 
think this kingdom of God should signify heaven, or the 
happiness then and there to be enjoyed, but rather the gos- 
pel-state, and the kingdom of Christ erected at his resurrec- 
tion, and more completely begun when “he sat down at the 
right hand of power,” and was made “heir of all things.” 
To “drink this wine new,” is, by the interpretation of St. 
Luke, to do it “when it was fulfilled in the kingdom of 
God,’ v. g. when “ Christ our passover was sacrificed for us” 
(1 Cor. v. 7), and when that “blood of the new covenant,” 
which was represented by the wine, was actually shed, anda 
new feast was instituted in commemoration of it. And if 
you yet inquire, when did Christ thus drink this wine with 
them? 1 answer, he did it, not so much by “eating and 
drinking with his disciples after he arose from the dead” 
(Acts x. 41), for that drinking could have no relation either 
to the paschal or the sacramental cup; as by fulfilling the 
promise made to them, Luke xxii. 29, 30, “I dispose to you 
a kingdom as my Father hath done to me; and ye shall eat 
and drink with me at my table in my kingdom:” for in 
what sense soever they are here said “to drink with him at 
his table,” he also must be said to drink with them. 

3 Ver. 26. Ὑμνήσαντες, And when they had sung a hymn 
they went forth.| The evangelist may well be supposed to 
intend such a hymn as was customarily sung at the passover: 
for if Christ had begun a new and unusual hymn, his disci- 
ples could not have told how to sing with him: now the 
usual hymn sung on the night of the passover began at Ps. 
exili., and ended at Ps. cxviii., in which hymns, as the Jews 
observe, are mentioned, “the sorrows of the Messiah, and 
the resurrection of the dead” (so Dr. Lightfoot). 


CHAPTER XIV. 


41 And he cometh the third time, and saith unto 
them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: it is enough 
(ἀπέχει, the time of watching is now past), the hour is 
come ἴω which I shall be apprehended); behold, the 
Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 

42 Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is 
at hand. 

43 4 And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh 
Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great multi- 
tude with swords and staves, from the chief priests 
and the scribes and the elders. 

44 And he that betrayed him had given them a token, 
saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; 
‘take him, and lead Aim away safely. 

45 And as soon as he was come, he goeth straight- 
way to him, and saith, Master, master; and kissed 
him. 

46 4 And (then) they Jaid their hands on him, and 
took him. 

47 And δ one of them that stood by (namely, Peter) 
drew a sword, and smote a servant of the high priest, 
and cut off his ear. 

48 And Jesus answered (¢. e. spake with relation to 
their manner of coming thus to apprehend him) and said 
unto them, Are ye come out, as against a thief, with 
swords and wth staves to take me? 

49 I was daily with you in the temple teaching, 
and (then) ye took me not: but (now ye are permiited 
to do tt, because) the scriptures (which foretold my suffer- 
ings) must be fulfilled. 

50 And (having said this) they (who were with him) 
all forsook him, and fled. 

51 And there followed him a certain § young man, 
haying a linen cloth cast about Ais naked body; and 
the young men laid hold on him: 

52 And he left the linen cloth (in their hands), and 
fled from them naked. 


239 


53 J And they led Jesus away to the? high priest : 
and with him were assembled all the chief priests and 
the elders and the scribes. 

54 And Peter followed him afar off, even into the 
palace of the high priest: and he sat with the servants, 
and warmed himself at the fire. 

55 And the chief priests and all the council ὃ sought 
for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and 
(but) found none (that could testify any thing capital 
against him). 

56 For many bare false witness against him, but 
their witness agreed not together (Gr. their testimony 
was nol sufficient to render him guilty of death). 

57 And there arose certain (men), and bare false 
witness against him, saying, 

58 We heard him say, 1 will destroy this temple 
that is made with hands, and within three days I will 
build another made without hands. 

59 But neither so did their witness agree together 
(i. e. their testimony did not amount to a capital 
crime). 

60 And the high priest stood up in the midst, and 
asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what 
is it (of no concern) which these (men) witness against 
thee? 

61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. 
Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, 
Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed (God) ? 

62 And Jesus said, °I am: and (within a while, 
Mark xxvi. 64) ye shall see the Son of man sitting on 
the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of 
heaven. 

63 Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, 
What need we any further witnesses ? 

64 Ye have heard the blasphemy (he now speaks): 
what think ye? And they all condemned him to be 
guilty of death (for zt). 


Ver. 41. ᾿Απέχει, Sat est, It is enough.) Though this 
sense of the word be something rare, and Stephanus himself 
could only produce one instance of it, viz. these words of 
Anacreon, ἀπέχει βλέπω αὐτὴν, Sufficit jam video eam ; yet 
all will not seem so strange, if we consider, that in effect it 
bears the ordinary sense of abstaining in both places; for 
here it is the same with, “ You may abstain from watching 
any longer:” and in Anacreon it signifies, “The painter, 
now I see her, may abstain from making any picture of her.” 
He that would see more instances of the use of the word in 
this sense, may consult the notes of Gataker on Antoninus, 
lib. iv. §. 49, p. 178. 
me the text vindicated, ver. 19, 70. See Examen Millii, 
ibid. 

4 Ver. 44. Κρατήσατε αὐτὸν, Hold him fast, and lead him 
away securely.) It is probable that Judas thought they 
could not do this, but that as Jesus had at other times con- 
veyed himself from the multitude, when they attempted to 
cast him down a precipice (Luke iv. 30), or to stone him 
(John viii. 59, x. 39), so he would have done now. And 
when he found that he did not rescue himself, “ he repented, 
and went and hanged himself” (Matt. xxvii. 5). 

5 Ver. 47. Els δέ τις τῶν παρεστηκότων σπασάμενος τὴν μᾶχαι- 
ραν, And one that stood by drew α διυογα.] viz. Simon Peter, 
John xviii. 10. Hence, saith Beza, the ancients may be 
confuted, who with so great consent say that Mark writ 
this gospel from the mouth of Peter, for why should Peter 
deny his name, who speaks so fully of his denial of his 
Lord? I answer, so doth St. Matthew and St. Luke speak 
as plainly of his denial, and yet both conceal his name who 
drew the sword. (2 The ancients only say that Mark wrote 
his gospel at the desire of others, “ Peter neither forbidding 
nor commanding it to be done ;” and that it being done, he 
did κυρῶσαι τὴν γραφὴν eis ἔντευξιν ταῖς ἐκκλησίας, “ confirm 
the reading it in the church” (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. 
cap. 15. lib. vi. cap. 14). 

6 Ver. 51. Kai els τις νεανίσκος ἠκολούθει αὐτῷ, And there 
followed him a certain young man.] Epiphanius and St. 


Jerome think this young man was James the brother of our 
Lord; but he had «forsook him, and fled” (ver. 50), and 
we read nothing of his return, St. Chrysostom, Ambrose, 
and Gregory say he was John; but John was with Christ 
in the garden clothed (ver. 33), and afterward fled from him 
(ver. 50). How then can it be like he should fly naked 
away? Note also that those words, “he fled away naked,” 
need not be so understood as if he had no garment, but 
only so, as that he had a linen garment left. And so Dio- 
nysius Alexandrinus saith of himself ἤμην γυμνὸς ἐν τῷ Awd 
ἐσθήματι, “1 was naked, having only a linen garment” 
(epnd Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. 40, see the note on 
ohn xxi. 7). 

7 Ver. 53. Kai ἀπήγαγον αὐτὸν πρὸς τὸν ἀρχιερέα, And they 
brought him to the high-priest,) Thatis, to Caiaphas (Matt. 
xxvi. 57) ; for though it be evident from John xviii. 13, 14, 
that he was first brought to Annas, yet, because there was 
nothing done to him there, and he seems only to be detained 
there till the council met at the house of Caiaphas was ready 
for him, the other evangelists pass that over in silence. 

8 Ver. 55, 56. ᾿Εζήτουν κατὰ τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ μαρτυρίαν, cis τό 
ϑανατῶσαι αὐτὸν, καὶ οὐχ εὕρισκον. Πολλοὶ γὰρ ἐψευδομαρτύρουν 
κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ" καὶ ἴσαι at μαρτυρίαι οὐκ ἦσαν, They sought for wit 
ness against him to put him to death; and found none. 
For many bare false witness against him, but their witness 
agreed not together.] If they had many false witnesses, it 
cannot be true that they found no witness against him. 
This latter clause therefore, and the like, ver. 59, should be 
rendered, “Their testimonies were not equal,” viz. to the 
charge laid against him, that he was worthy to die ; or they 
were not sufficient, εἰς τὸ Savardga αὐτὸν, to cause him to 
be put to death, either not testifying two of the same thing, 
or else not charging him with a crime that deserved death 
by the law. For a vain-glorious boast of destroying the tem- 
ple could not be capital, especially being attended with a 
promise of rebuilding it in three days, 

8 Ver. 62. Ἐγώ εἰμι" I am he.] The answer, Matt. xxvi. 
62, σὺ εἶπας, i. 6. “I am what thou hast said,” is the sama; 


240 


65 And (then) some began to spit on him, and to 
cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, 
Prophesy (who it is that smites thee): and the (very) 
servants did strike him with the palms of their 
hands. 

66 4 And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there 
cometh one of the maids of the high priest : 

67 And when she saw Peter warming himself, she 
looked upon him, and said, And thou also wast with 
Jesus of Nazareth. 

68 But he denied (2), saying, I know not (the 
man), neither understand I what thou sayest. And 
he went out into the porch; and the cock crew. 


69 And a maid saw him again, and began to say to) 


MARK. 


them that stood by (what one of them said to him), This 
is one of them (that were with Jesus). 

70 And he denied it again. And a little after, they 
that stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one 
of them: for thou art a Galilean, and thy speech 
agreeth therelo (or, is like those of Galilee). 

71 But he (upon this) began to (imprecate a) curse 
(upon himself) and to swear, saying (with an oath), I 
know not this man of whom ye speak. 

72 And (then) the second time the cock crew. And 
Peter (upon that) called to mind the word that Jesus 
said unto him, (viz.) Before the cock crow twice, thou 
shalt deny me thrice. And when he 10 thought thereon, 
(rushing forth from the company) he wept (bitterly). 


for these two phrases are of equal import in the Hebrew 
idiom: so that we need not here St. Austin’s subtlety, viz. 
Non ego dico, sed tu ais. 

10 Ver. 72. Kai ἐπιβαλὼν, ἔκλαιε, And when he thought 
thereon, he wept.] I think this reading may be maintained ; 
for though Casaubon gave no instance of this signification 
of the word, Constantine proves out of Philoponus, Diony- 
sius, and St. Basil, that it signifies κατανοεῖν, mente agitare, 
to consider of, and ponder, or fix the mind upon a thing. 
So Eustathius says ἔπιβάλλει γοῦν τις νοήματι, ἢ ἔργῳ, ἤγουν 
ἠκριβωμένῶς ἐγχειρεῖ, καὶ ἐπιτυχῶς νοεῖ" “The word ἐπιβάλλω 
respects either the action, and then it signifies exactly to take 
it in hand; or the mind, and then it signifies to consider of 
it as we are able;” or, as Phavorinus interprets it, ἐπιβύλως 
νοεῖν, “aptly and wisely to consider of it.” So again, ἐπιβάλ- 
λει τις, Saith Phavorinus, ἐπιτιθεὶς, ἢ νοῶν, ἐπιβάλλει οὖν τις 
νοήματι, Scc. ἐπιβάλλεσϑαι, ἐπιϑυμεῖν, ἐπιβαλλόμενος, ἐπιϑυμῶν, 
i.e, “the word signifies to think upon, or consider of a 
thing ;” and Theophylact here renders it évvéncas: and this 
is sufficient to justify our own translation, that Peter, re- 
membering what our Saviour had foretold concerning his 


denial, and considering how exactly, but shamefully (after 
all his confident engagements to the contrary), he had ful- 
filled the same, was filled with the compunction, and wept 
bitterly. (2). Whereas the other evangelists say, ἐξελϑῶν ἔξω, 
“he went forth, and wept there ;” there is another exposi- 
tion of the word ἐπιβαλὼν, which makes it agree with them, 
and that is, projiciens se foras, “rushing out from the com- 
pany,” or “casting himself out,” he wept: and plain it is, 
that in the book of Maccabees it often signifies irruens, or 
se projiciens; as when Gorgias attempted ἐπιβαλεῖν εἰς τὴν 
παρεμβολὴν, projicere se, “to rush in upon the camp of the 
Jews,” (1 Mace. iv. 2), and Judas, νυκτὸς ἐπίβαλὼν, “rush- 
ing upon the Jamnites by night, set fire on the haven,” 
(2 Mace. xii. 9, see also xiii. 15, xv. 1): but the most per- 
tinent instance to this purpose is in Ps. cviii. 10, where 
»Sy3 ἼΩΝ projiciam vel emittam caleeamentum meum, “I 
will cast forth my shoe,” is in the Greek, ἐπιβαλῶ τὸ ὑπόδημά 
μου. Here therefore understand only ἑαυτόν, and the sense 
will run agreeably to St. Matthew and St. Luke; “and 
casting himself forth, he wept.” 


CHAPTER XV. ' 


1 Awnp straightway in the morning the chief priests 
held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the 
whole council, and (upon that consultation, they) bound 
Jesus, and carried him away, ! and delivered him to 
Pilate. 

2 And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the 
Jews? And he answering said unto him, Thou say- 
est zt (ὦ. 6. it is as thow sayest). 

3 And the chief priests accused him of many things: 
but he answered nothing. 

4 And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest 
thou nothing? behold how many things they witness 
against thee. 

5 But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate 
marvelled. 


6 Now ? at (or after the manner of ) that feast he re- 
leased unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired. 

7 And there was one named Barabbas, which lay 
bound with them that had made insurrection with him, 
who had committed murder in the insurrection. 

8 And the multitute ° crying aloud began to de- 
sire him to do as he had ever done unto them (αὐ that 


La). 
9 But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that 1 
release unto you the King of the Jews? 

10 For he knew that the chief priests had delivered 
him for envy. 

11 But the chief priests moved the people, that 
(they would desire) 4 he should rather release Barabbas 
unto them (and they accordingly did so). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV. 


1Ver. 1. Παρέδωκαν τῷ Πιλάτω, They delivered him to 
Pilate.| Here the observation of Theophylact is this, «The 
Jews delivered up our Lord to the Romans, and they for 
that sin were themselves given up into the hands of the 
Romans.” 

2 Ver. 6. Kara δὲ ἑορτὴν ἀπέλυεν, And at the feast he deli- 
vered up to them a prisoner whomsoever they desired.| I 
conceive that ἀπέλυεν here is not put for εἰώθει ἀπολύειν 

Matt. xxvii. 15), “he was wont to deliver up,” as Mr. Le 

Slere thinks, rather κατὰ δὲ ἑορτὴν should be rendered, ad 
morem festi, or secundum morem festi, “after the manner 
of the feast;” as κατὰ ἄνθρωπον λέγω, “I speak after the man- 
ner of a man,” Rom. iii. 5, Gal. ili. 153; κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον περι- 
πατεῖν, is “to walk after the manner of men,” 1 Cor. iii. 3; 
“to fight with beasts at Ephesus κατὰ ἄνθρωπον after the 
manner of men,” 1 Cor. xv. 32. So κατὰ Θεὸν, Dei in mo- 
rem “after the example of God; and among the Attics, 


κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ, that is, κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον, “after the same 
manner.” Now the feast of the passover being celebrated 
in memory of their release from Egypt, it was agreeable to 
the nature of that feast to make this release at that time, 
and therefore customary. : 

8 Ver. 8. ᾿Αναβοήσας, Crying out.) The Vulgate and 
some MS. copies read here ἀναβάς, or ἀναβῆσας" but the 
Alexandrian copy, Theophylact, and all the eastern versions, 
reading as we do, and the thirteenth verse saying that πάλιν 
ἔκραξαν, “they cried out again,” this must pass only for 
a mistake of the copier, or of the abbreviation used by 
him. 

4 Ver. 11. But the chief priests moved the people, ἵνα 
μᾶλλον Βαραββᾶν ἀπολύσῃ αὐτοῖς, that he should rather re- 
lease Barabbas to them.] i.e. That he should release Ba- 
rabbas, and not Jesus; for their cry was this, “Not this 
man, but Barabbas,” John xviii. 40. And that the compa- 
rative μᾶλλον is often in sense negative, see the note on 1 
Tim. i. 4, so Matt. x. 5, “Go not into the way of the gen- 


CHAPTER XV. 


12 And (then) Pilate answered and said again unto 
them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him 
whom ye call the King of the Jews? 

13 And they eried out again, Crucify him. 

14 Then Pilate said unto them, Why Gers you 
this 2) what evil hath he done (to deserve this punish- 
ment)? And (but) they cried out the more exceeding- 
ly, Crucify him. 

15 ¥ And so Pilate, (being) willing to content the 

eople, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered 
ΠΕΣ when he had scourged Aim, to be crucified. 

16 And the soldiers Jed him (cmmediately) away 
into the hall called Pretorium; and they call together 
the whole band. 

17 And they clothed him with purple (the robe of 
kings), and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about 
his head, 

18 And began to salute him (saying in raillery), 
Hail, King of the Jews! 

19 And they smote him on the head with a reed, 
and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees wor- 
shipped him. 

20 And when they had (thus) mocked him, they 
took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes 
on him, and led him out to crucify him. 

21 And they compel one Simon, a Cyrenian, who 
passed by, coming out of the country, (and who was) 


241 


the father of Alexander and Rufus, (/wo celebrated 
Christians afterward, Acts xix. 33, Rom. xvi. 13) to 
bear his cross. 

22 And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, 
which is, being interpreted, The place of a scull. 

23 And (there) they gave him to drink wine min- 
gled with myrrh: but he received it not (being not 
willing, by any stupifying draughts, to allay his 

ins ). 

2 And when they had crucified him, they parted 
his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man 
should take. 

25 5 And it was the third hour, and (when) they 
crucified him. 

26 And 5 the superscription of his accusation was 
written over (λέ head thus), THe Kine or THe Jews. 

27 And with him they crucify two thieves ; the one 
on his right hand, and the other on his left. 

28 7 And (thus) the scripture was fulfilled, which 
saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. 

29 And they that passed by railed on him, wagging 
their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the 
temple, and buildest it in three days, 

30 Save thyself, and come down from the cross. 

31 Likewise also the chief priests mocking said 
among themselves with the scribes, He saved others ; 
(but) himself he cannot save. 


tiles, πορεύεσϑε μᾶλλον, but go to the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel,” ver. 6, Mark ix. 43, “It is good to go into life 
lame, μᾶλλον, and not having two hands to go to hell ;” 
Eph. iv. 28, “Let him that stole steal no more, μᾶλλον dé 
κοπιάτω, but contrariwise let him labour ;” v. 4, “Let not 
there be among you filthiness, or scurrilous speaking, μᾶλλον 
δὲ, but giving thanks” (see John xii. 43, Rom. xiv. 13, 
Eph. v. 11). ; 

Ver. 14, and Matt. xxvii. 13. Τί γάρ κακὸν ἐποίησεν 3] 
Stephanus, and other critics note, that here, and Acts xix. 
35, ris γάρ ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ; the particle yap seems redundant, 
which also our translation seems to own by not translating 
it in either of these places; yet doth it rather seem to be 
here, as elsewhere it is, a rational particle, and to have an 
elegant relation, by way of answer, to what went before. So 
when the high-priest had said of Jesus, Crucify him; 
Pilate’s answer is, “ Why should I crucify him; for what 
evil hath he done?” And in the latter place the town-clerk, 
to appease the cry of the rabble, «Great is Diana of the 
Ephesians” (ver. 28), answers, “ What needs this cry; for 
who knoweth not that the city of Ephesus is a worshipper 
of the great goddess Diana?” 

5 Ver. 25. Ἦν δὲ ὥρα τρίτη, καὶ ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτὸν, And it 
was the third hour, and they crucified him.] But St. 
John saith, “it was dpa ὥσει ἕκτη, about the sixth hour,” 
xix. 14, when even he was condemned to crucifixion. But 
then it must be observed, that the Greek MSS. produced by 
Camerarius, Beza, and R. Stephanus, read in St. John, 
ὥσει τρίτη, “about the third hour;” that Nonnus seems to 
have read so, his paraphrase running after this manner, ἣν 
δὲ τιταινομένη τριτάτη ϑανατηφόρος Gpa, “The third hour was 
not yet past ;” that Theophylact contends it ought to be so 
read, and that because the three other evangelists unani- 
mously say, that the darkness began “at the sixth hour,” 
which yet began not till after our Lord had hung upon the 
cross some considerable time; till after the soldiers had di- 
vided his garments, the Jews had mocked him, and bid him 
come down from the cross, and the discourse had passed 
between the two thieves among themselves, and betwixt the 
repenting thief and our Lord: and, lastly, the author of 
the Constantinopolitan Chronicle saith expressly, that ra 
ἀκριθὴ βίβλια αὐτό τε τὸ ἱδιόχειρον τοῦ εὐαγγελίστου ᾿Ιωαννοῦ, 
“the exacter copies, and the manuscript of St. John kept 
till his time at Ephesus, read ὥρα ὥσει τρίτη, about the third 
hour” (see St. Jerome, in Ps. Ixxvii.), And the change 
from Γ the third to s the sixth, is so easy, that this may 
very reasonably be owned in the latter copies of St. John’s 
Gospel ; especially if we consider how punctual St. Mark 

Vor. IV.—31 


is in the enumeration of the hours, saying, “It was the 
third hour, and they crucified him,” or began to lead him 
away to be crucified; and, ver. 33, “ When the sixth hour 
was come,” from that time “there was darkness over the 
whole earth till the ninth hour ;” and, ver. 34, at the ninth 
hour Jesus expired. : 

This I prefer before the exposition of some others, that 
St. John speaks of the hours according to the Roman, and 
St. Mark according to the computation of the Jews; first, 
because this alters not the difficulty, there being the same 
distance of time betwixt the Romans’ sixth, and the Jews’ 
third hour, as between the Jews’ third and their sixth, i. e. 
three hours’ difference. And, secondly, because the vulgar 
hours, by which the Romans reckoned, and the hours of the 
Jews, were the same, viz. twelve, as our Lord shows in 
these words, “Are there not twelve hours of the day?” 
John xi. 9; and Dempster in these words, Dies civilis duo- 
decim horarum (Auctu. p. 175) 5 “The civil day of the 
Romans contained twelve hours.” And, thirdly, if St. Mark, 
writing his gospel at Rome for the Romans there, retains 
the Jewish hours, we have more reason to conceive that St. 
John should do so. 

6 Ver. 26. Kai ἣν ἡ ἐπιγραφὴ τῆς αἰτίας αὐτοῦ ἐπιγεγραμ- 
μένη, And the superscription of his accusation was writ- 
ten.) This is spoken according to the manner of the Ro- 
mans, by whom the title of the crimes, for which the crimi- 
nals were condemned, were either carried before them, or 
affixed to the instrument of their punishment: thus Dio* 
speaks of a Roman servant crucified by his master, pera 
γραμμάτων τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς ϑανατώσεως δηλοῦντων, “with a writ- 
ing declaring the cause of his death.’ See of this matter 
other instances in Lipsius de Cruce, lib. ii. cap. 11, p. 
52, 53. 

7 Ver. 28. Καὶ ἐπληρώθη ἡ γραφὴ, And the scripture was 
fulfilled, which saith, Isa. 1111. 12, And he was numbered 
with the transgressors.] Seeing Abarbanel, and R. Moses 
Alshe,t testify that their rabbins did with one mouth con- 
fess that the words of this chapter were spoken “ of Messiah 
the king,” and they bring in God inquiring of the Messiah 
thus,+ “ Wilt thou heal and redeem my sons after six thou- 
sand years? Wilt thou bear chastisement to expiate their 
iniquities according to what is written, Isa. lili. 4, Surely he 
bore our griefs?”’ they cannot reasonably deny that these 


242 


32 Let Christ (who styles himself) the King of Israel 
descend now from the cross, that we may see and be- 
lieve. And they (one of them) that were crucified with 
him reviled him. 

33 And when the sixth hour was come, there 8 was 
darkness over the whole land (of Judea) until the ninth 
hour. 

34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud 
voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ? which is, 
being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou 
forsaken me ? 

35 And some of them that stood by, when they 
heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias. 

36 And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar, 
and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, 
Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take 
him down. 

37 And Jesus cried (again) with a loud voice (say- 
ing, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit), and 
(so) gave up the ghost. 

38 And (then) the veil of the temple (which parted 
the holy place from the most holy) was rent in twain 
from the top to the bottom (see paraphrase on Matt. 
xxvii. 51). 

39 7 And when the centurion, which stood over 
against him, saw that he so cried out, and (Gr. that, 


MARK. 


he so crying) err up the ghost, he said, Truly this 
man was the Son of God. 

40 There were also women looking on afar off: 
among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the 
mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome ; 

41 (Whoalso, when he was in Galilee, followed him 
(as he was teaching), and ministered unto him ;) and many 
other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem. 

42 4 And now when the even was come, because it 
was (the even of) the preparation, that is, (of) the day 
before the sabbath, 

43 Joseph of Arimatheza, an ὃ honourable counsel- 
lor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, 
and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body 
of Jesus (might be given him). 

44 And Pilate marvelled if he were (that he was) 
already dead. and calling wnto him the centurion, he 
asked him whether he had been any while dead. 

45 And when he knew it of (7. 6. the certainty from) 
the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. 

46 And he bought fine linen, and took him down, 
and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepul- 
chre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone 
unto the door of the sepulchre. 

47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of 
Joses beheld where he was laid. 


words were fulfilled by Christ's crucifixion between two 
thieves. 

8 Ver. 33. Σκότος ἐγένετο ἐφ᾽ ὅλην τὴν γῆν, There was dark- 
ness over the whole earth.) Of this darkness Africanus* 
speaks thus, τοῦτο τὸ σκότος ἔκλειψιν ἡλίου Θάλλος ἐπικαλεῖ τριτη 
τῶν ἱστοριῶν, ὥς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ ἀλόγως, “ This darkness Thallus calls 
an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his history, but 
without reason, as I conceive.” Origen{ saith, “ Phlegon 
in the fourteenth book of his Chronicles writ of the defec- 
tion of the sun under Tiberius Cesar, in whose reign it is 
manifest that our Lord suffered.” Tertullian+ saith, that 
this prodigious darkening of the sun was recorded in the 
Roman archives; “For,” saith he, “at the same moment 


about noontide the day was withdrawn, they, who knew not | 


that this was foretold concerning Christ, thought it was an 
eclipse.” And Eusebius in his Chronicle, at the eighteenth 
year of Tiberius, saith, “ Christ suffered this year. In which 


time we find in other commentaries of the heathens these | 
words, There was a defection of the sun, Bithynia was | 


shaken with an earthquake, and many houses fell down in 


the city of Nice:” and then he proceeds to the testimony | 


of Phlegon. 


* Chronogr. 
ἱ Contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 80. 
+ Apol. cap. 21. 


9 Ver. 43, Εὐσχήμων βουλευτὴς, An honourable counsel- 
lor.| That is, saith Dr. Hammond, a decurio, one of those 
who were appointed for a standing council to a Roman 
colony. But against this Mr. Le Clerc objects that he was 
Joseph of Arimathea; now, saith he, “that was never re- 
puted a Roman colony,” and therefore he conjectures he is 
here named a “ counsellor,” as being one of the greater San- 
hedrin, or of the council of the high-priest, who had a cham- 
ber in the temple, in which he consulted with the priests, 
called “the chamber of the counsellors,” saith Dr. Light- 
foot here; they who were of the council of the high-priest 
being called, saith he, βουλευταὶ, “counsellors.” And this 
is the most likely, because Arimathea was a city of Judea; 
this Joseph had a sepulchre in Jerusalem, and “ waited for 
the consolation of Israel,” which are indications rather of a 
Jew than of a Roman; and especially because it is pecu- 
liarly noted of him by St. Luke, that “he consented not to 
the council or actions of them who’ destroyed our Lord 
(xxii. 51). He therefore might have consented to them, 
being one of the Sanhedrin: hence he is introduced, John 
xix. 38, 39, with Nicodemus, who certainly was one of the 
great Sanhedrin, John iii. 1, vii. 50, doing kind offices to 
Christ; the first begging his body, that it might not be 
buried in the common burial-place of malefactors; the 
other bringing spices to embalm him, as being both disciples 
of the holy Jesus (Matt, xxvii. 57). 


CHAPTER XVL 


1 Ann when the sabbath was past, Mary Magda- 
lene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, 
(who) 'had bought sweet spices, that they might come 
and anoint (7%. 6. embalm) him (set out). 

2 And 3 very early in the morning the first day of 
the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising 
of the sun. 

3 And they said among themselves, Who shall roll 
us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre ? 

4 And when they looked, they saw that the stone 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI. 


-1Ver. 1. Ἠγόρασαν ἀρώματα, Had bought spices.) This 
translation is justified from Luke xxiii. 56, where it is said, 
They prepared these spices (before), and rested on the 
sabbath-day ; so that the aorist is here put for the perfect 
tense (see examples of like nature, note on 1 Cor. v. 9). 

2 Ver. 2. Kai λίαν πρωὶ τῆς μιᾶς τῶν σαββάτων ἔρχονται 


was ralled away: for (that which made them solicitous 
about ἐξ was, that) it was very great. 

5 And entering into the sepulchre, they saw (one in 
the shape of ) ἃ young man sitting on the right side (of 
the sepulchre), clothed in a long white garment; and 
they were affrighted (at the sight of him), 

6 And he saith unto them, Be not (ye) affrighted : 
(for) ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified : 
he is risen; he is not here: (come near, and) behold 
the place where they laid him. 


ἐπὶ τὸ μνημεῖον, Very early in the morning.) ᾿Οψὲ τῶν σαβ- 
βάτων, τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ εἰς μίαν σαββάτων, “In the end of the 
week, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the 
week,” Matt, xxviii. 1, “On the first day of the week, ὄρθρου 
βαθέος, very early in the morning,” Luke xxiv. 1, σκοτίας ἔτι 
οὔσης “ when it was yet dark,” John xx. 1, i.e. they began 
their journey to see the sepulchre, whilst it was only twilight, 
or whilst there was a mixture of light and darkness, saith St. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


7 But go your way, tell his disciples and (espe- 
cially) ὃ Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee: 
there shall ye see him, (aceording) as he said unto you. 

8 And they went out quickly, and fled from the se- 
pulchre; for they trembled and were amazed (at the 
sight) : neither said they any thing to any man (whom 
they met by the way); for they were afraid. 

ὃ 4 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day 
of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out 
of whom he had cast seven devils. 

10 And she went and told them that had been with 
him (Ais disciples), as they mourned and wept. 

11 And (buf) they, when they had heard that he 
-was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not. 

12 4 After that he appeared in another form unto 
two of them, as they walked (¢o Emmaus, Luke xxiv. 
13) and (so) went into the country. 

13 And they went and told ἐξ unto the residue: 
4 neither believed they them (see the note). 


243 


14 4 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they 
sat at meat, and δ upbraided them with their unbelief 
and hardness of heart, because they believed not them 
which had seen him after he was risen. 

15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, 
and preach the gospel to every δ creature (to all nations, 
Matt. xxviii. 19). 

16 He that believeth and is baptized 7 shall be saved 
(by his continuance in that faith, 1 Cor. xv. 2, Col. i. 
23); but he that believeth not (the gospel preached, and 
by miracles confirmed to him) shall be damned. 

17 And these § signs shall follow them that believe; 
(By virtue of that faith) in my name shall they cast out 

evils; (and) they shall speak with new tongues 
(which they had not learned) ; 

18 They shall take up serpents eaten being hurt 
by them); and if they drink any deadly thing, (the 
poison of ) it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands 
on the sick, and they shall recover. 


Matthew, ὀψέ τῶν σαββάτων, “after the end of the former 
week” (see the note there) ; they passed through the city, 
and came to the sepulchre, ἀνατειλάντος τοῦ ἡλίου, “as the sun 
began to arise.” ‘This may be illustrated from a passage 
of Agellius,* that “when two times immediately succeed 
ote another, it matters not whether we reckon from the end 
of the one, or the beginning of the other.” 

3 Ver. 7. Kai τῷ Πέτρῳ, Say to his eee and to Peter.] 
Peter is here named, not as prince of the apostles, but, as 
the fathers say, for his consolation, to take off the scruple 
which might lie upon his spirit, whether, after his threefold 
denial of his Master, he had not forfeited his right to be one 
of Christ’s disciples. So St. Gregory,t Jerome, St. Chry- 
sostom, and others. 

4 Ver. 13. Οὐδὲ ἐκείνοις ἐπίστευσαν, Nor believed they them.] 
« And (ver. 11) they believed not ;” « When he showed them 
his hands and feet, they believed not for joy,” Luke xxiv. 
41; « When they saw him,” according to his promise, in 
Galilee, “some doubted,” Matt. xxviii. 17. Hence one of 
the ancients says well, Nos de illorum dubitatione solidari, 
“Their doubting is the confirmation of our faith; and the 
more difficulty they showed in believing Christ’s resurrection, 
the greater reason have we to believe it; for the testimony 
of them who believed not themselves, till after unquestionable 
conviction, is the more credible on that account. 

5 Ver. 14. 'Queidwe τὴν ἀπιστίαν αὐτῶν, καὶ cxAnpoxapdiav, &c. 
He upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, 
that they believed not them that had seen him.] That after 
so many assurances from his own mouth, that he would “rise 
again the third day ;” and after so many eye-witnesses that 
he had performed his promise, they believed not. And, if 
this be attributed to them as culpable unbelief and “hard- 
ness of heart,’ surely they must much more be guilty of 
these sins, who—after the testimony of these apostles, and 
five hundred more eye-witnesses of his resurrection; after 
the ocular testimony of a whole world of Christians, touch- 
ing the mighty miracles performed in his name by the 
apostles, the chosen “ witnesses of his resurrection,” and by 
many others who believed it, and were baptized into this 
faith ; after so many internal and external experiments all 
Christian churches had of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, 
exercised before their eyes and their assemblies, and by them- 
selves, for a whole age together,—do yet continue to disbe- 
lieve that resurrection and the faith confirmed by it. 

6 Ver. 15. Preach the gospel, rion τῇ κτίσει, to every 
creature.] i. e. To all men ; not in opposition to, but in con- 


* Tempora duo cum inter se opposita sunt, atque ita 
coherentia, ut alterius finis cum alterius initio misceatur, 
non refert utrtiim per extremitatem prioris, an per initium 
oe locus ipse confinis demonstretur, lib. vii. cap. 

Τ Siangelus Petrum non nominAsset, venire inter discipu- 
los non auderes: vocatur ergo ex nomine ne desperet ex ne- 
gatione. Hom. 21 in Evang. 'Exeidn ἠρνήσατο 6 Πετρος, 'Theoph. 
in locum. Hieron. et Beda in Gloss. Ord. 


junction with the Jews, to whom they were first to preach 
it; for so their commission runs, viz. “'l'o preach εἰς πάντα 
τὰ ἔϑνη, to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem,” Luke xxiv. 
47 (see this more fully, note on Rom. viii. 23). 

7 Ver. 16. 'O πιστεῦσας καὶ βαπτισθεὶς, σωθήσεται" ὃ δὲ ἀπισ- 
τῆσας, κατακριθήσεται, He that believeth and is baptized 
shall he saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned.} 
He shall be saved, i. e. he shall by virtue of that faith and 
baptism be put into a state of salvation; so that, if he con- 
tinue in that faith, and do not wilfully recede from his bap- 
tismal covenant, he shall actually be saved: of which import 
of the phrases, “ salvation” and being “saved,” see note on 
Eph. ii. 8. Note also, that they who hence conclude that 
infants are not capable of baptism, because they cannot be- 
lieve, must also hence conclude they cannot be saved ; faith 
being here more expressly required to salvation than to bap- 
tism. Note, thirdly, That in the second clause baptism 1s 
omitted, because it is not simply the want of baptism, but 
the contemptuous neglect of it, which makes men guilty of 
damnation ; otherwise infants might be damned for the mis- 
takes or the profaneness of their parents. 

Β Ver. 17. Σημεῖα δὲ τοῖς πιστεύσασι ταῦτα παρακολουθήσει, 
And these signs shall follow them that believe, &c.| Of the 
casting out devils, the healing diseases, the speaking with 
new tongues, see the general preface to the Epistles, §. 17— 
19. Of the drinking of deadly poisons, I find but four in- 
stances recorded in history; that of Barsabas,* who, saith 
Papias, drank of it without hurt; that of the Cecilian sol- 
dier, mentioned by Ado in his Martyrology ; that of Sabinus, 
bishop of Canoso, mentioned by Gregory of Tours: and that 
of Joshua Ben Levi, who, having drunk a deadly poison, 
was, saith the Jewish Talmud, “cured by pronouncing the 
name of Jesus.” Of taking up serpents without hurt, 
though venomous, we find in scripture only the instance of 
St. Paul, Acts xxviii. 5, and in church history we find but 
few of any credit, though the words of Tertulliant seem to 
intimate, that “the faith of Christians not only preserved 
themselves, but helped even heathens.” And miracles of 
this nature being more liable to exceptions than those which 
were performed upon unbelievers, it being easy to imagine 
they might have some antidotes against the venom of those 
beasts, or the pernicious operations of those draughts, it 
seemed good to Providence to be more sparing in affording 
them. 

By way of appendix to this chapter, it may be noted, 
that St. Jerome hath long since told us, that “this chapter 
was rarely to be found in this gospel, and that scarce any of 
the Greek copies had 18: but notwithstanding these words 
of Jerome, it is evident, that this chapter was owned in the 


* Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 39, p. 112. 

+ Nobis fides presidium, si non et ipsa percutitur diffiden- 
tid signandi statim et adjurandi et urgendi bestiw calcem, 
héc denique modo etiam ethnicis sepé subvenimus, donati a 
Deo δᾶ potestate quam apostolus dedicavit quum morsum 
vipere sprevit. Scorp. cap. 1. 


244 


19 So then after the Lord had spoken (thus) unto 
them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the 
tight hand of God. 

20 And they went forth (after the Holy Ghost had 


times of Irenzus,* who cites the nineteenth verse of it, and 
says, that St. Mark, “in the end of his gospel, tells us that 
Christ ascended into heaven,” ἄς. The Apostolical Con- 
stitutionst cite these words, ver. 16, “He that believeth and 
is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall 
be damned.” They also fully cite the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth verses.¢ This chapter is also to be found in all the 
versions, and, as Beza testifies, in all the old MSS. Nor doth 
Theophylact, in his notes upon it, take notice of any Greek 
copies where it had been wanting. 

And as for the seeming opposition betwixt what is record- 
ed in this chapter, and in the other evangelists, which St. 
Jerome§ tells us, “was the occasion why this chapter was 
by some rejected,” I shall first enumerate them, and then 
endeavour to return a sufficient answer to them. 

Obj. 1. St: Matthew and St. Mark make mention only of 
one angel appearing to and speaking with the women which 
came to the sepulchre; whereas St. Luke and St. John 
mention two angels. 

Ans. I cannot here approve the solution of Vossius, that 
one angel only is mentioned by St. Matthew and St. Mark, be- 
cause one only spake to the women; seeing St. Luke saith 
in the plural, εἶπον πρὸς αὐτὰς, The angels said unto them,” 
xxiv. 15, St. John, λέγουσι αὐτὴ ἐκεῖνοι, “They said to Mary 
Magdalene,” xx. 13, besides, the place of their appearance 
and the words they speak differ from the place and words of 
the first angel. 

I answer, therefore, that one only is mentioned by St. 
Matthew and St. Mark, because the women standing without 
the inward sepulchre, or being only on the floor or pavement 
of it, saw but one angel, who said unto them, “He is not 
here, he is risen; come, see the place where the Lord lay ;” 
and then “ go tell his disciples and Peter of 1 (Matt. xxviii. 
6, Mark xvi. 6); but when, in obedience to the words of 
this angel, they proceed to look into the cave, or inward se- 
pulchre, where the Lord lay, they see two other angels, one 
sitting at Christ’s head, another at his feet, where his body 
was laid (John xx. 12, Luke xxiv. 5), and saying words the 
other did not, but giving them no intimation that they should 
tell these things to Christ’s disciples; and this seems to be a 
plain account of this matter, from the very words of the 
evangelists. 

Obj. 2. St. John and St. Matthew say, the women stood 
“without the sepulchre,” when they saw the angel or angels; 
St. Mark and St. Luke, that they had this vision when they 
were come “ within the sepulchre.” 

Ans. That the truth of the matter of this objection may 
be justly questioned. Fr, first, as St. John saith of Mary 
Magdalene, she stood πρὸς τὸ μνημεῖον, “at the sepulchre,” 
which may signify either within or without, ver. 11, so ver. 1, 
he saith, she came εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, “into the sepulchre;” and 
that she was upon the pavement, or in the outward sepul- 
chre, when she is said to stand at the sepulchre, is evident 
from this, that only by stooping down she looked down into 
the cave, or inward sepulchre, where the angels stood at the 
place where his body had been laid (ver. 11,12). St. Mat- 
thew saith nothing directly of the place where the women 
were when they saw the angel; but because he saith, that the 
angel sat upon the stone which he had rolled from the se- 
pulchre, hence they conclude that the angel sat without the 
sepulchre; but the stone being rolled to the mouth of the 
cave, or inward sepulchre, where Christ’s body lay (Matt. 


* In fine autem evangelii ait Marcus, Et quidem Domi- 
nus Jesus postquam loquutus est eis, receptus est in ccelos, 
et sedet ad dexteram Dei. Lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 257. 

ἡ Lib. vi. cap. 15. + Lib. viil. cap. 1. 

§ Hujus questionis duplex solutio est, aut enim non re- 
cipimus Marci testimonium, quod in raris fertur evangeliis, 
omnibus Grecie libris pené hoc capitulum in fine non haben- 
tibus, presertim cum diversa atque contraria evangelistis cz- 
teris narrare videatur. Ep. ad Hedib. Qu. 3. Greg. Nyssen. 
Orat. 2 in Resur. Euthymius. 


MARK. 


come upon them), and preached every where, the Lord 
working with them, and confirming the word with 
signs following. Amen (Zé. 6. So it was). 


xxvii. 60), the angel might sit upon it thus rolled away, and 
yet sit in a part of the outward sepulchre, or pavement, as 
St. Mark saith he did, ver. 5, when he bid the women come, 
and see where the Lord lay. In a word, they were without 
the cave, or sepulchre, according to St. Matthew ; but within 
the pavement, outward fence, sept, or wall of the outward 
sepulchre, when they saw the single angel, as St. Mark saith ; 
being invited, Mary Magdalene stoops down into the cave, 
or inward sepulchre, of which St. Luke and St. John speak, 
and sees two angels present there, in a quiescent posture 
represented in scripture sometimes by sitting, sometimes by 
standing. 

Obj. 3. St. Mark saith, ver. 8, the women “said nothing 
to any man;” the other three evangelists that they told 
these things to the apostles, or disciples. 

Ans. And so saith St. Mark expressly, that “they went 
and told these things, τοῖς per’ αὐτοῦ, to those who belonged 
to Christ,” and were usually with him (ver. 10,11). And 
he saith only (ver. 8), that during their flight from the se- 
pulchre, and amazement, before Christ’s appearance to Mary 
(ver. 9), they said nothing to any whom they met about the 
sepulchre. 

Obj. 4. St. Matthew, Mark, and Luke say, that the wo- 
men came first to the sepulchre; saw the angel or angels; 
yea, and Christ too, say Matthew and Mark, before they 
came to the apostles; St. John saith, Christ was seen of 
Mary, after St. John and Peter had been at the sepulchre. 

Ans. I answer here again, the matter of fact seems not 
exactly related in this objection; for John saith expressly, 
as the other evangelists did, that Mary Magdalene came 
first to the sepulchre, and saw the stone rolled away (ver. 
1), and that she ran and told Peter and John of it (ver. 2) ; 
he therefore doth not, or could not say, that Peter and John 
came before Mary to the sepulchre. Moreover, it is plain 
from all the other evangelists, and especially from St. Luke, 
that Peter and John went to the sepulchre after she had told 
these things to the apostles; for having said this, ver. 10, he 
adds, ver. 12, that “ Peter rising up, ran to the sepulchre :” 
and ver. 22, 23, he introduces two disciples speaking thus to 
Christ, “ Some women of our own being early at the sepul- 
chre, made us astonished; for they came, saying they had 
seen a vision of angels, who told them that he was alive.” 
Vain here seems the imagination of some, who say, St. John 
speaks here of Peter and John first, because their testimony 
was to be preferred before the testimony of women; for 
they neither saw Christ, nor had a vision, telling them that 
he was risen, as the women had and did, but only saw his 
body was not there, which the Jews denied not. The words: 
therefore of St. John, ver. 11, Μαρία δὲ εἱστήκει, may be ren~ 
dered thus, “ Mary had stood at the sepulchre, and, stooping 
down, had seen ;” and then there is no word of any difference: 
in the order of this narration among the evangelists, though 
nothing is more slight than that; or else it may be said, that 
St. John thus postpones the story of Mary Magdalene, be- 
cause he having a particular thing to say of her (ver. 15),. 
which all the other evangelists had omitted, he would put 
her whole story together. 

Obj.5. St. Matthew saith, the women “held Christ’s feet,” 
(ver. 9), but St. John, that Christ said to Mary Magdalene, 
«Touch me not” (ver. 17). 

Ans. True it is that St. John saith, Christ spake thus to 
her: but he saith not that Christ said this before she had 
touched him; and therefore he saith nothing in opposition 
to St. Matthew. Besides, the meaning of those words, 
“Touch me not,” is only this, Be not so solicitous to hold 
me, as if I was immediately to go hence, and thou should- 
est see me no more; thou mayest have time sufficient 
for that, for “I do not yet ascend” (see the note on John 
xx. 17). 

ODS: Here it is said, ver. 12, 13, that the two disci- 
ples returning from Emmaus “told these things (con- 
cerning our Lord’s resurrection) to the residue, neither be- 
lieved they them:” but Luke xxiv. 34, it is said, that at 


CHAPTER XVI. 


their return they heard them, saying, “The Lord is risen 
again, and hath appeared to Simon.” 

Ans. They said this indeed, but none with a firm faith, 
excluding doubting; for after this Jesus himself appearing 
to them, “ doubtful thoughts arose within them” (Luke xxiv. 
38), and when our Lord hath shown them his hands and his 
feet, “they believed not yet for joy, and wondered,” ver. 41 
(see Dr. Lightfoot on Luke xxiv. 34). 


APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. XIV. 


Concerning the day on which our Lord did eat the passover 
with his disciples. 

For resolution of this question, let it be noted: 

First, That the paschal lamb was to be killed in the 
evening of the fourteenth day of the month Nisan; for so 
we read, Exod. xii. 6, “ And the whole congregation shall kill 
it in the evening,” or “ between the two evenings,” saith the 
Hebrew: so «lso Lev. xxiii. 5, “In the fourteenth day of 
the first month at even (Hebr. between the two evenings) 
shall be the Lord’s passover.”’ Now hence we learn, that 
though the day of the Jews began and ended at the even- 
ing, yet was it the latter even, on the fourteenth day, in which 
the passover was to be killed; because the Jews had not 
two evenings in the morning, but only in the close of the 
day, the latter evening beginning at the setting of the sun: 
and (2.) because the fifteenth day, or “first day of un- 
leavened bread,” began immediately after the eating of the 
paschal lamb; and therefore, ver. 7, is called the day “ when 
they did sacrifice the passover,” and the seven days of it 
were accounted from that day to the twenty-first day of the 
same month (Exod. xii. 17, 18); whereas had they been 
reckoned from the beginning of the fourteenth day, there 
would have been not seven only, but eight days of unleavened 
bread. Accordingly Josephus* doth inform us, that they 
did kill the paschal lambs ἀπὸ ἐννάτης ὥρας μέχρι évdexarns, 
“from the ninth hour to the eleventh.” Note, 

Secondly, That the paschal lamb was to be killed and 
offered at a sct time, and the whole congregation was 
never to transfer it to another season: for it is expressly 
said, Exod. xii. 14, “ This day (of the passover) shall be to 
you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it (i. e. this same day) 
as a feast by an ordinance for ever; and, xiii. 10, “Thou 
shalt keep this ordinance (of the passover, and of the feast 
of unleavened bread) παρ} in its set time from year to 
year :” and Lev. xxii. 5, “On the fourteenth day at even 
shall be the Lord’s passover:” whence it is evident, there 
could be no translation of either of these feasts to another 
day, time, or season, without plain violation of the law of 
Moses. 

Moreover, The reason of the translation assigned by 
those who hold the Jews did thus translate it when our Sa- 
viour suffered, is this, viz. That this was done, that the first 
day of unleavened bread, being as a sabbath, might fall 
upon a sabbath day, lest two sabbaths should succeed 
each other: whereas it is evident, that, upon this transla- 
tion, two sabbaths must succeed each other; for the se- 
venth day of unleavened bread, being a sabbath as much 
as the first, Exod. xii. 16, must then fall upon the Friday 
following, and so two sabbaths must succeed each the 


other. 

Thirdly, That Christ did eat the last passover with his 
disciples at the day and time accustomed, and did not an- 
ticipate the day, seems evident from the concurrent testimony 
τ three evangelists, and from the reason of the thing. 

or, 

First, St. Matthew saith, xxvi. 17, that the first day of 
unleavened bread Christ’s disciples did prepare, and at 
the even of that day Christ with them did eat the pass- 
over; St. Mark, xiv. 12, that the first day of unleavened 
bread the Jews killed the passover; St. Luke, that then 
came, or was coming, the day of unleavened bread, “in which 
the passover ought to be killed,” Luke xxii. 7. He there- 


* De Bello Jud. lib, vii. cap. 45. 


245 


fore did eat the passover, ὅτε ἔθυον, “ when the Jews killed 
it;” and in the day, ἐν 4 ἔδει ϑύεσϑαι, “in which it ought to 
be eaten ;” and on the first day of unleavened bread, which 
was contemporary with the passover, according to those 
words of St. Mark, “ After two days was the passover, and 
the feast of unleavened bread” (Mark xiv. 1). Whereas 
both could not have been on the same day, not the feast 
of unleavened bread begun on the fourteenth of Nisan: and 
therefore Maimonides and others, on Exod. xii. 15, Deut. xvi. 
4, say, that the fourteenth of Nisan is called «the first day 
of unleavened bread ;” it being said, Exod. xii. 15, at even, 
“the first day,” ye shall put leaven out of your houses, and 
yet they did this on the fourteenth after mid-day: and, 
Deut. xvi. 4, “There shall no leavened bread be seen with 
thee seven days; neither shall any of the flesh (of the pas- 
chal Jamb), which thou sacrificedst the first day at even, 
remain till the morning.”” Whence it appears, that though 
the fifteenth of Nisan was “ the first day of unleavened bread,” 
as to the holy convocation, yet was the fourteenth the first 
day as to the separation of leaven from their houses: and 
therefore, in relation to this computation, Josephus saith,* 
ἑορτὴν ἄγομεν ἐφ᾽ ἡμέρας ὄκτω τὴν τῶν ἀζύμων λεγομένην, «We 
celebrate the feast of unleavened bread eight days.” And 
again thatf ἐνστάσης τῆς τῶν ἀζύμων ἑορτῆς ϑύσαντες τὴν 
λεγομένην πάσχα, “when the feast of unleavened bread was 
come, they, sacrificing the passover in the days of king Josias, 
offered other sacrifices, ἐφ᾽ ἡμέρας ἑπτὰ, for seven days fol- 
lowing.” He therefore who did eat it “on the first day of 
unleavened bread,” did eat it on the fourteenth day of Nisan, 
and on the day when the Jews did so. Vain therefore is 
the observation, that Christ is said not Siew, “ to kill or sa- 
crifice,” but only ποιεῖν and φάγειν, to celebrate and eat the 
passover, seeing he did it at the time ὅτε ἔθυον, “when the 
Jews killed the passover,” and sent his disciples to prepare, 
i.e. to kill and dress it for him, as usually (saith Dr. Light- 
foot) servants did for their masters, that he might eat of it. 
And vainer still is the argument from the word ποιῶ “with 
thee do I eat;” not ποιήσω, “I will eat” the passover, Matt. 
xxvi. 18, for seeing the disciples went to prepare it, that he 
might eat of it, Mark xiv. 12. 14, seeing they prepared it at 
the time when the Jews did and “ ought to kill the passover,” 
and seeing he comes “in the evening” of that day to eat it, 
according to the commandment, with the twelve, Mark xiv. 
17, it is evident these words are well rendered, “I will keep” 
the passover at thy house when my disciples have pre- 
pared it. 

Arg. 2. Secondly, Christ saith to his disciples, “ Ye know 
that after two days is the passover,” Matt. xxvi. 2; and Mark 
xiv. 1,“ The passover and the feast of unleavened bread was 
after two days;” or, as St. Luke hath it, «The feast of un- 
leavened bread, called the passover,” xxii. 1, and that Christ 
did not eat it till the first day of unleavened bread, hath 
been proved already, therefore he did not eat it till after 
those two days, when the disciples and the Jews knew the 
passover was by them to be eaten. 

Arg. 3. Thirdly, The day following, i.e. the day on which 
Christ suffered, was a feast day, for Barabbas was released 
“at the feast,” Matt. xxvii. 15, Mark xv. 6, Luke xxiii. 17. 
Now the feast of unleavened bread, in which a holy con- 
vocation was held, was the day after the passover, as we 
read, Ley. xxiii. 4—6, “In the fifteenth day of the first 
month is the Lord’s passover; and on the fifteenth day of 
the same month is the feast of unleavened bread ; in the first 
day ye shall have a holy convocation.” 

Fourthly, If Christ had celebrated the passover by an 
anticipation on the thirteenth of Nisan, he had violated the 
law which expressly requires the celebration of it on the 
fourteenth day, and upon that account might have been. 
justly liable to the censure of the Jews; nor would his 
disciples have come to him before the time appointed by 
the law, and by the rulers of the Jews, with that question, 
« Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the pass- 
over ?”” (Matt. xxvi. 17, Mark xiv. 12) nor would they, with- 
out scruple, have eaten with him against the letter of the 
law, or the custom of their nation: and that they did not 


* Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 5, p. 65, D. 
t Ibid. lib. iii. cap. 14, p. 324, B. 
y2 


246 


so is plain, because they put this question to him only “on 
the first day of unleavened bread,” in which the passover 
ought to be eaten, saith St. Luke. 

Fifthly, It is confessed on all hands, that our Lord suf- 
fered on Friday ; and also, that at the same time that he did 
eat the passover, he instituted the holy sacrament of the 
Lord’s supper; and yet, that he did this the same night that 
he was betrayed, St. Paul informs us, 1 Cor. xi. 23. Now 
all the evangelists inform us, that in the morning following 
he was led bound to Pilate, at the “sixth hour” was cruci- 
fied, at the “ ninth hour” expired ; therefore he must be cruci- 
fied the day after he instituted the sacrament, and so the day 
after he celebrated the passover: the day of his crucifixion 
being therefore Friday, he must have celebrated the pass- 
over on Thursday, or on the fourteenth of Nisan, according 
to the law. 

Lastly, The paschal lamo could not be slain put im the 
place which God had chosen to put his name there (Deut. 
xvi. 6), that is the temple. Now this the priests would 
never have done for any contrary to the law, which ap- 
pointed the slaying of it on the “ fourteenth day betwixt the 
two evenings” (ibid.). Now this, if it were not done by the 
priests, as Josephus intimates, but, as Philo saith,* “on a 
set day of every year, every one was then a priest for him- 
self;” yet would not the apostles have either done it or have 
asked to do it on any other day than that which by the law 
and by the practice of the nation was appointed for that 
work. And whereas, to take off the force of this argu- 
ment some learned persons have invented a distinction be- 
twixt πάσχα ϑυτικὸν, 1. e. “a passover in which a lamb was 
sacrificed” according to the law, and μνημονευτικὸν, or “a com- 
memoration of it without a sacrifice,” and say our Saviour 
only did the latter, this is a novel and absurd imagination : 
it is new; for though some of the Greek church from the 
fifth century have held that Christ anticipated the day, I 
find not one of them who says he did not eat the paschal 
lamb. It is also without precedent among the ancient 
Jews, who in the times of their captivity and dispersion 
never celebrated any such commemorative passover, nor 
could do it without a sin like that of Jeroboam, by de- 
vising a celebration of it on their own heads against the 
tenor of the law; but, as Mr. Ainsworth notes, were then 
contented to keep the feast of unleavened bread, which be- 
ing not confined to one place might be observed in their cap- 
tivity and their dispersions. Moreover, admit that such an 
uncommanded memorial of the passover had been kept by 
them, when, their temple being burnt, they could not offer 
sacrifice, and in their dispersions at such distance from it 
they could not repair to it; yet is there no one instance nor 
any semblance of a reason, that this was ever done by any 
present at Jerusalem, where Christ was at that very time, 
in which, saith St. Luke, “they ought to sacrifice the pass- 
over.” 

Obj. 1. But on the contrary it is objected, (1.) that it is 
plainly said that our Lord ate that supper in which he said, 
« One of you shall betray me,” and in which he gave the sop 
to Judas πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς τοῦ πάσχα, John xiii. 1, “ before the 
paschal feast ;” and yet that supper seems to be the same 
with that mentioned in the other evangelists. To this I 
answer, 

Ans. First, That it neither was the same, nor indeed 
could be the same, and for the very reason assigned in the 
objection, because it was held “ before the feast of the pass- 
over ;” whereas it is already proved, our Saviour kept the 
paschal feast on the first day of unleavened bread, when the 
Jews did and ought to kill the passover, and when the feast 
of unleavened bread, called the passover, was come, Luke 
xxii. 1.7. (2.) Because, when Christ said at this supper to 
Judas going out from it, “« What thou doest, do quickly,” 
some of the disciples thought that our Lord had bid him 
“prepare those things which they had need of against the 
feast ;” viz. the paschal feast: whereas Christ keeping the 
feast but one night, they could not have so conceived of 
his words, had they then celebrated the paschal supper; nor 


* Πάσχα ἐν ἡ θύουσι πανδημεὶ αὐτῶν ἕκαστος, τοὺς ἱερεῖς αὐτῶν 
οὐκ ἀναμένοντες, ἱερωσύνην τοῦ νόμου χαριζομένου τῷ ἔθνει παντὶ 
μίαν ἡμέραν, De Decim, p. 591. 


MARK. 


was Judas ever employed by Christ in making preparation 
for the paschal supper, but Peter and John, Luke xxii. 8. 
(3.) The devil entered into Judas after our Lord had given 
the sop to him at this supper (John xiii. 2. 7), and yet this 
is evident from St. Luke, xxii. 1. 3, that Satan entered 
into Judas when the passover was only near, but not yet 
done (ver. 8). And (4.) had the supper mentioned here by 
St. John been the paschal supper, Judas must have made 
his agreement to betray Christ after that supper; whereas 
it is plain from all the other evangelists, that he did that 
before the paschal supper (see Matt. xxvi. 14, Mark xiv. 10, 
Luke xxii. 4). 

Ans, 2. And (2.) there is a great difference betwixt the 
circumstance relating to him that should betray him here 
and at the paschal supper; for here Christ privately tells 
John who it was that should betray him (John xiii. 25, 26), 
but at the paschal supper be makes him known to them all 
(Matt. xxvi. 25, Luke xxii.21). Here he makes him known 
to St. John, by giving him a sop which he himself had dip- 
ped in the dish (John xiii. 26), but in the paschal supper 
he makes him known by this, that he had his hand with him 
in the dish (Matt. xxvi. 24, Mark xiv. 20). 

Obj. 2. Secondly, It is objected, that the Jews the day 
our Saviour suffered would not enter into the judgment-hall 
lest they should be defiled, and so unfit to eat the pass- 
over, John xviii. 28, whereas Christ ate of it the night be- 
fore he suffered. 

Ans. To this I answer, that by the passover mentioned 
John xviii. 28, we are to understand, not the paschal lamb, 
but the chagigah, or peace-offering, the sheep and oxen of- 
fered all the seven days of the feast, and which are expressly 
called the passover, as the whole feast of unleavened bread 
was, Luke xxi. 1. So Deut. xvi. 2, “Thou shalt sacrifice 
the passover to the Lord, of the flock and of the herd;” 
where the note of the Jewish doctors is, «'The flocks signify 
the lambs and kids of the passover: the herd, the offerings 
for the chagigah.” Now the lamb, say they, was eaten on 
the fourteenth day, but the chagzgah on the fifteenth, So 
2 Chron. xxxvii. 7—9, where it is twice said, that “the 
king and the princes gave to the people and the priests, 
oxen as well as sheep, lepesachim, εἰς τὸ φασὲκ, for the pass- 
over.” And the apocryphal Esdras saith, i. 8, “Helkias, 
Zacharias, and Suelus, governors of the temple, gave to the 
priests εἰς πάσχα, for the passover, two thousand and four 
hundred sheep, and three hundred calves.” So here the 
rulers of the Jews would not go into the judgment-hall, that 
they might not be defiled, but be fit to eat the passover; 
i.e. those paschal-offerings of the herd, which were holy 
things, of which none might eat in their defilement. Mr. 
Whiston takes the passover here in the strict sense, but 
then he thinks that it was on the same night that the rulers 
would not go into the judgment-hall lest they should be de- 
filed, and that they afterward did eat the paschal lamb be- 
twixt two and four in the morning; which they might do: 
for though the paschal lamb was to be killed “betwixt the 
two evenings” (Exod. xii. 8), and to be killed “at night,” 
so that “none of it was to be left till the morning;” yet I 
find not any precise time of night limited, beyond which 
they might not delay the eating of it; but yet it is certain 
that in this instance it could not be so, for Pilate, in com- 
pliance with their scrupulosity, goes out of the judgment- 
hall to them three times successively, John xviii. 29. 31, 
xix. 4, then he brings out Christ to them, and saith, « Be- 
hold yourking ;” and then it was Friday at the sixth hour, 
or at noon; so that they who stayed without the hall that 


‘they might eat the passover, stayed there till Friday at noon, 


Pilate still going out to them, because they durst not go in 
to him. 

Obj. 3. Thirdly, It is objected, that the day on which 
Christ was crucified is styled παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, “the pre- 
paration of the passover,” therefore the passover could not 
be eaten (John xix. 14); for as the παρασκευή of the sab- 
bath is said to be προσάββατον, “the day before the sab- 
bath” (Mark xv. 42, Luke xxiii. 54), so the parasceve of 
the passover must be the day before the passover. 

Ans. 1. But (1.) according to this exposition of the words, 
the Jews must have eaten their passover on the sabbath- 
day, our Lord being crucified on the Friday ; so that if that 
day was the day before the passover, Saturday must be the 


PREFACE TO LUKE. 


paschal day, and so they must have eaten it at least two 
days after our Saviour did. 

Secondly, ΤῸ answer therefore positively to this objec- 
tion; as παρασκευὴ, absolutely put, or with relation to the 


247 


sabbath, is always Friday, so here παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα is 
only the paschal Friday, or the Friday in the paschal festi- 
val, as Dominica paschw, or Pentecostes, is the day of those 
festivals. 


THE 


GOSPEL OF ST; RUE: 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


§. 1, Axx that I have to offer touching this gospel, from 
church history, hath been delivered in the preface to the 
gospel of St. Mark; where it hath been observed, 

First, That this gospel was received by the whole chureh 
of Christ as genuine,* and an authentic record, fit to be 
owned as a rule of faith, and that the Spirit of God assisted 
and stirred up St. Luke to indite it. 

Secondly, That this gospel was praised by St. Paul, and 
was approved by the apostle St. John: the first considera- 
tion is a ground sufficient to believe this gospel to be a true 
and authentic record of all things contained in it; but I 
confess I am not so well satisfied of the truth and certainty 
of this second proposition, as to lay the foundation of the 
divine authority of this evangelist upon it: I therefore shall 
endeavour to establish the authority of St. Mark and of this 
evangelist upon a better, and, in my apprehension, a more 
sure foundation. 

§. 2. First, therefore, it is certain, that our Lord had not 
only twelve apostles, but seventy or seventy-two of his dis- 
ciples to attend upon him: for, after he had sent forth the 
twelve to preach the kingdom of God (Luke ix. 1, 2), he 
sends out seventy others to go in pairs before him, and to 
preach in every city to which he was about to come, saying, 
The kingdom of God is come near to you (Luke x. 1. 9). 

Secondly, note, That they were both sent forth to. preach 
the kingdom of God, and therefore sent on the same 
errand; both sent to preach immediately from the same 
Lord, to preach in his name, with the same power to 
heal diseases, and to cast out devils (Luke ix. 1. 17, x. 1. 
10): that as he said to the apostles, «I send you forth as 
sheep among wolves,” Matt. x. 16, so also saith he to the 
seventy, Luke x. 3; as he said to the apostles, “ He that re- 
ceiveth you, receiveth me,” Matt. x. 40, so saith he to the 
seventy, “He that heareth you, heareth me,” Luke x. 16. 
As therefore I have proved, that these things were said to 
the apostles, not so much with relation to their first mission 
whilst Christ was with them upon earth, as with relation to 
their second mission, which was to begin after our Lord’s 
ascension, and the falling of the Holy Ghost upon them 
frre note on Matt. x. 8); so may we rationally conceive, 
that the like words spoken to the seventy relate to the far- 
ther commission to be given to them; and therefore, when 
they were returned to Christ after their first mission, as he 
speaks to them thus, I beheld Satan falling as lightning from 
heaven before you, as he was to do after our Saviour’s death, 
John xii. 31, so doth he add, Luke x. 18, 19, « Behold, I 
give you power to tread upon scorpions and serpents, and 
over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any 
means hurt you:” which words seems plainly to give a new 
commission to the seventy, relating not, as their former, to 
their preaching before him to the cities of Israel only, but 


* Dico itaque apud illas, nec solas jam apostolicas, sed 
apud universas qu@ illis de societate sacramenti confcederan- 
tur, id evangelium Luc ab initio editionis sue stare. Ter- 
tull. contr. Mare. lib. iv. cap. 5. 

᾿Αναγκάζει τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, καὶ ἐπινόττι τὸν ἅγιον Λοῦκαν. 


Epiph. Hwer. 51, p. 4238. 


to their preaching among other nations; as we may gather, 
by comparing these words with the commission given by 
Christ to his apostles, sent into the world to preach the gos- 
pel to all nations (Mark xvi, 15—18). As then the apostles 
were to execute this second mission by the Holy Ghost sent 
down from heaven, and upon that account are bid to stay at 
Jerusalem till they received this power from on high by the 
descent of the Holy Ghost upon them, Luke xxiv. 49, 50, 
Acts i. 4. 8, so may we reasonably believe, the seventy were 
to be endued with the same power for the execution of 
their mission. Note, 

Thirdly, That both St. Mark and St. Luke were of the 
number of the seventy disciples, as we learn from the testi- 
monies of Origen* and Epiphanius: for when Origeny had 
said, that the disciples of Christ, John and Matthew, Mark 
and Luke, γεγραφήκασιν τὰ εὐαγγέλια, “ writ the gospels,” he 
proves this, because Christ first sent his apostles, and after 
them the seventy-two, εὐαγγελίζεσϑαι, “to evangelize ;” and 
that therefore Mark and Luke preached the gospel with 
Paul the apostle, St. Luke being mentioned as an attend- 
ant on St. Paul (see note on Acts xvi. 10), and St. Mark as 
one of the circumcision, who was συνεργὸς αὐτοῦ eis τὴν βασι- 
λείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, “ his fellow-worker unto the kingdom of God” 
(Col. iv. 10, 11). Epiphanius$ having»told us, that Mark 
els ἐτύγχανεν ix τῶν ἑβδομήκοντα δύο, was one of the seventy- 
two, adds, that the work of writing was committed to 
Luke, ὄντι καὶ αὐτῶ ἐκ τῶν ἐβόῥομήκοντα déo,§ he also being 
one of the seventy-two.” But against this it is objected, 

Obj. 1. That St. Luke confesses that he was not from 
the beginning an eye-witness and minister of the word 
(Luke i. 1, 2), and therefore is thought to have his gospel 
from the information of St. Paul, and other of the apostles ; 
so Jerome and others, ancient and modern, have conjec- 
tured from these words. 

Ans. The words of the evangelist are so far from giving 
any ground to this assertion, that they plead fairly for St. 
Luke’s personal knowledge of all the things written in his 
gospel, even from first to last: for, saith he, 

Ver. 1. “Forasmuch as others have undertaken to set 
forth in order a narrative of those things which are most 
surely believed among us (Christians), 

Ver. 2. “Even as they who, from the beginning, were 
eye-witnesses and ministers of the word, have delivered 
them to us (Christians) ; 

Ver. 3. “It seemed good to me, who have had a perfect 
knowledge of all things (performed among us in Judea), 
from the very first (rise of them, in the vision made to Za- 
charias concerning the birth of his son, John the Baptist), 
to write to thee in order (of them).” Now here I say, 

First, That these words do not affirm, that any of those 
men who set forth these narratives did it from the instruc- 
tion they received from these eye-witnesses, or ministers of 
the word, but only that they pretended to do it agreeably 
to what these eye-witnesses said; much less do they give 
us the least hint that St. Luke received his instructions from 
them. 

Secondly, They, saith he, declare their narrative agreeably 


* Μάρκος οὖν καὶ Λουκᾶς ἐκ τῶν of" ὄντες, Παύλῳ τῷ ἀποστύλῳ 
εὐαγγελίζοντο. Dial. de Recta Fide, p. 8. 


Ὁ Ibid. p.7 + Her. 51, §.6,p.428, 5 P. 433. 


248 


LUKE. 


to what is delivered by those who were eye-witnesses from | a new commission like to that given to the apostles, when 


the beginning, and the ministers of the word. It therefore 
seemeth good to me, who have had a certain knowledge of 
the same things, ἄνωθεν, from the first rise of them (as these 
eye-witnesses had), to write to thee in order of them; and 
then he begins his narrative from a higher rise than either 
St. Matthew or St. Mark hath done; not giving the least 
hint that he received his knowledge of these things from 
any other. It is true, that Ireneus* saith, that Luke, 
ἐν βιβλίῳ κατέθετο, writ in a book the gospel which St. Paul 
preached ; but he saith not, he did this in his gospel, and 
not in the Acts of the Apostles: his gospel also contains in 
substance the same great things which St. Paul preached 
for the conversion of the Jews and gentiles; as also doth 
the gospel of St. Matthew: but hence it doth not follow, 
that the one rather than the other is to be ascribed to St. 
Paul. Yea, it is certain, that St. Luke could not receive 
his gospel from St. Paul, as an eye-witness of it; because 
we know St. Paul was no eye-witness of it, θα ἃ convert to 
Christianity, after all that Luke had written was accom- 
plished. 

Obj. 2. We are told, that Luke was converted by St. Paul 
at Thebes. 

Ans. But this we have only from Nicephorus; and it is 
the less credible, not only because it comes to us so late, 
but because it appears not from any credible author that St. 
Paul was ever there. It is more probable, from the silence 
of St. Luke and St. Paul, who never calleth him his son, 
that he was a Christian, or a believer, long before ; and hav- 
ing, as Theophylact observes, ‘EG@patkiv παιδείαν, “ His in- 
struction in the Jewish religion” at Jerusalem, he might be 
so from the beginning of Christ’s preaching. Note, 

Fourthly, That the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost 
came down upon all that were then assembled with the 
apostles; for being ἅπαντες, all together with one accord, 
ver. 1, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, ver. 4, 
even all the one hundred and twenty, mentioned Acts i. 15, 
as it is proved in the note on Acts ii. 1. And again, the 
apostles being dismissed by the high-priest and his council, 
they go to their own company, that is, to the one hundred 
and twenty, Acts iv. 24 (see the note there): and when 
they had prayed for ability to preach the word with boldness, 
and that God would confirm it by signs and wonders done 
in the name of Jesus, they were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost, and spake the word with boldness, ver. 29—31. Note, 

Fifthly, That it is highly reasonable to conceive, the 
seventy were part of the one hundred and twenty that were 
then present, and assembled with the apostles: not only 
from the tradition of the church,f that Matthias, and Jo- 
seph called Barsabas, were chosen out of the seventy, but 
also from the nature of the thing itself. For St. Peter saith, 
an apostle must be chosen out of those that had been with 
them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out 
among them, to succeed in the place of Judas, and be a 
witness of our Lord’s resurrection (Acts i. 21, 22). Now, 
whence should they choose such men but from the seventy ? 
And St. Paul speaks of men coming up with Jesus, after 
his resurrection, from Galilee, who were his witnesses to the 
people, Acts xiii. 31, and sure the seventy must be of this 
number. Moreover, What was become of the seventy, if 
they came not up with their raised Saviour to Jerusalem ? 
Can we think that men so full of hopes that he would now 
restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts i. 6), would stay behind 
in Galilee? and if they came up to Jerusalem, would they 
not consort as formerly with the apostles? Can we think, 
that one hundred and twenty other persons should adhere 
thus closely to them, and yet the seventy should absent 
themselves, especially at the feast of Pentecost, when they 
had so much reason to expect the promise of the Father? 

Moreover, it is certain from St. Luke, that Christ had 
made them labourers in his harvest (Luke x. 2), and so far 
ministers of his gospel, as to declare, that he who heard 
them, heard him; and he that despised them, despised 
him (ver. 16), and also given them commission to work 
miracles, and cast out devils in his name (ver. 9.17). And 
I have shown that after their return to Christ they received 


* Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. v, cap. 8. 
ἡ Buseb. H. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 12. 


they were sent to preach to all nations, and which, as far 
as we can learn from the evangelists, they never executed 
till after our Lord’s resurrection, when we are sure that all 
who by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. 12, and by Epi- 
phanius* in the heresy of the Herodians, are mentioned as 
belonging to the seventy, did it. Now, if the seventy dis- 
ciples had a commission from our Lord to preach to other 
nations; if, after he was seated at the right hand of his Fa- 
ther, he sent not only the twelve, but, as Epiphanius there 
expressly saith, the seventy-two, to be κήρυκας εἰς ὅλην τὴν 
οἰκουμένην; “ preachers throughout all the world,” and, among 
them, as he there saith, St. Mark and Luke; they also must 
be enabled by the Holy Ghost to speak with tongues and 
prophesy, that so they might be able to preach to those na- 
tions whose languages they understood not: and hence Eu- 
sebiust reckons among those who were enabled, as St. Paul 
was, to write μύρια καὶ ἀπόῤῥητα “a thousand mysteries,” the 
twelve apostles, and the seventy disciples: and therefore 
Origen¢ says well, that Christ having such disciples, it is 
more reasonable to think he should commit the writing of 
his gospel to them, rather than to those who were not his 
disciples. - 

If then St. Mark and St. Luke were of the number of 
those men who had a commission from Christ to preach the 
gospel after his ascension, not only to the Jews, but to other 
nations also; if the Holy Ghost, which fell on the apostles, 
fell on them in like manner also for that end; if the universal 
church of Christ had held, that they as well as the apostles 
did indite their gospels by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, 
and upon that account received them as a rule of faith, as 
much as the gospels written by St. Matthew and St. John, 
who were undoubtedly apostles of our Lord, and were by 
his Spirit assisted to indite their gospels; then we have 
equal reason to receive the gospels of St. Mark and St. 
Luke as the oracles of God, and so as a most certain rule 
of faith, as we have to receive the gospels of St. Matthew 
and St. John under that character. 

As to the time of writing this gospel, I find it most un- 
certain; Ireneus§ is positive that it was written after the 
death of the apostle Paul; for, speaking of St. Peter and 
St. Paul, he saith, that “after their decease, St. Mark and 
St. Luke writ their gospels :” whereas Theophylact|| saith 
expressly, μετὰ πεντεκαίδεκα ἔτη τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀναλήψεως συν- 
ἐγράψατο, “it was written within fifteen years after our Lord’s 
ascension,” that is, about ten years before the death of the 
apostle Paul; and so also saith the Synopsis, attributed 
to Athanasius. And, could we depend on the opinion of 
Origen,{ and others of the ancients, that those words of 
St. Paul, “ whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the 
churches,” did belong to the Gospel of St. Luke, we might 
conclude from the writing the second epistle to the Corin- 
thians, that St. Luke’s gospel, writ before it, must be writ- 
ten at or before the time assigned by Athanasius and Theo- 
phylact: but Theodoret** being positive, that St. Paul in 
these words meant not St. Luke, but Barnabas, who tra- 
velled with St. Paul, and preached the gospel throughout 
all the churches, Acts xiii. 2, xvi. 36, and who was chosen 
by the churches about Antioch to travel with St. Paul, to 
bring their charity to the brethren in Judea, Acts xi. 30, 
we must be content to leave the time when St. Luke writ 
this gospel still uncertain: only, because it is certain, from 
the beginning of the Acts, that it was writ before that trea- 


* Her. 50, §. 4. 

T Οἱ λοιποὶ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν φοιτηταὶ, δώδεκα μὲν ἀπύστολοι, 
ἑβδομήκοντα δὲ μαθηταί. Hist. Eccl. lib, ii. cap. 24. 

$ Ἔχων μαθητὰς ὃ Χριστὸς, ob μᾶλλον robrors ἐνεγχείριζεν ἣ τοῖς 
μὴ οὖσι μαθηταῖς. L. de Recta Fide, p. 7. 

§ Mera dé τὴν τούτων ἔξοδον, Mapxds τὰ ὑπὸ Πέτρου κηρυσσύμενα 
ἐγγράφοις παραδέδωκε" καὶ Λουκᾶς ὃ ἀκύλουθος Παύλου τὸ ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου 
κηρυσσόμενον εὐαγγέλιον ἐν βιβλίῳ κατέϑετο. Lib. iii. cap. 1, 
Euseb. H. Eccl. v. cap. 8. Pseud. Ambrosius in proem. 

|| Pref. in Lue. ed. Coteler. p. 300. 

4 Twi μὲν τὸν Λουκᾶν, τινὲς δὲ τὸν Βαρνάβαν" Chrys. Pro Luca 
faciunt, Interp. Ep. Ignat. ad Ephes. §. 15. Sophron. et 
Hieron. verbo Lucas. 

ἘΣ Toy τρισμακάριον Βαρνάβαν τά εἰρημένα χαρακτηρίζει. In 
locum. 


CHAPTER I. 


249 


tise; and highly probable, from the conclusion of the Acts of | gospel must be indited before that time ; and consequently, 
the Apostles, that these Acts were written and finished in | that Ireneus must mistake, in saying it was written after 
the ninth of Nero; we may hence probably conclude this | the death of the apostle Paul. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Forasmucu ! as many have taken in hand to set 
forth in order a declaration of those things which are 
most surely believed (or have assuredly been performed ) 
among us (by the Lord Jesus), f 

2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from 
the beginning were eyewitnesses, and (who are now) 
ministers of the word; (or have the ministration and dis- 


pensation of the word committed to them, see Acts xiii. 5, 
1 Cor. iv. 15) 

32 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect 
understanding of all things from the very first, to write 
unto thee in order (of them), most excellent Theophilus, 

4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those 
things, wherein thou hast been ὃ instructed. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1Ver. 1. Forasmuch as πολλοὶ ἐπιχείρησαν, many have 
taken in hand to set forth a narration, περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορη- 
μένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων, concerning the things which have 
mostly surely been believed and done among us, Ver. 2. 
Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the be- 
ginning were eye-witnesses (of what Christ did), and 
ministers it, the word (of the gospel).] Here note, 

First, That πράγματα πεπληροφορημένα refers not only to 
things believed, but also to things performed by Christ and 
his apostles. This first treatise being designed to mention 
the things which Jesus himself said or did (Acts i. 1), as 
they were delivered by the apostles who had been with 
Christ from the beginning (John xv. 27, Acts i. 21), which 
the seventy disciples were not; his second to declare the 
acts of the apostles, who being sent to “preach the gospel 
to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem,” were in that ὑπηρέται 
τοῦ λύγου, “ ministers of the word.” “Let a man so account 
of us apostles,” saith St. Paul, ὑπηρέτας Χριστοῦ, “as the 
ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God” 
(1 Cor. iv. 1). He also was himself ordained to be ὑπηρέτης 
“a minister,” and witness of what he had seen, and of what 
Christ should reveal to him (Acts xxvi. 16); i. e. a witness 
of what he had seen, and a minister of Christ’s revelations 
made to him. So when Barnabas and Paul were preaching 
the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, they had 
with them John ὑπηρέτην, “a minister” of this word (Acts 
xiii. 5). And when St. Luke saith, they were πεπλεροφορη- 
μένα ἐν ἡμῖν, he doth not only mean that they were done, 
but that they were performed with such circumstances as 
gave them πληροφορίαν τῆς πίστεως, “a full assurance of faith” 
Mein x. 22), as to the truth of these doctrines taught, and 

e works done by Christ and his apostles, as the word signi- 
fies continually in the Epistles; as when it is said that Abra- 
ham was πληροφορηθεὶς, “fully assured that what God had 
promised he was able to perform,” Rom. iv. 21, and xiv. 5, 
«Let every one be fully assured, πληροφορείσϑω, in his own 
mind ;” when St. Paul wishes to his Colossians “the riches 
τῆς πληροφορίας τῆς συνέσεως, Of the full assurance of his know- 
ledge” (Col. ii. 2); when he saith his Thessalonians « re- 
ceived the word ἐν πληροφορίᾳ πολλῇ, in much assurance” (1 
Thess. i. 5), and desires the believing Jews to be careful to 
attain εἰς πληροφορίαν, “ to a full assurance of hope to the end” 
(Heb. vi. 11). 

Zecondly, Hence note, that there is no necessity that the 
“many who had taken in hand to make a narrative of what 
was believed or done by Christians,” should have done this 
at all by writing, rather than by word of mouth, and much 
less they should all be writers of gospels, rather than of the 
acts of the apostles; it is certain also that St. Luke is so 
far from blaming them for these performances, that he 
places himself in the rank of them, and saith, they made 
their narrative of these matters even as the apostles had de- 
livered them. 

Thirdly, Hence I conclude, that though St. Luke was 
no apostle, he might be one of the seventy mentioned 
Luke x.; for neither were they with Christ ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς, “from 
the beginning,” nor “chosen to be the witnesses of what he 
did,” nor, in the primary sense, ὑπηρέται τοῦ λόγον, “the 
ministers of the gospel.” And yet, besides these words, 
which prove nothing to the contrary, I see not why St. Luke, 
who was before a proselyte to the Jewish religion, and who 

Vor. [V.--32 


had, saith Theophylact, 'EGpacxiv παιδείαν, his instruction in 
the Jewish religion at Jerusalem, should not see and con- 
verse with Christ, and be one of the seventy, as Origen and 
Epiphanius say he was (see the preface to this gospel, 
§. 2. n. 3). 

2 Ver. 2. It seemed good to me also, having had perfect 
understanding of all things ἄνωθεν, from the very first, to 
write unto thee καθεζῆς, in order, most excellent Theophilus.) 
Here note, 

First, That it is not certain that ἄνωθεν here signifies 
“from above,” i. 6. οὐρανόϑεν, “from heaven,” as it is done, 
John iii. 3. 7. 31, xix. 11, James i. 17, iii. 15. 17, seeing it 
as often signifies from the top, rise, or beginning of a thing ; 
as when “the veil of the temple” is said to be “rent ἀπὸ 
ἄνωϑεν, from the top to the bottom,” Matt. xxvii. 51, Mark 
xv. 38, Christ’s coat to be woven ἐκ τῶν ἄνωθεν, from the 
top,” John xix. 24, St. Paul to be known of the Jews ἄνω- 
Sev, “ from the beginning,” Acts xxvi. 5, and the evangelist 
here beginning his narrative higher than St. Matthew or 
Mark had done, even from the promise made to Zacharias 
of the Baptist, or forerunner of the Lord, I think it more 
reasonable to adhere to our translation, and not to lay the 
authority of St. Luke’s gospel upon uncertainties. 

Secondly, It being certain that St. Luke in his gospel 
doth not give us Christ’s miracles, sermons, and journeys, in 
that order of time in which they were done and spoken, it 
remains, that when he promised to write καθεξῆς, in order, we 
understand this of Christ’s conception, birth, circumcision, 
baptism, preaching, death, resurrection, and ascension, of 
which he truly writes in order; or that he would write to him 
first of what these eye-witnesses had delivered to him of 
Christ, and then of what these ministers had done in propa- 
gation of the gospel, as in the Acts he doth. Note, 

Thirdly, That the Theophilus to whom he writes seems not 
to be a feigned name, importing only any Christian, who 
was “a lover of God,” as Salvian conceived; for we have 
no such instance in the sacred history of feigned names thus 
used. 2. The word κράτιστος is used in the New Testament 
as a title of excellency, and never otherwise (see Acts 
xxiii. 26, xxiv. 3, xxvi. 25). And, (3.) had he intended 
this only as a dedication of his work to the true lovers 
of God, why writes he still in the singular number, and 
never in the plural? 

3 Ver. 4. “Iva émyuids περὶ ὧν κατηχήϑης λόγων τὴν ἀσφά- 
λειαν, That thou mayest know the certainty of those things 
in which thou hast been instructed.] Karixno is an instruc- 
tion, not only by questions and answers, but also by a con- 
tinual discourse (Acts xviii. 25, Rom. ii. 18, 1 Cor. xiv. 19). 
But that which is hence chiefly to be observed against the 
Romanists, is (1.) against oral tradition, that St. Luke 
thought not what was delivered by word of mouth only, 
even by the “ eye-witnesses and ministers of the word,” suffi- 
cient to give Theophilus a knowledge of the certainty of 
these things without writing the gospel; and this the wis- 
dom of God showed in causing them to be written, saith 
Ireneus,* “to be the pillar and foundation of the Christian 
faith.” (2.) That St. Luke held it not unlawful, or unfit 
for a layman, or any Christian, to read the scriptures, nor 
such a one insufficient by thus reading to understand the 
things in which he had been instructed : and seeing it is cer- 
tain that he and other Christians were instructed in αἱ; 


* Lib. iii. cap. 1. 


250 

5 J Tuere was in the days of Herod, the king of 
Judea, a 4 certain priest named Zacharias, * of the 
course of Abia (7. 6. the eighth of the twenty-four courses 
of the priests, which ministered in the temple by their 
weeks): and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, 
and her name was Elisabeth. 

6 And they were both righteous before God, (as) 
walking in all the commandments and ordinances of 
the Lord blameless. 

7 And they had no child, because that Elisabeth 
was barren, and they both ® were now well stricken in 
years (Gr. were aged in their days). 


things necessary to be believed and done by them to salvation, 
it follows that these writings must contain fully and with 
sufficient clearness, all that was necessary to be believed or 
done by him in order to his salvation, they being written 
for this very end, that Theophilus “might know the cer- 
tainty of all those things in which he had been instructed ;” 
and then surely the writings of the whole New Testament 
must be much more sufficient for that end. 

4 Ver. 5. ἹἹερεῦς τις, A priest named Zacharias.| That he 
was not, as some have imagined, a high-priest, appears, 
(1.) because St. Luke calls him simply ἱερεὺς a priest, not 
ἀρχιερεὺς, a high-priest, as he who bore that office was still 
called, iii. 2, ix. 22, xxii. 2. 4. 52. 54. 66, xxiii. 4. 10. 13. 
23, Acts iv. 6, v.17. 21. 24, vii. 1, ix. 1.14. (2.) Zacharias 
was chosen by lot to burn incense; the high-priest did it 
by right of succession, and burnt it in the holy of holies, 
into which Zacharias entered not. (3.) Josephus* saith, 
that Simon son of Boethus was high-priest that year: and, 
lastly, Zacharias was “ priest of the course of Abia,’ where- 
as the high-priest was of no course at all. Of the twenty- 
four courses appointed by David for the service of the tem- 
ple, when it should be built, this of Abia was the eighth 
(1 Chron. xxiv. 10). These several courses began on the 
sabbath-day, and continued to serve till the next sabbath, 2 
Kings xi. 7, 2 Chron. xxiii. 8, ἀπὸ σαββάτου ἐπὶ σάββατον, 
“from sabbath to sabbath,” Joseph. Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 11, 
p. 248. 

5 Of the course of Abia.] Most chronologers that I have 
read agree in this, that no certain computation can be made 
from these courses touching the conception or birth of the 
Baptist. Mr. Whiston’s attempt in this matter seems un- 
successful on several accounts. For, 

First, Whereas het begins that computation with the 
rabbinical tale, that after the return of the priests from the 
captivity, they were divided again into twenty-four courses, 
he ought to have observed, from the same tale, that the 
course of Jedajah} was then put before that of Jojarib; 
because he was of the high-priest’s family, and so should 
have begun those courses not from Jojarib, but from 
Jedajah. 

Secondly, Whereas he saith, that “it is highly probable 
that when Judas Maccabeus restored the daily sacrifice, and 
afresh appointed the courses of the priests, he would begin 
those courses with the first family :” it remains to be proved, 
that he did then appoint any of these courses at all to serve, 
and that all the priests did not then serve together, as at the 
other three great festivals. Secondly, There is no reason 
why he should alter the courses appointed by Solomon in 
the month Tisri, and that he did not do it is supposed by 
Dr. Lightfoot,§ who therefore in his account of these courses 
makes the first of them to begin in that month. Ina word, 
if there were made any alteration at all, St. Luke cannot 
refer to the course of Abia as it is placed, 1 Chron. xxiv., 
and then, seeing the family of Abia was not then extant 
among the courses (there being no mention of their return 
out of captivity), who can tell where to place it? If he 
does refer to it, that course must continue in the same 
order in which it was before, and so was not changed by 
Judas Maccabeus. 

Thirdly, As for this historical evidence from a Jewish 


* Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 12, p. 537. 
+ P. 156, 8. 3. 

+ Lightf. Temple Serv. cap. 6. 
§ Harm. par. i. p. 22. 


LUKE. 


8 And it came to pass, that while he executed the 
priest’s office before God in the order of his course, 

9 According to the custom of the priest’s office, 
This lot was (7. 6. he was chosen by lot) to burn incense 
when he went into the temple of the Lord. 

10 And the whole multitude of the people were 
praying without at the time 8 of (Azs burning) incense. 

11 And (whilst he was doing this) there 5 appeared 
unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right 
side of the altar of incense. 

12 And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, 
and fear fell upon him. 


rabbinical chronicle, it can be of no validity to them who 
know they were the worst of chronologers, as the learned 
have observed, and as it is evident from the chronology of 
David Ganz, and Vorstius’s notes upon it, and his famous 
chronicle, Seder Olam Rabbi; with which he is not much 
acquainted, though it pretends to some antiquity, yet, saith 
Buxtorf, Videtur seipsum in fine libri prodere, dum inquit, 
Hamar Rabbi Jose, “ He betrays himself by adding, ‘Thus 
saith R. Jose.” 

Fourthly, His corollary from all these uncertainties, that 
the blessed Virgin conceived in the beginning of the sixth 
month from the conception of Elisabeth, is built upon a 
mistake, it being plain from Luke i. 36, that her sixth month 
was completed when the Virgin came to her (which she did 
presently after the angel appeared to her), for she stayed 
with her but almost three months, and then Elisabeth’s full 
time was come (ver. 56, 57). 

6 Ver. 7. They were both προβεβηκότες, well stricken 
with age.] Here, saith Theophylact, because a Virgin was 
to bring forth a son προῳκονύμησεν ἡ χάρις ἵνα γραῦς Téxn, οὐ κατὰ 
νύμον φύσεως, εἰ καὶ per’ dvdpos, “God provided that an 
old woman should bring forth a son, not according to 
the course of nature, though with a man, they being both 
aged.” 

7 Ver. 9. Ἔλαχε τοῦ ϑυμιάσαι, His lot was to burn in- 
cense.| ‘The law required that the priest should burn incense 
morning and evening upon the altar of incense, placed be- 
fore the veil of the most holy (Exod. xxx. 6—8): but be- 
cause they who thus served in every course were many, it 
was necessary they should by lot choose the man who was 
to perforre that service for that week, and so the Jews say 
they did (see Dr. Lightfoot hee): 

§ Ver. 10. And all the multitude of the people were 
praying without τῇ ipa τοῦ ϑυμιάματος, at the time of in- 
cense.| When the priest went into the sanctuary, or within 
the first veil, to offer incense, notice was given by the sound 
of a little bell, that it was then the time of prayer; and 
every one present then offered up his prayers to God 
silently : and though this silent prayer was not commanded, 
yet there seems a manifest allusion to it in those words of 
John, where at “the first offering of incense with the prayers 
of the saints,” it is said, “there was silence in heaven for 
half an hour” (Rev. viii. 1—3). Whether that of the 
high-priest Simon, mentioned Ecclus. 1., belongs to this 
matter, or rather to the great day of expiation, I will not 
determine. 

9 Ver. 11. "2967 dé αὐτῷ ἄγγελος Κυρίου, An angel of the 
Lord appeared to him.) That they had former examples 
of their priests who had seen visions in the temple seems rea- 
sonable to conceive from the words, ver. 22, where from 
his silence it is said, “ the people knew that he had seen a 
vision ;” and yet, if you reject the story of Simon the Just 
seeing an angel going into the holy of holies yearly, on the 
day of expiation, you will hardly find another instance: for 
Hyrcanus the high-priest saw no vision, only as he was ofler- 
ing incense, φάσι, ἢ “some say he heard a voice, declaring 
that his sons had got the victory.” 

Ver. 12. Kat ἐταράχθη, καὶ φύβος ἐπέπεσεν én’ αὐτόν. This 
verse is wanting only in the Ethiopic version, being in all 
the other versions, in Theophylact, in Hilary the deacon, 
in Jerome, and Chrysostom, ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 475, and 
yet Dr. Mills suspects hune versum fictum esse ab aliquo ob 
similia que ad Mariam dicuntur, ver. 24, Append. p. 20, 


* Antig. lib. xiii, cap. 8. 


CHAPTER I. 


13 Bat the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacha- 
rias: for thy ™ prayer (for the people) is heard (God 
meaning now suddenly to send the Messiah) ; and thy 
wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son (who shall be his 

orerunner), and thou shalt call his name John. 

14 And thou shalt have joy and gladness (for the 
fruit of her womb) ; and (not only thou, but others also, 
for) many shall rejoice at his birth. 

15 For he shall be " great in the sight of the Lord 

as being highly favoured by him), and shall drink nei- 
ther wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled 
with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb 
(ἡ. δ. very early). 

16 And many of the children of Israel shall he turn 
to the Lord their God. 

17 And he shall go before him in ” the spirit and 
power of Elias, (who turned the ae from Baal to God, 
1 Kings xviii. 37) to turn the hearts of the fathers to 
(nr with) the children, and the disobedient to the wis- 

om of (Aim who is emphatically styled) the just (One, 
Acts ili. 14; and so) to make ready a people prepared 
for (the reception of ) the Lord. 

18 And Weckstias said unto the angel, Whereby 
shall I know (the truth of) this (of which I have cause 
to doubt) ? for Tam an old man, and my wife (also is) 
well stricken in years. 

19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Ga- 
brie], that stand in the presence of God; and am sent 


though this suspicion be confuted by the words following, μὴ 
0800 Ζαχαρία. 

10 Ver. 13. EisnxotcSn ἡ δέησίς cov, Thy prayer is heard.) 
Not that this good man was now praying for himself, that 
he might have a child; he is so far from any expectation of 
that, that when an angel appearing to him in God's temple, 
and so unquestionably as a messenger from God speaks to 
him of this matter, he believeth not his words; the mean- 
ing is, Thy prayer for the delivery of thy people, for the 
coming of the Messiah, and the consolation of Israel, and 
the remission of their sins, is so graciously heard, that from 
thy very loins shall now come the forerunner “to prepare 
his way :” and thou wilt now quickly have occasion to ac- 
knowledge, that “God hath visited and redeemed his 
people, and raised up a horn of salvation for them” (ver. 68, 
69). 
᾿ Ver. 15. Ἔσται γὰρ μέγας ἐνώπιον τοῦ Κυρίου, He shall be 
great in the sight of (or before) the Τωγα.] Either before 
the Lord Christ, as being “ the prophet of the Highest, to go 
before the Lord to prepare his way,” as the angel saith, ver. 
17, and Zacharias, ver. 76, or in the sight of God, as David 
“found favour ἐνώπιον Θεοῦ, in the sight of God,’ Acts vi. 
46. It follows, « And he shall neither drink wine nor strong 
drink.” This being the description of a Nazarite, Numb. vi. 
3, Judg. xiii. 4, the words “from the womb,” may refer to 
the same thing, as it is said of Samson, “The child shall be a 
Nazarite to God from the womb,” Judg. xiii. 5, xvi. 17 (see 
note on ver. 28), or if they refer to his being filled with the 
Holy Ghost, they must be interpreted as Dr. Hammond pa- 
raphrases them, The power of the Holy Ghost shall be dis- 
cerned to be upon him very early. So Job xxxi. 18, «I 
have guided the widow from my mother’s womb :” Ps. lviii. 
3, “The wicked are estranged from the womb, as soon as 
they are born they go about and tell lies:” Isa. xlviii. 8, 
“Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb.” This 
exposition I prefer to that of Grotius, that he is said to be 
filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb, because he being 
in the womb, was part of his mother who was filled with the 
Holy Ghost. 

2 Ver. 17. ‘Ev πνεύματι καὶ δυνάμει ᾿Ηλίου, In the spirit and 
power of Elias.) Not in his power of working miracles, for 
“John did no miracles” (John x. 41), but in his power of 
turning the people to the Lord (1 Kings xviii. 37). So the 
angel expounds it in the following words, cited from Mal. iv. 
6, “To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and 
the disobedient to the wisdom of the Just, and so to make 
teady a people prepared for the Lord ;” that is, he shall turn 


251 


(by him) to speak (this) unto thee, and to shew thee 
these glad tidings, 

20 And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able 
to speak, until the day that these things shall be per- 
formed, because thou believest not my words, which 
shall be fulfilled in their season. 

21 And the people waited for Zacharias, and mar- 
velled that he tarried so long in the (inner) temple. 

22 And when he came out, he could not speak unto 
them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision 
in the temple: for he (only) beckoned unto them, and 
remained ® speechless. 

23 And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days 
of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to 
his own house, 

24 And after those days his wife Elisabeth con- 
ceived, and (through devotion, or to avoid discourses) 
" hid herself five months, saying, 

25 Thus (graciously) hath the Lord dealt with me 
in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away 
(that barrenness, which was) my reproach among 
men. 

26 And in the sixth month the (same) angel Ga- 
briel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named 
Nazareth, 

27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name 
was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s 
name was Mary. 


the hearts of the fathers Sy to the children, as that pre- 
position signifies, Josh. ii. 8, 1 Sam. xxii. 11, by causing 
them to lay aside their discords, and unite, of what sect 
soever they were, in a general profession of repentance, 
and a free confession of their sins; and so the son of Si- 
rach saith, “He is appointed, ἐπιστρέψαι καρδίαν πατρὸς πρὸς 
υἱὸν, to turn the heart of the futher to the son” (xlviii. 10) ; 
or else, He shall turn the hearts of the fathers, αἱ, “with 
the children,”’ as αἱ signifies, Exod. xii. 8, 9, xxxv. 22, call- 
ing them all to a general confession of, and repentance for 
their sins: and so “turning the disobedient to the wisdom” 
revealed to them by Christ, «the Just One,” as he empha- 
tically is styled, Acts iii. 14. And this the Baptist did by 
preaching to all sorts, young and old, conversion and repent- 
ance, and uniting them all in one baptism of repentance, 
for the remission of sins (Matt. iii. 5,6, Mark i5). He 
was sent to bear witness of Christ “that all men might be- 
lieve on him” (John i. 7) ; and this he also did so effectually, 
that many, finding that all that John said of him was true, 
believed on him (John xiii. 41, 42). Josephus informs us 
that he was “a good man, who instructed the Jews by the 
exercise of virtue, καὶ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους δικαιοσύνη καὶ πρὸς 
Θεὸν εὐσεθεία, and by piety towards God, and righteousness 
or justice towards one another, to come to his baptism ; and 
that hereupon there was great concourse made to him, the 
people being much delighted with his doctrine” (Antiq. lib. 
xviii. cap. 7, p. 626, F, G). 

13 Ver. 22. Kai διέμενε κωῤὸς, And remained speechless.} 
It seemeth that he was both dumb and deaf, for we read 
that he was σιωπῶν καὶ μὴ δυνάμενος λαλῆσαι, “not able to 
speak,” and dumb, ver. 20, and that he was not able to hear 
is evident, because they nodded and made signs to him and 
he to them, ver. 22. 62, and therefore it was only by a sign 
that he asked for a writing table, ver. 63. And this was 
the result of infidelity, in that he believed not an angel 
appearing to him, in a place where evil angels durst not 
come, in the name of cur Lord, and telling him “his prayer 
was heard,” which evil angels could not do, and of things 
which tended to the glory of God, the completion of his 
promises, and the welfare of mankind, which they would 
not do. 

4 Ver, 24, Kai περιέκρυβεν ἑαυτὴν, And she hid herself five 
months.] Partly from devotion, to bless God for a mercy se 
singular and unexpected, and partly from respect to the child, 
lest she should be any way defiled, and so derive uncleanness 
upon the Nazarite in her womb. 

15. Ver. 27. Πρὸς παρθένον (μεμνηστευμένην ἀνδρὶ ᾧ ὄνομα 


252 
28 And the angel (of the Lord) came in unto her, and 


LUKE. 


the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also 


said, Hail, thow that art ® highly favoured (of God), , that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be 


the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. 

29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his 
saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salu- 
tation this should be (or what might be the import of 
it). 

30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: 
(for) thou hast found favour with God. 

31 And, behold, thou (being a virgin) shalt (yet) 
conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and 
shall call his name JESUS. 

32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son 
of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto 
him the throne of his father David (or that spiritual 
kingdom promised to the Messiah the son of David) : 

33 And he shall "7 reign over the house of Jacob 
for ever (whilst he hath any seed in being); and of his 
kingdom there shall be no end (as there hath and shall 
be of the four great monarchies). 

34 Then said Mary unto the angel, 15 How shall this 
be, seeing I know not a man? 

35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The 
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of 


called the Son of God. 

36 And, behold, thy ® cousin Elisabeth, she hath 
also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the 
sixth month (from her conception) with her, who was 
called barren. (Wor 7s this to be doubted of,) 

37 For with God nothing shall be impossible (Gen. 
xviii. 14). 

38 And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the 
Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And 
(then) the angel departed from her. 

39 And Mary arose in those days, and went into the 
39 hill country with haste, into a city of Juda (named 
Hebron, to visit her cousin of whom the angel spake) ; 

40 And (she) entered into the house of Zacharias, 
and saluted Elisabeth. 

41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard 
the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb ; 
and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost (7. e. the 
Spirit of prophecy): 

42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, 
Blessed art thou among women, and *! blessed is the 
fruit of thy womb. 


Two) ἔξ οἴκου Δαβὶδ, καὶ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς παρϑένου Μαριάμ. 
Which words I would render thus, “ ΤῸ a virgin of the house 
of David, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph; and 
the virgin’s name was Mary.” For, first, of this συμπλοκὴ, 
or placing of words not in due order of construction, I have 
given many instances, note on Mark ix. 13; and I think 
there is an instance of it here, ver. 15, “He shall neither 
drink wine nor strong drink from his mother’s womb, and he 
shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” And this construc- 
tion I prefer, as being most suitable to those words of the 
angel, “' The Lord God shall give him the throne of his fa- 
ther David.” The virgin therefore must be of the house of 
David, for seeing the angel had plainly told her she would 
not have this son by the knowledge of a man, it was not 
Joseph’s but Mary’s being of the house of David, which 
made David his father: see also ver. 69, where this “horn 
of salvation” is said to be raised up in the house of his ser- 
vant David: now thus he was raised up in the house of 
David, not by Joseph’s espousal, but by his birth of the 
Virgin ; for from her also was it, that Christ was ἐκ κάρπου 
τῆς ὀσφῦος αὑτοῦ τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, “of the fruit of the loins of 
David according to the flesh,” Acts ii. 30; ἀπὸ τοῦ σπέρματος, 
“of the seed of David,” xiii. 23, Rom. i. 3, 2 Tim. ii. 8. 
Such reason had the evangelist here to say, rather that Mary 
than Joseph was of the “house of David.” 

16 Ver. 28. Κεχαριτωμένη, Thou who art highly favoured.] 
Or, who hast found mercy, or favour with God, as it is ex- 
pounded, ver. 30. It answers to the Hebrew 4pn, which sig- 
nifies χάρις and ἔλεος, mercy and favour. So Ps. xviii. 26, 
SDM Dy μετὰ κεχαριτωμένου χαρίτωθήση, “ With the merciful 
thou wilt show thyself merciful ;” or, to him that shows fa- 
vour to others, thou wilt show favour; and Eph. i. 6, “To 
the praise of his glorious grace, ἐν ἡ ἐχαρίτωσεν ἡμᾶς, through 
which he hath dealt graciously with us,” or made us favour- 
ites “by the beloved,” or, in Christ Jesus. Thus χαριεργὸς, 
he that doth kind and grateful offices, is in Suidas τὰ κεχαρι- 
τωμένα ἐργαζόμενος, “he that doth kind things,” and χαρίεντα, 
in Phavorinus is κεχαριτωμένα. And the son of Sirach 
saith, A word, i. e. a kind word, is better than a gift, but 
both come παρὰ dvépt κεχαριτωμένῳ “from a kind man,” to 
one that shows favour, Ecclus. xviii. 17. It follows, εὐλογη- 
μένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξίν, “ Blessed art thou among women.” So 
it is said of Jael, εὐλογηθείη ἐν γυναιξίν, “Blessed be Jael 
among women,” Judg. v. 24; of Ruth, iii. 10, εὐλογημένη σὺ, 
“Blessed art thou of the Lord, O daughter!” and so David 
speaks to Abigail, 1 Sam. xxv. 33; so also, “The Lord is 
with thee,” is said to Gideon, Judg. vi. 12. And the words, 
ver. 30, εὗρες χάριν παρὰ τῷ Occ, “Thou hast found favour 
with God,” are also said of Noah, Gen. vi. 8, of Joseph, 
Gen. xxxix. 4, of David, Acts vii. 46. So that here is no- 
thing said of the blessed virgin in this salutation, which was 
not before said of others. 


7 Ver. 33. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob, 
eis τοὺς αἰῶνας, Kat τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔσται τέλος, for 
ever ; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.) i.e. Whilst 
the house and the seed of Jacob, or the world lasts; his 
kingdom being never to give place to any other kingdom, as 
the four monarchies did, Dan. vii. 14, but yet when death, 
the last enemy of his church, shall be dissolved, he shall 
give up this mediatory kingdom “to the Father” (see note 
on 1 Cor. xv. 28). 

18 Ver. 34, Πῶς ἔσται τοῦτο: How shall this be, seeing 1 
know not.a man?) She so inquires after the manner, as not 
to doubt of the fact, but she says not she was under a vow 
not to knowa man: for, (1.) virginity amongst the Jews was 
not matter of praise, but reproach (Ps. Ixxviii. 63); inso- 
much that Grotius with all his learning could bring no in- 
stance of any women who were παρθέναι δι᾿ ἁγνείαν, or kept 
their virginity, but from a testimony of Philo* concerning 
some old women among the essenes, who were known ene- 
mies to matrimony (see the note on Col. il. 21): and, (2.) 
marriage is numbered by them among the precepts of the 
law, Targum on Gen. i. 28, which they only were exempted 
from, who devoted themselves wholly to the study of the 
law: and, (3.) if she made this vow before her espousals, 
why should she marry? if after, it was void, as being not 
made with the consent of her husband. 

Ver. 35. Aw καὶ τὸ γεννώμενον ἅγιον, Therefore that holy 
thing which shall be born of thee] Here it is evident that 
our interpreters followed the other reading, viz. τὸ γεννώμενον 
ἐκ cod ἅγιον, for which they had good reason, for so read all 
the ancient versions; so Ireneus, lib. iii. cap. 26, Tertullian, 
contra Prax. cap. 20. Novat. de Trin. cap. 19. Author 
Quest. et Respons. ad Orthodox. q. 46, p. 430. Epiphan. 
Anchor. p. 69. Chrysost. ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 476. Autor 
Dial. contra Marcion. p. 121, where he notes that the evan- 
gelist saith not διὰ σοῦ but ἐκ σοῦ (see Examen Milli). 

19 Ver. 36. Elisabeth thy cousin, cvyyevis cov.) Though 
Elisabeth was of the tribe of Aaron, ver. 5, it follows not 
that Mary was so; for a woman might marry into another 
tribe, provided she was not an heiress that carried the pater- 
nal inheritance along with her, care being taken only against 
that by the law, Numb. xxxvi. 8, 9. : 

20 Ver. 39. Mary went cis τὴν dpewiv—sis πόλιν, into a city 
of Juda.] i. e. To Hebron, which was situated in the hill 
country (Josh. xi. 21), and was given to the posterity of 
Aaron for an inheritance (Josh. xxi. 10, 11); it was also 
the city where David was anointed king over Judah (2 Sam. 
ii. 4). 

Εν 42. Καὶ εὐλογημένος ὃ καρπὸς τὴς κοιλίας σου, And 
blessed be the fruit of thy womb.] These words show that 


* De Vita Contemp. p. 695. 


CHAPTER II. 


43 And whence is this (honour done) to me, that (she 
who οὐ the mother of 3 my Lord should come to me? 

44 For, lo, we 80 affected me that) as soon as the 
voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe 
leaped in my womb for (the) joy (that transported 
me). 
45 And blessed is she that believed (the words of 
the angel): * for there shall be a performance of those 
things which were told her from the Lord. 
- 46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the 

4ord, 

47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 

48 For he hath (highly) regarded the * low estate 
of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all 
génerations shall call me blessed. 

49 For he that is mighty hath done 35 to me great 
things; and holy (and reverend) is his name (Ps. 
exi. 9). 

50 And (as) his mercy is (to me, so will it be) on 
them that fear him from generation to generation. 

51 (Tb show that he is mighty) he (in all ages) hath 
shewed strength with his 7 arm; he hath scattered 
the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 

52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, 
and exalted them of low degree. 


Christ had not his body from heayen, but from the womb of 
the virgin, and so was truly the seed of David, according to 
the flesh, Rom. ix. 5 (see Matt. i. 20, Gal. iv. 6, and the 
note on 1 Cor. xv. 47). 

2 Ver, 43. The mother of my Lord.) She calls him, saith 
Woltzogenius, her Lord, as David had done, Ps. cx. 1, and 
in his note on Matt. xxii. 45, he saith, he was so styled by 
him, “because by virtue of his exaltation to the right hand 
of Power, or of God, he was made Lord of angels, and of 
all men.” Now he who is Lord over all men, and angels, 
must have divine power and wisdom to rule and govern them, 
and so partake of the divine nature. Hence of him, whose 
name is “ King of kings, and Lord of lords,” Rev. xix. 16, St. 
John doth also say, his name is ὁ Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, “ the Word 
of God,” ver. 13, and in the beginning of his gospel, that 
“this Word was God.” 

23 Ver. 44. ᾿Ἐσκίρτησεν iv ἀγαλλιάσει τὸ βρέφος. The child 
leaped in my womb.] “By reason of the joy which trans- 
ported me,” saith Dr. Hammond; for it was when Elisabeth 
heard the salutation of Mary, that the babe leaped in her 
womb, ver. 41, nor is any infant in the womb capable of any 
joy, as having no apprehensions of good to be enjoyed, or 
evil to be avoided; and so he cannot be capable of that joy 
which results only from these apprehensions: if you object, 
that the angel had foretold that this child should be “filled 
with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb,” ver. 15, and 
upon that account he might rejoice whilst he was in it, see 
the answer, note on ver. 15. 

2 Ver. 45. And blessed is she that believed, for (ὅτι, that) 
there shall be a performance of these things.) As the He- 
brew 2 signifies not only for but that; as Job iii. 12, 
ΡΟΝ 2 “that I might suck ;” and Ps, xi. 3, the wicked bend 
their bow, &c. “that the foundations may be destroyed” (see 
note, p. 406): so doth the Greek ὅτι. 

35 Ver. 48. “Ὅτι ἐπέβλεψεν ἐπὶ ταπείνωσιν τῆς δούλης αὑτοῦ, 
For he hath regarded (or compassionately looked upon) the 
low estate of his handmaid.] The word here is not raze- 
voppoctvn, the humble-mindedness, but ταπείνωσις, the mean, 
low, or afflicted state of the virgin, which appeared in her 
offering for her purification, Luke ii. 24. So the word con- 
stantly signifies both in the Old and the New Testament: so 
speaks Leah, Gen. xxix. 32, “The Lord saw τὴν ταπείνωσιν, 
my affliction, and hath given me a child:” so Jacob, Gen. 
xxxi. 22, “The Lord saw my affliction:” so Deut. xxvi. 7, 
1Sam. ix. 16, 2 Kings xiv. 26, Neh. ix. 9, Ps. ix. 13, xxiv. 
18, xxx. 7, cxix. 153, Lam. i. 9, Acts viii. 33. 

% Ver. 49. For he that is mighty hath done to me με- 
γαλεῖα, great things ;] i. 6. He hath wrought a great mira- 
cle upon me; so μεγαλεῖα, and τὰ μεγάλα, often signify the 
miracles God wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, Deut. 


253 


53 Ges through his mercy to them that fear him,) he 
hath filled the hungry with good things ; and (but) the 
rich he hath sent empty away. 

54 He hath * holpen his servant Israel, in remem- 
brance of his merey ; 

55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to 
his seed (promising them one who should be a blessing to 
them) for ever. 

56 And Mary abode with her (cousin) about three 
months, and (then) returned to her own house. 

57 Now Elisabeth’s full time came that she should 
be delivered; and she brought forth a son. 

58 And her neighbours and her cousins heard how 
the Lord had shewed great mercy upon her; and 
they rejoiced with her. 

59 And it came to pass, that on the ® eighth day 
they came to circumcise the child; and they called 
him Zacharias, after the name of his father. 

60 And his mother answered and said (to them so 
naming him), (It shall) not (be) so; but he shall be 
80 called John. 

61 And they said unto her, There is none of thy 
kindred that is called by this name. 

62 And they made signs to his father, (lo know) 
how he would have him called. 


x. 21, xi. 7, xxxiv. 12, Ps. Ixxi. 19, Ecclus. xvii. 8, xxxvi. 8, 
xiii. 15. 

27 Ver. 51. "Exoince κράτος ἐν βραχίονι αὑτοῦ, He hath 
showed strength with his arm.) Here Grotius notes, that 
God’s great power is represented by his finger, his greater by 
his hand, his greatest by his arm; the production of lice was 
“by the finger of God,” Exod. viii. 19, his other miracles in 
Egypt were wrought “by his hand,” Exod. iii. 20, the de- 
struction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea “ by his 
arm,” Exod. xv. 6. The following words seem to be taken 
from the song of Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 4—6, and need no farther 
explication than that which they have received in the para- 
phrase. 

23 Ver. 54, ᾿Αντελάβετο, &c. He hath holpen his servant 
Israel, &c.] The word ἀντιλαμβάνεσϑαι signifies, to hold by 
the hand, to sustain from falling, or to lift up when fallen, 
and so to afford aid or help, Jer. xxxi. 32, Zech. xiii. 13, 
This he hath done, saith the virgin, in remembrance of his 
mercy ; for then God is said signally to remember his people, 
when, after a long oppression, in which he seemed to have 
forgotten them, he works a mighty salvation for them: so 
Ps. CXXXVi., ἐν τῆ ταπεινώσει ἡμῶν ἐμνήσϑη, “ The Lord remem- 
bered us in our affliction (ver. 23), and delivered us out of 
the hand of the enemy ;” and he did this also in pursuance 
of his promise made to our forefathers, to send the Messiah 
to be an everlasting blessing to all that believed in him, and 
so became the seed of Abraham by faith. 

2 Ver. 59. Ἐν τῇ ὀγδόῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἦλϑον repirepveiv τὸ παιδίον. 
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. Not 
before that day, because the mother was unclean seven days 
(Lev. xii. 1, 2), and so was the child by touching her, and 
therefore he was not then fit to be admitted into covenant: 
moreover, till that time he was weak, and could not well en- 
dure the pain of circumcision (see the note on Phil. iii. 5). 
Note also, that the law appointed no certain place in which 
circumcision was to be done, nor any certain person to per- 
form it, and therefore it was done sometimes by women 
(Exod. iv. 25), and here in the house of Elisabeth, as ap- 
pears by her presence at it (ver. 60). ‘The Jews did it 
sometimes in their schools, not out of necessity, but to have 
more witnesses of the fact. Then also they gave the name 
to the infant, because, when God instituted circumcision, he 
changed the names of Abraham and Sarah. 

30 Ver. 60. He shall be called John.) This she might learn 
from her husband, giving her in writing a relation of what 
the angel said to him (ver. 13). Now, “God is gracious,” 
which is the import of that name, is a name very fit for him, 
who was to be the first preacher of the kingdom of grace, 
and who was to point out him, “from whose fulness we re 
ceive grace for grace” (John ΝΕ 16). 


254 


63 And he (by signs) asked for a writing table, and 
wrote, saying, His name is John. And they mar- 
yelled all. 

64 And his mouth was opened immediately, and 
his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God. 

65 And fear came on all that dwelt round about 
them: and all these sayings were noised abroad 
throughout all the hill country of Judea. 

66 And all they that heard them laid them up in 
their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this 
be! * And the hand of the Lord (7. 6. his favour) was 
with him (ἐπ a@ special manner to assist and prosper him). 

67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the 
Holy Ghost, and 33 prophesied, saying, 

68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel ; for he ® hath 
visited and redeemed his people, 


LUKE. 


69 And hath raised up %an hom of salvation (a 
mighty, royal Saviour) for us in the house of his ser- 
vant David; 

70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, 
which have been (successively) 35 since the world be- 
gan: (promising by them) 

71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and 
from the hand of all that hate us; 

72 _(.4nd this he hath done) to perform the mercy pro- 
mised to our fathers, and to remember his holy cove- 
nant (ver. 54, 55) ; 

73 (And) the * oath which he sware to our father 
Abraham, (That in his seed should all the families of the 
earth be blessed, Gen. xxii. 18, and) 

74 That he would grant (Gr. ἐο grant) unto us, that 
we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies 


31 Ver. 66. Kai χεὶρ Κυρίου ἦν per’ αὐτοῦ, And the hand of 
the Lord was with him.] Here by the “hand of the Lord” 
we are not to understand the spirit of prophecy, for this is 
still described by “the hand of the Lord being ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν, 
upon the prophet,” Ezek. i. 3, iii. 22, xxxvii. 1, xl. 1; but 
the care, providence, and assistance of God, as Ps. Ixxx. 17. 

32 Ver. 67. Καὶ Ζαχαρίας ἐπλήσϑη Πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ προε- 
φήτευσε, And his father Zachary was filled with the Holy 
Ghost, and prophesied.] Notwithstanding all that the critics 
here say, I know but two significations of the word prophe- 
sying, especially when it is said to be done by one “ filled 
with the Holy Ghost;” as here; and two senses, in which 
any one in scripture is called a prophet. And, 

First, According to the grammatical import of the word, 
a prophet is 4 προφάσκων τὸ μέλλον, “one who foretells, that 
something future, and contingent in respect of us, shall cer- 
tainly fall out:” so Phavorinus, προφήτης ἐστὶν ὃ δι᾿ ἐνεργείας, 
πνευματικῆς τὰ μέλλοντα δηλῶν, “ A prophet is one who de- 
clares things future, by the assistance of the Spirit: thus, 
when Ezekiel had prophesied of the desolation of Jerusalem 
by the sword, and by wild beasts, “ When this,” saith he, 
“cometh to pass, ye shall know that a prophet hath been 
among you” (Ezek. xxxiii. 27. 33) : and in the time of their 
captivity, they thus complain, “ We see not our signs; there 
is no prophet more, not one that can tell us how long” these 
calamities shall last, or when they will have an end es Ixxiv. 
9). And in this sense Zacharias here prophesies, foretelling 
what should be done by his son, and by the Messiah here- 
after. 

Secondly, A prophet, in the scripture language, is a re- 
vealer of the will of God. So Phavorinus, προφήτης ἐστὶν 
ἄνϑρωπος θεῖος πνευματοφόρος, “ A prophet is a divine man, 
endued with an afflatus of the Holy Spirit.’ In this sense 
is Abraham styled a prophet, by reason of the many divine 
revelations made to him, Gen. xx. 7, and by him left unto 
posterity, xviii. 19, and John the Baptist is here styled a 
prophet, ver. 76, because he received his commission and 
doctrine from heaven, Matt. xxi. 25, John i. 6, though we 
read of no predictions made by either of them. And to 
such a prophet it was absolutely necessary that he should re- 
ceive his doctrine by revelation from God; for as the things 
of man knoweth no man, but the spirit of man that is in 
him; so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit 
of God” (1 Cor. ii. 11) : so that he who reveals his will must 
be ἄνθρωπος ὃ πνευματοφόρος, “a man inspired by the Spirit ;” 
for, saith St. Peter, “no prophecy is of private motion or 
incitation, but holy men of old spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet. i. 20,21). Hence are they styled 
so often “the messengers of the Lord, the prophets who had 
spoken in the name of the Lord,” 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16, Hag. 
i. 13, Mal. ii. 7, 1 Pet. i. 10, 2 Pet. iii. 2. Their prophecies 
are called the “word” and “burden” of the Lord; and 
their style runs, “Thus saith the Lord.” Hence, lastly, 
this is still the character of the false prophets, that “they 
run when God had not sent them, and prophesied when God 
Irad not spoken to them;” nor have these words any other 
sense in scripture, nor were they used any otherwise by the 
ancient Jews: this sense the word plainly bears, when it is 
said, Exod. vii. 1, “I have made thee a god to Pharaoh, and 
Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet ;” i. 6. the revealer of 


what thou, the god of Pharaoh, shall say to him; nor does 
it ever signify to expound or interpret scripture, otherwise 
than by a divine afflatus, or gift of prophecy (see the note on 
1 Cor. xiv. 6). It also signifies a divine afflatus enabling a 
man to compose hymns, or psalms of praise, but still “as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (see the same note). 
In the example of Saul, it signifies to rave in prophesying, 
i. e. to be, as the Septuagint hath it, Hos, ix. 7, ἐξεστηκὼς, a 
prophet in ecstasy and madness ; but still by the afflatus of 
an evil spirit, according to that distinction of prophecy Pha- 
vorinus gives us, that it is either πνευματικὴ ἢ καὶ διαβολικὴ, 
“by the afflatus of the good or evil spirit;” as in this in- 
stance, the evil spirit came upon Saul, “and he prophesied 
in his house” (see the opinion of the Jews, note on 2 Pet. i. 
21).” And, lastly, when the body of Elisha is said by the 
son of Sirach to prophesy by raising the dead man, Ecclus. 
xlviii. 14, he intended not to say, it wrought a miracle, but 
only that it foretold a thing to come, viz. the fall of the Sy- 
rians, who, saith Elisha there, “shall be smitten three times,” 
and the rising up of God’s oppressed people, or the reviving 
of them; and so is to be reduced to the first acceptation of 
the word. 

33 Ver. 68, ᾿Επεσκέψατο, καὶ ἐποίησε λύτρωσιν τῷ λαῳ αὑτοῦ, 
He hath visited in mercy, &c.] So Ruth i. 6, Ps. Ixxix. 
15, ev. 4, so as to do them good; as he visited Sarah, Gen. 
xxi. 1, and Hannah, 1 Sam. ii. 21, and his people oppressed 
by the Egyptians, Gen. |. 24, 25, Exod. iti. 16, when the 
people rejoiced, ὅτι ἐπεσκέψατο, “that God hath visited the 
children of Israel,” iv. 31, xiii. 19, as he did then by grant- 
ing them the deliverance they desired, and here by granting 
the Messiah they so earnestly expected, who was to save his 
people from their sins, and so to work redemption for them. 

534 Ver. 69. Képas σωτηρίας. Either a strong or mighty 
salvation; the metaphor being taken from beasts, whose 
strength is in their horns, as Jer. xlviii. 25, Lam. ii. 3. 17. 
Or a royal salvation ; the horn signifying royal power, Ps. 
exxxii. 17, Dan. vii. 7, 8, Zech. i. 18, this relating to the 
setting up the kingdom of David by the Messiah, who was 
to reign over the house of Jacob, ver. 33. 73, so that it is 
eminently κέρας τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ, “the horn of his Christ,” 
1 Sam. ii. 10. 

85 Ver. 70. Τῶν ἀπ᾽ αἰῶνος προφητῶν, Which have been 
since the world began.] From the beginning of ages, the 
promise being made to Adam, Gen. iii. 15, “that the seed 
of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head.” So Jeru- 
salem hath been a rebellious city, min jomath holma, ag’ 
ἡμερῶν aidvos, i. 6. “from time of old,’ Ezra iv. 15. 19, and 
ἡμέραι dpxatat, the days of old, and ἔτη αἰώνια, are the same, 
Ps. Ixxvii. 5 (see the note on Tit. i. 2). 

86 Ver. 73. To perform the oath, &c.] This oath was 
made to Abraham, Gen. xxii. 16,17. Now that being “an 
immutable thing” (Heb. vi. 17), it could neither be hin- 
dered nor retarded by the sins of the Jews, as they say the 
coming of their Messiah was; and the words following, 
δοῦναι ἡμῖν, «that he would give us this horn of salvation,” 
or this seed, in which all the families of the earth should be 
blessed, are the subject of that oath, Gen. xxii. 18, and 
therefore these words are rather to be joined to this verse, as 
in the Greek, than to be added to the beginning of the next, 
as it is in our translation. 


CHAPTER II. 


(on death, and Satan,) might™ serve him without fear 


’ 

75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all 
the days of our life. 

76 And thou, (my) child, shalt be called ® the pro- 
phet of the Highest (God): for thou shalt go before 
the face of the Lord (Christ) to prepare his ways ; 

77 To give knowledge of salvation (ἡ, e. of the Mes- 
siah, slyled by the prophets the salvation of God: see note 
on ii. 30) unto his people by the remission of their 
sins, 


37 Ver. 74. ᾿᾿Αφόβως λατρεύειν αὐτῷ, To serve him without 
αν.) That ἀφόβως here is to be joined to λατρεύειν, “to 
serve,” is evident, as Mr. Le Clere notes, from the harshness 
of the other expression, “to be delivered without fear ;”” and 
from the nature of the Christian constitution, which delivers 
us “from the spirit of bondage unto fear,” under which the 
Jews were held (Rom. viii. 15), from the fear of death, the 
last enemy, and of Satan, who had the power of death 
(Heb. ii. 14, 15) ; God having “not now given us the spirit 
of fear” (2 Tim. i. 17), but that love which casts out fear 
(1 John iv. 18). But then, when Mr. Le Clere adds, that 
at this time the Syrians, Egyptians, and other heathen na- 
tions bordering on Judea, were troublesome to the Jews; 
nor were they without fear of the Romans themselves, so 
that they could not exercise their religion ἀφόβως, without 
fear; and that Zacharias speaks of the Messiah as of one 
that was about to rescue the Jews from those dangers, in 
agreement with the common opinion ; nor did the Spirit of 
prophecy undeceive him as to this matter: this is one of 
those bold strokes, which if that learned man could abstain 
from, he would give less offence to the Christians, and less 
advantage to the antiscripturists; for if one ‘filled by the 
Holy Ghost,” and prophesying by an afflatus from him, may 
prophesy deceit, and promise to his fellow Jews that a tem- 
poral kingdom should be erected by the Messiah, which 
their common opinion made them to expect; though this 
opinion was not only false, but wholly opposite to the na- 
ture of Christ’s kingdom, and that which chiefly hindered 
the Jews from receiving Christ as their Messiah : why might 
not others, though filled with the Holy Ghost, speak other 
things according to the common though false opinion of the 
Jews, and the Spirit of prophecy not undeceive them? And 
if so, where is our certainty of the rule of faith? But 
surely, if Christ’s kingdom be spiritual, his subjects must be 
so, and their enemies spiritual, sin, death, and Satan; from 
all which we shall obtain a full deliverance by “ serving God 
in righteousness and holiness before him all the days of our 
life.” 

88. Ver. 70. «'Ὃ προφήτης ὑψίστου, The prophet of the 
Highest.) The God of Israel seems to have been still 
owned by those heathens who had any knowledge of him, 
as a God above all gods; by Cyrus he is styled, by way of 
emphasis, ὁ Θεὸς, “ the God,” Ezra i. 3, by Rahab the har- 
lot, the God of heaven above, and in the earth beneath, 
Josh. ii. 11, by Cyrus, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, Ezra i. 2, by 
Darius, Ezra vi. 9, 10, by Artaxerxes, Ezra vii. 21. 23, by 
Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. iv. 37, by Hiram, the God that made 
heaven and earth, 1 Chron. ii. 12. And as in scripture he 


255 


78 Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby 
the ® dayspring from on high (or rising sun, as Christ 
is styled, Zech. iii. 8) hath visited us, 

79 To give light (not to us only, but also) to them 
that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to 
guide our feet into the way of peace. 

80 And the child grew, and waxed strong in (the) 
spirit (or had the Spirit of God daily showing himself 
more conspicuously in him), and was in the deserts till 
the day of his shewing (himself) unto Israel (by the 
execution of his office among them). 


is exalted above all others, by the name of γγυὺν Sx the most 
high God, Gen. xiv. 18, so also he is styled by Cyrus, Esd. 
ii. 3, by Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. iv. 34, by Darius, Esd. vi. 
31, by Artaxerxes, Esd. viii. 19. 21, by the emperor Au- 
gustus, Josephus, Antiq. lib. xvi. cap. 10, p. 561, by Tibe- 
rius, Philo, Legat. ad Caium, p. 785, E, by ‘T'atnai and She- 
thar-boznai, Θεὸς ὁ μέγας, the great God, Ezra v. 8, by 
Artaxerxes, the highest, the greatest, and the living God, 
Esth. xvi. 16. 

89 Ver. 78. ᾿Ανατολὴ é ὕψους, The day-spring from on 
high hath visited us.] He who is here styled “the day- 
spring from on high,” or rising sun, is by Zachary called, 
iii. 8, ᾿Ανατολὴ, “the rising sun, my servant;” and vi. 12, 
“the man whose name is ᾿Ανατολὴ, the rising sun:” and by 
Malachi, iv. 2, “the sun of righteousness,” as being to arise 
upon the Jew and gentile, and spread his bright beams on 
those “ who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,” 
Isa. ix. 2. Whence by old Simeon he is said “ to be a light 
to lighten the gentiles,” Luke ii. 32, and by the Baptist, 
“to be a light shining in darkness,” John i, 5.— 

[An addition.] It is evident to any one who inspects the 
Greek, that this hymn is deficient as to the full sense of it, 
from ver. 71 to 75, and that ποιῆσαι ἔλεος pera τῶν πατέρων 
ἡμῶν, ver. 72, which we translate “to perform the mercy 
promised to,” should rather be translated, “to perform the 
mercy (covenanted) with our fathers, and to remember his 
holy covenant ;” according to the words of the blessed Vir- 
gin, “ He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of 
his mercy (covenanted) to Abraham, and to his seed for 
ever :’”’ it being therefore very usual, both in the Old and 
the New Testament, to supply what is defective from the 
preceding words, I look upon the whole following hymn to 
ver. 76, as a descant upon those words in the beginning, to 
Wit, ἐπεσκέψατο, καὶ ἐποίησε λύτρωσιν, “ He hath visited and 
redeemed his people ;” and therefore fill up the sense of it 
thus, ἐποίησε λύτρωσιν, “ He hath performed redemption to 
them :” viz. ver. 71, σωτηρίαν, “salvation from our ene- 
mies, and from the hands of all that hate us:” ἐπεσκέψατο, 
ver. 72, ποιῆσαι ἔλεος, “He hath visited us, to perform the 
mercy covenanted with our fathers, and to remember his 
holy covenant; καὶ μνησϑῆναι (ver. 73), τὸν ὅρκον, and to re- 
member the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, 
τοῦ δοῦναι ἡμῖν, to give us, the heirs of the promise (Heb. vi. 
17), this horn of salvation (ver. 69), this Redeemer, this de- 
liverer out of Zion (styled 6 ῥυόμενος, to enable us), ῥυσθέντας, 
thus delivered from the hands of our enemies, to serve him 
without fear,” &c. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Anp it came to pass in those days, that there 
went out a decree from Cesar Augustus, ' that all the 
world should be taxed (that is, should have their names 
and conditions in life set down in court-rolls, according to 
their families). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1Ver. 1. ᾿Απογράφεσθαι πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην, That all the 
world should be taxed.] Not only the Roman empire, but 
all the precedent empires were styled οἰκουμένη, “the world ;” 
and the governors of them were said πάσης ἐπικρατῆσαι τῆς 
οἰκουμένης, “to rule over the whole world” (see the note on 


2 (And this taxing was * first made (before 
that made) when Cyrenius was governor of 
Syria.) 

3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own 
city. 


Heb. ii. 5). Hence the counsel of God against the empire 
of Babylon is styled his counsel, ἐπὶ τὴν ὅλην οἰκουμένην, 
against all the earth ;” her desolation is represented as the 
desolation ὅλης τῆς οἰκουμένης, “of the whole world ;” and 
the evil brought upon her, as evils which extended τῇ oixov- 
μένη ὅλη, “to the whole world” (Isa. xiv. 17. 26). 

2 Ver. 2. Αὕτη ἡ ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς 


256 


4 And Joseph also? went up from Galilee, out of 
the city of Nazareth, into Judza, unto ‘ the city of Da- 
vid, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of 
the house and lineage of David: 

5 To be taxed with ὁ Mary his espoused wife, being 
great with child. 

6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the 
days were accomplished that she should be delivered. 

7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, 5 and 
wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a 
manger ; because there was no room for them in the 
inn. 

8 And there were in the same country 7 shepherds 
ae in the field, keeping watch over their flock by 
night. 

9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them 
(Gr. stood by them), and the 8 glory of the Lord shone 
round about them: and they were sore afraid. 


LUKE. 


10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, 
behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which 
shall be (so) to all people. 

11 For unto you is born this day in (Beth-lehem) the 
city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 

12 And this shall be a sign unto you (of the truth of 
my words, That going thither) ye shall find the babe 
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multi- 
tude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 

14 9 Glory (be) to God (who dwelleth) in the highest 
(heavens), and (or, for by this Saviour is procured) on 
earth peace, (and God’s) good will toward men. 

15 And it came to pass, as the angels were gone 
away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one 
to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and 
see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord 
hath made known unto us. 


Συρίας Kupnviov, Now this taxing was first made when (or, 
was before that, when) Cyrenius was governor of Syria.] I 
dare not allow of the boldness of those critics, who for Kv- 
pnviov read Κυιντηλίου, or Σατυρνίνου, there being no footsteps 
of any such reading either in ancient writers, versions, or 
MSS.; and were there place for conjecture here, I would 
rather read πρὸ τῆς than πρύτη ; as if the evangelist should 
say, This taxing or enrolling was before that, which was 
made by Cyrenius, that being so unhappy and pernicious to 
the Jews,* by reason of the sedition then raised, upon occa- 
sion of the tax, by Judas Gaulonites, and which, saith Jose- 
phus,* gave the rise to all their future troubles. 

Now this, saith Josephus, was after Judea was made 
προσϑήκη τῆς Συρίας, “an addition to the province of Syria;” 
and when Archelaus was banished, and so above ten years 
after that mentioned here, as done at our Saviour’s birth, 
and fit to be thus separated from that, which was attended 
with those ill effects; this being in design highly salutary, 
that being very fatal to the Jewish nation. But neither do 
we need this criticism, since the words πρῶτος and πρότερος 
are by the LXX. oft used according to this sense: of the 
word πρότερον, that is beyond doubt, God saying twice ἀποσ- 
τελῶ σφηκίας 49955 πρότερας cov, “I will send hornets before 
thee” (Exod. xxiii. 28, Josh. xxiv. 12); in which sense you 
will find this word above twenty times in Kircher’s Con- 
cordance in the word 3p: that πρῶτος also is used in the 
sense of priority, we learn from these instances, πρωτύτοκος 
ἑλὼ ἢ σὺ, Heb. yen ὋΝ “1 am before thee, I am elder than 
thou ;” καὶ ἵνα τι οὐκ ἐλογίσϑη ὃ λύγος μου πρῶτος. Chald. 
9 xxipp kaddemotza li, “why then was not the word first 
spoken to me?” cur mihi non annuntiatum est priori? 2 
Sam. xix. 43; Isa. Ixv. 16, “The former troubles are for- 
gotten,” Gr. ἐπιλήσονται τὴν ϑλίψιν αὐτῶν τὴν πρώτην, and ver. 
17, οὐ μὴ μνησϑῶσι τῶν προτέρων, “They shall not remember 
the former:” so John i. 15. 30, ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν, “For he 
was before me;” and, xv. 18, “ Know that they hated ἐμὲ 
πρῶτον, me before you;” 1 Cor. xiv. 30, 5 πρῶτος, « Let the 
former hold his peace;” and 1 John iv. 19, “We love 
him, ὅτι πρῶτος, because he loved us before;” and in Aris- 
tophanes, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἂν πρώτου is interpreted ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἂν πρότε- 
pov, Neph. p. 122, and so Theophylact interprets the words 
here, τουτέστι προτέρα ἡγεμονεύοντος, ἤγουν πρότερον ἣ ἡγεμύνευε 
τῆς Συρίας Κυρήνιοςς. As for this ἀπογραφὴ, that it was not a 
money tax, but an enrolling of persons according to their 
families and estates, see Dr. Hammond, note ὦ. 

3 Ver. 4. ᾿Ανέβη δὲ καὶ ᾿Ιωσὴφ, &c. And Joseph went up 
from Galilee—to the city of David called Bethlehem.) Here, 
first, interpreters observe, That ἀναβαίνειν, “to ascend, or go 
up,” does not always signify to go from a lower to a higher 
place, but to go from one place to another, as Judg. xvi. 18. 
Secondly, That admirable was the providence of God in or- 
dering this enrolment, intended by Augustus to be done be- 


* Κυρήνιος ἐπὶ Συρίας παρῆν ὑπὸ Καίσαρος δικαιοδότης τοῦ ἔθνους 
ἀπεσταλμένος, καὶ τιμητὴς τῶν οὐσιῶν γενησόμενος. Joseph. Antiq. 
lib. xviii. cap. 1. 

T Καὶ τῶν αὖθις κακῶν κατειληφότων ῥίζας ἐφύτευσαν. Ibid. 


fore, to be deferred to this very time, that so Christ might 
be born in Bethlehem, according to the prediction of the 
prophet, Micah v. 2. And, Thirdly, That the stock and fa- 
mily of Christ might at that time be known and preserved 
in the public tables, as Justin Martyr, ‘Tertullian, and Chry- 
sostom (Hom. 8, in Matt.), testify. 

4 Eis πόλιν Δαβίδ, To the city of David.] That muster- 
ings and enrollings, as in other nations, so especially in Ju- 
dea, were made according to their tribes, cities, and families, 
we learn from the sortition which Joshua made by tribes, fa- 
milies, and households, Josh. vii. 14. Now this could not 
be done, especially after their manifold dispersions, unless 
every one went to that city to which his family belonged. 

5 Ver. 5. Σὺν Μαριὰμ τῇ μεμνηστευμένη αὑτῷ γυναικὶ, With 
Mary his espoused wife.] She was not only espoused now, 
but married also to him, but is still called espoused, because 
Joseph used her as such, not knowing her “till she had 
brought forth υἱὸν αὐτῆς τὸν πρωτότοκον, her first-born son,” 
Matt. 1. 25 (see the note there). Moreover, hence it is pro- 
bably collected, that the blessed Virgin Mary was also of 
the house and family of David, as hath been shown, note 
on Luke i. 27, for, if he went to Bethlehem to be enrolled 
because he was of the house and family of David, she must 
go thither for the same reason also; nam alioqui ipsa in 
familie sue urbe profiteri debuerat ;. “for otherwise,” saith 
Grotius, “she ought to have been enrolled in the city of her 
own family,” and not at Bethlehem: for it is said, ver. 3, 
“that all (men and women) went to be taxed, every one in 
his own city.” 

6 Ver. 7. Kai ἐσπαργᾶνωσεν, &c. And she wrapped him in 
swaddling-clothes.| By doing this herself it is thought her 
labour was without the usual pangs of childbed. 

7 Ver. 8. Καὶ ποιμένες ijoav—puddocovres φυλακὰς τῆς νυκ- 
τὸς, &c. And there were shepherds—keeping watch over 
their flock, or the watches of the night over their flock.] 
Here note (1.) That as Abraham and David, to whom the 
promise of the Messiah was first made, were shepherds, so 
was the completion of this promise first revealed to shep- 
herds. (2.) The watches of the night were four; the first of 
them is mentioned Lam. ii. 19, the second and third, Luke 
xii. 38, and the fourth, Matt. xiv. 25, being the morning 
watch, Exod. xiv. 24. These flocks being kept in the field, 
they watched severally in their courses, to preserve them 
from thieves and wild beasts, and had their little cottages 
erected for that purpose. 

8 Ver. 9. Kai ἡ d6fa Κυρίου περιέλαμψεν αὐτοὺς, And the 
glory of the Lord shone round about them.} i. e. Not only 
a great light, but such a glorious splendour as useth to re- 
present the presence of God; of which, see note on Phil. ii. 
6, Heb. i. 3, and was oft attended with a host of angels, as 
here, ver. 13, styled the heavenly host, 1 Kings xxil. 19, 
Neh. ix. 6, Ps. ciii. 20, who, as they sang together at the 
first creation, Job xxxviii. 7, so do they now at the redemp- 
tion of the world, praising God, and saying, 

9 Ver. 14. Δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις Oecd, καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρῆνη, ἐν ἀνϑρώ- 
ποις εὐδοκία, Glory to God on high, and on earth peace, good- 
will towards men.] Here note, first, that this is not a hymn 
of prayer, that glory may be given to God, peace may be 


CHAPTER II. 


16 And they came with haste (thither), and found 
Mary, and Joseph (there), and the babe lying in a 
manger. 

17 And when they had seen it, they made known 
abroad the saying which was told them (by the angel) 
concerning this child. : 

18 And all they that heard ἐΐ wondered at those 
things which were told them by the shepherds. 

19 But Mary kept all these things, and pondered 
them in her heart. 

20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and prais- 
ing God for all the things that they had heard ( from 
the angel) and seen, as it was told unto them (by him). 

21 And when eight days were " accomplished (¢. e. 
when the eighth day was come) for the cireumcising of 
the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so 
named of (or, the name imposed on him by) the angel 
before he was conceived in the womb. 

22 And when the days of her " purification ac- 
cording to the law of Moses were accomplished, they 
brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord ; 

23 (As it is written in the law of the Lord, 12 Every 
inale that openeth the womb shall be called holy to 


267 


the Lord;) (ἡ. 6. shall be consecrated to God, and so made 
holy ; 

δι dyn to offer a sacrifice (for the woman at her 
puri, are? according to that which is said in the law 
of the Lord, (That he who is not able to bring a lamb, 
should bring) a ™ pair of turtledoves, or two young 
pigeons. 

25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, 
whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just 
(towards men) and devout (towards God, and he was) 
τὲ waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the ® Holy 
Ghost was upon him. 

26 And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, 
that he should not see death, before he had seen the 
Lord’s Christ. 

27 And he came by (motion of) the Spirit into the 
temple : and when the parents (at the same time) brought 
in the child Jesus, to do for him (7. e. to pay the price 
of his redemption as being their first-born) after the cus- 
tom of the law (concerning the first-born), 

28 Then took he him up in his arms, and blessed 
God, and said, 

29 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant ® depart in 


upon earth, &c., but rather a declaratory hymn of glory due 
to God for what he hath done already; for the angels are 
said to praise God, saying, “ Glory,” &c. Now praise is for 
what is done already. Secondly, Some, observing that καὶ 
is sometimes causal, and signifies for, give the sense of this 
hymn thus, Glory be to God; because, by the birth of this 
Saviour, who is our peace (Eph. ii. 14), there will be peace 
on earth, and the good-will of God to man is manifest. 
Others thus: The good-will of God to man, shown in the 
incarnation of our Saviour, is matter to him of the highest 
glory, and the foundation of our peace on earth: and be- 
cause some copies read ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας, “to men of 
good-will; some, following that reading, give the sense 
thus: Peace will be on earth to men whom God accepts. 
But this is less to be regarded, because all the Greek fathers 
(Orig. in Joh. xi. 14. Euseb, Demonst. Evang. lib. iv. cap. 
0, p. 163. Epiph. Her. 30, §. 29. Constit. Apost. lib. 
vii. cap. 47) read otherwise (see Examen Millii in locum). 
10 Ver. 21. Kat ὅτε ἐπλήσθησαν ἡμέραι ὀκτὼ τοῦ περιτεμεῖν 
τὸ παιδίον, And when eight days were accomplished for the 
circumcising of the child.| That is, not when the eighth day 
was ended, but when it was come: so ver. 22, so Acts ii. 1, 
ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσθαι, “When the day of pentecost was 
come.” Now Christ was circumcised, that he might wear 
the badge of a child of Abraham, and that he might be 
“made under the law, to redeem them that were under the 
law” (Gal. iv. 4), καὶ ἐκλήθη, and then was his name called 
Jesus. So καὶ signifies, Gen. xxiv. 41, xxviii. 21, xxxi. 8, 
xlii. 34. 38, Exod. vii. 9, Lev. iv. 3. 14. 23. 28, Numb. v. 
15. 21, Deut. vi. 21, viii. 10, Josh, i. 15, xxiv. 20, 1 Sam. 
i. 11, Matt. ix. 7, Luke ii. 28. : 
Ver, 22. Kai ὅτε ἐπλήσϑησαν al ἡμέραι τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ 
αὐτῆς----αὐτῶν, And when the days of her purification, ac- 
cording to the law of Moses, were accomplished.) 1 for- 
merly thought that the reading “ her purification,” and not 
the purification of them both, was to be retained, that only 
seing agreeable to the law, and to the version of the LXX., 
because the law of purification belonged only to the mother, 
who till that time remained ἐν αἵματι ἀκαθάρτῳ αὐτῆς, “in 
the blood of her impurity,” till the days καθάρσεως αὐτῆς, 
“of her purifying were fulfilled” (Lev. xii. 4, 5): then, 
saith the text, shall she bring her offering, “and the priest 
ἐξιλάσεται περὶ αὐτῆς καὶ καθαριεῖ αὐτὴν, shall make an atone- 
ment for her, and she shall be cleansed from the issue of 
her blood: this is the law for her that hath borne a male or 
female” (ver. 7, 8). But I have since found cause to judge 
otherwise: for that the ancient reading was αὐτῶν is evident 
from these words of Origen,* Si scriptum esset propter pur- 
gationem ejus; i. 6. Marie, nihil questionis oriretur, et au- 
dactér diceremus Mariam que homo erat, purgatione in- 
diguisse post partum; nunc verd in eo quod ait, dies 


* Hom. 14 in Lucam, ἢ, 100, Ὁ. 
Vor. IV.—33 


purgationis eorwm, non videtur unum significare, sed alterum, 
sive plures. So also read St. Jerome, Con. Helvid. tom. ii. 
f. 7, lit. A, Euthymius, Theophylact, and the Syriac ver- 
sion; nor is there any fear of ascribing any moral impurity 
to the holy Jesus by allowing this reading, since this purga- 
tion imports only a compliance with a ceremonial law, in 
order to their admittance into the congregation of God’s peo- 
ple, to which Christ, being “ made of a woman, made under 
the law,” was to submit, that he might “fulfil all righteous- 
ness: on which account also he was made relatively holy, 
by being consecrated to the Lord, according to the law con- 
cerning every male that openeth the womb, ver. 23. 

2 Ver. 23. Πᾶν ἄρσεν διανοῖγον pirpav, Every male that openeth 
the womb.) The words of the law concerning every male that 
openeth the womb, being} here applied to the blessed virgin, 
bringing forth her first-born, sufficiently confirm the assertion 
of Ireneus,* Tertullian,t Origen,} and others of the fathers, 
cited by Petavius, that she brought forth Christ after the 
usual manner; and yet the contrary opinion, though built 
upon fables, and superstitious imaginations, and spurious 
authorities, prevailed almost generally in the fourth and 
fifth centuries (see the treatise of Traditions, par. 1. cap. 1, 
§. 4). 

2 Ver 24. Kat δοῦναι θυσίαν----ζεῦγος τρυγόνων, And to offer 
—a pair of turtles.] This being the oblation appointed 
only for the poor (Lev. xii. 6. 9), discovers the poverty of 
Joseph and Mary, that they could not reach to a lamb of 
the first year; the offering which they who had ability were 
to make. 

4 Ver. 25. Προσδεχόμενος τὴν παράκλησιν τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ, Wait- 
ing for the consolation of Israel. This was the familiar 
phrase they used when they spake of the coming of the Mes- 
siah; to see those days being, in their way of speaking, 
“to see the consolation of Israel,” or “the years of the 
consolation to come.” See the Targum on Isa. iv. 3, on 
Jer. xxxi. 6, and 2 Sam. xxiii. 1, and they were wont, 
saith Dr. Lightfoot, to swear “ by their desire to see this con- 
solation.” 

16 Kai Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἦν én’ αὐτὸν, And the Holy Ghost was 
upon him.] i. e. He had received the gift of prophecy ; for 
that having ceased four hundred years, began to dawn 
again at the birth of the Messiah in some pious persons, 
as Zachary, Simeon, and Anna the daughter of Phanuel. 

16 Ver. 29. Niv ἀπολύεις, Lord, now lettest thou thy ser- 
vant depart.) Here Grotius well notes, that ἀπολύειν and 


* Fuit filius hominis purus, puram aperiens vulvam, Iren, 
lib. iv. cap. 66. 

+ Virgo quantim ἃ viro, non virgo quantum a 
peperit enim ipsa patefacti corporis lege. Tertul. de Carne 
Christi, cap. 23. 

+ Matris Domini eo tempore vulva reserata est, qué partus 
editus. Orig. Hom. 13, in Levit. tom. ii. f. 101. 

w2 


.-ὄὄ-. 


258 


peace; (seeing it hath been with me) according to thy 
word: 

30 For mine eyes have seen (the Messiah, called) 
thy ” salvation, 

31 Which thou hast prepared before the face of all 
people; (as well gentiles as Jews ; he being sent as) 

32 A light to lighten the Gentiles, and (to be) the 
glory of thy people Israel. 

33 And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those 
things which were spoken of him. 

34 And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary, 
his mother, Behold, this chz/d is set for ® the fall (of 
many through infidelity) and ( ΠΣ the) rising again (or 
up) of many in Israel (through faith in him) ; and for 
a sign which shall be spoken against (by the scribes 
and pharisees, and rulers of the people, who shall blas- 
pheme his person, contradict his doctrine, and set him up 
as their mark to shoot at) ; 

35 (Yea,.a sword (that of martyrdom) shall pierce 
through thy own soul also,) (and this contradiction of 
him, God in his wisdom shall permit,) that the thoughts 
of many hearts (7. 6. the inward tempers and dispositions 
of many) may be revealed. 


LUKE. 


36 And there was (also) one ® Anna, a prophetess, 
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: (and) 
she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband 
seven years from her virginity ; 

37 And she was a widow of about fourscore and 
four years (οἰ), which departed not from the temple, 
but served God with fastings and prayers night and 
day (at evening and morning service). 

38 And she coming in that instant (that the child 
was there) gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and 
21 spake of him to all them that looked for redemption 
in Jerusalem (as the person from whom it was to be 
expected ). 

39 And when they had performed all things accord- 
ing to the law of the Lord (and had fled into Egypt 
for the safety of the child, after the death of Herod), 
they returned into Galilee, to their own city Naza- 
reth. 

40 And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, 
(being) filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was 
upon him (2. e. the favour of God was with him). 

41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year 
at the feast of the passover. 


ἀπόλυσις, both in sacred and profane authors, signify to de- 
part out of this life, or to die; as when Abraham says, ἐγὼ 
απολύομαι ἄτεκνος, “I die childless,” Gen. xv. 23 ἀπελύϑη 
Aapav, “ Aaron died,” Numb. xx. 29. Thus Tobit prays, 
“Command my spirit to be taken from me, ὅπως ἀπολυθῶ, 
that I may be dissolved ;” ἐπίταξον ἐπιλυϑῆναί pe, Tobit iii. 
5; and Sarah saith, εἶπον ἀπολύσαί pe ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, Ver. 13, 
41 desired God to take me from the earth;” and one of the 
seven children saith to the tyrant, σὺ ἐκ τοῦ παρόντος ἡμᾶς ζῆν 
ἀπολύεις, “ Thou takest away our present life.” ‘Thus, saith 
Lycon,* this is my testament, μετὰ τὴν ἐμὴν ἀπόλυσιν, “af- 
ter my dissolution.” Themistiust notes that it was cus- 
tomary to some to call death ἀπόλυσις, and to say of them 
that they did ἀπολύειν. So Theophrastus} calls death ἀπόλυσις ; 
and Heraclitus§ saith, “« Perhaps the soul presageth ἀπόλυσιν 
αὐτῆς, her dissolution ;” all which expressions confirm the 
old traditions of the distinction of the soul from the body, 
and her continuance in a state of separation. 

17 Ver. 30. Ὅτι εἶδον ὄφθαλμοί μου τὸ σωτήριόν cov, For 
mine eyes have seen thy salvation.] So the deliverance God 
sent to his people is called σωτήριον τοῦ Θεοῦ, “the salvation 
of God,” Ps. xeviii. 3; how much more may the salvation 
sent by Christ be styled, as it is emphatically, ἡ σωτηρία, 
“the salvation,” Isa. xlix. 6, lil. 7, yea, σωτηρία παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, 
“salvation from God,” ver. 10? 

18 Ver. 32. Φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐϑνῶν" A light to enlighten the 
gentiles.] It is wonderful that after so many clear prophe- 
‘cies in the Old Testament of the calling of the gentiles, the 
Jews should have been all so blind as to imagine God had 
no kindness for them (Acts x. 45, xi. 18). 

19 Ver. 34. Οὗτος κεῖται εἰς πτῶσιν καὶ ἀνάστασιν, This child 
ts set for the fall and rising of many in Israel.) Doubtless 
God’s first design in sending his Son into the world was that 
“through him the world might be saved” (John ii. 16), and 
he was designed especially “to save his people from their 
sins” and be “a horn of salvation” to them (Luke i. 69). 
But to persons who were worldly-minded and had no relish 
for spiritual things, which was the case of the generality of 
the Jews, who were much given to the flesh, as Tacitus ob- 
serves of them, who were puffed up with a vain conceit of 
their own wisdom and singular piety, full of vain-glory, 
greedy of empire and applause, and affected with worldly 
pomp and grandeur, as were the scribes and pharisees, and 
Tulers of the people, he was to be “a stone of stumbling, and 
a rock of offence,” because these things obstructed their re- 
ception of his doctrine and spiritual kingdom, so different 
from that which they expected; and to discover who had 
hearts well disposed to embrace his doctrine upon conviction, 
and who by those prejudices and corrupt affections would 
shut their eyes against the light, is here “to manifest the 


* Apud Laert. lib. v. p, 848, 


f ἡ Apud Stob. serm. 119, 
+ Hist. Plant. 8. 17. 


§ Ad Amph. ep. 1. 


thoughts of men’s hearts” by their actions. When Simeon 
adds, καὶ cov dé αὑτῆς ψυχὴν διελεύσεται ῥομφαία, «And a sword 
shall pass through thine own soul ;” though grief is said to 
pierce as with a sword, both in profane authors and in the 
psalmist, xlii. 10, yet, seeing this comes not up to the height 
of this expression, this seemeth rather to respect her martyr- 
dom, or being taken away by death, saith Epiphanius, ὡς 
γέγραπται, “As it is written, A sword shall pass through her 
soul, or herself” (Heres. 78, §. 32). 

2 Ver. 36, 37. Anna, a prophetess, of the tribe of Aser, 
a widow of about eighty-four years, καὶ οὐκ ἀφίστατο ἀπὸ τοῦ 
ἱεροῦ, and she departed not from the temple, but served 
God with fastings and prayers night and day.) Note, (1.) 
that this fourscore and four years must be reckoned, not from 
the beginning of her widowhood, but of her life, otherwise 
she must be a very decrepit woman, not able to fast after 
this manner; and (2.) she is said to be always in the temple, 
because she was so constantly there at the hours of prayer ; 
so Aaron and his sons are bid “not to go out of the door of 
the tabernacle” (Lev. x. 7), i. 6. not to do it during the time 
of their ministry. 

21 Ver. 38, ᾿Ἐλάλει περὶ αὐτοῦ πᾶσι τοῖς προσδεχομένοις λύτρωσιν 
ἐν ᾿Ιερουσαλὴμν She spake of him to all that looked for re- 
demption in Jerusalem.] This being the time when the 
whole Jewish nation was looking for the “consolation of 
Israel,” ver. 25, for “redemption” here, and even the scribes 
and pharisees “ expected that the kingdom of God should 
immediately appear ;” and this being, say T'acitus* and Sue- 
tonius,t “the old and constant opinion which had obtained 
through the east; ut eo tempore Judea profecti rerum po- 
tirentur, that some, or rather one, out of Judea should obtain 
the government of the world,” as Josephus hath it, we may 
be certain that the Jews of that age did so interpret the pro- 
phecies concerning their Messiah, as agreeing only to the 
time when our Christ did come, and when Simeon was as- 
sured by the Holy Ghost that this Messiah was to come. 
This, saith Josephus,t πολλοὶ τῶν σοφῶν, “many of our wise 
men gathered from the sacred oracles.” And indeed this 
seemed so certain, that though they rejected our Jesus, yet 
the fable soon obtained among them, that their Messiah was 
or might be come, though for a season he lay hid, by reason 
of their sins; as we learn from Trypho,§ and the Targum|| 
of Jonathan. ͵ 

Ver. 40. Καὶ ἐκραταιοῦτο πνεύματι. Here, saith Dr. Mills, 
πνεύματι adjectum est ex hujus evangelio (cap. i. 80. Pro- 
leg. p. 44), not only against the reading of Theophylact, and 


* Tacit. Hist. lib. v. p. 621. + Suet.in Vespas. cap. 4. 

+ De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. p. 961. 

§ Χριστὸς δὲ εἰ καὶ γεγένηται καὶ ἔστι που, ἄγνωστὸς ἔστι, Se. 
Tryph. Dial. p. 226. 

| Tu autem, Christe Israelis, qui absconditus es propter 
peccata ceetis, Sion ibi venturum est regnum. In Mich. 


CHAPTER III. 


42 And when he was twelve years old, they went 
τϑ (with him) to Jerusalem after the custom of the 

east. 

43 And when they had fulfilled the (seven) days (of 
the feast), as they returned, the child Jesus tarried be- 
hind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew 
not of it. 

44 But they, supposing him to have been in the 
company, (they) went a day’s journey; and (then) 
they sought him among /hezr kinsfolk and acquaint- 
ance, 

45 And when they found him not, they turned back 
again to Jerusalem, seeking him. 

46 And it came to pass, that 33 after three days (the 
third day) they found him in the temple, sitting in the 
midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking 
them questions. 


259 


47 And all that heard him were astonished at his 
understanding and answers. 

48 And S45 they saw him, they were amazed : 
and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou 
thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have 
sought thee sorrowing. 

49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought 
me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's 
3 business (Gr. in my Father’s house) ? 

50 And they understood not the saying which he 
spake unto them. 

51 And he went down with them, and came to Na- 
zareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother 
kept all these sayings in her heart. 

52 And Jesus ™ increased in wisdom and stature, 
and in favour with God and man. 


all the versions, but against the fierce dispute betwixt the 
Arians and the orthodox about these words; the Arians ob- 
jecting that he, who “increased in spirit,” could not be God ; 
some of the orthodox answering, that this related only to 
Christ’s human nature, viz. Athanasius, Epiphanius, Am- 
brose, Cyril Alex., and Fulgentius; and others, that he 
thus waxed strong in spirit, not in his own person, but in the 
person of the church, or in the demonstration of the Spirit ; 
as Origen, and many others cited by Maldonate on the place, 
but none of them questioning this reading; for Titus Bos- 
trensis, the only father produced by the doctor, is by Dr. 
Cave proved to be spurious. 

2 Μεθ᾿ ἡμέρας τρεῖς, After three days they found him.] 
i.e. The third day, for they journeyed one day, returned to 
Jerusalem the second, and found him the third. 

Ver. 47. ‘Ext τῇ συνέσει καὶ ἀποκρίσεσιν αὐτοῦ, At his un- 
derstanding dnd answers.) As the word ἀποκρίνομαι often 
signifies only speak,” both in the Old and New Testa- 
ment, and so is often used by the Septuagint, to answer to 
dabar in the Hebrew; so also doth the noun ἀπόκρισις in 
these words, Deut. i. 22, “They shall bring us word ;” Sept. 
ἀπύκρισιν. Here then being no mention of any questions 
put to Christ, or of any answers he gave to the doctors, the 
words may be rendered thus, “They were amazed at his un- 
derstanding and speeches.” 

23 Ver. 49. Ἔν τοῖς τοῦ Πατρός μου det εἶναί με, Tought to be 
in my Father's house.] So Origen, Dionysius. Alexandrinus, 


Titus Bostrensis, Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylact. 
See Dr. Hammond here: for as ἐν τοῖς τοῦ Διὸς, in Josephus, 
is, “to be in the temple of Jupiter,’ so to be ἐν τοῖς τοῦ 
Πατρός μου, must signify to be “in the temple of his Father,” 
where they found him. 

24 Ver. 52. Kai ᾿Ιησοῦς προέκοπτε σοφίᾳ, &c. And Jesus in- 
creased in wisdom, and stature, &c.] Vain hence is the con- 
clusion of Woltzogenius, that Christ could not be God, be- 
cause he cannot wax strong in spirit, either by advancing in 
the perfections of his mind, or by the teachings of the Spi- 
rit, as Christ did, or increase in wisdom ; this being spoken 
of Christ according to his human nature; these being, say 
the fathers,” τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος διηγήματα, “the indications of 
humanity,” and are to be understood κατ᾽ ἀνϑρωπίνην ψυχὴν, 
“according to his human soul:” and though the Aéyos was 
united to the human soul from his conception, yet might the 
divinity, or the Holy Ghost manifest itself to the human na- 
ture as it thought fit, and by degrees insinuate into it its 
gifts and illuminations, as St. Luke here teacheth; so that 
we need not say with others, Christ did not really increase 
in wisdom, but only seemed to others so to do: for seeing the 
evangelist here joins three things together, his increase in age 
and stature, in favour with men, and wisdom; as he increased 
truly and literally in the two first, so seems he to have done 
also as to his wisdom, and the endowments of his mind. 


* Epiph. Anchor. 5. 388, Orig. tom. i. in Matt. p. 330. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius | 


Cesar, Pontius Pilate being governor (or procurator) 


of Judwa, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his | 


brother Philip (being) tetrarch of Iturea and of the 
region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias (being) the tetrarch 
(Ὁ. δ. governor of a fourth division of the kingdom, named ) 
of (the city of Abyla) Abilene, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. ΠΙ. 


1 Ver. 2. Ἐπ᾿ ἀρχιερέων “Avva καὶ Καϊάφα, Annas and Cai- 
aphas being high-priests.] It is a rule of the Jews, that 
they do not constitute two high-priests together ; and yet we 
have not only mention in Josephus* of Jonathan and Ana- 
nias, Ananus and Jesus, as high-priests at the same time, 
but also of a στάσις τῶν ἀρχιερέων, “ἃ contention of the high- 
priests against the priests and chief Jews;’’ and mention of 
one Jesus, as γεραίτατος τῶν dpxupéwv,t “the eldest of the 
high-priests,” after Ananus. There were then doubtless 
many that bore that name, even all that ever had been so; 
as we still call them colonels and captains who once bore 
those offices ; and especially those of them who were rulers 
in the great Sanhedrin, their supreme civil judicature. 


* De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 21, lib. iv. cap. 18. 
+ Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6, p. 696. De Bello Jud. lib. iv. 
cap. 16, p. 878, 


2 1 Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests (to 
whom was committed the civil and ecclesiastical govern- 
ment of the Jews according to their laws ; Annas being 
the ruler of the people, Acts xxiii. 5, and Caiaphas the 
father of the Sanhedrin), * the word of God came unto 
John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. 

3 And he (having received this commission from 


But then they being many, why are these two only men- 
tioned as high-priests? to this Mr. Selden answers, That 
as in the first verse St. Luke had given an account of their 
external government by tetrarchs and procurators, so in 
this he gives an account of that civil and sacred govern- 
ment, which was left to be managed by themselves, by the 
Sanhedrin and high-priest; and because Annas was then 
their nasi, or prince of the Sanhedrin, whence he is called 
the “ruler of the people,” Acts xxiii. 5, and Caiaphas was 
high-priest that year, and, as he conjectures, the “ father 
of the Sanhedrin;” therefore they only are here named, 
as having the chief authority, civil and sacred, in their 
hands. 

2 "Eyévero ῥῆμα Θεοῦ ἐπὶ ᾿Ιωάννην, The word of God came 
to John.] These are the very words used of the prophets of 
the Old Testament: τὸ ῥῆμα Θεοῦ ὃ ἐγένετο ἐπὶ ᾿Ιερεμίαν, “The 
word of the Lord came, or which came, to Jeremiah,” i. 2, 
iv. 11; καὶ ἐγένετο λόγος Κυρίου πρὸς ᾿Ιεζεκιὴλ, “ And the word 
of the Lord came to Ezekiel,” i, 3, vi. 1, vii. 1, xii. 1, xii. 


260 


God) came into all the country about Jordan, preach- 
ing the baptism of repentance for (procuring to them) 
the remission of (their) sins ; 

4 (And he came) As it is written in the book of the 
words of Esaias the prophet, saying (of him, xl. 3, 
This is) The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths 
straight (for the coming of the king Messiah). 

5 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain 
and hill shall be brought low; and the (ways that are) 
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways 
shall be made smooth (as it useth to be when great kings 
take a journey into any part of their dominions) ; 

6 4 And all flesh shall see (the Messiah, who is em- 
phatically styled, Isa. xlix. 6, liii. 7. 10) the salvation 
of God (see note on ii. 30). 

7 Then said he to the multitude that came forth to 
be baptized of him, (but more especially to the pharisces 
and sadducees, Matt. ili. 7.) ° Ὁ generation of vipers, 
who hath warned you to flee from the wrath (which is) 
to come (upon this nation) ? 

8 Bring forth therefore (7f you indeed desire to es- 
cape this wrath) fruits worthy of repentance, and begin 
not (or be not willing, in lieu of it) to say within your- 
selves, We have Abraham to our father (and so by 
that have a sufficient right to the blessings of the Mes- 
siah, promised to him and his seed): for I say unto you, 


LUKE. 


That (if ye repent not, you are to be cut off; and think 
not that you being so, no children of Abraham will be 

ound to whom this promise can be made good ; for) God 
1s able of these stones to raise up children unto Abra- 
ham (see note on Matt. iii. 9). 

9 And (to excite you to this repentance, know that even) 
now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: 
every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit 
is (40 be) hewn down, and east into the fire. 

10 And the people asked him, saying, What shall 
we do then (to prevent or avert this ruin) 2 

11 He answereth and saith unto them, He © that 
hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; 
and he that hath meat, let him do likewise (ἡ. δ. he 
prescribed to them an extensive charity to all that wanted 
what they had to spare). 

12 Then came also publicans to be baptized, and 
said unto him, Master, what shall we do (to escape this 
wrath) 2 

13 And he saith unto them, 7 Exact no more than 
that which is appointed you (to receive). 

14 And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, 
saying, And what shall we do? and he said unto them, 
Do ὃ violence to no man, neither 3 accuse any (man) 
falsely (or, oppress no man) ; and be content with your 
wages. 

15 And as the people were in expectation (of the 


1, xiv. 2. 12; and so it is said of the rest. Shall we then 
think, that this forerunner of the Messiah spake “the word 
of the Lord,” as did the prophets of the Old Testament; 
and that the prophets and apostles of the New Testament, 
on whom the Holy Ghost descended, to enable them to 
teach the mind of Christ to all future ages of the church, 
should not speak and write what they delivered as the rule 
of faith, by like divine assistance ? 

3 Ver. 5. Πᾶσα φάραγξ πληρωϑήσεται, καὶ πᾶν ὅρος καὶ βουνὸς 
ταπεινωθήσεται, Every valley shall be filled up, and every 
mountain and hill shall be made low.] These words 
refer to a known custom of great kings, who, when they 
travelled any whither, δόσποιοὶ, waymen were sent before 
them to make plain their way, by filling up deep places, 
and levelling those that were high, and smoothing the places 
that were rough, and making straight the crooked. So Jo- 
sephus saith, That when Titus came to the wars,* προῆγον 
μὲν βασιλικοὶ, καὶ πᾶν τὸ συμμαχικὸν, ἐν οἷς ὁδοποιοὶ, “ there went 
before him all the royal aids, and all the military men, 
and those who planed the ways.” Thus the Targum upon 
Canticles saith, “The cloud went before the Israelites in 
the wilderness three days’ journey, to take down the hills, 
and fill up the valleys before them,” according to that of 
the psalmist, Ixxviii. 4, rendered by the Greek ὁῥοποιήσατε 
τῷ ἐπιβεβηκότι ἐπὶ τῶν δυσμῶν" and by Ainsworth, from the 
Hebrew sollu, “make a highway for him that rideth in the 
deserts,” as the word δυσμὸς signifies, Numb. xxxiii. 48. 50, 
xxxvi. 13, Deut. i. 1, Josh ν. 10, 2 Sam. iv. 7: and this 
also do they still expect, when they return from their cap- 
tivity. Thus Baruch saith, “God hath commanded, or 
appointed, ταπεινοῦσϑαι πᾶν ὄρος ὑψηλὸν, καὶ φαράγγας πληροῦσ- 
Sai cis ὁμαλισμὸν τῆς γῆς, that every high mountain and 
bank of long continuance should be cast down, and every 
valley filled up, that Israel may go safely in the glory of 
God,” v. 7. So that as, when God led his people out of 
captivity, through the great desert to the land of promise, 
a highway was made for him, riding in the cloud before 
them; so, when Christ comes to proclaim liberty to the cap- 
tives to sin and Satan, and lead them through the wilderness 
of this world to the heavenly Canaan, a voice is again heard 
in the wilderness, saying, “Prepare ye the way of the 
Lord,” ἄς. 

4 Ver. 6. Καὶ ὄψεται πᾶσα σὰρξ τὸ σωτήριον τοῦ Θεοῦ, And 
all flesh shall see the salvation of God.] These words are 
cited from Isa. lii, 10, in which chapter the ancient Jews 
allow, that the prophet is speaking of the Messiah; the 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vi, cap. 6, p. 907, B. 


Targum on the thirteenth verse saying, “ Behold, my servant 
the Messiah shall be exalted ;” and the apostle applying the 
seventh verse to the preaching of the gospel, Rom. x. 15. 

5 Ver. 7. Γεννήματα ἐχιόνῶν, O generation of vipers.| What 
in St. Matthew, iii. 7, is said to be spoken to the pharisees 
and sadducees, is here said to be spoken τοῖς ἄχλοις, “to the 
multitude,” coming forth to be baptized; partly, because 
it was spoken to the pharisees mixed with the multitude, 
and in their audience, and agreed to them, not only as be- 
ing generally of one of these two sects, but being also an 
adulterous generation, degenerated from the seed of Abra- 
ham to be the seed of the serpent. 

6 Ver. 11. 'O ἔχων dio χιτῶνας μεταδύτω τῷ μὴ ἔχοντι, καὶ 
ὃ ἔχων βρώματα ὁμοίως ποιείτω, He that hath two coats, let 
him give to him that hath none ; and he that hath meat, let 
him do likewise.| The Baptist doth not here make it unlaw- 
ful to have two coats; for Peter had two, Acts xii. 8, and 
Paul likewise, 2 Tim. iv. 13, but only saith that he that 
hath one coat, which his brother wants, and he at present 
doth not, should rather give it to him, than suffer him to be 
in want; and he that hath βρώματα περισσεύοντα, “meats 
above what he himself needs,” should, in like cases, feed his 
hungry brother with it; teaching us, that it is not lawful for 
us to abound in those things which our brother wants, when 
we have sufficient both to relieve his and our own necessities. 
Nor could this precept seem hard to those philosophers, who 
thought that ἑνὶ χρῆσθαι χιτῶνι τοῦ δεῖσθαι δυοῖν προτιμητέον, 
“that it was better to use one coat, than to want two” (Stob. 
Ser. 1. p. 18). 

7 Ver. 13. Μηδὲν πλέον παρὰ τὸ διατεταγμένον, ὑμῖν πράσσετε, 
Exact no more than that which is appointed you.) The 
office of the publicans was to collect the tribute-money, 
which in Greek is πράττειν φόρους as in Thucydides and 
Athenezus: and their name was infamous, saith Strabo, διὰ 
τὴν πλεονεξίαν, for their exacting more than they ought: 
saith Tacitus, ob illicitas exactiones, for their unjust ex 
actions (see the note on Matt. ix. 11). And hence we see 
the reason and the pertinency of his exhortation; it being 
not to be expected, that any one should begin to be good till 
he ceaseth to be unjust. 

8 Ver. 14. Μηδένα διασείσετε, Do violence to no man.| This 
word primarily signifies to shake, and terrify by shaking, 
and so to force money from any, by fear of what they may 
suffer if they do not give it; and secondarily, calumniis in- 
sectari, to calwmniate a person, as in Aristophanes, in Equit. 
ver. 203, which is to shake his reputation, and so to render 
him obnoxious to a mulct, 

9 Μηδὲ συκοφαντήσητε, Nor accuse any man falsely.] This 
word answers to the Hebrew pwy, and signifies not only 


CHAPTER III. 


‘omised Messiah), and (s) all men mused in their 
fons of John, whether he were the Christ, or not; 

16 John answered (their surmises by) saying unto 
them all, 1 indeed baptize you with water (and by that 
baptism call you to repentance, to fit you to believe on the 
Messiah, who will suddenly reveal himself); but one 
mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes 1 
am not worthy to unloose (7. 6. whose servant Iam not 
worthy to be): he shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire (7. ες in the symbol of fire) « 

17 (And he will come as one) whose fan ts in his 
hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather 
the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn 
with fire unquenchable. 

18 And many other (such) things in his exhortation 
preached he unto the people. 

19 But Herod the tetrarch, being reproved by him 
for Herodias his brother Philip’s wife, and for all the 
evils which Herod had done, 

20 Added yet this above (them) all, that he shut up 
John in prison. 

21 Now when all the people were baptized, it came 
to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, 
the heaven was opened, 

22 And the Holy Ghost descended (hovering) in" a 
bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came 
from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; 
in thee I am well pleased. 

23 And Jesus himself (when he was baptized) 12 be- 
gan to be about thirty years of age, being (as (1) was 


261 


supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of 
Heli, 

24 Which was the son of Matthat, which was the 
son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was 
the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph, 

25 Which was the son of Mattathias, which was the 
son of Amos, which was the son of Naum, which was 
the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge, 

26 Which was the son of Maath, which was the son 
of Mattathias, which was the son of Semei, which was 
the son of Joseph, which was the son of Juda, 

27 Which was the son of Joanna, which was the 
son of Rhesa, which was the son of Zorobabel, which 
was the son of Salathiel, which was the son of Neri, 

28 Which was the son of Melchi, which was the son 
of Addi, which was the son of Cosam, which was the 
son of Elmodam, which was the son of Er, 

29 Which was the son of Jose, which was the son 
of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was the 
son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, 

30 Which was the son of Simeon, which was the son 
of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was the 
son of Jonan, which was the son of Eliakim, 

31 Which was the son of Melea, which was the son 
of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was 
the son of Nathan, which was the son of David, 

32 Which was the son of Jesse, which was the son 
of Obed, which was the son of Booz, which was the 
son of Salmon, which was the son of Naasson, 

33 Which was the son of Aminadab, which was the 


to accuse falsely, but to circumvent and oppress. So Gen. 
xliii. 18, « We are brought in τοῦ συκοφαντῆσαι ἡμᾶς that he 
may oppress us;” Job xxxv. 9, ἀπὸ πλήϑους συκοφαντουμέ- 
νων κράξονται, “ They shall cry for the multitude of oppres- 
sors:” so Ps. Ixxii. 4, “ He shall break in pieces, συκοφάν- 
τὴν, the oppressor;” Ps. cxix. 122, μὴ συκοφαντησάτωσάν pe 
“Let not the proud oppress me ;” and, ver. 134, “ Deliver 
me ἀπὸ συκοφαντίας, from the oppression of men;” Prov. 
Xiv. 31, 6 συκοφαντῶν πένητα, “He that oppresseth the poor, 
despiseth his Maker :” so xxviii. 3. 16, and Eccles. iv. 1, 
“I saw πάσας τὰς συκοφαντίας, all the oppressions that are 
under the sun, and beheld the tears τῶν συκοφαντουμένων, of 
those that were oppressed, and they had no comforter ; and 
in the hands τῶν συκοφαντούντων, of those who did oppress 
them, there was strength.” 

10 Ver. 15. Μήποτε αὐτὸς εἴη ὃ Χριστὸς, Whether or if 80 
be, he were the Christ.] Of this sense of μῆποτε, see note on 
2 Tim. 25. 

MU Ver. 22. Καὶ καταβῆναι τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα σωματικῷ εἴδει, 
ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν, &e. And the Holy Ghost descended 
upon him in a bodily shape as a dove.) viz. As a dove uses 
to descend upon any thing, hovering, and overshadowing it: 
for that this relates not to the bodily shape, as if that had 
resembled a dove, but to the descent of that bodily shape, 
is evident from this, that had it related to the first, it should 
have been ὡσεὶ περιστερᾶς, “as of a dove,” not ὡσεὶ περιστερὰν, 
“as a dove:” so Acts ii. 3, there apppeared to them “ cloven 
tongues, dice πυρὸς, as of fire.’ This bodily shape seems 
rather to have been that of light, or a bright cloud, in which 
God usually appeared under the Old Testament, and from 
which he spake, and which is usually called ἡ 66ga τοῦ Kupiov, 
“the glory of the Lord.” So when the voice here men- 
tioned was uttered a second time, it is expressly said, that 
ἡ νεφέλη φωτεινὴ ἐπισκίασεν αὐτοὺς, “a bright cloud over- 
shadowed or hovered over them, and a voice came from the 
cloud,” Matt. xvii. 5, or, as St. Peter saith, “ from the magni- 
ficent glory,” 2 Pet. i. 17, and this Holy Spirit might here be 
said to descend after the manner of a dove, because that 
bird was anciently by the Jews looked upon as the symbol 
of the Holy Spirit: so Cant. ii. 12, “ The voice of the turtle 
is heard ;” that is, saith the Chaldee paraphrast, Sp ἈΠΣῚΠ 
Reps, “the voice of the Holy Ghost.” 

2 Ver. 23. Kai αὐτὸς ἦν ὃ ᾿Ιησοὺς ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα ἀρχό- 
μένος, And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of 
age.) i.e. He was entering into his thirtieth year, when he 


was thus baptized, and consecrated to his office. It is 
therefore certain from the first verse, that in the fifteenth 
year of Tiberius, our Lord was but beginning or entering 
upon the thirtieth year of his age: and then he suffering, as 
all agree, in the nineteenth year of Tiberius, could be but 
thirty-three years and a half when he was crucified. I 
know the crites say, that ἦν ἀρχόμενος ὧν, is a tautology ; 
but ὧν belongs not to this, but the following sentence; ὧν 
ὡς ἐνομίζετο, “being as was supposed, the son of Joseph.” 
They add, that it is not rightly said ἄρχομαι ἐτῶν τριάκοντα" 
but if ἀρχόμενος τέχνης, i. 6. ἀπὸ τέχνης, in Plato,* be good 
Greek, why may not ἀρχόμενος ἐτῶν τριάκοντα, 1. 6. dx’ ἐτῶν 
τριάκοντα, be good Greek in St. Luke? Moreover, let ἀρχύμε- 
vos here be put absolutely for Christ’s beginning his office, 
and the sense will run thus, That Jesus was then about 
thirty years of age when he began his office. And if we 
consider that this was the age appointed for the Levites 
to begin the service of the sanctuary ; that John the Bap- 
tist began his office at that age; and that all the ancientst 
do agree in this, That our Lord entered on his office in 
the thirtieth year of his age; yea, that Ireneus and Euse- 
bius justify this Greek against our critics; and some of 
them take this for granted upon the authority of St. Luke; 
all this will justify our version. And then impossible is 
it to be true, that our Lord suffered in the thirty-eighth ; 
or, as Irenwus saith, lived either till fifty, or between forty 
and fifty, as he proves from the testimony of the dis- 
ciples of St. John in Asia, declaring, id ipsum eis tradidisse 
Johannem; “they did this, not by conjecture from the 
countenance of Christ, but by tradition from the mouth of 
the apostle John; yea that some of them heard, hee 
eadem, “the very same things from the mouth of other 
apostles, et testantur de hujusmodi relatione, and give 

* De Legib. 

τῇ ἫΝ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἐρχόμενος ἐπὶ τὸ βάπτισμα ὡς ἐτῶν λ΄. Clem. 
Al. Strom. p. 341. Ad baptismum venit nondum qui triginta 
annos impleverat, sed qui inceperat esse tanquam triginta 
annorum. Tren. lib. ii. cap. 39, 'Apxépevos ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριά- 
κοντα ἐπὶ τὸ ᾿Ιωάννου βάπτισμα παραγίνεται. Euseb. lib. i. cap. 
10. Et ipse erat Jesus incipiens. Orig. Hom. 28, in Lu- 
cam. ᾿Εβαπτίσθη ἐν τῷ ᾿'Ιορδάνῳ ποτάμῳ τοῦ τριακόστου ἔτους τῆς ἐν 
σαρκὶ γενήσεως, κατὰ Λοῦκαν, ἣν δὲ ᾿Ιησοὺῦς ἀρχόμενος ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν λ΄. 
Epiph. Her. 51, n. 34, Vide Ignat. Ep. Interp. ad Trull. 
§. 10. Hieron. in Ezek. cap. 1. Theoph. in locum. 


262 


son of Aram, which was the son of Esrom, which was 
the son of Phares, which was the son of Juda, 

34 Which was the son of Jacob, which was the son 
of Isaac, which was the son of Abraham, which was 
the son of Thara, which was the son of Nachor, 

35 Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son 
of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the 
son of Heber, which was the son of Sala, 

36 Which was the son of Cainan, which was the 


LUKE. 


son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which 
was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech, 

37 Which was the son of Mathusala, which was 
the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which 
was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cai- 
nan, 

38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son 
of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the 
son of God. 


in testimony to this relation.” Now Ireneus had laid 
down this as certain that Christ per omnem venit etatem 
“passed through all ages, that he might sanctify them all, 
i. e. infants, little ones, boys, young men, et seniores, and 
old men: he therefore,” saith he, “ was made, infantibus in- 
fans, sanctificans infantes, an infant to sanctify them of 
that age; juvenibus juvenis, to young men, whose age,” 
saith he, “begins at thirty, and extends to forty, he was 
made a young man, being baptized in his thirtieth year ;” 
and this he proves from scripture, and the confessions of 
the Valentinians and Gnostics, against whom he disputes. 
He goes on, and says, sic et senior senioribus, “so was he 
made an old man for the sake of them; for,” saith he, “from 
the fortieth or fiftieth year, man’s life declines in #tatem 


seniorem, in old age; quam habens Dominus noster docebat, 
sicut evangelium et omnes seniores testantur, to which age 
our Lord having obtained, taught, as the gospel and all the 
seniors testify”—the gospel in those words of the Jews, 
«Thou art not yet fifty years old” (John viii. 57), and the 
seniors, as having received it by tradition from the mouth 
of John and of other apostles. "Who sees not now, that 
Ireneus both doth, and by his gradation from infants to 
young men, and from young men to old, was obliged to as- 
sert, that our Lord taught after the age of forty, if not till 
he was fifty years old; and that this was the tradition he 
speaks of, as received by the elders from the mouth of St. 
John and other apostles ? 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Anp Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned 
from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wil- 
derness, 

2 Being ! forty days (znvisibly) tempted of the devil. 
And in those days he did eat nothing (nor was he hun- 
gry): and (but) when they were ended, he afterward 
hungered. 

3 And (then) the devil (visthly appearing) said unto 
him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone 
(this heap of stones) that it be made bread. 

4 And Jesus answered him, saying, (There is no 
necessity of that, for) * it is written, That man shall 
not live by bread alone, but by every (thing appointed 
to feed him by the) word of God. 

5 And (then) the devil, taking him up into an high 
mountain, shewed unto him (as in a map) all the king- 
doms of the world in a moment of time. 

6 And the devil said unto him, All this power (ἡ. 6. 
the power of these kingdoms) will I give thee, and the 
glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to 
whomsoever I will I give it. 


7 If thou therefore wilt ® worship me, all shall be 
thine. 

8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee 
behind me, Satan : for it is written, Thou shalt worship 
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 

9 And (then) he brought him to Jerusalem, and set 
him on a pinnacle (or battlement) of the temple, and 
said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself 
down from hence: 

10 For it is written (Ps. xci. 11), He shall give his 
angels charge over thee, to keep thee: 

11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest 
at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 

12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, 
Thou shalt not tempt (7. 6. distrust) the Lord thy God 
(as I should do, if, after a voice from heaven, saying to 
me, Thou art my beloved Son, I should require any far- 
ther experiment of that truth). 

13 And when the devil had ended all the (se) tempta- 
tion (s), he departed from him for a 4 season. 

14 4 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 

1 Ver. 2. Ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα πειραζόμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβό- 
λου---καὶ συντελεσϑεισῶν αὐτῶν, ὕστερον ἐπείνασε, Being forty 
days tempted of the devil—and when they were ended, he 
afterward hungered.] He was tempted of the devil only 
inwardly, and invisibly, during those forty days: afterward 
by Satan appearing in a visible shape: for the devil came 
unto him, Matt. iv. 3, and departed from him, ver. 11, and 
tempted him to worship before him. Moreover, seeing Christ 
did eat nothing during those forty days and nights, they 
who, during the like number of days, abstain only from 
flesh, eating fish, and drinking wine plentifully on those 
days, do nothing less than imitate the example of Christ 
here: and seeing they cannot, for forty days, οὐδὲν φάγειν, 
“eat nothing,” they can be no more obliged in this to imi- 
tate our Lord than Elias (see the note on Matt. iv. 2). 

2 Ver. 4. Γέγραπται, ὅτι οὐκ ἐπ᾿ ἄρτῳ μόνῳ ἐζήσεται ἄνϑρω- 
πος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ παντὶ ῥήματι Θεοῦ, It is written, Man shall not 
live by bread alone, but by every word of God.] ‘The words 
in Deut. viii. 3, run thus: “ He suffered thee to hunger, and 
then fed thee with manna” (a light aerial sort of food), giv- 
ing thee as great strength and vigour from that, as from the 
bread and flesh thou didst eat in Egypt, and this he did, 
providing it miraculously every day, “that he might teach 
thee (by this example) that man doth not live by bread only, 
but by every word of God;” i. 6. every thing that he shall 


please to command to give him nourishment; so that though 
I am now hungry, as they were, I have no need to work a 
miracle myself to satisfy my hunger, seeing I know, by this 
example, that God, though he suffer his children to want 
bread, yet will command some other thing to preserve them 
alive, and will himself rather work a miracle, than they shall 
want nourishment. 

3 Ver. 7. Σὺ ἐὰν xpooxwvijons ἐνώπιόν μου, If thow wilt wor- 
ship before me: ἐὰν πεσὼν προσκυνῆσης poi, If thou wilt fall’ 
down, and worship me, Matt. iv. 9.] Hence Dr. Lightfoot 
collects, that it is the same thing to worship the devil, and 
before the devil: and so, in like manner, to worship before 
an image, and to worship an image: and this indeed is 
true, when that before which we worship is the object, and 
the reason of the worship, as in this case it would have been ; 
but it is otherwise, when that before which we worship is 
only a circumstance; as when the Jews worshipped before 
the ark, or sanctuary, as Ps. xcix. 5. 9, cxxxii. 7, the object 
of that worship being God, the ark only the circumstance, 
to wit, the place of his peculiar residence; and much less, 
when it is a mere accidental circumstance; as when old 
Jacob worshipped God upon his bed, and so bowed down to 
some part of it. 2 

Ver. 8. Ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου Zarava.] See the defence of this 
reading, Examen Millii. 

4 Ver. 13. ᾿Απέστη ἀπ᾽ αὐτῷ ἄχρι καιροῦ, He departed from 


CHAPTER IV. 


into Galilee : and there went outa fame of him through 
all the region round about. 

15 And (for) he taught in their synagogues, being 
glorified of all. 

16 4 And he came to Nazareth, 5 where he had been 
brought up: and, as δ his custom was, he went into 
the synagogue on the sabbath day, and 7 stood up for 
to read. 

17 And there was delivered unto him the book of 
the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened (7. e. 
unfolded) the book (the roll), he found the place where 
it was written (Isa. lxi. 1), 

18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 
(the Father) Path anointed me (with the Holy Ghost at 
my baptism, iii. 22) to ® preach the elie to the per 
(in spirit); he hath sent me to eal the broken- 
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, (who 
are in bondage to the law of sin and death, Rom. vii. 
23,) and recovering of sight to the blind (Jews and 
pharisees, who have eyes and see not, John ix. 40, 41, 
and the blind gentiles, Rom. ii. 19), and to set at 
liberty them that are bruised (with the weight of their 
sins), 

19 To preach the ὃ acceptable year of the Lord (the 
year of jubilee and rest, which was on that account very 
acceptable to servants and debtors). 

20 And he closed (or, folded up) the book, and he 
gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the 
eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fast- 
ened upon him. 

21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this 
scripture fulfilled (which hath been read) in your ears. 


263 


22 And (when he had expounded to them how it was 
fulfilled) all bare him witness (that so it was), and 
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out 
of ns mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s 
son? 

23 And he said unto them, You will surely say unto 
me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever 
we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy 
(own) country (i. e. do that at home, which it is famed 
thou hast done at Ca πὴ 

24 And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet 
is (so well) accepted in his own country (as elsewhere, 
they finding exceptions against him either for his parent- 
age, Ver. 22, or his kindred, Mark vi. 3, 4, or his habita- 
tion, John i. 47, or his country, John vii. 52). 

25 But 1 tell you of a truth, (you deserve for your 
infidelity to be dealt with as Elias dealt with the Israci- 
ites ; for) many widows were in Israel in the days of 
Elias, when the heavens were shut up δ three years 
and six months, when great famine was throughout 
all the land; 

26 But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto 
Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. 

27 And (as in the case of Elisha ; for) many lepers 
were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and 
but) none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the 
Syrian (even so now the gentiles are more worthy, to whom 
1 should be sent, than you Jews). 

28 And all they in the synagogue, when they heard 
these words, " were filled with wrath, 

29 And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, 
and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their 


him for a season.) Till the time of his passion; for then 
only he returned, John xiv. 30, and that was his hour, Luke 
xxii. 53. And if this enemy of mankind omitted no season 
of tempting Christ, we have reason to believe he will omit 
no opportunity of tempting us. 

5 Ver. 16. Καὶ ἦλθεν cis τὴν Ναζαρὲϑ οὗ ἦν reSpappévos, 
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up.) 
That he, by his example, might teach us, saith Theophylact, 
first to teach and to do good to those of our own family and 
abode. 

5 Καὶ ἰσῆλθε κατὰ τὸ εἰωθὸς αὐτῷ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν σαββάτων 
εἰς τὴν συναγωγήν" And, as his custom was, he went into the 
synagogue on the sabbath-day.| That the synagogue-worship 
was then loaded with rites and ceremonies of human inven- 
tion, and that the manners of those who met there were 
much corrupted, no man, who is acquainted with the scrip- 
tures and the Jewish history, can doubt; and yet Christ, 
with his disciples, go customarily to these synagogues, as 
members of the church of Nazareth, every sabbath-day ; 
and he joins with them in their worship, condemning, by his 
example, the niceness of our sectaries. 

7 Kat ἀνέστη ἀναγνῶναι, Ver. 20, καὶ πτυξας τὸ βιβλίον ἐκά- 
Ste, And stood up to read. And, closing the book, he 
sat down.] Here Christ conforms to the ceremonies of the 
Jewish doctors, who, in honour of the law and the prophets, 
stood up when they read them because, as the law was 
given with reverence, so it is, say they, to be handled with 
reverence: and he sits down to teach; because it was the 
custom in their schools and synagogues to do so. So the 
Targum on Judg. ii. 6, “The wise men returned to sit in 
the houses of the synagogues with their heads covered, and 
to teach the people the words of the law :” so again, ver. 9. 
‘That this was our Lord’s constant custom, when he taught 
the people, we learn from his own words, “I sat daily teach- 
ing in the temple,” Matt. xxvi. 55, and from his practice 
throughout the evangelists (see Luke ii. 46, John viii. 2). 
Moreover, the book which he read in, being made of skins 
of parchment sewed to each other, and joined to a stick, 
upon which it was rolled; he that was to read unrolled it, 
till he came to the place where he was to read, and this was, 
ἀναπτύξαι, “ to unfold it ;” and when he had done reading he 
did, πτῦξαι, “roll it up again,” and gave it to the chasan, 
styled here, ὑπηρέτης, “ the minister” of the synagogue, 


8 Ver. 18. Ἐῤαγγελίζεσϑαι πτωχοῖς, To preach the gospel 
to the poor.| To the humble, or poor in spirit, Matt. v. 3 
(see note on Matt. xi. 5), ἰάσασϑαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τὴν 
καρδίαν, “to heal the broken hearted ;” i. 6. those who are so 
pierced in heart, and contrite in spirit for their sins, as to re- 
pent, and turn from them, Isa. lvii. 15, Ps. xxxiv. 18, li. 
17, κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν, “to preach deliverance to the 
captives,” to the Jews in bondage to the law, Gal. iv. 9, to 
both Jew and gentile, under captivity to the law of sin, Rom. 
vii. 23, “and recovering of sight to the blind” Jews and 
pharisees, who had eyes, and saw not, John ix. 40, 41, and 
the blind gentiles, Rom. ii. 19 (see the note there); dro- 
στεῖλαι reSpavopévors ἐν ἀφέσει, “to set at liberty those that 
are bruised” with the chain of their sins (see Examen Millii 
here). 

9 Yer 19. Κηρύξαι ἐνιαυτὸν Κυρίου δεκτὸν, To preach the 
acceptable year of the Lord.| The year of jubilee and 
rest, when liberty was to be proclaimed throughout the land 
to all the inhabitants of it (Lev. xxv. 8); when debts were 
to be remitted, and possessions restored to the poor, the He- 
brew servant of the Jew set free, and he that was sold to a 
sojourner was to be redeemed (ibid.). Hence this jubilee 
is by Josephus rendered ἐλευθερία, Kberty, and by Aquila, 
ἄφεσις, remission; and that the Jews themselves thought 
this jubilee did signify a spiritual redemption, is proved by 
Voisin de Jubilzo, lib. i. cap. 2: and the forty-second and 
sixty-first of Isaiah being, by the Jews themselves, inter- 
preted of the Messiah (see Targum on Isa. xlii. 1, and Sy- 
nopsis on Ixi. 1), well might our Lord say, ver. 21, « This 
day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears.” 

Ver. 23. That do, ἐν τῇ πατρίδι cov, in thy own country.) 
For though Nazareth and Capernaum were both in Galilee, 
yet Nazareth was in the lower Galilee; whereas Capernaum, 
being a Decapolitan city, was in Galilee of the gentiles, that 
is, in upper Galilee. 

10 Ver. 25. Ἐπὶ ἔτη τρία καὶ μῆνας ἕξ, When heaven was 
shut up three years and six months.] For Elias tarried a 
year at the brook Kerith (1 Kings xvii. 7), and then in the 
middle of the third year came to Ahab (1 Kings xviii. 1). 

U Ver. 28. Kai ἐπλήσθησαν πάντες ϑυμοῦ, And they were 
all filled with wrath.] When they heard Christ i 
them unworthy of the benefit of those miracles, which he 
had done at Capemaum; and, by the instances of the Sido- 


264 


city was built, that they might cast him down head- 
long (thence). 

30 But he passing (miraculously) through the midst 
of them went his way, 

31 And came down to Capernaum, a city of Gali- 
lee, and taught them on the sabbath days. 

32 And they were astonished at his doctrine: for 
his word was (aitended) with (the) ® power (of mira- 
cles to confirm it). 

33 7 And (for) in the synagogue there was a man, 
which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and (he) cried 
out with a loud voice, 

34 Saying, Let ws alone; what have we to do with 
thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth ? art thou come to destroy 
us (before the time) ? I know thee who thou art: (viz.) 
the Holy One of God. 

35 And (but) Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy 
peace, and come out of him. And when the devil 
had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and 
hurt him not. 

36 And they were all amazed, and spake among 
themselves, saying, What a (wonderful) word 7s this! 
for with authority and power he commandeth the un- 
clean spirits, and they come out. 

37 And the fame of him went out into every place 
of the country round about. 


LUKE. 


38 q And he arose out of the synagogue, and en- 
tered into Simon’s house. And Simon’s wife’s mother 
was taken with a great fever; and they besought him 
for her. 

39 And he stood over her, and rebuked the fever; 
and it left her: and immediately she arose and minis- 
tered unto them. 

40 ¢ Now when the sun was setting (and so the sab- 
bath was ending), all they that had any sick with di- 
vers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his 
hands on every one of them, and healed them. 

41 And devils also came out of many, crying out, 
and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And 
he rebuking them suffered them not to speak (refusin, 
to receive testimony from, though they spake the truth) : for 
they knew that he was Christ. 

42 And when it was day, he departed and went into 
a desert place: and the people sought him, and came 
unto him, and (would have) stayed him, that he should 
not depart from them. 

43 And (but) he said unto them, I must preach the 
kingdom of God to other eities also: for therefore am 
I sent. 

44 And he preached in the synagogues of Ga- 
lilee. 


nian widow, and Naaman the Syrian, plainly intimating, that 
this gospel should chiefly be received among the gentiles, 
they, in a furious zeal, seek to destroy him; but he, by pass- 
ing unseen through the midst of them, or restraining their 
violence, gave an instance of his divine power. 

12 Ver. 32. Ἔν ἐξουσίᾳ ἣν ὃ λόγος αὐτοῦ, For his word was 
with power.] That is, either as being cowfirmed by his mi- 
racles ; so “ with great power gave the apostles testimony to 
the resurrection of the Lord,” Acts iv. 33, Mark xvi. 20 (see 
note on Matt. vii. 29), or he taught them as a prophet sent 


from God, and delivering his message to them, which, from 
the time of the prophets, had not been done; whence it was 
usually said by the Jews of the times of Ezra, “ Hitherto 
the prophets, the wise men follow” (see 1 Mace. ii. 27, xiv. 
41), and of a difficult question, “ We leave it undecided till 
a prophet shall arise” (1 Macc. iv. 46), and when Christ 
came, they say, “A great prophet is risen up among us” 
(Luke vii. 16), and inquire of him, ποίᾳ ἐξουσίᾳ, “ by what 
(extraordinary ) authority he did these things, and who gave 
him that authority” (Matt. xxi. 23). 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Ann it came to pass, that, as the people pressed 
upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the 
lake of Gennesaret, 

2 And saw two ships standing by (the shore of ) the 
lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and 
were washing (Gr. having washed ) their nets. 

3 And he entered into one of the ships, (viz. that) 
which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would 
thrust out (the ship) a little from the land. 
being done) he sat down, and taught the people out of 
the ship. 

4 Now when he had left speaking (to the people), he 
said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let 
down your nets for a draught (of fishes). 

5 And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we 
have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: 
nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. 

6 And when they had this done, they inclosed a 
great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. 

7 And they ( finding this) beckoned unto their part- 
ners, which were (now) in the other ship, that they 
should come and help them. And they came, and 


And (this | 


filled both the ships, so (full) that they began to sink 
(with the weight of the fishes). 

8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ 
knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a! sinful 
man, O Lord, (and so unworthy of the presence of so 
divine a person as I perceive thou art. 

9 This he spake from a great sense of the majesty of 
Christ ;) for he was astonished, and all that were with 
him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: 

10 And so was also James, and John, the sons of 
Zebedee, which were partners with Simon (and were 
| in the other ship). And (but) Jesus said unto Simon, 
Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men (ὦ. 6. 
shalt be instrumental to draw men into the net of the gos- 
pel, see Acts ii. 41). 

11 And when they had brought their ships to land, 
they forsook all (their other business), and followed 
him. 

12 4 And it came to pass, when he was in (the con- 
Jines of) a* certain city, (to wit, Capernaum, Mark ii. 
1,) behold a man (was there) full of leprosy: who 
seeing Jesus fell on Ais face, and besought him, say- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 8. Ἔξελθε ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ, ὅτι ἄνὴρ ἁμαρτωλός εἰμι, Κύριε, 
Depart from me: for Iam a sinful man, O Lord.| Not in 
that famous sense in which the sinner is joined with publi- 
cans and heathens, and denotes one who hath cast off the 
fear of God, and given up himself to wickedness; for this 
his fear was an indication of a religious mind. Moreover, 
hence it is probable, that St. Peter had higher apprehensions 
of Christ than of a mere man, seeing, of old, men were only 


struck with such a fear from the presence of the divine ma- 
jesty, or of some angels delivering their message in his name 
(Gen. xxxii. 30, Judg. vi. 22, xiii. 22, Isa. vi. 8). 

2 Ver. 12. Ἐν τῆ pia τῶν πόλεων, When he was in one of 
the cities.] i. 6. When he came down from the mount (Matt. 
viii. 2), being about to enter into Capernaum (into which he 
entered after he had healed the leper, Mark ii. 1), a leper 
meets him in the field of that city, the law not admitting 
such to come into a city; he is therefore here said to be in 
the city, as being in the field near to it: so, to be in Jericho, 


CHAPTER V. 


{ 
ing, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 

13 And he put forth As hand, and ὃ touched him, 
saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the 
leprosy departed from him. 

14 And he charged him to tell no man: but (or, 
and said to him) go, and shew thyself to the priest 
(feat), and 4 offer for thy cleansing, according as 

loses commanded, for a testimony unto them (that 
thou art cleansed from thy leprosy). 

15 But so much the more (did he divulge it, so that 
thence) went there a fame abroad of him: and great 
multitudes came together to hear (dim), and to be 
healed by him of their infirmities. 

16 ¥ And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, 
and prayed (Gr. he was withdrawn into the wilderness, 
and praying). 

17 And it came to pass on a certain day, as (that) 
he was teaching, that (Gr. and) there were Pharisees 
and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come 
out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jeru- 
salem : and the δ power of the Lord was present (with 
him) to heal them (who came to be healed of their infirm- 
ilies, ver. 15). 

18 ¥ And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which 
was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to 
bring him in (¢o the house), and to lay him before him. 

19 And when they could not find by what way they 
might bring him in because of the multitude, they 
went upon the housetop, and let him down through 
the tiling with Azs couch into the midst (of the people) 
before Jesus. 

20 And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, 
Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. 


265 


21 And the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, 
saying, Who is this which speaketh (hese) blasphe- 
mies (making himself God? for) Whocan forgive sins, 
but God alone? 

22 But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he an- 
swering said unto them, (vr) what (cause) reason ye 
(thus) in your hearts ? 

23 (For) Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be for- 
given thee ; or to say (fectually, that which is a certain 
indication that the punishment of them is remitted, viz.) 
Rise up and walk? 

24 But (J choose to say the first) that ye may know 
that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive 
sins, (hen) (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say 
unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into 
thine house. 

25 And immediately he rose up before them, and 
took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own 
house, glorifying God. 

26 And they (who saw this) were all amazed, and 
they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, 
We have seen strange things to day. 

27 § And after these things he went forth, and saw 
a publican, named © Levi (or Matthew), sitting at the 
receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. 

28 And he left all (Ais toll-business, and) rose up 
(instantly), and followed him. 

29 And Levi made him a great feast in his own 
house: and there was a great company of publicans 
and of others that sat down with them (and his disct- 
ples, Matt. ix. 10). 

30 But? their scribes and Pharisees (7. e. the scribes 
and pharisees of that place) murmured against his 


Josh. v. 13, is to be in the field of Jericho, or by Jericho; 
and to smite them begibajon, “in Gibeon,” Josh. x. 10, is 
to do it in the fields of Gibeon. This leper came to him, 
πεσὼν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον, “ bowing down with his face to the earth,” 
saith Luke here; προσκυνῶν, “ worshipping,” Matt. viii. 2, 
γονυπετῶν, “ bending his knees,”’ Mark i. 40: so Luke viii. 41, 
Jairus came to him, πεσὼν παρὰ πόδας, “falling down at his 
feet; προσκυνῶν, Matt. ix. 18. 

3 Ver. 13. Ἥψατο αὐτοῦ, He touched εἴτα. To show that 
he, being a prophet, was not obliged to observe the punctilios 
of the ceremonial law. 

4 Ver. 14. Offer for thy cleansing.] Pious here is the note 
of Theophylact, that peS’ 6 τις xaSapicSn, ἄξιός ἐστι προσφέ- 
pew τὸ δῶρον, “then only is a man fit to offer to God his gift, 
when he is cleansed from his sin.” Hence the unclean per- 
son, who came into the sanctuary, was, by the law of Moses, 
to be cut off from his people, Numb. xix. 20. 

5 Ver. 17. Kai δύναμις Κυρίου ἦν eis τὸ ἰᾶσϑαι αὐτοὺς, And 
the power of the Lord was present to heal them.] Who came 
to be healed of their infirmities, ver. 15, not the pharisees 
and lawyers, who had no faith to be healed, and perhaps no 
need of it; it being a known rule, that pronouns often do 
refer not to the immediate precedent, but the remoter noun. 
So Matt. xi. 1, he taught, ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν αὐτῶν, not in the 
cities of his disciples, for they had none, but of the Jews: 
so Ps. xcix. 8, “Thou answeredst them,” Moses and Aaron, 
ver. 6, and “ tookest vengeance on their inventions,” i. e. the 
inventions of the people (see Matt. xii. 9, Acts xv. 11; see 
Glass. de Pronom. lib. iii. Tr. 2, Can. 10). 

6 Ver. 27. Τελώνην ὀνόματι Λευῖν, A publican named Levi.) 
That this Levi was not the same with Matthew, mentioned 
Matt. ix. 9, Grotius, and those who follow him, conceive, 

1.) because Matthew never calls himself Levi, nor doth 

ark (ii. 14) or Luke ever call Levi Matthew : to which ar- 
gument St. Jerome* answers, that Matthew, out of modesty, 
and in remembrance of his former life, styles himself 
« Matthew the publican” (x. 3); but Mark and Luke never 
call him the publican, but mention his more honourable 
name, ne antique conversationis recordantes, “lest they 
should seem to reproach him by remembering his former 


* In Matt. ix. 9, 
Vox. IV.—34 


conversation ;” it is enough that St. Mark calls his Levi “ the 
son of Alpheus,” as Matthew is in church history said to be 
the son of Alpheus. As therefore Saul, after his conversion, 
is almost always called Paul, so might Matthew the publican 
by these two evangelists be called Levi. (2.) He adds, that 
Heracleon, who was near to the apostles’ time, reckons 
Matthew, and Philip, and Thomas, and Levi, among them 
who had no occasion to own Christ before princes, or suffer 
martyrdom on that account, as Clemens of Alexandria tes- 
tifies.* I answer there is no regard to be had to this Valen- 
tinian heretic, especially when he contradicts the opinion of 
all the ancients, in saying that Matthew, and Philip, and 
Thomas did not suffer martyrdom (see Dr. Cave in the Life 
of Matthew, p. 134, of Philip, p. 125, of St. Thomas, p. 139). 
Against him we oppose the Apostolical Constitutions, intro- 
ducing him speaking thus, Ἐγὼ Ματθαῖος ὃς καὶ Λευῖ, “I 
Matthew, named also Levi;” the testimonies of St. Jerome 
and Sophonius, in voce Matthzus, and others of the ancients. 
See Cotelerius in Constit. Apost. p. 315. (3.) He adds, that 
when Celsus objected that our Lord gathered publicans, 
Origen; confesses that Matthew was a publican, but he de- 
nies that Levi was so. To this it is answered, that the same 
Origen, in his preface to the Epistles to the Romans, and in 
the place cited in the catene on St. Matthew, says expressly, 
that he whom St. Matthew styles by the name of “ Matthew 
the publican, is by St. Luke called Levi” (see another answer 
in Cotelerius, ibid.). In a word, sure it must be in vain to 
object against a history in Mark and Luke, where he is called 
Levi, so exactly agreeing with that in St. Matthew, where he 
is called Matthew, that not a circumstantial difference can 
be discerned: insomuch that even Mr. Clerc, who, in his 
annotations, quarrels with Dr. Hammond for following an 
opinion confuted by Grotius, in his Harmony, is himself 
forced to do what he corrects Dr. Hammond for doing. His _ 
words are these, Vidit publicanum cui nomen erat Levi, seu 
Mattheus. Moreover, that this Levi, being called, instantly 
left all, and followed Christ, both Mark and Luke attest. 
Now this is the note of an apostle, Matt. xix. 27 (see also 
Examen var. Lect. Mill. in Matt. x. 3). 

7 Ver. 30. ᾿Ἐγόγγυζον οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν, Their scribes 


* Strom. iv. p.501 D, 502. τ Lib. i. contr, Celsum, p. 48, 


Φ 


266 


disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with pub- 
licans and sinners ? 

31 And Jesus answering said unto them, (This zs 
done, because they most need my help, for) they that are 
whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. 

32 (And this suits best with the reason of my advent, 
for) 1 came not to call the righteous, but sinners to 
repentance. 

33 1 And they (who followed John, Matt. ix. 14) said 
unto him, Why do (we) the disciples of John fast 
often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of 
the Pharisees ; but thine eat and drink (on our fasting- 
days) 3 

34 And he said unto them, Can ye (reasonably) make 
the children of the bridechamber (or guests of a mar- 
riage-feast) fast, while the bridegroom is with them? 

35 But the days will (shortly) come, when the bride- 
groom shall (by death) be taken away from them, and 
then shall they fast in those days. 

36 § And he spake also a parable unto them (re/at- 
ing to the same purpose; saying,) No man putteth a 
piece of a new garment upon an old (garment) ; if 


LUKE. 


otherwise, then both the new maketh a ( fresh) rent, 
and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth 
not with the old. 

37 And (in like manner) no man putteth new wine 
into old bottles; else (or, 7f so) the new wine will 
burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles will 
perish. 

38 But new wine must be put into new bottles; 
and (so) both are preserved. (ven so my young disci- 
ples, taken not from the schools, but from their fishing- 
trades, must not presently be put to severe tasks, for which 
they are not yet strong enough, lest they should be discou- 
raged, and fall off from me.) 

39 No man also having drunk old wine (which is 
smooth, grateful to the palate, and agreeable to the sto- 
mach,) straightway desireth (to exchange it for) new 
(which is harsh to the palate, and, by reason of the lee 


in it, offensive to the stomach): for he saith, The ὃ old 
is better. (Even so my raw disciples must not be pre- 
sently engaged in those austerities of life, which may be 
offensive to them at the first, but, by degrees, be brought to 
observe them.) 


and pharisees murmured, saying, dari; Why eateth 5] i.e. 
The scribes and pharisees, not the guests that sat down per’ 
αὐτῶν, “with them,” ver. 29 (for then they must themselves 
have been guilty of the same crime for which they murmured 
against Christ), but the scribes of the Jews; for what is here 
«their scribes,” is absolutely, Mark ii. 16, “ the scribes.” So 
«in their cities,” Matt. xi. 1, is “in the cities,” not of Christ’s 
disciples, but of the Jews; and he entered εἰς συναγωγὴν 
αὐτῶν, “into a synagogue of theirs,” xii, 9, 1. 6. not into a 
synagogue of the pharisees to whom he spake, ver. 2, but of 


the Jews. Schmidius also here observes, that διατί here is 
as much as, “by what privilege?” for εἰς ri and ἵνα τί denote 
the final cause, but διατί the antecedent reason. 

8 Ver. 39. 'O παλαιὸς χρηστότερός ἐστιν, For he saith, The 
old is better.| So Cicero, de Amicitiis, Veterrime queque, 
ut ea vina que vetustatem ferunt, esse debent suavissime, 
“Old friendships, as old wines, are to be deemed the 
sweetest.” 

Ver. 36. Οὐ συμφωνεῖ τὸ ἐπίβλημα. 
fended, Examen Millii. 


See this reading de- 


CHAPTER VI. 


, 


1 Awnp it came to pass on the! second sabbath after 
the first (Gr. on the first sabbath after the second day of 
the feast of unleavened bread), that he (Christ) went 
through the corn fields ; and his disciples plucked the 
ears of corn, and did eat (of them), rubbing them in 
their hands. 

2 And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why 
do ye that which (11) is not lawful to do on the sab- 
bath days ? 

3 And Jesus answering them said, Have ye not 
tread so much as this, (which ἐδ a case parallel to that of 
my disciples, viz.) what David did, when himself was 
an hungred, and they which were with him? 

4 How he went into the house of God, and did take 
and eat the shewbread, and gave also to them that 
were with him; which (bread by the letter of the law) 
it is not lawful to eat but for the priests alone ? 

5 And (moreover) he said unto them, That the Son 
man is Lord also of the sabbath (7. e. he who came to 
save men’s lives must have power, in such cases as concern 
the good and welfare of men, to dispense with the strict rest 
required by the law of the sabbath). 

6 And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν σαββάτῳ -δευτεροπρώτῳ, It came to 
pass in the second sabbath after the first.| This should 
have been rendered, “in the first sabbath after the second 
day of the passover;” for after the first day of the pass- 
over, which was a sabbath, Exod. xii. 16, ἀπὸ τῆς ἐπαύριον 
τῶν σαββάτων, “from the morrow after the sabbath” (that is, 
saith Josephus, τῇ δευτέρᾳ ἀζύμων ἡμέρα, from the second day 
of unleavened bread, that is, the sixteenth of the month, 
Antiq. lib. iii. cap. 10), ye shall count unto you seven sab- 
baths complete (Lev. xxiii. 15), reckoning that day for the 


he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there 
was a man whose right hand was withered. 

7 And the scribes and Pharisees (having asked him, 
whether it was lawful to heal on the sabbath-day, Matt. 
xii. 10) watehed him, whether he would heal on the 
sabbath day; that (7f he did so) they might find an 
accusation against him (as one that kept not the sabbath- 
day, John ix. 6). 

8 But he knew their thoughts (or reasonings), and 
said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, 
and stand forth in the midst (of the synagogue). And 
he arose and stood forth. 

9 Then said Jesus unto them, I will (also) ask you 
one thing; (viz.) Is it lawful on the sabbath days to 
do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy zt ? 

10 And looking round about upon them all (and 
receiving no answer from any of them), he said unto the 
man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his 
| hand was restored whole as the other. 

11 And they were filled with madness; and com- 
muned one with another what they might do to Jesus 
(ὦ. e. how they might destroy or punish him with death, 
for violating the sabbath, Matt. ix. 14). 


first of the first week, which was therefore called δευτερόπρω- 
τον, the first sabbath from this second day of unleavened 
bread ; the second was called devrepodcirepov, the second sab- 
bath from that day; and the third devrsporpirov, the third 
sabbath from that second day ; and so on till they came to 
the seventh sabbath from that day, i. e. to the forty-ninth 
day, which was the day of pentecost. The mention of the 
seven sabbaths to be numbered, with relation to this second 
day, answers all that Grotius objects against this exposition ; 
see Petavius on Epiphan. Her. 30, n. 32, where Epipha- 
nius expressly says, our Lord’s disciples did this, rw caf- 
βάτῳ τῷ μετὰ τὴν ἡμέραν τῶν ἀζύμων, “on the sabbath fol- 


CHAPTER VI. 


12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went 
out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in 
® prayer to God (Gr. ἐν τῇ προσευχῇ τοῦ Θεοῦ, in God’s 
house of prayer, or in a synagogue dedicated to his ser- 
vice). 

τ 4 And when it was day, he called unto him his 
disciples : and (out) of them he chose twelve the be his 
constant attendants, and witnesses of his actions, John xv. 
27), whom also he named apostles ; (7. 6. persons whom 
he would send to preach in his name to the Jews first, and 
afler to the gentiles ; 

14 Viz.) Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and 
Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bar- 
tholomew, 

15 Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, 
and Simon called Zelotes, 

16 And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Isca- 
riot, which also was the traitor. 

17 4 And he came down with them, and stood in 
the plain, and (with him were) the company of his dis- 
ciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea 
and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and 
Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of 
their diseases ; 

18 And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: 
and they were healed. : 

19 And the whole multitude (of them who came to be 
healed) sought to touch him: for there went virtue out 
of him, and healed them all (who thus touched him). 

20 4 And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and 
said, * Blessed be ye (who are) poor (in spirit): for 
your’s is the kingdom of God. 

21 Blessed are ye that hunger now (after righteous- 
ness) : for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep 
now (with that godly sorrow which works repentance) : 


267 


for ye shall (find that comfort which will make you) 
laugh. 

22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and 
when they shall separate you from their company, 
and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as 
evil (doers), for the Son of man’s sake (i. 6. for the 
sake of the Messiah, styled by Daniel the Son of man, 
Dan. vil. 14). 

23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, 
behold, your reward is great in heaven ( your case being 
like, in this, to those holy prophets who are now in hea- 
ven): for in the like manner did their fathers unto the 
prophets. 

24 But woe unto you that are rich (and by those 
riches are indisposed to follow me)! for ye have received 
your consolation (in this life). 

25 Woe unto you that are full (and therefore do not 
hunger after righteousness)! for ye shall hunger. Woe 
unto you that laugh now (when you are called to re- 
pentance, to fit you to receive the gospel)! for ye shall 
mourn and weep (when ye find yourselves excluded from 
the kingdom of God, Matt. viii. 12). 

26 Woe unto you, when “ all (the) men (of the 
world) speak well of you (this being a sign that you imi- 
tate those false prophets, who spake things pleasing to the 
people)! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. 

27 4 But I say unto you which hear (me), Love 
your enemies, do good to them which hate you, 

28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them 
which despitefully use you. 

29 And unto him that smiteth thee (with his palm) 
on the one cheek offer (7. e. permit) also the other (to 
be smitten) ; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid 
not to take thy coat also (rather than contend by force, 
or before the magistrate, about supportable injuries). 


lowing the day of unleavened bread ;” which, if understood 
of the second day, is the truth. And if pentecost was 
called “the feast of harvest,’ Exod. xxiii. 16 (as Bochart, 
Hieroz. par. i. lib. iii. cap. 13... Nicholas Fuller, Miscell. 
lib. iii. cap. 11. Mr. Mede, Disc. 46, p. 355. Dr. Light- 
foot, and the Jews say, see Temple Serv. cap. 14. sect. 4), 
because then tleir barley and wheat-harvest were gathered 
in, this feast could not be pentecost, as Grotius conjectures ; 
because then the corn must be gathered in: and therefore 
could not be plucked by Christ's disciples in the field. 

2 Ver. 12. “Hy διανυκτερεύων ἐν τῇ προσευχὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ, And 
he continued all night in prayer to God.) Or, in a house 
of prayer of God, or in a synagogue dedicated to the service 
ef God : though synagogues were not, as far as we can find, 
of divine institution; yet, being necessary for the perform- 
ance of God’s service, they, by the psalmist, are styled the 
houses of God, Ps. Ixxiv. 9, and here a house of prayer of 
God: and in like manner may our churches, for the same 
reason, be styled the houses of God: for, as “the mountain 
of God,” Exod. iii. 1, iv. 27, “the bread of God,” Lev. xxi. 
17, “the lamp of God,” 1 Sam. iii. 3, “ the vessels of God,” 
1 Chron. xxii. 19, « The altar of God,” Ps. xliii. 4, “ the sa- 
crifices of God,” Ps. li. 17, “the gifts of God,” Luke xxi. 
4, “the ministers of God,” 2 Cor. vi. 4, “the tabernacle of 
God,” 2 Chron. i. 3, “the temple of God,” Matt. xxi. 12, 
and “the synagogue of God,” Ps. lxxiv. 8, are all things 
consecrated or appropriated to God’s service; so προσευχὴ 
τοῦ Θεοῦ must, in all reason, be a house of prayer of God ; 
whence it is called τόπος προσευχῆς, “a place of prayer,” 1 
Mace. iii. 46. And so the word προσευχὴ is certainly used, 
Acts xvi. 13, and by Philo* in his oration against Flaccus, 
where he complains that, ai προσευχαὶ, “their houses for 
prayer were pulled down ;” and there was no place left, in 
which they might worship God, or pray for Cesar: and by 
Josephus,t who says, the multitude was gathered, εἰς τὴν 
προσευχὴν, “into the house of prayer: and so Juvenal+ 
speaks of the mendicant Jew, Ede ubi consistas, in qua te 


* Ῥ 752, F.760, Ε. 
Ἐ Sat. 3, v. 215. 


t De Vita sua, p. 1020, C, E. 


quero proseucha? “In what house of prayer may I find 
thee begging,” or asking alms? 

3 Ver. 20—26. Μακάριοι of πτωχοὶ, &c. Blessed are the 
poor, the hungry, the mourners, for the Son of man’s sake.} 
Here being but four of the eight beatitudes mentioned 
Matt. v., and not one of these being delivered in the same 
words which are there used ; as it is certain this must be an- 
other sermon than that on the mount, and spoken to other 
auditors; so it is only probable, not necessary, that they 
should bear the same sense. However, it seems necessary 
that what is here added to the last clause should agree to 
them all, Blessed are they who patiently suffer poverty and 
hunger, grief and persecution, for the sake of Christ, that 
they may obtain that kingdom and that reward in heaven 
he hath promised to his faithful servants ; or, that the poor 
should be the poor in spirit; the hungry, those that hunger 
after righteousness; and the mourners, those that sorrow to 
repentance after a godly manner (2 Cor. vii. 9), for to those 
that are otherwise poor and hungry, and upon other ac- 
counts, these blessings cannot always belong; and the op- 
posite woes, which seem to favour the first interpretation of 
these four beatitudes, must be restrained to them, who, by 
the love of riches, pleasures, and plentiful provisions, are 
kept from preparing themselves by repentance for, and so 
from, entering into Christ’s kingdom, or choosing that nar- 
row and afflictive way which leadeth unto life eternal: for 
even here the very Christian sufferer is to rejoice, and leap 
for joy ; and the rich man, who is ready, when Christ calleth, 
to leave all, and follow him, who is rich in good works, 
ready to give, and willing to distribute, layeth up for himself 
a good foundation against the time to come (1 Tim. vi. 19). 

4 Ver. 26. Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν ὅταν καλῶς ὑμᾶς εἴπωσι πάντες of ἄνθρω- 
ποι, Woe unto you when all men speak well of you! for so 
did their fathers to the false prophets.] For he that will be 
pleasing to all, must speak things grateful to all, and do 
what they like; now that cannot be good, which is grateful 
to bad men: thus the false prophets, whom the Jews com- 
mended, spake to them “smooth things” (Isa. xxx. 10); 
they “ prophesied lies,” because “the people loved to have 
it so;” they “prophesied of peace, when war was at hand,” 


208 


30 Give to every (indigent) man that asketh of 
thee (what he wants, and thow canst spare) ; and of 
him 5 that taketh away thy goods ask them not again 
(in a judiciary manner ; see note on Matt. v. 42: or 
urge not the restoring them to the detriment of charity, 
or so as to quarrel, or show a contentious spirit about 
them). 

31 And as ye would that men should do to you 
(in equal circumstances), do ye also to them likewise. 

32 For if® ye love them (only) which love you, 
what thank have ye? (ἑ. e. what reward can ye expect 
for that which even the worst of men will do? ver. 35,) 
for sinners also love those that love them. 

33 And if ye do good to them (only) which do good 
to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even 
the same. 

34 And if ye lend to them (only) of whom ye hope 
to receive (what ye lend), what thank have ye? for 
sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 

35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and 
Tend, (though) hoping for nothing again; and your 
reward (tn heaven) shall be great, and ye shall (show 


LUKE. 


yourselves to) be the children of the Highest (God) : 
for he is kind unto the unthankful and {o the evil. 

36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is 
merciful. 

37 Judge not (unnecessarily), and ye shall not be 
judged : condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: 
forgive (others their trespasses), and ye shall be forgiven 
(yours) : 

38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good mea- 
sure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running 
over, shall ὃ men give (by God’s disposal, or δώσουσιν, 
shall be given; see the note,) into your bosom. For 
with the same (/iberal) measure that ye mete withal 
it shall be measured to you (by God) again (2 Cor. 
ix, δὲ BLO); dec πὶ 

[ΤῸ this sermon of Christ the evangelist here adds other 
things spoken by Christ at other times ; but tending to en- 
gage men to observe these precepts, or to take off their ex- 
ceptions against them. | 

39 And (first, against the pharisees, who, being co- 
vetous, derided these charitable doctrines, Luke xvi. 
14) he spake a parable unto them (that heard him, say- 


Jer. vi. 14, viii. 11, xiv. 13, Ezek. xiii. 10. 16, Zech. x. 2, 
they “strengthened the hand of evil-doers,” Jer. xxiii. 14, 
and “daubed with untempered mortar,” Ezek. xiii. 10, 11 
(see Examen Milli). 

5 Ver. 30. From him that taketh away what is thine, 
μὴ ἀπαίτει, ask it not again.) i.e. If any man will not ask, 
but without asking will take away, or detain from thee what 
is thine ; ask it not again, either in a judiciary manner (see 
note on Matt. v. 40. 42), or urge not the restoring of it, to 
the detriment of charity or mercy; they who would inter- 
pret these words thus, From him that received any loan 
from thee, exact no usury, put a double force upon the 
words: for (1.) our Saviour doth not here say, as he doth 
Matt. v. 42, τὸν ϑέλοντα ἀπό cov δανείσασθαι, “ From him that 
would borrow of thee, turn not away;” but ἀπὸ τοῦ aipovros 
τὰ σὰ, “ from him that will take up, or take away that which 
is thine, ask it not again.” Now he that is willing to borrow 
of me, owns that which he would borrow to be mine, and so 
cannot be willing at the same time to take away what is 
mine. (2.) Whereas they render the word ἀπαιτεῖν, “ to ex- 
act usury,” and for this sense appeal to the use of it in Ne- 
hemiah ; it is evident, that there it hath no such sense, but 
plainly relates to their unjust exactions of debts and services 
of their brethren against the law, requiring them to remit 
those debts and services every seventh year, saying, “ Every 
seventh year thou shalt make a release; and this is the 
manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth any thing 
to his neighbour, πᾶν χρέος ἴδιον 6 ὀφείλει cor ὃ πλησίον, every 
debt of thine thy neighbour oweth thee, thou shalt release ; 
and of thy brother, οὐκ ἀπαιτήσεις, thou shalt not exact it; 
of a foreigner, ἀπαιτήσεις, thou mayest exact it; but to thy 
brother thou shalt remit thy debt,” Deut. xv. 1—3, and so 
for services, Exod. xxi. 2, Jer. xxxiv. 14. Accordingly, 
saith Nehemiah, let us remit the seventh year, 3) $2 xwD) 
καὶ ἀπαίτησον χειρὸς, and the exaction of every debt: so Deut. 
Xv. 2, γ) AWD Sys 53 πᾶν χρέος ἴδιον, “ All thy own debt thou 
shalt remit.” When therefore he saith, v. 10, «Let us re- 
mit, I pray you τὴν ἀπαιτήσιν ταύτην, this exaction,” he 
must refer to the same debt; and when he says, ver. 7, 
ἀπαιτήσει, “Should a man exact of his brother, ἃ ὑμεῖς 
ἀπαιτεῖτε, the things which ye exact?” he plainly refers to 
the sin taxed in the Jews by Jeremy, ch. xxxiv., of demand- 
ing service of them again after these years of release were 
expired : so also Ecclus. xx. 14, 15, “The gift of a fool will 
do thee no good, σήμερον δανιεῖ, καὶ αὔριον ἀπαιτήσει, he will 
lend to-day, and ask it again to-morrow.” And, lastly, if 
the first words referred to Matt. v. 42, μὴ ἀπαιτεῖν here must 
be the same with μὴ ἀποστρέφεῖϊν there, which sure hath no 
relation to usury. 

§ Ver. 32. Ei ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἀγαπῶντας ὑμὰς, ποῖα ὑμῖν χάρις 5 
&e. If you love them that love you, what thank have 
you? for sinners also love those that love them.] Here 
saith Theophylact, If you only love them that love you, 
you are only like to sinners and heathens; but if you 


love those that do evil to you, you are like to God; Ποῖον 
οὖν ϑέλετε ὅμοιοι εἶναι, τοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ ἣ τοῦ Θεοῦ ; “* Which 
therefore should you choose, to be like sinners, or like 
God 1’ 

7 Ver. 35. Kai daveifere, μηδὲν ἀπελπίζοντες, And lend, 
hoping for nothing again.] They who render these words, 
“making no man to despair,” put a double force upon the 
words ; first, reading μηδένα, “no man,” for μηδὲν, « nothing ;” 
and, secondly, interpreting ἀπελπίζειν, “to make to despair ;” 
of which sense they afford no instance. They who render 
them “distrusting nothing,” i. 6. not fearing lest thou 
shouldest be reduced to poverty by this charity, give a sense 
alien from the text; for when they say, “ The heathens give 
and lend, knowing that they may want themselves ;” this 
they add of their own to the words of Christ, who says, “ They 
lend, iva ἀπολαβῶσι τὰ ἴσα, that they may receive as much 
again ;” and they reject that sense the text doth manifestly 
require: for so run the preceding words, “If ye lend to 
those, rap’ ὧν ἐλπίζετε ἀπολαβεῖν, from whom you hope to 
receive again (what you lend), what thank have you? for, 
do not sinners lend to sinners to receive, or ‘that they may 
receive, what they lend again?” But lend not you on so 
mean account, but even when you hope to receive nothing 
back from them you lend to. And whereas we are told, 
that the word ἀπελπίζω bears no such sense; I hope the 
credit of Stephanus, who says the word is rightly rendered 
by the Vulgar, nihil inde sperantes; and of Casaubon, who 
saith, ἀπελπίζειν is ἀπὸ τοῦ πράγματος τὶ ἐλπίζειν, “to hope 
for something from a person, or matter; may be sufficient 
to support the credit of our translation ; especially when we 
read in the life of Solon, that he made no law against par- 
ricides, διὰ τὸ ἀπελπίσαι, “because he did not expect” that 
such a crime would be committed (Diog. Laert. lib. i. p. 17), 
and find this like composition in the word ἀπέχειν, when it 
signifies, ἀπό τινος ἔχειν, to receive, ἀπογεύομαι, ἀπό τινος γεῦο- 
μαι, “I taste of something;” and in the word ἀπεσϑίειν, 
which, saith Atheneus, is used, ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀπό τινος ἐσϑίειν, for 
“to eat of any thing.” But (2.) where it is rendered by 
them, to despair, or to be desperate, the sense is still the 
same, viz. to be μηδὲν ἀπελπίζοντες, “ hoping for nothing from 
men,” and therefore repairing to God. ‘This is the plain 
sense of it, Isa. xxix., Jud. ix. 12, Esth. xiv. 19: so Ecclus. 
xxii. 21, xxvii. 21, μὴ ἀπελπίζης, is, “Be not without hope 
of reconciliation with thy friend : and why then may not 
the word here signify, “ Being without hope of receiving 
any thing again from him you lend to?” So that it is not to 
be doubted, that these words are well rendered by Chrysos- 
tom,* πρὸς ὧν οὐ προσδοκῶμεν ἀπολαμβάνειν, From whom you 
expect not to receive.” 

8 Ver. 38. δώσουσι. Impersonaliter interpretandum, “Is 
to be rendered impersonally,” saith Grotius (see note on 
xvi. 9). 


* In Mat. v. 42. 


CHAPTER VII. 


ing), Can the blind (pharisees) lead the blind (in the 
right way? if they commit themselves to their conduct,) 
shall they not both fall into the ditch ? 

40 (And to remove that fear of poverty, reproach, and 
injuries, lo which this practice might subject his fol- 
lowers, he said,) The disciple is not (lo expect to be) 
above his master: but every one that 9 is perfect (¢. e. 
fully instructed in these rules) shall (will) be as his 
master (7. 6. conformed to him in these things ; see Matt. 
x. 25). 

41 and (as for his command not to judge others, when 
we ourselves are greater criminals, his question upon that 
occasion was,) why beholdest thou the mote that is in 
thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is 
in thine own eye? 

42 Kither (or) how canst thou say to thy brother, 
Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, 
when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in 
thine own eye? Thon hypocrite, cast out first the 
beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see 
clearly (how) to pull out the mote that is in thy bro- 
ther’s eye. 

43 For (then only wilt thou be fit to direct others well, 
both by example and by words, when thou art good thyself, 
seeing) a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; 
neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 


269 


44 For every tree is known by his own fruit. For 
of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of (or, from) a 
bramble bush gather they grapes. 

45 (And, in like manner,) a good man out of the 
good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which 
is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of 
his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of 
(from) the abundance of the heart his mouth speak- 
eth. 

46 4 And (he said, moreover) why (to what purpose) 
call ye me Lord, Lord (¢. δ. profess yourselves my disci- 
ples), and (yet) do not the things which I say (ye ought 
to do)? 

4 (For) Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my 
sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he 
is like: 

48 He is like a man which built an house, and dig- 
ged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and 
when the flood arose, the stream beat vehement] 
upon that house, and (yet) could not shake it: for it 
was founded upon a rock. 

49 But he that heareth (my words), and doeth (them) 
not, is like a man that without a foundation built an 
house upon the earth; against which the stream did 
beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin 
of that house was great. 


9 Ver. 40. Karnpricuévos δὲ πᾶς ἔσται ὡς διδάσκαλος αὐτοῦ, But 
every one that is perfect, shall (will) be as his master.) 
KarapritesSa is to be perfect in any thing, Matt. xxi. 16, 2 
Cor. xiii. 9.11, Heb. xiii. 21, 1 Pet. v. 10. The sense there- 
fore of these words may be this, The disciple that perfectly 


understands the rules, and sees the example, of his master, 
will think it is his business to tread exactly in his steps, to do 
and suffer, upon like occasions, as his master did, and so he 
will be like his master. 


CHAPTER VII. 


1 Now when he had ended all his sayings in the 
audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum. 

2 And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear 
unto him, was sick, and ready to die (or near death). 

3 And when he (the centurion) heard (the fame) of 
Jesus, he 1 sent unto him (some of’) the elders of the 
Jews, beseeching him (by them) that he would come 
and heal his servant. 

4 And when they came to Jesus, they besought 
him instantly (or earnestly), saying, That he was wor- 
thy for whom he should do this (¢. 6. he well deserved 
this kindness) : 

5 For he loveth our nation (and religion,) and (as 
an indication of this) he hath built us a synagogue. 

6 Then Jesus went with them. And when he was 
now not far from the house, the centurion sent (other) 
friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thy- 
self (fo come to me): for I am not worthy that thou 
shouldest enter under my roof: 

7 Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to 
come unto thee: but say in a word (‘hy pleasure), and 
(J believe) my servant shall be healed. 

8 For I also am a man set under authority, having 
under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIL 


1 Ver. 3. Απέστειλε πρὸς αὐτὸν πρεσβυτέρους τῶν Ἰουδαίων, He 
sent to him the elders of the Jews.) And ver. 6, “The 
centurion sent to him friends: by Matthew, viii. 5, “The 
centurion came to him ;” and ver. 8, “ The centurion said to 
him.” To reconcile this difference, note, 

First, That St. Luke relating this story more largely than 
St. Matthew doth, and with this signal circumstance said by 
his messengers, “I thought not myself worthy to come unto 
thee” (ver. 7), these circumstances must be as they are re- 
lated by St. Luke. Note, 

Secondly, That it being a rule among the Jews, that 


goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and 
to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. (How much 
more then canst thou, who hast all power in heaven and 
earth, command one of the ministering spirits to come and 
heal my servant.) 

9 When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at 
him, and turned him (se/f) about, and said unto the 
people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not 
found so great faith, no, not in Israel; (and upon this 
faith, he told them that were sent, it should be as he be- 
lieved, Matt. viii. 13.) 

10 And they that were sent, returning to the house, 
found the servant whole that had been sick. 

11 4 And it came to pass the day after, that he went 
into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples 
went with him, and much people. 

12 Now when he came high to the gate of the city, 
behold, there was a dead man carried out, (who was) 
the only son of his mother, and she was a widow 
(and so by the loss of this son left destitute): and much 
people of the city was with her (to attend the funeral). 

13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion 
on her, and said unto her, Weep not. 

14 And (then) he came and touched the bier: and 


apostolus cujusque est quisque, the disciple, messenger, or 
proxy of any man is as himself; and, among the civilians, 
quod facimus per alium, id ipsum facere judicamur, “we 
ourselves are reputed to do that which by another we do:” 
St. Matthew well might say, the centurion who sent these 
elders and friends came to him by them. So Jethro comes 
to Moses by a messenger, Exod. xviii. 6, and Solomon speaks 
to Hiram by his servants, 1 Kings v. 7. James and John 
came to Christ with a petition presented by their mother, 
Mark x. 35 compared with Matt. xx. 20. John the Baptist 
speaks to Christ by his disciples, Matt. xi. 3. Note, 
Thirdly, That though it seems probable from those words 
of Christ to the centurion, “Go thy way, and as thou hast 
x2 


210 


they that bare him stood still. 
man, #1 say unto thee, Arise. 

15 And (at that word) he that was dead sat up, 
and began to speak. And he delivered him to his 
mother. 

16 And there came a fear on (‘hem) all: and they 
glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen 
up among us; and, That God hath visited his people 
(by sending to them the promised Messiah). 

17 And this rumour of him went forth throughout 
all Judea, and throughout all the region round about. 

18 And the disciples of John shewed him of all 
these things. 

19 1 And John calling unto him two of his disciples 
3 sent them to Jesus, saying (in the name of their mas- 
ter, who sent them for their own satisfaction), Art thou 
he that should come (the Messiah) ? or look we for 
another ? 

20 When (therefore) the men were come unto him, 
they said, John (the) Baptist hath sent us unto thee, 
saying (or, fo say), Art thou he that should come? or 
look we for (are we to cxpect) another ? 

21 And in that same hour he cured many of their 
infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto 
many that were blind he gave sight (according to the 
prophecy of Isaiah concerning him: see the note on Matt. 
xi. 5). 

22 "Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your 
way, and tell John what things ye have seen and 
heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the 
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, 
to the poor the gospel is preached. 

23 And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be of- 


And he said, Young 


LUKE. Ἴ 


fended in me (i. e. who shall not fall off from me by 
reason of the afflictions he may suffer, as John doth, or 
by reason of my mean circumstances in this present 
world ). 

24 4 And when the messengers of John were de- 
parted, he began to speak unto the people concerning 
John (saying), What went ye out into the wilderness 
for to see? (Was tt) a reed shaken with the wind (a 
man wavering in his doctrine or testimony) 3 

25 But what went ye out for to see? A man 
clothed in soft raiment (a courtier and parasite)? Be- 
hold, they which are gorgeously appareled, and live 
delicately, are in kings’ courts. 

26 But what went ye out for tosee? (Wasit)a 
prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and (one that is) much 
more than a (an ordinary) prophet. 

27 (For) This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, 
Isend my messenger before thy face, which shall pre- 
pare thy way before thee. 

28 (More, I say, than an ordinary prophet,) For I say 
unto you, Among those that are born of women there 
is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but 
(yet) he that is (the) 4 least (prophet) in the kingdom 
of God is greater than he, 

29 And all the people that heard Aim, and the pub- 
licans, justified God (7. e. approved the wisdom and 
justice of his counsel, in calling them, by the Baplist, 
to repentance), being baptized with the baptism of 
John. 

30 But the ® Pharisees and lawyers rejected the 
counsel of God against (towards) themselves, being 
not baptized of him (as being confident they were righte- 
ous, Luke xvill. 9, and so needed no repentance). 


believed, be it done unto thee” (Matt. viii. 13), that when 
Christ was nigh to the house, the centurion might come in 
person to him, yet neither is this necessary; for when 
David sent messengers to commune with Abigail to take her 
to wife, she answers as if he had been present, “ Behold thy 
handmaid to be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of 
my lord” (1 Sam. xxv. 41). 

2 Ver. 14. Eins, νεανίσκε, σοὶ λέγω, éyépSnrt, Jesus said, 
Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.) Here Woltzogenius 
owns that Christ spake this by that divine power which he 
had over inanimate things, as the wind and the sea; Est qui- 
dem hoc Deo proprium, “ This indeed,” saith he, “is proper 
to God, who calleth things that are not, as if they were” 
(Rom. iv. 17), but God had communicated this power to 
his Son, by whom he would most perfectly manifest himself 
to the world. So Peter speaks to Tabitha, « Tabitha, arise”’ 
(Acts ix. 40) ; as Christ to Lazarus, “ Lazarus, come forth” 
(John xi. 43). Now to this I reply, 

First, That the instance of St. Peter saying to Tabitha, 
« Arise,” doth not lessen the strength of the argument from 
these words for the divinity of Christ, seeing he doth this 
only by prayer to and faith in the Lord Christ; to which he 
ascribes all his miracles, doing them in his name, or power, 
and “through faith in his name” (Acts iii. 16), and so in 
effect saith to her as he did to Aineas (var. 34), “ Jesus 
Christ healeth thee, arise,’ &c. Christ here doth this by 
his own power, without any prayers, as appears from those 
words, “I say to thee, Arise;” and he will raise all his 
servants from the dead, and “change their vile bodies into 
the likeness of his glorious body, according to the mighty 
power by which he is able to subdue all things to himself” 
(Phil. iii. 21). He prayed, indeed, when he raised Lazarus ; 
but then even Woltzogenius observes, he could not do this 
to receive power to raise him, because he had this power in 
himself already, John v. 26, and doth there challenge to 
himself to be “the resurrection and the life,” vi. 25, but for 
other reasons accounted for John xi. 41, 42. 

Secondly, When Woltzogenius can prove, that divine 
virtue which is proper to God alone, ever was, or ever can 
be communicated to a creature, or to another without 
communication of the divine nature, then, and not till 


then, will he have given a satisfactory answer to this argu- 
ment, 

3 Ver. 19. John sent, saying, Art thou he that should 
come ?] See the note on Matt. xi. 3. 

4 Ver. 28. The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater 
than he.| See the note on Matt. xi. 11. 

5 Ver. 30. Οἱ φαρισαῖοι καὶ νομικοὶ τὴν βουλὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡϑέ- 
τησαν εἰς ἑαυτοὺς, μὴ βαπτισϑέντες ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, But the phari- 
sees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against 

Gr. towards) themselves, being not baptized of him.] 

hat some of them came to be baptized, we read Matt. iii. 
7, it therefore must be said, either that this is here said of 
them in general, because it was true of many of them; or 
that those who came to him, hearing the character he gave 
of them, refused his baptism (see note on Matt. ili. 7). But 
the chief thing here observable is this, that, in rejecting 
John’s baptism, they are said to reject the counsel of God 
towards them, that is, his gracious design of calling them by 
him to that repentance which could alone exempt them 
from the wrath to come; and by that refusal declared they 
approved not of God’s counsel, as just and righteous in call- 
ing such unblamable persons as they were, and such zealots 
for the law, to repentance, that so they might escape the 
ruin threatened by St. John ; for thus Eleazar, one of them, 
speaks, after the destruction of the Jews, that though all the 
rest of the Jews perished,* ἡμεῖς δ᾽ ἄρα μόνοι ἠλπίσαμεν 
περιέσεσϑαι ὥσπερ ἁναμάρτητοι πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν γενόμενοι, “ we alone 
expected to be preserved, as having not sinned against God, 
nor been guilty of any fault, and who were teachers to 
others.” Christ tells us they were, πεποιθότας ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῖς, 
“confident in themselves, that they were righteous” (Luke 
xviii. 9), and represents them by the elder son, saying, “I 
never transgressed at any time thy commandments” (Luke 
xv, 29). They therefore judged it an incongruous thing to 
call such righteous persons to repentance and threaten them 
with ruin, who were so dear to God; but the publicans and 
common people were conscious to themselves of sin sufficient 
to expose them to divine judgments, and therefore they 
approved of this counsel God sent them by his messenger, 


* Apud Joseph. de Bello Jud. lib. vii. p. 990. 


ι CHAPTER VII. 


31 4 And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I 
liken the men of this generation? and to what are 
they like ? 

32 They are like unto children sitting in the mar- 
ketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We 
have piped unto you (as at a festival), and ye have not 
danced ; we have mourned to you (as they do at fune- 
ral solemnities), and ye have not wept (2. e. you have 
neither complied with us when we called you with mirth 
nor sadness.) 

33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread 
nor drinking wine (his meat being only locusts, and his 
drink water); and ye say (of him), ite hath a devil 
(or, ts a melancholy, frantic person). 

34 The Son of man is come eating and drinking 
(in the usual manner); and ye say (of him), Behold 
(Ae is) a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend 
of publicans and sinners ! 

35 But wisdom is § justified (¢. e. approved) of all 
her children (ἡ. e. of all true lovers of wisdom). 

36 1 And (or, then) one of the Pharisees desired 
him that he would eat with him. And (thereupon) he 
went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. 

37 7 And, behold, a woman in the city, which was 
(formerly) a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at 
meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster 
box of ointment, 

38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and 
began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them 
with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and 
anointed them with the ointment. 

39 Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him 
saw zt, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if 
he were a prophet, would have known who and what 


271 


manner of woman δύ is that toucheth him: for she 
is a sinner (and so by touching must defile him). 

40 And Jesus answering (to his thoughts) said unto 
him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And 
he saith, Master, say on. 

41 (Jesus then began his discourse thus,) There was a 
certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed 
(him) five hundred pence, and the other fifty. 

42 And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly 
forgave them both. ‘Tell me therefore, which of them 
will love him most? 

43 Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to 
whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou 
hast rightly judged. 

44 And he turned to the woman, and said unto Si- 
mon, Seest thou this woman? (/Vhen) 1 entered into 
thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but 
she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them 
with the hairs of her head. 

45 Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since 
the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. 

46 My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this 
woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. 

47 9 Wherefore I say unto thee, (This ἐξ a testimony 
that) her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she 
(hath) loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the 
same loveth little. 

48 And (then) he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. 

49 And they that sat at meat with him began to 
say within themselves, Who is this (man) that (he) 
forgiveth sins also? 

50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath 
saved thee (from the punishment of thy past sins) ; go 
in peace. 


and declared him righteous, both in calling them to repent- 
ance and threatening his judgments if they did neglect it; 
and therefore they submitted to this baptism of repentance 
for the remission of sins, to which God, by the Baptist, 
called them: that δικαιοῦν is to declare, or approve a thing 
or person righteous, see ver. 35. They whose principles 
will not allow them to believe that God had any such be- 
nign designs towards such a generation of vipers, say, First, 
That βουλὴ τοῦ Θεδὺ is not the counsel, or the purpose, but 
only the command of God; but (1.) this phrase in scripture 
never signifies a bare command, but always the decree, the 
purpose, or the counsel of God (see Acts li. 23, vi. 28, xiii. 
36, xx. 27, Eph. i. 11, Heb. vi. 17). Nor (2.) can it be 
rationally supposed, that God should give men any virtuous 
or moral precepts, which he doth not design and purpose 
that they should obey. Secondly, They add, that εἰς éav- 
τοὺς, “ towards them,” is here put for ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, “in them- 
selves ;” and therefore render the text thus, “'They despised 
in themselves the counsel of God.” But (1.) was it his 
counsel towards them, or was it not? If not, how could 
they by neglecting that which concerned not them, despise 
it? If so, then it is certain, that the purpose and counsel 
of God toward them was this, That they should repent, and 
bring forth fruits meet from repentance. (2.) The phrase, 
«jn themselves,” is always expressed by ἐν ἑαντοῖς, iii. 8, vii. 
49, viii. 9; εἰς ἑαυτοὺς occurs but twice elsewhere, viz. 1 Pet. 
iv. 8. 10, and then it plainly signifies, “towards themselves.” 

6 Ver. 35. Kai ἐδικαιώϑη, But Wisdom is justified of her 
children.| See note on Matt. xi. 19. 

7 Ver. 37. ᾿Ιδοὺ, γυνὴ ἐν τῇ πόλει. And, behold, a woman 
in the city.] Here are two arguments against the opinion of 
Huetius* and others, that this woman was Mary, the sister 
of Lazarus, and that Simon the Leper, mentioned Matt. 
xxvi. 6, Mark xiv. 3, was the same with the Simon men- 
tioned here ; (1.) because this Mary was a woman of that 
city, that is, either of Nain or Capernaum, the only cities 


* Not. in Matt. p. 43, 44, 


mentioned here; whereas Mary, the sister of Lazarus, was 
of no city, but of the town or village of Bethany, John xi. 
1, (2.) After the collation here, which is not styled a 
supper, our Lord went “through every city and village, 
preaching the kingdom of God” (viii. 1), whereas, after 
he raised Lazarus, “ Jesus walked no more openly.” And, 
lastly, Mary’s unction was made for Christ’s interment, 
and but six days before Christ’s last passover (John xii. 
7), when he continued in Bethany and in Jerusalem (Mark 
xi. 11). 

8 ὩΣ 47. Οὗ χάριν, λέγω σοι, ἀφέωνται αἷ ἁμαρτίαι αὑτῆς αἱ 
πολλαί: ὅτι ἠγάπησε πολύ: For which cause I say unto thee, 
Her sins, which were many, are forgiven: for she loved 
much.] Christ saith not her sins were forgiven because she 
loved much; but this ought to be a token to thee, that her 
sins, which rendered her unworthy to touch me, have been 
forgiven ; this great love to me being an indication of her 
deep sense of God’s mercy to her in pardoning her many 
sins: and this do I the Prophet and the Son of God declare 
unto her: to this sense lead both the parable of the great 
debtor, to whom the Lord frankly had forgiven all, for he 
loved much, because much had been forgiven; and the 
conclusion of it in these words, “ He that hath less forgiven 
loveth less; whence it appears, that ὅτι here cannot be 
causal or intimate, she was forgiven much, because she 
loved much ; the cause assigned of her forgiveness being not 
her love but faith (ver. 50); but only consequential, de- 
noting the effect or indication of the forgiveness of her many 
sins. So Hosea ix. 15, All their iniquity was in Gilgal, 
“therefore there I hated them : for they did not sin in 
Gilgal, because he hated them there; but he hated them 
there, because there they offended (Eccles. v. 7) ; ὅτι σὺ 
τὸν Θεὸν φοβοῦ, * Wherefore fear thou God.” So John xiv. 
17, The world cannot receive the spirit of truth, ὅτι οὐ ϑεωρεῖ 
αὐτο, “therefore it sees him not, neither knows him,” but 
ye know him, “therefore he abideth with you, and shall be 
with you.” In one at least of these two paragraphs ὅτι must 
bear this sense. 


272 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 Anp it came to pass afterward, that he went 
throughout every city and village, preaching and 
shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God : and 
the twelve were with him, 

2 And certain women, which had been healed of 
evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, 
out of whom went seven devils, 

3 And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, 
and Susanna, and many others, which! ministered unto 
him (necessaries out) of their substance. 

4 4 And when much people were gathered together, 
and were come to him out of every city, he spake by 
a parable: 

5 (Saying,) A sower went out to sow his seed: and 
as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and ? it was 
trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. 

6 And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it 
was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked 
(root and) moisture. 

7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns 
3 sprang up with it, and (overgrowing it) choked it. 

8 And other (seed) fell on good ground, and sprang 
up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had 
said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear 


(ὦ. e. wisdom to discern and willingness to receive the 
truth), let him hear (7. 6. embrace it). 

9 And his disciples asked him, saying, What might 
(the meaning of ) this parable be ? 

10 And he said (to them), Unto you it is given to 
know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to 
others (I speak) in parables; (they having shut their 
eyes, and closed their ears, Matt. xiii. 14) 4 that seeing 
they might not see, and hearing they might not under- 
stand. 

11 Now the (meaning of the) parable is this: The 
seed is the word of God. 

12 Those (seeds sown) by the way side are (emble- 
matically) they that hear (but consider not what they 
hear, Matt. xili. 19); then cometh the devil (Gr. εἶταν 
so that the devil cometh), and taketh away the word 
out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be 
saved, 

13 They (who are represented by the seed sown) on the 
rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the 
word with joy; and these have no root, (being persons) 
which for a while believe, and (but) in time of tempta- 
tion fall away. 

14 And (by) that (seed) which fell among thorns 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 


1 Ver, 2,3. Kat γυναῖκές τινες, af ἦσαν τεθεραπευμέναι ἀπὸ 
πνευμάτων πονηρῶν καὶ ἀσϑενειῶν, And certain women, which 
had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, minis- 
tered to him of their substance.] This was customary, saith 
St. Jerome,* among the Jews, for women, and especially for 
widows, to minister necessaries to their teachers; and his 
disciples being with him, and they being not represented as 
of his family or domestics, but only as followers of his doc- 
trine, could give no ground for any ill suspicion in this 
case. 

2 Ver. 5, Kai κατεπατήϑη, And it was trodden down.] This 
is not mentioned by St. Matthew or Mark, and seems to 
signify a great contempt of the divine seed, the things which 
we tread under our feet being accounted vile, and not worthy 
to be taken up from the ground. 

3 Ver. 7. Kai συμφυεῖσαι αἱ ἄκανθαι ἀπέπνιξαν αὐτό" And the 
thorns springing up with it, choked it.| There be two prin- 
ciples of action in man, the flesh and the spirit, or the in- 
ward man; from which arise different appetites and inclina- 
tions: the flesh produceth an affection to riches, pleasures, 
and other allurements of the world, which are here called 
thorns ; the inward man, or mind, approving of the laws of 
God (Rom. vii. 22), and persuading to those things which 
conduce to the peace, and tranquillity, and welfare of the 
soul, is a principle inclining us to virtuous actions ; but if we 
suffer these thorns to take root in our hearts, and gain our af- 
fections, these inclinations to virtue will be quickly choked, 
or bring no fruit to ripeness or perfection, which is all one as 
to be ἄκαρποι, without fruit, as appears from ver. 14, com- 
pared with Matt. xiii. 22, Mark iv. 19. 

Ver. 8. Ταῦτα λέγων ἐφώνει" ‘O ἔχων Sra ἀκούειν, ἀκουέτω. 
These words are owned by all the versions, Theophylact, and 
Jerome, and yet are rejected by Dr. Mills on the sole autho- 
rity of three MSS. 

4 Ver. 10. “Iva βλέποντες μὴ βλέπωσι, καὶ ἀκούοντες μὴ συνιῶσιν, 
That seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not 
understand : Mark iv. 12, That seeing they may see and 
not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not un- 
derstand, lest they should be converted, and their sins 
should be forgiven them.| Here, say some, this is plainly 
given as a reason why our Saviour spake to them without in 
parables, viz. that they may not perceive, or understand, or 
be converted. But, to take off this pretension, it is suffi- 
cient to observe, that the words in St. Mark and St. Luke 


* Tn Matt. xxvii. 55. 


are only an abbreviation, or short hint of what St. Matthew 
saith was spoken by our Lord more fully; for Christ might 
say what St. Mark and Luke relate, and yet say more than 
they relate, as St. Matthew doth assure us he did; but then 
St. Matthew could not have given us his discourse fully, 
unless our Lord had spoken it more fully than it is related 
by St. Mark and Luke; whence it must follow, that the re- 
lations of Mark and Luke must be allowed to be deficient, 
i. e. not to contain all that our Saviour said on this occasion, 
and therefore must be filled up, or rendered entire, by the ad- 
dition of the words recorded in St. Matthew. Since then St. 
Matthew doth expressly tell us from the mouth of Christ, 
“He therefore spake to them in parables, because they see- 
ing would not see, or did not see, and hearing did not un- 
derstand ;” and that they therefore did not ‘see, hear, and 
understand, “ because their heart was waxed gross, and their 
ears heavy, and they had closed their eyes, lest they should 
see, and hear, and be converted ;’’ it seemeth evident, that 
the words of St. Mark and Luke must be filled up, or made 
entire thus—To others (of the Jews) speak I in parables 
(because they seeing, see not; and hearing, do not under- 
stand; for their hearts are waxed gross, and their ears 
heavy, and their eyes have they closed), that seeing they 
may see, and not perceive ; and hearing they may hear, and 
not understand, lest they should be converted: and though 
doubtless this sad effect of their not hearing, and seeing, 
viz. lest they should be converted, was not intended by them, 
yet, since it was the natural issue of their shutting their 
eyes against the light, it fitly is ascribed to them; as when 
the prophet Hosea saith, viii. 4, “ Of their silver and gold 
have they made them idols, that they might be cut off;” and 
the prophet Micah, vi. 16, “ For the statutes of Omri are 
kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk 
in their counsels, that I should make thee a desolation.” A 
like expression to this we find, Isa. [ΧὩ]. 17, « Why hast thou 
caused us to err from thy ways? τί ἐσκλήρυνας τὰς καρδίας 
ἡμῶν τοῦ μὴ φοβεῖσϑαί ce; why hast thou hardened our hearts, 
that we should not fear thee 1 And yet this is the church’s 
prayer, imploring God’s mercy, and the removal of his judg- 
ments, viz. the long oppression of the heathens, which was a 
temptation to them to depart from him, and to cast off his 
fear ; and therefore shows they were no otherwise hardened by 
God than as these providences were a strong temptation to 
them to cast off his service. Hence also we may learn the 
power and efficacy of the word, when it is heartily believed 
and seriously attended to, to work in those that hear it con- 
version, to the salvation of the soul; it being only through 
the want of seeing and of understanding, that is, of believing 


CHAPTER ὙΠ]. 


are they (represented), which, when they have heard 
(the word), go forth (into the world), and are choked 
with cares and riches and pleasures of (his life, and 
bring no fruit to perfection. ; 

15 But (by) that (seed which fell) on the § good 
ground are they (represented), which in an honest and 
good heart, having heard the word, keep ἐΐ, and bring 
forth fruit with patience. 

16 { (and, having thus explained this parable, he said, 
T do not impart this knowledge to you that ye may conceal 
it, but that ye may teach it to others; for) ° No man, 
when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a ves- 
sel, or putteth ἐΐ under a bed; but setteth ἐξ on a can- 
dlestick, that they which enter in (to the house) may 
see the light. 

17 For nothing is (said in) secret (by me), that shall 
not be made manifest; neither (15) any thing hid, that 
shall not be known and come abroad. 

18 Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever 
hath (so as lo improve it), to him shall be given (more) ; 
and whosoever (/hus) hath not, from him shall be 
taken (away) even that which he seemeth to have. 

19 4 Then came to (see) him Ais mother and his 
brethren, and (/hey) could not come at him for the 

ress. 
: 20 And it was told him by certain, which said, Thy 
mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see 
thee. 

21 And he answered and said unto them, (.2s) my 
mother and my brethren are these which hear the word 
of God, and do it. 

22 4 Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he 
went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto 
them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. 
And they launched forth. 

23 Butas they sailed he fell asleep : and there came 
down a storm of wind on the lake> and they were 
filled with water, and were in jeopardy. 

4 And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, 
Master, master, we (are ready to) perish. Then he 
arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the 
water (saying. to them, Peace, be still) : and (then) they 
ceased, and there was a calm. 

25 And he said unto them, Where is your faith? 
And they being afraid wondered, saying one to an- 
other, What manner of man is this! for he command- 
eth even the winds and water, and they obey him. 

26 ¥ And they arrived at the country of the Gada- 
renes, which is over against Galilee. 

27 And when he went forth to land, there met him 
out of the city a certain man, which had (been possessed 
with) devils (a) long time, and (he) ware no clothes, 
neither abode in any house, but in the tombs. 

28 When he (‘he evil spirit) saw Jesus, he cried out, 
and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, 
What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God 
most high? I beseech thee, torment me not: (this he 
said, fearing he might be punished for what he had done 
to the man.) 

29 (For he (i. δ. Jesus) had commanded the unclean 
Spirit to come out of the man. For oftentimes it 
had caught him: and (though) he was kept bound 


273 


with chains and in fetters; and (yet) he brake the 
bands, and he was driven of the devil into the wilder 
ness. 

#0 And Jesus asked (the unclean spirit in) him, say 
ing, What is thy name? And he said, (// ts) Legion. 
because many devils were entered into him, 

31 And they besought him that he would not com 
mand them to go out into the deep. 

32 And there was there an herd of many swine feed- 
ing on the mountain: and they besought him that he 
would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered 
them. 

33 Then went the devils out of the man, and en- 
tered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down 
a steep place into the lake, and were choked. 

34 When they that fed them saw what was done, 
they fled (from the place), and went and told ¢ in the 
city and in the country (what was done). 

35 Then they went out to see what was done; and 
came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the 
devils were departed, clog at the feet of Jesus, 
clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. 

36 They also which saw it told them by what means 
he that was possessed of the devils was healed. 

37 4 Then the whole multitude of the country of 
the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart 
from them ; for they were taken with Ἐπεὶ fear (of what 
they might farther suffer by him): and he (accordingly) 
went up into the ship, and returned back again. 

38 Now the man out of whom the devils were de- 
parted besought him that he might be with him: but 
Jesus sent him away, saying, 

39 Return to thine own house, and shew how great 
things 7 God hath done unto (for) thee. And he went 
his way, and published throughout the whole city how 
great things Jesus had done unto him. 

40 And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was re- 
turned, the people gladly received him: for they were 
all waiting for him. 

41 4 And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, 
and he was a ruler of the synagogue : and he fell down 
at Jesus’ feet, and besought him that he would come 
into his house : 

42 For he had one only daughter, about twelve 
years of age, and she lay adying. But as he went, 
the people thronged (about) him. 

43 § And a woman having an issue (or flux) of 
blood twelve years, which had spent all her living 
upon physicians, neither could be healed of (z. e. by) 
any (of them), 

44 Came behind him, and touched the border of 
his garment: and immediately her issue of blood 
stanched. 

45 And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all 
(the rest) denied, Peter and they that were with him 
said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, 
and sayest thou, Who touched me? 

46 And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me (in 
order to some cure) : for I perceive that virtue is gone 
out of me (to heal somebody). 

47 And when the woman saw that she was not hid 
(from him), she came trembling, and falling down be- 


and considering the importance of it, that it hath not this 
effect upon men (see the note on Jam. i. 18). 

5 Ver. 15. Τὸ dé ἐν τῇ καλὴ yi οὗτοί εἰσιν οἵ τινες ἐν καρδίᾳ 
καλῇ καὶ ἀγαϑὴ ἀκούσαντες τὸν λόγον, κατέχουσι, But that on 
the ground, are they, who, in (with) an honest and 
g00d heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth 
Sruit with patience.) From these abe it is manifest, that 
some good disposition of heart is requisite to render the 
word truly and durably fruitful. Now what this is, see in 
Note on Matt. xiii. 23. 

δ Ver. 16. “Οὐδεὶς yap λύχνον ἅψας, καλύπτει αὐτὸν, No man 

Vor. IV.—35 


when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel. 
Of this, and the seventeenth verse, see Mark iv. 22. 

7 Ver. 39, Ὅσα ἐποίησέ σοι ὁ Θεὸς, Show how great things 
God hath done to thee.) Here, saith Woltzogenius, Christ 
ascribes this miracle to God, the author of that power by 
which he did it (John v. 19), whereas had he been the high 
God, he should have ascribed it to himself. I answer, he 
doth this as “not seeking his own glory, but the glory of 
him that sent him ;” that is, as one executing his prophetic 
office in his Father’s name, and casting out devils by that 
Spirit he received from his Father, 


214 


fore him, she declared unto him before all the people 
for what cause she had touched him, and how she 
was healed immediately. 

48 And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good com- 
fort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. 

49 4 While he yet spake, there cometh one from 
the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy 
daughter is dead; trouble not the Master (any far- 
ther). 

ff But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, say- 
ing, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made 
whole. 

51 And when he came into the house, he suffered 
no man to go in (to her apartment), save Peter, and 


LUKE. 


James, and John, and the father and the mother of 
the maiden. 

52 And all (present) wept, and bewailed her: but 
he said, Weep not; (yow shall soon find) she is not 
(as one) dead, but (as one thal) sleepeth. 

53 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that 
she was dead. 

54 And he put them all out (who were thus weeping), 
and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. 

55 And her § spirit came again, and she arose 
straightway : and he commanded to give her meat. 

56 And her parents were astonished: but he 
ohare them that they should tell no man what was 

one. 


8 Ver. 55. ᾿Ἐπέστρεψε τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτῆς, Her spirit re- 
turned.| By adding this, saith Grotius, St. Luke shows, that 
the soul of man is not corporeal, or any thing that perisheth 
with it; but αὐθυπύστατόν τι, something subsisting of itself; 
which, when the body dies, exists elsewhere, as the word 
ἐπέστρεψε Shows. But this is not a certain inference from 
the word; for of Samson, refreshed with the water that came 
from the jaw of the ass, it is said, ἐπέστρεψε τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ, 


‘his spirit returned,” Judg. xv. 19, and the like phrase we 
find, Ps. iti. 23, Lam. i. 11. 16. 19, plainly importing the 
restoring a person to his vigour. ''his therefore is more 
surely to be gathered from the death of the damsel, ver. 53, 
for so Elijah speaketh in a like case, 1 Kings xvii. 21, 
ἐπιστραφήτω δὴ ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ παιδαρίου τούτου, “ Let, I pray thee, 
the soul of this child return into it.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 Tuen he called his twelve disciples together, and 
gave them power and authority (/hrough his name) 
over all devils, and to cure diseases. 

2 And he sent them to preach the (coming of the) 
kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. 

3 And he said unto them, Take nothing (with you) 
for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither 
bread, neither money ; neither have two coats apiece ; 
(for you shall want neither provision nor protection, 
xxii. 35.) 

4 And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide 
(while ye continue in thal cily), and (from) thence de- 
part (to another). 

5 And whosoever will not receive you, (your words, 
Matt. x. 14,) when ye go out of that city, shake off 
the very dust from your feet for a testimony against 
them (that ye account them as unclean, and nol fit to be 
conversed with any more). 

6 And they departed, and went through the towns 
(of Judea), preaching the gospel, and healing (the sick) 
every where. 

7 § Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was 
done by him: and he was perplexed, because that it 
was said of some, that John was risen from the dead 
(and so his great wickedness appeared in killing a man so 
highly favoured by God) ; 

8 And of some (ἐξ was said), that Elias had ap- 
peared ; (and so that kingdom of the Messiah was to be 
set up, which should destroy all other kingdoms, Dan. ii. 
441) and of others, that one of the old prophets was 
risen again. 

9 And Herod said, John have I beheaded: but (7f 
he be not risen again) who is this, of whom I hear such 
(wondrous) things? And he desired to see him (that 
80 he might discern whether he were the Baptist or not). 

10 4 And the apostles, when they were returned, 
told him all that they had done (in his name). And 
he took them, and went aside privately into a desert 
place belonging to the city called Bethsaida (that they 
might rest a little, Mark vi. 31). 

11 And the people, when they knew it, followed 


him: and he received them, and spake unto them of 
the kingdom of God, and healed them that had neea 
of healing. 

12 And when the day began to wear away, then 
came the twelve, and said unto him, Send the multitude 
away, that they may go into the towns and country 
round about, and (may) lodge, and get victuals (which 
here they cannot do): for we are here in a desert place. 

13 But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. 
And they (upon inguiry, Mark vi. 38) said, We have 
no more but five loaves and two (/itlle) fishes; (and 
what are they among so many ? we cannot therefore satisfy 
them,) except we should go and buy meat for all this 
people. ° 

14 For they were about five thousand men (who 
were to be fed). And he said to his disciples, Make 
them sit down by fifties in a company. 

15 And they did so (as he commanded), and made 
them all sit down. 

16 Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, 
and looking up to heaven, he blessed (God over) them, 
and brake (them), and gave (of them) to the disciples 
to set before the multitude. 

17 And they did eat, and were all filled: and there 
was taken up of fragments that remained to them (that 
gathered them) twelve baskets. 

18 4 And it came to pass, ! as he was alone ( from 
the mullitude) praying, his disciples were with him: 
and (having ended his prayer) he asked them, saying, 
Whom say the people that I am? 

19 They answering said, (Some say thou art) John 
the Baptist; but some say (thou art) Elias; and others 
say, that one of the old prophets is risen again. 

20 He said unto them, But whom say ye that lam? 
Peter answering said, (Thou art) the Christ of God. 

21 And he straitly charged them, and commanded 
them to tell no man that thing; 

22 Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, 
and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, 
and be slain, and be raised (again) the third day. 

23 q And he said to them all, If any man will come 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 


1Ver. 18. Καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτὸν καταμόνας προσευχόμενον, 
&c, And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his dis- 


ciples were with him.] The word καταμόνας alone, excludes 
not his disciples, but the multitude now sent away, when 
they were filled, ver. 17, as appears from Mark iv. 10: or 
καταμόνας προσευχύμενος may be rendered, “As he was pray- 


CHAPTER IX. 


after me, let him * deny himself, and take up his cross 
daily (as occasion serves), and follow me. 

24 For whosoever will (reject me to) save his life 
shall lose it: but whosoever will (be ready to) lose his 


275 


life for my sake, the same shall save it (and this surely 
will be his wisest course). 

25 For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the 
whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away (as 


ing alone,” or “ by himself,” his prayer being ended, his dis- 
ciples came to him. 

2 Ver. 23. ᾿Απαρνησάσϑω ἑαυτὸν, καὶ ἀράτω τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ 
καϑ' ἡμέραν, ὅζο. If any man will come after me, let him 
deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.) 
Daily, i. e. as oft as an occasion offers itself. Here I shall 
recollect all that is said in several places of the gospel con- 
cerning this self-denial, and taking up the cross; and thence 
give rules of comprising this whole duty. And, 

First, We must deny father and mother; for, “If a man 
come to me,” saith Christ, “and hate not,” Luke xiv. 26, 
i. e. “forsake not father and mother,’ Matt. xix. 29, “he 
cannot be my disciple. For he that loveth father and mo- 
ther more than me, is unworthy of me,” Matt. x. 37. Our 
Lord had told them, ver. 35, 36, that his gospel would acci- 
dentally cause great variance and division “ betwixt the fa- 
ther and the son, the mother and the daughter,” and render 
those of their own household the most fierce and cruel ene- 
mies; he therefore lets them know, that if when this shall 
come to pass, father and mother did prevail upon them, 
either by that affection which men naturally bear to their pa- 
rents, or by that reverence they give to their authority and 
commands, when these commands do thwart his precepts; 
or else by those advantages, or outward comforts, which 
they expect to receive from their parents, and by adhering to 
the doctrine of our Lord, might lose or hazard; i. e. if they, 
by any of these motives, were induced to prefer the com- 
mands or will of their parents, before Christ’s, and value 
their countenance and affections before his favour,—they 
could not sincerely be his disciples. Now this, by parity of 
reason, holds concerning civil magistrates, who are the fathers 
of their country, and spiritual superiors, who are fathers of 
the church; and of all others, who have like power to com- 
mand, reward, or punish us; and so this instance affords this 
rule of self-denial. 

Rule I. That they to whom we bear the greatest natural 
affection, and the highest reverence, to whose commands 
we owe the most entire obedience in lawful matters, from 
whom we have already received, and may expect, the great- 
est temporal advantages, provided we comply with their de- 
sires, or the worst temporal evils upon refusal, must be 
denied, forsaken, and comparatively hated, for the sake of 
Christ, so that although the yearning bowels of a tender 
mother which at first conceived me, and the grey hairs of 
an indulgent father, should be pleaded as motives to induce 
me to break the least commandments of the holy Jesus; 
though the authority of civil, natural, and ecclesiastical su- 
periors should combine to tempt me to do what Christ for- 
bids; though this authority should allure me with proffers 
of the highest honours or rewards, or should endeavour to 
affright me with the severest menaces ; yet, if all these con- 
siderations should prevail with me, to gratify myself and 
them, by doing that which my own conscience and God's 
word assure me will be displeasing to my Saviour, or op- 
posite to his commands, it is evident that I regard myself, or 
them, more than I do my Saviour; and therefore am un- 
worthy of him, and cannot be sincerely his disciple. 

Secondly, We must deny our wife and children, even that 
wife of our bosom, who is made “one flesh” with us, whom 
we must love as dearly as we love ourselves (Eph. v. 33), 
and for whose sake father and mother must be left (Gen. 
ii. 24). We also must deny those children, which are the 
offspring of our bowels, the joy and comfort of our lives; 
for, “if any man come to me,” saith Christ, “and hate not 
his wife and children,” Luke xiv. 26, “ if he forsake not wife 
_ and children for my name’s sake, and the gospel’s (Mark x. 
28), he cannot be my disciple.” Accordingly it is recorded, 
for the everlasting honour of the Levites, that they observed 
God’s word, and kept his covenant, “ saying unto their father 
and mother, I have not seen them, not knowing their own 
children, not acknowledging their brethren ;” that is, being 
commanded by God’s servant Moses, to kill every man his 
brother, friend, and son, that had been guilty of idolatry, in 
worshipping the golden calf, they executed the command of 


God without regard to father, mother, son, or brother, Exod. 
xxxii. 27, 28. Now the children of our loins, and the wife 
of our bosom, being the objects of our strongest love and 
greatest pity, and those in whom we chiefly take delight and 
pleasure ; this second instance will afford this rule, viz. 

Rule Il. That whatever we most passionately love, are 
most especially concerned for, do cleave most closely to in 
our affections, and above all enjoyments do take the most 
pleasure in, must be loved less than Christ; and conse- 
quently must be denied, forsaken, and comparatively hated, 
for his sake, and the gospel’s. Now to this rule, by parity 
of reason, may be reduced all our immoderate affections to 
the pleasures of this world, whether they be the pleasures of 
the appetite, such as the glutton and the drunkard do pur- 
sue; the pleasures of the senses, which the voluptuous and 
lustful persons chiefly prosecute ; the pleasures of vain sports 
and pastimes, gamings, and other recreations ; so that if our 
affection to a bosom friend prevail upon us to defer that re- 
ligion we profess without conviction, or to act in contradic- 
tion to any precept of it, of which our conscience is con- 
vinced; if our love to our own offspring will not permit us 
to reprove, correct, or to restrain them, when they dishonour 
God, and render themselves vile, but with old Eli, we de- 
spise our God by thus preferring our sons before him ; if our 
affections are inordinately set upon the pleasures of this 
world, now mentioned, so that we do more passionately Covet 
and delight more in them than the things of God, we do 
more eagerly pursue, more constantly employ our care and 
time about them than about spiritual things, and so become 
“overs of pleasures more than lovers of God : if our af- 
fection to them doth prevail upon us to neglect our duty to- 
wards God, our neighbour, or ourselves, or to enjoy them in 
that degree or manner which is forbidden by the laws of 
Christ,—then do we love them more than Christ ; and there- 
fore cannot be sincerely his disciples. 

Thirdly, We must deny brother and sister, which may be 
fitly styled denying of ourselves, seeing a brother is a second 
self, of the same flesh and blood with us, and therefore styled, 
frater quasi feré alter: for, “he that cometh unto me,” saith 
Christ, “ and hateth not his brother and his sister,” Luke xiv. 
26, i. e. “ who will not leave them for my sake (Mark x. 28), 
cannot be my disciple.” Now, a brother, naturally, and in 
the scripture import of the word, denotes a person with 
whom we do familiarly converse, and have an intimate ac- 
quaintance ; hence, when the spouse desireth to have more 
near acquaintance, and more close communion with Christ, 
she thus expresseth her desire: “Oh that he were as my 
brother, that sucked the breast of my mother!” Cant. viil. 
1. And the wise man, exhorting others to associate them- 
selves with Wisdom, and be more intimately acquainted with 
her ways, doth bid them “say to Wisdom, Thou art my sis- 
ter,’ Prov. vii. 4. Moreover, this relation intimates the 
closest union of affection, and the greatest friendship ; whence 
friends in scripture are so oft styled brethren : and Christian 
love, in the superlative degree, is often represented by the 
love of brethren. So that our third rule will be this, viz. 

Rule 1Π. That Christians must deny, forsake, and must, 
comparatively, hate their nearest relative and dearest friend, 
who are as their own soul (Deut. xiii. 6), and cleave closer 
to them than a brother (Prov. xviii. 24), and him with whom 
they have enjoyed the sweetest and most delightful con- 
verse, and most familiar acquaintance, when it is necessary 
for the sake of Christ, and in obedience to his precepts, so 
to do; and then, a fortiori, this rule must bind us to deny 
our pot-companions, our lustful Delilahs, our brethren in 
iniquity, our vain and sinful company, and to have no com- 
munion with them in their works of darkness, but to reprove 
them. If then the importunity of friend or brother pre- 
vail upon thee to transgress wilfully any commandment of 
thy God and Saviour; if they draw thee, by their example 
and persuasions, to excess or riot, to chambering or wanton- 
ness, or any other sin, which is, in effect, to persuade thee 
to be damned for company ; if, in dispensing punishments, 
rewards, preferments, favours, thou dost transgress this rule 


276 


they who reject me, to save this temporal life, will 


be)? 


LUKE. 


26 For whosoever will be ashamed of me and of my 
words (now), of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, 


of equity on their accounts; if thy regard to them restrain 
thee from reproving their drunkenness and swearing, their 
lewd or atheistical discourse; nay, if the plain command of 
God, to hold no friendship or familiarity with them doth 
not prevail upon thee to abandon and forsake their com- 
pany, as much as may be,—then evident it is, thou lovest 
the company of such vile creatures more than communion 
with thy Saviour; thou dost more prize their friendship 
than his favour, thou wilt not leave thy friend for him, and 
therefore art not worthy of him. 

Fourthly, We must deny ourselves in houses, lands, and 
goods, or in those things by which we, with God’s blessing 
on them, do subsist; and though these things be not so pro- 
perly ourselves, as wife and children; yet, since men are so 
hot in the pursuit of them, that they will hazard their repu- 
tation, health, life, soul, or their whole selves in prosecution 
of them; since, when these things are lost, we are so apt to 
think and say, we are undone; since by the scriptures these 
things are called our substance, and are indeed the things by 
which our nature does subsist ;—our denial of them, upon 
these accounts, may very fitly be called self-denial, and thus 
we are obliged to deny ourselves: for “whosoever he be of 
us, that forsaketh not all that he hath, πάντα τὰ ὑπάρχοντα, 
all his possessions,”’ or his worldly goods, “ he cannot be my 
disciple,” saith our Lord, Luke xiv. 33. Hence doth our 
Saviour lay this command on the young man, to sell his great 
possessions, and give them to the poor, and follow him, in 

ctation of a heavenly treasure; and did pronounce, on 
his refusal to obey so irksome a command, that he could not 
enter into the kingdom of God. Here then the rule runs 
thus, viz. 

Rule IV. That Christ’s disciples must, when his provi- 
dence doth call them to it, renounce, cast from them, aban- 
don, even their whole subsistence, and all their temporal 
good things, in prospect of those spiritual blessings, which 
he hath promised to all who, for his and his gospel’s sake, 
do thus deny themselves: and then much more must we re- 
nounce our superfluities, and those accommodations whereby 
we only gratify our fancies, and our carnal minds, viz. our 
stately palaces, our numerous attendants, our delicious fare, 
our rich attire, our large and flourishing estates. If then we 
cannot freely spend these temporal enjoyments in the cause 
of Christ, or part with superfluities for the relief and com- 
fort of his members; if we cannot cast away, abandon, or 
reject these things, though dear unto us as a right hand, or 
eye, when they prove snares, temptations, and offences to 
us; if the rich man cannot be content to be “ brought low,” 
asd to “ take joyfully the spoiling of his goods,” in prospect 
of those never-failing riches Christ hath promised; if, to 
enjoy or to preserve these things, we venture to “ make ship- 
wreck of faith,” or “a good conscience,” or out of love 
unto this present world are moved, with Demas, to forsake 
or to neglect our duty to Christ,—then we love mammon 
more than Christ, and therefore cannot be his true disciples. 

Fifthly, We must deny even life itself, which is still a 
more high degree of self-denial: there is scarce any thing 
we do so highly value and dearly love, and so much labour 
to preserve, and so unwillingly let go, as life; for, “skin 
for,” or after, “skin, and all that a man hath, will a man 
give for his life,” and yet this also must be denied for Christ’s 
sake: for, “if any man come unto me, and hateth not his 
own life,” saith Christ, «he cannot be my disciple ;” i. 6. if 
he doth not love God better, and prize his favour more, than he 
doth value the continuance of this present life ; if he cannot 
prevail upon himself to die for Christ, that he may live for 
ever with him; and lose this miserable life, to find it hap- 
pily improved into a life of endless bliss and happiness; if 
he cannot follow the example of his Lord, who suffered first, 
then entered into his glory,—he vainly doth pretend to bea 
follower or a disciple of the holy Jesus. This instance then 
of self-denial doth inform us, that even natural life must be 
forsaken, and renounced, when we cannot preserve it with- 
out the loss of our more valuable interest in Christ, and 
those eternal blessings he hath promised to all those that 
suffer “for the sake of righteousness.” And if this natural 


life must be denied for Christ, much more my personal or 
civil liberty, my habitation, or my country. 

Rule V. If then I cannot live a pilgrim and stranger upon 
earth, im expectation of a heavenly country, or live in ba- 
nishment and exile for the cause of Christ; if I cannot suf- 
fer bonds and imprisonments, that I may still continue the 
Lord’s freeman ; if I cannot be induced to lose my life, that 
I may find it; but will endeavour to preserve my life or 
liberty by the violation of any laws of Christ,—it is evident 
I love this present life more than I love my Saviour, more 
than that crown of life, which he hath only promised to 
those who shall continue “faithful to the death ;’ and 
therefore am unworthy of him, and falsely do pretend to be 
a true disciple of the holy Jesus. 

Sixthly, We must deny our honour, and our reputation, 
our ease, and our deliverance from those afflictions, which 
render life a burden, which is the last and highest pitch of 
self-denial ; even when our afflictions and our persecution 
do render death itself a mercy and deliverance; when, with 
good Job, “our soul chooseth strangling, and death, rather 
than life, and longeth for it more than for hid treasure” 
(Job iii. 21) ; when for his sake we are “reproached all the 
day long,” and are exposed as spectacles of shame and in- 
famy to the beholder : all this we must with patience suffer 
for the name of Jesus; for even after that our Lord had 
said, “If any man come to me, and hate not his own life, 
he cannot be my disciple,” he adds, Luke xiv. 27, « And 
whosoever doth not bear his cross cannot be my disciple ;” 
wherefore this bearing of the cross imports some farther act 
of self-denial; which, that we may the better understand, 
consider, (1.) ‘That the cross among the Romans was ac- 
counted the most ignominious and shameful death, inflicted 
only upon slaves; for, as Lactantius saith, Homine libero 
quemvis nocente indignum videbatur, « Now to a generous 
spirit it is not so much to die, as it is to suffer in an ignomi- 
nious manner, and as the worst of malefactors, being inno- 
cent ;’”’ whence, as the heathen Seneca well notes, no per- 
son can so much express his love to virtue, or more entirely 
be devoted to her, than he, qui boni viri famam perdit, ne 
conscientiam perderet, “ that loses his reputation to preserve 


| his conscience.” (2.) Consider that this was a most bitter, 


painful, and afflictive death ; whence, as Austin notes, acer- 
bissimi dolores cruciatus ἃ cruce vocabantur. From this 
expression therefore thus explained, I collect this rule, viz. 

Rule VI. That the disciple of the holy Jesus must endure 
the most fiery trials, the most sharp afflictions, and choose 
to die in the most shameful, ignominious manner, for the 
cause of Christ; i. 6. when he cannot escape those things 
without denial, or acting contrary to the commandments of 
his Saviour: and then much more, when equal circum- 
stances do concur, must he deny himself his ease and 
worldly quiet, his places of grandeur, his honour and his re- 
putation, and those punctilios of honour, which the hectors 
of our age so much insist on; and must with patience bear, 
and readiness forgive, all the affronts he suffers from the 
hands of men, which he can never less deserve than by ad- 
hering firmly to his Lord. If then we cannot quit our ease 
and worldly quietness for Christ, but rather will neglect 
known duty, than give ourselves the trouble which Christ’s 
service calls for, rather comply with what is uppermost, than 
put ourselves to any trouble or disquiet to preserve an up- 
right conscience ; if the example and authority of Christ be 
not sufficient to curb our angry passions, quell our malicious 
and revengeful tempers; if the punctilios of honour tempt 
us to duel, and to spill our brother’s blood; if we cannot 
lay down our honour and our reputation at the feet of 
Christ, not seeking honours from frail creatures, but “that 
which comes from God alone,” and being willing to be dis- 
honoured for his sake; if fiery trials do cool our love to 
Christ, or the most sharp afflictions do cause us to forget our 
duty to him ; if we do not rather choose “to endure afflic- 
tion with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of 
sin for a season,”’—we either love or fear those things more 
than we love the favour, or fear the frowns, of our blessed 
Lord: and therefore cannot be his true disciples. 


CHAPTER IX. 


when he shall come in his own glory, and in his 
Father's, (that of light and flame ; see note on Heb. i. 
3,) and (with the glorious attendance) of the holy an- 


8. 
aes But (besides this coming at the dreadful day) 1 
tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, whee 
shall not taste of death, till they see the (Son of man 
coming in the) kingdom of God (with power, Matt. xvi. 
28, Mark ix. 1, fo execute his judgment on them that re- 
ject him). 

28 4 And it came to pass about an eight days after 
these sayings (see the note on Mark ix. 2), he took 
Peter and John and James, and went up into a moun- 
tain to pray. 

29 And as he prayed, the fashion (or appearance) of 
his countenance was altered, and his raiment was (or 
became) white and glistering. 

30 And, behold, there talked with him two men, 
which (by their discourse) were (known to be) Moses 
and Elias: 

31 Who appeared in glory, and spake of his 4 de- 
cease (the death) which he should accomplish at Jeru- 
salem. 

32 But Peter and they that were with him (whilst 
he was praying) were heavy with sleep: and when 
they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two 
men that stood with him. 

33 And it came to pass, as they departed from him, 
Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be 
here: δ and (therefore) let us make (here) three taber- 
nacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for 
Elias: not knowing (whether) what he said (were well 
or tll said). , 

34 While he thus spake, there came a cloud (of 
glory), and overshadowed them; and they feared as 
they entered into the cloud (because of the magnificent 
glory of it, 2 Pet. i. 17). 

35 And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, 
This is my beloved Son: hear him. 

36 And when the voice was past, Jesus was found 
alone. And they (three) kept zt (he vision) close, and 
told no man in those days any of those things which 
they had seen. 

37 4 And it came to pass, that on the next day, 
when they were come down from the hill, much peo- 
ple met him. 


277 


38 And, behold, a man of the company cried out, 
saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: 
for he is mine only child. 

39 And, lo, ἃ δ spirit taketh him, and he suddenly 
crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again 
(Gr. it causeth him to beat hiself ; and foam), and bruis- 
ing him hardly departeth from him. 

40 And 1 besought thy disciples to cast him out; 
and they could not; (and this hath raised a dispute 
betwixt the scribes and thy disciples concerning thy power, 
Mark ix. 15.) 

41 And Jesus answering said, O faithless and per- 
verse generation, how long shall I be with you, and 
suffer you? Bring thy son hither. 

42 And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw 
him down, and tare Aim (or, and he beat himself with 
his fists). And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and 
healed the child (of Ais epilepsy), and delivered him 
again to his father. 

43 § And they were all amazed at the mighty 
power of God (visible in Christ). But while they won- 
dered every one at all these things which Jesus did, 
he said unto his disciples, 

44 Let these sayings sink down into your ears: for 
(notwithstanding this seeming admiration) the Son of 
man shall (by these very Jews) be delivered into the 
hands of men. 

45 But they 7 understood not this saying, and it 
was hid from them, that they perceived it not: and 
they feared to ask him of that saying. 

46 7 Then there arose a reasoning among them, 
which of them should be greatest. 

47 And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, 
took a child, and set him by him, 

48 And said unto them, Whosoever shall receive 
(such a one as) this child in my name receiveth me, 
and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that 
sent me: for he that is least among you all (in his 
own), the same shall be great (in my esteem and king- 
dom). 

3 4 And John answered (7. e. spake) and said, Mas- 
ter, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and 
we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. 

50 And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for 
he that is not against us (but pursues the same design 
in beating down the kingdom of Satan) is for us. 


3 Ver. 26. Ὅταν ἐλϑηὴ ἐν τῇ δόξη αὐτοῦ, καὶ τοῦ πατρός, καὶ 
Ὧν tie de ριον, iter he rapa rate own, and in 
is Father's glory, and in the of his holy angels. 
The divine πε σης in the Old Mdeteat as a 
sented by a great light, or splendour, by the Jews styled 
Shechinah, and the presence and attendance of holy angels ; 
and these are styled “the glory of God,” or the appearance 
of the glory of God, and, representing to them God the Fa- 
ther, are here styled “the glory of the Father;” and it 
being the Aéyos, or Son of God, which usually thus ap- 
- peared, and who, after his ascension, was again invested with 
this glory, itis here also styled “his glory” (see the notes 

on John xvii. 5, Phil. ii. 6, Heb. i. 3). 

4 Ver. 31. Ἔλεγον τὴν ἔξοδον αὐτοῦ, &e. And they spake of 
his decease which he should accomplish iv “Ἱερουσαλὴμ, at 
Jerusalem.] Not of that destruction which he was to ac- 
complish on Jerusalem ; for, that Moses and Elias spake 
one word of that, we read not in the holy scripture; nor 
doth the word ἔξοδος, absolutely put, ever signify any such 
thing, but only when it is joined with army, king, captains, 
soldiers, and the like; but it is the proper word used by 
scripture, and other writers, for a departure out of this life ; 
so 2 Pet. i. 15, “I will endeavour that, μετὰ τὴν ἐμὴν ἔξοδον, 
after my departure, ye may have these things in remem- 
brance ;” Wisd. iii. 2, “In the sight of the unwise they 
seemed to die, καὶ ἔξοδος αὐτῶν, and their departure is taken 
for misery ;” and, vii. 6, “ All men have one entrance into 


life, é&od6; τε ἴση, and their departure is alike; Ecclus. 
xxxvili. 23, “ Be comforted for him, ἐν ἐξύδῳ πνεύματος αὐτοῦ, 
when his spirit departeth.’ Hence Grotius notes this as 
one of those phrases by which the old tradition of the im- 
mortality of the soul is preserved, though ἐξέλευσις τοῦ πνεῦ- 
paros is only the expiration, or going forth of the breath of 
man (Ps. civ. 29, exlvi. 4). 

5 Ver. 33. Kai ποιήσωμεν, &c. And let us make three ta- 
bernacles.] Kai here signifies therefore, as Gen. xii. 19, 
xxix. 33, xlii. 22, Deut. iv. 6. 15. 37. 40, v. 32, vi. 3, vii. 
9, viii. 6, xxviii. 48, Josh. xxiii, 11, xxiy. 10. 18, 1 Sam. ii. 
17, Luke xii. 29, 1 Cor. v. 13. 

6 Ver. 39. Kai idod πνεῦμα λαμβάνει αὐτὸν, And, behold, a 
spirit taketh him.] That this person was truly possessed 
with an evil spirit, is evident, (1.) because Matthew saith ex- 
pressly, that Christ “rebuked him, and the devil departed 
from him,” Matt. xvii. 18, (2.) because Christ commands 
him “to depart, and return no more,” Mark ix. 24. 

7 Ver. 45. Οἱ δὲ ἡγνόουν τὸ ῥῆμα, Kai ἦν παρακεκαλυμμένον 
ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν, But they understood not this saying, and it was 
hid from them.] They understood the words, but knew not 
how to reconcile them with their own traditions, that their 
Messiah should live for ever; or with the great things they 
expected from him: and therefore in after ages they in- 
vented the distinction of Messiah Ben Joseph, who was to 
die; and of Messiah Ben David, who was to triumph, and 
live for ever. Ξ 


278 


51 4 And it came to pass, when the time was (near) 
come that he should ὃ be received up (into heaven), he 
9 stedfastly set his face (or fully purposed ) to go to Je- 
rusalem (where he was to suffer). 

52 And (therefore) sent messengers before his face: 
and they went, and entered into a village of the Sa- 
maritans, to make ready (a lodging) for him. 

53 And they did not receive him, because his ® face 
was as though he would go (7. 6. he appeared to them 
to be going) to Jerusalem (to worship). 

54 And when his disciples James and John saw 


LUKE. 


this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire 
to come down from heaven, and consume them, even 
as Elias did (to the captains and their fifties) 2 

55 But he turned, and "rebuked them, and said, 
Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of (7. e. 
how opposite this exterminating spirit is lo the design of 
my coming). 

56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s 
(temporal) lives, but to save them. And they went to 
another village. 

57 4 And it came to pass, that, as they went in the 


8 Ver. 51. ᾿Εγένετο dé ἕν τῷ συμπληροῦσϑαι τὰς ἡμέρας τῆς 
ἀναλήψεως αὐτοῦ, When the time was come, that he should be 
received up.| Though this may be said with some analogy 
of his death, which he was, πληροῦσϑαι ἐν ‘Iepovcadjp, “to ac- 
complish at Jerusalem,” whither he was now bound; be- 
cause that was by being lifted up upon the cross; yet that 
being only styled twa, but never ἀνάληψις, I incline rather 
to think, that as his ἔξοδος signifies his departure, so his ἀνά- 
ληψις May import his glorious ascension into heaven, the 
fruit and consequence of his death, who, “ having purged 
away our sins by his death, is set down at the right hand of 
majesty in the highest”? (Heb. i. 3): “he, for the suffering 
of death, being crowned with glory and honour” (ii. 9), and 
διὸ, for this cause exalted (Phil. 11, 9). So Elias is said, dva- 
ληφϑῆναι εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν, “to be taken up into heaven,” 2 
Kings ii. 1. 9, Ecclus. xlviii. 9. 

9 Kat αὐτὸς ἐστήριξε πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ τοῦ πορεύεσϑαι εἰς ἱΙερουσα- 
λὴμ, He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.) That is, 
he firmly purposed to go to Jerusalem, and began to execute 
it by passing from Galilee, the road-way through Samaria to 
Jerusalem. This is the frequent import of this phrase in the 
Septuagint, when there is mention of the counsel, purpose, 
or decree of God declared to his people. So Jer. ili. 12, οὐ 
μὴ στηριῶ πρόσωπόν μου ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς, «JT will not set my face 
against you;” xxi. 10, éorjpza τὸ πρόσωπόν pov, “I have 
set my face against this city for evil;” and Ezek. xxi. 2, 
στήρισον τὸ προσωπόν cov ἐπὶ Ἱερουσαλὴμ, “Set thy face against 
Jerusalem:’” so vi. 2, xiii. 17, xv. 7, xx. 46, xxv. 2, xxviii. 
21, xxix. 2, xxxviii. 1, Dan. xi. 16, 17. 

10 Ver. 53. And the Samaritans received him not, ὅτι τὸ πρό- 
cwrov αὐτοῦ ἦν ropevouevoy εἰς 'Ιερουσαλὴμ, because his face was 
as though he was going to Jerusalem.) It appeared by the 
toad he took, and the places he went through, that he was 
going thither. So of Sennacherib, Hezekiah saw, ὅτι τὸ πρό- 
σώπον αὐτοῦ, “that his face was to fight against Jerusalem,” 
2 Chron. xxii. 2, i. e. that he directed his army thither; and 
they that firmly purposed to go to Egypt are ϑέντγες τὸ πρύσω- 
πὸν αὐτῶν els γῆν Αἰγύπτου, “men that set their face to go into 
Egypt,” Jer. xlii. 15. 17 (see also 2 Kings xii. 17). The 
reason why the Samaritans, knowing thus his purpose, re- 
ceived him not, as they did other Galileans going thither, 
was, that, by going thither on a religious account, viz. to 
celebrate the passover, he decided the controversy betwixt 
them and the Jews, touching the place by God appointed 
for worship, and for sacrifice, against them; which, though 
they regarded not when done by the Galileans, yet was it 
grievous to them, that such a celebrated doctor, as Christ 
was, should do it. 

Ver. 54. 'Q¢ καὶ ᾿Ηλίας ἐποίησε. Hee irrepserunt ex mar- 
gine, saith Dr. Mills; but they are owned by the eastern 
versions, by Theophylact here, by Chrysost. de Precat. hom. 
1, ed. Mor. p. 747 (see also the defence of xaS’ ἡμέραν, ver. 
33, Examen Milli). 

π Ver. 55, 56. But he turned and rebuked them, saying, 
οὐκ οἴδατε οἴου πνεύματός ἐστε ὑμεῖς, You know not what spirit 
ye are of.] Here interpreters truly note, that πνεῦμα, spirit, 
1s put for the affection, or disposition of the mind; as when 
the scripture speaks of the “ spirit of bondage and adoption,” 
Rom. viii. 15, and of the “spirit of fear, power, love, and of 
a sound mind,” 2 Tim. i. 7. But that which is here chiefly 
to be observed is, the contradiction of this saying to the 
popish practice of persecuting, destroying, and exterminating 
those whom they call heretics, purely on account of their re- 
ligion ; for observe, 

First, That whereas they who are thus persecuted by the 
church of Rome, are falsely supposed to be schismatics and 


heretics; the Samaritans undoubtedly were both. For, (1.) 
In opposition to the temple of Jerusalem, which God him- 
self appointed for the place where he would be worshipped, 
commanding all men to repair to it, they erected a temple 
upon mount Gerizim, and there they worshipped, deserting 
the temple of Jerusalem; this was their schism. (2.) They 
also were heretics and idolaters: for they erred in matters 
which concerned salvation ; and this our Saviour testified in 
these words, “ Ye worship ye know not what, we know what 
we worship ; for salvation is of the Jews” (John iv. 22). 

Secondly, Observe, That whereas the Romanists do ex- 
ercise this cruelty on them whom they call schismaties and 
heretics, chiefly for their refusing to receive and own him as 
Christ’s vicar, who manifestly doth usurp that title; these 
Samaritans refused to receive our Saviour himself in his own 
person, and that because he seemed to be going to Jerusa- 
lem to worship; so that the honour of God, and of religion, 
and of Jerusalem, the place of his peculiar worship, were all 
concerned in this case. 

Thirdly, Observe, 'That the permission of what was here 
desired by John and Peter, would have been more effectual 
for the conviction of the heretical, schismatical Samaritans, 
than any of the punishments inflicted by the inquisition, or 
any arts of papal tyranny can be for the conviction of those 
whom they call heretics and schismatics ; for these disciples 
did not desire, that they themselves might execute on the 
Samaritans this sentence, by committing them to the flames, 
or imploring the magistrates’ assistance to consume or burn 
them; they only did request, that they might call upon the 
God of heaven to rain down fire upon them, and consume 
them; which, had it pleased him to do on this occasion, 
the rest of the Samaritans, by what this village suffered, 
must have been evidently convinced, by demonstration from 
heaven, of God’s displeasure against their way of worship, 
and of the truth of that Messiah, and his doctrine, who pro- 
cured this vengeance to be executed upon them: whereas 
the persecutions of that church, because they minister no 
conviction to the conscience, serve only to harden men’s 
hearts, and embitter their spirits against those who use them, 
and to induce them more firmly to believe that such ἃ bar- 
barous religion cannot be of God. 

From these observations it is evident, that whatsoever may 
be pleaded by the church of Rome to justify her practice in 
burning, massacring, extirpating of heretics and schismatics, 
might, with advantage, have been pleaded here. * “ Doth 
she practise her severities out of a zeal for truth, and for the 
honour of God and Christ, and of the true religion, and for 
the reclaiming heretics and schismatics, and the preventing or 
terrifying others from adhering to them, or being deluded by 
them?” Upon all these accounts you see, that the disciples 
had far greater cause to call for « fire from heaven” upon this 
village of Samaria: and yet our Saviour, under the cireum- 
stances, thinks fit to rebuke even the desires of doing this to 
one small village. How then will he rebuke the actual per- 
formance of it to many hundred thousand souls, after his 
solemn declaration of the repugnancy of these proceedings 
to the design of his most blessed advent, and to the spirit of 
the gospel! For the true reasons why Christ rebuked his 
disciples for their desire of dealing thus severely with these 
schismatical and heretical Samaritans were these : 

First, Because this spirit of severity towards erroneous 
persons, in whomsoever it is found, is highly opposite to the 
calm temper of Christianity, as is insinuated in that reply of 
Christ to his disciples, « Ye know not what spirit ye are of ;” 


* Dr. Tillotson’s Serm. Nov. 5, 1678, p. 15. 


CHAPTER X. 


way, ἃ certain man said unto him, Lord, * I will fol- 
low thee whithersoever thou goest. 

58 And Jesus said unto him (Thou canst expect no 
advantage at present by following me; for) foxes have 
holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of 
man hath not where to lay Avs head. 

59 And he said unto another, Follow me. But he 
said, Lord, suffer me first to go (home) and (stay till 1) 
bury my (aged ) father (and then Iwill attend upon thee). 

60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their 


279 


dead (or those who are dead to spiritual things be employed 
in those apiairs) : but go thou (forthwith) and preach 
the kingdom of God. 

61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; 
but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at 
home at my house. 

62 And Jesus said unto him, No ® man, having put 
his hand to the plough, and looking back (ἡ. e. having 
undertaken my service, and diverting from it to worldly 
business), is fit for the kingdom of God. 


that is, ye do not well consider under what way of dispensa- 
tion ye are placed by me. *The way I come to teach men, 
the temper, disposition, and affection I would fix within 
them, is not a furious, persecuting, and destructive spirit; 
but mild, and gentle, and tender of the lives and interests of 
men, even of those who are our greatest enemies. Under 
the ¢Old Testament, indeed, they who rejected and scoffed 
at a prophet suffered severely for it, the prophet had com- 
mission to cail for “ fire from heaven to destroy them present- 
ly, and curse them in the name of the Lord” (2 Kings ii. 
24). But they who reject and crucify Christ, are by him 
prayed for, and are, by his command, to be still preached to, 
and, if possible, brought to repentance; and, according to 
his example are all Christians to conform themselves, acting 
towards contemners of their person or rejecters of their doc- 
trine, not according to the legal, but the evangelical dispen- 
sation ; not according to the severity of Elias, but the meek- 
ness and gentleness of Christ: and therefore your desire of 
proceeding according to the extraordinary spirit of Elias, 
under the gospel-dispensation, is intolerable ; for that designs 
universal love, peace, and good-will even to enemies; it 
doth engage us to show all meekness to all men; and sono 
difference of religion, no pretence of zeal for God, can jus- 
tify this fierce, vindictive, and exterminating spirit. 
Secondly, Our Saviour’s second reason against this pro- 
ceeding is, that it was repugnant to the end for which he 
came into the world, which was, “not to destroy men’s lives, 
but to save them.” +“He came to discountenance all 
fierceness, and rage, and cruelty in men one towards an- 
other; to restrain and subdue that furious and unpeaceable 
spirit, which is so troublesome to the world, and the cause 
of so many mischiefs and disorders in it; to beget a peace- 
able disposition in men of the most distant tempers ;” 
making the lamb and the wolf lie down together (Isa. xi. 6. 
9); and no more to destroy and hurt each other ; “ but turn 
sheir swords into ploughshares, and their spears into prun- 
ing-hooks” (Micah iv. 3) ; engaging them to lay aside “all 
bitterness, and wrath, anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, 
with all malice.” He came to introduce that excellent 
spirit which consults not only the eternal salvation of men’s 
souls, but their temporal peace and security, their comfort 
and happiness in this world, whose fruits are “ righteousness 
and peace” (Rom. xiv. 17); “love, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, goodness, and meekness” (Gal. v. 22, 23); 
whose wisdom is “ pure and peaceable, gentle, and easy to 
be entreated, full of merey and good fruits, [or works}” 
(James iii. 17), and which commands the wise and knowing 
man “to show forth, out of a good conversation, his works 
with meekness of wisdom” (ver. 13), condemning all his 
“bitter zeal” as “earthly, sensual, and devilish” (ver. 14, 
15), which suffers not the servant of Christ to be engaged in 
“foolish questions, which beget strife;” because that the 
disciples of this mild and gentle Saviour “ must not fight, 


* Ibid. p. 7. 


7 Vide Dr. Hammond in locum. 
+ Dr. ‘Tillots. ibid. p. 8. 


but must be gentle towards all men, patient, in meekness 
instructing those that oppose themselves” against the truth, 
though their doctrine spread “ as a gangrene, and overthrow 
the faith of some” (2 Tim. ii. 24, 25. 17, 18) ; not dispatch- 
ing them out of the way, as is the manner of the Romanists, 
but “with long-suffering expecting, if God, peradventure, 
will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the 
truth,” which teaches us to bear the infirmities of persons 
weak” in faith (Rom. xv. 1), “to restore them in the spirit 
of meekness” (Gal. vi. 1), “to become as weak to the 
weak, that we may gain the weak” (1 Cor. ix. 22), to bear 
with the weak, and “ be long-suffering to all men” (1 Thess. 
v. 14), “to speak evil of no man, to be no fighters, but 
meek, showing all gentleness towards all men;” and that 
upon this sole account, that “we ourselves were sometimes 
foolish and deceived” (Tit. iii. 2, 3). 

Now both these reasons are such as equally concern all 
persons, magistrates as well as ministers, them who thus 
persecute out of misguided zeal towards God, as well as those 
who do it from envy, hatred, and such carnal principles; 
and they seem plainly to infer, that no man should be per- 
secuted, as in the church of Rome men are, purely for his 
mistake concerning, or his denial of, any article of faith 
revealed by the gospel, but only for seditious and treason- 
able doctrines, or for such crimes as, had the gospel ‘never 
been revealed, might justly have been punished by the civil 
magistrate. 

2 Ver. 57. Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thow 
goest.) This being said, as Christ perceived, from the com- 
mon opinion of the nation, that the disciples of the Messiah 
should get wealth and honour, Christ soon discourages him 
from executing this resolution, laying before him the mean 
and low condition in which he was to be followed by his 
disciples. 

13 Ver. 62, Οὐδεὶς ἐπιβαλὼν τὴν χεῖρα αὑτοῦ ἐπ᾽ ἄροτρον, καὶ 
βλέπων εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, &c. No man, having put his hand to 
the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.) 
Christ often compares his word to seed, and the time af 
gaining others to the faith to the harvest. Now of the 
plougher and sower of the seed, it was used to be said pro- 
verbially, “ He is no good ploughman or seedsman, who, 
being at that work, looketh back ;” because his furrows will 
not be straight, nor his seed cast even from him : whence 
they require of such a one, (1.) That he should stoop, for then 
he cannot look back ; according to Pliny,* Arator, nisi incur- 
vus, prevaricatur: (2.) That he should look straight before 
him, not back on his associates, as Hesiod in these words, 


"Os κ᾽ ἔργου μελετῶν ἰθεῖαν αὔλακ᾽ ἐλαῦνοι, 

Mijxert παπταίνων πρὸς ὁμήλικας. ἜΡργ. ver. 441. 
This Christ applies to the spiritual husbandry; to which he 
that applies himself must forget the things which are be- 


hind ἔμπροσθεν ἐκτεινύμενος, “bending and stretching out him- 
self to those which are before” (Phil. iii. 14). 


* Hist. Nat. lib. xviii. cap. 19. 


CHAPTER X. 


1 Arrer these things the Lord appointed other | face into every city and place, whither he himself 


1 seventy also, and sent them two and two before his 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 
1 Ver. 1. "Erépous ἐβῶομήκοντα, The Lord appointed seventy 
others.] Grotius saith they were chosen according to the 


would come (after them. 


number of the Sanhedrin, and so were seventy-two; six of 
them being chosen out of every tribe; for which he cites 
the authority of Josephus. Now Josephus doth indeed say 


280 


2 And because he sent them to so many cities,) there- 
fore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but 
the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of 
the harvest, that he would send forth (more) labourers 
into his harvest. 

3 Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs 
among wolves (ready to devour them ; 

4 Yel) Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: 
and ἢ salute no man by the way (i. e. spend no time in 
fruitless civilities, which may divert you from your bu- 
siness). 

5 And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, 
Peace be to this house. 

6 And if the son of peace be there (one fit, by rea- 
son of his peaceable temper, to receive that blessing), 
your peace shall rest upon it (7. 6. ἐξ shall be accord- 
ing to your prayer): if not, it shall turn to you again 
ε e. they shall receive no benefit by it, Ps. χχχν. 13, 

sa. lv. 11). 

7 And in the same house (in which you find a son of 
peace) remain, eating and drinking such things as they 
give (you as the reward of your labour) : for the labourer 
is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house 
(for better entertainment) 

8 And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they re- 
ceive you, eat such things as are set before you: 

9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto 
them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. 

10 But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they re- 
ceive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the 
same, and say, 


LUKE. 


11 Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth 
on (to) us, we do wipe off (as a testimony) against 
you (that we refuse all farther commerce with you): 
notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom 
of God is come nigh unto you (and you would not re- 
ceive it). 

12 But (and) I say unto you, that it shall be more 
tolerable in that day (when God shall judge the disobe- 
dient and unbelievers) for Sodom, than for that city. 

13 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Beth- 
saida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre 
and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a 
great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and 
ashes (with the deepest sorrow and humility). 

14 But (and accordingly) it shall be more tolerable 
for Tyre and Sidon at the (day of ) judgment, than for 
you. 

15 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to 
heaven (7. 6. advanced highly above others by my doc- 
trine, taught in thy synagogues, and miracles wrought in 
thee), shalt be thrust down to hell (7. e. into a slate of 
the extremest misery. 

16 And for your encouragement in the work on which 
I send you,) he that heareth you (preaching in my 
name the kingdom of God, shall be owned as one that) 
heareth me; and he that despiseth you (shall be treat- 
ed as one that) despiseth me; and he that despiseth 
me (as one that) despiseth him that sent me. 

17. 1 And the seventy returned again with joy, say- 
ing, Lord, even the ὃ devils are subject unto us through 
thy name. 


of the seniors sent to Ptolemeus Philadelphus, that they 
were ἕξ as’ ἑκάστης φυλῆς, ἢ “six out of every tribe,” but he 
says not so of the Sanhedrin: and that they were only se- 
venty without, and seventy-one with Moses their governor, 
see Seld. de Synedr. lib. 11. cap. 4, §. 5, and Dr. Lightfoot 
here. And, (2.) he proves this from the authority of Origen, 
who, in his book, De Recté in Deum Fide, saith, Christ 
chose seventy-two disciples; and from Epiphanius,+ who saith, 
that St. Mark was one ἐκ τῶν ἐβέομήκοντα δύο, “ of the seventy- 
two.” But this they both speak by the bye : and to Origen, if 
that be indeed his work, we may oppose Tertullian, who styles 
them “ seventy,” saying, §Adlegit et alios septuaginta apos- 
tolos super duodecim: to Epiphanius, Jerome,|| who saith, “the 
seventy palm-trees in the sixth mansion of the Jews signi- 
fied, secundi ordinis predicatores, the preachers of the second 
order, as the fountains signified the twelve apostles :” and to 
both, we may oppose the more ancient testimonies of Ire- 
nzus,{ who saith, that “ after the twelve apostles, septuaginta 
alios Dominus noster ante se misisse invenitur, our Lord 
sent seventy others before him:” and of Clemens,** who, in 
his Hypotyposes, makes frequent mention of Christ's “se- 
venty disciples: of Eusebius there, and Ambrose here: 
and the council of Neocesarea,t{ saying, the chorepiscopi 
were constituted εἰς τῦτον τῶν ἑβόομήκοντα, after the example 
of the seventy.’ But it is more material to observe, that 
as the first mission of the apostles was only for a season, and 
ceased at their return, Matt. x. 1 (see the note there); so 
was the first mission of the seventy, they returning quickly 
from it, ver. 17, and they received a new commission; of 
which, see note on ver. 19. Note (2.) that whereas some 
compare the bishops to the apostles, the seventy to the pres- 
byters of the church, and thence conclude, that divers orders 
in the ministry were instituted by Christ himself: it must be 
granted, that some of the ancients}} did believe these two 


* Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 2, p. 392. 

ΠΕ: 

+ Her. 51, 8. 6, p. 428. 

§ Adv. Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 24. 

} Lib. iii. ep. ad Fab. f. 15. 1. 

q Lib. ii. cap. 37, lib. iii. cap. 13. 

** Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap, 12. 
TT Can. 13. 

++ Euseb. Hist, Eccl. lib. i. cap. 12. 


to be divers orders, and that those of the seventy were in- 
ferior to the order of the apostles; and sometimes they 
make the comparison here mentioned; but then it must be 
also granted, that this comparison will not strictly hold: for 
the seventy received not their mission as presbyters do, from 
bishops, but immediately from the Lord Christ, as well as 
the apostles; and in their first mission were plainly sent on 
the same errand, and with the same power. Nevertheless, 
I think here is a fair foundation for that, in which Chry- 
sostom, and others, place the superiority of bishops over 
presbyters, to wit, in this, that the power of ordination be- 
longs to them alone (see note on 1 Tim. iii. 1,2). Fer 
though the commission to preach the gospel belonged to the 
seventy, as well as to the twelve apostles, yet the power of 
conferring the Holy Ghost, by laying on of hands, belonged 
peculiarly to the twelve (see note on Acts viii. 15). ‘This 
then seems to be the reason, why the conferring of the Holy 
Ghost for the use of the ministry hath been perpetually es- 
teemed peculiar to those bishops, who, in the ecclesiastical 
style, are always called the successors of the apostles, and 
they have always done it by imposition of hands. 

2 Ver. 4. Kai μηδένα κατὰ τὴν ὁδὸν ἀσπάσησϑε, And salute 
no man by the way.) 1. 6. Do nothing which may hinder 
you in the execution of your office. So when Elisha sent 
Gehazi on a message to be dispatched presently, he saith to 
him, “Salute no man by the way,” 2 Kings iv. 29, the sa- 
lutations of the eastern nations being prolix: so Grotius. 

Ver. 15. Kai σὺ, Καπερναοὺμ, ἡ ἔως τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὑψωθείσα. 
Dr. Mills approves μὴ ἕως τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὑψωθήση, taken from 
some few MSS. and the Latin Ireneus, lib. iv. cap. 70, p- 
371. But Chrysostom, Theophylact, the Syriac, and Arabic, 
read according to the text; and Dr. Grabe, on the place, 
saith, Lectio illa non ipsius Irenzi, sed solius Latini inter- 
pretis est, nam in nullo Grecorum patrum hune locum ita 
allegatum reperio. 

3 Ver. 17. Kai τὰ δαιμόνια ὑποτάσσεται ἡμῖν ἑν τῷ ὀνόματί 
cov, Even the devils are subject to us in thy name.] Here 
Woltzogenius notes, that Christ did cast out devils by a 
virtue residing in himself; his disciples only in the name 
and by the power of the Lord; seeing then this power ac- 
companied them in all parts of the world, it is necessary 
that Christ’s presence should be with them every where ; 
now such a presence is a certain indication of the Deity 
(1 Kings viii. 27, Ps. cxxxix. 7, Jer. xxiii. 24, Amos ix. 3), 


CHAPTER X. 


18 And he said unto them, whe T sent you forth) I 
beheld Satan as lightning fall from 4 heaven (¢. ὁ. J 
foresaw the sudden downfall of his kingdom). 

19 δ Behold, I give unto you power to tread on ser- 
pents and scorpions, and over all the power of the 
enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you 
(ὦ. e. I promise you protection against Satan and his in- 
struments, and whatever else may hurt you, and power to 
prevail over all their opposttion). 

20 ® Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the 
spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, be- 
cause your names are written in heaven (¢. e. you have 
a present right to a heavenly kingdom). 

21 4 In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, 
I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that 
thou hast 7 hid these things from the (men, in their 
own concetts) wise and prudent, and hast revealed them 
unto babes (in their account, Rom. ii. 20): even so, 
Father (hath the event been in my preaching) ; for so it 
seemed good in thy sight. 

22 All things are delivered to me of ῳ e. by) my 
Father: and no man (Gr. none) knoweth § who the 
Son is (as to his nature and dignity), but the Father; 
and (no man knoweth truly) who the Father is, but the 
Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal (the saving 
knowledge of) him. 

23 1 And he turned him (se/f) unto As disciples, 
and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the 
things that ye see: 

24 For I tell you, that many prophets and kings 
have desired to see those things which ye see (viz. the 
days of the Messiah), and have not seen them; and 


4 Ver. 18. ᾿Εθεώρουν τὸν Σατανᾶν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πεσόντα, I 
beheld Satan as lightning falling from heaven.] Though 
Satan may be reckoned among spiritual wickednesses ἐν τοῖς 
ἐπουρανίοις, “in heavenly places,’ Eph. vi. 12, yet Christ 
seems not here so much to respect that, as the dissolution 
of that kingdom he had erected in the world; he is styled, 
“the God of this world,” 2 Cor. iv. 4, “the ruler of the 
darkness of this world,” Eph. vi. 12, and to him is ascribed 
“the kingdom of darkness,” Col. i. 13, and a principality 
over the children of disobedience; Christ therefore here 
foretells that this dominion should be in great part lost by 
the translation of the heathens “from darkness to light, and 
from the power of Satan to God;” and Satan being thus 
spoiled of his dominions, may be said to fall from heaven, 
by a phrase familiar both to sacred and profane writers: so 
of the fall of the king of Babylon the prophet saith, « How 
art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer!” Isa. xiv. 12. Of 
the fall of the colleague of Antonius, Cicero* saith, Col- 
legam tuum de ccelo detraxisti, “Thou hast pulled him 
down from heaven ;” and when Pompey was overthrown, he 
is said by him, ex astris decidisse, “to have fallen from the 
stars” (Ep. lib. i. ad Atticum, ep. 20). 

5 Ver. 19. ᾿Ιδοὺ, δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἐξουσίαν rod πατεῖν ἐπάνω ὄφεων, 
Behold, I give you power to tread upon serpents.) Note 
here, that these words plainly seem to give a new institution 
to the seventy, relating not, as the former, to the cities of 
Israel, as the forerunners of their Lord, but to their preach- 
ing among other nations; as we may gather, by comparing 
these words with the commission given by Christ to his 
apostles, sent into the world “to preach the gospel to every 
creature,” Mark xvi. 15. 18, according to these words of 
Grotius, Non pro hac tantim legatione dedi, sed do nunc 
etiam in posterum. (2.) This power seems to be given in 
words, containing a manifest allusion to Ps. xci. 13, where 
a like protection from danger is promised to the pious 
man, under the metaphor of “treading on the scorpion 
and the basilisk; and according to the LXX. and the 
Chaldee, of « protection from the noon-day devil,” or “from 
troops of evil spirits,” ver. 5,6. And “after this manner,” + 


* Philip. 2. 

{ Hoe denique modo, etiam ethnicis sepé subvenimus, 
donati ἃ Deo ea potestate, quam apostolus dedicavit, quum 
morsum vipere sprevit. Scorp. 

Vor. IV.—36 


281 


to hear the things which ye hear (the mysteries of the 
kingdom of God), and have not heard them. 

25 4 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and 
tempted him (7. e. made trial of his wisdom), saying, 
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? 

26 He said unto him, What is written in the law ? 
how readest thou ? 

27 And he (the lawyer) answering said, Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, 
and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thy- 
self. 

28 And he (Christ) said unto him, Thou hast an- 
swered right: this do, and thou shalt live. 

29 But he, willing to justify himself (as one that 
had already done this), said unto Jesus, And® who is my 
neighbour (7 am thus to love? If those of our nation 
only, as we teach, I have done that.) 

30 And Jesus answering (by an apologue) said, A 
certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, 
and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his rai- 
ment, and wounded kim, and departed, leaving him 
half dead. 

31 And by chance there came down a certain priest 
that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the 
other side (faking no pity on him). 

32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, 
came and looked on him, and passed by on the other 
side (showing no compassion on him). 

33 Buta certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came 
where he was: and when he saw him, he had com- 
passion on him. 


saith Tertullian, “ we often help the heathens, being invest- 
ed with that power whieh the apostle dedicated when he 
despised the biting of the serpent.” 

6 Ver. 20. Πλὴν ἐν τούτῳ μὴ χαίρετε, &c. Notwithstanding, 
rejoice not in this, that the spirits are subject to you ; but 
rather rejoice, that your names are written in heaven.) They 
returned (ver. 17) “rejoicing, that even the devils were sub- 
ject to them in Christ’s name ;” which, as it tended to the 
glory of God, and the promotion of the gospel, was a just 
matter of their joy; but because to be thought worthy of 
salvation by God, and through faith in Christ to have a pre- 
sent right to an inheritance in heaven, was a blessing proper 
to the saints, and tended to the eternal welfare of their 
souls, which the casting out of devils was not, that being 
done by men to whom Christ will say at the last day, «I 
know ye not,” &c. (Matt. vii. 22, 23) ; therefore Christ bids 
them, μᾶλλον χαίρειν, “to rejoice more,” that their names 
were written in heaven, or in the book of life; which is a 
Jewish phrase, of the import of which see the note on Phil. 
iv. 3, not signifying an absolute election, but a present right 
to life eternal, through the obedience of faith (see also ''ar- 
gum on Deut. xxxii. 33, and Ps. lxix. 29, Isa. iv. 3, and 
Constitut. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 1). 

7 Ver. 21. Ὅτι ἀπέκρυψας, That thou hast hid these things 
Srom the wise and prudent.] See note on Matt. xi. 25. 

8 Ver. 22. Kai οὐδεὶς γινώσκει τίς ἔστιν ὃ vids, All things are 
delivered to me of the Father: and no man knoweth who 
the Son ts, but the Father. All things, i. e. “all power 
both in heaven and earth,’ Matt. xxviii. 18; “all judg- 
ment,” John v. 27; “power over all flesh to give eternal 
life,” John xvii. 2. Now this includes power to raise the 
dead, and to pass judgment on them according to their works 
and secret thoughts; and so a power and wisdom which is 
plainly divine, and consequently the divine nature, from 
which those attributes are inseparable; which is one argu- 
ment for the divinity of Christ. Secondly, He saith here, 
no man knoweth τίς ἐστιν 4 vids, “who is the Son,” which 
seems not to respect what he was to do or suffer, but his 
nature, excellence, and dignity, as the words following, ris 
ἔστιν ὃ πατὴρ, “who the Father is,” respect his nature, his 
divine excellency, and dignity, exhibited to us ἐν προσώπῳ, 
“in the person of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6). 

9 Ver. 29. Kai ris ἐστί μου πλησίον ; But he, willing to jus- 
tify himself (as one who had performed the command of 

x2 


282 


34 And went to kim, and bound up his wounds, 
pouring in (to them) oil and wine, and (he) set him on 
his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took 
care of him. 

35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took 
out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said 
unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou 
spendest more, when I come again, 1 will repay thee. 

36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was 
neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? 

37 And he said, He that shewed merey on him. 
Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise 
(treat the Samaritan with like kindness, and thou wilt do 
according to this precept). 

38 4 Now it came to pass, as they went (to Bethany, 
John xi. 1), that he entered into a certain village: and 


LUKE. 


ἕ certain woman named Martha received him into her 
ouse. 

39 And she had a sister called Mary, which also 
sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. 

40 But Martha was cumbered about much serving, 
and came to him, and said, Lord, dost not thou care 
that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her 
therefore that she help me. 

41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, 
Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many 
things : 

42 But one 19 thing is (absolutely) needful: and 
Mary (by hearing my word, that she may do it), hath 
chosen that good part, (the fruits of ) which shall not 
be taken away from her. 


loving his neighbour as himself), said, Who is my neigh- 
bour?] Now the corrupt tradition of the Jews having restrain- 
ed this neighbour to men of their own nation and religion, to 
whom he might retain a very kind affection, he thought this 
sufficient to show, that he had satisfied that precept ; Christ 
therefore here demonstrates to him that every person who 
stands in need of help, and who is capable of kindness from 
us, though he be of a different nation and religion, must be 
deemed our neighbour (see the note on Matt. xxii. 39). 

10 Ver. 42. νὸς dé ἐστι χρεία. But one thing is needful.) 
Not one dish only to eat of, as Theophylact and many of the 


fathers descant here, but the “better part,” or that spiritual 
wisdom which Mary made it her chief care to labour after. 
So Arrian* saith of the government of the mind, and the 
fixing it upon that only which is in our power, and which 
we cannot be deprived of, viv δὴ ἑνὸς δυνάμενοι ἐπιμελεῖσθαι καὶ 
ἑνὶ προσηρτηκέναι, ἑαυτοὺς μᾶλλον ϑέλομεν πολλῶν ἐπιμελεῖσθαι 
καὶ πολλοῖς προσδεύέσθαι, When we might contract our cares 
to one thing, and cleave to that alone, we choose rather to 
be bound to and troubled about many things.” 


* In Epict. lib. i. cap. 1, p. 84, 


CHAPTER XI. 


1 Awp it came to pass, that, as he was praying in 
a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples 
said unto him, Lord, teach us (a form by which) to 
pray, as John also taught (one to) his disciples. 

2 And he said unto them, When ye pray, say (these 
words), Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be 
thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, 
as (it is) in heaven, so in earth. 

3 Give us day by (or, after) day our daily bread. 

4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive 
every one that is | indebted (or, hath been injurious) to 
us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us 
from evil (see the paraphrase and notes on Matt. 
vi. 
? And (to encourage them to expect a return of their 
prayer) he said unto them, Which of you shall have 


a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say 
unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves ; 

6 For a friend of mine in his journey is come to 
me, and 1 have nothing to set before him ? 

7 And he from within shall answer and say, Trou- 
ble me not: the door is now shut, and my children 
are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give (them to) 
thee. 

8 I say unto you, Though he will not (be moved to) 
rise and give him (them), because he is his friend, yet 
because of his ?importunity he will rise and give him 
as many (/oaves) as he needeth. 

9 And (accordingly) 1 say unto you, Ask (in faith), 
and it shall be given you; seek (diligently), and ye 
shall find; knock (earnestly), and it shall be opened 
unto you. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1 Ver. 4. Kai yap αὐτοὶ ἀφίεμεν παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν, For 
we forgive every one that is indebted to us.| That is, every 
one that offends against us, according to the usual import 
of that word in the Syriac, or Chaldee, where a sinner is 
ayn, “a debtor,” and sin is xan, “a debt; thus Exod. 
xxxii. 30, Absa Non onNun, “ye have sinned a great sin,” 
is, in the Targum, x39 Na1n 7327, “ You have contracted 
a great debt :” so Gen. xx. 9, xxvi. 10, xxxi. 36, Lev. iv. 3, 
see Burtorf in the word 3m: and in this sense ὀῤειλέτης, “a 
debtor,” and ὀφειλήματα, “debts,” are used, Matt. vi. 12, 
and Luke xiii. 4, “Think ye that they on whom the tower 
of Siloam fell were ὑφειλῆται, debtors.” that is, “sinners 
above all men ?” 

But then it is carefully to be observed, for the due 
stating the controversy of Christ’s satisfaction, that sins are 
not properly and strictly compared to debts, seeing by sin- 
ning we do not so properly contract a debt, as a guilt, or 
obnoxiousness to punishment; which two things will admit 
these differences; (1.) That if another will pay my debt, 
the creditor cannot justly refuse his paying it for me, or 
complain he is not satisfied when the whole debt is paid; 
but let another be never so willing to suffer for my offence, 
he can make no satisfaction for it, unless the judge be will- 


ing to admit him to suffer in my stead. Hence (2.) the cre- 
ditor does no act of grace by admitting the solution of an- 
other; and if that other pay the whole, he can require no 
conditions for my discharge; but the ruler, against whose 
laws I have personally offended, does me an act of grace 
in admitting another to suffer in my stead, and so may do 
this only upon some reasonable conditions. And (3.) we 
do not properly pay our whole debts, unless we pay what 
was owing in specie, or something admitted as an equivalent 
to it; but we may make satisfaction for our sins against our 
governor by any thing of less value, provided that it pre- 
serves the honour of the lawgiver, and terrifies us and others 
for the future from lapsing into the same offence. 

Of the third and last petition of the Lord’s prayer, whe- 
ther they were wanting in St. Luke’s original, or not, and 
whether (ver. 13) we are to read Πνεῦμα ἅγιον, or ἀγαθὸν 
δόμα, see Examen Milli, lib. ii. cap. 1. n. 12, 13. 

2 Ver. 8. Διά ye τὴν ἀναιδείαν, For his importunity.] i.e. 
His request so importunate as to admit of no refusal, his 
continual coming and crying night and day (xviii. 1.5.7): 
Gr. “for his impudence,” according to that saying of the 
Jews, *« The impudent man overcomes the modest and the 
bashful, how much more God who is goodness itself!” 


* Buxtorf, in voce chatoph. 


CHAPTER XI. 


10 For every one that (/hus) * asketh receiveth ; 
and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knock- 
eth it shall be opened (by his heavenly Father). 

11 (For) if a son shall ask bread of any of you 
that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask 
a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? 

12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a 
scorpion? (¢. e. things unprofitable and hurtful to, rather 
than what is good and needful for him.) 

13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts unto your children: how much more shall your 
‘heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit (she fountain 
of all spiritual blessings) to them that ask him ? 

14 ¥ And he was casting out a devil, and it was 
(such a one as made the man) dumb. And it came to 
pass, when the devil was gone out (of him), the dumb 
(man) spake; and the people wondered (at it). 

15 But some of (the pharisees among) them said, He 
casteth out devils through (confederacy with)'> Beelze- 
bub the chief of the devils. 

16 And others, tempting him (i. 6. distrusting his 
power, and doubting of his commission), sought of him 
a® sign from heaven (as the chief token of the Messiah 
mentioned by Daniel, vii. 14). 

17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them 
(who accused him of confederacy with Satan), Every 
kingdom divided against itself is brought to desola- 
tion; and a house divided against a house falleth (into 
ruin). 

18 If Satan (then) also be divided against himself 
(and he casts his own subjects out of his dominions), 
how shall his kingdom stand? (2nd thus J argue) 
because ye say that I cast out devils through Beel- 
zebub. 

19 And (moreover) if I by Beelzebub cast out 
devils, (/et me ask you) by whom do your’ sons (who 
exorcise them in the name of the same God by whose 
power I profess to do it) cast them out? therefore 
shall they be your judges (¢. e. your judgment, that 
they do this by the power of God, shall condemn you, 


283 


who ascribe the same thing done by me to the power and 
assistance of Satan). 

20 But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, 
no doubt (can be made of it that) the kingdom of God 
is come upon you (ἡ. e, that the Messiah promised to erect 
this kingdom is among you. 

21 For) when a strong man armed keepeth his 
palace, his goods are (preserved) in peace (and 
safely) : 

22 But when a stronger than he shall come upon 
him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his 
armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. 
(I therefore being thus able to overcome Satan, and 
cast him out of his dominions, must be stronger than 
he. 

23 And in this work, of beating down Satan’s king- 
dom) He that is not with me is against me: and he 
that gathereth not with me scattereth (7. e. he that 
assists me nol in bringing men to the kingdom of God, 
scattereth them as sheep without a shepherd. 

24 And to you from whom Satan hath been thus eject- 
ed, and to you who continue yet to side with him against 
me by whom he ts ejected, I direct this parable ; viz.) 
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he 
walketh through dry places (not yet watered by the word 
preached to them), seeking rest ; and finding none (there, 
the gospel following him to the gentiles, and dispossessing 
him there), he saith, I will return unto my house 
whence I came out. 

25 And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and 
garnished (and so ready to receive him). 

26 Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other 
spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, 
and dwell there: and (so) the last state of that man 
is worse than the first. (Z'hus also will it be with you ; 
Satan ejected by me, finding nowhere else persons so fitted 
to receive him, will return, and take more durable posses- 
sion of you, and render you seven times more the children 
of Satan than ye were before.) 

27 4 And it came to pass, as he spake these things, 


3 Ver. 10. Πᾶς γὰρ 6 αἰτῶν, λαμβάνει, For every one that 
asketh receiveth.] i.e. Who asks in faith, seeks with dili- 
gence, and knocks with importunity and perseverance, re- 
ceives all that is needful for him; so the connexion shows 
“ He will rise and give him ὅσον χρήζει, as much as he wants ; 
(ver. 8;) and I say to you, Ask, and ye shall receive” all 
knowledge necessary to your salvation, all that assistance 
which is necessary to preserve you from those sinful courses 
which will exclude you from salvation, or to the performance 
of that obedience which God hath made the condition of 
your salvation under the new covenant, and to your perse- 
verance in that obedience to the end; he shall receive all 
things spiritually good for him: «for if you, being evil, 
will give good things to your children, much more will your 
heavenly Father give ra ἀγαϑὰ, good things,” Matt. vii. 11, 
“his Holy Spirit,” ver. 13, “to those that ask him.” 

4 Ver. 13. Ὃ πατὴρ ὃ ἐξ οὐρανοῦ δώσει Πνεῦμα ἅγιον, Much 
more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
that ask him.) 'O ἐξ οὐρανοῦ is the same with 6 ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, 
Matt. vii. 11; so “our house from heaven,” 2 Cor. v. 2, is 
our house “in heaven,” ver. 1, and “the Lord in heaven,” 
1 Cor. xv. 47, is ὁ ἐπουράνιος, “the heavenly Lord,” ver. 48, 
49. Πνεῦμα ἅγιον “the Holy Ghost,” if it here signify, as 
throughout the Old Testament, “the spirit of prophecy,” or 
as generally in the New, “the miraculous inward gifts and 
operations of the Holy Spirit’ (see note on 1 John v. 6) ; 
it must be granted, that Christ speaks here, not of what 
they were to ask at present; for “the Holy Ghost was not 
yet, because Jesus was not glorified,” (John vii. 39): and 
so must we understand our Lord’s words, xii. 11, 12. 
“ When they shall bring you before princes and governors, 
meditate not beforehand what you shall speak, for the Holy 
Ghost shall teach you in that hour;” for neither were they 
brought before princes till after our Lord’s resurrection and 


ascension, nor did the Holy Ghost instruct them how to 
speak till then. So our Lord’s commission as to these words, 
Matt. x. 8, and all that follows in that chapter, from ver. 
16, to the end, plainly respects what they were to do and 
suffer after Christ's ascension. If it relates to the present 
time, and to Christians in general, not only to the apostles, 
as the words, “ every one that asketh,” and the “ good gifts,” 
in Matthew, seem to argue; we, by this phrase, can only 
understand the ordinary assistances and operations of the 
Holy Spirit. 

5 Ver. 15. Ἔν Βεελζεβοὺλ, By Beelzebub, the prince of the 
devils.) Of the right reading of this word Beelzebub, “ the 
lord of flies,” or Beelzebul, “ the lord of dung,” as St. Je- 
rome reads, Matt. xii. 24, see Dr. Lightfoot there. But 
then when both he and the great Bochartus wonder how 
this god of flies should come to be styled “the prince of 
devils,” that seems to be no great wonder, he being no less 
than the heathen Jupiter, the prince and father of the gods, 
as appears from the titles of ἀπύμυιος, μύαρτος, μυώδης, all 
given him a muscis abigendis, “from his office of chasing 
the flies from the sacrifices, the temples,” and cities of the 
heathens (see Bochart. Hieroz. par. ii. lib. iv. cap. 9, p. 499 
—501). 

6 ve. 16. Σημεῖον ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, A sign from heaven.) Be- 
cause the Son of man was to “come in the clouds of hea- 
ven,” Dan. vii. 13 (see the note on Matt. xii. 38). 

7 Ver. 19. Οἱ υἱοὶ ὑμῶν ἐν τίνι ἐκβάλλωσι; By whom do 
your sons cast them out 51] To what hath been said on Matt. 
xii. 27, add, that some think that this relates to the seventy 
disciples sent by Christ to preach the kingdom in every city 
and place whither he was afterward to come, Luke x. 2: 
for they return to him with these words, “ Even the devils 
are subject to us in thy name,” ver. 17. Now doubtless 
they were the sons of the Jews, and though they cast ou 


284 


a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, 
and said unto him, 8 Blessed ἐξ the womb that bare 
thee, and (blessed are) the paps which thou hast sucked. 

28 But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that 
hear the word of God, and keep it. 

29 ¥ And when the people were gathered thick to- 
gether, he began to say, (tn answer to those who sought 
of him a sign from heaven, ver. 16,) This is an evil 
generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no 
(farther) sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas the 
prophet. 

30 For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites 
(being three days and nights in the whale’s belly, and yet 
raised out of it to preach to them), so shall also the Son 
of man be (raised from the dead after three days, for a 
sign) to this generation. 

31 The queen of the south shall rise up in the 
judgment with the men of this generation, and 
(shall) condemn them: for she came from the utmost 
parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; 
and, behold, a (person of) greater (wisdom) than So- 
lomon is here (and yet his wisdom is despised by 
them). 

32 The men of Nineve shall rise up in the judg- 
ment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for 
they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, 
(these men repent not, though) a greater (prophet) than 
Jonas 7s here. 

33 (But though the men of this generation despise this 
heavenly wisdom, it becomes not me, nor my disciples, to 
conceal it ; for) °Noman, when he hath lighted a can- 
dle, putteth ἐξ in a secret place, neither under a bushel, 
but on a candlestick, that they which come in (to the 
house) may see the light. 

34 (4s)Thelight of the body is the eye (directing 


LUKE. 


the body how to walk, so the light of the soul is the 
mind, directing it how to discern its duty): therefore 
0 when thine eye is single (free from worldly-minded- 
ness and liberal), thy whole body also is full of light 
(directed by the love of God and of our neighbour for his 
sake, into the way that leads to life); but when thine 
eye is evil (envious and covetous), thy body also zs full 
of darkness (all thy actions done in the body will be deeds 
of darkness). 

35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in 
thee (thy mind which should direct thy actions) be not 
(by covetousness, and an immoderate love of the world, 
turned into) darkness. 

36 If (by this care) thy whole body therefore be full 
of light, haying no part dark, the whole (of thy life) 
shall be full of light, as (@ room zs) when the bright 
shining of a candle doth give thee light. 

37 ¥ And as he spake (these words), a certain Phari- 
see besought him to dine with him: and he went in 
(to his house), and sat down to (eat of his) meat. 

38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled 
that he had not first washed before dinner. 

39 And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Phari- 
sees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter 
(i. e. take care to have a fair outside, and bodies clean 
from ceremonial defilement); but your inward part is 
full of ravening and wickedness. 

40 Ye fools, did not he that made that which is 
without make that which is within also? (and should 
not ye then be as careful to keep that clean, as ye do the 
outward man, by frequent washings 3) 

41 But rather give alms of such" things as ye have; 
and (when God and the poor have had their dues), behold, 
all things (ye eat of or enjoy) are clean unto you. 

42 But woe unto you Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and 


devils in Christ's name, yet is not this sufficient to take off 


the force of Christ’s argument; for it was not easy to sus- 
pect so great a number of honest men, of their own nation 
and acquaintance, sent by two and two into their villages 
and cities, should be all confederates with Satan; they 
therefore going through their cities to assure them, “the 
kingdom of God is at hand,” and confirming their testimony 
by healing diseases, and casting out devils in Christ’s name, 
gave in full testimony against them, who said, that Christ 
himself did this by a confederacy with Satan. 

8 Ver. 27, 28. Blessed is the womb that bare thee. Mev- 
οὔνγε, Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, 
and keep it.) i. 6. That blessedness of my mother ariseth not 
from this, that she conceived, and brought me forth into the 
world; but in order to that, it is necessary for her, as well 
as others, to believe and obey my word (so Theophylact). 

9 Ver. 33. Οὐδεὶς δὲ λύχνον ἅψας, &c. No man, when he 
hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, &c.] 
Some give here the connexion thus: Though you generally 
receive very little benefit from my preaching, it becomes nei- 
ther me nor my disciples to conceal our wisdom, but still 
to let it shine forth to the world (Matt. v.15). But seeing 
it is evident, that the same expressions are oft applied to 
different things in divers senses (see note on Matt. xii. 30), 
why may not this have relation to the following verse, thus ? 
God never gives the light of nature, or of revelation, as he 
hath done to you Jews, but that it may be improved, and 
shine forth in them to others: now, as the light of the 
body is the eye, so the light of the soul is that reason, and 
that revelation of his mind, which God affords; and there- 
fore it becomes you to take as great care that your light be 
not turned into darkness by prejudices, which blind the eyes, 
or by shutting your eyes against the light, or by your inii- 
delity, or those vicious habits which will not suffer you to 
come at the light, or believe in it; as that the eye of the 
body be not darkened, or put out. 

10 Ver. 34. "Ὅταν οὖν ὃ ὀφθαλμός cov ἁπλοῦς ἢ, Therefore 
when thy eye is single, thy whole body is full of light ; but 
when, πονηρὸς ἢ, it is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.) 
There is no tautology in these and the following words, but 


only a progression from the mind clearly enlightened and 
directed, and the faculties of the soul rightly disposed, to a 
life led according to them, or, in the scripture phrase, “a 
walking in the light.” For Christ here compares the in- 
ward light of the soul, or the eye of it, to that of the body, 
showing, that as that being pure from spots, adventitious 
humours, cataracts, and other blemishes, gives a clear light 
for the direction of the body ; but when it is ill affected, by 
reason of these or other maladies, the body is in the dark: 
so if the eye of the soul be not single, i. e. if it be not pure 
from covetousness, which is ἐπιϑυμία τοῦ ὀφθαλμοῦ, “ the 
lust of the eye” after worldly things (1 John ii. 16), from 
carnal concupiscence, which renders it the “ adulterous eye” 
(Matt. v. 28, 29, 2 Pet. ii. 14), from envy which is ὀφθαλμὸς 
βασκανίας, the “evil or bewitching eye,” (Prov. xxiii. 6, 
Ecclus. xiv. 3. 10), from pride which is ὀφθαλμὸς ὑπερηφάνων, 
“the high look” (Ps. ci. 5), ὀφθαλμὸς ὑβριστοῦ, “the proud 
look” (Prov. vi. 17), ὀφθαλμὸς 5 μετέωρος, “the lofty eye” 
(Isa. v. 15) : if, I say, it be not purified from these distempers, 
it will not direct our way aright, or preserve us from walking 
in the dark: for these are the lusts of the world, which are 
contrary to the friendship of God, making all the actions 
of the life perverse ; and therefore they who do such things 
are said to walk on still in darkness (Ps. Ixxxii. 5, Eccles. 
ii. 14, John viii. 12, xii. 46, 1 John ii. 9), “to be in dark- 
ness” (1 Thess. v. 4), and “to love darkness more than 
light” (John iii. 19) ; whereas when the mind is free from 
these vices, and adorned with the contrary virtues, it directs 
all our actions to piety, virtue, and the love of God; as a 
lantern shining in darkness directs our feet ; or as a candle 
enlightens the whole room where it is; and hence such per- 
sons are said “to walk in the light” (1 Johni. 7), and to be 
«children of the light, and of the day” (Luke xiv. 8, John 
xii. 36, Eph. ν. 8, 1 Thess.v.5). This therefore is the im- 
port of these words, That a mind thus enlightened, and free 
from all these distempers, which darken and make blind the 
soul, will direct all our faculties and inclinations, and all 
the actions of the life aright; as a light doth the body when 
it walks in a dark night. 

1 Ver. 41, Πλὴν τὰ ἐνόντα δότε ἐλεημοσύνην, But give alms 


CHAPTER XII. 


rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment 
and the love of God: these ought ye to have done 
(as being your own constitutions), and not to leave the 
other undone (as being the more weighty matters of the 
law). 

a3 Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the up- 
permost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the 
markets (minding these respects from men more than the 
favour of God, John v. 44, xii. 43). 

44 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites! for ye are as graves which appear not (so fo 
be, as being overgrown with grass and herbs), and (so) 
the men that walk over them are not aware of them 
Goring specious outsides, but hearts defiled, and defiling 
others). 

45 a Then answered one of the lawyers, and said 
unto him, Master, thus saying thou reproachest us 
also (for we are scribes). 

46 And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! 
for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, 
and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of 
your fingers (7. e. ye will not show the least mercy to 
them who are thus oppressed with them; see note on 
Matt. xxiii. 4). 

47 Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of 
the prophets, and your fathers killed them (as you 
yourselves acknuwledge). 

48 Truly ye bear witness that (ye are by nature the 
children of those fathers, and) ye allow (or, are well 

leased with) the deeds of your fathers: (showing the 
ike malice against me, and mine, as they did against 


285 


the old prophets; I say, you testify this, viz. that ye 
are the children of such fathers) for they (your fathers) 
indeed killed them, and ye (their children) build their 
sepulchres. 

49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will 
send them prophets and apostles, and some of them 
they shall slay and persecute (fo the death) + 

50 That (so) the blood of the prophets, which was 
shed from the foundation of the world, may be re- 
quired of this generation (who by their hatred to the 
last and chiefest of them have filled up the measure of their 
suns) ; 

δὶ From the blood of (righteous) Abel (the first pro- 
phet and preacher of righteousness, Heb. xi. 4, 2 Pet. ii. 
5) unto the blood of Zacharias, (the last prophet slain 
by you, 2 Chron. xxiv. 22, and) which perished be- 
tween the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, 
It shall be required of this generation. 

52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away 
the 15 key of knowledge (by which the kingdom of God 
should be cpened to men): ye enter not in yourselves, 
and them that were entering in ye hindered (obstruct- 
ing their faith by your tradition and false interpretations 
of the scriplure). 

53 And as he said these things unto them, the 
scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehe- 
mently, and ™ to provoke him to speak of many things 
(Gr. and to inquire of many things from his mouth) : 

54 Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch some- 
thing out of his mouth, that (by zt) they might accuse 
him. 


of all that you have, and all things shall be clean unto you.) 
Τὰ ἐνόντα, are τὰ παρόντα, τὰ ὑπάρχοντα, “ our substance,” or 
the things which we have; or, as Stephanus, “ which are in 
our power ;” according to those words of Tobit, ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρ- 
χόντων σοι ποίει ἐλεημοσύνην, “Give alms of thy substance,” 
iv. 7, and ver. 8, ὡς σοὶ ὑπάρχει, “as thou hast ability,” ac- 
cording to thy abundance. Christ therefore here instructs 
us, that our temporal enjoy ments are unclean, i. e. unlawful 
to be used by us till we have sanctified them by some act of 
charity ; and this is the frequent import of the word καϑα- 
pas, clean, when it relates to meats, as Acts x. 14, 15, xi. 
8, 9, Rom. xiv. 20, Tit. 1.15. And suitable to this, is God’s 
command concerning the tithe of the third year, that it 
should be given “to the stranger, the orphan, the widow, 
that God might bless the land” (Deut. xxiv. 13, 14): so 
that till this were done, they were not to expect from hima 
blessing on their substance. This also is frequently pre- 
scribed as a means to procure the pardon of our sins. So 
Daniel saith to Nebuchadnezzar, λύτρωσαι ἐν ἐλεημοσῦναις, 
“Redeem thy sins,” or expiate them, “by acts of mercy 
to the poor,” iv. 27, for, “by mercy and truth iniquity is 
purged,” Prov. xvi. 6. ᾿Ἐλεημοσύνη, “Mercy (or charity) 
delivereth from death, and shall purge away all sins,” Tobit 
xii. 9. “Water will quench a flaming fire, καὶ ἐλεημοσύνη 
ἐξιλάσεται ἁμαρτίας, and alms maketh an atonement for 
sins:”’ our mercy to his servants inclining God to be merciful 
to us. 

12 Ver. 52. Ἤρατε τὴν κλεῖδα τῆς γνώσεως, You have taken 
away the key of knowledge.) By which the kingdom of 
God should be opened to men, and they be enabled to enter 
into it (see note on Matt. xxiii. 13) ; obscuring and hiding, 
by your traditions and false interpretations, those scriptures 
which relate to the Messiah, and the light which those pro- 


phecies of the Old Testament afford to conduct men to it; 
and pretending, that for want of knowledge of the law, they 
are not sufficient to judge of these matters, but must be 
guided by your judgment of them (John vii. 48, 49): and 
thus you, not believing in the Messiah, nor entering your- 
selves into the kingdom of God, now come among you, and 
preached to you, have obstructed the faith of them who 
otherwise would have believed and entered into it. 

At the ordination of a Jewish rabbi to be a teacher of 
the law, a key was given him, to show that he was appointed 
to open the scriptures to the people. Hence Christ pro- 
nounces a woe upon those doctors of the law, who being thus 
designed to open those scriptures to the people, which con- 
cerned the kingdom of heaven, or of the Messiah; they, 
by their false interpretations, and corrupt traditions, touch- 
ing the scriptures relating to that kingdom, did “shut the 
kingdom of heaven up against them.” 

13 Ver. 53. Kai ἀποστοματίζειν αὐτὸν περὶ πλειόνων. And to 
provoke him to speak of many things.] Or to inquire of 
many things from his mouth: for they did this ζητοῦντες 
ϑηρεῦσαί τι ἐκ τοῦ στύματος αὑτοῦ, “ seeking to catch something 
out of his mouth.’ So Julius Pollux* saith, that ἀποστο- 
ματίζειν is ἄπὸ στύματος εἰπεῖν, “to speak something from the 
mouth,” or words not written: Suidas, that it is ἀπὸ στόμα- 
ros λέγειν, “to speak from the mouth” or memory. So Aris- 
totle} saith the grammarians learn τὰ ἀποστοματιζόμενα, “ those 
things which are delivered from their master’s mouth” (see 
Stephanus on this word): Theophylact saith, it is κηδεύειν 


αὐτὸν καὶ ἀπὸ στόματος κρατεῖν. 


* Lib. ii. cap. 9, §. 23, p. 94, lib. xxiii. 
+ Elench. lib. i. cap. 3. 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 In the mean time, when there were gathered to- 
gether an innumerable multitude of people (Gr. ἐν ots, 
whilst Christ was saying these things, an innumerable 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIL 
VVer. 1. Προσέχετε ἑαυτοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς ζύμης τῶν φαρισαίων, ἥτις 


multitude of pape being gathered together), insomuch 
that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto 
his disciples first of all, ! Beware ye of the leaven of the 


ἐστὶν ὑπύκρισις, Beware of the leaven of the pharisees, which 
is hypocrisy] i.e. Take heed ye be not guilty of phari._ 


286 


Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (7. 6. an outward appear- 
ance of sanctity, which puffs up and deceives others ; but 
yet ts only a pretence). 

2 For there is nothing covered (wnder hypocritical 
pretences), that shall not be revealed ; neither hid, that 
shall not be (made) known. 

3 Therefore (Gr. ἀνθ᾽ ὧν, because, or forasmuch as) 
whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard 
in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the 
ear in closets shall be proclaimed on the housetops (so 
that though you should be able to conceal the evil of your 
hearts and actions from men, they will be laid open at the 
great day of your accounts). 

4 And (though I send you with a message, which 
will so offend men, and more especially the Jews, that 
they will think by killing you they do God good service, 
John xvi. 2, yel) 1 say unto you, my friends, Be not 
afraid of them that (can only) kill the body, and after 
that have no more that they can do (nothing to hurt 
the soul). 

5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall (rather) 
fear: (viz.) Fear him, which after he hath killed hath 
power to cast (both soul and body) into hell; yea, I say 
unto you, Fear him. 

6 (For) are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, 
and (yet) not one of them is forgotten before (that) God 
(whose providence watches over the smallest things in the 
world? You may then be assured your least concerns are 
not neglected by him.) 

7 But even the very hairs of your head are all num- 


LUKE. 


bered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than 
many sparrows (and so the more peculiar objects of God’s 
care and providence). 

8 Also (and farther to engage you to constancy in your 
profession, and patient suffering for my sake) 1 say unto 
you, Whosoever shall (thus) 2 confess me before men, 
him shall the Son of man also confess before the an- 
gels of God (he will own them before God, in whose pre- 
sence the angels stand) : 

9 But he that (to avord the rage of men) denieth me 
before men shall be denied (7. e. renounced, as none of 
my disciples) before the angels (standing in the presence) 
of God. y 

10 And (as for the enemies of me and my doctrine) 
whosoever (of them being offended at my present hum- 
ble circumstances) shall (notwithstanding all the convic- 
tion I have given them) speak a word against the Son 
of man (in derogation from his mission), it shall be for- 
given him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the 
Holy Ghost (when he cometh upon you in his gifls and 
miraculous operations, to assert my resurrection and con- 
Jirm my doctrine,) it (that blasphemy) shall not be for- 

iven. 
ἕξ 11 And when they bring you unto the synagogues, 
and unto magistrates, and (heathen) powers, take ye 
no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or 
what ye shall say (seeing tt shall be given you in that 
same hour what ye shall speak, Matt. x. 19): 

12 For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same 
hour what ye ought to say. 


saical hypocrisy; for though you should be able to con- 
ceal the evil of your hearts and actions from the eyes of 
men, the time will come when they shall be revealed and 
made known (ver. 3), ἀνθ᾽ dv eo quod, propterea quod, 
idcirco quod, for that, or forasmuch as, or because, in the 
great day of your accounts, that which you have spoken or 
done with the greatest secrecy, shall come to light, and be 
revealed openly. So Luke i. 20, “Thou shalt be dumb, 
ἀνθ᾽ ὧν, because thou hast not believed my words;” Luke 
xix. 44, “ They shall lay thee even with the ground, ἀνθ᾽ ὧν, 
because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation ;” 
Acts xii. 23, “ The angel of the Lord smote him, ἀνθ᾽ ὧν, 
because he gave not glory to God.” And thus it answers to 
the Hebrew -wx Sy which is mostly rendered by the LXX. 
ὅτι, διότι, and sometimes, ἀνθ᾽ ὧν ὅτι, as 2 Sam. xii. 16, ἀνθ᾽ 
ὧν ὅτι, “ Because he hath done this thing; 1 Kings ix. 9, 
ἀνθ᾽ ὧν, “ Because they have forsaken the Lord their God ;” 
2 Kings xviii. 12, dvS’ ὧν ὅτι, “Because they have not 
hearkened to the voice of the Lord ;” Jer. xvi. 11, ἀνϑ᾽ ὧν, 
“Because your fathers have forsaken me :” so xxii. 9, Ezek. 
XXxix. 39, ἀνθ᾽ dv, “ For I have poured out my Spirit upon the 
house of Israel.” 

2 Ver. 8,9. Πᾶς ὃς ἄν ὁμολογήση ἐν ἕμοι, &e. Every one that 
shall confess me before men, him also shall the Son of man 
confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth 
me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.] 
The critical note here is, that as the Hebrew 3 is very fre- 
quently only the sign of the dative case (see Nold. de 
Partic. p. 165, 166), so is év, both in the Old and the New 
Testament: so Gen. xl. 14, ποιήσεις ἐν ἐμοὶ ἔλεος, “Thou 
shalt show me kindness,” Ps. lxxxii. 8: so Rom. xi. 2, ἐν 
᾿Ηλίᾳ, “to Elijah;” 1 Cor. ix. 15, I have not written this 
that it should be so done, ἐν ἐμοῖ, “to me;” xiv. 11, 6 λαλῶν 
ἐν ἐμοὶ βάρβαρος, “ He that speaketh shall be a barbarian to 
me:” so in Euripides, ἐν βέλει πληγείς, smitten with a wea- 
pon,” ἐν γαλάκτι χαίρων (see Stephanus). And it is also used 
where the sense requires an accusative case, as σὺ ἐνελέζω ἐν 
᾿Αβραὰμ, “thou hast chosen Abraham,” Neh. ix. 7; Esd. ii. 
&1, ἐμυκτήριζον ἐν ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ, “ They mocked his messen- 
gers ;” 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16, “The leprosy of Naaman shall 
cleave ἐν σοὶ καὶ ἐν τῷ σπέρματί cov, to thee and to thy seed ;” 
2 Kings v. 27, “I will hear what the Lord will say ἐν ἐμοὶ, 
to me;” so ἐν πόλει ἐν ᾿Ἱερουσαλὴμ, “a city—Jerusalem,” 
1.XX. Moreover, these words (ver. 9) afford us a full con- 
futation of the pernicious doctrine of Mr. Hobbes, against 


that self-denial, and taking up the cross, our Lord so ex- 
pressly and frequently requires from all Christians, and Mr. 
Hobbes, out of his more abundant wisdom, fully doth excuse 
us from: for, “ Faith,” saith he, “ being internal and invisi- 
ble, we need not put ourselves into danger for it;” and 
therefore he alloweth subjects, being commanded by their 
sovereigns, to deny Christ. His words are these, “ Profession 
with the tongue is only an external thing, wherein a Chris- 
tian, believing firmly in his heart the faith of Christ, hath 
the same liberty which the prophet Elisha allowed to Naaman 
the Syrian, who believed in his heart, but by bowing before 
the idol Rimmon, he denied the true God in effect, as much 
as if he had done it with his lips.’ Moreover, he giveth 
license to a Christian to commit idolatry, or do an idolatrous 
act, for fear of death or corporal danger; “To pray,” saith 
he, “to a king voluntarily for fair weather, or for any thing 
which God alone can do for us, is divine worship and 
idolatry ; but if the king compel a man to this by the terror 
of death, or other great corporal punishments, it is not 
idolatry ;” his reason is, “because it is not a sign that he 
doth not honour him as God inwardly, but that he is de- 
sirous to save himself from death, or from a miserable life :” 
thus doth he, with those Gnostics of whom St. Peter speaks, 
“bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that 
bought him.’ But (1.) this doctrine renders self-denial, or 
taking up the cross, a thing impossible: for where the magis- 
trate is not against the free profession of our faith, where he 
enjoineth nothing opposite to the command of Christ, we 
cannot suffer for the sake of Christ and of his gospel; and 
where the magistrate compels us by punishments or threats 
to deny Christ, or do what he hath otherwise forbid, Mr. 
Hobbes tells us, we may lawfully obey, and therefore need 
not suffer. (2.) No man, according to this doctrine, can 
suffer “ according to the will of God,” as the apostle Peter 
doth suppose (1 Pet. iii. 17). No man can suffer “ for con- 
science towards God, or for well-doing,” as the same apostle 
speaks ; because it is not the will of God we should thus 
suffer, since he permits us to deny our faith, saith Mr. 
Hobbes, and practise contrary to what he hath forbid, when 
faith or practice will expose us to corporal punishments, or 
to the fear of death. (3.) No man, according to this doc- 
trine, can promise to himself any reward for what he suffers 
in the cause of Christ, because he never did require him to 
suffer ; whereas.a crown of glory is every where in scripture 
promised to the patient sufferer, his light afflictions are said 


! 


CHAPTER XII. 


13 ¢ And (/hen) one of the company said unto him, 
5 Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the in- 
heritance with me (for 7 would gladly have thee to be 
arbitrator betwixt us concerning ἣν 

14 And he said unto him, Man, who made me ἃ 
judge or a divider over you? (This properly belongs 
not lo my by sm office, but lo your civil consistories.) 

15 And (upon occasion of this man’s concern for his 


“to work for him a more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory ;” and it is said to be “a righteous thing with God, to 
recompense to them that suffer for him rest with him.” 
Moreover, this doctrine gives the lie to our Saviour, who 
plainly tells us, that « whosoever shall deny him before men, 
he will deny him before his heavenly Father’ (Matt. x. 33) : 
that «whosoever shall be ashamed of his words and doctrine 
in a perverse and adulterous generation, of him his Saviour 
will be ashamed, when he comes before his Father and his 
glorious angels” (Mark viii. 3.8). But to this it is replied 
by Mr. Hobbes, that “ what a subject is compelled to do in 
obedience to his sovereign, and doth it not in order to his 
ewn mind, but in order to the law of his sovereign, that 
action is not his, but his sovereign’s; noris it he that in this 
case denieth Christ, but his sovereign.” Ans. 1. Seeing the 
persecuting world is that “adulterous generation” of which 
our Saviour speaks, and the world persecuteth by the civil 
power; to be ashamed of Christ and of his word “in this 
adulterous generation,’ is certainly to be ashamed to con- 
fess him, and to own his doctrine, by reason of the igno- 
miny or troubles we may suffer for so doing from the civil 
power. 2, That to refuse to bear our cross, and even lose 
our lives “for Christ's sake and the gospel’s,” is to be 
ashamed of Christ, is evident from the connexion of the 
words: for Christ informeth his disciples (ver. 31), “that he 
must suffer many things of the chief priests and rulers of the 
Jews ;” and, ver. 34, he tells them, All that would be his 
disciples, must also be content to bear the cross, and lose 
their lives for his sake and the gospel’s, when men saw fit to 
treat the disciples as they had done their Master, which, 
saith he, whosoever doth refuse to do, will be the greatest 
loser ; οὖ γὰρ ἂν, “ for whosoever will be ashamed of me,” &c. 
Is it not therefore evident, that to refuse even to lose our 
life for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s, when rulers shall 
think fit on that account to take it from us, is to be ashamed 
of Christ and of his doctrine? And therefore Mr. Hobbes 
wisely said nothing to this text. But (2.) in his pretended 
answer to those words of Matthew, he manifestly wrests our 
Saviour’s words, who plainly speaks of denying him by 
words in presence of, or in compliance with, the magistrate : 
for (ver. 18) he declares to his disciples, that « they should 
be brought before kings and rulers for his sake,” and by them 
should be scourged (ver. 17), imprisoned (ver. 19), and killed 
(ver. 21). But notwithstanding all their menaces and per- 
secutions, publish, saith he, my doctrine openly to all the 
world; “what I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the 
light; and what you hear in the ear, that speak on the 
housetop” (ver. 27): and be not discouraged from so doing 
by fear of them who “ may kill the body,” which magistrates, 
who have the power of the sword, have only a right to do: 
and which they cannot do for our internal faith, of which 
they cannot judge, but only for outward profession, or con- 
fession of it, which, saith Christ, | command you to make 
before them without fear (ver. 31), “for whosoever shall 
confess me before men, him will I confess—deny me before 
men—deny” (ver. 32, 33); so saith our Lord. It is no 
such matter, saith the great Malmsburian philosopher; you 
are fools if you offer yourselves to be thus treated by the 
magistrate for the name of Christ; you need not run this 
hazard ; you may deny, as well as preach Christ's doctrine 
on the housetop, if so commanded by the magistrate: and 
therefore you need not fear him, because you need do no- 
thing to provoke him; you may be sound believers, though 
ye deny, blaspheme, or disobey Christ, when by their 
menaces or precepts the magistrates compel you so to do; 
and therefore you, notwithstanding all your blasphemies, will 
be acceptable to Christ ; but he will punish those persecut- 
ing rulers as those who only do indeed deny him. Now 
whether this be to interpret or contradict our Saviour’s 


287 


temporals) he said unto them, Take heed, and 4 beware 
of covetousness: for (¢he comfort of ) a man’s life con- 
sisteth not in the abundance of the things which he 
possesseth. 

16 And (do this end) he spake a parable unto them, 
saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought 
forth plentifully : 

17 And he thought within himself, saying (to him- 


words, let any rational man judge. (3.) This doctrine is a 
flat contradiction to St. Paul, who doth expressly teach as 
well confession of the Lord Jesus with our mouths, as 
belief of him with our hearts, to be required “ to salvation ;” 
for “with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” 
(Rom. x. 10); adding, that “if we do deny Christ, he also 
will deny us; but if we suffer for him, we shall reign toge- 
ther with him” (2 ‘Tim. ii. 12). It also thwarts the doctrine 
of St. John, who having told us of some Jewish rulers, who, 
when convinced that “Jesus was the Christ,” would not 
confess him for fear of punishment, and of disgrace, by 
being turned out of the synagogue, saith, “they loved the 
praise of men more than the praise of God” (John xii. 43), 
which whosoever doth can be no sound believer, and no 
true lover of his Lord (John v. 42. 44). Moreover, by this 
doctrine we must condemn the three children who refused to 
worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar did erect, 
whereas God by their wonderful deliverance approved their 
disobedience to the command of the king; and all those 
martyrs and confessors, who rather chose to suffer than deny 
their Lord, or worship idols, when by the heathen magistrate 
they were commanded so to do, must be condemned as fools 
and criminals; whereas the miracles they wrought, and the 
divine assistance which they found under their sufferings, 
sufficiently convince us that God approved of their actions. 
Lastly, the instance of Naaman the Syrian, as it may be 
rendered from the Hebrew, is wholly impertinent to this 
purpose; for there he doth not ask this prophet’s leave to 
sin again, but only asks his pardon that he had done jit; 
“Tn this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my 
lord went into the house of Rimmon to bow down himself 
there, and leaned on my hand, I bowed down myself there ; 
that I bowed down myself—the Lord pardon thy servant in 
this thing :” and so the margins of some bibles read; and 
that which may be fairly offered to confirm this reading is, 
that these very Hebrew words here used are elsewhere 
found, not in the future, but in the preterperfect tense, “the 
Lord pardon me, beboa, in going to the house of Rimmon,” 
saith the text here; a psalm of David, beboa Nathan 
“when Nathan went unto him,” li. 1: snynnwa “and I 
bow down myself,” saith our translation here, »nnwmy “and 
they bowed down themselves,” Exod. xxxiii. 10. 

3 Ver. 13. Εὐπὲ τῷ ἀδελφῷ pou μερίσασθαι τὴν κληρονομίαν 
μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ, Master, speak to my brother to divide the inherit- 
ance with me.) Here Dr. Lightfoot shows that this was 
usually done either by the consistory of three, or by some 
chosen by them betwixt whom the cause depended, as ar- 
bitrators in the case, as Grotius and Dr. Hammond have 
suggested ; therefore there is no ground for Mr. Le Clere to 
say this man did not desire him to perform the office of a 
judge or arbitrator between him and his brother, but to use 
his prophetical authority to oblige his brother, who detained 
the whole inheritance, to divide it with him ; for if so, why 
doth not Christ answer, that this was no part of his prophetic 
office, but only, “ Who made me a ruler or a judge?” Now 
it is probable that Christ refused to take this office upon 
him, not only to avoid the envy and calumny of the Jewish 
rulers, who might be apt to say, he took upon him an office 
to which he was not called, in prejudice to them who were 
appointed for that work; but chiefly because he had but 
little time remaining, which he could better spend in divid- 
ing to them the word of life, and in promoting their eternal 
interest. 

4 Ver. 15. Φυλάσσεσϑε ἀπὸ τῆς πλεονεξίας, &e. Beware o 
covetousness : for a man’s life consists not in the abu 
ance of the things that he possesseth.] Hence we learn, that 
the desire of having more than we do really need, not to 
supply the necessities of others, or to promote God’s glory, 
but that we may keep, and tredsure them up, and enjoy 


288 


self), What shall I do, because I have no room where 
to bestow (7. e. lay up) my fruits? 

18 And he said, This will I do; I will pull down 
my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow 
all my fruits and my goods. 

19 And (then) I will say to my soul, Soul, thou 
hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine 
ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 

20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night 
thy soul shall be ® required of thee (7. e. thou shalt die 
this night: and) then whose shall those things be, 
which thou hast provided ? 

21 So (suck a fool) is he that layeth up treasure for 
himself (on earth), and is not rich toward God (7. e. in 
heavenly treasures, which will alone commend him to God, 
and procure his favour). 

22 4 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I 
say unto you, Take no thought (be not anxiously con- 
cerned ) for (the things necessary to preserve) your life, 
(viz.) what ye shall (have to) eat; neither for the body, 
what ye shall (have to (put on. 

23 (For) the life is more than meat, and the body 
vs more than raiment. (He then who gave this life and 
body without your care and assistance, will not be 
wanting in making the provisions necessary to preserve 
them.) 

24 Consider the (young) ravens (excluded from their 
nests by the old ones, and crying to the Lord for meat, Ps. 
exlvii 9): for (Gr. that) they neither sow nor reap; 
which neither have storehouse nor barn ; and (yet) God 
feedeth them (giving them food when they cry): how 
much more are ye better than the fowls (and so more 
sure ts be provided for) ? 

25 And which of you with taking thought can add 
to his stature one cubit (one moment to his life, or one 
tnch to the growth of his body; and how much less will 
your solicitude preserve the whole) ? 

26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is 
least, why take ye thought for the rest (which you are 
less able to compass) ? 

27 (Again) Consider the lilies how they grow: they 
toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, (They 


LUKE. - 


appear so beautifully clothed by nature,) that Solomon in 
all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 

28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day 
in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven (and 
so 15. of a very short duration); how much more will 
he clothe you, O ye of little faith (7 you distrust not 
his care in making these provisions for you) ? 

29 And seek not ye (or seek not then) what ye shall 
eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of δ ἃ doubt- 
ful (wavering) mind. 

30 For all these things do the nations of the world 
seek after (who have no hopes of better things): and 
(you need not be concerned for them, seeing) your (hea- 
venly) Father knoweth that ye have need of these 
things. 

31 ἡ But rather seek ye (first) the kingdom of 
God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 

32 Fear not (any want of these things), little flock ; 
for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the 
kingdom (of glory). 

33 7Sell that ye have, and give alms (even out of the 
main stock, when the necessities of your brethren require 
it ; and so) provide yourselves bags which wax not old, 
a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no 
thief approacheth, nor moth corrupteth (this being the 
only way to be heavenly-minded ). 

34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart 
be also. 

35 Let your ὃ loins be girded about, and your lights 
burning (2. e. as servants attending still their master’s 
coming, and ready to execute his commands) ; 

36 And ye yourselves like unto men (servants) that 
wait for their lord (or bridegroom), 5 when he will re- 
turn from the wedding; that when he cometh and 
knocketh, they may open unto him immediately. 

37 Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when 
he cometh shall find watehing : verily I say unto you, 
that he shall gird himself (as @ servant), and make 
them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and 
serve them (7. e. he will administer to them in an unu- 
sual manner). 

38 And if he shall come in the second watch, or 


them, is one species of covetousness: for these words are cer- 
tainly produced as a dissuasive from the sin of covetousness, 
which sure they could not be, were not the desire of having 
more, one species or symptom of that sin, 2. From the 
words following we learn, that to be more solicitous concern- 
ing temporals than we are for spirituals, and to be anxious 
about them, when we are not yet rich towards God, is an- 
other sign of covetousness. This may probably be con- 
cluded from the concern of this person for the dividing of 
his inheritance, rather than that our Lord should instruct 
him in the way of life, it being this which gave oczasion to 
this admonition, “to beware of covetousness;” and it more 
clearly follows from the example of the fool, who was so 
much concerned to hoard up his goods, but not at all con- 
cerned to be “rich towards God ;” i. e. to have his treasure 
with God in the heavens, and to esteem it his chiefest riches 
to be an heir of the kingdom of God (ver. 32), and to em- 
ploy his riches so as to procure God’s favour, and his own 
future happiness: for this is a plain indication of a heart 
that values these temporal concernments more than God’s 
favour, or celestial riches; which in St. Paul’s judgment 
renders the covetqus person guilty of idolatry. 

5 Ver. 20. Ταύτῃ τῇ" νυκτὶ τὴν Ψυχῆν cov ἀπαιτοῦσιν ἀπὸ cov.] 
i. 6. Either thy soul shall be required of thee by God that 
gave it, and whose depositum it was, as the Jews speak (see 
note on 2 Tim. i. 12); or else it shall be required by evil 
angels, according to that other opinion of the Jews, that the 
souls of the just when they die are carried into the garden 
of Eden, per manum angelorum, “ by the ministry of holy 
angels,” and the souls of the wicked to the place appointed 
for them, by evil spirits (see the note on xvi. 22). 

δ Ver. 29. Kai μὴ μετεωρίζεσϑε, Neither be ye of doubtful 
minds.] Meréwpos, saith the Glossary of Stephanus, is 6 μὴ 


στατερὸς τὸν νοῦν, ταλαντευύμενος, τὴ γνώμη, Budeus, “ one fluc- 
tuating and unstable in his mind, judgment, or counsel :” 
hence μετέωρος δίκη is, “a suspended judgment,” μετέωρος ἀρχὴ, 
“a doubtful or controverted empire ;” μετέωροι, saith Suidas, 
are of πρὸς τὸ μέλλον ἔτι cadetovres, “ those that are anxious 
and fluctuating as to future events,’ or whatever may befall 
them; in which sense, say Thucydides and Plutarch, peré- 
ὡρος iv ἢ “Eas, “ Greece was in suspense touching the event 
of the war;” and Josephus, that the Jews were μετέωροι ἐπὶ 
τῶ μέλλοντι πολέμῳ, “anxious about the war with the Ro- 
mans.” Accordingly μετεωρισμὸς, the thing forbidden here, 
is, saith Theophylact, ὁ περισπασμὸς καὶ τοῦ λόγου ἄστατος 
περιφορὰ, “a distracting and unstable fluctuation of the mind 
or reason, about provision for the body,” which Christ would 
here remove from the children of God, as being well assured 
that his wisdom knoweth what is needful for them (ver. 30), 
and his fatherly care would certainly provide for them what 
was so. 

7 Ver. 33. Πωλήσατε τὰ ὑπάρχοντα ὑμῶν, καὶ δότε ἔλεημο- 
σύνην, Sell that you have, and give alms.] i.e. Be ready 
when God calls, and the exigencies of Christ’s members do 
require it, so to do, and be so far from the sordidness of the 
rich man, who would not give of his superfluities to the 
needy, as in these cases to do it out of the main stock, as 
knowing this heavenly kingdom is to be obtained, not by 
hoarding up treasures here on earth, but by distributing them 
to Christ’s needy members. If it be asked how moths can 
corrupt treasures, seeing they eat not through gold or silver, 
I answer, that precious clothes are also reckoned among 
treasures, Ezra ii. 69, Neh. vii. 70, Job xxvii. 16 (see the 
note on Jam. v. 2, 3). 

8 Ver. 35. Ἔστωσαν ὑμῶν at doptes περιεζωσμέναι, καὶ of 
λύχνοι καιόμενοι, Let your loins be girded about, and your 


CHAPTER XII. 


come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are 
those servants (whom he will so regard), 

39 And this know, that (men use the like vigilance 
in temporals; for) if the goodman of the house had 
known what hour the thief would come, (it is to be 
supposed) he would have watched, and not have suf- 
fered his house to be broken through. 

40 Be ye therefore ready also (and show like care in 
spirituals): for the Son of man cometh at an hour 
when ye think not (of). 

41 4 Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou 
this parable unto us (disciples and apostles on/y), or even 
unto all ? 

42 And the Lord said, (Zits duty is incumbent on, 
and will be done by, as many as expect a reward from me 
for their prudence and fidelity, τίς dpa) ' who then is 
that faithful and wise steward, whom /is lord shall 
make ruler over his houshold, to give them their por- 
tion of meat in due season (as their wants require) 2 

43 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he 
. cometh shall find so doing. 

44 Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make 
him ruler over all that he hath (i. e. advance him to 
great honour and glory at his coming). 

45 But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord 
delayeth his coming (as many of the Jews did, revolting 
from his service); and (therefore) shall begin to beat 
the menservants and maidens (the persevering Chris- 
tians, as the apostatizing Jews did), and to eat and drink, 
and to be drunken; (¢, 6. return toa dissolute course of 
life, 2 Pet. ii. 2. 225) 

46 The lord of that servant will come ina day when 
he Jooketh not for Aim, and at an hour when he is not 
aware, and (for his perfidiousness) will cut him in sun- 
der, and will appoint him his portion with the unbe- 
lievers. 

47 And that servant, which " knew his lord’s will, 
and prepared not himself (for his coming), neither did 
according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. 


289 


48 But he that knew (7/) not, and did commit things 
worthy of stripes (as sinning against the law of nature), 
shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomso- 
ever much is given, of him shall be much required: 
and to whom men have committed much, of him they 
will ask the more. 

49 1 (J farther tell you that) 1am come to send fire 
on the earth (¢o publish that doctrine which will cause 
great heats and contentions) ; and (yet so profitable is it to 
the world, that) what will I, ” if it be already kin- 
dled? (Gr. what do I desire, even that it were already 
kindled ?) 

50 But (and) I have a baptism to be baptized with 
(i. e. a death to suffer) ; and how am 1 straitened (as 
one in pain) till it be accomplished ! 

51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on 
earth (i. 6. to free you from the troubles of the world) 2 
I tell you, Nay; but rather (to preach that doctrine 
which will cause) division : 

52 For fromm henceforth there shall be five in one 
house divided (on the account of this ductrinc, viz.) three 
against two, and two against three. 

53 The father shall (by reason of it) be divided 
against the son, and the son against the father; the 
mother against the daughter, and the daughter against 
the mother; the mother in Jaw against her daughter 
in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in 
law. 

54 J And he said also unto the people, When ye 
see a cloud rise out of the west, straishtway ye say, 
There cometh a shower; and (usually) so it is. 

55 And when ye see (hear) the south wind blow, ye 
say, There will be heat; and (so) it cometh to pass. 

56 Ye hypocrites, ye can discern (by) the face of 
the sky (what weather,) and (by the face) of the earth 
(what season it is like to be); but how is it that ye do 
(Gr. how then do ye) not discern (from what I do and 
teach thal) this (ts the) time (of the Messiah’s ad- 
vent) 2 


lights burning.) The servant, when he was to minister to his 
master, that his clothes might not hinder him, girded them 
about him. So Luke xvii. 8, “ Gird thyself, and serve me:” 
and when Christ ministereth to his apostles, he “takes a 
towel,” and girdeth himself, John xiii. 14, and then washeth 
their feet. Hence, saith Philo,* “we are commanded to eat 
the passover, τὰς ὀσφύας περιεζωσμένοι ἑτοίμως πρὸς ὑπηρεσίαν 
ἔχοντες, with our loins girt as being ready for service.” More- 
over, they, waiting to expect their master’s coming home 
at night, were to have their lamps burning, and ready to re- 
ceive him (Matt. xxv. 7). To servants so provided, and 
ready for service, our Lord here promiseth a new and 
unusual honour, like that of the Romans in their Satur- 
nalia; the Cretanst in their Hermea; and of the Babylo- 
nians in their feast called Saccas, where the servants sat at 
table, and their masters waited on them; “ Their lord,” saith 
he, “ shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, 
and he will come forth to serve them,” ver. 37, he coming 
into the world, “ not to be ministered unto, but to minister,” 
Matt. xx. 28. 

9 Ver. 36. Πότε ἀναλύσει ἐκ τῶν γάμων, When he will re- 
turn from the marriage.) ᾿Αναλύσει ἀντὶ τοῦ ἐπανέρχεται, 
Phavorinus; ἀναλύειν, ὑποστρέφειν, ἀνακάμπτειν, Gloss. ; i.e. the 
word signifies /o return. And though in profane authors 
this is more rare, yet in the apocryphal books this is per- 
petually the sense of the word: as when Tobit saith, «In 
the night, ἀνέλυσα, I returned from the burial,” ii. 9; «No 
man was known, ἀναλῦσαι ἐξ ddov, returning from the grave,” 
Wisd. ii. 1 ; « The air being parted presently εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἀνελύθη, 
returns to itself,” v. 12, and xvi. 14, “The spirit when it is 

‘one forth, οὐκ ἀναλύει, returneth not again” (see 2 Mace. viii. 

, IX. 2, xii. 7, xv. 28). 


* De Sacr. Ab. et Cain. p. 108. 
ἡ Atheneus Deipnos. lib. xiv. p. 639. Ctesias, p. 674, 
apud Herod. 


10 Ver. 42. Tis apa ἐστὶν ὁ πιστὸς οἰκονόμος; Who then is 
that wise servant 2] Our Lord here does not answer directly 
to the question of St. Peter, yet he sufficiently doth it by 
declaring that this is to be done of every servant who ex- 
pects to be rewarded or treated as one faithful to him, and 
especially of the guides of the church, Mark xiii. 37. 

Mt Ver. 47, 48. Ἐκεῖνος δὲ ὃ δοῦλος, &c. And that servant 
who knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither 
did according to his will, shail be mes with many stripes : 
but he that knew not, δες. This being one great difference 
betwixt the pastors of the church and other Christians, they 
must expect a severer punishment, as sinning against greater 
evidence, and knowledge of their duty ; for “ to whom much 
is given, of them much will be required :” whereas they who, 
through slowness of understanding, or neglect of pastors, and 
multitude of worldly business, are ignorant of their duty, 
and so neglect it, will find a milder punishment; for 
ignorance may be pitied, but contempt deserves no mercy. 

2 Ver. 49. Πῦρ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ τί ϑέλω εἰ ἤδη 
ἀνήφθη, I came to send fire on the earth, and what will 1 if 
it be already kindled ?] Here it is to be noted, that the 
particle εἰ hath two significations, both agreeable to this 
place. (1.) That, see note on 1 Tim. v.10. (2.) It is a 
particle of wishing: so Numb. xxii. 29, εἰ εἶχον μάχαιραν, «I 
wish I had a sword : εἰ κατεμείναμεν, * We wish we had 
continued beyond Jordan,” Josh. vii. 7, εἰ ἤκουσας, Ps. Ixxxi. 
13, and Isa. xlviii. 18, “Ὁ that thou hadst hearkened to my 
precepts ;” Luke xviii. 42, εἰ ἔγνῳς, “Ὁ that thou hadst 
known.” So then the sense of these words is this,—I come 
to deliver to the world a doctrine, which will incense the 
world against me and my followers, and subject us to great 
sufferings, signified in scripture by fire, Ps. Ixvi. 12, Isa. xliii. 
2, Ecclus. li. 4, and therefore called “fiery trials,’ 1 Pet. 
iv. 12, and will baptize me in my own blood; but yet I am 
so far from being moved from prosecuting my Father's plea- 
sure, by the prospect of them, that I wish the time of my 

Z 


290 


57 Yea, and why even of 13 yourselves judge ye 
not (from the agreement of my doctrine with the princi- 
ples of reason) what is right? 

58 4 When thou goest with thine adversary to the 
magistrate, ({{ 2s good counsel,) as thow art in the way, 
(to) give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from 
him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge 


LUKE. 


deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into 
‘prison. 

59 (For) I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, 
till thou hast paid the very last mite. (JVhy then ne- 
glect you that repentance towards God, and faith in the 
Messiah, which can alone preserve you from that infernal 
prison from which there is no escaping 2 


suffering were at hand, and my gospel preached to the 
world. 

13 Ver. 57. Ti δὲ καὶ ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν οὐ κρίνετε τὸ δίκαιον, And why 
even of yourselves judge ye not what is right ?] i. 6. Take 
an example from yourselves; you are not wont to neglect 
the means by which you may be preserved from that prison 
here, from which you cannot escape till your whole debt be 


paid; why then neglect you that repentance towards God, 
and faith in the Messiah, which can alone preserve you from 
that infernal prison, from which you cannot escape? You 
can observe the signs of heaven for your temporal adyan- 
tage ; why therefore do you not observe the clearer signs of 
the Messiah’s coming, and calling you to faith and repent- 
ance by his doctrine ? 


CHAPTER XIII. 


1 Tuere were present at that season (when Christ 
spake the foregoing ordi poe that told him ! of the 
Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their 
sacrifices (slaying them when they came to offer sacrifice, 
for rejecting the authority of the Roman emperor). 

2 And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye 
that these Galileans were sinners above all the (other) 
Galileans, because they suffered such things ? 

3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall 
all likewise perish (for the same cause, and many of 
you after the same manner : see note). 


4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Si- 
loam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sin- 
ners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem ? 

5 I tell you, Nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall 
all ? likewise perish. 

6 4 He spake also this parable (do the same purpose ; 
saying), A certain man had a fig tree planted in his 
vineyard ; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and 
found none. 

7 Then he said unto the dresser of his vineyard, 
Behold, * these three years I come seeking fruit on 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


1 Ver. 1. Περὶ τῶν Γαλιλαίων, ὧν αἷμα Πιλάτος, ἔμιξε μετὰ τῶν 
θυσιῶν αὐτῶν, Whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacri- 
Jices.] It is not to be doubted, saith Grotius, but that the 
sedition of Judas Gaulonites, as it had its rise in Galilee, so 
found it many followers and abettors there, who, coming up 
to Jerusalem, insinuated into the people that they were the 
Lord’s people, and therefore were to own him only as their 
king, and to pay tribute, not to Cesar, but to his temple ; it 
therefore seemeth credible, saith he, as some of the Greek 
fathers think, that such as these were the Galileans, “whose 
blood Pilate mingled with their (paschal) sacrifice,” as find- 
ing they were then sowing these seeds of sedition against 
Cesar; and if this were at the passover, then the words fol- 
lowing, “ Ye shall all likewise perish,’ agree wonderfully 
with that account of their destruction which Josephus and 
Eusebius give us, that when they were come up from all 
places to observe the passover, they were enclosed in the city 
by the Romans; and upon the very day appointed for kill- 
ing the passover, many of them were slaughtered like sheep 
in the very temple, for this very cause, that they shook off 
the Roman yoke, and refused to pay tribute to Cxsar. 

2Ver. 5. 'Ὁμοίως ἀπολεῖσϑε, Ye shall likewise perish.) 
That is, saith Grotius, among the ruins of the city, of which 
that tower was a part, they perishing in Jerusalem (ver. 4), 
or rather among the ruins of the towers of the city and the 
temple. To illustrate these conjectures of the learned Gro- 
tius, let us a little consider what Josephus hath delivered of 
this matter: he therefore saith, that this Judas, with one 
Zadoc a pharisee, incited the Jews to rebellion, saying,* τὴν 
ἐπιτίμησιν οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ ἄντικρυς δουλίαν ἐπιφέρειν, “that the 
paying tribute was a sign of slavery ;” and under this pre- 
tence they exhorted the whole nation to maintain their liber- 
ty, καὶ ἡδονῇ ἀκρύασιν ἐδέχοντα ἄνϑρωποι, “and this the Jews 
received with pleasure, and this became the sced of their 
future calamities.” Hence they continually demanded ἀναιρεῖν 
τὰ ré\n,f “that the tributes may be taken away.” When 
Coponius was procurator of Judea, one Simon a Galilean 
reproved them,+ εἰ φόρον re Ῥωμαίοις ἐπιτελεῖν ὑπομενοῦσι, καὶ 
μετὰ τὸν Θεὸν οἴσουσι ϑνητοὺς δεσπότας, “ that they would en- 
dure to pay tribute, and suffer mortal lords to rule over 
them :” when Felix was procurator, some magicians and 


* Antigq. lib. xviii. cap. 1. 


t De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 1. + Cap. 12. 


thieves met together calling the people to liberty, and* 
θάνατον ἐπιτιμῶντες τοῖς πειθαρχοῦσι τῇ Ῥωμαίων ἡγεμονίᾳ, “ threat- 
ening death to those who obeyed the Roman government:” 
when Campanus was procurator, one Dortus solicited the 
peoplet ἐπὶ τῇ ‘Pwpatwy ἀποστασίᾳ, “to shake off the Roman 
yoke;” so ready were they to embrace the doctrine of this 
Galilean. ‘That many of the Jews perished, as did these 
Galileans, the same Josephus testifies, saying, that under 
the president Cumanus twenty-five thousand+ κατὰ τὸ ἱερὸν 
ἀπώλοντο, “ perished in the temple at the feast of passover.’’ 
That under Florus§ συχνὸς φύνος, “there was a multifari- 
ous slaughter of them fighting in the temple,” and that 
one Manahem “ was slain as he worshipped there.” That 
“many of the zealots perished in the temple,|| καθαιμάσ- 
covres τὸ θεῖον ἔδαφος, and washed the holy ground with their 
blood.” That the Idumeans “ coming in to their help, eight 
thousand and five hundred of the party of Ananus high- 
priest were slain;” so that] ἐπεκλύσθη καὶ τὸ ἔξωθεν ἱερὸν πᾶν 
αἵματι, “the whole outward temple was washed over with 
blood.” In that threefold sedition which arose in Jerusa- 
lem between Eleazar keeping the inward temple, John with 
his associates seizing the outward temple, and Simon the up- 
per city,** φόνοις ἐμιαίνετο πανταχοῦ τὸ ἱερὸν, “the temple was 
every where polluted with slaughters, the weapons flew every 
where, and fell upon the priests, and those who officiated 
at the altar; many who came from far to worship, πρὸ τῶν 
ϑυμάτῶν ἔπεσον αὐτοὶ, fell before their sacrifices, and sprin- 
kled the altar with their blood; insomuch that the blood of 
the dead carcases made a pool in the holy court. At the 
feast of unleavened bread, Eleazar, with his companions, 
opening a gate for the people that came to worship and to 
offer sacrifice, John, taking that opportunity, sends in with 
them many of his party, having short swords under their 
garments, who invaded Eleazar’s party, and filled that tem- 
ple with the blood of the zealots and of the people.” And 
when Titus “fought against the temple,t{ περὶ μὲν τὸν βωμὸν 
πλῆϑος ἐσωρεύετο τῶν νεκρῶν, a multitude of dead bodies lay 
round the altar, and the blood ran down the steps of the 
temple, and many perished by the ruins of the towers or 
porches.” 

3 Ver. 7. Ἔτη τρία ἔρχομαι ζητῶν καρπὸν ἐν τῇ συκὴ ταύτη, 


* Cap. 23. + Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5. p. 692. 


+ Lib. xx. cap. 4. 8 De Bello Jud. iti. cap. 31, p, 811. 
|| Lib. iv. cap. 14. q Lib. xvi. cap. 17, 
** Lib. vi. cap. 50. tf Lib. vi. cap. 4, 


CHAPTER ΧΙ]. 


this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cum- 
bereth it the ground ἢ cay the like sentence may you 
of this nation expect from God for your unfruilfulness.) 

8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, (be 
pleased to) let it alone this year also, till I shall dig 
about it, and dung it: 

9 And if it bear fruit, well (thou wilt see cause to 
spare it): and if (it do) not, then after that thou 
shalt cut it down. (dnd such ts now God’s sparing 
mercy to you, he is making further trial of you, whe- 
ther what I or my apostles, preaching afler my ascent 
to heaven, can do, will make you fruitful ; and if after 
all our labours you continue still unfruitful, you must 
expect to be cut off.) 

10 And he was teaching in one of the synagogues 
on the sabbath, 

11 4 And, behold, there was (there) a woman which 
had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was 
bowed together (with it), and could in no wise lift up 
herself. 

12 And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, 
and said unto her, Woman, thou art (now to be) loosed 
from thine infirmity. 

13 And he laid his hands on her: and immediately 
she was made straight, and glorified God. 

14 And the ruler of the synagogue answered (7. e. 
said, with relation to this cure) with indignation, be- 
cause that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and 
said unto the people, There are six days in which men 
ought (¢. e. by the commandments are allowed) to work: 
in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the 
sabbath day. 

15 The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou 
“hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath 
(day) loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead 
him away to watering ? 


291 


16 (This you do on that day for a beast to free it from 
a little thirst,) And ought not (then) this woman, being 
a daughter of Abraham, whom " Satan hath bound, lo, 
these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the 
sabbath day ? 

17 And when he had said these things, all his ad- 
versaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced 
for all the glorious things that were done by him. 

18 § Then said he, Unto what is the Iktngdom of 
God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it ? 

19 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man 
took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and 
waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged 
in the branches of it. (For thus, from a very small be- 
ginning, will it grow up into the greatest of all king- 
doms, as that becomes the greatest of all herbs, Matt. 
xiii. 32.) 

20 And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the 
kingdom of God? 

ΟἹ It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid 
in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened 
(for 80 shall the doctrine of the kingdom spread till it hath 
seasoned all the regions of the earth). 

22 And he went through the cities and villages, 
teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. 

23 Then said one unto him, Lord, are there 8 few 
that (shall) be saved? And he said unto them (that 
heard him, Be not so much concerned to know how it will 
be with others, as to) 

24 47 Strive to enter in at the strait gate (which 
leadeth to life, while ye have opportunity to do it): for ® 
many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall 
not be able (because they do it too late ; for) 

25 When once the master of the house is risen up, 
and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand 
without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, 


These three years have I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, 
and found none.] These three years seem not to signify 
only the time of our Lord’s preaching among the Jews; for 
they were not destroyed the next year, but about thirty-six 
years after our Lord’s ascension; they rather seem to be 
mentioned, because the fruit of some fig-trees came not to 
maturity till the third year; the time he expected afterward 
includes the whole time of the apostles’ preaching to them 
at Jerusalem, and to their dispersions, and to the gentiles, 
to gather and set up his church among them; and then was 
the end of the Jewish church and temple, and the great de- 
struction of that nation to come (Matt. xxiv. 14). Nor 
were the Jews then given over, but were, after our Lord’s 
ascension, to be under the dispensation of the Holy Ghost ; 


and, upon the rejection of that call, was Christ’s prediction, | 


that their house should be left to them desolate, to take 
place: whence, after the Holy Ghost was fallen down upon 
them, the apostles were to begin their preaching at Jerusa- 
lem, and to go thence throughout all Judea (Acts i. 8), and 
to preach to them remission of sins (Acts xiii. 38); and 
this they did with such success, as to convert many myriads 
of them (Acts xxi. 20): and the apostle Paul declares it 
necessary for them to preach the word of God first to them 
(Acts xiii. 46). , 

4 Ver. 15. Ὑποκριτὰ, Thou hypocrite.| This Christ pro- 
nounceth upon the ruler of the synagogue, partly because 
he placed his holiness chiefly in the observation of ritual 
precepts, or the rest of the body on the sabbath-day, pre- 
ferring that before the great things of the law, which Christ 
still representeth as a sign of hypocrisy (Matt. xxiii. 23) ; 
partly because he pretended a great zeal for the law of God, 
when he was rather acted in this matter by black envy at 
the glory of Christ, which he, that saw his heart, well 

we 

5 Ver. 16. Ἣν ἔδησεν 6 Σατανᾶς, Whom Satan hath bound 
these eighteen years.) That sometimes by concurring with, 
and sometimes without natural causes, many diseases were, 
by divine permission, brought on men by evil spirits, the 
gospel and histories of Job and Saul inform us; for that 

ΕΣ 


Saul, after the departure of a good spirit, fell εἰς πάϑη δεινὰ 
καὶ δαιμόνια, “into demoniacal passions,” and had, ἀπὸ τῶν 
δαιμόνων rapayiv, “perturbations from demons,” or, as the 
scripture speaks, “by an evil spirit from the Lord” (1 Sam. 
xvi. 14, 23), we learn from Josephus.* And, by confession 
of Maimonides,t Satan was the cause of all that Job suf- 
fered, not only in his substance, but in his body (Job. ii. 7) : 
and the Targum on Ps. xci. 6, numbers “ troops of demons,” 
among those who inflict plagues and death upon men. 

6 Ver. 23. Ei ὀλίγοι of σωζόμενοι; Are there few that be 
saved 51] This question seems to be propounded agreeably to 
that sentiment of the Jews, that all Israelites should have 
their portion in the world to come: to which Christ was not 
pleased to give an answer that might satisfy the curiosity 
of the man, but rather an instruction that might benefit him; 
it being not our concern to know how many will be saved, 
but how we may be saved. 

7 Ver, 24. ᾿Αγωνίζεσϑε εἰσελϑεῖν διὰ τῆς στενῆς πύλης, Strive 
to enter in at the strait gate.) Here Christ shows, that the 
number of them who may be saved, is not defined by any 
decree of God excluding all others from it, or rendering them 
unable to attain it: for then Christ must in vain exhort 
them to use their diligence to enter in at the strait gate, 
which leadeth to eternal life; and yet by saying, ἀγωνίζεσϑε, 
“Strive, as men in agony,” to do it, he shows, that this re- 
quires great constancy, diligence, and courage, and a strong 
conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and so such 
only will obtain it. 

8 Πολλοὶ ζητήσουσῖϊν εἰσελϑεῖν, καὶ οὐκ ἰσχύσουσιν, For many 
shall seek to enter, and shall not be able.| Not for want of 
power, or sufficient grace on God’s part, but for seeking too 
late to enter; viz. when the door is shut, ver. 25. The 
sense therefore runs thus, Be careful, Ὁ ye Jews, now to 
believe, and obey my word, before the kingdom be taken 
from you, and the gate of the gospel-banquet be shut, so that 
you after knock in vain for entrance (Matt. xxv. 10. 13, 
see the note on Matt. viii. 11, 12). 


* Antiq. lib. vi. cap. 9. { Mor. Nev. lib. iii, cap, 22. 


292 


Lord, open unto us; and (or, then) he shall answer 
and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: 
(be careful therefore, now, O ye Jews, to believe and obey 
the word, before the kingdom of God be taken from you, 
and the gate of the gospel-banquet be shut, so that you after 
knock in vain for entrance, Matt. xxv. 10, 13, for) 

26 Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and 
drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our 
streets. (He will answer,) 

27 But he shall say (xai ἐρεῖ, and will say), I tell 
you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, 
all ye workers of iniquity. 

28 (And then) There shall be weeping and gnashing 
of teeth, when ye (the seed of Abraham) shall see Abra- 
ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in 
the kingdom of God (enjoying the blessings promised to 
the members of that kingdom), and you yourselves thrust 
out (of zt). 

29 And (then) they (of the gentiles) shall come from 
the east, and from the west, and from the north, and 
from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of 
God (shall partake of the blessings of the gospel, and be 
owned as children of his kingdom). 

30 And, behold, (thus shall it happen, that) there 
are last (¢. e. the gentiles called at the last hour, Matt. 
xx. 7) which shall be first (ἐπ this kingdom), and there 
are first (¢. 6. the Jews to whom the gospel was first 
preached, and who are styled God’s first-born, Exod. iv. 
22) which shall be last (7. e. cast out of this kingdom, 
and not recalled till the last, or at the close of the world). 

31 4 The same day there came certain of the Pha- 
risees, Saying unto him, Get thee out (of Galilee, He- 


LUKE. 


rod’s jurisdiction), and depart hence: for (else) Herod 
will kill thee. 

32 And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that 
9 fox (from me, a prophet sent from God, and there- 
fore authorized thus to style him), Behold, 1 cast out 
devils, and I do cures (in prosecution and confirmation 
of my prophetic office) to day and to morrow (i. e. fur 
a short time more), © and the third day I shall be per- 
fected (7. 6. by death be consecrated to my priestly 
office, and so he needs not be concerned to put me to death, 
who shortly am to die as a sacrifice for the sins of the 
world). 

33 Nevertheless I must walk (on my journey, ver. 
22) to day, and to morrow, and the day following (dill 
Treach to Jerusalem, and I may do it without fear of be- 
ing killed by Herod): for it cannot be that "a prophet 
perish out of Jerusalem (where the Sanhedrin, who think 
themselves the only judges of him, sil). 

34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the pro- 
phets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how 
often would I have gathered thy children together 
(under my protection), as a hen doth gather her brood 
under ker wings, and ye would not (be gathered ) ! 

35 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate : 
and (δὲ, for) verily I say unto you, (After a while) ye 
shall not see me (Matt. xxiii. 38), until the time come 
when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord (till εἴπητεν you would say, i. 6. you 
would be glad to see your Messiah coming to diliver you, 
and to say to him what your pharisces cannot now hear 
with patience, xix. 39, but shall only see him coming to 
avenge himself upon you, Matt. xxvi. 64.) 


9 Ver. 32. Εἴπατε τῇ ἀλώπεκι ταύτη, Go tell that fox.) To 
impose this ignominious but agreeable name on Herod, is 
not contrary to the command “ not to speak evil of the ruler 
of thy people ;” it being the office of a prophet, not to spare 
kings when they reprove their offences (Jer. i. 10). Christ 
therefore here uses his prophetical power, in giving this 
tyrant a name so suitable to his actions. 

10 Kai rq τρίτῃ τελειοῦμαι, And the third day I am per- 
fected.] 'The word signifies, I am consecrated to my priestly 


office, by dying as a sacrifice for the sins of the world: so 
the old scholia, τελειοῦμαι, σπένδομαι, ϑυσιάζομαι, “1 am perfected, 
1. 6. 1 am offered, I am sacrificed.’ For the confirmation 
of this sense, see the note on Heb. ii. 10, ix. 10. 

11 Ver. 33. Οὐκ ἐνδέχεται τὸν προφήτην ἀπολέσϑαι ἔζω, A pro- 
phet cannot perish out of Jerusalem.) Because he was 
only to be judged by the great Sanhedrin, and they were 
only to pass judgment on him in that place: so Dr. Light- 
foot here. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


i Ann it came to pass, as he went into the house 
of one of the ' chief Pharisees (or of the rulers, who 
was of the pharisees) to eat bread on the sabbath day, 
that they watched him (whether he would heal on the 
sabbath day, that they might accuse him, Matt. iii. 2). 

2 And, behold, there was a certain man (then) be- 
fore him which had the dropsy. 

3 And Jesus ® answering (to their thoughts) spake 
to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to 
heal on the sabbath day (or not) ? 


4 And (but) they held their peace. And (then) he 
took im, and healed him, and Jet him go; 

5 And (he) answered them (who held this unlawful), 
saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fal- 
len into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out 
on the sabbath day? (And shall that kindness be denied 
to a son of Abraham in his distress on that day, which 
you afford on it to your distressed beast ?) 

6 And they could not answer him again to these 
things. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV. 


1Ver. 1. Eis οἶκόν τινος τῶν ἀρχόντων τῶν φαρισαίων, Into the 
house of one of the pharisees.] Gr. “Into the house of one 
of the pharisees,” who was a ruler in the Sanhedrin; for 
they are called ἄρχοντες, “rulers,” Luke xxiv. 20, John iii. 1, 
Acts iii. 17, 1 Cor. ii. 8 (see the note there). 

2 Ver. 3. Kai ἀποκριθεὶς ὃ Ἰησοῦς εἶπε πρὸς τοὺς νομικοῦς" And 
Jesus answering spake to the lawyers and pharisees ; and, 
ver. 5, καὶ ἀποκριϑεὶς πρὸς αὐτοὺς εἶπε, and he answering them 
said.] Here ἀποκριϑεὶς, “answering,” is twice used, where 
neither any question was put, nor any thing said to him; 
but then it is still an answer to some λύγος ἐνδιάϑετος,  in- 
ward conception,” or reasoning, or to some action expres- 
sive of their sentiments conceming him: sometimes it is 
used, when he perceived their inward thoughts and reason- 
ings about his actions, words, or person: thus, when the 


pharisees were consulting how they might apprehend him for 
the parable he spake against them ; ἀποκριϑεὶς, “he answer- 
ing,” spake another parable, showing what destruction would 
come upon them for crucifying him (Matt. xxii. 1): so Jesus 
“perceiving their thoughts, droxp:Seis, answering, said to 
them,” Luke v. 22: so he answers to what Simon said within 
himself, Luke vii. 39,40: sometimes he answers to their ac- 
tions, as discovering their apprehensions of him: thus, when 
they came to take him, Jesus, ἀποκριδεὶς, “ answering, said to 
them, Are you come as against a thief?” Mark xiv. 48 ; so to 
the barren fig-tree, ἀποκριϑεὶς, “he answering, said, Let never 
fruit grow on thee more,” Mark xi. 14; so reflecting on the 
infidelity and impenitence of those cities among whom he 
had done his mighty works, and of those pharisees who be- 
lieved neither him nor the Baptist, ἀποκριϑεὶς εἶπεν, “ he an- 
swering, said, Father, I thank thee,” Matt. xi. 25; so when 
Peter had smitten off the ear of Malchus, ἀποκριϑεὶς, “- Jesus 


CHAPTER XIV. 


7 4 And he put forth ἃ parable to those which were 
bidden (to sit down with him), when he marked how 
they (the pharisees) chose out the chief rooms (at feasts, 
on the account of their pretended wisdom); saying unto 
them, 

8 When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding 
(or a marriage-feast), sit not down in the highest room ; 
lest a more honourable man than thou be (a/so) bidden 
of him; 

9 And (so) he that bade thee and him come and say 
to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with 
shame to take the lowest room. 

10 But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in 
the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, 
he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then 
‘shalt thou have worship (1. 6. honour) in the presence 
of them that sit at meat with thee. 

11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased ; 
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (both 
by God and man). 

12 4 Then said he also to him that bade him, When 
thou makest a ° dinner or a supper, (do it not from a 
prospect of an invitation by way of recompense ; and there- 
fore ordinarily) call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, 
neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest 
they also bid thee again, and (50) a recompence be 
made thee. 


answering,” with relation to that action, saith, « Suffer ye so 
far,” Luke xxii. 52; so Peter answers, not to what he had 
heard, but to what he had seen, Matt. xvii. 4; so Elisabeth 
answers, without being spoken to, the discourse of the women 
about the name of her son, Luke i. 60; and the angel an- 
swers to the fear of the women, Matt. xxviii. 5; and the 
high-priest to Christ’s silence, “I adjure thee to tell us,” 
Matt. xxvi. 63; and St. John the evangelist to Christ’s 
words, “ He that receiveth you receiveth me ;—Master, we 
saw one cast out devils in thy name,” &c. Mark ix. 38. 

3 Ver. 7. Ἔλεγε δὲ πρὸς τοὺς kexAnpévoug παραβολὴν, &e. 
And he put forth a parable to them that were bidden, when 
he marked how they chose out the chief rooms.) i. e. Christ 
being in the house of a prince of the pharisces (ver. 1), and 
observing how solicitous they were to choose the upper rooms 
on the account of their reputed wisdom, because Solomon 
had said (Prov. iv. 8), “ Exalt wisdom,” as Dr. Lightfoot 
here shows; that he might cure this swelling pride in them, 
and teach them humility (ver. 11), he propounds this para- 
ble, as it is fitly called, according to the definition of a pa- 
rable by the Greeks: that it is πρύθεσις ὁμοιωματικὴ ἐπὶ σαφη- 
νείᾳ τῶν ὑποκειμένων, “ἃ comparative resemblance of things, 
for the illustration of what is spoken of; or, as Phavorinus, 
παραπλησίων πραγμάτων παράϑεσις, “a collation of things re- 
sembling each other.” This parable being taken from a like 
example of a nuptial banquet. 

4 Ver. 10. Τότε ἔσται σοι ἐόξα, Then shalt thou have ho- 
nour in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.] 
i. 6. This will ordinarily be the result of thy humility ; and 
though it ought not to be our chief design in any virtuous 
action, yet hence it follows, that this may be one motive to 
the performance of such actions (Phil. iv. 8). 

5 Ver. 12. "Ὅταν roujs ἄριστον, ἢ δεῖπνον, ἄς. When thou 
makest a dinner, or a supper, call not thy friends and thy 
brethren, &c., but call the poor, the maimed.] Some think 
Christ speaks here of the sacred banquet made by the Jews 
on their peace-offerings and other feasts, to which they are 
bid to “call the poor, the widow, and the Levite,” Deut. 
xiv. 29; but this seems a mistake; for Christ speaks not 
of any special stated feast, but of such banquets as he was 
then at: nor hath he one word of the widow and the Levite, 
who were to be guests there, but of the blind, the lame, the 
maimed, of which the law saith nothing ; nor doth he say, 
“For this the Lord shall bless thee upon earth,’ as Deut. 
xiv. 29, but “ Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection 
of the just.” 

Note, Secondly, that Christ doth not absolutely forbid us 
to invite our friends, our brethren, or kinsfolk, to testify our 
mutual charity and friendship, and how dear our relations 


293 


13 But when thou makest a feast, (do it out of cha- 
rity to the needy; and therefore) call the poor, the 
maimed, the lame, the blind : 

14 And thou shalt be blessed; for (ὅτε that) they 
(are called by thee, who) cannot recompense thee: for 
thou shalt be recompensed at the δ resurrection of the 
just. 

15 4 And when one of them that sat at meat with 
him heard these things, he said unto him,? Blessed is 
he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God (i. e. 
that shall partake of the pleasures and enjoyments of the 
kingdom of the Messiah). 

16 Then (to convince him that the generality of the 
Jews were, for their unbelief, to be excluded from that 
kingdom), he said unto him (by way of parable), A 
8. certain man made a great supper, and bade many: 

17 And sent his servant at supper time to say to 
them that were bidden, Come ; for all things are now 
ready (as God sent first the Baptist to invite the Jews, and 
then the apostles, and seventy disciples, to tell them the 
kingdom of God was at hand, and to persuade them to 
enter tnto it). 

18 And they all with one consent began to make 
excuse. (For) the first said unto him, I have bought 
a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: 1 
pray thee have me excused. : 

19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of 


are to us; only he would not have us invite them out of a 
prospect of a compensation from them again; but to prefer 
the exercising our charity to them who cannot recompense 
us. As comparative particles are sometimes in sense nega- 
tive (see the notes on Mark xv. 11, John iii. 19), so negative 
particles are oft in sense only comparative; Prov. vill. 10, 
“Receive my instructions, $y), and not (that is, rather than) 
silver:”’ Joel ii. 13, «Rend your hearts, $x), and not (i. 6. 
rather than) your garments:” John vi. 27, “ Labour not for 
the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth,” &c. 
(see Exod. xvi. 19, Prov. xvii. 12, Jer. vii. 22, 23). So here, 
μὴ φώνει, Be not so much concerned to call thy friends, as 
to call the poor. Nor, 

Thirdly, Doth he lay upon us a necessity by this precept 
to call the lame, the blind, or maimed, to our tables, but 
either to do this, or what is equivalent to us in respect of 
charge, and more advantageous to them and their families, 
viz. to send them meat or money to refresh them at home. 
Note also, that Dion Chrysostomus,* who flourished in the 
time of Trajan, seems to have taken this observation hence, 
That “they did ἀνελευθέρως πράττειν τὰ περὶ τοὺς ξένους τοὺς 
πένητας, act sordidly as to poor strangers, who did μόνους τοὺς 
πλουσίους ὑποδέχεσθαι ζενίοις, καὶ δώροις, rap’ ὧν δῆλον ὅτι καὶ 
αὐτοὶ προσεδόκουν τῶν ἴσων ἑντυχεῖν, entertain the rich only 
friendly, with their hospitalities and gifts, from whom they 
expected to receive as much again.” 

6 Ver. 14. 'AvranodoBiceraé σοι ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει, Thou shalt 
be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.) See here 
the time of recompensing even those works of charity which 
are most acceptable to God, and for which we are chiefly to 
be rewarded at the great day (Matt. xxv. 34). 

7 Ver. 15. Μακάριος, &c. Blessed is he who shall eat bread 
in the kingdom of God.) It appears from the ensuing pa- 
rable, that “the kmgdom of God” here doth not signify “ the 
kingdom of heaven” in the highest sense, but only the king- 
dom of the Messiah, of which the carnal Jew here speaks 
according to the received sense of his nation, as of a glorious 
temporal kingdom, in which the Jews should lord it over the 
gentile world, enjoy their wealth, and be provided with all 
temporal blessings and delights, in which they placed their 
happiness, 

8 Ver. 16. A certain man made a great supper, &c.] We 
are called of God, saith Philo,j to partake of a banquet; 


* Orat. 7. 

ἡ Eis μετουσίαν Soivns, οὐκ ἧς al γαστρὸς ἡδοναὶ πιμπλαμένης 
τὸ σῶμα πιαίνουσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀφ᾽ ἧς διάνοια ἐντρεφομένη καὶ ἐγχορεύσασα 
ἀρεταῖς γῆϑει τε καὶ εὐφραίνεται. De Sacr. Abel. et. Cain. p. 
104 Β, 

z2 


294 


oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me 
excused. 

20 And another said, I have married a wife, and 
therefore 1 cannot come (7. 6. they etther out of great love 
to the pleasures or the advantages of this world rejected the 
kind invitation). 

21 So that servant came, and shewed his lord these 
things. Then the master of the house being angry 
(that they, who were so lovingly invited, would not 
come,) said to his servant (the apostles sent with a fresh 
commission after Christ’s resurrection to go to Judea, 
and the dispersions of the Jews, Acts i. 8, saying), Go 
out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and 
bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the 
halt, and the blind (ὦ. 6. the gentiles and the dispersed 
Jews). 

22 And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou 
hast commanded, and yet there is room (for more 

ests). 

23 Maite lord said unto the servant, Go out into 
the highways and hedges (7. e. to the heathen nations), 
and ° compel them to come in, that my house may be 
filled. 

24 For I say unto you, That none of those men 
which were bidden (and refuse to come) shall taste of 
my supper (7. e. enjoy the blessings of my kingdom). 

25 ¥ And there went great multitudes with him: 
and he turned, and said unto them, 

26 If any man come to me, and "hate not his fa- 
ther, and mother, and wife, and children, and breth- 
ren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also (7. ε. if 
he prefers not my service before all these), he cannot be 
my disciple. 

27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come 
after me (¢. e. that will not obey me, and suffer any hard- 
ship for my sake), cannot be my disciple. 


LUKE. 


28 (Consider therefore well of these things before 
you enter on a Christian life:) For which of you, in- 
tending to 11 build a tower, sitteth not down first, 
and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to 
finish ἐ 

29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, 
and is not able to finish ἐΐ, all that behold zt begin to 
mock him, 

30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not 
able to finish (his building: so before we enter on a 
Christian life, we should sit down and consider seriously 
what it will cost us to be indeed Christians, and whether 
we be steadfastly resolved to do and suffer all that Chris- 
lianity requires). 

31 Or what king, going to make war against an- 
other king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth 
whether he be able with ten thousand to meet 
him that cometh against him with twenty thou- 
sand ? 

32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, 
he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of 
peace. 

33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that (en- 
gageth not so manfully in his Christian warfare against 
sin, Satan, and the world, that when I call him to it, 
he) 12 forsaketh not all he hath, he cannot be my dis- 
ciple. 

34 J Salt zs good (7. e. a Christian life is very ad- 
vantageous) : but if the salt have lost his savour (7 the 
Christian apostle and professor hath lost his Christian con- 
versation), wherewith shall it be seasoned (7. e. what 
can be used farther to recover him) ? 

35 It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dung- 
hill; dnt men cast it out (7. 6. such an unsavoury Chris- 
tian can neither do good to himself nor others). He that 
hath ears to hear, let him hear. 


“not which shall satiate us with the pleasures of the belly, 
and fatten the body ; but with which the mind being nou- 
rished, and leaping for pleasure, rejoiceth, and is glad.” See 
the exposition of this parable, Matt. xxii. 1, 2. 

9 Ver. 23, Kai ἀνάγκασον εἰσελϑεῖν, And compel them to 
come in.] How vainly these words are brought to prove that 
men may be compelled, by the secular arm, to embrace the 
true faith, appears (1.) from the nature of a banquet, to 
which no man is compelled by force, but only by the impor- 
tunity of persuasion, and from which no man’s business doth 
by force restrain him, but only by the inconvenience of attend- 
ing on it; and yet one of the guests saith, ver. 18, ἀνάγκην ἔχω, 
“1 am compelled to be absent.” (2.) From the scope of the 
parable, which respects the calling of the gentiles, which 
only Mahometans think fit, by force of arms to compel to 
the faith. We do, ἀναγκάζειν, compel not only by example, 
but by exhortation, Mark vi. 25, Luke xxiv. 29, as here: and 
Christ, saith Theophylact, here not only commands them to 
call, but to compel them, “though it be free to every one to 
believe, that we may learn, ὅτι μεγάλης τοῦ Θεοῦ δυνάμεώς ἐστι 
τὸ πιστεῦσαι τὰ ἔθνη, that it is the work of God’s great power 
to make the gentiles believe” (see the note on Gal. ii. 14, 
and Grotius here, and xxiv 29). 

10 Ver. 26. If any come to me, καὶ οὐ μισεῖ, and hate 
not his father and mother, &c.] It being impious to hate fa- 
ther or mother, wife or children, and impossible to hate 
ourselves (Eph. v. 29), to hafe here can only signify com- 
paratively, viz. to love them less than God; and therefore 
what is here, “and hateth not father and mother,” is Matt. 
x. 37, “and loveth father and mother more than me:” for 
what we love less, we are comparatively said to hate, as in 
the case of God and mammon, Matt. vi. 24. So ἐμισεῖτο 
Λεία, “ Leah was hated,” Gen. xxix. 31. 33. Now Leah 
surely was not hated by good Jacob, but loved less than 
Rachel (see note on Rom. ix. 13). 

11 Ver, 28. Tis yap ἐξ ὑμῶν, ϑέλων πύργον οἱκσδομῆσαι, &c. 
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not 
down first, and counteth the cost 2 Ver. 31. What king 
going to war, consulteth not first whether he be able 2) Two 


things do usually hinder men from embracing that narrow 
way which leadeth to eternal life; (1.) The difficulties of 
the duties positively required of all Christians; viz. the 
love of enemies, requiring us not only to forgive their in- 
juries “from the heart,’ but also “to overcome their evil 
with our good:” the reparation of any injury done to an- 
other in his good name or fortunes, not only by begging his 
pardon, but by restoring what we got injuriously, and en- 
deavouring to repair his credit ; the restraining of the tongue 
from all evil speaking, and uncharitable censures, and of 
our appetites from all carnal desires, the exact government 
of our passions, and the moderation of our aflections to 
all worldly things; a heart restrained by the fear of God 
from doing evil, and constrained by the love of him to 
yield sincere obedience to his holy laws. (2.) The great- 
ness of the temptations we must resist, and of the injuries 
and losses we may suffer, by persevering in this way, from 
the violent assaults of Satan, and the continual solicitations 
of the flesh, the examples and allurements of the world, 
the persecutions of it, the loss of all things, and even 
life itself. Christ therefore by these resemblances adviseth 
us, before we enter on this Christian life, seriously to con- 
sider of and weigh these things, to form within us the 
most steadfast resolutions to perform the one, and arm 
ourselves with fortitude and patience against the other, 
that so we may not afterward be moved by them to depart 
from it. 

2 Ver. 33. So likewise, whosoever he be of you, ὃς οὐκ ἀπο- 
τάσσεται πᾶσι τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ ὑπάρχουσιν, Who forsaketh not all that 
he hath, &c.] Christ doth not here require that we should 
actually renounce these things, for then we must renounce 
even life itself (ver. 26), but that our heart and our affec- 
tions should be so taken off from them, that we do always 
love them less than him, and that we, in preparation of 
mind, be always ready to part with them when we cannot 
keep them, without making “shipwreck of faith, and a good 
conscience.” 

18 Ver. 54. Καλὸν τὸ ἅλας, &e. Salt ts good ; but of the 
salt hath lest its savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned 3] 


CHAPTER ΧΥ. 


This excellently connects with the discourse preceding, thus: 
The gospel I require you to adhere to, is that salt with 
which every oblation that is acceptable to God must be sea- 
soned (Mark ix. 48, 49) ; the preachers of it are the salt of 
the earth (Matt. v. 13). As then salt, when it hath lost its 
savour, becomes good for nothing, but to be cast out into the 
dunghill: so the Christian professor, who lives not accord- 


295 


ing to the prescripts of the gospel, can do no good to him- 
self or others; and if he fall off from it, can hardly be recovered 
(Heb. vi. 6, x. 27). When Mr. Le Clere and others object 
against this comparison or similitude, that salt cannot lose 
its savour, they consider not, that in the boiling up of the 
saline particles, of which salt is made, there is left a caput 
mortuum, which is insipid. 


CHAPTER XV. 


1 Tuen drew near unto him ' all the publicans and 
sinners for to hear him. 

2 And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, 
This man (now) receiveth sinners, and (at other limes) 
eateth with them. 

3 4 And (upon this murmuring) he spake this para- 
ble unto them, saying, 

4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if 
he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine 
in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, 
until he find it? 

5 And when he hath found i/, he layeth ἐξ on his 
shoulders (and returns home with it), rejoicing. 

6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together 
his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice 
with me: for I have found my sheep which was lost. 


(Now this is a just resemblance of the joy of God for the 
conversion of a sinner ; for) 

7 I say unto you, that likewise? joy shall be in 
| heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over 
ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance 
(i. e. no conversion from a life of sin to that of holiness). 

8 4 Either what woman (7s there) having ten pieces 
of silver, (who,) if she lose one piece, doth not light a 
candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till 
she find zt? 

9 And when she hath found zt, she calleth her 
friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice 
with me; for I have found the piece which 1 had lost. 
(Now this is a just resemblance of the joy of God at the 
recovery of a lost soul ; for) 

10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the pre- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV. 


1 Ver. 1, 2. Ἦσαν δὲ ἐγγίζοντες αὐτῷ πάντες of τελῶναι, καὶ 
οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ, ἀκούειν αὐτοῦ. Καὶ διεγόγγυζον οἱ φαρισαῖοι, ὅζο. 
Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners to 
hear him. And the pharisees and scribes murmured, say- 
ing, This man receiveth sinners, &c.] For the better under- 
standing of these three parables, note, 

First, That publicans, gross sinners, and heathens, were 
by the scribes and pharisees judged unfit to be conversed 
with, even though it were witha design to reduce them from 
their evil courses, they thinking God had cast off the care of 
them, and had no design to grant them repentance unto life ; 
whence they abhorred their company, as thinking it a detile- 
ment to be touched by them, and never would concern them- 
selves to make them better, and were offended that our 
Lord was thus employed, Matt. ix. 11, Luke v. 30, Acts x. 
28, xi. 18,19. Note, 

Secondly, That publicans and heathens, sinners and hea- 
thens, are joined usually together, as being accounted per- 
sons of the same desperate wickedness, and equally unwor- 
thy to be conversed with, as in those words of Christ, Matt. 
vy. 46, 47, “ Do not even publicans the same ?” or, as other 
copies read, of ἐθνικοὶ, “Do not heathens do the same ?” 
which in Luke vi. 33, 34, is, “Do not of ἁμαρτωλοὶ, sinners 
do the same?” and Matt. xviii. 17, “If he refuse to hear 
the church, let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican ;” 
and in those words of St. Paul, Gal. ii. 15, “We that are 
Jews by nature, and not sinners of the gentiles.” That they 
thought God took no care of the gentiles, is evident from the 
words of Esdras, saying to God, “Thou hast said they are 
nothing, but are like unto spittle, and hast counted the abun- 
dance of them as a drop falling from a vessel,” 2 Esd. v. 56, 
57; and the prayer of Mordecai, “ Lord, give not thy scep- 
tre to them that are not,” Esther xiv. 11 (see note on 1 
Cor. i. 28). Hence the converted Jews at first preached not 
to them, as judging it unlawful to “go in unto,” or con- 
verse with the uncircumcised (Acts x. 28), and wondered 
that God should give the gentiles “repentance unto life” 

Acts xi. 18, 19), and only would converse with them when 
ey showed a willingness to be made proselytes to their re- 
ligion. Some, therefore, here do think, that the word sinners 
here may signify the gentiles, which will be more probable, 
if Christ were then beyond Jordan, as they collect from John 
x. 40, or in Galilee of the gentiles, from whence we find him 
going to Jerusalem, Luke xvii. 11, otherwise it will not 
be so easy to discern how all the gentiles should draw nigh 
Ὁ hear him, or he should be eating with them, ver. 12. 
ote, 


Thirdly, That these parables, and especially the last, are 
designed against the scribes and pharisees, who thought so 
abjectly of publicans and sinners, and so perversely of the 
whole gentile world; and to convince them of their inhu- 
manity, and show them that their deportment was very alien 
from God’s merciful inclination to them, and that they ought 
not to be unmerciful to them to whom God was so well in- 
clined to show mercy, or deny their charity to them to whom 
he was ready to afford it: for he spake this parable to them, 
saying, “ Which of you?” ver. 3, 4. 

2 Ver. 7. Οὕτω χαρὰ ἔσται ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, &e. So joy shall 
be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, see note on 
ver. 10, ἢ ἐπὶ ἐννενηκονταεννέα δικαίοις, οἵτινες ob χρείαν ἔχουσι 
μετανοίας, more than over ninety and nine just persons, who 
need no repentance.] Here note that ἢ is here put for 
μᾶλλον ἣ, as usually it is both in the Old and New Testa- 
ment, and in profane writers: so Gen. xxxviil. 26, δεδικαίωται 
Θαμὰρ ἣ ἐγὼ, “Thamar hath been more righteous than T;” 
Ps. cxviil. 8, ἀγαθὸν ἐλπίζειν ἐπὶ Κυρίῳ ἢ, “It is better to trust 
in the Lord than in princes ;” 1 Cor. xiv. 19, « In the church 
I would speak five words, so as to teach others, ἢ μυρίους, 
rather than ten thousand in an unknown tongue :” so Luke 
xviii. 14. See Stephanus giving examples of this from Homer, 
Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius, and St. Chrysostom. Note, 

Secondly, That there being no person in the world so 
just, as absolutely to need no repentance; because there 
never was a person in the world, besides our Saviour, who 
« did righteousness, and sinned not;” the best of men being 
subject to some faults and infirmities, of which they stand 
obliged to repent: that our Lord may not here be thought 
to have supposed a case that never was, let it be observed, 
that the repentance of a sinner usually imports an entire 
change in the whole course or tenor of his life, from the ser- 
vice of sin to the service of God, from yielding obedience 
to it in the lustings of it, to “yielding our members instru- 
ments of righteousness unto holiness;” and this is the re- 
pentance of the sinner mentioned in the text; and in this 
sense it is manifest the righteous person, or new creature, 
needeth no repentance. (2.) There is a repentance, which 
consists in a godly sorrow, for the particular failings and in- 
firmities we may have committed through surprise, a sudden 
fear, a violent temptation, or a single deviation from the 
general course and tenor of our lives; such was that of 
David and St. Peter, and the humiliation of good Hezekiah 
« for the pride of his heart :” and in this sense it is not to be 
thought that in this state of imperfection and continual con- 
flict we have with the flesh, there should be any righteous 
person who needs no repentance. And this interpretatior 
I prefer before that of St. Ambrose, Hilary, and Chrysos- 


296 LU 


sence of the 3 angels of God over one sinner that 
repenteth. 


KE. 


11 ¥ And he said (also by way of parable to the same 
purpose), A 4 certain man had two sons: 


tom, who, by the ninety and nine sheep not lost, and the 
ninety-nine persons who need no repentance, understand 
the holy angels that fell not; by the lost sheep all mankind 
lost in Adam, whom to recover the Son of God became 
incarnate, and in the gracious work of our redemption, 
brought him home upon his shoulders; the joy in heaven 
for his returning is, say they, the joy of God, and of his 
holy angels for the recovery of lost mankind; in which 
sense the words are strictly true, the holy angels need no 
repentance, because they never fell from their obedience. 
And this interpretation was so generally approved in the 
church, that in Tertullian’s* time it was appealed to as 
a proof of it, that “in the bottom of their sacramental 
cups, Christ was engraven carrying the lost sheep upon 
his shoulders.” 

Thirdly, It is inquired with what reason it can be said, 
“There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repent- 
eth, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no re- 
pentance:” for is it not better not to offend, than to sin and 
repent? Is not innocence better than amendment? And if 
repentance be not better than righteousness, why is there 
more joy in heaven over the penitent than over the righte- 
ous? Yea, why over one penitent sinner, than over ninety- 
nine just persons ? 

Now to this some answer, according to the forementioned 
opinion of the ancients, that the lost sheep, returning prodi- 
gal, and the “one sinner that repenteth,” comprehend all 
mankind redeemed from a state of misery by Christ; now 
this may fitly be represented as matter of the greatest joy 
to God, and the whole court of blessed angels, they being 
represented as stooping down to look into this mystery, 1 
Pet. 1. 12, and learning from the church “the wisdom of 
God in it,’ Eph. iii. 10, and therefore, in this sense, do 
doubtless know and rejoice in our redemption. (2.) Others 
answer, that the sheep not lost, the ninety-nine righteous 
persons, and the elder son, who said he never had offended, 
represent the Jewish nation, and especially those scribes and 
pharisees, who trusted in their own righteousness, and de- 
spised others (see Matt. ix. 12): the lost sheep and return- 
ing prodigal represent the gentile world, which, by the 
preaching of the gospel, were to be converted to the 
Christian faith. Now, the church of the gentiles being more 
numerous than was that of the Jews, “the desolate having 
more children than she that had a husband,” her conversion 
may fitly be represented as a matter of the greatest joy. 

Against these expositions this visible objection may be 
made, that whereas the righteous are here represented as 
ninety-nine, the penitent as one single person, these expo- 
sitions make them equal to, if not more numerous than, the 
righteous. But to this it is answered, that in the parables 
of the gospel, it is usual to represent all of the same kind, 
though they be sometimes the greatest number, by one man. 
Thus, in the parable of the wedding-supper, the man that 
had not on his wedding-garment, represents, according to 
most interpreters, all wicked men, and in our Lord’s intention 
it importeth the whole race of unbelieving Jews, Matt. xxii. 
11; the slothful person, who hid his talent in a napkin, is 
represented as one man, Matt. xxv. 24, they who improved 
their talents as three persons; and yet who knows not but 
there are fewer that improve, than they who do receive 
the grace of God in vain? and all that came in at the 
Jast hour, and received their penny, that is, all the con- 
verted gentiles, are reckoned as one man in those words of 
Christ, “I will give ἐσχάτῳ τούτῳ, to this last man even as 
to thee” (Matt. xx. 14). 

But that which is principally to be considered for the full 
clearing of this difficulty is this, viz. that this passage of 
our Lord being spoken of God after the manner of men, is 
to be understood after the manner of men, or suitably to 
the nature of human passions, and the usual occasions of 
moving them. Now we are much affected with the obtain- 


regaining that which we have looked upon as almost lost and 
desperate, with the security of that which we looked upon 
as in imminent danger; at the first obtaiing what we pas- 
sionately desired, regaining what we looked upon as lost, 
securing what was in great danger, our joy is strong, and 
our delight transporting; and afterward it sensibly abates. 
So it is with us, that we are not so sensibly moved with the 
continuance of a good which we have long enjoyed, as at the 
first recovery of it, after it was lost; we may have still a 
real value for what we do possess, a settled pleasure and 
contentment in it, but the sudden joy and transport is at the 
recovery of it. Soa continued course of goodness may in 
itself be most valuable, and yet the recovery of a lost sin- 
ner, the reviving of one dead in trespasses and sins, the see- 
ing him snatched as a firebrand out of the fire, when he was 
ready to fall into it, may be the more affecting, and give us 
a more fresh and lively joy. Thus, v. g. it cannot but be 
comfortable to a loving father, to see his children in a state 
of perfect health; but if one of them fall sick, and beyond 
expectation of recovery, to see him out of danger minis- 
ters more present joy, than doth the constant health of all 
the rest. And this is the reason given in the parable of the 
prodigal son, why the kind father rejoiceth more at his re- 
turn, than at the continuance of his elder brother always 
with him; that it was the recovery of one given over for 
dead, the finding one looked upon as lost: “It is meet,” 
saith the father, “upon this occasion that we should make 
merry: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; 
was lost, and is found.’ Our Saviour, therefore, to encour- 
age the repentance of the sinner, represents God after the 
manner of men, as if he did conceive such a joy at it, as 
earthly parents are wont to do at the return of a wild extra- 
vagant child to himself and his duty. 

3 Ver. 10. Οὕτω λέγω ὑμῖν, χαρὰ γίνεται ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέ- 
λων, &e. Likewise, I say unto you, There is joy in the pre- 
sence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.] 
Hence most interpreters conclude, that the angels and 
blessed spirits are acquainted with the conversion of a sin- 
ner; and seeing true conversion is wrought in the heart, 
hence the Romanists infer, that they must have knowledge 
of that also. But, : 

First, Here is not one word of blessed spirits, but of 
angels only ; and whereas papists argue for an equality of 
knowledge in them to that of angels, because it is said “ they 
are as the angels of heaven,” Matt. xxii. 50, I answer, 
Christ doth not say they are equal to angels now, but at the 
resurrection they shall be so. Nor doth he say this abso- 
lutely, or as to the faculties of their souls, but as to their free- 
dom from secular actions and passions, and as to the state 
and condition of their bodies; for so the text runs, “They 
that are counted worthy of the resurrection neither marry 
nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more;” 
i.e. they are equal to the angels as to immortality, “and 
are the children of God, being the children of the resurrec- 
tion” (Luke xx. 35, 36). 

Secondly, This text affirms not, that the joy here men- 
tioned, is the joy of angels, but only that it is the joy of 
God, ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀγγέλων, before, or in the presence of the 
angels, which stand continually before his face. Now as an 
earthly king may rejoice before his court, and they know not 
the special motive of his joy, so may the King of heaven 
rejoice before the angels of his presence, and they know not 
the reason of that joy, and much less the particular con- 
vert that gave occasion to it. In a word, it is confessedly 
God, who is compared to the shepherd, seeking his lost 
sheep, and to the father rejoicing for the return of his prodi- 
gal son; and therefore the similitude requires, that the joy 
conceived when a lost sheep is found, or a prodigal son 
comes home, should be ascribed to him. 

Note also, That this consideration should inflame the zeal, 
and quicken the industry, of the spiritual shepherd for the 


ing what we have long and passionately desired, with the 


Ἕ Procedant ipse picture calicum vestrorum, si vel in illis 
perlucebit interpretatio. Dic mihi nonne omne hominum 
genus unius Dei grex est? De Pudic. cap. 7. 


conversion of sinners, as knowing this is a work so highly 
acceptable to the God of heaven, and that for which he sent 
the “great Shepherd of the sheep” into the world. 

4 Ver. 11. "άνϑρωπός τις εἶχε δύο υἱοὺς, A certain man had 
two sons.] Here observe, (1.) that the elder son in this 


CHAPTER XV. 


12 And the younger of them said to his father, Fa- 
ther, δ give me the portion of goods that falleth fo me. 
And he divided unto them Azs living (7. δ. gave him the 
portion allotted for the livelihood of his younger son). 

13 And not many days after the younger son ga- 
thered all (Ais estate) together, and took his journey 
into a far country, and there wasted his substance with 
riotous living. 

14 And a he had spent all, there arose a mighty 
famine in that land; and he began to be in want. 


15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of | 


that country (to become his servant); and he sent him 
into his fields to feed swine. 

16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the 
husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto 
hit. (enough to satisfy his hungry appetite). 

[ Now here the younger son represents the gentiles 
gone far off from God their Father, Eph. ii. 13, living 
in riot and drunkenness, 1 Pet. iv. 3, and committing 
whoredom with idols, against the light of their reason, 
Rom. i. 20, 21, labouring under a famine of the word, 
and employed in the vilest drudgery by sin and Satan, 
in which no satisfaction can be found.} 

17 And when he came to himself (¢. e. to consider 
his own miserable stale), he said, How many hired 


297 


servants of my father’s have bread enough and to 
spare, and 1 (am ready to) perish with hunger! 

18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say 
unto him, Father, I have sinned against (‘he God of) 
heaven, and before thee (by departing from thee), 

19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: 
make me as one of thy hired servants. (4nd this re- 
presents the case of a penitent sinner : considering his pre- 
sent misery, his vileness and unworthiness, humbly ac- 
knowledging his sin to God, resolving on amendment of 
life, and actually returning to God, as many of the gen- 
tiles did, when the gospel was preached to ges? 

20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when 
he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and 
had compassion (on him), and ran, and fell on his 
neck, and kissed him. 

21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sin- 
ned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more 
worthy to be called thy son. 

22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth 
the best robe, and put ἐΐ on him; and put a ring on 
his hand, and shoes on Ais feet (in token that Town him 
as my beloved son) : 

23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill zt; and 
let us eat, and be merry : 


parable representeth not the just or righteous; for they are 
not angry, either that sinners do return to God, or that he 
graciously entertains them when they do so, but rather are 
industrious to bring them home to him, and rejoice at their 
return: he rather represents the Jews murmuring, and being 
angry, that the gentiles, who before were, μακρὰν ἀπὸ τοῦ 
Θεοῦ, “ far off from God” (Eph. ii. 13), were by faith, with- 

* out circumcision, or obedience to their law, brought “ nigh to 
nim,” and made partakers of the same privileges God offered, 
or aflorded to them. The gentiles are represented as the 
younger son going into a far country, as being “far from 
God,” and squandering away their goods by riotous living, 
as depraving that knowledge they had of the true God, 
from tradition and his marvellous works, by gross idolatry, 
on which account the Jews represented them as born of 
harlots (see note on John viii. 41, as here, ver. 30), and 
serving them, “which, by nature, were no gods, by holding 
the truth in unrighteousness,” and giving up themselves to 
all uncleanness (Eph. iv. 19) ; yea, labouring under a famine 
of the word of God, and of his saving truth, and giving up 
themselves to the meanest services, such as that of keeping 
of hogs was deemed by the Jews and the Egyptians, who 
suffered not such to come into their temples, or sacred 
houses; they having now, through Christ, “access unto the 
Father,” being adorned with the wedding-garment of faith, 
and the robe of righteousness, fed with the banquet of 
the true paschal lamb, and admitted to wear their Fa- 
ther’s ring, as a testimony that they were now his genuine 
sons. 

Nor is it a sufficient objection against this, that the gen- 
tiles were never sons before, or, if ever they were so, they 
must be so before the Jews, and so the elder sons: for God 
is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the gentiles, he 
being the common Father of the world, and we being “ all 
his offspring ;” yea, they are called “the sons of God” be- 
fore the flood, Gen. vi. 2, and were so afterward before the 
name of Jew was known. And the Jews here represent the 
elder son, because they being afterward abdicated for their 
idolatry, God gave to the Jews the primogeniture, and styled 
them his sons, and his « first-born” (Exod. iv. 22, 23), and 
accordingly bestowed upon them the privileges of the first- 
born, choosing them “ above all nations” of the world. 

If it be again objected, that this elder son saith, ver. 29, 
“These many years have I served thee, and never trans- 
gressed I at any time thy commandments,” which could not 
be true of the Jews; I answer, neither could they say, God 
“never gave them a kid,” or treated them with the like 
kindness, the gospel being first preached to them; this 
therefore only signifies their high conceit of themselves, that. 
they were righteous. And so much for the chief import of 

Vox, IV.—38 


the parable. Τὸ touch a little on some other circumstances 
of it, 

First, From those words, “He went into a far country, 
and spent all his substance,” Theophylact notes, that he 
who estrangeth himself from God, loseth all those seeds of 
virtue and goodness, which either nature or revelation hath 
implanted in him. 

Secondly, From his being put to “feed swine ;” observe, 
to what vile and sordid employments they are put, who 
serve sin and Satan. 

Thirdly, From these words, “He would have filled his 
belly with husks, but could not;” observe, that there can be 
no satisfaction to any man who wants the favour of God. 

Fourthly, From those words, “ When he came to him- 
self; observe, that he who lives a sinful life is beside him- 
self: for, being a rational creature, and having a judgment 
and conscience to direct his actions, he acts against his rea- 
son, his judgment, and his conscience. 

Fifthly, From those words, “ He arose, and went,” ver. 
20, Theophylact notes, that it is not sufficient to make good 
resolutions, saying, “I will go” (ver. 18), but we must prac- 
tise suitably. 

Sixthly, From those words, ver. 20, “His father seeing 
him, ran to him;” observe, that when God sees men truly 
willing to return unto him, he is still ready to receive them, 
and even prevent them with his grace. 

Seventhly, From those words, ver. 24, “ This my son was 
dead ;”” observe, that wicked men are dead in the worst 
sense: for, as Philo saith, “he that lives a sensual life, 
τέϑνηκε τὸν εὐδαίμονα, is dead as to a happy life.” 

Eighthly, From those words, “Father, I have sinned,” 
ver. 21, spoken after the kindness of his father; note, that 
after sin is pardoned, it becomes the sinner ingenuously to 
acknowledge and confess it. 

Ninthly, As for the phrase, “I have sinned against hea- 
ven and against thee,” it is a Jewish phrase, shamaim, as 
Buxtorf says,* being frequently used to signify God. Ac- 
cordingly they say, there is one who sins against earth (i. e. 
man), but not against heaven (i. 6. God) ; and there is one 
that sins against heaven, but not against earth; but he who 
speaketh with an evil tongue, sins against heaven and earth. 
Though Theophylact here saith, he had sinned against hea- 
ven by preferring earthly things before heavenly. 

5 Ver. 12. Ads pot ro ἐπιβάλλον μέρος τῆς οὐσίας, Give me 
the portion of goods that falleth to me.) So Demosthenest 
uses τὸ ἐπιβάλλον ἡμῖν μέρος, for the portion allowed to us: 
and Aristides, τὸ ἐπιϑάλλον ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς pépos, for the portion 
that belongs to you (De Concord. ad Rhodios). 


* Lex. Talm. p. 2440. ἡ Περὶ Στεῴ. 


298 


LUKE. 


24 For this my son was dead (ἐπ stn), and is alive | gavest me a kid, that I] might make merry with my 


again; he was lost, and is found. And they began 
to be merry. (And this ts a lively representation of God’s 
great love and mercy to sinners returning to him; forgel- 
ting all their former provocations, and treating them, as 
soon as they began to break off their sins by repentance, 
and to turn to him, with a most fatherly affection, and 
with expressions of the greatest joy.) 

25 Now his elder son was in the field (following 
his father’s business): and as he came and drew nigh 
to the house (of his father), he heard musick, and 
dancing. 

26 And he called one of the servants, and asked 
(him) what these things meant (7. 6. what was the 
cause of all this mirth). 

27 And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; 
and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he 
hath received him safe and sound. 

28 And he was angry (at the kindness showed by his 
father to his younger brother), and would not go in (to 
the house) : therefore came his father out, and intreated 
him. 

29 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these 
many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed [I 
at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never 


friends : 

30 But as soon as this thy son was come (hack to 
thee), which hath devoured thy living with harlots 
(committing spiritual whoredom), thou hast killed for 
him the fatted calf. 

31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with 
me, and all that I have is thine (in the first place the 
blessing of the Messiah being first promised to the Jews, 
and from them derived to others ; see treatise on the Mil- 
lennium, chap. 2, sect. 2). 

32 It was meet that we should make merry, and be 
glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; 
and (he) was (as the) lost (sheep and piece of money), 
and is found (by the great Shepherd of souls). 

[Now this elder brother is a true emblem of the 
Jews, and especially of the scribes and pharisees, 
murmuring at God’s kindness to the sinners of the 
gentiles, in admitting them after so long idolatry to 
the blessings of the gospel, and to equal privileges with 
them, without circumcision, and obedience to that law 
of Moses, under which they had still lived; and re- 
fusing to enter into the kingdom of God, and come 
into the faith, by reason of the kindness God thus 
showed to the gentiles. See note on Rom. xi. 28.] 


CHAPTER XVI. 


1 Anp he said also unto his ! disciples, There was 
a certain 2 rich man, which had a steward; and the 
same was accused unto him (ἐΐ being said) that he 
had wasted his goods. 

2 And he called him, and said unto him, How is it 
(thou hast dealt with me) that I hear this of thee? give 
(up) an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest 
be no longer ( permitted to be) steward. 

3 Then the steward said within himself, What shall 
1 do (to live)? for my lord taketh away from me the 
stewardship: I cannot dig (for a@ livelihood) ; to beg 
(for it) I am ashamed. 

4 I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put 
out of the stewardship, they (whom I befriend) may 
receive me into their houses. 

5 So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto 
him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou 
unto my lord? 

6 And he said, An hundred measures of oil (7. 6. 


about a thousand gallons). And he said unto him, Take | 


thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. 


7 Then said he to another, And how much owest | 


thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. 
And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write four- 
score (and likewise he said to the rest). 

8 And the lord 5. commended the unjust steward, 
because he had done wisely (7. e. he represented him as 
one that acted according to the wisdom of this world ; 
and was so far worthy to be imitated by the children of 
light, as to make this their chief care, when, by death, 
they are removed from their stewardship, that they may be 
received into everlasting habitations): for the children of 
this world are in their generation wiser than the child- 
ren of light (more provident and dexterous to provide for 
this life, than they are to provide for eternity). 

9 And I (dikewise) say unto you, ὁ Make to your- 
selves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness (7. e. 
make such provisions for yourselves of those riches, which 
the men of this world get by falsehood and injustice) ; 


| that, when ye fail, they may receive you (7. e. that, 


when you die, ye may be received) into everlasting ha- 
bitations. 

10 He that is faithful in that which is least (ἢ. 6. 
tn the enjoyments of this world, so as to employ them in 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἔλεγε δὲ καὶ πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς αὑτοῦ, And he said 


also to his disciples.) i. 6. Not only to the twelve, but to those | 


who followed him, attending on his doctrine, as did the pub- 
licans and sinners (xv. 1). 

3 ᾿Ανθρωπός τις ἦν πλούσιος, ὃς εἶχεν οἰκονόμον, &c. There was 
α rich man who had a steward, and he was accused to him 
as wasting his goods.) Kimchi on Isaiah xl. saith, «The 
fruits of the earth are like a table spread in a house; the 
owner of this house is God; man in this world is, as it were, 
the steward of the house, into whose hands his Lord had 
delivered all his riches; if he behave himself well, he will 
find favour in the eyes of his Lord; if ill, he will remove 
him from his stewardship.” And so the scope of this para- 
ble seems to be this, That we are to look upon ourselves, 
not as lords of the good things of this life, so as to get and 
use them at our pleasure, but only as stewards, who must 
be faithful in the administration of them. 

3 Ver. 8. Kai ἐπήνεσεν ὃ Κύριος τὸν οἰκονόμον τῆς ἀδικίας, ὅτι 
φρονίμως ἐποίησεν, And the lord commended the unjust stew- 
ard, that he had done wisely.) i. e. Discreetly, according to 


the wisdom of the men of this world, whose concern is only 
for the good things of this life; he commended him as we 
do such persors, when we say, Such a one is a shrewd man 
for the world, he understands well the way of dealing in it: 
he commends him not absolutely, as a fit example to be fol- 
lowed in this injustice, fraud, and wasting of his master’s 
goods, but comparatively, as being worthy to be so far imi- 
tated by the children of light, as to make this their chief 
concern, that when by death they are removed from their 
stewardship, “they may be received into everlasting habita- 
tions,’ or into “a house not made with hands, eternal in 
the heavens” (2 Cor. v. 1): this being an instruction need- 
ful for them, because “the children of this world are wiser” 
in their care to make provisions for themselves, “than are 
the children of light;” i. 6. they who enjoy the light of the 
gospel, to make provisions εἰς γενεὰν ἑαυτῶν, “ for their age,” 
to secure the true riches and the celestial habitations pre- 
pared for them. 

4 Ver. 9. Κἀγὼ ὑμῖν λέγω, ποιήσατε ἑαυτοῖς φίλους ἐκ τοῦ 
μαμωνᾶ τῆς ἀδικίας, I say therefore unto you, Make to your- 
selves friends of the mammon of unrighteouness.| That 
“the mammon of unrighteousness” is the false mammon, 


CHAPTER XVI. 


works of charily, and to the ends for which he is in- 
trusted with them) is faithful also in much (7. e. he 
will be so in the great concernments of another ws) : and 
(likewise) he that is unjust in the least is unjust also 
in much. 

11 If therefore ye have not been faithful (stewards) 
in eerie) the unrighteous mammon (or, the false 
and deceitful riches of this world, to the uses for which 
they were given you), who will (ἐξ is not to be expected 
God should) commit to your trust the true riches? 

12 And if ye have not been faithfal in that which 
is (to be) © another man’s, who shall give you that 
which is your own? (i. ὁ. that inheritance which shall 
never pass from you to others. 

13 4 And there is great reason to caution you against 
that affection to the world which obstructs your love to 
God ; for) ὃ No servant can serve two masters: for 
either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else 
he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye 
cannot (then) serve God and mammon (also). 

14 And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, 


299 
heard all these things: and they derided him (looking 


on this as a ridiculous doctrine). 

15 And (but) he said unto them, Ye are they which 
justify yourselves before men (7. δ. seek to approve 
yourselves to, and expect to be owned by, them as righteous 
persons); but God knoweth (the falsehood of) your 
hearts: for that (fair outstde) which is highly esteem- 
ed among men (who see no farther) is (an) abomination 
in the sight of God (who seeth the filth and hypocrisy of 
your hearts. 

16 Nor is it to be wondered that you hear these 
higher precepts of charity from me and John; for)The 
7 law and the prophets (which engaged you to do your 
duly, chiefly by temporal promises) were until John: 
since that time the kingdom of God (which promises 
treasures in heaven) is preached, and every man (‘hat 
enters into that kingdom) presseth into it (7. e. forces 
his way into it, by breaking through the love of temporal 
concerns). 

17 And (this I say not to depreciate the law, which 
as to its moral precepls shall obtain for ever; for) it 


according to the common import of the word ἀδικία, for false- 
hood, {of which see Jer. xxvii. 15, 29.31, and the note on 1 
Cor. xiii. 6] may be gathered from the “true riches” op- 
posed to it, ver. 11. But then it remains to be inquired, 
whether it be called here the mammon ddéduéas, or “ false 
mammon,”’ because it deceives them who trust to, and seek 
for, satisfaction from it, and comparatively to the “true 
riches;” or else as the unjust steward is styled οἰκονόμος 
ἀδικίας, unjust, because he betrayed his trust, and dealt 
falsely with his master; to which sense the preceding verse 
and the parable seem plainly to direct, and the use of the 
phrase mammon dishekar, in the Targumists, doth constrain 
us to interpret it, as being usually put for gain gotten by un- 
faithfulness to our trust, or falseness in the discharge of our 
office. So of the sons of Eliit is said, that they had respect 
to mammon dishekar, “the mammon of falsehood,” 1 Sam. 
viii. 3, and xii. 3, Samuel inquires, From whose hand have 
1 received mammon dishekar ? and, 2 Sam. xiv. 14, A just 
judge will not receive mammon dishekar : so Prov. xv. 27, 
He destroys his house who heaps up to himself “ the mam- 
mon of falsehood : see to the same sense, Isa. v. 23, xxxv. 
15, Ezek. xxii. 27, Hos. v. 11, Amos νυ. 12, But then, 
whereas it is hence inferred, that our Lord here speaks of 
making restitution of such goods, and spending some of the 
remainder in acts of charity ; which, when Zaccheus had re- 
solved to perform, Christ saith, «This day is salvation come 
to this house” (xix. 9); though this be a good sense, and fit 
to be preached to those publicans and sinners who came to 
attend upon his doctrine, yet it is not necessary ; for Christ’s 
intendment may be only this, to advise his followers to be 
so far from getting wealth by such unfaithfulness and false- 
hood as the men of the world do, as rather to expend what 
providence hath entrusted them with, in acts of charity and 
mercy, that so they may lay up for themselves treasures in 
the heavens, or be received into heaven when they die: for 
ἐκλείπειν bears this sense in scripture. So Gen. xxv. 8, éx- 
λείπων ἀπέϑανεν ᾿Α βραὰμ, “ Abraham gave up the ghost and 
died ;” Jer. ΧΙ, 17, ἐκλείψουσι ἐν τῇ ῥομφαίᾳ, “They shall 
die by the sword:” and ver. 22, ἐν λιμῷ εκλείψετε, “Ye 
shall die by the pestilence ;” Wisd. v..13, οὕτως καὶ ἡμεῖς 
γενηϑέντες ἐξελίπομεν, “So we are born to die” (see Gen. 
Xxxv. 29, xlix. 33, Job xiii. 19, Ps. ciii. 10, Isa. xxxviii. 12, 
Jer. ix. 10, xliv. 12. 18. 27, Lam. i. 20, Zeph. i. 2, 3, Ps. 
Ixxiii. 19, Ixxxix. 7. 9, ci. 4). δέξωνται ὑμᾶς, “ they may re- 
ceive you,” is impersonally put for “you may be received :” 
so Luke vi. 38, “Give, and δώσουσιν, it shall be given into 
your bosoms;” xii. 20, τὴν Ψυχῆν cov ἁπαιτοῦσιν, ““ Thy 
soul shall be required.” 

§ Ver. 12. Kai εἰ ἐν τῷ ἀλλοτρίῳ πιστοὶ οὐκ γένεσθε, τὸ ὑμέ- 
τερόν τις ὑμῖν δώσει, And if you have not been faithful in 
that which is another's, who will give you that which is your 
own?}| The eleventh verse seems to bear this sense: If 
you have not been faithful in those temporal concerns, 
which minister temptations to unrighteousness, but have 
either sought to obtain them by fraud and unfaithful deal- 


“No man can serve two masters, 


ings, when they have been committed to your trust, or by 
«withholding more than is right,” or that which the great 
Lord of them required you to expend upon his needy ser- 
vants, how can you reasonably expect the true riches, which 
are only promised to the upright and charitable person ? 
And again: If you have been thus unfaithful in those things 
which you cannot properly call your own; because they 
may, by various accidents, be devolved on, and must at last 
be left to others, what reason have you to expect that which 
is your own, as being the inheritance of the children of light, 
and that which they are to enjoy for ever? where the con- 
cerns of this world are styled ἀλλύτρια, “ things which belong 
not to us;” because we have no assurance of the enjoyment 
of them, and know that we must leave them to others ; and 
this is said agreeably to the philosophy of the heathens: 
thus in Arrian the dying man is said τὰ ἀλλύτρια ἀποδιδόναι, 
“to render up that which belongs to others,” lib. i. cap. 1, 
and every one is bid, τὰ ἴδια τηρεῖν, τῶν ἀλλοτρίων μὴ ἂντι- 
ποιεῖσϑαι, “to keep that which is in his power, and not de- 
sire external things,” lib. ii. cap. 16, p. 215; and lib. iii. cap. 
24, we are taught that “the things we may be hindered of, 
or which may be taken from us, are ra αλλότρια ; and so,” 
saith he, “ are all those things which we must leave to others, 
or restore them to God that gave them,” lib. iv. cap. 5: so 
Hermas, lib. iii. sim. 1, τί εἰς τὴν ἀλλοτρίαν ἑτοιμάζομεν ἀγροὺς, 
οἰκοδομὰς ; “ Why do we, who know the city in which we are 
to dwell, prepare for ourselves fields, houses, &c., in another 
city ? this being a sign that we expect not to return to our 
own city, to the Jerusalem above ;” which is here styled by 
St. Luke “our own,” by Hermas ἡ πόλις ἡμῶν, because pre- 
pared for and promised to us Christians; here we are only 
travellers, there is our city (Phil. ili. 20) ; here we are only 
dispensers, there heirs ; here we enjoy things for a season, 
there for ever. 

6 Ver. 13. ᾿Οὐδεὶς οἰκέτης δύναται δύσι κυρίοις δουλεύειν, Se. 
ye cannot serve God 
and mammon.| The coherence of these words seems to 
lie thus: I have just reason to caution you thus against 
that affection to the world, which obstructs your charity, 
and tempts you by fraud and falsehood to acquire it; 
because it will not permit you to love God truly, or to be 
faithful servants to him; and whereas you covetous pha- 
risees deride me for this doctrine (ver. 14), as thinking 
yourselves highly favoured of God for other things, viz. your 
long prayers, your washings, your exactness in paying tithes, 
your niceness in observing your vain traditions, and your se- 
paration from the men of the world, know, that however 
you may think well of yourselves upon these accounts and 
highly be esteemed of others, whilst ye continue covetous 
and “ full of rapine and uncleanness” (Matt. xxiii. 25), hy- 
pocrisy and injustice (ver. 27), ye are abominable in the 
sight of God. 

7 Ver. 16—18. 'Ο νόμος καὶ of προφῆται ἕως Ἰωάννου, το. 
The law and the prophets were until John : since that time 
the kingdom of God is preached, and every one presseth 


900 


is easier for heaven and earth to pass (away), than 
(for) one tittle of the law to fail. (See Matt. v. 18.) 

18 (And, to give you another instance of the sublimer 
precepts of the gospel, the law permits divorces, but under 
the gospel dispensation) Whosoever putteth away his 
wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery 
(against her): and whosoever marrieth her that is put 
away from fer husband committeth adultery (as coha- 
biting with another man’s wife. 

19 7 And, to show them the mischief of riches not 
charitably employed, he told them, by way of parable,) 
8 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed 
τι purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every 

ay: 

20 And there was a certain begoar named Lazarus 
(i. e. one without help), which was laid at his gate, full 
of sores, 

21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which 


LUKE. 


fell from the rich man’s table (but was denied them): 
moreover the dogs (being more compassionate than the 
rich man’s servants) came and licked his sores. 

22 And it came to pass, that the ὃ beggar died, and 
was carried by the angels (who are ministering spirits 
to good men) into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also 
died, and was buried: 

23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in tor- 
ments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in 
his bosom. 

24 And he [0 cried and said, Father Abraham, have 
mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the 
tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I 
am tormented in this flame. 

25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in 
thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise 
Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and 
thou art tormented. 


into it.| Here the coherence seems to run thus: It is not 
to be wondered that you now hear, from John and me, 
higher precepts of charity, and contempt of the world, than 
you find in the law or prophets, who moved you to your 
duty by the promises of temporal blessings in the land of 
Canaan; since now the kingdom of heaven is preached, and 
every one that enters into it, forces his way by breaking 
through the love of temporal concerns and sensual pleasures : 
for, to give you another instance of like nature, whereas the 
law admitted of divorces at the pleasure of the husband, by 
reason of “the hardness of your hearts,” the gospel forbids 
this now on any other score than that of fornication, which 
from the nature of the sin dissolves the marriage; yet, that 
you may not cavil at me as a dissolver of the law, I declare 
that all the moral precepts of it shall obtain, and be of per- 
petual obligation under the gospel dispensation. 

8 Ver. 19. ΓΑνθρωπος πλούσιος ἦν, There was a rich man, 
&c.] That this is only a parable, and not a real history of 
what was actually done, is evident, (1.) because we find this 
very parable in the Gemara Babylonicum, whence it is cited 
by Mr. Sheringham, in the preface to his Joma. (2.) From 
the circumstances of it, viz. the rich man’s lifting up his eyes 
in hell, and seeing Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, his dis- 
course with Abraham, his complaint of being tormented with 
flames, and his desire that Lazarus might be sent to cool his 
tongue; and if all this be confessedly parable, why should 
the rest, which is the very parable in the Gemara, be ac- 
counted history? As for the judgment of antiquity in this 
case, they who owned this as a history, owned the whole so 
to be, thinking the soul to be corporeal, as Tertullian did, 
and that there was διαφορὰ κατὰ τὰς μορφὰς, “some discre- 
tion, or resemblance of men as to their shapes after death,” 
which was the sentiment of Ireneus,* proving from this very 
instance, that souls, when they have put off the body,” do 
yet characterem corporum custodire, preserve the shape or 
character of the body”’ to which they were united, as Tertul- 
lian} before from the same instance had inferred, effigiem 
anime, et corporales lineas, “the shape and corporeal linea- 
ments,” and also corporalitatem anime. Much as Thespe- 
sius¢ returning to life represents ra τῶν ψυχῶν χρώματα, 
“the colours of souls,” and saith that there be οὔλαι καὶ 
μώλωπες ἐπὶ τῶν παθῶν ἑκάστου, “ulcers and scars of their 
passions left upon them by which they are discerned ;” 
whereas they who renounced these opinions, as false and ri- 
diculous, declared that this was not a history, but only a re- 
presentation,§ “That after the separation of the soul from 
the body, she could receive no advantage from any man, 


* Lib. iii, cap. 62 

+ Plutarch. de his qui sero, p. 565. 

§ Παραθολὴ καὶ τοῦτο, ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ὥς τις ἀνοήτως ἂν otn, εἶεν πρᾶγμά 
ἐστιν ἤδη γεγονός. Theoph. Ἔστι δὲ τὸ περὶ τοῦ Λαζάρου καὶ 
τοῦ πλουσίου διήγημα ὑποτύπωσις λόγου διδασκαλίαν ἔχοντος τοῦ μὴ 
δύνασθαι μετὰ τὴν ἐκ τοῦ σώματος ἔξοδον τῆς Wuxiis κατὰ προνοίάν 
τινα ἢ σπουδὴν ὠφελείας τινὸς τυχεῖν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους. Pseudo-Just. 
4. 69, Οὔτε γὰρ πρὸ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῶν ἕκαστᾳ βεβιωμένων dvra- 
πόδοσις γινεται. Ibid. Theoph. ibid. Vide Suicerum in voce 
“Λάζαρος. 


{ L.de An. cap. 7, 9. 


and that it was foolish to think it a history ;” and this they 
also gather, because there was to be no future retribution 
before the general resurrection. And whereas against this it 
is objected, that the proper name Lazarus shows it to be a 
history ; it is answered, that the name Lazer, being only the 
contraction of Eliezer, is the same with Ani Achad, “a poor 
man” in the Gemara, as being in sense ἀβόηϑος, “ one that 
hath no help,” or one who hath God only for his help. 
Note, 

Secondly, That though this parable contains something 
suitable to the opinion of the Jews touching the state of 
souls after death, yet doth it not respect their state immedi- 
ately after death, but the punishments that wicked men are 
to suffer after the resurrection of the dead, or ἐν ἐσχάτῃ 
ἡμέρα, “at the last day,” saith Theophylact. For, as Cicero 
says of the fables, by which the poets represent the punish- 
ments of evil souls, that, corpora cremata cum scirent, tamen 
ea fieri apud inferos fingebant, que sine corporibus nec fieri 
possint, nec intelligi, “ though they know their bodies have 
been burnt, yet they do represent them suffering such things 
in the infernal regions which neither can be done or suffered, 
or even understood to be so without bodies :” so it is plainly 
here in the forementioned instances produced to prove this 
a parable. 

9 Ver. 22. ᾿Εγένετο δὲ ἀποθανεῖν τὸν πτωχὸν, &e. And it 
came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the 
angels into Abraham’s Bosom.) Here are two things said 
agreeably to the tradition of the Jews touching good men, 
which was, (1.) That their souls were in the garden of Eden, 
in Paradise, or in Abraham’s bosom; thus of R. Judah, 
when he died, they say, “ This day he sitsin Abraham’s bo- 
som” (see Lightfoot on the place) ; and Josephus* saith of 
good men, that they are gathered εἰς πατέρων χώραν, “to the 
region of the patriarchs,” and that Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, do παραδέχεσθαι, “receive their souls.” (2.) That 
they are carried thither by good angels; so the Targum on 
Cant. iv. 12, saith, « No man hath power to enter into the 
garden of Eden, but the just, whose souls are carried thither 
by the hand of angels” (see Cartw. on Luke ii. 29, p. 2994). 
They add, that, when evil men die, “the evil angels come 
and say, There is no peace to the wicked :” so Dr. Light- 
foot here; and in like manner Socratest in Pheed. saith, 
λέγεται, “It is reported that as soon as any man dies, every 
one’s demon, whom he chose to himself whilst he lived, 
brings him to a certain place where all are to be judged, 
and then he goes to hades, μετὰ ἡγεμόνος ἐκείνου ᾧ mporéraxrat 
τοὺς ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε πορεύεσϑαι, with the governor to whom it 
was appointed to bring them that depart hence to those 
places.” 

10 Ver. 24. Kai αὐτὸς φωνήσας εἶπε, πάτερ ᾿Αβραὰμ ἐλέησόν 
με, And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy 
on me.] As the Baptist taxeth their vain imaginations in 
hoping to be preserved from divine judgments whilst they 
lived, because they were “the children of Abraham ;” so 
our Lord here may perhaps strike at a like imagination got 
among them, that hell-fire had no power over the sinners of, 


+ P. 80, B. 


* De Maccab. p. 1097, 1102. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


26 And beside all this, 1 between us and you 
there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would 
pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they 
pass to us, that wou/d come from thence (ἡ. 6. good 
men have all their evils, and bad men all their good 
things in this life; and hereafter the happiness of 
ΗΝ one, and the misery of the other, will be unchange- 
able). 

τὰ Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that 
thou wouldest send him to my father’s house : 

28 For I have five brethren; (and am desirous) that 
he may testify unto them (the happiness of the blessed 
and the misery of the wicked), lest they also come into 
this place of torment. 


301 


29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and 
the prophets ((o testify to them these things); let them 
hear (and obey) them. 

30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham (they prevail- 
ed not with me, and therefore may not do so with them) : 
but if one went unto them from the dead, (7 suppose) 
they will repent. 

31 And he said (again) unto him, If they 15 hear 
(i. δ. obey) not Moses and the prophets, neither will 
they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead (to 
preach repentance to them; for he could come with no 
greater authority, deliver no better motives to repentance, 
and he could give them no greater assurance of the truth 
of what he said than they did). 


Israel, because Abraham and Isaac come down thither to 
fetch them hence (see the note on Rom. ii. 13); declaring, 
even from the mouth of Abraham, that no help was by 
them to be expected from him, when they were in that 
lace. 

3 I Ver. 26. ᾿Μεγαξὺ ἡμῶν καὶ ὑμῶν χάσμα μέγα ἐστήρικται, Be- 
twixt us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that none 
can pass to us from thence.| 'The words seem plainly to re- 
fute the opinion of Origen, that there would come a time 
-when the punishments of the wicked would have an end, 
and they should at last live with God and his saints. 

2 Ver. 31. Ei Μωσέως καὶ τῶν προφητῶν οὐκ ἀκούουσιν, &e. 
If they hear not Moses nor the prophets, they would not be 
persuaded though one rose from the dead.) “If they hear 
not,” i. 6. obey not, “ Moses and the prophets,” whom they 
own to be persons sent from God, and delivering his mes- 
sage, one rising from the dead would not persuade them to 
break off their iniquities ; for he could come with no greater 
authority than they did, he could deliver no other message 
to the sinner than they had done, that if they turned not 
from their evil ways they should die, and be obnoxious to 
eternal shame and misery (Dan. xii. 2) ; he could give them 
no more assurance of the truth of what he said, than did the 
word of that God who cannot lie; no reason therefore could 
be conceived why they should hearken to one risen from 


the dead, and calling them to repentance, rather than to, 
those prophets whom they acknowledged to be sent from 
God. And of this we have a clear instance in the resurrec- 
tion of our Lord from the dead; for of this they had the 
testimony of our Lord’s predictions, of their own prophets, 
of the guards that kept the sepulchre, of their own senses, 
of the apostles, and five hundred witnesses, and all this con- 
firmed by the miraculous effusions of the Holy Ghost on 
those that believed on him, and a continual throng of mira- 
cles wrought in his name; and yet all this was insufficient 
to reclaim that wicked generation from their infidelity, and 
to provoke them to repentance. ὙΠῸ practical observations 
made from this parable are, 

First, That this rich man is not accused of getting riches 
by injustice, but only of faring deliciously and luxuriously, 
with the neglect of others oppressed with misery and want 
before his eyes. How then will many Christians escape the 
same place of torments, who indulge in the same luxury and 
carnal pleasures, and are as little touched with an affectionate 
sense of the wants and miseries of others ? 

Secondly, That they who have their good things in this 
life, i. e. that which they chiefly valued, pursued, and de- 
lighted in whilst they lived here, are to expect no comfort, 
nothing but evil, after death. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


1 TueEn said he unto his disciples, It is impossible 
(through the unrestrained wickedness of men) but that 
offences will come (i. 6. things will be said and done 
which will hinder some from embracing, and cause others 
to fall off from the faith): but woe unto him, through 
whom they come ! 

2 It were better for him that a millstone were hang- 
ed about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that 
he should (¢hus) offend one of these little ones (that 
believe in me). 

3 4 Take heed (therefore) to yourselves (that ye be 
not guilty of any degree of this offence: and therefore) if 
thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if 
(upon this reproof) he repent, forgive him. 

4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a 
day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, say- 
ing, I repent (of what I have done against thee); thou 
shalt (as oft) forgive him. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII. 


1 Ver. 5. Πρύσϑες ἡμῖν πίστιν, Increase our faith.] In the 
beginning of this chapter, our Lord requires his apostles to 
be careful, that they do not offend one of his little ones ; 
secondly, to be so charitable to their offending brother, as to 
rebuke him for his sins; and, thirdly, to pardon their 
ofiending brother, though he should daily multiply his pro- 
vocations, provided that he only say unto them, “I repent” 
(ver. 4). Now these three duties of an inoffensive conversa- 
tion, fraternal correction, and full forgiveness of a brother 


5 And the apostles said unto the Lord, ! Increase 
our faith (that so we may be enabled to perform those 
duties contrary to flesh and blood, or that we may more 
successfully minister to the welfare of souls without of- 

ence). 

é 6 Aid the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of 
mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, 
Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted 
in the sea; and it should obey you (¢. e. the least sin- 
cere and active faith would enable you to do the most diffi- 
cult things in order to the promotion of the Christian faith). 

7 But (then) which of you, having a servant plowing 
or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when 
he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? 

8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready 
wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, 
till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou 
shalt eat and drink ? 


daily multiplying fresh indignities and provocations, being 
so difficult, and contrary to their natural inclinations, and 
faith being the foundation of all Christian virtues, the apos- 
tles, in order to the performance of these duties, beg the in- 
crease of faith. Moreover, seeing faith is wrought in the 
heart, which God alone can search, and can immediately 
work upon, by thus repairing to Christ to increase their 
faith, they must ascribe to him, as Woltzogenius here con- 
fesseth, a divine virtue, which being proper to the Deity, 
and incommunicable to a finite nature, must consequently 
show that Christ had in him a divine nature. 
2A 


802 


9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the 
things that were commanded him? I trow not. 

10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done ? all 
those things which are commanded you, say, We are 
unprofitable servants : we have (on/y) done that which 
was our duty to do (7. 6. whereas the performance of the 
greatest things, which I your Master do require, may seem 
to you a very eminent prece of service, know that in obey- 
ing all my precepts, you only do the office of good and 
faithful servants, obeying the commands of your great 
Master, as ye ought to do, and so must look on the reward 
promised, not of debt but of grace). 

11 4 And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, 
that he passed through the 3 midst (or confines) of Sa- 
maria and Galilee. 

12 And as he entered into a certain village, there 
met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar 
off: 
13 And they lifted up thezr voices, and said, Jesus, 
Master, have mercy on us (and heal us). 

14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, 4 Go 
shew yourselves unto the priests (as when a cure is 
wrought the lepers are to do by the law, Lev. xiv. 2). 
And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were 
cleansed. 

15 And one of them, when he saw that he was 


LUKE. 


healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified 
(or praised) God, ἢ 

16 And fell down on his face αἱ his (7. e. Chrisi’s) 
feet, giving him thanks: and he (who did this) was a 
Samaritan. 

17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten 
cleansed? (doubtless there were:) but where are the 
(remaining) nine (of them) 2 

18 There are not found (any of them) that returned 
to give glory to God, save this stranger. 

19 And he. said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy 
faith hath made thee whole. 

20 4 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, 
when the kingdom of God should come, he answered 
them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with 
5 observation (¢. 6. with outward pomp and splendour, 
visible in earthly kingdoms) : 

21 Neither shall they (have need to) say (of it), Lo 
here! or, lo there (zt is)! for, behold, the kingdom of 
God is δ within (already among) you. 

22 And he said unto his disciples (or followers), The 
days will come, when ye (of this nation) shall desire to 
see 7 one of the days of the Son of man (the Messiah 
coming to deliver Israel, iv. 21), and ye shall not see 
(one of them) it. 

23 And (when) they shall say to you, See here; or 


2 Ver. 10. Οὕτω καὶ ὑμεῖς, ὅταν ποιήσητε πάντα τὰ διαταχθέντα 
ὑμῖν, λέγετε, ὅτι δοῦλοι ἀχρεῖοί ἐσμεν, Ke. So likewise you, 
when you have done all things that are commanded you, 
say, that we are unprofitable servants, for we have done that 
(only) which it was owr duty to do.) Here Christ destroys 
two doctrines of the schools, the merit of good works, and 
works of supererogation. For (1.) we being in respect of 
God unprofitable servants, (* for can a man be profitable to 
God, as he that is wise may be profitable to himself? is it 
any advantage to him that we are righteous, or is it gain to 
him that we make our ways perfect?” Job xxii. 2,3. “If thou 
be righteous, what givest thou him, or what receiveth he at 
thy hands?” xxxv. 7, seeing thy goodness reacheth not him, 
Ps. xvi. 2) sure we cannot merit from him by doing that 
which is unprofitable to him: (2.) because we only can do 
that, which it is our duty to perform; for (1.) we are all 
God’s servants : now it being the duty of a servant to do all 
his master’s pleasure, and what he had declared to be grate- 
ful to him, and this being only ministerium servi, “ the pro- 
per business of a servant,” which he lies under a necessity 
of doing, that he may please the lord, even reason shows he 
cannot put it to account to his superior, or be supposed to 
merit by it, as Seneca* grants; and that it may not be said 
that this is the condition only of slaves, and not of servants 
in the general, which we all are to God and Christ (1 Cor. 
vii. 22, Rom. xiv. 4, Col. iii. 24, Eph. vi. 9), it is to be 
observed from these words, οὕτω καὶ ὑμεῖς, “so also ye,” that 
Christ speaks this to his disciples, who are not to be reckoned 
as his slaves, but servants, whose duty it was to have “ their 
loins girt, and their lamps burning,” upon that account 
(Luke xii. 35, 36) ; who therefore doing all that he required, 
were still “ unprofitable servants,” in the sense forementioned, 
and did only what they ought. Christ therefore here seems 
to speak to them thus, It is the duty of servants after they 
have done their work in the field, to minister to their lord as 
he shall require, and when they have done what he requires, 
they for that service merit not so much as thanks, because 
they only do their duty ; if then I treat you more liberally, 
rather as friends than servants; if I condescend to minister 
to you (Luke xii. 37), and place you over all that I have 
(ver. 44), you are not to imagine that I am indebted to you, 
or owe you such favours, but rather are to acknowledge, when 
you have done all, that you are still unprofitable servants, 
and only have performed your duty (see here Examen 
Millii, in locum). 


* Ministerium esse servi, quem conditio sua eo loco posuit, 
ut nihil eorum, que prestat, imputet superiori, Si servo, 
quominus in nomen meriti perveniat necessitas obest. Sen. 
de Ben. lib. iii. cap. 18. 


3 Ver. 11. Διὰ μέσου Σαμαρείας καὶ Γαλιλαίας, As he went 
to Jerusalem, he passed through the midst of Samaria and 
Galilee.| It is well known that Samaria lay betwixt Galilee 
and Judea, and so our Lord, taking his journey to Jerusa- 
lem, must go first through Galilee, then through Samaria; 
why therefore is it here said, that he passed “ through Sama- 
ria and Galilee?” To this it may be answered, that 4)na, in 
medio, is often the same as μεταξὺ, between, and so is διὰ, as 
διὰ νήσων, inter insulas; so here the Arabic and Syriac, 
“between Samaria and Galilee ;” i. 6. between the confines 
of both countries; Christ, in this journey, going to the 
Scythopolitan bridge, saith Lightfoot, by which he passed 
into Perea, and so on by Samaria into Judea. 

4 Ver. 14. Πορευϑέντες ἐπιδείξατε ἑαυτοὺς τοῖς ἱερεῦσι, Go 
show yourselves to the priest.) By sending them thus to the 
priests, who were to make their offerings in the temple, 
Christ decides the cause betwixt the Jews and the Sama- 
ritans, sending the Samaritan, not to mount Gerizim, but 
to Jerusalem. 

5 Ver. 20. Οὐκ ἔρχεται ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ μετὰ παρατηρῆ- 
σεως, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.) 
i.e. Not with that royal splendour, or worldly pomp and 
grandeur, which render it conspicuous in the eyes of the 
world, as you expect it should; so that a man may be able 
to say from the lustre of its first appearance, Lo, it is here! 
or, it is there! 

6 Ver. 21. ᾿Ιδοὺ γὰρ, ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐντὸς ὑμῶν ἔστιν, 
Behold, the kingdom of God is within you.] i. 6. Amongst 
you: for it is certain that our Lord speaks not of the 
power it had gained over the hearts of the Jews, and much 
less of the pharisees, to whom he speaks; but that the 
kingdom of the Messiah began now to appear, and the gos- 
pel of the kingdom, was now preached among them ; so that 
Christ says thus, This kingdom, which you inquire after, 
as if it had not yet appeared, because you see not that out- 
ward splendour you expect when the Messiah comes, is 
even now among you, and is come unto you ; 50 ἐντὸς ὑμῶν 
and ἐν ὑμῖν are used frequently in the Old Testament. So 
Gen. xxiii. 9, “ Give me it for a place of burial ἐν ὑμῖν, among 
you:” see ver. 6, xxxiv. 10, é ἡμῖν κατοικεῖτε, “ Ye shall 
dwell among us;” Exod. xvii. 7, “Is the Lord ἐν ἡμῖν among 
us, or not?” so Josh. iii. 5, ix. 22, Micah iii. 11. Hence 
also it is evident that “the kingdom” here cannot signify 
Christ's coming to destroy Jerusalem: for of that certainly 
the Jews did not think that it “should suddenly appear ;” 
of that our Lord could not say, it was now among you, or that 
it came not with observation, it being attended with so many 
glorious signs of their approaching ruin, and the presence of 
the Roman army. 

7 Ver. 22. ᾿Ελεύσονται ἡμέραι, ὅτε ἐπιθυμήσετε, &c. And 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


see there (for him): go not after them, nor follow 
them. 

24 ® For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the 
one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part 
under heaven ; so (visible) shall also the (coming of the) 
Son of man be in his day. 

25 But first must he suffer many things, and be 
rejected of this generation. 

26 And as it was in the days of Noe (a preacher of 
righteousness to the old world), so shall it be also in the 
days of (the coming of ) the Son of man. 

27 They (then) did est, they drank, they married 
wives, they were given m marriage (not expecting the 
threatened judgments), until the day that Noe entered 
into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them 
all. 

28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they 
did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they 
planted, they builded ; 

29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom 
it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed 
them all. 

30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son 
of man is revealed (a sudden and unexpected destruction 
shall then fall upon the men of this nation). 
ee 


303 


31 In that day, he which shall be upon the house- 
top, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down 
to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him 
likewise not return back (7. e. let him endeavour to escape 
without delay, or staying to carry his goods with him). 

32 9 Remember (therefore) Lot’s wife (what her de- 
lay and looking back wrought upon her). 

33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life (by apos- 
tasy from the faith) shall lose it; and whosoever shall 
lose his life (for my sake) shall preserve it. 

34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men 
in one bed ; (so remarkable shall be the providence of God 
in preserving his faithful servants, that) the one (of them) 
shall be taken (away by death), and the other shall be 


left (0). 

35 Two woman shall be grinding together; the one 
shall be taken, and the other left. : 

36 ‘Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be 
taken, and the other left. 

37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, 
Lord (shall this be) 2 And he said unto them,  Where- 
soever the body ἐδ, thither will the eagles be gathered 
together (7. 6. wheresoever the Jews are, there will the 
Roman army, whose ensign is the eagle, come to destroy 
them). 


the days shall come, when you shall desire to see one of the 
days of the Son of man, and shall not see it.) “ One of the 
days of the Son of man” seems here to signify the time of 
their visitation by him (ch. xix.), when he came to offer 
them all the blessings of the kingdom of God, upon their 
faith and repentance; this offer, saith Christ, in your ex- 
tremity you will be glad to hear, but shall not hear it. 

8 Ver. 24. “Ὥσπερ yap ἡ ἀστραπὴ, &c. For as the lightning 
(or splendour) shineth from one part of the heaven to the 
other part under the heaven ; so shall also the (coming 
of the) Son of man be in his days.] Christ had told them, 
that the kingdom of God was already come upon them, and 
he appeared in the purity of his doctrine, and the miracles 
by which it was confirmed, though not with such an out- 
ward splendour as might enable them to point it, and say, 
Lo, it is here, or there, ver. 20, 21. He tells them in the 
twenty-fifth verse, that this Son of man should suffer, and be 
rejected by them, and so the glory of it would be for a while 
eclipsed : and here, that after his resurrection it would shine 
with such a fresh and glorious brightness, by the effusion of 


the Holy Ghost on his disciples, as would render it equal to 
the splendour of the sun shining from one part of heaven to 
the other, and cause it to be propagated almost as quick as 
lightning through the world, so that there shall be no need 
to attend any man, saying, It is here, or there, seeing it 
would be quickly and conspicuously set up among all na- 
tions (Matt. xxiv. 15}; and that then the Son of man, so 
fastidiously rejected by them, would also appear suddenly 
and gloriously, to revenge upon them their infidelity, and 
the aflronts which they had offered to him. 

9 Ver. 32. Μινημονεύετε τῆς γυναικὸς Adr, Remember Lot’s 
wife.) What befell her for looking back to Sodom, lest you 
likewise perish in this slaughter of the unbelieving Jews, by 
looking back to what you have in your houses, or in the 
fields (ver. 31). 

10 Ver. 37. “Ὅπου τὸ σῶμα, &c. Where the carcase is, there 
will the eagles be gathered together.] That is, wherever the 
Jews are, there will the sword of the Romans, whose ensign 
is the eagle, be ready to devour them, and their army will 
assemble to destroy them. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


1 Ann he spake a parable unto them fo this end, 
that men ought ! always ¢o pray, and not to faint (or 
cease from the performance of that duty, because they are 
not presently heard ; see 2 Cor. iv. 1); 

2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which fear- 
ed not God, neither regarded man (to do justice, or to 
show mercy to him): 


3 And there was a widow in that city; and she | 


came unto him, saying, Avenge me of (or do me justice 
against) mine adversary. 


4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he 
said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor re- 
gard man (so as to be moved by either of those motives to 
do thts) ; 

5 Yet because this widow troubleth me (with her 
importunity), I will avenge her (or do her right), lest 
by her continual coming she weary me. 

6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge 
saith (on account of the widow’s importunity). 

7 And shall not God avenge his own elect (2. 6, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII. 


1Ver. 1. Πρὸς τὸ δεῖν πάντοτε προσεὔχεσϑαι, καὶ μὴ ἐκκακεῖν, 
That men ought always to pray, and not to faint.| 
Of the notion of praying always, see note on Thess. v. 15. 
Here it signifies, not to pray oft every day, but to pray per- 
severingly day after day, without giving off our suit; and 
then μὴ ἐκκακεῖν will be, not to faint under the pressures and 
persecutions they suffered, either from the persecuting Jews, 
or others by their instigation; from which they are here 
supposed to pray for deliverance (ver. 7), or not to despond 
under them: for ἐκκακεῖν is not so properly to be slothful, as 
malis succumbere, animo concidere, malis cedere, to faint and 
despond, say the lexicons; and this especially when it re- 
lates, as here, to tribulations: so, Eph. iii. 13, μὴ ἐκκακεῖν ἐν 


ϑλίψεσι is well rendered, “not to faint under tribulation ;” 
and, 2 Cor. iv. 16, οὐκ ἐκκακοῦμεν, * We faint not under those 


| afflictions,” which make the outward man perish, bat con- 


tinue steadfast in the faith: ver. 1, “Ὁ We faint not;” though 
we are troubled on every side, and perplexed, we despair 
not of help from God, ver. 8, so Gal. vi. 9, μὴ ἐκκακεῖν, “ not 
to grow weary of well-doing,” is μὴ ἐκλύειν, “not to faint ;” 
which two things are put together in St. Paul’s injunction to 
the Christian sufferer, “not to grow weary or faint in his 
mind,” Heb. xii. 3, and so 2 Thess. iii. 13, μὴ ἐκκακεῖν, not 
to be weary of well-doing,” being an exhortation to them, 
who received the word “ with much afiliction,” 1 Thess. i. 6, 
and were in danger by it to fall from their steadfastness, 
iii. 2, 3. 5, may reasonably be supposed to have the same 


import, 


304 


Christian sufferers), ? which ery day and night unto him, 
though he bear long with them (who afflict them, and so 
for a season seemeth not to hear them) ? 

8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily (after 
a little time, Heb. x. 37, Rev. i. 1). ὃ. Nevertheless 
when the Son of man cometh (to do this), shall he find 
faith on the earth (that he will come to execute his ven- 
geance on the Jews) ? 

9 And he spake this parable unto certain which 
trusted in themselves that they were righteous (as the 
pharisees generally did), and despised others (as they 
did the publicans, counting them sinners unfit to be con- 
versed with). 

10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the 
one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. 

11 The 4 Pharisee stood and prayed thus with 
(by) himself, God, I thank thee, that 1 am not as 
other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or 
even as this publican (perhaps guilty of all these 
crimes. ὃ 

12 I am so far from these things, and so exact in 
my duty, that I do more than is commanded ; for) 51 


LUKE. 


fast twice in the week, (and) I give tithes of all that 
I possess (even of mint and cummin, Matt. xxiii. 23). 

13 And (but) the publican, δ standing afar off, would 
not lift up so much as Ais eyes unto heaven (as judg- 
ing himself unworthy so to do), but smote upon his 
breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 

14 I tell you, (¢hal) this man went down to his 
house justified (¢. 6. approved of God, and pardoned) 
7 rather than the other: for every one that exalteth 
himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth him- 
self shall be exalted. 

15 And they (who believed he was a true prophet) 
brought unto him also infants, that he would touch 
(or lay his hands upon) them (and pray, Matt. xix. 13): 
but when is disciples saw zt, they rebuked them (that 
brought them). 

16 But Jesus (being much displeased at this action of 
his disciples, Mark x. 14) called them unto him, and 
said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. 

17 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not re- 
ceive the kingdom of God (with affection as free from 


2 Ver. 7. 'O δὲ Θεὸς ob μὴ ποιήσει τὴν ἐκδίκησιν τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν 
αὑτοῦ, καὶ μακροδυμῶν ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῖς; And shall not God avenge 
his own elect, that ery unto him day and night, though he 
bear long with them ?] Here note, 

First, That the elect in general signify all Christians 
chosen out of the world through faith in Christ, to be the 
church and people of God (see note on 2 Pet. ii. 9) : when 
it relates particularly to the Jews, it signifies those of them 
who believed in Christ, and upon that account are styled 
“the election of grace,” and absolutely “the election,” Rom. 
xi. 5. 7, under which character St. Peter writes unto them, 
1 Pet. i. 1 (see note on Matt. xxiv. 22), and this seems to be 
the import of the word here: for μακροϑυμῶν some copies 
read μακροϑυμεῖ, and so interpreters read the whole by way 
of interrogation, “And will he be slack towards them?” 
i. e. towards his elect; and this well agrees with the follow- 
ing words, “I tell you, he will avenge them speedily ;”’ and 
with the words ἐπ' αὐτοῖς, which have no other substantive to 
refer to but the elect ; and with the like passage, Ncclus. 
xxxv. 17—19, “The prayer of the humble (or afilicted) 
pierceth the clouds; and till it come nigh he will not be 
comforted, and will not depart till the Most High shall be- 
hold to judge righteously, and execute judgment. Tor the 
Lord will not be slack, οὐδὲ μὴ μακροϑυμήσει ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς, nel- 
ther will the Almighty be patient towards them, till he hath 
smitten asunder the loins of the unmerciful, and repaid 
ἐκδίκησιν, vengeance to the heathen; till he hath judged the 
cause of his people, and made them rejoice in his mercy.” 

Yet, because the common reading is μακροθυμῶν, and be- 
cause sinners, and especially the unbelieving Jews, are 
reckoned as the objects of God’s long-suffering, and not the 
elect, as when Paul saith to them, “ Despisest thou the riches 
of his goodness, patience, and long-suffering ?” (Rom. ii. 4), 
and as persons God endureth with much long-suffering (ix. 
22); and Peter saith, “ God was long-suffering towards them, 
not being willing they should perish, but should all come to 
repentance” (2 Pet. ili. 9), others make the sense run thus, 
“ Shall he, who is thus long-suffering towards the worst of 
men, and the persecutors of his people, be slack to avenge 
the cause of his people whom he loves, and to whose prayers 
his ears are always open?” 

3 Ver. 8. Πλὴν 5 vids τοῦ dvSpirov ἐλθὼν dpa εὑρήσει τὴν 
πίστιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, 
shall he find faith upon earth 51 i.e. When the Son of man 
comes to exercise this vengeance on the Jewish nation, how 
few shall he find in the Jewish nation that will believe it? 
As for the unbelieving Jews, though Christ and his forerun- 
ner had told them so frequently and plainly of their approach- 
ing ruin; and though they had so many signs of it, recorded 
in Josephus, he tells us they were still expecting deliverance 
from God: and they, among them, who believed and pro- 
fessed the Christian faith, being pressed with continual suf 
ferings, began to “ grow weary and faint in their minds,” and 
to ask, “ Where is the promise of his coming?” Yea, some 
of them began to forsake the assemblies of the saints (Heb. 


x. 25), and many of them became apostates, and fell back to 
their own Judaism; so that all the epistles directed to them 
are manifestly designed to keep them steadfast in the faith 
(see the preface to those Epistles, and note on 2 Thess. 
ii. 3). 

4 Ver. 11. ᾽Ο φαρισαῖος σταϑεὶς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν, The pharisee 
standing by himself.] As fearing to be polluted by the touch 
of the impure publican (Luke vii. 39), on which account 
they had their frequent washings when they came from the 
markets (Mark vii. 4). He standing thus prays, “God, I 
thank thee” (thanksgiving being reckoned as one part of 
prayer, 1 Cor. xiv. 15, 16, 1 Tim. ii. 1), “that Iam not as 
other man are, nor as this publican,” Here he offends, (1.) 
that he concludes himself good, because he is not so bad as 
other men: whereas he should have done this only from the 
evidence of his own sincerity in heart and actions; it being 
only from this approving our own works, that we can have 
“ rejoicing in ourselves, and not in another,” Gal. vi. 4. (2.) 
In judging so ill of others, many of whom he could have no 
certain knowledge of, and particularly in his judgment on 
this publican ; from whose submissive geSture and penitential 
actions he might have charitably concluded, that he came to 
the temple with a true penitent heart. 

5 Ver. 12. Νηστεύω δὶς τοῦ σαββάτου, I fast twice in the 
week.] The public and private fasts of the Jews were upon 
the second and fifth days of the week, i. 6. Monday and 
Thursday: and therefore the ancient Christians, that they 
might not be outdone by them in any part of devotion, in 
lieu of those days, chose the fourth and sixth days of the 
week for their fasting-days: Stationibus quartum et sextum 
sabbati dicamus (Tert. de Jejun. cap. 14, Can. Apos. 61. 
Const. Apost. lib. v. cap. 15. 20, p. 263. lib. vii. cap. 23. 
Epiph. Her. 51, n. 26. Expos. Fidei, n. 22. Philostorg. 
lib. x. 8. 12. Pseudo-Ignat. Ep. ad Philip. §. 13). 

Theophylact here notes of this pharisee, that, in opposi- 
tion to the rapine and injustice of others, he declares his ex- 
actness in paying tithes: and, in opposition to the luxury 
and adultery of others, his care to keep under his body, by 
fasting twice a week. 

6 Ver. 13. 'O δὲ τελώνης μακρόθεν ἑστῶς, But the publican 
standing afar off.| He stood afar off, perhaps in the court of 
the gentiles, looking upon himself unworthy to draw nigh 
to God, or to stand in the holy place: he could not lift up 
his eyes to heaven, from the sense of the same unworthiness ; 
he smites upon his breast, punishing himself out of a deep 
sense of his guilt; this being the sign of a mind vehemently 
afflicted (xxiii. 48); and, lastly, he humbly confesses, that 
he was a sinner, and earnestly begs mercy ; and therefore it 
is said, 

7 Ver. 14, KaréBn οὗτος δεδικαιωμένος els τὸν οἶκον αὑτοῦ, ἢ 
ἐκεῖνος, He went down to his house justified rather than the 
other.| Here ἢ is again put for μᾶλλον ἢ. So Hos. ii. 7, 
καλῶς μοι ἣν τότε ἢ νῦν, “It was better with me than now;” 
Jonah iv. 3. 8, καλὸν τὸ ἀποθανεῖν ἢ ζῆν, “It is better for me 
to die, than live” (see note on xv. 7). 


CHAPTER XIX. 


covelous and vain-glorious desires) as vee of ) a little 
child, shall in no wise enter therein (Ais love of honour, 
John v. 44, and of the world, ver. 24, being great ob- 
structions to tt). 

18 And a certain ruler (who had a good opinion of 
him, and some religious concern for future happiness) 
asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to 
inherit eternal life ? 

19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me 
good? (Seeing) none is good, save one, thatis God 
(dost thou own me as one commissionaled by God to teach 
the way of life? Iwill then do it from his word). 

20 ‘Thou knowest the commandments, (viz.) Do not 
commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not 
bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother. 
(Do this and thou shalt live.) 

21 And he said, All these have I kept from my 
youth up. 

22 Now when Jesus heard these things, he said 
unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing (viz. @ heart so 
Sree from the love of riches, as to be ready to part with 
them at my command for heavenly blessings: I therefore 
say to thee,) sell all that thou hast, and distribute (7?) 
unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in hea- 
ven: and (then) come, (and) follow me. 

23 And when he heard this, he (went away, and 
was very sorrowful : for he was very rich (and unwill- 
ing to part with his estate). 

24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrow- 
ful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches 
(and trust in them, Mark x. 24) enter into the kingkom 
of God! 

25 For it is easier for a camel (or, a cable) to go 
through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man (thus 
affected to his riches, that he cannot part with them for 
treasures in heaven) to enter into the kingdom of 
God. 

26 And they that heard it (‘hts saying) said, Who 
then can be saved ? 

27 And he said, The things which are impossible 
with men are possible with God (he can take off men’s 
hearts from this love of the world, though the persuasions 
of men cannot do it). 

28 Then Peter said, Lo, we (thy apostles) have left 
all, and followed thee. (What shall we have therefore 2 
Matt. xix. 27.) 

29 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, 
There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or 
brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s 
sake, 


305 


30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this 
present time (from the joys of a good conscience and 
the Holy Ghost, the sense of God’s favour, and the 
hopes of treasures in heaven, and the affection of good 
Christians to him), and in the world to come life ever- 
lasting. 

31 4 Then he took unto him the twelve, and said 
unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and (then) 
all things that are written by the prophets concerning 
the Son of man shall be pier pli aeil 

32 For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and 
shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted 
on: 
33 And they shall scourge him, and put him to 
death: and the third day he shall rise again. 

34 And they understood none of these things (7. e. 
they knew not how to reconcile them with their apprehen- 
stons of his temporal kingdom, and their traditions, that 
the Messiah should not die, John xii. 34): and pa this 
saying was hid from them, neither knew they the 
things which were spoken. 

35 ¥ And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh 
(Gr. was nigh) unto Jericho, a certain blind man 
(named Barlimeus, Mark x. 46) sat by the way side 
begging ome another with him, Matt. xx. 30). 

36 And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked 
what it meant (7. e. what was the reason of that con- 
course). 

37 And they told him, that Jesus of Nazareth pass- 
eth by. 

38 And (upon this) he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son 
of David, (whose office it is lo give sight to the blind, Isa. 
xxxv. 5,) have mercy on me. 

39 And they which went before rebuked him (μος 
ing), that he should hold his peace: but he cried so 
much the more, Zhou son of David, have mercy on 
me. 

40 And Jesus stood (still), and commanded him to 
be brought unto him: and when he was come near, he 
asked him, 

41 Saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto 
thee? And he said, Lord, (J desire) that I may re- 
ceive my sight. 

42 And Jesus said unto him, (how shalt) receive 
thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee (7. e. hath made 
thee whole, Mark x. 52). 

43 And immediately he received his sight, and fol- 
lowed him, glorifying God ( for his mercy to him) : and 
all the people, when they saw it, gave praise (also) 
unto God. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


1 Anp Jesus entered (info) and passed through 
Jericho. 

2 And, behold, there was a man named Zaccheus, 
which was the chief among the publicans, and he was 
rich. 

3 And he sought to see Jesus who (7. e. what kind 
of man) he was; and could not for the press, because 
he was little of stature. 

4 And he (therefore) ran before, and climbed up 
into a sycamore tree to see him: for he was to pass 
that way. 

5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked 
up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zaccheus, make 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX. 
1 Ver. 6. Καὶ σπεῦσας κατέβη, καὶ ὑπεδέξατο αὐτὸν Χαίρων, 
And he made haste, and came down, and received him joy- 
Sully By this joy, and by his diligence to see him, he showed 


haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy 
house. 

6 And he 1 made haste, and came down, and re- 
ceived him joyfully. 

7 And when they (the pharisees) saw it, they all 
murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with 
a man that is a sinner (/hinking that a matter of defile- 
ment and reproach to him, not considering the design on 
which Christ came into the world). 

8 And Zaccheus stood (up), and said unto the Lord ; 
Behold, Lord, Gn the fifth part only, but) the 3 half 
of my goods I (now resolve to) give to the poor; 
and if τοῦδ taken any thing from any man by false 


what a high esteem he had for that holy Jesus whom the 
scribes and pharisees despised. 
2 Ver. 8. "Idod, τὰ ἡμίση τῶν ὑπαρχόντων pov, Κύριε, δίδωμι 
τοῖς πτωχοῖς, &e, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give 
2a 


906 


aceusation (or oppression, see note on Luke iii. 14), I 
(will) restore him fourfold (2. e. beyond the rigour of 
the law). 

9 And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation 
come to this house (Zaccheus having done like a true 
convert), forsomuch as he also is ἃ ὅ son of Abraham 
(ὦ. e. a Jew. 

10 And this is suitable to the design of my coming, and 
ustifies my eating and conversing with him:) for the 
Son of man is come to seek (after) and to save that 
which was lost. : 

11 And as they heard these things, he added and 
spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, 
(which shortly was to be the scene of misery, ver. 41, 42) 
and because they thought that the kingdom of God 
(or, of the Messiah) should immediately appear. 

12 He said, therefore, (The kingdom of God is like 
to) a 4 certain nobleman (who) went into a far country 
to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return (and 
thus shall Igo to heaven and be installed in my mediatory 
kingdom, and then return to execute the severest judgments 
on this nation for their non-proficiency). 

13 And he called his ten servants, and delivered 


LUKE. 


them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till 1 
come (ὦ. 6. improve them till I come and take an account 
of your proficiency). 

14 But his citizens (the Jews) hated him, and sent 
a messenger after him, (disclaiming and rejecting his 
authority, and) saying, We will not have this man to 
reign over us. 

15 And it came to pass, that when he was returned, 
having received the kingdom, then he commanded 
these servants to be called unto him, to whom he had 
given the money, that he might know how much every 
man had gained by trading. 

16 Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound 
hath gained ten pounds. 

17 And he said unto him, Well (done), thou good 
servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very 
little, have thou authority over ten cities (7. 6. be thy 
reward proportionable to the increase of thy talent). 

18 And the second came, saying, Lord, thy pound 
hath gained five pounds. 

19 And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over 
five cities (ὦ. ὁ. be thy reward answerable to the improve- 
ment of thy talent). 


to the poor ; and if I have wronged any man, I restore him 
fourfold.] By two things Zaccheus shows the sincerity of 
his reformation and conversion; (1.) that he is ready to re- 
pair any injury that he had done to any man by oppression or 
false accusation, which is the proper import of the word cvxo- 
φαντέω, not only by adding a fifth part, as the law required 
in case of theft, when what was purloined was voluntarily 
restored (Numb. ν. 7), nor by restoring double, as the tres- 
passer was to do by law, when that which was. taken away 
was found in his hands (Exod. xxii. 4), but by restoring for 
money and goods what the rigour of the law required only 
in the case of an ox or sheep killed after it was stolen (Exod. 
xaii. 1), i. e. four-fold; doing not only what justice required 
for compensation of the injury (forno man can be righteous 
till he, if he be able, hath satisfied for the injury done to his 
brother), but inflicting on himself this surphusage by way of 
penalty for his sins; and as a testimony of his great displea- 
sure against himself for committing it. And (2.) whereas 
the law and tradition of the Jews required only that a fifth 
part of their income should be spent in charity, he bequeaths 
half his estate to charitable uses. 

3 Ver. 9. This day is salvation come to this house, forso- 
much as he also is υἱὸς ABpaip, a son of Abraham.| Not 
only by faith, of which sonship the Jews, to whom Christ 
spake, had then no notion, but by birth; for the pharisees do 
not murmur against Christ that he did eat with one uncir- 
cumcised, but that he did it with a sinner: it would also 
have been no indication to the Jews that he was the son of 
Abraham, that he believed in Christ : and, lastly, his respect 
to the law of Moses, in making restitution, shows he was no 
stranger to that law. Moreover, though the phrase, ‘“ Sal- 
vation is come unto this house,” doth not necessarily argue 
that his whole family believed, and the pronoun 7pse, and 
the reason here assigned, seem personally to respect Zac- 
cheus, the master of the house; yet it is piously observed 
that Christ here promiseth salvation to the house, because it 
was the duty, and usually the practice, of the master of the 
family, to reduce his whole house to the faith he had em- 
braced; as in the case of the centurion, Acts x. 2, of Lydia, 
Acts xvi. 14, 15, of the gaoler, ver. 33, 34, of Crispus the 
ruler of a synagogue, Acts xviii. 8, and of the nobleman, 
John iv. 46. 53. 

4 Ver. 12. “AvSpwrds τις εὐγενὴς ἐπορεύϑη εὶς χώραν μακρὰν, 
λαβεῖν ἑαυτῷ βασιλείαν, καί ὑποστρέψαι, A certain nobleman 
went into a far country to receive a kingdom, and to re- 
turn.] Here observe, 

First, That it is ingeniously conjectured by Mr. Le Clerc, 
that Christ took the rise of this parable from the custom of 
the kings of Judea, Herod the Great and Archelaus his son, 
who usually went to Rome to receive the kingdom of Judea 
from Cesar, without whose permission and appointment 
they durst not take the government into their hands; and in 
the case of Archelaus there is indeed some resemblance of 


this; for the Jews sent their complaints after him, showing 
their unwillingness that this nobleman, or εὐγενὴς, the son of 
Herod the Great, to whom the kingdom of Judea was as- 
signed by his father’s will and testament, should reign over 
them ; and at his return, ἐθναρχίαν παραλαβὼν, “he receiving 
the kingdom,” tyrannized over them for ten years; but with 
this signal difference, that upon their second complaint to 
Cesar, they prevailed against him, and procured his banish- 
ment to Vienna. 

Secondly, That the parable here, as it respects our Lord 
Christ, “ going into a far country to receive a kingdom, and 
return,” either respects his going to heaven to sit down at the 
right hand of God in majesty and glory, and to take posses- 
sion of his mediatory kingdom, and the return to punish the 
unbelieving and obdurate Jews; or going by his apostles and 
disciples to erect a kingdom among the gentiles, and then 
coming, as it were, back to punish the Jews, according to 
these words of his, “The gospel of the kingdom shall be 
preached throughout all the world for a testimony to all na- 
tions, and then shall the end (of the Jewish polity) come” 
(Matt. xxiv. 14). Note, 

Thirdly, That this parable doth certainly respect the Jew- 
ish nation; as appears (1.) because they are said here to re- 
ject Christ’s kingdom, saying, “ We will not have this man 
to reign over us ;” and upon this account are styled his ene- 
mies, and devoted to destruction by him, which agrees still 
only to the Jews, ver. 27. (2.) To them is threatened the 
punishment of the unprofitable servants, to wit, “to be. 
cast out into outer darkness,” &c. (Matt. viii. 12, xxii. 13. 
xxv. 30, Luke. xiii. 28). In fine, it is expressly said, he 
“therefore spake this parable to them, because they thought 
the kingdom of God should immediately appear” (ver, 11). 

Fourthly, The only difficulty remaining is, how to apply 
the pounds here, and the talents mentioned Matt. xxv., to 
any of the Jews; but this seeming difficulty is removed by 
a careful observation of the words, which show they were 
distributed, not to his citizens, but τοῖς ἰδίοις δούλοις, to his 
“own proper servants,” Matt. xxv. 14, to his servants, ver. 
13, i. e. to his apostles, five; and to the seventy disciples, 
or those who had received lesser spiritual gifts, two talents ; 
to the Jews, who are also styled “his own,” John i. 14, only 
one talent (viz. the law and the prophets, promising to them 
the Messiah, and pointing out his advent and his characters 
to them) ; which they might and ought to have employed, 
so as to have believed, and fitted themselves to receive and 
to improve the gifts of the Holy Ghost, as others did. 

Fifthly, Observe, that as the dreadful destruction of the 
unbelieving Jews was an emblem of the last judgment, so 
Christ’s reckoning with them is a representation of that 
reckoning he will make with all men at the great day, for all 
the talents they have respectively received; and, with respect 
to that, this Lord is said, Matt. xxv. 12, to come, pera χρόνον 
πολὺν, “after a long time.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


20 And another came, saying, Lord, behold, here 
is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin 
(making no use of it) : 

21 For I feared thee, because (J judged) thou art an 
austere man: thou takest up that thou layedst not 
down, and reapest that thou didst not sow (requiring 
an increase far exceeding what thou gavest.) 

22 And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth 
will I judge (and condemn) thee, thou wicked servant. 
(For) Thou (ownest that thow) knewest that I was an 
austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reap- 
ing that I did not sow: 

23 Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into 
the bank (ἡ. e. didst not thou improve my talent), that at 
my coming (back) I might have required (and received ) 
mine own with usury (or improvement) ? 

24 And he said unto them that stood by, Take from 
him the pound, and give ¢ to him that hath ten 
pounds. 

25 5 (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten 
pounds) (but he answered, Therefore I give him more). 

26 For I say unto you, That unto every one which 
peer what he) hath shall be given (more) ; and 

rom him that hath not (so as to improve il), even that 
he hath shall be taken away from him. 

27 But those mine enemies (of the Jewish nation), 
which would not that I should reign over them, bring 
hither, and slay ‘hem before me. 

28 7 And when he had thus spoken, he went before 
(his disciples), ascending up to Jerusalem. 

29 And it came to pass, when he was come nigh to 
Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the mount 
of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, 

30 Saying, Go ye into the village over against you ; 

.in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, 
whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him 
hither. 

31 And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him 2 


307 


thus shall ye say unto him, (We do it) Because the 
Lord hath need of him. 

32 And they that were sent went their way, and 
found (αὐ things) even as he had said unto them. 

33 And as they were loosing the colt, the owners 
thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? 

34 And they said, The Lord hath need of him (and 
then they let them go with him). 

35 And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast 
their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon. 

36 And as he went, they (the multitude) spread their 
clothes in the way (as at the triumphant entrance of a 
prince). 

37 And when he was come nigh (to Jerusalem, be- 
ing) even at the descent of the mount of Olives, the 
whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and 
praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works 
that they had seen (done by Christ) ; 

38 Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the 
name of the Lord: (may) peace (be procured by him to 
us) in heaven, and glory (to God who lives) in the high- 
est (place). 

39 And some of the Pharisees from among the mul- 
titude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples ( for 
these acclamations). 

40 And he answered and said unto them, I tell you 
that, if these (my disciples) should hold their peace, the 
§ stones would immediately ery out (¢. e. my kingdom 
would be proclaimed by far more unlikely means). 

41 4 And when he was come near, he beheld the 
city, and 7 wept over it, 

42 Saying, (Happy had it been for thee) § if thou 
hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day (of 
visitation, Luke i. 68) the things which belong unto thy 
peace (and welfare)! but now (through thy infidelity) 
they are hid from thine eyes. 

43 For the days shall (shortly) come upon thee, 
that thine 9 enemies shall cast a trench about thee, 


5 Ver. 25.] Though this verse is in St. Jerome, Theophy- 
lact, and in all the versions, and confirmed by the words fol- 
lowing, λέγων αὐτοῖς, yet saith Dr. Mills, Lubens, nisi re- 
pugnarint omnes codices, pro irreptitio habuerim (Proleg. 
p. 155). 

δ ΤῊΣ 40. Οἱ λίϑοι κεκρήξονται, If these hold their peace, 
the stones will cry out.] This is a proverbial expression, sig- 
nifying that if these followers of Christ should hold their 
peace, some more unlikely way should be found out for the 
proclaiming the Messiah, even by those who are reckoned 
the most stupid and insensate people, as by you the gentiles 
are. So, Lapidi loqueris, “ Thou speakest to one who hath 
little sense to hear or understand ;” Japis being metaphori- 
cally put for a stupid and brutish person: so when Aristip- 
pus* was asked by one, what his son would be better for 
instruction, he answered, that then év τῷ θεάτρῳ οὐ καθήσεται 
λίθος ἐπὶ diSov, “one stone,” that is, “one stupid person, 
would not sit above another in the theatre.” So ἡλιθιάζειν 
καὶ ἡλίϑιον φθέγγεσϑαι, in Aristophanes, is to be stupid, and 
speak without sense, ἀναίσϑητοι yap of \éSo, “for stones have 
no sense :” so the scholiast, p. 352, G. 

7 Ver. 41. Καὶ---ἔκλαυσεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτῆ, And he wept over it.] 
Thope Epiphanius}+ may be mistaken, when he tells us, these 
words, and the like in John xi. 35, were blotted out, as be- 
ing denied to be in the most correct copies; for it is certain, 
and confessed by him, that «they were to be found in Ire- 
neus,+ and in Origen§ twice,” who saith, our Lord wept, 
εὐλόγως, with good reason,” over Jerusalem: for he did it 


* Apud Laert. p. 135, 136. 

Τ ᾿Αλλὰ καὶ ἔκλαυσε κεῖται ἐν τῷ κατὰ Λουκᾶν εὐαγγελίῳ ἐν 
ἐν τοῖς ἀδιορθώτοις ἀντιγράφοις, καὶ κεκύρωται τῇ μαρτυρίᾳ τοῦ 
ἁγίου Ἐϊρηναίου" ὀρθύδοζοι δὲ ἀφείλοντο, τὸ ῥητὸν φοβηϑέντες. An- 
chorat. §. 31, pl. 36. 

+ Tren. lib. i. cap. 17. 

§ Orig. in Matt. ed. Huet. tom. i. p. 441, tom. ii. p. 168. 
Agnoscunt Theophylactus et versiones omnes, 


out of a profound charity, and deep commiseration of the 
evils coming upon Jerusalem ; in both which virtues he came 
to be an example to us; and therefore can do nothing in it 
unworthy of himself. 

8 Ver. 42. Λέγων, ὅτι εἰ ἔγνως καὶ σὺ, Saying, (Happy 
hadst thou been) if thow hadst known, in this thy day, the 
things which belong to thy peace, &c.) Here the critics note, 
that εἰ often signifies wtiram, and so the words will contain 
an ardent wish, that the people of Jerusalem had been thus 
wise, conceived after this manner, “O that thou hadst 
known!” but though this be true (see note on Luke xii. 40), 
yet the particle ὅτι, that, makes it not applicable to this 
place ; and therefore I think it better to supply the deficient 
sense by the words contained in the parenthesis. Here 
then observe, (1.) that Christ here plainly shows, and takes 
it for granted, that the people of Jerusalem, in this day of 
their visitation by the Messias, might have savingly known 
the things belonging to their peace, since otherwise our Sa- 
viour’s tears may rather have been looked upon as the tears 
of crocodiles, than of charity and true commiseration ; and 
either his assertion, that they might have been happy, would 
have been contrary to truth; or his wish, that they had thus 
known the things belonging to their peace, contrary to his 
Father’s will and decree; both which are palpably absurd: 
and seeing the will of Christ was always the same with that 
of his Father, it follows also, that God the Father had the 
same charitable affection to them, and so had laid no bar 
against their happiness by his decrees, nor been wanting in 
any thing on his part necessary towards their everlasting wel- 
fare (see the note on Matt. xxiii. 37). 

9 Ver. 43. The days shall come upon thee, that thine 
enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee 
round, and keep thee in on every side.) How exactly this 
was done we learn from Josephus, saying,* that “when Ves- 


* Τοὺς δὲ οὔπω τὰ Ρωμαίων φρονοῦντας εἶργεν ἡ crparia zavra 
χόϑεν τὴν πόλιν περιέχουσα. De Bello Jud. lib. v. cap. 27, p. 


808 


and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every’| 
side, 

44 And shall lay thee 10 even with the ground, and 
thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in 
thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest 
not (ἡ. 6. didst not improve aright to faith and repentance) 
the time of thy visitation. 

45 And he went into the temple, and began to 
cast out them that sold therein, and them that 
bought ; 


LUKE. 


46 Saying unto them, It is written (Isa. lvi. 7), My 
house (shall be called, or) is the house of prayer: but 
ye have made it (by your fraudulent, covetous dealings, 
and extortions) a den of thieves. 

47 And he taught daily in the temple. But the 
chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the peo- 
ple sought to destroy him, 

48 And could not find what they might (χε) do 
(because of the multitude): for all the people were 
very attentive to hear him. 


pasian besieged Jerusalem, his army compassed the city 
round about, and kept them in on every side, and though it 
was judged a great and almost impracticable work to com- 
pass the whole city with a wall: yet Titus animating his 
soldiers to attempt it, they in three days built a wall of 
thirty-nine furlongs, having thirteen castles in it, and so 
cut off all hopes that any of the Jews within the city should 
escape.” 


893, B. Τὸ μὲν οὖν τεῖχος ἑνὸς δέοντος τεσσαράκοντα σταδίων ἦν. 
᾽ μ' ρ' ? 


τρίσι δ᾽ ᾧκοδομήϑη τὸ πᾶν ἡμέραις. Ibid. p. 936, 937, B. 


Ἰὸ Ver. 44. And shail lay thee even with the ground,—and 
they shall not leave in thee one stone wpon another.| How 
this also was exactly done, Josephus teacheth, by saying, 
that* « Titus having commanded his soldiers to dig up the 
city, this was so fully done, by levelling the whole compass 
of it except three towers, that they who came to see it were 
persuaded it would never be built again.” 


* Tov δὲ ἄλλων ἅπαντα τῆς πύλεως περίβολον οὕτως ἐξωμάλιζον of 
κατασκάπτοντες ὡς μηδὲ πώποτε οἰκίσθῆναι πίστιν ἂν ἔτι παρασχεῖν 


τοῖς ποοσελϑοῦσι. Lib. vii. cap. 1, p. 970, B. C. 


CHAPTER XX. 


1 Anp it came to pass, that on one of those days, 
as he taught the people in the temple, and preached 
the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon 
him, (and rose up against him) with the elders, 

2 And spake unto him, saying, Tell us, by what 
authority doest thou these things (which only prophets, 
and persons allowed and approved by authority, shall do) ? 
or who is he that gave thee this authority ἢ 

3 And he answered and said unto them, I will also 
ask you one thing; and (¢f yow) answer me (you may 
thence know by what authority I do these things) : 

4 The baptism of John, was it from (ihe God of) 
heaven, or of men (only) 3 

5 And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If 
we shall say, (/t was) from heaven; he will say, Why 
then believed ye him not (when he testified that I was 
the Christ)? 

6 But and if we say, Of men; all the people will 
(be ready to) stone us: for they be persuaded that 
John was a prophet. 

7 And they answered, that they could not tell whence 
wl was. 

8 And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by 
what authority I do these things. 

9 Then began he to speak to the people this para- 
ble; A certain man planted a vineyard, and let it forth 
to husbandmen (the Jewish doctors), and went into a 
far country for a long time (7. 6. left them a long time, 
to manage and to make it fruitful). 


10 And at the season he sent a servant to the hus- 
bandmen, (requesting) that they should give him of 
the fruit of the vineyard: but the husbandmen (ihe 
guides and rulers of the Jewish church) beat him, and 
sent him away empty. 

11 And again he sent another servant: and they 
beat him also, and entreated Aim shamefully, and sent 
him away empty. 

12 And again he sent a third: and they wounded 
him also, and cast him out (killing God’s prophets, and 
stoning them that were sent lo them, xiii. 34, 2 Chron. 
xxxvi, 15, 16). 

13 Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall 
Ido? Iwill send my beloved son: it may be they 
will reverence Aim when they see him. 

14 But when the husbandmen saw him, they rea- 
soned among themselves, saying, This is the heir: 
come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be 
our’s. 

15 So they (the Jews) cast him out of the vineyard, 
and killed him (Christ, the Son of God). What there- 
fore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them ? 

16 He shall come and destroy these husbandmen, 
and shall give the vineyard to others. And ' when 
they (the pharisees) heard it, they said God forbid (that 
this should happen to us). 

17 And he beheld them, and said, (Jf this will not 
be so) what is (the import of ) this then that is written 
(Ps. exviii. 22), The stone which the builders reject- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 


Ver. 16. 'Axotcavres δὲ εἶπον, μὴ γένοιτο, And when they 
heard it, they said, God forbid.] In Matt. xxi. 41, Mark xii. 
9, Christ inquires of them what “the lord of the vineyard 
will do to these husbandmen?” And they answer, “He 
will destroy them, and let out his vineyard to other husband- 
men:” here Christ himself declares what the lord of the 
vineyard will do to those husbandmen, and they seem to say, 
God forbid that he should do so. Now this seeming con- 
trariety is by some solved thus, That the pharisees do not, 
by these words, deny that the lord of the vineyard would 
destroy those husbandmen; but knowing that the parable 
was spoken against them, they say, μὴ γένοιτο, Far be it 
from us husbandmen to do a work so worthy of this punish- 
Inent; and this sense Christ’s reply seems to require, viz. τί 
οὖν ἐστι τὸ γεγραμμένον, i. 6. If the priests and pharisees will 
not do this, “what means that which is written?’ what 
means that saying of the psalmist, which even you Jews in- 


terpret of the Messiah, «The stone which the builders re- 
fused is become the head stone of (in) the corner?” Ps. 
cxviii. 22. To strengthen this interpretation, let it be con- 
sidered that our Lord “spake this parable against them,” 
Matt. xxi. 45, Mark xii. 12. They therefore deny what 
they understood, that they should destroy the son of the 
lord of the vineyard, i. e. the Messiah, as not believing 
Christ to be the Messiah, but an impostor; but they deny 
not that they who should do this were worthy of this punish- 
ment: or, (2.) because St. Luke peculiarly notes, ver. 9, 
that this parable was spoken “to the people,” this may be 
their answer, Far be it from our rulers to do so vile a thing 
as may bring down this judgment on us; whilst the rulers 
and pharisees, who thought themselves far from being such 
husbandmen as they knew Christ suggested they would be, 
stick not to say such husbandmen deserve indeed to be de- 
stroyed, as thinking they should never be concerned in their 
ruin. 

Either of these solutions I like better than that of Mr. 


CHAPTER XX. 


ed, the same is become the head of the corner? (Now 
you are these builders, and I, whom you reject, am that 
corner-stone. 

18 And) Whosoever shall fall upon (or stumble at) 
that stone shall be broken (¢. e. shall do it to his ruin) ; 
but on whomsoever it shall fall (as it will most severely 
on you of this nation), it will grind him to powder (7. 6. 
subject him to the heaviest judgments, both here and here- 
after ; for they who through weakness, or the oe judices 
of their education, or reverence to their guides, shall stum- 

le at this stone, and not believe, shall be hereafter punish- 
ed, yet with fewer stripes than those Jewish doctors, who 
obstinately and against full conviction hated and rejected 
the Messiah, and would not he should reign over them, 
ch. xiv.). 

19 § And the chief priests and the scribes the same 
hour sought to lay hands on him; and (but) they 
feared the people: for they perceived that he had 
spoken this parable against them (representing them as 
the persons who would thus treat the Son of God, and 
should thus suffer by him for so doing). 

20 And they watched him, and sent forth spies, 
which should feign themselves just men, that they 
might take hold of (¢. e. advantage against him from) 
his words, that so they 5 might deliver him (up) unto 
the power and authority of the governor. 

21 And they asked him, saying, Master, we know 
that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither accept- 
est thou the person of any, but teachest the way of 
God truly (without favour to or fear of any, though 
the greatest in power and dignity: we therefore tnoutre 
of thee, 
fs 2 it lawful for us (Jews) to give tribute unto 
Cesar, or no? 

23 But he perceived their craftiness (in designing 
from his answer to represent him to the governor as an 
enemy to Cxsar, xxiii. 2, or to the people, as an enemy 
to their liberty), and (therefore) said unto them, Why 
tempt ye me? 

24 Shew me a (Roman) penny ; (andtell me) Whose 
image and superscription hath it? They answered 
and said, (it is) Cesar’s (image that is stamped upon 
it). 

Mss And he said unto them, (This, by your own 
rules, is an evidence that Cxsar’s government hath ob- 
tained among you,) render therefore unto Cesar the 
things which be Cesar’s (the tribule due to him as 


Le Clerc, who will have these words in the beginning of this 
verse, “ He will come, and will destroy these husbandmen, 
and let out his vineyard to others,” to be the words not of 
Christ, but of the Sanhedrin; and yet will have the words 
immediately following in the same verse, ἀκούσαντες dé εἶπον, 
μὴ γένοιτο, “and understanding, they said within themselves, 
God forbid,” to be also the words of the same Sanhedrin: 
for could they, understanding that these words were spoken 
against them, first give this severe sentence against them- 
selves, and then in the same breath contradict themselves ? 
And, secondly, why must εἶπον be rendered, “they said 
within themselves,” and not in the hearing of Christ, who 
when they had said this, looks upon them, and inquires of 
them, “ What then is it which is written?” ver. 17. 

2 Ver. 20. Eis τὸ παραδοῦναι αὐτὸν τῇ ἀρχὴ καὶ τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ τοῦ 
Ga To deliver him up to the power and authority of 
the governor.) And therefore they put to him the question 
about paying tribute to Cesar, hoping that, by denying it to 
be due to him from the Jews, they might accuse him as an 
enemy to Cesar; for they knew that his decision of ques- 
tions, relating only to their Jaw and controversies, would not 
offend those Gallios. 

3 Ver. 36. Kai viol cict τοῦ Θεοῦ, τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες, 
And being sons of the resurrection, are sons of God.) For 
this υἱοθεσία, sonship, imports “the redemption of the body 
from corruption,” Rom. viii. 23, and they that are sons, are 
“heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, and to be glo- 


309 


your governor under God) and unto God, the things that 
be God’s (i. e. the tribute due to his temple). 

26 And (when he had thus said) they could not take 
hold of his words before the people: and they mar- 
velled at (the wisdom of) his answer, and held their 
peace. 

27 4 Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, 
which deny that there is (fo be) any resurrection (of 
the body) ; and they asked him, 

28 Saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any 
man’s brother die, having a wife, and he die without 
children, that his brother should take his wife, and 
raise up seed unto his brother. 

29 There were therefore (with us) seven brethren: 
and the first (of them) took a wife, and died without 
children. 

30 And the second took her to wife, and he (also) died 
childless. 

31 And the third took her; and in like manner (the 
residue of ) the seven also; and they left no children, 
and died. . 

32 Last of all the woman died also. 

33 Therefore in the resurrection (of the body from the 
dead, Mark xii. 23,) whose wife of them is she (fo be) 3 
for seven had her to wife. 

34 And Jesus answering said unto them, (This gues- 
tion proceeds from a gross ignorance of the future slate ; 
for) the children of this world (on/y) marry, and are 
given in marriage : 

35 But they which shall be accounted worthy to ob- 
tain that world (which is to come), and (attain to) the 
resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given 
in marriage : 

36 Neither can they die any more: for they are (as 
to duration) equal unto the angels ; and are the 5 child- 
ren of God, (who are to live with him for ever, John 
viii. 35) being the children of the resurrection. 

37 Now that the dead are (to be) raised, even Moses 
shewed at the bush, when he (7. e. God) calleth (to 
him, saying, Iam) the Lord the God of Abraham, and 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (long after 
they were dead). 

38 For he is not a God of the dead (7. 6. of them who 
are so dead, as not to be the sons of the resurrection), but 
of the living (7. 6. of them whose bodies shall live again) : 
4 for all live unto him. 

39 4 Then certain of the scribes answering said, 


rified with him,” ver. 17, see the note there; and the 
strength of Christ’s argument depending on this notion 
(note on Matt. xxii. 31, 32), Jamblichus very likely from 
hence makes it the reward of good souls going out of the 
body, to be converted εἰς ἀγγέλους καὶ ἀγγελικὰς ψυχὰς, “ into 
angels and angelical souls,” apud Stob. Ecl. Phys. p. 144. 

4 Ver. 38. Πάντες γὰρ αὐτῷ ζῶσιν, For all live to him.) 
Woltzogenius interprets these words thus, They live in re- 
spect of God’s power and decree, that they shall live again; 
and hence he argues, that the souls of good men live not 
after death till the resurrection: for, saith he, Christ argues 
thus, If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not to live again, 
God, who styles himself their God, would be the God of the 
dead ; whereas if their souls lived, and enjoyed a state of 
happiness, God would not be the God of the dead, though 
they never rose again. ΤῸ this I answer, 

Ans. 1. First, hat when it is said, “God is not the God 
of the dead,” the meaning is, he is not the God of them 
who are to abide in a state of death, and never to enjoy the 
resurrection of the just; i. e. he owns not them for his who 
are not to be “the sons of the resurrection” (ver. 36), and 
will not be called their God, as having not prepared for 
them a heavenly city (Heb. xi. 16). Hence the scriptures 
say of them, that they are “passed from death unto life,” 
(John v. 24), and that they shall not die; because Christ 
will raise them up at the last day (John vi. 50). And, in 
the opinion of the Jews, they only seem to die in the eyes 


810 


Master, thou hast well said (in relation to the saddu- 
6665). 

40 And after that they durst not ask him any ques- 
tion at all. 

41 And he said unto them, How say they (of the 
scribes) that Christ is David’s son? 

42 And (when) David himself saith in the book of 
Psalms, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my 
right hand, 

43 Till I make thine enemies thy footstool (by subdu- 
ing them, and putting them under thy feet, 1 Cor. xv. 25). 


LUKE. 


44 David therefore (én these words) calleth him Lord, 
how is he then his son? 

45 4 Then in the audience of all the people he said 
unto his disciples, 

46 Beware of the scribes, which 5 desire (affect) to 
walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, 
and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief 
rooms at feasts ; 

47 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a shew 
(of devotion) make long prayers : the same shall receive 
greater damnation (for their hypocrisy). 


of fools, because their hope is full of immortality (Wisd. iii. 
2—A), and they proverbially say, “The just live when they 
are dead ;” and in this sense, Abraham, and Isaac, and Ja- 
cob would not live to God, though their souls lived with 
him, unless their bodies also rose again. 

Ans. 2. Secondly, God here styles himself the God of 


Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, i. e. not of their souls only, but | 


of their persons; in which sense the Jews always under- 
stood these words: now thus he would not be the God of 


the dead, though their souls lived, unless their bodies also | 


rose again. 


5 Ver. 46. Θελόντων περιπατεῖν ἐν στολαῖς, Affecting to walk 
in long garments.| Down to their ankles, or to their feet, 
that no part of their bodies might be seen; for this, says 
Dr. Lightfoot upon the place, was the falith that the dis- 
ciples of the wise men wore. Good here is the observation 
of Mr. Le Clere from Pope Celestine, touching the clergy, 
that “they are to be discerned a plebe vel ceteris, doctrina, 
non veste; conversatione, non habitti; mentis puritate, non 
cultti; not so much by their apparel, as by their learning; 
not only by their habit, but their conversation; not by the 
adornment of their body, but by purity of mind.” 


CHAPTER XXI. 


1 ' Ann he looked up, and saw the rich men casting 
their gifts into the treasury. 

2 And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in 
thither two mites. 

3 And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this 
poor widow hath cast in more than they all: 

4 For all these have of their abundance cast in 
unto the? offerings of God (7. e. the treasure designed for 
the use of his temple): but she of her penury hath cast 
in all the living that she had (7. 6. all that she had to 
live upon that day). 

5 Ἵ And as some spake of the temple (showing) 
how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he 
said, 

6 5 As for these things which ye behold, the days 
will come, in the which there shall not be left one 
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down 
(from its place). 

7 And they asked him, saying, Master (thou 
speakest dreadful things of this place), but (tell us) 
when shall these things be? and what sign will there 
be (to inform men) when these things shall come to 
pass? (We hope thow only speakest of the desola- 
tion which shall overturn all things at the end of this 
world. 

8 And he said, Take heed that ye (of this age) be 
hot deceived : for (after my departure) many shall come 
in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time (of 
your redemption) draweth near (but must be all false 
Christs) : go ye not therefore after them. 

9 But (and) when ye shall hear of wars and com- 
motions, be not terrified: for these things must first 


come to pass; but the end (of the polity and temple of 
the Jews) is not by and by. 

10 Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise 
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom : 

11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, 
and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and 
great signs (of approaching judgments) shall there be 
from heaven. 

12 But before all these (things), they shall lay their 
hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up 
to the synagogues, and (casténg yow) into prisons, 
(you) being brought before kings and rulers for my 
name’s sake. 

13 And it shall turn to you for a testimony (of my 
presence with you; they being not able to resist the wise 
dom of your doctrine, ver. 15, or gainsay the miracles by 
which you do confirm it). 

14 Settle ἐξ therefore in your hearts, not to medi- 
tate before what ye shall answer (fo thetr inquiries and 
accusations) : 

15 For I will give you (ἐπ that hour, Mark xiii. 
a mouth (full of such power) and wisdom, which al 
your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor re- 
sist (Acts vi. 10). 

16 And (through the persecutions, which shall then be 
great ; and the apostates, which shall then be many, Matt. 
xxiv. 10. 13) ye shall be betrayed both by parents, 
and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends ; and some of 
you shall they cause to be put to death. 

17 And ye shall be hated of all (sorts of ) men for 
my name’s sake. 

18 But (notwithstanding, if ye continue faithful to 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI. 


1 Ver. 1. He looked, and saw men casting their gifts into 
the treasury.] That which was thus cast into the treasury 
was designed, saith Theophylact, not only for relief of the 
poor, but for sacred uses, and εἰς κοσμὸν τοῦ ναοῦ, “for the 
ornament of the temple;” and this might give ground to 
Josephus to say, the temple was built, not only with the 
bounty of Herod, that not being sufficient for the work, 
but with all that was contained in the holy treasury, and 
with fhe tributes sent from all parts of the world; and so 
that which men thought could never be finished, was, 
through patience and length of time, accomplished (De 
Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 916). 


2 Ver. 4. Ἔμβαλον εἰς τὰ δῶρα τοῦ Θεοῦ, Cast in unto, i. 6. 
among, the offerings of God.] For it seems a mistake to say 
that dopa, “ gifts,” signifies the treasury itself, which in He- 
brew is called korban ; for that is δῶρον, not dapa in the plu- 
ral; and according to this sense, βάλλειν τὰ δῶρα eis τὸ γα- 
ζοφυλάκιον, must be, “ to cast the treasury into the treasury” 

ver. 1), 
: 3 ve. 6. Ταῦτα ἃ θεωρεῖτε, As for these things which you 
behold,| Quod ad hee attinet. So Plautus, Naucratem, 
quem convenire volui in navi non erat, Amphitr. act. 4, sc. 
1. Hos, quos videtis hic stare captivos duos, Capt. Prol. et 
act. 1, sc. 2, Istos captivos duos—his indito catenas; 
and Terence, Eunuchum, quem dedisti nobis quas turbas 
dedit! See like examples from the Old Testament Ps. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


> 
the end, Matt. xxiv. 13) there shall not ‘an hair of 
your head perish νὰ e. you shall not perish in that 
destruction, which shall then come upon the unbelieving 
Jews). 

τ In your patience possess ye your souls (ἐν τῇ 
ὑπομονῇ ὑμῶν χτήσασθε τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν, you shall have 
your lives preserved as the reward of your Christian 
patience). 

20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed 
with (the Roman) armies, then know that the desola- 
tion thereof is nigh. 

21 (4nd) then let them which are in Judea flee to 
the mountains w Perxa); and let them which are in 
the midst of it depart out (of Judea) ; and Jet not them 
that are in the countries enter thereinto. 

22 For these be the days of vengeance (upon Judea), 
that all things which are written may be fulfilled (upon 
them). 

23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to 
them that give suck in those days (and so are not in a 
condition thus to flee)! for there shall (then) be great 
distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 

24 And they shall (many of them) fall by the edge 
of the sword, and (many of them) shall be led away 
δ captive into all nations: and ® Jerusalem shall be 
ἜΠΕΑ down of (or trodden by) the Gentiles, until the 


xviii. 30, civ. 17, Eccl. ii. 14, Hos. iii. 11, xii. 7, Neh. i. 3; 
in the New, Acts vii. 40, x. 36, 1 John ii. 27, Rev. ii. 26, 
vi. 8, where as for, or quod attinet ad, is understood. 

4 Ver. 18. Kai θρὶξ ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς ὑμῶν οὐ μὴ ἀπόληται, 
And there shall not one hair of your head perish.] This, 
saith Grotius, is a proverbial expression, used 1 Sam. xiv. 45, 
2 Sam. xiv. 11, 1 Kings i. 52, Acts xxvii. 34, signifying that 
they should sustain no loss, i. e. all circumstances considered ; 
for to suffer some loss for the present, to gain eternal life, is 
the greatest advantage; whilst that which seems at present 
to be lost is laid up with God, to be restored to us with 
usury; and this limitation seems necessary, not only from 
the former words, “Some of you they shall cause to be put 
to death” (ver. 16), but also from the event; for as most of 
the apostles were cut off before the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, so the protomartyr Stephen was taken away by the 
Jews, James the less, and other Christians, by Ananus* the 
high-priest. But yet I cannot acquiesce in this interpreta- 
tion; (1.) because this proverb, in all the places cited, con- 
‘tains a promise, that the persons spoken to should not die, or 
perish in the danger they lay under, or as they apprehended 
they might do; so “No hair of any man’s head shall pe- 
Tish,” Acts xxvii. 34, is the same as, “There shall be no 
loss of any man’s life,” ver. 22; “One hair of Jonathan’s 
head shall not perish,” 1 Sam. xiv. 45, is, in the same verse, 
οὐ ϑανατωϑθήσεται, “He shall not be put to death:” “A 
hair of thy son’s head shall not fall to the earth,” 2 Sam. 
xiv. 11, is, in the same verse, “They shall not destroy thy 
son:” “One hair of Adonijah shall not fall to the earth,” 
1 Kings i. 52, is, in the same verse, “He shall not be put 
to death.” Christ, therefore, seems to promise, that what- 
ever might befall them at other times, yet in these days of 
vengeance upon the Jews, or at the time of the destruction 
of the city and the temple, none of those Christians which 
endured to the end should perish in that siege. And this 
the following words seem to insinuate, “In patience possess 
your souls ;” that is, saith Tertullian, Per tolerantiam sal- 
Vos facietis vosmet ipsos, “By patience you will preserve 
yourselves,” ver. 19; so Matt. xxiv. 13, “He that endureth 
to the end shall be saved” (see here ver. 8). Accordingly 
the Pseudo-Clemens, in his Recognitions, saith, that this 
Was an evident token of this great mystery, thatt “every 
one that believed in this prophet, and was baptized in his 
name, ab excidio belli, quod incredule genti imminet ac 

ipsi, servaretur illesus, should be kept safe from the 
destruction which should happen to that unbelieving nation, 
FS OSS RC ea 


* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 698, 
ἡ Recogn. lib. i. §. 39, p. 409. 


311 


times of the Gentiles be fulfilled (7. e. till the glorious 
conversion of the gentiles, at the coming in of the Jews, 
who shall then also be gathered to their own city and 
country). 

25 ¥ And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the 
moon, and in the stars (¢. ε. in the heavens where they 
move); and upon the earth distress of nations, with 
perplexity ; 7 the sea and the waves roaring (see the 
note) ; 

26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for look- 
ing after those things which are coming on the (habit- 
able) earth: for the powers of heaven (the ecclesiastical 
and civil government) shall be shaken. 

27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming 
in a cloud (or, as upon a cloud) with power and great 

lory. 
Ε 28 And when these things begin to come to pass, 
then look up, and lift up your heads; for your re- 
demption (from your troubles) draweth nigh. 

29 And he spake to them a parable (do this effect) ; 
Behold the fig tree, and all the (other) trees ; 

30 When they now shoot forth (their leaves and 
branches), ye see and know of your own selves that 
summer is now nigh at hand. 

31 So likewise ye, when ye see these things come 
to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God (or, the 


and to their temple, by the war.” And Theodoret* saith 
there was a fame, that “ when Vespasian and Titus came to 
fight against them, τοὺς τηνικαῦτα πιστοὺς ἐξ ἀποκαλύψεως τὴν 
πόλιν καταλιπεῖν, the faithful that were there, by revela- 
tion, left the city, according to our Lord’s admonition, 
Luke xxi. 20, and that of them Zachary foretold, the 
rest shall not perish.” Add to this what is noted on Matt. 
xxiv. 13. 

5 Ver. 24. Kai αἰχμαλωτισϑήσονται cis πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, And 
shall be carried captive into all nations.) Accordingly Jo- 
sephus informs us, that the number of those who were 
taken captives by the Romans during the war, was{ ἐννέαι 
μυριάδες καὶ ἑπτακισχίλιοι, “ninety and seven thousand ;” of 
which some of the fairest and tallest Titus reserved for his 
triumph ; of the rest, that were about seventeen years old, 
he sent some to Egypt to work in the mines, πλείστους δ᾽ 
eis τὰς ἐπαρχίας διεδωρήσατο, “most of them he dispersed 
through the Roman provinces, to be destroyed in their 
theatres by the sword and wild beasts; but they that were 
under seventeen years of age, ἐπράϑησαν, were sold.” 

ὃ Καὶ “Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἔσται πατουμένη ὑπὸ ἐθνῶν, ἄχρι πληρωθῶσι 
καιροὶ ἐθνῶν, And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the 
gentiles, till the time of the gentiles be fulfilled.| That 
is, say some interpreters, till the full number of the gentiles, 
which God shall call, be completed. This, I confess, is a 
very ancient interpretation of these words ; but it is contrary 
to the express word of the apostle Paul, who declares, that, 
at the conversion of the Jews, there shall be a greater and 
more glorious conversion of the gentiles, than that which 
happened at the fall of them; that “their fullness should 
be much more the riches of the gentiles” than their fall 
was (Rom. xi. 12, 13), and that “ their coming in should be 
to the gentiles as life from the dead,” and should so much 
more enrich them, than their casting off (ver. 15). I there- 
fore do interpret these words thus: Jerusalem shall 
be inhabited, not by the Jews, but by the gentiles ruling 
there, till the season for the full conversion of the still hea- 
then gentiles shall come in; i. 6. till the time of the conver- 
sion of the Jews, and the flowing in of all nations to them, 
See this exposition confirmed in the appendix to the eleventh 
chapter to the Romans, and Dr. Hammond's sense of the 
words confuted there (see here, Examen Milli). 

*Axpt πληρωθῶσι καιροὶ ESvGv.] These two words are in St. 
Jerome, Theophylact, and in all the versions, and yet re- 
jected by Dr. Mills, Proleg. p. 133. 

7 Ver. 25. ᾿Ηχούσης θαλάσσης καὶ σάλου, The sea and the 


* In Zech. xiv. 2. 
¢ De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 49, p. 968. 


912 


coming of Christ, as a king, to execute his vengeance on 
his disobedient subjects of the Jewish nation) is (also) 
nigh at hand. 

32 Verily [say unto you, (The men of ) this genera- 
tion shall not pass away, till all (that I have spoken) 
be fulfilled. 

33 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words 
shall not pass away (unperformed ). 

34 4 And ὃ take heed to yourselves, lest at any 
time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and 
drunkenness, and (with the) cares of this life (which 
will unfit and indispose you for your flight, or your care 
to avoid these things), and so that day (will) come upon 
you unawares. 


LUKE. 


35 For as a snare shall it come on all tnem that. 


dwell on the face of the whole earth (or, land of 
Judea). 

36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye 
may be accounted worthy to escape all these things 
that shall come to pass, and to stand before the 
Son of man (thus coming to avenge himself on that 
nation). 

37 And in the day time he was teaching in the tem- 
ple; and at night he went out, and abode in the mount 
that is called the mount of Olives. 

38 And all the people came early in the morning to 
him (being) in the temple, for to hear him. 


waves roaring.| To this I would refer those words of Jose- 
phus; at that time, ἀμήχανος ἐκρήγνυται χειμὼν, “an im- 
mense storm of the sea brake out, and violent winds, with 
most vehement showers, and terrible lightnings and thun- 
ders, kal μυκῆματα σειωμένης τῆς γῆς ἑξαίσια, and vast roar- 
ings of the shaken earth” (De Bello Jud. lib. iv. cap. 17, 
Ῥ- 881): or rather to that violent storm, called malemboreas, 
which happened to the Jews at Joppa, got in boats to the sea, 
in which their boats perished, with a violent noise, the peo- 
ple howling, and the waves roaring at the same time; of 
which Josephus gives a very tragical description, De Bello 
Jud. lib. iii. cap. 29, p. 855. 

8 Ver. 34—36. Προσέχετε δὲ ἑαυτοῖς, &c. But take heed 
to yourselves, &c.] Here our Saviour calls upon the believ- 
ing Christians, to take care and use the greatest vigilance 
that they do not miscarry in this dreadful season, by reason 
of that excess and luxury, which may render them unmind- 
ful of it; or those cares, which may render them un- 


willing to part with their temporal concerns, lest they should 
be involved in that ruin, which would come on others as a 
snare, suddenly and unexpectedly ; and that they should add 
to this vigilance constant prayer to God, that they might be 
found worthy to escape these tremendous judgments, and 
might stand safely and boldly before the Son of man, when 
he comes to execute them on the unbelieving Jews. Whence 
note, 

First, That God’s promise of a deliverance to the Chris- 
tians then, was only conditional, provided that they took 
care to avoid those sins which might render them obnox- 
ious to these judgments, and to do those things which might 
render them worthy to escape them. 

Secondly, That there is to be a connexion of our endea- 
vours with the divine aid and providence for our preserva- 
tion; and that we are not to expect preservation imme- 
diately from him, without the use of those means which he 
hath put into our power to effect it. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


1 Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, 
which (from the beginning of it) is called the Passover. 

2 And the chief priests and scribes sought 'how they 
might (safely) kill him; for they feared the people. 

3 q Then? entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Is- 
cariot, being of the number of the twelve (which at- 
tended him). 

4 And he went his way (from the twelve), and com- 
muned with the chief priests and captains, how he 
might betray him unto them. 

5 And they were glad (of the motion), and cove- 
nanted to give him money (even thirty pieces of silver, 
Matt. xxvi. 15). 

6 And he? promised (to make good his word), and 


sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the 
absence of the multitude (as ἄτερ ὄχλον, without 
tumult). 

7 ¥ Then came the day of unleavened bread, when 
the passover must (according to the law) be killed. 

8 And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and pre- 
pare us the passover, that we may eat (of 11). 

9 And they said unto him, (or, for they had said to 
him, Matt. xxvi. 17, Mark xiv. 12,) Where wilt thou 
that we prepare (7?) ? 

10 And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are en- 
tered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bear- 
ing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house 
where he entereth in. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP, XXII. 


1 Ver. 2. Πῶς ἀνέλωσιν αὐτον, How they might take him 
away.) i.e. Without a tumult of the people (Mark. xiv. 
2 


2 Ver. 3. Εϊσῆλθε δὲ ὃ Σατανᾶς cis ᾿Ιοὔδαν, Then entered 
Satan into Judas.| That is, two days before the passover: 
for, first, as for that supper in which our Saviour gave him 
the sop, at which Satan entered, the scripture doth expressly 
tell us, that it was held πρὸ τῆς ἑορτῆς τοῦ πάσχα, “ before 
the feast of the passover,” John xiii. 1. And when our Sa- 
viour, having given him the sop, said, “ What thou doest, do 
quickly ;” some of our Lord’s disciples thought that Christ 
had bid him “buy those things which were needful for the 
paschal feast’”’ (ver. 29), whence it is evident that feast was 
not yet celebrated by them; and here, St. Luke saith, Satan 
entered into Judas, and he consulted with the high-priest, 
and with the soldiers, “how he might deliver him up unto 
them:” and then it follows, ver. 7, 8, “Then came the days 
ot unleavened bread, and Christ said to his disciples, Prepare 
the passover for us, that we may eat;” so that Satan must 
have entered into Judas before the passover was prepared. 
The apostle declares, that Satan ἐνεργεῖται, “ inwardly work- 
eth in the children of disobedience” (Eph. ii. 2), and “leads 


them captive at his will” (2. Tim. ii. 26). When therefore 
Judas had, through the temptation of his covetousness, 
robbed even the poor of the charity designed for them (John 
xii. 6), Satan suggests unto him another way to satisfy his 
avarice, even the betraying of his Master for a sum of mo- 
ney ; and when this suggestion prevailed with him to go to 
the high-priests with that question, “ What will you give me 
to betray him 1 (Matt. xxvi. 15) then Satan fully entered 
into him, and carried him on, without remorse, to the per- 
formance of that horrid enterprise. 

3 Ver. 6. ᾿Εξωμολόγησε, And he promised.) i. e. Consented 
to do the thing: for that this doth not only signify to con- 
fess, and to give thanks, but also to consent and engage, is 
evident, not only from the institution of Theophilus, where 
we read thus, προμίττεις, προμίττω, tour’ ἔστι, ὁμολογεῖς, ὅμο- 
λογῶ, that is, ὑμλογεῖν to promise ; but from Phavorinus, who 
renders ὁμολογῶ, συντίϑεμαι, σύμφημι, “1 promise, I consent,” 
of which import of the word we find many instances from 
Plato, Xenophon, Demosthenes in Constantine; so that 
ἐξωμολόγησε is here well rendered, “he promised,” or con- 
sented to the price; nor is it to be wondered that St. Luke, 
born at Antioch, where there was an academy, and studying 
in the universities of Greece, should use this word, not as 
the Septuagint, but as those Grecians did 


CHAPTER XXII. 


11 And ye shall say unto the goodman of the house, 
The Master saith -unto thee, Where is the guest- 
chamber, where I shall eat the passover with my dis- 
ciples? 

12 And he shall shew you a large upper room fur- 
nished: there make ready. 

13 And they went, and found (Ὁ as he had said 
unto them: and they made ready the passover. 

14 And when the hour (of eating i!) was come, he 
sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. 

15 And he said unto them, With 4 desire I have de- 
sired (7. e. I have earnestly desired) to eat this passover 
with you before I suffer: 

16 For I say unto you, I will not any more eat there- 
of, until it (that which was typified by it) be fulfilled in 
the kingdom of God (procuring your spiritual redemp- 
tion by the oblation of the true paschal Lamb). 

17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, 
Take this, and divide ἐξ among yourselves: ~ 


313 


18 For I say unto you, I will not (any more) drink 
of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God 
shall come. 

19 ¢ And he took bread, and gave thanks (over 
it), and brake ἐΐ, and gave (7/) unto them, saying, ‘This 
(bread given) is (the memorial of ) my body which is 
given for you: δ this do (break bread henceforth thus) 
In remembrance of me (giving my body to be broken for 
you, 1 Cor. xi. 24). 

20 δ Likewise also (he took) the cup after (the end of 
the paschal) supper, saying, Shs wine contained in) 
this cup ds (the memorial of ) the new testament (or co- 
venant ratified) in my blood, which is shed for you 
(for the remission of your sins, Matt. xxvi. me 

21 But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth 
(or delivers) me (up to the chief priests) is with me on 
the table. 

22 And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was 7 de- 
termined (by that God, who, by his prophets hath fore- 


4 Ver. 15. ᾿Επιθυμίᾳ ἐπιθύμησα, &c. With desire I have 

desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.) I 
cannot here see, what Grotius and others affirm, that Christ 
gives here a reason why he would anticipate the paschal sup- 
per, our Lord himself giving a reason of these words in the 
following supper, viz. that he would eat no more of it, till 
that which was typified by this paschal lamb was fulfilled in 
the kingdom of heaven; that is, till he, who is styled our 
paschal lamb, was offered, and, by his death, had procured to 
men a liberty from that death, by the fear of which they were 
formerly kept in bondage (Heb. ii. 15), and in perpetual me- 
mory of his oblation, and the benefits purchased by it, had 
instituted a new paschal supper, in which his disciples should 
eat at his table with him. That our Lord did not ante- 
date the paschal supper, see in the discourse on that sub- 
ject. 
: 5 Ver. 19. Τοῦτο ποιεῖτε, Do this in remembrance of me.] 
That is, say the papists, Sacrifice this, very absurdly ; for 
who ever read in any Greek author, that σῶμα ποιεῖν signified 
to “sacrifice a body?” nor do the Latins say, facere victi- 
mam, but facere victima, understanding sacra. Moreover, 
it is said also of the cup τοῦτο ποιεῖτε, “Do this (1 Cor. xi. 
25), and yet it is not the cup by which the new covenant is 
sacrificed, but by which it is established ; nor do the papists 
say this cup is sacrificed, but only that it is consecrated by 
those words. 

6 Ver. 20. ᾿ωΩσαύτως καὶ τὸ ποτήριον, μετὰ τὸ δειπνῆσαι, &c. 
Likewise also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the 
new testament of my blood.) Here is a double metonymy ; 
(1.) that of the cup for the wine contained in it; (2.) that 
of the sign for the thing signified by it, the wine being the 
symbol of that blood in which that new covenant was esta- 
bli And this, saith the evangelist, was said after the 
paschal supper, to signify that this cup pertained not to the 
solemnity of the passover. 

7 Ver. 22. Kai ὁ piv vids rod ἀνθρώπου πορεύεται κατὰ τὸ ὡρισ- 
μένον, And the Son of man goeth, as it was determined (of 
him) : but (yet) woe to that man by whom the Son of man 
ts betrayed 2) Κατά τὸ ὡρισμένον, i. 6. according to the pro- 
phecies concerning the death of Christ, made by counsel and 
appointment of God. From the woe, denounced upon him 

t should betray the Messias, we learn, that he was highly 
criminal in so doing, and therefore could not be under an ab- 
Solute necessity of doing so: therefore, who, from these 
words, gather that Judas was, from the beginning of this ac- 
tion to the end, under an absolute necessity of doing as he 
did, by virtue of the decree of God impelling him to this 
action, render Judas free from guilt; and to them, saith 
Grotius, we may say as Irenzus* did to Florinus, maintain- 
ing that some souls were not by choice, but, by nature, good ; 
and others were, by nature, evil: these doctrines are not 
sound, nor consonant to the sentiments of the church; nay, 


“Taira τὰ déypara, ἵνα περισμένως εἴπω, οὐκ ἔστιν ὑγιοῦς 
γνώμης" ταῦτα τὰ déypara ἀσύμφωνά ἐστι τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, εἰς τὴν 
μεγίστην ἀσέβειαν περιβάλλοντα τοὺς πειθομένους atrots——rai- 
τὰ τὰ déypara οἱ πρὸ ἡμῶν πρεσβύτεροι, οἱ καὶ τοῖς ἀποστόλοις 
συμφοιτήσαντες, οὐ παρέδωκάν σοι, p. 510. 

Vor. IV.—40 


they induce the greatest impiety; these things, neither the 
ancients which were before us, and which were the disciples 
of the apostles, delivered, nor durst our heretics assert. Since 
God is good, saith Plato,* “we must by no means allow 
any body to say, he is the cause of the evil done by any; 
but must by all means repel and reject such opinions ;” and 
indeed all the ancients unanimously held that neither pro- 
phecies, nor the prescience, nor the decrees of God, laid any 
necessity upon the will of man; for they who assert this, 
saith Origen, “absolve sinners from all guilt, and lay the 
charge of all the evils which they do upon God, as, by his 
decree, prescience, or prediction, laying upon them that ne- 
cessity, which will not suffer them to do otherwise. They 
also,” saith he “take away τὸ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, the freedom of our 
will, and with that all praise and dispraise, or all difference 
betwixt things worthy of praise or reprehension. +This 
doctrine also cuts off all that is said of the equity of the 
divine judgment, and of the threats made against, or the 
punishments inflicted on, the wicked, and of the promises 
of a better life, and the reward of them that do well.”— 
“For,” saith Clemens of Alexandria,§ “there is no differ- 
ence betwixt faith and infidelity, nor is either of them wor- 
thy of praise or dispraise, if they have προηγουμένην τὴν ἐκ 
τοῦ τὰ πᾶντα δυνατοῦ φυσικὴν ἀνάγκην, an antecedent physical 
necessity from God; nor are praises or reprehensions, re- 
wards or punishments, just,|| μὴ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐχούσης τὴν ἐξου- 
σίαν τῆς ὁρμῆς καὶ ἀφορμῆς if the soul hath not a freedom of 
desiring or abstaining from things, but is carried on to them 
by an unwilling necessity.” God, saith Ireneus, “ hath al- 
ways preserved to man his freedom and power over his own 
actions, ut justé damnentur, qui non obediunt ei, that they 
may justly be condemned who do not obey him :’—for 
man,” saith Justin Martyr,** “would neither be worthy of 
praise or reward, οὐκ ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ ἑλόμενος τὸ ἀγαϑὸν, did he not 
of himself choose what is good, but was so by nature; nor, 
being evil, could he be justly punished, if he were not so of 
himself ;{{ ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲν δυνάμενος εἶναι Erepov zap’ ὄὅ ἐγεγόνει, but 
could be no other than what he was made; for we are 
crowned or punished διὰ τὸ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν, for that which it is in 
our power to do.’ And this they especially apply to this 
fact of Judas. “For,” saith Chrysostom, “ neither is presci- 
ence the cause of wickedness, nor does it induce a necessity 
of doing it: for Judas was not a traitor because God fore- 
saw it; but he foresaw it, because Judas would be so” (see 
the note on Acts ii. 23, iv. 28). 4 


* Κακῶν dé αἴτιον φάναι Θεὸν ἀγαθὸν ὄντα διαμαχητέον παντὲ 
τρόπῳ, Sec. Lib. ii. de Repub. p. 606, A. 

Τ Τοὺς ἁμαρτωλοὺς ἀπολύοντες παντὸς ἐκκλίματος, τῷ Θεῷ προσ- 
γράφουσι πάντων τῶν κακῶν-------τὴν αἰτίαν. Tom. iii. in Gen. ed. 
Huet. tom. i. p. 38, C, E. 

+ Τὰ τῆς κεκηρυγμένης τοῦ Θεοῦ κρίσεως, δίκαι καὶ ἀπειλαὶ πρὸς 
τοὺς ἡμαρτηκότας ὡς κολασθησομένους, τιμαί τε αὖ πρὸς τοὺς τοῖς 
κρείττοσιν ἑαυτοὺς ἐπιδεδωκότας. Tbid. 

§ Strom. lib. ii. p. 363. 

|| Strom. i. p. 311, A, B, C, 

« Lib. iv. cap. 9 et 29. 


** Apol. ii. p. 81, B. 
Τί Q. et Resp. 9, p. 397. ἐν 
2 


814 


told my sufferings): but (yel) woe unto that man by 
whom he is betrayed! 

23 And they began to enquire among themselves, 
which of them it was that should do this thing. 

24 q And there was also ἃ ὃ strife among them, 
which of them should be accounted the greatest (in 
Christ’s kingdom). 

25 And (to remove the causes of that strife) he said 

unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lord- 
ship over them (at pleasure); and they that exercise 
authority upbn them are called benefactors (or, they 
who are called benefactors, or princes, exercise authority 
upon them as their subjects: sce Matt. xx. 25, Mark 
x. 42). 
26 But ye shall not be (or do) so (i. e. ye shall not 
exercise such dominion over others in my kingdom): but 
he that is greatest among you, let him be (subject) as 
the younger (are to the elder, 1 Pet. v. 5); and he that 
is chief, (/et him be) as he that doth serve. 

27 For whether zs greater, he that sitteth at meat, 
or he that serveth? zs not he that sitteth at meat? but 
I (the head of this kingdom) am among you as he that 
serveth (and so shall you be among others). 

28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my 
temptations (7. 6. my low and afflicted state on earth). 

29 And (though I permit you no dominion over others 
at pleasure, but a ministry only for their good, yet) 1 ap- 
point unto you ἃ ὃ kingdom, as my Father hath ap- 
pointed unto me (giving you power in my name to pre- 
side over my church, making laws, as Ihave done in his 
name, by which they shall be governed ) ; 

30 That ye may eat and drink at my table (and so 
have the honour of grandees) in my kingdom, and (may) 
sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (and 
so may have the highest power in it). 

31 4 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, 
Satan hath "desired to Aave you, that he may sift 
(ὦ. e. toss and shake) you (by temptations,) as wheat (ὦ 
tossed and shaken in a sieve) : 


8 Ver. 24. ᾿Εγένετο δὲ καὶ φιλονεικία, There was also con- 
tention which of them should be accounted the greatest.) 1. 6. 
Which of them should be so: for that δοκέω is oftentimes an 
expletive, see 1 Cor. vii. 40. I see not any reason why in- 
terpreters should here say, this account of their contention 
is misplaced, since in the other evangelists it is mentioned 
after Christ’s admonition concerning his passion, viz. Matt. 
xx. 25, Mark x. 42. Here Christ saith more than he did 
there. 

9 Ver. 29, Κἀγὼ διατίθεμαι ὑμῖν, &e. And I appoint you 
to a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed to me.] Christ 
speaks not here of the heavenly kingdom common to all the 
faithful, but of a kingdom proper to his apostles, viz. that 
as his Father had given him power to make laws, by which 
all his subjects should be governed, and to which they should 
be subject, so did he give to his apostles power to deliver to 
Christians those evangelical laws, which they should all be 
obliged to obey. Now hence it follows, that the gospels 
and epistles of the apostles must be owned as the laws of 
Christ ; and whereas the nobility in a kingdom use to be 
known by two things, the honour and the power imparted 
to them—their honour in eating at the king’s table; their 
power in having a share in the government under the king— 
therefore our Saviour represents the honour of his apostles 
by eating and drinking with him at his table, and their power 
by judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 

10 Ver. 31, 32. 'O Σατανᾶς ἐξητήσατο ὑμᾶς, &c. Simon, Si- 
mon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he mai 
"ἢ you as wheat : but Ihave prayed for thee, that thy faith 

ail not.] Here note, 

First, For the consolation of good men, that Satan cannot 
afflict or tempt them without divine permission (Job. i. 12). 

Secondly, That Satan is said σιτίασαι, to sift those whom 
he tempts and afflicts; because afflictions toss and shake 
them, as wheat is tossed and shaken in a sieve. 


LUKE. 


32 But I have prayed for thee (who wilt suffer most 
by his temptations), that thy faith fail not (utterly) - 
and when thou art converted (7. ὁ. returned from thy 
fall), strengthen thy brethren (subject to the like tempta- 
tions). 

Ἶ And he said unto him, Lord, Iam ready to go 
with thee, both into prison, and to death. ~ 

34 And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall 
not crow this day (in the morning), before that thou 
shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me. 

35 And he said unto them, When I sent you with- 
out purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing ? 
And they said, (We /acked) nothing. 

36 Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath 
a purse, let him take zt (w7th him), and likewise Ais 
scrip: and he that hath no sword, ” let him sell his 
garment, and buy one (2. 6. now the times will be so pe- 
rilous, that I have need to warn you to arm yourselves, as 
much as may be, by faith and patience, against the danger 
of them). 

37 For I say unto you, that this that is written (of 
me) must yet be accomplished in (upon) me, (viz.) 
And he was reckoned among the transgressors (Isa. 
lili. 12) ; for the things (written) concerning me (will) 
have an end (or, accomplishment). 

38 And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. 
And he said unto them, It is enough (10 answer my de- 
sign, for I intended only, by this monition, to warn you 
of the distresses that were now approaching, that you may 
be prepared for them). 

39 4 And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to 
the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed 
him, 

40 And when he was at the place, he said unto 
them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation (7. 6. that 
you be not overcome by it). 

41 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s 
east, and kneeled down, and prayed, 

42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove ” this 


Thirdly, That Christ prayed, that the faith of Peter might 
not fail, not because he was constituted by him the head of 
the church, but because he was so infirm in faith as to deny 
his Master thrice ; whence he deserved to make shipwreck of 
his faith by the subtraction of divine grace, and had actually 
done so, had not his sudden conversion obtained the pardon 
of his sin. 

Note, Lastly, That it is the duty of those, who truly have 
repented of their faults, to commiserate the fall of others, 
and be solicitous for their confirmation in the faith. 

1 Ver. 36. Kai 6 μὴ ἔχων, &c. And he that hath no sword, 
let him sell his garment, and buy one.] This is not a com- 
mand to buy a sword, or to use one to repel force with force, 
as is apparent, partly because Christ saith here, “ Two swords 
are enough,” ver. 38, which sure they could not be for the 
repelling those that were to come against them; and partly 
because he reprehends Peter for using one in this manner, 
Matt. xxvi. 52. It is therefore only a monition that the 
times were now to be perilous, that, if things were to be 
acted by human power, there would be more need of swords 
and purses than ever: and by saying that two swords were 
enough, some good interpreters think, he designed they. 
should understand, he spake not this to bid them provide 
swords, but rather to acquaint them by symbols after the 
oriental manner, with the approaching danger, that they 
by faith and patience might be the better armed against it. 
According to the descant of Theophylact, otra προνοεῖσϑε 
ἑαυτῶν ὡς κινδῦνοις καὶ πολέμοις προσκρούσοντες, “ So provide for 
yourselves as persons that may expect to meet with perils 
and wars.” 

12 Ver. 42. Ei βούλει παρανεγκεῖν τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ, 
Father, if thou be willing to remove this cup from me.) He, 
by the Jewish phrase of a cup, expresseth his death: so R. 
Caijah comforts R. Lakis upon the death of his son, by say- 
ing, “This is the path which hath been trod since the 


CHAPTER XXII. 


cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be 
done. 

43 And (upon this prayer) there ™ appeared an 
angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him (hy 
leling him know he should be heard in that he feared, 
Heb. v. 7). 

44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnest- 
ly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood 
falling down to the ground. 

45 And when he rose up from prayer, and was 
come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for 
(their great) sorrow (had dispiriled them, and so rendered 
them sleepy), 4 

46 And (fe) said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise 
and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. 

47 4 And while he yet spake, behold (there came to 
apprehend him) a multitude, and \ cae them) he that 
was called Judas, one of the twelve, (who) went be- 
fore them, and he drew near unto Jesus to kiss him 
ag being the sign given, by which they that were with 
im should know Jesus). 

48 But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou 
the Son of man witha kiss? (rt thou guilly of such vile 


315 


49 When they which were about him saw what 
would follow, they (not rightly apprehending the mean- 
ing of his words, ver. 46) said unto him, Lord, shall 
we smite with the sword? 

50 § And one of them (not staying for an answer 
smote the (a) servant of the high priest, and cut ὁ 
his right ear. 

51 And Jesus answered (¢. δ. spake with relation to 
that action) and said, 15 Sufler ye (me) thus far (to be 
at liberty as to restore the man to his ear). And he 
touched his ear, and healed him. 

52 Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and 
16 captains of the temple, and the elders, which were 
come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with 
swords and staves ? 

53 When I was daily with you in the temple, ye 
stretched forth no hands against me: but " this is 
your hour, and the (hour of the) power of darkness 
(ὦ. 6. the devil and you, his instruments, are now permil- 
led to compass my death). 

54 4 Then took they him, and led him, and brought 
him into the high priest’s house. And Peter followed 
afar off. 

55 And when they (the servants) had kindled a fire 


hypocrisy as lo make this the signal of thy treachery ?) 


beginning of the creation; many have drunk, and many 
shall drink, of this cup.” 

B Ver. 43. “Q48n dé αὐτῷ ἄγγελος ἀπ᾿ οὐρανοῦ ἐνισχύων 
αὐτὸν, And there appeared to him an angel from heaven 
strengthening him.) In St. Jerome’s* time these words seem 
to be wanting both in some Latin and Greek copies, as is 
insinuated in these words cited in the note: nor hath 
Ambrose any thing of this angel in his commentary on this 
chapter. But Epiphanius,t answering an objection of the 
Arians, contending Christ could not be God, ὅτι ἐπεδέετο καὶ 
ἰσχύος ἀγγέλων, “ because he wanted the help of angels,” ac- 
knowledged, that this was written in the gospel of St. Luke, 
making no mention of any variation of the copies ; whence 
it may be conjectured, this variation happened after the 
conflict with the Arians. But whereas Woltzogenius saith 
after them, that this anxiety and consternation of our Lord, 
which required that he should be strengthened by an angel, 
proves he was not God; he might as well have hence con- 
eluded, that he was not “ filled with the Spirit above mea- 
sure ;” and before he made this conclusion, he should have 
confuted Grotius, saying here, “that the divinity dwelling in 
him had subtracted his influence ; whence Christ, being left 
to his human nature, needed the comfort of an angel:’’ for 
otherwise, he who with a word made the whole band of 
soldiers fall to the earth (John xviii. 6), and healed the ear 
of Malchus with a touch (ver. 51 of this chapter), sure gave 
sufficient indications of the divinity residing in him. 

W Ver. 44. 'Eyévero δὲ 5 ἱδρὼς αὐτοῦ ὡσεὶ ϑρόμβοι αἵματος, 
And his sweat was as it were great drops of blood.| 1 own 
that words do not certainly signify that the matter of 
this sweat was blood, but only that it was thick and viscous, 
like to blood falling from the nose in a small clot, at the 
end of bleeding; but I see nothing why this might not be 
80 great an agony, as to force blood out of his capillary veins 
to mix with it, this being no unusual thing: for Aristotle; 
Says, ἤδη τινὲς Wpwoav αἱματώδη ἱδρῶτα, Some have sweat a 
bloody sweat ;” and again,§ ἤδη τισὶν ἰὁρῶσαι συνέβη αἱματώδει 
περιττώματι διὰ καχεξίαν, “Some, through an ill habit of 
body, have sweat a bloody exerement.’ And Diodorus 
Siculus] saith of the Indian serpents, that “if any one be 
bitten by them, he is tormented with excessive pains, καὶ 
ῥήσις ἱδρῶτος αἱματοειδοῦς κατεῖχε, and seized with a bloody 
sweat.” 


1 Ver. 51. "Bare ἕως τούτου, Suffer ye thus far.) I do not 


_ * Tn quibusdam exemplaribus, tam Grecis quim Latinis, 
inyenitur, scribente Luc4, Apparuit illi angelus de ceelo con- 
fortans eum. Adv. Pelag. lib. ii. f. 103, F. 

+ Her. 69, §. 66. 

+ Hist. Animal. lib. iii. cap. 19 

§ De Part. An. lib. iii. cap. 15. 

1 Lib. xvii. p. 560. 


think that Christ spake this to his disciples, bidding them to 
permit his enemies to deal thus with him, and not to do any 
thing for his rescue, but rather that he spake thus to the 
soldiers, Permit this injury, or assault, offered by one of my 
apostles, which I will presently repair: for it follows, “and 
he healed him;” and this he said and did, partly to show, 
that he who had such a power to heal and throw down his 
enemies was taken willingly, and not for want of power to 
preserve himself, and partly to preserve his apostles from 
their assaults. 

16 Ver. 52. Kat στρατηγοὺς τοῦ ἱεροῦ, And captains of the 
temple.] It is past doubt with me, saith Dr. Lightfoot, that 
these captains of the temple were not the Roman soldiers 
placed in the tower of Antonia, of whose conspiring against 
the life of Christ we read not; but the captains of the seve- 
ral watches of the temple: for, say the Jews, the priests 
keep watch in three places in the temple, and the Levites in 
twenty-one; and to every one of these watches there was a 
chief, they consisting of many, and to them all one, who was 
eminently ἀρχηγὸς, “the captain,” or chief ruler of the tem- 
ple. - But these, say some, could not te Jews, because they 
kept watch at the passover, and on the sabbath. To this I 
answer, that the Jews did not think their feasts or sabbaths 
were profaned by service done in and for the temple on that 
day (see the note on Matt. xii. 5). That the Jews had then 
such watches, we learn from those words of Pilate, Matt. 
XXvil. 65, ἔχετε κουστωδίαν, “Ye have a watch:” that the 
office of the priests and the Levites was called a warfare, see 
note on 1 Cor. ix. 7.. That these captains were not Romans 
may probably be argued even from their name, “ captains of 
the temple ;” which name is never given by Josephus to the 
governors of the soldiers in the tower of Antonia ; they being 
by him called ¢potpapyor,* “the governors of the castle ;” 
whereas the officer is still called 6 στρατηγὸς, “the ruler of 
the temple,” both by the scripture (Acts iv. 1, v. 24. 26), and 
by Josephus :+ and by Dr. Lightfoot he is supposed to be 
the same with the man of the mount, so often mentioned in 
the Jewish writers, or the ruler of the mountain of the house. 
And by what we read of him, both in Josephus and the 
scripture, he seems to be an officer of the high-priests, 
appointed to bring them who offended in the temple (as 
the apostles were thought to have done, by preaching 
in it Jesus) to the high-priest and Sanhedrin, to be pu- 
nished. 

17 Ver. 53. Αὕτη ὑμῶν ἐστιν ἡ ὥρα, καὶ ἡ ἐξουσία τοῦ σκότους, 
This is your hour, and the power of darkness.) i. 6. This 15 
the time in which it is permitted to you to exercise your 
malice, and execute your bloody designs against me, and in 


* Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 6. p. 624, F. 
ἡ Τοὺς δὲ περὶ ᾿Ανανίαν τὸν ἀρχιερέα καὶ τὸν στρατηγὸν “Avavoy 
δήσας cis Ρώμην ἀπέπεμψε. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. ὅ. 


316 LUKE. 


in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, 
Peter sat down among them. 

56 But a certain maid beheld him as he sat by the 
fire, and earnestly looked upon him, and said, This 
man was also with him. 

57 And he denied him, saying, Woman, I know 
him not. ; 

58 And after a little while another saw him, and 
said (as he had heard from another maid), Thou art also 
of them. And Peter said, Man, I am not. 

59 And about the space of an hour after another 
confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth this fellow 
also was with him: for he is a Galilean. 

60 And Peter said, Man, I know not (any thing of ) 
what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet 
spake, the cock crew. 

61 And (then) the Lord turned, and looked upon 
Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, 
how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou 
shalt deny me thrice. 

62 And (upon this) Peter went out, and wept bit- 
terly. 

63 § And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and 
smote him. 

64 And when they had blindfolded him, and struck 


him on the face, and asked him, saying, (Thou, who 
callest thyself a prophet) prophesy, (or, tell us) who is it 
that smote thee ? 

65 And many other things blasphemously spake 
they against him. 

66 ¥ And as soon as it was day, the elders of the 
people and the chief priests and the scribes came toge- 
ther, and led him into their council, saying, 

67 Art thou the Christ? tell us (whether it be so or 
not). And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will 
not believe (me) : 

68 And if 1 also ask you (questions to convince you 
that I am 80, as formerly I have done, xx. 3), ye will not 
answer me, nor let me go. 

69 (Yet this I do assure you, that)Hereafter (ἀπὸ τοῦ 
νῦν. from this time of my death) shall the Son of man 
(soon) sit on the right hand of the power of God. 

70 Then said they all, Art thou then the ® Son of 
God? And he said unto them, Ye say that (which) 
Tam. 

71 And they said, What need we any further wit- 
ness? for we ourselves have heard (oud) of his own 
mouth (that he styles himself the Son of God, and so blas- 
phemes, by making himself equal with God, John v. 18, 
x. 33). 


which Satan is permitted to rush upon me with his most 
furious temptations. 

18 Ver. 70. Σὺ οὖν ef ὁ vids τοῦ Θεοῦ ; Art thou then the Son 
of God?—Iam. Ver.71. What need we any further wit- 
nesses 2 Matt. xxvi. 63. 65. Behold, ye have heard his 
blasphemy-| They conclude Christ guilty of blasphemy, 
and, consequently, of death, because he styled himself the 
Son of God, not in their sense, in which they allowed that 
of the Psalmist to belong to him, “Thou art my Son,” Ps. 
xxvii. 12, but in his own; i. 6. because being a man he made 
himself God (John x. 39). Whence it is manifest, (1.) that 


in the sense of the Jews, to own himself the Son of God, 
and to make himself God, was the same thing. (2.) Hence 
also it is certain, that the Jews of that age did not think the 
Messias was to be God, but only a man, who could not 
challenge to himself divinity, seeing they never conclude 
him a blasphemer, because he said he was the Christ, but 
only “because he said he was the Son of God;” by that 
making himself «equal with God” (John v.18), and because 
he declared he shortly was to “sit at the right hand of 
power” (Matt. xxvi. 64). 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


1 Anp the whole multitude of them (of the Sanhe- 
drin) arose, and led him unto Pilate. 

2 And they began to accuse him, saying, We found 
this fellow perverting the nation, and ! forbidding to 
give tribute to Cesar, (see xx. 35, by) saying that he 
himself is Christ a King. 

3 And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King 
of the Jews? And he answered and said, Thou say- 
est zt (ἡ. 6. it as as thow hast said). 

4 Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the 
people, I find no fault in this man. 

5 And they were the more fierce (upon these words 
of Pilate), saying, He stirreth up (all) the people, 
teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from * Gali- 
lee to this place. 

6 When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether 
the man were a Galilean. 

7 And as soon as he knew that he belonged unto 
Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who him- 
self was also at Jerusalem at that time. 

8 q And when Herod saw Jesus, he was exceeding 


glad : for he was desirous to see him of a long season, 
because he had heard many things of him; and he 
hoped to have seen some miracle done by him. 

9 Then he questioned with him in many words; 
but he answered him (fo) nothing. 

10 And the chief priests and scribes stood (before 
Herod) and vehemently accused him. 

11 And Herod with his men of war set him at 
nought, and mocked Aim, and arrayed him in a gor- 
geous robe (as a mock king), and sent him again to 
Pilate. 

12 4 And the same day Pilate and Herod were made 
friends together: for before they were at enmity be- 
tween themselves. - 

13 4 And Pilate, when he had called together the 
chief priests and the rulers and the people, 

14 Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto 
me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, 
having examined him before you, have found no fault 
in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse 
him: 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIII. 


1 Ver. 2. Kai κωλύοντα Καϊσαρι φύρους διδόναι, And forbid- 
ding to give tribute to Cxsar.] That here they lie against 
their own conscience, is evident from Matt. xxii. 21. But 
yet this lie was covered under two specious pretences ; first, 
that he professed himself king of the Jews, which these 
hypocrites here abuse, to render him odious to the Romans, 
though they themselves still gave this title to the Messiah: 


secondly, that he was a Galilean, and so likely to embrace 
the opinion of Judas Gaulonites, who held it was not lawful 
to pay tribute to Cesar (see ver. a 

2 Ver. 5. "And Γαλιλαίας, From Galilee.] They seem here 
to mention Galilee, to incite Pilate against him, as a sedi- 
tious person (see the note on xiii. 1), and to confirm their 
suggestion that Christ was so; and also to insinuate, that he 
was an enemy to Cesar, forbidding to pay tribute to him: 
they of Galilee being prone to sedition, and rebellious upon 
that account, whence some of them were slain by Pilate. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


15 No, nor yet Herod: for I sent you to him (fo 
whose jurisdiction he belongs) ; and, lo, nothing (as to 
one) worthy of death is done unto him (by Herod ). 

16 1 will therefore ὃ chastise him (as if he were to 
= and (then 7 will) release him (as the fittest person 
to be released at this feast). 

17 (This he said )(For (because) of necessity he must 
release one unto them at the feast) (of the passover). 

18 And (but) they cried out all at once, saying, 
Away with this man, and release unto us Barabbas : 

19 (Who for a certain sedition made in the city, 
and for murder, was cast into prison.) 

20 Pilate therefore, (being) willing to release Jesus, 
spake again to them (of releasing him). 

21 But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. 

22 And he said unto them the third time, Why (are 
ye so desirous of his death?) what evil hath he done? 
For my part) I have found no cause of death in him: 

will therefore chastise him, and (then) let him go 
(as the fittest person to be released at this feast). 

23 And they were instant with loud voices, requir- 
ing that he might be crucified. And the voices of 
them and of the chief priests prevailed (at last with 
Pilate to consent to his crucifixion). 


24 And (so) Pilate gave sentence that it should be | 


as they required. 

25 And he released unto them him that for sedition 
and murder was cast into prison (viz. Barabbas), 
whom they had desired; but he delivered (up) Jesus 
to (be dealt with according to) their will. 

26 And as they led him away (bearing his cross, 
John xix. 17, finding him weak, and not well able to sus- 
tain it), they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, 
coming out of the country, and on him they laid the 
cross, that he might bear ἐξ after Jesus. 

27 4 And there followed him a great company of 
people, and of women, which also bewailed and la- 
mented him. 

28 But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of 
Jerusalem, (ye have cause to) weep not for me, but weep 
for yourselves, and for your children. 


317 


29 For, behold, the days are 4 coming, in the which 
they shall (find cause to) say, Blessed are the barren, 
and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which 
never gave suck. 

30 Then shall they begin (to feel such calamities as 
will cause them) to δ say to the mountains, Fall on us; 
and to the hills, Cover us (from the wrath of God, 
Rev. vi. 16). 

31 For if they do these things in a® green tree (7. e. 
to me a righteous person, Ezek. xx. 47, xxi. 2, 3), what 
shall be done in the dry? (i. 6. to those wicked persons 
who, like the dry tree, are fit to be burned in the fire.) 

32 And there were also two other, malefactors, led 
with him to be put to death. 

33 And when they were come to the place, which 
is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the 
malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on 
the left (hand of Jesus). 

34 4 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for 
they know not what they do (7. e. who it is they cru- 
cify, Acts xiii. 27). And they (viz. the soldiers) parted 
his raiment, and cast lots (for his upper garment, John 
xix. 23, 24). 

35 And the people stood beholding (him). And the 
rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved 
others; let him (now) save himself, if he be Christ, 
the chosen of God. 

36 And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to 
him, and offering him 7 vinegar, 

37 And saying, If thou be (indeed) the king of the 
Jews, save thyself. 

38 And a superscription also was written over him 
in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, (viz.) 
Tuts (man) 1s THE Kine or THE Jews. 

39 ¥ And one of the malefactors which were hang- 
ed railed on him, saying, If thou be (the) Christ, save 
thyself and us (also). 

40 But the other ὃ answering rebuked him, saying, 
Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same 
condemnation? (ἑ. e. Dost thou not fear him now that 
thou art under the sentence of death ?) 


3 Ver. 16. Παιδεύσας οὖν αὐτὸν ἀπολύσω, I will therefore 
chastise him, and let him go.| Note, that this chastisement 
was not in order to his crucifixion, and therefore not that 
punishment the Romans used to inflict upon malefactors, as 
a preparative to their crucifixion (of which, see Lipsius de 
Cruce, lib. ii. cap. 2), for Pilate intended it in order to his 
release ; he therefore seems willing to inflict upon him the 
Eperrent so common among the Jews towards those who 

id perversely against their law and their traditions, that he 
might exempt him from that death they did so studiously 
endeavour to expose him to. 

4Ver. 29. The days will come in which ye shall say, 
μακάριαι ai στεῖραι, Blessed are the barren.) 'Vhis they un- 
doubtedly had occasion to say at the siege of Jerusalem, and 
during the war against the Romans, not only on the account 
of the loss of their children, and the sale of them, who were 
under seventeen years, for bond-slaves; but chiefly on the 
account of that famine in Jerusalem, which forced Mary, the 
daughter of Eleazar, to eat her own sucking child: upon 
which, saith Josephus,” “ there was a vehement desire of the 

i persons to die, καὶ μακαρισμὸς τῶν φθασάντων πρὶν 
ἀκοῦσαι καὶ ϑεάσασϑαι κακὰ τηλικαῦτα, and he counted himself 
ee that he could die before he saw or heard such evil 
t 

5 Ver. 30. Τότε ἄρζονται λέγειν τοῖς ὄρεσι, πέσετε ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς, 
Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us.] 

‘hat this is a proverbial expression, used Hos. x. 8, not to 
be fulfilled by what the Jews should then say, but by what 
they should afterward suffer, is evident in itself, and con- 
fessed by the Jews; for the Targum upon Hosea speaks 
thus, “ He will bring such judgments upon them, which will 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 21, p, 955, 1). 


render their condition as miserable as if the mountains 
should cover them, and the hills fall upon them:” see the 
like words, Rev. vi. 15, 16. 

6 Ver. 31. "Ort εἰ ἐν τῷ ὑγρῷ ξύλῳ ταῦτα ποιοῦσιν, ἐν τῷ Enpod 
τί γένηται, For if these things be done in the green tree, 
what shall be done in the dry 31 The good and just man is, 
by the prophets and Jews, represented under the metaphor 
of “a green tree,” or a tree whose leaves do not wither, Ps. 
i. 3; of “a green olive-tree,” Ps. lii. 10; of “a green fir- 
tree,’ Hos. xiv. 8; of “a tree whose leaves are ever green,” 
Jer. xvii. 8. Whereas of the wicked it is said, “ His branch 
shall not be green,” Job xv. 32. Thus God by Ezekiel 
threatens, that he will “cut off every green tree, and every 
tree in Jerusalem,” Ezek. xx. 47, that is, as it is inter- 
preted, xxi. 3, that he will “cut off the righteous and the 
wicked ;” and it is proverbial among the Jews, that “two 
dry sticks will burn a green one ;’” i. 6. that the company of 
two wicked men will corrupt, and bring judgments upon a 
good man. 

7 Ver. 36. Ὄξος προσφέροντες αὐτῷ, The soldiers offered 
him vinegar.) Dr. Lightfoot shows from Elius Spartianus, 
Capitolinus, and Trebellius Pollux, that vinegar was the 
usual drink of the soldiers: two cups were therefore offered 
to Christ, one of “ wine mixed with myrrh,” before he was 
nailed to the cross (Mark xv. 23), and this was offered by 
the Jews, as the custom was to do towards men condemned 
to capital punishments ; the other of vinegar by the soldiers, 
in a scoffing manner, after he was nailed to the cross. 

8 Ver. 40. ᾿Αποκριθεὶς de ἕτερος, ἐπετίμα αὐτῷ, &c. But the 
other answering rebuked him, &c.| Almost all interpreters 
that I have read, here say that this thief began his repent- 
ance upon the cross; and hence others are apt to conceive, 
that though they repent only at the last gasp, they may 

283 


318 


41 And we indeed (are sentenced to die) justly ; for 
we receive (only) the due reward of our deeds: but 
this man hath done nothing amiss (whereby to deserve 
this sentence). 

42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me 
when thou comest into thy kingdom (0 be the judge of 
all men, and to exercise all power in heaven and earth). 

43 And Jesus said unto him, ° Verily I say unto 
thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise (and 
there enjoy the greatest blessing which belongeth to the 
members of my kingdom). 

44 And it was about the sixth hour (when he was 
crucified ), and there was a darkness over all the earth 
(or land of Palestine) until the ninth hour. 

45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the 
temple (which parted the inward temple from the sanc- 
tuary) was rent in the midst. 

46 4 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, 
he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: 
and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. 

47 Now when the centurion saw what was done, he 
10 slorified God, (by) saying, Certainly this was a 
righteous man. 

48 And all the people that came together to that 
sight, beholding the things which were done, smote 
their breasts, and returned (do their houses full of trouble 


Sor it). 


LUKE. 


49 And all his acquaintance, and the women that 
followed him from Galilee, stood afar off, beholding 
these things (and were sad). 

50 ¥ And, behold, there was a man named Joseph, 
a counsellor; and he was a good man, and a just: 

51 (The same had not consented to the counsel and 
deed of them (who condemned Jesus) ;) he was of Ari- 
mathza, a city of the Jews: (and he was one) who also 
himself waited for the kingdom of God (i. e. expecting 
it should suddenly appear). 

52 This man went unto Pilate, and begged the body 
of Jesus. 

53 And (by his permission) he took it down, and 
wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that 
was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was 
laid (taking this care, that our Lord’s body might not 
be cast into the common place assigned for malefac- 
tors). ‘ 

τὶ And that day was the preparation (7. e. Friday), 
and the sabbath drew on. 

55 And the women also, which came with him from 
Galilee, followed after, and beheld the sepulchre, and 
how his body was laid. 

56 And they returned, and prepared spices and 
ointments (to embalm him); and rested (from doing 
this (0) the sabbath day according to the command- 
ment: 


enter into paradise, as he did; but this is but a precarious 
supposition at the best, and like to prove a broken reed to 
the Christian that depends upon it. For, 

First, It is not certain that this thief only then began to 
act the penitent ; for any thing we know to the contrary, he 
might have begun that work in prison long before, and so 
the whole foundation of their hopes, who depend upon this 
instance, is built upon a great uncertainty. 

Obj. And whereas in favour of this opinion it is said, that 
both the thieves upbraided him, and therefore this thief 
must do so at the first, and after that repent: 

Ans. I answer, That St. Luke here expressly says, that 
one. of them only did it, and that the other did rebuke him 
for it; and therefore, to reconcile him with St. Matthew, let 
it be observed, that it is usual in the evangelists to ascribe 
that to many which agrees only to one of them (see the note 
on Matt. xxvii. 38): so that is said to be written in the pro- 
phets, which is only written in one of them, as will be evi- 
dent from comparing Mark i. 2, Mal. iii. 1, John vi. 45, 
Isa. liv. 13, Acts xiii. 40, Hab. i. 5 (see Glassius, lib. iii. 
tr. 1, de Nomine Can. 27). 

Secondly, This probably was the first time that this thief 
had the knowledge of Christ, or was acquainted with him; 
he therefore haply had no call, no day of grace, before this 
hour, and so he brake no vows or covenants, abused no grace 
vouchsafed, sinned against no such light and strong convic- 
tions, resisted no such strivings of the Spirit, as they who 
live under the gospel dispensation must have often done. 
What comfort therefore can this example give to them, who, 
having once been washed in the laver of regeneration, still 
wallow in the mire; who, having often heard the joyful 
sound, have slighted all the promises, despised all the threats, 
been deaf to all the callings of the word, abused all the 
means of grace, and resisted all the motions of the Spirit; and 
to whom Christ may say as to the Jews, “ How oft would 
I have gathered you under my wings, and ye would not?” 

Thirdly, Observe, that this thief improved his time at last 
in that extraordinary manner, as perhaps no man ever did 
before, or will hereafter; he then believed Christ to be the 
Saviour of the world, when one of his disciples had betrayed, 
another had denied him, and all of them had forsook him ; 
to be the Son of God, the Lord of life, when he was hanging 
on the cross, suffering the pangs of death, and seemingly 
deserted by his Father ; he proclaims him the Lord of para- 
dise, when all the Jews condemned him, the gentiles cruci- 
fied him, as an impostor and a malefactor; he feared God, 
acknowledged the justice of his punishment, and did with 
patience submit unto it; he condemned himself, and justi- 


fied the holy Jesus, declaring that he had “done nothing 
amiss;” he was solicitous, not for the preservation of his 
body, but the salvation of his soul; not only for his own, 
but the salvation of his brother thief, whom he so charitably 
reprehends, so earnestly requesteth not to proceed in his 
blasphemous language, so lovingly inviteth to the fear of 
God: so that the glory which he did to Christ by his faith 
and piety upon the cross, seems such as the whole series of 
a pious life in other men can barely parallel. 

9 Ver. 43. ᾿Αμὴν λέγω σοι, σήμερον per’ ἐμοῦ Eon ἐν τῷ παρα- 
δείσῳ, Verily I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt be with me 
in paradise.| That the word σήμερον, “ to-day,” is not to be 
connected with “T say,” as if the sense were this, “I say to 
thee to-day ;” but with the words following, so as to contain 
a promise, that the thief should even that day be in para- 
dise, as to his better part, appears from the familiar phrase 
of the Jews, who say of the just man dying, aw» own “ To- 
day he shall sit in the bosom of Abraham.” Secondly, To 
be sure Christ spake in that sense in which the thief could, 
and in which he knew he would, understand him; now he 
being a Jew, would surely understand him according to the 
received opinion of his nation concerning paradise; now 
they plainly held it to be the place into which pious souls, 
separated from the body, were immediately received. Hence 
sprung that oracle of the Chaldees,* “Seek paradise, the 
glorious country of the soul:”’ hence their kind wish for the 
dying or dead person, ‘“ Let his soul be in paradise.’ Now 
hence it follows, (1.) that the souls of men die not with their 
bodies, but remain in a state of sensibility. Christ here 
commends his into the hands of God, ver. 46, where the 
souls of the just are, Wisd. iii. 1, in peace, ver. 3, and in 
hope, ver. 4. (2.) That the souls of good men after death 
are in a happy state, a state of joy and felicity; for para- 
dise, saith Philo,t is σύμβολον ψυχῆς ὑπὸ πλήθους καὶ μεγέθους 
χαρᾶς ἁνασκιρτώσης, “The representation of a soul leaping for 
fullness and greatness of joy ;” and it is, according to Ter- 
tullian,¢ “a place of divine delights.” So that, as the thief 
could only be there that day by the presence of his soul, so 
could not his soul be there without the greatest joy and feli- 
city (see Examen Milli bis in locum). 

10 Ver. 47. ᾿Εδόξασε τόν Θεὸν, &c. He glorified God, saying, 
Certainly this was a righteous man.] For whosoever doth 
confess that Jesus is the Christ, doth it “to the glory of the 
Father’’ (Phil. ii. 11), by giving him the glory of his truth 
in giving testimony to him. 


* Aruch. f. 11, 3, 


¢ De Plant. Now, p. 171, 
+ Apol. cap. 47, 


319 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


I Now upon the first day of the week, very early 
in the morning, they (ἡ. e. the women, mentioned xxiil. 
35) came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which 
they had prepared, ' and certain others (women, came) 
with them. 

2 And (being come) they found the stone rolled away 
from (the mouth of) the sepulchre. 

3 And they entered in (fo the outward sepulchre), and 
(stooping down to look into the inward, they) found not 
the body of the Lord Jesus (there.) 

4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplex- 
ed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in 
shining garments : 

5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their 
faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye 
the living among (7. e. the place of ) the dead? 

6 He (whom ye seek) is not here, but is risen: re- 
member how he spake unto you when he was yet in 
Galilee, (that he would rise the third day, Matt. xvii. 
23, 

a Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into 
the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the 
third day rise again. 

8 And they remembered his words, 

9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all 
these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest. 

10 (4nd) It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and 
Mary the mother of James, and other women that 
were with them, which told these things unto the 
apostles. 


11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, 
and they believed them not. 

12 Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; 
and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by 
themselves, and departed, wondering * in himself at 
that which was come to pass. 

13 4 And, behold, two of them (who belonged to 
Jesus) went that same day to a village called Emmaus, 
which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. 

14 And they talked together of all these things 
which had happened. 

15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed 
together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and 
went with them. 

16 But their eyes were‘ holden (either miraculously, 
or by his ΠΡ ΈΠΡΟΠΙς in another form, Mark xvi. 12) that 
they should not know him. 

17 And he said unto them, § What manner of com- 
munications are these that ye have one to another, as 
ye walk, and are sad ? 

18 And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, 
answering said unto him, Art thou only ®a stranger in 
Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are 
come to pass there in these days? 

19 And he said unto them, What things? And they 
said unto him, (Zhe things) concerning Jesus of Na- 
zareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word 
(in miracles and doctrine) before God and all the peo- 

le: 
20 And how the chief priests and our rulers de- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIV. 


Ver. 1. Καί τινες civ αὐταῖς. And some other women of 
Jerusalem with them.] Viz. “Joanna and Μαρία τοῦ ᾿Ιακώβον, 
Mary the mother of James,” as we read Mark xv. 40. So 
in Herodotus, “Adpacros 6 Γορδιέω τοῦ Midéw, “ Adrastus the 
nephew of Gordias and father of Midas:” in #lian,* 'Odvp- 
πίας ἡ Αλεξάνδρον, “ Olympias the mother of Alexander ;” and 
in Stephanus,t ἡ δὴ πόλις ἀπὸ Δαιδάλου τοῦ ᾿Ικάρου ἡ ἐν Λυκία, 
“A city in Lycia, built by Dedalus, the father of Icarus :” 
so Acts vii. 16, παρὰ τῶν υἱῶν Ἐμμὸρ τοῦ Σύχεμ, “ OF the sons 
of Emmor, the father of Sychem,” for so he was. 

2 Ver. 12. Πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ϑαυμάζων, Wondering in himself. 
So Luke xviii. 11, πρὸς ἑαυτὸν προσηύχετο, “He prayed ‘by 
himself.” 

3 Ver. 13. Avo ἐξ αὐτῶν, Two of them.] Not of the apostles, 
for these two returning told what had passed betwixt Christ 
and them to the eleven apostles, ver. 33. 35, but two of the 
rest that were with them, ver. 9. 33. The village Emmaus, 
to which they were going, was not that Emmaus near Ti- 

» berias, so called from the hot baths there, for that was in 
Galilee; but a village in the tribe of Judah, sixty furlongs 
from Jerusalem, say St. Luke and Josephus ;+ thirty, saith 
his translator. 

4 Ver. 16. Οἱ δὲ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτῶν ἐκρατοῦντο, But their eyes 
were held.| That they knew him not might be, not because 
their eyes were held by a miracle, but because he appeared 
to them, ἐν ἑτέρᾳ μορφῆ, in another’ form or shape, than 

that which formerly he had when he conversed with them, 

Mark xvi. 12, and which when they knew him might be 

changed ; for that their eyes did not perceive him, through 
grief, as Mr. Le Clere conjectures, is not very likely, for 
though they were sad (ver. 17), we read not that they wept; 
and seeing it elsewhere said, that the Lord opened the eyes 
of Balaam to see the angel, Numb. xxii. 31, and the Lord 
opened the eyes of the young man to see chariots of fire, 2 
vi. 17, and the Lord opened the eyes of the host of 


* Var. Hist. lib. xiii. cap. 30. ἡ Voce Δαίδαλα. 
+ ᾿Αμμαοῦς ἀπέχειν τῶν ἹἹερουσολυμῶν σταδίους εξήκοντα. De 
Bello Jud. lib. vii, cap. 27, p. 983. 


the king of Syria, ver. 20, which was withheld from seeing, 
or struck blind, ver. 18,—I say, seeing in all these cases 
doubtless an extraordinary power was exerted, I believe ra- 
ther according to the plain import of the words, that God 
withheld the eyes of Hagar from seeing the well, and then 
opened her eyes, Gen. xxi. 19, by taking away that impe- 
diment, and that here Christ some way withheld their eyes 
from perceiving him, and then removing that impediment, 
opened their eyes that they knew him. 

5 Ver. 17. Tives οἱ λόγοι αὖτοι ; What manner of communi- 
cations are these ?] Christ asks, saith Woltzogenius, not be- 
cause he knew not what they said, for what could he be ig- 
norant of, who knew men’s hearts and reins? but to give 
them an occasion to begin the discourse. 

6 Ver. 18. Σὺ μόνος παροικεῖς ἐν ἹΙερουσαλὴμ; Art thow only 
a stranger in Jerusalem 91 Παροικεῖν here may signify to be 
extra patriam, one of another country, and, as so,a stranger 
to the affairs of Judea and Jerusalem. So the seed of Abra- 
ham were πάροικοι ἐν γῆ ἀλλοτρία, * strangers in another coun- 
try,” Acts vii. 6, Moses was πάροικος, “a stranger in the 
land of Midian,” ver. 29, the geutiles, not yet called to be 
fellow-citizens with the saints, are ξένοι καὶ πάροικοι; “ strangers 
and aliens,” Eph. ii. 19, and according to this metaphor, 
the patriarchs are said παροικεῖν “ to sojourn in the land of 
promise, as in a strange country,” Heb. xi. 9, the Christians 
to live in this world, ὡς παροίκους, “as strangers and pilgrims,” 
as 1 Pet. ii. 11, the time they spend here is the time παροικίας 
αὐτῶν, “ of their sojourning,” 1 Pet. i. 17. So also the phi- 
losophers* held that heaven was their own country, that 
they were τῆς πόλεως τῆς ἀνωτάτης πολῖται, “citizens of the 
city above, and strangers” in this world: hence any one 
who is ignorant of what is done in any place, is styled a 
stranger in it: so Antoninust saith, they are ξένοι xécpov, 
“strangers in the world, who knew not what is done in it:” 
and Cicero$ speaks thus to Atticus, “I desire thee, ne illue 
hospes veniam, that I may not come thither as a stranger ;” 
that is, as ignorant of things done there: and again, “It is 


* Annot. lib. iii. §. 11. Anton. lib, iv. 8. 29. 
+ Ad. Atticum, lib. iv. n. 13, lib. vi. n. 33, See Orat. 38, 
ῃ. 24, 


320 


livered him (up) 7 to be condemned to death (by Pon- 
tius Pilate), and (thereupon) have crucified him. 

21 But we trusted that it had been he which should 
have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is 
the third day since these things were done (ὦ. e. the 
very day in which he promised to rise again). 

22 Yea, and certain women also of our company 
made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre 
(of Jesus) ; 

23 And when they found not his body, they came 
(to us), saying, that they had also seen a vision of an- 
gels, which said that he was alive. 

24 And certain of them which were with us (vz. 
Peter and John) went to the sepulchre, and found it 
even so as the women had said: but him they saw 
not. 

25 Then he said unto them, 8 O fools, and slow of 
heart to believe all that (whch) the prophets have 
spoken :. 

26 Ought not Christ (according to the scriptures) to 
have suffered these things, and (Aen) to enter into his 

lory ? 
i 27 And beginning at 9 Moses and (going through) 
all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the 
scriptures the things concerning himself. 

28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither 


LUKE. 


they went: and he (ΕΣ on walking, and so) © made 
as though he would have gone further. 

29 But they (by their entreaties) 1) constrained him, 
saying, Abide with us: for itis toward evening, and 
the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with 
them. 

30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, 
he took bread, and blessed ἐξ, and brake (7), and 
gave (of zl) to them. 

31 And their eyes were opened (that which obstruct- 
ed the discerning of him being removed ), and they ® knew 
him ; and he vanished (or conveyed himself secretly) out 
of their sight. 

32 And they said one to another, Did not our heart 
burn within us (7. 6. was there not in us a great warmth 
of affection), while he talked with us by the way, and 
while he opened to us the scriptures ? 

33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned 
to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, 
and them that were with them, 

34 (And heard them) “ saying, The Lord is risen in- 
deed, and hath appeared to Simon. 

35 And they told (them) what things were done in 
the way (to Emmaus), and how he (the Lord) was 
known of them in breaking of bread. 

36 ¢ And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in 


something for him that comes to Rome, non esse hospitem 
et peregrinum, not to be ignorant of what is done there ;” 
and, in his familiar epistles, he writes for instructions in what 
is done in the commonwealth, ne hospes plane veniam,* 
“that he might not come thither as a stranger.” So here, 
“Art thou a stranger?” 1. 6. Art thou ignorant of things 
well known to all that dwell at Jerusalem ? 

7 Ver. 20. Eis κρίμα Savarov, To the sentence of death.) 
So 1 Kings iii. 28. All Israel heard τὸ κρίμα τοῦτο, “this 
judicial sentence of king Solomon:” τὸ κρίμα τοῦ Μωὰβ, is 
God's “sentence against Moab,” Jer. xlviii. 46, and τὸ κρίμα 
Βαβυλῶνος, his sentence against Babylon,” li. 9. “Let my 
sentence, τὸ κρίμα pov, come forth from thy presence,” saith 
the psalmist, xvii. 3 (see the note on Rom. iii. 4). 

8 Ver. 25. O fools /| Hence note, that the command, 
Mat. v. 22, is not always transgressed by this expression ; 
but only then, when it is used without cause, from an undue 
commotion of spirit, or a mind evilly affected towards our 
brother. 

9 Ver. 27. Καὶ ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ Μωσέως, το. And beginning 
from Moses, he expounded the things concerning himself-] 
Tf the things concerning him relate to his sufferings and fu- 
ture glory, mentioned in the preceding verse, we may hence 
learn, that the Mosaical sacrifices, and especially the solemn 
anniversary expiation, typified the sufferings of Christ; as 
also did the oblation of Isaac, and the lifting up of the bra- 
zen serpent. 

10 Ver. 28. Προσεποιεῖτο ποῤῥοτέρω πορεύεσϑαι, He made as if 
he would have gone farther.) Yea, perhaps he would have 
done so, had they not been urgent with him to abide with 
them, ver. 29, or he seemed to them by continuing on his 
course to be willing so to do: so Mark vi. 48, ἤϑελε παρελϑεῖν 
αὐτοὺς, “ He would have passed by them:” not that Christ 
intended this, but that he seemed to them by continuing his 
course on the sea to be willing so to do: here therefore was 
no dissimulation in Christ; but only in the disciples and 
apostles a mistaken conjecture from his walking. Now, 
though words ought to be the certain interpreters of our 
minds, and therefore ought not to be used so as that we 
may be deceived by them, yet walking hath no certain sig- 
nification, nor was instituted to be a certain indication of the 
mind, and so there seems here to be no just occasion for the 
long discourses, which some hence make of lying, simulation, 
or dissimulation; here being no instance of that kind. 

Ver, 29. Kai παρεβιάζοντο αὐτὸν, And they constrained 
him, saying.) They laid this constraint upon him only by 
their earnest desire: so Lot, κατεβιάζετο, “ constrained” the 


angels to lodge with him, Gen. xix. 3, so Jacob constrained 
Esau to accept his presents, Gen. xxxiii. 11, so Judg. xix. 
7, 2 Kings ii. 17, v. 16, Matt. xi. 12, Luke xvi. 16, Acts xvi. 
5; see note on Gal. 11. 14, 

2 Ver. 30. Λαβὼν τὸν ἄρτον εὐλόγησε, καὶ κλάσας ἐπεδίδου 
αὐτοῖς, He took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave 
it to them.] This he did, say the papists, when he celebrated 
the sacrament, Luke xxii. 19, therefore here also he cele- 
brated the sacrament, though in bread only. ‘This he did, 
say I, when he fed the four and five thousand; for then 
ἄρτους εὐλύγησε καὶ κλάσας ἔδωκε, “he blessed the bread, and, 
breaking it, gave it to his disciples” to give to the multi- 
tude (Matt. xiv. 19, Mark vi. 41, viii. 6): and will they 
say, that then also he celebrated the sacrament before the 
institution of it? 2. ΤῸ make of bread a sacrament, it is 
absolutely necessary, according to them, that Christ should 
say, “This is my body,” which here he said not; if they 
rejoin, that this is to be understood, I say, with as much rea- 
son, that wine, the usual concomitant of a supper, is to be 
understood; and so here will be no example of communi- 
cating in one kind. 3. If Christ here celebrated a sacra- 
ment without wine, he also consecrated without wine ; which 
yet the papists say is never to be done. 

13 Ver. 31. Kai ἐπέγνωσαν αὑτὸν, And they knew him.] 
Christ having now removed the obstruction from their eyes ; 
for he would conceal himself from them for a season, that 
he might more freely discourse with them; when he had 
done that sufficiently, he would be known to them, for the 
confirmation of their faith. And, when they had obtained 
the certain knowledge of him, ἄφαντος ἐγένετο, “ he withdrew 
himself again out of their sight,” either by a sudden change 
of place, or by a cloud cast over his body: whence we can 
no more argue, that he had only an airy body, than that he 
had the like when ἐκρύβη, “he hid himself, passing through” 
the Jews, when they were about to stone him, John viii. 59. 
Where this word is used of Pelops in Pindar,* it signifies 
one that was lost, and nowhere to be found, though much 
sought after by the men his mother sent to look after him; 
and I grant to Mr. Clerc, that a man may be lost, and not 
found by them that seek after him, without a miracle, but 
ἄφαντος dn’ αὐτῶν ἐγένετο, “ he became invisible to them,” or 
disappeared from them, seems to carry the matter higher, 
though it may be otherwise. 

4 Ver. 34. Aéyovras, Saying.] They found the eleven, 
saying at their very entrance, “ The Lord is risen,” or those 
that were with them, ver. 33, thus greeting them before they 


could speak. 


* Lib. 11. ἢ. 21. 


* Olymp. 1, 72. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto 
ou. 

ς 37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and sup- 

ee that they had seen a spirit (rather than a real 
ody, because they Knew not how he came in to them). 

38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled ? 
and why do (such) thoughts arise in your hearts ? 

39 Behold my (pierced) hands and my feet, (and 
see) that it is I myself (that speak to you): 16 handle 
me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as 

e see me have. 

40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them 
his hands and his feet. 

41 And while they yet (firm/y) believed not for joy, 
and wondered (how this could be, thinking it was too 
rood to be true, and rather might be a pleasant dream, 

8. cxxvi. 1), he said unto them, Have ye here any 
meat? 

42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and 
of an honeycomb. 

43 And he took 7f, and did ™ eat before them (for 
farther confirmation to them that he had a real body). 

44 And he said unto them, These (things) are (done 
according to) the words which I spake unto you, while 
I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, 
which were written 5 in the law of Moses, and in the 
prophets, and én the psalms, concerning me. 


321 


45 Then (by the special operation of the Holy Ghost) 
9 opened he their understanding, that they might un- 
derstand the scriptures (concerning his death and resur- 
reclion, which as yet they knew not, John xx. 9). 

46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus 
it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead 
the third day : 

47 And that repentance and remission of sins should 
be preached in his name among all nations, beginning 
at ἀδεεῖς (ὦ. e. that all men should be called to repent, 
Acts xvii. 30, and to believe in him, for the remission of 
their sins). 

48 And ye are (to be) ® witnesses of these things. 

49 4 And, behold, (in pursuance of that end) 1 (shall 
shortly) send the promise of my Father (#. 6. the Holy 
Ghost promised by him, Joel ii. 28) upon you : but tarry 
ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with 
(this) power from on high. (Isa. xxxii. 15). 

50 4 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, 
and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. 

51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, 
(that) he was parted from them, and (was) carried up 
into heaven. : 

52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jeru- 
salem with great joy : 

53 And (they) were 2! continually in the temple (at 
the hours of prayer), praising and blessing God. Amen. 


15 Ver. 37. ᾿Εδόκουν πνεῦμα ϑεωρεῖν, They supposed they 
saw a spirit.) i.e. A phantasm, or a spirit assuming the 
shape of Christ, and appearing to them in it; viz. because 
they heard no noise of any doors opening, or of feet moving 
towards them: and so, though they doubted not of Christ's 
resurrection (ver. 34), yet might they, for these reasons, 
doubé of this appearance of him in the midst of them with- 
out knocking at the door for entrance, or giving any indica- 
tions of his coming to them. 

16 Ver. 39. See my hands and feet, ψηλαφήσατέ με, han- 
dle me.] Christ proves that he had a true body from the 
evidence of their sight and touch: and the apostles testify 
to the truth of the resurrection of his body, as being that 
which “their eyes had seen, and their hands had handled,” 
1 John i. 2. Therefore those senses must be sufficient to 
testify the truth of any body, and much more the truth of 
the substance of bread remaining after the sacrament, con- 
firmed also by the taste and smell; and the denial of this 
must render the argument of Christ here, and the testimo- 
nies of the apostles, infirm: our Saviour goes on in confir- 
mation of the same thing, by saying, “ A spirit hath not flesh 
and bones, as ye see me have.” Now certain it is, that our 
Lord’s argument must be firm; it therefore must be certain, 
that evil spirits cannot assume such a body as will not yield 
unto the touch, but only a mere phantom, or an aerial ap- 
yeeauce of a body, which cannot cheat the touch and eyes 
of men. 


belonging to their faith, or be sent by God for such ends. 

"Ver. 43. He did eat before them.] Not to satisfy any 
hunger his body could have after his resurrection, but to 
prove to them that his body was truly raised ; and seeing it 
cannot be supposed, that Christ in this action designed any 
illusion, itfollows from his truly eating, that his body had those 
parts by which meat is chewed, and a stomach to receive it. 

8 Ver. 44. All things must be fulfilled which are written 
ἐν τῷ νόμῳ Μωσέως, καὶ προφήταις, καὶ Ψαλμοῖς, περὶ ἐμοῦ, in the 
law of Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms concerning 
me.) This division of the books of the Old Testament ob- 
tained in our Saviour’s time, as Josephus* witnesseth, who 
saith, “ We have only twenty-two divine books; of which 
five are the books of Moses, thirteen the writings of the pro- 
phets, four contain hymns to God and documents of life ;” of 
which hymns the Psalms obtained the first place. 


ἊΣ Δύο δὲ μόνα πρὸς τοῖς εἴκοσι βιβλία, --------καὶ τούτων πέντε μέν 
Μωσέως, Προφῆται τὰ κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς συνέγραψαν ἐν τρίσι καὶ δέκα 
Vou. 1V.—41 


__And, (2.) that good spirits, if they can assume a | 
more solid body, yet cannot put illusions upon men in things | 


19 Ver. 45. Τότε διήνοιξεν αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν, &e. Then he opened 
their minds, that they might understand the scriptures.) It 
is one thing to open τὰς γραφὰς, the scriptures themselves, 
or to explain them; and another, to open their understand- 
ings to perceive them; Christ did the latter, probably by 
giving them now some first-fruits of that Spirit of prophecy, 
which fell more plentifully on them at the day of Pentecost. 

2 Ver. 48. Ὑμεῖς δὲ ἐστε μάρτυρες τούτων, And ye are wit- 
nesses of these things.) Christ’s resurrection being a matter 
of fact, must be proved by the testimony of eye-witnesses, 
who, if they be honest men, and such as suffer the greatest 
prejudices in fortune, reputation, and life, for this testimony, 
we have the greater reason to believe it; for their honesty 
must render them unwilling to testify a falsehood ; their in- 
terest and prudence would not suffer them, without any ne- 
cessity laid upon them, to testify a lie; much more to tes- 
tify the grossest falsehood to their utmost damage, and with- 
out any prospect of advantage: but farther, if they confirm 
this testimony by all kinds of signs, miracles, and wondrous 
powers, exercised by themselves and others who embraced 
their testimony ; if this was done in all ages on all kinds of 
persons, for a whole age or ages, this renders it impossible 
they should thus attest a lie; and therefore Christ bids them 
stay at Jerusalem till they were thus empowered by virtue 
from on high to confirm this testimony, Acts i. 8. 

Ver. 52. Προσκυνήσαντες αὐτὸν. These words are rejected 
by Dr. Mills, though they are owned by Jerome, Theophy- 
lact, and all the versions, and wanting only in his imaginary 
old Vulgar. 

2 Ver. 53. Καὶ ἦσαν διαπαντὸς ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, And they were con- 
tinually in the temple.] Some, from these at a conceive 
they dwelt in some ὑπερῷον, “ upper room,” or apartment of 
the temple, belonging to some priest or Levite, such as are 
mentioned 2 Kings xi. 2, 3, 2 Chron. xxii. 11,12. But it 
is not easy to conceive, the Sanhedrim and rulers of the 
people would have permitted this; and yet, notwithstanding 
all their hatred of and oppositions to them, we never read 
they thus dislodged them: they therefore may be said to 
have continued “ always in the temple,” as constantly resort- 
ing thither at the hours of prayer, as the sacrifices offered 
morning and evening are styled ὁλοκαυτώματα διαπαντὸς, “ con= 
tinual sacrifices,’ 1 Chron. xvi. 40, 2 Chron. ii. 4 (see 
note on 1 Thess. v. 17; and Acts ii’ 46). 


βιβλίοις" at δὲ λοιπαὶ τέσσαρες ὕμνους cig τὸν Θεὸν καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρώ- 
ποις ὑποθήκας τοῦ βίου περιέχουσιν. Lib. i. contra Apion. p- 
1036, F, G. 


322 


THE 


GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


By way of preface to this gospel, I shall endeavour to show, 

First, Against some ancient heretics and modern Socini- 
ans, that not Cerimthus, but St. John the evangelist, was the 
true writer of this gospel. 

Secondly, At what time he wrote it, and upon what occa- 
sion. And, 

Thirdly, Why Christ still speaketh in this gospel, as one 
that did and could know nothing of himself, but acted all 
things by commission from, and by the authority and power 
of, God the Father. And, 

§. 1. That not Cerinthus, but St. John the evangelist, was 
the true writer of this gospel may be concluded, 

First, From these words, xxi. 23, “'Then went this saying 
abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not 
die ;” ver. 24, “ This is that disciple which testifies of these 
things, and wrote these things.” For (1.) hence it is evi- 
dent, that he who wrote that gospel was a disciple of our 
Lord, which Cerinthus never was. (2.) That he was that 
disciple whom Jesus loved, and who leaned on his breast at 
supper, and who said, Lord, who is it that betrayeth thee 1 
ver. 20. Now this is the constant periphrasis of St. John 
the evangelist throughout this gospel, viz. John xiii. 23, xix. 
26, xxi. 7, the whole Christian world having still applied 
these sayings to St. John; who, being in this gospel still 
mentioned by this periphrasis, and never by his proper name, 
as he is in the other evangelists, no better reason can be 
given of this, than that he was the writer of this gospel, and 
therefore named not himself. And (3.) it was that disciple 
of whom the fame went abroad among the brethren that he 
“should not die ;’’ now this was so constantly applied to St. 
John the evangelist, that some of the ancients declare he 
died not at all, but was translated ; and others, that he only 
lay sleeping in his grave (see Dr. Cave in the life of St. 
John, sect. 8, 9). And it was he alone, of the twelve apos- 
tles, who tarried till our Lord came to the destruction of 
Jerusalem, which he outlived many years (see note on 
XXi. 22). 

Secondly, For this we have the testimony of all the an- 
cient fathers in the church, they all concurring in this as an 
unquestionable truth, that this gospel was written by St. 
John, the apostle of our Lord. This follows from what hath 
been already proved in the general preface; viz. that the 
four gospels were generally received by the universal church 
of God, as gospels written by those authors whose names 
they bear. Add to this, that the gospel of St. John was, 
saith Eusebius,* always reckoned among τὰς ἀναντιῤῥήτους 
γραφὰς, “ the books not controverted among Christians.” And 
again, that the gospel of John must be received as being 
“known to all the churches of the world;” and a third 
time, that this gospel, with his first epistle, was, without con- 
troversy, admitted both by the ancients and by those of his 
time. Ireneust informs us, that Ἰωάννης ὃ μαθητὴς τοῦ 
Κυρίου, “John, the disciple of our Lord,” who leaned upon 
lis breast, writ his gospel at Ephesus. Clemens} of Alex- 
andria saith, Ἰωάννην πνεύματι ϑεοφορηϑέντα, that “St. John, 
being moved by an afflatus of the Spirit, writ this spiritual 
gospel.” Origen§ reckons the gospel of St. John among the 


* πὸ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν εὐαγγέλιον ταῖς ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν διεγνωσμένον 
ἐκκλησίαις πρῶτον ἀνομολογεῖσϑαι----τῶν δὲ ᾿Ιωάννου συγγραμμάτων 
πρὸς τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ, καὶ ἡ προτέρα τῶν ἐπιστολῶν παρά τε τοῖς νῦν 
καὶ τοῖς én’ ἀρχαίοις ἀναμφΐλεκτος ὡμολύγηται. H. Eccl. lib. iii. 
cap. 24, p. 94. 96. 

Τ᾽ Lib. iii.cap.1. + Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 14. 

§ Ibid. lth. vi. cap. 25, p. 226. 


τὰ ἀναντίῤῥητα, “ the gospels received without dispute by every 
church under heaven.” And Tertullian, among the apostles 
which instruct us in the faith, reckons St. Matthew and St. 
John; among the apostolical men that do it, Mark and 
Luke (Contr. Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 2). 

Thirdly, They who ascribed this gospel to Cerinthus were 
guilty ofa great absurdity, as Epiphanius* observes ; for how 
could those things be wrote by Cerinthus, which do, in direct 
terms, contradict his doctrine: he asserted, as Tertulliant 
and others of the ancients testify, the doctrine of the Ebion- 
ites, that Christ “was born as other men, and was a mere 
man without the divinity ;’’ whereas the author of this gos- 
pel declares him to be the Word, which, “in the beginning, 
was with God, and was God;” and that “all things were 
made by him,” and not by a “ virtue far separate and dis- 
tant from God,” as, saith Ireneus,+ Cerinthus held. Cerin- 
thus therefore could not be the author of this gospel, unless 
we will suppose that he forged a gospel under the name of 
an apostle, on purpose to condemn his own opinions. And 
this consideration is strengthened by the tradition of many 
of the primitive fathers and others, who say expressly, this 
gospel was written by St. John the disciple of our Lord, to§ 
“yemove that error which Cerinthus had dispersed among 
men;” or that he writ it “against the doctrine of the 
Ebionites.” 

And, Lastly, Whereas some Unitarians have the con- 
fidence to conclude this gospel was written by Cerinthus, 
because he and his followers did use this gospel, it appears 
from Treneus|| and Epiphanius, that they did constantly re- 
ject it, and use only the gospel of St. Matthew, and not that 
entirely. 

§. 2. The other objections of the same persons against this 
gospel are the fruits of ignorance. For whereas, 

First, They say, that “the other evangelists agree, that 
immediately after his baptism our Lord was led into the wil- 
derness to be tempted forty days;” this forger of St. John’s 
gospel saith, the next day after (his baptism) our Saviour 
speaks with Andrew and Peter, and the day after went to 
Galilee. 

Ans. This is a miserable mistake, of the next day after the 
Baptist returned his answer to the pharisees inquiring who 
he was, and why he baptized (John i. 29), for the next day 
after Christ's baptism. The series of the story lieth thus; 
Christ, being newly baptized, goes into the wilderness, and 
leaveth John at Jordan on Judea side. In the time of our 
Lord’s temptation, John, having finished his work at Jordan, 
goes over into the country beyond Jordan, out of the precincts 
of Judea, and into the Scythopolitan region, and baptized at 
Bethabara, at a water distinct from Jordan, and somewhat 
above it; thither some pharisees are sent to him by commis- 
sion from the Sanhedrin, to inquire of the authority by which 
he baptized ; the next day after they had made this inquiry 
Christ cometh in sight, and John bears record to him; and 


* Her. 51, §. 4. 

+ Cerinthus Christum hominem tantummodo sine divini- 
tate contendit. Lib. de. Prescript. C. Hieron. in. Catal. 
Script. verbo Johannes, 

+ Lib. i. cap. 25. 

§ Volens, per evangelii annuntiationem, auferre eum, qui 
ἃ Cerintho inseminatus erat hominibus, errorem. Tren. lib. 
111. cap. 11, p. 257. Adverstis Cerinthum aliosque hzreticos, 
et maximé tune Ebionitarum dogma, consurgens. Hieron. 
Catal. Script. Catal. Procem, in Matt. 

|| Xpavres yap τῷ xara MarSaiov εὐαγγελίῳ ἀπὸ μέρους, καὶ 
οὐχὶ ὕλω. Epiph. Her. 80. 5. 5. Idem de Ebionzis dicit 
Ireneus; de Cerinthianis quéd Marcum preferunt, lib. ii. 
cap. 11, p. 258. 


PREFACE TO JOHN. . 


the next day after that he renews his record, saying, in the | 


presence of Andrew, “ Behold the Lamb of God;” ver. 29. 
37, and he, following Christ, finds out Simon, and bringeth 
him to Christ. 

Obj. 2. “The other three evangelists suppose all along 
that our Saviour preached but one year, and therefore they 
reckon but one passover, but (the pretended) St. John counts 
three years, and three passovers before his death, which seems 
to be an unaccountable contradiction.” 

Ans. But here again we find nothing but mistakes; for 
none of the three evangelists suppose that our Saviour 
preached but one year. ‘This, at the first, was the opinion 
of the Valentinians,* and other gnostics, not of the apostles 
or evangelists, and it is confuted by Ireneus from the pass- 
overs of St. John; though some of the fathers fell into the 
same error, not on account of these evangelists, but of the 
prophet Isaiah saying he was sent “to preach the accepta- 
ble year of the Lord,” Isa. Ixi. 2, that is, the year of jubilee 
(see note on Luke iv. 19). 

Secondly, Though the other evangelists mention expressly 
but one passover at the close of Christ’s life, of which they 
speak to show he was the true paschal lamb; yet are they so 
far from contradicting, that they confirm St. John’s account 
of more passovers during the time of our Lord’s preaching ; 

“for (1.) St. Matthew, xii. 1, St. Mark, ii. 23, St. Luke, vi. 1, 
speak of our Lord's disciples plucking ears of corn on the 
sabbath-day, and rubbing them in their hands, and eating the 
corn ; whereas till after the passover was over, and the first- 
fruits’ sheaf offered, which was always done the second day 
after the passover, it was not lawful to eat either “ parched 
corn or green ears” (Ley. xxiii. 14) : this therefore is a suf 
ficient indication of one passover then past. And this is still 
clearer from the words of St. Luke, who says they did this 
ἐν σαββάτῳ δευτεροπρώτῳ, “on the first sabbath after the se- 
cond day of the passover,” or after the oblation of the first- 
fruits’ sheaf (see the note there) : so that Epiphaniust saith 
truly, ἵνα δείξη ἐντεῦθεν, “hence it is proved,” that not St. 
John only, but St. Luke, and the other evangelists, mention 
more than one passover. St. John mentions another pass- 
over, vi. 4, in these words, “ And the feast of the passover 
was near ;” and then immediately follows the mention of 
the feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two 
little fishes; now this miracle is recorded Matt. xiv. 15, 
Mark vi. 35, Luke ix. 12, and so they all suppose our Lord 
was also preaching at this other passover. 

§. 3. As for the second inquiry, at what time, and upon 
what occasion, this gospel was written by St. John, Ireneus 
saith only in the general, that “ he writ his gospel during his 
stay at Ephesus in Asia ;” but whether he wrote it there be- 
fore his banishment from thence by Domitian, or after his 
return from it, or in the isle of Patmos, to which he was ex- 
iled, he saith not. The fathers+ of the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies do all agree, that he writ it either in that isle,§ or after 
his return from it, when he was ninety years old, saith Epi- 
phanius ;| when he was an hundred, saith Chrysostom :§ so 
that according to the account of all these ecclesiastical wri- 
ters, St. John must have written this gospel a considerable 
time after the destruction of Jerusalem. 

And yet the latter writers and commentators upon this 
gospel have almost generally gone off from this opinion, as- 
serting that St. John writ this gospel “in the** thirty- 
μρρυᾶ or thirty-third year after our Lord’s ascension.” 


§. 4. Touching the occasion of the writing of it, St. Je- 


® Καὶ ὅτι τῷ dwdexdre μηνὶ ἔπαϑεν ἐνιαυτῷ ἑνὶ, βούλονται αὐτὸν 
μετὰ τὸ βάπτισμα αὐτοῦ κεκηρυχέναι. Lib. i. cap. 1, p.16. Uno 
enim anno volunt eum post baptismum predicdsse. Lib. ii. 
cap. 36; vide cap. 39. 

; Her. 51, 5. 31. 

+ Mera τὴν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς Πάτμου ἐπάνοδον, Epiph. Her. 51, 
8. 12, Ὁ. 484. Martyrium Timothei apud Photium, p. 1403. 
Athanas. Synops. Scrip. Suidas in voce Johannes. Pre- 
fatio ad Joannem apud Augustinum. 

§ In Patmos, Dorotheus in Vita Apostol. 

} Her. 51, ubi supra. See note on Heb. iv. 3. 

{ Serm. de Sancto Johanne Ap. tom. iv. p. 505. 

** Isidore lib. de Sanctis N. Testamenti. Beda, Euthy- 
mius, Theophylact, Nicephorus. 


323 


rome* having told us that St. John writ this gospel, rogatus 
ab Asim episcopis adversus Cerinthum, aliosque hereticos, 
“at the desire of the bishops of Asia against Cerinthus, and 
the heresy of the Ebionites, who held that our Lord was a 
mere man ;” unde et compulsus est divinam ejus nativita- 
tem edicere; “and so he was compelled to speak of his di- 
vine original ;” in which opinion most of the latter writers 
agree with him; he adds another cause of writing this gos- 
pel, current before and in his time, viz. that* “having pe- 
rused and approved the other three gospels, he supplied what 
was wanting in them, especially as to what our Saviour did 
before John was cast into prison.” Aceordingly Clemens of 
Alexandria and Eusebius say, that St. John, observing that 
the other evangelists had written τὰ σωματικὰ, that is, the 
series of our Lord’s generation, according to the flesh, he 
writ a spiritual gospel, beginning from the divinity of Christ, 
this being reserved for him as the most excellent person, by 
the Holy Ghost (see and compare Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iit. 
cap. 24, with lib. vi. cap. 14). And that he did this to sup- 
ply those excellent discourses, and those signal miracles, 
which the other evangelists had omitted, seems manifest from 
the whole tenor of this gospel. 

§. 5. I proceed to the third inquiry, why Christ still speak- 
eth in this gospel, as one who did and could do nothing of 
himself, but acted all things by commission from, and by the 
power and authority of God the Father. 

This is a matter of very great importance ; for it is observ- 
able, that whereas Crellius, in his book de uno Deo Patre, 
sect. 2, reckons up thirty-six arguments against the divinity 
of Christ; and Woltzogenius, in his Preparatio ad utilem 
Lectionem librorum Novi Testamenti, reckoneth up sixty 
against it; one half of them are taken from some passages 
of this gospel. And the same author, in his prolegomena to 
this gospel, saith, that “in no writing of the evangelists 
or apostles, are there more arguments against the divinity of 
Christ, than in this gospel.”” Nor have I yet been so happy 
as to see one author, who hath given sufficient, clear, and sa- 
tisfactory answer to the arguments produced from this gos- 
pel against that necessary article. I could heartily wish that 
men so skilled iu the controversies betwixt us and the So- 
cinians, as Dr. Edwards, of Jesus College, is, would rather 
give us a clear answer to the arguments of Crellius de uno 
Deo Patre, against the divinity of Christ, which is too much 
wanted, than furnish us with “antidotes against Socinianism,” 
by producing arguments against it, whilst that and such-like 
books, unanswered, seem to be antidotes against antidotes. 

I have endeavoured in my annotations on this gospel to 
do this, by asserting that our blessed Lord did execute his 
prophetic office by virtue of that unction of the Holy Ghost, 
which he received at his baptism; and that all the things, 
which the Socinians urge from this gospel as arguments 
against his divine nature, were spoken by him as acting in 
that office here on earth ; not by an immediate efilux, or ex- 
ertion of his divinity, but by virtue of the Holy Ghost, con- 
ferred upon him without measure. And that I may not 
seem singular in this assertion, I shall strengthen it with 
the suffrage of some of our most able and judicious divines, 
and then confirm it from the plain testimonies of scripture, 
and our Lord’s own words. Now of those able and judi- 
cious divines, who concur with me in this notion, the first is 
Dr. Barrow, who, in his sermon on these words, Acts ii. 38, 
“Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost,” saith thus,¢ 
“ The Holy Spirit not only conducted God our Saviour into 
his fleshly tabernacle} and with unmeasurable communica- 
tions of himself did continually reside within him, but also 
did attend him in the conspicuous performance of innume- 
rable miraculous works of power and goodness, exceeding 
not only any natural, but all created power: such as were, 
by mere word and will, healing the sick, and restoring the 
maimed, ejecting evil spirits, discerning the secret thoughts 


* Verbo Johan. 

Sed et aliam causam hujus scripture ferunt quod cium 
legisset Matthwi, Marci, et Luce volumina, probaverit qui- 
dem textum historie, et vera eos dixisse firmaverit, sed unius 
tanttim anni in quo et passus est, post carcerem Johannis, 
historiam texuisse——Superioris temporis, antequam Jo- 
hannes clauderetur in carcerem, gesta narravit. 

+ Vol. iii. serm. 45, p. 524. 


324 


of men, foretelling contingent events, reviving the dead, rais- 
ing himself from the grave; which works, some expressly, 
others by parity of reason, are ascribed to the Holy Spirit; 
‘for if” saith our Lord, 1 by the Spirit of God cast out 
devils,’ Matt. xii. 28, and God, saith St. Peter, «anointed 
him with the Holy Ghost, and with power,’ Acts x. 38.” 

The second is the judicious Dr. Scott,* who speaks thus, 
« When Christ came down into the world, to transact per- 
sonally with men, he generally acted by the Holy Spirit: for 
at his baptism we are told, that «the Holy Ghost descended 
on him in a bodily shape,’ Luke iii. 22, upon which it is 
said, that he went away ‘ full of the Holy Ghost, Luke iv. 1. 
After which it is plain that it was by the Holy Ghost in him 
that he prophesied, and wrought his miracles ; for so Isa. Ixi. 
1, the prophet attributes the whole prophecy of Christ to the 
Spirit of the Lord, which was upon him; and in Matt. xii. 
28, our Saviour himself affirms, that he ‘cast out devils by 
the Spirit of God;’ and therefore he saith that the Jews by 
attributing his miraculous works to the devil, ‘ blasphemed 
against the Holy Ghost,’ Matt. xii. 31, because it was by the 
power of the Holy Ghost that he wrought them.” 

The last is Dr. Lightfoot, who, in his note on Mark xiii. 
32, saith, “ We must distinguish between the excellences 
and perfections of Christ, which flowed from the hypostatical 
union of the two natures, and those which flowed from the 
donation and anointing of the Holy Spirit. From the hypo- 
statical union of the natures flowed the infinite dignity of his 
person, his impeccability, his self-sufficiency to observe the 
law, and to satisfy the divine justice; from the anointing of 
the Spirit flowed his power of miracles, his foreknowledge 
of things to come, and all kind of knowledge of evangelic 
mysteries: those rendered him a fit and perfect redeemer ; 
these a fit and perfect minister of the gospel.” 

To illustrate and confirm this assertion, let it be considered, 

First, That Jesus Christ, while he was on earth, deli- 
vered all his doctrines and precepts in his Father’s name, or 
as one sent from him, and authorized to speak what he de- 
livered in his name, according to those words of his forerun- 
ner, “ He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God,” 
John iii. 34. 

He himself often declares in express words, that he was 
come in his Father’s name, John v. 43, that the Father 
had sent him, viii. 29, that he came not of himself, but he 
sent him, ver. 42, that he came not to do his own will, 
but the will of him that sent him, vi. 33—40. 57, that the 
works which he did bare witness of him, that the Father had 
sent him, v. 36, 37, that he spake those things which he had 
heard of, and seen with, his Father, viii. 26. 38, and that 
the Jews were guilty of a great sin, in that they believed not 
in him whom the Father had sent, v. 38. Of this doctrine 
he saith, “ My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me; 
and if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself,’ 
vii. 16, 17 (see the note there): that he spake not from him- 
self, but from him that sent him, ver. 18, that as his Father 
had taught him, so he spake these things, viii. 28, that he 
had told the Jews that truth which he had heard of God, 
ver. 40, that the word which they heard was not his, but the 
Father that sent him, xiv. 24, that he had not spoken of him- 
self; but the Father which sent him gave him command- 
ment what he should say, and what he should speak : what- 
soever he spake therefore, even as the Father said to him, 
so he spake, xii. 49, 50; and of his disciples he speaks thus 
to his Father, “I have given to them the words which thou 
gavest me; and they have received them, and have known 
surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed 
that thou hast sent me,” xvii. 8: from all which sayings he 
concludes, that “he that heareth me, heareth him that sent 
me: and he that believeth in me, believeth in him that sent 
me,” xii. 44, xiii. 20. Consider, 

Secondly, That he preached his doctrines, and delivered 
his sayings to the world, by virtue of that Spirit with which 
he was anointed; so we learn plainly from those words of 
John the Baptist, iii. 24, «He whom God hath sent, speak- 
eth the words of God ; for God giveth not the Spirit by mea- 
sure to him” (see the note there). So also he himself de- 
clares, in his first sermon preached at Nazareth after his 


* Vol. ii. par. ii. cap. 7, p. 60, 61. 


PREFACE 


temptations; for having read those words of Isaiah Ixi. 1, 
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath 
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent 
me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
captives—to preach the acceptable year of the Lord; he be- 
gan to say to them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in 
your ears,” Luke iv. 18, 19. 21. | 

Moreover, it seems essential to. a prophet to act as he is 
moved, assisted, and incited by the Holy Ghost; for a pro- 
phet, saith Philo,* ἴδιον μὲν οὐδὲν ἀποφθέγγεται, “speaks no- 
thing from himself, but all things from another :” no prophecy 
being, saith St. Peter, idias ἐπιλύσεως, “ of the proper motion, 
or incitation of the prophets,” they speaking still as “ they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Pet.i. 20,21). And it 
is essential to a prophet sent from God, and speaking in his 
Father’s name, to speak that only which he had received 
from him, even as other prophets did, that is, by inspiration 
of the Holy Ghost ; whence by this Spirit our great prophet 
is said to be sanctified, or consecrated to his office, and sent 
into the world (x. 36). 

Thirdly, The miracles he did on earth in confirmation of 
this mission and his doctrine, were also done by the assist- 
tance of the Holy Ghost. So we learn plainly from these 
words of the apostle Peter, Acts x. 37, 38, “ Ye know how. 
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and 
with power (or with the power of the Holy Ghost), who 
(thereupon) went about doing good, and healing all that were 
oppressed with the devil: for God was with him.” And 
Christ himself affirms in one place, that he did “cast out de- 
vils by the finger (i. e. the power) of God,” Luke xi. 20, 
and in another that he did cast them out “by the Holy 
Ghost,” Matt. xii. 28, from the collation of which two places 
we may rationally conclude, that what he elsewhere saith he 
did by the power of God was done by the Spirit of God 
abiding in him: thus, when our Lord came from the wilder- 
ness, where he was tempted of the devil, he goes through all 
Galilee, healing every disease and malady in the people: 
and the fame of him goes out through all Syria: “and they 
brought to him all sick people, and all that were taken with 
divers diseases and torments, and those that were possessed 
with devils, and those that were lunatic, and those that had 
the palsy ; and he healed them,” Matt. iv. 23, 24. Now by 
what power he healed all these diseases and maladies, which 
raised this fame of him in Galilee, St. Luke insinuates, by 
saying, “He returned in the power_of the Holy Ghost into 
Galilee, and the fame of him was spread throughout all that 
region,” Luke iv. 14. 

Moreover, our Lord declares he did his miracles by the 
Father abiding in him, bidding the Jews believe his works, 
that they might know and believe that the Father was in him, 
and he was in the Father, John x. 37, 38, and ch. xiv. he 
proves, that he is in the Father, and the Father in him; “ be- 
cause,” saith he, “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doth 
the works,” ver. 10, and, ver. 11, he adds, “ Believe me that I 
am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for 
the works’ sake.” Now these works being done, as hath been 
proved, by the Holy Ghost, it follows that he must be here said 
to be in the Father, and the Father in him, because the Spirit 
of the Father, styled “the power of the Most High,” Luke i. 
35, resided in him without measure. And having promised 
to send the Holy Ghost upon them, and said they should do 
greater works than he had done, because he went to the Fa- 
ther, to send this promise of the Father, ver. 12. 17, he adds, 
ver. 20, “In that day ye shall know, that I am in the Father, 


and you in me, and Lin you.” Now it is certain, that Christ — 
| was in his apostles by his Spirit abiding with them (ver. 16), — 


and that they were in him by the same Spirit uniting them to 
their head Christ (Eph. ii. 22, iii. 16, 17, iv. 16) ; and there- 


fore Christ must be here said to be “in the Father” by the ὁ 


Spirit of his Father (see the note there, and see more proofs 


of this, note on John xvii. 19, 20. 22): so that from these | 


things I conclude, that Jesus Christ being then in the state of Ϊ 
humiliation, and emptied of the form of God, acted, in | 


things relating immediately to his prophetic office, not as 
God, but only 85 ἃ prophet sent from God ; not by the power 


of his divine nature, but of that Spirit by which he was _ 
anointed and sanctified to that office: though being also God, | 


* Quis Rer. div. Heres. p. 404, 


ἢ 


‘ 


TO JOHN. 


of the same essence derived from the Father, he might do 
many other things by virtue of his divinity ; by that discern- 
ing what was in the hearts of all men ; by that walking on the 
sea, and stilling the stormy winds with a word, which he did 
only in the presence of his disciples ; and by that doing many 
other things of a like nature. 

Moreover, his divinity being part of that doctrine which 
he was to publish, he might upon occasion assert it, by say- 
ing, God was properly his Father, and he was properly his 
Son; and that he and his Father were one, and that all men 
were to worship the Son even as they worshipped the I’a- 
ther; with other things of a like nature, relating to his di- 
vinity. 

The objection of the Socinians against this hypothesis, is 
fully answered, note on Matt. iii. 16. 


POSTSCRIPT. 


I come now to the chief controversy betwixt me and Mr. 
Whiston, which is concerning the time of Christ’s preaching 
and his baptism. 

He saith, prop. 8, that “the beginning of our Saviour’s 
ministry, both as to preaching and miracles, commenced soon 
after that of John the Baptist, towards the beginning of the 
famous fifteenth year of Tiberius, long before his own bap- 
tism ;” i. e. according to his computation, near two years be- 
fore it. 

Now to this proposition I oppose the contradictory asser- 
tion of Cyril of Jerusalem,* viz. ‘That “Jesus Christ 
preached not before his baptism, but then only began to 
preach when the Holy Ghost bodily descended on him in the 
shape of a dove:” and this probably he might know from 
the tradition of the Jewish converts, who might be baptized 
with him. Agreeable to this assertion is that of Eusebius of 
Palestine,f that “our Lord beginning to be thirty, came to 
John’s baptism, καταρχήῆν τε ποιεῖ τηνικαῦτα τοῦ κατὰ τὸ 
εὐαγγέλιον κηρύγματος, and from thence he began to preach 
the gospel.” Epiphanius,t who was born in Palestine, of 
Jewish parents, saith, that “our Lord came to the baptism 
of St. John the Baptist in the thirtieth year of his incarna- 
tion, καὶ ἀπεντεῦϑεν, and from that time preached the accept- 
able year of the Lord.” And lastly, Ireneus saith§ that 
“he neither could have disciples nor could teach before he 
began to be thirty, magistri wtatem non habens; but then 
he came to his baptism, triginta quidem annorum existens, 
ciim veniret ad baptismum, deinde magistri xtatem perfec- 
tam habens, being then of perfect age to be a teacher.” And 
hence arose that canon|| of the church to ordain a presbyter 
τριάκοντα ὄντα ἑτῶν, “when he was thirty years old.” This 
being by all the fathers (one alone excepted) gathered, and 
thought certain, from St. Luke, that Christ came to his bap- 
tism when he was in his thirtieth year; see the note on Luke 
iii. 33, where this is proved, and the sense of the words of 
St. Luke is fully considered: and, saith Langius,J “that 
which hath this full consent of antiquity, and is agreeable to 
scripture, is certainly the truth.” 

Secondly, It is the express assertion of St. Luke, that the 
Baptist began his ministry in the fifteenth year of Tiberius; 
for then, saith he, «the word of the Lord came to him, and 
he came forth preaching the baptism of repentance,” Luke 
lil. 2, 3, and it is the general assertion of all antiquity, that 
Christ was baptized in the same year; it is therefore impos- 
sible that either John should so long begin to preach, or that 
Christ should preach so long as he saith he did, before his 
baptism. And, 

Thirdly, That which Mr. Whiston offers from Eusebius** 


* Οὐ πρὸ τοῦ βαπτίσματος εὐηγγελίσατο--------ἀλλὰ τότε ἤρξατο 
᾿Ιησοῦς κηρύσσειν, ὅτε κατῆλθεν τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον σωματικῷ εἴδει 
ὡσεὶ περιστερᾶς. Catech. 3, p. 21, B. 

{ Hist. Eccl. lib. 1. cap.10. + Her. 51, n. 24. 

§ Lib. ii. cap. 39. || Phot. Nomoe. p. 758. 

© Quod tanto omnium consensti approbatum, tanté anti- 
quitate nititur, id, sine omni dubio longé verissimum est, 
airy si non modo a scripturarum veritate nihil plané 

tiat, sed etiam apprimé cum illé conveniat. 

** Hist. Eccl. lib, iii. cap. 24. 


325 


in favour of his opinion is a perfect demonstration against 
it; for he saith, St. John writ his gospel to supply the de- 
fects of the other evangelists, who had omitted τὴν περὶ τῶν 
ἐν πρώτοις καὶ κατ᾽ ἀρχὴν rod κηρύγματος ὑπὸ rod Χριστοῦ πε- 
πραγμένων διήγησιν, “the narrative of the things done by 
Christ at the beginning of his preaching :”’ now, saith the same 
Eusebius, in the same book, Christ beginning to be thirty 
years old, came to John’s baptism, κἄταρχήν re ποιεῖ τηνικαῦτα, 
&e., “and from thence he began to preach the gospel :” 
moreover, he makes the defect of the other evangelists to 
consist in this; that “they said nothing of the time of the 
beginning of Christ’s preaching” (which, saith he, was from 
his baptism by John in Jordan) till after John’s imprison- 
ment; whereas the evangelist St. John begins there (i. 6. 
at the beginning of Christ’s preaching after his baptism), say- 
ing, “ This beginning of miracles did Jesus ;” and goes on 
through all the time of John’s baptizing afterward, till his 
imprisonment, as he shows by saying, “ John was baptizing 
in Enon, near Salim, for John was not yet cast into prison,” 
John iii. 23. Who sees not now that Eusebius places all the 
time of Christ’s preaching, mentioned by St. John from the 
second to the fifth chapter, betwixt Christ’s baptism and St. 
John Baptist’s being cast into prison? Now this being the 
way that Jerome, Eusebius, and all the ancients, who under- 
took to answer the cavils of Porphyry and others who ques- 
tioned the truth of the gospels, took to reconcile the evan- 
gelists in this matter, demonstrates that they knew and 
believed nothing of this new revelation that our Saviour 
preached above two years before his baptism. 

To proceed now to the arguments from scripture, concur- 
ring with the suffrage of antiquity, I assert, 

First, That John the Baptist did see the Holy Spirit de- 
scending from heaven, and abiding upon Christ at his bap- 
tism. This is evident (1.) from the nature of the thing, it 
being almost inconceivable that there should be such a glo- 
rious opening of the heavens, and such a visible descent of 
the Holy Ghost in a bodily shape, and that he who stood by 
all the while, and saw Christ come out of the water, should 
not discern what was more visible, as being a more glorious 
appearance. 

Secondly, This seems farther evident from the words fol- 
lowing, καὶ idod, “ And behold a voice from heaven, saying, 
οὗτος, This is my beloved Son;” for as, in the like case, καὶ 
ἰδοὺ, “ And behold a voice out of the cloud saying, otros, 
This is my beloved Son, hear him,” Matt. xvii. 5, was an 
advertisement to the disciples present there, that God from 
heaven gave them this testimony concerning him who was 
transfigured before them: so the καὶ idod οὗτος, “ And behold 
this,” &c., Matt. iii. 17, must be an advertisement to the 
Baptist, that he on whom the Holy Ghost thus descended 
was the Son of God. And hence John’s testimony is thus 
related, i. 32—54, “He that sent me to baptize said, On 
whomsoever thou (baptizing) seest the Spirit descending and 
abiding on him, he it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost ; 
and I saw (this) and (hearing also at the same time the voice 
from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son) I testified, that 
this is the Son of God.” 

Nor is it any objection to the contrary, that St. Mark, 
i. 11, and St. Luke, iii. 22, give the words of the voice from 
heaven thus, “‘Thou art my beloved Son:” for as neither of 
them hath the advertisement to behold, which St. Matthew 
hath, so he that saith to another of Christ in his audience, 
“This is my beloved Son,” saith in effect to him, “Thou 
art so.” 

Hence I infer, that the Baptist saw not the Holy Ghost 
descending upon Christ as a dove before Christ’s baptism, and 
consequently, that his testimony of this matter, John i. 32, 
must relate to what he had seen at his baptism, since other- 
wise the Baptist must have seen him twice descending thus 
upon Christ, in the very same shape, and after the same 
manner ; whereas if, by the first vision, the sign of the Mes- 
siah promised to him was so fully given him, that he declares 
that he had seen it, and by it was enabled to testify Christ 
was the Son of God, what need was there of a second vision, 
or to what end was it designed? 

Secondly, There is no reason to say that the Holy Ghost 
descended twice in the same shape, and with the same cir- 
cumstances, from heaven upon Christ, as this opinion doth 
suppose, since by the first a upon him he must be suf- 


326 


ficiently sanctified and consecrated to his office. Moreover, 
he speaks of himself, John iii. 17, as of one sent into the 
world by the Father, and therefore sanctified already, John 
x. 36. And the Baptist speaks of him not only as one who 
testified “ what he had seen and heard” (at his baptism), but 
also as one “sent from God,” and filled with his Spirit above 
measure, and who had all things put into his hands, com- 
plaining that “no man received his testimony,” though God 
the Father had “set his'seal” upon it, ver. 31. 84, Nowis 
it reasonable to conceive, as Mr. Whiston’s opinion forces 
us to do, that all this should be said by Christ, and by the 
Baptist, before that baptism in which alone the Father had 
declared him to be his beloved Son ? 

Obj. It is objected, that when Christ came to be baptized 
of John, he not only knew him, but speaks thus to him, «I 
have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me?” 
Which words imply, not only his knowledge who he was, 
but also that he baptized as well as himself; yet, after his 
baptism was over, and not before, “ Jesus went up out of the 
water, and the heavens were opened,” &c. Since then the 
Baptist said, “I knew him not,” but had this signal given 
me whereby to know him, viz. the descent and abode of the 
Holy Ghost, how comes he to be so well acquainted with 
him before his baptism, as the words above mentioned do 
imply ? 

Ans. 1. To this I answer, first, That as these words, “ He 
it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” do 
not intimate that Christ did then, or whilst he was on earth, 
do this, but only that he was to do it after his resurrection 
and ascension (John vii. 39, Acts i. 5. 11. 16) : so the words 
of the Baptist, “1 have need to be baptized of thee,” do 
not intimate the Baptist’s knowledge that Jesus then bap- 
tized (partly because it is not true, since Jesus baptized not 
whilst John was at Jordan, but only when he was baptizing 
at Enon, John iii. 23, partly because Jesus himself baptized 
not, but his disciples only, John iv. 2, and surely John, who 
had commission from God to use this baptism, and probably 
had baptized these disciples, could not need their water- 
baptism) ; they therefore only signify, that Christ was the 
person who should afterward baptize with the Holy Ghost 
and fire, and that John needed that baptism which would 
enable him to work miracles, and to speak with unknown 
tongues. 

Ans. 2. Secondly, I answer, that John the Baptist, being 
filled with the Holy Ghost « from his mother’s womb” (Luke 
i. 15) knew by the afflatus of that Spirit, that he who then 
came to him was the very person on whom the Holy Ghost 
should descend so gloriously, and on whom he should abide, 
that he might impart him to others, such matters being fre- 
quently imparted to holy prophets by an immediate intima- 
tion of the Holy Ghost. So Simeon being told “he should 
not die till he had seen the Lord’s Christ,” Luke ii. 26, had 
also an afflatus declaring to him that our Lord was the 
Christ, ver. 27, 32. So Samuel being told by God that on 
the morrow a man should come to be captain over his people 
Israel, 1 Sam. ix. 15, when Saul appears, had another afila- 
tus, resembling that of the Baptist’s here, viz. “ Behold the 
man of whom 1 spake to thee,’ ver. 17. In a word, the 
Baptist being moved to say, when he baptized with water, 
that “another was coming after him, who should baptize 
them with the Holy Ghost,” God tells him, that of this he 
should see an evidence by the visible descent of the Holy 
Ghost upon that person, who, from his fullness, was to im- 
part of this Spirit to all believers; and, when our Lord came 
to be baptized, tells him again this was that very person. 

Ans. 3. Thirdly, It is not said, «I knew him not,” but 
οὐκ ἤδειν αὐτὸν, «1 had not known him,” John i. 31. 33, and 
this is so said as to give us just reason to believe that this 
was said after our Saviour’s baptism; for the words of the 
Baptist bear properly this sense, And I had not known 
him, but that I came for this cause to baptize with water, 
that he might be made manifest to Israel (by me) : then fol- 
low the words of the evangelist, ver. 32, And John bare 
record, saying, I saw (Gr. have seen) the Spirit descending 
from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him” (which, as 
Ihave proved, the Baptist saw at his baptism), and no man 
can prove that he saw this before. Then follow again the 
words of the Baptist, ver. 33, « And I had not known him 
(viz. by this sign of the Spirit’s descending on him), but (that) 


PREFACE 


he who sent me to baptize with water, the same (had) said 
to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and 
remaining on him, the same is he who baptizeth with the 
Holy Ghost.” Now why is the Baptist so particular in say- 
ing twice, that he had not known him, except he who sent 
him to baptize had given him this sign ; if this sign had not 
been given him at his baptizing of Christ, but long before ? 
Why doth he say, he came to baptize, that he might be made 
manifest to Israel (viz. by him baptizing) ; if he were not to 
be made manifest to him by his baptizing him, but long be- 
fore? Why, lastly, should a thing of so great moment to 
the confirmation of Christ’s mission, and the Baptist’s testi- 
mony of him, as this descent of the Holy Ghost upon Christ 
in this manner, so long before his baptism, be never hinted 
in the least in any place of the New Testament, the serip- 
ture being as silent in it as in the ascent of Christ into 
heaven after his baptism, which the Socinians have imagined ? 
To make this farther evident, consider that the Baptist only 
saith in the other evangelists, ἔρχεται, “One cometh,” or is 
coming “after me, who shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost ;” but the evangelist St. John begins his testimony 
thus, “John bare record, and cried, saying, This is he of 
whom I said, He that cometh after me is preferred before 
me,” 1. 15, Plainly, according to the observation οἵ the 
ancients, beginning his testimony after Christ’s baptism, 
whither the other evangelists had only brought him: for 
when St. Matthew had introduced John saying, “ One cometh 
after me, &c., whose fan is in his hand,” &c., he immediately 
adds τότε, “Then cometh Jesus to be baptized of John in 
Jordan ;” the words then, “ This is he of whom I said this,” 
must intimate, that this was spoken after Christ's baptism, 
and not almost two years before it. Moreover, when the 
priests and Levites, sent from Jerusalem to Bethabara beyond 
Jordan, where John was baptizing, asked him, Why he bap- 
tized? the Baptist answers, “I baptize with water; but 
there standeth (Gr. ἕστηκεν, hath stood) one among you, whom 
ye know not; he it is, who, coming after me, is preferred 


‘before me.” Now, First, When had Christ stood in the midst 


of them, but when he came from Galilee to Jordan, “to be 
baptized of John,” seeing we find not in all the evangelists, 
that Jesus ever went any whither but to a feast at Jerusalem, 
when ‘he was twelve years old, till he went “from Nazareth 
to Galilee, to be baptized of John in Jordan?” Mark i. 9, 
Matt. iii. 13. Whereas the evangelist St. John represents 
him first at Cana, then going thence to Capernaum, as to his 
abode, then to the passover, then to Samaria, which shows 
that this was done after his baptism. Secondly, These words, 
“whom ye know not,” fairly intimate that the Baptist then 
knew him, as also doth the demonstrative pronoun οὗτος, 
«That is he who, coming after me,” &c., and the words 
spoken the next day, “ This is he of whom I said, He that 
cometh after me is preferred before me ;” which, as I have 
shown, were then said when Christ came to be baptized of 
John ; whereas the Baptist saith, “I had not known him, 
had not God given me this sign of the descent of the Holy 
Ghost upon him,” to know he was that very person. And 
therefore, when Christ came to his baptism, God saith first 
to John by an afflatus, This is the very person on whom thou 
shalt see the sign, and then instantly upon his baptism af- 
fords it to him : moreover, the evangelist adds, “These things 
were done at Bethabara, where John was baptizing ;” they 
therefore must be spoken before the Baptist left that place 
to go to Enon, and therefore after Christ’s baptism ; for that 
the Baptist ever returned afterward to Jordan, where Christ 
was baptized, we read not. 

Obj. 1. Christ was then only baptized when all the people 
had been so, Luke iii. 21. 

Ans. To this I answer, that Christ “ was baptized of John 
in Jordan, Mark i. 7, whereas John continued afterward at 
Enon, “and the people came and were baptized of him 
there,” John iii. 23, so that when St. Luke saith, “ When 
all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized also,” it is 
evident he meaneth only all the people then present, or bap- 
tized at Jordan by him, Matt. iii. 5, 6. And hence the 
scripture makes an exact distinction betwixt John’s bap- 
tizing at Jordan and afterward at Enon, and perhaps at 
other places, by saying, John x. 40, that Christ “ went again 
beyond Jordan, to the place, ὅπου Ἰωάννης ἦν πρῶτον βαπτίζων, 
where John was first baptizing,” making it evident that John 


{ 
{ 
| 
Ι 


TO JOHN. 


still followed his office after he had baptized Christ, bap- 
tizing still in other places: false therefore is the inference 
from St. Luke’s mentioning the imprisonment of John before 
he speaks of Christ’s baptism, that our Saviour was baptized 
at Jordan at the conclusion of John’s ministry, that being 
only the place of John’s first baptism ; after which he comes 
to Enon, in the half tribe of Manasseh, within the precincts 
of Samaria, and baptizeth; and the people come to him 
there and were baptized; “for John was not yet cast into 
prison,” John iii. 24. St. Luke therefore speaks of John’s 
imprisonment by a long anticipation, that he might put all 
he had to say of the Baptist together; which perhaps St. 
John intended to intimate, by saying the Baptist “was not 
yet cast into prison.” 

Obj. 2. All the other evangelists, after Christ's baptism, 
say nothing of him more, but that he was tempted in the 
wilderness; and then when John was cast into prison, 
ὑπέστεψεν, he returned into Galilee, came to Nazareth, and 
so to Capernaum (Matt. iv. 12, 13, Mark i. 14, Luke iv. 
14). Whence it seems to follow, that Christ was baptized 
but a little before John was cast into prison. 


Ans. 1. But how much more natural is the observation of | 


the ancients, that the evangelist St. John observing this, be- 
gins where they had ended, viz. at the first appearance of 
our blessed Lord after his baptism John i. 29, and gave the 
testimony of him recorded ver. 15, and ver. 26, 27, a little 
before that. 

Ans, 2. All the other evangelists speak only of the Bap- 
tist as the forerunner of Christ, or as one sent before him to 
prepare his way, and to preach the baptism. of repentance 
to the people, πρὸ τῆς εἱσύδου αὐτοῦ, “before the entrance of 
Christ upon his office,” Acts xiii. 24, which, all these three 
evangelists having told us what he did, and by what argu- 
ments he enforced his repentance on them, they all immedi- 
ately subjoin our Lord’s coming to Jordan to be baptized of 
him, and the history of his ensuing baptism: the Baptist 
being therefore only his forerunner till Christ by his baptism 
was anointed with the Holy Ghost, and consecrated by this 
unction to his office, they had no more to say of the Baptist 
afterward ; and so they only speak of what Christ began to 
say after that John was cast into prison, viz. “The time is 
fulfilled,” &c. Mark i. 14, 15. But the evangelist St.John 
speaks of the Baptist, not as the forerunner of, but as one 
sent to be a witness to Christ, i. 6, which he was enabled 
to be only by what he saw and heard at Christ’s baptism, 
ver. 31. 33, before which time he only spake indefinitely of 
“one coming after him ;” but when he had baptized him, 
he saith demonstratively, «This is he of whom I spake ;” 
and therefore he had reason to speak of him as long as he 
bore witness of him, as he afterward amply did at Enon, and 
of our Lord’s performances before John was cast into prison ; 
they being also testimonies of Christ’s mission, and that he 
was the Son of God, and yet entirely omitted by the former 
evangelists. And whereas, 

Thirdly, It is said by the other evangelists, that «Christ 
returned again into Galilee;” this well agrees with St. John 
saying, after he had ended his whole history of the Baptist, 
that Christ, ἀπῆλθε πάλιν, “went again,” or receded into 
Galilee, to avoid the fury of the pharisees, iv. 3. And it 
seems worthy of observation, that after Christ was baptized 
he came to Capernaum, saith St. Matthew, that what was 
spoken by the prophet of the land of Zabulon and Neph- 
thalim, in the borders of which Capernaum lay, might be 
fulfilled; whereas, if Christ did what St. John mentions, 
ch. ii. before his baptism, he must have been there before, 
and probably have taken up his abode there, John ii. 12, 
and must have done many miracles there before; since, 
when he came to Nazareth, they spake thus to him, « What 
things we have heard done in Capernaum, do also in thy 
own country,” Luke iv. 23, and so he needed not to come 
thither again after his baptism to fulfil that prophecy. 

Obj. 3. From the connexion of the words of St. Luke con- 
cerning Christ’s temptation in the wilderness, iv. 1, with 
those following, ver. 13, 14, “And Jesus returned in the 
power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame 
of him throughout all the region round about ;” it is argued 
that these two things must be immediately connected. 

Ans. 1. This is said, not considering that both St. Mat- 
thew and St, Mark assure us that this was only done after 


327 


that John was cast into prison; which, as I have shown 
already, was long after our Lord’s baptism at Jordan. 

Ans. 2. There is nothing more common in St. Luke than 
such connexion of things done a considerable time after one 
another: thus, when he had spoken of Christ’s cireumcision, 
he immediately speaks of his appearance at the temple when 
he was forty days old; and yet Mr. Whiston will have his 
flight into Egypt, and his return thence, to intervene. He 
introduceth John saying, “1 baptize with water, but one 
mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am 
not worthy to unloose,” i. 16, and then follows Christ's bap- 
tism, ver. 21, and yet the Baptist tells us, “this was he” 
of whom he had said this, John i. 17, and so, according to 
the opinion of Mr. Whiston, he must have said this almost 
two years before our Saviour’s baptism. Again, he speaks 
of the Baptist’s imprisonment by Herod, iii. 20, before 
Christ’s baptism, and yet it is certain that he could not bap- 
tize Christ in Jordan after he was in prison. In fine, hav- 
ing spoken of Christ’s presentment in the temple after he 
was forty days old, ii. 39, he adds, ver. 40, “that the child, 
being filled with wisdom, increased and waxed strong in 
spirit,” which supposes him then of some years capable of 
wisdom. 

Obj. 4. But, saith Mr. Whiston, this opinion that Christ 
was baptized before he did the things mentioned in the first 
four chapters of John, puts a chasm of almost two years be- 
twixt Christ’s baptism and his return to Galilee after the 
imprisonment of the Baptist. 

Ans. 1, It is somewhat surprising to find that which 
hath been the observation of all the fathers who have writ 
upon this subject, from Clemens Alexandrinus* to Theo- 
phylact, that is, fora thousand years, turned now into an 
objection; their observation is this—that the other evange- 
lists have passed over all that our Saviour did after his bap- 
tism till John was cast into prison; but the evangelist St. 
John, passing by all that they had said of Christ to his bap- 
tism and temptation, begins where they left off, and having 
told us of many things done after by Christ, he adds, that 
“ John was not yet cast into prison ;” clearly showing that, 
according to the tradition they had received, the evangelist 
speaks in these four chapters of what happened between the 
interval of Christ’s baptism and St. John’s imprisonment. 

Ans. 2. Moreover, seeing there must be a like chasm of 
time in these evangelists, who speak not one word of Christ's 
leaving Nazareth till he came thence to be baptized of John; 
or of his preaching, miracles, or baptizing others before he 
was himself baptized, what absurdity is it to place this chasm 
after Christ’s baptism, as the ancients do,t who also posi- 
tively say, that “Christ preached not before he was bap- 
tized,” rather than, against the suffrage of all antiquity, to 
place it before his baptism? ‘This will be farther evident 
from the words of St. Peter rightly interpreted, viz. « Of 
those who have accompained with us all the time that our 
Lord Jesus went in and out among us, (ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ Barric- 
ματος Ἰωάννου, he beginning so to do from the baptism of 
John till the day that he was taken up from us,) must one 
be chosen to be a witness of his resurrection,” Acts i. 20, 21. 
For (1.) I have proved, note on ver. 20, that “to go in and 
out” is to perform his prophetic office. (2.) Those words, 
“beginning from the baptism of John,” cannot be expound- 
ed truly of Christ’s entrance on his office’at the beginning of 
John’s baptism; for then the Baptist could not be Christ’s 
forerunner, nor could he represent Christ as one that was to 
come after him; nor could he say he came to baptize that 
“he might be made manifest to Israel,’”’ seeing his preaching 
and his miracles, by which he manifested his glory (John ii. 


* Kairovye μετὰ τὸ βάπτισμα οὐδὲν αὐτὸν ἀναγράφουσιν εἰρηκότα 
οἱ ἄλλοι εὐαγγελισταί" ἀλλὰ τὰ μεταξὺ σιωπήσαντες, τὰ μετὰ τὴν σύλ- 
ληψιν Ἰωάννου γενόμενα τοῦ Χριστοῦ ϑαύματα λέγουσιν. Hom. 
xvii. in Joh. tom. ii. p. 624. ὋὉ δὲ ᾿Ιωάννης τούτοις μᾶλιστα 
ἐνδιατρίβει, ὅκα. Ibid. p. 621. Vide Clem. Alex. apud Euseh. 
Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 24. Sophron. Prefat.in Joh. Hieron. 
voce Johannes. August. Prefat. in Johan. et de Consensti 
Evangelist. lib. ii. cap. 18. 

ἡ Mera τὸ βάπτισμα, φησὶ ὃ ἸΙωάννης, τεϑέαμαι τὸ Πνεῦμα 
καταβαῖνον, &c. Chrysost. hom. xvii. p. 601. Πρὸ γὰρ τοῦ 
βαπτίσματος οὔτε σημεῖα ἐποίησεν, οὔτε ἐγνωρίζετο. Theoph. in 
Joh. cap. 1, 91, , 


828 PREFACE TO JOHN. 


11, iii. 2), according to the opinion of Mr. Whiston, must 
be done long before his baptism; and much less could St. 
Paul say so emphatically, that John was sent προκηρύττειν 
πρὸ προσώπου τῆς εἰσύδου αὐτοῦ, “to preach first the baptism of 
repentance to all the people of Israel before the entrance” 
of Christ upon his ministry (Acts xili. 24): but, as Grotius 
truly saith, they are to be understood of the time, ex quo 
Jesus fuit ἃ Johanne baptizatus, “from Christ’s being bap- 
tized by John;” for it is reasonable to conceive St. Peter 
speaks of his baptism, of whose ascension he speaks in the 
same place, since otherwise the terminus a quo, the baptism, 
and the terminus ad quem, his ascension, will not respect 
the same person, it being, doubtless, Christ’s ascension that 
is spoken of. In a word, if Christ preached two years before 
his baptism, he preached a year and a half before his fore- 
runner; for it was only in the fifteenth of Tiberius, that 
“the word of the Lord coming to the Baptist, he went out 
and preached the baptism of repentance” (Luke iii. 2, 3). 
Now in this very fifteenth of Tiberius the baptism of Christ 
is placed by all the ancients, saying, that he was baptized, 
duobus Geminis consulibus, which fixeth his baptism to that 
very year. And hence Mr. Whiston’s inference, that St. 
John’s preaching and Christ’s must begin in the same year, 
is confirmed by all antiquity declaring that Christ was bap- 
tized, and afterward began to preach, in the same fifteenth 
year of Tiberius ; and the epocha of the Baptist’s preaching 
ought to be made the beginning of the gospel; because, as 
St. Luke truly saith, John did εὐαγγελίζεσθαι τὸν λαὸν, “ preach 
the gospel to the people, he preaching that men should be- 
lieve on him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus 
Christ” (Acts xix. 4). He not only baptized with the bap- 
tism of repentance for the remission of sins, but pointed to 
«the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world” 
(John i. 29). Now this faith, and this remission of sins 
through the blood of Christ, are the two great doctrines of 
the gospel. 

And whereas, to avoid the testimony of St. Luke, who, 
when he had spoken of Christ’s baptism after the people 
were baptized, and the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him 
in the shape of a dove, and of the voice from heaven, say- 
ing, “Thou art my beloved Son,” which in St. Matthew and 
St. Mark are expressly said to follow Christ’s baptism, im- 
mediately adds, “And Jesus himself began to be about 
thirty years of age;” Mr. Whiston saith, “This relates, 
not to the time of his baptism, but of his ministry long he- 
fore his baptism : in this, as he contradicts all the ancients, 
so he makes St. Luke to relate first what happened at 
Christ’s baptism, and, in his own opinion, at the end of the 
Baptist’s ministry ; and then, in the immediate ensuing 
words, to speak of what was done almost two years before ; 
than which nothing can be more improbable. (2.) They who 
refer the word ἀρξύμενος to the: beginning of Christ’s minis- 
try or preaching, as some chronologers and others do, still 
refer it to his ministry after his baptism; so that Mr. Whis- 
ton is still left alone with his new notion of Christ’s ministry 
long before his baptism, and his groundless distinction be- 
twixt Christ’s private and his public ministry, for which 
there is neither foundation nor colour in scripture or anti- 
quity. And, (3.) whereas Mr. Whiston will not allow the 
word ἀρχύμενος to refer to Christ’s years, but will rather have 
it to refer to κηρύξαι, or some such word, i. 6. to a word not 
used, i. e. to a matter not so much as hinted by him, as I 
have in my note justified the Greek from the censure of the 
critics, and strengthened our version with the concurrence of 
all the Greek fathers who accord with it, and thence infer 
that Christ was beginning his thirtieth year at his baptism ; 
so it may be confirmed by the concurrence of Jerome,* and 
of all the ancient versions, with the sense of our translation. 

Lastly, Whereas he cites, for confirmation of his opinion, 
the words of the Jews, saying, Luke xxiii. 5, “ He stirreth 
up the people, teaching through all Judea, beginning from 
Galilee to this place ;” and those of St. Peter, Acts x. 37, 
“'The word which ye know was published through all Judea, 


* Et ipse Jesus erat incipiens quasi annorum triginta. 
{lieron, Vulg. Ipse vero Jesus erat quasi filius annorum 
triginta. Syr. Et Jesus cceperat ingredi in trigesimum an- 
ae Arab. Et erat Jesus circitér triginta annos natus. 

ers. 


beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John 
preached :” 

Ans. 1. I answer, that these words agree exactly with our 
hypothesis, who say, that after Christ's temptation he returns 
to John, and receives his testimony that he was the very 
person of whom he had before indefinitely spoken, yea, that 
he was “the Son of God,” John i. 34, which he had heard 
only at his baptism, and that he was “the Lamb: of God 
that taketh away the sins of the world,” of all which things 
the other evangelists had given no account; then he goes 
into Galilee, manifesting his glory there; from thence to 
Jerusalem, then to Judea, where he baptizeth by his dis- 
ciples, as John did, into the faith of the Messiah, whose 
kingdom was shortly to be set up, and for which they were 
to prepare themselves by the baptism of repentance, and 
then again goes back to Galilee (see the note on John iii. 
22, 26). 

ek 2. St. Peter plainly saith, that this word was spoken 
by Jesus of Nazareth, (1.) when he had been “anointed 
by the Holy Ghost and power,” which after his baptism he 
was: for then “he returned from Jordan full of the Holy 
Ghost” (Luke iv. 1), “and into Galilee, ἐν δυνάμει τοῦ Πνεύ- 
ματος, in the power of the Spirit” (ver. 14), whereas before 
his baptism nothing of this nature is said of him. (2.) That 
he is said to begin “from Galilee after the baptism which 
John preached,” i. e. after that baptism was concluded by 
the imprisonment of the Baptist. Now, though our Lord 
was baptized above a year before, and by his disciples did 
baptize after the manner of John; and to the same ends, 
whilst John himself continued so to do, and no longer; yet 
it was after the ceasing of the baptism of John that he be- 
gins in Galilee to preach the kingdom of God, and declare 
that it was how coming. ‘lhus St. Mark tells us, that “after 
John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching 
the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time (of 
the coming of the Messiah to erect it) is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, therefore, and be- 
lieve the gospel” (Mark i. 14, 15): and in like manner St. 
Matthew, that “from that time (that the Baptist was cast 
into prison) Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent; 
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. iv. 17). The 
time before, recorded by the evangelist St. John, was spent 
in doing such miracles, and teaching such doctrines, as might 
prepare them to receive and believe in him, when he began 
to preach the doctrine of his kingdom, and to set it up. 
And hence we find, that though Christ had disciples or fol- 
lowers before, yet he had called none before to follow him, 
or be continually with him, as afterward he did, Matt. iv. 
19. 21, Mark i. 17. 20. Here, therefore, seems to be a 
clear account of this whole matter; Christ cometh from 
Nazareth to Jordan to be baptized of John, that he might 
see the sign God had promised, and hear him styled from 
heaven “ the Son of God ;” and so by testifying these things 
might make him “manifest to Israel; he hereupon de- 
clares what he had seen and heard, and so pronounces Christ 
“the Son of God:” then Christ goes on during the bap- 
tism of John at Bethabara, at Enon, and perhaps else- 
where, to work miracles, and to declare that “God had 
sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world” (but not 
yet saying that he was that Son), and by his disciples to 
baptize men as John did, to fit them for, and to prepare 
them to embrace, the doctrine of his kingdom when it 
was to be set up. When therefore John was cast into 
prison, and so his ministry was finished, and gave place 
to that of Christ's, Christ goes into Galilee, and there be- 
gins to preach that doctrine which was to commence at 
the cessation of John’s baptism, and succeed to it: and 
therefore the first three evangelists, passing by what Christ 
did after his baptism to fit men for this kingdom, begin 
what they had farther to say of him when “Christ him- 
self began” to preach the doctrine of that kingdom. And 
Christ himself saith, with relation to that epocha, “ From 
the days of John the Baptist till now, the kingdom of 
heaven suffers violence,” Matt. xi. 12, and Luke xvi. 16, 
ἀπὸ τότε, “From the time of John the kingdom of hea- 
ven is preached, and all men press into it.” 

Note also, that whereas in the preface to the gospel of 
St. John I have said, the passovers during the time of 
our Saviour’s ministry were but four, I find now reason 


CHAPTER I. 


to conceive, with the right reverend bishop of Worcester, 
Dr. Allix, and Mr. Whiston, that they were five. 

First, From our Saviour’s baptism, which by the suf- 
frage of all antiquity was in the fifteenth of Tiberius, 
which began on the nineteenth of August, and so Christ’s 
first passover must begin in the same fifteenth of Tiberius, 
and so his last passover, which according to the Greek 
chronicle of Eusebius was in the nineteenth of ‘Tiberius, 
and according to Phlegon in the fourth year of the twenty- 
second Olympiad, must be his fifth passover. 


Secondly, Christ was baptized in the fifteenth of Tiberius, | 


329: 


*duobus Geminis consulibus, i.e. C. Rubellio Gemino et C. 
Fusco Gemino Coss. He dying therefore in the nineteenth 
of Tiberius, must die, Servio Sulpitio Galba et L. Cornelio 
Sull& Coss; that is, in the fifth year following. And this I 
also gather from Dion,t who saith that Tiberius died after 
twenty-two years, seven months, 7 Kal. April, or the twen- 
| ty-sixth of March; Cn. Proculo et Pontio Negrino Coss. 
| Now reckon the consuls backward to the nineteenth of Ti- 
berius, and you come to Galba and Sulla. 


* Lib. lviii. p.732. + Euseb. Chron. Tertul. ady. Jud. cap. 8. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 ' In the beginning (of the creation) was the Word, 
and the Word was 2 with God, and the Word was 
® God. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἔν ἀρχὴ ἦν ὃ Λόγος. In the beginning was the 
Word.] Here note, 

First, That ἐν ἀρχὴ, “in the beginning,” cannot here signify 
in the beginning of the gospel, but, as Grotius saith, it being 
taken from the word Jerischeth, Gen. i. 1, translated by the 
Septuagint, ἐν ἀρχῇ, must signify cam primum rerum univer- 
sitas ceepit creari, “from the beginning of the creation,” as 
appears, 

First, From the following words, declaring positively, that 
all things were made by the Word here mentioned, ver. 3, 
even “the world” itself, ver. 10, and negatively, that « with- 
out him there was not any thing made that was made;” 
which plainly shows, that the evangelist is here speaking of 
the creation, rise, or beginning, of all things created. And 
this interpretation is strengthened by all those other scrip- 
tures which speak of a glory this Word had with the Father 
“before the foundation of the world,” and represent him as 
one “ begotten before the whole creation,” as being πρὸ πάν- 
τῶν “ before all things:” so that they all were both at first 
created, and still subsisted by him (Col. 1. 15—17), and that 
he “in the beginning framed the heavens and earth,” even 
those heavens and that earth that shall “decay and perish” 
(Heb. i. 10, 11). 

Secondly, The Socinian gloss makes a very plain and flat 
tautology in the words of the evangelist: for the sense of 
them, according to it, must be this—that Christ was, when 
John Baptist preached that he was, or, which is all one, that 
he was when he was, or when he was preaching his own gos- 
pel. Now, how can itbe worthy of an inspired apostle to as- 
sert, that the Word had a being when he began to preach, 
or when he was twenty-nine years old, that is, when the 
Baptist came to make him “ manifest to Israel,” this being 
as true of any other man living, as of the Word, even of 
Judas who betrayed him, and of Pilate who condemned him, 
and being told as plainly by all the foregoing evangelists ? 

Thirdly, Can we imagine that the apostle, speaking of 
Christ as the Word, before he had begun his prophetic office, 
from which they do ascribe this name to him, and at the 
least as soon as he was made flesh, should constantly use 
this phrase, which belonged only to him as executing that 
office, and when, that office being ended, he assumed his 
kingly office, should again ascribe this title to him, by say- 
ing, “ His name is the Word of God” (Rev. xix. 13); and 
yet in his large account of his prophetic office throughout 
this whole gospel, he never should be once mentioned by 
him under that name or title, which then so properly be- 
longed to him? And, 

Fourthly, All the philosophers, who speak περὶ τοῦ Λόγου, 
“of the Word,” spake of it as that “principle καθ᾽ ὃν ἀεὶ 
ὄντα, τὰ γινύμενα ἐγένετο, by whom ever existing all things 
were made :” this was the doctrine of the Platonists, saith 
Amelius, as it was also of Zeno, who styles the Λόγος “ eter- 
nal,” and all the other heathens, who speak of this Logos ; 
and of all those Jews, who spake of him in the language of 
Philo, as πρεσβύτατος, “the most ancient of all beings;” and 

Vor. IV.—42 


2 The same was in the beginning with God (7. e. 
that divine person of whom I am to speak, neither be- 
gan to be when he was born into the world, nor when 


of all those Targumists who tell us, the Word was made by 
the Memra Jehovah, « Word of God;” and as the Jerusa- 
lem Targum, that it was he who said to the world, « Let it 
be, and it was :”—I say, all these Jews and heathens could 
not understand the apostle otherwise than Amelius did, 
when he said, This barbarian hath placed the Logos ἐν τῇ τῆς 
ἀρχῆς τάξει καὶ ἀξία, “in the order and dignity of a princi- 
ple by whom all things were made.” 

Secondly, Note also from the same Grotius, that to be 
“in the beginning,” is, in the Hebrew language, put for 
being from eternity, for sic mos est Hebrais externitatem po- 
pularitér exprimere, the being in the beginning, and before 
the world was, importing a being before time, and therefore 
from eternity: so Prov. viii. 23, “I was set up from ever- 
lasting, or ever the earth was,” ΥῈΝ wspp wRrp ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸ 
κοῦ τὴν γὴν ποιῆσαι: Micah v. 2, “ Whose goings forth are, 
mekedem, from the beginning, from everlasting.”’ And “God 
that abideth mekedem,” Ps. lv. 19, Hab. i. 12, is 6 ὑπάρχων 
τρὸ τῶν αἰώνων, “he that is from everlasting :” and so it may 
here signify, and, being spoken of him who was from eter- 
nity, must import. 

Was the Word.] The plainest reason why this essential 
Son of God is styled“ the Word,” seems to be this; that as 
our words are the interpretation of our minds to others, so 
was this Son of God sent to reveal his Father’s mind to the 
world. 

2 And the Word was, πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, with God. And ver. 
2, he was in the beginning with God.) Πρὸς Θεὸν, 1. 6. μετὰ 
Θεοῦ, Theophyl. that is, « Reason was in God,’ saith Mr. Le 
Clere, but he gives no instance were the preposition πρὸς in 
the New Testament signifies iz ; whereas there be many in- 
stances where it hath the signification of παρὰ and μετὰ, 
with, as when it is said, Matt. xiii. 56, “ His sisters are πρὸς 
ἡμῶν, With us;” Matt. xxvi. 18, “I keep the passover πρός 
ce with thee; Mark ix. 19, “How long shall I be, πρὸς 
ὑμᾶς, with you?” and, xiv. 49, “I was always πρὸς ὑμᾶς, 
with you:” see 1 Cor. ii. 3, xvi. 6, so in this evangelist : 
Eph. 1. 2, πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, “ With the Father” so iii. 21, 
ν. 14. And thus in Ignatius* Christ is mentioned as πρὸς 
αἰώνων παρὰ πατρὸς ὧν, καὶ ἀφ᾽ ἑνὸς πατρὸς προελϑὼν, “being 
with the Father before the world, and proceeding from him 
alone. 

Nor will this phrase admit of either of the senses imposed 
on it by the Socinians; vy. g. not of that, which saith, he 
was with God, that is, he was known to God alone: for (1.) 
this is not absolutely true, he being known, before his pro- 
phetic office was begun, to the angels, saying to the shep- 
herds, Luke ii. 11, “To you is born this day a Saviour, 
which is Christ the Lord ;” to the virgin Mary, to whom the 
angel had revealed, that he was “ the Son of the Highest,” 
one that should “sit on the throne of David,” and was to be 
called “Jesus,” Luke i. 30. 33, to Zachary, Joseph, Simeon, 
Anna, and the wise men. (2.) It is a gloss without exam- 
ple of any such import of the phrase, and without any pro- 
bability ; for who would think that, by saying only, “Titius 


* Ep. ee: §. 6, 7. 
ς 


330 


the world and ail things in it were made; for he then 
was, and so was not a creature, but was God, of the 


JOHN. 


same nature with him, though as to personality distin- 
guished from the Father). 


was with Sempronius,” I should mean that he was known 
to him alone? And (3.) this is as true of antichrist, of hy- 
pocrites latent among believers, of a secret thief, or mur- 
derer; but can it therefore properly be said, that they are 
with God? Wherefore this gloss being so plainly absurd, 
they fly to a second; viz. that Christ, before he entered into 
his prophetic office, was taken up into heaven, to be in- 
structed in the mind and will of God, as Moses was into the 
mount, and upon that account it is here said that he was 
with God. But here lies the great difference betwixt Christ’s 
supposed ascent to heaven, and that of Moses into the 
mount; that when Moses was called up into the mount, 
the people had public notice of it; and he took Aaron and 
his sons, and seventy elders of Israel with him, who saw the 
glory of God (Exod. xxiv. 10); and all Israel beheld “ the 
glory of God,” as a devouring fire on the top of the mount 
(ver. 17) ; and after the forty days were over, it is said that 
Moses came down from the mount, and the children of 
Israel saw him with his face shining (Exod. xxxiv. 30). 
Now, if Christ was taken up into heaven as Moses was into 
the mount, why was it not made public at that time? Why 
no witnesses? Why no appearance of the glory, to satisfy 
mankind of the truth of it? And yet we find, that when 
he was transfigured on the holy mount, he took Peter, and 
James, and John, with him, which circumstance is carefully 
mentioned by three evangelists ; and Peter, who was one of 
the witnesses then present, lays great weight upon this being 
done in the presence of witnesses. For,” saith he, “ we 
have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made 
known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he re- 
ceived from God the Father honour and glory, when there 
came such a voice to him from the excellent glory—And 
this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were 
with him in the holy mount” (2 Pet. i. 16—18). Now let 
any one compare this with the account which they give of 
Christ’s ascension into heaven; the transfiguration was in- 
tended only for a particular testimony of God’s favour be- 
fore his sufferings; but even in that he took care there 
should be very credible witnesses of it. And is it then pos- 
sible to believe there should be such an ascension of Christ 
into heaven, for no less a purpose than to be instructed in 
his embassage, and to understand the mind and will of God 
as to his office; and yet not one of the evangelists give any 
account of the circumstances of it? ‘They are very particu- 
lar as to his birth, fasting, baptism, preaching, miracles, suf- 
ferings, resurrection, and ascension; but not one word 
among them all as to the circumstances of this his being 
taken up into heaven for so great a purpose. Now if it 
were necessary to be believed, why is itnot more plainly re- 
vealed? Why not the time and place mentioned in scrip- 
ture, as well as of his fasting and temptation? Who can 
imagine it consistent with the sincerity and faithfulness of 
the writers of the New Testament, to conceal so material a 
part of Christ’s instructions and qualifications, and to wrap 
it up in such doubtful expressions, that none ever found out 
this meaning till the days of Socinus? In a word, had either 
of these senses been intended by the apostle, why speaks he 
so obscurely, and says not, as the Socinians, that he was 
taken up into heaven, or was known to God alone, but so as 
to have given so great occasion to that dangerous error, as 
they supposed it, of all Christians before Socinus, that 
Christ had a being before the world, or before any thing that 
was made, and therefore could not be acreature? For the 
words following, “All things were made by him, and with- 
out him was not any thing made that was made,” must ex- 
clude him from being of the number of things made; and 
therefore evidence that he was so in the beginning with God, 
as to be before all created beings. 

3 And the Word was God.] He was so, say the Socinians, 
by office, not by nature, as being the legate and ambassador 
of God 3 but, 

First, They have not yet, nor can they show, that any 
thing is in the scripture absolutely, and in the singular num- 
ber, called God, for any other reason than that the divine 
nature was imparted to it. It is said indeed of Moses, 


“Thou shalt be to Aaron beheloim, in the place of God,” ra 
πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, saith the Septuagint, “in things pertaining to 
God,” Exod. iv. 16; and vii. 1, God saith, «See I have 
made thee elohim, a God to Pharaoh,” viz. by giving thee 
authority to speak unto him in my name; but then in nei- 
ther of these places is he called Jehovah, nor absolutely 
elohim, but only with respect to Aaron and Pharaoh, to 
whom he was to speak God’s message. Grotius saith, that 
the same person is styled “Jehovah” in the Old Testa- 
ment, who, in the New, is styled an “angel;” and that 
the same person is sometimes called in the Old Testa- 
ment an “ angel,’ and sometimes “ Jehovah ;” so also doth 
Mr. Le Clerc on Gen. xvi. 13, xviii. 1, xx. 1, but with- 
out just ground: for the angels being God’s retinue, and 
always present with him when he made his glorious appear- 
ances, there is no reason to say the angel was God, because 
he appeared with him, or sometimes speaks or acts by his 
appointment, or in his presence; but only that God and his 
glorious angels appeared at the same time, and that they 
sometimes spake as from the Shechinah; v. g. Exod. iii. 2, 
we read that “an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in 
the bush,” and St. Stephen saith, that “the angel of the 
Lord appeared to Moses in the bush,” Acts vii. 30, but nei- 
ther of them say, that angel was Jehovah, or that the Lord 
was not present there himself; but, on the contrary, say ex- 
pressly, that Moses “ heard the voice of the Lord saying to 
him, I am the God of Abraham ;” St. Stephen, Acts vil. 53, 
and St. Paul, Gal. iii. 19, say, the law was “delivered by 
the angels ;” but hence it doth not follow, that any angel 
was so employed in the delivery of the law as to take upon 
him the person of God, or that any creature said, “I am the 
Lord thy God,” ἄς. And when it is said, that “some have 
entertained angels unawares,” Heb. xiii. 2,1 own that Abra- 
ham and Lot did so; but hence it doth not follow, that any 
angel spake as if he were Jehovah, or that Abraham spake 
to them as such, or owned one of them to be “ the Judge of 
the whole earth.” I rather think, with the bishop of Ely, 
that it may be granted, that the three that appeared to 
Abraham were created angels; but then they appeared only 
as the retinue of the Shechinah, or divine majesty, styled 
“the Lord,” ver. 1. 13: for after the same men, who came 
in, and did eat with Abraham, and rose from the table, were 
departed (ver. 16. 22), Abraham stands still before the 
Lord, that is before the divine majesty (ver. 1), and styles 
him “the Judge of the whole earth.” And this agrees well 
with the opinion of the Jews, who, as they acknowledge that 
the three men whom Abraham entertained were created 
angels, so also do they own, that there was then a separate 
appearance, or divine majesty, which talked with Abraham. 
And this takes off the observation of Crellius, and others in 
this place, that the name Jehovah is given to angels: for, 
according to this interpretation, the name Jehovah is not 
given to any of the three angels, which were entertained by 
Abraham, but only to the Shechinah, or divine majesty, 
which appeared with them, and spake to Abraham, from 
ver. 10 to 17, and to whom, after the departure of these 
three, one into heaven, and two to Sodom, Abraham still 
speaks to the end of that chapter. It was an angel of, or 
messenger from, the Lord, that spake to Hagar, Gen. xvi. as 
appears from his saying (not I, but) “Jehovah heard thy 
affliction ;’ when therefore we read, ver. 10, that “the an- 
gel of the Lord said to her, Multiplying, I will multiply thy 
seed,” it is to be understood thus—he said this to her in the 
name and words of the Lord, speaking not his own, but the 
Lord’s words; and therefore R. Uziel here saith, “She gave 
thanks before the Lord, whose Word had spoken to her.” 
Thus Solomon sent to Hiram, saying, either by letters, as 
Hiram returned his answer “in writing,” 2 Chron. ii. 11, or 
commanding his servants to say in his name, “ David my fa 

ther ;” for David was not the father of the messengers, and 
so they could not say, “ My father.” So the centurion sent 
first “by the rulers of the Jews,” desiring Christ to heal his 
servant, and after, by other friends, saith to Christ, «I ark 
not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof;” i. 6. 
he desires them to say these words as from him, Luke vii. 2. 
10, these two are, by Le Clerc, produced as instances of 


CHAPTER I. 


messengers and legates, speaking as if they were the very 
persons from whom they were sent; whence he and others 
infer, that an angel sent from God may say, “I am Jehovah, 
Iam the God of Abraham,” as Exod. iii., and “I am the 
Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; 
thou shalt have no other gods but me:” whereas in truth 
they are but instances of messengers and friends, speaking 
in the name of them that sent them, the words which they 
had bid them say, as from them, and had put into their 
mouths; and so in like manner the words of the angel 
speaking to Hagar, and others, what belonged to God alone, 
most only be the words which God had commanded them to 
say in his name, and as from him: and this is a sufficient 
answer to all that is produced by Grotius, Le Clerc, and the 
Socinians, to prove that angels, representing God, are some- 
times styled Jehovah, and speak as if they were the Lord of | 

» heaven and earth, or the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob. 

Secondly, That “the Word” is here properly styled God, 
is evident from the context: for (1.) When it is said in the 
precedent words, “The Word was with God,” and when 
this is repeated in the following verse, the Socinians them- 
selves own that the word God signifies him who truly and 
properly is so. The apostle then must either understand the 
same God, as to essence, when he saith, «The Word was 
God,” or leave all Christians liable to a great and dangerous 
mistake, by reason of the ambiguity of his words. More- 
over, the word God, in this chapter, is used eleven times 
in its proper sense; nor can one instance be produced from 
the whole New Testament, where, in the singular number, 
it is used in any other sense: is it then reasonable to con- 
ceive it is here used in that improper sense, in which it 
never is again once used throughout this gospel, or the whole 
New Testament, rather than in that sense in which it is con- 
tinually used in all other places? 

Obj. Yes, say the Socinians, because it is here said, the 
same “ was in the beginning with God ?” whereas God, pro- 
perly taken, cannot be said to be “ with God,” that is, with 
himself. 

Ans. But to this I answer, (1.) That nothing formally, 
and in the same conception, can be said to be with that 
which is one with itself; but yet that which is essentially 
the same, but hath this title from an internal relation to an- 
other, as, being “ God of God,” or as having the divine es- 
sence communicated to it, may be said to be with him: for 
(1.) The wisdom of God is identically God, according to the 
old axiom, Quicquid est in Deo, est ipse Deus, “ Whatso- 
ever is in God is God,” and yet rap’ αὐτῷ, “ With him are 
wisdom and power,” saith Job, xii. 13; “I was, παρ᾽ αὐτῷ, 
with him,” says Wisdom, Prov. viii. 27. 30, « All wisdom 
is from the Lord, and μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ, with him,” Ecclus. i. 1. 
Thus Philo* observes, that when God saith he made man 
after the image of God, Gen. i. 27, speaking ὡς περὶ ἑτέρου 
Θεοῦ, “as of another God, he speaketh of,” and πρὸς τὸν dev- | 
τερον Θεὸν, ὅς ἐστιν ἑκείνου Λόγος, “to that second God, who is 
his Word.” 

Secondly, The primitive fathers do very plainly and fre- 
quently say, that the Word was strictly, and from all eter- 
nity, in God the Father; and yet that, before the creation 
of the world, there was a προβολὴ καὶ ἀπύῤῥοια, “ a projec- 
tion, or efflux of this Word from the Father,” which made 
him Aéyos προφορικὸς καὶ προελϑὼν, “a Word emitted, or 
coming forth from the Father;” but yet, because he came 
not so forth from him as to be separated from him, but was 
semper apud Deum et nunquam separatus 4 Patre, “not se- 
parated from the Father,”+ they thought it was here said, 
against the Valentinians, that he was “with the Father.” 
So Justin Martyr saith, he συνὼν, “was with the Father,” as 
being ἀπὸ τοῦ πατρὸς προβληϑὶν γέννημα, “a progenies, pro- 
jected from the Father,” Apol. i. p. 44, D. Ap. ii. p. 66, E. 
Dial. cum Tryph. p. 285, 1). 359, A. 284, B. 357, A. So 
speaks Athenagoras, p. 10, C, D, and Theophilus, p. 100, 
B, making him from eternity Λόγος évdiéSeros, “an internal 
Word,” and then saying that he was Aéyos ἐξερευξάμενος πρὸ 
τῶν ὅλων, “ἃ Word emitted before all things:” and Tatian 
that the Word which was ἐν αὐτῷ προπηδᾷ, p. 145: and Ter- 


* Apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. lib, vii. cap. 13, p, 303, 
{ Tertul. adv. Prax. cap. 8. 


331 


tullian speaks as of a time, cm nondum Deus sermonem 
suum emiserat,—adv. Praxeam, cap. 5, 6. 8, adv. Hermog. 
cap. 18, 20. 45, and Lact. lib. ii. cap. 8. p. 177, 178, and 
lib. iv. cap. 6, p. 364—366, see Dr. Bull, sect. 1, 2. 

Thirdly, This also is extremely evident from the third 
verse; whence ariseth this argument, He that made all 
things is God, in the proper acceptation of the word, Heb. 
ili. 4, but by the Word here spoken of were “all things 
made, and without him was not any thing made that was 
made: he in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, 
and the heavens are the works of his hands,” Heb. i. 10, 11, 
“He created all things visible and invisible,” Col. i. 16, he 
therefore must be God in the proper acceptation of the 
word. 

Fourthly, It is very manifest, that the apostle here de- 
signs to tell us what the Word was, and where, before he 
came into the world, and what and where he was when he 
came into the world, as may appear from comparing his 
words together, thus, 


He came to his own, ver. 
11: 
He 


In the beginning was the 
Word, ver. 1. 

The Word was with God, 
ver. 1, 2. 

The Word was God, ver. 1. 

He was in the world, ver. 10. 


And, Lastly, Whereas these words, expounded according to 
the Socinian sense, were utterly unintelligible to the Jews, 
and all the philosophers, who ever made mention of the 
Logos; according to our sense, which maketh the Word 
truly God, and a first principle of the creation, they agree 
perfectly with what they have asserted of the Logos. I 
say, 

‘First, That they agree fully with the opinion of the Jews, 
nothing being more evident than that Philo* frequently 
styles the Adyos God, and by the 'Targumist he is very often 
“God;’ as when Jacob saith, in the Chaldee of Onkelos, 
Gen. xxviii. 21, “The Word of Jehovah shall be my God ;” 
and Lev. xxvi. 12, “ My Word shall be to you for God the 
redeemer.”’ And nothing is more frequent with Onkelos, 
and all the Targumists, than, for “Jehovah,” to put “the 
Word of Jehovah ;” and of this Dr, Allixt gives above a 
hundred testimonies: from all which observations it is evi- 
dent, that the evangelist used the language of his nation 
when he here said, “the Word was God.” 

Secondly, They accord as fully with the doctrine of the 
ancient philosophers, who lived before the times of this evan- 
gelist. Thus Porphyry} saith, that Plato “extended the 
divine essence into three hypostases,’ the supreme God 
called Optimus, per’ αὐτὸν δὲ καὶ δεύτερον δημιουργὸν, “and 
after him a second God, the maker of all things;” and 
Plato§ himself bids us swear by τὸν τῶν πάντων Θεὸν ἡγεμόνα 
roi re ἡγεμόνος καὶ airiov πατέρα, “ God, who is the go- 
vernor of all things, and by the Father of him, who is the 
ruler and the cause.” Zenoll the stoic, saith, «There be 
two principles of all things, matter, which is the patient, τὸ 
δὲ ποιοῦν τὸν ἐν αὐτῷ λόγον Θεὸν, and the efficient, God the 
Word, which, being eternal, goes through all matter, forming 
every thing.’ And hence Amelius,§ having read these 
words of our evangelist, cried out, that the barbarian, by 
saying that this Logos was πρὸς τὸν Οεὸν καὶ Θεὸν εἶναι, “ was 
with God, and was God, and that all things were made by 
him,” was of the same opinion with Heraclitus and Plato, 
who made him an eternal principle. 

In a word, not only the orthodox but all the heretics did 
perfectly agree in this import, if Sandius** may be credited, 


dwelt with us, ver. 


14, 
The Word was made flesh, 
ver. 14, 


* Euseb, Prep. Evang. lib. iii. cap. 13. Leg. Alleg. lib. 
ii. p. 76. Idemque dicit de Dei duabus potentiis passim, 
nempe, earum unam Θεὸν, alteram Κύριον aici, De Somn. p. 
357, F. De Vita Mosis, p. 517, F. De Victimis Offerent. 
661. 

{ So Onkelos, Exod. vi. Lev. viii. 19, xvii. 20.46, Numb. 
xi. 20, xxiii. 11, Deut. i. 30, ii. 7, iv. 24, xxxit. 6. 8, Judg 
ment of the Jewish Church, cap. 12, from p. 181 to 182. 

+ Apud Cyril. cont. Jul. lib. i. p. 34. 

§ Eph. vi. p. 1276. | Apud Laert. lib. vii. p. 519, 

1 Apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. lib. xi. cap. 19, 

** Enucl. Hist, lib, 1. p, 117. 


332, 


3 4 All things were made by him; and without him 


JOHN. 


was not any thing made that was made (whether it be 


who saith expressly, that “all heretics agreed with the ortho- 
dox and catholics in this, that the Word was God, and was 
before all ages, and that the world was made by it.’ And 
as for the orthodox, scarce is there any Christian writer of 
bulk, from Justin Martyr to the Nicene council, except Ar- 
nobius, who doth not insist upon this text as a plain proof 
of the divinity of Christ. 

4 Ver. 3. All things were made by him.] The Socinian 
comment, which restrains “all things” here to all things be- 
longing to the gospel state; and saith, that all things were 
said to be made by him, because all things were renewed, 
i. e. all believers were made new creatures by him, is suffi- 
ciently refuted by what hath been already proved; viz. that 
this Word is here said to have been in the beginning, not 
of the new, but of the old creation, and that he was properly 
and truly God, and so the maker of all things in heaven and 
earth ; and from the parallel places produced already, that 
God “made all things by Jesus Christ,” Eph. ili. 9, that he 
“created all things in heaven and in earth, visible and in- 
visible,’ Col. i. 16, that “by him God made the world,” 
Heb. xiii., that he, “in the beginning, laid the foundations 
of the earth, and the heavens were the work of his hands,” 
ver. 10, 11, and here, ver. 10, that “he was in the world, 
and the world was made by him,” even the world into which 
he came, which doubtless was the material world, that world 
which “ knew him not:” and therefore could not be renewed 
by him. 

In a word, all the ancient Jews and paraphrasts agree in 
the common interpretation of the words, viz. that the Word 


was the maker of the material world, and all things in it: | 


this doctrine is taught very frequently by Philo,* that it was 
the Logos by which the whole world was made. 

The Targumistst say it was this Logos, or Memra, which 
first said to the world, “Be, and it was, and which shall 


again cause it to cease to be; it was the Word which cre- | 


ated the world and man init. And where it is said,+ “ God 
created the world,” it is usual for them to say, he did it be- 
memrah, “by his Word.” 

This was taught by Aristobulus,§ a Jew, who lived in the 
time of Ptolomeus Philometor, as a doctrine received from 
Solomon, and delivered by him, Prov. viii., for he is repre- 
sented by him there, αὐτῇ Σοφία καὶ αὐτῷ Θεοῦ Λόγῳ τὴν ἀρχὴν 
dvavriSets τῆς τοῦ παντὸς συστάσεως, “ ascribing the beginning 
of the frame of the universe to the Wisdom and the Word 
of God:” so that Eusebius| had just cause to say, that the 


Hebrews, κατὰ τὸν ἄναρχον καὶ ἀγέννητον τοῦ Θεοὺ τῶν ὅλων 


οὐσίαν, “after the essence of the God of all things, which 
was without beginning, and unbegotten, introduced a second 


essence and divine power, ἀρχὴν τῶν γενετῶν ἁπάντων, which | 


was the principle of all things that were made, Aéyov καὶ 
Σοφίαν, καὶ Seiav Δύναμιν αὐτὴν πορσαγορεύοντες, calling him the 
Word, and Wisdom, and a divine Power. And that on 
this account the evangelical doctrine of St. John, renewing 
that of the prophets and his country, ταύτη διασαφεῖ, illus- 
trates it by saying, In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God; all things 
were made by it,” &c. 

As for the heathen philosophers, they did so plainly agree 
in that of Plato, that the Logos was the airia, “cause,” 
and that of Zeno, that he was τὸ ποιοῦν, “the efficient” of 
the world, that the primitive fathers pleaded this in favour 
of the Christian doctrine, that even the Logos was in their 
common language dnwoupyds, “the maker of the world.” 
«“ Many philosophers affirm,” saith Origen,] “ that there is 
one God who created the world; in this they agree with the 


* AU οὗ σύμπας ὃ Kbcpos ἐδημιουργεῖτο. Alleg. lib. i. p. 44, 
B. De Plant. Now, p. 221, Ὁ, De Confus. Ling. p. 329, 
C. De Prof. 464, B. De Monarch. p. 823, B. 

ἡ Targum Jon. in Exod. vi. 3, iii. 14, 15. Targum On- 
kelos in Deut. xxxii. 27. 'l'argum Hieros. in Gen. i. 1. 27. 

+ Targum Jonath. in Isa. xliv. 24, xlv. 12, xlviii. 13. Tar- 
gum Hieros. et creavit 3 ΝΟΥ hominem, in Gen. i. 1. 27. 

§ Apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. lib. vii. cap. 12, p. 320. 

|| Ibid. lib. vii. cap. 12, p. 320, 321. 

{ Hom. 14, in Gen, f. 23, A. 


law of Moses, aliquanti etiam hoc addiderunt, quéd cuncta, 
per Verbum facta, et fecerit, et regerit; and many add, that 
God both made and governed all things that were made by 
his Word; in hdc non solum legi sed et evangelio consona 
sentiunt, in this they speak things consonant not only to the 
law but to the gospel.”—*« We teach that the Word was the 
artificer of all things,” saith Tertullian ;* hune etiam Zeno 
determinat factitatorem, “and Zeno saith the same.” Cyril, 
in his book against Julian, gathers up from the heathens 
many things of a like nature, to show ὅτι τὸν ἐξ αὐτοῦ κατὰ 
φῦσιν γενηθέντα υἱὸν τὸν δημιουργὸν αὐτοῦ Λόγον ἐγνώκασι καὶ αὐτοὶ, 
lib. i. p. 33, C, “that they owned the Son essentially be- 
gotten of the Good, that is the Father, to be the Word that 
made all things.” And Eusebiusy introduceth Plotinus 
and Numenius speaking of a second god, whom they called 
Νοῦς, as the artificer of all things; and Plato himself speak- 
ing of that world, ὃν graze ὃ Adyos ὃ πάντων ϑειότατος, “ which 
the most divine Word framed.” 

As for the Christian fathers, they from the beginning 
have asserted this as the rule of truth delivered to them 
from the apostles, and confounding the heretics, Quia 
unus est Deus, qui fecit omnia per verbum suum, Verbum 
nempe quod extra eum non sit, sed in sinti Patris existit, 
«That there is one God, who made the world by that Word 
who is not separated from him, but is in the bosom of the 
Father” (see this largely proved note on Heb. i. 2). Though 
therefore it will still admit of a dispute whether the latter 
Jews did by their Memra mean the promised Messiah, yet 
two things cannot reasonably be doubted; viz. (1.) that 
the Jews did by their Memra understand a divine person, 
who was from the beginning, and who gave beginning to 
all things, and that the heathens had the same notion of 
their Logos. (2.) That the Christians did understand these 
words of the evangelist in the sense now received by the 
orthodox, viz. as asserting the pre-existence and divinity of 
the Word made flesh, and the production of all things by 
him. Whence, 

Thirdly, It must follow, that the evangelist, who was a 
« Hebrew of the Hebrews,” must here have spoken of the 
Logos in the received sense of Jews and heathens: for this 
being apparently the notion, which then obtained both 
among the Jews and gentiles, if they had been mistaken in 
it, it is incredible that the inspired evangelist, coming after 
them, should so conspire with them as to express the very 
same thing in the same style, and almost in the same words; 
much more that he should do it without giving the least cau- 
| tion to this purpose, that he meant quite another thing by 
it than what the Platonists and some Jews meant by such 
words as these. For instance, that by “the Word” he 
meant, not, as they did, “one that was for ever,” but a per- 
son that never was in being till some few years since; and 
that by “all things that were made,’ he meant not, with 
them, “all the whole universe,” but only all persons that 
were reformed by the faith of Christ; and that by “the be- 
ginning,” he meant not “the beginning of the world,” as 
they did, but only the beginning of the gospel, as the So- 
cinians interpret these expressions. If, I say, the Word, 
of which St. John speaks, did not pre-exist from all eternity, 
and was not properly the creator of the world, certainly he 
would have prevented their concluding the contrary from 
his words by some very plain caution; because he used 
that style, and those words, under which the contrary had 
been taught by men of great reputation; and so he would 
not have affirmed the same things with them concerning 
the Word, without any farther interpretation or addition, 
saying this only, that Jesus was that Word. Again, all 
Christians, whether orthodox or heretical, being either Jews 
or gentiles, it is still more incredible that both should have 
conspired in this import of these words, had it not been re- 
ceived from the tradition both of the converts among Jews 
and gentiles, that this was really the import of them, or 
with such confidence have appealed to the prophetic and 
country theology of the Jews, and the concurring sentiments 


* Apol. cap. 21. + Prep. Evang. lib. xi. cap. 16—19, 
+ Iren. lib, i. cap. 3, lib. iil. cap. 11, p. 297, 258, 259. 


CHAPTER I. 


in heaven or in earth, visible or invisible, Col. i. 16). 

4 In him was δ life (eternal, he having first brought it 
to light, 2 Tim. i. 10, promised it to those that believe in 
him, John vi. 40, purchased it by his death, Rom. v. 21, 
and being the giver of it); and ΠΝ (doctrine of that) life 
(which he taught) was the light of men (directing them 
to it. 

5 ΠΝ the light (now) shineth in darkness (the ig- 
norant and vicious world); and the darkness compre- 
hended it not (7. e. the lovers of darkness will not receive 
it, John iii. 19). 

6 4 There was a man sent from God, whose name 
was John (the Baplist). 

7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of 
the Light (ἐλ Word was to exhibit), that © all men 
through (that testimony of ) him might believe (in him). 

8 He (himself ) was not that Light (which came into the 
world), but (he) was sent to bear witness of that Light. 


333 


9 That (person to whom he bare witness) was the true 
Light, which 7 lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world. Α 

10 He was in the world (from the beginning, pre- 
serving the men of it by his providence, and not leaving 
them without a witness { his care of them, Acts xiv. 17), 
and the world was made by him, (so that all men might 
by his works discern his eternal power and Godhead, Rom. 
i. 20,) and ( yet) the world (through that wisdom he had 
given them) ὃ knew him not (1 Cor. i. 21). 

11 He came unto his ὃ own (people the Jews, fo whom 
he was sent), and (but) his own received him not. 

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he 
(the) ® power (or privilege) to become the sons of God, 
(by adoption to life eternal: see note on Rom. viii. 23,) 
even to them that believe on his name: 

13 Which were born (lo that inherilance), " not 
of blood (by circumcision rendering them the seed of 


of the heathens, with the words of this evangelist, if they had 
understood them in a sense so much different from that, both 
of the Jews and heathens, as that is which the Socinians 
now put upon them: if then the universal church from the 
beginning did not err in their interpretation of these words, 
it is certain we, who continue to receive that sense and im- 
port of them, which they have from the beginning handed 


down unto us, must still retain the true and genuine signifi- | 


cation of them. 

Οὐδὲ ἕν 8 γέγονεν. Vide Examen Millii in locum. 

5 Ver. 4. In him was life.] That this is to be understood 
not of life natural, but of that life eternal which he revealed 
to the world, 2 Tim. i. 19, to which he taught the way, xiv. 
6, which he promised to believers, x. 28, which he purchased 
for them, vi. 51. 53, 54, which he is appointed to give them, 
xvii. 2, and to which he will raise them up, x. 29, as having 
ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτῷ, “life in himself,” ver. 26, may be argued, (1.) 
from the like expression, 1 John v. 11, « This is the promise 
that God hath given us, eternal life, and that life is in his 
Son ;” whence he is styled “the true God and eternal life,” 
ver. 20, “the resurrection and the life,” xi. 25, “the way, 
the truth, and the life,’ xiv.6. (2.) From these'words, ver. 
7, “John came to bear witness of this Light, that all men 
might believe on him,” viz. “to eternal life,’ 1 Tim. i. 16, 
for so John witnesseth, iii. 15.36. And this answers the 
only objection against this interpretation, that the evangelist 
speaks not of the Word incarnate till ver. 14, and that in 
that respect alone was he the teacher of eternal life, for John 
bare witness of him when he was the Word incarnate: it 
was thus also he came “into the world,” and “came to his 
own,” and made believers “ the sons of God,” ver. 11—13, 
and yet all these things are spoken of him before it is said, 
ver. 14, “the Word was made flesh.” 

And hence it follows that this life must be the light of 
men, by giving them the knowledge of this life, and of the 
way leading to it, and in which they that walk are said to 
walk in the light, 1 John i. 7, to abide in the light, ii. 10, 
and to be the children of the light, according to those words 
of Christ, “ Whilst ye have the light, walk in the light, and 
believe in the light, that ye may be the children of the light,” 
xii. 35, 36; “I am the light of the world, he that follows 
me shall have the light of life,” viii. 12, ix. 5, xii. 46, and 
then the words following, “The light shineth in darkness,” 
must respect the heathen world, styled darkness, Eph. v. 8 

see the note on Rom. xiii. 12), and the blind Jews; and 

e darkness must be said. not to comprehend it, because 
the vicious part of the world would not own, but hated the 
light, and “loved darkness rather than light, because their 
deeds were evil,” and so they were reproved by it, ili. 19— 
21. 

6 Ver. 7. He came to testify of this Light, that all men 
might believe on him.) See here the design of the Baptist’s 
testimony, not only that some few elect, but that all men 
might believe in Christ. 

7 Ver. 9. Which enlightens πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον, 
man. that comes into the world.) The words in the Greck 
are ambiguous, and may be rendered, “ which coming into 
the world enlightens every man,” or as our translation doth ; 
but that which countenanceth our translation, is the Hebrew 


way of speaking, that a man born, is “a man coming into 
the world ;” see Dr. Lightfoot here, and the words of Christ, 
saying, “For this cause was I born, and came into the 
world” (xviii. 37): and though Justin Martyr, Apol. p. 84, 
and Origen, Hom. 14, in Jer. p. 138, interpret this of the 
light of nature, saying, with some of the Greek scholiasts, 
ποιεῖ νοεῖν τὸ δέον πάντα ἄνθρωπον, “He makes every man to 
know what he ought to do,” since all men are by nature 
λογικοὶ, all have the knowledge of good and evil, all may, 
from the consideration of the creatures, advance to the 
knowledge of a Creator ; yet it is certain, that Christ coming 
into the world could not thus enlighten any man, they being 
all thus enlightened from the beginning of the world: in 
this sense none of them could be called darkness, or said not 
to know, receive, or apprehend this light (ver. 4. 10), or 
when light is come into the world, to “love darkness more 
than light” (iii. 19) : now hence it follows, that Christ must 
be said, ver. 4, to be “the light of men,” by giving them the 
knowledge of eternal life, and of the way that leadeth to it, 
and in which they that walk are said to « walk in the light,” 
1 John i. 7, and to “abide in the light,” ii. 10; and to be 
“the children of the light,’ John xii. 35, 36. To this 
Light the Baptist beareth witness, “that all men might 
believe in him,” ver. 7, “to eternal life,” iii. 36; and there- 
fore with this light he, coming into the world, enlighteneth 
every man, viz. who doth receive him (ver. 12). 

8 Ver. 10. And the world was made by him, and (yet the 
men of) the world knew him not.) i.e. Owned him not either 
as their Maker or their Redeemer. Of this see note on ver. 
3, and on Heb. i. 2. 

9 Ver. 11. He came to his own.) i. e. To the Jewish na- 
tion to whom he was promised, and to whom only he was 
personally sent ; he being therefore styled “a minister of the 
circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises 
made to the fathers” (Rom, xv. 8), from whom according 
to the flesh he came (Rom. ix. 5), “and they received him 
not;” i. 6. they generally would not own him as their Mes- 
siah and their Saviour. 

10 Ver. 12. But to as many as received him he gave ἔζου- 
ciav, power to become the sons of God.) ᾿Ἐξουσία here signifies 
the right, privilege, dignity, and prerogative: as when the 
apostle warns the strong Christians to see to it, lest their 
ἐζουσία, privilege or freedom from the Jewish rites, be used 
as a stumbling-block to the weak (1 Cor. viii. 9), and saith, 
(ix. 5, 6), “Have we not ἐξουσία, a right or privilege (by 
virtue of our office) to eat and drink?” This privilege to 
be the sons of God is, as Grotius well notes, a right to the 
inheritance of the saints: for “if children,” saith the apos- 
tle, « then are we heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ’ 
(Rom. viii. 17); a right to a blessed resurrection, the sons 
of God being “the sons of the resurrection” (Luke xx. 36) ; 
a right to abide always in our Father's house (John viii. 
35), a right to a state of immortality and incorruption, the 
υἱοθεσία, “ sonship,” including “ the redemption of the body” 
from corruption (Rom. viii. 23). 

τ Ver. 13. Being born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man.) 1. e. We are born sons, not 
by virtue of the blood of circumcision, by which the Jews 
entered into covenant with God, and became his sons; not 


994 


Abraham), nor of the will of the flesh (by carnal. de- 
scent from their parents), nor of the will of man (by 
his adoption), but of (the will of ) God (receiving us 
for his children through faith in Christ Jesus; for we 
are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, Gal. 
iii. 26, and by his Spirit sanctifying us: for as many 


JOHN. 


as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God, 
Rom. viii. 14). 

14 And (that mortal men might attain this life) the 
Word was made ” flesh, and dwelt among us, (and 
we beheld his ™ glory, the glory % as of the only 
begotten of the Father,) (2. 6. his power in doing such 


by reason of that carnal generation, which makes us sons 
by nature of such parents, who by their fleshy lustings are 
incited to beget us; not by the will of man, adopting an- 
other for his son and heir for want of natural issue ; but this 
sonship ariseth from the good pleasure of God receiving us 
for his sons, through faith in Christ Jesus. Some, obsery- 
ing that the apostle saith, “God made all men ἐξ ἑνὸς αἵμα- 
ros, of one blood” (Acts xvii. 26), refer this birth of blood 
to our natural production, and our being born of the will 
of the flesh, to the birth of the Jews by that circumcision 
which was made in the flesh; I prefer the former exposi- 
tion, because, though circumcision be made in the flesh, it 
proceeds not ἐκ ϑελήματος σαρκὸς, from the will, desire, or 
lusting of the flesh, but was done by them in obedience to 
the command of God. 

2 Ver.14. And the Word was made flesh, &c.] i.e. Man, 
according to the usual import of that phrase ; as when it is 
said, Gen. vi. 12, “ All flesh had corrupted their ways ;” Ps. 
lvi. 4, “I will not fear what flesh,” that is, what man, “can 
do to me,” ver. 12; Isa. xl. 5, « All flesh shall see the salva- 
tion of God;” and, ver. 6, «All flesh is grass, and all the 
glory of man is as the flower of the field; Jer. xvii. 5, 


“Cursed is he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his | 


arm” (see Matt. iv. 22, Rom. iii. 20). And this phrase is 
used, say the fathers,* not cnly to express the great affection 
of the Word to man, declared in taking on him even his 
vilest part, but also to show he came to heal, and to recover 
from corruption that flesh which, by the sin of Adam, was 
made obnoxious to death and corruption ; and that this flesh, 
which so inseparably was united to the divine nature, must 
be capable of salvation, which the Gnostics and Valenti- 
nians denied, and the Ebionites, who denied the union of the 
two natures. 

The Socinian gloss upon these words is this, that Christ 
was born mortal, subject to infirmities, sufferings, and death, 
and so frail and infirm as flesh. But, 

First, It is to be noted from Novatian,f that this is the 
gloss of those heretics, who denied the distinction betwixt the 
Son of God and man, lest they should be obliged from these 
words to own his divine nature; that is, this is a Socinian 
gloss. Note, 

Secondly, That this gloss is contrary to the true import 
of the words: for it makes the words frail, infirm, and mor- 
tal, and all these epithets, to predicate of, and belong to, the 
Word. Now who can reasonably imagine that he, who had 
before told us, “the Word was God,” and so immortal, the 
maker of the world, and all things in it, and so infinite in 
power, ver. 3. 10, should instantly add, “the Word was 
flesh,” i. e. frail, infirm, obnoxious to death, and yet should 


* Nam quemadmodum initio plasmationis nostre in Adam, 
ea que fuit in Deo inspiratio vite, unita plasmati, animavit 
hominem et animal rationale ostendit; sic in fine, Verbum 
Patris et Spiritus Dei, adunitus antique substantie plasma- 


tionis Adam, viventem et perfectum effecit hominem capientem | 


perfectum Patrem; ut quemadmodim in animali omnes 
mortui sumus, sic in spirituali omnes vivificemur. Tren. 
lib. v. cap. 1. Vani igitur, qui, ἃ Valentino, sunt hoc dog- 
matizantes, uti excludunt salutem carnis, et reprobent plas- 
mationem Dei: vani autem et Ebionwi, unitionem Dei et 
hominis per fidem non recipientes in animam suam. Ibid. 

+ Sed erroris istius hereticorum inde, ut opinor, orta est 
materia, quia inter filium hominis nihil arbitrantur interesse, 
ne, fact distinctione, et homo et Deus Jesus Christus facilé 
comprobetur. Eundem enim atque ipsum i. e. hominem 
filium hominis, etiam filium Dei volunt videri, ut homo et 
caro et fragilis illa substantia eadem atque ipse filius Dei esse 
directur, ex quo dum distinctio filii hominis et filii Dei 
nulla secernitur, sed ipse filius hominis filins Dei vindicatur, 
homo tantummodé Christus, idem atque filius Dei asseratur, 
per quod nituntur excludere “ Verbum caro factum est.” 
Cap. 19. 


immediately say again to this infirm, frail being, “ We have 
seen his glory, as the glory of the only-begotten Son of God, 
and of his fullness have we all received grace for grace ;” that 
he was one “in the bosom of the Father, and who alone had 
seen the Father” (ver. 14.16.18). Mr. Clere interprets the 
words thus, “ And that reason was made conspicuous by the 
man in whom it was,” telling us that flesh signifies a con- 
spicuous nature, in opposition to that which is spiritual, as 
1 Tim. iii. 16, but there it is not said as here, «'The Word 
was made flesh,” but Θεὸς ἐρανερώθη ἐν σαρκὶ, “God was mani- 
fested in,” or made conspicuous in, “the flesh,” that is, in 
the human nature, which is the import of the word flesh in 
all the other places where it is attributed to Christ, by way of 
distinction from his higher original; as when the apostle 
saith, the Son of God was of the seed of Abraham, κατὰ 
cépxa “according to the flesh,” Rom. ix. 5, and that the Son, 
whom he had proved to be God, Heb. i., was partaker also 
of flesh. and blood, Heb. ii. 14, for it is manifest that in all 
these places, /lesh signifies not the frailty or infirmity of flesh 
according to the Socinian gloss, nor flesh as conspicuous and 
visible, according to Mr. Clerc’s gloss; but the human ne- 
ture absolutely taken, according to the exposition of all the 
ancient fathers; of Ignatius,* who saith, “he was a physi- 
cian, σαρκικὸς καὶ πνευματικὸς, fleshly and spiritual, ἐν σαρκὶ 
γενόμενος Θεὸς, being God in flesh ;” of Justin Martyr,t who 
saith, he was the Son and the Aédyos, ὃς σαρκοποιηϑεὶς ἄνθρωπος 
γέγονεν, “who, by his incarnation, was made man;” of 
Treneus,} saying, Deus igitur homo factus est, “God there- 
fore was made man;” of Tertullian,§ saying, that Christus 
veré hominem indutus, Deus-perseveravit, “ Christ, putting 
on the manhood, remained God ;” and of Origen,|| who saith 
that Christ, being in the form'‘of God, and a Son of the Je- 
rusalem which is above, “left his father and mother for his 
church, διὰ αὐτὴν γὰρ γέγονε καὶ αὐτὸς σὰρξ, being made flesh 
for her; it being said, The Word was made flesh.” 

Moreover, the wisdom of God was made conspicuous in 
the gospel, that being the wisdom of God (1 Cor. ii. 7), and 
by the church, by which “the manifold wisdom of God” was 
made known, even to the angels (Eph. iii.10). If then that 
were the reason why the Word is said to be made flesh, the 
gospel and the church might also be said to be made flesh, 
Tt follows, 

13 Kai ἐσκῆνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, And dwelt, or pitched his taber- 
nacle, among us.) This word ἐσκήνωσεν hath such an appa- 
rent affinity, both in sound and sense, with the Hebrew sha- 
can, used in the Old Testament, when mention is made of 
God’s dwelling by the Shechinah, or his glorious presence, 
in the tabernacle, and often shining forth there, and thence ἐν 
δύξη, “in glory” (see the notes on Rom. i. 23, Phil. it. 6) ; 
that we have reason to believe this phrase relates to the 
divine nature, or to the fullness of the Deity dwelling in 
Christ’s human nature. ‘This Shechinah, say the Jews, was 
wanting in the second temple, and this defect was now re- 
paired by the habitation of the divine nature in the temple 
of Christ's body, so as never to be separated from it, accord- 
ing to the prediction of the prophet Haggai (ii. 7), “ The 
Desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house 
with glory.” As then God said, with respect to the times of 
the Messiah, “I come to thee, "ΩΣ ΦῚ, καὶ κατασκηνῆσω, and 
will dwell in the midst of thee;” that is, saith the Chaldee 
paraphrast, ὙΓΩΣΦ swe, “and will put my Shechinah,” or 
divine Majesty, “among you,” Zech. ii. 10, 11; so did he 
fulfil his promise, by sending this Emmanuel, or Word made 
flesh, among them. 

4 And we have seen τὴν δύξαν αὐτοῦ, his glory.) viz. Ap- 
pearing in, and shining from, the tabernacle of Christ’s body, 
as the glory of the Lord did from the tabernacle of old: for 
the glory of God, in the Old Testament, doth not barely 


“"* Ep, ad Eph. §. 7. + Apol. ii. p. 74. 
+ Lib. v. cap. 23. § De Came Christi, cap. 3. 
|| In Matt. tom. i. ed. Huet. p. 357. 


CHAPTER I. 


works as none but he could do,) ® full of grace (to pro- 
cure that pardon of sin and justification which the law 
could not give) and truth (ἐπὶ opposition to those types 
and shadows of spiritual blessings and good things to 


come, of which Christ exhibited the substance and the 
truth, Heb. x. 1, giving us an inheritance in the celes- 


tial Canaan, and an entrance into the true tabernacle, 
ver. 19). 

15 4 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, 
This was he of whom 1 spake, (when J said) He that 
cometh after me is (tobe) preferred ™ before me: for 
he was before me (both as to being and as to dignity). 


335 


16 And of his fulness have all we received, and 
(even) "5 grace for (according to the measure of the) grace 
(of Christ, Eph. iv. 7). 

17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and 
truth (dhe grace of that gospel which is styled truth, see 
note on Rom. ii. 1) came by Jesus Christ. 

18 (Nor is there any other means of coming to the 
knowledge of the truth, and the enjoyment of that grace ; 
for) ™No man hath seen God at any time (i. e. as 
to his essence, or that glorious light in which he dwells, 
and to which no mortal eye can approach, 1 Tim. vi. 
16, or as to any full discovery or perfect idea of his 


signify the miracles wrought by God, but either the glory 
appearing in the cloud of glory, as Exod. xvi. 7. 10, by 
which God testified his presence with them, and Numb. xiv. 
22, and ver. 21, or it signifies the miracles done by the 
glory of God then appearing; and in 2 Pet. i. 16, it signi- 
fies the bright cloud, or glory of God, appearing at our 
Lord’s transfiguration; not any miracle then wrought, of 
which we have no mention in the history of Christ's trans- 
figuration: here therefore the apostle saith, « We have seen 
the glory,” or the divinity of the Word, conspicuous in the 
miracles wrought by him. 

15 Δύξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ Πατρὸς, The glory as of the only- 
begotten Son of the Father.| Where note, 

irst, That the particle ὡς, as, is not here a note of simi- 
litude, ἀλλὰ βεβαιώσεως, “ but of confirmation:”’ that this Son 
truly was the only-begotten of the Father, as Chrysostom 
here notes: so Neh. vii. 2, αὐτὸς ὡς ἀνὴρ ἀληϑὴς, “He was a 
faithful man ;” Matt. xiv. δ, “ All men held John ὡς προφήτην, 
to be a prophet indeed” (see the notes on Rom. ix. 32). 
This particle ὡς sometimes answers to the Hebrew 4x, and 
signifies certé, or truly; as Ps. Ixxili. 1, ayo 4x, ὡς ἀγαϑὸς, 
«Truly God is loving to Israel: sometimes to 5, when it is 
used, say the Jewish writers, 7257 ΤῸΝ 5, to confirm a thing 
(see Noldius de Particulis, p. 376, 2 Cor. ii. 17, 1 Pet. i. 
19, iv.11). This glory is said to be the glory μονογενοῦς, * of 
the only-begotten of the Father,” i. e. of him who was be- 
gotten of him after that singular and extraordinary manner 
that this title can agree to him alone, as being, saith Lucian, 
“the unchangeable image, οὐσίας, καὶ βουλῆς, καὶ δυνάμεως, καὶ 
δόξης τοῦ Θεοῦ, οἵ the essence, counsel, power, and glory of 
God.” Hence is the Logos styled by Philo, 6 πρωτύγονος 
vids, De Agricult. p. 152, B, ὁ πρωτύγονος καὶ γεννηϑεὶς, De 
Confus. Ling, p. 228, A, “ the begotten and first-born Son of 
God, 6 ἐνδιάϑετος vids τοῦ Θεοῦ, the internal Son of God” (Lib. 
de Nom. Mut. p. $24). By Plato* he is styled 6 ἔγγονος τοῦ 
ἀγαθοῦ καὶ ὁμοιώτατος ἑαυτῷ, “ one begotten of the Good, and 
most like to him.” And Porphyry says, that, according to 
the doctrine of Plato, “of the Good,” i. e. of the Father, 
“was begotten, in a manner unknown to men, an Under- 
standing, in which are all things” (Apud Cyril. contr. Jul. 
lib. viii.). 

16 Due Χάριτος καὶ ἀληϑείας, Full of grace and truth.) 
Here πλήρης, the nominative case, is put for the genitive: so 
Eph. iii. 17, that « Christ may dwell” ἐν καρδίαις ὑμῶν, ver. 18, 
ἐῤῥιζωμένος, for ἐῤῥιζωμένων, and Rev. i. 5, ἀπὸ ᾿Ιησοὺ Χριστοῦ ὃ 
μάρτυρ, for τοῦ μάρτυρος. See examples of the like construc- 
tion in profane authors produced by Grotius on Mark vi. 40, 
and by Schmidius. Note also, that it appeareth from the 
following words, ver. 17, “ For the law came by Moses; but 
grace and truth by Jesus Christ,” that this Son of God is 
said to be full of grace and truth, in opposition to the law of 
Moses. Now grace, in the New Testament, implies two 
things; both which are declared to be wanting in the law of 
Moses: (1.) the mercy of God in the free pardon of our 
sins, or our justification or freedom from the guilt of sin, from 
which “we could not be justified by the law of Moses,” 
Acts xiii. 38, 39, « For by the law,” saith the apostle, « can 
no man be justified,” Gal. iii. 11, Rom. iii. 20, « We being 
justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is 
in Jesus,” ver. 24, whence it is said to them who seek to 
be justified by the law of Moses, that they are “fallen from 
grace,” Gal. v. 4. (2.) Grace doth in scripture signify the 
gifts of the Holy Spirit freely conferred upon believers, who 


* De Repub. lib. vi. p. 686, C. 


is therefore styled ἡ δωρεὰ ἐν χάριτι, “the gift by grace,” 
Rom. ν. 15, and his gifts are represented by the word grace, 
as when St. Peter saith, “ As every man hath received the 
gift, so let him minister, as good stewards, ποικίλης χάριτος 
Θεοῦ, of the manifold grace of God,” 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11, and 
St. Paul, Rom. xii. 6, “ Having therefore gifts differing 
κατὰ τὴν χάριν, according to the grace given us, whether pro- 
phecy,” &c. (see Gal. ii. 8, 9, Eph. iil. 7). Now this pro- 
mise of the Spirit was the consequence of faith in Christ 
(Gal. ili, 14): hence are these two assigned as the great 
differences betwixt the law and the gospel ; that the first was 
the “administration of the letter” only, the other “of the 
Spirit :” the first the “ administration of condemnation,” the 
second “ of justification,” 2 Cor. iii. 7, 8. Again, the law is 
said to have been only “a shadow of things to come,” and 
“an image” of those things of which Christ exhibited the 
body, truth, and substance, Col. ii. 17, Heb. viii. 5, x. 1 
(see the note there): and hence truth is here said to come 
by Christ; and he is here represented as full of truth. 

7 Ver. 15. He that cometh after me, is (to be) preferred 
before me; for he was before me, πρῶτός μου ἤν.ἦ Ἧς the 
eritical note is this, that πρῶτος, first, here signifies, before ;_ 
so 1 John iv. 19, « He loved us, πρῶτος, before ;”’ Matt. xvii. 
20, “ Elias shall come πρῶτον, before” Christ; John xix. 39, 
“ Nicodemus, who came πρῶτον, before to Chyist by night ;” 
2 Thess. ii. 3, “There shall come an apostasy, πρῶτον, be- 
fore Christ’s coming ;” and, John xv. 18, “They hated me, 
πρῶτον ὑμῶν, before they hated you.” 

Secondly, As for the words ἔμπροσϑέν pov γέγονεν, I find 
no instance where they signify, “He was preferred before 
me:’’ and therefore rather choose to retain the proper im- 
port of the words, and give the sense of the whole thus, 
“This is he of whom I said, He that cometh after me is be- 
fore me; and this I said, because he indeed was before me, as 
being in the beginning with God,” ver. 2. ; 

18 Ver. 16. And of his fullness we have all received, καὶ 
χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος, even grace for grace.] 1, ο. Of the fullness 
of grace in him to procure pardon for us, and of that fullness 
of the Spirit, which was in him without measure, John iii. 
34, Luke iv. 1, according to the measure of the gift of 
Christ: so Jer. xi. 17, the Lord hath pronounced against 
thee, κακὰ ἀντὶ κακίας, “evil for the evil of the house of Israel 
and Judah :” so κακὸν ἀντὶ κακοῦ, “ evil for evil” done to us, 
or according to it, Rom. xii. 17, 1 Thess. ν. 15, 1 Pet. iii. 9, 
80 ἀντὶ τούτου, ob hance rem, ἀνθ᾽ dv, “ for the sake of which” 
(see many examples of this kind in Stephanus) : so Theocly- 
menus* saith to Helena, Let us forget what is past, and be 
reconciled, that so χάρις ἀντὶ χάριτος ἐλθέτω, “We may rTe- 
ceive kindness upon kindness ;” and one in Theognist de- 
sires rather to die than to suffer, dvr’ ἀνιῶν ἀνίας, “ sorrow 
upon sorrow :” so that this phrase, “ grace for grace,” may 
either signify the abundance and continual influence of 
divine blessings conferred upon us; or, with relation to the 
spring and fountain of them, we have received grace, or 
tokens of the divine favour, agreeably to the grace of God 
vouchsafed to us in sending his Son, and suitably to the 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, mentioned 2 Cor. viii. 9, and 
frequently in the beginning and the close of St. Paul’s 
epistles, as that from which we derive all spiritual blessings 
in heavenly things (Eph. i. 2, 3). 

19 Ver. 18. No man hath seen God at any time, οὐδεὶς ἑώ- 


* Euripid. Helen. ν. 1254, Priestley’s ed. of Euripid. 
vol. vi. p. 556 
+ V. 342, 


336 


attributes); the only begotten Son, which is ™ in the 
bosom of the Father (7. 6. most intimately acquainted 
with his secrets, and is the image of the invisible God, 
Col. i. 15), he hath declared him (7. e. his will and at- 
tributes to us in the most perfect manner). 

19 4 And this is the record of John (concerning 
Jesus, which he gave to him) when the (Sanhedrin of the) 
Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask 
him, Who art thou? (7. e. art thow the Christ 5) 

20 And (then also) he *! confessed, and denied not 
(the truth) ; but confessed (saying of himself), Lam not 
the Christ. 

21 And (when he had so said) they asked him, What 
then (art thou)? Art thou ” Elias (the Tishbite, whom 
we ect to anoint him)? And he said, I am not. 
(When they inquired farther,) Art thou that prophet 
(raised from the dead whom we expect ? Matt. xvi. 14.) 
And he answered, No. 

22 Then said they unto him, Who (then) art thou? 
(tell us) that we may give an answer to them that sent 
us. What sayest thou of thyself? 

23 He said, I am the voice of one crying in the 


JOHN. 


wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said 
the prophet Esaias (xl. 3, 4). 

24 And they which were sent were of (the sect of ) 
2 the Pharisees, (and so exact, as they supposed, in all the 
rites and traditions which ought to be observed ). 

25 And they asked him (therefore), and said unto 
him, * Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that 
Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? (or by what 
authority doest thow this) 2 : 

26 John answered them, saying, I baptize (ow) 
with water (lo call you to repentance, as Iwas sent by 
God to do, ver. 33): but there standeth one among you, 
whom ye know not; 

27 He it is, who coming after me is preferred be- 
fore me, whose shoe’s latchet lam not worthy to un- 
loose (7. e. to whom I um unworthy to be a servant). 

28 These things were done in "ὃ Bethabara beyond 
Jordan, where John was baptizing. 

29 1 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto 
him, and saith, Behold (here 7s) the (true) 7 Lamb of 
God, which taketh away the sin of the world (by 
making a full expiation for the guilt of them). 


paxe, Here Grotius thinks, that ἑώρακε, “hath seen,” is put 
for “hath known,” as iii. 32, and Eph. iii. 11, giving the 
sense thus, No man hath known the secret counsels of God 
at any time, concerning the redemption of mankind, which 
Christ now declareth to the world; but though this sense of 
the words be good, yet the phrase in the Old and the New 
Testament representing God as one, “ whom no man can see, 
and live,” as Exod. xxxiii. 20. 23, and “he who dwells in 
light inaccessible, to which no mortal eye can approach, and 
whom no man hath seen, or can see,” 1 Tim. vi. 19, and the 
seeing of him in the cloud, the symbol of his glorious pre- 
sence, being called “the seeing of him face to face,” Gen. 
xxxii. 30, Numb. xiv. 14, and being deemed such a vision 
as would cause God to take away their lives, Judg. vi. 22, 


23, xiii. 22, Isa. vi. 5), I would rather refer this here to | 


the presence of the Word with the Father, mentioned i. 1, 


and his being with him in heaven in that glory in which he | 


there dwells, and his coming down from thence as from the 


bosom of the Father, to declare heavenly things to us, which — 


saith he, none can do but the Son of man who is in heaven, 
iii. 12, 13 (see the note there). 
som of the Father did only signify his friendship and inti- 
mate acquaintance with God, it may be ascribed to Abra- 
ham, who was “the friend of God,” James ii. 23, to Moses, 


“who talked with him face to face, as aman speaking to his | 
friend,” Exod. xxxiii. 11, and to the apostles, who had the | 
Whereas, | 


mind of God revealed to them (1 Cor. ii. 16). 
in the other sense, it will be proper and peculiar to Christ, 
to be “in the bosom of the Father,” as St. John seemeth 
here to represent it: 

30 Bis τὸν κόλπον, In the bosom.] Note, that eis τὸν κόλπον 
is here put for ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ. So εἰς πόλιν, “in the city,” Matt. 
li. 23, cis τὸν xaipov αὐτῶν, “in their times,’ Luke i. 20, εἰς 


ἣν, “in which,” Acts vii. 4, eis χολὴν, “in the gall,” Acts viii. | 


23 (see Mark i. 39, ii. 1, v. 34, Luke viii. 48, ix. 61, 
xi. 7, xvi. 8, Acts vii. 53, xiii. 42, Eph. i. 10, Heb. 
χι, 9): 

21 Ver. 20. He confessed, and denied not ; but confessed.) 
Such pleonasms are frequent in the scripture. So 2 Kings 
xvii. 36, “The people held their peace, and answered no- 
thing,” Isa. xxxviii. 1, “ Thou shalt die, and not live ;” Ezek. 
vii. 6, “ An end is come, the end is come, it is come:” and 
especially in the writings of this evangelist; so 1 John i. 1. 
3, “That which we have heard, that which we have seen, 


that which we have beheld with our eyes ;” and, xii. 27, “is | 


true, and is no lie” (see here, ver. 3). 

2 Ver. 21. Art thou Elias? And he said, I am not (see 
the note on Matt. xi. 14). Art thou that prophet?] Jeremy, 
saith Grotius, there being a rumour among them, that he 
was to return to them (see the note on Matt. xi. 9, 10). 
When the people were musing among themselves, whether 
the Baptist were the Christ, he takes off that suspicion of 
his own accord, Luke iii. 15. Here he returns answer to 
the inquiries of the pharisees. 


For if this being in the bo- | 


33 Ver. 34. And they that were sent, were of the phari- 
sees.] 1. 6. Of the patrons of tradition, who thought them- 
selves so exact in all the ordinary rules, which were to be ob- 
served, that this new rite of baptizing, by way of prepara- 
tion for the Messiah, of which their traditions were 
wholly silent, must be extraordinary; and therefore they 
inquire— 

2 Ver. 25. Τί οὖν βαπτίζεις : Why then baptizest thou 2] 
Why usest thou towards us, Jews, who are already holy and 


| in covenant with God, a rite only used by us towards hea- 


then proselytes, to cleanse them from their impurity and to 
prepare them to enter into covenant with God? Note also, 
that τί here is put for διά τι, why, or for what cause, as Matt. 
xvii. 10, τί οὖν “ Why say the scribes?” vi. 28, τί μεριμνᾶτε, 
“Why take ye thought?” so vii. 3, xvi. 8, xix. 7, xxii. 
18, John iv. 17, vii..19, ix. 27, x. 20, xviii. 21. 23, xx. 
13. 15. 

% Ver. 26. I baptize with water to repentance.) i. e. I 
am the messenger of which Malachi speaks, who am sent 
before the Lord to prepare his way, by bringing you to re- 
pentance and amendment of life, and therefore baptize you 


| with water, to mind you of that purity of heart which is re- 


quisite to the reception of him ; so that by my baptizing you 
with water, to produce in you that purity, will be fulfilled 
the promise of God by Ezekiel, xxxvi. 25, “I will sprinkle 
clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ;” and, by his 
baptism, will be fulfilled the words following, ver. 37, “I 
will put my Spirit within you.” 

Ver. 27. Ὃς ἔμπροσθέν μου yéyovev.] See this reading vindi- 
cated, Examen Millii in locum. 

% Ver. 28. In Bethabara.] That is, according to the 


| import of the word »naynya, about the place where the 


Jews passed over Jordan to go into the land of Canaan: it 
is situated, saith Dr. Lightfoot,* beyond Jordan, in the Sey- 
thopolitan country, where the Jews dwelt among the Syro- 
pheenicians. 

27 Ver. 29. Behold the Lamb of God, 6 αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, 


| who taketh away the sins of the world.] This Grotius refers 


to the reformation of men’s lives; whereas it plainly re- 
spects the Lamb slain as a piacular victim (1 Pet. i. 19), to 
redeem us to God by his blood (Rev. v. 9), or to procure for 
us “ redemption,” that is, “ the remission of sins” (Eph. i. 7, 
Col. i. 14), and to exempt all that believed in him from that 
sentence of death which came upon the world for the sin of 
Adam. To illustrate this, let it be noted, (1.) that when a 
sacrifice was offered for sin, he that brought it laid his hand 
upon the head of the victim, according to the command of 
God, Lev. i. 4, iii. 2, iv. 4, and by that rite transferred his 
sins upon the victim, who is said to take them upon him, 
and to carry them away: accordingly, in the daily sacrifice 
of the lamb, the stationary men, saith Dr. Lightfoot, who 
were the representatives of the people, laid their hands upon 


* Page 494, 


CHAPTER I. 


30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a 
man which is preferred before me : for he was before me. 

31 % And I knew him not (¢i// God revealed it to me, 
or when I said this): but (knowing) that he should 
(suddenly) be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I 
come (came J first) baptizing with water. 

32 And John bare record, saying, I saw (Gr. have 
seen) the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, 
and it abode upon him (and by this sign given me of 


should be derived on others, ver. 26). 

33 And (before) I (thus) knew him not: but he that 
sent me to baptize with water, the same (Aad) said 
unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit de- 
scending, and remaining on him, the same is he which 
baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. 

34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son 
of God. 

35 J Again the next day after John stood, and two 
of his disciples ; 

36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith 
(to them), Behold the Lamb of God! 

37 And the ™ two disciples heard him speak (this), 
and they followed Jesus. 

38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and 
saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, 
Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) 
where dwellest thou (that we may be there with thee) ὃ 

39 He saith unto them, Come and see. (4nd) They 
came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him 
that day (and the night following) : for it was about the 
tenth hour (or four in the afternoon). 

40 One of the two which heard John speak, and 
followed him, was ® Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 

41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and 
saith unto him, We have found the (promised) Mes- 
sias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. 

42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus 
beheld him, he said, 31: Thou art Simon the son of 
Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by inter- 
pretation, A stone (or rock upon whose preaching the 
foundation of my church shall be laid ; see note on Matt. 
xvi. 18). 


337 


43 4 The day following Jesus would go forth into 
Galilee, and (as he was going, he) findeth Philip, and 
saith unto him, Follow me. 

44 Now Philip was 3 of Bethsaida, the city of An- 
drew and Peter (and so came next to be found by him). 

45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, 
We have found him, of whom Moses in the law (Deut. 
xviii. 18), and (of whom) the prophets, did write (as 


| of the Messiah, which was to come), Jesus of Nazareth, 
God, I knew him to be the Christ, from whom that Spirit | 


the son of Joseph. 

46 And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any 
good thing come out of (such a wicked, Luke iv. 28, 
and despicable place, see note on Matt. ii. 23, as) Naza- 
reth? Philip saith unto him, Come and (how wilt) 
see (sufficient reason to believe there may). 

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and (in- 
stantly) saith unto him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in 
whom is no guile (but plain honesty towards men, and 
sincerity of affection towards God) ! 

48 Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest 
thou me (so entirely as to pronounce thus of my inward 
man, seeing thou hast not before seen or conversed with 
me)? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that 
Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, 
I saw thee (and this thou mayest believe, seeing I tell thee 
where thow wast, and how Philip called thee, though I 
never heard him call thee, nor saw thee there with my bo- 
dily eyes). 

49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, 
(this knowledge, so proper to a divine person, convinceth 
me thal) thou art the ® Son of God; thou art the King 
of Israel. 

50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I 
said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest 
thou? thou shalt see greater things than these (sfronger 
and more convincing arguments than these to confirm thy 
faith in this particular). 

51 And (then) he saith unto him, Verily, verily, 1 
say unto you (my disciples, That)*4 Hereafter ye shall 
see heaven open, (as Jacob did, Gen. xxviii. 12), and 
the angels of God ascending and descending upon 
the Son of man (7. 6. such extraordinary signs of the di- 
vine presence with, and his direction and assistance in, all 


the lambs thus offered for them; and these two lambs of- 
fered for the daily sacrifice were bought with that half shekel, 
which all the Jews yearly paid, εἰς λύτρον τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτῶν, 
ἐξιλάσασθαι περὶ τῶν ψυχῶν αὐτῶν, “as the price of redemption 
of their lives, to make an atonement for them,” Exod. xxx. 
12. 14. 16. This lamb was therefore offered to take away 
the guilt of their sin, as this phrase signifies when it relates 
to sacrifices (see the note, 1 Pet. ii. 25). When therefore 
the Baptist had said, he baptized them for the remission of 
sins, he here shows them by what means that remission was 
to be obtained. 

% Ver. 31. 33. And I knew him not.] By face, or any 
converse with him till he came to my baptism, God so or- 
dering it, that there should be no suspicion that I thus testi- 
fied of him by compact. Observe, also, that the Baptist said 
this at the same time that he saw the Spirit of God descend- 
ing on him, ver. 30, and seeing this sign made good, he tes- 
tifies this was that Son of God who should baptize them 
with the Spirit, ver. 33, 34 (see note on Matt. iii. 14). 

2% Ver. 37. Two disciples] Of the Baptist hearing this 
testimony of their Master, they come to him, either to abide 
with him, or to gain farther knowledge of him; and there- 
fore they inquire where he dwelt, ver. 39, that they might 
repair to him thither, not thinking it proper to ask him in 
the streets concerning the Messiah and his kingdom. 

80 Ver. 40. One of the two was Andrew.] The other is 
thought to have been St. John himself, who usually con- 
ceals his name. Note hence, that these two were called 
before Peter. 

31 Ver. 42. Thou art Simon, &c.] Woltzogenius notes, 
that Christ here gives Peter a specimen of his divine virtue ; 
and, ver. 47, he discovers the secrets of the heart of Philip, 

Vor. IV.—43 


showing that he was able, by the Holy Spirit, to search into 
the most internal recesses of the heart. 

% Ver. 44, Of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.} 
i. e. Where they dwelt. ‘This seems to be added, to show 
the reason why Philip followed Jesus before he knew any 
thing of his doctrine, because what he had heard from them 
who dwelt near him had prepared his mind so to do; and 
from the following words of Philip and Nathanael, “ We 
have found him,” &c. we learn, that not only Peter and An- 
drew, but Christ himself had discoursed to Philip of the pre- 
dictions of the law and the prophets concerning him. Note 
also ὃν, ver. 45, is put for περὶ οὖ, “ of whom,” as ver. 15. 

38 Ver.49. Thou art the Son of God ; thou art the King 
of Israel.] These seem to be the two titles of the Messiah 
in the Jewish phrase, signifying the same thing: for though 
the Jews acknowledged the Messiah should be the Son of 
God, yet not in that high sense in which Christ was ἴδιος υἱὸς, 
“the proper and peculiar Son of God ;” for this they look 
upon as blasphemy, John v. 18, but in that sense in which 
they style themselves his sons, John viii. 41. 

34 Ver. 51. Hereafter shall ye see the heavens opened, 
and the angel of God ascending and descending on the Son 
of man.] Christ here seems to allude to Jacob's ladder, of 
which we read Gen. xxviii. 12, 13, on the top of which was 
the divine majesty, and the angels ascending, saith Maimo- 
nides, to receive his commands, and descending to execute 
them; Christ therefore, by these words, seems to inform 
them, that the miracles which they should see performed by 
him should declare the divine majesty present with him, and 
giving him those commands he was to execute by his pro- 
phetic office, as clearly as if they had seen the angels of God 
ascending and descending on him. They who refer this to 

2D 


338 


my works and words, as Jacob had of God’s presence with 
him, when he saw the angels ascending to receive God’s 


JOHN. 


commands, and descending to be with him, and direct him 
in his way). 


the day of judgment, did not consider this was to happen 
ἀπάρτι, “within a little while;” and they who refer it to 
Christ's passion and resurrection, must show how the an- 


gels then ascended and descended on Christ in the sight of 
the apostles. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Ann the third day (from Simon’s coming to Christ, 
i. 41,) there was a marriage (feast) in 1 Cana of Gali- 
lee; and the mother of Jesus was there (uncalled) : 

2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, (Gr. 
but both Jesus and his disciples were called) to the mar- 
riage. 

3 And when they wanted wine, the 2 mother of Je- 
sus (being concerned for this want of her relations) saith 
unto him, They have no wine (hoping, by this intima- 
tion, he, by a miracle, would supply this want). 

4 Jesus saith unto her, ? Woman, what have I to 
do with thee? 4 mine hour (i. 6. that time for manifest- 
ing my glory by my miracles, ver. 11) is not yet come 
(and so Tam not bound to have regard to thy solicitations 
an this thing). 

5 His mother (expecting, notwithstanding this answer, 
that he might gratify her) saith unto the servants, What- 
soever he saith unto you, do it. 


6 And there were set there six waterpots (or cis- 
terns) of stone, after the manner of the purifying of 
the Jews (who constantly washed before meals), contain- 
ing two or three firkins apiece. \ 

7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with 
water. And they filled them up to the brim. 

8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now (of this 
Hquor), and bear (1) unto the governor of the feast. 
And they bare zt. 

9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water 
that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: 
(but the servants which drew the water knew) (7. e. 
not knowing it to be water miraculously turned into wine 
by Christ as the servants did ;) the® governor of the feast 
called the bridegroom, 

10 And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning 
(of a feast) doth (use to) set forth good wine; an 
when men ὃ have well drunk, then that which is worse 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IL 


1 Ver. 1. In Cana of Galilee.] To distinguish it from 
another Cana, which was in the tribe of Ephraim, Josh. xvi. 
8, xvil. 9 ; whereas this was in the tribe of Asher in Galilee, 
Josh. xix. 28, and probably where Alpheus or Cleopas, whose 
wife was Mary, the sister of the mother of our Lord, lived : 
for that this marriage was in his house, is conjectured, first, 
because the mother of our Lord is there uncalled, by reason 
of her near relation to them; whereas Christ and his disci- 
ples are bid to the wedding: secondly, because his mother 
is so solicitous for the supply of the wine. 

2 Ver. 3. The mother of Jesus saith to him, They have 
no wine.] Some conceive, by reason of this expectation of 
his mother, that Christ miraculously might provide wine for 
them, that, whilst he lived privately with his parents, he 
might, upon some occasion, in an extraordinary manner, 
supply their want of necessaries. St. Chrysostom says she 
was moved to this from the consideration of his miraculous 
conception and birth, the testimony of the Baptist, and his 
gathering disciples. Grotius thinks that Joseph was then 
dead, because he is not mentioned here. 

3 Ver. 4. Ti ἐμοὶ καὶ cot, γύναι ; Woman, what have Ito do 
with thee 2] The papists here contend, that these words are not 
to be deemed a reprehension to his mother, but only an instruc- 
tion to his disciples, that in the things of God they ought not 
to have respect to the solicitations of earthly parents. But, 

First, The word γύναι, woman, plainly shows these words 
were directed, not to his disciples, but to his mother. And, 

Secondly, We never find this phrase used in scripture 
otherwise than by way of objurgation or reprehension; as 
when Jephthah says to the King of Ammon, Judg. xi. 12, 
τί ἐμοὶ καὶ cot; “ What have I to do with thee, that thou 
comest to fight against my land?” And David to the sons 
of Zeruiah, 2 Sam. xvi. 20, τί ἐμοὶ καὶ ὑμῖν, “ What have I to 
do with you?” and again, xix. 22; and Pharaoh-Nechoh to 
Josias, 2 Chron. xxxv. 21, 1 Esd. i. 26, 1 Kings xvii. 18; 
and Elisha to Joram, 2 Kings iii. 13. 

Thirdly, Maldonate* confesseth, that most of the ancient 
fathers do openly or obscurely intimate what Ireneust 


* Inter veteres auctores, paucos admodtim invenio, qui 
non aut aperté dicant aut obscuré significent, aliquam cul- 
pam aut errorem fuisse, quod filium ad faciendum miracu- 
lum incitaverit, si non ob aliud, certé intempestivé et ante 
tempus, id fecit. Mald. in locum. 

{ Dominus repellens ejus intempestivam festinationem 


plainly saith, “that she was guilty of some fault or error in 
inciting her Son to this miracle unseasonably.” So Chry- 
sostom,* Euthymius, and Theophylact,t upon the place. 

4 Οὔπω ἥκει ἡ ὥρα μου, My hour is not yet come.) Dr. 
Lightfoot thinks this is spoken, because Christ was to begin 
his public ministry, and to confirm it with miracles at Jeru- 
salem; and therefore saith, vii. 8, ὁ καιρὺς ἐμὸς “ My time of 
going up to Jerusalem is not yet.” Others, with Dr. Ham- 
mond, say, this hour signifies the time of doing his miracles, 
ἐν παῤῥησία, “ openly,” was not yet; and therefore, though he 
did this miracle, he did it so privately that neither the go- 
vernor of the feast, nor the bridegroom, nor the guests, 
knew that he had done it, but the servants only. Lastly, it 
is observable that (ἃ. Nyssen reads these words by way of 
interrogation; viz. Woman, what have I to do with thee? 
Ihave begun to gather disciples, and to act as one sent from 
God; and is not the hour of my exemption from thy autho- 
rity yet come? 

5 Ver. 9. Φωνεῖ τὸν νυμφίον ὃ ἀρχιτρίκλινος, The governor of 
the feast called the bridegroom.] To this governor of the 
feast it belonged to bless what was prepared, and having 
drunk of the cup thus blessed, to send it about to the whole 
company, whence Christ saith to the servants, “ Draw out 
and bear it to the governor of the feast,” ver. 8. Moreover, 
the word φωνεῖν, doth not necessarily signify to call the ab- 
sent bridegroom, but may only intimate, that the ruler of the 
feast spake thus to him being present: for, as Phavorinus 
saith, this word, with an accusative case, signifies τὸ λαλῶ 
καὶ τὸ καλῶ, “both to call and to speak to.” Thus in Sopho- 
cles, τί φωνεῖς 3 is, * What sayest thou?” and here, xiii. 13, 
ὑμεῖς φωνεῖτέ pe Κύριον, is, “You say I am your Master 2” so 
ἐς τῆς κοιλίας φωνεῖν, is, “to speak out of the belly,” Isa. viii. 
19, ἐκ τῆς γῆς φωνεῖν, “to speak out of the earth,” Isa. xix. 3, 
and οὗ φωνεῖν, “ not to speak,” Ps. exiii. 15. 

8 Ver. 10. Kai ὅταν μεϑυσϑῶσι, And when men have well 
drunk, then that which is worse.| The word μεϑύσκεσϑαι, 
does not here signify fo be drunk, but to drink to satiety ; 
or, as Phavorinus saith, πληροῦσϑαι, “to be filled with wine.” 
So Gen. xliii. 34, «The brethren of Joseph drank, ἐμεϑύσ- 
ϑησαν μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ, and were merry with him;” saturati sunt 
cum eo, “they were satisfied,” saith the Vulgate : so Ps. xxiii. 


dixit, Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier? lib. ii. cap. 18, p. 
277. 

Ἐ Ὡς ἀκαίρως τὶ ζητεῖν καὶ ἐγκύπτειν τὶ τῶν πνευματικῶν 
Chrysost. 

T ᾿Επιπλήξας μικρόν. Theophylact. 


CHAPTER II. 


(i. 6. smaller): but thou hast kept the good wine until 
now. 

11 This beginning of (his) miracles did Jesus in 
Cana of Galilee, aa (thereby) 7 manifested forth his 
glory ; and his disciples (who saw the miracle) believed 
on him. 

12 4 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, 
and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples : 
and they continued there not many days. 

13 1 And (for) the Jews’ passover was at hand, 
and Jesus went up (with them) to Jerusalem, 

14 And (there Ie) found in the temple those that 
sold oxen and sheep and doves ( for sacrifices), and the 
changers of money (or those who returned it by way of 
exchange) sitting. 

15 And when he had made a § scourge of small 
cords (or of rushes), he drove them all out of the tem- 
ple, and (that is) the sheep, and the oxen; and poured 


339 


out (upon the ground) the changers’ money, and over- 
threw the (counting) tables (no man making any resist- 
ance) ; 

16 And (Ae) said unto them that sold doves, Take 
these things hence; (and) make not my Father’s 
house an house of merchandise. 

17 And his disciples Agrees ) remembered that 
it was written (of him), The zeal of thine house hath 
eaten me up (Ps. ]xix. 9, ἡ, e. hath fed upon my spirits 
and consumed them). 

18 4 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, 
9 What sign shewest thou unto us (that thou art a pro- 
phet), seeing that thou doest these things (which only 
magistrates or prophets have authority to do)? 

19 Jesus answered and said unto them, (7his shall 
be a sign to you,) "Destroy this temple (of my body), 
and (when you have done this) in three days I will raise 
it up (again). 


— Ὁ 
5, “My cup runneth over,” ποτήριόν pov μεϑύσκον, saith the 
Septuagint: so πίετε καὶ peSicSnre, Cant. v. 1, is, “ Drink 
abundantly :” Hag. i. 6, ἐπίετε καὶ οὐκ εἰς μέϑην, “ Ye drank, 
but not to satiety :” so Ecclus. i. 16, “The fear of the Lord 
μεϑύσκει, replenisheth men with her fruits ;” and xxxil. 13, 
“Bless the Lord μεϑύσκοντά ce, who filleth thee with good 
things:” so Jerome on Jer. xxxi. 14, καὶ μεϑύσω τὴν ψυχὴν 


τῶν ἱερέων, “I will satiate the soul of my priests with fat- | 


ness;” and ver. 35, ἐμέθυσα πᾶσαν ψυχὴν διψῶσαν, “1 have 
satisfied every thirsty soul ;” and on those words, Hosea xiv. 
7, μεϑυσϑήσονται σίτῳ, tom. v. Ε΄, 151, H. 152, H. 1. See 
1 Mace. xvi. 16. Moreover, these are not the words of 
Christ, but of the ruler of the feast, declaring, not how it 
was with the guests there present, but only that it was the 
usual custom to bring the best wine first, and when men had 
well drunk, then the meaner sort, and that this custom was 
not then observed. And, thirdly, admit some persons might 
exceed in drinking of this very wine miraculously made, 
which yet is more than can be gathered from the text, our 
Lord cannot be charged with ministering to that excess, by 
making this provision of it, unless we also charge the provi- 
dence of God as being instrumental to all that gluttony and 
drunkenness which is committed in the world, because it 
doth afford that meat and drink which by the glutton and 
drunkard are abused to excess. 

7 Ver. 11. Καὶ ἐφανέρωσε τὴν δύζαν αὐτοῦ, And he manifested 
his glory.) i. 6. His power of working miracles, which is 
styled his glory, John xvii. 22, 2 Cor. iii. 18, and for which 
“he was glorified of all,” Luke iv. 15. And this was oppor- 
tunely done to confirm the faith of the apostles, who were 
newly come to him; and therefore it is added, that “ they 
believed on him.” 

5 Ver. 15, 16. He made a scourge of small cords, &c.] 
To what hath been said, note on Matt. xxi. 14, Mark xi. 
17, add, () that Christ, by making such a whip of bul- 
rushes, which could hurt nobody, seemed to insinuate that 
he would not use external force to take away the abuses of 
men relating to his worship. And (2.) by calling the temple 
his Father’s house, he distinguishes himself from other pro- 
phets, who sometimes style God their God (Isa. lvii. 21), but 
never their Father. And (3.) by purging the court of the 
gentiles from merchandise, not unlawful in itself, but neces- 
sary for the sacrifices which were to be offered in the temple, 
though not necessary to be brought there, he sufficiently in- 
sinuates that a distinction is to be made betwixt places sacred 
and profane, and that what may as well he done elsewhere, 
ought not to be done in the house of God, the place ap- 
pointed immediately for his worship. 

9 Ver. 18. Ti σημεῖον δεικνύεις ; What sign showest thou 2 
&c.] This they ask, because it belonged only to the magis- 
trate, as being God’s minister and vicegerent, or to a prophet, 
to take away abuses in God's service. Now a prophet must 
show himself to be so by some miracles, or some prediction 
of a thing future: this last Christ doth, by saying, 

1 Ver. 19. Atcare τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον, &c. Destroy this temple, 
and Iwill build it up in three days.) When elsewhere they 
require a sign, he remits them to the sign of Jonas the pro- 
phet, Matt. xii. 39, 40. And here he also seems in effect to 
do the same thing, by saying that, by raising the temple of 


his body after they had destroyed it, or by his resurrection 
from the dead, he would afford them a convincing demon- 
stration that he had good authority for what he said and did, 
and that he was that prophet which was to come. 

Note also, that these words are not imperative, i. e. Christ 
did not bid them destroy his body, but only permissive and 
predictive of what he saw they would do; and therefore he 
saith, λύσατε, * Ye will destroy this temple.” Examples of 
like nature we have in the Old Testament, as Gen. xx. 7, 
“He shall pray for thee, and live thou;” and xlii. 18, “Do 
this, and live,” i. e, “thou shalt live ;’” Deut. xxxii. 50, “ Die 
in this mountain,” i. e. « thou shalt die there” (see Isa. viii. 
9, 10, liv. 1): and in the New, as in those words of Christ 
to Judas, “ What thou doest, do quickly,” John xiii. 27; and 
that of St. Paul, « Be angry, and sin out,” Eph. iv. 26 (see 
the note there). Moreover, he seemeth here to call his body 
a temple, and elsewhere to declare he was one “ greater than 
the temple” (Matt. xii. 6), because the Divinity dwelt always 
and inseparably in it, as the Jews thought the Divinity did 
in the temple built by Solomon. Josephus not only tells us, 
that Solomon prayed thus at the dedication of it, ἱκετεύω καὶ 
μοῖράν τινα τοῦ cov Πνεύματος εἰς τὸν ναὸν ἀποικῆσαι, “that some 
portion of the Divine Spirit might come down upon the 
temple,” Antiq. lib. viii. cap. 2, p. 264, F'; but that, “in all 
men’s opinion, there was ἐπιδημία Θεοῦ καὶ κατοικισμὸς, an 
advent to, and habitation of God in it,” ibid. p. 263, and that 
God came down into the temple, and did κατασκηνοῦν ἐν αὐτῷ, 
“pitch his tabernacle in it,” ibid. D, G (see the note on 
1 Cor. vi. 19). In the second temple, say the Jews, were 
wanting the wrim and thummim, the divine glory, the Holy 
Spirit, and the oil of gladness. Now Christ was that oracle 
from whom we might receive answers full of truth and light; 
in him dwelt the true Shechinah, he had the Spirit without 
measure, and he was anointed “with the oil of gladness 
above his fellows;” and so, in these respects, was greater 
than the temple. The temple, which you have polluted, 
saith he, I have cleansed; that temple of my body, which 
you will destroy, I will raise up. And that he did so, is 
evident from this, that “after his resurrection his disciples 
believed the words which Jesus had said,” ver. 22, which, 
had not Christ raised his own body from the dead, they could 
not have done (see the note on x. τὰν I confess, it is more 
frequently said in scripture, that the Father raised him from 
the dead; and this was necessary to be said, that it might 
appear that he had fully satisfied the divine justice for our 
sins, in that he was by him delivered from that death he suf- 
fered for them. But then, as the resurrection in general is 
often ascribed to God the Father, and yet it cannot be denied 
that God the Son shall raise the dead by his own power, as 
the Scripture testifies, John v. 28, 29, vi. 39, 40. 44. 54, 
1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. 25, 26, Rom. xiv. 19, Phil. iii. 21, Rev. 
i. 18, so is it to be owned that the Father raised Christ from 
the dead: nor yet is it to be denied that our Lord raised up 
himself, seeing he was “ quickened by the Spirit,” Rom. viii. 
22, 1 Pet. iii. 18, and God raised him up διὰ Πνεύματος αὐτοῦ, 
“by his Spirit,’ Rom. i. 4, and this Spirit, as he was the 
Spirit of the Father, so was he also the Spirit of Christ, 
1 Pet. i. 11, and dwelt essentially in him. And thus it is 
easy to conceive how he raised up himself; and yet his re- 


340 


20 Then said the Jews, " Forty and six years was 
this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in 
three days? (and this they said, thinking that Christ 
had spoken of the temple of Jerusalem.) 

21 But he spake of the temple of his body. 

22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his 
disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; 
and they believed the scripture (speaking of his resur- 
rection), and the word which Jesus had said. 


JOHN. 


23 4 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the pass- 
over, in the feast day (Gr. ἐν τῇ ἑορτῇ» in the time of 
the feast), many believed in his name, when they saw 
the miracles which he did. 

24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them 
(or confide in them as his sincere disciples), because he 
knew (the hearts of ) all men, 

25 And needed not that any should testify of man: 
for he knew what was in man. 


surrection might be ascribed to God the Father, viz. because 
he did it by virtue of the Spirit of the Father dwelling in him, 

1 Ver. 20. Τεσσαράκοντα καὶ ἕξ ἔτεσιν ὠκοδομήθη ὃ ναὸς οὗτος, 
Forty and six years hath this temple been building.) Mr. 
Whiston here saith, the words should be rendered, « Forty- 
six years hath this temple been built;”” but our version is 
justified from the use of the same words in the Septuagint 
in the same case, Ezra v. 16, ἀπὸ rére ἕως τοῦ νῦν ῳκοδομήϑη, 
καὶ οὐκ ἐτελέσθη, “This temple hath been building from that 
time to this, and hath not yet been finished.” (2.) The argu- 
ment of the Jews requires this sense, which our translation 
giveth of these words ; for it is plain folly to state thus the 
years from which it had been built, to prove it could not be 
built again in three days; since this could have no more 
force to prove it could not be built in three days, than its 
being built at any other time; but the argument is plain and 
strong according to our version, viz. that it could not reason- 
ably be thought that Christ himself, or with his small retinue, 
should do that in three days, which had already cost many 
thousand labourers forty-six years to build. 

Mr. Whiston’s computation, I confess, is very plausible at 
the first view: it begins thus, “Josephus* assures us, that 
the vais, or temple, was begun in the eighteenth year of Herod, 
from the death of Antigonus, and that it was finished in a 
year and siz months : now from these circumstances we may 
certainly find the year we inquire for; Antigonus was slain 
about July, A. P. J. 4677; and so Herod’s eighteenth year 
must begin about July 4694, and continue till July 4695.” 
Let us suppose the temple begun about the feast of taber- 
nacles in this eighteenth year 4694; add a year and six 


months, the space in which it was building, and it will appear | 


to have been finished at the passover Nisan 4696 ; from the 
passover let us count forty-six years, and this will bring us to 
the passover we inquire for, Nisan 4742, which is A. D. 29. 
But yet from an exact view of this computation, I find it 
fails in almost every particular. For, 

First, It is certain from Josephus,} that Antigonus neither 
was nor could be slain in the month of July; because the 
temple was not taken by Herod and Sosius till the tenth day 
of September, it being taken, saith Josephus, τῇ ἑορτῇ τῆς 
νηστείας, “on the feast of the fast ;” by which words, saith 
Langius,+ he intends no other than the fast prescribed by the 
law of Moses, and mentioned in his own history as a fast ; 
for he names the day, that every one might know certainly 


when the city was taken: which, had there been more fasts, | } t he ge 
| greater army, and Sosius comes to him with auxiliaries; and 
| then he places his camp near the north wall: let all this be 


they could not have done by this character, sed omnem 
dubitationem eximit apposita vox ἑορτῇ ; but the word “ feast” 
added to it, puts the matter beyond doubt; for there was 
but one fast so called in a year. This, say I, is demonstrable 
from the word ἑορτὴ, “the feast of the fast,’ the tenth of 
Tisri, being the only fast mentioned among the feasts of the 
Lord, and called a sabbath of sabbaths, Lev. xvi. xxi., and 
being by all writers called “the feast of expiation.” And 
this is also evident frorn the word νηστεία, for this being the 
only fast of God’s appointment, is, by the scripture, Philo, 
and Josephus, emphatically styled “the fast-day:” thus, 
«Sailing was dangerous,” saith St. Paul, “because the fast 
was past,” Acts xxvii. 9, for “On the tenth day of the se- 
venth month we fast till eventide,” saith Josephus ;§ and on 
the fifteenth day of the said month τρέπεται ὃ καιρὸς εἰς τὴν 
χειμέριον ὥραν, “ begins the winter.” Ἢ λεγομένη vncreia, “ The 
day by us called a fast is reverenced every where,” saith 
Philo.) This, saith Josephus,{ is the day ἣν ᾿Ιουδαῖοι νησ- 


* Page 144. 7 Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 27, p. 506, A. 
+ Cap. 2, p. 337. 8. Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 10, p. 92, 1, 2. 
] De Vita Mos. p. 508. 

¢ Antiq. lib. xvil. cap. 8, p. 597, D, bis. 


τείαν ἄγουσιν, “ on which the Jews fast ;” which, had they then 
observed any other annual and stated fasts, could have been 
no character of time, as in Josephus and St. Paul itis. This 
is yet farther evident from what Josephus saith in the same 
place, viz. that the city was taken pre’ ᾿Ολυμπιάδος τῷ γ΄ μηνὶ; 
“in the third month of the hundred and eighty-fifth Olym- 
piad.” Now the year of the Olympiads beginning in July, 
the third month of any year of an Olympiad must answer to 
the Julian September. Mr. Whiston, indeed, will not allow 
that ancient writers use to cite the month of an Olympiad ; 
but he may be convinced of his mistake in this matter from 
the testimony of Diogenes Laertius,* who saith that Socrates 
was born in the fourth year of the seventy-seventh Olympiad 
Θαργηλιῶνος ἕκτη, “on the sixth of Thargelion,” that Plato 
was born in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, Θαργηλιῶνος ἑβδόμη, 
“on the seventh of Thargelion,” and that Epicurus+ was 
born in the third year of the hundred and ninth Olympiad, 
on the seventh of Gamelion. 

Mr. Whiston, to avoid this, saith the city was taken on the 
day of a solemn fast, in the twenty-third of the third month 
Sivan, kept for the defection and idolatry of Jeroboam. But 
(1.) Josephus doth not say it was taken in a fast, on the third 
Jewish month, but ᾿Ολυμπιάξος τῷ γ΄ μηνὶ, “on the third 
month of the eighteenth Olympiad,” which answers to Sep- 
tember; and then by way of apposition, τῇ ἑορτῆ τῆς νηστείας, 
“at the feast of the fast,’ which plainly fixes the taking of 
it to the tenth of September. (2.) As Jeroboam celebrated 
a feast in the eighth month, which “he devised of his own 
head,”’ so Mr. Whiston hath devised a fast of his own head 
in the month Sivan, not mentioned by Josephus, nor any 
Jewish writer of or near those times, nor extant in Buxtorf’s§ 
history of their feasts and fasts; but a pure product of that 
famous chronicle Megillah Taanith, of which I have already 
given an account. (3.) When Herod began to batter the 


| wall, it was then summer, saith Josephus, and so he had 


no hindrance from the weather : now there being three sum- 
mer months, let us take the middle of them, July the fif- 
teenth; the first wall, saith Josephus,§ was taken “ after 
forty days,” i.e. August the twenty-fifth ; the second, “ fifteen 
days after that,” i. e. on the tenth of September ; ergo, not 
on the month Sivan, when summer was but just begun. 
(4.) Josephus adds,** that Herod began the siege λωφήσαν- 
ros τοῦ χειμῶνος, “ when winter was over,” suppose about the 


| midst of March; that he went soon back to Samaria, and 


married the daughter of Aristobulus; that then he gathers a 


done by the tenth of April; and then he adds, that after 
this, the party of Antigonus endured the siege πέντε μησὶ, 
“five months,” i. e. till the tenth of September; how, there- 
fore, is it possible, that the city should be taken in the month 
Sivan, or the third month? Nor was Antigonus slain till 
about a month or more after the city was taken: for Jose- 
phust+ informs us, that he was afterward carried by Sosius 
to Antioch, where Antony then was, and that he kept him 
there, intending to reserve him to his triumph at Rome; but 
when he heard that the Jews had so great favour for him, 
and so great hatred to Herod, that they would not be pre- 
vailed upon by torments to own him as their king, he be- 
headed him at Antioch; Antigonus therefore, in all probabi- 
lity, could not be slain till about the tenth or fifteenth of 
October, and so Herod’s eighteenth year could not begin till 


* Lib. ii. p. 107. 
+ Lib. x. p. 610. 
|| Θέρος jv, Antiq. lib.xiv. cap. 28, p. 506, G. 
ἘΣ De B. Jud. lib. i. cap. 13, p. 740, 741. 
+t Anti. lib. xiv. cap. 28, p. 508. lib. xv. cap. 1. 


+ Lib. iii. p. 164. 
§ Synag. Jud. cap. 30. 
4 Ibid. p.507, 


CHAPTER III. 


that time. And so, if Herod began his project of building 
the temple on the very first day of his eighteenth year, which 
yet is both uncertain and improbable, he could not begin it 
at the feast of tabernacles, that being fixed to the fifteenth 
day of September. 

Secondly, Josephus* doth not say that Herod began to 
build the temple in his eighteenth year; but only that ἐπι- 
βάλετο, “he cast in his mind” to do so: and when he had 
proposed this to the rulers of the Jews, he engages not to 
attempt the work till he had prepared all the materials for 
it, nor doth he say how long he was preparing these mate- 
rials, though, saith Casaubon, all men will think it reasonable 
to allow him at least a year for that; and Bishop Usher saith 
they were only provided in two years’ space: so that Herod 
could not begin the work till the middle of his nineteenth 
year. Now admit the fancy, that the ναὸς was first built 
in eighteen months, he could not finish the building of it till 
his twenty-first year from Antigonus ; from thence he reigned 
only thirteen years: now thirteen and twenty-nine will never 
make forty-six years. 

But, Thirdly, That which entirely confoundeth this ac- 
count is this consideration, that when Herod began to build, 
he first built the ἱερὸν, i. e. the court of the gentiles and lay 
Jews ; and the building of this, saith Josephus, took up eight 
years: absolutoque octo annis reliquo edificio, tandem etiam 
templum ipsum sacerdotum opera sesquianno perfecit; and 
having finished that in eight years, he afterward, by the as- 
sistance of the priests, built the ναῦς, or the inward temple, 
in a year and half more ; so that, according to Josephus, the 
ναὸς was not built till the twenty-eighth of Herod, i. e. but 
six years before his death: now six and twenty-nine make 
only thirty-five years. 

Mr. Whiston, indeed, saith that I perplex the matter, when 
} place the building of the ἱερὸν before the ναὸς, i. 6. the out- 
ward before the inner temple. But this I do with good 
authority, and with better reason ; for Josephus saith, the ἱερὸν 
was finished in eight years, and then follow these words,+ 
τοῦ δὲ ναοῦ διὰ τῶν ἱερέων οἰκοδομηθέντος ἐνιαυτῷ καὶ μησὶν ς΄, 
ἅπας ὃ λαὸς ἐπληρώθη χαρᾶς, καὶ τοῦ τάχους πρῶτον τῷ Θεῷ τὰς 
εὐχαριστίας ἐποιοῦντο, “Then the temple being built by the 
priests in a year and six months, all the people returned 
thanks to God, and celebrate the encenia.’”’ Who sees not 
now, that the work done about the ναὸς was done last of all, 
and that instantly thereupon follow the encaenia for the dedi- 
cation of the whole? And this is also suitable to reason: for 
the Jews, fearing that Herod would not be able to perform 
his promise, would surely keep that part of the temple on 
which their daily sacrifices and the service of the great day 
of expiation depended, standing; till they saw, by what he 
had done about the other temple, that he was likely to ac- 
complish his undertaking, and would not have suffered them- 
selves to be deprived of the benefit of those sacrifices for 
nine years and a half, as they must have done if either the 
temple of the priests had not been standing, or not dedicated 
till that time. Wherefore, for the right stating this matter, 
let it be noted, 

First, That, whether this computation of the Jews be true 
or false, neither Christ nor the evangelist is concerned in the 
matter, seeing St. John only relates what the Jews said to 
Christ; and if they said any thing that was not true, he, who 
relateth truly what they said, can lose no credit by it. Note, 

Secondly, That the opinion of them who say the second 


* Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 14. 


ἡ A. M. 3987. 
+ Antig. lib. xv. cap. 14, p. 535, G. 


341 


temple was (including the times of the interruption to its 
complete finishing) forty-six years in building, though it may 
not be true, as Drusius thinks it was; yet it was so, as here 
he saith, ex opinione vulgi et sapientum, “ according both to 
the opinion of their wise men and the common people ;” and 
it is certain from Josephus,* that they had not completely 
finished it till long after: for he having told us that the foun- 
dation of it being laid in the close of the reign of Cyrus, it 
was interrupted nine years, till the time of Darius; that 
Ezrat finished the temple for service, in the ninth year of 
Darius, in whose second year they began again to build; 
adds,+ that in the twenty-fifth year of Xerxes (i. e. Arta- 
xerxes) Nehemias was sent with his commission to repair the 
walls of Jerusalem, and τὸ λείψανον τοῦ ἱεροῦ τελειῶσαι, “to 
finish the remainder of the temple,” the court of the sane- 
tuary being not yet built (Neh. ii. 8). And seeing they 
constantly called the temple built by Zorobabel, and restored 
by Herod, «the second temple,’ till the destruction of it by 
Titus; and of necessity it must be so, in some true sense, 
that the prophecy of Haggai, concerning Christ’s coming to 
that very temple, might be fulfilled ; they, who always called 
this “ the second temple” built by Zorobabel, why might they 
not say of that, according to their received computation, 
“ Forty-six years was this temple in building ?” 

But, Thirdly, The opinion of Ludovicus Capellus, Dr. 
Allix, and others, who understand this of the temple of 
Herod, is exact, plain, and evident: for if you begin the 
time of the building in the eighteenth of Herod, when he 
began to set about it, and employed a thousand carts to 
bring the materials, and provided the most skilful artificers 
for that work, from that time to his death is exactly sixteen 
years: this was said of Christ in the thirtieth year of his age, 
at the first passover after his baptism: now thirty and sixteen 
make forty-six years. 

Obj. If it be here objected, that Josephus informs us that 
Herod’s temple was finished in nine years and a half: 

Ans. The answer is, that it was then finished as to use; 
but, saith Capellus, Planum est ex eodem, semper aliquid 
additum, et exstructum ab eo tempore fuisse in illo templo, 
“Tt is plain from the same Josephus, that from that time 
there was always something added to, or new built in the 
temple, even till the time of Agrippa junior ;” i. 6. about the 
space of sixty years. Bishop Usher adds, that “all Herod’s 
wealth was not sufficient for the building,” but that « It was 
continued still by the gifts consecrated to God : and this is 
confirmed by the saying of Josephus,§ “That all the holy 
treasures, and the tributes sent from all parts of the world, 
were spent in building and adorning the temple.” And that 
“the abundance of money and the largesses of the people 
were beyond expression, and so τὸ μηδὲν ἐλπισϑὲν ἔξειν πέρας, 
ἐπιμονῇ καὶ χρόνοις ἦν ἀνύσιμον, that which men thought would 
never be finished (the attempt of Herod being τὸ μετὰ τῆς 
é\nidos ἄπιστον, beyond all men’s hopes) was, through patience 
and length of time, expedited.” Yea, he farther saith,§ “In 
the time of Florus,” or the tenth of Nero, rére τὸ ἱερὸν ἐτετέ- 
λεστο, “then was the temple finished.” 


* Antig. lib. viii. cap. 3. 

ἡ Ibid. cap. 4, p. 366. + Cap. 5, p. 371. 

§ Οἱ ἱεροὶ δὲ ϑησαυροὶ πάντες, ots ἀνεπίμπλασαν οἱ παρὰ τῆς 
οἰκουμένης δασμοὶ πεμπόμενοι τῷ Oecd, τοὺς dé τὲ ἄνω περιβόλους 
καὶ τὸ κάτω ἱερὸν ἀμφιεδείμαντο, De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 
14, p. 916, A, B. 

| Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 14, p. 543. 

« Ibid. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 699. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Tuere was (at Jerusalem) a man of the Phari- 
sees, named Nicodemus, (who was) a ruler of the 
Jews (i. e. one of the Jewish Sanhedrin, John vii. 50) ; 


2 The same (οὗτος, he) came to Jesus by night (that 
he might not offend his colleagues), and said unto him, 
Rabbi, ! we know (i. e. 1 know, see note on xxi. 24, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. Il. 


1 Ver. 2. Οἴδαμεν, We know that thou art a teacher come 
from God.) This could not be said of his brethren, the pha- 
misees and rulers of the Sanhedrin; for “none of the pha- 


risees or of the rulers believed on him,” vii. 48 ; οἴδαμεν 

therefore here may relate chiefly to Nicodemus, and only 

signify “I know,” as it often doth (see note on xxi. 24): 

or else may signify “it is, or may be known;” as when 

the blind man saith, “ We know God heareth not sinners,” 
2n2 


842 


or, tt may be certainly known) that thou art a teacher 
come from God: for no man can do these miracles 
that thou doest, except God be with him (the power 
that enables thee to perform them exceeding all that men or 
devils can do). 

3 Jesus (observing that he said nothing of the excel- 
lency and power of his doctrine, to change the hearts and 
reform the lives of men, but only of his miracles by which 
δἰ was confirmed) answered and said unto him, Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, (Ths acknowledgment will not 
be sufficient to render thee a member of that kingdom I am 
to set up, for) except a man ® be born again, (7. 6. re- 
newed in his mind, will, and affections, by the operation 
of the Holy Spirit, and so become a new creature, 2 Cor. 
v. 17.) he cannot see (ὦ. 6. enjoy the blessings of) the 
kingdom of God. : i —. 

4 Nicodemus (being a pharisee, exact in the observance 
of their traditions, and ritual observances, but having no 
knowledge of this spiritual regeneration) saith unto him, 


JOHN. 


How can a man be born (again) when he is old? can 
he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and 
be born? 

5 Jesus answered, (Though you so little understand 
it, yet I have told you a great truth, which farther to ex- 
plain) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, ὃ Except a man 
be born (again) of water (and so become one of my dis- 
ciples by that baptismal regeneration, by which your pro- 
selytes are said to become as infants new born) and of the 
Spirit (purifying his heart from all worldly and carnal 
lusts, and enabling him to live a spiritual life according 
to my doctrine) he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God (or enjoy the blessings of my kingdom. 

6 And the reason and necessity of this regeneration 
by the Spirit is evident, as also that it cannot be suffi- 
cient to this end to be of the seed of Abraham, he be- 
ing only the father of our flesh; for) *That which is 
born of the flesh (only) is flesh (stzll mindeth chiefly 
carnal things, and lives after the motions of the fiesh) ; 


ix. 31. (See Matt. xxvi. 2, Luke xx. 21, Rom. ii. 2, iii. 19, 
vil. 14, 1 Cor. viii. 4, 1 Tim. i. 8.) 

2 Ver. 3. ‘Ew μῆ τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, οὐ δύναται ἰδεῖν, If a 
man be not born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.) 
Tt is here needless to inquire whether the word ἄνωθεν should 
be rendered “from above,” or “again,” as our translation 
doth, and as Nicodemus understood Christ’s words, since 
every one who is born again is also born from above (James 
iii. 17), as being born of that Spirit which cometh from 
above. 

Note also, That to “see the kingdom of God” here, and 
to enter into it, ver. 5, is the same thing, and both these 
phrases signify to be a real member of that kingdom, and to 
enjoy the blessings belonging to them who are so; thus to 
“see good,” Eccles. vi. 6, to “see good days,” Ps. xxxiv. 
12, and to “sce life,” ver. 36, is to enjoy them; and to 
“see God,” Job. xix. 26, Matt. v. 8, and to “see the Lord,” 
Heb. xii. 14, is to enjoy him. 

Note, Thirdly, That Christ seems to speak this not pri- 
marily of that heavenly kingdom into which the blessed 
shall enter at the day of judgment, but of that spiritual 
kingdom which was to be erected by the Messiah, and into 
which men entered by baptism: whence it must follow, that 
no man is indeed a member of Christ’s kingdom who is not 
truly regenerate. “If you continue in my word,” saith 
Christ, “then are ye my disciples indeed,” John vii. 31, 
and, “if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none 
of his,” Rom. viii. 9. 

Note, Lastly, That this seems to be directed against the 
false and pernicious conceptions of the Jewish doctors, the 
scribes and pharisees, who thought they had a title to the 
kingdom of heaven, and the blessings of it, as being the 
“seed of Abraham according to the flesh : and promised 
to all Israelites on that account, a portion in the world to 
come; declaring, saith Justin Martyr,* that “to all that 
were of the seed of Abraham, though they were sinners, 
and disobedient to God’s laws, should be given an eternal 
kingdom.” 

3 Ver. 5, "Biv μὴ yevynSq ἐξ ὕδατος, If a man be not born 
of water.] That our Lord speaks here of baptismal regene- 
ration, the whole Christian church from the beginning hath 
always taught, and that with very good reason; for, 

First, Though water is sometimes put to signify or repre- 
sent the purifying operations of the Holy Spirit, ¥et to be 
“born of water” is a phrase never used in scripture for 
being born of the Spirit; but very properly is it used of 
that baptism which is the laver of regeneration (Tit. iii. 5), 
and was by all the ancients styled παλιγγεννεσία, or “ regene- 
ration” (see note on 1 Cor. vii. 14). 

Secondly, To be “baptized with the Holy Ghost and 
with fire” (Matt. iii. 11, Luke iii. 16), is to be baptized with 
the Holy Ghost descending on the apostles in the symbol of 


* ἹὙπολαμβάνοντες ὅτι πάντως τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς σπορᾶς τῆς κατὰ 
sdpxa τοῦ ᾿Αβραὰμ οὖσι, καν ἁμαρτωλοί εἶσι, καὶ ἄπιστοι, καὶ 
ἀπιδεῖς πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, ἢ βασιλεία ἡ αἰώνιος δοθήσεται. Dial. cum 
Jryph. p. 369, C. 


fire, as the event declared, the Holy Ghost falling upon 
them “in the shape of cloven tongues like as of fire” (Acts 
il. 2,3), and therefore, in like manner, to be baptized “ with 
| water and the Holy Ghost,” most likely signifies to be bap- 
tized with the Holy Ghost and with the symbol of water. 

Thirdly, The question betwixt Christ and Nicodemus was 
about that which was requisite to fit a man to enter into the 
kingdom, that is, the church of God, and to make him par- 
taker of the blessings of the gospel. Now it is certain that 
baptism by water is by our Lord declared to be the ordinary 
means of entering into his kingdom; for he saith, Mark 
xvi. 16, “ He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” 
or of becoming one of Christ’s disciples; for he not only 
made disciples by baptism (John iv. 1), but gave commis- 
sion to his apostles “to make disciples in all nations by bap- 
tizing them” (Matt. xxviii. 19), and therefore must here 
speak of that: hence, even when the Holy Ghost was actu- 
ally fallen upon Cornelius and his friends, St. Peter com- 
mands them “ to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,” 
i. 6. to be admitted to be Christ’s disciples by that rite, and 
looks upon it as a necessary consequent of that higher bap- 
tism (Acts x. 47, 48). Christ therefore here declares it to 
be a rite necessary for the entrance of adult persons into his 
kingdom ; and it seems highly reasonable to esteem so of it: 
for what salvation can be expected by them, who, after he 
hath told them they must be baptized with water, that they 
may enter into his kingdom, do by refusing that sacrament, 
too plainly show that they refuse that way of entering into 
| his kingdom, and becoming his disciples, which he had ap- 
pointed for that end? But then here, 

First, Infants must be excepted from this necessity, as 
being incapable of knowing, and therefore of transgressing, 
this command ; they therefore shall not suffer in their eter- 
nal interests for the mistake or neglect of any of their pa- 
rents. 

Secondly, They also are to be excepted, who want that 
baptism they desire, not out of contempt, but of necessity, 
as dying before they can procure it: thus, though the in- 
fants who died before the eighth day died without the sign 
of the covenant, the Jews never thought fit to circumcise 
them before that day; and since it is not the washing of 
the body, but the “stipulation of a good conscience,” that 
renders baptism saving (1 Pet. iii. 21), it cannot be purely 
the want, but the contempt of that, which must condemn 
us. And, 

Thirdly, Whatever ignorance of the precept, or mistake 
about the nature of it, renders not men incapable of bap- 
tism by the Holy Ghost, can never render them incapable 
of the salvation promised to the baptized. 

4 Ver. 6. Τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς σάρξ ἐστι, That which 
is born of the flesh is flesh (only).] Our parents being only the 
fathers of the flesh, Heb. xii. 9. ence it is that it cannot be 
sufficient to entitle infants to the blessings of the kingdom 
without baptism, that they are born of Christian parents 
according to the flesh, but that some operation of the Spirit 
is necessary to fit them for the kingdom of heaven. Hence 
some infer, that man in his natural estate can do nothing but 


: CHAPTER III. 


and (but) that which is born of the Spirit is spirit 
(ὦ. e. ts acted by, and lives after, the motions and direc- 
tions of the Holy Spirit, Rom. viii. 5. , 

7 And ) Marvel not that I (have) said unto thee, Ye 
must be born again (because this birth is not discernible 
by the eye of sense, nor do men rely know the manner how 
this new birth is wrought within them by the Spirit ; for 
thus it is in other matters: as, for example,) 

8 The δ wind bloweth where it listeth (as the va- 
pours move it), and thou hearest the sound thereof 
(and by that discernest the thing itself), but (yet thou) 
canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth 
(though it certainly came from one place, and goeth cer- 
tainly to another): so is (it with) every one that is 
born of the Spirit. (Zhe effects produced in him by 
the Holy Spirit plainly show a great change in him, and 
he himself perceives it: but the operations of the Spirit, 
producing this change, are not perceptible to others, nor 
ws the renewed person always able to perceive and dis- 
tinguish them from the inward workings of his own 
mind.) 

9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, (7 appre- 
hend not:) how can these things be? 

10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou 5 ἃ 


343 


master (διδάσχαλος a teacher) of Israel (one of those 
who say of their baptized proselytes, they are as new-born 
babes, and of wisdom, that it comes from above), and ( yet) 
knowest not these things ? 

11 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that 
we do know, and testify that we have seen; (that is, I 
deliver to you what I know certainly to be true ;) and ye 
receive not our witness (7. ὁ. you do not believe and own 
that truth which, by my miracles, is confirmed ). 

12 If I have told you (20) earthly things (or that 
which may he represented to you by similitudes taken from 
earthly things, or things done by you here on earth), and 
ye believe (them) not, how shall ye believe, if (when) 
I tell you of heavenly things (7. e. of things which can- 
not be thus represented, viz. of my descent from heaven, 
and abode still there) 2 

13 And (yet no other person can acquaint Med with 
these heavenly things, for) 7 no man hath ascended up to 
heaven (fo learn them there, see note on Rom. x. 6), 
but he that eame down from heaven, even the Son of 
man, which (according to his divine nature) is in heaven 
(while ye see him here on earth). 

14 4 And (yet, as great as this Son of man is, he must 
die for the sins of men; for) as Moses lifted up the 


what is carnal, and therefore sinful, and only can begin to 
do what is truly good when he is born again of the Spirit: 
whereas, x 

First, This exposition renders it impossible for a man to 
do any thing towards his own conversion; and so renders all 
God’s commands and exhortations to the wicked, to turn 
themselves from their iniquity, all his promises of pardon 
to them that do so, and all his threats of death if they ne- 
glect to do so, and all his complaints against them that they 
would not do so, vain and absurd; and, as Cyril of Alexan- 
dria saith, ῥαιψψώδημα κενὸν, “a vain rhapsody,” they being 
then only commands and exhortations to others, to perform 
that which, if it ever be done, he must do himself. 

Secondly, This exposition makes the word « flesh” and 
“fleshly birth” to signify one corrupted by his fleshly appe- 
tite, and so led and governed by the motions of the flesh ; 
whereas Tolet* well observes, that to be “ born of the flesh” 
here only signifies that natural generation by which a man 
is born into the world of the will of the flesh, this being the 
only birth Nicodemus spake of as of a thing incredible; be- 
cause then a man must enter twice into his mother’s womb. 
This therefore is the plain meaning of our Lord, that be- 
sides that natural birth, by which we receive only our flesh 
and body from our parents, there is need of a spiritual birth 
to fit us for the kingdom of God; but he saith nothing of 
any necessity lying upon us, till we are thus born again, to 
do only evil, or of our incapacity to do any thing which may 
contribute to this new birth. 

5 Ver. 8. Τὸ πνεῦμα, The wind bloweth where it listeth.) 
They who would say that the word πνεῦμα signifies here, not 
the wind, but the Holy Spirit, first destroy the comparison 
intimated in the word οὕτως, so; and secondly, they make 
Christ say that Nicodemus heard the voice of the Spirit, 
which is not very probable. 

§ Ver. 10. Art thou ὃ διδάσκαλος, a master (or teacher) in 
Israel ?] These being received maxims among the Jews 
that “ wisdom is given from above” (Targ. in Eccles. vii. 7), 
and that “ when a man is a proselyte he is reputed as an 
infant new born” (Seld. de Jure Nat. lib. ii. cap. 4), our 
Saviour might well admire, that a teacher of Israel should 
have no notion of a new birth by water, or a birth from 
above. 

7 Ver. 13. And no man hath ascended into heaven, but 
he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man, 6 dv 
ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, who ts in heaven.] The Jews say, for the ho- 
nour of their prophet Moses, that he ascended xno Now, 
“into the high heavens,” Targ. in Cant. i. 5.11,12. That 

* Multim ἃ vero sensti loci hujus aberrant, qui carmem 
hdc loco exponunt de peccato, ctim nihil hie de peccato 
agatur: et quamvis nullum esset peccatum, verum esset, 
“quod natum est ex carne, caro est.” 


this was not true of Moses these words of Christ show, and 
the history of Moses, which saith he only ascended to mount 
Sinai; but of Christ, who in the beginning was with the 
Father (i. 1), and “who came down from heaven” to do 
and to declare his Father’s will (iii. 35), this is most true: 
but then he is said, as to his divine nature, to descend from 
heaven, not by a local descent, or by quitting heaven, but 
only by a manifestation of himself on earth ; in which sense 
God himself is said, in the Old Testament, to descend to see 
the tower of Babel, Gen. xi. 5, and to confound the lips of 
them that built it, ver. 7, and to see the iniquity of Sodom, 
Gen. xviii. 21, and to deliver his people from the hand of 
the Egyptians, Exod. iii. 8, and to give them the law, Exod. 
xix. 18. And thus, saith St. Austin, he is said to descend, 
not when he from heaven observes what is done on earth, 
for that is metaphorically to “look down from heaven ;” 
but when he doth something upon earth beyond the usual 
course of nature, which therefore seemeth to require his more 
than ordinary presence there; and then he is usually said to 
appear, either attended by his holy angels, or in a flame or 
cloud of glory, the symbol of his majestic presence. Note, 

Secondly, That those things are frequently ascribed by 
this evangelist to Christ, which neither do nor can agree, and 
which elsewhere are not ascribed, to any creature, viz. that 
he is he who “in the beginning was with God,” i. 1, 6 ὧν, 
“that is in the bosom of the Father,” ver. 18, ὁ dv παρὰ τοῦ 
Θεοῦ, “ that is with God,” vi. 46, and here, “ who is in hea- 
ven.” Now this never was nor could be said of a mere 
creature: for, as Woltzogenius confesseth, no creature can 
be in heaven and on the earth at the same time. The gloss 
of Grotius here is this, Singulari Dei dono nobis concessus 
est, “ He is given to us by the special gift of God ;” but this 
answers not the fullness of the phrase, “ He came from hea- 
ven;” for all the prophets were sent to the Jews, and the 
apostles both to Jews and gentiles, by the especial gift and 
kindness of God, and yet none of them are said to “ come 
down from heaven ;” Christ is styled “the Lord from hea- 
ven,” 1 Cor. xv. 47, as coming down from thence to judge 
the world, 1 Thess. iv. 16; the new Jerusalem is said to 
come down from heaven, Rev. iii. 12, xxi. 2. 10, because it 
was represented so in a vision to St. John: the baptism of 
John is said to be from heaven ; but neither he nor his doc- 
trine to descend from heaven (see the note on John vi. 32). 
In vain do some Socinians produce, as parallel expressions, 
those words of St. Paul, “He hath seated us in the hea- 
venly places in Christ Jesus,” Eph. ii. 6, and “ Our city is 
in heaven,” Phil. iii. 20, for the last only signifies that hea- 
ven is the place where we are to dwell for ever; the first, 
that Christ hath exalted the human nature thither. Their 
strength consists in their second answer, viz. that ὁ dy is to 
be rendered “ who was with God,” and “ who was in hea- 
ven ;” and this, say they, is here apparent, because Christ 


844 


serpent in the wilderness, (that they, who were bitten by 
poisonous serpents, and so would otherwise have died, look- 
ing up to it, might live, Numb. xxi. 8, 9,) even so must 
the Son of man be ὃ lifted up (upon the eM 

15 That whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish (by that death, which the temptation of the old 
serpent brought upon all the sons of Adam), but (being 
delivered from it by the death of this Son of man, who 
is the antitype of that brazen serpent, might) have eternal 
life. 

16 ¥ (Nor ὦ ἐξ to be wondered, that God should thus 


JOHN. 


¢ 


suffer his only begotten Son to die, this being only the 
effect of his great love to mankind ;) For® God so loved 
the world, that he gave (up) his only begotten Son 
(to death for us all, Rom. viii. 32), that whosoever be- 
lieveth in him should not perish (by lying still wnder 
the power of death), but (by rising from zt, John v. 28, 
29, should) have everlasting life. 

17 For (surely) God (acting thus in pursuance of his 
great love to the world) sent not his Son into the world 
to condemn the world; but that the world through 
him might be saved (by faith in him. 


speaks of himself as “the Son of man,” both here and vi. 
62. To which it might be answered, that Christ in these 
places saith, «The Son of man is in heaven,” as St. Peter 
saith, “The Prince of life was crucified,” Acts iii. 15; St. 
Paul, that “the Lord of glory suffered,” 1 Cor. ii. 8, and 
that “God” purchased a church “with his own blood,” 
Acts xx. 28, viz. the Son of man is in heaven, not as the 
Son of man, but as the Son of God. But that which fun- 
damentally destroys this answer, is this consideration, that it 
is not true that Christ, as to his human nature, “in the be- 
ginning was with God, or was in heaven :” yes, say they, 
after his baptism he was taken up into heaven, there to be 
made acquainted with the will of God. But, 

First, This sophism is sufficiently confuted by the pro- 
found silence of all the evangelists concerning it; for they 
tell us very particularly of very many things concerning 
Christ which are comparatively of little moment, of his cir- 
cumcision, of the flight with him into Egypt, of his stay in 
the temple, of his being carried by the tempter into a very 
high mountain, and his being placed by him on a pinnacle 
of the temple; can we then reasonably think the wisdom of 
the Holy Spirit would neglect to record that ascent of Christ 
into heaven on which his divine wisdom, and the truth of 
his whole prophetic office did so much depend? It is true 
the argument is negative; but then in matters of great mo- 
ment to the establishment of our faith in what this our great 
Prophet taught, and to advance him above all other pro- 
phets, as this ascent must be, even Schlictingius allows such 
arguments ; it being not reasonable, saith he, to suppose the 
wisdom of the Holy Ghost, in matters of this nature and 
importance, should be wholly silent. 

Secondly, To what end should our Saviour be thus 
snatched up into heaven, or what necessity was there of it? 
Could not the Father declare his will to him, as to other 
prophets, while he was on earth? Surely an almighty and 
all-present God could as well do this out of heaven as in it; 
or was it because he would not do this to him upon earth ? 
This cannot truly be affirmed, seeing Christ was anointed, 
and filled with that Spirit by which he performed his pro- 
phetic office, not in heaven, but on earth: there was it that 
“the Spirit descended on him as a dove,” Matt. iii. 16, and 
by virtue of this Spirit he received at Jordan, “he taught 
in the synagogues, and was glorified of all,’ Luke iv. 14, 
15; by this Spirit he was “sanctified” for his office, and 
“sent into the world,’ John x. 36; by this unction the Fa- 
ther sent him to “preach remission of sins, and the accept- 
able year of the Lord,” Luke iv. 18, 19; on this account he 
spake the words of God, “ because the Father had given 
him the Spirit not by measure,” here, ver. 34: whence it 


appears that Christ was fitted for this prophetic office by that | 


Spirit he received on earth. Well, then, either our Lord 
was taken up into heaven to be thus instructed, before this 
unction he received on earth, or afterward ; if before, this 
unction of the Spirit must be needless, unless God did his 
work imperfectly in heaven, and gave him there no full and 
perfect knowledge of his will; if after this unction, this as- 
cent was needless, he being by it filled with the Spirit of 
wisdom, counsel, and power, above measure. What there- 
fore could be wanting to him, who, from this Spirit, had re- 
ceived all the treasures of wisdom and power to perform the 
greatest miracles for the discharge of his prophetic function? 
(see Placeus, Disp. prima et secunda, and note on John 
vi. 61.) 

8 Ver. 14. Οὕτως ὑψωθῆναι δεῖ υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, &c. So 
must the Son of man be lifted up, that all that believe in him 
may have eternal life.| He saith not here, as the Socinians, 


that the death of Christ was necessary for the confirmation 
of the gospel; but with the fathers, that it was necessary to 
procure to us life eternal, by removing that death which sin 
had brought upon us. Note also, that as iWaicSa here and 
Vill. 28, xii. 32, is to be lifted up upon the cross, so Rabbi 
Solomon interprets the pole on which the serpent was lifted 
up, “a fork ;” and Justin Martyr,* Tertullian > and Barnabas+ 
say this was a figure of the cross, and that it was a symbol 
of salvation ; he that turned to it being preserved from death, 
not by what he saw, but by the Saviour of all men. 

§ Ver. 16. God so loved the world, &c.| Two things in 
scripture are noted as indications of God’s especial love to 
man: (1.) that he sent his Son into the world to die for him: 
(2.) that he who was thus sent, was vids ἴδιος καὶ μονογενὴς, 
“his proper and only Son,” Rom. viii. 32, 1 John iv. 9, 10. 

Obj. Woltzogenius here saith, (1.) that this Son of God 
could not be God, since then he must be his own Son. 

Ans. It only follows hence, that he could not be God the 
Father; but yet he might be God of God by the union of 
the λόγος, or the divine nature, to his human nature. 

Obj. But then, saith he, God must have suffered. 

Ans. It follows only hence, that he who suffered was 
God, but not that he suffered as God; and this those an- 
cient fathers well understood, who read Heb. ii. 9, that Christ 
suffered, χωρὶς Θεοῦ, “his divinity suffering nothing.” 

Obj. Hence he objects against Christ's satisfaction thus ; 
seeing God showed the highest love to men in sending thus 
his Son to die for them, he could not then be angry with 
them, and therefore could require no atonement to be made 
to him for them ; Christ therefore could not die to reconcile 
this kind and loving God to the world. 

Ans. To this I answer, that we are taught by plain ex- 
amples of holy scripture, that love or benevolence in God 
towards the sinner is well consistent with his displeasure 
against him for his sin, as in the case of Job’s three friends; 
“For the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My anger is 
kindled against thee and thy two friends, because ye have 
not spoken of me the things which are right” (Job xlii. 7) ; 
in which words there 15. ἃ declaration of God’s anger against 
them for their sin, exactly parallel to that of God supposed 
by us in this case; and yet we find a like expression of his 
love in the ensuing words, “Therefore take to you now 
seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, 
and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering, for him will I 
accept, lest I deal with you after your folly.” God’s love is 
visible in directing them to that sacrifice which would obtain 
his favour, but it was only after the oblation offered, and 
the prayer of Job, that ἔλυσε τὴν ἁμαρτίαν αὐτοῖς, “he forgave 
their sins.’ Again, did not God show his kindness to his 
people Israel, in admitting a beast to suffer in their stead, 
and appointing his blood to make atonement for them ; and 
yet did not he himself require this atonement to be made, 
that so their sins might be forgiven? Did not he appoint 
this blood to be offered to him as a propitiation for their 
sins? And did not then the victim die? And was not his 
blood offered to reconcile this loving God to sinners? And 
is it not hence evident, that God's love to sinners is wel 
consistent with his displeasure against them for sins ? 

0 Ver. 17. For God sent not his Son to condemn the 


* Tiros σταυροῦ. Apol. ii. p. 91. 

{ Figuram designasse Dominice Crucis. Tertul. De Idol. 
cap. 5. 

+ Barn. i. 12. Σύμβολον ἔχοντες σωτηρίας--------ὃ yap ἐπιστρα- 
φεὶς οὐ διὰ τὸν ϑεωρούμενον ἐσώζετο, ἀλλὰ διὰ πάντων σωτῆρα. 


Just. Dial. p. 321, 322 


CHAPTER III. 


18 4 And therefore) He that (having heard his doc- 
trine, and seen the miracles by which it is confirmed) be- 
lieveth on him is not condemned (there being no con- 
demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, Rom. viii. 
1): but he that (after the knowledge of this salutary doc- 
trine) believeth not is condemned already, because he 
(after such conviction) hath not believed in the name of 
the only begotten Son of God. 

19 And this is (the ground of ) the condemnation (of 
such α man,) that (he continues in his infidelity, not for 
want of light, but from a love to his sins; for) light is 
come into the world, and (these) men (have) loved (to 
continue in) darkness " rather than (to embrace the) 
light, because their deeds were evil. 

20 (2nd this is the proper effect of a prevailing love to 
sin,) For every one that doeth evil (naturally) hateth 
the light, neither cometh to the light, lest (the evil of) 
his deeds should be (discovered and) reproved (by it). 

21 But he that doth (sincerely love) the truth cometh 
to the light, that (hy il) his deeds may be made mani- 
fest (both to himself and others), that they are wrought 
in (the fear, and according to the will of ) God. 

22 4 After these things came Jesus and his disci- 
ples into the land of Judea ; and there he tarried with 
them, and (by them) 13 baptized (iv. 2, to prepare the 
Jews by the baptism of repentance, as John did, for the 
reception of the Messiah ; see the note on this verse). 

23 1 And John also was baptizing in non, near 
to Salim (the place being convenient for that purpose), 
Ὁ because there was much water there: and they (the 
je i (to him), and were baptized (of him there). 

24 For John was not yet cast into prison (by Herod). 

25 4 Then there arose a question (or dispute) between 
some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying. 
(it being without example to baptize a Jew; and they 
being styled δοῦλοι Θεοῦ xafapot, the pure servants of 


345 


God, Neh. ii. 20, and thought to be born in holiness, the 
pharisees might ask what need there was of any baptism 
to purify them ; and if John’s baptism was sufficient for 
this end, why did Christ set up another after it, which 
seemed to argue him greater than John, and that his bap- 
tism must confer some higher degree of purity ?) 

26 And (upon this) they came unto John (for satis- 
faction in this matter), and (by way of complaint) said 
unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan 
(to be baptized of thee), to whom thou barest witness, 
behold, the same baptizeth (7. e. he takes upon him thy 
office, as if thy baptism were imperfect), and all men 
come to him (i. e. the concourse to him is so great, that 
we fear thy baptism will be neglected). 

27 John answered and said, A man ean receive 
nothing (of power or authority), except it be given him 
from heaven. 

28 Ye yourselves (can) bear me witness, that I said, 
Iam not the Christ, but (only) that Iam sent before 
him (to prepare his way : seeing then God hath only made 
me his forerunner, I must not pretend to an equality with 
him, whose forerunner and servant I am). 

29 He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but 
the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and 
heareth him (Gr. standing and hearing him caress and 
express his affection to his spouse), rejoiceth greatly be- 
cause of the bridegroom’s voice (Christ ts this bride- 
groom, and the church is his bride, I only am the bride- 
groom’s friend): this my joy therefore is fulfilled (by 
hearing that he is thus graciously speaking to his church, 
and calling her, by this and other methods, to fit herself for 
his embraces). 

30 He must increase (in his glory, and the extent of 
his government, Luke i. 32, 33), but I (Ais forerunner, 
whose office ceaseth, when he comes and manifests himself to 
the world) must decrease. 


world, but that ὁ κύσμος the world by him might be saved.) 
The Jews imagined that God first made the world only for 
their sakes (2 Esd. vi. 55, 56. 59), and also, that the re- 
demption of it was only designed for their good, and that 
their Messiah would come to subdue and condemn the na- 
tions whom he hated. Christ, on the contrary, here declares, 
that God was so far from hating or condemning them, that 
he sent the Messiah into the world to save them, and con- 
quently to die for them. 

Vain here is their imagination, who by the world under- 
stand only the elect out of the world: for then Christ here 
must only say, that he was sent, that the elect who believed 
in him should not perish; as if any who were absolutely 
elected to salvation by faith in him could either perish or 
not believe. No, it is apparent from these words, that of 
this world, thus beloved by God, some would not believe, 
and so would perish. And this is more apparent from the 
words immediately following, in which the world, which he 
was sent to save, is divided into believers and unbelievers, 
and into those that will be saved and condemned: for thus 
they run, “He (of this world) who believeth in hir ‘s not 
condemned ; but he that believeth not is now condemne. ἡ 
which must be false, if you restrain this “world” to such 
electyas cannot perish, and cannot but believe to life eternal. 
And, lastly, he that believeth not, saith Christ, shall there- 
fore be condemned, “because he believeth not in the name 
of the only Son,of God.” Now, is it not absurd to say, 
men shall eternally be condemned for not believing in him, 
who died not for them, and was not sent for their salvation ? 
Since then Christ frequently declares, that all to whom the 
gospel is propounded, shall be condemned, if, and because, 
they believe not in him oe ili. 18), it is certain that he 
died fur the salvation of them also. 

1 Ver. 19. And men have loved darkness more than 
light, μᾶλλον τὸ σκότος ἢ τὸ φῶς.) Here the critics note, that 
μᾶλλον ἣ is not comparative, as if the workers of iniquity did, 
in some measure, love the light; for ver. 20, they are said 
to hate it; but, as in other places, is a negative: so xii. 43, 
«They loved the praise of men, μᾶλλον ἥπερ, more than the 


praise of God,” i. 6. and not the praise of God: so 1 Tim. i. 
4, 2 Tim. iii. 4, Heb. xi. 25, in which places μᾶλλον ἢ may 
be rendered, as here, “and not light;”’ and this they did not 
only in those times of ignorance at which God winked (Acts 
xvii. 30), but after the clear light had shined upon them; 
by which it appeared, that the deeds of darkness were so 
pleasing to them, that, when they were discovered to them 
so to be, they still bore that affection to them which render- 
ed the light displeasing to them, because it did reprove them: 
whereas they who had hearts disposed to obey that light 
which would direct them in the way to happiness, came to 
it, that they might be the more assured they were doing the 
works of God, i. e. those works which were performed ac- 
cording to his will, which tended to his glory, and chiefly 
did respect him as the end and object of them. 

2 Ver. 22. Kai ἐβάπτιζεν, And he baptized.) By his dis- 
ciples (iv. 2), not, as most interpreters conceive, into his 
own name, or so as to exact from them a belief, that he was 
the Christ: for this he forbids his disciples to divulge till he 
was risen from the dead, Matt. xvi. 20, xvii. 9. He there- 
fore only did baptize as John had done, into the faith of the 
Messiah, which was to come, and with that baptism of re- 
pentance which prepared the Jews for the reception of his 
kingdom. : 

13 Ver. 23. "Ore ὕδατα πολλὰ ἣν ἐκεῖ, Because there was 
much water there.| In which their whole bodies might be 
dipped ; for in this manner only was the Jewish baptism 
performed, by a descent into the water (Acts viii. 38), and 
an ascent out of it (ver. 39), and a burial in it (Rom. vi. 3, 
4, Col. ii. 12). Some here inquire, why Christ should thus 
baptize when John had not desisted so to do? But since 
both, by their baptism, intended the same thing, I see no 
reason why our Saviour might not as well baptize as preach 
repentance (Matt. iv. 17), whilst the Baptist was doing the 
same thing. 

4 Ver. 27. A man can receive nothing of himself.) 
1. 6. One wha by divine authority, is intrusted with any 
commission, cannot exceed that commission; since therefore 
God hath only made me the forerunner of the Messiah, as 


946 


31 (And it is reasonable to own him superior to me, and 
all the other prophets, which ever came into the world, 
even than Moses himself; for) He that cometh from 
above (not only by his mission from God, as I and they 
did ; but by his original, ver. 13) is above all (that are 
descended of earthly parents only: and) he that is (thus) 
5 of the earth is earthly (as fo his rise), and speaketh 
of the earth (z. 6. things which, comparatively, are 
earthly, Moses of carnal ordinances, I of water-baptism, 
the prophets of obedience to the law of Moses: but) he 
that cometh from heaven (to reveal the will of God to 
man) is above all (not only in the excellency of his per- 
son, but in the spiritual and heavenly nature of his doc- 
trines and promises). 

32 16. And what he hath seen (by the irradiation) 
and heard (by the immediate dictate of the Holy Ghost 
dwelling in him), that he testifieth (lo the world) ; and 
(yet) no man receiveth his testimony (7. 6. they who 
receive it, compared with them that do not, are as 
none). 

33 He that hath received his testimony hath set to 
his seal (. 6. declared his assurance) that God is true 
(both in his promises concerning the Messiah, and in his 
testimonies that he hath given to him, that this is his 


JOHN. 


beloved Son ; it being as impossible, that he who 7s sent 
with such heavenly doctrine, confirmed by so great testimo- 
nies from heaven, should be a deceiver, as that God him- 
self should lie). 

34 For he whom God hath sent (so as no other pro- 
phet was sent) ™ speaketh the words of God (so as no 
other prophet did): for God giveth not the Spirit by 
measure (or, in a limited manner) unto him (as he did 
to them, so as lo come to them only at such times, and 
lo ¢mpart such a@ particular revelation ; for in him were 
all the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge, 
Col. ii. 3. 

35 And)The Father loveth the Son, and hath given 
all things into his hand; (the entire knowledge and 
revelation of his will, and the power to give eternal life 
lo those that believe and obey it, John xvii. 2, and to con- 
demn everlastingly those that obey not his gospel, 2 Thess. 
rong sk 

90. And therefore) He that believeth on the Son (may 
be sure he) hath (a present right to, and shall hereafter 
receive) everlasting life: and (but) he that believeth 
not the Son (but rejecteth his authority and doctrine) 
shall not see (7. 6. enjoy this) life; but the wrath of 
God abideth on him ( for ever). 


I have told you, ver. 28, I cannot pretend to be equal with 
him. 

15 Ver. 31. ‘O ὧν ἐκ τῆς γῆς, &c. He that is of the earth is 
earthly.| See the paraphrase ; and note, that 6 ἐπὶ πάντων is 
an epithet proper to God alone, and yet ascribed to Christ, 
Rom. ix. 5. 

16 Ver. 32. Kai ὃ ἑώρακε καὶ ἤκουσε, τοῦτο μαρτυρεῖ, And 
what he hath seen and heard, that he testifies.] i. 6. What 
he fully knows; for by seeing and hearing we come to the 
most perfect knowledge of things; or what he hath in- 
wardly heard and seen by the dictate and irradiation of the 
Holy Spirit. 

τ Ver. 34. He whom God hath sent speaketh the words 
of God: for God giveth not to him the Spirit by measure. 


i. e. He that hath the Spirit in a limited manner, at such 
times only, and with respect to such particular revelations 
only, may sometimes speak from his own self; but he who 
hath the Spirit always residing in him, without stint or 
measure, must always speak the word of God. To give a 
thing “in measure,” in the scripture phrase, is to do it 
sparingly ; as when it is said, “They shall drink water by 
measure,” Ezek. iv. 16, and to correct “in measure,” Jer. 
xlvi. 28, xxx. 11, is to do it sparingly, or in such ἃ propor- 
tion: in which sense we read of the “measure of faith,” 
Rom. xii. 3, and the “measure and gift of Christ,” Eph. iv. 
7; so that to give the Spirit “ without measure,” is to give 
him in the greatest affluence, and without restraint. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Wsen therefore the Lord knew how the Phari- 
sees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more 
disciples than John (the Baptist), 

2 (Though (in truth) Jesus himself baptized not, 
but (only) his disciples,) (see the note on ili. 22,) 

3 He (in prospect of the danger this might bring upon 
him from the envy and malice of these pharisees) left 
Judea (where the power of the Sanhedrin, of which 
many of them were members, prevailed), and departed 
again into Galilee (where they had less interest with 


Herod, and could less observe or be offended with his | 


actions). 


4 And he must needs go ! through Samaria (that 
lying betwixt Judea and Galilee). 

5 Then cometh he (Gr. he cometh therefore) to a city 
of Samaria, which is ealled (by them Sichem, but by the 
Jews, see the note,) 3. Sychar, near to the parcel of 
ground that Jacob 5 gave to his son Joseph (at his last 
benediction, Gen. xlviii. 22). 

6 Now Jacob’s well (7. ε. a well bearing his name) 
was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with is 
journey, sat 4 thus (weary and thirsty as he was) on 
(or by) the well: and it was about the sixth hour 
(i. e. it was then about noon. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1Ver. 4. He must go through Samaria.) For, saith Jo- 
sephus,* “the Galileans going up to Jerusalem at the feast, 
went through the country of Samaria.” 

2 Ver. 5. He cometh to a city of Samaria called Sixap, 
Sichar.] It is certain from the son of Sirach (I. 26), and 
from Josephus (Antiq. lib. xi. cap. 8), that the name of the 
city was Sichem. This therefore is either a corrupt pronun- 
ciation, as Βελιὰρ for Βελιὰλ, or a name of reproach put upon 
it by the Jews, aw, as if it were a city of drunkards, as 
Achan, Josh. vii. 25, is called πον, 1 Chron. ii. 7, as being 
a “troubler of Israel.” 

3 The parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Jo- 
seph.] i.e. That piece of ground which he bought of Hamor, 


“*ESo¢ ἣν τοῖς Ταλιλαίοις ἐν ταῖς ἑορταῖς εἰς τὴν ἱερὰν πόλιν 
παραγενομένοις δῥεῦειν διὰ τῆς Σαμαρέων χώρας, Antiq. lib, xx. 
cap. 5. 


the father of Sichem, Gen. xxxiii. 19, for that was near Si- 
chem, saith the text here: and hence this place became not 
only the inheritance of Joseph, but his own burial-place; he 
being buried, not in the cave of Machpelah, as his father Ja- 
cob was (Gen. 1. 13), nor saying, “1 will lie with my fa- 
thers,” as Jacob did (Gen. xlvii. 30), but being buried in 
this place: for the bones of Joseph, “ which the children of 
Israel brought out of Egypt, buried they in (i. e. near to) 
Sichem, in a parcel of ground, which Jacob bought of Ha- 
mor, the father of Sichem, for a hundred pieces of silver; 
and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph,” 
Josh. xxiv. 32 (see Bochart. Hierozoic. par. i. lib. ii. cap. 
43, p. 435, 436). 

4 Ver. 6. ᾿Εκαθίζετο οὕτως, He sat thus on the well.) i. e. 
Either weary or thirsty as he was; so Acts vii. 8, οὕτως, “So 
Abraham begat Isaac,” i. 6, being circumcised; 1 Kings ii. 
7, “Show kindness to the sons of Barzillai, for οὕτως, so they 
came to me,” i. e. with kindness; or, as Chrysostom and 
Theophylact have it, he sat ἁπλῶς ὡς ἔτυχε, “as he found a 


CHAPTER IV. 


7 Then)Therecometh a woman of Samaria (to that 
well) to draw water: (and) Jesus saith unto her, Give 
me (some water) to drink. ' 

8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city 
to buy meat) (and so could not draw it for him). 

9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How 
is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which 
ama woman of Samaria? (this she had cause to won- 
der at,) " for the Jews have no dealings with the Sa- 
maritans (they would buy of them any thing; but they 
would receive no gratuity or kindness from them: see the 
note). 

on Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knew- 
est ® the gift of God (7. e. what an excellent gift the Holy 
Spirit is), and who it is that saith to thee, Give me 
to drink (7. ¢. how able he is to impart this gift to bie 
thou wouldest have asked of him, and (then) he would 
have given thee (his) living water (which shall spring 
up so continually in him that hath it, that he shall thirst 
no more, ver. 15; see John vii. 38, 39). 

11 The woman (thinking Christ only meant spring- 
water, that being, in the Hebrew idiom, living water, 
Gen. xxvi. 19) saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing 
to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then 
hast thou that living water (of which thow speakest) ? 

12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which 
gave us the well (for we claim our descent from him), 
and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his 
cattle ? 

13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever 
drinketh of this water shall (soon after) thirst again: 

14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall 
give him? shall never (have cause to) thirst (more) ; 


347 


| but the water that I shall give him (7. e. the Holy Spi- 


rit abiding in him) shall be in him (as) a well of water 
springing up into everlasting life. . 

15 The woman (still understanding him as grossly as 
she did before) saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, 
that I thirst not (any more), neither (may have farther 
need Ὁ come hither to draw (water). 

16 Jesus (being willing to prepare her to receive his 
doctrine, by convincing her that he was a prophet) saith 
unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come (ye both) 
hither. 

17 The woman answered and saith, I have no hus- 
band. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well (¢. e. truly) 
said, I have no husband : 

18 For thou hast had five husbands (from whom 
thou hast been divorced for thy adulleries) ; and he whom 
thou now hast (7. e. cohabitest with) ὃ is not thy hus- 
band (thow living with him in fornication): in that 
(therefore) saidst thou truly. 

19 The woman (then) saith unto him, Sir, I perceive 
that thou See so exactly knowest the secrets of my life, 
and that which I thought was known to God alone) art a 
prophet. 

20 9 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain (as 
we do); and ye (Jews) say, that in Jerusalem is the 
place where men ought to worship (God; J ask there- 
fore thy opinion in this case). 

21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the 
hour (shortly) cometh, when ye shall neither in this 
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 

22 (But to your question I answer, Thal) "Ye wor- 
ship ye know not what (7. e. that God which you 
do not truly and savingly know ; because ye know him 


place:” it follows, it was’ ὥρα ἕκτη, that is, saith one, six 


o'clock in the evening; St. John counting by the Roman 
hours in the gospel. But this mistake is plainly evident 
from i. 39, “They abode with him that day; for it was 
about the fenth hour ;” viz. four in the afternoon, not ten 
of the night, according to the Romish computation. 

5 Ver. 9. Οὐ γὰρ συγχρῶνται Ἰουδαῖοι Σαμαρείταις, For the 
Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.] So in the Je- 
rusalem Talmud the Samaritans say, “ Your fathers dealt 
with our fathers, why therefore do not you so likewise with 
us?” (Buxt. Lex. Tal. p. 1370.) By the traditions of the 
pharisees they might buy of them; and therefore Christ's 
disciples do not seruple at this (ver. 8); but they were not 
to borrow any thing of them, or receive any kindness.from 
them, or drink of their water, or eat of their morsels; for 
they bound them under an anathema, not to eat of the fruit 
or morsel of a Cuthean, and held the eating of their flesh to 
be as bad as eating swine’s flesh (R. Eliezer, cap. 38). But 
Christ, despising such traditions as had no foundation, either 
in the law of God or equity, and tended to the impairing 
the laws of common friendship or humanity, asks drink of 
this Samaritan woman, and eateth with them. 

6 Ver. 10. if thou hadst known τὴν δωρεὰν τοῦ Θεοῦ, the 
gift of God.] By “the gift of God” and “living water,” 
Christ seems here to understand the Holy Spirit, represented 
in the Old Testament by “clean water,” Ezek. xxxvi. 25. 
27, and in the New, by “living water,” John vii. 38, Rev. 
xxi. 6, xxii. 1. For (1.) spring-water is in the Hebrew 
idiom called living water, in opposition to that which stag- 
nates: for life consisting in continual motion, by reason of 
the continual ebullition of this water, it is said to live (see 
Lev. xiv. 5. 50, xv. 13, Numb. xix. 17); hence it is here 
said to be water springing up (ver. 14). And (2.) this 
Holy Spirit, to be communicated to believers, is styled dwpex 
τοῦ Θεοῦ, “the gift of God,” Acts viii. 20, ἡ δωρεὰ ἐπουράνιος, 
“the heavenly gift,’ Heb. vi. 4, ἡ δωρεὰ, “the gift,” Acts xi. 
17 (see the note on Rom. v. 17). 

7 Ver. 14. He that drinketh of the water that I shall give 
him shall never thirst.] i.e. He never shall have need to 
thirst for the enjoyment of this Spirit, he being to abide with 
them for ever who have once received him (John xiv. 16), 
if they do not expel, quench, or grieve him; or, he shall 
thirst no more, because this Spirit will be in him the earnest 


of, and bring him to, that happy life, where there is no more 
thirst (Rev. vii. 16). 

8 Ver. 18. Is not thy husband.] See one reason in the 
paraphrase ; others say, this is spoken, because she had di- 
vorced herself from her husbands, contrary to the law, which 
permitted not women to begin the divorce, and so was really 
the wife of some former husband then living (so Grotius). 

9 Ver. 20. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain.) 
We learn from Josephus* and from this woman, that the 
Samaritans, when they saw it for their advantage, pretended 
to be συγγενεῖς τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων, “allied to the Jews, to have Ja- 
cob for their father (ver. 12), καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Ἰωσήφου γενεαλογοῦντες 
αὐτοὺς ἐκγόνων "Eppatyov καὶ Mavaccsvod, and deduced their 
genealogy from Ephraim and Manasses, the sons of Joseph ;” 
they also contended, that mount Gerizim was the most an- 
cient place of worship, because Abraham built there an altar 
to God (Gen, xii. 6, 7), and so did Jacob (Gen. xxxiii. 18), 
and therefore that was the place where sacrifices were to be 
offered before the temple at Jerusalem was built. But the 
Jews answered that the temple was built on the mountain 
of Moriah; in the place where Abraham offered up Isaac 
(Joseph. Antiq. lib. vii. cap. 10, p. 254, F), and that that 
was the place of worship throughout all generations (T'ar- 
gum in Chron. iii. 1; see Maimonides de Audificio Templi, 
Tract. 1, cap. 2, §. 2). 

10 Ver. 21. Ὅτι οὔτε ἐν τῷ ὄρει τούτῳ, οὔτε ἐν “Ἱεροσολύμοις, 
Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem.) Josephus 
saith the contention betwixt the Jews and Samaritans was 
about the place to which they ought to bring those sacrifices 
and oblations by which God was then chiefly worshipped, the 
Jews declaring that it was their temple,t καὶ τὰς ϑυσίας ἐκεῖ 
πέμπειν ἀξιούντων, “and requiring that the sacrifices should 
be brought thither;” the Samaritans, that they should be 
brought to mount Gerizim. This controversy, saith Christ, 
will shortly be decided by removing the occasion of it, viz. 
this way of worshipping God by sacrifices; and by giving 
liberty to worship God with spiritual sacrifices in every 
place, as the prophet Malachi foretold, i. 11. 

1 Ver. 22. Ὑμεῖς προσκυνεῖτε 5 οὐκ οἴδατε, Ye worship ye 
know not what, δες. This, many think, is spoken with tela 
* Antiq. Jud. lib. xi. cap. 8, p. 386, B. 

+ Antig. lib. xii. cap. 1. 


348 


not according as he is revealed in his word): we know 
what (7. 6. τὸ ϑεῖον ὃ, the divinity which) we worship 
(serving him according to those laws to which he had pro- 
mised salvation): for salvation is of the Jews (and the 
terms of it are to be derived from them to others). 

23 But the hour cometh, and now is (instant), when 
the true worshippers shall worship the Father (not 
with carnal sacrifices as both now do, but) in 15 spirit 
(ual sacrifices: acceptable to God through Jesus Christ, 
1 Pet. ii. 5) and (not in the types and shadows of the 


JOHN. | 


law, as the Jews now do, nor in that erroneous manner as 
ye do, but) in (the) truth (of the gospel, John i. 17): 
for the Father seeketh such to worship him (Gr. suck 
worshippers of him: for) 

24 God zs a Spirit: and they that worship him 
(aright) must worship fim in spirit and in truth (ὦ. e. 
agreeably to his spiritual nature, by giving up their hearts 
and spirit to him; and according to his will, by serving 
him according to the precepts of the gospel). 

25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Mes- 


tion to some false objects of the worship, or to some idola- 
trous way of worship, which obtained among them. The 
Jews gave it out, that they worshipped God* “in the image 
of a dove;” but this seems plainly fabulous, and invented 
by the Jewish rabbins out of hatred to them: for, (1.) 
among the idols which they worshipped, when they came 
from Assyria to Samaria, there is not the least hint of any 
image of a dove worshipped by them. (2.) Josephus,t 
though he, in several places, inveighs against them sharply 
upon other accounts, doth never charge them with this crime, 
which shows it to be a later invention of their rabbins: and, 
(3.) it is a thing wholly inconsistent with the laws of Moses, 
which they then owned; for, as all images are forbidden by 
it, so it did require them to sacrifice the dove to God, and it 
was always judged an absurd thing to worship that which 
they did sacrifice (see Bochart. Hieroz. par. ii. lib. i. p. 6. 8). 

Others say they worshipped God only as the topical god of 
that country; but though this may be true of them when 
they first came into Samaria, and retained their heathen 
sentiments; yet it could not be true of them after that, re- 
jecting all their heathenish superstitions, they had embraced 
that law in which Jehovah is continually styled « the Maker 
of heaven and earth,” and “the God of all the earth ;” and 
when, as Epiphanius: saith, “They endeavoured to re- 
nounce all idolatry, and to own but one God.” 

But whereas Epiphanius and many of the Jews pronounce 
them guilty of latent idolatry, for worshipping God in that 
mountain where Jacob hid the idols of the nations, accord- 
ing to those words, Gen. xxxv. 4, “ And they gave to Jacob 
all the strange gods that were in their hands, and Jacob 
buried them under the oak which was by Sichem :” it is not 
probable, that Christ should accuse them of false worship 
on the account of idols under ground, which they knew 
nothing of, and which they never did intend to worship. 
Observe then, 

First, That the inquiry of the woman, and the dispute 
was, saith Josephus, only about the place of worship; and 
therefore it is very probable Christ’s answer chiefly doth re- 
spect the place. 

Secondly, That Christ, by saying to the Samaritan wo- 
man, that shortly they should not “worship the Father in 
that mountain,” does tacitly own, that the Samaritans did 
worship the Father; nor doth he instruct her who was the 
true object of her worship, but only how she was to worship 
the true God. 

Thirdly, When they came first to Samaria, it is observed 
that they knew not mishpaf, the manner of worshipping the 
God of Israel (2 Kings xvii. 16). In this, saith Christ, you 
are still deficient, as not worshipping the God of Israel ac- 
cording to his prescription in the law, but according to your 
own inventions. You therefore may be truly said not to 
know him, whose will you observe not, neither worshipping 
him according to his nature in the spirit, nor according to 


that law, which is the rule of his worship, and according to | 


which alone you can do him acceptable service: if then you 
would obtain salvation by the worship of him, you must do 
it according to the revelations made to the Jews, to whom, 
as the promise of a Saviour was given, so from them is 
salvation to come to the world, according to the promise 
made to their father Abraham, “ In thee shall all the families 
of the earth be blessed.” 


* Talmud, Tr. Cholmi, cap. 1, f. 6. 

} Lib. ii. et xi. fine; lib, x. cap. 1, 7, lib. xiii. cap. 6, lib. 
xvili. 35, lib. xx. 5. 

+ Eis τὸ μετατιθῆναι τῆς εἰδωλολατρίας, καὶ τὸν Eva Θεὸν ἐπιγνῶναι, 


Lib. i. Her. 9, §. 2. 


2 Ver, 23. Shall worship the Father ἐν πνεύματι καὶ 
ἀληϑείᾳ, in spirit and in truth.| That is, saith Origen, οὐ 
σαρκικαῖς ϑυσίαις, “not with carnal sacrifices, but with spi- 
ritual worship,” or with those spiritual sacrifices, which are 
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet. ii. 5); οὐκ 
ἐν τύποις, “ not in types, but according to the truth contained 
in them; for the law was given by Moses, but grace and 
truth came by Jesus Christ,” John i.17. Thus Philo saith, 
he brings to God, γνήσιον ϑεραπείαν, « the true worship, who 
brings, τὴν ἀλήϑειαν, ἁπλὴν, καὶ μόνην ϑυσίαν, truth, the simple, 
and the only sacrifice ;” not he who uses washings and pur- 
gations of body, but defiles his soul; or who builds and 
adorns temples, and offers hecatombs upon the altar, περι- 
πλάνεται γὰρ οὗτος τῆς πρὸς εὐσέβειαν S600, ϑρησκείαν ἀντὶ ὁσιότητος 
ἡγούμενος, “for he errs from the way of piety, as thinking 
outward worship is to be preferred to holiness” (L. quod 
deter. pot. p. 123, C, D). 

Now, that we may thus worship God in spirit, we must 
lay, as the foundation, not only purity of body from all un- 
cleanness, but of the soul also from all spiritual defilements, 
all pride and haughtiness of mind, all malice, envy, bitter- 
ness of spirit, all impure thoughts, and evil concupiscence ; 
for these are styled “works of the flesh,” Gal. v. 19. 21. 
Now, “they that are in the flesh,” saith the apostle, “ can- 
not please God” (Rom. viii. 8), nor can they “mind the 
things of the Lord,” who are not pure in body and in spirit 

1 Cor. vii. 34, 2 Cor. vii. 1), and with this the very hea- 
thens were so well acquainted, that they oflen taught that 
God was pura mente colendus, “to be worshipped with a 
pure mind;” this was the best offering we could give,* and 
the best habitation we could build him. 

Secondly, We must have just and awful thoughts of the 
divine Majesty, oft representing him to our thoughts as a 
God of infinite purity and justice, as well as power and wis- 
dom, one who is always present with, and beholds all our 
secret thoughts and actions, in order to a future recom- 
pense; for by these apprehensions fixed in our hearts we 
shall be naturally induced to glorify him in our spirits (1 
Cor. vi. 20): having laid this foundation, we must endea- 
vour to walk humbly with God, subjecting ourselves wholly 
to his providence, being contented in all conditions in which 
he doth think fit to place us, and submitting our own wills 
to his good pleasure, which is in scripture styled poverty 
of spirit, Matt. v. 4, and the wisdom of the Spirit, Rom. 
viii. 26. 

Thirdly, We must endeavour to resemble him as much 
as may be in holiness and righteousness, in truth, in good- 
ness, and in mercy; for even the heathens say,t τιμήσεις τὸν 


Θεὸν ἅριστα, ἐὰν τῶ Θεῷ διάνοιαν ὁμοιώσεις, “ We then worship 


God best, when we are most like to him.” 7 

Fourthly, We must worship God from spiritual princi- 
ples, a sincere love and filial reverence of him; and to Spl- 
ritual ends, that we may promote his glory, and do what is 
well-pleasing to him; and after a spiritual manner, serving 
him with the whole heart, soul, and mind, and with a fer- 
vency of spirit. νι 

18 Ὕογ, 24, Πνεῦμα ὁ Θεὸς, God is a Spirit.] The article ὃ 
here shows, that God is the subject, and the Spirit is the pre- 


* Cultus autem Deorum est optimus, idemque castissimus, 
atque sanctissimus, plenissimusque pietatis, ut eos semper 
pura, integra, incorrupta et mente et voce veneremur. Cic. 
de Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. p. 53. ‘Qs γὰρ ot αὐτοὶ dvdpes φασὶ 
ψυχῆς καθαρᾶς οἱκειότερον τόπον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς Θεὸς οὐκ Exe. Hier. 
in Carm. Pyth. p. 15, et Seneca apud Lact. de Vero Culti, 
lib. vi. cap. 25. 

+ Hier. in Carm. Pyth. p. 22. 25. 


CHAPTER IV. 


sias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is 
come, he will tell us all things (that we are to believe 
and do). 

26 Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am 
he (viz. the and 

27 4 And upon this came his disciples, and “ mar- 
velled that he talked with the woman: yet no man 
said (to him), What seekest thou (of)? or, Why talk- 
est thou With her? 

28 The woman then left her waterpot (at the well), 
and went her way into the city, and saith to the men 
(of the city), 

29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that 
ever I did: is not this (an evidence that he is) the 
Christ? 

30 Then they went out of the city, and came unto 
him. 

31 In the mean while his disciples prayed him, 
saying, Master, eat. 

32 But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that 
ye know not of (7. e. somewhat more valuable and plea- 
sant to me than meat or drink). 

33 Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath 
any man brought him ought to eat? 

34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat (7. δ. my de- 
light) is to do the will of him that sent me, and to 
finish his work. 

35 1 Say not ye (proverbially, as an encouragement 
to the sower), There are yet four months, and then 
cometh (on the) harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift 
up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white 
already to harvest (ἡ. e. look upon the Samaritans flock- 
ing to me to hear my doctrine, and you will see that the 
time of my spiritual harvest is already come). 

36 And he that reapeth (this spiritual harvest, by 
bringing men to the faith) receiveth wages (for his la- 
bour), and gathereth fruit (not to sustain this mortal life, 
but) unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he 
that reapeth (he that laboureth to prepare men for, and he 
that brings them to, the faith) may rejoice together (in 
the fruit of their labours). 

37 And herein is that (proverbial) ™ saying true, 
One soweth, and another reapeth. 

38 I (have) sent (or, do send) you to reap that 


349 


whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured 
(the prophets, by foretelling the Messiah; the Baptist, 
by calling men to repentance, that they might be pre- 

red to receive him), and ye are entered into their 
ibaa (and only are to perfect what they have be- 
gun). . ; 
39 4 And many of the Samaritans of that city be- 
lieved on him for the saying of the woman, which tes- 
tified, (saying) He told me all that ever 1 did. 

40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him, 
they besought him that he would tarry with them: 
and 15 he abode there two days. 

41 And (in that time) many more believed because 
of his own word ; 

42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not 
because of thy saying: for we have heard him our- 
selves, and know (by the excellency of his doctrine, and 
the holiness and goodness of his precepts) that this is in- 
deed the Christ, the Saviour of the ® world. 

43 4 Now after two days he departed thence, and 
went into Galilee (passing not by Nazareth, the place 
of his education, but another way). 

44 For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath 
(comparatively) no honour in his own country. 

45 Then when he was come into Galilee, the Gali- 
leans received him (gladly), having seen all the things 
that he did at Jerusalem at the feast (of the passover) : 
for they also went unto the feast. 

46 So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where 
he made the water wine. And there was a certain 
nobleman (a great man of Herod’s court), whose son 
was sick at Capernaum. 

47 (And) when he heard that Jesus was come out 
of Judea into Galilee, he went unto him, and be- 
sought him that he would come down, and heal his 
son: for he was at the point of death. 

48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see 
30 signs and wonders (done before bur eyes), ye (Jews 
and Herodians) will not believe (on the account of the 
excellence and goodness of my doctrine, as the Samaritans 
did). 

τ The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down 
ere my child die. 

50 Jesus saith unto him, (There is no need of my 


dicate ; and this opinion obtained among the Platonists, who 
style him Νοῦς, “a mind;” and among the Pythagoreans,* 
who said, ἀσωμάτους πρὸ παντὸς ἡγοῦ θεοὺς ὑπάρχειν, “ Before all 
things you must hold the gods to be incorporeal.” Aristo- 
tle also thought it necessary to assert, that the first mover 
Was ἀμερὲς, or “ without parts;” yea, even the stoics, saith 
Plutarch,} determined, that God was an “ intelligent Spirit, 
without form.” 

4 Ver. 27. They marvelled that he talked with the wo- 
man.| This being one of the six things, say the rabbins, 
which render a disciple impure, viz. that he talks with wo- 
men (Buxtorf. Lexic. p. 1145). 

5 Ver. 32. I have meat to eat, &c.] This phrase is used 
by the ancients concerning things which were done by them 
with pleasure,+ Istic mihi cibus est quod fabulare, « Thou 
sayest that which is meat to me.” So the servant in Plau- 
tus, and another in Aristophanes,§ pada γ᾽ ἐποπτεύειν δοκῶ, 
ὅταν καταράσωμαι λάθρα τῷ δεσπύτη, “ It is meat to me to curse 
my master secretly.” 

16 Ver. 35. Say you not, There be yet four months of the 
harvest, &c.] The sense of these words seemeth to run thus 
—In your common harvest you usually say, after your seed 
is sown, four months hence will come the harvest, or the time 
when you shall reap the fruit of the seed sown; but in this 
spiritual harvest it is otherwise: for the seed of the word 


* Jamb. Protrept. p. 151. 

ἡ Phys. lib. viii. cap. 10. De Placit. Philo. lib. i. cap, 6, 
+ Cistel. act. iv. sc. 2 ver. 49. 

§ Ib. Rams. 


sown in the heart of the woman of Samaria, in your ab- 
sence, hath made the Samaritans already ripe for the har- 
vest. 

7 Ver. 37. 'O λόγος, This saying.] So the scholiast in 
Aristophanes, κατὰ τὸν παλαιὸν λόγον, ἄλλοι μὲν σπείρουσι, ἄλλοι 
δ' αὖ ἁμῆσονται, “ According to the old proverb, One soweth, 
but another shall reap.” 

8 Ver. 40. He abode there two days.] He abode there so 
long, that he might not contemn persons so desirous to learn 
of him; he stayed no longer, that he might not neglect the 
Jews, or scem to prefer the Samaritans before them ; and he 
commanded his apostles not to go to any city of Samaria 
(Matt. xiii. 5), because the gospel was first to be preached 
to the Jews, and then to the Samaritans (Acts i. 8). 

19 Ver. 42. The Saviour of the world.) That is, saith Mr. 
Clere, of the Jews; “for it is not likely the Samaritans 
thought of the salvation of the gentiles;” but why might 
they not think so, who knew, that “in the seed of Abraham 
were the families of the earth to be blessed ?” and seemg the 
Samaritans were not Jews, had they used these words in that 
restrained sense, they had excluded themselves from this sal- 
vation. The word doth sometimes signify the multitude, or 
the public; as when Christ’s brethren say to him, “Show 
thyself to the world,” i. e. publicly, John vii. 4, and the 
pharisees, ‘ The world is gone after him,” John xii. 19, but 
never the Jews in opposition to the gentiles. 

2 Ver. 48. If ye see not signs and wonders ye will not 
believe.| Hence some interpreters conclude this nobleman 
was a Jew; it being no wonder, that a heathen should not 
believe without a miracle. 


350 


going down,) go. thy way; (and thou shalt find) thy 
son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus 
had spoken unto him, and he went his way. 

51 And as he was now going down (to his house), 
his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son 
liveth. 

52 Then enquired he of them the hour when he 


JOHN. 


began to amend. And they said unto nim, Yesterday 
at the seventh hour the fever left him. 

53 So the father knew that zt was at the same hour, 
in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and 
(he) himself believed, and 31 his whole house. 

54 This zs again the second miracle that Jesus did, 
when he was come out of Judea into Galilee. 


21 Ver. 53. Himself believed and his whole house.) i. e. 


All that by age were capable of doing so. 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Arter this there was a (nother) feast of the Jews; 
(viz. that of the passover, requiring the appearance of all 
the adult males at the temple, Deut. xvi. 16,) and (there- 
fore) | Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 

2 Now ? there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market 

or gate) a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue 
ethesda (the house of mercy), having five porches (in 
which the sick lay to be cured ; for) 

3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, 
(viz.) of blind, halt, withered (persons), waiting for 
the moving of the water. 

4 For an * angel (visibly) went down at a certain 
season into the pool, and troubled (7. e. shook) the 
water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the 
water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever dis- 
ease he had. 

5 And a certain man was there, which had (Jain 
under) an infirmity thirty and eight years. 

6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew (by his divine 
spirit) that he had been now a long time in that case, 
he (looking on him as an object worthy of compassion) 
saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? 

7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no 
man, when the Water is troubled, to put me into the 


pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down 
before me, 

8 Jesus saith unto him, ‘ Rise, take up thy bed, and 
walk. 

9 And immediately (at his word) the man was nade 
whole, and (0 show that he was so) took up his bed, and 
walked: and on the same day (that he did this) was 
the sabbath. 

10 1 The Jews therefore said unto him that was 
cured, It is the sabbath day: it is not lawful for thee 
to carry thy bed (on that day of rest). 

11 He answered them, He that (with a word) made 
me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, 
and walk (and surely he that could heal me with a word, 
must be a prophet ; and, therefore, must have authority to 
bid me do this). 

12 Then asked they him, What man is that which 
said unto thee, Take up thy bed, and walk? (that, 
knowing him, we may be the more able to judge of him.) 

13 And he that was healed wist not who it was: 
for Jesus (having done this) had conveyed himself away 
(without being observed by him, as he might easily do), ἃ 
multitude being in that place. 

14 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple (giv- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


» ‘Ver. 1. Jesus went up to Jerusalem.) To hold com- 
munion with the Jewish church at the feast of the passover, 
by observing with them the rites to be observed at the feast ; 
he therefore refused not communion with a church that had 
clogged these festivals with human traditions, though, per- 
haps, he performed only the rites required by the law at 
these festivals (see Dr. Lightfoot). 

2 Ver. 2. Ἔστι δὲ, There is at Jerusalem by the sheep-gate 
a pool, called in the Hebrew Bethesda.| That is, “the house 
of merey:” because of the merey of God shown there in 
curing their diseases. Moreover, if ἔστι dé, “there is,” be 
the true reading, as the consent of almost all the Greek 
copies argues, it seems to intimate, that Jerusalem and this 
pool were then standing when St. John wrote this gospel, and 
therefore that it was written, as Theophylact and others say, 
before the destruction of Jerusalem, and not, as the more 
ancients fathers thought, Jong after. 

3 Ver. 4. An angel went down, κατὰ καιρὸν, at a certain 
season, and then he that first went down was made whole of 
whatsoever disease he had.] All the circumstances of this 
history show, that Dr. Hammond’s conjecture, that «this 
angel was only an officer sent at a certain time to stir this 
pool,” and that “the warm entrails cast into it communi- 
cated this healing virtue to these waters,” though it seems to 
be supported by the authority of St. Chrysostom and 'Theo- 
phylact, is highly improbable. For τὸ how unlikely is it 
that this should be a natural means of curing all sorts of dis- 
eases without exception, “the blind, the halt, and the wither- 
ed,” ver. 3. (2.) That it should only cure the person 
that first stepped in, though he might be followed by others 
the same instant; for how should the natural virtue of this 
pool, impregnated with the warm entrails of so many sacri- 
fices, extend itself only to one man? And (3.) how un- 
likely is it that it should do this only at one time of the 
year, viz. at the feast of passover? For this was done, not 


at several times, but only κατὰ καιρὸν, “at a certain time” 
(ver. 4). And, lastly, the very foundation of this surmise is 
taken away by that observation of Dr. Lightfoot, that there 
was a laver in the temple for the washing of those entrails, 
and so they were not likely to be washed in this pool. 

It is farther to be noted, that these waters of Siloam were 
a type of the kingdom of David and of Christ; of the king- 
dom of David, according to these words, Isa. viii. 6, “ For- 
asmuch at this people refuseth the waters of Siloah, that go 
softly,” that is, saith the Targum, “the kingdom of David 
that rules them quietly ;” and of Christ, according to those 
words of the same prophet, xii. 2, “ With joy shall they draw 
water from the wells of salvation,’ whence Siloah is inter- 
preted “sent” (see note on ix. 7). To this type of the 
Messiah God might therefore give this virtue about that 
time, to prepare the Jews to receive his advent who was 
sent to them; and when a fountain was to be “opened for 
sin and for uncleanness,” Zech. xiii. 1, viz. that of the blood 
of Christ, might communicate this virtue to this pool, as a 
prefiguration of it; whence, as Tertullian* notes, “the vir- 
tue of this pool then ceased, when they, persevering in their 
infidelity, rejected our Saviour.” And this might be one 
reason why the Jewish writers are so silent as to the virtues 
of this pool; because, by its signification, it related to Christ ; 
and, by this miracle, confirmed his doctrine (see here Exa- 
men Millii in locum). 

4 Ver. 8. Arise, take up thy bed and walk.) Christ here 
requires not faith of him, because he had seen, and, perhaps, 
heard of none of his miracles; but he requires him to do 
that on the sabbath which was contrary to the letter of the 
law, to show he was a prophet, who, by their own Tules, had 
power to require what was contrary to the ceremonial rest 


* Piscina Bethsaide, usque ad adventum Christi curando 
valetudines Israel, desiit ἃ beneficiis deinde, cm ex perseve- 
rantié furoris sui nomen Domini per ipsos blasphemaretur. 
Ady. Jud. cap. 18 


CHAPTER V. 


ing thanks to God for his cure), and said unto him, Be- 
hold, thou art made whole (of a distemper laid upon thee 
for the punishment of thy sins): sin no more, lest a 
worse thing come unto thee (for thy insensibility and 
contempt of this mercy). 

15 The man(Anowing now who had done this, and 
perhaps thinking himself obliged in gratitude to own the 
author of his cure, and hoping hereby to convince them 
that he was a prophet) departed (from the temple), 
Sand told the Jews (who inquired after him that had 
done this) that it was Jesus, which had made him 
whole. 

16 And (but though this cure demonstrated that he was 
sent from God, because no man could do these things 
except God were with him, John iii. 2. 9. 30—33, yet) 
therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to 
slay him, because he had done these things on the 
sabbath day (the doing any work on the sabbath-day 
being, by the law, as they thought, a capital crime, Exod. 
xxxi. 14, 15). 

17 4 But Jesus answered them, ὃ My Father work- 
eth hitherto (he, from the beginning of the creation, till 
this present time, continues to give and preserve life, and 
da good on the sabbath-day), and 1 (after his example) 
pg (that which is good and salutary to mankind on that 

Ψ). 


of the sabbath (see note on ix. 18); and to instruct them 
that to do this, not in contempt of the law, or for bodily 
advantage, but as a public testimony of the great goodness 
of God to us, tended rather to the sanctification than to the 
profanation of the sabbath, that day being sanctified to this 
very end, that men might employ it in glorifying and 
praising God for his benefits. 

5 Ver. 15. Told the Jews that Jesus had done this.| Not 
to accuse him to them, but partly out of gratitude, to own 
the author of this cure; and partly to excuse himself, as 
only doing this at the command of so great a prophet. 

δ Ver. 17. My Father worketh hitherto, &c.] Even from 
the time he rested from the works of the creation, continuing 
to preserve and govern all things he created, and do those 
things which tend to his glory and to the good of his crea- 
tures, even on the sabbath-day ; and, in imitation of him, I 
do my wondrous works of mercy, to the glory of his name, 
upon that day ; which, being divine, and done by his power 
and assistance, show that I do nothing in them contrary to 
his will. Thus Philo,* speaking of God’s resting on the 
seventh day, saith, « We have declared, that God ceaseth not 
to work, but proceeds to the production of other things, as 
being not the artificer only, but the father of them.” 

7 Ver. 18. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, 
ὅτι πατέρα ἴδιον ἔλεγε Θεὸν, ἴσον ἑαυτὸν ποιῶν τῷ Oecd, because 
he said, God was his own Father, making himself equal to 
God.| Here note, 

First, That he is here ‘said to style God his Father, after 
ἃ manner proper and peculiar to himself, as being ὁ ἴδιος 
O05 vids, “ the proper Son of God” (Rom. viii. 32), and so as 
being his son, not as Adam and the angels were, by crea- 
tion, nor as good men are, by adoption only ; in which sense 
the Jews pretended to have God for their Father (viii. 41), 
and in which sense both Philot and the Jewish writers+ 
speak of him as the Father of Israel, and of those who had 
a true knowledge of him; for, in this sense, to call himself 
“the Son of God,” could neither be worthy of death, nor 
worse than the violation of the sabbath. It is therefore 
evident the Jews thought Christ, by saying “God was his 
Father,” made himself his Son in such a manner as ren- 


* 'Esp\cicaper di, ὅτι ποιῶν ὁ Θεὸς ob παύεται, ἀλλ᾽ ἕτερων γενέ- 
σεως ἄρχεται, ἅτε οὐ τεχνίτης μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάτηρ. ἴ,. primo 
Legis Alleg. p. 32, A. 33, Ὁ. 

Ἴ Οἱ δὲ ἐπιστήμη κεχρημένοι ἑνὸς υἱοὶ Θεοῦ δεόντως προσαγορεῦ- 
ovrat, καθὰ καὶ Μωσῆς ὑμολογεῖ φάσκων, Υἱοΐ ἔστε Ἰζυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ 
καὶ οὗκ αὐτός cov πατήρ. De Confus. Ling. p. 267. 

+ Est quidem cui nec filius, nec pater, hic est sanctus be- 
nedictus, nisi quéd Deus dilexit Israelem, et vocavit eos 
filios. Midrash Coheleth, fol. 93, 4. 


351 


18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, 
because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said 
also that God was 7 his Father, (in @ peculiar manner 
La to him alone, πατέρα ἔδιον ἔλεγε τὸν Θεὸν, thereby) 
making himself equal with God (ἐπ nature, as a son to 
his father). 

19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, The 5 Son can do nothing of 
himself, but what he seeth the Father do (ing, Gr. 
7. e. without commission from him to do it, and cerlain 
knowledge that he doth what the Father would have done) : 
for what things soever he doeth (ποιῇ» or ποιήσῃς he 
would have done), these also (xai even) doeth the Son 
likewise (7. 6. after his example as to the kind of them, 
according to his will as to the manner of doing them ; 
whence you may be assured this action was done after his 
example, and according to his will, as to the time, as well 
as to the manner of it ; and therefore cannot be worthy of 
blame). 

20 For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him 
(by the Spirit with which he hath anointed him) all 
things that himself (Acs Son) doeth: and he will shew 
(ἡ. e. incite and enable) him (by the same power, to do) 
greater works than these, (so) that ye may (7. 6. will) 
marvel (at them, though you will not be convinced by 
them). 


dered him equal to God in nature, as a son is to his father ; 
and _ yet they thought he did this, not as the Socinians say, 
by saying he did the works of his Father, but, as their words 
testify, by calling God his Father, in a sense peculiar to him- 
self: and hence they accuse him of blasphemy, for saying 
that he was the Son of God, Matt. xxvi. 63—65, John x. 
33. 36, which they never do, for saying he was the Messiah, 
or that he did the works of God. Note, 

Secondly, Hence, that the Jews did not then think that 
their Messiah was to be God, or, in the sublimer sense, “ the 
Son of God.” Hence Origen* declares, that having dis- 
coursed with many wise men of the Jéws, he “could find 
none of them who allowed Θεὸν ὄντα, }) Θεοῦ vids, that he was 
God, or the Son of God.’ And Jerome, on those words, 
Jer. xvii. 5, “Cursed is he who putteth his trust in man,” 
saith, “The Jews are accursed, qui spem habent in homine 
Christo, videlicet suo, quem non Filium Dei, sed purum ho- 
minem putant esse venturum, who trust in a man, viz. in 
their Messiah, whom they expect to come as a mere man, 
and not as the Son of God.” 

8 Ver. 19. The Son of Man can do nothing ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ, of 
himself, ἐὰν μὴ τὶ βλέπει, but what he sees the ‘Father doing.) 
The Jews concluding Christ to be a false prophet, because 
he, in this peculiar manner, styled “ God his Father,” Christ 
here undertakes to show, (1.) that he exercised his prophe- 
tic office according to the will of the Father: (2.) that he 
confirmed it by miracles done by the power of God residing 
in him. Christ therefore here seems not to speak of his es- 
sential power, but of his prophetic office, and of the doctrine 
which he taught and confirmed by miracles. (1.) Because 
as to his essential power, the action of the Father and the 
Son being one and the same, both as to power and time, he 
cannot properly be said to do nothing of himself, or to do 
nothing but what he sees the Father do. (2.) Because, as 
to speak nothing of himself is to speak nothing of his own 
instinct and will, without commission from God (see note 
on vii. 17): so to do nothing of himself, is to do nothing 
without commission from, and knowledge of the will of 
God, that he should do it, and so respecteth his prophetic 
office, and the things done in confirmation of it; and 
then the words following, “ Unless he sees the Father doing 
them,” must bear this sense; Unless he, by the Spirit of the 
Father residing in him, sees that the Father would have 
them done by him: for what the Father ποιῇ, “ would have 
done,” he doth according to his will, or as he would have 
them to bedone. And this import of the words seems to be 
confirmed, 

First, From the following words ; “ For the Father loveth 


* Lib. ii. p. 70, lib. iv. p. 162, 


352 


21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quick- 
eneth them; even so (shall ye see that) the ® Son quick- 
eneth whom he will. 

22 (And this power of quickening and raising whom 
he will the Father hath given him, because he hath made 
him the judge of all men;) For the Father judgeth no 
man, ” but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: 
(who yet cannot judge them till he hath raised them from 
the dead. 

23 And this he hath done) that all men should " ho- 
nour the Son (for his power and authority over them), 


JOHN. 


even as they honour the Father (the great Judge of all 
the earth, Gen. xviii. 25). He that honoureth not the 
Son (invested with this power) honoureth not the Fa- 
ther which hath sent (and authorized) him (to exer- 
cise τί. 

24 And having all judgment committed to me,) Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, He that (obediently) heareth my 
word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath (an as- 
surance of ) everlasting life, and shall not come into 
condemnation (for és past sins) ; but is passed from 
(the) death (threatened to him) unto life. 


the Son καὶ πάντα δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ ἄ ποιεῖ, and showeth him all 
things, which he (the Son) doeth;” and he will show him 
greater works than these (which are to be done by him, even 
that of raising the dead, ver. 21). For because we receive 
all our knowledge from our eyes, or ears, therefore Christ, 
speaking of the execution of his prophetic office, useth these 
metaphors, declaring that he spake and testified what he had 
seen (ili. 11), “ what he had seen with the Father” (viii. 38), 
and so the Baptist saith, “ What he hath seen he testifies ;” 
and again, that he spake “ what he had heard from the Fa- 
ther” (viii. 26, x. 15, 16). And because they who teach or 
declare things, do by that show them to us; therefore Christ 
uses this metaphor here, and saith, viii. 28, “I do nothing 
of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, so I speak ;” 
ard again, xii. 49, 50, «I have spoken nothing of myself; 
but as the Father, who sent me, gave me commandment 
what I should say and speak; the things therefore which I 
speak, as the Father said to me, so I speak.” Now, that he 
spake this with respect to the Spirit of prophecy, with which 
he was anointed, and by the Father sent to preach the gos- 
pel to the poor, &c., Luke iv. 11, the Baptist teacheth in 
these words, “« What he hath seen and heard, that he testifies ; 
for he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God ; for 
the Father giveth not him the Spirit by measure” (iii. 32— 
34), and he himself intimates, by saying, xiv. 10, «The 
words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself; the Fa- 
ther abiding in me, he doeth the works” (see the note there). 

Secondly, That he said truly,“ My Father worketh hither- 
to, and I work,” he proves from the divine works God the 
Father had given him power to do; though he was to do 
them after his resurrection and advancement to his kingdom, 
viz. the resurrection of the dead and the future judgment: 
and therefore adds, 

9 Ver. 21. As the Father raiseth the dead, and quicken- 
eth them, so the Son quickeneth whom he will.| This is more 
than ever was said of any prophet or apostle, that he did 
such works at his will; and here chiefly respects Christ, not 
acting as a prophet, but as a king, sitting at the right hand 
of power: and this being an action represented as proper to 
God, who saith, “I am, and there is none besides me; I kill 
and make alive,” Deut. xxxii. 39, 1 Sam. ii. 6, a work to be 
performed by his sole power, Matt. xxii. 29, Acts xxvi. 8, 
and by the “strength of his power,” Eph. i. 19, who is a 
God “quickening the dead,’ Rom. iv. 17; hence it is evi- 
dent that Christ, who will not only “raise our mortal bo- 
dies,” but also make them “like to his own glorious body, 
by that power by which he is able to subdue all things to 
himself,” Phil. iii. 21, must be God; and that the Father, 
by giving him, “power to have life in himself, as he hath it 
in himself,” ver. 26, must have given him the fullness of the 
Deity, from which this power is inseparable. 

10 Ver. 22. For the Father judgeth no man; but hath 
committed all judgment to his Son.| Seeing this judgment is 
committed to him, it is evident, saith Woltzogenius, that he 
cannot be God the highest, because he reigns and judges by 
his own power, derived from none ; and yet he owns, that in 
this judgment is comprehended totum regimen, et divinum 
totius mundi imperium, “an entire government and divine 
empire over the whole world, and especially over the whole 
church of God;” from whence it is demonstrable, that he 
must be God: for this government must be attended with a 
power of raising all them from the dead, whom he shall 
place before his judgment-seat, and with the perfect know- 
ledge, not only of the actions of all men from the beginning 
of the world, but also of their secret thoughts; since other- 
wise he cannot “bring every secret thought and work into 


* 


judgment,” nor “bring to light the hidden things of dark- 
ness,” or “manifest the secrets of the heart,” 1 Cor. iv. 5, 
or “judge every man according to his works,” 2 Cor. v. 10. 
He also must be omnipresent and omniscient, even the 
searcher of all hearts, that he may know and answer the 
prayers of all his servants in all corners of the earth, as the 
Socinians grant he doth; and almighty, that he may be able 
to supply all their wants, assist and enable them to do every 
where the greatest miracles in his name, defend and preserve 
them against all the powers on earth, and even the “ gates 
of hell,” raise and condemn their enemies, with the devil 
and his angels, to eternal destruction from his presence, and 
also crown his servants with everlasting glory. Now how all 
these things can be done by a mere creature, is as difficult to 
conceive as any mystery of the blessed Trinity. I answer, 
therefore, in that distinction of the schools, that the princi- 
pium quod, or the person thus judging, is the Son of man, 
ver. 27, this judgment being to be exercised by the man 
Christ Jesus, Acts xvii. 31, but the principium quo, i. 6. the 
power or the principle by which he does it, is the whole full- 
ness of the Deity, individually united to his human nature, 
or the Word made flesh, John i. 14. This therefore hinders 
not, but he to whom this judgment is thus given, may be 
God of God. 

1 Ver. 23. That all men may honour the Son as they 
honour the Father.] That is, saith Woltzogenius, «that 
they owning this dignity and power, per quam Deo equalis 
est, by which he is equal to God, may give him that obe- 
dience, honour, and worship, which are-due to a divine and 
heavenly King: for that the honour and worship due to 
Christ, is divine honour, is evident from this, that it is such, 
qualis Patri debetur, as is due to the Father; to whom, by 
the consent of all men, belongs divine worship :” and hence 
he proves that Christ is to be worshipped with invocation ; 
“because he who refuses to pray to him, doth not honour 
him as he honours the Father: in this (saith he) consists 
the highest honour we give to the Father, that we own him 
fur the chief monarch, and Lord of all things, in whose 
power is our salvation and destruction; and therefore, hy 
prayer, endeavour to obtain from him the enjoyment of good 
things, and the deliverance from evil: Qui hec eadem in 
Christo agnoscit, et eum sic colit, is honorat, et colit eum si- 
cut Patrem; He that owns these things to belong to Christ, 
and doth thus worship him, he honoureth the Son as he doth 
the Father;” so he: now canhe be equal to God, who is 
only a creature, or be worthy of divine worship, who is no 
God? The precept being plain, and owned by Christ him- 
self, “The Lord thy God is one Lord, and (therefore) thou 
shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou 
serve” (Deut. vi. 13, Matt. iv. 10). Can he, who said 
«Thou shalt worship no other gods but me, and I will not 
give my glory to another” (Isa. xlii. 8), himself appoint, 
that any creature should be worshipped as God, or have that 
honour, worship, and obedience, in which his glory doth con- 
sist? It is therefore no unjust imputation to call them 
idolaters, who give this worship to one who, say they, is by 
nature only man ; seeing they do the very things charged on 
the heathen idolaters; “they worship them which by nature 
are no gods” (Gal. iv. 8) ; and do that to a creature, which 
God requires to be done to himself alone, viz. that they 
should « glorify him as God” (Rom. 1. 21); and do that 
with which God upbraided his own people, viz. “ the wor- 
shipping a new God, which their own fathers had not 
known” (Deut. xxxii.17). If you say here, they give him 
the same worship, not as the first, but only as the inter- 
mediate cause of our salvation: it may be easily replied, 


CHAPTER V. 


353 


25 (And that you may have reason to believe Ican thus | unto the resurrection of life; and ® they that have 


raise the dead, ye shall see an instance of it shortly, not 
only in my resurrection, but in the rising of many others 
with me by my power ; for) Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, ® The hour is coming, and now is, when the 
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God : and they 
that hear (¢¢) shall live. 

26 For as the Father hath (the fountain of) life in 
himself (and so can impart life to others); so hath he 
given to the Son ® to have life in himself; 

27 And hath given him authority to execute judg- 
ment also (on the dead thus raised), because he is “ the 
Son of man (whom he hath appointed the judge of the 
world, Acts xvii. 31). 

28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in 
the which {τὴ these few only, but) all that are in the 
graves shall hear his voice, 

29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, 


that then they cannot honour him as they honour the Fa- 
ther; and much less as the chief monarch, and Lord of all 
things. Moreover, I inquire, Whether this middle cause 
be created, or uncreated? If uncreated, he is, by nature, 
God, and, since there is but one God, of the same essence 
with the Father; but if created, they must be guilty of 
idolatry who give him the same worship with the Father; 
and therefore give the creature the worship due to the 
Creator. 

2 Ver. 25. The hour—now is, when the dead shall hear 
the voice of the Son of God, and live.| That Christ here 
speaks not only of a spiritual resurrection from the death of 
sin, is evident; (1.) because he speaks of it as a thing 
shortly future; whereas the spiritual resurrection was in 
some already past: (2.) because he promises this resurrec- 
tion not to them that should hear his word, but φωνὴν, “ his 
voice:” and that he speaks of a proper resurrection, ap- 
pears, (1.) from the gradation he here makes from the re- 
surrection of some to the resurrection of all, ver. 28; (2.) 
because he adds that “ they who hear, shall live ;” and that 
because the Son, whose voice they hear, “hath life in him- 
self” (ver. 26); I therefore think that our Lord speaks of 
that hour, when, he rising from the dead, many bodies of the 
saints arose with him (Matt. xxvii. 52, 53). 

3 Ver. 26. He hath given the Son to have life in himself. 
i. e. The power of raising whom he will (ver. 21). Hence, 
though the apostles and others raised men from the dead, 
it is said of none of them that they had life in themselves ; 
because they did this, not by their own, but by the power of 
Christ. Note also, that the same thing is, in both places, 
said both of the Father and the Son: for it is not said, 
“The Father hath life from himself, the Son in himself,” 
but both hath life, ἐν ἑαυτῶ, in himself; and that as the Fa- 
ther, so the Son, “quickeneth whom he will.” Now the 
operations follow the essence ; so that where the same ope- 
ration is, there must be the same essence. 

4 Ver. 27. Because he is the Son of man.) i. e. The 
Messias to whom all power and dominion is given (Dan. vii. 
13, 14), and of whom the Jews* said, that he “should raise 
the dead ;” or, because he took the human nature on him, 
he suffered in it, and, by that passion, became “the author 
of salvation to all that obey hit” (Heb. v. 8, 9), and, 
lastly, in that nature only could be a visible judge (see Ex- 
amen Millii in locum). 

6 Ver. 29. And they that have done evil, unto the resur- 
rection of condemnation.) This seems to be spoken in op- 
position to the doctrine of the pharisees, who, saith Jose- 
phus.¢ thought “the resurrection pertained only to the just ;” 
and that the wicked and antediluvian sinners were to be ex- 
cluded from it. 

“The hour is coming in which all they that are in the 
grave shall arise, and shall come forth, of τὰ ἀγαθὰ ποιήσαντες, 
they (of them thus arising) who have done good, to the re- 
surrection of life; of δὲ τὰ φαῦλα πράξαντες, they (of them 
who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” 

* R. Eliezer, cap. 34, p. 38. 
+ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12. 
Vor. TV.—45 


done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. 

30 (And in passing this judgment of absolution and 
condemnation upon men,) I (the man Christ Jesus, Acts 
vii. 31, the Son of man, ver. 27,) can of mine own self 
(my own impulse and pleasure) do nothing: (but) as I 
hear, (é. 6. receive the terms of absolution and condemna- 
tion from my Father, so) "1 judge: and my judgment 
is (therefore) just; because I seek (7. δ. pursue) not (in 
i!) mine own will, but the will of the Father which 
which hath sent me. 

31 (And) If (in ascribing this honour and power to 
myself ) I (did) ™ bear witness of myself (and had no 
credentials from my Father, or those whom he hath wg 
my witness is not true. (For he that pretends to be 
sent, or delegated from God, and hath not his testimony to 
confirm his mission, cannot be true; but this is not my 
case ; for) 


A late author* hath endeavoured to avoid the clear evi- 
dence of this text for a general sentence of all men to a life 
of future happiness or misery. I shall not here consider all 
his evasions, but observe only, that he is obliged, from the 
force of these words, “ All that are in the graves shall come 
forth,” to own, that all mankind shall arise; but yet he will 
not own, that the distribution of them, who thus come forth, 
into them “that have done good,” and into them “ that have 
done evil,” contains all, but some of them only, viz. such as 
have had the gospel made known to them; which is as great 
an instance of a man, who shall say any thing δουλεύειν ὑπο- 
Sécet, to serve his hypothesis, as can be offered: for what in- 
stance can be given through the scripture of a universal pro- 
position distributed into two parts, in which the opposite 
members do not contain the whole general? What is this, 
in effect, but to allow the truth of this general proposition, 
Omne animal est sensibile, “ Every livmg creature is sensi- 
ble,” and yet to deny the truth of this distribution, τῶν δὲ 
αἰσθητῶν τὰ piv λογικὰ, τὰ δὲ Goya, that “of sensible crea- 
tures, some are rational, some irrational?’ Let us see the 
absurdity of it in some scripture instances: Matt. xxv. 32, 
«The Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory and, 
πάντα τὰ Syn, all nations shall be gathered before him, and 
he shall place ra μὲν rpé8ara, the sheep on his right hand, 
τὰ dé ἐρίφια, but the goats on his left,” ver. 33: now, must 
not here the sheep and the goats be equal to all nations? 
So again, Rom. ii. 6, God, saith the apostles, “will render 
ἑκάστῳ, to every man according to his works, τοῖς μέν, to 
them who, by patience in well-doing, seek for glory, honour, 
and incorruption, eternal life ; τοῖς dé ἐξ ἐριϑείας, but to those 
that are contentious, and obey not the truth, tribulation :” 
now, doth not this distribution, into the obedient and disobe- 
dient, contain all that are comprehended in the general word, 
“every man?” And doth not the apostle interpret the 
words so, ver. 9, 10, by saying, ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ψυχὴν, “ Upon 
every soul of man that worketh evil shall be tribulation ;” 
and πάντι τῷ ἐργαζομένῳ τὸ ἀγαϑὸν, “to every one that work- 
eth good, glory, honour, and peace ?” 

16 Ver. 30. As I hear, κρίνω, I judge.) i. e. 1 pronounce 
sentence according to the will of my Father; for κρίμα and 
κρίσις is a sentence; so βλάσφημος κρίσις is “a blasphemous 
accusation,” or sentence, 2 Pet. ii. 11, κρίμα Savérov, “ the 
sentence of death,” Luke xxiv. 20, κρίμα τῆς πόρνης, * the 
sentence upon the whore,” Rev. xvii. 1 ; and κρίνω, “I give 
sentence ;” so dpSas ἔκρινας, Luke vii. 43, “Thou hast 
judged,” or given sentence aright: “Out of thy mouth, 
κρινῶ ce, will I pronounce sentence upon thee,” Luke xix. 
22 (see Matt. vii. 1, 2, John vii. 24, vill. 15, Acts xv. 19, 
Rom. ii. 1. 3, iii. 4. 6, 7, Ps. li. 4). 

Ver. 31. If Ibear witness of myself (only), my witness 
is not true :] i. 6. Say most interpreters, it is not valid, the 
law requiring two witnesses. But to bear witness of him- 
self here, is to declare himself a prophet without attestation 
from God, as the false prophets did; and had Christ done 
this, he must have been like them, and so his testimony 
would have been false; God never sending any prophet to 


* Mr. Dodwell. 
282 


354 


32 4 There is ® another that beareth witness of me 
(to wit, John the Baptist) ; and I know that the witness 
which he (being a prophet) witnesseth of me is true. 
(Ye also have heard his testimony, for) 

33 Ye sent unto John (i. 22, 23), and he bare wit- 
ness unto the truth (iii. 29, 30). 

34 But (appeal not to his testimony for my own sake, 
but for yours ; for) I receive not testimony from man: 
but these things I say, that ® ye (believing his testimo- 
ny) might be saved. 

35 He was a burning and a shining light (as Bias 
ts by you represented, Keclus. xviii. 1, his word being 
clear and powerful): and ye were willing for a ™ sea- 
son to rejoice in his light (owning him as a prophet, 
and a just man; and therefore I insist upon his testi- 
mony, as hoping tt may have some influence vpon you, 
to work that faith in you, by which you shall be saved, 
John x. 41).. 

36 4 But I havea greater witness than that of John: 
for the works which 7! the Father hath given me to 
finish, the same works that I do (by his power resid- 
ing in me), bear witness of me, that the Father hath 
sent me. 

37 ~ And the Father himself, which hath sent me, 

hath borne witness of me (by @ voice from heaven, say- 
ing, This is my beloved Son; and by the descent of the 
Holy Ghost upon me, in the Shechinah, or bright light, 
which is the symbol of his presence; but on this I insist 
not, for) Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, 
nor seen his shape (Ezek. 1. 28, the likeness of the glory 
of God). 
ν 38 a (as ye have not known his will this way, so 
meither will ye doit by his revealed will; for) ye have 
not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, 
him ye believe not (as kis word would induce you to 
do). 


JOHN. 


39 “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think 
ye have (the words of ) eternal life: and they are they 
which testify of me. 

40 And (yet) ye will not (by them be persuaded to) 
* come to me (7, 6. believe in me), that ye might have 
(the) life (I promise to them that belicve in me. 

41 And yet ye have no reason to disbelieve me; for) 1 
receive not honour from men (7 do nothing from desire 
of their applause, but purely for the honour of God, and 
out of love to him, and so act not like a false, but a true 
prophet). 

42 But (this I cannot say of you; for) 1 know you, 
that ye have not the love of God in you. 

43 Iam come in my Father’s name (7. 6, with his 
authority and testimony), and ye receive me not (7. 6. 
ye do not own me as the promised Messiah): if another 
shall 55 come in his own name, (without any evidence 
of divine authority, even Barchochebas, and) him ye wili 
receive (as such. . 

44 And indeed) How® can ye believe, which (strive 
tv) receive honour (and glory) one of another, and seek 
not (rather) the honour that cometh from (the approba+ 
tion of ) God only ? 

45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Fa- 
ther: (1 shall not need to do it; for) there is one that 
accuseth you (fo him), even Moses, in whom ye trust 
(that, by obedience to his law, you shall have life, ver. 
39 


46 For had ye believed (ihe words of) Moses, ye 
would have believed me: for 7 he wrote of me (say- 
ing, I will raise up a prophet like unto thee, and I will 
put my words in his mouth, Deut. xviii. 18). 

47 But if ye believe * not his writings (whom you 
own as a great prophet sent from God), how shall ye 
believe my words) when you have no such opinion of me, 
or respect for me) ὃ 


men without sufficient testimonies, that he was sent from 
him. 

18 Ver. 32. There is another that beareth witness of me. 
viz. Whom ye counted as a prophet (Matt. xiv. 5, xxi. 26), 
and, upon that account, received his baptism: now, accord- 
ing to your own rules, “he is to be owned as a prophet, to 
whom a prophet gives his testimony.” 

19 Ver, 34. But I spake these things, that ye might be 
saved.] Hence it is evident, that Christ seriously willed 
and intended the salvation of them, who “ would not come 
to him that they might have life” (ver. 40), and therefore 
were not actually saved. 

20 Ver. 35. For a season ye rejoiced in his light. He 
was a burning light, saith Christ here; “His word burned 
as a lamp,” saith the son of Sirach, Ecclus. xlvili. 1, and yet 
in this light they rejoiced but for a season ; for when he had 
freely given testimony to Christ, and reproved their vices, 
they blasphemed him, and said, “he had ἃ devil” (Luke vii. 
30. 33). 

21 Ver 36. The work which my Father hath given me to 
do, &c.] He saith not, « Which I do,” but « Which the Fa- 
ther hath given me to do;” so Woltzogenius: and yet the 
following words are ἃ ἐγὼ ποιῶ, “ which I do.” He therefore 
here declares, that he had sufficient testimony of his mission 
from the works done by him through the Father dwelling in 
him (Matt. xii. 28), and that the Father had given him to 
do them, by giving him his Spirit and his power, together 
with his essence (John iii. 34, 35, xiv. 10). 

2 Ver. 37. And the Father that sent me, beareth witness 
of me. Yow have neither heard his voice, nor seen his 
shape.] As in the paraphrase ; or thus, Nor are you to ex- 
pect the Father should testify of me otherwise than by his 
works: for that which was granted to your fathers belongs 
not to you, viz. to see his glory, and hear his voice out of 
the middle of the fire, Deut. v. 24, so that he cannot now 
be otherwise seen than by his works. 

3 Ver. 39. ᾿Ἐρευνᾶτε ras γραφὰς, Search.] Or, “ Ye search 
the scriptures.” Which of these two senses the Greek bears, 


T will not contend: only note, (1.) that Origen, Philoc. cap. 
1 et cap. 5, Chrysostom, hom. 24 et 37, in Genesin, and 
St. Austin, in Ps. eviii. col. 1269, and Epist. 80, col. 365, 
confirm our version: note, (2.) that if the Jews did truly 
think the doctrine of life eternal was contained there, and 
that they, by searching, might find it there, it must be 
to them a sufficient rule of faith: if in this they erred, 
it behoved Christ to correct in them an error so perni- 
cious. 

24 Ver. 40. Ye will not come to me.] i.e. After the clear 
testimonies which the prophecies and characters of the Mes- 
siah in the Old Testament afford, that «I am he,” ye will 
not believe in me, which shows your infidelity is the result, 
not of simple ignorance, but of wilful obstinacy. 

35 Ver. 43. Another shall come in his own name.] With- 
out commission or testimony from God: so did Barchoche- 
bas, working no miracles. Many of the fathers thought 
antichrist was here meant. 

2 Ver. 44. How can ye believe, who seek honour one of 
another 2] And so cannot bear the reproach of the phari- 
sees, and the chief of the Jews, or endure the infamy of 
being cast out of the synagogue, which is the sentence they 
have passed upon all that shall believe in me (xii. 42, 43) ; 
till you prefer the approbation of God before that of man, it 
is not to be expected ye should do it. 

27 Ver. 46. For he wrote of me.) viz. Deut. xviii. 17—19. 
Hence it follows, that those words of Moses are not pri- 
marily to be understood of a succession of prophets, but 
of a single person, even Christ; for “a prophet,” saith he, 
«shall the Lord raise up to you like to me:” whereas no 
other prophet rose up to them like to Moses (Deut. xxxiv. 
10), besides Christ (see the bishop of Ely on that place). 

3 Ver. 47. If ye believe not Moses.) For whom you pre- 
tend so great respect. Their pretences for not believing in 
Christ, were these two—their love to God, and reverence for 
the law of Moses: Christ proves they could have no true 
love to God, ver. 42, nor faith in Moses, ver. 46, for this very 
reason, that they believe not on him. 


355 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 ' Arrer these things Jesus went over the sea of 
Galilee, which is (also named) the sea of ‘Tiberias. 

2 Anda great multitude followed him, because they 
saw his miracles which he did on them that were dis- 
eased (and because some of them also needed healing, 
Luke ix. 11). 

3 And Jesus? went up into a mountain, and there 
he sat with his disciples. 

4 And the passover, (which was) a feast of the Jews 
(which all their males were bound to celebrate at Jeru- 
salem), was nigh (to which the people were therefore 
hastening). 

5 4 When Jesus then lifted up Azs eyse, and saw a 
great company come unto ini, ba saith unto Philip, 
Whence shall we buy bread, that (a/l) these may eat? 

6 And this he said to prove him (who was slow of 
faith, xiv. 9): for he himself knew what he would do. 

7 Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth 
of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of 
them may take a little. 

8 (Then the disciples desiring him to send the multitude 
away, that they might go into the villages, and buy them- 
selves bread: and Christ answering, that they should give 
them to eat: and they inquiring, how they should do this? 
He asks them also, How many loaves have you? Mark 
vi. 36, 37.) One of his disciples, (¢o wit) Andrew, 
Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him, 

9 There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, 
and two small fishes: but what are they among so 
many ἢ 

10 And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. 
there was much grass in the place. 
down, in number about five thousand. 

11 And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had 
given thanks, he distributed (of them) to the disci- 
ples, and the disciples to them that were set down; 
and likewise of the fishes (both which were so mira- 
culously increased as they went through his hands, that 
every soe of that great company did eat) as much as they 
would. 

12 (4nd) When they were filled, he said unto his 
disciples, ὃ Gather up the fragments that remain, that 
nothing (of God’s good creatures) be lost. 

13 Therefore they gathered them together, and (to 
evidence the truth and greatness of the miracle) filled 
twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley 
loaves, which remained over and above unto them that 
had eaten. 


Now 
So the men sat 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI 


1 Ver. 1. After these things.] Related in the former 
chapter ; i. e. the year following (for he healed the man at 
the pool of Bethesda at the passover, saith Dr. Lightfoot, 
and fed the Jews with the five loaves the following passover, 
ver. 4), “he went over the sea to Galilee” (see the note on 
Matt. xiv. 13). 

2 Ver. 3. He went up into a mountain.] When Jesus 
went out of the ship, he saw the multitude come to the 
place (Matt. xiv. 14): but it was only when he sat down 
upon the mountain that he saw them come to him. 

3 Ver. 12. Gather the fragments, that nothing be lost.) 
That, by the nature of the bread remaining, it might appear, 
that there was no illusion in the miracle; and, by the 
command to save this bread, it appears, it is not simply 
unlawful to save any thing till the morrow; but only 
ἐν be anxious for the morrow, Matt. vi. 14 (see Examen 

illii). 

4 Vor 15. Christ therefore knowing that they would come 
and make him a king.) He knew this, saith Stegmannus, 


14 Then those men, when they had seen the mira- 
cle that Jesus did (resembling that of Moses, who fed 
them with manna in the wilderness; and knowing he 
had told them, that God would raise them up a Prophet 
of their brethren like to him), said, This is of a truth 
that prophet that should come into the world. (πὰ 
having got a false notion that their Messiah was to be 
a temporal king ; they, finding him so able to supply 
them with provisions, were minded to sel him up for their 
king. 
is When Jesus therefore * perceived that they 
would come and take him by force, to make him a 
king, he (first sent away his own disciples, to whom he 
knew that motion would not be unacceptable, and then dis- 
persed the multitude, Mark vi. 46, and so) departed 
again into a mountain himself alone. 

16 And when even was now come, his disciples 
went down unto the sea, 

17 And entered into a ship, and 5 went over the sea 
toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus 
was not come to them. 

18 And the sea arose (and was tempestuous) by rea- 
son of a great wind that blew. 

19 So when they had rowed about δ five and twenty 
or thirty furlongs (about the fourth watch of the night, 
Mark vi. 48), they see Jesus walking on the sea, and 
drawing nigh unto the ship: and (taking him for an 
apparition, ver. 49) they were afraid. 

20 But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid. 

21 Then they 7 willingly received him into the ship 
(believing that then all things would go well with them) : 
and immediately the ship was at the land whither 
they went. 

22 4 The day following, when § the people which 
stood on the other side of the sea saw that (/ast night) 
there was none other boat there, save that one where- 
into his disciples were entered, and that Jesus went 
not with his disciples into the boat, but that his disci- 
ples were gone away alone ; 

23 (Howbeit there came other boats (afterward) 
from Tiberias (which in the morning were found) nigh 
unto the place where they did eat bread, after that the 
Lord had given thanks :) 

24 When the people therefore saw that Jesus was 
not there, neither his disciples, they also took shipping 
(in those boats), and came to Capernaum (Ais usual ha- 
bitation), seeking for Jesus (there). 

25 And when they had found him on the other 


by that Spirit and divine virtue, by which he was able to 
discern the secrets of men’s hearts, and, knowing this, he 
would not be made a king, because his kingdom was not of 
this world (xviii. 38). 

5 Ver. 17. They went over the sea to Capernaum.] Into 
the land of Gennesaret, Matt. xiv. 34, they went over πρὸς 
Befoatéav, “towards Bethsaida,”’ Mark vi. 45. The desert 
of Bethsaida lying on the side of the sea of Galilee opposite 
to the city, they first crossed over that sea towards the city, 
and then sailed on along that sea to Capernaum, which 
was in the region Gennesaret (see Dr. Lightfoot’s map, 

. 308). 
Ps vo. 19. About five and twenty or thirty Furlong) In 
matters of so small importance, the Spirit of God did not 
think it necessary to suggest the exact measure to them. __ 

7 Ver. 21. Ἤθελον, They were willing to take him into the 
ship.] Though Peter first walked to him on the sea, and 
then they came both into the ship (Matt. xiv. 30). 

8 Ver. 22. The multitude which stood on the other side of 
the sea.) For though Christ then sent them away (Matt. 
xiv. 43), they might return again the next morning. 


356 


side of the sea, they said unto him, 9 Rabbi, (thow 

wentest not last night with thy disciples, nor saw we thee 

this morning where last night we left thee,) when (there- 
ore) camest thou hither ? 

26 (But) Jesus (without satisfying their curiosity in 
this matter) answered them and said, Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the 
miracles (us being so convinced by them as to hear and to 
obey my doctrine, from a desire to obtain by it eternal life, 
as ye should do), but because ye did eat of the loaves, 
and were filled (and expect the like benefit again: and 
therefore I say to you,) 

27 © Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but 
for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, 
which (if you believe in him) the Son of man shall give 
unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed (7. e. 
hath shown that he hath authorized him to do this; and 
by giving him this miraculous power to feed your bodies, 
hath fully testified he is the person by him appointed to 
convey these blessings to the souls of men). 

28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that 


JOHN. 


we might work the works of God? (We have already 
the law of Moses, and know what God requires by that 
law: what farther duties, or what more pleasing to him, 
canst thou instruct us to perform 2 

29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is 4e 
work (most acceptable in the sight) of God, that ye be- 
lieve on him whom he hath sent. 

30 They said therefore unto him, What sign shew- 
est thou then (greater than Moses hath done), that we 
may see (i/), and believe thee? what dost thou work 
(above what Moses did ? 

31 Thou hast indeed fed us one day in a desert, but) 
Our fathers did eat manna in the desert (through which 
Moses led them, forty years; and that was heavenly 
food); as it is written (Ps. Ixxviii. 25), He gave 
them ' bread from heaven to eat (and so they had by 
Moses a sign from heaven of his commission: such a one 
would we Ξε I thee, Mark viii. 11). 

32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven 
(which F exhort you to labour for, and of which the 


9 Ver. 25. Rabbi, when camest thou hither 2] It was | 


usual with Christ to answer nothing to curious questions, 

_not tending to edification, but to divert them from them to 
more profitable subjects (so Luke xiii. 23, 24, John xii. 34, 
35). 

᾿ Ver. 27. Labour not for the meat which perisheth.] 
The Massalian heretics, say Chrysostom and Theophylact, 
abused these words, to prove it was not lawful for them to 
work to sustain this present life: by which doctrine, saith 
Chrysostom, they do ὅλον διαβάλλειν τὸν Χριστιανισμὸν, “ wholly 
subvert Christianity,’’ commanding Christians to “ work with 
their hands that which is good” (Eph. iv. 28), “to do their 
own business, and to work with their hands” (1 Thess. iv. 
11); and he confutes them with the example of St. Paul, 
“labouring with his own hands night and day” (Acts xviii. 
3, xx. 34, 1 Thess. ii. 2, 2 Thess. iii. 8), and of the other 
apostles (1 Cor. iv. 12). ‘These words are therefore to be 
taken not absolutely, but comparatively ; i.e. Do not chiefly 
and primarily labour for the meat that perisheth; but let 
your regard for that meat which nourisheth to eternal life, 
be so great, as that your concern for perishing enjoyments 
shall be comparatively as nothing: in which sense only we 
are bid not to take thought for food and raiment (Matt. vi. 
28. 31), not to fear them who can kill the body (Matt. x. 
28), not to seek earthly things (Col. iii. 2). 

But chiefly here observe, that whereas Christ, in this 
whole chapter, speaks of believing in him, and in his salu- 
tary passion, and of receiving his doctrine, under the meta- 
phor of meat and drink, he doth this by a metaphor very 
familiar to the eastern nations, and frequent in the Jewish 
writers; thus Wisdom “crieth in the streets, Come, eat of 
my bread, and drink of the wine that I have mingled,’ 
Prov. ix. 5, that is, “Go in the way of understanding,” ver. 
6, « Eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight 
itself in fatness,” Isa. lv. 2, that is, “Hear, and your soul 
shall live,” ver. 3. Thus doth the son of Sirach introduce 
Wisdom, saying, “They that eat me shall yet be hungry, 
and they that drink me shall yet be thirsty,’ Ecclus. xxiv. 
21, 1. e. they that obey me (ver. 22). Hence Philo* often 
speaks of prudence, wisdom, virtue, as the food of the soul, 
or that spiritual meat and drink which nourisheth to life 
eternal. So to eat of “every tree in paradise” is, saith he, 
“an exhortation, riv ψυχὴν μὲν ἀπὸ πασῶν τῶν ἀρετῶν ὠφελεῖσ- 
Sat, that the soul should receive advantage by all virtues. 
The soul,” saith he, “is nourished with knowledge, not with 
meat and drink ; for the scripture testifies, ὅτι οὐ γήϊνοι ἀλλ᾽ 
οὐράνιοι at ψυχῆς τροφαὶ, that the food of the soul is not earthly 
but heavenly, by saying, I rain down bread from heaven ;” 
and this principle, « that God is the beginning and the end 
of all things, brings forth piety,t κάλλιστον καὶ τροφιμώτατον 


* Lib. de Leg. Alleg. p. 44, E, F, G. 

+ Lib. ii. de Alleg. p. 64, B. 69, B, C. 

+ De Plant. Now, p. 175, E. Vide de Cherub. p. 94, E. 
Et resipuit Noa, p. 216. 


καρπὸν, Which is the best and most nourishing food.” And 
the Talmudists* say, that “all eating and drinking, men- 
tioned in the book of Ecclesiastes, relates to the law and 
good works; and that their wise men are that “staff of 
bread,” of which Solomon saith, “ Come, eat of my bread” 
(see ver. 32). So that the sense of these words is this, La- 
bour by faith in me, and embracing my doctrine, to obtain 
that eternal life, which the Son of God will give to you; for 
he is to be lifted up upon the cross, “ that every one that be- 
lieveth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life” 
(iii. 16, 17), and “him hath God the Father sealed,” i. ὁ, he 
hath by his authority commissioned, and by his testimony 
owned him to be that Prophet and Messiah, from whom all 
blessings are to be expected; and, by anointing him with 
his Spirit above measure, hath, as it were, set his seal in con- 
firmation of his message; so that you may be sure the life 
he promises, in his Father’s name, shall be given you: so 
Christ expounds himself, ver. 29, saying, “ This is the work 
of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent,” i. 6. 
this is that which he commands, and which is highly accept- 
able to him; so “ the sacrifices of God are a broken and a con- 
trite heart,” Ps. li. 17, i.e. these are the most acceptable sa- 
crifices to him; and “the righteousness of God” (Rom. i. 
17, 2 Cor. ν. 21), is that righteousness, which he alone ac- 
cepts, 

sf Ver. 31, 32. He gave them bread from heaven: Moses 
gave them not that bread from heaven, &c.] That we may 
the better understand what Christ here saith of himself, as 
the “true bread coming down from heaven, that they might 
eat of it, and live ;” note, 

First, From what hath been observed on ver. 27, that, 
among the orientals and Jewish writers,p to eat ἐστὶ τὸ 
φαγεῖν σύμβολον rpopiis ψυχικὴς, “is used as a symbol of the 
food of the soul;” because the soul, saith Philo,+ “is nou- 
rished by receiving and practising good things ;” and “ wis- 
dom, temperance, and piety, are ψυχῆς τροφαὶ τῆς ϑηλάζειν 
ἱκανῆς, the food of a soul that can suck them in.” 

Secondly, They say, that divine wisdom was this meat and 
drink of the soul, according to that exhortation of wisdom, 
Prov. ix. 5, “ Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine 
that I have mingled.” Thus Philo§ saith of the ascetic em- 
ployed in divine contemplations, ὑπὸ Θεοῦ ποτίζεται κάλλιστον 
πότον, σοφίαν, “God gives him to drink of the best drink, 
wisdom, even from the fountain of his own wisdom.” Ac- 
cordingly Christ, the wisdom of the Father, saith, « He that 
drinketh of the water which I shall give him, shall never 
thirst,” John iv. 14, vii. 38, 39 (see ver. 35). 

Thirdly, They add, that this meat and drink comes down 


* Midrash Coheleth, f. 88, 4. Hagigah. f, 14, 1. Maim. 
More Nev. lib. i. cap. 30. 

+ De Legis Alleg. p. 44, E. 

+ L. quod deter. p. 137, A. 

§ Lib. iii. de Leg. Alleg. p. 153. 


CHAPTER VI. 


manna only was a type); but my Father (now) giveth 
you the true bread from heaven. 

33 For Κα the bread of God Of which you spiritually 
are to eat) is he which cometh down from heaven, and 
giveth (not a fading ife, as manna did to the Jews, but 
everlasting) life unto the (whole) world. 

34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give 
us this bread (which will preserve our lives ; still think- 
ing that he only spake of this present life). 

35 And (then) Jesus said unto them, I am the bread 
of life: he that "cometh to me shall never hunger; 


357 


and he that believeth on me shall never thirst (he being, 
by that faith, united to me, who am the life, xiv. 6, and 
partaking of that Spirit, which will bein him as a well of 
water springing up to elernal life, iv. 14, vii. 38, and so 
shall need no more to hunger or thirst after it). 
36 But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me 
doing works sufficient to convince you of the truth of what 
say), and (yet) believe (me) not; (and I shall find 
still cause to say 80 to men so worldly-minded, and preju- 
diced against the truth. 
37 But though it be thus with you,) ™ all that the 


from heaven, and proves this from the words here cited by 
our Lord. So Philo* proves, that God only gives heavenly 
blessings, from those words of Moses, “I rain down bread 
frem heaven; for what food,” saith he, “can be rained 
down from thence, ὅτι μὴ τὴν οὐράνιον σοφίαν, but heavenly 
wisdom, which he sends down upon the soul desirous of it, 
who hath the fullness and abundance of it in himself?” 

Fourthly, They declare, that this meat and drink is there- 
fore to be preferred to corporeal food, because it nourisheth 
to eternal life, or renders them immortal, who partake of it. 
So Philo saith, that the “wisdom of God is the nurse and 
nourisher,t τῶν ἀφθάρτου διαίτης ἐφιεμένων, of those that de- 
sire incorruptible diet.” He adds, that “seeking what was 
the food of the soul, they found it was the Word of God, 
teat ϑεῖος Λόγος, and the divine Word, ἀφ᾽ od πάσαι παιδείαι, 
καὶ σοφίαι ῥέουσιν ἀένναοι, from whom all eternal wisdom and 
instruction flow, and that this was the heavenly food of 
which Moses said, I rain down bread from heaven ;” and 
that this “ wisdom of God gives to the soul that drinketh of 
it,§ dyeréB\nrov ὑγίειαν, an unchangeable health.’ And 
even Pythagoras instructed parents to provide for their child- 
ren, not what would preserve the body to old age, but ra 
τὴν Ψυχὴν ϑρέψαντα ἀϊδίῳ τροφὴ, “what would nourish their 
souls with eternal food” (Stob. Serm. 1, p. 3). 

Lastly, They say, this meat and drink is the wisdom of 
God, and the Word of God, signified to them by that manna 
which fed the Jews, and by that rock which gave them 
drink ; thus Philol] having said the wisdom of God was a 
solid rock, which could not be broken, he adds, τὴν πέτραν 
ταύτην ἑτέρωθι συνωνυμίᾳ χρώμενος καλεῖ μάννα τὸν πρεσβύτατον 
τῶν ὄντων Λόγον θεῖον, “ that Moses called this rock, which was 
the most ancient of beings, the divine Word, by the synony- 
mous name of manna; the good man,” saith he, « lifts up 
his eyes to heaven, ἀφορῶν τὸ μάννα, τὸν ϑεῖον Αὐγον τὸν οὐρά- 
νιον, τῆς Φιλοϑεαμένης Ψυχῆς ἄφϑαρτον τροφὴν, looking to the 
manna, the divine and heavenly Word, the incorruptible 
food of the soul, which loves God.’ Ainsworth also notes 
from R. Isaac and R. Menahem, that manna signified « the 
food of the just in the world to come,” and others, that it 
was “a type of life eternal” (see Buxtorf’s History of 
Manna, p. 336. 339. 352). From which observations it is 
easy to discern, why Christ here styles himself, “ the bread 
which came down from heaven, and gave life to the world,” 
viz. because he was that spiritual bread prefigured by the 
manna coming down from heaven; and why he saith, that 
not Moses, but his Father, “ gave them the true bread from 
heaven,” viz. because he only, by sending his Son from hea- 
ven, gave them that bread, which nourished to life eternal 
(ver. 49—51) ; and, lastly, why he insists so much upon this 
metaphor, viz. because it was familiar to the Jews, and used 
by their most celebrated writers. 

Hence also we may see a probable reason why they de- 
sire a sign, i. e. “a sign from heaven” (Matt. xii. 38, Mark 
viii. 11), and do it for this reason, that their fathers «did 
eat bread from heaven” (ver. 30, 31); viz. they do it seek- 
ing an experiment, whether he was the Messiah, or not, 
they being used to say,"* that “as their first Redeemer 
made manna descend from heaven for them, so should their 
second Redeemer do;” and how appositely our Lord an- 
swers, that what they desired was already done, by his 


* De Nom. Mut. p. 839, F. 
+ L. quod deter. p. 137, A. 
§ Lib. iii. Alleg. p. 853, A. 
} L. quod deter. p. 137, C. 
** Midr. Coheleth, f. 86, 4. 


+ De Profug. p. 367, A, B. 
« On Exod. xvi. 14, 


Father sending his Son, the true heavenly manna, to 
them. 

2 Ver. 33. For the bread of God is he that cometh down 
from heaven, &c.] The oblations made to God are styled 
in the Old Testament, “the bread of God,” though they 
were sacrifices of living creatures, and by the Septuagint δῶρα 
Θεοῦ, “the gifts of God,” Lev. xxi. 6. 8, accordingly Christ 
styles his piacular victim by the same name; and whereas 
the Socinians say, Christ is here only said to “come down 
from heaven,” not as being in heaven first, and then conde- 
scending to dwell on earth, but only as every “good and 
perfect gift” is said to “descend from above,” James i. 17, 
T know not why the gifts of the Spirit, imparted then to be- 
lievers by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and being 
gifts of illumination, may not be properly said to descend 
from above, even from the “Father of lights.” That the 
Jews understood him in a sense intimating his coming down 
from heaven ina real sense, as from a place of his abode, ap- 
pears from their murmuring at his words, on account of his 
earthly parentage (ver. 41, 42), which yet they could have 
had no cause to have done, had he meant this in such a 
sense only, in which all their own prophets must be allowed 
to come from heaven: moreover, thus even the Baptist 
came down from heayen, his authority, commission, and doc- 
trine, being from heaven (Matt. xxi. 25) ; and yet he maketh 
this distinction betwixt himself and Christ, that he “was 
from earth ;” but Christ was emphatically 6 ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ 
ἐρχόμενος, “ one coming from heaven.”’ Secondly, The anti- 
thesis put here betwixt Christ and manna, and the declara- 
tion, that Christ was that bread, which the psalmist says was 
given them from heaven, shows the phrase must be used as 
a true descent from heaven, that manna and bread, of which 
the psalmist and Moses speak, coming down truly from the 
clouds of heaven, And, Thirdly, This is farther evident from 
Christ’s question (ver. 62), What if you shall see the Son 
of man ascending where he was before,” i. e. to his Father? 
(xiv. 2) unless they will say, that, as his descent signified 
his having his commission, wisdom, and power from heaven, 
so his ascent signifies his deprivation of that commission, 
wisdom, and power. 

18 Ver. 35. He that cometh to me shall not hunger.] See 
note on iv. 14, 

4 Ver. 37. All that my Father giveth me shall come to 
me.| For explication of these words, let it be noted, 

First, That to“ believe in Christ,” and to “come to him,” 
is the same thing; so John v. 38, “In him whom the Fa- 
ther hath sent, ye believe not,” is, ver. 40, “Ye will not 
come to me that ye may have life:” so John vii. 37, «If 
any man thirst, let him come to me and drink ;” and, to en- 
courage them to embrace this invitation, he adds, “ He that 
cometh to me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living wa- 
ter,” ver. 38: so ver. 35 of this chapter, “He that cometh 
to me shall not hunger,” is the same with the following 
words, “ He that believeth in me shall not thirst :”’ so when 
Christ had said, « Ye have seen me and have not believed,” 
he adds this reason of their incredulity, “ You come not to 
me, because you are not given of the Father ;” and ver. 40, 
saith, “ He that cometh to me I will not cast forth : for this 
is the will of my Father, that he, who hath seen the Son, and 
believed in him, should have eternal life.” Note, 

Secondly, That to be given of the Father cannot here 
signify to be absolutely chosen by him to eternal life: for 
then the Jews could not reasonably be accused for not 
coming to Christ, or not believing in him, much less that 
they would: not believe or come to him; seeing, upon this 
supposition, that only they, whom God had absolutely 


358 


Father giveth me (7. 6. all that he prevails on by the 
miracles he works by me, and the doctrine he teacheth me 
to deliver to the world, to judge of me as one sent from 
him to propound the terms of life eternal) shall come to 
me (7. 6. embrace my doctrine, and believe in me); and 


chosen to eternal life, could come to him, it was impossible 
they should believe who were not thus elected, and so it 
could not be imputed as their crime that they did not that 
thing which it was impossible for them to do; whereas it 
is certain that our Saviour represents it as their great sin, 
that “in him whom the Father had sent, they believed not’ 
(John v.38), and that they “ would not come unto him that 
they might have life” (ver. 40), telling them, that the Spirit 
would convince them of sin, because they believed not in 
him” (John xvi. 9), and that they had “no excuse for that 
sin” (John. xv. 22. 24): whereas what better excuse could 
be made for them than this, that they could not come unto 
him, as not being elected by God’ to that life he offered, to 
induce them so to do? (2.) Hence it must follow, that 
Christ could not rationally have invited them to come to 
him, or called them to believe in him, who were not given 
him by the Father: for this was to invite them to come to 
him, that they might live, who, he well knew, could never 
come, as being never chosen to obtain that life; much less 
could he have told them, that this was the work which God 
required them to do, or that the Father had “given them 
this bread from heaven ;” this being to require them, accord- 
ing to this supposition, to believe-a lie, viz. that Christ was 
sent to be “the bread of life,” and a Saviour to them for 
whom the Father never did intend salvation by him; and 
yet Christ manifestly says to them, who, seeing him, did not 
believe, and therefore were not given to him by the Father, 
“Labour for that meat which nourisheth to life eternal, 
which the Son of man shall give to you” (ver. 27), and 
that “this is the work of God, that ye believe in him that 
he hath sent’ (ver. 29), and, “ My Father giveth you the 
true bread from heaven, even him that cometh down from 
heaven, and giveth life (not to the elect only, but) to the 
world” (ver. 32, 33). I therefore here inquire thus, Was 
our Lord truly willing that those he speaks to should have 
life? If not, why doth he say, “These things I speak unto 
you, that ye might be saved (John v. 34); but ye will not 
come unto me, that ye might have life?” If so, why did 
he say, that “he did always those things which pleased 
him” (John viii. 29), and “could do nothing but what he 
saw his Father doing ?” seeing it was not the Father’s will 
that they should be saved, or come unto him, that they 
might have life, whom he had not given to him, that is, had 
not elected to salvation. Note, 

Thirdly, That Christ here gives a reason why they be- 
lieved not, viz. “ You have seen, and yet believe not; be- 
cause ye are not given to me of my Father:” now it is 
reasonable to conceive this reason should agree with all his 
other reasons assigned of their infidelity, which yet are 
manifestly founded, not on any thing wanting on the part of 
God, but on something wanting in themselves, that they 
might do so, viz. 

1. That they came not to the light, “because their works 
were evil ;” and, being so, they “ hated the light, and would 
not come to it” (John iii. 19, 20) ; that they believed notin 
him, “ because he spake the truth,’ which was distasteful to 
them (viii. 45). 

2. Because “they had not the word of God abiding in 
them,” nor believed God bearing witness to him, nor Moses 
speaking of him (John v. 38. 46), and so, not being taught 
of God, they would not learn. 

3. Because they were not of God; “Ye therefore do 
not hear his word, because ye are not of God” (John viii. 
47), and because they “had not the love of God in them” 
(John v. 40. 42). 

4. Because “they preferred the praise of men before the 
praise of God,” not seeking that glory which cometh of 
God only (John v. 44). 

5. Because they were “not of his sheep,” i. e. not docile 
nor disposed to hear his voice; “ Ye therefore believe not, 
Lecause ye are not of my sheep” (John x. 26). 

6. Because, through the perverseness of their hearts, they 
coull not hear his word; « Why do you not know my 


JOHN. 


him that cometh (hus) to me I will in no wise cast 
out (2. 6. reject from that life). 

38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine 
own will, but the will of him that sent me. 

39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, 


speech? even because ye cannot hear my word” (John viii. 
43): and this they could not do, because “they were of 
their father the devil,” and his works they would do. And 
therefore, 

Fourthly, To be given of the Father, is, (1.) to be con- 
vineed by the miracles which God had wrought by him, to 
testify the truth of his mission, and thereby to set his seal 
unto him, that he was the Messiah and the Son of God, and 
to be willing, upon these testimonies, to own him as such ; 
laying aside all those unreasonable prejudices and carnal 
affections which obstructed their coming to him. This ap- 
pears (1.) from the description which Christ gives of those 
whom God had given him, viz. “ They were thine, and thou 
gavest them to me; and they know that I came from thee, 
and they have believed that thou hast sent me” (John xvii. 
6. 8): for this is spoken of Christ’s disciples, of whom it is 
so often said, “'They saw his miracles, and believed on him’’ 
(John ii. 11); by them they therefore knew that» he came 
forth from God, and so are said to be given him of God, 
who, by these miracles, convinced them of this truth, and 
so they believed that he had sent him. (2.) This appears 
farther from these words, “ There are some of you that be- 
lieve not; for Jesus knew from the beginning who they 
were that believed not’ (sincerely), and saith, “ Therefore 
I said to you, No man can come unto me except it were 
given him of my Father” (ver. 64, 65): for these men had 
not laid aside their prejudices against his words ; they could 
not believe that he came down from heaven who was the son 
of Joseph (ver. 42) ; they murmured at his words, and were 
scandalized (ver. 61); “they went away from him, and 
walked no more after him;” and therefore, through their 
prejudices against his person and his doctrine, they could 
not prevail with themselves to think that he came forth 
from God; and, upon that account, Christ here informs us 
that he said, “No man can come unto me, unless it were 
given him of the Father.” And (3.) this we may learn 
from a like expression in the book of Deuteronomy, xxix. 
, “ Ye have seen all the Lord did before your eyes in 
the land of Egypt, the great temptations, signs, and mira- 
cles which there he wrought; yet the Lord hath not given 
you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, 
unto this day, x5), and the Lord hath not given,” or rather, 
“hath not the Lord given you?” xb) being put for xbpm. So 
Ἵν xd) “Shall not Ammon go with us?” 2 Sam. xiii. 26; 
yon a5 xb “ Went not my heart with thee 1 2 Kings v. 26; 
so also Job ii. 10, Mal. ii. 15. For here it is manifest, that 
the way of God’s giving them a heart to perceive, was by 
working those signs and miracles before their eyes which 
might induce them so to do; and yet, for want of this 
improvement of them to this end, it is admired that “the 
Lord hath not given them this heart,” or is imputed as 
their great fault, that he had not given it; 1. e. that 
after all he had done to produce it in them, they had 
it not. 

(2.) Christ being sent by God the Father, that the world 
through him might be saved; and he having sent his Son to 
propound to them that eternal life which “was with the 
Father, and was manifested to us by his Son,” and to pro- 
pose to us the terms on which this life might be obtained 
(as Christ doth throughout this chapter) ; he is said to have 
“given us eternal life, and that this life is in his Son,” 
1 John v. 11, and that this is his record concerning him, 
and here, that “the Father had given him, the true bread 
from heaven, that giveth life unto the world” (ver. 32, 33). 
And they, who were so convinced of the truth of this pro- 
mise by our Saviour’s miracles, as to expect to receive it by 
faith in him, and obedience to his doctrine, and so affected 
with this promise of eternal life, as to esteem it above all 
other things, and so were willing to apply themselves to 
the performance of those duties which he required to obtain 
it, and to reject and quit those things which might obstruct 
them in the prosecution of it, are said to be “ given to him 
of the Father;” because he wrought those miracles which 


9 
os 


CHAPTER VI. 


that of all which he hath given me I should lose no- 
thing (i. e. should suffer none to perish, xvii. 12), but 
should 5 raise it up again at the last day. 

40 And this (a/so) is the ® will of him that sent me, 
that every one which seeth the Son (i. e. discerneth him 
to be the prophet sent from God), and (therefore) believ- 
eth on him, may have everlasting life : and I (for that 
end) will raise him up at the last day. 

41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he 
said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. * 

2 And they said (one fo another), Is not this Jesus, 
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? 
how is it then that he (being born of earthly parents) 
saith, I came down from heaven? 


gave them this conviction; on which account, when Peter 
had confessed that he was the Christ, Christ answered, 
«Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee, but my 
Father which isin heaven,” Matt. xvi. 17 (see the note there); 
and because he gave this promise of eternal life, and sent 
his Son to reveal it to the world; and therefore when he 
saith to his apostles, whom the Father hath given him, 
« Will ye also go away?” Simon Peter answers, ver. 68, 
69, “Lord, to whom should we go, secing thou hast the 
words of eternal life? and we have believed, and know, 
that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Now 
it is evident, that all who have this strong conviction, that 
our Saviour came from God, and this concernment for that 
eternal life he promised, as the encouragement to come 
to him, will believe on him; because such persons can 
neither want assurance that they ought to do so, nor 
the most prevalent engagements so to do, as having that 
eternal life before their eyes, which they more value than 
all worldly things, and for which they are willing and pre- 
pared to quit all their lower interests. 

5 Ver. 39. But I will raise it up at the last day.) This 
being said of all who are given to Christ by the Father, it 
follows, that none of them shall rise till that day; and it 
being here said, they are to be raised to receive eternal life, 
which life is only to be enjoyed in the heavens, it follows, 
that none of them are to be raised to “reign with Christ a 
thousand years.” 

16 Ver. 40. It is the will of him that sent me, that every 
one that believeth in me should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life.| Some hence infer, that every tme believer must 
persevere unto the end, since otherwise he cannot have this 
life eternal. ἔ 

But to this, and to all other promises and declarations of 
a like nature, which engage, that God will give eternal life 
to the believer, I answer, that nothing is more evident, than 
that they can only be understood of such a faith as doth 
“endure to the end” (Matt. xxiv. 13), and so includeth 
perseverance in it: for either these promises are made to 
temporary believers, and so to those who after fall away, 
which is contrary to the tenor of the scripture, and makes 
the promises of eternal life, and the threats of perdition, 
belong to the same persons, viz. to them who, having lived 
by faith, draw back (Heb. x. 38, 39); or else they depend 
on this condition, that such men do continue in the faith, 
according to those express words, “ He hath reconciled us to 
God, if we continue in the faith rooted and grounded, and 


be not drawn away from the hope of the gospel,” Col. i. 
21, 22; “ We are Christ’s household, if we hold our con- | 
fidence and rejoicing of hope firm to the end,” Heb. iii. 6, | 
and ver. 14, “ We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold | 


the beginning of our confidence firm to the end ;” and then 
it is demonstratively certain, that perseverance is included 
in them, and made the condition on which the blessing 
a doth depend, and therefore cannot be proved from 

em. 

™ Ver. 44. No man can come unto me, cxcept the Father 
which hath sent me draw him.] For explication of these 
words, consider, < 

First, That to be drawn of God, cannot import our being 
raoved by any inward and irresistible impressions from God, 
to believe in him: for then no man could come to Christ 
without these irresistible impressions; and therefore none 
could be blameworthy for not believing in him, because they 


359 


43 Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, 
Murmur not among yourselves (on the account of these 
words ; for it is not want of truth in my words, but want 
of affection to my doctrine, and due consideration of the 
testimonies God hath given to it, that makes you thus mur- 
mur at and reject them. 

44 And indeed) Noman can come to me, except the 
Father whieh hath sent me (by thus confirming my tes- 
timony, and disposing you to prize and value that eternat 
life I promise) ™ draw him (to believe and embrace my 
doctrine, and live according to it): and I will raise him 
up at the last day (who is thus drawn to believe and em- 
brace it). 

45 It is written in the prophets (That the kingdom 


could not do it without powerful impression, which God was 
not pleased to afford them; nor could it be praiseworthy to 
believe in him, because they only did so, when they could 
not choose but do it, as being acted in so doing by a force 
which they could not resist. And therefore, 

Secondly, To be drawn of God, can only signify to be 
persuaded and prevailed on so to do, by the consideration 
of those mighty works, which God had done, to testify, that 
Christ was the true Messiah, and that prophet which he had 
sent into the world; to these Christ still appeals, as divine 
testimonies concerning him, by saying, “'lhe works which 
my Father hath given me to do, bear witness of me,” x. 25, 
by the consideration of them he persuades others to believe 
in him, saying, “ Believe in me for my works’ sake,” John 
xiv. 11, and upon this account he represents the unbelieving 
Jews as inexcusable, that “he had done those works among 
them which never man did,’ xv. 22. 24, and all those works 
are said to be recorded, that “men might believe that Jesus 
is the Son of God; and, believing, might have life through 
his name,” xx. 31, all which must convince us, that these 
things were sufficient to draw men to Christ; whence he 
himself speaks thus, “ When I am lifted up, I will draw all 
men after me,” xii. 32, viz. by the power of my resurrection, by 
which I shall so fully be demonstrated to be the Son of God, 
by the mission of the Holy Ghost, to confirm my resurrec- 
tion and the truth of my doctrine, by signs and wonders, 
and powerful distributions of the Holy Ghost, as to be suffi- 
cient to prevail with all men to believe in me; though the 
event showed, that all men were not actually drawn to him 
by these means. Or, 

Thirdly, To be moved by the great promise of eternal 
life to do it; for wheresoever there is any lively sense of 
that inestimable blessing, it strongly must engage us to use 
the means by which we may obtain it, and so to come to 
Christ, if from him only this blessing is to be expected; 
and this is a familiar sense of the word draw, both in the 
scripture and in other writings: thus God is said to “ draw 
them by the cords of love,” Hos. xi.4, who yet were “ bent 
to backsliding from him,” ver. 7, and men are said to be 
“ drawn away by their own lusts,” Jam. i. 14. For, saith 
the poet, Trahit sua quemque voluptas, “ Every man’s plea- 
sure draws him” to a compliance with it. Thus say the 
Jews,* “The master draws the scholar by his parables,” i. 6. 
incites him to learn; and a man is driven by wine, and by 
his pleasures; and it is a celebrated saying among them, 
that “a precept draws a precept, and a transgression draws 
on a transgression,” i. e. one sin disposeth us to commit 
another, and obedience to one precept to obey another: 
and that we are only said to be “drawn” by the Father to 
Christ, viz. by his miracles and divine instructions, is evi- 
dent from the words following: as the proof of this, «It is 
written, They shall be all taught of God; he therefore, who 
hath heard of the Father,” i. e. perceived him speaking and 
doing his mighty works by me, “cometh to me.” Without 
this drawing none can come to Christ; for none but God 
can give this promise of eternal life to encourage us to do 
so, and no power but that of God can work those miracles, 
which proved his commission from God; and hence Christ 
owns, that if he “had not done those miracles among 
them,” they had had no sin of infidelity, John xv. 22, 24. 


* Buxtorf. voce 47) p. 484. 


360 


of the Messiah. shall be set up), and (then) they shall 
be all 18 taught of God. Every man therefore that 
hath heard (the Father speaking in and by me), and 
hath learned of the Father (the truth of my doctrine), 
cometh unto me. 

46 (This I say) Not that any man hath seen the 
Father (and so immediately is taught by him, this privi- 
lege none can claim), save (but) he which is (the only- 
begotten Son) of God, he (only) hath (thus) seen the 
Father. 

47 (Being therefore thus alone acquainted with his 
will,) Verily, verily, [say unto you, He that believeth 
on me hath jen assurance of ) everlasting life. 

48 (For) 1 am that bread of life (of which, if a man 
spiritually eat, he shall not die, ver. 50). 

49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, 
and (notwithstanding this they) are dead (most of 
them in their sins, and for their unbelief ; and all of 
them, because it could neither preserve life nor restore 
il). 


JOHN. 


50 This (bread of which I speak) is the bread which 
cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, 
and not die (for the punishment, but for the abolilion of 
sin, and then be raised to a state in which he can die no 
more). 

51 Tam the living (or life-giving) bread which came 
down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread 
(though he die), he shall live (again) for ever (by virtue 
of his eating of it): and the 9 bread that I will give is 
my flesh, which I will give (up to the death) for the 
life of the world (that whosoever believeth in me thus 
dying for him may not perish, but have everlasting life, 
iil. 16). 

52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, 
saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 

53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, Except ye (by faith in my death) ™ eat the 
flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have 
no life in you (no spiritual life at present, nor any right 
to life eternal). 


8 Ver. 45. It is written, ἐν τοῖς προφήταις, in the prophets.] 
viz. Expressly, Isa. liv. 13, and in effect, Jer. xxxi. 33, 34, 
in these words, “I will put my law in their hearts, and 
write it in their inward parts, and they shall not teach every 
man his neighbour, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall 
know me from the greatest unto the least.” 

They shall be taught of God.) Isa. liv. 13. Thus we are 
taught by his example; thus we are ϑεοδίδακτοι, taught of 
God to love one another: (2.) by his Spirit, that unction, 
which taught the primitive Christians all things needful to be 
known, 1 John ii. 27: (3.) by his word; so, saith Clemens 
of Alexandria,* “are we taught of God:” and, lastly, by his 
Son delivering the mind of God to us as his prophet, and so 
giving us the knowledge of what he requires us to believe 
and do, in order to salvation: and, secondly, confirming the 
truth of what he thus delivered in his name, by miracles done 
by the finger of God, and so setting his seal to the doctrine 
taught. And of his teaching by God are these words to be 
understood ; (1.) because the prophet Isaiah is there speak- 
ing of the setting up the kingdom of Christ, and of the teach- 
ing then promised. (2.) Thus is it that the Father draws 
men to Christ, of which these words are made the proof: see 
note on ver. 37. (3.) From the argument following, ver. 46, 
That they were not to expect to be taught immediately by 
the Father, as a scholar is taught by his master, seeing him 
present, and hearing him speak, but only by him that had 
seen the Father, and so spake, and did those things, which 
he had seen of the Father (John iii. 12, viii. 28, xii. 50) : so 
that he who had seen him, had seen the Father (xiii. 9, 30). 
It is also evident from these words, “It is written, They 
shall all be taught of God,” that this teaching must be com- 
mon to all the Jews; but that is not true of God’s internal 


and effectual teaching, but only of Christ’s outward teaching. 


(4.) From Christ’s inference, πᾶς οὖν, every man therefore, it 
follows, 1. that to be taught of God, is not inwardly to be 
taught by him, but only by hearing the doctrine of his Son: 
2. that not all that are thus taught will come to Christ, but 
they only who have learnt of him. 

9 Ver. 51. And the bread which I will give is my 
Jlesh, which I will give, &c.] Up to the death, to obtain 
that eternal life, which was lost by the sin of Adam. Hence 
it is evident, that Christ here speaks of faith in him, as suffer- 
ing and shedding his blood for mankind, he being our propi- 
tiation only “through faith in his blood,” Rom. iii. 25, and 
we being “reconciled to God by his death,” Rom. v. 9, 10 
(see here Examen Millii), 

2 Ver. 53, 54. Except ye eat the flesh, and drink the 
blood of the Son of man, you have no life in you.) To 
prove that Christ, in this chapter, speaks not of oral and 
sacramental eating, but only of doing this spiritually by faith 
in his blood, I premise, 

First, That nothing was more common among the eastern 
nations than to use the metaphor of eating and drinking, 


* Θεοδίδακτοι yap ἡμεῖς ἱερὰ ὄντως γράμματα παρὰ τῷ Υἱῷ τοῦ 


Θεοῦ παιδευόμενος. Strom. i. p. 318, ii. 396, 397. 


when they speak not of corporeal meat or drink, which was 
to go into the mouth, but only of spiritual, to be fed on by 
the soul, as hath been fully proved already, note on ver. 27. 
31,32. Thus Clemens of Alexandria, discoursing upon that 
passage of St. Paul to the Corinthians, “I have fed you with 
milk, and not with strong meat,” saith, that “milk is the 
rudiments of faith,” or “the doctrine of the catechism, the 
first nourishment of the soul; strong meat a contemplation, 
which makes us to discern the divine power and essence ; 
σάρκες αὖται καὶ αἷμα τοῦ Λόγου, these contemplations are 
the flesh and blood of the Word: βρῶσις yap καὶ πόσις τοῦ 
Ssiov Λόγου ἡ γνῶσίς ἐστι τῆς ϑείας οὐσίας, the meat and drink 
of the divine Word is the knowledge of the divine essence ;” 
and Ireneus saith that Christ “taught the weak τρώγειν καὶ 
πίνειν τὸν Λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ, to eat and drink the divine Logos,” 
lib. iv. cap. 74. 

Secondly, That it is the same thing in this chapter, to 
“eat of the bread which came down from heaven,” and to 
believe in Christ, breaking the bread of life to us by his doc- 
trine, and offering himself a sacrifice and oblation for us to 
obtain that life; for when he had exhorted them to labour 
for the meat that did not perish, he tells them, ver. 
29, that this was to believe on him whom God had sent. 
When he had told them, ver. 35, that he was the bread from 
heaven, he immediately adds, “He that cometh to me shall 
never hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.” 
Having said that he was the “bread which cometh down 
from heaven, and giveth life unto the world,” ver. 33, he con- 
firms this expression, ver. 40, by these words, “ This is the 
will of my Father, that every one that seeth the Son, and 
believeth on him, should have eternal life.”” And again, ver. 
47, 48, « Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth 
on me hath everlasting life: I am that bread of life.” 

Thirdly, Observe that, from these metaphors, our Lord 
proceeds to that contained in these words objected by the 
Roman doctors, ver. 51, “ The bread which I will give is my 
flesh, which I will give for the life of the world;” that is, it 
is my body, which I will give up unto death, that by it the 
world may have life. The Jews, taking these words in a 
gross sense, as if our Lord had promised to give his real flesh 
to be swallowed down their throats, and eaten by them, as 
they had eaten bread the day before, and as their forefathers 
had eaten manna in the wilderness, exclaiming against him, 
as promising a thing absurd, inhuman, and impossible, say- 
ing, “ How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” to this 
our Saviour answers, ver. 53, in words still more expressive 
of his violent and bloody death for the salvation of mankind, 
viz. “Except you eat my flesh, and drink my blood,” &c. 
Now these words are by some conceived to import thus 
much: Unless you, with the mouth of your bodies, do eat 
my real and corporeal flesh, and drink my proper blood, you 
cannot have eternal life. Against this sense I argue, 

First, from ver. 51, thus, “The flesh,” which Christ here 
promised to “ give for the life of the world,” is the same with 
the “bread that cometh down from heaven;” if any man 
“eat of this bread, he shall live for ever,” saith Christ, and 


CHAPTER VI. 


54 But)Whoso eateth (/hus) my flesh, and drinketh 
my blood, hath (by that faith, an interest in) eternal 


«the bread which I will give is my flesh, that I will give for 
the life of the world.” And again, having said, “He that 
eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life” 
(ver. 54), and “he that eateth me shall live by me” 
(ver. 57), he adds immediately, “This is the bread which 
came down from heaven ;” and “he that eateth of this bread 
shall live for ever.” Now our Lord hath expressly taught 
us, that eating of this bread of life imported only our believ- 
ing in him (ver. 35), as hath already been made evident from 
our second observation; therefore, the eating of his flesh 
doth certainly import the same spiritual action. Moreover, 
we are only to eat of Christ's flesh, in that import of the 
phrase in which we are to eat of Christ as bread: for, as 
Christ saith, he “ will give flesh to eat ;” so doth he say, he 
“ will give bread to eat;” as he saith, “He that eateth my 
flesh shall live for ever;” so he saith, “He that eateth of 
this bread shall live for ever ;” but none could say, that 
Christ was, or could properly be, bread, or eaten by the 
mouth as such; wherefore he, being only figuratively and 
spiritually bread, could only figuratively and spiritually be 
to be eaten as such. If therefore in the same importance 
only we are to eat his flesh, that also is to be eaten in a 
spiritual sense. 

Secondly, From these words, ver. 52, “ How can this 
man give us flesh to eat?” it is evident the Jews conceived 
that our Lord promised to give them his proper flesh to eat, 
and swallow down their throats, as they had done the bread 
with which he fed them; and it on all hands is agreed, that 
they mistook the sense of Christ’s words, and fancied such a 
meaning of them as he did not intend; but had our Lord 
intended the corporeal eating of his flesh, and drinking of 
his blood, it is certain that it must be swallowed down their 
throats as properly as the bread which they had eaten; and 
therefore no man, who maintaineth this corporeal eating of 
Christ’s flesh to be intended here, can, suitably to his opin- 
» ion, say, that they imposed a false sense upon our Saviour’s 
words, since, from this sense it doth inevitably follow, that 
Christ intended that his human flesh should properly be 
eaten ; and their words signify no more. Add to this one 
consideration, which shows what apprehensions the fathers of 
the first three centuries had of this eating of the flesh of 
Christ, viz. when it was objected to them by the heathens, 
that they did eat man’s flesh, they constantly, in their apo- 
logies, reject the accusation as the vilest calumny, and as a 
most abominable thing, sufficient to discover the author of 
such an accusation must be some wicked demon. See this 
fully proved, note on Matt. xxvi. 26. 

Thirdly, The fifty-third verse affords two farther arguments 
in refutation of the corporeal sense of these expressions: 
(1.) That it follows plainly from it, that the thief upon the 
cross, and all the pious and believing Jews who heard these 
words, and died before our Saviour’s passion, must, of ne- 
cessity, be damned: for our Lord saith, with an asseveration, 
to them, “Except you eat the flesh,’ &c. Now this was 
said at the passover then instant, ver. 4, and so at least above 
a year before our Saviour’s passion, and so before the institu- 
tion of that sacrament, in which alone his flesh could be 
corporeally eaten; and therefore, had it been intended of 
corporeal and sacramental eating, it was impossible that any 
person of those hearers could be saved, who died in the en- 
suing year. (2.) These words, interpreted in the corporeal 
sense, do plainly and inevitably infer, that they who do de- 
prive the laity, all their whole lives, of drinking of this 
blood, expose them to inevitable damnation; Christ having 
said, “ Except you drink the blood of the Son of man, you 
have no life in you.’ For though eating and drinking, being 
taken figuratively, do signify the same thing, viz. believing 
in a crucified Saviour, yet, being taken properly, they cannot 
be reputed the same thing. For albeit they who receive 
the body only, may be well said to eat the flesh of Christ, 
because they take something by way of meat into their 
mouths; yet cannot they be said to drink his blood, if they 
take nothing into their mouths by way of drink. Since 
therefore eating and drinking are two distinct actions, so that 
he cannot be properly said to drink who only eats; since the 
privation of life is here connected with not drinking of 
— Vor. 1V.—46 


361 


life; and I will raise him up at the last day (ἐο enjoy 
it). 


Christ’s blood, as much as with not eating of his flesh, ac- 
cording to the corporeal interpretation of these words; he 
must certainly be deprived of the life here promised, who 
doth not receive the cup, because he is deprived of drinking 
of the blood of Christ. 

Fourthly, From ver. 54. 56, the argument runs thus; 
Whosoever eateth the flesh and drinketh the blood of Christ 
in the sense here spoken of, abideth in Christ, and Christ in 
him; and therefore is a true and living member of Christ’s 
body, and he shall have eternal life, and be partaker of a hap- 
py resurrection; and so no person can either be wicked here, 
or deprived of everlasting life hereafter, who in this sense 
here mentioned eats of the flesh and drinketh of the blood 
of Christ. Now this is very true of eating spiritually and 
by faith, as it imports believing in Christ. For “this,” saith 
Christ, “is the will of him that sent me, that every one who 
believeth on the Son may have everlasting life, and I will 
raise him up at the last day ;” but then of sacramental eat- 
ing of Christ’s flesh, it is as false ; for this was eaten by a Ju- 
das, and continually is eaten by millions, who are both wicked 
here, and will be damned hereafter: this therefore cannot be 
the import of our Saviour’s words. And here observe, (1.) 
that our Lord speaks in the general, « Whosoever eats.” (2.) 
That he speaks thus, not by way of promise, which might be 
conditional, but by way of plain assertion, and declaration 
of a thing most certain. And, (3.) that the text shows the 
eating mentioned here can never be performed unprofitably, 
no, not without the greatest benefit ; for it is opposed to eat- 
ing manna in the wilderness on this account, that whereas 
that only gave a temporal life, this would assuredly confer 
eternal; whereas that was not able to preserve from temporal, 
this would preserve from death eternal. 

Fifthly, Moreover, ver. 61 and 62, our Lord speaks thus, 
“Doth this offend you? What if you should see the Son 
of man ascend up where he was before?” i. e. Are you of- 
fended that I thus speak of giving you my flesh to eat? Do 
you look on this expression now as so absurd and unintelli- 
gible? What then will you think of it, when this body 
shall be removed hence to heaven? i. e. How will you then 
be scandalized, and think it still more difficult, and more im- 
possible to apprehend how you shall eat my flesh and drink 
my blood, provided you go on to understand my words in the 
gross carnal sense? For Athanasius* saith well, that Christ 
here mentioneth his ascent into heaven, ἵνα τῆς σωματικῆς 
ἐννοίας αὑτοὺς ἀφελκύση, “that he might divert them from the 
corporeal sense ;” and therefore argued thus: Seeing it will 
be then impossible, that you should corporeally eat my flesh, 
when it is so far removed from you, by this you may discern 
I speak of a spiritual eating of it. Whence by the way we 
learn, that Christ thought his ascension into heaven a suffi- 
cient demonstration to the Jews, that his flesh could not be 
eaten upon earth; and why it should not be so to the Chris- 
tians, I am yet to learn. 

Sixthly, The sixty-third verse affords us a plain and 
certain exposition of our Saviour’s meaning in the precedent 
words; for thus it runs: “It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; 
the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, 
they are spirit, and they are life:” for the import of these 
words is to this effect: 'To that eating and drinking, of which, 
in this discourse, I have still spoken, I have annexed the pro- 
mise of life, saying expressly, “ He that eateth me shall live 
by me ;” he shall by metbe quickened, i. e. be raised up to 
life eternal: and that he abideth in me by that Spirit, which 
quickeneth our mortal bodies (Rom. viii. 11), so that my 
words are spirit and life, as being the means of obtaining the 
Spirit, and by him this life; to which effects my flesh, if 
you could eat it, would profit you nothing. Had our Lord 
said, It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth no- 
thing; therefore the flesh, which I will give, shall be joined 
to my divinity, and, by the virtue of it, give you life, he had 
said somewhat like the sense which others put upon this 
text; but saying only, “ The words which I speak unto you, 
they are spirit ;” we cannot doubt but he speaks of eating 
and of drinking his flesh and blood spiritually. 


* In illud evan. aa dixerit, p. 979, 
2 


962 


55 For 2! my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is 
drink indeed (ἡ, 6. faith in me, giving up my body to the 
death, and shedding my blood for the remission of your 
sins, is the true meat and drink, which nourisheth to eter- 
nal life. 

56 For) He that (thus) eateth my flesh, and drinketh 
my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him (by that Spirit 
which will quicken your mortal bodies, and raise them 
from the dead, Rom. viii. 11). 

57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I (though 


JOHN. 


I die shall) 33 live (again) by the Father: so he that 
(thus) eateth me, even he shall live by me. 

58 This is that bread which came down from hea- 
ven (to be eaten of you): not as your fathers did eat 
manna, and are dead (see ver. 49, for): he that eateth 
of this bread shall live for ever (and have that life which 
manna never could, nor was designed to afford). 

59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he 
taught in Capernaum. 

60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had 


Seventhly, Our Saviour having said to the twelve, « Will 
ye also go away ?” Peter answers, “To whom shall we go? 
Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe that 
thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” Where 
(1.) observe, that Peter here doth, as it were, repeat the 
words of Christ: “ My words are life,” saith Christ ; “Thou 
hast the words of life eternal,” saith Peter; whereas, if he 
had understood our Saviour to have spoken here of oral 
manducation, his answer would, in all probability, have 
been to this effect: Whatsoever appearance there may be of 
inhumanity, absurdness, and impossibility, of eating thy na- 
tural flesh, and drinking of thy blood ; yet we believe it, because 
thou hast said it, who art truth itself, and who art able to 
make good thy words. We therefore, hearing nothing of this 
tendency from him, may conclude, that he knew nothing of 
this import of them. And (2.) observe, that he thought it 
sufficient to say, “ We believe thou art the Christ ;’ which, 
if our Lord spake here of oral manducation, was nothing to 
the purpose; but if he only spake of spiritually eating of 
him, was the very thing which was designed by our Lord in 
this discourse, and which he spake of in those words which 
so much offended others. We therefore conclude, with 
Clemens of Alexandria,* that “ when our Lord said, Eat my 
flesh, and drink my blood, he allegorically meant the drink- 
ing of faith and of the promises; and that our Lord is, by 
way of allegory, to those that believe in him, meat, and 
flesh, and nourishment, and bread, and blood:” with Ter- 
tullian,t that “our Lord all along urged his intent by alle- 
gory, calling his word flesh, as being to be hungered after, 
that we might have life ; auditti devorandus, ruminandus in- 
tellectti, et fide digerendus; to be devoured by the ear, ru- 
minated upon by the mind, and by faith digested : with 
Origen,+ that “we are said to drink his blood, when we re- 
ceive his words, in which life consists; that his flesh is meat 
indeed, and his blood drink indeed, because he feedeth all 
mankind with the flesh and blood of his word, as with pure 
meat and drink :” with Eusebius,§ that “ his words and doc- 
trines are flesh and blood:” with Athanasius,|| that “the 
words which Christ spake were not carnal, but spiritual ; for 
how could his body have sufficed for meat, that it should be 
made the food of the whole world?” with Austin,{ Atquid 
paras dentes et ventrem? crede, et manducdsti; credere 
enim in eum, hoc est manducare panem vivum: “ Why 
providest thou teeth and a belly? believe, and thou hast 
eaten ; for to believe in him, this is to eat the living bread :” 
add, lastly, with Jerome,** “in the truest sense, the body 
and blood of Christ is the word and doctrine of the scrip- 


* Dayeodé pov τὰς σάρκας εἰπὼν, καὶ πίεσϑέ pov τὸ αἷμα, ἐναργὲς 
τῆς πίστεως καὶ τῆς εὐαγγελίας τὸ πύτιμον ἀλληγορῶν, ὅξο. Pedag. 
lib. i. cap. 6, p. 100. Τὸ dé αἷμα, οἶνος ἀλληγορεῖται, &c. Ibid. 
p. 104, 105. 

{ De Resur. Carn. cap. 36, 37. 

+ Bibere autem dicimur sanguingm Christi cum ser- 
mones ejus recipimus. Hom. 16, in Num. fol. 123. Caro 
ejus verus est cibus, et sanguis ejus verus est potus, carnibus 
enim et sanguine verbi sui, tamquam mundo cibo ac potii, po- 
tat et reficit omne hominum genus. Hom. 7, in Levit. 
fol. 73. 

§ De Eccl. Theolog. lib. iii. cap. 12. 

|| Ἵνα μάϑωσιν ὅτι καὶ ἃ λέγει οὐκ ἔστι σαρκικὰ ἀλλὰ πνευματικά" 
πόσοις γὰρ ἤρκει τὸ σῶμα πρὺς βρῶσιν ; ἵνα καὶ τοῦ κύσμου παντὸς 
τοῦτο τροφὴ γένηται. Tom. 1. p. 979. 

ol Tract. xxv. in Johan. tom. ix. p. 218, et ‘l'ract. xxvi. p. 
223. 
** Licet in mysterio possit intelligi, tamen verius corpus 


ture ; caro Christi et sanguis ejus in auribus nostris infundi- 
tur, the flesh and blood of Christ is poured into our ears.” 
We say, in the language of Origen,* Si filii estis ecclesia, 
—agnoscite, quia figure sunt ;—se enim secundtim literam 
sequaris, &c. “If ye are the sons of the church, own these 
things to be figures; for if you follow the letter, this very 
saying, Except you eat the flesh, is a killing letter:” in the 
words of Eusebius,t pronounced in the name of Christ, 
“Do not think that I speak of that flesh with which I am 
compassed, as if you must eat of that; neither imagine, 
that I command you to drink of my sensible and bodily 
blood; but understand well, that the words that I have 
spoken to you, they are spirit and life.” For, as Austin¢ 
saith, touching the exposition of scripture phrases, “If the 
saying be preceptive, either forbidding a wicked action, or 
commanding that which is good, it is no figurative speech ; 
but if it seems to command any wickedness, or to forbid 
what is profitable and good, it is figurative. This saying, Ex- 
cept ye eat, &c. seems to command a wicked thing; it is 
therefore a figure, enjoining to communicate in the passion 
of our Lord, and sweetly and profitably remember, that his 
flesh was wounded and crucified for us.” 

21 Ver. 55. For my flesh ἀληθῶς ἐστι βρῶσις, is meat in- 
deed, and my blood 1s drink indeed.] From what hath been 
said (note on ver. 53), it appears this cannot be meant of eat- 
ing and drinking corporeally the flesh and blood of our Lord 
Jesus in the holy sacrament; it remains, therefore, that they 
must here be styled, “ truly meat and drink,” in the spiritual 
sense ; because the eating of this flesh by faith in his salutary 
passion doth nourish the soul to life eternal ; and the drink- 
ing of this blood by faith in the blood of Christ, shed for the 
remission of our sins, doth so refresh the person thirsting af- 
ter righteousness, that, being justified by faith in his blood, 
and having the Spirit promised to all believers conveyed to 
him as a fountain of living waters, he shall thirst no more 
(John iv. 14, vii. 38,39). Thus, in the scripture language, 
a thing is said to be that ἀληθῶς, truly, which it is only spi- 
ritual, or by way of allegory, or in reference to some effects 
which it performeth, answerable to some natural effect per- 
formed by that which it is said truly and indeed to be: so 
our heavenly treasure is called τὸ ἀληϑινὸν, “the true riches,” 
as making us rich towards God, and being a treasure of spi- 
ritual wealth, never to be taken from us (Luke xvi. 11). 
Thus Christ is styled τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν, “the true light,” 
John i. 9, because his doctrine was that to the understanding 
which light is to the eye, directing us in the way of life; he 
also is styled ἄμπελος ἀληθινὴ, “the true vine,” John xv. 1, 
as being one who did more certainly refresh the thirsty soul, 
and fill it with spiritual joy, than will the fruit of the vine 
refresh the thirsty body, and rejoice the heart: thus heaven 
is called ἡ σκηνὴ ἡ ἀληθινὴ, “the true tabernacle,” Heb. viii. 2, 
and Christ here saith of himself, ver. 32, “I am 6 ἄρτος ὃ d\n- 
θινὸς, the true bread which came down from heaven ;” i. e 
more nourishing and strengthening to the soul of the believer, 
than bread can be to the body (see Examen Milli). 

2 Ver. 57. And I live by the Father.) How, saith Steg- 
mannus, can he be God, who lives by the benefit of another ? 
I answer, even as he can have life in himself (v. 26), by the 
life of the Father communicated to him with his essence. 

Ver. 58 and 59.] See Examen Milli. 


Christi, et sanguis ejus, sermo scripturarum est. In Ps. 
exlvii. fol. 94. 

* Hom. vii. in Levit. ibid. 

+ Ubi supra. 

+ De Doctrina Christiana, lib. iii. cap. 16. 


CHAPTER VII. 


heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can 
hear*(z. 6. receive) it? 

61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples 
murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this (discourse 
of eating my flesh) offend you (now) ? 

62 What and if (ἐὰν οὖν, if, or when therefore) ye 
shall see the Son of man“ ascend up where he was 
before? (How much more will you be offended, seeing 
my body will be then less capable of being eaten by you, 
in that gross sense in which you understand my words. 

63 But know that) It is * the spirit (tmparted to be- 
lievers) that quickeneth (their mortal bodies, Rom. viii. 
11); the flesh (even of my body, could you eat it) pro- 
fiteth nothing (to that end: now) the words that I speak 
unto you, they are spirit, and they are life (7. e. they 
are the means of obtaining this Spirit, and life by him). 

64 But there are some of you (my disciples) that be- 
lieve not (and so cannot obtain this Spirit and this life. 
This he satd) For Jesus knew from the beginning (of 
his ministry, John ii. 24, 25) who they were that be- 
lieved not (sincerely), and who should betray him. 

65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no 
man can™ come unto me (i. e. believe in me), except it 


363 


were given unto him of my Father (7. δ. unless be were 
thoroughly convinced by the miracles wrought by me, that 
Iwas sent from God, and had by God wrought in him a 
prevailing affection to eternal life ; both which were want- 
ing in these disciples). 

66 4 From that time many of his disciples went 
back, and walked no more with him. 

67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also 
go away? 

68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom 
shall we go? (since) thou (only) hast the words of 
eternal life (and for that, above all things, we are and 
ought to be concerned ). 

69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that 
(the) Christ, the Son of the living God (sent by him to 


| reveal this life, and to impart it to those who do sincerely 


believe in thee). 

70 Jesus answered them, ® Have not I chosen you 
twelve, and one of you 15 ἃ devil? (¢. 6. an adversary 
to me and my doctrine. 

71 This) Hespake of Judas Iscariot the son of Si- 
mon: for he it was that should betray him, being one 
of the twelve. 


3 Ver. 62. What if you see the Son of man ascending 
where he was before 31 It is certain, saith Stegmannus, this 
is spoken of the Son of man, and so not of a person who is 
God. But I deny the consequence: it being indeed spoken 
of him, who was the Son of man; but not as he was so 
only, but as being also the Son of God, “his only-begotten 
Son who is in the bosom of the Father,” John i. 18. 

Obj. But then, why is it said, “« Where he was before,” 
as of a thing past, not where he always was? 

Ans. 1. As God the Father is often said in scripture to 
descend upon the earth (see note on ver. 33), and afterward 
to go up and ascend again to his place (Gen. xviii. 33, Hos. 
ν. 15), that is, “to the place where he was before ;” so what 
reason can be given, why the same may not be said of the 
divine Word 1 

Ans. 2. 1 add, that, according te our hypothesis, he may 
be properly said to ascend where he was before, who, in his | 


divine glory used to appear from heaven to the patriarchs; 
and, when he became man, divested himself of that glory, 
and took upon him the form of a servant, because he after 
reassumed and appeared in that “ glory, which he had with 
the Father before the world was,” John xvii. 5. 

2 Ver. 63. It ts the Spirit that quickeneth: Ver. 64. 
Thou hast the words of eternal life.] See note on ver. 53. 

% Ver. 65. Therefore said I to you, No man can come to 
me, except it be given him of my Father.] See the note on 
ver. 37. 

25 Ver. 70. Οὐκ ἐξελεξάμην, &c. Have I not chosen you 
twelve, and one of you is a devil ?| Hence it appears, saith 
Theophylact, that ἡ ἐκλογὴ rod Θεοῦ οὐ βιάζεται τὴν προαίρεσιν 
ἡμῶν, God's election lays no force upon the will of man,” 
but leaves him éSe\oSpérrov ζῶον, one that may turn to good 
or evil, as he will. 


CHAPTER VII. 


1 Arrer these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for 
he ' would not walk in Jewry, because (the rage of the 
chief priests and principal men of ) the Jews (was such, 
that they) sought to kill him. 

2 Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles (kept in remem- 
brance of their living in tents forty years in the wilder- 
ness) was at hand. 

3 His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart 
hence, and go into Judwa, that 2 thy disciples (there) 
also may see the works that thou doest. 

4 For there is no man that doeth any thing in se- 
cret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If 
thou (canst) do these things (in truth at any time and 
in any place), shew thyself to the (great men of the) 


world (the Sanhedrin, and the pharisees and rulers there, 
that they may be convinced of the truth. And this they 
said, being desirous that his miracles might be tried by 
them, hoping they would find out the cheat of them). 

5 For neither did * his brethren believe in him (that 
he did these things in truth, and for a good end, but for 
vain-glory, ver. 4). 

6 Then Jesus said unto them, My time is not yet 
come (to go up thither, ver. 8): but your time is alway 
at (to go thither uvthout molestation from any body 
there. 

7 For)Theworld cannot hate you (who live in con- 
(ae. to the manners of it) ; but me it hateth, because 

testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIL. 


1 Ver. 1. He would not walk in Judea, because the Jews 
sought to kill him.] His time being not yet come, he parted 
thence, instructing us by his example not to irritate men, 
or run into danger without necessity, upon presumption of 
divine protection, but that we are to use all lawful means 
which God hath put into our hands, to avoid them. Only 
note, that by departing from Judea into Galilee, he declined 
not the end of his coming into the world; because in Gali- 
Jee his doctrine and miracles found more faith than in Judea, 
so that he chose to be most there, where his doctrine was 
like to do most good. Note also, that fo walk, when it re- 
lates to places or persons, signifies to tarry there or with them 
for a time; as “His disciples walked no more with him,” 


John. vi. 66 (see xi. 54), when it relates to things or ac- 
tions, it signifies to be often doing them, or conversant 
about them, as to “walk after their covetousnesss,” to 
“walk in malice,” ἄς. 

2 Ver. 3. That thy disciples also may see the works that 
thou doest.] Either that thy disciples in Judea may see the 
works thou doest in Galilee, or that thy disciples in Galilee, 
going up to the feast, and seeing thee doing the like works 
before the Sanhedrin, who can best judge of them, may be 
the more confirmed in the faith: for the Galileans received 
him, “having seen the works that he did at Jerusalem at 
the feast” (iv. 45). 

3 Ver. 5. For neither did his brethren believe in him.] 
i. 6. They believed not that he was the Messiah; because 
they saw not that pomp and outward splendour, which they 


964 


8 4 Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto 
this feast; for my (jit) time (of going up) is not yet 
full come. ν᾿ 

9 (And)When he had said these words unto them, 
he abode siz// in Galilee. 

10 1 But when his brethren were gone up, then 
went he also up unto the feast, (in obedience to the di- 
vine command: but this he did) not openly (and with 
company), but as it were in secret (as privately as he 
could, to avoid the design of them that sought to kill him, 
ver. 19). 

11 Phen the Jews sought him at the feast, and said, 
Where is he? 

12 And there was much murmuring (7. 6. private 
discourse) among the people concerning him: for some 
said, He is a good man: others said, Nay ; but he de- 
ceiveth the people (applying himself still to them, and 
not to the wise and great ones). 


JOHN. 


13 Howbeit no man (7. 6. none of his favourers) 
spake openly of him (as of the Christ) for fear of the 
Jews (who had decreed, that if any man should confess 
that he was the Christ, he should be put out of the syna- 
gogue, ix. 22). 

14 4 Now about the midst of the feast (when, the 
number of the sacrifices lessening, the people were more at 
leisure to hear,) Jesus went up into the temple, and 
taught. 

15 And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth 
this man letters (how comes he to be so skillful in the 
knowledge of the scriptures), having never leamed (in 
the academies, or from the scribes) 2 

16 Jesus answered them, and said, (Ye need not ad- 
mire at this, if ye consider that) ® my doctrine is not 
mine, but his that sent me ({. e. J did not frame it of 
myself, but received it immediately from God. 

17 And) If any man will (honestly resolve to) do 


expected from the Messiah ; or imagining that he sought to 
be ἐν παῤῥησίᾳ, a public person, they conceived that he pre- 
tended to do more than indeed he could; as appears from 
those words, ver. 4, “If thou doest these things,” show that 
thou doest them where the best judges of thy actions are. 
Yet that afterward they believed, we learn from Acts i. 14, 
where they are numbered among those who cleaved to the 
apostles. 

4 Ver. 8. Go ye up to the feast.} You may do this se- 
curely at any time ; for the pharisees bear no hatred to you, 
whereas my doctrine, being opposite to their manners and 
affections, may expose me to their rage; I therefore shall 
not yet go up. He would go up in obedience to the divine 
command, but he would go as privately as he could, to 
avoid danger, by human prudence, when there was no ne- 
cessity of doing it by a miraculous power. Ἐγὼ οὔπω ἀναβαίων, 
“T go not up yet to this feast.” Here Grotius notes, that 
this particle οὔπω, “yet,” was not originally in the text; be- 
cause Porphyry accuses Christ of inconstancy and muta- 
bility, saith Jerome,* as saying, “I go not up to this feast,” 
when afterward he went; and therefore concludes this par- 
ticle was after added by the Christians, to avoid the force of 
this objection: but this is to accuse the Christians of adding 
to and altering the scriptures, to save the credit of a heathen 
and professed enemy to Christianity, as if he could not read 
negligently, or meet with a deficient or corrupt Latin copy. 
It is certain that Chrysostom read, viv or οὔπω" so did also 
the Syriac and Arabic versions, the Alexandrian, and most 
other manuscripts, and both the words preceding, and the 
words following, require this reading; Christ saying, ver. 6, 
« My time (of going up) οὔπω πάρεστι, is not yet come ;” and 
here, “I go not up (yet) unto the feast, for my time οὔπω 
πεπλήρωται, is not yet come ;” where he respects not the time 
of his death, as some imagine, for then he should not have 
gone up to Jerusalem till the time came that he was to 
suffer there; whereas we find him at this feast of taberna- 
cles, ver. 10, and at the feast of dedication of the altar, x. 
12: he, therefore must there speak of his going up to this 
feast (see here Examen Milli). 

5 Ver. 14. Τῆς ἑορτῆς μεσούσης, About the midst of the feast 
Jesus went up.] Dr. Pocock informs us, that the days be- 
twixt those which were ordinary and festival were styled 
dies medii, intermediate days; because some works might 
be done in them, which were not lawful on their feast-days. 

6 Ver. 16. My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.] 
«Tf Christ,” saith Stegmannus, “had any other nature be- 
sides the human, according to which he was the prime 
author of his doctrine, could he have truly said, My doctrine 
is not mine? Could one, who was the true God, deny that 
he sought his own glory? Since the true God cannot do 
otherwise, sure he that thus denies these things, which are 
so proper to God, cannot be God most high.” 

Ans. To this some answer, That this indeed cannot pro- 
perly be said of him, super quem alius non est, which is the 
distinction put by Justin Martyr and Ireneus betwixt God 


the Father and the Son, whom they believed to be truly 
God, viz. that this cannot be said of him, who is the original 
and fountain of the Deity, and derived his essence from 
none; but it may be said of him, who is “God of God,” as 
deriving his divine essence from the Father, especially when 
being “in the form of God he did not covet to appear as 
God, but took upon him the form of a servant” (see the 
note on Phil. ii. 6, and upon 1 Cor. viii. 5): he acting even 
when Lord of all things, “to the glory of God the Father” 
(Phil. ii. 11). For thus he speaks of himself, as having an 
original, according to which the Jews knew who he was, 
and whence he was (ver. 28 of this chapter), i. e. saith 
Stegmannus, of what parents he was according to the flesh; 
and yet, viii. 14, he saith, “Ye know not whence I am,” 
and ver. 19,“ Ye neither know me nor my Father ;” that is, 
saith the same Stegmannus, Ye know not my divine excel- 
lency ; and so both, saith he, are true, but in a diverse man- 
ner, they knowing him as to his earthly parents, but not as 
to his divine excellency and descent from heaven. Why 
therefore may we not use the like distinction here, viz. that 
his doctrine was not his (only), and yet was his; that he 
came not to do his own will, and yet he did it; i. e. he did 
not do it, as he was man; but yet he did do it, as he was 
God as well as man? since from this instance it appears, 
that truly may be ascribed to him in a higher sense, which 
he removes from himself when he speaks of himself as act- 
ing here on earth. ‘Thus he tells his apostles, he was to be 
no more in the world, but to leave the world, and go to the 
Father, and even to go away from them, xvi. 7. 28, xvii. 11, 
and yet he promiseth to be always with them, Matt. xxviii, 
28, and to abide with them for ever, John xiv. 16. 23 (see 
the note on ver. 28). But, 

Secondly, I answer, that Christ, by saying these and the 
like words, respects himself as a prophet, sent by his Father 
into the world. Now the very office of a prophet requires 
that he should speak nothing of himself, nor deliver his own 
mind and doctrine, nor seek his own glory; but should 
speak all things in his name, and do all things for the glory 
of him that sent him; and to this may be referred most of 
those passages of this gospel, which the Socinians urge 
against the Deity of Christ, they being spoken by him, not 
to declare by what power and wisdom he acted, as he was 
the only-begotten Son of God, but to demonstrate he was 
no false prophet; that he delivered not a doctrine invented 
by himself, to get a name and reputation to himself, but 
only taught that doctrine he had received from his Father, 
and which tended to advance his glory: for, 

First, To speak “of himself,” in the scripture phrase, is 
to speak from his own heart, and private motion and inven- 
tion, what he had not received from God, as the false pro- 
phets did: so Moses saith, Numb. xvi. 28, Hereby shall 
ye know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these things, 
and that I do them not yap “of my own heart,” or “at my 
own will,” say all the Targums. And Balaam speaks thus, 
Numb. xxiv. 13, “If Balak would give me his house full of 
silver and gold, I cannot transgress the word of the Lord, to 


* Porphyrius inconstantie et mutationis accusat, lib. ii. | do good or evil, xan, ἀφ ἑμαυτοῦ, of myself;” or as it is 


contr. Pelag. Ε 103, G. 


xxii. 18, ἐν τῇ διανοίᾳ pov, “of my own mind ;” “ of my own 


CHAPTER VII. 


This will (made known to him), he shall know of the 
doctrine (which I teach), whether it be of God, or whe- 
ther I speak (only) of myself. 

18 (And by this test you may discern it, for) He that 
speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory (and there- 
Sore speaketh not those things which he knows will dis- 

ἐς, and procure hatred to him from men): but he that 
seeketh (on/y) his glory that sent him, the same is (@) 
true (prophel), and no ® unrighteousness (¢. 6. falsehood ) 
is in him. 

19 (But it is otherwise with yous as being full of hy- 
pocrisy and guile, for) Did not Moses give you the law 
(for which you seem so zealous as to be angry with me 
for a supposed violation of it), and yet (after all this pre- 
tended zeal) ὃ none of you keepeth the law? Why 
(else) go ye about to kill me (against the sixth command- 
ment) ? 


20 (Some of )The people answered and said, Thou 
hast a devil (¢. e. thou art possessed with a lying spirit) : 
who goeth about to kill thee ? 

21 Jesus answered and said unto them, I have done 
one work, and ye all 10 marvel (that J, who profess my- 
self a prophet, should violate the rest of the sabbath by 
doing such a work on that day. 

22 Now) Moses therefore " gave unto you (the pre- 
7 of ) cireumcision ; (not because it (orginally) is of 

oses, but of the fathers) (from the days of Abraham) ; 


365 


and ye'(in obedience to the command to circumcise on the 
eighth day) on the sabbath day circumcise a man (child, 
when the eighth day is also the sabbath-day). 

23 If (then) a man on the sabbath day receive cir- 
cumcision, that the (ritual) law of Moses (requiring tt 
to be still done on the eighth day) should not be broken ; 
are ye (justly) angry at me, because (that the law of 
charity and mercy, which is superior to and more ancient 
than that of circumcision, might not be broken by me) I 
have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath 
day? 

ὃς ® Judge not according to the appearance (of vio- 
lating the sabbath by that action ; because it was a work 
done then), but (consider the goodness of the action, that 
ye may) judge righteous judgment. 

25 Then said some of them of Jerusalem (who knew 
the designs of the pharisees against him), Is not this he, 
whom they seek to kill ἢ 

26 But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say no- 
thing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is 
the very Christ? (and for this reason have they laid 
aside that design ?) 

27 Howbeit (there lies this plain objection against his 
being the Messiah, that) we know this man whence he 
is: but (our tradition saith, that) when ™ Christ cometh, 
no man knoweth whence he is. 

28 Then (in answer to this cavil) cried Jesus in the 


will,” saith the Targum ; “ but what the Lord saith, that will 
I speak.” Hence God complains of the false prophets, that 
they speak ἀπὸ καρδίας αὑτῶν, “from their own hearts,” and 
not from the mouth of the Lord, Jer. xxiii. 16, and τὰ θελή- 
para τῆς καρδίας αὑτῶν, “the deceits of their own hearts,” 
ver. 26. Thus, to speak from himself, here, ver. 17, 18, is 
opposed to speaking from God; and, viii. 28, it stands op- 
posed to speaking what he was taught by God, in these 
words, “I speak not of myself, but as the Father hath taught 
me, so I speak ;” and, xii. 49,I speak not of myself, but 
as the Father hath given me commandment:” see also xiv. 
10. When therefore Christ saith, “My doctrine is not 
mine,” he speaks not this in respect of his own knowledge, 
he having in him “all the treasures of wisdom,” Col. ii. 2, 
nor in respect of authority, for he styles it his “ word,” his 
“commandment;” nor in respect of his will, which was al- 
ways one with that of his Father’s; but he only denies 
that he spake as a false prophet, saying things of himself 
without commission from his Father, or running when he 
had not sent him, as they did, but, as the Baptist saith of 
him, spake “the words of God.” Now what reason can be 
given, why Christ, though having in him “all the fullness of 
the Godhead,” might not say, when upon earth, he spake 
and acted as a prophet sent from God ; that he was no false 
prophet; that he uttered no doctrine of his own invention, 
nor any thing which he had no commission to speak to them; 
and that in the delivery of it he sought not his own glory, as 
the false prophets did? 

7 Ver. 17. If any man will do his will, &c.] That is, if 
he hath an honest heart, prepared to obey the truth when 
he is convinced of it, he shall know of the doctrine, i. e. 
ay have means sufficient to convince him, that it is of 

od. 

§ Ver. 18. He is true, καὶ ἀδικία ἐν αὐτῶ οὐκ ἔστιν, and there 
is no unrighteousness, i. e. no falsehood, in him.] So ἀδικία 
signifies ; so οἰκονόμος τῆς ἀδικίας is “ the false steward,” Luke 
Xvi. 8, ἀπάτη τῆς ἀδικίας, “deceit by falsehood,” is opposed 
to the “love of the truth,” 2 Thess. ii. 10 (see the note on 
1 Cor. xiii. 6): so that this seems to be the import of these 
words, He is a true prophet, and no false impostor. 

9 Ver. 19. None of you keep the law.) i. e. None of you, 
who go about to kill me as a violator of the sabbath, that 
requiring you not to condemn the innocent (Exod. xxiii. 7). 

Ὁ Ver. 21. Kai πάντες ϑαυμάζετε, And ye all wonder.) i. e. 
Ye do it with anger and offence ; ver. 23, παραιτεῖσθε, ϑορυ- 
Gcic#e, Theophylact. So ϑαυμάζειν signifies, Eccles. v. 8, 
«“When thou seest the oppression of the poor, μὴ ϑαυμάσης, 
be not troubled or offended at the matter:” and Ecclus. xi. 
21, μὴ ϑαύμαζε ἐν ἔργοις ἁμαρτωλοῦ, “ Be not offended at the 


works of sinners.” Note also, that the words, διὰ τοῦτο, “ for 
this cause,” are added to this verse thus, “ That you may, or 
so that you will, marvel at this,” by Chrysostom and Theo- 
phylact (see Examen Milli in locum). 

N Ver. 22, 23. Moses gave you cireumcision.] i. 6. He 
continued to you that rite which began from Abraham, to 
whom it was commanded that it should be performed, τῇ 
ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ὀγζόῃ, “on the eighth day” (Gen. xvii. 14), though 
it fell upon the sabbath, and you accordingly perform it on 
that day, and teach that “circumcision drives out the sab- 
bath,”* or makes it lawful to perform work on that day, 
even all things which are necessary to be done for the cir- 
cumcision of the child; and if this be lawful, by the com- 
mand of Moses, to be done on that day for the benefit of a 
child, why may it not be lawful, according to Moses, to do 
a like work for the benefit of one of riper years? 

2 Ver. 24. Judge not κατ᾽ ὄψιν, according to appearance.] 
i.e. Absolving them who do these works of circumcision, 
&c. on the sabbath-day, in observance of a ritual precept, 
and condemning me, who, by healing with a word on that 
day, do what is less laborious in observance of the higher 
precepts of charity and mercy; and then considering, that 
God « will have mercy, and not sacrifice,” you will judge 
righteous judgment. For to exempt Moses from blame for 
commanding that work to be done on that day, which is 
more laborious, and less beneficial, out of respect to him; 
and to condemn me, a greater prophet, for doing with a 
word what is more beneficial on that day, out of disrespect 
to me, is manifestly to judge with respect to persons: so 
Theophylact. 

13 Ver. 27. But when Christ cometh, no man knoweth 
whence he is.] This is doubtless spoken from the vain tra- 
ditions of their rabbins; who owned, indeed, that their Mes- 
siah was to be born at Bethlehem, but imagined that he was 
presently to be conveyed thence, and concealed till Elias 
came to anoint him. That this was an ancient conceit among 
them, appears not only from the Targum of Jonathan, who, 
on Micah iv. 8, saith thus, “ Thou, Ὁ Christ, who liest hid 
for the sins of the children of Sion, to thee shall the king- 
dom come;” but also from the words of Trypho,t “If 
Christ be born, and is any where ἀγνωστός ἐστι, he is unknown, 
nor hath he any power, till Elias comes to manifest him to 
the world :” and hence Justin Martyr saith, “I know your 
masters say, that Christ is not yet come; and if he be come, 
οὐ γινώσκεται ὅς ἐστιν it is not known who he is” (p. 336, C). 


* Maim. Hilcoth Nicklah, c. 1, Pirk. Eliezer. cap. 29, 


pag. 65. 
7 Apud Just. Dial. ix. 226. 
2¥2 


366 


temple as he taught, saying, Ye both “ know me, and 
ye know whence 1 am (7. 6. my person, parentage, and 
country ; but yet this should not prejudice you against my 
being a prophet sent from God): and I am not come of 
myself, but he that sent me (and hath given sufficient 
testimony that he did send me) is true, whom ye know 
(ὦ. δ. you own) not (denying to receive his testimony con- 
cerning me). 

29 But I know him: for I am from him, and he 
hath sent me (and thus 1 have an original ye know not 
Of ). 
30 Then they sought to take him (for assuming to 
be a teacher sent from God): but no man laid hands on 
him (God so ordering it), because his hour was not yet 
come, 

31 And many of the people (who had seen his mi- 
racles) believed on him, and said (in justification of 
their faith), When Christ cometh, will he do more 
miracles (fo convince us that he is the Christ) than 
these which this man hath done (to prove himself so 
to be)? 

τὸ 4 The Pharisees heard that the people murmured 
(7. e. said privately) such things concerning him; and 
(therefore) the Pharisees and the chief priests sent 
officers to take him. 

33 Then said Jesus unto them (that were sent, Ye 
need not trouble yourselves to take me, for) yet (but) a 


JOHN. 


little while am I with you, and then I go (again) unto 
him that sent me. 

34 (Then) 15 Ye shall seek me (in your distress, Luke 
xvii. 22, see viii. 21), and shall not find me: and 
where I (then) am, thither ye cannot come. 

35 Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither 
will he go, that we shall not (be able to) find him? 
will he go unto * the dispersed among the Gentiles, 
and teach the Gentiles ? 

36 What manner of saying is this (what other mean- 
ing can he have in) that he said, Ye shall seek me, and 
shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot 
come ? ; 

37 In the last day, that great day of the feast (on 
which they went with great solemnity and joy to draw 
water from the fountain of Siloam, to bring it to the 
temple, singing these words of Isaiah, With joy shall 
they draw water from the wells of salvation, and ex- 
pecting an afflatus of the Holy Ghost), Jesus stood and 
cried, saying, If any man thirst (for spiritual waters), 
let him (not go to Siloam, but) come unto me, and 
drink. 

38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath 
said, (Isa. xxxii. 1, 2, xliv. 3, Ezek. xxxvi. 27, so 
shall it be with him, for) out of his belly shall flow 
rivers of living water (springing up to eternal life, 
John iy. 14). ‘ 


44 Ver. 28. Ye both know me, and ye know whence Iam.] 
Here Stegmannus the Socinian notes, that what Christ grants 
here, he denies, viii. 14. 19, saying, « Ye neither know me, 
nor whence I am,” because in different respects, mentioned 
note on ver, 16, both are true; when then he argues from 
those words, “I came not from myself,” Christ is not God; 
because God cannot but come from himself: why did he not 
from these words infer, in like manner, that Christ had no 
divine excellence unknown to the Jews? But he considered 
not that to “come of himself,” did only signify to come asa 
false prophet without commission from God, and delivering 
in his name a doctrine he had not received from him; in 
which sense, though Christ could not come of himself, yet 
might he say these things of himself as a prophet here on 
earth, though he had also in him the fullness of the God- 
head. 

15 Ver. 84. Ye shall seek me (in your distress), and shall 
not find me.] So have I interpreted this passage in the pa- 
raphrase, as most commentators do; yet the precedent 
words, and the words following, seem to require this sense, 
I go to my Father, and though you should seek me, ye can- 
not then find me; for you are not fitted to go to heaven 
where my Father is. 

% Ver. 35. Will he £0 sis τὴν διασπορὰν Ἑλλήνων, to the dis- 
persed among the gentiles* &c.] It is a matter of dispute 
what is here meant by “the dispersion of the gentiles,” some 
understanding by this phrase the dispersion of the Jews 
among the Greeks in Asia and Europe, as the διασπορὰ Πόν- 
του, “the dispersion of Pontus and Galatia,” 1 Pet. i. 1, is 
the dispersion of the Jews in those places; because the 
word dispersion is not thought to agree well with the gen- 
tiles, being in their native soil; but yet there seems a neces- 
sity of understanding by this phrase the gentiles dispersed, 
from the time of building the tower of Babel into divers na- 
tions (Gen. x.) : for (1.) it is not said, will he go to the dis- 
persion, and teach the Jews? but, will he go, and teach τοὺς 
Ἕλληνας, “the gentiles?” which fixes the sense to them. 
Moreover this seems here to be said by way of imputation and 
reproach to Christ; whereas it could be no imputation on 
him to preach to the Jews to whom he was sent, nor could 
this seem strange to them ; but they thought it unlawful for 
a Jew to converse with the uncircumcised (Acts x. 28), nor 
could they patiently hear of one sent to preach to the gen- 
tiles (Acts xxii. 22): nor is the phrase in Peter parallel, it 
being not simply διασπορὰ, “the dispersion,” but παρεπίδημοι 
τῆς διασπορᾶς, “the strangers of the dispersions of Pontus,” 
&c. (see Examen Millii in locum). 

T Ver, 37—39. Ἔν τῇ δὲ ἐσχάτη ἡμέρᾳ τῇ μεγάλη τῆς ἕορ- 
τὸς, In the last, i. 6. the great day of the feast, Jesus cried, 


If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.—This said 
he of the Spirit.) For explication of these verses observe, 

First, That Christ here speaks of the internal gifts of the 
Spirit, viz. those of prophecy, tongues, of wisdom, and the 
knowledge of all mysteries; for he speaks of those gifts of 
the Holy Spirit, which were “not yet given, because Jesus 
was not yet glorified ;” he therefore speaks of the gifts to be 
received after his ascension; now they were these internal 
gifts (see note on Heb. ii. 4, 1 John v. 6). 

Secondly, Observe, that these gifts of the Spirit are pro- 
mised under the metaphor of waters flowing out of the body 
of believers, agreeable to the nature of internal gifts. So 
Christ saith to the Samaritan woman, “The water which I 
will give, will be a fountain of water springing up to life 
eternal,” iv. 14; so Isa. xxxii. 1, 2, “ Behold, a king shall 
reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment; 
and a man shall be as rivers of water in a dry place:” and 
xliv. 3, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and 
floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy 
seed, and my Spirit upon thy offspring ;” that is, saith the 
Targum, “ As waters are given to the thirsty earth, so will I 
give my Spirit upon thy sons:” and Hzek. xxxvi. 25—27, 
“T will pour clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; 
I will put my Spirit p2aqpa in the midst of you,”—“in 
your bowels,” saith the Targum ; whence it is manifest, that 
they must be mistaken who say the words of Christ are not 
to be found in the Old Testament, and so interpret his words 
thus, He that believeth in me (as the scriptures require him 
to believe), out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water ; 
whereas that phrase, καδὼς εἶπεν ἡ γραφὴ, “as the scripture 
hath said,” is never used to express the manner after which 
a thing is to be done, but always to confirm the truth and 
authority of the thing mentioned (see ver. 42, Rom. iv. 3, 
ix. 17, x. 11, xi. 2, Gal. iv. 30, James ii. 8). 

Thirdly, Observe that Christ spake thus on the last day 
of the feast of the tabernacles; now on that day, say the 
Jews, they used to compass the altar seven times with 
branches in their hands, saying some prayers, In which 
they often repeat the words hosannah and hatzilcka, « Save 
now, and prosper us;” whence that day was styled Hosanna 
Rabba, or “the great day of the feast,” as here ; and as they 
add, by the institution of their prophets Haggai and Ze- 
chariah, they then fetched water with great joy and pomp 
from the fountain of Siloam, and brought it to their Priests, 
who poured it upon the altar with the wine of their sacri- 
fice, singing these words of Isaiah, xii. 3, “ With joy shall 
ye draw water from the fountain of salvation ;” that is, saith 
the Targum, “ With joy shall ye receive a new doctrine from 
the elect of the Just;” and whilst they were thus singing, 


CHAPTER VIII. 


39 (But this (τοῦτο δὲν and this) spake he of the 
Spirit, which they that believe on him should 
his ascension) receive : for the (effusion of the) Holy 
Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus Gul 
= to send him from the Father) was not yet glori- 

ed.) 

40 § Many of the people therefore, when they heard 
this saying, said, Of a truth this is ® the Prophet (of 
whom Moses foretold, Deut. xviii. 18). 

41 Others said, This is the Christ (the king Mes- 
sias, of whom Psaias said, xiii. 1, [ will put my Spirit 
upon him). But some’said, Shall Christ come out of 

alilee ? 

42 Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh 
of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, 
where David was ἢ 

43 So there was a division among the people be- 
cause of him. 

44 And some of them (that were sent for that purpose) 
would have taken him; but (others of them, who were 
much affected with his doctrine, not consenting) no man 
laid hands on him. 

45 § Then came the officers to the chief priests and 
Pharisees ; and they said unto them, Why have ye not 
brought him ? 


367 


46 The officers answered, ™ Never man spake like 
this man (for he told us what we came about as soon 
as we came to him, and discoursed so heavenly, and with 
such authority, that we durst not lay violent hands upon 
him). 

ay Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also 
deceived (by him) ? 

48 *! Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees 
(who understand the law, and are to judge for you in 
matters of religion) believed on him ? 

49 But this people who knoweth not the law are 
cursed. 

50 Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to 
Jesus by night, being one of them,) (7. 6. of the great 
council, iii. 1,) 

51 Doth our law (permit us to) judge (and aa 
any man, before it hear him (making his defence), ani 
know what he doeth (worthy of condemnation) ? 

52 They answered and said unto him, Art thou also 
(an abettor) of (those of ) Galilee (as by thy actions 
thou seemest to be)? Search, and look: for (by so 
doing thou wilt find that) * out of Galilee ariseth no 
prophet. 

53 And (when they had said this they dissolved the 
assembly, and) every man went unto his own house. 


they expected the Holy Spirit should fall upon them, as 
they said it did on the prophet Jonas, whilst he was em- 
ployed in this very action: they farther say, that there was 
a place in the court of the women, whither they carried these 
waters, called Beth-Hassoovah, « the place of drawing :” be- 
cause thence they drew the Holy Spirit: and lastly, Za- 
chary foretells that “ all the nations should come to Jerusa- 
lem at the feast of tabernacles,” xiv. 16, and “in that day,” 
saith he, “living waters shall go forth from Jerusalem,” 
ver. 8. And hence we learn why that day was called “ the 
great day of the feast ;” and how appositely our Lord spake 
to them of receiving the Holy Ghost, under the metaphor 
of “living,” i. e. fountain-water (see Tremellius here, and 
Buxtorf. Lex. p. 2298). 

18 Ver. 39. Οὔπω γὰρ ἦν Πνεῦμα. Many copies read ἅγιον 
and some διδόμενον ; but I suspect that neither διδόμενον nor 
ἅγιον was in the original; (1.) because Origen reads οὔπω 
yap ἦν Πνεῦμα, and no more, continually SW apud Huet. 
tom. i. p. 299, B. tom. ii.p. 359, D. 398, C. 422, H): nor 
is τὸ ἅγιον interpreted by the Syriac or Vulgar. And (2.) 
the words foregoing are only these, “ Hespake περὶ τοῦ Πυεύ- 
ματος of the Spirit,” and so those answer these, “ The Spirit 
is not yet.” 

9 Ver. 40. Of α truth this is the Prophet.] In whose 
time the great effusion of the Spirit, mentioned by Isaias 
and Joel, is to be expected. 

30 Ver. 46. Never man spake like this man.] Here two 
things are observable; (1.) the power of Christ’s words to 
change the frame and temper of men’s spirits; for these 
men came with hearts alienated from Christ, and with in- 

, 


tention to carry him to the chief priests, but return with a 
great admiration of his excellency and worth. (2.) Here 
is observable the honesty of these men; for they do not 
return with a pretence that they feared the multitude, and 
therefore thought it dangerous to apprehend him; but they 
ingenuously confess, they could not prevail with themselves 
to apprehend a person whose discourses were so holy and 
divine. 

21 Ver. 48. Have any of the rulers or of the pharisees 
believed on him 8] This is plainly the popish argument, by 
which they attempt to prove, that private men, laics, and 
inferior priests, are not to be governed by their own senti- 
ments of Christ’s doctrine, but must submit to their general 
councils, and the major part of their church guides. And 
that it is as strong in the mouth of the pharisees against 
Christ being the true Messiah, as it is in the mouth of pa- 
pists against protestants, see the sermon, at the end of this 
gospel, by me upon this text. 

2 Ver. 52. Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth 
no prophet.) It is wonderful, that not the multitude only, 
who had heard the shepherds declaring from an angel, that 
Christ was “born at Bethlehem” (Luke ii. 15, 16), and had 
wondered at the words which had been told them by the 
shepherds (ver. 18), should make this objection (ver. 41) ; 
but that the chief priests and pharisces, who knew that the 
wise men went to Bethlehem to worship him who was born 
« King of the Jews,” should insist upon it. This is an in- 
stance of the power of prejudice to shut the eyes against the 
clearest truth. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. 

_ 2 And early in the morning he came again into the 
temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat 

down, and taught them. 

3 And (as he was teaching) the scribes and Pharisees 
brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and 
when they had set her in the midst (of the company), 

4 They say unto him, Master, this woman (being 
espoused to a husband) was taken in adultery, in the 
very act. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 


1 Ver. 5. Now Moses in the law commanded that such 
should be stoned.) If she who was taken in the adultery was 


5 ' Now Moses in the law commanded us (Deut. 
XXii. 23), that such should be stoned : but what sayest 
thou? 

6 This they said, tempting him (to say something 
in derogation from that law of Moses), that they might 
have to accuse him (of contempt of, or opposition to, 
the law of Moses). But Jesus (knowing that he was 
no judge to pass sentence on her, and looking upon 
them as unworthy of an answer, as coming not to learn 
of, but to ensnare him) stooped down, and with his 


a married woman, the law required she should be put to 
death (Lev. xx. 10, Deut. xxii. 22), that is, say all the 
Jews, that she should be strangled; but if she were only a 
damsel espoused, the law saith, she shall be stoned (Deut. 


368 


finger wrote on the ground, (making) as though he 
heard them not. 

7 So when (ὡς δὲν but as) they continued asking 
him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, 5 He 
that is without sin (én this kind) among you (her ac- 
cusers), let him first cast a stone at her. 

8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the 
ground (that they might slip away without thinking he 
took notice of them). 

9 And they which heard ἐΐ, being convicted by their 
own conscience (and not knowing but that Jesus might 
discover their guilt if they should execute this sentence on 
her), went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, 
even unto the last: and Jesus was left® alone, and the 
woman standing in the midst (of the people). 

10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none 
(of the pharisees) but the woman (only), he said unto 
her, Woman, where are those thine accusers ? hath no 
man condemned thee ? 


11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto 


JOHN. 


her, Neither do I (who have no commission to pass sen- 
tence on thee, take upon me to) condemn thee (lo die) : 
go (and in the fear of divine judgment, repent), and sin 
no more. 

12 4 Then spake Jesus again (this interruption of 
his teaching being ended) unto them, saying, 4 I am 
(sent to be) the light of the world: he that followeth 
me shall not walk in (the ways of ) darkness, but (obey- 
ing my doctrine) shall have the light of life. 

13 The Pharisees therefore (then present) said unto 
him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record (there- 
fore) is not true (for had God sent thee, he would have 
given testimony to thee). 

14 Jesus answered and said unto them, 5 Though I 
bear record of myself, yet my record is true (end cer- 
tain in itself, though it appear not so to you) : for 1 know 
whence I came (viz. from the Father), and whither I 
go (viz. to him again); but ye cannot tell whence I 
come, and whither I go (and for want of this knowledge 
cannot believe my record ). 


xxii. 23), whence interpreters conclude, this adulteress was 
only espoused (Seld. de Ux. Heb. lib. iii. cap. 11). 

2 Ver. 7. He that is without sin among you, let him cast 
the first stone at μεν. Christ speaks here, not to the magis- 
trate, who must do his office, though he himself should not 
be innocent, but to the accusers of this woman before him, 
to whom it belonged not to pass sentence on her. More- 
over, the Jews say, the woman was not to be accused of 
her husband, nor to be tried by the waters of jealousy, if 
the husband was guilty of the same crime: Christ therefore 
might speak thus to him in the first place, Let him who is 
to accuse her, and to begin the execution, if he be free 
from the like sin, “ first cast the stone at her.’ Nor is it to 
be wondered, that all her accusers having heard this, should 
depart from her, being “convinced by their own consciences” 
of like guilt, seeing that was an “adulterous generation” 
(Matt. xii. 39); and the Jews own, that “the adulterous 
did multiply under the second temple ;” and St. Paul speaks 
thus even to the doctors of the Jews, “Thou that sayest, 
a man shall not commit adultery ; dost thou commit adul- 
tery ?” Rom. ii. 22 (see the note there) : and, lastly, Justin 
Martyr saith that Trypho, and other Jews, complied with 
the sentiments of their rabbins, who permitted them τέσσαρας 
καὶ πέντε ἔχειν γυναῖκας ἕκαστον, “to have every one four or 
five wives ; and said, they sinned not, if, after the example 
of the patriarchs, seeing a beautiful woman, they desired 
her,” and so taught them to commit adultery (Dial. p. 
363, 864). 

3 Ver. 9. The woman was left alone.) i. e. Without any 
of her accusers; for she stood still in the midst of the peo- 
ple, saith the text, and the apostles were then with their 
Lord. 

I come now to vindicate the truth and sincerity of this 
history from the censures of the critics who suspect it. 
And, 

First, It appears from the testimony of Jerome,* that 
this history was found in multis et Grecis et Latinis condi- 
cibus, “in many Greek and Latin copies” of the gospel of 
John, and therefore was wanting but in few of them. The 
Apostolical Constitutionst acknowledged it, saying that 
Christ “said to the woman brought before him by the elders, 
Go thy way οὐδὲ ἐγώ ce xaraxpivw, neither do I condemn 
thee.” The Greek code, cited by Cotelerius, saith, « These 
words are not to be found in some manuscripts, nor in 
Apollinaris ; ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἀρχαίοις ὅλα κείνται, but they are entire 
in the ancient manuscripts;”’ and that all the apostles 
“made mention of them in the constitutions they set forth 
for the edification of the church.” Athanasius speaks plainly 
of it, saying évratSa τὰ περὶ τῆς κατηγοῤρηθείσης ἐπὶ μοιχεία, 
«Hither must we refer what is spoken of the woman ac- 
cused of adultery.” St. Ambrose+ saith, “The question 


* Lib. ii. adv. Pelag. f. 103, H. 

+ Lib. ii. cap. 24, p. 178, 174. 

+Semper decantatam questionem et celebrem absolu- 
fionem fuisse mulieris ejus, que, in libro evangelii Johannis, i 


and absolution of the woman, which in the gospel of St. 
John was brought to Christ, was always famous in the 
church ;” and Austin speaks often of it, and saith, “ They 
are enemies to the faith who take these words out of 
the books, perhaps fearing lest it give impunity to the wo- 
men ;” and Prosper owns it. Moreover, all the versions in 
the Polyglot own this history ; it was found in the sixteen 
MSS. of Stephanus, in the seventeen MSS. of Beza, save 
one. Nor is it to be doubted, saith Selden, that it was re- 
ceived from “ primitive antiquity in the copies of the east,” 
as appears from the Harmonies of Tatian and Ammonius of 
Alexandria, and the canons thence made. Now this Ta- 
tian flourished A. 1). 160, that is, sixty years after the death 
of St. John, and made his harmonies of the gospels out of 
the copies then in use; Ammonius flourished about the 
year 230, and did the same: and Eusebius of Czsarea, who 
flourished about the year 320, made his ten canons out of 
those harmonies: whence it may easily be discerned, what 
is contained in all the gospels, what in three, what in two, 
and what in one only: now the nuntber eighty-six, in the 
canon belonging to St. John, contains this history ; whence 
we may certainly conclude, that it was in his codex. 

That it was wanting in some few Greek copies, is not 
to be wondered, if we consider that the sentence of many 
of the ancients was so severe, that they would not admit 
adulterers or adulteresses into the church after the longest 
penance, and thought τὸν ἐπὶ μοιχείᾳ ληφθέντα ὃς ἀποκτεῖναι 
θέλη, κακὸν οὐκ ἐργάζεται, “that it was no hurt to kill them :ἢ 
for men of these severe opinions might be unwilling to ad- 
mit this history, as Austin saith, quasi permissionem pec- 
candi tribuerit, “as thinking it gave a permission to this 
sin by saying, Neither do I condemn thee.” The history 
which Papias* mentions of a woman ἐπὶ πολλαῖς ἁμαρτίαις 
διαβληθείσης ἐπὶ τοῦ Κυρίου, “accused of many sins before our 
Lord,” or rather by him, seems not to be this, but rather that 
of the woman of Samaria, this being accused but of one, she 
of many such sins, and so no inference can be thence made 
for or against the truth of this history (see F. Simon Crit. 
Hist. lib. i. cap. 13, and Dr. Mills in locum). 

4 Ver. 12. Iam the light of the world.) 'The Jews said 
this of the first Adam (see Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 1821): 
this Christ applies to himself, the second Adam. 

5 Ver. 14. Though I bear record of myself, yet my re- 
cord is true: because I know whence I came and whither 1 
go.) i. e. This makes it to me certain, that my testimony of 
my mission from him is true, though it carry no such force 


adulterii rea oblata est Christo. Ep. lib. ix. ep. 76. Vide 
lib. vii. cap. 58. Et ne nonnulli modice, vel potitis inimici, 
vere fidei, credo mutuentes, peccandi impunitatem dari 
mulieribus suis, illud quod de adultere indulgentid Domi- 
nus fecit, auferrent de codicibus suis. Lib. ii. de Adult. 
Conjug. cap. 7. Vid. Tract. 33 in evang. de Cons. Evang. 
cap. 10, ep. 54, p. 242. De promissis et predict. Dei. 
par. ii. cap. 22, p. 90. 
* Apud Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 39, p. 113. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


15 5 Ye judge (of me) after the flesh (ἡ, e. onus 
to the meanness of my extraction and appearance, whi 

ts all that you know of me); I judge no man (at pre- 
sent ; my business being now that of a prophet, not of a 


Judge). Ree 

16 And yet if I (at any time do) judge (of you), my 
sateen is true: for 1 am not alone (in hat judgment), 
but I and the Father that sent me (so judge; ἡ. e. Ido 
tl by that Spirit of the Father in me, which enables me to 
discern the tnward temper of your spirits. 

17 And whereas you object that I bear record of my- 
self, note that) It is also written in your law (Deut. 
xvii. 6), that the testimony of two men is true (7. e. zs 
valid in causes of the greatest consequence ; and this evidence 
of the truth of my mission ye have ; for) 

18 71 (whom the Father hath sent) am one that bear 
witness of eagpalt (iia he hath sent me), and the Fa- 
ther that sent me (He also) beareth witness of me (by 
the miracles by which he enables me to confirm my mis- 
ston). 

τὸ Then said they unto him, Where is (he whom 
thou stylest) thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither 
know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me (or 
had a due sense of my spiritual and heavenly doctrine, 
and the miracles by which it is confirmed), ye should 
(would) have known my Father also (?. e. would have 
discerned the divine power and wisdom shining in them, 
and would have had the most perfect knowledge of his 
will). 

2 These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he 
taught in the temple: and (though they incensed the 
pharisees, yet) no man laid hands on him (the provi- 
dence of God restraining them) ; for (because) his hour 
was not yet come. 

21 Then said Jesus again§ unto them, I (shortly) go 
my way, and ye shall seek me (in your distress, de- 
siring the Messiah would come to deliver you, Luke 
xvii. 22), and (ye) shall die in your sins: (for) 
whither I go, ye cannot come (being not fitted for 
the celestial mansions ; or, you cannot come to fetch me 


thence). 


369 


22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? be- 
cause he saith, Whither 1 go, ye cannot come. (Sure, 
if he be alive, and in Judea, we can reach him.) 

23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath 
cee so can think and speak only of earthly raed lam 

rom above (and so speak of the things above, whither I 
am going): ye are of this world (and so your thoughts, 
emer words, and actions, wholly respect this world ) ; 

am not of this world (and so my life and doctrine suit 
not with your temper, nor have you any right apprehen- 
sions of my saying). 

24 I said therefore unto you (so indisposed ἰο believe 
and receive my doctrine), that ye shall die in your sins: 
for °if ye believe not that Iam he (whom God hath 
sent into the world as your Messiah, or that Prophet which 
was to come), ye shall die in your sins. 

25 Then said they unto him, Who (then) art thou? 
And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said 
unto you from the beginning (viz. one sent of God to 
reveal his will to you). 

26 "I have many things to say and to judge of you 
(which ye will not believe): but he that sent me (to 
speak them) is true; and I speak to the world (only) 
those things which I have heard of him (and which 
therefore must be true. 

27 Bul) They understood not that he ” spake to 
them of (his being sent from) the Father. 

28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted 
up the Son of man (upon the cross), ™ then shall ye 
know (some to conviction, and some to condemnation) that 
Tam he, and that 1 do nothing of myself; but as my 
Father hath taught me, I speak these things. 

29 And (even now) “he that sent me is with me: 
(and) the Father hath not left me alone (or, deserted 
me); for I do always those things that please him. 

30 As he spake these words, many (who had seen 
the miracles by which he confirmed his sayings, vii. 31) 
believed on him. 

31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed 
on him, * If ye continue in eee to) my word, 


then are ye my disciples indeed ; - 


with you, who have no knowledge of this matter, till it shall 
appear by my mission of the Holy Ghost that I am indeed 
gone to the Father (xvi. 10). 

© Ver. 15. Ὑμεῖς τὴν σάρκα κρίνετε, ὅτε. You judge ac- 
cording to the ΒΑ ; I judge πιο man.) Ἐρίνω is here put for 
xaraxpiva, aS John iii. 17, xii. 47, Rom. ii. 1, iii. 4, xiv. 3, 
4. 10. 13, 1 Cor. xi. 29. 34; so that the sense runs thus, 
You pass sentence on and condemn me, according to your 
carnal tempers; I, whilst Iam on earth, pass not the sen- 
tence of condemnation on men, for I came not to condemn 
the world. 

7 Ver. 18, I am one that bear witness of myself.) i. e. 


convinceth me of sin?” (ver. 46) I, whose doctrine tends 
to promote piety and holiness, and to advance the honour 
of God; for “I do always the things that please him” (ver. 
29) ; I, who cannot but know the truth, “ for 1 know whence 
I came” (ver. 14); I testify that I came from God, and am 
sent by him. 

8 Ver. 21. Then said Jesus to them again.) i. e. To the 
same persons, though not in the same place, he being gone 
out of the treasury (ver. 20). 

9 Ver. 24. If ye believe not, ye shall die in your sins.] 
As wanting that faith in me, which can alone procure the 
pardon of them. 

0 Ver. 25. As I said τὴν ἀρχὴν, from the beginning (or 
before).] So Gen. xiii. 4, Abraham came to the place of the 
altar which he had made τὴν ἀργὴν, “ before ;” xiv. 20, the 
lean kine were κατὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν “as before;” and xliii. 18. 
20,“ We came to buy corn, τὴν ἀρχὴν, before:” so that I 
would render the whole thus; Sum id quod locutus sum 
vobis prius, “I am what I told you before I was;” it being 
very common, in answer to the question, to omit Sum id, 

Vin IV.—47 


or somewhat of like import; so σὺ εἴπας, Matt. xxvi. 25. 64, 
σὺ λέγεις, XXii. 11, i.e. Sum id quod dicis, or, Dicis quod res 
est, “It is as you say,” or, “I am as you say.” 

4 Ver. 26. Ihave many things to say and to judge of 
you.] i.e. You say and judge many things of me, which 
from my words and deeds will appear to be false ; but I have 
many things to say of you, what you are as to your man- 
ners, and what you will be through the just judgment of 
God; which, though you will not believe, will be found 
true; for “he that sent me,” to say them, “is true.” 

2 Ver. 27. They understood not ὅτι τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῖς ἔλεγεν, 


| that he spake to them of the Father.) So vi. 71, ἔλεγε τὸν 
I, in whose life you can find no fault; for “which of you | 


‘lovdav, He spake of Judas :᾿ so here, ver. 54, dv ὑμεῖς λέγετε 
ὅτι Θεὸς ὑμῶν ἐστιν, Of whom ye say that he is your God ;” 
and, ix. 19, ὃν ὑμεῖς λέγετε ὅτι τυφλὸς ἐγεννήϑη, “Who ye say 
was born blind.” So Plato,* ἱατρὸς ὃν ἄρτι ἔλεγες, “ The phy- 
sician of whom you spake ;” and again, σὺ δὲ οἴει pe τοὺς τὰ 
Badavria ἀποτέμνοντας λέγειν, * You think I speak of those that 
cut purses.” 

18 Ver. 28. Then shall ye know I am he.) i. 6. Then 
shall ye have such testimonies, by the effusion of the Holy 
Ghost upon my disciples, as shall be sufficient to convince 
you, and shall prevail upon many to believe that I am the 
Christ. 

M4 Ver. 29. And he that sent me is with me.] Yea, saith 
Stegmannus, “that one God, who is the Father, is in me.” 
And why then doth he deny Christ to be God? It follows, 
“For I do always those things which please him.” See 
here the true way to have God always graciously present 
with us. 

5 Ver. 31. If you continue in my word, then are you my 


* L. de Rep. p. 581. 586. 


370 


32 And ye shall (farther) know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free '® (from the yoke of bondage 
to sin, ver. 34, and corruption). 

33 4 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, 
and were never in bondage to any man: how (then) 
sayest thou, Ye shall be made free ? 

34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, Whosoever  committeth sin is the servant of 
sin (and shall receive the wages of it, which is death ; and 
from this servitude, faith in me and obedience to my word 
will set you free). 

35 And (as) the servant abideth not in the house 
for ever (so shall ct be with the servants of sin, who are to 
be cast out into utter darkness): but the Son (i. e. he that 
is the Son of God) abideth ever. 

36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, (by 
giving you power to become the sons of God, through faith 
in him, so coheirs with Christ, Rom. viii. 17,) ye shall 
be free indeed (so as never to lose your freedom). 

37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed (according 
to the flesh) ; but (now) ye seek to kill me, because 
my word hath no place in you (finds no reception 


JOHN. 


with you; which shows you are not the children of Abra- 
ham by faith, but of another father). 

38 I speak that which I have™ seen with (7. 6. been 
taught by) my Father: and ye do that which you have 
seen with (1. 6. been taught by) your father. 

39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is 
our father. Jesus saith unto them, If*! ye were Abra- 
ham’s children (in the disposition of your spirit), ye 
would do the works of Abraham. 

40 But now ye seek to kill me, (because I am) a 
man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard 
of God: this did not Abraham (who was so celebrated 
for his faith in God’s revelation, and humanity to his 
servants). 

41 Ye do the deeds of (him who is indeed) your fa- 
ther. Then said they to him, We be not born of 2 for- 
nication (ἡ. e. we are no worshippers of idols): we have 
one Father, even (the true) God. 

42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, 
ye would love me: 33 for I proceeded forth and came 
from God (into the world); neither came I of myself, 
but he sent me 


disciples indeed.] i. e. Such disciples to whom I shall still 
more make known my doctrine, and on whom I shall con- 
fer the life eternal promised to them (Matt. xxiv. 13, Heb. x. 
35, 36, 2 John 8, Rev. ii. 10). 

16 Ver.32. And ye shall know the truth.] Christ thought 
no general council, no infallible judge, necessary to the 
knowledge of the truth: but promiseth this to him, who 
was steadfast in the faith, and honestly disposed to do what 
he knew to be his duty. 

7 Ver. 33. We never were in bondage, οὐδενὶ δεδουλεῦκα- 
μεν, we never were servants to any man.| What! were 
they not brought out of the land of bondage? Does not 
Nehemiah confess, Behold, σήμερον ἔσμεν δοῦλοι, “ We are 
servants this day?” and must they not have been then in 
bondage to the Egyptians and Babylonians? or, if they 
spake of their own age, were they not tributaries to the Ro- 
mans? and did they not still clamour against this tri- 
bute, as a sign of servitude ? (see note on 1 Tim. vi. 2, and 
James iv. 3.) Though therefore they were under the Ro- 
mans, not as servants, but as tributaries, yet, since they 
thought, saith Josephus,* the payment of this tribute did, 
δουλείαν ἐπιφέρειν, “bring them into servitude,” they seem 
not well consistent with themselves, in saying, they never 
were servants to any. 

18 Ver. 34. Πᾶς ὃ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, &e. Every one that 
committeth sin is the servant of sin.) That ποιεῖν ἁμαρτίαν 
is to live and go on in any course of sin, though our reason 
may condemn and conscience boggle at it, see note on 1 
John iii. 9; he that doth this, saith Christ, “is a servant of 
sin,’ and in bondage to it; for when we thus obey sin in 
the lustings of it, then doth it κυριεύειν, “lord it over us,” 
and we become doin εἰς ὑπακοὴν, “servants to obey it” 
(Rom. vi. 14, 16), and “of what a man is overcome, of that 
he is brought in bondage ;” and this the very heathens saw, 
that the man that was forced to cry out through the law of his 
members warring against the law of his mind, that “he did 
not the good that he would, but the evil that he would not,” 
had lost his freedom, and was under servitude, “ because he 
could not do as he would, but sinned, though he was not 
willing so to do” (see Examen Millii here). 

Ver. 35. The Son abideth ever.) i. e. 1, who am the Son 
of God, abide for ever, arfd so am able for ever to confer 
this freedom from sin of which I speak ; for this sense the 
following words (“if the Son therefore make you free,” &c.) 
fairly plead: it being reasonable to conceive that the Son, 
im this verse, should bear the same sense with the Son in 


* Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1. 

Τ Si servitus sit obedientia fracti animi, et arbitrio carentis 
suo, quis neget omnes improbos esse servos? Cicero, Parad. 5. 
Quid est enim libertas nisi potestas vivendi ut velis? dicite 
ergo, O homines, βούλεσθε ζὴν ἁμαρτάνοντες ; οὐ βουλόμεθα" οὐὸ- 
tis τοίνυν ἁμαρτάνων ἐλεύθερός ἐστι. Arrian. lib. ii. cap. 1. 


the following words, which give the reason of what is here 
said. 

19 Ver. 37. "O λόγος Ends οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν, My word hath 
no place in you.) i. 6. Your corrupt affections will not 
permit you to embrace it: so Matt. xix. 11. All men υὐ 
χωροῦσι, “cannot receive this saying” (see note on xxi. 25). 

20 Ver. 38. I speak what I have seen: Ver. 40. what I 
have heard of my Father.) i. e. What Ihave learnt of my 
Father abiding in me; for we learn by hearing and seeing. 

21 Ver. 39. If ye were Abraham’s seed, ye would do the 
works of Abraham.] Christ owns they were Abraham’s seed 
according to the flesh (ver. 37), and therefore only denies 
them to be so as to their members, or that resemblance with 
the works of Abraham, which would make God own them 
as his children, viz. his steady faith (Rom. iv. 16), and 
ready obedience (Heb. xi. 8. 17), by which alone they could 
obtain the blessing of Abraham (Gal. iii. 9. 14). 

2 Ver. 41. We are not born ix πορνείας, of fornication ; 
we have one Father, even God.] The prophets representing 
the idolaters among the Jews as fornicators, and their wor- 
shipping other gods as their “going a whoring” from their 
own God (Lev. xvii. 7, Ezek. xxiii. 30, Hos. iv. 12, ix. 1), 
when they had brought themselves off from that sin, they 
represented the idolatry of others under that name: so that 
their very treatises of idolatry bore the name of γι" “ trea- 
tises of whores, or whoredom;” and the book of Wisdom 
saith, “The invention of images was ἀρχὴ ris πορνείας, the 
beginning of whoredom,” or idolatry, xiv. 12. Hence 
Philot saith, «They who introduce many gods differ no- 
thing, τῶν ἐκ τῆς πόρνης ἀποκυθέντων, from those that are born 
of whoredom,” and so are to be driven from the congrega- 
tion, the law saying, 6 ἐκ πόρνης, “ A bastard shall not enter 
into the congregation of the Lord,” but they who have the 
knowledge of God, υἱοὶ τοῦ εὐῦ προσαγορεύονται δεόντως, “ are 
fitly styled the sons of God.” And again, “The law,” saith 
he,+ “expels both the atheist and polytheist from the con- 
gregation ; the first as barren, the second as born of whore- 
dom,” ἄθεος piv γὰρ ὃ ἄγονος" πολύϑεος δὲ ὃ ἐκ πόρνης. And 
hence the Jews here, being free from idolatry, say they 
« were not born of whoredom, but were the children of God,” 
as worshipping one God only, and thinking that on this ac- 
count God would not impute to them their former sins (see 
note on James ii. 19). But against this, Christ here declares, 
they only are to be owned as the children of God who do 
the works of God. 

38 Ver. 42. I proceeded forth, éidSov, and came from 
God.) Into the world, being sent by him, and not coming of 
myself; others are said to be ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, “of God,” even 


* Buxt. Abbrev. p. 191. 

+ De Confus. Ling, p. 266, 267. tnt 

+ L. de Migrat. Abra. p. 312, Ὁ. Seld. de Victim. Offer. 
p. 664, B. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


43 Why do ye not understand (this from) my speech? 
even because * ye cannot (endure to) hear my word 
(as being that which is contrary to your lusts). 

44 Ye are of your » father the devil (as being like 
him in temper and mind), and (therefore) the lusts of 
al your father ye will do. He was a murderer 

rom the beginning (of the creation), and abode not in 
the truth, because there is no (affection fo) truth in him. 
When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own (7. e. 
that which is agreeable to him): for he is a™ liar, and 
the father (the author and first exemplar) of it (and sem- 
blably, the like murderous disposition in you makes you 
seck to kill me; and the like hatred to truth renders you 
80 averse from receiving my word ). 

45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me 
not. 

46 Which of you” convinceth me of sin (in saying 
I speak that doctrine which I have received from him who 
is true? ver. 14.) And if I say the truth, why do ye 
not believe me? 

47 33 He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye 
therefore hear (¢. 6. recetve) them not, because ye are 
not of God. 

48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, 
Say we not well (and with good reason) that thou art a 
Samaritan (an enemy to our religion), and hast a devil 
(i. e. a lying spirit in thee, when thou sayest, the child- 
ren of Abraham are not the children of God, but of the 
devil) 2 : 


371 


49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I ho- 
nour my Father (by ascribing all I say and do, not to 
myself, but to him), and ye do dishonour me (in speak- 
ing thus genrcach fil of me). 

50 And I seek not mine own glory (in what I say 
or do): there is one that seeketh (my honour) and 
judgeth (of these reproaches which you cast upon 
me). 

op Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my 
saying, he shall ” never see death (eferna/). 

52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know 
that thou hast a devil (ἡ. e. @ lying spirit in thee. For) 
Abraham is dead, and the prophets (are dead); and 
thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never 
taste of death. 

53 9. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, 
which is dead? and the prophets (who) are (also) 
dead? whom makest thou thyself? 

54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself (by pretend- 
ing to be greater than indeed I am, or a prophet sent from 
God when Iam not so), my honour is nothing (worth - 
but) it is my Father that honoureth me (by giving tes- 
timony to the truth of what I say ; even he) of whom ye 
say, that he is your God: 

55 Yet (though you call him so) ye have not (truly) 
known him; but I know him: and if I should say, 
know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I 
know him, and keep his saying. 

56 Your father *! Abraham rejoiced (vehémently 


all that hear his word (ver. 47), and the prophets are styled 
«men of God” in the Old Testament, and his “ ministers” 
in the New, 1 Tim. vi. 11, 2 Tim. iii. 17. But though 
Moses, the prophets, and apostles, were sent of God into 
the world, it is said of none of them, that they did ἐκ τοῦ 
Θεοῦ ἐξελθεῖν, “come forth from God:” this therefore must 
import something peculiar to Christ: it therefore either must 
respect the Socinian gloss of Christ’s ascent into heaven, to 
be instructed in his prophetic office, and his descent again 
from thence; which gloss I have confuted, note on iil. 13, 
or the Jews’ opinion that the soul of the Messiah was 
created at the beginning of the world, and so came down 
from heaven to animate his body, which the Socinians, who 
deny that Christ had any existence before he was born of the 
virgin, cannot approve of; or it must import his divine 
ἐζξελεῦσις, OF Original from the Father, by the communication 
of his essence, or the union of the divine Adyos to the 
human nature, which we assert (see the note on xiii. 3). 

Ἧι Ver. 43. Because οὐ δύνασϑε ἀκούειν, ye cannot hear my 
word.) That is, men of your tempers cannot yield obe- 
dience to it: see the fifth import of the phrase μὴ δύνασϑαι, 
note on Mark ij. 16, This, doubtless, was the great sin of 
the Jews, and so they wanted not either natural power, or 
assistance necessary on God’s part, to do this; but only a 
moral power, or a mind well disposed to obey his words. 

35. Ver. 44. You are of your father the devil.] i. 6. By 
resembling him in your actions; for as he is a son of Abra- 
ham who does the works of Abraham (ver. 39), so is he a 
child of the devil who does his works (1 John iii. 8. 10), 
not only out of ignorance and human frailty, but from choice 
and affection to, or good liking of them. “He was a mur- 
derer from the beginning,” i. e. as soon as man was created ; 
«for through the envy of the devil death entered into the 
world” (Wisd. ii. 24), and so “ came upon all men” (Rom. 
ν. 12): you, by seeking my death, in this resemble him: 
he “abode not in the truth,” but seduced Eve by a lie; you 


in like manner therefore believe me not, “because I tell | 


you the truth” (ver. 45), which shows you have hearts alien 
from the truth, but well affected to falsehood, as it is with 
him. Oh, how tremendous a thing it is to have the devil for 
our father! How careful therefore should we be to avoid 
those things which will subject us to this vile relation! viz. 
murder, lying, hatred of the truth here, envy, and enmity 
to others (Matt. xiii. 29), bitter zeal and strife in the heart 
(James iii. 14, 15), pride (1 Tim. iii. 16), every customary 
sin (1 John iii. 8). 

% For he is a liar, καὶ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ, and the father of it.) 


Some of the fathers construing these words, “ and the father 
of him,” hence gathered, that the devil had a father, and 
was the son of some superior evil spirit; this being the sen- 
timent, not only of the Casani and Archontici, who held 
that the god of the Jews was the father of the devil, as St. 
Austin* saith, but also of many of the orthodox, as St. Je- 
romet testifies; and Origen} leaves it as a thing doubtful: 
whereas αὐτοῦ here plainly refers to rod ψεύδους, latent in the 
words ψεύστης ἐστὶ, of which see examples in Casaub. Exer- 
cit. 15, ad Annal. cap. 12, p. 394. 

2 Ver. 46. Which of you convinceth me of sin?] In a 
false prophet some marks to discern him may easily be 
found; viz. his thirst after honour and applause, covetous- 
ness, or falsehood : what of this nature do you see in me that 
you do not believe me? 

38 Ver. 47. He that is of God.] i. e. Who resembles him 
in holiness and goodness, and is disposed to do his will, is 
ready to receive the doctrine that comes from him; and it 
is an evidence that you do not thus resemble him, nor bear 
a filial affection to him, that you receive not his words. 

29 Ver. 51. Shall not see death cis αἰῶνα, for ever.) But 
shall after death obtain that life by which “death shall be 
swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. xv. 44, 2 Cor. v. 4); so 
Christ expounds himself, vi. 58. 

30 Ver. 53. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, 
who is dead 2] As by this promise thou pretendest to be: 
for who can promise others shall never die, but he who is 
himself to live for ever? (see here Examen Milli.) 

31 Ver. 56. Your father Abraham rejoiced (or vehement- 
ly wished) fo see my day.] i.e. To know the time when, by 
my coming into the world, the promise made to him, that 
“in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed,” 
was to be fulfilled. Thus the days of Noah and Lot are the 
times in which they lived, Luke xvii. 26, and the days of 
the Baptist is the time when he appeared, Matt. xi. 12. 
Christ therefore here affirms of Abraham, what he had said 
of others, Luke x. 24, “That many prophets and kings de- 
sired to see the things which ye see,” viz. Christ come into 
the world. 


* Her. 38, §. 4. Ibid. 40, §. 5. 

+ Hoc multi non intelligentes, patrem diaboli volunt esse 
draconem, qui regnat in mari, quem Hebrei appellant ἴδ 
viathan. In Isa. xiv. f. 36, E. 

+In John, Tr. 23, ed. Huet. p. 308. 
Matt. p. 34, 35. 


Huet. Not. in 


372 


wished) to see my day (the coming of the Messiah) : and 
2 he saw it (afar off, by the eye of faith), and was 
lad. 
‘i 57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet 
% fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham ? 
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, 1 say unto 


JOHN. 


you, * Before Abraham was, I am. (5 being the Word 
which was in the beginning, i. 1.) 

59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but 
Jesus hid himself (in the crowd), and (so) went out of 
the temple, going through the midst of them (unseen), 
and so passed by (untouched. by his enemies). 


32 And he saw it.) viz. By the eye of faith, as a thing 
then afar off, to be accomplished in future ages: for “of this 
salvation the prophets inquired diligently, searching of what 
time the Spirit which was in them spake, when it testified of 
the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow 
them; to whom it was revealed, that not to themselves, but 
to us, they did minister these things,” ἄς. (1 Pet.i. 10—12). 

33 Ver. 57. Thou art not yet fifty years old.) There is no 
cause to wonder why the Jews, who were not solicitous 
about the age of Christ, should speak thus of one whose 
gravity, wisdom, and countenance, might perhaps cause them 
to think him older than truly he was. It was more to be 
admired that Ireneus should plead apostolical tradition for 
the Jewish error, especially when we consider, that many of 
the fathers, viz. Clemens of Alexandria, Strom. lib, i. p. 
340, A, Tertullian, adv. Judeos, cap. 8, Julius Africanus, 
apud Hieron. Comm. in Daniel ix., Lactantius, lib. iv. cap. 
10, Orosius, lib. vii. cap. 10, and divers others held, that 
our Lord preached but one year, and suffered in the fifteenth 
of Tiberius, and the thirtieth year of his age. Moreover, all 
Christians agree that our Lord sutfered under Pontius Pi- 
late; now he was deposed by Tiberius in the last year of his 
reign, saith Josephus, which demonstrates that our Lord’s 
suffering must be past in the thirty-seventh year of his age 
(see the note on Luke iii. 23). 

34 Ver. 58. Before Abraham was, I am.) This the Soci- 
nians interpret thus, Before Abraham is made the father of 
many nations, I am the Messiah: for, say they, πρὶν γένεσθαι 
doth not signify, “before he was,” but, “before he was 
made,” as it doth xiii. 19, xiv. 29. And (2.) those words 
ἐγώ εἰμι is Matt. xxiv. 5, “1 am the Christ,” or the Messiah, 
as Mark xiv. 62, Luke xxi. 8, ἐγώ εἰμι is Matt. xxiv. 5, «I 
am the Christ:” so the phrase signifies, say they, here, ver. 
24, 28, xiii. 19. But against this strained exposition let it 
be considered, 

First, That the whole series of the discourse shows, that 
the opposition is here put, not betwixt Abraham’s being the 
father of all nations, and Christ’s being the Messiah: but 
between τὸ γενέσθαι, the birth of Abraham, and τὸ εἶναι, the 
being of Christ. Moreover, the word “ Abraham,” so fre- 
quent in the holy scripture, doth also signify his person, and 
is never elsewhere used in this mystical sense, in which it 
imports not his person, but his privilege, or rather the com- 
pletion of a promise made to him; it being therefore evident 
that the discourse from ver. 55, is of Abraham’s person, it is 
incongruous here to introduce a mystical sense of the word, 
which the Jews never thought of, and which, had Christ in- 
tended, he, in all likelihood, would have said πρὶν ᾿Αβρὰμ 
γενέσθαι ᾿Α βραὰμ, i. 6. before the reason of his new name be 
accomplished. In confirmation of this argument, let it be 
noted, that the word γενέσθαι signifies as well to be, as to be 
made. It signifies to be, Matt. v. 45, John i. 6, ἐγένετο, 
«There was a man named John;” and ver. 30, ἔμπροσϑέν pov 
γέγονε, “ He was before me,” xx. 27, Acts vii. 38, xiii. 5. And 
when it is used of persons in the sense of fieri, to be made, 
it signifies to be born, produced, or generated ; and so here, 
«“ Before Abraham was made,” must be the same as, “ Be- 
fore he was born.” The places cited by the Socinians are 
doubly impertinent, viz. John iii. 19, xiv. 29, (1.) because 
πρὸ τοῦ γενέσθαι, before they are ; and (2.) because they speak 
not of persons, but only of things which were to happen 
afterward. 

Secondly, Christ in these words answers the objection of 
the Jews, that he, being not yet fifty years old, could not 
have seen Abraham. Now, according to our interpretation, 
he answers it fully, by saying, he was the eternal Logos 
(i. 1), or the person that said to Moses, “I am” (Exod. iii. 
14), whereas, according to the Socinian comment, his an- 
swer is nothing to the purpose, and was no more true of him 
than it was of all that heard him, that they were before 


Abraham, they being all before he was made the father of 
all nations; who therefore can believe our Saviour would, 
upon this occasion, put them off with such a piece of so- 
phistry ? for, as Novatian argues, either Christ lied, and put 
a cheat upon them, “if being from Abraham, he was not be- 
fore him; or he was before him, being the God of Abraham” 
(De Trin. cap. 23). To this Stegmannus answers, That 
this is no absurdity, it being usual with Christ to answer no- 
thing directly to the objection of the Jews, to which effect 
he cites, John vii. 20, 21, xii. 23. 25, xiv. 23, Luke xiii. 23, 
24, but very fallaciously ; for John xii. 23. 25, there is nei- 
ther question nor objection; Luke xiii. 23, 24, there is a cu- 
rious question, but no objection; John xiv. 23, Christ speaks 
not to the Jews, but to his own disciples; and John vii. 20, 
Christ answers to the question sufficiently, by saying, ver. 23, 
ἐμοὶ χολᾶτε 3 “ Are you full of choler or rage against me?” 
and the people more directly, ver. 25, which made it the less 
necessary for him so todo. Let Stegmannus show, if he can, 
when Christ answers in this impertinent and illusive manner 
to the Jews carping at his words, as being false and impos- 
sible to be true, with such an asseveration, “ Verily, verily, 
I say to you.” 

Thirdly, Had this only been Christ’s meaning, why do the 
Jews take up stones to punish him as a blasphemer, there 
being not the least semblance of blasphemy in the words, 
taken in this sense? They may do it, saith Stegmannus, 
because he professed himself the Messiah: for as blasphe- 
mers, so also false prophets, were to be slain. But as they 
never did attempt to slay or to accuse him upon this account, 
though he still owned himself a prophet sent from God to 
them ; so they themselves testify, they stoned or attempted 
to stone him for this “ blasphemy, that being a man he made 
himself God” (x. 33). 

Fourthly, I ask, whether our Saviour was willing to be un- 
derstood by the Jews or not? If not, why did he use this 
solemn preface, “ Verily, verily, I say to you?” If he 
would be understood, why did he speak unto them in that 
language, in which they neither did nor could they under- 
stand him? For how could they imagine the word “ Abra- 
ham” was to be understood in such a sense in which they 
never knew it used? In a word, this interpretation is con- 
trary to all antiquity, as their expositions in these cases use 
to be; for even the Ante-Nicene fathers proved that Christ 
was God, perfect from the beginning, and no new God, from 
these words: so Iren. lib. iv. cap. 27, Orig. contra Celsum, 
lib. viii. p. 386, Tertul. adv. Prax. cap. 22, p. 513, Novatian, 
cap. 23. 

As for the phrase ἐγώ εἰμι, “I am,” let it be noted, that 
in the other evangelists it is only used to signify what the 
“false Christs” would say, and so can have no other import 
than “I am the Christ ;” but in this gospel it seems to sig- 
nify, “I am the Son of God:” for he that saith, “1 am,” 
ver. 24. 28, is he who had “God for his Father,” ver. 23, 
and was ἐκ τοῦ ἄνω, “from above,” ver. 19, and xiii. 19, he 
that calls them to believe, “I am,” is he who came “ from 
the Father,” ver. 1, and was their Lord, ver. 13, and was go- 
ing to the Father, ver. 3. Now the rulers of the Jews still 
accused Christ of blasphemy, and condemned him upon this 
account, Matt. xxvi. 65, Luke xxii. 70,71. Thus therefore 
Christ might say, “I am,” and yet be God of God. 

Secondly, Others answer with Grotius, That Christ here 
only signifies that he was before Abraham, in the decree of 
God. But (1.) Christ answers to the objection of the Jews, 
which had no respect to the priority of these two persons in 
the decree of God, but as to actual existence. (2.) In 
this sense even Judas, and all the murderers of our Lord, 
might be before Abraham had a being: and, lastly, the ar- 
guments produced against the former answer, conclude as 
strongly against this (see Placeus, argument. 11, a sect vi- 
cesim. prim. ad finem). 


373 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 Anp as Jesus passed by (them, vili. 59,) he saw 
a man which was blind from Ars birth. 

2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master 
(diseases and imperfections in the body being the fruit 
of sin), ' who did sin? this man (in the womb, or in 
some other body), or his parents, (at the time of his 
conception, so as to be the occasion) that he was born 
blind ? 

3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, 
nor his parents (so as to cause this blindness in the child) : 
but (the divine wisdom hath permitted this to be so) that 
the (miraculous) * works of God should be made mani- 
fest in (the cure of ) him. 

4 (And having received power from him to do these 
mighty works) * I must work the works of him that 
sent me, while it is day (7%. e. while my time lasts: 


for) the night (my passion) cometh (shortly), when no 
man can work, 

5 4 As long as 1am. in the world, I am (to be) the 
light of the world (by giving light to the blind, and the 
light of the gospel to them that sit in darkness. 

6 And) When he had thus spoken he " spat on the 
ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed 
the eyes of the blind man with the clay, 

7 And said unto him, ® Go, wash in the pool of Si- 
loam, (which is, by interpretation, Sent) (and so may 
put you in mind of him who is sent to give light to the 
blind, see note vy. 3). He went his way therefore 
(thither), and washed, and came (baci) seeing. 

8 4 The neighbours therefore, and they which be- 
fore had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this 
he that (before) sat 7 and begged ? 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP, IX. 

1 Ver. 2. Tis ἥμαρτεν, dec. Who hath sinned, he or his pa- 
rents ? ἄς Here, 

First, It is certain that Christ’s disciples do not inquire 
whether this person was born blind for his original sin; since 
in that all others, who were born seeing, equalled him in 
guilt: and vet they here suppose he might, and the phari- 
sees say positively, ver. 34, ἐν ἁμαρτίαις σὺ ἐγεννήθης ὅλος, 
“Thou wast wholly born in sin;” when as yet they them- 
selves were equally guilty of original guilt. Both therefore 
must understand this of some personal and special sin. 

Secondly, It is not hard to conceive what they might in- 
tend by the sin of the parents, viz. the begetting him in 
their uncleanness against the law, Lev. xx. 18, and* this was 
thought to have so ill an influence upon the child, as to ren- 
der it obnoxious to leprosy, or mutilation, and so might be 
the cause of this person’s blindness. Whence Philot saith 
that it was forbidden, that they might not produce ἀτελεῖς 
γονὰς, “imperfect children.” Note, 

Thirdly, That the opinion of the Platonists and Pythago- 
reans, concerning the transmigration of souls from one body 
to another, and being put, according to their merit, into 
better or worse bodies, had obtained among the Jews, being 
perhaps derived from those of Alexandria to their brethren 
in Judea. To this effect is that saying of the author of the 
Wisdom of Solomon, that “being good he came into a body 
undefiled,” or free from any notable infirmity (ver. 20). 
Josephus} saith, that this opinion firmly obtained among the 
essenes, “ that souls were immortal, and that they descended 
from the pure air, συμπλέκεσϑαι ὥσπερ εἱρκταῖς τοῖς σώμασι, 
“to be chained to bodies.” And Philo§ saith, “the air was 
full of them, and that those which were nearest to the earth, 
κατίασιν éxdeSncopuévat σώμασι ϑνητοῖς, descending to be tied 
to mortal bodies,|] παλινόρομοῦσι αὖϑις, return back to bodies, 
being desirous to live in them.” And so the apostles may 
be supposed to inquire here whether our Lord allowed of any 
of those sentiments, that the soul of this man might be put 
into this imperfect body for the punishment of what it had 
done before, whether in or out of the body. 

2 Ver. 3. But that the works of God might be manifested 
in him.] i. e. Though God did not actively concur to render 
this man blind; yet in his wisdom he thought fit to leave 
this imperfection in the plastic matter unrectified, that he 
might show his miraculous power in giving sight to such a 
one, his wisdom using this as a confirmation of Christ’s doc- 
trine, and his goodness in illuminating the soul and body 
of this man at once, and ministering this motive to others 
to believe. 


* act γάρ τινες ἐκ τῆς τοιαύτης συναφείας καὶ λύδην καὶ λέπραν 
ἀπογεννᾶσθαι τοῦ περιττώματος ἐκείνου τὰ διαπλαττόμενα πημαίνοντος 
σώματα. Theodoret in Levit. qu. 21. 

{ Lib. de Spec. Leg. p. 603. 

+ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 781, F, G. 

§ De Gigant. p. 222, C. | De Somn. p. 455, Ὁ. 


3 Ver. 4. I must work the works of him that sent me.) 
Here, saith Stegmannus, Christ speaking of these works, not 
as his works, nor simply of the works of God, but of “him 
that sent him,” shows that he did them by the command of 
another ; whereas the true God can be subject to the com- 
mand of none; and hence he concludes Christ is not truly 
God. To this I answer, that Christ doth plainly call these 
works the works of God, ver. 3, and so declares that they 
were done by a divine power, which is inseparable from a 
divine essence. Secondly, Christ here speaks in the person 
of a prophet sent from God, which Christ was only by virtue 
of his human nature, and therefore could not here speak of 
himself as God (see the note on vii. 16). 

4 Ver. 5. Whilst I am in the world, I am the light of the 
world.] It is usual with Christ, when he hath done his cures 
upon the body, to convert his speech to those spiritual things 
which were adumbrated by them, and for which cause they 
were done: so having given sight to this blind man, he 
styles himself «the light of the world,” which he was by 
that evangelical doctrine, which did illuminate the minds of 
men; and though at his departure from the world, he was no 
longer so by his bodily presence and oral instructions, he still 
continued so to be by the irradiations of his Holy Spirit, and 
by the doctrine of his apostles, spread throughout the world 
(see i. 9, vill. 2, xil. 35, 36). 

5 Ver. 6. He spat upon the ground, and made clay.) 
The fathers here say, that Christ, to illustrate his miracu- 
lous power, used that to anoint the blind man’s eyes, which 
was the greatest impediment to seeing, and most pernicious 
to the eyes, though the Jews thought spittle good for the 
eyes, as we now do. Christ bids him thus anointed, «Go. 
to the pool of Siloam, and wash ;” by this making trial of 
his faith, which, had it not produced in him obedience to this 
command, he had not been healed. And Christ does this 
on the sabbath-day (ver. 14), when by the canons of the 
Jews, saith Dr. Lightfoot, «it was not lawful to anoint the 
eyes with spittle,” to arm his disciples against that pernicious 
doctrine of the pharisees, that it was not lawful to do good, 
or perform works of mercy, on that day ; and this he might 
the rather do, because he foresaw what danger this supersti- 
tion might bring upon the believing Jews, when the days of 
vengeance came upon that nation ; whence he exhorts them 
to pray that their flight might not be on the sabbath-day, 
Matt. xxiv. 20. 

6 Ver. 7. Wash in the pool of Siloam, &c.) The spring of 
Siloam discharged itself into a double pool; the lower, 
which was called the pool of fleeces, Neh. iii. 15, and the 
upper, which is called my, the pool of Siloah, which pro- 
perly signifies ἀπεσταλμένος, sent, the waters being by the 
providence of God sent from the bowels of the earth into it, 
and so might by the very name mind them of the Messiah, 
sent as the more special gift of God for the purification of 


.the unclean, and to enlighten the blind (Isa. xxxv. 5, see 


the note on vy. 3). 
7 Ver. 8. Who sat and begged.] Here the form of begging 
2G 


374 

9 Some said, This is he: others said, He is like 
him: but he (himself) said, I am he. 

10 Therefore said they unto him, How were thine 
vyes opened ? 

11 He answered and said, A 8 man that is called 
Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto 
me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and (accord- 
ingly) 1 went and washed, and I received (my) sight. 

12 Then said they unto him, Where is he? He 
said, I know not. 

13 1 They brought to the ° Pharisees him that 
aforetime was blind. ‘ 

14 And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made 
the clay (mixed with spittle), and (by it) opened his 
eyes. 

“I Then again the Pharisees also asked him how 
he had received his sight. He said unto them, He 
put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. 

16 Therefore said some of the Pharisees, 10 This 
man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sab- 
bath day. Others said, How can a man that is a 
sinner (not only by violating the rest of the sabbath, 
but also by pretending to be of God when he is not) do 
such miracles? And there was a division among them 
(about him). 

17 They say unto the blind man again, What say- 
est thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He 
said, He is a prophet. 

18 But the (pharisees among the) Jews did not be- 
lieve concerning him, that he had heen blind, and 
received his sight, until they called the parents of him 
that had received his sight. 

19 And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, 
who ye say was born blind? (7 so,) how then doth he 
now see? 

20 His parents answered them and said, We know 
that this is our son, and that he was born blind: 

21 But by " what means he now seeth, we know 
not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he 


JOHN. 


is of age; ask him: he shall (w7//) speak for (Gr. con- 
cerning) himself. 

22 These words spake his parents, because they 
feared the (rulers of the) Jews: for the Jews had agreed 
already, that if any man did confess that he was (the) 
Christ, he should be ” put out of the synagogue. 

23 Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask 
him. (This cure being such that to affirm that Jesus had 
done zt, was in effect to own him as that Prophet, of whom 
Esaias had foretold that he should open the eyes of the 
blind. See the note on Matt. xi. 5.) 

24 Then again called they the man that was blind, 
and said unto him, Give God the praise (of this cure: 
for) we know that this man is a simner (?. e. a false 
prophet, ver. 16). 

25 He answered and said, ' Whether he be a sin- 
ner or no, I know not (Gr. that he is a sinner, I know 
not): one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, 
now I see. 

26 Then said they to him again, What did he to 
thee ? how opened he thine eyes ? 

27 He answered them, I have told you already, and 
ye did not hear (7. 6. believe me): wherefore would ye 
hear it again? will ye also be his disciples ? 

28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his 
disciple ; but we are Moses’ disciples. 

29 We know that God spake unto Moses: (but) as 
for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. 

30 The man answered and said unto them, Why 
herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from 
whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes 
(which is a demonstration that he acleth by a power de- 
rived from God ). 

31 Now we know * that God heareth not sinners 
(usurping his authority, or pretending falsely to come 
from him): but if any man be a worshipper of God, 
and doeth his will, him he heareth. 

32 Since the world began was it not heard that 
4% any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. 


among the Jews is observable, viz. γ51, “‘ Deserve,” or “Do 
thyself good by me;” intimating that by works of charity, 
we do good as well to ourselves as others. 

8 Ver. 11. A man that was called Jesus.| Had he not had 


some notice who he was, he would not have so readily obeyed | 


his commands; now this knowledge of him he might have 
either from his leader, or from Christ’s disciples. 

9 Ver. 13. They bring him to the pharisees.] i. e. To the 
council, chiefly consisting of that sect ; whence, in this evan- 
gelist, the whole council passeth under the name of phari- 
sees, i. 24, iv. 1, viii. 3, xi. 46. This they might do, either 
from ill-will to Christ, or out of curiosity to know whether 
they would own the person, who had done this signal miracle, 
to be the very man, of whom Esaias had prophesied, that he 
should “ open the eyes of the blind.” And sure the provi- 


dence of God so ordered this, that they might hear from the | 


mouth of the blind man a testimony, which would either con- 
vince them, or render their unbelief without excuse. 

10 Ver. 16. This man is not of God, because he keepeth 
not the sabbath.) i. e. He is not sent of God as a prophet; 
and yet they themselves own, that a prophet might do and 
command things contrary to the rest required by the sabbath ; 
and prove this from the example of Joshua, who command- 
eth, that the ark should be carried round Jericho, the armed 
men going before and after it seven days; one of which 
must be a sabbath (Josh. vi.). How then could that, which 
prophets were by their own principles allowed to do, prove 
that Christ was no prophet; especially, if we consider, that 
by these actions he did not indeed violate the rest of the sab- 
bath, but only their corrupt traditions concerning it? 

1 Ver. 21. But how he now sees, we know not.| Here his 
parents seem to be faulty, (1.) in denying that which they 
had learned from their son, for fear of the Jews (ver. 22), 
(2.) by their ingratitude to Christ, whose kindness to their 
son ought to have been thankfully owned and acknowledged 
by them. 

32 Ver, 22. ᾿Αποσυνάγωγος γένηται, Should be excluded from 


the synagogue.] i.e. Should lie under the sentence of ex- 
communication ; either that called niddaz, which only sepa- 
rated him four cubits from the society of others, saith Bux- 
torf,* but left him free, saith Lightfoot,t at that distance, 
either to expound traditions, or to hear them expounded in 
the synagogue; but perhaps not free to join with them in 
prayers, or giving of thanks; such a one not being admitted 
to join with them in their thanksgivings at their table : or else, 
it was that of cherem, which excluded the excommunicated 
person from all entrance into the synagogue; this being, saith 
Leo de Modena,+ forbidden to the excommunicated ; and to 
this rather do those words incline, ver. 34, 35, ἐξέβαλον αὐτὸν, 
«“ They cast him forth,” i. 6. out of the place of the syna- 
gogue, and so ἀποσυναγώγους γίνεσθαι, “They shall cast you 
out of the synagogues,” seems to import, xvi. 2. And hence 
the primitive excommunications of the Christians excluded 
the criminal from the assembly, and from all communion in 
sacred offices for a time, and only gradually admitted him to 
them. 

13 Ver. 25. Ei ἁμαρτωλός ἐστιν, οὐκ ofda.] These words have 
I thus rendered, “ That he is a sinner, I know not ;” and this 
the words following require, in which the blind man proves, 
by an unanswerable argument (ver. 31), that Christ was not 
a sinner: so εἰ doth often signify; so “DoI not know εἰ 
σήμερον, that to-day I am king over Israel?” 2 Sam. xix. 
22; 1 Kings i. 51, “Let Solomon swear, εἰ οὐ ϑανατώσει, 
that he will not kill his servant” (see the notes on Acts xxvi. 
8, 1 Tim. v. 10). 

14 Ver. 31. God heareth not sinners.) i. 6. False prophets, 
who speak from themselves, and yet pretend to come from 
God; see ver. 16 and 24, for by so doing he would confirm 
their lies, and set his seal to their false doctrine. 

5 Ver. 32. That any man opened the eyes of one that 


* In voce niddat, p. 1306. 
ἡ In 1 Cor. v. 5. 
+ De Consuet. Judzorum, lib. ii. cap. 3. 


CHAPTER X. 


33 If this man ™ were not of God, he could do no- 
thing Cs this nature). , 

34 They answered and said unto him, Thou wast 
altogether born in sins (being conceived by thy parents 
tn their uncleanness), and dost thou teach us? And 
they cast him out (of the court). 

35 Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and 
when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou 
believe on the Son of God (the Messiah sent by him into 
the world to be the Saviour of it)? 

36 He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that 
(knowing him) I might believe on him ? 

37 And Jesus said unto him, 7 Thou hast both seen 
him (or, thou both seest him), and it is he that talketh 
with thee (¢. e. and hearest him talking with thee). 

38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worship- 
ped him. 

39 ¢ And Jesus said, For (manifesting the just) 
judgment (of God on men) I am come into this world, 


375 


(viz.) that they which see not (7. δ. that are rude and 
simple, and sit in darkness, but are ready to own their 
own blindness, and come to the light) might see; and 
that they which (think they) see (already, and therefore 
shut their eyes against any farther light shining to them) 
might be made blind (might have this light taken from 
them, and so be left in darkness). 

40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him 
heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind 
also (in thy opinion) ? 

41 Jesus said unto them, ᾿ If ye were blind (é. e 
unable to discern who I am ; if ye had neither the law nor 
prophets to direct you, nor the light shining in your eyes 
which is the case of the gentiles), ye should have no sin 
(of infidelity) : but now ye say, We see (and arrogate to 
yourselves the knowledge of the law and prophets, and are 
confident you are guides to the blind, Rom. 11. 19, and yet 
will not receive the light, which shineth in your eyes) ; 
therefore your sin remaineth (neacusable). 


was born blind.] They who lose their sight by a disease, may 
be cured; but no man, no, not Moses, nor any of the pro- 
phets, ever did, or could, without the assistance of a divine 
power, give sight to one born blind: whence even the Jews 
reckon this among the signs of the Messiah, that he should 
“open the eyes of the blind,” Midrash, in Ps. exlvi. 8. 

6 Ver. 33. If this man were not of God, he could do no- 
thing.) See here a blind man, and unlearned, judging more 
rightly of divine things than the whole learned council of 
the pharisees: whence we learn, that we are not always to 
be led by the authority of councils, popes, or bishops; and 
that it is not absurd for laymen sometimes to vary from 
their opinions; these overseers being sometimes guilty of 
great oversights. 

Ver. 37. Kat ἑώρακας αὐτὸν, καὶ. Grammarians know, 
that when two xais do thus come together, the first is to be 
rendered, both ; so xi. 48, καὶ ἀροῦσιν ἡμῶν καὶ τὸν τόπον καὶ τὸ 
ἔθνος, * And take away both our place and nation:” so xii. 
28, καὶ ἐδόξασα, καὶ πάλιν ἑοξάσω, “I have both glorified it, 
and will glorify it again :” and that the aorist is usually put 
for the present tense, see the note on xx. 17. And so these 
words are well rendered thus, “ Thou hast seen him, and he 
talketh with thee:” so i. 36, ἕστηκεν, “One stands in the 
midst of you;” v. 45, “ Moses in whom ἠλπίκατε, ye trust;” 
Xi. 27, ἐγὼ πεπίστευκα, “I believe thou art the Christ” (see 
Luke viii. 20, Acts i. 11, xii. 14, Rom. v. 2, 1 Tim. iv. 10, 
et Gloss. de Verbo, lib. iii. tr. 3, can. 46). 

8 Ver. 39. Eis κρίμα, ἵνα βλέποντες τυφλοὶ γένωνται, For 
judgment, that they who see may be made blind.] Here the 
critics and some of the fathers note, that the conjunction ἵνα 
is not causal, but only consequential ; as, when Christ saith, 
«“T came not to send peace upon the earth, but a sword,” 
i. 6. this will be the event and consequence of my coming: 
so ἵνα is used here, ver. 2, Rom. i. 20, 1 Cor. xi. 19 (see note 
on xii. 40). And when Christ here saith, “I came, that 


they who see not, might see ;” he seems especially to re- 
spect the gentiles sitting in darkness, &c.—iva ra ἔθνη of μὴ 
βλέποντες βλέψωσι, καὶ οἱ βλέποντες ᾿σραὴλ τυφλοὶ γενώνται, 
“that the gentiles,” saith Origen,* “ who are now blind may 
see, and Israel who now sees may be made blind,” through 
their infidelity: so also Cyril and St. Chrysostom, in re- 
ferring us to the words of St. Paul, who saith, that « blind- 
ness, in part, had happened to the Jews, till the fullness of 
the gentiles should’come in,” Rom. xi. 25 (and this accord- 
ing to the prediction of the psalmist, ver. 9, 10), and who 
saith of the converted gentiles, « Ye were sometimes dark- 
ness, but now are ye light in the Lord,” Eph. ν. 8 (see note 
on Rom. xiii. 12). 

19 Ver.41. If ye were blind, ye should not have sin.] i.e. If 
out of the mere blindness and darkness of your minds, ye 
did not own me as the Messiah (which is the case of the 
gentiles, to whom no prophets were sent foretelling, no law 
promising him; no gospel preached revealing him to the 
world), you would have no sin of infidelity ; for, «If I had 
not come, and spoken to you,” xv. 22, yea, “if I had not 
done among you the works which no other person did,” ver. 
24, ye had not had (this) sin, ver. 24: but now, you boast- 
ing of your knowledge in the law and the prophets, which 
have given such plain characters of me, and yet neither be- 
lieving Moses nor the prophets speaking of me (John v. 39, 
40. 45, 46), and claiming to yourselves the judgment of dis- 
cerning betwixt true and false prophets, and yet giving no 
credit to me, proving my mission from God by a crowd of 
miracles done before your eyes,—your unbelief remaineth 
inexcusable and unpardoned (John xv. 22): “for if ye be- 
lieve not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John viii. 
21, 24). 


* Orig. in Matt. p. 395, 411. 


CHAPTER X. 


1 Verity, verily, I say unto you, ' He that entereth 
not by the door into the sheepfold (7. e. he who, pretends 
to be a guide and ruler of God’s church and people, and 
owns not the Messiah, nor hath commission from hin so to 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 


1Ver. 1. He that entereth not by the door into the 
sheepfold, &c.] For the right understanding of this parable 
let it be noted, 

First, That Christ directs this parable against the scribes 
and pharisees, to whom he spake, ix. 40, as appears, (1. 
from the pronoun ὑμῖν, which begins this chapter thus, « 
say to you:”’ and (2.) from these words, ver. 6, “ This para- 
ble spake Jesus to them.” They therefore must be the per- 
sons concerned in the contents of it. Note therefore, 


dv), but climbeth up some other way (fo get into it), 
the same is a thief and a robber. 

2 But he that entereth in by the door is the (a 
true) shepherd of the sheep. 


Secondly, That these pharisees took upon them to be 
guides and teachers of the people, whence by our Saviour 
they are represented as “blind guides ;” they also held, that 
others were to receive authority to teach from their commis- 
sion or ordination to that office; though we find not that 
they received any such authority from God, who rather had 
appointed the “ priests’ lips to preserve knowledge, and the 
people to seck the law at their mouths” (Mal. ii. 4.7) ; and 
of the tribe of Levi, “to teach his judgments to Jacob, 
and his law to Israel” (Deut. xxxiii. 10), “even all the 
commandments which God had delivered by the hand of 


916 


3.5 Τὸ him (God) the porter (or, great keeper of this 
sheepfold) openeth (giving him his testimony and com- 
mission to feed his sheep) ; and the sheep hear (and obey) 
his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name 
(hath an exact knowledge and care of them), and \eadeth 
them out (to their pastures). 

4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep (to pas- 
ture), he goeth before them (after the manner of the east- 
ern shepherds), and the sheep follow him: for they 
know his voice. 

5 And a*stranger (who hath no commission from God, 
nor teacheth his word) will they not follow, but will 
flee from him: for they know (and approve) not the 
voice of strangers. 

6 This parable spake Jesus unto them (and in re- 
proof of them, as blind guides, and not true shepherds, 
because they rejected him): but they understood not 
what things they were which he spake unto them (i. e. 
they understood not the true import of his words). 

7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, ‘I am the door (as of the shepherds, ver. 
1, so also) of the sheep. 

8 5. All that ever came before me (pretending to be 
the Prophet, or the Messiah promised to the Jews, or to 
tnstruct his people when God never sent them so to do) 
are (to be accounted as) thieves and robbers: but the 


JOHN. 


sheep (who only knew and are obedient to the voice of 
God) did not hear them. 

9 Iam the door (of the sheep): by (faith in) me if 
any man enter in (to the sheepfold), he shall be saved 
(from the thief and wolf), and shall go in and out, and 
find pasture. 

10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to 
kill, and to destroy : I am come that they (who are my 
sheep) might have δ life, and that they might have ἐξ 
more abundantly (Gr. and that they might have abun- 
dance of pasture, ver. 3). 

11 7] am the good shepherd : (and act as) the good 
shepherd (who) giveth (or, layeth down) his life for the 
sheep. 

12 But he that is an ὃ hireling, and not the shep- 
herd, (but one) whose own the sheep are not, seeth the 
wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth (to 
secure himself): and (so) the wolf catcheth (some of ) 
them, and scattereth (the rest of ) the sheep. 

13 The hireling (who regards his own safety and ad- 
vantage, and not that of the sheep,) fleeth, because he is 
an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. 

14 Tam the good shepherd, and 9 know (ὦ. e. Jove) 
my sheep, and am known (7. ε. beloved) of (those that 
are) rine. 

15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the 


Moses” (Lev. x. 11): and hence Christ represents them as 
“a plantation which his Father had not planted” (Matt. xv. 
13), bids his disciples beware of their doctrine (Matt. xvi. 
12), they “teaching for doctrines (of God) the command- 
ments of men,” and “making void the commandments of 
God by their traditions” (Matt. xv. 6. 9); their voice there- 
fore was such as the true sheep neither would nor ought to 
hear. Note, 

Thirdly, That these scribes and pharisees believed not in 
Christ (John vii. 48), they “neither would enter into the 
kingdom of God themselves, nor suffer others to enter into 
it” (Luke xi. 52), and therefore are said to have “taken 
away the key of knowledge.” Christ therefore here pro- 
nouncing himself the door both of the shepherds (ver. 1), and 
of the sheep (ver. 6), by which they were to,enter into the 
sheepfold, informs them, that now that he the great Shep- 
herd of the sheep was come, they who refused to own him, 
and to teach the sheep in his name, according to his doctrine, 
and by his authority, as his apostles and the seventy did, 
had no true commission to instruct them; and that they 
who set up in opposition to him to be the guides and teachers 
of the people, were not only blind but false guides, and even 
thieves and robbers: the first, as taking away what belongs 
not to them; the second, as destroying the sheep. 

2 Ver. 3. To him (thus entering by the door) the porter 
(God, the great keeper of the sheepfold) openeth.] As to one 
allowed by him to feed his sheep, and him the sheep hear 
and obey, teaching the doctrine of the gospel and the king- 
dom of God to them, in the name and by the authority of the 
great Shepherd of the sheep: and when this Shepherd, by 
himself or others acting in his name, and by his mission, 
leadeth forth his own sheep, he goes before them, after the 
manner of the eastern shepherds, to preserve them from 
danger, and to conduct them into wholesome pastures (ver. 4). 
So did Christ and his shepherds, being τῦποι, “ examples” 
for the flock to follow (1 Pet. v. 3). 

3 Ver. 5. A stranger they do not follow.] And such are 
all they who do not teach them the doctrine of the gospel in 
Christ’s name, and by his authority. 

4 Ver. 7. I am the door of the sheep.) Ver. 1, 2, he 
had represented himself as the door of the true shepherds ; 
here he declares himself the door of the sheep also: show- 
ing that since his advent there is no entrance into the church 
or kingdom of God, but by faith in him and embracing his 
doctrine. 

5 Ver. 8, All that cver came before me are thieves and 
robbers.) i. 6. All that came under pretence of being their 
king, or their Messiah; as Theudas, not he who, saith Jose- 
phus,* was destroyed by Cuspius Fadus; for he appeared 


* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 2, p. 689. 


before Judas Gaulonites (Acts v. 36, 37), who, according to 
Josephus, was suppressed toward the latter end of the reign 
of Augustus (Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1,2). The same Jose- 
phus saith, that of those multitudes that began seditions un- 
der Sabinus and Varus, every one was made βασιλεὺς, “ king” 
(lib. xvii. cap. 12, p. 608, G): and speaking of the very 
same time, he saith, πυκνοὺς βασιλεῖαν ὃ καιρὸς ἀνέπειϑε, “The 
time (when they expected Messiah their King) made many 
to usurp the kingdom” (De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 
779, G), which they must do under pretence of being their 
Messiah also, or the king that cometh in the name of the 
Lord to redeem Israel (Luke xix, 38, xxiv. 21,see Examen 
Milli). - 

6 Ver. 10. Ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχωσι, καὶ περισσὸν ἔχωσιν, That they 
might have life, and have it more abundantly.] Having, 
saith Grotius, cum ed vita omne genus felicitatis, “ with life all 
kind of felicity ;” but Bios and ζωὴ signify, not only life, but 
sustenance by which it is preserved; as when the widow’s 
mite is styled, ὅλος ὃ Bios, “her whole life” (Mark xii. 44) : 
so he that takes the nether millstone to pledge, “taketh a 
man’s life’ (Deut. xxiv. 6), i. e. saith the Chaldee, that 
which makes his meat ready to preserve life ; « the necessaries 
of life,” Targum Hieros. In Homer it is ἡ πρὸς τὴν ζωὴν 
παρασκεύη, “ provision for life” (see Budeus). 

7 Ver. 11. Tam the good shepherd.] Referred to by the 
prophets, Isa. xl. 11, Ezek. xxxiv. 23, xxxvii. 24. Tam 50 κατ᾽ 
ἐζοχὴν, So as to “lay down my life for the sheep,” and “ take it 
up again,” ver. 15. 17, which words can agree to no other 
shepherd. I grant to Grotius, that the apostles and their suc- 
cessors were true shepherds, and not mercenaries ; but none 
of them could be the good Shepherd here, or the one Shep- 
herd, ver. 16, viz. “the chief Shepherd of the sheep” (1 
Pet. v. 4): though by their ministry he brought both Jews 
and gentiles into his fold after his resurrection ; and they 
doing this in his name, and by his authority and assistance, 
he himself is said to do it (ver. 16). fee’ 

8 Ver. 12. The hireling- -jleeth.] The hireling here 
is not he who receives maintenance from his particular flock ; 
for this he may do by virtue of Christ’s ordinance (1 Cor. ix. 
13, 14) : of this, saith Christ, he is “ worthy” (Luke x. 7): 
and much less he who labours among them, with respect to 
that recompense or crown of glory he is to receive “ when 
the chief Shepherd shall appear ;” but he who is an intruder, 
‘whose the sheep are not,” who intends not their good so 
much as his own profit, and who, in time of danger, flies for 
his own safety, not caring though the wolf tear and devour 
them. Hence also we may learn, that a true pastor must 
not desert his flock in time of peril, when by his absence they 
may be brought into great peril, and by his presence may be 
happily preserved from it. ‘ 

9 Ver. 14. 1 know mine, and am known of them.) i, 6. 


CHAPTER X. 


Father: and (out of love and obedience to him) I lay 
down my life for the sheep. 

16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this 
fold (7. e. the gentiles): them also I must bring (into 
the fold), and they shall hear my voice; and (so of 
wre gentile) there shall be one fold, and one shep- 
herd. 

17 1} Therefore doth my Father love me, because I 
lay down my life (for the sheep; and this I do, not that 
I might continue under the power of death, but) that I 
might take it again (by a glorious resurrection). 

18 No man (by force) taketh it (away) from me 
(before the time), but (then) ® I lay it down of myself. 


377 


I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take 
it again (and rise from the dead). ‘This commandment 
(i. e. commission, of laying down my life for the sheep) 
have I received of my Father. 

19 4 There was a division therefore again among 
the Jews for these sayings (which seemed to ascribe to 
him such power and relation to God as his Father, and 
spake of his death and the conversion of the gentiles, which 
things the Jews could not well bear). 

20 And many of them said (with the pharisees), He 
hath a devil, and is mad (i. 6. he is possessed with a 
melancholy spirit and a frenzy); why hear ye him (or 
attend to any thing he says) ? 


I have an intimate affection for them, and they sincerely love 
me ; for this phrase signifies, 

First, To approve; thus “the Lord knoweth the righte- 
ous,” Ps. i. 6, and whom he approveth not, he is said not to 
know, Matt. vii. 23. 

Secondly, To love, and to be kindly affected to; as when 
God saith to his own people, “ You have I known of all the 
families of the earth,” Amos iii. 2; “If any man love God, 
he is known of him,” 1 Cor. viii. 3, see Deut. ii. 7. 

Thirdly, To preserve and protect; as Ps. xxxi. 8, “ Thou 
hast known my soul in adversity ;’ Nah. i. 7, God is good 
to them that wait for him, γινώσκων, “knowing them that 
fear him.” 

Ver. 15.] Because it is said here, that Christ laid down his 
life for his sheep, elsewhere that he doth it for “his friends,” 
John xv. 13, 14, and for “his church,” Eph. ii. 26, and ail 
are not his sheep, his friends, or his church : hence some con- 
clude, that Christ did not die for all. 

Ans. Though it be certain, from the places cited in the note 
here, that Christ died intentionally for all, i. e. designing the 
benefits of his salutary passion for them, upon their perform- 
ance of the conditions of the new covenant established in his 
blood, according to these plain words of the apostle, 2 Cor. 
v. 15, “He died for all, that they who live might not live 
unto themselves, but unto him who died for them;” and so 
none perish, because he died not for them, but because they 
do not live to him who died for them: yet it is also true, that 
he eventually is only the “Saviour of his body,” and died 
only for his sheep and friends; because they only do per- 
form the conditions of the new covenant, and therefore to 
them only can this righteous Judge assign, at last, the bless- 
ings promised in that covenant. 

Secondly, In none of these places is it said, that Christ 
died only for his sheep, for his church, or for his friends ; and 
therefore none of them say any thing which contradicts the 
more general extent of Christ’s redemption. This argument 
may therefore be retorted thus ; He that died for his friends 
and for his enemies died for all; but Christ died for his 
friends and for his enemies, “ for when we were enemies, 
Christ died for us” (Rom. v. 8). Again, he that died for 
the church of God, and for the unrighteous, that he might 
bring them to the church of God, died for all; but Christ 
died for both, for “he suffered for us, the just for the un- 
just, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. iii. 18). Lastly, 
He that died for his sheep that heard his voice, and for the 


lost sheep, that did not hearken to his voice, died for all; 


but Christ died for his sheep that heard his voice, as the text 
saith here, and for his lost sheep, for he “came to seek and 
to save that which was lost, even the lost sheep of the house 
of Israel” (Matt. xviii. 11, 12, x. 6), therefore he died for all. 
1 Ver. 16. And other sheep I have, which are not of 
this fold.| He calls the gentiles sheep by way of anticipa- 
tion ; because as many of them as were docile, and fit to re- 
ceive instruction, would in time be so; and because the par- 
tition-wall betwixt Jew and gentile was to be broken, and 
the gentiles to be admitted to the same privileges with 
fa believing Jews, he says, “ There shall be one sheep- 
"Ver. 17. Therefore the Father loveth me.) Because, 
out of obedience to him, and love to the sheep, [ lay down 
my life for them; which I have good reason to do, seeing I 
am sure so soon to take it up again. This seems to be the 
sense of the words. Note also, that if we respect the coun- 
sel of God and the design of Christ, nothing is more certain 
Vor. [V.—48 


than that Christ gave himself “a ransom for all,” 1 Tim. 
ii. 6, and “tasted death for every man,’’ Heb. ii. 9, and 
was “a propitiation for the sins of the whole world,” 1 John 
ii. 2, and that the Father “so loved the world as that he sent 
his Son into it, that the world might be saved by him,” iii. 
16, 17. But because the world can no otherwise obtain this 
salvation than by believing in him, and obeying the voice of 
this Shepherd; therefore he is said to do this more emi- 
nently for his sheep. 

2 Ver. 18. ᾿Εγὼ τίθημι αὐτὴν, I lay it down.) Grotius 
having hinted, note on ver. 11, that τίθεσθαι Ψυχὴν, “to lay 
down the life,” signifies only to expose it to danger, or put 
our lives in our hands, as the phrase is, Judg. xii. 3, 1 Sam. 
xxviii. 21, and having said also, that πάλιν λαβεῖν αὐτὴν, “to 
take it again,” is to rescue it from danger; I shall show this 
to be a very forced exposition. © For, 

First, This phrase τίϑεσθαι τὴν ψυχὴν, “to lay down the 
life,” being absolutely put, is only used in the New Testa- 
ment, and there only by this apostle; and it always signifies 
to die, or to give the life to death—as when St. Peter saith, 
τὴν ψυχῆν μου ϑήσω, “I will lay down my life for thee,” xiii. 
37, 38, when Christ saith, xv. 18, “ Greater love than this 
hath no man, than iva τὶς τὴν Wuxi αὑτοῦ Sq, that one should 
lay down his life for his friend:” and the beloved disciple 
¢ John iii. 16), argues thus, “If he τὴν ψυχὴν ἔθηκε, laid 

own his life for us, we ought τὴν ψυχὴν τιθέναι, to lay down 
our lives for the brethren : and surely, when Christ saith 
here, τὴν Ψψυχῆν pou τίϑημι, “I lay down my life for my sheep,” 
he meant, not pnly that he would expose himself to danger, 
but that he would suffer death for them ; when therefore he 
saith in the same place, “I have power to take it up again,” 
he doubtless meant, he had power to raise it from death. 
Stegmannus the Socinian saith here, that Christ here ascribes 
this power to himself improperly, because God had promised 
to use his power in raising him from the dead: but (1.) is it 
proper to introduce CRrrist positively saying, “I have,” what 
he had not, only because another had that power? since he 
says not, I have a promise, but, I have ἐξουσίαν, “ the power” 
to restore this life I lay down. (2.) If we consider how 
plainly he had challenged this power to himself, the power 
of raising up and quickening whom he would, and that be- 
cause he had «life in himself” (ver. 21. 26), and engaged 
his word of truth, both to raise up his own body (il. 19), and 
the bodies of all the saints (vi. 39, 40. 44. 54), yea, the 
bodies of all that were in their graves (v. 28, 29), as being 
“the resurrection and the life,” (xi. 25), we cannot doubt 
his power to raise his own body. And (3.) when he saith 
in the preceding words, “ No man taketh my life from me, 
but I lay it down of myself; ἐξουσίαν ἔχω, 1 have power to 
lay it down :” he plainly ascribes to himself a right or power 
to give up himself to the death: why therefore should not 
the same words immediately following, viz. “I have power 
to take it up again,’ bear the same sense? The little 
sophisms of Stegmannus here are of no force to the contrary : 
for, why might not Christ’s body die, though it was united 
to immortal nature, as well as when it was united to 
an immortal soul? Nor do we say, that he was dead ac- 
cording to his human nature, but only according to his vody ; 
or that the union of his body with the divine nature was dis- 
solved by death, but only the union of his body with his soul. 

Note also, that the words following, “ This commandment 
have I received from the Father,” respect not the raising of 
his body, but only the laying down of his life, or his dying 
for his sheep, as Grotius here notes. 

2e2 


378 


21 Others said, These are not (/ike) the words of 
him that hath a devil (nor are his works such : for) can 
a devil open the eyes of the blind? 

22 4 And it was at Jerusalem (and at) the 13 feast 
of the dedication (of the altar, profaned by Antiochus, 1 
Mace. iv. 59, 2 Mace. x. 8, that Christ spake this), and 
it was winter (that feast beginning to be celebrated the 
twenty-fifth of Chisleu, which answers to part of our De- 
cember). 

23 And Jesus (then) walked in the temple ™ in So- 
lomon’s porch, 

24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said 
unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt (Gr. 
hold us in suspense)? If thou be (indeed) the Christ, 
tell us plainly (that so it zs). 

25 Jesus answered them, I (have already) told you, 
and ye believed not: 15 the works that I do in my Fa- 
ther’s name, they bear witness of me (that so Iam). 

26 But (notwithstanding) ye believe not, (not through 
want of evidence of the truth, but) because ye are not 


JOHN. 


of my sheep (7. 6. of them who are disposed to attend to 
and obey my doctrine), as I said unto you. 

27 (For) My sheep hear my voice, and I know them 
(by this that they obey), and they follow me: 

28 And (therefore). I give unto them eternal life ; and 
they " shall never perish, neither shall any man (be 
able to) pluck them out of my hand. 

29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than 
all (their adversaries) ; and no man is able to pluck 
them out of my Father’s hand. 

30 (Now) I and my Father are one (the Father 
dwelling in me, and I in him, ver. 38). 

31 Then the Jews tock up stones again to stone him 
(as a blasphemer, who made himself equal with God, as 
they had done before, John viii. 59). 

32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I 
shewed (7. e. before) you from my Father; for which 
of those works do ye (go about to) stone me? 

33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good 
work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and 


18 Ver. 22, "Eyévero δὲ ra éyxaivat, It was the feast of 
the dedication, and it was winter.] The feast of dedica- 
tion, here mentioned, respects not the dedication of the tem- 
ple made by Solomon, or repaired by Zerubbabel; for we 


read of no annual feast of dedication appointed at either of : 


them; but it respects the dedication of the altar and tem- 
ple, celebrated by Judas Maccabeus ; of which we read thus, 
1 Mae>, iv. 56, “So they kept τὸν ἐγκαινισμὸν, the dedica- 
tion of the altar eight days;” and, ver. 59, “ Moreover, 
Judas and his brethren, and the whole congregation of Israel, 
ordained, that the days, ἐγκαινισμοῦ, of the dedication of the 
altar should be kept in their season from year to year, for the 
space of eight days, from the twenty-fifth day of the month 
Chisleu,” which falls in with our December (see also 2 
Mace. x. 5. 8, and Josephus Antig. lib. xii. cap. 11). This 
is apparent, because it is said, “it was winter; whereas the 
dedication of Solomon’s temple was in the seventh month, 
or in autumn (1 Kings viii. 2), of Zerubbabel’s in the month 
Adar (Ezra vi. 15), at the entrance of the spring, this in 
December. Moreover, from our Saviour’s presence at this 
feast, Grotius well notes, that festival-days, in memorial of 
public blessings, may piously be instituted by persons in au- 
thority, without a divine command. 

4 Ver. 23. And Jesus walked in the porch of Solo- 
mon.] In the porch new built in the same place where So- 
lomon erected his: in summer they walked in the open air, 
in winter under covert. 

16 Ver. 25. The works that I do in my Father's name 
bear witness of me.] i. e. There is no cause why you should 
thus be in suspense concerning me, or not hear me plainly 
saying, “I am the Messiah,” seeing this appears sufficiently 
from my works. He ascribes not the works to himself, saith 
Stegmannus, but to his Father; and yet the text saith, ἃ ἐγὼ 
ποιῶ, “he works which I do,” viz. by the power of the 
Father dwelling in me (ver. 38). So, out of modesty he 
speaks, saith Grotius: so, as a prophet, say others. 

16 Ver. 26. You believe not, οὐ yap, because you are not 
of my sheep.) It is evident that Christ here gives the reason 
why they believed not, as elsewhere he doth: so John viii. 
43, “ Ye own not my word, ὅτι, because ye cannot hear it” 
(see the note there) ; and ver. 45, « Ye believe not, ὅτι, be- 
cause I speak the truth;” i. e. that truth which is offensive 
to you; and, ver. 47, διὰ τοῦτο, “ For this cause you do not 
hear (i. e. obey) my word ; because ye are not of God.” And 
this observation excludes the evasion of those who say, be- 
cause here is not rational, or renders not the reason of their 
unbelief, but only intimates that it was consequential to their 
being not his sheep ; for the word here rendered “ because,” 
is not ὅτι, but οὐ yap, “For ye are not my sheep:” now γὰρ 
is a rational particle, pointing out the cause. (2.) The reason 
which Christ here assigns of this defect of faith, is doubtless 
such as renders it a great crime in them: for sure that must 
be such for which they were to “die in their sins’ (John viii. 
24). It is therefore certain, this unbelief cannot be resolved 
into any natural defect of knowledge on their part, or any 
decree or act of reprobation on God’s part, but into the 


L 


want of a docile and well disposed mind; for were it thé 
same to be one of Christ's sheep, and to be predestinated to 
faith and salvation, the import of Christ’s words must be 
this, Ye therefore believe not, because ye are not of the 
number of the elect, but of those whom God hath from eter 
nity rejected. Now, by this account of their infidelity, 
Christ would not have accused, but excused, the infidelity 
of the Jews; for what fault could it be in them that they 
did not that, which by reason of this act of God before they 
had a being, they were incapable of doing? Then might 
they have replied to Christ, We therefore believe not, be- 
cause God by his act of reprobation hath shut the door of 
faith against us, and so our infidelity is not to be imputed to 
us, but to God. 

7 Ver. 28. And they shall never perish.) i. 6. Through 
any defect on my part, or by the force of any plucking them 
out of my hands: so the particle καὶ, which is here illative, 
shows, viz. they therefore shall not perish, for none shall 
pull them out of my hand: and this is still more evident 
from the reason following, “ My Father is greater than all” 
their adversaries, and none can pull them out of his hands: 
now his power and mine is one and the same. This appears, 
thirdly, from the frequent exhortations directed to Christ’s 
sheep, not to fall away from the grace received, Heb. xii. 
15, not to lose what had been wrought in them, 2 John 8, 
to those that stand, to take heed they fall not, so as that God 
will not spare them, Rom. xi. 20, 21, because not continu- 
ing in his goodness, ver. 22. Whereas if the sheep of Christ 
can no more cease to be so, than a man whilst living can 
cease to be a man, these exhortations, to take care they fall 
not off from being so, must be as vain, as a caution to a man 
not to outlive his manhood. Well, therefore, said Origen* 
and Isidore Pelusiota, no man can snatch them away by 
force or tyranny; for then they must perish without and 
against their own wills; but this may be done by deceit 
and allurements, παρὰ τὴν τῶν αὐτεζουσίων ἀνθρώπων ῥαθυμίαν, 
“through the negligence of men, who have the freedom of 
their wills ;” for such men who, by the allurements of the 
world, the flesh, and the devil, thus cease to obey Christ’s 
laws, are not snatched out of Christ's hands, but choose to go 
from him. Or, Secondly, Christ may speak here of sheep con- 
tinuing so to the death, promising to them, that neither death, 
nor “he that hath the power of death,” shall make them 
perish for ever, for he would “raise them up at the last day.” 

18 Ver. 30. ᾿Εγὼ καὶ 6 πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν, 1 and the Father 
are one.| That Christ here speaks not of a unity of will 
and concord only, appears, i 

(1.) From the reason assigned of the security of the 
sheep—the want of power in any one to snatch them out 
of the hands of Christ; because the Father being greater 
in power than all, his power could secure them from all, 
and so could also Christ, he being one in power with the 


* Orig. in Ter. hom. 18, ed. Huet. p. 166. Isidor. Epist. 
lib. 111, ep. 122. 


CHAPTER X. 


ini is) because that thou, being (only) a man, makest 
yself (a) God. 

34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your 
law (Ps. Ixxxii. 6), I said, Ye are gods? 

35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of 
God came, (Gr. was, i. e. who were God’s prophets, as 
Moses and Sumuel, and his judges, as Joshua and others, 
and had the assistance of his Spirit given them for the 

rformance of those offices), and the scripture cannot 
fa broken (Gr. dissolved, but what it saith must be 
true) ; 


379 


36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, 
(by the Holy Ghost essentially dwelling in, or without 
measure imparted to, him, John iii. 34) and sent into 
the world, Thou blasphemest; because I τη this 
unction and commission to make known his will to you) 
said, I am the Son of God? 

37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me 
not (when I say, I and my Father are one, ver. 30). 

38 But if I do, though Me believe not me (on ac- 
count of my own words), believe (the testimony of ) the 
works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Fa- 


Father: for the foundation of this argument is, not that the 
Father’s will, but that his power was above all. 

(2.) From the inference of the Jews, that by these 
words “he made himself God” and so was guilty of blas- 
phemy. Now this invidious charge Christ doth not evade, 
by saying, he only conspired with the will of God, as all 
true prophets did, but by appealing to the works, which, 
saith he, I do by the power of the Father residing in me, 
which plainly carries this to a unity of power, not of will 
only: and then the inference of St. Chrysostom is undeniable, 
εἰ δὲ ἡ δύναμις αὐτὴ, εὔδηλον Gre καὶ οὐσία, “ And if the power 
be the same, the essence must be so.” 

19 Ver. 34—36. Is it not written in your law, Thave said, 
Ye are gods? If he called them gods to whom the word of 
God came—say you of him whom the Father hath sanctified 
—Thou blasphemest : because I said, Iam the Son of God 31 
From these words, and from Exod. xxi. 6, xxi. 9. 28, 
where judges and supreme magistrates are called elohim, 
Stegmannus gathers, that the name of God in scripture doth 
not always signify the supreme God, but sometimes only 
them who have a high power by God committed to them; 
amongst whom he places Christ as having a divine authority 
committed to him by the favour of God; as if I should 
argue thus, Parents are styled gods by Philo,* or by the 
heathens, therefore the name of God in Philo, and among 
the heathens, is common to the supreme God and to our 
parents. But, notwithstanding this, no parent ever was by 
Philo, or by the heathens, distributively, or in the singular 
number, called God; nor is that name thus given in scrip- 
ture to any judge, or supreme governor, as it is often in the 
New Testament attributed to our Saviour Christ. And (2.) 
when magistrates and judges are in scripture called gods, 
the Holy Ghost still addeth something, which excludes them 
from a true divinity, as that they should “die like men,” 
Ps. Ixxxii. 6, or that they are “ rulers of the people,” Exod. 
xxii. 28. Whereas when Christ is called God, it is either 
with the addition of some epithet belonging to the supreme 
God, as when he is styled ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς, “ God over all,” 
Rom. ix. 5, “the great God,” Tit. ii. 13, 6 Θεὸς ὃ ἀληθινὸς, 
“the true God,” 1 John v. 20, or with addition of some 
operation proper to God, as when it is said, “πο Word was 
God,” and “ All things were made by him,” i. 1, 2. Steg- 
mannus adds, that if these persons were not truly gods, the 
scripture falsely called them gods; to which I answer, that 
they were truly so in title, as being God’s vicegerents upon 
earth, but not in nature, as being only the “ministers of 
God,” Rom. xiii. 6. He adds, they must be properly and 
truly gods, as being invested with divine power. But here 
he trifles, for a divine power may either signify the power 
essential to God, by which he is enabled to do all things; 
and to ascribe this power to mere men is blasphemy: or 
it may only signify a power of government, and judging of 
the offences done by men, derived from God, and in this 
sense only is the divine power ascribed to magistrates, and 
such also is the power of parents over their children, and 
of masters over their servants ; and yet can it be reasonably 
said, that the formal reason of the Deity truly and properly 
agrees to them? He goes on, and argues against the Deity 
of Christ from this text, thus, (1.) That the argument of 
Christ hence for a proper Deity, that because magistrates are 
metaphorically and by virtue of their office called gods, he 
must be truly so, must be infirm, seeing no argument will 
hold from the metaphorical to the proper reason of the thing. 


* Qcoi ἐμφανεῖς. Philo in Decal. 587. Vide note in 1 Tim. 
v. 8. 


(2.) The reason which Christ here assigns of this, viz. 
“because the Father had sanctified him,” concerneth not 
his eternal generation, nor can it hence be gathered that 
Christ is the supreme God, but rather the contrary; for 
“greater is he who sanctifies,” and sends, than he who is 
sanctified and sent. And (3.) hence, saith he, we may 
learn there was no higher reason of Christ’s filiation than 
this sanctification and mission into the world; for then 
Christ would have produced that reason, when thus assaulted 
by his adversaries, and not, concealing it, have rested in that 
reason of his sanctification, which proves not his true di- 
vinity. 

Now to these arguments two answers may be given, 

First, If by this sanctification we understand the unction 
of Christ by the Holy Ghost, then note, (1.) That the Jewish 
doctors understand not the psalmist’s words, “I have said, 
Ye are gods,” to be meant of civil magistrates, but of their 
doctors sitting in the chair of Moses, or rather of their pro- 
phets sent to reveal God's will to them, to whom alone that 
phrase here used properly agrees, they only being the men, 
πρὸς οὖς ὃ λόγος Θεοῦ ἐγένετο, “ to whom the word of the Lord 
came” (see note on Luke iii. 2). Note, 

Secondly, That if we understand it of their judges and 
supreme civil magistrates; yet of them it is certain, that 
they in difficult cases judged by consulting God’s oracle, 
the urim and thummim, and in making war had still resort 
to this oracle; whence all the Jews were upon pain of death 
obliged to hearken to the sentence of those judges and of 
those priests, by whom they did inquire from this oracle the 
mind of God (Deut. xvii. 9. 12), and as doing presump- 
tuously, when they refused so to do (ver. 12), which they 
are only said to do when they opposed the mind of God 
made known to them, or wilfully rebelled against it, by 
doing any thing in contempt of the divine Majesty and 
his authority (Numb. xv. 30). Note, secondly, that it is a 
received opinion among the Jews, that even their civil 
governors had a particular assistance and afflatus of the 
Holy Spirit, to fit them for that employment. So when God 
chose seventy elders to manage the government of the peo- 
ple under Moses, “he put his Spirit on them, and they pro- 
phesied” (Numb. xi. 17. 25). And when Joshua was ap- 
pointed to rule them after Moses, he is said to be a man “in 
whom the Spirit was” (Numb. xxvii. 18), and to be « full 
of the Spirit of wisdom ; because Moses had laid his hands 
upon him” (Deut. xxxiv. 9). When Saul was anointed 
king over Israel, “the Spirit came upon him, and he pro- 
phesied” (1 Sam. x. 6. 10). And when David by his sin 
had caused the Holy Spirit to depart from him, he prays 
not only for the Spirit of holiness, but that πνεῦμα ἡγεμονι- 
xov, “the spirit of government,” which God had given him, 
might be restored (Ps. li. 12) ; and of Solomon, the Targum 
on 2 Chron. vii. 6, saith, “God made the Spirit rest upon 
him ;” and when God had rejected Saul, “the Spirit of 
the Lord departed from him” (1 Sam. xvi. 14). So that, 
according to this exposition, the argument of Christ is to 
this effect: If they are called gods, and the sons of the 
Most High, in the scriptures of unquestionable truth, who 
had the spirit of prophecy, wisdom, and government, more 
sparingly, and only at some certain times imparted to them, 
and that rather to assist than abide in them; say you of 
him to whom the Father hath given the Spirit without 
measure (John iii. 34), and in whom he so abideth essen- 
tially, that by virtue of him, I am in the Father and the 
Father in me, ἑνότητι καὶ δυνάμει τοῦ Πνέυματος, by the unity 
and power of the Spirit, by which I am enabled to perform 
the works which are properly divine, and reveal to you all 


380 


ther is in me, and I in him (and so am one with 
him). 

2 Therefore (upon this repeated declaration that he 
was one with the Father) they sought again to take (or, 
lay hold on) him: but he (miraculously) escaped out 
of their hand, 

40 And went away again beyond Jordan into the 
place where John at first baptized; and there he abode. 


JOHN. 


41 And many resorted unto him, and said, John did 
no miracle (to confirm his sayings, as Jesus doth) - but all 
things that John spake of this man were true. (And 
so, if we believe John’s testimony, we must own this per- 
son as the Son of God, and a much greater prophet than 
he was, John i. 15, iii. 35.) 

42 And many believed on him there (by reason of the 
testimony which John had given to him). 


the hidden treasures of wisdom, Thou blasphemest, because 
Isaid, Iam the Son of God? So that the argument of Christ 
here proceeds from the less to the greater; from the Spirit 
assisting them by his gifts, to the Spirit essentially dwelling 
in him; in which respect, “greater is he who sanctifies” 
and sends, than he whois sanctified and sent, by virtue of 
his original, though not by virtue of the divine nature, and 
the fullness of the Godhead communicated to Christ: for 
even Filbinger,* a very acute Socinian, owns, that since the 
Spirit of God is the power of God (Luke i. 35), he must be 
God; quia in Deo nihil est quod non sit Deus, “ there being 
nothing in God which is not God.” 

Ans. 2. The second answer is, That he here saith the 
Father had sanctified him, not by reason of the unction of 
the Holy Ghost coming down upon him at his baptism, but 
because of the union of the divine Logos to the human na- 
ture: for explication of which answer, note (1.) that ac- 
cording to the tradition of the ancients received from the 
beginning of Christianity, it was this Aéyos who appeared 
to the patriarchs, and conversed with the judges and magis- 
trates of the Jews, and so was literally 6 Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, “ the 
essential word of God,” who came to them. Note (2.) that 
Christ speaks of a sanctification precedent to his mission 
into the world, and so not of the unction of the Holy Ghost, 
received when he had been in it thirty years, but at the 
union of the divine Logos with the human nature; and 
then the argument of Christ will be to this effect, If they 
were styled gods, and the sons of the Most High, to whom 
the Word only came, and with whom he conversed, can I, 
who am this very Aéyos, be said to blaspheme, in saying, 
that I am the Son of God? And according to this sense it 
is evident that Christ does here argue from the sublimest 
notion of his filiation, according to these words of the re- 
verend Dr. Bull;;} “It appears from a due inspection of the 
text, that Christ did not intend to say or prove he was the 
Son of God, as being his ambassador extraordinarily instruct- 
ed, and so sent into the world, but on a far more excellent 
account, viz. that before he came into the world, he was 
with God the Father, and so was his true and essential Son, 
as being God of God, partaking of the same nature as a son 
doth with his father. For it is apparent, that from the 
twenty-fifth to the thirtieth verse inclusively, Christ so dis- 
coursed to the Jews, that they still thought he asserted that 


* In Matt. iii. 16, 17. 
+ De Judicio Eccl. Cath. 5, §. 6. 


he was God, and therefore, say they, ‘we stone thee, be- 
cause thou, being a man, makest thyself God’ (ver. 33) ; 
viz. by calling God so emphatically, and with such property, 
‘his Father,’ as that he was so to him alone, and so that he 
and his Father were one (ver. 30). Now Christ,” saith he, 
«does not answer by denying either that he was God, or 
that he ever challenged to himself that dignity, which yet 
seems necessary, had he been only man, to have been said, 
to take off this objection of his blasphemy, but rather seems 
to argue that he was so the Son of God, that he had the 
divine nature in him.” 

First, After this manner—If judges and magistrates are 
called gods for an imperfect resemblance and participation 
of the divine authority, how much more may I be called 
God, who am the natural Son of God, and am moreover, in 
the most excellent manner, authorized by him? For though 
Christ speaks not thus in express words, he not obscurely 
signifies it by saying, his Father had sanctified him, and sent 
him into the world; for (1.) he saith not, me whom God, 
but whom the Father hath sanctified, declaring he had God 
for his Father, by virtue of that sanctification. (2.) He 
adds, that he was first sanctified, and then sent into the 
world, signifying thereby that he was the Son of God in 
heaven, before he was sent into the world; and so he speaks 
more plainly to his disciples, saying, John xvi. 28, “I came 
forth from the Father, and came into the world; again I 
leave the world, and go to the Father.” 

The second argument by which our Lord defends him- 
self, and proves his divine original, is taken from the divine 
operations he performed ; for, saith he, ver. 37, 38, “If I do 
not the works of my Father, believe me not (when I thus 
say he is my Father); but if I do (them), though ye be- 
lieve not me, believe the works, that ye may know and be- 
lieve that Iam in the Father, and the Father in me:” as 
if he should have said, You might have some reason to say 
I blaspheme, in saying I am so the Son of God, and he is 
so my Father, as that “I and the Father are one,” and so as 
no other person can style God Father, or say, he is his Son; 
if I did not those divine works which no other person ever 
did, and which demonstrate the Father is so in me, as in no 
other person; but seeing I do those works of omnipotency, 
which show I am invested with the same power with the 
Father, you have no reason to imagine I blaspheme in say- 
ing, “I am the Son of God,” and therefore call him Father, 
because the “ Father is in me,” and “I and the Father are 
one.” 


CHAPTER XI. 


1 Now a certain man was sick, named 1 Lazarus, 
of Bethany, (which was) the town of Mary and her 
sister Martha. 

2 (And) (It was " that Mary which anointed the 
Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair 


(as we shall show presently), whose brother Lazarus was 


ey 
3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, 
behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. 

4 When Jesus heard that, he said (to his disciples), 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1 Ver. 1. Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and | 


Martha.) i. e. In which they dwelt; as Bethsaida is styled 
the city of Andrew and Peter, i. 44. Grotius here conjec- 
tures that this remarkable history of Lazarus was therefore 
omitted by St. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, because Lazarus 
was then living when they wrote their gospels; the last of 
them writing, saith Theophylact, within fifteen years after 
our Lord’s ascension ; whereas tradition saith,* that Lazarus 


* Ev rapadéccow εὕρομεν ὅτι ὃ Λάζαρος μετὰ τὸ ἀναστῆσαι 
αὐτὸν τριάκοντα ἔτη ἔζησε. Epiph. Her. 65, 8. 94. 


lived thirty years after that he was raised from the dead: he 
therefore thinks they would not publish this history of him 
in his lifetime, lest they should provoke the Jews to cut him 
off; whereas, according to the earliest computation, St. John 
wrote his gospel thirty-two years after our Lord’s ascension, 
and so after the death of Lazarus. (2.) The last of these 
three evangelists writing but fifteen years after our Lord’s 
ascension, might think it needless to mention a miracle con- 
cerning a person living so near Jerusalem, where there was 
so great a fame thereof, and so many living witnesses to 
attest it. St. John writing this gospel, say the ancients, 
above sixty years after our Lord’s ascension, when, by the 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


This sickness is not unto (a Jasting) ὃ death, but for 
the (manifestation of the) glory of God, that the Son of 
God might be glorified thereby. 

5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and 
Lazarus (which made him the more willing to gratify his 
sisters). 

6 When he had heard therefore that he was sick, 
(that God's glory might be more conspicuous in his reco- 
very) he 4 abode two days still in the same place where 
he was. 

7 Then after that saith he to Ads disciples, Let us 
go into Judea again? 

8 His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of 
late (Gr. but =P) sought to stone thee; and goest 
thou thither again? 

9 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in 
the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth 
not, because he seeth (/he sun, which 15) the light of 
this world. 

10 But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, 
because there is no lightin him. (Now my day and 
hour still last, ix. 4, so thal by my wonted prudence I 
shall still escape their malice, till the night of my passion 
cometh.) 

11 These things said he: and after that he saith 
unto them, Our friend Lazarus ὅ sleepeth (7. 6. is dead) ; 
but I go, that I may awake him out of (the) sleep (of 
death). 

12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he 
shall do well. 

13 Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they 


381 


thonght that he had spoken of taking rest in 
sleep. 

vt Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is 
dead. 

15 And®Iam glad for your sakes that I was not 
there (before), to the intent (that, through the miracle of 
his resurrection,) ye may believe (more firmly) ; never- 
theless (though he be dead) let us go unto him. 

16 Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, 
unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may 
die with him (fur that we may expect by going thither 
again, ver. 8). 

17 Then when Jesus came, he found that he had 
Jain in the grave four days already. 

18 Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, (being 
only) about fifteen furlongs off (from it) : 

19 And many of the Jews came (thence) to” Martha 
and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. 

20 Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus 
was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat sfid/ in 
the house. 

21 Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst 
been here, my brother had not died. 

22 But (and) 51 know, that even now, whatsoever 
thou wilt ask of God, God will give tt thee (though it 
be the raising him from the dead ). 

23 Jesus saith unto her, Thy ® brother shall rise 
again. 

24 Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise 
again in the resurrection at the last day. 

25 Jesus said unto her, 1 am the resurrection, and 


death of the person, and most of the witnesses who were 
present at his resurrection, the memory and fame of it might 
be much impaired, had great reason to perpetuate the 
memory of it by this large rehearsal of it. 

2 Ver. 2. It was that Mary which anointed our Lord 
with ointment.) This is by most interpreters thought to be 
spoken of Mary Magdelene: but (1.) I find no mention in 
scripture of her anointing the head or feet of Jesus, as this 
Mary did (xii. 3). Yea, when St. Luke had spoken of a 
woman, who anointed not our Lord’s head, as this Mary did, 
but his feet only (vii. 46), he proceeds (ch. viii.) to the men- 
tion of Mary Magdalene, giving a character of her, not from 
what she had done to Christ, but from what he had done to 
her, saying, “It was that Mary out of whom he had cast 
seven devils” (ver. 2), which also is the character of her in 
St. Mark, xvi. 9. Nor seems it for our Saviour’s honour to 
have been so conversant with one who had been a noted 
harlot, though she had now repented of that lewdness; or 
such an ardent lover of her as he was of this Mary (ver. 5). 

It also is to be noted, that the apostle mentions this as a 
thing done, before he speaks of the raising of Lazarus; not 
that it was done before his resurrection from the dead, as 
appears, xii. 3, but because it was done before he writ his 
gospel, telling us when it was done in this chapter following. 

3 Ver. 4. This sickness is not πρὸς ϑάνατον, to death.] i. e. 
Lazarus is permitted to be sick by the special providence of 
God ; not that he designs to take him out of the world by 
death, as he does other men, but that the Son of God might 
be glorified, by showing his almighty power in raising him 
from the dead ; by this declaring, that he hath “ given to the 
Son to have life in himself, and to quicken whom he will” 
(John vy. 22. 26), and therefore that he could fulfil his pro- 
mise made to them that believed in him, that he would 
“raise them up at the last day” (vi. 39, 40. 44. 54), and so 
Christ expounds himself, ver. 25, 26. 

4 Ver. 6. He abode still two days in the same place.] Not 
coming to Bethany till Lazarus had been dead four days 
(ver. 17), not only that the miracle of his resurrection might 
be the greater, but also that all pretence of his being only 
in a deliquium might be taken away. 

5 Ver. 11. Our friend Lazarus κεκοίμηται, sleepeth.] It 
is not only the death of good men which is compared to or 
styled a s/eep, as, v. g. the death of Moses, Deut. xxxi. 16, 
of David, 2 Sam. vii. 12, Ps. iii, 13, but the phrase is used 


also of bad men, who are said, ὑπνῶσαι ὑπνὸν αὐτῶν, to have 
“slept their sleep,” Ps. lxxvi. 5; to “sleep in the dust,” 
Dan. xii. 2; and generally of the kings of Israel and Judah, 
that they slept with their fathers. So the word p55, He slept, 
is used, saith Buxtorf, by the Talmudists and rabbins; though, 
saith he, “it is used by them with a particular respect to the 
bodies of pious men, whose death is but a sleep ;” and per- 
haps the ancient Jews might use this metaphor as St. Paul 
doth, 1 Thess. iv. 13, in opposition to the heathens, who, 
having no expectation of the resurrection of the body, styled 
death “a perpetual sleep ;” declaring, they expected to be 
raised out of it as certainly as they rose from sleep; and in 
allusion to his metaphor, Christ here saith, “I go, éfurviSew 
αὐτὸν, to awake him out of sleep,” i. 6. to raise him from the 
dead. 

6 Ver. 15. Iam glad that I was not there.) Who, had I 
been present, could not have seen my friend languishing, or 
resisted the importunity of his sisters to prevent his death ; 
but now by raising him, after he hath been four days dead, 
shall so confirm your faith that I am the Messiah, as that 
you need not doubt of it when I suffer death, as knowing 
my power to raise others, and therefore my own body from 
the dead, as I have told you I both can and will do (ii. 19, 


x. 18). 

7 Ver. 19. Πρὸς τὰς περὶ Map9av καὶ Μαρίαν, To Martha and 

Mary.| Not to those that were about them, as some render 
,the words; for they could not come to them “to comfort 
them concerning their brother :” and this use of the word 
περὶ, With an article prefixed, is very common among the 
Greeks, in whom οἱ περὶ Πλάτωνα is “ Plato,” οἱ περὶ Πρίαμον, 
“Priamus,” of περὶ Φίλιππον καὶ ᾿Αλέξανδρον, “ Philip and 
Alexander” (see Stephanus’s Lexicon and Budeus). 

8 Ver, 22. And now I know, whatsoever thou askest of 
God he will give it thee.| Here Woltzogenius saith, her faith 
was weak, in that she believed not that Christ had in himself 
the power of doing this miracle; and yet it is evident that 
the raising one from the dead is a demonstration of a divine 
power, and therefore can reside in him only who hath the 
divine essence residing in him (see the note on v.21). Grotius 
here also saith, her faith was weak, because she only believed 
that Christ was prevalent with God, but not that the fullness 
of divine power resided in him. 

9 Ver. 23. Thy brother shall arise.] For (ver. 25), I am 
the author of life, and of the resurrection, and therefore 


382 


the life : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live (and therefore I, who shall hereafter 
raise all persons to life, can raise him now) : 

26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die (Gr. shall not die for ever). Believest thou 
this ? 

27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe that 
thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should 
come into the world (of whom we have received by tra- 
dition that he shall raise the dead). 

28 And when she had so said (being sent by Christ 
to do so), she went her way, and called Mary her sis- 
ter secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth 
for thee. 

29 As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, 
and came unto him. 

30 Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but 
was in that place where Martha met him. 

31 The Jews then which were with her in the house, 
and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose 
up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She 
goeth unto the grave to weep there. 

32 Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, 
and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto 
him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had 
not died. 

33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the 
Jews also weeping which came with her, he 1 groaned 
in‘the (zs) spirit, and was troubled, 

34 And said (to them), 11 Where have ye laid him? 
They said unto him, Lord, come and see. 

35 (And from the abundance of his affection to him) 
Jesus wept. 

36 Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! 

37 And some of them said, Could not this man, 
which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that 
even this man should not have died ? 

38 Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh 
to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon 
(the mouth of ) it. 

39 Jesus (then) said, Take ye away the stone. 
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto 


JOHN. 


him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been 
dead 15 four days (and so, in all likelihood, his body is 
now corrupted ). 

40 Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, 
if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory 
of God (manifested in raising him from the dead) 2 

41 Then they took away the stone from te place 
where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up Ais eyes, 
and said, ® Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard 
me (requesting as thy prophet that this man’s spirit might 
return unto him). 

42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but 
because of the people which stand by I said zt (this), 
that (owning thee as the author of this miracle) they 
may believe that thou hast sent me. 

43 And when he thus had spoken, "he cried with 
a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. 

44 And (then) he that was dead came forth, bound 
hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was 
bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, 
15 Loose him, and let him go. 

45 Then many of the Jews which came to Mary 
(to comfort her), and had seen the things which Jesus 
did, believed on him. 

46 But some of them (who believed not) went their 
ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things 
Jesus had done. 

47 41 Then gathered the chief priests and the Phari- 
sees a council, and said, What do we? (Why do we 
suffer this person to go on without interruption 2) for ® this 
man doeth many miracles. 

48 If (then) we let him thus alone, all men will be- 
lieve on him, and (then) the Romans shall come and 
take away our place and nation. 

49 And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the 
high priest ” that same year, said unto them, Ye know 
nothing at all (of policy), 

50 Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one 
man should die for (the safely of ) the people, and that 
the whole nation perish not. 

51 And this spake he not (intending any such thing) 
of himself: 15. but being high priest that year (in 


always can raise whom I will, when I will, from the dead; 
thou therefore mayest expect from my promise, that thy 
brother shall shortly be restored to life, and not only at the 
general resurrection. 

0 Ver. 33. ᾿Ενεθριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι, He groaned (or was 
moved) in his spirit.] Whence we learn, that human affec- 
tions and commotions are not to be condemned as sinful, if 
they do not incline us to do any thing repugnant to piety or 
reason, but only to express our affection to our friend, or our 
compassion to mankind (see the note on Luke xxii. 43). 

"Ver. 34. Where have ye laid him 2] This he must know, 
who knew all things, even the secret thoughts and affections 
of men (xxi. 17); and yet he thus asks, that he might be 
conducted by them to his sepulchre, that there might be no 
semblance of fraud or confederacy. 

2 Ver. 39. Terapraios γάρ ἐστι, He hath been dead four 
days.] In which time the visage of the dead began to change 
in those countries, and all hopes of any return to life ceased. 
So Dr. Lightfooot from Maimonides and the T'almudists, 
“They go to the sepulchres, and visit the dead for three 
days, for so long the spirit wanders about the sepulchre ; but 
then they certify of the dead; for after three days his coun- 
tenance is changed.” 

13 Ver. 41,42. Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard 
me.| Woltzogenius saith, it follows not from these words 
that Christ requested any thing of the Father; God being, 
by an Hebraism, said to hear them to whom he vouchsafeth 
any benefit, though they did not ask it (Ps. x. 17, Isa. lxv. 
24); there being no need that Christ should request that 
power which, from his unction, he always had residing in 
him, but only that he should thank the Father for it. But 
the words following, “I know that thou dost hear me always,” 


seem plainly to imply a request; not indeed that he might 
receive power to raise Lazarus from the dead, for that he 
testifies he had already (v. 22. 26), but that this miracle 
might be efficacious to confirm the faith of his apostles, and 
to convince the multitude that he was a prophet sent from 
God, and did all things to promote his glory. 

4 Ver. 43. He cried with a loud voice.| That it might 
appear to all, that even the dead were subject to his voice. 

15 Ver. 44. Loose him, and let him go.] He followed not 
Christ, that he might not seem to carry him about in triumph 
with him. 

16 Ver. 47,48. This man doeth many signs,—all men will 
believe on him.) For this very cause, that he did so many 
miracles, all salutary and tending to the good of men, and 
with such evidence of a divine power, as was sufficient to 
draw all men to the faith, they should have owned him as 
the true Messiah; but the fear of the Romans induced them 
rather to cut him off, and by that very action they pulled 
that dreadful vengeance, executed by the Romans, down 
upon them. This is the just and usual effect of carnal 
policy exalting itself against the wisdom and the counsel of 
God. 
1" Ver. 49. High-priest that same year.) The high-priest- 
hood, by God’s institution, was to continue for the term of 
life; but when the power was come into the hands of the 
Romans, they changed them at their pleasure, and so they 
came to be accounted such by years; yet, because this was 
done by a power which they could not resist, and the high- 
priesthood still continued in the line of Aaron, Christ him- 
self owns his power. 

18 Ver. 51. Being high-priest that year, he prophesied, &c.] 
i.e. In that year in which Christ was to suffer for the sins of 


CHAPTER XII. 


which Christ was to suffer), he (spake as one that) pro- 
phesied that Jesus should die for that nation ; 

52 And (indeed he died) not for that nation only, 
but that also he should " gather together in one the 
children of God that were scattered abroad (all the 
world over). 

53 Then from that day forth they took counsel to- 
gether for to put him to death. 

54 Jesus therefore (after this resolution) ® walked no 
more openly among the Jews ((ill his time was come) ; 
but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, 
into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with 
his disciples. 


383 


55 § And the Jews’ passover was nigh at hand: 
and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem be- 
fore the passover, to *! purify themselves (either from 
some defilement, which was to be expiated by sacrifice, or 
by reason of some vow of Nazarilism, which was upon 
them, Acts xxi. 23). 

56 Then sought they for Jesus, and spake among 
themselves, as they stood in the temple, What think 
ye, (ὦ it) that he will not come to the feast? 

57 Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees 
had given a commandment, that, if any man knew 
where he were, he should shew 7¢ (to them), that they 
might take him. 


the world: and he is said to prophesy, not that he designed 
to foretell that Christ was to suffer upon that account, but 
because God so overruled his tongue, as that he should speak 
of the expedience of procuring our Saviour’s death, in such 
words as might be accommodated to the design of God in 
giving up our Saviour to the death. 

19 Ver. 52. Ἵνα réxva—ovvayayn εἰς ἕν, That he might gather 
together in one the children of God.] i. 6. Believers: for 
“to as many as believed in him, he gave power to become 
the sons of God” (i. 12). But note, that the gentiles are 
here called the sons of God, not that they were so at present, 
but that they were by faith to be made such, as our Lord 
calls them sheep, who were to hear his voice, x. 16. 

30 Ver. 54. Jesus walked not openly.) Instructing us by 


his example, that it is lawful to avoid danger, by giving 
place to the fury of the enemy; and that it is wisdom to 
withdraw ourselves from it, rather than expose ourselves to 
unnecessary perils, by abiding within the reach of them who 
are resolved upon our ruin. 

21 Ver. 55. “Iva ἁγνίσωσιν ἑαυτοὺς, To purify themselves.] 
They who committed sins which were to be expiated by sa- 
crifices, were not obliged to travel instantly to Jerusalem to 
offer them, but might defer the oblation to the next feast, at 
which they were obliged to be present; and they who en- 
tered on the vow of Nazarites did usually contrive it so as 
that it might conclude at one of those feasts; and therefore 
they are said to come to Jerusalem before the feast, “to pu- 
rify themselves.” 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 Tuen Jesus 1 six days before the passover came 


to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, | 


whom he raised from the dead. 

2 There they made him a ? supper; and Martha 
served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the 
table with him. 

3 Then 5 took Mary (sister to Lazarus) a pound of 
ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anommted the 
feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with hey hair; and 
the house was filled with the odour o 
ment. 

4 Then saith one of his disciples, (viz.) Judas 4 Is- 


the oint- | 


cariot, Simon’s son, which should 
betray him, 

5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hun- 
dred pence, and given to the poor? 

6 (.2nd)This he said, not that he cared for the poor; 
but because he was a thief, and had the bag (or com- 
mon purse of Christ and his apostles), and bare what was 
put therein (and so out of so great a sum could have pur- 
loined much to his own use). 

7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day 
of my burying hath she kept this (she hath performed 
this as a fit ceremony for my burial, which is nigh at hand). 


(who was about to) 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. 


1 Ver. 1. Πρὸ 2 ἡμέρων τοῦ μάσχα, Sir days before the pass- 
over.] So 2 Cor. xii. 2, πρὸ ἐτῶν δεκατεσσάρων, “ Fourteen 
years since ;” Amos i. 1, πρὸ ὀῦο ἐτῶν τοῦ σεισμοῦ, “Two years 
before the earthquake:” so in Plutarch, πρὸ τριῶν ἐτῶν, 
« Three years before:” in Numa, p. 61, in Popl. p. 101, in 
Rom. p. 23. 

2 Ver. 2. They made him a supper there.] This supper 
was different from that fhentioned Matt xxvi. 6, Mark xiv. 
13. (1.) Because this was in the house of Lazarus, ver. 2, 
that in the house of Simon the leper, Matt. xxvi. 6. (3.) 
Here Mary anoints the feet of Christ, ver. 3, there a woman, 
not named, pours ointment on his head, Matt. xxvi.7. (3.) 
This supper was six days before the passover, ver. 1, that 
only two, Matt. xxvi. 2, Mark xiv. 1, and if the suppers 
were not the same, the Mary that anointed Christ's feet 
here, and the woman that anointed his head there, were not 
the same. 

3 Ver. 3. Mary took a pound of ointment.] Mary, the 
sister of Lazarus (see the note on xi. 2); who is never called 
Mary Magdalene, nor is it ever said that Christ cast seven 
devils out of her. That they were divers women, we learn 
from the Apostolical Constitutions, which say, συνῆν yap ἡμῖν 
Μαρία ἡ Μαγδῥαλήνη, καὶ MapSa, καὶ Mapia, αἵ ἀδελφαὶ Λαζάρου," 
“There were with us, Mary Magdalene, and Martha 
and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus:” and from Origen in 


* Lib. iii. cap. 6. 


these words,* “The gospel saith, there came a woman hav- 
ing an alabaster box of ointment, &c.; not the sinner, but 
Mary a holy woman ; Luke indeed speaks of the sinner, but 
Matthew, Mark, and John, speak of that Mary who was not 
a sinner:” elsewhere he saith, “There were three Maries, 
one of whom Matthew and Mark, another of whom Luke, 
and a third of whom St. John here speaks.” And Basil of 


1 Seleucia in his homily on Lazarus saith, οὐκ αὐτὴ ἦν ἡ πόρνη ἡ 


ἐν τῷ Νατϑαίῳ οὐδὲ ἡ ἐν τῷ Λουκᾶ, “ This was not the Mary 
mentioned by St. Matthew or St. Luke, for they were har- 
lots or sinners, αὐτὴ δὲ σεμνὴ καὶ σπουδαῖα, but she was a holy 
and honest woman :” so also say Chrysostom, Euthymius, 
and Theophylact, here. See Cotelerius, note on Constit. 
Apost. p. 204, and Casaub. Exercit. 14, a p. 242 ad p. 300, 
where he answers the arguments of Baronius to the contrary. 

4 Ver. 4. Judas.) He was permitted to be among the 
apostles, perhaps to teach us, (1.) that there should never be 
wanting bad men even in the highest places of the church : 
@) that we are to judge of the members of the church, not 
rom the evil lurking in their hearts, which we cannot dis- 
cern, but from their outward profession, this qualifying Judas 
for the passover, if not for the participation of the sacra- 
ment; and, (3.) that inward holiness is not necessary to ren- 
der the offices belonging to the ministerial function valid and 
effectual : for Judas preaches Christ, and is sent out to do it 
with the power of healing diseases, and casting out of devils, 


* Hom. 1. in Cant. f. 63, E. hom. ii. f. 65, B. hom. 35 
in Matt. f. 23, Ὁ. 


384 


8 (Nor need ye be thus solicitous) For 5 the poor 
(since them) always ye have with you (and whenever 
you will you may do them good, Mark xiv. 7); but 
me ye have not always (and therefore she did well in 
ee the present opportunity of showing her affection 
to me). 

9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he 
(to wit, Lazarus) was there: and they came not for 
Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus 
also, whom he had raised from the dead. 

10 17 But © the chief priests consulted that they 
might put Lazarus also to death; 

11 Because that by reason of him many of the Jews 
went away, and believed on Jesus. 

12 ¢7On the next day much people that were 
come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was 
coming to Jerusalem, 

13 ‘Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to 
meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is (he) the 
King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. 

14 And Jesus, when (sending his disciples for him) 
he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written 
(of the Messiah, Zech. ix. 9), 

15 Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King 
cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt. 

16 These things ὃ understood not his disciples (to 
be spoken of him) at the first: but when Jesus was glo- 
tified, then remembered they that these things were 
written of him, and that they had done these things 
unto him. 

17 The people therefore that was with him when 
he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him 
from the dead, bare record (by their hosannas, that he 
was the Christ) 

18 For this cause the people also met him, for that 
they heard that he had done this miracle. 

19 The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, 
Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing (by all the opposi- 


JOHN. 


tion you have made against him? for) behold, the world 
is gone after him. 

20 4 And there were certain (devout) ὃ. Greeks 
among them that came up to worship at the feast: 

21 ‘The same came therefore to Philip, which was 
of Bethsaida of Galilee (perhaps as to a person known 
to them, living in Syrophenicia), and desired him, say- 
ing, Sir, we would see Jesus. 

22 Philip cometh and ™ telleth Andrew: and again 
Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. 

23 Ἵ And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour 
is come, that the Son of man should be " glorified (by 
the faith of the gentiles ; but this will chiefly be after his 
resurrection: for,) 

24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of 
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone 

without increase): but if it die, it bringeth forth much 
fruit. (Even so, after my death, shall I have much fruit 
among the gentiles, by my apostles sent to preach to, and 
to baptize, all nations. 

25 And in this my disciples must be ready to follow my 
example: for) He that loveth his life (so as to reject me 
to preserve it) shall lose it; and he that (seemingly) 
hateth his life in this world (by cleaving to me, with 
the loss of it) shall keep it unto life eternal. 

26 If (therefore) any man (will) serve me, jet him 
(take up his cross and) follow me; and (then) where 
lam, there shall also my servant be: (for) if any man 
serve me, him will my Father honour (with a crown 
of glory, Rev. iii. 21). 

27 Now is my ” soul troubled (at the apprehension 
of what I am to suffer) ; and what shall I say? Father, 
save me from this hour (this nature would prompt me 
lo): but (this I cannot say, since) for this cause came 
I unto this hour (that I might die for the sins of the 
world. 

28 I therefore choose to say,) Father, glorify thy 
name (by thas testimony of thy love to mankind). Then 


Matt. x. 1—10 (see the note there), though he had himself 
a devil (John vi. 70) ; nor is he excepted when Christ saith, 
«(8 that receiveth you, receiveth me.” 

5 Ver. 8. You have the poor always with you, &c.] 
Hence it appears that the obligation of giving alms, and be- 
ing charitable to the poor, hinders not our free expenses in 
doing honour to good men, as this woman doth here, and 
Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus afterward in buying 
spices for the interment of our Lord (xix. 39). 

6 Ver. 10. The chief priests consulted to kill Lazarus also.] 
To destroy an innocent man without any crime laid against 
him, only to preserve their own honour and reputation. See 
here the infallible sentence of the rulers of the church. 

7 Ver. 12. Τῇ ἐπαύριον, On the next day.] i.e. On the tenth 
day of Nisan, when the paschal lamb was taken up and re- 
served till the passover, Christ, the true paschal lamb, com- 
eth up to Jerusalem: from this to the sixteenth verse, see 
the note on Matt. xxi. 8—10. 

8 Ver. 16. These things understood not his disciples at 
the first.| To be done in completion of any prophecy con- 
cerning him; but when Jesus was advanced to the throne of 
his glory, and had shed upon them the Spirit of truth and 
illumination promised, they not only understood that these 
things were done according to the words of Zachary (ix. 9), 
but also that his kingdom was not to be of this world, but 
spiritual, or a dominion over the hearts and consciences of 
men, subdued to the obedience of the truth. Hence also 
we may learn the manner of the operation of the Holy Spi- 
rit, viz. by bringing those things to remembrance, which are 
requisite that we may know the truth, and be excited to 
perform our duty, and by enlightening thus our understand- 
ings. 

9 Ver. 20. Certain Greeks that came up to worship at the 
Jeast.| Dr. Hammond thinks these Greeks were proselytes 
of the gate, at least, who worshipped the God of the Jews as 
the creator of heaven and earth, such as were Cornelius and 
the treasurer of queen Candace; for these persons used to 


worship God in the court of the gentiles, and also to offer 
sacrifice to him: that such did come in Solomon’s time, and 
would come afterward, we learn from his petition, that their 
prayers might be heard which they made in his temple, 1 
Kings viii. 41, 42, that they offered burnt-offerings from Jo- 
sephus: for when Eleazar the zealot persuaded the priests, 
μηδενὸς ἀλλοφύλου δῶρον ἢ θυσίαν προσδέχεσϑαι, ἢ “not to receive 
the gift or offering of any gentile, this,” saith he, “was done 
contrary to the ancient custom of the Jews; for the priests 
produced witnesses most tenacious of their rites, deposing 
ὅτι πάντες of πρύγονοι τὰς ἀπὸ τῶν ἀλλογενῶν ϑυσίας ἀπεδέχοντο, Γ 
that all their ancestors received the sacrifices of other na- 
tions, and thought it absurd that the Jews only should ex- 
clude such from worshipping and sacrificing to their God.” 
These Greeks, says Grotius, seem to have been Syropheni- 
cians, perhaps dwelling about Tyre and Sidon, and so might 
easily be acquainted with the Galileans, with whom they 
had commerce, and with Philip of Bethsaida, to whom they 
came, ver, 21. 

0 Ver. 22. Philip telleth Andrew.] Because Christ, when 
he sent them forth to preach, forbade them to go into the 
coasts of the gentiles (Matt. x. 5), and it was then a contro- 
versy among the Jews, whether the gentiles should be ad- 
mitted to their sacra ; and so they might doubt whether such 
uncircumcised persons were to be admitted to converse with 
Jesus, and consult him first before they brought them to him. 

1 Ver 23. The hour is come that the Son of man shall 
be glorified.) i. e. That he, who is contemned by the Jews, 
his own people, to whom he was first sent, should be glorified 
by the gentiles. 

2 Ver. 27. Now is my soul troubled, &c.] That they 
might not say that he had no dread of death, or sense of 
pain to render sufferings distasteful to him, and so it was not 
to be expected that they who were deeply affected with these 
things should follow his example, he here shows he had the 


* De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 30, p.809,F. + P.$10,D. 


CHAPTER XII. 


came there a voice from heaven, saying, “I have both 
glorified it (by the miracles done by thee in my name), 
and will glorify ἐξ again (by greater miracles). 

29 The people therefore, that stood by, and heard 
tt, said that it thundered (the voice being attended 
with thunder): others said, (Z’hat) an angel spake to 
him. 

30 Jesus answered and said (to them), This voice 
came not because of me (to satisfy me of the divine 
favour, or comfort me against the agonies of death), but 
for your sakes (that you might believe in me). 

31 Now is ™ the judgment of this world (7. 6. the 
time when they shall be convinced of sin, because they be- 
lieve not in me, John xvi. 9, and of a fulure judgment : 
for) now shall the prince of this world be cast out (of 
his dominions). 

32 And I, if (Gr. when) I be (am) " lifted up from 
the earth (upon the cross), will draw all men (i. δ. men 
of all nations) unto (believe in) me. 

33 This he said, signifying what death he should 
die. 

34 The people answered him, ® We have heard out 


385 


of the law that Christ (and his kingdom) abideth for 
ever: and how sayest thou, (then, That) the Son of 
man must be lifted up (so as to die upon the cross) ? 
who is this Son of man (that must die, seeing it thus 
vappeareth by the law he cannot be the Christ) ? 

35 Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while 
(he who) is the light (of the world, is) with you. Wallc 
(by the directions of it) while ye have the light, lest 
" darkness come upon you (and you be led by your blind 
guides into the ditch): for he that walketh in darkness 
knoweth not whither he goeth. 

36 (And, that you may thus walk) While ye have 
light, believe in the light, that ye may be (treated, not 
as children of darkness, cast out from, but as) the child- 
ren of light (admitted to, his presence, who dwells in the 
light, and have the comforts and the blessings which belong 
lo them). 'These things spake Jesus, and departed, 
and did hide himself from them. 

37 Ἵ But though he had done so many miracles 
before them, yet they believed not on him: 

38 (So) "That (by this infidelity) the saying (Gr. the 
word) of Esaias the prophet might be (was) fulfilled 


same natural concern for these things others had, only he 
overruled it by a desire to promote his Father's glory. 

3 Ver. 28. I have both glorified it.) By the resurrection 
of Lazarus (xi. 4), and by all the other miracles which I 
haye given in testimony to thy mission (ii. 11) : “and I will 
glorify it again” by thy resurrection and exaltation to the 
right hand of glory (Acts ili. 13), by the mission of the 
Holy Ghost upon the apostles, the witnesses of thy resurrec- 
tion (John xvi. 14), and by giving thee a name above every 
name (Eph. i. 20,21, Phil. ii. 9, 10). 

4 Ver. 31. Now is the judgment of this world.) i.e. Now 
shall they of the world be condemned, who believe not in 
me (ver. 47): so the word κρίνεσθαι imports, ili. 18, 19, xvi. 
9, « Now is the prince of this world cast out;” so is Satan 
called, because he had rendered the whole world, except the 
Jewish nation, subject to his idolatrous worship (see the 
notes on 2 Cor. iv. 4, Eph. ii. 2, vi. 12): and he was emi- 
nently cast out by the Christians, when, through the name of 
Christ, they for three centuries expelled him from the tem- 
ples and altars where he was worshipped, anid from the bo- 
dies which he had possessed (see the preface to the Epistles, 
§. 18). 

5 Ver. 32, Ew ὑψωϑῶ, If I be lifted up, I will draw all 
men after me.) Ἐὰν here signifies when: so Deut. vii. 1, 
ἐὰν di εἰσαγάγη, “ When the Lord hath brought you into the 
land ;” Judg. vi. 3, ἐὰν ἔσπειραν, “ When the Israelites sowed ;” 
ἐὰν πληρωϑῶσι, “ When the number of thy days shall be ful- 
filled,” 2 Sam. vii. 12, Jer. iii. 16 (see the note on Heb. iii. 
7). I will draw all men after me ;” by the power of my 
resurrection, the mission of my Spirit, the excellency of my 
doctrine, and the miracles which shall attend the preaching 
of it, I will do what is sufficient to prevail with all men to 
believe in me, will actually engage many throughout all the 
parts of the world so to do, and render them who do not 
inexcusable. The event shows that Christ and the Father 
draw many who come not to him (see vi. 44). 

16 Ver. 34. We have heard out of the law that Christ 
abideth for ever.] That which they had learned from the 
prophets, they say they heard out of the “law,” that word 
comprehending the whole scriptures (see xv. 25); this they 
gathered partly from the prophets representing Christ's 
kingdom as an everlasting kingdom, Dan. vii. 14, from Eze- 
kiel, saying, xxxvii. 25, “My servant David shall be their 
King for ever, and of his governmemt there shall be no end,” 
Isa. ix. 7, and from his promise, that he would not fail 
David, but cause his seed to endure for ever, Ps. Ixxxix. 35, 
36. But then these words hinder not the truth of those 
things, which the same prophets had foretold of a body pre- 
pared, in which he was to suffer, having his hands and his 
feet pierced, Ps. xxii. 18, xl. 6, of his giving up his life a 
sacrifice for sin, Isa. liii. 2. 12, or the Messiah’s being cut off, 


by comparing these things together, have removed this scru- 
ple, especially when he so oft had told them, and they so 
well remembered (Matt. xxvii. 63), he had said, that “after 
three days he would rise again.” 

17 Ver. 35. Lest darkness come upon you, &c.| As it did 
in a wonderful manner after the light of the gospel was taken 
from them, they sinning then, not only against all laws civil 
and sacred, but even against the laws of nature in the vilest 
manner, as Josephus fully testifies (see the note on Rom. 
ii. 1): and from our Lord’s exhortation to them here, “ to 
walk in the light, that they may be the children of the light,” 
it is manifest Christ thought not God had then so blinded 
their eyes that they could not see, or so deserted them that 
they could not walk in the light; for if so, he could not seri- 
ously have exhorted them to “ walk in the light,” much less to 
do it so that they might become « the children of light ;” for 
all exhortations to do that which it is impossible for them to 
do, by reason of a judicial act of God upon them, must not 
only be vain and delusory, but also contrary to the will of 
God. If you here say, Christ’s exhortations must be as 
much in vain, supposing they had by their vicious habits 
contracted such a blindness, “that seeing they would not 
see,” as scripture seems to testify they had: I answer, that 
this follows not; that blindness being not natural, but only 
moral, arising from their prejudices and ill affections to the 
light, and so might be deposed with them. And hence we 
find the scripture frequently exhorting them who in this 
moral sense had their eyes blinded, and their ears made deaf, 
to hearken, to believe, and be obedient to the truth. So 
Jer. vi. 10, “T'o whom shall I speak and give warning, that 
they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, that they 
cannot hearken:” and yet it is said, ver. 8, “Be thou in- 
structed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee ;” and 
ver. 16, “Stand ye in the way, and see, and ask ye for the 
old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye 
shall find rest to your souls :” yea, Christ himself saith, John 
viii. 43, « Ye cannot hear my words;” and yet he adds, that 
“he came into the world,” and spake unto them, “that they 
might be saved,” Luke ix. 56, John xiii. 17, 18, v. 34, and 
reprehends them, because they “would not come to him, that 
they might have life,” John v. 40, and that they would not 
be gathered by him, Luke xiii. 34, yea, the evangelist here, 
ver. 37, imputes it to them as their great sin, that though 
Christ had “done so many miracles among them, they be~ 
lieved not in him :” yea, God himself still looks upon them 
as persons who might believe, “ for this was his command- 
ment that they should believe in him,” this was the work 
which he expected from them, ver. 24. 

18 Ver. 38. That the saying of Esaias the prophet might 
be fulfilled.] Because these and the following words. seem 
to contain a very strange and uncomfortable doctrine, viz 


Dan. ix. 26, and these prophets having spoken not only of | that the infidelity, even of God’s own people, is to be resolved 


his sufferings, but also of his resurrection (Ps. xli, 10, Acts 
iii. 24), and of his future glory (1 Pet.i. 11), they might easily, 
Vor. IV.—49 


not into the perverseness of their wills, or the evil dispositions 
of their hearts, but into the divine predictions, or inta.a, ju- 
2H 


886 


(in them, or, this departure was to punish their blindness 
and hardness of heart, that the word of Esaias the prophet 
might be fulfilled in them), which he spake, (saying), 
Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom 
hath the arm of the Lord been revealed ? 

39 (For)Therefore they could not believe, because 
that (which) Esaias said again (was verified in them, 
UZ), 


40 5 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened 


JOHN. 


their heart (or, their eyes are blinded, and their hearts 
are hardened, see Matt. xiii, 14, Acts xxviii. 27); that 
they should not see with their eyes, nor understand 
with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal 
them. 

41 These things said Esaias (in the spirit), when 
he saw ™his glory (viz. the glory of Christ), and spake 
of him. 

42 4 Nevertheless (this infidelity was not general, for 


dicial blindness and obduration wrought by God upon them, 
which renders it impossible for them to believe; therefore, 
for explication of them, let it be noted, , 

First, That our blessed Lord in the immediate precedent 
verses, viz. 35, 36, doth passionately exhort these very per- 
sons to believe and walk according to the light; which is a 
certain evidence our Lord well knew his Father had not, by 
any of his actions or predictions, made it impossible for them 
to believe on him, or walk according to his doctrine; for if 
God had so blinded their eyes that they could not see the 
light, or so hardened their hearts that they could not em- 
brace it, Christ would not seriously have exhorted them to 
believe, or walk according to it, and that so effectually, that 
they might become the children of light; for every exhorta- 
tion to do a thing we know to be impossible must be vain: 
and he who, by it, seems to be desirous we should do that, 
which he knows we cannot, must delude us; and if he knows 
that God hath by some antecedent action rendered the thing 
imposible to be done, it must be also an exhortation repug- 
nant to the will of God : now it is blasphemy to say the ex- 
hortations of the Son of God were vain, delusory, or contrary 
to his Father’s will. Moreover our Saviour knew the Jews 
were capable of mercy and salvation by him, for he ex- 
pressly says, God sent him into the world, “that the world 
by him might be saved,” John iii. 17; he makes this decla- 
ration, “ These things say I unto you that ye might be saved,” 
John v. 34, and this inquiry, “ How oft would I have ga- 
thered you, and you would not?” Luke xiii. 34, and says, 
«Ye will not come to me, that ye may have life,” John v. 
40, God himself would not have his words so understood, as 
if he were unwilling that the Jews should believe, or had by 
any of his actions rendered it impossible for them so to do, 
for “this was his commandment, that they should believe on 
him whom he had sent,’ John vi. 29, and why sent he his 
Son “to seek, and to save that which was lost,” even “the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel,” had he not truly been de- 
sirous that they should believe? The evangelist also, and 
that good Spirit by which he did indite these words, did not 
thus understand them; for he objects this to the Jews as their 
great crime, ver. 37, that “though Christ had done so many 
miracles among them, yet they believed not on him;” 
whereas it can be no man’s sin not to do what he cannot do 
purely by reason of the act of God. These words must therefore 
have some other sense than at first view they seem to bear. 

Secondly, Observe, that God’s foreknowledge, sayings, and 
predictions, have no such influence on the will of man, as 
to lay on him a_necessity to do what he foreknows or hath 
foretold he will do: for were it otherwise, (1.) all human ac- 
tions must be necessary ; for to that God who is omniscient, 
all things, both past, and present, and to come, are known: 
if then this knowledge of men’s actions, which the scripture 
so plainly doth ascribe to God, did make them necessary, all 
human actions must be necessary, and the freedom of them 
must be overthrown. (2.) Then vice and virtue must be 
only empty names, we being capable of doing nothing which 
is blameworthy, or deserveth praise; for who can blame a 
person for doing only what he could not help; or judge him 
worthy of applause, who doth that only which he cannot 
avoid? And (3.) then must all future recompenses be dis- 
carded, it being visibly unjust to punish any man for that 
which it was never in his power to avoid ; and as unreason- 
able to reward him for that action which cannot be praise- 
worthy. We know that an almighty God is able so power- 
fully to work upon the hearts of men, as to convert them to 
himself; and it is natural to conceive, that a good God is 
ready to do all which he sees proper for that end: since then 
in some regard it must be true that “ God would have all 
nien to be saved,” what answer can be given to that inquiry, 
« Why are not all men actually saved?” but this—that the 


divine wisdom does not see it fit to lay restraints upon their 
actions, and to necessitate their wills to a compliance with his 
calls and invitations to turn to him. This answer I believe 
is true; but then it is an evidence that God hath never by 
his prescience, or his predictions, laid such restraints upon 
men’s actions. 

When then it is said here, “ Therefore they could not be- 
lieve, because Esaias said ;”’ these words must bear this sense, 
Therefore they could not believe, because that was fulfilled 
upon them which Esaias said, or, it had happened to them 
as he had foretold: so xv. 24, 25 (see the note there), “They 
have hated me and my Father, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα πληρωθῇ ὃ λόγος, but 
that the word might be fulfilled:” i. 6. but this hath hap- 
pened to, or been done by them, that what was written in 
their law might be fulfilled, viz. “« They hated me without a 
cause ;” and this is the exposition of the Holy Ghost, who, 
Matt. xii. 13, 14, saith from the mouth of Christ, «'There- 
fore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing, see not ; 
and in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, Their eyes 
have they closed,” &c. 

19 Ver. 40. He hath blinded their eyes.) Observe, that 
whereas our translation saith, “ He hath blinded their eyes,” 
the word “he” is not in the original, which saith only thus, 
τετύφλωκεν αὐτῶν τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς, and may be rendered, “ Ma- 
lice, or wickedness, hath blinded their eyes,” as we read, 
Wisd. ii. 21, or, (2.) the personal is here put for the imper- 
sonal, the active for the passive; i.e. “He hath blinded 
their eyes, and hardened their hearts,” for “Their eyes are 
blinded, and their hearts hardened.” ΤῸ give you a plain 
instance of like nature, Isa. xliv. 18, in our translation we 
read thus, “ He hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see ; 
and their hearts, that they cannot understand:” and yet 
both the Greek and Chaldee paraphrast read them thus, 
ἀπημαυρώθησαν, “Their eyes are shut and darkened,” lest 
they should see: and that this is the true import of the pro- 
phet’s words, not that God but Satan and their own evil dis- 
positions had done this, is evident from this consideration ; 
that this is spoken to the shame of them who made and 
worshipped senseless images (ver. 9. 11), and to convince 
them of their want of consideration (ver. 19). And that 
this must be the sense here we learn not only from the 
Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic, which render these 
words of Isaiah thus, “The heart of this people is waxed 
gross, and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see 
with their eyes;” but also from our blessed Saviour, who 
Matt. xiii. 15, and from St. Paul, who, Acts xxvili. 26, 27, 
exactly follow this translation of the words. : 

20 Ver. 41. These things said Esaias, when he saw his 
glory, &c.] i.e. When he saw the glory of the Lord Christ, 
not, as some Socinians contend, of God the Father: for, 

First, These words, “ His glory,” and “He spake of him,” 
contain two pronouns, which are not in the words of the pro- 
phet, but only of the evangelist, and so must be referred to 
him, of whom the evangelist here speaks ; viz. to him “ who 
had done so many miracles among them,” and to him “in 
whom they believed not” (ver. 37), and “in whom they could 
not believe” (ver. 39). : ; 

Secondly, If those words, “ These things said Esaias, when 
he saw his glory,” are not to be understood of Christ, what 
use have they, or to what purpose do they here serve, there 
being no need to tell us, that Esaias then saw the glory of 
God the Father, or spake of him ? 

Thirdly, Socinus well observes and proves, that the apos- 
tle’s words do equally relate to both the passages produced 
from Esaias; because he saith not, “This,” but “These 
things said Esaias.’ Now it is evident, from the apostle 
Paul, Rom. x. 16, citing these words, and applying them to 
the gospel-times, that the first testimony relates to them, and 
from the contents of the whole fifty-third chapter, that they 


CHAPTER XIII. 


not only among the people bul) among *' the chief rulers 
also many tere on him; but because of the Pha- 
risees they did not (openly) confess him, lest they 
should be put out of the synagogue : 

43 For they loved the praise of men more than the 
praise of God (i.e. they valued their reputation with 
men more than that honour which cometh of God only, 
John ν. 44). 

44 4 Jesus (therefore) cried and said, He that be- 
lieveth on me, believeth not on me (only), but on 
him that sent me (also). 

45 And he that seeth me (doing the works of God) 
% seeth (also) him that sent me. 

46 Lam ™ come a light into the world, that whoso- 
ever believeth on me should not abide in darkness (or 
be ignorant of the way to happiness). 

47 And if any man hear my words, and believe 


relates to Christ’s sufferings, and his future glory, as Schlic- 
tingius here grants, and consequently the words, “These 
things spake Esaias,” must induce us to believe, that he 
spake also in the other passage cited from him of the glory 
of the same person. Schlictingius therefore answers, that 
the prophet, by seeing the glory of God, is said also to see 
the glory of Christ, which was to fill the whole earth; for 
then was the whole earth replenished with his glory, when 
God by him did his admirable works, when he raised him 
from the dead, and placed him at his own right hand, sub- 
jecting all things to his feet; when Esaias in the Spirit saw 
his glory, John rightly says, “ He saw the glory of Christ,” 
the glory of God and of Christ being so inseparably con- 
nected, as the means to the end, that the glory of Christ 
directly tends to the glory of God the Father. But against 
this evasion, it is observable, 

That the prophet, ch. liii., if he speaks at all of the glory 
of any person, as indeed he doth, ver 10—12, speaks of 
such a one, who “poured out his soul unto death,” and 
was “numbered with the transgressors, and bare the sin of 
many ;” which words cannot refer at all to God the Fa- 
ther. 

Secondly, In the sixth chapter he speaks of one, whom 
he then saw “sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and 
whose train filled the temple” (ver. 1), and to whom the 
seraphims cried, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: 
the whole earth is full of his glory” (ver. 3). He therefore 
speaketh not of any future glory, but of the glory he then 
saw, and of which the seraphims then sang. And who can 
reasonably think the prophet should cry out, ver. 5, “ Woe 
is me, because I have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 
only because he had seen a vision of a mere man, who had 
as yet no being? However, 

Thirdly, Seeing the prophet is so express in it, that it 
was Jehovah-Zebaoth, the Lord of hosts, the king Jehovah, 
whose glory he then saw, and of whose glory the angels 
then sang; and yet the evangelist declares he spake these 
things when he saw the glory of Christ—it follows, that 
Christ must be one with this Jehovah. 

21 Ver. 42. Of the chief priests many believed on him.) 
i.e. They were inwardly convinced he was the Christ, though 


387 


Gem) not, * I judge him not (ἐ, 6. J do not now con- 
mn him) : for 1 came not to judge (, 6. condemn) the 
world, but to save the world (John iii. 17). 

48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my 
words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that 1 
have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last 
day. 
49 For I have not spoken of myself (without com- 
mission from above); but the Father which sent me, 
he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and 
what I should speak. 

50 And I know that (obedience to) his commandment 
is (the way to) life everlasting: whatsoever I speak 
therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak 
and he will surely condemn those who are disobedient to 

is word ). 


they durst not openly confess this faith, lest they should be 
rendered infamous by being turned out of the synagogue, 
and so their faith was insufficient in one great requisite, 
«confession of it being made with the mouth unto salva- 
tion” (Rom. x. 9, Matt. x. 32). 

2 Ver. 44. Believeth not on me] Only, but in him also 
who hath set his seal to the testimony of me (John iii. 33) : 
so the word only is to be understood, when Christ saith, 
“He that receiveth me, receiveth not me” (Mark ix. 37) : 
and when St. Peter saith to Ananias, “Thou hast not lied 
to man, but to God” (Acts v. 4): St. Paul, “He that de- 
spiseth us, despiseth not man, but God” ( Thess. iv. 8). 
and this addition is here necessary, to avoid a contradiction 
in these words, “He that believeth in me, believeth not in 
me.” (2.) Because Christ so expressly doth require his 
disciples to believe in him, saying, xix. 1, “ Ye believe in 
God, believe also in me:” it is added, “ He believes also in 
him that sent me,” to express the dignity and excellency of 
this faith, and the dreadful effects of incredulity, since he 
that believes not makes God a liar (1 John v. 10). 

23 Ver. 45. He that secth me, seeth him that sent me.J 
See the note on xiv. 9. 

4 Ver. 46. Tum come a light into the world.) That he 
who believeth in me, and embraceth my doctrine, may not 
abide in darkness, i. e. in ignorance of the way of life, nor 
be cast out into outer darkness, as the Jews will be for their 
incredulity (Matt. viii. 12). 

% Ver. 47, 48. [judge him not.) i. e. I pass not on him 
the decretory sentence here on earth, where Iam to perform 
the office of a prophet, not a judge (viii. 15); yet let him 
know he shall hereafter bé judged, and have the sentence 
passed upon him, according to that doctrine which I preach, 
and be punished by God for contempt of it, because the 
«words I speak, I speak not of myself; but as he gave me 
a commandment, so I speak.” Christ neither doth nor 
could deny that he would judge all men at the last day, be- 
cause he had declared the Father had committed “all judg- 
ment to the Son” (John v. 27), and “had given him power 
to raise them up and judge them at the last day” (ver. 26, 
27), but only doth deny that he was to assume this office 
whilst he was on earth. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


1 Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus 
knew that his hour was come that he should depart 
out of this world unto the Father, having loved his 
own (apostles) which were in the world, ' he loved 
them unto the end (or close of his life). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


1 Ver. 1. He loved them to the end.] i. 6. To the close of 
his life, and showed this affection to them by washing their 
feet. ‘I'his passage therefore can afford no argument, that 
the regenerate can never fall away, because Christ speaks 


ὃ And 2 supper (dime) being ended (Gr. come), the 
devil having now put (7?) into the heart of Judas Isea- 
riot, Simon’s son, to betray him; 

3 Jesus knowing (Ais great dignity, in) that the 
Father had given all things into his hands, and that 


not of the choosing any to salvation, but only of those, 
whom he had chosen out of the world to be his apostles 
(xv. 19), nor of his love of them to the end of their lives, 
but of his own. 

2 Ver. 2. And supper being ended.] That this was not 
the paschal supper, but a supper they were at before the 


388 


he was ὃ come (Gr. come forth) from God, and went to 
God; 

4 He (to show an admirable example of humility) 
riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and 
took a towel, and girded himself (after the manner of a 
servant). 

5 After that he poured water into a bason, and be- 
gan to 4 wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them 
with the towel wherewith he was girded. 

6 Then cometh he to Simon Peter : and Peter saith 
unto him, Lord, dost thou (think Ican suffer thee to) 
wash my feet ? 


JOHN. 


7 Jesus answered and said unto him, (For) what 
(end) I do (this) thou 5 knowest not now; but thou 
shalt know hereafter (when I have performed this cere- 
mony, ver. 12. 15). 

8 Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my 
feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not (if thy 
heart and thy affections be not purified by me), thou hast 
no part with me (thou wilt not be filted for my service, 
or receive any benefit by me). 

9 Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, (7f this washing 
be so necessary to that end, wash) not my feet only, but 
also my hands and my head. 


feast of the passover, ver. 1, see fully proved in the appen- 
dix to the fourteenth chapter of St. Mark, answer to objec- 
tion the second. To the arguments there offered for this 
purpose add, that at this supper Christ only privately dis- 
covers the traitor to St. John (ver. 25, 26), whereas at the 
paschal supper he makes him known openly to them all 
Ghee xxvi, 25, Luke xxii. 21): here he discovers him to 

t. John, by giving him a sop which he had dipped in the 
dish (ver. 26), there he discovers him to the rest by this, 
that his hand was with him in the dish (Matt. xxvi. 23, 
Mark xiv. 20). Against what is here said it may be ob- 
jected, that Christ here saith (ver. 38), “ The cock shall not 
crow before thou hast denied me thrice :” now this seems to 
have been said at Christ’s last passover. "ΤῸ this I answer, 
that when Christ said this to Peter elsewhere, he always adds 
the circumstance of time, either ἐν ταύτη τῇ νυκτὶ, * The cock 
shall not crow this night” (Matt. xxvi. 34, Mark xiv. 30), 
ΟΥ σήμερον, “this day” (Luke xxii. 34); whereas here no 
circumstance of time is added, which makes it probable the 
words here were not spoken at the same time. 

Secondly, The words here were spoken upon occasion of 
St. Peter's answer to these words of Christ, “ Whither I go 
thou canst not follow me now” (ver. 36) ; but the like words 
in St. Matthew and St. Mark were spoken upon the occa- 
sion of our Lord’s prediction, that they should all be scanda- 
lized at him that night (Matt. xxvi. 31, Mark xiv. 27), and 
in St. Luke, upon occasion of Christ’s saying to Peter in 
particular, “Satan hath desired to winnow thee” (Luke xxii. 
31, 32), which makes it farther probable, that these words 
here were spoken at a different time. 

3 Ver. 3. Jesus knowing, ὅτι ἀπὸ Θεοῦ ἐξῆλθε, καὶ πρὸς Θεὸν 
ὑπᾶγει, that he came out from God, and went to God.) So 
xvi. 28, “I came out from the Father, and am come into the 
world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” 
Now seeing it is certain that he left the world, and went to 
the Father, by ascending from the earth to the highest hea- 
vens; must not the opposition require that he came out from 
the Father into the world, by coming from heaven to earth? 
For these two are opposite by commutation of terms: the 
term from which in the one, being the term fo which in the 
other; which opposition is wholly lost, by saying, with the 
Socinians, that Christ is said to come forth from God, or 
from the Father, only because he came as his legate or am- 
bassador, and was made known to the world by his creden- 
tials, the miracles done by him in his Father’s name. More- 
over, according to this exposition, the opposite term, his 
going to God, and to the Father, must import his ceasing to 
be his legate, or to make himself known by the miracles 
done by a power derived from his Father; whereas he, after 
his ascension, made himself still thus more known to the 
world. Add to this, that the prophets of old, and Moses 
especially, were God’s messengers, and made themselves 
known to the world by miracles done by God, as their cre- 
dentials, and so were after them the apostles in like manner 
the legates and ambassadors of God and Christ; but yet it 
never was nor could be said of them, or any of them, “I 
went forth from God,” and from the Father, “and came into 
the world ;”” which shows this phrase is proper to our Lord ; 
and so the reason of it must be peculiar to him alone. 

Obj. 1. The apostles believed that Christ came forth from 
God (John xvi. 30, xvii. 8), but yet they believed not that 
he had a divine essence. 

Ans. What reason have the Socinians to say this so 
confidently of the apostles, who not only saw him do such 
mighty miracles, as argued a divine power in him, and whom 


he charges so often to believe, that he was in the Father, and 
the Father in him, but also did themselves cast out devils, 
and heal diseases in his name throughout Judea, when he 
was absent from them: this being a proof to them, that he, 
though absent from them in the body, was always present 
with them by his power? What reason have they to con- 
clude this from the places cited, since in the first, they argue 
thus from his omniscience, an attribute inseparable from the 
divine nature, saying, “ Now we perceive that thou knowest 
all things; and, ἐν τούτῳ, by this we believe thou camest 
forth from God :” in the second, they hear him saying, “ Fa- 
ther, glorify me with the glory I had with thee before the 
world was,”’ ver. 5; and, ver. 7, are said to know that “all 
things which the Father had given him,” even the power to 
do and know all things, “were of God;” and thence are 
said to know that he truly or indeed “came from God.” 

Obj. 2. But how can God be said to “ come from God” 
into the world, when he is always in the heavens; or, to 
leave the world, and go to the Father? 

Ans. 1. To this our Saviour partly himself answers, by 
saying, that he was “in heaven,” even then when he says, 
he “came down from heaven” (see the note on iii. 13). 

2. I have observed, note on ili. 13, that as to his divine 
nature, he is said to descend from heaven, not by a local 
descent, or by quitting heaven, but only by the manifesta- 
tion of himself upon earth; and in this sense God himself 
is often said to descend from heaven, when by any divine 
work done on earth he demonstrates his presence there: 
and he is also said to ascend again into heaven afterward. 
Why therefore may not God the Word be said to descend 
from heaven, and even dwell with men, as God is said to 
dwell in the tabernacle and in the temple, when the Logos 
dwelt in the human nature upon earth, and manifested his 
glory in it; and also to leave the world, and go to the Fa- 
ther, not only as properly doing this by the exaltation of 
the human nature, but as doing all his divine works now 
from heaven, where he sits in the majesty and glory of the 
Father ? 

4 Ver. 5. And he began to wash his disciples’ feet.| Great 
is this instance of humility, if we consider (1.) the dignity of 
the person expressed in the foregoing words; (2.) the action 
itself, with the circumstances of it: for (1.) Christ lays aside 
his garment, and he girds himself, as Philo saith servants 
used to do when they ministered to their masters. (2.) He 
actually washed his disciples’ feet, which also servants did to 
their masters when they came from a journey, to cleanse 
them from the dirt, and to refresh them (1 Tim. v. 10) ; ac- 
cording to those words of Abigail to David, “ Let me be a 
servant to wash the feet of my lord’? (1 Sam. xxv. 41), 
and which superiors did not do to inferiors (see Dr. Light- 
foot on the place). 

5 Ver. 7. What Ido, thou knowest not now; but thow 
shalt know hereafter. After the ceremony is finished, I shall 
tell thee, it was intended as an example of that humility, 
which I would have you show, in ministering to the mean- 
est Christians ; though you in station and office be superior 
to them. It farther may be gathered from those words, ver. 
8, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me,” or, wilt re- 
ceive no benefit by me ; and from the purity, mentioned ver. 
10, that Christ intended also by this rite that purity of mind 
and of affection, which he required of all those who belonged 
to him, and which he would increase in them by his word 
and Spirit (Eph. v. 26), and which in scripture was usually 
represented by washing and pouring of water, as in those 
words, Isa. i. 17, “ Wash ye, καθαροὶ γίνεσθε, be ye clean;” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed (i. e. 
truly sanctified and cleansed bi ® needeth not save 
to wash his feet (his heart and his affections), but (if 
he still keep them pure and rightly inclined) is clean 
every whit (in all his thoughts and actions proceeding 

rom them): and ye are (in a good measure) clean, but 
not all (Judas being full of filthiness. This exception he 
made) 

11 For (because) he knew who should betray him ; 
therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. 

12 So after he had washed their feet, and taken his 
garments (which he had laid aside in order to that work), 
and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye 
what I have done to you? 

13 Ye call me? Master and Lord: and ye say well 
(ὦ e. what ts right) ; for so 1 am. 

14 If I then, (who am) your Lord and Master, have 
washed your feet; ὃ ye also ought to wash one an- 
other’s feet (2. 6. to be as ready to do the meanest office to 
other Christians). 

15 For I (by doing this) have given you an example, 
that ye should do (to others) as I have done to you. 

16 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not 
greater than his lord; neither (és) he that is sent 
greater than he that sent him (and therefore you, my 
servants, whom I send to preach the gospel to all nations, 
ought not to think it beneath you to do to others what 
I, your Lord, from whom ye receive your commission, do 
to you). 

17 ti ye know these things, (that knowledge, without 
a suitable practice, will only aggravate your doom, but) 
happy are ye if do them. 

18 { (.2nd when I spake of your being happy) 1 speak 
not of you all: (for) 1 9 know whom I have chosen 
(i. 6. what is the inward disposition of them): but (one 


389 


them is so disposed towards me) that the scripture may 
be fulfilled, (which saith, Ps. xli. 9), He that eateth 
bread with me (as my familiar friend) hath lifted up 
his heel against me. 

19 Now I tell you (of this) before it come (to pass), 
that, when it is come to pass, ® ye may believe that 1 
am he (who searcheth all hearts, and also am the Son of 
David, to whom these things belong. 

20 And, believing this, you will see cause sufficient to 
go on cheerfully in my service; for) Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever I send 
(shall be esteemed as one that) receiveth me; and he 
that receiveth me (as one that) receiveth him that sent\ 
me. 

21 When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in 
(Ais) spirit, (partly at the apprehension of his sufferings, 
and partly at the vileness and pernicious consequences of 
the fact,) and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, that one of you shall betray me. 

22 Then the disciples looked one on another, doubt- 
ing of whom he spake (ἐλ 05). 

23 Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of 
his disciples, whom Jesus loved (viz. St. John). 

24 Simon Peter therefore " beckoned to him, that 
he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. 

25 He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto him 
(with a low voice), Lord, who is it? 

26 Jesus answered (him), He it is, to whom I shall 
give a sop, when I have dipped it (in the dish). And 
when he had dipped the sop, he gave if to Judas Is- 
cariot, the son of Simon. 

27 And after the sop, # Satan entered (more fully) 
into him. Then said Jesus unto him, 3 That thou do- 
est, (thow mayest) do quickly (as soon as thou wilt, for 
Iam ready to suffer). 


and in that promise, Ezek. xxxvi. 35, “I will pour clean 
water upon you, καὶ καθαρισϑήσετε, and ye shall be cleansed 
from your iniquities.” 

® Ver. 10. Needeth not, save to wash his feet.) Because 
they only gather dirt and gravel in a journey. So in the 
metaphor, in our travel through the world, all the defilement 
we contract arises from our misplaced or our immoderate 
affections, love, desire, fear, aversion, hatred. ‘he Jewish 
ptiests were to wash their hands as well as feet when they 
offered sacrifice to God (Exod. xxx. 19), because their hands 
were chiefly employed in that work, and so their hands un- 
washed were said to be unconsecrated, common, or unclean 
(Maimonides, tr. de Adif. Templi, cap. 1, §. 6, et tr. 3, cap. 
5, §. 1). The apostles are required only to wash their feet, 
their business being to travel through the world, preaching 
the gospel. Note also, that Christ washed the feet of Judas; 
for he was present at this rite, and is not said to be ex- 
cepted: only Christ here saith, this washing did not make 
him clean. 

7 Ver. 13. Ye call me Master and Lord.] Your Master 
by teaching, and your Lord by commanding: so Grotius. 
But ὁ Κύριος, the word “Lord” here seems to import “the 
Lord from heaven” (ver. 1), or him who is “ Lord of all ;” 
in which sense, to us Christians, “there is but one Lord” 
(Acts ii. 36, 1 Cor. viii. 6). 

8 Ver. 14. Ye ought to wash one another’s feet.) Not in 
the literal sense, by doing this once a year; but in the 
spiritual, by being always ready to do any service, by 
which we may promote the welfare, and advance the pu- 
rity, of any member of the church: for “the servant is not 
above his lord.” 

8 Ver. 18. I know whom I have chosen.] Christ speaks 
not here of an election to faith, and by it to salvation; that 
being constantly in scripture ascribed to God the Father, 
Not to Christ acting as his prophet; but of being chosen to 
the office of an apostle; nor does he intend here to say, that 
he had chosen some of his apostles, and not others: for he 


owns that he had chosen Judas, by saying, “ Have I not | xxii 


chosen twelve, and one of them is a devil?” (vi. 70.) The 
import of these words seems therefore to be this—I know 


the temper and disposition of them whom I have chosen, 
and what I may expect from one of them; for which cause 
I said, “ You are not all clean;” but God in his wisdom 
hath permitted this, that as Ahithophel betrayed David, 
though he was his familiar friend, so Judas, my familiar at 
my table, might betray the Son of God; and so the words 
recorded, Ps. xli. 9, might be fulfilled in him also, of whom 
king David was the type. 

Hath lifted up τὴν πτέρναν αὑτοῦ, his heel against me.) The- 
ophylact here notes, that this is a metaphor taken ἀπὸ τῶν 
παλαιόντων, “from wrestlers ;” others from racers, who fol- 
lowing others, endeavour to trip up their heels, and throw 
them down: so Esau said of Jacob, who had his name from 
the word akab, here used, “Is he not rightly called Jacob, 
ἑπτέρνικε γάρ με, for he hath tripped up my heels, (or over- 
thrown me) twice?” Gen. xxvii. 36, and Jer. ix. 4, “ Every 
brother will supplant, πτέρνη πτερνιεῖς he with his heel will 
trip up his brother’s heels.” 

10 Ver. 19. That when it comes to pass, ye may believe, 
ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι, that Iam.) Not only that I am the Christ, as 
viii. 24, but also, that I am he, who searcheth the hearts, 
and knows things future and contingent, which is the pro- 
perty of God alone (1 Kings viii. 30, Isa. xli. 22, 23) ; and 
so believing in me, may believe also in him that sent me, 
ver. 20 (see Examen Milli). 

1 Ver. 24. Simon Peter beckons to him that he should 
ask.] That all mentioned from this to the twenty-seventh 
verse was done secretly—Simon only nodding to John, he 
speaking to Christ only in his ear, and Christ so answering 
that he only understood his words—is plain from this, that 
“no man at the table knew for what intent Christ said to 
Judas, What thou doest, do quickly,” save St. John, ver. 27. 

12 Ver. 27. Satan entered into him.] Non secundum sub- 
stantiam sed secundiim operationem, saith St. Jerome ; i. 6. 
not as to the substance, but as to the operation, as he is said 
to do, when the will is fully inclined to obey his motions, 
and we do not resist them: but of this, see the note Luke 


. 3. 
13 What thou doest do quickly. This is not a command to- 
Judas to go on with his wicked enterprise, but only a decla 
22 


390 


28 Now no man at the table (save St. John) knew 
for what intent he spake this unto him. 

29 For some of them thought, because Judas had 
the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things 
that we have need of against the (paschal) feast; 
or, that he should ™ give something to the poor. 

30 He then having received the sop went immedi- 
ately out (to accomplish his design): and it was night 
(when he did so). 

31 4 Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, 
% Now is the Son of man (0 suffer, and then to be) 
glorified (Luke xxiv. 26, Heb. ii. 9), and God is (to 
be) glorified in him (thus suffering for the salvation of 
mankind ). 

32 If God be glorified in (and by) him, God shall 
also glorify him in himself (by committing all things to 
his hands, and seating him at the right hand of majesty 
and power, John xvii. 5), and shall straightway (thus) 
glorify him. 

33 Little children, yet a little 7 while 1 am with 
you. (4nd then) ye shall seek me: and as I said (be- 
fore) unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; 


JOHN. 


so now I say to you (ye cannot come now till your 
work on earth be finished, ver. 36, and I have prepared 
mansions in heaven for you, John xiv. 2). 

34 A new commandment 1 give unto you (to be con- 
tinually observed by all my disciples), That ye love one 
another (afler my example, who lay down my life for 
you; requiring) 18 as I have loved you, that ye also 
(so) love one another. 

35 By ™ this shall all men know that ye are my dis- 
ciples, if ye (/hus) have love one to another. 

36 4 Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither 
goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, 
2% thou canst not follow me (as being not yet prepared 
to suffer for my sake); but thou shalt follow me after- 
wards (and suffer on the cross as I do). 

37 Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow 
thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. 

38 Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy 
life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
21 The cock shall not crow (7. e. it shall not be the time 
of cock-crowing), till thou hast denied me thrice. 


ration made by Christ of his readiness to suffer death, as in 
the paraphrase. So Ezek. xx. 39, “Go ye, serve ye every 
one his idols.”’ 

4 Ver. 29. That he should give something to the poor.) 
This charity seems to be the proper business at a feast, 
Esther ix. 22. 

15 Ver. 31. Now is the Son of man glorified, &c.] The 
context seemeth to require the sense given in the para- 
phrase: and then the passive aorist is put for the future, as 
od μὴ ἔλϑη, “ Will he not come?” xi. 56, ἐβλήθη, “He shall 
be cast out,” xv. 6 (see Glass. de Verbo, can. 47). Or else 
the sense may be given thus, Hitherto hath the Son of man 
been glorified by his doctrine and his miracles, by which he 
hath fully proved his mission; and God hath been glorified 
by them both; he having still done and spoken them in his 
Father’s name (see Examen Millii). 

6 Ver. 32. If God be glorified in him, God will glorify 
him, ἐν ἑαυτῷ, in himself.] By signs done in the heaven and 
the earth, which shall force men to say even at his death, 
“Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. xxvii. 45. 51.54), 
by his glorious resurrection and ascension, and session at his 
own right hand, by giving him “all power in heaven and 
earth, and a name above every name” (Phil. ii. 9). And 
this he will presently begin to do: so that you seeing such 
admirable circumstances of my passion, and such a glorious 
issue of it, may go on cheerfully in preaching my gospel, 
expecting my power to assist you in the work, and a full re- 
ward of all your sufferings for my sake. 

Vor. 33. Yet a little while am I with you.) i.e. By 


my bodily presence ; for he had promised to “ abide for ever 
with them” by his Spirit (xiv. 16), and his divine presence 
(Matt. xxviii. 20). 

18 Ver. 34. As I have loved you.] Even to the shedding of 
my blood for you, and even for mine enemies; not with re- 
spect to any merit on their part, or any advantage on mine, 
but out of pure affection for their souls: this is the love you 
are to imitate in your affection one to another. 

19 Ver. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my dis- 
ciples.] 'The disciples of the Baptist were known by the aus- 
terity of their lives; the disciples of the pharisees by their 
habit and separation from other men; Christ will have his 
disciples known by their profound affection to each other, 
which in the primitive ages was so great, that it made the 
heathens* with admiration to cry out, Vide ut invicem 
se diligunt, “See how they love one another ;” and even to 
hate and envy them for their brotherly affection. Hence 
Julian proposes them to the heathens as a fit pattern for 
their imitation. 

2 Ver. 36. Thow canst not follow me now.] i. e. In my 
sufferings, till by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon thee 
thou art strengthened. 

21 Ver. 38. Before the cock crow.) viz. In the morning, 
styled emphatically, “the cock-crowing” (see the note on 
Matt. xxvi. 34). 


* Tertul. Apol. cap. 39. Sic mutuo, quod doletis, amore 
diligimus. Sic nos, quod invidetis, fratres vocamus. Minu- 
tius, p. 35, 36. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


1 Ler not your heart be troubled: 1 ye believe in 
God, believe also in me (who am one with the Fa- 
ther, and to whom all power is commitled: see John x. 
30, 38). 

2 In my Father’s house are many ? mansions (suf- 


ficient to receive you, and all that believe in me, to eternal 
life): if it were not so, I would have told you 
no such mansions were to be expected. But now) I go 
3 to prepare a place for you. 

3 And if I go and prepare (when I shall have gone 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV. 


1 Ver. 1. Worevere cis τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ εἰς ἐμὲ πιστεύετε, Ye 
believe in God, believe also in me.] There being no example 
I can find, where the same word in the same sentence is used 
both in the indicative and the imperative mood; I had rather 
render these words in the same mood, thus, “ Believe in God, 
believe also in me” i. e. That I may prescribe a remedy to 
that trouble, which hath seized your hearts from the con- 
sideration of my passion, and my departure from you, and 
of the troubles you must expect in the execution of your 
office, I advise you to believe in God, the author of that 
doctrine you are to preach, and therefore the defender of 


those who propagate it; and in me, in whose name you are 
to preach it, as having all power in heaven and in earth, and 
being always present with you, and therefore being able to 
assist and preserve you from all dangers, and to reward your 
faithful labours with that crown of glory I have promised. 

2 Ver. 2. In my Father's house are many mansions.| In 
which, after your labours, you shall find eternal rest. So the 
Jews say, that in Paradise are seven mansions, which are 
each twelve thousand miles long, ten thousand broad, and as 
many high: so Moses Haddarson in Gen. ii. 9. : 

8 Igo to prepare a place for you.] For Christ, by his en- 
trance with his sacrifice into heaven, procured for us an en- 
trance into that place, which before was inaccessible, or a 


CHAPTER XIV. 


and prepared ) a place for you, ‘I will come again, and 
recelve you unto myself; that where I am, there ye 
may be also. 

4 And whither I go ye know (for I have told you I 
go to my Father), and the way ye know (for 7 ἀπε the 
way, ver. 6, and the teacher of it; by observing whose 
words you will come to me). 

5 Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whi- 
ther thou goest; and how (then) can we know the 
way (lo thee)? 

6 Jesus saith unto him, ®I am the way, the truth, 
and the life (by teaching that way of saving truth 
which leadeth to life eternal): no man cometh unto the 
Father, but by (faith in) me (and by observance of my 


word ). 

7 © If ye had (fully) known me, ye should have 
known my Father also ae is in me, and is made visi- 
ble by his works done by me): and from henceforth 
(from the time I have been with you) ye (have) know (n) 
him (by his word), and have seen him (by Ais works). 

8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father 
(as he was seen by Moses and the Israelites, at the giving 
of the law, in glorious symbols of his presence), and it 
sufficeth us. 

9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time 
with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? 
he that hath seen me hath seen (in me the works of ) 
the Father (by which only he is visible) ; and how say- 


391 


est thou then, Shew us the Father (as if thou hadst not 
seen him, or could see him otherwise) ? 

10 Believest thon not that I am in the Father, and 
the Father in me (by his ἫΝ enabling me to speak: the 
words and do the works of bei the words that I speak 
unto you I speak not of myself (see note on viil. 14): 
but the Father that dwelleth inime (by the Spirit, John 
iii. 34), he doeth the works (by which my prophelic 
office is confirmed ). 

11 Believe me that I am (thus) in the Father, and 
the Father in me: or else (if thou believest not for my 
own sake) believe in me for the very works’ sake (which 
are done by the power and spirit of the Father). 

12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth 
on me, the works that I do shall he do also; 7 and 
greater works than these shall he do; because I go 
unto my Father (to send the Holy Ghost to enable them 
to do rae 

13 And ® whatsoever ye shall ask in my name 
(for the promotion of the gospel), that will I (thus ena- 
ble you to) do, that the Father may be glorified in 
(by) the Son (sending the Holy Ghost upon you from the 
Father). 

14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will 
do tt. 

15 4 If ye love me, (express the sincerity of that love, 
so as to) keep my commandments. 

16 And (then) I will pray the Father, and he shall 


new living way of entering through the veil rent for us at his 
death, he preparing these mansions for us by his own entrance 
first into heaven with his sacrifice: see the notes on Heb. ix. 
8. 23, 24, x. 20. 

4 Ver. 3. I come again, and will receive you to myself.) 
i.e. Into those mansions, that then you may be for ever 
with me, and be made partakers of that happiness I there 
enjoy. Whence it seems probable that all the saints, the 
blessed apostles not excepted, are only to be crowned at 
the same time, to wit, at our Lord’s second advent (see 
the note on Heb. xi. 40): and observe, that ἐὰν ¢é here is to 
be rendered “ When I come again” (see the note on Heb. 
ili. 7). 

5 Ver. 6. Iam the way, the truth, and the life.) The author 
of the way that leadeth to life; the teacher of that truth 
which directs to it; the giver of that life which is to be ob- 
tained by walking in it. And this life consists in the vision 
or enjoyment of the Father, to whom none cometh but by 
faith in me, ver. 6. 

6 Ver. 7. If ye had known me, ye would have known 
the Father also.) Note, that Christ here speaks not of the 
knowledge of his Father's essence, (1.) because that is not 
to be seen, as here the Father is said to be, ver. 9. (2.) 
Because the reason here assigned of this knowledge is, that 
Christ spake not from himself, but from the Father; and so 
the Father was to be known by what he taught. (3.) He 
adds, that the works he did were done by the power of the 
Father abiding in him; and so the power and other attributes 
of the Father might be seen by them; his goodness and 
mercy by the kindness and mercy shown in all his wisdom, 
righteousness, and holiness, in the purity of his doctrine. In 
me, saith he, speaking my Father’s words, ye do already 
know him, i. 6. his sacred will: in me, doing my Father's 
works, ye see him, viz. his attributes; and of my ability to 
do them, ye cannot well doubt, for I am in the Father, and 
the Father in me, by virtue of his Spirit residing in me; so 
that I both perfectly know his will, and can do the most 
mighty works by this power of the Most High (Luke i. 35). 

7 Ver. 12. And shall do greater works than these, because 
I go to the Father.| That which interpreters here say of 
diseases healed by the shadow of Peter, and by napkins sent 
from St. Paul, and of more miracles performed throughout 
the world, and devils ejected through three whole centuries 
every where, is not unfitly mentioned here, as answering to 
these words; but yet I think this chiefly is to be referred to 
the admirable success of the gospel, preached by the apostles 
after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them; and the 


inward gifts of tongues, and the interpretation of them; of 
prophecy, and discerning of spirits, and the imparting of 
these gifts to others by baptism, and the imposition of the 
apostles’ hands: for as this was a greater work in our Lord 
Jesus thus to assist so many with his mighty power, when 
absent at so great a distance as is earth from heaven, than 
to do miracles in their presence; so, to communicate these 
inward gifts to men, and to enable them to transfer them to 
others upon faith in Christ, is truly wonderful; for, as Arno- 
bius saith, *T'ranscribere in alium jus tuum, et quod facere 
solus possis, fragilissime rei donare et participare faciendum, 
super omnia site est potestatis, continentisque sub se omni- 
um rerum causas, et rationum facultatumque naturas. But 
more especially, when he himself succeeded so little in three 
years’ preaching here on earth, and had so few sincere disci- 
ples, that he should enable his apostles at one sermon to 
convert some thousands, and cause his gospel to fly like 
lightning through the world, and beat down all strongholds 
of opposition, this is truly admirable. That to these fruits 
of the mission of the Holy Ghost these words do principally 
relate, appeareth from the reason of them here assigned, 
“Because I go to the Father;” viz. to send that Holy 
Spirit down upon you, by whom these greater works are to 
be done. 

8 Ver. 13. And whatsoever ye shall askin my name, Iwill 
do.) Here Christ shows how these great works should be 
done by them, viz. not by their own power, or any divine 
virtue residing in them, as our Lord did his; but in the 
name and by the power of Christ (Acts iii. 12. 16), by faith 
in him, and prayer to God in his name (Acts iv. 24. 30). 
Note also here that Christ saith, Whatever ye shall thus ask 
I will do; which, as it supposes in him omniscience, enabling 
him to know the request of all Christians upon earth, and 
omnipotence, enabling him to assist them every where in the 
performance of the greatest works, so must it consequently 
imply unity of essence betwixt the Father and the Son, and 
so the Father is glorified in the Son. Hence, what is here, 
ΚΤ will do,” is, xvi. 23, “The Father will give you.” Note 
also, that whereas the Jews used to beg a blessing for the 
fathers’ sake, or for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
though being only men they never prayed to them, the Chris- 
tians not only prayed to the Father in the name of the Son. 
but invoked the Son also, as being one God with the Father ; 
this being a periphrasis of Christians, that they were those 
who called upon the name of Christ, Acts xix. 14. 21 (see 


* Amob, lib. i, p. 31. 


992 


give you another Comforter (even the Holy Ghost), 
that he may abide with you (and those that shall succeed 
you) for ever; 

17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world can- 
not receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth 
him (they having no experience of his presence with them, 
or of his sanctifying operations on them, by which alone 
he can be seen or known; for being a holy Spirit, he can- 
not abide with unholy souls): but ye (who are sanctified 
by him) know him; for he dwelleth with you, and 
shall be in you. 

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to 
you (by this Spirit). 

19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no 
more; but ye (shall) see me (¢. e. shall find experi- 
mentally my presence with you: for) ™ because I live, 
ye (in the midst of all the perils and persecutions of the 
world) shall live also (2 Cor. iv. 10, 11). 

20 " At that day (that I send this Comforter) ye shall 
know that I am in my Father (by receiving this Spirit 
from him), and ye in me, and 1 in you (by this Spirit 
communicated from me your head, to unite you my mem- 
bers to me). 

21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me 
shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, ” and 
will manifest myself to him (by the presence and illu- 
minations of the Spirit of truth). 

22 Judas saith unto him, not (he that was named ) 


JOHN. 


Iscariot, Lord (seeing thou art to be a glorious king over 
us and all the nations of the world), 13 how is it that thou 
wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world ? 

23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love 
me, he will keep my words: and (then) my Father 
will love him, “and we will come unto him, and make 
our abode with him (by the Spirit of the Father and the 
Son dwelling in him). 

24 He that loveth me not (as the world doth not) 
keepeth not my sayings (and so can neither know me 
nor my Father): and (so cannot be Joved by us ; for) the 
word which ye hear is not (originally) mine, but the 
Father’s which sent me (and it is only obedience to it 
that procures his and my love). 

25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet 
present with you. 

26 But the 15 Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, 
whom the Father will send in my name (7. 6. as my 
Spirit, to act in my name and for my honour), he shall 
teach you all things (which are requisite to be known by 
you, and taught to others), and bring all things to your 
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. 

27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you (by giving you that Spirit whose fruits are joy and 
peace): not as the world giveth (peace, when they part 
from their friends, by wishing to them that peace which 
they do not heartily desire, or are not able to impart), 
give I (zt) unto you (but effectually ; and therefore) let 
not your heart be troubled (at my departure), neither 


note on Rom. x. 13). And this seems here to be mentioned 
to confirm their faith in him, that he who so loved them had 
power to do all things for them. 

9 Ver. 16. Another Comforter.] See note on xvi. 7. 

0 Ver. 19. Because I live ye shall live also.) By virtue of 
this promise, though the apostles were always delivered up 
to death for the sake of Jesus, yet was the life of Christ 
manifested in their mortal flesh, by preserving them, and 
delivering them from so many deaths (2 Cor. iv. 10, 11); 
and they are said to live by and with him (2 Cor. xiii. 4), by 
virtue of that miraculous power he conferred upon them for 
the promotion of the gospel (2 Cor. iv. 7, x. 4, xii. 10). 

1 Ver. 20. In that day ye shall know that I am in the 
Father, and you in me, and I in you.) It is certain that 
Christ was in his apostles, by his Spirit abiding with them 
(ver. 16), and that they were in him by the same Spirit unit- 
ing them to their head Christ (Eph. ii. 22, iii. 16, 17, iv. 16) ; 
and therefore Christ must be here said to be in the Father by 
the Spirit of the Father residing ig him, but with this differ- 
ence—that the Spirit of the Father resided in Christ without 
measure (ili. 34), and so that all that was the Father’s was 
also Christ’s (xvi. 15), his wisdom and his power ; whereas 
he was in the apostles only by the gifts conferred upon them, 
according to the measure of the gift of Christ. (2.) He was 
in Christ, as Justin Martyr notes, not for indigence, but partly 
because the nature of his prophetic office did so require, 
and partly to be derived from him as the fountain upon all 
his members ; but he was given to them because they wanted 
his assistance to fit them to be able ministers of the New Tes- 
tament (2 Cor. iii. 5, 6). ‘Theophylact observes, that we must 
not say, that this is so in the same manner; for Christ is in 
the Father, ὡς ὁμοούσιος, “as being of one substance with 
him,” but in the apostles only, ὡς βοηθὸς καὶ συνεργὸς, “as a 
helper and co-worker” with them: but perhaps the apostles 
understood Christ thus; I, as a prophet, work miracles by 
the Spirit of my Father dwelling in me (Matt. xii. 28), and 
you shall work yours (mentioned ver. 12) by my Spirit abid- 
ing in you (ver. 16). 

2 Ver. 21. And will manifest myself to him.] As in the 
paraphrase, so also by those miraculous works which shall 
demonstrate my presence with him. This presence he pro- 
miseth to his disciples, Matt. xxviii. 20, Mark xvi. 17, 18, 
and made good by his powerful Spirit with his church, 1 Cor. 
v. 4, 2 Cor. xiii. 3—5. 

18 Ver, 22. How is it that thow wilt manifest thyself to 
us, and not to the world 5] This question seems to be put to 


Christ according to that known opinion of the Jews, that the 
kingdom of Christ was to be an earthly dominion over the 
whole world, appearing with great outward splendour, or with 
observation (Luke xvii. 20), so that the Jews under their 
Messiah should lord it over the whole earth, and so he should 
manifest himself to the whole world. So Josephus* speaks 
of an ambiguous oracle among them, declaring that about 
that time, ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας τὶς ἐκείνων ἄρξει τῆς οἰκουμένης, “one 
of their country should reign over the whole earth,” and that 
many of their own wise men did so interpret it. So Origent 
tells us they expected, μέγαν καὶ δυνάστην, καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς» 
καὶ πάντων τῶν ἔθνων κύριον εἶναι, that their Messiah should be 
‘a great potentate, and the Jord of the whole earth, and of 
all nations.” And Trypho,+ in his dialogue with Justin 
Martyr, saith the same. 

4 Ver. 23. And we will come to him, and take up our 
abode with him.] By that Spirit whose temple is the body of 
the saints (1 Cor. iii. 16, vi. 13), and by whose indwelling 
they are made a habitation of God (Eph. ii. 22): here there- 
fore is no express mention made of the Holy Spirit, because 
by him it is that the Father and the Son dwell in us; and 
so it is in the beginning of the epistles, praying for grace and 
peace from the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, because 
this grace and peace was to be conferred on men by the 
Spirit. 

15 Ver. 26. But the Comforter, whom the Father will send 
in my name.) Whom I will send you from the Father (John 
xv. 26, xvi. 7) : he proceeding from the Father and the Son, 
him the Father shed forth according to his promise, Acts ii. 
17, 18, the Son, ver. 33. Hence is he styled « the Spirit of 
the Father,’ Matt. x. 20, and “the Spirit of the Son,” 
Gal. iv. 6, “the Spirit of Christ,” 1 Pet. i. 11, Rom. vill. 9, 
Phil. i. 19. 

16 Ver. 27. Peace I leave with you, not as the world.| In 
empty wishes of what they neither do nor can give; nor that 
external peace which is both temporary and uncertain ; but 
inward peace of conscience arising from the pardon of your 
sins (Rom. v. 1), from the sense of the favour of God, and 
of my presence with you by the Spirit, that peace which no 
man can take from you (xvi. 22), that peace which passeth 
understanding, which will keep you hearts in the faith (Phil. 
iv. 7), and free you from all solicitude and fear of the 
world. ; 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31, p. 961, G. 
+ 


+ Contr. Cels. lib. iv. p. 78. P. 249, B. 


CHAPTER XV. 


let it be afraid (what may befall you when I am 
one). 
q 98 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I goaway, and 
come again unto you (but for a little while). If ye loved 
me (and my advancement as affectionately and wisely as 
ye ought to do), ye would rejoice, because I said, I go 
unto the Father: for ™ my Father is greater than I. 
29 And "" now I have told you before it come to 
pass, (that Iam going to the Father to send the Comforter 
to you,) that, when it is come to pass, ye might (have 
greater reason to) believe (in me.) 


393 


30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for 
the prince of this world (Satan) cometh (by his 
agents, the rulers of the Jews, to take away my life), and 
hath nothing in me (no power over me to inflict death 
upon me on the account of sin, as he hath over others, Heb. 
ii. 14). 

31 μαι (I give up myself to the death in compliance 
with my Futher’s will, John x. 18) that the world may 
know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave 
me commandment, even 501 do. Arise (therefore), let 
us go hence. 


" Ver 28. For my Father is greater than I.) “This,” 
saith Woltzogenius, “is a demonstration that Christ is not 
the true God, than whom none is or can be greater.” But 
the primitive fathers did not allow that there was any strength 
in this argument; for they granted that there was one God 
the Father who was “over all,” and yet that “Christ with 
the Father was the God of the living, as having in all things 
the excellency or sovereignty of the Father,” saith Ireneus.* 
They therefore owned that the Father was greater than the 
Son, as to his original, the Son being begotten by him, and 
yet declared that he was God, and equal to God, as to his 
essence, as Tertulliant and Novatiant teach. So then we 
may grant, as to the divine nature, that as to his dependence 


* Solus verax Magister et Dominus, ut discamus per ipsum 
super omnia esse Patrem, etenim Pater (inquit) major me 
est. Tren. lib. ii. cap. 48, 49, lib. iv. cap. 11, 12. 

+ Pater est alius a Filio dum Filio major, dum alius qui 
generat, alius qui generatur. Tertul. adv. Prax. cap.9. Alius 
tamen person®, non substantie, nomine ;—ubique teneo 
unam substantiam in tribus coherentibus. Cap. 12. Pater 
Deus, et Filius Deus, et Spiritus Sanctus Deus. Cap. 13. 

+ Ambo unus atque idem, cap. 18. Patre minor est, dum 
in illo esse se scit habens originem, Deus utique procedens 
ex Deo secundam personam efficiens, sed non eripiens illud 
Patre quod unus est Deus. Novat. cap. 21. 


on the Father it is less, i. e. as it is received dependently 
from the Father, “for greater is he that gives than he that 
receives ;” and yet, as to essence, they are both one God, 
and so equal, ὡς αἴτιος καὶ ἀρχὴ οὐ κατὰ φύσιν, Athan. Naz. 
Basil. 

Add to this, that the argument produced to prove that 
Christ speaks not of his human nature, viz. because none 
could doubt but God is greater than man, proves as effec- 
tually, that Christ could not be only man, because then 
none could doubt but that God is greater than he; nor is 
any such comparison, as to greatness, to be found in scrip- 
ture betwixt God and mere man. 

18 Ver. 29. And now I have told you before tt come to pass.) 
viz. Of my ascent into heaven, and of the mission of the Holy 
Ghost, that when you have received this Spirit, you more 
firmly may believe, I am the Son of God, invested with all 
power in heaven and earth. 

19 Ver. 30. The prince of this world cometh.] By his 
ministers, Judas and the rulers of the Jews, and findeth no- 
thing in me; he himself having no power to inflict death on 
me, in whomis no sin, and they finding nothing in me worthy 
of death (Acts xiii. 28). Though therefore I am to suffer 
death, I do not suffer for any fault that can deserve it, or on 
account of any power he or his ministers have over me to 
inflict it, but I give up myself to the death in compliance 
with my Father’s will, that the world may know, and know- 
ing imitate, my obedience to him in the severest precepts. 


CHAPTER XV. 


1 'T am the true vine (which gives juice and nourish- 
ment to every branch belonging to me), and my Father 
is (as) the husbandman (who prunes and cleanses the 
branches of this vine, to render them more fruitful; and 
therefore) 

2 ? Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he 
taketh away (i. e. every professor of faith in me that 


ts unfruilful): ὁ and every branch that beareth fruit, 
he purgeth it (from all those suckers that hinder the 
growth of the fruit, or make it less), that it may bring 
forth more fruit. 

3 Now (thus it is with you, for) ye are clean through 
the word which I have spoken unto you. 

4 4 Abide in me, and I (will abide) in you. As the 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV. 

1 Ver. 1. I am the true vine, and my Father is the hus- 
bandman.] That vine which gives vital juice to render all 
my branches fruitful, and whose fruits refresh and fill their 
hearts with joy, as doth the fruit of the vine the body (Judg. 
ix. 13, Psal. civ. 15). Of the epithet “true,” see vi. 55. 
«“ My Father is the husbandman,” who takes care of these 
branches, cutting off the suckers and the withered branches, 
pruning the vine, and purging the fruitful branches, that they 
may bring forth more fruit. Grotius thinks the occasion of 
this parable was taken from the Lord’s supper he had then 
celebrated, or was instantly to celebrate; for as ch. vi. 
discoursing of this passion, he calls himself the true bread,” 
so here he calls himself “the true vine,” nourishing to life 
eternal, with relatwn to that element, which was “ the fruit 
of the vine” (Lule xxii. 18): and thus it seemed necessary 
to speak of the fruit of his death ; because his disciples were 
offended at it, and their faith wavered on that account. 
Others think, that having spoken of Judas, as a branch not 
purged but withcied, and fit only for the fire (xiii. 10,11), 
he admonishes them to be careful that they become not such 
branches; and as he had said there, ver. 10, so he repeats 
that saying here, ver. 3, “ Ye are clean,” &c. 

2 Ver. 2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit.] 
These unfruitful branches are said to be in Christ, or in his 

Vor. T¥ —50 


church, as being by profession Christians, and by baptism 
admitted into the church, and owning her faith; but they 
are still dead branches, because unfruitful in good works; 
for “ faith without works is dead” (James ii. 26). 

3 And every branch that bringeth forth fruit he purgeth.] 
In its season, or the fit time of pruning. The apostles then 
laboured under many infirmities and prejudices of their 
minds; they were weak in the faith, and understood but 
little of Christ’s salutary passion, and the oblation of himself 
as a piacular victim for their sins (Luke xviii. 34), as judging 
this not well consistent with that earthly kingdom which was 
fixed in their hearts; they knew nothing of the calling of 
the gentiles, or of God’s intended kindness to them, and 
therefore would not preach to them without a special admo- 
nition from heaven so to do (Acts xi. 19); they were con- 
tending for primacy, and that out of prospect of carnal ad- 
vantages (2 Cor. v. 16) : from these and such like infirmities 
the good husbandman purged them, when he shed the Holy 
Ghost upon them, and sent them to preach the gospel to all 
nations. When therefore he saith, You are now καθαροὶ, 
“clean” (ver. 3), we must not understand this absolutely, 
but comparatively, in respect of those who did not believe 
or obey his word ; and in good part, they heing to be farther 
purged by the operation of the Holy Spirit. 

4 Ver. 4. Remain in me (by faith, love, ver. 9, and obe 


994 


branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in 
the vine; no more (Gr. so neither) can ye, except ye 
abide in me (by faith). 

5 Iam the vine, ye are the branches (which receive 
nourishment from the vine, and become fruitful by it) : 
He that abideth in me (by faith), and I in him (by the 
Spirit), the same bringeth forth much fruit: for δ with- 
out me (abiding thus in you) ye can do nothing. 

6 If a man abide not in me, he is 8 cast forth as a 
branch, and (that) is withered; and men gather them 
(or, and is gathered), and cast them into the fire, and 
they are burned (Gr, χαὺ καίεται, and is burned). 

7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you (so 
that ye yield obedience to them), 7? ye shall ask what ye 
will (in my name, and for the glory of God), and it shall] 
be done unto you. 

8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much 
fruit; (xai, and) ὃ 80 shall ye (appear to) be my disci- 
ples. 


JOHN. 


9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: 
continue ye in my love. 

10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide 
in my love; even as I (Acs prophet) have kept my 
Father’s commandments (doing all he sent me to do), 
and (so) abide in his love. 

11 These things have I spoken unto you (of my 
abode in you by the Spirit, and your abiding in my 
words), that (through the comforts of the Spirit) © my 
joy might remain in you, and ¢hat your joy might be 
full. 

12 This is my commandment, That ye love one an- 
another, !'as I have loved you (to the end, John xiii. 1, 
and with a most fervent love). 

13 Greater love hath no man ” than this, that a 
man ™ lay down his life for his friends. (And this love 
will I show to you acting as my friends, and expect you 
should imitate it. 

14 Now) Ye are my * friends, (and shall receive the 


dience, ver. 10), κἀγὼ ἐν ὑμῖν, and Iwill remain in you.| By 
my Spirit. Here is an ellipsis of the word μενῶ, as Matt. 
xx. 13, “To sit on my right hand—is not mine to give; but 
(it shall be given) to them for whom it is prepared of my 
Father ;” 2 Thess. ii. 7,“ He that letteth (will let) till he be 
taken away” (see 1 Cor. iv. 15, Gal. ii. 7). 

5 Ver. 5. He that abideth in me, and I in him, bringeth 
forth much fruit: for, χωρὶς ἐμοῦ, without me ye can do 
nothing.] That is, χωρὶς ἐμοῦ ὄντες, “being separated from 
me ;” ver. 4, “not abiding in me,” ver. 6, “being cast out 
from me.” As this respects all Christians, the sense runs 
thus, “If ye abide in me by that faith which purifies the 
heart” (Acts xv. 9), “and worketh by love,” (Gal. v. 6), and 
Tin you by that Spirit (1 John iii. 24, iv. 13), without whom 
none can be a member of Christ (Rom. viii. 9), you shall 
abound in the fruits of the Spirit, but without my Spirit 
abounding in you, and uniting you to me your head, you can 
do nothing acceptable to me, or worthy of my gospel: as it 
respects the apostles it may farther note, that without the 
gifts and powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit, they could 
do nothing to convert the world to the faith, as being not 
sufficient of themselves for that work, but having their suffi- 
ciency from that God who giveth them the Holy Spirit 

2 Cor. iii. 5, 6). Hence they are bid to stay at Jerusalem 
till this Spirit fell upon them (Acts i. 8). 

6 Ver. 6. He is cast out, ὡς τὸ κλῆμα, Kat ἐξηράνθη. Ὡς τὸ 
κλῆμα, supply μὴ φερόμενον καρπὸν, “ As a branch bringing 
forth no fruit ;” or καὶ here signifies because, or that, and so 
the sense runs thus, As a branch is cast out that is withered, 
or because it is withered; for branches are first withered, 
and then cast out: so Josh. i. 5, καὶ ὥσπερ, “For as I have 
been with Moses, so will I be with thee :” xxii. 25, «ai ἀπαλ- 
λωτριώσουσι, “ἐ For they will turn away the children :” 1 Sam. 
li. 15, “ Give us roast, καὶ οὐ μὴ λάβω, for I will not receive 
sodden flesh of thee :” Micah vii. 8, “ Rejoice not at my fall, 
καὶ ἀναστήσομαι for I shall rise again:” see Luke i. 24, John 
vi. 54, It also signifies that, or which : so Isa. v. 4, “ What 
shall I do to my vine, καὶ οὐκ ἐποίησα, which I have not 
done 1 so Matt. ix. 11, καὶ ἐδόντες, « Which the pharisees 
seeing :” Acts i. 19, καὶ γνωστὸν, “ Which thing was known” 
(see Noldius de Partic. Heb. p. 297, 298). 

7 Ver. 7. Ask what ye will, and it shall be given you.] 
Whatever ye ask according to the will of God (1 John v. 14), 
for the promotion of his glory (xiv. 13), and the furtherance 
of your ministry (Matt. xxi. 21, 22), asking in faith (Mark 
xi. 24), and in my name (John xvi. 23), ye shall receive (see 
the note on Matt. xxi. 21). 

8 Ver. 8. And ye shall be my disciples.) By your likeness 
to me your Master, who am intent on this, that I may glo- 
rify my Father upon earth (xvii. 4), and give up myself to 
the death, that I may be more fruitful in drawing all men to 
the knowledge of him (xii. 24), it will appear that you, thus 
bringing forth much fruit to the glory of God, are my genuine 
disciples: ἐν τούτῳ is here to be repeated from the beginning 
of the verse. 

$ Ver. 10. As I keep my Father's commandments, and 
alnde in his love.| Here it is nquired, how Christ, being truly 
God, could say he keeps his Father’s commandments? I 


answer, as on earth he sustained the person of a prophet 
sent from him, it being necessary to that office that he should 
be sent by him, and do his commandments, according to 
those words of God, Deut. xvii. 18, “1 will raise them up a 
Prophet from among their brethren like unto thee, and will 
put my words into his mouth; and he shall speak to them 
all that I shall command him” (see ver. 19, 20). Hence 
Christ so often saith, “I speak not of myself, but as my 
Father gave me commandment, so I speak” (xii. 49, 50) ; 
declaring by these words he was no impostor, but that very 
Prophet of whom Moses spake (see the note on vii. 16 and 
viii.28). Hence Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylact 
note, that Christ spake this according to his human nature. 
But still Woltzogenius inquires, why, according to his human 
nature, he is said to obey the commandment of the Father, 
rather than of his own divine nature? I answer, because 
the Father is the fountain of the Deity, and because it be- 
longed to Christ executing his prophetic office, to refer all to 
the glory of his Father, whom the Jews only owned. 

0 Ver. 11. That my joy might be in you.) i.e. 1 speak of 
your remaining in me by the Spirit, that your joy, arising 
from his consolations, may be full; and this joy I call mine, 
because this Spirit dwelleth in me, and is derived from me. 
Pious and true is the note of Woltzogenius here, “that the 
observation of God’s commandments gives here the fullest 
and most perfect joy.” For what richer treasure is there 
in this world, than that of a good conscience? and what 
greater joy than that which flows from the good Spirit “ tes- 
tifying to our spirits that we are the sons of God, and shall 
be made heirs of eternal life?” (Rom. viii. 17, Gal. iv. 6.) 

1 Ver. 12. As I have loved you.] Not only as in the 
paraphrase, but so as to lay down my life for you (ver. 13). 

2 Ver. 13. Μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει, va. Greater 
love than this hath no man, than that one should lay down 
his life for his friend.] Here it is observable, that ἵνα after 
μείζονα signifies ἢ ἵνα, quim ut; so in the Third Epistle of 
St. John, ver. 4, μειζοτέραν τούτων οὐκ ἔχω χαρὰν, ἵνα, “1 have 
no greater joy, than that I may hear my children walking 
in the truth.” 

3 To lay down his life for his friends.] It is certain 
Christ did this for his enemies (Rom. v. 6—8). Christ not- 
withstanding speaks of his friends, as speaking only to his 
apostles, whom he here owneth as his friends. Note also, 
that Christ here saith he doth ψυχὴν τιθέναι, “lay down his 
life” for his friends, rather to express the greatness of his 
love than the merit of his passion; and when he doth so, 
he uses constantly this phrase, viz. John x. 15. 17, 1 John 
iii. 16; but when the merit of his passion is expressed, the 
phrase used is, ἀποϑανεῖν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, or περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν, “to die 
for us,” or “for our sins,” Rom. v. 6. 8, 2 Cor. v. 15, Heb. 
ii. 9, 1 Pet. iii. 18, as the circumstances of those places 
show, 

4 Ver. 14. You ake my friends if you do whatsoever I 
command you.] For both Cicero and Sallust* make this 


* Idem velle et idem nolle ea demum vera est amicitia. 
Sallust. Est enim lex illa juste vereque amiciti, ut idem 
amici semper velint, Cic. Orat. pro Cn. Plan. 


| 
| 


CHAPTER XV. 


tokens of my love as such), if ye do whatsoever I com- 
mand you. 

15 (4nd therefore) Henceforth I call you not 15 ser- 
vants (nor treat you as such); for the servant (usually) 
knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called 
(and treated) you (as) friends; " for all things that I 
have heard (ἡ, e. received) of my Father (lo impart to 
you) I have made known unto you. 

16 Ye have not chosen me, but "I have chosen 
you (first), and ordained (¢. e. appointed) you, that ye 
should go (abroad into the world) and bring forth 
(much) fruit (by converting many to the faith), and 
that your fruit should remain (in α succession of Chris- 
tians to the world’s end): that (being thus employed 
in my service) whatsoever (in pursuance of that work) 
ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give 
it you. 

17 These thinks I (especially) command you, that 
ye (moved by my example, and by these tokens of my 
love, may be induced to) love one another. 

18 If the 18 world hate you, (Jet this give you no dis- 
couragement in the performance of your office, since it 
will be only with you as it hath been with me doing 
the same work, for) ye know that it hated me before it 
hated you. 

19 If ye were of the world (conforming yourselves to 
it in your life and doctrine), the world would love his 
own (men like to them): but because ye are not of the 
world, but I have chosen you out of the world (to lead 
a life and preach a doctrine opposite to the vices of it), 
therefore the world hateth you. 


conformity of will to him we love the test of sincere friend- 


Ῥ. 

6 Ver. 15, Not servants: for the servant knoweth not 
what his lord doeth.] i. 6. 1 deal not with you as servants, 
to whom I make known my counsels, οὐδὲ γὰρ deorérwv φύσιν 
ἢ πρᾶξιν δούλους δεῖ εἰδέναι, “ for servants are not,” saith Xeno- 
phon, “to know the customs or actions of their lord,” but 
only bosom friends (Epist. ad Aischinem). 

6 For all things which I have heard from my Father I 
have made known unto you.) Not absolutely, for they were 
not yet able to hear of the cessation of the law, of circum- 
cision, and the sabbath, the casting off of the Jews, and the 
calling of the gentiles to be his church, without offence 
(xvi. 12) ; but all things fit to be told them then, concerning 
his salutary passion, his glorious resurrection and ascension, 
the mission of the Holy Ghost, the future judgment, and 
the promise of eternal life. 

1 Ver. 16. I have chosen you.] From the rest of the Jews 
to bear witness of me (ver. 27), and to be my apostles. That 
Christ speaks here of this election, appears (1.) from the 
preceding words, “Ye have not chosen me,” as disciples 
among the Jews chose to themselves a master, for ye came 
not to me till I called you. (2.) From the persons called: 
for, saith Christ, “ Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of 
you is a devil?” (vi. 70.) And (3.) from the end of their 
vocation here, viz. that they might go into the world and 
bring forth fruit, or that they should go forth and preach that 
gospel to the world, which should abide for ever (2 John 2), 
and erect that church against which the gates of hell should 
not prevail. It follows, «That you should go and bring forth 
fruit,” &e., ἵνα δ, τι ἂν αἰτήσητε, “that whatsoever ye shall 
ask the Father in my name, he may give it you.” I have 
vbserved, note on ver. 25, that there is often somewhat defi- 
cient after ἵνα : so 1 Cor. i. 31, ἵνα (sub. γένηται), “ That (it 
may be) as it is written ;” and so it seems to be here, the 
full sense being either that, being thus employed, or being 
thus fruitful, ye may ask what ye will. 

18 Ver. 18. If the world hate you—hated me first.) Here 
Christ begins to fortify his apostles against the hatred of the 
world, and to encourage them to continue firm and constant 
in the performance of their office against all its opposition : 
(1.) from his own example, who patiently had endured it 
before their eyes, and was now to suffer death by reason of 
-it; so that they, who preached the same doctrine which ren- 


395 


20 (But) Rememberthe word that I said unto you, 
(viz.) The servant is not greater than his lord (and so 
cannot expect to be treated Teter). If (then) they have 
persecuted me, they will also persecute you (who are 
doing the same work); if they have (had) ™ kept my 
saying, they will (would) keep yours also (who speak 
the same things). 

21 But all these things (this hatred, ver. 19, and 
persecution, ver. 20) will they do unto you for my 
30 name’s sake, because they (after all the miracles [ 
have wrought in his name) know not him that sent me. 

22 If I had not come and spoken unto them (the 
words of my Father), they had not had sin (én not know- 
ing him that sent me): but now (they have heard and 
rejected his word) they have no cloke (or excuse) for 
their sin, (# being the fruit not of their want of know- 
ledge of my Father’s will, but of their hatred to him and 
his word; for 

23 He that hateth me (speaking the words of God, 
which I have learned from my Father, John xii. 49, 50) 
hateth my Father also. 

24 If I had not done among them * the works 
which none other man did (Gr. hath done), they had 
not had (the) sin (of infidelity): but now (this sin must 
be charged upon their hatred, for) have they both seen 
(the works which the Father in me hath done) and (yet 
have been so far from being convinced and reformed by 
them, that they have) hated both me (who do them) 
and my Father (by whose power and commission I do 
them). 

_ But this cometh to pass, (or, this they are per- 


dered him so hateful to the world, might reasonably expect 
the like treatment from it; nor had they reason to expect 
it should be otherwise, or grudge it was not better with the 
disciple than with his master: for he being not of the world, 
and they being chosen by him out of the world, the ground 
of the world’s hatred against them must be the same. 

19 Ver. 20. Ei τὸν λύγον pov ἐτήρησαν, If they had kept my 
word.] Some conceive that τηρεῖν here imports to observe 
with an insidious intent to carp at it, and accuse the author 
of it, as it is said of the church to Satan, he τηρήσεϊ, “ shall 
break, or observe, thy head” to wound it, καὶ σὺ rnpicets, 
“and thou shalt bruise, or observe, his heel” to ensnare it; 
Gen. ii. 15; but the right reading there seems to be τειρήσεις, 
conteres, nor are there any instances in the New Testament 
where the simple verb τηρέω bears that sense: for Matt. 
xxvii. 36. 54, the word signifies only to observe, not to watch 
an opportunity against, that being παρατηρεῖν (Mark iii. 2, 
Luke vi. 7, xiv. 1, xx. 20), and the phrase τηρεῖν λόγους pov, 
which is proper to St. John, is always taken in a good sense 
for an obedient observance of the words of Christ, viz. John 
vill. 51, 52. 55, xiv. 23, 24, xvii. 6, 1 John ii. 5, Rev. iil. 8. 
10, xxii. 7. 9. 

20 Ver, 21. But these things will they do for my name’s 
sake, because they know not him that sent me.) It is farther 
ground of comfort to you that you should be thus hated, not 
from your own fault, but for my sake, and so shall be entitled 
by that hatred to a great reward in heaven (Matt. v. 12), and 
that out of ignorance of, or hatred to, him that sent me, and 
being hated for our sakes, you need not question our protec- 
tion and assistance. 

21 Ver. 24. Works which no man ever did: Ver. 22. If I 
had not spoken to them,—no sin.) i. e. Nor yet can they be 
said to hate me out of ignorance of my commission; for I 
have spoken to them a doctrine plainly divine, and worthy 
of God, against which they have no exceptions which arise 
not from their own lusts and prejudices, and have confirmed 
it not only with the testimonies of Moses and the prophets 
(v. 46), but also with such works as neither Moses nor the 
prophets ever did; had not this been done by me, they could 
not reasonably have been charged with the great sin of infi- 
delity: but now, shutting their eyes against the light thus 
shining on them, and hardening their hearts against thas 
strong conviction of my mission which my mighty works 
afford, it is evident that they reject me, not out of ignorance 


896 


mitted to do), 3 that the word might be fulfilled that is 
written in their law (Ps. xxxv. 19), 3 They hated me 
without a cause. 

26 But when the Comforter is come, % whom I 
will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of 


JOHN. 


truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall (by 
his miraculous gifts) testify of me (who send him) : 

27 And*® ye also shall bear witness (of me), because 
ye have been with me from the beginning (and saw my 
works). 


and weakness, but out of wilful hatred to me and him that 
sent me, and so their infidelity is inexcusable. 

2 Ver. 25, ᾿Αλλ’ ἵνα, But that.) i.e. This hath happened, 
or is permitted. Examples of such an ellipsis we find fre- 
quently in this gospel: so ix. 3, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα, “But this hath 
happened” that the works of God might be made manifest; 
xiil. 18, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα, “ But this hath happened to Judas,” that 
the scripture might be fulfilled; xiv. 31, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα γνῷ, “But 
this Ido that the world may know” (see note on xii. 40, and 
above at ver. 16). 

3 For they have hated me without a cause.) This, which 
David, who was a type of Christ, spake of himself, may rea- 
sonably be thought, in the mystical sense, to relate to “the 
Son of David,” especially if we consider that the sixty-ninth 
Psalm, where these words are (ver. 5), is truly referred to 
Christ «see the Synopsis in the argument of that psalm). 


3: Ver. 26. Whom I will send to you from the Father. 
It is certain, saith Betuleius, from the words, “I will send,” 
that this cannot be understood of the eternal spiration of the 
essence, but of the temporary mission of the Holy Ghost, 
which Christ would ask of the Father (xiv. 16), and send 
from him in his name (ver. 26), after his departure (xvi. 
7), after his glorification (vii. 39), and who was to be 
sent according to the promise of the Father (Luke xxiv. 
49). 

25 Ver. 27. And you shall testify of me, &c.] You have 
been still my companions from the beginning of my prophetic 
office, and so are fit witnesses of my works: for good men 
use, and ought, to be believed, when they testify of what their 
eyes have seen, and their ears have heard, as the apostles 
did (Acts iv. 20, 1 John i. 1, 2). 


CHAPTER XVI. 


1 ! Turse things have I spoken unto you, that ye 
should not be offended (7. 6. deterred from my service, 
by the sufferings you will be exposed to from the world. 

or 

2? They shall put you out of the synagogues (as 
persons excommunicated ): ® yea, the time cometh, that 
whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God 
service (by so doing). 

3 And these things will they do unto you, because 


they have not known the (will of the) Father, nor me 
(who am sent by him to reveal it to the world). 

4 But these things have I told you (beforehand), 
that 4 when the time shall come (when you are thus to 
suffer them), ye may remember that I told you of 
them (and so may be confirmed in the truth, by see- 
ing my perfect knowledge of things future, and may re- 
member you suffer only what I have forewarned you of ). 
And these things I said not unto you at the beginning 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI. 


‘Ver. 1. These things have I spoken to you, that ye be 
not offended.) 1. 6. These things, concerning the hatred of the 
world, and the reasons of it; and of those considerations 
which may induce you to bear it patiently, lest they coming 
unexpectedly upon you unarmed against them, you should 
fall from the faith, or desist from your office in the propaga- 
tion of it: that this is the true notion of being scandalized, 
see the note on Matt. xviii. 6. 

2 Ver. 2. They shall put you out of the synagogues.) In 
their synagogues they had not only assemblies for reading 
the scriptures every sabbath-day (Acts xiii. 27, xv. 21), for 
public prayers and exhortations to the people then and upon 
other days (Acts xiii. 15), but offences committed against the 
law were there corrected, and sometimes punished with 
scourging (Matt. x. 17, xxiii, 34). And they who would not 
be reformed by stripes, nor by the lesser excommunication, 
which removed them, saith Buxtorf,* four feet from others, 
were pronounced ἀποσυνάγωγοι (John ix. 22. 24, xii. 42), and 
by a public recitation of their names were cast out of the 
communication of the church ; which, Luke vi. 22, is “ sepa- 
rating them, and casting out their names as evil ;”’ this, Christ 
here saith, would be their portion. 

8 ᾿Αλλ᾽ ἔρχεται ὥρα ἵνα, Yea, the hour cometh, when who- 
soever killeth you shall think he doeth λατρείαν προσφέρειν 
τῷ Θεῷ, God service.] The particle ἀλλὰ here signifies yea, 
and denotes the increase of a thing; as Luke xii. 7, ἀλλὰ 
καὶ, “ Yea, even your hairs are all numbered;’ see 1 Cor. 
iii. 2, xii, 22, ἵνα is here put for ὅτε, when, as ver. 32, “The 
time cometh ἵνα σκορπισϑῆτε, when you shall be scattered ;” 
see the note on the third epistle of John, ver. 4. The 
phrase λατρείαν προσφέρειν, “to offer sacrifice,” is taken from 
Exod. xxxii. 29, “Consecrate your hands to the Lord, every 
one upon his brother ;” that is, saith the paraphrase of On- 
kelos, Obtulistis oblationem, “ Ye have offered an oblation.” 
Hence the zealots among the Jews, who kill those they 
esteemed transgressors with their own hands, not expecting 
the judgment of the Sanhedrin, were by them deemed reli- 


* In voce niddui. 


gious men, filled with zeal in the cause of God, they having 
their name, saith Josephus,* ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπ᾿ ἀγαθῷ ζηλουμένων, 
“from those that were zealous for what was good :ἢ and 
therefore, after infinite slaughters of their brethren, they pro- 
nounced themselves dvayaprnroi,t “men without offences :” 
and suitably to this prediction, Justin Martyr} informs us, 
that the Jews did καταρᾶσθαι ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς αὐτῶν τοὺς 
πιστεύοντας ἐπὶ τὸν Χριστὸν, “disgrace and execrate the Chris- 
tians in their synagogues,” and were αὐτοχείρες αὐτῶν, “ killing 
them with their own hands wherever they could.” This they 
will do, saith Christ, because they know not the Father; i.e. 
how alien those cruelties are from his benign nature: so 
Grotius (see the note on xv. 21). 

4 Ver. 4. That when the time cometh you may remember, 
&c.] And so be assured of my divine prescience and vera- 
city ; and therefore may not doubt of that assistance and 
consolation I have promised you under these troubles. But 
here it may be asked, why Christ here saith, “ These things 
I said not to you at the beginning, because I was with you,” 
when in the first mission of the apostles to preach in the 
cities of Judea, he useth almost the same words? Matt. x. 
17, 18, and the like words, Matt. xxiv. 9, Luke vi. 22. 
Woltzogenius answers, that Christ in these places had in the 
general informed them of the great persecutions they were to 
suffer, but had not so clearly told them they were to suffer 
them on the account of religion; but this seems a mistake, 
for he had told them that they were to suffer these things in 
the Jewish synagogues “for his name’s sake,” and “ for 
righteousness’ sake,” Matt. v. 12, 13, x. 18, xxiv. 9. I answer 
therefore, that what was spoken, Matt. xxiv. 9, was said about 
this time; and so Christ might well say, he “said it not to 
them from the beginning;” and that what Christ saith, Matt. 
x. and Luke vi., does plainly respect the times which were 
to come upon them after our Lord’s departure from them ; 
for the words of Christ in St. Matthew, from ver. 16 to 36, 
respect those times when they were to give testimony to him 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 986. 

ἡ Ibid. cap. 34, p. 990, B. 

+ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, C. 323,C. 363,C. Apol. ii. 
p: 72. 


eee 


—— 


CHAPTER XVI. 


(of my preaching), because I was (then) with you (to 
protect you from, and comfort you in, all dangers). 

5 But now I go my way to him that sent me; and 
δ none of you “eer asketh me (as you did before), 
Whither goest thou? 

6 But because I have said these things unto you 
(concerning my departure), sorrow hath filled your heart. 

7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth ; (viz. Z’hat) δ it 
is expedient for you that I go away (from you) : for if 
I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; 
(he coming to supply my absence, and as the consequent of 
my ascension into heaven, John vii. 39 ;) but if (when) I 
depart, I will send him unto you. 

8 And when he is come,’ he will reprove the world 
(and will convince men) of (their) sin (in rejecting me), 
and of (my) righteousness, and of (α future) judgment: 

9 Of sin, because they believe not on me (of whose 
mission and resurrection he will convince them by his won- 
drous gifts conferred on them that believe in me) ; 

10 8 Of (my) righteousness, because I go to my 
Father (to whom I could not ascend were I not a righteous 
person), and ye see me no more (on earth) ; 

11 * Of judgment, because the prince of this world 


397 


is judged (. e. the devil is condemned, and cast out of his 
dominions by my servants ; and consequently the time will 
come when all the subjects of his dominions shall be judged 
also). 

12 Ihave yet © many things to say unto you (con- 
cerning the abrogation of the sabbath, and your ritual 
law ; of justification by faith without the works of the law; 
&c.), but ye cannot bear (7. 6. receive) them now 
(without offence). 

13 Howbeit when he, (who zs) " the Spirit of truth, 
is come, he will guide you (executing your office) into 
all truth: for he will not speak of himself (deceitful 
and uncertain things invented by himself, as do the evil 
spirits in the heathen oracles) ; but whatsoever he (who 
searcheth the deep counsels of God) shall hear (7. e. shall 
know to be the will of the Father), that shall he speak: 
and he 15 will shew you things to come. 

14 He ® shall (also) glorify me (by what he teach- 
eth): for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it 
unto you (ἡ. 6. he shall be sent to impart to you the things 
which relate to my kingdom, my laws, and service; and 
what he teacheth you, is to be delivered in my name). 

15 All things that the Father hath are mine: (the 


before the gentiles (ver. 18), and were to be filled by the 
Holy Spirit (ver. 20), and so do the words of St. Luke also, 
as appears from the particle ὅταν, « When these things shall 
happen ;” what therefore Christ there foretells as future, he 
speaks of here as instant, and now ready to befall them. 

5 Ver. 5. And none of you asketh me, Whither goest 
thou ?| This Peter asked, xiii. 36, but received no direct an- 
swer; they did not therefore so ask as to know (xiv. 5), 
much less to consider duly whither he was going, viz. to his 
and their Father’s house (John xx. 17), or why he went, viz. 
“to prepare a mansion for you” (xiv. 2), or none of them 
asked now his departure was at hand, and so gave greater 
reason for this inquiry, whither he was going ? 

6 Ver. 7. It is expedient Mies you that I go away.) Since 
by the advent of the Holy Spint you will find greater com- 
fort than from my presence ; now this Spirit was not to come 
till Christ was glorified, and had ascended into heaven (John 
vii. 39). The word παρακλήτης, here mentioned, signifies an 
advocate and a comforter; he did the part of an advo- 
cate in respect of Christ and his gospel, by convincing the 
world of sin in not believing on him, and of the righte- 
ousness of Christ (ver. 9—11), and by confirming the apos- 
tles’ testimony of him by signs and miracles, and various 
gifts imparted to them (Heb. ii. 4, 1 John v. 6—8), and 
by pleading their cause before kings and rulers (Matt. x. 
18, 19), and against all their adversaries (Luke xxi. 15, 
Acts vi. 10). In respect of the apostles and the faithful, 
he also did the part of a comforter, as being sent for their 
consolation and support in all their troubles, filling their 
hearts with joy and gladness, and giving them an inward 
testimony of God’s love to them, and an assurance of their 
future happiness (Rom. viii. 15, 16). 

7 Ver. 8, 9. He will convince the world of sin, because 
they believe not in me.] The Holy Spirit had departed from 
the Jews about four hundred years since; and his return, 
according to Christ’s promise, must be sufficient to evince, 
that Jesus who had thus shed the Spirit upon his disciples, 
was the true Messiah, and so to convince them of sin, who 
believe not in him, as we see it did, Acts, ii. 37. 41. 

8 Ver. 10. Of righteousness, because I go to the Father.) 
For that was sufficient evidence, that the Father owned 
him as a righteous person, and his true prophet, thoush by 
the Jews he was condemned as an impostor. Now this the 
Holy Spirit proved, because his mission from heaven, and 
the miraculous powers done by him in the name of Jesus, 
evinced, that he who sent this Spirit from heaven was trans- 
lated thither. Hence Peter, from this eflusion of the Holy 
Spirit, argues that “this Jesus was by God made Lord and 
Christ” (Acts ii. 36), and that the Jews had crucified that 
ἜΤΟΣ ἐαὴ Just One whom the Father had glorified (Acts 
ii. 13, 14), 

9 Ver. 11. Of judgment, because the prince of this world 
is judged.] i. e. Because Satan, the prince of the world, 


is now to be condemned, and cast out of his dominions: 
whence it may appear, that all who belong to his king- 
dom, and choose rather to serve him than Christ, their law- 
ful prince and judge, shall be condemned with him (see the 
preface to the Epistles, §. 10). 

10 Ver. 12. 1 have yet many things to say to you, but ye 
cannot bear them yet.] viz. Concerning the abolishment of 
the sabbath and the ceremonial law, justification by faith 
without the works of the law, the rejection of the Jews, 
and the calling of the gentiles, which, through the preju- 
dices you now lie under, ye cannot yet bear (see Orig. contra 
Celsum, lib. ii. p. 57, 58). 

1 Ver. 13. The Spirit of truth shall lead you into all 
truth.| Necessary to your apostolical office, and to direct 
the Christian church to the end of the world in all saving 
truth: for, as Ireneus notes,* “The doctrine which they 
taught, they after delivered in the scriptures, to be the pillar 
and foundation of our faith.” And as St. Austin adds,t 
« Christ having committed to them the writing of those things, 
which he would have us read, they chose out those things to 
write which they judged sufficient to be written for the sal- 
vation of the faithful.” It is therefore certain, that the apos- 
tles, in compiling the canon of scripture, were 50 assisted 
by the Holy Spirit, as to write all truths necessary for the 
salvation of the believers, and, consequently, that all things 
necessary to be believed or done by Christians, are fully 
and perspicuously contained in the holy scriptures. 

2 And he shall teach you things to come.] From this, and 
from the parallel place, xiv. 26, “" δ shall bring all things 
to your remembrance which I have said to you,” two things 
are evident: (1.) that this promise of the Holy Spirit can be- 
long only to the apostles, seeing to their remembrance only 
could Christ bring those things which he had said to them ; 
(2.) that this promise can agree to no councils assembled 
after their decease, seeing they never challenged to them- 
selves the gift of prophecy, nor had future contingencies re- 
vealed to them. 

13 Ver. 14, 15. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive 
of mine, and show it to you. All things which the Fa- 
ther hath are mine.] These words contain two arguments for 
the divinity of Christ. For, 

First, The things the Holy Spirit was to receive from 
Christ, who is emphatically styled “the truth,” are “all 
truth” by the apostles to be delivered to the church, and all 


* Apostoli evangelium quod tune preconiaverunt, postea 
per Dei voluntatem in scripturis nobis tradiderunt, funda- 
mentum et columnam nostre fidei futurum. Lib. iii. cap. 
1, Quicquid Christus de suis factis et dictis nos legere voluit, 
hoc scribendum illis tanquam suis manibus imperavit. 

ἡ Electaque esse que scriberentur ea que saluti creden- 
tium sufficere videbantur. De Consens. Evangel. lib. i. cap. 
35, et Tr. 49 in Joh. p. 355. : 

2 


398 


power to govern, and to give rules and laws to all men, 
and to judge and recompense them according to those laws, 
which under the Mosaical dispensation was done by me, 
and in my name, Phil. ii. 9—11 ;) therefore said I, that 
he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you. 

16 (it zs but) A little while, and ye shall not see me 
(because I shall be taken from you by death): and again, 
(after my resurrection, zt zs but) a little while, and (that) 
ye shall see me, (and this I say,) because (then) I go 
to the Father. 

17 Then said some of his disciples among them- 
selves, What is (the import of ) this that he saith unto 
us, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, 
a little while, and ye shall see me: and, Because I go 
to the Father ? 

18 They said therefore, What is this that he saith, 
A little while? we cannot tell (the meaning of ) what 
he saith. 

19 Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask 
him (the meaning of his words), and (therefore) said 
unto them, Do ye enquire among yourselves of that 
(which) I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: 
and again, a little while, and ye shall see me? 

20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That (for a sea- 
son) ye shall weep and lament, but the (men of the) 
world (the rulers of the Jews) shall rejoice (at my suf- 

erings): and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow 
shall be turned into joy (at my resurrection, ascension, 
and mission of the Holy Ghost, Luke xxiy. 51, 52, Acts 
ii. 46). 

21 χων as) Awoman when she is in travail hath 
sorrow, because her hour is come: but (so) as soon as 
she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more 


JOHN. 


the anguish (she lay in), for joy that a man (child) is 
born into the world (so shall be your case). 

22 And ye now therefore (xai ὑμεῖς οὖν, for you 
therefore) have (now) sorrow (because of my death) : but 
T will see your again (after my resurrection), and your 
heart shall rejoice, and (though I personally be taken 
from you) your joy (through the Holy Spirit, shall be 
such as) no man taketh (or can take) from you. 

23 And in that day (‘hat you receive this Comforter) 
ye shall (have need to) ask me nothing (for resolution 
of your doubls, as now you do). Verily, verily, 1 say 
unto you, Whatsoever (assistance) ye shall ask the 
Father in my name, he will give it you. 

24 % Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name 
(as Mediator betwixt God and man): ask (what is re- 
quisite for the discharge of your office), and ye shall re- 
ceive (it), that your joy (in having all your petitions 
granted) may be full. 

25 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs 
(obscurely of the Father): but the time cometh, when I 
shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall 
shew you plainly (the wil/) of the Father. 

26 At that day ye shall ask in my name: 16 and 1 
say not unto you (J need not say), that I will pray (or 
intercede with) the Father for you: 

27 For the Father himself loveth you, because ye 
have loved me, and have believed that I came out 
from God. 

28 (and as) "I came forth from the Father, and 
am come into the world: (so) again, I (shall shortly) 
leave the world, and go to the Father. 

29 His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest 
thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. 


future contingencies respecting the church to the end of the 
world: for, saith Schlictingius* here, “To this we are 
to refer the Revelation of St. John, in which are contained 
prophecies of the state of the church from that time to the 
end of the world.” Now the knowledge of these things must 
imply a divine prescience. “ We speak,” saith the apostle, 
“the wisdom of God, which God hath revealed to us by 
his Spirit” (1 Cor. ii. 7. 10): Christ therefore, from whom 
the Spirit received these things, must be God. Lastly, 
God saith to the idols of the gentiles, “Show the things 
that are to come, that we may know that ye are gods” 
Gage xli. 23) ; he therefore who showeth these things to 
the Spirit must be God. 

Secondly, By saying, “ All things which the Father hath 
are mine;” he challenges to himself the incommunicable 
attributes, and consequently that essence which is insepa- 
rable from them. 

Ans. To this Woltzogenius answers, That the phrase, 
“all things,” must be restrained to the subject of Christ’s 
discourse, viz. to all things which the Spirit of truth was 
to reveal to them, and which respected their office and the 
good of the church; all which things the Father had com- 
municated to him. 

But (1.) Christ saith not here, I am conscious to the se- 
crets of my Father; but “ All things which the Father hath 
are mine.” (2.) Christ here gives the reason, why he had 
said, “ He shall receive of mine,” viz. “ because all that the 
Father hath is mine.” Take away any thing from the ge- 
nerality of this expression, and you render our Lord’s 
inference infirm, since that which you take away, the Holy 
Spirit might not receive from him. (3.) All those things, 
which he confesses are here to be understood, are sufficient 
to prove the divinity of Christ, as the citation from him 
shows. ; 

4 Ver. 23. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. 
i. 6. When I have sent the Holy Spirit, to “lead you into 


* Is revelabit vobis quid vel cum mundo, vel cum Judaico 
populo, vel cum ecclesia in posterum agetur; hic etiam 
pertinet tota Apocalypsis Johannis, in qua continentur pro- 
phetie de mirabili stati ecclesie Christi, ab illo tempore 
usque ad finem mundi. 


all truth,” you shall have no need to inquire satisfaction in 
any thing, as now ye do, or to ask the sense of any thing sug- 
gested to you by the Spirit, as you sometimes ask the 
meaning of my words. ‘This sense of the word épwrdy is 
gathered from ver. 19, “They were desirous épwrdy to in- 
quire of him” the sense of those words, “ Yet a little while,” 
and ver. 30, “'There is no need that any one ἐρωτᾷ should 
inquire of thee”—in that day, i. 6. say St. Austin and Mal- 
donate, in the day of the judgment; but then the apostles 
could have nothing farther to ask for the church’s benefit. 
And, secondly, it appears from the preceding verse, that 
day was the time when they should see him again after 
his resurrection, andsoon. Nor can Origen’s* conceit stand, 
that Christ here excludes himself, requiring them to pray 
only to God the Father; this being contrary to the practice 
of St. Paul and the whole Christian church (see note on 
Rom. x. 13). 

15 Ver. 24. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name.} 
i.e. By me as a mediator betwixt God and man, and with 
respect to my merits; do this after my death and inter- 
cession for you at the right hand of God, and you shall re- 
ceive such answers as will fill you with joy. 

Ver. 25. These things I have spoken to you ἐν παροιμίαις 
in parables.] Παροιμία ἐστὶ λόγος ὠφέλιμος μέτ' ἐπικρύψεως 
μετρίας ἐκδεδόμενος, “ A proverb,” saith St. Basil, “is a pro- 
fitable speech uttered with some obscurity,” and so it is here, 
as is apparent from the answer of the apostles, ver. 29, 
“Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb ;” 
and from the following words in the same verse, “ Hereafter 
I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but shall show 
you plainly (the will) of my Father.” 

16 Ver. 26, 27. And I say not that I will ask the Father, 
for he himself loveth you.] 1. 6. I need not say this for your 
comfort, that I will intercede with my Father for you, 
seeing his love to you, who have thus loved me, is so 
great, as to incline him to grant your petitions on his own 
accord, 

7 Ver. 28. I came out from the Father.] See note on 
xiii. 3. 


* Οὐδενὶ τῶν γεννητῶν προσευκτέον ἐστὶν, οὐδὲ αὐτῷ τῷ Χριστῷ, 
ἀλλὰ τῷ Θεῷ τῶν ὅλων καὶ πατρὶ. Περὶ Ἑὐχῆς, P- 48, 


CHAPTER XVII. 


30 Now are we sure that thou knowest all things 
(in that thou knowest our secret whisperings among our- 
selves), and (so) needest not that any man should ask 
thee ‘op thow mayest know what they desire, thou know- 
ing this unasked): by this 15 we (more firmly) believe 
thou camest forth from God. 

31 Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe ? 

32 Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that 
ye shall be scattered, every man to his own (home), 


8 Ver. 30. By this we believe that thou camest forth 


from God.] Why did they not believe him to be God? | 


saith Woltzogenius. Ans. They say this sufficiently, by 
owning he knew all things, even the thoughts of men’s 
hearts; and thence, as they well might, concluding, “he 
came forth from God:” for omniscience and the knowledge 
of the heart being the attributes of God (1 Kings viti. 39, 
Jer. xvii. 10), they cannot be communicated to any without 
the communication of the divine nature. 


399 


and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, 
because the Father is with me. 4 

33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in 
me (being with you by my Spirit) ye might have 
peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but 
be of good cheer; I have overcome the world 
(and, as I am able, so by my sufferings am I the more 
inclined to assist and strengthen you against the tempta- 
tions of it). 


19 Ver. 33, Be of good comfort, I have overcome the 
world.) Being prepared to suffer that death, by which I am 
to be freed from all the injuries of the world, and to be 
crowned with glory, and you shall also do it by faith in me, 
which is your victory over the world (1 John v. 4, 5), and 
by my strength, which shall enable you to do all things 
(Phil. iv. 13), of which you cannot doubt after so many 
tokens of my love (Rom. viii. 35—37). 


CHAPTER XVII. 


1 Turse words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes 
to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come (that my 
work on earth by my sufferings now instant should be 
Jinished, ver. 4); 1 glorify (now) thy Son (by his ad- 
vancement to the right hand of majesty and power), that 
thy Son also may glorify thee (by propagating the 
knowledge of thee and of thy gospel through the world ; 
see Examen Milli) : 


22 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, 
that he should give eternal life to as many as thou 
hast given him (so inslate him in that kingdom in which 
he shall exercise that power in bringing many to the faith, 
and so fitting them for life eternal). 

3 And this is (the true way to) life eternal, that 
they might 85 know thee (10. be) the only true God (in 
opposition to those false gods they now ignorantly wor- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII. 


1 Ver. 1. Glorify thy Son.] Not only by his advance- 
ment to a state of glory, but by such wonders attending 
his sufferings, and such a glorious resurrection, as may 
entirely remove the scandal of the cross. In answer to 
which request, some were forced, even by what they saw at 
his death, to say, “Surely this man was the Son of God ;” 
and others, who had clamoured for his death, to “smite 
their breasts; and God soon after declared, that he had 
made him “ Lord and Christ, a Prince and Saviour” (Acts 
ii. 36). 

2 Ver. 2. Καθὼς ἔδωκας, As thou hast given him power 
over all flesh.) In destination and promise only, say most 
interpreters. But since the Baptist said δέδωκεν, " He hath 
given all things into his hands” (iii. 35), seeing the evange- 
list saith the same, xiii. 3, seeing Christ himself saith, «The 
Father δέδωκε hath given all judgment to the Son” (v. 22), 
and promiseth to raise the dead, because ἔδωκε, “he had 
given him” power to judge all men, and Christ himself saith 
not, Matt. xxviii. 18, « All power is now given me,” but 
ἐδόθη “ hath been given me in heaven and in earth;” I see 
no reason for this restriction or limitation of the word ; only 
it may be granted, that as he only exercised his power upon 
earth, whilst he was in it, so was he to exercise it from 
heaven more fully after his resurrection. 

3 Ver. 3. To know thee, τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν Θεὸν, the only 
true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ.) 
i.e. That the gentiles, quitting their dumb idols and false 
gods, may own thee alone to be the living (1 Thess. i. 9), 
and “true God,” who madest heaven and earth (Acts xiv. 
15), and that the Jews may own me to be thy Son sent to 
them from heaven, and that Messiah, which, according to 
thy promise made to Abraham and David, thou hast sent to 
them; for by knowing thee fully, they will know me also 
whom all men are to worship “as they worship the Father,” 
and whom he that doth not worship, doth not truly honour 
the Father (v. 23) : for “1 and the Father are one” (x. 30) ; 
“whom no man knoweth who he is, but the Father, and he 
to whom the Father will reveal him” (Luke x. 22) ; whom 
“he that denies hath not the Father” (1 John ii. 23); doth 
not know him, “and he that seeth, sees the Father also” 
(xiv. 9, xv. 21, xvi. 3). 

Obj. Here the Socinians say, that these words plainly 
prove that the Father alone is the true God, and that by 


the words μόνον τὸν ἀληθινὸν, “the only true God,” Christ 
must be excluded from being true God, since otherwise the 
Father would not be only so. But to this we answer, 

Ans. 1. That these words cannot be reasonably supposed 
to exclude him from a true divinity, who is in scripture styled 
ὃ ἀληϑινὸς Θεὸς “the true God :” now that Christ is so styled, 
see the note on 1 John v. 20. True therefore is the gloss 
of Grotius, that “he is styled the only true God, in ex- 
clusion of those, quos falsa gentium persuasio introduxe- 
rat, whom the false persuasion of the gentiles had intro- 
duced ;” not so as to exclude the other persons, but κατ᾽ 
ἀντιδιαστολὴν τῆς πολυθείας, “in opposition to polytheism ;” 
as Epiphanius,* or εἰς ἀναίρεσιν τῶν ph πεφυκότων εἶναι ἀληθινῶν, 
“for the removal of those which by nature are not true 
gods,” as Athanasius saith; Hence the Pseudo-Ignatius¢ 
observes that “ the evangelist saying, the Father is the only 
true God, did not omit what belonged to our Lord, but 
premised this, saying, In the beginning was the Word, and 
the Word was God.” And in this sense the word “ only” 
is frequently applied to God in the Old Testament: so 
Deut. xxxii. 12, Κύριος μόνος “the Lord only was their 
guide, and there was no Θεὸς ἀλλύτριος, false God with them,” 
and yet the angel in whom his name was (Exod. xxiii. 21), 
went with them; “the angel of his presence saved them” 
(Isa. xviii. 9) and was the captain of their host (Josh. v. 
14): so also Isa. xliii. 11, “I am the Lord, and there is no 
Saviour besides me;” and ver. 12,“I am the Lord your 
God, and there is no ἀλλύτριος, strange God with me”.(see 
Judg. x. 16, 1 Sam. xii. 3, Ps. Ixxxi. 9): see also the word 
solus, so used by Ireneus often; as when he saith of the 
Maker of the world, that he is solus Deus,§ and solus Do- 
minus, and solas Conditor, and solus Pater, and solus con- 
tinens omnia, and yet puts into the symbol of faith owned 
by all Christians that Christ is 6 Κύριος ἡμῶν καὶ Θεὺς (see 
the note on 1 Cor. viii. 3). 

Woltzogenius saith, this place proves Christ is not God 
in the most perfect sense, in which he is to be understood 
to be God, qui est auctor et origo omnis Deitatis, et qui 
Deitatem ἃ seipso habet, non ab alio, “who is the author and 
original of the whole Deity, and who hath his divinity from 
himself, and not from another:” and if this be all they 


* Her. 25, p. 6. 
+ Ep. ad Antioch. §. 4. 
] Lib. i. cap. 2 


ἡ Cont. Ar. lib. iv. p. 257 
§ Lib. ii. cap. 1. 


400 


ship), and (may know and believe in) Jesus Christ, 
whom thou hast sent (fo reveal this life to them). 

4 Ihave glorified thee on the earth (by declaring thy 
will to the Jews): Ihave finished the work (the pro- 
phelical office) which thou gavest me to do (on earth). 

5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine 
own self (by exalling even my human nature to the right 
hand of glory, and crowning me) with 4 the glory which 


JOHN. 


(as to my divine nature) I had with thee before the 
world was. 

6 I have manifested thy name (and doctrine) unto 
5 the men which thou gavest me out of the world: 
thine they were (by fazth in thee before), and thou 
gavest them me (by causing them to believe in me) ; 
and they have kept thy word. 

7 © Now they have (fully) known that all things 


contend for, we, who believe that Christ is “God of God,” 
may grant this, and yet maintain that he is God, not by title 
only, as angels and magistrates are styled elohim, but by 
communication of the divine nature, as being the true God, 
and having the name of God distributively given, and the 
divine attributes ascribed to him only; i. e. in opposition 
to them who are only called gods, but are not by nature so. 

2. We answer, that the exclusive particle only is not 
in construction to be joined with the true God thus, «To 
know thee only to be the true God:” for the words run not 
thus, σὲ μόνον τὸν ddnSwov Θεὸν" but thus, σὲ τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν 
Θεὸν, “ Who only art true,” or “The God who alone art 
true,” and whereas against this Crellius objects that the 
word ἀληϑινὸς, being an adjective, cannot be here the predi- 
cate ; this is confuted by many instances in this gospel ; for 
φῶς τὸ ἀληϑινὸν is the light which is truly so, i. 9, and so is 
“the true bread,” vi. 32, and “the true vine,” xv. 1, it 
being manifest that in all these places, ¢rwe is the attribute 
or the thing predicated, of light, bread, the vine. 

And whereas they urge farther, that the word solus, only, 
added to it, excludes all other things from any communion 
with that of which it is predicated, and so imports, that the 
Father alone is a true God; this assertion may be confuted 
from many instances both of the Old and New Testament. 
As when Jacob says of Benjamin “ He is left alone” (Gen. 
xlil. 38), viz. in respect of Joseph, not of his ten brethren; 
and of Christ, that “ he was left alone,” viz. in respect of the 
multitude, when yet his disciples were with him (Luke ix. 
18. 36, John viii. 10), and when he saith, “« Ye shall leave 
me alone: and yet I am not alone, for the Father is with 
me” (xvi. 32). But to proceed to instances more apposite, 
we read of “the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings, 
and Lord of lords, 6 μόνος ἔχων ἀθανασίαν, who only hath 
immortality” (1 Tim. vi. 15,16). Now if this be said of 
God the Father, as the Socinians must assert, or allow 
Christ to be truly God, yet must they allow that Christ, who 
is styled “ King of kings, and Lord of lords,” by reason of 
his powerful victories over the enemies of his church (Rev. 
xvii. 14, xix. 15, 16), is also δυνάστης, “a potentate ;” that 
he who “hath life in himself,” and “ of whose kingdom 
there shall be no end” (John v. 26, Luke i. 33), « hath” also 
“immortality ;”’ and he who is exalted to God's right hand, 
« dwells” also “in light inaccessible :” they therefore must 
allow that neither the word “ only” before “ potentate,” nor 
before “immortality,” excludes Christ from a communion 
in those attributes. Solomon saith of God, i. e. according 
to the Socinians, of the Father (1 Kings viii. 39), σὺ μονώ- 
τατος, “Thou only knowest the hearts of all men;” and 
yet Christ saith, that «all the church shall know,” that he is 
“the searcher of the hearts and reins,” viz. of all men, that 
being necessary, that, as it follows, he might “give to all 
men according to their works” (Rev. ii. 23): and St. Jude 
speaks of some wicked men, who denied τὸν μόνον Δεσπότην, 
Θεὸν, καὶ Κύριον ἡμῶν, “our only Master, God, and Lord” 
(ver. 4). If they say this is meant of Christ, as probably it 
is, all these words being put by apposition with one only 
article prefixed, and the same persons being by St. Peter said 
“to deny the Lord that bought them” (2 Pet. ii. 1), surely 
they will not say, these words exclude the Father from 
being our Master, God, and Lord; or if they do interpret 
them of God the Father, they cannot deny, against express 
scripture, that Christ is our Lord and Master (see John xiii. 
13, 14, 1 Cor. viii. 6, Eph. iv. 5). All these instances there- 
fore, showing the falsehood of that assertion, do also show 
the weakness of the Socinians’ arguments from these words 
against the Deity of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost. 

4 Ver. 5. And now, Father, glorify me with the glory 
which I had with thee before the world was.] Having shown, 
in the note on Phil. ii. 6, that Christ had a glory with God 
the Father, before he took upon him our nature; that when 


he did so, he laid aside his glory, “and took upon him the 
form of a servant,” and that after his ascension he resumed 
this glory, and appeared in it, and says that he will come 
hereafter, sometimes, “in the glory of the Father,” as Matt. 
xvi. 27, sometimes, “in his own glory,” Matt. xxv. 31, and 
sometimes, in the glory of both, Luke ix. 26; this glory he 
now desires to be given him, not only as the Word, as it was 
before, but as the Word made flesh also: and therefore 
Theophylact gives the sense thus, τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην pov φύσιν 
ἄγαγε eis τὴν δόξαν ἣν εἶχον παρὰ σοὶ ἐγὼ Adyos, “ Bring my 
human nature into a participation of the glory which I the 
Aéyos had with thee before the beginning of the world.” 
But this plain and obvious exposition of the words demon- 
strating his divinity, as I have shown in the note recited, 
the Socinians will not admit of, and therefore say that he 
requests that the glory which he had before in the appoint- 
ment, or designation of the Father only to it hereafter, he 
might now actually enjoy; and Grotius joins with them in 
this exposition. But, 

First, It seems unreasonable to say absolutely he had 
any thing before he had a being to have, supposing a subject 
in which that is contained which he is said to have. ‘The 
first place cited by Grotius as parallel, viz. that Christ was 
foreknown “before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet. i. 
2), is plainly impertinent, there being no hint in the words 
of Christ here of any such foreknowledge, but a plain asser- 
tion that he “had” this glory “before the foundation of the 
world.” So are the words cited from Eph. i. 4, “ He hath 
elected us in Christ before the foundation of the world, to be 
holy :” for the apostle saith not, as Christ doth of his glory, 
that we had any holiness before the foundation of the world, 
but only that we were chosen to it. His third instance, from 
Rev. xiii. 8, where we read thus, “Whose names were not 
written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the found- 
ation of the world,” seems only pertinent because it is ill 
translated; for that the true translation should be thus, 
«“ Whose names were not written from the foundation of the 
world, (i. 6. were not written) in the book of life of the Lamb 
slain,” is evident from xvii. 8, where we read thus, “ Whose 
names are not written in the book of life from the foundation 
of the world.” And, lastly, the citation from 2 Tim. i. 9, 
“He hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, ac- 
cording to his own purpose, and the grace given to usin Christ 
Jesus, before all ages,” seems only to be pertinent on the 
same account; translate the words thus, “ According to his 
own purpose before all ages, and the grace given us in Jesus 
Christ,” and there is in them no appearance of any likeness 
to Christ’s words: and this translation is sufficiently con- 
firmed from the parallel places, Tit. i. 2, 3, Eph. i. 3, 4. 

Secondly, Christ here saith, “ Glorify me with the glory 
which I had παρὰ σοὶ, with thee ;” now that phrase signifies as 
much as “ with thee,” or “in thy presence,” in the perpetual 
use of scripture. So Numb. xxii. 9,“ Who are the men that 
are παρὰ cot, with thee?” 1 Sam. xxii. 3, “Let my father 
and my mother be παρὰ σοὶ, with thee.” Now he that hath 
no being cannot, without the greatest catachresis, be said to 
be with another. And, lastly, Christ speaks of a glory, 
which the Father had given him, because he loved him before 
the foundation of the world: now sure it is improper torsay 
any thing is beloved when it is nothing, or when it has no 
being. 

5 Ver. 6. Ihave manifested thy name to those whom thow 
hast given me out of the world.) i. 6. To my disciples whom 
thou hast given to me, by causing them to believe in me; I 
have by my doctrine taught them, and by my miracles, done 
before their eyes, given them the clearest prospect of thy 
power, wisdom, holiness and goodness. Ag υ 

6 Ver. 7. Now they have known,] By my divine doctrine 
and miracles, which they have heard and seen, that I derived 
both from thee. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


whatsoever thou hast given (¢. δ. authorized) me (to 
do or say) are of thee (ἡ. e. were indeed thy words and 
roe 

8 For I have given (¢. δ. declared) unto them the 
words which thou gavest (in commission to) me (lo 
speak); and they have received them (as thine), and 
have known surely that I came out from thee, and they 
have believed that thou didst send me. 

91 pray for them: ΤΙ pray not (in this address) 
for the world, but for them which thou hast (already) 
given me (out of tt); for they are mine (having thee for 
their Father). 

10 And all mine are thine (thy children), and thine 
are mine (having me for their teacher and guide); and 
I am glorified in them (by the miracles done by them in 
my name, and by the converts they make to the Christian 
faith). 

11 And now I am no more in the world, 8 but these 
(my apostles) are (to continue) in the world, and I (am 
to) come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine 
®own name (or power) those whom thou hast given 
me, that they may be one, as we are (by the participa- 
tion of the Spirit. See Examen Millii). 

12 While I was with them in the world, I kept 
them in thy name: (and by thy power imparted to me,) 


401 


those that thou gavest me I have kept, and " none of 
them is lost (hath perished, or fallen off from me), but 
the son of perdition (and this it was thy pleasure to per- 
mit); that the scripture might be fulfilled (see Exa- 
men Millii). 

13 And now come I to thee; and these things I 
speak (in their audience while Iam) in the world, " that 
they might have my joy (the joy which I have promised 
them, xv. 11,) fulfilled in themselves (by the presence 
of the Spirit, whose fruits are joy and peace). 

14 I have given (é. δ. taught) them thy word; and 
the 12 world hath hated them, because they are not of 
the world, even as I am not of the world (see xv. 
18, 19). 

15 ὶ ray not that thou shouldest take them out of 
the world, but that thou shouldest keep them 13 from 
the evil (of the world. 

16 And thus I pray, because) They are not of the 
world (and so will certainly be hated by it), even as (I 
have been, because) 1 am not of the world. 

17 Sanctify “ them through (Gr. in, or for the pro- 
pagation of ) thy truth (by sending the Holy Ghost upon 
them): thy word (they are to preach to the world) is 
(the) truth. 

18 As thou hast sent me into the world (lo deliver 


7 Ver. 9. I pray not for the world.] These things which 
follow respecting only my apostles, which are to preach my 
gospel to all nations, I request not for that world which hath 
no knowledge of me. They who hence argue that Christ died 
not for the world, nor sought the salvation of it, but of some 
few persons in it, because he here prays not for it, must be 
mistaken ; for, 

First, They plainly contradict both Christ and his apostles, 
for Christ saith, he “came not to condemn the world, but 
that it might be saved,” John xii. 47 ; that « God sent his Son 
into the world, that the world, through him, might be saved,” 
iii. 17. Hence this evangelist assures us he was “ the propi- 
tiation for the sins of the whole world,’ 1 John ii. 2, and 
others of them, that he came “to seek and to save that which 
was lost,” as doubtless all the world was (Matt. xviii. 11). 

Secondly, They vainly argue, that Christ never prayed for 
the world, because he saith here, I do not do it now, which 
is arguing against plain matter of fact: for how oft doth 
he say to the Jews, “ Ye are of the world” (John viii. 23), 
and of his apostles chosen out of them, that they were called 
“out of the world?” as here, ver. 6. 14. 16, and yet he saith 
to them, Luke xix. 42, εἰ ἔγνως, “ How do I wish that thou 
hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong to thy 
peace!” And, hanging on the cross, he said, “ Father, for- 
give them,” Luke xxiii. 34, making intercession for those 
transgressors, Isa. lili. 12. He therefore saith that, in this 
address, he prayed not for them, because he was asking those 
things which could not agree to them, but to his apostles only, 
or to those whom God had given him out of the world; viz. 
that they might be consecrated to their apostolical functions, 
or by that Spirit which “the world could not receive,” John 
xiv. 17, that their joy, from his presence with them, might 
be full; nor is there any thing in this whole prayer which is 
not proper to believers only. And, 

Thirdly, This very prayer for them is made for the sake of 
the world, and with respect to their saving faith ; i. e. “for 
them who should believe through his word,” ver. 20; that 
“the world might believe and know that the Father hath 
sent him,” ver. 23. So that he prayed for his apostles for 
this very end, that the world by their means might believe, 
and believing might have life through his name: it is there- 
fore plain he made this prayer, in which he saith, «I pray 
not for the world,” out of affection to the world, and with 
this design, that the preaching of the apostles to them might 
be more effectual for their conversion and salvation. 

8 Ver. 11. Kai οὗτοι, But they are in the world.) Kai here 
signifies ὁ st, as Gen. xxxi. 7, Texod. i. 17, vii. 12, Numb. iv. 
20, v. 18, Deut. i. 43, iii. 7, iv. 9, viii. 18, Josh. i. 8, 1 Sam. 
i. ae Ps. iv. 3, Matt. 1. 25, xi. 17, xii. 39, xvii. 12, John 
νυ, 40. 

9 Keep them in thy name.] i. e. By thy power; so “name” 

Vor. [V.—51 


is used, 1 Sam. xvii. 45, 2 Chron. xvi. 11, Ps. xliv. 5, lxxxix. 
24, Matt. vii. 22, Acts iv. 7. 

Οὖς ἔδωκάς por see Examen Millii in locum. 

10 Ver. 12. And none of them is lost.) i. e. Either by tem- 
poral death (xviii. 9), or by falling off from me, but ὁ vids τῆς 
ἀπωλείας, “the son of perdition,” i. e. Judas, worthy of per- 
dition. So “a son of death,” is one worthy of it, 2 Sam. xii. 
5, and ἔθνος ἀπωλείας is a nation fit to be destroyed, Ecclus. 
xvi. 9 (see Matt. xxiii, 15, and the note on Eph. ii. 3). 

1 Ver. 13. That they may have my joy fulfilled in them.] 
i. e. That the joy they had hitherto from my love to them 
(vy. 11), my presence with them and care of them, may, in 
my absence, be increased by the presence of that Spirit with 
them, who will supply my bodily absence (xvi. 7), and 
whose fruits are “joy and peace” (Gal. v. 22); yea, by 
whom I, though absent in body, am still present with them 

xiv. 11). 

2 Ver. 14. The world hath hated them, &c.] This desire 
of thy protection and assistance is needful to them, who will 
be certainly exposed to great hatred from the world; and 
fit to be granted by thee, seeing they will be thus hated for 
preaching thy word to the world. 

13 Ver. 15. But that thou shouldst keep them ἀπὸ τοῦ πονη- 
pod, from the evil.| From the evil men of the world, and from 
Satan, the prince of the world, who, by their means, endea- 
vours, by fiery persecutions, to suppress the truth, and destroy 
or discourage the preachers of it; whence their persecutions 
are ascribed not to them but to Satan, Luke xxii. 31, 1 Thess, 
ii. 18, iii. 5, Rev. ii. 10. From the eleventh to the sixteenth 
verse we learn how necessary divine aid is to our preserva- 
tion and success, even in pious enterprises, and so how neces- 
sary it is to seek it by fervent prayer; and also from our 
Saviour’s affection to them, care of them, and prayer for 
them, how certain they who sincerely devote themselves to 
his service may be of his aid in it, and his protection while 
they are so employed. 

4 Ver. 17. ᾿Αγίαζον, &c. Sanctify them by thy truth.) i.e. 
Consecrate and set them apart, for the propagation of thy 
truth. Now this sanctification to the priesthood, under the 
old testament, was made, first, with a sacrifice offered for 
them. So Moses receives a command, ἁγιάζειν, “ to sanctify 
the priests,” ὥστε ἱερατεύειν μοι αὐτοῦς, that they might serve or 
offer to God, by the oblation of a bullock or a ram, Exod. 
xxix. 1, and thus Christ sanctified his apostles by offering 
up himself for them, ver. 19; secondly, by anointing them 
with holy oil (ver. 7) ; and in this sense, Christ desires here 
the Father to sanctify them to their office, by the descent of 
the Holy Spirit, styled, “the oil of gladness,” and “ the pro- 
mise of the Father,” on them, and by whose assistance they 
became “able ministers of the new testament” (2 Cor. iii. 6) 
which before they were not; and are therefore bid not to be- 

212% 


402 


thy mind to it), even so have I also sent them into the 
world (on the same errand: see note on xx. 21). 

19 And 15 for their sakes I sanctify (7. 6. offer up) 
myself (@ piacular victim), that they also (being justi- 
fied through faith in me) might be sanctified through 
(Gr. in or for) the truth (see ver. 17). 

20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them 
also which shall believe on me through their word ; 

21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, 
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in 
us (by the participation of that Spirit which is in me) : 
that the world (by the powerful operations of this Spirit 
in them) may (be induced to) believe that thou hast sent 
me. 

22 And [8 the glory which thou gavest me (7, 6. the 
power of doing miracles by the Spirit of God) 1 have 
given them; that they may be one, as we are one 
(ver. 21): 


JOHN. 


23 1 in them, and thou in me, that they may be 
made perfect in one (spirit working in them as it did in 
me) ; and that (so) the world may know that thou hast 
sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. 

24 Father, "I will that they also, whom thou hast 
given me (when they have finished their course on earth), 
be with me where I am; that they may behold my 
glory, which thou hast given me: for (because) thou 
lovedst me before the foundation of the world. 

25 O righteous Father, (the men of) the world hath 
not known thee: but I have known thee, and these 
have known that thou hast sent me. 

26 And 1 have declared unto them thy name, and 
( farther) will declare it (by the clluminations of the Holy 
Spirit) « that (so) 39 the love wherewith thou hast loved 
me (which moved thee to give the Holy Spirit without 
measure to me, John iii. 34, 35) may be in them, and I 
in them (by the same Spirit). 


gin their preaching to the world, till this Spirit from on high 
was come upon them (Luke xxiv. 49, Acts i. 8). 

5 Ver. 19. Kai ὑπέρ αὐτῶν, And for them I sanctify my- 
se/f.] i. 6. I offer up myself to be slain, as a piacular victim, 
as Chrysostom saith here ; in which sense, the word ἁγιάζειν 
is often used, as I have shown, note on Heb. ii. 11. Nor 
do these words admit of the sense which some give them, 
thus, For their sakes I shall, by my resurrection, show 
myself to be the Holy One; for, as that is not to sanctify 
himself, so neither was it so necdful for their sakes, who 
believed this already, saith our Lord, ver. 7, 8. 

6 Ver. 20. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them 
that shall believe, &c.] As Christ (ver. 17) had prayed for 
his apostles, that they might be filled with the Spirit, so here 
he asks the same thing for those that should believe through 
their word, that they also might be replenished with the gifts 
of the Holy Ghost, according to the prediction of the Bap- 
tist, Matt. ii. 11, and his own promise, vii. 38, 39, and as it 
after came to pass. That these words, viz. “That they may 
be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee;” are to be 
interpreted not of a union of concord, but by the participa- 
tion of the Spirit, of the Father, and the Son, is proved ; see 
note on xiv. 20. Add that Christ declares, he did his mira- 
cles by the Holy Spirit (Matt. xii. 28), that the Spirit was 
given to him without measure (iii. 34), that thereby he was 
“anointed to preach the gospel” (Luke iv. 18,19). Christ 
also says, that the Father, abiding in him, did these miracles 
(xiv. 10), and that the Jews, by the doctrine thus preached, 
by virtue of this unction, and the miracles thus done by the 
Spirit of God, might and ought to know that the Father was 
in him, and he in the Father (x. 38), and he promises, that 
they who believed in him should do greater works than he 
had done, because, going to the Father, he would send the 
Holy Spirit to them, to abide ever with them (xiv. 12. 
16—18); and then adds, that “in that day you shall know 
that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you” (ver. 
20). All which things prove that the Father was in Christ, 
and he in him; not only by the union of the divine nature 
with the human, but by union of the same Spirit also re- 
siding in him; and consequently the union of believers with 
them both must be by the same Spirit: whence it is’ said, 
that “he that is joined to the Lord, is ἕν πνεῦμα, one spirit” 
with him, 1 Cor. vi. 17, that their bodies are made “the 
temples of the Holy Ghost,” ver. 19, and they are a “ habi- 
tation of God through the Spirit,” Eph. ii. 2. This farther 
will appear from the end of this union, which is, saith Christ, 
“that the world may believe and know that thou hast sent 
me:”’ for this the apostles testified, and made known to the 
world, not by their concord, but by virtue of that Spirit with 
which they were endowed from on high, and which God 
gave to them that believe (Acts v. 32); and this interpreta- 
tion we may learn from the words of Ireneus,* to the same 


* Effundit (Christus) Spiritum Patris in adunationem et 


effect. This also will be still more evident from the words 
following. 

1 Ver. 21. "Iva πάντες ἕν Sot, That all may be one.] Ori- 
gen here saith, the apostles and the prophets shall then know 
the Father, ὅγαν γίνωνται ἕν, ὡς υἱὸς καὶ πατὴρ ἕν εἶσιν, “ when 
they are become one, as the Son and Father are one,” which 
he thus explains in his commentary on these words, Rom, 
v. 5, “ The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the 
Spirit that he hath given us; ut per istud Spirittis Sancti 
donum compleatur ille sermo quem Dominus dixit, Sicut tu 
Pater in me, et ego in te, et isti in nobis unum sint, divine 
scilicet nature participes effecti in abundantia charitatis per 
Spiritum Sanctum ministrate ; that by this gift might be 
fulfilled that saying of the Lord, That they may be one in 
us, as thou, Father, art in me, and 1 in thee, being made 
partakers of the divine nature, in the abundance of love mi- 
nistered to them by the Holy Spirit :” and in this sense the 
fathers often say that at the resurrection we shall be θεοποι- 
odpevor, as being then completely made partakers of the divine 
nature, by the Spirit of God then more fully dwelling in us, 
and so “ God will be all in all” in his glorified saints. 

18 Ver. 22. And Ihave given them the glory which thou 
gavest me, &c.| By this glory we are to understand Christ’s 
power of working miracles; which power was given to the 
apostles, and those who believed through their preaching, 
by virtue of the Holy Spirit, which came down upon them: 
for, by the power of this Spirit, Christ wrought his miracles, 
and so manifested τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, “his glory,” ch. ii. And 
the administration of the gospel is upon this account said to 
be ἐν δύξη, “in or with glory,” 2 Cor. iii. 7.11, and the apos- 
tles are said to have seen “the glory of the Lord,” and 
to have been “ transformed into the likeness of it, from glory 
to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord,” ver. 18 (see the 
note there). his glory Christ is here said to have given his 
apostles, not only that they might be one with the Father and 
the Son, but also that the world might know the Father had 
loved them, as he had loved Christ, whom he had so loved 
as to give the Spirit without measure to him. 

19 Ver. 24. Twill that those whom thou hast given me, may 
be with me, &c.] i. 6. I will that they may be received up 
after the resurrection into heaven, as I was; for it seems pro- 
bable, that none of the saints, no, not the apostles, are to be 
received into the supreme heaven, to enjoy the beatific vision, 
before that time (see note on xiv. 3). 

2 Ver. 26. That the love wherewith thou hast loved me, 
may be in them.] i.e. That thou mayest love them, as being 
thy sons by adoption, so as to make them partakers of an 
eternal inheritance (Rom. viii. 17), and so as to fill them 
with thy Spirit (Gal. iv. 6), and, raising them from the dead, 
mayest crown them with eternal glory. 


communionem Dei et hominum, ad homines quidem depo- 
nens Deum per Spiritum, ad Deum rursus imponens homi- 
nem per suam incarnationem. Lib. v. cap, 1. 


403 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


1 πεν Jesus had spoken these words, he ' went 
forth (of the city) with his disciples (and went) over 
the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which 
he entered, and his disciples. 

2 And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the 
ee for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his dis- 
ciples. 

ἢ Judas then, having received ἃ band of men and 
officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh 
thither (it being night) with lanterns and torches and 
weapons (to apprehend him). 

4 Jesus therefore, ? knowing all things that should 
come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, 
Whom seek ye? 

5 They answered him (We seek) Jesus of Naza- 
reth. Jesus saith unto them, I am Ae. And Judas 
also, which betrayed him, stood with them (when he 
said this). 

6 As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, 
they went backward, and fell to the ground. 

7 Then (when they were risen up) asked he them, 
again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Na- 
zareth. 


8 Jesus answered, 1 have told you thatI am he: 
if therefore ye seek me (on/y), let these (my disciples) 
go their way: 

9 (And this he said) * That the saying might be ful- 
filled, which he spake, Of them (apostles) which thou 
gavest me have I lost none (@. e. J have suffered none to 
perish). 

10 Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and 
smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right 
ear. (4nd) the servant’s name was Malchus. 

11 Then said Jesus unto Peter, 4 Put up thy sword 
into the sheath : (for) the cup which my Father hath 
given me (to drink), shall I not drink it? 

12 Then 5 the band and the captain and officers of 
the Jews took Jesus, and bound him, 

13 And led him away to ® Annas first; for he was 
father in law to Caiaphas, which (Cataphas) was the 
high priest that same year (that Jesus was crucified ). 

14 Now Caiaphas was he (Gr. and tt was that Caia- 
phas), which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was ex- 
pedient that one man should die (Gr. perish) for the 


(preservation of the) people. 
15 4 And ἐμοὶ Peter followed Jesus, and 7 so did 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἐξῆλθε, He went out with his disciples.] Not 
only out of the chamber where he supped with them, for 
that he did when he said, « Arise, let us go hence” (xiv. 31), 
but out of the city; the gates, in such a time of peace, and 


of such a congress to the passover as the city could not well | 


contain, being not shut. ‘The evangelist adds, that he went 
“over the brook Cedron to a place where was a garden ;” 
that, as the sin of the first Adam, which brought destruction 
upon his posterity, was committed in a garden, so that salu- 
tary passion of the second Adam, which was to rescue us 
from that destruction, might begin in the like place: so the 
fathers. Into this garden he went with the eleven disciples, 
though going farther into it, to his agony, he took with him 
only Peter, James, and John (Matt. xxvi. 37). 

2 Ver. 4. Jesus therefore knowing all things that were to 
come upon him.] This the apostle notes, to show that Christ 
fell not into the hands of the Jews, for want either of power, as 
he shows, ver. 6, by striking them all to the ground with a 
word that came to apprehend him, the providence of God 
not suffering him to die without these marks of a divine 
majesty and power; or for want of wisdom to foresee their 
machinations against him; but as freely giving up himself to 
the death for the welfare of mankind. Vain therefore is the 
saying of Celsus,* that “a wise man, had he foreseen the 
danger, would have avoided it if he could do it;” for, if 
kings and captains have given up themselves freely to death, 
and the utmost perils, for the temporary safety of their 
country, much more might our blessed Lord do this for the 
salvation of the whole world. 

3 Ver. 9. “Iva πληρωθῇ ὃ λόγος, &e. That the saying might 
be fulfilled, which he spake, Of those which thou hast given 


me have I lost none.) That this saying could not relate to | 


the eternal state of Judas, or our Lord’s apostles, appears, 
(1.) from the precedent words, “ Let then those go away ;” 
for, saith the evangelist, these very words were spoken, that 
the saying of Christ, xvii. 12, might be fulfilled; and yet 
Christ’s desire that they might quietly be dismissed was de- 
signed only to secure their temporal preservation. (2.) 
From the words themselves, recorded xvii. 12, “Of those 
that thou hast given me I have lost none but the son of per- 
dition, that the scripture might be fulfilled,” viz. Ps. cix. 8. 
Now this scripture St. Peter interprets of the temporal death 
of Judas, Acts i. 16. 20. It is no objection against this in- 
terpretation, that the apostles were not always preserved 


* Apud Orig. lib. ii. p. 71. 


from a violent death, most of them being taken away by 
martyrdom : for this our Lord could not intend, since he him- 
self had told them, before he spake these words, that some 
of them should be put to death, and some should drink 
of his cup (Matt. xx. 23, xxiv. 9); but only that he being 
present with them had thus lost none of them; and hence 
he prays that in his absence his Father would thus keep 
them: and accordingly the apostle testifies, that when they 
were engaged in their apostolical function, they were wonder- 
fully preserved by the divine providence, insomuch that even 
this was a testimony of the life and power of Jesus (2 Cor. 
i. 10, iv. 10, 11, xii. 4), and especially they were so pre- 
served, that none of them fell from their apostolic office, as 
Judas did (Acts i. 25). 

4 Ver. 11. Put up thy sword into the sheath.] Vain here 
is the inference of Bernard, in his epistle to pope Eugenius, 
from these words, That both the spiritual and the material 
sword belonged to the church, telling him, the material 
sword is his, though it be not to be wielded by his hand, but 
by the hand of the soldier, yet so as he is to do it ad nutum 
sacerdotis, at the will of the priest. For, with what sense 
can it be gathered from Christ's reprehension of St. Peter 
for using this sword, even before he was made a priest, ac- 
cording to the doctrine of the Romanists; or from Christ’s 
command to put it up into the sheath, that it belonged to 
the priest ; or because Peter had a sword, which belonged not 
at all to his office as an apostle, that the pope must have a 
title to that more than to his net or fishing-boat? The two 
swords, of which Christ spake, were both material, and of 
them Christ said, «It is enough ;” not to combat with their 
adversaries, but to show the peril of that present time (see 
the note on Luke xxii. 38). 

5 Ver. 12. Ἢ οὖν σπεῖρα καὶ ὃ χιλιαρχος, The band and the 
captain.| At the time of the passover, it was customary for 
the Roman president to send a whole band of a thousand 
men for a guard to the temple; the captain of which band 
is here called χιλίαρχος. 

6 Ver. 13. And they led him away to Annas first.) That 
by him, who was more aged and better experienced in the 
law, Caiaphas might be directed what to do in that case, or 
because he was the prince of the Sanhedrin; from him he 
was sent bound to Caiaphas the high-priest, as appears from 
ver. 24 (see the note there). Of his being sent to Annas 
the other evangelists say nothing, because nothing was done 
to Christ there, but all was performed at the palace of the 
high-priest ; there was Christ examined (ver. 19), and there 
Peter denied him (Matt. xxvi. 57. 69). 

7 Ver. 15. Kai 6 ἄλλος paSnris, And the other disciple.) 
He seems not to be John; for he being a Galilean as well 


404 


another disciple: that disciple was known unto the 
high priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of 
the high priest. 

16 But Peter stood at the door without. Then went 
out that other disciple, which was known unto the 
high priest, and spake unto her that kept the door, and 
brought in Peter. 

17 Then said the damsel that kept the door unto 
Peter, Art not thou also one of this man’s disciples? 
He saith, I am not. 

18 And the servants and officers stood there, who 
had made a fire of coals; for it 8 was cold: and they 
warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and 
warmed himself. 

19 4 The high priest then (Annas having sent Jesus 
to him) asked Jesus of his disciples, and of his doe- 
trine. 

20 Jesus answered him, I spake (my doctrine) open- 
ly to the world; I ever taught ({{) in ὃ the synagogue, 
and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; 
and in secret have I said nothing. 

21 Why (then) askest thou me (of my doctrine) 2 
ask (rather) them which heard me, what I have said 
unto them: behold, they know what I said. 

22 And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers 
which stood by struck Jesus (on the cheek) with the 
palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high 
priest so (rudely) ? 

23 Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear 


JOHN. 


witness of the evil: but if (7 have said) well, © why 
smitest thou me? 

24 (This he said to him,) Now (that) Annas ™ had 
sent him bound unto Caiaphas the high priest. 

25 And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself 
(with the servants). They said therefore unto him (see 
note on Matt. xxvi. 69), Art not thou also one of his 
disciples? He denied ἐΐ, and said, I am not. 

26 One of the servants of the high priest, being Ads 
kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith, Did not I see 
thee in the garden with him ? 

27 Peter then denied (7/) again: and immediately 
the cock crew. 

28 4 Then led they Jesus from Caiaphas unto the 
hall of judgment: and it was early; and (but) they 
themselves went not into the judgment hall (among 
the heathens), lest they should be defiled (by them) ; but 
(stayed without) that they might eat the passover (@. 6. 
the other paschal offerings, clean and undefiled ). 

29 Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What 
accusation bring ye against this man? 

30 They answered and said unto him, If he were 
not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up 
unto thee, 

31 Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and 
judge him according to your law. The Jews there- 
fore said unto him, 5 It is not lawful for us to put 
any man to death: (and this they said, not that they 
might not have done this after such license given, but) 


as Peter, they might have equally suspected him on that ac- 
count. 

8 Ver. 18. Ὅτι ψύχος ἥν, For it was cold.] The Jews, 
saith Dr. Lightfoot, testify, that there might be snow or 
frost at the passover; and Radulphus, that great dews 
fell then, which made the air cold till the sun had exhaled 
them. 

9 Ver. 20. I taught always in the synagogue, καὶ iv τῷ 
ices and in the temple.) This confutes them who say, Christ 
came not to Jerusalem, lest the Romans should suspect him 
of affecting a kingdom: for here he testifies that “he taught 
daily in the temple ;” after his first miracle done in Cana 
of Galilee, we find him going up to Jerusalem to keep the 
passover, where he abode at least eight days; and many see- 
ing the miracles that he did believed on him, v. 1; and vi. 4, 
he ascends again to the feast; so that we have reason to be- 
lieve he never declined that feast. He also went up to the 
feast of tabernacles (vii. 10), and preached to the people in 
the temple (ver. 13), and wrought such wonders that the 
Jews cried out, “ When Christ cometh, will he do more mi- 
racles than these” (ver. 31). This feast being ended, he goes 
to the mount of Olives, and returns the next day to preach 
in the temple (viii. 1,2). At the feast of dedication, we 
find him again walking in Solomon's porch (x. 23), and 
there declaring himself to be the Son of God. Ch. xi. he is 
at Bethany, but two miles distant from Jerusalem, where he 
raises Lazarus from the dead; and from Bethany he goes to 
Jerusalem, the people going before him, and crying, “ Ho- 
sanna to the Son of David.” 

10 Ver. 23. Why smitest thou me?] Hence we learn that 
we are not literally to understand the precept of turning the 
other cheek to him that smites us; for Christ himself did 
not this, but defends the innocency of his words; which also 
shows that to stand up in the defence of our own innocen- 
cy cannot be contrary to the Christian duties of patience 
and forgiveness. It is the observation of Suidas and Pha- 
vorinus, that dépw signifies τὸ éxdépw, to excoriate, deipw δὲ τὸ 
τύπτω, but dripw to smite ; but it is certain that dépw bears the 
sense of smiting in the New Testament, thus ἀέρα δέρων is 
“smiting of the air,” 1 Cor. ix. 26, εἰς πρόσωπον déprev, “ to 
smite on the face,” 2 Cor. xi. 20 (see Mark xii. 3, Acts xvi. 
37), and also in profane authors; so δέρεσϑαι καὶ δέρειν δ ἡμέ- 
pas, is “daily to beat,” or “to be beaten,” scholiast Aris- 
loph. in Vespis, p. 463, F. (See Examen Milli). 

M Ver. 24. ᾿Απέστειλεν οὖν, Annas had sent him bound to 
Caiaphas.] ’Azécrsi\ev, here the perfect is put for the plu- 
perfect tense ; so ἔδησεν αὐτὸν, “ He had bound him,” Matt. 


xiv. 3, and ver. 4, ἔλεγε, “He had said ;” so ἐρκάτησε, ἔδησε, 
ἔλεγε, “ He had apprehended and bound—had said,” Mark 
vi. 17, 18, and ver. 26, ἀπέκοψε, “he had cut off.” 

2 Ver. 28. They went not out into the judgment-hall.] 
Among the gentiles, whom they esteemed as unclean (Acts. 
x. 28), lest by touching them they should be unclean, as the 
law pronounces him that touches an unclean person (Numb. 
xix. 22), and so should be unfit to eat the chagigah, or pas- 
chal sacrifices, which began to be eaten on the fifteenth day, 
and being holy things, might not be eaten in their defilement. 
‘That these are also called the passover, and that the paschal 
lamb was eaten the evening before, and that there was no 
translation of it to another day, either by reason of the sab- 
bath, or the uncleanness of the congregation, see the ap- 
pendix to Mark xiv. and Dr. Lightfoot. 

13 Ver. 31. Ἡμῖν οὐκ ἔξεστιν ἀποκτεῖναι οὐδένα, It is not 
lawful for us to put any man to death.) The Jews say that 
the power of inflicting capital punishments upon offenders 
was taken from them by the Romans forty years before the 
destruction of their city and temple: so we read in the Jeru- 
salem Talmud, L. Sanhedrin, cap. 7, in that of Babylon, 
Sanhedr. fol. 41, in Aboda Zara, fol. 2, in Maimonides, Tr 
Sanhedr. cap. 14, sect. 18. And if it had remained with 
them at this time, it is supposed they would have been more 
speedy in cutting off our Saviour. But yet it seemeth evi- 
dent that the Jews still retained the power of judging and 
condemning those to death, who were Jews by nature and 
original, and by their laws deserved to die: for after they 
were reduced to a Roman province, this privilege, saith Jo- 
sephus,* was still granted to them, τοῖς πατρῴοις ἔϑεσι καὶ 
ἱεροῖς χρῆσϑαι, “to use the sacred institutions and customs 
derived to them from their fathers.” And it was granted to 
Hyrcanus their high-priest, that if any controversy arose, 
περὶ τῆς ᾿Ιουδαίων ἀγωγῆς, “ touching the discipline of the Jews 
κρίσιν γένεσϑαι παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ, the judgment of it should be re- 
ferred to him.’”+ Accordingly we find the high-priest and his 
council stoning Stephen, not jure zelotarum, “by the rage of 
zealots,” as some conceive, but according to the law, that the 
blasphemer should be stoned (Lev. xxiv. 16, Deut. xvii. 6, 
7), for he is brought before the high-priest and his council 
(Acts vi. 15, vii. 1), who were the proper judges in this case : 
witnesses are produced, who testify before them that he had 
spoken blasphemous words “ against the temple and the law, 
against Moses and against God” (Acts vi. 11. 13); these 
witnesses do also stone him first, according as the law re 


* Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 17, p. 487. ἡ P. 486. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


32 That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, 
which he spake, signifying what death he should die 
(viz. by being lifted up upon the cross). 

33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall 
again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou 
the King of the Jews? 

34 Jesus answered him, Sayest thou this thing 
(makest thou this inquiry) of thyself, (from a desire to 
know the truth?) or (because) did others tell it thee of 
me? (laying it to my charge as a crime, that I profess 
myself Messiah their King.) 

35 Pilate answered, Am I a Jew (that I should ask 
this for my own satisfaction? The men of) thine own 
nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto 
me: what hast thou done (¢o incense them thus against 
thee, and cause them to lay this crime to thy charge) ? 

36 Jesus answered, (True it is that Iam a king ; 
but) * my kingdom is not of this world (nor to be 
propagated by force of arms: for) if my kingdom were 
of this world, then would my servants fight, that I 


405 


should not be delivered to the Jews: but now (δὴ 
being not done, it appears that) is my kingdom not 
from hence. 

37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king 
then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that (which is 
true, for) 1 am a king. ΤῸ this end was 5 1 born, 

that I might reign over the house of Jacob for ever, 

uke i. 33,) and for this cause came I into the world, 
that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every 
one that is (a lover and believer) of the truth heareth 
my voice. 

38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And 
when he had said this, he went out again unto the 
Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault αἱ all. 

39 But ye have a custom, that I should release unto 
you one at the passover: will ye therefore that 1 
(should) release unto you the King of the Jews? 

40 Then cried they all again, saying, (Release to us) 
not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a 
robber. 


quired. Thus also Saul, armed with the power of the high- 
priests and elders, persecuted the Jewish Christians, ixpi 
θανάτοῦ, “unto death,” and led them bound to Jerusalem to 
be punished (Acts xxii. 4, 5), thus also would they have 
judged Paul after their own law (Acts xxiv. 6), and “ would 
have killed him” (Acts xxiii. 37), had not Lysias the chief 
captain rescued him from their hands; this, say they, he did 
by violence, i. e. by an invasion of their rights; this, saith 
he, I did, “knowing that he was a Roman,” and so would 
not have done it, had he been a Jew only. They therefore 
seem to say they could not do this in the case of Christ, 
because they had accused him before Pilate, not of crimes 
committed against their law, but of sedition, and aspiring to 
a kingdom in prejudice to Cesar and the Roman govern- 
ment, of which things it belonged to Pilate, not to them, to 
judge. But perhaps this matter may be compounded by 
reflecting on Ananus the high-priest, who killed James the 


brother of our Lord, and stoned many other Christians, ὡς 
παρανομήσαντας, “as being transgressors of the law;” this, 
saith Josephus, of περὶ τοὺς νόμους ἀκριβεὶς, “ they who best 
understood their laws disliked, saying that Ananus should 
not have called a council concerning life and death, without 
license from Albinus the Roman president ;” whence | infer, 
that the power of inflicting capital punishments, even upon 
the Jews converted to the Christian faith, was then so taken 
from them, that they could not ὀρθῶς, “ regularly” do it with- 
out leave first obtained from the Roman president; but with 
his leave they might inflict upon them any capital punish- 
ment denounced against malefactors by their law. And if 
it be here said that Pilate gave them leave to inflict this 
death on our Lord, by saying, “Take ye him, and crucify 


him” (xix. 6); to this the answer is, (1.) that Pilate had 
given them no such license when he spake these words; | 
(2.) that crucifixion was none of the kinds of death as- | 


signed by their law; and, (3.) that Pilate by these words 
seems not to authorize them to do this, but rather to say to 
them, Do it at your peril, for I judge him innocent (see the 
note there). 

14 Ver. 36. My kingdom is not of this world.) And so 
hath nothing to do with, or opposite to, the Roman govern- 
ment; it is not of human or mundane original, but from 
heaven, and so it meddles not with the affairs of this world ; 
it hath none of the pomp or splendour of the world; none 
to fight for it with any carnal weapons (Luke ix. 56) ; it exer- 
cises no dominion over men’s bodies, but their souls only. 
So the phrase ἐκ τοῦ κόσμον οὐκ εἶναι, “ not to be of this world,” 
signifies, John viii. 23, xv. 19, xvii. 14, especially when it is 
opposed to being ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς, “from the Father,” 1 John 
ii. 16, and ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, “from God,” 1 John iv.4—6. So 
when Domitian inquired of the kingdom of Christ, of what 
nature it was, and when and where it was to be set up; the 
nephews of that Judas who was the brother of our Lord, 
answered, It was* “not an earthly but a heavenly kingdom, 
to be set up at the end of the world.” 

15 Ver. 37. For this cause was I born, and for this cause 
came Linto the world.] Hence the Socinians infer that Christ 
was born before he came into the world: and that this latter 
phrase denotes only his entrance on his public ministry (iii. 
17. 19, ix. 39, xi. 27). But this follows not from these 
words, which only may import the same thing; viz. that 
Christ was born, and came into the world to this end, that he 
might bear witness to the truth (see the notes upon the 
places cited). 


* "Ore οὐ κοσμικὴ piv οὐδ' ἐπίγειος, οὐράνιος δὲ καὶ ἀγγελικὴ 
τυγχάνει ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τοῦ αἰῶνος γενησομένη" Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 
lib. iii. cap. 20. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


1 Tuen Pilate therefore (to satisfy the clamours of the 
Jews) took Jesus, and ' scourged him. 

2 And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and 
put it on his head, and they put on him a purple 
robe, 

3 And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they 
smote him with their hands. 

4 Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto 
them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may 


know that I find no fault in him (let it therefore suf- 
fice that I have scourged him). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX. 


1 Ver. 1. Kai ἐμαστίγωσε, And scourged him.] After the 
manner of the Romans, who chastised them first with whips 
who were to be crucified, though Pilate did this not with an 


5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of 
thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto 
them, Behold the man! (how despicable he is, and 
how ridiculous it is to think of his affecting a king- 
dom, or attempting any thing against Cxsar’s govern- 
ment, 

6 When the chief priests therefore and officers saw 


| him, they cried out, saying, Crucify Aim, crucify Aim. 


Pilate saith unto them, (/f ye will have it so) * take ye 
him, and crucify Aim: for I find no fault in him (and 
therefore cannot do it myself). 


intent to crucify him in whom he found no fault, but hoping 
that their rage might be satisfied with it (see note on Luke 
xxiil. 16). 

2 Ver. 6. Take ye him, and crucify him.] Pontius Pilate 
does not give them leave to do this, but rather saith, If you’ 


406 


7 The Jews answered him, We have a law, and 
5 by our law he ought to die (as being guilty of blas- 
phemy,) because he made himself the Son of God 
(John x. 33). 

8 1 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he 
was the more afraid (10 crucify him) ; 

9 And went again into the judgment hall, and saith 
unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him 
no answer. 

10 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not 
unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to ecru- 
cify thee, and have power to release thee ? 

11 Jesus answered, Thou (mayest have this power 
over malefactors and ordinary men, but thow) couldest 
have ‘no power at all against me (the Son of God, 
and wholly innocent), except (through the wise counsel 
of God appointing me to die for the salvation of man- 
kind) it were given (7. 6. permitted) thee from above 
(lo put me to death): therefore he that delivered me 
(the Son of God) unto thee (that I might be crucified as 
a malefactor) hath the greater sin (though thy sin in con- 
demning him in whom thou findest no fault at all cannot 
be little). 

12 And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release 
him: but the Jews cried out, saying, 5 ΤΕ thou let this 
man go, thou art not Cwsar’s friend: (for) whoso- 
ever maketh himself a king (he by so doing) speaketh 
against Cesar (as saying in effect he is not the rightful 
king over us). 

13 4 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he 
brought Jesus forth (of the judgment-hall), and sat 
down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the 
Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. 

14 And it was the preparation of the passover, (7. e. 
Friday in the paschal week, ver. 31. 42, see the appen- 
dix to Marx xiv.) and about the sixth hour: and he 
saith unto the Jews, Behold your King ! 

15 But they cried out, Away with Aim, away with 


JOHN. 


him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall 1 
crucify your King? The chief priests answered, δ We 
have no (person we own as our) king but Cesar. 

16 Then 7 delivered he him therefore unto them to 
be crucified. And they (i. 6. the soldiers) took Jesus, 
and led him away. 

17 And he bearing his cross (part of the way, see 
note on Luke xxili. 26) went forth into a place called 
the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew 
Golgotha : 

18 Where they crucified him, and two others with 
him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. 

19 4 And Pilate wrote a title, and put ἐξ on the cross. 
And the writing was, (his ts) Jesus or Nazareru 
THE Kine or THE Jews. 

20 This title then read many of the Jews: for the 
place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: 
and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, 

21 Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate. 
Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I 
am the King of the Jews. 

22 Pilate answered, What I have written I have 
written (ἡ, e. the inscription shall not be changed ). 

23 7 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified 
Jesus, took his (other) garments, and made four parts 
(out of them), to every soldier a part; and (they took) 
also Ais coat: now the coat was without seam, woven 
from the top throughout. 

24 They said therefore among themselves, ὃ Let us 
not rend it (it being all of one piece), but cast lots for 
it, whose it shall be: (and this was done) that the 
scripture might be fulfilled, which saith (Ps. xx. 19), 
They parted my raiment among them, and for my 
vesture they did cast lots. ‘These things therefore the 
soldiers did. 

25 4 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his 
mother, and his mother’s sister, ® Mary the wife of 
Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. 


will have it so, do it yourselves at your peril, for I cannot 
condemn a man without a fault (so Grotius). 

3 Ver. 7. By our law he ought to die, ὅτι ἑαυτὸν υἱὸν τοῦ 
Θεοῦ ἐποίησεν, because he made himself the Son of God.] The 
Jews could not here mean the law against false prophets, 
Deut. xviii. 20, partly because the reason here assigned doth 
not prove Christ a false prophet, partly because Christ nei- 
ther tempted them to worship himself, and much less to wor- 
ship false gods; nor did he give them any false sign ; which 
are the only reasons assigned in that chapter for putting the 
false prophet to death; how much more probable is it that 
they meant the law against blasphemy, Lev. xxiv. 16, be- 
cause they do not only seek to kill him as a blasphemer, for 
these very words, John v. 18, but to stone him, which was 
the very kind of death assigned by that law to the blas- 
phemer: see John x. 33. 36. Hence in the other evan- 
gelists they charge him with blasphemy, and judge him 
worthy of death for this confession, that “he was the Son of 
God,” Matt. xxvi. 64—66, Mark xiv. 61. 64, Luke xxii. 71, 

2, as judging that by this assertion, he being a man made 
himself equal with God. Schlictingius owns this, but then 
adds, that the Jews misunderstood and calumniated him in 
this inference, Christ meaning no more by this assertion, than 
that he was the true Messiah. But against this mitigation 
.of the import of the words there lies a plain objection, that 
though Christ was so much concerned for the honour of his 
Father, whose honour must be impaired by the advancement 
of the best of men to an equality with it; and though this 
blasphemy, if truly laid to his charge, was a sufficient evi- 
dence that he was not the Christ: yet neither in the fifth nor 
tenth of John, doth he ever plainly say he was not God, or 
that he never did intend to signify, by this expression, that he 
was equal with God, as is shown in the notes on those two 
places ; which yet, had he been only man, seems more neces- 
sary to have been done, for the honour of God, and for the 
removal of so just a prejudice against him, than to remove 
any other calumny they falsely charged upon him. 


4 Ver. 11. Οὐκ εἶχες ἐξουσίαν οὐδεμίαν κατ' ἐμοῦ, Thou could- 
est have no power against me, &c.| This seems to be a 
Jewish phrase, importing a power to take away the life of 
another; as when Saul saith to Doeg, 1 Sam. xxii. 18, “ Fall 
upon the pricsts’—« Exercise authority among them,” saith 
the Chaldee; and the same expression is there used when Da- 
vid bids his servant “fall on the Amalekite,” 2 Sam. i. 15, 
and when king Solomon “ sent Benaiah to fall upon Adoni- 
jah,” 1 Kings ii. 25, and upon Joab, ver. 29, 30, and upon 
Shimei (see the paraphrase here). 

5 Ver. 12. If thou lettest this man go, thou art not Cx- 
sar’s friend.| This chiefly moved Pilate, because, as Tacitus 
and Suetonius observe, Tiberius was apt to suspect the 
worst ; and the least crimes with him made a man guilty of 
death, if they related to the government: he durst not there- 
fore venture that this charge should be laid against him by 
the Jews. 

6 Ver, 15. We have no king but Cxsar.| By this how 
plainly do they condemn themselves as guilty of rebellion in 
all their attempts by war and tumults to free themselves 
from the government of Cesar, and own that the terrible 
destruction, which at last came upon them, was from them- 
selves ! 

7 Ver. 16. Then Pilate delivered him to them.] Not to 
the Jews, but to the soldiers, that he might be crucified, as 
he was, by them; though he, who was delivered to the sol- 
diers to be crucified only at their request, and to satisfy 
their restless clamours, that he might be crucified, may be 
well said to be delivered up to them who brought him to 
Pilate for this end, and prevailed with him thus to give 
him up. 

8 Ver. 24. Let us not rend it, but let us cast lots for it.] 
They divided his other garments into four parts, and then 
cast lots what part each of them should choose (Matt. xxvii. 
35, Mark xv. 24, Luke xxiii. 34), but they cast lots for has 
coat who should have the whole. 

9 Ver. 25, Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Κλωπᾶ, Mary the wife of Cleophas.] 


CHAPTER XX. 


26 When Jesus therefore saw his motlier, and the 
disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto 
his mother, © Woman, behold (him who is to take care 
of thee, as if he were) thy son! 

27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold (her whom 
thow must henceforth treat as) thy mother! And from 
that hour that disciple (St. John) took her unto his 
own home. 

28 After this, Jesus knowing that all things (e/se 
relating to his life on earth) were now accomplished, 
that the scripture might (in this also) be fulfilled, saith, 
I thirst. 

29 Now there was set (for the soldiers) a vessel full 
of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, 
and put ἐξ upon hyssop, and put ἐξ to his mouth. 

30 When Jesus therefore had received the vine- 
gar, he said, It (7. δ. my work on earth) is finished: 
and (then) he bowed his head, and gave ™ up the 

host. 
7 31 The Jews therefore, because it was the prepara- 
tion (ἡ. e. Friday), that the bodies should not remain 
upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath 
day was an high day,) (as being not a sabbath only, but 
the second day of unleavened bread, from whence they 
reckoned their sabbath till pentecost, and the day of 
presenting or waving the sheaf-offering, Lev. xxiii. 11. 
15, and so a triple festival,) besought Pilate that their 
legs might be broken, and that they might be taken 
away. 

32 Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of 
the first, and of the other (thief) which was crucified 
with him. 


Or, Alpheus ; υρῶτι being flexible into Alphai or Cleophi. 
Here it is to be rendered “ Alpheus,” for this Mary was the 
mother of James the less (Mark xv. 40), whose father was 
Alpheus (Matt. x. 3). : 

0 Ver. 26. Woman, behold thy son !] Hence it is gathered, 
that Joseph her husband was then dead ; whence Christ takes 
care she should not be destitute, and therefore charges his 
beloved disciple to treat her as his mother; and he accord- 
ingly takes her home to his own house. 

ἢ Ver. 30. Παρέδωκε τὸ πνεῦμα, He gave up his spirit.) 
Into his Father’s hands (Luke xxiii. 46). The Jews, saith 
Grotius, who believed a judgment to come, used this phrase 
to signify that the soul, leaving the body at the time of death, 
“returned to God that gave it” (Eccles. xii. 7), to receive its 
sentence from him. 

2 Ver. 33. They brake not his bones: Ver. 36. And this 
was done that the scripture might be fulfilled (which saith) 
ὀστοῦν οὐ συντριβήσεται αὐτοῦ, A Bone of him (or, it) shall not 
be broken.] This is usually referred to the command touch- 
ing the paschal lamb, “Thou shalt not break a bone of it,” 
Exod. xii. 46, Numb. ix. 12, where the Greek saith, ὀστοῦν 
οὐ συντρίψετε dx’ αὐτοῦ. But David being also a type of 
Christ, we may as probably refer this to the words, Ps. xxxiv. 
20, “He keepeth all their bones, ἕν ἐξ αὐτῶν οὐ συντριβήσεται, 


one of them shall not be broken :” that promise, which re- | 
spects all righteous persons, being more especially to be ful-_ 


filled in this “ Just One.” 


407 


33 But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he 
was dead already, they 12 brake not his legs : 

34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his 
side, and forthwith came there out 33 blood and water. 

35 And he that head by the cross, ver. 26) saw 
zt bare record, and his record is true: and he know- 
eth that he saith true, (and testifies it) that ye might 
believe. 

36 For these things were done (according to forego- 
ing prophecies concerning him), that the scripture should 
be fulfilled, (which saith, Ps, xxxiv. 20,) A bone of 
him shall not be broken. 

37 And again (that) ™ another scripture (might be 
fulfilled, which) saith (Zech. xii. 10), They shall look 
on him whom they pierced. 

38 § And after this Joseph of Arimathwa, being a 
disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of (fending) 
the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away 
the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He 
came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. 

39 And there came also Nicodemus, which at the 
first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture 
of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. 

40 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound 
it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of 
the Jews is to bury. 

41 Now in (or near) the place where he was cruci- 
fied there was a garden; and in the garden a new se- 
pulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. 

42 There laid they Jesus therefore because of the 
Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at 
hand. 


13 Ver. 34. Καὶ εὐθὺς ἐξῆλθεν αἷμα καὶ ὕδωρ, And forth- 
with came thereout blood and water.] The covenant of 
the old law was confirmed by blood mixed with water to 
keep it from congealing (Heb. ix. 19): so also was the co- 
venant of the new testament (1 John v. 6). Dr. Lightfoot 
farther saith, that, according to the tradition of the Jewish 
rabbins, when Moses smote the rock, there came forth first 
blood, and then water ; now “that rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 
x. 4). 

Ven 37. And again another scripture saith, They 
shall look upon him whom they had pierced.) The applica- 
tion of these words to Christ agrees with the opinion of the 
ancient Jews, who interpret Zech. xii. 10, of Messiah the 
son of David, as Moses Haddarson in Gen, xxviii., though 
R. Solomon Jarchi, R. David, and Abarbanel, refer it to the 
death of Messiah the son of Joseph. Hence also note, that 
what the Romans did by the instigation of the Jews, is fitly 
ascribed to the Jews themselves. 

5 Ver. 39. About a hundred pound weight.) Which was 
an indication, not only of the wealth, but also of the great 
affection of Nicodemus to the blessed Jesus: hence, also, 
they not only anoint him, as they commonly used to do 
others, but bury him with so great a mixture of spices as was 
done at the funerals of great men. So Jacob was embalmed 
after the Egyptian manner, Gen. ].2; Asa “with spices and 
sweet odours,” 2 Chron. xvi. 14. 


CHAPTER XX. 


1 Tue first day of the week cometh ! Mary Magda- 
lene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre 
(other women being with her), and seeth the stone taken 
away from the sepulchre. 

2 Then (seeing this) she (instantly) ? ramneth, and 


cometh (not to all the disciples, but) to Simon Peter, 
and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and 
saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out 
of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have 
laid him. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 


τ ον. 1. Mary Magdalene.] More women and more 
Maries came to the sepulchre (Luke xxiii. 55, xxiv. 1), but 
the other evangelists beginning still with her, St. John, by 


naming her who only spake, and only looked down into the 
sepulchre, left the rest to be understood. 

2 Ver. 2. She runneth before, and cometh to Simon Peter.] 
All the interpreters that I have met with say, that Mary ran 
not presently to Peter and John, but only after she had seen 


408 


3 Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, | 


and came to (-wards) the sepulchre. 

4 So they ran both together: and (but) the other 
disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepul- 
chre. 

5 And he stooping down, and looking in,’saw the 
linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. 

6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and 
went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes 
lie, 

7 And the napkin, that was about his head, not 
lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in 
a place by itself. 

8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came 
first to the sepulchre, and? he saw, and believed, 
(either the report of the women, or owr Lord’s resurrection, 
which they believed not before). 

9 For as yet‘ they knew not (the import of) the 
scripture, (which sazd) that he must rise again from 
the dead. 

10 Then the (¢wo) disciples went away again unto 
their own home. 

11 4 But Mary (returning with them) stood without 
at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped 
down, and looked into the sepulchre, 

12 And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one 


JOHN. 


at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body 
of Jesus had lain. 

13 And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest 
thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken 
awe my Lord, and I know not where they have laid 

im. 

14 And when she had thus said, she turned herself 
back, and saw Jesus standing, and (but she) knew 
not that it was Jesus. 

15 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest 
thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to 
be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have 
borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, 
and I will take him away. 

16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, 
and saith unto him, Rabboni ; which is to say, Master. 

17 Jesus saith unto her, * Touch me not (spend not 
now thy time in touching my body); for I am not yet 
ascended (I shall not presently ascend) to my Father: 
but go (first) to my brethren, and say unto them, I 
(am shortly to) ascend unto my Father, and your Fa- 
ther; ὃ ἀπά fo my God, and your God (to do for you 
the things of which I spake, xiv. 16). 

18 Mary Magdalene (then) came and told the dis- 
ciples that she had seen the Lord, and /hat he had 
spoken these things unto her. 


the Lord (ver. 18): and this they prove from Luke xxiv. 
10,11. But this cannot consist with the words of St. John, 
who saith, she came to Peter and John only; whereas St. 
Luke and the other evangelists say, she came to all the rest 
of the apostles (Matt. xxviii. 8, Mark xvi. 10). When she 
came to St. Peter and St. John she came alone, and com- 
plained to them that Christ’s body was taken away, not 
thinking that he was risen; so here: when she came to the 
rest of the apostles, she came with the message from the angel, 
and from Christ himself, that he was risen, Matt. xxviii. 7, 
8. 10, and was seen of her, Mark xvi. 10, 11, Luke xxiv. 23; 
so here, ver. 18: which plainly shows that all the other 
evangelists speak only of this second coming, mentioned 
ver. 18, 

Obj. St. Luke saith, “They came to the apostles ;” and 
then adds, xxiv. 12, that Peter ἔδραμεν ran to the sepul- 
chre. 

Ans. That word may be thus rendered, “ Peter had run, 
and stooping down had seen;” as if he should have said, 
The woman told the words of the angels to the disciples; 
and Peter also, to his admiration, had seen the body gone, 
and the linen clothes wrapped up by themselves: which, 
by the way, is an evidence that Christ’s body was not stolen 
away by his disciples, since they would have carried it 
away embalmed as it was, and not have stayed to wrap up 
the napkins. 

3 Ver. 8. And he saw, and believed.) Peter only saw and 
admired at what was done (Luke xxiv. 12), but St. John saw 
and believed, not the words of Mary, for we find not that 
either of them suspected her of falsehood, but the resur- 
rection of Jesus, or the words of Christ, “ After three days 
I will rise again :”’ this, John saith, was the reason of his 
faith, not the predictions of the Old Testament: for, as for 
the apostles, 

4Ver. 9. As yet they knew not the scripture (which saith) 
that he ought to rise from the dead.] So infirm was the faith, 
not only of the Jews in general in that age, but of the apostles 
also, that they believed not the two fundamental articles of the 
Christian faith, the death and resurrection of the Messiah: as 
for the Jews, a contrary tradition had obtained among them 
that their Messiah should not die (John xii. 34) : and though 
our Saviour spake oft to his disciples of his death and resur- 
rection, this tradition and thoughts of his temporal kingdom 
were so fixed in their heads, that his disciples “ understood 
not what he said: and this saying was concealed from them” 
(Mark ix. 32, Luke ix. 45, xviii. 34). Whence Christ, after 
his resurrection, upbraids them with their slowness to believe 
the scriptures, and shows them from them, that Christ “ought 
to suffer, and rise again the third day,” Luke xxiv. 25. 44, 
45. And hence it follows, that the Jews then understood 


not that any of their sacrifices were types of our Saviour’s 
passion, or availed to procure the remission of their sins on 
that account, and so could have no explicate faith in his 
blood, or expect justification by 11. Whence St. Paul in that 
whole chapter, Heb. xi., in which he speaks so much of the 
faith of the patriarchs, hath not the least intimation of the 
relation that it had to the death of the Messiah. 

δ Ver. 17. Touch me not ; for Iam not yet ascended to 
my Father.] Iwas once inclined from these words to think, 
that as the sacrifice was not only to be slain, but the blood 
was to be brought into the sanctuary, and there presented 
before God to obtain the remission of sins; so Christ here 
intimated, that having offered up his body to the death, he, 
to complete his priestly office, and procure the full pardon 
of our sins, was immediately to ascend into the heavenly 
sanctuary, to present there his blood before God: for why 
else doth he say, “ Hold, or detain, me not; for I have not 
yet ascended?” Why doth he add these words, “ Go, tell 
my disciples, I ascend?’ But finding that no evangelist 
ever speaks of any such immediate ascent after his resurrec- 
tion, and that no commentator, ancient or modern, ever 
thought of such a thing, I think it better to refer these words 
to what Christ said to his disciples not long before his pas- 
sion: for he had told them for their comfort, that he was 
shortly to go to his Father (xiv. 12), and that then he 
would enable them to do greater works than he himself had 
done ; and that this was just matter of their joy (ver. 28), 
and was more expedient for them than his presence with 
them (xvi. 7), because then he would send the Comforter, 
and whatsoever they should ask the Father in his name 
should be done to them (ver, 23), because the Father him- 
self loved them (ver. 26, 27). ‘Go,’ saith he, “ therefore, 
and tell my disciples, that now they shortly may expect 
these gracious promises should be made good to them by 
my ascent to the Father: and as for thee, thou needest not 
to be solicitous to touch or hold me now, thou wilt have 
time sufficient to converse with me, and to experiment the 
truth of my resurrection ; for I shall not immediately ascend, 
but stay some time with you here on earth, Against this it 
may be objected, that ἀναβέβηκα is an aorist, and 50 οὔπω 
ἀναβέβηκα should be rendered, “I have not yet ascended He 
not, “1 do, or I shall, not yet ascend.” But to this I an- 
swer, that grammarians observe, that the aorist is often put 
both for the present tense and the future (see Glassius de 
Verbo, lib. iii. tr. 3, can. 47): so is this word used in this 
very gospel; as when Christ saith, « He that believeth in me 
shall not come into condemnation, but μεταβέβηκεν shall pass 
from death to life” (John v. ip 

8 πρὸς Θεόν μου καὶ Θεὸν ὑμῶν, To my God, and your God.] 
Seeing Christ styles God his God, hence, say the Socinians, 


CHAPTER XX. 


19 4 Then the same (Lord’s) day at evening, being 
the first day of the week, when the 7 doors were shut 
where the disciples were assembled (and kept them- 
selves close) for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and (open- 
ing silently the doors) stood in the midst (of them), and 
saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 

20 And when he had so said, he shewed unto them 
his (pierced) hands and his side. Then were the dis- 
ciples glad, when they saw the Lord. 


21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto| 


you: Sas my Father hath sent me (lo preach in his 
name), even so send I you (to preach in my name). 

22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, 
and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost (to 
enable you fur this office) : 

23 9 Whose soever sins ye (thus commissionated, and 
thus assisted by the Holy Ghost, declaratively shall) remit, 
they are (and shall under the gospel-covenant be) remit- 
ted unto them; and whose soever sins ye (declaralively 
in your gospel shall) retain, they are (and shall in hea- 
ven be) retained. 


it is evident that Christ is not God; but from these words it 
only follows, that he was not God according to that natnre 
which ascended: thus “God, even thy God, hath anointed 
thee,” saith the psalmist of Christ; and yet he adds of the 
same person, “'l'hy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” Ps, 
xlv. (see note on Heb. i. 8, 9). 

7 Ver. 19. Τῶν ϑυρῶν κεκλεισμένων, The doors being shut.] 
Though it be an ancient opinion, that Christ made his body 
penetrate through the doors, yet it is both groundless and ab- 
surd, and contrary to the very design of Christ in coming to 
them. It is groundless: for why might not he, by his power, 
secretly open the doors, his disciples not perceiving it, as the 
angel opened the prison-doors and gates to let out Peter? 
(Acts xii. 10.) It is absurd: for since Christ rose in that 
natural body, which was crucified and laid in the grave, phi- 
losophy informs us that such a body could not penetrate 
through another more solid body. And to this agree those 
words of Cyril of Alexandria, ἀδύνατον σῶμα διὰ σώματος 
διήκειν μὴ τέμνον καὶ τεμνόμενον, “Tt is impossible that one 
body should go through another without cutting it, or being 
cut.” And, thirdly, this fancy destroys not only the end of 
Chirst’s then coming to them, but of all that he had said and 
done to convince them it was the same body that was cru- 
cified, in which he appeared to them: when he came the 
first time, his disciples were troubled, supposing they had 
seen a spirit; now, to convince them of the contrary, Christ 
saith, “ See my hands and my feet, that it is even I; handle 
me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see 
me have :” his second appearance, when the doors were shut, 
was to convince Thomas of the truth of the resurrection of 
his body ; and this he does, by calling him to put his finger 
into his pierced hands, and his hands into his pierced side ; 
and yet this supposed penetration through the doors de- 
stroys both these arguments; it being as certain, that flesh 
and bones cannot penetrate through a door, as that a spirit 
hath not flesh and bones; and that his body must have 
passed through the doors after the manner of a spirit, as 
that it afterward appeared after the manner of a body; and 
that the same power which made a natural body penetrate 
through a door, could make a phantasm or aerial body ap- 
pear like flesh and bone to the touch, and seem to have the 
marks and prints of a crucified body: so that unless our Sa- 
viour designed to invalidate the strength of what he said 
and did to convince them of the truth of his resurrection, 
he could not at the same time do a thing known to them, 
which did evacuate the force of all his proofs. Nor would 
the evangelist have twice recorded this circumstance, when 
speaking of the resurrection, had he imagined the words 
bore such a sense, as turned his body into a spirit, and mi- 
nistered occasion to all that read it, to suspect the strength 
of any of these arguments to confirm this fundamental ar- 
ticle. 

8 Ver. 21. As my Father hath sent me, so send I you.) 
Not only to preach in my name, as I did in his, but as he 
sending me baptized me with the Holy Ghost, and so anoint- 

Vou. [V.—52 


409 


24 { But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didy- 
| mus, was not with them when Jesus came. 
25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We 
| have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except 
I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put 
my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my 
hand into. his side, Pill not believe. 

26 And after eight days (ἡ. e. the next Lord’s-day) 
again his disciples were within, and Thomas with 
them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and 
stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. 

27 ‘Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, 
and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and 
thrust 7? into my side: and be not faithless, but believing 

28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, (Dost 
thou know what I said in thy absence? And hast thou 
raised thyself from the dead? Thou art) my Lord and 
my God. 

29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou 
hast seen me, thou hast believed : (but more) " blessed 
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. 


ed me to my office (Luke iv. 18, John x. 36), so will I send 
you, baptizing you also with the Holy Ghost sent down 
from heaven (Luke xxiv. 49), and so anoint you also for 
your office (2 Cor. i. 21, 22) ; and in testimony of this, I say 
to you now, “receive the Holy Ghost” (ver. 22), and will 
soon after my ascension send him more plentifully down 
upon you. 

9 Ver. 23. Whose sins ye do remit, they are remitted,— 
retain, &c.] Christ sent them to preach repentance and re- 
mission of sins in his name, to Jew and gentile, Luke xxiv. 
47, and here he adds, that whose soever sins they, thus as- 
sisted by the Holy Ghost, declared remitted by virtue of the 
gospel-covenant, ratified in his blood shed for the remission 
of sins, should be remitted: and hence they preached re- 
mission of sins to all that believed in his name, and justifica- 
tion or exemption from the guilt of them (Acts ii. 38, xiii. 
38, 39). And whose sins soever you retain, declaring to 
them that according to the tenor of the gospel they still lie 
under the guilt of them, they shall be retained; and hence 
they declared to all that believed not on him, or lived not 
according to his laws, and sought not for justification by faith 
in his blood, that they were yet in their sins (1 Cor. xv. 17), 
and could not be justified (Rom. ix. 32, x. 4). 

10 Ver. 28. 'O Κύριός pov, καὶ ὃ Θεύς pov, And Thomas an- 
swered and said to him, My Lord and my God.) Here, 

First, Let it be noted from Woltzogenius the Socinian, 
that they are not to be hearkened to, who say, Thomas spake 
these words not to Christ, but by way of admiration to God 
the Father; for the apostle could not say that “Thomas 
answered,” and much less that he “answered and said to 
him,” unless he had directed his words to him who said unto 
him in the precedent verse, “ Be not faithless, but believe :” 
and if he said to him, “ Thou art my Lord and my God,” 
he must acknowledge him as fully and as truly to be his God 
as his Lord. And, 

Secondly, Since Thomas had learned from the law, there 
was one God alone, he could not own Christ as another God, 
but as the same in essence with him. Note, 

Thirdly, That though Christ was still concerned for the 
honour of the Father, he doth not reprehend Thomas for 
thus owning him as his God, but doth attest that he be- 
lieved aright concerning him, which shows that he did not 
mistake in owning the divinity of Christ. And whereas 
Woltzogenius here notes, that “ Christ was never called God 
before his resurrection,’ when he was to be worshipped as a 
divine Lord; as it is evident that his resurrection could not 
make him God, if he had been a creature only, nor justify 
the worship of a creature as God, so is the reason of this 
evident, because he acted as a prophet whilst he was on earth, 
speaking still in his Father’s name, and as one sent from 
him, it being essential to a prophet to speak in the name of 
him whose prophet he is (see the preface to this gospel, and 
the note on Mark xiii. 32). 

1 Ver. 29. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet 
have believed.] For faith is ΠΕ praiseworthy, upon this ac- 

2 


410 


30 4 And many other signs truly did Jesus in the 
presence of his disciples, which are not written in this 
book: 

31 But these are written, that ye might ® believe 


JOHN. 


that Jesus is the Christ, the (only-begotten) Son of 
God; and that believing ye might have life through 
his name. 


count, that we believe what we see with our eyes, and there- 
fore can no longer doubt of; but on this account, that we 
yield to arguments highly probable, and against which we 
have nothing solid to object, and such evidence as wise men 
consent to, and act by, in the most important concernments 
of this present life; because this shows a greater affection 
to the objects of our faith, and a better inclination to obey 
the will of God. 

2 Ver. 31. But these things were written, that ye might 
believe that Jesus is the Christ.] Hence the Socinians argue, 
that they must err who think it was the intendment of this 
gospel to show that Jesus Christ was the Word of God, be- 
gotten of the Father before all worlds, and therefore a divine 
person; whereas the apostle here plainly speaks only of the 
miracles wrought by Christ, which we acknowledged to be 


done to prove him the Messiah promised to the Jews, and 
that prophet which was to come into the world, as St. John 
here speaks; but yet this hinders not his being God, or the 
Word of God, coexistent with the Father before all worlds. 
Moreover, the apostle adds, these things were done to prove 
he was “the Son of God:’ now this even the Jews inter- 
preted as a form of words by which Christ made himself 
equal with God (see the notes on x. 33, xix. 7). Some also 
think that St. John ended here his gospel, and that the fol- 
lowing chapter was written by some other hands; but these 


words give no ground for this imagination, since other apos- 


tles, after they had seemed to have concluded their epistles, 
add some new matter, as may be seen in the conclusions of 
the epistles to the Romans and to the Hebrews (see the 
note on xxi. 24), 


CHAPTER XXI. 


1 | Arter these things Jesus shewed himself again 
to the (greatest part of the) disciples at the sea of 'Tibe- 
Tias; and on this wise shewed he himself. 

2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas 
ealled Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, 
and the sons of Zebedee, and two other (in all seven) 
of his disciples. 

3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I (wil) go a fish- 
ing. They say unto him, We also (wi/l) go with 
thee. They (then) went forth, and entered into a ship 
immediately ; * and that night they caught nothing. 

4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus 
stood on the shore: but the disciples (then) knew not 
that it was Jesus (who stood there). 

5 Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye 
any meat? ‘They answered him, No. 

6 And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right 
side of the ship, and ye shall find (fishes). They cast 
therefore (the net as he had said), and now (the draught 
was so great, that) they were not (well) able to draw 
it (along) for the multitude of fishes (enclosed in the 
net). 

7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith 
unto Peter, It is the Lord (Jesus who hath done this). 
Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, 
he girt Azs ὃ fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked) 


(to his shirt), and did cast himself into the sea (to swim 
Jirst to Jesus). 

8 And the other disciples came in a little ship; 
(for they were not far from land, but as it were two 
hundred cubits,) dragging the net with (the) fishes 
in it. 

: 9 And) As soon then as they were come to land, 
they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, 
and bread (by it, all provided miraculously by Christ). 

10 Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which 
ye have now caught. 

11 Simon Peter went up (into the boat), and drew 
the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and 
fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet 
was not the net broken. 

12 Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And 
none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? 
(as) knowing that it was the Lord. 

13 4 Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth 
them, and fish likewise. 

14 This is now the third time that Jesus shewed 
himself to (the body of) his disciples, after that he 
was risen from the dead. 

15 1 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon 
Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, 5 lovest thou me more 
than these (occupations thou art now employed in)? 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI. 


1 Ver. 1. Mera ταῦτα, After these things.] 1. 6. After his 
first apparition, mentioned xx. 20, and his second, mentioned 
ver. 26, he appeared now τρίτον, “ the third time,” ver. 14. 

2 Ver. 3. In that night they caught nothing. Christ he- 
ing then absent; but when he is present, they, having his 
command, enclose a very great multitude of fishes, to teach 
them, that though in preaching of the gospel they were in- 
sufficient to do any thing of themselves (2. Cor, iii. 5) ; yet, 
having his command to go and teach all nations, and the 
promise of his presence with them, they should be wonder- 
fully successful in bringing many to the faith. It is also 
very likely they went then a fishing to supply their own 
want of necessaries; Christ therefore, by this draught of 
fishes, not only works a miracle to confirm them in the be- 
lief of his divine power, but to inform them also, that while 
they were employed in doing what he did command them, 
they should never want what was convenient for them; and 
as, by miraculously providing bread and fish broiling on the 
fire (ver. 9), he showed his ability to do so, so by this nu- 
therous draught of fishes he supplied them with necessaries 


till the Holy Ghost should come upon them to fit them for 
their ministry. 


3. Ver. 7. He girt about him, τὸν ἐπενδύτην, his fisher’s 
coat, ἦν γὰρ γυμνὸς, for he was naked.) Suidas and Phavo- 
rinus say éxevdirns 15 ἱμάτιον τὸ ἐσώτατον, “ the inner garment,” 
but Julius Pollux says it was χιτὼν 6 ἔξωθεν, “the outward 
coat ;” the context here seems to make it most probable it 
was his inward garment next his shirt: for “ he was naked,” 
signifies he only had his shirt on; for in this sense only Saul 
lay naked among the prophets (1 Sam. xix. 24), and David 
was naked when he danced before the ark (2 Sam. vi. 20), 
i.e. he had put off his royal robe (see the note on Mark 
xiv. 51, see also Job xxii. 6, xxiv. 7, Isa. xx. 2, 3, 1 Cor. 
iv. 11). 

4 We. 13. Jesus taketh bread, and giveth to them, and 
Jish likewise.) As the father of the family he both makes 
provision for them, and gives to every man his portion: 
that he himself did eat is not said; yet since St. Peter saith, 
they “did eat and drink with him after his resurrection” 

Acts x. 41), and St. Luke saith that “he did eat before 
them” (Luke xxiv. 42, 43), as he did that for confirmation 
of his resurrection, so is it probable he might eat here for the 
same end. 

5 Ver. 15. Lovest thow me, πλεῖον τούτων, more than 
these 2] Most interpreters think Christ asketh whether St. 
Peter loved him more than the other disciples; but as Peter 


᾽ 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙ. 


He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest ‘that I 
love thee. He saith unto him, (Leave then these things 
and employments, and) feed my lambs (my church, 
shortly to be set up by the new converts both of Jews and 


genti τ 

16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, 
son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him 
(again), Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. 

e saith unto him, Feed my sheep (é. δ. my church 
thus gathered ). 

17 He saith unto him the third time (that his three- 
fold denial of him before the unbelievers might be 
atoned for by a threefold confession of his affection to 
him before his disciples), Simon, son of Jonas, lovest 
thou me? Peter was grieyed because he said unto 
him the third time, Lovest thon me? And he said 
unto him, ® Lord, thou knowest all things ; (and there- 
{τὸ thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto 
him, Feed my sheep. 

18 Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast 
young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither 
thou wouldest (without restraint): but when thou 
shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and 
another shall gird thee (/o the pillar where thou shalt 
be scourged), and (then) carry thee (lo the cross) 
whither (according to thy natural desires) thou wouldest 
not (Ue). 


411 


19 This spake he (Jesus), signif ying by what (kind 
of ) death he should glorify God (by this apenas of 
the Christian faith). And when he had spoken this, he 
(rose up and walked, and) saith unto him, Follow me 

to intimate to him that he was to follow him in that 
ind of death he had ha f 3 

20 Then Peter (who followed him), turning (Ais 
head) about, seeth (St. John) the disciple whom Jesus 
loved following (also ; viz.) which also leaned on his 
breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that be- 
trayeth thee ? (John xiil. 25.) 

21 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and (Gr. 
but) what shall this man do? (how shall it fare with 
him? 

OF Saose saith unto him, ὙΠῸ I will that he tarry 
till I come, what is fhat to thee? follow thou me. 

23 Then went this saying abroad among the breth- 
ren (who aflerward understood that this was spoken of his 
departure from this life), that that disciple should not 
die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; 
but, If I will that he tarry till 1 come (in judgment 
against Jerusalem, to destroy it by the Romans), what is 
thal to thee? 

24 ® This is the disciple which testifieth of these 
things, and wrote these things: and we know (sure I 
am) that his testimony is true. 

25 And there are also many other things which 


could not answer to this question unless he knew their hearts, 
so could he not show he did this by feeding Christ’s sheep, 
unless he fed them more than they. It is therefore observa- 
ble, that after Christ had given them a commission to preach 
the gospel (John xx. 21, 22), Peter betakes himself to his 
fishing trade; Christ therefore here inquires whether he 
loved him more than these nets and fisher-boats, about which 
he was now employed, and saith, that if indeed he did so, 
he should leave them, and wholly employ himself in feeding 
his sheep and lambs. Some of the fathers add, that Christ 
makes this inquiry thrice, that Peter by a threefold confes- 
sion might atone for his threefold denial. They who hence 
argue for the supremacy of Peter above the rest of the apos- 
tles, are vain in their imaginations; for if by these words 
Christ required Peter to feed all his sheep and lambs, it is 
certain he was wanting in his duty; for he never exercised 
one act of supremacy over the rest of the apostles, but, being 
sent by them, obeyed (Acts viii. 14), and, being reproved by 
St. Paul, he held his peace, and was so far from feeding all 
Christ's sheep, that he never fed any of the province of St. 
Paul. Did he feed those apostles on whom the same Holy 
Ghost fell, who had the same commission, given at the same 
time, and in the same words, to preach the gospel to all na- 
tions, or to every creature? If not, they were not in the num- 
ber of the sheep, whom Peter is here bid to feed : or did all 
other pastors receive commission from St. Peter to feed 
Christ’s sheep? Did St. Paul, who doth so solemnly de- 
elare he had not his commission “from man, neither by 
man?” (Gal. i.1.) Did any of the bishops of Asia? No: 
St. Paul assures us the Holy Ghost had made them over- 
seers of the flock of Christ (Acts xx. 28). No, saith Pseudo- 
Ambrosius,* not Peter only, sed nos cum eo, “ but we with 
him have received commission to feed Christ’s sheep ;” and 
what is here said to Peter, “ Feed my sheep,” ad omnes di- 
citur, is, saith St. Austin,t said to all; and, saith St. Basil,+ 
Christ here gave τὴν tony ἐξουσίαν πᾶσι τοῖς ἐφεξῆς ποιμέσι καὶ 
διδασκάλοις, “the same power to all ensuing pastors and 
teachers.” 

6 Ver. 17. Lord, σὺ παντα οἶδας, thou knowest all things.] 
Schlictingius here saith, that Christ is here said to know all 
things, because he knew many things. But this destroys St. 
Peter’s argument; for it follows not that Christ knew the 
sincerity of St. Peter’s heart, and his affection towards him, 
unless he knew the secrets of all hearts. This therefore is 
an argument that Christ was truly God, it being God alone 
to whom the secrets of all hearts lie open (1 Kings viii. 39). 


* De Sacerd. cap. 2. 


+ De Agone Christi, cap. 30. 
+ Constit. Mon, cap. 22. 


7 Ver. 22. If Iwill that he stay ἔως ἔρχομαι, till I come.) 
viz. To the destruction of Jerusalem, after which this apos- 
tle lived a long time, and he alone did so, the other apostles 
being dead before; of this coming the prophet Joel speaks, 
saying, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, πρὶν ἐλθεῖν, 
before the great and terrible day of the Lord cometh,” Joel 
ij. 31 (see ver. 1); so Mal. iii. 1, 2, idod ἔρχεται, “ Behold, he 
cometh—but who shall abide the day of his coming?” and, 
iv. 1, ἰδοὺ ἔρχεται ἡμέρα Κυρίον, “ Behold, the day of the Lord 
cometh, which burneth as a furnace ;” and, ver. 6, μὴ ἐλθὼν, 
« Lest coming he smite the land with acurse.” In the New 
Testament we have frequent mention of this “ coming” of 
our Lord: for when our Lord spake of the destruction of the 
temple, the apostles ask, “ What is the sign τῆς σῆς παρουσίας, 
“of thy coming,” Matt. xxiv. 3, and he tells them that ra- 
ρουσία, “the coming of the Son of man will be as lightning,” 
ver. 27, and then should they see “the Son of man coming 
in the clouds of heaven,” ver. 30, that “as it was in the 
days of Noe, so should it be at the coming of the Son of man,” 
ver. 37. 39, bidding them watch, “because they know not 
when their Lord cometh,” ver. 42. 44 (see Matt. xvi. 28, 
Heb. χ. 27, James v. 9, and the notes there, and on 2 Thess. 
ii. 1). And note here, that whereas it is said, that the scrip- 
ture mentions only two comings of our Lord, one when he 
came and lived on earth, the other at the day of judgment, 
when “ he shall come ἐκ δευτέρου, a second time without sin 
unto salvation” (Heb. ix. 20), this is indeed no objection 
against this intermediate advent so frequently and plainly men- 
tioned in the New Testament; this being not a personal ad- 
vent, by a descent of Christ from heaven, but only a coming of 
our Lord by the Roman army, and by signs from heaven, and in 
the clouds of their approaching ruin. Wonderful here are the 
words of Theophylact ; for he not only saith, that some held 
that John then lived, and wasto do so till the coming of 
antichrist, when he, with Elias, was to preach Christ, and to 
be slain by antichrist, but adds this as the import of Christ’s 
words, “ What if I will that he tarry till I come,” that he 
should remain in Galilee till the destruction of Jerusalem , 
as, saith he, John did till the coming of Vespasian, and only 
departed when Jerusalem was to be taken. 

8 Ver. 24. This is the disciple who testifies of these things, 
and wrote these things, καὶ οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀληθῆς ἔστιν ἡ μαρτυρία 
αὐτοῦ, and we know that his testimony is true.) Here some 
tell us that this chapter was writ by many, and therefore not 
by St. John, and this they conclude from the word οἴδαμεν, 
« we know,” but without ground: for Dr. Lightfoot here ob- 
serves, that “we know,” in the Chaldee dialect, is often used 
of one. So Mary Magdalene saith of herself, «They have 
taken the Lord out of the sepulchre, καὶ οὐκ οἴδαμεν, and we 


412 


Jesus did, the which, if they ‘should be written 
every one, I 9 suppose that even the world itself 
could not contain the books that should be writ- 


know not where they have laid him:” so St. Paul often, οἵ- 
ὅαμεν yap, “ For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am 
carnal,” 1 Thess. ii. 18, ἠθελήσαμεν----ἐγὼ piv Παῦλος, “ We 
would have come to you, I Paul:” so this apostle saith of 
himself, ἡμεῖς μαρτυροῦμεν, “ We testify,’ Eph. iii. 12, and 
that here it is only one that speaketh, is demonstrated from 
the following word, οἶμαι, “1 suppose.” Nay, even these words 
show that all the preceding words of this chapter were writ 
by this disciple, and therefore were not written by the Asiatic 
bishops: and therefore Theophylact here saith περὶ ἐμαυτοῦ 
λέγω ὅτι ἀληθεύω. 

9 Ver. 25. Οὐδὲ αὐτὸν οἶμαι τὸν κόσμον χωρῆσαι τὰ γραφόμενα 
βιβλία, I suppose the world itself would not contain the 
books which should be written.] Here most interpreters say 
the apostle’s words contain a great hyperbole, with a cata- 
chresis, but Origen avoids them both, declaring that the 


apostle saith, the world would not receive the books written, | 


A SERMON 


ten (¢. 6. they would be so many that they would 
seem incredible to the world to be done by one man) 
Amen. 


not for the multitude of the books, but for the greatness of 
the works recorded in them.* So the word is used by this 
evangelist, introducing Christ saying to the Jews, “ My word 
οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν, “is not received by you:” so Eusebius saith, 
that the men of former ages οὐκ ἦν πῶ χωρεῖν, “were not 
able to receive Christ’s doctrine” (lib. i. cap. 1, p. 8): so 
Christ saith, οὐ πάντες χωρεῖν, “ All men cannot receive this 
saying” (Matt. xix. 11): and Philo saith,t “There are very 
many things in the world, ἃ διὰ μέγεθος ἀνθρώπινος λογισμὸς οὐ 
χωρεῖ, Which for their greatness human reason cannot com- 
prehend.” See many other examples of this sense of the 
word in Stephanus, and in Grotius on Matt. xix. 11. 


* Τὸ yap μὴ χωρεῖν τὸν κόσμον τὰ γραφόμενα βιβλία οὐ διὰ τὸ 
πλῆϑος τῶν γραμμάτων, ὡς τίνες ἐνδεκτέαν, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ μέγεϑος τῶν 
πραγμάτων. Philoc. cap. 15, p. 46. 

{ De Mundo, p. 889. 


ἈΠ Ree 


ON JOHN VII. 47—49, 


“« Are ye also deceived ? 


Have any of the rulers, or of the pharisees, believed on him? But this people, who 


knoweth not the law, is accursed.” 


§. 1. The miracles of our blessed Saviour, by which his 
doctrine was confirmed, were so exceeding many, and ex- 
ceeding great, that they prevailed on those plain-hearted 
people who beheld them, to believe that he who wrought 
them was indeed the Christ: for “many of the people be- 
lieved on him, saying, When Christ cometh, will he do more 
miracles than these” (ver. 31). ‘These apprehensions of the 
vulgar did so alarm the chief priests and pharisees, who saw 
their interest, authority, and credit with the people, must 
decline as fast as that of Christ’s prevailed, that they forth- 
with dispatched their officers to take him, and bring him to 
them (ver. 32). These officers, when they had heard the 
gracious words which issued from the mouth of Christ, 
were themselves taken by him: they, who were sent to bring 
Christ to the priests and pharisees, were themselves brought 
to Christ; and so these converts neglect to do the office of 
the high-priest’s sergeants: and being asked the reason why 
they had not brought Christ, they boldly answer, that they 
had heard such gracious and heavenly words proceeding 
from him, as never man before him spake; and therefore 
could not think it fit to apprehend so excellent a person as 
he was. The pharisees, hearing this answer, do presently 
conclude, their officers must be deceived in these kind 
thoughts of Christ, and offer this, as they supposed, con- 
vincing argument to prove it; viz. that though the giddy 
multitude, who had no knowledge of the law, and therefore no 
capacity to understand the mind of God contained in it, 
might be inclined to think that Jesus was indeed the Christ : 
yet, since the rulers of the church, the Sanhedrin, seeing the 
doctors and expounders of the law, the scribes and pharisees 
believed not on him, but did unanimously reject him as a 
vile impostor, they must be certainly deceived, who appre- 
hended otherwise concerning him ; because they followed the 
verdict of the ignorant and giddy multitude, in opposition to 
the better judgments and the mature deliberations of their 
church guides and learned clerks. 

Now amongst all the arguments by which the emissaries 
of the church of Rome endeavour to beguile unstable souls, 
and beget in them a suspicion that they have been seduced 
from the church, none is more plausible than this, which by 
the pharisees is here laid down. I therefore shall endea- 
vour, 

1. To propound the argument, which is here urged by the 
pharisces to prove our Jesus could not be the true Messiah, 
in its full strength and vigour. And, 


2. To show that what the papists do produce to prove 
that protestants must be deceived, is exactly parallel to what 
the pharisees did, or might, produce against our Saviour; 
and the same arguments might with equal reason have been 
urged by the unbelieving Jews against our Lord’s disciples, 
and those who laid the first foundations of, and became 
early converts to, the Christian faith, as they are utged 
by the papists against our departure from the church of 
Rome. : 

§. 2. Now the argument contained in the text is this, viz. 
You must be certainly deceived if you believe that Jesus is 
the Christ ; because you do, by entertaining this persuasion, 
contradict the judgment of your church guides, which God 
hath set over you. For they have frequently assembled for 
the determination of this grand debate, “ Whether this Je- 
sus was the Messiah promised to the Jews, or not,” and they 
have constantly determined that he was not the Christ ; and 
have unanimously concluded that he deserved to be punished 
as a vile impostor, and that all who did confess that he was 
the Christ should be excommunicated. In an assembly 
consisting of chief priests and pharisees, they positively de- 
clare that Christ could be no prophet, because he was a Ga- 
lilean (John vii. 41, 42): this all, say they, who search the 
scriptures, may plainly see (ver. 52). Moreover, they de- 
termine in my text, that all, who so esteemed him, were 
themselves deceived, and that they lay exposed to this delu- 
sion for want of knowledge in the law (ver. 47—49). In 
the ninth chapter of St. John, ver. 16, the pharisees again 
declare, that “this man could not be of God, because he did 
not keep the sabbath.” Moreover, these pharisees, and other 
tulers of the church, συνετέθειντο, “determined and agreed 
together, that whosoever did confess that Jesus was the Christ 
should suffer excommunication” (John ix. 22, xii. 42). They 
therefore thought themselves infallibly certain (if excommu- 
nication be, as R. H.* informs us, an evidence of a claim 
to be infallible), that Christ was not the true Messiah. Else- 
where the scribes and pharisees do positively conclude that 
Christ did only “cast out devils through Beelzebub” (Mark 
iii. 22). After some days they again call a council, συνέ- 
ὅριον συνήγαγον, and there determined that it was fit that Christ 
should die (John xi. 47. 50. 53) : this the high-priest declares, 
and all the pharisees and the chief priests agree to execute 
(Luke xxii. 66). A full assembly, consisting of the high- 


* Disc. ch. 4, §. 64, 65. 69, 70 


ON JOHN VII. 47—49. 


priest, and all the chief priests, presbyters, and scribes, 
Christ being brought before their council, do with one voice 
declare, that he was worthy to die as a blasphemer, and also 
that “ by their law he ought to die, because he made himself 
the Son of God.” After his death, the chief priests and 
the pharisees, with one consent, pronounce him a deceiver 
(Matt. xxvii. 63). When the disciples began to witness that 
he was risen from the dead, the high-priests, rulers, elders, 
scribes, and all the kindred of the high-priest, assemble at 
Jerusalem, and strictly do command them “not to speak at 
all, nor teach, in the name of Jesus” (Acts iv. 6.18). Soon 
after, the high-priest, the Sanhedrin, and all the elders of Is- 
rael, being met in council, repeat the same command, and 
chastise the apostles for their disobedience to it (Acts v. 40). 
If therefore the decrees of many councils, consisting of the 
guides of the whole Jewish church, may be esteemed sufhi- 
cient to decide a controversy, it must be certain that Jesus 
Christ was not the true Messiah, promised to the Jews, but a 
deceiver and blasphemer. Now as a Romanist,* having 
produced five provincial and two general councils, falsely so 
called, for that portentous doctrine of transubstantiation, 
saith, “If the decrees of so many synods, so often weighing 
the adversaries’ reasons and evidences, were not sufficient for 
settling such a point, at least as to the obedience of future 
silence, and noncontradiction, and as to suffering the church 
to enjoy her peace, what can hereafter be sufficient? Or can 
we ever hope that any controversy shall be finally determined 
or ended by any future council, if this (of the Messiah) is 
not by these forepast? Can there be any ground here to 
question the integrity or lawful proceedings of so many coun- 
cils, all concurring in the same judgment (for a corporal pre- 
sence, saith the Romanist, that Christ was a deceiver, saith 
the Jew)? Or could there be a new light in this point attain- 
able in those times (by the private person, or Christian con- 
vert), which those (guides of the Jewish church, who 
condemned your Jesus) were not capable, or had no no- 
tice of ?” 

2. They who so often and so unanimously condemn your 
Saviour and his doctrine, saith the Jew, were the church 
guides, by God appointed to “teach the children of Israel 
all the statutes which the Lord had spoken to them by the 


hand of Moses, to teach Jacob his judgments, and Israel |_ 


his law,” and by whose lips the knowledge of it was to be 
preserved (Lev. x. 11, Deut. xxxiii. 10). They were the 
men who are in scripture styled the “messengers (or the 
ambassadors) of the Lord of hosts” (Mal. ii. 7) ; that is, 
the men appointed by him to declare his message to the peo- 
ple. ‘They were the men ordained to “ minister before the 
Lord in every controversial matter,’ men who were “ set for 
the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies” (Deut. 
xvii, 8. 12, 2 Chron. xix. 8). “In controversy they shall 
stand in judgment (saith the Lord), and by their word shall 
every controversy be tried” (Deut. xxi. 5, xvii. 12, Ezek. 
xliv. 24). Wherefore, to act in opposition to the judgment 
of these guides must be to act presumptuously, as God him- 
self declares, to despise the verdict of God’s messengers, and, 
in a controversial matter of the highest moment, to reject 
the sentence of those men who are by God ordained to de- 
fine it, and by whose words, according to his ordinance, it 
must be tried. 

3. As for the common people, who in this matter did 
oppose their private judgments to the decrees of their 
church guides, not acquiescing in their conciliar determina- 
tions, that your Jesus was not the true Messiah, they, saith 
the Jew, must act against that rule, which both the law of 
Moses and the prophets have prescribed; for by that law 
they are commanded, under pain of death, when any con- 
troversy should arise among them, “to go to the priests and 
Levites, and to the judge then living, to inquire the sentence 
of judgment from his mouth, and to do according to the 
sentence which they shall show them, and according to all 
that they inform them, not declining from it to the right 
hand, nor to the left” (Deut. xvii. 8—1t). They by the 
prophets are instructed to “ask the priests concerning the 
law,” and to “seek the knowledge of it from their mouths” 
(Hag. ii. 11, Mal. ii. 7). They therefore stood obliged to 
assent to the determinations of the Sanhedrin, and the con- 


* Rational Account, disc, i. ch. 6, §. 59, p. 58, 


413 


ciliar decrees of priests and Levites, seribes and pharisees, 
confirmed by the high-priest, and so they were obliged to 
believe that, according to the true intent and meaning of the 
law, your Jesus could not be the true Messiah. And con- 
sequently they must err, who, quitting the decisions of the 
pharisees, and other rulers of the church, embrace that tenet 
of the ignorant and giddy multitude. 

§. 3. Thus the Jews pleaded from scripture against our 
blessed Lord. And if you do compare these pleas, and 
others of like nature, which might be offered from the scrip- 
tures by the Jew, with that the Romanists do offer for the 
infallibility of any of their councils, you will soon find that 
all their pleas for this infallibility from the New Testament 
are paralleled, or rather over-balanced, with places of like 
nature in the Old, which do more strongly plead for the 
infallibility of the high-priest and rulers of the Jewish 
church. For, 

1. Do the Romanists plead Christ’s promise to be «for 
ever with the church ?” (Matt. xxviii. 20.) 

Ans. The Jews had equal reason to expect God’s pre- 
sence among them, because he promised “to dwell among 
the children of Israel, to meet them at the tabernacle of the 
congregation, and there speak with them” (Exod. xxix. 42 
—45), to “reign over them in Zion, from henceforth and 
for ever” (Micah iv. 7). He “chose Zion for his habita- 
tion,” and said of it, “This is my rest for ever, here will I 
dwell” (Ps. exxxii. 13, 14); and of Jerusalem, «that he 
would put his name for ever in that place, and that his 
eyes and his heart should be there for ever” (2 Chron. 
vil. 16). 

2. Do they add that Christ had promised, that “where 
two or three are gathered together in his name, he will be 
in the midst of them ?” (Matt. xviii. 20.) 

Ans. God also promised to the Jews, that he would “bless 
them out of Zion” (Ps. cxxxiv. 3), and that “wheresoever 
he did record his name, there would he come and bless his 
people” (Exod. xx. 24.) 

3. Do they allege the sayings of our Lord to his disciples ; 
viz. “He that heareth you, heareth me” (Luke x. 16); he 
who neglects to hear the church shall be accounted as “a 
heathen and a publican?” (Matt. xviii. 17.) 

Ans. God also said, that “he who will not hearken to the 
priest that stands to minister before the Lord, even that man 
shall die for his presumption” (Deut. xvii. 12). 

4, Do they say that Christ’s apostles commanded Chris- 
tians “to obey those that had the rule over them, and to fol- 
low their faith 1 (Heb. xiii. 7. 17.) 

Ans. Our Jesus did command his hearers to “do all that 
the scribes and pharisees did say unto them’ (Matt. xxiii. 
3), and that because of their authority derived from Moses ; 
and God himself commanded all his people to do “ accord- 
ing to all that they should be informed of by the priests” 
(Deut. xvii. 10). And, 

5. Do they plead Christ’s promise made to his apostles, 
that “he would send the Spirit of truth to guide them into 
all truth?” (John xiv. 26, xvi. 13.) 

Ans. Whereas this promise doth personally belong to the 
apostles, and not to their successors—for it is a promise “ to 
bring to their remembrance (by his Spirit) what he (before) 
had said to them” (John xiv. 26), and to “ show them things 
to come” (John xvi. 13), to which Spirit of prophecy the 
Roman doctors do not now pretend ;—I say, whereas this 
promise did belong to the apostles only, God stood obliged 
by covenant to cause his.Holy Spirit to remain among the 
rulers of the Jewish church: for thus he speaks, “ Accord- 
ing to the words that I covenanted with you, when ye 
came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remains among you” (Hag. 
ii. 5). Moreover, God promised to the Sanhedrin that “he 
would put the spirit of Moses upon them” (Numb. xi. 17), 
and in compliance with that promise he came down in a 
cloud, and took the spirit, which was upon Moses, and gave 
it to the seventy elders, so that “they prophesied, and did 
not cease.” Or, 

6. Do they argue for their infallibility, because the church 
is styled by St. Paul, «the pillar and the ground of truth” 
(1 Tim. iii. 15), by reason of that truth which is preserved 
by her governors ? 

Ans. God also hath declared, touching his priests, that 
“the law of truth was in their mouth” (Mal. ii. 6) ; and of 

2K2 


414 


Jerusalem, that “she should be called the city of truth” 
Zech. viii. 3). And if the church of Judah hath since 
failed, so also hath the church of Ephesus, of which alone 
St. Paul affirmeth that it was the «pillar and the ground of 
truth.” 

7. Do they conclude that the church guides must be in- 
fallible, because “God hath placed in the church, some 
apostles, some prophets, some pastors, and some teachers, 
for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, 
for the edifying of the body of Christ, that we henceforth be 
no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with 
every wind of doctrine” (Eph. iv. 11, 12). 

Ans. Were not the Jewish priests placed also for this end, 
for the work of their ministry, the perfecting of their saints, 
the edifying of their flocks? Were not their lips to preserve 
that knowledge, which should restrain the people from their 
errors? Were not they appointed “to heal that which 
was sick, and bring again that which was strayed?” (Ezek. 
xxxiv. 4.) Or, 

Lastly, Do they triumph in that promise of our Lord, that 
the “gates of hell should not prevail against the church ?” 
(Matt. xvi. 18.) 

Ans. God also promised, that his “covenant made with 
the Levites, priests, and ministers,” should be as certain and 
perpetual as that of day and night (Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21). 
So that I need not add, that by this phrase Christ only pro- 
miseth, that pious Christians shall not for ever be detained 
under the power of the grave; which I have elsewhere 
shown to be the natural and only import of these words, 
“the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church.” 

Moreover, the plain meaning of the foregoing words, viz. 
“Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my 
church,” is, as Tertullian* well informs us, this: Thou who 
hast, first of all my disciples, acknowledged me to be the 
Christ, thou shalt first preach this doctrine to the world, and 
by so doing lay the first foundation of a Christian church : 
which he accordingly performed, first laying the foundation 
of a church} among the Jews by the conversion of three 
thousand souls; and after, laying the foundation of a church 
among the gentiles, by the conversion of Cornelius and his 
friends; Christ having, to fulfil his promise, «made choice 
of him, among the rest of the apostles, that the gentiles by 
his mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.’’+ 
Now to pretend to be Peter’s successor in this matter, is in 
effect to say, that the foundations of a Christian church are 
not yet laid. 

If therefore Roman Catholics conclude from these ambi- 
guous and obscure places for the infallibility of councils, or 
the major part of the church guides concurring with the 
pope in any sentence or decree, although these places do not 
speak one syllable of any pope, or major part of the church 
guides, and much less of the Romish prelate, and less of 
their infallible assistance, what ovations and triumphs 
would they have made, had it been said expressly of their 
cardinals and councils, as it is said of Jewish priests, that 
they were set for judgment and for controversy 2 had God 
fixed his glorious presence at Rome, as he did at Jerusalem, 
and settled there a seat of judgment, and a continual court 
of highest judicature, as was that Sanhedrin, which in Jeru- 
salem was settled? had he dwelt in St. Peter’s, as he dwelt 
in the temple? had he left with them, as he did with the 
Jewish priests, a standing oracle, a wrim and a thummim, to 
consult with upon all occasions? so that this plea being 
much stronger for the infallibility of the superiors of the 
Jewish church, than for the infallibility of the whole western 
church, or any of its councils, the Roman doctors must ac- 
knowledge, either that they fallaciously urge it against pro- 
testants, or must confess that it stands also good against the 
Christian, and is a confirmation of all those traditions which 


* Si, quia dixerit Petro Dominus, “Super hance petram 
adificabo ecclesiam meam,” idcired presumis et ad te deri- 
vasse solvendi et ligandi potestatem, qualis es evertens et 
commutans manifestam Domini intentionem personalitér 
(N. B.) hoe Petro conferentem, sic enim et exitus docet, in 
ipso ecclesia exstructa est, id est, per ipsum.—Ipse primus 
zn Christi baptismo reseravit aditum celestis regni. De Pudi- 
citia, cap. 21, p. 574, B. 


1 Acts ii. 41. + Acts xv. 7. 


A SERMON 


were condemned by our Saviour, and a sufficient plea for all 
those errors and corruptions, which, as the prophets do com- 
plain, were generally taught and practised by the church 
guides in the declining ages of the Jewish church: for* if 
these arguments be good now, they were so then; and if 
they were good then, for aught that I can see, the high 
priest, and the major part of the church rulers of the Jews, 
were always in the right; and Christ, and his apostles, with 
the holy prophets, must be in the wrong. 

§. 4. Moreover, had we no evidence from scripture, may 
the Jew say, in prosecution of this argument, reason seems 
very strongly to conclude for this submission of the common 
people, and some few priests, to the concurring judgments 
of their church guides, and of the major part of the Jews, who 
joined with them in condemnation of your Jesus as a blas- 
phemer and false prophet, and of his followers as heretics 
and schismatics, or men who worshipped God after that 
way which by the Jews was called heresy (Acts xxiv. 14), 
and were ringleaders of a sect (ibid. ver. 5). For, still to 
argue after the manner of the Romish doctors, 

1. Is it not reasonable to conceive, that they who were 
God’s ministers appointed for this very thing to judge in 
controversial matters and to make trial of such as did pre- 
tend to prophecy, as was the Jewish Sanhedrin; I say, is it 
not reasonable to conceive that the assistance of the Holy 
Spirit should be vouchsafed to these rulers of the church 
and doctors of the law, rather than to those common people, 
who bore no such relation to God, had no commission from 
him to direct others in the meaning of his word, but had so 
many and such express injunctions to seek it at the mouth 
of their church guides? Can we imagine that these phari- 
sees and rulers should be the men ordained by God for con- 
troversies, and by whose words they must be tried, and yet 
should be such blind and stupid guides, as by your Jesus 
they were said to be, that “he who was led by them must 
fall into the ditch ?” 

Moreover, were no assistance from above to be expected 
in this case, it is not reasonable to think that these great 
doctors of the law, those numerous priests, who made it 
their whole business to study and search out the meaning of 
the law of Moses, those members of the Sanhedrin,t who 
were still chosen out of the most learned persons, and the 
most eminent for wisdom; I say, may we not reasonably 
conceive such persons to be fitter and more able judges of 
the sense and meaning of that law, or of the truth of any 
miracles pretended to be wrought by Christ or his apostles, 
than was that rude and giddy multitude, which had no 
knowledge of the law 1: “They therefore considering their 
superiors’ study and learning in such things divine, and also 
their own ignorance ; they considering both the special ordi- 
nation and commission of their superiors from God to teach 
them in the necessary truth, and his charge laid upon them 
to obey their ecclesiastical superiors, ought to depend upon 
and adhere to their directions so much the more in any point 
of faith, by how much it is esteemed more necessary, as 
wherein there is a much greater hazard if they should err.” 

3. All that your gospel doth suggest, or reason may pre- 
tend, for the exemption of the first Jewish converts from 
obedience to these decrees of their superiors in the Jewish 
church, may, saith the Jew, be fully answered from the plain 
principles, and almost in the words, of Roman Catholies. 
For, to proceed in the expressions of R. H., the guide in 
controversies, with very little variation of them ; 

§. 5. 1. Will you affirm, that all the priests and rulers, 
scribes and pharisees, and the whole Sanhedrin, acted against 
their faith and conscience in these determinations by which 
your Jesus was condemned as an impostor? 

Ans. R. H.§ will tell you, “There is a moral certainty 
that so many such persons cannot conspire in such a matter, 
viz. a necessary to salvation, to falsify the truth against their 
own belief and conscience to their subjects and posterity, with 
an anathema to all dissenters,” or an excommunication of all 
who preached and believed that Christ was the Messiah pro- 
mised to the Jews, and was already risen from the dead, when 


* Vid. Stillingfleet’s Sermon upon Acts xxiv. 14, p. 39. 
+ Vid. Ainsw. in Numb. xi. 16, 17. 

+ R. H., Discourse, ch. 13, p. 13. 

§ Disc. i. ch. 3, §. 37, 38, p. 26. 


ON JOHN VII. 47—49. 


their own consciences could tell them that these things were 
true. * “If any can be so uncharitable as to credit of them 
so great a wickedness, that the supreme councils of the 
(Jewish) church should with design decree an error contrary 
to their fuith (or knowledge) in this necessary matter, and 
then enjoin all their subjects to believe it under anathema,” 
he must believe that “they most certainly do devote them- 
selves to eternal perdition.” And therefore, “ if not out of 
charity or reverence to such sacred persons, yet from the 
irrationality of such a defence, it is much better to pass over 
this objection.” 

2. Will you say that these superiors were only to be ap- 
pealed to in doubtful matters, and that this thing, “ Whether 
the scriptures declared your Jesus to be the true Messiah,” 
was not doubtful ? 

Ans. R. H. informs you,} that “a right judgment cannot 
but account all those places doubtful, in the sense whereof 
either the ancient or present major part of Christianity are 
of a contrary judgment from himself.” ‘That must be there- 
fore doubtful, according to the ground and reason of this 
rule, which you presume not to be doubtful, since it was that 
in which the major part of the then present Jewish church 
was of a contrary judgment from the Christian convert. 

3. Will you plead, in favour of the vulgar, that they were 
bound to hearken to these Jewish guides no longer than they 
followed the rule of scriptures? 

Ans. Be it so; but, saith R. H.,¢ “Who is appointed 
judge of these supreme judges, when they transgress against 
this rule? Their subjects? Who are from them to learn the 
sense of the rule, where difficult and disputed, and who are 
bidden to follow their faith? The right exercise of judgment 
will not judge so.” For if the vulgar may pass this judg- 
ment on the decrees of many councils, and the concurring 
judgment of their superiors and church guides, I hope the 
matter must be evident, even to the vulgar sort, that notwith- 
standing the contrary judgment of chief priests and rulers, 
scribes, pharisees, and elders, and almost all the Jewish na- 
tion, that sense of scripture must be false, which their eccle- 
siastical guides alleged to prove that Jesus was not the true 
Messiah, and that, “ according to their law, he was to die ;” 
and that sense of the scripture must be true, which by the 
apostles and their converts was alleged to prove that Jesus 
was the Messiah promised to the Jews. Now, “how vainly,” 
saith R. H.,§ «doth any one pretend or promise himself a 
certainty of any thing wherein (so many) councils, and a 
much major part of the church, having all-the same means 
of certainty as he, judgeth contrary; where it seems| the 
scripture may be so doubtful, that the sense of the (then) 
catholic church, or its (greatest) councils, they say, can be to 
them no certain or infallible interpreter of it, where the 
judgment or common reason of (these) councils thinks itself 
so certain of the contrary, as to anathemize dissenters (or 
cast them out of the church)? On what grounds here these 
(petrate) persons, or (new erected) churches, could assure 

emselves that their own sense of scripture was true, they 
having left that of the churches, councils, and of a major part 
of (Jews), who also judged their sense false, I understand 
not: surely they will not say they have this certainty from 
the scripture, because the true sense thereof is the thing so 
mainly questioned, and the certainty or infallibility of the 
traditive sense of the (Jewish) church they renounced ; and 
then, which only is left, their own judgment, or their own 
common reason, when that of (their greatest) councils, or 
major part of (their) church guides, differs from it, one would 
think should be a more fallible ground to them than the 
judgment or common reason of the church. For§ (a man) 
to presume himself certain in a matter of faith, or in his own 
sense of scripture (though the literal expression be never so 
clear), where so many learned and his superiors (comparing 
other texts, &c.), are of a contrary judgment; this,” saith 
R. H., “is the same as if, in a matter of sense, a dim-sighted 
person should profess himself certain that an object is white, 
when a multitude of others, the most clear-sighted that can 


415 


be found, having all the same means of a right sensation as 
he hath, pronounce it black, or of another colour.” More- 
over,® if these scriptures or reasons be so clear, even to the 
ignorant and unlearned Jews, must they not be as clear to 
their church guides? And may not then their judgments 
more securely be relied upon, at least for any thing which is 
presumed to be clear? “For if the scripturest be main- 
tained so clear in necessaries, that every one using a right 
endeavour cannot mistake in them; then shall the church 
governors much rather, by reason of this clearness obvious to 
every rustic, not err in them; and so shall the people, the 
more the rule of faith is proved to be clear, the more securely 
rely on, and be referred in them to their direction.” 

4. If you pretend a more sincere endeavour in those few 
converts, to find out the sense of scripture, or search out the 
truth in these matters; which, in the case of the Bereans, 
your scripture seemeth to assert: 

Ans. I answer still with the same author,} “That since 
all parties do pretend sincere endeavour in the right under- 
standing of the scriptures, and after it do differ so much in 
their sense of it, it follows, that such sincere endeavours 
being indifferently allowed to all parties, the sense of scrip- 
ture (and the verdict of true reason) ought to be pronounced 
clear, if on any, on that side as the major part doth appre- 
hend it (which certainly was not the primitive converts, but 
the unbelieving Jews and their ecclesiastical superiors).” For 
surely§ we have reason to presume that the chief guides of 
the church, in their consults concerning a point necessary to 
salvation delivered in scripture (as that of the Messiah was), 
use at least as much endeavour as a plain rustic doth to un- 
derstand the meaning of it.” And, “ whatsoever other thing 
is supposed necessary besides sincere endeavour, or is under- 
stood to be included in it (as freedom from passion and 
secular interest, or also a freely professing the truths which 
their sincere endeavour discovers to them), none can ration- 
ally imagine, but that the supreme church governors should 
be as much or more disengaged herein than private men:” 
and, “that passion and interest blind private men or our- 
selves sooner than general councils or a major part of the 
church.” 

See therefore here the wisdom of the unbelieving Jews, 
“who to preserve themselves from erring in this matter, 
made use of the securest way that reason could imagine,” 
saith R. H.,§ “or that Christians are prescribed, whilst for 
the sense of the scriptures that were controverted in this 
point of the Messiah, they chose not to rely on their own 
judgments, but on that of the supremest guides of the church, 
and judges of divine truth, that were afforded them on earth ; 
and so if they erred, yet took the wisest course to have 
missed erring, that religion or reason could dictate. To which 
guides also the subjects of this former communion all believed 
submission of their private judgments to be due, and to be 
commanded; from whence also it follows, that till they are 
convinced of error in this point, viz. that no submission was 
due” to the decrees of all these councils, and the concurring 
judgment of those spiritual guides by whom your Jesus was 
condemned, “they are not capable of being convinced in any 
other matter.”” 

If, lastly, you affirm that the common people had convic- 
tion and demonstration from the miracles of Christ of the 
falsehood of the decrees, and the interpretations of their 
church guides in this matter, and of the truth of that Chris 
tianity which they embraced in opposition to those said 
decrees : 

Ans. This I confess is a great truth; but then the Roman 
doctors cannot plead it without rejecting most of their pro 
fessed tenets and their strongest pleas for absolute submission 
to the major part of their church guides. For, 

1. Admit our Saviour and his apostles wrought true mi- 
racles, how did the vulgar perceive them so to be but by 
their senses? and how did they infer from them the truth of 
Christianity, but by their private reasons? Now** «the evi- 
dence of sense and reason must be both neglected,” saith the 


* Disc. i. ch. 3, 5. 37, 38, p. 25. 
+ Disc. ch. 3, §. 44, p. 29. 

§ Disc. ch. 3, §. 44, p. 143. 

1 Rational Account, disc. iii. ch. 4, 5. 42, p. 179. 
« Ibid. disc. ii. ch. 2, §. 15, p. 95. 


+ Ibid. p. 28. 


* V. Rational Account, disc. ch. 5, §. 42, p. 141. 

ἡ Disc. ch. 3, 5. 37, p. 24. + Disc. ch. 1, p. 4, 5. 
§ Ibid. p. 24. | Ibid. p. 145. 

§ Rational Account, disc. i. ch. 7, §. 77, p. 74. 

** Disc. i. ch. 6, §. 62, p. 63. 


416 


Romanist, “ when a divine revelation declares any thing con- 
trary to them;” this, and this only, being their defence of 
transubstantiation against the common sense and reason of 
mankind. Now, of the certainty of a divine revelation, or 
the true sense of scripture, they make the judgment of the 
major part of their church guides to be sufficient evidence, 
and so there was sufficient evidence, according to this rule, 
that all the miracles which Christ and his apostles seemed to 
work, were done in opposition to divine revelation, or the 
true sense of scripture. 

2. Certain it is that the rulers of the Jews, and the pre- 
vailing part of the whole nation, differed from the converted 
Christians in their apprehensions of these miracles, and 
judged them all diabolical impostures, or trials of their faith, 
&c. “Now this seems necessary to be granted,” saith R. H.* 
“that in what kind of knowledge soever it be (whether of 
our sense or reason, in whatever art or science), one can 
never rightly assure himself concerning his own knowledge ; 
that he is certain of any thing for a truth, which all or most 
others, of the same or better abilities for their cognoscitive 
faculties, in all the same external means or grounds of the 
knowledge thereof, do pronounce an error. So that where 
all or most differ from me, it seems a strange pride not to 
imagine this defect in myself, rather than them ; especially 
when, as all the grounds of my science are communicated to 
them, and when, as for my own mistakes, I cannot know 
exactly the extent of supernatural delusions.” According 
therefore to this rule, it was strange pride in the first con- 


of Christ or his apostles true, when most of their own nation, 
as well as heathens, differed from them in that apprehension, 


tians. 

3. The truth of the pretences of our Lord and his apostles 
depended on two things, viz. the fulfilling of prophecies and 
the truth of his miracles. + Now, according to the Roman 
principles, no man could be certain of the truth of either of 


these without the authority of the then present church. For | 
| the great and terrible day of the Lord come” (Mal. iv. 5). 


the fulfilling of prophecies depended on the sense of many 
obscure places of scripture, of which, say they, the major 
part of the church guides must judge: and for miracles, they 
tell us that there is no way of judging true from false, but 
by the authority of the church. Now, if these things be so. 
what ground could the first Jewish converts have to believe 
Christ was the true Messiah, or a worker of true miracles, 
when, in believing both these things, they must oppose the 
authority of the then present church ?” 

4, All that hath been discoursed in answer to the former 
pleas, serves also against this: for who shall be judge 
whether these miracles were true, and were sufficient to 
confirm the Christian faith? Those persons, whose office it 
was to judge both of true prophets and true miracles, or those 
who had no power or commission so to do? Were not the 
Jewish Sanhedrin and other rulers of that church more able 
judges of the truth and the validity of any miracles pre- 
tended to be wrought by Christ and his apostles, than was 
that multitude which, as experience teacheth, may be im- 
posed upon with ease? Were not those guides, who were 
appointed to be judges in all ether matters, the proper 
judges of this controversy? Have we not reason to believe 
their judgment was as free from interest and passion, and 
their endeavours to search out the truth of these relations as 
sincere, as was the judgment or endeavours of the laity? 
When therefore these church guides did, notwithstanding 
those pretended miracles of Christ and his apostles, conclude 
unanimously that Christ was a deceiver, was it not absurd to 
say that what they so universally determined, might be dis- 
cerned by any private judgment to be the clearest falsehood? 
that vulgar persons had demonstration in this matter against 
the judgment of the whole body of their guides, and that 
their common reason was able to discern that to be mani- 
festly true, which the same common reason of their superiors 
judged to be manifestly false ? 

§. 6. Thus have we seen that scripture and reason do 
more countenance the Jew pleading against our Lord and 
the first Christian converts, than they do countenance the 


* Rational Account, disc. iv. conf. 2, p. 384. 
{ Stillingfleet, ibid. p.42. 


| 


A SERMON 


papist pleading against protestants. In the last place the 
Jew may argue from tradition thus, viz. 

These spiritual guides, in making this determination, and 
passing of this judgment concerning Jesus, were guided by 
that rule, which, by the greatest part of Christians, I mean 
the Roman catholics, is highly magnified and equalled with 
the holy scriptures, viz. tradition, acknowledged by the 
present church for such. *And so your Jesus must also 
upon this account be deemed an impostor, or the pretences 
and pleadings of the Romanist against the protestant, from 
the tradition of the church, must be acknowledged to be in 
vain. For, 

1. It is most certain that the Jews had a tradition gene- 
rally received amongst them, that their Messiah at his com- 
ing should “restore the kingdom to Israel:” that he should 
subdue the nations under them, and should erect a temporal 
dominion in the Jewish nation over all their enemies. Even 
the disciples of our Lord did constantly believe this article, 
till by the Holy Ghost’s descent upon them, they were bet- 
ter informed. Witness their contest, “who should be great- 
est in that kingdom” (Matt. xviii. 1), and the desire of the 
sons of Zebedee, “ to sit one at his right hand, another at his 
left hand in it” (Matt. xx. 21). ‘This was our faith, saith 
Cleophas, “we trusted that this Jesus should have redeemed 
our Israel” (Luke xxiv. 21): and when they were assem- 
bled, after his resurrection, their first inquiry is this: “ Lord, 
wilt thou now restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts i. 6.) 


| It is therefore certain, that this was the received tradition of 
verts to Christianity among the Jews, to judge the miracles | 


the whole Jewish church, grounded, as they supposed, upon 
the scriptures, which did necessitate them to expect a glo- 


rious Messiah,t “not such a one,” saith Tyrpho, “as your 
and spoke so freely every where against the sect of Chris- | 


mean and despised Jesus was.” 

2. It was also a tradition which generally obtained amongst 
the Jews, that their Elias, who was called the 'Tishbite, 
was to appear again in person before the advent of the true 
Messiah: so was that place of Malachi translated by the 
LXX. three hundred and eighty years before our Saviour’s 
coming ; “ Behold, I send unto you Elias τὸν Θεσβίτην before 


“ All we expect,” saith Trypho, “that Christ should be 
anointed by Elias, who is for to come;+ and because this 
Elias is not come, we think your Jesus cannot be the Christ.” 
Accordingly the scribes, or the expounders of the law, did 
with one voice declare it necessary “that Elias should first 
come.’’§ 

3. It was the general tradition of the Jews, that the law 
of Moses should be perpetually obliging to them; and that 
it was to be observed even in the days of the Messiah. On 
this presumption certainly it was, that Christ’s disciples, after 
his resurrection, were strict observers of the law of Moses for 
a considerable time; and so were also many thousands of 
the Jewish converts. St. Peter was so nice in observation of 
the Jewish customs, that till he was informed better by a 
vision, he thought such meat was utterly unlawful as was 
forbidden by the law; so that when in that vision he was 
bid “to slay and eat,” he presently cries out, as a man 
tempted to an unlawful act, “ Not so, Lord, for I have never 
eaten any thing that is unclean” (Acts x. 12). St. James 
gives an account to Paul of the great zeal that all the Jewish 
converts had to the law of Moses in these words, “ Thou 
seest, brother, how many thousands of the Jews there are 
which believe, and they are all zealous of the law” (Acts 
xxi. 20). He farther tells him how highly they were all of- 
fended with him, because they were informed he had taught 
that they were not obliged to yield obedience to the consti- 
tutions and customs of the Jewish law ; and, lastly, doth ex- 
hort him to do what might be proper to cause these zealots 
to believe that “he also walked orderly and kept the law” 
(ver. 21. 24). St. Jerome and Sulpicius{ informs us, that 
fourteen immediate succeeding bishops, with their flocks, 


* Synod. Trid. Sess. 4. 

ἡ Atrat ἡμᾶς αἱ γραφαὶ ἔνδοζον, καὶ μέγαν ἀναμένειν ἀναγκάζου- 
σιν. Dial p. 249, Β. 

+ Ἔκ δὲ rod μηδὲ ᾿Ηλίαν ἐληλύθεναι οὐδὲ τοῦτον ἀποφαινόμενον 
εἶναι. Dial. p. 268, A. 

§ "Ore Ἠλίαν det ἐλϑεῖν πρῶτον, Mark, ix. 11. 

|| Chron. 2. 

q Lib. ii. cap. 45. 


ON JOHN VII. 47—49. 


were all observers of the law of Moses. And by the unbe- 
lieving Jews nothing was more abhorred than the thoughts 
of changing their Mosiac customs : for upon this account St. 
Stephen was accused of blasphemy against Moses and the 
law, because he said, “ that the Messiah should change the cus- 
toms which Moses had delivered to them”? (Acts vi. 11. 14). 
This accusation before the scribes, the elders, and high-priest, 
was deemed sufficient to prove him guilty of that capital 
offence of blasphemy. On this account they bring St. Paul 
before the judgment-seat of Gallio; because, say they, he 
did persuade men to worship God παρὰ τὸν νύμον, “ against or 
otherwise than was commanded by the law of Moses”’ (Acts 
xviii. 13). And this opinion they grounded chiefly upon 
those places which seem to speak of the perpetual duration 
of those statutes, and say they shall be “ ordinances to them 
for ever” (Exod. xii. 17, Lev. xxiii. 21, Deut. xxix. 29); 
and consequently seem to infer a declaration from the mouth 
of God, that they should not be altered. 

Moreover, it is certain, that as the protestants condemn 
as sinful and pernicious many traditions and customs of the 
Romish church; so did that Jesus, whom Christians honour 
as the true Messiah, as frequently inveigh against and so- 
Jemnly condemn many traditions, which then were generally 
received and practised in the Jewish church, as vain and sin- 
ful customs, and such as tended to make void the scriptures, 
and render the whole Jewish worship vain. He therefore 
seemeth to have been as great an enemy to ecclesiastical 
traditions, though they were generally owned by the then 
present church as such, as protestants can be esteemed. 

Lastly, Certain it is that the superiors and church rulers, 
or at least the major and prevailing part of the church rulers, 
did then as firmly and unquestionably believe that those 
traditions which were condemned by our Jesus, and which 
so evidently proved, if true, he was not the Messiah pro- 
mised to the Jews, were both agreeable to the word of God, 
expounded by their church tradition, and were delivered to 
them by Moses, and the patriarchs, and prophets, and were 
continually practised by their forefathers, as doth the Roman 
church believe that her traditions were taught and practised 
by Christ or his apostles, and by their successors throughout 
all ages of the church. Hence are they often styled by 
them, “the traditions of the ancients,* or the traditions re- 
ceived by succession from their fathers:” and in their later 
writers they are always held to be derived from God by 
Moses, together with the written law, and as an explication 
of it. Hence, like good Roman catholics, they were more 
“ exceedingly zealous for the traditions of their fathers,” than 
for the law itself. They} accuse all who walked not ac- 
cording to these customs of their fathers, as persons who 
forsook the law of Moses; and to do any thing against these 
customs of their fathers was reputed criminal. This being 


80, 

I ask, why the tradition of the major part of the church 
catholic, or Christians in any age whatsoever, and their con- 
curring judgment, that what she doth at present teach and 
practise, she received from Christ and his apostles, should 
be esteemed sufficient to render all those persons guilty of 
heresy and schism, who do not yield assent to what they 
teach, or a compliance with their practices, as Roman ca- 
tholics assert ; and yet that the general tradition of the then 
present Jewish church, even including the disciples of 
Christ, should not conclude them schismatics and heretics, 
who, being members of that church, would not assent unto 
what they so generally taught, or comply with that which 
they practised, as delivered to them by Moses, and the pa- 
triarchs, and prophets ? 

§. 7. But to apply these things, if it be possible, yet more 
particularly unto the pleadings of the Romish church, and 
to show the weakness and the pernicious results of their 
most specious pretences, I add, 

1. That notwithstanding it was the duty of the priests and 
tulers of the Jewish church, both to preserve and teach unto 
the people the knowledge of the law, yet did the major part 
of these church guides both oft and dangerously swerve from 


* Tapddoots τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, Matt. xv. 2. Αἱ πατρικαὶ παρα- 
δόσεις, Gal. i. 14. 

Ἴ ᾿Αποστασίαν διδάσκεις ἀπὸ Μωσέως, λέγων ph τοῖς ἔϑεσι περι- 
πατεῖν, Acts xxi. 21, xxviii. 17. 

Vor. [V.—53 


ALT 


this their duty: for they did teach and practise, and direct 
the people into those ways, which were destructive to the 
eternal welfare of their souls. God by his prophets doth 
complain, without exception, of them, that “they erred in 
vision, and stumbled in judgment;” that « the teachers of 
his people made lies their refuge, and under falsehood hid 
themselves, saying, The overflowing scourge shall not come 
to us” (Isa. xxviii. 7. 15); that their “interpreters had 
transgressed against him, that his watchmen were blind, they 
were all ignorant, all dumb dogs that could not bark, sleep- 
ing, lying down, loving to slumber; that they were greedy 
dogs, that could not have enough” (Isa. xliii. 27, ἵν]. 10, 
11) ; “shepherds that could not understand ; that the priests 
said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handled the law 
knew him not; that the pastors also transgressed against 
him, and the prophets prophesied by Baal; and walked af- 
ter the things that did not profit’ (Jer. ii, 8): that “his 
prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bare rule «by 
their means” (Jer. ν. 31): that “from the prophet to the 
priest every one dealt falsely” (Jer. vi. 13, 14): that « they 
healed also the hurts of the daughter of his people slightly, 
saying, Peace, peace, when there was no peace” (Jer. viii. 
9): that “his wise men had rejected the word of the Lord” 
(Jer. xxiii. 1, 2); and that “the pastors, whose business it 
was to feed his sheep, destroyed, and scattered, and drove 
them away, and did not visit them” (ver. 11): that “both 
priests and prophets were profane” (Ezek. xxii. 26): that 
“ they had violated his law, and had profaned his holy things, 
putting no difference betwixt the holy and profane, the 
clean and the unclean, and hid their eyes from the sabbaths” 
(Ezek. xxxiv. 1. 6); that “the shepherds of Israel fed 
themselves, but did not feed the flock, the diseased did they 
not strengthen, neither did they heal that which was sick, 
nor bring again that which was driven away, nor seek that 
which was lost, but with force and cruelty they ruled; so 
that the sheep were scattered because there was no shep- 
herd” (Hos. iv. 6): that “they rejected knowledge, so 
that God’s people were destroyed for lack of it” (Zeph. iii. 
4): that “her prophets were light and treacherous persons, 
her priests had polluted the sanctuary, they had done vio- 
lence to the law: that they had forgotten the law of their 
God, they departed out of the way, they caused many to 
stumble at the law, they corrupted the covenant of Levi” 
(Mal. ii. 8). 

Moreover, of these guides it is expressly said, that “they 
which led the people, caused them to err” (Isa. iii. 12), 
“and destroyed the way of their paths” (ix. 16) : that «the 
leaders of the people caused them to err, and they that were 
led of them were destroyed, and that their shepherds caused 
them to go astray” (Jer. 1. 6). Our Lord declares that 
“ they were fools, blind guides, full of hypocrisy and of ini- 
quity ; that they had taken away the key of knowledge, and 
had shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, not going 
in themselves, nor suffering them that were entering to go 
in” (Matt. xxiii. 13, Luke xi. 52): that they made many 
false decisions in matters of so great importance, as to 
“ make void the law of God, and render his whole worship 
vain” (Matt. xv. 6.9): that “they transgressed the com- 
mandment of God by their traditions ;” that notwithstand- 
ing their instructions, the “ people were as sheep without a 
shepherd” (Matt. ix. 26), or only had “such guides as 
would most certainly,” if they submitted to their guidance, 
“lead them to the pit” (Matt. xv. 14). Hence therefore I 
infer, 

1. That even those spiritual guides, who are by God’s ap- 
pointment constituted to instruct his people, and to feed his 
flock (for such our Lord acknowledged the scribes and pha- 
risees and rulers of the Jewish church to be), may scatter 
and destroy that flock: and they, who are set for the judg- 
ment of the Lord, and for controversies, may violate, cor- 
rupt, pervert that law they should interpret; they may be 
partial in it; they may depart out of the way; they may 
make the commandments of God of none effect, and his 
whole worship vain by their traditions; they may cause 
their sheep to err, stumble, and go astray, and that so dan- 
gerously, that they who are led by them shall be destroyed 
with them, and find no entrance into bliss. And hence, I 
hope, I may assume the boldness to conclude against the 
infallibilitv of our spiritual governors, or the concurring 


418 


judgments of the major part of them; which is sufficient to 
root up even the foundations of the Romish Babel. 

2. Hence I infer, that notwithstanding all the foremen- 
tioned scriptures, which say it was the duty of the people 
to ask of their spiritual guides the meaning of the law, and 
seek the knowledge of it at their mouths, and to inquire 
after their judgments in all those controversies they were not 
able to resolve; I say, hence I infer, that notwithstanding 
this, the people were not absolutely obliged to rest in the de- 
cision of the major part of these church guides, or bound to 
practise all that they approved; for then an obligation must 
be laid upon them, not only to err in judgment with them, to 
countenance false prophets, and to speak peace to themselves 
when there is no peace; but also to violate the law, and to 
comply with their false glosses and corrupt interpretations 
of it; nay, which is more unreasonable, they must be then 
obliged to be destroyed, to fall into the pit, and to exclude 
themselves from the enjoyment of Christ’s kingdom: whereas 
it is a contradiction to say that God obligeth any person to 
transgress his law; and it is little less than blasphemy to say, 
he doth require them to destroy themselves, to fall into the 
pit, or to deprive themselves of the enjoyment of his king- 
dom. Hence therefore I infer this corollary : 

‘That neither are all Christian people, churches, or nations, 
absolutely bound to rest in the decisions of the major part of 
Christian bishops, nor to practise all that they approve and 
impose: which proposition overthrows that absolute and blind 
obedience to their church guides or councils, which Roman- 
ists so stiffly plead for. 

3. Hence it is also evident, that private persons, or that 
the minor part of the whole church, may have sufficient ground 
either from reason or clear scripture, for their refusal of assent 
and of submission to the authority and definitions of the major 
part of their church guides; for the Jews were bound to be- 
lieve Christ to be the true Messiah, although the high-priest 
and the elders had pronounced him a deceiver and a male- 
factor : they were obliged to believe his miracles were wrought, 
not by Beelzebub, but the Spirit of God; that Christ’s king- 
dom was not of this world; that John Baptist was that Elias 
which was for to come; and that to eat with hands unwashed, 
to heal the sick, to pluck some ears of corn on the sabbath 
day, were not unlawful actions, although the major part of 
their church guides taught and believed the contrary (Matt. 
xv. 5). They were obliged not to avoid that law of nature, 
which required children to relieve their own distressed pa- 
rents; and therefore stood obliged not to comply with those 
traditions of the scribes and pharisees, which made the word 
of God of none effect, and would not suffer them to yield 
obedience to it. And seeing they had “ many traditions and 
decrees of the like nature,”’* which obtained amongst them, 
and only were rejected by the Sadducees and disciples of our 
Lord ; in none of these could they comply with their church 
guides without the violation of that law of God, which sure 


they had sufficient ground and reason to observe. In a word.: | 


in all those cases, in which they were not bound to rest in the 
decision of the major part of the church guides, or practise 


what they did approve, that is, in all the cases mentioned in | 


the former head, they must have had sufficient ground, either 
from scripture or from reason, for their refusal of submission 
to them. Now these three inferences do fully justify the re- 
formation of the church of England. 

§.8. 4. From what hath been discoursed, we may see the 
weakness of those pleas the Roman doctors make in their own 
defence, and of the arguments they use to show, that it is im- 
possible they should be guilty of those corruptions in doctrine, 
or in manners, which we charge them with. For their most 
specious pretences are to this effect; that we confess the 
church of Rome was once both true and orthodox : show then, 
say they, how we did cease to be so, whether by schism or 
heresy : with schism you cannot justly charge us ; “ for} that 
never can be of a much major and more dignified part, in 
respect of a less and inferior, subject to it; because this main 
body in any division is rightly taken for the whole, from which 
a separation is schism, and to which every member ought to 
adhere, as to the body and head here upon earth to which it 
belongs :” we therefore being the much major and more dig- 


* ΠΙαρόμοια τοιαῦτα πολλὰ. Mark vii. 8. 


ἱ R. H. Rational Account, disc. iii. ch. 5, 5. 63, p. 203. 


A SERMON 


nified part of the church, cannot be schismatics in reference 
to protestants, who are, and were at their departure, a less 
and an inferior body to us. If heresy be the crime charged 
upon us, by what church were we condemned? What body 
of men before you found fault with those corruptions which 
you pretend to reform? for sure, it was not possible for so 
many errors and corruptions to come into the church, and no 
one take notice of them? Could this be so, where was the 
watchful eye of Providence over the church? But, if we 
could suppose this Providence was unconcerned for the pre- 
servation of the church, could all the pastors fall asleep at 
once? Or, could they all conspire together to deceive their 
posterity? Moreover, since God will always have a visible 
church, what can you mention besides that which holds com- 
munion with the church of Rome, as the then present visible 
church of Christ, when you began your reformation (except 
perhaps some eastern churches, which you dislike almost as 
much as that of Rome)? And if that church could teach 
such errors as you charge her with, as matters of the Christian 
faith, what assurance can you have she hath not erred in de- 
fining the canon of scriptures, and delivering some book or 
books for the word of God, which are not so? This is the 
sum of all the pleadings of the Roman party in their own 
behalf: and they are only such as the Jewish doctors might 
have pleaded with as much plausibility against our Lord’s 
disciples, and that first Christian church which they planted 
in that nation. For, 

1. Where, they may say, will* you produce the men of 
former ages, who taxed the Jewish church with such errors 
and corruptions as your Jesus did, and bid men “ beware of 
the leaven of the scribes and pharisees,” that is, the most 
holy and learned members of our church? Do not the Chris- 
tians themselves acknowledge, that we were once a “right 
vine,’ and the “ beloved of the Lord?” How or when, there- 
fore, did we cease to be so? If by schism, produce that 
major part or body of the Jewish church from which we sepa- 
rated, when first your Jesus, like another Luther, appeared 
among us? Or, if by heresy we ceased to be so, by what 
church, what councils, were we condemned? Who can be- 
lieve that God would ever suffer such dangerous doctrines to 
prevail in his own church, and raise up no church guides, no 
prophets, to discover things so destructive to her very being, 
till these new teachers and reformers first arose? Where, 
then, had God a true church in the world, if not among the 
people of the Jews? What other church could Christ or his 
apostles mention, besides that which he so often taxed with 
voiding the commandments of God, and rendering his wor- 


| ship vain, because of some traditions which they had received 


from their forefathers? If then God suffered this church to 
be all overrun with such a fatal leprosy, and gave no clear 
discovery thereof, where was the watchful eye of Providence ? 
Where was that God, who promised that he would “ put his 
name for ever in Jerusalem, and that his eyes and heart 
should be perpetually there?” Butsuppose that Providence 
was unconcerned, did all our pastors fall asleep at once? Or, 
could they all conspire to deceive posterity? Were not the 
oracles of God committed tous Jews? Did not your Chris- 
tians receive them from us? If then our church might teach 


| her children such destructive errors as you charge her 


with, how can you be assured that she hath not erred even 
in that canon of scriptures which from her you have 
received ? 

Now though this instance, which I have largely prosecuted, 
may be sufficient te show the vanity of the most plausible 
pretences of R. H. against the protestants, both in his Rational 
Account and his Discourse, it might be farther manifested, 
that they as strongly plead for the heathen world against the 
Jews; for the Mahometan against the Christian; for the 
priests of Baal against Elias and those seven thousand who 
had not bowed the knee to Baal; for the prevailing Arian 
against the orthodox; for the fornicator, the simoniac, the 
covetous, and the debauched person, in all those ages, in 
which these were the epidemical and almost general diseases 
of the clergy, that is, from the tenth to the sixteenth century ; 
and, lastly, for antichrist himself, when he, according to the 
predictions of the scripture, and the confession of many Roman 
catholics, shall drive the church, that is, the orthodox profess- 


* Vid. Stillingfleet’s Sermon on Acts xxiv. 14. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


419 


ors of the faith, into the wilderness, and slay the witnesses | people, doth more strongly prove our blessed Jesus a de- 


of Christ, and of his doctrine. But, 


| ceiver, which is the highest blasphemy ; I hope that no true 


To conclude, If this be truly the result of the most spe- | lover of this Jesus will be much tempted by such pleas to 


cious pretences of the Roman party to draw our souls into 
their deadly snares, if all their fairest pleas do make for Ju- 
daism more naturally than they do for popery ; if what they 
urge, to prove the protestant divines to be deceivers of the 


entertain a good opinion of the Romish faith: it being cer- 
tainly that faith which cannot be established but on the 
ruins of Christianity, nor embraced by any protestant, but 
with the greatest hazard, if not the ruin of his soul. 


THE 


PO Ere Or), Lathe ALE OS ba eS, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Tur history of the acts of the apostles, if it relateth mat- 
ters truly, is an invincible demonstration of the truth of 
Christian faith. For, 

First, It confirms the truth of Christ’s great promise, 
John xiv. 12, “He that believeth in me shall do greatez 
works than I have done; because I go to my Father” (see 
the note there). 

It confirms his promise made to his disciples, that the 
Spirit of his Father should speak in them, and “give them 
a mouth and wisdom which all their adversaries should not 
be able to gainsay” (Matt. x. 20, Luke xxi. 15, Acts vi. 10) ; 
that they who believed in him after that he was glorified, 
should “receive the Holy Ghost’ (John vii. 39); and the 
saying of his forerunner, that “he who was to come after 
him, should baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with fire” 
(Matt. ili. 11, Acts ii. 3); and of Christ’s declaration, that 
“when this Spirit was come he should convince the world 
of sin, because they believed not in him” (John xvi. 9, Acts 
ii. 37), “and of righteousness, because he went to the Fa- 
ther” (ver. 33). 

It confirms the truth of this prediction, that “ after he was 
lifted up, he would draw all men after him” (John xii. 31) ; 
when he was “sown” in the earth, he should “bring forth 
much fruit” (ver. 14) ; and of his comparison of the kingdom 
of God to “a grain of mustard seed” (Mark iv. 30), for its 
wonderful increase (Acts ii. 41, iv. 4, v. 14): “so mightily 
grew the word of God and prevailed” (Acts xix. 20). 

It confirms all that Christ had said concerning the kiug- 
dom of “ Satan falling down like lightning” (Luke x. 17), 
the “ casting out and judging the prince of this world” (John 
xii. 31, xvi. 11), and the conquest his disciples should have 
« over all the power of the enemy” (Luke x. 18), by showing 
the efficacy the gospel had to turn men “ from the power of 
Satan unto God.” 

To make these things more evident, I shall reflect more 
largely upon two particulars which are the frequent subjects 
of this history, viz. the gifts of the Holy Ghost conferred 
upon the apostles and others, partly by the laying on of the 
apostles’ hands upon them, and partly at the preaching of 
the apostles to them: and, (2.) the miracles which the 
apostles and other preachers of the gospel wrought for con- 
firmation of their doctrine. And, 

First, Of these miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, these 
Acts of the Apostles have left upon record these signal in- 
stances. 

(1) That on the day of Pentecost, the apostles and dis- 
ciples of Christ Jesus being met together, “ cloven tongues 
like to fire fell upon them, and they were all filled with the 
Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the 
Spirit gave them utterance ;” adding, that when this miracle 
was wrought upon them, there were “devout men of every 
nation,” who “heard them speak in their own tongues the 
wondrous works of God ;” and upon this account did with 
amazement ask, “ Are not all these which speak Galileans? 
And how hear we every man in our own tongues wherein we 


were born?” and that St. Peter, one of Chnist’s disciples, 
did then and there declare, that the same Jesus, whom the 
Jews had crucified, was by God raised up, and exalted to 
his own right hand, and “having received of the Father the 
promise of the Holy Ghost, had shed forth this which they 
now saw and heard; and that he with these sayings in- 
stantly converted three thousand souls; and that “ God daily 
added to the church such as should be saved” (Acts ii.). 

(2.) That when St. Philip had converted many people of 
Samaria to the Christian faith, and had baptized them, St 
Peter and St. John laid their hands on them, “and they 
received the Holy Ghost:” and that Simon Magus, seeing 
this, offered them money to have this power imparted to 
him, that “on whomsoever he should lay his hands, they 
might receive the Holy Ghost” (Acts viil.). 

(3.) That whilst St. Peter was preaching to Cornelius, his 
kinsmen, and near friends, “the Holy Ghost fell on all 
those that heard the word, and they spake with tongues, and 
magnified God,” in the presence of the Jews (Acts x. 44, 
45). 

Ys.) That St. Paul finding twelve disciples of John the 
Baptist who had not yet received the Holy Ghost, he bap- 
tizeth them in the name of the Lord Jesus; and “ when he 
had laid his hands upon them, they received the Holy Ghost, 
and prophesied” (Acts xix. 6). 

Now all these things were done, saith this record, in popu- 
lous and famous cities; viz. 

The first in Jerusalem at the great feast of Pentecost, 
immediately ensuing Christ’s ascension, and therefore at a 
time when all Jerusalem was met to celebrate that feast, and 
when the fame of the Messiah, expected suddenly to appear 
(Luke xix. 11), had brought great multitudes of Jews and 
proselytes out of all nations to attend the issue of that ex- 
pectation; and so the matter of fact, if true, must be well 
known by all Judea so to be: nor could it possibly be false, 
but all then present and alive, when first this fact was pub- 
lished to the world, would be so many living witnesses of the 
falsehood of it. 

The second populous city whose converts received this 
effusion of the Holy Ghost, was the metropolis of Samaria, 
according to our Lord’s prediction, “« You shall be my wit- 
nesses in Samaria” (Acts. i. 8). The time when this was 
done is noted by three characters; viz. that it was done soon 
after the death of Stephen (Acts viii. 2), and before the 
conversion of St. Paul (ver. 1), and when Simon the cele- 
brated magician was there, and had so gained upon the 
people of that city, that they all “ gave heed to him,” and 
owned him as “the great power of God” (ver. 9, 10). 

The third happened in the city of Cwsarea (the seat of 
the Roman governor of Judea, inhabited by Jews, Samari- 
tans, and gentiles, and well stocked with Roman soldiers), 
upon the person and kindred of Cornelius, a centurion of 
the Roman band, one “well reported of” by the whole na- 
tion of the Jews; and so, not only Cesarea, but all Judea 
and Rome also, must be acquainted with the conversion of a 
man so eminent for his post, so well approved by the whole 
Jewish nation for his piety. The character of the time when 
this was done we learn from these circumstances, that before 


420 


the word was preached to the Jews only ; and that this was 
the first instance of their preaching to convert a gentile to 
the faith of Christ (Acts xi. 19). 

The fourth was done in Ephesus, the metropolis of the 
proconsular Asia, about twelve years after the former, in a 
city where dwelt many Jews, who were teachers of the law 
in opposition to the gospel, and who had there a synagogue: 
and after this, “all Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the 
word of Christ” (Acts xix. 10. 17). 

Secondly, Of the miracles performed by the apostles and 
other persons assisted by the Holy Ghost, this history saith 
in the general, that “with great power gave the apostles 
witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts iv. 33), 
and that in confirmation of it “many signs and wonders 
were done by the apostles’ hands.” In particular it informs 
us 


from his mother’s womb, that he was carried from one place 
to another; that this was done to the astonishment of the 
people, who knew he had been so long impotent in his feet, 
but now saw him “leaping and walking, and praising God :” 
and that these two apostles being brought before the whole 
Sanhedrin on this account, and asked “by what power or 
by what name” they had done this cure, they openly declare 
to them that they had done it “by faith in the name of that 
Jesus of Nazareth” whom these men had crucified ; and that 
the council, “seeing the man that was healed standing by 
them,” were forced to confess, “ that it was manifest to all 
them that dwelt at Jerusalem, that a notable miracle had 
undeniably been done by them” (iii. 2. 11, iv. 6. 16). 

(1.) That when the chief priests and sadducees had put 
them by night into prison for preaching in the name of Jesus, 


though the prison was “found shut with all safety, and the | 


keepers standing without before the doors,’ yet were the 
apostles on the morrow found standing in the temple, and 
teaching the people; the angel of the Lord having opened 
the prison doors and brought them forth, and commanded 


them thus to preach (v.-18—25): and that this so affected | 


them, that they not only doubted what this might come to 
(ver. 24), but were prevailed upon by the great and cele- 
brated Gamaliel to “let these men alone, lest haply they 
should be found to fight against God” (ver. 39). 

(3.) That Stephen being «full of faith and power, did 
great wonders and miracles among the people” (vi. 8). 

(4.) That these miracles were so certainly and so effectu- 
ally performed, that thereupon the people “brought forth 
the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, 
that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might over- 


shadow some of them;” and that “a multitude came out | 
of the cities round about them to Jerusalem, bringing sick | 


folks, and them that were vexed with unclean spirits, and 
they were healed every one” (v. 15, 16): and also, that by 
their miracles and preaching, they converted to the Christian 
faith at one time three thousand (ii. 41), at another time 
five thousand persons (iv. 4), that men were “ daily added 
to the church” (ii. 47), that “ believers were the more added 
to the Lord, even multitudes of men and women” (v. 14), 
that “the word of the Lord increased, and the multitude of 
the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great 
company of the priests were obedient to the faith” (vi. 7). 

(5.) That upon St. Philp’s preaching Christ at Samaria, 
the people “with one accord gave heed to the things which 
he spake, beholding the miracles which he did; for unclean 
spirits crying with a loud voice came out of many that were 
possessed with them, and many taken with palsies, and that 
were lame, were healed :” and that these things prevailed 
there, not only with many men and women to receive Chris- 
tian baptism, but also foreed Simon Magus, a famous sor- 
cerer, to believe; and, being baptized, to “continue with 
Philip, wondering at the signs and miracles done by him” 
(viii. 6, 7. 13). 

(6.) That whilst St. Paul, a zealous pharisee, and a more 
zealous persecutor, “breathed out threatenings and slaugh- 
ter” against the disciples of the Lord, and had received com- 
mission from the high-priests and elders “to bring them 
bound unto Jerusalem to be punished ;” as he came nigh to 
Damascus, “a light from heaven above the brightness of the 
sun shone round about him,” and struck him blind; and 


(ἢ That at Jerusalem Peter and John cured by the | 
name of Jesus a man forty years old, who had been so lame | 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


the Lord Jesus, by a voice from heaven, said unto him, 
“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” and that one Ana- 
nias being sent by the same Jesus to lay his hands upon 
him, he presently receives his sight, is “filled with the Holy 
Ghost,” and preacheth Christ in the Jewish synagogues 
erected in that famous city (Acts ix.): and to this miracu- 
lous conversion he twice appeals (ch. xxii. xxvi.), in vindi- 
cation of himself, declaring that partly the high-priests and 
elders, partly those persons that were with him then, partly 
one Ananias, “a devout man according to the law, and a 
man of good report among all the Jews,” could bear witness 
to them (xxii. 5. 9, 12), and that “none of these things 
were hid” from king Agrippa’s knowledge, “ they being not 
done in a corner;” and by this narrative he almost per- 
suaded that king to “become a Christian,” xxvi. 26. 28 (see 
note on xxii. 6). 

(7.) That when St. Peter, being at Lydda, a city of Pa- 
lestine, said to one neas there, who had “kept his bed 
eight years, and was sick of a palsy, neas, Jesus Christ 
maketh thee whole: arise, and make thy bed ;” he immedi- 
ately did so; and that thereupon “all that dwelt at Lydda,” 
seeing this, “ were turned to the Lord” (ix. 32. 35). 

(8.) That the same Peter at Joppa, a city of Pheenicia, 
lying upon the Mediterranean, raiseth one Tabitha from the 
dead; and that this being “ known throughout all Joppa, 
many believed in the Lord” (ibid. ver. 39. 42). And here 
let it be noted, that at Jabneh, near Joppa, sat the great 
Sanhedrin; and at Lydda were famous schools and eminent 
persons of the Jewish nation and religion. 

(9.) That at Cyprus St. Paul converted Sergius Paulus, 
the deputy of the island, by striking Elymas, a Jewish sor- 
cerer there, blind with a word because he sought “to turn 
the deputy,” or the proconsul, “from the faith” (xiii. 7, 
12). 

10.) That at Iconium, a city of Lycaonia, where also 
was a synagogue of the Jews, Paul and Barnabas so preach- 
ed, that “a great multitude both of the Jews and Greeks 
believed” (xiv. 1), and that “the Lord gave testimony to 
his word by granting signs and wonders to be done by their 
hands” (ver. 3). 

iG 1.) That at Ephesus Paul preached almost three years, 
and prevailed so much among them, that all Asia, both 
Jews, there very numerous, and Greeks, resorting to Ephe- 
sus, heard, and many of them believed the gospel, «God 
working,” in confirmation of it, “special miracles by the 
hand of Paul; so that from his body were brought hand- 
kerchiefs and aprons;” and by this means “the diseases 
departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.” 

(12.) That seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew (and of the 

priests’ order, saith the Talmud), which were exorcists, per- 
ceiving how powerful Paul was to cast out devils by the 
name of Jesus, and therefore attempting to exorcise one 
that had an evil spirit, by the name of that Jesus whom Paul 
preached (supposing that the very name of Jesus, without 
faith in him as the true Messiah, would be effectual to cast 
out devils), they were set upon and overpowered by the evil 
spirit, and forced to fly from the place “naked and wound- 
ed;” and this being “known to all the Jews and Greeks,” 
prevailed with many who formerly had used magic arts, to 
burn their books, confess their deeds, and believe in Jesus: 
so “mightily grew the word of God and prevailed” (ch. 
xix.). 
(3) That at the isle of Malta, St. Paul not only shook 
off a viper from his hand that had fastened on it, without 
harm, but healed the father of Publius, the chief man of 
the island, lying sick of a fever, by laying his hands upon 
him; and that thereupon others in that island, who had 
diseases, came and were healed; and that thereupon they 
honoured all Paul’s companions, and loaded them at their 
departure with such things as they needed (Acts xxviii. 
3. 10); which things, if true, must be known to the inha- 
bitants, and also to the two hundred and seventy-six per- 
sons who were cast with Paul on that island (xxvii. 37). 

So that this history affords us an account of miracles, 
great and many, done in many places, upon persons remark- 
able and well known, viz. the lame man laid at the Beautiful 
gate of the temple; upon Tabitha, eminent for her works 
of charity ; upon Saul, a zealous persecutor of the church ; 
upon Elymas the sorcerer, opposing “ the right ways of the 


CHAPTER I. 


Lord ;” upon the Pythoness at Philippi (Acts xvi. 18) 5 
upon the sons of Sceva; upon the father of Publius; to the 
conversion of many thousands, not only of the people, but of 
multitudes of the priests at Jerusalem ; to the astonishment 
of Simon Magus, that prince of sorcerers, and the conviction 
and conversion of multitudes of the same wicked art at Ephe- 
sus, a city famous for those practices (see the note on xix. 


19). 

these miracles were either done in Jerusalem, 
Samaria, Ephesus, cities of which we have already spoken, 
or where the Jews abounded; and that so certainly as St. 
Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, inquires, “ How shall 
we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which was con- 
firmed to us by signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and 
gifts of the Holy Ghost?” (Heb. ii. 3, 4.) And as for the 
conversion of St. Paul, it was done at Damascus, the metro- 
polis and a noble mart of Syria, where flourished many 
thousand Jews; upon a person known by the whole nation 
of the Jews to be a strict and celebrated pharisee, and once 
a zealous persecutor of the Christian faith ; one who, after 
his conversion, which happened the next year after our 
Lord’s ascension, was hated and persecuted by his own na- 
tion, for preaching up that faith he formerly endeavoured to 
destroy : and so, not only they at Damascus, and they who 
journeyed with him, and saw and felt that glorious light 
which was the means of his conversion, but even the 
whole Jewish nation, must be acquainted with, and even 
alarmed at, this miraculous and sudden change. Lastly, 
These miracles were mostly done within two years, and 
all of them within twenty-seven years, after our Lord’s 
ascension. 

Now, when times and places, circumstances and events, 
are so particularly set down, and are of such a nature as 
seem to carry in them a conspicuous evidence of the noto- 
rious falsehood, or the clear truth of the narration, as it is 
a sign the historian intended no deceit, so neither seems it 
easy to conceive, how such great cities and regions should 
be ignorant of the truth or falsehood of them, or be capable 
of being imposed upon by such relations. 

All that can possibly be offered to impair the credit of 
these evidences of the miraculous operations of the Holy 
Gnost, exercised by the apostles, and conferred on such as 
did embrace the Christian faith, must be comprised in these 
two particulars, viz. either that these things were not writ- 
ten and published by St. Luke, or in his time; or, that they 
were not truly written, but contain false stories invented for 
the credit of Christianity. 

Now that this history was universally and originally 
received, by the tradition of the church, amongst her true, 
undoubted scriptures, Eusebius* sufficiently informs us. 


* Ponit nempé Actus Apostolorum ἐν ομολογουμένοις, et 


421 


Clemens of Alexandria* and Origen confirm the same tra- 
dition. And as all agree that this history was written by 
St. Luke, and owned as an unquestionable record of Chris- 
tianity, so do we find it cited by St. Clemens,f St. Paul’s 
companion; by Papias,t who conversed with men of the 
apostles’ time; and by Polycarp,§ who was St. John’s dis- 
ciple; and Irenwus, who flourished in the second century, 
hath in a large chapter almost epitomized it: nor do I read 
of any Jew or gentile who did except against the truth or 
the sincerity of the relator of these things: now if a record 
so early and so generally received, and cited by the Chris- 
tians, may be, without all proof, rejected, as not written by 
that author whose name it hath still borne; if a writing 
that has been always unanimously owned among the re- 
cords of the Christian faith, may be, without all reason, re- 
jected as a spurious or doubtful piece, the truth and credit 
of all history must be entirely subverted ; and so there will 
be nothing certain left concerning any records of antiquity. 

But if, according to this general tradition, this history 
was indeed writ and published by St. Luke, there must be 
many myriads still living in Judea, Samaria, Damascus, 
Ephesus, Cxsarea, and many other places mentioned in 
these Acts, who could be able to disprove these things, had 
they been false; which yet was either not at all or unsuc- 
cessfully attempted, as the issue, which concluded in its 
general reception, testifies. We therefore may conclude, 
that neither Jew nor gentile, orthodox Christian nor apo- 
state, though they were all concerned to do it, found any 
cause to doubt the certainty of what was thus recorded. 

But to give scepticism its utmost scope; be it, this 
history was not published till a hundred years after our 
Lord’s ascension ; beyond which infidelity cannot go, if we 
consider the citations of it before that time, and the abridg- 
ment of it made by Irenwus not long after; either the facts 
related in it were true, and then they are a signal evidence 
of the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost vouchsafed 
to Christians; or, they were false; and then, how is it 
possible they should obtain so easy and so general belief? 
Could they not know in Judea, Samaria, and Ephesus, 
and in other cities mentioned, by what means they were 
first converted to the Christian faith? must it not be suffi- 
cient prejudice to them against these tales, that they had 
lived so long in the profession of that faith, and had heard 
nothing of these things, too wonderful, too much conducing 
to the honour and confirmation of that faith to be so long 
concealed, had they been truly done by two such eminent 
apostles as were St. Peter and St. Paul? 


inter κατὰ τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικὴν παράδοσιν ἀληθεῖς καὶ ἁπλάστους, 
καὶ ἀνωμολογημένας γραφάς. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 4. 

* Et. 25. + Ep. ad Cor. 8. 18. 

+ Apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 39. 
§ Ad Philip. §. i. lib. iii. cap. 12. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Tue former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, 
1 of all that Jesus began both to do and teach (as far 
as I thought this needful for the instruction of a cate- 
chumen), 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Περὶ πάντων, Of all that Jesus began both to do 
and teach.] Since the apostle John hath left on record 
many things the blessed Jesus did and taught, which are 
not in St. Luke; yea, since St. Luke himself doth about 
ten times say Christ taught the people, iv. 15. 31, v. 3. 17, 
vi. 6, xiii. 10, xix. 47, xx. 1, xxi. 37, xxiii. 5, and yet in 
none of those places records the words he taught, it is ne- 
cessary to limit the generality of these words. Now though 
the word ail doth sometimes signify the chief of all the 
things related to, as when our Saviour saith to his dis- 
ciples, ἐγνώρισα ὑμῖν πάντα, “1 have made known to you all 
things which I have heard of my Father,” and yet he adds, 
xvi. 12, “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot 
bear them yet;” notwithstanding, seeing all the excellent 


2 Until the day in which he was taken up, after 
that he? through the Holy Ghost had given command- 
ments unto the apostles whom he had chosen: 

3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his 


discourses of our Saviour mentioned by St. John, and two of 
his great miracles, the cure of the man born blind, John ix., 
and the raising of Lazarus, mentioned ch. xi, are not 
recorded by St. Luke, though these discourses and these 
miracles deserve well to be ranked among the chief things 
which Christ did and taught, I prefer the exposition of 
these words given in the paraphrase, as being in effect the 
exposition, which the evangelist’s own words afford, Luke 
i. 4. τῶν ἤρξατο, “ Which Jesus began to do,” that is, which 
Jesus did; for the gospel of St. Luke contains what was 
done by Christ from the beginning of his ministry to his 
assumption; and that ἄρχομαι is frequently an expletive, 
see Matt. xvi. 22, Mark ii. 23, Luke xv. 24, Acts.xi. 15. 

2 Ver. 2. Aci Πνεύματος dytov, By the Holy Ghost.] 
These words admit of several constructions, as, (1.) that he 
had chosen his apostles by the Holy Ghost; but against 

: 21, 


422 


passion by many 5 infallible proofs (Gr. by many signs 
or testimonies of his resurrection), being seen of them 
forty days, and 4 speaking of the things pertaining to 
the kingdom of God: 

4 And, being ® assembled together (or, eating and 
conversing) with them, (he) commanded them that 
they should not (or, not to) depart from Jerusalem 
(till power from on high was come upon them, to fit them 
for their work, Luke xxiv. 49), but (0) wait for the 
promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard 
of me (Gr. for the promise of my Father, of which you 
have heard). 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


5 For John truly (Ἰωάννης μὲν, John indeed) bap- 
tized with water (only) ; but (as he said, Matt. iii. 11) 
§ ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many 
days hence (7. 6. within ten days; for this was spoken 
on the day of our Lord’s ascension, that is, ten days be- 
fore Pentecost). 

6 When they therefore were come together, they 
asked of him (that which they chiefly desired and ex- 
pected), saying, Lord, 7 wilt thou at this time restore 
again the kingdom to Israel? (¢. e. Wilt thou now set 
up that temporal kingdom, in which the Jews shall rule 
over all nations, which we impatiently expect ?) 


this it is objected, that the scripture nowhere saith that 
Christ chose his apostles by the Holy Ghost: or, (2.) that 
he was taken up into heaven by the Holy Ghost, as by the | 
same Spirit he was led into the wilderness (Luke iv. 1) : 
or, (3.) that he gave commandments to his disciples by the 
Holy Ghost: which again is capable of divers construc- 
tions; as, first, that he gave them these commandments by 
the inward operations of the Holy Ghost, which he had 
breathed in them (John xx. 22): but this sense seems not 
very probable, (1.) because, after his breathing of the Holy 
Ghost upon them, he still saith, he will send the promise of 
his Father upon them, viz. the promise of the Holy Ghost ; 
and bids them stay at Jerusalem till they had received 
him, Luke xxiv. 29, and here, ver. 4, and (2.) because he | 
is said, ver. 3, to speak unto them the things which belonged | 
to the kingdom of God; or, secondly, as he did all his | 
miracles, and delivered all his doctrines, by virtue of the 
Holy Ghost, whilst he discharged his prophetic office (see 
note on Matt. iii. 16) : so being yet on earth he spake these | 
things, and gave these commands to his apostles touching 
his kingdom by the same Spirit. And his passion, mentioned 
in the verse following, renders it probable that St. Luke 
speaks of the commands relating to his kingdom, which he 
had given them before his passion. 

3 Ver. 3. Ἔν πολλοῖς τεκμηρίοις, By many infallible proofs.] 
For by speaking to, by walking, and by eating with them, he 
gave them certain indications that he lived; that he was | 
seen and handled by them was a sure evidence that he had | 
a true and natural body ; that he permitted Thomas to view | 
the scars of his feet and hands, and put his hand into his | 
side, was a certain token that the body raised was the same | 
which was crucified, and pierced by the soldier's lance. | 

4 And speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of | 
God.] viz. Of the teaching the doctrine of this kingdom to | 
all nations, and the receiving them into it by baptism who | 
believed and professed to own it (Matt. xxviii. 19); of the | 
benefits which were promised to them who cordially believed | 
their doctrine, and the condemnation which belonged to them 
who would not believe it (Mark xvi. 15, 16); of the en- | 
couragements and assistances he would afford them in the | 
propagation of it by his continual presence with them (Matt. 
xxviii. 20), and the assistance of his Spirit (ver. 4, 5), and , 
by the miracles by which their doctrine should be confirmed | 
by them, and others who believed it (Mark xvi. 17, 18). 

5 Ver. 4. Συναλιζόμενος, Being assembled with them.] So | 
| 
| 
| 


Phavorinus saith that ἁλίζω is συναθροίζω, “I assemble to- | 
gether :᾿ so Herodotus in Clio,* οὔτω piv δὴ συνηλίζοντο, * So 

they met together ;” and again, Cyrus, συναλίσας εἰς ταυτὸ, 
« gathering together all his father’s herds ;” and cap. 125, xai | 
ra μὲν αὐτέων ὃ Κύρος συνάλισε, “ Cyrus gathered together some | 
of the Persians ;” and in his Euterpe he saith that Pheron,+ | 
king of Egypt, εἰς μίην πόλιν συναλίζων, “ gathering together 
all the women that had been false to their husbands into one 
city, burnt them all with the city ;’ and so in Melpomene, 
ἁλίζειν στρατὸν, is “to assemble,” or “gather together” the 
army. Now this assembling them together is, by Dr. Light- | 
foot, thought to have been in Galilee; but this is contrary 
both to the text in Luke and here: for Luke xxiy. 49 he 
commands them καθίζεσϑαι, “to abide in” the city of Jeru- 
salem, here μὴ χωρίζεσϑαι ἀπὸ, “not to depart from Jerusa- 
lem,” ἀλλὰ παραμένειν, but to abide there; and it is added 
in both places, that having spoken this, “ he led them out (of 
Jerusalem) to Bethany” (Luke xxiv. 51, Acts i. 9), and there 
was taken up into heaven, and that thence, ὑπέστρεψαν, “ they 


* Clio, cap. 126. ἱ Cap. 111. + Cap. 12. 


went back (from Bethany) to Jerusalem” (Luke xxiv. 51, 
Acts 1. 12); they must be therefore at Jerusalem when Christ 
thus conversed with them, and there abiding, were to expect 
the promise of the Father (Luke xxiv. 49). Al. κοινωνῶν ἁλῶν 
καὶ τραπέζης, Chrys. Gicum. 

6 Ver. 5. Βαπτισϑήσεσϑε ἐν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, Ye shall be bap- 
tized with the Holy Ghost.) The word ye, and the time af 
fixed to this baptism, the day of pentecost, show that this 
baptism relates only to the disciples then present, and con- 
versing with the holy Jesus: and to them the Holy Spirit 
was given, (1.) torender them powerful or able witnesses of 
our Lord’s resurrection (Luke xxiv. 48, Acts i. 8),and con- 
sequently that he was the true Messiah, or that Prophet 
“which was to come into the world,” and was to be the Sa- 
viour of it (John xvi. 8—10). And therefore Peter speaks 
thus to the Jews, “ Ye have killed the Prince of life, whom 
God hath raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses” 

Acts iii. 15) : and he with the apostles says to them, “The 
od of our fathers hath raised Jesus from the dead, whom 
ye killed and hanged on a tree; him hath God exalted to his 
own right hand to be a prince and a Saviour, to give repent- 
ance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are his wit- 
nesses of these things, and so is the Holy Ghost, which he 
hath given to them that obey him” (Acts v. 30—32). (2.) 
To render them able to give us an exact account, as far as 
divine wisdom saw it necessary, of what our Saviour did 
and taught. “'The Spirit,” saith he, “shall bear witness of 
me, and you also shall be my witness, because you have been 
with me from the beginning” (John xv. 26, 27): and be- 
cause, were they never so faithful, yet could we not so trust 
to the strength of their natural memories, as to depend on 
those long discourses we meet with in the gospels of St. Mat- 
thew, Luke, and John, as the very words of Christ, or be 
assured thence, that they delivered all the circumstances of 
Christ’s miracles exactly as they were transacted ; therefore 
hath he assured us that he would send « the Spirit of truth” 
to them, to bring those things to their remembrance which 
he had said unto them, John xvi. 26. (3.) To make them 
able ministers of the new testament, able to acquaint all 
Christians with all saving truth, and teach them all things 
which he had commanded to be observed throughout all 
ages of the church; and to declare unto them by the spirit 
of prophecy what should be hereafter: and hence he pro- 
miseth them the Spirit, to teach them all things (John xiv. 
26), to lead them into all truth (xvi. 13), and to teach them 
things to come; and upon the strength of this promise all 
Christians of all ages have believed that the apostles and 
writers of the New Testament both spake and wrote “as 
they were moved, or directed, by the Spirit of God;” and 
received those doctrines they taught and indited, “not as 
the words of men, but, as they were in truth, the word of 

God” (1 Thess. ii. 13). 
7 Ver. 6. Ἔν τῷ χρύνῳ τούτῳ ἀποκαθιστάνεις Wilt thou at 


| this time restore 2] That temporal dominion over all other 


nations, which the Jews then expected, being never before 
granted to them, the word here cannot well be rendered 7e~ 
store, but rather grant, or establish, as it may be rendered ; 
for ἀποκαθιστῶν, say Suidas and Phavorinus, is διδοὺς, χαρι- 
ζόμενος, “giving, or granting;” and in the Septuagint the 
word signifies to establish: so Amos ν. 15, ἀποκαταστήσετε, 
“Ye shall establish judgment in the gates 3’ and Ps. xvi. 5, 
σὺ εἰ ὃ ἀποκαθιστῶν, * Thou sustainest,” or establishest “my 
lot.” Ingenious here is the conceit of Dr. Lightfoot, that the 
reason of the question, “ Wilt thou do it at this time ?”’ arose 
from their reflection on the indignities the Jews had done to 
Christ, and was to this effect: Lord, wilt thou restore the 


CHAPTER 1. 


7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know 
the times or the seasons, which the Father ® hath put 
in his own power (ἡ. e. reserved to himself ). 

8 But (for your satisfaction in what more concerns 
you, know that) 9 ye shall receive (a miraculous) power, 
after that the Holy Ghost (which Ihave promised ) is 
come upon you: and (then) ye shall be witnesses unto 
me (of what I said and did, John xv. 27) both in Jeru- 
salem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the 
% uttermost parts of the earth. 

9 And when he had spoken these things, while 


423 


11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand 
ye (thus) gazing up into heaven (after him whom ye 
cannot now see? but the time will come, at the end of 
the world, amt this same Jesus, which is taken up 
from you into heaven, ™ shall so come (down from 
thence) in like manner as ye have (now) seen him go 
into heaven. 

12 Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the 
mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a 
sabbath day’s journey ({. 6. seven furlongs). 

13 And when they were come in (thither), they 
8 went up into an pepe room, where abode both 
Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and 
Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the sun 
of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother 
of James. : 

14 These all continued with one accord in prayer 


what! to this generation so unworthy of that honour, as 
lying under the guilt of thy bloodshed? 

8 Ver.7. Which the Father hath put in his own power.) 
i.e. Reserved to himself: for “secret things belong to God” 
(Deut. xxix. 29); and not revealing the critical moment 
when they shall come to pass to any of his prophets, he left 
himself free to choose his own season when he will effect 
them. Grotius here saith, this kingdom was granted to the 
true Israel, i. e. the Christians, when Constantine and other 
Christian kings began to reign; but this agrees not with the 
predictions of the prophets, which plainly speak of a glori- 
ous kingdom belonging to the Jewish nation coming in to 
the faith of Christ. Dr. Lightfoot is positive that this place 
hath no relation to such a kingdom, and if he only means a 
temporal kingdom, this may be granted; but this answer 
speaking of times and seasons relating to a kingdom to be 
set up, or granted to Israel, 1 know not why he may not re- 
spect that time when the Jews generally shall be converted, 
and “all nations shall flow” in to them, and make Christ’s 
kingdom glorious. 

9 Ver. 8. Αήψεσϑε δύναμιν ἐπελθόντος τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος ἐφ᾽ 
ὑμᾶς. Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you.) Or, ye shall receive «the power of the 
Holy Ghost coming upon you:” for δύναμις, in the New 
Testament, when it relates to God the Father, Christ, or 
the Holy Ghost, imports generally some miraculous or ex- 
traordinary power; and what is here, “Ye shall receive 
power, the Holy Ghost coming upon you,” is, Luke xxiv. 
50, “ Ye shall be endued with power from on high,” and 
then ye shall be my witnesses, enabled to confirm what you 
say of my words and actions, and especially of my resurrec- 
tion, with signs and wonders, and divers distributions of the 
Holy Ghost (Heb. ii. 4). 

0 And to the uttermost parts of the earth.] That is, to 
the Jews first, then to the Samaritans, and, lastly, to all the 


nations of the world; and yet it is evident that the apostles | 


and converted Jews at the first understood this of their 
preaching only to the Jews dispersed through the earth, for 
they preached the word “to the Jews only” (Acts xi. 19), 
and thought it unlawful, till by a vision from heaven they 
were taught otherwise, to preach to the gentiles. 

N Ver. 11. Οὕτως ἐλεύσεται ὃν τρόπον, Shall so come in like 
manner as ye have seen him go up into heaven.) We are 
told, 2 Thess. i. 7, 8, that he shall come down from heaven 
“with his mighty angels in a flame of fire ;” and 1 Thess. iv. 
16, 17, that he shall come down from heaven, and snatch 
us up into the clouds; as therefore here the angels attended 
on him ascending to heaven, so the cloud that received him 
(ver. 9), must be such a cloud of fire in which God was 
wont to appear with the attendance of his holy angels: of 
which see note on Phil. ii. 6, and this makes out the parallel ; 
he being then to come also with a cloud of glory, in his 
body, and with the attendance of his holy angels. And thus 
Elias went up to heaven in a fiery chariot (2 Kings ii. 12). 

2 Ver. 12. Which is from Jerusalem a sabbath-day’s 
journey.) Note here, (1.) that St. Luke doth not intend to 
give us the distance of the place of Christ’s ascent from Je- 
rusalem, that being from Bethany (Luke xxiv. 50), “ which 
was from Jerusalem fifteen furlongs’ (John xi. 18), but only 


from the foot of mount Olivet, which was, say the Syriac 
and Theophylact from Josephus,* “ seven furlongs,” though 
now we read in Josephus only “five furlongs.” Now, say 
the Jews, a sabbath-day’s journey is two thousand cubits, 
that is, a thousand yards, which is about eight furlongs, or a 
mile (see of this Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 2582). 

Note also, that the day of Christ's ascension seems not 
settled in the church then, or that Chrysostom thought not 
of it when he here said, That because Christ’s ascension 
was on the sabbath-day, therefore St. Luke informs us, that 
the way the disciples went out with him exceeded not a 
sabbath-day’s journey (Hom. 3 in Acts iii. 12). 

3 Ver. 13. They went up εἰς ὑπερῶον, into an upper room.) 
Where and what this upper room was, as it is not much 
material, so it is difficult to determine; that it was not the 
room in which Christ celebrated his last supper, appears 
from this, that it is called ἀνώγεον, Mark xiv. 15, Luke xxii. 
12, which difference of names argues a diflerence in the 
thing itself. For ἀνώγεον is any room above stairs, be it only 
one story high, but tnepaiov is the highest room in the house 
(Acts xx. 8, 9). Note, 

Secondly, That there was ὑπερῷον ἐν rod ἱεριῦγ “an upper 
room in the second temple,” in which Ezra’ sat with the 
chief of the fathers of the people, as Josephusy testifies; it 
is therefore supposed there might be many such, in one of 
which Christ’s apostles, and the other Christians with them, 
might abide. 

It was also common among the Jews, not only for their 
rabbins to have an upper room for their Beth-Midrash, but 
also for others to have such an upper room where they dis- 
coursed of the law, or exercised other parts of religion ; now 
in which of these two the apostles and disciples abode is the 
question. 

That it was an upper room in the temple is argued, (1.) 
Because St. Luke tells us, that after their return to Jerusa- 
lem, they were διαπαντὸς ev τῷ ἱερῷ, always in the temple” 
(Luke xxiv. 52, 53), and here, that after their return to Je- 
rusalem they went up into this upper room, that they were 
καταμένοντες, “abiding there ;” and ii. 46, it is said of them 
convened, and remaining in this upper room, that they were 
daily προσκαρτεροῦντες ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ, “abiding in the temple.” 
But to this it is answered, 

1. That the phrase, they were “always ‘in the temple,” 
doth not prove this: for Christ saith of himself, Jolin 
xvili. 10, 1 taught πάντοτε ἐν τῷ tems, “ always in the tem- 
ple,” and yet he had no habitation in any part of it. 

2. We read, iii. 1, that Peter and John ἀνέβαινον, “ went 
up into the temple at the hour of prayer,” whereas, had 
they been in an upper room of the temple, it should have 
rather been said that they went down into it. It is also 
said, that they continued there καϑ᾽ ἡμέραν, “ day after day,” 
which seemeth to import that they lodged not there by 
night. 

3. It follows that they broke bread, κατ᾽ οἶκον, that is, 
saith Dr. Hammond, “in the temple ;” but both these and 
the former words are spoken of the whole number of Chris- 
tians, which were now at least three thousand one hundred 
and twenty, too many sure to lodge together in one upper 


* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6. t Ibid. lib. xv. cap. 5. 


424 


and supplication, with the women, and ™ Mary the 
mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. 

15 ¢ And in those days Peter stood up in the 
midst of the disciples, and said, (the "5 number of the 
names (of which) together were about an hundred and 
twenty,) 

16 Men and brethren, this scripture must needs 
have been (Gr. be) fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by 
the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, 
which was guide to them that took Jesus. 

17 For he was numbered with us (being one of the 
twelve sent out, and empowered by Christ to preach in 
his name, Matt. x. 1. 5), and had obtained part of this 
ministry. 

18 Now this man δ purchased a field with the re- 
ward of (Ais) iniquity (7. e. with the reward of his ini- 
quity had no other advantage, but to return it back to them 
that gave it, who with it purchased a field); and (then) 
" falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and 
all his bowels gushed out. 

19 And it (this fact) was known unto all the dwellers 
at Jerusalem ; insomuch as that field is called in their 
proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of 
blood. 

20 15 For it is written (by way of prediclion concern- 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


ing him) in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation 
be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his 
bishoprick let another take (or, his habitation shall be 
desolate, and no man shall dwell in it, and his bishopric 
let another take). 

21 ® Wherefore of these men which have accompa- 
nied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in 
and out among us, (and so can testify of all that he did 
and said, John xv. 27,) 

22 Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that 
same day that he was taken up from us (info heaven), 
must one be ordained to bé witness with us of his re- 
surrection (and of his words and actions). 

23 And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, 
who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias (to be pre- 
sented before the Lord). 

24 And ” they prayed, and said (Gr. and praying 
they said), Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts 
of all men, shew (by directing the lot to come out 
with his name) whether of these two thou hast 
chosen, 

25 That he may take part of this ministry and 
apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, 
31 that he might go to his own place (as the reward of 
his iniquity). 


room. Moreover, that κατ᾽ οἶκον refers to houses distinct 
from the temple, we learn from this evangelist, saying, v. 42, 
they were teaching all the day, ἐν τῷ ἱερῶ καὶ κατ᾽ οἶκον, “in 
the temple, and from house to house.” 

4. That there were ixcpia “upper rooms” in the temple 
is granted, but then that they belonged to any besides the 
priests and Levites is not proved: the ὑπερῷον mentioned 
by Josephus was that of Johanan the son of the high-priest. 
And Maimonides, in his book de Aldificio Templi, mentions 
sixteen conclavia, or chambers, but saith, they were all ap- 
pointed for sacred things or persons. How improbable there- 
fore is it, that poor fishermen and Galileans, odious for their 
Master’s sake, should be permitted to crowd in such numbers 
into one of these rooms (see the note on Luke xiv. 53). 

4 Ver. 14. And Mary the mother of Jesus.) Here is the 
last time that we have any mention of this blessed mother: 
of her ascension St. Luke saith nothing, because he knew 


nothing of it; that idle tale being the invention of latter | 


ages from apocryphal writings and vain revelations. 

And with his brethren.] They therefore then believed, 
though before they did not (John vii. 5). 

16 Ver. 15. The number ὀνομάτων of names.) i. 6. Of per- 
sons. So Rev, iii. 4, “Thou hast ὀλίγα ὀνόματα, a few per- 
sons in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments :” so 
in Aischylus, τὸ Θηβαίων ὄνομα, is “one of Thebes:” in Ci- 
cero,* Romanorum nomen, is a Roman citizen; and in 
Virgil,t Silvius Albanum nomen, a man of Albania. 

% Ver. 18. This man purchased a field, ἐκτήσατο χωρίον, 
with the wages of iniquity.] As in the Old Testament men 
are said to get or “purchase to themselves shame” (Prov. 
ix. 7), and in the New, to “receive to themselves dam- 
nation,” and in profane authors, κτήσασθαι ἔχθραν καὶ συμ- 
φορὰν, to “purchase enmity and calamities ;” and we in our 
language are said to “create trouble to ourselves,’ when 
this is the event, though it is not the intention of the action: 
so is Judas here said to “ purchase” this field by the wages 
of his iniquity, which was bought with the money he re- 
ceived as the reward of his iniquity, though he neither in- 
tended this nor was he instrumental to it. 

1 And falling headlong he burst asunder.] See note on 
Matt. xxvii. 5. 

18 Ver. 20. For it is written in the book of Psalms (Ps. 
Ixix, 26), Let his habitation be desolate ; and (Ps. εἶχ. 1), 
His bishopric (or office) let another take.] That the first 
of these Psalms refer to that Messiah, of whom David was 
a type, we learn from the twenty-first verse, where it is 
said, “ They gave me gall to eat, and when I was thirsty 
they gave me vinegar to drink,” which was true only of 
Christ, and is applied to him, John xix. 29, and from the 


* Lib. i. de Fin. 


} Mn. vi. 763. 


ninth verse, where it is said, “The zeal of thy house hath 
consumed me, and the reproaches of them that reproached 
thee fell on me,” which is applied to Christ, John ii. 17, 
Rom. xv. 3, and therefore what is said, ver. 26, of the enemies 
of David may reasonably be applied to Judas, the great enemy 
of Christ; what is said, Ps. cix. 8, if it primarily relate 
either to Doeg or Ahithophel, the mortal enemies of David, 
might by the Holy Spirit be intended to have its full com- 
pletion in the betrayer of the Son of David, and this inten- 
tion might be suggested to St. Peter by the same Spirit 
(see the appendix to the second chapter of St. Matthew). 

19 Ver. 21. Δεῖ οὖν, τῶν συνελθόντων ἡμῖν dvdpav, &e. Where- 
fore of these men who have accompanied with us all the 
time, one must be ordained to be a witness.) One must be 
chosen to make up the number twelve, answerable to the 
twelve tribes of Israel: he must be one who always had 
conversed with them, that he might be a witness of all that 
Jesus said and did, John xv. 27, whilst he discharged his 
office among them; for that is the import of the phrase, 
“go in and out;” as when Moses says, “I am grown old, 
I can no more go in and out before you,” Deut. xxxi. 3, 
and when Solomon prays for wisdom, that he “might go in 
and out before that great people,” 2 Chron. i. 10 (see Deut. 
xxviii. 6, Ps. exxi. 8). 

2 Ver. 24. And they praying said, Κύριε καρδιογνῶστα, 
Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, ὅς. Here Wolt- 
zogenius truly notes, that they prayed to the Lord Jesus, 
because the apostles were at first chosen by him, were his 
apostles, and were to be his witness, and then they must 
ascribe to him the knowledge of all hearts, which is the pro- 
perty of God alone. 

21 Ver. 25. Πορευϑῆναι eis τὸν τύπον ἴδιον, That he might 
go to his own place.) i. e. To the place worthy of him, and 
which he had deserved by his sin, So the Jews said of 
Balaam, ἀπῆλϑεν és τὸν τύπον αὑτοῦ, “He went into his own 
place” (Numb. xxiv. 14, 15), that is, saith Baal Turim, “to 
hell.” So Ignatius* saith ἕκαστος εἰς τὸν ἴδιον τόπον χωρεῖν 
μέλλει, “Every one must hereafter go to his own place;” 
Barnabast saith of those that walked in the light, that they 
do afterward ὁδεύειν εἰς τὸν ὡρισμένον τόπον, “go to the place 
appointed for them ;” Clemens Romanus, that they do go 
eis τὸν ἅγιον τόπον, “to the holy place, εἰς τὸν ὀφειλόμενον 
τύπον τὴν δόζης, to the place of glory due to them;” and 
Polycarp, that they are with the Lord, and go, eis τὸν ὀφειλό- 
μενον αὐτοῖς τύπον, “to the place appointed for them;” ac~ 
cording to the Hebrew phrase here cited by Lightfoot, “« He 
came from his own place, that is, from hell, appointed for 
idolaters.” 


* Ep. ad Magn. sect. 5. 
{ Sect. 19. 


CHAPTER II. 


26 And (then) 3 they gave forth their lots; and 
the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered 


425 


with the eleven apostles (making their number 
twelve). 


Obj. 1. Hell is not the proper place of Judas, but com- 
mon to him with all the wicked. 

Ans. St. Peter doth not expressly say he went to hell, 
but into a place proper for him; now Ignatius saith there 
is appointed for every man, ἔδιος τύπος, “a proper place ;” 
i. e. a place worthy of him, or agreeable to his actions. 
This in Plato* is the place whither the genius which he 
had chosen whilst he lived was appointed to bring him, viz. 
the incorrigible wicked soul, εἰς τὴν αὐτῇ πρέπουσαν οἴκησιν, 
“into a habitation fitted for it,’ but the pure soul, εἰς τόπον 
προσήκοντα, to a place convenient for it.” 

Obj. 2. Secondly, It is said that it belonged not to Peter 
to pass sentence on Judas, or affirm any thing of God’s se- 
crets, such as Judas’s going to hell. 

Ans. This is wonderful, that when Christ had pronounced 
him a devil (1 John vi. 71), “ason of perdition” (John xvii. 
12), and declared that it had been “better for him that he 
had never been born” (Matt. xxvi. 24), it should be thought 
a diving into God’s secrets to say, he went into a place pre- 
pared for, or due to, such miscreants. Moreover, doth not 
our Saviour say, this fall of the son of perdition was fore- 
told by the scripture? (John xvii. 12.) Doth not St. Peter 
here apply those scriptures to him which foretell the most 
dreadful things ? Does not Luke show the dreadful issue of 
his iniquity upon his body ? and after all this, might he not 
say, he went to a place proper for him? ‘“ Whosoever be- 
trays an Israelite into the hands of the gentiles,” say the 
Jews, “hath no part in the world to come;” how much 
less he who betrays the Messiah, the king of Israel, into 
the hands of the gentiles (Matt. xx. 19, xxvi. 24). 

Obj. 3. It seems improper to say such a one sinned that 
he might go to hell. 

Ans, This is even such an impropriety of speech as God 
is pleased to use to his own people, when he saith by Hosea, 
viii. 4, “ Of their silver and gold they made them idols, that 
they might be cut off;” and by the prophet Micah, vi. 16, 


* In Phed. p. 80, B, D, E. 


« The statutes of Omri are kept, and ye walk in their counsels, 
that I should make you a desolation ;” and as Christ useth 
when he saith, the Jews had shut their eyes and hardened 
their hearts, “lest they should be converted and healed,” or 
“lest their sin should be forgiven them” (Mark iv. 12, John 
xil. 39, 40). By all which places it appears, that in divine 
construction any man may be said to do an action to 
that end which he knows will be the event of it, and which 
by God is threatened to the doers of it. 

Moreover, the other exposition, viz. that the κλῆρος δια- 
κονίας καὶ ἀποστολῆς, “portion of the ministry and apostle- 
ship,” is the province which fell to the lot of Judas in the 
distribution of them among the apostles, and that this is 
called the proper place from which Judas fell by his sin, 
and into which Matthias is here said to go: I say this ex- 
position is founded upon an evident mistake, viz. that the 
several provinces into which the apostles were to go for 
preaching the gospel, were distributed among them before 
they were filled with the Holy Ghost, which is abundantly 
confuted by Dr. Stillingfleet, Iren. lib. ii. cap. 6, §. 2. And 
when, where, and to what end, should a province of preach- 
ing the gospel after our Lord’s ascension be distributed to 
him who was before to be a son of perdition? (2.) To suc- 
ceed in the office of Judas, is not πορευϑῆναι, to go into his 
place, but AapBivew, to take his place; according to the 
words of the Psalmist, “ His office λόβοι ἕτερος, shall another 
take.” And, lastly, had this been intended, a conjunction 
copulative should have been put before πορευϑῆναι, and the 
words should have run thus, λαβεῖν τὸν κλῆρον-ττεκαὶ ropevSijvat, 
“to take the share of this apostleship, and to go into his place.” 

2 Ver. 26. Kai ἔδωκαν κλήρους αὐτῶν, And they gave forth 
their lots.) That is, saith Grotius, they put two lots into 
two urns, the one containing the two names of Joseph and 
Matthias, the other the name of an apostle, and a void lot ; 
and then drawing forth the name of Joseph, and the void 
lot, they knew that the lot containing the name of an apostle 
belonged to Matthias (see Lucian’s Hermotimus, sive de 
Sectis, p. 232, 233). 


CHAPTER II. 


1 ' And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, 
they were all with one accord (together) in one place. 

2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven 
as of a rushing mighty wind (Gr. as of a strong wind 
brought or coming thence), and it filled all the house 
where they were sitting. 

3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, 
like as of fire, and it sat (Gr. xai ἐχάθισε, sub. γλῶσσα; 
and a tongue sat) upon each of them. 

4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, 


and began to speak with other tongues (‘han those 
which they had learned), as the ( gift of the) Spirit gave 
them utterance. 

5 And there were (then) dwelling at Jerusalem 
Jews, (by nation and by proselytism, ver. 10,) devout 
men, out of every nation under heaven (where the Jews 
dwelt). 

6 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude 
came together, and were confounded (or, astonished 
at the strangeness of the thing), because that (ὅτι, for) 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IE. 


1 Ver. 1. Kai ἐν τῷ συμπληροῦσϑαι, And when the day of 
pentecost was fully come, they were ὁμοϑυμαδὸν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, 
with one accord in one place.) Here the critical notes are 
these ; (1.) that πληροῦσϑαι and συμπληροῦσϑαι, when they 
relate to time, signify only the coming of that time (see Dr. 
Hammond). But Dr. Lightfoot here more critically ob- 
serves, that the phrase hath a particular respect to the words 
of the institution of the feast of pentecost, Lev. xxiii. 15, 
where it is said, “ You shall count to you from the morrow 
after the sabbath” (that is, from the morrow of the first day 
of unleavened bread, which always was a sabbath, because 
no servile work was to be done in it; or from the sixteenth 
of Nisan), “seven sabbaths npypn complete,” ὁλοκλήρους, saith 
the LXX. (even to the morrow, after the sabbath, shall ye 
number fifty days). Now it is to be noted from R. Solomon, 
that this account of the seven weeks complete was to begin 
at the evening. “They reckoned,” saith Maimonides, “ from 
the night of the sixteenth of Nisan,” for else the weeks 

Vou. IV.—54 


would not be complete; and so this day, after the sabbath, 
was none of the forty-nine, which made seven sabbaths com- 
plete; but that even and Sunday made the first day of the 
first week, and so Friday even and Saturday the forty-ninth, 
and Saturday evening and the Lord’s day the fiftieth; andso 
on that day pentecost was fully come, as our translation 
truly saith: so that, the evening beginning the account, pen- 
tecost was on the fiftieth day ; but the day was not complete 
till the fifty-first. 

So that two things may be noted for the dignity and honour 
of this day “which the Lord hath made :” that on this day 
he rose from the dead, “and became the first-fruits of them 
that slept:” and (2.) that on this day he poured forth the 
Holy Ghost on his apostles, and sent them forth to speak the 
“wonderful works of God” to men of every language and 
nation. It also is observable, that as the confusion of tongues 
in Babel spread idolatry through the world, and made men 
lose the knowledge of God and true religion, so God provided 
by the gift of tongues at Sion, to repair the knowledge of 
himself among those nations. 

212 


426 


every man (of them, who were of several nations,) heard 
them speak in his own language. 

7 And they were (therefore) all amazed and marvel- 
led, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these 
which speak (these strange tongues by birth) Galileans? 

8 And how (¢hen) hear we every man (of us them 
speaking) in our own tongue, wherein we were born? 

9 (For being) Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, 
and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and 
Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, 

10 Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the 
parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, 
Jews and proselytes, 

11 Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in 
our tongues the wonderful works of God. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


12 And they (who said this) were all amazed, and 
were in doubt (what the issue of this might be), saying 
one to another, What meaneth this? (What importeth 
this great matter 2 

13 But) others mocking, said, These men are full 
of new wine (and this causes them to speak thus). 

14 ¥ But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted 
up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judza, and 
all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, 
and hearken to my words (which I am about to speak) : 

15 For these (men) are not drunken, as ye (scoffers) 
suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day (i. e. 
the ninth hour, or the time of the morning sacrifice, to 
which we Jews usually come fasting). 

16 But this (which ts come to pass) is (the comple- 


Secondly, Dr. Hammond, note on i. 15, saith, that ἐπὶ τὸ 
αὐτὸ signifies “assembling for the service of God;” but 
though this sometimes happens so to be, as when men meet 
ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, together to pray, to celebrate the Lord’s supper, 
as 1 Cor. xi. 20, yet the phrase signifies only to meet ὑμοῦ ἢ 
eis τὸν αὐτὸν τόπον, together, or in the same place, without 
any relation to the business of the meeting ; and indeed, I 
might as well argue that it signifies meeting after religious 
exercises are ended, because it is said, 1 Cor. vii. 5, “ Let them 
not separate, except for prayer or fasting, and then let them 
come again ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ together” (see Deut. xxii. 10, Luke 
xvii. 35, Acts iii. 1). 

But the great important question here is this, Whether 
“they all,” here signify all the hundred and twenty men- 
tioned i. 15, as Grotius and Dr. Lightfoot think, or only the 
twelve, as Dr. Hammond in his paraphrase? This is a ques- 
tion of some importance: for if the whole hundred and 
twenty be here intended, the cloven tongues must sit upon 


every one of them, as well as upon the twelve apostles, and | 


so must give them a right, though not an equal power, to be 
Christ’s witnesses; for a tongue sat upon “every one of 
them” (ver. 3) who were met together in the house. 

The arguments of Dr. Lightfoot seem only probable ; but 
this is certain, that there were many besides the apostles of 
their company, who had these gifts of the Holy Ghost: for 
when the apostles came to appoint seven deacons, they com- 
mand the assembly to “look out among them seven men full 
of the Holy Ghost and wisdom ;” there must therefore be 
many such persons among them, known to them by the ex- 
ercise of these gifts, who therefore must have received them 
either at this time, or when they, praying that “God would 
stretch forth his hands to heal, and to work signs and won- 
ders by the name of Jesus, were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost, and spake the word with great freedom” (Acts iv. 
30,31). Now if these gifts were given then to others for 
this end, we may reasonably conceive that when that great 
promise of him was to be fulfilled, they might be given to 
others also. And if we consider what multitudes of several 
languages were then met, and even living at Jerusalem, it 
seems but rational to conceive this gift should be conferred 
on many, to enable them to discourse intelligibly for their 
conversion in the several synagogues, in which men of so 
many divers languages must meet for divine service. More- 
over, seeing the apostles themselves imparted the same gift, 
by the imposition of hands, to those whom they ordained 
ministers in particular churches, it seems unreasonable to 
think that those extraordinary persons, who had been all 
along in company with Christ and his apostles, and were to 
be the great preachers of the gospel in several parts of the 
world, should not be enrichec with the same gifts. 

And, lastly, this seems to have obtained as a tradition, or 
a received opinion in the church; for, saith St. Jerome,* 
when Paula “ came to Sion, they showed her the place where 
the Holy Ghost fell upon the hundred and twenty, to com- 
plete the prophecy of Joel:” and St. Chrysostomt and 
CEcumenius on the place say, “He fell not only upon the 
apostles, but also upon the hundred and twenty ;” and that 


* Ubi super centum viginti credentium Spiritus Sanctus 
cecidisset. Epitaph. Paule, f. 61, M. 

Ὑ Τί dai, ἄρα ἐπὶ τοὺς δώδεκα μόνους ἦλθεν, οὐχὶ δὲ ἐπὶ τοῦς 
λοιποῦς ; οὐδαμῶς" ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς ἑκατὸν εἴκοσι. 


St. Luke would not have said πάντες, “ all,” when the apostles 
were present, εἰ μὴ καὶ ἄλλοι μέτεσχον, “if others also had 
not been made partakers of the Holy Ghost.” 

Concerning this gift of tongues, let it be farther noted : 

First, That they mistake the matter, who imagine that the 
apostles only spake in their own mother tongue, and that the 
hearers, of what tongue soever they were, understood them 
as well as if they had spoken in their native language: for, 
as Gregory Nazianzen well notes, this makes the miracle to be 
wrought rather upon the hearers than upon the apostles; it 
also contradicts the words of the text, which saith, “The 
apostles began to speak ἑτέραις γλώσσαις, with other tongues,” 
not “as the Spirit” gave the auditors ability to hear, but as 
he “ gave” the apostles “ utterance.” Nor could the several 
auditors hear the apostles speak τῇ ἰδίᾳ διαλέκτῳ, “in their 
own proper dialect,” unless they had spoken in the language 


| of those nations who heard them. Nor, 


Secondly, Are we to admit of the criticism of those who, 
instead of of κατοικοῦντες ᾿Ιουδαίαν, “the dwellers in Judea” 
(ver. 9), read οἱ κατοικοῦντες ᾿Ινόίαν, “ the dwellers in India,” 
because, say they, it was no miracle for the men of Judea to 
hear the apostles speaking in their language: for (1.) this 
criticism is confuted by the following verse, which saith, 
« All those men were Jews and proselytes.” And (2.) the 
Jews are mentioned only to show that men of all nations 
heard them speak in their own language, and in that consists 
the miracle ; not that the Jews, but that every nation, heard 
and understood them. 

Note also, That the nations here reckoned up, living some 
in Asia, some in Africa, some in Europe, are said, though 
not without an hyperbole, to be “ men of every nation under 
heaven” (ver. 5). And this phrase is not only used in the 
scriptures, as when God saith, he would make the dread of 
the Jews fall“ upon every nation under heaven” (Deut. ii. 
25) ; but it is frequent in Jewish writers who lived about this 
time; for Philo* often speaks of the Jews dwelling zayra- 
χύϑεν τῆς οἰκουμένης, “every where through the whole earth ;” 
and says, that {πᾶσα οἰκουμένη, almost the whole earth was 
inhabited by them.” Agrippa also in Josephus saith, οὐκ ἔστιν 
ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκουμένης δῆμος, *'There is not a people upon earth, 
among whom some Jews do not inhabit” (see the note on 
Col. i. 23). 

Note, Fourthly, That it seems incredible that they, who 
said, “ These men are full of new wine” (ver. 13), should be 
so foolish as to think that new wine should enable them to 
speak all languages, or to declare the wonderful works of 
God: it is therefore well conjectured by Dr. Lightfoot, that 
they who said this were men of Judea, who, not understand- 
ing what the apostles spake in other languages, imagined 
they had babbled some foolish gibberish they could make 
nothing of, as drunken men are used to do. Note, 

Fifthly, That St. Peter well confuteth this surmise, by 
saying, ver. 15, “It is not yet the third hour of the day,” or 
nine of the clock; because, before that time, especially on 
the sabbath, and other feast days, the Jews were not wont so 
much as to taste any thing of meat or drink, as Dr. Lightfoot 
here shows. And, saith Josephus,¢ by their tradition, they 
were not to eat on their sabbaths till the sixth hour. 


* Orat.in Flaccum, p.752. + Leg.ad. Caium, p.791.802. 
+ Τῆν σύνοδον διέλυσεν ἐπελϑοῦσα ἕκτη ὥρα, καθ' ἣν σάββασι 


ἀριστοποιεῖσθαι νόμιμόν ἐστιν ἡμῖν. De Vita sud, p. 1320, Ὁ, 


CHAPTER II. 


᾿ 
tion of ) that which was spoken by the prophet Joel 
(ii. 28, in these words) ; 

17 ? And it shall come to pass in the lest days (¢. e. 
the times of the Messiah), saith God, I will pour out of 
my Spirit upon all flesh (upon persons of all ranks) : 
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and 
your young men shall see visions, and your old men 
shall dream dreams : 

18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I 
will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they 
shall prophesy : 

19 And (for the terror and condemnation of those who 
will not be convinced by this effusion of the Holy Ghost) 
31 will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in 
the earth beneath ; (an extraordinary effusion of ) blood, 
and (Matt. xxiv. 6, 7, strange appearances of lightnings 
and of ) fire, (devouring towns and cities,) and (causing) 
vapour of smoke (¢o ascend “p) ὃ 

20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the 
moon into blood (the government in church and stale 
shall be dissolved), before that great and notable day of 
the Lord (be fully) come: 

21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall 


427 


call on the name of the Lord shall be saved (from 
these direful judgments). 

22 Ye men of Israel, hear these words (which Iam 
now about to speak ; viz.) Jesus of Nazareth, a man 
approved of (i. 6. declared to be sent from) God among 
you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God 
did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also 
know : 

23 4 Him, being delivered (into your hands) by the 
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God (de- 
claring by his prophets that he should lay down his life 
for sinners), ye have taken, and by wicked hands have 
crucified and slain : 

24 (And he is that very person) Whom God hath raised 
up (from the grave), having loosed the pains (or bands) 
of death: (as you may be assured he hath done,) because 
it was impossible that he (who had life in himself, John 
y. 26, and the promise of a speedy resurrection, ver. 25,) 
should be holden of it. 

25 For David speaketh (thus, not of himself, bul) 
concerning him (Ps. xvi. 8, &c.), I foresaw the Lord 


‘always before my face, for he is on my right hand, 


that I should not be moved: 


2 Ver. 17, 18. And it shall come to pass in the last days, 
Iwill pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, &c.] For ex- 
plication of these verses, let it be observed ; 

First, That even Kimchi owns, that 73 »>nx in the prophet 
Joel is here all one with ayp7 ΤΥ ΠΝ, “in the last days,” in 
the prophet Isaiah, ii. 2, 3, where is a plain prophecy of the 
exaltation of Christ’s kingdom, and of the flowing in of the 
nations to it; and so St. Peter hath truly rendered what is 
in the prophet “afterward,” by ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις, “in the 
last days ;” and so it follows, that as there was no time before, 
in which this promise fully was made good, so are we not 
to expect any after times for the completion of it. Note, 

Secondly, That as the words “all flesh’? must be restrain- 
ed to all men, they only being capable of spiritual gifts, as 
when the psalmist saith, Ps. exlv. 50, “ Let all flesh bless his 
holy name;” and the prophet Isaiah, Ixvi. 23, “All flesh 
shall come, and worship before me, saith the Lord : so must 
all men be here restrained to some of all ranks of men; as 
when Hazael is said to bring to the prophet Elisha a2 >, 
“all the good of Damascus” (2 Kings viii. 9), i. e. some of 
every good thing: so Christ healed πᾶσαν νόσον, “all kinds of 
diseases,” Matt. iv. 23 (see Glass. Phil. Sac. p. 437). So 
that the phrase includes all sorts of men, without exclusion 
of age, young or old; without exclusion of sex, viz. sons 
and daughters ; without exclusion of conditions, servants and 
maidens; without exclusion of nations, Jews or gentiles, 
“even as many as the Lord shall call” (ver. 39). This pro- 
mise being fulfilled as well upon the Samaritans (viii. 17), 
and upon Cornelius and his kinsfolk (Acts x.), as upon the 
Jews ; and so this promise contradicts the Jewish rules, that 
“prophecy belonged only to Israelites, and to them only 
dwelling in Judea, and them only being 93>, fitly prepared 
for it;” that is, say they, “upon those who are wise, and 
valiant, and rich, and who are free from sorrow” (see all this 
in Dr. Pocock on Joel ii. 28). Moreover, this effusion of 
this Spirit upon all flesh, as it denotes an inexhaustible full- 
ness in that Spirit, who was to fill all men with all diversity 
of gifts, as the glory of God, and the good of the church re- 
quired; so the effusion of it upon all the several ranks of 
men and women mentioned, is a full confutation of all the 
Jewish rules and glosses, requiring such qualifications as 
they do to make men capable of the gifts here promised. 
Again, these gifts being here styled “ prophecy,” “visions,” 
“dreams,” it is apparent that the promise of distributing them 
to all flesh could be meant only of the distribution of them to 
some of all ranks of men; for it being never so, that all men 
individually had the gifts of prophecy, dreams, visions, or re- 
velations (1 Cor. xii. 29, 30), this could never be promised ; 
it being certain that God did punctually fulfil his promise. 

3 Ver. 19, 20. And I will show wonders in heaven above, 
and signs in the earth beneath ; blood, and fire, and vapour 
of smoke.] Τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα, the first relating to signs in the 
heavene-, the second to those on earth (see note on Heb, 


ii. 4). So Josephus,* speaking of the calamities of the Jews, 
mentions πρὸ ταύτης σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα, “the signs and won- 
ders” that preceded them (Pref. ad. Bell. Jud. p. 708, ΟἹ, 
καὶ ἐναργὴ τέρατα, “ the prodigies” which manifestly portend 
their destruction, and the dreadful thunderings and lightnings, 
καὶ μυκήματα σειομένης τῆς γῆς ἐξαίσια, “ and the vast earthquakes, 
which in the judgment of all men portend no small eyil to 
them” (see note on Matt. xxiv. 7,8, and on Luke xxi. 11). 
The “blood” very probably relates to that great effusion of 
blood which was then made, partly by their continual con- 
flicts with other nations, and the insults of other nations 
upon them; the wars betwixt them and the Samaritans 
(Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5), betwixt them and the Sy- 
rians at Cesarea (ibid. cap. 6, p. 695), betwixt them and 
the Greeks and Syrians (lib. xviii. cap. 12, p. 649, 650), the 
sedition betwixt them and the Greeks at Alexandria (Antiq. 
lib. xix. cap. 4), the vast slaughter of them there, mentioned 
by Philo in his oration against Flaccus, where τὰς μὲν ἡμέρας 
ἐν αἵματι ὀιῆγον, and by Josephus, in almost all the cities 
round about them: and partly by the zealots and sicarii, of 
which Josephust speaks very tragically. The « fire” here 
mentioned may relate either to the fiery meteors spoken of 
by Josephus, viz. the flaming sword hanging over the city, 
and the fiery comet pointing down upon it for a year; the 
light that shone upon the temple and the altar in the night, 
as if it had been noon-day, and the terrible lightnings now 
mentioned; or to the continual burnings of their synago- 
gues, their oratories, their cities, villages, and houses, men- 
tioned by Philo, as done at Alexandria by Flaceus; by Jo- 
sephus,t as done there by Tiberius; in Galilee and in Judea, 
by Cestius and Vespasian: from whence must arise pillars 
of smoke. 

Of the import of the sun’s being darkened, and the moon 
turned into blood, see the note on Matt. xxiv. 20: and of 
the wonderful preservation of those who then called upon 


‘the name of the Lord, as the Septuagint hath it, of the εὐαγ- 


γελιζόμενοι, i. 6. of “those who had embraced the gospel,” 
see the note on ver. 12. 

4 Ver.23. Him being delivered by the determinate coun- 
sel and foreknowledge of God, τῇ ὡρισμένῃ βουλῇ, καὶ προγνώσει 
τοῦ Θεοῦ. Here note, (1.) that in scripture that is said to be 
done by the determinate counsel of God, which is done ac- 
cording to what he had written and declared in his word, all 
his predictions concerning things future being declarations 
and determinations that they shall come to pass; “ The Son 
of man goeth as it is written of him,” saith St. Matthew, 
XXxvi. 24, κατὰ τὸ ὡρισμένον, “ as it is determined by God con- 
cerning him,” Luke xxii. 22. Note, (2.) that in order to 
the completion of this prediction, it was necessary that God 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31. 
+ Lib ii. cap. 34, 35. 
+ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 36. 


428 


26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue 
We glad; moreover also ὅδ my flesh shall rest in 

ope: 

BY Because (ὅτι, that) thou wilt not leave my soul 
in hell (Gr. hades, i. e. my life in the grave), neither 
wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. 

28 Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; 
thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. 

29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, 
and his sepulchre is (s/z// seen) with us unto this day 
(from whence his body never rising, this cannot personally 
belong to him). 

30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that 
God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit 
of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up 
Christ (from the dead) to sit on his throne ; 

31 He (J say) seeing this before spake of the re- 


should suffer Christ to fall into the hands of wicked men, 
for they could have no power over him “ unless it were thus 
given them from above” (John xix. 11), and that he should 
lay no restraints upon them from executing their malicious 
designs upon him; and this unrestrained permission is all 
that is or can be signified by God’s delivering Christ up into 
their hands. Note, (3.) That this permission doth neither 
hinder nor abate their sin in crucifying Christ ; for notwith- 
standing this, it is plainly said, that they by wicked hands 
had crucified him. Hence therefore it doth only follow 
(1.) That God foresaw what he foretold, that Christ would 
suffer by the hands of wicked men. (2.) That when their 
malice should incline them to bring him to these sufferings, 
he had determined not to interpose by his immediate power 
to hinder them from doing it, but rather to permit them so 
to do. But then it must be noted, that every divine permis- 
sion of what God hath forbidden men to do, and of what he 
requires them to repent of when they have done it, as God 
doth by Peter here, is a permission of what he would not 
have done by them, whom he forbids to do it, and a permis- 
sion of that which cannot be done by them without sin, for 
of that only are we called to repent. Hence therefore it 
must follow, that this foreknowledge and determinate coun- 
sel of God can be no intimation of his will that any man 
should do what he forbids him to do, but only of his will to 
permit the action to be done: for God cannot will that any 
one should do what he forbids, i. e. wills he should not do. 
Nor, secondly, can it lay on any person a necessity of doing 
what he thus determines to permit; for then it must remove 
the sin, because it takes away the freedom of the action, and 
renders it not mine, but his that laid upon me the unavoid- 
able necessity of doing it. It only doth suppose that God 
can see and foretell what man, not hindered by him, but left 
to his own inclinations, will do; and if that foresight hath 
any influence upon the will to make the action necessary, 
then (1.) not only all our actions must be necessary, they 
being all foreseen, but also God must foresee that they are 
necessary, for he foresees them as they are in their causes, 
and doth not by foreseeing make them, i. e. cause them so 
to be, since that must necessarily make him the cause of all 
the sinful actions he foresees. 

5 Ver. 26,27. My flesh shall rest in hope: that thou 
wilt not leave τὴν ψυχῆν psv εἰς a’dov, neither wilt thou suffer 
thy Holy One to see corruption.) That is, saith Dr. Ham- 
mond, I am confident that though I die, yet shalt thou not 
leave me so long dead, as that my body shall be putrified ; 
or, thou wilt not “leave my life in the grave,” or in the 
state of death. ‘T’o explain and confirm this interpretation, 
let it be considered, 

First, That the Hebrew word nephesh, translated by the 
Septuagint ψυχὴ, doth, many hundred times, both in the 
Old and the New Testament, signify life: so σῶσαι, τηρεῖν, 
gudGrrew τὴν ψυχὴν is to “ preserve life,” Gen. xix. 17, xxxil. 
30, 1 Sam. xix. 11, Job ii. 6, Ps. Ixxxv. 2, Jer. xlviii. 6, li. 6 
(see the note on Matt. xvi. 25, 26). 

Znreiv τὴν Woxiv, is to “seek the life” of a man to destroy 
it, Exod. iv. 19, 1 Sam. xx. 1, xxiv. 9, xxv. 29, 2 Sam. iv. 
8, 1 Kings xix. 10. 14, Ps. xiv. 4, xxiii. 3, xxxvii. 15, xxxix. 
19, Ixix. 2, exli. 6, Jer. iv. 30, xi. 23, xxii. 25, xliv. 30. 

“Ρῦσαι, ἐξέλεσϑαι, λυτρῶσαι τὴν ψυχὴν, is to “save life,” or 
preserve it from death, Josh. 11. 13, 2 Sam. iv. 9, 1 Kings i. 
12. 29, Ps. xvi. 14, xxi. 21, xxxii. 19, xl. 4, liv. 25, ἵν]. 5, 
Ixxi. 13, Ixxxv. 12, Ixxxvili. 47, cvili. 90, cxiv. 5, cxix. 2, 
Isa. xliv. 20. 

Δοῦναι λύτρον τῆς ψυχῆς, is to “give ransom for his life,” 
Exod. xxiii. 30, xxx. 12. 

Ψυχὴ ἀντὶ ψυχῆς, is “life for life,’ Exod. xxi. 23, Lev. 
xxiv. 18, Deut. xix. 21, 1 Kings xxiii. 39. 42 (see the note 


on Matt. xxviii. 23), and ψυχὴ ἡμῶν ἀνθ᾽ ὑμῶν, is “our life for 
yours,” Josh. ii. 13. 

Τιθέναι τὴν ψυχήν pov ἐν τῇ χειρί pov, is to “ put my life in 
jeopardy,” Judg. xii. 3, 1 Sam. xix. 5, xxviii. 21 (see for 
this sense in the New Testament, the note on 1 Thess. ii. 
8). Note, 

Secondly, That when a man dies, his “life,” in the scrip- 
ture phrase, is said to go down to hades, to “ the pit,” or 
«into the house of silence ;” and when he is snatched from 
the gates of death, his “life” is said to be “ brought or lifted 
up from hades,” or the grave; and therefore, when their 
bodies remain unquickened in the grave, their “life” may 
properly be said to be “left” in it, ‘Thus Jacob saith, Gen. 
xxxvii. 35, “I will go down to sheol to my son mourning,” 
καταβήσομαι εἰς ddov, “I will descend to hell,” saith the 
LXX. lebeth kebortha, “to the sepulchre:” so Jonathan, 
‘That I may be in the state of the dead as my son is: so 
again, xlii. 38, “If mischief befall” my son Benjamin, 
“you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to sheol,” 
κατάζετε eis ddov, “you will bring me down to hades”— 
“into the house of the sepulchre,” saith Ben Uziel again ; 
and that to bring down his gray hairs, was to bring down 
his “life to the grave,” is evident, because, when Judah 
repeats these very words, xliv. 29. 31, he gives this rea- 
son of them, because ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ ἐκκρέμαται ἐκ τῆς τοῦ- 
του Woxns, “his life depended on the 1α4᾽5. {Π|ὸ: so 1 Sam. 
ii. 6, “The Lord,” saith Hannah, “killeth, and he maketh 
alive, κατάγει ets adov καὶ ἀνάγει he bringeth down to the 
hades, and he raiseth up again;” where note, that these 
words are by Josephus* used as a proof of the resurrec- 
tion; and that the Chaldee paraphrast was of the same 
opinion, his words testify, for thus‘he renders them, “ He 
killeth, and he hath said we shall live again; he bringeth 
down to hades, and he will after bring us up to life eter- 
nal:” so again, Job vii. 9, If a man καταβήση εἰς adiv “ shall 
go down to hades,” shall he rise up again? And Job 
xxxili. 18, we find these very words, “ If God will teach him 
discipline he will deliver nny Ὁ ywp3 his life from the pit”— 
“from corruption,” saith the Chaldee; ἀπὸ Savarov, “ from 
death,” saith the Septuagint ; and ver. 22, “If this life draw- 
eth nigh to the pit,” nnwS ywps, ἡ ζωὴ αὐτοῦ εἰς ϑάνατον, * to 
death,” and he says, “Redeem me from going down nn» 
into corruption, ἐν ay, to hades ; he shall return to the days 
of his youth.” And Jonah, who was a type of Christ in this 
very thing (Matt. xii. 39, 40), saith, “ When, naphshi, my 
soul failed in me, taal mishechath chait, thou causedst my 
life to ascend out of the pit” (Jonah ii. 6,7). In the psalmist 
this expression is very frequent: “ Ὁ Lord,” saith he, ἀνήγαγες 
ἐξ ἄδου τὴν ψυχήν pov, “thou hast brought up, min sheol 
naphshi, my life from hell,” or hades, « thou hast preserved 
me from going down into the pit,” Ps. xxx. 3. And again, 
Ps. Ixxxvi. 13, “Thou hast delivered my life τὴν ψυχῆν pov, 
from the nethermost hell,” or hades—misheol haragihta 
«from sheol beneath,” or from the low earth, saith the Chal- 
dee; “from the state of death,’ Ainsworth; “from the 
sepulchre,” I. T., into which Christ is said to have “de- 
scended,” Eph. iv. 9 (see the note there) ; and into which 
David, had he then died, would only have descended and 
not into hell properly so called, Ps. Ixxxviii. 3, chaii 
lesheol, “ My life draweth nigh to hell;” ἡ ψυχή pov ra an 
“to hades ;” and Ps. xciv. 14, “If the Lord had not been 
my helper, my life had dwelt in silence, ἐν ay in the grave,” 
the house of silence, as appears from those words, Ps. cxy. 
17, “The dead cannot praise thee, nor of καταβαίνοντες εἰς 
ddov, they that go down into hades,” LXX.; “into silence,” 
Heb.—into beth keborah, the house of the sepulchre,” 


* Lib. de Maccab. p. 1101. 


CHAPTER II. 


surrection of Christ (’s body thus), that his soul δ was 
not (lo =) left in hell (7. e. the grave), neither his flesh 
did Chow 1) see corruption. 

32 This Jesus (J say) hath God raised up, whereof 
we are all witnesses. 
33 Therefore being by the right hand of God ex- 


429 


Chaldee; and Ps. Ixxxix. 40, “ What man is he that liveth 
and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the 
hand of hell, τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἐκ χειρὸς déov, his life from the 
hand of hades,” i. e. the grave? “Shall he be delivered from 
the angel of death, shall he not descend into the house of 
the sepulchre?” Parallel to which are the words of Heze- 
kiah, Isa. xxxviii. 18, of ἐν ἅδη, “They that are in hades,” or 
sheol, «shall not praise, neither shall the dead bless thee :” 


so Tob. ii. 10, “I shall bring the old age of my father with | 
sorrow” εἰς ddov, that is, εἰς τάφον, “to the grave,” vi. 14, so | 


David saith to Solomon of Joab and Shimei, κατάξεις εἰς ddov, 
“Thou shalt bring down their gray hairs to the grave” (1 
Kings ii. 6. 9). 

Note, Thirdly, That sheol throughout the Old Testament, 
and ἀύης in the Septuagint, answering to it, signifies not the 
place of punishment, or of the souls of bad men, but the 
grave only, or the place of death, appears, 

1, From the root of it, shaal, which signifies to ask, crave, 


and require, because it craves for all men (Prov. xxx. 16), | 


and will let no man escape its hands (Ps. Ixxxviii. 49), it 
is that sheol or hades, “ whither we are all going” (Eccles. 
ix. 10). “The Hebrew sheol,” saith Buxtorf, “ signifies, in 
general, the place of human bodies, when they are separated 
from their souls; ἀΐόην νεκρῶν χωρίον, exponunt Greci, « The 
Greeks say, that hades is the place of the dead,” saith D. 
Windet; it is 6 τάφος, ὃ τύμβος, “the tomb, or sepulchre,” 
saith Phavorinus; thus, “to go to the gates of hades,” in 
Homer, is, saith the scholiast, περίφρασις ϑανάτου, a descrip- 
tion of death ;’—* He shall knock at the gates of hades,” 
saith Theoeritus, τοὔτεστι ἀποθενεῖται, “He shall die,” saith 
the scholiast (see the note on Matt. xvi. 18). 

2. Because it is the place to which the good, as well as the 
bad, go; for they whose souls go upwards descend into it; 
thither went Jacob, Gen. xxxvii. 35; there Job desired to be, 
xvi. 13, “ for he knew that sheol was his house,” xvii. 13, and 
“that to descend into the dust, was to descend into hades ;” 
where Olympiodorus brings him in speaking thus, οὐ κοινὸν 
ἅπασιν ἀνθρώποις τὸ ἀποθανεῖν ; οὐχὶ addns dracw ὃ οἶκος 3’ “Is 
not death common to all men? Is not hades the house of 
all men?” Hezekiah expected to be there after he went 
hence ; for he said, “I will go to the gates of hades,” Isa. 
Xxxviil. 30, that is, saith Jerome, “to those gates of which 


the psalmist speaks, saying, hou wilt lift me up from the | 
gates of death.” ‘The ancient Greeks assigned one hades to | 


all that died, and therefore say, ravras ὁμοῦ ϑνητοὺς ἀΐδης 
δέχεται, “ Hades receives all mortal men together,” εἰς κοινὸν 
anv πάντες ἥξουσιν βροτοὶ, “all men go to hades.” 


3. Had the penmen of the Old Testament meant by hades | 


any receptacle of souls, they could not truly have declared 
there was “no wisdom or knowledge in sheol,” Eccles. ix. 
10, no remembrance of God there, Ps. vi. 6, no praising in 
sheol, Isa. xxxviii. 18; for those heathens who looked upon 
it as a receptacle of souls, held it to be a place in which 
they would be punished or rewarded. 

Seeing then, κατάγειν τὴν Ψυχὴν εἰς ddov, is “to bring down 
the life to the grave,” ἀνάγειν τὴν ψυχὴν ἐξ déov, is “to bring 
the life up from the grave;” μὴ ἐγκαταλείπειν τὴν ψυχήν pov 
εἷς ddéov, may very properly here import, “not to leave the 
life of Christ in the grave,” but to revive his dead body by 
giving a new life and motion to the animal spirits, now dor- 
mant in it, and a reunion of his soul to it; and so this first 
part of the sentence, “Thou wilt not leave my life in the 
grave,” will be in sense the same with the ensuing words, 
“Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption ;” as 
are those words in the psalmist, “ What man is he that shall 
not see death ?”’ the same with the following words, «Shall 
~he deliver his life from the hand of hades 2” and those of 
Job, xviii. 18, «'The grave is my house, I have made my 
bed in the darkness ;” and those of Elihu, xxxiii. 28, “He 
will deliver his life from going down into the pit, and his life 
shall see the light;” and those of David, “Thou hast brought 
up my soul from the grave, thou hast kept me alive, that I 


should not go down into the pit,” xxx. 3, “ My life draweth 
nigh to the grave, I am counted with them that go down into 
the pit,” Ps. Ixxxviii. 3 (see Ps. exv. 17, Isa. xxxviii. 10--- 
12). And that this must be the true import of the words, 
will be still farther evident, 

1, From the precedent words, “ My flesh shall rest in 
hope,” that thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, it being a 
very proper prosopoperia to bring his dead flesh, hoping it 
shall be revived, but not so proper to introduce it, hoping 
that its soul shall not be left in hell or in the place of the 
damned; and also from the following words, “Thou wilt 
not leave my soul in hell, for thou wilt show me the path of 
life: for, as life is opposed to death, so showing to one 
dead, or in danger of it, the path of life, must signify the pre- 
serving him from death, or the restoring him to life when 
dead. And, 

2. From the consideration of the person to whom these 
words do in the primary sense belong: for, being spoken 
by king David, when his life was continually in his hand, 
and he was still in danger of death from a persecuting Saul, 
they in respect of him can only signify his hope, that God 
would not give him over unto death; and so in reference to 
the Son of David will very naturally import, that though thou 
sufferest men to kill me, and lay me in the grave, yet wilt 
thou raise me from the dead. In a word, this phrase is by 
St. Peter imported of our Lord’s resurrection; for so he 
speaks, “ Him, whom you by wicked hands lrave slain, God 
hath raised up, loosing the bands of death,” ver. 23, 24, 
“for David saith of him, Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
hell,” i. 6. my life in the grave; and it is not opposed to 
David’s continuing in the grave, and in the state of death; 
thus, “ David is both dead and buried,” and fis body lies 
still in the sepulchre ; he therefore could not say this of him- 
self, but “being a prophet,” and so foreseeing that God 
would raise up Jesus from the dead, he said this of the re- 
surrection of Christ, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,” 
or, my life in the grave (see the appendix to this verse at the 
end of the Acts). 

5 Ver. 31. Οὐ κατελείφθη ἡ Ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ cis ddov.] Here Dr. 
Mills is confident that the words ἡ ψυχη αὐτοῦ were inserted 
from ver. 26, because they are wanting in Irenzus, lib. iii. 
cap. 12, p. 299, in the Vulgate, Syriac, and Cod. Alex., but 
as these words are owned by the Arab., Chrysostom, and 
CEcumenius, in locum, and by Origen,* in his commentary 
on the Kings, where he says that they are read in the Psalms, 
and are interpreted in the Acts of the Apostles; 50 is it evi- 
dent from the very words that they ought to be retained, for 
the words of the psalmist being these, οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψεις τὴν 
ψυχῆν pov εἰς d’dov, the apostle here saying that David spake 
this of the resurrection, ought to use the words that David 
spake : and, (2.) that is farther evident from the words follow- 
ing, οὐδὲ σὰρξ αὐτοῦ, “ Nor did his flesh see corruption,” they 
having a plain relation to ἡ Ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ going before. 

6 Ver. 33. He received the promise of the Spirit from the 
Father.) i. e. The Spirit promised by him, and therefore 
styled his promise, Luke xxiv. 49, and received from him by 
Christ, who, as mediator betwixt God and man, is to convey 
all blessings to man, “ from that Father of lights” from whom 
“comes every good and perfect gift;” and thus this one 
mediator betwixt God and man, “the man Christ Jesus” 
(1 Tim. ii. as is fitly said to have received this Spirit from 
the Father, though as to his divine nature he also is the 
Spirit of Christ (1 Pet. i. 11), and he receives of his to give 
unto us (John xvi. 14, see the note there) ; yea, he hath so 
received him as to be the Lord of the Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 18), 
and of all his administrations (1 Cor. xii. 5): so that all 
Christians ever did receive him “ according to the measure 
of the gift of Christ” (Eph. iv. 7). 

7 Ver. 34. David is not ascended into heaven.] i.e. With 
his body, as Enoch and Elias did; but as Jesus, who is the 


* Apud Huet. tom. i. p. 32. 


430 


ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself (of 
Christ), The Lord said unto my Lord, 8 Sit thou on 
my right hand, 

35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool. 

36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know as- 
suredly, that (by this exaltation of him to his right hand), 
® God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have cru- 
cified, both Lord (of all things, x. 36,) and Christ (7. e. 
the king of Israel, John i. 50). 

37 1 Now when they heard this, they were pricked 
(or filled with sorrow) in their heart (four ths sin), and 
said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men 
and brethren, what shall we do (to obtain the pardon of 
so great a crime) ? 

38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be bap- 
tized every one of you in the " name of Jesus Christ 
for the remission of ( your) sins, (which by this baptism 
will be washed away, xxii. 16,) and (then) ye (also) 
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

39 For the promise (of him, mentioned Joel ii. 28,) 
is (made) unto you, and to your children, and (nt to 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


them only, but also) to all that are afar off (7. 6. the 
cate even (10) as many as the Lord our God shall 
call. 

40 And with many other words did he testify and 
exhort (them to repentance), saying, Saye yourselves 
from (the evils coming on) this untoward generation. 

41 4 Then they that gladly received his word were 
baptized: and the same day there were added unio 
them (of the church) about three thousand souls (7. e. 
(persons). 

42 And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ 
doctrine and (zn) fellowship (with them, and one an- 
other, 1 John i. 3. 7), and in 11 breaking of bread, and 
in prayers. 

43 And fear came upon every soul (hal was ac- 
quainted with these things): and many wonders and 
signs were done by the apostles. 

44 And all that believed 12 were together, and had 
3 all things common; 

45 And sold their possessions and goods, and parted 
them to all men, as every man had need. 


Son and Lord of David, and was to sit upon his throne (ver. 
33), and reign over the house of Jacob for ever (Luke i. 32, 
33), must have ascended thither: for thus did David pro- 
phesy concerning him when he said, “The Lord said to my 
Lord,” &c.; of which words see the notes on Matt. xxii. 46, 
Heb. i. 13. 

8 Sit thou on my right hand.) Christ’s session at the right 
hand of God, imports, (1.) the unspeakable felicity which 
Christ, according to his human nature, now enjoys ; for God’s 
right hand is represented as the place of everlasting happi- 


ness and joy, as in those words, Ps. xvi. 11, “In thy presence 


there is fullness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures 
for evermore ;” and hence the psalmist, having prophesied of 
our Lord’s resurrection, adds these words, “ Thou wilt make 
me full of joy with thy countenance,” ver. 28. (2.) The 
glorious majesty to which our Saviour is advanced; God’s 
right hand being styled in scripture, “the right hand of ma- 
jesty,” Heb. i. 3; and as the most honourable place among 
men is the right hand, and Solomon showed his mother 
Bathsheba the highest honour, when he made her sit on the 
right hand of his throne (1 Kings ii: 19) ; so hath the Father 
advanced Christ’s human nature to the highest dignity, by 
causing it to sit “on the right hand of the throne of the 
Majesty in the heavens,” Heb. viii. 1. (3.) It signifies that 
fullness of power with which he is invested over all things in 
heaven and earth (Matt. xxviii. 18); for so the scripture 
represents the greatness of his divine power by “ the strength 
of his right hand” (Ps. xx. 6, Ixxxix. 138): and hence our 
Lord is said to “sit on the right hand of power,” Matt. xxviii. 
64, (4.) Because princes sit on their thrones to execute 
judgment, and exert that dominion which God hath given 
them over their subjects; therefore this session at the right 
hand of God imports his authority to judge both the quick 
and the dead, as being by it constituted Lord of the dead and 
of the living (Rom. xiv. 9. 12). 

9 Ver. 36. God hath made the same Jesus both Lord and 
Christ.) Here the word Christ signifies the Messiah, accord- 
ing to his regal office, in which sense he is still styled by 
the Chaldee paraphrasts and Jewish writers, 7$n nw, Mes- 
sias, or “ Christ the king,” as Buxtorf* shows in the word 
mwnp; under which title the prophets frequently’ speak of 
him as of a king to reign over God’s people, Ps. xxiv. 7, xlv. 1, 
Isa. xxxii. 1, Zech. ix. 9; and not the Jews only, but the whole 
east under that title did expect him (see note on Luke ii. 38). 

10 Ver. 38, 39. Be baptized in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for 
the promise is to you and to your children.] Here let it be 
observed, 

First, That St. Peter exhorts the Jews to be baptized, not 
in the name of the Father and the Holy Ghost, but only in 
the name of Jesus, because they did already believe in God 
the Father, and in the Holy Ghost, and profess obedience 
to the laws of God, and of the Holy Ghost speaking by the 
mouth of his prophets. 


* P. 1267. 


Secondly, That when it is said, “ You shall receive the 
Holy Ghost,” it is not intended that every one of them upon 
their baptism should be endued with the extraordinary gifts 
of tongues and prophecy: for it is manifest from the history 
of the Acts, and especially from vi. 3, that he was given only 
to some among them, though that was for the benefit of all; 
and hence is that inquiry of St. Paul, 1 Cor. xii. 29, 30, 
“ Are all prophets? do all speak with tongues?” But the 
meaning of St. Peter is, that he should fall upon some of all 
ranks of them, according to the true purport of the words of 
Joel. Note, 

Thirdly, That these words will not prove a right of infants 
to receive baptism: the promise mentioned here being that 
only of the Holy Ghost, mentioned ver. 16—18, and so re- 
lating only to the times of the miraculous effusion of the 
Holy Ghost, and to those persons who by age were made 
capable of these extraordinary gifts. 

1 Ver. 42. And in breaking of bread.] I see no necessity 
to think these words relate to the receiving of the sacrament ; 
not from the phrase of breaking bread, for this is used by the 
evangelists when they relate Christ’s miraculous feeding of 
the multitude, Matt. xv. 36, Mark viii. 19,20, and in the 
forty-sixth verse of this chapter they are said to “break 
bread from house to house,” and to “eat their meat with 
singleness of heart;’’ where it can only signify their friendly 
converse with one another: but, (2.) allowing this to relate 
to the receiving of the sacrament, and not to their breaking 
bread at the feast of pentecost, either wine was also conse- 
crated with the bread, or it was not; if it was, then must 
bread signify, by a synecdoche, very usual in the scripture,* 
bread and drink; and therefore, when that drink is wine, as 
in the sacrament it is, bread and wine; and then, if both 
were consecrated, both might be distributed, according to 
our Saviour’s precept, “ Drink ye all of this;” if it was not, 
the officiator, even according to the principles of the church 
of Rome, must be guilty of sacrilege (see the notes on Luke 
xxiv. 30, Acts xx. 7). 

12 Ver. 44. They were ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, all together.) ‘There be- 
ing added to the one hundred and twenty, three thousand 
souls (ver. 41), it seemeth inconvenient to say, they were all 
together in one place, unless it were in one of those apart- 
ments in the towers of the temple, which, saith Josephus,f 
would receive a hundred beds; and therefore it seems bet- 
ter to prefer this to their communion in the same action, in 
which sense all the Jews are said to build ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, “ to- 
gether” (Ezrativ.3), though they were far separated from one 
another (Neh. iv. 19), and Joab and Abner’s men to be ἐπὶ 
τὸ αὐτὸ, “together” (2 Sam. ii. 12), though one were on the 
one, the other on the other side of the pool (see Ps. iv. 9, 
xlix. 2, Isa. xvi. 17, Jer. vi. 12). 

'3 And had all things common.] These words here, and 
iv. 32, do not signify that they had no longer any property 


* Gen. xiii. 16, 25, Exod. ii. 20, xvi. 3, xviii. 12, Luke 
xiv. 1, Matt. xv. 2, Mark iii. 10, Acts xxvii. 35, 
{ De Bello Jud, lib. vi. cap. 18, p. 915, 


CHAPTER III. 


46 And they, continuing daily with one accord in 
the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, 
did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of 
heart (or sincere liberalily one towards another), 


431 


47 Praising God, and having favour with all the 
people. And the Lord added to the church daily such 
as should be "αὶ saved (Gr. the saved). 


in what belonged to them, for then they could not sell them 
afterward; but that they used and disposed of them as 
things common, freely imparting of them to all that had 
need. And that this making sale of them was not done by 
command, Peter declares, by telling Ananias he was under 
no obligation so to do (Acts ν. 4). Nor was it ever intended 
for an example or precedent to other Christians, as is evi- 
dent from all the epistles, in which we have frequent men- 
tion of the distinction betwixt rich and poor; and frequent 
exhortations to the wealthy to be rich in good works, but 
not the least intimation that they ought to sell their posses- 
sions ; this being now done on a particular account, either by 
them who had lands out of Judea, as Barnabas had his in 
Cyprus, and being resolved not to return thither, but to 
cleave to the apostles, could make but little benefit from 


them there; or else in Judea, and therefore they knowing, 
from our Saviour’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, and from his exhortation, that they were shortly to fly 
from and quit them to the enemy, were willing to part with 
their estates for the benefit of the church, before they were 
snatched from them by the enemy. 

M Ver. 47. Τοὺς σωζομένους, The saved.] The Christians are 
so styled elsewhere: so 1 Cor. i. 18, τοῖς σωζομένοις ἡμῖν, «To 
us the saved Christ crucified is the power of God;”’ and 
when the means of salvation, or that “ grace of God which 
brings salvation,” was vouchsafed to them, salvation is said 
to come (Luke xix. 9, Rom. xi. 11), or to be sent to them 
(Acts xiii. 16, xxviii. 28, see the note on Eph. ii. 18, Tit. 
il. 5). 


CHAPTER ΠῚ. 


1 Now (Gr. and) Peter and John went up together 
into the temple at the hour of prayer, being 4 the ninth 
hour (Gr. at the ninth hour of prayer). 

2 And a certain man (who had been) lame from his 
mother’s womb was carried (/hi/her), whom they (who 
brought him) laid daily at the ? gate of the temple 
which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that 
entered into the temple; (by which means he became 
well known to all who entered into it, ver. 10;) 

3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the 
temple asked (Gr. fo receive) an alms (of them). 


4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John 
(to raise his expectation of receiving some benefit from them), 
said (0 him), Look on us. 

5 And he gave heed unto (Gr. Jooked on) them, ex- 
pecting to receive something of them. 

6 Then Peter said (to him), Silver and gold have 1 
none (do give); but such as I have (Gr. what I have) 
give I unto thee: (saying to thee,) In the name of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. 

7 And he (having said this) took him by the right 
hand, and lifted Atm up (Gr. and taking him by the 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IIL. 


Ver. 1. At the ninth hour of prayer.) Among the Jews 
there where three stated hours of prayer; the first at the 
third hour of the day (Acts ii. 15), which answers to our 
ninth; at which time they offered their morning sacrifice 
(Exod. xxix. 39, Numb. xxviii. 3, 4), at the ninth hour, or 
at three in the afternoon, when they offered their evening 
sacrifice (Acts x. 3.30). Of these two, the Hebrew doctors 
say, The continual sacrifice of the morning made atonement 
for the iniquities that were done in the night, and the evening 
Sacrifice for the iniquity that was done by day: but Philo* 
saith, “They were both sacrifices of thanksgiving for the 
blessings God was pleased continually to confer upon man- 
kind by day and night.” At both these times, special favours 
were shown by God to his people; thus, πρωΐ ἀναβαινούσης τῆς 
ϑυσίας, “In the morning when the mincha was offered,” the 
thirsty land was miraculously filled with water (2 Kings iii. 
20); and about the time of the evening oblation, God an- 
swers Daniel’s prayer, by sending the angel Gabriel to him 
(Dan. ix. 21). Hence David says, “Let my prayer ascend 
to thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as an 
evening sacrifice” (Ps. exli. 2) ; either because that also com- 
pet the morning sacrifice, as Kimchi conjectures, or, as 

Saadias, because by that all things were atoned, there be- 
ing no sacrifice offered after that: and upon this account it 
might be, that the apostles, and other persons went always 
up into the temple at these “ hours of prayer” (Acts ii. 46). 

The third time of prayer was the sixth hour, that is, at 
twelve of the clock, before they dined, or after dinner; at 
which time we find Peter at his prayers, Acts x.9. Of these 
three times the royal psalmist speaketh thus, “ At evening, 
and at morning, and at noon, will I pray to thee” (Ps. lv. 
17): and of Daniel it is recorded, that “he kneeled down 
three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks (Dan. vi. 10, 


“Ὑπὲρ εὐχαριστίας ἑκάτερον, τὸν piv ὑπὲρ τῶν μεθημερινῶν, τὸν 
& ὑπὲρ τῶν νυκτὸς εὐεργεσιῶν, ἃς ἀπαύστως καὶ ἀδιαστάτως τὰ γένει 


τῶν ἀνθρύπων ὁ Θεὸς χορηγεῖ. De Victimis, lib. i. p. 647, B. 


13). And the Jews say, they received these stated hours of 
prayer from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: but yet as their 
going to the temple is no precedent for us Christians to per- 
form our private devotions in the church, which by our 
Lord’s directions we rather are to do entering into our clo- 
sets, God not being so present in our churches, as in a place 
of his perpetual and glorious residence, as he was in the ta- 
bernacle and the temple; so neither is their observation of 
these hours of prayer any warrant for our institution of ca- 
nonical hours of prayer, much less an evidence that the 
apostles by going thither did institute these canonical hours, 
as Baronius fancies. Notwithstanding, seeing we Christians 
are as much obliged to perform both our public and private 
devotions to God, as the Jews could be, it must be laudable 
in us also to set apart solemn times for the performance of 
those duties, as they did. And hence the Constitutions* of 


| the Apostles, having cited the Lord’s prayer, τρὶς τῆς ἡμέρας 


προσεὔξεσϑε, * Pray thus thrice a day:” and Tertulliant says 
that these three hours, morning, noon, and evening, were in- 
signiores in orationibus diurnis, “ the most celebrated in their 
daily prayers.” And these three times, saith Theodoret,+ 
we glorify God, τὰς ϑείας λειτουργίας ἐν ἐκκλησίαις ἐπιτελοῦντες, 
“using the sacred liturgies in the churches.” 

2 Ver. 2. Πρὸς τὴν Sipay rod ἱεροῦ τὴν λεγομένην ὡραίαν, To 
the gate of the temple called Beautiful.| This gate, being 
the very front and entrance into the temple, was built with 
such sumptuousness and glory, as became the frontispiece of 
that place where the divine Majesty vouchsafed to dwell, 
and hence bearing the name of the “ Beautiful gate:” the 
other three gates belonging to the entrance into the court of 
the women, were, saith Josephus, χρυσῷ re, καὶ ἀργύρῳ κε- 
καλυμμέναι πανταχόθεν, “covered over with silver, and then 
gilt; but this gate, which he called the Corinthian gate, 
as being made of Corinthian brass, was, saith he,§ πολὺ τῇ 
τιμῇ τὰς καταργύρους καὶ περιχρύσους ὑπεράγουσα, “much ex. 
ceeding in glory those of gold and silver.” 


* Lib. vii. cap. 24. De Orat.C. + Ep. 145, p. 1022. 
§ De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 916, G. 


432 


right hand, he arose): and ( for) immediately his feet 
and ancle bones received strength (to arise). 

8 And he leaping up (from his bed) stood (up), 
and walked, and entered with them into the temple, 
walking, and leaping, and praising God (according to 
the prophecy, Isa. xxxv. 6, Then the lame shall leap as 
the harl). 

9 And all the people saw him walking and (heard 
him) praising God: 

10 And they knew that it was he which sat for (10 
beg) alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and 
(therefore) they were filled with wonder and amaze- 
ment at that which had happened unto him. 

11 And as the lame man which was healed held 
Peter and John, all the people (present) ran together 
unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly 
wondering (at what was done). 

12 4 And when Peter saw it, he 3 answered (or, 
spake) unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why mar- 
vel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as 
though by our own power ‘ or holiness we had made 
this man to walk? 

13 (This miracle is wholly to be ascribed to the Lord 
Jesus ; for be it known to you, that)The God of Abra- 
ham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our 
fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; (placing him at 
the right hand of his Majesty in the highest heavens, Heb. 
i. 3, and giving him all power in heaven and earth, Matt. 
XXvil. 18, even that Jesus) whom ye delivered up (to 
be crucified), and denied him (or, refused him) in the 
presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


him 50 (χρίναντος ἀπολύειν, judging him rather fil to be 
released ; 

14 He, I say, would have released him,) but ye 5 de- 
nied the Holy One and the Just (7. e. him who was 
truly so), and (instead of him) desired a murderer (ὦ. e. 
Barabbas, Luke xxiii. 19) to be granted unto you ; 

15 And (ye) killed δ the Prince of life, whom God 
hath raised from the dead; whereof we are wit- 
nesses. 

16 And his name through (our) 7 faith in his 
name hath made this man strong (to walk), whom ye 
see and know (to have been unable from his birth to 
go): yea, the faith which is by him (7. e. which we 
have in him, or which is efficacious by his power) hath 
given him this perfect soundness in the presence of 
you all. 

17 And now, brethren, I wot that ὃ through igno- 
rance (of his mission from God) ye did it (7. e. these 
things), as did also your rulers (through the like igno= 
rance, arising not from want of evidence that he was sent 
of God, but from those prejudices which obstructed their 
discerning it). 

18 But those things, which God before had shewed 
by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should 
suffer, he hath so fulfilled (as that you, through this ig- 
norance, have been the very means of fulfilling what they 
had foretold, Acts xiii. 27). 

19 J Repent ye therefore (of the murder of the Just — 
One), and be converted (from your opposition to his 
name and doctrine to faith in him), that your sins may 
be blotted out, when 9 the times of refreshing shall 


3 Ver. 12, ᾿Απεκρίνατο, He answered.] This word is often 
used without relation to any precedent question, and some- 
times only signifies, that such a one began to speak, and is 
usually joined with λέγω or cizw, fo speak ; so Matt. xi. 25, 
᾿Αποκριθεὶς δὲ 6 ᾿Ιησοὺς εἶπεν, Jesus Patrem compellans dixit, 
“« Jesus speaking to his Father, said ;” or, Jesus began to say, 
Matt. xii. 38. Some of the scribes, ἀπεκρίθησαν λέγοντες, 
“spake, saying,” xvii. 4; ἀποκριθεὶς δὲ ὁ Πετρὸς εἶπεν, “ And 
Peter speaking, said to Jesus: see xxii. 1, xxvi. 63, xxvii. 
21, xxviii. 5, Mark ix. 38, x. 51, xi. 14. ᾿Αποκριθεὶς 6 ᾿Ιησοὺς 
εἶπεν αὐτῇ, “Jesus speaking, said to the fig-tree;” xii. 35, 
xiv. 48, John v. 19, Acts v. 8, viii. 34, x. 46, xv. 13, xxiv. 
25, xxv. 9, so the Hebrew word “rx often signifies, as in 
Exod. xv. 21; so Exod. xxi. 5, ἐὰν ἀποκρίθη, “If the 
servant say:” so 1 Kings ii. 1, ἀπεκρίνατο, David “speaks ;” 
and iii. 26, ἀπεκρίθη ἡ γυνὴ, “the woman said,” Ps. cxix. 172, 
and frequently in the book of Job. Sometimes, though no 
question is asked, and no discourse requiring an answer pre- 
ceded, yet our Lord answers to the secret thoughts and in- 
ward reasonings of the Jews, or to their admiration touch- 
ing his words or works, as Matt. xvii. 4, xxviii. 5, Mark x. 
24, Luke iii. 16, v. 22, viii. 40. 

4 Ἢ εὐσεβεία, Or holiness.| This is the reading of Chry- 
sostom, and CEcumenius, and of all the MSS., and ancient 
versions, excepting only the Syriac: for it is confessed by 
Lorinus, that the ancient Latin copies, both MSS. and 
printed, read not pofestate but pietate. Here then is a plain 
evidence of the’variation of the Roman doctrine from that 
of the apostles, assisted by the Holy Ghost ; for the apostles 
here plainly disclaim any excellency or piety in them, which 
might make them worthy to be God’s instruments above any 
others, in working such miracles as these: but the catechism 
of the Trent council* plainly declares, that God confers upon 
us many benefits, eorum merito, “by virtue of the merits of 
the saints; and Lorinus on the place declares, that innu- 
merable histories, and the practice of the church, show, quod 
sanctorum merita, ad impetranda miracula valeant, “that 
the merits of the saints are prevalent for the working mi- 
racles.” 

5 Ver. 14. Τὸν ἅγιον καὶ δίκαιον ἠρνήσασϑε.] These words I 
would render thus, “ You refused the Holy One:” so styled 
by good angels, Luke i. 35, and by evil angels, Luke iv. 34, 


* Par. iii. cap. 2, §. 12. 


and even by Pilate’s wife, that “Just One,” Matt. xxvii. 19, 
for so ἀρνέομαι doth often signify both in scripture and pro- 
fane authors. So Acts vil. 25, “This Moses ὃν ἠρνήῆσαντο, 
whom they refused :” Heb. xi. 24, ἠρνήσατο, “ He refused to 
be called the son of Pharaoh.” So in Phavorinus, ἀρνεῖται 6 
μὴ ϑέλων ποιῆσαί τι, is, “he that is unwilling,” and refuseth 
“to do any thing :” in Suidas, τὸ ἀρνεῖσϑαι δανειστὰς, is, “ to 
reject the usurers.”” And to this’ sense, the very derivation 
of the word seems to lead: it being, say grammarians, ἀπὸ 
τοῦ aipew τὰς χεῖρας ἐπὶ τὴ παραιτήσει, done “by lifting up 
the hands in way of refusal.” 

6 Ver. 15. ᾿Αρχηγὸν τῆς ζωῆς, The Prince of life.] The 
person sent by God to lead you in the way to life eternal, 
having first declared it fully to the world, 2 Tim. i. 10, pro- 
posed it to believers, John vi., purchased it for them by his 
death, shown the way to it by his doctrine, and being ap- 
pointed to give it to his faithful servants, John xvii. 2, whence 
he is styled, ἀρχηγὸς τῆς σωτηρίας, “the captain of our sal- 
vation,” Heb. ii. 10, 6 ἀρχηγὸς, “ἃ Prince and a Saviour, to 
give repentance unto Israel, and remission of sins,” v. 32. 
Or, as Grotius here hath it, he is styled “a Prince of life,” 
as having life in himself, and power to raise all men from the 
dead, John ν. 26.29. ‘To which sense the whole phrase, 
«Ye have killed the Prince of life,” seems to lead us. 

7 Ver. 16. Ἢ πίστις ἡ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ, The faith which is by 
him.] For ἐν αὐτῷ, “in him : so Rom. xv. 20, « Nothing is 
unclean, δι᾿ αὐτοῦ, in itself;” δι ὕδατος, “in the water,” 2 
Pet. iii. 5, τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος, “the things done in the body,” 
2 Cor. v. 10, “they that sleep διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, in Jesus,” 1 
Thess. iv. 14, and in this book, διὰ τῆς νυκτὸς, “in the night,” 
v. 19, xxiil. 31. 

8 Ver. 17. Through ignorance ye did it,as did also your 
rulers.| Though the ignorance of the whole nation, and es- 
pecially of the “ rulers” in this case, was such as took away all 
just excuse in them on the account of their infidelity (John 
χν. 22. 24); yet, because it was occasioned by those preju- 
dices they had contracted through the meanness of his cha- 
racter, and their imagination that Christ should not die, and 
that his kingdom should be temporal, Christ bears with it 
till the time of the effusion of the Holy Ghost, and then 
calls them again by his apostles to repentance. See the 
discourse of the sin against the Holy Ghost in the appendix 
to Matt. xii. 

9 Ver. 19. “Ὅπως ἂν ἔλθωσι καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως, When the 


CHAPTER III. 


(ἫΝ ἂν ἔλθωσιν that times of refreshing may) come 
rom the presence of the Lord ; 

20 And he shall send (xai ἀποστείλῃ» and that he 
may send) Jesus Christ, which ” before was preached 
unto you (lo give you a final absolution from them at the 
great day = him, I say,) 

21" Whom the heaven must receive until the 
® times of restitution (or completion) of all things, 
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy 

rophets 13 since the world began. ; 

22 ™ For Moses truly said (ors said indeed) unto the 
fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up 
unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shail ye 


433 


hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. 

23 And it shall come to pass, that every soul (7. ὁ. 
person), which will not hear that prophet, shall be de- 
stroyed from among the people. 

24 Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and 
those that follow after (or, and the times Following), as 
many as have spoken (of that prophet), have likewise 
foretold of these days (of grace and refreshment by him. 

25 New) '6 Yeare the children of (your fathers) the 
prophets, and of the covenant which God made with 
our fathers, saying unto Abraham (Gen. xxii. 18), And 
in "thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be 
blessed. 


times of refreshing shall come upon you.) Here the critical 
notes are these, (1.) that ὅπως ἂν Swe, is to be rendered 
“that,” or, “so that they may come:” ut veniant; so Ire- 
nus, lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 363, ut superveniant, 'l'ertul. de Re- 
sur. Carn. cap. 23. So the phrase is often used both in the 
Old and New Testament, and in profane authors: in the 
Old Testament it answers to yp, and is often rendered 
that: so Ps, ix. 14, ὅπως ἂν ἐξαγγείλω, “That I may show 
forth thy praises :” Ps. xcii. 7, ὅπως ἂν ἐξολοθρευϑῶσιν, “ That 
they may be destroyed for ever:” Ps. cxix. 101, ὅπως ἂν 
φυλάξω, “ That I may keep thy words.” In the New Tes- 
tament, ὅπως ἂν ἐκζητήσωσιν, “ That the residue of men may 
seek after the Lord,” Acts xv. 17, ὅπως ἂν ἀποκαλυφϑῶσιν, 
“That the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed,” Luke 
ii. 35, ὅπως ἂν δικαιωθῆς, “That thou mayest be justified,” 
Rom. iii. 4; so in Aristophanes, ὅπως ἂν cid, “That he may 
know” (see Budeus). (2.) Oi καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως, are times of 
rest, refreshment, consolation : sometimes after great danger 
and trouble, as when God had taken away the plague of 
frogs, “ Pharaoh saw there was ἀνάψυξις, refreshment,” or, as 
we say, a breathing-time: so when the evil spirit was on 
Saul, David played on the harp, καὶ ἀνέψυξε, “and Saul was 
refreshed” (2 Sam. xvi. 14). The king and all the people 
came weary, καὶ ἀνέψυξαν ἐκεῖ, “and were refreshed there :” 
so Ps, xxxviii. 13, “Ὁ spare me, ἵνα ἀναψυξῶ that I may re- 
vive:” Ps. Ixv. 11, “We have gone through fire and 
water, and thou hast brought us forth, εἰς ἀναψυχὴν, to a 
place of rest” (see 2 Mace. xiii. 13): and sometimes with- 
out relation to it, as, a nation at ease, and without care, is 
ἔϑνος καθήμενον eis ἀναψυχὴ, Jer. xlix. 30, I have found 
ἀναψυχὴν, “rest to myself,” Hos. xii. 8 (see 2 Mace. iv. 46). 
Now these times of refreshing, rest, and comfort, are by 
some referred to the times of the gospel, in which Christ 
saith, “Come to me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, καὶ 
ἀναπαύσω, and I will refresh you” (Matt. xi. 28), “and ye 
shall find, ἀνάπαυσιν, rest to your souls” (ver. 30). So Dr. 
Lightfoot, who gives the import of the words thus, “ Repent, 
&c. that your sins may be blotted out, that the times of re- 
freshing from the gospel may come upon you.” But against 
this interpretation there lies this objection, That these times 
of refreshing were to come by the sending of that Jesus 
who was ascended into heaven, and was not to come thence 
till the day of judgment (ver. 21, 22). Grotius and Dr. 
Hammond refer this to their deliverance from the destruc- 
tion which shortly was to come on the obdurate Jews; but 
though that was then future, and there is frequent mention 
of a παρουσία, or “coming” of Christ, then, yet was it no 
coming of Christ from heaven, but only a coming by the 
Roman army. I therefore incline rather to the opinion of 
the ancients, which refers this to the time of Christ’s second 
coming, to give all his servants, after their troubles and per- 
secutions in this world, rest with him (2 Thess. i. 6—8), 
which he shall do by descending from heaven, raising them 
from the dead, and causing them to enter into everlasting 
rest (1 Thess. iv. 15, 16, 1 Cor. xv. 47). So the times of 
the resurrection are by the Jews styled the days of consola- 
tion, Targum in Hos. vi. 2. 

10 Ver. 20. Τὸν προκεκηρυγμένον, Who before was preached 
to you.) Some here read, τὸν προκεχειρισμένον, “before de- 
signed,” viz. in the predictions of the law and the prophets, 
or, before preached to you by them. 

MN Ver. 21. Ὃν δεῖ οὐρανὸν piv δέξασϑαι, Whom the hea- 
vens must receive.] They who render the words thus, “Who 
must receive the heavens,” i. 6. govern there, seem to be 

Vor. IV.—55 


confuted by the limitation of time annexed to these words, 
Christ being to reign in the heavens for ever. 

2 ἔΑχρι χρόνων ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων, Till the times of 
restitution of all things.| ‘That these words cannot be meant 
of a restitution of all things to their former state, is certain ; 
for sure, it is very improper to say, there will be a restitution 
of all things to their former state, “ which God hath spoken 
by the mouth of all his prophets :” for since these things re- 
late to the forerunner of our Lord, Christ’s coming in the 
flesh, his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the preach- 
ing of the gospel to the gentiles, and the reign of antichrist, 
the calling of the Jews, and the coming in of the fullness of 
the gentiles, these things may very well be said to be exhi- 
bited, performed, accomplished, and consummated ; but I see 
not with what propriety or truth they can be said to be re- 
stored to the former state, or be renewed ; and therefore ἄχρι 
Xpbvwy ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων, is by the Syriac rendered, 
“Until the fullness of the time of all things ;” by the Arabic, 
«Till the time in which all things shall be perfected or 
finished ;” by Tertullian,* Adusque tempora exhibitionis 
omnium; by Ireneus,t Usque ad tempora dispositionis 
omnium ; i. 6. “ Till the time of the exhibition or disposal 
of all things ;” by G2cumenius, “ Till the time of all things 
does, εἰς πέρας ἐλθεῖν, come to an end:” and for the confirma- 
tion of this import of the word, we have the suffrage of 
Hesychius and Phavorinus, that ἀποκατάστασις is τελείωσις, 
“the consummation” of a thing. Hence then I argue thus 
against the doctrine of the millenaries; since Christ is to 
continue in heaven till the completion or consummation of 
all things spoken by the holy prophets, if the millennium 
were any of them, Christ must continue in heaven till the 
consummation of that also, and therefore is not to come 
down from heaven to reign on earth till the millennium be 
ended ; nor can that be contemporary with our Lord’s second 
coming, which is from heaven. 

3'Azx' αἰῶνος, Since the world began.] That is, “from 
times of old”? (see note on Luke i. 70). 

4 Ver. 22. For Moses said, A prophet, &c.] Hence it 
appears that this prophecy doth primarily respect Christ, 
and not a series of prophets, as some imagine (see the note 
on John i. 45, v. 46). 

16 Ver. 24. And all the prophets from Samuel.) Samuel, 
saith Dr. Hammond, is here reckoned the first of the pro- 
phets, because the schools of the prophets were first insti- 
tuted and erected by him; we reading in his time of a com- 
pany or college of prophets at Ramah, “and Samuel 
standing among them” (1 Sam. xix. 20). He is reckoned, 
saith Dr. Lightfoot, after Moses, partly because prophecy 
from Moses to Samuel was very rare (1 Sam. iii. 1, 2), and 
partly because he was the first after Moses that wrote his 
prophecy. 

6 Ver. 25. Ye are the children of the prophets.) The 
prophets being styled spiritual fathers, 2 Kings ii. 12, xiii. 
14, they who were taught by them were called “the sons of 
the prophets,” 2 Kings ii. 3, and generally teachers were 
called « fathers,” and they who were taught by them “ child- 
ren” (see note on 1 Cor. xiv. 13). 

1 In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be 
blessed.| Hence it is evident, that these words are not a form 
of blessing to this effect, “God bless thee as he blessed Abra- 
ham,” but a promise of a benediction to all nations through 
Christ the seed of Abraham (see the note on Gal. iii. 15). 


* De Carn. cap. 23. ἰ 8. iii. cap. 12. 


434 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


26 Unto you (therefore) first God, having raised up | him to bless you, in turning away every one of you 
his Son Jesus, (as he promised by Moses, ver. 22,) sent | from his iniquities. . 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Awnp as they spake unto the people, the priests, 
and! the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, 
came upon them (violently, 

2 The sadducees) Being grieved that they taught 
the people, and preached (to them) through Jesus the 
resurrection from the dead (which the sadducees denied, 
xxiii. 8). 

3 And they laid hands on them, and put them in 
hold (2. 6. tn prison) unto the next day: for it was now 
eventide. 

4 Howbeit (δὲ, but notwithstanding this treatment of 
him) many of them which heard the word believed 
(their doctrine) ; and the (whole) * number of the men 
(that believed it) was about five thousand. 

5 ¥ And it came to pass on the morrow, that their 
rulers, and elders, and scribes, 

6 And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and 
John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the 
kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at 
Jerusalem. 

7 And when they had set them (Peter and John) in 
the midst (of the assembly), they asked (them), By what 
power, or by (vrtue of ) what name, have ye done this 
(cure) 2 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


' Ver. 1.1 Of this “captain of the temple,” see the note 
on Luke xxii. 52. Before our Saviour’s passion, the chief 
agents against him were the scribes and pharisees ; but now 
that the apostles do not only assert the resurrection of our 
Lord, but also “ preach through him the resurrection of the 
dead” (ver. 2), the sadducees, who denied the resurrection 
of the body, become their fiercest adversaries (see the note 
on Acts xxiii. ὃ): 

3 γε. 4. And the number of the men was about five 
thousand.| Not the number of the auditors, for they are 
never reckoned up in scripture, but the number of them that 
believed, hearing Peter and John preach, and seeing the mi- 
racle done by them: for so the words run, “ Many of them 
that heard the word believed, and the number of them (that 
believed) was about five thousand.” Note also, that the 
three thousand mentioned ii. 41, belong not to this number, 
but they were all new converts, converted by the word which 
Peter and John had preached, for of them only is the dis- 
course from iii. 1 to this place. 

3 Ver. 11. This is the stone which the builders refused.) 
Though the Chaldee paraphrast interprets this clause of the 
psalmist (Ps. cxviii. 22), of David; and Aben-Ezra of the 
congregation of Israel, yet R. Solomon Jarchi, on Micah v., 
interprets these words of the Messiah, as our Saviour doth, 
Matt. xxi. 42, the Jews not contradicting him, or saying 
they belonged not to him. 

4 Ver. 12. Kai οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἄλλω οὐδενὶ ἡ σωτηρια, Nor is 
there salvation in any other.] This some interpret thus, 
There is no other name under heaven by which health can 
be given to the diseased, or feet to the lame, &c.; and this 
interpretation will not be so strange as at first sight it seems 
to be, if we consider, 

First, That it is very frequent in the gospels to say of them 
who were cured, they were saved. So the woman saith, 
Matt. ix. 21, “If Ido but touch the hem of his garment, 
σωθήσομαι, I shall be saved ;” and Christ answers, “Thy faith 
σέσωκέ ce hath saved thee; καὶ ἐσώθη, and the woman was 
saved from that hour :” so the ruler of the synagogue prays 
Christ to “put his hand upon his daughter, ὅπως σωθῇ, that 
she might be saved,” Mark v. 23, and vi. 56, “As many as 
touched the hem of his garment, ἐσώζοντο, were saved :” so 
to blind Bartimeus Christ saith, “ Thy faith, σέσωκέ ce, hath 


8 Then Peter (and John, being) filled with the Holy 
Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and 
elders of Israel, 

9 If we this day be examined of the good deed 
done to the impotent man, (?f you inquire) by what 
means he is made whole; 

10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people 
of Israel, that by the name (and power) of Jesus Christ 
of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, (and) whom God 
(hath) raised from the dead, even by him doth this 
man stand here before you whole. 

11 3 This (οὗτος, he) is the stone which (according 
to the words of the psalmist, Ps. exviii. 22,) was set at 
nought of you builders, (and) which is (now) become 
the head (stone) of the corner (the prime foundation of. 
the whole fabric of the church). 

12 4 Neither is there (such) salvation (promised by 
faith) in any other: for there is none other name under 
heaven given among men, whereby (or, by faith in 
which) we must (or may) be saved. 

13 4 Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and 
John, and perceived that they were δ unlearned and 
ignorant men (and therefore could not be thus bold on 
the account of their own wisdom or skill in the Jewish 
saved thee,’ Mark x. 52, and so to the Samaritan leper, 
Luke xvii. 19. 

Secondly, That this opinion had obtained among the 
Jews, and other nations, that there were some powerful 
names that could cure diseases; this seems to be insinuated 
in the question of the Sanhedrin, ver. 7, ἐν ποίῳ δνόματι, “In 
what name have you done this cure?’ Josephus* speaks 
of the doing this by mention of the name of Solomon; the 
Talmud} of doing it by mention of the “ separate name;” 
the Christians by the name of the God of Abraham, &c. 
(see note on Matt. xii. 27). 

Thirdly, If we consider St. Peter’s answer, viz. If the 
question be ἐν τινὶ οὗτος σέσωσται, “by what name this man 
is saved,” i. 6. healed, be it known to you that he is healed 
through the name of Jesus Christ, nor is there any other 
name by which we can be saved. And from this sense of 
the words it clearly follows, that no true miracles have been 
ever done since Christ’s ascension, by the invocation of the 
names of saints; and, (2.) that the disputes of the schools 
from this place concerning the salvation of the gentiles, have 
been impertinent. If the common sense be rather liked, 
yet must it be acknowledged, that God is “no respecter of 
persons,” as to their spiritual and eternal interests, but “in 
every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness, 
is accepted of him,” Acts x. 34, 35 (see the note there): 
and that God would have all men diligently to seek, and to 
come to him with a firm belief that he is “a rewarder” of 
them that do so (Heb. ix. 6), and that he hath not suspended 
that reward on an impossible condition, though he will only 
give it with respect to what our Lord Jesus hath done or 
suffered for them: that he hath not «eft himself without a 
witness” of his goodness to the heathen world, not only by 
doing good to their bodies without regard to their souls, or 
by being good only to them as we are to our hogs, by fatten- 
ing them for a day of slaughter. It being, saith Maximus 
Tyrius,¢ “a thought unworthy of God, that he should be 
liberal in bestowing mean things on us, but penurious as to 
better.” 

5 Ver. 13. They were dypapparot καὶ ἱδιῶται, unlearned 


* Antiq. lib. viii. cap. 2, p. 358. { Lightf. in locum. 

+H πολλοῦ ἄξιον νομίζεις τὸ θεῖον πρὸς μὲν τὰ φαῦλα καλῶς καὶ 
ἀφϑόνως παρεσκευασμένον, πρὸς δὲ τὰ κρείττω ἄπορον. Dissert. 22, 
p- 216. 


CHAPTER IV. 


learning), they marvelled; and they took knowledge 
of them, Gr. ἐπεγίνωσχόν re, but they knew) that they 
had been with (that) Jesus (n-whose name they pre- 
tended lo work this cure). 

14 And beholding the man which was healed stand- 
ing with them, they could say nothing against it (7. e. 
their allegation), 

* 15 But when they had commanded them to go 
aside out of the council, they conferred among them- 
selves, 

16 Saying, What shall we do to (restrain) these 
men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been 
done by them #s manifest to all them that dwell in 
Jerusalem ; and we cannot deny 7. 

17 But that it (their doctrine may) spread no further 
among the people, let us straitly threaten them, that 
they speak henceforth to no man in this name. 

18 And (so) they called them, and commanded them 
(under pain of their displeasure) not to speak at all 
(henceforth) nor teach in the name of Jesus. 

19 But Peter and John answered and said unto 
them, § Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
hearken unto you ( forbidding), more e. rather) than 
unto God (commanding us to preach in the name of Jesus), 
judge ye. 

20 (4s for us, be assured, we shall not obey your com- 
mandments ;)For we cannot but speak the things which 
we have seen and heard. 

21 So when they had further threatened them, they 
let them go, finding nothing (done by them against the 
law) how (for which) they might punish them, (and 
not daring to do it against the law) because of the 


435 


people: for all men glorified God for that which was 
done. 

22 For the man was above forty years old, on whom 
this miracle of healing was shewed (and so the cure 
was the more remarkable). 

23 4 And being (thus) let go, they went to their 
own company, and reported (to them) all that the chief 
priests and elders had said unto them. 

24 And when they heard that, they lifted up their 
voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art 
God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, 
and all that in them is : 

25 7 Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast 
said (Ps. ii. 1), Why did the heathen rage, and the 
people imagine vain things ? 

26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers 
were gathered together against the Lord, and against 
his Christ: (and what thow saidst by him is now ful- 
filled.) 

27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, 
whom thou hast anointed (with the Holy Ghost), both 
Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles (7. e. 
Roman soldiers), and the people of Israel, were ga- 
thered together, 

28 For 8 to do whatsoever thy hand (of providence) 
and thy counsel determined before to be done. 

29 And (therefore) now, Lord, behold their threat- 
enings: and grant unto thy servants (such courage), 
that with all boldness they may (s/z//) speak thy 
word, 

30 (And assist them in so doing) By stretching forth 
thine hand to heal; and (by granting) that signs 


and ignorant (or private) men.) This for three centuries was 
the objection against the professors of Christianity; these 
were the names given them by Lucian,* Celsus,f Asclepia- 
des,¢ Cecilius,§ Porphyry, Hierocles,f Julian, and by all 
the heathens; as Justin, Tatian,** Minucius, Tertullian,}} 
Amobius,#+ and Lactantius§§ testify: and though that is 
not wholly true, yet it is a great confirmation of the Chris- 
tian faith, and shows, as Justin Martyr||] well observes, that 
“it was not of human, but divine original,” and that “being 
with Jesus,” was sufficient to make the ignorant and un- 
learned wise. 

6 Ver. 19. Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye.) So So- 
crates answered to his accusers, πείσομαι τῷ Oe μᾶλλον ἢ ὑμῖν 
(Apol. p. 23), “Ὁ ye Athenians, I will obey God rather than 
you:” and so saith Arrian, When thy superiors command 
thee any thing thou must remember there is one above who 


* *AvOparo ἰδιῶται. Lucian, Perigr. p. 338. 

+ Celsus Christianos confert, τοῖς ἀγροικοτάτοις τῶν ἀνθρώ- 
πων, Orig. contra Cels. lib. iii. p. 145, falsdque asserit, μόνους 
ἡλιϑίους, καὶ dyevéts, καὶ ἀναισθήτους, reiSew ἐδέλειν τοὺς διδάσκον- 
τὰς τὸν ϑεῖον λόγον, p. 137. 141. 

+ Christiani sunt turba imperita, illiterata frequentia. 
Asclep. apud Prudent. in R. Mart. p. 208. 

§ Literarum rudes, studiorum profani. Cecil. apud Minut. 

4. 
ἣν ! Origenes declinavit, πρὸς τὸ βάρβαρον τόλμημα. Porphyr. 
apud Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 19. 

« Petrus et Paulus, ψεῦσται, καὶ ἀπαίδευτοι, καὶ γόητες. 
Hierocl. apud Euseb. p. 512. 

** Apud Tatianum, Christiani ἃ Grecis appellantur, ἄν- 
Spwrot ἀμαϑεῖς" dogmata Christianorum, τὰ βαρβάρων déypara. 
Ed. Ox. §. 57. 

{τ Illi prudentes, nos inepti. Tertul. Ap. cap. 9. Nos 
hebetes, stolidi, fatui, obtusi pronuntiamur, et bruti. 

4+ Arnob. lib. i. p. 15, lib. ii. p. 45. 

§§ Vulgo pro stultis, et ineptis habemur. Lact. lib. iy. 
cap. 13, ihwrdv piv, καὶ βαρβάρων τὸ φθέγμα, σοφῶν δὲ καὶ 
πιστων. 

ΕἸ Τὸν cody ἐχόντων, ὡς συνεῖναι οὐ σοφία ἀνθρωπεία ταῦτα 
eee ἀλλὰ δυνάμει Θεοῦ λέγεσθαι. Justin. Apol. ii. p. 

ὃ, 


sees thee καὶ ὅτι ἐκείνῳ σε δεῖ μᾶλλον ἀρέσκειν ἣ τούτῳ, “ and that 
thou oughtest to please him rather than man.” 

7 Ver. 25. Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast 
said, Why did the heathen rage, &c.| Here note, 

First, A ceirie some late innovators, that what was said 
by David is ascribed to God himself, to show that David 
spake and composed these Psalms by the prophetical affla- 
tus of the Holy Spirit. 

Secondly, That though the latter Jews will not admit that 
this Psalm belongs to the Messiah, yet R. Solomon Jarchi 
confesses that all their ancient rabbins did so interpret it 
(see the note on Heb. i. 5). 

8 Ver. 28. To do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel 
determined before to be done.] Here note, what is usually 
observed, that the hand of God most frequently in the Old 
Testament relates not so much to his power, as to his wis- 
dom and providential dispensations: so Job xxvii. 11, «I 
will teach you by the hand of God,” i. e. by his wisdom in 
his providential dispensations (Eccles. ii. 24), “that a man 
should enjoy the good of his labours, that is, from the hand 
of God ;” so “the good hand of God,” is his fayour or his 
gracious providence, Ezra vii. 9, viii. 18. 22, Neh. ii. 8. 18, 
and being here joined with God's counsel, and applied to 
what was done by Pontius Pilate and the Roman soldiers, 
and by the Jews towards the crucifixion of the holy Jesus, 
to which actions, so highly displeasing to God, his power 
could not actually concur, or effectively incline them, we 
have great reason here to prefer this import of the phrase 
before the other ; and then the import of the words will be no 
more than this, That Jews and gentiles were assembled to 
accomplish those sufferings of our Saviour for mankind, 
which God had foretold, and by foretelling had determined 
should come to pass; according to those words of St. Paul, 
Acts xiii. 27, “They who dwelt at Jerusalem, and their 
princes, not knowing the voice of the prophets, have ful- 
filled them by condemning him, doing all things which were 
written of him,” ver. 29. As therefore St. Peter and Paul, 
by calling the Jews to repentance for this sin in crucifying 
the Lord of life, do evidence their sin was not the less, be- 
cause they did by it fulfil the counsel of God’s holy will 
and kind intentions to mankind: so do they consequently 
evidence, that God’s foreknowledge and determination of a 
thing future do not impair the liberty of men’s wills in the 


436 


and wonders may be done by (us in) the name of thy 
holy child Jesus. 

31 4 And when they had prayed, the place was 
shaken where they were assembled together (as on the 
day of pentecost, Acts ii. 2); and 9 they were all filled 
with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God 
with boldness. 

32 And the multitude of them that believed were of 
one heart and of one soul (united in love and affection) : 
neither said any of them that ought of the things which 
he possessed was (so) his own (as not to be imparted to 
others who had need of it); but they had 10 all things 
common. 

33 And with great power gave the apostles witness 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace 
of God) was upon them all. 

34 Neither was there any among them that lacked: 
for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold 
them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, 

35 And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and 


distribution was (by the apostles) made unto every man | 


according as he had need. 

36 And" Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed 
Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of 
consolation,) (he being) a Levite, and of the country 
of Cyprus (by birth), 

37 Having land (there), sold it, and brought the 
money, and laid zt at the apostles’ feet. 


accomplishment of it; as all the ancient fathers have de- 
clared in this particular (see the note on xxii. 22). 

9 Ver. 31. And they were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost. Not all the Christians, who, being now eight thou- 
sand, could not be all in one house, but the hundred and 
twenty mentioned i. 15, and being in the same house with 
the apostles, this is their own company to which they went, 
ver. 24, and therefore, if the Holy Ghost fell only on the 
twelve before, yet now he must be supposed to fall on this 
whole number, enabling them to speak the word of God with 
boldness, as it follows here. 

10 Ver. 32. They had all things common.] As ii. 45, not 


by possession, but as to use; in which sense that of Tertul- 
lian is only true, Omnia indiscreta sunt apud nos preter 
uxores, “Among us all things are common except our wives ;” 
for it follows, that they had lands to sell (see note on ii. 45). 

u Ver. 36, 37. And Joses a Levite, and by birth « 
Cypriot, having land, sold it.] For the Levites might have 
lands, not only in foreign countries, as Joses had in Cyprus, 
but even in their own: for Samuel, a Levite (1 Chron. vi. 
33), was born upon his father’s land, which had been pur- 
chased by his great-grandfather Zuph (1 Sam. i. 1, ix. 5), 
and that lands might fall to them by accident, which they 
might sell, see the Bishop of Ely on Ley. xxvii. 21, 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Bur a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira 
his wife, sold a possession, 

2 And (but he) 1 kept back part of (Gr. he defalked 
from) the price (of it), his wife also being privy (and 
consenting) to tt, and brought (Gr. bringing) a certain 
part (of ἐξ only), and laid zt at the apostles’ feet (pre- 
tending to do as the rest had done, iv. 35. 37). 

3 But Peter said (to Aim), Ananias, why hath Satan 
filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and (moved 
thee) to keep back part of (or defalk from) the ( full) 
price of the land (which thou hast sold) ? 

4 Whiles it remained (wnso/d), was it not thine own 
(possession, no share of it belonging to any other)? and 
after it was sold, was it not in thine own power (to 


dispose of the money as thou wouldest, and bring the 
whole as others did)? why (then) hast thou conceived 
this thing in thine heart (to defalk from the price, and 
present to us a part only of it, as if it were the whole? by 
doing this) * thou hast not lied unto men (only), but 
unto God (also). 

5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and 
gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them 
that (saw and) heard these things. 

6 And the young men (there) arose, wound him up, 
and carried him out, and buried him. 

7 And it was about the space of three hours after, 
when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in, 

8 And Peter answered (7. 6. said) unto her, Tell me 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 2. Kat ἐνοσφίσατο ἀπὸ τῆς τιμῆς, And he kept back 
part of the price.] It is generally here supposed, that 
Ananias and Sapphira had consecrated their estate to God 
by vow, so that they were guilty of the sin of sacrilege ; but 
this may very well be doubted: (1.) because in all the sales 
of lands or houses, mentioned ch. ii. iv. and here, there is 
not the least hint or intimation of any such vow; that there 
was some fraud in the case, may be fairly gathered from the 
voopizesSa, but that it was a sacrilegious fraud, cannot be 
proved from the word. (2.) St. Peter accuses neither him 
nor his wife of any such crime, but only of tempting, i. e. 
distrusting, and making trial, of the wisdom of the Holy 
Ghost, and going about to deceive him by this artifice: and, 
(3.) the apostle seems to own he had a right in his possession, 
and in the money for which it was sold (ver. 3), which yet 
he could not have, if he before had consecrated it to religious 
uses. But yet they were guilty of a double fraud: (1.) in 
laying down this part of the price at the apostles’ feet, as the 
others had done, and thereby tacitly implying they had now 
the same right to be relieved from the public stock which 
others had, as having nothing of their own, when indeed 
they had money which they kept back: (2.) in presenting 
this before them as the whole price of the possession they 
had sold, when it was only a part of it, which it appears they 
did from St. Peter’s question to his wife, “ Tell me for how 
much the land was sold?” That the punishment of this sin 


was so heavy, will not be admired, if we consider, (1.) that 
it was a direct sin against the Holy Ghost, who was sent 
down from heaven to propagate the gospel, an attempt to 
put a cheat upon him, and questioning his wisdom to discern 
things secret, and therefore deserved the greater punishment, 
because it did so plainly tend to the hindrance of the gos- 
pel, by declaring that the Spirit which assisted the apostles 
was not able to discern things secret, and so might not be 
able to acquaint them with the secret things of God. (2.) 
We find God under the law very severe in his punishment 
of those who first offended in offering strange fire, as in the 
case of Nadab and Abihu; and violated the sabbath, as in 
the case of the man that “gathered sticks” upon that day, 
and especially against those who rose up against Moses the 
prophet, and Aaron the priest of the Lord, as in case of 
Corah and his company ; it was therefore fit the first great 
offence of this kind should receive exemplary punishment 
from the hand of God, that others might the more dread 
those sins which thus affronted that Holy Spirit by whose 
power the gospel began to be propagated. 

2 Ver. 4. Οὐκ ἑψεύσω ἀνθρώποις, ἀλλὰ τῷ Θεῴ, Thou hast 
not lied to man, but unto God.) Hence it is argued, that 
if he that deceiveth or lieth to the Spirit, attempteth to de- 
ceive or lie to God, the Holy Spirit must be God. 

To this Woltzogenius here and other Socinians answer, 
that the like phrase is often used when the inference cannot 
be good: for the Jews murmuring against Moses and Aaron 
are said to murmur not against them, but against God, Exod. 
xvi. 8, and he that despiseth the preaching of the apostles 


CHAPTER V. 


whether ye sold the land for so much (only as Ananias 
said)? And she said, Yea, (only) for so much. 

9 Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have 
agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord (7. e. 
to try whether the Spirit of the Lord in us was able to 
detect your cheat)? behold, the feet of them which have 
fioried- thy husband @re at the door, and shall carry 
thee out. 

10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and 
yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, 
and found her dead, and, carrying der forth, buried 
her by her husband. 

11 And great fear came upon all the church, and 
upon as many as heard these things. 

12 ¢ And by the hands of the apostles were many 
signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and 
they (of the church) were all with one accord in Solo- 
mon’s porch. 

13 3 And of the rest (that were not of the church) 
durst no man join himself to them (i. e. to the apos- 
tles): but the people magnified them. 

14 And believers were the more added to the Lord, 
(even) multitudes both of men and women) (who owned 
thal Jesus was the Christ. 

15 And so great and manifold were these miracles, 
ὥστε.) insomuch that they (who beheld them) 4 brought 
forth the sick into the streets, and laid ‘hem on beds 
and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter 
passing by might overshadow some of them. 

16 There came also a multitude out of the cities 
round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and 
them which were vexed with unclean spirits : and they 
were healed every one. 


is said to despise “not man, but God, who had given them 
the Holy Spirit,” 1 Thess. iv. 8, not them, but Christ, Matt. 
x. 40, Luke x. 16, but hence it will not follow, that either 
Moses, or Aaron, or the apostles, were God. 

But to this answer, I reply, first, That these examples 
rather do confirm than infringe this argument: for as they 
who murmured against Moses and Aaron, murmured against 
God, because they did it against them who were invested 
with the authority of God, and acted in his name and by 
his power; and as they who despised the apostles, despised 
God for the same reason; so they who lied to the apostles 
acting by the Spirit of God, or sought to deceive them by 
lying, are said to lie to God, because they lied to the apos- 
tles acting by the power and authority of God; and there- 
fore the power and authority of the Spirit must be the 
power and authority of God. 

Secondly, Moses and Aaron, and the apostles sent out by 
Christ to preach, did only act in the name of God and 
Christ, because they did this by commission from them, and 
by their command; but Ananias is here said to lie to God, 
because he lied to the Spirit in the apostles, enabling them 
to discern the secrets of men’s hearts and actions, which 
being the property of God alone, he that doth lie to him 
must therefore lie to God, because he lies to one who hath 
the incommunicable property of God, consequently the di- 
vine essence. 

3 Ver. 13. Τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν οὐδεὶς ἐτόλμα κολλᾶσϑαι αὐτοῖς, 
But of the rest durst no man cleave unto them.) That 
is, saith Dr. Lightfoot, none of the hundred and eight durst 
join to the twelve, or equal themselves to them in office or 
dignity ; but as there is no mention of that number in this 
chapter, so did they never before this join themselves to the 
apostles; nor doth the word κολλᾶσϑαι import any such 
thing, but only to converse, associate with, or come to them; 
as when Philip is bid κολλᾶσϑαι, “to join himself” to the 
chariot of the eunuch (viii. 29), and Paul assayed after his 
conversion, κολλᾶσϑαι, “to join himself to the disciples” (ix. 
16), and when Peter saith (x. 28), “ You know that it is 
unlawful for a Jew κολλᾶσϑαι, to join himself to one of an- 
other nation ;” and, lastly, when it is said that some men 
κολληϑέντες αὐτῷ, “joining themselves” to St. Paul, believed 
(xvii. 35), which seems to favour the opinion of Grotius and 


437 


17 ¥ Then the high priest rose up, and all they that 
were with him, (which is (being) the § sect of the Sad- 
ducees,) and (¢hey) were filled with indignation, 

18 And laid their hands on the apostles, and put 
them in the common prison. 

19 But the angel of the Lord by night opened the 
prison doors, and brought them forth, and said (to 
them), 

μὴ Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people 
all the δ words of this life (which the sadducees deny, 
and I have commanded you to preach, Acts xiii. 26). 

21 And when they heard thal, they entered into 
the temple early in the morning, and taught. But the 
high priest came, and they that were with him, and 
called the council together, and all the senate of the 
children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them 
brought (out). 

22 But when the officers came, and (Gr. but the 
officers coming) found them not in the prison, they re- 
turned, and (Gr. returning) told (the council of it), 

23 Saying, The prison truly found we shut with all 
safety, and the keepers standing without before the 
doors: but when we had opened (them), we found no 
man Within. 

24 Now when the high priest and 7 the captain of 
the temple and the chief priests heard these things, 
they * doubted of (1. e. concerning) them whereunto 
this would grow (or, what the import of them might be). 

25 Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, 
the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the 
temple, and teaching the people. 

26 Then went the captain (thither) with the officers, 
and brought them without violence: for they feared 


Beza, viz. that great fear came on all the church (ver. 11), 
but of the rest, which were not yet of the church, durst no 
man join themselves to, or associate with, them as members 
of the church, for fear of the like punishment. But not- 
withstanding this, the people magnified them, and multi- 
tudes of them were added to the Lord, i. e. believed in 
Christ, though they durst not yet consort with the twelve 
apostles. 

4 Ver. 15. They brought forth their sick into the streets, 
that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might over- 
shadow some of them.) Here it is left uncertain, whether it 
were the faith of believers, or the superstition of the Jews, 
which had such expectation from St. Peter’s shadow, whe- 
ther St. Peter passed by that way, or not, or whether his 
shadow wrought any cures, or not. But if God, intending 
to magnify Peter, the minister of the circumcision, in the 
eyes of the circumcised, healed some persons when his sha- 
dow went over them, he did more certainly as much to mag- 
nify St. Paul, the apostle of the gentiles; for “from his body 
were brought handkerchiefs or aprons to the sick, and the 
diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out 
of them” (xix. 12) ; but hence it is ridiculous to argue, that 
the one, or the other, was prince of the apostles, or that the 
relics of holy men are to be venerated. 

5 Ver. 17. Ἢ οὖσα αἵρεσις τῶν σαδῥουκαίων, Being the sect 
oe sadducees.] Not that the Sanhedrin then consisted 
chiefly of that sect, but because the doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion destroyed their sect, and therefore they are still the rea- 
diest to oppose it (iv. 2), the pharisees being only concerned 
to avoid the guilt of Christ’s blood. 

6 Ver. 20. Go, speak to the people all the words of this 
life, πάντα τὰ ῥήματα τὴς ζωῆς ταύτης. 1. 6. Of this life which I 
have commissionated you to preach, and which the saddu- 
cees deny: 50, xiii. 26, “Ye children of Abraham, and ye 
that fear God, ὑμῖν ὃ λόγος τῆς σωτηρίας rabrns ἀπεστάλη, to you 
is the word of this salvation sent.” 

7 Ver. 24. 'O στρατηγὸς τοῦ ἱεροῦ, The captain of the tem- 
ple.] i.e. The captain of the garrison of the Levites (see 
the note on Luke xxii. 52). 

8 They doubted of them what this thing should be, τί 
ἂν γένοιτο τοῦτο.] 1. 6. What this miraculous deliverance of 
them might import, and to what this would tend. So, 

2m 2 


488 


the people, lest they should have been stoned (by them). 

27 And when they had brought them, they set them 
before the council: and the high priest asked them, 

28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that 
ye should not teach in this name? and (yet), behold, 
ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and in- 
tend to (Gr. would) bring (the guilt of ) this man’s 
blood upon us. 

29 ¢ Then Peter and the other apostles answered 
(to the charge of disubeying their commands) and said, 
We ought to obey God rather than men. 

30 (And as for the guilt of blood, that tt is justly 
charged upon you, God himself hath testified ; for) The 
God of our fathers (hath) raised up (that) Jesus, whom 
ye slew and hanged on a tree (by being instant with 
Pilate inat he might be crucified). 

31 9 Him (whom ye thus treated) hath God exalted 
with (¢o) his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, 
for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


32 And (this we say not without proof, for) we are 
his witnesses of these things; and so is also the 
Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey 
him’ ΠῚ» ' 

33 4 (And ) when they heard that (these words), they 
were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them. 

34 Then stood there up one in the council (who 
was) a Pharisee, 10 named Gamaliel, a doctor of the 
law, had in reputation among all the people, and (he) 
commanded (the officers) to put the apostles forth a lit- 
tle space (or while) ; 

35 And (then) said unto them (of the council), Ye 
men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend 
(Gr. go about) to do as touching these men. 

36 For " before these days rose up Thendas, boast- 
ing himself to be somebody; to whom a number of 
men, about four hundred, joined themselves : who was 
slain ; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, 
and brought to nought. 


x. 17, Peter doubted in himself, τί ἄν εἴη τὸ ὅραμα, “ what the 
vision might import.” 

9 Ver. 31. Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and 
a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of 
sins.] Upon that repentance, to be a Prince and a Saviour, 
even the “ Prince of life” (iii. 15), and “ of salvation” (Heb. 
ii. 10), on which account he is styled, τό σωτήριον rod Θευῦ, 
“the salvation of God” (see note on Luke iii. 30); and he 
is said to be exalted to give repentance and remission of sins, 
by giving the knowledge of that remission of sins which is 
promised to the penitent, and of those motives which should 
induce them to repent. So the Baptist is said to “go be- 
fore him, to give the knowledge of salvation to his people, 
through the remission of sins ;” and so God “ gave unto the 
gentiles repentance unto life,” when he sent Peter to them 
to preach that word by which they repenting should be saved 
(Acts xi. 14..18). 

10 Ver. 34. A pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the 
law, had in great reputation among the people.) He was 
Paul’s tutor (Acts xxii. 3), and was called Rabbin Gama- 
liel, a title of the highest eminency, and given, say the Jews, 
only to seven persons; which shows sufficiently the repu- 
tation that he had among the people. 

The right reverend Bishop Pearson very probably conjec- 
tures, that the sadducees, after our Lord’s resurrection, being 
the greatest enemies to the apostles; they being grieved 
that they “preached through Christ the resurrection from 
the dead” (Acts iv. 2, v. 17); Gamaliel being a pharisee, 
and so a stiff assertor of the resurrection, did therefore give 
advice for the dismission of the apostles; for we find the 
pharisees, almost in the same words, pleading for Paul, 
preaching the same doctrine, viz. that they ought not to mo- 
lest him, “lest they should be found, ϑεομάχοι, fighters against 
God” (Acts xxiii. 9). 

τ Ver. 36, 37. Πρὸ γὰρ τούτων τῶν ἡμέρων ἀνέστη Θευδᾶς, For 
before those days rose up Theudas ; μετὰ τοῦτον, after him 
rose up Judas of Galilee.| Here Gamaliel affirms two things, 
(1.) That before those days, in which that council were as- 
sembled, that is, before the twentieth of Tiberius, arose 
Theudas, mentioned by him; whereas the Theudas men- 
tioned by Josephus, Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5, arose and perished 
by the hands of Cuspius Fadus, in the fourth year of Clau- 
dius, that is ten years after the meeting of this council. 
(2.) He affirms that Judas of Galilee rose up after him, and 
yet that he arose in the “days of the taxing,” which was 
under the emperor Augustus, at the birth of Christ, and so 
thirty-four years before this council; and so this Theudas 
that arose before him must have been at least thirty-five 
years before this council. 

Some critics endeavour to solve these difficulties by tor- 
turing the words of the text, and making Gamaliel say, that 
Judas of Galilee arose, μετὰ τοῦτον, not after, but before 
Theudas, contrary to the rule of Phavorinus, that μετὰ with 
an accusative case ἠηλοῖ ὑστεροχρόνιον, “ signifies posteriority of 
time.” Dr. Lightfoot here seems inconstant in his opinion, 
for in his first notes upon the Acts he saith, that Gamaliel’s 
Theudas and Josephus’s “are not one and the same; but as 
it happened with Judas, that though he himself perished in 


his error, and as many as obeyed him were scattered abroad, 
as Gamaliel relateth, yet was not his error extinguished with 
him, but revived and grew again: so that at least forty years 
after his first appearing, his two sons, James and Simon, are 
crucified for it by Tiberius Alexander, the successor of Fa- 
dus (Jos. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 3). And many years after 
that, Eleazar, a branch of the same Judas, appeareth in the 
same opinion, with a desperate company with him (De Bell. 
Jud. lib. vii. cap. 20). Even so may it be conceived of the 
sect of Theudas, that it began before that of Judas, and that 
the first author of it took upon him great things, as, to be a 
prophet, and to work miracles, and the like; but he was 
soon slain, and all that obeyed him were scattered abroad, 
and came to nought; but his folly and fancy perished not 
with him, but (however at other times) in the times of Fa- 
dus one of the same foolery and name, and probably his son, 
would be a prophet again, and divide Jordan, and do I know 
not what, whom Fadus destroyed, and brought his company 
to ruin: so that Gamaliel’s and Josephus’s Theudas are 
very probably two men, but very likely father and son, or 
tutor and scholar ; agreeing so exactly in the same folly and 
madness, that they agreed in the same name: and that name 
either given to the latter, as parents name their children by 
their own names, or assumed by him in imitation of the 
former Theudas, whom as he delighted to imitate in his en- 
thusiastic folly, so delighted he to follow him in denomination : 
and I am the rather confirmed in this opinion about these 
two men, because that as soon as ever Josephus hath told 
the story of the destruction of Theudas by Fadus, he telleth 
of the destruction of the sons of Judas by Tiberius Alexan- 
der: and I cannot but interpret both the stories in one 
sense, that as in the latter he speaks of the offspring of 
Judas, whose sect had begun many years before, so in the 
former he speaketh of the offspring of Theudas, whose sect 
had begun before that of Judas:” yet, in his latter exercita- 
tions on this place he says, “ This is but an imagination,” 
and inclines rather to think, that Josephus slipped in his 
chronology, “to whom,” saith he, “both in history and 
chronology, it is no unusual thing to trip, or go out of the 
road of truth.” 

I prefer his first opinion, as being generally embraced by 
the ancients; for (1.) Origen,* who had read Josephus, and 
declares that he examined things relating to the scripture, 
φιλαληθῶς, “out of love to truth,” speaks thus, “ We say 
that there was one Theudas before the birth of Christ, who 
among the Jews declared himself to be somebody.” And 
again, that “Judas Galileus, and Theudas that was before 
him, being not of God, perished.” And a third time, “ be- 
cause they gathered from the scriptures that the time of the 
Messiah was come, first Theudas, and after him Judas of 


* Ἐροῦμεν ὅτι Θευδᾶς πρὸ τῆς γενέσεως ᾿Ιησοῦ γέγονέ τις zap’ “Tov 
δαίοις, μέγαν τίνα ἑαυτὸν λέγων, contra Celsum, lib. i. p. 44, et 
lib. vi. p. 282. Καὶ ᾿Ιοῦδας ὃ Γαλιλαῖος, ὡς ὁ Λουκᾶς ἐν τοῖς Πράξεσι 
τῶν ᾿Αποστύλων ἔγραψεν, ἐβουλήϑη ἑαυτόν τινα εἰπεῖν μέγαν, καὶ 
πρὸ ἐκείνου Θευδᾶς: ἐπεφύησαν Θευδᾶς οὐκ ὀλίγον πλῆϑος, καὶ 
per’ ἐκεῖνον ᾿Ἰοῦδας 6 Γαλιλαῖος ἐν ταῖς τῆς ἐπιγραφῆς ἡμέραιςν 


Tom. ii. in Joh. ed. Huet. p. 103, 104, 


CHAPTER VI. 


37 After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the 
days of the taxing (or anroine > and drew away much 
people after him: (but) he also perished; and all, 
even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. 

88 And now (xai ra viv λέγω ὑμῖν, therefore) I say 
unto you (for the present), Refrain from these men, and 
let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of 
men, it will come to nought: 

39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthow it (nor 
ought you to attempt to do so); lest haply ye be found 
even to fight against God. 


439 


40 And to him they agreed: and when they had 
called the apostles, and beaten them ston rods), they 
commanded (hem) that they should not speak in 
the name of Jesus (any more), and (then) let them 


Ὁ, 
ε 41 4 And they departed from the presence of the 
council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy ” to 
suffer shame for his name. 

42 And daily in the temple, and in every house, 
they ceased not to teach and preach (the doctrine of ) 
Jesus Christ. 


———L. 


Galilee, tumultuated in the time of the taxing.” Hence do 
the fathers unanimously say, that those words of Christ, 
John x. 8, “ All that come before me are thieves and rob- 
bers,”’* relate to these two, Theudas and Judas of Galilee, 
which shows their belief, that both of them were before the 
time of Christ's preaching: so that it is extremely evident, 
that the ancient fathers agreed in this, that there was a 


* So Chrysost. GEcumen. Theoph. in locum, et Theod. 
Heracl. et Mopseuest. Cat. Gr. in locum, et Isid. Pelus. lib. 
iii. ep. 119. 


Theudas pretending to great things, even before the com- 
ing of our Lord, though Josephus hath taken no notice of 
him. 

2 Ver. 41. ᾿Ατιμασϑῆναι, To be reproached.) Or disho- 
noured, by being scourged: for as, among the Romans, a 
citizen of Rome was not to be scourged, so, among the 
Jews, saith Josephus,” it was τιμωρία αἰσχίστη, “ the most 
shameful punishment,” when inflicted upon a Jew, and that 
which did ὑβρίζειν τὸ ἀξίωμα, “ stain his dignity.” 


* Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 8 


᾿ CHAPTER VI. 


1 And in those days, when the number of the disci- 
ples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the 
Grecians (Gr. of the! Hellenists, or Jews of the dispersion 
who spake the Greek language) against the Hebrews 
(who used the Hebrew or Syriac tongue), because their 
widows were neglected in the daily ministration (of 
provistons, made for poor widows belonging to the church, 
1 Tim. v. 16). 

2? Then the twelve called the multitude of the 


disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason (-ab/e) 
that we should leave (preaching) the word of God, and 
(daily be employed to) serve tables (or, make provisions 
Jor the poor). 

3 Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you 
seven men of honest report, * full of the Holy Ghost 
and wisdom, ὁ whom we may appoint over this busi- 
ness (Gr. for this use). 

4 But we (and we being eased of this burden) will 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


1Ver. 1. γῶν “Ἑλληνιστῶν, Of the Grecians.] It is much 
to be disputed who these Hellenists were : it is beyond doubt 
that they were not Greeks by nation or birth, whether un- 
converted or proselytes to the Jewish nation; for these are 
never called Hellenists, but always in the scripture Ἕλληνες, 
« Hellens,” and by Josephus, Ἑλληνικοὶ, and are distinguish- 
ed, not from the Hebrews, but the Jews; as when mention 
is made "[ovéaiwy τε καὶ "Ελλήνων, “ of the Jews and Greeks,” 
Acts xvi. 1. 3. 19, x. 17, xx. 20, 21, Rom. i. 16, ii. 9, 10, 
iii. 9, x. 12, 1 Cor. ii. 22, 23, x. 32, xii. 13, Gal. 111, 28, Col. 
iii. 11, see John xii. 20, and of those Greeks who came to 
the Jewish synagogues, and therefore seem to have been pro- 
selytes, Acts xiv. 1, xviii. 4, and a distinction is made, not 
between Hebrews, but Jews and proselytes, Acts ii. 10. 
Moreover, they who were scattered upon the persecution 
which followed the death of Stephen (Acts viii. 1), “spake 
the word only to the Jews,” Acts xi. 19, and yet they spake 
πρὸς τοὺς ᾿Ελληνιστὰς, “to the Hellenists,’ ver. 20. And, 
thirdly, Paul coming to Jerusalem, disputed πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλλη- 
νιστὰς, “against the Hellenists, and they went about to kill 
him,” Acts ix. 29, as the Jews at Damascus had done before, 
ver. 23, which shows they must be Jews by birth, and not 
only strangers of other nations come thither; for how durst 
they attempt to kill a Jew among the Jews without bring- 
ing him to their tribunal? 

Secondly, I think it not sufficient to say, with the Syriac 
or St. Chrysostom, that they were Jews, Ἑλληνιστὶ φϑεγγύμε- 
voi, “using the Greek tongue;” for this they of Judea, 
especially the learned among them, generally did: for we 
neyer find in Josephus, that they spake to the Romans, or 
others who used that tongue, by an interpreter. Dr. Light- 
foot therefore adds, that they were Jews, who, living among 
the Greeks, understood and used that tongue only, and then 
they must be called Hebrews, who used the Hebrew or Sy- 
riac tongue as their usual dialect: but then, whereas Dr. 
Lightfoot will not allow that in their synagogues they used 
the Greek tongue, or read the scriptures according to the 
Greek translation, I incline rather to the opinion of the 
learned Grotius, that they used this tongue also in their sa- 
cred exercises ; for why should they, whose synagogues con- 


sisted of persons understanding neither Hebrew nor Syriac, 
have both or either of those languages read to them in their 
assemblies? Moreover, that in their exhortation made in 
their synagogues, consisting both of Jews and proselytes of 
the Grecians, they used the Greek language, seems evident 
from this, that Paul and Barnabas so spake in them, that 
“a multitude of the Greeks as well as of the Jews believed” 
(Acts xiii. 43, xiv. 1, xvii. 4. 12, xviii. 4). 

2 Ver. 2. And the twelve calling the multitude of the dis- 
ciples, Gr. τὸ πλῆθος τῶν μαθητῶν.) Here Dr. Lightfoot con- 
jectures, that “the multitude of the disciples” doth not 
import the multitude of believers, they being many thou- 
sands (Acts iii. 41, iv. 4, v. 14), but only the one hundred 
and eight presbyters, mentioned Acts i. 15). But (2 it is 
evident that the whole multitude of believers are called dis- 
ciples, both here, ver. 7, and throughout this whole history 
of the Acts: and, (2.) we are told that this multitude were 
together (Acts ii. 44, iv. 23.32): and, (3.) it is here noted, 
that the saying of the apostles was acceptable, ἐνώπιον πάντος 
τοῦ πλήϑους, “ before the whole multitude.” 

3 Ver. 3. Full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.] i. 6. Of 
the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, and of the gift of 
wisdom, mentioned 1 Cor. xii. 8. So, when they had prayed 
that “God would stretch forth his hands to heal, and that 
signs and wonders might be done by the name of Jesus,” 
Acts iv. 30, it is added, ver. 31, that “ they were filled with 
the Holy Ghost ;” and of Barnabas it is said, that “he was 
full of the Holy Ghost and of faith,” another of these gifts, 
1 Cor. xii. 9, and so, by his means, “a great multitude was 
added to the Lord,” Acts xi. 24, and here, ver. 8, that “ Ste- 
phen, being full of the Holy Ghost and power, did great 
signs and miracles among the people:” and these gifts of 
the Holy Ghost being given to them, not for their own use, 
but to profit the church with them (1 Cor. xii. 7), and so 
being not only qualifications of them for, but as it were pre- 
elections of them to, some sacred functions (Acts xx. 28) ; 
out of those who were thus endowed, they generally chose 
church officers, and the very deacons and helps had these 
gifts (Rom. xii. 7, 8, see note on 1 Cor. xii. 28) ; and hence 
the apostles here say, “ Look ye out men full of the Holy 
Ghost and wisdom.” 

4 Ver. 3.6. Whom we may appoint over this business ;—- 


440 


give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the minis- 
try of the word. 

5 4 And the saying (of the apostles) pleased the 
whole multitude: and they (accordingly) chose Ste- 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


phen, a man full off faith and of the Holy Ghost, and. 
Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and 
Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch : 

6 Whom they set before the apostles: and when 


and they laid their hands upon them.) Here two things are 
disputed : 

First, Whether these seven were chosen and ordained to 
a civil office only, viz. that of ministering only to the neces- 
sities of widows and other indigent disciples; or else to the 
sacred office of a deacon, and so empowered to preach the 
word, and baptize. Certain it is, that of these seven, St. 
Stephen did preach the word, and that Philip did baptize 
(Acts viii. 12. 38). But then it is said, they did so, not as 
men chosen and ordained to this office, but as being of the 
number of the seventy disciples, ἐξ dv ἦσαν of ἑπτὰ, “of 
whom these seven were,” saith Epiphanius.* And, indeed, 
the ancients seem to have been divided about this matter: 
the council of Neocwesareat saying expressly, that “ there 
ought to be but seven deacons in the great cities, as we learn 
ἀπὸ τῆς βίβλου τῶν Πράξεων, from the Acts of the Apostles;’” 
and the apostles in their Constitutions,+ that they, “ after 
our Lord’s ascension, had chosen διακόνους ἑπτὰ τὸν ἀριθμὸν, 
seven deacons,” of which number Stephen was one: and 
the synod in Trullo, on the other hand, saying, that the 
apostles spake not there περὶ TOV Tots μυστηρίοις διακονουμενων, 
“of those who served at the altar, but of those that served 
ταῖς χρείαις τῶν τραπεζῶν, to the business of tables;” but this 
is as true of the deacons mentioned by St. Paul, 1 Tim. iii., 
that there is not a word said of their ministering at the altar: 
and it seems very unlikely that the apostles would have made 
this one requisite of the persons to be chosen, that they 
should be “full of” the extraordinary gifts of «the Holy 
Ghost, and of wisdom,” if their office had confined them to 
the ministry of the widows at Jerusalem; or that they who 
were evangelists before, as Philip is expressly styled, should 
wholly lay aside the preaching of the word, and attend only 
on a civil office (see Acts xxi. 8). Moreover, it is certain 
that deacons were instituted before St. Paul wrote the first 
epistle to Timothy; for we have mention of them in the 
epistle to the Philippians, written three years before that to 
Timothy ; and they are mentioned in the advice to Timothy, 
not as an Office to be instituted, but as a standing office then 
settled in the church, as they must be if bishops were then 
so, they being necessary attendants on that higher function, 
according to the words of Epiphanius,§ ἄνευ δὲ διακόνου ἐπί- 
σκοπὸν ddviaroy εἶναι, “a bishop cannot be without a deacon.” 
Now if they were not instituted here by the apostles, I de- 
sire to know when, where, and by whom they were insti- 
tuted, and what other record we have left us of such an in- 
stitution of them. 

Obj. 1. Against this it is objected, first, That these seven 
are never called deacons in the whole history of the Acts of 
the Apostles, and that this name is never given either to St. 
Stephen, or to Philip the evangelist. 

Ans. But this objection can be of no strength against the 
suffrage of all antiquity, which hath still given them the 
name of deacons, seeing they have no other name ascribed 
to them in the whole Acts of the Apostles, or the sacred 
history ; they are never called διάκονοι τραπεζῶν, ministers 
of tables,” in all the Acts, though here they are said to be 
appointed for that work: and so saith Jerome|| of the dea- 
cons of his age, that they were mensarum et viduarum mi- 
nistri, “the ministers not only of the priests, but also of 
widows and tables.” So he styles them in his Epistle to 
Evagrius, and bids them learn the reason of their institution 
from the Acts of the Apostles. 

Obj. 2. It is farther objected, That in St. Paul’s account 
of the deacons of the church, there is no mention of this 
part of their office, to provide for widows and “ serve tables,” 
nor any quality required of them which respects that office. 


* Her. Herod. p. 50, §. 4. + Can. 14, 

+ Lib. viii. cap. 46. § Her. Ixxv. §. 5, p. 908. 

|| Non meminit mensarum et viduarum minister, se in ob- 
sequium, et ministerium non solum sacerdotum, sed et vidu- 
arum, et pauperum delegatum, tom. ii. f. 251, K. Sciant 
quare diaconi constituti sunt, legant Acta Apostolorum, re- 
cordentur conditionis sue. Tom, ii. f. 117, H. 


T answer, That, according to this argument, should all that 
hath been said be granted, the deacons could have no autho- 
rity to baptize, or administer either the bread or the cup to 
the laity, there being not one word of any such office belong- 
ing to them in St. Paul’s Epistles to Timothy, nor of any 
assistance they are to give the bishop. 

Secondly, I answer, That as the deacons of St. Paul are 
to be “grave,” and “hold the faith in a good conscience,” 
so are the deacons here to be “men of honest report and 
wisdom,” ver. 3, as they were to be “approved,” and then 
to “execute the office of a deacon,” 1 Tim. iii. 9: so was it 
here, ver. 5, 6. Now men of “double tongues, and given 
to much wine,” could neither be men of good report, nor 
men of wisdom, and much less could they be approved as 
such; so that the characters of the deacons here seem virtu- 
ally to include all the characters required of them there, and 
two more, especially relating to sacred offices, viz. that they 
should be “ men full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom ;” and 
that which St. Stephen doth here, and St. Philip did in 
preaching to the Samaritans, and then baptizing them, is the 
foundation of the authority given by bishops to deacons to 
preach the word and to baptize. Moreover, their being mi- 
nisters of tables, made them also ministers at the Agape, 
where the bishop was to be acquainted with the necessities 
of the widows and the poor, say the Apostolical Constitu- 
tions,* διὰ τῶν ὑπηρετῶν, τουτέστι, διὰ τῶν διακόνων, “by the 
ministers, that is, the deacons ;” and so they became attend- 
ants also on him, or on the president, who consecrated the 
eucharist, celebrated at the same time with these feasts of 
charity ; and so they distributed the bread and wine to the 
communicants, and carried them, saith Justin Martyr,} to 
those that were absent. Hence they are styled by Igna- 
tiust and Polycarp,§ not only “the ministers of meats and 
drinks,” but “the servants of the church of God,” and said 
to be “servants not of men, but of God and Christ,” as ser- 
vants are in that relation said to serve the Lord Christ, and 
therefore are bid to do all things “as to the Lord, and not 
unto men” (Col. iii. 23, 24). And Clemens of Alexan- 
drial} saith, that in the church the presbyters have, τὴν βεὰ- 
τιωτικὴν εἰκόνα, τὴν ὑπηρετικὴν δὲ οἱ διάκονοι, “ the representation 
of those who make men better, and the deacons of them 
that serve.’ And, because they performed this ministry 
under the inspection of the bishop, and gave him an account 
of the condition of the widows and the poor, and had from 
him, or his presbyters, the treasury of the church to distri- 
bute to others, therefore is this so often mentioned in church 
history as part of the episcopal office, to have the care of all 
that are in need, as Justin Martyr saith, the presbyters and 
deacons doing this only by his authority. 

In fine, Τὸ say that Philip and others of these deacons 
might preach and baptize, but not as deacons, but only as 
evangelists, is not sufficient in this case: for if they were all 
evangelists, or, as Epiphanius saith of the seventy, and after- 
ward by the apostles ordained deacons, it is hence evident 
that they must have with this office a power to preach and 
baptize, as doubtless the evangelists and seventy disciples 
had; and hence we find, that Philip, being one of those 
seven (Acts xxi. 8), did both these offices by the direction 
and assistance of the Holy Ghost (Acts viii. 12. 29. 40). If 
they were not, yet being men “full of the Holy Ghost,” 


* Lib. ii. cap. 28. 

ἡ Οἱ καλούμενοι παρ᾽ ἡμῖν διάκονοι διδύασιν ἑκάστῳ τῶν παρόντων 
μεταλαβεῖν ἀπὸ τοῦ εὐχαρισθέντος ἄρτου καὶ οἴνου καί ὕδατος, καὶ 
τοῖς οὐ παροῦσιν ἀποφέρουσι. Ap. ii. 97. 

+ Οὐ yap βρωμάτων καὶ ποτῶν εἰσιν διάκονοι, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκκλησίας Θεοῦ 
ὑπηρέται. Ign. ad Trall. sect. 2. 

§ Inculpati esse debent, ὡς Θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ διάκονοι, καὶ οὐκ 
ἀνθρώπων. Polye. Epist. ad Philip. sect. 5. 

|| Strom. vii. p. 700. 

4 Kai ἁπλῶς rots ἐν χρείᾳ οὖσι κηδεμὼν γίνεται, Just. p. 97, 
98, “Ὥστε κατὰ τὴν αὐτοῦ ἐξουσίαν πάντα διοικεῖσθαι τοῖς ὅεο- 
μένοις διὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων καὶ τῶν διακονων. Can, Apost. 84, 


vid. 31, 


CHAPTER VII. 


they had prayed (Gr. they praying), " they laid their 
hands on them. 

7 And (so, by the labours of the apostles,) the word 
of God increased; and the number of the disciples 
multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great com- 
pany of the priests (also) were obedient to the faith. 

8 And Stephen, (being) full of faith and power, did 
great wonders and miracles among the people. 

9 4 Then there arose δ certain of the synagogue, 
which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and 
\ of the synagogues of the) Cyrenians, and Alexan- 

rians, and (some of) them of Cilicia and Asia, dis- 
puting with Stephen. 

10 7 And they were not able to resist the wisdom 
and the spirit (2. 6. the wisdom of the Spirit) by which 
he spake. 

11 Then they suborned men, which (being brought 


441 


before the council) said, We have heard him speak 
blasphemous words against Moses, and against God 
(and so by the law he deserves to be stoned, Lev. xxiv. 16). 

12 And they stirred up (against him) the people, 
and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, 
and caught him, and brought him to the council, 

13 And set up false witnesses, which said, This 
man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against 
this holy place, and the law: 

14 For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of 
Nazareth (whom he preaches) shall destroy this place, 
and shall change the customs which Moses delivered 

to) us. 

: »; And all that sat in the council, looking sted- 
fastly on him, " saw (on him a great splendour, making) 
his face (to shine) as it had been the face of an 
angel. 


and of that wisdom which enabled them to teach others, we 
cannot reasonably conceive they were disabled, by their ordi- 
nation to this office, from doing that work for which they 
were thus fitted, and as it were appointed, by these gifts of 
the Holy Spirit conferred upon them. In a word, it is evi- 
dent from this history, that before the ordination of these 
deacons, the apostles themselves were engaged in this work ; 
for the treasure of the church was laid at the apostles’ feet, 
“and distribution of it was made to every man according as 
he had need” (iv. 35). ‘T'his distribution therefore must be 
made by them who had this treasure in their hands, and 
therefore they appoint these seven over this business to ease 
themselves of this trouble, that they might “give them- 
selves” more entirely “to prayer and to the ministry of the 
word,” and might not, by attending on this work, be hin- 
dered in the execution of that higher office: now surely that 
work which the apostles personally performed for a season, 
must be consistent with their commission, to “teach and to 
baptize all nations.” 

§ Ver. 6. The apostles laid their hands on them.] Here 
seemeth to be nothiug in this relation which favours the au- 
thority of the laity in choosing persons to sacred offices: for 
though the choice of these seven was committed to them, 
yet was this done (1.) by the particular appointment of the 
apostles themselves; for “the twelve called the multitude, 
and said to them, Look ye out seven men,” ver. 2, 3. (2.) 
They specify the number and the qualifications of the per- 
sons to be chosen to this office. (3.) They reserve to them- 
selves the appointment of them to this work, saying, “ Look 
ye out seven men whom we may appoint over this business :” 
and, lastly, they only laid their hands upon them (see Chry- 
sost. in loc.). So in the case of the princes, or rulers over 
thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens, Moses saith, as here, 
Choose to yourselves men of wisdom and understanding, and 
known to your tribes, votashmam, and I will set them to be 
your heads (Deut. i. 13, 14) : accordingly, he both appointed 
them to (ver. 15), and instructed them in, the discharge of 
their office (ver. 16, 17). 

6 Ver. 9. Certain of ihe synagogue of the Libertines, and 
Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and them of Cilicia,and Asia, 
disputing with Stephen.| That the word synagogue is to be 
repeated before all the places mentioned here, appears from 
this; that the Jews mention a synagogue of the Alexan- 
drians at Jerusalem, as Dr. Lightfoot here noteth. More- 
over, there being men of all these nations living in Jerusa- 
lem, and speaking their native language, and who yet were 


proselytes to the Jewish religion (ii. 8. 11), it is reasonable 
to conceive that they had also synagogues for prayer and 
hearing of the law, and pious exhortations in a tongue they 
understood. By the synagogue of these Libertines, some 
understand the Jews that were free-born, or had obtained 
the Roman freedom, as St. Paul had: so Dr. Lightfoot. 
Others think they were Roman servants who had obtained 
their freedom; of Ῥωμαίων ἀπελεύθεροι οὕτω καλοῦνται, saith 
(Ecumenius here. The first opinion seems to be most pro- 
bable. For though Tacitus* in his Annals, saith, that qua- 
tuor millia Libertini generis Judaica superstitione infecta, 
«four thousand Libertines, infected with the Jewish super- 
stition, were banished into Sardinia ;” yet Suetonius} saith 
that they were “Judeorum juventus,” “the young men of 
the Jewish nation that were sent thither;” and that reliquos 
ejusdem gentis, aut similia sectantes urbe submovit, “ he only 
expelled the other Jews and their proselytes out of the city ;” 
Josephus,} that he commanded πᾶν τὸ ᾿Ιουδαϊκὸν τῆς Ρώμης 
ἀπεληλυθέναι, “all the Jews to be expelled Rome,” and that 
“four thousand of them were sent to Sardinia by the con- 
suls:” and Philo§ saith that “he suffered a great part of the 
city beyond Tiber to be inhabited by the Jews,” and that 
“these Jews, Ρωμαῖοι ἦσαν of πλείους ἀπελευθερωϑέντες, Were 
most of them Romans set at liberty; for being carried cap- 
tives into Italy, they obtained their freedom from their mas- 
ters.” 

7 Ver. 10. And they were not able to resist the wisdom 
with which he spake.] So exactly was the promise made by 
Christ, Matt. x. 20, Luke xxi. 15, fulfilled in St. Stephen. 

8 Ver. 15. Saw his face as the face of an angel.) This 
expression of the “shining of the face like that of an angel,” 
seems to have been proverbial among the Jews: for so 
Esther speaks to Artaxerxes, “I saw thee as an angel of 
God, and my heart was troubled, ἀπὸ φόβου τῆς δόξης σου, 
from fear of thy glory,” Esth. xv. 13. And the Chaldee 
paraphrast, on Cant. i. 4, saith, “ When Israel made the calf, 
their visage was black as that of an Ethiopian; but when 
they repented, and their sin was remitted, the splendour of 
the glory of their countenance was like that of an angel.” 
Now God by this splendour of St. Stephen testified his in- 
nocence, and that he was pleasing to him as Moses was, in 
that he made his face to shine as he did that of Moses. 


* Lib. ii. edit. Lips. p. 92. 
+ Antigq. lib. xviii. cap. 5, p. 623. 
§ Leg. ad Caium, p. 785, C. 


{ In Tib. cap. 36. 


CHAPTER VII. 


i 
1 Tuen said the high priest, Are these things so 
(as is suggested by these witnesses) 2 


2 And he said, ! Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken, 
2 The God of glory appeared unto our father Abra- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIL 


1 Ver. 2. “Avdpes, dée\goi, Men, brethren.) It is customary 
with the Hebrews to add the word man, when it imports no 
more than the word to which it is annexed ; as Gen. xiii. 8, 
“Let there be no strife between thee and me, for we are 

Vou. [V.—56 


men, brethren ;” Exod. xii. 14, “ Who made thee a man, a 
prince over us?’’ (see Gen. xxxviii. 1.) So accordingly, 
“men, brethren,” occurs i. 16, ii. 29. 37, here, ver. 2. 26, 
xiii. 15. 26, xv. 13, xxii. 3, xxiii. 1. 6, xxviii. 17, so Matt. 
Xili. 28, ἐχθρὸς ἄνθρωπος is “an enemy” (see Luke xxiv. 7). 
2 The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham.) 


442 


ham, 8 when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt 
in Charran (Gen. xi. 33), 

3 And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, 
and from thy kindred, (who are zdolaters, Josh. xxiv. 
2,) and come into the land which I shall shew thee. 

4 Then came he (in obedience to this call) out of the 
land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran (his 
father Terah being then with him, Gen. xi. 31): and 
from thence, 4 when his father was dead, he (7. e. God) 
removed him into this land (Gen. xii. 5), wherein ye 
now dwell. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


5 And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, 5 not 
so much as to set his foot on: yet (xat, although) he 
promised that he would give it to him for a posses- 
sion, and (that 15) to his seed after him, when as yet 
he had no child. 

6 And ὃ God spake on this wise, That his seed (be- 
ginning from Isaac) should sojourn in a strange land ; 
and that they (among whom they sojourned) should 
bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four 
hundred years. 

7 And (then) the nation to whom they shall be 


How God appeared to him, whether it were by a dream, 
or a vision, or an angel, the text doth not tell us; but this 
phrase, “The God of glory appeared,” seems to make it 
probable this was done by a voice from the Shechinah, or 
divine presence. 

3 When he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in 
Charran.] Here note, that that part of Mesopotamia, which 
is next to Assyria, is called “the land of the Chaldees;” for 
Ur, of Chaldea, as Abarbinel observes, was in Mesopotamia, 
lying in the way from Tigris to Nisibis; and therefore Am- 
mianus, lib. v., speaks of an Ur in Mesopotamia so situated. 
And Chaldea and Babylon are reckoned as parts of Meso- 
potamia, both by Josephus* and by Pliny.t That God ap- 
peared to Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, i. e. in 
Ur of Chaldea, before he dwelt in Haran, though it be not 
expressly said, Gen. xi. 31, yet it is to be understood there: 
for Gen. xv. 7, God saith expressly to him, “I am Jehovah, 
that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees;”’ and Neh. ix. 
7, the Levites speak thus, “Thou art the Lord, which did 
choose Abraham, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the 
Chaldees ;” and therefore it is said of the rest, Gen. xi. 31, 
that “they went forth with them,” that is, with Terah and 
Abraham, “ from Ur of Chaldea, and came to Haran.” Yea, 
it is observable, that Terah is made the chief agent in this 

_Temove; for he (saith the text) “took Abraham and Lot, 
and went forth from Ur of the Chaldees,” with an intention 
to go to Canaan; whence we may gather, that Abraham had 
made known God’s call to him, and that he believed now 
in that God, who had thus spoken to his son. For what 
should move him to leave Ur, but obedience to the divine 
call, which Abraham received, to which he would not have 
agreed, if he had not believed in God, as it is certain Lot 
and Sarah did, who went with them. 

4 Ver. 4. And from thence, after his father was dead, he 
(God, by another call) removed him into the land of Ca- 
naan.| Having proved in the former note, that Abraham 
went out from “Ur of the Chaldees” by an especial call 
from God; the call he received after his father’s death, by 
virtue of which he removed from Charran into the land of 
Canaan, must be a second call, even that mentioned Gen. xii. 
1, “ Now the Lord said to Abraham, Get thee out of thy own 
country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, 
to a land that I will show thee.” In the first call he is only 
bid to go out of his country, and from his kindred, which at 
his first removal was not completely done; for Charran was 
in the land of Mesopotamia, as well as Ur, Χάῤῥας πόλις 
Μεσοποταμίας, as Stephanus informs us: and though Nahor 
did not presently go along with his father to Haran, yet 
that he followed after him with all his family, and dwelt in 
Mesopotamia and in Charran, is evident; for Eliezer goes to 
Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor, for Rebekah, Laban’s 
sister, and the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah 
the wife of Nahor (Gen. xxiv.), and Rebekah sent Jacob to 
her brother Laban to Charran (Gen. xxvii. 43, see also Gen. 
XXviii. 10, xxix. 5). At this second call therefore he is bid 
to depart from his country, where he yet was, and (from his 
kindred, and from his father’s house, and) come to him 
there; and now he leaves his brother Nahor, and all his fa- 
ther’s house behind him. 

5 Ver. 5. Nof so much as to set his foot on.] He being 


* Χαλδαίων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Μεσοποταμιτῶν στασιάντων, Antiq. 
lib. i. cap. 8. 

+ Mesopotamia tota Assyriorum fuit vicatim dispersa 
preter Babyloniam et Ninum. Pin. lib. vi. cap. 26, p. 355. 
Vide ibid. p. 356, 357. 


forced there to buy a burial-place, that he might “bury his 
dead out of his sight” (Gen. xxiii. 3, 4. 16). 

® Ver. 6. God said, That his seed should sojourn in a 
strange land, and that they should bring them into bondage, 
and entreat him evil four hundred years.) This four hun- 
dred years cannot respect their sojourning in Egypt, for that . 
was only two hundred and fifteen years, as both Josephus* 
and the scriptures testify ; and so four hundred and thirty 
years after the promise made to Abraham, leaving Charran 
to go into the land of Canaan; for that two hundred and 
fifteen years after that promise they went down to Egypt, is 
thus demonstrated :—Abraham was seventy-five years old 
when he went from Haran to Canaan, and received the pro- 
mise of that land (Gen. xii. 4. 7), and from that time to the 
birth of Isaac, when Abraham was one hundred years old 
(Gen. xxi. 5), is twenty-five years: from the birth of Isaac 
to that of Jacob was sixty years, for “Isaac was sixty years 
old when Rebekah bore” him (Gen. xxv. 26) : from Jacob’s 
birth to his descent into Egypt was, as he saith to Pharaoh, 
one hundred and thirty years (Gen. xlvii. 9): which sums 
put together make two hundred and fifteen years, and so 
their stay in Egypt two hundred and fifteen years more, 
makes exactly four hundred and thirty years. Some there- 
fore well observe, that they sojourned not only in Egypt, but 
before in Canaan, ὡς ἐν yz ἀλλοτρίᾳ, “as in a strange land.” 
Hence the whole land of Canaan is styled, the land in which 
they were πάροικοι, “strangers,” or sojourners, Gen. xvii. 8, 
xxvi. 8, xxxv. 27, Exod. vi. 4, Ps. cv. 12, and the author to 
the Hebrews saith, « They dwelt in Canaan as in a strange 
land,” xi.9 (see the note there). Their evil treatment here, 
and their bondage in Egypt, saith the text, shall be four hun- 
dred years: these years some reckon from the birth of Isaac, 
from which time to their deliverance out of Egypt was four 
hundred and five years; they therefore tell us, that the five 
odd years are not mentioned, no notice being taken of small 
broken numbers: for thus, say they, the Greek interpreters, 
being seventy-two, are called the seventy ; and the Roman 
writers call them centumviri, who were in all one hundred 
and five; and Moses, Numb, xi. 21, saith the Israelites were 
six hundred thousand, when they were three thousand five 
hundred and fifty above that number, as appears from Numb. 
i. 46, ii. 32. But others begin the account from the time 
when Ishmael the son of Hagar mocked Isaac, Gen. xxi. 9, 
for that it was done when Isaac was weaned, we read, ver. 
8, and that this was when he was five years old, St. Jeromet 
doth inform us from some of the Jews, and this mocking is 
by St. Paul styled persecution, Gal. iv. 39. Now from this 
time to the deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt 
is exactly four hundred years, and from this time began the 
evil treament of his seed. Some, I know, begin the com- 
putation of the four hundred and thirty years, from the first 
call of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees; but since the holy 
scripture hath given us no intimation of the age of Abraham 
when he went from Ur of the Chaldees to Charran, nor of 
the time of his stay there, this computation is upon both 
these accounts precarious ; and the scriptures being so ex- 
press in saying, Abraham was seventy-five years old when he 
left Charran to go into Canaan, the land of promise, if the 


* Κατέλιπον δὲ τὴν Αἴγυπτον pera ἔτη τριάκοντα καὶ τετρακόσια ἣ 
τὸν πρόγονον ἡμῶν “ABpapov εἰς τὴν Καναναίαν ἐλθεῖν, τῆς δὲ ᾿[Ιακω- 
βου μεταναστάσεως εἰς τὴν Αἴγυπτον γενομένης διακοσίοις πρὸς τοῖς 
δεκαπεντε ἐνιαύτοις ὕστερον. Απέϊᾳ. lib. i. cap. 6. ; ᾿ 

+ Inter Hebreos autem varia opinio est, asserentibus aliis 
quinto anno ablactationis tempus statutum. Quest. in Gen. 
tom. ii. 


CHAPTER VII. 


(Jast) in bondage will I judge, said God (Gen. xv. 14): 
and after that shall they come forth, and (shall) 7 serve 
me in this place (¢. δ. in this land of Canaan). 

8 And he gave him the covenant of cireumcision: 
and so Abraham (being circumcised himself) begat 
Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and 
Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve pa- 
triarchs. 

9 And (the residue of ) the patriarchs, 
with envy (by reason of his dream), sol 
Egypt: but God was with him (there), 

10 And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and 

ve him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh 
Eine of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt 
and (over) all his house. 


(being) moved 
Joseph into 


Holy Ghost designed to give us any chronological account of 
these matters, it seems more naturally to direct us to the 
time assigned by these years, than to the time of which it 
hath not given us any character at all: and though the scrip- 
ture doth not tell us the exact time when Isaac was weaned ; 
yet, since it tells us the child was grown up, or “increased,” 
Gen. xxi. 8, and was playing with Ishmael, ver. 9, hence it 
is probable that the tradition of the Jews, mentioned by Je- 
rome, that “ Isaac was five years old when he was weaned,” 
may be true. 

7 Ver. 7. And serve me in this place.] This is not said 
expressly, Gen. xv., but ver. 16, it is said, that “in the fourth 
generation they shall come forth, and return hither,” which 
seems equivalent to this expression. ‘This seems preferable 
to the exposition of some, who refer this to what is said 
Exod. iii. 12, four hundred years after, viz. “ Ye shall serve 
me in this mount,” that being mount Sinai in Arabia, and 
not the place or land where St. Stephen was when he spake 
these words. 

8 Ver. 14. "Ev Ψυχαῖς ἑβδομήκοντα πέντε, Threescore and fif- 
teen souls.) The Hebrew text reckoned them only seventy, 
Gen. xlvi. 27, Deut. x. 22, but the Septuagint, adding five 
sons of Ephraim and Manasseh, born in Egypt, from 1 
Chron. vii., makes them seventy-five ; both which, for any 
thing I can see to the contrary, may be true: for mark the 
way of counting in the Hebrew, “All the souls that came 
into Egypt with Jacob from his loins were sixty-six; and 
then ver. 27, it is said, that “to Joseph were born in Egypt 
two souls;”’ and then it is again said, that “all the house 
of Jacob which came into Egypt” (viz. if you add to them 
Jacob, Joseph, and his two sons) “ were seventy souls.” So 
also say the Septuagint, ver. 26. ΑἹ] the souls going with 
Jacob into Egypt were sixty-six, as the Hebrew said ; then, 
ver. 27, the sons of Joseph were, with himself and father 
Jacob, nine, viz. five being descended from Ephraim and 
Manasseh, ver. 20, so that “all the souls of the house of Ja- 
cob going down into Egypt,” if you add these nine to them, 
“are seventy-five :”” Moses saith, all the souls that he had 
reckoned were seventy: but he says not there were no 
more ; the Septuagint add the names of five more, and then 
say that “all the names they had reckoned were seventy- 
five: nor can the names they have reckoned be disproved, 
for we find them in the book of Chronicles: so that I see no 
cogent reason why the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and Stephen, 
may not all speak the truth. 

But, secondly, the texts both in the Hebrew and the 
Greek seem plainly to hint another solution; for Gen. 
xlvi. 26, “All the souls that came into Egypt from the 
loins of Jacob,” besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, were sixty and 
six; add to these the wives of these eleven sons, and they 
made seventy and seven; take from them Hezron and Hamul, 
not yet born, and they were only seventy-five. Now it was the 
design of Moses only to give an account of those that came 
out of Jacob’s loins, as it is said, ver. 6—S, 26, and there- 
fore he excepts their wives out of his catalogue of sixty-six, 
and makes them up seventy, as before, ver. 27. But Ste- 
phen undertakes only to tell us the number of those that Jo- 
seph called into Egypt, viz. his father, καὶ πᾶσαν συγγένειαν 
αὐτοῦ, “and all his kindred.” Some therefore of the list of 
Moses must be left out of St. Stephen’s number, viz. Joseph 
and his two sons, who were there already, Hezron and Ha- 
mul, who were not yet born, and Jacob, whom he reckons 


443 


11 Now there came a dearth over all the land of 
Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fa- 
thers found no sustenance. 

12 But when Jacob heard that there was corn in 
Egypt, he sent out our fathers first (without Benjamin). 

13 And at the second time (when Benjamin was 
sent with them) Joseph was made known to his breth- 
ren; and Joseph’s kindred was made known unto Pha- 
raoh. 

14 Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to 
him, and all his kindred, (who with their wives were) 
5 threescore and fifteen souls. 

15 ®So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, 
and our fathers, 

16 And (our fathers) were carried over into Sy- 


~ 

apart; that is, take out these six from the seventy, and there 
remain sixty-four; which with the eleven wives of his sons 
are seventy-five. Now that these wives were a part of those 
that were called by Joseph, is certain, because he called 
« Jacob and his household, and all that he had,” Gen. xlv. 11. 
He sent “ wagons for their wives,” ver. 19, and the sons of 
Jacob carried their wives in them, xlvi. 5. And therefore 
Josephus* gives us the words of Joseph thus, “ Bring your 
wives, and your little ones, and all your kindred hither.” 
And that the words συγγενεῖς and συγγένεια, belong to wives, 
we learn from Ley. xviii. 14, xx. 20, Josh. vi. 23, as well 
as from Josephus. 

§ Ver. 15, 16. So Jacob went down into Egypt and died, 
he and our fathers: and were carried over into Sychem, 
and were laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a 
sum of money of the sons of Emmor, the father of Sy- 
chem.] These words have in them many difficulties, I will 
begin with the easiest of them. And, 

First, That ᾿Εμμὸρ rod Συχέμ, is well rendered “the fa- 
ther of Sychem;” and that the Greek bears this interpreta- 
tion, is proved, note on Luke xxiv. 1. 

Secondly, It is evident, that Jacob was buried with his 
fathers, Abraham and Isaac, in the cave of Machpelah. For 
thus he speaks to Joseph, “I will lie with my fathers, and 
thou shalt bury me in their burial-place’”’ (Gen. xlvii. 30) ; 
and accordingly we read, that Joseph “buried him in the 
cave of Machpelah,” Gen. 1. 13. Hence then it is certain, 
that it cannot be said of Jacob, that he was carried into Sy- 
chem, and buried there. 

Thirldy, I add, that only Jacob was there buried, and that 
all the rest of the patriarchs were translated to Sychem, and 
buried there. That Jacob only, of all here mentioned, was 
buried there, is evident from an old tradition of the Jews, 
mentioned by Jerome,j Hegesippus,+ and R, Sol. Jarchi;§ 
that Hebron was called Kirjath-Arba, “the city of the 
four,’ because four patriarchs, viz. Adam, Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, were buried there: and from the observation of 
the cabalists, that in the word $x. is contained by Rose 
Theboth all that were buried in Hebron; to wit, 


Isaac and Jacob, Adam, Abraham, 
Sarah, Leah. 
Rebekah, 


As for the patriarchs, styled here “our fathers,” that they 
being dead, were carried to Sychem, is here said in express 
words. And St. Jerome,| giving us a description of the tra- 
vels of Paula through the Holy Land, saith, “She came to 
Sychem, atque inde divertens vidit duodecim patriarcharum 
sepulcra, and passing thence she saw the sepulchres of the 
twelve patriarchs,” they being buried, not in, but near to 
Sychem (Josh. xxiv. 32). That Moses took the bones of 
Joseph with him when he went out of Egypt, as he had 
charged his brethren to do when God brought them thence, 


Αὐτὸν δὲ τοῦτον, καὶ γυναῖκας ὑμετέρας, καὶ τέκνα καὶ πᾶσαν 
τὴν συγγένειαν ὑμῶν ἀναλαβόντες ἐνθάδε μετοικίζεσθε. Antiq. lib. 
ii. cap. 3. 

Quia ibidem Abraham, et Isaac, et Jacob conditus est, 
et ipse princeps humani generis Adam. Qu. et Trad. in 
Gen. f. 74, G. 

+ In Descript. Terre Sancte. 

| Epitaph. Paul. tom. i. f. 62. 1. 


§ In Gen. xxiii. 


444 ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


chem, and (he was) laid in the sepulchre that Abra- 
ham bought for a sum of money (they, in the sepulchre 
bought) of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem. 

17 But when the time of the promise drew nigh, 
(concerning) which God had sworn to Abraham (Gen. 
xxii. 16—18), the people grew and multiplied in 
Egypt, 

18 Till °another king arose, which knew not Joseph. 

19 The same (Gr. he) dealt subtilly with our kin- 
dred, and eyil entreated our fathers, so that they cast 


out their young children, to the end they might not live. 

20 In which time Moses was born, and (he) was 
" exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s 
house three months : 

21 And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter 
took him up, and nourished him for her own son. 

22 And (so it came to pass, that) * Moses was learned 
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and (he) was 
mighty in words and in deeds (7. 6. his words came to 
pass, and his deeds were wonderful). 


Gen. 1. 25, we read, Exod. xiii. 19, that is, the children of 
Isreal did it by his command, Josh. xxiv. 32. And R.Solo- 
mon, on Exod. xiii. 19, saith, “ We may learn from this very 
place, that the bones of all the patriarchs were brought up 
with him:” and this will appear very probable, 

First, Because the same cause that moved Joseph to de- 
sire burial in the land of Canaan, could not but move all his 
brethren to desire the like, they having the same faith in the 
promise, and the same interest in the land, and so the same 
principles to move them to desire it that Joseph had. 

Secondly, The rest of the tribes’ bore the same honour to 
their patriarchs that the tribe of Joseph did'to him ; and there- 
fore they must be as much concerned to preserve their bones 
to be carried out of Egypt with them. And seeing Jacob their 
father was so concerned to be buried, not in Egypt, but in the 
land of promise (Gen. xlvii. 30), and Joseph to have his 
bones carried from thence into it from the same faith (Heb. 
xi. 22), who can imagine that the twelve fathers of the 
church of Israel, and heirs of the land of Canaan, should be 
left in the land of bondage, and not interred in their own 
land? 

Moreover, that their bones were buried in Sychem, with 
the bones of Joseph, may be made probable from these con- 
siderations : 

First, That though Joseph’s bones were brought up with 
them out of Egypt, they were not buried till Joshua had di- 
vided the land among them, and had called all Israel to Sy- 
chem, to renew the covenant God made with their fathers ; 
for then only it is said, “The bones of Joseph which the 
children of Israel brought out of Egypt they buried in Sy- 
chem.” Either then they buried the bones of the other pa- 
triarchs at the same time, or not at all; for we read nothing 
of their doing it in any other assembly, at any other time or 
place, and so may reasonably conceive, that as they were re- 
moved at the same time, so likewise were they buried. 

Secondly, here were but two places assigned of the bu- 
rial of the other patriarchs; one by Josephus, who saith, 
«“ They were buried in Hebron;” the other by St. Jerome and 
R. Solomon, that they were buried in Sychem. Now that 
they were not buried by Joshua in Hebron, we have great 
reason to believe : 

First, Because we do not read that Joshua ever came to 
Hebron, but to destroy the city. Secondly, from the tradi- 
tions already produced, that it was called Kirjath-Arba, be- 
cause the four great patriarchs only were buried in it. And 
thirdly, from the places where Josephus saith the contrary ; 
for in his second book of Antiquities, ch. iv., he hath many 
other idle tales, which may cause us to suspect this; and in 
his book of the Jewish Wars he begins the story thus, 
pv0etover,* “They of Hebron tell a tale so and so, καὶ δείκνυσι, 
and they show their sepulchres to this day, πάνυ καλῆς μαρμάρου 
καὶ φιλοτίμως εἰργασμενα, Wrought curiously in fine marble, 
and a tree that had stood there from the creation.” So that 
if you will believe Josephus here, you must believe they had 
sepulchres of fine marble curiously wrought; and then how 
wonderful is it that St. Jerome, giving us what was chiefly 
observable in every place that Paula came at, saith only that 
«she came to Hebron,” that is, Kirjath-Arba, id est, oppidum 
quatuor virorum, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, et Adam; 
“that is, to the town of the four patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, and Adam;” and bringing her from Hebron to Sy- 
chem, should tell us, “she saw the sepulchres of the patri- 
archs there,” not only being silent as to these curious marble 
sepulchres, but contradicting Josephus in the whole story. 

Now if these things are duly fixed, it is necessary, either 


{ Ubi supra, Εἰ. 


* Lib. v. 


to say, with the great Bochart, that some unskilful gramma- 
rians thinking a nominative case was wanting before the 
word ὠνήσατο, “was bought,” wrote in the margin the word 
᾿Αβραὰμ, which others put into the text, without which the 
words run thus with the exact truth, “So Jacob went down 
into Egypt and died (there) ; he, and our fathers, and they 
(viz. our fathers) were carried over into Sychem, and laid in 
the sepulchre that was bought for a sum of money of the 
sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem.” For that Jacob 
bought of the sons of Hamor, the father of Sychem, a field 
near Sychem, “for a hundred fesita,”’ we read Gen, xxxiil. 
19, and that Aesita is to be rendered “ pieces of money,” he 
proves in Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 43, where he treats largely on 
this verse: the only objection against this conjecture, which 
makes the words so plain, is this, that it is not supported by 
any copies or versions, and on this account it seems neces- 
sary to admit of the sense given in the paraphrase; viz. 

Ver. 15. And Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, 
and our fathers. 

Ver. 16, And (our fathers) were carried over into Sychem, 
and they were laid (Jacob) in the sepulchre that Abraham 
bought for a sum of money (they in the sepulchre bought) 
of the sons of Emmor the father of Sychem. 

In which paraphrase there be three ellipses of words to be 
repeated from the former words, but they are such as may be 
often met with both in the Old and the New Testament; as 
y. g. Ps, exxxiii. 3, “As the dew of Hermon (and as the 
dew) which fell upon the hills of Zion;” for Hermon and 
Zion were far asunder; Eccles. x. 1, As “dead flies cause the 
ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour, 
so a little folly (causeth) a man’ of reputation for wisdom 
and honour (to become unsavoury).” See Numb. xxvi. 4. 
In the New Testament we have the tike examples: so 2 
Thess. ii. 7, “He that letteth (will let) till he be taken 
away,” John ix. 3, “ Neither hath he sinned, nor his parents” 
(so that he should be born blind on that account, ver. 9): 
1 John ii. 19, “ But (they went out from us) that it might 
appear they were not of us” (see Glass. lib. iv. de Figuris 
Gram. tract. 2, from observ. 8 to the 13th). 

10 Ver. 18. There arose another king who knew not Jo- 
seph.] As it might very well be; this happening one hundred 
and thirty-five years after the coming of the children of Is- 
rael into Egypt; for they went out of it eighty years after, 
when Moses was so old, and this happened sixty-four, years 
after the death of Joseph, so that the king reigning at that 
distance, might know little of, and less regard, the good deeds 
Joseph had done for Egypt. 

Ver. 20. And Moses was dortios τῷ Θεῷ, exceeding 
fair.) The word God being added to increase the significa- 
tion; so Nineveh is called πόλις μεγάλη τῷ Oecd, “an exceed- 
ing great city,” John iii. 3; so ὅπλα δυνατὰ τῷ Θεῷ, 2 Cor. x. 
4, are “very strong weapons:” so “cedars of God,” i. 6. 
goodly cedars, Ps. 1xxx, 10, “mountains of God,” Ps. xxxvi. 
7, 1. e. great mountains (see Glass. tract. 1, de Nom. can. 17, 
sect. 3). With this great beauty of Moses, the ancient hea- 
thens were acquainted: for Justin out of Trogus saith,” that 
eum forme pulchritudo commendabat, “The gracefulness of 
his countenance recommended him to others:”’ and Huetiust 
shows that the whole story of Adonis hid by Venus in an 
ark and delivered to Proserpina, because she admired the 
great beauty of the infant, was framed out of this story of 
Moses. 

2 Ver. 22. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of 
the Egyptians, and was mighty in word and deed.) Like to 


* Cap. 36, 2. 
+ Demonstr. Evang. prop. iv. cap 4, p. 113, 


ἢ 


CHAPTER VII. 


23 And when he was full forty years old, it came 
into his heart to visit his brethren the children of 
Israel (and to make himself known to them, as one ap- 

inted of God to be their deliverer). 

24 And (therefore) seeing one of them suffer wrong 
(from an Egyptian taskmaster), he defended him, an 
avenged him that was oppressed (by him), and smote 
the Egyptian: 

25 For he 3 supposed (that by this action) his 
brethren would have understood how that God by 
his hand would deliver them: but they understood (7?) 
not. 

26 And the next day he shewed himself unto them 
as they strove (one with another), and would have set 
them at one again τε e. made them friends), saying (to 
them), Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to 
another ? 

27 But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him 
away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge 
over us? 

28 Wilt thou kill me (now), as thou diddest the 
Egyptian yesterday ? 

29 Then fled Moses (from Egypt) at this saying, 
(the Egyptian king seeking his life on that account, 


445 


Exod. ii. 15,) and (he) was a stranger in the land of 
Madian, where he (was married to Zipporah the daugh- 
ter of Jethro, and) begat two sons. 

30 And when forty years were expired, ™ there ap- 
peared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an 
angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush (sent 
Srom the Shechinah, where God was). 

31 When Moses saw it (this angel), he wondered 
at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the 
voice of the Lord (from the Shechinah) came unto 
him, 

32 Saying, 1 am the God of thy fathers, the God 
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob. Then Moses (percetving that God himself 
spake to him) trembled, and durst not behold (the 
vision}. 

33 ‘Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes 
from thy feet (in token of thy reverence to me, thus 
speaking to thee): for the place where thou standest 
is holy ground (being made so by my presence 
there). 

ΠῚ have seen, I have seen the affliction of my 
people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their 
groaning (under their hard labour), and am come down 


this saying is that of Lucian,* of an “ Egyptian priest skilled 
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” But what this learn- 
ing of the Egyptians then was, it is not easy to define; I 
suppose with the Pseudo-Justin,} that it might be astronomy, 
astrology, and geometry ; to which you may add, from Cle- 
mens of Alexandria,} “skill in physic ;” but whereas Philo§ 
adds, “arithmetic, music, hieroglyphical writing,” and saith, 
τὴν d& ἄλλην ἐγκύκλιον παιδείαν Ἕλληνες ἐδίδασκον, that “the 
Greeks, sent for into Egypt for that purpose, taught him the 
liberal sciences,” he is utterly out; for the Greeks had no 
learning till long after the time of Moses, as Clemens Alex- 
drinus,| Josephus,{ and many others testify; and what 
they had, was at first borrowed from other nations: Moses, 
saith Josephus,** being older, not only than their learning, 
but even than their laws and gods. 

3 Ver. 25. He supposed that his brethren would have 
understood how that God, by his hand, would deliver them.) 
Two things are here fit to be inquired into, viz. by what au- 
thority or right Moses slew the Egyptian, and what reason 
he had to expect the people should understand that God de- 
signed him for their deliverer? The Jewish historians will 
give us a very easy solution to these difficulties; for their 
priests, saith Clemens of Alexandria,t+ declared, that “ Moses 
slew the Egyptian with a word,” and so gave them a mi- 
racle to prove his mission, and so then he must be killed by 
him who is the Lord of life and death. Josephus also saith 
expressly ,¢+ that “God appeared to Amram, the father of 
Moses, as he was praying to him for the afflicted Jews, and 
told him, Thy son now in the womb of thy wife shall escape 
the hands of the Egyptians, and τὸ piv "EGpatov γένος τῆς 
παρ᾽ Αἰγυπτίους ἀνάγκης ἀπολῦει, shall deliver the Hebrews 
from the afflictions of the Egyptians ;” and that to confirm 
this vision his wife brought him forth without any pain. He 


also adds, that a celebrated prophet among the Egyptians — 


declared, that “a Hebrew should be born then, who should 
afflict the Egyptians;” and when Moses was grown up, 
counselled the king of Egypt to destroy him, saying, that 
“by killing him he would free the Egyptians from fear, and 
cut off the hopes of the Hebrews.’§§ But not to depend on 


* Meudirns ἀνὴρ τῶν ἱερῶν γραμματέων θαυμάσιον τὴν σοφίαν, καὶ 
τὴν παιδείαν πᾶσαν εἰδὼς τὴν Αἰγύπτιον. Philosop. p. 842, C. 

ἡ Resp. δὰ ᾳ. 25. 

+ Ἰατρικήν. Clem. Strom. vi. 

§ De Vita Mosis, p. 470. 

|) Γραμματικὴν “Ἕλληνας παρὰ Φοινίκων. Strom. i. p. 344, Ἐκ 
τῆς βαρβάρων φιλοσεφίας πᾶσαν φερομένην τὴν παρ᾽ EXAnow ἔνδεικνύ- 
μενοι σοφίαν. Strom. vi. p. 614. 

{ Joseph. cap. 10, contra Apion. p. 1034. 

** Antiq. Pref. p. 3. 

tt Apud Clem. Strom. i. p. 344. 


_ # Antiq, lib. ii, cap. 5, p. 55. §§ P. 57. 


these things, the Jerusalem Talmud declares, that Moses 
slew the Egyptian “by the spirit of prophecy,” or that he 
did it by an extraordinary impulse from God; and Maimon- 
ides* makes this action one degree of prophecy, and thus (as 
Stephen saith) “it came into his heart (from God) to visit 
his brethren” (ver. 23); and indeed otherwise he could not 
have justified this fact to God and his own conscience. Now 
Moses knowing what an extraordinary person he had been 
“in words and deeds” (ver. 22), and what had been declared 
of him to his father, and by this action working deliverance 
to one of them, must justly hope they would look upon him 
as one appointed by God to be their deliverer. For to be 
δυνατὸς ἐν λόγοις may well signify one that is endued with the 
spirit of prophecy, λόγος σοφίας καὶ γνώσεως, being frequently 
used to signify some extraordinary knowledge and wisdom, 
and the person gifted with them being, by Clemens Rom. 
styled 6 δυνατὸς γνῶσιν ἐξειπεῖν, ἃ man able to declare this 
knowledge; and then δυνατὸς ἐν ἔργοις will signify a man of 
extraordinary and miraculous performances. 

4 Ver. 30. There appeared to him in the wilderness of 
mount Sinai the angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a 
bush.| That God himself was gloriously present here, at- 
tended with his holy angels as his ministers, of which one 
appeared in the bush, and was by God employed in forming 
the voice by which he spake to him, is evident, Ne from the 
express assertion of Christ, viz. that ὁ Θεὸς, “God spake to 
Moses in the bush” (Mark xii. 26): so Moses himself in- 
forms us, when he prays, Deut. xxxiii. 16, that “ the blessing 
of him that appeared in the bush might fall upon the head 
of Joseph,” that is, saith Onkelos, “of him whose majesty 
dwells in the heavens, and was revealed to Moses in the 
bush ;” saith B. Uziel, “of him who made the glory of his 
divine Majesty dwell in the bush.” (2.) This appears from 
the words here spoken, saith Stephen, by the voice of the 
Lord, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I have 
heard the affliction of my people, I will send thee into 
Egypt;” and also from the words in Exodus, for there Mo- 
ses, who went boldly towards the angel to see that great 
sight, when God said, “I am the God of Abraham, trembled, 
and durst not behold,” Exod. iii. 6, being afraid to look upon 
God ; and ver. 13, “ Moses said to God, What is thy name?” 
and God answers, “I AM,’ and bids him say, “I AM, and 
the God of your fathers, hath sent me to you.” And, lastly, 
if these names could belong to a created angel, I would 
gladly know how Christ received “a more excellent name 
than the angels,” as we read, Heb. i. 4. So that God was 
here present, as the chief person speaking to Moses, the an- 
gel only as his minister and his attendant (see the note on 
John i. 1). 

* Ney. par. ii. cap. 14. 
7 Epist. ad re §. 48, 
2 


446 


to deliver them. And noy come, I will send thee 
into Egypt (to thal end). 

35 15. This Moses whom they (formerly) refused, 
saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge (over 
us)? the same (Gr. him) did God send to be a ruler 
and a deliverer by the hand (or ministry) of the angel 
which appeared to him (as God’s messenger) in the 
bush. (And) 

36 He brought them out (of Lgypl), after that he 
had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, 
and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness (afler they 
came from Egypt) forty years. 

37 4 This is that Moses, which said unto the child- 
ren of Israel (Deut. xi. 15), ® A prophet shall the Lord 
your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto 
me; him shall ye hear (which prophet was Christ). 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


΄ 


38 This is he, that was in the church (or congrega- 
tion) in the wilderness 1 with the angel which spake 
to him (from the divine presence) in the mount Sina, 
and with (to) our fathers: 18 who received the lively 
oracles to give unto us (which spake of him : 

39 This is he)'To whom our fathers would not obey, 
but (they) thrust him from them, and in their hearts 
turned back again into Egypt, 

40 Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before 
us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the 
land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him 
(and so tt is no wonder that they will not hear God’s pro- 
phet now). 

41 ® And they made a calf in those days, and of- 
fered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works 
of their own hands. 


15 Ver. 35. This Moses whom they refused.) For though 
only one of them said to him, “ Who made thee a ruler or 
judge over us?” yet that one is thought to have been a ruler 
of a tribe, and so to have spoken in the name of the rest. 
Moreover, none of them acknowledged him as one by God 
appointed to be their prince and Saviour out of the hands of 
the Egyptians (ver. 27); and therefore it is said, that ἠρνέ- 
σαντο, “they denied him,” as the Jews are said to deny that 
Jesus whom they would not acknowledge (see the note on 
iii. 14). 

6 Ver. 37. A prophet shall the Lord—raise up to you, 
&c.] See note on iil. 22. 

τ Ver. 38. With the angel that spoke to him in mount 
Sinai.] Perhaps the same angel which appeared to him as 
an attendant on the divine Majesty in the bush, for though 
the law was given “by the disposition of angels,” ver. 53, 
(of which place see the note on John i. 1, Heb. ii. 2), yet 
seems there to have been a principal angel (perhaps Michael 
their prince, Dan. x. 21), who attended upon Moses and the 
children of Israel, and who is therefore styled by God, “ my 
angel:’’ so, Exod. xxiii. 23, “ My angel shall go before thee,” 
that is, saith Baal-Hatturim, “ Michael, my peculiar angel :” 
so also xxxii. 34. This Moses owns by saying, Numb. xx. 
16, “ When we cried to the Lord—he sent an angel, and 
hath brought us forth out of Egypt,” that is, “ Michael the 
prince,” say the Jews, and therefore he saith, “I am come, 
as captain of the host of the Lord,” Josh. ν. 14, which is the 
title of Michael, Dan. x. 13; but this is not so to be under- 
stood as to exclude the presence of God himself, for this an- 
gel was sent from the Shechinah or divine presence, which 
was in the pillar of the cloud. 

18. Who received λόγια ζῶντα, the lively oracles to give to 
us.| The law of Moses is here styled, “the lively oracles,” 
not because they were able ζωοποιεῖν, “to give life,” for that 
St. Paul expressly denies, Gal. iii. 21, calling this law “the 
ministry of death and condemnation,” 2 Cor. iii. 6. 9; but 
because they were oracles, proceeding, not from dumb idols, 
but from “the living God,” and promising a prosperous and 
happy life in Canaan, to all that obeyed them (Lev. xviii. 
5, Deut. xv. 16, xxxii. 47), on which account this word is 
styled, Heb. iv. 12, λόγος ζῶντος Θεοῦ, “ the word of the living 
God,” and, 1 Pet. i. 23, “the living word of God,” as being 
quick and vigorous in its operations (see the note on Heb. 
iv. 12). 

19 Ver. 41. And they made a calf in those days, and of- 
Jered sacrifice to the idol.| Here note, 

First, That the calf worshipped by the Jews is expressly 
called an “idol,” and they who worshipped it are expressly 
styled “idolaters,” 1 Cor. x. 7, and with good reason, be- 
cause “they changed the image of the incorruptible God into 
the similitude of a calf,’ Ps. cvi. 19, 20. Note, 

Secondly, That the worship performed by them to this 
golden calf, was worship directed by them to the true God, 
viz. to that God “which brought them from the land of 
Egypt;” for when they had made them “a molten calf,” 
they said, “This is thy God, which brought thee out of the 
land of Egypt,” Neh. ix. 18. 

Nor can we otherwise conceive, if we consider, (1.) that 
by this God they could not possibly intend to signify the 
very image they had made, there being nothing more repug- 
nant to common sense, and more irrationally stupid, than 


to conceive that what they made the other day, was both 
their maker and preserver, whilst it was nothing in the 
world; and that it gave them power, before it was in being: 
men may assert such things, who have no other refuge or 
defence, but cannot possibly believe themselves in what they 
so wildly do affirm. (2.) They could not be conceived to 
affirm, that this God, who brought them out of the land of 
Egypt, was the Egyptian Serapis; for then they must ima- 
gine, that this Egyptian god wrought all the miracles they 
saw done in Egypt upon those that owned and worshipped 
him, in favour of those persons who did not own him for a 
god, but looked upon him as a devil, and that he did inflict 
the heaviest judgments upon them that feared him, and 
showed the greatest kindness unto those that feared him not, 
by separating betwixt them and the Egyptians, and not per- 
mitting any of his judgments to molest or touch them. They 
must believe that the Egyptian Serapis had enjoined them 
to abstain from all those modes of worship with which he 
was served in Egypt, as an abomination to him; “for in the 
day that he lifted up his hand unto them to bring them forth 
of the land of Egypt,’—then said he unto them, “ Cast 
away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile 
not yourselves with the idols of Egypt, I am the Lord your 
God,” Ezek. xx. 6, 7. Lastly, They must believe that he, 
who executed his judgments on the Egyptian gods, was the 
Egyptian god, and that the God of the Hebrews, who said, 
«Let my people go, that they may serve me,” Exod. vii. 1, 
was the god of Egypt, and that he, who wrought those mi- 
racles unto this end, that the Egyptians might know that he 
was the Lord, Exod. xiv. 18, was he whom the Egyptians 
owned as their god; all which deductions are too absurd to 
be believed. Moreover, (1.) the reason why they desired 
the making of this god to go before them, as delivered thus, 
« Up, make us gods which shall go before us ; for as for this 
Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, 
we wot not what is become of him,” Exod. xxxii. 1. And 
from these words it is apparent, that the want of Moses was 
the only cause why they required this golden calf to “ go be- 
fore” them. Now it is certain, they esteemed not Moses to 
be God, but only one who represented God, and who de- 
clared his mind unto them; on which account God himself 
saith, that he should be “to Aaron instead of God,’ Exod. 
iv. 16, and therefore it is also certain that they desired only 
some other representative of God, which Aaron might con- 
sult to know the mind of God. (2.) Here they expressly 
do acknowledge that Moses brought them out of the land 
of Egypt, i. 6. the God of Moses did so. Now they all 
knew the true Jehovah was that God whom Moses taught 
them to adore, and that the God of Moses was not that calf, 
which he knew nothing of, nor that Egyptian Apis, which 
he had so much opposed and vilified: when therefore they 
affirm, at the beholding of this calf, “These are thy gods,” 
this affirmation must be supposed consistent with their for- 
mer words, which do acknowledge that the God of Moses 
brought them forth, &c. Now since the golden calf, or the 
Egyptian Apis, was not, even in the apprehension of these 
men, the God of Moses, these words, viz. “These are thy 
gods,” cannot be spoken of the calf, or the Egyptian Apis, 
and therefore must be understood of him who was indeed 
the God of Moses, and so must signify, This is the sign, this 
is the representation of that God which brought us forth, &c. 


CHAPTER VII. 


42 * Then God turned, and gave them up to wor- 
ship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book 
of the prophets (.2mos, saying, v. 25), O ye house of 
Israel, *! have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacri- 
fices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? 
Again, this we may gather from the feasts they consecrated, 
for Aaron doth expressly say it was “a feast to Jehovah ;” 
whereas had it been really intended as an honour done to 
the Egyptian demons, it cannot be conceived that Aaron 
would both give unto those devils the proper and incommu- 
nicable name of God, and also offer sacrifices to devils. He 
therefore, whom he called Jehovah, and to whom he offered 
those peace-offerings, was he who truly bears that name. 
And, (3.) this is plain from St. Stephen’s words, ver. 41, 
42, “And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacri- 
fice unto idols, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands; 
then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of 
heaven :” for it is observable, that the idolatry of the calf 
was distinct from the other heathen idolatry, this being the 
punishment of the other, and only a consequent of that, for 
«then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of 
heaven.” Since then the worship of Osiris under the species 
of a golden bull, and of the Egyptian Apis in the symbol of 
a living calf, was really the worship of the sun and moon, as 
the great Selden* doth inform us, it follows, that when they 
worshipped the golden calf, they were not given up unto 
the worship of Osiris, or the Egyptian Apis, which were 
adored by the Egyptians as the most glorious part of all 
“the host of heaven.” 

Hence then it must demonstratively follow, that the wor- 
ship of the true God in an image, or material representation, 
is, in the scripture sense, idolatry. 

Ver. 40. 'O yap Μωσῆς οὗτος οὐκ οἴδαμεν, As for this Moses.] 
This construction occurs often both in the Old and New 
Testament: so Ps, xi. 4, Jehovah in the heavens is his 
throne ; Κύριος ἐν οὐρανῷ ὃ ϑρόνος αὐτοῦ, LXX., Ps. xviii. 30, 
ὃ Θεύς μου ἄμωμος ἡ ὁδὸς αὐτοῦ, “As for God, his way is per- 
fect ;’ Ps. civ. 17, “The stork, the fir-trees are his house” 

see Beccles. ii. 14, Hos. xii. 2, Nah. i. 3). So Matt. xxi. 
2, λίθον ὃν ἀπεῤοκίμασαν, οὗτος, “ As for the stone which the 
builders refused, it is become the head corner-stone:’ see 
also Rev. ii. 26, and the note on 1 John ii. 27, καὶ ὑμεῖς τὸ 
χρίσμα ὃ ἐλάβετε ax’ αὐτοῦ, ὅτε. 

39 Ver. 42. Then God gave them up to worship the host 
of heaven.) i. e. From their worshipping him in images 
against his command, he suffered them to proceed to “ wor- 
ship the creature instead of the Creator :” see note on Rom. 
i, 21.24. “The invention of idols” (i. 6. images), saith 
the book of Wisdom, “was the beginning of fornication,” 
i. 6. idolatry (see note on John viii. 4!) : and therefore God 
is said to have “given this host of heaven to the heathens 
to worship,” eis ϑρησκείαν καὶ προσκυνεῖν ὡς Scots. See Dru- 


sius and the Septuagint, Deut. iv. 19, Just. M. Dial. p. 274, | 
Clem. Alex. Strom. p. 609, B. viz. He suffered them to 


proceed to that more vile idolatry in punishment of their 
worship of him by images. And to this alludes that of the 
Septuagint, Hos. xiii. 4, «God gave not the host of heaven 
to you, πορεύεσθαι ὀπίσω αὐτῶν, to go after them,” but sent 
his prophets to forbid it, which he did not to the heathen 
world. 

21 Have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by 
the space of forty years in the wilderness ?] This question 
is a strong negative, importing that though they really did 
offer sacrifices, as he had commanded, yet did he not ac- 
cept or look upon them as offered to him. The expres- 
sion is like that of the prophet Zachary, vii. 5,“ When ye 
fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months, these 
seventy years, did ye at all fast to me, even tome?’ And 
this is here denied, 

First, Because God will accept of no worship as done unto 
him, which is not done unto him alone ; and when any other 
is worshipped with him, he looks upon himself as not wor- 
shipped at all. So of those nations which came from Assy- 
Tia into the cities of Samaria, it is said, 2 Kings xvii. 23, 
“They feared the Lord and served their own gods;” and 
then it is added, ver. 34, that “they feared not the Lord.” 


ἢ Lib. de Diis Syris, cap. 4. 


447 


(t. ὁ. μὴ προσηνέγκατε, ye have nol offered these things to 
me.) 

43 Yea, (καὶ, but) * ye took up the tabernacle of 
Moloch (i. 6. the sun), and the star of your god Rem- 
phan (ἐ, 6. and a star to represent to you Saturn, these 

Secondly, Because God will not own any worship as 
performed to him, whilst men continue in their disobedience 
to his laws, and in their hearts depart from him, and incline 
to a worship he approves not of: thus the Jews in Zachary 
are said, not to fast to him, because they would not hearken 
to or obey his words (ver. 8), and he is said to have been 
angry with them in the wilderness forty years, “ because they 
erred from him in their hearts,” Ps. χον. 10, that is, saith 
the Chaldee, “They had their idols in their hearts.’ And 
the Samaritans are said to “ worship they know not what,” 
John vi. 22, because they did not worship him according to 
his will revealed in his word (see the note there). 

2 Ver. 43. Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, ana 
the star of your god Remphan, figures which you made to 
worship them, &c.] Here note, 

First, That these words are taken from Amos v. 26, where 
the words in our translation are, “ Ye have borne the taber- 
nacle of your Moloch, and Chiun your images, the star of 
your god.” Note, 

Secondly, That these words of the prophet are by St. 
Stephen produced to prove, that God gave them up to wor- 
ship “the host of heaven,” as the punishment of their 
worshipping of the golden calf; even as God is said to have 
given up the heathens to uncleanness and vile affections, 
Rom. i. 24—26, as the punishment of their former idolatry, 
ver. 21. 23. So that the gods here mentioned must belong 
to “the host of heaven.” Note, 

Thirdly, That Moloch is thought to be the sun, for the 
whole east did worship the sun and moon as the “king and 
queen of heaven ;” and interpreters almost generally agree, 
that Baal, Bel, or Belus, so often mentioned in the scrip- 
tures as worshipped by the heathens, is the sun, or “lord of 
heaven.” Now Baal the lord, and Moloch the king of hea- 
ven, is the same. So Eusebius" teils us of the Phoenicians 
out of Sanchoniathon, that “when drought happened, they 
did τὰς χεῖρας ὁρέγειν cis οὐρανοὺς πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον" τοῦτον yap φησὶ 
θεὸν ἐνόμιζον μόνον οὐρανοῦ κύριον Βεελσάμεν καλοῦντες, lift up their 
hands to heaven, to the sun, whom they owned as the only 
lord of heaven, calling him Beelsamen, that is, the lord of 
heaven ;” and Damascius} in Photius saith, the Syrians and 
Pheenicians τὸν Κρόνον “HA καὶ Βὴλ ἐπονομάζουσι, “ call Saturn 
El and Bel ;” and Servius} upon Virgil says that “ the sun 
and Saturn were worshipped by the Assyrians and the Afri- 
cans under the name of Bel.” See for the farther proof of 
this, Voss. de Idol. lib. ii. cap. 4, Spencer de Ritibus Hebr. 
p. 551. ᾿ 

As for the other word “ Chiun,” changed by the Septuagint 
into a name better known, viz. “ Rephan” or “ Remphan,” 
Vossius thinks it signifies the moon, ibid. cap. 23. But 
Aben-Ezra on the place informs us that it signifies Saturn, 
and that with great probability, Saturn§ bearing that name, 
say the learned, in the Arabian and Persic tongues; and in 
the Egyptian alphabet ‘Piav is Saturn. Note, 

Fourthly, That to Moloch is ascribed succoth, a taber- 
nacle or tabernacles, because he was worshipped in little 
shrines, chapels, and tabernacles, which they used to carry 
about with them, as Grotius and Dr. Hammond here prove; 

Remphan a star, because the heathens worshipped their 
gods, demons, and heroes, under the name of some star ap- 
propriated to them, as Dr. Spencer shows; and so the 
Egyptian god Remphan or Remphin, mentioned by Diodo- 
rus Siculus, might be worshipped in the star Saturn. 

And because they made images of these gods, and put 
them into these shrines, and chapels or tabernacles to be 


* Prep. Evang. lib. i. cap. 10, p. 34. 

+ Cod. 242, p. 1050. 

+ Assyrios constat Saturnum (quem eundem et solem 
dicunt) coluisse, quz numina etiam apud Afros postea culta 
sunt; unde et Punica lingud Bel Deus dicitur, apud As- 
syrios autem Bel dicitur quiédam sacrorum ratione et Satur- 
nus et sol. In Prim. neid. Virg. 733. 

§ Spencer, p. 551, 552, ] P. 554. 


448 


being) figures which ye made (whereby) to worship 
them: and (therefore) I will carry you away beyond 
Babylon. 

44 (And yet) “Our fathers had the tabernacle of 
witness in the wilderness, as he (God) had appointed, 
speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according 
to the sushion that he had seen. 

45 Which also our fathers that came after brought 
in with Jesus (7. e. Joshua) into the possession of the 
Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our 
fathers, (and this tabernacle continued) unto the days of 

- David; 

46 Who found favour before God, and desired to 
find a tabernacle (a habitation) for the God of Jacob 
(the futher of the Israelites). 

47 But (he being a man of blood, 1 Chron. xxii. 8, 
his son) Solomon built him an house. 

48 Howheit (ἀλλ᾽. but this he did, acknowledging at 
the same time, 1 Kings viii. 27, that) the most High 
dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith 
the prophet (Jsaiah, lxvi. 1, in these words spoken from 
God), 

49 Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool : 
what house (then) will ye build me? saith the Lord: 
or what is the place of my rest? 

50 Hath not my hand made all these things? (you 
must not therefore think with the heathens, I leave heaven 
to be present there, or am confined to rest in any building 
made with your hands). 

51 4 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and 
ears, ye (surely deserve more than the heathens, wncir- 

s 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


cumeised in the flesh, to be excluded from God’s pre- 

sence and habitation; for ye) do always resist the 

Hel Ghost (the Shechinah): as your fathers did, so 
Ὁ ye. 

52 Which of the prophets (acted by that Holy Spirit) 
have not your fathers persecuted? and (xai, yea) they 
have slain them which shewed before (by the same 
Spirit) of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye 
have been now the betrayers and murderers : 

53 (Yea, you are the very same persons)** Who have 
received the law (immediately from the mouth of God) 
by the disposition (administration) of angels, and have 
not kept zt (but violated even those laws which were deli- 
vered from God immediately, as well as those which he 
spake by the Holy Spirit in the prophets). 

54 4 When they heard these things, they were cut 
to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth 
(through indignation). ' 

55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up 
stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, 
and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 

56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and 
the Son of man (the Messiah) standing on the right hand 
of God. 

57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, and 
stopped their ears, and ® ran upon him with one ac- 
cord, 

58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: 
7 and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young 
man’s feet, whose name was Saul. 

59 And they stoned Stephen, * calling upon 


worshipped; therefore the prophet calls them p pos images 
of their gods, which they had made. 

Lastly, Because the tabernacles of Moloch and Saturn, 
to whom they offered their sons and daughters, had septem 
conclavia,* “seven cells,” or receptacles, according to the 
number of the seven planets; therefore perhaps it is that St. 
Stephen saith, they worshipped « the host of heaven.” 

Fifthly, That they were guilty of this idolatry whilst they 
continued in the wilderness, though we read nothing of it 
expressly in the five books of Moses, we cannot doubt, if 
we believe the prophet Amos, declaring from God, that 
“they did not offer sacrifice to him in the wilderness,” be- 
cause they were then guilty of this idolatry; or Stephen 
saying, that in punishment of the calf they made and wor- 
shipped there, God gave them up to worship the host of 
heaven. And to this we may refer the complaint of the 
psalmist, that even then “they erred in their hearts, and 
knew not his ways;” and more certainly the words of 
Joshua (xxiv. 14), « And now put away the strange gods 
which your fathers served on the other side of the river, 
and in Egypt, and serve the Lord;” for if they had them 
not among them they could not put them away; and 
his following words (ver. 19), “Ye cannot serve the Lord 
(whilst ye retain your idols), for he is a jealous God.” 

And, Lastly, Whereas Stephen saith, “I will carry you 
beyond Babylon,” though the prophet had only said, I will 
carry you beyond Damascus, this need give us little trouble, 
seeing this prophecy was fulfilled by Shalmaneser, king of 
Assyria, carrying them both beyond Damase and Babylon, 
into the cities of the Medes, 2 Kings xvii. 6. 

8 Ver. 44. Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness.] 


i. 6. In which the true God gave them signal testimonies of | 


his presence with them, and indications that he dwelt among 
them, though, as in the wilderness, so till the times of Da- 
vid, they fell off from him to idolatry : this David desired to 
build God a temple, and his heart was set upon it (Ps. 
exxxil.), and his son Solomon built it, and in this you place 
your confidence, saying, “The temple of the Lord are we” 
(Jer. vii. 4) ; but know, says St. Stephen, that the great God 
of heaven cannot be confined to your temple, or to choose 
it for a place of rest, as that he should not depart from it 
or suffer it to be destroyed again, as he formerly did for 


* See Voss. de Idol. lib. ii. cap. 5, p. 169. 


your crying provocations ; this therefore you may reasonably 
expect, who are still a stiffnecked people, and uncircumcised 
in heart, still resisting the Holy Ghost in God’s prophets, 
as your fathers did, and adding to all your sins the murder 
of your promised Messias ; this, I say, you have reason to 
expect, did not I warn you of it. 

21 Ver. 53. Who have received the law, cis διαταγὰς 
ἀγγέλων. That is, saith Grotius, inter angelorum turmas, 
“by God’s appearing with his host of angels,” for so we © 
read he did at mount Sinai, when he gave the law: so Deut. 
xxxiil. 2, “The Lord came from Sinai, he came with ten 
thousand ἀγγέλων, of angels; from his right hand went a 
fiery law for them;” and Ps. Ixviii. 17, “The chariots of 
God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels, and the 
Lord is among them as in Sinai.” I rather choose to say, 
“by the administration of angels,” they all here ministering 
to God when he gave the law (see note on John i. 1, and on 
Heb. ii. 2). 

2 Ver. 55. He saw the glory of God.] That is the She- 
chinah, the symbol of God’s glorious presence (see the notes 
on Rom. i. 23, and on Heb. i. 3); and Jesus standing at 
the right hand of God, as in a posture ready to receive 
him. 

26 Ver. 57. They ran upon him with oneaccord.| Though 
they rush upon him in this case, yet they do it only because 
by fresh words of blasphemy, as they conceived, he had 
confirmed the former blasphemy testified against him by 
two witnesses, and therefore they drew him out of the city, 
because their traditions said, that “no man was to be stoned 
in the camp, or in the city ;” and stone him after the legal 
manner, the witnesses against him beginning the execution ; 
and so here is no evidence that this was done jure zelotarum, 
and not by course of justice, the Sanhedrin having before 
sufficiently showed what they thought of him, by being 
“mad against him, gnashing upon him with their teeth.” 

27 Ver. 58. And they laid their clothes at the feet of a 
young man, whose name was Saul.] See note on Philem. 
ver. 9. . 

38 Ver. 59. ᾿Επικαλούμενον, Calling wpon Christ and say- 
ing, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.] Here we find Stephen, 
“full of the Holy Ghost,” calling religiously upon Christ, 
now in heaven, to receive his spirit, and thereby testifying, 
not only that religious worship was due to him, but also that 
he could hear his prayer, and receive his spirit at that dis- 
tance, and therefore was omnipresent, and the searcher of 


CHAPTER VIII. 


God, and saying, Lord Jesus, ® receive my spirit. 
60 And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud 


the hearts, and he in whose hands the spirits of men were: 
for he doth not say, Κύριε τοῦ ‘Inco’, “'Thou who art the Lord 
of Jesus; that phrase being never used in the New ‘Testa- 
ment, but Κύριε Ἰησοῦ, “ Lord Jesus, receive my spirit:” like 
to this is that prayer of St. John, Rev. xxii. 20, Κύριε ᾿Ιησοῦ, 
« Lord Jesus, come quickly.” 

2 Receive my spirit.) Hence it appears that the spirit of 
man is a substance distinct and separable from the body, 
and which dies not with it; for Stephen prays not to the 
Lord Jesus to receive his body, but only to receive Ais spirit, 
now to be separated from it (see the notes on Luke xxiii. 
40, and on 2 Tim. i. 12). Now, if the spirit of a man died 


449 


voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And 
when he had said this, he ™ fell asleep. 


with the body, no reason can be given why St. Stephen 
should pray to the Lord Jesus to receive his spirit rather 
than his body. Moreover, this, being said by a Jew in pre- 
sence of the Jews, is doubtless to be understood to the sense 
and the opinion of the Jews, who held, that “the souls of 
just men were in the hand of God” ( Wisd. iii. 1), and were 
“in peace:” which expressions agree not to a thing which is 
insensate ; nor could an insensate being have any hope at 
all, much less “a hope full of immortality,” as he there 
speaks, ver. 2, 3. 


80 Ver. 60. He fell asleep.] See note on John xi. 11. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 Anp Saul (when Stephen thus died) was consent- 
ing unto his death. 
great persecution against the church which was at Je- 
rusalem; and they (that were of it) were all scattered 
abroad ? throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, 
except the apostles. 

2 And devout men carried Stephen’ fo his burial, 
and ade great lamentation over him. 

3 As for Saul, he made havock of (Gr. and Saul 
wasted or afflicted) the church, entering into every 
house (of the faithful), and haling men and women 
(thence, he) committed them to prison. 

4 4 Therefore they that were (Gr. they therefore 
being) scattered abroad went every where (Gr. went 
through Judea and Samaria, ver. 1) preaching the 
word. 


And! at that time there was a | 


5 Then Philip (the evangelist, being one of the seven, 
xxi. 8) went down to the city of Samaria, and preached 
Christ unto them. 

6 And the people with one accord gave heed unto 
those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing 
the miracles which he did (¢o confirm his doctrine). 

7 For unclean spirits, erying with (a) loud voice, 
came out of many that were possessed with them: 
and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were 
healed. 

8 And there was great joy in that city (/hat a per- 
son so beneficial was come to them). 

9 But there was a certain man, called Simon, which 
beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and be- 
witeched (Gr. and a certain man named Simon was be- 
fore in that city, using magic, and astonishing) the peo- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIL. 


1Ver.1. At that time there was a great persecution 
against the church which was at Jerusalem.] The rage they 
were in for what was spoken, as they conceived, against 
the law and the temple,* for which they had the highest ve- 
neration, and the cutting words St. Stephen had pronounced 
before, and even of, the Sanhedrin, as of a stiffnecked and 
uncircumcised generation, wanting that circumcision they 
so gloried in, not observing that law they seemed so zealous 
for, persecuting the prophets who foretold of the Messias, 
betraying and murdering him when he was come, gave, in 
all likelihood, the occasion to this persecution of all others 
who believed this, as St. Stephen did; and that this perse- 
cution was set on by the authority of this great council, we 
may learn from the part Saul bore in it; for he confesses 
that he received his authority to treat the Christians thus 
from them (xxii. 5, xxvi. 11). 

2 They were all scattered abroad, πλὴν τῶν ἀποστόλων, ex- 
cept the apostles.) It is a very ancient tradition, mentioned 
by Clemens of Alexandria,t that our Lord assigned twelve 
years after his ascension for the conversion of the unbeliev- 
ing Jews in Judea, lest any of them should say οὐκ ἠκούσαμεν, 
“We have not heard ;” saying to his apostles, μετὰ δώδεκα 
ἔτη ἐζέλϑετε εἰς τὸν κόσμον, “Go ye out into the world after 
twelve years;” and Apollonius,+ who flourished at the 
same time, speaks of this, ὡς ix παραδόσεως, “as delivered 
by tradition,” that our Lord commanded his apostles ἐπὶ 
δύδεκα ἔτεσι μὴ χωρισθῆναι τῆς Ἱερουσαλὴμ, “not to recede 
from Jerusalem by the space of twelve years.” Now if 
there be any truth in this tradition, it shows the reason why 
the apostles continued at Jerusalem when the rest of the 
disciples were scattered abroad. 

3-Ver. 2. Συνεκόμισαν, Buried Stephen.] i. 6. They pre- 
pared Stephen for his burial, as the Greek word properly 


* "Etaiperés ἔστιν αὐτοῖς ἅπασι ἢ περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν σπουδῆ. Philo 
Legat. p. 791. 
‘7 Stromat. lib. vi. p. 636, 637. 
+ Apud Euseb, Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 17. 
Vou. [V.—57 


imports; i. e. they did all things inorder to it, washing his 
body (Acts ix. 37), anointing it, and winding it up in linen, 
putting it in the coffin, carrying it forth to the burial-place, 
and weeping there over it after the manner of the Jews. 
But whereas Grotius tells us from Austin,* De Civ. Dei, 
lib. xxii. 8, that the relics of Stephen cured many diseases, 
it is wonderful he should depend much on the authority of 
St. Austin in this matter, seeing he tells us, that hujus mar- 
tyris corpus ex illo usque ad ista tempora latuit, nuper 
autem apparuit, sicut solent apparere sanctorum martyrum 
corpora revelatione Dei, “the relics of this martyr were 
latent for about four hundred years, and only found by re- 
velation in his time:” for is there not sufficient reason to 
suspect such revelations appearing only in that age, when 
religion began much to decline, and superstition, as St. 
Austin confesses, to abound? Would God thus honour this 
martyr only then, and neglect to do it four hundred years? 
or, did not Grotius know, that Austin saith in that very 
chapter of these very miracles, that they are “not of such 
authority, that we should believe them without difficulty or 
doubting ?”+ 
4 Ver. 4. They that were scattered abroad went through 
all places preaching the word. Hence it is highly probable 
that it was not the whole church of Jerusalem, or the body 
of the laity (seeing we find “devout men” burying Stephen, 
ver. 3), that was thus “scattered abroad : for what authority 
had they to preach the word? but the hundred and eight 
that were full of the Holy Ghost: this persecution aiming 
chiefly at those who were such as Stephen was; and there- 
fore the discourse passes on from him to Philip, another of 
those persons so qualified to preach the gospel. 
5 Ver. 5. Philip.] That this was Philip the deacon, and 
not the apostle, seems evident from these considerations: 
1.) That he seems not to have had the power of giving the 
oly Ghost by imposition of hands; for “he fell upon none” 
of the Samaritans til] Peter and John came and “laid their 


* Serm. xv. ed. ἃ Sirmond. tom. x. p. 881. 
Non tanta ea commendat autoritas, ut sine difficultate, 
vel dubitatione credantur. 
2N2 


450 


ple of Samaria, giving out (Gr. saying) that himself 
was ® some great one: 

10 To whom they all gave heed, from the least to 
the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of 
God. 

11 And to him they had regard, because that of 
long time he had bewitched (astunished) them with 
(his) sorceries. 

12 But when they believed Philip preaching the 
things 7 concerning the kingdom of God, and the 
name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men 
and women ( for the remission of sin, li. 38). 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


13 Then Simon himself believed also (that this Jesus, 
who enabled Philip to do these things, was some power 
superior to any he conversed wilh): and when he was 
baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, be- 
holding the miracles and signs which were done. 

14 Now when the apostles which were at Jerusa- 
lem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, 
§ they sent unto them Peter and John: 

15 Who, when they were come down, ϑ prayed for 
them (sept αὐτῶν, over them whom the Holy Ghost saw 
Jit to be endued with prophetical gifts for the ministry 
there), that they might receive the Holy Ghost: 


hands upon them,” ver. 15—17, and ver. 18, it is particu- 


larly noted, that the Holy Ghost was given only by the im- 
position of the apostles’ hands. (2.) That the apostles were 
still at Jerusalem, ver. 1, whereas this Philip was one of 
those that were dispersed ; for when St. Luke had said, that 
the rest were dispersed, preaching the gospel, ver. 4, he adds, 
ver. 5, “And Philip went down to Samaria preaching 
Christ.” And (3.) he goes from Azotus, evangelizing in the 
cities till he came to Cwsarea (ver. 40), and there we find 
Paul abiding in the house of that Philip, « who was one of 
the seven deacons” (Acts xxi. 8). 

6 Ver. 9. Λέγων εἶναί τινα ἑαυτὸν μέγαν, Saying he was 
some great one; and of whom the Samaritans said, that he 
Was ἡ δύναμις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ μεγάλη, the great power of God, 
ver. 10.] The account, which, according to St. Luke, this 
magician gives of himself, is only this, that he was μέγας 
τις, “some great person,” as mountebanks usually represent 
themselves ; and the opinion which his magical pranks had 
wrought in the Samaritans, only this, that he was “the great 
power of God ;” by which words perhaps they only meant 
some legate or minister of God, assisted by his mighty power; 
and yet the fathers tell us, he declared himself to be, eum 
qui sit super omnia Pater, “the Father which is above all.” 
So Irenzus,* that he was bold to call himself “the chief 
God,” so Tertullian; and that the Samaritans held him 
to be πρῶτον Θεὸν, “the prime God;” yea, to be God ὑπεράνω 
πάσης ἀρχῆς Kat ἐξουσίας καὶ δυνάμεως, “above all principality, 
power, and virtue;” so Justin Martyr ;+ though he who 
reads these words of Irenzeus, Esse se docuit sublimissimam 
virtutem, hoc est, eum qui sit super omnia Pater; and these 
of Tertullian, Hic ausus est summam se dicere virtutem, id 
est, summum Deum, will be apt to think, they only did in- 
fer this from these words of St. Luke, that the Samaritans 
held he was ἡ μεγάλη rod Θεοῦ divayss, “the great power of 
God.” St. Luke goes on to inform us, that “he believed 
and was baptized” in the name of Jesus, with the rest of 
the Samaritans; and after this, it is difficult to conceive 
how he should persuade the Samaritans that he was God 
the Father, or the Jews that he was that Son, that Jesus, 
into whose name he was baptized, or the gentiles, that he 
was that Spirit which he would have purchased with money. 
How can we easily conceive, that all Samaria should own 
him as a great God, and yet he, as Theodoret$ informs us, 
should presently after this leave them, as having received 
the doctrine of Christ, and go thence to those who had not 
yet received it, and come in the second year of Claudius, 
1. 6. about eight years after, to Rome, where he was con- 
founded by the prayers of Peter? or that, being overcome 
in the sight of all that dwelt at Rome, they should still 
have erected, till the time of Justin Martyr, a statue, Simoni 
Deo sancto, “ to Simon the holy God?” These things, I say, 
seem neither easy to be believed in themselves, nor well 
consistent with what is here recorded by St. Luke. How- 
ever, seeing both Ireneus and Theodoret, in the places men- 
tioned, say expressly, Ἰουδαίοις piv ὡς υἱὸν φανῆναι, πρὸς δὲ 
Lapapeiras ὡς πατέρα κατεληλυθέναι, ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἔϑνεσιν ὡς 
Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐπιφοιτῆσαι, “ that Simon pretended to appear to 
the Jews as the Son, to have descended to the Samaritans 
as the Father, and to other nations as the Holy Ghost;” 
this seems to show that the doctrine of the blessed Trinity 


* Tren. lib. i. cap. 20. 

+ Tertul. de Prescr. cap. 46. 

+ Just. Apol. ii. p. 691, Dial. p. 349, C. 
§ Har. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1. 


was embraced by all Christians from the beginning, as St. 
Basil proves from the testimonies of the fathers from the 
beginning, and from these words of Clemens Rom., ζῇ Θεὺς, 
καὶ ὃ Κύριος ᾿Ιησοὺς Χριστὸς καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα ἅγιον (Basil de Spiritti 
Sancto, tom. ii. cap. 29, p. 357, 358). 

7 Ver. 12. Περὶ τοῦ ὀνόματος, Concerning the name of Jesus 
Christ.) That is, concerning the power of that name, when it 
was used by believers to do the greatest miracles; so, iii. 16, 
“His name, through faith in his name, hath made this man 
strong,” that is, his power upon the invocation of his name 
with faith hath done it: so the sadducees inquire of the 
apostles, iv. 7, “By what have ye done this?” and they 
answer, ver. 10, “By the name,” that is, the power, «of 
Jesus ;” and afterward they pray, ver. 30, “that signs and 
wonders may be done by his name,” i. e. by using of his 
name with faith, and invocating of him; the power of 
Christ being then present with them that did so. 

8 Ver. 14. They sent to them Peter.] Here we find Peter 
sent by the other apostles, and by the church, which is a 
sign he was not their head and superior; for “ greater is he 
that sends, than he that is sent.” 

9 Ver. 15. Who prayed over them that they might receive 
the Holy Ghost.] Not that all, who had been baptized, might 
receive it; for it was never so in any church; no, not at 
Jerusalem; there being only some among them full of the 
Holy Ghost (Acts vi. 3); and therefore it seems reason- 
able to say, with Dr. Lightfoot here, that they were such as 
the Holy Ghost had pointed out to be ordained ministers, 
or for the receiving of the prophetical gifts, which enabled 
men then λειτουργεῖν, “to do sacred offices” in the assemblies 
where they were (Acts xiii. 2,3); and these gifts being 
conferred, either by God immediately, as in the case of 
Comelius, or only by the apostles’ hands; Epiphanius* 
observes rightly, that Philip, being only a deacon, had not 
the power to confer them, and therefore these apostles were 
sent to do it. But whereas Dr. Hammond saith, this lay- 
ing on of hands was “to confirm, and to ordain elders and 
bishops, in every city one,” this latter clause, of the ordain- 
ing one bishop for every city of Samaria, when one city 
only had received the faith, is very surprising, it being new 
to hear of a bishop settled where there were no Christians, 
and therefore they could have no flock. Moreover, as this 
is spoken gratis, without any colour from the text, so is there 
not the least mention of any deacons here ordained, though 
Epiphanius saith, “there cannot be a bishop without dea- 
cons.” And if this imposition of hands made them bishops 
of so many cities of Samaria, by the same reason St. Paul 
imposing his hands on twelve men at Ephesus (xix. 6), 
must make them also bishops of twelve cities of Asia. In 
a word, it is evident that by this imposition of hands the 
Holy Ghost fell on them not to make them bishops of any 
city, but only prophets and teachers in the churches where 
they came, and to which they travelled; thus Silas, coming 
a prophet from Jerusalem, returns not to Judea, to exercise 
any episcopal function there; but goes on with Paul to the 
gentiles to visit and confirm the churches (Acts xv. 34.41). 
Nor was one of them only placed in a city, but many ; five 
at Antioch (Acts xiii. 1), more at Corinth, and perhaps at 
Ephesus. As for the other opinon, that these hands were 
laid on to confirm them; if hands were not laid on all that 
were baptized, this makes nothing for confirmation ; if they 
were, then Simon Magus must be confirmed, and receive 
the Holy Ghost. And both these opinions seem dangerous 


* Her. xxi. sect. 1. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


16 (For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: 
only they were baptized in the name of the Lord 
ering: 

17 Then laid they their hands on them, and they 
(visibly) received the Holy Ghost (so as to speak with 
tongues and prophesy, xix. 6). 

18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of 
the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he of- 
fered them money (fo obtain the same power), 

19 Saying, (Let this reward induce you tv) give me 
also this power, that on whomsoever I lay (my) hands, 
he may receive the Holy Ghost. 

20 But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish 
with thee (ἢ, e. without repentance thou wilt perish with 
tl), because thou hast thought that the gift of God 
may be purchased with money. 

21 Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter 
(ἡ. δ. the blessings of this kingdom): for thy heart is not 
right in the sight of God. 

22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and 
pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may 
be forgiven thee. 

23 For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitter- 
ness, and ἐπ the bond of iniquity. 

24 Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the 


on this account, that the Holy Ghost was never thus con- 
ferred but by the hands of an apostle; and consequently, 
if confirmation and ordination be laid on this foundation, 
they may be said to cease with the apostles. Notwith- 
standing this may well be deemed a fit pattern for bishops 
to follow in the apostolical rite of confirmation and ordi- 
nation, by laying on of hands; by which rite they, as suc- 
cessors of the apostles, confer the ordinary gifts of the Holy 
Ghost as the apostles did the extraordinary gifts of the 
same Spirit. 

10 Ver. 20. Thy money perish with thee ; because thou 
hast thought that the gift of God might be purchased with 
money.) As for the first clause of these words, the fathers 
look upon them rather as a prophetical prediction than an 
imprecation: and as for the sin of Simon, it seems not to 
consist so much in his ambition and his avarice, that he 
would be advanced to this highest dignity, and have those 
gifts, by the excercise of which he hoped to be the greater 
gainer; as in this, that he struck at the very foundation of 
the Christian faith, supposing that the apostles and other 
Christians did their miracles, in confirmation of it, by some 
higher art of magic than that which he had learned, and so 
they by the same art could teach others to do the same 
works for any other end. Now what relation this sin hath 
to what we now call simony, it is not elsy to conceive; only 
because he would have purchased this spiritual gift with 
money; hence, by analogy, all purchasing of spiritual 
offices or places, by such sordid means, doth bear that 
name. 

1 Ver. 26. Ἐπὶ τὴν δὲόν τὴν καταβαίνουσαν εἰς Γάζαν" αὐτή 
ἔστιν ἔρημος. In the way which leadeth to Gaza, which way 
is a desert.) So CEcumenius, There is a way to the south, 
τὸ δὲ αὐτῇ ἐστιν ἔρημος εἶπεν, “and that way, saith he, is 
desert.’ So Pliny,* Per continentem deserta, oppidum 
Gaza. And this may be said to distinguish this Gaza of the 
Philistines from another Gaza in the tribe of Ephraim, men- 
tioned 1 Chron. vii. 28, not far from the place where Philip 
now was. 

12 Ver. 27. ᾿Ανὴρ Αἰθίοιν εὐνοῦχος, δυνάστης Κανδάκης τῆς Ba- 
σιλίσσης Αἰθίοπων, A man of Ethiopia, a eunuch, a man of 
rest authority under Candace queen of the Ep) 

his was not Ethiopia in Arabia, where the queen of Sheba 
dwelt, but Ethiopia in Africa, under Egypt; where Candace 
had long been the name of their queens. So Pliny,+ speak- 
ing of Meroe, saith, There reigns Candace, quod nomen mul- 
tis jam annis ad reginas transiit, “ which hath for many years 
been the name of their queens” (see Bochart. Geogr. S. lib. 
iv. cap. 26, §. 4). 

Moreover, that this eunuch was a proselyte of justice, or 


~* Lib. vi cap. 29. ἡ Lib. vi. cap. 29, ad finem. 


451 


Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have 
spoken come upon me. 

25 And they, when they had testified and preached 
the word of the Lord, returned to Jerusalem, and (by 
the way) preached the gospel in many villages of the 
Samaritans. 

26 And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, 
saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto " the way 
that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which 
(way) is (through the) desert (of Judah, or, to old Gaza, 
which is desert). 

27 And he arose and went: and, behold a ™ man 
of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Can- 
dace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of 
all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to 
worship, 

28 Was returning (to his country), and sitting in his 
chariot (he) read (in) Esaias the prophet. 

29 Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and 
join thyself to this chariot. 

30 And Philip ran thither to Aém, and heard him 
read (in) the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest 
thou what thou readest ? 

31 And he said, 13 How ean I (understand a pro- 
phecy of future limes, with which I am wholly unac- 


one who had embraced the Jewish faith, to which he was 
converted by those Jews, which from Alexandria spread 
themselves into Ethiopia, Grotius concludes; not only be- 
cause he came so long a journey to worship at Jerusalem, 
and there to celebrate the feast of pentecost, but because 
Cornelius was the first-fruits of the gentiles; and perhaps 
the fame that he had heard in Jerusalem of the sufferings 
and resurrection of Christ, might induce him to read this 
prophet. 

18 Ver. 31. How can I, except some man should guide 
me2] Here Grotius notes, that “the eunuch did not think 
the scripture was every where so perspicuous, or contained a 
sense so obvious to all, as do now our mechanics and women, 
who would do better if they thought they needed a guide :” 
but sure it will not follow, that because the eunuch wanted 
a guide in an obscure prophecy, therefore we must want one 
to obtain the knowledge of the plain principles and precepts 
of Christianity ; nor surely could he be ignorant, that when 
we assert the clearness and perspicuity of scripture, in all 
things necessary to be believed or done, we do this not in 
opposition to the assistance of reason, or in exclusion to the 
instruction and help of others, but in opposition to the ne- 
cessity of a living judge and infallible interpreter, supposed 
necessary to the knowledge of that will of God, by which 
alone we can be saved. Moreover, we do not say, that holy 
scripture is absolutely and in all things perspicuous, for we 
willingly acknowledge with Origen,* Chrysostom,t Theo- 
doret,t St. Austin,§ Gregory, and almost all the fathers, 
that there is in scripture a mixture of obscure and plain 
texts, some things which are δυσνόητα, “hard to be under- 
stood,” and some things which are easy to be apprehended 
by very mean capacities; but our assertion is that of St. 
Chrysostom,] that πάντα τὰ ἀναγκαῖα δῆλα, “all things ne- 
cessary to be believed or done are there delivered with suffi- 
cient clearness ;” or so that all, who are concerned to know 
and do them that they may be saved, may hence learn them; 
and that of St. Austin,§ that quisque ibi fidem teneat, sine 
qua pie rectéque non vivitur, “every one may there obtain 
that faith, without which we cannot piously and rightly live.” 
And the reason hereof, saith Mr. Chillingworth,** is con- 
vincing and demonstrative, because nothing is necessary to be 
believed, but what is plainly revealed : for to say, that when 
a place of scripture, by reason of ambiguous terms, lies in- 
different between divers senses, whereof one is true, the other 
is false, that God obliges men, under pain of damnation, not 


* Philocal. cap. 2, 12. 

+ Hom. 36 in 1 ad Cor. tom iii. p. 488. 

+ In cap. ix. Dan. ep. iii. § Ep. ad Leand. cap. 4. 
| Hom. 3 in 2 ad Thessal. = Ep. ii p. 8. 

** Chil. ch. 2, sect. 104. 


452 


quainted ), except some man should guide (direct, or 
instruct) me? And he desired Philip that he would 
come up and sit with him. 

32 The place (or section) of the seripture which he 
read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaugh- 
ter; and like a lamb dumb before the shearer, so 
opened he not his mouth: 

33 In his (state of ) humiliation his judgment was 
taken away (and no right done him): and who shall 
declare (the wickedness of ) his generation? for his life 
is (was) taken from the earth. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


34 And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I 
pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of 
himself, or of some other man? 

35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the 
same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. 

36 And as they went on their way, they came unto 
a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is 
water; what doth hinder me to be baptized ? 

37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine 
heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, 51 
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. 


to mistake through error and human frailty, is to make God 
a tyrant, and to say that he requires us certainly to attain 
that end, for the attaining whereof we have no certain means. 
Moreover, the apostles did not write only for the learned, but 
for all men; and therefore, unless we will imagine the Holy 
Ghost and them to have been wilfully wanting to their own 


desire and purpose, we must conceive that they intended to | 
speak plain, even to the capacity of the simplest, at least | 
touching all things necessary to be published by them and | 


believed by us. 
Secondly, We do not say that all things necessary to be 
believed or done are conspicuously mentioned in all places 


of the holy scripture, which respect those things; but then | 


we say, with Irenus,* and the generality of the fathers, that 
those things which are ambiguously spoken in some places, 
are to be expounded by those things which aperteé, et sine 
ambiguo posita sunt in scripturis, “are plainly, and without 
ambiguity, contained in the scriptures;” or if they cannot 
be this way expounded, the sense of them cannot be needful 


understood him more certainly in such places, he would hav: 
spoken more plainly. 

4 Ver. 32. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.] These 
words are taken from Isa. lili. 8, where that the prophet 


speaks of Christ no Christian can reasonably doubt, there | 


being scarce a verse in this whole chapter which is not by 
the Holy Ghost in the New Testament applied to Christ; 
the first verse, John xii. 38; the third, Mark ix. 12; the 
fourth, Matt. viii. 17; the fifth, Mark xv. 28. And though 
the latter Jews will not allow of this interpretation, yet some 
of them not only do own that their “ancient rabbins did 
with one mouth confess these words were spoken of Messiah 


in his hand; he shall see the travail of his soul, and be satis- 
fied:” and in those words of the psalmist, “ Sacrifice and 
offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened : 
burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required. Then 
said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written 
of me, I delight to do thy will, O God: yea, thy law is within 
my heart” (Ps. xl. 6—8, Heb. v. 6—8). 

Secondly, That their Mesiah was to suffer for their sakes, 
to make atonement for their sins. And, 

Thirdly, That he was to be the salvation, not only of those 
who were to live in and after his time, but of all men from 
the beginning. And though Grotius, in his notes upon this 
chapter, endeavours to interpret the words concerning the 
prophet Jeremy, yet in his excellent book of the truth of 
Christian religion, having cited this whole chapter, he in- 
quires,* Quis potest nominari aut regum aut prophetarum 
in quem hee congruunt? Nemo sané. 

5 Ver. 33. In his humiliation his judgment was taken 


| ewaty.] Here Mr. Clere gives a good sense of these words, 
to be known:} for if God’s will had been we should have | 


viz. In his humiliation was his judgment; i. e. he appeared 


e | so mean to Pilate and the Jews, that they passed judgment 


against him, and he was taken away by them as an incon- 


| siderable person, fit to be sacrificed to prevent seditions, or 


the coming of the Romans. The Hebrew saith, “ From 
force and from judgment he was taken away ;” i. 6. it pro- 
ceeded from the judgment of Pilate, and from the force, the 
continual clamours the Jews laid upon him to pass that 
judgment, that he was taken away, and who shall declare 


| the wickedness of that generation who dealt thus with their 


Messiah? which therefore in the gospels is styled a viperous, 


| Luke iii. 7, an adulterous, Matt. xi. 34. 39, a wicked, ver. 


the king,’”’+ but also spake thus of him, “'The holy blessed 


God began to covenant with the Messiah when he created 


him, and said to him, The sins of those who are laid up in | 


secret with thee, will make ‘thee to come under an iron yoke, 
and make thee like to this young heifer, whose eyes are dim, 
and fill thy spirit with anguish ; and because of their iniqui- 
ties thy tongue shall cleave to the roof of thy mouth: wilt 
thou then undergo this condition for then? The Messiah 
said,§ I undertake it with the joy and exultation of my heart 
on this condition, that not one of Israel may perish, and that 
not only they may be saved who live in my days, but also 
they who are dead from the days of the first man to this very 
day. And again, when God created the world, he held forth 


his hand under the throne of glory, and created the soul of | 


the Messiah, and his company, and said to him, Wilt thou 
heal and redeem my sons after six thousand years? He 
answered him, Yes. God said to him, If so, wilt thou bear 
chastisements to expiate their iniquities, according to what 
is written, Isa. liii. 4,«Surely he bore our griefs?’ he an- 
swered, I will endure them with joy.” Whence three things 
are observable : 

First, That what seems so strange and precarious to Crel- 
lius, viz. that God should make a covenant with the Messiah 
concerning his sufferings for the sins of his people, seems to 
be only that with which the Jews were well acquainted, and 
which seems also to be insinuated here by the prophet, say- 
ing, “If he shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall 
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper 


* Lib. ii. cap. 46. 47. + Chil. ch. 2, sect. 84. 
+ Abarbanel ad Es. lii. 13, qu. 1. R. Mosis Ashee, ibid. 
§ Vide Cartw. Mellif. lib. i. Crit. S. tom. ix. p. 2974. 


_, | Hulsius ex Pesikta, lib. i. 1, de Judeorum Messia, par. 
il. p 309. Cartw. ibid, p. 2975. 


45, an untoward generation, Acts ii. 40, and was so to be, 
say the Jews, in the days of the Messiah (see note on Phil. 
iil. 2, and Dr. Lightfoot here). 

Ver. 37. Ei πιστεύεις ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας, ἔξεστιν. ἢ This 
clause by Dr. Mills is taken pro commate παραβεβλημένῳ, ἃ 
primis Christianismi seculis injecto, ut et alia in libro Acto- 
rum Apostolicorum haud pauca, “ for a suppositious. clause 
put into the text from, the first ages of the church, as many 
other clauses are in the Acts of the Apostles :” and yet this 
clause is found in the Vulgar and Arabic versions, in Ireneus, 
lib. iii. cap. 12, lib. iv. cap. 40, in Tertullian, de Baptismo, 
cap. 18, in Cyprian, ad Quirinum, lib. iii. §. 38, in Jerome, 
tom. iv. fol. 46, lit.1, in Austin, de Fide et Operibus, cap. 9, 
12, and in @cumenius in locum: and even the doctor, Pro- 
log. p. 40, col. 2, owns it in contradiction to his former self; 
and hence we may judge of his other supposed additions, so 
confidently and so frequently mentioned, in this and in the 
other sacred books ; which, were there any truth in what he 


| says, as blessed be God there seldom is, would render the 


whole scriptures of the New Testament dubious and uncer- 
tain (see Examen Milli, in ix. 5, x. 6. 21, xi. 6. 12, xv. 20. 
29, xvi. 17, xviii. 10. 17. 21. 27, xx. 24, xxi. 3, 8. 19. 22, 


| Xxii. 20, 21. 29, xxiii. 9. 30. 35, xxiv. 16. 18, xxv. 16, xxvi. 


7, Xxvil. 28, xxviii. 1. 16. 29). 

16 Πιστεύω τὸν υἱὸν rod Θεοὺ εἶναι τὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν, I believe 
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, &c.] Four things are 
hence observable: (1.) That baptism was here performed by 
a κατάβασις, or descent of the baptized person in the water. 
(2.) That upon this faith, that Jesus Christ was the Son of 
God, and that he died for our sins, which was the thing which 
Philip preached to the eunuch, adult persons, who before 
owned one God, and the spirit of prophecy, as the eunuch 
did, were received to that baptism, in which they were 


* Lib. v. p. 283. 


CHAPTER IX. 


38 And he commanded the chariot to stand 
still: and they went down both into the water, both 
Philip and the eunuch; and he (Philip) baptized 
him. 

39 And when they were come up out of the water, 
" the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the 


453 


eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way re- 
joicing. 

40 But Philip was found at Azotus: and passing 
through (i) he preached in all the cities, till he came 
to Cawsarea (or, the tower of Straton, as it was named 
before it was rebuilt by Herod). 


taught, and by which they were obliged to observe all things 
that Jesus had commanded: for though the belief, that Jesus 
was the Christ, the Son of God, was the great article pro- 
pounded, and first preached to every convert; yet the end 
of baptism being the remission of sins, and the effect of it 
justification, or the absolution of the baptized person from 
his past sins, and this justification and remission of sins being 
declared to be obtained only through faith in his blood, it is 
certain that believing in the Lord Jesus must include faith 
in his meritorious death and passion, or, as the scripture 
saith, “faith in his blood.” Hence the apostle reckons this 
article, ἐν πρύτοις, “among the first” he preached to the Corinth- 
ians, “ that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,” 
1 Cor. xv. 3, and tells them, that he preached to them 
« Christ crucified,” 1 Cor. i. 23, as the means of their justifica- 
tion and salvation (see the preface to the General Epistle 
of St.John). (3.) Observe that to the Jews and proselytes, 
who already owned the true God, and believed his prophets 
were inspired by the Holy Ghost, baptism was administered 
in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts ii. 38, viii. 16, x. 48), or 
in the name of the Lord; but when the apostles were sent 


εἰς τὰ ἔθνη, “to the gentiles,” who believed not these things, | 


they are commanded to “baptize them in the name of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” Matt. xxviii. 20. Observe, 
(4.) that in some copies we read thus, Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἔπεσεν 
ἐτὶ τὸν εὐνοῦχον, καὶ ἄγγελος Κυρίου, “The Holy Ghost fell 
upon the eunuch, and the angel of the Lord caught away 
Philip :” so the Alexandrian and other manuscripts, and so 
St. Jerome cites it, Dial. contra Lucif. f. 50, 1, and, accord- 
ing to this reading, the eunuch was sufficiently authorized to 
preach to and convert the Ethiopians, as it is said he did 
(see Iren. lib. iii. cap. 12, lib. iv. cap. 40, Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 
lib. ii, cap. 1, Hieron. in Isa. ay 

1 Ver. 39. The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip.) 
He did it, saith G2cumenius, because the eunuch had re- 
quested him to go with him into Ethiopia; whereas God 
had designed him to preach the gospel in other places of the 
world, and so, by removing him thus from the eunuch, pre- 
vented his compliance with him in that request. 

"Exopetcro γάρ, Pergebat autem.) As the Hebrew Ὁ, so the 
Gr. γὰρ often signifies but: so Luke xii. 58, ὡς yap indyes, 
“ But as thou goest with thine adversary :” so Phavorinus, 
ἀντὶ τοὺ, δὲ, κεῖται, it is put for but. 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 Anp Saul, yet " breathing out threatenings and 
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto 
the high priest (and to all the elders of the Sanhedrin, 
Acts xxii. 5), 

2 And desired of him (and them, ibid.) 5 letters to 
Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any 
of this way, whether they were men or women, he 
might bring them bound unto Jerusalem (‘0 be judged 
and punished by them; ibid.). 

3 And as he journeyed (in pursuit of his commission), 
he came near Damascus: and suddenly (about midday, 
Acts xxii. 6) there shined round about him (and those 
that were with him, Acts xxvi. 13) a light from heaven 
above the brightness of the sun, ibid.) : 

4 And he (and all that were with him, Acts xxvi. 14) 
fell to the earth, and (he) heard a (-n articulale) voice 


saying unto him (in the Hebrew tongue, ibid.), Saul, 
3 Saul, why persecutest thou me ? 

5 And he said (in answer to it, Acts xxii. 8), Who 
art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, lam Jesus whom 
thou persecutest : zt zs (or will be) 4 hard for thee to 
kick against the pricks (thus to set thyself lo fight against 
God). 

6 ‘and he trembling and (being) astonished said, 
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do (to avoid thy far- 
ther displeasure) 2 And the Lord said unto him, Arise 
(stand upon thy feet), and go into the city (uf Damas- 
cus), and (there) it shall be told thee what thou must 
do (or, of all things which thow arl appointed to do, Acts 
xxii. 10, for for this cause have I appeared to thee, Acts 
xxvi. 17, 18). 

7 And the men which journeyed with him stood 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 


Ver. 1. And Saul ἐμπνέων ἀπειλῆς καὶ φόνον, breathing 
out threatenings and slaughter.) It appears hence, that the 
power of capital punishments was not so taken from the 
Jewish Sanhedrin, held at Jerusalem, but that they might 
inflict this punishment upon those of their own nation, either 
by their own power, or by the consent of the Roman govern- 
ors, in cases punishable with death by their laws and customs. 
For Saul confesses that he “ persecuted this way unto the 
death,” by virtue of this power received from the Sanhedrin, 
binding and delivering up to prison men and women, Acts 
xxii. 4 (see the note on John xviii. 31). 

2 Ver. 2. Letters to Damascus to the synagogues.) From 
this, and from the twentieth verse, where Paul is said to 
preach Christ at Damascus in the synagogues of the Jews, 
it appears that there were more synagogues of the Jews than 
one in that city ; and that it was so also in other cities, see 
Vitringa de Synag. Vit. lib. i. par. i. cap. 14, p. 255, &c. 

3 Ver. 4. Saul, why persecutest thou me?) The persecu- 
tions of Christ's members are represented as the persecutions 
of Christ himself, by reason of their union to him by the 
Spirit, which renders them his body, and of that sympathy 
he hath with them under all their sufferings, which makes 
him συμπαϑῆσαι, “to suffer with them” (Heb. iv. 15, Isa. 
Ixiii. 9). 


4 Ver. 5. It ts hard for thee πρὺς κέντρα λακτίζειν, to kick 
against the pricks.] This isa proverbial expression, signify- 
ing the damage and hurt they are likely to receive who resist 
and fight against those who are superior to them, and espe- 
cially against God. So Euripides in Bacch. v. 794. 

Θύοιμ᾽ ἂν αὐτῷ μᾶλλον, ἣ ϑυμούμενος 
Πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζοιμι, ϑνητὸς ὧν, Θεῷ. 

ΑἸ will rather offer sacrifice to him, than, being a mortal 

man, be angry with God, and kick against the goads.” 


And Pindar* saith, we must not contend against God, but 
bear the yoke he puts upon our neck mildly, “and not kick 
against the gonads,” ποτὶ κέντρον dé τοι λακτίζεμεν, that is, saith 
the scholiast, not μάχεσϑαί τῇ τυχῆ ἄνθρωπον ὄντα, “to fight 
against God, being only men.” The great Bochart} will not 
have this proverb taken from A@schylus, Euripides, Pindar, 
or Plautus, but from the scriptures, it being used, saith he, 
by Moses, saying, “ Jeshurun waxed fat, et recalcitravit, and 
kicked against the law,” Deut. xxxii. 15, and by God him- 
self, inquiring, “ Why kick ye against my sacrifices?” 1 Sam. 
ii. 29 (see Examen Milli). 

5 Ver. 7. 'Axotovres piv ris φωνῆς, Hearing a voice.] To 
reconcile this with xxii. 9, where it is said, that the men that 


* Pyth. Od. 2. 
+ Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 39, p. 587. 


454 


speechless (through fear, Acts xxii. 9), 5 hearing a voice, 
but seeing no man (nor knowing what was said to him). 

8 And Saul arose from the earth (and they that were 
with him) ; and when (the lids of) his eyes were open- 
ed, he saw no man (his eyes being dazzled with the glory 
of that light, Acts xxii. 11): but they (who were with 
him) led him by the hand, and brought Aim into Da- 
mascus. 

9 And he was three days without sight, and neither 
did eat nor drink. 

10 4 And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, 
named Ananias (@ devout man according to the law, hav- 
ing a good report of all the Jews that dwelt there, Acts 
xxii. 12); and to him said the Lord ὃ in a vision, Ana- 
nias. And he said, Behold, Iam here, Lord. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


11 And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into 
the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the 
house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, 
behold, he prayeth, 

12 And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias 
coming in, and putting zs hand on him, that he might 
receive his sight. 

13 Then Ananias answered, Lord, 1 have heard by 
many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy 
saints at Jerusalem : 

14 And here he hath authority from the chief priests 
to bind? all that call on thy name (7. 6. all thy disci- 

les). 

15 Butthe Lord said unto him, Go thy way (upon this 
my message) : for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear 


were with him, τὴν φωνὴν οὐκ ἤκουσαν, “heard not the voice of 
him that spake to, or with, him ;” Dr. Hammond notes, that 
the word φωνὴ signifies thunder, and so reconciles these 
places, by saying, “ They that were with me heard the voice 
of the thunder, but heard not the voice of him that spake 
unto me.” “That this importance of the word φωνὴ is fre- 
quent in the Old Testament, cannot be doubted; thus Exod, 
ix. 23, “The Lord sent thunder and hail,” φωνὰς καὶ χάλα- 
Sav: and, ver. 29, “I will stretch forth my hand, and the 
thunder shall cease,” καὶ ai φωναὶ παύσωνται" and ver. 33, 
“He stretched out his hand,” καὶ αἱ φωναὶ ἐπαύσαντο" and 
ver. 34, “ When Pharaoh saw, ὅτι πέπαυται ἡ χάλαζα, καὶ al 
φωναὶ, that the hail and the thunder were ceased, he hard- 
ened his heart :” so, Exod. xix. 16, “It came to pass on the 
third day, that there were thunderings and lightnings, φωναὶ 
καὶ dorpaz 
and lichtnings,” τὴν φωνὴν, καὶ τὰς λαμπάδας" 50, Ps. xviii. 
13, “The Lord thundered out of heaven, and the Highest 
gave his voice ;” xxix. 3, “The voice of the Lord is upon the 
waters, and the God of glory thundereth :” so, Ps. xix. 1. 3, 
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
(or clouds of heaven) showeth his handywork: there is no 
speech nor language where their voice (i. e. their thunder) is 
not heard.” If it be said, we find no mention of any thun- 
der here, it may be answered, that it was usually an attend- 
ant of such glorious coruscations as this was: if you add, 
that here is mention of a voice speaking in the Hebrew 
tongue, it may be still replied, that thus it was at Sinai, 


where God answered Moses τῇ φωνῆ, “ out of the thunder,” | 


Exod. xix. 19. If, thirdly, you object that it is said, they 
heard a voice, “ but they saw no person,” and in thunder this 
is not expected; I answer, this is true of common thunder, 
but in such an extraordinary illumination as this was, they 
reasonably might expect the vision of an angel, or some glo- 
rious person; especially if the conjecture of most interpre- 
ters be true, that Paul not only heard, but saw the Lord 
Jesus speaking to him: this will be no objection against the 
interpretation of this learned man. Or, (2.) this seeming 
contradiction may be reconciled thus; they heard a voice, but 
οὐκ ἤκουσαν, “they understood not” the words of him that 
spake unto me; for οὐκ ἀκούειν frequently in scripture signi- 


fies not to understand what we hear: thus God saith of the | 


builders of Babel, « Let us confound their tongues, ἵνα μὴ 
ἀκούσωσιν, that they may not understand one another's 
speech,” Gen. xi. 7, xlii. 23; “The Lord shall bring upon 
thee a nation, οὗ οὐκ ἀκούση τῆς φυνῆς αὐτοῦ, whose tongue 
thou shalt not understand,” Deut. xxviii. 49 ; “1 will bring 
upon thee a nation, οὗ οὐκ ἀκούσεις τῆς φωνῆς τῆς γλώσσης αὐτοῦ, 
whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest 
what they say,” Jer. v. 15; “Speak in the Syrian tongue, 
ὅτι ἀκούομεν ἡμεῖς, for we understand it,” 2 Kings xviii. 26; 
«“T sent thee not unto a people of a strange speech, and 
hard language, ὧν οὐκ ἀκούση τοὺς λύγους, whose words thou 
canst not understand,” Ezek. iii. 6; “He that speaketh in 
an unknown tongue, speaketh not to men, but to God, οὐδεὶς 
γὰρ ἀκοῦει, for no man understands him,” 1 Cor. xiv. 2. (3.) 
QGcumenius affords a third solution, viz. that they heard the 
voice of Saul speaking to Christ, οὐ τῆς ἄνωθεν, not the voice 
of Christ speaking to him. 

6 Ver. 10. The Lord said to him in a vision.] That is, 
saith Grotius, “an angel in the shape of the Lord ;” but as 
we have no example in the New Testament of any such ap- 


(- xx. 18, “ΑἹ! the people saw the thunderings | 


| 


pearance of an angel in the person of Christ, so is it certain 
that here it was not so, but really was a vision of the Lord 
Jesus: for Ananias not only calls him “Lord,” but calls 
Christians “his saints,” and those “ that call upon his name” 
(ver, 13, 14). 

7 Ver. 14, All that call wpon thy name.| There be two 
periphrases of a Christian, which occur in this chapter and 
in other places of the Acts; the first (ver. 2), that they are 
men and women τῆς ὁδοῦ, “ of the way.” So when St. Paul 
went into the synagogue at Corinth, they did κακολογεῖν τὴν 
ὁδὸν, “speak evil of the way” (Acts xix. 9); and at Ephesus, 


| “there was no small disturbance, περὶ τῆς δόοῦ, touching the 


way” (see xxiv. 22). And so some of the ancients seem to 
have spoken: so, in the history of the persecutions of the 
Gallican church,* we read of some apostates from the faith, 
βλασφημοῦντες τὴν ὁδὸν, “who blasphemed the way : and 
Epiphanius} introduceth the Melchisedecians, saying that 
Christ was chosen that he might turn us from idols, καὶ ὑπέ- 
δειξεν ἡμῖν τὴν ὁδὸν, “and might show us the way.” The second 
periphrasis was this, that they were such as invoked Jesus 
Christ, or “ called upon his name.” Thus Ananias complains 
of Saul to Christ, saying, “He hath done much evil to thy 
saints, and is come hither to bind all that call upon thy 
name;” and the unbelieving Jews say of him, preaching 


| Jesus Christ in their synagogues, “Is not this he who wasted 


τοὺς ἐπικαλουμένους τὸ ὄνομα τοῦτο, those that called upon that 
name?” (ver. 21.) Thus Paul writes to saints called, and 
to all other Christians, under the title of “all that call upon 
the Lord Jesus Christ in every place,” 1 Cor. i. 2, and then 


|in the very next verse, he himself prays that “grace and 


peace may be derived upon them, from God the Father, and 
from the Lord Jesus Christ” (see the notes there) ; and 
2 Tim. ii. 22, bids Christians follow after peace μετὰ τῶν ἐπι- 
καλουμένων τὸν Κύριον, “with those that call upon the Lord 
with a pure heart,” that is, with all believers, it being the 


| same thing to believe in, and to call upon, the name of the 


Lord Jesus. Hence Peter saith, “ He that believeth in him 


| shall not be ashamed; because it is written (Joel ii. 32), 


Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be 
saved” (see the-note there), And hence we learn who that 
Lord is, whom Ananias bids Paul invoke, when he saith, xxil. 
16, “ Arise, and be baptized, ἐπικαλεσάμενος, calling upon the 


| name of the Lord,” even the Lord Jesus, who appeared to 
| him, ix. 17 (see the note on xxii. 16), and what is meant by 
| that phrase, viz. Profess thy faith, by being baptized in, and 
| by calling on, his name; this was a thing so continually 


practised by the first Christians, that Pliny mentions it in his 
epistle to Trajan, telling him, that it was the custom of the 
Christians, carmen Christo quasi Deo canere, “to sing a 
hymn to Christ as God:” for as Paul, in his thirteen first 
epistles, prays for grace and peace from God the Father, and 
our Lord Jesus Christ; and John, in his second epistle (ver. 
3), doth the same; so doth Polycarp, the disciple of John, 
in the proem of his epistle to the church of Philippi, pray 
that “mercy and peace may be multiplied to them from God 
omnipotent, καὶ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν, and 
from our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour ;” and the church of 
Smyrna, in her circular epistle to all Christians, prays that 
« mercy, peace, and love, may be multiplied to them from 


* Euseb. Hist. lib. v. cap. 1, p. 163. 
} Her. Melch, p. 574, sect. 8. 


CHAPTER IX. 


my name before (i. e. o preach Christ lo) the Gentiles, 
and kings, and (to) the children of Israel : 

16 For I will shew him how great things he must 
suffer for my name’s sake. (2nd yet the prospect of 
them shall not make him disobedient to the heavenly vision, 
bul as forward to preach as ever he was to persecute the 
preachers of the gospel.) 

17 And (‘hen) Ananias went his way, and entered 
into the house (where Saul was); and putting his 
hands on him (ἱ. e. Ais eyes) said, Brother Saul, * the 
Lord, even (that) Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the 
way as thou camest (Azther), hath sent me (fo thee), 
that thou mightestreceive thy sight, and (at thy bap- 
tism into his name mayest) be filled with the Holy 
Ghost (as his other apostles were ; I therefore say to thee 
tn his name, Receive thy sizht, xxii. 13). 

18 And immediately there fell from his eyes as it 
had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, 
and (when Ananias had said to him, The God of thy fa- 
thers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his will 
and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his 
mouth, &c. Acts xxii. 14—16, he) ° arose, and was 
baptized. ’ 


455 


19 And when he had received meat, he was strength- 
ened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples 
which were at Damascus. 

20 And straightway he preached Christ in the syna- 
gogues, (there proving) that he is the Son of God. 

21 But all that heard Aim were amazed, and said ; 
Is not this he that destroyed them which called on 
this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that in- 
tent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief 
priests ? 

22 But ” Saul increased the more in strength, and 
(by the evidence of his reasonings) confounded the (unbe- 
lieving) Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving (to 
them from the scriptures) that this (Jesus whom he preach- 
ed) is (was the) very Christ (promised ). 

23 4 And after that ' many days were fulfilled, the 
Jews took counsel to kill him: 

24 But their laying await (/o do {{) was known of 
Saul. And (for) they watched the gates day and 
night to kill him. 

25 Then the disciples took him by,night, and let 
him down by the wall in a basket. 

26 And when Saul was come to Jerusalem, he as- 


God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ignatius in 
like manner, in the proem to his epistle to the Magnesians, 
wishes them health “from God the Father and our Lord 
Jesus Christ, Θεῷ ἡμῶν, our God:” in that to the church of 
Smyrna, “Health ἐν ἀμώμῳ Πνεύματι, καὶ Λόγῳ Θεοῦ, in the 
immaculate Spirit, and the Word of God.’ And as St. 
Paul, in his epistles, often prays to Christ both for himself 

1 Cor. xii. S—10, see the note there), and for other Chris- 
tians (1 Thess. ii. 11, 12, 2 Thess. ii. 16, iii. 16), so did the 
gad Christians pray, and entreat others to pray to him. 

Ὁ Ignatius* saith to the church of Rome, λιτανεύσατε τὸν 


Χριστὸν ὑπὲρ iuod, “ Pray to Christ for me, that by the beasts | 


I may be found a sacrifice to God;” and saith to the church 
of Ephesus,t “If Jesus Christ shall make me worthy by 
your prayer:” and the church of Smyrna saith,¢ they 
“could not leave Christ, καὶ σέβεσϑαι, orationis precem im- 
dere, and worship or pray to any other.” 

8 Ver. 17. The Lord Jesus who appeared to thee, ὃ ὀφϑείς 
σοι, who was seen of thee.] I think it not necessary from 
these words to affirm that St. Paul here saw the person of 
Jesus Christ, seeing in three relations of this matter he men- 
tions no such thing, but only that he saw the glorious light 
in which he did appear, and which was the symbol of his 


presence ; for so in the Old Testament men are often said to | 


have seen the Lord, when they saw only the glory in which 
he did appear, for they never saw his shape. Thus of the 
nobles that went up with Moses into the mount, it is said, 
Exod. xxiv. 10. 12, that “they saw God, the God of Israel,” 
and yet they “saw no manner of similitude,” Deut. iv. 12. 
15, whence the Chaldee paraphrast in all these places saith, 
“They saw the glory of God;” but if it were necessary to 
say St. Paul saw his person, the text seems rather to require 
us to say, he saw him in the way, than in the heavens. 
But yet by comparing these with the words of the same 
person, “'The God of our fathers hath before chosen thee to 
see that Just One’ (xxii. 14), as also from the inquiry of 
St. Paul, “« Am I not an apostle? have not I seen the Lord ?” 
(1 Cor. ix. 1,) and from those words (1 Cor. xv. 8), “ Last 
of all, ὄφϑη xayoi, he was seen of me also ;” it is certain that 
St. Paul saw the person of Christ, and therefore highly pro- 
bable that he did it at this time, or at his return to Jeru- 
salem (Acts xxii. 17, 18). 
8 Ver. 18. He arose, and was baptized.] With water and 


the Holy Ghost; according to Christ’s promise made to his | 


apostles, Acts i. 6.8. And note here, that this Ananias, 
who at most is only supposed to have been one of the seventy 
disciples, only laid his hands upon him that he might receive 
his sight, and that he was replenished with the Holy Ghost 
by the immediate gift of Christ, he being an “apostle not of 
man, nor by man” (Gal. i. 1), but by Christ alone. 


* Sect. 4. 
+ Act. Polycarp. apud Usser. p. 27. 


ἡ Sect. 20. 


10 Ver. 22. Paul increased in strength.] By the Spirit 
of wisdom and of prophecy, συμβιβάζων, “ proving that he is 
the Christ.” The word here rendered proving, signifies to 
persuade, teach, confirm, or discourse; hence συμβίβασις is, 
by Hesychius and Phavorinus, rendered πείσις, διδαχὴ, πίστις, 
“persuasion, doctrine, confirmation ;” συμβιβάζω by Suidas, 
διδάσκω, «1 teach: so 1 Cor. ii. 16, τίς συμβιβάσει αὐτὸν : 
« Who shall instruct,” or teach, God? so Exod. xviii. 6, cvp- 
βιβάζω αὐτοὺς, “I make them known,” or teach them the 
statutes of God; Deut. iv. 9, συμβιβάσης, “Thou shalt teach 
| them thy sons:” so also Lev. x. 11. So God saith to Moses, 
Exod. iv. 12, συμβιβάζω ce, “1 will teach thee what to say ;” 
ver. 15, συμβιβάσω ὑμᾶς, “1 will teach” or instruct thee and 
Aaron what to do; and the angel to Daniel, ix. 12, «I came 
forth συμβιβάσαι ce, to instruct thee:” so Ps. xxxii. 8, συμ- 
8:86 ce, “I will instruct thee in the way in which thou shalt 
go” (see Judg. xiii. 8, Isa.xl. 13). The doctrine he taught 
and proved to the Jews was, ver. 20, that “Jesus was the 
Son of God,” foretold Ps. ii., here that he was “ the Christ ;” 
and when the Jews speak of the Son of God, or the apostles 
or others speak to the unbelieving Jews of the Son of God, 
it may reasonably be granted that no more is meant by that 
phrase than the Messiah, they understanding nothing of the 
divine original of the Son of God, and being first to be con- 
| vinced that he was the Messiah; but hence it follows not 
that this phrase signifies no more when he is styled, ὁ povo- 
yevis, “the only-begotten,” or ἴδιος vids, “the proper Son of 
God,” Rom. viii. 32, or when Christ argues from his doing 
the works of God, that “ God was his Father.” 

N Ver. 23. And when many days were fulfilled.| The 
| history of St. Paul's preaching at Damascus, and going after 
| to Jerusalem, is somewhat intricate, and interpreters differ 
| much about it; some thinking that St. Paul preached at 

Damascus immediately after his conversion, and that the 
Jews then thought to kill him, and that then also he went 
thence to Jerusalem; others, that this only happened three 
years after his conversion, and that then only he went to 
, Jerusalem: I shall therefore endeavour to give a brief ac- 
| count of this matter. And, 
| First, I grant that St. Paul preached at Damascus im- 
mediately after his conversion; this seems plain from the 
| text, which says, “ He was baptized, and receiving meat was 
| strengthened, καὶ εὐδέως, and straightway he preached Jesus 
| in the synagogues of Damascus” (ver. 18—20). And, se- 
condly, from the amazement of the Jews, that he should do 
this who “came hither for this very purpose, to bind them 
that call upon this name.” 

Secondly, It seems as evident that this consultation to kill 
him could not be at his first conversion, but some years after ; 
for he was let down the wall in a basket, and escaped their 
hands, and then went to Jerusalem, and was brought by 
Barnabas to the apostles (ver. 26,27). Now he himself 
declares, that εὐθέως soon after his conversion, he went not 


456 


sayed to join himself to the disciples: but they were 
all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a dis- 
ciple. 

Ὧν But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the 
apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the 
Lord in the way (to Damascus), and that he had spoken 
to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus 
in the name of Jesus. 

28 And he was with them coming in and going out 
at Jerusalem. 

29 And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians (7. e. the Jews 
that used the Greek tongue): but they (also) went about 
to slay him. 

30 Which when the brethren knew, they brought 
him down to Cexsarea (Philippi), and sent him forth 
to Tarsus. 

31 Then had the churches rest throughout ali Ju- 
dza and Galilee and Samaria, ” and were edified ; and 
walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of 
the Holy Ghest, were multiplied. 

32 4 ™ And it came to pass, as Peter passed 
throughout all quarters (of Judea, where disciples were), 
he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda 
(a city of Palestine). 

33 And there he found a certain man named Aineas, 
which had kept his bed eight years, and (who) was 
sick of the palsy. 

34 And Peter said unto him, Aineas, Jesus Christ 
maketh thee whole: (J therefore say to thee, in his 
name,) arise, and make thy bed. And he arose imme- 
diately. 

35 And all that dwelt at Lydda and (in the plain of ) 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


Saron (extending from Cxsarea Palestine to Juppa) saw 
him, and (by this means) turned to the Lord. 

36 J Now there was at Joppa (a Phenician city, 
lying upon the Mediterranean) a certain disciple named 
4 Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Doreas (a 
roe): this woman was full of good works and alms- 
deeds which she did. 

37 And it came to pass in those days, that she was 
sick, and died : whom when they had washed (in pre- 
paration for her interment), they laid her in an upper 
chamber. 

38 And forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to Joppa, 
and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they 
sent unto him two men, desiring him that he would 
not delay to come to them. 

39 Then Peter arose and went with them. When 
he was come, they brought him (Gr, whom being come 
they brought) into the upper chamber: and all the wi- 
dows stood by him weeping, and shewing the coats 
and garments which Dorcas (had) made, while she 
was with them. 

40 But Peter put them all forth, and kneeled down, 
and prayed; and turning Aim to the body, said, Tabi- 
tha, arise. And she opened her eyes: and when she 
saw Peter, she sat up. 

41 And he gave her Azs hand, and lifted her up, 
and when he had called the saints and widows, pre- 
sented her (fo them) alive. 

42 And it was known throughout all Joppa; and 
many (upon that account also) believed in the Lord. 

43 And it came to pass, that he tarried many days 
in Joppa with one Simon a tanner. 


up to Jerusalem “to those that were apostles before him, 
but went into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus, and 
after three years went up to Jerusalem, where he saw Peter 
and James,” Gal.i.16—19. The series of the history, there- 
fore, seems to lie thus: (1.) St. Paul after his conversion 
instantly preaches in the synagogues of Damascus, that Jesus 
was the Son of God (ver. 20). (2.) That going thence into 
Arabia, betwixt two and three years after, he returns to 
Damascus (Gal. i. 17); and of this journey Luke, being 
not with him, gives no account. (3.) That in his return, 
being increased in wisdom and strength, he continues many 
days in Damascus, proving that Jesus was the Christ. (4.) 
That after three years, he, escaping from Damascus, comes 
to Jerusalem, and is by Barnabas brought to the apostles 
Peter and James, and continued there fifteen days (Gal. i. 
18,19). (5.) That there Christ appears to him in a vision ; 
commanding him to “depart out of Jerusalem;” and he 
accordingly goes thence to Cesarea Philippi in Ceelosyria, 
and to Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts ix. 30, Gal. i. 31). It being 
then so long before he came to Jerusalem, Barnabas might 
well know, either from the brethren of Damascus coming 
to Jerusalem, or from some journey he had taken thither, 
the certainty of his conversion to the Christian faith. 

2 Ver. 31. And were edified.) Of the import of the 
word edification, see note on Rom. xv. 2, it is added, “ And 
walking in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy 
Ghost, were multiplied ;” their shining piety above others, 


and their great joy in the Holy Ghost, attracting others to | 


the faith. 
5 Ver. 32, 33. And it came to pass that Peter, passing 
διὰ πάντων, through all the forementioned places of Judea, 


Samaria, and Galilee, he came down also to the saints that 
dwelt at Lydda, a city in the tribe of Benjamin.) He, being 
the chief apostle of the circumcision, visits the brethren in 
those parts that were circumcised: but that he went down 
to Antioch, and founded the church there, and sat bishop in 
it five or seven years, as Baronius fancies, is not only besides 
the text, which mentions nothing of St. Peter’s going beyond 
the places here mentioned, but is plainly inconsistent with 
his imprisonment at Jerusalem (ch. xii.), and with his abode 
at Joppa, till he went to Cesarea (ix. 43, xi.5). Still more 
ridiculous are they who say, he went to visit all Christian 
churches every where; it being plain from the history of the 
Acts, that he abode at Joppa till he went to Cesarea, and 
that from thence he returned to Jerusalem (Acts xi. 2). 
And there is as much reason to say, that Philip did so, be- 
cause from Azotus, a city of the Philistines (1 Sam. v. 2), 
“he preached through all the cities till he came to Cesarea” 
(viii. 43). ‘That ever he was at Antioch, till Paul and Bar- 
nabas having founded a church there, he came and was 
sharply rebuked by St. Paul, for his dissimulation against his 
own knowledge and miraculous conviction, I find no reason 
to believe. 

4 Ver. 36. Tubitha, which by interpretation is called 
Dorcas.) i. e. “ A roe,” both in Greek and Hebrew, say the 
allegorists, from her quick sight into spiritual things, and her 
high contemplations, these roes feeding on the mountains ; 
as if this name had been given her by way of prophecy. The 
reason why St. Luke gives this interpretation of her Syriac 
name seems rather to be this, that she being a Grecizing 
Jewess, was called by the first name by the Jews, and by 
the second among the Greeks. 


CHAPTER X. 


1 THerE was a certain man in Cesarea called Cor- 
nelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, 


2 (He was) A devout man and ! one that feared 
(the true) God with all his house (they being all pro- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 
' Ver. 2. Kat φοβούμενος τὸν Θεόν.] So we read, 2 Chron. v. 
6, that king Solomon, “and all the congregation of Israel, 


were assembled καὶ of goGotpevor, and the proselytes;” they 
being men, saith Solomon, who “ know thy name, τοῦ φοβεῖσ- 
Gai σε, to fear thee,” vi. 32. This was the title given to them 


CHAPTER X. 


selytes of the gale, one also) which gave much alms 
to the (indigent) people, and * prayed to God alway 
(i. e. morning and evening daily, and at all the hours of 
prayer. 

3 5 4nd) he saw in a vision evidently ὁ about the 
ninth hour of the day (the time of the evening sacrifice, 
when he was praying, ver. 39) an angel of God coming 
in to him (in the likeness of a man, ver. 30), and say- 
ing unto him, Cornelius. 

4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and 


said, What is it, Lord (‘hou wouldest say to me)? And | 


he said unto him, ® Thy prayers and thine alms are 
come up for a memorial (for good to a) before God. 
5 And now send men to Joppa, and call for one 
Simon, δ whose surname is Peter: 
6 He lodgeth (there) with one Simon a tanner, 
whose house is by the sea side: he (being come) shall 


tell thee what thou oughtest to do (that thou mayest be | 


saved, xi. 14). 
7 And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius 
was departed, he called two of his houshold servants, 


457 


and a devout soldier (who was a proselyte, and one) of 
them that waited on him continually ; 

8 And when he had declared all ‘hese things unto 
them (which the angel had said to him), he sent them 
to Joppa (for Peter). 

9 4 On the morrow, as they went on their journey, 
and drew nigh unto the eity, 7 Peter went up upon the 
housetop to pray (/owards the temple) about the sixth 
hour (being an hour of prayer): 

10 And he became very hungry, and would have 
eaten: but while they made ready (Gr. were prepar- 
ing something for him to eat), he fell into a trance (or 
ecstasy), 

11 And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel 
descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit 
at the four corners, and let down to the earth: 

12 Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of 
the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and 
fowls of the air (clean and unclean beasts together). 

13 And there came a voice to him, (saying,) Rise, 
Peter; kill, and eat (of them without distinction). 


who so far embraced the Jewish religion as to worship the 
God of Israel only, and were styled by them “ proselytes of 
the gute,” and “men fearing God.” So Bemidvar Rabba on 
those words, “ Blessed is the man 6 φοβούμενος τὸν Κύριον, that 
feareth the Lord,” Ps. exii. 1, saith, “These are the proselytes, 
and therefore they are mentioned next to the men of Israel ;” 
as when St. Paul saith, « Ye men of Israel, καὶ of ἐν ὑμῖν φο- 
βούμενος τὸν Θεὸν, and ye that fear God,” hearken, Acts 
xiii. 16. 26, where, saith GEcumenius, φοβουμένους τὸν Θεὸν προσ- 
ηλύτους ἐκάλει, “he calls the proselytes, men that feared 
God:” and because these men had a court in the temple, 
where they came to worship the true God, and offer sacrifices 
to him; hence they were called σεβόμενοι, “ the worshippers,” 
as when it is said, “ Many of the Jews καὶ τῶν σεβομένων xpoc- 
ηλύτων, and of the worshipping proselytes, followed Paul 
and Barnabas,” Acts xiii. 43, and “there followed them a 
great multitude, τῶν σεβομένων “Ἑλλήνων, of the worshipping 
Greeks,” that is, “the proselytes,” saith Ccumenius. 
And these being also called by them chasidim, are in the 
New Testament called εὐσεβεῖς καὶ εὐλαβεῖς, “pious and de- 
vout men,” as here, ver. 1.7. But notwithstanding all these 
titles, they counted them unclean as well as other gentiles, 
saying,* “ A sojourning proselyte is as a gentile in all things ;” 
and therefore they of the circumcision contend with Peter for 
going in to converse with them. Yet it is not unpleasant to 
observe, that though they held their persons thus unclean, 
they deemed the alms they gave to the Jews clean, saith 
Lightfoot ; and because Cornelius was free in giving them to 
the Jews of Samaria, he was “a man of good repute among 
them all,” ver. 22. 

2 And prayed to God always.) i.e. Daily and at all the 
hours of prayer (see the note on 1 Thess. v. 17). It also 
well deserves to be observed, that “he feared God with all 


his house ;” this being still the commendation of pious men, | 


that they made all their house religious: so Gen. xviii. 19, 
«1 know Abraham, that he will command his children and 
his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the 
Lord :” and, Josh. xxiv. 15, “ As for me and my house, we 
will serve the Lord :” and pious Christians made their whole 
families converts to the Christian faith: so we read of the 
nobleman at Capernaum, that “he himself believed, and all 
his house” (John iv. 53); of the jailor, that “he believed 
in God with all his house,”’ and was baptized, “he, and all 
his straightway” (Acts xvi. 33, 34) ; and of Crispus, a chief 
tuler of the synagogue, that he “ believed in the Lord with 
all his house” (xviii. 8). Hence they who had made their 
whole family Christians, are saluted by St. Paul thus, To 
such a one, “and the church in his house’’ (see note on 1 
Cor. xvi. 19). And oh, that this was carefully observed and 
imitated by all that are called Christians! 

3 Ver. 3. He saw in a vision, φανερῶς, openly.) i. 6. Wak- 
ing, and with his bodily eyes; for there were also visions in 
a dream (Gen. xx. 3, xxviii. 12, Job iv. 13): so St. Paul 
Saw, ἐν ἐκστάσει ὅραμα, “a vision in an ecstasy” (xi. 5), 


* Jerus. Jebamoth. f. 8, col. 4. 
Vor. [V.—58 


and when he was blind, “he saw in a vision Ananias” 
(ix. 12). 

4 About the ninth hour.| The time of the evening sacri- 
fice ; a very fit time to tell him, that his prayers and alms, 
which were spiritual sacrifices, were come up before God as 
an evening sacrifice: for at the same time, the angel was 
sent to tell Daniel that his prayer was heard (Dan. ix. 21). 

5 Ver. 4. Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for @ 
memorial, &c.| The word μνημύσονον, rendered “ a memorial,” 
is used both of the incense offered up with the sacrifice (Lev. 
ii. 2. 9), and of a part or handful of the mincha offered up 
to God (Lev. ν. 12, Numb. v. 15. 18. 26); in which two 
places no incense was to be admitted, it being an offering 
for sin, or a memorial for iniquity; so that there, not the 
incense or perfume, but of the mincha or oblation put upon 
the altar, is called ascharah, “a memorial.” Now seeing 
alms are the Christian sacrifices, and are called so by the 
apostle, Phil. iv. 18, and seeing our prayers are said to ascend 
as incense, and are so styled, Rev. v. 8, viii. 3, seeing they 
are our “sacrifice of praise,” Heb. xiii. 15, and alms our 
«odour or sweet savour,” Phil. iv. 18, the allusion here may 
very fitly relate to both. 

© Ver. 5. Whose surname is Peter.] And so throughout 
this story : for Christ having said to him, “ Thou art Peter,” 
i.e. a rock, “and upon this rock will I build my church,” 
i. e. lay the foundation of a church among the Jews, as he 
did by Peter (Acts ii. 47), and among the gentiles, as he doth 
here: therefore Cornelius is bid to send, not to Jerusalem ta 
James or John, nor to Damascus for Paul, the apostle of 
the gentiles, but to Joppa for Simon, “whose surname is 
Peter,” that from him he might hear those words “ by which 
he and his house should be saved” (xi. 14). 

7 Ver. 9. Peter went up unto the housetop to pray at the 
sixth hour.) This being about noon, was, by the fews, styled 
“the time of the mincha gedola,” one of the three daily 
hours of prayer, which devout men used. So Daniel prayed 
“three times a day,” vi. 10, “morning, evening, and at the 
mincha :” and David saith, Ps. lv. 17, “ evening, and morn- 
ing, and at noon, will I pray to thee ;” “ evening, and morn. 
ing, and at mincha, three times of prayer:” so R. Saadias 
and R. Solomon. Note also, that though Peter had been 
so long a convert to Christianity, he keeps close to the cus- 
toms of the Jews, not only as to their hours of prayer, but 
as to their manner of praying towards the temple, when they 
were out of Judea or Jerusalem, and so could not go up to 
the temple at the hour of prayer; for he goes up to the top 
or roof of the house, to pray towards Jerusalem, as Daniel 
did, vi. 10: Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, pray- 
ing so oft, that God would hear the prayers the men of Israel 
should make towards that ptace (1 Kings viii. 29, 30. 35. 38. 
44,48). And when it is said of Hezekiah, 2 Kings xx. 2, 
Isa. xxxviii. 3, that he turned his face towards the wall, the 
Targum saith, this was the wall of the house of the sanctuary ; 
and therefore, in all likelihood, St. Peter, being at Joppa, 
went up to the roof of the house to pray, for the same 
Teason. 

20 


458 


14 But Peter said, (J can) not (do) so, Lord; for 
(out of regard to the law) I have never eaten any thing 
that is (¢n zt styled) common or unclean. 

15 And the voice spake unto him again the second 
time (saying), What (that) God (who instituted the law 
of Moses, by this declaration of his will) 8 hath cleansed, 
that call not thou (any longer) common. 


16 (4nd) ®This was done thrice (for the certainty | 


of the thing): and (then) the vessel was received up 
again into heaven. 
17 Now while Peter doubted in himself what this 


vision which he had seen should mean, behold, the | 


men which were sent from Cornelius had made en- 
quiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate, 

18 And called, and asked whether Simon, which 
was surnamed Peter, were lodged there. 

19 4 While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit 
said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. 

20 Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with 
them, doubting nothing (of the unlawfulness of convers- 
ing with them): for I have sent them. 

21 Then Peter went down to the men which were 
sent unto him from Cornelius ; and said, Behold, I am 
he whom ye seek: what zs the cause wherefore ye are 
come (to me)? 


22 And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just | 


man, and one that feareth God, and (7s) of good re- 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


port among all the nation of the Jews, was warned 
from God by an holy angel to send for thee (to come) 
into his house, and to hear words of thee. 

23 Then called he them in, and lodged them. And 
on the morrow Peter went away with them, and cer- 
tain brethren from Joppa (siz in number, being Jews) 
accompanied him (the providence of God so ordering 
it, that they might be witnesses of what was said and 


| done). 


24 And the morrow after they entered in Cesarea. 
And Cornelius waited for them, and had called together 
his kinsmen and near friends (Gr. and Cornelius calling 
together his kinsmen and near friends, to hear what Peter 
should say to them concerning the way of salvation, Xi. 14, 
was expecting them). 

25 And as Peter was coming in, 10 Cornelius met 
him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him. 

26 But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; 1 
myself also am a man (and so cannot receive such wor- 
ship). 

27 And as he talked with him, he went in, and 
found many that were come together (to hear his 
words). 

28 And he said unto them, Ye know how that (accord- 
ing to the traditions of the Jews) it is an unlawful thing 
for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come 
unto one of another nation (as being by them accounted 


8 Ver. 15. What God hath cleansed, cali not thou common, 
μὴ σὺ xotvov, do not thou pollute.) For explication of all that 
in this chapter is mentioned, with relation to this matter, let 
it be noted : 

First, That it was the priest’s office in case of leprosy, 
and other matters of like nature, to pronounce the thing or 
person under examination clean or unclean, and though 
this was done only by a declarative sentence, yet it is 
expressed effectively; for in the Hebrew the words are 
ΝΟΥ nw, and in the Greek, καὶ καθαριεῖ αὐτὸν, καὶ μιανεῖ 
αὐτὸν, “ the priest shall cleanse, the priest shall pollute him :” 
so Lev. xiii. 6. 8. 11. 13. 17. 20, and so on. Accordingly, 
the voice here says, “ What God hath cleansed (i. 6. by 
this vision and command declared to be clean) that do 
not thou pollute (i. e. pronounce not thou unclean).” 
Note, 

Secondly, That the two great things which made the par- 
tition wall betwixt Jew and gentile, were the rite of cireum- 
cision, and the distinction between clean and unclean meats ; 
of these two, circumcision was common to them from the 
beginning with the Ishmaelites, and afterward with many 
other nations; but the abstaining from all meats, forbidden 
by the law of Moses as unclean, was peculiar to the Jews, 
and distinguished them from all the nations of the world; 
and that this was the true scope of these laws, even to sepa- 
rate them from all other nations, by a diet peculiar to them- 
selves, which might keep them from familiar converse with 
the gentiles, and so from learning their idolatrous customs, 
God himself declareth, saying, Lev. xx. 23—25, “I am the 
Lord your God which have separated you from other people ; 
ye shall therefore put a difference between clean beasts and 
unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean; and you 
shall not make yourselves abominable by beast, or by fowl, or 
by any manner of creeping thing that creepeth on the ground, 
which I have separated from you as unclean. And ye shall 
be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and have severed 
you from other people, that ye should be mine.” Hence it 
must follow, that though the Egyptians, the Syrians, and 
other nations, might abstain from some of these beasts as 
unclean, yet not any of them observed the distinction of 
meats prescribed by Moses, for then could God not, by it, 
have separated them from all other nations to himself. And 
suitable to this is the account which Eleazar the high priest 
gives of these laws in Aristeas,* that God, πάντοθεν ἡμᾶς 
περιέφραξεν dyveiats, καὶ διὰ βρωτῶν καὶ ποτῶν, ὅπως ἐν μηδενὶ 
οὐυναλισγουμένοι μηδ᾽ ὁμιλοῦντες φαῦλοις διὰ τροφὰς λαμβάνωμεν, 
“had hedged them in with these purifications, as to meats 


“-- 


and drinks, that, not eating or conversing with evil men, they 
might not be defiled.” Or as Eusebius* hath it from the 
same author, ὅπως μηδενὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἔθνων ἐπιμισγώμεϑα κατὰ 
μηδὲν, “that they might in nothing be mixed with other 
nations, but be kept pure both as to soul and body.” 

And, Lastly, Being thus separated by this precept from 
all familiar converse with other nations, hence they came to 
look on them who did not use this abstinence as unclean ; 
because they frecly did eat of those things which the law 
made unclean to them; and to say that the unclean beasts 
did signify the people of the world (so R. Menahem on Lev. 
xi.). Now hence we learn, 

First, Why in this vision there is a representation of all 
manner of beasts, fowls, and creeping things; viz. because 
all these are mentioned Lev. xx. 24, as things, by abstaining 
from some of which as unclean, God had separated them 
from other nations to himself. 

Secondly, We see the reason why the men of the circum- 
cision object to Peter these two things, viz. that he “ went in 
to the uncircumcised, and did eat with them” (xi. 3) ; to wit, 
because it was chiefly by these two things they were separated 
from other nations. 

Thirdly, We learn why Peter saith (ver. 28) that God 
had by this vision shown that he should “ call no man com- 
mon or unclean,” viz. because he, by this declaration and 
command, had taken away that distinction which hindered 
their converse with other nations: and, 

Fourthly, We see how necessary and expedient it was, 
that this liberty of eating meats indifferently should be so 
fully declared from heaven to the Jews; because it being 
by God declared a law given for this very purpose, that they 
might be severed to himself from other nations, they durst 
not do any thing, without a revelation, which seemed to vio- 
late it; and without breaking through the traditions they 
had received about it, they could not have executed their 
commission to teach, or “make disciples in all nations.” 
Hence Peter is bid to go to them, μηδὲν διακρινόμενος,  put- 
ting no difference” betwixt them and the Jews, as that 
phrase often signifies (see Acts xv. 9, and the note on Rom. 
xiv. 23). 

9 Ver. 16. This was done thrice.| As Pharaoh’s dream was 
doubled, for the certainty of the thing, Gen. xli. 32. 

10 Ver. 25, 26. Cornelius fell down at his feet and wor- 
shipped him. But Peter said, Stand up ; I myself also am 
a man. If the worship intended and given to him by Cor- 
nelius was religious worship, Peter declares such worship was 
not to be given to a mere man; if it was only civil worship, 


Apud Joseph. Ρ. 17. 


* Prep. Evang. lib. viii. cap. 9, p. 371. 


CHAPTER X. 


unclean) ; but God hath snewed me (by a vision) that I 
should not (from henceforth) call any man common or 
unclean. 

29 Therefore came I unto 
as soon as I was sent for: 
intent ye have sent for me? 

30 And Cornelius said, '' Four days ago I was fast- 
ing until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in 
my house, and, behold, (an angel in the shape of) a 
man stood before me in bright clothing, 

31 And said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and 
ie alms are had in remembrance in the sight of 

od. 

32 Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, 
whose surname is Peter; he is lodged in the house of 
one Simon a tanner by the sea side: who, when he 


ye without gainsaying, 
ask therefore for what 


cometh, shall speak unto thee (ver. 6). 
33 Immediately therefore I sent to thee; and thou | 
hast done well that thou art come. Now therefore are | 
we all here present before God, to hear all things that | 
are commanded thee of God (lo say to us). | 
34 4 Then Peter opened fis mouth, and said, ΟΥ̓ a 
truth 151 perceive that God is no respecter of persons 
(i. €. he accepts no man merely because he ts of such a na- 
tion, or descended from such ancestors) : | 


459 


35 But in every nation he that feareth him, and 
worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. 

36 (Ye know) The word which God sent unto the 
children of Israel, preaching peace (and reconciliation 
to himself) by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:) (God 
having exalted him to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give 
repentance and remission of sins, V. 21 :) 

37 That word, I say ye know, which was published 
throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after 
the baptism which John preached ; 

38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth [ δ. Jesus 
of Nazareth ye know, and how God anointed him) with 
the Holy Ghost and with power: who (/hereupon) went 
about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed 
of the devil; for God was with him. 

39 And ye are witnesses of the things which he did 
both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; 
whom (yet) they (of the Jews) slew and hanged ona 
tree: 

40 (We also testify, that) Him God raised up the 
third day, and shewed him openly ; 

41 Not to all the people, but unto (us hrs) witnesses 
chosen before of God (to testify this lo the world), even 
to us (J say), who did eat and drink with him after 
he rose from the dead. 


he, who thought it not fit to receive that, would much less 
have received religious worship. 

Ver. 30. ‘Awd τετάρτης ἡμέρας μέχρι ταύτης τῆς ὥρας ἤμην 
νηστεύων, Four days ago I was fasting until this hour.) The 
Greek, say some critics, is to be rendered thus, “From the 
fourth day to this hour I was, or have been, fasting ;” so that 
Cornelius, according to this import of them, must have been 
fasting four days together; but this cannot be the true sense 
of the words of Cornelius; for “this hour” is the hour of | 
his speaking to St. Peter, and the same day he saw his vision, 
which yet he saw not when St. Peter was come to him, but 
four days before; the meaning therefore is, that “four days | 
since he was fasting till the same hour of the day in which | 
he spake thus to St. Peter: aj’ ἡμέρων ἀρχαίων, is “a 
long time ago,” Acts xv. 7, ἀπὸ πέρυσι, “a year ago,” 2 Cor. | 
viii. 10, ix. 2, and therefore Budeus, having said that ἀπὸ 
is often put for μετὰ, saith, these words are to be rendered, | 
Quarto abhine die; and Grotius renders them thus, Die ante | 
hoe tempus quarta jejunaveram ; both justifying our transla- | 
tion. 

2 Ver. 34. I perceive God is no respecter of persons, | 
&c.] I shall show, in the note on James ii. 1, that respect 
of persons in matters judicial is shown, when men judge 
others not according to the merits of the cause, but accord- 
ing to outward respects, which relate nothing to it, as the 
greatness, richness, meanness, and poverty of the person, | 
relation, friendship, or affection; and so in spirituals, to ac- 
cept persons is to respect them and their services, not on 
the account of any thing that makes them better, or more fit 
to be regarded than others, or which is more acceptable in 
the sight of God, but on the account of the nation to which 
they belong, or the ancestors from which they were de- 
scended. ‘Thus, because God had chosen the Jews to be 
his people, by reason of the piety of their forefathers, and 
to perform his promise made to them, the Jews imagined 
that God would accept them and their services on that ac- 
count, that they were of the Jewish nation, and of the seed 
of Abraham according to the flesh, and that he would not 
accept the persons or regard the services of the gentiles, for 
want of these things; but these false conceptions Paul, in 
his epistle to the Romans, and Peter, here refute: showing 
(1.) that men, not only of the Jewish, but of any other 
nation, may be acceptable to God, there being “one God, 
who is rich (in goodness) to all that call upon him,” whether 
Jew or gentile (Rom. x. 12), he being “the God not of 
Jews only, but also of the gentiles,” and so as ready to 
justify them through faith, as to justify the Jews (Rom. iii. 
29, 30). (2.) That God accepts such men, not on the ac- 
count of their descent or circumcision, but because they 
“fear God and work righteousness:” thus Cornelius, being 
one that feared God, and gave much alms (ver. 2, 3), his 


“prayers and alms came before God for a memorial” for 
good to him; whence it is evident, that some of other na-= 
tions, owning the true God, not only might, but actually did, 
“fear God and work righteousness,” and otherwise they very 
ill deserved the title given to the proselytes of the gate (see 
the note on ver. 2); nor could Peter perceive that God was 
no respecter of persons on the account of a thing which 
never did nor could happen; or Paul say, “Glory, honour, 
and peace, shall be to every one that doeth good, to the Jew 
first, and also to the gentile: for there is no respect of per- 
sons with God” (Rom. ii. 10, 11). How far such persons 
may be accepted with God, and on what account, see my 
conjecture on Rom. il. 14. 

B Ver. 36. The word which God sent to the children of 
Israel, &c.] The apostle’s discourse from this to the forty- 
third verse seems to be to this effect, viz. (1.) That there 
was an offer made by the gospel of peace, i. e. of recon- 
ciliation and salvation by Jesus Christ, the author of that 
gospel, ver. 36, 37. (ἡ That he was able to make good 
that promise, as being Lord of all things. (3.) That he 
who preached this doctrine was a true prophet, he being 
anointed with the Holy Ghost for that office, and confirming 
what he said by powerful miracles, ver. 38. (4.) hat this 
doctrine, and these miracles, could not be reasonably ques- 
tioned, they who were with him from the beginning being 
witnesses of what he said and did, ver. 39. And (5.) 
whereas it might be objected, that he was dead, and so οοιβά 
not be able to confer these blessings on them who believed 
in him, it is added, ver. 40, that him God raised up the 
third day according to his own prediction, and that of this 
resurrection they were all eye-witnesses, sufficiently instruct- 
ed to give in their testimony concerning it by his frequent 
appearances to, and familiar converse with, them, ver. 41. 
(6.) That after his resurrection they had received a com- 
mission from God to testify that he was “appointed to be 
Judge of the quick and dead,” and so to give that peace and 
salvation he had promised in his gospel to his faithful ser- 
vants, ver. 42. And, lastly, that to all this all the prophets 
had given in their suffrages, by declaring that « through his 
name all that believed in him should receive remission of 
sins,” ver. 43. Note also, that it is not to be wondered that 
Peter should say to Cornelius and his kinsmen, who were 
already proselytes of the gate, and lived at Cwsarea, the 
seat of the governor of Judea, where the Jews dwelt, and 
whither they continually resorted, and where Philip had 
already preached the gospel (Acts viii. 40), “Ye know 
this word,” he meaning not that they were persuaded of the 
truth of it, but only that they had heard the fame, and were 
acquainted with the report. 

4 Ver. 41. Who did eat and drink with him.] That in 
their presence he did eat part of a fish and of a honeycomb 


460 


42 And he commanded us to preach unto the peo- 
ple, and to testify that it is he which was (2) ordain- 
ed of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. 

43 To him give all the prophets witness, that through 
(faith in) his name, whosoever believeth in him shall 
receive remission of sins. 

44 4 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy 
Ghost fell on all them which heard the word (as on the 
apostles at the beginning, xi. 15). 

45 And they of the circumcision which believed 
(conceiving God had no such regard to the gentiles) were 
astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the 
Holy Ghost. 

46 For they heard them speak with tongues, and 
magnify God. Then answered Peter, 

47 15 Can any man forbid water, that these should 
not be baptized (¢. e. Can he gainsay the baptizing of 
them with water), which have received the (baptism of 
the) Holy Ghost as well as we? 

48 And he ὃ commanded them to be baptized ” in 
the name of the Lord (Jesus). Then prayed they him 
to tarry certain days. 


they had then with them, we read expressly, Luke xxiv. 
41—43, that they did eat of the bread and fish he had pro- 
vided for them, may be collected from his invitation to them 
to “come and dine,” John xxi. 12, which doubtless they re- 
fused not; and since we may reasonably suppose they did 
not dine without drinking, we must have reason to believe 
“they did eat and drink with him.” 
δ 15 Ver. 47. Can any man forbid water, that these should 
not be baptized 31 These words contain a plain and a con- 
vincing demonstration of the falsehood of the quakers’ doc- 
trine, that water-baptism is unnecessary to them who have 
received the inward baptism of the Spirit; since the apostle 
here not only declares that water-baptism ought therefore to 
be administered to these persons, because they had already | 
been baptized with the Holy Ghost, but also commands 
them to be baptized upon that account. 

6 Ver. 48, And he command: them to be baptized. 
Whom did he command to do this? the gentiles? It seem- | 


eth at first sight absurd, that they who were not yet baptized 
should baptize others: or was it the Jews that came then 
with him ? they seem only to be lay-brethren, who only were 
permitted to baptize in case of necessity ; it seemeth there- 
fore reasonable to say, that he commanded water to be 
brought for their baptism, and then performed himself the 
office, or left it to be done by gifted persons. 

7 In the name of the Lord Jesus.) Here the note of Gro- 
tius is this, that in the name of Christ, the anointed, is un- 
derstood he that anointed him, and the Spirit by whom he 
was anointed; but here the Spirit had fallen upon them 
already, and so they who thus felt his influence enabling 
them to speak with tongues must believe in him already, 
and being proselytes of the gate, they believed already in 
God the Father, and came to hear what he should say to 
them; it was therefore only necessary that, by receiving 
Christian baptism, they should profess their faith in the 
Lord Jesus. 


CHAPTER XI. 


11 Ann (δὲ, then) the apostles and brethren that | 
were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also re- 
ceived the word of God. 

2 And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, 5 they 
that were of the circumcision (being still zealous for the 
law of Moses, and the traditions of the elders) contended 
with him, 

3 Saying, Thou (violating the tradition of our fathers) 
wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with 
them. 

4 But Peter rehearsed the matter from the begin- 
ning, and expounded ἐξ by order unto them (Gr. ἀρξά- 
μενος ἐξετίθετο αὐτοῖς καθεξῆς. beginning, expounded to 
them the matter orderly), saying, 

5 I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a 
trance I saw a vision, (viz.) A certain vessel descend 
(Gr. descending), as it had been a great sheet, let down 
from heaven by four corners; and it came even to 
me: 

6 Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, 
1 considered (Gr. εἰς ἣν ἀτενίσας χατενόουν, attending to | 
which, I observed), and saw fourfooted beasts of the 
earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls 
of the air. 

7 And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; 
slay and eat ( freely of them, to satisfy thy hunger, x. 10). 


8 But I said, (7 can) not (do) so, Lord: for (being 
a strict observer of the law of Moses) nothing com- 
mon or unclean hath at any time entered into my 
mouth. ¥ 

9 But the voice (of the Lord) answered me again 
(Gr. the second time) from heaven, (saying,) What 
(that) God (who instituted the law of Moses, by this de- 
claration of his will) hath cleansed, that call not thou 
(any longer) common. 

10 And this was done three times (for the certainty 


| of the thing): and (then) all (the things I had seen) were 


drawn up again into heaven. 

11 And, behold, immediately (after this vision) there 
were three men already come unto the house where I 
was, (they being) sent from Cesarea unto me. 

12 And the spirit bade me go with them, nothing 
doubting (to converse with them though they were genliles, 
or pulling no difference betwixt them and Jews, as betwixt 
persons clean and unclean). Moreover these six breth- 
ren (here present, as witnesses of the truth of what I say,) 
accompanied me, and we entered into the man’s house 
(who sent for me) : 

13 And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in 
his house, which stood (by Aim), and said unto him, 
Send men to Joppa, and (by ¢hem) call for Simon, whose 
surname is Peter; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1 Ver. 1. When the apostles and brethren had heard that 
the gentiles had received the word of God.] This they then 
only heard, because it was then only done, they who before 
preached the word doing it only to the Jews, ver. 19. 

2 Ver. 2. Διεκρίνοντο πρὸς αὐτὸν of ἐκ περιτομῆς, They of the 
circumcision contended with him.] I see no reason here to 
except any of the believing Jews (unless perhaps the apos- 
1165} from this contention, they being “all zealous of the 
law” and of their customs, and not enduring to hear that 
any Jew should act contrary to them (Acts xxi. 20, 21); 


and Peter himself being of that mind till he had received 
this vision, and laying it down as a known rule (Acts x. 28), 
that “it was unlawful for a Jew to converse with an alien,” 
and even after this vision, withdrawing himself from the 
believing gentiles for fear of the Jews, which came from 
Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 12), and they of the dispersion preach- 
ing to the Jews only. Note also hence, that the believers 
knew nothing of the supremacy, and much less of the in- 
fallibility of St. Peter; for otherwise they would not have 
dared thus to rise up against their supreme governor, much 
less would they have condemned the actions of their infal- 
lible teacher. 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


461 


14 5 Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and | tiles and uncircumcised ) the like gift as he did (he had 


all thy house (believing them) shall be saved. 


given) unto us (circumcised Jews), who believed on the 


15 And as I began to speak (and had not long con-| Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that Icould withstand 


tinued my discourse), ὁ the Holy Ghost fell on them, 


God? (Gr. how was Table to hinder God; viz. by re- 


as (he had done) on us at the beginning (Acts ii. en- | fusing to receive them into the church by baptism, x. 47, 


abling them to speak with tongues, and to prophesy, x. 
44—16). 
16 Then remembered I the word of the Lord (Jesus), 


how that he said (/o us, Acts i. 5), John indeed bap- | 
tized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the | 


Holy Ghost. 
17 Forasmuch then as God gave them (though gen- 


3 Ver. 14. Who shall speak to thee words, by which thou 
and all thy house shall be saved.] God, saith Grotius, after 
he had sent Christ, would admit of no other way of ob- 
taining the salvation promised in the gospel, but by the 


knowledge of him, which is certainly true of all who were | 


capable of coming to the knowledge of him: how far he 
might accept of others, see my conjecture, note on Rom. 
ii. 14. 

4 Ver. 15. The Holy Ghost fell upon them, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐφ᾽ 
ἡμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἀρχὴ, as upon us at the beginning.] They there- 


fore having received the like gifts, which were the fruits of | 
faith, must be looked on as brethren and disciples of the } 


Lord, and so must be admitted into his ehurch by that bap- 
tism which Christ instituted to be administered to all his 
disciples; being united by his Spirit to Christ their head, 
they must be owned as his members; God having owned 


them, by imparting to them these spiritual gifts, they must | 


be owned by us, and he having purified their hearts by 
faith (xv. 9), they must no longer be looked on by us as 
unclean. 


5 Ver. 18. Then hath God granted to the gentiles repent- | 


ance unto life.) The Jews had the highest thoughts of them- 
selves, as if all God’s blessings were designed for them only, 
and ‘the meanest and even vilest thoughts of all other nations, 
as if God counted them only “as spittle.” «Thou madest 
the world for our sakes,” saith the book of Esdras; “as for 
the other people, thou hast said, They are nothing, but like 
to spittle, and they have ever been reputed as nothing,” 
2 Esd. vi. 55—57. They imagined that the Messiah was to 
make them a glorious people, and to save them, but to de- 
stroy or to enslave all other nations to them; and that God 
would save all of them as being “children of Abraham,” 
but that all the rest of the world were “fuel for hell-fire;” 
and this made them so to contemn them, and never think of 


their being saved any other way than by being proselytes to 
their law. Hence, in the former chapter, they so much | 
admire that the Holy Ghost should fall on them, ver. 45, | 
and here speak of it as a thing beyond their imagination | 


that God should “grant repentance unto life” to them: 
hence do the unbelieving Jews forbid the apostles “ to speak 
to the gentiles that they might be saved,” 2 Thess. ii. 16, 
and cry out against St. Paul as one not fit to live, because 
he said Christ would send him to the gentiles, Acts xxii. 21, 22. 

Τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ὃ Θεὸς μετάνοιαν ἔδωκεν, Then hath God given 
to the gentiles τερεπίαποθ] From these words and from 
Eph. ii. 8, “ Faith is the gift of God,” and from God's pro- 
mise to the Jews, “I will give them a heart to know me,” 
Jer. xxiv. 7, “I will give them a new heart,” Ezek. xi. 
19, xxxvi. 26, some argue thus—What God gives, we only 
receive from him, and so are only passive in it; but God 
gives faith, repentance, and a new heart; therefore we 
eater do, nor can do, any thing towards the obtaining of 

em. 

In answer, therefore, to these and all other passages of a 
like nature dispersed through the scriptures, I shall show, 
first, that they must be consistent with God’s commands and 
exhortations directed to us to perform our duty, with his 
promises and motives to excite us to the performance of it, 


and with his threats denounced against those who do neglect | 
it; and so must be so far from excluding, that they do rather | 


presuppose our industry ; as will be evident, 
First, Because he promises those very blessings he is said 
to give, to their industry and diligence who receive them, 
τσὶ g. “The Lord giveth wisdom” (Eccles, ii. 16), but then 
he gives it only on this condition, that we ask it in faith 


whom he had already baptized with the Holy Ghost? 

18 And) Whenthey heard these things, they held 
their peace (being satisfied with this account of St. 
Peter’s actions), and (they) glorified God ( for his good- 
ness to the gentiles), saying, Then (Gr. dpa ye, surely) 
hath ® God also to the Gentiles granted repentance 
unto life. 


(James i. 4), that we “apply our hearts to seek” it (Eccles. 
vii. 25), so that to argue as these men do in this case is 
plainly to contradict the mind of the Holy Ghost, who, for 
this very reason, that God is the giver of it, requires us “to 
incline our ears to wisdom, and to apply our hearts to un- 
derstanding; to cry after knowledge, and lift up our voice 
for understanding ; to seek for her as for silver, and to search 
for her as for hid treasure; suspending our enjoyment of 
her upon all this diligence, by saying, “ Then shalt thou un- 
derstand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of 
God: for the Lord giveth wisdom” (Prov.ii.2—6). Again, 
“Faith cometh by hearing of the word of God” (Rom. x. 
17) ; this is the ordinary instrument which works repentance 
and conversion in us; but that it may have this good effect, 
we must hear it with good attention, and improve the know- 
ledge received from it, for “to him that (thus) hath shall 
more be given” (Mark iv. 24, 25); we must “ receive it into 
a good and honest heart,” and treasure it up there (Luke viii. 
15): for to them only “it is given to know the mysteries” 
of Christ’s kingdom, who thus improve the knowledge 
and talents which they have received (Matt. xiii. 11, 12, 
xxv. 20). 

Secondly, When there is a want of these such-like dis- 
positions, or some evil dispositions which prejudice us against, 
or indispose us for, the performance of those duties, then it 
is said that these things are not given: so Matt. xiii. 12, 
“To them it is not given: for this people’s heart is waxed 
gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes 
have they closed ; lest at any time they should see with their 
eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their 
hearts, and be converted, and I should heal them:” so 
Deut. xxix. 3, 4, “ Ye have seen the temptations, signs, and 
miracles, which God wrought for you; yet the Lord hath not 
given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to 
hear, unto this day ;” which must not be imputed to any 
want of power in these things to move them, much less to 
a want of the divine grace to work upon their hearts by 
them, for then they could not be blamed for not having such 
a heart ; but it was wholly to be ascribed to their own negli- 
gence and perverseness, which rendered them indisposed to 
receive this gift: as will be farther evident, first, from God's 
vehement desire that such good things might have been given 
them, which through their own defect in the performance of 
their duty were not given them; as, v. g. “a heart” to fear 
God: so Deut. v. 29, “Oh, that there were such a heart in 
them, that they would fear me, and keep all my command- 
ments always!” which is an expression of a most earnest 
desire that it might be so, and therefore an assurance that 
there was nothing wanting on God’s part that was requisite 
to the obtaining such a heart. Secondly, from his frequent 
commands requiring men to believe, repent, and turn to him, 
and to give their hearts to seek him: so 1 Chron. xxii. 19, 
« And now dérs, give your hearts and your souls to seek the 
Lord :” for seeing God neither commands what is impossible 
for us to do, nor what he himself will do without us, these 
commands must relate to something which is in our power, 
because it is our duty to perform it: and, thirdly, from the 
commendations which the sctiptures give to them who be- 
lieved, repented, and turned to the Lord; and the reprehen- 
sions they give, the punishments they threaten, to them who 
neglect to do so: for seeing no man can receive a reward for 
what he had no hand in doing, or blame and punishment for 
not performing what he could not be capable of doing, these 
praises and reprehensions show that these things might and 
ought to have been done by us. 

202 


462. 


19 1 Now they which were scattered abroad upon 
the persecution that arose about Stephen travelled as 
far as Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, δ preaching 
the word to none but unto the Jews only. 

20 And some of them were (by birth) men of Cy- 
prus and Cyrene, which, when they were come to An- 
tioch, 7 spake unto the Grecians (Gr. πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλ- 
ληνιστὰς, to the Jews using the Greek language, see note 
on vi. 1), preaching the Lord Jesus. 

21 And (they being men enabled and authorized for 
this work by the Holy Ghost’s descent upon them for this 
end, Acts 11. 9,10) the hand (or power) of the Lord 
was with them: and a great number believed, and 
turned unto the Lord. , 

22 q Then tidings of these things came unto the 
ears of the church which was in Jerusalem: and they 
sent forth Barnabas (a Cyprian), that he should go 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


(διεχθεῖν, to go through those places) as far as (even to) 
Antioch. 

23 Who, when he came, and had seen (Gr. coming, 
and seeing) the grace of God (ἡ. ὁ. the prevalency of the 
gospel among them), was glad, and exhorted them all, 
that with (fud’) purpose of heart they would cleave 
unto the Lord. 

24 For he was a good man, and full of the (gifts 
of the) Holy Ghost and of faith: and (by this means) 
much people were added unto the Lord (7. 6. believed in 
the Lord Jesus). 

25 Then departed Barnabas (from Antioch) to Tar- 
sus, for to seek Saul: (perhaps that he being an apostle 
might lay his hands on some of them, that they might re- 
ceive the Holy Ghost, Acts viil. 17 :) 

26 And when he had found him, he brought him 
unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year 


Having premised this, I proceed, 

Secondly, To show what are the various imports of this 
phrase in scripture, or how and why God may be said to 
give what, by our industry or our co-operation with his grace 
and blessing upon our endeavours, we enjoy. 

First, then, When the thing said to be given is morally 
evil; that God, who can neither himself do, nor incline others 
to do, evil, can be said to give it, only because he gives 
those faculties by which men are enabled to do it, and suffers 
them, without restraint, to follow the inclinations of their 
own wicked hearts : so ἔδωκε Κύριος, “ God gave a lying spirit 
in the mouth of Ahab’s prophets,’ 1 Kings xxii. 23: so 
ἐδόθη τῷ ϑηρίῳ, “It was given to the beast to speak great 
things and blasphemies,” Rev. xiii. 15; and, ver. 7, ἐδύδη, 
«Tt was given to him to make war with the saints, and over- 
come them ;” and that in this sense God is said to give the 
heathens up “to a reprobate mind, to the lustings of their 
hearts, and to dishonourable affections,” see the note on 
Rom. i. 28; that thus only he gave to the Jews “a spirit 
of slumber,” see the note on Rom. xi. 8. Secondly, Some- 
times /o give doth only signify to pronounce, teach, and pre- 
scribe ; as when God saith, “ Thou shalt put the blessing on 
mount Gerizim,” Deut. xi. 29, i. 6. thou shalt pronounce it 
thence: thus is God said to give to the Jews his sabbaths, 
viz. by commanding the observation of them, Exod. xvi. 29, 
and to give them those laws and commandments he pre- 
scribed and taught them by his servant Moses; and in this 
sense he is said to give wisdom, because “ out of his mouth 
proceedeth understanding,” Prov. ii. 6, and so he saith, 
«Give to the wise,” i. 6. instruction, “and he will still be 
wiser,” Prov. ix. 9. And in this sense also may he be said 
to give both faith and repentance; because he hath so fre- 
quently prescribed them, and taught us the advantages we 
shall reap by them, the means to produce them, the induce- 
ments to perform them, and the evils we shall suffer from 
the want of them. 

Thirdly, I lay this down asa most certain rule, That where 
God is said to give us any thing which it is our duty to ob- 
tain, the exercise of that faculty is still supposed which he 
hath given us already ; and God is only said to give it by 
giving us those faculties by which we are enabled to obtain 
it, and the means and motives which are sufficient to excite 
those faculties to the performance of their proper actions; I 
say, the exercise of these faculties is always presupposed ; 
and when God is said to give what we are to get, and what 
it is our duty and will be our advantage to perform, the 
meaning only is, he puts it into our power, by the exercise 
of those faculties which he hath given us, by attendance to 
the motives which he affords to excite us thus to exercise 
them, and by the assistance he is ready still to give us upon 
our willingness to do what he requires, to obtain those things. 
And, 

First, Thus it is always with respect to natural gifts ; for 
thus God giveth riches (Eccles. ν. 19, vi. 2), because “he 
giveth power to get wealth” (Deut. viii. 18), but yet it is 
“the diligent hand,” and the blessing of God upon our la- 
bours, that “maketh rich” (Prov. x. 4. 22); “he giveth us 
our daily bread,” yea, “he giveth food to all flesh” (Ps. 
exxxvi. 25), and yet we must eat it “in the sweat of our 
brows,” and »rocure it with the labour of our hands (Gen. 


ili. 19); “he giveth all things to all men” (Acts xvii. 25), 
“and to the beasts their food” (Ps. exlvii. 19), but then they 
must employ those faculties which God hath given them to 
get it: wherefore to argue thus—God giveth faith and re- 
pentance, and therefore we do nothing to obtain them, is as 
if I should say, God giveth us our daily bread, therefore we 
must not labour for it; God giveth food to all flesh, there- 
fore they are not to seek after it. 

Secondly, Thus it is also with respect to spirituals ; thus 
“God giveth wisdom,” but it is to them who incline their 
ears to the instructions he hath given them to make them 
wise, and who apply their hearts to understanding : thus the 
Jews argue that God had given repentance to the gentiles: 
because he had commissionated Peter to preach to them 
peace through Jesus Christ, and remission of sins, and they 
upon his preaching had believed in Christ, and received the 
Holy Ghost: so also, though faith be an assent to a divine 
revelation, and faith in Christ an assent to the revelation 
made in scripture concerning him, and so must be an act of 
the understanding, requiring only the evidence of the truth 
of that revelation to produce it; yet is it said to be “ the 
gift of God,” because the objects of that faith are only made 
known to us by divine revelation; the motives to embrace 


| it are all contained in the same revelation, and both are con- 


firmed and made credible to us by the testimony which God 
hath given to them, and so God hath done all that is requi- 
site on his part to produce this faith in us. 

6 Ver. 19. Preaching the word to none but the Jews only.) 
As thinking it unlawful to converse with men of other na- 
tions, and not believing that God would give repentance to 
the gentiles. Woltzogenius here notes, that these men 
preached without any mission; and hence concludes, that 
an ordinary mission is not required to authorize men to 
preach the gospel. But this is said without just ground ; 
for these men seem to be of the number of those on whom 
the Holy Ghost fell on the day of pentecost, among whom 
were those of Cyrene. Moreover, “ the power of the Lord 
was with them,” to confirm their doctrine by miracles, ver. 
21. He then that will plead a commission from God to 
preach the gospel without an ordinary mission, must show 
the like extraordinary gifts or miraculous assistances; God 
never sending any person to do his work without some 


| testimony from himself, or from persons commissionated 


by him. 

7 Ver. 20. And they spake πρὸς τοὺς “Ἑλληνιστὰς, to the 
Hellenists.] Grotius here saith, certo legendum, πρὸς τοὺς 
“Ἕλληνας, We must certainly read, “to the Greeks,” because 
the Syriac, Arabic, and Latin so read; whereas, that is no 
ground at all; for so they all read, vi. 1, where Grotius 
himself acknowledges, the Jews are to be understood by 
the Hellenists : he adds, that the Alexandrian MS. so reads, 
but so it doth in opposition to all other MSS. Chrysostom 
here saith, that “they spake Greek, “Ἑβραῖοι ὄντες, being 
Hebrews.” C&cumenius saith, he styles them Hellenists, 
“not as being addicted to the worship of the Greeks, butas 
“Ἑλληνιστὶ φϑεγγόμενοι, Speaking the Greek language ;” and 
it seems necessary to understand the Jews using the Greek 
tongue, and reading the scriptures in that tongue in their 
synagogues, as Buxtorf says they did: (1.) because these 
persons preached to the Jews only (ver. 19). And (2.) 


CHAPTER XII. 


they assembled themselves with (or in) the church, 
and taught much people. And the (-y who formerly 
were called) disciples * were called Christians first in 
Antioch. 

27 1 And in these days came prophets (7. e. men 
who had the gift of foretelling things to come) from Jeru- 
salem unto Antioch. 

28 And there stood up one of them named Agabus, 
and signified by (the afflatus of) the spirit that there 


463 


should be great dearth 5 throughout all the world (7. δ. 
the Roman empire): which came to pass in the days of 
Claudius Cesar. 

29 Then the disciples (of Antioch and the places 
adjacent), every man according to his ability, deter- 
mined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in 
Judea : 

30 Which also they did, and 10 sent it to the elders 
(of the Jews) by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. 


because they of the church of Jerusalem send to them Bar- 
nabas, whom they would scarce send to the uncircumcised. 

8 Ver. 26. And the disciples were called Christians first 
at Antioch.| Before they were called “disciples,” as here, 
“believers,” Acts v. 14, men “of the church,” Acts xii. 
1, men “ of the way,” see note on Acts ix. 2, “ the saints,” 
Acts ix. 13, “those that called on the name” of Christ, ver. 
14, and by their enemies, Nazarenes and Galileans; but 
now, by the conversion of Cornelius, and his kinsmen, and 
his family, the believing Jews and gentiles being made one 
church, that the name of Jew and heathen might no more 
continue the distance that was betwixt them, this new name 
was given to them both ; as some conceive, according to the 
prophecy mentioned Isa. Ixv. 15, a name embraced by all 
Christians as most expressive of their relation to their master 
Christ, and which they gloried in, and owned before the face 
of their enemies (Tertull. Apol. cap. 3. 5, Euseb. Hist. Ee- 
cles. lib. v. cap. 1). But that Evodius should be then bishop 
of Antioch, and give this name first to the Christians, and 
St. Luke should say nothing either of his doing this, or ever 
mention his being there, it is not easy to believe. 

9 Ver. 28. Ἐφ᾽ ὄλην τὴν οἰκουμένην, Through the whole 
world.| That οἰκουμένη signifies the Roman empire, see the 
note on Luke ii. 1. Accordingly, Eusebius* saith of this 
famine, that it oppressed almost the whole-empire; and that 
it was recorded by historians, “ most averse to our religion ;” 
viz. by Suetonius; in the life of Claudius, who saith, it 
happened, ob assiduas sterilitates, “through a long barren- 
ness ;” Josephus: saith, that it raged so much in Judea, πολλῶν 
ὑπὸ ἐνδείας ἀναλωμάτων φθειρομένων, “that many perished for 
vant of victuals:” and Dion Cassius,§ that it was λιμὸς 


* H. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 8. 


+ Cap. 18. 
+ Antiq. lib. xx. cap. p. 686, D. 


§ Hist. lib. Ix. p. 146. 


ἰσχυρὸς, “ ἃ very great famine ;” and happened when Clau- 


dius and Caius Largus were consuls, that is, in the second 
year of Claudius, though it seems rather to have been that 
which happened, as Eusebius in his Chronicon, and Orosius, 
lib. vii. 6, place it, in the fourth year of Claudius. 

10 Ver. 30. And sent it πρὸς τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους, to the elders.} 
It is doubtless the duty of all Christians to be ready to 
relieve their Christian brethren in other nations according 
to their abilities, as Paul shows, 2 Cor. viii. 9, and those 
especially from whom they have received spiritual things 
(Rom. xv. 27). But here it is farther to be noted, that it 
was the constant custom of the Jews in their dispersions, to 
send money into the land of Canaan for the sustaining of 
the poor there, as Campegius Vitringa* proves. St. Paul 
was therefore careful, that the unbelieving Jews should not 
outdo the Christians in those offices of charity towards their 
brethren in Judea: and therefore, as he carries here the 
charity of the Christians of Antioch, and the parts adjacent, 
to the distressed brethren in Judea, so doth he show himself 
always ready to advance this work (Gal. ii. 10), to plead 
for and to promote it, as he did in the churches of Macedo- 
nia and Achaia. 

But whereas some contend, the elders mentioned here 
were the bishops of Judea; it is not certain that they were 
Christians, or any other than the elders of the Jewish syna- 
gogues, or the πρώτοι τῶν ᾿Ιεροσολυμιτῶν, “chief men of Jeru- 
salem ;” to whom, saith Josephus,t king Izates sent his 
charity at the same time ; and if they were Christians, they 
might still be the elders of their synagogues, the Christians 
then retaining the Jewish rites. 


* De Syn. Vet. lib. iii. par. i. cap. 13, p. 808. 811. 
ἡ Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 2, p. 686. 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 Now abovt that time (that Agabus foretold of the | put him in prison, and delivered him to four quarter- 


famine, xi. 28,) Herod (Agrippa) the king ! stretched 
forth his hands to vex certain of the church (Gr. caug/tt 
nold of certain of the church to afflict them). 

2 And *he killed James the brother of John (who 
by this title was distinguished from James the son of Al- 
pheus, bishop of Jerusalem,) with the sword. 

3 And because he saw it pleased the Jews (fo see the 
Christians thus afflicted and cut off), he proceeded fur- 
ther to take (into custody) Peter also. (4nd when this 
was done,) (then were the days of unleavened bread) 
(the paschal festival). 

4 And when (therefore) he had apprehended him, he 


nions of soldiers (7. e. stxleen soldiers) to keep him ( four 
at a time) ; intending ? after Kaster (or when that festi- 
val was over, in which it was customary to release a pri- 
soner to them, Matt. xxvii. 15,) to bring him forth to 
the people (/o be slain before them). 

5 Peter therefore was kept in prison (for this end) - 
but ‘ prayer was made without ceasing of the church 
unto God for (deliverance of ) him. : 

6 And when Herod would have brought (was about 
to bring) him forth, the same night (that he had de- 
termined to do this on the morrow, ver. 9,) Peter was 
sleeping between two soldiers, (being) bound (to them) 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. 


1Ver. 1. 'ExéBaev  ρύδης τὰς χεῖρας, Herod laid hands 
upon.) ᾿Ἐπιβάλλειν χεῖρας being never used intransitively, but 
always with the dative case, or an accusative with the prepo- 


sition ἐπὶ, cannot here be rendered, he attempted or resolved, | 


but the whole sentence filled up seems to be this, ἔβαλε χεῖρας 
ἐπὶ τινας τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας κακῶσαι αὐτοὺς, “ He laid hold 
of some of the church to afflict them:” the preposition 
being often included in the verb, and being to be taken or 
repeated from it to complete the sense. 

2 Ver. 2. ᾿Ανεῖλε δὲ Ἰάκωβον, He killed James with the 
sword.) Thus was the prediction of our Lord fulfilled, that 
James should “drink of his cup” (Matt. xx. 23). But 


then he being cut off, A. D. 43, the story of his being long 
in Spain must be an idle fable of the monks, like to that of 
their placing vincula Sancti Petri upon the first of August, 
when we learn from ver. 3, that he was put into those chains 
at the paschal feast, and delivered from them at the close of 
it (ver. 7), that is, above four months before. 

3 Ver. 4. Mera τὸ πάσχα, After the passover.] He being 
reserved till then, either in honour of the feast, or that the 
Christians, who, though they were hated by the rulers of the 
Jews, were yet in favour with the people (ii. 47), might not 
prevail with others to beg his life, aecording to the eustom of 
that feast (Matt. xxvii. 15), or to avoid a tumult. 

4 Ver. 5. Προσευχὴ ἦν ἐκτενὴς, &c. Prayer was made for 
him by the church without ceasing.) That such prayers are 


464 


with two chains (Acts xxvill. 20): and the keepers 
(being two other soldiers that stood) before the door kept 
the prison. 

7 And, behold, the (an) angel of the Lord came 
uponhim (to deliver him), and a light shined in the pri- 
son (to enable him to see what he was to do): and he (the 
angel) smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, say- 
ing (to him), Arise up quickly. And (when he had so 
said) 5. his chains fell off from zs hands. 

8 And the angel said unto him, Gird thyself, and 
bind on thy sandals. And so he did. And (then) he 
said unto him, Cast thy garment about thee, and fol- 
low me. 

9 And he went out, and followed him; and wist 
not that it was true which was done by the angel; but 
thought he saw (had séen) a vision (only). 

10 (4nd) When they were past the first and the se- 
cond ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth 
(from the prison) unto the city; which (gate) opened 
to them of his (715) own accord: and they went out, 
and passed on (together) through one street; and ὃ forth- 
with the angel (having done all that was requisite for his 
deliverance) departed from him. 

11 And when Peter was come to himself (and saw 
where he was), he said, Now I know of a surety, that 
the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me 
out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation 
of the people of the Jews. 

12 And when he had 7 considered the thing (done), 
he came to the house of Mary the mother of (tha!) 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


John, whose surname was Mark; where many were 
gathered together praying. Ἂ 

13 And as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, 
a damsel came to hearken (what he who knocked would 
say, and she was) named Rhoda. 

14 And when she knew Peter’s voice, she opened 
not the gate for gladness, but (firs!) ran in, and told 
(them within) how Peter stood before the gate. 

15 And they said unto her, Thou art mad (to enter- 
tain such a thought). But she constantly affirmed that 
it was even so. Then said they, ὃ It is his (good) an- 
gel (or a messenger sent from him). 

16 But Peter continued knocking: and when they 
had opened the door, and saw him, they were asto- 
nished. 

17 But he, beckoning unto them with the hand to 
hold their peace, declared unto them how the Lord had 
(by an angel) brought him out of the prison, And he 
said, 9 Go shew these things unto James, and to the 
brethren. And (then) he departed (from them), and 
went into another place (of more safety). 

18 Now as soon as it was day, there was no small 
stir among the soldiers, (inquiring) what was become 
of Peter. 

19 And when Herod had sought for him, and found 
him not, he examined the keepers (he questioned them 
in a judicial manner), and (when they could tell nothing 
of him, he) © commanded that they should be put to 
death. And (hen) he (¢. e. king Agrippa) " went down 
from Judea to Cesarea (to celebrate the solemnity kept 


prevalent for the preservation of very eminent members of | 


the church, we learn, not only from this instance, but also 
from those words of St. Paul, “I know this shall happen to 
my preservation through your prayers” (Phil. i. 19), and 
“TI hope I shall through your prayers be given to you” 
(Philem. 22). The word ἐκτενὴς primarily signifies extended ; 
but because the fervency of our desire is usually the cause 
that we pray much, or long, for any thing; therefore to pray 
ἐκτενῶς, 18 also to pray fervently and importunately, Luke 
xxii. 14, and ἀγάπη éxrevis is “fervent love,” 1 Pet. i. 22, 
iv. 8. 

5 Ver. 7. 'Bzénecoy αὐτοῦ at ἁλύσεις, His chains fell off from 
his hands.] That some soldiers of Herod, converted to the 
Christian faith, should mark and take away these chains, 
and give them to the bishop of Jerusalem, and that they 
should be kept as a treasure not only through all the Jewish 
wars, but about four hundred years after, till Juvenal, bi- 
shop of Jerusalem, gave them to Eudoxia, wife to Theodo- 
sius the junior, who gave one of them to the church of St. 
Peter's in Constantinople, and sent the other to Rome, is 
a tale of Surius, that smells too rank of superstition to de- 
serve the least credit. 

6 Ver. 10. ᾿Απέστη ὃ ἄγγελος ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, And forthwith the 
angel left him.) When he had done all things requisite 
on his part for his deliverance, and which could not be done 
by ‘Peter, he leaves what was farther requisite to complete 
the deliverance, and render him secure from danger, to his 
own industry and prudence; hereby instructing us, not to 
expect an immediate assistance from God in things he hath 


already put into our power, and given us abilities to | 


perform. 

7 Ver. 12. Συνιδόν re ἦλθεν ἐπὶ τὴν οἰκίαν Μαρίας, And con- 
sidering of the thing, he came to the house of Mary, where 
many were gathered together, praying.| Here note, 

First, That it seems very unreasonable, without any au- 
thority, to change συνιδὼν, “considering,” into σπεύδων, 
“hastening,” either here or xiv. 6, against all the versions 
in both places. 

Secondly, Note, from these words, “the house of Mary,” 
that all the Christians had not then sold their houses, and 
their gonds. And, 

Thirdly, That they had then in those times of peril their 
sacred assemblies in the night, Peter here coming to them 
before day (ver. 18), and yet finding them praying ; whence 


Pliny* makes mention of their ccetus antelucani, “assem- 
blies in the night,” and Ceciliust objects to the Christians, 
nocturnas congregationes, “ their night meetings,” as know- 
ing they were forbidden by the Roman laws; as you may 
see in Cicero, lib. ii. de Legibus, n. 25, 35—37. 

8 Ver. 15. Of δὲ ἔλεγον, ἄγγελος αὐτοῦ ἔστιν, But they said, 
It is his angel.) Here it is acknowledged, that the word 
ἄγγελος signifies not only a celestial spirit, but also a messen- 
ger sent from one to another; as may be proved from many 
other places besides those cited by the reverend Dr. Ham- 
mond ; thus the messengers sent by the elders of Jabesh to 
the Ammonites, 1 Sam. xi. 3, and by Saul through the coasts 
of Israel, ver. 7. 9, are styled ἄγγελοι, “angels: so Saul 
sent ἀγγέλους, “ messengers,” to take David, 1 Sam. xix. 20, 
21, so David sent “messengers,” ἀγγέλους, to salute Nabal, 
xxv. 14. Amaziah sent ἀγγέλους, “ messengers,” to inquire 
of Baalzebub, 2 Kings i. 2; so David saith, Ps. cli. Gr. ver. 
4, he sent τὸν ἄγγελον αὐτοῦ, “his angel,” viz. Samuel, and 
anointed me; and James ii. 25, Rahab received τοὺς 
ἀγγέλους, “the messengers ;” but when it is hence conjec- 
tured, that the import of these words may be only this, that 
some messenger was come from him, to impart something to 
the church; as I have met with none of the ancients of this 
opinion, so is there this plain objection against it, viz. that 
the damsel could only know St. Peter by his voice, or face, 
both which they might believe his angel could imitate, 
whereas they knew a messenger, could he have had oppor- 
tunity of sending one from the prison, could do neither. 


| Since then it was a vulgar opinion among the Jews, that good 


men had their tutelar angels, or at least that angels were sent 
down from heaven about their affairs, they, by this angel, might 
understand either erroneously a guardian angel, attending on 
him, or, agreeably to scripture, an angel sent from heaven to 
acquaint them with something relating to him, in answer to 
their prayers. Here then is no foundation for a guardian 
angel still attending on good men, and had Peter himself 
thought so, it is likely he would have ascribed this deli- 
verance, not to an angel sent from heaven, but to his guar- 
dian angel. 

9 Ver. 17. Go, show these things to James, and to the 
brethren.] That they might bless God for this extraordinary 
answer to their prayers, and might be confirmed by it in 


* Ep. 97. 7 Apud Minut. p. 8. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


for the honour of Cesar), and there abode (during the 
time of that solemnity). 

20 7 And Herod was highly displeased with them 
of Tyre and Sidon (and designed to make war upon 
them): but they came with one accord to him, and, 


having made Blastus the king’s chamberlain their 
friend, desired (by him, that they might have) peace; 
because their country was nourished by the king’s 


country. 

21 And upon a set day (the second day of the so- 
lemnity, appointed in honour of Cxsar,) Herod, arrayed 
in royal apparel (upon which the sun shining gave it 
a glorious lustre), sat upon his throne, and made an ora- 
tion (in the theatre) unto them (ἡ. e. fo the nobles and go- 
vernors which were come out of the whole province to that 
solemnity). 


| was Mark. 


465 


22 And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the 
voice (of him that speaketh, is the voice) of a god, and 
not of a (mere) man. 

23 And "2 immediately the angel of the Lord smote 
him, because he (received this flattery without reprehen- 
sion, as due to him, and) gave not God the glory: and 
he was eaten (and miserably tormented) of worms (in 
his bowels), and gave up the ghost. 

24 4 But (and) the word of God (notwithstanding 
this opposition) grew and multiplied. 

25 And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusa- 
lem, when they had fulfilled their ministry (7. 6. dis- 
tributed the charity sent by the disciples from Antioch, and 
other places, to be given by them to the elders of Jerusalem, 
xi. 29, 30), and took with them John, whose surname 


their faith, and in their expectation of divine assistance and 
protection in their endeavours to promote the interests of the 
gospel. 

10 Ver. 19. He commanded them ἀπάχϑῆναι, to be put to 
death.) So in Hesychius ἀπάγεσϑαι is εἰς ϑάνατον Ἐλκεσϑαι, 
to be carried away to die,” or to be sent away to punish- 
ment, as this phrase usually signifies in the best Greek 
authors, and in Seneca.* 

Ml Kai κατελθὼν ἀπὸ τῆς ᾿Ιουδαίας εἰς τὴν Καισάρειαν, διέτριβεν, 
And going down from Judea he abode αἱ Cxsarea.] That 
it was not Peter, as some imagine, but king Agrippa, who 
went down from Judea to Cesarea, we learn from Josephus, 
who gives us a full account both of this journey and the oc- 
casion of it, informing us that he went down εἰς πύλιν Ἰζαισά- 
osav, “to the city of Cesarea, to perform the solemnity, or 
the games celebrated there every Olympiad to the honour of 
Cesar,” and that “the nobles and governors of the province 
of Syria repaired to that city,” on the same account; that 
“on the second day of the festival he came early into the 
theatre, clothed with a wonderful garment, wholly made of 
silver, on which the sun shining, it cast forth a glorious splen- 
dour” (Ant. lib. xix. cap. 7, p. 678, 679). He farther adds, 
that “flatterers came about him, θεὸν προσαγορεύοντες, calling 
him a god, and that the king οὐκ ἐπέπληξε, οὐδὲ τὴν κολακείαν 
ἀσεβοῦσαν ἀπεστρέψατο, did not repel or reprehend their im- 
pious blasphemy.” 

2 Ver. 23. Παραχρῆμα δὲ ἐπάταξεν αὐτὸν ἄγγελος Kupiov, 
And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, &c.} 
That he was smitten by the Lord immediately on his receiv- 
ing this impious flattery, is evident from Josephus; for he 
saith, that yer’ ὀλίγον “after a while he sees the owl which 


* Piso iratus cm duci jussisset eum, qui ex commeatil 
sine commilitone redierat quasi interfecisset ac jubet duci 


utrumque: ipsum centurionem qui damnatum reduxerat, 
duci jussit. De Ira. lib. i. cap. 16. See Budewus in verbo | 
ἀπάγω. 


was the messenger of his calamity,” that ἄϑροον ἄλγημα, “a 
sudden torment came upon him,” and that thereupon he in- 
stantly tells the same auditors “he must die.” Again, Jo- 
sephus doth not say that he was σκωληκόβρωτος, “eaten up of 
worms,” but he saith he had ἀλγήματα τῆς κοιλίας, “ vehement 
torments in his bowels, which increasing upon him, in five 
days he died,” and they in that time might breed worms in 
him, as he confesses they did in his grandfather. And ex- 
amples of the like exits of the persecutors of the Christian 
faith we have many in church history: thus Tertullian* 
saith of one Claudius Heminianus, one of their persecutors, 
that clim vivus vermibus ebullisset, “when worms broke 
forth of him whilst he was alive, he said, Let no man know 
it, lest the Christians rejoice.” And Eusebius} saith of 
Maximinian, that “ sudden ulcers arose in his fundament and 
secret parts, from which sprung ἀλεκτόν re πλῆθος σκωλήκων, 
an incredible multitude of worms.’ And of the uncle of 
Julian the apostate, who persecuted the Christians, and 
trampled upon the sacred vessels, Theodoret} and St. Chry- 
sostom§ inform us, that he perished by this disease, διαφθερὲς 
γὰρ αὐτοῦ αἰδοῖον σκώληκας ἔτεκεν, “ for his scrotum corrupted 
and bred worms.” An instance like to this we have in 
Pherecydes Syrus, ὑπὸ τῶν φθειρῶν ἀναλωθέντος, “eaten up of 
lice,” for boasting of his great wisdom and his pleasant life, 
though he sacrificed, saith ASlian, to no god at all (lian. 
Var. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 28, Diog. Laer. lib. i. p. 75. 773 see 
Bochart. Hieroz. par. ii. lib. iv. cap. 23, p. 620, 621). So 
also was it under the Jewish state: for of Antiochus Epi- 
phanes we read, ἐκ τοῦ σώματος τοῦ δυσσεβοῦς ἀραζεῖν, that 
“worms sprung out of the body of this wicked man” (2 
Mace. ix. 8, 9), and of Herod the Great, Josephus owns that 
he had τοῦ αἰδοίου σῆψις σκώληκας ἐμποιοῦσα, “a putrefaction 
producing worms” (Antig. lib. xvii. cap. 8, p. 597). 


* In Scap. cap. 3. 
+ Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 8. 
§ Orat. S. Babyl. tom. v. p. 462. 


{ Lib. viii. cap. 16. 


CHAPTER XIII. - 


1 ! Now there were in the church that was at An- 


tioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


1Ver. 1. "Hoav ὁέ τινες ἐν ᾿Αντιοχεῖα κατὰ τὴν οὖσαν ἐκκλη- 
σίαν προφῆται καὶ διδάσκαλοι, There were some prophets and 


teachers in Antioch, belonging to that church.) So Grotius; | 


and indeed Barnabas and Paul might well be reckoned such : 
Barnabas being sent thither by the church of Jerusalem, 
xi. 22, and he and Paul preaching there a whole year, ver. 
26, and being sent by that church to Jerusalem, first, with 
their alms, ver. 30, and about the question determined by 
the council, Acts xv., and the rest being, very probably, some 
of the one hundred and eight, who, being scattered abroad 
by the persecution mentioned Acts viii. 1, came down to 
Antioch (xi. 19); for Niger is by Epiphanius* declared to 
have been “one of the seventy-two,” and Lucius was of Cy- 


* Her. xxx. sect. 4, p. 50. 
Vor. IV.—59 


rene, saith the text; and so one of them that came down to 
Antioch (xi. 20): but to say that either Paul or Barnabas 
were bishops of Syria, as Dr. Hammond doth, is that which 
never was before, nor can with any reason be asserted of the 
apostle of the gentiles, or of Barnabas appointed to go with 
him to the gentiles (ver. 2); nor could he have had any 
temptation to have made the other three there named bi- 
shops, but that he finds them laying on of hands (ver. 2), 
imagining that was for ordination, whereas it was by way of 
benediction on their enterprise only, or to reeommend them 


| to the grace of God (xiv. 26) ; for who ever heard before of 
an apostle ordained bishop, by laying on of the hands of 


prophets or teachers? or of one prophet, teacher, or bishop, 
laying his hands upon another prophet, bishop, or teacher, 
to ordain him bishop? And indeed, if there were so many 
bishops as he hath given us in Judea, Acts xv., in Syria and 
Cilicia here, and so many ordained in all other churches, as 


466 . 


Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, 
and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod 
the tetrarch, and Saul. 

2 (And) *# As they ministered to the Lord, and fast- 
ed, the Holy Ghost said (to them), Separate me Barna- 
bas and Saul for the (peculiar) work whereunto I have 
called them. 

3 And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid 
thetr hands on them, they sent them away (in pursu- 
ance of tt). 

4 ¥ So they, being (thus) sent forth by the Holy 
Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from’ thence they 
sailed to Cyprus. 

5 And when they were at Salamis, they preached 
the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and 
they had also 4 John (surnamed Mark, xii. 25) to their 
minister (to minister to them). 

G And when they had gone through the isle unto 
Paphos, they found a certain δ sorcerer, a false pro- 
phet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-jesus: 

7 6 Which was with the deputy of the country, 
(named) Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called 
for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word 
of God (from their mouths). 

8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by 
interpretation) (from the Arabic word Elim,) with- 
apa them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the 

alth. 

9 Then” Saul, (who also 7s called Paul,) (beinz) 
filled with the (afflatus of the) Holy Ghost, set his eyes 
on him, 

10 And said, O (thow that art) full of all subtilty 


ACTS. OF THE APOSTLES. 


and all mischief, thow child of the devil, ‘how enemy 
of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the 
right ways of the Lord (but plead for and use thy sorce- 
ries tn opposition to them) 2 

11 And now (therefore), behold, the hand of the 
Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing 
the sun fora season. And immediately there fell on 
him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seek- 
ing some to lead him by the hand. 

12 Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, 
believed, being astonished at (the power which attended ) 
the doctrine of the Lord. 

13 Now when Paul and his company loosed from 
Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and (then) 
John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. 

14 4 But when they departed from Perga, they 
came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the syna- 
gogue on the sabbath day, and sat down. 

15 And after the reading of the law and the pro- 
phets the ὃ rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, 
saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of 
exhortation for the people, say on (aéyere, speak it). 

16 Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with Ais 
hand, said, Men of Israel, and ye (Greeks) that fear 
God, give audience. 

17 ‘The God of this people of Israel chose our fa- 
thers (the patriarchs), and exalted the people (descend- 
ing from them) when they dwelt as strangers in the 
land of Egypt, and with an high arm brought he them 
out of it. 

18 And 9 about the time of forty years suffered he 
their manners in the wilderness. 


he saith, xiv. 23, is it not wonderful that St. Paul, in all his 
travels, should never meet with, resort to, or be entertained 
by, any one of them, but only by the brethren at large? Or 
that he should write to the churches of the Romans, Corin- 
thians, Galatians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, before he 
went bound to Rome, and never salute any bishops there, or 
give any instructions to them, or so much as ever mention 
that he had ordained any elders, that is, saith he, bishops, 
there? It is also to be observed, that this only was a tem- 
porary mission to preach to the gentiles, that being the work 
to which St. Paul was called, ver. 2, and of which they give 
an account to the church of Antioch, “declaring how God 
had opened a door of faith to the gentiles,” which mission 
they presently completed, and then returned to Antioch, 


declaring to the church there what they had done in prose- ! 


cution of it (xiv. 26, 27). 

2 Ver. 2. Λειτουργούντων δὲ αὐτῶν τῷ Κυρίῳ, And as they 
ministered to the Lord.) Vain here is the inference of the 
papists from this word, that they sacrificed the mass: for 
λειτουργεῖν in Phavorinus and Hesychius is δουλεύειν, διακονεῖν 
ὑπηρετεῖν, “to serve and minister.” In the Old Testament 
it often signifies the ministry of the Levites, who were not to 
offer sacrifices, as Numb. iv. 23, 24, 26—28. 30. 35. 37. 39. 
43, viii. 22, xvi. 9, xviii. 6. 21. 23. By Chrysostom* and 
QEcumenius it is rendered “ preaching,’ and in profane au- 
thors it is applied to any other work. Thus in Aristotle’s 
Polities,+ men are said λειτουργεῖν περὶ τὰς ἀργὰς, πρὸς τεκ- 
νοποιΐαν, τὰ κατα τὸν βίον, “to minister about government, in 
getting children, and about the things of this life.” 

3 Ver. 4. And thence they sailed to Cyprus.) Where the 
Jews so abounded, that Dio Cassius} tells us, that in the 
time of Trajan «they slew two hundred and forty thousand 
men there;” and Jerome,§ that the Jews “ overthrew Sa- 
lamis in Cyprus, killing all the gentiles there.” 


5 ActroupyovuvTwy, τουτέστι κηρυττόντων, Chrysost. CEcumen. 
in locum. 

+ Lib. v. 1. 7. 

+ ᾿Απώλοντο καὶ ἐκεῖ μυριάδες τέσσαρες καὶ εἴκοσι, διὰ τοῦτο 
οὐδενὶ ᾿Ιουδαίῳ ἐπιβῆναι αὐτῆς ἔξεστιν. In Vita Trajani, Epit. 
255. 

§ Salaminam Cypri, interfectis in ed gentilibus, subvertére 
Judi. Chron. ad an. 19 Trajani. 


4 Ver. 5. Kai εἶχον Ἰωάννην ὑπηρέτην, They had John to 
minister to them.] As the wise men and prophets among the 
Jews had one to minister unto them, so the apostles had also 
those who were their companions and fellow-labourers, who 
ministered to them. So Timothy and Erastus are men- 
tioned among those who ministered to St. Paul, Acts xix, 
99 
5 Ver. 6. A sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name 
was Bar-Jesus.] God having raised up prophets in the 
Christian church, and given the apostles and other teachers 
of the word a power to confirm it with mighty signs and 
miracles; the Jews who opposed Christianity, and laboured 
to turn men from the faith, pretended to be prophets also, 
and endeavoured by magic and enchantments to work mira- 
cles, to cure diseases, and to cast out devils: of their magic 
and enchantments, see Dr. Lightfoot, Harm. of the New 
Testament, p. 95, and of their attempts to cure diseases 
and to cast out devils, note on xix. 13. 

6 Ver. 7. “Os ἥν σὺν τῷ ἀνθυπάτῳ, Which was with the de- 
puty of the country (Gr. the proconsul), Sergius Paulus.] 
The difficulty which some find in giving the name of pro- 
consul to the pretor or president of Cyprus, is solved by 
these words of Valla, that not he only is styled a proconsul 
who is sent to administer a province with consular power, 
but also a pretor or president (Elegant. lib. iv.). 

7 Ver. 9. Suul, who is also called Paul.| Origen, in his 
preface to the Epistles to the Romans, saith, that whilst he 
preached to the Jews he was called Saul, according to the 
name he had among them at his circumcision, Paulum au- 
tem appellatum esse clim Grecis et gentibus leges et pre- 
cepta conscribit, “and that he was called by his Roman 
name, Paul, when he preached to the gentiles.” 

8 Ver. 15. Οἱ ἀρχισυνάγωγοι, The rulers of the synagogue 
sent to them.] In what sense the rulers of the synagogue 
were many, and in what sense but one, see the note on Mark 
Vv. 22, 

9 Ver. 18. And about the time of forty years he suffered 
their manners, Gr. ἐτροποφύρησεν αὐτοὺς, in the wilderness.) Here 
Dr. Hammond thinks it is without doubt that the true read- 
ing is ἐτροφοφόρησεν, “He bore them as a parent doth his 
child,” because so the word is used, Deut. i. 31, where it is 
said, “The Lord ἐτροφοφόρησέ ce, bore thee in this wilder- 
ness as a man τροφοφορήσαι, would bear his son,” and the 


CHAPTER XIII. 


19 And when he had (for their sakes) destroyed 
seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their 
land to them by lot. 

20 And after that he gave unto them judges about 
the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel 
the prophet. 

21 And afterward they desired a king: and God 
gave them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of 
Benjamin, (who with Samuel reigned) “ by the space 
of forty years. 

22 And when he had removed him, he raised up 
unto them David to be their king; to whom also he 
Rv testimony, and said (Ps, Ixxxix. 11), I have found 

avid the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, 
which shall fulfil all my will. 

23 Of this man’s seed hath God according to his 
promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus : 

24 When John had first preached before his com- 
ing the baptism of repentance to all the people of 

srael. 


467 


25 And as John fulfilled his course (7. e. performed 
his office), he said, Whom think ye thatI am? Iam 
not he (i. ¢. the Christ). But, behold, there cometh 
one after me, whose shoes of his (i. 6. the shoes of whose) 
feet I am not worthy to loose. 

26 Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abra- 
ham, and ? whosoever among you feareth God, to you 
is the word of this salvation (which Christ hath brought 
into the world) sent. 

27 For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their 
rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the (im- 
port of a voices of the prophets which are read every 
sabbath day, they have fulfilled éhem in condemning 
him (to that death which procures our remission of 
sins). 

ον And though they found no cause of death in 
him, yet desired they Pilate that he should (might) be 
slain. 

29 And when they had fulfilled all that was writ- 
ten of him, they took kim down from the tree (John 


woman in the Maccabees entreats her youngest son to pity 
her τροῤοφορήσασαν, “bearing him,” 2 Macc. vii. 27. And 
according to this sense the word signifies τὴν τροφὴν φέρειν, “ to 
bring them nourishment,” as God did manna every day, or 
τρόψου δίκην φορεῖν, “to bear them, as a nurse or mother doth 
her child to give him suck,” or bring him up; which in Eu- 
stathius is rpopopopety, Odyss. 8. v. 131. But though this 


makes a very good sense, and very apposite, it seems not | 


necessary ; for, first, Origen* there reads as here, érporoépn- 
σεν, and expounds it ἁρμόζεσϑαί ce πρὸς τὸ ἀσϑενὲς, “to ac- 
commodate himself to the infirmities of his children,’ and 
so the word is used by Cicero ad Atticum,t when he saith, 
τὸν τῦφον pov τροποφύρησον, “ Bear patiently my pride, or 
elation of mind.” And again, Origen,+ citing Deut. i. 31, 
thrice reads ἐτροποφόρησεν, “He bore their manners,” saying 
it signifies ἁρμόζεσϑαί ce πρὸς τὸ ἀσϑενὲς, “to accommodate 
himself to the infirmities of his children.’ Procopius, on 
the words of Moses, saith, that τὸ τροποφορεῖν properly sig- 
nifies τὸν παῖδα δυσχεραίνοντα τρέπειν καὶ μεταφέρειν διὰ συμ- 
ψελλισμῶν καὶ συγκαταβάσεων, “to carry about and appease 
a froward child, by prattling with, and accommodating our- 
selves to, him;” and in the scholiast on Aristophanes rporo- 
φορεῖν is τοῖς τρόποις ὑπηρετεῖν, “to bear with the manners of 
another ;” and so the word is used by Cicero, &c. (See Exa- 
men Millii in locum.) 

0 Ver. 20. God gave them judges about the space of four 
hundred and fifty years.) Grotius and Bishop Usher note 
here, that other copies read thus, κατεκληρονόμησεν αὐτοῖς τὴν 
γῆν αὐτῶν ὡς ἔτεσι τετρακοσίοις καὶ πεντήκοντα, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα 
ἔδωκεν κριτὰς, “He divided to them their land about four 
hundred and fifty years, and after that he gave them judges ;” 
and they begin the time of this computation from the birth 
of Isaac, of whom it is said, “In Isaac shall thy seed be 
called,’ Gen. xxi. 12: from his birth to the children of Is- 
rael’s going out of Egypt was four hundred and five years, 
their stay in the wilderness was forty years, seven years after 
their land was divided to them; these years put together 
made four hundred and fifty-two; and so the apostle saith, 
the space from God’s election of them to the dividing the 
land to them was about four hundred and fifty years. But, 

First, This reading is not owned by Chrysostom, or GEcu- 
menius, or by the Syriac, or Arabic, who all read as we do. 

Secondly, The words seem not to bear this sense, for the 
apostle goes on orderly thus; (1.) God chose our fathers ; 
(2.) he brought them out of Egypt; (3.) he led them in the 
wilderness forty years; (4.) he divided the land to them; 
and therefore it is reasonable to conceive he should go on to 
tell what was done after the division of the land. Moreover, 
the apostle does not say, “ And all these things were done 
in the space of four hundred and fifty years,” but, “He di- 
vided their land to them about the space of four hundred 
and fifty years; which according to this reading signifies, 


* Cont. Cels. lib. iv. p. 210, et Com. in Matt. ed. Huet. 
p. 459. 475. 

ἡ Lib. xiii. ep. 29. 

+ Tom. i. in Matt. p. 459. 475, in Celsum, lib. iv. p. 210. 


he was so long in dividing their land; I therefore prefer the 
other computation, which refers this to the judges, because if 
you compute the years of the judges till Samuel, you will 
find them three hundred and thirty-nine, and the years of 
the tyrants one hundred and eleven, which put together 
make four hundred and fifty. 

Thirdly, Because this computation then obtained among 
the Jews, for Josephus* saith, Solomon began to build the 
temple μετὰ ἔτη πεντηκύσια καὶ ἐννενῆκοντα καὶ doo, “ after five 
hundred and ninety-two years of the children of Israel’s 
going out of Egypt.” Now if you make the time of the 
judges four hundred and fifty, the computation is exactly 
five hundred and ninety-one years; he therefore here, as in 
the following verse, accords with the computation of his na- 
tion at that time, that so they might not except against his 
words: 


Wilderness Ξ3 . Ν᾽ 40 
Joshua. ~ Ε 2 17 
Judges. 3 ᾿ “460 
Samuel and Saul Ω 4 40 
David. . ᾿ 40 
Solomon . ’ a 4 

591 


And yet he saith, ὡς, to show that computation was not 
exact. Some here tell us, that the true reading here is three 
hundred and fifty years; but seeing I find not one copy, 
version, nor father, to countenance that reading, I think it 
dangerous to admit of that solution of this difficulty ; espe- 
cially if we consider that St. Luke continually, both in his 
gospel and in the Acts, follows exactly the computation of 
the Septuagint and of the Jews, as we learn from his insert- 
ing Cainan, Luke iii. 36, his making Saul to reign forty 
years, ver. 21 of this chapter, and from this verse, where he 
accords exactly with Josephus. 

N Ver. 21. By the space of forty years.] So Josephus 
saith, he reigned whilst Samuel lived ἔτη ὀκτὼ πρὸς τοῖς δέκα, 
“eighteen years,” and after his death dio καὶ εἴκοσι, “ twenty- 
two years ;” but though this reckoning seems to have ob- 
tained in the time of Josephus, it is far from being true that 
Saul reigned twenty-two years after the death of Samuel; 
it is rather true, as the Jews conceive, that they both died 
in the same year: so that the words, “forty years” are to be 
connected thus—Until Samuel the prophet, who having 
judged them about thirty years, afterward they desired a 
king; and God, by Samuel, gave them Saul, whose reign 
with that of Samuel’s was about the space of forty years, 
So saith Sulpitius Severus,t Ego arbitror ἃ Paulo etiam 
Samuelis annos sub regis istius etate numeratos, “I sup- 
pose that the years of Samuel also are added to the reign of 
that king by Paul;” as doubtless they were, they making 
together just forty years. 

2 Ver. 26. And whosoever among you feareth God.] So 
ver. 16, that is, the proselytes among you: so Bemidbar 
Rabba on those words of the psalmist, “ Blessed is every 


* Anti. lib. viii. 2. { Lib. i cap. 61. 


468 


xix. 31), and laid Aim in a sepulchre (and they sealed 
the sepulchre, and put a guard upon it, Matt. xxvii. 
66). 

4 But (notwithstanding this) God raised him from 
the dead : 

31 ™ And he was seen (alive) many days of ther 
which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, 
who are his witnesses unto the people. 

32 And we declare unto you glad tidings, (wz.) how 
that the promise which was made unto the fathers (that 
in him should all the families of the earth be blessed), 

33 “God hath fulfilled the same unto us their 
children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again (to be 
a Prince and a Saviour); as it is also 15 written (of 
him) in the second psalm (by God, saying, from the 
mouth of David,) Thou art my Son, this day have I be- 
gotten thee. 

34 And as concerning that (Gr. and that) he raised 
him up from the dead, now no more to return to cor- 
ruption (zs evident, because) he said on this wise, I will 
give you (Jews) the sure mercies of David. 

35 Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou 
shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. 
(Which words cannot respect David himself ;) 

36 For David, after he had served his own genera- 
tion by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid 
unto his fathers, and (hzs body) saw corruption : 

37 But he, (that Jesus) whom God raised again, saw 
no corruption (as to his body.) 

38 4 Be it known unto you therefore, men and 
brethren, that ” through this man (-’s death) is 
preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


39 And by him all that believe are justified from all 
things, from which ye could not be justified by the law 
of Moses. 

40 Beware therefore, lest (for your infidelity) that 
come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets; 

41 Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: 
for 1 work a work in your days, a work which ye shall 
(will) in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto 
you. 

42 And when the Jews were gone out of the syna- 
gogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might 
be preached to them the ™ next sabbath (day). 

43 Now when the congregation was broken up, 
many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed 
Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded 
them to continue in the grace of God. 

44 4 And the next sabbath day came almost the 
whole city together to hear the word of God. 

45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they 
were filled with envy, and spake against those things 
which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blas- 
pheming (them). 

46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, 
It was necessary (by Christ’s appointment, Acts 1. 8) that 
the word of God should first have been spoken to you: 
but seeing ye put it from you, and (by your actions) 
19 judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, * lo, 
we turn (from you) to the Gentiles. 

47 For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, 1 
have set thee (O Chris/) to be a light of the Gentiles, 
that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of 
the earth. 


one that feareth the Lord,” saith, «they that fear the Lord,” 
of φοβούμενοι τὸν Θεὸν, are the proselytes. 

13 Ver. 31. Who was seen many days of those who came 
up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his wit- 
nesses.| ‘These seem to be the hundred and eight mentioned 
Acts i. 15, for these were Galileans, ver. 11, and συνελθόντες, 
«men coming with him,” and men that go in to the apostles, 
ver. 13. 

4 Ver. 33. God hath fulfilled the promise made to your 
fathers in raising up Jesus.) 1. 6. From the dead, ver. 30, 
so as not to return to corruption. For the promise being 
this, that God would “raise up one to sit upon the throne of 
his father David,” Acts ii. 30, and to “reign over the house 
of Jacob,” Luke i. 33; Christ upon his resurrection having 
“all power in heaven and earth committed to him,” Matt. 
xxviii. 18, and being “exalted to the right hand of God,” 
Acts ii. 33, this promise, by his resurrection to that king- 
dom, was fulfilled. 

15 As it is written in the second Psalm, Thow art my Son, 
this day have I begotten thee.| That this psalm belongs to 
the Messiah, and speaks of his dominion and kingdom, ap- 
pears from the preceding words, “I have «set thee, my king, 
upon the holy hill of Sion; Jehovah hath said to me, Thou 
art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” This also is 
apparent from the following words, “I will give thee the 
heathen for thine inheritance ;” and from the exhortation of 
all kings to submit to him (see the note on Heb, v. 5): and, 
by this resurrection and exaltation, he is said to be begotten, 
as being made the first-born from the dead, Col. i. 18, Rev. 
i. 5, constituted “the Son of God with power,” Rom. i. 4, 
and having received a new birth: hence those two things are 
joined, Luke i. 32, “He shall be called the Son of the 
Highest, and God shall give him the throne of his father 
David” (see also Examen Millii in locum). 

16 Ver. 34. In that he raised him up, now no more to see 
corruption, he said (Isa. ly. 3), I will give thee τὰ ὅσια 
Δαβὶδ τὰ mora, the sure mercies of David.] That is, of 
Christ, the Son of David; for that David, both in the lan- 
guage of scripture and of the Jews, frequently signifies 
Christ, see note on Matt. ii., and that here it bears this 
sense, both Kimchi and Aben-Ezra confess, and the follow- 
amg verse assures us; for of this very David it is said, ver. 4, 


« Behold, I have given him for a witness, a leader and com- 
mander to the people ;” and he being thus raised up to bea 
« King for ever,” so as to see no more corruption, the bless- 
ings he confers upon his subjects must be sure and lasting. 

1 Ver. 38. Through him is preached to them forgiveness 
of sins.] i. e. Those sins, from the guilt of which the law of 
Moses could not cleanse the consciénce, and from which we 
could not be justified, i. e. from the guilt and condemnation 
due to us, from which we could not be exempted by the law 
of Moses (see the note on xv. 1). 

18 Ver. 42. Eis τὸ μεταξὺ σάββατον. This phrase doth not 
signify “the intermediate week,” as some conceive, or on 
the second and fifth day of the week, but “on the following 
sabbath 7’ for we learn from the forty-fourth verse, that 
they came not together till the following sabbath. So Jo- 
sephus* speaks of David and Solomon, ἔτι δὲ τῶν μεταξὺ 
τούτων βασιλέων, “and of the following kings of Judah;” 
for there came none between them. 

19 Ver. 46. Kai οὐκ ἀξίους ἑαυτοὺς κρίνετε, And judge your- 
selves unworthy of eternal life.] Or rather discover, or by 
your actions show yourselves unworthy of it: for when our 
Saviour sent his apostles, he bid them, “into what village 
or house soever they entered, to inquire, τίς ἄξιος, who was 
worthy in it,” and to “shake off the dust of their feet” 
against the unworthy (Matt. x. 11. 15); 1. e. against those 
who would not receive their doctrine of salvation, or eternal 
life. This unworthiness, saith the apostle, κρίνετε, you disco- 
ver, by thus contradicting and blaspheming it. his is the 
sense of the word κρίνεσϑαι, viz. to discern, discover, or make 
known, when the apostle saith, he that cometh into the 
assemblies of the prophets, κρίνεται, “is discovered of them 
all,” 1 Cor. xiv. 24, and the spiritual man “discovers all 
things,” ii. 15. 

20 Lo, we turn to the gentiles.| Not from the Jews every 
where; for we find St. Paul still preaching to them in every 
synagogue where he came (Acts xvii. 2): but from those of 
Antioch in Pisidia, to the gentiles there, it being not reason- 
able that the Jews of other places should be deprived of the 
gospel for the perverseness of those here. 


* De Bello Jud. lib. vi. cap. 19, p. 913. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were 
glad, and glorified the word of the Lord (giving glory 
to him for it): and "as many Of them) a8 were or- 
dained to (Gr. earn yore life believed. 

49 And the word of the Lord was published through- 
out all the region. 

50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and honour- 


21 Ver. 48. And ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, as 


many as were ordained to eternal life believed.] These words | 


cannot signify a fixed number of persons absolutely by God 
ordained to eternal life, so that they, and they only, shall 
obtain it, and all others be excluded from it, as upon this 
supposition they must be; for if God, by his ordination or 
decree, hath fixed the number of those whom he will bring 
unto salvation, all they who are not of that number will not 
partake of that salvation. And this is evident from these 
considerations : 

First, That if the reason why these men believed be only 
this, that they were men “ ordained to eternal life ;” the rea- 
son why the rest believed not can be this only, that they 
were not ordained by God to eternal life: and if so, what 
necessity could there be that “the word of God should be 
first preached” to them? as we read, ver. 46. Was it only 
that their damnation might be the greater? This seems to 
charge that Lover of souls, whose “ tender mercies are over 
all his works,” with the greatest cruelty, seeing it makes him 
determine from all eternity, not only that so many souls, as 
capable of salvation as any other, shall perish everlastingly ; 
but also to determine that the dispensations of his providence 
shall be such towards them, as necessarily tend to the ag- 
gravation of their condemnation. And what could even 
their most malicious and most enraged enemy do more? 
What is it the very devil aims at by all his temptations, but 
this very end, viz. the aggravation of our future punishment ? 
And therefore to assert that God had determined that his 
word should be spoken to these Jews for this very end, is to 
make God as instrumental to their ruin as the very devil, 
and seemeth wholly irreconcileable with his declarations, 
that “ he would have all men to be saved,” and “ would not 
that any man should perish.” 

Secondly, The apostle gives this reason why he turned 
from the Jews to the gentiles, viz. because the Jews “ had 
thrust away the word of God from them, and judged them- 
selves unworthy of eternal life” (ver. 46) ; whereas, accord- 
ing to this supposition, this could be no sufficient reason for 
his turning from them to the gentiles; for it was only they 
among the Jews whom God had not ordained to eternal life, 
who thus refused to believe and to obey the word of God; 
and as many among the gentiles as were not thus ordained 
to eternal life must necessarily do the same; and so there 
could be no sufficient cause why he should turn from the 
Jews to the gentiles on that account. And, 

Thirdly, Were this the reason why the Jews believed not, 
that they were not by God ordained to eternal life, why doth 
St. Paul by God’s commission speak here to them thus: 
«Be it known to you, brethren, that by this Jesus is de- 
clared to you remission of sins?” Why doth he add, “and 
by him every one that believeth is justified?” &c. Why 
doth he vehemently exhort them to “beware, lest that say- 
ing of the prophet Habakkuk should be verified of them, I 
will work a work in your days which you will not believe, 
though one declare it to you?” (ver. 38.41.) For could 
God have determined that these very persons should not be- 
lieve to life eternal, and yet commissionate his apostles to tell 
them that remission of sins and justification to life eternal 
was proposed to them? Could it be revealed to St. Paul 


469 


able women, and chief men of the city, and raised per- 
secution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled 
them out of their coasts. 

51 But they shook off the dust of their feet against 
them, and came unto Iconium. 

52 And the disciples were filled with joy, and with 
the Holy Ghost. 


that they could not believe to life eternal, as being not by 
God ordained to it; and yet would he so passionately ex- 
hort them to that faith in Jesus which he well knew, by vir- 
tue of this revelation, belonged not to them, nor could they 
possibly exert? ‘These things seem clearly to evince that 
this cannot be the proper import of the words ; but they will 
very well admit of these two senses: viz. (1.) As many as 
were disposed for eternal life believed: or, (2.) As many as 
were disposed to do it, believed to eternal life. And, 

Tirst, It is highly probable the genuine import of these 
words is this, ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι, “ AS many as were dis- 
posed for eternal life believed ;” for this word τεταγμένος, by 
this very author, is used in this sense to signify a man, not 
outwardly ordained, but inwardly disposed; or one deter- 
mined, not by God, but his own inclination, to do such a 
thing; as when it is said, Acts xx. 13, Paul « went on foot 
to Assos, οὕτω γὰρ ἦν dtareraypévos, for so he was disposed to 
do:” so the son of Sirach saith, ἡγεμονία συνετοῦ τεταγμένη 
ἔσται, “ The conduct or government of the wise man will be 
well ordered, or disposed” (x. 1). Thus Philo* saith to Cain, 
“ Thou needest not fear being killed by them who are ἐν of 
τεταγμένοι συμμαχία, ranked on thy side;” i.e. of the same 
dispositions and affections with thee. And he saith of those 
children who, having had vicious parents, have themselves 
proved virtuous, that they are ἀμείνῳ τεταγμένοι τάξει; 
“placed in a better rank: and speaking of Esau and Ja- 
cob, he represents Esau as fierce, subject to anger and other 
passions, and governed by his brutish part; but Jacob as a 
lover of virtue and truth; and so ἐν τῇ βελτίονι τεταγμένον 
raget,¢ “placed in a better rank of men,” or one of a bet- 
ter temper and disposition; and adds, that Samuel§ was 
τεταγμένος Bei, “one well disposed towards God: so Sim- 
plicius interprets this word; for when Epictetus|| had said, 
τῶν δὲ βελτίστων cot φαινομένων οὕτως ἔχου ὡς ἀπὸ Θεοῦ τεταγ- 
μένος εἰς ταύτην τὴν τάξιν, “If thou hast a desire to be ἃ phi- 
losopher, so retain those things which seem best to thee, as 
being by God placed in that rank ;” that is, saith he,§ ὡς υπὸ 
Θεοῦ προτρεπόμενος ἐπὶ ταῦτα, τὸ yap μέγιστον τῶν ἐκ Θεοῦ due 
ρηθέντων ἀνθρώποις φιλοσοφία ἔστι, “as being incited by God 
to it; for philosophy,” saith he, “eternal salvation,” saith 
the scripture, “is the greatest gift that God has given to 
mankind.’ And to this sense the very context leads; the 
persons opposite to those disposed for eternal life being 
those who, for their indisposition to embrace the offer of it, 
were “ unworthy of eternal life.” 

The second import of which these words are capable, is 
this : That “as many as were well disposed believed to eternal 
life ;” and accordingly we are said to believe in Christ “to 
eternal life,” 1 Tim. i. 16, and “to the saving of the soul,” 
Heb. x. 39, and they who truly do believe are said to do it 
“to eternal life,” because they, by believing, do obtain a 
perfect right to that life, of which they cannot fail but by 
departing from that faith, or suffering it to become unfruitful 
in those works of righteousness which make them meet to be 
partakers of eternal life. 


* L. quod deter. p. 144. 
+ De Prem. et Peen. p. 712, B. 
|| Enchirid. cap. 29. 


+ De Nobil. p. 702, C. 
§ De Temul. p. 203, C. 
q Ρ. 139. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


1 Ann it came to pass in Iconium, that they (viz. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV. 
1Ver. 1. That they went κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ, both together] So 
1 Sam. xi. 11, there were not two of them left qny κατὰ τὸ 


Paul and Barnabas) ' went both together into the syna- 


αὐτὸ, “together ;” 2 Sam. ii. 16, “They fell down xara τὸ 
αὐτὸ, together ;” 1 Kings iii. 18, ἡμεῖς κατα τὸ αὐτὸ, «We 
were together.” 

2P 


470 


gogue of the Jews (there), and so spake, that 2a great | 
multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks (7. e. 
the proselytes of the Jews) believed. 

2 But the (οἱ dé, and that the) unbelieving Jews stir- 
red up the Gentiles, and made their minds (Gr. rose 


up, and made the minds of the gentiles) evil (-ly) affected | 


against the brethren. 

3 Long time therefore abode they (ἑχανὸν μὲν οὖν 
χρόνον διέτριψαν, for indeed they had tarried a long 
time) speaking boldly in (the name of ) the Lord, which 
gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted 
signs and wonders to be done by their hands. 

4 But (then) the multitude of the city was divided : 
and part held with the (unbelieving) Jews, and part 
with the apostles. 

5 And when there was an assault (or twmull) made 
both of (i. e. by) the Gentiles, and also of (by) the 
Jews with their rulers, (endeavouring) to use them 
despitefully (or contumeliously), and to 3 stone them 
(as blasphemers of the law), 

6 They were ware of if, and (so) fled unto Lystra 
and (then to) Derbe (ver. 20), cities of Lycaonia, and 
(then) unto the region that lieth round about (those 
cities) : 

7 And there they preached the gospel. 

8 7 And there sat a certain man at Lystra, 4 impo- 
tent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s 
womb, (and so one) who never had walked : 

9 The same heard Paul speak (-ing the word): who 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


stedfastly beholding him, and 5 perceiving (by his gift 
of discerning spirits) that he had faith to be healed, 

10 Said (¢o him) with a loud voice, Stand upright 
on thy feet. And (having said this) he (the impotent 
man) leaped and walked. 

11 And when the people saw what Paul had done, 
they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of 
Lycaonia, ® The gods are come down to us in the like- 
ness of men. 

12 7 And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, 
Mercurius (ἡ. e. his interpreter), because he was the 
chief speaker. 

13 Then the priest of Jupiter, which (7. e. whose 
image) was before their city, brought oxen and gar- 
lands (Gr. coronels) ὃ unto the gates (where Barnabas and 
Paul were), and would have done sacrifice with the 
people (7. e. he and they would have offered sacrifice to 
them as gods). 

14 Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, 
heard of, they rent their clothes (to show their detesta- 
tion of the fact), and ran in among the people, erying 
out, 

15 And saying, Sirs, why do ye (attempt) these 
things? (seeing) we also are men of like passions with 
you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from 
these vanities (or dead idols) unto the (worship of the) 
living God, which. made heaven, and earth, and the 
sea, and all things that are therein: : 

16 ° Who in times past (since the days of Noah, 1 


2A great multitude, ᾿Τουδαίων καὶ “Ελλήνων, of the Jews 
and Greeks believed.) i. 6. Σεβομένων “Ἑλλήνων, “a great mul- 
titude of Greek proselytes;” for they made a part of the 
Jewish synagogue, and in it are converted to the faith: so 
xvii. 4, and xviil. 4, “ Paul spake in the synagogue at Co- 
rinth,” and persuaded Jews and Greeks ; see also xiii. 42, 
xix. 8.10. Note also, that the second verse is to be put in 
a parenthesis. 

3 Ver. 5. And to stone them.] As blasphemers against 
the law, Deut. xiii. 6. So they stoned Stephen as speaking 
“blasphemous words against the law and the temple,” Acts 
vi. 13. So St. Paul here, ver. 19, and so they attempted to 
stone Christ for supposed blasphemy, John x. 33. And in 
like manner, Josephus saith,* that “ Ananias the high- 
priest delivered up James, and other Christians, to be 
stoned, as being accused of impiety against the law.” 

4 Ver. 8. ᾿Αδύνατος τοῖς ποσὶν, Impotent in his feet.) This 
word ἀδύνατος is frequently used in the Septuagint, for a 
man feeble and helpless; as when Job saith, he was πατὴρ 
ἀδυνάτων, “the father of the helpless,” xxix. 16, xxxi. 20, 
and Joel, iii. 10, 6 ἀδύνατος λεγέτω, “Let the weak say I 
am strong.” 

5 Ver. 9. Seeing he had faith to be healed.] Faith, being 
an act of the understanding, could not be discerned by the 
eye of sense ; this therefore is an instance of that power of 
discerning the inward working of men’s spirits, mentioned 1 
Cor. xii. 10. 

6 Ver. 11. Saying, The gods are come down to us in the 
Lkeness of men.| This was not only the imagination of the 


poets, Homer and others here cited by Grotius, but even 
of their philosophers: for Cicero hence proves the gods 
must be of human shape, because they never appeared in 
any other form (see the note on xvii. 29). 

7 Ver. 12. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and 
Paul, Mercury, because he was ἡγούμενος, τοῦ λόγου, the chief 
speaker.) He is accounted, saith Justin Martyr,t λόγος 
Epunvevrixds καὶ πάντων διδάσκαλος, “the word that is the in- 
terpreter and teacher of all men;” and he is called Hermes, 
saith Philo,$ ὡς ἑρμηνέα καὶ προφήτην τῶν ϑείων, “as being the 
interpreter and prophet of divine things:” he is, saith Por- 
phyry, παραστατικὸς, “the exhibiter or representer of reason 


* Λευσθησομένους παρέδωκε. Antig. Jud. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 


8, 
Ὁ Ap. ii. p. 67. 
+ Apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. lib. iii. cap. 11. 


and eloquence :” he is called Mercury, saith Seneca, quia 
ratio penes illum est (De Benef. lib. iv. cap. 7). 

8 Ver. 13. Ἐπὶ τοὺς πυλῶνας, To the gates.) Not of the 
temple of Jupiter, which was without the city, but the 
gates of the house where Paul and Barnabas lodged; for 
these things were done within the city (ver. 19). Hither 
the priest of Jupiter brought oxen for sacrifice and στέμ- 
para, crowns or garlands, either to put upon the heads of 
Paul and Barnabas, according to the heathen custom of 
crowning their gods, mentioned in Jeremy’s epistle to the 
Jews in Babylon, ver. 9, and especially of offering golden 
crowns to Jupiter, as Brissonius* shows they did; or to put 
on the ox or heifer to be offered: hence have we mention in 
Virgilt of the vitte juvenctim, “garlands of the heifers,” 
where, saith Servius, velatum auro vittisque juvencum, is co- 
ronatum auro vittisque, i. e. “a heifer crowned” with them. 
Atheneus from Aristotle saith¢ this was done, because 
nothing but what is perfect was to be offered to the gods; 
τὸ δὲ crépew πλήρωσίν τινα σημαΐνει, “now to crown signifies 
perfection ;” whence operi coronam imponere, is “to perfect 
a work.” 

Ἤθελε Stew, He would have sacrificed.| Here see, saith 
Chrysostom, the devil’s malice; he would have brought in 
ἀνθρωπολατρείαν divine worship of men by those very persons 
who were sent to convert men from it, persuading them 
again to esteem men as gods, as formerly they had done: 
and how fully he hath done this in the Roman church, 
where innumerable men are worshipped with invocation, 
and even mental prayers, which suppose them to know 
the hearts of the supplicants, and so to have the property 
ascribed to God alone in the scripture, I have fully shown 
in a treatise on that subject. 

8 Ver. 16. Who in times past suffered all nations to walk 
in their own ways.| Not so as to allow of their manners, 
or to leave them without any means sufficient to convince 
them of the error of their ways, and their idolatrous wor- 
ship ; for this he had done so effectually, as to “leave them 
without excuse,” in that “they did not worship him as God, 
neither were thankful” for his benefits (Rom. i. 20, 21). 
But he so far permitted this, as that he sent them no pro- 
phet to instruct them better; and gave them no positive re- 
velation of his will, no written instructions of that way in 
which he would be worshipped, as he had done to the Jews. 


+ Ain. v. 366. 


* De Formulis, lib. 11, p. 249. 
+ Lib. xv. p. 674. 


[ 


CHAPTER XV. 


Pet. iii. 20) suffered all nations to walk in their own 
ways ( syns them no written law, and sending them no 
prophets to instruct them in the true worship of him, as he 
did to the Jews). . 

17 Nevertheless he left not himself without wit- 
ness (lo them of his providence), in that he did good 
(to us all), and gave (Gr. giving) us rain from heaven, 
and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and 

ladness. 

18 And with these sayings scarce restrained they 
the people, that they had not done (7. e. from doing) 
sacrifice unto them. 

19 § And (then) there came thither cerlain Jews 
from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people 
Wann the apostles), and (so they), having "stoned Paul, 

rew fim out of the city, supposing he had been dead. 

20 Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, 
he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day 
he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. 

21 And when they had preached the gospel to that 
city, and had taught many (Gr. had made many disci- 
ples), they returned again to Lystra, and ἐὺ Iconium, 
and Antioch, 


471 


22 Confirming the souls of the disciples, and ex- 
horting them to continue in the faith, and ((elling 
them) that we (Christians) must through much tribula- 
tion enter into the kingdom of God. 

23 And when they had " ordained them elders in 
every church, and had prayed with fasting (Gr. and 
when praying with fasting, they had ordained, &c.), they 
commended them to (the protection of ) the Lord (Jesus), 
on whom they believed. 

24 And after they had passed throughout Pisidia, 
they came to Pamphylia. 

25 And when they had preached the word in Perga, 
they went down into Attalia: 

26 And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they 
had been recommended to the grace of God (by prayer 
for his assistance, Acts xiii. 3) for the work which they 
(had now) fulfilled. 

27 And when they were come, and had gathered the 
church together, they rehearsed all that God had done 
with (ἡ, e. by) them, and how he had opened the door 
of faith unto the Gentiles. 

28 And there they abode (a) long time with the dis- 
ciples. 


10 Ver. 17. Nevertheless he left not himself without a 
witness, in that he did them good, and gave them rain from 
heaven.| From these words it appears (1.) that the giving 
of rain in its season, and of fruitful seasons of the year, is 
even to the heathens a testimony of the divine providence: 
for, this rain coming from the clouds of heaven, and these 
fruitful seasons depending so necessarily upon the sun, 
moon, and other luminaries of heaven, and being so con- 
stantly produced by them, must demonstrate that they 
must derive them from, and owe them to, him who made 
the heavens and the earth (ver. 15), and therefore that 
they ought to worship and be thankful to him for them. 
(2.) These being good things, and such as “filled their 
hearts with food and gladness ;” and being conferred freely 
and constantly on them, who daily provoked him by their 
idolatries and ingratitude, were also a clear testimony of his 
goodness to them, and therefore an assurance to them that 
if they, knowing him by this means to be God, would turn 
from their dumb idols, and worship him as God, they might 
find grace and favour in his eyes, who was so good unto 
them, even whilst they did continue to provoke him: now 
the knowledge of the God that made heaven and earth, as 
the only true God, who is to be worshipped, and whose pro- 
vidence affords us all the blessings we enjoy, and the belief 
that he is well inclined to show mercy to all that thus tum 
to him, and are thus thankful to him, seems to be all that 
God expected from the gentiles, as may be gathered from 
Rom. i. 20, 21. 

" Ver. 19. And stoned Paul.| God permitting this, saith 
Woltzogenius, for the punishment of his sin, in being active 
and assistant at the stoning of Stephen (Acts vii. 58, viii. 1). 

2 Ver. 23. Χειροτονήσαντες δὲ αὐτοῖς πρεσβυτέρους Kar’ ἐκκλη- 
σίαν, And ordaining them elders in every church.] That 
Χειροτονεῖν πρεσβυτέρους is not to choose elders by common 
suffrage, or by lifting up the hands of the apostles, is fully 
proved by Dr. Hammond and Mr. Selden; but then, that 
this constituting elders in these churches was making them 
fixed bishops of those churches, is not proved. 

To clear up this, let it be considered, that in those times 
men received the gift of tongues and prophecy, or those spi- 
ritual gifts which fitted them to minister in the church, 
either immediately from heaven, as the apostles themselves 


i 


did, and so by God himself were fitted and appointed for 
that work; so was it with the hundred and twenty who re- 
ceived the Holy Ghost on the day of pentecost (see note on 
Acts ii. 1), or when they prayed with Peter and John 
(Acts iv. 31), and with St. Paul, who was baptized and 
“filled with the Holy Ghost” (ix. 17); so was it with Cor- 
nelius and his kinsmen (Acts x. 44), for “they spake with 
tongues and magnified God,” even as the apostles did when 
they had received the Holy Ghost; for as they spake with 
tongues μεγαλεῖα τοῦ Θεοῦ, “the great things of God” (Acts 
ii. 11), so did these men speak with tengues, μεγαλοῦντες τὸν 
Θεὸν, “ magnifying God,’ and therefore St. Peter saith, they 
had “ received the Holy Ghost even as we’’ (Acts x. 47, xi. 
17): or else these gifts were given by imposition of the 
apostles’ hands; so when the Samaritans believed, and 
were baptized, that they might have persons fitted to offi- 
ciate in sacred things, the church of Jerusalem sends to 
them Peter and John, who lay their hands on some of them, 
and they “received the Holy Ghost” (Acts viii. 17). This 
being done, the apostles returned to Jerusalem (ver. 25), 
preaching the word to other villages of Samaria, but leay- 
ing the conduct of the church to those gifted men; and 
these seem to be the men who first officiated in all converted 
churches; and wherever we meet with them, we find no 
other persons constituted as bishops, or fixed overseers of 
those churches, as in the churches of Corinth, Galatia, Thes- 
salonica, and therefore have reason to conceive there were 
no other elders constituted here, they being no more neces- 
sary for the churches of Lystra and Iconium than for those 
of Corinth and Galatia. Moreover, we have here only men- 
tion of elders constituted in these churches, not of one dea- 
con placed under them, which shows, these elders were not 
bishops; since, by the rule of Epiphanius, a bishop cannot 
be without a deacon. In a word, these prophetical men, 
though they were officers placed in the church next to the 
apostles (1 Cor. xii. 26), yet were they not fixed ministers ; 
but from what parts soever they come, and wherever they 
are, they take upon them to officiate: so doth Barnabas at 
Antioch, (xi. 23, 24), and the other prophets there (xiii. 1, 
2); and so doth Silas, sent from Jerusalem to Antioch, con- 


| tinue there (Acts xv. 33), and from thence goes through 


Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches (ver. 41). 


CHAPTER XV. 


1 Awnp certain men which came down from Judea | Moses (i. e. so as by that rile to submit to and observe his 


(to Antioch) taught the brethren (of the gentiles), and 


said, ' Except ye be circumcised after the manner of 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV. 
1 Ver. 1. "Edy μὴ περιτέμνησϑε, Except ye be circumcised 


law), ye cannot be saved. 
2 When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no smalt 


after the manner (commanded in the law) of Moses, ye 
cannot be saved.] Here note, 


412 


dissension and disputation with them (Gr. and a dis- 
sension being made among the brethren, and no small de- 
hate or reasoning of Paul and Barnabas against them who 
taught this doctrine), 5 they (of Antioch) determined that 
Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should 
go up to Jerusalem ° unto the apostles and elders 
(there) about this question. 

3 And being brought on their way by the church, 
they (Gr. of μὲν οὖν xponeupSévres, they therefore being 


First, That these persons were of the sect of the pharisees 
(ver. 5), and perhaps they were only the zealots of that sect, 
for we find the Jews of different opinions in this matter, 
even as to men’s admission into their religion ; for some of 
them would not only permit them of other nations, who 
owned the true God, to live quietly among them, but even 
to embrace their religion without circumcision, whilst others 
by no means would permit them so to do. Thus when 
Tzates,* the son of Helen, queen of Adiabene, embraced 
the Jews’ religion, Ananias declared he might do it without 
circumcision, but Eleazar maintained, that it was ἀσέβεια, 
“ great impiety” to remain uncircumcised. And when two 
eminent persons of Trachonitis fled to Josephus, the zea- 
lots} among the Jews were urgent for their circumcision, 
“if they would abide with them;” but Josephus “ persuaded 
the multitude against it.” And this controversy continued 
after they embraced Christianity, some allowing them to em- 
brace Christianity without submitting to circumcision and 
the Jewish law; others contending, that without circum- 
cision and the observance of the law, they “could not 
be saved.” And these were the false apostles which trou- 
bled the churches of Corinth, Galatia, and Philippi, and 
were great enemies to St. Paul, who taught the con- 
trary. 

Secondly, Observe, that circumcision obliged those hea- 
thens which submitted to it to observe the whole law (Gal. 
v. 3); it is the same thing to say, “ They must be circum- 
cised after the manner of Moses” (ver. 1), and to say (ver. 
5. 24), “They must be circumcised, and keep the law of 
Moses.” 

Thirdly, Observe, that they held this necessary to salva- 
tion (ver. 1), and by that doctrine they “subverted the 
souls” of the gentile converts (ver. 24), causing them to fall 
from the grace of the gospel offered to them without circum- 
cision (Gal. v. 4). Now this they did agreeably to their 
common maxim, that omnes preputiati descendunt in ge- 
hennam, “all uncircumcised persons go to hell” (P. Eliezer, 
cap. 29, p. 66). 

Fourthly, Observe, that they who did this went out from 
Judea (ver. 1), and were men going out as from the apostles 
(ver. 24), and therefore St. John saith of them, “They went 
out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John ii. 19). 

2 Ver. 2. They (of Antioch) determined that Paul and 
Barnabas—should go up to Jerusalem, &c.] St. Paul de- 
clares that he went then up to Jerusalem, κατ᾽ ἀποκάλυψιν, 
“according to revelation” (Gal. ii. 2) ; as therefore the pro- 
phets and teachers _ once had before separated Paul 
and Barnabas by rev@ation to preach to some of the gen- 
tiles, and they having fulfilled that work returned to An- 
tioch (xiv. 26) ; so is it probable, that by another revelation 
made to the same persons, they were sent up to Jerusalem, 
as being fittest to convince those of the contrary persuasion, 


by declaring “what God had wrought by them among the | 


(uncircumcised) gentiles,” and his acceptance of them with- 
out circumcision, or the observance of the law of Moses. 
Hence St. Paul tells us, that by what he had declared to 
them (ver. 4. 12), they saw, “the gospel of the uncircumci- 
sion was committed to him, as the gospel of the circumcision 
was to Peter;” because “he that wrought effectually by 
Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, was mighty by 
him towards the gentiles” (Gal. ii. 7, 8). 

3 To the apostles and elders.) Here Dr. Hammond tells 
us they were sent to the apostles and bishops of Jerusalem, 
and to the other bishops of Judea, and so, ver. 22, 23. 28, 
he makes the other bishops of Judea to be a part of this 
council, and for the proof of this he refers us to note J on 


* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 2, p. 685, E. 
+ Vit. Joseph. p. 1007, B. 1010, C. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


sent forth by the church) passed through Phenice and 
Samaria, declaring (to them) the conversion of the 
Gentiles: and (dy this) they caused great joy unto all 
the brethren. ξ 

4 And when they were come to Jerusalem, they 
were received of the church, and of the apostles and 
elders, and they declared (to them) all things that God 
had done with them (¢. e. by them, ver. 12). 

5 But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pha- 


Acts xi., where he affirms that elders signify bishops, but 
does not prove that the elders were bishops of Judea, unless 
it be by saying, elders and bishops ; and therefore there being 
but one bishop at Jerusalem, and yet more elders, the rest, 
excepting James, must be the bishops of Judea. But this 
opinion I have sufficiently confuted, notes on James v. 14, 
1 Pet. v. 1, and indeed it is mere novelty, not supported by 
the authority of any one ancient writer: for though some of 
them say, the names of bishop and presbyter, that is, elder, 
were used promiscuously in the first age of Christianity, none 
of them ever thought or said that the word presbyter or el- 
der, in the New Testament, did always signify a bishop. My 
opinion of these elders is, that they were of the one hundred 
and eight who received the Holy Ghost at the beginning 
with the apostles (see note ! on Acts il.) ; those “who had 
been with Christ from the beginning,” out of which one was 
to be chosen in the place of Judas (i. 21, 22), and of those 
witnesses of his resurrection, which came up with him from 
Galilee (xiii. 21). With these who had thus received the 
Holy Ghost, Peter ranks himself, saying to the Jews, « The 
elders that are among you I exhort, who also am an elder” (1 
Pet. v. 1); and of these James seems to speak to the same 
persons, when he saith, “Is any man sick, let him send for 
the elders of the church” (v. 14) : and perhaps these are the 
ἡγούμενοι, * who had the rule over them” (Heb. xiii. 7. 16) 5 
for Judas and Silas, two of these elders, being prophets, are 
styled ἄνδρες ἡγούμενοι ἐν τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς, “leading men, or go- 
vernors, among the brethren.” ‘That there were any other 
bishops of Judea, I believe not, as finding nothing in anti- 
quity concerning them, but as Christians multiplied, or grew 
up in Judea, though they all still were zealous for the law 
and customs (Acts xxi. 20), and so still worshipped in the 
synagogue ; yet as they saw occasion they sent one or more 
of these prophets or elders, to instruct and confirm them, 
Thus when many Jews at Antioch, “believed and turned to 
the Lord,” upon “tidings of these things, brought to the 
church at Jerusalem,” they sent forth Barnabas, one full of 
the Holy Ghost, that he should go as far as Antioch” (xi. 
21—23). Such also were the governors and ministers of 
church affairs in other places; they who received the Holy 
Ghost at Samaria were to officiate there, and be a nursery 
for other churches of Samaria, which should embrace the 
gospel: such were the prophets and teachers of Antioch 
(xiii. 1), such the elders in every church (xiv. 23), such the 
προιστάμενοι, those that “laboured among” the Thessalonians, 
and “ were over them in the Lord” (1 Thess. v. 12), the pro- 
phets in the church of Corinth (1 Cor. xiii. 14), the spiti- 
tual men in the church of the Galatians (vi. 1, see the note 
there), the men who had the gifts of prophecy and teaching 
among the Romans (xii. 6, 7), and the twelve men on whom 
the Holy Ghost fell at Ephesus, and made them overseers of 
the churches there and in the neighbouring places: for at the 
first conversion of any church, there being none among them 
fitted to teach the Christian faith by their own skill and 
learning, it seemeth necessary they should be fitted and or- 
dained for this work by the immediate afflatus and the mi- 
raculous endowments of the Holy Ghost: and when the 
apostles, who only had the power of giving the Holy 
Ghost, were about to leave the world, they placed fixed bi- 
shops and pastors in the churches. Thus St. Paul sends about 
Timothy and Titus for this work, giving them instructions 
concerning the persons to be ordained. 

Moreover, that these were all elders of Jerusalem, and not 
of all Judea, we may learn because Barnabas and Saul were 
appointed to go up only to Jerusalem, to the Lishops and el- 
ders there about this question (ver. 2), and when they were 
come to Jerusalem, they were received by the apostles and 
elders (ver. 4), and (ver. 6) the apostles and elders came 
together to consider of this matter. Now this meeting being 


CHAPTER XV. 


risees which believed, saying, That it was needful to 
circumcise them (who believed among the gentiles), and 
to command them to keep the law of Moses. 

6 {1 And (then) the apostles and eldess came to- 
gether for to consider of this matter. 

7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter 
rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye 
know how that‘a good while ago (Gr. of days of 
old) God made choice among us (Gr. ὁ Θεὸς ἐν ὕμιν 
ἐξελέξατο, God chose me out among you), that the Gen- 
tiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, 
and believe; (commanding Cornelius to send for me, 
Acts x. 5, and me to go to him with the messengers sent 
Sor me, not making any difference betwixt him and others, 
ver. 20.) 

8 And God, which knoweth the hearts (of all men), 
bare them witness (of his acceptance of them, though un- 
circumcised, by) giving them the Holy Ghost, even as 
he did unto us (believing Jews) ; 

9 And (he) ® put no difference between us and them 
(on the account of their uncircumcision, but supplied that 
by) purifying their hearts by faith (and so making them 
a pure people, as circumcision formerly did us). 

10 Now therefore why tempt ye God (7. e. why dis- 
trust ye the truth of what he hath thus declared, by attempl- 
ing) δ to puta yoke (of obedience to the law of Moses) 
upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our 
fathers nor we were able to bear (7. e. to perform so as 
to he justified by it)? 


473 
11 But we believe that through the grace of the 
Lord Jesus Christ (or through God’s favour to us in 
him) we shall be saved,” even as they (are to be saved 
by it). 
"19 4 Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave 
audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring (in con- 
ae of this point) what miracles and wonders God 
had wrought among the (uncircumcised) Gentiles by 
them. 

13 4 And after they had held their peace, James 
answered (to the question), saying, Men and brethren, 
hearken unto me: 

14 Simeon hath declared how God at the first did 
(by him) visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a peo- 
ple for (the glory of ) his name. 

15 And to this agree the words of the prophets 
(Amos); as it is written (ix. 11), 

16 After this I will return, and will build again 
8 the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and 
Iwill build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up 
(by raising up Christ to sit upon his throne, Acts ii. 30, 
and giving him the throne of his father David, Luke 
i. 32): 

17: That the residue of men might seek after the 
Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is 
called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. 

18 (This he foretold by his prescience; for) Known 
unto God are all his works from the beginning of the 
world. 


not at any festival, and there being no mention of any per- 
sons sent for to come thither from any other places, we have 
reason to believe they were only the elders at Jerusalem, or 
residing there. 

4 Ver. 7. Ye know that, ag’ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων, a good while 
azo God made choice of me.] Not only when he actually sent 
him to Cornelius, but when he promised that by him he 
would lay the foundation of his church, which was to be 
erected among Jews and gentiles (see the note on Matt. xvi. 
18,19). And this is said to have been done ἀφ᾽ ἡμερῶν dp- 
χαίων, “from days of old,” as Mnason is styled, ἀρχαίος 
μαθητὴς, “an old disciple,” Acts xxi. 16, and the first minis- 
ters of the gospel were styled of ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς, “they that were 
from the beginning,” and the doctrine preached to the Jews 
by the apostles is styled ἐντολὴ παλαία, “an old command- 
ment, which they had received from the beginning,” Luke 
i. 2, 1 John ii. 7. 

5 Ver. 9. And he put no difference, οὐδὲν διέκρινε, he made no 
diserimination betwixt us and them.] The argument here is 
plainly to this effect, That God by pouring his Holy Spirit 
on the uncircumcised gentiles, as he had done upon the cir- 
cumcised Jews, had plainly demonstrated that he had re- 
ceived them to his favour, and made no discrimination, as to 
his choicest gifts, betwixt them and the Jews; and that legal 
purification, which seemed wanting to them on the account 
of their noncireumcision, he had fully and abundantly sup- 
plied in “ purifying their hearts by faith;” and therefore, 
saith he, your endeavour to impose upon them these legal ob- 
servances, to render them acceptable to God, after so signal 
an evidence that he accepteth them without them, must be a 
“tempting God,” as that phrase constantly imports a dis- 
trusting or disbelieving him after sufficient evidence vouch- 
safed of his good-will and pleasure (see note on Matt. iv. 7). 

6 Ver. 10. To put a yoke upon the disciples’ necks, which 
neither we nor our forefathers were able to bear.) Though 
these words are, by most interpreters, applied to the numer- 
ous ritual precepts, the costly sacrifices, and to the frequent 
tedious journeys up to Jerusalem, required by the law, which 
made the observance of it difficult and irksome, I rather 
would refer it to that defect that the apostle hath observed 
in it, that it could not “ purge the conscience” from the guilt 
of sin, Heb. ix. 9, x. 1, that it could ‘hot give life, Gal. iii. 
21, that it was a killing letter, leaving them under condem- 
nation, 2 Cor. iii. 7, vi. 9, and so making it necessary for 
them to believe in Christ, that they might be justified, Gal. 
ii 16, and redeemed from the curse of the law, Gal. iii. 13: 
according to those words of St. Paul, Acts xiii. 38,39, «Be 

Vox. 1V.—60 


it known to you, that through this man is preached to you 
forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified 
from all things, from which they could not be justified 
by the law of Moses:” for to this sense the following words 
incline, “ We could not bear this yoke; for we believe that 
by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be save: τὰ 

7 Ver. 11. Even as they.) This is not to be referred to the 
words, “our forefathers,” as if the former Jews expected to 
be saved by the grace of Christ; for whatsoever truth may 
be in it with respect to the ancient Jews, it is certain that the 
latter Jews expected justification, not by faith, but «by the 
works of the law,” Rom. ix. 32, and believed nothing of the 
Messiah, who should die to procure for them remission of 
sins: the controversy here was concerning the necessity of 
circumcision, and observation of the law of Moses to salva- 
tion (ver. 1): this, saith St. Peter, cannot be so, because 
God hath «purified their hearts by faith,” and so prepared 
them by it for mercy and salvation; and as they are to be 
saved by the grace of Christ, so we expect salvation by the 
same grace; and this sense is confirmed from a like passage 
in St. Paul, declaring that “it is the same God who justifies 
both Jew and gentile through the same faith,’ Rom. iii. 30. 
And again, Gal. ii. 15, 16, « We Jews knowing that a man 
is justified, not by the works of the law, but by the faith of 
Christ, we have believed in him that we might be justified.” 

Nor is it any argument to the contrary, that “ our fathers” 
are the nearest antecedent to the word ἐκεῖνοι, “they,” for 
the words “our fathers” are only mentioned accidentally. 
Now it is very common in such cases for the relative to refer 
to a remoter antecedent, which is the subject professedly 
discoursed of: so Acts vii. 19, “He dealt subtly with our 
fathers,” not Joseph immediately preceding, but the “king 
that knew not Joseph :” x. 6, “He shall tell thee what thou 
oughtest to do,” viz. not Simon the tanner, but Simon Peter 
(see the note on 1 John v. 20). 

8 Ver. 16. The tabernacle of David which is fallen down, 
hanepleth.] Hence the Jews called the Messiah, Bar Br ip 
because it is written,* “I will build again the tabernacle of 
David which is fallen down,” Amos ix. 10,11. The most 
ancient way of dwelling being in tents and tabernacles, a 
man’s house or habitation is usually, in the Hebrew language, 
called mischeneah, “his tabernacle,” as you may see in the 
book of Job, and in the prophets; so here the “tabernacle 
of David” is the house and family of David.” 

9 Ver. 17. That the residue of men might seek after the 


* Sanhedr. fol. 69, 2. 
2P2 


474 


19 ™ Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not 
them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to 
God (with the observation of our law and ceremonies) : 

20 But (count it sufficient) that we write unto them, 
that they " abstain from pollutions of idols, and from 
ae and from things strangled, and from 

ood. 

21 (Nor will this liberty be prejudicial to the Jews ad- 
hering to the law of Moses:) For” Moses of (from) old 
time hath in every city them that preach him, being 
read in the synagogues every sabbath day. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


22 Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with tne 
whole church, to send chosen men of their own com- 
pany to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, 
Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among 
the brethren: 

23 And they wrote /etlers by them after this man- 
ner; The apostles and elders and brethren send grect- 
ing unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in 
Antioch and Syria and Cilicia: 

24 Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain (men) 
which went out from us (1 John ii. 19) have troubled 


Lord.) Amos ix. 12. In the Hebrew itis, “ That they may pos- 
sess the remnant of Edom,” who being the greatest enemies 
to Israel, the calling of them must denote the calling of the 
worst of the nations; the Greek version also, which St. Luke 
follows, proves the thing more clearly, as making mention of 
“all nations seeking after the Lord.” 

10 Ver. 19. Wherefore my sentence is, &c.] There be many 
things contained in this chapter, which show the Christians 
then had no apprehensions that St. Peter was by Christ ap- 
pointed as the monarch of the church, or chief judge of 
controversies: for, 

First, St. Paul and Barnabas were sent for the decision of 
this controversy, not to St. Peter in particular, but to the 
apostles and elders of the church in general. 

Secondly, The decretory sentence was given by St. James, 
and not by Peter: κρίνω ἐγὼ, saith St. James, “I judge ;” 
that is, saith Chrysostom, μετ᾽ ἐξουσίας λέγω τοῦτο, “1 with 
authority say this ;” and this determination of the question 
was made by James, saith Chrysostom, ἐκεῖνος γὰρ iw τὴν 
ἀρχὴν ἐγκεχειρισμένος, “because he had the government” (viz. 
of the church of Jerusalem) “committed to him.” 

Thirdly, The letters which are directed to the gentile 
churches, run after this manner, “The apostles, elders, and 
brethren, to the brethren which are of the gentiles in An- 
tioch, Syria, and Cilicia, send greeting,” without any parti- 
cular mention of St. Peter, the supposed judge of this and 
other controversies, and the supposed governor of these and of 
all other churches. Now all these things are an indication, 
that the Christians of those times knew nothing of this 
supremacy of Peter, or of Christ’s appointment of him to 
be his vicar, and the judge of controversies, to whom appeals 
were to be made in doubtful cases. For do any churches, 
which are now subject to the pope of Rome, and do acknow- 
ledge him to be Christ’s vicar, send to the cardinals for the 
decision of their controversies, and make no mention of his 
holiness? Is it their custom, when such disputes as this 
was do arise, to have recourse to them in general, and not 
particularly to the pope? Doth any cardinal take upon him 
to pass the decretory sentence in any question of this na- 
ture? Or, do their letters when they decide such questions 
run after this manner, “ We, the cardinals and bishops of 
the church of Rome, send greeting?” Since therefore they 
who now acknowledge this vicar, neither do, nor by their 
principles can do, as the Christians mentioned in the Acts 
did, it must be certain that those Christians did not own that 
vicar which is now set up by the church of Rome. 

1 Ver, 20. ᾿Απὸ τῶν ἁλισγημάτων τῶν εἰδώλων, From the pol- 
lutions of idols, from fornication, from things strangled, 
and from blood.) Dr. Spencer here rejects all the interpre- 
tations given by others of these words, and then concludes, 
that all these things were forbidden, as being causes, signs, 
and attendants, on the idolatry of the heathens; things of- 
fered to idols, whether meat or drink, being after eaten in 
the idol’s temple to his honour; and so, saith he, were blood 
and things strangled ways of confederacy with demons, and 
of offering the blood, that is the very soul, to them, as 
by fornication they did the body. But (1.) these four are 
plainly reckoned as things distinguished in themselves, and 
from one another, and so are separated by a καὶ, or and, in- 
terposed betwixt each of them; whereas, according to this 
exposition, they are all εἰδωλύθυτα, “ things offered to idols,” 
and much more are they all ἀλισγήματα, “ pollutions of 
idols.” Moreover, the things forbidden here, saith he, com- 
prehend not only rites of fornication, but also of adultery 
and masculine impurity, and all the abominable filthiness 
committed by the heathens in their festivals of Venus, Bac- 


chus, &c., and were all ways of entering into confederacy 
with devils. Now what kind of Christians could they be at 
Antioch, and other places, who were in danger of these 
things, of consecrating things by heathenish ceremonies to an 
idol, and afterward eating them in honour of him? Of of- 
fering blood, and things strangled, or their bodies to fornica- 
tion and adultery, by way of confederacy with devils, after 
they had so solemnly turned from the service of them to the 
worship of the living God, and so had expressly renounced 
all these things in their very baptism ? 

Others think that the true reason why these things were 
particularly forbidden, was to avoid the scandal of the Jews, 
among whom they conversed, and with whom many of them 
still joined in the worship of the synagogue. This is ex- 
plained severa) ways; viz. (1.) that all these things being 
formerly forbidden to the gentiles, who conversed among 
them, and were made proselytes of the gate, though they 
were neither circumcised, nor obedient to the law, they 
thought it necessary, though they remitted to the Christian 
converts among the gentiles circumcision and the observation 
of the law of Moses, they should be still obliged to those 
things, which had been formerly required of all that dwelt 
among or conversed with them, especially such things as 
seemed not to the gentiles forbidden by the law of nature, 
viz. the eating of things offered to idols, of blood, and of 
things strangled, and simple fornication, which was generally 
thought lawful by the gentiles (see the notes on Eph. v. 6, 
1 Thess. iv. 5); and of which even Maimonides saith, that 
“before the law, common whores were not forbidden” 
(Treat. of Wives, cap.1, §.4). I confess it may be doubted, 
whether those which they call « the seven precepts of Noah,” 
were precepts given to the gentiles before the law of Moses, 
though doubtless that of not eating blood was given to them, 
Gen. ix. 4, but then it is sufficient to countenance this inter- 
pretation, that the proselytes of the gate were, as Buxtorf* 
testifies, forbidden these four things. 

Others conceive that these things were particularly forbid- 
den the gentiles, as scandalous to the Jews, because Moses had 
so signally marked them out as things contrary to the holi- 
ness of a people, or to their separation from other nations to 
himself; so, of things strangled, or dead in their blood, God 
saith, Deut. xiv. 21, “Thou shalt not eat of any carcase,” 
i.e. of any thing that dieth alone, or is not orderly slain, 
“for thou art a holy people to the Lord:” fornication is 
declared to be a thing not to be admitted in that common- 
wealth, for it is expressly said, Deut. xxiii. 17, “«'There shall 
be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor any whore- 
monger of the sons of Israel ;”’ the eating things offered to 
idols is forbidden as a thing contrary to the worship of the 
true God; the precept which commands abstaining from 
blood is not only called “a statute for ever,” Ley. iii. 17, 
but God threateneth to set his face against, and to cut him 
off who did eat it, Lev. vii. 26, xvii. 10. These therefore 
being things so solemnly forbidden the whole nation of the 
Jews, either because they were a people “ holy to the Lord,” 
or as things not to be admitted in their commonwealth, or 
as things to be punished with cutting off, or as symptoms of 
idolatry, might for the present be forbidden the gentile con- 
verts, that they might not do things so abominable in their 
eyes ie Examen Millii in locum). 

2 Ver. 21. Μωσῆς yap ἐκ γενεῶν ἀρχαίων, &e.] I cannot 
consent to the interpretation of these words given by Gro- 
tius and the reverend Dr. Hammond, viz. That the Christians 
could not be supposed to contemn the law of Moses, because 


* In voce ger. 


CHAPTER XV. 


yn with words, subverting your souls, (by) saying, 
e must (ought to) be circumcised, and keep the law: 
to whom we gave no such commandment : 

25 It seemed good unto us, being assembled with 
one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our be- 
loved Barnabas and Paul, 

26 (Who are) Menthat have hazarded their lives 
for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

27 We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who 
shall also tell you the same things by (word of) 
mouth. , 

28 % For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost ( falling 
upon the uncircumcised gentiles), and to us, to lay upon 
you no greater burden than these necessary things ; 
(i. δ. these things necessary at present, to avoid the scandal 
of the Jews: viz.) 

29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols (in 
the idol temples), and from blood, and from things stran- 
gled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep 
yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well. 

30 So when they were dismissed, they came to An- 
tioch: and when they had gathered the multitude to- 
gether, they delivered the epistle : 

31 Which when they had read, they rejoiced for the 
consolation (¢t afforded them). 

32 And Judas and Silas, being ™ prophets also 
themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words, 
and confirmed them. 


that law was read in the Christian synagogues every sabbath 
day, as of old was done by the Jews; for, (1.) St. James 
doth not say that Moses was read ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς αὐτῶν, 
«in their synagogues,” but absolutely ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς, “in 
the synagogues,” by which word, not the assembly of Chris- 
tians, but the Jews, is always signified. (2.) He doth not 
say, as Dr. Hammond paraphrases the words, that “ Moses 
was read in their synagogues ὡς ἐκ γενεῶν ἀρχαίων, as from 
former ages,” but that Moses ἐκ γενεῶν ἀρχαίων, “from former 
ages, had those that preached him in every city,” being read 
from old times in the synagogues; which cannot agree to 
the assemblies of Christians which began but a few years 
before. And (3.) the Christians did more certainly and 
frequently read Moses and the prophets on the first day of 
the week, as Justin Martyr testifies, than on the sabbath- 
day, and therefore their reading of him could not fitly be 
restrained to that day. I therefore think with Chrysostom, 
that St. James here gives the reason why they should write 
only to the gentile converts, viz. because there was no reason 
to write to the Jewish converts, they still adhering to the 
synagogue, where Moses was read every sabbath, and so 
this liberty, here granted to the gentiles only, could be no 
occasion to turn them from the observation of the law of 
Moses. 

13 Ver. 28. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to 
us, &c.] Vain is the pretence from these words, that other 
councils may use this preface to their decisions, viz. «It 
seemeth good to us, and to the Holy Ghost.” For the reason 
why the council here assembled use these words, is not be- 
cause they challenged to themselves any infallible assistance 
of the Holy Ghost in their conventions, rather than in their 
dispersions; but only upon this account, because the Holy 
Ghost had by a miracle declared the truth of what they had 
then decreed, that is, by falling down upon Cornelius and 
his friends and kinsfolk, who were Romans, and only prose- 
lytes of the gate at most, and so not circumcised (but obliged 
only to observe the precepts given to Noah, to abstain from 
things strangled, blood, idolatry, whoredom, &c.), I say, by 
falling down upon these gentiles, as he did upon our Lord’s 
disciples, he evidently declared, that without their submis- 


475 


33 And after they had tarried there a space, they 
were let go in peace from the brethren unto the apos- 
tles. 

34 Notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there 
still, 

35 Paul also and Barnabas continued in Antioch, 
teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with 
many others also (that were prophets and teachers there, 
xiii. 1). 

36 : And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, 
Let us go again (see Acts xiii. 3, 4) and visit our 
brethren in every city where we have preached the 
word of the Lord, and see how they do. 

37 And Barnabas determined (or counselled) to take 
with them John, whose surname was Mark. 

38 But Paul thought not good to take him with 
them, who (when they went out before) departed from 
them from Pamphylia (o go to Jerusalem, xiil. 12), and 
went not (on) with them to the work (he had begun, 
xiii. 5). 

39 And the contention was so sharp between them, 
that they departed asunder one from the other: and so 
Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus ; 

40 And Paul chose Silas, and departed (with him), 
being recommended by the brethren unto the grace 
(and favour) of God. 

41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirm- 
ing the churches, 


sion to any farther Jewish rites, the gentiles might be ac- 
ceptable to him, and might enjoy the promise of the Father ; 
and therefore that it was not needful, in order to their ac- 
ceptance with God, to require their submission to the Judaic 
rites. This is the inference St. Peter makes from this 
miracle, when he first saw it, saying, Acts x. 47, “Can any 
man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who 
have received the Holy Ghost even as we?” This was the 
answer he gives to them by whom it was objected, that he 
held communion with the gentiles, viz. Acts xi. 17, “ Foras- 
much as God gave them the like gift as he did to us, who 
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I, that I could 
withstand God?” This was the answer by which the stick- 
lers for the Jewish rites were then silenced; and when the 
question was renewed by them, and it was vehemently con- 
tended that the gentiles must be “circumcised after the 
manner of Moses,” St. Peter proves the contrary, by re- 
minding them of the same instance, declaring, ver. S—11, 
that God, who knew the hearts, bare them witness, that 
without circumcision they were acceptable to him, giving 
them the Holy Ghost, even as he did to the apostles; and 
therefore, by imposing this yoke upon them, they would 
“tempt the Lord,” by a distrust of that which, by this 
miracle, he had perspicuously taught. This being then the 
very reason why they here say, “It seemed good unto the 
Holy Ghost,” it is apparent, that no council can have hence 
any warrant to use the same phrase or preface to their de- 
crees, who have not the like confirmation of their doctrine, 
by a miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost, designed pur- 
posely to confirm their sentence. 

M Ver. 32. And Judas and Silas, being prophets also 
themselves.| That is, saith Dr. Hammond, being two bishops 
of Judea; but if so, why pleased it Silas to abide there still, 
rather than to go back unto his charge? (ver. 34.) Yea, 
why, after so long a stay at Antioch, doth he go along with 
Paul in his travels through Syria and Cilicia, «confirming 
the churches?” (ver. 41). Why do we find him still with 
Paul, ch. xvi., xvii. and xviii., preaching at Thessalonica, 
Corinth, and other places, but not at all returning to his 
see? 


46 


CHAPTER XVI. 


1 Tuen came he to Derbe and Lystra: and, be- 
hold, a certain disciple was there, ramed Timotheus, 
1the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, 
and believed; but his father was a (-n uncircumcised ) 
Greek : 

2 Which (disciple) was well reported of by the 
brethren that were at Lystra and Iconium. 

3 Him (therefore) would Paul have to go forth with 
him (to the ministry) ; and (laying his hands upon him, 
that he might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, 2 
Tim. i. 6, he) took (him) and circumcised him because 
of the Jews which were in those quarters (who would 
not endure to converse with one uncircumcised as they 
might suspect Timothy was) : for they knew all that his 
father was a Greek. 

4 And as they went through the cities, ? they deli- 
vered them the decrees for to keep, that were ordained 
of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. 

5 And so (by their progress, 3 John 7) were the 
churches established in the faith, and increased in 
number daily. 

6 Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia 
and the region of Galatia, and * were forbidden (by the 
afflatus) of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, 
(at that time: 


7 And)After they were come to Mysia, they assayed 
to go into (towards) Bithynia: but the (same afflatus 
of the) Spirit suffered them not. 

8 And they passing by (or through) Mysia came 
down to Troas. 

9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; (Fur) 
there stood (as seemed to him) a man of Macedonia, 
and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, 
and help us. 

10 And after he had seen the vision (I Luke being 
with him), immediately we endeavoured to go into Ma- 
cedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called 
us for to preach the gospel unto them. 

11 4 Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a 
straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to 
Neapolis; 

12 And from thence to Philippi, 5 which is the chief 
(xpury, the first) city of that part of Macedonia (see 
the note on Phil. i. 1), and a colony: and we were in 
that city abiding certain days. 

13 And on the sabbath (day) we went out of the 
city by a river side, ® where prayer was wont to be 
made (Gr. where there was, by law or custom, an ora- 
tory) ; and we sat down, and spake unto the women 
which resorted thither. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI. 


1 Ver. 1. Υἱὸς γυναικός τινος ᾿Ιουδαίας moriis, πατρὸς δὲ "E\Xnvos, 
The son of α certain woman that was a Jewess, but his 
father was a Greek.] The law, saith Grotius, forbade the 
Jewish males to marry with a woman not subject to the 


law, but forbade not a Jewess to marry with a gentile, as | 


Esther did with Ahasuerus; and this, saith he, may pro- 
bably be concluded from the inquisition made by Ezra, of 
this crime, and the remedy prescribed for it, seeing he only 
inquires into those males who had taken strange wives, 
chapter the ninth and the tenth, but makes no mention of 
the women joined to strange husbands, or of their separa- 
tion from them: yet it is certain from Josephus, that they 
esteemed this contrary to their law in his time; for he saith 
that Drusilla married with Felix, an uncircumcised person, 
in contempt of their law; and that this is contrary to their 
interpretation of the law, see Ainsw. in Deut. vii. 3. 

Note also, That the reason why Timothy was not cir- 
cumcised, seems not to have been this, that he was under 
the power of his father and not of his mother; for then 
Paul should not have circumcised him without his father’s 
leave; but because his father being a Greek, he was not 
to be circumcised but by his own choice. Now St. Paul 
being to preach to the Jews in all places where he came, 
as his custom was, could not have used Timothy in that 
ministry had he not circumcised him; he therefore was 
only circumcised, as St. Paul became a “Jew to the Jews” 
for the gospel’s sake, that he might be instrumental to gain 
the Jews. 

I add my conjecture, that it was at or about this time 
that the gift given him by laying on of the apostle’s hands 
iG Tim. i. 6) might be conferred upon him; for seeing 

amabas was full of the Holy Ghost (xi. 24), John Mark 
was συνεργὸς, a coworker with Paul and Barnabas “for the 
kingdom of God” (Col. iv. 10), Silas was a prophet (Acts 
xv. 32), Luke an evangelist, it seems reasonable to conceive 
that Timothy, being taken with him for the same end, should 
be endued with the like gifts. Moreover, in the very next 
chapter, they came to Thessalonica, where Silas and Timo- 
theus were so instrumental to convert them to the faith, 
that he indites his epistle to them thus, “ Paul, and Sylva- 
nus, and Timotheus, to the church of the Thessalonians ;” 
and speaks of him as his “ brother,” the “ minister of God,” 
and a “coworker” in the gospel of Christ, 1 Thess. ili. 2, 
yea as an “apostle of Christ,” and one who was by God 


“put in trust with the gospel,” ii. 4.6. He therefore must 
then have that imposition of hands, and those extraor- 
dinary gifts of the Spirit, which fitted him for the ministry ; 
and yet this being the first time that St. Paul met with 
him, he could not have them by imposition of his hands 
before. 

2 Ver. 4. And they delivered to them to keep, τὰ δόγματα 
τὰ κεκριμένα ὑπὸ τῶν ἀποστύλων καὶ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, the de- 
crees ordained by the apostles and elders that were at Jeru- 
salem.]| Here observe, that though it be said, xv. 22, that it 
seemed good to the apostles and elders, with the whole 
church, to send men to Antioch; and though the proem of 
the decree runs thus, “The apostles, and the elders, and the 
brethren,” write to the churches of Antioch, &c., ver. 22, 23, 
yet the decrees were made, not by the brethren, but only by 
the apostles and elders. Thus, in like manner, the epistle 
of Clemens begins thus, “ The church of Rome to the church 
of the Corinthians.” 

3 Ver. 6. They were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to 
preach the word in Asia.) viz.'T'o preach it there at that 
time, not because that province belonged to St. John; for 
St. Paul preached there himself three years (xx. 31), and 
seven years after he leaves Timothy to correct the dis 
orders that were then among them: in all which time we 
hear not one word of St. John’s being there: nor, (2.) be- 
cause those of Asia Minor were not disposed to receive 
the gospel; for the next year they do receive it; but be- 
cause the Lord would hasten them to a new work which 
they had not yet begun, viz. to preach to a Roman colony 
(ver. 12. 21). 

4 Ver. 11. Loosing from Troas we came.) Here Cicu- 
menius notes, that this being the first time that St. Luke 
speaks in the plural number, his travels with St. Paul must 
begin from this time. Ἷ 

5 Ver. 12. Ἤτις ἐστὶ πρώτη τῆς μερίδος τῆς Μακεδονίας πόλις, 
κολώνια, Which is the first city of that part of Macedo- 
nia, which is a colony.| Not the chief city or metropolis 
of Macedonia, for that was Thessalonica; but the first city, 
which was a colony, which they who passed through the 
gulf of Strymon into Asia came unto (see the note on 
Phil. i. 1). 

8 Ver. 13. οὗ ἐνομίζετο προσευχὴ εἶναι, Where prayer was 
wont to be made.] Or rather, Where a house of prayer, for 
the Jews and proselytes, was allowed to be hy the law, or 
was accustomed to be; for νομίζεται signifies sometimes 
εἴθισται, it ts accustomed, or usual; 50 νομίζεσϑαι γυναῖκας ποὰ- 


CHAPTER XVI. 


14 4 And acertain woman named Lydia, a seller of 
purple, (formerly) of the city of Thyatira, which wor- 
arr (the true) God, heard us: 7 whose heart the 
Lord (so far) opened, that she attended unto the things 
which were spoken of (7. e. by) Paul. 

15 And when she (and those of her houschold, were 
inslructed in the Christian faith, and in the nature of the 
baplism required by it, she) was baptized, and her hous- 
hold, (then) she besought us, saying, If ye have judged 
me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and 
abide there. And ὃ she constrained (¢. 6. was instant 
with) us (so to do). 

16 4 And it came to pass, as we went to (ihe house 
of ) prayer, (that) a certain damsel possessed with 5 a 
spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters 
much gain by soothsaying (¢. 6. by telling of strange 
things) : 


a ι 


477 


17 The same (damse/) followed Paul and us, and 
cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most 
high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. 

18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being 

ieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee 
in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And 
he came out the same hour. 

19 ¢ And when her masters saw that the hope of 
their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and 
drew them into the marketplace unto the rulers, 

20 And brought them to the magistrates (7. e. the 
captains of the bands of Roman soldiers), saying, 
These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our 
city, 

21 And teach customs, which are not lawful for 
us to receive, neither to observe, being (a colony of the) 
Romans. 


λας ἔχειν, in Herodotus, is “to have customarily more wives;” 
γυμνοὺς εἰσιέναι νομίζεται, in Aristophanes, Nub. i. 6, “It 
is customary to come in naked;’’ sometimes it signifies, 
saith Phavorinus, νενομισμένον ἐστὶ, “it is by law established,” 
as when Aristophanes saith, Nub. iv. 3, καὶ μὴν νενόμισταί 
ye, *For so it is by law established ;” and iii. 3, ἡ σωφροσύνη 
νενόμισται, “ Modesty is by law established :”’ many instances 
of both these senses may be found in Stephanus. That 
προσευχὴ signifies an oratory, or a house of prayer, hath 
been noted on Luke vi. 12, and proved from the testimonies | 
of Philo and Josephus. The synagogues, or oratories, say 
the Jewish writers, were often nyqz3 in the fields, and some- 
times near rivers, as here, because of greater purity, saith 
Philo ; and because perhaps the laws would not permit them 
to exercise a strange religion within the city (see Vitringa 
de Synag. Vet. lib. i. par.i. cap. 11). Accordingly Epipha- 
nius saith," that this very place proves that the Jews had 
oratories out of the cities, and that the Samaritans also 
had the like two miles from Sychem. 

7 Ver. 14. "Hs ὁ Κύριος διήνοιξε τὴν καρδίαν, προσέχειν, Whose 
heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by 
Paul.] To “open the ear,” or “ the heart,” is a phrase used 
to signify the rendering any person willing or inclined to any 
thing. So Ps. xi. 7, “Mine ears hast thou opened,” i. 6. 
«Thou hast inclined me to hearken to thy commandments,” 
Chald. ; for so it follows, “Then said I, Lo, I come do to thy 
will:” so 1 Chron. xvii. 15, ἤνοιξας τὸ ods, Thou hast opened 
the ear of thy servant to build thee a house.” This God is 
sometimes said to do by awakening men by his afflicting 
hand: so Job xxxvi. 8. 10, “If they be bound in fetters, 
and holden with cords of affliction, he openeth their ears 
to discipline,” ver. 10, and ver. 15, “ He openeth their cars 
in oppression :” and sometimes he doth it by the preaching 
of the word; for as they who are said to be taught by the 
word (see note on John vi. 45), or the example of God (see 
note on 1 ᾿ 655, iv. 9), are said to be “taught of God,” 
so they whe have their hearts affected with it, and opened 
by it, may be said properly enough to have their hearts 
opened by him. And here it deserveth to be noted, (1.) 
that the Lord is said to open the heart of Lydia, not to 
believe, but προσέγειν, “to attend to the things spoken by 
Paul,” viz. to weigh and seriously to consider of the great- 
ness of the blessings promised to believers, remission of sins 
and eternal life; and that attention of hers produced this 
faith in her. So the Lord represents himself as knocking at 
the door of men’s hearts (Rev. iii. 20), i. e. by the preachers 
of his word, attended with the incitations of his Holy Spirit, 
but entering only when men open their hearts to receive him. 
And, lastly, Woltzogenius well notes, that if, in a place 
where no example of faith had been given, no name of 
Christ had been preached, some extraordinary assistance 
was vouchsafed towards the conversion of this woman, this 
single instance, in a case so extraordinary, must not be 
looked upon as a thing absolutely necessary in all cases. 
Tn a word, either she only was ἄξια, “ worthy,” i. e. prepared, 
disposed, and fitted to receive this influx; gr if it were ab- 
solutely necessary that she might believe, and yet she alone, 
though no more fitted and disposed for it than the rest, re- 


* Her. Ixxx. p. 1067, 1068, 


ceived it, the other auditors, for want of this extraordinary 
influence, must lie under a necessity of not believing, and so 
it could not be blameworthy in them that they did not 
believe (see note on Matt. x. 11). 

8 Ver. 15. Παρεβιάσατο ἡμᾶς, She constrained us.] i. 6. By 
her urgent desires and pressing entreaties; so Gen. xix. 3, 
« Lot κατεβιάζετο αὐτοὺς, constrained” the angels to come to 
his house; and Jacob ἐβιάζετο “ constrained” Esau to re- 
ceive his gift. So when Saul would not eat, κατεβιάζοντο 
αὐτὸν, “his servants and the woman constrained him” (1 
Sam. xxviil. 25): so it is said of Christ, that the two dis- 
ciples παρεβιάζοντο αὐτὸν, “constrained him to go in with 
them,” Luke xxiv. 29. 

9 Ver. 16. Πνεῦνα πύθωνος, A spirit of divination.] For 
Hesychius, Suidas, and Phavorinus agree in this, that 
Python is δαιμόνιον μαντικὸν, “a spirit that divined, or fore- 
told things to come.” In the temple of Apollo, who was 
called Pytho, the organ of this miracle was always a woman, 
who, sitting on her brazen tripos, received her enthusiasm ἃ 
secretis; their god, as Origen saith,* being delighted in 
nothing more ἢ τοῖς κύλποις τῶν γυναικῶν, than in those parts; 
and the woman being thusf filled with the spirit, and re- 
taining in memory the phantasms raised by the agitation 
of the demon, did τὸ ἐσόμενον προαγορεύεσϑοι, “ foretell what 
would be” to those that inquired of her, as did the Python- 
ess here; she also delivered her answers¢+ “with a low 
voice as out of her belly,” and was hence styled ventriloqua, 
and ἐγγαστρίμαντις ; and because others who pretended to 
prophesy did also so, that if their answers were not true 
it might be imputed to men’s not hearing well what they 
had uttered; hence these diviners are by the Septuagint not 
only styled ἐγγαστρίμυθοι, “ speakers out of the belly” (Lev. 
xix. 31, xx. 6, Deut. xviii. 11, 1 Sam. xxviii. 3. 7—9, 1 
Chron. x. 13, 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6, Isa. viil. 19), but also said 
to “speak out of the ground” (Isa. xix. 3). 

10 Ver. 21. Which it is not lawful for us to receive, being 
Romans.) For though there was as yet no express law of 
the senate or the emperor against the Christians, yet was 
there an old law of the Romans, forbidding them, aut novos 
deos aut alienigenas colere,§ “either to worship new gods, 
or the gods of other nations ;” and requiring them to wor- 
ship the gods κατὰ τὰ πάτρια, “of their own country,” 
from which Christianity dissuaded them, not suffering any 


* Cont. Celsum, lib. vii. p. 335. 

uf Πύϑωνας, τὰς τῷ πνεύματι πύϑωνος ἐνθοῦσιώσας, φαντασίαν 
μνήσεως παρεχόντας τῇ τοῦ δαιμονίου περιφορᾶς. Suidas. 

¢ Πύθων 6 ἐγγαστρίμυϑος, ἢ ἐγγαστρίμαντι. Hesych. Pha- 
vor. EiinSes yap ἐστι--------οἴεσθαι τὸν Θεὸν αὐτὸν ὥσπερ τοὺς ἐγγα- 
στριμύξους εὑρύκλεας πάλαι νυνὶ πύϑωνας προσηγορευομένους ἐνδυὸ- 
μεννο cis τὰ σώματα προφητῶν ὑποφϑδεγγεῖσθαι τοῖς ἐκίνων σόλασιε 
καὶ φωνῆς χρύμενον ὀργάνοις. Plutarch. de Defect. Orac. p. 414. 

§ Separatim nemo habessit deos, neve novos sive advenas, 
nisi publicé adscitos. Divos, et eos qui celestes semper 
habiti, colunto, et ollos quos endo ceelo merita locaverunt. 
Cicero de Leg. lib. ii. n. 14 et n. 27. Deos aut novos aut 
alienigenas coli confusionem habet religionum: ritus fami- 
lie patrumque servanto, Ibid. 

| Omnes enim religione moventur, et deos patrios sibi re- 
tinendos arbitrantur. Orat.v. in Verrem. Τὸ μὲν ϑεῖον αὐτός 


478 


22 And the multitude rose up together against 
them: and the 1! magistrates rent off their clothes, and 
commanded to beat them. 

23 And when they had laid many stripes upon them, 
they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep 
them safely : 

24 Who, having received such a charge, thrust them 
into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the 
stocks. 

25 4 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and 
sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. 

26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so 
that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and 
immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s 
bands were loosed. 

27 And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his 
sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out 
his sword, 15 and would have killed himself, supposing 
that the prisoners had been fled (and so he must have 
borne the punishment due to them). 

28 But Paul (perceiving this by the Spiril) cried out 
with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we 
are all here. 

29 Then he called for a light, and sprang in, 
and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and 
Silas, 

30 And brought them out (of the inner prison), 
and said, Sirs, (J, by this miracle, am induced to be- 
lieve you are men sent to show unto us the way of sal- 
vation, ver. 17,) 15. what (therefore) must I do to be 
saved ? 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved, and thy house ( for that faith 
will bring thee and them into the way of salvation). 

32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, 
and to all that were in his house. 

33 And he took them the same hour of the night, 
and washed their stripes; and "6 was baptized, he and 
all his (house), straightway. 

34 And when he had brought them into his house, 
he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God 
with all his house. 

35 And when it was day, the magistrates sent the 
serjeants, saying, Let those men go. 

36 And the keeper of the prison told this saying 
to Paul, (viz.) The magistrates have sent to let you 
go: now therefore depart, and go in peace. 

37 But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us 
openly (and) uncondemned, being Romans, and have 
cast us into prison; and now do they (think to) thrust 
us out privily ? nay verily; but let them come them- 
selves and fetch us out. 

38 And the serjeants told these words unto the ma- 
gistrates: and they feared, when they heard that they 
were Romans. 

29 And they came and besought them, and brought 
them out, and desired them to depart out of the 
city. 

40 And they went out of the prison, and entered 
into the house of lydia: and when they had seen 
the brethren, they comforted them, and departed 
(thence). 


of them to worship the gods of their fathers, but requiring 
them to turn “from those dumb idols to the living God” 
(1 Thess. i. 10) ; and hence St. Paul speaks thus to those of 
Lystra, “ We preach to you, that ye should turn from these 
vanities to the living God, who made heaven and earth” 
(xiv. 15). 

N Ver. 22. The magistrates rent off their clothes.) 1. e. 
The clothes of Paul and Silas; for so it was the custom not 
only among the Jews, as Dr. Hammond here notes, but 
among the Roman magistrates, such as these were, to com- 
mand the lictors, τὴν ἐσθῆτα καταῤῥῆξαι, τοῖς ῥάβδοις τὸ σῶμα 
ξαίνειν, “to rend open the clothes of the criminal, and to 
beat his body with rods,” as Grotius here notes. The Ro- 
man magistrates, saith Brissonius, nudari et spoliari homi- 
nem, virgasque expediri jubent, “command him to be made 
naked, and spoiled of his clothes,” and the lictors «to be 
ready with their rods;” and this, saith he, in Plutarch, is 
ἐσθῆτα παρασχίσα:, “to rend his garments” (De Formulis, 
lib. v. p. 481). 

12 Ver. 27. “Eyc\Xev ἑαυτὸν ἀναιρεῖν, He was about to kill 
himself.| Selfmurder being common among the Greeks* 


τε ctbov κατὰ τὰ πάτρια, Kat τοὺς ἄλλους τιμᾶν ἀνάγκαζε. Me- 
cen. ad August. apud Dion lib. lii. Vide Liv. lib. xxxix. 
cap. 16. 

* Sapiens non dubitat, si ita melius sit, de vita migrare. 
Torquatus apud Cic. de Fin. Bon. lib. i. Εὐλόγως τὸ ψασὶ ἐξά- 


and Romans, allowed by all philosophers, and practised by 
most of them, to avoid, or to “deliver themselves from any 
misery they feared, or laboured under:” this gaoler there- 
fore would have done it for fear of a severer punishment, 
they who let prisoners escape being to suffer the punish- 
ment they had deserved, L. ad commentariensem cap. de 
custodia reorum, saith Grotius. 

8 Ver. 30. What shall I do ἵνα σωθῶ, that Imay be saved 2] 
Grotius saith here, that he had conceived some hope of a 
better life from tradition and the doctrine of the philosophers ; 
T rather think he spake thus to them, as knowing, or con- 
ceiving from the words of the Pythoness, they were ap- 
pointed to show to others the way of salvation. 

4 Ver. 33. He was baptized, he and all his.] St. Chry- 
sostom here notes, that this goaler was that Stephanas of 
whom St. Paul saith, «I baptized also the household of Ste- 
phanas” (1 Cor. i. 16); but if so he must have come from 
Corinth, or some other part of Achaia, and have settled at 
Philippi, and afterward have returned thither again ; for the 
Stephanas there mentioned by St. Paul, was “the first-fruits 
of Achaia” (1 Cor. xvi. 15), and an eminent person at Co- 


rinth (ver. 17). . 


yew ἑαυτὸν τοῦ βίου τὸν σοφὸν Ka'v ἐν σκληροτέρα γίγνεται ἀλγηδόνις 
Laert. de Sto. in Zeno. lib. vii. p. 195. Zeno, Democritus, 
Cleanthes, Aristotle, Menippus, Metrocles, Empedocles, 
Pythagoras, Cato. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis | 


and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was | 


a synagogue of the Jews: 
21'And Paul, as his manner was (where he found 


synagogues of the Jews), went in unto them, and three 
sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scrip- 
tures, 

3 Opening and alleging (Gr. explaining and setting 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII. 


1Ver 2. And Paul, κατὰ τὸ εἰωθὸς, as his manner was, 
went into them, and three sabbath-days reasoned with them.] 
Here we learn, (1.) that St. Paul was not restrained from 
preaching to the Jews by his being an apostle of the gen- 
tiles ; for as the gospel was the power of God through faith 


to the salvation of the “ Jews first, and also of the gentiles,” 
so Paul in preaching of it testifies to the Jews, and also to 
the Greeks, “repentance towards God, and faith in our 
Lord Jesus Christ” (xx. 21); and wheresoever he comes, 
his manner is to go first into a synagogue of the Jews, and 


to preach to them (Acts xiii. 5, 14. 42, xiv. 1, xvi. 15, xvii. 
| 10, xviii. 4. 19, xix. 8). At the beginning of his conversion 


CHAPTER XVII. 


before their eyes this doctrine), that Christ must needs 
have suffered, and risen (Gr. that it behoved Christ to 
suffer, and to rise) again from the dead; and (saying) 
that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ (Gr. 
that he is Christ the Saviour whom I declare to you). 

4 And some of them believed, and consorted with 
Paul and Silas; and (a/so) ? of the devout Greeks a 
great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. 

5 {5 Butthe Jews which believed not, (being) moved 
with envy (or zeal), took unto them certain lewd fel- 
lows of the baser sort (or wicked men loitering in the 
market), and gathered a company, and set ( gathering 
a company they set) all the city on an uproar, and as- 
saulted (Gr. assaulting) the house of Jason, and (they) 
sought to bring them (Paul and Si/as) out to the peo- 
ple (to be the objects of their rage). 

6 And when they found them not, they drew Jason 
and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying 
(out), 5 These that have turned the world upside down 
(i. e. unsettled the world ) are come hither also ; 

7 Whom Jason hath received: and 4 these all do 
(what is) contrary to the decrees of Cesar, saying that 
there is another king (besides him, even) one Jesus. 

8 And they troubled the people and the rulers of the 
city, when they (or who) heard these things. 

9 And when they had taken security of Jason, and 
of the other (ver. 6, fo answer lo the charge laid against 
them), they let them go. 


479 


10 4 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul 
and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming ‘hither 
went into the synagogue of the Jews. 

11 5 These were more noble than those in Thessalo- 
nica, in that they (Gr. they of them thal) received the 
word with all readiness of mind, and searched (Gr. 
searching) the scriptures daily, (to Anow) whether those 
things were so (as Paul had said ). 

12 Therefore many of them (i.e. those Jews) believed ; 
also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of 
(the) men (which were sv), not a few. 

13 But when the Jews of Thessalonica had know- 
ledge that the word of God was preached of (by) Paul 
at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the 
people (against him). 

14 And then immediately the brethren sent away 
Paul to® go as it were to the sea (that so his persecutors 
might miss of him): but Silas and Timotheus abode 
there still. 

15 And (bud) they that conducted Paul bronght him 
unto Athens (by dand): and receiving a commandment 
(directed) unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him 
(thither) with all speed, they departed. 

16 § Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, 
his spirit was stirred (Gr. exasperated) in him, when 
he saw the? city wholly given to idolatry (Gr. full of 
idols). 

i? Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the 


we find him preaching Christ in the synagogues (ix. 20), | 
and throughout all the region of Judea (xxvi. 20), his com- | 
mission authorizing him to “testify what he had seen and 
heard to all men” (xxii. 15), to the people and to the gen- 
tiles (xxvi. 17), to the gentiles and to the children of Is- 
rael (ix. 15), which is sufficient to confound that distine- 
tion of provinces which some have imagined among the 
apostles. 

Moreover it is observable, that Paul enters into their sy- 
nagogues, and reasons with, or preacheth to, them, only on 
their sabbath-days; for as here it is said, “ He reasoned with 
them three sabbath-days ;” so, xiii. 14, he enters into the 
synagogues “on the sabbath-day,” and, ver. 42, the gentiles 
desire him to preach to them “the next sabbath-day,” and, 
ver. 44, almost all the whole city were assembled “on the 
next sabbath-day ;” xvi. 13, he goes out of Philippi to a 
synagogue “on the sabbath-day,” and xviii. 4, he discourses 
in the synagogue “every sabbath-day,” which seems to in- 
timate, that, whatever they did in Jerusalem, or in Judea, 
yet in the synagogues out of Judea they did not ordinarily | 
meet for religious worship on the second and fifth days of 
the week; for otherwise why is it that St. Paul, who rea- 
soned “ daily in the school of Tyrannus,” xix. 9, should only 
go to the synagogues of the Jews to reason with them “on 
the sabbath-day ?”” 

2 Ver. 4. Τῶν τε σεβομένων Ἑλλήνων---γυναικῶν τε τῶν mpi 
τῶν, Of the devout Greeks, and of the chief women.] So ver. | 
12, and xiii. 50. That by “the devout Greeks” we are to 
understand the proselytes among the Greeks, is evident, 
because they -are so called, ver. 12, and are distinguished 
from the Jews, ver. 17, xiv. 1, xvi. 14, xxiii. 4. They were 
proselytes, not of justice, i. 6. such as received circumcision, | 
and observed the law of Moses, but only proselytes of the | 
gate, who owned the true God of Israel, and went up to 
worship him at their feasts (John xii. 20, Acts viii. 27), and 
who were permitted to read the scriptures, as the eunuch 
did, and to hear them read in the synagogues, otherwise they 
could not have heard Paul there, and much less could they 
have compared what he said with the writings of the pro- 
phets, as we find they did, ver. 11, 12. 

As for “the chief women,” we learn from Josephus,* that 
the Jews, in many places where they dwelt, prevailed upon 
many of them, either wholly to embrace their religion, or 


* De incolis Damasci dicit eos ἃ Judwis occidendis ab- 
stinuisse, eo quod ἐδεῤοίκασαν τὰς ἑαυτῶν γυναῖκας ἁπάσας πλὴν 
ὀλίγων ὑπηγμένας τῇ ᾿Ιουδαϊκῇ θρησκείᾳ. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. 
cap. 41. | 


to become proselytes of the gate, and many of these be- 
came Christian converts (see more of this in the note on 1 
Pet. i. 1). 

3 vee O dvacrardcavres, They who disturb the world.) 
i.e. So as to unsettle things and bring them into confusion; 
for this they conceived the introduction of new gods tended 
to, as we learn from the words of the consuls* in Livy, 
and the Roman laws (see the note on xvi. 21). 

4 Ver. 7. These all do contrary to the decrees of Czsar, 
saying, There is another king.| This, saith Grotius, was 
contrary to the decree of Casar, because the senate first, 
and afterward the emperor, suffered none to be called kings 
without their permission. 

5 Ver. 11. These were εὐγενέστεροι more noble, &c.] The 
Jews looked upon themselves not only as of free but noble 
birth, as being of the seed of Abraham (see the note on 
1 Cor.i.28). They are, saith Philo,t in the opinion of their 
calumniators, βαρβαρικοὶ, “ barbarians, but in truth ἐλεύϑεροι 
καί εὐγενεῖς, they are free, and of noble birth ;” here therefore 
St. Luke shows them wherein their true nobility consisted ; 
viz. in such a disposition of the soul as inclined them to 
attend to the doctrine of the gospel. 

6 Ver. 14. To go as it were to the sea.) Words being de- 
signed to represent our minds to others, we cannot deceive 
them with ambiguous words without acting contrary to the 


| nature of them; but motions having no determinate signifi- 


cation, to use them so as to consult our safety, in such a 
motion as may deceive our enemies and secure us, hath no- 
thing in it blameworthy. 

7 Ver. 16. When he saw the city κατείδωλον, full of idols.] 
i. 6. Images, οὐ yap ἦν ἀλλαχοῦ τοσαῦτα ἰδεῖν εἴδωλα, “ for so 
many images could not be seen elsewhere,” Pausanias} say- 
ing that they did εὐσεβεῖν ϑεοῦς ἄλλων πλέον, “ worship the 


| gods more than others,” and exceeded all others in their 


diligence εἰς τὰ θεῖα, “to the gods;” and Strabo§ saying 
that they were hospitable to the gods, πολλὰ γὰρ τῶν ξενικῶν 
ἱερῶν παραϑέσαντο, “for they received many strange gods,” 
insomuch that the comedians ridiculed them upon that 


* Quoties hoc patrum avorumque etate negotium est 
magistratibus datum, ut sacra externa fieri vocarent: judica- 
bant enim prudentissimi viri, nihil equé dissolvende religi- 
onis esse quim ubi non patrio, sed externo ritii sacrificare- 
tur. Liv. lib, xxxix. cap. 16. Qui novas et incognitas re- 
ligiones inducunt ex quibus animi hominum moveantur, 
honestiores deportantur. Paulus Sent. 5. 

+ Legat. cap. 792. 


+ Attic. cap. 17, 24. § Lib. x. p. 325. 


480 


Jews, and with the devout persons (of the Greeks), and | 
in the market daily with them that met with him (or 
he met with there). 

18 8 Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, 
and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, 
What will this babbler say? other some (οἱ δὲν but 
others said), He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange 
gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the 
ἐπ ν ἂν (by him, iv. 2, or the resurrection of 
“ἢ ΠῚ). 

19 And they took him, and brought him unto Ατθο-᾿ 

. pagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, 
whereof thou speakest, is? 

20 For thou bringest certain strange things to 
our ears: we would know therefore what these things 
mean. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


21 9 (Hor all the Athenians and strangers which 
were there spent their time in nothing else, but either 
to tell, or to hear some new thing.) 

22 q Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, 
and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all 
things ye are too superstitious. 

23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions 
(ὦ. 6. the objects of your worship), 1 found an altar with 
this inscription, To THz uNKNown Gop. Whorn there- 
fore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you 
(who he is, and how to be worshipped ). 

24 "God that made the world and all things 
therein, seeing that he is (he being) Lord of heaven 
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands 
(as one contained in, or confined to, them, by human con- 


| secralions of them) ; 


account; and all the rest cited by Dr. Hammond say the 
same thing; for in those times of heathenism they never 
worshipped a god without an image to represent him to 
them ; and therefore, as St. Paul saith here, that they mul- 
tiplied their idols; so ver. 22, that they were ὀεισιδαιμονέσ- 
τεροι, “more prone than others to worship demons.” We 
may here also laugh at the absurd folly of Laurinus’s cau- 
tion, not to believe Stephanus, saying in his Lexicon, that 
εἴδωλον signifies an image, and not as he would have it, a 
shadow, spectrum, or phantom ; for would it not be ridicu- 
lous to render St. Paul's words thus,—I saw your city full 
of phantoms, shadows, and appearances of nothing ? 

8 Ver. 18. Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and 
stoics—said, What will ὃ σπερμολόγος οὗτος, this babbler say 2 
&c.] To show the appositeness of the apostle’s discourse to 
these philosophers, let it be noted, 

First, That the Epicureans* did not believe that the 
world was made by God, but by a casual conflux of atoms; 
nor did they own the providence of God, or think he had 
any care of mankind: they also held that the gods were of 
human shape, and that there was no resurrection, nor any 
punishments after death. 

The stoicst held the world to be a god, that matter was 
eternal, and God was corporeal, and that all things were 
subject to fate. 

Secondly, As for the word σπερμολύγος, “ babbler,”’ Eusta- 
thius gives us two senses of it, which seem to have been the 
oceasion of their application of it to St. Paul: (1.) That 
Paul was “ disputing with those he met with in the market,” 
for, saith he,t “Arricoe τοὺς σπερμολόγους ἐκάλουν τοὺς περὶ τὰ 
ἐμπόρια, καὶ dyopis διατρίβοντας, “the Attics called them σπερ- 
μολόγοι, Who were conversant in the markets, and places of 
merchandise.” (cumenius here saith, that a little bird that 
gathered up the seeds scattered in the market-place was 
called by this name, and hence, τοὺς εὐτελεῖς, καὶ οὐκ ἀξίους 
λόγου, σπερμολόγους ἐκάλουν, “ despicable persons, not worthy 
to be named, were called ozeppods you” and in this etymology 
Suidas, Phavorinus, the scholiast upon Aristophanes de 
Avibus, p. 569, and almost all the grammarians do agree. 
(2.) Because he pretended to some new systems of divinity, 
which they were not acquainted with, and which they 
thought proceeded from some vain opinions he had enter- 
tained ; for the word σπερμολυγεῖν, saith he, is used,§ ἐπὶ τῶν 
ἀλαζονευμένων ἀμεϑόδως ἐπὶ μαθημάτων ἐκ τίνων παρακουσμάτων, 
«of those who, from some false opinions, boasted unreason- 
ably of their learning.” 

Thirdly, They add, that St. Paul seemed to be “a setter 
forth of strange gods,” because he preached up “Jesus and 
the resurrection,’ where Chrysostom and CEcumenius note, 
that being accustomed to worship female goddesses, they 
thought ἀνάστασιν ϑεόν τινα εἶναι, “ ἀνάστασις to be a god;” 
but, as Dr. Bentley) saith, they too well understood the 
notion of a resurrection to think it a goddess, and therefore 
I prefer the exposition in the paraphrase, as being confirmed 


* Plutarch. de Plas. Philos. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 881. Seneca, 
de Benef. lib. iv. cap. 4. Cicero, de Natura Deorum. 

} Diogenes, lib. xx. p. 755, 

+ In Odyss. B. ad finem. 

§ Ibid. 

|| Serm. ii. p. 1. 


from ver. 32, “ When they heard of the resurrection of the 
dead, some mocked.” 

8 Ver. 21. The Athenians spent their time in telling or 
hearing some new thing.] Of this see Grotius. 

10 Ver. 22. Kara πάντα ὡς δεισιδαιμονεστέρους ὑμᾶς Seopa, 
In all things I perceive you too much superstitious.) i. 6. 
Too much addicted to the worship of demons: for ὀεισιδαι- 
povia is, saith Phavorinus, (Gos δαιμόνων, “the fear of de- 
mons.” And that in this sense St. Paul doth here use the 
word is evident, he styling them thus superstitious, because 
he found their city full of images, and “an altar to the un- 
known God,” of which Pausanias,* Lucian, Philostratus, and 
others, speak. It is certain from Pausanias, and confessed 
by St. Jerome, that they had altars Ssois ἀγνώστοις, “to the 
unknown gods,” in the plural, yet it is as certain from 
Lucian,t as well as from C&cumenius,+ that the altar was 
inscribed τῷ ϑεῷ ἀγνώστῳ, though that was not the whole in- 
scription, and therefore St. Jerome§ is too bold to correct 
the apostle here. If the occasion of the erecting of this 
altar was, as some say, the complaint of Pan,| that he was 
not worshipped by them, this gave the apostle a fit occasion, 
by calling them to worship τὸν ἐπὶ πάντα, “that God who 
made the heaven and earth, and all things in them,” to say, 
“Him that you ignorantly worship declare I unto you,” he 
being also, as Josephus saith, κατ᾽ οὐσίαν ἄγνωστος, unknown 
as to his essence,” and by the heathens called deus incertus, 
because he would not be worshipped in an image, and so 
they were uncertain where to find him; and in the scripture 
being styled the God ὃν οὐκ ἔγνω, “whom the (heathen) 
world” and their philosophers “knew not” (1 Cor. i. 21, 
Gal. iv. 8, 9). Or if Πᾶν be, as Platof saith, 6 Λόγος, “the 
Word,” and of whom Plutarch saith in his book De Defect. 
Oracul. p. 419, that there was a great cry heard in the time 
of Tiberius Cesar, that he was dead, then had he also hence 
a fit occasion to “preach unto them Jesus.” 

1 Ver. 24, 25. God that made the world, and all things 
therein,—is not worshipped with men’s hands, as if he 
needed any thing.] To clear up the argument of the apostle 
here, it will be necessary to search a little into the principles 
of the heathens concerning God, and the worship of him; 
let it then be observed, 

First, ‘That the wisest heathens worshipped their gods in 
human shape; so Maximus Tyrius** saith of the Greeks, 
“They thought God must have a body, and that body they 
generally held must be of human shape,” and therefore such 
as might be represented “in an image of gold, silver, or 
stone, made after the fashion of a man.” Thus Velleiust} in 


* Attic. lib. i. cap. 1. ’ 

ἡ Νὴ τὸν ἀγνωστον ἐν ᾿Αϑήναις. Philop. p. 1121, 1129. 

+ Ἔστι δὲ ἡ πᾶσα τοῦ βωμοῦ ἐπιγραφὴ τοιαύτη, Θεοῖς ᾿Ασίας, 
Εὐρώπης, καὶ Λίβύης, ϑεῷ ἀγνώστῳ καὶ ξένῳ. (cum. . 

§ Inscriptio autem are non ita erat ut Paulus asseruit, 
sed ita, Diis Asie, diis ignotis et peregrinis. Hieron. in Titum, 
cap. 8. 

|| See Chrysost. GEcum. in locum. 

4 Cratyl. p. 280. 

ἘΣ "ANG τὸ μὲν Ἑλληνικὸν τιμᾶν ϑεοὺς ἐνόμιζε, ὕλη μὲν καθαρᾷ, 
μορφὴ δὲ ἀνθρωπίνη, τέχνη δὲ ἀκριβεῖ, &c. Dissert. χχχυὶῆ, 
p. 370. s 

+t De Nat. Deor. lib. i. n. 34. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


25 Neither is (ie) worshipped with (‘he works of 
men’s hands, as though he needed any thing (as need- 
ing any person’s art to promote his worship), seeing he 

iveth to all life, and breath, and all things (and so is 
able to produce these things, were they any ways needful 
Sor his worship) ; 

26 And (he) hath made of one blood (of Adam) all 
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, 
and hath determined the times before appointed (7. e. 
set the fixed seasons of the year, Gen. i. 14, viii. 22), 
and the bounds of their habitation (see Deut. xxxii. 
8); 

᾽ν That they should (ἢ instructing them by these 
means to) ® seek the Lord, if haply they might feel 
after him, and find him (which in that darkness in which 


481 


they lie they cannot easily do), though he be not far from 
every (any) one of us: 

28 For in (or by) him we liye, and move, and have 
our being; as certain also of your own poets have 
said, For (they have declared thal) we are also his off- 
spring. 

29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of 
God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like 
unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s 
device (7. e. thal the Creator is like man, or his worlman- 
ship). 

30 And the times of this ignorance God (hath hitherto) 
winked at (sending them no prophets to instruct them bet- 
ter) ; ® but now (/e) commandeth all men every where 
to repent (of this tdolatry) : 


Cicero, inquiring of the form of the gods, speaks thus: Ac 
de forma quidem partim natura nos admonet, partim ratio 
docet, nam ἃ natura habemus omnes omnium gentium spe- 
ciem nullam aliam nisi humanam deorum, “That nature 
teaches they are of human shape, seeing all nations represent 
them in this form; nor do they ever occur to any men, 
sleeping or waking, in any other shape,” and that men, cum 
artificium eflingunt, fabricamque divinam,* “when they make 
an image, or divine fabric, make all things in hominis figura, 
in the shape of man;” whence his conclusion is this, “ Homi- 
nes esse specie deos confitendum est, “It must be owned 
that the gods are like in shape to men.” 

Secondly, ‘They held indeed that God must be αὐτάρκης, 
« self-sufficient,” and thought with Luciant it was ridiculous 
to conceive ὡς ἀνθρώπων Scot ἐνδεεῖς εἰσὶ, “that the gods should 
stand in need of men,” yet they conceived those imagest 
were, through the frailty of human nature, needful to the 
worship of the Deity, that « they might view and touch them, 
and have them near to them;” on these accounts they 
thought§ “there could be no religion without images,” and 
objected this to the Christians, that they|| “ worshipped a god 
they could not show,’ and thought that even they used 
images, though they concealed them; yea, they pronounced 
both them and other nations, viz. Scythians, atheists, because 
they had no images. And upon this account they used a 
kind of magical consecration of their images to bring their 
gods down unto them: so Minutius§ saith, Funditur, fabri- 
catur, sculpitur, nondum deus est, ecce ornatur, consecratur, 
oratur; tune postremo deus est.” Here therefore is the rea- 
son why the apostle saith, 

First, That “God dwelleth not in temples made with 
hands,” i. e. as one confined to them, and who could not be 
addressed every where, since, as Seneca says,** there is no 
need of going to the edile that we may pray to the gods, or, 
as Lucian says jocularly,t> “ sculapius is not deaf, that 
men must go near that they may pray to him.” And, 

Secondly, This is the reason why he saith, “He is not 
worshipped with men’s hands,” as if he could be only wor- 
shipped or spoken to ina temple, or in a consecrated image 
made by man. And, 

Thirdly, Why he adds, that “we ought not to think the 
Godhead like to an image made of gold or silver.” 

2 Ver. 27. That they should seek the Lord, if haply they 
might feel after him, and find him.) Here, first, we learn, 
that God framed the world with this design, that men by 
contemplation of it might seek after the author of it, and 
seeking, find him; and therefore must have made it so as to 
contain sufficient evidence that it was made by his power 
and wisdom. Now “to seek after God,” in the scripture 


* Ν. 35. ἡ Philop. p. 1121. 

$ Οὕτως ἀμέλει καὶ ry Seia φύσει, det piv οὐδέν ἀγαλμάτων, 
ἀλλὰ doSevis ὃν κομιδῇ τὸ ἀνθρώπειον, καὶ διεστὼς τοῦ ϑείου ὅσον 
οὐρανὸς γῆς. Max. Tyr. dis. xxviii. p. 369, Dicitis forté pre- 
sentiam vobis quandam numinum exhiberi sub simulacris. 
Arnob. lib. vi. p. 195. 

§ Nec ullam religionem esse putant ubicunque illa non 
fulserint. Lact. lib. ii. cap. 6. 

ἢ Deum colunt illi, quem nec ostendere possunt, nec 
videre. Minut.p.10. Cur nullas aras habent, nulla templa, 
nulla nota simulacra? Ibid. ᾿ 

q Pag.26. "5 Epist. 41. 


‘Demon. p. 718. 
Vor. IV.—-61 tr 


phrase, is not only to inquire whether there be a God, but 
so to seek him out, that we may give him that worship 
which is due to him; as when the apostle saith, «He that 
cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a τος 
warder of those that diligently seek him” (Heb. xi. 6). To 
“find him,” is to obtain his grace and favour, or to find him 
good and propitious to them: for to what other end should 

men so solicitously seek after him, but to obtain his grace 
and favour? Or why should they desire to find him, but 
that they may receive some benefit from him thus found? 

Is it not upon this account that all men come to him, and 

do him service?’ And would any one do it if they expected 
no advantage by it? And in this sense God saith, «If from 
thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find 
him, if thou seek him with all thy heart,’ Deut. iv. 29; “If 
ye seek him, he will be found of you,” 2 Chron. xv. 2. Note, 

Secondly, That sinners cannot thus seek or hope to find 
God, unless they can expect to find him merciful in the par- 
don of those sins which they do confess and do forsake; and 
that this hath been a principle embraced by all nations ap- 
pears from the propitiatory sacrifices which have so generally 
obtained among them, even from the beginning. And there- 
fore all this must depend upon this foundation, or the know- 
ledge of this one thing, “that God is the maker of heaven 
and earth, and all that therein is;” and so it evidently doth. 
For, 

First, That which made all things must be itself unmade, 
and so must be eternal; it must have power over all things, 
and so be almighty. 

Secondly, That which made all things must have all 
power to direct, govern, order, and dispose of all things, as 
he pleases, and so his creatures must depend on him for pro- 
tection and the disposal of all their affairs. 

Thirdly, That Being which made all things in such an 
excellent order and dependence on each other, in such con- 
stant and unchangeable vicissitudes, fitted with such faculties, 
adapted to such ends and uses, must have infinite wisdom, 
and must design things for those ends for which he hath thus 
fitted them. 

Fourthly, He who hath made things so, as that they con- 
stantly in their respective seasons produce things good and 
useful for the preservation and comfort of those creatures he 
hath made, filling their mouths with food, and “ their hearts 
with gladness,” must be good to all, even “ to the unthankful 
and the wicked,” and so “ his tender mercies” must be “ over 
all his works ;” which is the argument here used, ver. 26. 

Fifthly, He who vouchsafeth such kindness to, and maketh 
such provisions for, those bodies, which we have common to 
us with the brutes, must have made some provision for that 
soul which is our better part, and which is more ially 
derived from him; they therefore must be capable of re= 
ceiving blessings and favours from him; and if lapsed and 
sinful creatures, and made so as that they certainly will be 
subject to sin, they must be capable of finding mercy with 
him, when they return from their iniquity. 

13 Ver. 30. God, who overlooked the times of ignorance, 
τανῦν παραγγέλλει πᾶσι πανταχοῦ, hath now sent his 
to all men every where to repent.] The τανῦν here seems 
not to refer to μετανοεῖν, to repent, as if God did not for- 
merly require men to repent of their sins committed against 
the law of nature, for then they were not obliged to reform, 
or turn from them; but it refers rather to the word παραγ- 


482 


31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which 
he will judge the world in righteousness by that man 
whom he hath ordained (fo be their judge) ; whereof he 
hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath 
raised him from the dead. 

82 9 And when they heard of the resurrection 
of the dead, some (of them) mocked (at it: but) 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


and © others said, We will hear thee again of this 
matter. 

33 So Paul departed from among them. 

34 Howbeit (his discourse was not wholly ineffectual, 
for) certain men clave unto him, and believed : among 
the which (7. 6. age sas Dionysius the Areopagite, 
and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. 


γέλλει, and signifies, that whereas before he had sent no 
messengers, or prophets, to the heathen world, to proclaim 
his wrath against them for their ungodliness and unright- 
cousness, and to call them to repentance for those sins, he 
now had sent his apostles to all the ends of the earth with 
this message; and that by them he had given them a fresh 
assurance of his purpose to judge and condemn the impeni- 
tent, by the resurrection of that Son of God whom he had 
appointed to be the judge of all men: Mr. Dodwell there- 
fore seems to be mistaken, when he concludes from these 
words, and from Acts xiv. 16, that God had not obliged all 
other nations, but only the peculium, to worship himself, be- 
fore he had revealed his pleasure to them, and saith,* 
*« That these words rather plainly imply the contrary, that 
while the supreme God was ἄγνωστος, ‘unknown,’ God did 
excuse them from that duty, on account of their ignorance 
of what otherwise would have been their duty, if it had been 
required of them, and they had known that the supreme 
being had required it :” for, first, this is directly contrary to 
the express words of the apostle Paul, who declares that, τὸ 
γνωστὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ, “ that which might be known of God was 
manifested to them, for God had declared it to them, to wit, 
his eternal power and godhead;” and also, that this was 
manifested to them from the beginning of the world, not by 
any positive revelation, but “from the visible things of the 
creation” (Rom. i. 19, 20), and that this manifestation ren- 
dered them ἀναπολόγητοι, “ without excuse,” who “did not 
glorify (and therefore worship) him as God, neither were 
thankful” to him for his benefits conferred upon them. 
And this is farther evident from the two places cited by 
him ; for though God so far “ suffered them to walk in their 
own ways,” as that he sent no prophet to instruct them, 
nevertheless “ he left not himself without a witness,” that it 
was he who “did them good,” ἄς. (Acts xiv. 17), and who 


ἘΠΡῚ ΠῚ ΠΡ 


was therefore to be thanked and worshipped as their great 
benefactor (see the note there): and though “he winked at 
the times of ignorance,” yet even then he expected they 
should so “seek the Lord that they might find him” (Acts 
xvil. 17, see the note there); and it is strange, that the 
dreadful consequences of this assertion did not deter him 
from espousing it; for hence it evidently follows, first, that 
no man can know who is the true God, or that he is to be 
worshipped, by the light of nature, without a revelation. 
Secondly, that either idolatry or atheism must innocently 
obtain throughout the whole heathen world; for if they are 
left ignorant of the true God, and it is not their duty to wor- 
ship him, they must either not be obliged to worship any 
God, or left free, if not obliged, to commit idolatry, by giv- 
ing the worship due to the true God alone, to them who 
“by nature are no gods.” And, thirdly, that they must 
either be obliged to worship the very devil, or left free to do 
it; “the gods of the heathens,” saith the scripture, “ being 
devils; and seeing God is the fountain of all obligation, 
he must oblige them thus to worship his grand enemy. 
Fourthly, hence it follows, that when they had the gospel 
revelation imparted to them, they could not be obliged, as he 
saith they were, to repent of their former idolatry, in giving 
the worship due to the true God to idols or false gods; be- 
cause he plainly here asserts, they could not know that it was 
their duty to worship the true God, and so the first, and 
second commandments must be only positive precepts, but 
no parts of the law of nature, or the moral law, that being of 
perpetual and universal obligation. 

4 Ver. 32. Some mocked.) viz. The Epicureans, who be- 
lieved no resurrection nor any future judgment, here as- 
serted by St. Paul. 

16 Others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.] 
viz. Stoics, who asserted a conflagration and reviviscence of 
the world, and allowed of something of future recompences, 
though with great fluctuation, and held that souls might live 
long, though not always, in a future state. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


1 Arter these things Paul departed from Athens, 
and came to Corinth ; 

2 And found a certain Jew named Aguila, born in 
Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; 
(because that ! Claudius had commanded all Jews to 
depart from Rome:) and (he) came unto them. 

3 And because he was of the same craft, he abode 


with them, and wrought (αἱ zt): for by their occupa- 
tion they were tentmakers. 

4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath 
(day), and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks (that 
Jesus was the Christ). 

5 And when Silas and Timotheus were come from 
Macedonia, Paul? was pressed in the spirit, and testified 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIUI. 


1 Ver. 2. Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart 
from Rome.| Though Orosius fixeth this edict to the ninth 
year of Claudius, yet did it not come forth till the twelfth of 
Claudius; for the sedition of the Jews, mentioned by Euse- 
bius from Josephus, happened in the eleventh year of 
Claudius, under Quadratus, president of Syria, and con- 
cerned not the Romans, the calamity falling only on the 
Jews; but after it followed another the same year, in which 
the thieves in Judea assaulted Stephen, “the servant of 
Cesar, took away his baggage, and killed the Roman sol- 
diers,” as both Tacitus* and Josephust do inform us: and 
then Claudius, causis rebellionis auditis, “having heard” 
from the president “the causes of this rebellion,” made this 
edict, of which Tacitus saith nothing, because it came not 
from the decree of the senate, but was the edict of Claudius 


only; and of which Suetonius* saith thus, Judeos impul- 
sore Chresto assidué tumultuantes Roma expulit, “He ex- 
pelled the Jews from Rome, they making continual tumults 
by the impulse or persuasion of Christ ;” where, as he mis- 
takes in the name, so in the thing, the Jews having had 
then no contests at Rome that we read of with the Chris- 
tians; and the Christians to be sure causing no tumults 
there. The true cause of their banishment was therefore 
that which hath been hinted from Tacitus. 

2 Ver. 5. Svveixero τῷ mvévpart, He was pressed in spirit.] 
i. e. Either his own or the Holy Spirit so powerfully urged 
and constrained him, that he could not refrain from speak- 
ing: so Luke xii. 50, “I have a baptism to be baptized 
with, καὶ πῶς συνέχομαι, and how am I straitened till it be 
accomplished !” 2 Cor. ν. 14, “The love of Christ, συνέχει, 
constraineth us,” i. e. it will not suffer us to rest from pro- 
moting the service of Christ. When this word is joined with 


, “ Annal. 12, p. 263,264. + De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 20. 


* In Claud, cap, 25. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


(again) to the Jews that Jesus was (the) Christ. 

6 And when they opposed themselves (to this doc- 
trine), and blasphemed (Christ),*he shook Ais raiment 
(in token of his intention to leave them to their infidelity), 
and (therefore) said unto them, Your blood be upon 
your own heads; I am clean (from it)» 4 from hence- 
forth I will go as preach) unto the Gentiles. 

7 4 And he departed thence, and entered into a cer- 
tain man’s house, named Justus, (being) one that wor- 
shipped (the true) God, whose house joined hard to the 
synagogue. 

8 And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, 
believed on the Lord with all his house; and many of 
the Corinthians hearing (he word ) believed, and were 
baptized. 

9 Then spake the Lord unto Paul in the night by a 
vision (saying), Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not 
thy peace: ‘ 

10 For Iam with thee, and no man shall set on thee 
to hurt thee: (speak freely,) for 51 have much people 
in this city. 

11 And he continued there a year and six months, 
teaching the word of God among them. 

12 ¥ And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the 
Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, 
and brought him to the judgment seat (of Gallio), 

13 Saying, This fellow persuadeth men to worship 
God contrary to the law (of the Jews). 


483 


14 And when Paul was now about to open his 
mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter 
of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews (which you 
object against this man), reason would that I should 
bear with you: 

15 ὅ But if it be a question (only) of words and 
names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be 
no judge of such matters. 

16 And he drave them from the judgment seat. 

17 Then all the Greeks took 7 Sosthenes, the chief 
ruler of the (Jewish) synagogue, and beat him before 
the judgment seat. And Gallio cared for none of these 
things. 

18 4 And Paul after this tarried there yet a good 
while, and then took his leave of the brethren, and 
sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla and 
Aquila; § having shorn As head in Cenchrea: for he had 
a vow (of Nazaritism upon him, which being expired, he 
was to shave his head according to the law, Numb. vi.). 

19 And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: 
but he himself entered into the synagogue, and rea- 
soned with the Jews. 

20 (and) When they desired him to tarry longer 
time with them, he consented not; 

21 But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all 
means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I 
will return again unto you, if God will. And he sailed 
from Ephesus. 


a passion that restrains from action, then it is to be rendered 
restrain, as συνέχεσϑαι 68, “to be restrained by fear,” 
Job iii. 24, Luke viii. 37; when the motive is both ways, 
then is the pressure so also; as when St. Paul saith, συνέχο- 
μαι ἐκ τῶν doo, *I am pressed between two,” urged to de- 
part that I may “be with Christ,” restrained from it that I 
may do farther service to his church (Phil. i. 23). 

3 Ver. 6. He shook his raiment, and said, Your blood be 
upon your own heads.) The command of our Saviour was 
to “shake off the dust from their feet ;’ and so St. Paul and 
Barnabas do, xiii. 51, but here Paul also shakes it off from 
his raiment, as a testimony to them, that he had now re- 
nounced any farther dealings with them of that place, as 
being a refractory people; adding, that now their blood or 
ruin would lie upon their own heads, that is, they only 
would be guilty of it (see Matt. xxvil. 24, 25, Acts xx. 26). 

4 From henceforth Iwill turn to the gentiles.) 'Vhis at 


first sight seems to be a declaration that he would leave off 


preaching to the Jews wherever he came, and wholly apply 
himself to the conversion of the gentiles; but by comparing 
his actions with the place where this phrase, or something 
like it, doth occur, it appears he only did intend to say, he 
would no longer preach to the Jews of that place; for after 
this is said, we find him still entering into the synagogues, 
and preaching to the Jews, or calling them to him to hear 
the word : so he speaks to the Jews, xiii. 46, “ Seeing ye re- 
fuse the word, lo, we turn to the gentiles;” and yet, xiv. 
1, he enters at Iconium into the synagogue of the Jews, and 
preacheth to them: so also xix. 9, xxviii. 28. 

5 Ver. 10. I have much people in this city.] So they 
are called who are still heathens, not because of any abso- 
lute decree of their election to eternal life, but because 
Christ saw they were disposed to believe, and by faith be- 
come his people; as elsewhere, John x. 16, he calls them 
sheep, who should hereafter believe on him. 

6 Ver. 15. But if the question be περὶ τοῦ λόγον, of a word 
and names.| Of the word Paul preaches to you, whether it 
accord with your law or not (ver. 13), or, whether the name 
of the Messiah, or Christ, belong to that Jesus “whom Paul 
preacheth ;”’ of things of this nature I will be no judge. 

7 Ver. 17. Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and 
beat him.] “They beat the Jews,” saith Grotius, “to chase 
them from the judgment-seat ;” he adds, that in great cities 
there were more synagogues than one; every one of which 
had a chief ruler, as here Crispus is the chief ruler of one 
synagogue, and Sosthenes of another; so likewise, saith he, 
was it in great churches; they having at Rome, Antioch, 
and other places, excepting Alexandria (of which Epipha- 


nius saith, it had but one bishop), more bishops than one at 
atime; but as this is uncertain, so have I shown, note on 
Phil. i. 1, that Epiphanius speaks not of the primitive and 
apostolic times, but of the times of the Meletians, saying, 
That though in other churches there were Meletian as well 
as catholic bishops at the same time, yet it was never so in 
Alexandria. 

8 Ver. 18. Having shorn his head in Cenchrea: for he 
had a vow.) The text leaves it uncertain whether it were 
Paul or Aquila that made this vow; though Aquila being 
left at Ephesus, and not going up to Jerusalem, as St. Paul 
did, hence I conclude the vow was made by St. Paul; 
moreover, this is certain, that it was the vow of Nazaritism 
now finished, and which by Philo* is styled εὐχὴ μεγάλη, 
“the great vow,” which caused this votary to shave his 
head; for this vow was either for a term of life, as in the in- 
stances of Samson and John the Baptist, or for a term of 
days, which being completed, the Nazarite was to shave his 
head, and bring offerings (see Numb. vi. 13, 14, Acts xxi. 
26, 27). But whosoever is the Nazarite, the question is, 
why he shaves his head at Cenchrea, as if his hair was to be 
consecrated to Apollo, and not at Jerusalem, according to 
the commandment? What some imagine, that this votary 
was casually defiled, and so stood bound, according to the 
law, to shave his head, and to begin his vow again, answers 
not the doubt; because he could not begin his vow anew 
till he had offered his sin-oflering (Numb. vi. 9—12), and 
that was only to be offered at the tabernacle and temple. 
Others say, this law of shaving at the door of the temple, 
and offering these oblations, obliged those only who thus 
vowed in the land of Judea, not those that were out of it; 
and if this will not satisfy, because we find so little of it in 
the ancient Jews, we may perhaps say, there was in the vow 
of the Nazarites a moral part, viz. the consecration of them- 
selves to the service of God, and a greater degree of purity ; 
and in this Christians might comply with it without scruple ; 
and it had a ceremonial part, the cutting off the hair, and 
the offering sacrifices when it was accomplished; and as to 
this, St. Paul, and other Christians, knowing the law was 
not now obligatory, might dispense with themselves; omit, 
or do them, as prudence and the case of scandal did require. 
For though St. Paul went up now to Jerusalem, we read 
not of any offering that he made according to the law, nor 
perhaps would he have shaved his head on this account, 
had not some scrupulous Jews at Corinth been conscious tu 
his vow. 


* De Vict. p. 654, E. 


484 


22 © And when he had landed at Caesarea (Stra- 
tonis), and gone up (fo Jerusalem), and saluted the 
church, he went down to Antioch. 

23 And after he had spent some time there, he de- 
parted, and went over αὐ the country of Galatia and 
Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples. 

24 4 And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at 
Alexandria, (being) an eloquent man, and mighty in 
the scriptures, came to Ephesus. 

25 This man was (somewhat) instructed in the way 
of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake 
and taught diligently (Gr. exguisifely) the things of the 
Lord, 10 knowing only the baptism of John (which 
called the Jews to repentance, in expectation of the Messiah, 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


who was suddenly to appear, and to baptize them with the 
Holy Ghost). 

26 And he began to speak boldly (or openly) in the 
synagogue (that the time of the promised Messiah must 
be come): whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, 
they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the 
way of God more perfectly. 

27 And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the 
brethren (at Ephesus) wrote, exhorting the disciples to 
receive him: who, when he wes come, helped them much 
" which had believed through (the) grace (of God): 

28 For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that 
publickly, shewing by (the testimony of ) the scriptures 
that Jesus was (dhe) Christ. 


9 Ver. 22. And when he had lunded at Cxsarea, and gone 
wp, and saluted the church.] Here the question is, whether 
St. Paul went up from the ship to the church of Czsarea, or 
from Cesarea to the church at Jerusalem. And in favour 
of the latter sense, let it be observed, (1.) that in the lan- 
guage of the author of the Acts, to go from Crsarea to Je- 
rusalem, is to go up, and to go from Jerusalem to Cwsarea, 
is to go down. So “ Festus went up from Cxsarea to Jeru- 
salem,” Acts xxv. 1, and, ver. 5, he speaks to the rulers at 
Jerusalem συγκαταβαίνειν, “to go down with him” from 
thence to Cesarea; and, ver. 6, καταβὰς, “going down to 
Cesarea,” he sits on the tribunal, and they of Jerusalem 
καταβαίνοντες, “ going down,’ accuse Paul, ver. 7; and ver. 
9, he asks Paul, whether ἀναβὰς, “going up to Jerusalem, 
he would be there judged : so Peter ἀνέβη, “ went up from 
Cesarea to Jerusalem,” Acts xi. 2 (see also xxi. 8.12). So 
that to interpret these words of his going up from Caesarea 
to Jerusalem is suitable to the phrase of the evangelist. 
(2.) St. Paul declares, he “must by all means keep the 
feast at Jerusalem” (ver. 21), and that he therefore could 
not tarry with them; and yet if he went not now to Jeru- 
salem, he went not at all thither at this time: for, from this 
church, he goes down to Antioch in Syria, and so through 
Galatia and Phrygia, ver. 22, 23, and so comes back to 
Ephesus, xix. 1, according to his promise, ver. 21, «I will 
return again to you.” 

0 Ver. 25. Knowing only the baptism of John.] That 
this Apollos had not only the gift of eloquence, but the mi- 
raculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, by which he was made an 
able minister of the gospel, is evident from the epistle to the 
Corinthians; for he is there styled “a minister, by whom 
they believed according to the gift that God had given him,” 
1 Cor. iii. 5; he is “a coworker with God,” ver. 9. But 
how he came by these gifts, which rendered him so fit to 
“water” these churches, and made him St. Paul’s brother, 


is not easy to determine. Grotius saith that the phrase 
διὰ τῆς Χάριτος, * by grace,” belongs to him, he helping the 
church by the gifts he had received before baptism in the 
name of Christ; the grace of God preventing the hands of 
the apostles, but where, or by whom he was baptized he 
saith not. Lorinus saith he was baptized by Aquila, or 
some of Ephesus, but the text only saith that Aquila 
and Priscilla instructed, not that they baptized him. I 
conjecture, therefore, that he had been baptized already 
by those who instructed him “in the way of the Lord” (ver. 
25): for in those times persons were baptized immediately 
upon their profession of faith in Christ Jesus, as appears 
from the instances of the eunuch, Lydia, the gaoler, and 
many others; and that when it is here said, “ He knew only 
the baptism of John,”’ that relates only to the knowledge he 
had received in Judea, before he returned to Alexandria, 
where he received farther instruction concerning the death 
and resurrection of Christ; but yet perhaps knew not why 
he suffered, the Jewish nation having then no notion of a 
Messiah that was to suffer for the sins of the people, nor 
that his kingdom was to be only spiritual, they all expect- 
ing that he should erect a temporal kingdom; nor that he 
was to be “a light to the gentiles,” or to receive them into 
favour without circumeision or observance of the law of 
Moses; this being not made known to the apostles after the 
Holy Ghost had fallen on them, till it was revealed to St. 
Peter by a vision ; nor seems the-freedom of the Jews, from 
the Mosaic law, to be made known to the apostles or the 
disciples at Jerusalem for a long time after, as we may learn 
from Acts xxi. 20, 21. 24. 

1 Ver. 27. Who had believed through grace.) i.e. Through 
the gospel, saith Dr. Hammond, or through the favour of 
God, in vouchsafing them the knowledge of it (see the note 
on 2 Cor. vi. 1). 

1: 


CHAPTER XIX. 


1 Ann it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at 
Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts 
(of Asia Minor, to wit, Galatia and Phrygia, xviii. 23) 


came to Ephesus: and ! finding certain disciples 
(abiding there), 
2 He said unto them, Have ye received the (gift of 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX. 


1 Ver. 1—6. He finding certain disciples, &c.] Observe 
here, 

First, That these disciples were converts to the Christian 
faith, i. 6. that they believed that Jesus was the Christ, and 
that he was risen from the dead, is evident, because St. Paul 
not only calls them believers, but inquires whether they had 
teceived the Holy Ghost; which none but they who thus 
believed did or could receive: the gift of prophecy, which 
is the Jewish import of the Holy Ghost, being not given 
(Acts ii. 33), nor to be given till Jesus was glorified (John 
vii. 37—39). 

Secondly, When therefore they say, “ We have not so 
much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost,” their 
meaning is, We have not as yet heard that the gift of pro- 
phecy, which, for the space of about four hundred years, had 
been restrained from the Jewish church, was yet restored. 
Now that which rendered them thus unacquainted with this 


new effusion of the Holy Ghost was this, that as Apollos had 
left Jerusalem, and gone to Alexandria before the miracu- 
lous effusion of the Holy Ghost on the apostles at the day of 
pentecost, so had they also done, and had been travelling 
into other parts of the world, where the gospel had not yet 
been planted. Observe, 

Thirdly, That these persons, who were before baptized 
with the « baptism of John,” are again baptized «in the name 
of the Lord Jesus,” as is evident from these words, “ And 
when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the 
Lord Jesus ;” for they are manifestly mistaken who say, 
these are the words not of St. Luke but of St. Paul, and 
make the sense of the words run thus, John baptized with 
the baptism of repentance, saying, that men should believe 
in him that should come after him, that is, in Christ Jesus ; 
and they that heard John were by his baptism baptized in 
the name of the Lord Jesus. For, (1.) That Paul laid his 
hands on these persons is certain from ver. 6, and that he 
baptized them when he laid his hands on them, seems evi- 


CHAPTER XIX. 


the) Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto 
him, We have not so much as heard whether there be 
any (extraordinary gift of prophecy, or of the) Holy 
Ghost (restored ages, or vouchsafed to the church). 

3 And he said unto them, Unto what (baptism) then 
were ye baptized? And they said, Unto Thuis bap- 
tism. 

4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the 
baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that 
they (repentine) should believe on him which should 
come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus (who would 
baptize them with the Holy Ghost, Matt. iii. 11. 

5 And) When they heard (his, they were baptized 
in the name of the Lord Jesus. 

6 And when Paul had laid A’s hands upon them, 
the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with 
tongues, and prophesied. 

7 And all the men (that did so) were about twelve. 

8 And he went into the synagogue (of the Jews 
there), and spake boldly for the space of three months, 


485 


disputing (discoursing of) and persuading the things 
concerning (Gr. persuading them concerning the things 
of ) the kingdom of God. 

9 2 But when divers were hardened, and believed 
not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, 
he departed from them, and separated the disciples, 
disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. 

10 5. And this (practice he) continued by the space of 
two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard 
the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. 

11 And God wrought special miracles by the hands 
of Paul: 

12 So that from his body were brought unto the sick 
handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed 
from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. 

13 4 Then certain of the vagabond Jews, (being) 
4 exorcists, took upon them to call over them which 
had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, 
We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth (to come 
forth). 


dent from the connexion of the words, “ They were baptized 
in the name of the Lord Jesus,” and when Paul « laid his 
hands on them, the Holy Ghost fell upon them ;” whereas, 
according to the former sense, Paul must have laid his hands 
upon all that were baptized by the Baptist, and they who 
were baptized by John must have received by Paul’s hands 
the Holy Ghost: for either these words must siznify at large, 
They that heard John and were baptized of him; and then 
the words following must import that Paul laid his hands on 
all that heard John, and they received the Holy Ghost; or 
they must refer to those that heard Paul, and then they 
must first be baptized by him, and then receive the Holy 
Ghost by imposition of hishands. (2.) This is evident from 
the words of Peter, to all those many thousands that heard 
him, “Be ye baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and 
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost ;” for since he 
spake to the men of Jerusalem in general, Acts ii. 14, and 
of Judea, and all Jerusalem and Judea were baptized of 
John, saith Matthew, iii. 5, 6, all, or at least many of those 
to whom he spake, must already have been baptized with 
the baptism of John, and yet he makes it necessary for them 
to be “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Whence 
two things are extremely evident, and consequent from each 
other; viz. (1.) That he exhorts them who had been bap- 
tized with John’s baptism to be “baptized in the name of 
the Lord Jesus.” (2.) That therefore they who were bap- 
tized with his baptism, were not baptized “in the name of 
the Lord Jesus;’’ and this is visible even in the words of 
Paul here, John said to those that came to his baptism, ἵνα 
πιστεύσωσιν, not that they did, but that “they should be- 
lieve in him that was coming after him, that is, in the Lord 
Jesus ;” now they were not to be baptized in the name of 
Jesus Christ, till they did actually believe in him, which they 
who had received John’s baptism were so far from doing, 
that they were “musing whether John himself were not the 
Christ,” Luke iti. 15, and asking, “« Why baptizest thou, if 
thou art not the Christ?” John i. 25. And, (3.) As our 
Saviour never said openly and expressly to the Jews, that 
he was the Christ, so he charges his apostles to tell no man 
that he was so till his resurrection. But to what end should 
he do this, if both the Baptist and his disciples had before 
baptized all men into this faith, “that he was the Christ,” 
and so had published this faith to all Judea? Only here 
note, that this is no ground for rebaptizing any now, by rea- 
son of the great difference betwixt the baptism of John then, 
and that in the name of Jesus after his resurrection; of 
which see the note on Matt. iii. 11. (4.) Observe, that after 
the imposition of the apostles’ hands, these men “ spake with 
tongues and prophesied,” receiving the same gifts of the Holy 
Ghost, which the apostles and others had received to fit them 
for the ministry, which was then generally performed by such 
gifted men commissionated for that work by the Holy Ghost 
thus falling on them; whence we find these prophets and 
teachers λειτουργοῦντας, “ ministering to the Lord” in their 
assemblies, Acts xiii. 1—3; and this renders the opinion of 
Bishop Stillingfleet very probable, viz. “that St. Paul de- 


signed these twelve men for a nursery of the churches in 
Asia, or persons to be sent from Ephesus to preach among 
them.” 

2 Ver. 9. ‘Qs δέ τίνες ἐσκληρύνοντο, But as some were hard- 
ened.| 1 have shown, note on Mark viii. 17, that men are 
then said to be hardened, when having had sufficient evi- 
dence of what they ought to do or believe, they refuse to 
believe or do it: and thus were these persons hardened here, 
i.e. they would not believe, after sufficient evidence, that 
Jesus was the Christ. 

3 Ver. 10. And this continued for the space of two years ; 
so that all that dwelt in Asia heard the word, both Jews and 
Greeks.] Here it is carefully to be noted, that we read not 
of Paul’s coming to Ephesus at all, till xviii. 19, and then 
“he would not tarry with them,” ver. 20, but makes haste 
up to Jerusalem; when he had saluted the church there, 
he goes thence to Antioch, and tarries there some time, ver. 
23; then he goes through Phrygia and Galatia, “ confirming 
the brethren,” ibid., and then to Ephesus; there he disputes 
three months in the synagogues of the Jews, then two years 
more in the school of Tyrannus; after he leaves Ephesus, he 
goes through Macedonia and Achaia to Jerusalem, as he had 
before determined to do, ver. 21, xx. 1, not coming at all to 
any part of Asia till he came to Miletus, ver. 10.17. They 
therefore who make him spend three quarters of a year in 
other parts of Asia, do not only say this without proof, or 
without assigning any other city of Asia, where he preached ; 
but they say this against the account here given of him by 
St. Luke; his three years therefore, mentioned xx. 31, must 
be reckoned from his first coming to Ephesus. 

4 Ver. 13. ᾿Ιουδαίων ἐζορκιστῶν, Of the Jewish exorcists.] 
That the Jews were wont to exorcise devils, or to cast them 
out, not only by invocation of the name of Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, but by skill in magic, we learn from Josephus,* 
who mentions one Eleazar before Vespasian, his sons, his 
captains, and a great number of his soldiers, τοὺς ὑπὸ da 
μονίων λαμβανομένους ἀπολύοντα τούτων, “ delivering them who 
were possessed with evil spirits from them, and drawing forth 
διὰ τῶν μυκτήρων τὸ δαιμόνιον, the devil by the nose, by put- 
ting to his nose who was possessed a ring, having under the 
seal of it a root, of which Solomon had discovered the virtue, 
and adjuring him by the adjuration taught by Solomon, καὶ 
τὰς ἐπῳδὰς ἃς συνέθηκεν ἐκεῖνος ἐπιλέγων, and saying over bim 
the incantations which Solomon composed : they had also 
“books of enchantments, καὶ τρόπους éfopxdcewv, and modes 
of exorcising demons, συνταζομένους, composed,” as they gave 
it out, “ by Solomon; and they,” saith he, “are of great use 
to this day.” As for the root of which he speaks, he informs 
us that it was a very dangerous thing to pluck it up, and 
prescribes a very superstitious way of doing it; but being 
thus gathered, and brought to those that are possessed, saith 
he, δαιμόνια τοῖς ζῶσιν εἰσδυόμενα ταχέως ἐξελαύνει, “it quickly 
expels the demons out of men’s bodies” (De Bell. Jud lib. 
vii. cap. 23, p. 981). 


* Lib. i. cap. 2, p. 257, 258, 
2a2 


——— 


486 


14 And there were seven sons of one Sceva, ἃ Jew, 
and chief (among the orders) of the priests, which did 
50. 

15 And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I 
know, and Paul I know (to be persons having authority 
to command me) ; but who are ye (that ye should take 
upon you to do 11) 3 

16 And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped 
on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against 
them, so that they fled out of that house naked and 
wounded. 

17 And this (being done publicly) was known to all 
the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and 
fear (of this powerful name) fell on them all, and the 
name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 

18 And many that believed came, and confessed 
(their former magical practices), and shewed their deeds. 

19 Many of them also which used 5. curious (7. e. 
magic) arts brought their books together, and burned 
δ them before all men: and they counted the price of 
them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. 

20 So mightily grew the word of God and pre- 
vailed. 

21 4 After these things were ended, Paul purposed 
in the spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia 
and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have 
been there, I must also see Rome. 

22 So he sent into Macedonia two of them that 
ministered unto him, (vz.) Timotheus and Erastus; 
but he himself stayed in Asia (at Ephesus, 1 Cor. xvi. 
8, here, ver. 26. 30) for a season. 

23 And the same time there arose no small stir 
about that way (which Paul preached ). 

24 For a certain man named Demetrius, (being) a 
silversmith, which 7 made silver shrines for Diana, 
brought no small gain unto the craftsmen ; 

25 Whom he called together with the workmen of 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


like oceupaticn, and said (fo them), Sirs, ye know that 
by this craft we have our wealth. 

26 Moreover ye see and hear, that not alone at 
Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul 
hath persuaded and turned away much people (Gr. 
that this Paul hath persuaded much people, not only of 
Ephesus, but of all Asia), saying that they be no gods, 
which are made with hands (there being no divinity re- 
siding in them) : 

27 So that not only this our craft is in danger to be 
set at nought; but also that the temple of the great 
goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnifi- 
cence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the 
world worshippeth (in her images). ͵ 

28 And when they heard these sayings, they were 
full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great 7s Diana of 
the Ephesians ! 

29 And the whole city was filled with confusion: 
and (the men of it) § having caught Gaius and Aristar- 
chus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel, 
they rushed with one accord into the theatre. 

30 And when Paul would have entered in unto the 
people, the disciples suffered him not. 

31 And certain of the ® chief of Asia (Gr. of the priests 
or magistrates of Asia, who governed the games), which 
were his friends, sent unto him, desiring Aim that he 
would not adventure himself into the theatre. 

j@ 32 Some therefore cried one thing, and some an- 
other: for the assembly was confused; and the more 
part knew not wherefore they were come together. 

33 And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, 
the Jews putting him forward (either to plead the com- 
mon cause against images, or to expose him to the people’s 
raze, because he was turned Christian). And Alexander 
beckoned with the hand, and would have made his de- 
fence unto the people. 

34 But when they knew that he was a Jew, (and so a 


5 Ver. 19. They that used περίεργα, curious arts.) That is, 
arts of magic. ‘That this is the import of the word, Grotius 
and Dr. Hammond prove from the account that Iren:eus* 
gives us of the disciples of Simon Magus, that they used 
amatoria et agogima, et quecunque sunt alia parerga, /. peri- 
erga, “love charms and philtres, and all other curious arts.’’ 
For Porphyry,{ speaking of these magicians saith, διὰ τού- 
τῶν φίλτρα καὶ ἐρωτικὰ κατασκευάζουσιν οἱ κακοδαίμονες, “ They 
by these evil spirits make their philtres and love charms ;” 
and it seems to have had this signification, because the magi, 
as Origen+ saith, were περιεργαζόμενοι τῶν δαιμονίων ὀνόματι, 
καὶ δυνάμεις, καὶ πράξεις, καὶ ἐπῳδὰς, καὶ βοτάνας οἰκείας daipoct, 
καὶ λίϑους, “curiously employed about searching into the 
names, the forms, the powers, the actions, the incantations 
of demons, and the herhs, stones, and sculptures, made in 
them, proper to these demons; whereas,” saith he, ‘“ drepi- 
εργον ἤθος, a life free from these curiosities is acceptable to 
God, and the Lord Christ would leave, to be vexed with evil 
Spirits, περιεργαζόμενον δαιμονίων ὀνόματα, him that is thus curious 
about the names of demons, and seeks after ways of enchant- 
ing them :” hence the books here brought to be burnt are by 
the fathers styled yonrixat βίβλοι, “books of sorcery.” Nor 
is it to be wondered that these arts should abound at Ephe- 
sus, where Plutarch§ speaks, περὶ τῶν μάγων ἐν ᾿Εφέσῳ διατρι- 
βόντων, “ of magicians conversing ;” that city being so famous 
for sorcery and enchantments of demons, that the magical 
words used to that effect were styled Ἐφέσια γράμματα, 
«Ephesian letters;” and Plutarch] tells us, that “the magi- 
cians bid them who were possessed with devils to read and 
recite the Ephesian letters.” 


* Lib. i. cap. 20. 

{ De Abst. lib, ii. 8. 42. 

+ Contra Celsum, lib. viii. p. 418. 

§ In Vita Alexand, p. 666. 

ἢ Οἱ μάγοι τοὺς δαιμονιζομένους κελεύουσι τὰ ᾿Εφέσια γράμματα 
ΤΑ ΠΩΣ καταλέγειν καὶ ὀνομάζειν. Sympos. lib. vii. qu. 5, 
p. 706. 


6 They burnt their books before all men.] Note also, that 
they sold not those books, though they were of great value, 
because, saith Cicumenius, they would not be gainers by 
such wicked arts, nor would they contribute, by selling them, 
to the teaching others the same arts. 

7 Ver. 24. Mowy ναοὺς ἀργυροῦς Ἀρτέμιδος, Who made silver 
shrines for Diana.) 'That these shrines were κιβώρια μικρὰ, 
“little chapels,” representing the form of a temple with an 
image in it, which being set upon an altar, or some other 
solemn place, and the leaves of the door being opened, the 
image stood, or sat in state, and so was represented to the 
spectators, see Dr. Hammond on the place, and Chrysostom. 

8 Ver. 29. Having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's 
companions—they rushed into the theatre.] Say some, to 
throw them to the wild beasts, as blasphemers of their god- 
dess ; on which account, the town-clerk seems to say, “ You 
have brought these men here, who are neither robbers of 
churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess,” ver. 37, 
for that the theatre was the place where they did ϑηριομαχεῖν, 
“fight with beasts,” see note on 1 Cor. iv. 9, and that this 
was done at Ephesus, see note on 1 Cor. xv. 32. 

9 Ver. 31. Chief of Asia, Gr. ’Actapyai.] Here again 
Grotius and Dr. Hammond note, that among the heathens 
there were games instituted, ad placanda bona numina, “ to 
appease the good gods,” or in honour of them; of these the 
pontifices or chief priests were presidents at Rome; in 
other provinces the priests or magistrates presided, saith Sal- 
masius,* and these were called from their provinces, Asi- 
archer, Syriarche, Bithyniarche, officers belonging to these 
games in those provinces. ‘Thus in the martyrdom of Poly- 
carp,t bishop of Smyrna in Asia, they ask τὸν ᾿Ασιαρχὴν 
Φίλιππον, “ Philip, the ruler of the games” there, to let out 
a lion upon Polycarp, which he declares he could not do, be- 
cause the games were ended; whence it appears that it be 
longed to these Asiarche here mentioned, to let loose the 


* Exercit. p. 865, et Vales. H. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 15, 
+ De Martyr. Polye. Ep. Smyr. Eccl. §. 12. 


CHAPTER XX. 


professed enemy to their religion and to image-worship, 
wey) all with one voice about the space of two hours 
cried out, Great 7s Diana of the Ephesians ! 

35 And when the 10 townclerk (or register) had ap- 
peased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, '' what 
man is there that knoweth not how that the city of 
the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess 
Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter? 

36 Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken 
against, ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly 
(in punishing those men ye have now laid hold on). 

37 For ye have brought hither these men (for that 
end), which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet 
blasphemers of your goddess (and so not worthy to be 
thrown to the wild beasts). 


487 


38 Wherefore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen which 
are with him, have a matter (of complaint) against any 
man, ἢ the law is open, and there are deputies (Gr. 
there are judicial days of pleading, and the proconsuls are 
present): let them implead one another. 

39 But if ye enquire any thing concerning other 
matters (han those relating to your private injuries), it 
shall be determined "in a lawful assembly (and ought 
not to be prosecuted in this tumultuous manner). 

40 For we are in danger to be called in question 
(by the Romans) for this day’s uproar, there being no 
cause whereby we may give an account of this con- 
course. 

41 And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the 
assembly. 


wild beasts upon malefactors; accordingly, they are here 


present, and being kind to Paul, send to him not to come | 


thither. 

10 Ver. 35. 'O γραμματεὺς, The town-clerk.] This word is 
rendered by Budwus, “the chancellor ;” he was an officer 
chosen by the people to preside over the games, saith Dom- 
ninus, cited by Johannes Antiochenus, and so the fitter to 
appease their tumults. 

1 Who knows not, τὴν ‘Ejector πόλιν νεωκύρον οὖσαν, that 
the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great god- 
dess Diana?) After all the learning our eritics have spent 
upon this place, I see no reason to change our translation ; 
for though the city or people of Ephesus may have this title 
in the coins, it cannot here be an epithet of the city, forthen 
it should be νεωκόρων, as it is in the coins. Again, it being 
plain from Julius Pollux,* that the νεωκόροι were οἱ τῶν ϑεῶν 


Sepaxevrai, “the servants, ministers, and worshippers of the | 


* Lib. i. cap. 1, §. 16, p. 5. 


| gods;” and from Phavorinus, that νεωκόρος was 6 τοῦ ναοῦ 


ἐπιμελούμενος, “one that took care of the temple; and from 
Hesychius, Suidas, and Phavorinus, that he was one who 
did adorn and beautify it, it may be very reasonable to be- 
stow this title on the Ephesians, who were so peculiarly ad- 
dicted to her worship, who had there that temple of Diana 
| which was accounted the miracle of the world, and who had 
expended so much in the beautifying and adorning of it, and 
| in this sense only could they be styled neocori of “ the image 
| which fell down from Jupiter.” 

2 Ver. 38. ᾿Αγόραιοι ἄγονται, The law is open.) ΤῸ: 
« Court days are kept,” for so the word with an accent in the 
| antepenultima signifies, ἡμέραι being understood ; for ἀγόραιος, 
say Suidas and Phavorinus, is ἡ ἡμέρα ἐν ἢ ἀγορὰ τελεῖται, “a 
day in which a court is kept.” 

13 Ver. 39. ᾿Ἐννόμῳ ἐκκλησία, In a lawful assembly.) Three 
days in every month, saith G&cumenius, were appointed for 
| assemblies to hear causes, of which this being none, it was an 
| unlawful assembly. 


CHAPTER XX. 


1 Anp after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto | 


him the disciples, and embraced them, and departed for 
to go into Macedonia. 

2 And when he had gone over those parts, and 
had given them much exhortation, he came into 
Greece, 

3 And there abode three months. And when the 
Jews laid wait for him, as he was about to sail into 
Syria (fo carry alms to Jerusalem), he purposed (or 
resolved ) to return through Macedonia. 

4 And there accompanied him into Asia (without 
going from him) Sopater of Berea; and (buf) of the 
Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius 
of Derbe, and Timotheus; and of Asia, Tychicus and 
Trophimus. “ 


5 These (were persons who) going before tarried for 
| us at Troas. 

6 And we sailed away from Philippi after the days 
_ of unleavened bread (were ended), and came unto them 
to Troas in five days; where we abode seven days. 

7 1 And upon the first day of the week, when the 
| disciples came together to break bread (7. e. to celebrate 
| the eucharist), Paul preached unto them, (being) ready 
to depart on the morrow; and continued his discourse 
until midnight. 

8 And there were many lights in the upper cham- 
ber, where they were gathered together (for religious 
worship: see the note on i. 13). 
| 9 And there sat in a window a certain young man 

named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 


1 Ver. 7. Ἔν δὲ τῇ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων, And upon the Jirst 
day of the week, when the disciples were gathered together 
to break bread.] These words seem fairly to evince, that it 
was the custom of the first Christians, and of the apostles, to 
keep the Lord’s-day holy, or as a day appointed for religious 
worship : for, 

First, That pia τῶν σαββάτων, « the first day of the week,” 
was the Lord’s-day, is fully proved, note on 1 Cor. xvi. 1. 

Secondly, Observe, that on this day the disciples were not 
summoned extraordinarily to come together, that St. Paul 
did not μετακαλεῖν “call them together,” as he did the as- 
sembly of the elders of the church, ver. 17, but the disciples 
were themselves συνηγμένοι, “met” in their synazis, or as- 
sembly; the text informs us, that “ Paul tarried with them 
seven days,” and in none of them have we any mention of 
an assembly to this purpose, but only “on the first day of 
the week.” 

Thirdly, Observe, that they then met together, “to break 
bread ;” which phrase doth signify the sacred actions per- 


| 
formed in celebration of the holy sacrament, which it was 


the custom of the primitive Christians to receive in all their 
church assemblies on the Lord’s-day: this the apostle inti- 
| mates when he complains of his Corinthians, 1 Cor. xi., 
| that they “came together for the worse, because, when they 
came together in the church, there were divisions among 
them,” so that they did not eat together of the table of the 
Lord. Now thus “to come together in one place,” saith 
he, “is not to eat the Lord’s supper ;” i. 6. it is not so to do 
it as that sacred action ought to be performed: this there- 
fore when they came together in the church they did, and 
therefore, what is “ coming together,” ver. 17, “coming to 
the church,” ver. 18, “coming to one place,” ver. 19, is 
“coming together to eat,’ ver. 33. Accordingly, it was the 
custom of the church from the apostles’ times thus to com- 
municate upon the Lord’s day: for Pliny, in his epistle* to 
the emperor Trajan, tells him, that he found nothing to al- 
lege against the Christians, “ but their obstinacy in their su- 


* Soliti sunt stato die ante lueem convenire. Ep. lib. x. 
ep. 97. 


488 


as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, 
and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up 
(as one) dead. 

10 And (/ut) Paul went down, and fell on him, and 
embracing Aim said, Trouble not yourselves (more about 
him) ; for his life is (safe) in him. 

11 When he therefore was come up again, and had 
? broken bread, and eaten (7. 6. had celebrated the sacra- 
ment of the Lord’s body and blood), and talked a long 
while, even till break of day, so he departed (as he 
had designed to do on the morrow, ver. 7). 

12 And they brought the young man (up) alive, 
and were not a little comforted (at 11). 

13 4 And we went before to ship, and sailed unto 
Assos, there intending to take in Paul: for so had 
he 3 appointed (Gr. so he was disposed), minding him- 
self to go (thither) afoot. 

14 And when he met with us at Assos, we took him 
in, and came to Mitylene. 

15 And we sailed thence, and came the next day 
over against Chios; and the next day we arrived at 
Samos, and tarried at Trogyllium;.and the next day 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


we came to Miletus (ten miles distant from Ephe- 
sus). 

16 For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus (not 
touching there), because he would not spend the time 
in Asia: for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to 
be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost. 

17 1 4 And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and 
called the elders of the church. 

18 And when they were come to him, he said unto 
them, Ye know, from the first day that I came into 
Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all 
seasons, 

19 Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and 
with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by 
the lying in wait of the Jews: 

20 And how I kept back nothing that was profit- 
able unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught 
you (what was necessary to be known) publickly, and 
from house to house, 

21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the 
Greeks, (that they should exercise) repentance toward 
God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (7. e. 


perstition ; and that it was their custom to meet together on 
a set day before it was light, and to bind themselves by the 
sacrament to do no evil.” Now this epistle was writ only 
six years after the death of the evangelist St. John. And 
Justin Martyr,* who wrote but forty years after his death, 
thus speaks, “On Sunday all the Christians in the city or 
country meet together, because that is the day of our Lord’s 
resurrection, and then we have read unto us the writings of 
the prophets and apostles; this done, the president makes an 
oration to the assembly, to exhort them to imitate and do the 
things they heard; then we all join in prayer, and after that 
we celebrate the sacrament, and they that are willing and 
able give alms,” &c. 

2Ver.11. And had broken bread.| Though here be 
mention only of breaking bread, yet that the cup was also 
consecrated and distributed, is evident from the doctrine of 
the church of Rome; for they agree with the protestants in 
this, that the priests always ought to consecrate the eucharist 
in both kinds, and say, that if one species be consecrated 
without the other, sacrilegium committitur, “it would be 
sacrilege ;” and yet if this place prove any thing for commu- 
nion in one kind, it proves as much for consecration in one 
kind, and for the sumption of one kind only by the priest 
that consecrates, though they hold it necessary for him to 
receive both. And hence it was declared in the council of 
Trent,} that “these places, and the reasons from them, 
must be laid aside, because by them it would be concluded, 
that it was not sacrilege to consecrate one kind without the 
other ; which is contrary to all the doctors, and the meaning 
of the church, and overthroweth the distinction of the eu- 
charist, as it is a sacrifice, and as it is a sacrament.” 

8 Ver. 13. For so he had appointed, οὕτω γὰρ ἣν διατεταγ- 
μένος, for so he was disposed.} Here is an evidence, that the 
ward τεταγμένοι, used xiii. 48, may there signify disposed, as 
here apparently it doth. 

4Ver.17. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and 
called the elders of the church.) From these words, com- 
pared with the twenty-sixth verse, where the same persons 
are called “bishops,” who are here styled πρεσβύτεροι, * el- 
ders,” Chrysostom, St. Jerome, Theodoret, (cumenius, and 
heophylact, have inferred, that the same persons, were in 
the first ages of the church styled bishops or presbyters in- 
differently : Dr. Hammond, on the contrary, and others do 
contend, that the word πρεσβύτεροι, “ elders,” here signifies 
only bishops; and because there lies this obvious objection 
against this interpretation, that then there must have been 
many bishops in the church of Ephesus, since all these 


* σὴν δὲ ἡλίου ἡμέραν κοινῇ πάντες τὴν συνέλευσιν ποιούμεϑα, 
ἐπειδὴ ᾿Ιησοὺς Χριστὸς ὃ ἡμέτερος σωτὴρ τῇ αὐτὴ τῆ ἡμέρα ἐκ νεκρῶν 
ἄνεστη. Apol. ii. p. 98, 99. 

ἡ Valentia de Usii Sacram. cap. 13. 

+ History of the Council of Trent, lib. vi. p. 486. 


elders were called from Ephesus; he answers, that those 
elders were all the bishops of Asia, and saith that Paul, send- 
ing to the metropolis of Asia, by that means gave notice 
to the bishops of Asia to come to him: this he confirms (1.) 
from the testimony of Ireneus, who saith, they were called* 
ad Epheso, et reliquis proximis civitatibus, “from Ephesus, 
and the rest of the cities that were near;” (2.) from the 
words of the text, for “the flock,” saith he, “was not the 
Christians of one city, but the Christians of all Asia; those 
with whom Paul had been from the first day he came to 
Asia, ver. 18, all among whom he had gone preaching the 
kingdom of God, ver. 25.” But to the first argument it 
may be answered, 

First, That Chrysostom, St. Jerome, Theodoret, @icume- 
nius, and Theophylact, knew nothing of St. Paul’s sending 
to any other bishops besides those of Ephesus, for otherwise 
they could not have argued as they do from this place, that 
those persons could not be bishops, properly so called, be- 
cause there could only be one bishop of one city. Bishop 
Stillingfleet also saith, that St. Paul was in so great a haste, 
that he would not so much as go to Ephesus, nor send any 
whither but to that city; and yet those to whom he com- 
mitted the whole flock then in Asia, came from Ephesus to 
Miletus. But (2.) let it be granted that he sent to other 
cities also, though it be plainly contrary to the text, which 
mentions Ephesus only, yet it is evident, both from Ireneus 
and the text, that the same persons are called “ presbyters” 
in the seventeenth verse, who are called « bishops,” ver. 28 ; 
for, from ver. 18 to the twenty-seventh inclusively, he con- 
tinues his discourse to those presbyters whom he had called, 
and in ver. 28 bids them take care of the church, “ over which 
the Holy Ghost had made them bishops:” this is also plain 
from Treneus, for he saith expressly that, convocatis episco- 
pis et presbyteris, “having called the bishops and presby- 
ters,” he gave them charge of the church,+ in quo eos Spiritus 
proposuit episcopos, “in which the Spirit had made them 
bishops.” 

Secondly, To the second argument the answer is evident 
from the note made on xix. 10, that St. Paul, from the se- 
cond time he came to Ephesus, stirred not thence, till he, 
in prosecution of his purpose, mentioned there, ver. 21, 
went from thence to Macedonia, in order to go to Jerusalem ; 
whence we learn, how he had been with them of Asia, from 
the first day he came to Ephesus, preaching to Jews and 
gentiles, viz. by disputing daily in the school of Tyrannus in 
Ephesus, “ so that all they that dwelt in Asia heard the word, 
both Jews and Greeks,” xix. 10, and by disputing thus, “he 
persuaded much people,” οὐ μόνον ᾿Εφέσου, ἀλλὰ σχεδὸν πάσης 
τῆς ᾿Ασίας, i. 6., not as we have the words rendered, “ not only 
at Ephesus, but throughout all Asia,” but, “not only of 
Ephesus, but of all Asia.” 


* Lib. iii. cap. 14. 
; 


{ Lib. c. cap. 14. 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙ. 


that they should turn to God, doing works meet 
for repentance, and should believe in the Lord Je- 


sus). 
22 δ᾽ And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit, 
i. δ. fureseeing by the Spirit that I shall be bound) unto 
erusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall 
me there: 

23 Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every | 
city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. 

24 But none of these things move me, neither count 
I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my 
course with joy, and the ministry, which I have re- 
ceived of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the 
grace of God. 

25 And now, behold, I know that ye all, among 
whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, 
shall see my face no more. 

26 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that 
® Iam pure from the blood of all men (é. ε. nol guilly 
of their ruin if they perish). 

27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all 
the counsel of God (the whole Christian doctrine, which 
if you keep in memory and practice, ye shall be saved, 1 
Cor. xv. 3). 

28 ¥ 7 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to 
all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath 
made you overseers, ° to feed the church of God, which 
he hath purchased with his own blood. 

29 For I know this, that ° after my departing shall 


489 


grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing (/o 
tear) the flock. Ρ 

30 Also (out) of your own selves shall men arise, 
speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after 
them. 

31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the 
space of three years I ceased not to warn every one 
(of you) night and day with tears. 

32 And now, brethren, I commend you to God, 
and to the word of his grace, which is able to build 
you up (in your holy faith), and to give you an inhe- 
ritance among all them which are sanctified. 

33 I have coveted no man’s silver, or geld, or ap- 
parel. 

34 Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have 
ministered unto my necessities, and to (‘he necessities 
of ) them that were with me. 

35 Ihave shewed you all (these) things (to instruct 
you), how that so labouring ye ought to support the 
weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, 
Ἢ how he said, It is more blessed to give than to 
receive. 

36 1 And when he had thus spoken, he kneeled 
down, and prayed with them all. 

37 And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, 
and kissed him, 

38 Sorrowing most of all for the words which he 
spake, that they should see his face no more. And 
they accompanied him unto the ship. 


5 Ver. 22. And now, behold, I go δεδεμένος τῷ Τινεύματι, 
bound in the Spirit.) i.e. Not resolving in his own spirit, but 
as Grotius saith truly, foreseeing by the Spirit that I shall 
there be bound; for so it follows, ver. 23, “'The Holy Ghost 
witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions 
abide me.” 

6 Ver. 26, 27. Tam free from the blood of all men, { 
1 have not shunned to declare to you all the counsel of 
God.) Hence we learn, that it is necessary for a pastor to de- 
clare to his people all that is necessary for them to be- 
lieve and do, in order to salvation, that the guilt of their ruin 
may not lie upon him. 

7 Ver. 28. Tuke heed therefore to yourselves, and to all 
the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you over- 
seers.) I have shown in the note on 1 Cor. xii, 8—10, that 
in those times the Holy Spirit did enable the apostles to dis- 
cern who were fit to be governors of the church, and accord- 
ingly by this afflatus of the Holy Ghost they were chosen for 
that work; and to this the words of the apostle may refer. 
But it is also to be noted from xix. 6, 7, that, at Ephesus, 
Paul having laid his hands upon twelve men, “the Holy 
Ghost fell on them, and they spake with tongues, and pro- 
phesied ;” and Bishop Stillingfleet conceives, these were men 
kept at Ephesus as a nursery, to be sent forth as occasion 
served, to preach and preside among the converts of Asia; 
and if so, these words may more peculiarly relate to them. 

8 Ποιμαίνειν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, To Seed the church of 
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.) If this 
be the true reading, it follows unavoidably that Jesus Christ, 
who shed his blood for us, is here styled God ; now this read- 
ing is confirmed by the Vulgar, Arabic, Ethiopic, by Chry- 


sostom and Cicumenius on the place. It is true, indeed, 
that in Irenzus, lib. iii. 14, in the Alexandrian MS., and 
in the Syriac we read, τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Κυρίου, “ the church 
of the Lord,” which may be construed, the church of the 
Lord Jesus, but it may also be construed from the Arabic, 
and other MSS., “the church of our Lord God ;” if we con- 
sider that “the church of God” is a phrase very frequent in 
the New Testament (see 1 Cor. i. 2, x. 32, xi. 22, xv. 9, 2 
Cor. i. 1, Gal. i. 18, 1 Tim. iii. 5), but “the church of the 
Lord,” is a phrase never used in the New Testament. 

9 Ver. 29. After my departure shall pos wolves enter 
in, not sparing the “fock.) Such were Cerinthus who set up 
in Asia, see the note on Col. ii. 10, and other false apostles 
and deceitful workers of the Jews, of whom see note on 
1 Tim. i. 7, on iv. 2, 3, on vi. 21, on 2 Tim. i. 15, and 
on iii. 2—4, 

10 Ver. 30. Also of yourselves shall men arise, speaking 
perverse things.] Such as Hymeneus and Alexander were, 
who “made shipwreck of the faith,’ 1 Tim. i. 20; Hyme- 
neus and Philetus, who taught “that the resurrection was 
past already,” 2 Tim. ii. 17; for these epistles being written 
chiefly for the Ephesians, it is reasonable to think he speaks 
of men dwelling there who dispersed these doctrines among 
them. 

1 Ver, 35. How he said, It is more blessed to give than 
to receive.] This saying of Christ we find not in the gospels, 
but yet these and the like words are so far from giving any 
patronage to unwritten traditions, that they are a demonstra- 
tion against them, it being certain that we had never known 
any such thing, had not St. Luke recorded it. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


1 Ann it.came to pass, that after we were gotten from 
them (of Ephesus), and had launched (into the sea), we 
came with a straight course unto Coos, and the day 
following unto Rhodes, and from thence unto Patara: 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI. 


1 Ver. 3. ’Avapavévres δὲ τὴν Κύπρον, And discerning or 
discoverin, Cyprus.] So ἀναῤαίνειν γὴν τινα, is “to discover 
Vor. [V.—62 


2 And finding a ship sailing over unto Phenicia, we 
went aboard, and set forth. 

3 Now when we had ! discovered Cyprus, we left 
it on the left hand, and sailed into Syria, and landed 


such ἃ land;” and therefore both Stephanus, and from him 
Schmidius render these words thus, Quum cernere Cyprum 
ccepissemus, all other readings or conjectures being by Schmj 
dius confuted. 


490 


at Tyre: for there the ship was to unlade her bur- 
den. 

4 And finding disciples, we tarried there seven days: 
who (being endued with the gifts of the Holy Ghost) said 
to Paul* through the Spirit, that (7f he regarded his 
safety, ver. 11) he should not go up to Jerusalem. 

5 And when we had accomplished those days, we 
departed and went our way; and they all brought us 
on our way, with (their) wives and children, till we 
were out of the city: and (then) we kneeled down on 
the shore, and prayed. 

6 And when we had taken our leave one of another, 
we took ship; and they returned home again. 

7 35 And when we had finished our course (Gr. and 
finishing our sail) from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais, 
and saluted the brethren, and abode with them one 
day. 

8 And the next day we that were of Paul’s company 
departed,.and came unto Casarea: and we entered 
into the house of Philip the evangelist, which was one 
of the seven (deacons mentioned ch. vi.); and abode 
with him. 

9 And the same man had 4 four daughters, virgins, 
which did prophesy (according to the prophecy men- 
tioned ii. 17). 

10 And as we tarried there many days, there came 
down from Judea a certain prophet, named Agabus. 

11 And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s 
girdle, and bound his own hands (first) and (then af- 
terward his) feet (with zt), and said, Thus saith the 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


Holy Ghost, § So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the 
man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him 
into the hands of the Gentiles. 

12 And when we heard these things, both we (that 
were with him), and they of that place, besought him 
(with tears) not to go up to Jerusalem. 

13 Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep 
and to break mine heart? (Gr. τί ποιεῖτε χλαίοντες» 
why do you this, weeping and breaking my heart?) for 1 
am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jeru- 
salem for the name of the Lord Jesus. 


14 And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased 


(our importunity), saying, The will of the Lord be done. 

15 And after those days we took up our carriages, 
and went up to Jerusalem. 

16 There went with us also certain of the disciples 
of Cesarea, and brought with them one ® Mnason of 
Cyprus, an old disciple, with whom we should lodge. 

17 And when we were come to Jerusalem, the breth- 
ren received us gladly. 

18 And the day following’ Paul went in with us unto 
James; and all the elders (of Jerusalem) were present. 

19 And when he had saluted them, he declared par- 
ticularly what things God had wrought among the Gen- 
tiles by his ministry. 

20 And when they heard 7/, they glorified the Lord, 
and said unto him, Thou seest, brother, how many 
thousands of Jews there are which believe: 5 and they 
are all zealous (for the observance) of the law (by ail 
that are Jews) : 


2 Ver. 4. Who said to Paul by the Spirit, that he should 
not go up to Jerusalem.) If this had been said absolutely by 
an afflatus of the Holy Ghost, St. Paul could not have acted 
contrary to it without sin, in opposing what the Holy Ghost 
required, and doing what he did forbid; seeing then Paul 
persists in his resolution, after what both they here, and the 
prophet Agabus had said, ver. 11, these words must admit of 
the limitation mentioned in the paraphrase, that if he would 
not be there bound, and evilly entreated, he should not go 
up thither; and this was only what the Spirit had before 
told him; for, saith he, “I go bound in the Spirit to Jeru- 
salem,” xx. 22. Or, they said to him, the Spirit revealing to 
them what he was to suffer there, “ they would not have him 
go up,” as also did the disciples of Caesarea, and they that 
came up with him from Troas on the same account. 

3 Ver. 7. δὲ διανύσαντες τὸν πλοῦν, And when we had 
Jinished our course.| There is no need to read here διαναῦ- 
σᾶντες, or to think that this phrase signifies only, having 
sailed ; it truly imports, that finishing our voyage by sea, we 
came from Tyre to Ptolemais; for from thence they went by 
land to Cwsarea, and from thence to Jerusalem, and so were 
then finishing their navigation, or their course by sea. 

4 Ver. 9. He had four daughters.) Hence Gicumenius 
observes, that τῷ κοινωνήσαντι γάμων διακονεῖν ἔζεστι, “one that 
useth matrimony may be a deacon.” 

5 Ver. 11. So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind this man.] 
Not so as to the girdle, for he was only bound with chains ; 
nor so as to the binding of his feet, for St. Paul seems only 
to have the chains fastened to his hands; but so as to be as 
truly and as much bound as Agabus was, not personally by 
the Jews, but by the Romans at their instigation, and on their 
account. 

6 Ver. 16. One Mnason, an old disciple.| Converted by 
Paul and Barnabas when they were at Cyprus, say Grotius 
and Dr. Hammond, but very improbably ; for that they were 
at Cyprus we find, Acts xiii. 4, but there is not a word of 
him, or any other convert that they made there: the words, 
“an old disciple,” rather induce us to conceive he was one 
of the disciples or followers of Christ. 

7 Ver. 18. And Paul went in with ws to James, and all 
the elders were present.) “ All the bishops of Judea,” saith 
Dr. Hammond, without one word to prove it; for there is 
nothing of this matter in his note on Phil. i. ὁ, to which he 
refers ; and without all probability : for if there were then any 
other bishops constituted in Judea, of which we read nothing 
in scripture, or primitive antiquity, how came they all, un- 


sent for, to be absent from their flocks, and present at Jeru- 
salem, especially when all the apostles except James seem 
to be absent? More probable and modest is the observa- 
tion, that here we find « James bishop of Jerusalem, of πρεσ- 
βύτεροι, his presbyters, or elders,” with him, and his seven 
deacons, mentioned ver. 18, and so have reason to believe 
that other celebrated churches conformed to this model, hav- 
ing bishops, presbyters, and deacons. 

8 Ver. 20. And they are all. zealous of the law.) The 
zealots among the believers were urgent for the circumcision 
of the gentiles, and for requiring them to observe the law of 
Moses (Acts xv. 1. 5). But the whole body of the con- 
verted Jews, bishops, and elders, as well as the laity, were 
zealous for the observation of their laws and customs by the 
Jews, and that because they knew the law to be of a divine 
original ; and therefore thought they could not throw off the 
observance of it without apostasy from God, as is insinuated 
in these words, “Thou teachest ἀποστασίαν, apostasy from 
Moses” (ver. 21). Thus Philo* doth inform us, that they 
believed their laws to be λογία ϑεύχρηστα, “divine oracles,” 
and “this doctrine they being taught from their infancy, 
they are so afraid of offending against them in the least, that 
they will rather suffer the loss of all human blessings than 
be guilty of it; yea,” saith he,t “they are wont willingly to 
suffer death as the way to immortality, rather than permit 
their rites to he violated.” Josephus} saith the same, that 
“they are taught from their cradle to call them Θεοῦ δόγματα, 
the doctrines of God, and therefore continue in the obsery- 
ance of them, not adding any thing to them, or taking any 
thing from them, and when it is necessary, dying freely for 
them.” And again, “ We,” saith he,§ “think it our only 


* Kai πεφρίκασι piv ἕκαστον τῶν διηγορευμένων οὕτως, ὡς ἅπασαν 
τὴν παρ᾽ ἀνθρώποις εἴτε αὐτυχίαν, εἴτε εὐδαιμονίαν χρὴ καλεῖν, μηδέποτ᾽ 
ἂν ὑπὶρ παραβάσεως καὶ τοῦ τυχόντος ἂν ὑπαλλάξασθαι. Legat. ad 
Caium, p. 791. 

T Εἰωθὸς ἑκουσίοις ἀναδέχεσϑαι ϑανάτοις, «rep dSavaciav, ὑπὲρ τῶν 
μηδὲν τῶν πατρίων περιδεῖν ἀναιρυύμενον. Ibid. p. 780, F. 

+ Πᾶσι γὰρ σύμφυτόν ἐστιν εὐθὺς ἐκ τῆς πρώτης γενέσεως ᾿Ιουδαίοις 
ὀνομάζειν αὐτὰ Θεοῦ ὀόγματα. Contr. Apion. p. 1037, A. 

§ Ἡμεῖς δὲ τοὐνάντιον μίαν εἶναι καὶ φρόνησιν καὶ ἀρετὴν ὑπειλή- 
φαμεν, τὸ μηδὲν ὅλως ὑπεναντίων μήτε πράξαι, μῆτε διανοηϑῆναι τοῖς 
ἐξ ἀρχῆς νομοϑετήσασιν----ἡμῖν δὲ τοῖς πεισθεῖσιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς τεθῆναι τὸν 
νόμον κατὰ Θεοῦ βούλησιν, οὐδ᾽ εὐσεβὲς ἢ ἣ τοῦτον φυλάττειν" τί 
γὰρ αὐτοῦ τις ἂν μετακινὴσειεν, ἤ τι κάλλιον ἐξεύροι, Ibid. p. 


1073, Ὁ. 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙ. 


21 And they are informed of thee, that thou teach- 
est all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to for- 
sake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise 
their children, neither (ought they) to walk after the 
customs (of our forefathers). 

22 What is it therefore? {τί οὖν ἐστε; what ts there- 
fore to be done? seeing) the multitude (which have been 
thus informed of thee) must needs come together: for 
they will hear that thou art come. 

23 Do therefore this that we say to thee: (/o wit,) 
We have four men which have a vow on them; 

24 Them take, and purify thyself with them, and 
be at charges with them (making provision of sacrifices 
for them, as the law requires), that (when the days of 
their purification are ended) they may shave their heads: 
and (by this practice) all may know that those things, 
whereof they were informed concerning thee, are no- 
thing (have no truth in them); but that thou thyself 
also walkest orderly, and keepest the law. 

25 As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have 
written and concluded that they observe no such thing, 
save only that they keep themselves from things offer- 
ed to idols, and from blood, and from (‘hings) stran- 

led, and from fornication. 

26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day puri- 
fying himself with them (ἡ. 6. beginning the separation 


491 


of a Nazarite) entered into the temple, to® signify (when 
would be) the accomplishment of the days of purifica- 
tion, until (ἕως of, even to the time) that an offering 
should be offered for every one of them (as the law re- 
quired at the close of them, Numb. vi. 13). 

27 And when the seven days (ἡ, 6. the time designed 

fer the separation) were almost ended (or were about to 

e accomplished ), the Jews which were of Asia (where 
Paul had preached three years, Xx. 31, wilh great oppost- 
tion from the Jews, xix. 9, XX. 19, 1 Cor. xvi. 9), when 
they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, 
and laid hands on him, 

28 Crying out, Men of Israel, help: (for) this is 
the man, that teacheth all men every where against 
the people (of the Jews), and (against) the law, and 
this place: and further (or also hath) brought Greeks 
also into the temple, and (by so doing) hath polluted 
this holy place. 

29 (And this they said,) For (because) they had seen 
before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, 
whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the 
temple.) 

30 And all the city was moved (at these words), and 
the people ran together: and they took Paul, and drew 
him out of the temple (‘hat it might not be defiled with 
his blood): and forthwith the doors were shut. 


wisdom and virtue neither to do nor think any thing con- 
trary to our laws; and being persuaded from the beginning 
that they are suitable to the will of God, we think nothing 
else so holy as to keep them, for who can remove any thing 
of them, or find any thing better?” He also frequently de- 
clares that they were thus addicted to the observation of 
their laws, “from an opinion of the eternal punishments 
they must expect to suffer, who even for fear of death durst 
violate them, and from a firm assurance of eternal happiness 
if they were faithful to the death in the observance of 
them.”* It is not therefore to be wondered that men who 
had imbibed such opinions of them from their infancy, that 
they derived from God, and knew of no revelation made 
by him that they were to cease after the death of their Mes- 
siah, should be still zealous for them; or that they, who 
thought they could not be removed, or that any better laws 
could be given, should think them fit to be observed ; or that 
they, who feared such dreadful evilsif they did forsake them, 
expected so great blessings from being faithful to them to the 
death, should be averse from any doctrine, which taught 
them to apostatize from, or to forsake the law of Moses ; 
and yet it pleased God as yet not to convince them of this 
error by any revelation, or any afflatus of that Spirit which 
many of them had received; partly because he saw this 
might have obstructed the faith even of the little remnant 
which belonged to “the election of grace;’ partly because 
he knew the time would shortly come, when the destruction 
of their temple, and their exclusion from their own land, 
would render it impossible for them to observe this law, and 
the severity of divine judgments on them would convince 
them, as it did some, that} “God had utterly cast off that 
nation” from being any more his people. 

9 Ver. 26, 27. ge τὴν pe ine eames τοῦ 
ἁγνισμοὺ, Signifying the accomplishment of the days of pu- 
rificalion.] uae signifying that those “λα ae ee 
accomplished, for, that is contrary to the following verse, 
which shows that Paul was apprehended in the temple, be- 
fore the seven days were ended, or, as the Greek may be ren- 
dered, “as they were about to be acomplished;” but, as 
Grotius well notes, signifying by that action that he would 


* Τενέσϑαί re πάλιν καὶ βίον ἀμείνω λαβεῖν ἐκ περιτροπῆς, Ῥ. 
1076, A. Μὴ φοθηθῶμεν τὸν ἑοκοῦντα ἀποκτείνειν τὸ σῶμα, μέγας 
γὰρ Ψυχῆς κίνδυνος ἐν αἰωνίῳ βασανισμῷ κείμενος τοῖς παραβαίνουσι 
τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ. De Maccab. p- 1097, Ὁ. 

tT Ἔδει γὰρ τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ γνώμης στοχάζεσϑαι καὶ γινώσκειν 
ὅτι τὸ πάλαι φίλον αὐτῷ φῦλον ᾿Ιουδαίων ἀπωλείᾳ κατέγνωσται. 


a apud Joseph. de Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 990, 


accomplish seven days of purification, even to the time that 
the sacrifices were to be offered for them, with whom he had 
thus joined in this purification; for whereas some would 
evade this, by saying that the seven days, mentioned ver. 27, 
were the seven days wherein those sacrifices were to be per- 
formed; that is contrary to the law, which appoints the 
same day in which they shaved their heads, and so concluded 
their purification, for the oblation of their offerings (Numb. 
vi. 13, 14). 

But fae it may reasonably be inquired, how the apostle, 
who knew that our Saviour by his death had “abolished the 
hand-writing of ordinances, and taken it out of the way” 
(Eph. ii. 15, Col. ii. 14), that Christians were “dead to the 
law by the body of Christ” (Rom. vii. 4), that the Jewish 
sacrifices were only to continue till “the time of reforma- 
tion” (Heb. ix. 10), and that Christ had taken away these 
sacrifices by the sacrifice of himself (x. 9), should yet sub- 
mit to these rites, and make provision for these sacrifices. 
To this it may be answered, (1.) that the vow of Nazaritism 
being only a stricter sort of separation of themselves from 
all pollution to the service of God, and to be holy, and free 
from all kind of defilement, seems very well consistent with 
the design and spirit of Christianity. (2.) Observe, that 
the offerings of the temporary Nazarite, at the completion 
of his vow, being a burnt-oflering, a sin-offering, and a peace- 
offering (Numb. vi. 14), and two of these being not sacri- 
fices appointed to expiate sin, but offerings of thanksgiving 
to God, who had enabled them to perform their vow, and of 
acknowledgment of God’s sovereign dominion ; and the ad- 
vice here being not personally to make or present these of- 
ferings, but only to “ purify himself, καὶ δαπανᾷν ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῖς, and 
to help’”’ the Nazarites in bearing some part of the charges of 
these offerings ; which, saith Maimonides, others might help 
the Nazarites to do; this action seems to have little or no- 
thing inconsistent with the doctrine of St. Paul. But, 
thirdly, though St. Paul knew these constitutions were not 
now obliging in themselves, yet seeing they were rites be- 
longing to that temple, which was yet standing, and God 
had not, by any express declaration made to the Jews, pro- 
hibited the continuance of them, St. Paul might lawfully 
submit to this compliance with them, to prevent the scan- 
dal of the unbelieving Jews, which might divert them from 
that Christianity they had embraced, and to promote their 
salvation by his preaching Christ unto them; for upon this 
account he circumcised Timothy (Acts xvi. 3) and “to the 
Jew became as a Jew, that he might gain the Jew; to them 
that were under the law, as under the law, that he might 
gain them that were under the law” (1 Cor. ix. 20). Whence 
we may learn, what great condescension in lesser matters may 
be used for the promotion of the salvation of others, 


492 


31 And as they went about to kill him, tidings 
came unto the chief captain of the band (of Romans), 
that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. 

32 Who immediately took soldiers and centurions, 
and ran down unto them: and when they saw the chief 
captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. 

33 Then the chief captain came near, and took him, 
and commanded Aim to be bound with two chains; 
and demanded who he was, and what he had done (/o 
incense them so against him). 

34 And some cried one thing, some another, among 
the multitude: and when he could not know the cer- 
tainty for (2. e. by reason of ) the tumult, he command- 
ed him to be carried into the castle (of Antonia). 

35 And when he came upon the stairs, so it was, 
that he was borne of the soldiers for the violence of 
the people. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


36 For the multitude of the people followed after, 
erying, Away with him, (/et him not live, xxii. 22.) 

37 And as Paul was (about) to be led into the cas- 
tle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak unto 
thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? 

38" Art not thou that Egyptian, which before 
these days madest an uproar, and Jeddest out into 
the wilderness four thousand men that were mur- 
derers ? 

39 But Paul said, Iam aman which am a Jew-of 
Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: 
and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people. 

40 And when he had given him licence, Paul stood 
on the stairs, and beckoned with the hand unto the 
people (to be silent). And when there was made a 
great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew 
tongue, saying, 


10 Ver. 31. And as they went about to kill him.] To wit, 
with the “ rebels’ beating,” which, saith Dr. Lightfoot here, 
Was “stripes without measure, even unto death, and that, 
without judicial proceeding ;” and this they did, either as 
presuming that he had brought an uncircumcised person 
within the step of the temple, with was, saith Philo,* pre- 
sent death ; or, because they conceived he had spoken against 
the law and the temple, for which cause they before had 
stoned Stephen. 

τ Ver. 38. Art not thou that Egyptian that before 
these days leddest out four thousand men which were mur- 
derers 3) It seems to be a mistake in Grotius and others, to 
say, the Egyptian mentioned by Josephus was later than 
these times: for it is apparent from Josephus, both in his 


* Θάνατος ἀπεραίτητος ὥρισται κατὰ τῶν εἰς τοὺς ἐντὸς περιβόλους 


παρελϑύντων. Legat. p. 791. 


Antiquities, lib. xx. cap. 6, and his History of the Jewish 
Wars, that this Egyptian did this in the first or second year 
of Nero, whereas Paul came not to Jerusalem till the fourth 
of Nero. But whereas here are mentioned only “four 
thousand,” and by Eusebius in his Chronicle, «three thou- 
sand;” Josephus, and out of him Eusebius, say, that he 
gathered περὶ τρισμυρίους, “about thirty thousand :” to this 
some say, that in the wilderness they increased to that num- 
ber; others, that of this number only four thousand were 
stcarit, “murderers.” I had rather say, that τρισμύριοι, m 
Josephus, only signifies “three thousand ;” for he tells us, 
De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 23, that the Egyptian “fled with 
a few 3” and that πλεῖστοι τῶν per’ αὐτοῦ, “most of those 
that were with him were taken,” and yet saith that only 
“four hundred of them were killed, and two hundred were 
taken,” Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


1 Mev, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence 
which I make now unto you (Gr. my apology to you 
for my change from a zealous Jew to an assertor of the 
Christian faith). 

2 (And when they heard that he spake in the He- 
brew tongue to them (7. e. as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, 
Phil. iii. 5, and not as a Hellenistic Jew: see note on 
vi. i.), they kept the more silence: and he saith,) (7. e. 
spake to them thus,) 

3 Lam verily aman which am a Jew, ! born (indeed ) 
in Tarsus, a οὐέψ in Cilicia, yet (but) brought up in 
this city ? at the feet of Gamaliel, (@ pharisee, and cele- 
brated doctor of the law, Acts v. 34,) and (was) taught 
(by him) according to the perfect manner (Gr. ἀκρίβειαν; 


the exactness) of the law of the fathers (7. e. delivered 
from our fathers to us), and was zealous toward (or for 
the observance of the law of ) God, (in the same manner) 
as ye all are this day. 

4 And I persecuted (the men of ) this way (i. 6. the 
Christians) unto the death, binding and delivering into 
prisons both men and women (professing Christianity, 
that they might be punished with death as blasphemers of 
the law, Acts vi. 13). 

5 As also the high priest * doth bear me witness 
(Gr. will, I suppose, if asked, bear me witness), and all 
the estate (or senate) of the elders: from whom also 
I received letters unto the brethren, and went (Gr. re- 
ceiving letters went) to Damascus, to bring (Gr. xat 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII. 


1Ve 3. Born in Tarsus.] The metropolis of Cilicia ; 
where they applied themselves so much, saith Strabo,* to 
the study of philosophy, and all the liberal sciences, ὡς 
ὑπερβέβληνται καὶ ᾿Αθήνας καὶ ᾿Αλεξανόρείαν, as that they ex- 
celled the men of Athens and of Alexandria, “and of all 
other places dedicated to the study of those sciences.” 

2 At the feet of Gamaliel.] It was, saith Pseud-Ambro- 
sius,t “the tradition of the synagogue to dispute sitting; 
the seniors in dignity, in chairs; those next to them on 
benches; and the last on the pavement upon mats.” For 
the disciples, saith Buxtorf,+ “sat at the feet of their mas- 
ters,” and therefore, by way of advice to others, to become 


* Lib. xiv. p. 673, D. 

ἡ Hec traditio synagoge est, ut sedentes disputent, seni- 
ores dignitate in cathedris, sequentes in subselliis, novissimi 
in pavimento super mattas,—in 1 Cor. ch. xii. 

+ In voce pan Pirk. Avoth, cap. i. 9. 4. 


disciples of their “wise men,” they used to say, Pulveriza 
te pulvere pedum sapientum, “ Put thyself in the dust of 
their feet.” Accordingly we find Mary sitting at the feet of 
Christ, Luke x. 39. Note also, that this Gamaliel was se 
far from being well affected to Christianity, that some of the 
Jewish writings say, he added to their daily prayers that 
which they used in their synagogues against the progress 
of Christianity, called “the prayer against heretics’ (see 
Lightf. Hor. Hebr. in Matt. vi. 9). By this Gamaliel, saith 
he, was I taught according to the exactness of the law of our 
fathers, being by sect a pharisee, and very well skilled in 
the traditions pretended to be delivered to us from our fore- 
fathers (Gal. i. 14, see note on xxvi. 5): and I was, saith 
he, ζηλωτὴς Θεοῦ, “zealous towards God, as ye all are.” Now 
they being not all of the sect of the zealots, which obtained 
then among them, this phrase cannot necessarily import 
that Paul was of that sect. 

3 Ver. 5. Doth bear me witness.] Maprvpet here being not 
of the present tense, but the second future, should be ren- 
dered «will witness,” as in the paraphrase. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


ἄξων, and was about to bring) them which were there 
bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished. 

6 4 And it came to pass, that, as 1 made my jour- 
ney (on this errand), and was come nigh unto Damas- 
cus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a 
great light round about me (and them that journeyed 
with me, Xxvi. 13). 

7 And (through the terror of it, both) I (and they 
that were with me) fell unto the ground (xxvi. 14), and 

1) heard a (-n articulate) voice saying unto me (in 
the Hebrew tongue, ibid.), Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
thou me? 

8 And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? And he 
said unto me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom thou 
persecutest, 

9 And they that were with me saw indeed the light, 
(and heard a voice, ix. 7,) and were afraid; but they 
heard not the voice of him that spake to me. 


493 


10 And I said, What shall Ido, Lord? And the 
Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and 
there it shall be (farther) told thee of all things which 
are appointed for thee to do (and suffer for me, ix. 
16). 

᾿ And when I (being risen) could not see for the 
glory of that light te shone upon me), being led by 
the hand of them that were with me, I came into Da- 
mascus. 

12 And one Ananias, (a Christian indeed, but still) 
a devout man according to the law, (and) having a 
good report of (from) all the Jews which dwelt there, 

13 Came unto me, and stood (by me), and said unto 
me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight, (for the Lord 
Jesus hath sent me to thee for that end, ix. 17.) And the 
same hour I looked up upon him. 

14 And he said, The God of our fathers hath 
chosen thee, (designing) that thou shouldest know his 


4 Ver. 6. And it came to pass as I made my journey, and 
was come nigh to Damascus, &c.] I have in the notes on 
ch. ix. of this book given the exposition of this history, and 
shall here establish the truth of it, and consequently of that 
faith to which he was converted. In order to this end, let 
us consider, 

First, Who St. Paul was before this wonderful conver- 
sion; and here the scripture doth inform us, that his educa- 
tion was in the schools of Tarsus; from thence he came to 
the university at Jerusalem for the study of divinity and of 
the Jewish law: his tutor was Gamaliel, a man of special 
note among the people; he was, by his profession, of the 
most strict and most exact sect of the pharisees, a sect of all 
men most estranged from, and enraged against, Christianity : 
and for the truth of this, St. Paul appeals to the whole Jew- 
ish nation in these words: “My manner of life from my 
youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Je- 
rusalem, know all the Jews, which know from the beginning, 
if they would testify, that, after the most strict sect of our 
religion, I lived a pharisee ;” by practice and employment 
he was an early, zealous, and industrious persecutor of the 
professors of the Christian faith. When Stephen, the first 
martyr, perished by law, or by judicial sentence, Saul was 
consenting to his murder; being inflamed by this zeal, he 
instantly proceeds to make “great havoc” in the church, 
“entering into every house, and haling men and women into 
prison, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the 
disciples of the Lord ;” he obtains letters ftom the high-priest 
and elders of Jerusalem, or a commission, “if he found any 
of this way, whether men or women, to bring them bound 
to Jerusalem,” to be there sentenced by the Sanhedrin 

ver. 2) ; and in pursuance of this commission he persecutes 

hristians to the death, “binding and delivering up” unto 
it “men and women ;” he “ punished them oft in the syna- 
gogues, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being ex- 
ceeding mad against them, he persecuted them to strange 
cities.” And for the truth of these particulars, he solemnly 
appeals to those chief priests and elders from whom he had 
received his commission; for of this, saith he, “the high- 
priest can bear me witness, and all the estates of the elders :” 
yea, it was a thing notorious to all that heard him « preach 
that faith which he had formerly destroyed ;” for they were 
all amazed at it, and said, “Is not this he that destroyed 
them that called on this name in Jerusalem, and who came 
hither for this intent, that he might bring them bound to the 
chief priests?” so that he was by education, by profession, 
by employment, as fully prejudiced against the Christian 
faith as any of the Jews could be. And therefore, though 
he was not, as St. Austin and some others say, converted by 
an irresistible force, of such a violence as took away the 
freedom of his will, for then he could not have been “ dis- 
obedient to the heavenly vision,” since there can be no dis- 
obedience to, where there is no resistance of, the will of God; 
yet was it wrought in that stupendous manner, and with 
that signal evidence, which could not be resisted without 
wilful sin and obstinate perverseness : for, 

First, This scene was opened with a heavenly light, tran- 
scending that of the meridian sun: now this was by the 


Jews still looked on as the symbol of a divine and glorious 
presence, and is in scripture often styled shechinah, the ma- 
jestic presence and the glory of God; wherefore both Saul 
and his companions fell on their faces, not only through the 
terror of this light, but also as it were an indication of the 
appearance of some divine and glorious person to them, it 
being usual both for the patriarchs and Jews to fall flat on 
their faces at such a glorious appearance ; for so did Abra- 
ham, Gen. xvii. 3, so did the Jews, Lev. ix. 24, so did Moses 
and Aaron, when the glory of the Lord appeared to them, 
Numb. xxix. 6, so did Balaam, Numb. xxii. 21, Joshua, 
Josh. ν. 14, Manoah and his wife, Judg. xiii. 20, David and 
all the elders, 1 Chron. xxi. 16, Ezekiel, i. 1, and Daniel, 
viii. 17. 

Secondly, He hears a voice directed from this shining 
cloud, and saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou 
me?” and giving him assurance that it was Jesus of Naza- 
reth who then appeared to him, and who complained that 
he was persecuted by him in all the cruelties which he in- 
flicted on the living members of his body ; so that he could 
no longer question either the resurrection or ascension of 
the holy Jesus, or his advancement to the right hand of 
glory. 

Thirdly, He by the glory of this light is struck stark 
blind, and so continues till one of Christ’s disciples comes 
and lays his hands upon him, and in the name of Jesus 
restoreth his lost sight unto him: he prays to him he had so 
lately persecuted, and doth in answer to that prayer receive 
a vision of that very person who should restore unto him his 
lost sight: he lastly is baptized in the name of Jesus, and 
with that baptism receives a plentiful effusion of the Holy 
Ghost: so that he had the greatest evidence imaginable, both 
of the presence and the power of the holy Jesus, and of the 
glorious things which were performed in his name, and were 
vouchsafed to the professors of the faith of Christ. Now for 
the truth of these particulars, that in his journey to Damas- 
cus that glorious light appeared, and a voice spake unto him, 
all his companions, whose eyes beheld that light, and whose 
ears heard that voice, could testify : that for a season he was 
blind, both they who led him to Damascus, and the whole 
family of Judas where he Jodged, must be sufficient wit- 
nesses: that he was afterward restored to his sight the same 
persons could attest: that he was thereupon converted to 
the Christian faith, all they who, to their admiration, heard 
him preach that faith, which before he had laboured to de- 
stroy, must know. Moreover, had not this persecutor been 
turned to a promoter of the Christian faith, why were the 
Jews so vehemently incensed against him? Why do they 
lie in wait to kill him even in the place of his conversion ? 
Why do they watch the gates continually that he might not 
escape their bloody hands? Why were the Hellenists of 
Jerusalem still thirsting for his blood? Why do even forty 
of them bind themselves under a curse that “they would 
neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul?” Why do 
they with such violence cry out, “ Away with such a fellow 
from the earth; it is not fit that he should live?” Why was 
it that the chief priests and elders, and all the multitude of 
the Jews, were so desirous of on death, crying out before a 

2 


494 


will, and see that Just One (who appeared to thee), and 
shouldest hear the voice of his mouth, 

15 For (this being done) thou shalt be his witness 
unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard. 

16 And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be 
baptized (Gr. arising, be baptized), and (so) wash 
away thy sins, ® calling on the name of the Lord 
(Jesus, who thereupon will consecrate thee to, and enable 
thee for, this work, by filling thee with the Holy Ghost, 
ix. 17). 

17 And (accordingly) it came to pass, that, when [ 
was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in 
the temple, (Gr. and it happened to me returning to Je- 
rusalem, and praying in the temple, that) 1 was (Gr. to 
be) in a trance (or ecstasy) ; 

18 δ And saw him (Gr. and to see, 7. e. to perceive 
him,) saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly 
out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testi- 
mony concerning me. 

19 7 And I said, Lord, (ἐ is wonderful that they should 
not receive my testimony, seeing) they know that (for- 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


merly) 1 imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them 
that believed on thee: 

20 And (that) when the blood of thy martyr Ste- 
phen was shed, I also was standing by, and consent- 
ing unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that 
slew him. 

21 And (but) he said unto me, (Argue not, but) de- 
part: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. 

22 And they gave him audience unto (7. 6. until) 
this word, and then (they) lifted up their voices, and 
said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it 
is not fit that he should live. 

23 And as they cried out, and ὃ cast off their clothes, 
(as persons ready to stone him, v. 57.) and threw dust 
into the air (/o show their rage against him), 

24 °The chief captain commanded him to be brought 
into the castle, and bade that he should be examined 
by scourging ; that (by his confession) he might know 
wherefore they cried so against him. 

25 And as they bound him with thongs (in order 
lo the scourging of him), Paul said unto the centurion 


the Roman governors, that “he ought not to live any 
longer?’ This sure is evidence sufficient, that he whom 
they commissioned to persecute the Christian faith was now 
become a convert to, and an industrious promoter of it; 
and hence also it must be evident, that he who spake unto 
him was no other than the holy Jesus; that upon his con- 
version he received the gifts and the miraculous operations of 
the Holy Ghost, must be apparent from the tongues he 
spake, the miracles he did for confirmation of that faith; 
that his sight was recovered by the name of Jesus, as it de- 
pends upon the testimony of Ananias, so is that Ananias 
declared to be “a devout man according to the law, having 
a good report of all the Jews that lived at Damascus,” and 
so a witness against whom those Jews could make no just 
exception. And surely the conversion of a person so fully 
prejudiced against the Christian faith, to that faith he did so 
vehemently oppose and persecute, by such a visible appear- 
ance of this very Jesus to him, with such glorious circum- 
stances, the sight which was restored to him by one of his 
disciples, the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon him when 
baptized, whereby he was enabled to preach the gospel with 
“demonstration of the Spirit, and with power,” must give 
sufficient demonstration not only of the truth of his conver- 
sion, but also of that doctrine which he preached, viz. that 
“Jesus was the Son of God.” 

5 Ver. 16. ᾿Επικαλεσάμενος τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Κυρίου, Calling 
upon the name of the Lord.| Here Grotius would have us 
read αὐτοῦ, “his name,” and refer this, not to Christ, but 
to God the Father, mentioned ver. 14; whereas even Wolt- 
zogenius here saith, we are to understand Jesus Christ, of 
whom here mention is made both in the antecedent and 
subsequent words; and this is evident from the interpreta- 
tion of Ananias, who, to prevent such a mistake, saith, 6 Ki- 
pos, “The Lord, even Jesus, who was seen of thee, hath 
sent me to thee” (ix. 17); and having told us that Chris- 
tians were persons who “called upon the name” of Christ, 
ver. 14, we have reason to conceive that he adviseth Paul 
thus to profess, and show he was a Christian; and hence the 
inference of Chrysostom* from this place is this, that « by 
these words he shows that Christ was God, because it is not 
lawful to invoke any besides God.” 

8 Ver. 18, Kai ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν, And to see him.] That is, saith 
(rrotius, “an angel instead of Christ ;” but this is plainly 
contrary to the text, both here and ch. xxvi., for here the 
promise made to him is, that he “should see that Just One, 
and hear the words of his mouth,” ver. 14, and there it is 
said, fat he would “appear to him to teach him what he 
was ἰδ preach,” ver. 16, and therefore here Paul calls him 
“Lor,” ver. 19, and elsewhere saith, “ Am I not an apostle, 
have I not seen the Lord Jesus Christ?”’ 1 Cor. ix. 1. 

7 Ver. 19, And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned 


* ᾿Επικαλεσάμενος τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Χριστοῦ" τυῦτο δεικύντός ἔστιν 
αὐτὸν Θεὸν ὄντα" οὐ γὰρ ἔνι ἕτερύν τινα ἐπικαλέσασϑαι εἰ μὴ τὸν 
Θεόν. 


and beat in every synagogue them that believed in thee.) i. 6. 
Lord, my former zeal against those that believed in thee is 
so well known to them all, by so many remarkable instances 
shown among them, that sure they must be convinced that 
it is upon some certain and irresistible grounds of persuasion 
that I am now become a preacher of that faith I formerly 
destroyed and persecuted with so great zeal; and so I am 
apt to think they should more diligently attend to the nar- 
rative I give of my wonderful change, and to the reasons I 
now offer to confirm the truth of the Christian faith. 

8 Ver. 23. And as they cast off their clothes, and threw dust 
into the air.] They cast off their clothes, as in the instance 
of St. Stephen, vii. 58, that they might be the more ready 
to stone him; and they threw dust into the air, to show 
their rage against him, and their abhorrence of him, as of a 
person not fit to be conversed with any longer, it being usual 
to testify this by shaking the dust from their feet (Luke ix. 5, 
Acts xiii. 35). 

9 Ver. 24. The chief captain commanded μάστιξιν ἀνετά- 
ζεσϑαι αὐτὸν, to examine him by scourging.] 'Averatew is to 
examine by way of torment, to find out, or cause men to 
confess, a crime; so in Hesychius and Phavorinus ἐτάζεσϑαι 
is κρίνεσθαι καὶ βασανίζεσθαι, “to be punished and torment- 
ed,” and ἐξέτασις is βασανισμὸς, torment : so Gen. xii. 17, 
καὶ ἤτασεν ὃ Θεὸς τὸν Φαραὼ ἐτασμοῖς, “God plagued Pharaoh 
with great plagues;” and Esth. ii. 22, “The king ἤτασε, 
examined, or tormented, the two eunuchs:” so the wick- 
ed say of the righteous, βασάνῳ ἐτάσωμεν αὐτὸν, “Let us 
try him with torments,” Wisd. ii. 19, and the author of 
that book, vi. 6, “that the mighty δυνατῶς ἐτασϑήσονται, 
shall be mightily tormented;” and in the son of Sirach, 
XXlii. 9, οἰκέτης ἐξεταζόμενος, is “a servant that was beaten.” 
This examination was used by the Romans, and by other 
nations, to force them who were thus scourged to confess 
what they had done, why, and who were conscious to the 
fact ; as Tacitus* saith of Herennius Gallus, that he received 
stripes that they might know, quo pretio, et quibus consciis 
prodidisset exercitum, “at what price, and with what con- 
federates, he betrayed the Roman army.” (3.) They who 
were thus scourged had their arms extended, and their bodies 
tied to a pillar, as Lipsiust shows ; and thus here they seem 
προτείνειν, “to stretch out Paul’s body to the whip and 
scourge.” (4.) This punishment of scourging, not with 
rods, but μάστιξι καὶ ἵμασι, “with whips and thongs,” as 
here, was not used to a Roman, but to strangers only; on 
which account Cicero, in his oration pro Rabirio, speaks 
against Labienus thus: Porcia lex virgas ab omnium civium 
corpore amovit; hic misericors flagella retulit, “the Porcian 
law permits not a citizen to be whipped with rods; but he 
hath done it with scourges;” and upon this account Paul 
here saith, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a 
Roman, and uncondemned 2” ver. 25. 


* Hist. lib. iv. p. 573, 
{ Tr. de Crue. lib. 11, cap. 3. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man 
that is a Roman, and (7s) uncondemned ? 

26 When the centurion heard that ey 
and told the chief captain, saying, ‘Take 
thou doest: for this man is a Roman, 

27 Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, 
Tell me, art thou a Roman? (.4nd) he said, Yea. 

28 And the chief captain answered, " With a great 
sum (of money) obtained I this freedom (of α citizen of 
Rome). And Paul said, But I was free born (viz. in 
acity which had this privilege, and so needed not to ac- 
quire it by money). 


; he went 
eed what 


495 


29 Then straightway they departed from him which 
should have examined him: and the chief captain 
also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, 
and (he thus feared) because he had bound him (in 
order to the scourging him). 

30 On the morrow, because he would have known 
the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, 
he loosed him from Ais bands, and commanded the 
chief priests and all their council to appear, and 
brought Paul down (from the castle), and set him be- 
fore them. 


10 Ver. 28. With a great sum of money obtained I this 
freedom. And Paul said, But Twas free born.) Dion* 
and Tacitus inform us, that about the time of Claudius the 
rights of a Roman citizen were bought with little money ; 
but it is more difficult to show how St. Paul came to be free 
born; Grotius and Le Clere will not have it to be on the 
account of his being born in ‘Tarsus, that being no Roman 
colony; but it makes fair for the opinion of those who think 
Tarsus had obtained this freedom through the favour of 
some emperor, that Dion Cassius} says, that they so favoured 


*P. 148, + Lib. xlvii. 


Julius Cesar in the civil war, and afterward Octavius, that 
it obtained the name of Juliopolis, and was honoured with 
the greatest privileges; and that Dio Chrysostom in his 
oration saith, it received from Cesar all that honour and 
power which one could give to his friends and companions : 
but Carthusianus, and the gloss upon 2 Tim. iv. 12, say more 
fully, that they received this freedom because they met the 
Roman ambassadors with peace and crowns, and that then 
the father of Paul, going out with them, received the penula 
or cloak which St. Paul sent for, as an ensign or mark of a 
Roman citizen. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


1 Anp Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, 
Men and brethren, ' I have lived in all good con- 
science before God until this day. 

2 And the high priest Ananias commanded them 
that stood by him to smite him on the mouth. 

3 Then said Paul unto him, 2? God shall smite thee, 
thou whited wall (ἡ. 6. thow hypocrite): for sittest thou 
(as a magistrate) to judge me after the law, and (yet) 
ecommandest me to be smitten contrary to the law? 


(which saith, Thow shalt do no unrighteousness in judg- 
ment, Ley. xix. 15.) 

4 And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God’s 
hich priest ? 

5 Then said Paul, 51 wist (or Anew) not, brethren, 
that he (who commanded me to be smitten) was the 
high priest: (the knowledge of that might haply have re- 
strained me from speaking thus,) for it is written, Thou 
shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIII. 


1 Ver. 1. Ihave lived in all good conscience to this day.) 
Not as a good conscience signifies a conscience void of error 
and offence, for he owns himself to have been guilty of great 
sin in persecuting the church of Christ, 1 Tim. i. 13. 15; 
but as it signifies a conscience acting according to his per- 
suasion that he ought to act; and in this sense, when he 
blasphemed against Christ and persecuted his church, he did 
this even through a persuasion that he “ ought to do many 
things contrary to the name of Jesus,” Acts xxvi. 9, 10. 
Moreover, by saying that he lived in all good conscience, 
whilst he professed Judaism, and was, “as to the righteous- 
ness of the law. blameless,” Phil. iii. 6, he gives them to un- 
derstand that he left not the religion of the Jews, out of 
any hardships which it did require, or any prejudice he had 
against the precepts of it; and by adding, that he also had 
lived unblameably in the profession of the Christian faith, 
he intimates that he became and continued a Christian out 
of a full conviction that he was bound in conscience so to be 
and so to act, and that he still served God from a pure 
conscience (2 Tim. i. 3). 

2 Ver. 3. God shall smite thee, thou whited wall.) He 
elegantly compares him to a whited wall, because, as that 
had a fair outside, but nothing but dirt, sticks, or stones 
within, so he had an outward appearance of a righteous judge, 
sitting as one that would pass judgment according to the law, 
and yet commanding him to be punished for speaking the 
truth, and so condemning the innocent against the law of 
nature and of Moses, which saith, “Thou shalt do no un- 
righteousness in judgment,” Lev. xix. 15. And he fore- 
tells that God shall smite him, by that gift of prophecy which 
God had given him, which came to pass, he being slain, saith 
Chrysostom; he perishing in the siege of Jerusalem, saith 
Dr. Lightfoot; he being deposed, and sent bound to Rome, 
saith Josephus, Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5, p. 692, E. 


Καὶ σὺ xa9y κρίνων pe κατὰ τὸν νόμον, καὶ παρὰ νόμον κελεύεις 


μὲ τύπτεσϑαι; For sittest thou to judge me according to the 
law, and yet commandest me to be smitten contrary to the 
law 2] Here Stephanus makes two easy emendations, κρινῶν 
and παρανομῶν, and so renders the words thus; “ Sittest thou 
as one about to judge me according to the law, and yet, 
violating that law, commandest me (uncondemned) to be 
smitten?” The first I think unnecessary, because Ananias 
was then actually on the seat of judgment, and executing 
the office of a judge; the second seems not to be an emen- 
dation, but the more common reading of the text. 

3 Ver. 5. Οὐκ dew ὅτι ἐστὶν ἀρχιερεῦς, &e. I wist not that 
he was the high-priest : for it is written, &c.| Tam not will- 
ing to own that Paul, who doubtless was filled with the 
Holy Ghost, and had a share in the promise of his assistance 
and direction, when they came before governors, should here 
be guilty of a transgression of the law, especially when I 
suppose him acted by a prophetic impulse; and yet it is 
not easy to put any likely sense upon these words by which 
we can avoid it. We cannot do it according to our transla- 
tion, or the observation of some critics, that οὐκ ndew sig- 
nifies, “I considered not ;” for that seems plainly to insinu- 
ate, that if he had well considered or weighed his words, he 
should not have uttered them, as being contrary to the pre- 
cept not to speak evil of the ruler of the people; which 
surely is to confess, that he had by them violated that com- 
mand, had he considered to whom he spake. Nor (2.) ac- 
cording to the exposition of Dr. Hammond; for though 
he saith he was not truly the high-priest (note on Luke iii. 
c), yet he confesseth that Ananias was then “ruler of the 
people,” and so makes Paul to say in his paraphrase, «I 
confess I did amiss.” Dr. Lightfoot and Grotius thinks as I 
do, that Paul does not go about to excuse his mistake, but 
rather saith, I know well enough that God’s high-priest is 
not to be reviled, but that this Ananias is a high-priest I 
know not, i. 6. [do not own him as such, who hath procured 
this title by bribery: our celebrated rabbins* having de- 


* Talm. Tr. de Synedrio. 


496 


6 But when Paul perceived (or, then Paul knowing) 
that the one part (of die council and of the people) were 
Sadducees, and the other Pharisees (who asserted the 
resurrection of the body, which the sadducees denied), he 
cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a 
Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of (2. 6. concerning 
one of their doctrines, viz.) 4 the hope and resurrection 
(i. e. the hope of the resurrection) of the dead Tam called 
in question. 

7 And when he had so said, there arose a dissension 
between the Pharisees and the Sadducees: and the 
multitude was divided. 

8 (These words of St. Paul being a plain declaration 
of his opposition to the doctrine of the sadducees ;) ὃ for the 
Sadducees say that there is no resurrection (of the 
body), neither (is there any permanent) angel, nor spirit: 
but the Pharisees confess both (angels and other spirits 
remaining after their separation from the body). 

9 And there arose (wpon this dissension) a great ery 
(or clumour): and (for) the scribes that were of the 
Pharisees’ part arose, and strove (in defence and justi- 
fication of St. Paul), saying, We find no evil in this 
man: but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, 
let us not fight against God. 

10 And when there arose a great dissension (Gr. 
and the dissension growing great), the chief captain, fear- 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


ing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of 
them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to 
take him by force from among them, and to bring 
him into the castle (of Antonia), * 

11 And the night following ὃ the Lord (Jesus) stood 
by him, and said (to him), Be of good cheer, Paul: for 
as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, 7 so must 
thou bear witness also (of me).at Rome. 

12 And when it was day, certain of the Jews 
banded together, § and bound themselves under a 
curse, saying (with an imprecalion) that they would 
neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. 

13 And they were more than forty (persons) which 
had made this conspiracy (against him, out of zeal to 
their religion). : 

14 And (the better to accomplish it) they came to the 
chief priests and elders, (men as zealous for his destruc- 
tion as themselves, xxv. 15,) and said (to them), We have 
bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat 
nothing until we have slain Paul. 

15 Now therefore ye with the (whole) council sig- 
nify ( your request) to the chief captain that he (awow/d) 
bring him down unto you to morrow, as though ye 
would enquire something more perfectly concerning 
him: and we, or ever (¢. 6. before) he come near (10 the 
council), are ready to kill him. 


clared that such a one “ is neither a judge, nor to be honoured 
as such;” in which sense the blind man saith of Christ to 
the pharisees, “That he is a sinner, οὐκ οἶδα, I know not,” 
John ix. 25, and this he might say, because the high-priest 
had not then on him those robes peculiar to him, by which 
he was distinguished from other priests. Or, (2.) the latent 
sense may be this, The prophetic impulse that was upon 
me, and inwardly moved me thus to speak, permitted me 
not to advert that it was the high-priest, lest that law I men- 
tion might have restrained me from complying with that 
impulse ; and it is certain from the example of Christ styl- 
ing Herod, “ fox,’ Luke xiii. 32, and of Paul calling Nero, 
“Jion,” 2 Tim. iv. 17, and acknowledged by the Jews, that 
he who acted as a prophet was not under the obligation of 
this precept, as others were; but Paul speaks so obscurely, 
because, saith Grotius, he knew he would find no credit 
from them in this assertion. 

4 Ver. 6. For the hope and resurrection of the dead I 
am called in question.| That is, for the hope of the resur- 
rection of the dead; so χάρις καὶ ἀποστολὴ, is “the grace of 
apostleship,” ζωὴ καὶ πνοὴ, “the breath of life,” Acts xvii. 
25 (see Glassius, Philol. i. lib. iti, tr. de Nom.) ; but then it 
is inquired, why Paul here saith he was called in question 
for this hope in general, and xxiv. 15, xxvi. 6, repeats the 
same thing, when he was only called in question concerning 
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Now the reason of this 
will appear from this observation ; that before our Saviour’s 
passion the doctrine which he preached being chiefly levelled 
against the vain traditions of the scribes and pharisees, and 
his woes denounced against them, they still appear in op- 
position to him, the sadducees being scarce ever mentioned 
as his adversaries; but after his resurrection the testimony 
of the apostles being this, that Christ was risen from the 
dead, and so directly contrary to that which distinguished 
the sadducees from the pharisees, we find them most forward 
to oppose their testimony ; then “the sadducees came upon 
them, being grieved that they preached the resurrection of 
the dead through Jesus,” iv. 1, 2, then “the high-priest and 
all the sect of the sadducees were filled with zeal against 
them,” v. 17, the scribes, which were of the sect of the 
pharisees, rather siding with Paul in this matter. Another 
reason, why Paul thus mixed these things together, might 
be this, that the apostles testified the resurrection of the 
dead « through Jesus,” Acts iv. 2, and taught that God would 
“raise us up by Jesus” 1 Thess. iv. 14, and so the proof of 
the one, viz. that Christ was risen, was a confirmation of 
the general resurrection. 

5 Ver. 8. The sadducees say there is no resurrection, 
neither angel, nor spirit.) That the sadducees did not be- 
lieve the resurrection of the body, as all the ancient Chris- 


tians* plainly do assert, so this scripture, and Matt. xxii. 
23, plainly testify. (2.) They said, that after the giving of 
the law at least, there was no angel; and that when they are 
said to appear so often in the law of Moses, they were 
framed for that purpose, and after ceased to have any being, 
for otherwise it is hard to conceive, how they could believe 
the law of Moses, and yet deny that angels ever did exist. 
And, (3.) when they are said to deny any spirits, that is not 
to be so understood, as if they denied God to be a spirit, or 
that there was any spirit of man within him, but as Jose- 
phusf testifies, they denied τῆς Ψυχῆς τὴν διαμονὴν, “ the perma- 
nency of the soul after death; and so they denied any 
spirits separated from bodies which could appear, or reveul 
any thing to them; the pharisees held the contrary, as is 
apparent from these words, ver. 9, “If an angel or spirit 
hath spoken to him:” of such apparitions, believed by the 
apostles, we have mention Matt. xiv. 26, Luke xxiv. 37, and 
the Jews believed that Samuel thus appeared to Saul, and 
Elias frequently to them, the sadducees denying all such 
apparitions. 

6 Ver. 11. The Lord stood by him,] Per angelum, “by 
an angel,” saith Grotius, without all ground ; an angel never 
being styled ὁ Κύριος, “the Lord,” in the New Testament, 
but only “the angel of the Lord,” Matt. i. 20, ii. 13, xix. 
21, xxviii. 2, Luke i. 11, ii. 9, Acts v. 19, viii. 26, xii. 7. 23, 
and said Sépce Taide, “ Be of good courage, Paul ;” for as 
when thou testifiedst of me in Jerusalem, and they went 
about to kill thee (Acts ix. 29, 30), I delivered thee; so 
will I also deliver thee from the gentiles at Rome, according 
to my promise made to thee (Acts xxvi. 17). 

7 Δεῖ σε εἰς Ρώμην μαρτυρῆσαι, Thou must testify of me at 
Rome.] Here is an instance of divine appointment, without 
any necessity laid upon the wvill of Paul; whose appeal to 
Cesar was only made as an expedient to preserve him from 
the rage of the Jews (Acts xxv. 11. 24, xxviii. 19), and so 
was only a matter of prudence, and not of absolute ne- 
cessity. 

8 Ver. 12. Who bound themselves under a curse.| It was 
a thing too common among the zealots of the Jews, to cut 
off, without any judicial process, those whom they looked 
upon as transgressors of their laws, and enemies to the Jews. 
Josephust informs us that they committed infinite slaugh- 
ters, τὰ μέγιστα κακῶν ἀγαθὰ νομίζοντες, “ thinking the vilest 


* Just. M. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 307, Iren. lib. iv. cap. 
11, Constit. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 6, Tertul. de Prescript. cap. 
45, Orig. in Matt. tom. i. p. 485—487. 

+ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12. 

+ Ibid. lib. v. cap. 19. 21, lib. vii. 30. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


16 And when Paul’s sister’s son heard of their lying | 
in wait, he went and entered (Gr. being present, and en- 
tering) into the castle, and (Gr. he) told Paul. 

17 9 Then Paul called one of the centurions unto 
him, and said, Bring this young man unto the chief 
eaptain: for he hath a certain thing to tell him. 

18 So he took him, and brought Aim to the chief 
eaptain, and said, Paul the prisoner called me unto 
him, and prayed me to bring this young man unto thee, 
who hath something to say unto thee. 

19 Then the chief captain took him by the hand, 
and went with him aside privately, and asked him, 
What is that thou hast to tell me? 

20 And he said, (Certain of ) the Jews have agreed 
to desire thee (by intercession of the council) that thou 
wouldest bring down Paul to morrow into the council, 
as though they would enquire somewhat of him more 
perfectly. 

21 But do not thou yield (tis) unto them : for there 
lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, which 
have bound themselves with an oath, that they will 
neither eat nor drink till they have killed him: and 
now are they ready, looking for a promise from thee 
(to bring him down). 

22 So the chief captain then let the young man de- 
part, and charged him (saying), See thow tell no man 
that thou hast shewed these things to me. 

23 And he called unto Aim two centurions, saying 
δ them), Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to 

wsarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and spear- 
men two hundred, at the third hour of the night ; 

24 And provide them beasts, that they may set Paul 
on, and bring Atm safe unto Felix the governor. 

25 And he wrote a letter (to him) after this man- 
ner: 


things were good when done by them. And Philo* speaks 
of some among them, of ὀμνύουσιν τραύματα καὶ σφαγὰς, * who 
swore to wound and kill others, καὶ dvurepSéras αὐτὰ ὁρῶσι, 
and did so without delay ;” and that the chief priests and 
Sanhedrin approved of such murders done out of such per- 
nicious designs, we learn from their confident address to 
them, ver. 14, 15, and their consent to the fact, ver. 20, 


* De Spec. Leg. p. 595. 


497 


26 Claudius Lysias unto the most excellent go- 
vernor Felix sendeth greeting. 

27 This man (whom I send to thee) was taken of tha 
Jews, and should have been killed of them: then 
came I with an army, and rescued him, having under- 
stood (Gr. this man taken by the Jews, and being about 
to be killed by them, I, knowing it, with my army rescued 
him, understanding) that he was a Roman. 

28 And when I would have known (Gr. being will- 
ing to know) the cause wherefore (for which) they 
accused him, I brought him forth into their council : 

29 Whom I perceived to be accused of (7. 6. concern- 
ing) questions of their law, but to have nothing laid 
to his charge worthy of death or of bonds. 

30 And when it was told me how that the Jews 
laid wait for the man (or when I was told of a conspiracy 
that would be against him from the Jews), 1 sent (him) 
straightway to thee, and gave commandment to his 
accusers also to say before thee what they had (to say) 
against him. Farewell. 

31 Then the soldiers, as it was commanded them, 
took Paul, and brought him by night to Antipatris. 

32 (4nd) on the morrow they left the horsemen 
to go (on) with him, and (the foot) returned to *he 
castle: 

33 Who (7. e. which horsemen), when they came to 
Cesarea, and delivered the epistle to the governor, 
presented Paul also before him. 

34 And when the governor had read the letter, he 
asked of what province he was. And when he un- 
derstood that he was of Cilicia; 

35 I will hear thee, said he (fo Paul), when thine 
accusers are also come. And he commanded hiin 
(in the mean time) to be kept in Herod’s judgment 
hall. 


plainly proving, by their lying and murderous dispositions, 
that they were children of the devil, John viii. 44 (see xxv. 


2, 3. 

9 Ver 17. Then Paul called one of the centurions, δες. 
Hence it appears, that even after a promise of our safety 
(see note on ver. 11), we ought not to neglect any honest 
means of our preservation, though it be to be accomplished 
by our addresses to men alien from the faith. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


1 Awnp after five days Ananias the high priest de- 
scended with the elders, and with a certain orator 
named Tertullus, ἢ who informed the governor (Gr. 
showed themselves to the governor) against Paul. 

2 And when he was called forth, Tertullus began 


to aceuse him, saying (lo the governor), 5 Seeing that 
by thee we enjoy great quietness, and that very wor- 
thy deeds are done unto this nation by thy providence, 

3 We acceptit always, and in all places, most noble 
Felix, with all thankfulness. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXIV. 


V Ver. 1, Otrwes ἐνεφάνισαν τῷ ἡγεμόνι, Who informed the 
governor.) This word answers to the Hebrew p>), as it 
in hiphil signifies to make known, show, declare, appear ; 
and where a dative case follows, an accusative is to be un- 
derstood, and is most frequently added; as when Moses 
says, Exod. xxxiii. 13, ἐμφάνισόν μοι σεαυτὸν, “Show to me 
thyself;” thus Esther ἐνεφάνισε τῷ βασιλεῖ τὰ τῆς ἐπιβουλῆς, 
“showed or declared the conspiracy to the king,” Esth. ii. 
22; so John xiv. 21, * How is it ὅτι ἡμῖν μέλλεις ἐμφανίζειν 

. σεαυτὸν, that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the 
world?” And accordingly here and xxv. 2. 15, ἑαυτοὺς is to 
be understood, and the whole should be rendered, « Who 
showed or declared themselves to the governor against Paul ;” 
not that they informed the governor; for the information 
follows, ver. 5, 6, and so our translators have rendered the 
word, xxiii. 22, and Heb. xi. 14. 

2 Ver. 3. Πολλῆς εἰρήνης τυγχάνοντες διὰ σοῦ, Seeing we en- 
joy great peace by thee, &c.} In this and in the following 

ox. IV.—63 


verses the orator is guilty of sordid flattery and falsehood : 
for though it be true, that Felix did some kindness to the 
Jewish nation in delivering them from the thieves and the 
magicians which infested them, as Josephus* doth acknow- 
ledge; yet that he otherwise was guilty of great injustice 
towards the Jews, and was on that account accused before 
Nero by the chief of the Jews dwelling at Cwesarea, and 
had been punished for his wickedness, had not his brother 
Pallas, who was then high in favour with Nero, succoured 
him, the same Josephusy testifies. (2.) That Paul moved 
the Jews to sedition against the government, or that he went 
about to profane the temple, was utterly false, see xxi. 28, 
and so was it also, that they took him to judge him accord- 
ing to their law; for they took him by violence, and drew 
him out of the temple, and went about to kill him without 
any judicial process (xxi. 30, 31). 


* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6, De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap, 12. 

T Kai πάντως ἀνεδεδώκει τῶν εἰς ᾿Ιουδαίους ἀδικημάτων τιμωρίαν, 
εἰ μὴ πολλὰ αὐτὸν ὃ Νερῶν τῷ ἀδελφῷ Παλλάντι παρακαλέσαντι 
συνεχάρησ. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 7. 

2R2 


498 


4 Notwithstanding, that I be not (Gr. but that Imay 
not be) further tedious unto thee, I pray thee that thou 
wouldest hear us of thy clemency a few words. 

5 For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, 
and a mover of sedition among all the Jews through- 
out the world, and a ringleader of the sect (called 
from one Jesus of Nazareth, the sect) of the Naza- 
Tenes : 

6 Who also hath gone about to profane the temple 
(of Jerusalem, by bringing into it heathens, xxi. 28): 
whom we (therefore) tock, 3 and would have judged 
according to our law. 

7 But the chief captain Lysias came upon us, and 
with great violence took him away out of our hands, 

8 Commanding his accusers to come unto thee: by 
examining of whom (thow) thyself mayest take know- 
ledge of all these things, whereof we accuse him. 

9 And the Jews also assented (to this accusation), 
saying that these things were so. 

10 Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned 
unto him to speak, answered, Forasmuch as 1 know 
that thou hast been of many years a judge unto this 
nation (and so canst not be ignorant of the things belong- 
ing to Christianity, or to the Jews), 1 do the more cheer- 
fully answer for myself (before thee) : 

11 Because that thou mayest understand, that there 
are yet but twelve days since I went up to Jerusalem 
for to worship. 

12 And (sence my coming thither) they neither found 
me in the temple disputing with any man, neither (have 
they found me) raising up the people (Gr. making a se- 
dition among the multitude), neither in the synagocues, 
nor in the city: 

13 Neither can they prove (any other of ) the things 
whereof they now accuse me. 

14 But (as for that part of their accusation which re- 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


lates to the sect of the Nazarenes) this I confess unto thee, 
that 4 after the way which they call heresy, so wor- 
ship I the God of my fathers (viz. through Jesus Christ), 
believing all things which are written in the law and 
in the prophets (concerning him) : 

15 And have hope toward God (in God), which 
they themselves also allow, that there shall be a re- 
surrection of the dead, 5. both of the just and un- 
just. - 

: 16 And ὃ herein (therefore) do I exercise myself, to 
have always a conscience void of offence toward God, 
and foward men. 

17 Now 7 after many years (from my conversion) I 
came to bring alms to my nation, and offerings ( from 
the Christians of Macedonia and Achaia, Rom. xv. 
26). 

3 Whereupon certain Jews (that came) from Asia 
found me purified in the temple, (after the manner of the 
Nazarites, Acts xxi. 24. 26, and in compliance with the 
law of Moses concerning them that had a vow upon them, 
as then I had, xviii. 18, but Iwas there) neither with mul- 
titude (7. 6. concourse of any to profane the temple, as they 
imagined, xxi. 23), nor with (any) tumult (made by me 
whilst I was there). 

19 Who (being my accusers) ought to have been here 
before thee, and object (ct, as doubtless they would do) 
if they had ought against me. 

20 Or else let these same here (who have assented 
to the accusation of Tertullus, ver. 9) say, * if they have 
found any evil doing in me, while I stood before the 
council, 

21 Except it be (their pleasure to accuse me) for this 
one voice, that I cried standing among them, (wz 
That) touching the resurrection of the dead I am called 
in question by you this day. 

22 And when Felix heard these things, 9 having (as 


3 Ver. 6. And would have judged him according to our 
Jaw.] From this, and from the complaint of violence used 
by Lysias in taking Paul out of their hands, it seemeth to 
appear, that the Jews still either had or claimed a power of 
inflicting death upon capital offenders against their law. 

4 Ver. 14. After that way which they call heresy.) They 
accusing Paul as a ringleader τῆς τῶν Ναζαραίων αἱρέσεως, “ of 
the heresy of the Nazarenes,” that is, of the Christians, so 
styled both by Jew and gentile from their faith in Jesus of 
Nazareth. Now the word αἵρεσις bears often an indifferent 
sense, both in the scriptures, as when it is said, Acts xv. 
5, that some believers were ἐκ τῆς τῶν φαρισαίων αἱρέσεων, “ of 
the sect of the pharisees;” and when the Jews at Rome 
inquire of Paul, what he thought περὶ τῆς αἱρέσεως ταῦτης, * Of 
the sect” of Christians, xxviii. 22, and when St. Paul saith 
in commendation of himself, that he lived κατὰ τὴν dxp:Beo- 
τἄτην αἵρεσιν, “according to the exactest sect (or heresy) of 
their religion,’ xxvi. 5, and also in the ancient Jewish 
writers; as when Josephus gives an account of the three 
αἱρέσεις, “ heresies,” or φιλοσοφίας, “ philosophical opinions” of 
the Jews, Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 2, et de Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 
12, yet seeing the prayer against the Christians, called bera- 
coth haminim, if we may credit the Jews, was made by R. 
Samuel in the time of Gamaliel; and seeing Justin Martyr* 
doth inform us, that they very early sent their emissaries to 
all nations against the Christians, representing them as αἵρεσις 
ἄϑευς καὶ ἄνομος, “an antheistical and wicked heresy,’ we 
have reason to believe, that in this sense they accused Paul 
as a ringleader of “the heresy of the Nazarenes.” 

5 Ver. 15. Both of the just and of the unjust.) This 
seemeth necessarily to be added, because the doctrine of the 
pharisees, according to Josephus,t restrained the resurrection 
to the just, condemning the unjust to perpetual torments 


* Contr. Tryph. p. 234, 235, 
J Kat τοῖς piv εἰργμὸν εἴδιον προστίϑεσϑαι, τοῖς dé ῥαστώνην 
τοῦ ἀναβιοῦ. Antig. lib. xviii. cap. 2. Καταβαίνειν cis ἕτερον 


without any resurrection, the entrance into another body 
belonging only to the souls of the just. 

6 Ver. 16. ‘Ev τούτῳ δὲ, And herein.) The critics say, that 
here and 2 Cor. v. 2, ἐν τούτῳ signifies interim, interea, “im 
the mean time,” but I think without any necessity ; for in 
both places it may either signify ἐπὶ τοῦτο, ob hance rem, 
“for this cause,” or have relation to the former verse; so 
here ἐν τοῦτῳ hath relation to ἐλπίδα ἔχων, and signifies, 
“having hope in this thing ;” and in the other place it hath 
relation to ὄντες ἐν τῷ σκήνει, and signifies, “ Being in this 
tabernacle, we groan.” 

7 Ver. 17. After many years I came to bring alms.) The 
alms brought by him from Antioch (xi. 29, 30), cannot be 
here intended, they being brought by him and Barnabas, 
but seven years at most after his conversion; and nothing 
which he here relates touching purification, and concerning 
the Jews of Asia finding him in the temple, happening then : 
but only when he went up to Jerusalem with the alms and 
oblations of the churches of Macedonia and Achaia; then 
had he his vows upon him (xviii. 18), then did the Jews 
from Asia take hold of him in the temple (xxi. 17). 

8 Ver, 20. If they have found any evil doing in me while 
I stood before the council. Hence it appears that he thought 
not he did evil in saying to Ananias, the high-priest, “God 
shall smite thee,” &c. 

9 Ver. 22. ᾿Ακριβέστερον εἰδὼς τὰ περὶ τῆς ὁδοῦ. It seems 
to me evident, that these words cannot admit the explication 
of Grotius and others, that Felix deferred them that he 
might have a more exact knowledge of Christianity: but 
that having his residence at Cwsarea, where Cornelius the 
centurion and his friends were converted, where Philip the 
evangelist dwelt, and where there were many disciples (xxi. 
8. 16), he became thus acquainted with the way of Chris- 
tianity. 


σῶμα τὴν τῶν ἀγαϑῶν μόνην, τὴν δὲ τὼν φαύλων ἀϊδίῳ τιμωρίᾳ 


κολάζεσϑαι. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788, F. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


being many years a judge of that nation, ver. 9) more 
perfect knowledge of that way (Gr. τῆς ὁδοῦ, of the 
way of Christianity), he deferred (the farther hearing 
of) them, and said, When Lysias the chief captain 
shall come down (to Cxsarea), I will know the utter- 
most of your matter (Gr. 7 shall know the business be- 
tween you). 

23 And (then) he commanded a centurion to kee 
Paul, and to let him have liberty (from his bonds), ant 
that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to min- 
ister or come unto him. 

24 And after certain days, when Felix came with 
his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess (who had left 
her husband Isis or Azizus, king of the Emisseni, and had 
married Felix, an uncircumeised person, contrary to the 


499 


law), he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the 
faith in Christ. 

25 And as he (Pau/) reasoned of ” righteousness, 
temperance (Gr. justice and continence), and (of) judg- 
ment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy 
way for this time; (and) when I have a convenient 
season, I will call for thee. 

26 He hoped also (being a ee ge that money 
should have been given him of Paul, that he might 
loose him (from his chain): wherefore he sent for him 
the oftener, and communed with him. 

27 But " after two years (not of the government of 
Felix, ver. 10, ref St. Paul's imprisonment,) Porcius 
Testus came into Felix’ room : and Fell, (being) will- 
ing to shew the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound. 


10 Ver. 25. Περὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ ἐγκρατείας καὶ rod κρίματος, 
Of justice and continency, and of the judgment to come.) 
Of this Felix, Tacitus* informs us, that per omnem sievitiam 
et libidinem jus regium servili ingenio exercuit, “he prac- 
tised all cruelty and lust in his government,” thinking that he 
might eer malefacta impune, “all wickedness with- 
out punishment.” And Josephust informs us of Drusilla, 
that leaving her husband, king Isis, she married with a hea- 
then, Felix, doing evil and transgressing, ra πότρια νόμιμα, 
“the laws of her country :” to persons so unjust, Paul dis- 
courseth very appositely of justice and chastity, against 
which they had both so highly offended, as knowing that it 


* Hist. lib. v. Ρ. 619. 7 Annal. 12, p. 263. 
+ Antiq. Jud. lib. xxiii. cap. 5, p. 693. 


was to little purpose to speak to them of Christianity till 
they forsook their sins: and discoursing also of “ ἃ judgment 
to come,” where Felix could not hope to escape unpunished, 
as here he did, it is no wonder that Felix trembled; and 
that Drusilla did not so also, was an argument of her Jew- 
ish confidence, that she might then escape by being a daugh- 
ter of Abraham. 

N Ver, 27. Διετίας dé πληρωθείσης, But after two years.] 
Baronius is here mistaken, who conceives that these “two 
years” are the two first years of Nero’s reign, whereas in- 
deed he continued procurator, as Bishop Pearson saith, till 
the sixth year of Nero. The two years plainly relate to St. 
Paul’s being taken by the Jews in the temple, and put into 
the castle by the chief captain Lysias, which was, saith the 
same bishop, in the fourth year of Nero. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


1 Now when Festus was come into the (government 


of the) province, after three days he ascended from | 


Jesarea to Jerusalem. 

2 Then the high priest and the chief of the Jews 
informed him against Paul, and besought him, 

3 And desired (Gr. desiring this) favour against him, 
that he would send for him to Jerusalem, (hey) 1 Jay- 
ing wait in the way to kill him. 

4 But Festus answered, that Paul should be kept 
at Cesarea, and that he himself would depart shortly 
thither. : 

5 Let them therefore, said he, which among you 
are able, go down with me, and accuse this man, if 
there be any wickedness in him (for which he ought to 
be punished by the Roman laws). 

6 And when he had tarried among them more than 
ten days, he went down (from Jerusalem) unto Cesa- 
rea; and the next day sitting on the judgment seat 
(ke) commanded Paul to be brought (befure him). 

7 And when he was come, the Jews which came 
down from Jerusalem stood round about, and laid 


many and grievous complaints against Paul, which 
they could not prove. 

8 While he answered for himself, (Gr. he apologiz- 
ing, That) * neither against the law of the Jews (Acts 
XXvill. 17), neither against the temple (xxiv. 12), nor 
yet against Cesar, have I offended any thing at 
all. 

9 But Festus, (being) willing to do the Jews a 
pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up 
to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things be- 
fore me? 

10 Then said Paul, I stand at Cesar’s judgment 
seat, where I (being a Roman) ought to be judged : 
to the Jews have I done no wrong, as thou very well 
knowest; (they being now unable to prove any charge 
they lay against me, ver. 7.) 

11 For if I be an offender (Gr. if indeed I have been 
unjust), or have committed any thing worthy of death, 
I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these 
things whereof they accuse me (frue, or punishable by 
death), 5 no man may deliver me unto them (who wait 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXV. 


1 Ver. 3. Laying wait in the way to kill him.] We need 
not wonder that the high-priest and chief of the Jews should 
be thus bloody-minded against Paul, when about this time 
they were arming one against the other. For at the latter 
end of the procuratorship of Felix, Josephus* informs us, 
that there was, rots ἀρχειρεῦσι στάσις πρὸς τοὺς ἱερεῖς, καὶ τοὺς 
πρώτους τοῦ πλήθους τῶν “Ἱεροσολυμιτῶν, “a sedition betwixt 
the high-priests, and the priests, and chief men of Jerusa- 
Jem, and that every one of them gathered a band of the 
most bold and seditious men, and became a leader of them; 
and that they reviled, and threw stones at one another ;” 
and that the high-priests were so impudent, “ as to send their 
servants to take away the tithe-corn of the priests, so that 
some of them perished for hunger.” 


* Antiq. lib, xx. cap. 6, 


2 Ver. 8. Neither against the law of the Jews.] For he 


| had committed nothing against the customs of their fathers 


(xxviil. 17), and “to the Jews he became as a Jew” (1 Cor. 
ix. 20), nor against the temple, for he had not profaned it, 
nor raised any tumult in it (xxiv. 18), nor against Cesar, 
whom he commanded all men to obey as God’s ordinance 
(Rom. xiii.). 

3 Ver. 11. Οὐδείς pe δύναται χαρίσασϑαι αὐτοῖς, No man 
can deliver me to them.) i.e. Noman can justly do it; I be- 
ing not only an innocent person, having done them no wrong 
(ver. 10), but also a Roman, and therefore one who ought 
to be judged not by them, or their laws, but at the tribunal 
of Cesar, by the Roman laws: so the world δύναται is often 
used to signify that only which may be lawfully done, as v. g. 
Exod. vili. 26, οὐ δύναται γενέσθαι οὕτω, “It is not meet so to 
do ;” Deut. xii. 17, οὗ δυνήσῃ φάγειν, “Thou mayest not eat 
of it within thy gates;” Acts x. 47, τίς δύναται ; “ Who can 
forbid water?” (see the note on Mark ii. 19.) 


500 


for an opportunity to kill me, ver. 3). 41 appeal unto 
Cesar. 

12 Then Festus, when he had 5 conferred with the 
council, answered, Hast thou (or, thow hast) appealed 
unto Cesar? (and therefore) unto Cesar shalt thou go. 

13 And after certain days king Agrippa (tetrarch of 
Galilee) and Bernice (his sister) came unto Cesarea to 
salute Festus. 

14 And when they had been there many days, Fes- 
tus declared Paul’s cause unto the king, saying, There 
is a certain man left in bonds by Felix: 

15 About whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the 
chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, 
desiring to have judgment (of death, ver. 16) against 
him. 

16 To whom I answered, (Gr. Thaf) δ it is not the 
manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, be- 
fore that he which is accused have the accusers face to 
face, and have licence to answer for himself concern- 
ing the crime laid against him. 

17 Therefore, when they were come hither, without 
any delay on the morrow I sat on the judgment seat, 
and commanded the man to be brought forth. 

18 Against whom when the accusers stood up, they 
brought none aceusation of such things as I supposed 
(they would, no charge of sedition or of offence against the 
Roman laws) : 

19 But had certain questions against him of their 
own superstition, and of (2. 6. concerning) one Jesus, 
which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive 
(again). 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


20 And because I doubted (whether I ought to judge) 
of such manner of questions, | asked him whether he 
would go to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these 
matters, 

21 But when Paul had appealed to be reserved unto 
the hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be kept 
till I might send him to Cesar. 

22 Then Agrippa said unto Festus, I would also 
hear the man myself. To morrow, said he, thou shalt 
hear him. 

23 And on the morrow, when Agrippa was come, 
and Bernice, 7 with great pomp (or retinue), and was 
entered into the place of hearing, with the chief cap- 
tains, and principal men of the city, at Festus’ com- 
mandment Paul was brought forth. 

24 And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all (ye) 
men which are here present with us, ye see this man, 
about whom all the multitude of the Jews have dealt 
with (or besought) me, both at Jerusalem, and also here, 
crying (oud) that he ought not to live any longer. 

25 But when I found that he had committed nothing 
worthy of death, and that he himself hath appealed to 
Augustus, I have determined to send him. 

26 Of whom I have no certain thing to write unto 
my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth before 
you, and specially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, 
after examination had (of him), I might have somewhat 
to write. 

27 For it seemeth to me unreasonable to send a pri- 
soner, and not withal to signify the crimes /aid against 
him. 


4 I appeal unto Cesar.) Hence it appears that Paul 
owned even Nero for his prince and supreme governor upon 
earth; and, (2.) that in cases of necessity, Christians may 
have recourse even to heathen judicatures, especially when 
they have to do with persons who are aliens from the faith. 

5 Ver, 12. Συλλαλήσας pera τοῦ συμβουλίου, Conferring with 
the council.) Not with the council of the Jews, as Chry- 
sostom conceives; for they never would have advised him 
to admit of Paul’s appeal, or to send him to Cesar out 
of their reach; but as Grotius saith, with his own Roman 
council, which assisted him. 

6 Ver. 16. It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver 
any man to die before—he have his accusers face to face, 
&c.] Thus Philo* saith of them, that “they yielded them- 
selves to be common judges, hearing equally the accusers and 
defendants, and condemning no man unheard.” And Ap- 
pian in Grotius saith the same: this also was the law of the 


* Ἴσου καὶ τῶν κατηγόρων καὶ τῶν drodoyounevov ἀκροώμενοι 
μηδενὸς ἀκρίτου προκαταγινώσκειν ἀξιοῦντες. 


759. 


In Flaccum, p. | 


Jews, to which Nicodemus appealed in the case of Christ, 
John vii. 51. 

7 Ver. 23. Μετὰ πολλῆς φαντασίας, With great pomp.) i. 6. 
With a great train of attendants, as the word signifies in 
Laertius, when he saith,* Bion had φαντασίαν ἀκολουθῆσαν 
αὐτῷ, “a great train of mariners following him;” or with great 
splendour, as when Atheniont was carried to Athens in a 
chair of state with silver and purple hangings, the people 
ran out to see the sight, no Roman ever entering the city, év 
τοσαύτη φαντασία, “in so great splendour ;” though after there 
is mention of many servants going before, and following after 
him, which makes for the first sense. See more instances 
of this acceptation of the word in Dr. Bois on the place. 
And to them add that of Bardesanes in Eusebius, that the 
Bastrian women appeared on horses adorned with gold and 
jewels, μετὰ πολλῆς φαντασίας, “with great pomp,” and with 
a train of young men and maidens attending them (Euseb. 
Prep. Evang. lib. vi. cap. 10, p. 276). 


* In Vita Bionis. 
+ Athen. lib. v. ρ. 212, C, 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


1 Tuen Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted 
to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the 
hand (to the people to keep silence), and (then he) answer- 
ed for himself: (saying,) 

9. 11 think myself happy (¢. e. J judge it no small 
advantage to me and my cause), king Agrippa, because 
(thal) I shall answer for myself this day before thee 
touching all the things whereof I am accused of the 
Jews: 


3 Especially because J know thee to be (not only a 
person of a good temper and sedate mind, but also) ex- 
pert in all customs and questions which are among 
the Jews: wherefore I beseech thee to hear me pa- 
tiently. 

4 My manner of life from my youth, which was at 
the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, (where 
T was bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, xxii. 3,) know all 
Jews; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVI. 


' Ver. 2. "Hynuat ἐμαυτὸν μακάριον, I count myself happy.) 
Though this phrase may signify no more than, “I look upon 
it as a considerable advantage,” as when we call a lucky man 
a happy man, and so the word μακάριος and felix are often 
used in profane authors, and »5wx in the Hebrew, as when 


Leah calls her son Asher, Gen. xxx. 13, saying, “I am 
happy, for the daughters shall call me happy ;” and Jeremy 
inquires, “ Wherefore are all they happy,” i. e. prosperous, 
“who deal very treacherously ?” (see Ps. exxvii. 5, exxviii. 
3, cxxxvii. 8, 9;) yet I believe the apostle here respects not 
any personal advantage, but the benefit Christianity might 
receive from what he was to say before a person so able to 
judge of it. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


5 Which knew (‘his of ) me from the beginning, if 
they would testify (/he truth of me), that? after the 
most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. 

6% And now I stand and am judged for the hope 
(ἔστηχα χρινόμενος ἐπ᾿ ἐλπίδι, I stand questioned about 
the hope) of the promise made of God unto our fathers: 


2 Ver. 5. Kara τὴν ἀκριβεστάτην αἵρεσιν, &c. According to 
the exactest sect of our religion, I lived a pharisee.] That 
they were so according to the opinion of the Jews, Jose- 
phus® testifies, by saying, this was “a sect of the Jews, 
which was thought εὐσεβέστερον εἶναι τῶν ἄλλων, καὶ τοὺς νόμους 
ἀκριβέστερον ἀφηγεῖσθαι, “to be more pious than others, and 
more exact in the interpretation of their laws,” that they 
did,+ μέγα φρονοῦν ἐπ᾿ ἐκριβώσει τοῦ πατρῴου νόμου, “ esteem 
highly of themselves for their exactness in the law,” and 
that they were the sect of περὶ τὰ πάτρια νύμιμα ἑοκοῦσι τῶν 
ἄλλων ἀκριβεία διαφέρειν, who seemed to excel others in their 
exact knowledge of the customs of their fathers,t καὶ οἵ 
Coxodvres per’ ἀκριβεΐας ἐζηγεῖσθαι τὰ νύμιμα, and to be most 
exact in the interpretation of their laws: and indeed, com- 


paratively, they seem to have been the exactest of their | 


celebrated sects; for the sadducees, by denying the resurrec- 
tion, and all future punishments, took away the rewards of a 
virtuous, and gave liberty to a vicious life. 
ing Jews by nature, were guilty of a great schism, in sepa- 
rating themselves wholly from the worship of the temple, 
and of equal disobedience in not bringing their sacrifices§ to 
the temple, and of idolatry in making prayers or religious ad- 
dresses|| to the sun, as Josephus, who lived three years among 
them, testifies, if πρὸς αὐτὸν refers to ἥλιον" but seeing the 
same Josephus saith, that they were πρὸς τὸ θεῖον ἰδίως εὐσεβεῖς, 
“especially religious towards God,” and brings the words 
following as a proof of that, I think these prayers were of- 
fered rather to God than to the sun (see the note on Col. ii. 
22, 23). 

5 Ver. 6,7. And now I stand and am judged for the 


hope of the promise made to our fathers.) Why Paul here | 
speaks as if he were questioned touching the article of the | 


resurrection of the dead in general, see the note on xxiii. 6, 
and why he speaks of the twelve tribes, see note on James 
i. 1; but whereas he styles the resurrection, “the promise 
made to their fathers,’ and saith, the twelve tribes served 
God in expectation of it, this needs a little explication, be- 
cause many deny that any such promise was made to the 
fathers, or can be found in the Old Testament. I therefore 
assert, 

First, that it isevident from the history of the Maccabees 


and other writings, both sacred and profane, that the Jews | 


then, and the pharisees afterward, did believe the resurrec- 
tion of the body. Thus the second son saith, 2 Mace. vii. 
9,“ The King of the world shall raise us up, who have died 
for his laws, unto everlasting life,” εἰς αἰώνιον dvaBiwow ζωῆς 


The essenes, be- | 


ἀναστῆσει" the third and fourth express their hope to be | 


«raised up by God to life again,” ver. 11. 14, and the mo- 
ther of them bids them not doubt «but the Creator of the 
world would give them breath and life again.’ That the 


pharisees believed this doctrine, we learn not only from Jose- | 


phus, but from their satisfaction that Christ had put the 
sadducees to silence in that matter, Matt. xxii. 34, and for 
their stickling for St. Paul himself upon this declaration, 
that “he was called in question for the hope of the resur- 
rection,’ Acts xxiii. 9. 

Secondly, That they conceived their hope was built upon 
the covenant of God made with them, and the promise of 
)God made to them, is also evident from their words; for the 
last of these seven martyrs is introduced, saying, “ Our bre- 


* De Bello Jud. lib. i. cap. 4. 

ἡ Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 3. 

+ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788, E. 

§ Ad templum donaria mittentes, θυσίας οὐκ ἐπιτελοῦσι, 
διαφορότητι ἁγνειῶν ἃς νομίζοιεν" καὶ δι αὐτὸ εἰργόμενοι τοῦ κοινοῦ 
τεμενίσματος, ἐφ᾽ αὐτῶν τὰς ϑυσίας ἐπιτελοῦσι. Antiq. lib. xviii. 
cap. 2, p. 617, G. 

| Priusquam oriatur sol, nihil profani loquuntur, πατρίους 
δὲ τινας cis αὐτὸν εὐχὰς ὥσπερ ἱκετεύοντες ἀνατεῖλαι. De Bello 
Jud. lib. ii. cap. 11, p. 785, E. 


501 


(I saying that is accomplished by the coming of Jesus 
Christ ; and that this is proved by the resurrection of 
him from the dead ; they denying his resurrection, and 
therefore expecting the accomplishment of this promise 
by the coming of some other person to be their Mes- 
stah :) 


thren are dead under God's covenant of everlasting life,” 
ver. 36. Josephus* introduceth the mother of these seven 
children, comforting her dying sons with those words of 
Moses, “1 kill, and I make alive,” Deut. xxxii. 39, and “It 
is your life and length of days,” ver. 47, and that of Solo- 
mon, Prov. iii. 18, “ Wisdom is a tree of life to them that 
lay hold on her,” and that of Ezekiel, xxxvii. 3, « Shall these 
dry bones live ?” 

Thirdly, They had just reason both from the law and pro- 
phets for this hope; from the law, for thence our Saviour 
proves the resurrection of the body, Matt. xxii. 31, 32 (see 
the note there). And that our Saviour did not there argue 
for the felicity of the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob 
only, is evident from this, that he argues for something fu- 
ture, which should happen to them ὅταν ἀναστῶσι, “ when 
they shall arise ;” whereas in truth, and in the opinion of the 


| Jews themselves, the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 


were with God already : Josephust saith, that “they who 
die for God, ζῶσι τῷ Oecd ὥσπερ 'ABpadp, ᾿Ισαὰκ, καὶ ᾿Ιακὼβ, 


| καὶ πάντες οἱ πατριάρχαι, shall live with God, as do Abraham, 


Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchs.” 

2. From the prophets; the words of Daniel being these, 
“Many of them that slept in the dust shall awake, some to 
everlasting life, and some to everlasting confusion,” xii. 2; 
where note, that though men in misery and afiliction are 
sometimes said to sit, or dwell in the dust, Isa. xxvi. 19, 
xxvii. 1, Neh. iii. 18, yet of καθεύδοντες, “ they that sleep in the 
dust,” doth always signify they that die, as Job vii. 21, xx. 
11, xxi. 6, and hath no other sense in scripture. And, (2.) 
that though men that sit in the dust may be raised out of 
that afflicted, into a very comfortable and pleasant state, yet, 
seeing they must shortly die, they can in no propriety of 
speech be said to arise to life eternal. (3.) From the law 
and the prophets; for saith Paul, xxiv. 14, 15, «I worship 
the God of our fathers, believing all things that are written in 
the law and the prophets, having hope that there shall be a 
resurrection both of the just and the unjust;” and here, ver. 
23, “I say nothing but what is contained in the law and the 
prophets, that Christ shall be the first ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, 


| of those that rise from the dead,” plainly insinuating, that 


the resurrection of others after Christ was contained in the 
law and the prophets. Hence the apostle tells us, that the 
champions of the Jewish church all died in faith, in expec- 
tation of “a better resurrection,” Heb. xi. 35. 39. 

And, Lastly, That this hope was rightly built upon the cove- 
nant of God, that he would be “their God” (Gen. xvii. 7), is 
evident, for that to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Ja- 
cob, is to be that God who will raise them from the dead, 
we learn from our Saviour’s argument, Matt. xxii. 32, and that 
he was therefore “called their God,” because “he had pre- 
pared for them a heavenly city,” from Heb. xi. 15, and from 
his promise made to the spiritual seed of Abraham, ac- 
cording to those words of the apostle, Gal. iii. 29, «If 
ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed; and heirs ac- 
cording to the promise” (see the note there). And (3.) from 
the promise of entering into his rest, Heb. iv. 3. 9 (see the 
note there). And (4.) from the promise of a Messiah, it 
being one of their fundamental articles, that their “ Messiah 
shall raise the dead, and bring them into paradise” (see 
Maimonides Expl. 10, Tract. Sanhedrin, p. 136, and Dr, 
Pocock’s notes, p. 109, 110). And, lastly, this seems evi+ 
dent from the nature of the thing; for God being the Fa- 
ther of our spirits, which are immortal, and must live for 
ever, it is absurd to think his promises to the obedient should 
relate only to this present life, and yet he should engage them 
to be faithful to the death, and suffer here the worst of evils 
for his sake; since if they “had hope only in this life, they 
must of all men be most miserable” (1 Cor. xv. 19). 


* De Maccab. cap. 18, p. 1101, 1102. 
ἡ Ibid. cap. 17, p. 1100. 


802 


7 4 Unto which promise (of the Messiah) our twelve 
tribes, instantly (or earnestly) serving God day and 
night, hope (yet) to come. For which hope’s sake 
τ ἧς ἐλπίδος ; concerning which hope), king Agrippa, 

am accused of the Jews, (for saying, that Jesus, whom 
they have crucified, God hath raised from the dead, and 
that he is the hope of Israel, xxviii. 10, some of them say- 
ing, on the contrary, that there is no resurrection of the 
bie at all; others denying that Christ is risen from the 

lead. 

8 Of the first I inquire,) Why should it be thought 
(τί χρύνεται ; why zs it judged ) a thing incredible with 
you, that God (infinite in power and wisdom) should 
(be able to) raise the dead ? 

9 (As for the second, I was once of their opinion; for) 
I verily thought with myself, that 1 ought to do many 
things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth (7. e. 
in opposition to those who believed that he was the Christ, 
and that he was risen from the dead ). 

10 Which thing 1 also did in Jerusalem: and many 
of the saints (7. 6. the Christians) did I shut up in 
prison, having received authority from the chief 
priests (and elders so to do, xxii. 5); and when they 
were put to death, I gave my voice against them (ἢ. e 
I, in the instance of St. Stephen, approved of the sentence, 
viii. 1). 

11 ne I punished them oft in every synagogue 
(where I found any of them), and (by these punish- 
ments) compelled them to blaspheme (the name of 
Jesus) ; and being exceedingly mad against them, I 
perseeuted them (forcing them to fly from Judea) even 
unto strange cities. 

12 Whereupon as 1 went to Damascus (the metro- 
polis of Syria) with authority and commission from 
the chief priests, (thal if I found any of them there in the 
Jewish synagogues, I should bring them bound to Jerusa- 
lem, ix. 2,) ; 

13 At midday, O king, 1 saw in the way a light 
from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining 
round about me and (about) them which journeyed 
with me. 

14 And when we were all fallen to the earth, | heard 
a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew 
tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? it is (or 
will be) hard for thee to kick against the pricks (7. e. 
to fight against God. See ix. 5). 

15 And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, 
Tam Jesus (of Nazareth) whom thou persecutest. 

16 But rise, and stand upon thy feet ; for I have ap- 
peared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a mi- 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


nister and a witness both of these things which thou 
hast seen (now), and of those things in the which (7. e. 
for the discovery of which) I will appear unto thee ; 

17 (And in lestifying of them, Iwill be with thee,) 
delivering thee from the people (of the Jews), and from 
the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, 

18 To open their (blind) eyes, and to turn them 
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan 
unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, 
and (an) inheritance among them which are sanctified 
by faith that is in me. 

19 Whereupon, O king Agrippa, (having had this 
convincing testimony of the resurrection of this Jesus) 51 
was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: 

20 But shewed first unto them of Damascus (where 
this vision happened), and (then to them) at Jerusalem, 
and (so) throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then 
to the Gentiles, that they (of the Jews) should repent 
(of their great sin in crucifying this Jesus) and (should) 
turn to God, and do works meet for (Gr. meet works 
of ) repentance. 

21 For these causes the Jews caught me (as 7 was) 
in the temple, and went about to kill me (xxi. 31). 

22 Having therefore obtained help of God, (accord- 
ing to the promise made by Jesus, ver. 17,) 1 continue 
unto this day, witnessing both to small and great (the 
resurrection of Jesus, and in this) saying none other 
things than those which the prophets and Moses did 
say should come (to pass - 

23 Viz.) δ That Christ (the Messiah of the Jews) 
should suffer, and that he should be the first that 
should rise from the dead (so as to return no more to 
dealh, Acts xiii. 34), and (that he) should shew light 
unto the people, and to the Gentiles. 

24 And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said 
with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much 
learning doth make thee mad (or transport thee). 

25 But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus 3 
but I speak forth the words of truth and soberness (or, 
of a sound mind ). ‘ 

26 For the king knoweth of these things, before 
whom also (πρὸς ὃν xai, to whom therefore) 1 speak 
freely (of them): for I am persuaded that none of 
these things (concerning the resurrection of Christ, or 
even my conversion,) are hidden from him; for this 
thing was not done in a corner (but was of public cog- 
nizance). 

27 Ising Agrippa, believest thou the prophets (to 
whose testimonies I appeal for the truth of Christ’s 
sufferings and his resurrection? ver. 22, 23.) I know 


4Ver. 7. To which promise, τὸ δωδεκάφυλον ἡμῶν, &e., our 
twelve tribes—hope to come.| That some of the twelve tribes 
remained in, and some of them returned to, the land of Is- 
rael, see proved, note on Jamesi.1. Why St. Paul saith 
he was questioned touching this hope of the resurrection in 
the general, when he was only questioned concerning the re- 
surrection of Christ from the dead, see the chief reason, 
note on xxiv. 15, To which add, that St. Paul connects 
these things thus, because in the truth of the thing, and 
according to the testimony of the apostles, and even the sen- 
timents of the Jews, the resurrection was to be effected by 
the Messiah, or by Jesus Christ, saying, that «God would 
raise us up by Jesus” (1 Thess. iv. 4), and that «God had 
appointed him to be the judge both of the quick and dead” 
(Acts x. 47), and had given assurance that he would judge 
all men by him, “in that he had raised him from the dead” 
(Acts xvii. 31), he being risen as “the first that should rise 
from the dead” (ver. 23 of this chapter), or “the first-fruits 
of them that sleep” (1 Cor. xv. 22). Hence it is so ex- 
pressly noted, iv. 1, 2, that “the sadducees were grieved,” 
not that the apostles declared that Jesus “was the Christ,” 
or that he was risen, but that they taught “through Jesus 
the resurrection from the dead.” Note also, that he repre- 


sents this as the hope of the twelve tribes, though it was de- 
nied by the sadducees; because, as Josephus* informs us, 
eis ὀλίγους ἄνδρας οὗτος ὃ λόγος ἀφίκετο, they were but few, and 
these few, when they designed to be magistrates, were forced 
to profess the doctrine of the pharisees, διὰ τὸ μὴ ἄλλως ἀνέκ- 
τους γενέσθαι τοῖς πλήθεσιν, “ seeing the common people would 
not otherwise have endured them.” And that the apostle 
here spake with respect to the doctrine of the sadducees, 
appeareth from the following words, ver. 8,“ Why should it 
be judged a thing incredible that God should raise the dead ?” 
It being only the sect of the sadducees, which held this in- 
credible, and that which did exceed even the power of God 
(Matt. xxii. 29). 

5 Ver. 19. Iwas not disobedient to the heavenly vision.] 
For, saith Grotius, though this vision gave him sufficient 
conviction of the truth, it left it in his power to obey or dis- 
obey it, as you will find it proved in the appendix to the 
sixth chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. 

6 Ver. 23. Ei παθητὸς ὃ Χριστὸς, That Christ hath suffered.] 
Τὸ εἰ, ἀντὶ τοῦ Grt,—ei here being put for ὅτι, that, saith CEcu 
menius (see note on 1, Tim. v. 10, Heb. iii. 11). 


* Antiq. Jud. lib. xviii. cap. 2, p. 617. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


that thou believest (them; to them therefore I remit 
thee). 

28 Then Agrippa said. unto Paul, 7 Almost thou per- 
suadest me to. be a Christian. 

29 And Paul said, I would to God, that not only 
thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both 
almost, and altogether such as I am, except these 
bonds (¢. e. as to faith in Christ, though not as to the 
bond I suffer for it). 

30 And when he had thus spoken, the king rose 


7 Ver. 28. "Ev ὀλίγῳ με πείθεις, &c. Almost thou persuadest 
me to be a Christian.] So Plato, ἔγνων οὖν καὶ περὶ ποιητῶν 
ἐν ὀλίγῳ τοῦτο, “1 almost knew the same touching the poets;” 
and ἐπ᾿ ὀλίγου is interpreted σχέδον, schol. Aristoph. p. 837. 
And that they, who interpret these words thus, « Wouldest 


503 


up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat 
with them : 

31 And when they were gone aside, they talked 
between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing 
worthy of death or of bonds (by the Roman laws, by 
which he is to be judged). 

32 Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might 
have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto 
Cesar (to whose judgment he is therefore now to be re- 
served), 


thou in so little time persuade me to be a Christian?” must 
mistake, is evident from the following words of the apostle, 
«“T would to God, that not only ἐν ὀλίγῳ, ἀλλ' ἐν πολλῷ, all 
that hear me were not almost only, but altogether such as I 
am.” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


1 Anp when it was determined that we should sail 
into Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other pri- 
soners unto one named Julius, a centurion of Augustus’ 
band (7. 6. of the band of the legion of Augustus). 

2 And entering into a ship of Adramyttium (a sea- 
town of Mysia), we launched (forth), meaning to sail 
by the coasts of Asia; ! one Aristarchus, a Macedo- 
nian of Thessalonica (and a companion of Paul), being 
with us. 

3 And the next day we touched at Sidon. And 
(there) Julius courteously entreated Paul, and gave him 
liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself. 

4 And when we had launched from thence, we sailed 
under Cyprus, because the winds were contrary (fo us). 

5 And when we had sailed over the sea of Cilicia 
and Pamphylia, we came to Myra, a city of Lycia. 

6 And there the centurion found a ship of Alexan- 
dria sailing into Italy; and he put us therein. 

7 And when we had sailed slowly many days, and 
searee were come over against Cnidus, the wind not 
suffering us (fo go on directly), we sailed under Crete, 
over against (the promontory of ) Salmone ; 

8 And, hardly passing (dy) it, came unto a place 


which is called The fair havens; nigh whereunto was 
the city of Lasea. 

9 Now when much time was spent, and when 
2 sailing was now dangerous, because the (yearly) fast 
(of expiation) was now already past, Paul admonished 
them, 

10 And said unto them, Sirs, I perceive that this 
voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only 
of the lading and ship, but also of our lives. 

11 Nevertheless the centurion believed the master 
and the owner of the ship, more than those things 
which were spoken by Paul. 

12 And because the hayen was not commodious to 
winter in, the more part (of the passengers) advised (us) 
to depart thence also, if by any means they might at- 
tain to Phenice, and there to winter; which (Phenice) 
zs an haven of Crete, and lieth toward the south west 
and north west. 

13 And when the south wind blew softly, supposing 
that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence 
(from that haven), * they sailed close by Crete. 

14 But not long after there arose against it (the 
ship) 4a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVII. 


1 Ver. 2. One Aristarchus.] He was a convert of Mace- 
donia, who accompanied Paul in his travels from Macedonia 
to Jerusalem (Acts xix. 29, xx. 4), was a coadjutor with 
him in the work of the gospel (Philem. 24), went with him 
to Rome, and was there in bonds with him (Col. iv. 10), 
and is therefore here taken notice of as a companion of St. 
Paul's. 

2 Ver. 9. And sailing was now dangerous, διὰ τὸ καὶ τὴν 
νηστείαν ἤδη παρεληλυθέναι, because the fast was now already 
past.) That is, the annual fast of expiation for the sins of 
the people of Israel, which began on the tenth of the month 
Tisri, answering to the twenty-fifth of our September, was 
already past, and so the time of sailing became dangerous 
by reason of the winter, and of the Michaelmas flows which 
were then upon the sea. Thus Philo* informs us, that this 
feast of tabernacles was held μετὰ τὴν μετοπωρινὴν ἰσημερίαν, 
“after the winter equinoctial ;” and the same feast of taber- 
nacles, which was on the fifteenth of the same month, is 
said by Josephust to be celebrated, τρεπομένου τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ 
καιροῦ πρὸς τὴν χειμέριον ὥραν, “when it began to be winter :” 
and Philo: adds, that Flaccus was carried from Egypt to 
Rome, ἀρχομένου χειμώνος, “at the beginning of winter, ἔδεὶ 
γὰρ αὐτὸν καὶ τῶν ἐν θαλάττη φοβερῶν ἀπολαῦσαι, it being fit that 
he who had disturbed all things by land should be disturbed 
by the tempests of the sea;” and in his Legatio ad Flac- 


* In Flaccum, p. 760. 


7 Antiq. lib. iii. cap. 10, F. 
¢ Ibid. p. 761. 


cum,®* he saith, that “ the beginning of autumn was τελευταῖος 
πλοῦς τοῖς θαλαττεύουσιν, the last time for mariners to put to 
sea.” See more of this in Dr. Hammond’s note upon the 
lace. 

ἃ 3 Ver. 13. “Accov παρελέγοντο τὴν ἸἘζρήτην, They sailed close 
by Crete.] The Vulgar has made this the proper name of 
a place, and indeed there was such a place near Troas and 
Mitylene, mentioned Acts xx. 13, 14, but that was at too 
wide a distance from Crete to be here mentioned; there 
were four other places of that name mentioned by Schmidius 
here, but none of them were near Crete ; Stephanus, as he is 
cited by Lorinus, saith, Assos is πολίχνιον Κρήτης, “a little 
city of Crete ;” but then Pliny informs us that it was not a 
sea-port, but situated in Mediterraneo, “in the Mediterra- 
nean,” lib. iv. cap. 12, p. 213. Others therefore think this 
is an adverb, used by Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus, to sig- 
nify quickly, or near to the place, as Phavorinus and other 
grammarians say it doth, and so the whole should be ren- 
dered thus, “Loosing from the incommodious harbour,” 
mentioned ver. 12, “with a favourable wind, propius pre- 
terlegebant Cretam, they sailed by Crete near to it.” 

4 Ver. 14. *Avepos τυφωνικὸς, ὃ καλούμενος Eipoxdidwv, A tem-= 
pestuous wind called Euroclydon.| Ventus typhonicus, 
saith Pliny,t “is a whirlwind,” and the name of it here 
mentioned is thought by Grotius, Bochart, and Dr. Ham- 
mond, to be Εῤροακύλων, as it is rendered by the Vulgar, that 
is, the north-east wind, that being opposite to the south-west 
wind, mentioned ver. 12. 


* P. 770, B. + H. Nat. lib. ii cap. 41 


504 


15 And when the ship was caught (7. 6. driven along 
by il), and 5 could not bear up into (7. 6. resis’) the 
wind, we let her drive. 

16 And running under a certain island which is 
called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat 

7. e. to draw it to us) = 

17 Which when they had taken up, they used helps, 
undergirding the ship (with ropes, to preserve it from 
splilling) ; and, fearing lest they should fall into the 
quicksands, (they) strake sail, and so were driven. 

18 And we being exceedingly tossed with a tem- 
pest, the next day they lightened the ship ; 

19 And the third day we cast out with our own 
hands the tackling of the ship. 

20 And when neither sun nor stars in many days 
appeared, and no small tempest lay on ws, all hope 
that we should be saved (or escape) was then taken 
away. 

21 But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the 
midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have heark- 
ened unto me, and δ not have loosed from Crete, and 
to have gained (7. e. sustained) this harm and loss. 

22 And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for 
there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, 
but of the ship (only). 

23 For there stood by me this night the angel of 
God, whose (apostle) I am, and whom I serve, 

24 Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought 
before Cesar: and, lo, God hath given thee (the life 
of ) all them that sail with thee (provided they will 
hearken unto thee). 

25 Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe 
(in) God, (and therefore rest assured) that it shall be 
even as it was told me. 

26 Howbeit we must be cast upon a certain island. 

27 But (and) when the fourteenth night was come, 
as we were driven up and down in Adria, about mid- 
night the shipmen deemed that they drew near to 
some country ; 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


28 And (they) sounded (with their plummet), and 
found ἐξ twenty fathoms (of water): and when they 
had gone a little further, they sounded again, and 
found zt (the water) fifteen fathoms (deep). 

29 Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon 
rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and 
wished for the day (that by the help of the light they 
might discern the shore). 

30 And as the shipmen were about (Gr. and the 
shipmen seeking) to flee out of the ship, (to that end) 
when they had let down the boat into the sea, under 
colour as though they would have cast anchors out of 
the foreship, 

31 Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, 
7 Except these (mariners) abide in the ship (to conduct 
it), ye cannot be saved. 

32 Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat, 
and Jet her fall off. 

33 And while the day was coming on, Paul besought 
them all to take meat (7. e. he exhorted them to eat, till 
the day appearing, they might employ themselves other- 
wise), Saying, ® This day is the fourteenth day that ye 
have tarried and continued fasting, having taken no- 
thing (7. 6. observed no times of eating). 

34 Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for 
this is for your health (and let not the fear of death 
hinder you): for there shall not an hair fall from the 
head of any of you (ye shall not die). 

35 And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, 
and gave thanks to God in presence of them all: and 
when he had broken ἐΐ, he began to eat. 

36 'Then were they all of good cheer, and they also 
took some meat. 

37 And we were in al] in the ship two hundred 
threescore and sixteen souls (7. e. persons). 

38 And when they had eaten enough, they lightened 
the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea. 

39 And when it was day, they knew not the land: 
but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into 


5 Ver. 15. We could not, ἀντοφθαλμεῖν τῷ ἀνέμῳ, bear up 
against the wind.] So the word properly imports, but me- 
taphorically, we could not resist or stand up against the 
force of it; so Polybius* saith of the Messenians, that they 
could not, ἀντοφθαλμεῖν πρὸς τὸ βάρος τῶν Λακεδαιμόνιων, “ re- 
sist the force of the Lacedemonians;” and that they could 
Not πρὸς τὴν ὁρμὴν ἀντοφϑαλμεῖν, “ resist their impressions” (see 
more instances in Budeus and Bois). 

6 Ver. 21. Ἔδει piv μὴ ἀνάγεσθαι, You should not have 
loosed from Crete, κερδῆσαΐ re τὴν ὕβριν ταύτην καὶ τὴν ζημίαν, 
to have gained this harm and loss.) Great industry is used 
here to carry off these words from their native sense, to 
make ὕβρις “signify a tempest, and κερδαίνειν, to escape, 
whereas there needeth no such artifice, for it was indeed 
ὕβρις, “an infamy” to them to be such unskilful mariners as 
to put to sea when the season of the year rendered their 
voyage so dangerous ; and having been forced for their own 
safety to lighten the ship, and to cast out some of her lading 
and tackling to preserve themselves, they might well be said, 
κερδαίνειν τὴν ζημίαν ταῦτην, jacturam hance lucri in loco ponere, 
or “to count this loss their gain;” the particle μὴ, which 
here seems necessary to be repeated, shows that κερδαίνειν 
here cannot signify to escape, seeing the sense would then 
run thus, Ye should not have escaped the loss. Though, 
since κερδαίνειν seems to bear this sense in those words of 
Aristotle, ᾧ κατὰ λόγον ζημίαν ἦν λαβεῖν, τὸν τὸ τοιοῦτον κερδαί- 
vovra εὐτυχῆ φαμὲν, “ We call him fortunate who escapes 
that punishment or damage he reasonably might have suf- 
fered ;” in this sense the words run thus, “ You should not 
have loosed from Crete, but stayed there, that you might 
have escaped this infamy and loss.” 

7 Ver. 31. Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be 


* Lib. iv. 
+ Magn. Mor. lib. ii. cap. 8. 


saved.] This shows, as Grotius well notes, that what was 
said, ver. 21, was to be understood with this limitation, Si 
me audiatis, “If ye will hearken to my counsel ;” and also 
with this proviso, that you will do that which is in your 
power, and God hath given you skill and ability to do; 
those that could swim being saved by swimming, and they 
that could not by getting upon boards and broken planks of 
the ship (ver. 49, 44): for in all promises in which God is 
said to give this or that, this must be understood, because he 
hath already given that which he hath given us faculties, or 
abilities and wisdom to obtain; so that we cannot want or 
fall short of it, unless we wilfully neglect to use the facul- 
ties which God hath given us for that end: they therefore 
having with them mariners, skilled in conducting of the 
ship, and power sufficient to retain them in it, St. Paul in- 
forms them, that God’s promise of their safety was to be ef- 
fective by their means, and belonged not to them who fully 
neglected them. 

8 Ver. 33. This is the fourteenth day that ye have con- 
tinued fusting, having taken nothing.) It being impossible 
for them, without a miracle, to continue fasting fourteen 
days without eating any thing, some render the words thus, 
“ You have continued expecting the fourteenth day as a cri- 
tical day,” which they were either to find safety in, or were 
not like to outlive ; but as we read nothing of such a critical 
day, so the πολλὴ ἀσίτια, “long fasting,” mentioned ver. 21, 
and continued till this day, proves the contrary. ‘The mean- 
ing therefore seems to be this, that they had not set times 
of eating, but what they ate was seldom, little, and without 
order, or assembling together for that end. Thus Zetzes 
saith,* that Hesiod speaks thus, οὐδέ τι σῖτον ἤσθιον, “ They 
ate no meat, διὰ τὸ pnd’ ἐν τοῖς καιροῖς τῶν τραπεζῶν----ἐσθίειν, 
because they ate not at meal-times.” 


3 * Fol. 28. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


the which they were minded, if it were possible, to 
thrust in the ship. 

40 And when they had taken up the anchors, they 
committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the 
rudder bands, and hoised up the mainsail to the 
wind, and made toward shore. 

41 And falling into a place where two seas met, 
they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck 
fast, and remained unmoyeable, but the hinder part 
was broken with the violence of the waves. 


505 
42 And the soldiers’ counsel was to kill the pri- 

soners, lest any of them should swim out, and escape 
justice). 

43 But the centurion, (Jeing) willing to save Paul, 
kept them from ‘/Aeir purpose; and commanded that 
they which could swim should cast themselves first 
into the sea, and get to land: 

44 And the rest (κοΐ), some on boards, and some 
on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, 
that they escaped all safe to land. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


1 Anp when they were escaped (to /and), then they 
knew that the island was called ' Melita (now Malta). 

2 And the ® barbarous people shewed us no little 
(or ordinary) kindness : for they kindled a fire, and re- 
ceived us every one (into their houses), because of the 
present rain, and because of the cold. 

3 And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, 
and laid them (Gr. but Paul turning many sticks, and 
laying them) on the fire, there came 3. ἃ viper out of 
( from) the heat, and fastened (herse/f) on his 
hand. 

4 And when the barbarians saw the venomous 
beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, 
No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he 
hath escaped the sea, yet (divine) vengeance suffereth 
not to live. 

5 And he shook (Gr. then he shaking) off the beast 
into the fire, and felt no harm. 

6 Howbeit they looked when he should have swol- 
len, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had 
looked a great while (1, e. expected this long), and 
(yet) saw no harm come to him, they changed their 
minds, and (Gr. changing their minds, they) ὁ said that 
he was a god. 

7 (And) In the same quarters (Gr. in that place) 
were possessions (habitations) of the chief man (the 
governor) of the island, whose name was Publius; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXVIII. 


1 Ver. 1. Μελίτη, The island was called Melita.) It is 
now called Malta, and is famous for the knights of Rhodes, 
and hath yet a place called “the arrival or haven of St. 
Paul;” that it was this African Malta, and not the other 
Illyrican Melite, or Melatine, see proved by Bochartus, 
Phaleg. par. iii. lib. i. cap. 26. yt 

2 Ver. 2. Οἱ dé βάρβαροι, The barbarous people.| Dr. Light- 
foot thinks that these barbarians were Africans brought 
thither by the Carthaginians when they had possession of 
that island. Bochartus from Diodorus Siculus saith, they 
were Φοινίκων ἄποικος, “a colony of the Phenicians,” who 
sailing upon their merchandise to the western ocean,* κατα- 
φευγὴν εἶχον ταύτην τὴν νῆσον εὐλίμενον οὖσαν, * made this island 
their refuge, for the convenience of its havens; but the 
Pheenicians abounding in Africa, the difference betwixt these 
two opinions is not great. As for the word barbarous, 
Strabot informs us, that it was the name πάντων δὴ παχυ- 
στομοὔντων, * given to all that spake gross and rough lan- 
guage;” and that afterward the Grecks used it, ὡς ἐθνικῷ 
wowed ὀνόματι ἀντιδιαιροῦντες πρὸς τοὺς “EAXnvas, “as a common 
name by which they distinguished themselves from other 
nations.” However, these barbarous people were taught 
humanity by the light of nature; they had their notions of 
divine justice, or nemesis, from tradition ; they therefore did 
believe there was a providence which did protect and re- 
ward the good, and punish the evil-doer. 

3 Ver. 3. ᾿Εχιόνα, A viper.] Of this viper, see Bochart. 
Hieroz. par. ii. lib. iii. cap. 2. 


* Lib. v. p. 204. 
{ Lib. xiv. p. 455. 
Vor. IV.—64 


who received us (into them), and lodged us three days 
courteously. 

8 And it came to pass, (Gr. so ἐΐ wus) that the fa- 
ther of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody 
flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid 
his hands on him, and healed hus. 

9 So when this was done, others also, which had 
diseases in the island, came, and were healed : 

10 5 Who also (Gr. and they) honoured us with 
many honours (or presented us with much provisions) ; 
and when we departed, they laded us with such things 
as were necessary (for us). 

11 And after three months we departed in a ship 
of Alexandria, which had wintered in the isle, δ whose 
sign was Castor and Pollux. 

12 And landing at Syracuse, we tarried there three 
days. 

13 And from thence we fetched a compass, and 
came to Rhegium: and after one day the south wind 
blew, and we came the next day to” Puteoli: 

14 Where we found (Christian) brethren, and were 
desired (Land Aristarchus) to tarry with them seven 
days: and so we went toward Rome. 

15 And from thence, when the 8 brethren (of Rome) 
heard of us, they came to meet us (some) as far as 
Appii forum, and (others to) The three taverns: whom 
when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage. 


4 Ver. 6. They said he was a god.) Perhaps Hercules 
ἀλεξίκακος, Who was worshipped in that island, saith Pto- 
lemy,* and was one of the gods of the Pheenicians. Vide 
Lucian. de Ded Syra, et Euseb. Chron. N. 142. ᾿ 

5 Ver. 10. Πυολλαῖς τιμαῖς ἐτίμησαν ἡμᾶς, Who honoured us 
with many honours.] i. e. “Gave us many gifts and pro- 
visions for our voyage: so “ What is thy name,” saith 
Manoah to the angel, “that we may do thee honour?” 
Judg. xiii. 17, ἵνα δωρεὰν παρασχῶμεν, “that we may tender 
thee a gift,” saith Josephus. See this import of the word 
τιμὴ, note on 1 Tim. v. 3. 

6 Ver. 11. Παρασήμῳ Διοσκοῦροις, Whose sign was Castor 
and Pollux.] The picture of these two supposed sons of 
Jupiter was painted on the forepart of the ship, they being, 
in conjunction, thought propitious to mariners, and looked 
upon, when thus appearing, as a sign of a tempest ceasing ; 
and yet in a ship having such an idolatrous image, St. Paul 
refuses not to sail, nor doth St. Luke refuse to use that 
name; these being used only as the name of the ship in 
which they sailed, as Dr. Hammond here notes. 

7 Ver. 13, 14. We came to Puteoli, where we found 
brethren.) It is not to be wondered that there should be 
Christians there, seeing Strabo} informs us, that it was ἐμπό- 
prov μέγιστον, “a very great mart town, where there were ha- 
vens made by art for the goodness of the river.” Ὁ 

8 Ver. 15. The brethren came to meet us as far as Appit 
Forum, and The Three Taverns.] These “ three taverns” 
were nearer to Rome than Appii Forum, as appears from the 
words of Cicero to Atticus.+ It is not to be wondered that 


* Georg. lib. iv. cap. 4. ἡ Lib. v. p. 196. 
+ Ab Appii Foro, hora quarté dederam aliam pauldé ante 
a Tribus Tabernis. Ad Att. lib. ii. ep 10. 
28 


806 


16 And when we came to Rome, the centurion de- 
livered the (o/her) prisoners to the captain of the 
guard (7. 6. of the pretorian band): 8. but Paul was 
suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept 
him. 

17 And it came to pass, that after three days Paul 
called the chief of the Jews together: and when they 
were come together, he said unto them, Men and 
brethren, though I have committed nothing against the 
people, or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered 
prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Ro- 
mans. 

18 Who, when they had examined me, would have 
let me go, because there was no cause of death in me. 

19 But when the Jews spake against ἐΐ, I was con- 
strained to appeal unto Cesar; not that I had ought 
to accuse my nation of. 

20 For this cause therefore have I called for you, to 
see you, and to-speak with you : because that for (that 
Messiah and that resurrection wnich is) 10 the hope of Is- 
rae] " 1 am bound with this chain. 

21 And they said unto him, We neither received let- 
ters out of Judza concerning thee, neither any of the 
brethren that came (Azther) shewed or spake any harm 
of thee. 

22 But we desire to hear of thee what thou think- 
est (of them who are called Nazarenes): for as concern- 
ing this sect, we know that every where it is spoken 
against. 

23 And when they had appointed him a day, there 
came many to him into fis lodging; 12 to whom he 
expounded and testified (that) the kingdom of God 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


(was come), persuading them concerning Jesus (that he 
was the Christ), both out of the law of Moses, and out 
of the prophets, from morning till evening. 

24 And some believed the things which were spoken, 
and some believed not. 

25 And when they agreed not among themselves, 
they departed, after that Paul had spoken (Gr. Paul 
having spoken) one word (that nearly touched them, viz. 
ὅτι, That) well spake the Holy Ghost (7. e. rightly) 
by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, 

26 Saying, Go unto this people, and say (propheti- 
cally to them), 15 Hearing ye shall (will) hear, and shall 
(will) not understand ; and seeing ye shall (will) see, 
and (wi/l) not perceive: 

27 For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and 
their ears are dull of hearing (Gr. they hear heavily 
with their ears), and their eyes have they closed; lest 
they should see with their eyes, and hear with their 
ears, and understand with their heart, and should be 
converted (Gr. should turn themselves), and I should 
heal them. : 

28 Be it known therefore unto you, that the salva- 
tion of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they 
will hear it. ) 

29 And when he had said these words, the Jews 
departed, and had great reasoning among themselves. 

30 ™ And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own 
hired house, and received all that came in unto him, 

31 Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching 
those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, 
with all confidence, no man forbidding him. 


there should be many Christians then at Rome, though per- 
haps no apostle had been there to preach to them. For 
since Christianity had now continued twenty-eight years 
from the ascension of our Saviour, and “the sound of it had 
gone through all the world,” Rom. x. 18, it is reasonable to 
expect, that as it converted Cornelius and his kinsmen to 
the faith, so it should prevail on many other Romans in all 
places; and that Rome being the place to which, ob majorem 
principatum, “there was a general confiux from all places 
of the world,’* as both heathen and Christian writers have 
observed, it should be stocked with Christian brethren from 
all parts. 

9 Ver. 16. Τῷ dé Παύλῳ ἐπετράπη μένειν καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν, But 
Paul was permitted to dwell by himseif.| They who were 
sent prisoners out of the provinces were usually sent to the 
prefectus pretorii,t or general of the camp; it was there- 
fore a favour that St. Paul was thus permitted to dwell in 
his own hired house; and this kindness perhaps was shown 
him, either through the testimony the centurion had given 
of him as a good and virtuous man, or by reason of a letter 
sent by Festus to Cesar concerning him, that he was guilty 
of no crimes committed against the Roman laws. 

10 Ver. 20. For the hope of Israel.] 1. 6. Hither for my 
faith in Jesus, the true Messiah, who is the hope of Israel ; 
or for the hope of the resurrection of the dead (Acts xxvi. 
6), which the Jews expected from the Messiah. 


* In commune imperii caput undique gentium convenitur ; 
eo quod clementissimum principem in Πᾶς parte degentem, 
varia omnium desideria vel necessitates sequuntur. Symmac. 
lib. iv. ep. 28. Μάλιστα δὲ τὸ πάϑος τῇ ᾿Ρωμαίων πόλει ἤκμασεν 
ἅτε πολυανϑρώπῳ οὔσῃ καὶ τοὺς πανταχόϑεν ὑποδεχομένη. Hero- 
dian. lib. i. p. 19. Ad hane ecclesiam propter potentiorem 
principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam. 
Tren. lib. iii. cap. 3. 

Vinctus mitti ad prefectum pretorii mei debet. Trajan. 
ad Plin. lib. x. ep. 65. 


1 Tam bound with this chain.] Having a chain on his 
right hand, by which he was bound to the soldier that kept 
him; the chain being also on the soldier’s left hand, and so 
long that they may go conveniently together. Thus Athenion* 
tells the men of Athens, that Mithridates had made Quintus 
Oppius δέσμιον, “a prisoner,” or “one bound with a chain,” 
as St. Paul often speaks, and had bound Manlius Aquilius 
ἁλύσει μακρᾶ, “with a long chain to one Bastarne, who being 
on horseback, dragged him along on foot, bound to him with 
a chain five cubits long.” Sometimes, for greater security, 
they were bound to two soldiers, by two chains, one fastened 
to their right, the other to their left hand, as St. Peter was, 
Acts xii. 6, 7, and St. Paul, Acts xxi. 13, 

12 Ver. 23. Οἷς ἐξετίθετο, διαμαρτυρόμενος τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ 
Θεοῦ, To whom he expounded, testifying the kingdom of 
God.] Which they expected, Luke 11. 25. 38, xix. 11, was 
already come; and persuading them of the truth of the 
things which he asserted concerning the birth, life, miracles, 
the death, the resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus; 
he expounded what related to them out of the law and the 
prophets, as Christ had done to his disciples after his resur- 
rection, Luke xxiv. 26, 27. 

18 Ver. 26,27. Hearing ye will hear, and will not under- 
stand, &c.] See the note on Matt. xiii. 12. 15. 

4 Ver. 30, 31. Paul continued two years—no man for- 
bidding him.] Hence it appears that there was no edict of 
Nero, or any preceding emperor, against the Christians, till 
the tenth of Nero, i. e. the year after that Paul was loosed 
from his bonds. (2.) Here we have the plain reason why 
St. Luke ends his history, because, as the bishop of Chester 
saith, St. Paul came not to Rome till the seventh of Nero, 
in the month of February; and in the ninth of Nero, i. 6. 
after two years, he was set at liberty, and leaving Rome 
went into some other part of Italy, tending to go from 
thence into Judea (Heb. xiii. 23, 24), and so here ends St. 
Paul's stay at Rome, and with that St. Luke’s history. 


* Athen. Deipn. lib. v. p. 213. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. II. VER. 27. 


[ xNow not one objection against that exposition which 
I have given of the phrase, “ ‘hou wilt not leave my soul 
in hell;” only it may be said, that if this be the proper 
import of the words, we have no reason to believe that Christ 
descended into hell; for this can never be an article of 
Christian faith, unless it be either expressly or virtually deli- 
vered in that scripture which is the rule of faith: now it is 
certain that it is not delivered in any other place of scripture ; 
not in those werds of the apostle Paul, “ He that ascended 
is the same that descended first into the lower parts of the 
earth” (Eph. iv. 9), for that phrase only signifies that Christ's 
body was buried in the earth, as Chrysostom, Theodoret, and 
Photius there say, not that his soul descended into hell; the 
phrase is plainly taken from the psalmist’s words, « They 
that seek my soul to destroy it shall go into the lower parts 
of the earth,” Ps, lxiii. 9, where if it signifies, « they shall 
go to hell,” the foxes must go thither also; for the words 
following are, “They shall be a portion for foxes.” Not 
from that passage of St. Peter, 1 Pet. iii. 19, “By which 
Spirit he went and preached to those in prison :” for as they 
in prison do not there signify those who were naturally dead, 
but only the gentiles dead in trespasses and sins, and by the 
prophet Isaiah thrice styled οἱ ἐν φυλακῇ, “they who are in 
prison ;” so certain it is, the Spirit, by which he is said to 
go and preach to them, was not his own spirit, by separation 
of which from the body he was dead, but the Holy Spirit by 
which he was quickened; for which reason St. Austin, ep. 
99, pronounceth of this place, that omnino ad inferos non 
pertineat, “it belongs not at all to Christ’s descent into 
hell;” if then it cannot be proved from this place, it must 
be owned that it hath no sufficient ground at all in scripture. 

To this I answer, first, in the words of Bishop Pearson, 
«That in the Aquileian creed, where this article was first 
expressed, in the fourth century, there was no mention of 
Christ’s burial ; but the words of their confession ran thus, 
«Crucified under Pontius Pilate, he descended in inferna.’ 
From whence there is no question but the observation of 
Ruffinus, who first expounded it, was most true, that though 
the Roman and oriental creeds had not these words, yet they 
had the sense of them in the word buried. It appeared 
sherefore that the first intention of putting these words in 
the creed, was only to express the burial of our Saviour, or 
the descent of his body into the grave.” Now doubtless the 
burial of Christ's body, or its descent into the grave, is an 
urticle of faith clearly delivered in holy scripture. 

Secondly, I add, that the phrase καταβαίνειν, or κατελθεῖν 
cis ἄδην, OF εἰς déov (rérov), “to descend into hades,” in the 
Old Testament and the apocryphal writers, still signifies, to 
go down into the grave, or sepulchre, and so cannot refer to 
the soul, but the body only; in this sense Jacob says, Gen. 
XXXvii. 35, καταβήσομαι εἰς ddov, “I will go down to the 
grave to my son mourning :”’ so Numb. xvi. 30. 33, “If the 
earth swallow them up, καὶ καταβήσονται ζῶντες cis ddov, and 
they go down alive into the pit, καὶ κατέβησαν εἰς ddov, and 
they went down alive into the pit ;” Job. vii. 9, ἐὰν ἄνθρωπος 
καταβῇ cis ἄδην, “If a man go down to the grave he shall 
come up no more ;” and, xvii. 16, καταβήσονται εἴς aédnv, 
«They shall go down to the grave, they shall rest in the 
dust ;” Isa. xiv. 11, κατέβη εἰς déov ἡ ἑόξα cov, “Thy pomp 
is gone down to the grave, the worm is spread under thee ;” 
and, ver. 19, “Thou shalt be as those that are dead, κατα- 
βαινόντων εἰς déov, like those that go down into the grave:” 
so Esth. xiii. 7, xarehSévres cis dénv, “ They going down to 
the grave, we shall be free from trouble ;” and Baruch iii. 
19, “They are vanished, καὶ cis déov κατέβησαν, and gone 
down to the grave.” And according to this sense, which 
Dr. Hammond and others put upon the words, “ He conti- 
nued for some time in the grave,” it is also a plain article of 
Christian faith. 

Thirdly, It is most certain, that though the creeds of the 
church were very numerous, yet in none of them was this 
descent into hell found till the close of the fourth century, 
when it was first put into the symbol of the church of Aqui- 
leia; for, saith the reverend Bishop Pearson, “It is not to 


507 


be found in the rules of faith delivered by Irenwus, lib. i. 
cap. 2, by Origen, lib. περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν, in Prowm., or by Tertul- 
lian, adv. Praxeam, cap. 2, de Virg. Veland. cap. 1, de Pre- 
scrip. adv. Her. cap. 13. It is not expressed in those creeds 
which were made by the councils as larger explications of 
the apostles’ creed: not in the Nicene or Constantinopoli- 
tan; not in that of Ephesus or Chalcedon; not in those 
confessions made at Sardica, Antioch, Seleucia, Sirmium, 
&c. It is not mentioned in several confessions of faith de- 
livered by particular persons; not in that of Eusebius Ca- 
sariensis, presented to the council of Nice, Theodoret, lib. i. 
cap. 2, not in that of Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, delivered 
to Pope Julius, Epiphan. Her. Ixxii., not in that of Arius 
and Euzoius, presented to Constantine, Socrat. lib. i. cap. 19, 
not in that of Acacius, bishop of Cwsarea, delivered in to 
the synod of Seleucia, Socrat. lib. ii. cap. 40, not in that of 
Eustathius, Theophylus, and Silvanus, sent to Liberius, So- 
crat. lib. iv. cap. 11. There is no mention of it in the creed 
of St. Basil, Trac. de Fide in Asceticis ; in the creed of Epi- 
phanius, in Ancorato, cap. 120, or of Gelasius, Damasus, 
Macarius, &c. It is not in the creed expounded by St. Cy- 
ril, though some have produced that creed to prove it; it is 
not in the creed expounded by St. Austin, de Fide et Sym- 
bolo; not in that de Symbolo ad Catechumenos, attributed 
to St. Augustine ; not in that which is expounded by Maxi- 
mus T'aurinensis ; not in that so often interpreted by Petrus 
Chrysologus ; nor in that of the church of Antioch, delivered 
by Cassian, de Incarn. lib. vi.; neither is it to be seen in the 
MS. creeds set forth by the learned archbishop of Armagh. 
Indeed it is affirmed by Ruffinus, that in his time it was 
neither in the Roman nor the oriental creeds, Sciendum 
sané est, quod in ecclesiew Romane symbolo non habetur 
additum, Descendit ad inferna, sed nec in orientis ecclesiis 
habetur hic sermo (Ruff. in Exposit. Symboli). ‘It is cer- 
tain therefore’ (nor can we disprove it by any acknowledged 
evidence of antiquity), ‘that the article of the descent into 
hell was not in the Roman, or any of the oriental creeds.’ ἢ 
Now had they conceived those creeds in which this article 
was wanting deficient in a necessary point of Christian doc- 
trine, could they have styled all, or any of them, a perfect 
confession, comprising “the whole doctrine of faith, the 
whole of Christian doctrine, the comprehension and perfec- 
tion of the Christian faith, a comprisal of all the articles of 
faith, a symbol that speaks of every part of faith, the faith 
sufficient for salvation, the life-giving, the saving faith, the 
saving knowledge, the only truth, which they received from 
the apostles, the only rule which admits of no correction, no 
addition, and no diminution, the only faith delivered by the 
church to be kept by her children?” Could they have told 
us, that “the most learned could believe no more, and the 
meanest Christian did believe no less; that they needed to 
know no more, that they desired to believe no more, that 
they believed this first, that nothing more was to be believed, 
that in it nothing was to be innovated?” Could they have 
said expressly, that “the apostles delivered in it whatsoever 
they thought necessary for all believers; and that they in- 
dited it to be a mark by which he should be known who 
preached Christ truly according to the rules of the apostles ; 
and by producing of which it might be known” (saith Ruffi- 
nus) “ whether he were an enemy or a companion.” And, 
lastly, could their great and general councils have defined 
so often, that “it should be lawful for no man* érépav πίστιν 
προφέρειν, ἢ συγγράφειν, ἢ συντιθέναι, to introduce, write, or 
compose another faith besides that which was defined by the 
Nicene council?” These are the words of the third general 
council, where presided that Cyril of Alexandria, who, in 
his letter to John of Antioch, saith, “ We by no means permit 
the faith defined, ἤτοι τὸ τῆς πίστεως σύμβολον, or the symbol 
of faith made by the holy fathers met at Nice, to be shaken 
by any; nor do we suffer ourselves or others to change one 
word, or transgress one syllable of what is there contained.” 
This epistle, saith Mark, bishop of Ephesus, was read and 
approved by the fourth general council, which also decreed,+ 
μηδενὶ μηδόλως ἐξεῖναι, προσϑεῖναι τῷ συμβόλῳ τούτῳ ἢ ἀφελεῖν 
dz’ αὐτοῦ, “that it should be lawful for no man to add any 
thing to this symbol, or take any thing from it, or to change 


* Concil. Ephes. can. 7. 
t Apud Concil. Florent. sect. 5, 


508 


it at all, or transform it into another symbol.” Athanasius,* 
speaking of the synod of Ariminum, saith, that «the ortho- 
dox, and true servants of the Lord defined, that men should 
be contented with that faith alone, which was held at Nice, 
καὶ μηδὲν πλέον i) ἔλαττον παρ᾽ ἐκείνην ζητεῖν καὶ φρονεῖν, and 
mind, and seek for nothing more or less, and that they de- 
posed them who taught the contrary.” And again, that 
“they should} pndév πλέον ζητεῖν, seek for nothing more than 
what was confessed by the fathers at Nice.” In the fifth ge- 
neral synod, John, patriarch of Constantinople, saith, « We 
have taken care,+ τὸν ϑεμέλιον τῆς πίστεως κατὰ τὴν ἁγίων πα- 
τέρων παράδοσιν ἀῤῥαγῆ διαμένειν, that the foundation of faith 
might remain inviolate according to the tradition of the holy 
fathers.” And this determination they declared was made, 

First, Because this venerable symbol, saith the general 
council of Chalcedon,§ ἀρκεῖ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἐντολῆς τῆς ἀλη- 
Seias, “sufficeth to the perfect knowledge of the truth ;” 
and as the bishop of Ephesus well notes upon that place, 
“Tt is manifest,|| ὅτι τῷ τελείῳ οὐδὲν ἐλλείπει, Nothing is 
wanting to what is perfect;” they also said there was no 
need of adding any thing to it, “because it was sufficient,J 
eis ἀνατροπὴν πάσης ἀσεβοὺς αἱρέσεως, for the subversion of 
every wicked heresy, πᾶσαν ἀσεβεστάτην αἵρεσιν ἀνατρέψαι, to 
overthrow all the most ungodly heresies,” and that it was 
στηλογραφία κατὰ πάσης αἱρέσεως, “an inscription as upon a 
pillar against all heresies.” 

Secondly, Because they would not alter the traditions 
they had received from their forefathers: “We,” saith 
Cyril, in the general council of Ephesus, “ have taken this 
care that nothing shall be added to, or altered in, the Ni- 
cene symbol, as being mindful of him that said,** μὴ μέταιρε 
ὅμια αἰώνια ἃ ἔθεντο ot πατέρες σου, Remove not the ancient 
bounds which thy fathers have set.” 

Thirdly, Because they would not give occasion to any to 
suspect their faith as imperfect, or that any article of faith 
was wanting in the creeds already made. Thus the synod 
of Sardis decreed, μηδὲν ἔτι περὶ πίστεως γράφεσϑαι, “"1ῃαΐ 
nothing more should be written touching the faith,” but 
“that all should rest satisfied with the faith confessed by 
the Nicene fathers,{{ διὰ τὸ μηδὲν αὐτῇ λείπειν, because it was 
deficient in nothing; and ἵνα μὴ ἡ Nexaia γραφεῖσα ὡς ἀτελὴς 
οὖσα νομισθῇ, lest that of Nice should be esteemed imper- 
fect,” and a pretence should be given to as many as will to 
write and define touching the faith. The orthodox fathers 
in the council of Ariminum professed,#+ that they were 
“children of the Nicene fathers; but if,” say they, “we 
should dare to take away any thing from what they have 
written, ἢ προσϑεῖναί τι, or add any thing to it, we should be 
spurious children, κατήγοροι τῶν γεγενηκότων γενόμενοι, as being 
accusers of what they did, who delivered τὸν ἀκριβὴ κανόνα τῆς 
πίστεως, an exact rule of faith.’ And again they declare 
it,§§ ἐπικίνδυνον, “a dangerous thing to add any thing to, or 
take any thing from, the Nicene creed, because if either of 
these things should be done, ἔσται τοῖς ἐχθροῖς ἄδεια τοῦ ποιεῖν 
ἅπερ βούλονται, the enemies would have liberty to do what 
they would.” And Athanasius in his epistle||| to John and 
Antiochus his presbyters commands them, τοὺς πλέρν τι ταῦ- 
τῆς ἢ ἔλαττον λαλεῖν θέλοντας ἀποστρέφειν, “ to reject them who 
would say more or less than was contained in that creed.” 
And the bishop of Ephesus well argues,§{ that we can suffer 


* Theodoret. H. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 18. ἡ Ibid. 

+ Syn. Constant. sub Menna. act. 5, p. 87, apud Bin. 
tom. iv. 

§ Apud Concil. Flor. Sess. 5. Bin. Concil. tom. viii. p. 591. 

| Ibid. 

§ Athan. Epist. ad Afric. Episc. p. 992. Orat. de Div. 
Christi, p. 165. Syn. Sard. apud Athan. Ep. ad Afric. 
Epise. p. 941. 

** Apud Concil. Flor. Sess. 5. Bin. Concil. tom. viii. p. 589. 

tt Apud Athan. Ep. Ad. Antioch. p. 576. 

++ Theodoret. H. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 15. 

ΠῚ P. 951. 

qq Apud Concil. Flor. Sess. 8. Bin. ibid. Ὁ, 627. 


§§ Ibid. 


ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


nothing by keeping to the same faith, which the divine fa- 
thers confessed and believed, since none but madmen can 
accuse it of imperfection. 

Now hence it demonstratively follows, that these creeds 
which wanted this article must be a perfect digest of all 
things necessary to be believed now, and throughout all 
succeeding ages of the world; for how can it be necessary 
for any Christian to have more in his creed than the apostles 
and the Christians of the first four centuries had? May the 
churches of after ages make the narrow way to life more 
narrow than our Saviour, his apostles, and the fathers left 
it? When the whole church hath so expressly taught that 
this faith was sufficient for the perfect knowledge of the 
truth, that in it nothing was deficient, may others yet come 
after them, and by adding to them any other article remove 
the ancient bounds which our fathers have set? What rea- 
son can any man give, why any person should not be saved 
now by the same faith, which was sufficient for salvation in 
the first days of the apostles, and the first four centuries ? 
Are we wiser than they? Or, are our doctors more learned, 
or more faithful? Is there another covenant made with the 
church since their days? Are other terms of salvation since 
made? Or, is God less merciful to us than he was to them? 
Is not the famous rule of Lirinensis this, Quod ab omnibus, 
quod ubique, quod semper? “That which was always, and 
every where believed of all, that is the rule of faith?” And 
must it not hence follow, that there can be no new article, 
no declaration obliging us to believe any thing, which was 
not always matter of the Christian faith? I conclude this 
head with the words of the judicious Dr. Barrow, “That the 
inserting this not only as an article distinct from Christ’s 
death, burial, and continuance in the state of death, but 
also necessary to be believed as such, reflects upon the more 
ancient compilers, both of this and other breviaries of faith, 
as the Nicene and Constantinopolitan councils, Ireneus, 
Tertullian, &c., who left it out; which they should not have 
done, if it contain any thing highly material, and different 
from what is here otherwise expressed; whose credit is (as 
I conceive) more to be tendered than that of their juniors 
and followers, unknown to us; and so much more, for that 
in a matter of this kind defect or omission is less tolerable 
than any redundance of expression; which inconvenience 
may seem in a manner to reach higher, even to St. Paul 
himself, who, in the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to 
the Corinthians, declaring the sum of what he both learned 
and taught concerning our Saviour’s last grand perform- 
ances, only mentions his death, burial, and resurrection; ‘I 
delivered unto you first,’ says he, ‘that Christ died for our sins 
according to the scriptutes, and that he was buried, and that 
he arose again the third day τ᾿ which enumeration of his we 
may, it seems, well acquiesce in, as sufficient and complete, 
and may thence, with great probability, infer, that no other 
descent of our Saviour into hell, besides his death and bu- 
rial, was by him understood, or delivered in his catechetical 
discourses and preachings, as a point of faith.” 

Fourthly, I add, that these words may be admitted as a 
distinct article of faith, contained in the holy scriptures, in 
a very good sense, very agreeable to the word descent, and 
to the import of the word Aades ; for the scripture doth as- 
sure us, that the soul of the holy Jesus being separated 
from his body, went to paradise (Luke xxiii. 43): and 
thence it must descend into the grave or sepulchre to be 
united to his body, that it might be revived, and thus it may 
be truly said, « He was dead and buried, his soul descended 
afterward into hades,’ to be united to his body, and his 
body being thus revived, “he arose again the third day.” 
Hence Grotius, on that place of St. Luke, saith, Qui sym- 
bolo fidei Christiana ascripserunt κατέβη εἰς déov, Christi 
verbis optimé id tueri potuerunt, «They who added this 
article to the symbol of faith, may best defend themselves 
by those words:” nor, saith he, was this addition superflu- 
ous, seeing it proves the separate existence of the soul from 
the body, which many philosophers denied, and others 
doubted of, 


Α 


PARAPHRASE AND COMMENTARY 


ON 


THE EPISTLES. 


TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD, 


GILBERT, 
LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY, 


CHANCELLOR OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER. 


My Lorp, 


Tuoven, since I had the happiness to be admitted 
to an acquaintance with a person of your character 
and merit, and have had a large share of your favour, 
I have had obligations to make some public acknow- 
ledgment of it; yet had I never so fair an opportunity 
to do it, as this work, which now craves your lord- 
ship’s acceptance, doth afford. ὶ 

For, such a particular veneration and profound affec- 
tion for the sacred records as your lordship, upon all 
occasions, shows, may not only render this attempt to 
add some light unto them acceptable, but even cover 
the imperfections that you must needs discover in it. 

Since therefore it is customary to dedicate works of 
this nature to persons of great eminence in station, and 
more raised worth, [ thought myself obliged to set 
forth these labours under your lordship’s patronage, 
not only to express my gratitude, but also out of jus- 
tice to that goodness which moved your lordship not 
only to peruse, but to approve this work, and to sug- 
gest many things, which otherwise would have been 
wanting to it. 

Iam here carried to say somewhat of the pattern 
you set us in an unwearied diligence in the discharge 
of your high function; but I know you cannot bear 
it, and that you had much rather see your clergy imi- 
tate you in this, than hear them commend you for it. 
I will therefore rather study from your example, how 
to do my own duty, than publish to the world how 
you do yours. 

That God would still continue your good lordship 
as great a blessing as you are an honour to our church, 
and give you a sure but late enjoyment of celestial 
blessings, to which your soul, by its devout affections 
and indefatigable labours, still aspires, is the continual 
prayer of, 

My Lord, 
Your lordship’s most obliged, 


Most humble, and most obedient servant, 
DANIEL WHITBY. 


PREFACE 
TO THE READER. 


By way of preface to this work, some things there be of 
which I think fit to advertise the reader, and some things in 
which I shall beg his favour. And, 

First, Because it may be useful to read the epistles of St. 
Paul, not in the order in which they are placed in our Bi- 
bles, but rather in that order of time in which they were 
written, I here think fit to place them according to that order, 
following the chronology of Bishop Pearson. 


A. D. 52. ‘The First Epistle to the Thessalonians. 
A.D. 53. The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. 

The First Epistle to the Corinthians. 
A.D. 57. The Epistle to the Galatians. 


The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. 
The Epistle to the Romans. 

(The Epistle to the Ephesians. 
The Epistle to the Philippians. 


A.D. 62.4 phe Epi Neyeeeae 2 
e Epistle to the Colossians. 
The Epistle to Philemon, 
A.D. 63. The Epistle to the Hebrews. 
A.D. 65 Sars First Epistle to Timothy. 
sa" 2 The Epistle to Titus. 
A.D. 67. The Second Epistle to Timothy. 


I have in the prefaces to these epistles given the reasons 
why I place the writing of them about the time assigned ; 
only of the time of writing the Epistle to the Galatians I 
have there said nothing: I therefore here subjoin the reason 
why it is placed in the same year with the First Epistle to 
the Corinthians; viz. because St. Paul, at his first coming 
to Galatia, converts them to the Christian faith (Acts xvi. 
6), at his second advent, he strengthens the brethren there 
(Acts xviii. 23), and in his epistle to them, he “ marvels 
that they were so soon removed from him that called them 
to another gospel” (i. 6); it therefore could not be written 
long after he had been with them to strengthen them, which 
yet was before he had begun his three years’ abode at Ephe- 
sus (Acts xix. 1. 31), at the very close of which the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians is supposed to have been written. 

I desire the reader to take an estimate of the true date of 
these epistles, not from what may have slipped from me by 
the bye in a note, and hath been overlooked in the review 
of my papers, but from what is here set down, and is con- 
firmed in the prefaces to these epistles. 

The use that may be made of observing this order, I shall 
exemplify in two instances; of which the 

First is that of Demas, concerning which Dr. Lightfoot, 
Harm. p. 137, Beza, Esthius, and others say, that though 
he left Paul for a season, yet after he returned to him: be- 
cause, say they, in two epistles, written after that to Timo- 
thy, in which he is said to have “ forsaken him, having loved 
this present world” (2 Tim. iv. 10), he is reckoned among the 
coworkers with Paul, viz. Col. iv. 14, Philem. 24. But I 
have destroyed the foundation of this argument by establish- 
ing the opinion of the ancients, that the Second Epistle to 
Timothy was the last that St. Paul writ; and therefore the 
opinion of Chrysostom, Theodoret, (cumenius, and Theo- 
phylact, that he did μετὰ ταῦτα ῥαδυμεῖν, “ afterward become 
slothful,” and, saith C&cumenius, returned again, εἰς 
“Ἑλληνισμὸν, “to heathenism,” is the more probable. 

252 (509) 


510 


The second relates to that opinion of Grotius, that St. 
Paul spake for a time as if he had believed that the day of 
judgment might happen in his time, and that this is proved 
from 1 Cor. xv. 53, 2 Cor. v. 1—3. Whereas in his Second 
Epistle to the Thessalonians, writ four years before those to 
the Corinthians, he saith what is sufficient to show he could 
not be of that opinion, or have declared any thing of that 
nature, and therefore could not afterward say any thing to 
that purpose (see the note on 1 Thess. iv. 15). 

Secondly, I advertise the reader that this work has been 
retarded by the animadversions of Mr. Le Clere upon the 
reverend and learned Dr. Hammond ; which having perused, 
I found so many things said in favour of the Arians, and so 
many unworthy reflections upon the writings of St. Paul, 
that I chose rather to review and transcribe a considerable 
part of this work, than suffer those things to pass without an 
antidote. I acknowledge him to be a learned person, 
and honour his parts, and I know he cannot justly be of- 
fended with me, for being concerned for what I judge to be 
the truth, and for the honour of St. Paul, who has been 
somewhat rudely handled by him. 

Thirdly, hat I have been so often forced to differ from the 
same reverend person he attacks sometimes so indecently, is 
to be a matter of regret; but it hath been truly observed by 
others, that this great man had two darling opinions, viz. 
That the heresy of the Gnostics, and the destruction of 
Jerusalem, were the great things to which no little part of 
these epistles had relation; in which I have offered my 
reasons why I dissent from him, retaining still a just vene- 
ration for his parts and piety. 

Lastly, I advertise him, that I have, as exactly as I could, 
made indexes, (1.) of all the Greek words and particles, (2. 
of all the scripture phrases explained, and (3.) of all the 
material doctrines handled in these annotations. 

The things in which I beg the reader’s favour are, 

First, That where he finds or thinks that I have erred 
either in point of doctrine, or the interpretation of the 
scriptures, as doubtless in the latter I have sometimes done, 
he would be so kind as to let me know my errors; which, 
upon conviction, I will not only own, but do it with all due 
acknowledgments and thankfulness to him who shall do that 
kind office to me. 

Secondly, That if in any thing I seem to him to differ 
from the received doctrine of the church of England, as 
some may haply conceive I do in the annotations on the 
fifth chapter to the Romans; he would do me the justice to 
believe, that as he thinks I do, so 1 conceive I do not con- 
tradict her doctrine ; and also would consider, that even the 
church of Rome allows her commentators to vary from the 
sense of any particular scripture on which they build their 
doctrines, provided they say nothing which doth expressly 
contradict them. 

Thirdly, That if he should receive any advantage from 
this work, especially if it should be so happy as to suggest 
to him any thing which may render him the better man, he 
would give God the glory of it, and pray for, 

His friend and servant, 
DANIEL WHITBY. 


THE 
GENERAL PREFACE, 
CONCERNING 


THE DIVINE AUTHORITY OF THESE EPISTLES, 


AND OF 


THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


CONTENTS. 


§ I. That what is declared in these epistles as necessary to 
be believed or done, must be as necessary to be believed 
and done as what is contained in the gospels: that there 
are some things necessary to be believed and done, con- 
tained in these epistles, which are not clearly delivered 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


in the holy gospels. §. II. The truth of the Christian 
religion proved, (1.) from what our Saviour promised and 
undertook, and what the apostles declared concerning the 
gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost. §. II. (2.) 
From plain matter of fact concerning this effusion of the 
Holy Ghost, and his miraculous gifts related in the epis- 
tles. §. IV. (3.) From the confident appeals of the 
apostles and primitive professors to those gifts, in their 
contests and debates with friends and adversaries, be- 
lievers and rejecters of the Christian faith. §. V. (4. 
From the prayers and thanksgivings made for them, the 
exhortations and directions given in these epistles concern- 
ing these miraculous gifts. §. VI. (5.) From what is re- 
quired to be done and suffered by all Christians upon no 
other inducements or enjoyments, than what depended on 
the truth and certainty of these gifts. §. VII. (6.) That 
these epistles were indited whilst the apostles lived, and 
are proved genuine by more authentic arguments than can 
be produced for any book, writing, charter, law, or statute. 
The external arguments to prove them genuine. §. VIII. 
The internal arguments. §. IX. The truth of Christi- 
anity proved, (7.) from a particular consideration of these 
gifts; as (1.) the gift of healing. 9. X. (2.) Of ejecting 
devils out of men, their temples, and their oracles. §. XI. 
(3.) From the gift of tongues. §. XII. (4.) Of pro- 
phecy. 8. XII. (5.) Of discerning spirits. 8. XIV. 
That these extraordinary gifts were conferred upon all 
other churches not mentioned in these epistles. 8. XV. 
That they continued in the two first ages of the church. 
§. XVI. What engagements the truth of Christianity lays 
upon us to live suitably to the rules delivered in those sa- 
cred records. The danger of those who neglect their sal- 
vation. 


Tuar these epistles were indited by divine assistance, and 
were received from the beginning, as epistles written by the 
conduct and assistance of the Spirit of God, I have endea- 
voured to evince in the general preface to the gospels. 

§. I. Hence then it follows, that what the apostles have 
delivered in these epistles as necessary to be believed or 
done by Christians, must be as necessary to be believed and 
practised in order to salvation, as what was personally taught 
by Christ himself, and is contained in the gospels; they be- 
ing in the writing these epistles, the servants, apostles, am- 
bassadors, and ministers of Christ, and stewards of the 
mysteries of God; and the doctrines and precepts they deli- 
vered in them being the will, the mind, the truth, and the 
commandments of God. 

Now evident it will be to any one who judiciously reads 
these epistles, that they contain some things delivered and 
done which were not clearly taught by Christ whilst he was on 
earth, nor are clearly delivered in the gospels; as we may 
learn, 

First, From the doctrines contained in these epistles: as, 
v. g. that “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justi- 
fied” (Rom. xiii. 20); that both Jew and gentile, being un- 
der condemnation, were only to be “justified freely by God’s 
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom 
God had set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his 
blood” (ver. 25); that “if righteousness came by the law, 
then was Christ dead in vain” (Gal. ii. 21); that “as many 
as are of the law are under the curse” (iii. 16); that “if we 
be circumcised, Christ shall profit us nothing ; Christ is be- 
come of none efiect to them that are under the law; they 
are fallen from grace” (v. 2. 5); that the law was to “con- 
tinue only till the time of reformation” (Heb. ix. 10), and 
was then to be disannulled “for the weakness and unpro- 
fitableness of it” (vii. 18) ; that “Christ is a priest for ever 
after the order of Melchisedec” (v. 5, 6); that “he hath an 
unchangeable priesthood ;” that he in heaven is continually 
“making intercession for us, and therefore is able to save 
us to the utmost” (vii. 24, 25) : for all these doctrines clearly 
delivered in these epistles, are either not to be found at all, 
or not so clearly in the gospels. Ε ν 

Secondly, In these epistles only have we instructions about 
many great and necessary duties; as, v. g. that all our 
thanksgivings are to be offered up to God in the name of 
Christ (Eph. v. 8, 20, 1 Thess. v. 18, Heb. xiii. 14, 15) : the 
duties which we owe to our civil governors are only hinted in 


TO THE EPISTLES. 


these words of Christ, “ Render to Cesar the things that are 
Cesar’s,” but are enlarged upon in the Epistles to the Ro- 
mans, ch. xiii., to Titus, iii. 1, and in the first Epistle of St. 
Peter, ii. 10. 17; so also are the duties we owe to our spi- 
ritual superiors taught more expressly in these epistles, Gal. 
vi. 6, 1 Thess. v. 12, 13, Heb. xiii. 17, 18. In fine, all the 
particular duties belonging to the relations of husbands and 
wives, parents and children, masters and servants, are par- 
ticularly handled in these epistles, Eph. v. 28. 33, vi. 1. 9, 
Col. iii. 11. 25, but are scarce ever mentioned in the gospels. 
But it may be objected, 

Obj. 1. That these epistles were written to those who were 
in the faith already, and so could not be designed to teach 
them the fundamental articles, and points necessary to sal- 
vation, or to instruct them in what was necessary to make 
them Christians. 

Ans. It follows not from their being Christians already, 
that the apostles designed not to write to them in these 
epistles of any fundamental articles or points necessary to 
salvation, for it is very plain they do so. Paul, in his Epis- 
tle to the Corinthians, 1 Cor. xv. 3, writes of the resurrec- 
tion of the dead, and of Christ’s death and resurrection, as 
of doctrines necessary to be believed; and in his Epistle to 
the Galatians, of seeking justification by the works of the law 
as a thing opposite to, and destructive of, the grace of Christ. 
And since there were among them “ false apostles, and de- 
ceitful workers,” who corrupted the word, and “handled the 
word of God deceitfully” (2 Cor. ii. 17, iv. 2); yea, “cor- 
rupted their minds from the simplicity of Christ” (xi. 3), 
“turned them from him that called them to another gospel” 

Gal. i. 6), sought to “deprive them of their reward” (Col. 
n. 18, 19), and separate them from their head, Christ 
Jesus; who “put away a good conscience, and so make 
shipwreck of the faith” (1 Tim. ii. 19); whose “doctrine 
did spread as a gangrene, and overthrew the faith of some” 
(δ Tim. ii. 16) ; many “disputers of corrupt minds turning 
rom the truth” (1 Tim. vi. 5), many “unruly and vain 
talkers and deceivers, who subverted whole houses, teaching 
things that they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake” (Tit. i. 
10, 11) : must not these things administer occasion to these 
sacred penmen to endeavour to establish and confirm them 
in the faith, by letting them they wrote to know the moment 
of those articles, the necessity of that faith, they had been 
taught, and the pernicious consequences of those practices to 
which they were seduced by these deceivers ? 

Again, seeing these writings were intended as a rule, not 
to them only to whom they were sent, but to all future ages 
of the church; and the Spirit expressly told them, that “in 
the latter days some should depart from the faith, giving 
heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. iv. 
1, 2); that “the time would come when they would not en- 
dure sound doctrine, but would turn their ears from the 
truth” (2 Tim. iv. 3, 4); when “ false prophets should arise 
among them, bringing in damnable doctrines, whose perni- 
cious ways many should follow” (2 Pet. ii. 1, 2); seeing 
they knew, that “ after their departure grievous wolves would 
enter in, not sparing the flock” (Acts xx. 29, 30) ; must not 
all these considerations give just occasion to them to write of 
the great articles of Christian faith, and the necessary points 
of Christian conversation, to preserve them, and those that 
come after them, from their damnable doctrines and perni- 
cious ways ? 

Moreover, this objection is therefore insignificant, because 
the apostles do inform us, that they found it “safe to write 
the same things” to them they had heard (Phil. iii. 1), 
“though they knew the truth, and were confirmed in it” (1 
John ii..21), “that they might have these things always in 
remembrance” (2 Pet, i. 12. 15) ; and that some who, for the 
time of their conversion, might have been great proficients 
in the faith, had yet “need to be taught again the first prin- 
eiples of the oracles of God” (Heb. v. I) 

Obj. 2. It also may be said, “that these epistles were 
writ upon particular occasions, and without those occasions 
had not been written; and so cannot be thought necessary 
to salvation.” 

Ans. This objection is neither exactly true of all the 
epistles, nor of all that is contained in them. Not of all the 
epistles, for it appears not that five of the general epistles, 
or that the Epistles to the Romans, to the Ephesians, and 


511 


to the Hebrews, were writ upon particular occasions, un- 
less the instructing men in the faith, and preserving them 
from heresy, or apostasy, be called particular occasions ; and 
where this doth appear, it is very evident, that when the 
apostles had writ what they thought proper upon those 
occasions, they add many excellent rules of piety and 
virtue. 

Ans. 2. Secondly, Were it exactly true that all the epis- 
tles were writ upon particular occasions, it will not fol- 
low hence that they were not directed in writing them by 
the Holy Spirit; or that they contain nothing necessary to 
be believed or done, in order to salvation: for the book of 
Psalms was not only writ upon particular occasions, but was 
also adapted to and fitted for them. ‘The prophets were all 
sent by God to testify against, and call the Jews to repent- 
ance for sins committed in their time, to reform their man- 
ners, or comfort them in their distresses, that is, upon par- 
ticular occasions; but will it therefore follow, that they did 
not write by the assistance of the Spirit of God, or that there 
is nothing in the Psalms, or in the prophets, which was 
necessary to be believed or practised by the Jews? More- 
over, the Gospel of St. Luke was writ upon a particular oc- 
casion, viz. to instruct Theophilus in the certainty of the 
things he had been taught, and yet Epiphanius informs us, 
that “the Holy Ghost compelled and stimulated him to the 
work.”* The Gospel of St. Mark was writ, say the ancients, 
at the request of the converts at Rome, and yet he writ it, 
saith Epiphanius, Πνέξυματε ἁγίῳ ἐμπεφορημένος, “by the im- 
pulse of the Holy Ghost.’’+ They also say, that St. John 
was importuned by all the Asiatics to write his gospel; and 
yet, saith Epiphanius, “the Holy Spirit did inwardly impel 
him to the writing of it.”; The Gospel of St. Matthew, say 
they,§ was indited at the request of the Hebrews, that he 
might supply by writing the want of his presence with them. 
So that we see the writings of the apostles and evangelists 
may be occasionally penned, and yet be the products of the 
Holy Ghost, and contain things necessary to be believed and 
done. 

Ans. 3. The particular occasions of some of these writings 
being the errors or waverings of Christians in fundamental 
points, as appears from the Epistles to the Corinthians, Gala- 
tians, &c., and in others the busy industry of «false apostles 
and deceitful workers,” to pervert them from the faith; that 
these epistles were writ on such occasions, is rather a pre- 
sumption that they were writ upon some fundamental points, 
than that they could not be indited upon these occasions. 

Moreover, great advantages arise from the occasional 
writing these epistles, and such as might induce the Holy 
Spirit to excite them to that work. For, 

1, All the occasions which they took to write from the 
disorders, errors, heresies, and mistakes, which at first crept 
into the church, render these writings standing rules for the 
decision of like cases through all future ages. 

2. The deportment of the apostles towards these errone- 
ous persons and disorderly walkers, the care they used to re- 
cover, or inform them better, the zeal and tenderness they 
showed, and the rules they laid down in those cases, are excel- 
lent precedents and directions for all church governors, in 
cases of like nature. 

3. All the occasions which they had to write for the direc- 
tion of church governors, how to “behave themselves in the 
church of God,” to give rules for the qualifications of those 
who were to be admitted to those offices, and touching their 
behaviour in them for the settlement of the affairs of the 
church, and the decent and regular performance of divine 
service, afford us standing rules of government, and of ad- 
mitting and ordaining a succession of those divers orders in 
the church. 

Lastly, These various occasions give us full assurance, 
that these epistles must be written in those very times when 
these disorders happened, and these errors crept into the 


* ᾿Αναγκάζει τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα καὶ ἐπινύττει τὸν ἅγιον Λουκᾶν, 
Her. li. sect. 7. 

+ Ibid. sect. 6. Euseb. lib. ii. cap. 15, 16. 

+ ᾿Αναγκάζει τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα τὸν ᾿Ιωάννην παραιτούμενον ebay= 
γελίσασϑαι. Sect. 6. 9. 

§ Euseb. Eccles, Hist. lib, iii. cap. 34. Chrys. 


Hom. 1i 
Matt. ai 


512 
church, and so take off all jealousy or suspicion that they 
were writings contrived in the following ages of the church ; 
whereas, had their writings been only systems of theological 
doctrines and rules of life, which equally concerned all the 
ages of the church, it might have been more plausibly ob- 
jected, that they were framed by some Christian bishops 
assembled for that end. 

Obj. 3. But if all or most of the truths declared in these 
epistles were to be received and believed as fundamental 
articles, what then became of those Christians who were 
fallen asleep before those things in the epistles were revealed 
to them? 

Ans. 1. This question equally concerns the evangelists, 
and more especially the Gospel of John, which, say the an- 
cients, was either the last portion of scripture* which was 
written, or the last save his epistles, it being written after 
his return from his exile in Patmos to Ephesus; and so if 
it contain any fundamental articles, as necessary rules of 
life, what became of those Christians who died before they 
were revealed in it? 

Ans. 2. We say not, that all or most of the truths, de- 
clared either in the epistles or gospels, are to be accounted 
fundamental or necessary articles; but only that some of 
them ought to be so accounted, especially those which have 
this character of a necessary article, or rule of life; that the 
denial or nonpractice of them, is represented as that which 
will endanger our salvation, or cut us off from the commu- 
nion of the church. 

Ans. 3. It is also a precarious supposition, that they who 
died before the epistles were writ to them, must die before 
the necessary things contained in them were revealed to 
them, secing we know that the apostles writ the same things 
which they had preached before: and Luke writ his gospel, 
that Theophilus “ might know the certainty of the things he 
had been taught ;”’ and in those times of the effusion of the 
Spirit of wisdom and of knowledge, they had an unction 
which could teach them all things (1 John ii. 27), and so 
supply the unavoidable defects of outward teachers. 

Obj. 4. The gospel was to be preached “ to the poor,” now 
they are not capable of sublime notions, nor can they-com- 
prehend mysterious reasonings. 

Ans. 1. Whether this objection be intended against the 
necessity of believing the epistles of Paul only, or also the 
Gospel of John, is uncertain; the sublime notions and mys- 
terious reasonings being common to both. 

Ans. 2. There seemeth no necessity of troubling the poor 
common people with sublime notions, or mysterious reason- 
ings, since both the ancient church and our own catechism 
declare that all the articles of Christian faith, common to 
all that bear that name, are comprised in the apostles’ creed. 
For when the child saith, “My godfathers and my god- 
mothers promised I should believe all the articles of the 
Christian faith,” since it is evident they only stipulated for 
the belief of the apostles’ creed in baptism, and when he doth 
rehearse those articles, he only doth rehearse the apostles’ 
creed; it is certain that, by our catechism, it must be sup- 
posed to contain all the articles of the Christian faith. 

Moreover, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make 
such persons have a right conception of the spiritual nature 
and the attributes of God, or to enable them, by reason, to 
prove the providence of God, or the immortality of the 
soul; but yet these things must be proposed to them as arti- 
cles or foundations of their faith. And as it is not very dif- 
ficult for them to learn from scripture the truth of these 
things, so neither is it difficult from the same scripture to 
learn the truth of all the articles of the apostles’ creed, even 
in that sense in which all Christian ages did receive them. 

In a word: were these mechanics as much concerned for 
spirituals as they are for temporals, as many of them have 
attained to great proficiency in their respective arts, so 
might they also, by a Christian diligence, attain a compe- 
tent proficiency in all the necessary articles of Christian 
faith, and in the rules of Christian piety, or of their duty to 
God and man. Now Christianity being “that doctrine 
which is after godliness” (Tit. i. 1), I believe nothing is 
proposed in it as necessary to be believed to salvation, 


* Novissimus omnium scripsit evangelium. Hieron. Pre- 
fat. in Matt. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


which hath not some tendency to the promotion of true 
jlety. 

§. II. Having thus established the divine authority of 
these epistles, I shall endeavor to confirm the truth of the 
Christian faith from what is copiously delivered in them. 

This is of absolute necessity in this degenerate age, in 
which all manner of impiety exceedingly abounds, and men 
are by their lives disposed and even concerned to question 
the truth of that religion, and of those writings, which 
threaten the severest punishments to their enormities; and 
so industriously, and even impudently, pursue this black de- 
sign both in their discourses and writings. 

Now to prove, against these enemies of revealed religion, 
the truth and certainty of the Christian faith, from what is 
copiously delivered in these” epistles, it will be only requi- 
site to show, that they contain a declaration of such things 
as could not possibly be true, but they must also be a full 
and convincing demonstration of the truth of the Christian 
faith, and that we have great reason to believe the truth of 
what is thus related by them. And, 

(1.) That they contain a declaration of such things as 
could not possibly be true, but they must also be a full and 
convincing declaration of the truth of the Christian faith, 
the declaration they afford will be sufficient to evince: for it 
was this, 

That the miraculous gifts and powerful operations of the 
Holy Ghost were plentifully afforded to them who preached 
the gospel to the world, and also to those Christian churches 
which received the gospel, and embraced the faith they 
taught. 

By way of preface to what I shall collect from these 
epistles, concerning these miraculous gifts and operations of 
the Holy Ghost, it may deserve to be considered, that as the 
blessed Jesus “ spake as never man spake,” that is, delivered 
such just, holy, beneficial commands, as never were before 
made known to the world; and did, for confirmation of his 
doctrine, “the works that no other man did:” so was he 
pleased to lay the truth of his prophetic office upon such 
future and miraculous events, as no impostor that had any 
wit would undertake, or could be able to perform. 

For the prophecies which he had undertaken to fulfil, 
and his own frequent declarations, made it necessary, (1.) 
That he should die a peculiar death, i. e. by being lifted up 
upon the cross. (2.) That in three days he should rise 
again. (3.) That after his resurrection his gospel should in 
the space of forty years, or before the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, be propagated throughout the world, or the whole 
Roman empire. (4.) That, in order to the propagation of 
it, the Holy Ghost should plentifully be vouchsafed to his 
apostles, and should endue them with power from on high, 
and even enable them to do greater works than he himself 
had done (John xiv. 12). 

At the great day of the feast of tabernacles, when all the 
Jews assembled at Jerusalem were joyful in their beth 
haschoavah, or “house of drawing water,’ and were (say 
their traditions) in expectation that the Holy Ghost should 
fall upon them, “Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me, and drink: he that believeth 
in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters. 
This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him 
should receive” (John vii. 37, 38). And at the close of his 
life on earth, he comforts his disciples with the promise of 
this Holy Ghost, who should continue with them, not only 
to “teach them all things, and bring all things to their re- 
membrance ;” but also to “convince the world of sin, be- 
cause they believed not in him; and of his righteousness,” 
who was so gloriously exalted to the right hand of God his 
Father; and of a future “judgment, because the prince of 
this world,” being cast out from those he had possessed, 
“was judged” (John xvi. 7. 11). And after his resurrec- 
tion he speaks thus to them: “ Behold, I send the promise 
of my Father upon you, for ye shall be baptized with the 
Holy Ghost, not many days hence” (Luke xxiv. 49) : «and 
ye shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon 
you, and ye shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem, and 
in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the utmost parts of the 
earth” (Acts i. 8). And, lastly, to encourage others to be- 
lieve the doctrine which they taught, he saith, «These signs 


| shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast 


TO THE EPISTLES, 


out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall 
take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it 
shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and 
they shall recover.” Now I desire to know whether any 
thing of this nature was ever undertaken, or laid as the 
foundation of their credit, by any other author of any doc- 
trine, religion, sect, or heresy? Whether they ever made 
their own violent death and resurrection the foundation of 
their veracity ; or promised the like powers and assistances, 
when they were risen, to those who should promote or 
should embrace their doctrine? Or, whether that which no 
man else durst undertake, was not performed by the holy 
Jesus so effectually, as that his doctrine presently prevailed, 
and was received throughout the world, in spite of all the 


opposition of men and devils made against it, and wrought | 


in Christians such a lasting faith, as time and vice, though 
most concerned to do it, were never able to deface ? 

But though we have no instances of any other persons 
that made the like attempts, yet do our Lord’s disciples 
tread exactly in their master’s steps: for the first thing 
which they declared to the world was this, that the forerun- 
ner of their Lord, John the Baptist, when Jerusalem, and 
all Judea, and all the regions about Jordan, and in particu- 
lar the pharisees and sadducees, the publicans and soldiers, 
repaired to his baptism, declared in the audience of them all, 
There was one shortly to come after him, one that stood 
then among them, who would “ baptize them with the Holy 
Ghost, and fire” (Matt. iii. 11). They also add, that their 
Lord both before and after his resurrection made a like pro- 
mise to them, that he would suddenly send down upon 
them the Spirit promised by the Father, that they should 
“receive power from on high, and be baptized with the 
Holy Ghost,” and so should be enabled to be witnesses of 
his resurrection and of his doctrine. 

When these apostles had themselves received the Holy 
Ghost, they declare, they only had received what God had 
promised by the prophet Joel, saying, ii. 28, “It shall come 
to pass in the last days, I will pour my Spirit upon all flesh; 
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your 
young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream 
dreams,” Acts ii. 16, where note, that it is a received rule 
among the Jews, that “the last days,” when used by the 
prophets, do signify the times of the Messiah (see the note 
on 1 Tim. iv. 1). Note also, that God of old revealed his 
will to his people by visions, dreams, and by prophetic re- 
velations; so that this is a promise, that in the days of the 
Messiah God would miraculously pour his spirit upon men, 
and by that Spirit would enable them to prophesy, and to 
reveal his will to others. Yea, they say boldly to all that 
stood amazed at it, “Repent, and be baptized every one of 
you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, 
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the pro- 
mise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar 
off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Here 
then we see how fully they both claim a promise of the Holy 
Ghost made by their Master to them, and also promise the 
like gift to them who should believe and be baptized in his 
name. 

Now, these promises were actually performed and made 
good before they were indited, and put in the records of the 
Christian faith, the writings of the apostles and evangelists, 
or they were not; if all these promises were fulfilled before 
the records which contain them were indited, then had 
Christ sent the Holy Ghost upon the apostles, and given 
them the promise of the Father, then the believing Jews 
and gentiles were actually baptized with the Holy Ghost, 
and were enabled to “speak with tongues and prophesy ;” 
and so Christ must have given certain demonstration both 
of his resurrection and his promises: but if these promises 
were not made good before these records were indited, then 
the whole story of John, and of the Acts of the Apostles, 
might easily have been convinced of falsehood by many 
thousand living witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all other 
places where they lay the scene of this great dispensation ; 
because they had heard nothing of these things, but from 
their histories: then, by the suffrage of our own evangelists, 
our Lord’s forerunner must be a deceiver, when he declared 
the Messiah should “ baptize them with the Holy Ghost and 
fire,” whom he had then baptized with water; yea, in those 

Vor. IV.—65 


513 


very histories designed to convince others that Jesus was 
Christ, they must leave on record a promise, made not to 
them only, but to all believers, which never was fulfilled ; 
the apostles also must be falsely introduced, saying, “ This 
was that which was spoken by the prophet Joel,” and with 
the greatest impudence promising that Holy Ghost to others 
which they themselves had not received; and surely then 
those Jews which after all Christ’s miracles required a sign, 
would have required of the apostles, Where is that great 
effusion of the Spirit promised by the prophet Joel, which 
may assure us, that the times of the Messiah are now come? 
Where is that fiery baptism’? Where are those rivers of 
spiritual water which your pretended Christ, and his fore- 
runner, promised? Let us see them that we may believe 
him. With what face could St. Peter promise that Holy 
Ghost to others, upon faith in Christ, which they themselves 
had not received? or with what face could Luke declare he 
did this before such an audience, of which the greatest part 
must be then living, and so as with that promise to convert 
three thousand souls, had neither these converts, nor this 
audience, found any experience of that affair? In fine, if 
these apostles were not assisted with these miraculous powers 
of the Holy Ghost, they must be well assured, that he who 
had so oft engaged whilst he lived to send this Comforter to 
them, and at his resurrection promised, that in a few days 
they should all be baptized with the Holy Ghost, was a de- 
ceiver and false prophet; and then what motive could they 
have, or how could they conceive it a thing possible, to be 
his witnesses successfully to the uttermost parts of the earth? 
If by the coming of the Holy Ghost upon them they were 
indeed enabled to speak all languages; this gift was a suffi- 
cient confirmation of the resurrection and ascension of that 
Jesus who thus made good his promise to them. If they 
had no such gift, how was it possible that such unlearned 
persons, who only understood their mother-tongue, should 
discourse in their several languages to the Romans, Grecians, 
Egyptians, Persians, Armenians, Scythians, Indians, and all 
the barbarous nations of the world? And to what purpose 
was it for them to travel to those nations, to stand mute 
among them, or else to tell a story to them of which they 
could not understand one word? If, as the sacred story 
doth inform us, they preached the word “with demonstra- 
tion of the spirit, and power ;” if they “ went forth preach- 
ing every where, the Lord working with them, and confirm- 
ing the word with signs following, God also bearing witness 
to them by signs and miracles, and by divers powers and 
distributions of the Holy Ghost,” then might they boldly 
say, “ We are his witnesses of these things, and so is the 
Holy Ghost, which God hath given to those that obey him” 
oe ν. 32). But if no such assistance was vouchsafed to 
them, what evidence could they give to the world that he 
had sent them on this errand? or how could they expect to 
reverse all the ancient laws and religions of the world, and 
to persuade all nations to own and worship, as the great Sa- 
viour of the world, one who was lately “hanged on a tree?” 
Their compliance therefore with this mission, and their con- 
tinuance in this testimony under those dreadful miseries 
they suffered for it, as well as their incredible success in the 
propagation of the Christian faith to every nation, will not 
suffer us to doubt that they were well assured of the com- 
pletion of this promise to them, and so of Christ’s miracu- 
lous assistance of them. 

§. III. Moreover, these epistles do almost severally con- 
tain sufficient proofs of the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon 
believers, and of his miraculous assistance of the first 
preachers of the Christian faith, and jointly do concur to 
make this evidence triumphant over infidelity. For, 

First, Paul writes to the Romans thus; “I long to see 
you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, to the 
end you may be established,” Rom. i. 11 (see the note 
there). “ For I know,” saith he, “that when I come to see 
you, I shall come in the fullness, τῆς εὐλογίας, of the blessing 
of the gospel of Christ,” xv. 29, i.e. that fullness of spiritual 
gifts with which all Christians were blessed in Christ Jesus, 
according to that promise of the prophet Isaiah, xliv. 2, 3, 
«Fear not, Jacob my servant, and Israel whom I have 
chosen, for I will put my Spirit on thy seed, καὶ τὰς εὐλογίας 
pov, and my blessings on thy children.” Now that the 
apostle came to Rome both scripture and the whole cur- 


514 


rent of antiquity attest: either then he came to them with 
“the fullness of the blessings of the gospel of Christ,” and 
did impart unto them those spiritual gifts which tended to 
confirm them in the Christian faith, or he did not: if he did 
impart them, he gave them an assured demonstration of the 
certainty of Christian faith ; if he did not, he himself minis- 
tered to them a full objection against his own apostleship : 
for this must render him a vain boaster of things he was not 
able to perform, and a deceiver of the church of Rome. 
And why then doth he speak thus to them? «I have 
whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things 
which pertain to God: for I will not dare to speak of any 
thing which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the 
gentiles obedient in word and deed, in the power of signs 
and wonders, and in the power of the Spirit of God” (Rom. 
xv. 17—19). These powers, saith he, have accompanied 
my preaching “from Jerusalem, round about unto Illyri- 
cum, and this grace,” saith he, “was given to me of God, 
that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the gentiles, 
ministering the gospel of God to them, that the offering up 
of the gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the 
Holy Ghost.” Where he compares himself, preaching the 
gospel, to the priest, conversant about his sacrifice, to pre- 
pare and fit it to be offered: the gentiles, dedicated by him 
to the service of God, are his sacrifice or oblation; the 
Holy Spirit conferred upon them is the dibamen by which 
they are sanctified, and rendered acceptable to God. More- 
over, the Epistle to the Romans must be false, or else it 
must be sent by the apostle before he had seen Rome, for 
it contained an intimation that he had not then seen them, 
a desire to see them, and a promise to come to them; for, 
saith he, “I make it my request to God, if by any means 
now at length I might have a prosperous journey, by the 
will of God, to come to you, for I long to see you” (Rom. 
i. 10, 11. 13): anu, “I often purposed to come to you, but 
was let hitherto:” and again, “I have been much hindered 
from coming to you; having therefore a great desire these 
many years to come to you, whensoever I take my journey 
into Spain I will come to you” (xv. 22—24). It is also 
certain that he afterward did see them; for after his appeal 
to Cesar he was sent to Rome, and lived there at least two 
years: he therefore must have sent his epistle to them, and 
they must have received it before that time. In a word, 
from those words in the close of this epistle, xv. 25, 26, 
“But now I go to Jerusalem to minister to the saints; for 
it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a 
certain contribution for the poor saints that are at Jerusa- 
lem ;” it is evident he writ this epistle before that collection 
was carried by him to Jerusalem in the third year of Nero, 
and sent it from Corinth, as the postscript saith. Note also, 
that this epistle is often cited by Clemens and Polycarp. 

In his epistle to the church at Corinth, he declares, they 
were “enriched with all utterance and knowledge, or in 
tongues and prophecy,” 1 Cor. i. 5 (see the note there) : 
that they abounded “in every thing, in faith, in utterance, 
and knowledge” (2 Cor. viii. 7), “so that they came behind 
the other churches in no gift.” His twelfth chapter begins 
thus: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, I would not have 
you ignorant, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God 
calleth Jesus accursed ; and that no man can say that Jesus 
is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diver- 
sities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences 
of administrations (or offices in the church to which these 
gifts belong), but (all proceeding from) the same Lord; and 
there are diversities of operations (performed by these gifted 
men), but it is the same God who worketh all (these opera- 
tions) in (them) all” (ver. 4—6). Then he proceeds to the 
enumeration of the gifts conferred upon the officers and 
members of the church, viz. the gifts of knowledge, wisdom, 
prophecy, and the discerning of spirits; the gift of miracles, 
of faith, of healing, of divers kinds of tongues, and the in- 
terpretation of them; saying, that “God had placed in the 
church, first apostles ; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers ; 
after that, miracles; then gifts of healing, helps, govern- 
ments, diversities of tongues;” concluding with this ques- 
tion, “ Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers ? 
are all workers of miracles? have all the gifts of healing? 
do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? But covet ear- 
nestly the best gifts; and yet show I to you a more excel- 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


lent way (even that « charity: for) though I have the gift 
of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all know- 
ledge; and though I have all faith, so that I can remove 
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing” (xiii. 1, 2): 
“for prophecies shall fail, and tongues shall cease, and 
knowledge shall be done away, but charity never faileth” 
(ver. 8). 

Now this epistle must be indited and sent to them whilst 
their schisms, contentions, and disorders remained, because 
it was designed to correct them, and whilst Paul was in a 
capacity to come to them, and so before his bonds, because 
he saith, “The rest will I set in order when I come” (xi. 
34). Hence, after notice given of their schisms, conten- 
tions, and divisions, he adds, “'These things have I in a 
figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that 
you might learn in us, not to think of men above that 
which is written, that no one of you be puffed up, for one 
against another” (iv. 6), saying, “I have also sent Timo- 
theus to you, and I myself will come unto you shortly ;” 
and then he puts the question to them thus, “ What will 
you? that I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in 
the spirit of meekness?” (ver. 16—19.) Ch. v. he com- 
mands them to “ put away” from them, and to “deliver up 
to Satan,” the incestuous person ; and that accordingly they 
did so, his second epistle shows, in which he writes to them 
to forgive and comfort him (2 Cor. ii. 7). 

Moreover, he writes part of this epistle in answer to some 
questions they had sent to him, which required a speedy 
answer, as being cases of conscience which concerned their 
conversation, their freedom from idolatry, and the preserva- 
tion of weak Christians. The rest of his epistle is spent in 
endeavouring to correct their great disorders about the sacra- 
ment, their church assemblies, and the use of their spiritual 
gifts (ch. xi. and xiv.), and their great error touching the 
resurrection (ch. xv.), and to give directions touching their 
charity (ch. xvi.). All which things required speedy in- 
structions; and that this epistle was sent accordingly, the 
words do manifest : “ When I come, whomsoever you shall 
approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your libe- 
rality to Jerusalem; and if it be meet that I go also, they 
shall go with me” (xvi. 3,4). «Now I will come to you 
when IJ pass through Macedonia, and it may be that I will 
abide, yea, and winter with you” (ver. 5,6). I say, hence 
it is evident, that they soon received this epistle; for they 
accordingly made their collections, with which he went up 
to Jerusalem; and in this second epistle he apologizes for 
not coming to them, according to those words, i. 16, 17. 
Moreover, the second epistle is a strong confirmation of the 
first, in which he hath pointed out unto them those disor- 
ders which he would have remedied, those things he would 
have done before his coming; for then in this he tells them 
their obedience to his former letter had filled him with joy 
and comfort, that his instructions concerning the incestuous 
person had found so good effect, that they approved them- 
selves to be clear in this matter, and caused him to rejoice, 
that he could have such confidence in them in all things (ch. 
vii.). Whence it is evident, that they had not only then 
received, but in some measure had complied with the in- 
structions given them in that epistle. 

Add to this, that Clemens Romanus, with the whole 
church of Rome, in an epistle sent to the Corinthians, not 
‘many years after this of Paul’s was written, declares (§. 2), 
that there was πλήρης ἁγίου Πνεύματος ἔγχυσις ἐπὶ πάντας, “a 
full effusion of the Holy Ghost upon them all;” and that 
Paul “had written to them an epistle touching their divisions 
about himself” (§. 37), and Cephas, and Apollos; which is 
a great confirmation, both of the early knowledge and use 
of this epistle in the church, as also of the truth of what 
Paul relateth in it, touching the gifts of the Holy Ghost 
conferred upon them. Ι 

In his Epistle to the Galatians, he compares himself 
with the “chief of the apostles,” and the pillars of the 
church, declaring, that “he that wrought effectually in Peter 
to the apostleship of the circumcision, was as efficacious in 
him towards the gentiles;” that these pillars saw, and « per- 
ceived by the grace given to him, that the gospel of the un- 
circumcision was committed to him, as the gospel of the cir- 
cumcision was to Peter, and therefore gave to him the right 
hand of fellowship; that he with Barnabas should go to the 


TO THE EPISTLES. 


gentiles, and they to the circumcision” (ii. 7—9) ; adding, 
for consolation to the gentiles, that “ Christ had redeemed 
them from the curse of the law, that the blessing of Abra- 
ham might come upon the gentiles, that they might re- 
ceive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (iii. 13) ; and 
also, that “through the Spirit they did wait for the hope of 
righteousness by faith” (v. 5). 

Now in this epistle, he mentions the “life that he now 
lived in the flesh” (ii. 20), his fear of them, his desire to see 
them, and the desire of the false brethren to exclude him 
from any share in their affections, and the persecutions he 
yet suffered in the flesh (iii. 2, iv. 11. 15, 17. 20, v. ae and 
he concludes it thus: “ You see how large a letter I have 
written to you with my own hand ;” and “ from henceforth 
let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of 
the Lord Jesus” (vi. 11. 17). Which words demonstrate, 
that this epistle must be written and sent to them whilst he 
lived, after he had suffered greatly for the name of Christ. 
Moreover, the occasion of it shows it must be written by 
Paul himself; for it was written upon occasion of some Ju- 
daizers, who preached up the necessity of circumcising the 
gentiles, and requiring them to observe the law of Moses, 
and who endeavoured to disparage this apostle, who had 
taught the contrary, as inferior to other apostles, and his 
doctrine as contrary to what they taught: now these dis- 
tempers requiring a speedy remedy, we cannot doubt but the 
apostle sent this epistle to them, as soon as he had heard 
how they had been perverted from the sincerity of the faith. 
It is also cited by Polycarp ad Philip. §. 5. 

In his Epistle to the Ephesians, he tells them, he was 
made “a minister of the gospel according to the gift of the 
grace of God given to him, by the effectual working of his 
power” (iil. 7) ; and, that “to every one of us is given grace 
according to the measure of the gift of Christ:” for “he 
ascending up on high, gave gifts unto men:” and “he gave 
some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pas- 
tors and teachers;” and that all these had their spiritual 
gifts (see the note on iv. 7, 8.11): and adds, that “after 
they believed they were sealed with the Spirit of promise, 
which is the earnest of our inheritance, till the redemption 
of the purchased possession” (i. 13, 14). 

Now in this epistle he makes mention of his bonds, and 
of his being then “an ambassador in bonds” (vi. 20), saying, 
«I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you gentiles; I 
Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you” (iii. 1, iv. 1). 
This epistle therefore must be sent unto them whilst he was 
in bonds at Rome; and so it must be sent unto them Anno 
Christi 62, since Paul was set at liberty the next year. He 
also adds, that it was sent by Tychicus, whom he sent to 
them on purpose, to make known his affairs whilst he abode 
at Rome, and begs their prayers for couragé in making known 
ἣν eed of the gospel, whilst he was thus in bonds (vi. 

Moreover, this epistle is cited by Clemens (Ep. ad Cor. §. 
46), about six years after the writing of it. It is twice cited 
by Polycarp (§. 1. 12), in his epistle to the Philippians. 
Ignatius (§. 12), in his epistle to the Ephesians, saith, that 
Paul in his whole epistle made mention of them in Christ 
Jesus: so early was this epistle known to and read by the 
Christians, 

In his Epistle to the Colossians, he declares, that he had 
laboured in preaching the gospel to them, according to the 
energy of him that wrought with him, ἐν δυνάμει, by a mighty 
power (i. 29), and saith, “ Let the word of God dwell in you 
richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another 
in psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs” (iii. 16). Now 
in this epistle he saith, that he then “ rejoiced in the afflictions 
which he suffered for them” (i. 24). He also speaks of his 
“solicitude for them, and those of Laodicea, and for as many 
as had not seen his face in Christ,” of his “salutation with 
his own hand” (iv. 18), and of his bonds, and of his sending 
Tychicus and Onesimus, to give them an account of his af- 
fairs, and of the salutations of many brethren. He there- 
fore, and they also, must be all alive when this epistle was 
sent to them. 

In his Epistle to the Thessalonians, he testifies, his gos- 
pel “came unto them not in word only, but in power, and 
in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance,” and that « 
Teceived the word with much affliction,” but yet “ with joy of 


515 


the Holy Ghost” (1 Thess. i. 5, 6) ; and for this he appeals 
to their own experience, adding these words, “Ye know 
what manner of persons we were amongst you for your 
sakes ;” whence he infers, that he that despised his admo- 
nitions, “despised not man, but God, who also had given 
them this Holy Spirit” (iv. 8). 

Now in this epistle he speaks of his absence from them, 
and of his great desire to see them (1 Thess. ii. 17), of his 
solicitude for their steadfastness under their sufferings rs 
5, 6), his sending Timothy to give him an account of it, his 
comfort when he heard that they stood firm; and maketh 
Sylvanus and Timotheus his associates in sending it. This 
epistle therefore must be written whilst both they and he 
were living, and it is cited by Polycarp in his epistle to the 
Philippians, §. 11. 

In his epistle to Titus, he speaks thus (iii. 5, 6): “ Ac- 
cording to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of rege- 
neration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed 
on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Now, 
of epistles thus written to particular persons, I think it need- 
less to prove that they were written whilst both Paul and 
they were living, and were not sent unto them from, or in 
another world: though that is here sufficiently proved from 
these words, iii. 12, * When I shall send Artemas to thee, 
or Tychicus, be diligent to come to me to Nicopolis.” 

Arg. 2. §.1V. Secondly, That God vouchsafed to the 
professors and first propagators of the Christian faith these 
admirable powers, and various distributions of the Holy 
Ghost, is farther evident from this consideration, that the 
apostles, in all their contests and debates with friends and 
adversaries, believers and rejecters of the Christian faith, 
false apostles, antichrists, corrupters of it, and apostates from 
it, appeal with greatest confidence to these miraculous ope- 
rations and distributions of the Holy Ghost. 

In their first controversy, touching the resurrection of our 
Lord, gainsaid by the rulers of the Jews, Peter speaks thus 
to them: “The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus 
whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God ex- 
alted to his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give 
repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are 
his witnesses of these things; and so is also that Holy Ghost 
whom God hath given to them that obey him” (Acts v. 30 
—32). And again, “ This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof 
we are all witnesses: therefore being by the right hand of 
God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise 
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shown forth this, which ye now 
see and hear” (Acts ii. 32,33). Now evident it is, this plea 
could not be offered to convince these rulers, by an appeal 
to their own senses, without the highest impudence and 
plain confusion of their cause, had there been no effusion of 
the Holy Ghost imparted to the apostles who attested, and 
believers which embraced this faith ; nor could it have been 
published in that generation, and recorded by Luke, as made 
by the apostles before so great an auditory, if it had been false, 
so many witnesses being then living to confute this story. 

Secondly, The next dispute arose betwixt Peter and the 
converts of the circumcision, accusing him as a transgressor, 
for eating and conversing with Cornelius, and other uncir- 
cumcised persons; in which case his apology runs thus: 
« As I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as upon 
us at the beginning. ‘Then remembered I the word of the 
Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water ; 
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch 
then as God gave them the like gift as he did to us, who be- 
lieved on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could 
withstand God?” (Acts xi. 15—17.) And thus he puts to 
silence the zealots for the circumcision, men too tenacious 
of their rites, too zealous for the law, to be satisfied with any 
thing that did not carry with it a convincing evidence. 

Thirdly, A third contest arose at Antioch, where some be- 
lieving Jews contended, that it was necessary to circumcise 
the gentile converts, and to command them to observe the 
law of Moses: this vain pretension Peter baffles by this ar- 
gument, that “God who knows the hearts bare them wit- 
ness,” that whilst uncircumcised they were accepted with 
him, by “ giving them the Holy Ghost even as he did to us, 
and putting no difference betwixt them and us, purifying 
their hearts by faith ;” and thence concluding that by en 
deavouring to “put this yoke” on the believing gentiles, they 


516 


would “tempt,” that is, would disbelieve, and even oppose 
themselves to that God who had vouchsafed so clear a de- 
monstration of his acceptance of them, not being circum- 
cised (Acts xv. 8, 9). Hence also the whole college of the 
apostles write unto them thus: “It seemed good to the 
Holy Ghost to lay upon you no such burden” (ver. 28). 

Fourthly, When the zealots had infected the church of 
the Galatians with the pernicious doctrine of the necessity 
of circumcision, and of the observation of the law of Moses, 
Paul writes thus to them: «Ὁ foolish Galatians! who hath 
bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth? This 
only would I learn of you: Received ye the Spirit (in his 
miraculous gifts and operations) by (obedience to) the 
works of the law, or by hearing of faith?” (Gal. iii. 1, 2.) 
If by the latter, as ye know ye did, this is a demonstration 
that your justification and acceptance with God, is the fruit 
of faith in Christ, not of obedience to the law of Moses; 
this the apostle reassumes, saying, “ He that ministereth the 
Spirit to you, and worketh miracles among you, doth he it 
by (virtue of your obedience to) the works of the law, or by 
the hearing of faith?” We see then this was the chief argu- 
ment which carried the cause in the council at Jerusalem, 
and which is urged by Paul to confirm the Galatians in the 
truth, and silence those who laboured to prevail upon them 
to admit of circumcision, and the observance of the law of 
Moses: this confirmation therefore of the truth of the 
Christian faith was such, as none concerned to do it then 
were able to gainsay, much less can any now find reason to 
doubt of it. 

In the epistle to the church of Corinth, he is even forced 
to prove the truth of his apostleship, against those « false 
apostles and deceitful workers” who had set up against him, 
and for the satisfaction of those Corinthians who “sought a 
proof of Jesus Christ speaking in him” (2 Cor. xiii. 3). He 
therefore justifies and confirms it by declaring that “the 
signs of an apostle been have wrought among them (by him), 
in all patience, in signs and wonders, and in mighty deeds” 
(2 Cor. xii. 12); that he “was not a whit behind the very 
chief of the apostles” in these gifts (xi. 5, 6); that both he 
and his fellow-labourers among them approved themselves 
as the ministers of Christ “by the Holy Ghost, by the word 
of truth, and by the power of God” (vi. 6, 7); that they to 
whom he writ were “manifestly declared to be his letters 
commendatory,” as being “the epistle of Christ ministered 
by him, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living 
God” (ch. iii), and that they “came behind the other 
churches in no gift” (xii. 13). To the Galatians infected 
with the like distemper, he declares, that “he who wrought 
effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, 
was as eflicacious in him towards the gentiles;” and that 
this was so manifest even to the chief of the apostles, that 
they were, by the grace vouchsafed to him, convinced that 
the gospel of the uncircumcision was by Christ committed 
to his charge. 

Some there seem to have been among the members of the 
church of Corinth, who “had not the knowledge of the 
truth,” and who even questioned whether “ Christ was among 
them or not:” to them he testified that the church of Corinth 
“came behind the other churches in no gift,” and that by this 
“the testimony of Christ was confirmed among them” (1 
Cor. i. 5—7, see the note there) : that the word he preached 
was not delivered “in the enticing words of human wisdom,” 
but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that their 
faith might not seem to consist in the wisdom of man, but 
in the power of the Holy Ghost” (ii. 4, 5); that God had 
established them in Christ, by “giving the earnest of his 
Spirit in their hearts” (2 Cor. i. 21,22). Now for the truth 
of what he thus delivers, he makes a solemn and religious 
appeal to their own hearts and consciences, saying, “ We 
ure made manifest to God, and we trust also we are made 
manifest in your own consciences” (2 Cor. v. 11), “for we 
are not as many who corrupt the word, but as of sin- 
cerity, as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ” 
(ii. 11). “ We do by manifestation of the truth commend 
ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” 
(iv. 2). Yea, he appeals to all prophets and spiritual men 
among them, not only for the truth, but also for the divine 
authority of his epistles, saying, “If any man be a prophet, 


or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto | 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


you are the commandments of God” (1 Cor. vii. 3. 7). 
Now evident it is, that arguments of this nature neither 
could be urged by this apostle without confusion to his cause, 
and the impairing of his credit; nor, being offered, could 
prevail upon the church of Achaia, and other churches, to 
own him as a true apostle, and his epistles as “the com- 
mandments of the Lord,” had not the matter of fact, on 
which they did entirely depend, been incontestable. For, 
had these things been false, or questionable, they whom he 
styleth “false apostles and deceitful workers,” must have 
been able to reply, that he himself, in his appeal to the mira- 
culous operations of the Holy Ghost for confirmation of his 
doctrine and apostleship, must have been guilty of that very 
crime he laid to their charge; and all the churches to which 
he had directed these epistles, must rather be confirmed in 
the suspicions they had entertained against him, than wrought 
off from them by these vain pretences and false surmises of 
those distributions of the Holy Spirit, of which they had found 
no experience, and had received no convineing evidence. 

The believing Jews lay under two dangerous distempers: 
the first was that which James takes notice of in his epistle, 
viz. that faith alone would be sufficient to save them without 
works; and upon this the heretics mentioned by Ireneus,* 
and others, grounded their licentious doctrines, that they 
might live as they listed, they being not to be saved by good 
works, but by faith only. ‘The second was a proneness to 
apotasy, or falling back from the faith to Judaism, to avoid 
persecution: and this the heretics also so far improved, as to 
declare it lawful, in times of persecution, to commit idola- 
try,; and to deny Christ with the mouth. Now in opposition 
to the first assertion, Paul, in his second chapter of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, shows the necessity of taking more abundant 
heed to the precepts of Christianity, as being all confirmed 
by signs and miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost; and 
therefore puts to them the question thus: “If the word 
spoken by angels was firm, and every transgression and dis- 
obedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall 
we escape, if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first 
began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by 
them that heard it; God also bearing them witness both with 
signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy 
Ghost, according to his own'‘will?” In opposition to their 
proneness to apostasy, he declares it a most dreadful thing 
to fall from the profession of the Christian faith, after they 
had received such strong convictions of it, by those gifts of 
the Holy Ghost they had received with it: for, saith he, 
“It is impossible for them who were once enlightened, and 
have tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made par- 
takers of the Holy Ghost, and yet fall away, to be renewed 
to repentance, seeing they crucify again the Son of God, and 
put him to an open shame” (vi. 4—6, see the note there). 
Again to such “there remains no more sacrifice for sin, but 
a fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, see- 
ing they trample under foot the Son of God, and count the 
blood of the covenant, by which they were sanctified, an 
unholy thing, and reproach the Spirit of grace” (x. 26. 29, 
see the note there). Now visible it is, that the foundation 
of both these arguments depends upon the certainty of this 
matter, that God confirmed the truth of the doctrine de- 
livered by Christ and his apostles, by divers miracles and 

. gifts of the Holy Ghost, and that Christians then were made 
partakers of those gifts. 

Lastly, Against the seductions of the antichrists and the 
deceivers, which were then crept into the church, St. John 
fortifies the believers with these words: “These things have 
I written concerning them that deceive you. But the anoint- 
ing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye 
need not that any one teach you, but as the same anointing 
teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie; and 
even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him” (1 Johy 
ii. 26, 27). And again, “ Beloved, believe not every spint, 
but try the spirits whether they are of God; for many false 
prophets are gone out into the world. By this ye shall know 
the Spirit of God; every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ 


* Ut liberos agere que velint, secundum enim ipsius gra- 
tiam salvari homines, et non secundum opera justa. Tren. 
lib. 1. cap. 20. Theodoret. Her. Fab. lib. 1. cap. 1. 

+ Orig. contra Celsum, lib. vi. p. 282. 


TO THE EPISTLES. 


coming in the flesh, is of God; and every spirit that con- | 
fesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of 
God” (iv. 1—3, see the strength of the argument in the 
note there). And it is the Spirit that witnesseth that Jesus 
is the Son of God, “because the Spirit is truth” (v. 6). 
«He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in 
himself” (ver. 10). Now when men thus lay claim in their | 
epistles to their converts to the power of God co-operating 

with them in the promotion of the faith, declaring, that he 

testified to the truth of what they preached, by divers mira- 

cles and gifts of the Holy Ghost; when they confidently 

speak of an unction of the Spirit of truth abiding in them, 

of which they to whom they write were made partakers, and 

by this very argument endeavour to convince them what a 

dreadful thing it would be for them to despise the admoni- 

tions they had given, or to neglect the great salvation they 

had tendered to them; there can remain no cause of doubt- 

ing of the truth of these assertions, especially when they to 

whom they write not only do continue steadfast in the faith, 

but also do admit those writings, which assert these things, 

as divine records, and the word of God. 

And this argument will be much strengthened from this 
consideration, that the primitive professors, in all the con- 
flicts with Jews, gentiles, magicians, false prophets, heretics, 
and false pretenders to be the successors of the apostles, 
still used this argument from the miraculous operations the | 
Christians then performed, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost 
they still received and exercised, as an effectual confirmation 
of the Christian faith, and a sufficient confutation of the 
pretences of their adversaries; v. g. 

First, From this they prove to the Jews, that God had 
deserted them, and was now graciously present with the 
Christian assemblies; that the Shechinah and prophetic gifts,* 
which were long since departed from them, were still extant 
among Christians, and exercised both by men and women. 

Secondly, Hence they triumph over the heathen deities,t 
that by the name of Jesus such cures were wrought on the 
diseased, as none of their supposed deities could perform ; 
and that they by this name expelled those devils which their 
conjurors could not expel, and forced them to confess they 
were evil spirits. 

Third!y, They triumph over the Simonians+ and Gnosties, 
the magicians and heretics of their times, by the same argu- 
ments, that they could neither cure all diseases, nor expel 
all kinds of devils, as the Christians did. 

Fourthly, By this they, after the example of Paul, 1 Cor. 
xii. 3, and of John, 1 John iv. 1—3, taught Christians to 
distinguish§ betwixt true and false prophets; and by this 
they confuted the Montanists, because they left no succession 
of prophets, which yet continued in the true church of 
Christ. Some heretics finding themselves unable even to 
pretend to such a gift of prophecy as the gospel of John 
had promised, and the epistles of Paul mentioned, rejected 
both that gospel and those epistles. Now these, saith Ire- 
neus,| are unhappy men, qui gratiam prophetie repellunt 
ab ecclesia, “ who go about to exclude the grace of prophecy 
from the church, and thereby make themselves false pro- 
phets,” i. e. assertors of things in God's name which they 
have not received from him. 

Lastly, As for the true successors of the apostles, Ire- 
neus§ informs us, that cum successione apostolattis charisma | 


* Παρὰ yap ἡμῖν καὶ μέχρι νῦν προφητικὰ χαρίσματά ἐστιν, ἐξ οὗ 
καὶ αὐτοὶ συνίεναι ὀφείλετε, ὅτι τὰ πάλαι ἐν τῷ γένει ὑμῶν ὄντα, εἰς 
ἡμᾶς μετετέθη. Just. Dial. Tryph. p. 308, B. et 315. Orig. 
contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 62, et lib. vii. p. 337. 

T'Yxd τῶν ἄλλων πάντων ἑπορκιστῶν, καὶ ἑἐπαστῶν, καὶ 
φαρμακευτῶν μὴ ἰαθέντας ἰάσαντο. Just. Mart. Apol. i. p. 45. 
Vide Theophil. ad Autolycum, lib. ii. p. 87, Tertull. Apol. 
cap. 23, Cypr. de Idol. Van. Ox. p. 14, ad Demetr. p. 191, 
Arnob,. lib. i. p. 29, Lactant. iv. cap. 27. 

+ Super hee arguentur qui sunt ἃ Simone, et Carpocrate, 
et si qui alii virtutes operari dicuntur- per magicas elusi- 
ones, nee enim cecis possunt donare visum, neque surdis 
auditum, neque omnes demones effugare, &c. Iren. lib. ii. 
cap. 55, 56. 

§ Hermas, lib. ii. cap. 11, 12, Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. 
vy. cap. 15, See the section of the Gift of Prophecy, 8. 20. | 

᾿ Lib. iii. cap. 11. § Lib. iv. cap. 43. | 


17 


veritatis certum secundiim beneplacitum Patris acceperunt, 
“with their succession they received the gift of truth ;” and 
hence infers, that ubi igitur charismata Domini posita sunt, 
ibi discere oportet veritatem, “ where therefore these gifts of 
the Lord are placed, there the truth is to be learned.” 

Arg. 3. 5. V. ‘The prayers and the thanksgivings made 
for these divine assistances, the charges the apostles gave 
concerning them, the exhortations and directions which they 
send to Christian governors and churches, touching these 
gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost, are a convincing de- 
monstration that they were frequent, and notoriously exer- 
cised in the church of God. For instance, “I thank my 
God,” saith the apostle to the church of Corinth, “for the 
grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ, that in 
every thing ye are enriched by him in all utterance and all 
knowledge (or in tongues and prophecy), so that ye come 
behind the other churches in no gift” (1 Cor. i. 5—7, see the 
note there). He begins his epistle to the church of Ephe- 
sus thus: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings 
in heavenly things in Christ” (Eph. i. 3, see the note there) : 
praying that the same God would “give to them the Spirit 
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (ver. 
17). He prays for the Romans, that they may “abound in 
hope through the power of the Holy Ghost” (xv. 13), and 
for his Colossians, that “ they may be filled with the know- 
ledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” 

i. 9). 

: Hoving convened the Asiatic bishops, he requires them 
to “take heed to the flock over which the Holy Ghost had 
made them overseers” (Acts xx. 28). ‘To the church of 
Rome he speaks thus: “Having therefore, χαρίσματα διά- 
gopa, different gifts, whether prophecy, let us do it according 
to the proportion of faith ; or ministering, let us wait on our 
ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching,’ Rom. xii. 6 
—8 (see the note there). He exhorts the Ephesians and Co- 
lossians, to be filled with the Spirit, speaking to themselves 
in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, Eph. v. 18, 19, 
Col. iii. 16. Two of his admonitions to his Thessalonians 
are conceived in these words, “ Quench not the Holy Spirit, 
despise not prophecy,” 1 Thess. v. 19, 20. To his son 
Timothy he speaks thus: “ Neglect not the gift that is in 
thee, which was given thee by prophecy,” 1 Tim. ἵν. 14, And 
in his second epistle, “Stir up the gift that is in thee by the 
putting on of my hands,” i. 6, for, saith he, “God hath not 
given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and wisdom,” 
ver. 7. He exhorts him also to “keep the good thing com- 
mitted to him by the Holy Ghost that dwelleth in him,” ver. 
14, Now, in these epistles he speaks of himself as ἃ pri- 
soner and a sufferer for the cause of Christ, saying, “Be not 
thou ashamed of the testimony of the Lord, nor of me his 
prisoner ;” he tells him, he was “ready to be offered, and’ 
the time of his departure was at hand ;” informs him, that 
« Demas had forsaken him,” and desires him “ when he eame 
to him to bring Mark with him,” 2 Tim. i. 8, ii. 8. 10, iv. 
6. 10—12. He speaks of Hymeneus and Alexander, “ whom 
he had delivered up to Satan,” and saith, “These things I 
write unto thee, hoping to come to thee shortly,” 1 Tim. i. 
20, ili. 14. All which are evident proofs that these epistles 
must be sent to Timothy, whilst Paul was living and was a 
prisoner at Rome. Peter advertiseth the converted Jews that 
the gospel was preached to them “by the Holy Ghost sent 
down from heaven ;” and he gives these instructions to them 
for the use of their extraordinary gifts: “As every man 
hath received the gift, so let him minister, as good stewards 
of the manifold grace of God; if any man speak, let him 
speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him 
do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all 
things may be glorified through Jesus Christ,” Pet. rv. 10, 
11. Now the messenger by which he sent this epistle, and’ 
the salutations in the close of it, show that it was written 
whilst Mark and Sylvanus were living. 

But the great scene of these directions and admonitions 
lies in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, where he exhorts 
them to “covet earnestly” spiritual gifts, but chiefly that of 
prophecy, 1 Cor. xiv. 1, to “covet to prophesy, and forbid 
not to speak with tongues,” ver. 39. Moreover, he directs 
them in the due exercise of these spiritual gifts after this 
manner: “ Forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, 


2T 


518 


seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church,” ver. 
12; “ Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue 
pray that he may interpret,” ver. 13. And again, “If any 
man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at 
most by three, and let one interpret; but if there be no in- 
terpreter, let him keep silent in the church,” ver. 27, 28; 
“Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the others 
judge,” ver. 29; “If any thing be revealed to another that 
sitteth by, let the first hold his peace: for ye may all pro- 
phesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be com- 
forted,” ver. 30, 31. In the same chapter he chides them 
for using these spiritual gifts without profit to the hearer, 
and so as to breed confusion in the church. “ How is it,” 
saith he, “brethren, that when you come together, every one 
of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a 
revelation, hath an interpretation? Let all things be done 
to edifying,” ver. 26, declaring that, by using tongues not un- 
derstood in the assembly, they would give the infidel and 
unbeliever occasion to say they were mad, ver. 23. “But 
if all prophesy,” saith he, “and there come in one that be- 
lieveth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all; he is 
judged of all: and thus are the secrets of his heart made 
manifest; and so falling down on his face, he will worship 
God, and report that God is in you of a truth,” ver. 24, 25. 
So notorious are these gifts supposed to be, not only to the 
saint, but to the infidel, and so powerful for his conversion. 
Now had these great apostles given thanks for gifts conferred 
upon these churches which they never had enjoyed; had they 
exhorted them to desire, and earnestly to covet, to stir up 
and excel in gifts they never had, and which were not im- 
parted to any members of the church; had they given these 
grave directions and solemn charges, touching those gifts of 
prophecy and revelation, of tongues and the interpretation 
of them, which never had been exercised in that of Corinth, 
or any other Christian church; had they severely chid them 
for abusing those gifts they never had, and shown themselves 
so much concerned to correct an abuse of which they were 
incapable, as having not the use of what they are supposed 
to abuse; had they condemned the murmurings of them who 
had them in a less, the boastings of them who had them in a 
higher measure, by such inquiries as these, « What hast thou 
which thou hast not received? And if thou hast received 
(them), wherefore dost thou boast, as if thou hadst not re- 
ceived (them) ?” 1 Cor. iv. 7 (see the note there) ; and show- 
ing the necessity that there should be such a diversity of 
gifts and operations in the body, 1 Cor. xii. 14—27, and done 
and said all this without a just foundation; this must have 
rendered those epistles, in which these passages are contained, 
the matter of their derision and disdain, rather than worthy 
to be owned as the oracles of God: and those apostles which 
indited them must rather have been esteemed by them 
brain-sick enthusiasts, than men inspired by the Spirit of 
God. 

Since then these writings generally were received as di- 
vine records by all Christians, and by those very churches to 
which they were indited, it must be certain, that in all these 
assertions they contain matter of unquestionable truth, and 
only spake of those spiritual gifts of which these churches 
had a full experience; there being, saith Clemens Romanus 
in his epistle writ soon after to them, “a full effusion of the 
Holy Ghost” upon them all. 

Arg. 4. §. VI. This will still be more evident, if we con- 
sider what Christianity the author and the propagators of 
it required of all that would embrace the Christian faith, 
and what were the encouragements they tendered as the chief 
inducements so to hope, believe, and act, or suffer, as Chris- 
tianity required. And, 

First, They call upon all Christians to take up the cross 
of Christ daily, and for his sake to “ forsake father and mo- 
ther, wife and children, goods and relations, and even life 
itself,” declaring that without this they cannot be Christ’s 
disciples, Luke xiv. 26, 27, informing them, that «all that 
will live godly must suffer persecution,” 2 Tim. iii. 12, that 
“through many tribulations they must enter into the king- 
dom of God,” Acts iy. 22, that they were “called to suffer,” 
and were “appointed to this very thing,” 1 Thess. iii. 3, 
4, 1 Pet. ii, 21. Accordingly we find that the Corinthians 
were “ partakers with them of their sufferings,” 2 Cor. i. 7; 
that the Galatians had “suffered many things,” Gal. iii, 4; 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


that to the Philippians it was “given, not only to believe in 
Christ, but also to suffer for his sake,” Phil. i. 29; that Paul 
commends the Colossians for their steadfastness in the faith 
under all their persecutions, i. 11, and prays they “may be 
strengthened with all might, according to his glorious gospel, 
to all patience, and long-suffering, with joyfulness,” ii. 5. 
He saith the Thessalonians suffered the same from their 
countrymen, as did the believing Jews from theirs, 1 Thess. 
ii. 14; that he sent Timothy to “stablish and to comfort 
them concerning their faith,” and to exhort them «not to be 
moved at those afflictions to which they were appointed,” 
111. 34; adding that he “ gloried in them in the churches of 
God, for their patience and faith in all their persecutions,” 
2 Thess. i. 4. In his Epistle to the Hebrews he saith, they 
“suffered a great fight of afflictions, partly while they were 
made a gazing-stock, both by reproaches and afflictions, and 
partly whilst they became companions of them who were 
so used,” and that they “took joyfully the spoiling of their 
goods ;” and he exhorts them “not to cast away their con- 
fidence,” because they had “need of patience,” Heb. x. 32. 
36, and, after the example of that cloud of witnesses which 
he had set before them, to run their Christian race with pa- 
tience, xii. 1. Peter tells the same believing Jews, they 
“were in heaviness for a season through manifold tempta- 
tions,” 1 Pet. i. 6, desiring them “not to think it strange 
concerning the fiery trial which was come to try them,” iv. 
12. These tribulations they exhort them to endure with 
faith and courage, patience and perseverance, joy and tri- 
umph; and yet the only thing they offer them to raise this 
joy and comfort, engage them to this perseverance, and to sup- 
port them under their fiery trials, is the promise, or the actual 
vouchsafement, of the Holy Ghost helping their infirmities, 
that as they were partakers of the sufferings of the apostles, 
so should they be also of their consolations, 2 Cor. i. 7, that 
“if they suffered for the name of Christ, happy were they ; 
for the Spirit of glory and of God should rest upon them,” 
1 Pet. iv. 14. This, say they, ye have found, “for you he- 
came followers of the Lord, and of us, having received the 
word with much affliction, and with joy of the Holy Ghost,” 
1 Thess. i. 6, and may well suffer hardships as good soldiers 
of Jesus Christ, for God “hath not given us the spirit of 
fear, but τῆς δυνάμεως, of courage,” to endure, of that love 
which casts out fear, and of that prudence which will instruct 
us how to bear or to escape them (2 Tim. 1.7). Now if this 
promise was sensibly made good to them under these afilic- 
tions, they by it did receive an earnest of the truth of Chris- 
tian faith, and an assurance of God’s concern to comfort and 
reward their Christian patience in his cause. But if under 
these fiery trials they found no sensible experience of the 
Holy Ghost thus helping their infirmities, no inward joys, 
supports, and consolations of the promised Comforter, what 
reason had they to continue to “take joyfully the spoiling 
their goods,” the loss of credit, life, and all their worldly 
comforts, for the profession of that faith, which had so pal- 
pably deceived them in the chief motive which it offered 
to engage them to suffer for the name of Christ, or for the 
truth and divine authority of those epistles which contained 
these apparent falsehoods ? 

This argument may be enforced from the consideration of 
the multitude of Christian martyrs in the first three ages of 
the church, all which could have no other motive thus to 
suffer, but this promised assistance of the Holy Ghost at pre- 
sent, and the assurance which this earnest of the Spirit gave 
them of an eternal state of happiness hereafter; and so if 
they had no experience of this assistance under sufferings, 
and no assurance of such an “ earnest of the Spirit” in their 
hearts, must suffer all these dreadful things without just 
ground or motive, which even a heathen Cicero* doth repre- 
sent as a thing impossible to be performed, the hardness of 
some Jewish zealots, and some deluded Christian sects, in 
suffering, being no instance to the contrary ; for though they 
mistake the application of this future happiness, in prospect 
of which they thus endure, to themselves, the principle upon 
which they suffer is undisputably true, and owned even by 


* Nullo igitur modo fieri potest ut quisquam tanti estimet 
wquitatem et fidem, ut ejus conservande causd nullum sup- 
plicium recuset, nisi iis rebus assensus sit, que false esse non 
possunt. Acad. Quest. lib. 11, n. 25, 26. 


TO THE 


Epicurus himself; Ut voluptates omittantur majorum vo- 
luptatum adipiscendarum causa, aut dolores suscipiantur 
majorum dolorum effugiendorum gratia, «'Uhat we should 
part with our temporal enjoyments for a* season here, for a 
better and more enduring substance, amd suffer these light 
afflictions, which are for a moment; that we may escape 
more lasting and intolerable torments,” this being only, saith 
Torquatus,* the choice which the wise men of Epicurus | 
ought to make. In a word, the manner of their sufferings 
doth give us full assurance that the assistance of the Holy 
Ghost, which Christ and his apostles promised to the true be- 
lievers, was accordingly vouchsafed to the Christian martyrs 
and confessors, they being enabled to bear the greatest suf- 
ferings, not only with undaunted courage, “ putting off the 
body,” saith Origen,} “more cheerfully than a philosopher | 
would put off his coat;” “despising death,” saith Lucian,+ 
“and willingly submitting to it;” but with great joy and 
exultation, being “strengthened to all long-suffering with | 
joyfulness” (Col. ii. 5), “ rejoicing§ in tribulations, counting | 
it all joy when they fell into divers temptations, and happy 
when they did endure them” (James i. 3. 12), and rejoicing | 
when they were in heaviness through manifold afflictions” (1 
Pet. i. 6): yea, sometimes with] miraculous experience of 
consolations under all their sufferings, causing this joy and 
gladness in them; and sometimes with a perfect freedom 
from all sense of pain under the most afflicting torments; as 
in the case of the evangelist St. John,§ and of Blandina,** 
these sufferings not being able to extort from them one com- 
plaint or groan.t+ Now this being done as well by++ child- 
ren and the weakest sex, by the idiot as well as by the 
wisest sages, gives a full demonstration of the truth of that 
assertion of Eusebius,$§ That the love of Christ, the hopes of 
immortality, and the Spirit of the Father, inspired them with 
this courage; for what else could create such joys and ex- 
ultations, or suggest such comforts and supports under the 
sharpest trials? What could procure to them a freedom 
from the sense of pain, under the greatest torments and most 
intolerable burdens to flesh and blood ? 

Secondly, Again, they engage all Christians in the most 
difficult acts of self-denial and. mortification of all carnal 
lusts, in the cutting off their right hands, and the plucking 
out their eyes; in patience under, and the forgiveness of, 


* Itaque harum rerum hic tenetur ἃ sapiente delectus, ut | 
aut rejiciendis voluptatibus majores alias consequatur, aut | 
perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat. De Finibus Bono- | 
rum, &e. lib. i. n. 27. 29. 

Ὑ Ὡς δειλὰν γένος λέγει δ' ἡμᾶς εἶναι, καὶ φιλοσώματον γένος, 
οὕτω προγείρως ὑπὲρ εὐσεβείας τιϑέντας τὸ σῶμα, ὡς οὐδὲ τὸ 
ἱμάτιον ἀποϊῦσαι ἂν εὐχερῶς φιλόσοφος. Contra Cels. lib. vii. 
Ρ. 351. 

4 Πεπείκασι γὰρ αὐτοὺς οἱ κακοδαίμονες, τὸ μὲν ὅλον ἀϑάνατοι 
ἔσεσθαι, καὶ βιώσεσθαι τὸν ἀεὶ χρόνον, παρ' ὃ καὶ καταφρονοῦσι τοῦ 
θανάτον, καὶ ἑκόντες αὐτοὺς ἐπιδιδόασιν οἱ πολλοί. Lucian. Peregr. 
f. 338. 

§ Θανατούμενοι χαίρομεν. Just. M. p. 265. Magisque 
damnati quam absoluti gaudemus. Tertul.ad Scap. cap. 1. 
Mera χαρᾶς καὶ γέλωτος καὶ εὐφροσύνης τὴν ὑστάτην ἀπόφασιν τοῦ 
θανάτον καταῤέχεσϑαι solebant. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. viii. 
cap. 9. 

| Solebant etenim τὸ ἄλυπον καὶ ἀτάραχον sis αὐτὴν τὴν 
τελευταίαν ἀναπνοὴν διατηρεῖν, immO ἀπτύητον καρτερίαν, ὥστε 
ψάλλειν, καὶ ὕμνους καὶ εὐχαριστίας εἷς τὸν τῶν ὅλων Θεὸν ἀναπέμ- 
rev. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. viii. cap. 9. 

« Tertull. de Prescrip. cap. 36. 

** Ἣν αὐτῆς ἀνάληψις καὶ ἀνάπαυσις καὶ ἀναλγησία. Evuseb. 
Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 1. “Acapxos δ' ὥσπερ, καὶ ἀσώματος, οὐδ᾽ 
ἐπαΐειν δοκῶν τῶν ἀλγηδόνων. Lib. viii. cap. 10, p. 338, 339. 

tf Quot ex nostris non dexteram solum sed totum corpus 
uri, cremari, sine ullis ejulatibus pertulerant. Minutius, p. 
41. Tortores suos taciti vincunt, exprimere illis gemitum 
nec ignis potest. Lact. lib. v. cap. 13. 

++ Pueri nostri et muliercule nostrm, cruces, et tormenta, 
feras, et omnes suppliciorum terriculas, inspirata patientia 
doloris illudunt. Minut.p.42. Athenag. Legat. pro Christ. 
p- 12, A. 

§§ "Excivons piv yap ἐπεκούριζεν ἢ χαρὰ τὴς μαρτυρίας, καὶ ἡ 
Aris τῶν ἐπηγγελμένων, καὶ ἡ πρὸς τὸν Χριστὸν ἀγάπη, καὶ τὸ 
Πνεῦμα τὸ πατρικόν. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 1, p. 160, C. 


| then sages, seemed a thing incredible. 


EPISTLES. 519 


the greatest injuries; in love and charity to the worst of 
enemies, in temperance as to the pleasures and honours of 
this present life, in a deadness to the world, and the enjoy- 
ments of it, in piety, and purity, and heavenly mindedness, 
because they cannot otherwise be Christ's disciples, cannot 
be worthy of him (Matt. x. 37, 38), they cannot enter into 
his kingdom (Matt. xix. 23, 24), but shall hereafter be denied 
and rejected by him (Matt. x. 32, 33). Now what could such 
threats signify to them who were not, by his miracles, and by 
experience “of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,” 
convinced that he was indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the 
world? The encouragement they give them to be thus stead- 
fast, immoveable, always abounding in the fear of the Lord, 
was only the promise of a future and unseen reward, chiefly 
to be enjoyed after the resurrection of the body, which, to 
the sadducees among the Jews, and the whole race of hea- 
It is therefore not to 
be imagined, that so many myriads of Christian converts 
should renounce all the pleasures of the flesh, all the grati- 
fications of this present world, all their old rites, religions, 
customs, evil habits, submit to all this self-denial and morti- 


| fication, only to be partakers of these unseen blessings after 


the resurrection, without a full assurance that they hereaf- 
ter should enjoy them. Now the only assurance which the 
apostles and holy scriptures did afford them of this blessed 
resurrection and eternal happiness, was the miracles by which 
their doctrine was confirmed, the powers, gifts, and distribu- 
tions of the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to them. After the 
dissolution of this body, we expect, say they, “a house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens; we groan, desiring 
to be clothed with this house from heaven, that mortality may 
be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought this hope 
within us, is that God who hath given us the earnest of the 
Spirit” (2 Cor. v. 1—5). And again, “The promises of God 
are all yea and amen,” or sure and certain, “in Jesus Christ ;” 
and “ He who hath established us with you,” in expectation 
of them, “is that God who hath anointed us, and sealed us, 
and given the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor. i, 
20, 21); enabling us by the Spirit « to wait for the adoption, 
even the redemption of the body” (Rom. viii. 23), adding, 
that by the Spirit of adoption they were enabled to cry, 
« Abba, Father” (ver. 15, 16); that he “bore witness with 
their spirits that they were the sons of God,” the love of 
God being “shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, 
which God had given them” (Gal. iv. 6). Hence they con- 
tinually declare, that “after they believed, they were sealed 
with the Spirit of promise, which was the earnest of their 
inheritance till the redemption of the purchased possession” 
ey i. 13, 14); that by him they were “sealed up to the 
ay of redemption” (iv. 30), that he was the “earnest of 
their future inheritance ;” that they were not ashamed of 
their hope, they “through the Spirit waiting for the hope of 
righteousness” (Gal. v. 5), and “abounding in hope through 
the power of the Holy Ghost” (Rom. xv. 13). Hence he is 
styled by John, “the witness of God within” them, 1 John 
y. 19, and by this, saith he, do we Christians know, that “ God 
abideth in us, and we in him,” even “by the Spirit that he 
hath given us,” iv. 13. By all which sayings it appears, that 
if these things were true, they to whom this assistance of the 
Holy Spirit was vouchsafed, must be very sensible of his 
dwelling and his acting in them; that they could plainly 
know they had this “ unction from the Holy One,” and could 
be hence assured of the divine affection to them, and of their 
future hopes and expectations, since otherwise he could be 
no such seal, pledge, and earnest to them, and no such wit- 
ness of God within them, and no such confirmation of their 
faith, or token of the love of God: and if these things were 
false, and they had no such sensible experience of the good 
Spirit acting and abiding in them, if they found no such con- 
firmation of their hopes from any inward testimony and 
outward operations of the Holy Ghost, they must not only 
have no certain ground or motive to assure them of that fu 
ture recompense, which was the only reason which could in 
duce them to embrace and to continue steadfast in the Chris 
tian faith, but must have a convincing demonstration that the 
whole doctrine of Christianity depended on a false suggestion 
of such a sensible and certain testimony of these future 
hopes, of which they never had, nor could have, any know 
ledge or experience; and that the apostles and first asserters 


520 


of this faith had laid the whole foundation of their hopes 
upon a false and a precarious appeal to their own consciences, 
concerning that of which they had no knowledge or experi- 
ence. And being once assured of this, that the great funda- 
mentals of the Christian faith were bottomed on a confident 
appeal to their perception of those things, of which they 
who embraced this faith had yet not found the least experi- 
ence, it is incredible to believe they should continue steadfast 
in and endure such continual persecutions for that faith, and 
should receive those very records as the word of God 
which made these false appeals unto their conscience and 
experience. 

§. VII.. I think I have sufficiently made it appear that 
these epistles, which contain these things, must be indited 
whilst the apostles lived, and so they must be sent to those 
churches and persons to whom they are directed, at a time 
when ali the members of those churches must be able to 
discern the truth or falsehood of what is thus asserted in 
them: yet, because the pretence that it might be otherwise 
containeth the whole strength of scepticism, let it be farther 
noted, 

First, That these epistles from which these things are 
cited, one alone excepted, bear the names of the apostles, 
by whoin they are supposed to be written: now had they 
not been really indited by them, this could not have 
been done by any, but he must put a cheat upon Chris- 
tians, and substitute his own inventions for the word of 
God. 

Secondly That all of them, excepting one, which is yet 
proved to be genuine in the preface to the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, have been delivered down unto us by the perpe- 
tual and uncontrolled tradition of the whole church of 
Christ, as the undoubted works of these apostles, and as the 
word of God. Moreover, it is apparent from the writings of 
Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Ireneus, that 
even from the apostles’ days they have been cited, read, and 
generally received as such. Now this is a tradition more 
general, and of a firmer credit, than any other book, writing, 
charter, law, or statute whatsoever can pretend to. Consider, 

Thirdly, That the tradition which concerns these books 
was a tradition concerning things of the highest moment, 
and which it was the interest of all Christians to be well as- 
sured of, these writings being at present the chief ground of 
their support under their sharpest trials, and of their future 
hopes; they therefore must be writings which they were con- 
cerned to get and keep, to hear and read. They were books 
written to whole churches and nations, yea, to all that 
called on the name of Christ Jesus in every place ;”” who 
could not easily have received and yielded such a firm as- 
sent unto them, as we know they did, had the apostles, by 
whom they were converted, given no intimations of them. 
They were also books of the greatest opposition to the vain 
tradition of the Jews, and io the superstition of the heathens, 
to the “false apostles and deceitful workers,” and which de- 
nounced upon them the greatest plagues and judgments, 
which must oblige them narrowly to search into the flaws 
that could be spied in them, and, as much as possible, to 
labour to discover the falsehood or imposture of them: and 
yet these works were not denied by them to be the books of 
those apostles whose names they bear, though the apostles 
themselves, especially St. Paul, was persecuted by them with 
a restless malice, as an apostate from the law; and upon 
this account all his epistles were rejected by those Jewish 
Christians, who maintained the necessity of the observance of 
the law of Moses: most of them also are writ about that 
very controversy, and against those very men who pleaded 
the necessity of circumcision, and of observing the whole 
law of Moses; which yet could be no controversy after the 
ruin of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, seeing 
that rendered the observation of the precepts of that law for 
the most part impossible. They were books which could not 
be spread abroad in the apostles’ days, and in their names, 
unless the apostles had indited and sent them to these 
churches; or be esteemed as the great charters of the Chris- 
tian faith, if the apostles were so forgetful of them as not to 
Jet those persons, for whose sake they were written, know it. 
‘They were books which pretended to a commission from the 
holy Jesus, to leave a rule of life and doctrine to mankind, 
which was intrusted only in the hands of the apostles, all 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


others still pretending to deliver only what they received 
from them. They also were indited partly to confirm the 
Christian faith, and to engage men to believe it; partly to 
put an end to the contentions, and rectify the errors which 
had crept into the church m the apostles’ days, and needed 
speedy reformation; partly to justify themselves against 
false brethren, and to assert the truth of their apostleship ; 
and partly to preserve their proselytes from such as did per- 
vert the faith, and to instruct them how to bear up in fiery 
trials, and to support the souls of Christians under the mise- 
ries they suffered frem a persecuting world; and therefore 
they were written on such grounds as did require a quick 
dispatch upon these errands to the churches for which they 
were intended : and so the apostles must be supposed to give 
early notice of them, and to divulge them to the Christian 
world, whilst they to whom they were committed were able 
to disprove them if they had been false. 

Let us consider all the writings which pass for true 
authentic records in the world, and we shall find there is 
not any reason to conceive them such, which is not with 
advantage applicable to these books. 

The arguments which can be offered to prove a book or 
writing genuine, are only of two kinds; external, from the 
testimony of persons who lived near to the times of the 
author; and internal, from the things contained in and 
asserted by those writings, and the firm faith they ob- 
tained among them to whom they were directed and com- 
mitted. 

The external testimonies have their force partly from the 
number and the eminence of the testators, their nearness to 
the times when such a book is said to be written, or such a 
writing published by the original copies, preserved by those 
to whom they were at first committed, and from the gene- 
ral reception and citation of them as such writings and 
records. 

Now as for these external evidences, no writings can com- 
pare with those epistles I have mentioned, they having all 
the circumstances by which any writing can be proved genu- 
ine, and many others of great weight, which are peculiar to 
them, and which no other writing can pretend to. I say, 
they have all the circumstances to prove them genuine, 
which any other writing can pretend to. For, 

First, Their originals were preserved in their respective 
churches till Tertullian’s time; who speaks thus to the he- 
retics of his age, or of the third century,* “Go to the apos- 
tolical churches, where their authentic epistles are still re- 
cited, representing the voice and face of each of them.” 

Secondly, They were not doubted of, but, as Clementy and 
Origen say, all that I have cited, excepting only the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, mentioned by Peter, were generally received 
by all orthodox Christians throughout the world. 

Thirdly, The writers by whom they were cited, lived either 
in those times when they were written, as Clemens Roma- 
nus, or in the very next age, as Ignatius, Polycarp, Jus- 
tin Martyr, Ireneus, and were therefore styled apostolical 
men. 

Fourthly, They were very eminent both for their learning, 
and for their sufferings for the fai contained in them, or 
for their opposition to it, as Celsus was; now sure we have 
unquestionable certainty of such books as have been handed 
down to us by the tradition of all ages of the church, in- 
serted into all her catalogues, cited by all her writers as books 
of a divine authority, and by her very adversaries preserved 
so long in their originals, and of which never any doubt 
was made by any genuine member of the church of Christ. 
I add, 

Secondly, That there are many circumstances of great 
weight to confirm these testimonies, which are peculiar to 
these writings: as 

First, A general dispersion of them through those places 
which were converted to that faith which the apostles 


* Percurre ecclesias apostolicas, apud quas ipse authen- 
tice litere eorum recitantur, sonantes vocem et represen- 
tantes faciem uniuscujusque. De Prescript. cap. 36. 

“A καὶ dvavrifpnra ἐστιν ἐν τῇ ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ 

Ita de evangeliis, Orig. apud Euseb. lib. vi. cap. 25. 
Euseb. de Epistolis, lib. ii. 


Θεοῦ. 
Καὶ ταῦτα μὲν ἐν ὁμολογουμένοις. 


cap. 25. 


TO THE EPISTLES. 


preached: for the apostles, saith Irenwus, “first preached 
the gospel, and after, by the will of God, in scripturis nobis 
tradiderunt, delivered it to us in the scriptures, to be here- 
after the pillar and foundation of our faith” (Lib. iii. cap. 
1). Eusebius saith that “the first successors of the apos- 
tles, leaving their countries, preached to them who had not 
yet heard of the Christian faith, and then delivered to them, 
as the foundation of their faith, τὴν τῶν δείων εὐαγγελίων ypa- 
div, the writings of the holy evangelists” (Hist. Eccles. lib. 
iil. cap. 37). 

Secondly, The translation of them into other languages ; 
that of the Syriac being so ancient that it leaves out the 
Second Epistle of St. Peter, and the Second and Third 
Epistles of St. John, and the Revelation, as being for a 
time controverted in some of the eastern churches: that of 
the Latin, styled in Jerome’s time “the old translation,” 
and very probably made from the beginning of a settled 
church among them; for the Latin church could not be 
well without a Latin version, it being the custom of all 
churches to read these scriptures on the Lord’s-day ; which 
sure they would not do in a language not to be understood 
by those that heard it. 

Thirdly, The constant reading of them in public and in 
private, in their assemblies, and in their closets and fami- 
lies. “On Sunday,” saith Justin Martyr,* “all the Chris- 
tians in the city or country meet together, and then we have 
read unto us the writings of the prophets, and τὰ dropvnpo- 
γεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων, the monuments of the apostles ;” 
and having read them, they did publiclyt τὰς ϑείας &pyn- 
νεῦειν γραφὰς, “expound them to the people:” that they 
were also read by the most eminent and pious Christians 
every day, that: discat unusquisque ex scripturis sanctis of- 
ficlum suum, “every one might learn his duty from the 
holy scriptures,” we learn from the question in the Con- 
stitutions of Clement,§ “ Whether a man ought, the day 
after he had done the duties of wedlock, or been subject to 
any involuntary defilement, βιβλίου Siyew, touch the book ;” 
and the declaration of Clement,| that “the matrimonial 
duties should not be done, ὁπηνίκα εὐχῆς καὶ ἀναγνώσεως ὃ και- 
ρὸς, when was the time of prayer, or reading of the scriptures ; 
and that the sacrifices of the true gnostic] were, εὐχαί re 
καὶ aivot, καὶ αἱ πρὸ τῆς ἐστιασέως ἐντεύξεις τῶν γραφῶν, prayers 
and praises, and the reading of the holy scriptures before 
meals.” And seeing Ireneus** saith that “he who had a 
care of his salvation might read the form of his faith in the 
epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians ;” since that epistle, 
and the epistle of Clementt+ to the church of Corinth, 
which were their genuine works ; yea, the epistle of St. Bar- 
nabas,$§ and the book of Hermas,| which two were reck- 
oned as apocryphal, were read publicly in many churches, 
doubtless they must be more concerned to read the un- 
doubted writings of the apostles, which they esteemed the 
rule of faith, which they styled§ libri deifici, “« books which 
transformed them into a divine nature ;” which they looked 
upon as the records of their eternal interests, as books by 
which they must be judged at the last day, and according to 
which they should be punished or rewarded everlastingly. 

Fourthly, The early perusal of them both by Jews and 
heathens, who writ against them, and did endeavour to de- 
stroy them, that so they might cause the Christian faith to 
perish, but never did deny them to be indeed the works of the 
apostles, whose names they bore: by Jews, for Trypho*** 
speaks thus at least of the gospels, “The precepts contained 
in your gospels are so great, that 1 suspect no man can keep 


* Apol. ii. p. 98. 

} Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. vi. cap. 19. 

¢ Orig. Hom. 11 in Exod. f. 50,1... § Lib. vi. cap. 27. 

] Pedag. lib. ii. cap. 10, p. 194, D. 

« Strom. vii. p. 728, B. 

ti Suidas in voce Polycarpus. 

++ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 38, lib. iv. cap. 23. 
Epiph. Her. xxx. p. 15. Phot. Cod. 113. 

§§ Hieron. vicibus Barnabas et Hermas. 

ΠῚ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 3. Athanas. Epist. 
Paschal. tom. ii. p. 39, 40. 

$4 Cypr. de Elv. et lib. et Eph. 52. Pass. Sancti Felicis 
passim. 

*** Apud Justin. Dial. p. 227, C. 

Vou. [V.—66 


** Lib. iii. cap. 3. 


521 


them, ἐμοὶ γὰρ ἐμέλησεν ἐντυχεῖν αὐτοῖς, for I took care to 
read them.” The Ebionites,* who also were Jews, rejected 
all the epistles of Paul, as gathering from them that he was 
an apostate from the law of Moses. ‘The heathens; for 
Celsus} not only boasts that he knew all things belonging 
to the Christians, but often carps at the writings of the 
evangelists and of Paul. And indeed the Christians freely 
offered them to be perused by them: “ For that we may not 
seem to impose upon you,” saith Justin Martyr to the Ro- 
man emperor, “we offer to you some of the doctrines of 
Christ; and you, being emperors,} may ἐξεγάσειν, search 
whether we truly have been taught, and teach these doc- 
trines.” And again, “The prince of evil spirits is by us 
called a serpent, Satan, and the devil, ὡς καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἡμετέρων 
συγγραμμάτων ἑρευνήσαντες μαθεῖν δύνασθε, as you may learn 
by searching into our writings.”§ “Thou who thinkest we 
are not concerned for the safety of Cmsur,” saith Tertul- 
lian, “look into the words of God, quas neque ipsi sup- 
primimus, et plerique casus ad extraneos transferunt, which 
we do not suppress, and which many accidents bring into the 
hands of heathens.” From their endeavours to destroy the 
Christian faith by burning these books, came the edicts of 
Diocletian,{ τὰς γραφὰς ἀφανεῖς πυρὶ γίνεσθαι προστάττοντα, 
“commanding that the scriptures should be committed to 
the flames,” and the** actual burning of them where they 
could be found, and the tormenting of the Christians to de- 
liver up the scriptures. 

Fifthly, The direful torments which the Christians chose 
to suffer, rather than they would desert the faith contained 
in these books, or deliver them up to their tormentors, and 
the infamy of those that did so, they being branded with the 
odious name of traditors. Now what writings in the world 
have been so generally dispersed, and so much perused by 
all sorts of persons, friends, foes, assertors of, and enemies to, 
the faith of Christians?) What laws, or writings whatsoever, 
have been so early translated into other languages? Who 
were so much concerned to peruse them, as were all Chris- 
tians to peruse the laws of Christ? Who suffered so much 
for them as the Christians did? Since then this early read- 
ing of them in public, and in private, by the Christians, this 
general dispersion of them through all Christian churches, 
this quick translation of them into other languages, this con- 
stant suffering for them, are all corroborating circumstances 
of the unquestionable evidence all Christians had obtained 
that they were genuine works, and truly what they did pre- 
tend to be, it is also clear these writings are more worthy 
to be received as genuine, and writings of unquestionable 
truth, than any profane writings in the world. 

§. VIII. The internal arguments, which usually are or 
can be offered to prove other writings genuine, are only 
taken from the things contained in them, that they were 
proper to the times in which the author was supposed to 
write, and from the freedom of them from any thing which 
is not well consistent with those times, which are all mean 
and trifling things, compared to those internal arguments 
which these epistles do afford, that they are the authentic 
records of those apostles whose names they bear, and that 


| those things which they assert, touching the gifts and power 


ful operations of the Holy Ghost, both exercised by them 
and conferred on other churches, were unquestionably true. 
For, 

First, It is not once nor twice, it is not by the bye, but 
it is frequently, professedly, and upon all occasions, they 
refer to these miraculous powers and spiritual gifts, as yield- 
ing a full proof and confirmation of the testimony they gave 
of Christ, and that Christ was among them, and as a demon- 
stration of the truth of their apostleship against all opposers, 
and of the preference of that faith which was attended with 
them, above the law, which some desired to observe; spend- 
ing whole chapters in discoursing of these spiritual gifts, 
distinguishing them somewhat nicely into gifts, administra- 


* Tren. lib. i. cap. 36. Orig. lib. v. p. 274. Evuseb. lib. 


iil. cap. 27. : 
+ Apud Orig. p. 11. 227, &e. + Apol. ii. p. 61, Ὁ. 
§ P. 71, B. || Apol. cap. 31. 


§ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. viii. cap. 8. 

** Scripture reperte incenduntur, Lact. de Mort. Per- 

sec. 3 
272 


522 


tions, and operations; ranking them under nine several 
heads, and specifying the very names of those who did by 
office exercise them, and showing the necessity there was of 
this variety of gifts and operations in the body, appealing to 
the senses, the consciences, and the experience of those to 
whom they wrote, touching the truth and certainty of what 
they had asserted touching those spiritual gifts, by such in- 
quiries as these: “ What! know ye not that Christ is among 
you?” 2 Cor. xiii. 5; “Am I not an apostle? Surely I am 
so to you: for the seal of my apostleship are ye in the 
Lord,” 1 Cor. ix. 1, 2; It is manifest you are “the epistle 
of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with 
the Spirit of the living God,’ 2 Cor. ili, 3; “Surely the 
signs of an apostle have been wrought among you in all pa- 
tience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds,” 2 Cor. xii. 
12; “Have you received” from the false apostles “ another 
spirit which ye have not received from us?” xi. 14; “This 
only would I learn of you, he that ministered to you the 
Spirit, and wrought miracles among you, did he it by the 
works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so 
foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye (desirous to be) 
made perfect in the flesh?” Gal. iii, 3—5; “Our gospel 
came not to you in word only, but in power, and in the 
Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as ye know what man- 
ner of persons we were among you,” 1 Thess. i. 5. Which 
words are either plain inquiries upbraiding their doubtfulness 
and hesitation in so plain a case, or else appeals unto their 
certain knowledge of these things; nor is it to be wondered 
that they should make these confident inquiries and ap- 
peals, seeing the external miracles, and the internal gifts 
and distributions of the Holy Ghost, mentioned in those 
epistles, were either such of which even infidels might from 
the nature of them be convinced, or such as, from some 
outward and sensible appearances and effects, or by their 
inward operations, made themselves known to them who 
heard and saw them. For instance, the working of mira- 
cles, the casting out of devils by the name of Jesus, and the 
healing the sick through faith in his name, the gift of pro- 
phecy, or foretelling things future, the discerning of spirits, 
the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of them, if truly 
done, were things self-evident, and could not well be exer- 
cised without a sensible demonstration to all that saw, per- 
ecived, heard, or felt them, that they were performed ; and 
therefore God, by assisting the apostles, and by enabling 
others to perform them, must give full “testimony to the 
word of his grace:” and the apostles, by this constant ap- 
peal to them as to things which their own eyes had seen, 
and their consciences bore witness to, and they in person 
had performed, must appeal to the senses and experience of 
those to whom they writ, in matters subject daily to their 
experience, and to the senses of the members of those re- 
spective churches, touching the truth of their apostleship, 
and of the confirmation they pretend to have given of it. 
Now, as it seemeth highly incredible that persons able to 
write the deepest mysteries and the exactest precepts of mo- 


rality, should be so foolish as to confirm them only by an | 


appeal to the senses and experience of those very men of 
whom they were assured that they had never seen, or done, 
or found the least experience of any of the things they men- 
tioned; so is it still far more incredible, that an appeal of 
such apparent falsehood, made to the consciences of men 
who never saw these miracles, or found these comforts of the 
Holy Ghost, and never had these gifts of tongues, interpre- 
tation, healings, prophecy, which these epistles tell us were 


their daily exercise, should embrace these very epistles as | 


divine, these records as the word of God. And yet we know 
both they and other churches did thus actually esteem them, 
and receive them as such, and therefore must be well as- 
sured, that what they thus asserted of the gifts of the Holy 
Ghost, were things confirmed to them by their own senses 
and experience. 

Secondly, Add to this, that these men, in these very writ- 
ings, confidently say, that this was their rejoicing, “even the 
testimony of their conscience, that in simplicity and godly 
sincerity they had their conversation in the world, and more 
abundantly towards them,’ 2 Cor. i. 13, and that “they 
writ no other things than what they did acknowledge, and 
they trusted would acknowledge to the end,” v.11. “ We 
are,” say they, “made manifest to God, and we trust also 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


we are made manifest in your consciences,” v. 11. They re- 
present it as a great absurdity, that they should be “found 
false witnesses of God,” 1 Cor, xv. 15. They distinguish 
themselves from others they call «false apostles and deceit- 
ful workers,” by this very character of their sincerity. « For 
we,” say they, “are not as many, who corrupt the word of 
God; but as of sincerity, as of God, in the sight of God 
speak we in Christ,” 2 Cor. ii. 17; «© We have renounced the 
hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor 
handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation 
of the truth, commending ourselves to every man’s con- 
science in the sight of God,” iv. 2; yea, for this they appeal 
to the Searcher of all hearts, and to the consciences of those 
to whom they write, saying, “Our exhortation was not of 
deceit, or guile: for neither at any time used we flattering 
words, as ye know; nor of men sought we glory, neither of 
you, nor yet of others: ye are witnesses, and God also, how 
holy, and justly, and unblameably, we behaved ourselves 
among you that believe,’ 1 Thess. ii. 3. 5, 6.10. Now 
with what face could these things be asserted by men who 
knew that they, in these epistles, had told such things as 
even the senses and experience of those to whom they wrote 
must know to be the greatest falsehoods? Or how could 
they to whom they wrote give credit to such impudent un- 
truths as these must be, if the relations which they made of 
these miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost had been fic- 
titious things? This therefore is a farther evidence of their 
sincerity and truth in these relations. 

Thirdly, Let us consider how the apostle treats those 
churches of Corinth and Galatia, in which he speaks most 
copiously of these operations of the Holy Ghost, and how 
they stood affected to the apostle Paul. The Corinthians, 
in his first chapter, are represented as schismatical; in his 
third, as carnal; in the fifth, as glorying in an incestuous 
person; in the sixth, as contentious, to their own shame, and 
to the scandal of Christianity ; in the eighth, as murderers 
of them for whom Christ died; in the tenth, as murmurers, 
tempters of Christ, fornicators, idolaters, partakers of the 
table of devils; in the eleventh, as coming to the Lord’s 
supper, “not for the better, but the worse,” offending in it 
both against the rules of charity, and temperance, and faith, 
in “not discerning the Lord’s body;” in the twelfth and 
fourteenth, as guilty of emulation, schisms, and contentions, 
touching spiritual persons, and of vain-glory, scandal, and 
confusion in the exercise of their spiritual gifts; and in the 
fifteenth, as deniers of that resurrection, which was the great 
foundation of all the future hopes of Christians. In his 
second epistle he declares his fears that he might «find 
among them debates, envyings, wrath, strifes, backbitings, 
whisperings, swellings ;” and that he should find among them 
“many who had not yet repented of the uncleanness, forni- 
cation, and lasciviousness, which they had committed,” 2 
Cor. xii. 20, 21. And for these things, if not reformed, he 
threatens he would “use sharpness,” and “come to them 
with a rod,” 2 Cor. x. 6, xiii. 2. He charges the Galatians 
with apostasy, admiring that “they were so soon removed 
from him that called them to another gospel,” i. 6, and repre- 
sents them as foolish and bewitched for falling from that 
gospel, by which they had received these spiritual gifts, to 
the beggarly elements of the law, iii. 1. 5. Now how could 
the Corinthians be guilty of such emulations about spiritual 
persons, or such disorders in the exercise of their spiritual 
gifts, provided there were among them no such persons, and 
they had no such gifts? How could they fear the lashes of 
his rod, on the account of crimes of which they neither were 
nor could be guilty? Why should they not be rather for 
Cephas or Apollos, than for Paul, if Paul imposed upon them 
with false stories and sensible untruths? Or why should not 
the Galatians even quit that gospel in which he endeavoured 
to confirm them only by an appeal to that which they must 
know to be a lie. 

Moreover, the affections of the members of these churches 
were not so firm to him, their esteem of him was not so 
great, as that he might securely lessen it by venturing on 
these arts of falsehood, for he found some of his Corinthians 
“puffed up” against him, and preferring others much before 
him (1 Cor. iv. 18), charging him with lightness and incon- 
stancy (2 Cor. i. 17), and “walking according to the flesh” 
(x. 2), looking upon him as a man too much transported, 


TO THE EPISTLES, 


and almost beside himself (2 Cor. ν. 13), as “base in per- 
son, and in speech contemptible” (x. 10): he complains that 
they were “ straitened in their bowels of affection” towards 
him, and that the “ more he loved them, the less he was be- 
loved” by them (2 Cor. xii. 15), that they questioned his 
apostleship, and even sought a proof of Christ speaking in 
him (xiii. 3). He represents the Galatians as men who 
questioned his apostleship and doctrine, or at least thought 
him much inferior in both to others, ch. i., and in the se- 
cond, as supposing he dissembled with them, and elsewhere 
preached himself that circumcision he condemned in them, 
y. 11, yea, who looked upon him as their enemy, and were 
even ready to exclude him, iv. 16,17. Now under these 
circumstances could he hope to repair his credit with them, 
and to establish his apostleship they questioned, by an ap- 
peal to, and a relation of, such things as both their senses and 
experience knew to be manifest untruths? But, 

Fourthly, Could it be supposed that these churches were 
so stupid and insengible, that they did not, or so partially 
affected to these apostles, that they would not, take notice of 
these things? These epistles inform us of other subtle and 
industrious adversaries, men zealous to oppose and to adul- 
terate the gospel which he preached, and desirous to find oc- 
casions to depress and lessen the promoters of it, and to ad- 
vance themselves above them (2 Cor. x. 12, xv. 11, 12). 
Paul complains, that the Corinthians had among them “ false 
apostles, and deceitful workers, who transformed themselves 
into the apostles of Christ,” when in truth they were “ minis- 
ters of Satan,” 2 Cor. xi. 13. 15, “men who corrupted the 
word of God,” ii. 17, and sought to “ corrupt them from the 
simplicity that is in Christ,” xi. 3: that among the Gala- 
tians there were evil agents, who “troubled them, and would 
pervert the gospel of Christ,” i. 7, “false brethren, who 
come in privily to spy out their liberty,” ii. 4, men that de- 
sired to “exclude” the apostles, that they might be affected 
by them, iv. 17, men who constrained them to be circum- 
cised, and observe the law, and yet keep it not themselves, 
but only did this lest they should suffer persecution for the 
eross of Christ, vi. 12, 13, wishing they were “cut off who” 
did thus “trouble them,” v. 12. The like he saith, Phil. i. 
15, 16, iii. 18, Col. ii. 4, 8. 19, 20, 1 Tim. i. 5, 6, vi. 3—5, 
2 Tim. ii. 17—19, iii. 5. 8, Tit. i. 10, 11. Now if he him- 
self were a vain talker, and “ deceitful worker,” one who 
endeavoured to impose upon them with false tales, with what 
face could he object those things to others of which he was 
himself so guilty? Or how could they whom he so confi- 
dently doth accuse as guilty of these things, neglect this ob- 
vious reply to such an accusation, that he himself, in his 
appeal to the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost, for 
confirmation of his doctrine and apostleship, had done the 
very thing he laid to their charge?’ We have no reason to 
suspect that all or any of these adversaries neglected any 
pains or diligence to search into the truth of what Paul thus 
offered to confirm his doctrine, and magnify his office; and 
to vindicate himself from the aspersions which they cast 
upon him. Since then we never find the truth of these rela- 
tions questioned by any of those Jews, who so insatiably 
thirsted for his blood, or by those Judaizing Christians, those 
of the circumcision, who so vehemently inveighed against his 
doctrine, his person, and his office ; and since we are assured 
by the event, that if they ever made any such attempts they 
all proved ineffectual, and insufficient to impair the credit of 
those writings in the Christian world; it may be certainly 
concluded, that these epistles could not be convinced of 
falsehood, but contained matter of unquestionable truth in 
these assertions touching the powerful operations of the Holy 
Ghost. 

Lastly, Let us consider what the apostles suffered for 
this testimony, and what it cost them to propagate this faith 
throughout the Christian world, and in what tragical expres- 
sions they are set forth in scripture; “God,” saith Paul, 
“hath set forth us the apostles lust, as it were appointed to 
death, for we are made a spectacle to the world, to angels, 
and to men. Even to this present hour we both hunger, 
and thirst, are naked, and buffeted, and have no certain 
dwelling-place ; and labour, working with our hands. Being 


reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: being de- | James v. 14, 15. 


famed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, 
and the offscouring of all things to this very day,” 1 Cor. 


| 
| 


523 


iv. 9. 1I—13; that they “died daily ;” or “stood in jeopardy 
of it every hour,” 1 Cor. xv. 31; that they “approved them- 
selves as ministers of Christ in much patience, in afflictions, 
in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in 
tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings,” 2 Cor. vi. 4, δ. 
“We were,” saith he, “pressed above measure, beyond 
strength, insomuch that we despaired of life,” 2 Cor. i. 8; 
and in the eleventh chapter he gives such a dreadful account 
of his own afflictions as can scarcely be read without trem- 
bling. Now by what motive could they be acted in the pub- 
lication of that faith, for which they suffered all that wit and 
malice could inflict upon them, but the conviction of the 
truth of what they published; seeing they actually lost all 
in this, and could expect no blessings in another world 
for calling God to witness to a lie? ‘he moralists assure us, 
that it is impossible for men to act without appearance of 
some good to be pursued by that action; that love of life, 
and a desire of self-preservation, is common to us with the 
brutes, and it is as natural both for them and us to avoid 
misery and torments: if then the apostles did actually 
abandon all the enjoyments and expectations both of this 
and of a better life, and wilfully subject themselves unto the 
worst of misery and torments, in propagation of a testimony 
from which they could expect no profit or advantage, they 
must be even bereft of common sense, renounce the natural 
instinets of mankind, and be in love with misery and ruin, 
I confess, it is possible for men to lay down their lives for 
false opinions, provided they believe them true; but if the 
apostles were guilty of any cheat at all in this matter, they 
must be guilty of a known imposture, and so must sacrifice 
their lives for falsehood, i. 6. for that from which they could 
expect no good at all; which seems so inconsistent with the 
common principles of reason and self-love, that nothing can 
be more incredible. 

And this, I hope, may be sufficient to convince any rea- 
sonable person that these epistles must be written whilst the 
apostles lived, and be their genuine writings, and then the 
truth of what they do so copiously assert concerning the mi- 
raculous gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost, vouchsafed 
to the believers of those times, cannot be reasonably con- 
tested. 

§. IX. But yet I shall proceed to farther confirmation of 
this argument from these two heads. 

First, From a particular consideration of the gifts they 
mention. 

Secondly, From the reason we have to believe that these 
extraordinary gifts were equally conferred upon all other 
Christian churches, as upon those which the apostles men- 
tion in their epistles, and also were of a lasting continuance 
among them. 

First, From a particular consideration of the miraculous 
operations and the gifts they mention. Now they were of 
two sorts: 

The healing of the sick, and the curing of the lame, blind, 
and maimed, the raising of the dead, the ejecting of devils 
out of men, and from their oracles and temples: which being 
performed by the apostles and primitive professors of Chris- 
tianity upon others, I style oufward operations. 

Or else those inward gifls by which the understanding 
was enlightened, and was enabled to discern that which their 
natural powers could not reach, as, the gift of speaking with 
unknown tongues, of prophecy, of discerning spirits. I be- 
gin with 

The gift of healing the sick, and the diseased. Of which 
let it be noted, 

First, That this gift was not confined to the apostles, but 
was conferred on the inferior clergy, and other members of 
the church indifferently: for amongst the gifts conferred 
upon the church, the apostle mentions χαρίσματα ἰαμάτων, 
those “ of healing,” 1 Cor. xii. 9, and, ver. 29, they who ex- 
ercised those gifts are reckoned after apostles, prophets, 
teachers, as being both distinct from them and inferior to 
them; and ver. 30, the question is thus put, “Have all the 
gifts of healing?” James directs the sick and the diseased 
to the rulers of the church, with the promise that the “ prayer 
of faith,” joined with the holy oil, “should heal the sick,” 
And this is by our Saviour promised as 
one of the signs that should “follow them that believed” in 
his name ; “ They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall 


524 


recover,” Mark xvi. 18. ‘This being therefore made as well 
the matter of a promise, as of their frequent prayers; had 
not these prayers been answered, and this promise verified, 
Christianity would have, in probability, been blasted by it. 

Secondly, This gift continued frequent and notorious in 
the three first ages of the church, and the salutary influences 
of it were dispersed throughout the world. Soon after the 
destruction of Jerusalem, the Christians, saith Epipha- 
nius,* “returned from Pella, σημεῖα péyada ἐργαζύμενοι ἱάσεων, 
working great miracles of healing.” Amongst the opera- 
tions of the Holy Ghost conferred at baptism upon the con- 
verts of his time, Justin Martyrt enumerates, τὸ τῆς ἰάσεως, 
“the gift of healing.” Irenwust proves the certainty of 
our Lord’s resurrection, from those miracles which his dis- 
ciples performed still in his name: “For some of them,” 
saith he, cast out devils, others heal those that are diseased, 
and even now the dead have been raised, and continue with 
us many years. The spirits of many dead men have re- 
turned again, and the man hath oft been given to the prayers 
of the saints, the whole church of that place requesting it 
with prayer and fasting.” —«“Even to this day,” saith Ori- 
gen,§ “there remain footsteps of that Holy Spirit, who ap- 
peared in the shape of a dove among the Christians, for 
éferadovat δαίμονας, καὶ πολλὰς tdcets ἐπιτελοῦσι, they cast out 
devils, and perform many cures.” And again,|| “ἄνθη now 
the name of Christ exempts men from ecstasies, scares 
away δαίμονας ἤδη δὲ καὶ νύσους, devils and diseases. Some 
footsteps and remainders of the miracles which Christ per- 
formed] ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις καὶ μέχρι νῦν γίνεται, are to this 
day done in the church by the name of Jesus.” And, 
lastly, to that inquiry of Celsus, “ What magnificent work 
hath your Jesus done?” he answers,** “This is one magnifi- 
cent work, that μέχρι σήμερον, even to this day his name doth 
heal diseases.” Now of the truth of what they thus deli- 
ver, they pretend, 

First, To be themselves eye-witnesses. ‘“ We can pro- 
duce,” saith Origen,t} “a vast number of Greeks and barba- 
tians who believe in Christ; some of whom, as a token of 
the power of that faith they have embraced, heal diseases by 
invocation of the name of God and Christ: καὶ ἡμεῖς ἑωράκα- 
μεν, and we ourselves have seen many delivered by these 
things from dangerous symptoms, ecstasies, and madness, 
and ten thousand other evils which neither men nor devils 
could exempt them from.” 

Secondly, They call the God of heaven to witness to the 


truth of what they say: “ We have seen many such things,” | 


saith Origen,}+ “ being present, and beholding them with our 
eyes, which should we write the heathens would laugh at 
them as things feigned, ἀλλὰ γὰρ Θεὸς μάρτυρ τοῦ ἡμετέρου 
συνειδότος, but God is witness to my conscience, that I do 
not endeavour by false testimonies to commend the doctrine 
of Christ.” 

Thirdly, They appeal to the testimonies of their very 
enemies. For thus Tertullian$§ speaks to Scapula, a judge 
in Carthage: “All these things may be suggested to thee 
from thy office, and the advocates of it, who have received 
these advantages from Christians; for the notary of one, the 
child and kinsmen of another, have been freed by us from 
devils: et quanti honesti viri (de vulgaribus enim non dici- 
mus) aut ἃ dwmoniis, aut valetudinibus remediati sunt? 
And how many honourable men (for we speak not of the 
vulgar) have been delivered from devils or diseases by the 
Christians? It was Proculus,” saith he, “the Christian, that 


* De Mens. et Ponder. sect. 15. 

+ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 258. 

+ "Αλλοὶ δὲ τοὺς κάμνοντας διὰ τῆς τῶν χειρῶν ἐπιϑέσεως ἰῶνται 
καὶ ὑγιεῖς ἀποκαϑιστᾶσιν, ἤδη δὲ καὶ νεκροὶ ἠγέρθησαν" καὶ παρέμειναν 
ἡμῖν ἱκανοῖς ἔτεσιν. Lib. ii. cap. 57. Πολλάκις διὰ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον, 
τῆς κατὰ τύπον ἐκκλησίας πάσης atrncautyns μετὰ νηστείας πολλῆς καὶ 
ἁγνείας, ἐπέστρεψε τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ τελευτηκότος, καὶ ἐχαρίσθη ὃ 
ἄνϑρωπος ταῖς εὐχαῖς τῶν ἁγίων. ΙΒ], cap. 56. 

§ Contr. Cels. lib. i. p. 34. 

] P. 55. 

4 In Joh. tom. xxvi. p. 328, C. 

** Contr. Cels. lib. ii. p. 20. 

Tf Lib. iii. p. 124. 

+4 Lib. i. p. 35. 

§§ Cap. 4. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


healed with oil Evodus ; which so ingratiated him to Severus, 

that he kept him in his palace to his death.” And, 
Lastly, By this very argument they triumph over the like 

attempts of heretics and heathens, who pretend to do these 


things by magic, or that their gods performed the same. . 


1. Over those heretics, who, knowing these miraculous cures 
were frequently performed by the orthodox, were forced to 
pretend the like. Thus Treneus comparing the miracles of 
Christians with the magical operations of Simon Magus, 
Carpocrates, and others of that gang: “This,” saith he,* 
“is sufficient to confute them, that they can neither give 
sight to the blind, nor hearing to the deaf, nor cure the weak, 
the lame, the paralytic, nor those that are diseased in any 
other part of the body; which yet,” saith he, “was often 
done by Christians to the benefit of the heathens.” 2. Over 
the like pretences of the heathens, who boasted thatt πολλαὶ 
σωμάτων πηρώσεις ἰάσϑησαν, “their gods did many cures, that 
they gave+ morbis medelam, spem afflictis, opem miseris, 
medicine to the diseased, hope to the afflicted, help to the 
miserable; and that their gods had often cured§ multorum 
hominum morbos valetudinesque, “the diseases of many.” 
For to this they do not only answer, by saying they had no 
assurance that their demons, however courted by them, could 
heal the infirmities of human bodies, as Origen|| replies to 
Celsus; and that if they had any thing of this kind, it was 
only by applying medicines, and directing them to such 
meats, such potions, and such juices of herbs, -that is, saith 
Arnobius, “by showing the skill of a physician rather than 
the power of a god:” but that they could do nothing of this 
nature worthy to be named with that which Christ and his 
apostles did; “he,” say they, “ with a word commanded the 
blind to see, the lame to walk, and cured all diseases with a 
touch of his hand. Now, can you show us any among all 
your magicians,J consimile aliquid Christo millesima ex 
parte qui fecerit, who have done any thing in the least resem- 
bling Christ?” Yea,** Quid simile dii omnes quibus opem 
dicitis wgris et periclitantibus latam? “ What like to this 
have any of your gods, to whom you do ascribe the cure of 
the sick, performed ?” That whereas their gods could not 
transmit their supposed powers to others, our Jesus derived 
this power to the meanest, “to rustics, fishermen, day-la- 
bourers,tt and did himself nothing which he gave not them 
also power to do:” and that the name of Jesus restored 
them to perfect health who were incurable by all the powers 
of human art, the assistance of the demons or of the heathen 
deities. “Seeing you have the confidence,” say they, “to 
bring the cures of the heathen deities into contest with those 
of Christ, how many thousand shall we instance in, who 
have in vain repaired with supplications to all the temples 
of the gods; in vain have tired the ears of your admired 
Esculapius?++ Quid ergo prodest ostendere unum aut al- 
terum fortassé curatos, ctim tot millibus subvenerit nemo? 
And what availeth it, to tell us of the good success of two 
or three, when the complaints of thousands receiving no help 
from them show their want of power to assist the needy ?” 
Let it be then considered, that the Christians, for three 
whole centuries together, healed many myriads throughout 
the world, who laboured under those diseases which were 
incurable by all the arts of men and devils; that they made 
frequently the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the blind to 
see, and sometimes raised the dead, by invocation of the 
name of Jesus; and we shal] find just reason to conclude, 


* Nec enim cxcis possunt donare visum, neque surdis 
auditum, neque debiles, aut claudos, aut paralyticos curare, 
vel alia quédam parte corporis vexatos, quemadodim sepé 
evenit fieri secundum corporalem infirmitatem, vet earum, 
que ἃ foris accidunt, infirmitatum bonas valetudines restau- 
rare.” Lib. ii. cap. 56, 57. 

+ Cels. apud Orig. lib. viii. p. 415, 416. 

+ Cecil. apud Minut. p. 9. 

§ Arnob. lib. i. p. 28. 

|| Lib. viii. p. 418. 

4 Arnob. lib. i. p. 25. 

AIP HLS: 

+t Neque quicquam est ab illo gestum, quod non omne 
donaverat faciendum parvulis illis, et rusticis, et eorum sub- 
jecerit potestati. P, 30, 31. 

++ Ibid. p. 29. 


TO THE EPISTLES. 


« this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our 
eyes. 

ve X. Secondly, Our Lord promised, that they who be- 
lieved in him should “cast out devils,” which promise he 
performed with such a constant scene of glorious instances, 
and such amazing circumstances, if in this matter we may 
credit the primitive professors of, and martyrs for, Christian- 
ity, that it is not possible for any man to doubt the 
truth and certainty of the Christian faith, who does not look 
upon them as impudent untruths and lying legends. For, 

First, Let us consider to whom this power was committed 
over this “strong man armed,” over these “ principalities, 
and the rulers of the darkness of this world.’ Our blessed 
Saviour having said, “ Behold, I give you authority over all 
the power of the enemy,” great multitudes of Christians gave 
a continual demonstration of the truth of this prediction. 
For “that our Lord was sent for the destruction of these 
evil spirits, καὶ viv ἐκ τῶν ὑπ᾽ ὄψιν γινομένων μαθεῖν δύνασϑε, you 
may now learn,” saith Justin Martyr,* “from what is done 
before your eyes; for many Christians throughout all the 
world, and in the very city of your empire, have healed 
many that were possessed of the devil, and still do they eject 
them by invocation of the name of Jesus, whom none of 
your enchanters, conjurers, or sorcerers were able to expel.” 
—Those Christians are not few,” saith Origen,f “who 
eject devils from them that are possessed with them, and 
this they do without all curious arts, or any sorcery or magic, 
only by prayers, and simple adjuration of them, ὡς ἐπίπαν γὰρ 
ἰδιῶται τὸ τοιοῦτον πράττουσι, for mostly this is done even by 
the meanest Christians, the grace assistant to the word of 
Christ demonstrating by this the devil’s weakness, that to 
expel them from the soul or body of a man, there is no need 
of men of wisdom, or powerful demonstration of the faith. 
Now,” saith he,¢ “were not Christ of a divine composition, 
the devils would not thus quit the bodies they possess at the 
bare invocation of his name.” Fidelis quisque demonibus 
imperat, “ Every Christian hath command over devils,” saith 
Clemens.§ “ Yea, such is the efficacy of the name of Jesus,” 
saith Origen,|| ὡς ἔσϑ' ὅτε καὶ ὑπὸ φαύλων ὀνομαζόμενον ἀνύειν, 
“that it sometimes profits when it is used by wicked men,” 
according to our Lord's prediction, that at the dreadful audit 
many should be rejected who could make this plea, “In thy 
name we have cast out devils” (Matt. vii. 22). [t was 
sometimes efficacious even when used by them who were no 
followers of the holy Jesus; as in the instance mentioned by 
Jolin, “ Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, 
and we forbade him, because he followed not us” (Mark ix. 
38); and this gave courage to the Jewish exorcists, the sons 
of Sceva, to “adjure evil spirits by the name of Jesus” 
(Acts xix. 14). And not the Jews} only, but other en- 
chanters also, saith Austin,** “mixed the name of Jesus 
with their incantations.” 

Secondly, This name was efficacious against all evil spirits 
whatsoever, none of them being able to resist the power of 
it. “Even now,” saith Justin Martyr,;+ “we who believe 
in Jesus, τὰ δαιμόνια πάντα καὶ πνεύματα πονηρὰ ἑξορκίζοντες, 
ὑποτασσόμενα ἡμῖν ἔχομεν, adjuring the whole herd of devils 
and malignant spirits, have them all subject to our power.” 
And again, “ By the name of the Son of God, πᾶν δαιμόνιον 
ὁρκιζόμενον vixdrat, καὶ ὑποτάσσεται, all kinds of devils, being 
adjured, are overcome, and brought into subjection.” —« It is 
evidently seen,” saith Origen,t: “that by the name of Jesus 
ten thousand devils have been expelled from the souls and 
bodies of those who were possessed by them.” On this ac- 
count they triumphed over the heathen exorcists, that by the 
name of Jesus they expelled those devils, “which none of 
their sorcerers, enchanters, or magicians,” saith Justin Mar- 


* Apol. i. p. 45. 

ἡ Contr. Cels. lib. vii. p. 334. 

αὶ Ei yap μὴ ϑεύξεν ἣν αὐτῷ doSeica σὔστασις. Lib. 111. p. 133. 

§ Recogn. lib. iv. cap. 33, p. 461. 

ΤΩΡ. i. p. 7. 

4 Pug. Fid. p. 289, 290. 

** Illi ipsi qui seducunt per ligaturas, per precantationes, 
per machinamenta inimici, miscent precantationibus suis 
nomen Christi. ‘Tract. 7 in Joh. tom. ix. p 63. 

{7 Dial. cum Tryph. p. 302, A. et 311, 

Ε In Celsum, lib. i. p. 20. 


525° 


tyr," “could expel;” and over all the heathen deities. 
“ Bring one possessed, mad, and raging,” saith Lactantius,f 
“to your Jupiter, or, because he is not skilful in those mat- 
ters, bring him to Adsculapius, or Apollo; let both their 
priests adjure him in the name of their supposed deities, to 
quit his station; they in vain attempt it; but let the same 
devils be adjured in the name of the true God, and instantly 
they fly. Que ratio est ut timeant Christum, Jovem non 
timeant? Were this Jove any better than themselves, why 
do they fear our Christ, and not their Jupiter?” And on 
the same account they triumphed over those heretics, which 
then appeared to corrupt the truth: for “we by this,” saith 


| Iren@us,t “confound the heresies of Simon Magus, Carpo- 


crates, and the whole tribe of these deceitful workers, that 
they cannot, omnes demones effugare, expel all kinds of 
devils, but only such as are confederate with them, if they 
indeed do that.’ Consider, 

Thirdly, That they expelled them not only out of men, 
but also from their temples, oracles, and altars. “We are so 
far,” saith Origen,§ “from worshipping of demons, that we ex- 
pel them ἀπὸ τύπων ἐν οἷς αὐτοὺς ἰδρύκασιν, from the places where 
they are seated.”—*« Go no more,” saith Clemens of Alexan- 
dria, in his exhortation to the Greeks,|| “to your Castalian, 
or other fountains: all these prophetic streams are now dried 
up, and they are passed away with their own fables.” —« Di- 
vination and oracles,” saith Strabo,§ “were by the ancients 
much regarded; but now, they are as generally neglected 
and contemned, the oracle at Delphos and at Hammon being 
wholly silent.”’—« Not above one or two remains,” saith Plu- 
tarch,** “the rest are wholly silent, or entirely desolate.”— 
“The spirit of the gods,” saith the apostate Julian, “ comes 
Now σπανίως μὲν καὶ ἐν ὀλίγοις, but rarely, and to very few.” 
Thus are the very heathens forced, with Porphyry,¢} to con- 
fess the triumphs of our Jesus over their supposed deities. 
Nor did they only silence their oracles, and stop the mouths 
both of their priests and of those demons that inspired them; 
but they did open them, at the same time, to force them to 
confess, even before their priests and votaries, that they were 
evil spirits. “This most men,” saith Minutius,§§ “know, and 
some of you, that all your demons, when they are forced out 
of bodies by our words and prayers, do with grief confess 
what they are, not belying their own filthiness, even in 
your presence ; ipsis testibus esse eos demones de se verum 
confitentibus credite, believe their testimony when truly they 
confess themselves to be but devils.”—*« All the dominion we 
have over them,” saith Tertullian,||| “proceedeth from the 
name of Christ, and the commemoration of those things they 
are to suffer from him as their judge; this causeth them, at 
our command, to come forth of the bodies they possess, with 
great reluctance, and grief, and shame, when you are pre- 
sent: you, who have credited their lies, believe them when 
they speak the truth of themselves, for none will lie to their 
disgrace, but for their honour; they are more to be believed 
who confess against themselves, than who deny for them- 
selves.’ —* These devils,” saith Cyprian,§§ “being adjured 
by the true God, do instantly confess, and are compelled to 


* Apol. i. p. 45 { Lib. iv. cap. 27. 

+ Lib. ii. cap. 56. 

§ Contra Cels. lib. vii. p. 376. | P. 9, A, B. 

§ Τοῖς ἀρχαίοις μᾶλλον ἦν ἐν τιμῇ καὶ ἡ μαντικὴ καθύλου, καὶ 
χρηστήρια, νυνί γ᾽ ὀλιγωρία κατέχει πολλὴ, διόπερ καὶ τὸ ἐν “Ape 
μωνι σχεδόν τι ἐκλέλειπται χρηστήριον, πρότερον δὲ ἐπετίμητο. Lib, 
xvii. p. 813, Et de fano Delphico, Νῦν μὲν ὠλιγώρηται καὶ τὸ 
ἱερὸν, πρύτερον δὲ ὑπερβαλλόντως ἐτιμήϑη. Lib. ix. p. 419. 

** Οὐδὲν δεῖ περὶ τῶν ἐκεῖ πυνθάνεσϑαι καὶ διαπορεῖν τὴν ἐνταῦϑα 
τῶν χρηστηρίων duatpwow, μᾶλλον δὲ πλὴν ἑνὸς ἢ δυεῖν ἁπάντων 
ἔκλειψιν ὁρᾶντας, τῶν δ' ἄλλων τὰ μὲν σιγὴ, τὰ δὲ παντελὴς ἐρημία 
κατέσχηκε. De Defect. Orac. p. 411, E, F. 

+t Apud Cyril. Al. lib. vi. p. 198, 199. 

++ Apud Euseb, Prep. Evang. lib. v. cap. 1. 

§§ Hwee omnia sciunt pleraque pars vestrum, ipsos de- 
mones de semetipsis confiteri, quoties 4 nobis tormentis ver- 
borum, et orationis incendiis de corporibus exiguntur. P.31. 

ΠῚ De corporibus nostro imperio excedunt inviti, et dolen- 
tes, et vobis presentibus erubescentes; credite illis quum 
verum de se loquuntur, qui mentientibus creditis, Nemo 
ad suum dedecus mentitur, &e. Apol. cap. 23, 

«1 De Idol. Van. ed. Ox. p. 14, 


526 


come out of the bodies they possess; you may see them by 
our voice, and by the power of the invisible Majesty, as it 
were whipped and scorched, and as their torment doth in- 
crease, you may hear them howling, groaning, deprecating, 
confessing, even in the audience of their votaries, whence they 
come, and when they will depart.” In his epistles to Dona- 
tus,* this is made one property of a Christian, “to force im- 
pure spirits to confess what they are, and to urge them by 
their powerful strokes to depart.” Consider, 

Fourthly, This was done not in Rome and Carthage only 
and other cities of the chiefest note, but, as it is observed by 
Justin Martyr, card πάντα τὸν κόσμον, “throughout all the 
world,” not only for some weeks or months together, but, as 
these records testify, from the first rise of Christians to the 
days of Constantine; for even about that time Lactantius} 
speaks thus: “As Christ himself, whilst he conversed with 
men, did with a word expel all kinds of devils, ita nunc 
sectatores ejus, so now his followers expel these filthy spirits 
by their Master’s name, and by the sign of his passion.” 
Eusebius adds,§ that εἰσέτι καὶ viv, “even now he shows 
the virtue of his divine power, by expelling wicked and 
hurtful devils from the bodies and the souls of men, only by 
mention of his name, ὥς αὐτῇ πείρᾳ κατειλήψαμεν, as from ex- 
perience we have found.” This they did, 

Lastly, Say these authors, without the use of medicines 
or magical incantations, only “ by invocation of the name of 
Jesus,” or “by reciting the sacred books,” saith Origen 3} 
“without deceit, or without gain,” saith Ireneus;§ sine 
premio, sine mercede, “ without advantage or reward,” saith 
Tertullian ;** it being then conceived criminal to gain by 
such spiritual gifts, and contrary to that injunction of their 
Lord, Matt. x. 8, “Freely ye have received, freely give.” 
And truly to conceive these things were done by any medi- 
cines, or magical enchantments, is the greatest folly; for 
how should multitudes of mean and simple Christians arrive 
at such a skill in any of those arts, which neither Jew nor 
gentile, who had long exercised them, could attain unto, 
and which none of these numerous apostates or heretics 
which fell off from them in the times of persecution could 
discover or instruct others to perform, or themselves ex- 
ercise? And much less is it to be thought that Satan should 
assist them to build Christianity upon the ruins of his own 
kingdom, and to promote an interest as contrary both to his 
nature and designs, as is light to darkness. Moreover, that 
none might doubt the truth of these particulars ; 

First, They frequently appeal even to the senses of the 
very infidels. “If you are willing,” saith Justin Martyr,{t} 
καὶ viv ἐκ τῶν ὑπ' ὄψιν γινομένων ῥᾷον ὑμῖν πεισθῆναι, “it is 
easy for you even now to be assured of these things with 
your own eyes.” Dictis non stetis, si oculi vestri et aures 
permiserint vobis, “ Disbelieve these things,” saith Tertul- 
lian,++ “if your eyes and ears will suffer you to do so.” 
Admirable are those words of Cyprian§§ to Demetrianus, a 
persecutor of the Christians, Veni et cognosce vera esse que 
dicimus. “Come and experiment the truth of what we say ; 
and since thou sayest thou worshippest the gods, believe the 
gods thou worshippest; or if thou wilt, believe thyself: for 
he that now dwells in thy breast, and holds thy soul in igno- 


rance, shall in thy audience speak of thee; thou shalt see | 


them entreating us whom thou entreatest, them whom thou 
fearest fearing us; thou shalt sce them bound, and trem- 
bling under our hand, whom thou adorest as gods; sure this 
must be sufficient to confound thee in thy errors, when thou 
seest and hearest thy gods, at our command, instantly con- 


* Immundos et erraticos spiritus, qui se expugnandis 
hominibus immerserint, ad confessionem minis increpantibus 
cogere, ut recedant duris verberibus urgere. Ibid. p. 4. 

t Apol. p. 45. + Lib. iv. cap. 27. 

§ Contra Hierocl. p. 514. 

|| Lib. iv. p. 124, lib. vii. p. 376. 

{ Lib. ii. cap. 57. 

{{ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 311. 

f+ Apol. cap. 23. 

§§ Si volueris de teipso loquetur, audiente te; 
videbis nos rogari ab iis quos tu rogas, timeri ab iis quos tu 
times, quos tu adoras videbis sub manii nostra stare vinctos, 
et tremere captivos quos tu suspicis et veneraris ut dominos. 


Pe LON 


** Apol. cap. 37. 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


fessing what they are, and not daring to conceal their cheats 
in thy presence.” 

Secondly, They also appeal to their consciences; “We 
expel devils out of men,” saith Tertullian,* sicut plurimis 
notum est, “as very many know.”—“ Most men are very 
well acquainted with these things,” saith Minutius,t pars 
vestriim, “and so some of you heathens are.” They appeal, 

Thirdly, To the confessions of the very devils, as hath 
been proved already from the testimonies of ‘Tertullian, 
Minutius, Cyprian ; and by this very argument Theophilus+ 
proves them to be evil spirits, that μέχρι τοῦ δεῦρο, “even at 
this day, being exorcised by the name of the true God, they 
confess themselves to be deceitful spirits.” And, 

Fourthly, They appeal to the effects produced upon the 
persons thus dispossessed, even their conversion by this 
means to the Christian faith. “Some Christians,” saith Ire- 
neus,§ “have the gift of casting out devils so firmly, and 
so certainly, ὥστε πολλάκις πιστεύειν αὐτοὺς ἐκείνους καθαρισϑέντας 
ἀπὸ τῶν πονηρῶν πνευμάτων, that many times they who are 
healed, and delivered from these evil spirits, believe, and do 
continue in the church.” Hc denique testimonia dedrum 
vestrorum Christianos facere consueverunt, “'These testimo- 
nies of your gods do oft make Christians,” saith Tertullian τῇ 
“believing them, we believe in Christ, they advance the 
credit of our writings, and build up our hope; for you 
worship them even with the blood of Christians; they there- 
fore would not lose such profitable votaries, lest turning 
Christians, you should, with us, expel them, si illis, sub Chris- 
tiano volente vobis veritatem probate, mentiri liceret, if they 
durst lie to a Christian attempting to confirm you in the 
truth.” Lactantius,§ accounting for the multitude of Chris- 
tians, saith, this is no small reason of it, “that the devils 
being cast out by Christians, omnes qui resanati fuerint, 
adherent religioni cujus potentiam senserunt, they who are 
healed embrace that faith whose benefit and power they have 
felt.” 

Fifthly, They encourage others to embrace the Christian 
faith by promising to them this power of ejecting devils, 
when they should cordially embrace it. “Be ye baptized,” 
saith Clemens,** “in the name of the most holy Trinity ; 
and then if you believe with an entire faith, and with true 
purity of mind, etiam ex aliis vos malignos spiritus effuge- 
tis, et demones, you shall expel impure spirits and devils out 
of others, and free men from diseases; for the devils know 
and own those who have given up themselves to God, and 
sometimes at their very presence are cast out; we exhort 
you therefore to be of our religion, and we assure you that 
when you do advance to the same faith and innocence of 
life with us, erit par vobis atque eadem etiam contra demo- 
nes potestas, you shall obtain like power over the evil 
spirits.” 

Lastly, They offer upon pain of death, and all that could 
be dear to them, to make this experiment before the eyes 
of heathens, i. 6. not only to eject those very demons they 
invoked, but even to force them to confess they were cheats, 
and own themselves to be but devils. “I come now,” saith 
Tertullian,{+ “to the demonstration” of the point, Edatur 
hie aliquis coram tribunalibus vestris, “ Let any one be 
placed before your tribunals who manifestly is possessed by 
the devil, being commanded by any Christian to speak what 
he is, he shall as certainly truly confess himself to be a devil, 
as elsewhere he doth falsely profess to be a god; produce 
any of them who profess to be inspired by any of your gods, 
nisi se demones confessi fuerint, Christiano mentiri non 
audentes, ibidem illius Christiani procacissimi sanguinem 
fundite, if they do not confess themselves to be devils, not 
daring to lie to a Christian, let the blood of that malapert 
Christian be shed before you in that very place. What is 
more manifest than this experiment, more faithful than this 
proof? Here is plain evidence laid before you, whose virtue 
will assist itself; here can be no suspicion; even say, that 
magic, or some such fallacy, is imposed upon you, if your 
eyes and ears will permit you.” 


* Ad. Scap. cap. 2. ἡ P. 31. 

+ Ad Autol. lib. ii.p.87,C. 8 Lib. ii. cap. 57. 
|| Apol. cap. 23. 
q Lib. v. cap. 27. 
Tt Apol. cap. 23 


** Recog. lib. iv. sect. 33, 34, 


TO THE EPISTLES. 


All this we have delivered upon certain knowledge, and 
confirmed to us with the highest attestations, by men of 
greatest wisdom, to distinguish betwixt truth and falsehood, 
and so discern matters of real fact from vain impostures; 
by men of that sincerity and undisguised piety, as renders 
their veracity, in matters subject to their senses and their 
experience, incontestable; by men who suffered all that is 
terrible to human nature, for the profession of a faith whose 
truth depended on the certainty of these events, and which, 
in this world, called for continual acts of self-denial and 
austerity, and the renouncing all that tends to gratify the 
sensual appetite, only for the enjoyment of inward and spi- 
ritual pleasures here, and of celestial joys hereafter. Again, 
all that is said in their discourses directed to heathen empe- 
rors and judges, or to the heathen world, partly to mitigate 
their hatred of them, and their severities against them, and 
partly to engage them to embrace the Christian faith, which 
sure no person of sincerity would, no men of wisdom could, 
attempt by such untruths as might be easily detected by 
them: for could they boast of their continual triumphs over 
Satan’s kingdom throughout all the world, and send the 
heathens to Rome and Carthage, and other famous cities, to 
be convinced of the truth of what they said: would they 
talk of the multitude of converts they had made to the 
Christian faith by dispossessing men of devils, or forcing evil 
spirits in their presence to confess they were but devils: 
would they encourage others to embrace the Christian faith, 
by promise of like power when they did cordially believe 
and practise suitably to it: would they appeal to the senses, 
to the ears and eyes, to the conscience and experience of 
their most spiteful adversaries: would they provoke them 
to make the experiment of the truth of what they said with 
the hazard of their lives, and even encourage them to shed 
their blood, if, upon trial, they should fail of the perform- 
ance: or could they by such means as these prevail upon 
the world, and daily gain new proselytes, had not the evi- 
dence of truth confirmed their sayings? And if in these 
assertions they speak “the words of truth and soberness,” 
they give the clearest evidence of the power of that Jesus 


whose name so mightily prevailed over the host of these 
infernal legions. For is it reasonable to conceive these devils, | 


without constraint from a superior power, should not only 
quit the power they so long had exercised over the bodies 


and the souls of them who worshipped them as gods; but | 


also should confess so oft, even in the presence of their vota- 
ries, at the command of them who sought the ruin of their 
kingdom, and used their confession to that purpose, that they 
were evil spirits? or could the name of Jesus, without the 
power to which he pretended, have been so great a terror 
and a torment to them, or be thus efficacious even in the 
mouths of wicked men, and those who followed not him, 
had not this also tended to the confirmation of his power? 
Did ever any of the heathen jugglers, with all their arts of 
magic, extort such plain confessions from them? Did they 
thus force them to desert the bodies and the temples they 
possessed, and to exert their power to the ruin of them- 
selves, and the amendment of those souls they had ensnared Ὁ 
This therefore being only done by our Jesus, or others in 
his name, demonstrates his divine commission. 

Obj. Against this signal demonstration of the truth of 
the Christian faith, the only cavil which the infidels and 
sceptics raise, is this, that we find no mention of persons 
thus possessed with the devil among Jews or gentiles before 
our Saviour’s advent; nor have we now experience of any 
such thing, either among Christians or in the heathen world, 
and therefore cannot easily believe it was so then, but rather 
that the persons represented as demoniacs were only per- 
sons afflicted with some strange diseases, fits of the mother, 
convulsions, falling-sickness, madness, and the like. 

Ans. 1. To this I answer, That were this granted, yet 
must this be a demonstration of the power of Christ, and of 
the truth of the Christian faith, that it enabled its professors 
every where, by virtue of the name and invocation of the 
holy Jesus, thus to heal all manner of distempers, which 
no physicians could cure by their art, much less by speaking 
of a word. 

Secondly, Moreover, I have sufficiently confuted this 
σαν], by showing that the Christians of those times ejected 
devils, not only out of men, but also from their temples, ora- 


527 


cles, and altars; and that so signally, that even the best 
historians of those ages, though by religion heathens, and 
some of the professed enemies of Christianity, are forced to 
confess their oracles were silent, and that Christianity had 
thus triumphed over their supposed deities; and also by 
showing, that they forced these evil spirits to confess they 
were but devils. Besides, we find, both in the sacred re- 
cords, and in the writings of those fathers, a constant and a 
plain distinction betwixt these two things, “the curing dis- 
eases,” and “the casting out of devils ;” so Mark i. 34, “ He 
healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out 
many devils, and suffered not the devils to speak, because 
they knew him ;” Matt. x. 1, “ He gave to the apostles power 
against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all 
manner of sickness and diseases.” The Christians, saith Ire- 
nieus,” “ truly cast out devils and heal the sick by imposition 
of hands.” "Efaradover δαίμονας καὶ πολλὰς iaceis ἐπιτελοῦσιν 
“They cast out devils and heal many diseases,” saith Ori- 
gen.t “How many honest men have by us been healed, or 
freed from devils ?” is the inquiry of Tertullian.+ 

Thirdly, The falsehood of the suggestion, that men pos- 
sessed with evil spirits were not known among the Jews in 
former ages, appears from the plain testimonies of Jose- 
phus,§ who saith, that “God taught Solomon this wisdom 
for the benefit of men; and that he left behind him those 
ways of exorcising demons, which so effectually expelled 
them, that they never entered into them more; and from 
that time to this hath that way of curing those who were 
possessed heen very powerful.’ He also talks of a strange 
herb, or shrub, which being artificially pulled up,|| τὰ καλοῦ- 
μενα δαιμύνια ταχέως ἐζελαῦνει, “ presently expels devils.” 
We also read in the Acts of seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, 
who were exorcists, Acts xix. 13, and of “their children 
casting out devils,” Matt. xii. 27. And both Justin Mar- 
tyr] and Ireneus,** inform us, that they did this before the 
time of our Saviour, “by the invocation of the God of Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ . 

That among the heathens there were persons thus pos- 
sessed, appears sufficiently by this, that otherwise the Chris- 
tians could not have pretended to cast them out; and from 
the exorcists and magicians in every nation, of whom Plu- 
tarchyt saith, that «they advised those who were possessed 
to repeat the Ephesian letters :” and Lucian}+ mentions it 
as a thing known to all, that they had those “ who did dispos- 
sess demons.” Justin Martyr§§ saith, the Jews exorcised 
them, τῇ τέχνη ὥσπερ καὶ τὰ ἔϑνη χρύμενοι, “ using that art as 
the heathens ἀϊ.) The names of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, are used, saith Origen, ||| not only by the Jewish exor- 
cists, ἀλλὰ yap σχεδὸν καὶ πάντας τοὺς τὰ τῶν ἐπῳδῶν καὶ 
μαγειῶν πραγματευομένους, “but almost by all that practise 
the art of magic or enchantment.” So that it is certain that 
the history of Christ and his apostles casting out devils in 
Judea, and of the Christians casting them out throughout the 
world, was therefore never questioned by Jew or gentile, 
because they had among themselves in every place pre- 
tenders to it. 

And if after the triumphs of the gospel there now con- 
tinue among Christians no footsteps of this power of Satan, 
this is a testimony of the truth of what our Lord foretold, 
“ Now is the prince of this world cast out,” John xii. 31. 

§. XI. Of those internal gifts, which show the power of 
the Holy Ghost engaged to promote the Christian faith. 

First, That of tongues is most illustrious. This was a 
gift exceeding requisite to the speedy propagation of the 
gospel, which in the space of forty years was by our Lord’s 


* Lib. ii. cap. 56, 57. 

+ Ad Scap. cap. 4. 

§ Καὶ τρύπους ἑξορκώσεων κατέλειπεν, ols ἐνδούμενα τὰ δαιμόνια, 
ὡς μηκέτ᾽ ἐπανελθεῖν ἐκδιώκουσι, καὶ αὐτὴ μέχρι νῦν rap’ ἡμῖν h 
θεραπεία πλεῖστον ἰσχύει. Arch. lib. viii. cap. 2, p. 257. 

| De Bello Jud. lib. vil. cap. 23, p. 981. 

« Dial. p. 311. “* Lib. ii. cap. 5. 

TT Οἱ payot τοὺς δαιμονιζομένους κελεύουσι τὰ ᾿Εφέσια γράμματα 
πρὸς αὐτοὺς καταλέγειν. Sympos. lib. i. ᾳ. 5, p. 706. 

$+ Ὅσοι τοὺς δαιμονῶντας ἀπαλλάττουσι τῶν δειμάτων. Philops 
ed. Gr. p. 363, 364. 

§§ Dial. p. 311. 

\ Lib. iv. p. 184, 185, et lib. i. p. 17. 


ἡ Contra Celsum, lib. 1, p. 43. 


528 


prediction, Matt. xxiv. 14, to spread itself throughout the 
world. And therefore it was daily exercised among the 
heathens to convert them, and by themselves, when they 
embraced the Christian faith; for the family, the friends, and 
kindred of Cornelius, “received the Holy Ghost;” and, to 
the amazement of the Jewish converts, “ spake with tongues, 
and magnified God,” Acts x.46. Upon the twelve disciples 
of the Baptist, the apostle lays his hands, and they “receive 
the Holy Ghost, and speak with tongues,” Acts xix. 6. St. 
Paul, in his Epistle to the church of Corinth, saith, «’They 
were enriched with, and they abounded, ἐν παντὶ λόγῳ, in all 
tongues,” 2 Cor. i. 5 (see the note there). Among the gifts 
imparted to them, he reckons “ divers kinds of tongues, and 
the interpretation of them,’ 1 Cor. xii, 9, and puts the 
question to them thus, ver. 36, “ Do all speak with tongues ?”’ 
This he objecteth as their crime, that “when they came to- 
gether every one had his tongue,” 1 Cor. xiv. 26, and adds, 
that if they thus continued to use this gift, it would breed 
confusion in their churches, and cause their auditors to say, 
« That they were mad,” ver. 23. Whence he adviseth them, 
who used these tongues, to “ pray they might interpret,” 
ver. 23, permitting only two or three to speak with tongues 
in one assembly, and that “ by course, and with interpreta- 
tion,” ver. 26—28, imposing silence on them when no in- 
terpreter was present; and order, saith he, being thus 
observed, “ Let no man forbid to speak with tongues,” ver. 
39. And if this gift was so abundantly conferred upon that 
church, in which the apostle found so great miscarriages, and 
of which only he saith, «They came behind the other 
churches in no gifts ;” we reasonably may suppose others, and 
better churches, had an equal share in this gift. Accordingly, 
“we have heard,” saith Ireneus, lib. v. cap. 6, “ many bre- 
thren who have received the Spirit of God, καὶ παντοδαπαῖς 
λαλούντων διὰ Πνεύματος γλώσσαις, and by that Spirit spake all 
languages.” 

And now, what can the unbeliever offer to invalidate the 
strength of this convincing demonstration? Will he ascribe 
this gift to the assistance of the devil? Let him produce 
one instance of like nature from any heathen writer, to show 
that ever this was done by any besides Christians: or tell us, 
why that subtle spirit should thus concern himself to pro- 
pagate and to confirm that faith, which bears the clearest 
opposition both to his nature and designs? Will they 
ascribe it to some fit of melancholy, or some distemper of the 
brain? What can be more absurd, than to assert, that at 
the preaching of a sermon, the rushing of a mighty wind, 
the laying on of an apostle’s hands, or the baptizing of a 
person in the name of Jesus, such unaccountable diseases 
should seize on many thousands, and should enable them to 
speak a language they had never learned? Or, is it rea- 
sonable to think this distemper should be so peculiar to 
Christian constitutions, as that no other persons should pre- 
tend to it? And that it should wholly cease from them, 
when once the Christian faith had spread itself over all na- 
tions, Christians themselves never pretending that it lasted 
beyond the second century ? 

§. XII. The second internal gift, of which the scripture 
maketh frequent mention, is that of prophecy ; of which let 
it be noted, 

That seeing the Jews, from the foundation of their church 
to the completion of the canon of the Old Testament, had a 
continual succession of prophets to instruct them in the 
mind of God, it seemeth highly requisite that the like gift 
should for some season be conferred upon the church of 
Christ, which was not only to succeed, but highly to excel 
the Jewish economy. Especially, if we consider, that their 
own prophet Joel had foretold, touching the times of the 
Messiah promised to the Jews, God would then “ pour his 
Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and daughters should 
prophesy” (Joel ii. 28); and also, that our Lord had pro- 
mised to send the Spirit of truth to his disciples, to lead 
them into all truth, and to declare unto them things to come 
(John xvi. 13), and to send to the Jewish nation, “ prophets 
and wise men” (Matt. xxiii. 34) ; and some of these must be 
supposed to speak, when he engageth, that “he that re- 
ceiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a 
prophet’s reward” (Matt. x.41). So that you see the Chris- 
tians had just reason to expect the spirit of prophecy should 
be again revived in their days, and plentifully conferred upon 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


them; and that both Jew and gentile must have had suffi- 
cient cause to question the whole truth of Christian faith, 
had not this spirit of prophecy been found amongst them: 
and therefore of the completion of this promise we are 
assured, 

First, From the catalogue of Christian prophets, men- 
tioned in the New ‘l'estament and ancient writers of the 
church. For Acts xi. 27,28, mention is made of Christian 
prophets coming from Jerusalem; and of Agabus, who fore- 
told the famine that happened in the days of Claudius 
Cesar, as Josephus,* Suetonius,f and Dion testify.¢ In 
the thirteenth chapter, we are told of five prophets in the 
church of Antioch, who, whilst they were employed in the 
public ministry, received a divine afflatus, commanding 
them to “separate Barnabas and Saul,” to some special 
work, to which the Holy Spirit had designed them, ver. 3. 
And xv. 32, we read of Judas and Silas, who, “ being pro- 
phets, exhorted the brethren with many words :” and xix. 6, 
of twelve disciples who, when Paul had laid his hands upon 
them, “spake with tongues and prophesied.” In the Re- 
velation of John, mention is made of Christ's “servants, the 
prophets,” xvi. 6, and of “the blood of the prophets slain” 
by the beast, xviii. 20. 24, and of “the prophets his breth- 
ren,” xix. 10. Eusebius§ cites an ancient author, who speaks 
of Quadratus and others, as πνευματοφορηθέντες προφηταὶ,  in= 
spired prophets,” and who declared that the prophetic gift 
continued still in the church. Moreover, as Joel had fore- 
told, that “in those days their daughters and their hand- 
maids should prophesy ;” so we read, in the history of the 
Acts, of “four daughters of Philip the evangelist who did 
prophesy,” Acts xxi. 9, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, of 
women prophesying, 1 Cor. xi. 5, and in the Ecclesiastical 
History, of Ammial| of Philadelphia, « a prophetess.” 

In a word, there was not any church in which this gift of 
prophecy was not frequent. We read of prophets at Jeru- 
salem, the mother of all churches, Acts xi. 27,in the chureh 
of Antioch, Acts xiii. 1, of the gift of prophecy in the 
church of Rome, Rom. xii. 6, in that of Corinth and Thes- 
salonica, 1 Thess. v. 20, and of “spiritual persons” in the 
church of Galatia, vi. 1. ‘They are said to be placed in the 
church in general: “ For God,’ saith the apostle, “hath set 
some in the church; first, apostles; secondly, prophets ; 
thirdly, teachers :” as therefore the apostles and the teachers, 
so did the prophets exercise their functions in all churches. 
They were given to the church for ends which equally con- 
cerned all their assemblies, Christ having given “some apos- 
tles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and 
teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the 
ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ,” Eph. ix. 11, 
12. Now these are ends in which all churches must be 
equally concerned, and therefore we have reason to believe, 
that as apostles, evangelists, and pastors, so prophets also 
were vouchsafed to them all. 

Moreover, it seems evident, that at the first foundation of 
a Christian church among the gentiles, there were no set- 
tled pastors to perform the public offices in their assemblies ; 
but they were generally performed by prophets, or by spi- 
ritual men, who had the gift of prophecy, or were in the as- 
sembly excited to that work by an afflatus of the Holy 
Spirit. To clear up this, let it be noted : 

First, That as soon as any person then embraced the 
Christian faith, they received with it the gift of prophecy, 
or of the Holy Ghost; so when Peter and John laid hands 
on the Samaritan converts, “they received the Holy Ghost” 
(Acts viii. 15); when Peter preached to Cornelius and his 
friends, “the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the 
word, and they spake with tongues, and magnified God” 
(Acts x. 44, 46); so also the twelve disciples of the Baptist, 
when St. Paul laid his hands upon them, “spake with tongues 
and prophesied” (Acts xix. 6) : so that this gift of propheey 
was still contemporary with a Christian church, or family of 
Christian converts. 

Note, Secondly, That the apostles did not presently, upon 
the conversion of any number of persons to the Christian 
faith, ordain them “elders in every church,” but left them 
for a season to the conduct of those prophets and spiritual 


+ Lib. Ix. 
| Ibid. 


* Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 2. 


+ Cap. 18. 
§ Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 17. 


TO THE EPISTLES. 


529 


men the Holy Ghost had fitted for that work. The church | you for public ministrations in the church, “restore such an 


of Antioch was converted, saith Dr. Lightfoot, in the fortieth 
year of our Lord, and “a great number of them turned to 
the Lord” (Acts xi. 21), and yet no elders were ordained 
among them till the fiftieth year (Acts xiv. 23): but in this 
interval, there were prophets among them who ministered in 
their assemblies to the Lord (xiii. 2). The inhabitants of 
the isle of Crete were converted for some considerable time 
before St. Paul sent Titus to them, “to set in order the 
things which were lacking, and ordain elders in every city” 
(i. 5). .How were they then in the mean time supplied with 
teachers, and men that ministered in their assemblies, unless 
by men assisted by that Spirit “which was shed on them 
abundantly” at their conversion ? (iii.5,6.) And if we may 
take an estimate of other churches, by what was certainly 
performed in the assemblies of the church of Corinth, we 
cannot reasonably doubt the truth of this assertion. For, 
whereas all the public offices performed in the church 
were prayer and psalmody, expounding or preaching of 
the word, and eucharistical oblations; all these are in the 
fourteenth chapter of the First Epistle ascribed to the pro- 
phets in that church, or to the men endowed with spiritual 
gifts among them: for when they came together, some of 
them prayed, others composed sacred hymns by their “ spi- 
ritual gift,” ver. 15. ‘Their prophets did then teach for edi- 
fication, exhortation, and comfort, ver. 3. 31, they also did 
then εὐλογεῖν, “ bless,” which is the word used for consecra- 
tion of the eucharist, x. 16, and εὐχαριστεῖν, “ give thanks,” 
which is the word used in our Lord’s institution of this sa- 
crament, 1 Cor. xi. 21, and at this thanksgiving the people 
answered, “ Amen,”* as they were wont to do at the cele- 
bration of the sacrament, ver. 16, 17. That all, or any of 
those things were done by stated pastors, we never read in 
the epistles to that church. And this seems yet more 
probable, touching the church of Corinth, because there 
seems no order observed among them in their prophesying, 
and no subjecting of the prophets in their assemblies to 
any ruler in that church. When the incestuous person was 
to be delivered up to Satan, this was done by the authority 
of Paul, with the concurrence of the whole assembly ; 
“When you are met together,” saith he, “to deliver such a 
one to Satan” (1 Cor. v. 4), “ put away from yourselves that 
wicked person” (ver. 13). And when he speaketh of this 
act of discipline, he calls it ἐπιτιμία ὑπὸ τῶν πλείονων, “ the 
punishment inflicted by many,” 2 Cor. ii. 6 (see the note 
there). And when the same person was to be absolved, 
there is no direction sent to any rulers of the church to give 
him absolution, but all seems immediately to be done by the 
authority of St. Paul, and by the whole assembly. And 
lastly, in the epistles sent from Corinth to the church of 
Rome, we find not any salutation sent to Rome from any 
bishop or elder of the church of Corinth, but only from the 
kindred of Paul, from “Gaius the host” of that church, 
“Erastus the chamberlain of the city,” and “ Quartus a bro- 
ther” (xvi. 21—23). All which things put together, render 
it more than probable there were then no settled pastors in 
the church of Corinth, which makes it necessary that the 
affairs of their church assemblies should be wholly managed 
by their prophets and ‘spiritual persons. 

It seemeth also highly probable, this was the case of other 
churches, since the apostle, directing his epistles to many of 
them, maketh no mention of any church governors amongst 
them, either in the beginning of them, as he doth in his 
epistle to the Philippians, or the salutations at the close of 
them, as he doth in that to the Hebrews, saying, “Salute all 
them who have the rule over you,” xiii. 24. For instance, 
there is no direction of the epistle writ to the Galatians to 
any church governors among them, no salutation of them in 
the close of it, no charge against them for suffering those 
great disorders which had obtained in that church, no exhor- 
tation to them to take heed to their ministry, or to oppose 
themselves to the deceivers then crept in among them; but 
there are plain directions given to the spiritual men, or to 
the prophets then among them, in these words, “ Brethren, 
if any man be overtaken with a fault, ye that are spiritual,” 
i. e. who are endowed with those spiritual gifts which enable 


* Justin Mart. Apol. ii. p. 97. Constit. Ap. lib, viii. 
cap. 12. 
Vor. [V.—67 


one in the spirit of meekness,” vi. 1 (ee the note there) ; 
which makes it highly probable, that church was managed, 
not by stated pastors, but by prophets and spiritual teachers 
of the word. 

Thus also seems it to have been in the church of Thessa- 
lonica. For (1.) we find no notice taken of them in the 
front of the epistles to them, no salutation of them in the 
close ; the words of salutation being only these, “ Salute all 
the brethren with a holy kiss.” (2.) We find no directions 
given to them in particular, but only to the brethren in gen- 
eral, touching such matters as must have related to their 
office only, or chiefly, had they been settled rulers in that 
church. The charge, 1 Thess. v. 14, runs thus: “ We ex- 
hort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the 
feeble-minded, support the weak :” and, 2 Thess. ii. 6, thus : 
“ We command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that 
walks disorderly, and not according to the tradition which 
ye have received from us:” and, ver. 13, 14, “And ye, 
brethren,—if any man obey not the word by this epistle, 
note that man, and have no company with him, that he may 
be ashamed : yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish 
him as a brother :” and, Jastly, to these brethren the adjura- 
tion, mentioned v. 27, is directed, “charging them by the 
Lord, that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren,” 

The same may be observed of the epistle directed by the 
same apostle to the church of Rome; for it is directed in 
the general, “to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, and 
saints called 1 and among the numerous salutations in the 
close, we find not one directed to any stated pastors of that 
church ; but this we find, that having finished his great dis- 
pute concerning justification, and the rejection of the Jews, 
he exhorts them “to be wise to sobriety, as God had distri- 
buted to every one the measure of faith,” xii. 4, and adds, 
« Having therefore gifts differing according to the grace given 
us, whether it be prophecy, let us prophesy according to the 
proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our minis- 
try ; or he that teacheth on teaching.” Now evident it is, 
that both the prophets and teachers in those times are reck- 
oned as men who exercised those offices by a spiritual 
afflatus, and were enabled to perform them by the miracu- 
lous gifts of the Holy Spirit then vouchsafed to them; 
whence they are styled, in the words now cited, χαρίσματα, 
“spiritual gifts.’ Hence therefore it is highly probable, 
these were the men who then presided in their assemblies, 
and exercised those sacred offices in the church of Rome. 
Now if these things were so, all Christian churches, at their 
first conversion to Christianity, must have a sensible and 
constant demonstration of the exercise of these spiritual 
gifts in their assemblies, and so a certain evidence of the 
divine presence with them, and of the truth of the profes- 
sion they embraced. 

This will be farther evident, if we consider what is ascribed 
to these prophets, what demonstrations they afforded that 
they were truly acted by a divine afflatus. 

In prosecution of this head, I do acknowledge that pro- 
phecy doth, 1 Cor. xiv., signify expounding the scriptures, 
“for exhortation, edification, and comfort;” but then it sig- 
nifies the doing this by a divine afflatus; and when this gift 
was exercised by singing, or by praising God, this was still 
done, as holy scripture doth inform us, ὠδαῖς πνευματικαῖς, 
in psalms and hymns, and odes, composed by the immediate 
impulse and assistance of the Holy Ghost; for upon that 
account alone could this be styled “ praying” and “ singing 
in the Holy Ghost,’ and mentioned as an instance of their 
spiritual gifts: and such a manifestation of the Spirit did 
attend them in this exercise, as made it easy for others to 
discern that they were prophets: for either with the gift of 
prophecy they had the gift of tongues, as in the first effusion 
of the Holy Ghost, when “they spake with other tongues 
the wonderful things of God” (Acts ii. 11), and thereby 
showed the spirit of prophecy, which God had promised by 
his servant Joel, was fulfilled upon them, and on Cornelius 
and his kinsmen, the first gentile converts; for by this were 
the Jews convinced that “God had shed on them also the 
gift of the Holy Ghost, that they heard them speak with 
tongues, and magnify God” (Acts x. 44, 45) : or, secondly, 
they foretold things future and contingent, according to our 

2U 


~ 


530 


Saviour’s promise, that “the Spirit he would send should 
show them things to come” (John xvi. 13). Thus we find 
mention in the sacred story of the prophet Agabus, who 
foretold the year before that dearth which happened in the 
reign of Claudius (Acts xi. 27), that other Christians might 
be moved by this prediction to send their charity to their 
brethren where the famine pinched them most, as it did in 
Judea, saith Josephus; and of Timothy, chosen to be an 
evangelist “ according to the foregoing prophecies concerning 
him;” whence by the ancients this gift was styled, 6 τῆς 
προγνώσεως, the gift of foreknowledge.” 

Moreover, in the epistles of Paul we find not only mention 
of prophets settled in the church, and of prophecy reckoned 
among the gifts of the good Spirit, but we find him com- 
paring it with other gifts; particularly (1.) with that of 
tongues, and preferring it before that gift, as being such a 
gift as tended more to the edification of the church: “for 
greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with 
tongues,” saith the apostle; “for he that speaketh with 
tongues edifieth himself only, but he that prophesieth edifies 
the church” (1 Cor. xiv. 2.5). Hence he declareth his de- 
sire that they should “rather prophesy” than speak with 
tongues. (2.) He compares it with that of charity, declar- 
ing, in that case, that charity excels it, because, “ though we 
have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and 
all knowledge, yet if we have no charity we are nothing” 
(1 Cor. xiii. 2) ; and because “ prophecies shall cease,” but 
“charity never ceaseth” (ver.8). Moreover, he gives direc- 
tions to prophets, to “ prophesy according to the proportion 
of faith,” (Rom. xii. 19), to prophesy successively, or one by 
one, and let the other prophets judge” (1 Cor. xiv. 22), and 
to “hold their peace when any thing is revealed to another 
prophet” (ver. 10). He also blames them for prophesying 
all together in a confused manner, and without observation 
of due order, and for suffering their women to prophesy in 
the church (ver. 39). And yet after all these directions, he 
exhorts them to “covet prophecy,” and saith, “ Quench not 
the Holy Spirit, despise not prophecies” (1 Thess. v. 19, 20). 
Now these things give us an unquestionable evidence, that 
this gift was then plentifully conferred upon the church of 
Christ ; for could the apostle talk with so great confidence, in 
his epistles directed to Christian churches, of prophets, and 
of a “gift of prophecy” vouchsafed to them and settled in 
the church of God: could he speak so much of the edifica- 
tion which the church received by those who had the gift of 
prophecy, and of the revelations which they made by virtue 
of it, and of the effect it had on unbelievers, to force them 
to acknowledge that « God was present” with the church: 
could he compare it with other gifts then extant in the 
church, and give it the pre-eminence above them; and with 
the grace of charity, exalting that even above tongues and 
prophecy: could he give directions to the prophets then 
among them how to exercise this gift, and chide them for 
abusing it: could he say to them, “ Covet and despise not 
prophecies; and could he close those sayings with these 
words, “If any man be a prophet, or spiritual, let him ac- 
knowledge that the things I write to you are the command- 
ments of God” (1 Cor. xiv. 37): I say, could he have writ- 
ten all these things in such epistles as were embraced as the 
word of God, had it not been beyond exception, that there 
was such a gift of prophecy vouchsafed to, and exercised in, 
the church of God? 

Lastly, Of the continuance of this gift of prophecy, not 
only in the age of the apostles, but also in the age succeed- 
ing, we have sufficient evidence from the best writers of the 
Christian church. For, 

First, Hermas, contemporary with Paul, speaks of this 
gift as still remaining, and usually practised in the church of 
Christ: for he professedly gives rules, by which all Christians 
might distinguish betwixt true and false prophets, those who 
were acted by an evil spirit, and those who were acted by 
the Holy Ghost; saying, “That he who had the earthly 
spirit, came not into the congregation of just men; or if he 
came thither’ (lib. il, cap. 11), obmutescit, nec quidguam 
potest loqui, “he was presently struck dumb, and had no 
power to speak before them. But when a man comes,” 
saith he,* “who hath the Spirit of God, into the congrega- 


* Cum ergo venerit homo, qui habet Spiritum Dei, in ec- 


THE GENERAL PREFACE 


tion of the just, and prays to God, he is then filled with a 
divine afflatus, and speaketh as God will.”’ Whence two 
things are evident, 

First, That he supposeth there were then men in the 
church inspired with the spirit of prophecy: Secondly, That 
this prophetical afflatus came upon them, and was exerted 
by them, in the assemblies of the church. 

Of the continuance of this gift in the second century we 
have a signal testimony of the church of Smyrna, declaring, 
that Polycarp, their bishop, was διδάσκαλος ἀποστολικὸς, καὶ 
προφητικὸς ‘an apostolical and prophetical teacher; for 
say they,* “every word he spake hath been already ful- 
filled, and will be fulfilled.” 

Eusebius makes mention of Quadratusy as “an apostolical 
man,” and one of the first order of their successors, “ who 
was,” saith he, προῤῥητικῷ χαρίσματι διαπρέψας, “ celebrated 
for his prophetical gift.” 

Justin Martyr speaks of himself as a disciple of the apos- 
tles; and Methodius saith, “ He was not far from the apos- 
tles:” now he expressly saith to Trypho,{ rap’ ἡμῖν καὶ 
μέχρι νῦν προφητικὰ χαρίσματά ἐστιν, “ We have still prophetical 
gifts among us. 

Treneus was also near to the apostles’ time, saith Basil 
and Austin; and he not only declares that some Christians 
had then§ πρόγνωσιν τῶν μελλόντων, καὶ ὁπτασίας, καὶ ῥήσεις 
προφητικὰς, “the knowledge of things future, and visions, 
and prophetical predictions ;” but confirms this from what 
he and others had then heard; “for,” saith he, “ Paul calls 
them perfect, who had received the Spirit, and by him 
spake with all tongues; καθὼς καὶ ἀκούομεν πολλῶν ddedpav 
iv τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ προφητικὰ χαρίσματα ἐχόντων,! as also we have 
heard many brethren in the church, who had prophetical 
gifts, and by the Spirit spake with all tongues, and disco- 
vered the secrets of men, and expounded the mysteries of 
God.” Moreover, three things are in this matter very re- 
markable. 

First, That by this very argument the Christians of the 
second and third century endeavoured to convince the Jews, 
that their religion was to give place to Christianity ; that 
God had left their synagogues, and was now efficaciously 
present with those churches who had embraced the Chris- 
tian faith; because that gift of prophecy, which formerly 
had been peculiar to the Jewish church, had now entirely 
left them, and was translated to the assemblies of Christians, 
among whom it remained, μέχρι viv, “to that present time,” 
as hath been proved already by the testimony of Justin Mar- 
tyr, in his dialogue with Trypho.{ Thus to Celsus, pleading 
in the person of a Jew for that religion against Christianity, 
Origen declares that the divinity of Christ had transferred 
his providence from the Jews to the converted gentiles, 
“ for,” saith he, “we may see them after the coming of our 
Lord entirely deserted, and having nothing venerable that 
remains among them, they having now no prophets and no 
miracles,** ὧν κἂν ἴχνη ἐπὶ πόσον παρὰ Χριστιανοῖς evpicxerat, 
καί τινα γε μείζονα, of which some considerable footsteps 
have so long remained among Christians.” 

Secondly, The case of Montanus and his followers, pre- 
tending to this gift of prophecy, hath in it many circum- 
stances, which plainly show this gift.did still continue in 
some measure in the church. For, 

First, Eusebius informs us, that when Montanus, Alcibi- 
ades, and Theodotus in Phrygia, pretended to the gift of 
prophecy,ty ‘many believed they might be prophets, be- 
cause many extraordinary operations of the divine gifts 
were still performed in divers churches.” 
clesiam justorum habentium fidem Dei, et oratio fit ad 
Deum, tune nuncius sanctus Divinitatis implet hominem 
illum Spiritd Sancto, et loquitur in turba sicut Deus vult. 

* Πᾶν yap ῥῆμα ὃ ἐξαφῆκεν ἐκ rod στόματος αὐτοῦ, kat ἐτελειώθη, 
καὶ τελειωϑήσεται. Martyr. Polye. sect. 16. 

} Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 37. 

+ P. 308, B. 

| Lib. v. cap. 6. 

** Lib. ii. p. 62, vid. lib. vii. p. 337. 

TT Πλεῖσται yap οὖν καὶ ἄλλαι παραδοξοποιΐαι τοῦ θείου Xapic~ 
ματος, εἰσέτι τύτε κατὰ διαφόρους ἐκκλησίας ἐπιτελούμεναι, πίστιν παρὰ 
πολλοῖς τοῦ κἀκείνους προφητεύειν παρεῖχον, Hist. Eccles. lib. v. 
cap. 8. 


§ Lib. ii. cap. 57. 
q P. 308. 


TO THE EPISTLES. 


Secondly, They confute the Montanists’ pretence to this 
gift, by the falsehoods which they uttered; Maximilla, one 
of his prophetesses, having declared that “after her there 
should be no prophets, but the consummation of all things ;” 
and because they left no prophets to succeed them; 
“whereas,” say they,* “the prophetic gift is to continue 
in all churches ;” which shows it did continue then, for 
otherwise this objection must have been as strong against 
the church of Christ, as against the sect of the Montanists. 
And, lastly, they confute them from their way of prophesy- 
ing, they speaking still in ecstasies and strange emotions of 
their minds ; “ whereas,” say they,t “the prophets under the 
old testament, and ours under the new, Agabus, Judas, Silas, 
Quadratus, and many others, were never subject to such ec- 
stasies ;” whence they concluded, μὴ dety προφήτην ἐν ἐκστάσει 
λαλεῖν, “ that prophets must not speak in ecstasies.” 

Lastly, It farther is observable, that some heretics de- 
nied the Gospel of John, because he had so fully spoken of 
the promise, which our Lord had made to his disciples, that 
he “would send the Comforter to teach them all things, 
and show them things to come.” They rejected also the 
epistles of Paul; because in his Epistle to the Corinthians 
he had so fully spoken, de propheticis charismatibus, “ of 
the prophetical gifts.” Now, “these,” saith Ireneus,+ “ are 
unhappy men, who choose themselves to be false prophets,” 
i, ὃ. to speak in God’s name, when they confess they are not 
taught of God, “and who endeavour to repel the grace of 
prophecy from the church ;” which words suppose it was ex- 
tant in the church of God. 

§. XIII. There is one other divine gift which beareth 
some affinity to that of prophecy, which therefore I shall 
briefly handle, viz. that of discerning spirits. Now this im- 
ports not only the skill of discerning betwixt true and false 
prophets, which he that had seems, by Clemens,§ to be 
styled, 5 σοφὸς ἐν διακρίσει τῶν λόγων, “a wise man in discern- 
ing words,” or in distinguishing betwixt the lying wonders 
and magical operations of evil spirits, and the powers of the 
Holy Ghost, which must be in some measure common to all 
Christians, they being all enjoined to “try the spirits whe- 
ther they be of God” (1 Thess. v. 20, John iv. 1): but 
chiefly it signifies the power of discerning the inward opera- 
tions of the soul, and of discovering the secrets of men’s 
hearts. Thus of the prophets of the church of Corinth; 
“Every one,” saith Paul, “hath his revelation.” And 
again, “If ye all prophesy, and there come into your assem- 
bly one who is an unbeliever, or unlearned, he is convinced 
of all,” dvaxpiverat ὑπὸ πάντων, his actions are discerned by 
all the prophets; “and thus are the secrets of his heart laid 
open, and so falling down upon his face, he will worship 
God, and declare that God is in you of a truth” (1 Cor. 
xiv. 14, 26. 30). So Peter discerned the heart of Ananias 
and Sapphira, saying to Ananias, “ Why hath Satan filled 
thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?” And to Sapphira, 
“Why have you agreed to tempt the Holy Ghost?” (Acts 
iii. 5. 9;) i. e. having joined yourselves to the assembly of 
the Christians, where you have had so great experience of 
the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to declare the secrets of 
men, why, after such experience, have you dared to lie in 
the assemblies of those men in which the Holy Spirit thus 
resides, and thereby show you doubt his power to reveal 
what you have fraudulently concealed? He also knew the 
heart of Simon Magus, for to him he speaks thus (Acts viii. 
22, 23), “I perceive thy heart is not right before God, but 
thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of ini- 
quity.” It was by this gift that Paul at Lystra, looking 
upon a blind man, “saw that he had faith to be healed” 
(Acts xiv. 9). Ignatius|| also speaks of the Spirit in him 


* Δεῖν yap εἶναι τὸ προφητικὸν χάρισμα ἐν πάση τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. 
Tbid. cap. 17. 

ἡ Τοῦτον δὲ τρόπον, οὔτέ τινα τῶν κατὰ τὴν παλαίαν, οὔτε τῶν 
κατὰ τὴν καινὴν, πνευματοφορεσϑέντα προφητῶν δεῖξαι δυνήσονται. 
Apud Euseb. lib. v. cap. 17. 

+ Simul evangelium et propheticum expellunt Spiritum 
infelices veré qui pseudoprophete quidem esse volunt, pro- 
phetie autem gratiam repellunt ab ecclesia. Lib. iii. cap. 
11, p. 259. 

§ Ep. ad Cor. sect. 42. 

| Ep. ad Philad. sect. 7. 


531 


that did τὰ κρυπτὰ ἐλέγχειν, “reprove things secret ;” and 
Treneus,* that the brethren, which had the “ spiritual gift,” 
did τὰ xpipra τῶν ἀνθρώπων cis φανερὰν ἄγειν, “ discover the 
hidden things of men.” 

It was discovered in discerning men’s fitness or qualifica- 
tions for any office in the church; and accordingly in set- 
ting them apart for that office. Thus the Holy Ghost, in the 
prophets, said, “Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the 
work to which I have called them.” ‘Thus is the Holy 
Ghost said to have made the bishops and presbyters in Asia 
the overseers of the churches there, Acts xx. 28, because as 
Clemens Romanus} saith, “the apostles constituted bishops 
and deacons, δοκιμάζοντες τῷ Πνεύματι, approving of them by 
the Spirit.” And Clemens of Alexandria,+ that John « or- 
dained to be of the clergy, τοὺς ἀπὸ τοῦ Πνεύματος ἁγίου 
σημαιομένους, them who were signified to him by the Spirit.” 
And Ignatius§ saith of the bishops of his time, that they 
were “constituted not by men, but ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ γνώμῃ, 
by the counsel of Christ Jesus.” 

§. XIV. I proceed, lastly to show the reason we have to 
believe that these extraordinary gifts were equally conferred 
upon the other churches, as upon those which the apostles 
mention in their epistles. ‘This we may gather, 

First, From these expressions of Paul to the church of 
Corinth, in which they were so plentifully exercised ; for his 
inquiry to them runs thus; “ What is it wherein you were 
inferior to other churches?’ 2 Cor. xii. 13, and his assertion 
thus, “In every thing you are enriched by him in all utter- 
ance, and in all knowledge, so that ye came behind the 
other churches in no gift,” 1 Cor. i. 5. 7, which words 
plainly insinuate, that all the other churches were plenti- 
fully endowed with these gifts. 

Secondly, This also may be gathered from the reason of 
the thing: for the operations of the Holy Ghost are said to 
be designed for these ends; 1. The confirmation of the tes- 
timony and the faith of Christ, 1 Cor. i. 6, and their esta- 
blishment in Christ, 2 Cor. i. 12. 22. 2. “The edification of 
the body of Christ,” 1 Cor. xii. 7, Eph. iv. 11,12. 3. To 
be a pledge and earnest of their adoption, and their future 
happiness, Rom. viii. 23, 2 Cor. i. 22, Gal. iv. 6, 7, Eph. i. 
13. 4, To be their comfort under persecutions, Rom. v. 3. 
5, 2 Cor. i. 7, 1 Pet. iv. 14. Now these are ends as neces- 
sary for all, as for any Christian churches, who must all 
equally need the confirmation of their faith, of the ministry, 
the perfecting the saints, and the edification of the body of 
Christ, the support and comfort of the Spirit under persecu- 
tions, the pledge and earnest of their future hopes. 

Thirdly, This also may be gathered from that account 
which the apostle giveth of spiritual gifts and spiritual per- 
sons in the church. The gifts given for the edification of 
the church in general are these, “the word of wisdom, and 
of knowledge, the gifts of healing, the working of miracles, 
prophecy, discerning of spirits, kinds of tongues, and the in- 
terpretation of them” (1 Cor. xii. 8—10). The persons ex- 
ercising them are mentioned thus; “God hath set some in 
the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, 
after that miracles, then the gifts of healing,” &c. (ver. 28). 
And in the Epistle to the Ephesians thus, “He gave some 
apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and 
teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the 
ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ” (Eph. iv. 11, 
12). Which places evidently show, that these were gifts 
designed for the benefit of all the churches of Christ in gene- 
ral, and exercised by these persons as they went about to 
plant or to confirm the churches; the power of miracles, 
and the gift of healing, being also exercised by them in con- 
firmation of that faith they preached, according to our Sa- 
viour’s promise. So that some gifts seem for some time 
constantly exercised by the members of each church in their 
assemblies, and others by those persons who preached the 
gospel first among them, or travelled to confirm the 
churches, and so all had experience, more or less, of these 
spiritual operations done among them. 

Lastly, From the consideration of that baptism which 

* Lib. v. cap. 6. 

+ Ep. ad Cor. sect. 42. 

+ Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 23 

§ Proem. Ep. ad Philad. et sect, 1. 3. 6, 


532 


they all generally received; for as the promise ran to the 
Jews in general, that “they should be baptized with the 
Holy Ghost” (Matt. iii, 11), to every one that would 
believe, and be baptized, that they “should receive the 
Holy Ghost” (Acts ii. 98), and that because “the pro- 
mise was to them, and to their children, καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς εἰς 
μακρὰν, and to all that were afar off, even as many as the 
Lord should call;” so was this promise signally fulfilled to 
the believers of the Jewish nation, who being enlightened, 
φωτισϑέντες, that is, baptized, they also “tasted of the spi- 
ritual gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and 
of the powers of the world to come” (Heb. vi. 4, 5, see the 
note there), and “great grace was upon them all” (Acts iv. 
33): to the believers in Samaria, for when the apostles, 
Peter and John, “laid their hands upon them, they received 
the Holy Ghost” (Acts viii. 17) : to the converts of the gen- 
tiles; “for by one Spirit they were all baptized into one 
body” (1 Cor. xii. 13), and “after they believed, they were 
all sealed with the Spirit of promise” (Eph. i. 13), they 
being saved “by the washing of regeneration, and the re- 
newing of the Holy Ghost, which was shed on them abun- 
dantly through Jesus Christ” (Tit. ii. 5, 6). All Christians 
therefore being made members of Christ’s body by baptism, 
all Christian churches and bodies must have these powerful 
gifts conferred upon, and exercised by, some of the members 
of those churches, to the edification of the rest. 

Accordingly it is declared by Justin Martyr of them who 
were converted to the Christian faith, that “ being* baptized 
in the name of Christ, they received, some the Spirit of 
knowledge, some of counsel, some of fortitude, some of heal- 
ing, some of foreknowledge, some of doctrine.” 

8. XV. To conclude, The primitive professors and mar- 
tyrs for the Christian faith afford us a full testimony of the 
continuance of these gifts and operations of the Holy Ghost 
in the next ages of the church. “Clemens Romanus, in his 
epistle to the church of Cori " saith, “There was πλήρης 
Πνεύματος ἁγίου ἔγχυσις ἐπὶ πάντας, a full effusion of the 
Holy Spirit upon them all.” ITgnatius¢ saith of the church 
of Smyrna, that “she was ἐλεημένη ἐν παντὶ χαρίσματι, fa- 
voured with all gifts, and was deficient in none.” Justin§ 
saith, that “even their men and women had the gifts of the 
Holy Ghost.’ Eusebius having mentioned the first order 
of the successors of the apostles, he saith, that “even then 
they performed many wondrous works by the Holy Ghost.” 
It is needless, saith Irenzus,§ to insist upon particulars, 
“for the miraculous gifts, which the church throughout the 
world enjoys, and the beneficial miracles she worketh for the 
good of heathens, are innumerable.” This he saith after he 
had enumerated, among the gifts then given to believers, 
“the casting out of devils, prophecy, the knowledge of 
things future, the healing the sick, and the raising the dead.” 
And when Montanus appeared, there was not only in the 
church the gift of prophecy, but in divers churches** “ many 
other strange works performed by the divine gifts.” 

Here then we find, by all these early testimonies, that in 


* Οἱ καὶ λαμβάνουσι δόματα ἕκαστος ὡς ἄξιοί εἰσι, φωτιζόμενοι 
διὰ τοῦ ὀνύματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὃ μὲν γὰρ λαμβάνει συνέσεως Πνεῦμα, 
6 δὲ βουλῆς, ὃ δὲ ἰάσεως, ὃ δὲ προγνώσεως, 6 δὲ διδασκαλίας. Dial. 
cum Tryph, p. 258, 

1{ Sect. 2. 

+ Proem. Ep. Smyrn. 

§ Map! ἡμῖν ἔστιν ἰδεῖν, καὶ θηλείας καὶ ἄρσενας, χαρίσματα 
ἀπὸ rod Πνεύματος τοῦ Θεοῦ ἔχοντας. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 
315, ΤῈ 

|| Tou ϑείου Πνεύματος εἰσέτι τότε δι᾿ αὐτῶν πλεῖσται παράδοξαι 
δυνάμεις ἐνέργουν. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 37. 

J Οὐκ ἔστιν ἀριθμὸν εἰπεῖν τῶν χαρισμάτων ὧν κατὰ παντὸς 
κόσμου ἡ ἐκκλησία παρὰ Θεοῦ λαβοῦσα, ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χρισ- 
τοῦ ἑκάστης ἡμέρας ἐπ᾿ εὐεργησίᾳ τῇ τῶν ἐδνῶν ἐπιτελεῖ. Lib. ii. 
cap. 57. 

** Πλεῖσται γὰρ οὖν καὶ ἄλλαι παραδοξοποιΐαι rod ϑείου χαρίσ- 
μᾶτος εἰσέτι τότε κατὰ διαψύρους ἐκκλησίας ἐπιτελούμεναι, ὅτε, Hist. 
Eccies. lib. v. cap 3. 


GENERAL PREFACE TO THE EPISTLES. 


the first two centuries many gifts of the Holy Ghost were 
still continued in all churches, that every one at their bap- 
tism received some or other of them. ‘These also are rela- 
tions not of things past, or things done in a corner, but of 
things commonly performed in the face of the assemblies, 
and so confirmed by the joint testimonies of all Christian 
churches; they were miracles which their own eyes had 
seen; tongues and prophetic gifts which their own ears had 
heard; gifts which they used against the Jews and heretics 
for their conviction ; and beneficial miracles so truly wrought 
upon the heathen, that they were efficacious to engage them 
to espouse and persevere to the end in the profession of the 
Christian faith. This therefore is, saith Origen,* οἰκεῖα 
ἀπόδειξις τοῦ Λόγον, “ the proper demonstration of our Jesus,” 
no other pretender to the power of doing signs or wonders 
having ever derived that power from himself to others, en- 
gaged that believers should so generally receive it; none ever 
pretending to enable their followers to speak with tongues, 
discover the secrets of men’s hearts, or confer all or any of 
these gifts upon their proselytes. It also must be owned, as 
a most convincing demonstration of the truth and the divine 
original of that faith, which ministered these gifts so plenti- 
fully to its professors. 

§. XVI. And, oh! that all who, by this demonstration of 
the Spirit, are convinced of the truth of the Christian faith, 
would seriously consider how much it does concern them, 
in point of interest and wisdom, to yield obedience to all 
the precepts of that faith! for if the gentiles were “given 
up to vile affections and a reprobate mind” (Rom. i. 24. 
26), only for sins committed against the dim and imperfect 
light of nature; if the Jews “received a just recompense” 
for every transgression of the law delivered by Moses to 
them, “how shall we escape if we neglect this great salva- 
tion, which at the first was spoken by the Lord, and was 
confirmed by them that heard; God bearing witness to it by 
divers signs and wonders, and distributions of the Holy 
Ghost?” (Heb, ii, 3,4.) And to this end consider, 

First, That by our disobedience to the Christian precepts 
we contradict the great design of all these demonstrations of 
the Holy Spirit, they being all intended, saith Paul, “to 
make the gentiles obedient in word and deed” (Rom, xv 
18). ‘ 

ee That all our certainty of the Christian faith 
doth highly aggravate the guilt of our transgression of the 
Christian precepts: for the stronger the motive is to believe, 
the greater is the guilt of disobedience; because such mo- 
tives may be easily discerned, and so our ignorance of them 
must be less excusable ; and we cannot resist their evidence, 
but we must offer violence to the convictions of our con- 
sciences; and so we have no cloak for our sin. 

Thirdly, That though we own the Christian faith and our 
Lord Jesus, yet whilst we live in disobedience to his pre- 
cepts, God looks upon us as mere infidels, such as “in 
words profess to know him, but in works deny him, being 
disobedient” (Titus i. 16). Our faith at least must be irra- 
tional and absurd, for “ why call ye me Lord, Lord,” saith 
Christ, “and do not the things that I say ?” (Luke vi. 46.) 
And it will be as unprofitable as it is irrational; for though 
we “know these things,” we only can be “happy if we do 
them” (John xiii. 17). 

To conclude all, Our convictions of the truth of the 
Christian faith add strength to those engagements and en- 
couragements which that religion offers towards a virtuous 
and holy life; for if all that is delivered in these sacred re- 
cords be the revealed will of God, then all the promises and 
comfortable passages contained in them will be assuredly 
made good to all obedient Christians, and the assurance of 
such inestimable blessings as the gospel promiseth must 
lay upon us strong engagements “to be steadfast and un- 
moveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, as 
knowing that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord” 
(1 Cor. xv. 58). 


* Contra Celsum. lib. i. p. 5. 


533 


THE 


EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


’ PREFACE. 


Ir is the general note of the ancient commentators, that, 
though this epistle be in place the first of all St. Paul's 
epistles, yet was it not first written by him,* but was the 
last of all he wrote from Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia, be- 
fore he went to Rome: the Epistles to the Thessalonians, 
to the Corinthians, and the Hpistle to the Galatians, being 
writ before it. They therefore think that it was placed first, 
either as being writtent to the imperial city, as some thought; 
or for the excellency of the doctrine contained in it, as others 
do conjecture. So saith Theodoret in his preface. 

It was written from Corinth, as the same ancients note, 
for he calleth Erastus the chamberlain of the city from 
whence he writ it, xvi. 23; and he had his abode at Corinth, 
2 Tim. ii. 4. He calleth Gaius his host, i. 6. the man with 
whom he lodged, xvi. 23; now he was a Corinthian, 1 Cor. 
i. 14. He commendeth to them Phebe, a servant of the 
church at Cenchrea, xvi. 1; now Cenchrea was a port of 
Corinth. Moreover, it was written thence, not when St. 
Paul travelled through Greece, Acts xx. 2; for that then 
he came to Corinth is not said; nay, it is gainsaid by St. 
Paul himself, who, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 
writ the same year with this, excuses himself for not coming 
to them, ch. i., and declares that “the third time he was 
ready to come to them,” xiii. 1. Add to this, that when he 


* Πασῶν ἐσγάτη τῶν τῆς ᾿Ασίας καὶ Maxedovias καὶ 'AXaias 
ἐκπεμφθεισῶν. Chrysost. Theodoret. 

{Ὡς παντοδαπὴν ἔχουσαν διδασκαλίαν καὶ τὴν τῶν δογμάτων 
ἀκρίβειαν διὰ πλειόνων διδάσκουσαν, τινὲς δὲ φασὶν ὅτι τὴν πόλιν 
τιμῶντες ὡς τῆς οἰκουμένης προκαθημένην, καὶ τῆς βασιλείας τὰ 
σκῆπτρα κατέχουσαν, πρώτην ἔταξαν τὴν πρὸς τούτους γραφεῖσαν 
ἑπστολήν. Theodoret. 


writ this Epistle to the Romans, he knew the contributions 
of the church of Corinth were actually made, and even de- 
posited in his hands, he being then going up with them to 
Jerusalem, Rom. xv. 25. 28; whereas when he travelled 
Greece, and came to Macedonia, Acts xx. 1. 3, they either 
indeed were not so, or at the least he knew not that they 
were so, and therefore sent first Titus, and then his Second 
Epistle to them, that they might be so, viii. 9. 

It was written to the Romans when he had not seen them, 
i. 11, and before he was gone up to Jerusalem, for he was 
but then going thither, xv. 25, and purposed from thence 
to go by Rome to Spain, ver. 28. And so it must be written, 
A. D. 57; for we find him at Jerusalem, Acts xxi. 6, and a 
prisoner under Felix, in the fourth year of Nero (see Dr. 
Pearson, Annal. Paulin. p. 15, 16). 

That the church of Rome consisted partly of the Jews 
then dwelling there, we learn both from the fourteenth 
chapter, where the gentiles are exhorted to bear with their 
weakness; and from the fifteenth chapter, where he speaks 
thus, “I have written unto you more boldly, ἀπὸ μέρους as to 
(the gentile) part” (see the note there, ver. 15, 16); and 
from the salutations sent to them at Rome, they being 
chiefly sent to them of the Jewish nation. 

The two great doctrines laid down in this epistle are, (1.) 
that of justification by faith alone, without the works of the 
law; of which see the preface to the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians: and, (2.) the mystery of the calling of the gentiles, 
the rejection at present of the Jews, and the recalling of 
them when the fullness of the gentiles was to come in. 

Lastly, It is observable, that among all his salutations to 
those of Rome, he hath not one directed to St. Peter, nor 
doth he give us any hint that St. Peter then had ever been 
at Rome, or planted any church there; which, as it mekes 
it highly probable he had not then been there at all, so doth 
it make it certain that St. Paul knew not of his being there 
when this epistle was indited. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Pav, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an 
apostle, ! separated unto the gospel of God, 

2 (Which (gospel) he had promised afore by his 
prophets in the holy seriptures,) (speaking in them) 


3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which 
was made of the seed of David according to the 
flesh (Acts ii. 30, 2 Tim. ii. 8) 5 

4 2 And declared fo be the Son of God (invested) with 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. ᾿Αφωρισμένος, Separated.] He in this word seems 
to allude to his former separation when he lived a pharisee, 
i. 6. one separated from all ceremonial defilement, and from 
the people of the earth, i. e. the common people, who ob- 
served not the exact rules of legal purity; saying, that he 
was separated now, not to a nicer observation of the Jewish 
rites and customs, but to the preaching of the gospel of God : 
and the affinity betwixt this and the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, both as to matter and style, inclines me not to interpret 
the apostle of the separation mentioned Acts xiii. 2, where 
the Holy Ghost saith, «Separate me Barnabas and Saul for 
the work of the ministry to which I have appointed them ;” 
but of God’s separating him “from his mother’s womb,” 
and calling him to that work, Gal. i. 15. 

2 Ver. 4. 'ορισθέντος, Declared to be the Son of God.} 
Christ, while he was on earth, declared that he was the Son 
of God, whom the Father had sanctified and set apart to 
his prophetic office: accordingly the Spirit of God descended 


on him at his baptism, and a voice from heaven said, “ This 
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This he 
proved from the powerful works wrought by him, that he 
was “the Son of God,” sanctified and consecrated to his 
office by the Spirit of God abiding in him, and so was “in 
the Father, and the Father in him,” declaring that he did 
his miracles by the power of the Holy Ghost, and “by the 
Spirit of God” did “cast out devils” (Matt. xii. 28). And 
thus Peter represents this prophet to Cornelius, saying, 
« God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost aud 
with power; who (therefore) went about doing good, and 
healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was 
with him” (Acts x. 38). And thus it seemeth necessary 
he should act in his prophetical office; a prophet being a 
person sent from God, and speaking in his name, and acted 
by his Spirit in the delivery and confirmation of his message. 
That our great prophet Jesus was, as in a more sublime, so 
in this sense, “the Son of God,” endowed with power of 
working miracles by the Holy Ghost for confirmation of his 
doctrine, God hath demonstrated, saith the apostle hei, by 
‘raising him from the dead.” 
2u2 


534 


power, according to the spirit of holiness (residing in 
him without measure, John iii. 34, and) by the resur- 
rection from the dead : 

5 By whom (thus ratsed and invested with all power, 
and acting now not as a prophet, but as Lord of all, by 
the whole fulness of the Godhead,) we have received 
5 orace and apostleship (7. 6. the office of an apostle, and 
the grace belonging to it), for obedience to the faith 
among (Gr. zn) all nations, for his name: 

6 Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus 
Christ: 

7 (1 Paul write)To all that be in Rome, beloved of 
God, called fo be saints: (Gr. saints called: see note 
on 1 Cor. i. 1, wishing) grace (may be given) to you 
and peace from God our Father, and (from) the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

8 (And) First,I thank my God through Jesus Christ 
(the fountain of all our blessings, Eph. i. 3) for (the con- 
version wrought in) you all (so vistbly), that your faith 
is spoken of throughout the whole world. 

9 (This happy success of the gospel being very grateful 
to me,) ForGod is my witness, whom I serve with my 
spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing 
(Gr. how incessantly) I make mention of you always 
in my prayers; 

10 Making request (Gr. requesting), if by any means 


ROMANS. 


now at length I might have a prosperous journey by 
the will of God to come unto you. 

11 For I long to see you, 4 that I may impart unto 
you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be esta- 
blished ; 

12 That is, that I may be 5 comforted together with 
you by the mutual faith both of you (through faith re- 
ceiving) and me (by faith imparting these gifts). 

13 Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, 
that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was 
let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you 
also, even as among other Gentiles (though through 
many hindrances I have not been able to accomplish my 
purpose, XV. 22). 

14 (.2s)®1 am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the 
Barbarians ; both to the wise, and to the unwise, (as 
having by God the dispensation of the gospel committed to 
me for their sakes, 1 Cor. ix. 6.) 

15 So, as much as in me is, I am ready to? preach 
the gospel to you that are at Rome also. ; 

16 For Iam not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: 
for it is (atlended with) the power of God unto salva- 
tion to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, (40 
whom it was by God’s appointment to be first preached, 
Acts iii. 26, xiii. 46) and also to the Greek. 

17 For therein is ® the righteousness of God re- 


3 Ver. 5. Χάριν καὶ ἀποστολὴν, Grace and apostleship.] 
That is, saith G&cumenius, χάριν εἰς ἀποστολὴν, “ grace for the 
office of apostles ;” the favour to be apostles, say some, be- 
cause the apostle calls this office “grace,” Rom. xv. 15, 
Gal. ii. 9, Eph. iii. 2. 7, but where he doth so there is al- 
ways something added of the gifts and powers by which 
they were enabled to exercise it: v. g. “To me is this grace 
given, that I may be the minister of Christ to the gentiles,” 
Rom. xv. 15, 16; “In the power of signs, and miracles, and 
gifts of the Holy Ghost,” ver. 19; James, Cephas, and 
John “knew the grace given to me,” Gal. ii. 9, because God 
had “wrought mightily with me towards the gentiles,” ver. 
8, and Eph. iii. 2, there is mention of “the grace of God” 
given to Paul; but then it is added, that he is made a 
minister “according to the gift of the grace of God given to 
him by the effectual working of his power,” ver. 7. I there- 
fore think fit to join both together, and give the sense of 
the words thus: “ By whom we have received the office of 
apostles, and grace through his name to call all nations to 
the obedience of faith in him;’’ or to yield obedience to the 
faith preached in his name. 

4Ver. 11. "wa τι μεταδῶ χάρισμα ὑμῖν πνευματικὸν, That 
I might impart to you some spiritual gift.) This is by 
most interpreted of the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge, by 
which Paul would instruct them: I rather choose to refer it 
to some spiritual gift he at his coming would bestow upon 
them, by the imposition of his hands upon some of them, as 
the apostles used to do (Acts viii. 17, xix. 6, 2 Tim. i. 6). 
For (1.) that is most agreeable to the phrase, μέταδοῦναι 
χάρισμα πνευματικὸν, to “give the Spirit,’ or “ἃ spiritual 
gift:” and (2.) to his words in the close of this epistle, that 
he shall “come to them in the fulness τῆς εὐλογίας, of the 
blessing of the gospel of Christ,” that phrase being applied 
to the giving of the Spirit, and his gifts, Gal. iii. 14, Eph. i. 
3, and (3.) to the end here assigned of the imparting this 
gift, viz. the establishment of the Romans in the faith: for 
the vouchsafement of the Spirit and his gifts unto the 
churches, is still called βεβαίωσις, “the confirmation” of 
them in the faith, 1 Cor. i. 5, 6, 2 Cor. i. 21, 22, v. 5, Gal. 
v. 5, 1 Thess. i. 5. 

5 Ver. 12. Συμπαρακληϑῆναι, To be comforted together 
with you.] It being both a comfort and establishment of 
faith in them to receive these gifts of the Spirit, and in him 
to be able to impart them to them, and to find God so effec- 
tually working by him. 

® Ver. 14, 15. I am a debtor, &c. οὕτω. Here it is 
observable, that some translators begin the fourteenth verse 
with for, though there is nothing that answers to it in the 
Greek: yet it should be rendered thus, “I am a debtor to 
the Greek and the barbarian, to the wise and the unwise ;” 


Viz. οὕτω, Or οὕτω καὶ, “and therefore as much as in me lies 
I am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are in 
Rome.” For though οὕτω and οὕτως, when joined with ὡς, 
signify generally so; yet when they are put absolutely, and 
especially when they begin a sentence, they signify idcirce, 
itaque, and answer to al chen in the Hebrew: so Rev. iii. 
16, οὕτως, ὅτι χλιαρὸς et, Wherefore, because thou art luke- 
warm ;”’ upon which place the critics note, that οὕτως hic 
non est similitudinis, sed ratiocinativum, valetque al chen, 
igitur : so Rom. vi. 11, “ Knowing that Jesus Christ, being 
raised from the dead, dieth no more ; οὕτω καὶ ὑμεῖς λογίζεσϑε, 
therefore also reckon ye yourselves dead unto sin;” 1 Cor. 
xv. 44, 45, οὕτω καὶ γέγραπται, “And therefore it is written ;” 
so Luke xxiv. 26, “So it is written, καὶ οὕτως, and therefore 
Christ ought to suffer;” and John iv. 6, “ Jesus then being 
weary with his journey, ἐκαϑίζετο οὕτως, sat therefore upon 
the well.” 

7 Ver. 15. Ὑμῖν τοῖς ἐν “Ῥώμῃ εὐαγγελίσασϑαι, To preach 
the gospel to you at Rome.] Paul here seems plainly to 
challenge Rome as part of his province, as being “ the apos- 
tle of the gentiles :” so again, xi. 13, “I speak to you gen- 
tiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the gentiles, I magnify 
my office ;” and xv. 15, “I have written the more boldly to 
you in part,” i. 6. as to the gentile part among you, “as put- 
ting you in remembrance of the grace given to me of God;” 
ver. 16, “that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to 
the gentiles ;” and so on to ver. 30; and here, “I purposed 
to come to you gentiles, for I am a debtor,’ &c. When 
therefore the ancients tell us that Peter was bishop of Rome 
as well as Paul, this can be only true of Peter as to the 
Jewish converts there, whilst Paul was the apostle and 
bishop of the gentiles at Rome, according to the agreement 
made between them, that “ Paul and Barnabas should go 
unto the gentiles, Peter and John to the circumcision” 
(Gal. ii. 9) : and so the bishop of Rome, if he will be St. Peter’s 
successor, must only preach to the Jews, or be the bishop of 
the circumcision. Moreover, it seems highly probable that 
Peter was not yet come to Rome, much less had settled his 
see there: for if so, why should Paul be so desirous, so often 
purposing to come to them, “that he might impart some 
spiritual gift to them, to the end they might be established,” 
unless Peter was either insufficient for, or very negligent in 
that work (see the preface to this epistle). 

8 Ver. 17. Δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ, The righteousness of God.] 
This phrase, in Paul’s style, doth always signify “the righte- 
ousness of faith in Christ Jesus” dying, or shedding his 
blood for us: so iii. 20, 21, “The righteousness of God, 
without the law, is manifest, to wit, the righteousness of God . 
through faith in Jesus Christ.” The same apostle having 
declared, that “the gentiles who followed not after righteous- 


CHAPTER I. 


vealed © from faith to faith (Gr. the righteousness ἢ 
God by faith is revealed to beget in men faith): as it 1s 
written, The just shall live by faith. 

18 (dnd this way of justification, or obtaining remis- 
sion of sins, 73 necessary to exempt all men, whether Jew 
or gentile, from the wrath of God ;) For (to begin first with 
the gentiles) " the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 
® against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of 
(those) men, who hold the truth (which they know by 
the light of nature) in unrighteousness ; 

19 Because that which may be known of God (by 
the light of nature) is manifest in (or, to) them ; for God 
hath shewed ἐξ unto them. 

20 For the invisible things of him ® from the crea- 
tion of the world are clearly seen (or, are clearly seen 
(even) from the creation of the world), being under- 
stood by the things that are made (¢. e. by his works), 
even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they 
are without excuse (viz. who do not worship him alone 


535 


| as God, who is the Creator of all things, but rather give 
the worship due unto him to the works of their hands) : 

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glori- 
fied him not as God (by giving him the honour due to 
| the Deity), neither were thankful (to him who giveth to 
all men life, breath, and all things, Acts xvii. 28, xiv. 
17); but became vain in their imaginations (of him), 
and their foolish heart was darkened. 

22 Professing themselves to be wise, (and usurping 
that name, ver. 14, 1 Cor. i. 20, 21) they became (in 
their actions) fools, 

23 And changed ™ the glory of the uncorruptible 
God into an image made like te corruptible man, and 
to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to unclean- 
ness through the lusts of their own hearts, to disho- 
nour their own bodies between themselves (as did the 
Sodomites and Canaaniles of old, ἀπελδοῦσαι ὀπίσω σαρχὸς 
ἑτέρας, Jude 7): 


ness, had attained to righteousness, even the righteousness 
of faith ;” but Israel not believing “had not attained to the 
law of righteousness,” Rom. ix. 30,31, he proves the second 
assertion thus: “For they being ignorant of the righteous- 
ness of God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness 
(which is of the law), have not submitted τῇ δικαιοσύνη τοῦ 
Θεοῦ to the righteousness of God,” i. e. to the righteousness 
of faith in Christ, to which the gentiles had submitted, x. 3, 
“for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness ;” i. e. 
for justification through faith in Christ, ver. 10 (see the 
note on 2 Cor. ν. 21). “The righteousness of God” is there- 
fore manifestly taken for gospel righteousness, as Mr. Clerc 
notes on Rom. iil. p. 263. But when he adds, “That is, 
for sanctity of life consequent upon repentance,” he is 
miserably out; for this righteousness consists not in our 
sanctification, but in our justification, or absolution from our 
sins past, through faith in the blood of Christ, shed for the 
remission of sins. 

9 Ex πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, From, i. 6. by faith to faith.) 
‘Ex being here put for διὰ, as in this very verse, “'T'he just 
shall live, ἐκ πίστεως, by his faith : so iii. 20, “It is one God 
who will justify the circumcision, ἐκ πίστεως, through faith, 
and the uncircumcision, διὰ πίστεως, by (the same) faith,” so 
ἡ ἐκ πίστεως δικαιοσύνη is “the righteousness that is by faith,” 
ix. 30, and x. 6, δικαιοσύνη ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει, and διὰ πίστεως τοῦ 
Χριστοῦ, “the righteousness by faith in Christ.’ Vain 
therefore is the descant of Mr. Le Clere upon these words, 
«That from the faith whereby the Jews believed the prophets 
and the gentiles their ancestors, they might proceed to ano- 
ther faith ;” for if he means they should proceed from the one 
faith to the other, this is true of the Jews, who were to add 
to their faith in God, and in his prophets, faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ (John xiv. 4): but it is false as to the gentiles, 
who were to renounce and turn from the faith of their an- 
cestors, that they might believe in Christ. If he means, by 


“proceeding from faith to faith,” renouncing the one to em- | 


brace the other, this is true of the gentiles, but false when 
applied to the Jews, who were not to renounce their faith in 
the prophets, but by virtue of it to embrace this righteous- 
ness of God, “testified by the law and the prophets.” The 
sense of these words seems plainly to be this: The righte- 
ousness of God, which is by faith, is revealed in the gospel 
to beget faith in men. 

1'O dlxawos ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται, The Just shall live by his 
fitith.] Τὰ God's promises ; whence it appears that faith doth 
not include obedience, but only a firm belief of God’s pro- 
mises obliging to obedience. Hence the apostle argues from 
this very place, Gal. iii. 10, 11, that «the law is not of faith,” 
because it saith, “The man that doeth these things shall live 
in them,” making obedience the condition of justification by 
the law. 

τι Ver. 18. ᾿Οργὴ Θεοῦ, The wrath of God. This was be- 
fore more expressly revealed against the unrighteousness of 
the Jews, God in the mean time so far “ winking at” the 
unrighteousness of the gentiles, as to make no express denun- 
ciation of his wrath against them; but now “he calls all 
men every where to repent” of their unrighteousness, “be- 


cause he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the 
world in righteousness,” Acts xvii. 30, 31. 

19 "πὶ πᾶσαν ἀσέβειαν καὶ ἀδικίαν ἀνθρώπων, Against all un- 
godliness and unrighteousness of men.] The “ungodli- 
ness” of men signifies their impiety in robbing God of his 
honour, and giving it to graven images, or to them which 
“by nature were no gods,” and so being ungrateful to him, 
who was the author of all their blessings, ver. 11—26 ; their 
“unrighteousness” is their injustice to one another ; from ver. 
26 to the 30th. And they are said to “retain the truth in 
unrighteousness,” by acting contrary to the notions of it they 
had, or might have learned, from the law of nature, and by 
suppressing or corrupting the dictates of their natural con- 
science. So of the builders of the tower of Babel, Philo 
saith* that “it sufficed them not τὰ πρὸς τοὺς ὁμοφύλους συγ- 
χεῖν δίκαια, to confound the laws of justice among men, but 
also they invaded heaven, ἀδικίαν μὲν σπείροντες, ἀσέβειαν 
δὲ θερίζοντες, Sowing unrighteousness, and reaping ungodli- 
ness.” 

13 Ver. 20. ᾿Απὸ κτίσεως κόσμου, From the creation of the 
world.) This phrase seems not to signify the means by 
which they came to the knowledge of-God, for that is after- 
ward expressed in these words, ποιήμασι νοούμενα, “ being 
made known by his works;” but rather to import, that from 
the beginning of the world the heathens had this means of 
knowing the true God from the works of the creation; so 
dx’ ἀρχῆς κύσμον, is “from the beginning of the world,” 
Matt. xxiv. 21, ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κύσμου, “from the foundation 
of the world,” Matt. xiii. 35, Luke xi. 50, Heb. iv. 3, ix. 
26. Strange is the conceit of a learned person, who inter- 
prets these and all the following words of this chapter of the 
Gnostics ; for who ever heard that the Gnostics “ changed the 
glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to 
birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things?” Who of 
the ancients ever said, “ Their women changed the natural 
use of the body for that which is against nature?” Or, how 
is it possible that the apostle should here accuse them of 
all this idolatry and image-worship, and yet in the next 
| chapter say of the same Gnostics, according to the interpre- 
tation of the same person, “Thou that abhorrest idols, dost 
thou commit sacrilege?” ver. 22. Doubtless the apostle 
speaks here of that knowledge of God which by the light of 
nature was in the heart of the gentiles, and so was manifest 
in, and to them, even from the time of the creation of the 
world, by his works, because “ the heavens declare the glory 

of God; and the firmament showeth his handy-work,” Ps. 
| xix. 1, and therefore doth not here say, that his mercy, and 
grace, and love to mankind, but that his “eternal power 

and Godhead” were shown by these works, which yet in rea- 

son he should have mentioned here, as he doth elsewhere, 
‘had he spoken of the discoveries God made of himself by 
| the gospel revelation. 

4 Ver. 23. Τὴν détav τοῦ ἀφθάρτου Θεοῦ, The glory of the 
incorruptible God.] The description of God in the New 
Testament is this, that “he dwelleth in light inaccessible,” 


} * De Confus. Ling. p. 267 F. 


536 


25 (As being also men) Who changed the truth of 
God into a lie, (worshipping as gods them who by nature 
were no gods, Gal. iv. 8, or only demons, 1 Cor. x. 20) 
and worshipped and served the 15 creature more than 
the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 

26 For this cause God gave them (farther) up unto 
vile affections: for even their women did change the 
natural use (of their bodies) into that which is against 
pe (see Lucian. Avan. Ἕταιρ. Κλωνάριον xai Λεαί- 
vl. 


ROMANS. 


27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural 
use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward an- 
other; men with men working that which is unseemly 
(Gr. filthiness), and receiving in themselves that re- 
compence of their error which was meet (i. 6. being 
given up thus to dishonour their own bodics, see Lu- 
cian’s Ἔρωτες, for the dishonour they did to God by their 
idolatry). 

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in 


their knowledge, (so) * God gave them over ™ to a 


1 Tim. i. 16, that he “is light,” 1 John i. 5,6. And thus 
he always exhibited himself to men in a mighty splendour of 
flame and light, as a visible token of his special and majestic 
presence. Thus he appeared to the antediluvians, to Adam, 
saith the learned Bishop of Ely on Gen. ii. 15, iii. 8, and to 
Cain and Abel, when they brought their offerings to the Lord, 
i. e. to the place where the Shechinah or glorious presence 
used to appear; for God “had respect to Abel and his offer- 
_ ing,” i. e. saith Theodotion’s translation, ἐνεπύρησεν, “ He set 
it on fire by a stream of light,” or flame from the Shechinah, 
which then usually appeared at the place of worship: why 
else doth Cain complain thus, “ From thy face shall I be hid ?” 
Or why is he said to “go out from the presence of the 
Lord?” Gen. iv. 4.14. So after the flood, we may presume 
he appeared to Noah offering burnt-offerings to him; for 
God accepting his oblation, as he did that of Abel’s, it is rea- 
sonable to conceive that he gave the like token of that ac- 
ceptance. So he appeared to Abraham, when he said unto 
him, “ Get thee out of thine own country,” in a lamp of fire 
consuming his sacrifices, Gen. xv. 17. Whence Stephen 
saith, ὁ Θεὸς δόξης, “ΤῊ God of glory appeared to our father 
Abraham,” Acts vii. 2. In this visible majesty God appeared 
to him again, xvii. 1. For in the conclusion of that chap- 
ter it is said, “God went up from Abraham,” i. 6. “ The 
glory of the Lord ascended,” saith the Chaldee paraphrase, 
and B. Uziel. So he appeared to Moses in the bush, Exod. 
iii. 2, so to the people on mount Sinai, Exod, xxiv. 16, 17, 
where τὸ εἶδος τῆς δόξης τοῦ Kupiov ὡσεὶ πῦρ, “ the sight of the 
glory of the Lord was like fire.” This visible appearance of 
God in the light is about thirty times in the Old Testament 
styled “the glory of the Lord” (see note on Phil. ii. 8, and 
on Heb. i. 3). And this Shechinah was not only given to 
the Jews after the law, but to the gentiles before the law, as 
a preservative from idolatry, or to instruct them to make no 
other resemblance of him, or symbol of his presence, besides 
that which he from the beginning had chosen to appear in ; 
but this, saith the apostle, “they changed into the simili- 
tude of men and birds,” ἄς. And of the Jews making the 
golden calf, God says, “ They changed δόξαν αὐτῶν, their glory 
into the similitude of a calf,” Ps. cvi. 20, and of the same 
Jews departing from God to idols, it is said, “ My people 
ἠλλάξατο τὴν δύξαν αὐτοῦ, hath changed its glory for that which 
cannot profit them,” Jer. ii. 11. 

15 Ver. 25. ᾿Ελάτρευσαν τῇ κτίσει, They served the crea- 
ture.] In the twenty-third verse they are charged only with 
false representations of God; in this also with a false ob- 
ject of their worship, by giving the divine honour to a 
creature. 

16 Ver. 28. Eis ἀδόκιμον νοῦν, To a reprobate mind.] To a 
mind that could not be approved of by God or men, to do 
τὰ μὴ καθήκοντα, things not agreeable to nature, or to reason. 

17 Παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς 6 Θεὸς, God gave them up to a repro- 
bate mind. Ver. 24. God gave them up in the lustings of 
their hearts to uncleanness. Ver. 26. God gave them up to 
dishonourable affections.] Here the fathers carefully inform 
us, that these phrases cannot be so understood as to lay upon 
them, of whom Paul speaks, a necessity of being thus un- 
clean and unnatural in their affections, or thus perverse in 
their minds. “For then,” say they,* “this would not be 


* Non enim vi res agitur, neque necessitate in alteram 
pattem anima declinatur; alioquin nec culpa ejus, nec vir- 
tus posset ascribi; nec boni electio, premium, nec declinatio 
mali, supplicium mereretur; sed servatur ei in omnibus 
libertas arbitrii, ut in quodcunque voluerit, ipsa declinet. 
Origen. in locum. 


their fault, nor would it be blameworthy in them to do all 
these things.” 

Secondly, They positively tell us, that the apostle here 
puts the phrase,* “He gave them up,” for “ He permitted 
them to be given up.” 

Thirdly, That this was done, (1.) “by leaving them naked 
and destitute of his former providence and care of them ;”} 
not giving them any warning of his displeasure against 
them for these things by his prophets, as he did to the old 
world, and Nineveh, or by his judgments, in order to their 
reformation. (2.) By giving them up to Satan,¢ that un- 
clean spirit, who will not fail, when he hath permission, to 
provoke them to such uncleanness, and who is that “ god of 
the world, who blinds men’s eyes, that they should not see 
the truth,” 2 Cor. iv. 4. So the Lord moved David to say, 
« Go, number Israel and Judah,’ 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, i. e. Satan 
provoked him to do it, 1 Chron. xxi. 1. And thus, say 
they, “a physician gives up his patient to do what he will, 
when he finds he will not follow his prescriptions.” Lastly, 
They observe, that they were thus deserted and given up by 
God, as the just punishment of their iniquities committed 
against the law of nature, which they had received, because 
they “ held the truth” revealed “ in unrighteousness” (ver. 18; 
because “when they knew God, they did not glorify him as 
God, nor were they thankful” (ver. 21); and because, 
“knowing that they who did these things were worthy of 
death, they not only did the same, but had pleasure in them 
that did them ;” and so indeed§ they were delivered up to 
do these things by their own wickedness (ver. 24. 26). 
Whence the same apostle saith, ἑαυτοὺς παρέδωκαν, “They 
gave themselves up to all lasciviousness,” Eph. iv. 19. 

Thus on the contrary we say, “Such a man’s money 
destroyed him,” when it was not the money, but his intem- 
perate and evil use of it that did so. And “Such a man’s 
flatterers corrupted him,” when it was his hearkening to 
them, and being persuaded by them, which did it; whereas 
he had it in his power not to hearken to them. And in this 
permissive sense the word παρέδωκεν, “he gave them up,” is 
used almost a hundred times in the Old Testament; when 
God is said to give men up into the hands of their enemies, 
—to give them up to the sword. Thus the three children 
παρέδωκαν, “ gave up their bodies to be burned,” Dan. iii. 20 ; 
thus David prays he may “not be given up into the hand 
of his oppressors,” i. e. that God would not leave him to 
their power, Ps. exix. 121, and the son of Sirach, that God 
would “ not give him up to a proud look,” Ecclus. xxiii. 4, 
and so God “ gave his people up to their own heart’s lusts ;” 
i. e. he let them follow their own inventions, Ps. Ixxxi. 12. 
And this is farther evident from ver. 32, where they are said 


* Παρέδωκεν ἀντὶ rod συνεχώρησε. Theodoret. ᾿Αντὶ τοῦ εἴασεν. 
Chrysostom, Theophylact. 

ili Τῆς οἰκείας προμηθείας ἐγύμνωσε. Theod. Οὐκ αὐτὸς παραδοὺς, 
ἀπῆγε! ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸς μὲν αὐτῶν ἠμέλεσεν ὡς ἀναξίων ὄντων κηδεμονίας. 
Photius. Τὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ κατάλειψιν, παράδοσιν ὀνομάζει. Theoph. 

+ Λοιπὸν δὲ λαβὼν αὐτοὺς ὁ Σατανᾶς παρέδωκεν εἰς ἃ παρέδωκεν. 
Phot. Τῇ γὰρ ἀναστροφὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ εἰσάγεται νοῦς ἀδόκιμος παρὰ 
τῶν δαιμόνων, τοῦτο δὲ παράδοσιν ἔϑος καλεῖν τῇ γραφῆ- Gcum. 

§ To δὲ παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ Θεὸς, τουτέστιν ἡ εἰς Sedv πλημμέλεια 
καὶ παροινία, ἢ οἰκεία αὐτῶν πράξις, ἡ ἑκούσιος πώρωσις αὐτὴ παρέδωκεν 
αὐτοὺς εἰς τὰ τῆς ἀτιμίας πάϑη, καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐναντίου γὰρ εἰώθαμεν 
λέγειν ὅτι ἀπώλεσεν αὐτὸν το ἀργύριον, καίτοι οὐ ἀργύριον ἀπόλλυσιν 
ἀλλὰ ἄσωτος αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ κακῷ χρήσις, καὶ διέφϑειρεν αὐτὸν τῶν 
κολάκων τὸ πλῆϑος, καίτοι οὐκ ἐκεῖνοι διαφϑείρουσιν, ἀλλὰ τὸ προσέχειν 
καὶ πείϑεσθαι τούτοις, ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἐν τῇ γνώμη τῇ ἑμὴ τὸ νεΐϑεσθαι ἣ 


pi. Photius, 


CHAPTER II. 


reprobate mind, to do those things which are not con- 
venient ; (they) 

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, 
wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, 
murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, 

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, 
boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 


537 


31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, with- 
out natural affection, implacable, unmerciful : 

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, (viz.) that 
they which commit such things are ® worthy of death, 
not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that 
do them, 


to have done all these things against their knowledge of the 
judgment of God upon such evil-doers. 

He that would see a larger comment upon ver. 29—31, 
let him consult the learned Grotius; I only shall observe 
from the Greek commentators, (1.) That from these words 
“being filled with all unrighteousness,” it seemeth reasonable 
to interpret almost all that follows as sOme species of un- 
righteousness or injustice. (2.) That πονηρία signifies that 
wickedness which causes men to do mischief against their 
neighbour by treachery ; κακία, to do it out of malice; xaxo- 
ἤϑεια, to accustom themselves to do so, (3.) ‘That ψιθυρισταὶ 
are they that whisper things to the damage of others when 
they are present; κατάλαλοι, they that openly defame them 
being absent. (4.) Ὑπερηφανία, is that pride which puffs us 
up on the account of the things we do enjoy ; ἀλαζονεία, that 
boasting we make of things which we have not. 

8 Ver. 32. “Agi θανάτου, Worthy of death.) That mur- 
der, adultery, and unnatural lusts deserved death, they knew 
not only by the light of nature and of conscience, but by 
their own laws, condemning them who did them to death. 
That all these sins being species of injustice, condemned by 
the law of nature, rendered them obnoxious to the displea- 
sure of that God who is the governor of the world and the 
avenger of all unrighteousness, and so obnoxious to death 
for violating the laws he had given them to govern themselves 
by, they might know by the light of nature. 

Hence of their Tartarus, which they held to be carcer 
penarum infernarum,* Tertullian speaks thus; Iluc ab- 
strudi solent impii quoque in parentes, et in sorores incesti, 
et maritarum adulteri, et virginum raptores, et puerorum 
contaminatores, et qui seviunt, et qui furantur, et qui occi- 


* Apol. cap. 11. 


dunt, et qui decipiunt; and to this agrees the description of 
their punishments in Virgil :* 


Hic, quibus invisi fratres, dum vita manebat 
Pulsatusve parens, et fraus innexa clienti; 

Aut qui divitiis soli incubuere repertis, 

Nec partem posuere suis: qua maxima turba est ; 
Quique ob adulterium csi; quique arma secuti 
Impia, nec veriti dominorum fallere dextras ; 
Inclusi penam expectant, &c. 

Vendidit hie auro patriam, dominumque potentem 
Imposuit: fixit leges pretio, atque refixit. 

Hic thalamum invasit nate, vetitosque hymenzos, 
Ausi omnes immane nefas. 


Mr. L. here reads, οὐκ ἐνόησαν ὅτι, and renders the words 
thus, “ Who knowing the judgment of God, knew not that they 
who did these things were worthy of death ;” but this read- 
ing cannot stand: for what righteous judgment of God could 
they know to be due to them who did these things, who knew 
not that they were worthy of death, and “to whom sin,” 
saith he, “could not be imputed without (a positive) law,” 
which we know the gentiles had not? See the reading of 
the text largely confirmed, Examen Millii in locum. 

19 Συνευδοκοῦσι rots πράσσουσι, Have pleasure in them that do 
them.) This, say the Greek commentators, is much worse than 
the bare doing of them; for a man may do them through 
the power of temptation, and by consideration may after be- 
come sensible of his folly, and repent of it; but when he is 
arrived at the height of wickedness, that he not only approves 
but delights in seeing the like things done by others, he de- 
monstrates such a strong affection to them as is incurable. 


* An. vi. a versu 608 ad 622. Ci 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Tuererore (since God hath shown his displeasure 
thus against the gentiles for sinning against the law of 
nature,) thou art inexcusable, Ὁ 1 (Jewish) man, who- 
soever thou art that judgest (so severely of them): for 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 

! The apostle had in the former chapter laid down this as 
the foundation of his discourse, that “the gospel of Christ 
was the power of God to the salvation both of Jew and gen- 
tile,” ver. 16, and that there only was revealed that righte- 
ousness of God through faith, by which alone life and salva- 
tion was to be obtained. He had also shown the necessity 
of this faith, because “the wrath of God was revealed from 
heaven against all unrighteousness of men, who held the 
truth in unrighteousness ;” and that this the gentiles had 
done, by acting against the light of nature; and that God 
had been angry with, and punished them for it, he had 
shown from ver. 19 to the end of that chapter. 

‘These gentiles were reputed by the Jews as unclean, great 
sinners, and so incapable of salvation ; and their great quarrel 
against the gospel was this, that it admitted such men to the 
favour of God without circumcision, and obedience to the 
law of Moses. ‘To those Jews the apostle in this chapter 
directeth his discourse, proving here, that they who lived 
under the law wanted this justification as much as others, 
being also great sinners: and in the following chapters, that 
neither they nor the gentiles could obtain this justification 
by the law (see ver. 13. 17). 

2 Ver. 1. Ta γὰρ αὐτὰ πράσσεις, For thou doest the same 
things.) If to any one it seem strange that the apostle 
should pronounce the Jews guilty of the same sins of which 
he had accused the gentiles, ch. i., let him consider what 

Vor. 1V.—68 


wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thy- 
self; for * thou that judgest doest the same things 
(offending as much against the law of Moses, as they have 
done against the law of nature). 


their own Josephus* hath recorded of them, and he will 
cease to wonder. For, first, he assures us, there “ was not a 
nation under heaven more wicked than they were. What,” 
saith he, “have you done of all the good things required by 
our lawgiver? What have ye not done of all those things 
which he pronounced accursed? So thatt had the Romans 
delayed to come against these execrable persons, I believe,” 
saith he, “either the earth would have swallowed up, or a 
deluge would have swept away, their city ; or fire from hea- 
ven would have consumed it, as it did Sodom, for it brought 
forth a generation of men far more wicked than they who 
suffered such things.” There is not a sin mentioned, ch. i., 
of which he doth not in that history accuse them, not ex- 
cepting that of unnatural lusts: for of their zealots, he 
saith,t “It was sport to them to force women; they freely 


* KaSéxacrov μὲν οὖν ἐπεξιέναι τὴν παρανομίαν αὐτῶν ἀδύνατον, 
συνελόντα δ᾽ εἰπεῖν μῆτε πόλιν ἄλλην τοιαῦτα πεπονϑέναι, pire γενεὰν 
ἐξ αἰῶνος γεγονέναι κακίας γονιμωτέραν. De Bell. Jud. lib. vi. 
cap. 27, p. 938. Ὑμῖν dé re τῶν εὐλογηθέντων ὑπὸ row νομοϑέτου 
πέπρακται; τί dé τῶν ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου κατηραμένων παραλέλειπται. Cap. 
26, p. 930, C. 

ἡ Οἶμαι “Ρωμαίων βραδυνόντων ἐπὶ τοὺς ἁλιτηρίους, ἢ καταποθῆναι 
ἂν ὑπὸ χάσματος, ἣ καταλυϑῆναι τὴν πόλιν ἢ τοὺς τῆς Σοδομήνης 
μεταλαβεῖν κεραυνοὺς, πολὺ γὰρ τῶν ταῦτα παξόντων ἤνεγκε γενεὰν 
ἀϑεωτέραν. De Bell. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 37. 


+ Τυναικῶν ὕβρεις ἐπαίζοντο, καὶ μετὰ ἁδείας ἐνεϑηλυπάϑουν τῶ 


538 


2 But 8 we are sure that the judgment of God is 
according to truth against them which commit such 
things (it being equitable that he should, and certain that 
he will, deal with men according to his word). 

3 And (then) thinkest thou this, O man, that 
judgest them which do such things (against the law of 
nature), and doest the same (against the law of Moses), 
that thou shalt escape the judgment of God (which they 
have so severely felt) 2 

4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness (to 
thee above them, in giving the law, covenant, and pro- 
mises, to thee, ix. 4,) and (his) forbearance and long- 
suffering (exercised hitherto to thee, who hast long de- 
served his wrath, ix. 22); not knowing (or discerning) 
that the goodness of God (naturally) leadeth thee to 
repentance (and ts a powerful motive to engage thee to 
it? 2 Pet. ili. 9. 15.) 

5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart (which 
will not suffer thee to repent and believe the gospel,) trea- 
surest (yet) up unto thyself (more) wrath against the 
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment 
of God (Rom, ix. 22, 1 Thess. ii. 16, v. 9); 

6 Who will render to every man (Jew and gentile) 
according to his deeds: 

7 To them who ‘ by patient continuance in well 
doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, 
eternal life : 

8 But unto them that are contentious (against), and 
do not 5 obey the truth (of the gospel, as generally you 


ROMANS. 


Jews do nol), δ but obey unrighteousness (or falsehood), 
indignation and wrath, 

9 Tribulation and anguish, (I say, shall be) upon 
every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, (as 
being under greater light, and as having the gospel first 
preached to them, Acts xiii. 46, and to whom Christ was 
first, and in person sent, Acts iii. 26,) and also of the 
Gentile; (for though God winked at the times of their 
former ignorance, Acts xvii. 30, yet now he hath re- 
vealed his wrath from heaven against all unrighteousness, 
i. 17, they must expect his just displeasure who turn not 
from it to the way of truth, as the gospel is called, 2 Pet. 
1 ὩΣ 

10 Bt glory, honour, and peace, to every man that 
worketh good, to the Jew first, (as being the church of 
God, to whom the promises of the Messiah chiefly did be- 
long, Rom. ix. 4,) and also to the (believing) Gentile: 
(they being by faith Abraham’s secd, and heirs according 
lo the promise, Gal. iii. 29: 

11 I say to the gentile also,) For there is 7 no respect 
of persons with God. 

12 (Tribulation, and anguish, I say, shall be on every 
soul thal worketh evil, whether Jew or gentile,) For® as 
many as have sinned without (writlen) law (which 
is the case of the gentiles) shall also perish without (that) 
law (being condemned by the law written in their hearts) : 
and as many as have sinned in (or under) the law 
(which is the case of the Jews) shall be judged (and con- 
demned for their evil deeds) by the law; 


gave up themselves to the passions of women, exercising and 
requiring unnatural lusts, and filling the whole city with 
impurities.” And again, “'They committed all kinds of 
wickedness, omitting none which ever came to the memory 
of man, esteeming the worst of evils to be good, and finding 
that reward of their iniquity which was meet, and a judg- 
ment worthy of God.” 

3 Ver. 2. But we are sure, οἴδαμεν δὲ, or, and we know. 

4 Ver. 7. Kal’ ὑπομονὴν ἔργου dyaSoi, By patient continu- 
ance in well-doing.| This good work being put in the sin- 
gular number, seems to intimate some work eminently so. 
Now when the Jews asked our Saviour, “ What shall we do 
that we may work the works of God?” his answer was, 
“This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom ye 
hath sent,” John vi. 28, 29. The preaching of this faith is 
styled emphatically, “the works,” Acts ν. 31, xiii. 2, xiv. 
26, xv. 58, and sometimes “the work of Christ,” Phil. ii. 
30, “the work of the Lord,” 1 Cor. xvi. 10. The faith 
wrought by it is ἔργον πίστεως, “the work of faith,” 2 Thess. 
i. 2, and he that begets it in us, is said to begin in us ἔργον 
ἀγαθὸν, “the good work,” Phil. i. 6. And in this sense it 
accords well with the scope of the apostle, whether it be 
joined with the word “patience,” or with the following 
words; for the apostle had said in the former chapter, that 
“the gospel of Christ was the power of God through faith 
to salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, 
and also to the gentile,” Rom. i. 16. This he here prose- 
cutes, saying that “ to them who by patience in the faith of 
Christ, seek the glory, honour, and immortality,” promised 
in the gospel, God will give “ eternal life.” 

᾿Αφϑαρσίαν, Incorruption.] This, saith Theophylact, refers 
to the body, and by using this word, τὰς περὶ ἀναστάσεως ἀνοίγει 
ϑύρας, “he openeth the gates of the resurrection.” 

5 Ver. 8. Kat ἀπειθοῦσι piv τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, And obey not the 
truth.] The gospel being styled “the truth of God,” Rom. 
ili. 7, xv. 8, “the word of truth,’ Eph. i. 3, Col. i. 5, 
2 Tim. ii. 15, James i. 18; the knowledge of it being 
ἐπίγνπωσις ἀχηϑείας, “ the knowledge of the truth,” 1 Tim. ii. 


κύρῳ" οὐ μόνον dé κύσμον, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάϑη γυναικῶν ἐμιμοῦντο, καὶ dv 
ὑπερβολὴν ἀσελγείας ἀθεμίτους ἡδονὰς ἐπενόησαν. Lib. vii. cap. 34, 
p- 897. Πᾶν γὰρ κακίας ἔργον ἐξεμιμήσαντο, pnd εἴτι πρότερον 
προυπαρχϑὲν, ἣ μνήμη παραδέδωκεν, αὐτοὶ παραλιπόντες ἀζήλωτον, τὰ 
μέγιστα κακὼν ἀγαϑὰ νομίζοντες" τοιγαροῦν τὸ προσῆκον ἕκαστοι τὸ 
τέλος εὔαντο, τοῦ Θεοῦ τὴν ἀξίαν ἐπὶ πᾶσιν αὐτοῖς τιμωρίαν βρα- 


Bsicavro;. Lib, vii. cap. 30, Ὁ. 986, E. 


4, iv. 3, 2 Tim. ii. 25, Tit. i. 1, Heb. x. 26; the belief of it 
being πίστις ἀληθείας, “the belief of the truth,” 2 Thess. ii. 
13; obedience to it being “ obedience to the truth,” Gal. i. 
3, v. 7; walking according to it being “ walking according to 
the truth,” 1 John ii. 4, John iii. 3; the gospel itself being 
emphatically styled “the truth,” Eph. iv. 21, 2 John 3, 4, 
3 John 12; to know it, being “ to know the truth,” 1 John 
ii. 21; to profess it, “to be of the truth,” 1 John iii. 19; to 
reject it, “not to believe the truth,” 2 Thess. ii. 12; to err 
from it, “to err from the truth,” Titus i. 14, James v. 19; 
I say, this being so, of ἐξ ἐριθείας, “they that are conten- 
tious” here, and “obey not the truth,” may be, first, the 
unbelieving Jews, or false apostles, coming from them, who 
“preached Christ, ἐξ ἐριθείας, out of contention” against 
Paul, Phil. i. 16, and, secondly, the gentiles which spake 
against the truth, and rejected it; and both these obeyed, 
and gave up themselves to falsehood: the gentiles, by 
τ changing the truth of God into a lie,” i. 25; the Jews, by 
adhering to their “vain traditions,” which made void the 
commands of God, and owning them as derived from Moses, 
when they were only “the doctrines of men.” 

6 Πειθομένοις δὲ τῇ ἀδικία, But obey unrighteousness.] Here 
Chrysostom notes, that the apostle doth not say, βιαζομένοις, 
rupavvovpévors, who are forced to,” but “ who obey unrighte- 
ousness,” ἵνα μάϑης ὅτι προαιρέσεως τὸ πτῶμα, οὐκ ἀνάγκης τὸ 
ἔγκλημα, ὅϑεν καὶ ἀσύγνωστοι, “that thou mayest learn, that 
they offend of choice, and not of necessity, and therefore are 
unworthy of pardon.” 

7 Ver. 11. Οὐ προσωποληψία, no respect of persons.) i. e. 
He is not one who will connive at men doing wickedly, be- 
cause they are Jews, whilst he punisheth the like wickedness 
in the gentiles; or afford justification and salvation to the 
Jew believing, and working that which is good, and not to 
the believing and obedient gentile (Rom. iii. 29, 30). 

8 Ver. 12. Ανόμως ἀπολοῦνται----ν νόμῳ κριϑήσονται, AS many 
as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, 
and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by 
the law.] Here Mr. Dodwell* says, “That some advantage 
may be taken from the words ἀπολοῦνται and κριϑήσονται, 
that which is called perishing in the case of the gentiles, and 
so may be understood as well of ceasing to be, as of any 
positive inflictions, being opposed to be judged in the latter 
clause relating to the Jews.” But (1.) the word ἀπολλύειν, 
“to perish,” is often used in the New Testament, and espe- 


* Pp. 141. 


CHAPTER II. 


13 (For 


Gna this, O thou Jew, that) ® not the hear- 
ers (only) ὁ 


the law are (upon that account) just before 


God, but the doers of the law (on/y) shall be justi- | 


fied (i. e. accepted of God, as acting suitably to their pro- 
Session. 
14 And say not, That the gentiles therefore cannot be 


539 


justified or accepted with God, because they having not 
the law cannot be doers of it ;) For when the Gentiles, 
which have not the law (of Moses), do by nature the 
things contained in the (moral) law, these, having not 
the (wrilten) law, are a law (a rule of living) unto 
themselves : 


cially in the epistles, of those Christians who by his own 
hypothesis are to perish by being subject to eternal punish- 
ments, as in those words, μὴ ἐπόλλυε, “ Destroy not with thy 
meat thy brother, for whom Christ died,” Rom. xiv. 15, and 
in 1 Cor. viii. 11, καὶ ἀπολεῖται, “And so shall thy brother 
perish, for whom Christ died:” so also 2 Cor. xv. 4, 5, 2 
‘Thess. ii. 10, 2 Pet. iii. 9, yea, this criticism would exempt 
not only Judas the traitor, that υἱὸς ἀπωλείας, “son of perdi- 
tion,” John xvii. 12, but even the very devils from this fu- 
ture punishment; for their question is, ἦλθες ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς 5 
“« Art thou come to destroy us before the time?” Luke iv. 
34. It is used in the gospels of Christ’s little ones, in those 
words, “It is not the will of my Father, ἵνα ἀτύληται, that 
one of these little ones should perish,” Matt. v. 29, xviii. 145 
of losing the soul by denying Christ, Matt. x. 33, xvi. 25. 
And, lastly, it is used of the destruction of soul and body, 
in hell, Matt. x. 28. (2.) Κριϑήσονται, here applied to the 
Jews, signifies κατακριϑήσονται, “they shall be condemned,” 
as appears from the opposition it bears to δικαιωθήσονται, 
«they shall be justified,” ver. 13. And this it still doth, and 
must do, when it relates to the judgment passed upon the 
wicked at that day: so John 111. 18, xii. 48, xvi. 11, 2 
Thess. ii. 12, Heb. xiii. 4. And this being introduced as a 
proof, that in that day there should be «tribulation and an- 
guish upon every soul that worketh evil,” whether he be Jew 
or gentile, and that because “God is no respecter of per- 
sons,” shows that both Jew and gentile working evil must 
fall under that tribulation and anguish. And the reason of 
the variation of the words may be probably this, that the 
gentile being condemned by the law written in his own heart, 
and so being as it were a confessed criminal, there needs no- 
thing more than to sentence him to the perdition which his 
sin deserves; whereas the Jew being to be sentenced by a 
written law, which he may think he has not violated, so 
as to deserve condemnation, he must be judged and con- 
demned by the sentence which the law hath pronounced 
against him. 

9 Ver. 13. Οὐ of ἀκροαταὶ τοῦ νόμου, Not the hearers of the 
law.] The Jewish religion was very much corrupted at our 
Saviour’s coming, so that they thought it sufficient to obtain 
God’s favour, and to secure them from his judgments, (1.) 
that they were of the seed of Abraham. And hence the 
Baptist speaks thus to them, “ Bring forth fruits meet for re- 
pentance, and think it not sufficient to say within yourselves, 
We have Abraham for our father,’ Matt. 11. 8,9. The 
Chaldee paraphrasts do often mention their expectation of 
being preserved for the merits or good works of their fore- 
fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and their writers add, 
that" “hell-fire hath no power over the sinners of Israel, 
because Abraham and Isaac descend thither to fetch them 
thence.” (2.) They held that circumcision was of sufficient 
virtue to render them accepted of God, and to preserve them 
from eternal ruin; for they teacht that “no circumcised 
person goes to hell,” God having promised to deliver them 
from it, “for the merit of circumcision ;” and having told 
Abraham, that “when his children fell into transgression, 
and did wicked works, he would remember the odour of 
their foreskins, and would be satisfied with their piety.” And 
(3.) they taught, that: “all Israelites had a portion in the 
world to come;” and that notwithstanding their sins, yea, 
though they were condemned here for their wickedness: this 
the first sentence in the Capitula Patrum, whereas of all 
the gentiles, without exception, they pronounce that§ “they 
are fuel for hell-fire.” (4.) They teach, that to be employ- 
ed in hearing and studying the law, was a thing sufficient to 
make them acceptable with God. To this James seems to 
refer in these words, “And be ye doers of the word, and 


* Pocock. Miscell. p. 172. 227. 

+ Pug. Fid. par. iii. dis. 3, cap. 16, sect. 36, 37. 

+ See Smith’s Jewish Notion of Legal Right, ch. 3. 
§ Pirk. Eliez. p. 69 sect. 4. 


not hearers only, deceiving your own souls,” James i. 22. 
Now most of these vain opinions the apostle in this chapter, 
and throughout this epistle, labours to confute: the first 
here, ver. 9, the second, ver. 24, the third, from ver. 2 to the 
9th, and the fourth, in this verse. 

10 Ver. 14. "Ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη, or when the gentiles.) Most 
interpreters understand this of the believing gentiles, « the 
righteousness of the law being fulfilled in them” only « who 
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” Rom. viii. 4, 
and he being “only the inward Jew, who hath the cir- 
cumcision of the heart in the Spirit,” ver. 29. But all the 
ancient commentators interpret these last six verses, not in- 
deed of the idolatrous gentiles, but of such gentiles as lived be- 
fore the law, as Melchisedee and Job; or were worshippers of 
the true God, as Cornelius; or repented, as the Ninevites. These 
examples, saith Chrysostom, he sets before the Jews, as being 
such as they could not contradict. And in his comment on 
the fifteenth verse, he makes this inference from the words,* 
«Ἐν these things he shows that God made man sufficient of 
himself to choose virtue and avoid vice;” adding, that this 
was necessary to be said, to stop the mouths of them who 
inquired, ποῦ τὸν ἔμπροσϑεν χρόνον τὰ τῆς τοσαύτης προνοΐας ἦν; 
« Where were the footsteps of such a providence in former 
times!” This the apostle seems plainly to insinuate, by ar- 
guing that God did and will accept the gentile, living aceord- 
ing to “the law written in his heart,’ and therefore owning 
him as the true God, and honouring or “glorifying him 
as that God,’ who made the heaven and the earth; be- 
cause he is “no respecter of persons.” ‘This seems the ob- 
vious meaning of those words of Peter, in the case of Cor- 
nelius and all his friends, “ Of a truth I perceive that God 
is no respecter of persons’ (i. 6. he affects them not barely 
because they are circumcised, or of such a nation), “ but in 
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, 
is acceptable to him,” Acts xx. 34, 35, supposing that there 
might be such in every nation. And the argument of Ori- 
gen seems here considerable; thatt «if God condemned the 
gentiles because they held the truth in unrighteousness, and 
when they knew God did not glorify him as God, neither 
were thankful; it seems reasonable to conceive, that had 
they done what they culpably neglected, and might have 
done, i. e. had they glorified him as God, and been thank- 
ful, they would have done what had been acceptable to God, 
and fit to be rewarded by his goodness;” i. 6. had they held 
the truth in righteousness, and abstained from those actions 
for which their conscience did accuse them, and for which 
“they knew they were worthy of death,” as they who were 
inexcusable for not doing of them might have done, they 
would have escaped “the wrath of God revealed from hea- 
ven against all unrighteousness.” But then these things 
may here be offered to consideration : 

First, That this acceptance may not reach so far as to put 
them under the same privileges and favours with his church 
and people ; but if they live in such times and places where 
an exacter knowledge of his will might be obtained, it may 
induce his providence to find out means of imparting that 
also to them, as in the case of Cornelius and his friends, who 
have told things “by which he and his house should be 
saved,” Acts xi. 14. 

Secondly, That though God may and will reward such 
honest heathens, because otherwise they could have no en- 
couragement to own or serve him as their God, since “he 


* Διὰ τούτων ἔδειξε πάλιν ὅτι αὐτάρκη τὸν ἄνϑρωπον ἐποίησε ὃ Θεὺς 
πρὸς τὴν τῆς ἀρετῆς αἵρεσιν, καὶ τὴν τῆς κακίας φυγήν. 

+ Si enim videtur apostolus condemnare gentiles, ex eo 
quod naturali intelligentia ctzm cognovissent Deum, non sicut 
Deum magnificaverunt, quando non putamus quod etiam col- 
laudare eos possit et debeat, si qui in his cognoscentes Deum, 
sicut Deum magnificent: dubitari igitur non puto, quin is 
qui pro malo opere condemnati meruisset, idem, si operatur 
bonum, remuneratione boni operis dignus haberetur. 


540 


15 (Doing those things) Which shew the work of 
the law written in their hearts, their conscience also 
bearing witness (fo tt), and their thoughts the mean 
while (or their reasonings within themselves) accusing 
or else excusing one another;) (and so the uncireum- 
cision keeping the righteousness of the law, and fulfilling 
the law, shall be by God accounted for circumcision, 
and be as acceptable to him as the circumcision, ver. 26, 
27. 

16 And these rewards and punishments will be dis- 
tributed to Jew and gentile) In the day when God shall 
judge the secrets of men (-’s hearts) by Jesus Christ 
according to my gospel; (or, as my gospel testifies he 
will: for the heathens are not to be judged according to the 
tenor of the gospel, but according lo the light of nature, 
ver. 12. 

17 Bohold, (thow who gloriest in this, that) " thou 
art called a Jew, (one of that nation which God hath 
known above all the families of the earth, Amos iii. 2, 
to whom pertaineth the adoption and covenants, ix. 4,) 
and restest in (the outward performances of) the law, 


ROMANS. 


and makest thy boast of God (as the author and patron 
of thy religion, and thy God in covenant), 

18 And (that thou) knowest his will, and approvest 
the things that are more excellent, being instructed 
out of the law (concerning them) ; 

19 And art confident that thou thyself art (able to 
be) a guide ® of the blind (gentile), a light of them 
which are (that 511) in darkness, 

20 An instructor of 13 the foolish, a teacher of babes, 
which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in 
the law (ὦ. 6. @ scheme or draught of the affirmative pre- 
cepts of the law which instruct thee what to do, and of 
the negative precepis which teach thee what to leave un- 
done). 

21 Thou therefore “ which teachest another (7. e. 
who undertakest to be a guide unto, and teacher of, the 
gentile), teachest thou not thyself (/o practise thine own 
lessons)? thou that preachest (or proclaimest) a man 
should not steal, dost thou steal (and so condemn thy- 
self out of thine own mouth) 2 

22 Thou that sayest a man 15 should not commit 


that cometh to God,” saith the apostle, “must believe that 
he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,” Heb. xi. 
6, yet is he not obliged to give them the glorious reward 
which he hath promised to the Christian : for this not being 
due to their works, they could not from the light of nature 
be assured of it; and it being so peculiarly assigned to 
faith in Christ, both affirmatively and negatively, when the 
apostle saith, «God hath given us eternal life, and that life 
is in his Son; he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath 
not the Son hath not life; this is life eternal, that they know 
thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
sent; this is the true God and eternal life” (1 John v. 11— 
13. 20, John xvii. 3, see John i. 4, xili. 16. 36, v. 24, vi. 
27); it cannot well be said to belong to any other; and 
therefore Origen* freely grants this, and yet thinks such per- 
sons may not be utterly deprived of a reward; especially it 
seems not equitable that they should be deprived of all re- 
ward, purely for want of an impossible condition; i. e. be- 
cause they believed not in him of whom they had not, and 
very often could not, have heard. It may be added, 
Thirdly, That if any of them did arrive at such a state as 
made them indeed to “ fear God, and work righteousness,” 
they did this not merely by the strength of natural lizht; 
for though some of them seem to say, that} nature or philo- 
sophy “ was a sufficient guide to virtue,” yet that they meant 
not this exclusively of the divine assistance, which they saw 
necessary to preserve them against the infirmities of human 
nature, their own words} do fully testify. And if God 
owned any of them as truly righteous, it was by virtue of 
their faith in God; i. e. that faith by which they believed he 
was “a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ;” which 
being, as to kind, the same with that which the apostle so 
highly commends, Heb. xi., even “ the expectation of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” when it pro- 
duced in them a sincere endeavour to serve and please him, 
according to the light of nature, and cleave to their duty, 
though they might suffer for it in this world, might be im- 
puted unto them for righteousness. I conclude these con- 


jectures with Origen on the same place: Sed tamen in arbi- | 


trio legentis est probare que dicta sunt, vel non. 


* Liceét alienus ἃ vita videatur eterna qui non credit 
Christo, videtur quod per hac que dicuntur ab apostolo, bo- 
norum operum gloriam, et honorem, et pacem perdere 
penitus non possit. 


+ Nec est quisquam gentis ullius, qui ducem naturam nac- | 


tus, ad virtutem venire non possit. Cic. de Leg. lib. i. n. 3. 

+ Multos et nostra civitas et Grecia tulit singulares viros, 
quorum neminem, nisi juvante Deo, talem fuisse credendum 
est Nemo igitur vir magnus sine aliquo afflatti divino 
unquam fuit. Cic. de Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. n. 124. 725. 
Al δὲ ἄρισται ψυχῆς φύσεις ἀμφισβητήσιμοι ἐν μετρίῳ τῆς ἄκρας 
ἀρετῆς, πρὸς τὴν ἐσχάτην μοχθηρίαν καϑωρμισμέναι, δέονται ξυνα- 
epi d Θεοῦ, καὶ συλλήπτορος. Max. Tyr. Dissert. 22, p. 


N Ver. 17. Σὺ Ἰουδαῖος ἐπονομάζη, Thow art called a Jew.) 
The apostle doth not here begin to speak to the Jew, but to 
prove farther and illustrate what he said before, as is evident 
from the words ἰδὲ σὺ, “ Behold thou (to whom I speak) art 
called a Jew;” he therefore may be supposed to speak this 
farther, to convince him that he, doing the same things, shall 
not escape the judgment of God; and that the hearing of 
the law he doth not practise will be so far from justifying 
him before God, that it will add to his condemnation. 

Idi, εἰ δὲττ--τυφλῶν, as Dr. Mills reads: see Examen Milli 
here. 

2 Ver. 19. Τιφλῶν, Of the blind] “The blind,” and 
“them that sit in darkness,” is a periphrasis of the gentiles 
(see Isa. ix. 1, xlii. 6. 7, xlix. 9, Luke i. 79, Eph. v. 8). 

13 Ver. 20. ᾿Αφρόνων, Of the foolish.] The « foolish” and 
the “babes” seem to be here the proselytes to the Jewish 
law, whom they accounted as “infants new-born.” 

4 Ver, 21. 'O οὖν διδάσκων «ἕτερον, Thow that teachest an- 
other.| This verse may be illustrated out of the Jewish writ- 
ings; for they say, that* “he who teaches others what he 
doth not himself, is like a blind man who hath a candle in 
his hand to give light to others, whilst he himself doth walk 
in darkness.” So apposite is the first question to convince 
those Jews, who pretended to be guides and lights to the 
blind gentiles, that they themselves were blind. And again, 
« How can a wise man say in the congregation, Thou shalt 
not steal, when he steals?” Whence it appears, that in 
their account this was sufficient to cut off their pretence to 
wisdom. 

15 Ver. 22. Ὃ λέγων μὴ μοιχεύειν, Thou that sayest a man 
should not commit adultery, &c.] Of all these things the 
Jewish doctors were notoriously guilty, and of most of them 
they were accused by our Lord. As, v. g. first, that “ they 
said, and did not;” that “they laid heavy burdens upon 
others, which they would not touch with their own fingers” 
(Matt. xxiii. 3,4); that they made his Father’s house “a 
den of thieves” (Matt. xxi. 13, John ii. 16) ; that they were 
guilty of adultery, by unjust divorces (Matt. xix. 9); and 
their polygamy was so shameful, that they would proclaim 
in any place where they came, Quenam erit mihi uxor in 
diem, “ Who will be my wife for this day,” or while T stay 
in this place? And surely such a wife was little better than 
a whore. Hence Justin Martyr} tells the Jews, that where- 
ever they travelled, or came, they did, with the permission 
of their rabbins, ὀνόματι γάμου γυναῖκας ἄγεσϑαι, “ take wo- 
men, and use them as their wives, under pretence of mar- 
riage.” And the theft and merchandise of which they are 
accused, Matt. xxi., John ii., being about holy things, may 
be well also styled sacrilege; though of this they being ac- 
cused in the times of the prophet Malachi, doubtless they 
were more guilty of it in these worst times. Accordingly 


* Sepher Hamaaloth, p. 87. 
+ Lightf. in Matt. xix. 3. 
+ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 363, D. 371, A. 


CHAPTER IL. 


adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? 15 thou that ab- 
horrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege (robbing God 
of his honour another way) ? 

23 Thou that makest thy boast of (thy skill in) the 
law, through breaking the law (in those instances which 
the conscience of the very heathen doth condemn,) disho- 
nourest thou (‘he name of ) God (among the gentiles) 2 

24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the 
Gentiles through you (Jews, pretending to be so dear to 
God, and so great favourites of heaven, and yet living so 
licentiously as you do, and so it hath happened to you, ac- 
cording) as it is written (of you, Isa. lii. 5, Ezek. 
XXxvi. 23. 

25 This violation of the law culs off the benefit of 
your circumcision ;) For circumcision verily profiteth, 
if thou keep the law (as circumcision obligeth thee 
to do, Gal. vy. 2): but if thou be (5 111) a breaker of 
the law, thy cireumcision is made (of no more advan- 
tage to free thee from God’s condemnation, than) uncir- 
cumcision. 5 

26 Therefore (on the other side) if the uncircumci- 


541 


sion (i. ¢. the gentile, though uncircumcised) ™ keep the 
righteousness of the law, shall not his uncireumeision 
be counted for circumcision ? (7. 6. shall he not be as ac- 
ceptable lo God, as if he had been circumcised ?) 

27 And shall not (¢he) ® uncircumcision which is 
by nature (7. ¢. the gentile, who continues uncircumcised 
as he was by nature), if it fulfil the law, judge ee 
condemn) thee, who by the letter (7. ὁ. having the letter 
of the law) and circumcision dost transgress the law? 

28 For he is not (in God’s account) a Jew (i. e. one 
beloved of him), which is one (only) outwardly (by pro- 
fession) ; neither is that (valued by him as true) οἷτ- 
cumcision, which is outward in the flesh (only): 

29 But he is a Jew (in God’s esteem), which is one 
inwardly (by the purification of his heart ue inward 
filth, and evil dispositions and affections) ; and (the) 
circumcision (valued by him) is that of the heart, in 
the spirit (wrought in us by the Spirii), and not in (or 
by) the letter ; whose praise zs not of men (who are not 
able to discern it), but of God (who ts the searcher of the 
heart). 


Josephus* doth pronounce them guilty, not only of « theft, 
treachery, adultery, sacrilege,” but of “ rapines and murders, 
and new ways of wickedness invented by them, of all which 
the temple was made the receptacle.” Add to this, that the 
same Josephus informs us, that not long after the writing of 
this epistle, the servants of the high-priests, τὰς τῶν ἱερέων 
δεκάτας ἐλάμβανον βιαζόμενοι, « took away by violence the tithes 
of the priests, so that many of them perished for want of 
food” (Antigq. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 698, E). 

Note also from these words, “Thou that abhorrest idols,” 
the mistake of those who think the Gnostics are here refer- 
red to; they being so far from abhorring idols, that Ireneust 
informs us, “ they had their images, they worshipped idols 
without fear, and went first to the feasts celebrated in the 
idol-temple.” Origent also assures us, that he, viz. Simon 
Magus, taught his disciples to “count idolatry as a thing 
indifferent.” 

16 Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege 2] 
Robbing that God of his honour this way, who hath required 
thee to “honour him with thy substance and the first-fruits 
of thy increase” (Prov. iii. 9, Mal. iii. 8, 9, Ecclus. xxxv. 
8), as the idolater doth by giving his honour to an idol. And 
of this sin they being accused by God himself, declaring by 
his prophet Malachi that they had “robbed him in tithes 
and offerings,” doubtless they were more guilty of it in these 
worst times of the Jewish nation. 

Ver 24. Ἠλασφημεῖται ἐν τοῖς ἔϑνεσι, Is blasphemed 
among the gentiles.] Of this Josephus§ doth frequently ac- 


“Ta κρυπτὰ μὲν τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων ἡδοξήκατε, κλοπὰς λέγω, 
καὶ ἐνέδρας, καὶ μοιχείας, ἁρπαγαῖς δ' ἐρίζετε καὶ φόνοις, καὶ ξένας 
καινοτομεῖτε κακίας δόοὺς, ἐκόοχεῖον δὲ πάντων τὸ ἱερὸν γέγονε. De 
Bell. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 26. 

ἡ ’Ext πᾶσαν ἑορτάσιμον τῶν ἐϑνῶν τέρψιν, εἰς τιμὴν τῶν εἰδώλων 
γενομένην, πρῶτοι συνίασιν. Lib. i. p. 26, D. Tmagines 
quidem depictas, quasdam autem et de reliqué materia fabri- 
eatas habent, et has coronant, et proponunt eas cum ima- 
ginibus mundi philosophorum, videlicet cum imagine Py- 
thagore, Platonis, et Aristotelis, et reliquorum, et reliquam 
observationem circa eas ut gentes faciunt. Lib. i. cap. 24. 
Vide Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 13. 

+ ᾿Ἐναδιαφορεῖν πρὸς τὴν εἰδολολατρείαν. Contra Celsum, lib. vi. 
p. 282. 

§ Τί δὲ σιγᾶται zap’ ὑμῖν ἢ τί κρὕὔπτεται, τί δὲ οὐχὶ Kat τοῖς 
ἐχϑροῖς φανερὸν γέγονε ; πομπεῦετε γὰρ παρανομοῦντες, καὶ καϑ᾽ 


ἡμέραν ἐρίζετε, τίς χείρων γίνεται, τῆς ἀδικίας ὥσπερ ἀρετῆς. ἐπίδειξιν | 
| 


ποιούμενοι. 


De Bell. Jud. lib. vi. p. 931, B, C. 


cuse them, saying, “ What wickedness do you conceal or 
hide, which is not known to your enemies? You triumph in 
your wickedness, strive daily who shall be most vile, making 
a show of your wickedness as if it were virtue.” And think- 
est thou this, Ὁ man, that thou shalt escape the judgment of 
God, who punisheth the gentiles, when thou art as guilty as 
they, of acting against thy conscience, and doing that for 
which thine own mouth condemns thee, or which is as bad 
as that which thou condemnest in them, and which doth also 
cause them to “blaspheme that holy name by which thou 
art called?” surely, after these things so scandalously done, 
it will be of no advantage to thee that “thou art called a 
Jew,” or hast received the sign of circumcision. 

18 Ver. 25.] Having thus proved that the sins of the Jews 
must render them obnoxious to the divine wrath, as well as 
those of the gentiles, he proceeds to prove what he said, ver. 
7. 10, that the righteousness of the circumcised gentile must 
also render him acceptable to God, and rewardable by him, 
as well as the righteousness of the Jew. ὁ 

19 Ver. 26. Ta δικαιώματα τοῦ νόμου, The righteousnesses or 
ordinances of the law.) The word δικαιώματα is used some 
times for the divine judgments, which being always done in 
equity, and according to the deserts of men, are fitly called 
δικαιώματα, or “righteous judgments,” Rom. i. 32, Rev. xv. 
4. And sometimes it relates to the ceremonial institutions 
which God thought fit for a season to prescribe to the Jews, 
and then it seems best to be rendered ordinances, as Heb. 
ix. 1.10. And sometimes to the moral precepts of the law, 
as when the apostle saith, τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου, * The righte- 
ousness of the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the 
flesh, but after the Spirit,” which seems to be the sense of 
the phrase here. 

20 Ver. 27. Ἢ ἐκ φύσεως ἀκροβυστία, The uncircumcision 
whick is by nature. Most interpreters think that the apos- 
tle speaks in these two verses of the believing gentile, and 
only doth design to prove against the Jew, that his want of 
circumcision, if he be a doer of righteousness, will not hin- 
der his acceptance with God (1 Cor. vii. 19, Gal. v. 6, vi. 
15), and that because this righteousness of the law is said 
to be fulfilled by them “who walk according to the Spirit” 
her 4), i.e. by them “who are in Christ Jesus” (ver. 1). 

ut Grotius and GEcumenius seem to interpret this of the 
heathens, such as the centurions in the gospel were, because 
the condemnation of the Jew seems to arise from this, that 
he who had the letter of the law did not that which they 
who were without it did. 
2V 


542 


CHAPTER III. 


1 (But you will say, If the uncircumcised person, 
keeping the righteousness of the law, is to be reckoned 
as circumcised, ii. 26, and if the inward circumcision be 
that alone which is acceptable to God, ver. 28, 29,) 
Whatadvantage then hath the Jew (above the gentile) ? 
or what profit ἐς there of (the) circumcision (above un- 
circumcision 2 

2 1 answer,) Much every way: (ix. 4, but) chiefly, 
because that unto them were committed the oracles of 
God (in which the covenants and promises made to them, 
and chiefly that of the Messiah, and of justification by faith 
in him, were contained ; 

3 Which oracles must be made good notwithstanding 
their infidelity :) For what if some (to whom these oracles 
and the promise of the Messiah, or a seed in whom the na- 
tions of the earth shall be blessed, were committed,) did not 
believe (in the promised secd)? shall their unbelief 
make the faith (or fidelity) of God (in making this pro- 
mise to Abraham) without effect ? 

4 God forbid (that such a thought should enter into 
our hearts): yea (Gr. but, on the contrary), let God be 
(acknowledged) true (and faithful to his word ), but every 
man a liar (7. 6. though all men should prove liars) ; as it 
is written (Ps, li. 4),! That thou mightest be justified 
in thy sayings (or mayest appear just and faithful in per- 
forming them), and mightest overcome when ? thou art 
judged (¢. 6. when thou judgest and contendest with men). 


5 But if our unrighteousness commend (illustrates 
and establishes) * the righteousness of God (that way 
of justification by faith which he alone approves of ), 
fal ess Is God anf ho enh 
vengeance (on the Jew and gentile, for these sins which 
thus commend his righteousness, and show the wisdom and 
grace of God in admitling this way of our justification) ? 
5 (I speak as a man) (7. 6. as a heathen or unbeliever 
would be apt to conclude from our doctrine of justification 
by faith : 

"ἢ For) God forbid (that I should have a thought that 
God can be unrighteous) : for then how shall God judge 
the world (for their unrighteousness 2 

7 Speak, I say their sense,) For (say they) if the truth 
of God hath more abounded ® through my lie unto his 
glory (if the truth of his promise to justify the gentile 
through faith in Christ, hath appeared more illustriously 
to the glory of his grace, through my idolatry, and chang- 
ing his truth into a lie) ; why yet am I also judged as 
a sinner (as well as the Jew) ? 

8 And (why will it) not rather (follow, ὅτι ποιήσω- 
μεν). (as we be slanderously reported, and as some af- 
firm that (in effect, by asserting the doctrine of justifica- 
tion by faith,) we say,) Let us do evil, that good may 
come (or that God may be glorified? which yet we are so 
far from saying, tha! we declare them who do so men) 
7 whose damnation is just. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


' Ver. 4. “Ὅπως ἂν δικαιωθῆς, That thou mayest be justi- 
sred.] These words are a confession of king David, that how 
severely soever God should deal with him for his sin, he 
could not accuse him of too much rigour, but must justify 
him in his proceedings, and clear him from all imputations 
of injustice; and so they cannot be here brought to prove, 
as Esthius imagines, that notwithstanding our sins, God will 
be faithful to his promises, but to show, that though God 
should reject the Jews for their infidelity, they would have 
no reason to complain of his severity, or charge him with 
injustice or unfaithfulness on that account, they having for- 
feited their right to be the seed of Abraham, the father of 
the faithful, by their infidelity, and the gentiles, by imitating 
his faith, being now become his children. Note also, that 
the Hebrew 4>;, which we render pure or clean, Ps. li. 4, is 
well rendered by the Septuagint νικήσης, “ might overcome ;” 
it bearing oft that sense in the Syriac, and among the rab- 
bins, as Buxtorf proves in his Lexicon, p. 668. 

2 Ev τῷ κρίνεσθαί σε, Heb. yoowa, When thou judgest,) Or 
contendest with any man, or enterest into judgment with 
him, or indictest or accusest him of sin; so the word is very 
often used in the Old and New Testament. So Job xiii. 19, 
τίς ἐστι ὃ κριθησόμενός por; Who is he that will contend with 
me?” Eccles. vi. 10, οὐ δυνήσεται κριθῆναι, “He cannot con- 
tend with one who is stronger than himself; Isa. xliii. 26, 
“Put me in remembrance,” καὶ κριθύμεν, “and let us plead 
together ;” Isa. Ixvi. 16, ἐν τῷ πυρὶ κριθήσεται ὃ Κύριος, “ By fire 
will the Lord plead with all flesh ;” Matt. v. 40, ϑέλοντί σοι 
κριϑῆναι, “To him that will contend with thee ;” 1 Cor. vi. 1, 
τολμᾷ τις κρίνεσθαι ; “ Dares any one contend before the un- 
just?” See note on 1 Pet. iv. 6. 

3 Ver. 5. Δικαιοσύνην Θεοῦ, The righteousness of God.) 
That this phrase in the epistles doth signify always the 
righteousness of faith, or our justification through faith in 
Christ, hath been shown, note on Rom. i. 17, and on 2 Cor. 
v. 21; and this seems to establish the exposition given in 
the paraphrase. 

4 Τί ἐροῦμεν 5 μὴ ἄδικος ὃ Θεὸς ἐπιφέρων τὴν ὀργὴν, What shall 
we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance 2] The 
apostle had laid down the proposition which is the founda- 
tion of this discourse, and of the whole epistle, in these 
words: “The gospel is the power of God to the salvation of 
every one that believes, Jew or gentile; for therein is re- 


vealed the righteousness of God by faith, to beget faith in 
both.” The necessity of this faith he shows, (1.) with re- 
spect to the gentiles, because they, being unrighteous, could 
not otherwise be justified before God, or escape his wrath, 
“revealed against all unrighteousness,” by any other way 
than that of faith; and this proof he concludes chapter the 
first. In the second chapter he shows the same, touching 
the Jews, by reason of their unrighteousness, and therefore 
saith here, ver. 9, “ We have before proved both Jews and 
gentiles to be under sin.” Now this most plainly serves to 
commend and establish this way of righteousness by faith in 
Christ, from the necessity of it to the justification both of 
Jew and gentile. This then must be the import of the ob- 
jection; if the unrighteousness both of Jew and gentile 
tends so visibly to illustrate and recommend the wisdom of 
God, and the grace or favour of God, in appointing this way 
of justification by faith in Christ, is it righteous in God to 
punish both Jew and gentile, as you say he did (i. 24. 26. 
32), and will do (i. 18, ii. 2. 4—6. 8, 9), for that unrighte- 
ousness that tends so highly to the glory of the gospel 
grace? 

5 Kar’ dvSpwrov λέγω, I speak as a man.) i.e. As a mere 
natural man, not acquainted with the revealed will of God, 
or not acted by his Spirit: so Chrysostom and Gicumenius, 
“T speak κατ᾽ ἀνδρύπινον λογισμὸν, according to human rea- 
SON ; οὐ yap ἐγὼ ταῦτα λέγω, ἀλλὰ τῶν ἄλλων τέθεικα λογισμοὺς, 
for it is not I that say these things, but I propose the rea- 
sonings of others.” That this is the constant import of the 
phrase see note on 1 Cor. ix. 8, 9. 15. 32. 

6 Ver. 7. Ἔν τῷ ἑμῷ ψεύσματι, By my lie.) The idols of 
the heathens are called “lying vanities,” Ps. xxxi. 7, Jonah 
ii. 8, numina falsa; the makers of them are said to “ frame 
pw, a lie,” Jer. x. 14, and to have and frame “a lie” with 
their right hand, Isa. xliv. 20. They who worship them are 
said, “to turn aside to lies,” Ps. xl. 5, and to hearken to “a 
teacher of lies,” Hab. ii. 18, and to “tum the truth of God 
into a lie,” Rom.i. 25. Hence are the heathens introduced 
making this confession, “Surely our fathers did inherit lies,” 
ὥς ψεύδη ἐκτήσαντο of πατέρες ἡμῶν εἴδωλα, Jer. xvi. 19. Now 
this argument being that by which the apostle in the first 
chapter proves the gentiles to be sinners, worthy of con- 
demnation, and so incapable of justification by any other 
way than that of faith, this may reasonably be supposed to 
be the thing referred to in this verse. 

7 Ver. 8. Ὧν τὸ κρίμα ἔνδικόν ἐστι, Whose damnation is 


CHAPTER III. 


9 What then? (or ie sap are we better than 
they ἃ (Do we Jews excel. the gentiles?) ® No, in no 
wise (οὐ πάντως, nol altogether, as to the benefit mention- 
ed, ver. 2, but not as to justification) : for we have before 

roved (touching) both Jews (ch. li.) and Gentiles (ch. 
1,), that they are all under sin (and so all stand in need 
of justification by faith ; 

10 The Jews, I say, as well as the genliles,) 5 As it is 
written (of them), There is none righteous, no, not 
one: 

11 There is none that understandeth, there is none 
that seeketh after God. 

12 They are all gone out of the way, they are to- 
gether become unprofitable; there is none that doeth 
good, no, not one. 

13 Their throat 7s an open sepulchre; with their 
tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps ts 
under their lips: (‘hey are men) 

14 Whose mouth és full of cursing and bitterness : 

15 Their feet are swift to shed blood : 

16 Destruction and misery are in their ways: 

17 And the way of peace have they not known: 

18 There is no fear of God before their eyes. 

19 (Which words of the psalmist may justly be applied 
to them ;) Now we know that what things soever the 
law saith (not applying the words to any others), it saith 
to them who are under the law: that (not only the 
mouths of the gentiles, but) every mouth may be stopped, 


543 
and all the world may (see they are) become guilty be- 
fore God. 

20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no 
flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law ἐδ the 
0 knowledge of (hat) sin (which rendereth us obnoxious 
to condemnation). 

21 But now (in the dispensation of the gospel) the 
righteousness of God without (performing the works 
of ) the law is manifested (to the world), being wit- 
nessed (é. ¢. altested tv) by the law ( giving us the know- 
ledge of sin, ver. 20) and the prophets (declaring that 
the just man shall live by faith) ; 

22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith 
of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that be- 
lieve: for (as to the way of justification) there is no dif- 
ference (betwixt Jew and gentile) = 

23 For all have sinned, and (so) come short of (at- 
taining) " the glory of God (without a free act of justifi- 
cation by grace) ; 

24 Being justified (7. 4. absolved from the guilt and 
condemnation due to us for our past sins) freely by his 
grace # through the redemption that is in Christ 
Jesus: 

25 Whom God hath set forth (or proposed) to be 
34 propitiation (a propitialory or mercy-seat) through 
faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness (7. e. 
the way of justification by faith, which God alone admits 
of ) * for the remission of sins that are past, through 


just.) They by thus objecting against that dispensation of 
divine grace and wisdom, which they should thankfully em- 
brace and accept, and without which they cannot be justi- 
fied, and so rejecting it as absurd in their imaginations, ren- 
der it just that they should still lie under the guilt of sin, 
and under the wrath of God for it. a 

§ Ver. 9. Οὐ πάντως, No, in no wise.] That these words 
may be rendered “not altogether,” as well as οὐ πάντες is 
rendered “not all,’ 2 Thess. iii, 2, Heb. iii. 16, we learn 
from Ccumenius, who paraphrases them thus, οὐκ ἐκ παντὸς 
τρόπου, “not in every kind;’’* so οὐ πάντως signifies, 1 Cor. 
v. 10, viz. “I do not altogether forbid you to accompany 
with fornicators, for then you must go out of the world;” 
and then the context will plainly force this rendering, as 
being that which answers to the following reason, the words 
bearing this sense: We do indeed excel them, in having the 
promise of a Messiah, and the salvation tendered by him, 
first made to us (ii. 10); in having the knowledge of the 
law (ver. 17), and the oracles of God committed to us (iii. 
2): but we do not wholly or in all things excel them, be- 
cause not in the matter of justification by faith, which Jew 
and gentile equally stand in need of. 

3 Ver. 10. Καθὼς γέγραπται, As it is written.] These words 
are cited from the fourteenth psalm, according to the edition 
of the Septuagint; but I do not conceive it necessary to 
make good the apostle’s words, or argument, that they 
should be spoken of the Jews of that age in general, espe- 
cially seeing they are there said to have “ devoured God’s 
people,” and to have “shamed the counsel of the poor.” It 
is enough (1.) that they should generally agree to the Jews 
of the age in which the apostle wrote, as both the scriptures 
of the New Testament and the writings of Josephus fully 
prove they do. And (2.) that the law condemning any for 
these crimes doth more especially condemn those under the 
law, who at any time are guilty of crimes thus noted, and 
condemned by the law. And with this conclusion of the 
apostle the Jews themselve§ accord, saying, There is not a 
man who is not obnoxious to God (or might not justly be 
condemned by him), were it not for his mercy and clemency.” 
Moreover, it is farther to be noted, that in the close of this 
psalm there seems to be a prayer for the redemption of the 
Jews by the Messiah, in those words, “O that the salvation 
of Israel were come out of Zion,” ver. 7, the Deliverer that 
was to come out of Zion, being the Messiah, as we learn 
from Isaiah, lix. 20, and from this apostle, xi. 26. Note, 


* Cart. Mellif. p, 3012. 


secondly, that, according to the doctrine of the Jews, their 
Messiah was to come in those times when the Jewish nation 
was most corrupt, and so most resembled the description 
here alleged (see the note on Phil. iii. 1). 

10 Ver. 20. ᾿Επίγνωσις ἁμαρτίας, The knowledge of sin.] 
This knowledge of sin being chiefly by the moral law (vil. 
7), shows that the apostle excludes as well that as the cere- 
monial from justification; and evident it is, that the anti- 
thesis runs all along, not between moral and ceremonial 
works, but between works in general and faith, ver. 20. 22, 
the law of works and faith, ver. 27, iv. 2. 6, ix. 32, x. 5, 6. 
_ Ver, 23. Τῆς ὀόξης τοῦ Θεοῦ, The glory of God.) i.e. 
The fruition of God in glory; for “being justified by faith, 
we have peace with God; and rejoice in hope of the glory 
of God” (Rom. v. 1, 2). 

12 Ver. 24. Διὰ τῆς ἀπολυτρύσεως, Through the redemption.] 
Purchased by the death and blood of Christ shed for us; we 
having “redemption through his blood, the remission of 
sins” (Eph. i. 7, Col. i. 14). 

13 Ver. 25. Τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων, Of sins that are 
past.) For in this only consists our first justification, which 
is by faith alone: the remission of our future sins commit- 
ted against the new covenant, established in the blood of 
Jesus, being to be obtained (if they be wilful sins, which 
only violate the covenant of grace) by a sincere and parti- 
cular repentance for them; which brings us again under 
that covenant, and so under the promise of forgiveness 
through the blood of Jesus: the ἱλαστήριον, or “mercy- 
seat,” was so called, because God there showed himself 
propitious, by reason of the blood of the sacrifice sprinkled 
before it. The apostle, therefore, in allusion to it, saith that 
God hath set forth Christ to be his “merey-seat,” i. e. the 
person through whom he will be propitious to us through 
faith in his blood, styled “the blood of sprinkling,” Heb. xii. 
24, and presented before him in the heavens. 

4 "Ιλαστήριον, To be a propitiation.] In the Old Testa- 
ment we find the mercy-seat still styled ἱλαστήριον, because 
it was the place where God promised to be propitious to 
them, and where the high-priest made an atonement for 
himself, and all the congregation, by sprinkling the blood of 
the sin-offering before the mercy-seat: when therefore the 
apostle saith that God had set forth Jesus Christ to be a 
mercy-seat to us through faith in his blood, we have reason 
to believe the blood of Christ, as our sin-offering, doth make 
atonement for, and render God propitious to us. And as 
under the Old Testament, they who desired to have God 
propitious to them, were to come with the blood of their 


544 


the forbearance of God; (not imputing their trespasses to 
them who believe in him, 2 Cor. v. 19. 

26 God hath now proposed him as our propiliatory,) 
%Todeclare, 7 say, at this time his righteousness (or 
the way of justification he allows of ): that he (by justi- 
fying us only through the redemplion that is in Christ 
Jesus) might (appear to) be δ just (in requiring this sa- 
tisfaction for our sins), and the justifier of him which 
believeth in Jesus. 

27 (And if this be the only way of justification, or 
being righteous before God,) Where ts (there any ground 
of ) boasting then? It is excluded? By what law? 
(that) of works? Nay: (for he that is justified by works 
hath whereof to boast, ἔχει καύχημα, iv. 2:) but by the 
law of faith (only). 

28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by 
" faith (alone) without (respect to) the deeds of the law 
(given to the Jews. For) 


ROMANS. 


29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also 
of the Gentiles (which have not the law? hath he vouch- 
safed to them no means of justification or acceptance 
with him)? Yes, (doubtless he is'the God) of the Gen- 
tiles also: 

30 Seeing ἐξ ἐδ one God, which shall justify 18 the cir- 
cumcision by faith, and (/he) uncircumcision through 
(the same) faith. 

31 Do we then make void the law through (¢his) 
faith? (Do we contradict it, or say it is u useless thing, 
or against the promises? Gal. iii. 19. 21.) God forbid 
(that this should be affirmed by us): yea, we establish 
the law (by declaring thal it gives the knowledge of sin, 
ver. 20, gives witness to this way of justification, ver. 21, 
and so shows the necessity of faith, and so is our school- 
master to bring us to Christ, who is the end of the law, 
Rom. x. 4, Gal. iii. 24). 


sin-offering to the mercy-seat; so under the gospel dispen- 
sation they must expect to find God propitious to them, 
through the blood of Christ their mercy-seat, by whom they 
coming to God, as the Jews did by appearing before his 
mercy-seat, should find him gracious in pardoning their 
iniquities “through the redemption that is in Jesus.” 
Whence I argue against the Socinians, for our Lord’s satis- 
faction, thus: What is it we do obtain by this redemption? 
It is, saith the apostle, “remission of sins.” What is it that 
procures this remission? It is the blood of Christ, for «we 
have redemption through his blood, even the remission of 
sins” (Eph. i. 7, Col. i. 14); it is the death of Christ (Heb. 
ix. 15). Since, then, by the confession of Schlictingius upon 
the place, our Lord is mentioned here as a piacular victim, 
and seeing it is certain those victims still suffered in the 
sinner’s stead, and that whensoever in the Old Testament 
mention is made of the remission of sins, the blood of these 
sacrifices was the thing-that made atonement for them, re- 
mission of sins was the thing purchased by that blood; have 
we not reason from what is here said of Christ, our piacular 
victim, to conceive he suffered in our stead, and that his 
blood, shed for us, procured the remission of our sins, as it 
atoned an offended God for our transgressions ? 

15 Ver. 26. Τῆς δικαιοσύνης, To declare his righteousness.] 
This phrase, “the righteousness of God,” as I have before 


observed, doth always in the epistles signify our justification | 


by faith in Christ,gs being the only righteousness that God 
approves of, and is here styled, ver. 22, “the righteousness 
of God through faith:” and therefore this righteousness 
cannot be demonstrated, as some conceive, by winking at 
the sins committed in former ages (Acts xvii. 30), but by 
proposing, by the gospel, the way of remitting men’s past 
sins through faith in Christ, or his own non-imputation of 
them. 

16 Bic τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν δίκαιον, That he might be Just.) The 


rendered clement and merciful, and that it is commonly 
taken in that notion, and seldom in that of vindictive justice : 
but, in opposition to this I assert, that the word δίκαιος is 
used about eighty times in the New Testament, and not 
once in that sense of clemency and mercy in which he saith 
it is commonly taken: he himself produces but one place, 
viz. Matt. i. 19, “Joseph being a just man, and not willing 
to make Mary a public example, was minded to put her 
away privily :’—“ Where,” saith Dr. Lightfoot, “men tor- 
ment the word δίκαιος, to make it signify clement and mer- 
ciful, when it bears clearly the ordinary sense ; thus, Joseph, 
being a just man, would not cohabit with an adulteress, and 
yet being not willing to make her a public example, and no 
necessity,”’ as he there shows, “lying upon him so to do, he 
was minded to put her away privily.” (2.) It is in the 
New Testament distinguished from the gaod and merciful 
man; as when Joseph of Arimathea is styled ἀγαθὸς καὶ 
δίκαιος, a good man and just,” Luke xxiii. 50; when the 
law is called δίκαια καὶ ἀγαθὴ, “just and good,” Rom. vii. 12; 
and when it is said, v. 7, that scarcely ὑπὲρ δικαίου, “for a 
righteous man will one die, though ὑπὲρ ἀγαθοῦ, for a good 
man one would even dare to die.” And (3.) when it relates 
to God, as here, it always signifies, either the equity and 
congruity of his dealings, as 2 Thess. i. 5, 6; or his faithful- 
ness to his word, 1 John i. 9, Rev. xv. 3; or his vindictive 
justice, as Rev. xvi. 5—7, xix. 2, 2 Tim. iv. 8. 

1 Ver. 28. Πίστει, By faith.) Justification from our past 
sins is by faith alone, without respect to any of our works; 
we being “justified freely by his grace,” ver. 23; “Not by 
works of righteousness which we have done, but through his 
mercy he saved us,” Titus ili. 5, i. e. he justified us by his 
grace, and so put us in the way of salvation. 

18 Ver. 30.] Note, that so the Jews say, “If a man be- 
lieve not as he ought, circumcision will not make him a 


| Jew ; and if he believe as he ought, he is a Jew, though he 
reverend Dr. Hammond saith, the word δίκαιος, is here to be | 


be not circumcised.’ Nitzachon, sect. vii. sub. 21. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Wuar shall we then say (Gr. what therefore do 
we say, as some of our nation,) that Abraham our father, 
as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? (Gr. hath 


found justification and acceptance with God, by virlue of 
his circumcision in the flesh 2 
2 Surely, no ;) Forif Abraham were justified by (his 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1Ver. 1. Kara σάρκα, According to the flesh.| i. e. By 
virtue of his obedience to God’s command, in circumcising 
the flesh of his foreskin. So Israel κατὰ σάρκα, “ according 
to the fiesh,” 1 Cor. x. 18, is, Israel according to the cir- 
cumcision of the flesh. To “know Christ according to the 
flesh,’ 2 Cor. v. 16, is to know him according to his cireum- 
cision, or being of the stock of Abraham. ‘To glory κατὰ τὴν 
σάρκα, “ according to the flesh,” is to glory in being circum- 
cised, 2 Cor. xi. 18. In this the Jews had the greatest con- 
fidence of being acceptable to God, and therefore are repre- 
sented by St. Paul as πεποιθύτες ἐν σαρκὶ, “having confidence 


in the flesh,” Phil. iii. 3,4, declaring, that “no circumcised 
Jews go to hell,” God having promised to deliver them “ for 
the merit of circumcision” (see the note on ii. 13). More- 
over, that vain opinion had obtained among the Jews, that 
Abraham was not pure, or accepted with God, till after his 
circumcision. This is hinted in the Targum of B. Uziel, 
who renders Gen. xvii. 1, thus, “ Walk before me, and be 
thou perfect 4>w23, in thy flesh:” but is in express words 
asserted, Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 29, p. 64. This opinion the 
apostle here confutes, and then, ver. 11, shows what his 
circumcision signified. Mr. Clere interprets this phrase 
thus, “According to the flesh;” i. e. “in the judgment 
of man, or according to carnal judgment.” But there 


CHAPTER IV. 


own) works (i. e. his obedience to God’s command to 
circumcise himself and his whole family), he hath 
whereof to glory (Gr. ground of boasting in those 
works by which he was thus justified); but (manifest 
tt is he had) not (whereof to boast, or glory) before 
God. 

3 For what saith the scripture? (even this,) 3 Abra- 
ham believed God, and it (viz. that faith) was counted 
unto him for righteousness. 

4 Now (or whereas) to him that worketh (and by 
that obtaineth ὦ caverns is the reward not reck- 
oned of grace, but of debt (he having performed all 
that was required, in order to his being righteous before 
God). 

5 But to him that worketh not (¢. e. who hath not 
any thing on account of which he can be deemed righteous 
by virtue of his works), but believeth 5 on him that 
justifieth the ungodly (on the account of his faith), his 
faith is counted for righteousness. 

6 (And this account of justification is)* Even (such) 
as David also (the other great person to whom God had 


545 


promised a blessing to all nations through his seed, Isa. 
xi. 10, Acts ii. 30, xiii. 23) describeth (speaking of) 
the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth 
righteousness without works, Lt 

7 Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are for- 
given, and whose sins are covered. 

8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not 
impute (the) sin (he hath committed). 

9 Cometh this blessedness then (of righteousness, 
by not imputing sin) upon the circumcision only, or 
upon the uncireumcision also? (This question may be 
decided by the example ( our father Abraham,) for we 
say that ὃ faith was reckoned to Abraham for righte- 
ousness. 

10 How was it then reckoned (to him for righteous- 
ness? was it) when he was in circumcision, or in un- 
circumcision? Not (when he was) in circumcision, but 
in uncireumcision; (he believing unto righteousness before 
he was circumcised, Gen. xv. 6.) 

11 And he received (afterward) the sign of cireum- 
cision, (as) ἃ ὃ seal of the righteousness of the faith 


can be nothing more alien from the mind of Paul than this 
interpretation : for the apostle had been before asserting, that 
circumcision, acceptable to God, was not that made in the 
flesh (ii. 28). In the beginning of the next chapter he an- 
swers the inquiry of the Jews; If it doth not render us more 
acceptable to God, what then is the benefit of circumcision ? 
It hath many other advantages, saith he, but not that of 
justification before God, that being the result of faith ; « for 
it is one (and the same) God who will justify the cireumci- 
sion through faith, and the uncircumcision by faith.’ What 
then, saith he, do we say in this affair? Do we say, as the 
Jews, that Abraham, “the father of the faithful,” found jus- 
tification (the thing I now discourse of) κατὰ σάρκα, by that 
laborious work of circumcision, performed upon himself, 
when he was ninety-nine years old, and upon all his fami- 
ly? On which account, say the Jews,* “God smelt the 
sweet odour of their foreskins, and said, when they trans- 
gressed, he would remember this odour, and they should be 
replenished with his mercies.” Here is a rational account 
of the connexion and pertinence of the apostle’s argument. 
But how comes in the judgment of men with a τί οὖν ; 
“ What then do we say?” when nothing at all had been 
said of their judgment, nor was the apostle discoursing of 
justification according to man’s carnal judgment. He goes 
on and says, “If Abraham was accounted just for his works 
in the judgment of men, he hath whereof to glory; he hath 
καύχημα, boasting,” saith he, “before men:” but is that the 
καύχημα, or boasting, which the apostle said was excluded, 
“not by the law of works, but by the law of faith ?” (iii. 27) ; 
no sure; but boasting before God: this therefore must be 
here repeated: If Abraham were justified by works, i. e. the 
works of circumcision performed upon himself and his whole 
family, he hath whereof to boast before God; but he cannot 
have whereof to boast before God of any justification of this 
kind, for “ what saith the scripture,” &c. In fine, κατὰ σάρκα 
never signifies in scripture, “the judgment of man,” but the 
fleshly lustings, desires, and motions of men; John xviii. 5, 
to “judge according to the flesh,” is to judge ex carnali 
affectii, “ from carnal affection ;” and 2 Cor. i. 17, “to pur- 
pose according to the flesh,” is to do it according to carnal 
principles and advantages; as to “walk after the flesh,” is 
to be governed and acted by carnal principles, Rom. viii. 1. 
4, 5. 12, 13, 2 Cor. x. 2. 

2 Ver. 3. ᾿Επίστευσε δὲ ᾿Α βραὰμ τῷ Θεῷ, Abraham believed 
God.] We learn from the author to the Hebrews, that 
Abraham had faith before this was said unto him, for “by 
faith Abraham being called, obeyed and went forth,” &c. 
and that by a yet stronger faith he “offered up his son 
Isaac, believing that God was able to raise him up from the 
dead” (Heb. xi. 8.17). But neither of these instances is 
pitched upon by the apostle, as fit for his purpose, because, 
in both, obedience was joined with faith; whereas here was 
a pme act of faith without works, and of this act of faith is 


Ds * Pug. Fid. p. 674, 


Vor, IV.—69 


said, what is not said of either of the other, “it was imputed 
to him for righteousness” (see ver. 22). (2.) God for this 
act of faith, and not upon the former, dealt with him as 
a righteous person, by entering into covenant with him, 
which was a sign that he accepted him, and pardoned 
all his sins past; for it is said, “In that very day God 
entered into covenant with Abraham” (Gen. xv. 18), 
which he had not done before. Moreover this was spoken 
to Abraham before his circumcision, and so is very proper 
to convince the Jews of the no necessity of circumcision to 
justification: but Abraham offered Isaac after his cirewmci- 
sion, and so the apostle could not allege that instance of his 
faith here (ver. 10, 11); he therefore was accounted righte- 
ous by virtue of that faith which excludes boasting (il. 27), 
and only justifies by grace. 

3 Ver. δ. Ἐπὶ τὸν δικαιοῦντα τὸν ἀσεβῆ, On him that justi- 
Jies the ungodly.] Justification being only the nonimputa- 
tion or the pardon of their past sins on the account of that 
faith, which laid the highest obligations upon all believers to 
die unto sin for the future, there is no absurdity in saying, 
that God thus “justifies the ungodly,” repenting of, and en- 
gaging to cease from, their ungodliness (ver. 6). 

4 Ver. 6. Even as David λέγει τὸν μακαρισμὸν.) Speaks of 
the blessedness of those, to whom God imputeth δικαιοσύνην, 
justification, i. e. exemption from the guilt and punishment 
of sin, without such works as can justly plead for that ex- 
emption and freedom from punishment, by saying, “ Blessed 
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin.” In which 
citation there is not one word of any work to make him 
righteous in the sight of God, and therefore blessed, but 
only of an act of free grace in the forgiveness or the nonim- 
putation of his sin, in which the evangelical justification 
formally consists (see the preface to the Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, section the 4th). 

5 Ver. 9. ᾿Ελογίσϑη τῷ ᾿Αβραὰμ ἡ πίστις» Faith was reck- 
oned to Abraham for righteousness.) The gloss of R. 
Salmon on Gen. xv. 6 is this: “The blessed God reputed 
this to Abraham for righteousness and merit, for the faith by 
which he believed in him.” And the book Ikkarim* saith 
thus: “Our father Abraham was praised for his faith, as 
saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was 
counted to him for righteousness.” 

6 Ver. 11. Sppayida τῆς δικαιοσύνης τῆς πίστεως τῆς ἐν τῇ 
ἀκροβυστίᾳ, The seal of the righteousness of faith, &c.] The 
apostle in this epistle insists much upon the justification of 
the uncircumcised gentiles, called therefore by the Jews 4 
ἀκροβυστίᾳ, “the uncircumcision” (Eph. ii. 11, Rom. ii. 25— 
27), declaring that God is not the God of the Jews only, 
but also of the gentiles, seeing he will justify both the cir- 
cumcision, and the uncircumcision through faith (iii. 29, 30) ; 
that the blessing of justification came not only on the cir- 
cumcision but on the uncircumcision also (ver. 9), faith 
being accounted to Abraham for righteousness, when he was 


* Lib. 1. 


cap. 21. jr 


y2 


546 


which he had yet being uncircumcised (and so of his 
acceptance with that God, who thus entered into covenant 
with him, and owned himself his God, Gen. xvii. 1): 
that he might be the 7 father of all them that believe, 
though they be not circumcised; that righteousness 
might be imputed unto them also (which it could not 
be, were circumcision the condition of justification and ac- 
ceplance with God) : 

12 And (that he might be) the father of (the) circum- 
cision (7. e. a father) to them who are not of the cir- 
cumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that 
faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet 
uncircumcised. 

13 (L say, that he might be the father of the wncircum- 
cised through faith, and of the circumcision through the 
like faith, ili. 30,) For the promise (made to Abraham, 
Gen. xii. 3, or to his seed, Gen. xxii. 18), that δ he 
should be the heir of the world (¢. e. of those blessings 
which should be derived from him to all the families and 
nations Gitte earth), was not (made) to Abraham, or to 
his seed, through (or by virtue of their obedience to) the 
law, but through (and by virtue of ) the righteousness 
of faith. 

14 For if they which are of the law Le heirs (accord- 
ing to the promise made upon that account), ° faith is 


ROMANS. 


made void (as being insufficient to justify without the 
law), and the promise made of none effect ( for then the 
nations which are not under the law cannot be blessed in 
the seed of Abraham) : 

15 Because " the law worketh wrath (by condemn- 
ing the transgressor to that death to which without the 
law he would not be subject): for where no law is, 
there is no transgression (and so no condemnation for 
it. 

16 And(Therefore it (the inheritance, Gal. iii. 18) is 
of faith, that it might be by grace; (which both Jew 
and gentile wanted as to justification, iii. 23, 24.) to the 
end the promise (of 11) might be sure to all the seed 
(of Abraham) ; not to that only which is of the law, 
but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who 
is the father of us all (7. 6. that it might be made 
good to the gentile also, believing as their father Abra- 
ham did. 

17 I say the father of us all),( Asit is written (Gen. 
xvii. 5), | have made thee a" father of many nations,) 
(which words, though spoken then when Abraham had 
no seed, yet were they certain,) before (or in respect of ) 
him whom he believed, even (that) God, 15. who 
quickeneth the dead (and so was able to quicken his 
body, now dead, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb), 


in uncircumcision (ver. 10). So that these words may be 
rendered thus, “ And he received the sign of circumcision, a 
seal of the righteousness of that faith which is in the uncir- 
cumcision ;” i. e. of God’s acceptance of the uncircumcised 
gentiles through faith in Christ. 

7 Πατέρα, The futher.) i.e. That he might be the father 
of all nations, whether Jew or gentile, and they might all be 
blessed in him, according to the promise, “In thee shall all 
the nations of the earth be blessed,” Gen. xii. 3, or as it is 
Gen. xxii. 18, “In thy seed.” 

8 Ver. 13. Τὸν κληρονόμον αὐτὸν εἶναι τοῦ κόσμο", That he 
should be the heir of the world.| The whole difficulty of 
this verse rests upon the true interpretation of this phrase, 
«That he should be the heir of the world.’ Some think 
that to be “the heir of the world” here, is to be “heir of 
the land of Canaan,” and the parts adjacent to it, Idumea, 
ἄς. But this is not only impertinent to the purpose 
of the apostle, who is here proving, not that temporal 
possessions, but that justification is not by the law, but 
by faith; but seemeth flatly contrary to the apostle; for the 
promise of the land of Canaan was made to Abraham on his 
circumcision, and to his seed, (Gen. xvii. 7, 8), and the 
possession of, and their continuance in it, was still promised 
to the Jews, upon condition of their obedience to the law of 
Moses. Others think, that to be “heir of the world,” is to 
be heir of the spiritual and heavenly Canaan: but then, as 
it is hard to find where any such promise is made to Abra- 
ham and his seed; so it is as difficult to show how this ac- 
cords with the main scope of the apostle, which is to esta- 
blish our justification by faith. The ancient Greek scholiasts 
interpret the words thus: That he should be heir of the 
world, rovrecrw, ἐν αὐτῷ εὐλογεῖσϑαι πάντα τὰ τοῦ κόσμου 
ἔθνη, i. 6. “that all the nations of the world should be 
blessed in him.” So Chrysostom, Theodoret, ‘Theophylact, 
Quod enim dicit, Benedicentur in te omnes tribus terre, hoc 
est heredem factum esse totius mundi: so Origen. And 
this is confirmed from the parallel place, Gal. iii. 8, for the 
promise mentioned here must be the same with the pro- 
mise mentioned there, because the argument is the same. 
Now, (1.) the promise there is, “In thy seed,” that is 
Christ, «shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (ver. 
12). And (2.) he there speaks of a promise made four hun- 
dred and thirty years before the law, which term only agrees 
to the promise made Gen. xii. 3. (3.) This is the blessing 
of Abraham that was to come upon the gentiles, Gal. iii. 14; 
for, saith the apostle, “the scriptures foreseeing that God 
would justify the gentiles through faith (in the promised 
seed), preached the gospel before to Abraham, saying, In 
thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed: so then 
they that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” 


of the believing world ; and they after him, as being his sons 
and seed, by walking in the steps of his faith, and so be- 
coming heirs with him of the same promise; for “if you be 
Christ’s,” if by faith you be interested in him, saith the 
apostle, “then are you Abraham’s seed, and heirs according 
to the promise,” Gal. iii. 29; so Heb. xi. 7. Noah is said 
by his faith to condemn the unbelieving world, and to be 
τῆς κατὰ πίστιν δικαιοσύνης κληρονόμος, “" the heir of righteousness 
which is by faith,” i. e. the father of all that believed unto 
justification, or righteousness, after him. 

9 Ver. 14. If they which are of the law be heirs, fuith is 
made void.| It is made void to them who are not of the 
law, because then they cannot by it be made heirs; and it 
is also made void to them that are of the law, because they 
were heirs before, and may still be without it, ver. 15. 

10 Ver, 15. For the law worketh wrath.| To wit, to the 
transgressors of it: “for where there is no law, there is no 
transgression.”’ It is a very great mistake to think, as some 
do, that the apostle lays down this as a general rule, that 
where there is no positive law to which threats and punish- 
ments are annexed, there is no transgression; for the plain 
consequence of this would be, that the heathens, having no 
positive law, could be guilty of no transgression, whereas 
the scripture represents them as dead in trespasses and 
sins” (Eph. ii. 1, Col. ii. 13), as persons who shall be 
judged hereafter “according to their works” (Rom. ii. 6), 
and shall receive “tribulation and wrath” for working evil 
(ver. 9), who sin “without (a positive) law,” and shall 
therefore perish without law (ver. 12), and as men, who are 
“ condemned in their own consciences by the law written in 
their hearts” (ver. 15). The apostle therefore must be only 
conceived to prove from this general rule, that where there 
is no law at all, there is no transgression; and that if the 
law of Moses worketh wrath, there must be a transgression 
of it rendering men obnoxious to the death it threateneth 
(ver. 19, 20, vide Examen Milli). 

Ver. 17. A father of many nations.| The Jews hence 
prove that a proselyte, converted to the Jewish faith, might 
be legatus synagoge, quia scriptum extat, Constitui te pa- 
trem universitatis gentium, “ because it is written (Ger - xvii. 
5), 1 have made thee a father of all nations:” before this 
time, say they, he was only a father of the Syrians; but 
from this time, he was the father of all nations (see Campe- 
gius Vitringa de Synag. Vet. lib. iii. par. ii. cap. 6, p. 943). 

12 Tod ζωοποιοῦντος τοὺς νεκροὺς, Who quickeneth the dead.) 
This being an instance of the faith of Abraham, it seems 
most reasonable to refer to the object of this faith, viz. that 
he should have a numerous seed; yea, that he should have 
the promised seed from Sarah, though her womb was dead; 
“and it ceased to be with her after the manner of women ;” 


He first, as being the father of the faithful, and so the heir | and so Hilary the deacon doth interpret this vhrase 


CHAPTER IV. 


and 15 calleth those things which be not (7. e. the gen- 
tiles, which were not then a people) as though they 
were. 

18 Who “against (all natural grounds of ) hope be- 
lieved in hope, that he might (πε should) become the 
father of many nations, according to that which was 
spoken (fo him, Gen. xv. 5, As the stars of heaven) so 
shall thy seed be. 

19 And being not weak in faith, he considered 
not his own body “ now dead, when he was about 
an hundred years old, (or grown already dead, he 
being about one hundred years old,) neither yet the 
deadness of Sarah’s womb: (with whom it had 


547 


| ceased to be after the manner of women, Gen. xviii. 11 :) 


20 He" staggered not at (Gr. he doubled not of ) the 
promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in 
faith, giving glory to God (by acknowledging his power 
to make it good ) ; 

21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had 
promised, he was able also to perform. 

22 And therefore it (viz. this strong faith) was im- 
puted to him for righteousness. 

23 7 Now it was not written (thus of him) for his 
sake alone, that it (viz. his failh) was imputed to him 
(for righteousness) ; 

24 But for (the benefit of) us also, to whom it (viz. 


13 Ἰζαλοῦντος τὰ μὴ ὄντα, ὡς ὄντα, And calleth things that be 
not as if they were.) “He that is far from God,” saith 
Origen, “as we gentiles were before we came to the know- 
ledge of the truth, is said not to be ;” and therefore God, de- 
signing to render them the seed of Abraham by faith, is said 
to “call those things that be not, as if they were:” for τὰ 
μὴ ὄντα, “things which are not,” both in the language of the 
Old Testament, and of the Jews, and of the primitive 
Christians, signifies the gentiles, by converting whom, saith 
Clemens R.," éxi\soev ἡμᾶς οὐκ ὄντας, καὶ ἐθέλησεν ἐκ τοῦ ph 
ὄντος εἶναι ἡμᾶς, “God called us that were not, and would 
that of nothing we should have a being ;” as I have shown, 
note on 1 Cor. i. 8. 

4 Ver. 18.] Note, that this verse confirms the exposition 
of the former verse, showing that the faith there mentioned 
hath reference to this promise. 

15 Ver. 19. Νενεκρωμένον, Now dead.) It is here objected, 
that Abraham's body could not be thus dead, since after the 
death of Sarah, even forty years after, he had six sons by 
Keturah (Gen. xxv. 1). But they who here tell us, that 
Abraham’s body was not simply dead, but only as to Sarah’s 
womb, and that by a young woman he was able to have seed 
then, speak expressly against the text, which saith, “his 
body was grown dead,” and against the opinion of Abraham 
himself, Gen. xvii. 17, and of Sarah concerning him, Gen. 
xviii. 12, They who add that this need not seem strange, 
that Abraham should have children by Keturah, considering 
the age to which he had lived, since in our time men have 
had children after they have been seventy or eighty years 
old; they will not suffer that to be strange to us which 
seems strange to Abraham himself; witness his answer to 
the promise of Almighty God, «Shall a child be born to him 
that is a hundred years old?” Gen. xvii. 17, “Ὁ that Ish- 
mael might live before thee!” and to Sarah, Gen. xviii. 12. 
They deny the miracle effected by the great power of God, 
which therefore the angel doth encourage Sarah to believe, 
because “nothing can be too hard for God” (Gen. xviii. 
13). They lessen the faith of Abraham which is so highly 
magnified here, as being “hope against hope” (ver. 18), 
“believing in him that quickeneth the dead” (ver. 17), not 
“staggering at the promise, but being strong in faith” (ver. 
20). That therefore must be here acknowledged, which the 
Jewish doctors and all the Christian fathers say, that God 
gave a new blessing to their bodies, and by that rendered 
them capable of getting and bearing children, when by na- 
ture they were not so. This of Sarah, the Targum of B. 
Uziel hints, by paraphrasing the words thus, Gen. xvii. 16, 
“ As for Sarah, I will bless her, mpyaa, in her body.” And 
the apostle more plainly in these words, “Through faith also 
Sarah herself receiveth strength to conceive seed” (Heb. xi. 
11). 

16 Ver. 20. Οὐ διεκρίθη τῇ ἀπιστία, He doubted not through 
unbelief.) It seems, his faith was not without some doubt- 
ing, from that answer he returns to God, “Shall a child be 
born to Abraham, that is a hundred years old? And shall 
Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” In which words he 
seems to consider both “ his own dead body, and Sarah’s 
dead womb,” which the apostle here denies, ver. 18, and ver. 
19, he says to God, « O that Ishmael might live before thee !” 
as if he expected no other offspring. ‘To the first objection 
it is answered that those words, “Shall a child be born to 


Abraham?” are to be considered as words of admiration, | 


not of doubting; for he rejoiced at it, saith the Chaldee, and 


* Ep. 2, sect. 1. 


the Hebrew word, which we render “laughed,” hath this 
import, xxi. 6. Nor is Abraham reprehended for it, as Sarah 
is, xviii. 13, John viii. 56. To the second it is answered, 
That he only desires God to bless him also, as well as the 
seed promised, which appears probable from God’s answer, 
Gen. xvii. 20, “ As for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, 
I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful.” 

17 Ver. 23—25.] Note, That from these last three verses 
many things may be observed, which tend to the illustration 
of the doctrine of faith, and of justification by faith. And, 

First, From ver. 3. 22, 23, 24, it is extremely evident, 
that it is the very act of faith, and not the object of it, viz. 
Christ’s righteousness, which was imputed to Abraham, and 
is imputed to us for righteousness. As then the faith of 
Abraham, which is here said to be imputed to him for right- 
eousness, was not the obeying God in his commands of 
“walking before him, and being perfect,” but, as is here ex- 
pressly said, his believing God’s power, and his reliance on 
it without any doubting, was the thing that was imputed to 
him for righteousness, as well as that other act of faith, that 
“in his seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed :” 
so the faith that shall be imputed to us for justification, 
is not, saith the apostle, that which includeth the perform- 
ance of sincere obedience, not only faith in the blood of 
Christ shed for the remission of our sins; but faith in him 
that raised up Jesus from the dead, that he will raise us also 
from the dead, and glorify us with him (see the note on 
Rom. x. 9). So also is the faith of Abraham and Sarah re- 
presented, Heb. xi. 11. 

Secondly, Hence also we learn that our justification de- 
pends not only on the death of Christ, but on his resurree- 
tion: so the apostle doth again teach us, saying, “ Who is 
he that condemneth us? it is Christ that died (as a piacular 
victim for our sins), yea, rather that is risen again, who is 
even at the right hand of God (presenting the blood of this 
victim in his presence for us) who (by it) also maketh inter- 
cession for us.’ For the clearing up of this matter, let it be 
noted, 

First, That as the victim offered under the Old Testa- 
ment was brought to the altar, and there slain; so Christ, 
offering himself for us, was also brought to the altar of the 
cross on which he suffered, as a piacular victim for us, 
“bearing our sins in his own body on the tree.” 

Secondly, As the blood of the beast thus slain was to be 
brought before the mercy-seat, or into the holy of holies, 
and there presented before God to make atonement with; 
so was the blood of Christ, thus slain also, to be carried into 
the heavenly sanctuary, and there presented before God to 
make atonement for our sins. 

Thirdly, As the beast, when dead, could not offer up its 
own blood; so Christ, being dead, could not, before his re- 
surrection, make an offering of his own blood, in the hea- 
vens for this end; whence the apostle tells us that “such 
a high-priest became us, who is higher than the heavens” 

Heb. vii. 26). And were the opinion of some true, that 

‘hrist appeared not with his blood in the heavens, he must 
be only a metaphorical high-priest, the offering or present- 
ing of the blood before God being only the proper office of 
the priesthood, and the parallel the apostle makes betwixt 
him and the Aaronical priests must be wholly overthrown : 
for with what congruity could the apostle insist so much on 
the comparison betwixt the blood of Christ brought into the 
heavenly tabernacle, and the blood of the legal sacrifices 
brought into the earthly tabernacle, if indeed the blood of 
Christ was not carried into the true tabernacle, and there 


548 


the like faith) shall be imputed (for righteousness), if 
we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from 
the dead (that he can and will raise us also by Jesus from 
the dead, and crown us with him) ; 

25 Who was delivered (to the death) for our offences 


ROMANS. 


(to offer up himself a piacular victim for them), and was 
raised again for our justification (7. e. to appear before 
God with the blood of this victim, to make alonement 
before God for us, and thereby to procure our justification, 
or our absolution from the guilt of sin). 


presented to God? When the apostle saith so oft, the 
Jewish “high-priest entered into the holy place with the 
blood of bulls and goats,” doth he not mean that he carried 
their blood in thither?’ When then the same apostle saith, 


“ Christ, not by the blood of bulls and goats, but διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου 
αἵματος, by his own proper blood, entered into the holy 
place,” must he not also mean that Christ carried his own 
blood into the heavenly sanctuary ? 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Tuererore being justified by faith (and so ab- 
solved from those sins which rendered us obnoxious to the 
displeasure of God), we have peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ: 

2 By whom also we have access by faith into this 
(slale of ) grace (or favour of God) wherein we stand, 
and rejoice in hope of (the fruition of ) the glory of 
God. 

3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations 
also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; 

4 And patience, (gives) experience (of God’s power 
with us, enabling us to bear these tribulations, and of our 
sincere affection to him, for whose sake we suffer them) ; 
and experience (of these things, worketh in us) hope (uf 
a reward): 

5 And hope maketh (us) not ashamed (of our fatlh 
in Christ, Rom. i. 16); because (a sense of ) 1 the love 
of God is 5 shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy 
Ghost which is given unto us (believers, as the earnest 
of our future inheritance, Eph. i. 14, iv. 30, and the fruit 
of our faith, Eph. i. 13, Gal. iii. 14. 


6 Of which love to us, even before we belicved, the 
gospel gives us the highest demonstrations ;) For when 
we ® were yet without strength, in due time (Gr. we 
being fallen at the appointed time) Christ died for the 
ungodly, (for us, who since our fall had no righteousness 
of our own. 

7 Which surely is a high degree of love, beyond all 
human example ;) For scarcely for a righteous man will 
one die (J say, for a righteous man only) : yet peradven- 
ture for a‘ good (7. ε. α highly kind and charitable) 
man some would even dare to die. 

8 But 5 God commendeth his love toward us, in 
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

9 (And if God through Christ Jesus showed such kind- 
ness to us, being sinners,) Much more then, being now 
justified by his blood (and so made righteous in his sight, 
and having peace with God, ver. 1,) we shall be saved 
from (ke) wrath (of God) through him. 

10 For if, when we were enemies (/o him), we were 
§ reconciled to Ged by the death of his Son, much 
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved 7 by his life. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 5. Ἢ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θνοῦ, The love of God.) To us thus 
believing. So viii. 35.39, 2 Cor. v. 14, xiii. 13, 1 John iii. 
9, 10. 

2 "Exxéxvrat, Is shed abroad.| This is the word still used 
in the New ‘Testament, when speaking of the effusion of the 
Holy Ghost, Acts ii. 17, x. 45, Titus iii. 6, and it is taken 
from Joel 11, 28, 29, and so this may refer to the χαρίσματα 
of the Holy Ghost, so liberally imparted to them. 

3 Ver. 6. Ὄντων ἡμῶν ἀσϑενῶν, When we were weak.) It 
may here be noted, that the words ἀσϑενὴς, ἀσϑενέω, ἀσϑένεια, 
in the LXX. answer to the Hebrew $wp, and signify to fall, 
and stumble to our ruin. So Ps. ix. 3, “They shall fall 
and perish, ἀσϑενήσουσι καὶ ἀπολοῦνται, at thy presence ;” 
Ps. xxvi. 4, « They stumbled and fell,” ἠσϑένησαν καὶ ἔπεσον. 
Ps. evi. 12, ἡσϑένησαν, « They fell down, and there was none 
to help them;” Prov. xxiv. 16, “The wicked shall fall into 
mischief,” dcSevficovct ἐν κακοῖς. Jer. vi. 21, “I will lay stum- 
blingblocks before this people, and the fathers and sons shall 
fall together,” ἀσϑενήσουσι ἐν αὐτῆ: xviii. 15, xlvi. 6. 12, and 
ver. 16, “He made many to fall,” τὸ πλῆθός cov ἠσθένησε, |. 
32, Lam. v.15; Dan. xi. 14, « Many shall stand up against 
the king of the south, but they shall fall,” ἀσϑενήσουσι. So 
ver. 19. 33—35; so Hosea iv. 5, v. 5, xiv. 2.10. And this 
import of the word suits well with the text, and so is proper 
to represent our fall by sin; and the words following, ver. 8, 
ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν, “ Even whilst we were sinners Christ 
died for us,” do render it so probable, that I thought fit to 
mention it in the paraphrase. 

4 Ver. 7.1 ᾿Αγαθοῦ is not only a virtuous, but an obliging, 
charitable man, Matt. xx. 15, “Is thy eye evil because I am 
good?” “Overcome evil ἐν τῷ ἀγαθῳ with kindness,” Rom. 
xii. 21. Τὸ ἀγαθόν cov, is “thy kindness,” Philem. 14. So 
ἀγαθὸς ὀφθαλμὸς is “the liberal eye,” Ecclus. xxxv. 8. See 
Buxtorf. in voce py, p. 1601. 

5 Ver. 8. Συνίστησι δὲ ὃ Θεὸς, But God commends his love 
to us.] The death of Christ is usually in scripture repre- 
sented as an instance of the great love of God the Father to 
us, because his wisdom did contrive this way of redemption 


for us (Eph. i. 4, 5); “he sent his Son into the world to be 
the propitiation for our sins, that we might live through him” 
(1 John iv. 9, 10); he graciously accepted of his suffering 
in our stead, and justifies us “freely by his grace, through 
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. iii. 24); 
« He spared not his own Son, but gave him up freely for us 
all” (Rom. viii. 32): though it be also true, that “ Christ 
loved us, and gave himself for us” (Gal. ii. 20, Eph. v. 2) ; 
and that this “love of Christ” ought to “constrain us” to 
obedience (2 Cor. v. 14). 

6 Ver. 10, Ἔν τῇ ζωῆ αὐτοῦ, By his life.) He being able 
to “save us to the uttermost,’’ because “he ever lives to 
make intercession for us” (Heb. vii. 25); and having all 
power committed to him, “that he might give eternal life to 
them whom God hath given him” (John xvii. 2). 

7 Κατηλλάγημεν τῷ Θεῷ, We were reconciled to God.] Here 
are many arguments to establish the doctrine of our Lord’s 
satisfaction by suffering in our stead, to reconcile an offended 
God to us. For, 

First, When it is here said that « Christ died for the un- 
godly,” 1 Pet. iii. 18, that “« when we were yet sinners Christ 
died for us,’’ 1 Cor. v. 15, and elsewhere, that “he suffered 
for our sins, the just for the unjust,’ Heb. i. 9, 1 Pet. iv. 1, 
in these and such-like places, one of these two things is inti- 
mated, that our Lord suffered in our stead, or that he bore 
the punishment of our sin: this being the plain import of 
the like expressions when they are used in the Old or New 
Testament. For when we read in the Old Testament, “The 
fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the 
children for the fathers; every man shall be put to death 
for his own sin,” Deut. xxiv. 17; of Amaziah, that he “slew 
those servants that had murdered the king his father, but the 
children of those murderers he slew not,” according to those 
words of Moses, “The fathers shall not be put to death,” 
οὐκ ἀποθανοῦνται, “they shall not die for the children,” &c., 
2 Kings xiv. 6, 2 Chron. xxv. 4, and in the prophet Eze- 
kiel, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die; the son shall not 
bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father bear the 
iniquity of the son,” Ezek. xviii. ; in all these places itis plain 
no substitution is intended, because no exemption of the 


CHAPTER V. 


11 And not only so (ἡ. 6. we are not only reconciled | 
to), but we also joy (Gr. we are rejoicing) in God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom δ we have 
now received the atonement (or reconciliation). 


12 Wherefore (διὰ τοῦτο, by reason of this reconeilia- | fi 


tion, life is procured to us by the second Adam, as death 
came by the first, for) as by one man sin entered into 


father, because the son, or of the son, because the father 
suffers: but then it is plainly intimated that the one in this 
case would bear the punishment of the other’s sin. But 
when David saith concerning Absalom, “ Would God I had 
died for thee, O Absalom,” τίς dei τὸν Stivarév pov ἀντί cov; 2 
Sam. xviii. 33, Ὁ that my death might have gone instead 
of thine!’ when here the apostle saith that “scarcely for a 
righteous person one would die, but for a good man some 
would even dare to die;” there evidently a substitution is 
intended of the one to free the other from death by the 
death he suffers. When therefore the apostle before and 
after these words saith, “Christ died for the ungodly” and 
the sinner, must he not also signify that our Lord died 
in their stead, to deliver them from death? It is evident, be- 
yond exception, that in all piacular sacrifices, both Jew and 
gentile always took this for granted, that the victim suffered 
in their stead, and for their sins. Since then the Socinians 
own that our Lord suffered as victima piacularis, or “an ex- 
piatory sacrifice,” surely both Jew and gentile must conceive 
that all these phrases did import that our Lord suflered in 
our stead, and for our sins. 

Secondly, A second argument is taken from the “ recon- 
ciliation,’ mentioned as the effect of our Lord’s suffering for 
us; for seeing it is alone the guilt of sin, or sin unpardoned, 
that maketh God displeased with us, the death which is here 
said to “ procure our peace and reconciliation” to God, must 
make atonement for the guilt of our iniquities. 

Crellius replies, that by “reconciliation” here the apostle 
intends not God’s reconciliation to us, but ours to God, by 
that conversion to him, which maketh us at friendship with 
him. But this may be refuted, 

First, From the import of the words καταλλάττειν and 
καταλλαγὴ, for they do naturally import the reconciliation of 
one that is angry or displeased with us, both in profane and 
Jewish writers; thus, ἔν τινὶ διαλλαγήσεται ; “In what shall 
David reconcile himself to his lord?” 1 Sam. xxix. 4. 
When Apame, the famous concubine, was angy with king 
Darius, he flattered her ὅπως διαλλαγῇ αὐτῷ, that “she might 
be reconciled to him,” 1 Esd. iv. 21. After the reviling or 
falling out of friends, ἐστὶ διαλλαγὴ * there is, or may be, re- 
conciliation,” saith the son of Sirach, Ecclus. xxii. 22. The 
Jews in Egypt pray for those in Judea, that the Lord 
would hear their prayer, καὶ xara\\ayein, “and be reconciled 
to them,” 2 Mace. i. 5, adding, that as Jerusalem was for- 
saken through the wrath of the Almighty, so é τῇ τοῦ μεγά- 
Nov Δεσπύτου καταλλαγῆς “ when the great God was reconciled, 
it was set up with glory,” v.20. And again, though the 
Lord, say they, be angry with us a little while for our chas- 
tisement and correction, πάλιν καταλλαγήσεται, “ he will again 
be reconciled to his servants,” vii. 33. And they beseech 
the Lord εἰς τέλος καταλλαγῆναι, “to be reconciled to his ser- 
vants for ever,” viii. 29. Whence we learn, that reconci- 
liation always respecteth some preceding anger or displea- 
sure; and that the reconciling of God was the appeasing of 
his anger: when therefore we here read in the same words 
of “enemies reconciled to God,’ and so “saved from his 
wrath,” what can we imagine, but that a God once angry and 
offended with them is now appeased? And when we farther 
read, that this reconciliation was effected by the death and | 
blood of Christ, is it not obvious to conceive his wrath and 
anger was averted by the shedding this blood for us? 

Secondly, It is evident that “ when we were sinners Christ 
died for us,” ver. 8, and “when we were enemies, we were 
reconciled to God by the death of his Son,” ver. 10, are 
words of the same import; for seeing these words “ Christ 
died for us,” and “ Christ shed his blood for us,” signify the 
same thing, and by his blood shed we are reconciled; it is 
evident that “ Christ dying for us,” and “ Christ reconciling 
us by his death,” or blood shed for us, must be the same; 
now we are “justified by his blood,” as it procures our 


549 


the world, and death by sin (or for sin) ; and so death 
passed upon all men (through him), ® for that all have 
(so far) sinned (as to become equally obnoxious to death 
with him: so the second Adam came to deliver all men 
rom the death procured by him : 

13 Through him, I say,) (For (it must indeed be con- 
Sessed, that) until the law sin was in the world: but 


“ peace with God,” ver. 1, as it “saves us from his wrath,” 
ver. 9. Therefore we are reconciled to God by it on the 


τὶ πρῦπο 

Thirdly, We being here considered as “ sinners,” “ un- 
godly,” “enemies to God,” as persons who have, upon that 
account, “fallen short of the glory,” that is, saith Crellius, 
“of the approbation of God” (Rom. iii. 23), is there no 
need of reconciling God unto such persons? And when un- 
der these circumstances we are said to be “justified through 
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. iii. 25, 26), 
and “being justified, to have peace with God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ,” can we conceive that nothing was done 
by this Jesus to procure God’s reconciliation to the sinner, 
or to purchase his peace with an offended God? Especially 
if we consider that the death of Christ here mentioned, as 
that by which we are reconciled to God, is the death of him 
who suffered as a sin-offering for us; the blood, by which 
we are justified, is the blood of atonement, or propitiation, or 
the “blood shed to make reconciliation for the sins of the 
people” (Heb. ii. 17). 

8 Ver. 11. Τὴν καταλλαγὴν ἐλάβομεν, We have received the 
atonement.] Crellius excepts against this interpretation, al- 
leging that to “receive or obtain reconciliation” is a phrase 
unknown to Jew and gentile; and would have the words 
rendered thus, “By whom we have obtained this conver- 
sion to God:” but to obtain reconciliation, when it is the 
effect of blood shed for the remission of sins, is very proper ; 
for it was the constant practice under the law to procure re- 
conciliation by shedding the blood of the sin-offering; and 
all nations by this means endeavoured to reconcile God to 
them, and what reconciliation the priest, by offering this 
blood, procured, the sinner received and obtained; and 
therefore to “receive atonement” or “obtain reconciliation” 
by an expiatory sacrifice, must be a thing very well known 
to Jew and gentile: but to receive conversion by it, is in- 
deed a phrase unknown to them, and the whole church of 
Christ. Moreover, this note of Crellius shows his little skill in 
the Greek, for as ϑάρσος λαμβάνειν is “to be courageous,” Acts 
XXviil. 15, ἀρχὴν λαμβάνειν is “ to begin,” λήθην λαμβάνειν is “to 
forget,” Heb. ii. 3, ὑπύμνησιν λαμβάνειν “to remember,” 2 Tim. 
i. 5, πεῖραν λαμβάνειν “to experiment,’ Heb. ix. 36, οἰκοδομὴν 
λαμβάνειν “to be edified,” 1 Cor. xiv. 15, so καταλλαγὴν λαμ- 
Bivew is “to be reconciled,” as noxam capere is “to be hurt.” 

9 Ver. 12. ‘Ep’, In whom.] The critics have been very 
industrious to find some other sense of these words than 
that which our translation gives, some rendering this last 
clause, “for that,” some, “because all have sinned.” But 
our exposition is confirmed beyond all contradiction from 
the following words, which declare, that “ by the sin of one 
man, many die;” and that “ by the sin of one, death reigned 
by one;” and that “by one offence the sentence of death 
came upon all,” ver. 15—18. All which are parallel to the 
expression here, that death came upon all men through 
Adam, “in whom,” saith the same apostle, “all men die” 
(1 Cor. xv. 22). And the words following, that “by the 
disobedience of one many were made sinners,” are plainly 
parallel to these, “in whom all have sinned.” 

2. None of the other senses are true, or suitable to the 
scope and argument of the apostles; v. g. It is not true that 
death came upon all men, “for that,” or “because” all have 
sinned. For the apostle directly here asserts the contrary ; 
viz. that the death, and condemnation to it, which befell all 
men, was for the sin of Adam only: for here it is expressly 
said that “by the sin of one man many died;” that «the 
sentence was for one,” and “ by one man sinning to condem- 
nation ;” and that “by the sin of one death reigned by 
one;” therefore the apostle doth expressly teach us that 
this death, this condemnation to it, came not upon us for the 
sin of all, but only for the sin of one, i. 6. of that one Adam, 
“in whom all men die” (1 Cor. xv. 22). 


550 


(zt must also be acknowledged that) sin is not 10 (generally 
then) '! imputed (fo death) when there is no law (con- 
demning men to death for it). 

14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses 
(the giver of a new law, threatening death to the trans- 
gressors of it), even over them that had not sinned 
after the similitude of Adam’s transgression (7. e. men 
were all the while subject to death, though they sinned 
not as Adam did against an express law, threatening 
death to them for tt, and therefore death must reign 


ROMANS. 


over them for the sin of Adam), who (in this) is the figure 
(or resemblance) of him (2. 6. of the second Adam, Christ) 
that was to come. 

15 But (in this resemblance there are two advantageous 
dissimilitudes ; for) not as the offence, so also is the 
free gift. For if through the offence of one ? many be 
dead (Gr. died), much more the grace of God, and the 
gift (of justification procured) by (or through) grace, 
which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded 
unto many. 


> 

He also farther teacheth, that this death and condemna- 
tion came upon all for one sin of that one man, for it came, 
δι ἑνὸς παραπτώματος, “by one offence” upon all men; it 
came not therefore upon all men for the sin of all: and this 
the comparison plainly requires, which saith, the opposite 
justification and free gift came upon all men “ by one man, 
Jesus Christ ;” “by the obedience of one,” and dv’ ἑνὸς δικαιώ- 
paros, “ by one righteousness,” ver. 1G6—19, i. e. by the obe- 
dience to the death of that one man. Yea, the apostle doth, 

3. Not only thus plainly and frequently assert that death 
came upon all men for the sin of Adam, but he proves it by 
this argument; that “death reigned from Adam to Moses, 
over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s 
transgression ;” i. 6. against a law threatening death to them 
for sin; they therefore, saith he, could not die for their own 
sins: for though indeed they were then sinners, yet being 
under no such law as Adam was, their sin was not imputed 
to death, and so they could not die on that account; death 
therefore came upon them, as I asserted, through the sin of 
Adam. 

10 Ver. 13.] I add, generally : because though all men 
died after Adam, all were not punished with death for 
their own personal sin, but only the antediluvians and the 
Sodomites. 

Here also note, that the apostle cannot be rationally con- 
ceived to assert, as Mr. L. suggests, that “no man can incur 
a penalty without the sanction of a positive law declaring 
and establishing that penalty.” For this assertion entirely 
destroys the obligation of the heathens to perform any duty, 
since no man can be obliged to do that, which he may omit 
without fear of punishment, and renders the heathens, who 
had no positive law given them, incapable of incurring any 
penalty by any sins they had committed. The meaning 
therefore of the apostle seems to be only this, that the law 
threatening death to Adam, being not made to all mankind, 
but to him alone, all men, good and bad, could not then 
generally die for their own sins; but this mortality fell on 
them all without distinction in that interval on the account 
of that one sin of Adam, which rendered all his posterity 
subject to that mortality he had incurred by his sin ; where- 
fore to say that all men were not subject to mortality by 
reason of the sin of Adam, would be to contradict Paul: 
but to say that they, who were swept away by the flood 
with an untimely death, did not die for their own, but for 
Adam’s sin, is to contradict God himself, saying, “I will 
destroy man from the earth, for the iniquity of man is very 
great,’ ἄς. (Gen. v.) 

M'Apapria dé οὐκ ἐλλογεῖται, Sin was not imputed.) The 
apostle doth not mean that God did not account them sin- 
ners who transgressed against the law of nature, or that he 
was not displeased with them for their offences, but only 
that he did not so impute them as to condemn them to 
death for them. To make this out, and to give you the 
true import of the word “imputation,” let it be observed, 

First, That wherever this phrase occurs affirmatively, 
that such a thing was “imputed” to any one, it is some per- 
sonal thing or action of our own, and not any thing of an- | 
other’s which is thus said to be imputed. As when it is 
said, Rom. ii. 26, that “if the uncircumceision keep the right- 
eousness of the law, his uncircumcision” on that account 
εἰς περιτομὴν λογισϑήσεται, “shall be accounted for circumci- 
sion,” i. e. he shall be accepted as well as if he were circum- 
cised. So Rom. iv. 3, “ Abraham believed God, and it (that 
is, his faith) was imputed to him for righteousness:” for | 
so it is explained, ver. 5, «To him that worketh not, but | 
believeth, his faith is imputed to him for righteousness:” | 
and ver. 9, We say that faith was imputed to Abraham for | 


righteousness” (see Gal. iii. 6, James ii. 23). And of our faith 
in him that raised Christ from the dead, it is said, Rom. iv. 
24, that “it shall be imputed to us for righteousness.” 

Secondly, When the phrase is used with a negative, or 
when sin is said to be imputed, or not to be imputed, it is 
not only a man’s own personal sin that is intended; but the 
nonimputation of it is the not inflicting some condign pu- 
nishment upon him for it.” So Rom. iv. 8, « Blessed is the 
man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin;” which being 
spoken on the account of God’s heavy hand on David for 
his sin, Ps. xxxii. 2—4, shows that the import of it must be 
this; Blessed is the man whom God doth not punish for his 
iniquity. So 2 Tim. iv. 16, “In my first answer no man 
stood by me, μὴ αὐτοῖς λογισϑείη, may it not be imputed to 
them,” 1. 6. let them not suffer for it. So 2 Sam. xvi. 19, 
Shimei speaks to David thus, μὴ λογισάσϑω ὃ κύριός pov dvo- 
μίαν, “ Let not my lord impute to me mine iniquity ;” i. 6. 
let him not remember it to punish it. When therefore it is 
said, 2 Cor. v. 19, that «God was in Christ reconciling the 
world to himself, μὴ λογιζόμενος, not imputing to them their 
iniquities ;” the meaning is, that for Christ’s sake he was 
pleased to exempt them from the punishment of their trans- 
gressions: so in like manner here, sin is said not to be im- 
puted, whilst there isno law; not that God did not look 
upon men then as sinners, but that he did not punish them 
with death for it, but that they died a mere death, as being 
the offspring of Adam made mortal. 

Hence note, that in the scripture there is no mention of 
the imputation, either of one man’s sin, or of his righteous- 
ness, unto another, but only of the imputation of his good 
deeds for righteousness, or of his evil deeds for punishment. 
Secondly, that the punishment of Adam’s sin devolved upon 
his whole posterity, is fully proved from this chapter: but 
it is not here said that they were truly and formally made 
sinners by his sin. So likewise, that for the obedience of 
one unto the death many were made righteous, and were 
delivered from that death to which they were obnoxious, 
we are assured from this and other scriptures; but that they 
were made formally righteous by our Saviour’s righteousness 
imputed to them, the scripture doth nowhere assert. 

2 Ver. 15. Οἱ πολλοὶ ἐπέθανον, Many were dead.) When 
God said to Adam, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, 
thou shalt die,” he did not mean that he should then give 
up the ghost, but that he should be subject to mortality, 
and at the last return to the dust from whence he came; as 
experience showed, and as the fathers interpret it. Now in 
this sense, that of the apostle is most true, that in Adam all 
die, i. e. became obnoxious to mortality ; but it is not true 
that all men die only on the account of Adam’s sin, The 
old world was drowned on the account of their own sins, and 
the Jews suffered both by the hand of God and man, for 
sins committed against the law; and this perhaps might be 
the reason why the apostle saith, not by the offence of one 
“all,’ but “many,” died. The advantage therefore here 
mentioned, may consist in this, that all that die, die not 
purely for the sin of Adam, but many times bring death 
upon themselves for their own sin; but all that are justified, 
and so freed from death, are thus exempted from it only by 
virtue of the death of Christ. This is the doctrine both of 
the Jews and of the church of Christ: not.that all formally 
sinned in Adam, but that all men became obnoxious to 
death for Adam's sin. “ God,” saith the author of the book 
of Wisdom, “created man to be immortal; but through the 
envy of the devil death entered into the world,” Wisd. ii. 
23, 24; “By the woman was the beginning of sin, and by 
her we all die,” saith the son of Sirach, Ecclus. xxv. 24; 
«By the counsel which the serpent gave to Eve, all the in- 


CHAPTER V. 551 


16 And (again) not as ἐΐ was by one that sinned, so 
ws the gift: for the judgment (Gr. the sentence) was 
by one (sin) to condemnation (we being all sentenced to 
death on the account of Adam’s sin), but the free gift zs 
of 15 many offences unto (that) justification (of which 
cometh life). 

17 For if by one man’s offence death reigned by 
(thal) one (man over all his posterity); much more 
they which receive (or are made partakers of ) abun- 
dance of grace and (by M of the " gift of righteous- 
ness (or justification) shall reign in life by (the recon- 
ciliation purchased for them by the death of ) one, Jesus 
Christ.) 


habitants of the earth became obnoxious to death,” saith 
the Targum on Ruth iv. ver. ult. And the same Chaldee 
paraphrase upon Eccles. vii. the last verse, saith, “God 
made man pure and upright, but the serpent and Eve se- 
duced him to eat of the fruit of the tree, and so they made 
sie to rush upon him, and upon alk the inhabitants of the 
earth. 

18 Ver. 16. "Ex πολλῶν παραπτωμάτον, From many offences.) 
This is the second advantageous difference, viz. that whereas 
we became obnoxious to death for the sin of Adam, we by 
faith in Christ are justified, and thereby freed not only from 
the condemnation which came upon us for that sin, but also 
from the condemnation due unto us for all our offences 
against God. 

Note also, that the word κρίμα, especially when it is joined 
with death, doth usually signify a sentence condemning any 
person; κρίμα Savarov is “the sentence of death,” Deut. 
xxi. 33. So Luke xxiv. 20, “The high-priests and rulers 
delivered up Jesus, cis κρίμα ϑανάτου, to the sentence of 
death,” see xxiii. 40: Ecclus. xli. 2, “O death, how ac- 
ceptable is τὸ κρίμά cov, thy sentence to the needy!” and, 
ver. 3, “ Fear not κρίμα ϑανάτου, the sentence of death. Re- 
member them that have been before thee, and that come 
after thee, τοῦτο τὸ κρίμα παρὰ Kupiov πάσῃ σαρκὶ, for this is the 
sentence of the Lord over all flesh.” 

“Ver. 15. Ἢ δωρεὰ ἐν χάριτι. Ver. 17. Ἢ δωρεὰ dixato- 
cévns. The gift of righteousness.] I have interpreted these 
phrases of the gift of justification, as others do; but it is 
very probable that they may import the Holy Spirit given 
in baptism, and upon faith, to the believers of those times, 
who being made sons by faith in Christ, received the Spirit 
of adoption, Rom. viii. 14—16, Gal. iv. 6, and believing, 
“were sealed with the Spirit of promise,” Eph. i. 13; for he 
is styled emphatically, ἡ δωρεὰ επουράνιος, “the heavenly 
gift,” Heb. vi. 43 ἡ δωρεὰ, “the gift,” Acts xi. 173 ἡ δωρεὰ 


Θεοῦ, “the gift of God,” Acts viii. 20; “the gift of the grace 


of God,” Eph. lil. 73 ἡ δωρεὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, “the gift οἵ 
Christ,” Eph. iv. 7; “the gift of the Holy Ghost,” Acts ii. 
38, x. 45. So the Holy Ghost, given to the prophets and 
holy men of old, is by the primitive Christians usually styled 
ἡ ἄνωθεν ἐπὶ rods ἁγίους ἄνδρας ἐπελθοῦσα δωρεὰ, “the gift com- 
ing from above upon holy men,” Just. Mart. adv. Gr. p. 9, 
B. p. 11, D. p. 30, D. p. 31, C. 

% Ver. 19. ᾿Αμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν ot πολλοὶ, Many were 
made sinners.] In the exposition of this, and of the phrase 
in the twelfth verse, “in whom all have sinned,’ I follow 
the Greek expositors, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Ecurmenius, 
and Theophylact, upon the place: and to make good the 
interpretation, I shall show first the inconsistency of any 
other sense ascribed to them, with the text, with scripture, 
and with reason. And, 

First, It cannot be truly affirmed that we all actually and 
formally sinned in Adam, and upon that account were made 
sinners ; for then it was not by the “disobedience of one,” 
but of many, that many were made sinners; (2.) then 
death, the punishment of sin, came upon all, not “for the 
sin of one,” or for one sin of that one man, but for the sin 
of all; both which things I have plainly proved to be con- 
trary to the express words of the apostle. ‘Then (3.) all 
men must have sinned “after the similitude of Adam’s 
transgression ;” for if we all sinned in or with him, we must 
sin by the same act, the same will, and in the same person, 
against the same law; and surely they that thus sin, must 
sin “ after the similitude of Adam’s transgression : for what 


| puted. 


18 Therefore as by the offence of one (Gr. by one 
offence) judgment (Gr. sentence) came upon all men to 
(the) condemnation (of death); even so by the righte- 
ousness of one (by one righteous act, the obedience of 
Christ to the death for us) the free gift came upon all men 
(believing in him) unto justification of life. 

19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were 
15 made sinners (being made subject to the death, which 
was inflicted upon Adam for sin, as much as if they them- 
selves had violated the law which rendered him obnoxious 
to it), so by the obedience of one (suffering death, the 


| punishment of sin, for them) shall many be made 


righteous (é. e. be as truly justified, and exempted from 


dissimilitude can there be in sins committed by the same 
act, and the same will, of one and the same person, against 
the same law? But of the posterity of Adam, the apostle 
here expressly saith, “They sinned not after the similitude 
of Adam’s transgression ;” therefore they were not sinners by 
the same act and will, of the same person, against the same 
law. Moreover, if all the posterity of Adam sinned in 
Adam, they sinned against some law given to them, “for 
sin is the transgression of a law, and where there is no law 
there is no transgression :” now they could sin in Adam, so 
as to deserve death for their sin, only by sinning against the 
law requiring Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit: for 
Adam himself became guilty of death only by transgressing 
that law, but all the posterity of Adam cannot be said to 
have sinned against that law, for when did they sin against 
it? If when Adam did so, then all his posterity must be 
actually sinners from the beginning of the world, i. e. some 
thousands of years before the greatest part of them had a 
being : now seeing action must be the action of some being, 
does it not seem absurd at first sight to say, that so many 
myriads were actually sinners, when they were not in being ? 
and when they came into the world, they could not sin in 
Adam, or in his action, for he did not then eat of the forbid- 
den fruit in the midst of paradise. Again, we cannot sin 
against a law which is not in being; since therefore there is 
now no paradise, and no forbidden fruit in being, we cannot 
be obliged by any law of God now not to eat of the fruit in 
the midst of paradise, and so cannot be sinners by trans- 
gressing against such a law. ! 
Secondly, It cannot truly be affirmed that we all sinned 
in Adam, and by his disobedience were made sinners, because 
his sin and disobedience were imputed to us: for I have 
shown already, that the scripture nowhere maketh the least 
mention of any thing of another’s imputed to a man for re- 


| ward or guilt, but only of some personal thing or action of 


our own: see note on ver. 14. Moreover, this imputation 
either makes the sin of Adam truly ours, or it doth not: if 
it doth not, how can we be made sinners by it? if it doth, 
then death came upon us for our sin; and so not for the 
sin of one, but for the sin of all, which is the thing disproved 
already, note on ver. 12, (3.) I ask whether this imputa- 
tion made the posterity of Adam sinners, or whether it 
found them so before? If it found them so before, it was 
plainly needless, for they might have been condemned to 
death without it: if it made them 80, then, since this impu- 
tation is the act of God, and not of man, it plainly follows 
that God must be the author of that sin, because the imputa- 


_ tion flows immediately from him, without the intervention 


of any action on the part of those men to whom it is im- 
Moreover, then the imputation must be false, as 
charging them with sin whom he did not find sinners, but 
only by his arbitrary imputation made them so. Now far 


| be it from any Christian to affirm that God should falsely 


impute sin to any man. In a word, λογίζεσθαι and imputare 
is to reckon, to account a thing to any man, to charge him 
with it, to lay the charge of itto him. ‘This action there- 
fore on God’s part must suppose, in the very nature of it, 
some action done by the posterity of Adam which is blame- 
worthy, and may be justly charged upon them, before there 
can be any ground for imputation of it; and this shows 
that it is impossible that the imputation should be the very 
thing that renders them blameworthy, or persons worthy to 
be charged with guilt. And yet if the sin of Adam becomes 
ours only by imputation, it must be ours only because it is 


552 


that death, which is the punishment of sin, as if they had 
personally suffered ; and also accepted and treated by God, 
as if indeed they had been righteous persons. 

20 Tsay, before the law we became obnoxious to death 
by one man’s disobedience) Moreover the law entered, 
that the offence might abound (unto death, and men 
might be found obnoxious to it also, on the account of their 


ROMANS. 


transgressions against the law). But where sin (hus) 
abounded (unto death), grace did much more abound 
(unto life) : 

21 That as sin hath reigned unto death (seizing on 
all men for it), even so might grace reign through 
righteousness (Gr. justification) unto eternal life by 
Jesus Christ our Lord. 


by God imputed to us, and not imputed because it is ours; 
that is, God by this imputation must make us sinners, and 
not find us such; for this imputation is the action of the 
Judge, not of the supposed criminal; remove or take away 
this action, and no crime can be charged upon him. Im fine, 
if the sin of Adam becomes ours only by imputation, it de- 
serves condemnation only by the same imputation, i. e. by 
the action of God; that therefore we deserve condemnation 
for it is to be ascribed directly to the action of God, and 
only by accident to that of Adam. Whence therefore is 
our destruction, according to this opinion, but of God, who 
makes us worthy of condemnation, by imputing to us that 
sin which by his imputation only we stand guilty of ? 
These interpretations being so inconsistent with the 
apostle’s words, and with the plainest evidence of reason, I 
am forced to prefer before them that of the Greek fathers, 
viz. that we all sinned in Adam, i. c. by becoming obnoxious 
to that death which was the punishment of his sin, and that 
«by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,” by 
being subject to the death, and temporal calamities and 
miseries, which came upon all mankind for Adam’s sin; so 
that we become sinners in him, or by his disobedience, by a 
metonymy of the effect, by suffering the punishment which 
God had threatened to him for it, as the experience of all 
men and women shows we do in all the parts of the threat ; 
and this is a common sense of the word yun, which signifies 
both siz and the punishment of it. So Gen. iv. 7, «If thou 
doest evil, nxn, sin lieth at the door;” that is, the punish- 
ment of sin, ver. 13. So Gen. xix. 15, “ Make haste,” saith 
the angel to Lot, “and escape, lest thou be consumed }yya, 
in the sin of the city,” i. 6. in the punishment of the city ; 
in plagd descendente propter culpam incolarum utbis, 
Arab. And Gen xxxi. 39, Jacob speaks to Laban thus, 
That which was torn of beasts, qJDNnN D3N, ἐγὼ ἀπεττίνυον, 
peenas dabam, “1 suffered for it ;’—* the sin was upon me,” 
saith Aben Ezra. Gen. xliii. 9, Judah speaks thus to Jacob 
concerning Benjamin, “If I bring him not again,” 45 snxom 
ἡμαρτηκὼς ἔσομαι ets σεν i. e. “I will suffer punishment + 
see xlii. 37, i.e. let me bear the blame; so also xliv. 32. 
So Bathsheba said to David, “I and my son Solomon shall 
be cmoxun, ἁμαρτωλοὶ, sinners,” 1 Kings i. 21, that is, We 
shall be punished as sinners, and be in danger of our life. 
So γὴν xb, impium non faciet, “« He will not condemn 
him,” Ps. xxxvii. 33 5 yw 9p) Co, Et sanguinem innocen- 
tem condemnabunt, Ps. xciv. 21; so also Job ix. 20. So 
the lepers say one to another, “ We do not well if we tarry 
till the morning-light, then we shall be found sinners,” 2 
Kings vii. 9, i. 6. we shall be punished by the king. And 
Zech. xiv. 19, “This shall be πϑυνὸ nxon, ἁμαρτία Αἰγύπ- 
zov, the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all 
nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.” 
This phrase of bearing sin is constantly used in this sense ; 
as when it is said yxy pxon, “ They shall bear their iniqui- 
ty, they shall die,” Lev. xx. 20, and ἁμαρτίαν κομιοῦνται, 
ἀποίσονται, Lev. xx. 17. 19; Num. xiv. 34, λήψεσϑε ἁμαρτίας 
ὑμῶν, Lam. v. 7, ὑπέσχομεν τὰ ἀνομήματα αὐτῶν, “ We have 
borne their iniquity.” If therefore ἁμαρτία in the Old Tes- 
tament so often signifies the punishment of sin, which in 
this case was death, what exception can be made against 
these words of Chrysostom,* “ What is the meaning of these 
words, In whom all have sinned? It is this, he falling, even 
they who did not eat of the tree were by him made mortal ;’— 
« Even as if they themselves had fallen,” saith Theophylact,+ 
“when he did.” For,” saith Theodoret, “he being ob- 


* Τί dé ἐστι, ἐφ' ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον ; ἐκεΐνου πεσόντος, καὶ οἱ μὴ 
φάγοντες ἀπὸ τοῦ ξύλου γεγόνασιν ἐξ ἐκείνου πάντες ϑνητοί. Chry- 
sost. in locum. 

J Ὡς ἂν καὶ αὐτοὶ πταίσαντες διότι ἐκεῖνος ἔπταισεν. Theophyl. 
in locum. 


noxious to the decree of death, in that state he begat Cain 
and Abel, and others, ἅπαντες οὖν ὡς ἐκ τοιούτου φύντες ϑνητὴν 
εἶχον τὴν φύσιν, all therefore became mortal, as being begotten 
of one that was mortal.” And seeing it is said ἁμαρτωλοὶ, 
Or jpaprnxéres ἔσονται, “They shall be sinners,” who are to 
suffer punishment; why may not these words, “ By the 
disobedience of one many were made sinners,” admit the 
sense which Chrysostom, Gicumenius, and 'l'heophylact give 
them 1----τουτέστιν ὑπεύθυνοι κολάσει, καὶ κατάδικοι Savarov, * They 
shall for his disobedience be subject unto death and punish- 
ment,” the effects of sin: “for,” saith St. Chrysostom, 
“it is no absurdity to say, that he sinning, and so being 
mortal, they who proceed from him should be mortal also; 
but how can it justly follow that by his disobedience another 
should be made a sinner, for such a one will be found to de- 
serve no punishment, as not being personally a sinner?” 
Τὸ δὲ ἐκ τῆς παρακοῆς ἐκείνου ἕτερον ἁμαρτωλὸν γενέσϑαι ποῖαν 
ἀκολουθίαν σχοίη; εὑρεθήσεται γὰρ οὕτω μηδὲ δίκην ὀφείλων 6 
τοιοῦτος, εἴγε μὴ οἴκοθεν γέγονεν ἁμαρτωλός. It is true, we meet 
not with the words ἥμαρτον and ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν, in 
this sense elsewhere in the New Testament; but then this 
may be, because the comparison is not elsewhere made, be- 
twixt the first Adam, and the effects of his disobedience, and 
the second Adam, and the effects of his obedience to the 
death ; and because the opposite phrase, δίκαιοι κατεστάθησαν, 
required that the words opposed should be used in the me- 
tonymical sense: for when the apostle saith, « By the obe- 
dience of one man many were made righteous,” it is evident 
he spoke not of Christ’s active obedience, but of his passive 
obedience, or suffering death for us. For (1.) the whole 
chapter is employed in setting forth the benefits accruing to 
us by his death, ver. 6. 8—11. (2.) The effect of this obe- 
dience is our justification; now that, through the whole 
scripture, and in this very chapter, is constantly ascribed to 
the death of Christ, and his blood shed for us, ver. 9, 10. 
16—18. (3.) The disobedience by which many were made 
sinners, is plainly declared by the apostle to be one single 
act of disobedience in Adam, and therefore the obedience 
opposed to it cannot in reason be the active obedience of 
Christ’s whole life, but that obedience to the death which 
the apostle mentions, Phil. ii. 6. 8. Now by this passive 
obedience, we cannot be made formally righteous, but only 
metonymically, by being made partakers of that freedom 
from the condemnation and guilt of sin, and that reconcilia- 
tion which Christ purchased by his meritorious death and 
passion. Dissolvens enim eam, que ab initio in ligno facta 
fuerat, inobedientiam, obediens factus est usque ad mortem, 
mortem autem crucis, eam que in ligno fuerat, inobedien- 
tiam, per eam que in ligno fuerat obedientiam sanans. Iren. 
lib. v. cap. 56. 

Moreover, we in the New Testament find frequently ex- 
pressions equivalent to these ; as (1.) when Christ is said to 
“ bear our sin,” only because he bore the punishment due to 
them. (2.) When he is said to be “ made sin for us,” 2 Cor. 
v. 21, he being made so not by contracting the guilt of our 
sins, but only by suffering punishment for our iniquities ; and 
when he is said to “appear a second time, χωρὶς dpaprias, 
without sin,” Heb. ix. 28, i. e. without another sacrifice, in 
which he was to suffer for our sin; and when it is said that 
“by sin,” Rom. viii. 2, i. 6, by his sacrifice for it, “he con- 
demned sin for the flesh.” And (3.) when he is said to be 
“made a curse for us,” Gal. iii. 13, he being only so by suf 
fering the death which the law styled accursed, and not as 
being so in the sight of God. 

16 Ver. 20. Ἵνα πλεονάσῃ τὸ παράπτωμα, The law entered 
that sin might abound unto death.] Hence it is styled, 
“the letter that killeth,” the “ministry of death” and “ of 
condemnation,” 2 Cor. iii. 6—9, and said to subject all that 
are under it to a curse, Gal, iii. 10. 


553 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 Waar shall we say then? 1 Shall we continue in 
sin (Gr. what do we say then? do we say this? Let us 
who have received this grace, continue still in sin), that 
grace may abound (/owards us? that is, do we by de- 
claring that we are justified freely by grace, through the 
redemplion that is in Christ Jesus, iii. 24, and that as sin 
abounded, grace did more abound, v. 20, give occasion to 
this fee 2 

2 God forbid (we should make any such inference 
eee or any use of, this doctrine, so contrary to that very 

aptism by which we enler into the Christian covenant 

and pul on Christ, for) how shall we, that are dead 
(Gr. have died) to sin (by our baptism, or entrance into 
the Christian covenant), live any longer therein ? 

3 (fbr) Know ye not, that so many of us as were 
baptized into (and by that baptism ph hee ourselves 
disciples of ) Jesus Christ were baptized into (the like- 
ness of ) his death? (and so engaged to die unto sin, as 
he did for sin, 1 Pet. iv. 1, 2, and to live to him that died 
Sor us, and rose again? 2 Cor. v. 15. 

4 For)Therefore we are * buried with him by bap- 
tism (plunging us under the water) into (a conformily 
to his) death (which put his body under the earth): that 
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the 
glory (glorious power) of the Father, even so we also 
(thus dead in baptism) should (rise with him, and) walk 
in newness of life. 

5 For if we have been planted together in the like- 
ness of his death (by dying unto sin), we shall be also 
in the likeness of his resurrection: (by being so risen 
from our death unto sin, as never to let sin have any more 
dominion over us, but dying unto sin once for all, and 
henceforth living unto God, ver. 9, 10, or we shall rise to 
a life immortal, ver. 8, as he hath done : 

6 And thus we stand engaged to die to sin,) Knowing 
this, that our old man is (was) crucified with him, that 


the body of sin (ἡ. 6. the appetites of the body which sub- 
ject us to sin) might be destroyed, that henceforth we 
should not serve sin, (for he bore our sins in his own 
body on the cross, that we, being dead to sin, might live 
unto righteousness, 1 Pet. ii. 24. 

7 Which we shall not do if we be truly dead unto tt ;) 
Forhethat is dead is freed from sin (1 Pet. iv. 4, he 
sins no more). 

8 Now if we be (kus) dead with Christ, we believe 
that 8 we shall also live with him (not α spiritual only, 
bul a happy and immortal life : 

9 And thus conformed to his death we should be, and 
ne that Christ being raised from the 
dead (now) dieth no more; death hath no more domi- 
nion over him. 

10 For in that he died, he died 4 unto sin once (or, 
for sin, i. e. that he died to the putting away of sin, Heb. 
1x. 26. 28, he died thus once for all): but in that he 
liveth, he liveth unto God (2. 6. the life he liveth is an 
eternal life, wholly dedicated to the glory of God, Phil. ii. 
9—11). 

11 d Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead 
indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord. 

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, 
5 that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 

13 Neither yield ye your members (any longer) as 
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield 
(up) yourselves (entirely) unto (the service of ) God, as 
those that are (with Christ) alive from the dead, and 
(yield) your members as instruments of righteousness 
unto God. 

14 (and say not this is beyond your strength, seeing 
the law in your members leads you captive to sin ;) 7 For 
sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are 
not under the (pedagogy of ) the law (which gives the 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


! Ver. 1.] Note here, that if the faith, to which St. Paul 
in this epistle doth ascribe justification, did not only oblige 
us to, but even comprehend, evangelical and constant obe- 
dience, there could be no colour for this objection; that 
therefore must be a mistake. 

2 Ver. 4. Συνετάφημεν οὖν αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος, We 
are buried with him in baptism.] It being so expressly de- 
clared here, and Col. ii. 12, that “we are buried with Christ 
in baptism,” by being buried under water ; and the argument 
to oblige us to a conformity to his death, by dying to sin, 
being taken hence, and this immersion being religiously ob- 
served by all Christians for thirteen centuries, and approved 
by our church, and the change of it into sprinkling, even 
without any allowance from the Author of this institution, 
or any license from any council of the church, being that 
which the Romanist still urgeth to justify his refusal of the 
cup to the laity, it were to be wished that this custom 
might be again of general use, and aspersion only per- 
mitted, as of old, in case of the c/inici, or in present danger 
of death. 

3 Ver. 8. Συζήσομεν αὐτῷ, We shall live with him.] As 
being delivered, by his death, from that death which is the 
punishment of sin, and having that Spirit which is the giver 
of life, and the pledge and earnest of it, imparted to us: it 
is this life which is the object of our faith, and of this the 
apostle speaks, 2 Tim. ii. 11, saying, “If we have been dead 
with him, we shall also live with him ; if we suffer, we shall 
also reign together with him.” 

4 Ver. 10. ᾿Απέθανεν ἐφάπαξ, He died once for all.) That 
is, Christ so died for our sins once, as never to undergo death 
again, and therefore his living to God seems to import his 

Vor. IV.—70 


resurrection to eternal life; and so the phrase is used by 
Luke, where of “the children of the resurrection,’ which 
can die no more, he saith, “They live unto God,” Luke xx. 
26. 28, and in Josephus,* who saith, that they who die for 
God ζῶσι τῷ Θεῷ, “ live to God, as Abraham, Isaac, and Ja- 
cob, and all the patriarchs do ;f they love that piety which 
brings them to eternal life.” 

5 Ver. 11. Otrw καὶ ὑμεῖς, So also reckon ye yourselves 
dead unto sin.] Once for all, so as never to have any need 
of dying to it again, but as still engaged to live to God’s 
glory ; for, say the ancients, we can have but one baptism, 
and this supposes we should so die to sin once, as never to 
have occasion to perform that work again. Hence therefore 
it appears, how far they are from conformity to the death of 
Christ, who still suffer sin to revive in them, after that, by 
pious resolutions and repentance, they have begun to mor- 
tify it, and so are still beginning again to die to it. And oh 
that Christians would more carefully attend to this conform- 
ity to the death of Christ ! 

6 Ver. 12. Eis τὸ ὑπακούειν, To obey it.] For this obedi 
ence to it in the lustings of it, is a certain sign of the do- 
minion of sin in us, and of our being none of Christ’s ser 
vants; “for they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh, 
with the affections and lusts” (Gal. v. 24, see Examen 
Millii). 

7 Ver. 14. Apapria γὰρ οὐ κυριεύσει, For sin shall not have 
dominion.} This is a pious sense, but seems to some to give 
no place for the following objection. Others therefore para- 
phrase the words thus: “For then sin shall not have domi- 
nion over you, so as to condemn you for each transgression ; 


* De Maccab. p. 1100. 
+P. 1102, A. 
2W 


554 


knowledge of sin, but not sufficient strength to morlify it), 
but under (that economy of) grace (which affords that 
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which frees us from the law 
of sin and death). 

15 What then? shall we (go on in) sin, because we 
are not under the law (which condemns us for every 
transgression), but under (that covenant of ) grace (which 
allows the pardon, and promises the forgiveness of it? 
Heb. viii. 12.) God forbid (that we should continue in 
the sins forbidden by the law, because we are not under 
the law). 

16 Know ye not (thzs), that to whom ye yield your- 
selves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom 
ye obey (and from him you must expect your wages) ; 
whether (you be the servants) of sin unto (receive the 
wages of sin, which is) death, or (the servants of God) of 
obedience unto (the obtaining the fruits of ) righteous- 
ness ? 

17 But* God be thanked, that (and, God be thanked, 
that though formerly, ver. 19) ye were the servants of 
sin, but (yet stnce your conversion) ye have obeyed from 
the heart that form of (Christian) doctrine which was 
delivered you. 


ROMANS. 


18 Being then (for being) made free from (he law 
of) sin, (by the grace and assistance of that Spirit of life 
the gospel ministers, ch. viii. 2,) ye became the servants 
of righteousness. 

19 I speak ® after the manner of men because of the 
infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your 
members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto 
(commit) iniquity ; even so now yield your members 
servants to righteousness unto holiness. 

20 (Now, I say, for before you could not do it,)For 
when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from 
righteousness, (doing then no service at all to il. 

21 And that you may not be still enamoured with your 
former service unto sin, I ask,)What fruit had ye then 
in (from) those things whereof ye are now ashamed ? 
(surely none worthy to be compared with the fruits of 
righteousness,) for the end of those things zs death. 

22 But now being made free from sin, and become 
servants to God, ye have (at present) your fruit unto 
holiness, and the end (will be) everlasting life. 

23 For the wages of sin (to its servants) is death ; 
but the gift of God (to his servants) is eternal life 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 


for you are not under the law (which pronounceth a curse on 
them that do not obey it), but under (that covenant of) 
grace which affords pardon and forgiveness of it,” 1 John 
i. 7 (see Examen Milli). 

8 Ver. 17. Χάρις δὲ τῷ Θεῴ, But God be thanked.| He 
doth not here thank God that they had been the servants of 
sin, but that they, who had been servants to it, were become 
obedient to the precepts of Christianity ; as our Lord thanks 
his heavenly Father, that he had “hid these things from the 
wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes,” Matt. xi. 
25, 1. 6. that having hid from the one, he notwithstanding 
had revealed them to the other. 

The particle dé is sometimes rendered and, as Luke ix. 6, 
xi. 18, Acts iii. 5, iv. 36, viii. 30, ix. 17, xi. 12, xiii. 15, xv. 
6, xxi. 14, xxiii. 9. 13. 

Sometimes, then, Acts vi. 2. 7, ix. 13. 16, xii. 3, Matt. i. 
19, Luke viii. 29. 35. 

Sometimes, so, Acts vii. 15, Rom. viii. 8. 

Sometimes, yea, 1 Cor. ix. 16, xiii. 21, Rom. xi. 30, xvi. 
9, 1 Cor. ii. 9. 

Sometimes, but, in the sense of yet, Acts xxviii. 22, 1 Cor. 
xiv. 1. 

And, yet, Matt. vi. 9. 

Sometimes, for, Luke xii. 2. 48, xxiii. 14, Acts vii. 25, 
1 Thess. ii. 16. 

Also, Luke xii. 8, xiii. 6. 

Moreover, 2 Pet. i. 15. 

Howbeit, 1 Cor. ii. 9. 

And so accordingly the words may be here rendered, 
«And God be thanked,” or “God be thanked then, that 
though ye were the servants of sin, yet,” and in the verse 
following, ἐλευθερωθέντες δὲ, “ for being delivered.” 

9 Ver 19. ᾿Ανθρώπινον λέγω, I speak after the manner of 
men.| The apostle doth not here speak, as some unhappily 
imagine, by way of excuse for not using the best argument 
he could use in this affair, but such as was best fitted to the 
capacities and notions of those he writes to ; for what induce- 
ments to yield their members instruments of righteousness 
to that holiness which will conclude in life eternal, could he 
use more rational and proper than this, that they had for- 
merly yielded them servants to commit that sin, whose wages 
is death? But he speaks this by way of illustration of his 
argument, or exhortation. The sense which the ancients put 
upon these words is this, τῇ φύσει μετρῶ τὴν παραίνεσιν, “1 
frame my exhortation with a due consideration of the infir- 


mity of our flesh,” requiring that only which even to human 
reason seems highly equitable, viz. that you should do that 
service now to God, which you have formerly done to sin. I 
rather think the apostle discourseth to this effect: In this 
discourse of your being servants formerly to sin, and your 
obligation now to be servants of righteousness, I speak that 
which all natural men must have had experience of, by rea- 
son of the infirmity of the flesh, and of which they may 
thence take a just idea; requiring only, that as they have 
yielded their members instruments of sin, so they would 
yield them instruments of righteousness. 

And that this is the genuine import of the words ἀνθρύπι- 
νον λέγω, “I speak after the manner of men,” may appear 
from the like use of it, 1 Cor. x. 10, «No temptation hath 
happened to you, but that which is ἀνθρώπινος, common to 
human nature,” and supportable by men of reason; aad 
from the constant use of the phrase κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον λέγω, “1 
speak after the manner of men,” of which see note on 
4 Cor. ix. 8. 

10 Ver. 23. Ta γὰρ ὀψώνια τῆς ἁμαρτίας ϑάνατος, For the 
wages of sin is death.) Hence divines usually conc!ude that 
even infants must have sinned, because they are subject to 
death. Now though this be so far true, that death camo 
upon all men, and so upon infants, by that sin of Adam 
which rendered him, and by him all his offspring, subject to 
mortality ; yet this will no more follow from these words, 
than it will follow, that because the wages of rebellion is 
death, all that die must be guilty of rebellion. Moreover 
the intention of the apostle is not here to teach us that 
death is the punishment due to every sin, but that that death 
which is in scripture styled “the second death,” and stands 
opposed to “ eternal life,” will be the certain issue of a life 
spent in the service of sin. For the apostle throughout this 
chapter speaks of that sin in which we continue, ver. 1, and 
which we serve, ver. 6, 20, and which so “reigneth in our 
mortal bodies, that we obey it in the lusts thereof,” ver. 12, 
by which we “ yield our members instruments of unrighte- 
ousness to sin,” ver. 13. 19, in which we so serve sin as to 
obey its commands, ver. 16, 17, and live “ free from righte- 
oushess,” or in neglect of it, ver. 20. “The wages,” saith 
he, “of sin” thus reigning in, and served by, us, “is (eter- 
nal) death.” It is therefore manifest the apostle speaks not 
here of sin imputed, but only of personal sin, nor of each 
single act, but of an habitual practice of a course of sin (see 
Examen Milli). 


555 


CHAPTER VII. 


1 (And of the truth of what I told you, vi. 14, that 
sin ob χυριεύσειν shall not have dominion over you, be- 
cause you are not under the law, but wnder grace, ye 
cannot well be ignorant, for) Know ye not, fier, 
(for I speak to them that know the law,) " e. lo the 
Jews or proselyles,) how that the law (lo which you were 
espoused by Moses) hath dominion over a man as long 
as he liveth (only ? 

2 The case of aman thus under the law, i. e. in his 
legal stale, being like that of a woman married to a hus- 
band ;)Forthe woman which hath an husband is bound 
by the law to (be subject to) her husband so long as 
he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is (then) 
loosed from the law of (subjectton to) her husband. 

3 So then (Gr. therefore) if, while her husband 
liveth, she be married to another man, ! she shall be 
(iru'y) called an adulteress: but if her husband be 

ead, she is free from that law (which bound her to be 
in subjection to, and yield conjugal affection to, her hus- 
band only); so that she is no adulteress, though she 
be married to another man. 


4 Wherefore, my brethren, (as the woman is become 
Sree from the law of her husband by his death, even so) 
2 ye also are become dead (Gr. ifavardbere, ye have 
been dead) to the law (and so free ier it) by (the 
crucifixion of ) the body of Christ (which hath dissolved 
your obligation to the law, as the death of the husband 
doth the obligation of the wife to ae that ye should 
(or may) be married to another (husband), even to him 
who is raised from the dead, that (being made free from 
sin, ver. 21, 22, by virlue of your union to him) we 
should bring forth fruit unto God. 

5 (We are, I say, become thus dead to the law, this 
being necessary, that we might bring forth fruit unto 
God :)3 For when we were in the flesh (7. 6. when we 
lived under the carnal ordinances of the law, without the 
asststance of the Spirit), 4 the motions of sins, which 
were (forbidden and restrained) by the law, did work 
in our members to bring forth fruit unto death (render- 
ing us obnoxious to death, the punishment threatened by 
the law to the transgressor of it). 

ὁ But now we are delivered from the law (and 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII. 


1 Ver. 3. Μοιχαλὶς χρηματίσει, She shall be called an adul- 
teress.| The apostle, saith Theodoret, considers not here the 
permission given to the woman divorced by the law of Moses 
to be married to another, as being taught by Christ not to 
approve of such divorces; but the apostle seems only to in- 
timate that she hath no power to dissolve this bond by put- 
ting away her husband, or that this divorce rendered her 
husband dead in law to her, she being not to return to him 
again (Deut. xxiv. 4). Now this, saith the apostle, is the 
ease of those who are under the law; their entering into 
that legal covenant was “the day of their espousals” (Jer. 
ii. 2), and they were married to it, or to him that put them 
in subjection under it, and were his spouse (Jer. ili. 14), and 
so obliged to serve God in the oldness of the letter; but 
now this law being dead, and you being espoused to another 
husband, even Christ (2 Cor. xi. 2), are henceforth bound to 
serve God according to that new spiritual law which he hath 
given you, and not according to the letter of the old law. 

2 Ver. 4. 'ESavardSnre τῷ νόμῳ. This phrase, «Ye are 
dead to the law,” or, “ Ye have been made dead to the 
law,” is, say interpreters, “ The law is put to death for you ;” 
for to that, say they, the drift of the discourse directs: but 
(1.) this interpretation puts a plain force upon the words, 
without any instance that they are elsewhere used in this 
sense. (2.) The parallel words, Gal. ii. 19, 20, run thus; 
“T through the law am dead to the law, that I might live to 
God: I am crucified together with Christ.” Now those 
words seem to fix the proper sense of these, showing it to 
be also this; Ye are dead to the law, that is, you are free 
from subjection to the precepts of the law, which as a hus- 
band had dominion over you, and from the motions of sin 
which are by the law, as if you were dead. To strengthen 
this interpretation, let the Hebrew phrase be noted ;* “ When 
aman dies he is made free from the commands, the law οὐ 
κυριεῦει, hath no dominion over him,” no power to subject 
him to the motions of sin which are by the law, for “he 
that is dead is free from sin” (vi. 6, 7), so that he doth no 
longer ἐουλεύειν, “serve the motions of it: and hence the 
apostle makes this inference, that “if we be dead with Christ,” 
and buried with him, or crucified together with him, sin οὐ 
xopteter, “ shall not have dominion over us,” as it had whilst 
we were under the Jewish dispensation; for “we are not 
under the law, but under grace.” And again, “ Walk in 
the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh,” Gal. 


* Nidda, £ 76. 


v. 16, and ver. 18, for “if ye be led by the Spirit, ye are 
not under the law.” Wherefore the sense of these four last 
verses seems to be this; The law hath dominion over a man 
as long as he lives (under it), for the case of a man’s subjec- 
tion to the law in this is like to the woman’s subjection to her 
husband, it continues whilst he lives, but when he is once 
dead she is free from any farther subjection to him, seeing 
he being dead can have no farther power over her, and so 
she must be free to be married to another: in like manner 
you being made dead to the law, to which you were espoused, 
by the death of Christ, as being “buried” and « crucified 
together with him,” the law can have no farther power over 
you, to retain you in subjection to it, and so you must be 
free to be married, or put into subjection to another husband, 
even Christ, to whom “I have espoused you” (2 Cor. xi. 2) 5 
and the law itself being also dead to you, through the death 
of Christ abolishing it, and freeing Christians from the power 
and obligation of it, you are free to marry another husband, 
even Christ (ver. 5). 

3 Ver. 5. Ὅτε γὰρ ἦμεν ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ, For when we were in 
the flesh.| When I consider that of ὄντες ἐν σαρκὶ and οἱ κατὰ 
σάρκα ὄντες, Vili. 5. 8, signifies those that are acted and go- 
verned by the fleshly principle, in opposition to the guidance 
and motions of the Holy Spirit, and that εἶναι ἐν σαρκὶ, ver. 
9, ζῇν, περιπατεῖν κατὰ σάρκα, ver. 12, 13, bear the same 
sense, I judge that “ When we were in the flesh,” here, 
doth not only signify to be under the carnal ordinances of 
the law, for so were all the pious Jews who lived from Moses 
to the gospel times; but more especially relates to them, 
who, living under these ordinances, were themselves carnal, 
and without any assistance of the Holy Spirit: and so had 
“the law of the flesh still warring against the law of their 
minds, and bringing them into" captivity to the law of sin,” 
which could not be the state of Zacharias and Elisabeth, or 
any other of those persons who were “ righteous before God,” 
and “ walked in all the commandments of the Lord blame- 
less.” And if of such only we understand the apostle’s fol- 
lowing discourse in this chapter, the sense will be clear. 

4 Τὰ διὰ τοῦ νόμου, The motions of sin which were by the 
Jaw.] Here Mr. L. saith, « Interpreters cast a strange impu- 
tation on the law of God, by saying it excited men to sin 
by forbidding it,’ whereas they only say that the carnal 
minds of men excited them to transgress the law when they 
were under it, as the apostle saith, ver. 8, and Mr. L. in his 
gloss on the eighth verse says, “Sin took the opportunity of 
my being under the law to stir up concupiscence in me; for 
without the law, which annexes death to the trangression of 
it, sin is not able to have its will upon me:” nowis this any 


556 


from the motions of sin caused by it), 5 that being dead 
wherein we were held (in subjection, as the wife was to 
her living husband ) ; ὃ that we should serve in newness 
of (that) spirit (of life in Christ Jesus, which makes us 
free from the law of sin and death), and not (as before) 
in the oldness of the letter (which killeth, or subjecteth 
us to death, 2 Cor. iii. 6. 9). 

7 What shall we say then? J the law (from which 
we must be delivered, that we may not obey the lusts of the 
Jlesh) sin? (Is it the cause of that sin which worketh in 
our members whilst we are under the law?) God forbid 
(that we should say so). Nay, (so far otherwise is it, thal) 
T had not known sin (éo be so), but by the law (énsirucl- 
ing me what is to be avoided as sin, and under what pe- 
malty): for 1 had not known lust (7. 6. the lustings, or 
covelous desires of the heart to be things worthy of death), 
except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet; (and 
so made him that coveteth obnoxious to death, as being a 
transgressor of the law.) 

8 But (nevertheless) sin, taking occasion by the 
commandment, wrought in me all manner of concu- 


more an imputation upon the law of God, than it is an im- 
putation on his providence, that it provides that corn and 
wine which carnal men abuse to drunkenness and excess ? 

5 Ver. 6. ᾿Αποθανόντος.] The Syriac and Arabic versions, 
Origen, Theodoret, @icumenius, and Theophylact, read ἀπο- 
θανόντες, We being dead to that in which we were held,’ 
which, saith Origen, is undoubtedly the best reading: and 
this reading confirms the sense of the fourth verse, as to these 
words, “ Ye are dead to the law,” which I have offered in 
the paraphrase ; i. e. we being freed from the obligation and 
commands of it, and so from the lustings and motions it 
wrought in us. 

6 "Ὥστε δουλεύειν ἡμᾶς ἐν καινότητι Πνεύματος, That we might 
serve God in the newness of the Spirit.] The law and the 
gospel are, by the apostle, in this distinguished; that the 
first is only “the ministration of the letter,’ the other «of 
the Spirit” (2 Cor. iii. 6—9). The “ministration of the 
Spirit” is also declared to be the fruit, « not of the law,” but 
“of the hearing of faith,” Gal. iii. 3. Hence the apostle 
here infers, that we must be dead unto, or free from subjec- 
tion to the law, that we may be enabled to serve God in new- 
ness of spirit. Whence it is evident, that to “serve God in 
the Spirit,” is not “to enjoy the spiritual sense of the law,” 
as Mr. Le Clere thinks ; but, First, As the opposition shows, 
to serve him with a freedom from the prevalency of the 
flesh, by virtue of the Spirit, which enables us to mortify 
the deeds of the flesh (vill. 13). Secondly, To serve God, 
not chiefly with bodily service and carnal ordinances, but in 
the spirit of our minds (xii. 2, Phil. iii. 2), having our minds 
renewed and transformed after the image of God in holiness, 
and righteousness, and truth, which are the fruits of the Spi- 
rit (Eph. iv. 22, 24). Thirdly, To serve him by the assist- 
ance of the Spirit, so as to live and walk in the Spirit (Rom. 
viii. 5, Gal. v. 25), so that we are strengthened with might 
by the Spirit in the inward man (Eph. πὶ. 16). 

7 Ver. 9. ᾿Εγὼ δὲ ἔζων χωρὶς νόμου, Iwas alive without the 
law.] Ips τοῦ Mwiicéos, “ Before the law of Moses came.” 
So Chrysostom, Cicumenius, Theophylact. 

8 Ver. 10. Ordained.] This word is not in the original; 
you may therefore paraphrase the words thus, The com- 
mandment which was given for life, i. 6. with this promise, 
Do this, and live, was found to me unto death. 

9 Ver. 8—11.] For the explication of these four last 
verses, let it be noted ; 

First, That it is the opinion of judicions commentators, 
that when the apostle saith, “Sin taking occasion by the 
commandment wrought in him all manner of concupiscence,” 
ver. 8, and “deceived” him, ver. 11, he means that it did by 
this saying, only, “Thou shalt not covet,” but assigning no 
punishment to him that coveted. But this interpretation 
cannot stand, for these two reasons: for, First, It plainly con- 
tradicts the words of the law, which pronounce a curse upon 
“every one who continues not in all things written in the 
law to do them;” and much more doth it contradict the 
drift of the apostle’s discourse in this, and the Epistle to the 


ROMANS. 


piscence (or vehement destres after that which was forbid- 
den by the law, which became mortal to me by virtue of 
the prohibition of the law.) For (whilst I was) without 
the law sin was dead (¢. 6. unable to have this effect upon 
me ; for where there is no law there is no transgression 
imputed to death, v. 13). 

9 For 7 I (the seed of Abraham) was alive (or indced 
lived) without the law once (before the law was given, I 
being not obnoxious to death for that to which the law had 
not threatened dealh) : but when the commandment came 
(forbidding it under that penalty), sin revived, and I 
died (7. e. tt got strength to draw me to sin, and so con- 
demned me to death). 

10 And the commandment, which was 8 ordained to 
(or given for) life, (as leaching those things, which if a 
man do he shall live in them, Lev. xviii. 5,) I found to 
(me transgressing it to) be unto death. 

11 For®sin, taking occasion by the commandment, 
deceived me (or enticed me to the commission of it), and 
by it (condemning me to death for that transgression) 
slew me. 


Galatians, viz. that the law required perfect obedie-sce to its 
precepts; condemning him to death, or rendering him ob- 
noxious to condemnation, who in any thing transgressed it, 
and so could be no means of justification; “as many as 
were under the law being under the curse,” because trans- 
gressors of it. 

Secondly, This agrees not with the following reason, or 
the nature of the thing: for if the law given encouraged 
them to covet, because it had no present penalty annexed to 
it, they must be more free to covet, or follow their natural 
or carnal inclinations, when there was no law at all forbid- 
ding them to covet; and therefore sin could take no more 
occasion by a Jaw without penalty, than by none at all, to 
“work in us all manner of concupiscence,” nor could con- 
cupiscence be dead without the law, more than with it. 

The old and common interpretation is this, That the pro- 
hibition of what we desire makes us to think the enjoyment 
of it more sweet and valuable; or at least provokes the car- 
nal mind, which is not subject to the law of God, to a more 
fervent lusting after it, Dum prohibita non tam refugit quam 
ardentius expetit; and this agrees very well with this ex- 
pression, Or, 

Thirdly, Sin is in scripture represented as an enemy, that 
seeks our ruin and destruction, and takes all occasions to 
effect it: it is here said to “ war against the mind,” ver. 23; 
elsewhere, to ‘war against the soul,” 1 Pet. ii. 11; to “ sur- 
round” and “ beset us,” Heb. xii. 1; to “bring us into bond- 
age” and subjection, and get the dominion of us, Rom. vi. 
12; to “entice” us, and so to work our death, James i. 15, 
16; and to do all that Satan, the grand enemy of mankind, 
doth, by tempting and soliciting us to the commission of it: 
whence Chrysostom, upon those words, Heb. xii. 4, “« You 
have not yet resisted unto blood, πρὸς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἀνταγω- 
νιζὸμενοι, Striving against sin,” represents sin as an armed 
and flagrant adversary: when therefore it finds a law which 
threateneth death to the violation of it, it takes occasion 
thence more earnestly to atfempt and allure as ta the viola- 
tion of it, that so it may more effectually subject us to death 
and condemnation upon that account; for “the sting of 
death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law,” condemning 
us to death upon the violation of it; thus when God had 
forbidden, under the pain of death, the eating of the forbid- 
den fruit, Satan thence took occasion to tempt our first pa- 
rents to the breach of it, and so slew them, or made them 
subject to death: ἡπάτησε, “He deceived them,” Gen. iii. 
13, 1 Tim. ii. 14, which is the word here used, ver. 11. 

Secondly, Observe the import of the phrase, “ Without the 
law sin was (or is) dead ;” which seems not to be this, that 
the inclinations of men to sin were in their nature less when 
they were unrestrained by a law; but rather this, that sin 
was then comparatively dead, as to its power of condemning 
us to death: and this, first, the antithesis doth plainly hint, 
for thus it runs, “ Without the law, ἁμαρτία νεκρὰ, ἐγὼ δὲ 
ἔζων, sin was dead, but I was living; but when the com- 
mandment came, sin revived, and I died.’ How were men 


CHAPTER VII. 


12 Wherefore the law (forbidding sin) is holy, and 
the commandment (lo abslain from it) holy, and just, 
and good (as requiring only what is equitable in itself, 
and good for me to do). 

13 Was then that which is good made death unto 
me (Gr. hath that therefore which is good become death to 
me 2 é. δ. is that the sole and proper cause of bringing death 
to me)? God forbid (we should so say). But (this 
charge is to be laid upon) sin, (which) that it might ap- 

ear sin (i. ¢. pernicious and destructive), working death 
In (or fo) me by that which is good (¢. e. the law, made 
me obnoxious to death); that sin by the commandment 
(forbidding it) © might become exceeding sinful (7. e. 
abounding to death, by making me abound in new trans- 
gressions of the law, v. 21. 

14 And that sin should thus prevail over us in this 
stale of lapsed nature to transgress the law, and to be- 
come obnoxious to death by it, will not seem strange, if 
every natural man considers the contrariely there is 
betwixt him and the law ;)For we know that the law is 
spiritual (and requires spiritual things): but (every 
natural man hath cause to say of himself,) 1 am car- 
nal, " sold under sin (¢. e. enslaved by my corrupt affec- 
tions: 

15 As may be easily discerned from the workings of 
our conscience against the evil that we do;) For that 
which 1 do 121 allow not (in my own mind) : for what 
I would (in compliance with the law), that (through 
the prevalence of my corrupt nature) do I not; but 


living before the law, but because then no saw condemned 
them? Sin therefore must be then dead as to its power of 
condemning. How did they die when the law came, but by 
the law condemning them to death? Sin therefore then re- 
vived as to its condemning power, which it received first from 
the sin of Adam, which brought death into the world; and 
next from the law of Moses, which “ entered that the offence 
might abound, and reign more unto death” (Rom. v. 20, 
21). For though sin was in the world from Adam unto 
Moses, or until the law given, yet was it not imputed unto 
death, when there was no law given that did threaten death 
unto it; so that death reigned, in that interval, by virtue of 
Adam’s sin alone, even over them who had not sinned after 
the similitude of Adam’s transgression, i. e. against a positive 
law forbidding it under the penalty of death; which law 
being delivered by Moses, sin revived, i. e. it had again its 
force to condemn men as before to death, by virtue of a law 
which threatened death to them. And in this sense doth 
the apostle seem to say that “the law was added because of 
transgressions” (Gal. iii. 19), to convince us of the wrath 
and punishment due to them; and that the law therefore 
“worketh wrath,” because “where no law is, there is no 
transgression” (Rom. iv. 15), subjecting us to wrath, or no 
such sense of the divine wrath as where a plain divine law 
threatening death and condemnation is violated. Upon the 
ae? thus given of these two phrases doth our exposition 
stand. 

10 Ver. 13. Kad’ ὑπερβολὴν ἁμάρτωλος, Exceeding sinful.) 
That it might appear cis ϑάνατον ὑπερβάλλοισα (v. 20, 21), 
“abounding unto death,” and so exceeding vile and hateful 
to us, the end and “wages” of it being “death” and con- 
demnation (vi. 21. 23). 

MN Ver. 14. Πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, Sold under sin.] 
i. e. In peccati potestatem libidinis, et concupiscentie pretio 
redactus, Origen. So enslaved to it, saith Theophylact, 
Gere ph ἀναβλέψαι dévacSa, ‘ that he could not look up;” 
“ A willing slave, who had sold himself to it,” saith Theo- 
doret. And this is continually the import of the phrase in 
the Old Testament ; as when it is said of Ahab, 1 Kings xxi. 
20, πέπρασαι ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρὸν, “Thou hast sold thyself to 
do wickedly ;” and, ver. 25, ἐπράθη ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρὸν, “He 
sold himself to do wickedly.” Of the Jews, Isa. 1. 1, ταῖς 
ἁμαρτίαις ὑμῶν ἐπράϑητε, “ You have sold yourselves to your 
iniquities.” And of the Jews who, under Antiochus Epi- 
phanes, revolted from their religion to heathenism, it is said, 

- 


001 


what (through the conviction of my conscience) 157 hate 
(to do), that do 1. ᾿ 

16 If then (it be so with me, that) I do that which I 
would not, (by his unwillingness to act in contradiction 
to it) 1 consent unto the law that it is good (and com- 
mands what is good for me to dv). 

17 Now then (this being done ἐν those corrup! affec- 
tions, which overpower me against the approbation of my 
mind) it is no more I (according to the better part from 
which I am denominated) that do it, but “ sin that 
dwelleth in me (i. 6. in my flesh, ver. 23, and captivates 
me to the obedience of tt. 

18 .And upon this I have just ground to chaxgett ;)For 
I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no 
good thing: for to will (that which is good) is present 
with me (or to me); but how to perform that which is 
good I find not (sirength by nature). 

19 For (in event, I find that) the good that I would 
(do) I do not: but the evil which (the law prohibits, 
and) 1 would not (do), that (being overpowered by the 
Jlesh) 1 do. 

20 Now if I (thus) do that I would not, it is no 
more I (choosing and approving the action in my mind ) 
that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me (z. €. in my flesh, 
that hurries me to the commission of it against the law and. 
conviction of my mind. 

21 For so it is that) 1 find then (Gr. dpa, indeed,) 
a law (in my members so thwarting the convictions of 
my mind ), that, when I would do (the) good (to which 


that ἐπράθησαν τὸ πονηρὸν, “They sold themselves to do evil,” 
1 Mace. i. 15. 

2 Ver. 15. Οὐ γινώσκω, I allow not.) This interpretation, 
saith Mr. L., “makes the following words a tautology,” 
whereas I judge it very reasonable to say, «T allow not, be- 
cause I would not ; yea, I hate to do, what I do.” 

130 μισῶ, That which I hate.) Ὑπὸ τῆς ἡδονῆς καταθελγό- 
μένοι ποιοῦμεν ἅπερ ὡς παράνομα βέελυπτόμεϑα, “ Being allured 
with pleasure, we,” say Theodoret and C&cumenius, “ oft 
do those things which are abominable, as being opposite 
to the law ;” for whilst the law represents sin as pernicious, 
and destructive both to soul and body, it is as natural for all 
men to hate it, as to love themselves: but then, as Photius 
saith, when τὸ ἡδὺ τοῦ πράγματος προβάλλεται, “the sweetness 
or pleasure of the action is proposed to the mind, the hatred 
goes off,” and the soul is wrought up to an affection to it; 
and thus it is with every enlightened man, that sins against 
his conscience, and doth the evil which he would not do. 
“These words,” saith Origen, “ show that the carnal man, of 
whom he speaks, resistere aliquantulum vitiis conatur, en- 
deavours a little to resist his vices, legis sc. naturalis in- 
stinctii, by the instinct of the law of nature, but that at last 
he is overcome by them, and oppressed with them.” 

4 Ver. 17. Ἢ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία, Sin that dwelleth in 
me.] This he speaks, saith Theodoret, calling τοῦ νοῦ τὴν 
δουλείαν, καὶ τῶν παϑῶν τὴν δεσποτείαν, “the slavery of the 
mind and the dominion,” or, as Theophylact, “the tyranny 
of the passions, sin.’ —«It is,” sgith Origen, lex et voluntas 
carnis que captivos nos ducit in lege peccati, “the law and 
the will of the flesh, which lead us captive to the law of 
sin.’ Hence this sin dwelling in us is so often styled, “the 
law of sin in our members,” ver. 20—22. 25, viii. 2. Here 
the apostle seems to speak according to the philosophy of 
the heathens, with which the Jews began to be acquainted, 
that man was not to be denominated from his body, or his 
sensual and carnal part, but from his mind, his νοῦς or 
λογίκὴ διάνοια, Which in Philo’s* phrase is, 6 ἐν ἑκαστῷ ἡμῶν 
ἄνϑρωπος, “the man within us 3” 6 πρὸς ἀλήϑειαν ἄνθρωπος, 
“the true man,”} the man properly so called; who saith, 
moreover, λέγει δὲ ταῦτα ὁ ἀληϑινὸς ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἐπὶ ψυχῆς ἔλεγχος, 
“This saith the true man, the reprover in the soul.” And 
of himself he speaks thus; “Men have power over my body, 
but that is nothing to me, ἐγὼ γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ κρείττονος τῆς ἐν 


+ Ibid. p. 363. 


* De Profugis, p. 360. 
ὧν 3 


558 


the law directs me), evil is present with me (lo oppose 
and hinder me from doing it: 

22 Tsay, when I would do good :)Forl delight in the 
law of God after the inward man (my mind approv- 
ing for some time, and being pleased with its good and 
holy precepts) = 

23 But I see (or perceive) another law (of the flesh) 
in my members, warring against the law of my mind, 
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which 
is in my members, (for of what a man is overcome, of 
that he is brought into bondage, 2 Pet. ii. 19, John viii. 
34, Rom. vi. 16. 


ROMANS. 


24 And being thus enslaved to that sin which ren- 
ders me obnoxious to death, the wages of il, I am even 
forced to cry out,) O wretched man that Iam! who 
shall deliver me from the body of (sin which worketh) 
this death ? 

25 (And so) I (have great reason to) ® thank God 
through Jesus Christ our Lord (whom he hath sent to 
redeem me from this death to which Tam obnoxious by 
stn). So then (to skut up this discourse, thus it is with 
me, whilst under the law only and carnally minded,) with 
the mind '7I myself (or J the same man) serve the law 
of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. 


ἐμαυτῷ διανοίας χρηματίζω, for I am denominated from my 
mind, the better part, according to which I design to live.” 

16 Ver. 22. Kara τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον, According to the in- 
ward man.) It is plain “the inward man” here cannot sig- 
nify “the new man, which is created after God in righteous- 
ness and holiness,” Eph. iv. 24, and which is not put on, till 
all “old things are passed away,” 2 Cor. v. 17, and “all 
things are become new,” and till we have “put off the old 
man with his deeds’ (Col. iii. 9, 10), for sure this cannot be 
said of him, who is still “carnal, sold under sin,” and “ cap- 
tivated to the law of sin which is in his members ;” but only 
the mind of man, the νοῦς, as the apostle doth interpret him- 
self, ver. 25. So Origen informs us, that the soul, using the 
body as its instrument, is called 6 ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, “the inward 
man,” contra Cels. lib. vii. p. 357;—Zow ἄνθρωπον τὸν νοῦν 
λέγει. So Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact. So the 
very next verse shows, the words running thus; “I delight 
in the law of God in the inward man, but I see another law 
in my members warring against the law of my mind,” i. e. 
of my inward man. And so the apostle useth the phrase 
when he saith, 2 Cor. iv. 16, that though 6 ἔξω ἄνθρωπος, « the 
outward man (i. e. the body) was corrupted, yet ὁ ἔσωθεν, the 
inward man was renewed day by day.” And that this de- 
light is no evidence of a regenerate man, is evident from the 
example of the stony ground, which “heard the word μετὰ 
χαρᾶς, with joy,” Matt. xiii. 20, of Herod, who “ heard John 
the Baptist, ἡδέως, with delight,” Mark vi. 20, of the Jews, 
who “rejoiced in his light,” John v. 35, and heard our Sa- 
viour “ gladly,” Mark xii. 37. 

6 Ver. 25. Εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ, I thank God.] The Latin 
version and one Greek copy read, χάρις τοῦ Οεοῦ, The grace 
of God ;” but the Syriac, Arabic, and all the Greek com- 
mentators agree with our translation, which therefore is to 
be preferred before that lection (see Examen Milli in lo- 
cum). 

ee ἐγὼ, The same man.] Of whom he had before 
spoken, not I Paul now writing this epistle. It hath been 
a controversy since Austin’s time, whether Paul here speak- 
eth in his own person, or in the person of a regenerate man, 
or only in the person of a Jew conflicting with the motions 


of his lusts, only by the assistance of the letter of the law, | 


without the aids and powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit ; 
which is as great an instance of the force of prejudice, and 
the heat of opposition, to pervert the plainest truths, as can 
be happily produced: for, I think, nothing can be more evi- 
dent, and unquestionably true, than this, that the apostle 
doth not here speak of himself in his own person, or in the 
state he was then in; but, as the ancient commentators do in- 
terpret him, δι᾿ ἑαυτοῦ ὁ ἀπύστολος τὸν κοινὸν ἄνθρωπον δηλοῖ, “ by 
himself he represents man in common,” and saith not, as he 
might have done, You that are under the law are carnal, but 
τὰ ἐκείνων ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ σχηματίζων, καὶ τὸ τραχὺ σφοδρὸν ἐκλύων, καὶ 
λεαίνων τῇ περὶ ἑαυτὸν σχηματολογίᾳ, “ representing what be- 
longed to them in his own person, and so taking off the 
harshness, and mollifying the invidiousness of the sentence,” 
by speaking of it in his own person, he saith, «I am carnal, 
sold under sin.” So Photius and GEcumenius. 'Theodoret 
also doth inform us, that the apostle here introduceth, ver. 
14, τὸν πρὸ τῆς χάριτος ἄνθρωπον πολιορκούμενον ὑπὸ τῶν παθῶν, 
“a man before grace overcome by his passions; for he calls 
him carnal who had not yet obtained the assistance of the 
Holy Spirit.” And again, ver. 23, he adds, that the apostle 
having discoursed all these things, ὥστε δεῖξαί τινες μὲν πρὸ 
τῆς χάριτος ἦμεν, “to show what we were before grace, and 
what we were made after grace, and as it were taking upon 


himself the person of those who before grace were van- 
quished by sin, he groans and laments, as a man set in the 
midst of his enemies, enslaved and constrained to serve, and 
seeing no help; and thus he shows the law unable to help 
us.” And so Origen also frequently in his commentary on 
the place; and Austin saith expressly and frequently, De- 
scribitur homo sub lege positus ante gratiam, Liber Expos. 
Quat. Propos. ex Epist. ad Rom. Quo loco videtur mihi 
apostolus, transfigurdsse in se hominem sub lege positum, Ad 
Simplic. Mediol. lib. 1. Et in hae verba, Non ego operor 
illud, d&c. loquitur adhuc ex personid hominis sub lege consti- 
tuti, nondum sub gratia: though he was pleased afterward to 
change his opinion, and so gave occasion to the perverting 
the plain sense of the apostle. For confutation of this dan- 
gerous opinion, I need not say much after the labours of 
Arminius, the reverend Dr. Hammond, Mr. Bull, and Mr. 
Kettlewell, who have made it manifest, 

First, That it is usual with the apostle to make this meta- 
schematism, or to speak especially of things that might be 
otherwise offensive and ungrateful, in his own name, when 
indeed they belong not to him, but to other men; as in these 
words, Rom. iii. 7, “If the truth of God hath more abounded 
through my lie, why am I also judged as a sinner?” i ο. not 
I Paul, but I who make this objection. So Gal. ii. 16, 17, 
1 Cor. iv. 6, “ These things μετεσχημάτισα, I have in a figure 
transferred to myself and Apollos for you sakes” (1 Cor. 
vi. 12, xiii. 2, x. 22. 30, Eph. ii. 3, 1 Thess. iv. 17). 

Secondly, That such things are in this chapter said of the 
person spoken of, as can by no means agree to Paul, or to 
any regenerate person: to which may be added, 

First, That had Paul spoken here of himself, considered 
in the state in which he was at the inditing of this epistle, he 
must have contradicted what he had said of himself in the 
Epistle to the Thessalonians, and to the Corinthians, which 
were writ before this epistle. For (1.) in his Epistle to the 
Thessalonians he saith, “ You are witnesses, and God also, 
how holily, and righteously, and unblameably we have be- 
haved ourselves among you that believed,” 1 Thess. ii. 10. 
In his Second Epistle to the Corinthians he speaks thus: 
“ This is our rejoicing, even the testimony of our conscience, 
that in simplicity, and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, 
but by the grace of God, we have conversed in this world,” 
2 Cor. i. 12 ; that he knew nothing by himself, for which to 
condemn himself, 1 Cor. iv. 4; that he “kept under his 
body, and brought it into subjection,” 1 Cor. ix.27. Now, 
can the man who is “carnal,” and “sold under sin,’ who 
hath no power in him to do any good, who “ finds a law in 
his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing 
him into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members,” 
call God and the church to witness to his holy and unblame- 
able life? Can he boast of keeping under his fleshly body, 
and bringing that into subjection, which by his own confes- 
sion bringeth him into captivity? Can he, who does not 
what he would in his mind and conscience do, but what he 
hates ; not “ the good which he would,” but “ the evil which 
he would not,” do; can he, I say, rejoice in the testimony of 
his conscience? Can he honestly declare “he knows no- 
thing by himself, for which his conscience can condemn 
him?” 

Secondly, How oft doth the apostle propose himself for 
a pattern to the churches unto whom he writes, requiring 
them to be “followers of him as he was also of Christ?” 
1 Cor. xi. 1. And again, “ What things you have learned, 
and received, and heard, and seen in me, these do, and the 
God of love and peace shall be with you,” Phil. iv. 8, i. 6. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


be you “carnal, sold under sin;” living in the commis- 
sion of the things you hate, and your mind condemns, and 
doing what you judge to be evil, and yielding yourselves 
“captive to the law of sin which is in your members,” and 
then “ the God of love and peace shall be with you.” ‘This 
sure is an absurd, if not blasphemous, exhortation, and yet, 
according to this exposition, it must be suitable to the mind 
of the apostle. 

Thirdly, With what indignation doth he reject the accusa- 
tions of them, who looked upon him as “ walking after 
the flesh,” and how severely doth he threaten them, how 
peremptorily doth he reject their scandalous imputation ; 
declaring that “though he walked in the flesh, yet did he 
not walk according to the flesh,” 2 Cor. x. 2, 3, and yet, if 
he were “carnal, sold under sin;” if “with the flesh he 
served the law of sin;” if the law of the fleshly members 
“ warred against the law of his mind, and brought him into 
captivity to the law of sin,” he doth here in effect confess 
what there he peremptorily denies, and with such indignation 
doth reject. 

Fourthly, This exposition of the seventh chapter makes 
it entirely to confute the chapter which immediately goes 
before, and that which follows after; and it gives an invinci- 
ble strength to the objections he endeavours to answer in 
the sixth chapter. The first objection there begins by way 
of inquiry, “ What do we say then? Shall we still continue 
in sin, that grace may abound?” his second by way of like 
inquiry, “Shall we sin because we are not under the law, 
but under grace?” ver. 15; «God forbid,” saith he, that it 
should be thus with any Christian : and yet, according to this 
exposition, it was thus with himself, one of the best of 
Christians: for sure he must continue in sin, who was still 
“sold under sin,” still “serving the law of sin with his 
flesh ;” still doing that evil he allowed not, the evil which 
he hated, and he would not do; and who was still “ brought 
into captivity to the law of sin which was in his members.” 

Again, In his answer to these inquiries, he shows the Chris- 
tian could not continue in, or live any longer in it, because 
he was “dead to sin,” his “old man was crucified with 
Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that hence- 
forth he might not serve sin” (ver. 2. 6) ; and because being 
dead to, he was “freed from sin” (ver. 7), he was “ made 
free from sin, and became the servant of righteousness.” 


559 


But can he that is “sold under sin,” and is “brought 
into captivity to the law of sin, which is in his members,” 
be at the same time “dead to sin,” and “free from sin?” 
Can he who “ with his flesh serves the law of sin,” be said 
to “cease from sin,” and “not henceforth to serve sin?” 
not to “ obey it in the lusts thereof” (ver. 12), not to “ yield 
his members instruments of sin unto unrighteousness Τ᾽ ver. 
13. Surely there is as clear an opposition betwixt the 
Christian represented in the sixth chapter, as free from sin, 
and in the seventh, as miserably enslaved to the law of sin 
and death which was in his members, as betwixt light and 
darkness ! 

Again, he saith expressly, viii. 2, “The law of the Spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of 
sin and death.’ Whereas the person mentioned in the se- 
venth is “sold under sin,” is “ brought into captivity to the 
law of sin,” and crieth out under his bondage, “ O miserable 
man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death?” He therefore cannot be the person “freed by the 
Spirit from the law of sin and death.” 

In fine, this exposition of the close of this chapter con- 
tradicts the beginning of it; for there the apostle saith of 
himself, and all his Christian brethren, that this was only 
their state under the law, from which they are delivered, 
“that they might bring forth fruit unto God,” and “serve 
him in newness of spirit.” For what else can be the mean- 
ing of these words, ver. 5, 6, “For when we were in the 
flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work 
in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now 
we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we 
were held; that we should serve God in newness of spirit, 
and not in the oldness of the letter.’ So that they who 
make the apostle say of himself, that he was “ brought into 
captivity to the law of sin, which was in his members,” and 
to cry out, “O wretched man that I am; who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death?” i. e. this body of sin 
which worketh death; make him also to confess, that “the 
motions of sin did still work in his members, to bring forth 
fruit unto death,” and that therefore he was still in the flesh. 
I therefore conclude this discourse in the words of Grotius 
on ver. 19, Deo laus sit quod optimi, i. e. trium priorum se- 
culorum Christiani hune locum, sicut oportet, intellexerint, 
dictante illo Spirita per quem vita illorum regebatur. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 (Being then married to this other husband, Christ, 
and so freed from the motions of sin, which are by the law, 
that we may serve God in newness of spirit, vii. 4—6). 
There is therefore (dpa, vert/y) now no condemnation 
to them which are in! Christ Jesus, (by faith, they 
being such) who walk not after the flesh (as whilst they 
were under the law they did), but after the Spirit (con- 
ferred upon them by faith in Christ). 


2 For? the law of the Spirit of life (given to them 
who are) in Christ Jesus hath made me (believing in 
him) free from the law of sin and (so from that) death 
(which is the wages of it). 

3 3 For what the law could not do (i. e. that life and 
thal deliverance from death it could not give), in that 
it was (made) weak through the flesh (rendering us 
subject to the transgression of it, and so to death), God 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 

1 Ver. 1. Ἐν Χριστῷ, In Christ.) The phrase εἶναι ἐν Χριστῷ, 
“to be in Christ,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, is often used by 
Paul for being a Christian, which note he borrowed from 
Castalio, who renders it Christiani facti; but if either of 
them mean only Christians by profession, or by being only 
members of the Christian church, this will by no means 
agree with this place, nor any other of like nature: since 
freedom from condemnation, and other benefits conferred 
upon us through Jesus Christ, will not follow our being 
Christians in this sense ; but upon a lively faith in Christ, 
our union to him by the Spirit, and our being so in him as 
to become new creatures, according to those words, ver. 9, 
“Tf any man have not the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, 
he is none of his;” 2 Cor. v. 17, “They that are Christ’s 
have crucified the flesh, with its affections and lusts” (see 
1 Cor. i. 30, 2 Vor. x. 7, xiii. 5, Gal. iii. 28, 29, v. 6, 1 
Thess. iv. 16, 1 John v. 20). 

Lois κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσι, ἀλλὰ κατὰ Πνεῦμα.) These 
words, saith Dr. Mills, are an addition to the text; see the 
proof of the contrary, Examen Millii in locum. 


2 Ver. 2. 'O γὰρ νόμος τοῦ Πνεύματος, For the law of the 
Spirit of life.) i.e. The Spirit of Christ gives me a new 
life, is now another law or rule of my actions, freeing me 
from the motions and power of sin, to which I was subject 
whilst under the law, and from the death to which that sub- 
jected mej; or the gospel, attended with the Spirit, hath 
wrought this freedom in me, as Methodius interprets the 
words, 6 γὰρ νόμος τοῦ Πνεύματος, ὃ dé ἔστι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, Me- 
thod. apud Phot. p. 918, ver. 3. 

3 Ver. 3. Τὸ γὰρ ἀδύνατον τοῦ νόμου, For what could not be 
done by the law.) i. e. That freedom from the guilt of sin 
and death it could not minister, ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱὸν πέμψας 
ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας, ‘God sending his Son in the 
likeness of sinful flesh,” sub. δυνατὸν ἐποίησε, hath made fea- 
sible: examples of the like ellipsis are numerous: so Luke 
xi. 17, “ Every kingdom, drayepioSeica, divided against itself 
is brought to desolation,” καὶ οἶκος ἐπὶ οἶκον, sub. διαμερισϑεὶς, 
and “a house (divided) against a house falleth.’ That this 
is the sense is evident from Matt. xii. 25, Mark iii. 25, where 
it is οἰκία μερισϑεῖσα καθ᾽ ἑαυτὴν" SO κελευόντων, “ command- 
ing,” is to be understoood after κωλυόντων “ forbidding,” 1 


560 


sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh 
(did), and 4 for sin (Gr. χαὺ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, and δ by a 
sacrifice for sin), condemned sin in the flesh (7. e. took 
away its power to condemn us, the condemnation due unto 
us for it being inflicted on him) : 

4 That the 5 righteousness of the law (i. e. the in- 
ward purity and righteousness the law required) might 
be (performed and) fulfilled in (and by) us, who walk 
not after (the dusts of ) the flesh, but after the (motions 
of the) Spirit. (Or, 

“That the justification which the law promised, by 
saying, Do this, and thow shalt live, Luke x. 28, Deut. 
iv. 1, xxx. 15. 19, Ezek. xx. 11, and that this shall be 
thy righteousness, Deut. vi. 25, might be completed in 


ROMANS. 


us, who walk according to the Spirit, and so are ab- 
solved not only from condemnation for our past sins, 
by faith, but from condemnation by the new covenant, 
by walking according to the Spirit: for to be spirttu- 
ally minded is life, ver. 6.” 

5 Not after the flesh, I say,) For they that are after 
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh (2. 6. affect, 
and desire, and pursue carnal things) ; but they that are 
after the Spirit (affect, desire, and pursue,) the things 
of the Spirit (and so the one pursues the things which 
tend to death, and the other those things which tend to 
life). 
oe For 7 to be carnally minded ts (the way which 
tends to) death; but to be spiritually minded zs (the 


Tim. iv. 3, and κανχάσϑω, “let him rejoice,” is to be sup- 
plied from the ninth verse, James i. 10. 

4 Καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, And for sin.] This phrase in the Old 
Testament is the usual phrase for a sin-oflering: so “a bul- 
lock for a sin-oflering” is μόσχος περὶ ἁμαρτίας, Lev. iv. 3. 
18, viii. 2. 14, ix. 2. 8, xvi. 3. 6. 27, ver. 9. 11 : the “lamb 
for a sin-offering” is πρόβατον περὶ τῆς ἁμαρτίας, Lev. iv. 32, 
OF ἀμνὸς περὶ ἁμαρτίας, Lev. v. 6, 7, Numb. vi. 16. And in 
like manner, the “goat for a sin-offering” is χίμαιρα περὶ 
ἁμαρτίας, Lev. v. 6, or χίμαιρος, Lev. ix. 3. 15, x. 6, xvi. 5. 
15. 27, xxiii. 19, &c.; the “dove for a sin-offering” is 6 τρῦ- 
yov περὶ ἁμαρτίας, Lev. v. 7, xii. 6. 8, xiv. 22. 31, xv. 15, 
&c.; the “sin-offering” is τὸ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, Lev. v. 8, 9. 11, 
vi. 30, vii. 7. 37, &c., and so in many other places. This 
therefore is sufficient to establish the sense of these words 
given in the paraphrase. Now the constant effect of this sin- 
offering was this, to make an atonement for the sin commit- 
ted, that it might be forgiven, and the guilt of it might be 
done away. It therefore seems most reasonable to interpret 
the effect of this sacrifice delivered in these words, “ And for 
sin, condemned sin in the flesh,” agreeably to the constant de- 
sign of all sacrifices for sin; and then these words must sig- 
nify, not that he gave us power to kill sin, or, by this exam- 
ple of his wrath against it, engaged us to forsake our sinful 
courses; but that he took away its condemning power; he 
condemning that which before condemned us, enabling us to 
say, ris 6 κατακρίνων ; Who is he that condemns us? it is 
Christ that died,” Rom. viii. 34. He killed sin, or made it 
desd by that death, which caused it not to be imputed to us 
to death (2 Cor. xv. 19). And this is the thing which the 
law could not do; it could not give life to a person con- 
demned to death (Gal. iii. 21); it could not justify, or free 
us from condemnation. 

5 Καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, And by a sacrifice for sin condemned 
sin in the flesh.| The plain meaning of these words, saith 
Mr. L., is this, “ That sin itself was condemned, or put to 
death in Christ’s flesh, i. e. was suffered to have no life or 
being in the flesh of our Saviour, he being in all things 
tempted as we are, yet without sin, Heb. iv. 15. But this 
certainly is a false interpretation; for as sin could not be 
“put to death” in him, in whom it never lived, or could 
have any being; so much less could this be done by his of- 
fering a sacrifice for sin, that being only done at the close of 
his life; whereas Christ was free from sin from his concep- 
tion ; and being done then by a sin-offering to make atone- 
ment for the guilt of sin. The true meaning of the words is 
therefore this, That justification, or freedom from the guilt of 
sin, which the law could not procure, because of the weak- 
ness of the flesh rendering us obnoxious to sin, and so to 
death for it, God by sending his Son in our human nature 
did procure, and by giving up his Son to be a sacrifice to 
make atonement for the sin committed by the flesh, ἔκρινε 
καθ᾽ ἁμαρτίαν, “he judged against sin in the flesh ;” that is, 
either he showed that it deserved condemnation, as requiring 
an atonement to free us from the guilt of it; or else he, by 
this sacrifice, condemned that which before condemned us, 
and took away its power of condemning believers, enabling 
them to say, “ Who is he that condemns us? It is Christ 
that died,” ver. 34. 

6 Ver. 4. Τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ νόμου, The righteousness of the 
Jaw,] Is a phrase which occurs only here, and Rom. ii. 26, 
where it plainly signifies the righteousness contained in the 
moral law, or those internal principles of holiness, justice, 


and goodness, which are comprised in it, these being the 
“ weightier matters of the law,” Matt. xxiii. 23, and the only 
things in which the uncircumcision, or the gentiles, could 
keep, τὰ δικαιώματα τοῦ νόμου, “the righteousness of the 
law ;” here therefore, I conceive, the phrase bears the same 
sense, and confutes the vain imaginations of the Antino- 
mians. 

That which hath made most commentators interpret the 
third verse otherwise than I have done, seems to be this, 
that they seem not sufficiently to have considered the double 
effect of our Lord’s death and passion, and the order in 
which they are placed in scripture, viz. (1.) freedom from 
condemnation, justification, and reconciliation to God; and 


"(2.) the vouchsafement of his Spirit, as the consequent of 


that faith which rendered us the sons of God ; God being first 
reconciled to us by faith in his Son’s blood, and then giving 
us this token of his love, viz. his Spirit to dwell in our 
hearts; by the first of which we are justified, and by the se- 
cond we are sanctified; by the first freed from the law of 
death, by the second from the law of sin, 1 Cor. vi. 11; the 
first, is “ the grace of God,” we being “justified freely by 
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” 
Rom. iii. 24; the second is “the gift through grace:” the 
first justification, the second ἡ δωρεὰ δικαιοσύνης, * the gift fol- 
lowing upon our justification,’—* being justified freely by 
his grace, we have peace with God,” Rom. v. 1; and then, 
“the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Spirit 
that he hath given us,” ver. 5; “ Ye are all the sons of God 
by faith in Christ Jesus, and because ye are sons, God hath 
sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,” Gal. iv. 6. 
Whence he is here styled “the Spirit of adoption,” ver. 16; 
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, that 
the blessing of Abraham (i. e. justification by faith) might 
come upon the gentiles, that they might receive the promise 
of the Spirit,’ Gal. iii. 14. For believing in him, “ we are 
sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” Eph. i. 14. Now 
these two being always connexed, the apostle goes fre- 
quently from the one to the other; first mentioning our 
freedom from condemnation, then our “ walking in the Spi- 
rit,” ver. 1, 2. Our freedom from the guilt of sin by the 
death of Christ, ver. 3, and then our fulfilling the righteous- 
ness of the law by the Spirit of Christ, ver. 4. And because 
the law could not justify, or free us from the condemning 
power of sin, therefore concluding that it could not give the 
Spirit of Christ to sanctify us, and that we therefore must be 
“freed from the law,” that we might “serve God in the 
newness of the Spirit,” Rom. vi. 7, Gal. iii. 3, ver. 6, 7. 9. 

7 Ver. 6,7. To be carnally minded, (Gr. φρόνημα τῆς cap- 
xis, the wisdom of the flesh) is death, because the carnal 
mind (Gr. the wisdom of the flesh) is enmity to God, for it 
is not subject to the law of God, neither can be; so they 
who are in the flesh cannot please God.] Hence it is by 
some inferred, that the unregenerate can do nothing that is 
truly good, nothing but what is evil, and displeasing to 
God. 

To this I answer, That this is one of the texts abused by 
ancient heretics, to prove that “the flesh was by nature 
evil,’ we learn from Epiphanius,* and from Chrysostom 
upon the place, who therefore well observes, that by jlesh 
here, we are not to understand the body, or the substance of 
the body, ἀλλὰ τὸν σαρκικὸν βίον καὶ κοσμικὸν, και τρυφῆς καὶ 


* Her. Ixiv. n. 49. 5! 


Si 


CHAPTER VIII. 


way thal leads to) life and peace (ver. 7, which life and 
peace cannot be obtained by them that are carnally 
minded ). 

7 Because the carnal mind ἐς (that which sets us at) 
enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law 
of God, neither indeed can be (subject to il, whilst it 
continues such). 

8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please 
God. 

9 But (ct ts not so with you Christians, for) ye are not 
in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit 
of God dwell in you. Now *if any man have not the 
ἀσωτίας γέμοντα, τὸν ὅλον σάρκα ποιοῦντα τὸν ἄνθρωπον, “but a 
worldly carnal life, full of luxury and riotous living, and 
turning the whole man into flesh,” as is evident from the 
phrase, “the wisdom of the flesh,” engaging us only to mind 
the things of the flesh, and to be of the flesh, as the true 
Christian is of the Spirit, being led by, and walking in, the 
Spirit. And, saith Methodius,* were this said of them, who 
are in this body of flesh, that they cannot please God; they 
who commit theft, whoredom, or any other like sin, could 
not, on this account, be subject to reprehension by a just 
jadge ; it being then impossible for the flesh to be subject to 
the law of God; nor could then the intemperate person be 
reduced to chastity and virtue, the body lying under a natu- 
ral necessity not to be subject to the law of God. 

Secondly, The apostle doth indeed say, that they, who 
thus mind carnal things, while they continue so to do, can- 
not please God; this being only in eflect to say, in the 
words of Chrysostom, ἀδύνατον πονηρὸν μένοντα, that whilst 
men go on in their sinful courses, they cannot please God, 
or live in subjection to his laws: but then, saith he, as 
Christ only says, “ An evil tree,” whilst it continues such, 
“cannot bring forth good fruit; but doth not say an evil 
tree cannot be made good, but on the contrary saith, “ Make 
the tree good, that the fruit may be good,” Matt. xii. 33, so 
is it here; for the apostle, by his frequent exhortations to 
these carnal men, to “crucify the flesh,” and “ mortify the 
flesh, with its lusts,” or the deeds of it, and to “ put off the 
old man with his deeds ;” by his threats, that “if they live 
after the flesh they shall die; and by his promises, that «if 
through the Spirit they do mortify the deeds of the flesh, 
they shall live,” doth show, that men may cease to live ac- 
cording to the flesh, and may so mortify the deeds of the 
flesh, that they may live. God, saith Chrysostom, hath put 
this ἐν ἐλευθερία προαιρέσεως, “in our free choice,” so that, ἐν 
σοὶ λοιπόν ἔστι καὶ τοῦτο γενέαϑαι, κἀκεῖνο, Since the vouchsafe- 
ment of the gospel, “it is in thine own power to be carnally 
minded, or spiritually,” there being now greater strength 
and inducement so to be than ever. 

8 Ver. 9. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature ; 
and he that hath not the Spirit of Christ dwelling in him, is 
none of his.) Hence it is plain, that none are truly said to 
be in Christ, by a profession of faith, provided they live not 
answerable to that profession, or be not renewed in mind, 
will, affections, and conversation; and from the following 
words, “If the Spirit of Christ dwell in you, he that raised 
the Lord Jesus from the dead, shall also quicken your mor- 
tal bodies by his Spirit dwelling in you,” it is evident, first, 
that it is not the soul, but the mortal body, which the Spirit 
is said here, ζωοποιεῖν, to give life to. Secondly, That the 
promise of being raised by the Spirit of Christ belongs only 
to them whose bodies shall be raised to the resurrection of 
life eternal. As for others, they being only, Χριστιανοὶ dvo- 
μαζόμενοι, Christians in name,” and not in truth and sin- 
cerity (1 Cor. v. 11), and persons to whom Christ will then 
say, “I never knew you,” they shall be raised by the power 
of Christ, but not by virtue of a union with the Spirit of 
Christ. 

9 Ver. 10. Τὸ μὲν σῶμα νεκρὸν dt’ ἁμαρτίαν, The body is dead 
because of sin.] That the apostle speaks not here of a mo- 
ral, but of a natural death of the body, appears from this 
consideration, that in the verse following he speaks of this 
mortal body, and of the raising it from the dead; and that 
by “the Spirit” he doth not understand the spirit of a man, 


* Apud Epiph. ibid. n. 51. 
Vor. IV.—71 


561 


Spirit of Christ (dwelling in him), he is none of his. 

10 And if Christ be in you (ey his Spirit), 9 the 
body is dead (it is indeed mortal) because of sin (which 
will never cease to be in us till we die); but the Spirit is 
life (¢. e. will give life to it again) because of righteous- 
ness (or of that justification which is unto life, Rom. v. 
17, 18). 

11 But (for) if the Spirit of him that raised up 
Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up 
Christ from the dead (by the Spirit dwelling in him) 
© shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his (same) 
" Spirit that dwelleth in you. 


but the Holy Ghost, is also evident, because this Spirit, in 
the foregoing verse, is “ the Spirit of Christ ;” in the follow- 
ing verse, “the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead,” and 
will raise us, in whom he doth inhabit, from it. 

Now the reason why, after our freedom from condemna- 
tion by the death of Christ, our bodies are still subject to 
death, is thus assigned by the fathers ;* “Because should 
we have lived for ever in this imperfect state, we should 
have sinned for ever,” and therefore “God permits good 
men still to die, that sin might not live for ever in them, 
doing this not out of his displeasure to punish them for sin, 
but out of mercy to free them from it.” 

10 Ver. 11. Ζωοποιήῆσει τὰ ϑνητὰ σώματα ὑμῶν, Shall quicken 
your mortal bodies.) ‘The late commentator and paraphrast, 
here exposed by Mr. Locke, is D. W., and yet he is so 
unhappy, as neither to approve of Mr, L.’s interpretation, 
nor dislike his own. He cannot approve of Mr. L.’s inter- 
pretation, that σῶμα νεκρὸν, and ϑνητὸν, signify a body mo- 
rally dead, because sin reigns not in it; (1.) because σῶμα 
νεκρὸν, absolutely put, bears no such sense in scripture, 
but only signifies a body without life, or breath, James 
ii. 16. (2.) Because this interpretation makes the apostle 
say, ver. 10, the body is dead already, i. e. as to all ac- 
tivity of sin, which reigns no longer in it, its sinful carnal 
lust being mortified, and yet makes him promise, ver. 11, 
that if the Spirit of God dwell in us, God shall quicken our 
mortal bodies, i. e., saith Mr. J.., “he shall deliver them from 
the dominion of their carnal lusts ;” that is, it makes him 
promise God shall do hereafter what he told us, ver. 10, was 
already done. (3.) In those words, “He that raiseth Christ 
from the dead,” the apostle must be supposed to speak of a 
real death of the body; and therefore in the latter clause of 
the same sentence, “ He shall quicken their mortal bodies,” it 
is reasonable to conceive, he speaks of quickening those bodies 
in the same sense, viz. by raising them from the dead. Nor 
hath Mr. L. said any thing of weight against this sense. For, 

First, Whereas he saith, “It cannot be proved that 
ϑνητὰ, mortal bodies, here signifies the same as νεκρὰ :’”’ (1.) 
he hath not proved the contrary. (2.) His own interpretation 
plainly makes them both to signify the same. And, (3.) 
what is more likely than that σῶμα νεκρὸν, ver. 10, and σῶματα 
Svnra, ver. 11, should be of the same import? 

Secondly, When he addeth, that “ ϑνητὸν, mortal, always 
signifies the thing joined with it to be living ;” he considered 
not that the same apostle saith, that at the resurrection 
from the dead, τὸ ϑνητὸν τοῦτο, “this mortal body shall put 
on immortality ;” and that when, τὸ Synrév τοῦτο, “ this mor- 
tal body shall have put on immortality, death shall be swal- 
lowed up in victory.” Secondly, I add, that ϑνητὸν, when 


* Deus ejecit hominem de paradiso, et ἃ ligno vite longé 
transtulit eum, non invidens ei lignum vite, quemadmodim 
quidam dicunt, sed miserens ejus, ut non perseveret semper 
transgressor; neque immortale esset, quod esset circa eum 
peccatum, et malum interminabile et insanabile: prohibuit 
autem ejus transgressionem, interponens mortem, et cessare 
faciens pecatum. Tren. lib. iii. cap. 37. 

Ὃ Θεὸς μεγάλην εὐεργεσίαν πάρεσχε ἀνθρώπω τὸ μὴ διαμένειν 
αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα ἐν ἁμαρτιᾳ ὄντα. Theoph. ad Autolycum, 
lib. ii. p. 103. 

Tov ϑάνατον ὃ Θεὸς πρὸς ἀναίρεσιν τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν εὕρατο, 
ἵνα μὴ ἐν ἀϑανάτοις ἡμῖν ἀνατείλασα ἀϑάνατος ἡ. Method. apud 
Epiph. Her. ἱχῖν. sect. 60, 

Ἵνα ph ἀθάνατον ἡμῖν τὴν ἀῤῥωστίαν διατηρήση. Basil. tom. i 
hom. Quod Deus non sit author mali, p. 38. 


562 


.12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the 
flesh, to live after the flesh (any longer, but rather to live 
after the Spirit). 

13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die (7. e. 
be subject to death, as the punishment of sin, or to the 
second death): but if ye through the Spirit do mortify 
the deeds of the body, ye shall live (and your bodies 
shall be raised to eternal life). 

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, 
they are the ? sons of God. 

15 For ye have not received 15 the spirit of bondage 
again to (the) fear (of death, as they who were under the 
law did, that threatening death to every one that continued 
not in all things written in the law to do them, Deut. 
xxvii. 16); but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, 
(given to us because we are sons, Gal. iv. 6,) whereby 
we ery, Abba, Father (¢. 6. we are assured that God is 
our Father, and so that we are heirs of God and sons of 
the resurrection. 

16 For)TheSpirit itself (Gr. the same Spirit) bear- 
eth witness with our spirit, that we are the children 
of God (and this gives us a full assurance of that blessed 
life, enabling us to conclude thus) - 


ROMANS. 


17 And if (therefore we be) children, then (are we 
also) heirs ; ™ heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ 
(the Son of God, now reigning gloriously in heaven) ; 
if so be that we suffer with him, (and so be conformed 
to his image, ver. 29,) that we may be also glorified 
together. 

18 (Which sufferings we have reason to endure for 
the securing this glorious estate ;)Forl reckon that the 
sufferings of this present time (we live in the world) 
are not worthy fo be compared with the glory which 
shall be revealed in us (or to the glory aflerward to be 
revealed to us). 

19 For (so desirable is it, thal) ® the earnest 
expectation of the creature (subject now to vanity) 
waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God 
(i. e. the whole race of mankind earnestly expects 
it). 

Ge For the creature was made subject to vanity, not 
willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected 
ihe same (i. 6. the ἡ κτίσις» whole race of men, ἢ χτύσις 
ἀνδρωπίνην. 1 Pet. ii. 13, were made subject to corrup- 
tion not of their own accord, but by reason of Adam, 
who by his sin subjected his posterity to death and cor- 


it relates, as here, to a body, to be quickened, never bears 
any other sense, but that of a dead body. 

Thirdly, “If by quickening here,” saith he, “be meant 
the raising them to life from the dead, how can this be 
mentioned as a peculiar favour to those who have the Spirit 
of God?” for God will also raise the bodies of the wicked. 
Ans. True, but he will raise them by his power, not by his 
Spirit dwelling in them: not as “the sons of God,” to be 
made “joint-heirs” with Christ, ver. 16, 17, but as the 
children of Satan, to be cast into the “fire prepared for the 
devil and his angels:” not lastly, to live a happy life, ver. 
13, but to die “the second death.” 

Lastly, Whereas he objects the want of connexion in this 
interpretation, with the subject the apostle is here discours- 
ing of, that is very plain ; for the apostle is here discoursing 
of the benefits and advantages which Christians shall receive 
by living, “not after the flesh, but after the Spirit ;” that 
this will cause them to “mind spiritual things,” ver. 5, that 
it will give them “life and peace,” ver. 6.. So that though 
their bodies die because of sin, they shall obtain a happy 
resurrection through the Spirit dwelling in them; ἄρα οὖν, 
“therefore,” saith he, ver. 12, “we are debtors not to live 
after the flesh, for they that do so, ἀποθνήσκονται, shall die” 
(not in the moral, but the penal sense), “but they who 
through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of che flesh shall 
live ;” for, ver. 14, “as many as are led by the Spirit of 
God, they are the sons of God,’ and so shall obtain “the 
adoption, i. e. the redemption of the body” from corruption, 
ver. 23. 

WM Διὰ τοῦ évorxodvros αὐτοῦ Πνεύματος ἐν ὑμῖν, By the Spirit 
that dwelleth in you.| This is spoken according to the opi- 
nion of the Jews, that the resurrection shall be effected by 
virtue of the Holy Spirit, which they conclude from those 
words of the prophet Ezekiel, xxxvii. 9, 10, “Come Ὁ Spirit, 
from the four winds, and blow upon these dead, that they 
may live.” ‘Thus was our Lord raised from the dead (1 
Pet. iii. 18): thus shall we be raised, who are « the temple 
of the Holy Ghost,” saith this verse. And with this agrees 
the doctrine of the ancient fathers: “Our bodies rising by 
the Spirit,” saith Ireneus,* “shall be made spiritual, and 
by the Spirit shall have life.’—«They who are dead and 
buried with Christ, may know that by the Spirit, which 
raised him up, they shall be peel So Origen. 

12 Ver. 14. Υἱοὶ Θεοῦ, Sons of God.] The strength of this 
argument will be exceeding clear from these considerations ; 
that the adopted sons of God are “heirs of God, joint-heirs 


* Deinde per Spiritum surgentia fiunt corpora spiritualia, 
ati per Spiritum semper manentem habeant vitam. Iren. 
iib. v. cap. 7. 

+ Sciant, se per Spiritum ejus qui suscitavit Jesum ἃ 
mortuis vivificandos esse, et ad Christi similitudinem resusci- 
tandos ἃ mortuis. Orig. in Rom. viii. 11. 


with Christ,” and so must reign with him, ver. 17, which 
till they live again, and be raised from the dead, they cannot 
do; and that their adoption is “the redemption of their 
bodies” from corruption, ver. 23. (2.) That we are then 
completely “the sons of God,” when we are “sons of the 
resurrection” Luke xx. 37, when we have “ overcome,” ac- 
cording to those words, Rev. xxi. 7, “He that overcometh 
shall inherit all things, and I will be to him a God, and he 
shall be to me a son.” And something like this is that of 
the Jews on these words, Ps. Ixxii. 17, wow 3, filiabitur 
nomen ejus; for, say they,* “His name is called Jinnon, 
quia ipse filiaturus est omnes dormientes in pulvere, because 
he will raise, and so make sons, all that sleep in the dust.” 

18 Ver. 15. Πνεῦμα dovdetas, The spirit of bondage.| That 
the law was to the Jews a yoke of bondage, the apostle doth 
inform us, Gal. v. 1. And that they who were under it, 
were “in bondage to the elements of the world,” Gal. iv. 3. 
&; that it “ gendered to bondage,” and subjected its children 
to bondage, ver. 24, 25. 31; that they were “all their life- 
time subject to bondage,” through the fear of death, he in- 
forms us, Heb. ii. 15. And they had reason so to be, since, 
as the apostle teacheth, the law given by Moses did not ex- 
empt them from the death which Adam’s sin had brought 
upon them, but rather made that death abound, and them 
obnoxious to it on many fresh accounts ; for “the law en- 
tered that the offence might abound” (unto death), Rom. v. 
1, and the law coming, “sin revived, and I died; and the 
commandment was found to be unto death,” the “motions 
of sin which were by the law working in their members to 
bring forth fruit unto death,” vii. 4. 10. This therefore 
gives a clear account of the paraphrase of the first part of 
the verse: But we, saith he, shall live a life immortal, and 
enjoy a happy resurrection, as being the “sons of God,” and 
in token of this we have received “the Spirit of adoption,” 
enabling us to call God Father, and assuring us we are his 
children, and so he, being our God, must have “prepared for 
us a city,” Heb. xi. 16. 

M Ver. 17. Κληρονύμοι μὲν Θεοῦ, The heirs of God, joint- 
heirs with Christ.) All having our share in this glorious in- 
heritance, though he, as the eldest brother, hath a double 
portion. 

15 Ver. 18.] Eis ἡμᾶς often signifies, ἔθ, or towards us : 
and is so rendered in this epistle, v. 8. Or, for us, AS XVi. 
6. See for the first sense, 1 Cor. xiv. 36, 2 Cor. i. 11, ix. 5. 8, 
x. 1, xiii. 3, Eph. i. 8, 9, Col. i. 5, 1 Thess. iv. 8, Heb. ii. 
3, and for the second, 1 Cor. xv. 10, 2 Cor. ii. 4, Eph. iii. 
2, Col. i. 25, 1 Thess. v. 18. 

16 Ver. 19. "Aroxapadoxta τῆς κτίσεως, The earnest eapec- 
tation of the creature.] Here it is to be noted, that, in the 
sacred dialect, desire and expectation is ascribed to creatures 
in reference to things they want, and which tend to their 


* Midrash Tillim in Ps. xciii. 2. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


ruption, and the earth to a curse, Gen. iii. 17, and this 
creature waileth) in hope, 

21 7 Because (Gr. ore that) the creature itself 
also shall be (then) delivered from the bondage of 
ΑΝ into the glorious liberty of the children of 

od. 


22 For we know that the whole creation (all. man- 


563 


kind) groaneth and travaileth in pain together (under 
this bondage to corruplion) until now. 

23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which 
have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves 
groan within ourselves, waiting for the ® adoption, to 
wil, (the glorious resurrection, and thereby) the redemp- 
tion of our body. 


advantage, though they explicitly know nothing of them. 
Thus the Messiah is called προσδοκία τῶν éSvdy, “ the Expec- 
tation of the gentiles,” Gen. xlix. 10, nqpn, the Desire of 
all nations,” Hag. iii. 7. 

7 Ver, 21. ‘Ex’ ἐλπίδι, In hope.] So the Syriac and many 
Greek commentators do begin this verse. 

"Ard τῆς δουλείας τῆς φϑορᾶς, From the bondage of corrup- 
tion.) That is, from the mortality which all their lives long 
made them subject to bondage (Heb. ii. 15). 

18 Ver. 22. Πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις, The whole creation.] All the 
world under that sense of mortality which still subjects them 
to bondage; for, as Cicero confesses," “death must be ter- 
rible to those who with their life lose the enjoyment of all 
good things, and if it be an evil, must be an eternal evil, be- 
cause it doth for ever deprive them of all good;” that} 
Mortis metik omnis quiete vite status perturbatur, “the 
fear of it disturbs all the tranquillity of life;” and that 
this renders our whole life miserable,t que enim potest in 
vita esse jucunditas, cm dies et noctes cogitandum sit jam 
jamque esse moriendum? i. 6, “ for what pleasure can there 
be in that life which is perpetually perplexed with the 
thoughts of death?” 

19 Ver. 23. Υἱοθεσίαν, The adoption.) I know there is 
another exposition of these words, to this effect: That by 
the creature, we are to understand the gentile world, in op- 
position to the Christians, the word 7x13 among the rabbins 
signifying the gentiles, in opposition to the Jews, the people 
of God; that their “waiting for the manifestation of the 
sons of God,” is their waiting to see what the Jews will do, 
who of them will be true sons of God, who not; who of 
them will embrace the faith of Christ, who not; their hap- 
piness depending punctually upon the issue of this: their 
being made “subject to vanity,” is their being subject to 
“the vanity of their minds,” ignorance, and idolatry, Rom. i. 
21, Eph. iii. 20, Eph.i.17. That to this idolatry they were 
made subject, “not willingly,” but by the devil’s imposing 
it upon them, as an act of religion, saith the reverend Dr. 
Hammond: in penam incepti Babylonici, “in punishment 
of their attempt to build the tower of Babel,” saith Dr. 
Lightfoot. That their hopes of being “delivered from this 
bondage of corruption,” are their hopes of being rescued 
from this idolatry, those filthy courses they were engaged 
in, and the bondage they were in to Satan; and to be made 
Christ’s freemen, to have a right to God’s favour, and the 
future blessings consequent upon it, the word φθορὰ having 
that sense (Deut. iv. 6, Wisd. xiv. 12, 2 Pet. i. 4, ii. 12, 1 
Cor. xv. 33, 2 Cor. xi. 3). But against every part of this 
interpretation there lies this objection, that it is not only 
wholly new, but wholly contrary to all antiquity, and also 
to the text ; and it is liable to many just exceptions, as, v. g. 
first, κτίσις, saith this interpretation, is the gentile world, 
whereas πᾶσα κτίσις hath no such sense in scripture. The 
phrase πᾶσα κτίσις is used but three or four times more in 
the New Testament ; twice in the Epistle to the Colossians, 
where Christ is styled the first-born πάσης κτίσεως, “of the 
whole creation,” not only of the gentile world: and the 
gospel is said to be preached ἐν πάσῃ τῇ κτίσει, Col. 1, 23, 
i. e. to Jew and gentile, to the whole world, or to all man- 
kind, ver. 6; once in Peter, where subjection is required 
πάσῃ ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσει, to magistrates among men, | Pet. ii. 13, 
not only heathen sure, but also Christian, when the govern- 
ment should be put into their hands; and once in Mark, 
where the apostles are commanded to preach the gospel πάσῃ 
τῇ κτίσει, “to every creature,” Mark xvi. 15. Now because 


* Sit mors terribilis iis quorum cum vita omnia extin- 
guuntur. Parad. 23. Si mors malum est sempiternum ma- 
lum. usc. Quest. lib. i. p. 1190. 

. + De Fine Bonorum, lib. i. p. 38. 

+ Tuscul. Quest. 1. 11. 13. 


the same disciples are commanded to preach εἰς πάντα τὰ 
ἔθνη, “to all nations,” Matt, xviii. 19, hence it is argued, that 
πάσα κτίσις signifies the heathen world, in opposition to the 
Jews; whereas it plainly signifies all nations, both Jew and 
gentile, as is evident from these words of Christ to them, 
that they should “preach in his name repentance and re- 
mission of sins εἰς πάντα τὰ ἔϑνη, to all nations, beginning 
at Jerusalem,” Luke xxiv. 47. And so the whole founda- 
tion of this interpretation is destroyed, for in these places 
πᾶσα κτίσις is equivalent to all mankind. 

T’o “wait for the manifestation ‘of the sons of God,” is 
not to wait to see what the Jews would do, who had not re- 
ceived the adoption, and were not the sons of God, as want- 
ing that faith by which men become sons, Gal. ili. 26, but to 
expect τὴν ἡμέτεραν τελείωσιν, “our perfection, τὴν ἀφϑαρσίαν, 
our advancement to a state of incorruption; τὴν μέλλουσαν 
ἡμῶν δύξαν, our future glory : so Chrysostom, Theodoret, 
CEcumenius, Theophylact: for it must (by reason of the 
connective particle yap) be the same with “the glory that is 
to be revealed,” ver. 18, and with “the glorious liberty of 
the sons of God,” ver. 12. “They expect,” saith Origen, 
« that time when these things shall be revealed, which are 
prepared for them that are the sons of God.” 

To be “made subject to vanity,” is not to be made sub- 
ject to idolatry, but to be made subject to corruption, 77 
φθορᾷ: so Chrysostom, C&cumenius, heophylact; for τὴν 
ματαιότητα καλεῖ τὴν φθορὰν, “he calls that mutability and 
vanity, to which all things in the world are subject, corrup- 
tion,” saith Theodoret. When the apostle saith, « The crea- 
ture was made subject to vanity,” and in bondage to corrup- 
tion,* mihi videtur quod de hdc materiali, et corruptibilis 
corporis substantia ista dicuntur, neque enim corruptio alicui 
cuiquam dominatur nisi corpori ; “ this,” saith Origen, “ seems 
to be spoken of the body, for that only is subject to corrup- 
tion.” As is apparent also from the thing they groan for, 
viz. “the redemption of the body” from corruption, that 
“this mortal might put on immortality,” or be clothed with 
its house from heaven, that “mortality might be swallowed 
up of life,’ 2 Cor. v. 1—5._ Secondly, it cannot truly be 
said that the heathen were not willingly subject to idolatry ; 
for the apostle saith they subjected themselves to it against 
the light of nature, and so “became without excuse,” and 
that “ when they knew God, they did not glorify him as God,” 
Rom. i. 20—23. And this sense of the word vanity is very 
frequent in the Psalms, and in Ecclesiastes. Thus David 
contemplating the frailty of man, and how soon he vanisheth 
away, cries out, “Every man therefore is but vanity,” τὰ 
σύμπαντα ματαιότης πᾶς ἄνθρωπος ζῶν, Ps. xxxix. 5. 11. And 
again, ἄνϑρωπος ματαιότητι ὡμοιώϑη, “Man is like to vanity, 
his days pass away like a shadow,” Ps. exliv. 4. And be- 
cause all things here below are so frail, so subject to change 
and to vanish, and man hath so short a time to possess them ; 
therefore, saith the Preacher, “ Vanity of vanities,” are they, 
“all is vanity,” Eccles. i.2. And when Adam became mor- 
tal, he called his son Abel, “ vanity,” Gen. iv. 2. 

The vanity to which the whole creation is subject, doth 
not therefore signify the vain employments and distractions 
of this present life, but that state of mortality from which 
the psalmist infers, “ Every man therefore is but vanity ;” 
for it is thus subject to vanity in hope of deliverance from 
that bondage of corruption, which Mr. Le Clere owns to be 
the corruption to which our body is naturally liable, and 
from which we Christians wait to be delivered by the re- 
demption of the body from corruption (see note on ver. 23) : 
and therefore he who subjected us to this state is not God, 
who brought not death into the world, but Adam, “ by whom 
sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” To be “de- 
livered from this bondage of corruption,” is not to be deli- 


* Origen in locum. 


564 


24 (Waiting, Tsay, for it, though we do not see it ;) 
For (asyet) ° we are saved (only) by hope: but hope 
(of a thing) that is seen is not hope (truly so called) : 
for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for ? 

25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we 
with patience wait for τ. 

26 (And as patience, so) Likewise 51 the Spirit also 
helpeth (¢o relieve us in) our infirmities: for (when we 
are burdened with them) we know not what we should 
pray for as we ought (whether for increase of patience 
under, or deliverance from them ; or af so, whether by ab- 
sence from the body, or being clothed upon) : but the Spirit 
itself (or, the same Spirit which testifies that we are the 


ROMANS. 


sons of God, ver. 16) maketh intercession for us with 
groanings which cannotbe uttered (Gr. with silent groan- 
ings after this redemption, ver. 23, 2 Cor. v. 2. 4, 5). 

27 And he that searcheth the hearts (of the saints) 
knoweth what zs the mind (or the desire) of the Spirit, 
because he maketh intercession for the saints accord- 
ing to the will (or purpose) of God (to give them this 
redemption of the body). 

28 And (though we know not in our distresses what 
to pray for in particular, or when we shall oblain this 
redemption of the body, οἴδαμεν δὲ, yel) we know that 
2 all things work together for good (for securing 
this happiness) to them that love God, to them who 


vered from idolatry, nor doth δουλεία τῆς φθορᾶς ever bear this 
sense; but the sense is οὐκ ἔτι ἔσται φθαρτὴ, “the creature 
shall not then be corruptible, ἔσται γὰρ ἡ κτίσις ἄῤϑαρτος, 
ὥσπερ καὶ dv ἡμᾶς γέγονε φϑαρτὴ, for as the creature was made 
corruptible by us, so shall it be made incorruptible with 
us:” so Cicumenius, Theodoret, Theophylact. For that 
which it groans for is its redemption from corruption (ver. 
23). Having thus offered my reasons against this interpre- 
tation, it will be very easy to confirm the ancient and true 
explication of the words from the scope and argument of the 
apostle here. For I have shown from ver. 11, that the apostle 
is here treating of the resurrection of the body to eternal life ; 
that, ver. 13, he declares that life belongs to them alone, who 
“through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh;”’ that, 
ver. 14, he proves they shall enjoy this life and resurrection, 
because they are “the sons of God; and, ver. 17, that 
being sons, they must be “heirs of God, joint-heirs with 
Christ ;” first suffering, and then reigning in glory with him; 
that, ver. 18, to encourage Christians thus to suffer, he shows 
the greatness of that glory they shall then enjoy, styling it 
δύζαν μέλλουσαν ἀπακαλυφθῆναι, “the glory to be revealed here- 
after,” i.e. after the sufferings of this present life, to which 
it is opposed, are ended: for, as Chrysostom and Theophy- 
lact well note, he saith not πρὸς τὴν μέλλουσαν ἄνεσιν, these 
sufferings are not worthy to be compared “to our future 
ease” from them in this life, but πρὸς τὴν μέλλουσαν δόξαν, * to 
our future glory” in the next; when they that have com- 
municated with Christ in his sufferings, shall rejoice in τῇ 
ἀποκαλύψει τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ, “the revelation of his glory,” saith 
Peter, 1 Pet. iv. 13, συνδοξζάσονται, “shall be glorified with 
him ;” here, ver. 17, this glory he styles ἀποκάλυψις τῶν υἱῶν 
τοῦ Θεοῦ, “the revelation of the sons of God,” i. 6. say the 
fathers, the time when they shall τὴν ἀφϑαρσίαν ἀπολαμβάνεσϑαι, 
“become incorruptible, this corruptible putting on incor- 
ruption ;” when they shall appear to be the sons of God, τῆς 
ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες, being sons of the resurrection,” ver. 14, 
comforting them in the expectation of it, and their groan- 
ing after it, with this consideration, that it is the expectation 
of all the world, and they groan together with them for it, 
desiring with them to be delivered from this “bondage to 
corruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God,” and 
adding, that not only they, but even Christians also, who had 
the first-fruits of that Spirit who is the earnest of our inhe- 
ritance, εἰς ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς περιποιήσεως, “till the redemption 
of the promised possession,” Hph. i. 14, and “by whom we 
are sealed up εἰς ἡμέραν ἀπολυτρώσεως, to the day of redemp- 
tion,” Eph. iv. 30, did “groan, waiting for the adoption, 
Viz. τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν, the redemption of our 
bodies from corruption,” ver. 23. For that this was the thing 
for which they groaned, the same apostle informs us in these 
words; “ We that are in this tabernacle groan being bur- 
dened, that we might be clothed upon with our house from 
heaven, that mortality might be swallowed up of life,” 2 Cor. 
v. 2.4. And as here, they who have the first-fruits of the 
Spirit do thus groan, so there it is said, ver. 5, “He who 
hath wrought this expectation in us is God, who hath also 
given to us the earnest of his Spirit’ That this was the 
ancient and almost primitive exposition of these words, we 
learn from Irenzus,* in these words: Oportet ergo et ipsam 
conditionem redintegratam ad pristinum, sine prohibitione 
servire justis, et hoc apostolus fecit manifestum, in ed que 
est ad Romanos sic dicens, Nam expectatio creature est 


* Lib. v. 32. 36, p. 506, 


revelationem filioruam Dei expectat: and from these of Ter- 
tullian,* Tune erit mali finis, cim preses ejus diabolus 
abierit in ignem, cum revelatio filioruam Dei redemerit con- 
ditionem ἃ malo, utique vanitati subjectam. I differ only 
from the fathers in this interpretation as to this single cir- 
cumstance, that I do not extend this desire of “the redemp- 
tion of the body from corruption” to brute beasts and insen- 
sate creatures, but only to mankind in general, subject by 
Adam’s fall to mortality. 

30 Ver. 24. Τῇ γὰρ ἐλπίδι ἐσώϑημεν, We are saved by hope.] 
Of this resurrection and redemption of the body, being “ be- 
gotten to a lively hope, through the resurrection of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, of an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and 
that fadeth not away, reserved in the heavens for us” (1 Pet. 
i. 5), and “rejoicing in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. v. 
2); and “through the Spirit waiting for the hope of righte- 
ousness through faith” (Gal. v. 5). 

21 Ver. 26. Τὸ Πνεῦμα, Te Spirit.) Here these words can- 
not signify the spirit of a man, for that cannot be said to 
help with us, being a constituent part of us; or to intercede 
for us, when “ we know not (ourselves) what to pray for as 
we ought ;” for, saith Theophylact, Moses thus prayed to see 
the land of Canaan, and Jeremy for the Jews, and Paul to 
be delivered from “the thorn in the flesh:” but that Spirit 
of God who is said to intercede for us, not as an advocate 
or mediator betwixt God and us, that being the office of our 
great High-Priest, but as an’ exciter or director of us in our 
addresses to God, to render them for matter according to the 
will of God, and for manner, fervent and effectual ; προσευχὴ 
ἐνεργουμένη, “inwrought prayer,” and to make our very sighs 
and groanings prevalent; for he is here said only to inter- 
cede for us with sighs and groanings, excited by him, after 
that redemption to which he sealeth us, and of which he 
being the earnest and pledge, we are hence moved with 
greater fuith and fervency to long for the enjoyment of it: 
and this is the reason why I think not fit to interpret this 
passage with some of the fathers of a public charisma, or 
gift of prayer, since that must spend itself in words for the 
edification of the church, and not in silent groanings (see 
Exod. ii. 24, vi. 5, Judg. ii. 18, Ps. xxxviii. 9, cii. 20, Acts 
vii. 34). Thus when our Lord had twice “groaned in the 
Spirit” (John xi. 33. 38), he saith, “I thank thee, Ὁ Father, 
that thou hast heard me” (ver. 41). 

2 Ver. 28. Πάντα, All things.] That under “all things” 
should be comprehended “the sins of good men,” is the un- 
reasonable suggestion of St. Austin; and some of the school- 
men after him confuted the declaration of God by Ezekiel, 
that “if the righteous man forsake his righteousness and 
commit iniquity, in the sin that he hath done shall he die” 
(Bzek. xviii.); and by this apostle declaring to the He- 
brews, “The just shall live by his faith, but if he draws 
back, my soul (saith God) shall have no pleasure in him” 
(Heb. x. 37, 38). Secondly, The test of love to God being 
“keeping his commandments,” this interpretation makes 
the sense of these words run thus: To them that keep his 
commandments, even all their disobedience to them “ shall 
work together for good.” ‘Thirdly, If the words “all things” 
comprehend all the sins that are or can be committed by 
them that love God, they may as well rejoice in all their 
wickedness, as in all their sufferings for the sake of Christ, 
seeing they may rejoice in that which by God’s designation 
tendeth to their good; and so all the motives urged ch, vi. 
to engage them to die to sin, and live no longer in it, must 


* Contr. Hermog. cap. 11. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


are the * called (to the adoption of re according to his 
purpose (of bringing many sons to glory by him, Heb. 
li. 10, he having predestinated us to the adoption of sons 
through Jesus Christ, according to the good pe ce of his 
will, Eph. i. 5, according to his purpose in Christ Jesus, 
2 Tim. i. 9). 

29 For whom he did (thus) 3: foreknow, he also did 
% predestinate (or appoint) to be conformed to the 
image of his Son, (by having their vile bodies changed 


not only be enervated, but even esteemed motives designed 
to hinder them from that which is for their good, or, accord- 
ing to the descants of St. Austin and St. Bernard, to hinder 
their proficience in caution and humility. 

2 Called according to his purpose.| From these words 
some argue thus: If all that love God are talled accordingly 
to his purpose, then had he no purpose of calling them that 
do not love him. If they who are foreknown are “ predes- 
tinated to be conformed to the image of his Son,” they who 
are not conformed to it were not foreknown. Now, in an- 
swer to these arguments, let it be observed, that this text 
expressly speaks of those who actually love God, not of 

those whom God hath loved with this supposed discriminat- 
ing affection; and that to “love God,” and to be “called 
according to his purpose,” are words put by way of apposi- 
tion, to show that they are both of the same import; that 
which God purposed in calling us by Christ being this, “ that 
we might be holy and unblameable before him in love” 
(Eph. i. 4. 9); so that the whole of this argument may be 
granted: they who are called by God according to his pur- 
pose, or are effectually called, so that God’s calling hath its 
designed effect upon them, being only such as love God, and 
are conformed according to the image of his Son. And let 
it be farther observed, that when the apostle saith in the fol- 
lowing verse, ὅτι οὖς προέγνω, “ For whom he foreknew,” &c. 
the particle ὅτι is connective, and this verse giving the reason 
or confirmation of what was spoken in the former, it seems 
necessary to interpret these words thus, “ Whom he fore- 
knew” to be persons called according to his purpose, and 
therefore qualified for the adoption mentioned ver. 23, 
«them he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his 
Son” (see the note on ver. 29). And it deserves to be con- 
sidered, that all antiquity to the time of St. Austin do with 
one consent concur in the interpretation of Pseud-Ambro- 
sius on this place, viz. Quos prescivit sibi devotos, ipsos ele- 
git ad promissa premia capessenda, “ Those whom he foresaw 
would be devoted to his service, he elected to the reward 
promised such persons; those whom he foreknew to be τοὺς 
ἀξίους τῆς κλήσεως, worthy to be called:” so Theodoret and 
Theophylact. Some of them in their descants upon these 
words, “ Called according to purpose,” expound them of the 
purpose or free-will of man, declaring that a man is called 
κατὰ προαίρεσιν, “ according to his choice ;” and that* οὐ κλή- 
σις μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ πρόϑεσις τῶν καλουμένων σωτηρίαν εἰργά- 
caro, “it is not the calling only, but the purpose of those 
that are called, which works salvation.” For who, saith 
Origen,t should be called to justification, but those God 
loves? The apostle, saith he, τὴν τοῦ ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν αἰτίαν περίστησι 
τῆς προϑέσεως, καὶ τῆς προγνώσεως, “makes the will of man 
the cause of God’s purpose and foreknowledge, by saying, 
We know that all things work together for good to them 
that love God; ὅτι ἄξιοί εἰσι cnvepyécews, they being worthy 
of his co-operation.”’ And in his Latin commentary on these 
words he saith, he uses the word foreknew to show that they 
were foreknown by God; In quibus sciens quales essent, 
amorem suum Deus affectumque posuisset, “On whom God 
placed his affection, as knowing what they would be.” 
Secondly, If, saith he, you will refer this purpose to 
God, men are then called according to the purpose of him, 
qui sciens in eis religiosam mentem, et salutis inesse de- 
siderium, “ who knowing they had a religious mind and a de- 
sire of salvation, called them; and in this sense neither the 
cause of our perdition or salvation will be placed in God's 
foreknowledge, nor our justification only in our calling; ne- 
que gloriari de nostra penitis potestate sublatum est; nor 
will our glorification be wholly exempt from our own power.” 
Moreover he adds, that by embracing this absurd opinion, 


* Chrysost. + In Ev. ad Rom. ed Huet. tom. ii. p. 425. 


565 


into the likeness of his glorious body, Phil. iii. 21,) that 
he might be the firstborn (or ie among many 
brethren (who are to be coheirs and glorified together 
with him, ver. 17). 

30 Moreover (the method he used to bring those whom 
he had designed to be thus conformed to the image of his 
Son, was this, viz.) whom ‘he did predestinate, them 
he also called (first to the profession of the Christian 
faith): and whom he called (upon their cordial em- 


which saith, man therefore is not justified, and so not glori- 
fied, because he is not predestinated, and that he is not pre- 
destinated, because not foreknown—Ingentem fenestram 
aperiemus eis, qui negant in hominis potestate esse ut salvus 
fiat; “we shall give great advantage to them who deny that 
it is in the power of man to be saved:” whence they infer, 
that they are guilty of “no fault who are not justified, be- 
cause they are not called, are not predestinated, are not fore- 
known.” And CEcumenius saith the apostle mentions being 
“called according to the purpose,” that he might not fall 
into an absurdity, which would follow, εἰ ὁ Θεύς τινας εὖ ἐποίησε, 
τινὰς ὑὲ οὐ, καὶ προσωποληψίας ἀπαλλάττει τὸν Θεὸν, “ if God 
should do good to some persons, and not to others; and that 
he might free him from being an accepter of persons.” 
Wherefore, according to the received interpretation of the 
ancient fathers, the import of these words is this: Those 
whom God foresaw would be true lovers of him, fit for the 
kingdom of God, and ἄξιοι, “ worthy” of the “peace,” and 
blessings of the gospel, “ he foreappointed to be comformable 
to the image of his Son,” that is, to be like him in glory (ver. 
17), them also he called in due time to the salvation pro- 
mised and offered in the gospel (2 Tim. i. 8, 9, Tit. i. 2, 3) ; 
and they believing in Christ upon his call, he justified them 
from and remitted all their past sins (Acts xiii. 38, 39, Eph. 
i. 7); and them he also glorified, by giving them that Spi- 
rit, who is the earnest of that glory (Eph. i. 13); and by 
participation of which Spirit, Christians are said not only to 
“behold the glory of the Lord,” but also to be “changed 
into the same image from glory to glory.” So Origen on this 
place. And this exposition agrees well with the context; 
for the apostle had said before, that Christians having the 
“ first-fruits of the Spirit, groaned” after this “ redemption of 
the body,” ver. 23. 26, that “the Spirit helpeth their infirmi- 
ties,” interceding for them, “with silent groanings” after it; 
and that he “intercedeth for the saints according to the mind 
of God,” to give them this redemption; and then it follows, 
οἴδαμεν δὲ, “Therefore we know that all things shall work to- 
gether for good to them that love God.” 

2 Ver. 29. "Ori ols πρόεγνω, For whom he did foreknow.] 
This particle ὅτι is connective; and this verse giving the 
reason or confirmation of what was spoken in the former, it 
seems necessary to interpret it thus; Whom he foreknew to 
be persons called according to his purpose, and therefore 
qualified for this adoption. It therefore is to be observed, 
that the words know and foreknow, in the scripture lan- 
guage, import an affectionate knowledge, joined with appro- 
bation and affection. So Matt. vii. 23, John x. 14, 1 Cor. 
viii. 3, “If any man love God, οὗτος ἔγνωσται, he is known 
of God;” Gal. iv. 1, «But now that ye know God, or are 
rather known of God ;” 2 Tim. ii. 19, ἔγνω Κύριος, “ The Lord 
knoweth who are his.” So is the word προέγνω used in this 
epistle, xi. 2, when the apostle saith, “The Lord hath not 
cast off his people, ὃν προέγνω, whom he foreknew”’ to be 
fuithful,* as were those seven thousand persons who had 
not bowed the knee to Baal; “whom he thus foreknew.” 
See note ! on ch. xi. 

% προώρισε, He before appointed.] 'To be conformed to the 
image of his Son, that as they had “ borne the image of the 
earthly” Adam, they might “also bear the image of the hea- 
venly,” 1 Cor. xv. 49. Having glorious bodies like to his, 
saith Theodoret; and this agrees well with the scope and 
subject matter of this chapter, and with the following words, 
«That he might be the first-born,” or chief, “among many 
brethren ;” for as here these brethren are said to be “ coheirs” 
with him, the “elder brother” (ver. 17), so elsewhere he is 
styled, “the first-born from the dead, that in all things he 


* Quos prescivit futuros sibi devotos, ipsos elegit ad pro- 
missa premia capessenda. 


566 


bracing of that faith), them he also justified (and so 
freed from condemnation to death): and whom he jus- 
tified, them he also 35 glorified. 

31 What shall we then say (Gr. what say we then) 
to these things? (7. e. what farther ground of assurance 
and so of patient wailing for these things can we 
want?) If God be for us, who can (successfully) be 
against us (so as to frustrate, or deprive us of this glori- 
ous state) ? 

32 He that (in pursuance of this design) spared not 
his own Son, but delivered him up for (‘he redemption 
of ) us all, how shall he not with him also freely give 
us all things (belonging to that glory and happiness he 
hath purchased for us) ? 

33 7 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of 
God’s elect? (7. e. to them who are called by him to 
Christianity, to hinder their redemption, by charging them 
with that guilt which rendereth them obnoxious to death.) 
it is God that justifieth (and who will therefore glorify 
them). 

af Who 7s he that condemneth (them to abide still 
under the power of death)? It is Christ that died (do 
redeem them from it), yea rather, that is risen again, 


ROMANS. 


(for their justification, Rom. iv. 24. And if when we 
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of 
his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by 
his life, Rom. v. 10,) who is even at the right hand of 
God, (invested with all manner of power, that he should 
give eternal life unto them, John xvii. 2,) who also 
maketh intercession for us (and so zs able to save us to 
the uttermost, εἰς παντελὲς. Heb. vii. 25). 

35 % Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 
(that love which he had shown in procuring this re- 
demption for us, ver 37,) shall tribulation, or distress, 
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
sword ? 

36 (Befalling us) As itis written (Ps. xliv. 22), For 
thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are ac- 
counted as sheep (appointed ) for the slaughter. 

37 Nay, (as there τί is said, All this is come upon us, 
yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely 
in thy covenant, ver. 17, 18, so may all this happen to us, 
622° but) in all these things we are (already) ™ more 
than conquerors through (the grace and Spirit of ) him 
that loved us, 

38 (And I trust after this happy experience it will 


might have the pre-eminence,” or that they might be changed 
into his image by the participation of the same Spirit (see 
note on 2 Cor. iii. 18). 

25 Ver. 30. Τούτους καὶ ἐδόξασε, Them he also glorified.) 
At present in their head Christ Jesus (they being “ blessed 
with all their spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus,” Eph. i. 3; they being “quickened together with 
Christ, and raised up together, and made to sit together in 
heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” Eph. ii. 5, 6): and them 
he will hereafter glorify by making their “ vile bodies like 
unto his glorious body.” Or, 

Τούτους καὶ ἐδόξασε, Them he hath also glorified,] By giv- 
ing them that Spirit who is the earnest of their glory, ἐδό- 
face διὰ τῶν χαρισμάτων, διὰ τῆς υἱοϑεσίας"---τδιὰ τῶν χαρισμά- 
τῶν τῆς υἱοϑεσίας. So Chrysostom and Gicumenius. ᾿Εὐόξα- 
σεν υἱοὺς ὀνομαζόμενος, καὶ Πνευματος ἁγίου δωρησάμενος χάριν, 
Theodoret and Theophylact. Magnificavit illos ut similes 
fiant Filio Dei, Pseud-Ambrosius. And by reason of which 
Spirit given, with the preaching of the gospel, the ministra- 
tion of justification is said to be ἐν δύξη, “in glory,” as being 
the ministration of the Spirit, 2 Cor. iii. 8—11, and we, by 
participation of this Spirit of the Lord, are said, not only to 
“behold the glory of the Lord,” but also to be “ changed 
into the same image with him from glory to glory,” ver. 18, 
see the note there, and John xvii. 22. So Origen on the 
place ; De glorificatione possumus in presenti seculo intelli- 
gere quod dicit apostolus, Nos autem omnes revelatd facie 
gloriam Domini speculantes, eddem imagine transformamur 
ἃ gloria in gloriam, tanquam a Domini Spiriti. In favour of 
this interpretation let it be noted, that when the apostle speaks 
of our final glorification in this chapter, he still speaks of it 
as of a thing future, saying, “ We shall be glorified with 
him” (ver. 17, 18. 21), whereas he here speaks of it as a 
thing past, saying, “ Whom he hath justified, them he hath 
also glorified.””. So when a miracle was wrought in Christ’s 
name, ἐδόξασε, “God glorified him,” Acts iil. 13 (see Luke 
iv. 15, John viii. 45, xi. 4, xiii. 31, 32, xvi. 14, 1 Cor. xii. 
26). And when God wrought signs by Moses, ἐδύξασεν αὑτὸν, 
“he glorified him,” Ecclus. xlv. 3 (see the preface to the 
Epistle to the Galatians). 

27 Ver. 33, 34.] Here it is well observed by Mr. L. that 
these words being read by way of interrogation, as is ver. 35, 
carry a full and a clear sense thus: “ Who shall plead against 
God’s elect? Shall the God who justifies them do it? Who 
is he that condemns them? Can it be that Christ who died 
for them ?” 

38 Ver. 35. Nothing shall be able to separate us from the 
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.] To answer the argu- 
ment hence urged, to show that men cannot fall from grace, 
because if they once truly loved God, they cannot cease to 
do so, let it be noted: 

First, That this inquiry is not, Who shall separate us from 


the love with which we love God and Christ? but, Who shall 
separate us, who truly love God, and testify that love by our 
obedience to his commands (John xv. 10), and our patient 
sufferings for his sake (ver. 36, 37), from his affection towards 
us? 

The apostle therefore only intimates, that such persons, 
continuing in the love of God, shall be preserved by him 
from, or enabled to overcome, the temptations here mentioned, 
and so supported by his grace and Holy Spirit, as to be able 
to triumph over them. But he doth not say, that the love 
of no Christian shall “ wax cold,’ Matt. xxiv. 12, that none 
of them shall lose his « first Jove,” Rev. ii. 6. Were there 
no fear of this, why doth Christ exhort his disciples to con- 
tinue in his love? John xv. 9, and his apostles exhort others 
to “keep themselves in the love of God,” Jude 21, to “con- 
tinue in the grace of God,” Acts xiii. 43, to look diligently 
to it, that they “fall not from the grace and favour of God,” 
Heb. xii. 15% Note, 

Secondly, That the apostle doth not say that nothing shall 
separate true believers from the love of God, or Christ; but 
only saith, at ver. 38, πέπεισμαι, “1 am persuaded” nothing 
will do it; nor have I any cause to fear, that any of these 
temporal sufferings or enjoyments should shake their stead- 
fastness, in expectation of those eternal and inestimable 
blessings which God hath promised, and Christ hath pur- 
chased for his church; “these light afflictions being not 
worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed” 
(ver. 18), and “all co-operating for the good of them that 
love οὐ (ver. 28); that as for the weakness of the flesh, 
which rendered these temptations so dreadful, and gave 
strength unto them, they lived in hopes of a glorious “ re- 
demption of the body” from them (ver. 23) ; and whilst they 
groan under them, they have the assistance of the Spirit of 
God to strengthen them, and help them to bear their infirmi- 
ties; a powerful and loving Father to be with them, a Sa- 
viour exalted to the right hand of God to “intercede for 
them” (ver. 33, 34). Upon all which accounts, he might 
well say, “I am persuaded” that none of these things shall 
separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. 
The apostle doth not by these words intend to teach believers, 
that they could not be shaken by these things; for this 
would have contradicted the drift of his epistles, in which he 
doth so often express his fears lest they should be shaken 
with them; and so far tempted by them as to be “ moved 
away from the hope of the gospel” (Col. i. 23), and render 
all his labours vain (1 Thess. ili. 3, 4); and offers so many 
arguments and motives to prevent the effect of those temp- 
tations; but only doth intend to say, that upon these consi- 
derations, they had so great inducements to persevere and 
continue in the love of God, as made him strongly persuaded 
that they would do so. 

29 Ver. 37. Ὑπερνικῶμεν, We are more than conquerors.) 


CHAPTER IX. 


be so still,) For1 am persuaded, that neither (fear of) 
death, nor (hope of ) life, nor (evil) angels, nor princi- 
palities, nor powers (perseculing us for Christ’s sake), 
nor (the) things (we endure at) present, nor things to 
come (or which we may hereafter suffer), 


567 


39 Nor height (of honour), nor depth (of ignominy), 
nor any other creature (or thing), shall be able to se- 
parate us from the love of God, which is (vouchsafed 
to us) in Christ Jesus our Lord. 


For we not only bear, but “glory in tribulations” (Rom. v. 
3), we are “in deaths often,” but still delivered from death 
(2 Cor. i. 10), and “as the sufferings of Christ abound to- 


wards us, so also doth our consolation” under them “ abound 
through Christ.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 (4s for the unbelieving Jews, my brethren in the flesh, 
that what I am to speak concerning them may not seem to 
proceed from any disaffection to them,) I say the truth in 
Christ, 1 lie not, ! my conscience also bearing me wit- 
ness in the Holy Ghost, (i.e. 7 call Christ and the Holy 
Ghost to bear witness with my own conscience, that I only 
speak the truth when I say,) 

2 That I have great heaviness and continual sor- 
row in my heart (on the account of their infidelity, that 
obduration and spirit of slumber, and that rejection of 
ig, which are the dismal consequences of their unbe- 
lief). 

3 For (so great is my concern for them, that were it 
proper, and could it avail to the procuring their salva- 
tion,) 51 could wish that myself were accursed from 
Christ for (these) my brethren, my kinsmen according 
to the flesh : 

4 (And surely, Ihave very great reason to be highly 
concerned for them) Who are Israelites; (ὦ. e. persons 
descended from one whose faith and virtue were so eminent, 
that as a prince he prevailed with God, and so had his 
name changed from Jacob to Israel, as a mark of God’s 
affection to him, Gen. xxxii. 28;) to whom pertaineth 


the adoption, (God having owned them as his sons and 
his first-born, Exod. iv. 22, 23, Hosea xi. 1,) and the 
glory, (the Shechinah, or glorious presence dwelling among 
them between the two cherubims, and from thence shining 

orth upon them, Ps. 1. 2, 1xxx. 2,) and the covenants, 
(made with Abraham, Gal. ili, 17, and with Moses, 
Exod. xxiv. 8, the two covenants, Gal. iv. 24, the old 
and new covenant, Jer. xxxi. 31, xxxii. 40,) and the 
giving of the law (that writ with his own finger in tables 
of stone, Deut. x. 1. 4, and many other excellent judicial 
laws), and the Sa eee service of God, and the pro- 
mises (not only of signal blessings in the land of Canaan, 
to those who should observe his laws, but the promise of a 
Messiah, and of a new covenant established upon better 
promises) ; 

5 Whose are the fathers, (they being the offspring of 
those patriarchs to whom the promises were first made, 
Heb. xi. 9. 13. 17,) and of whom as concerning the 
flesh Christ (the promised Messiah) came, (he being 
born of one of their nation, and so according to the 
flesh their offspring, even he) who (according to his 
divine nature) is * over all, God blessed for ever. 
Amen. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 


UVer. 1. Συμμαρτυρούσης por τῆς συνειδήσεως ἐν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, 
My conscience bearing witness in (or with) the Holy Ghost.] 
This verse not only shows that in cases of great moment, 
which cannot otherwise be sufficiently confirmed, a Chris- 
tian may establish his saying by an oath; but also that 
he may swear by Christ, and by the Holy Ghost, and call 
them to be witnesses of the sincerity of his own conscience 
in what he doth assert. So Philo, Θεὸν μάρτυρα καλῶ τοῦ συν- 
εἰδότος, “I call God to witness with my conscience.” Now 
an oath being an act of religious worship, in which God is 
called upon as a witness to the truth, or an avenger of the 
falsehood, of what we testify or promise, by swearing by our 
Lord Christ, and the Holy Ghost, the apostle must perform 
an act of religious worship to them, and by that agnize their 
divinity, according to those words of Moses, “'Thou shalt 
fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by 
his name,” Deut. vi. 13. And by calling upon them to bear 
witness to the secrets of his heart and conscience, he must 
ascribe to them the knowledge of the secrets of the hearts of 
men, which is the property of God alone (1 Sam. xvi. 7, 1 
Kings i. 39, 1 Chron. xxviii. 9, Ps. vii. 9, Jer. xi. 20, xvii. 10, 
xx. 12). 

2 Ver. 3. Hixéuny γὰρ ἀνάθεμα εἶναι, For I could wish my- 
self accursed.) The word anathema being still used in St. 
Paul's epistles in the severest sense, 1 Cor. xvi. 22, Gal. i. 8, 
9, and the words ἀνάθεμα εἶναι ἀπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, “to be ana- 
thema from Christ,” importing, in their literal sense, a sepa- 
ration from Christ himself, and not only from the external 
communion of his church, and being in the descants of the 
Greek* fathers the same as χωρισϑῆναι τῆς ἀγάπης, ἐκπεσεῖν τῆς 
δόξης, ἀλλότριον εἶναι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἃ salute separari, “to be sepa- 
rated from the love of Christ, to be alienated from him, to 
fall from the glory”’ and the salvation purchased by him; I 
think it reasonable to interpret the apostle’s words in this 


* Origen. Chrysost Theod. CEcum. Phot. Theophylact. 


sense. Nor is it a sufficient objection against this interpre- 
tation, that this can be no truly Christian wish, for the apos- 
tle doth not say, I wish; but as the ancients do well inter- 
pret him, εἰ ἐνεχώρει, εἰ ἐνεδέχετο, “If it were proper to make 
such a wish ;” if it would avail to make so great a multitude 
happy, ηὐχύμην, optarim equidem, “I could even wish” so 
great a blessing to my brethren, though with the loss of my 
own happiness. 

3 Ver. 5.'O ὧν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἷς rods αἰῶνας, 
Who is God over all blessed for ever.] This place galls the 
Arians: the note of Le Clere upon it is this, that Dr. Ham- 
mond “should rather have examined the animadversions of 
Grotius upon it, than copied out of the Jewish fables, 
which make little to the purpose; Erasmus having written 
enough to overthrow all that can be inferred from them: for 
if what Grotius and Erasmus have observed stand good, 
Dr. Hammond's reasoning cannot be thought of any force.” 
Now here I might refer him to the solid confutation of what 
Erasmus had said by Josue Placeus, par. iii. disp. 25, or to 
himself, Art. Critic. par. iii. p. 102. 106. But to give him 
all possible satisfaction in this matter, 

First, I assert that the reading we follow is certainly the 
true reading, 

1. Because it is the reading with which all the versions 
agree, the Latin, the Arabic, the Ethiopic, and the Syriac; 
for it is a mistake in Grotius, when he insinuates the contrary 
of the Syriac version, which in Tremellius runs thus; Quis 
est Deus, qui est super omnia. 

2. Because it hath the general consent, omnium fermé 
patrum, of almost all the fathers, who have thus cited it 
from the second to the sixth century; viz. the testimony of 
Ireneus, lib. iii. 18, of Origen in locum, of Tertullian, con- 
tra Praxeam, cap. 13. 15, Novatian, de Trin. cap. 13. 20, 
Cyprian, lib. ii. de Testim. contra Jud. sect. 6, Quod 
Deus Christus, ubi editio Oxoniensis hxc habet; Interea 
agnoscere oportebit, vocem “Deus,” in Spirensi veteri in- 
nominaté Remboldi, et Erasmi editionibus abesse, sed in 
sequentibus habetur, atque etiam in omnibus editionibus 


568 


6 (But we must) Not (exaggerate this blindness and 
rejection of the Jews, whose were the covenants and the 
promises, in prejudice of the veracity of God,) as 
though the word of God hath taken none effect (z. e. 
the promises of God concerning the seed of Israel, and 
the blessings to be conferred upon them, éxrtintwxev, had 
failed ; this doth by no means follow). For they 4 are 
not all Israel, which are of Israel (7. e. all that are 
descended from the loins of Israel by carnal generation, 
are nol the children of the promise made to Jacob, Gen. 


ROMANS. 


xxviii. 14, which yet are only to be accounted for the seed, 
ver. 8): 

7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham 
(according to the flesh), are they all children (of the 
promise made to Abraham): but (only they who are the 
seed of Isaac, for thus the promise runs), In Isaac shall 
thy seed be called. 

8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh 
(of Abraham, and have the sign of the covenant in their 
Jiesh), these are not (on that account alone) the child- 


quas consului, quamobrem defectus iste jure merito ab 
Erasmo librariis imputatur. Hilarius in Ps. exxii. Unus 
Deus ex quo omnia—Et, rurstim, ex quibus Christus qui est 
super omnia Deus. Notat hic Erasmus; Nescio ex quibus 
MSS. adduxisse Hilarium hunc locum, omiss4 Dei mentione, 
quod tamen, inquit, incurid librariorum omissum videri po- 
test: de quo ne quispiam ulterius dubitet, Erasmi aut Grotti 
versutiis deceptus, en locum parallelum de Trin. Sed non 
ignorat Paulus Christum Deum, dicens, Quorum patres, et ex 
quibus Christus, qui est super omnia Deus,—non hic creatura 
in Deum deputatur, sed creaturarum Deus est qui super 
omnia Deus est. Verba hee etiam Chrysostomi textu oc- 
currunt, qui insuper verba sequentia ὅς ἐστιν εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς 
αἰῶνας, ab apostolo dicta pronunciat, pro omnibus gratiarum 
actionem unigenito Dei referente ; agnoscente autem Erasmo 
non potest hee particula ad Christum pertinere, nisi ad 
eundem et illa referantur, Qui est super omnia Deus. His 
adde testimonia Athanasii, Orat. 2, et quint. contra Arian. 
Greg. Nysseni, lib.x. Contra Eunom. Ambrosii (Apostolus 
de Christo dixit, Qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in se- 
cula,) de Sp. Sancto, lib. i. cap. 3, p. 155. Similia habent, 
Hilarius Diac. in locum, Marius Victorinus, contra Arium, 
lib. primo, Theodoret. in locum, Cyril. lib. i., Thes. Augus- 
tin. de Trin. lib. ii. cap. 13, Idacius contra Virimadum, lib. 
i., Cassian. init. lib. ili. de Incarn. cap. 1, G. Magnus, 
Hom. 8, in Ezek., Isid. Hispal. lib. de Different. Num. 2. 
Vide Petav. Theol. Dogm. de Trin. lib. ii. cap. 9, sect. 2. 
Quid de hoe loco facient Ariani, in quo aperté Christus “ su- 
per omni Deus” esse prescribitur ? Origen in locum. 
Secondly, I assert, that the words will not admit of that 
interpunction and interpretation of Erasmus, which will do 
any service to the Arians or Socinians, viz. that a colon 
must be put after the words κατὰ σάρκα, “after the flesh ;” 
and the words following must be an ecphonema, and grateful 
exclamation for the blessings conferred upon the Jews, thus, 
“God who is over all be blessed for ever.” For this expo- 
sition is to harsh, and without any like example in the whole 
New Testament, that as none of the orthodox ever thought 
upon it, so I find not that it ever came into the head of any 
Arian: Socinus himself rejects it for this very good reason, 
that Οεὸς εὐλογητὸς “God be blessed,” is an unusual and 
unnatural construction ; for wherever else these words sig- 
nify “blessed be God,” εὐλογητὸς, is put before God, as Luke 
i. 68, 2 Cor. i. 3, Eph. 1. 3, 1 Pet. i. 3, and Θεὸς hath an ar- 
ticle prefixed to it, nor are they ever immediately joined to- 
gether otherwise. The phrase occurs twenty times in the 
Old Testament, but in every place εὐλογητὸς goes before, and 
the article is annexed to the word God, which is a demonstra- 
tion that this is a perversion of the sense of the apostle’s words. 
(2.) The apostle having said in the immediate preceding 
words, that Christ came from the fathers κατὰ σάρκα, “ac- 
cording to the flesh,” or as to his human nature, is it not 
reasonable to conceive he would proceed to say what he was 
according to his divine nature, especially when he was dis- 
coursing of and to those Jews, who, as Trypho saith,* and 
Origent and Jerome: testify, held their Messiah was only to 
be a man, and denied his divinity? Is it not unreasonable 
to think he should then say nothing of the τὸ κατὰ πνεῦμα, 


* Ἐγὼ γὰρ καὶ πολλοῖς ᾿Ιουδαίοις, καὶ σοφοῖς ye ἐπαγγελλομένοις 
εἶναι συμβαλὼν, οὐδενὸς ἀκήκοα ἐπαινοῦντος τὸν Λόγον εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν 
τοῦ Θεοῦ, Lib. viii. p. 177, F, et lib. iii. p. 758, A. 

} Orig. contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 79, et lib. iv. p. 162. 

+ Judei spem habent in homine, in Christo videlicet suo, 
quem non filium Dei, sed purum hominem putant esse 
venturum. Hier. in Jer. xvi. f. 135, F. Trypho, apud 
Justin. p. 267, B. 


or the superior nature of Christ? Especially if we consider 
that the limitation τὸ xara σάρκα, “ according to the flesh,” 
plainly insinuated there was another nature in him, accord- 
ing to which he came not from the fathers. In a word, all 
the ancient versions render the words as we do, taking no 
notice of this interpunction. All the Greek scholiasts, and 
the ancient commentators among the Latins, excepting 
Chrysostom, here triumph over Arius, one of them indeed 
hinting, “that there might be men, who would be inclined to 
say these things were not spoken of Christ,’* but none ever 
saying that any did then actually ascribe them to any other 
person. Hence from the beginning, these words have been 
used by the fathers as an argument of Christ’s divinity. For, 
saith [reneus,t “because he is Emanuel, lest we should 
think him a man only, the apostle saith, Of whom, as con- 
cerning the flesh, Christ came; qui est Deus super omnes 
benedictus in secula. And in a like expression to this of 
the apostle, he saith, Secundim id quod verbum Dei homo 
erat ex radice Jesse, filius Abrahami; “ According to that 
nature in which the Word of God was man, of the root of 
Jesse, and the son of Abraham, the Spirit of God rested 
upon him;”’+ secundum autem quod Deus erat, “ but as to 
that nature by which he was God, he judged not after the 
sight of his eyes, for he knew what was in man.” And if 
these words are spoken by the Spirit of God concerning 
Christ, the arguments hence to prove him truly and properly 
God are invincible: for, first, 6 Θεὸς ἐπὶ πάντων, * God over 
all,” is the periphrasis by which all the heathen’philosophers 
did usually represent the supreme God: and so is God the 
Father described both in the Old and the New Testament, 
as 6 ἐπὶ πάντων, he that “is over all,” Eph. iv.6. Secondly, 
This is the constant epithet and periphrasis of the great God 
in the Old Testament, that he is εὐλογητὸς εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, “ God 
blessed for evermore,” 1 Chron. xvi. 36, Ps. xli. 13, Ixxxix. 
52, and also in the New, where he is styled the God ὅς ἐστιν 
εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, “ who is blessed for ever.” This was 
so evident to Enjedinus the Socinian, that he saith, this epi- 
thet is so peculiar to God the Father, “that it is never attri- 
buted in the New Testament to any other, but wheresoever 
we find this phrase, ‘Gop blessed for ever,’ it is always 
ascribed to the Father.” Of the custom of adding to the 
name of God “blessed for evermore,” used by the Jews, 
the reverend doctor hath said sufficient ; and why all that he 
here saith should pass with Mr. Clerc for Jewish fables, what 
reason can be given, if not his averseness to the doctrine the 
doctor here endeavours to estajflish? especially when we find 
this very phrase, εὐλογητὸς Kipfos, ὃ Θεὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος, καὶ εἰς 
τὸν αἰῶνα, OF εὐλογητὸς Κύριος eis τὸν αἰῶνα, “ Blessed be the 
Lord God from everlasting,” Ps. xl. 13, Ixxxviii. 51, ev. 48, 
and find Paul following his example, and Clemens Romanus 
in his epistle so often using the same epithet when he makes 
mention of the God of heaven: Edit. Jun. p. 29. 42. 50. 
57. 59. 66, ver. 6. 

4 Ver. 6. Are not all Israel.) The apostle having de- 
clared, that both Jew and gentiles had sinned, and * fallen 
short of the glory of God,” and so were to be justified only 
by faith in Christ, Rom. iii. 23, 24, the Jews objected against 
this, (1.) that they being the seed of Abraham, to whom the 
promises were made, it was not consistent with the divine 
veracity to exclude them from the blessings promised, and 
to confer them on the believing gentiles. ‘To the first part 
of this objection the apostle answers, by distinguishing be- 


* Si quis autem non putat de Christo dictum quod est 
Deus, det personam de quo dictum est; de Patre enim Deo 
Βὸς loco mentio facta non est. Pseud. Ambros. 

{ Lib. iii. cap. 18, p. 276. + Lib. iii. cap. 10. 


CHAPTER IX. 


ren of God (of whom it is said, Iwill be a God unto 
thee, and thy seed after thee, Gen. xvii. 7): but (they 
only who are) the children of the promise (as Jsaac was) 
are (to be) § counted for the seed. 

9 For this 7s the word of promise, (Gen. xviii. 10,) 
At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son 
(which words confine the children of the promise to the 
seed of Sarah, excluding that of Hagar from it). 


twixt “the seed of Abraham, according to the flesh,” and 


“according to promise,” or the spiritual seed, from ver. 6 to 
the 14th, at those words, “ What shall we say then? is there 
injustice in God?” He begins to answer the second part of 
the objection, that the adoption, and the promises belonging 
to the Jews, ver. 4, and the gentiles being strangers from the 
covenant of promise, it seemed unreasonable to confer those 
blessings on them, and not upon the Jews. To this the 
apostle answers, that this justly befell them, because they 
continued in their infidelity, after all the miracles wrought to 
convince them that Christ was the true Messiah; and so 
as by their obstinacy, like to that of Pharaoh, they had made 
themselves obnoxious to the severest of his judgments; so 
had they rendered themselves incapable of the blessings pro- 
mised to Abraham and his seed, “they who are of faith,” 
being only “the children of Abraham, and heirs according 
to the promise,” Gal. iii. 7. 9. 29, whereas the gentiles be- 
lieving in Christ, are through this faith entitled to the bless- 
ings promised to Abraham and his seed, ver. 14, for they 
being Christ's by faith, “are Abraham's seed, and heirs ac- 
cording to the promise,” ver. 29. 

5 Ver. 8. Λογίζεται εἰς σπέρμα, Are accounted for the 
seed.] That is, of this distinction of seeds, to which the pro- 
mise belongs, you have a manifest instance in the seed of 
Abraham: for before Abraham had any seed at all the pro- 
mise of inheriting the land of Canaan was made unto him 
thus, “Unto thy seed will I give this land,’ Gen. xii. 7; 
« All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to 
thy seed after thee for ever,” Gen. xiii. 13; « Unto thy seed 
have I given this land,’ Gen. xv. 18, But though Ishmael 
was his first-born, and had that circumcision which was the 
seal of the covenant made with Abraham ; yet he, and his 
posterity, those twelve princes and great nations which issued 
from him, were all excluded from the covenant; and Isaac, 
not yet circumcised, or born, and his posterity, are declared 
to be the seed of Abraham, to whom the promise should be 
made good, and with whom the covenant should be esta- 
blished. For when Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael 
might live before thee "ἢ God returns him this answer: “ As 
for Ishmael, I have heard thee; behold, I have blessed 
him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him ex- 
ceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make 
him a great nation; but my covenant will I establish with 
Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear unto thee,’ Gen. xvii. 18. 20, 
21. Again, when Sarah had said of Ishmael, «Cast out 
this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman 
shall not inherit with my son, even with Isaac,” Gen. xxi. 
10, and Abraham thereupon was grieved because of his son, 
ver. 11, God speaks thus to him, « Let it not be grievous in 
thine eyes, because of the lad; in all that Sarah hath said, 
hearken to her, for in Isaac shall thy seed be called,” ver. 
12. Which instance shows, it was not being of the seed of 
Abraham according to the flesh, or having the sign of 
the covenant in the flesh, that rendered men the sons 
of God, or children of the promise then: for Ishmael was 
Abraham’s first-born, and circumcised, and yet by God ex- 
cluded from the promise; Isaac not circumcised, not yet 
born, not having the right of primogeniture, and yet to him, 
and his seed alone, belong the adoption and the promises. 
Two things may here be added for illustration of this instance. 

First, That the Jews can make no just exceptions against 
this argument of the apostle, it being suitable to their own 
theology ; for it is a rule among them, that* “whoso vows 
concerning Abraham’s seed, is free from Ishmael and Esau’s 
sons, and is not bound but touching Israelites, for in Isaac 
shall seed be called to thee;’’ and so Isaac said of Jacob, 
«“ And God give thee the blessing of Abraham.” 

Secondly, That there is a great emphasis in these words, 


* Maimon. of Vows, ch. 9, sect, 21, 
Vor. IV.—72 


569 


10 And not only this (instance ts proper to demon- 
strate the distinction of the seed of Abraham accordin 
to the promise) ; but (that) when (of) Rebecca also ha 
conceived by one, even by our father Isaac (fwo child- 
ren born of the same father, and of the same mother, and 
lying in the same womb) ; 

11 (For the ® children (of her womb) being not yet 
born, neither having done any good nor evil, (which 


“The children of the promise ;” for upon this account it was 
said of Isaac, that he was “ not born according to the flesh, 
but according to the promise,” Gal. iv. 23. Thus Ishmael 
was Abraham's son “according to the flesh,” but Isaac “ ac- 
cording to the Spirit;” to be therefore children of the pro- 
mise, seems to be Abraham’s spiritual seed; whence the 
apostle saith of those who believe in this seed, that they 
are “ the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus,” and so are 
Abraham’s seed, “and heirs according to the promise,” 
Gal. iii. 29. That they according to Isaac, are “child- 
ren of the promise,” Gal. iv. 28. ‘That they are child- 
ren “not of the bondwoman, but of the free,” ver. 31. 
Accordingly the Jews say," “ A proselyte is the son of Abra- 
ham, who is the father of the whole world, as it is said, A 
father of many nations have I made thee.” And because 
the Jews might quarrel against the pertinence of this in- 
stance, alleging this might be because Ishmael was only 
the son of Abraham’s bondmaid, whereas Isaac was the 
seed of his own wife; or that Ishmael had forfeited his right 
by idolatry, or denying the world to come, of which they 
accuse him : here follows the instance of choosing Jacob and 
his seed, excluding Esau and his seed, against which no such 
cavil could take place. 

6 Ver. 11. Μήπω γὰρ γεννηθέντων, For the children being 
not yet born.] The argument of the apostle is to this effect, 
that though both Jacob and Esau had the same father and 
the same mother, yet of these two, when they were yet un- 
born, and so were neither circumcised, nor had done any 
thing at all to oblige or disoblige God, or to give any ground 
for any difference to be made betwixt them, and their off 
spring, God speaks thus of them to Rebecca, «'Two manner 
of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one 
people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder 
shall serve the younger” (Gen. xxv. 23); i. e. not he to 
whom by birthright it belonged, but he whom God was freely 
pleased to choose, should inherit the land of Canaan, pro- 
mised to the seed of Abraham, and the other privileges of 
his seed. Which instance seems plainly to inform us, that 
the choice which God makes of men to the enjoyment of 
the favour of being his people, and beloved by him above 
others, as to such things, is not according to their external 
privileges or works, but according to his free choice. And 
this prediction was fully verified in after ages ; for Jacob and 
his posterity were planted in the land of Canaan, which 
“flowed with milk and honey,’ and was “the glory of all 
lands,” whereas the Edomites were planted in a barren de- 
sert land; and this gave ground for those words of the pro- 
phet Malachi, “I have loved you, saith the Lord to Israel, 
yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau 
Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and 
hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste 
for the dragons of the wilderness.” Now for farther expli- 
cation of these words, let it be observed, 

First, That this instance of Esau’s being rejected, and not 
owned by God as belonging to the promised seed, is suitable 
to the sentiments of the Jews, not only because he, being an 
idolater, and a denier of the resurrection, and of the bless- 
ings of the world to come, was not, according to their fore- 
mentioned canon, to be accounted for seed; and their re- 
ceived rule,t “ ‘hat he who swears concerning the seed of 
Abraham, is free from Ishmael, and Esau’s son,” and is not 
bound but touching Israelites; but also from their observa- 
tion on these words of Jacob,t “The God of my father 
Abraham, of my father Isaac ;” viz. that “he saith not so 
of Esau, that Abraham and Isaac were his fathers, because 
he chose not to walk in their ways, and do their works.” 


* Pug. Fid. par. ii. cap. 9; sect. 6, p. 303. 

ἡ See Targ. Jerus. et B. Uziel in Gen. xxv. 29. 34. 

+ Berisch. Rabba Minor. Parash 76, in Gen, xxxii. 9. 
2x2 


570 


might move God to dislike the one more than the other, as 
may be alleged in the case of Ishmael,) that” the purpose 
of God according to election might stand, not of (Gr. 
from) works, but of him that calleth;) (2. 6. that the 
‘purpose of God in preferring one of these seeds and nations 
before the other, to be the promised seed, and so his church 
and people, might appear to be, not on consideration of their 
works, but his free choice ;) 

12 It was (then) said unto her, The elder (in his 
posterity) shall serve the younger (7. 6. shall be inferior 
to him, who had the right of primogeniture according to 
the flesh. 

13 According to which preference it happened to their 
party) Asit is written (Mal. i. 2, 3), Jacob have I 
oved, but Esau have I hated. 


ROMANS. 


14 What shall we say then (afler these instances) ? 
15 there (any cause to say there is) unrighteousness 
with God? (in taking then, for the seed of Abraham, 
or for his sons and people, the posterity of Isaac, rather 
than of Ishmael; the posterity of Jacob, rather than the 
Edomites? or in calling now the gentiles, and upon their 
faith owning them for his people, the spiritual seed of 
Abraham ; and rejecting the Jews from these advantages 
and privileges, because of their unbelief?) God forbid 
(that we should accuse God of unrighteous dealing upon 
this account). 

15 For (to begin with the freedom which God τες 
servelh lo himself, in showing acts of grace and favour 
to an offending people, in this he only doth what) he 
saith to Moses (he would do, making this declaration 


Secondly, Hence it is evident that the apostle speaks not 
here of the persons, but of the nations and posterity of 
Jacob and Esau, or not of them personally, but nationally 
considered, according to the note of Ireneus, Partum Re- 
becez prophetiam fuisse duorum populorum (lib. iv. cap. 
38). This is plain, 

(1.) From the words of God to Rebecca, “'T'wo nations 
are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be sepa- 
rated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger 
than the other.” (2.) From this observation, That as to the 
persons of Esau and Jacob, it was never true that the elder 
did serve the younger, but only as to their posterity, when 
the Edomites became tributaries to David (2 Sam. viii. 14). 
And, (3.) because what is here offered as a proof or confirm- 
ation of this, is cited from the prophet Malachi, who pro- 
phesied long after Jacob and Esau were personally dead, 
and so could only speak of their posterity the Israelites and 
Edomites, as he expressly doth. And, 

Thirdly, Hence it clearly follows, that the apostle cannot 
here discourse of any personal election of them to eternal 
life, or any absolute love or hatred of them, with respect to 
their eternal interest; for if so, seeing he manifestly speaks 
of the whole nation of Israel, they must, according to that 
opinion, be all elected to salvation; whereas the apostle in- 
forms us that “God had no pleasure in many of them,” 1 
Cor. x. 5, and the whole Jewish history shows the contrary. 
Again, then must the whole posterity of Esau be the object 
of God’s hatred and his reprobation, which is so far from 
being true, that Job and all his friends appear to have been 
of the posterity of Esau. And (2.) then it must follow, as 
Esthius contends, that not only election, but even reproba- 
tion also, must be without any respect to works, and so God 
must adjudge men to eternal perdition, without respect to 
any evil done, or to be done by them; for “the children 
having done neither good nor evil,” saith the apostle, it hap- 
pened to them as it is written, “Jacob have I loved, and 
Esau have I hated.” It is certain then, that the apostle 
speaks here only of the election of one seed and nation be- 
fore another, to be accounted and treated by him as the seed 
of Abraham; this only doth his argument require, and his 
instances prove, and this is sufficient to justify God’s dealing 
with the unbelieving Jews, so as to reject them from being 
accounted for, and treated as, the seed of Abraham ; and his 
raising up children to Abraham out of those believing gen- 
tiles, who, imitating the faith of Abraham, became the spi- 
ritual seed and “heirs according to the promise,” that he 
would be a God to his seed, and that he should be “the fa- 
ther of many nations,” and “in him should all the families 
of the earth be blessed,” and his calling them to the faith, 
though sinners of the gentiles ; that depending not on works, 
but his free pleasure. 

Note also, that those words, “The children being not yet 
born, nor having done good nor evil,” being used as an argu- 
ment to prove the election or preference of the one above 
the other could not be of works, is a strong argument 
against the pre-existence of souls, and their being sent into 
bodies by way of punishment for their former sins: for upon 
that supposition it could not be true, that “the children had 
done neither good nor evil,” before they were born; nor 
could the argument be firm, that one could not be preferred 
before the other on the account of any works done by them, 
seeing the one might have sinned more than the other in 
their state of pre-existence. 


Ἴ Ἢ κατ᾽ ἐκλογὴν πρόϑεσις Θεοῦ, The purpose of God ac- 
cording to eleetion.| Here I shall briefly consider the im- 
port of the words πρόϑεσις, the purpose ; πρύγνωσις, the fore- 
knowledge ; προώρισμος, the foreappointment of God; of all 
which, let it be noted, 

First, That none of them relate to particular and indi- 
vidual persons (save only when they are used of our blessed 
Lord, and his sufferings for us), but only to whole churches 
and nations; and, in general, to the whole body of believ- 
ing Jews and gentiles, whom God had chosen, προωρίσας, 
“foreappointing them to the adoption, by Jesus Christ,” 
Eph. i. 5, “in whom also,” saith he, ἐκληρώϑημεν, “we are 
made his portion, or peculiar people, προωρισϑέντες κατὰ πρό- 
Seow, being foreappointed so to be according to his purpose,” 
ver. 11, God having purposed and foreappointed that this 
should be the portion of believers, and the consequence of 
faith in Christ, by which we become the sons of God. To 
all the converted Jews throughout their dispersions, they 
being chosen κατὰ πρόϑεσιν, “ according to the purpose of God 
the Father” (1 Pet. i. 2): and, lastly, to the posterity of 
Jacob, of whom, that ἡ κατὰ Θεὸν πρύϑεσις, “ the purpose 
of God, according to the election, might stand,” it was 
said, when Rebecca bore twins, “The elder shall serve the 
younger.” 

Secondly, That this foreknowledge, purpose, or appoint- 
ment, is only that of calling men to the knowledge of salva- 
tion by Christ Jesus. Thus the apostle teacheth, that he 
was appointed to “preach to the gentiles the unsearchable 
riches of Christ, according to the ancient purpose which God 
hath made in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Eph. iii. 11); and 
that “ according to his purpose before ages, he called us with 
a holy calling” (2 Tim. i. 9). 

Thirdly, This calling is designed by God ἐπὶ τοῦτο, « for 
this end,” that they who are called might “ obtain salvation 
through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth” 
(2 Thess. ii. 13); “through sanctification of the Spirit of 
obedience, and through the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus” 
(1 Pet. i, 2): all Christians being chosen to this end, “ that 
they might be holy, and unblameable before God in love” 
(Eph. i. 4). But hence it cannot reasonably be concluded, 
that this election is no larger than the holiness designed to 
be produced by it; for “the riches of God’s goodness, pa- 
tience, and long-suffering” are designed to “lead” all those 
to whom it is vouchsafed “to repentance.” But hence it 
cannot be concluded that this riches, goodness, patience, and 
long-suffering, is exercised to none but those who truly do 
repent, seeing the apostle mentions many who despised 
these means, and after the vouchsafement of them still con- 
tinued to “treasure up wrath against the day of wrath” 
(Rom. ii. 4). ‘The Baptist was sent “to turn the hearts of 
the fathers to the children, and of the disobedient unto the 
wisdom of the just,” but his preaching was far from having 
its effects on all that heard him. The end of the Messiah’s 
advent to the Jews was, that he might “save his people from 
their sins,” and might engage them to “serve him in holiness 
and righteousness all the days of their life” (Luke i. 75): but 
yet it sadly failed of this effect upon the stubborn people; 
“the saving grace of God appeared to all men, to teach 
them, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live so- 
berly, righteously, and godly, in this present world ;” but 
yet it is too sadly evident, it hath not had this good effect 
on all. 

Fourthly, As men were appointed from the beginning to 


CHAPTER IX. 


to him, Exod. xxxiii. 19),* I will have mercy on whom 
I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on 
whom I will have compassion. 

16 So then (these instances show, that) ® it is not of 
him that willeth, (for Abraham willed that Ishmael 
might live to be partaker of the blessings promised to his 
seed, when he said, O that Ishmael might live before thee! 
Gen. xvii. 18, and when he was grieved at the saying of 
Sarah, The son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with 
my son Isaac, Gen. xxi. 11,) nor of him that runneth, 
(for when Esau ran to fetch venison for his father, that 
he might receive the blessing, Gen. xxvii. 5, God’s wis- 


dom saw it fit to have it otherwise,) but of God that | 


sheweth mercy (that any one is chosen to be the seed to 
which the promise made to Abraham belongs, and so to be 
his church and people. 


571 


To proceed now to the other part of the objection, 
the seeming injustice or severity of rejecting and re- 
serving them to wrath, and of giving them up to an 
obdurate heart, who will not accept of the way God 
hath appointed for their justification, viz. that of faith 
in Christ, but rather will continue in their infidelity : 
this will be cleared by another instance, that of Pha- 
raoh, who had so often hardened his heart, refusing to 
let Israel g°)- 

17 For the scripture saith (upon that account) unto 
Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose " have I raised 
thee up (i. 6. have made thee stand in the plague of boils, 
and prolonged thy life for some farther time), that 1 might 
(the more illustriously) shew my power in thee, and 
that my name might be declared throughout all the 
earth (by that conspicuous judgment I will execule upon 


be called, so the gospel, which is “the wisdom of God 
through faith unto salvation,” was that ἣν προώρισεν, “ which 
God had foreappointed” to be preached to men for that end, 
1 Cor. ii. 7, this word of God giving the hope of that salva- 
tion, which he had « promised before all ages.” And hence, 
by virtue of this promise and foreappointment, men were in 
time called by the gospel to the faith in Christ, whence they 
who were thus called are said to be called “ according to the 
purpose of God” (Rom. viii. 28), and “ according to his pur- 
pose and grace given us through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. i. 
10): the knowledge and purpose, from the foundation of 
the world, of sending Christ to die for the remission of sins, 
being the ground of this calling, on which account he is said 
to be “given up to the death according to the foreknow- 


ledge of God, and his foreappointed counsel” (Acts ii. 23) ; | 


and they who slew him are said to have done only what his 
counsel had foreappointed to be done (Acts iv. 28). These 
observations will direct us to answer what is argued from 
these and such like places of scripture in favour of an abso- 
lute election. 

8 Ver. 15. ᾿Ελεήσω ὃν ἂν ἐλεῶ, I will have mercy on whom 
Twill have mercy.) It is here to be noted, that God made 
this declaration after Israel had committed idolatry, in 
making the golden calf, and so had made themselves naked, 
1. 6. divested of the divine presence and protection, or of a 
covenant relation to him, insomuch that God sent this dread- 
ful message to them, “I will come up into the midst of thee 
in a moment, and consume thee” (Exod. xxxiii. 5), and said 
to Moses, “Let me alone, that I may destroy them in a 
moment.” And though God suffered himself to be prevailed 
upon by Moses to adopt them again for his people; yet he 
lets him know this was part of his glory, “to be gracious to 
whom he will be gracious, and also to show mercy to whom 
he will show mercy” (Exod. xxxiii. 19). If therefore, upon 
the infidelity of the Jews, he will call the idolatrous gen- 
tiles, and receive them to be his people, as he did the Jews 
again after their idolatry, who can accuse him of injustice 
upon that account! (see the note on ver. 18.) 

9 Ver. 16. Οὐ τοῦ ϑέλοντος, οὐδὲ τοῦ rpéxovros, It is not of 
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth.) i. e. You see 
this is not to be obtained by the most passionate wishes of 
a faithful Abraham, nor by the fervent desires of an Esau 
(Heb. xii. 17), nor by the greatest zeal we can employ in 
such courses as seem best to our own wisdom ; but we must 
own it to be a blessing which depends merely upon the di- 
vine goodness ; and therefore must seek it according to his 
pleasure, in such ways as he appoints, and not in those 
which seem to us most proper to obtain it: though then you 
have a zeal for God, and follow after the law, that you may 
obtain righteousness, it is not to be wondered you obtain not 
the blessing of justification promised to the seed of Abra- 
ham, because you seek it not by faith in the Messiah, which 
is the only way in which God hath declared he will con- 
fer it. 

Some of the fathers* interpret these words thus; “It is 
not of him that wills, or runs only, but of God that showeth 
mercy, and crowns the work by his assistance; for other- 


wise,” say they, “it cannot be our duty, either to will or 
run, provided we can, neither by willing nor running, do any 
thing to incline God to show mercy; and why then doth 
God blame us for not willing?” (Matt. xxiii. 17, John v. 
40,) and require us “so to run that we may obtain?” (1 
Cor. ix. 24, Heb. xii. 1.) And whereas Austin objects, That 
according to this interpretation it might be said, It is not of 
God that showeth mercy only, but of man that wills and 
runs; Origen,* Chrysostom,t and 'Theophylact,} answer, 
That this follows not, because man’s willing and running 
would not avail without the divine aid, to enable him to run, 
and his grace and mercy to accept his running; and there- 
fore according to the custom of the scripture, the effect is to 
be ascribed to the chief agent only; as, “ Except the Lord 
build the house, their labour is but vain that build it,’ &c., 
Ps. exxvii. 1; so, “ Paul that plants, and Apollos that wa- 
ters, is nothing, but God that giveth the increase,’ 1 Cor. 


| iil. 6, 7, “I laboured, yet not I, but the grace of God,” 1 


Cor. xv. 10. 

10 Ver. 17. ᾿Εξήγειρά σε, I have raised thee up.) Heb. 
yyorcya, “I have made thee to stand,” Exod. ix. 16, or, 
have preserved thee ; ἕνεκεν τούτου διετηρήθης, “ For this cause 
hast thou been kept,’ so the LXX.; i. 6. from falling by 
the plague of boils, so Junius and Tremellius ; Feci ut super- 
stes maneres, “I have kept thee alive,” saith the Targum of 
B. Uziel. See the Chaldee, the Syriac, and the Arabic ver- 
sions to the same sense; and the connexion of this with the 
former verse rightly rendered makes this sense necessary ; 
for the fifteenth verse cannot be rendered in the future 
tense, as our translation doth, « Now I will stretch out my 
hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with the pesti- 
lence, and thou shalt be cut off from the earth;” for Pha- 
raoh and his people did not die by the pestilence. It is 
therefore to be rendered, as the Jews, Fagius, Amama, 
Cartwright, and Ainsworth, translate it; “For now I had 
sent out my hand, and I had smitten thee and thy people 
with the pestilence, and thou hadst been cut off from the 
earth; but in very deed, for this cause I have made thee 
stand up.”§ So the Targum of B. Uziel, Quum jam mise- 
rim plagam fortitudinis mew, equum erit ut percuterem te 
et populum tuum morte, ut perderem te ἃ terra; vertim pro- 
fectO non ut benefaciam tibi in vita conservavi te, sed ut vi- 
dere faciam te robur meum, &c. Whence we may learn 
how alien from the truth, and from the import of the words, 
is that exposition which saith, “ For this cause have I created 
thee,” or “raised thee to be the king of Egypt.” 

Observe farther, that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, not 
by any positive influx upon it, which made it necessary for 
him to continue obstinate. This Origen observes from those 
words, “If thou refuse to let my people go, I will do so and 
so ;” that Pharaoh’s heart was not so hardened as to take 
away τὸ αὐτεζούσιον, “all power from him” to let the people 
go, for this he doth at last when God’s hand was strong upon. 
him, according to these words, iii. 19, “I am sure that the 
king of Egypt will not let you go ;” pin wa xd) nisi per 
manum fortem, Vulg. ἐὰν μὴ μετὰ χειρὸς κραταιὰς, “if not by 
a strong hand,” Septuagint ; nisi cum mani valida, Samarit., 


* Οὐ τοῦ ϑέλοντος μόνον, οὐδὲ τοῦ τρέχοντος μόνον, ἀλλὰ det καὶ 
τοῦ SeéSev ἐλέου. καὶ τῆς ἐκεῖϑεν συμμαχίας. CEcum. Chrys. 
Hom. 12 in Hebr. p. 489. G. Nazianz. Orat. 31. 


* Orig. de Princip. lib. iii. cap. 1. 
+ Chrysost. ut supra. + Theoph. in locum. 
§ See the Bishop of Ely on the place, 


512 


thee, in the sight of all nations of the earth, Josh. ii. 10, 
1 Sam. iv. 8). 

18 Therefore (from these instances and scriptures we 
may learn that) hath " he (God) merey on whom he 
will have mercy, and (that) whom he will he hardeneth 
(or reserves for punishment). 

19 Thou wilt say then unto me (against this account 


ROMANS. 


of the divine dispensations towards the unbelieving Jews, 
If God hardeneth us because he will), Why doth he yet 
find fault (with us for our impenitence)? For who hath 
(at any time) resisted his will? (How therefore is it in 
our power to avoid being hardened, if it be his will we 
should be so?) 

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest 


“but by a strong hand,” so the Bishop of Bath and Wells. 
This sense the words will bear, saith Ainsworth, , being ren- 
dered si, Exod. iv. 23, Numb. xii. 14, And this sense is 
plain and certain from the words following; “ And I will 
stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders, 
which I will do in the midst thereof, and after that he will 
let you go,” Exod. iii. 20. And again, vi. 1, Then said the 
Lord to Moses, “ Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pha- 
raoh, for with a strong hand shall he let them go.” Hence 
God is always said to have brought them out of Egypt 
apin wa “with a strong hand,” Exod. xxxii. 11, Deut. v. 
15, vi. 21, vii. 8, ix. 26, Dan. ix. 15. Nor can they who 
think otherwise, show any way how or in what sense Pharaoh 
can be so often said to have “hardened his own heart,” if 
God himself had hardened his heart before; or why God 
doth so often command him to let his people go (vii. 16, 
viii. 1. 20, ix. 1. 13), i. 6. to do what he had rendered him 
unable to do; or why Moses should say, “ Let not Pharaoh 
deal deceitfully any more, in not letting the people go” 
(viii. 29); or why God did reprove him, because he had 
hitherto refused to let the people go (vii. 16, viii. 29, ix. 17, 
x. 3) ; or why he threatens judgments to him, if he refuse to 
let them go (vill. 2. 21, ix. 2, 3. 14, 15), and executes them 
on him upon that refusal, since nemo tenetur ad impossibi- 
lia, “no man is obliged to do what he cannot;” much less 
what he cannot do by virtue of a disability that God hath 
laid upon him ; and no man justly can be blamed, and much 
less punished, for not doing what he is not obliged to do. 
Nor can God command any man to do what he himself by 
his own influx restrains him from doing, even when he doth 
command it; for what he thus restrains him from, he is not 
willing he should do; whereas what he commands he is 
willing should be done; and when he punisheth any one for 
not obeying his command, he punisheth them for not doing 
his will. Now it is impossible that God at the same time, 
and in reference to the same action, should be both willing 
and not willing it should be done. ‘his will be farther 
evident from a consideration of all the places where the heart 
of Pharaoh is said to be hardened.. As, 

Ch. vii. 13, “ And he hardened Pharaoh’s heart ;’’ Heb. 
pin “ And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened.” So the 
same words are rendered by us, ver. 22, and so hereby Ains- 
worth, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the Bishop of Ely, 
and all the versions on this verse; nor is there any person 
mentioned in the verse, besides Pharaoh, to whom this action 
can be ascribed; his heart was therefore hardened at this 
time, not by God, but by the arts of his sorcerers, for “the 
magicians did so with their enchantments, and Pharaoh’s 
heart was hardened” (ver. 22). ; 

Ch. viii. 15, we read thus, “ When Pharaoh saw there 
was respite, he hardened his heart;” when the fathers 
truly observe that Θεοῦ μακροθυμία cxAnpoxapdias αἰτία, i. e. the 
heart of Pharaoh was hardened by God’s mercy, in taking 
off bis hand from him: thus upon removal of the flies, 
« Pharaoh hardened his heart’’ (ver. 31, 32) ; “and when he 
saw that the rain, and the hail, and the thunders, were ceased, 
he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his ser- 
vants:” and then immediately follow these words; “ And 
the Lord said to Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, for (or, although) 
I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants,” 
x. 1; so ver. 20, the Lord then “hardened Pharaoh’s 
heart” only by taking away the locusts; and, ver. 27, “the 
Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart” only by taking away the 
darkness, the three days assigned to it being ended, as Aben 
Ezra observes on ver. 24, “ None rose from his place during 
those three days,” but post triduum, they being ended, Pha- 
raoh called unto Moses; and hence we read, not as at other 
times, that Pharaoh asked for the removal of this plague; 
and therefore when it is said, ix. 12, that “the Lord hardened 
the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them,” 1. 6. 
not to Moses and Aaron; we have reason to conclude he did 


that also by removing the plague of the boils; for had the 
boils continued upon the Egyptians, there was no reason for 
calling for the succeeding plague of hail, nor could the ser- 
vants of Pharaoh, with their boils upon them, have gone into 
the field to house their cattle, ver. 20. We read also, xiv. 
8. 17, that “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart” to follow 
the Israelites; and of this we may give the same account, 
that he did this by causing the Israelites to encamp so as to 
sive occasion to Pharaoh to say, “ They are entangled in the 
land, the wilderness hath shut them in” (ver. 3), and by 
causing him to see the Israelites walking safely through the 
midst of the sea. But I am not concerned for these places, 
the hardening of Pharaoh then being not for sin (God having 
not commanded Pharaoh not to pursue after them, or follow 
them into the Red sea), but for punishment: when there- 
fore God saith, iv. 21, “I will harden the heart of Pharaoh, 
that he shall not let the people go;” his meaning may be 
only this, I will so order matters by removing the plagues 
inflicted on him and his people, to mollify him, and engage 
him to permit them to go, that he shall be hardened, till I 
come with my strong hand and slay his son, even his first- 
born (ver. 23), after which he did let them go (xii. 31. 33). 
From these two observations it is easy to discern how appo- 
site this example is to the case of the Jewish nation. For, 

First, Did God harden Pharaoh by his lenity, in removing 
his plagues and judgments from him? the same God saith 
of the Jews in this epistle, when he speaks thus unto them, 
ii. 4, 5, “ Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and for- 
bearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness 
of God leadeth thee to repentance ; but after thy hardness and 
impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the 
day of wrath, and revelation of God’s righteous judgment?” 

Secondly, If they object, that if God would have cast them 
off from being his people, and have cut them off from any 
share in the promises made to the seed of Abraham, why did 
he not this before, when they had so oft deserved it for their 
idolatries, from which they were now free? the answer is, 
from the example of Pharaoh preserved alive when he had 
long deserved to be cut off, that he might fall at last, more to 
the illustration of God’s power, justice, and glory; and this 
is the thing hinted ver. 22, as you will see in the exposition of it. 

1 Ver. 18. “Ov ϑέλει ἐλεεῖ, ὃν δὲ ϑέλει σκληρύνει, He hath 
mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he 
hardeneth.] That is, hence it appears that God shows mercy 
according to his own wise pleasure, and not as we think fit; 
end he gives men up to the hardness of their own hearts, and 
so reserveth them to be examples of his illustrious judgments, 
according to the same good pleasure, and not according to 
the time and measures that they would prescribe; showing 
mercy to you Jews, when you deserved to be cut off for your 
idolatry, i making and worshipping the golden calf, and 
reassuming you to be his people, and reserving the execution 
of his wrath upon Pharaoh, who had before deserved it for 
the hardness of his heart, till his destruction would minister 
to the greater illustration of his power and justice upon stub- 
born sinners. 

Execrable is the note of Esthius here, that God is here 
said to harden whom he will, quéd induratio cujuspiam in 
prima sua origine, que est prima derelictio, seu peccati per- 
missio, non aliam habet causam quim Dei voluntatem ; 
“because the first rise of any man’s induration, which is 
God’s dereliction of him, hath no other cause than the will 
of God :” for as this is contrary to the known saying even of 
Austin, Deus non deserit nisi deserentem, “ God deserts no 
man, who leaves not him first;” so it makes God alone the 
cause of all men’s hardening, since causa cause est causa 
causati: for if this dereliction be the cause of induration, and 
that hath no other cause but the will of God, the will of God 
must be the cause of all men’s hardening it. It also makes 
all God’s exhortations to men not to harden their hearts, and 
his reproofs and punishments of them for so doing, exhorta- 


CHAPTER IX. 


(thus) against God? Shall the thing formed say to 
him that formed if, Why hast thou made me thus ? 

21 Hath not the ” potter power over the clay, of 
the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and 
another unto dishonour? 

22 What (therefore) if God, (being) ™ willing to 
shew his wrath, and to make his power (more illus- 
friously) known, endured with much longsuffering 
(you refractory Jews, which were so long ago) the ves- 
sels of wrath fitted to destruction, (or for breaking, Ps. 
xxxi. 13, what reason have you to complain against him 
on this account ? 

23 And (what tf God) that he might make known 
the riches of his glory (showed mercy) on the vessels 
of merey, " which he had afore (by working faith in 
them) prepared unto glory (or to be a glorious church), 

24 Even us, whom he hath ealled, (us, J say,) not 
of the Jews only (the natural seed of Abraham), but 


also of the Gentiles? (hat is there in this thal should | 


offend you? 
25 For, first, as for the called genliles, is not this the 
very thing foretold by their own prophet Hosea, when he 


introduceth God thus speaking,) As he saith also in Osee, | 


I will call them my people, which were not my people; 
and her beloved, which (then) was not beloved. 

26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place (and 
nation) where Gformnert) it was said unto them, Ye 
are not my people; 5. there shall they be called (7. e. 
there shall arise a people which shall be called) the child- 
ren of the living God. 


573 


27 (And whereas but a small remnant of Israel have 
believed, and so but a few of them are filled to be vessels 
of his mercy; is not this also the very thing foretold by 
their own prophet) Esaias also (when he) crieth con- 
cerning Israel (x. 22, 23), Though the number of the 
children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, (yet) a 
remnant (only of them) shall be saved (i. δ. shall be con- 
verted to ose say the Jews, and so continue to enjoy the 
name and title of his people) : 

28 For (saith he) he will finish the work, and eut 
it short in righteousness : because ' a short work will 
the Lord make upon the earth (7. e. the land of 
Judea). 

29 And (this hath happened according) as Esaias 
said before, (i. 9, That there was a time when the sins 


| of that people were so highly provoking, that) except 


the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, (except his 
exceeding goodness had redeemed us in mercy, there were 
sins in us, saith the Chaldee paraphrast, for which) we 
had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Go- 
morrha. 

30 17 What shall we say then? (τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν ; what 
do we say then? i. e. what is therefore the substance of 
what I have intended in this discourse? It is even this,) 
That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteous- 
ness (t. e. who before the coming of Christ were not 
solicitous touching justification before God, as having 
no idea, and no notice of it, or call to it, and so as 
little thought of being preferred before Israel, as Isaac, 
being not born, of being preferred before Ishmael; and 


tions to what his will is the true cause of their not doing, 
and reproofs and punishments of that which his will caused 
them to do. 

12 Ver. 21. Οὐκ ἔχει ἐξουσίαν ὃ κεραμεὺς τοῦ πηλοῦ ; Hath not 
the potter power over the clay 3] That is, there is no more 
cause from God’s dispensation in this case, in taking away 
the means of grace from and rejecting such a hardened peo- 
ple, and showing his favour unto others, who submit to his 
terms of mercy, to make this objection, than for the clay of 
Jeremy, when it was marred and broken (Jer. xviii. 4. 6), 
to complain against the potter, that he took one part of it 
and made it a vessel of dishonour, and another part of it and 
made it a vessel of honour. 

That this example, of the clay in the hands of the potter, 
relates to God’s dealing with sinners according to his plea- 
sure, is evident not only from the application of it here to 
the impenitent, ver. 7, 8, but also from the like passage in 
Ecclesiasticus, where we are taught from this very instance, 
that “the ways of God are κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν αὐτοῦ, according 
to his good pleasure ;” because “as the clay is in the hands 
of the potter, so is man in the hands of hiin that made him, 
to render to them as liketh him best, κατὰ τὴν κρίσιν αὐτοῦ, 
according to his righteous judgment” (Ecclus. xxxiii. 13). 

13 Ver. 22. Ei δὲ ϑέλων 6 Θεῦς, What if God, δες. i. e. 
What injustice therefore is it in God to deal with you as he 
dealt with a hardened Pharaoh, you having as oft refused to 
hearken to his voice as Pharaoh did? Or what if he long 
hath, and still at present bears with such “vessels of his 
wrath fitted for destruction,” till in a more illustrious manner, 
and with more signal marks of his displeasure, for thus reject- 
ing the gospel, and the promised Messiah, he swallow up 
their nation, their people, their temple, and their holy city, 
in one general destruction? Is it not for the glory of the 
divine power and wisdom to reserve the rejectors of the 
Messiah, sent to bless them, and the persecutors of the 
Christian faith, to be at last cut off with such a remarkable 
destruction, as shall render it visible to the world that God’s 
indignation is incensed against them for this sin, and so shall 
give to Jew and gentile a farther motive to believe in Jesus? 

And again, What if God is pleased, upon their impeni- 
tence and obduration, to show the riches of his glorious good- 
ness and mercy upon those Jews and gentiles, whom he hath 
called to the faith of Christ, and so hath fitted and prepared 
to be the vessels of his merey? Hath he not a just right to 
show his mercy to such persons who have submitted to the 
terms upon which he hath promised favour and acceptance, 


and so to own them as the spiritual seed of Abraham, and so 
as his peculiar people ? 

M Ver. 23. "A xponroipace eis d6¢av, Whom he hath pre- 
pared for his glory.) Thus the apostle, discoursing of the day 
of the Lord, which was coming to execute his dreadful judg- 
ments on the Jews, saith thus, “ God hath not appointed us 
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” 
(1 Thess. v. 9). 

15 Ver 26. ᾽Εκεῖ κληθήσονται, There shall they be called the 
children of the living God.] It must be acknowledged, that 
in these words the prophet primarily speaketh of the restora- 
tion of the Jews exiled, and cast off from being his people; 
but yet that these words may not only be accommodated, 
but even extended to the gentiles, who were emphatically not 
his people, and yet by faith became the seed of Abraham; 
and the true Israelites being the sons of God by faith in 
Jesus Christ (ver. 6. 8), may be argued from the phrase 
copra, “in the place” or nation “ where it was said, Ye are 
not my people :” and so the Jews themselves interpret these 
words in the gloss upon the Talmud, saying, “They who 
were not of my people shall adhere to the Lord, and be to 
me for a people” (Glos. Talmud. in Tract. de Paschate, ad 
cap. 8); according to that of the prophet Zechariah, “ And 
many nations shall adhere to the Lord in that day, and shall 
be my people” (Zech. ii. 11). 

16 Ver. 28. Adyov συντετμημένον, A short work.) 1. 6. Such 
a consumption and decision is by God designed upon that 
multitude of evil-doers in the land of Israel, as shall cut 
them very short and lop them off, so that they shall be as a 
tree, of which only the stump remaineth; “They shall be 
reduced,” saith R. Solomon, “to a small remnant, and a 
remnant of that remnant shall be converted” (see Examen 
Milli here). 

1 Ver. 30. Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν ; What do we then say ?] From 
this recapitulation of the whole dispute of the apostle in this 
chapter, and his declaration that this was the design of it, to 
justify God in this proceeding and dealing with them both, 
it is exceeding evident that it was not at all designed to 
determine any thing touching God’s absolute decrees of deal- 
ing with mankind in general, thus or thus, as to their final 
and eternal state, but only to justify his dealings, as in his 
providence he had actually done with the unbelieving Jews, 
rejecting them upon their stubborn infidelity and the hard- 
ness of their hearts; and with the believing gentiles, adinit- 
ting them to be his church and people, and the spiritual seed 
of Abraham, upon their faith and submission to the terms he 


574 


Jacob in the womb, of being chosen to be the promised seed 
before Esau), have ( yet, through God’s grace and favour 
through faith,) attained to righteousness, even the 
righteousness which is of faith (and so are made God’s, 
and his peculiar people). 

31 But Israel, (fo whom the promise was first made, 
and) which followed after the law of righteousness 
(i. 6. earnestly pursued after righteousness, and acceptance 
by the works of the law), hath not attained to the law 
of righteousness, (or to the righteousness which God 
accepteth. 

32 And) Wherefore (is zt so)? Because they sought 


ROMANS. 


it (this justification) not by (that) faith (which alone God 
prescribed for that end), but as (if) it were (to be ob- 
tained) by the works of the law, (by which no flesh can 
be justified, iii. 20, and the reason why they sought not 
by faith in Christ is this,) for they 15 stumbled at that 
stumblingstone ; (and so it happened to them,) 

33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a™ stum- 
blingstone and rock of offence: and whosceyer be- 
lieveth on him shall not be ashamed, Sn they that 
believe not shall stumble, and fall, and be broken by the 
stone of stumbling, and rock of offence, Isa. viii. 14, 
15). 


He proposed for their justification and acceptance with 
im. 
18 Ver. 32. 'ς ἐξ ἔργων νόμου.] ‘Ms, say Hesychius and 
Phavorinus, is used ἀντὶ rod ὄντως ἁληϑοῦς, as 2 in the He- 
brew is, or as an expletive: so Matt. xiv. 5, xxi. 6, John i. 
14, 2 Cor. i. 17, Phil. ii. 7, 1 Pet. i. 12, so Neh. vil. 2, αὐτὸς 
ὡς ἀνὴρ ἀληθὴς, “He was a true man, and one that feared the 
Lord:” see Noldius, Concord. Partic. p. 8376, 377, and is, 
as the Greek commentators often note, οὐχ ὁμοιώσεως ἀλλὰ 
βεβαιώσεως καὶ ἀναμφισβήτου διορισμοῦ, “a particle not of simili- 
tude but of confirmation,” and so may here be rendered, 
“But verily,” or, “« But indeed, by the works of the law.” 

19 Προσέκοιψαν yap, For they stumbled, &c.] They sought 
not justification by faith in Christ, because whereas God had 
pointed out to them this way of salvation, by saying, “ Be- 
hold, I lay in Zion a corner-stone, elect and precious, and 
whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed,” Isa. xxviii. 
16, this corner-stone became to them of Israel, according to 


the words of the same prophet, vill. 14, “a stone of stum- 
bling, and a rock of offence:” they being offended at him 
because of his poverty, humility, and outward meanness, and 
the spirituality of his kingdom; and so they stumbled and 
fell off from being God’s people, and exclude themselves 
from the blessings procured for and offered to them by the 
Messias promised to their forefathers (see 1 Pet. 11. 6—8). 

20 Ver. 33. Προσκόμματος λίθον, A stone of stumbling, &e.] 
The Jews say, “The Son of David, i. 6. the Messias, cometh 
not till the two houses of the fathers of Israel shall be taken 
away, to wit, the head of the captivity of Babylon, and the 
prince who is in Israel, as it is said, ‘ He shall be a stone of 
stumbling, and a rock of ruin, to the two houses of Israel, 
and many of them shall stumble and fall, and be broken.’ ” 
And the Chaldee paraphrast upon the place saith thus, &c. 
pdapn xd con), “ And if they will not obey, or receive (him), 
my word shall be to them for scandal and ruin to the princes 
of the two houses of Israel.” 


CHAPTER X. 


1 Breruren, my heart’s desire and ! prayer to God 
for Israel is, that they might be saved. 

2 For I bear them record that they have 2a zeal of 
God (being very desirous to do what they conceive well 
pleasing to him, and acceptable in his sight), but (this zeal 
18) not according to knowledge (7. 6. nol joined with the 


knowledge of those things which would render them truly | 


acceptable to him). 

3 For they being ignorant (through unbelief, 1 Tim. 
i. 13,) of God’s righteousness, (7. 6. of that way of jus- 
tification which alone renders us righteous, and acceptable 
in the sight of God, see note on Rom. i. 17, 2 Cor. v. 
21,) and going about to establish their own righteous- 
ness (which is of the law, Phil. 111. 9, and so a righteous- 
ness peculiar to them who are Jews), have not submitted 
themselves unto (that righteousness which is through 
faith in Christ, and 15) the righteousness of God. 


4 Vor Christ zs the end of the law for righteousness 
(to be imputed) to every one that believeth (in him; the 
law being our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we 
might be justified by faith, Gal. 111. 25. 

5 Which righteousness by faith can never be obtained 
by the works of the law ;) For Moses describeth the 
righteousness which is of the law (¢Aws), That the man 
which doeth those things ? shall live by them (so that 
this righteousness is, plainly, not of faith, but of works). 

6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh 
(so as that we may accommodate the works of Moses to it) 
on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend 
into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above) 
(to be a teacher of it 10 us) + 

7 Or, Who shall 4 descend into the deep? (that is, 
to bring up Christ again from the dead) (¢o give us the 
salvation purchased by his death). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἢ δέησις, My prayer.] That the apostle speaks 
not in the preceding chapter of the absolute and peremptory 
rejection and reprobation of Israel, is evident from this 
prayer, and vehement desire; for on supposition of such a 
deoree of reprobation, this must not only be a vain prayer, 
but also an opposing of his will, and εὐδοκία, to “the good 
pleasure” of Almighty God revealed to him; for it is evident 
he prays here for all Israel, for them whose “zeal to God” 
was “not according to knowledge,” and who were “ igno- 
rant of God’s righteousness,” ver. 2, 3, not for those only, 
as Esthius descants, whom God hath predestinated to be 
saved by the prayers of the saints. 

2 Ver. 2. Ζῆλον Θεοῦ, A zeal for God.] Hence were some 
of them called “zealots,” taking that name ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπ᾿ ἀγαθῷ 
ζηλωμένων, “from those who were zealous for that which was 
good,” saith Josephus, de Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 986. 

3 Ver. 5. Ζήσεται ἐν αὐτοῖς, Shall live by them,] A pros- 
perous and happy life in the land of Canaan, as Origen* 


* Non dixit in eternum, sed tantummodo vivet in δᾶ. 
Orig. in locum, 


interprets the words, eternal life being not the promise of 
the law, but of the gospel; and if eternal life was obscurely 
hinted as the reward of their obedience to the law of Moses, 
it related not to their obedience to the ceremonial, but to the 
moral law; of which our Saviour saith, “If thou wilt enter 
into life (eternal, ver. 16), keep the commandments,” Matt. 
xix. 18, and “This do, and thou shalt live,” Luke x. 28. 
Obedience to which includes faith in his word and promises: 
and so faith in Christ, when once that is revealed as the 
condition of our justification, and the obedience they yielded 
to it, availed to their salvation, only through the new cove- 
nant of grace, which pardoned the infirmities of that obedi- 
ence (see Examen Millii here). 

4 Ver. 7. Tis καταβήσεται cis τὴν ἄβυσσον; Who shall descend 
into the deep 2] These words, Deut. xxx. 13, are tnese, 
“ Who shall go over the sea?” that is, say the Targums of 
Jerusalem and B. Uziel, “the great sea,” or the deep sea; 
and the Jerusalem Targum renders the words thus, “ Oh that 
there were one like Jonas the prophet, who would descend 
ND) sppry), into the depth of the great sea " Now we know 
Jonas descending into the deep was a type of Christ, Matt. 
xii. 20, “descending into the deep of the earth,” Ps. Ixxi. 
20, and being brought again, say the LXX., ἐκ τῶν ἀβύσσων 


CHAPTER X. 


8 But what saith it? (what therefore saith it?) The 
word is ὅ nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy 
heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach ; 

9 That if thou shalt δ confess with thy mouth the 
Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God 
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 

10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteous- 
ness (Gr. to jusfification) ; and 7 with the mouth con- 
fession is made (of that faith) unto salvation. 

11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on 
him shall not be ashamed (of his hope and salvation by 
him, Rom. iv. 5. 

12 And it rightly saith, Whosoever,) For there is no 
difference (as to the way of justification and ae) 
between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lor 
over all is rich unto all that call upon him (for salva- 
tion). 


575 


13 For (as the prophet Joel saith, ii. 32) δ whoso- 
ever shall call upon the name of the Lord: shall be 
saved, 

14 Now this calling upon him supposes God’s inten- 
lion, that the gentiles, as well as Jews, should hear, in 
order to their believing ; for did they not believe,)How 
then shall they call on him in whom they have not 
believed? (Did they not hear,) and how shall they 
believe in him of whom they have not heard? and 
(this hearing supposeth some preacher was to be sent to 
the gentiles, for) how shall they hear without a 
preacher ? 

15 And (this preacher must have a commission from 
God, for) how shall they preach, except they be sent? 
(Now certainly we have been sent to you Jews, preach- 
ing peace to you by Jesus Christ, Acts x. 36,) as it is 
written (Isa. lii. 7, 8), How ° beautiful (upon the 


γῆς» “from the abysses of the earth;” and this might give 
occasion to the apostle to allude to their traditional interpre- 
tation, or paraphrase on the words of Moses; like to which 
are those of Baruch, ili. 16, “Who hath gone up into 
heaven, and taken wisdom, and brought her down from the 
clouds? who hath gone over the sea, and found her ?”’ And 
to this effect is that of Philo, “« What need is there ἢ μάκρας 
oidoropias, ἢ rod θαλαττεύειν, either to take long journeys, or 
go to sea in search of virtue, we having the root of it within 
us?” or, as Moses saith, “in our mouth, in our heart, and in 
our hand?” lib. Quod omnis probus liber, p. 677, E. Note 
also, that the apostle says not, to bring Christ ab inferis, as 
Esthius here doth, but only to bring him ἐκ νεκρῶν, “from 
the dead;”’ this place therefore concerns not Christ’s descent 
into hell, in the sense of Esthius. 

5 Ver. 8. ‘Eyyis cov, Nigh thee.] It is neither far from 
any man’s hearing, for we preach it every where; nor far 
from his understanding, for in preaching it “we use great 
plainness of speech,” 2 Cor. iii. 12; it is in thy mouth to 
profess, and in thy heart to believe it, and thus we preach. 

6 Ver. 9. ᾿Εὰν ὁμολογήσης, If thou shalt confess, &c.] 
Hence observe, 

First, That the justification is here expressly ascribed to 
faith, and that not as including works, but only as being that 
principle which, when it is cordial and sincere, will certainly 
produce them: I say, not as including all those works which 
by the gospel are required to salvation; for then the righte- 
ousness of faith must be described as is the righteousness of 
the law, viz. that “the man who doth these things shall live 
in them,” which is contrary to the words of the apostle, ver. 5, 
6. See the preface to the Epistle to the Galatians. 

Secondly, Observe, that the faith to which justification and 
salvation are ascribed, is not here, as it is elsewhere said to 
be, faith in his blood, but a belief that « God had raised up 
Jesus from the dead.” So Paul, having discoursed of the 
faith of Abraham, which was imputed to him for righteous- 
ness, saith, “'This was not written for his sake alone,” that 
it was imputed to him, “ but for us also to whom it shall be 
imputed, if we believe in him that raised up Jesus our Lord 
from the dead” (Rom. iv. 23, 24). Thus are we said to be 
risen with Christ “ through the faith of the operation of God, 
who hath raised him from the dead” (Col. ii. 12). And in 
Peter, the Christian is said to “believe through Christ in 
God, who raised him from the dead, that our faith and hope 
might be in God” (1 Pet. i. 21). Now this belief in God, 
as raising our Lord Jesus from the dead, is therefore repre- 
sented as faith unto salvation, because it ministereth to us a 
full assurance of salvation by Christ, and of our resurrection 
also; for “if we believe that Jesus Christ died and rose 
again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring 
with him” (1 Thess. iv. 14) ; “knowing that he that raised 
up the Lord Jesus, shall also raise us up by Jesus” (2 Cor. 
iv. 13, 14). And this belief of a happy resurrection to eter- 
nal life is a sufficient motive to be “ steadfast, immoveable, 
always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Cor. xv. 58). 
And where it hath not these effects upon us, we do not in 
the scripture sense duly believe and attend to it. Note, 

Thirdly, That when the apostle saith, “If,thou dost thus 
confess and believe thou shalt be saved,” we need not under- 
stand this of actual and complete salvation, to be imparted 
at the day of judgment: but that this faith and this confes- 


sion will put us in the way of salvation, and give us a right 
to it, whilst we continue to act suitably to this faith, which 
I have shown to be the frequent import of the word salva- 
tion and saved, when salvation is ascribed to faith and grace 
(see the notes on Eph. ii. 8, Titus iii. 5). 

7 Ver. 10. Στόματι δὲ ὑμολογεῖται, With the mouth confes- 
sion is made to salvation.] For in those times of persecu- 
tion for the sake of Christ, he that continued, under those 
fiery trials, to hold fast his profession, could do it only 
through that lively faith in Christ, and that sincere affection 
to him above all worldly interests, which he hath promised 
to reward with life eternal. 

8 Ver. 13. ᾿Επικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα Κυρίου, Shall call upon 
the name of the Lord.| The word in the original is Jehovah, 
whence it is certain that the prophet speaks these words of 
the true and only God; and yet it is as certain that the 
apostle here ascribes them to our Lord Jesus Christ, both 
from the following words, “ How shall they call on him in 
whom they have not believed ?” (for the apostle in this whole 
chapter discourseth of faith in Christ ;) and from the words 
foregoing, of which these are a proof, and to which they are 
connected with the particle yap: for those words, “ Whoso- 
ever believeth in him shall not be ashamed,” are spoken 
by the prophet Isaiah of Jesus Christ the “corner-stone,” 
Isa. xxviii. 16, and so are they interpreted by Peter, 1 Pet. 
ii. 6,7. And in the prophet Joel these words follow, ciay- 
γελιζόμενοι, ots Ἰζύριος προσκέκληται, “ And the evangelized, 
whom the Lord shall call, shall be saved.” Here then we 
have two arguments for the divinity of Christ: (1.) ‘That 
what is spoken of Jehovah is ascribed to him. (2.) That he 
is made the object of our religious invocation (see note on 
1 Cor. i. 2). But 

Mr. L. indeed attempts to invalidate the force of both 
these arguments, first, by saying that this calling upon the 
name of the Lord doth not import the invocation of Christ, 
but only an open profession of faith in him, because St. 
Paul argues closely, and yet in the three preceding verses 
requires an open profession of the gospel. Ans. There is 
not one word of professing either in the eleventh or twelfth 
verses; in the ninth or tenth he mentions “confession with 
the mouth,” and believing with the heart, as necessary, be- 
cause the scripture saith, “ Whosoever believeth shali not be 
ashamed, the same Lord over all being rich to all that call 
upon him:” for, Joel ii. 32, “ Whosoever shall call upon 
the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If then Paul be a 
close reasoner, he must speak of invocation of the name of 
the Lord. Moreover, this being the character of the disciples 
of Christ, even before they were called Christians (see note 
on Acts ix. 2), and the continual practice of all Christians 
from the beginning (see note on 1 Cor. i. 2), the apostle 
might well argue from believers, to those that call upon 
Christ’s name. The first argument he would invalidate by 
denying that the words cited by Paul from Joel are to be 
understood in the sense in which they are used by the pro- 
phet, which in effect is to deny that the apostle argued either 
closely or truly, for the whole of the apostle’s inference is 
lost, if either “the Lord,” ver. 13, be not the same Lord 
with him in ver. 12, or if to “call upon” him doth not bear 
the same sense in both places. 

9 Ver. 15. ‘Qs ὡραῖοι, How beautiful, &c.] The Midrash 
Shir Hashirim upon those words of Cant. ii. 12, « The voice 


576 


mountains) are the feet of them that preach the gospel 
of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! (that 
say unto Zion, Thy God reigneth, or, as the Chaldee, The 
kinzdom of thy God is revealed.) 

16 But (¢f the apostles were sent to the Jews, how is it 
that) they have not all obeyed the gospel. (J answer, 
This incredulity of the Jews is only that which was fore- 
told by their own prophets ;) for (so) Esaias saith (of 
them, lili. 1), Lord, who hath believed our report? 
(τὴν ἀχοὴν ἡμῶν.) 

17 So then (ἄρα, these testimonies show that) faith 
cometh by hearing, and hearing by (the preaching of ) 
the word of God. 

18 But (Gr. moreover) 1 say (of the gentiles), Have 
they not heard? Yes verily (that of the psalmist being 
true of us the preachers of the gospel), their sound 


ROMANS. 


went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends 
of the world. (Ch. viii., Colos. i. 16. 23.) 
19 " But (yea, or also,) 1 say, Did not Israel know 


(of the preaching of the gospel to the gentiles, and of their 


own infidelity in rejecting it2 This surely they might 
know from their own scriptures; for) first Moses saith, 
I will provoke you (refusing to believe) to jealousy by 
them that are (yet) 12 no people (of God), and by a fool- 
ish nation I will anger you. 

20 But Esaias is very bold (in his expression), and 
saith (of the gentiles), I was found of them that (for- 
merly) sought me not; I was made manifest unto them 
that asked not after me. 

21 But to Israel ( foretelling their infidelity) he saith, 
8 All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a 
disobedient and gainsaying people. 


of the turtle is heard in our land,” saith thus, “This is the 
voice of the King Messiah, crying out, and saying, How 
beautiful,” &c. Moreover, from those words, “ How shall 
they believe in him of whom they have not heard ?” ver. 14, 
and from those, ver. 17,“ Faith cometh by hearing,” &c., it 
follows that those gentiles who never had the gospel preached 
to them, or any opportunity of hearing it, cannot be con- 
demned for want of faith in Christ or in his doctrine, that 
being to condemn them for the want of that which they 
never were in a capacity to have; if therefore they are ca- 
pable of a reward, as they must be who are obliged to “ be- 
lieve that God is the rewarder of all them that diligently 
seek him” (Heb. xi. 6), Christ must be a Saviour to them 
who do thus seek him, though they know not of him. 

10 Ver. 18. 'O φθόγγος αὐτῶν, Their voice.] These words 
being spoken literally of the preaching of the Hebrews to 
the gentiles, touching the power, wisdom, and the goodness of 
God; and the psalmist speaking immediately after of God’s 
teaching his people by the law, as a more glorious disco- 
very of his will to the Jews, the apostle very appositely 
accommodates these words to the revelation of his power, 
wisdom, goodness and mercy, in the gospel to the hea- 
thens. 


Moreover, that typ, which we render “their line,” Ps. 
xix. 4, does signify “their loud cry,” and so is well ren- 
dered by the apostle here 6 φϑόγγος αὐτῶν, “their sound,” 
i. 6, the sound of the apostles, is fully proved by Dr. Po- 
cock, Miscel. cap. 4, p. 48. 

11 Ver. 19. ᾿Αλλὰ, But.] That ἀλλὰ signifies yea, see our 
translation rendering it so five times, 2 Cor. vu. 11, John 
xvi. 2. That it signifies, quin etiam, quin immo, see Nol- 
dius, and Luke xii. 7, 1 Cor. iii. 2, xii. 22. 

12 Ἔπ᾽ οὐκ ἔϑνει, By them that are no people.] That this 
is the description of the heathens, see note on 1 Cor. i, 28, 
who are also styled, not only by the Jews, but by the scrip- 
tures, whilst idolaters, “a foolish people,” Jer. x. 8, Rom. 
1. 21, 22, Titus iii. 3. 

13 Ver. 21. Ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν, All the day long.| These 
words are cited from Isa. Ixv. 1, 2, and Aben Ezra informs 
us, that R. Moses Hacoben* said, “The first verse is to be 
understood of the nations of the world, as if it had been 
said, I am found of the nations which are not called by my 
name, but to my people have I stretched out my hand:” and 
so the apostle interprets and applies the words here. 


* Voisin de Lege Div. p. 494. 
® 


CHAPTER XI. 


1 I say then, (that the generality of the Jews are hard- 
ened and cast off, but what then?) Hath God cast away 
his people (utterly and without exception)? God forbid 
(we should so think). For 1 also am an Israelite, of the 
seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin (and yet 
chosen to be an apostle of Christ). 

2 God (therefore) hath not (hus) cast away his 


people ' which he foreknew. (Ps. xev. 3, And to re- 
present this in a like case well known to you,) Wot 
ye not what the scripture saith of Elias (ἐν “Hada, in 
the history of Elias)? how he (in z/) maketh interces- 
sion to God ? against (the Aing and people of ) Israel, 
saying, 

3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1 Ver. 2. Ὃν προέγνω, Whom he foreknew.] Concerning the 
people of Israel, Moses speaks thus; “Thou art a holy 
people to the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God προείλετο, 
hath chosen thee to be a special people to himself above 
(or, before) all people that are upon the face of the earth,” 
Deut. vii. 6, x. 15. Now to be“ chosen,” and to be “known 
of God,” are the same thing in scripture, and therefore the 
phrase is elsewhere varied thus; “ You only have I known 
before all the families of the earth,” Amos lili. 2, ὑμᾶς ἔγνων 
ix πασῶν τῶν φυλῶν τῆς γῆς" Numb. xvi. 5, “To-morrow, 
ya, and the Lord will know who are his, and who is holy, 
even him whom he hath chosen,” which by the LXX. is thus 
translated, καὶ ἔγνω ὃς Θεὸς τοὺς ὄντας αὐτοῦ, καὶ τοὺς ἁγίους 
olls ἐξελέξατο αὐτῷ, The Lord knoweth who are his, and 
the holy ones whom he hath chosen to himself ;” and, ver. 7, 
«The man whom the Lord doth choose, he shall be holy.” 
And those words of Hosea, “Judah yet ruleth with the 
Lord, and is faithful with his saints,”’ xi. 12, are by the Sep- 
tuagint thus rendered, καὶ ᾿Ιοῦδα νῦν ἔγνω αὐτοὺς ὃ Θεὸς, καὶ ὃ 
λάυς ἅγιος κληϑήσεται Θεοῦ, “ And as for Judah, now God hath 
known them, and he shall be called the holy people of 


God:” so that the “people whom he foreknew,” may be 
here only a periphrasis of the Jewish nation, which God 
hath chosen before all other nations of the world, and there- 
fore would not utterly cast off, because his “ gifts and call- 
ings are without repentance” (ver. 29): or it may signify 
those of them who believed in Christ, and so were such as 
he had purposed to have, or “ the election according to grace"” 
Ge, 5. 7), which sense this phrase bears, Rom. viii. 29, 1 

et. i. 1, 2. 

2 Ἐντυγχάνει τῷ Θεῷ κατὰ τοὺ Ἰσραὴλ, He maketh interces- 
sion to God against Israel.] ᾿Ἐντυγχάνειν ὕπερ, is to intercede 
or be an advocate for a person, and he that doth so is called 
συνήγορος, and this is the office of our blessed Lord, “who 
ever lives to make intercession for us;” but ἐντυγχάνειν κατά 
τινος, is to accuse, or charge a person with a crime, and so to 
intercede against him. So 1 Mace. viii. 32, “If the Jews 
complain against thee, ἐὰν ἐντύχωσι κατά cov, we will do them 
justice.’ And when wicked men came to king Alexander 
to complain against Jonathan, the king commanded a pro- 
clamation to be made, τοῦ μήδενα ἐντυγχάνειν κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ περὶ 
μηδενὸς πράγματος, “that no man should complain against 
him about any matter,” 1 Mace. x. 61. 63. And again, xi. 
25, “Some wicked men complained against him,” évriyxavov 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


3 down thine altars; and I am left alone (of all thy 
prophels), and they seek my life. 

4 But what saith the answer of God unto him (in 
that history)? (It speaks thus,) I have reserved to my- 
self seven thousand men, who have not bowed the 
knee ὁ to the image of Baal. 

5 Even so then (7s ἐΐ) at this present time also (for 
even now) there is a remnant according to the* election 
of grace. 

6 And if (they who are chosen in Christ, Eph. i. 4, 
to be God’s church and people, are put into this state) 
by grace, (being justified freely by his grace, Rom. iii. 
24,) then ἐς zt no more of (the) works (of the law that 
they are thus justified and accepted by him): otherwise 
grace is no more grace; (for what need is there of 
grace, where men have continued in all things writlen 
tn the law to do them? Moses having said, The man 
that doth these things shall live by them, Rom. x. 5.) 


κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ. So here, ἐντυγχάνειν κατὰ τοῦ ᾿Ισραὴλ, is to “ com- 
plain against Israel.” 

3 Ver. 3. Τὰ ϑυσιαστήριά cov, Thy altars.) Not those 
which God approved of after the building of the temple, 
they being then obliged to offer all their sacrifices “at the 
place which God had chosen to put his name there,” Deut. 
xii. 5, 6; but those which had before been used by the patri- 
archs and prophets for the service of God, as that of Samuel 
in Ramah and in Mizpeh, 1 Sam. vii. 9, ix. 13, in Gil- 
gal, xi. 16, at Bethlehem, xvi. 2. 4, and the altar of the 
Lord at Carmel, 1 Kings xviii. 30, on which the pious peo- 
ple of the ten tribes sacrificed when they were not permitted 
to go up to Jerusalem, that law, saith Kimchi, then ceasing 
as to them. 

4 Ver. 4. Τῇ Βάαλ, To Baal.] That is, to the image of 
Baal; so Hos. ii. 8, “I gave her the gold and the silver 
which she prepared for Baal,” Gr. αὐτὴ δὲ ἀργυρᾶ καὶ χρυσᾶ 
ἐποίησε τῇ Βάαλ, “ But she prepared this gold and silver for 
the image of Baal;” she made idols of them, saith the 'Tar- 
gum; so Tobit i. 5, ἔϑυον τῇ Βάαλ τῇ δαμάλει, They sacri- 
ficed to the heifer Β 88] : Jer. 11. 28, “according to the 
number of their streets in Jerusalem, ἔθυον τῇ Βάαλ, have 
they sacrificed to the image of Baal ;” for sure they had not 
as many Baalims as they had streets, and therefore, where 
the Septuagint reads, τῇ Βάαλ, there the Chaldee adds, 
τ idols,” or “ images:’’ “I will blot out the names of Baal,” 
τὰ ὀνόματα τῆς Βάαλ ; reliquias idolorum Baal, Targum (see 
Hosea xiii. 1), This I prefer before that notion of the 
learned Selden, that Baal was ἀῤῥενοδῆλυς, “male and fe- 
male.” 

5 Ver. 5. The election of grace.] See note on ver. 28. 
That many who belonged to this election fell away, is evi- 
dent from the Epistle to the Hebrews (see the note on 2 
Thess. ii. 3) ; and whereas Dr. Mills contends that the words 
following, viz. εἰ δὲ ἐξ ἔργων, οὐκ ἔτι ἐστὶ χάρις, ἐπεὶ τὸ ἔργον 
οὖς ἔτι ἐστὶν ἔργον, are Supposititious, as being not found in the 
Vulgar, in Hilary the deacon, and in the Latin Origen: that 
they are genuine, is proved in the Syriac and Arabic versions, 
from Theodoret, Photius, Gicumenius, and Theophylact, who 
all retain them: and from these words of Chrysostom, who, 
tom. v. ed. Morrell. p. 718, explains and confirms them thus: 
He that contends he is to be saved by the works of the law, 
hath no title to grace, ὅπερ οὖν καὶ Παῦλος αἰνιττόμενος ἔλεγεν, 
εἰ χάριτι, Kc. εἰ δὲ ἐξ ἔργων, οὐκ ἔτι ἐστὶ χάρις, ἐπεὶ τὸ ἔργον οὐκ 
ἔτι ἐστὶν ἔργον. See Examen Millii in locum. 

6 Ver. 8. Ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Θεὺς, God hath given them a spi- 
rit of slumber, &c.] The Hebrew yn), and the Greek ἑΐδωμι, 
is often used to signify a permission of that which we can 
hinder, as Gen. xxxi. 7, οὐκ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ 6 Θεὺς κακοποιῆσαΐ pe, 
“God (saith Jacob) permitted not Laban to hurt me,” 
Deut. xviii. 14, καί σοι οὐκ οὕτως ἔδωκε Κύριος ὃ Θεός cov, “The 
Lord thy God hath not suffered thee to do so” (see also 
Judg. xv. 1, Acts ii. 27, xiii. 35). So again, 1 Kings xxii. 
22, 23,«“The Lord hath put, ἔδωκεν ὁ cds, a lying spirit in 
the mouth of all thy prophets ;” i. e. he hath permitted him 
freely to go forth, and to deceive them, ver. 22. Esth. ix. 13, 
«Tf it please the king, ἑοθήτω ᾿Ιουδαίοις, let it be granted to 
the Jews to do so to-morrow also.” Of him that sat upon 

Vou. [V.—73 


577 


But (on the other hand) if it be of works (thal we are 
justified and accepted ), then is it no more (of) grace: 
otherwise work is no more work (for grace comes in 
only to supply the defect of works, that is, to procure 
pardon for the non-performance of them, according to the 
lenor of the law). 

7 What then (must be said in this case but this? viz. 
that the whole nation of ) Israel hath not obtained that 
(righteousness or justification, Rom. ix. 30, 31) which 
he seeketh for ; but the election (the chosen generation 
of believers, 1 Pet. ii. 9) hath obtained it, and the rest 
were blinded 

8 (And this blindness hath happened to them,)(Accord- 
ing as it is written, ἢ God hath given them the spirit 
of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that 
they should not hear ;) unto this day. 

9 And (ὦ) David saith, Let their table be (ον 7 their 
table shall be) made a snare, and a trap, and a 


the red horse it is said, that é69n αὐτῷ, “ it was given him to 
take peace from the earth,” Rev. vi. 4, ix. 3. 5; of the beast 
it is said, ἐδόθη αὐτῷ, «There was given to him a mouth to 
speak great things, and blasphemies ; and it was given him 
to make war with the saints, and overcome them”’ (see Hos. 
xiii. 11, Joel ii. 17. 19, Rev. vi. 8, ix. 14, 15, see the note 
on i, 24.26). And in this sense God is here said to have 
given the Jews “a spirit of slumber,” by permitting them to 
lie under those prejudices against the true Messiah, which 
their traditions concerning him, and the doctrine and autho- 
rity of the scribes and pharisees had wrought within them ; 
as also by delivering the things belonging to Christ’s king- 
dom obscurely to them, and in parables, because they would 
not receive them when more plainly taught (Matt. xiii. 13) 5 
and by “taking the kingdom of God from them, and giving 
it to a nation that would bring forth the fruits of it,” because 
they contradicted and blasphemed the doctrine of that king- 
dom, and so caused the apostles to turn from them to the 
gentiles (Matt. xxiii. 43, Acts xiii. 45, 46) ; and by refusing 
to walk in the light whilst they enjoyed it, they made it just 
that “darkness should (thus) come upon them,” or that they 
should “have eyes, and see not, ears, and hear not ;” which 
is a mode of speaking used frequently in the Old ‘Testament, 
and in Philo the Jew, and others, to represent men who had 
contracted such prejudices against God’s word, and such 
vicious habits, as made them not to discern or give ear to 
the voice of God, or reason, calling them to reformation and 
amendment. So God speaks by his prophet Isaiah, « Hear 
ye deaf; and look, ye blind: seeing many things, but thou 
observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth ποῖ; Isa. 
xii. 18.20. And by the prophet Jeremiah, “ Hear now this, 
O foolish people, and without understanding ; which have 
eyes, and see not, which have ears, and hear not,” Jer. v. 21. 
By the prophet Ezekiel, saying, “They have eyes to see, 
and see not: ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a 
rebellious house,” Ezek. xii. 2. So Christ speaks to his own 
disciples, “ Having eyes, do ye not see?” Mark viii. 18. 
So Philo often saith of men addicted to their sensual plea- 
sures, and pursuing them against the dictates of their minds, 
that* ὁρῶντες οὖχ δρῶσι, καὶ ἀκούοντες οὗκ ἀκούουσι, “seeing they 
see not, and hearing they hear not;” this he saith, περὶ τῶν 
ἡδονῆς κεκορημένων, “of persons satiated with pleasure, and 
drunk with the love of wine.” This, saith he, happens,t ἐν 
τοῖς κύροις, ἐν rats μέθαις, “when we indulge to gluttony, or 
drunkenness ;” and} ἐν rats καθ᾽ ὕπνον φαντασίαις, “in the 
phantasms of our dreams.” Thus of those heathens who 
worshipped the works of their own hands, Justin Martyr§ 
saith, that ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες οὐχ ἑώρων, οὐδὲ καρδίαν ἔχοντες 
συνίεσαν, “ having eyes, they saw not, and having hearts, they 
did not understand.” 

7 Ver. 9. Γενηθήτω, ὅτε. Their table shall be, and their eyes 
shall be.] They who are skilled in the Hebrew tongue, know 
that these words are as capable of the future, as the impe- 
rative mood and tense: they are rendered in the future by 


* Aleg. Leg. lib. ii. p. 72. 

+ L. de Josepho, p. 424, G. 
§ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 295, B. 
2Y¥ 


ἡ Aleg. lib. iii. p. 150. 


578 


stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them (of their 
evil deeds) : 

10 Let their eyes be (or their eyes shall be) darkened, 
that they may not see, and (thow shalt) 5 bow down 
their back alway. 

11 1 say then (or moreover, of those of the Jewish 
nation which are thus blinded), Have they (so) stumbled 
that they should (irrecoverably) fall? God forbid (we 
should think so of them): but rather (so hath it happened 
through the wise counsel of God that) through their fall 
salvation zs come unto the Gentiles (whom God hath 
now chosen to be his people), for to provoke them to jea- 
lousy (or to an emulation of their faith, that they also 
may be saved ). 

12 Now (εἰ δὲν and) if the fall of them (from the 
prerogative of being God’s peculiar people happened thus 
to) be the riches of the (gentile) world, and the dimi- 
nishing of them the riches (and increase) of the Gen- 
tiles; how much more (sha//) 9° their fulness (be the 
increase of them) ὃ 

13 (Of you gentiles, I say,) For I speak (this) to you 
Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gen- 
tiles, (and by thus speaking) 1 magnify mine office: 
(as declaring it to reach to the whole body of the gentiles, 
and to have been thus efficacious among them, Rom. xv. 
18, 19: 

14 And I speak of your being chosen thus to be 
God’s people ;) If by any means I may provoke to 
pa emulation (of your faith) them which are my 

esh, and (so) might (be a means to) save some of 
them. 

15 (And indeed their salvation is desirable, not only 
for their own, but for your sakes :) For if the casting 
away of them be (an occasion of ) the reconciling of the 
world, what shall the receiving of them (again into 


ROMANS. 


favour) be (to the gentiles), but (even as) life (or a resur= 
rection) from the dead % 

16 (Wor are you to imagine this is an improbable and 
even desperate supposition :) For if the (patriarchs, who 
were the) " firstfruit (of them) be (were) holy (called 
and separated to the service of God from all the people of 
the earth), the lump (of the whole nation) is also (in 
God’s designation) holy: and if the root (of them, viz. 
Abraham) be (was) holy (and beloved of God), so are 
the branches (also beloved still of God for the fathers’ sake, 
and so will be once more, in his good time, admitted to his 
favour). 

17 And if (ἐξ hath so happened that) some of the 
branches (through infidelity) be broken off, and thou 
(gentile), being a wild olive tree (or branch), wert 
graffed in among them, and with them (who believe) 
partakest (of the privileges) of the root and fatness of 
the olive tree (¢nlo which thou art graffed ) ; 

18 Boast not against the branches (now cut off, as 
if they were utterly rejected from God’s care and fa- 
vour). But if thou boast, (consider) thou bearest not 
the root, but the root thee; (the promises being not 
made to thee, but to Abraham their root; and if thou 
becomest partaker of them only by being the spiritual seed 
of Abraham, by imitation of his faith, how much more 
shall they, who are by lineal descent the seed of Abraham 
and so the primary and direct heirs of the promise, Acts 
ili. 25, xii. 26, in due time be graffed into thetr own root ? 
ver. 24.) 

19 Thou wilt say then, The (natural) branches 
were broken off (for their infidelity), that 1 might be 
graffed in (¢. e. recetved as God’s people in their 
stead ). : 

20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, 
(ὦ. 6. rejected from being his church and people, ver. 


Arias Montanus: and the Seventy interpreters sometimes 
render them in the imperative, as Ps. cix. 6. 15, and some- 
times in the future, as ver. 17, “Ὁ As he loved cursing, so let 
it come upon him, καὶ ἥξει αὐτῷ as he delighted not in bless- 
ing, so let it be far from him,” καὶ μακρυνθήσεται dz’ αὐτοῦ, 
and ver. 8, “Let them curse, but bless thou,” καταράσονται 
αὐτοὶ, καὶ σὺ εὑλογήσεις, “They shall curse, but thou shalt 
bless.” 

8 Ver. 10. Τὸν νῶτον αὐτῶν, &c. Ever bow down their 
backs.] That is, let them be in slavery and bondage; the 
contrary, “going upright,” signifying their freedom from 
£gyptian thraldom, by taking that yoke of bondage from 
them, which made them stoop under it. So Lev. xxvi. 
13, “I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you 
to go upright.” So the Midrash Tillim upon these words 
of the psalmist, Ps. cxlvi. 8, “The Lord raiseth them that 
are bowed down,” saith, “These are the Israelites carried 
captive from their own land; for since they were banished 
from Jerusalem, they have not been able to stand upright, 
but have bowed down their backs before their enemies, who 
go over them:” and therefore in their second benediction, 
before their reading of the morning schema, they pray thus, 
« Bring us in peace from the four wings of the earth, et duc 
nos staturd erecta in terram nostram, and lead us standing 
upright into our own land.” Having thus answered the first 
question, he proceeds to inquire, whether they of them who 
thus stumbled have fallen so as that they shall never be re- 
covered, 

9 Ver. 12. Πλήρωμα αὐτῶν, Their fullness.) As πλήρωμα 
τοῦ χρόνου, signifies the whole tract of time appointed for 
such an event, Gal. iv. 4, Eph. i. 10, πλήρωμα τῆς γῆς, “186 
whole contents of the earth,” 1 Cor. x. 26. 28, and πλήρωμα 
τῆς ϑεότητος is “the full perfection of the Deity,” Col. ii. 9, 
and πλήρωμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, is “the perfection,” or the fullness 
of grace and wisdom, with which he fills his members, Eph. 
iv. 13, and that ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ, from that fullness 
of the Spirit which is in him, John i. 16, and πλήρωμα Θεοῦ 
is the same fullness derived from God, Eph. iii. 19; so here, 
πλήρωμα τῶν αὐτῶν is the time when the gentiles should 
more fully come in, and God would show mercy to them 


all, ver. 25. 32, and πλήρωμα τῶν Ιουδαίων, “the fullness of 
the Jews,” is “the coming-in of all Israel,” ver. 26. And 
so Paul himself all along interprets it, styling it, ver. 15, 
πρύσληνψις, “the receiving them into grace” and favour by 
God, the “ engrafting” them who were broken off, as the un- 
believing Jews were, “into their own olive-tree,” ver. 23, 24, 
the “turning away iniquity from Jacob,” ver. 26. 

10 Ver. 14, Ei πως παραζηλώσω, If by any means I may 
provoke them, &c.] This seems to be said in allusion to 
those words of God, Deut. xxxii. 21, “They have moved 
me to jealousy with that which is not God, κἀγὼ παραζηλώσω 
and I will move them to jealousy with those that are not a 
people,” ver. 12; that seeing them who before were not 
the people of God, now chosen to be his people, and in- 
vested with all the privileges which formally belonged to 
them, viz. being of his church, among whom he dwells, and 
to whom he gives his Spirit, his new law, his prophets, apos- 
tles, and evangelists, they might be induced to believe, and 
so might still share in all those blessings. Hence also it 
appears that the apostle did not think they were so blinded 
or given up to a spirit of slumber, but that they might still 
be saved. 

N Ver. 16. Ei δὲ ἡ ἀπαρχὴ, The first-fruits of them were 
holy:| It is generally known that the word holy, when ap- 
plied to persons, families, churches, and nations, signifies 
their being called, consecrated, and separated from the world 
unto God’s service: in which sense, in the Old Testament, 
it is frequently applied to the priest, Numb. xvi. 5, Ps. evi. 
16, to the Levites, Numb. iii. 13, viii, 14—17, to the whole 
Jewish nation, Exod. xxii. 31, xix. 6, Deut. vii. 6, xiv. 2. 
21, xxviii. 9, Isa. Lxii, 12, Dan. viii. 24, xii. 7. Hence then 
the argument runs thus: If God so loved Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, as to engage his word that he would be their God, 
and the God of their seed for ever, Gen. xvii. 7, and by 
thus entering into covenant with them, hallowed to himself 
all their posterity, even as the “first-fruits” of their dough, 
made an offering, “hallowed the whole lump,” Numb. xv. 
20, then will he, in his good time, be so mindful of them 
as to bring them again into his covenant, so that “ they shall 
be his people, and he will be their God ;” for “as touching 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


15,) and thou standest (Gr. hast stood) by faith. Be 
not highminded, (vaunt not thyself over them, ver. 18. 
25,) but fear (Jest this should also be thy case) : 

21 For if God spared not the natural branches, 
take heed (thou hast cause to fear) "2 lest he also spare 
not thee. 

22 Behold therefore (in this dispensation) the good- 
ness and severity of God: on them which fell, seve- 
rity (in taking the kingdom of God away from them, 
Matt. xxi. 43); but toward thee, goodness (in admit- 
ting thee to be his church and people ; which goodness will 
be still shown to thee), if thou continue in (or worthy 
of ) his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off 
(for thy infidelity and disobedience). 

23 And (as thou standest by faith, so) they also, if 
they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: 
8 for God is able to (work in them that faith which 
will) graff them in again. 

24 (And that he will thus graff them in, we have just 
cause to think ;) Forif ™ thou wert cut out of (Gr. off 
from) the olive tree which is wild by nature, and 
wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: 
how much more shall these, which be the natural 
branches (though now cut off), be graffed (again) into 
their own olive tree? 

25 (And this now I declare ;)For 1 would not, breth- 
ren, that ye should be ignorant of this "5 mystery 


579 


(of the intended calling of the now-rejected Jews), lest 
ye should be wise in your own conceits (boasting over 
them, ver. 18, as being yourselves men of greater wis- 
dom, and more highly favoured He God); that blind- 
ness in part is happened to Israel, (i. e. as to the great- 
est part of them, a remnant only being now browse 
into the faith, ver. 5. 7, ix. 27,) until the (lime of the) 
fulness (or more complete conversion) of the Gentiles be 
come in. 

26 And so "5 all (the nations of ) Israel shall be saved 
(7. e. called and put into a state of salvation, 1 Tim. i. 
9): as it is written (Isa. lix. 20), There shall come 
out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungod- 
liness from Jacob : 

27 For (again he by Isaiah saith) this is my cove- 
nant unto them (Isa. lix. 21), when I shall take away 
their sins (xxvii. 9). 

28 As concerning the gospel (preached to them first, 
and upon their rejection of it, to the gentiles, Acts xiii. 
45. 47), they are (now) enemies (lo it, and by opposing 
it, to God and Christ) for your sakes : (being prejudiced 

ainst it, because you are received to the blessings of 
it, and that without circumcision, or being joined to them, 
Acts xvii. 13, xxii. 21, 22, 1 Thess. il. 16:) but "as 
touching the election (of that nation to be a holy peo 
ple to himself), they are (thus) beloved for the fathers 
sakes. 


the election, they are still beloved for the fathers’ sake.” If 
this argument runs only upon the supposition that they do 
believe, it saith that only which is as true of all gentiles; it 
therefore seems to be an argument that they will be received 
into favour, and therefore will believe, ver. 21. 

2 Ver. 21. Μήπως οὐδέ cov φείσηται, Lest he also spare 
not thee.] Φόβοῦ, “ Fear” is to be repeated from the former 
verse. So 1 Thess. iii. 5, “I sent to know your faith,” 
μῆπως ἐπείρασεν ὑμᾶς, subaud. φοβούμενος, “fearing lest the 
tempter should have tempted you.” 

13 Ver. 23. δυνατὸς γάρ ἐστιν ὃ Θεὸς, For God ts able, &c.] 
From which power we may reasonably conclude his will to 
do so, for so the apostle argues, xiv. 4, “ He shall be holden 
up, for God is able to make him stand ;” 2 Cor. vi. 8, « He 
that soweth liberally, shall reap liberally; for God is able 
to make all grace abound towards you” (see note on xiv. 4). 

4 Ver. 24.] Note, that there should be a fullness of the 
fallen Jews, and a receiving them again into favour, whom 
God had now cast off, the apostle plainly doth suppose, ver. 
12. 15, and how he sets himself to the proof of it, by an 
argument, ἃ minori ad majus, viz. If they, who had no such 
relation to Abraham, and the blessings promised to him, as 
the Jews had, were yet partakers of the blessings promised 
to Abraham, the root of that nation, how much more shall 
this favour, in God’s due time, be granted to them who are 
children of the stock of Abraham ? 

15 Ver. 25. Τὸ μυστήριον τυῦτο, This mystery, &c.] See 
the confirmation of this exposition in the appendix to this 
epistle. 

16 Ver. 26.] Hence the second argument for a general 
conversion of the Jews runs thus: If that part of the Jews 
to which blindness hath happened shall be delivered from 
that heavy judgment, if «there shall come to them out of 
Zion a Deliverer to turn away their iniquity,” if God will 
accomplish his covenant hereafter with them, “by taking 
away their sins,” then they who are thus blinded shall be 
converted to the Christian faith. Where note, 

First, That this promise is made to that part of the Jews 
to which blindness had happened, ver. 15, and so the pro- 
mise of salvation to this Israel, cannot be interpreted of all 
the true children of Abraham, Jews and gentiles both. 

Secondly, It saith that God will take away their sins, 
and “turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” Now if this sig- 
nifies that God will send “a Deliverer out of Zion,” to pro- 
cure the pardon of this people’s sins, since pardon only can 
be given to them through faith in Christ, this Deliverer must 
be that Jesus who saves his people from their sins; if it 
imports that God would take away the punishment of their 


iniquity, that being the blindness and spiritual slumber 
which was then, and is still upon them; the removal of it 
must signify their conversion, this blindness being only then 
to be taken away, “when they shall turn to the Lord,” 2 
Cor. iii. 14—16. 

1 Ver. 28. Κατὰ δὲ τῆν ἐκλογὴν, As touching the election.) 
Here is in this chapter mention of a double election, viz. 
ἐκλογὴ χάριτος, “election of grace,” ver. 5, the gospel elec- 
tion of persons and nations to be his church and people, 
which being purely on the account of that faith which is the 
gift of God, without consideration of any other worthiness 
that we had, or any works that we had done, is styled “ the 
election of grace; and thus a remnant only of the Jews 
were chosen, ver. 7, “for many” of them were “called” by 
the preaching of the gospel to the faith, it being preached to 
them first, Acts xiii. 45, but “ few” of them were “ chosen” 
to be members of the church of Christ, because few of them 
believed. And, secondly, there is an election, διὰ τοὺς πατέ- 
pas, to be God’s people for their fathers’ sake, in which sense 
the whole nation of the Jews are styled the elect: asin these 
words, “ Because he loved thy fathers,” viz. Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, Deut. iv. 37, καὶ ἐξελέξατο τὸ σπέρμα αὐτῶν per’ 
αὐτοὺς ὑμᾶς, “therefore he chose you their seed after them, 
and brought you out of Egypt by his mighty power ;” where 
it is evident that all that were brought out of Egypt, were 
the elect, or the chosen seed. So Deut. vii. 6—8, “The 
Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, οὐ zpoei- 
ero ὑμᾶς, he did not fore-elect you, because you were more 
in number than any people; but because the Lord loved you, 
and because that he would keep the oath which he had sworn 
to your fathers, hath he brought you out with a mighty hand, 
and redeemed you out of the house of bondage.” Where 
again it is evident, (1.) that their being chosen to be God’s 
peculiar people before other nations, is their election: and 
(2.) that all who were brought out of Egypt were thus be- 
loved, and thus chosen. And again, x. 14, 15, « The Lord 
had a delight in thy fathers to love them, καὶ ἐξελέξατο τὸ 
σπέρμα αὐτῶν per’ αὐτοὺς ὑμᾶς, therefore he elected you their 
seed after them above all people; circumcise therefore the 
foreskin of your hearts, and be no more stiffnecked.” 
Where again evident it is, that the whole seed of Abra- 
ham by Isaac, even the stiffnecked of them, were the be- 
loved, and the elect of God; it being therefore not upon 
account of their righteousness, Deut. ix. 5, but for the love 
he had, and the promises he made, to their fathers, that he 
first loved and chose them for his people; and his love to 
these forefathers being still the same, and his promise to 
them being this, that he would be “for ever a God to them, 


580 


29 For (though they have rendered themselves unwor- 
thy of his favour, yel) the ® gifts and calling of God 
are without repentance. 

30 (Nor will their present infidelity and disobedience be 
any obstacle to this conversion;) For as ye ( gentiles) in 
times past have not believed God (Gr. were disobedient 
to God), yet have now obtained mercy through their 
unbelief (God having received you gentiles to be his peo- 
ple, because of their infidelity) : 

31 Even so have these also now not believed (Gr. 
not obeyed), that 19 through your mercy they also may 
obtain mercy. 

32 For * God hath concluded them all (both Jew 
and gentile) in unbelief, that (at last) he might have 
mercy upon all. 

33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
and knowledge of God! (by which he 18 able to con- 


ROMANS. 


vert all things to the honour and glory of his name, and 
make his severest judgments to conclude at last in mercy !) 
how unsearchable are his judgments (to any human 
understanding), and his ways past finding out (by any 
wit of man) ! 

34 For who hath (through his own wisdom, without 
revelalion,) known the mind of the Lord? or who hath 
been his counsellor (in thus ordering matters relating to 
Jew or gentile) 8 

35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall 
be recompensed unto him again? (7. e. who hath 
laid any obligations on him to reward him? Surely no 
man. 

36 For of him (as the donor), and through him (as 
the director and providential orderer), and to him (as 
the end), are all things: to whom be glory for ever. 
Amen. 


and their seed after them,’ Gen. xvii. 7, he must have that 
kind affection and regard to them, which will engage him to 
choose them again for his peculiar people, notwithstanding 
their present blindness; and “all Israel’? being thus elected 
“for the fathers’ sake,” this calling must belong to them all. 

18 Ver. 29. Ta χαρίσματα, For the gifts, &c.] The par- 
ticle for shows that these words relate to what was said in the 
former verse, viz. “ They are beloved for their fathers’ sake,” 
to whom God gave this διαθήκη αἰώνιος, ““ everlasting covenant 
to be the God of their seed after them,’”’ Gen. xvii.'7. Now 
this covenant made with the fathers being absolute, and the 
calling of their seed to be his peculiar people being the 
effect of it, God will not repent for ever of his kindness to 
them; hence he engageth to save them “ with an everlasting 
salvation,” Isa. xlv. 17, “with everlasting kindness to have 
mercy on them,” liv. 8, lvi. 5, lx. 19, 20, Ixi. 7, and saith, 
“1 have loved thee with an everlasting love,” Jer. xxxi. 3. 
If then God will not repent for ever of his covenant made 
with their forefathers, “to be the God of their seed after 
them for ever,” or that “he chose Jacob for himself, and 
Israel for his heritage,” Ps. exxxv. 4, then will he certainly 
restore them to that privilege and happy state; but God 


will not thus repent, “for the gifts and callings of God are 
without repentance.” 

19 Ver. 31. Toi ὑμετέρῳ ἐλέει, To your mercy.) 1. 6. Which 
unbelief hath happened not to your rejection, as it did to 
them, but “to your mercy,” that they also may obtain mercy 
together with you, and you with them, the fullness of the 
gentiles coming in with their conversion. 

This argument for calling the Jews runs thus: If God 
hath called the gentiles to his grace after a long idolatry and 
infidelity, though they were not before ever admitted to those 
privileges the Jews enjoyed, nor had not God promised to 
be their God for ever, much more will be recall his chosen 
people from their infidelity. 

20 Ver. 32.] Esthius’s note upon these three verses is 
this, That the apostle doth without controversy in these 
words speak of Israel according to the flesh, and therefore 
in the preceding words must be supposed to speak of the 
same Israel; so that hence the tradition of the church con- 
cerning the calling of the Jews towards the end of the world 
is established. 

(See the appendix to this chapter, concerning the calling 
of the Jews to the Christian faith, at the end of this Epistle.) 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 I ΒΕΒΕΒΟῊ you therefore, brethren, by the mer- | 
cies of (that) God, (of whom, and through whom are all | 
things, and to whose glory they are all designed, xi. 36, 
or by the mercies of God, mentioned xi. 30—32,) that 


ye ! present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, ac- 

ceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 
2 And 2 be not conformed to (the evil customs of ) 

this (heathen) world: but be ye transformed (into other 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. 


1 Ver. 1. Παραστῆσαι τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν θυσίαν ζῶσαν, To pre- | 
sent your bodies a living sacrifice.) By sin reigning in our 
mortal bodies, and by obeying the motions of it in our in- | 
ward actions, we being said to present τὰ μέλη ὑμῶν, “ the | 
members of our bodies instruments of unrighteousness to 
sin” (vi. 12, 13), the apostle here doth properly exhort us | 
παραστῆσαι, “to present” the same bodies now “a living sa- | 
crifice,” in opposition to the legal sacrifices, which were first 
slain, and then offered up to God upon the altar, viz. by 
being now “dead unto sin, but alive unto God, through Je- 
sus Christ our Lord:” a holy sacrifice, as being consecrated 
to the service of God, and “ having our fruit unto holiness,” as 
the servants of God still have (Rom. vi. 22): and as the sa- 
crifices offered to God were to be free from any spot and 
blemish, and so holy; so are our bodies made “a holy sa- 
crifice,’” when they are kept “in sanctification and honour,” 
and free from “all filthiness of the flesh,” and so a sacrifice 
“acceptable and well-pleasing” to that God, who desired not 
the legal sacrifices, nor delighted in burnt-oflerings (Ps. li. 
16, Heb. x. 8): and this, saith he, is not as the sacrifices of 
the law, ἐκ τῶν ἀλόγων, “of dead and unreasonable beasts,’ 
which was bodily service, or that in which the body chiefly 
was employed; but it is λογικὴ λατρεία, “a sacrifice of our 
reason,” devoting ourselves, who are rational creatures, to 


his services, and also is highly suitably to our reason. 


2 Ver. 2. Kat μὴ συσχηματίζεσϑε τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ, And be 
not conformed to this world.) It is the observation of τος 
tius on the former verse, that the apostle having shown 
before that justification could not be obtained by the law, 
comes now to show how the gospel perfected and spiritu- 
alized the law, as to the ritual and the judicial parts of it, 
and engaged us more exactly to fulfil the moral parts of it; 
beginning first with the sacrifices, which by the Jews were 
esteemed one great and chief part of their ritual worship. 
And then he may here proceed to their separations from men 
of other nations, or, as the pharisees had improved it, even 
from the vulgar sort, thinking it unlawful to eat, or converse 
with, or even touch “ the people of the earth,” as they styled 
them, and making their holiness to consist chiefly in such 
niceties and separations ; showing that we do most effectually 
comply with all that God designed by any precepts of this 
nature, when we “keep ourselves unspotted from the world,” 
or free from any conformity unto the sinful customs of it, 
as Christianity especially requires, Christ giving up himself 
for our sins, “that he might deliver us from this present evil 
world” (Gal. i. 4) ; or, he instructs them how to change their 
former heathen into a Christian conversation, declaring that 
whereas formerly they walked κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ κύσμου robrov, 
“according to the course of this world,” Eph. ii. 2, and “ac- 
cording to the will of the gentiles,” 1 Pet. iv. 3, they should 
“no longer live the rest of their time to the lusts of men, but 
to the will of God,” ver. 2, 


CHAPTER XII. 


men) * by the renewing of your mind (and judgment of 
things), that ye may prove (Gr. discern and approve, 
see note on 1 Cor. xi. 28, Gal. vi. 4) what is * that 
good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God (7. e. 
that will which under the gospel requires only what ts 
substantially good, and therefore always acceptable to 
him, and perfectly instructs us in our whole Christian 
duty. 

τ Which will of God you will the better discern by 
your humility and diligence in the exercise of your spt- 
ritual gifts ;)ForI say, through the grace (of apostle- 
ship, see note oni. 5,) given unto me, to every man 
that is among you (thus gifted), not to think of him- 
self more highly than he ought to think, (on the account 
ἤ those ministerial gifts conferred upon him, not for 

is own sake, but Tes the benefit of others, 1 Cor. iv. 
6, 7, xii. 7, as did the scribes and pharisees, and doc- 
tors of the law, on the account of their wisdom and 
knowledge of it, Rom. viii. 18. 23;) but to think so- 


581 


soberly (of himself), according as God hath dealt to 
every man the δ measure of faith. 

4 For as we have many members in one body (na- 
tural), and (Gr. but) all (the) members (of tt) have not 
the same office (but some are more feeble, some more vi- 
gorous, some employed in more, some in less honourable 
services, 1 Cor. xil. from ver. 12 to 27): 

5 So we ibe elit being many, are one body in 
Christ (our head), and every one (of us are different) 
members one of another. 

6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace 
(or favour of God) that is given to us, whether (zt be) 
prophecy, /et us prophesy according to ὃ the proportion 
of faith; 

7 Or (if it be) 7 ministry (that of an evangelist), let us 
wait on our ministering : or he that teacheth, on teaching ; 

8 Or he that exhorteth (by α spiritual afflatus, 1 
Cor. xiv. 3. 31), on exhortation: he that ὃ giveth 
(or distributes to the church’s stock), let him do tt with 


3 Τῇ ἀνακαινώσει τοῦ νοὺς ὑμῶν, By the renewal of your 
mind.) The whole new creature doth consist in the renewal 
of the mind, the will, the affections, and actions of men (1 
Thess. v. 23), but because this renewal doth begin with the 
change of mind, discerning and approving “ what is accept- 
able to the Lord,” and upon that follows the choice of what 
is so by the will, and the inclination of the affections to 
what the mind doth thus approve of, and the regulation of 
our outward actions is according to what we thus approve, 
choose, and affect; this “renewal of the mind” is put for 
the renovation of the whole man, and we are said to be “re- 
newed in the spirit of our mind,” and to “put on the new 
man,” Eph. iv. 23, 24, “which is renewed εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν, in 
knowledge, according to the image of him that created him,” 
Col. iii. 10. 

4 Τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ εὐάρεστον καὶ τέλειον, The 
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of Οοα.] The ritual 
precepts of the law had no internal goodness in them ante- 
cedent to the command; and so God himself says of them, 
“T gave them statutes which were not good,” Ezek. xx. 25, 
and in opposition to their costly sacrifices and burnt-ofler- 
ings, saith, “He hath shown thee, O man, what is good, 
and what the Lord requireth of thee, even to do justice, 
and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God,” Micah 
vi. 8. They were not pleasing to him in themselves, Ps. li. 14, 
Heb. x. 8, but he declareth his delight in justice and mercy, 
Jer. xxii. 16, and the design of the apostle in the whole 
Epistle to the Hebrews, is to prove the imperfection of the 
sacrifices, and of the old covenant, and therefore the neces- 
sity of a better sacrifice, and a new and better covenant ; and 
so In opposition to these ritual injunctions, he may here style 
the gospel institution, the “good, and acceptable, and the 
perfect will of God.” 

5 Ver. 3. Μέτρον πίστεως, The measure of faith.] Here the 
Greek scholiasts agree in the exposition of these words, that 
by “the measure of faith,” we are to understand the mea- 
sure of gifts proceeding from this miraculous faith which was 
required to the exercise of them, τοῦ γὰρ χαρίσματος αἴτιον 
ἡ πίστις, “for faith is the cause of these gifts,” saith Chry- 
sostom; and when they found this faith raised in them, 
they exercised them; they being given, saith Theodoret, 
“according to the measure of their faith.’ This faith en- 
abled them to “remove mountains,” 1 Cor. xiii. 2, to “heal 
the sick,” James v. 15, to cast out devils,” Matt. xvii. 20; 
and hence Peter exhorts them who had received these gifts 
to “ minister them ὡς ἐκ ἰσχύος ἧς χορηγεῖ ὃ Θεῦς, as from the 
ability and strength of faith which God giveth,” 1 Pet. iv. 
11; and this is elsewhere styled “the measure of the gift of 
Christ,” Eph. iv. 7. This they did, saith Origen,” διὰ τὴν 
πίστιν ταύτην, “by this faith,” καθὼς cis ἕκαστος αὐτῶν τὴν 
δωρεὰν εἴληφε παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ, “as every one received the gift from 
Christ,” saith Irenaus.t This phrase occurs twice in Mai- 
monides,+ where he saith, “God declared he would try the 
Jews with false prophets, to know, mensuram fidei vestre 


* Cont. Celsum, lib. iii. p. 124. + Lib. ii. cap. 57. 
+ More Nevoch. par. iii. cap. 24, p. 406, 408. 


in veritate legis, the measure of their faith in the law ;” et ad 
mensuram fidei vestra in lucem producendum num firmitér 
et constantér persistatis in ed: whence we learn that the 
strength and firmness of faith is the measure of it. 

6 Ver. 6. Kara τὴν ἀναλογίαν τῆς πίστεως, According to 
the proportion of faith.] That is, say some, according to 
those principles of faith and good life, which are known 
among you; but surely they who prophesied by a spiritual 
gift, could not do otherwise; for no man can by the Holy 
Spirit be excited to contradict the doctrine or precepts of 
Christianity ; others, let him do it according to the mea- 
sure of the miraculous faith imparted to him, enabling 
him now to reveal mysteries, now to foretell things, now to 
disclose the secrets of men, according as God, upon his faith, 
shall grant ability to him to do it. And therefore Chrysos- 
tom,* C&cumenius, and Theophylact say, that though this 
was a gift, yet “it flowed in upon a man according as by his 
faith he made himself a vessel fit to receive the gift of pro- 
phecy.” And this seemeth to be the better exposition, not 
only because it hath the suffrage of the ancient expositors, 
but because it answers to “ the measure of faith” mentioned 
ver. 3; for ἀναλογία, saith Origen here, is not ratio, as the 
Latins render it, but mensura competens, “a competent 
measure,” and κατ᾽ ἀναλογίαν in Hesychius is κατὰ τὸ μέτρον, 
“according to the measure : and it agrees best with the 
phrase of Peter, to exercise these gifts according to the 
ability that God hath given them, and to be content with 
that, though others may enjoy it in higher measures. 

7 Ver. 7. Acaxovia, Ministry.] This charisma being reck- 
oned here before that of teaching or exhortation, I think it 
best to interpret it of the office of the evangelist, ranked 
before that of the pastor and teacher, Eph. iv. 11, and 
immediately after that of the prophets, as here, rather 
than to interpret it of the office of a deacon; all these 
four offices, of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and teacher, 
being designed, saith the apostle there, ver. 12, εἰς ἔργον 
διακονίας, “for the work of the ministry.’ Hence Paul 
writes thus to Timothy, “Do the work of an evangelist, 
fulfil τὴν διακονίαν cov, thy ministry,” 2 Tim. iv. 5, and of 
Mark, the evangelist, he saith, “ Bring Mark with thee, for 
he is profitable to me, eis διακονίαν, to the ministry ;” i. 6. to 
be sent to preach the gospel, or visit the churches where I 
cannot come (ver. 11); and in this sense saith Peter, εἴ τις 
διακονεῖ, “If any man ministers, let him do it as of the 
ability that God giveth,” not as of the charity of others, 
which was the proper office of the deacon. Of the teachers, 
see note on 1 Cor. xii. 28, Eph. iv. 4, Acts vi. 4, xiii. 1, xx. 
24, 2 Cor. vi. 3, Col. iv. 17. 

8 Ver. 8. 'O μεταδιδοὺς, He that giveth, and he that show- 
eth mercy.] These two expressions seem to denote the same 
persons who are called “helps,” 1 Cor. xii. 28 (see the note 
there). “He that ruleth,” may be the same with those who 
are there styled “ governments,” and elsewhere προεστῶτες, or 
προϊστάμενοι, 1 Thess. v. 12, 1 Tim. iii. 4, v. 17, or, 6 pera- 


* Ei yap καὶ χάρις ἐστὶ τοσοῦτον μέντοι ἐπιῤῥεῖ ὅσον ἂν εὔρη 
σκεῦος πίστεως αὐτὴ προσενεχϑέν. 
2x2 


582 


simplicity (or liberality, see the note on 2 Cor. viii. 2) ; 
he that ruleth (or presides over that stock), with dili- 
gence; he that sheweth mercy (fo the sick, impotent, 
strangers, orphans), with cheerfulness. 

9 Let love be without dissimulation (not in word 
only, but in deed, and in truth, 1 John iti. 18). Abhor 
that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. 

10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with bro- 
therly love (not bearing only such a kindness to one an- 
other as common humanity calls for, but such as the rela- 
tion of Christian brethren and the bonds of consanguinity 
require) ; in honour preferring one another (through 
humilily acting as if you conceived others more worthy of 
honour than yourselves, see note on Phil. ii. 3, and being 
well contented that they should be placed in a more honour- 
able post) ; 

11 Not slothful in business (in the concerns of God, 
and of one another); fervent in spirit; (ardently and 
zealously engaging in the service of God, and Υ one an- 
other, as knowing you are then) 5 serving the Lord; 

12 Rejoicing in hope (of the glory of God, Rom. v. 
2, or of eternal life, Tit. i. 3); patient in tribulation 
(for the cause of Christ); continuing instant in prayer 
(that you may stand firm in the faith, and have a season- 
able deliverance from your troubles) ; 

13 1 Distributing to the necessity of (persecuted) 
saints; given to (or pursuing) hospitality (towards 
them when they come to yow). 


ROMANS. 


14 Bless (ὦ. ¢. wish well to, and pray for) them 
which persecute you: bless, and curse not (whatever 
provocations you may have to do so). 

15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with 
them that weep (as the relation of members of the same 
body doth require, 1 Cor. xii. 26). 

16 Be of the same mind one toward another (being 
concerned for the same good to them which you desire 
for yourselves). Mind not high things, but conde- 
scend to men of low estate (to the meanest concerns of 
the meanest Christians). Be not wise in your own con- 
ceits (so as to think you need not the assistance of divine 
wisdom, or the advice and council of your Christian breth- 
ren, Prov. iii. 5. 7, Luke xii. 53, or so as to neglect the 
concerns of your Christian brethren, Prov. iii. 5. 7, Luke 
xii. 53). 

17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide 
things " honest (Gr. honourable) in the sight of all 
men. 

18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live 
peaceably with all men. 

19 Dearly beloved, * avenge not yourselves (upon 
your enemies, ver. 20), but rather 3. give place unto 
(the) wrath (of God against them): for it is written 
(Deut. xxxii. 35), Vengeance zs mine; I will repay, 
saith the Lord. 

20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, (rather) feed 
him; if he thirst, give him drink: for “in so doing 


διδυὺς here may signify him that is moved by an afflatus to 
give to the church’s stock; for so the word is used in Job, 
saying, ὀρφανῶ perédwxa, “I have given of my meat to the 
orphan,” xxx. 17; Prov. xi. 26,“ A blessing shall be on the 
head τοῦ μεταδιδόντος, of him that giveth.” So Luke iii. 11, 
« He that hath two coats, μεταδότω, let him give to him that 
hath none;” Eph. iv. 28, «Let him work with his hands, 
that he may have μεταδιδόναι, to give to him that needs;” 
and then the προεστὼς will be the person set over this 
stock to manage it aright; for as the Jews had in every city 
viros notos et fideles, “men of note for their fidelity,” who 
were constituted to be collectors and distributors of their 
alms to the poor; so say the apostles, “« Look you out ἄνδρας 
μαρτυρουμένους, Seven men of honest report, ots καταστήσωμεν, 
whom we will appoint over this business,” Acts vi. 3, and 
these are styled προστάται and πρόξενοι, and by Eustathius 
are said προΐστασϑαι τῶν ξένων, “to preside over strangers’ 
(see Beza in Rom, xvi. 2). So Origen on the place, Qui 
tribvit, et preest indigentibus; and Theophylact, προΐστασ- 
Sat δὲ ἐστὶ τὸ BonSciv, καὶ διὰ ῥημάτων, καὶ διὰ τοῦ σώματος, 
«To preside is to help both with words and deeds” (sce the 
note on 1 Cor. xii. 28). This in after ages was made the 
work of the bishop, but in the first ages of the church was 
the werk of the deacon. 

9 Ver. 11. Τῷ Κυρίῳ cov\etovzes, Serving the Lord.] So the 
Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic versions, and all the Greek scho- 
liasts read. The other reading, τῷ καιρῷ δουλεύοντες, “ Serv= 
ing the time,” mentioned by Ambrose, St. Jerome, and 
Ruffinus, seems to have had its rise from the abbreviation 
of the word in MSS., they reading KQ« though it hath a good 
sense thus, Tempori servite, rebus presentibus vos accom- 
modantes; et si quid inciderit incommodorum, vel declinantes 
si liceat commode, vel tolerantes: see Eph. v. 26, Col. iv. 5 
(see Examen Milli here). 

10 Ver. 13. Tats χρείαις τῶν ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες. So read all 
the Greek scholia, Basil, tom. ii. p. 474, the Vulgar, and all 
the other ancient versions. And wherein Dr. Mills con- 
tends the true reading is ταῖς μνείαις τῶν ἁγίων, see this abun- 
dantly confuted in the examination of him upon this 

lace. 
1 Ver. 17. Ta καλὰ, Honourable.| That there be actions, 
which, according to the voice of nature, and antecedently to 
any positive commands, are good and evil, honourable and 
praiseworthy, or matter of dishonour, or dispraise, in the ge- 
neral opinion of the world; and that these actions are τὰ 
καλὰ, “honourable before men,” as well as “in the sight 
of God” (2 Cor. viii. 21), this epistle doth abundantly de- 


monstrate ; for the apostle in the first chapter having men- 
tioned all the unrighteousness and impure actions of the 
heathen world, he adds, that the heathens knew from the 
consideration of the righteousness of God, that “they who 
did such things were worthy of death,” ver. 32. In the se- 
cond chapter he informs us, that the gentiles having not a 
written law, and notwithstanding “ doing by nature the thing 
contained in the moral law, show the work of the law written 
in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to it, and 
their thoughts accusing or else excusing one another,” 
ver. 14, 15; that the exercise of righteousness and peace 
renders us not only “acceptable to God,” but also “ approved 
of men” (xiv. 17). Accordingly the wise man saith that 
“by observing mercy and truth we shall προνοεῖν καλὰ, pro- 
vide things honourable in the sight of God and men” (Prov. 
iii. 3, 4). 

12 ve 19, Avenge not yourselves]. When Phocion was 
condemned to die by the Athenians, some of his friends 
desired him to leave some precept to his son, how he should 
demean himself: his command therefore to him was μηδὲν 
᾿Αϑηναίοις μνησικακεῖν, “not to remember the injuries the Athe- 
nians had done him ;” and for this, saith lian, every wise 
man must trepSavpaSew τὸν ἄνδρα, “very much admire the 
man” (Var. Hist. lib. xii. cap. 49). 

13 Δότε τύπον τῇ ὀργὴ, Give place unto wrath.] i. 6. Refer 
it to the punishment of God, συγχωρήσων αὐτῷ ἐπεξελθεῖν, 
τοῦτο γάρ ἐστι, δότε τύπον τῇ ὑργῆ, “Suffer him to come in 
with his wrath upon those who are your enemies, and per- 
secute you for his sake; for this is the import of these 
words, Give place unto wrath.” So Chrysostom, Cicume- 
nius, Theophylact. And this exposition is confirmed by the 
ensuing reason, “For vengeance is mine, I will repay it;” 
and from the occasion of those words, Deut. xxxii. 35, they 
being spoken for the comfort of God’s people, whose cause 
he will plead, and for whose sakes he will repent of the evil 
he brought upon them, ver. 36. 

14 Ver. 20. *AvOpaxas πυρὸς σωρεύσεις ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ, 
Thow shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.] 1 know that 
many good interpreters conceive here is an allusion to arti- 
ficers that melt lead, or other metals, by heaping coals of fire 
upon them, and so imagine that the import of these words is 
this, Thou shalt melt him down, or work him, by this oblig- 
ing kindness, into good affection towards thee: but I be- 
lieve the sense is rather this, That if he persevere in his en- 
mity to, his persecution of thee, and perverseness towards 
thee after these kind offices, the event, though not sought by 
thee, will be this; thou by thy patience shalt engage the 


CHAPTER XIII. 


583 


thou shalt heap coals of fire (the divine vengeance) on | thee to be impatient under or avenge it), but overcome 


his head. 
21 Be not % overcome of evil (Jet it not prevail upon 


evil with good. 


wrath of God to fall upon him, and to maintain thy cause 

against him; and so shalt be more certainly and happily 

delivered from his malice, than by avenging thyself thou 

wouldest be. So Prov, xx. 22, “Say not thou, I will re- 

oe evil, but wait on the Lord, and he shall save thee.” 
or, 

First, This suits best with the connexion of this with the 
foregoing verse by the particle, “ Therefore, avenge not your- 
selves, but rather give place to the wrath” of God, to fall 
upon your enemies, or persecutors, seeing he “will repay 
vengeance” to them. ‘Therefore, let not their enmity hinder 
you from being kind to them; for that kindness, if it do 
not mollify them, will cause the wrath of God to wax hot 
against them. 

Secondly, Because the words:are plainly taken from Prov. 
xxv. 21, where they are exactly to be found; where, saith 
Grotius, apparet de pena divina agi, “ it is evident the wise 
man speaks of the divine vengeance.’ And this is the con- 


‘tinual import of the phrase in the Old Testament, where only 


it occurs, and where it still signifies the wrath and indigna- 
tion of the Lord. So Ps. exl. 9, 10, «As for the head of 
them that compass me about, let the mischief of their own 
lips cover them, let ἄνθρακες πυρὸς, coals of fire fall upon 
them.” So Isa. xlvii. 14, “They shall not deliver them- 
selves from the power of the flames, ὅτι ἔχεις ἄνϑρακας πυρὸς 
καϑίσαι ἐπ᾿ αὐτοὺς, for thou hast coals of fire to cause to sit 
upon them.” So Ezek. x. 2, God commands the angel to 
fill his hand, dvSpaxwv πυρὸς, with coals of fire,” and to scat- 
ter them over the city to burn the city with them. And 2 
Esdr. xvi. 53, “ Let not the sinner say he hath not sinned, 
for God shall heap coals of fire upon his head, who saith 
before the Lord God, and his glory, he hath not sinned” (see 
the like saying in Stob. Serm. 82, p. 477). 

15 Ver. 21. Μὴ νικῶ ὑπὸ τοῦ κακοῦ, Be not overcome of evil.} 
Vincitur ἃ malo qui vult peccare in alium, quia ille peccavit 
in ipsum. Aquinas. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


1 Ler every soul be subject unto the higher powers 
(or supreme authority placed over them). For there is no 
* power but of God (the fountain of it): the powers that 
be are ordained of God. 


2 Whosoever therefore ? resisteth the power, resist- 
eth the ordinance of God: and they that resist (the or- 
dinance of God )* shall receive to themselves damnation 
(Gr. judgment). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


1 Ver. 1. Οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἱζουσία εἰ μὴ ἀπὸ Θεοῦ, There is no 

wer but of God.] That this may be rightly understood, let 
it be noted, (1.) That God doth not now, as in the case of 
Saul and David, by himself appoint and nominate the per- 
son who shall sway the sceptre in any nation-of the world. 
The Roman emperors, the powers then in being when Paul 
writ this epistle, had no such appointment, but were elected 
by the Roman armies, or chosen and confirmed by the se- 
nate ; whence it appears, that an immediate appointment, or 
designation of the person by God, cannot be necessary to ren- 
der any prince God’s ordinance. 

(2.) By virtue of God's general appointment or ordinance, 
whether in the fifth commandment, or by a law of nature, re- 
quiring that all nations should have some government placed 
over them, no individual person can claim a right to be the 
“higher power” in any nation, more than others; nor are the 
people by it tied to yield obedience to this man more rather 
than to that. his therefore cannot be sufficient to make a 
man the individual person who is God’s ordinance, in re- 
ference to such a nation. It remains, therefore, 

(3.) That this authority be conveyed to this or that in- 
dividual person or family by compact, consent, or choice of 
the persons governed, that such a person or family shall have 
the supreme authority in such a nation. It therefore must 
be such a choice, consent, or contract, that renders any per- 
son the ordinance of God to such a nation: and this is what 
men call «a legal right,” or title to the crown; that is, a title 
by the laws and constitutions of the land. 

But then, as mutual consent and contract make two per- 
sons man and wife, and yet matrimony is God’s ordinance, 
and the power of man over the wife, and of the wife over 
the body of the husband, is from God: and as among us, 
one becomes a master, anothgr ἃ servant, by consent and 
covenant, and yet the master hath from God authority over 
his servant; so here, the individual person becomes the 
higher power, by the consent, the choice, or contract, ori- 
ginal or actual, of the community ; but yet the power he exer- 
cises in that station is of God, the fountain of all power; and 
he acts in that station, not as the minister of man, but of God. 

2 Ver. 2. Ὃ ἀντιτασσύμενος τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ, Whosoever resisteth 
the power.] Origen* having cited this and the preceding 


* Πολλῆς ζητήσεως οὔσης κατὰ τὸν τόπον, διὰ τοὺς ὠμότερον καὶ 
τυραννικώτερον ἄρξαντας, ἢ τοὺς ἐκ τοῦ ἄρχειν ἐπὶ θρῦψιν, καὶ τρηῤυν 


ἐξοκέλλονται. Lib. viii. p. 421. 


verse in his Dissertation against Celsus, confesses it is a 
place “capable of much disquisition, by reason of such 
princes as govern cruelly and tyrannically, or who by reason 
of their power fall into effeminacy and carnal pleasures ;” re- 
ferring us to his comment on that place for the farther ex- 
plication of the words. Now there he saith,* “This is not 
to be understood of persecuting powers, for in such cases 
that of the apostle takes place, We must obey God rather 
than man, but of those powers, which are not a terror to 
good works, but to the evil :ἢ and it is a contradiction to the 
holiness, justice, and goodness of God, to say that he hath 
given princes any power to oppress, rob, spoil, murder, or 
to do any injury to their subjects. They cannot purely 
upon this account, that they are “the ordinance of God,” 
have any power or authority to do evil to them; and so re- 
sisting, i.e. not being subject or obedient to them in any such 
thing, cannot be that resisting of God’s ordinance to which 
the penalty is here annexed. Now this is the non-resistance 
of which the Greek commentators speak, even the non-per- 
formance of subjection and obedience to their commands ; 
and so the coherence seems to require, which saith, “ Let 
every soul be subject to the higher powers, for whosoever 
doth resist them (by not being subject) resisteth the or- 
dinance of God :” moreover, they only are “the ordinances 
of God”’ as they are “the ministers of God,” ver. 3, 4; now 
they are only “the ministers of God for good, for the pu- 
nishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do 
well,” ver. 4. And, thirdly, the subjection here required, to 
which the resistance is opposed, is a subjection due to them, 
“not only for wrath, but for conscience’ sake ;” but we can- 
not be obliged, from conscience towards God, to be subject 
to them in those things which they have no authority from 
God to require, and for refusal of obedience to which we 
have God's authority. 

They who interpret this of violent resistance by force of 
arms, speak the truth, but not the whole truth, that being 
not the only resistance here forbidden. For, as Dr. Falkner 
observes, ἀντιτάσσεσϑαι, which we translate fo resist, includes 
all practising out of a spirit of averseness, opposition, and 
contradiction, and whatsoever is contrary to ὑποτάσσεσθαι, 
“the being subject,” ver. 1. 5 (see Acts,xiii. 8, xviii. 6). 

3 ‘Eavrois κρίμα λήψονται, Shall receive judgment to them- 


* Non hic de illis potestatibus dicit que persecutiones in- 
ferunt fidei, ibi enim dicendum est, Oportet Deo obtemperare 
magis quam hominibus, sed de istis potestatibus dicit, que 
non sunt timori boni operis sed mali. 


584 


3 For rulers (if they act by the authority of God, 
and according to /aw,) are not a terror to good works 
(i. e. such as the light of nature pronounceth good), 
but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the 
power (that it will do thee any harm)? do (then) that 
which is good, and thou shalt (rather) have praise of 
the same: 

4 For he is (by his cnstitution) the minister of God 
to thee for good (7f thou art a doer of what is good). 
But if thou do that which is evil, (thow hast cause 
to) be afraid; for he beareth not the sword (of jus- 
lice) in vain: for he is the minister of God, ἃ re- 
venger to execute wrath (Gr. for wrath) upon him that 
doeth evil. 

5 Wherefore ye must needs (Gr. ye ought to) be 


ROMANS. 


subject (to this minister of God), not only for wrath, 
but also for conscience sake. 

6 For ὁ for this cause pay ye tribute also (to them) : 
for (that) they are God’s ministers, attending continu- 
ally upon this very thing (the executing judgment be- 
tween man and man, to preserve every man in his right, 
and to punish the wrong doer). 

7 5 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to 
whom tribute zs due; custom to whom custom (i. e, all 
legal impositions) ; fear to whom fear; honour to whom 
honour (8 due). 

8 Owe no man any thing (which justice obligeth you 
lo render him), but (be especially concerned) to love 
one ® another (which love, if ye observe ils precepts, 
will preserve you from doing any evil or injustice to 


selves.] i. 6. They shall be sentenced, punished, and con- 
demned for it by the magistrate, who is a terror to all evil 
works. So the word κρίμα signifies in these words, “ Fear- 
est not thou God, seeing thou art ἐν αὐτῷ κρίματι, under the 
same sentence of condemnation’’ by the magistrates ? (Luke 
xxiii. 40, see note on v. 16.) And to this sense the con- 
nexion inclines, “He shall receive sentence or punishment 
(from the rulers), for rulers are a terror to evil works; if 
therefore thou doest evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the 
sword in vain, but is an avenger of wrath.” Or, if he escape 
the hand of the magistrate, he shall be punished by that God 
whose minister and ordinance the power he resisteth is; 
this follows from the obligation to be subject, not only out 
of wrath, but also from conscience towards God; but hence 
it does not follow that he must be damned, as that imports 
his being sentenced by God to eternal torments; it follows 
not from the word κρίμα, seeing that in its literal import 
signifies judgment, and no more, and sometimes is applied to 
human judgments; not from the obligation to be subject out 
of conscience, for then all men must be damned who neg- 
lect what they, in conscience towards God, stand bound to 
do, or do what they in conscience are obliged not to do, and 
then, woe be to them who through weakness or prejudice 
mistake their duty, or are ignorant of it, and therefore do 
neglect it, or transgress against it. Seeing then the resister 
of God’s ordinance here is not only the wilful rebel, but he 
who also is not subject and obedient to the commands of 
lawful authority, if the punishment of this sin, without ex- 
ception, be eternal torments, all must be sentenced to them 
who, out of ignorance and weakness, misunderstanding or 
prejudice, refuse in any lawful matter to yield obedience to 
the commands of their superiors, and so not only sins of 
wilfulness, but sins of ignorance and weakness, must be 
damnable. 

Now according to this double notion of resistance, let it 
be noted, 

First, That the resistance which consists in non-subjection, 
or a refusal to yield actual obedience to the law of the supe- 
rior, can only be allowed when the matter of the law is sin- 
ful, and so forbidden by the higher power, not when it is 
judged inexpedient or unprofitable only ; for of this subjects 
are not to judge, but the lawgiver only, in that they lawfully 
may, and therefore, to avoid scandal and punishment, and 
from respect to him who is God’s vicegerent, ought to obey, 
even as servants ought to obey their froward masters (1 Pet. 
ii. 18), and children their parents in all awful things (Col. 
ili. 20), not disputing their authority in such matters, and 
this from conscience towards God. 

Secondly, That no resistance of the higher powers by 
force of arms, or violence, can be allowed purely on the 
account of religion; for, if so, we could not be obliged to 
«suffer wrong” in such cases “from conscience towards 
God,” as the apostle saith we are, 1 Pet. ii. 19, or from the 
example of our Lord, ver. 21. 24, because the sufferings 
which God hath not obliged us to undergo, we cannot un- 
dergo “from conscience towards God.” 

Thirdly, That no violent resistance, or no resistance of 
the higher powers by force, can be allowed to any who have 
not the power of the sword, and who are no “avengers of 
wrath ;” for he that thus useth it, plainly “takes the sword” 
without authority from him to whom belongeth vengeance, 


and the power of life and death originally, and so without 
authority from him to whom this power of the sword origi- 
nally belongs; and therefore, by our Saviour’s aphorism, 
deserves to perish by it (Matt. xxvi. 52). Hence therefore 
it must follow, 

1, That in absolute governments there is no power of lift- 
ing up the sword against the higher powers, because there is 
none can claim a share in the government, and so none can 
have any power of the sword, or right to be “an avenger of 
evil,’ but the absolute power. 

2. That in mixed governments, if any persons or states 
can claim the power, it must be either, (1.) upon compact 
that such persons shall have power to defend their laws ; or, 
(2.) by virtue of that rule of Grotius,* that “where a peo- 
ple hath conferred, not an absolute power, but a government 
according to the law, they must be supposed to have re- 
served to themselves a power necessary to preserve their 
laws.” Or else by some act done by the superior which is 
a virtual abdication, or a renunciation of his government ; in 
all which cases we can have no direction from the words of 
the apostle, who in general commands subjection to the 
higher powers, but declares not how far any man is so, or 
when he ceaseth to be so. 

4 Ver. 6. Διὰ τοῦτο γὰρ καὶ φόρους τελεῖτε, For this cause 
pay ye tribute also.] Hence it appears, that paying tribute 
to, is an acknowledgment of the right of government in him 
to whom we pay it, it being payable only on this account, 
“because he is the minister of God,” &c. and rendered to 
Cesar because it is Cesar’s; i. e. because it doth belong to 
him as being Cesar, or the power God hath set over us, 

5 Ver. 7. ᾿Απύδοτε οὖν πᾶσι τὰς ὀφειλὰς, Render to all their 
dues.| It is observable, that all that is said here and Tit. iii. 
1, 1 Pet. ii. 11, 12, seems plainly to relate to those false doc- 
trines and opinions which had obtained among the Jews, 
and were destructive to all government, and which all Chris- 
tians therefore were concerned to show their freedom from, 
and opposition to, that so they might stop the mouths of 
those heathens who, looking upon Christians as the offspring 
of the Jews, were apt to charge them with the same princi- 
ples of opposition to all heathen governments. Now their 
principles are these : 

First, That being the people of God, God alone was to 
be owned as their lord and governor, in opposition to all 
earthly governors; at least in opposition to all governors 
which were not of their own nation, and by him immediatelv 
chosen, and ruling by his laws. See this fully proved, note 
on 1 Pet. ii. 16. 

Secondly, As a consequent of this, they refused to pay 
tribute to Cesar, crying out to Agrippa,f τὰ τέλη ἀναιρεῖν, 
“to take away their tributes; looking upon them as a sign 
of subjection, which they ought not to submit to.” 

6 Ver. 8. Tov ἕτερον, Another.] This being, ver. 10, τὸν 


* Si populus regem fecerit, non pleno jure, sed additis 
legibus, poterunt per eas leges contrarii actus irriti fieri aut 
omnin6, aut ex parte, quia eatenus populus jus sibi servavit. 
De Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. xiv. sect. 2. 

{ Tiv τε ἐπιτίμησιν οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ ἀντικρὺς δουλείαν ἐπιφέρειν 
λέγοντες. Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1. De Bell. Jud. lib. 
ii. cap. 1, p. 775, Ὁ. cap. 12, p. 714. See note on James iv. 
2, 3. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


your brother): for he that (truly) loveth another hath 
fulfilled the law (relating to him). 

9 For this (that which the law forbiddeth in these 
words), Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt 
not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear 
false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any 
other commandment (of the law relating to thy neigh- 
ioe it is briefly comprehended in this saying, name- 
ly, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (¢. e. with 
the like love thou bearest to thyself, though not with love 
equal to it, See note on Matt. xxii. 39, 40. ᾿ 

10 He that is acted by) Love’ worketh no ill to his 
neighbour (which is the thing required in these negative 
precepts) : therefore § love zs the fulfilling of the law. 

11 And that (Gr. this) (exhortation to obey authority, 
and walk in fervent charity towards all men, I recom- 


585 


mend to you now, is very seasonable), knowing the time, 
that now ἐΐ is high time (for all) to ὃ awake out of 
sleep: for now is our " salvation (or, the salvation of 
the gentiles) nearer than when we ( first) believed. 

12 " The night (of heathen ignorance, Acts xvii. 31) 
is far spent, ® the day (of grace and salvation to them) 
is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of dark- 
ness, and let us put on the armour of light. 

13 Let us walk ® honestly, as in the day; not in 
rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and 
wantonness (1 Pet. iv. 3), not in strife and envying 
(things inconsistent with that Christian charily which is 
the glory of our profession). ἃ 

14 But "" put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
make not provision for the flesh, to fu/fil the lusts 
thereof. 


πλησίον, “his neighbour,” shows that every man is the Chris- 
tian’s neighbour. 

7 Ver. 10. Κακὸν οὐκ ἐργάζεται, Worketh no evil.] Not that 
the law is exactly fulfilled by doing no evil to our neigh- 
bour, but because, in Christ’s interpretation, the neglect of 
doing any good we are able, and have opportunity to do for 
him, is doing evil, Mark iii. 4. Here therefore is a meio- 
sis, for “charity is” also “kind,” 1 Cor. xiii. 4, and en- 
gageth us “ by love to serve another,” Gal. ν. 13, 14. 


5 Πλήρωμα οὖν νόμου ἡ ἀγάπη, Love therefore is the fulfilling ἡ 


of the law.] The apostle plainly here discourseth of the ful- 
lling of the law as it relateth to our neighbour; but, as 
᾿ Esthius here notes, love is also the fulfilling of it as it re- 
spects our duty to God; for he that loves his neighbour 
aright, loves him for God's sake, and in obedience to him, 
and so must principally love God: he also “loves his neigh- 
bour as himself:” now no man truly loves himself who loves 
not him above all things who is his chief good, and in loving 
whom thus his happiness consists (see Matt. xxii. 37). 

9 Ver. 11. Ἔξ ὕπνου ἐγερθῆναι, To awake out of sleep,) 
Is a phrase importing two things: (1.) The conversion of 
heathens to Christianity, as in that call to them mentioned 
Eph. iv. 14, “ Wherefore he saith, Awake, thou that sleepest, 
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee life,” or shine 
upon thee. (2.) Our care to walk as becometh converts, 
with true Christian vigilance; as when the apostle saith to 
the Corinthians, “ Awake to righteousness, and sin not,” 
1 Cor. xy. 34, and to the Thessalonians thus, “ Let us not 
sleep, as do others,” 1 Thess. v. 6, 7. 

0 Νὺν yap ἐγγύτερον ἡμῶν ἢ σωτηρία, For now is our salva- 
tion nearer.] i. e. Say some, the deliverance of you Chris- 
tians from the persecution of the Jews, stirring up the hea- 
thens against you. And I believe this passage hath a 
relation to the destruction of the Jewish nation, and the dis- 
solution of that church, and of the worship confined to the 
temple; but chiefly upon this account, that then was the 
time when the salvation of the gentiles was to be more fully 
and gloriously accomplished, that being the time when God 
would show forth all his wrath upon the unbelieving Jews, 
and crucifiers of our Lord, and their Messiah, and upon that 
account “the vessels of his wrath” (Rom. ix. 22). Hence 
the apostle exhorteth the believing Jews to constancy in the 
faith, “forasmuch as they saw this day approaching” (Heb, 
x. 25): and they being then, saving a little remnant, entirely 
Tejected, and cut off from being any more the church of 
God, the gentiles were to be more fully called and owned as 


his church. The apostle had before discoursed of this mat- | 


ter, telling the Romans, that “by their rejection and fall 
came, σωτηρία, salvation to the gentiles,” x1. 11, that their 
fall would be “the riches of the world, and the diminishing 
of them the riches of the gentiles,” ver. 12; and, ver. 13. 15, 
“T speak,” saith he, “to you gentiles,” that their rejection 
will be “the reconciling of the world.” And of this salva- 
tion of the gentiles he saith, «It is now nearer than when 


they first believed,” the time of the utter rejection of the | 


Vor. IV.—74 


Jews drawing nigh; and therefore he advised them, especi- 
ally now at this season, to give no obstruction to their con- 
version, and lay no obstacle in their way, by any disobedi- 
ence against their superiors; but by their submission “ to 
every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake,” to put to si- 
lence all the objections of ignorant men against them, as 
disturbers of government; and that they would diligently 
avoid all works of darkness, that they who “spoke of them 
as evil-doers, might, by their good works which they beheld, 

be induced to) glorify God in the day of their visitation” (1 

et. ii. 12, 14), and to avoid all strife and envy, and to 
walk in love, as being that which rendered them so amiable 
in the eyes of the very heathens. 

1 Ver. 12. Ἢ νὺξ προέκοψεν, The night is far spent.] Nix- 
ra καλεῖ τῆν ἀγνοίας καιρὸν, “He calls the night the time of 
the ignorance of the gentiles,” saith ‘Theodoret ; and so the 
day must be the appearance of the gospel light to them: 
and this is very suitable to the language of the holy scripture, 
which speaketh of the gentiles thus, “ Ye were sometimes 
darkness, but now ye are light in the Lord,” Eph. v. 8, and 
as men darkened, and “blinded in their minds,” Eph. iv. 
18, and “whose foolish hearts were darkened,”* Rom. i. 20. 
In the Old Testament they are still represented as men who 
“sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death,” Isa. ix. 1, 
and when Christ was sent to be “a light to the gentiles,” 
he is said to be sent “ to give light to them that sat in dark- 
ness,” Luke i. 78,79. And when Paul was sent to convert 
them, he is said to be sent “to turn them from darkness to 
light,” Acts xxvi. 18. And when Peter mentions their con- 
version, he tells them, “God had called them from darkness 
into his marvellous light,” 1 Pet. ii. 9. 

12 Ἢ δὲ ἡμέρα ἤγγικεν, And the day ts at hand.) i. 6. The 
day of salvation, 2 Cor. vi. 8, whence they to whom this 
salvation was come, by receiving this gospel light, are said 
to be τῆς ἡμέρας, “men of the day,” and υἱοὶ τῆς ἡμέρας, 
“children of the day,” 1 Thess. v. 5. 8, and bid here «to 
walk honestly as in the day.” 

18 Ver. 13. Εσχημόνως, Honestly.) Decently, honourably, 
as becometh Christians, both towards our governors, having 
our conversation καλὴν, “honourable,” and decorous among 
the gentiles, that they, “beholding our good works, may 
glorify God,” that is, may own him whom the Christians 
een as a good and holy God, and so be gained to the 
auth. 

"4 Koirats καὶ ἀσελγείαις, In chambering and wantonness.] 
Κοίΐται yap γυναικῶν ἐπιθυμίαι, ἀσελγὴς ἐπ᾿ ἀρσενικοῦ ἐπὶ δὲ ϑηλυ- 
κοῦ οὐκέτι. Hesych. Phavor. 

15 Ver. 14, ᾿Ενξύσασθε τὸν Χριστὸν, Put ye on the Lord 
Jesus Chris?.] i. e. Be conformable to his doctrine and holy 
life. So Chrysostom saith it was a common phrase, ὃ δεῖνα 
τὸν δεῖνα ἐνεδύσατο, “Such a one hath put on such a one;” 
that is, he is an imitator of him: so, to “put on the new 
man,” is to walk as new men in newness of Jife and conver- 
sation, Eph. iv. 24, “in holiness and righteousness, after 
the image of him that hath created us” anew, Col. iii. 10. 


586 


CHAPTER XIV. 


1 (Now to prevent these strifes and envyings,)Him that 
is weak in the faith (and so not rightly grounded in it) 
receive ye (nto Christian communion), but not to 
1 doubtful disputations (not respecting the difference in 
their thoughts and reasonings from yours). 

2 For (such difference of conceptions there is among 
the Jewish and gentile Christians, that) one (ἷ. e. the 
gentile Christian) believeth that he may eat all things: 
another, who is * weak, (Gr. but the weak, 7. 6. the 
Jewish convert, who is mistaken in, and doth not rightly 
understand his Christian liberty, abstaineth from all 


meats, as fearing they may pollute him, and so) eateth 
(only) 5. herbs. 

3 Let not him that (sut/ably to this belief) eateth (all 
kinds of meat) despise him that (through weakness) 
eateth not (of any); and let not him which eateth not 
judge (and condemn) him that eateth (as unclean for 
not observing these distinctions between meats clean and 
unclean by the law, or according to their traditions, by 
being offered to idols, or polluted by the unclean): for 
4 God hath received him. 

4 (Since therefore God hath received and owned him 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV. 


1 Ver. 1. Μὴ εἰς διακρίσεις διαλογισμῶν, Not to doubtful dis- 
putations.] Not discriminating them by their inward thoughts 
or reasonings, or rejecting any from communion upon that 
account, because they are weak in judgment; this sense the 
antithesis seems to require, and this sense will be confirmed 
from our note on ver. 23, and from a like passage of James, 
«Tf you say to the man in gay clothing, Sit thou here honour- 
ably, and to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit down at my 
footstool, οὐ diexpiOnre ἐν Eavrois; do you not put a difference 
or a discrimination among yourselves, and are become judges, 
διαλογισμῶν πονηρῶν, of evil reasonings.” 

2 Ver. 2. Ὁ δὲ ἀσθενῶν, But the weak.] I have observed, 
note on y. 6, 1 Cor. viii. 13, that “the weak” person is not 
the man of a doubting conscience, about a thing indifferent, 


is plain, 1 Cor. viii. 7, from these words, “Some with con- 
science of the idol to this hour eat it as a thing offered to an 
idol, and their conscience being weak is defiled.” Now to 
eat “with conscience of the idol,” must be to eat with an 
erroneous conscience; and the thing is as plain here from 
ver. 14, which shows that the weak person “ esteemeth that 
unclean, which in itself was not so,” and therefore acted 
from an erroneous conscience. I have observed there also, 
that 6 ἀσθενὴς, “the weak,” and ἀσθενεῖν, “to be weak,” is to 


fall and stumble ; and here it also signifieth one that stum- | 


bleth at some doctrine of Christianity, viz. at that of Chris- 
tian liberty from Jewish observances, and who is scandalized 


| 


at it, or made to fall by the use of that liberty by others, as | 
is evident also from these words, ver. 21, “It is good not to 
eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do any other thing | 


whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made 
weak.” 
other any more, but judge this rather, that no man puta 
stumbling-block, or an occasion to fall (Gr. a scandal) in his 
brother's way.” 

3 Adxava ἐσθίει, Eateth herbs.) Why herbs only? Chry- 
sostom thinks it was διὰ τὸ μὴ γίνεσθαι δῆλον, “ that it might 
not appear whether they did it out of observance of the 


Jewish law, or only out of temperance ;” but this the apostle | 


contradicts, by saying, not that he did this, being cautious, 
but he did it, “being weak ;” and (ver. 14) that he did it, 
esteeming that which he abstaineth from as unclean: and 
this is supposed as a thing evident throughout this chapter, 
that he abstained out of conscience from eating that which 
he esteemed unlawful. Others say, the word λάχανα, 
“herbs,” is taken synecdochically, “for all sorts of meat al- 
lowed by the law ;” but then they ought in reason to show 
us some example, or instance, where the word λάχανα is 
used in this sense. Let it be therefore noted, (1.) That the 
Essenes,* among the Jews, abstained from all flesh, « using 
as victuals, with great delight, green herbs, and the fruit of 
trees:” and this they did, as judging flesh, μὴ κατὰ φύσιν, 
“not to be natural food,” as there it follows. Philo saith, 
they had τράπεζαν καθαρὰν τῶν ἐναίμων, “a table pure from 


* “Anat ἁπάντων (ζώων) ἀπέχονται, λαγανώδει χλόη, καὶ κάρποις 
δένδρων προσοψψήμασιν ἡδίστη ἀπολαύσει χρώμενο. Apud Euseb. 
Prep. Evang. lib. viii. cap. 14. 

{ De Vit. Contemp. p. 696, Ὁ, E. 


And ver. 13, “Let us not therefore judge one an- | 


any thing that had blood in it, as being an incentive to concu- 
piscence, and did only eat bread and salt, and hyssop” (see 
note no Col. ii. 1). Here then is one instance of them, who 
“being weak, did eat herbs.”’ Moreover, Josephus saith of 
some priests of his acquaintance, sent bound to Rome from 
Judea, for some little crime, that *“they were good men, 
who in their afflictions forgot not their piety to God, nourish- 
ing themselves there with figs and nuts;”’ yea, their super- 
stition would not permit them to use the oil of heathens, 
as being not clean, and so such as they could not use the 
meats of gentiles, much less things offered to idols (as some- 
times all the meat sold in the shambles was), without trans- 
gressing their own institutions and traditions. They therefore 
might eat herbs, either that they might avoid eating things 
sold in the shambles, which had been offered to idols, and 


| which were therefore deemed κοινὰ “common or unclean,” 
but of an erroneous conscience, about a thing unlawful; this | 


by the whole Jewish nation ;+ or to avoid the eating things 
which they esteemed polluted by the gentiles, as the Jewish 
priests mentioned by Josephus did. Moreover, the person 
who “believeth he may eat all things,” here, is so like the 
person who saith “ All things are lawful for me,” 1 Cor. x. 
23, where the apostle is speaking of things offered to idols, 
and the arguments, many of them, are so apparently in sense 
the same here, and 1 Cor. viii. and ch. x., that I can see no 
reason wholly to exclude this sense. 

4 Ver. 3. 'O Θεὸς γὰρ αὐτὸν προσελάβετο, For God hath re- 
ceived him.] This is St. Peter’s argument, Acts xv. 9, “God 
put no difference betwixt us (Jews) and them, purifying 
their hearts by faith,” and so making them clean in his sight, 
though they were not circumcised, nor abstained from those 
meats we count unclean; he therefore received them without 
requiring this of them, and therefore so should we. Note 
here, that though God testified his reception of them by a vi- 
sible and miraculous dispensation of the gift of tongues and 
prophecy ; yet doth not the apostle say, God hath thus testi- 
fied his reception of them, but only, “He hath received 
them,” i. e. into communion with him, viz. by giving them 
that Spirit which is the medium of our union to, and com- 
munion with him. Note also, that these words prove against 
Esthius, that the apostle here speaks not of the Jews, but of 
the gentiles, whom the Jews always deemed unclean, till 
they became proselytes to their law, and so obliged to ob- 
serve these differences between meats (see note on 1 Cor. 
vii. 14); and therefore thought God would not receive them, 
whilst they did not observe this law. Moreover, when the 


| apostle saith, ver. 2, “Another believeth he may eat all 


things:” is this other the Jew? then the strong Jew be- 
lieved not only that he might eat swine’s flesh, but even 
“things offered to idols,” which yet Esthius denies, ver. 1, 
the reason is, because both these must be included in quibus- 
libet cibis, all kinds of meat. But if it be the gentile, as is 


| far more probable, then the apostle speaks here of the gen- 


tiles. 


Again, when the same apostle saith, “ Another es- 


* Καίπερ ἐν κακοῖς ὄντες οὐκ ἐξελάϑοντο τῆς eis τὸ θεῖον εὐσεβείας" 
διετρέφοντο δὲ σύκοις, καὶ καρίοι. De Vita sua, p. 999, C. 

Tt ᾿Επείδη οὐκ ἔχουσιν ἔλαιον ᾧ χρήσωνται καθαρὸν: μὴ de 
ἀνάγκην Ἑλληνικὰ χρώμενοι, τὰ νόμιμα παραβαίνωσιν. Ibid. p. 
1040, Β. 

+ Aboda Zara Per. 2, 7. 
11, 12. 


Maim. de Idol. cap. 7, sect. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


as his servant,) who art thou that 5 judgest another 
man’s servant? to (God) his own master he standeth 
or falleth, (and by him only is he to be judged: he is 
at present weal: indeed,) yea, he ® shall be holden up 
(σταθήσεται δὲν but he shall be established): for God is 
zone to make him stand (στῆσια αὐτὸν, to establish 
im). 

5 One man esteemeth one (Jewish) day above an- 
other (¢. e. more fit to do God service in, as being set 


587 


apart by him for that end): another esteemeth every 
(such) day alike ( Jit for that purpose). Let every man 
be 5 fully persuaded.in his own mind (or act with full- 
ness of persuasion that he doeth what is lawful). 

6 (And to engage you to maintain friendship and com- 
munion, without censuring and condemning one another 
for these matters, consider that) He that regardeth the 
day, regardeth ἐΐ ὃ unto the Lord (or out of conscience 
towards him); and he that regardeth not the day, 


teemeth every day alike,” does he mean the Jews? did the 
Jew think the obligation to observe the sabbath was abo- 
lished? and if he meant the gentile, the apostle must here 
speak of them. But, saith Esthius, this doctrine could not 
extend to the gentile, to whom it was not lawful to comply 
with the legal observances, no, not for the sake of the in- 
firm Jews. ΤῸ this J answer, (1.) That the apostle says no- 
thing in this whole chapter which doth oblige him so to do, 
but only not to judge, not to exclude from communion, 
those Jews that did so, and not to eat of those meats, when 
that would minister scandal to the Jews; and doth he not 
prescribe the same rule to the gentile, in the case of this 
scandal, in these words, “ But if any man say unto thee, 
‘This is offered to idols, eat not for his sake that showeth it, 
and for conscience’ sake?” 1 Cor. x. 28. (2.) Paul, who 
had the same persuasion, that the law was not binding to 
him, as any gentile could have, yet “to the Jew became as 
a Jew, that he might gain the Jew ;” why therefore might 
he not permit the strong gentile so to do, especially when 
this was not done out of respect to the law of Moses, but 
purely to the higher law of charity ? 

5 Ver. 4. Σὺ τίς εἶ ὁ κρίνων ἀλλύτριον οἰκέτην; Who art thou 
that judgest another man’s servant 2] Some interpret these 
words thus: We are not to judge another man’s servant for 
doing what his own master alloweth or permitteth. But this 
is adding to the text; for the apostle doth not say, Who art 
thou that judgest another man’s servant wrongfully, or con- 
demnest in him what God allows ? nay, he plainly supposeth 
him weak and erroneous, and yet allows not any condemn- 
ing and rejecting him, and “excluding him,” saith Dr. 
Hammond, “ out of the church,” because God hath received 
him to be his servant. 

ὃ Σταθήσεται, He shall be established.] The apostle seems 
plainly here to speak of the weak Jew, who, through the 
error of his judgment, might be apt to stumble at the liberty 
which the strong Christian used, and which the Christian 
doctrine taught that Christ had purchased for him also, as 
thinking both himself and others obliged to observe the law 
of Moses; and of him he saith, He is now indeed weak, but 
he shall be established, i. e. the time will come, when, by the 
destruction of the Jewish temple, to which their service was 
annexed, and in which alone a great part of their ceremonial 
worship was to be performed, they should be better satisfied 
of the cessation of their obligation to obey those precepts. 
Thus also he saith, Phil. iii. 15, “As many as are τέλειοι, 
fully instructed in the Christian liberty, let them mind this 
thing,”’ viz. that it is only “the circumcision of the Spirit” 
that God now regardeth (ver. 3), and “if any be otherwise 
minded, God shall reveal even this unto you,” i. 6. he will 
in his due time convince them of this truth (see the note 
there). Note also, that the effusion of the Spirit on the Jews, 
though circumcised and zealous for the observation of the 
law, was an argument that God also had received the be- 
lieving Jew to his favour, notwithstanding his weakness of 
judgment in these matters. 

7 Awards γάρ ἔστιν ὃ Θεὸς στῆσαι αὐτόν, For God is able to 
make him stand.) The apostle elsewhere argues from God’s 
power to his will; so xi. 23, “If they abide not in unbelief 
they shall be graffed in, for God is able to graff them in 
again ;” xvi. 25, “Τὸ him that is able to confirm you;” 
2 Cor. ix. 6. 8, “ He that soweth liberally shall reap liberally ; 
for God is able to make all grace abound towards you ;” Heb. 
ii. 18, “ He is able to succour them that are tempted.” And 
this argument is always good, where we put no obstruction 
to his will, by rendering ourselves unworthy of his illumina- 

_ tions and his favours ; he being otherwise always as ready as 
he is able to do what he sees needful and truly conducing to 
our spiritual good. 


8 Ver. 5. Ἕκαστος ἐν τῷ ἔδιῳ vot πληροφορείσθω, Let every one 
be july persuaded in his own mind.) ‘The Greek and Latin 
fathers give this sense of these words: In matters of this 
nature, touching the observation of a day, required by Moses, 
to the Lord, or not, the abstaining from meats, or not, “ let 
every man abound in his own sense; i. 6. let there be no 
condemning, no excluding any man on the account of such 
different sentiments: and this sense is very agreeable to the 
context, if the word πληροφορέω will bear it, of which, sure, 
the Greek interpreters must be sufficient judges; especially 
when Phavorinus saith that πληροφύρησον is the same with 
πλήρωσον, fulfil, as in that of the apostle, τὴν διακονίαν σου 
πληροφύρησον, “ Fulfil thy ministry,” 2 Tim. iv. 5, and when 
this sense accords so well with the Hebrew proverb, xbny wx 
yao nx, i.e. “ Let a man fulfil his heart,” or do his pleasure. 

They who render the words thus, as we do, “ Let every 
man be fully persuaded in his own mind,” as the word 7Anpo- 
gopia doth import, Col. ii. 2, Heb. vi. 9, x. 22, 1 Thess. 
i. 5, either refer it to the preceding words thus, Let every 
man content himself with this, that he is fully persuaded he 
doth as he ought, and not search into the actions or judg- 
ments of other men about these matters, to condemn them 

| for them; and this also is a sense against which I know no 
exception, and is made more probable from ver. 14. 21, 22, 
or else give the sense thus, Let a man have that persuasion 
of the lawfulness of what he doth, or abstains from, as will 
preserve him from sinning against conscience in it. 

9 Ver. 6. Κυρίῳ, To the Lord.) If « the Lord” here signifies 
the Lord Christ, as we may gather from ver. 7—9, it is evi- 
dent from the reason following, “ for he giveth God thanks,” 
that Christ is God: if it signify God the Father, yet the fol- 
lowing verses, which apply it to Christ, make it plain that 
the argument is good from God the Father to our Lord 
Christ, and again from Christ, ver. 10, to God the Father, 
ver. 11, and consequently that they must equally be God 
(see Examen Miillii). 

Here we are told, that “no man can be said to do any 
thing to the Lord, or out of conscience towards God, in such 
eases wherein God has not interposed his authority ; nor is 
any man in scripture said to do any thing to the Lord, who 
cannot produce a plain law for what he does; but when both 
contending parties can produce a divine authority for doing 
or not doing the same thing (i. e. the law forbidding, and yet 
commanding the same thing), there is great reason for them 
to receive one another, because they both act out of reverence 
to the divine authority.” But this assertion may be evidently 
disproved, 

First, From the example of St. Paul, who “served God 
from his forefathers with a pure conscience” (2 ‘Tim. i. 3), 
and conversed before God “ in all good conscience” (Acts 
xiii. 1), and was “ zealous for God,” even when he persecuted 
Christians to the death (Acts xxii. 3, 4), and thought himself 
bound in conscience “ to do many things against the name of 
Jesus” (Acts xxvi. 9): he therefore, if he may be believed, 
did these things “ out of conscience towards God,” wherein 
God had not interposed his authority. 

Secondly, This also is evident from the instances related in 
this verse; for a law cancelled and disannulled by God him- 
self, hath no divine authority ; and he who only produceth 
such a law, is so far from producing a plain law for what he 
doth, that he produceth none at all, nor doth he act out of 
reverence to the divine authority, but only with respect to 
his own erroneous conceptions of a divine authority, when 
there is no such thing; nor can he produce any divine 
authority for what he doth. “Oh! but God had once inter- 
posed his authority in this case, and the Jews could not be 
satisfied that this authority was repealed.” I answer; And 
so it is with all the unbelieving Jews unto this very day, who 


588 


to the Lord he doth not regard ἐξ (7. 6. because his 
Lord hath freed him from any obligation so to do). He 
that eateth (freely of all kinds of meats), eateth to the 
Lord (or to his glory), for he giveth God thanks (for 
his liberty thus to eat); and he that eateth not (so), to 
the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks (even 
Sor those herbs he eateth, or that he hath provided for him 
other food ). 

7 For none of us (who are Christians) ™ liveth to 
himself, (but to him that died for him and rose again, 
2 Cor. v. 16,) and no man (dying) dieth to himself (so 
as io be exempted from the power and jurisdiction of the 
Lord, whose servants we are). 

8 For whether we live, we (Christians, if we act 
suitably to our duty and our obligations,) live unto the 
Lord (under his dominion, and under the government 
of his laws) ; and whether we die, we die (and, dying, 


ROMANS. 


we are still subject) unto the Lord: whether we live 
therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s. 

9 For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and 
revived, that he " might be Lord both of the dead and 
living (Phil. ii. 10). 

10 But why (why then) dost thou judge thy bro- 
ther? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? 
(as if he were thy servant, and thou his master and his 
judge, seeing) for we shall all stand before the judg- 
ment seat of Christ (and from him, who is our Lord 
and Master, shall receive the sentence according to our 
works). 

11 For it is written (Isa. liv. 23), 2s I live, saith the 
Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue 
shall confess to God. 

12 So then every one of us shall ” give account 
of himself (and of his behaviour in these matters) 


still observe the law of Moses, as far as under their present 
circumstances they can; as believing it was given them for 
an everlasting covenant, and so being unsatisfied that the 
authority of it is repealed; so far is it from being true, that 
this case hath no parallel: it is therefore evident that in this 
sense it cannot be said, He that regardeth a day, enjoined by 
the law of Moses, regardeth it to the Lord; and he that 
eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not: for the apostle, in 
this very chapter, declareth himself persuaded by the faith of 
the Lord Jesus, that “there was nothing unclean of itself,” 
but only through the mistaken estimation of the Jew (ver. 
14) ; and elsewhere, that the Jewish feasts, new moons, and 
sabbaths, were only “shadows of good things to come;” and 
that Christ was the body or the substance of them (Col. ii. 17), 
and that there was made ἀθέτησις, “a disannulling of the 
former command, by reason of the weakness and unprofitable- 
ness of it” (Heb. vii. 18). It could be therefore nothing but 
prejudice and error, which made the Jew conceive he observed 
those days, and abstained from those meats, by a divine 
authority, or that he could produce such an authority for so 
doing ; he therefore must be said to do this “to the Lord,” 
and “out of conscience towards God,” because he, through 
the weakness and error of his judgment, thought the law of 
Moses obliged him still in conscience to the observance of 
these things. Now this is so far from being an unparalleled 
case, that it is the very case of the Romanists, using still the 
anointing of the sick; of the anabaptists, dipping them who 
are baptized; of the Greek church, refusing to eat things 
strangled, and blood, out of reverence to the apostolical in- 
junction ; of the dissenters, using prayer “by the Spirit,” or 
conceived prayer, out of reverence to the command, to ἐξ pray 
in the Holy Ghost,” and abstaining from communion with 
that church which observes no church-discipline, out of 
respect to the command, to “ purge the evil from among us ;” 
for all this is done by them out of a mistaken reverence to a 
divine authority, which they conceive obliging to them. But 
then the Greek expositors here note, that this indulgence to 
men of an erroneous conscience is not to be extended to 
« doctrines of faith, and matters of great moment, but only 
to cases of meat and fasting, and the like ;”* and that it is 
especially to be granted to those who are infirm, and want 
indulgence. 

10 Ver. 7. Οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἡμῶν ἑαυτῷ ζῇ, For none of us liveth 
lo himself. This I conceive to be a reason, not of that which 
is contained in the sixth verse, but of what was delivered 
ver. 4, viz. that Christ was our Master, and we his servants ; 
and therefore, by judging one another for these things, they 
took upon them to judge another man’s servant. For (1.) 
in the next verse the apostle reassumes this matter, inquir- 
ing, “ Who art thou that judgest thy brother?” and (2.) those 
words are a plain proof of this; for we are his servants to 
whom we live, and to whom we must give an account of our 
actions, and who is “ Lord both of the dead and the living :” 


* Ταῦτα οὖν περὶ τῶν νηστεύοντων, καὶ ἐσθίοντων ἰδικῶς ἐκληπτέον, 
ΩΣ τᾶς ἀπ᾿ ἀξ Way Vea 2 7 
ἀλλὰ μὴ ἐπὶ ἄλλων τινῶν, οὐ γὰρ ἐπὶ πάντα ὃ κἄνων οὗτος διήκει, 
ἀλλ᾽ ἐδικός ἐστιν ἐπὶ τοῦτο μόνον, καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων περιλαμβανόμενος. 


Chrysost. Theod. Phot. Gicum. Theophylact. 


but they seem not so applicable to what is delivered, ver. 6, 
or to give a clear reason why he that abstains from swine’s 
flesh, or that religiously observes a Jewish festival, doth this 
unto the Lord Christ, who came to take away, not to enforce 
the obligation of those things. 

1 Ver. 9. Ἵνα κυριεύση, That he might be Lord.) He by 
his resurrection being constituted “Lord of all things,” and 
having “all power both in heaven and earth” conferred upon 
him, must have power over all, we being all his servants, and 
so obliged “not to live unto ourselves, but to him that died 
for us, and rose again” (2 Cor. v. 16). He being also the 
rewarder of all those that serve him faithfully, he must be 
the Lord over the dead, so as to be able to bring them to 
life again, that they may receive the promised reward. 

12 Ver, 12. Περὶ ἑαυτοῦ λόγον δώσει τῷ Θεῷ, Shall give an 
account of himself to God.| Here C&cumenius notes, that it 
is said of God the Father, that “he judgeth no man, but 
hath committed all judgment to his Son’ (John v. 22), and 
therefore, what the apostle here saith, viz. “ Every man shall 
confess to God, and bow the knee to him” (ver. 11), and 
«give an account of himself to God” (ver. 12), is manifestly 
spoken of Christ as judge, ἄρα Θεὺς 6 Χριστὸς, “and therefore 
Christ is God :” and this argument was used before the Ni- 
cene council by Novatian* and others. It is a wonder that 
Socinus should deny that the apostle says, that “ every knee 
should bow” to Christ, when, citing the same place, Phil. ii. 
10, 11, the apostle so expressly declares, that “at the name 
of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that 
Jesus is the Lord;” and here, from this place, proves, that 
“Christ is Lord both of the dead and the living,” before 
whose tribunal they must all stand; and so must own his 
power and authority over them, which is the thing expressed 
metaphorically by bending of the knee, and the confession 
of the tongue: and if these words, which the prophet cer- 
tainly spake of Jehovah, the God of the Jews, be well applied 
by the apostle to Christ, Christ must be also the person 
intended by them; for how could the apostle prove that 
“every knee must bow” to Christ, from the words of God, 
saying, “'T’o me every knee shall bow,” if Christ were, in his 
whole nature and essence, as different from that God who 
spake those words of himself, as is a creature from his great 
Creator? Crellius here saith, Paul accommodates this 
passage to Christ, + not that he is God, but because what is 
contained in it shall, by Christ, as subordinate to God, be ex- 
hibited and performed to God himself.” But this subterfuge 
is confuted by the words of the apostle, who saith expressly, 
Phil. ii. 10, 11, that “to the name of Jesus every knee shall 
bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Lord ;” and 
so declares, these words are fulfilled by the honour exhibited, 
not to God the Father, but to our Lord Jesus Christ: and 
seeing he is Lord over the dead, by the power by which “ he 


* Neque enim, si non et Deus esset, omne se nomine 
ejus genuflecteret. ovat. cap. 17. Vide Epist. Polycarp. 
sect. 6. 

+ Non quod Christus sit ipse Deus, sed quia quod in héc 
testimonio continetur, per Christum, tanquam Deo subordi- 
natum, ipsi Deo prestari et exhiberi debeat. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


to God (and it becomes not us to antedate his judg- 
ment). 

a Let us not therefore (lake upon us to) judge one 
another any more: but (/ef us) judge this rather, that 
no man (ought fo) ® put a stumblingblock or an occa- 
sion to fall (from the faith) in his brother’s way. 

14 I know, and am persuaded by (the faith of) the 
Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: 
but (notwithstanding this) to him that " esteemeth any 
thing to be unclean, to him (as fo the use of it) it is 
unclean. 

15 But (though nothing be unclean of itself, yet) if 
thy brother be 15 grieved (7. 6. scandalized) with thy 
meat, now walkest thou not charitably (in eating it to 
his offence and ruin; wherefore) destroy not him with 
thy meat, for whom Christ died. 

16 Let not then (any thing be done by you, whereby) 
8 your good (i. e your Christian calling may) be evil 


589 


spoken of (Gr. blasphemed) (by them who are thus of- 
fended at this use of your Christian liberty) + : 

17 For the kingdom of God is not (a thing which 
consists in) meat and drink; but (7) righteousness, 
and peace, and ” joy in the Holy Ghost. 

18 For he that in these things serveth Christ ὦ 
acceptable to God, and approved of men. 

19 Let us therefore follow after the things which 
make for (the) peace (of the church), and things where- 
with one may edify (and build up) another (in Chris- 
tian love and union into one spiritual temple in the 
Lord). 

20 For meat destroy not the work of God (i. e. the 
Christian converl, 1 Cor. iii. 9, for though) all things 
indeed are pure; but (ye) ἐξ as evil for that man who 
eateth with offence (0 do so). 

21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, 
nor (lo do) any (other) thing (from which thow mayest 


is able to subdue all things to himself” (Phil. iii. 21), which 
doubtless is the power of God; and seeing, having raised all 
men, he “will bring to light the hidden things” which they 
have done, and “ manifest the counsels of their hearts” (1 Cor. 
iv. 5), and so must be omniscient, and have the knowledge 
of the secrets of the heart; and it is the property of God 
alone to raise the dead by his power, and be the Searcher of 
all hearts: these properties ascribed to Christ here, and else- 
where, must show that he is truly God (see the note on 
Phil. ii. 10). 

13 Ver. 13. Μὴ τιϑέναι πρόσκομμα, Not to put a stumbling- 
block.] i. e. Not to cause our brother to stumble at the 
Christian faith, and fall off from it, or to perish; for what is 
here, Do not put a stumbling-block (by thy meat) in thy 
brother’s way, is, ver. 15, “ Destroy not him with thy meat 
for whom Christ died;” and to eat, διὰ προσκόμματος, SO as 
to put this stumbling-block before him, is “for meat to de- 
stroy the work of God:” and that in this sense the phrase 
is still used in the epistles, see note on 1 Cor. viii. 9; 
only let it be noted that, where there is the same danger 
of destroying my brother, or dissolving the work of God, be 
it not by infidelity, but schism, or idolatry, or loose living, 
there is the same reason and obligation, “ not to put a stum- 
bling-block, or an occasion to fall in our brother’s way :”’ for 
the reason why the apostle would not have us put this 
stumbling-block, which makes our brother fall from the 
faith, in his way, is this, because he would not have us be 
instrumental to his perishing, or to “destroy him for whom 
Christ died.” He therefore must equally forbid the doing 
any other thing which may be left undone without sin ; and, 
being done, hath a like tendency to cause my weak brother 
to perish. 

4 Ver. 14. Τῷ λογιζομένῳ τὶ κοινὸν, To him that esteemeth 
any thing unclean, δος. Here is a plain demonstration that 
the person here mentioned, as “weak in faith,’ was also 
weak in understanding; i. e. one who understood not that 
meat to be free from uncleanness which indeed was so; and 
that he was therefore “weak in the faith,’ because he was 
so in his understanding; and so also it is plainly, 1 Cor. viii. 
7. 10. It is therefore without ground affirmed, That these 
two sorts of weak persons must be used very differently ; you 
must have a care of offending those who are weak in faith, 
but you must instruct and govern those who are weak in un- 
derstanding. 

Secondly, Here also is a plain evidence that the weak Jew 
had no just matter of offence given him by the gentiles’ eat- 
ing, or that they did not take offence at the open violation 
of an express law of God by the gentiles’ eating ; nor were 
they thus weak out of reverence to any express positive law, 
which all men agreed was given by God to them, at whose 
eating they were scandalized. ‘To make this very clear, con- 
sider that the weakness of the Jews consisted in two 
things ; 

1, That they were not convinced that the law of Moses 
was out of date, and therefore durst not do any thing which 
was forbidden by that law, nor omit doing what the law 
commanded: and as to this, it is true, they were weak out 
of reverence to an express positive law, which, through the 


weakness of their understanding, they thought to be still 
binding, but the apostle here declares to be by Christ taken 
away. 

2 That they could not endure to see others do what they 
themselves durst not do; i. e. they could not endure to see 
the gentile converts eat those meats which the law of Moses 
forbade the Jews to eat: now here, I say, they were not 
weak out of reverence to any express positive law; nor 
could they take offence at the open violation of any express 
law of God: for there was no such Jaw given to the gentiles, 
to abstain from such meats as unclean, nor to the gentile 
converts to Christianity to observe any such law ; they there- 
fore by eating of these meats did violate no law given by 
God to them, and so the Jews could take no offence at their 
violation of any such law. And so much stronger is the 
case of eating things offered to idols, in which yet the apos- 
tle doth require this abstinence, with regard to the conscience 
of the weak Jew (1 Cor. viii. 7. 10, x. 28, 29), for the eat- 
ing of things offered to idols (unless it were done in the idol- 
temple, the place appointed for his worship) was against no 
law of God, but only against the canons of the Jews; and 
so here the Jews could not be thus offended with that action, 
out of reverence to any law which God had made against it, 
but only from the Jewish canons, and interpretations of the 
law, touching abstaining from idolatry: the imagination of 
the Jew, that such meats bought in the shambles, or set be- 
fore Christians at a friendly entertainment, were unlawful, 
was a vain imagination, and so they had only an imaginary 
law which occasioned their offence. Nor doth the apostoli- 
cal canon concern any other meats offered to idols than 
those which were eaten in the idol-temple: for sure the 
apostle, who was a part of that council, would not here 
freely allow what the whole college of apostles thought ne- 
cessary even for the gentile converts to abstain from. This 
scandal therefore of the weak Jews was plainly scandalum 
acceptum, non datum, “received, but not given ;” for they 
had no reason at all to believe that the law of Moses was 
ever given to, or was in force among, the gentiles, and much 
less that their Jewish canons could be so. 

15 Ver. 15. Ei λυπεῖται, If thy brother be grieved.) The 
Greek imports such sorrow as puts a man in danger of his 
life, and therefore, in the metaphorical sense, such sorrow as 
endangered his Christian life. So Job xxxi. 39, “If I have 
caused the owners thereof to lose their life:” εἰ Ψυχὴν ἐλύ- 
πησα, “If I have grieved his soul,” say the LXX. snnpa, 
«If I have caused his life to expire, or break out” (see Dr. 
Hammond on the place). 

Note also here, that the apostle plainly doth suppose that 
he, for whom Christ died, might perish (see the note on 1 
Cor. viii. 11). 

16 Ver. 16. ᾿Αγαθὸν, Your good.) Τὴν πίστιν καλεῖ, “He 
calleth our faith our good,” say all the Greck commentators, 
and that very appositely ; for the Jews blasphemed and fell 
off from Christianity upon this account. 

17 Ver. 17. Kai χαρὰ ἐν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, And joy in the 
Holy Ghost.| This cannot here signify delight to do good, 
or rejoicing in unanimity, for the phrase hath no such sense 
in scripture, but always lar an inward joy arising from 

Ὁ 


590 


abstain) whereby thy 15 brother stumbleth, or is offend- 
ed, or is made weak. 

22 Hast thou (then) faith? (or, a persuasion that all 
meats are clean, and lawfully may be eaten?) have it 
to thyself before God (and satisfy thyself with that). 
19 Happy zs he that condemneth not himself (by 


ROMANS. 


acting uncharilably) in that thing which he allowetn. 

23 And he that » doubteth (Gr. that puts a difference 
between meats) is damned if he eat (against his con- 
science, making that difference), because he eateth not of 
faith (but against his own persuasion) : for?! whatsoever 
is not of faith is sin. 


the consolations of the Holy Ghost; as when the apostle 
saith, the Thessalonians “received the word with much af- 
fection, and with joy in the Holy Ghost,” 1 Thess. i. 6, and 
when Luke informs us, the churches had peace, “and, walk- 
ing in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied,” 
Acts ix. 31. 

18 Ver. 21. Προσκόπτει, ἢ σκανδαλίζεται, ἢ doSevet, Stum- 
bleth, or is offended, or is made weak.] 1 have shown what 
it is to be made weak, note on ver. 1, what it is to stumble, 
note on ver. 13. 'ΓῸ offend or scandalize a weak brother, is 
also to be an occasion of his ruin, by causing him to fall off 
from the faith, or to be prejudiced against it, as will appear 
from a brief view of the places where the phrase is used. So 
Matt. v. 29, 30, “If thy right eye, or hand, σκανδαλίζει σε, 
offend thee,” i. e. if it lead thee to hell and to perdition, cut it 
off. So xi. 6,“ Blessed is he who is not offended with me ;” 
i. 6. who is not by the meanness of my present circum- 
stances, or by the doctrine I am sent to preach, diverted 
from believing in me. So xiii. 21, “ When persecution 
comes, the stony ground εὐθὺς σκανδαλίζεται, is presently of- 
fended.” So ver. 57, xv. 11, Mark vi. 3, Luke vii. 23. The 
Jews were scandalized at Christ; i. e. they were diverted 
from owning him as their Messiah, either by reason of his 
words, or the meanness of his original, and his appearance 
in the world. So were the multitude, and some of his dis- 
ciples, scandalized at his discourse about eating his flesh, 
John xvi. 60, 61. So doth our Lord admonish his disciples 
not to be scandalized at the persecutions they should snifer, 
John xvi. 1. So he foretells that many, who had once be- 
lieved in him, would be scandalized, when tribulations 
should abound, Matt. xxiv. 10. So he tells his own disci- 
ples, that they would be “scandalized” at his sufferings, 
Matt. xxvi. 31. And so both Peter and the rest of them 
were offended, or “scandalized,” their faith in him failing 
for a season, Luke xxiv. 21. So are we to understand 
those words, “« Woe to him that offends,” or scandalizeth, 
“ one of these little ones,” as appears from the reason follow- 
ing, ver. 14, “It is not the will of your heavenly Father, 
that one of these little ones should perish.” So I have 
shown the word is used, 1 Cor. viii. 13. And so it may be 


well interpreted, when the apostle saith, 2 Cor. xi. 29, 


«“ Who is offended,” i. e. in danger to fall off from the Chris- 
tian faith, “and I burn not” with a fervent zeal for his re- 
covery 1 (see Examen Milli.) 

19 Ver. 22. Μακάριος ὃ μὴ κρίνων ἑαυτὸν, Happy is he 
that condemneth not himself, ὅκα. i. e. He is compara- 
tively a happy man, that hath this firm persuasion of the 
lawfulness of eating any thing that is set before him, without 
asking any question about it for conscience’ sake; for he 
createth no trouble or condemnation to himself about these 
matters, nor is he troublesome to others by his niceness, or 
scrupulosity; whereas he that puts a difference betwixt 
meats, is not only troublesome to others with whom he doth 
converse, but condemns himself, as oft as he is tempted to 
eat of that which his conscience doth not allow of (see Ex- 
amen Milli). 

2 Ver. 23. 'O διακρινόμενος, He that dowbteth.] He that dis- 
cerneth, and puts a difference between meats lawful and un- 
lawful; this is the import of this word elsewhere. So Matt. 
xvi. 3, “ You know how διακρίνειν, to discern the face of the 
heavens ;” Acts x. 28; xi. 12, “Go with them, μηδὲν διακρι- 
vouevos, making no difierence” betwixt the gentiles and the 
Jews, the circumcised and the uncircumcised, not counting 
them unclean any longer, as Peter doth himself interpret it, 
ver. 28. And again, Acts xv. 9, οὐδὲν διέκρινε, “ He put no 
difference betwixt them and us, purifying their hearts by 
faith ;” 1 Cor. iv. 7, Tis σε dtaxpwec3 “ Who put the differ- 
ence betwixt thee and others?” xi. 29, μὴ διακρίνων, « Not 
discerning the Lord’s body,” or not discriminating it from 
other meats. §So0 Jude 22, “Of some have compassion, 
διακρινόμενοι, m#King a difference.” 

21 Πᾶν δὲ ὃ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως, Whatever is not of faith.] i. ὁ. 
With a due persuasion of the lawfulness of the action; for 
that is the faith spoken of in the foregoing verse, when the 
apostle saith, “ Hast thou faith? have it to thyself;” and 
that is the faith which stands opposed to doubting in this 
verse ; and to this faith alone agree the preceding words, He 
that makes a discrimination between meats lawful and un- 
lawful, and yet eats of them without discrimination, is con- 
demned by his own conscience, if he eats, because he eateth 
not of faith, or with persuasion of the lawfulness of eating 
what he doth partake of. 


CHAPTER XV. 


1 We then that are strong (and rightly understand | 
our Christian liberty and duty) ought to bear the in- | 
firmities of the weak (being careful to forbear the doing 
that which doth scandalize and hurt the souls of them 
who have not this knowledge), and not to (do things be- 
cause they) please ourselves (when our weak brother is 
thus injured by them). 

2 Let (therefore) every one of us (rather choose to) 


please Azs neighbour for hzs good to (dhe) ! edification 
(of him in his Christian faith). 

3 For even Christ (whose example we are called to 
imitate) pleased not himself (ἡ. e. and indulged not so 
to his own pleasure, ease, and quiet, as to neglect the 
glory of God, or the good of others); but (willingly 
bore with the infirmities, and sustained the reproaches 
of men), 2 as it is written (of him, Ps. lxix. 9), The 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV. 
1 Ver. 2. Πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν, To edification.) Hdification, in the 
scriptures, sometimes signifies our increase in the knowledge 


of our Christian duty ; in which sense it is seven times used, | 
1 Cor. xiv. 3,4, 5. 12. 16. 26, 29, Eph. iv. 29, especially in | 
that knowledge which tends to our advancement in piety ; | 
and therefore is called οἰκοδομὴ Θεοῦ, “the edification of 
God,” 1 Tim. i. 4. Sometimes our growth, or confirmation | 
im the faith, Jude 20. Sometimes it refers to the whole 
body, which is called Θεοῦ οἰκοδομὴ, “the building of God,” | 
1 Cor. iii. 2, Eph. 11. 21, iv. 12. And then the body is edi- 
fied, (1.) By the mutual love of its members; in which 
sense, saith the apostle, “charity edifieth,” 1 Cor. viii. 1, 
and this is οἰκοδομὴ ἐν ἀγάπῃ, “ edification in love,” Eph. iv. 
16. (2.) By the strict union of the members to, and their 
peaceable conversation with, one another ; and this is styled, 


οἰκοδομὴ ets τὸν Eva, “the edifying the church into one,” 1 
Thess. v.11. And thus we are bid to “follow after things 
which make for peace, and τὰ τῆς οἰκοδομῆς τῆς εἰς ἀλλήλους, 
the edification of one of us unto another,” xiv. 19. Now 
the edification, which consists in knowledge of our Christian 
duty, cannot be here understood ; because our forbearance of 
that which scandalizes our brother tends not to the informa- 
tion of his understanding, but, as it is an act of charity, 
it tends to the edification of the body in love; as it is 
the avoiding that which may scandalize the weak, and so 
induce him to stumble at, and fall off from Christianity, it 
tends to his edification in the faith ; and as it is receiving the 
weak into fellowship and communion, notwithstanding his 
different conceptions from us, it tends to the edifying the 
body in union and peace. 

2 Ver. 3. Καθὼς γέγραπται, As tt is written.) That this 


CHAPTER XV. 


teproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me 
(i. 6. he was afflicted for them, his zeal for the glory of 
God, and the good of souls, caused him patiently to en 
dure the contradiction of sinners, Heb. xii. 2, 3, to bear 
the cross they laid, and despise the shame they cast upon 
him ; which sure is more than to abstain from a little meat 
on the account of others. 

4 Nor ought we to think ourselves unconcerned in what 
was said so long before by David of others,) For (this 
and) whatsoever things were written aforetime were 
written for our learning, that we through patience (in 
bearing the like censures, reproaches, and infirmities of 
others) and (through the) comfort of the scriptures 
(promising a reward to that patience) might have hope 
(of being rewarded for it). 

5 Now the God of patience and consolation (who 
works this palience in us, and gives this consolation to us) 
grant you to be likeminded one toward another (7. δ. to 
have a like concern for others as for yourselves) according 
to (the example of) Christ Jesus : 

6 That ye (thus bearing with the infirmities of the 
weak, and thus receiving one another into communion) 
may ἦ with one mind and one mouth (in your assem- 
blies) glorify (and worship) God, even the 4 Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ (or the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ). 

7 Wherefore receive ye one another (Jew and gen- 
tile, into mutual love and fellowship, without contention 
about the things in which your judgments differ), as 
Christ also received us (oth reconciling both to God in 
one body on the cross, and to one another, Col. i. 20, Eph. 
li. 14) to the glory of God (which will be much pro- 
moted by this union). 

8 (ds he hath received us, λέγω δὲ.) Now I say that 
Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision (or the 
Jews) for (the establishment of) the truth of God, to 
confirm the promises made unto the fathers (of that 
nation, and so he showed his love and mercy towards 
them): 

9 ye (he was also the Saviour of the gentiles) that 
the Gentiles (also) might glorify God for his merey 
(to them) ; as it is written (Ps. xviii. 49), For this 


59. 


cause I δ will confess to thee (7. 6. praise and celebrate 
thee) among the Gentiles (or ἐν YSveat, with the gen- 
tile, and (will) sing unto thy name. hs 

10 And again he (the same David) saith (Ps. Ixvil. 
4), Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. 

11 And again ce exvii. 1), Praise the Lord, all 
ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. 

12 And again, ὃ Esaias saith (xi. 1. 10), There shall 
be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over 
the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust. 

13 Now (may) the God of hope fill you with all joy 
and peace (the fruits of hope) in believing (those things), 
that ye may abound in hope, through the power of 
the Holy Ghost (witnessing to your spirits that ye are 
the sons of God, viii. 16, 17, and shedding abroad the 
sense of his love tn your hearts, v. 5, and so sealing you 
up to the day of redemption, Eph. iv. 30). 

14 And (this, I pray, not doubling the assistance of 
this good Spirit with you, for) 1 myself also am_per- 
suaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of 
goodness, filled (by the Spirit) with all knowledge, able 
also to admonish one another. 

15 Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more 
boldly unto you in some sort (Gr. ἀπὸ μέρους» as to the 
Gentile part of you, see note on 2 Cor. ii. 5), as putting 
you in mind (of the favour of God to you gentiles, and 
your duty to him), because of the grace that is given to 
me of God (7. e. because of the apostolical office by him 
committed to me: see note on Rom. i. 5), 

16 That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to 
the Gentiles, 7 ministering the gospel of God (7. 6. ex- 
ercising myself in the offices of the gospel, as the priest in 
the legal strvices), that the offering up of the Gentiles 
(by me) might be acceptable. being sanctified (not with 
salt, or any other libamen, but) by (the effusion of ) the 
Holy Ghost (upon them). 

17 (And this Ihave so effectually prone by his grace, 
that) 1 have therefore whereof I may glory through 
(the assistance of ) Jesus Christ in those things which 
pertain to (my service of ) God (in this gospel. 

18 and here I shall only mention what I myself, by 
the assistance of his grace, have done:) For* I will not 


psalm was undoubtedly spoken of the Messiah, we learn 
from ver. 22, applied to Christ, John xix. 28, 29, and from 
the former part of the verse cited here, viz. “The zeal of 
thine house hath consumed me,” applied to Christ, John ii. 
17. And the Jews themselves say, that the things contained 
in this psalm shall be accomplished “in the days of David,” 
or “in the days of the Messiah ;”* and that which is said in 
the close of the psalm, that “ God will save Zion,” &c., “that 
men may dwell therein, and have it in possession,” shall be 
accomplished mywon "2 “in the days of the Messiah,” 
the rabbins own. 

3 Ver. 6. Ὁμοθυμαδὸν ἐν ἑνὶ στόματι, With one mind and 
mouth.] i. e. Not only praising God with the same words in 
your doxologies, but also joining in those praises with a 
mind full of Christian love, and sense of the divine good- 
ness. 

4 Τὸν Θεὸν καὶ πατέρα, &c. The God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ.) So 2 Cor. i. 3, xi. 31, Eph. i. 3, Col. i. 
3, 1 Pet. i. 3, Rev. i. 6. 12. On which words the descant 
of the fathers+ is to this effect, “That the first person of the 
sacred Trinity is the God of Jesus Christ, in respect of his 
manhood, his Father in respect of his divinity, or as he is 
the Word.” Or the words may be rendered thus: “God 
who is,” or “The God that is,” or “God, to wit, the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ,” for the Hebrew γ, and so the 
Greek καὶ, signifies sometimes id est (Noldius, Partic. Hebr. 


* Voisin, de Leg. Div. p. 584. 

ἡ Pug. Fid. par. iii. dist. 2, cap. 16, sect. 25. 

Ἐ Θεὸς μὲν yap τοῦ Χριστοῦ Κατὰ τὸ avSpwruwdv, πατὴρ δὲ κατὰ 
τὴν ϑεότητα. Theoph. Deus hominis, pater Verbi. 


Ῥ. 180, 181) ; sometimes nempé, to wit (p. 207), and some- 
times qui est, who is (p. 315). 

5 Ver. 9. ᾿Εξομολογήσομαι, 1 will confess unto thee.| The 
very next words, “Great deliverances giveth he unto his 
king, and showeth mercy to David, yw, his Messiah,” or 
Anointed, are by the Jews* interpreted of the Messiah, that 
is, Christ, and so the preceding words are doubtless fitly ap- 
plied to him. 

6 Ver. 12. ᾿Ησαΐας λέγει, Esaias saith.] The Chaldee pa- 
raphrast interprets the first verse of the Messiah; and R. 
Chanini proves from the tenth verse, that “King Messiah 
is not to come, but to give precepts to the nations of the 
world.” 

7 Ver. 16. Ἱερουργοῦντα τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, Ministering the gos- 
γε. Here is a plain allusion to the Jewish sacrifices, offered 
by the priest, and sanctified or made acceptable and savoury 
by the libamen offered with it; for he compares himself in 
the preaching of the gospel to the priest, sacris operanti, con- 
versant about his sacrifice, to prepare and fit it to be offered. 
The gentiles, dedicated by him to the service of God, are his 
sacrifice, or oblation; the Holy Spirit is the libamen poured 
on this sacrifice, by which they are sanctified, and rendered 
εὐπρόσδεκτα, “acceptable to God” (see Numb. xv. 3. 10). 

8 Ver. 18. Οὐ γὰρ τολμήσω λαλεῖν τι, For Twill not dare [9 
speak any thing of what Christ hath not wrought by me.] 
The critics here tell us, that they take off the force of the 
apostle’s words who render them “I dare not,” because that 
intimates the apostle had a mind to do so, but fear withheh! 


* Pug. Fid. par. ii. cap. 5, sect. 8. 
ἡ Voisin, de Leg. Div. p. 595, 


592 


dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath 
not (but ony of those which he hath) wrought by me, to 
make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, 

19 (Fiz. That he hath assisted me in preaching the 
gospel) *Through mighty (Gr. ἐν δυνάμει, with the 
power of ) signs and wonders, by the power of the 
Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round 
about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel 
of Christ. 

20 Yea, sq have I strived to preach the gospel, (as 
zo do it) not where Christ was named (7. e. preached 
by others before me), lest 1 should build upon another 
man’s foundation: 

21 But (my preaching hath been) as it is written 
(Isa. lii. 15), To whom he was not spoken of, they 
shall see: and they that have not heard shall under- 
stand. 

22 For which cause also (wherefore, by going from 
one region to another to preach the gospel,) 1 have been 
much hindered from coming to you. 

23 But now having no more place (s) in these parts 
(unacquainted with the gospel), and having a great de- 
sire these many years to come unto you; 

24 Whensoever I take my (cntended) journey into 
Spain, 101 will (by God’s assistance) come to you: for 
I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on 
my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat 
filled (ὦ. 6. satisfied) with your company. 

25 But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto 
(the necessities of ) the saints (there). 


ROMANS. 


26 For it nath pleased them of Macedonia and 
Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor 
saints which are at Jerusalem. 

27 It hath pleased them verily (I say); and (with 
good reason, seeing) their debtors they are. For if 
the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spi- 
ritual things (receiving the gospel from Judea), their 
duty is also (tm gratitude) to minister unto them in 
carnal things. 

28 When therefore I have performed this (chari- 
table office), and have sealed (and secured) to them this 
ge (of the geniiles’ liberality), 1 will come by you into 

pain. 

29 And I am sure that, when I come unto you, I 
shall come in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel 
of Christ (or with a full imparlment of spiritual gifis to 
you: see note on i. 11). 

30 Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus 
Christ’s sake, and for the love (which is the fruil) of 
the Spirit, that ye " strive together with me in your 
prayers to God for me; 

31 That I may be delivered from them that do not 
believe in Judea; and that my service which I have 
for (my brethren in) Jerusalem may be accepted of 
the saints (there, though it come from the churches of the 
gentiles) ; 

32 That I may come unto you with (the greater) 
joy by the will of God, and may with you be re- 
freshed. 


33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. 


him; they therefore would have the words rendered here, 
and Jude 9, οὐκ ἐτόλμησε, “ Michael, contending with the 
devil, durst not bring against him a railing accusation ;” 
Non sustineo, “I suffer not myself,” and “He suffered not 
himself: but our translation may be justified, by a like ex- 
pression of the same apostle in the same case, οὐ καὶ τολμῶ- 
μὲν ἐγκρῖναι }) συγκρῖναι ἑαυτούς τισι, “ We dare not make our- 
selves of the number, or compare ourselves with some who 
commend themselves,” 2 Cor. x. 12. And this, doubtless, 
he saith not to intimate that he and Timothy had a mind to 
do that themselves, which there he represents as folly in 
others; but only to intimate that he did not think it fit and 
prudent so to do, and therefore durst not do it, and this 
sense the word well bears, 1 Cor. vi. 15, Jude 9. 

9 Ver. 19. Ἐν δυνάμει σημείων, ἐν δυνάμει Πνεύματος. Ie te. 
Confirming the gospel by outward miracles, and by the in- 
ward distributions of the Holy Ghost. See the difference 
between them, note on Heb. ii. 4. Ξ 

10 Ver. 24. ᾿Ηλεύσομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς, I will come to you, &c.] 
Here is an evidence that Paul, in purposes of this nature, 
was not assisted by the Holy Ghost, they being purposes 
which by the providence of God he was hindered from ful- 
filling. It is also evident from i. 10, 11, and from this, and 
from the twenty-eighth verse, that Paul writ this epistle 


while he was at liberty, and before Christ had told him he 
must “testify of him at Rome,” Acts xxiii. 11, and before 
he was constrained to appeal to Cesar, Acts xxv. 11; for 
in this epistle he speaks still of his journey to Rome, and 
from thence to Spain, as of a voluntary undertaking; 
hoping then that the unbelieving Jews would not have given 
him that disturbance, when he went up to Jerusalem with 
his alms gathered for his nation, which afterward he found 
they did, ver. 27 (see Examen Milli). 

1 Ver. 30. Ἔν ταῖς προσευχαῖς, In your prayers for me.] 
“Tf Paul,” saith Esthius, “might desire the prayers of the 
Romans, why might not the Romans desire the prayers of 
Paul?” I answer they might desire his prayers, as he did 
theirs, by an epistle directed to him to pray for them; he 
adds, “If they might desire his prayers whilst living, why 
not when dead and reigning with Christ?” I answer, because 
then they could direct no epistle to him, or any other way 
acquaint him with their mind. Hence Elijah, being to be 
taken up into heaven, speaks to Elisha thus, “ Ask what I 
shall do for thee before I am taken away from thee,” 2 Kings 
ii. 9. Note also, that we say not that such desires of the 
saints departed are injurious to the intercession of Christ : but 
that they are idolatrous, implying that creatures are omni- 
scient, omnipresent, and have the knowledge of the heart. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


1 IcommeEnp unto you (r care) ! Phebe our sister (in 
the faith), which is a servant of (or, one that ministers 
te) the church which is at Cenchrea (or the assembly 
of Christians at the haven of Corinth) : 

2 That ye receive her in the Lord (7. e. for the 
Lord’s sake, or as one that belongs to him, Matt. x. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI. 


1 Ver. 1. Φοίβην τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἡμῶν, Phebe our sister.] This 
Vhebe was a deaconess, chosen to that office according to 
the apostolical prescription, 1 Tim. v.10. See Origen and 
Chrysostom. 

2 Ver. 2. Kai αὐτοῦ ἐμοῦ, And of myself also.) Hence 
soine infer that she was not a deaconess, but one that mi- 


ΕΣ 


42), as becometh saints (7. 6. Christians), and that ye 
assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of 
you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and 5 of 
myself also. 

3 Greet 3 Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in (the 
work of ) Christ Jesus : 


nistered to the apostles, in the preaching, of her substance ; 
but Paul had none such to minister to him, 1 Cor. ix. 5. 15, 
and this made one condition of a deaconess, 1 Tim. v. 10; 
προστασίαν τὴν φιλοξενίαν καὶ κηδεμονίαν καλεῖ, “ He saith, She 
hath been a succourer of many, by reason of her care of, and 
hospitality towards them.” Theodoret. 

3 Ver. 3. ᾿Ασπάσασϑε Πρίσκιλλαν, Greet Priscilla.) Pris 
cilla seems to be named first here, and 2 Tim. iv. 19, as 


CHAPTER XVI. 


4 Who have for my life laid down their own necks 
(ἡ. e. exposed themselves to the hazard of their own lives) : 
unto whom not only I give thanks ( for my own preser- 
vation), but also all the churches of the Gentiles (for 
preservation of their apostle). 

5 Likewise greet the 4 church that is in their 
house (ἡ. ε. their Christian family). Salute my well- 
beloved Epenetus, who is the δ firstfruits of Achaia 
unto Christ. 

6 Greet Mary, who bestowed much labour on us. 

7 Salute Andronicus and Junia, δ my kinsmen, and 
my fellowprisoners, who are of 7 note among the apos- 
tles, who also were in Christ (that ts converted to the 
Christian faith) before me. Σ 

8 Greet Amplias my beloved in the Lord. 

9 Salute Urbane, our helper in (the gospel of ) Christ, 
and Stachys my beloved. 

10 Salute Apelles ὃ approved in Christ (by the sin- 
cerily of his faith, and the integrity of his life). 


593 


Salute them which are (in Christ) of Aristobulus’ hous- 
hold. 

11 Salute Herodion my kinsman. Greet them that 
be of the houshold of Narcissus, ὃ which are in the 
Lord. 

12 Salute Tryphena and Tryphosa, who labour in 
the Lord (’s service). Salute the beloved Persis, 
which laboured much in the Lord. 

13 Salute Rufus © chosen in the Lord, and his 
mother and mine (she being one who showed the affection 
of a mother to me also). 

14 Salute Asyneritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, 
Hermes, and the brethren which are with them. 

15 Salute Philologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his 
sister, and Olympas, and "all the saints which are 
with them. 

16 Salute one another with an 12 holy kiss. 
churches of Christ salute you. 

17 Now I beseech you, brethren, ™ mark them 


The 


being first converted, say interpreters; but she is named last, 
Acts xviii. 2. 26, 1 Cor. xvi. 19, and therefore the gloss 
saith, “She is here placed first, there being in Christ Jesus 
neither male nor female.” 

4 Ver. 5. Kai τὴν κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν, And the church 
in their house.) They were so zealous in the faith, say Chry- 
sostom, Theodoret, and ‘Theophylact, ὥστε τὸν οἶκον αὐτῶν 
πάντας πιστοὺς ποιῆσαι, τούτους καὶ ἐκκλησίαν ὠνόμασεν, “ that 
they converted their whole families to the Christian profes- 
sion of it, for such families he calls the church.” See this 
proved, note on 1 Cor. xvi. 19. 

5. ᾿Απαρχὴ ris ᾿Αχαΐας, The first-fruits of Achaia.) So 
Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact, the Sy- 
riac and Arabic versions; but the Alexandrian copy, the 
Ethiopic, the Vulgar, and almost all the Latin commenta- 
tors read, τῆς ᾿Ασίας, “the first-fruits of Asia Minor.’ So 
doth Origen on this place, and Hom. 11 on Numbers, f. 109, 
D and G, and Jerome on Ezek. xliii. f. 241, 1. And this 
reading is to be preferred before the other, because the same 
apostle saith expressly, that Stephanas “ was the first-fruits 
of Achaia,” 1 Cor. xvi. 15; that is, he was first converted 
to the faith there, and Epenetus in Asia Minor, for so the 
phrase, “ the first-fruits,” is used by St. Clemens.* 

δ Ver. 7. Τοὺς συγγενεῖς μου, My kinsmen.] So Paul styles 
all the Jews, Rom. ix. 3. Καὶ συναιχμαλώτους, “ And fel- 
low-prisoners.” Before Paul went to Rome he was, ἐν φυ- 
λακαῖς περισσοτέρως, “in prisons often,” 2 Cor. xi. 23, ἑἐπτά- 
xis ὀέσμα φορέσας, “bearing his chain seven times,” saith 
Clemens,j and so might well have many fellow-prisoners. 

7 'Exicipot ἐν τοῖς ἀποστύλοις, Of note among the apostles.) 
That is, say some, men highly esteemed by them ; men emi- 
nent, say Chrysostom and Theodoret, not only among the 
teachers, but the apostles of the churches. For they who 
are co-workers with the apostles in planting of the churches 
are styled ἀπόστολοι ἐκκλησιῶν, “apostles of the churches,”’ 
2 Cor. viii. 23, Phil. 11, 25. In which sense Barnabas in 
scripture is called the apostle, Acts xiv. 14, and Philip the 
deacon by the ancients; see Coteler. Not. in Constit. Apost. 
Ῥ. 262. 

® Ver. 10. Avior, Approved.) By suffering patiently 
great tribulations, saith Origen: for “tribulation worketh 
patience, and patience ἑοκιμὴν, experience” of our sincere 
affection to him for whose sake we suffer them, Rom. v. 4. 
But because all the Greek scholiasts say it signifies τοὺς 
ἁπλουστέρους, τοὺς εὐήϑεις, τοὺς βραδεῖς τὴν νόησιν, “men sim- 
ple, foolish, and slow of understanding,” and because the 
word often bears this sense in the book of Proverbs, as when 
the wise man says ἄκακος, “The simple believeth every 
word,” xiv. 15; when he calls upon the “simple to hear 
wisdom,” viii. 5, and promises to “ give subtlety to the sim- 
ple,” i. 4; and when he adds, xxi. 11, “ When a scomer is 
punished, the simple is made wise,”—this exposition, being 
nee pertinent to the words, may be preferred before the 
other, 


* Καθιστάναι τὰς ἀπαρχὰς αὐτῶν εἰς ἐπισκόπους καὶ διακόνους 
μελλόντων πιστεύειν, Epist. 1 ad Corinth. sect. 42. 

+ Epist. ad Cor. sect. 5. 

Vor. IV.—75 


9 Ver. 11. Τοὺς ὄντας ἐν Κυρίῳ, Which are in the Lord.) 
From these two verses is confirmed our observation, that 
when the whole family was converted, the apostle writes to 
the church in such a house; when not, the salutation is di- 
rected to as many as were in the Lord in that family, ac- 
cording to the descant of Origen* on the place. 

0 Ver. 13. Τὸν ἐκλεκτὸν ἐν Κυρίῳ, Chosen in the Lord.} 
One of great excellency in Christianity, as we say, “A choice 
man:” so the word ἐκλεκτὸς, often signifies; Ps. Ixxviii. 31, 
«They smote down τοὺς ἐκλεκτοὺς, the chosen men that were 
of Israel:” so ἐκλεκτὰ μνημεῖα, are “choice sepulchres,” 
Gen. xxiii. 6; ἐκλεκτὰ τῶν δώρων, “ choice gifts,” Deut. xii. 
11; and ἄνδρες ἐκλεκτοὶ, “choice men,” Judg. xx. 11 (see 
Acts xv. 25, 26). 

N Ver. 15. Πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους, All the saints.) Note here, 
that saints and Christian brethren are all one. 

2 Ver. 16. Ἔν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ, With a holy kiss.) Of the 
kiss of charity, let it be observed, 

(1.) That it was used at the end of the prayer before the 
celebration of the sacrament. So Justin Martyr} saith ex- 
pressly, ἀλλήλους φιλήματι ἀσπαζόμεϑα παυσάμενοι τῶν εὐχῶν, 
“Prayers being ended, we salute one another with a holy 
kiss, and then the bread and cup are brought to the presi- 
dent.” (2.) That this seems to have been done by the men 
apart, and the women apart, as their; separate places in the 
church or synagogue seemed to require. So the Apostolical 
Institutions say,§ “These things being done. let the men 
apart, and the women apart, salute one another with a kiss 
in the Lord.” Though Origen|| seems to make this practice 
proper to the men only. 

13 Ver. 17. Σκοπεῖν τοὺς τὰς διχοστασίας καὶ τὰ σκάνδαλα 
ποιοῦντας, Mark them that cause divisions and scandals.] 
By “scandals” the Greek scholiasts understand heresies, 
whereas, through the whole New ‘Testament this word seems 
rather to import such actions as give occasion to others to 
stumble at, and fall off from the Christian faith (see note on 
Matt. xviii. 6, Rom. xiv. 13). Esthius here notes, (1.) 
That unwritten traditions may be hence proved, because the 
apostle saith, “ Mark them that cause offences contrary, not 
to the scriptures, but to the doctrine they had received.” 
But to make this argument of any force, he must prove that 
the doctrine they had received was not contained in the 
scriptures either then, or after written. (2.) The apostle 
plainly speaks here of doctrines received from the mouths of 


* Videntur quidem plures fuisse ex domo seu familit 
Narcissi, sed non omnes in Domino fuisse, et ideo addit eos 
salutandos qui sunt in Domino. 

ἡ Apol. ii. p. 97. 

+ Al γυναῖκες κεχωρισμένως. Const. Apol. lib. ii. cap. 57, p. 
203. Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vi. cap. 14, p. 916, F. Philo 
de Vit. Contempl. p. 691, F. 

§ ᾿Ασπαζέσϑωσαν ἀλλήλους of ἄνδρες, καὶ ἀλλήλας al γυναῖκες, 
τὸ ἐν Κυρίῳ φίλημα. Lib. ii. cap. 57, et lib. viii. cap. 11. Ασ- 
παζέσθωσαν of λαϊκοὶ ἄνδρες τοὺς λαϊκοὺς, at γυναῖκες τὰς γυναῖκας. 
Vide Coteler. Not. in lib. ii. cap. 67. 

|| Ex héc sermone mos ecclesiis traditus est, ut post ora 
tiones osculo se invicem suscipiant fratres. In locum. 

2Z2 


594 


which cause divisions and offences contrary to the 
doctrine which ye have learned (of the apostles) ; and 
avoid them (or turn from them). 

18 For “ they that are such serve not our Lord 
Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words 
and fair speeches deceive the hearts © of the simple 
(ὦ. e. of innocent well-meaning persons. 

19 This exhortation I direct to you to preserve you in 
the way in which hitherto you have walked to the credit 
of the gospel ;) For(the fame of ) your obedience (to ἐ{) is 
come abroad unto all men. 1 am glad therefore on 
your behalf (that ye are not yet infecled with these Ju- 
(αιΞετνὴς but yet I would have you wise unto (discern 
and hold fast) that which is good, and simple concern- 
ing evil (1 Cor. xiv. 20, 7. e. as men who have no know- 
ledge of it, and no skill to practise it). 

20 And (to encourage you to continue such, know that) 
the God of peace (who is an enemy to these divisions, 
mentioned ver. 17) shall bruise 16 Satan under your 
feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be 
with you. Amen. 

21 Timotheus my workfellow, and Lucius, and Ja- 
son, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute you. 


ROMANS. 


22 I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in 
(the name of ) the Lord. 

23 Gaius mine host, and (dhe host) of the whole 
church, saluteth you. Erastus the chamberlain of the 
city saluteth you, and Quartus a brother. 

24 The gracé of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you 
all. Amen. 

25 Now to him that is ” of power to stablish you 
18 according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus 
Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, 
which was kept secret ® since the world began (or 
from former ages), 

26 But now is made manifest, and by the ® scrip- 
tures of the prophets, according to the commandment 
of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for 
the obedience of faith : 

27 (That is) to God only (essentially and from him- 
self) wise, be glory through Jesus Christ (ihe mediator 
of the new covenant, the aulior and finisher of our faith) 
for ever. Amen. 


4 Written to the Romans from Corint us, and sent 
by Phebe servant of the church at Cenchrea. 


the apostles by those very men to whom he writ; and when 
he hath once proved the unwritten traditions of the church 
of Rome to be such, we shall be ready to receive them. (3.) 
He adds, that “this place makes for a diligent inquisition 
after heretics,” as if Paul was setting up an inquisition here : 
whereas the word σκοπεῖν doth only signify to mar/, or to 
look to them, as Luke xi. 35, 2 Cor. iv. 18, Gal. vi. 1, Phil. 
ii. 4. Nor doth he exhort the Romans to observe them, in 
order to the apprehending or punishing, but, as he himself 
notes, in order to the declining of them. (4.) He observes 
truly, that the apostle here insinuates, that even the vulgar 
people may from some general principles discern the true 
doctrine, and that which was delivered by the apostles, from 
that which was false, and was not so delivered ; but this was 
only then to be done by comparing that which was thus 
delivered from the mouth of the apostles, who preached it 
by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, and confirmed their 
doctrine by miracles, with that which was delivered besides, 
or in opposition to it, and was not so confirmed ; and this can 
only now be done by them, by comparing all pretenders to the 
apostles’ doctrine with those scriptures which they indited by 
the assistance of the Holy Spirit, and confirmed by miracles. 

M4 Ver. 18. Οἱ γὰρ τοιοῦτοι, They that are such.| That is, 
the Gnostics, saith Dr. Hammond, to whom indeed these 
characters do well agree. But Theodoret saith thus, rois 
κακοὺς τοῦ νόμου συνηγόρους διὰ τούτων aivirrera, “ ΒΥ these 
words he strikes at the evil defenders of the law,” or those 
who preached up circumcision and the observance of the law 
as necessary to the salvation of the gentiles; τοὺς ἐξ ᾿Ιουδαί- 
wy aivirrerat, “ He means the Jews,” say Chrysostom, (icu- 
menius, and Theophylact, “for he still taxes them with the 
love of their bellies.’ And certain it is, that these men 
caused divisions and separations from others, as unclean, and 
not fit to be conversed with (Acts xi. 3, Gal. ii. 12, 13), 
and scandal, “subverting the souls of the gentiles” (Acts 
xv. 24), “evacuating the gospel of Christ” (Gal. ii. 21), 
and causing men to “fall from grace’? (Gal. v. 2. 4); that 
they did this ἐν λόγῳ κολακείας, “ by flattering words” (1 Thess. 
ii. 5), and that in this “ they served not Christ, but their own 
bellies” (Phil. iii. 19), doing these things “ for filthy lucre’s 
sake” (Tit. i. 10, 11) ; whence it appears there is no neces- 
sity of referring these words to the Gnostics, or deserting the 
opinions of the ancients, as touching the persons here in- 
tended (see also Examen Millit). 

15 ᾿Ακακῶν, Of the simple.] “Axaxos, in the Septuagint, 
answers to the Hebrew pn, “the upright,” Job viii. 20, Ps. 
xxv. 21, Prov. xiii. 5, and ἀκακία to tpn, “‘integrity,’”’ Job 
xxvii. 5, xxxi. 6, Ps. vii. 9, xxvi. 1. 11, xxxvi. 39, xl. 13, 
xxxiii. 13, c. 3, and so here it seems to signify men of up- 
right and honest hearts. 

6 Ver. 20. Τὸν Σατανᾶν, Satan.] By “Satan” we may un- 
derstand those persecuting Jews and Judaizers, who are 
styled the “messengers” and “ ministers of Satan,” 2 Cor, 


xi. 15, xii. 17, their persecutions being ascribed to Satan, who 
animates and provokes them to them, 1 Thess. iii. 5, Rev. ii. 
9,10. And then God’s bruising him under their feet, must 
signify his taking away their power thus to deceive and per- 
secute, by the destruction of Jerusalem, and these impostors 
with it. 

W Ver. 25. Τῷ δὲ δυναμένῳ, To him that hath power,] And 
will to execute that power (see note on xiv. 4). 

18. Κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιόν μου, According to my gospel, and the 
preaching of Jesus Christ.] Both these expressions, say the 
fathers, are of the same import, the gospel which the apostle 
preached being the same with that which Christ preached 
whilst he was on earth; and they, after his ascension, preach- 
ing in his name, by his authority, and by the assistance of his 
Spirit, and so delivering his laws and doctrine, not their own. 

19 Χρόνοις αἰωνίοις σεσιγημένου, Kept secret since the world 
began.) The Greek may signify “from the beginning of 
ages,” the promise of the Messiah being obscurely made, or 
hinted to Adam from the beginning ; though the fathers only 
render these words ἄνωθεν, “ before,” as Theodoret, or πάλαι, 
« of old,’ as Chrysostom, @cumenius, and Theophylact (see 
the notes on 2 Tim. ii. 2). 

2 Ver. 26. Διὰ γραφῶν προφητικῶν, By the scriptures of the 
prophets.) They of old foretold of the Messiah, and of the 
calling of the gentiles; but yet, as to many circumstances, 
this was still a mystery, till these prophetic sayings were 
more clearly revealed by the Spirit given to the apostles and 
prophets, and by the actual accomplishment of what they 
foretold (see note on Eph. ili. 6). 

2 Ver, 27. Μόνῳ σοφῷ Θεῷ, To the only wise God.) This, 
as the fathers note, cannot exclude the divine nature of Je- 
sus Christ, who is “the wisdom of the Father,” from this 
title, any more than those words, “ who only hath immorta- 
lity,” 1 Tim. vi. 16, exclude Christ from being immortal. 


APPENDIX TO CHAP. XI, 


CONTAINING 
A DISCOURSE 
ON THE 
CALLING OF THE JEWS TO THE CHRISTIAN 
FAITH. 


To strengthen the argument which I have offered from 
this chapter for the conversion of the Jewish nation to the 
Christian faith, let it be noted, 

First, That this hath been the constant doctrine of the 
church of Christ, owned by the Greek and Latin fathers, 


APPENDIX. 


and by all commentators I have met with on this place. 
Among the Greek fathers, by St. Chrysostom,* whose words 
are these: « When the fullness of the gentiles is come, then 
all Israel shall be saved, at the time of Christ’s second com- 
ing, and the consummation of all things.”’-—* After the gen- 
tiles have received the salutary faith, they also shall receive 
the faith (saith Theodoret}) when the great Elias shall come 
and preach it to them.” Gennadius¢ descants upon the 
words of the apostle thus: “They being blinded and ex- 
cluded from salvation, God translated this salvation to you.” 
And again, “ All you being called, and come in, grace shall 
again receive them all; for this the prophet Isaiah testifies.” 
“Before (saith Photius$) the heathen being disobedient, 
the Jews were saved.” Again, “The Jews becoming dis- 
obedient, the gentiles are saved ; and the gentiles being saved, 
the Jews, emulating them, shall also be saved :”—« Because 
(saith Theophylact} ) the Jews, being then blinded, have not 
obtained this salvation, that which the apostle speaks of 
shall happen to them afterward.”—« They of the people of 
Israel who believed not, and for their unbelief were deserted, 
that God’s mercy might be shown to you, shall not be al- 
ways left in unbelief (saith Origen{), but when the dispen- 
sation of the fullness of the gentiles is completed, they also 
shall find mercy.” And therefore, when Celsus had, as it 
were, prophesied that the Jews should presently perish, 
“this (saith Origen) he said, not knowing how present God 
was formerly with them, and how that, by their sin, salva- 
tion came to the gentiles, and their fall brought riches to the 
world,** till the fullness of the gentiles be come in, that after 
this all Israel, which Celsus understands not, may be saved.” 
In his fifth homily upon Jeremiah, he exhorts the Christian 
to live so as that he may not receive a bill of divorce,t} “ but 
may enter into the holy inheritance. And Israel may then 
also enter; for, if the fullness of the gentiles be come in, then 
all Israel shall be saved, and there shall be one fold and 
one shepherd.” In his commentary on St. Matthew he 
saith (ibid. p. 410, C.), “Those that whipped Christ were 
whipped, and shall be whipped till the fullness of the gen- 
tiles is come in:” and (p. 397, D.) “that they were worthy 
to be deserted, either till the fullness of the gentiles was come 
in, or till they had fulfilled the punishment of their sins.” 
Nor is this denied by him in the passage cited from his book 
against Celsus; for he saith not there, “ They shall never be 
converted to the Christian faith,” but that they should never 
be restored to their own worship or country, that “they had 
been long since cast out from τῆς σεμνῆς ἁγιστείας καὶ λατ- 
peias, their venerable service and ceremonies, or purgations,++ 
and we confidently affirm, ὅτι οὐδ᾽ ἐποκατασταθήσονται, that 
they shall never be restored again to Jerusalem, or the land 
of promise, which before,” saith he, “they were; for then, 
being captivated, they returned to their own land, and en- 


* Kara τὸν καιρὸν τὴς παρουσίας τῆς δευτέρας καὶ τῆς συντελείας, 
in ver. 11. 

ἡ Τῶν yap ἐθνῶν δεξαμένων τὸ κήρυγμα, πιστέυσουσι κἀκεῖνοι, 
Ἠλία τοῦ πάνυ παραγενομένου καὶ τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῖς τὴν διδασκαλίαν 
προσφέροντος, in ver. 25. 

$ Πωρωθέντων, καὶ τὴν σωτηρίαν ἁπωθουμένων ἐκείνων, ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς 
μετήνεγκε ταύτην ὃ Θεὸς, εἱσποιηϑέντων μέντοι πάντων ὑμῶν κἀ- 
κείνους αὖϑις ἡ χάρις ἅπαντας περιλήψεται, μαρτυρεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸ 
τοῦτο καὶ τὸ τοῦ ᾿Ησαίου λόγιον γραφικόν. Apud (ουμι. in ver. 
25. 

§ Σωθέντων τῶν ἐϑνικῶν παραζηλοῦντες Ἰουδαῖοι σώζονται καὶ 
αὐτοὶ. Apud (ἔσαπι. ver. 31. 

|| Ἐπεὶ οὔτω ταύτης ἔτυχον, πεπώρωνται γὰρ, ὕστερον μέλλει 
γίνεσθαι τοῦτο, in ver. 26. 

§ Non usquequaque relinquenter in incredulitate sud, sed 
eum plenitudinis gentium fuerit impleta dispensatio, etiam 
ipsi misericordiam consequentur. 

** “Axpts οὗ τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἔϑνων εἰσέλϑδῃ, ἵνα μετὰ τοῦτο πᾶς, 
bv οὐ νοεῖ Κέλσος, ᾿Ισραὴν σωθῆ. In Celsum, lib. vi, p. 331. 

TH ᾿Αλλὰ δυνηθῶμεν ἡμεῖς ἐπὶ τὴν κληρονομίαν ἁγίαν (εἰσελϑεῖν) 
μετὰ τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν ἐδνῶν σωϑέντος, δυνηϑὴ καὶ τότε ὃ ᾿Ισραὴλ 
εἰσελϑεῖν, ἐὰν γὰρ τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν εἰσελϑῇ, τότε πᾶς ᾿Ισραὴλ 
σωθήσεται, καὶ γενήσονται μία ποΐμνη, καὶ, εἷς ποιμῆν. Apud Huet. 
tom. i. p. 74, C. 

++ Ei καὶ τότε ἔδοξαν δ ἁμαρτίας καταλείπεσϑαι, οὐδεν ἧττον 
ἐπεσκοπῆθησαν, καὶ ἐπανελθόντες τὰ ἴδια ἀπειλήφασιν, &e. Orig. 
cont. Cels. lib. iv. p. 174. 


595 


joyed their laws as before, which now they shall never be 
restored to.” All the Latin fathers, who have left us any 
commentaries or notes on this epistle, are plainly of the 
same mind, as you may see by consulting Hilary the deacon, 
Primasius, Sedulius, and Haymo, upon the twenty-fifth verse 
of this chapter. This also many of the fathers do conclude, 

First, From those words of the prophet Hosea, « ‘The 
children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and 
without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an 
altar, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. After- 
ward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord 
their God, and Dayid their king, and shall fear the Lord, 
and his goodness, in the latter days,” iil. 4,5. Which words 
Augustine* having produced, to prove that “the carnal Is- 
raelites, who now will not believe, shall hereafter do so,’ he 
he saith, « Nothing is more manifest than that, by David 
their king, the prophet here meaneth Jesus Christ, in whom 
they now believe not.”—« This,” saith Jerome,t “is the 
blindness that happened to Israel in part, that the fullness of 
the gentiles might come in, and all Israel be saved, and after 
a long time might return and seek the Lord. Some (saith 
he) do interpret this of the captivity of Babylon; but others 
(saith he), with us, refer it to a time yet future.” Cyril 
saith, “ Here is a manifest declaration of what shall hereafter 
happen to the adulterous synagogue, and that she should be 
received again; that Israel} should not always be rejected, 
but, being recalled and converted to the faith, should own 
Christ according to the flesh to be the king of all, and that 
this glorious grace should be afforded to her at the end of 
the world.” 

Secondly, That in which they universally agree, excepting 
only Jerome, is, That Elias is to come before the end of the 
world, to convert the Jews to Christ: and this they gather 
from those words of Malachi, “Behold, I will send you 
Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the 
Lord ; and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the child- 
ren,” iv. 5, 6; and those of Christ, “Elias truly shall 
come first, and shall restore all things,” Matt. xvii. 11. “ We 
know (saith Justin Martyr, Dial. cum Tryph. p, 268, 269. 
306) that Elias shall come before the Lord’s second advent, 
and that then the Jews shall know him whom they have 
dishonoured.”~ Origen says§ that “by those words of Ma- 
lachi it seemeth to appear, that Elias shall come before 
Christ, and by his sacred words, and the dispositions they 
shall work in their souls, shall prepare them for the coming 
of Christ.” Theodoret paraphraseth the words of Malachi 
thus: “Lest at my second coming, finding you all in unbe- 
lief, I should subject you to eternal punishment, Elias shall 
come first, and teach you of my advent, and shall prevail 
upon you, O Jews, without doubting, to join yourselves to 
the churches of the gentiles, and to be made one.”’| Yea, 
even St. Jerome, upon these words of St. Matthew, “ Elias 
indeed shall come, and restore all things,” descants thus:§ 
“He who is to come in the body at our Lord’s second ad- 


* Istos autem carnales Israelitas, qui nunc nolunt credere 
in Christum, posted credituros, id est, filios eorum. De Civ. 
Dei, lib. xviii. cap. 28, et lib. de Oct. Quest. Dulcitii, tom. 
iv. p. 674. 

+ Hee est cecitas que ex parte accidit Israeli, ut subin- 
traret plenitudo gentium, et tune omnis Israel salvus fieret, 
et multo post tempore revertentur, et querent Dominuin 
suum: alii, ut nos, in futurum differunt tempus. Com- 
ment. in locum. 

+ Πλὴν οὐκ ἐν τούτοις διαπαντὸς αὐδὲ ἀπόπεμτος δλοτρόπως ὃ 
Ἰσραὴλ ἔσται, κεκλήσεται γὰρ κατὰ καιροὺς, καὶ ἐπιστρέψει διὰ 
πίστεως, καὶ ἐπιγνώσεται τὸν κατὰ σάρκα ΧΧριστὸν--------καιρὸς 
(δὲ) αὐτοῖς τῆς οὔτω λαμπρᾶς καὶ ἀξιαγάστου χάριτος, ὃ τελευταῖος, 
καὶ ἐν ἐσχάτοις, καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ. Tn locum. 

§ *Eniké ye διὰ τούτων δηλοῦσϑαι ὅτι προευτρεπίσει ὃ Ἤλίας τῇ 
ἐνδύξῳ Χριστοῦ ἐπιδημίᾳ διὰ τινῶν ἱερῶν λόγων, καὶ καταστάσεων ἐν 
ταῖς ψυχαῖς τοὺς εἰς τοῦτο ἐπιτηδείους γινομένους. In Matt. tora 
xiii. et Huet. p. 307, Ὁ. 

[ Kat πείσει ὑμᾶς, ὦ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι, rots ἐξ ἐθνῶν εἰς ἐμὲ πεπιστευκὸν εν 
ἀνενδυάστως ἐναφθῆναι, καὶ μίαν ἀποφῆναι τὴν ἐμὴν ἐκκλησίαν. In 
locum. 

4 Ipse qui venturus est in secundo Salvatoris adventi 
juxta corporis fidem, nunc per Johannem venit, in virtute et 
spirit, In Matt. xvii. 


596 


vent, came now by John in virtue and the Spirit.” And in 
his comment on the third of Habakkuk, ver. 17, having 
cited those words of Christ spoken of the barren fig-tree, 
« Let no fruit grow on thee for ever,” Matt. xxi. 19, he bids 
us* “diligently consider, that he saith not for ever and 
ever, but only, in seculum, for that age; and when that age 
is past, and the fullness of the gentiles is come in, then shall 
the fig-tree bring forth, her fruits, and all Israel shall be 
saved.” So generally did this doctrine obtain among the 
ancients. 

Moreover, as this doctrine hath the suffrage of all the an- 
cient fathers, and commentators do thus generally agree in 
exposition of this chapter, so is it easy to confirm it, by 
showing the absurdity of other expositions, and the plain 
inconsistence of them both with truth and with the words 
of the apostle. For, 

First, The words of the apostle cannot be expounded, as 
Dr. Lightfoot} and others do interpret them, of the spiritual 
Israel, i. e. of all those persons, whether Jew or gentile, 
which belong to God’s election. For, (1.) the text speaks 
of that which was ἃ mystery to the believing gentiles, i. 6. a 
secret not obvious to their understanding. Now that God’s 
elect, whether Jew or gentile, should be saved, could be no 
mystery, but the first article of Christian faith; and so of 
this the apostle could not say, “ I would not have you igno- 
rant, lest you should be wise in your own conceit ;” espe- 
cially since the apostle had before said of the believing Jews, 
«There is now an election of grace,” ver. 5; and, ver. 7, 
«The election hath obtained.” 

Secondly, The Jews and Israelites here mentioned are 
manifestly distinguished from the elect of Israel by this cha- 
racter, that they were the blinded Israel, ver. 7, who lay 
under a’ spiritual slumber, ver. 8, whose eyes ‘were blinded 
that they saw not, ver. 10, who had stumbled at the stum- 
bling-stone, ver. 11; they are that Israel, whose casting away 
was the riches of the world, whose diminution was their full- 
ness, ver. 12; they are Israel “according to the flesh,’ ver. 
14, the branches broken off for unbelief, ver. 17. 19, 20, 
they “who believed not,’ ver. 23. 30—82, and who were 
enemies to the gospel for the gentiles’ sake, ver. 29; this is 
the Israel of whom the apostle here asserts, “ They shall be 
saved,” of this blinded, this unbelieving, this Israel cut off, 
these branches broken from their own olive-tree, these ene- 
mies to the converted gentiles; as there hath been, saith the 
apostle, a diminution, so shall there be a fullness; as there 
hath been a casting them off, so shall there be a reception 
of them; as there hath been a breaking them off from their 
own olive-tree, so shal] there be an inserting of them into it 
again, ver. 24; as there hath been a time of their unbelief, 
and so of severity, ver. 22, and of wrath to them, Rom. ix. 
22, 1 Thess. ii. 16, so shall there be a time of mercy, ver. 
31, 32. Now since the unbelief, the diminution, the reject- 
ing, the breaking the branches off, must necessarily be un- 
derstood of Israel according to the flesh, of the natural 
branches of the stock of Abraham, ver. 22. 24, beloved for 
the fathers’ sake, ver. 28, of the seed of Jacob, whose sins 
were not yet taken away, ver. 26, if you understand the full- 
ness, the reception, the ingrafling of them, the salvation 
here mentioned of the spiritual Israel, and of the elect op- 
posed to Israel that was blinded, ver. 7, the antithesis is 
wholly lost; since then the diminution and the fullness, the 
Tejection and reception, the breaking off and the insertion, 
the severity and the mercy, will not relate to the same per- 
sons. Again, “ Blindness in part hath happened to Israel,” 
saith the apostle, « till the fullness of the gentiles shall come 
in, and then all Israel shall be saved ;” now certainly the 
blindness happened to Israel according to the flesh, and must 
not the antithesis require that the salvation should belong to 
the same Israel? It happened not to the elect, for “the 
election,” saith the apostle, “hath obtained, and the rest 
were blinded,” and therefore the salvation cannot respect 
them only. 


* Et diligentér considera quid dixerit, Non afferes fructum 
in seculum, non ait usque in secula seculorum ; sed cum se- 
culum illud pertransierit, et intraverit plenitudo gentium, 
tune etiam hee ficus afferet fructus suos, et omnis Israel sal- 
vabitur. F. 90, tit. 1. 

{ Harmony of the New Testament, p. 194, 195. 


A DISCOURSE OF THE 


Moreover, to whom did this blindness happen? Was it 
not to the national church and body of the Jews? to them 
to whom our Saviour had said, “ Whilst you have the light, 
believe in the light, lest darkness come upon you ?” John xii. 
35. Is it not of the children of Israel that the apostle saith, 
«“ They could not see to the end of that which was to be abo- 
lished,” 2 Cor. iii. 13, 14, “but their minds are blinded, for 
until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away 1 Was 
it not that very people who “had eyes, and saw not; ears, 
and heard not ; whose heart was waxed gross, their ears dull, 
and their eyes closed?” Isa. vi. 9, Acts xxviii. 26, 27, ver. 8. 
10, and from whose eyes were “ hid the things which belonged 
to their peace, because they knew not the time of their visi- 
tation?” Luke xix. 42.44. To whom belonged this ἀποβολὴ, 
“rejection,” or casting off? Doth it not respect the generality 
of that church and nation? Doth not our Saviour say of 
them, “The children of the kingdom shall be cast out into 
utter darkness,” Matt. viii. 12, that “their house should be 
left unto them desolate,” Matt. xxiii. 38, that “the kingdom 
of God should be taken from them, and given to a nation 
bringing forth the fruits thereof?” Matt. xxi.41. Who were 
the branches broken off, are they not all the unbelieving 
Jews? (ver. 20,) 1. 6. the bulk and body of that church and 
nation. Doth not our Saviour tell them, that their vineyard 
should be let out to other husbandmen? Matt. xxi. 41; are 
not they that barren tree which was to be hewn down? Luke 
xiii. 7. 9; and must not then the recovery of them from this 
blindness, the receiving of them again, the ingraffing them 
into their own olive-tree, respect, not some few straggling con- 
verts of them only, but the chief bulk or body of that nation ? 

Thirdly, It is easy to observe two questions in this chap- 
ter; the first is this, λέγω οὖν, μὴ ἀπώσατο, &c., “I say then, 
Hath God cast off his people?” ver. 1, to which the answer 
is, “God hath not cast off his people whom he foreknew,” 
or the “ remnant according to the election of grace,” ver. 5. 
7, but only the obdurate Jew, ver. 8—10. ‘The second is 
this, λέγω οὖν, μὴ ἔπταισαν ἵνα πέσωσι; Ι say then, Have these 
unbelieving Jews, who stumbled at the stumbling-stone, ix. 
32, 33, “stumbled, that they should fall” entirely, so as that 
they should never rise again? And to this the apostle answers 
in the negative, from ver. 11 to the 25th, and proves it from 
ver. 25 to the 32d. It is therefore evident, that his discourse, 
from ver. 11 to the 32d, respects not the spiritwal Israel, 1. e. 
the gentile converts, nor the elect of Israel, but the obdurate, 
blinded nation, which God hath then cast off. And, 

Fourthly, Here is evidently a time prefixed for this con- 
version of the Jews, viz. “when the fulfilling of the gentiles 
is come in;” here is a blindness to continue on them till that 
time: whilst blindness doth continue on them, their salva- 
tion is not to be expected, and when they shall be saved that 
blindness, of necessity, must cease : but to the spiritual Israel, 
or the elect converted at all times, nothing of this can be 
applied, for their conversion is not limited to the time of the 
coming in of the fullness of the gentiles, but they are con- 
verted in every age, and at all times. 

Secondly, The opinion of the reverend Dr. Hammond is 
to this effect :* 1. “That it is not necessary that this should 
still belong to any yet future return of the Jews, in a visible 
and remarkable manner, the circumstances of the context 
applying it to the first times, wherein the epistle was writ. 

2. + “That the fullness of the Jews, mentioned ver. 12, is 
their being added to the church, their coming in, and being 
gathered, and laying hold of the faith, being provoked so to 
do by seeing the gentiles believe, and so filling up the vacui- 
ties, as it were, which were formerly in the church, by their 
standing out impertinently ; and the fullness of the gentiles 
is the gentiles coming into the church, receiving the faith, 
they then becoming one part of the visible church, as the 
Jews another. 

3. «That the mystery+ here mentioned is this, that a great 
part of the Jews are now become blind, and that that is made 
use of by God, that by occasion of that the gospel may (by 
departing awhile from them) be preached to, and received 
by, the generality of the gentiles, and they compacted into 
Christian churches; and this in very mercy to those Jews, 
that they, by seeing the gentiles believe, might at length be 
provoked to do so too, by way of emulation (ver. 11. 31). 


+ Ibid. 


* Note D in ver. 11. + Paraphr. in ver. 25. 


CALLING OF THE JEWS. 


4. “That so* ‘all Israel shall be saved,’ i. e. all the true 
children of Abraham, Jews and heathens both ; but particu- 
larly the remnant of the Jews shall come in, and repent, and 
believe in Christ. . 

5. “That the addition off Jewish believers shall be mat- 
ter of confirmation of the faith to the gentiles, and a means 
to bring them all to receive it, to convert the gentiles over 
all the world. 

6. “As for the truth of that, that as yet many more Jews 
should repent and receive the gospel, that, saith he, has 
been demonstrated by the event; (1.) When the Jews saw 
Christ's predictions, Matt. xxiv., manifestly fulfilled in the 
Roman armies sitting down before the city, for then many 
turned Christians, and went out of the city, and were deli- 
vered from the following evils. And, 

(2.) “After that, when the temple and city were destroyed, 
and they brought into subjection by the Romans, then many 
were humbled, and turned Christians. And, 

(3.) “After that also, in Justin Martyr’s days, every day 
there were some that came in to be Christ’s disciples. Now 
to these things I 

Answer First, That whereas this reverend person saith, 
the circumstances of the context apply this conversion of the 
Jews to the times in which this epistle was writ, i. ο. about 
the year of Christ 56, it seems extremely evident, both from 
the circumstances of the context, and from many other scrip- 
tures, that nothing could more unfitly be assigned as the 
time of the conversion of the then hardened and rejected 
Jews than this. For, 

1. In the ninth chapter of this epistle, the apostle calls 
our Lord Christ, the Holy Ghost, and his own conscience to 
witness, that he had “ great heaviness, and continual sorrow 
in his heart,” on the account of the infidelity of his Jewish 
brethren, the spiritual slumber and blindness which then 
was upon them, and their rejection by God, ver. 1—3. And, 
ver. 22, he plainly represents them as “vessels of wrath 
fitted for destruction,” and only reserved, as Pharaoh was of 
old, for a more illustrious ruin, in which God’s vengeance on 
them, and the causes of it, should be conspicuously seen. 
And, ver. 27, he proceeds to show, from the predictions of 
the prophets, that only a little remnant of them should be 
saved; a remnant, like to those seven thousand men reserved 
in the ten tribes of Israel, when the whole visible body of 
them had revolted to Baal: and, ver. 31, speaking of them 
in general, he saith, “Israel hath not attained to justifica- 
tion, because they sought it not of faith, but stumbled at” 
the Messiah, even at that Jesus who is “the end of the law 
for justification, to every one that believeth,” x. 4, he being 
to them “a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence.” 

In the tenth chapter he declares that they had “not sub- 
mitted to the righteousness which was of God through faith,” 
ver. 2, 3, and from ver. 16 to the end of that chapter, he 
proves that the preaching of the gospel to the gentiles, and 
the incredulity of the Jews, was a thing long ago foretold in 
the prophetic writings. In this chapter, he begins with the 
inquiry to which his former discourse, and the general infi- 
delity of that people, had given occasion, viz. “ Hath God 
entirely cast off his people?” and answers it by saying that 
as in the time of Elias, in that general revolt of the ten tribes, 
God still “reserved seven thousand who had not bowed the 
knee to Baal, οὕτως καὶ ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ, SO in this season also” 
he had reserved a like “remnant according to the election of 
grace,” ver. 5, confessing, notwithstanding, touching the body 
of that church and people, that “Israel had not attained to 
that righteousness” it sought for, but was, excepting this elec- 
tion only, wholly blinded; that God had «given them up to 
a spirit of slumber,” and “blinded their eyes;” had “broken 
them off” for their infidelity, and had shown his “ severity” 
upon them. Wherefore the times, when this epistle was 
written, being the times of the apostle’s “ heaviness,” and his 
“continual sorrow” for their rejection; the times when they 
are represented by him as “vessels of wrath fitted for destruc- 
tion;” when the prophets had foretold their incredulity ; 
when “Israel had not attained to justification, but had 
stumbled at” the Messiah; when they were “ignorant of the 
righteousness of God,” and had not submitted to it; when 


* Paraphr. in ver. 26. Paraphr. in ver. 12. 
Ρ Ρ 


597 


to that very day they were blinded, and given up to a spi- 
ritual slumber; is it possible that these should be the very 
times assigned by the apostle for the ceasing of their blind- 
ness, and that so generally, that it might be truly said all 
Israel were then saved, and God had mercy on them all? 

The same apostle, anno Christi 49, speaks to them of that 
nation thus: “It was necessary that the word of God should 
be first spoken to you; but since you thrust it from you, and 
judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn (from 
you) to the gentiles,” Acts xiii. 46. In his First Epistle to 
the Thessalonians, written A. D. 51, he declares of the Jews, 
that they “killed the Ldrd Jesus and their own prophets, 
and they persecuted the apostles; and they pleased not God, 
and were contrary to all men,” 1 Thess. ii. 14—16, « forbid- 
ding us to speak to the gentiles, that they might be saved, to 
fill up their sins always, for the wrath is come upon them to 
the uttermost.” “That is,” saith Dr. Hammond, “ by this 
they do so fill up the measure of their sins, that the wrath of 
God to the utter destruction of them is now come out upon 
them, already denounced, and, within a very little while, 
most certain to overtake them.” In his Second Epistle ‘to 
the Corinthians, written before that to the Romans, though 
perhaps in the same year, he saith that even then their minds 
were blinded, and the veil still remained upon them. And 
when he came to Rome, about three years after the writing 
this epistle, and preached to some of the chief of them resid- 
ing in that city, he declares that these words of Isaiah were 
fulfilled upon them, Acts xxviii. 23, viz. “ Hearing you shall 
hear, and shall not understand ; and seeing you shall see, and 
not perceive : for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and 
their ears are dull of hearing, and they have closed their 
eyes; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their 
ears, and understand with their hearts, and be converted, and 
IT should heal them.’’ Concluding thus, “ Be it known there- 
fore to you, that the salvation of God is sent to the gentiles, 
and they will hear it.” Now after they had thus “ put away 
the gospel from them, and judged themselves unworthy of 
eternal life,” and the apostles had thus turned from them to 
the gentiles; after the “ wrath was thus determined to come 
upon them, εἰς τέλος, to the end,” that is, say all the ancient 
commentators, not as in the times of the judges, for twenty 
or forty years, or, as in the time of their captivity, for seventy 
years, but for many generations; after their minds were thus 
blinded, their eyes thus shut, their hearts thus hardened, can 
we expect this blindness suddenly should cease, and this 
wrath presently give place to mercy and salvation ? 

Secondly, That “many of the Jews turned Christians, 
when they saw Christ’s prediction, Matt. xxiv., fulfilled in 
the Roman army sitting down before that city, and went out 
of the city with the Christians, and so were delivered from the 
following evils,” is also said, without all ground or testimony 
of writers of those times. Epiphanius,* who lived in Pales- 
tine, and Eusebius, who was born and educated there, give 
us an accurate relation of this matter, and carefully inform 
us, that of μαθηταὶ, “ the disciples of Christ, of ἐν Χριστῷ πεπι- 
στευκότες, they that believed in Christ,” being admonished by 
an angel, or by an oracle, so to do, “left Jerusalem,” and 
went to Pella, “where they were preserved ;” but of one 
convert of the Jews then made they say not a word. How 
unlikely then it is that the same Epiphanius, who so parti- 
culary relates the conversion of one single Aquila from 
Judaism to Christianity, when they returned to Jerusalem 
after the ruin of it, and his revolt again to Judaism, should 
never speak one word of these supposed converts before their 
departure ! 

Moreover, this was the time when there happened a great 
apostasy of the Jewish converts, according to our Lord’s 
prediction, that, “ because iniquity should then abound, the 
love of many should wax cold,” Matt. xxiv. 12. And there- 
fore the Epistle to the Hebrews written in the ninth, the 
Epistle of James writ also in the ninth, and the Epistle of 
Peter writ in the tenth year of Nero, all near this very time, 
are very full of exhortations to them that they would not be 
double-minded, wavering, or unstable in the faith, James i. 
6—8 ; that they would not count “that fiery trial, which was 


* De Mens. et Pond. cap. 15, et Her. xxix. sect 7. 
ἡ Eccles, Hist. lib. iii. cap. 6. 


598 
come to try them, a strange thing,” 1 Pet. iv. 12; that they 
would patiently, and with long-suffering endure it, as know- 
ing “they were happy who did thus endure,’ James i. 12, 
v. 8, 10, 11, 1 Pet. iii. 13, 14, ν. 9,10. The Epistle to the 
Hebrews is full of exhortations to them, to see to it that there 
be not in them “an evil heart of unbelief in departing from 
the living God,” Heb. iii. 12, that they “hold the beginning 
of their confidence firm to the end,” ver. 14, to “fear, lest, 
a promise being made of entering into rest, they should fall 
short of it through unbelief,” iv. 1, 11, there being no renew- 
ing them to repentance, who, after such miraculous evidences 
of the truth, apostatized, vi. 6, and “no more sacrifice for 
sin” for them, x. 25, that they would not “cast away their 
confidence,” God having said, xii. 35. 38, “If any man draw 
back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him ;” and that they 
would “diligently look te it, lest any man failed of the grace 
of God,” xii. 15. These, saith our Saviour, “are the times 
of vengeance,” and of “wrath upon that people,” Luke xxi. 
22, 23, the times when, “the things belonging to their peace 
being hid from their eyes,” their “ house was to be left unto 
them desolate,” Luke xix. 42—44. And could the times of 
the apostasy, even of the converted Jews, be the times of the 
salvation of the unbelieving Jews? Was it to be expected 
they sbould then, more than ever, see “the things belonging 
to their peace,” when they were hidden from their eyes? or 
could the times of wrath and “ vengeance upon that people,” 
when the avenger came out of Zion, to punish the iniquity 
of Zion with the sorest judgments, be the very times when 
“the Deliverer came out of Zion to turn away iniquity from 
Jacob ?” 

Thirdly, Whereas it is added, that “after that, when the 
temple and city were destroyed, and they brought into sub- 
jection by the Romans, then many were humbled, and turned 
Christians ; and that after that, even in Justin Martyr's days, 
every day there were some whe came in to be Christ’s disci- 
ples:” I answer, 

1, That as for their conversion when the temple and city 
were destroyed, I cannot find one word in church history con- 
cerning it, but much to the contrary : for, (1.) Epiphanius 
speaks particularly of the return of the Christians to Jerusa- 
lem after the ruin of it, and of the miracles they then wrought, 
and yet he mentions only one Aquila, a Jew, converted to 
the Christian faith ; adding that he soon after renounced the 
faith, and turned to his former Judaism. And Justin Mar- 
tyr* observes, in express contradiction to the doctor, that 
“after their country was destroyed, and their city laid waste, 
they repented not, but proceeded still in their execrations of 
Christ, and of all that believed in him.” And Tertulliant 
adds, that, “seeing from the time of Tiberius to Vespasian 
they repented not, their land was made desolate, and their 
cities burnt with fire.” And indeed this was the very time 
when wrath came actually upon them to the uttermost ; when 
this barren tree was hewn down, and cast into the fire, Luke 
xiii. 7. 9; when their house was left desolate, because they 
would not be gathered ; when all the righteous blood, shed 
hy them from Noah to that time, came upon them, and they 
had filled up the measure of their sins, Matt. xxiii. 35. 37, 
38, when the kingdom was wholly taken from them; when 
the Son of man came to take vengeance on them; and when 
he sent forth his armies to destroy those murderers, and to 
burn up their city, because they refused to come unto the 
matriage-feast, Matt. xxii. 7. And could this be the time of 
their humiliation and conversion? Was this a fit time to 
expect the completion of those words of Paul, concerning the 
sending the deliverer out of Zion, to turn away iniquity from 
Jacob, and to take away their sins, and to show mercy to 
them, in such a signal manner, that all Israel should be 
saved ? 

To proceed to the history of them in the following times: 
Justin Martyr in his Apology, writ in the year of the Lord 
140, saith of the Jews in all places, That they were + as 


* Καὶ ἁλούσης ὑμῶν τῆς πύλεως, καὶ τῆς γῆς ἐρημωθείσης, οὐ 
μετανοεῖτε, ἀλλὰ καί καταρᾶσθαι αὐτοῦ καὶ τῶν πιστεύοντων εἰς 
αὐτὸν πάντων τολμάτε. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 335. 

ἡ Cum tempus medium ἃ Tiberio usque ad Vespasianum 
non peenitentiam intellexissent, facta est terra eorum deserta, 
civitates eorum exuste igni. Adv. Marcion. lib. iii. cap. 23. 

8: ᾿Εχθροὺς ἡμᾶς καὶ πολεμίους ἡγοῦνται, ὁμοίως ὑμῖν dvatpodvres, 


A DISCOURSE OF THE 


great enemies to the Christians in all places as the heathens 
were, and as ready to torment and kill them, when they could 
do 1Ὁ: and “that this was evident from the last Jewish war, 
in which their captain Barchochebas commanded only the 
Christians to be tormented, if they refused to deny and to 
blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ.” Now this carries down 
the hatred of the Jews against Christians, and their impeni- 
tency, till after the times both of Trajan and Hadrian. Some 
years after this, he writ his dialogue with Trypho; and there 
he informs us that the Jews* still continued “to curse those 
who believed in Jesus, and to lay violent hands upon them 
when they could do it;” that “even then their hand was 
high to do wickedness, they still hating and killing Christians 
as oft as it was in their power.” 

But we are told that this very Justin Martyr saith that 
“every day there were some (of them) who came in to be 
Christ’s disciples.” 

I answer, ‘That what Justin Martyr there saith, relates not 
at all to any Jewish converts, but to the gentiles coming in 
from the way of deceit to the faith of Christ; and as he had 
told the emperors in his Apology, p. 45, B, that the “con- 
summation of the world was deferred, διὰ τὸ σπέρμα τῶν 
Χριστιανῶν, for the seed of Christians, which was then spring- 
ing up:” so he tells Trypho, p. 256, Ὁ, that the day of judg- 
ment, of which he had before spoken, and of which the Psalm 
he there citeth treats, was {“ deferred by God, because he 
knew that some would come daily in to be Christ’s disciples, 
and would quit the way of deceit.” Now that this cannot be 
spoken of the Jews is evident, because “wrath was come 
upon them to the uttermost,” as Justin Martyr often inti- 
mates, not saying that God had not brought wrath and judg- 
ment upon them; but only that he had not brought the 
general judgment on the world for this cause. He goes on, 
and says that “ every one of those, who thus believed, received 
gifts from Christ as they were worthy :’” and this he proves, 
because it was prophesied that +“ after our Lord’s ascent to 
heaven, he should lead us captive from our error, and should 
give us gifts ;’’ where the word πλάνη, used ordinarily of the 
gentiles deceived by Satan, and especially the word ἡμᾶς, ws, 
show that the Martyr speaks not of the Jews, but gentile con- 
verts; and so it follows, “'Therefore we gentiles, who have 
received these gifts, show you Jews to be fools,” &ec.; so that 
the good doctor was utterly mistaken in applying this passage 
to the Jews, as others led by his authority have done. 

From this time to the days of Constantine, the period 
assigned by Mr. Calvert for the conversion mentioned by 
Paul, the fathers generally represent them as a nation whose 
“ears were shut, and their hearts hardened,’’§ declaring that 
the “ scripture had clearly foretold they should be disinherited, 
and fall off from the grace of God.”|| Origen testifies, that 


καὶ κολάζοντες ἡμᾶς brérav δύνωνται, ὡς καὶ πεισϑῆναι δῦνασϑε, καὶ 
γὰρ ἐν τῷ νῦν γεγενημένῳ ᾿Ιουδαικῷ πολέμῳ, Bapxoxébas ὃ τῆς 
Ιουδαίων ἀποστάσεως ἀρχηγέτης, Χριστιανοὺς μόνους εἰς τιμωρίας 
δεινὰς, εἰ μὴ ἀρνοῖντο ᾿Ιησοῦν τὸν Χριστὸν, καὶ βλασφημοῖεν, ἐκέλευεν 
ἀπάγεσϑαι. P. 72, E. 

* Ei δὲ αὐτοῦ re ἐκείνου καὶ τῶν els Excivoy πιστεύοντων κατα- 
ρᾶσθε, καὶ ὁπύταν ἐξουσίαν ἔχητε, ἀναιρεῖτε. P. 323. B; vide 
pp. 226. 350. 

“Ἔτι γὰρ ἀληθῶς ἡ χεὶρ ὑμῶν πρὸς κακοποΐαν ὑψηλὴ, ὅτι ἡμᾶς 
τοὺς πιστεύοντας μισεῖτε, καὶ φονεῦετε, ὑσάκις ἂν λάβητε ἐξουσίαν, 
Ῥ. 363. 

{ Ὃν οὖν τρόπον διὰ τοὺς ἑπτακισχιλίους ἐκείνους οἱ οὐκ ἔκαμ- 
Wav γόνυ τῷ Βάαλ, τὴν δργὴν οὐκ ἑπέφερε τότε ὃ Θεὸς, τὸν αὐτὸν 
τρόπον καὶ νῦν οὐδέπω τὴν κρίσιν ἐπήνεγκεν ἢ ἐπάγει, γινώσκων ἔτι 
καθ᾽ ἡμέραν τινὰς μαϑητευομένους εὶς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ, 
καὶ ἀπολείποντας τὴν ὑδὸν τῆς πλάνης. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 257, 
E. 258, A. 

+ Mera τὴν rod Χριστοῦ eis τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνέλευσιν προεφητεύϑη 
αἱχμαλωτεῦσαι αὐτὸν ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τῆς πλάνης, καὶ ἑοῦναι ἡμῖν déuara. 
Ibid. B. 

§ Ὧτα ὑμῶν πέφρακται, καὶ αἱ καρδίαι πεπήρωνται. Just. p. 250, 

|| Si cognovissent nos futuros, et usuros his testimoniis, 
que sunt ex scripturis, nunquam dubitassent ipsi suas com- 
burere scripturas, que reliquas omnes gentes manifestant 
participare vite, et eos, qui gloriantur domum se esse Jacob, 
et populum Israelis, exhzreditari ostendunt a gratia Dei. 
Tren. lib. iii. cap. 24. 

4 Ἔστιν οὖν idety μετὰ τὴν Ἰησοῦ ἐπιδημίαν, ᾿Ιουδαίους καταλε- 


CALLING OF THE JEWS. 


« God had turned his providence from the Jews to the gen- 
tiles; that they were wholly deserted, and retained nothing 
of what before was venerable among them, nor any footsteps 
of the divince presence with them; that after the crucifixion 
of our Lord they were perfectly deserted, and not to be con- 
verted till the end of the world.” Tertullian* saith, “that 
from the time that they crucified their Lord, God had taken 
from them the prophet, wise man, and the Holy Spirit, and 
had left them destitute of his grace ;” and that “only at his 
second coming, he should be received by them who had thus 
rejected him.” And this seems most agreeable to our Lord’s 
predictions, that “ the kingdom of God should be taken from 
them, and given to another nation that would bring forth the 
fruit of it;” that he would “miserably destroy those hus- 
bandmen, and would let out his vineyard to other husband- 
men, who should render him the fruits in their season,” Matt. 
xxi. 41. 43, that “ none of them who were bidden and refused, 
should taste of his supper,” Luke xiv, 24, that « many should 
come from the east and west, and should sit down with Abra- 
ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, but 
the children of the kingdom should be cast out into utter 
darkness,” Matt. viii. 11, 12, that “they who were first (i. 6. 
the Jews) should be the last,” and they who were “ the last 
(i. e. the gentiles) should be first ;” for that this is spoken of 
the rejection of the Jews, and the calling of the gentiles, is 
evident from these words of Luke xiii. 26—30, “Then shall 
ye (Jews) begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy pre- 
sence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, 
I tell you, I know you not whence you are, depart from me, 
all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and 
gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust 
out. And they shall come from the east, and from the west, 
and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in 
the kingdom of God. And, behold, there are last which shall 
be first, and there are first which shall be last.” Now if we 
do consider that “wrath was come upon” this nation, εἰς 
τέλος, “ to the end,” can we imagine either that this kingdom 
taken from them, this vineyard let out to other husbandmen, 
these children of the kingdom cast out into outer darkness, 
should suddenly receive again this kingdom, be restored to 
this vineyard, or admitted to the light of the gospel? or that 
all Israel should be saved, or iniquity should be taken away 
from Jacob, whilst that nation lay under these dreadful judg- 
ments ? or that when our Lord hath so solemnly foretold there 
should be “ wrath upon this people,” and “ they shall fall by 
the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all 
nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the gen- 
tiles, until the time of the gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke xxi. 
23, 24), this wrath should not continue on them whilst they 
were captives in all nations, and Jerusalem was trodden 
down? 

Here, I confess, the reverend doctor (on Luke xxi. 23) 
hath a peculiar notion, “That the treading down of Jerusa- 
lem by the gentiles, is not particularly their victory over it 
by Titus, but their consequent possessing it, and even till 
Hadrian’s rebuilding a part of it, and calling it by his own 
name “lia, and inhabiting it by gentiles——upon the doing 
this,” saith he, “it followed, that as all the {ἀρ πον!) Jews 
were utterly banished the city, so the believing Jews re- 
turned thither again from their dispersions, and inhabited it 
again, and joined, and made one congregation, one church 
with the gentiles, which had then, till that time, received the 
faith also, and till then continued a distinct church from the 
Jews: by which it appears how punctually this prediction, 
in our notion, was fulfilled, that Jerusalem should be inha- 
bited by the gentiles, all the Jews in a manner excluded, till 
the time that the gospel had been freely preached to the 
gentiles, and by them in some eminent manner been received ; 
and then it should be reinhabited by the Jews again, i. e. the 
Christian Jews, who, being wrought on by emulation of the 


λειμμένους πάντη, ἕο. Adv. Celsum, lib. ii. p. 62. ‘Eni 
“Ῥωμαίῳ, τὴν μεγίστην ποιήσαντες ἁμαρτίαν ἐν τῷ ἀποκτεῖναι τὸν 
[ησοῦν, τέλειον ἐγκατελείφθησαν, lib. iv. cap. 4, Ρ. 183. 

* Abstulit enim Dominus Sabaoth ἃ Judea et ab Hieru- 
salem inter cetera et prophetam, et sapientem architectum, 
Spiritum sc. Sanctum; nam exinde apud illos destitit Dei 
gratia. Ady. Marcion. lib. iii. cap. 23; vide cap. 6, 7. 


599 


gentiles, were now, many of them, brought to receive the 
faith. In his note on the two witnesses, Rev. xi. 2, he makes 
them to be the two bishops of the church in Jerusalem, one 
of the Jewish, the other of the gentile converts; which state 
of that church continued, saith be, till the time of Marcus, a 
gentile bishop of that church, i. e. from after the destruction 
of Jerusalem by ‘Titus till that time.” But here again are 
many things delivered, not only without all suffrage of his- 
tory, but in perfect opposition to the histories of those times. 
For, 

First, Eusebius and Sulpitius Severus do inform us, that, 
till the time of Hadrian,” all the bishops and priests of Je- 
rusalem were only of the circumcision. Here therefore is 
no room for his two bishops, one of the Jewish, the other of 
the gentile converts, till the time of Marcus. 

Secondly, They also do inform us that all the Christians 
then at Jerusalem were of the circumcision, and so not of 
the gentiles; for Sulpitius observes, that the edict of Ha- 
driant (for banishing all the Jews from Jerusalem) “ hap- 
pened for the advantage of the Christian faith, because, till 
then, they almost all joined the observation of the law to 
the faith of Christ: the Lord so ordering it, that, by this 
means, the servitude of that law might be removed from the 
church.” Tusebius also saith, that the whole “church of 
Jerusalem} consisted of the faithful Hebrews, who, from 
the times of the apostles, had continued there till the siege 
of Bitter, in the eighteenth year of Hadrian:” so that here 
is no room for his supposed gentile converts to be governed 
by a bishop of the gentiles. 

Thirdly, They also do expressly say, not only that the 
unbelieving Jews, but that all the Jews in general, were by 
this edict banished both from Jerusalem and from the re- 
gion round about it. “He placed a band of soldiers which 
should banish all the Jews from Jerusalem,” saith Sulpitius ; 
and this he did, quia Christiani ex Judwis potissimum puta- 
bantur, “because the Christians were thought to have their 
rise chiefly from the Jews.’ Eusebius saith that τὸ πᾶν 
ἔθνος, the whole nation was banished from Jerusalem, and 
the country round about, and not permitted to set one foot 
in it. And then adds, that §« the city being after this man- 
ner emptied of the Jews, and wholly cleared of its inhabi- 
tants, and made up of aliens flowing in thither, it was made 
a Roman city and colony, and, in honour of the emperor, 
was named /Blia.’”’ The same is said by him in his Evan- 
gelical demonstrations,| and by Tertullian,{ that “not one 
Jew was permitted to stay there.” Eusebius also adds,** 
that τῆς αὐτόϑι ἐκκλησίας ἐξ ἐθνῶν avyKpornSeians, “ the church 
there consisting only of the gentiles, Marcus was the first 
bishop of it.” So that here is no place for the doctor’s sup- 
posed church, consisting both of Jews and gentiles, or for 
the inhabiting of it by the Christian Jews, and much less for 
his feigned “ many of them brought now to receive the faith 
by emulation of the gentiles.” In a word, Epiphanius saith 
that Hadrian the emperor, travelling to Jerusalem, found 
there only, τὴν ἐκκλησίαν μικρὰν, “ one little church,” and seven 
synagogues, standing like cottages; and was this likely to be 
the seat of two great bishops? So that I find nothing 
agreeable to the truth of history, in any thing which this re- 
verend person saith upon this subject, and much less any 
thing confirmed either by scripture or antiquity. 


* Namque tum Hierosolyme non nisi ex circumcisione 
habebat ecclesia sacerdotem. Sulpitius, lib. 11. cap. 45. 

Πρῶτος μὲν τοὺς ἐκ περιτομῆς ἐπισκύπους τὴν ἐκεῖσε λειτουργίαν 
ἐγχειρίζεται Μάρκος. Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 6. 

+ Militum cohortem custodias in perpetuum agitare 
jussit, que Judeos omnes Hierosolyme aditii arceret, quod 
quidem Christiane fidei proficiebat, qui tum pené omnes 
Christum Deum sub legis observatione credebant, nimirim 
id Domino ordinante dispositum, ut legis servitus ἃ libertate 
fidei atque ecclesia tolleretur. Sulp. lib. ii. cap. 5. 

+ Συνεστάναι yap αὐτοῖς τότε πᾶσαν ἐκκλησίαν ἐξ “Ἑβραίων πιο 
τῶν dro τῶν ἀποστύλων, καὶ εἰς τὴν τότε διαρκεσάντων πολιορκίαι 
Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 5. 

§ Οὔτω δὲ τῆς πόλεως εἰς ἐρημίαν τοῦ ᾿Ιουδαίων ESvous, καὶ παν- 
τελῆ φϑορὰν τῶν πάλαι οἰκητόρων. ἐλξούσης, ἐξ ἀλλοφύλου τε γένος 
συνυικισϑείσης, ἕο. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 6. 

|| Demon. Evang. lib. viii. p. 411, Ὁ. 


© Cont. Jud. cap. 15, Apol. cap. 16. ** Thid. 


600 


What hath been thus discoursed is abundantly sufficient 
to confute the exposition of this reverend and learned per- 
son, as being not agreeable to matter of fact; for when was 
there any such conversion made of the Jews at the times 
assigned by him, which can in any probability of construc- 
tion answer to the phrase used by the apostle, that by it «all 
Israel shall be saved ;” “ungodliness should be turned away 
from Jacob ;” God should bless them by “taking away their 
sins;” that they who now were blinded should “have the 
veil taken away from before their eyes;” they, who now 
were diminished, should have again their fullness; and they, 
who now were cast off, should be again received? This could 
not happen in the very times when this epistle was at first 
indited: for though it be true that James mentions “many 
thousands” or “myriads” of Jewish converts, “all zealous 
of the law,” Acts xxi. 20, yet were they all converted at or 
before the time of writing this epistle, and so belonged only 
to “the remnant according to the election of grace,” here 
mentioned, not to the residue that were blinded, of whose 
conversion. the apostle here speaks from ver. 12 to 32. Nor 
could their conversion and salvation be a mystery to be then 
revealed to the gentiles. That no such conversion after the 
blindness mentioned in this chapter happened to them, upon 
their seeing “the abomination of desolation standing in the 
holy place,” or soon after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
hath been already shown; and that Justin Martyr saith 
nothing of any such remarkable conversion of them hath 
been also proved. 

That there might be some conversion of them in the 
reign of Trajan, is by some argued from the words of Euse- 
blus; “that Justus,* then bishop of Jerusalem, was one of 
the many myriads or thousands of the circumcision which 
then had believed.” Yet is this testimony of no force, as to 
this matter; for, (1.) grammarians well know that μύρια and 
μυριάδες, when put indefinitely, do only signify, many : now 
if the πόσαι μυριάδες, the “many myriads,’ mentioned by 
James, hindered not, but that the Jewish converts might be 
only a “little remnant,” in respect to the blinded Jews, this 
may be as true of the ὅσαι μυριάδες, the “so many my- 
riads” of Eusebius ; especially if we consider that most of 
them might be the very persons mentioned by James, he 
carefully informing us that the whole church of Jerusalem, 
under her fifleen bishops of Jerusalem, of which this 
Justus was the eleventh, was made up of “ believers who had 
continued from the apostles’ time till the wars and siege 
under Hadrian ;” and speaking of these persons, not as men 
believing then, but as πεπιστευκότες, “men who had before 
that time embraced the Christian faith.’ And hence Ruf- 
finust makes no mention of these supposed myriads, but 
only saith, “that Justus, being one of those of the circum- 
cision who had embraced the faith of Christ, was made their 
bishop.” In a word, this very Eusebius concurring so ex- 
actly with the sentiments of all other fathers, that the Jews 
were then rejected, and lay under a curse, and proving from 
this very apostle, and from the words contained in the be- 
ginning of this very chapter, that they should generally fall 
and be rejected for their unbelief, σπανίων ἐξ αὐτῶν εἰς τὸν 
σωτῆρα καὶ Κύριον ἡμῶν πιστευσάντων, “a very few of them 
only believing ;”+ and that “after the coming in of all na- 
tions to the Christian faith, they did not yet see or under- 
stand ;”§ he cannot be supposed to mention any thing which 
answers to the conversion of the Jews intended in this 
chapter, but must, with us, refer that to that glorious time 
when the prophecies|| shall more fully (saith he) be fulfilled; 
i. e. the time when the fullness mentioned by the apostle 
shall come in. This being therefore all that hath been 
pleaded for the remarkable conversion of the Jews, after the 


* Tis ἐν “Ἱεροσολύμοις ἐπισκοπῆς τὸν ϑρύνον "lovdatés τις ὄνομα 
᾿Ιοῦστος, μυρίων ὅσων ἐκ περιτομῆς eis τὸν Xpicrév τηνικαῦτα 
πεπιστευκότων, εἷς καὶ αὐτὸς ὧν, διαδέχεται. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. 
cap. 35. 

+ Justus quidam ex his qui de cireumcisione ad fidem 
Christi venerunt, episcopatum suscepit. 

+ Demonst. Evang. lib. ii. p. 62, B, et passim. 

§ Lib. ix. p. 455, A, B. 

|| Ἔσται ἐὲ πληρεστάτη ἡ προφητεία συμπερασϑήσεται, 
ἐπὰν τὸ πλήιωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν εἰσέλθη τὸ πρὸς τοῦ ἱεροῦ ἀποστόλου 


δεδηλωμένον Jil, ix. p. 458, D. 


ὅτι 


A DISCOURSE OF THE 


writing this epistle; and this all being almost nothing, and 
far from bearing any correspondence to the comprehensive 
words of the apostle on that subject; I conclude that no 
conversion of this nature happened to them, between the 
writing this epistle and the times of Constantine. 

And whereas it is said that this conversion should be 
wrought in them by way of emulation, and that they should 
lay hold of the faith, being provoked so to do by seeing the 
gentiles believe, it is confessed that the apostle represents 
this a fit means to work this emulation in them; but it is 
as certain that it hath not yet had the designed effect upon 
them, they being so far from being provoked to embrace the 
Christian faith, by seeing the gentiles admitted to it, that 
this was to them the great stumbling-block, and they were 
“enemies to the gospel for their sakes,” ver. 28, they being 
prejudiced against it, because the gentiles were admitted to 
the blessing of it without circumcision, and observance of 
the law of Moses: see note on Gal. iii. 4, vi. 12. This is 
that prejudice of the Judaizing Christians which the apostle 
labours to remove in most of his epistles, but more especially 
in that to the Galatians; and as for the unbelieving Jews, 
they could not endure to hear of any to be sent for the con- 
verting of the gentiles, Acts xxii. 21, 22, but they persecuted 
the apostles upon this account, “forbidding them to preach 
to the gentiles that they might be saved,” 1 Thess. ii. 16. 
And the same enmity to the Christians seems to continue to 
this day among them upon the same accounts. 

Wherefore there having been as yet, so far as we are able 
to discern, no such remarkable conversion of the Jews, since 
the inditing this epistle, and no such happy emulation of the 
converted gentiles, as did provoke them to embrace the 
Christian faith, this could not be, as here tie doctor doth 
suggest, a confirmation of faith to the gentiles, and much 
less a means to bring them all to receive it, or to convert 
the gentiles over all the world. And what records and histo- 
ries make the least mention of any such conversion of the 
gentile world, on the account of the remarkable conversion 
of the Jews after the writing this epistle? When came in 
such a fullness of the unbelieving Jews, as was the riches of 
the world? ver. 12, or such a reception of them to the 
Christian faith, as was unto them life from the dead? ver. 
15, Or how can these assertions be reconciled to the words 
of the apostle? or, if the coming in of the fullness of the 
gentiles be their receiving the faith in those times, then the 
partial blindness of the Jews must cease in those times also ; 
for “blindness,” saith the apostle, “hath happened to the 
Jews in part,” and that blindness is to continue only « till 
the fullness of the gentiles shall come in:” if then the 
blindness of the Jews is not yet ceased, but they have gene- 
rally continued, even from the time of writing this epistle, 
to this very moment, in as much blindness and obduracy as 
they then lay under, and as much branches broken off as 
now they are, it follows, that the fullness of the gentiles, 
mentioned by the apostle, is not yet come in. 

Lastly, The mystery mentioned ver. 25 cannot be this, 
that, by occasion of the infidelity of the Jews, the gospel 
was preached to, and received of the gentiles; for of this 
the apostle introduceth the believing gentiles speaking thus, 
ver. 19,“'Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, 
that I might be graffed in,” &c. This therefore could not 
be to them a mystery. Nor could it be this, viz. that this 
was done in mercy to the Jews, viz. that they, by seeing the 
gentiles believe, might at length be provoked to do so too, 
For of this the apostle had spoken twice, declaring it to be 
foretold by Moses, saying, “I will provoke you to jealousy 
by them that are no people,” x. 19. And in this chapter, 
saying, “ Through their fall salvation is come to the gentiles, 
to provoke them to jealousy,” ver. 11. It remains then, as 
the apostle and the primitive church from him declare, that 
it be this, that when the time for the fullness, i. e. for the 
conversion of the still heathen gentiles is come in, then shall 
the blindness of the Jews be removed, and so “all Israel 
shall be saved ;” and then “all nations shall flow in unto 
them,” and their reception shall be to the gentiles “as life 
from the dead.” 

I think I have said what is sufficient to show these words 
cannot admit the sense imposed upon them by the reverend 
Dr. Hammond; I proceed now more largely to discuss the 
proper import of that phrase, “The fullness of the gentiles 


CALLING OF THE JEWS. 


shall come in.” This is by some interpreted thus, Blindness 
hath happened to the Jews, till the fall number of the gen- 
tiles, which God shall call, be completed. But this sense is 
contrary to the express words of the apostle, who declares 
there shall be a greater and more glorious conversion of the 
gentiles than that which happened by occasion of their fall, 
that their fullness should be much more the riches of the 
gentiles than their fall was, ver. 12, and that their coming 
in should be unto the gentiles “as life unto the dead,” and 
should much more enrich them than their casting off, 
ver. 15, 

Note therefore, that there is a double fullness of the gen- 
tiles mentioned in the holy scriptures : 

First, That which is spoken of ver. 12, in these words, 
«Tf the diminution of them was the fullness of the gentiles ;” 
and this consisted in the preaching of the gospel to all na- 
tions, and the imparting the glad tidings of salvation to 
them, and was, in a great measure, to be accomplished be- 
fore the destruction of Jerusalem, and the ruin of that 
church and nation, according to our Lord’s prediction, in 
these words, “The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached 
in all the world for a witness to all nations, and then shall 
the end come,” Matt. xxiv. 14, Mark xiii. 10. 

Secondly, There is to be another fullness of the gentiles 
by a more glorious conversion of them, and coming in of 
those nations which have not hitherto embraced the gospel, 
or have relapsed into heathenism or Mahometism, to be ef- 
fected when this rejection of the Jews shall cease, and God 
shall send the “ Deliverer out of Zion, to tur away iniquity 
from Jacob:” and of this only can we understand those 
words of the apostle, ver. 12, “If the fall of the Jews hath 
been (already) the riches of the (gentile) world, and the 
diminution of them the riches of the gentiles, how much 
more shall their fullness,” i. e. the time of their conversion, 
be the increase and fullness of the same gentiles? And, 
ver. 15, “If the casting away of them be reconciling of 
the world, what shall the receiving them again be (to the 
same world), but even as life, from the dead?” And ver. 
25, “Blindness in part hath happened to the Jews, till the 
fullness of the gentiles shall come in.” This blindness there- 
fore still continuing upon them, as much as ever, another 
fullness of the gentiles is to be expected, when it entirely 
shall be removed from them, and so “all Israel shall be 
saved.” 

Secondly, Jerusalem is yet trodden down of the nations, 
and the Jews are yet captives in all nations, whereas the 
captivity and the treading down of Jerusalem is to cease 
when the times of the gentiles are fulfilled; according to 
those words of Christ concerning the destruction of the 
Jews, “They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall 
be carried captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be 
trodden down, till the times of the gentiles be fulfilled” 
(Luke xxi. 24); i.e. till the times when they shall have a 
plenary conversion by the coming in of the Jews, and shall 
no more lord it over them, as now they do, but serve them, 
and “flow in unto them.” And to this purpose let it be 
noted, 

First, That, if we consult ancient prophecies concerning 
the vast extent of our Saviour’s kingdom over all nations, 
we shall find reason to believe they had not yet had their 
full accomplishment upon them ; for he hath not yet had the 
“uttermost parts of the earth for his possession” (Ps. ii. 
8); God hath not yet made “all people, nations, and lan- 
guages, to serve him,” and “all dominions to obey him” 
(Dan. vii. 4. 27) ; he hath not yet “filled the whole earth,” 
or “broke in pieces and consumed all other kingdoms” 
. ii. 34, 35). That seems not yet fulfilled which was 

oretold by Micah, that “the Lord should be king over all 
the earth’ (Micah v. 4), and by Zechariah, that “there 
should be but one Lord, and his name one” (Zech. xiv. 9) ; 
and by David, that “all kings shall fall down before him, and 
all nations serve him;” that “all the ends of the earth 
should remember, and turn to the Lord, and all the kindreds 
of the nations worship before him” (Ps. lxxii. 8). These, 
and sundry other such-like prophecies there are, which yet 
were never accomplished according to the full import of 
them. For, as Brerewood observes,* “If we divide the 


* Inquir. ch. 14, p. 118. 
Vor. [V.—76 


601 


known regions of the world into thirty equal parts, the 
Christians’ part is (only) as five, the Muhometans’ as six, the 
idolaters’ as nineteen Ὁ whence we have reason to conclude, 
That there is yet a time to come, before the consummation 
of all things, in which our Saviour will yet once more display 
the victorious banner of his cross; and, like a mighty man of 
war, march on, conquering and to conquer, till he hath con- 
founded or converted his enemies, and finally consummated 
his victories in a glorious triumph over all the powers of the 
earth, and made “all nations, tongues, and languages, to 
serve him.” 

Secondly, That there is still to be a glorious conversion of 
the Jewish nation, as it seems evident from the words of the 
apostle here, who speaketh of a time when the partial blind- 
ness which then had happened to the Jews, and still con- 
tinues upon them, should cease; when God would “turn 
away ungodliness from Jacob,” and “ take away (the punish- 
ment of) their sins,” which yet he hath not done; when not 
a little remnant only, as at our Lord’s first advent, but “ all 
Israel shall be saved Ὁ when that Israel, whose minds were 
then, and still are blinded by the veil that is upon them, 
shall have that veil taken away by their turning to the Lord. 
So also from those prophecies of the Old Testament, which 
promise to that nation such kindness, favour, and salvation, 
as either hath not been at all as yet, or but imperfectly ful- 
filled; as when he promiseth to bless her with such bless- 
ings as never should be taken from her, and to show mercy 
to her, so as never to forsake her more. ‘To this effect are 
these expressions: “As I have sworn that the waters of 
Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn 
that I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee (any 
more) ; for the mountains shall depart, and the hills be re- 
moved, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither 
shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, 
that hath mercy on thee,” Isa. liv. 9,10. “And the Re- 
deemer shall come to Zion, and to them that turn from 
transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my 
covenant with them, saith the Lord; my Spirit that is upon 
thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall 
not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy 
seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, from hence- 
forth and for ever,” Isa. lix. 20, 21. “I will make thee an 
eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. Violence 
shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction 
within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, 
and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light 
by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto 
thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, 
and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, 
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be 
thy everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be 
ended,” Isa. Ix. 15. 18—20. “ Everlasting joy shall be unto 
them, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them,” 
Isa. Ixi. 7, 8. “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, 
neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate, but 
thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah; for 
the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy Jand shall be married,” 
Isa. xii. 4. 12. «I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my 
people ; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in 
her, nor the voice of crying,” Isa. Ixv. 19. “ For as the new 
heavens and new earth, which I will make, shall remain be- 
fore me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name 
remain,” Isa. Ixvi. 22. “And I will give them one heart, 
and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good 
of them, and of their children after them. And I will make 
an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away 
from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their 
hearts, and they shall not depart from me,” Jer. xxxii. 39, 
40. “And they shall be no more a prey to the heathen, 
neither shall the beasts of the land devour them; but they 
shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. And 
I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be 
no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the 
shame of the heathen any more,” Ezek. xxxiv. 28, 29. “ And 
they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my 
servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt, and they shall 
dwell therein, even they and their children and their child- 
ren’s children for ever; and my servant David shall be 
their prince for ever. Moreover, I will make a covenant of 


602 


peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with 
them ; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set 
my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My ta- 
bernacle shall be with them; yea, I will be their God, and 
they shall be my people,” Ezek. xxxvii. 25—27. «I have 
gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of 
them any more there: neither will I hide my face any more 
from them,” Ezek. xxxix. 28, 29. “And I will plant them 
upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of 
their land, which I have given them, saith the Lord thy 
God,” Amos ix. 15. 

Now it seems very evident, that scarcely any of these 
things can be applied to the return of the Jews from their 
captivity in Babylon. For, since that time, his kindness 
hath departed from them, and his covenant of peace hath 
been removed for above one thousand six hundred years; 
violence hath been heard in their land, wasting and destruc- 
tion within their borders, and their land hath been made 
desolate; the days of wrath, of mourning, and of weeping, 
have been long upon them; their sun hath been, according 
to our Lord’s prediction, darkened, and their moon hath not 
given her light; their sanctuary and tabernacle have been 
consumed, and they have been a prey to the heathen ; they 
have long since ceased to be his people, and he to be their God. 

Nor can we reasonably confine these promises to that 
little remnant which believed in the times of the apostles, 
for they were never gathered out of all lands, nor did they 
inherit the land for ever, but were banished thence, as well 
as the unbelieving Jews, by Hadrian; they can in no pro- 
priety of speech be styled « the house of Israel,” the “ whole 
house of Israel.” Nothing, indeed, seems more unlikely, 


PREFACE TO THE 


than that the time of the casting them off, the breaking of 
the branches, the leaving them under a spiritual slumber, 
the taking the kingdom from them, and casting them out 
into utter darkness, should be the time of the completion 
of these glorious promises ; and that this sense cannot accord 
with the discourse of our apostle here, hath been already 
shown. 

Nor, Thirdly, Can we apply these promises to the believing 
gentiles ; for sure they could not be “a prey to the heathens,” 
or “bear their shame,” or be the people whom God hath 
led into captivity, and after gathered into their own land, 
and so planted there as never to be plucked up again; the 
promise could not be made to them, that they should “ suck 
the breasts and eat the riches of the gentiles.” 

Fourthly, I have already shown from scripture prophe- 
cies, that, after this conversion, the nations generally “shall 
flow into them, and walk in their light,” and so their fullness 
(which signifies not their incorporation into another church, 
but as the opposite words, their fall, their diminution, their 
rejection, require, and as the apostle doth himself interpret 
it, their reception to the Christian faith, and so into the 
favour of God) shall be the riches of the gentiles, and “as 
life from the dead” to them: then the gentiles “shall come 
to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising ; 
and nations that have not known them shall run in unto 
them, because God hath glorified them. Then,” saith God, 
«JT will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come 
and see my glory,” Isa. lv. 5, lvi., Ixvi. 18. 22. Then “all 
nations shall turn, and fear the Lord truly,” saith Tobit, 
xiii. 10,11. And this I conceive to be that fullness of the 
gentiles of which the apostle here speaketh. ; 


THE 


FIRST EPISTLE TO 


THE CORINTHIANS, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


5.1. Tuar this was an epistle written by Paul the apostle, 
as is asserted, i. 1, was never doubted in the church of God; 
but whether this was the first epistle of Paul to the Corin- 
thians, hath been a matter of dispute; because he saith 
in it, “I have written to you in an epistle,” (v. 9), which 
seemeth plainly to relate to some epistle formerly by him 
writ to them: for this, saith Pseud-Ambrosius, was spoken | 
de preterita epistoli quam ante hanc, que prima dicitur, | 
scripserat. But, as I have observed in the note upon that 
verse, no fathers ever ascribed to St. Paul more than four- 
teen epistles, including that to the Hebrews. Eusebius ne- 
ver mentions any ¢hird epistle to the Corinthians, amongst 
the true, controverted, or spurious writings which pass under 
his name: no Christian writer ever cited any thing from this | 
supposed epistle: all the Greek scholiasts declare the apos- 
tle speaketh in those words, not of another, but of this very 
epistle, which is sufficient to justify the version I have given 
of those words, “I had written,” or “was writing in this 
epistle.” Moreover, his supposed epistle to Laodicea is 
cited as a book exploded by Jerome;* his epistles to Seneca 


* V. Paulus in Catal. Script. Eccl. 


ΤΥ. Seneca, ibid. et St. Aug. Ep. ad Maced. 54. p. 
254, B. 


are in like manner cited by Jerome and Austin ;} tae Acts 
of Paul are cited and rejected by Origen and Eusebius,* 
but none of them makes any mention of more than two 
epistles to the church of Corinth. 

§.2. That this epistle was written by Paul whilst he was 
at Ephesus, and before he went thence to Macedonia, is clear 
from the very words of this epistle: for xvi. 8, he saith, «I 
will tarry still at Ephesus till pentecost;” and adds, ver. 19, 
“The churches of Asia” (of which Ephesus was the metro- 
polis) “salute you; Aquila and Priscilla salute you, with 
the church which is in their house.” Now that they dwelt 
at Ephesus we read Acts xviii. 25. That it was writ before he 
went thence into Macedonia, these words inform us, xvi. 5, 
«JT will come to you when I pass through Macedonia; for I 
do pass through Macedonia.’ It is therefore generally 
agreed, that it was written in the fifty-seventh, as Dr. Pear- 
son, or in the fifty-fifth year of Christ, as Dr. Lightfoot hath 
it. As also may be probably concluded thus: In the ninth 
year of Claudius, saith Orosiys, in the tenth, say others, in 
the twelfth, saith Dr. Pearson, the Jews were banished from 
Rome, and St. Paul, coming into Corinth, finds Aquila and 
Priscilla newly come from thence to Corinth, upon that oc- 
casion (Acts xviii. 2) : he stays there a year and a half (ver. 
11), that is, till the eleventh of Claudius, at Ephesus three 
years (Acts xx. 31) ; and at the close of these three years he 


* Orig. Περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν, lib. i. cap. 2, f. 114, D, Euseb. Eccles. 
Hist. lib, iii. cap. 3 et cap. 25. 


FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 


writes this epistle. If then you begin this banishment of 
the Jews from Rome, as Valesius doth, in the tenth of Clau- 
dius, these five years that Paul continued at Corinth and 
Ephesus will end in the first of Nero, A. D. 55: if, with Dr. 
Pearson, you begin them only at the twelth of Claudius, they 
will end in the third of Nero, A. 1). 57. 

§, 3. That the persons to whom it was written were chiefly 
gentiles, is evident from these words, « Ye know that ye were 
gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, even as ye were led” 
(xii. 2): that it was also written to the Jewish converts then 
at Corinth, Esthius conjectures, because he saith (x. 1) that 
“all our fathers were under the cloud.” But it is not neces- 
sary that should relate to their fathers according to the flesh, 
but only to the preceding church of God called before them 
out of Egypt, and partaking of like privileges with them: for 
the apostle declares, that “not they who are the children of 
the flesh are counted for the seed, but they who are the child- 
ren of the promise” (Rom. ix. 8); and that the promise 
belonged not only to the seed according to the law, but 
“according to the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us 
all,’ Rom. iv. 16 (see Gal. iii. 14. 29, iv. 28). 

§. 4. The occasions of writing this epistle we may best 
learn from the ancients, and from the epistle itself. 

First, then, The ancients inform us of this city, that “ Co- 
rinth was full of rhetoricians* and philosophers, and that they 
gave occasion to most of those miscarriages which the apos- 
tle reprehends in this epistle.” 

Secondly, That there weret “Judaizers crept in among 
them, who magnified themselves, and debased the apostle as 
a great boaster, but of little worth, styling him an apos- 
tate from the law, and commanding the observation of it to 
them. 

Thirdly, They add, that the “city of Corinth was very 
rich,} and that some of them chose themselves teachers out 
of the rich, as being most able to support them, as others did 
out of the philosophers, as being most able to teach them 
more than the apostle could do.” 

Fourthly, hey say, that “the Corinthians sent questions 
to Paul,§ concerning marriage and virginity, by Stephanas, 
Fortunatus, and Achaicus, ty whom the apostle more fully 
was informed of the state of their church; and therefore sent 
his answer to them concerning these several heads.” 

And, suitable to these things mentioned by the ancients, 
we find, 

First, That the apostle spends the latter part of the first 
chapter, from ver. 20 to the end, in showing the vanity of 
the wisdom which the philosophers pretended to, in compa- 
rison to the wisdom discovered by the gospel preached by the 
apostles. And, chapter the second, he shows the impos- 
sibility of knowing or assenting to the things delivered by 
the gospel, by those who, depending on philosophy and 
human reason, rejected what was taught purely by revelation, 
and consequently the necessity of admitting that revelation 
of the Spirit they challenged to themselves, that the doc- 
trine of the gospel might be made known to the world. And 


* Ἢ δὲ καὶ ῥητύρων πολλῶν ἔμπλεος ἡ πύλις καὶ φιλοσόφων" ἔνιοι 
γὰρ αὐτῶν οὐ σφόδρα ἐπίστευον ἀνάστασιν εἶναι σωμάτων, τὰ τῆς 
᾿Ἑλληνικῆς μωρίας ἔτι νοσοῦντες, καὶ γὰρ ἅπαντα ταῦτα ἀπὸ τῆς κατὰ 
τὴν φιλοσοφίαν τὴν ἔξωθεν dvoias ἐτίκτετο, καὶ αὔτη ἦν τῶν κακῶν ἢ 
pirnp. Chrysost. et Theoph. Pref. in hane Epist. 

Καὶ γὰρ ἦσαν παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἐξ ᾿Ιουδαίων μέγα φρονοῦντες, καὶ 
Παῦλον διαβάλλοντες, ὡς ἁλάζονα καὶ οὐδενὸς ἄξιον λόγου. Chrys. 
Prefat. in Secundam Epist. Τινὲς τῶν Ιουδαίων πεπιστευκότων 
τὴν νομικὴν ἀσπαζόμενοι πολιτείαν πάντοσε περινοσοῦντες τὴν ἀποστο- 
λικὴν διδασκαλίαν διέβαλλον, ἀποστάτην καὶ παράνομον τὸν ϑεσπέσιον 
Παῦλον ἀποκαλοῦντες, καὶ φυλάττειν ἅπασι τὸν νόμον παρεγγυῶντες. 
Theod. Prefat. in Secundam Epist. 

+ Ἢ Κόρινθος πολλῷ πλούτῳ καὶ σοφία κομῶσα, ἐπίστευσε μὲν τῷ 
Χριστῷ: Sere πλούσιοι ἰδίας συμμορίας ἐποιῆσαντο, καὶ of σοφοὶ 
αὖ ἰδίας. Chrysost. Theodor. Theoph. πΠαρασκευάζει τινὰς ἐκ 
τῶν παρὰ σφίσι πλουσίων καὶ φιλοσόφων αὐτοχειροτονήτους προστατεῖν 
τοῦ δημοῦ ἐν τοῖς πνευματικοῖς πράγμασιν, ὡς λοιπὸν τοῦ λαοῦ πολλσὺς 
τοὺς μὲν τοῖς πλουσίοις ὡς δυνατοῖς προσχωρῆσαι, τοῦ dé τοῖς φιλοσό- 
dots ὡς πλέον διδάσκειν δυναμένοις παρὰ τὴν τοῦ ἀποστόλου διδαχήν. 
Theod. apud CEcum. 

§ Περὶ γάμου καὶ rapSevias, περὶ τῶν eidwroStrwy, περὶ τῶν 
πυευματικῶν χαρισμάτων, καὶ λοιπὸν περὶ ἀναστάσεως. CEcum. 


Theodoret. 


603 


against both the rhetoricians and philosophers, he shows the 
necessity of preaching the gospel, “ ποῖ in the words of hu- 
man wisdom,” i. 17—19, ii. 1, iii. 18, 19, 28, iv. 20. 

Secondly, Because on the account of those philosophers 
and rhetoricians, as well as of the Judaizers, they broke out 
into parties and factions, he reminds them of those factions, 
beseeching them carefully to avoid them, i. 10, as tending to 
the dividing of Christ’s body, ver. 13, and as indications 
that they were “yet carnal,” iii. 4, pursuing this under his 
own name, and that of Apollos, through the whole third 
chapter ; showing that they ought not to glory in men, or be 
puffed up for one against another, whatever were their gifts 
or eloquence, but give the glory of their Jabours unto God 
alone (see iv. 8). 

Thirdly, Because they, who declared they were of Ce- 
phas, seem to be those Judaizers who looked on the apos- 
tle as unfaithful in his office, for rejecting the circumcision 
and the law, he declares that he found no occasion thus to 
charge himself, nor was he much concerned for their censures 
of him in that kind, iv. 4, 5, showing, by his sufferings, how 
great an evidence he had given of his fidelity in the dis- 
charge of his office, from ver. 9 to the 14th, and that he had 
begotten them to that faith in which they ought to stand, 
and follow his example, from ver. 14 to the 17th: and be- 
cause, he having sent Timothy to them, they imagined he 
either durst not or would not come to them himself, he de- 
clares he would both come and use his apostolical authority 
amongst them, and try the power of them who were thus 
puffed up against him by reason of their human wisdom. 

Fourthly, Because one of these eloquent persons had been 
guilty of a very heinous crime, he commands them to pu- 
nish him by removing him from their society, and delivering 
him up to Satan. And, 

Fifthly, Because being rich and wealthy (iv. 8), they were 
unwilling to part with their wealth, and therefore went to 
law, for preservation of it, before heathen judges, to the scan- 
dal of Christianity, he reprehends this vice in them, ch. vi. 
from ver. 1 to the 10th; and having said all this by way of 
preface, he begins, ch. vii., to return his answer to the ques- 
tions they had sent unto him. 

§.5. There is one farther observation useful for, and 
worthy to be pondered by, the licentious persons of our age, 
that because fornication and Jasciviousness were vices to 
which the heathens were generally addicted, and their phi- 
losophers, and perhaps some heretics, viz. the Nicolaitans, 
which were amongst them, maintained this was a thing in- 
different, therefore the apostle, both in the Epistles to the 
Corinthians, and to most other churches, is very copious 
in showing the destructive nature of this sin. It is to be 
observed, that Corinth was, above all other cities, even to 
a proverb, infamous for fornication and lasciviousness, so that 
Κορινϑία γυνὴ, “a Corinthian woman,” is, in the language of 
the ancients, a whorish woman, according to the proverb @ 
Κορινθία ἔοικας XorporwAroetv,T Ut Corinthia videris corpore 
questum factura: and Κορινϑιάζειν, Κορινϑιάζεσϑαι, 15 ἕται- 
ρεύειν, scortationibus indulgere (Hesych. Phavor.). There 
was, saith Strabo,+ in it a temple dedicated to Venus, which 
πλείους ἢ χιλίας ἱεροδούλους ἐκέκτητο ἑταίρας. These vices also 
reigned in Galatia, the worshippers of “the mother of the 
gods ;” in Ephesus (see note on Eph. v. 5), Thessalonica, 
Crete (Atheneus, lib. xii. p. 527, A. 528, C.), and generally 
in all heathen nations. Hence the apostle is so frequent and 
express in his condemning this vice: 

First, As a sin contrary to nature, as being against our own 
body (1 Cor. vi. 18): a sin of unrighteousness, to which 
God gave them up for their idolatry (Rom. 1. 28); and a 
sin, which they who committed, were “given up to a repro- 
bate mind,’’ and knew they did things worthy of death (ver. 
29. 32); a sin contrary to the moral law, or to the law of 
nature ; for he declares that law was given for the condemn- 
ing fornicators (1 Tim. i. 10). 

Secondly, As a sin contrary to the Christian faith, and 
inconsistent with it. “Know ye not,” saith he, “that your 
bodies are the members of Christ; shall I then take the 
members of Christ, and make them the members of a har- 
lot? God forbid!” (1 Cor. vi. 15.) And again, “ But forni- 


* Vide Eras. Adag. Cent. 7, p. 633, 720. 
+ Lib. viii. p. 378, Ὁ. 


604 PREFACE TO THE 


cation, and all uncleanness, let it not be once named among 
you, as becometh saints” (Eph. v. 3); “for God hath not 
called us to uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore 
that despiseth this his call, despiseth not man but God, who 
also hath given us of his Spirit” (1 Thess. iv. 7,8). Hence he 
declares it to be contrary to the sound doctrine of the gospel 
(1 Tim. i. 10, 11), and forbids Christians to eat with any 
brother who is a fornicator (1 Cor. v. 11). 

Thirdly, As being a sin which will exclude the fornicator 
from the kingdom of God. ‘Be not deceived,” saith he, 
“no fornicator shall inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. vi. 
10,11). Τὸ the Galatians he speaks thus, “The works of 
the flesh are manifest; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, 
lasciviousness: of which I tell you again, that they who do 
such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. v. 
19—21). To the Ephesians thus, « This know ye, that no 
fornicator, nor unclean person, hath any inheritance in the 
kingdom of Christ, or of God” (John ν. 5). hey, saith 
Jolin, shall’ be excluded from the New Jerusalem (Rev. xxii. 
Τριῶν aes 
Fourthly, As that which will assuredly expose them to 
the wrath of God. For thus he speaks to the Colossians; 
“ Mortify your earthly members, fornication and uncleanness ; 
for which things cometh the wrath of God upon the children 
of disobedience” (Col. iii. 5, 6). Τὸ the Ephesians thus, 
“Be not deceived with vain words, for because of these 
things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobe- 
dience” (Eph. v. 6). 

Fifthly, As that which will subject them to eternal 
punishment. For “whoremongers and adulterers κρινεῖ ὃ 
Θεὸς, God will adjudge to condemnation” (Heb. xiii. 4) : the 
portion of the whoremonger shall be assigned him “in the 
lake that burns with fire and brimstone” (Rey. xxi. 8). 

§. 6. And this is all that I at first intended by way of 
preface to this epistle. But finding that the doctrine of the 
resurrection of the same body which dieth, is now either 
questioned, or thought unnecessary to be believed, though 
anciently the very heathens looked upon it as a fundamental 
doctrine of Christianity, and the ground of their most raised 
hopes; and upon this account they burnt the very bones of 
Christian martyrs, and reduced them to ashes, and then 
threw those ashes into the river Rhodanus, or Rhone, that 
so they might defeat “the hope of a resurrection, which 
enabled the Christians to suffer death with alacrity, and to 
endure all kinds of torments for their religion;’* which 
sure had been a vain attempt had not the Christian doctrine 
promised, as the foundation of their hopes, the resurrection 
of the same body thus consumed, but only of some other 
body in its stead; and seeing the fifteenth chapter of this 
epistle is the seat of that controversy—I shall therefore 
endeavour briefly to evince two things :— 

1, That it was certuinly the received doctrine of the pro- 
fessors of the Christian faith. 

2. That it is truly grounded on the scriptures, and 
therefore ought to be owned as an article of Christian faith. 
And, 

1. That it was certainly the ancient and received doc- 
trine of the orthodox professors of the Christian faith, is 
evident, 

First, From the second epistle of Clemens Romanus, 
writ in the first century ; for there he doth expressly caution 
Christians against the denial of this article, in these words,— 
«Let none of you say that this same flesh shall not be 
judged, for as you were called in the flesh, so shall you come 
in the flesh to judgment, and in this very flesh shall you re- 
ceive your reward.” And in his First Epistle, to prove that 
God will raise them from the dead, who have served him 
in holiness, he cites those words from Job xix. 25, 26, 
ἀναστήσεις τὴν σάρκά pov ταύτην, “Thou wilt raise up this my 
flesh, which hath suffered all these things.” 


Secondly, From Ireneus,* who in the second century 
makes this one article of faith of the whole church received 
from the apostles, and kept, taught, and delivered in all 
places with the greatest care and uniformity; viz. that 
Christ will come from heaven in glory, ἀναστῆσαι πᾶσαν 
σάρκα πάσης ἀνθρωπότητος, “to raise up all flesh of all man- 
kind.” Tertullian, in the third century, producing the 
Christian’s creed as the rule of faith, which came from 
Christ, and was by his companions handed down to the 
church, “ the institution of Christ, which all nations ought to 
believe,” makes this one article of it, that “ Christ will come 
to judge the quick and dead ;” facta utriusque partis resus- 
citatione cum carnis restitutione, or per carnis resurrectionem, 
“by raising and restoring of their flesh.” Accordingly, the 
article of the resurrection of the flesh ;” or, as the Aquileian 
Symbol hath it, hujus carnis, “of this flesh ;” or, as other 
confessions have it, “of their bodies,” hath been received in 
all Christian churches. And they have been condemned as 
heretics from the beginning of the second century, who de- 
nied σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν, “the resur-ection of the flesh; et 
carnis salutem et regenerationem ejus, dicentes non eam 
capacem esse incorruptibilitatis,§ “the life and reproduction 
of the flesh, saying, it was incapable of incorruption ;” as 
did the Valentinians,|| the Basilidians, and the Marcionites, 
say the fathers. 

§. 7. I proceed, secondly, to show, that this doctrine of 
the primitive Christians is truly grounded on the scriptures, 
and therefore ought to be received and owned as an article 
of Christian faith. This I prove, 

1. From all those places which speak of the resurrection 
of the body; these places I shall produce, for their sakes 
who “do not remember, in any place of the New ‘Testament, 
any such expression as the resurrection of the body ;” v. g. 
“He that raised Jesus from the dead, ζωοποιήσει kai, shall 
also make alive your mortal bodies” (Rom. viii. 11); that is, 
he shall raise them from the dead: for that ζωοποιεῖν and 
ἐγείρειν, to quicken and raise wp, are, with relation to this 
matter, words of the same import, we learn from these 
words: “As the Father, ἐγείρει τοὺς νεκροὺς, καὶ ζωοποιεῖ, 
raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, so the Son ζωοποιεῖ 
quickeneth whom he will” (John v. 21). Again, saith the 
apostle, « How are the dead raised up?” i. 6. the bodies of 
the dead; it follows, καὶ ποίῳ σώματι, “and with what kind 
of bodies do they come” forth of the grave ? (1 Cor. xv. 35.) 
So ver. 44, It is sown a natural body, it is raised σῶμα 
πνευματικὸν, “a spiritual body.” And still more evidently, 
τὸ φϑαρτὸν τοῦτο, “this corruptible (body) must put on in- 
corruption, καὶ τὸ ϑνητὸν τοῦτο, and this mortal (body) must 
put on immortality” (ver. 53). “So when this corruptible 
(body) shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal 
(body) put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass 
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” 
If any one likes not my addition of σῶμα, body, to the pro- 
noun and adjective, four times here mentioned, I desire him 
to find out, if he can, another substantive; if he cannot, he 
must confess the resurrection of the body is here mentioned 
four times: for the apostle argues thus, “The dead shall be 
raised up, det γὰρ, for this corruptible (body) must put on 
incorruption ;” and when this is done, then death, which 
only happens to this corruptible mortal body, “shall be 
swallowed up in victory.” 

It is said, that “he who reads with attention this dis- 
course of Paul, where he speaks of the resurrection, will see 
that he plainly distinguisheth between the dead that shall be 
raised, and the bodies of the dead; for it is νεκροὶ, πάντες of, 
which are the nominative cases to ἐγείρονται, ζωοποιηθήσονται, 
ἐγερθήσονται, all along, and not σώματα, bodies, which one 
may in reason think would somewhere or other have been 
expressed, if all this had been said to propose it as an article 
of faith, that the same bodies shall be raised.” The same 


* "Iva (ὡς ἔλεγον ἐκεῖνοι) μὴ δὲ ἐλπίδα σχώσιν ἀναστάσεως, ἐφ᾽ i 
πεποιϑύτες--------καταφρονοῦσι τῶν δεινῶν, ἕτοιμοι καὶ μετὰ χαρᾶς ἥκον- 
τες ἐπὶ τὸν ϑάνατον. Euseb. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 1, p. 165. 

ἡ Kai ph λεγέτω τις ὑμῶν αὔτη ἡ σὰρξ ov κρίνεται, οὐδὲ 
ἀνίσταται--------ὃν τρόπον γὰρ ἐν τῆ σαρκὶ ἐκλήθητε, καὶ ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ 
ἐλεύσεσϑε----καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐν ταύτη τῇ σαρκὶ ἀποληψόμεθα τὸν μισϑόν. 


Clem. Ep. 2, 8. 9. 36. 


* Lib. i. cap. 2, 3. μ 

+ Apol. cap. 47 de Prescript. cap. 9, 13; de Veland. 
Virg. cap. 1. 

Ἐ Just. in Dial. cum Tryph. p. 307, B. 

§ Iren. lib. ν, cap. 2. 

|| Iren, lib. i. cap. 23, 29. Tertul. de Prescript. cap. 33, 
Theodoret. Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 4, 7. 


FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 


manner of speaking the Spirit of God observes all through 
the New ‘Testament, where it is said, “raise the dead,” 
“quicken” or “make alive the dead,” the “resurrection of 
the dead,” Matt. xxii. 27. 52, John v. 28, 29, Rom. iv. 17, 
2 Cor. i. 9, 1 Thess. iv. 16. 

Ans. I hope the instances produced already are sufficient 
to confute this observation; I shall, therefore, go on farther 
to observe and prove, that the resurrection of the dead is by 
the apostle used with plain relation to the bodies of the dead: 
so that he even proves the resurrection of the dead, because 
the body is raised, and so doth not « plainly distinguish be- 
twixt the dead that shall be raised, and the bodies of the 
dead.” ‘This is evident enough from what I have observed 
already, that the apostle proves of νεκροὶ ἐγερθήσονται, “ the 
dead shall be raised,” because “the corruptible body must 
put on incorruption,” &c. But it is still more evident from 
these words: “So is also ἀνάστασις τῶν νεκρῶν, the resurrec- 
tion of the dead; for it is sown in corruption, it is raised in 
incorruption,” ver. 42, 43, where I desire to know what is 
the nominative case to ἐγείρεται, “it is raised,” used three 
times here? If it be σῶμα, body, I have sufficiently confuted 
this criticism; it be not, why doth the apostle so ex- 
pound it in the immediate ensuing words, “It is sown a 
natural body, ἐγείρεται σῶμα πνευματικὸν, it is raised a spiritual 
body B72, 

I add, that this appears almost from all the places cited, 
that the of νεκροὶ, and the πάντες ἀποθνήσκοντες, “the dead,” 
and “the all dying,” hath relation to the body only, which, 
being that alone which is by death bereft of life, must be that 
only which, in propriety of speech, is said to die. Thus, 
when it is said, “ These very words, urged for the resurrec- 
tion of the same body, run thus, πάντες of ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις, 
‘All that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall 
come forth; they that have done good εἰς ἀνάστασιν ζωῆς, to 
the resurrection of life, but they that have done evil to the 
resurrection of condemnation :’” and is then added, « Would 
not a well-meaning searcher be apt to think, that if the 
thing here intended by our Saviour were to teach and propose 
it as an article of faith, necessary to be believed by every 
one, that the very same bodies of the dead should be raised, 
the words should rather have been πάντα τὰ σώματα ra ἐν 
τοῖς μνημέιος, 1. 6. ‘all the bodies that are in the graves,’ 
rather than ‘all who are in their graves ;’ which must denote 
persons, and not precisely bodies ?” 

To this I answer, (1.) that the words πάντες of ἐν τοῖς 
μνημείοις, i. e. “all that are in the graves,” and πάντα τὰ 
σώματα τὰ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις, “all the bodies that are in the 
graves,” are plainly words of the same import. For what is 
laid down in the graves or sepulchres? is it not σώματα τῶν 
κεκοιμημένων “the bodies of them that sleep” only? (Matt. 
xxvii. 52,) and must it not then be those bodies that come 
forth of them? May we not discern, in the passage now 
cited, how the Holy Ghost passes immediately from the 
bodies of the saints that slept, to their persons, saying, 
“The bodies of the saints that slept arose, καὶ ἐξελθόντες ἐκ 
τῶν μνημείων, and they, coming out of their graves after his 
resurrection, went into the holy city, and appeared unto 
many ?” (ver. 53. 

(2.) When God said to Adam, what was also true of his 
posterity, “In sorrow shalt thou eat thy bread, until thou 
return to the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust 
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. iii. 19) ; 
and the psalmist, of man in general, “ His breath (or spirit) 
goeth forth; he returneth to his earth” (Ps. exlvi. 5): will 
any one be tempted, from these personal demonstrative pro- 
nouns, ‘how and he, to say that these words must denote the 
persons, and not precisely the bedies of men? and thence 
infer, that the whole person of Adam was taken out of the 
earth, and was but dust, and that the whole person of man 
“returneth to his earth?” If not, why is it argued that 
the like pronoun οἱ, ‘hey, must here denote persons, and not 
precisely bodies 2? Are we not told that the word person 
stands for a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and 
reflection, and can consider itself as itself? And can they 
who are in their graves do this? If so, surely they are not 
dead in them, but buried alive: if they cannot, why must 
these words οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις denote persons? 

But it is said, that, “ according to this interpretation of 
these words of our Saviour, no other substance being raised 
but what hears his voice ; and no other substance hearing his 


605 


voice, but what, being called, comes out of the grave ; and no 
other substance coming out of the grave, but what was in the 
grave, any one must conclude that the soul, unless it be 
in the grave, will make no part of the person that is raised.” 

Ans. To this I answer, that any one may reasonably 
hence conclude, that the soul makes no raised part of him 
that is raised, or that it is not called, or raised out of the 
grave, as the body is; but by what logic can we hence con- 
clude it makes no part of the raised person? For instance, 
we profess in our creed to believe that “Jesus Christ died, 
and rose again,” i. e. from the grave: and saith Peter, 
“This Jesus hath God raised up, having loosed the pains of 
death, because it was impossible he should be holden of it” 

Acts ii. 24. 32): now because nothing can be raised from 
the dead but that which died, nothing can be raised from 
the grave but what was laid in it; shall we hence infer, that 
the soul of the Lord Jesus, or his spirit (which he commended 
into his Father’s hands, and which went to paradise), unless 
it died, and was in the grave, could make no part of the per- 
son which was dead, and was raised from the dead, and out 
of the grave? When our Lord says (ver. 28, 29), “They 
that were in the graves shall come forth to the resurrection 
of life ;” and (ver. 25), “The dead shall live :” what can 
live again but that which was dead? What can have a re- 
surrection to life, but that which had no life; and was not 
that the body only? Yea, are not these things said in pur- 
suance of what went before: « As the Father raiseth up the 
dead, and quickeneth (or gives life to) them, even so the 
Son quickeneth whom he will.” Now what can be raised 
from the dead, but that which was dead? What can be 
quickened, or have life given to it, but that which had no 
life? If then that were the body only, must not the raising 
of the dead and quickening them import only the raising 
and quickening of the body, although this be performed 
completely by the union of the soul to the raised body ? 

Secondly, That, in our Saviour’s discourse against the sad- 
ducees, περὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τῶν νεκρῶν, “touching the resur- 
rection of the dead,” he also speaks of raising that which 
was dead, i. e. the body, is evident from this, that he saith 
of them who partake of that resurrection, οὐκ ἔτι divavrac 
ἀποθανεῖν, * They can die no more” (Matt. xxii., Mark xii., 
Luke xx. 35, 36), which can be only spoken of that body 
which died before. 

Thirdly, We read of God τοῦ ζωοποιοῦντος τοὺς νεκροὺς 
“quickening the dead” (Rom. iv. 7). Now what doth he 
quicken, but what was dead? What doth he give life to, 
but that which ceased to have life, that is, the body ? 

Fourthly, Paul saith, « We had in ourselves the sentence 
of death, that we might not trust in ourselves, but in God, 
τῶ ἐγείροντι τοὺς νεκροὺς, Who raiseth the dead” (2 Cor. i. 9). 
Now what was this “sentence of death?” Did Paul and his 
Christian companions believe the whole man should be 
killed by their persecutors? or, as their Lord had taught 
them, that they “could kill the body,” but “could not kill 
the soul?” (Matt. x. 26.) Doth he not say in their names, 
that that which “perished,” or was corrupted, was only ὃ 
ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος, “our outward man” (2 Cor. iv. 16), in op- 
position to the «inward man?” That, whilst they lived, they 
were “at home in the body,” and that at death they did éxén- 
μῆσαι ἐκ τοῦ σώματος, * dwell out of the body” (2 Cor. iv. 16), 
or, as to the soul, were absent from it?) And must not then 
“the sentence of death,” they had in themselves, be only 
this, that their bodies might die by the hands of persecutors 
that their outward man might perish by them? And must 
not then their trust in God, “that raiseth the dead,” relate 
to his raising their dead bodies? 

Fifthly, The dead in Christ that shall be raised (1 Thess. 
iv. 16), are they that sleep (ver. 13. 15), that is, that “sleep 
in the dust” (Dan. xii. 2): now is it not τὰ σώματα, “the 
bodies of the saints” that thus sleep (Matt. xxvii. 52), and 
must not then the apostle speak of them only? [5 not this 
spoken to comfort the Thessalonians, “ concerning them that 
were asleep ?” (ver. 13, 18;) and were they troubled for the 
souls of them that slept in Jesus? (ver. 14;) or doth the 
apostle say any thing to comfort them, but that which relates 
to the body only? And will it not hence follow that what 
he there saith, touching the resurrectien of the dead, con- 
cerneth their dead bodies only ?—Thus have I shown that 
all the places here cited, as speaking of the resurrection of 
the dead, refer to the aac of the bodies, 

A 


606 


§. 8. But farther, had not the scripture so expressly 
spoken of raising our mortal bodies, of raising that “a spiri- 
tual body” which was “sown a natural body,” and proved 
“the dead shall be raised,” because “this corruptible shall 
put on incorruption ;” and could it not be proved, that rais- 
ing of the dead, and of the bodies of the dead, were in import 
the same, this article might be established from other pas- 
sages of scripture, speaking the same thing in effect; as, v. g. 

First, “ We who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan 
within ourselves, expecting υἱοθεσίαν the sonship, even the re- 
demption of our body” (Rom. viii. 23). Now what is this 
redemption τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν, “of our body,” but the de- 
livery of it “from the bondage of corruption?” (ver. 21.) 
What did they “groan” for? It was, saith the same apostle, 
“that mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Cor. v. 4, 
5), which only is to be done “when this mortal body shall 
put on immortality,” saith the same apostle; this therefore 
was to be done to accomplish “the redemption of the body” 
spoken of: and is not then the redemption, and the resur- 
rection of the body, in effect the same? 

Secondly, “We expect that Saviour, the Lord Jesus 
Christ from heaven, who shall change τὸ σῶμα τῆς raze 
νώσεως ἥμων, our vile body into the likeness of his glorious 
body” (Phil. iii. 20,21). ‘The body therefore to be changed 
is σῶμα ἡμῶν, “our body,” “the body of our humiliation,” 
so styled, as Methodius saith, because ταπεινοῦται ἀπὸ σφάλ- 
paros, “it is humbled and made mortal by the fall;” or, as 
Trenzus (lib. v. cap. 13), quod et humiliatur cadens in ter- 
yam, ‘because it is humbled by falling into the earth.” 
This body is therefore to be thus changed when our Lord 
cometh down from heaven, that is, at the resurrection of it; 
for “the Lord shall descend from heaven, and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first” (1 Thess.iv. 16). Is it not therefore 
manifest from these words, that our “vile mortal bodies,” 
fallen into the earth, or laid in it, shall be raised, and by or 
at the resurrection, shall be “changed into the likeness of 
Christ’s glorious body ?”” 

Now hence [ argue for the resurrection of the same body 
thus: If the scripture teacheth that there shall be a “ quick- 
ening,” by raising up “our mortal bodies,” a “ redemption,” 
by the resurrection of our bodies, a “ changing” of our bodies, 
at and by the resurrection, “into the likeness of Christ’s 
glorious body,” it seems sufficiently to say, there shall be a 
resurrection of the same body which before was mortal, and 
change by it, of the same body which was vile, or humble; 
and a redemption by it from corruption, of the same body 
which was formerly “in bondage to corruption;” for all 
this must be said of the same body, or not of the same 
body: if of the same body, then the same body must be 
raised ; if not of the same body, then of another: and how 
then is it said of our body? How are these other bodies, τὰ 
ϑνητὰ σύματα ὑμῶν, “your mortal bodies’ (Rom. viii. 11); 
the redemption of them, “the redemption τοῦ σώματος ἡμῶν" 
the change of them, “the change τοῦ σώματος ταπεινώσεως 
ἡμῶν, of our mortal vile bodies?” 

Secondly, When the apostle saith,* “this corruptible,” 
“this mortal body,” does he mean this body of ours, or does 
he not? If he does mean this mortal, corruptible body of 
ours, then he asserts of that, that it shall be raised immortal 
and incorruptible; if he does not mean it of ours, he 
must mean it of some other body than ours, and how then 
is that “ raised a spiritual body,” which was “sown .a 
natural body ?” How doth “this mortal put on immortal- 
ity?’ How are we concerned in the resurrection of another 
body? Or what assurance doth it give us, that we shall rise 
from the dead, seeing, when any of us departs this life, it is 
our body that dies, and not another’s? Yea, why then doth 
he say, “The dead shall rise, and we,” that are living, “shall 
be changed ?”—« We shall all be changed;” i. e. “our 
vile bodies shall be changed into the likeness of Christ’s 
glorious body ?” our mortal bodies into immortal; our natu- 
ral bodies shall be changed by being raised spiritual bodies, 

"eu 

* Cum dicit istud corruptivum et istud mortale, cutem 
ipsam tenens dicit. Certé istud nisi de comparenti pronun- 
tiésse non potuit : demonstrationis corporalis est verbum. 
Tertull. de Resurrect. Carn. cap. 51. 

‘Opds τὴν ἀκρίθειαν, τὸ ϑνητὸν τοῦτο ἔδειξε δεικτικῶς, ἵνα μὴ 
ἄλλης νομίσης σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν. ‘Theod. ibid. 


PREFACE TO THE 


Let any man try his utmost skill, and see if he can find any 
nominative case to σπείρεται, “ itis sown,” used here four times, 
but σῶμα, body, or understand this of any other body than 
ours: seeing then the same word is the nominative case to 
ἐγείρεται, “it is raised,’ which was so to σπείρεται, “it is 
sown,” the apostle must be supposed to say, this body of ours 
is raised in incorruption. 

§. 9. Arg. 2. To proceed to other scriptures of like im- 
port: “All that are in their graves shall come forth,” saith 
Christ, ἐκπορεύσανται ἐκ τῶν μνημείων, “they shall-come out of 
the graves in which they were” (John v. 28, 29). Shail 
they come forth with the same body which was laid in the 
grave, or with another? If with the same, then the same 
body must be raised ; if with another, how came these graves 
to be called their graves, and how are the dead, and they 
that are in the graves, raised out of them, and not another? 

Again, when it is said, « The sea gave up the dead, ἐν ai τῇ 
in it, and death and hades, (the place of the dead,) gave up 
the dead in them” (Rev. xx. 13): did they give up the 
same bodies which were laid down in them, or some others ? 
The first is the thing contended for: if they gave up some: 
others, how did they give up the dead that were laid down 
in them? 

To say that “a greater part of these dead bodies possibly 
may have undergone variety of changes, and entered into 
other concretions, even in the bodies of other men,” is to 
me no objection against the raising of the same body, if God 
hath engaged so to do; for then, as he is able, so is his pro- 
vidence concerned to prevent the entering of one body so 
into the concretion of another, as to hinder it from being 
the same body when raised, as it was when laid down in the 
sea, or grave; and I know “what he hath promised he is 
able to perform.” 

Lastly, Even the phrase “the resurrection of the dead,”’* 
and especially the resurrection ἐκ νεκρῶν, “from the dead,” 
used Col. i. 18, Rev. 1. 15, where Christ is styled “ the first- 
born of those that.arise from the dead,” proves this. For 
the proper notion of a resurrection consists in this, that it is 
a substantial change, by which that which was before, and 
died, or was corrupted, is reproduced the same thing again. 
I call it a change of that which died, or was corrupted, dis- 
junctively, because in the resurrection of our Lord, and of 
Lazarus, and others whom he raised from the dead, the body 
was not corrupted. Hence it follows, 

(1.) That the soul, which is immortal and incorruptible, 
cannot be said to rise again, resurrection implying a repro- 
duction; whereas that which, after it was, never ceased to 
be what it was, cannot be reproduced; and so the resurrec- 
tion of the dead} can only signify the resurrection of the 
bodies of the dead, with the reunion of them to those souls 
to which they were before united, which makes this resur- 
rection advance into a resurrection of life. And seeing that 
which never fell cannot be said to be raised up, that which 
did never die cannot be restored from death; men cannot 
properly be said to rise again from the dead, but in respect 
to that part, or that state, which had.fallen and was dead. 
And as for a man to be born at first signifies the production 
and union of the essential parts of an individual man, his 
body and his soul: so to be born again, or born from the 
dead, implies the restitution and reunion of his body and 
his soul; a man only by that becoming the same entire per- 
son which he was before. Seeing therefore it is acknow- 
ledged, that “the same persons shall be raised,’ yea, that 
“there can be nothing plainer than that in the scripture it is 


* Resurrectionis vocabulum non aliam rem vendicat quam 
que cecidit: surgere enim potest dici et quod omnino non 
cecidit, sed semper retro jacuit; resurgere autem non est 
nisi ejus quod cecidit; iteriam enim surgendo, quia cecidit, 
resurgere dicitur. Tertull. advers, Mare. lib. v. cap. 9. 

᾿Ανάστασις yap ob καλεῖται τοῦ μὴ πεπτωκότος. Epiph. Her. 
67, sect. 6. 

Τ ᾿Ανάστασις yap ἡ ἀνωϑεν στάσις, τὸ σῶμα dé ἐστι τὸ φθειρύμενον, 
καὶ διαλυόμενον" τούτου τοίνυν ἡ ἄνωθεν σύστασις εἰκότως καλεῖται 
ἀνάστασις" τῆς γὰρ δὴ ἀϑανάτου ψυχῆς οὐκ ἀνάστασις, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπάνοδος 
γίγνεται πρὸς τὸ σῶμα. Μακρίων δὲ Κέρδων καὶ ὃ Μάνης, καὶ ὅσοι 
τῶν σωμάτων οὐκ ἐδέξαντο ἀνάστασιν, ὡς ἀδύνατον παντελῶς τόνδε 
τὸν βίον ἐξέθαλον. Theodor. Her. Fab. lib. v. cap. 19, p. 293, 
A, B. 


FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. 


revealed, that the same persons shall be raised, and appear 
before the judgment-seat of Christ, to answer for what they 
have done in the body;” and the same person cannot be 
raised without the raising of his body to be united to his 
soul, much less be raised from the dead, without raising that 
of him which was dead, which only was his own, and not 
another body, which before was not part of him: it follows 
that, if the same person be raised from the dead, that of 
them which was dead, or their own bodies, must be raised ; 
and so the meaning of the scripture, when it saith, the same 
persons shall be raised, must be this, that their bodies, sepa- 
rated from their souls by death, shall be raised from the 
dead. 

Moreover, by saying that the resurrection is only of that 
which died, or was corrupted, it appears, that I, with the 
ancients, only assert the resurrection of that body which died 
or was corrupted, and am not in the least concerned for any 
changes that it underwent before ; and so the scripture forces 
me to speak, when it styles the resurrection, the quickening 
of the dead; the vivification of our mortal bodies; the 
raising of those bodies which were sown in corruption; the 
coming forth of them which were in their graves; the 
awakening of them that sleep in the dust of the earth; and 
saith that then the sea, and hades, shall give up their dead, 
allowing a resurrection only to them that shall then be 
dead, and saying only of them that shall be found alive 
“They shall be changed.” And if this only be the true 
sense of the scripture in this matter,and this only the re- 
surrection there intended, it cannot be concerned in the least 
in what the philosophers say touching the change the body 
undergoes whilst living, though I am far from thinking, that, 
to the raising the same bodies, it can be requisite that these 
bodies should be made up. wholly of the same particles, 
which were once vitally united to their souls in their former 
life, without the mixture of any other particle of matter: for 
were this necessary to the same living body, we could not 
have the same bodies for a day; and if it be not necessary 
to make the body continue still the same while we live, it 
cannot be necessary to make the raised body the same with 
that which died. ; 

That which here seems to me of greatest moment to be 
considered is this, that the dead being raised that they may 
be “judged according to their works” (Rev. xx. 12), and 
“that every one may receive τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος, the things 
done by the body,” as the instrument of the soul, it is only 
requisite that the dying body, which is to be raised to the 
“resurrection of condemnation,” should be then united to a 
soul, sentenced hereafter to condemnation for the evils done 
whilst in the body, and by the body as its instrument, and 
not repented of, and reformed, before its separation from the 
body. And, that the body should be raised to “the resur- 
rection of life,” it is only requisite that, some time or other 
before its death, it should have been united to a soul that 
truly repented of all its past sins, and did, from thencefor- 
ward, do that which was “ lawful and right” whilst they were 
thus united: now seeing this is the state of all bodies which 
arise to “the resurrection of life,” or “of condemnation,” it 
is only necessary to this last resurrection that it should be the 
raising the bodies of men dying in their sins, as in my hypo- 
thesis it is, and that the bodies, raised to the resurrection of 
life, should be the bodies of men dying in the favour of God ; 
it is therefore only necessary their dying bodies should arise. 
And now the argument arising from these scriptures, which 
teach that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, and so of 
their dead bodies, “that every one may receive according to 
what he hath done in (or by) the body,” will run thus: 

Either the body is to be raised, and reunited to the soul, 
to receive rewards and punishments with it, or to be the in- 
strament by which the soul shall be rewarded or punished ; 

‘or it is not: if not to any of these ends, why is it raised at 
all? why do good men, by the direction of the Holy Spirit, 
“expect the resurrection of the body?” or why is it pro- 
pounded as their great encouragement, to be “ steadfast, im- 
moveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord?” 

1 Cor. xv. 58, 1 Thess. iv. 18,) and as a comfort to them 

at mourn for the dead? Why are the wicked to be “ pu- 
nished with everlasting fire,” or said to “go away” after the 
resurrection “ into eternal punishment ?” (Matt. xxv. 41. 46.) 
Or why doth our Saviour require us, “not to fear them who 


607 


can kill the body, but can do no more,” in comparison of him 
who ean “destroy both soul and body in hell-fire ?” (Matt. 
x. 28,) and say that “it is better one of thy members perish, 
than that thy whole body should be cast into hell-fire?” 
(Matt. v. 29, 30). If it be to be raised for these ends, it is 
necessary the same body should be raised which sinned with, 
or was the instrument of the soul in doing good or evil, it 
being absurd to think, that one body should sin, and another 
should be punished for it; or that one body should suffer, 
and another should be crowned for it: and, for any thing I 
can discern to the contrary, we might as well appear before 
Christ's judgment-seat without any body at all, as without 
that which we deposited. Let it now be remembered, that 
the body, in which the impenitent is to suffer, is only the 
same body which was laid down in the grave, and then the 
arguments usually offered to invalidate his suffering in his 
own body, or in the same body in which he sinned, will be 
almost as strong to excuse a murderer from sufiering in his 
body fora murder committed twenty years ago, as to the 
purposes they are used in this case: nay, I have met with 
nothing said in this affair, which does not prove as strongly 
that the body of our blessed Lord, born of the Virgin Mary, 
after he had sucked and digested that milk into chyle, was 
not the same body which was born of the Virgin, as not 
having all the same individual particles, and then, when he 
grew in stature, he grew into another body, and so into a 
body which came not from the loins of Abraham, and was 
not “ of the seed of David according to the flesh ;” and that, 
when the Jews destroyed his body, they destroyed not that 
body of which he spake, when he said, “ Destroy this body,” 
because the body they destroyed had by perspiration lost, 
and by nutrition gained, many particles. 

§. 10. IT come now to answer the objections against this 
article; viz. 

«The appellation the apostle bestows on him that enters 
into this inquiry, Whether the dead shall have the same 
bodies or no? seems not much to encourage him in that in- 
quiry ; nor will he, by the remainder of Paul's answer, find 
the determination of the apostle to be much in favour of the 
very same body, unless the being told, that the body sown is 
not the body that shall be; that the body raised is as dif 
ferent from that which was laid down as the flesh of a man 
is from the flesh of beasts, fishes, and birds; or as the sun, 
moon, and stars, are different from one another; or as dif- 
ferent as a corruptible, weak, natural, mortal body is from an 
incorruptible, powerful, spiritual, immortal body ; and, lastly, 
as a body that is flesh and blood is from a body that is not 
flesh and blood; for flesh and blood cannot (says Paul, in 
this very place) inherit the kingdom of God; unless, I say, 
all this, which is contained in St. Paul’s words, can be sup- 
posed to be the way to deliver this as an article of faith, 
which is required to be believed of every one.” 

Now to this I answer: 

First, That it seems to me a great mistake, to say the apos- 
tle in that appellation, “Thou fool,” reflects upon him that 
inquires, Whether the same body which was dead shall be 
raised or no? He had already entirely dispatched that 
question against those philosophers who said there is no re- 
surrection* (ver. 12), and that the resurrection of the body 
was a thing impossible (ver. 15). He begins the inquiry, 
not about the truth of the resurrection, but about the man- 
ner in which it shall be made, and the qualities which the 
raised bodies should have, asking the question of philo- 
sophers,f ποίῳ σώματι, with what kind of bodies, or with 
what qualified bodies do they come? For they conceiving 
that the body was the prison of the soul, and that it was her 
punishment to be tied to it, thought we could not be truly 
happy, till, by death, we were delivered from it; they there- 
fore judged it an unjust and an unworthy thing for God to 
raise these bodies to be united to the souls of good men ; and 
therefore Celsus saith, “The hope of the resurrection of the 


* Hinc dicit Plinius ne Deum quidem posse omnia, nec 
mortales wternitate donare, nec revocare defunctos, Hist. 
Nat. lib. ii. cap. 7. Negant hee fieri posse. Lactant. lib. 
vil. cap. 22. 

ἡ Utrim sine corpore, an cum corporibus? et corporibus 
quibus, ipsisne, an innovatis resurgatur? Cecil. apud Min. 
p. 11. 


608 


flesh is the hope of worms, a filthy and abominable thing, 
and so a thing which God neither will nor can do” (see all 
this proved from their own words, in the note upon this verse). 
Now to this objection the apostle returns a full and satisfac- 
tory answer, by showing the happy change which will then 
pass upon the raised body, and the excellent qualities it 
shall then have, and which were wanting to it, whilst it was 
on earth.* 

Secondly, When the apostle adds, ver. 37, « That which 
thou sowest (when thou sowest it) is not that body which 
shall be (again produced), but bare (or naked) grain ;” it is 
evident he speaketh there not of the body of man, but of the 
body “of wheat, or of some other grain,” and is there still 
pursuing the same question, “ With what kind of bodies do 
they come?” answering, as it was common with the Jews to 
do, by this very similitude, to a like question among them, 
viz. Whether the body should arise naked, or clothed upon ?+ 
and therefore saith, “'Thou sowest not the body which shall 
be,” i. e. a body clothed with a shell, as in peas, beans, and 
lentils ; or with a hull, or chaff, as in wheat, rye, barley: but 
γυμνὸν κύκκον, “naked grain,” whereas God raiseth it up 
clothed: and so, saith he, will it be with our bodies at the 
resurrection ; they will not be raised γυμνὰ “naked,” but 
ἐνδυσάμενα, “clothed upon,” for “this corruptible body must 
put on incorruption” (2 Cor. v.2—4). This being then the 
whole intendment of this similitude, it ought not to be urged 
any farther. 

Thirdly, The same is evidently the apostle’s purpose in the 
following verses, which in sense run thus: 

Ver. 39. “(And as) all flesh is not the same (manner or 
kind of) flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another 
(kind of) flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of 
birds : 

Ver. 40. “(And as there is alike difference in the quali- 
ties of bodies, for) there are also celestial bodies, and bodies 
terrestrial; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the 
glory of the terrestrial is another : 

Ver. 41. “(And as in the celestial bodies) there is one 
glory of the sun, and another of the moon, and another of the 
stars (among themselves) ; for one star differeth from another 
star in glory : 

Ver. 42. “So also is (ἡ, as to) the resurrection of the 
dead (the body raised being in qualities much different from 


the body we now have, for) it is sown in corruption (frail, | 


mortal, subject to putrefuction,) itis raised in incorruption,” 
&c. Now from the words thus paraphrased, let it be noted ; 

First, That the apostle says not, that the body raised is as 
different from that which is laid down, as the flesh of man is 
from the flesh of beasts, fishes, and birds; or, as the sun, 
moon, and stars, are different from one another; but only as 
the flesh of men differs in quality from that of beasts, fishes, 
and birds, and as the sun, moon, and stars, differ in their 
glorious qualities from one another; so do our raised bodies 
differ in quality from those earthly bodies we at present have ; 
as is evident from the ensuing words, in which he mentions 
this difference betwixt them in qualities. Note, 

Secondly, That in the instances of flesh of man and beasts, 
and of celestial and terrestrial bodies, and of celestial bodies 
among themselves, here used by the apostle, there is not only 
a difference as to qualities, but also as to the subject-matter, 
that being in them only specifically, but not nwmerically the 
same; whereas it is not so as to our bodies sown and raised, 
they differing only as to the qualities from the body sown, 
but not as to the subject-matter, it being “this corruptible 


* Non considerat apostolus in Πᾶς similitudine diversita- 
tem rei, sed qualitatis et conditionis, quod et questio re- 
quirebat, Quali corpore veniunt? Ttaque falluntur, qui, ex 
his apostoli verbis, corpora non eadem secundtim substantiam 
resuscitanda esse colligunt: quod qui dicunt, resurrectionem 
reverd tollunt, non enim resurgit nisi id ipsum quod cecidit. 
Esthius. 

+ Pirk. Eliez. cap. 33, p. 80. 


PREFACE TO THE 


body” which “ must put on incorruption.” As therefore the 
different qualities of divers souls, good and bad, learned and 
unlearned, made glorious and miserable, infer a difference in 
substance, bectuse the subject of those qualities is not the 
same}; but when the same soul becomes virtuous and learned, 
all this new ornament of grace and knowledge, and even its 
advancement to a state of perfect happiness and glory, makes 
it not cease to be the same soul still: so it is here as to the 
difference of glorious qualities, the raised body hath above 
the body sown. I therefore, 

Thirdly, Grant that the raised body is as different from the 
earthly body we at present have, as a corruptible, weak, 
natural, mortal body is from an incorruptible, powerful, 
spiritual, immortal body; but then the subject of these dif- 
ferent qualities being still the same, this difference hinders 
not its being the same body still, since otherwise Christ’s 
body, being also raised an incorruptible, powerful, immortal 
body, could not be the same with that in which he suffered , 
and if his body is still the same that suffered, and was raised 
from the dead, then a like change of our vile bodies will not 
hinder their being still the same. 

But it is still objected, that “the body raised is as different 
from the bodies we at present have, and lay down in the grave, 
as a body, that is flesh and blood, is from a body that is not 
flesh and blood ; for ‘flesh and blood,’ (saith St. Paul) ‘can- 
not inherit the kingdom.’ ” 

Ans. To this I answer, (1.) ab absurdo, that if even this 
hinder the body raised from being the same body, our Sa- 
viour cannot now have the same body with that which he 
suffered in, or which was raised from the dead ; for doubtless 
he is entered into, and doth inherit, the kingdom of God: if 
therefore “ flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God,” and the body which hath not flesh and blood cannot 
be the same body with that which hath flesh and blood; our 
Saviour’s glorified body cannot be the same body which was 
raised from the dead, or in which he suffered. 

Secondly, I answer, that flesh and blood do, in the serip- 
ture language, denote the weakness and the frailty of that 
which is compounded of them, as when it is said, “« We 
wrestle not with flesh and blood,” i. 6. weak frail men, Eph. 
vi. 12 (see Matt. xvi. 17, Gal. i. 16, Heb. ii. 14, Ecclus, xiv. 
18). And thus it is true, that flesh and blood, that is, such 
weak frail bodies as they are, which here consist of flesh and 
blood, unchanged into incorruptible bodies, or unclothed 
upon with their celestial bodies, which will keep them from 
mortality, or a possibility of corruption (ver. 48, 49, 2 Cor. 
v. 1, 2), “cannot inherit the kingdom of God;” and there- 
fore the apostle adds, that “this mortal must put on immor- 
tality, this corruptible put on incorruption,” and so it shall 
be changed, as to its qualities: but then I have shown that 
this change from mortal and corruptible, to an immortal and 
incorruptible body, hinders not its being still the same body, 
that is, the same in substance as it was before. 

Thirdly, I think it is evident, from the apostle’s words, 
that the bodies of good men, then living, shall have the same 
qualities with the bodies of them who are raised from the 
dead, for they also shall “inherit the kingdom of God ;” 
they shall have spiritual, powerful, immortal bodies; their 
bodies, saith he, “ shall be changed ; for this corruptible must 
put on incorruption :” and yet can it be thought that this 
change shall amount to the destruction of that body they 
then had, and the production of another body, as it must do, 
if they cease to have the same body which they had before 
this change? If it do not, it is hence evident that the body 
may still be the same body, notwithstanding the great change 
which shall then pass upon it. 

In a word, what the apostle says here, evidently concerns 
only the bodies of good men, and so gives us no cause to 
think the bodies of the wicked shall be changed at all; and 
if the wicked shall be raised with the same bodies to the re- 
surrection of condemnation, why not the good with the same 
bodies to the resurrection of life 1 


609 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Paut, called to be an apostle (or the called apostle) 
of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes 
our brother, 

2 Unto ' the church of God which is at Corinth, to 
them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be 
saints (or, the saints called), * with all that in every 
place ° call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, 
+ (yea) both their’s and our’s: 


3 5 Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Fa- 
ther, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

4 I thank my God always on your behalf, δ for the 
grace of God whichis given you by (or in) Jesus Christ; 

5 That in every thing ye are (or, have been) enriched 
by him, 7 in all utterance (of tongues), and in all know- 
ledge (of divine mysteries, or, in the gift of prophecy, 1 
Cor. xiv.); 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 2. Ty ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ Θεοῦ, The church of God.] The 
“sanctified in Christ Jesus, the saints called,” seem here to 
be words of the same import, denoting such as are called out 
of the world, and separated from others, through faith in 
Christ, to be a peculiar people to God, as the Jews were 
before: all Christians being, by virtue of this calling, “a 
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a pe- 
culiar people” (1 Pet. ii. 9): though many members of the 
church of Corinth, and of other churches, wanted the in- 
ward sanctification of the Holy Spirit. So that the word 
saints in many places of the Acts and the epistles, is as 
large as the word Christians, and stands opposed not to the 
unsound Christians, but to the heathen world; Acts ix. 13. 
32.41, xxvi. 10, 1 Cor. vi. 1, 2 (see here, 1 Cor, xiv. 33, 
xvi. 1. 15, 2 Cor. viii. 4, ix. 1. 12, xiii. 13). 

2 With all that in every place.) Here it appears that St. 
Paul's epistles, though occasionally written and directed to 
particular churches, were designed for the use of all Chris- 
tans. 

3 Τοῖς ἐπικαλουμένοις ὄνομα Kupiov, That call upon the name 
of the Lord Jesus.) ‘This, in the New Testament, is the cha- 
racter of a Christian, that he is one that “calleth on his 
name,” Acts ix. 14. 21, xxii. 16, Rom. x. 12, 13, 2 Tim. 
ii. 22. And that these words ought not to be rendered pas- 
sively, viz. “all that are called by the name of Christ,” is 
evident from the Septuagint, who still translate the phrase 
v3 Np, which is active, by ἐπικαλέσεται ἐν ὀνόματι Θεοῦ, OF 
ἐν ὀνόματι Kapiov, i. 6. He shall call on the name of the 
Lord” (see Gen. iv. 26, xii. 8, xiii. 4, xxi. 33, xxv. 25, Ps. 
Ixxix. 6, xcix. 6, exvi. 4, Isa. Ixv. 1, Lam. iii. 55, Zech. xiii. 
9). But when the phrase runs thus, x4p3 q2z, that is, “Thy 
name is called upon,” or, “ We are called by thy name,” it 
is rendered thus, τὸ ὄνομά cov ἐπικέκληται ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς, Duet. 
xxviii. 10, 1 Kings viii. 43, 2 Chron. vii. 14, Isa. iv. 1, [χη]. 
19, Jer. xiv. 9, xv. 16, Dan. ix. 18, 19, Amos ix. 12 (see 
the note on Acts ix. 2, xxii. 16). 

Secondly, We are expressly told that the disciples were 
first called Christians at Antioch, Acts xi. 26. Now, before 
this time, we find not only Stephen ἐπικαλούμενον, “calling 
upon” this name, and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my 
spirit” (Acts vii. 59), and Paul bid to wash away his sins, 
“calling upon the name of the Lord,” or ἐπικαλούμενος τὸ 
ὄνομα τοῦ Κυρίον (Acts xxii. 16), but we find this to have 
been the character of a disciple, or a convert to the faith of 
Christ, that he was one that called upon the name of the 
Lord. Thus Ananias speaks to the Lord Jesus of St. Paul, 
«He is one who hath received power from the high-priest, 
to bind τοὺς Ἐπικαλουμένους τὸ ὄνομά cov, all that called upon 
thy name” (Acts ix. 14), and of Paul, converted, it is said, 
that he had destroyed τοὺς ἐπικαλουμένους τὸ ὄνομα τοῦτο, 


“them that called upon this name in Jerusalem” (ver. | 


21). 
Thirdly, The reverend Dr. Hammond, who here translates 
this phrase passively, doth elsewhere translate it actively, the 
context forcing him so todo. So Rom. x. 13,“ Whosoever 
shall call upon the name of the Lord,” i. e. pray and adhere 
to Christ, “shall be saved ;” and, Acts ix. 14,“ He hath au- 
thority to bind all that call upon thy name,” i. e. saith he, 
that publicly own the worship of Christ (Acts xxii. 16). 

4 Yea, both theirs and ours.) All the Greek interpreters, 
Chrysostom, Theodoret, CEcumenius, Theophylact, observe, 
that the words “theirs and ours,” are to be connected with 
the word “Lord,” τὸ δὲ αὐτῶν re καὶ ἡμῶν τῷ Κυρίῳ συνὴῆρμοσ- 

Vor. VI.—77 


ται" and so the sense is this, The Lord, I say, both of me 
who write, and you to whom I write. 

5 Ver. 3. Χάρις ὑμῖν, &e.] It is unadvisedly said by some, 
that this is a wish, and not a prayer. The full import of the 
phrase is, as Peter, 2 Pet. i. 2, and Jude, ver. 2, and Poly- 
carp" do cite it, viz. “Grace and peace be multiplied to you 
from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” 
Now, is not this to desire for them grace and peace from 
God the Father, and consequently to pray for it? Why, 
therefore, is it not also to desire the same blessings from 
God the Son? Are they not both the givers of grace and 
peace to the church? Doth not Christ know all the neces- 
sities of his church in this kind? Doth not he who « search- 
eth the heart and reins” (Rev. ii. 528): know the desires of 
his servants? And why then should they only wish these 
things from I know not whom, and not pray to him who 
is the giver of grace and peace for them? Especially when 
they have Paul’s example for it in these words, “For this 
thing I besought the Lord (Christ) thrice, and he said unto 
me, My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor. xii.8—10). And 
again, “The Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who 
hath loved us, and given us eternal consolation, and good 
hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and confirm you in 
every good word and work” (1 Thess. iii. 11, 12, 2 ‘Thess. 
ii. 16). 

6 Ver. 4. ᾿Επὶ τῇ χάριτι τοῦ Ocod, For the grace of God.] 
Here the context seems to restrain this phrase to the favour 
of God shown to the Corinthians, in vouchsafing these spi- 
ritual gifts, which is a frequent import of this phrase in scrip- 
ture. So Rom. xii. 6, “ Having gifts differing according to 
the grace (of God) that is given to us, whether prophecy, let 
us prophesy according to the proportion of faith,” &c.; 
Eph. iv. 7, 8, “To every one of us is given grace according 
to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, 
When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and 
gave gifts unto men;” 1 Pet. iv. 10, “ As every one hath re- 
ceived the gift, so minister the same one to another, as good 
stewards of the manifold grace of God; 2 Cor. i. 12, « Not 
in fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our 
conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you- 
ward,” our preaching to you being not in the words of hu- 
man wisdom, but “in demonstration of the Spirit, and in 
power” (1 Cor. ii. 4). Thus, to “sing with grace in the 
heart” (Eph. v. 19, Col. iii. 16), is, say the ancients,t te 
sing, “using the spiritual gift” vouchsafed to them by the 
Holy Ghost: which interpretation is confirmed from the 
spiritual psalms, hymns, and songs, there mentioned (see 1 
Cor. xiv. 15, Eph. vi. 18). And this is very suitable to the 
language of the Jews, who, when the Hebrew mentions jn 
“grace,” do render it, “the Spirit of prophecy :” so Ps. xlv. 
2, “Grace is poured into thy lips,” Datus est Spiritus pro- 
phetie in labiis tuis, saith the Chaldee. 

7 Ver. 5. Ev παντὶ λόγῳ. Esthius saith, this ought not to 
be interpreted of the gift of tongues, because λόγος in scrip- 
ture never bears that sense. But (1.) it is certain, from ver. 
7, that it is χάρισμα, “a gift;” and it is joined with faith and 
knowledge, which are gifts, 2 Cor. viii. 7, and cannot well be 
referred to any other gift vouchsafed then to the church. 
And (2.) the γνῶσις relating to prophecy, or the knowledge 
of mysteries, was usually attended with the gift of tongues 
(see Acts xix. 6) : and though we find not the word λόγος ab- 


* Procemio Epist. ad Philip. 
"And χαρίσματος διὰ τῆς ἀπὸ rod ἁγίου Πνεύματος dobsions 
μι γ μ 


, Χάριτος. 


610 


6 8 Even as (by these gifts) the testimony (we gave) 
of (or, doctrine concerning) Christ was confirmed in you 
(or, established among you) : 

7 °So that ye come behind (the other churches) in 
no gift; waiting for the coming (or revelation) of our 
Lord Jesus Christ: 

8 1 Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that 
ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

9 (For) God is faithful, by whom ye were called 
unto the fellowship (or communion) of his Son Jesus 
Christ our Lord (ἡ. e. That God, by whom ye are 
called, is faithful to perform his part, in preserving you 
blameless to that day, or to confer upon you the promised 
inheritance). 

10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same 
thing (owning and teaching the same doctrine which you 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


have received, 1 Cor. xi. 2, xv. 1, Rom. xvi. 17, in love 
and unity), and that there be no divisions (or schisms) 
among you; but that ye be perfectly joined " to- 
gether in the same mind and in the same judgment 
(in the same belief, and in the same kind affections, one 
towards another). 

11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my 
brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that 
there are contentions among you. 

12 Now this I say (or mean by charging you with 
these contentions), that every one of you saith, (one) 
2 Tam (a follower) of Paul; and (another,) I of Apol- 
los; and (a third,) I of Cephas; and (a fourth,) I 15 of 
Christ. 

13 (Why do you not all say the same thing? viz. I 
am of Christ, iii. 23.) Is Christ divided? (Vas tt one 
Christ that sent and enabled Paul; another that sent 
Peter to preach the gospel to you? Is not one and the 


solutely put in this sense, yet λύγος σοφίας, “the word of 
wisdom,” and λόγος γνώσεως, “the word of knowledge,” are 
reckoned among spiritual gifts, 1 Cor. xii. 8. All this, in- 
deed, with Mr. Le Clerc, passes for “ mere niceties ;” and he 
saith, it is “more natural to understand by λόγος the know- 
ledge of religion,’ though that, as he confesses, “is the im- 
port of the following word γνῶσις, knowledge : so that, ac- 
cording to this exposition, the apostle thanks God here, and 
2 Cor. viii. 7, commends them for “ abounding in the know- 
ledge, and in the knowledge of religion.” Besides, the 
knowledge of religion cannot be called grace in the sense 
given of that phrase, ver. 4, nor was the testimony of Christ 
confirmed to the Corinthians (ver. 6), by that, but by the 
gifts of the Holy Spirit. 

8 Ver. 6. Καϑὼς, Even as.] This particle signifies some- 
times when, as Acts vii. 17, καϑὼς δὲ ἤγγιζεν ὃ χρόνος, * But 
when the time drew nigh.” 

9 Ver. 7, 8.1 From these two verses it is to be observed, 
first, that the Corinthians were abundantly replenished with 
the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the gifts of tongues and know- 
ledge (ver. 5), that they “came behind the other churches 
in no gift” (ver. 7). 

Secondly, That they obtained these gifts by Jesus Christ, 
and through faith in him (ver. 4). 

Thirdly, That by these, the doctrine of Christ, the testi- 
mony of the apostles concerning him, that he was “ raised 
from the dead, and become the author of salvation to them 
that believe,” was confirmed to them (ver. 6). 

Fourthly, That by these gifts, and by this earnest of the 
Spirit, they had encouragement to expect, or wait for, the 
second coming of the Lord. 

10 Ver. 8. Βεβαιώσει ὑμᾶς, Who shall also confirm you to 
the end, &c.] These words are by the ancients thus inter- 
preted, viz. Who, in that day of the Lord Jesus which you 
expect, will confirm you for ever blameless. And this is 
suitable to his prayer, that Christians may be “ unblameable 
in the day of the Lord,” Phil. i. 9, 10, 1 Thess. iii. 12, 13, 
v. 23, for, say they, God is faithful who hath promised to 
them that obey the gospel viofeciav, “the adoption, that is, 
the redemption of the body” (Rom. viii. 23), or, that they 
shall be partakers of that kingdom and glory to which he 
hath called them, 1 Thess. ii. 12. Others thus, He will do 
all that is requisite on his part, quod suarum est partium,* 
to render you unblameable to the end; so that you shall 
not fail of it through any want of divine grace necessary to 
that end, or any unfaithfulness on God's part to his promise, 
who hath already reconciled you to himself, through the 
death of Christ, “to present you holy and unblameable, 
and unreprovable in his sight; if you continue in the faith 
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope 
of the gospel,” Col. i. 21—23 (see Phil. i. 6, Heb. iii. 6. 14). 
That the apostle speaks not here of any promise of perse- 
verance made to the elect only among the Corinthians, is 
evident, (1.) because he plainly speaks to the whole body of 
the church, “ to the church of God which was in Corinth, to 
all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 


* Grotius. 


And (2.) he speaks not only of their being preserved from 
falling away finally; but of their being preserved “un- 
blameable,” whereas it is certain, the elect are not always so 
preserved. 

N Ver. 10. Ἔν τῷ αὐτῷ vot, That ye be perfectly joined 
in the same mind and judgment.] *'This can be no farther 
the matter of an exhortation than it is in our power to obey 
it; seeing then it is not in any man’s power to change his 
settled judgment, or to think otherwise upon our entreaty, 
because our exhortation gives no conviction to the under- 
standing, it follows that this exhortation must only be to do 
what was in the power of the Corinthians; viz. (1.) to pre- 
vail with them to lay aside their strife, envy, and divisions 
(1 Cor. ili. 3), and the sad consequents of them, “debate, 
wrath, backbiting, whispering, swelling, tumult” (2 Cor. xii. 
20), and to this the reason of this exhortation leads, “ Be of 
one mind, and judgment, for I hear there be contentions 
among you” (ver. 11). And (2.) to engage them unani- 
mously to own the doctrine they had received, and he had 
preached to them (1 Cor. xv. 1), which, if they were so 
minded, might easily be done, since they so lately had 
received it, the heads of it were so few (1 Cor. xv. 3), and 
it was so easy for them to consult the apostles in their doubt- 
ings of the sense of what he had delivered. But at this 
distance of time from the first discovery of the Christian 
faith, and after it is become a system of very many, and 
those disputable opinions, for the truth of which we have 
now no apostle, no living and infallible judge of controversies, 
to consult, if it be not sufficient to preserve unity in the 
church, that men heartily believe all the articles of the apos- 
tles’ creed, which are plainly delivered in scripture, and live 
peaceably and quietly together, «following after peace and 
charity with all that call upon the Lord Jesus out of a pure 
heart” (2 Tim. ii. 22), and avoiding any separations from 
their brethren, where nothing sinful is enjoined to be believed, 
or done, to hold communion with them, I doubt there will 
be little union in the church of God. 

2 Ver. 12. ᾿Εγώ εἶμι Παύλου, Tam of Paul, &c.] Of the 
gentile part of the church of Corinth, some preferred Paul, 
as being their spiritual father, who “in Christ Jesus had be- 
gotten them through the gospel” (1 Cor. iv. 14, 15): others 
preferred Apollos, as being “an eloquent man, and mighty 
in the scriptures” (Acts xviii. 24): the Jewish Christians 
preferring Peter as the chief apostle of the circumcision out 
of the territories of Judea. ‘That this is here said, not by 
a fiction of names or persons, under which the apostle taxed 
the heads of the sects among the Corinthians; but that they 
really divided upon these accounts is evident, first, from 
Paul's thanking God that he baptized so few of them, lest 
they should have occasion to say he baptized in his own 
name, and so made disciples to himself; secondly, from these 
words, “ Let no man glory in men; for all are yours, whether 
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas” (iii. 21, 22). 

13 Tam of Christ.] Epiphaniust observes of the Ebion- 


* Hoc ad affectus animirefertur. Sic γνώμη sumitur, Apoc. 
xvii. 13, 2 Mace. ix. 20, Grot. 


7 Her. 30, §. 30. 


CHAPTER I. 


same Christ preached lo you by us all? or is his body di- 
vided? 2 Cor. xi. 4:) was Paul (or any other but Christ 
Jesus) crucified for you (that you should be baplized into 
their death, as Christians are into the death of Christ) ? or 
were ye baptized in the name of Paul? (so as to be 
called the disciples of Paul.) 

14 I thank God (whose providence so ordered it) that 
I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; 

15 Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine 
own name. 

16 And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: 
besides, “ I know not whether I baptized any other. 

17 For % Christ (when he called me) sent me not to 
baptize, but to preach the gospel (to the gentiles: and 
that) not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ 
(ἡ. δ. the doctrine of Christ crucified) should be made of 
none effect (by that means). 

18 For the peeluns of the cross (or, of a crucified 
Jesus, in this plain manner,) is (only) to them that perish 
(by rejecting it, because not attended with this human wis- 
dom,) foolishness ; but unto us which are saved (by ἐϊ) 
it is (evidently) the power of God; (we embracing this 
faith, because it is confirmed by demonstrations of the Spirit 
and power, ii. 4. 


611 


19 Whereas the preaching of it, in the words of human 
wisdom, would render it of none effect ;) For it is written, 
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring 
to nothing the understanding of the prudent (Isa. xxix. 
14, as he hath already done: for 

20 16 Where ts (now the wisdom of) the wise (philo- 
sophers among the gentiles)? where is (the wisdom of ) 
the scribe (the interpreter of the law, or teacher of tradi- 
tions among the Jews)? where is the disputer of this 
world (or the searcher into the secrets of nature, or into the 
sense of the scripture)? hath not God (by this dispensa- 
tion) made (or declared to be) foolish the wisdom of this 
world ? 

21.7 For (fo begin with the ney) 8 after 
that in the wisdom of God (discernible in his works 
of creation and providence,) the world by (all its) wis- 

om knew not (the true) God, (so as to glorify him 

as God, and to be thankful to him for his blessings, 
Rom. i. 21,) it pleased God by the foolishness of 
preaching (as they think fit to style it) to save them 
that believe (in a crucified Jesus, thus preached to 
them. 

22 Which salvation, thus tendered, the wise men of 
the world and the Jewish doctors will not accept ;) For 


ites, that they pleaded for the circumcision of Christians, 
from the example of Christ, who was circumcised, because 
the disciple was to be as his Master; and so the import of 
these words may be this, Others say, I am for the circum- 
cision of the gentiles, that they may be like Christ. 

6 Ver. 16. Οὐκ οἶδα, I know not.| Therefore his inspira- 
tion, or divine assistance in writing his epistles, did not reach 
to an information in such things as these, but only to di- 
rect him in all the truth he was to teach unto the churches 
(see xvi. 7, 1 Pet. v. 12). 

15 Ver. 17. Οὐ γὰρ ἀπέστειλέ pe Χριστὸς βαπτίζειν, Christ 
sent me not to baptize, but to preach, &c.] i.e. When he 
appeared himself, and after sent Ananias to him, he ex- 
pressly sent him to preach to the gentiles (Acts xxii. 21), 
and (xxvi. 16, 17) to bear his name before the gentiles (Acts 
ix. 15): but, in that threefold rehearsal of his commission, 
there is no mention made of his being sent to baptize; nor 
was it needful, after the general commission given to Christ’s 
apostles for that end (Matt. xxviii. 19): that was not, say 
the Greek expositors, his great business; for* “ to baptize is 
easy to any who is admitted to sacred orders ;” but to preach 
the gospel requires a divine revelation, and great assistance 
of the power of God. Hence Peter himself preaches to 
Cornelius and his kinsmen, but commands them to be bap- 
tized by others (Acts x. 48); and this gospel he sent me to 
preach, “not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of 
Christ should be made of none effect:” men not ascribing 
the prevailing of it to the power of God, but to the persua- 
sion of human wisdom; God not approving (ver. 19), and 
therefore not assisting the preaching of the gospel in that 
Way. Ἵσως γὰρ, εἰ κάλλος καὶ ὑπερβολὴν φράσεως, ὡς τὰ παρ᾽ 
Ἕλλησι ϑαυμαζόμενα, εἶχεν ἡ γραφὴ, ὑπενόησεν ἄν τις οὐ τὴν ἀλήϑειαν 
κεκρατηκέναι τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐμφαινομένην ἀκολουδίαν, καὶ 
τὸ τῆς φράσεως κάλλος ἐψυχαγωγηκέναι τοὺς ἀκροωμένους. Orig. 
Philocal. p. 25. 

16 Ver. 20. Ποῦ σοφύς ;] That is, What hath been done by 
the wisdom of the philosophers, or by the Jewish doc- 
tors, or by the searchers into nature’s secrets, to bring men 
to the true knowledge of God, and of his will? Hath not 
God discovered their wisdom to be but folly, in compari- 
son of this way which he hath chosen to bring men to the 
knowledge of himself? ‘The “ disputer of this world” is by 
Jerome rendered, Causarum naturalium scrutator, Com. 
in Gal. iii, and so the naturalists are styled by the Jews 
span ‘r,t sapientes scrutationis, “the searchers into the 
secrets of nature ;”’ though I conceive the apostle here doth 
rather understand, the midrashim, or the disputers in the 


Theod. Au- 


* Πᾶσιν ἔστιν εὐπετὲς τοῖς ἱερωσύνης ἀξιομένοις. 
gust. contra lit. Petil. lib. iii. cap. 56. 
7 Buxt. Lex. in voce >pnp. 


Jewish schools and academies, touching their traditions. 
That the σοφὸς, i. 6. the wise man, mentioned here, refers not 
to the chacmim, or wise men of the Jews, but to the philo- 
sophers among the gentiles, is evident; for that “ the wisdom 
of the wise” (ver. 19), is the wisdom of the heathen world, 
appears from ver. 21, where it is said, “The world through 
wisdom knew not God,” which is true only of the gentiles, 
not of the Jews. It is therefore reasonable to conceive 
“the wise,” in the twentieth verse, should signify the same 
persons: so doth Paul interpret “the wise” in these words, 
ΚΤ am a debtor to the Greek, and to the barbarian; to the 
wise, and to the unwise” (Rom. i. 14). So Chrysostom, 
‘Theodoret,* GZcumenius, Theophylact, upon the place, say- 
ing that by “the wise” the apostle understands the man 
adorned with the verbosity and eloquence of the Greeks. I 
have not been solicitous to show the agreement of the words 
of St. Paul here with those of Isaiah, xxxiii. 18, because I 
find not that Paul intendeth here to cite them. 

17 Ver. 21.] Here two things are to be learned, (1.) That 
from the creation, beauty, order, and grandeur of the world, 
and the direction of all things in it to an end, and the fitting 
them with parts and instruments adapted best to the obtain- 
ing that. end, it might be known that the Creator of the 
world was God alone, and so was only “to be glorified as 
God,” Ps. xix. 1, 2, civ. 24, cxxxvi. 5, Jer. x. 12, li. 15, 
Rom. i. 19,20. (2.) That the gospel was sent into the world 
that they, who did not know the true God acceptably by the 
true light of nature, might do it by the light of that revela- 
tion, which made such a bright and glorious manifestation of 
the power, wisdom, justice, and goodness of God, which 
they whom Satan had not blinded must discern (2 Cor. 
iv. 4). 

8 Ver. 21. ᾿Ετειδὴ yap, Ver. 22. ἐπειδὴ καὶ The argu- 
ment here seems to lie thus: he wise men among the 
Greeks, the scribe or interpreter of scripture among the 
Jews, are by this dispensation convinced of folly, and insuf 
ficiency to give men the knowledge of saving truth; ἐπειδὴ 
γὰρ, for, since the world by all its wisdom could not obtain 
the right knowledge of God, he by this dispensation hath 
given this saving knowledge to believers. And ἐπειδὴ καὶ, 
seeing also the unbelieving Jews for confirmation of this doc- 
trine “require a sign, and the Greeks seek after (human) 
wisdom,” it is on that account a scandal to those Jews, and 
in the estimation of the unbelieving Greeks is “ foolishness :” 
yet is he and his doctrine, to the believing Greeks, « Christ 
the wisdom of God,” they seeing in it wisdom sufficient to 
engage them to believe this doctrine; and, to the believing 
Jews “the power of God,” they being convinced of its 
truth by the signs wrought in confirmation of it: and with 


* Tov τῇ Ἑλληνικῇ στωμυλία κοσμούμενον» 


612 


the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after 
(profound) wisdom (to induce them to believe) : 

23 But (or, nevertheless) we preach Christ crucified, 
(though his cructfixion be) Ὁ unto the Jews a stumbling- 
block, and ?! unto the Greeks foolishness ; 

24 (For this he is to infidels only :) But unto them 
which are called, both Jews and Greeks, (he ts) Christ 
the power of God (in the signs and wonders which 
are wrought by faith in Christ for confirmation of this 
doctrine, and so he gives the sign the Jews require), and 
the wisdom of God, (in the manifold and divine wis- 
dom discovered in this dispensation for the saving lost 
man, ver. 30, and so answers the Greeks’ request for 
wisdom. 

25 I say, the power and the wisdom of God:) Be- 
cause the foolishness of God (7. 6. the way of God, 
which is esteemed foolishness by the Greeks) is wiser 
than (all the wisdom of ) men (and much to be prefer- 
red before il); and the weakness of God (7. e. that 
way of propagating man’s salvation, which is weak in 
ther eycs) 15 stronger than (the power of ) men: (for 
the weapons of our warfure are mighty through God to 
the pulling down of strong holds, and confounding all the 
slrength, policy, and wisdom of the world opposed against 
it, 2 Cor. x. 3, 4.) 

26 For ye see (Gr. look upon) your calling, breth- 
ren, (and you will discern) how (agreeably to these things 
the divine wisdom hath so ordered it,) that 33 not many 
wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


noble, are (etlher) called (by, or made use of to propagate, 
the gospel) : 

27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the 
world (that simple way of instructing mankind which 
they call foolishness, and those unlearned apostles whom 
they represent as fools,) to confound the wise (philoso- 
phers, so that they shall not be able to gainsay or resist the 
wisdom with which they speak, Luke xxi. 15, Acts vi. 
10); and God hath chosen the weak things of the world 
(unarmed fishermen, tent-makers, assisted with no human 
force,) to confound the things which are mighty ; (/o 
break through all the opposition that the kings and rulers 
of the world do make against them, to pull down the strong 
holds, cast down ihe reasonings, level the heights of the 
philosophers, who do exalt themselves against the know- 
ledge of Christ, 2 Cor. x. 4, 53) 

28 And (he hath chosen the) base things of the world, 
and things which are despised, hath God chosen, 
yea, and things which are not (7. 6. the gentiles who 
are esteemed base, and looked upon as nothing by the 
Jews), to bring to nought (Gr. to abolish) things that 
are: (to become God’s church and people, and so to cause 
the Jewish church and economy to cease, Rom. xi. 15. 17, 
Phil. iii. 3 :) 

29 That no flesh should (have cause to) glory in 
his presence (either of their wisdom, birth, or privi- 
leges, 

30 Not you who are advanced to this happy state ;) 
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is 


great reason do they so esteem it, for what the unbelieving 
Greeks deem foolishness, hath more of sound reason in it 
than all the wisdom of the Greeks, or those who are account- 
ed wise men by the Jews, have shown; they who by them 
are deemed fools having discovered that “ wisdom of God in 
a mystery,” which they with all their wisdom never knew, 
and that which they style weakness is attended with such a 
visible power of God, as enables it, without human power 
or wisdom, to prevail over all the strength and wisdom which 
Jew or gentile can oppose against it. 

19 Σημεῖον, A sign.] From heaven, such as was that of 
Moses, giving them “bread from heaven” (John vi. 30, 31), 
that in the time of Joshua, when the sun stood still (x. 13), 
or of Elijah, who brought down fire from heaven to consume 
the offering (1 Kings xviii. 38), and to consume the captains 
and their fifties (2 Kings i. 10. 12, Luke ix. 54); the Son 
of man being to “come in the clouds of heaven,” as he did 
at the destruction of Jerusalem (Dan. vii. 13, Matt. xxiv. 
30), and to give “signs from heaven” (Joel ii. 30), as he did 
at the day of pentecost (Acts ii. 2), and as God did by a 
voice from heaven at our Saviour’s baptism (Matt. iii. 17), 
at his transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 5), and at his preaching 
(John xii. 28, 29). 

20 Ver. 23. Ἰουδαίοις μὲν σκάνδαλον, Unto the Jews a stum- 
bling-block.| “ Your Jesus,” saith Trypho, “ having by this 
fallen under the extremest curse of the law of God, we can- 
not sufficiently admire how you can expect any good from 
God, who place your hopes in a man that was crucified,” ἐπ᾽ 
ἄνθρωπον σταυρωϑέντα (Dial. cum Just. p. 227. 249, 317). 
And again, “ We doubt of your Christ, who was so ignomi- 
niously crucified ; for our law styles every one that is cruci- 
fied, accursed.” Hence, by way of ignominy, they still call 
our Saviour zalui,* suspensum, “ one hanged upon the tree.” 

21 To the Greeks foolishness.) “They count us mad,” 
saith Justin Martyr,f “that after the immutable and eter- 
nal God, the Father of all things, we give the second place 
ἄνϑρώπῳ σταυρωϑέντι, to a man that was crucified.”—*«It is 
wicked and abominable,” saith Celsus.;—« The wise men of 
the world insult over us,” saith St. Austin,§ “and ask, 
Where is your understanding, who worship him for a God 


* Buxt. Lex. Tal. in voce. 

+ Apol. ii. p. 60, 61. 

+ Κακὸν καὶ ἀνόσιον. Apud Orig. lib. vii. Ρ. 340. 

§ Quale cor habetis qui Deum colitis crucifixum? Serm. 
viii. de Verb. Apost. 


who was crucified?” So M. Felix, p. 9, Arnob. lib. i. p. 20, 
Lact. lib. iv. cap. 16, Euseb. lib. iii. de Vita Const. cap. 1. 

2 Ver. 26. Οὐ πολλοὶ σοφοὶ, Not many wise.) This seems 
to be spoken in a direct opposition to that celebrated maxim 
of the Jews, that “prophecy resides not but upon a wise, 
a strong, and a rich man.” 

3 Ver. 28. Kai τὰ μὴ ὄντα, &e.] To confirm the explica- 
tion of these words given in the paraphrase, let it be noted, 

First, hat the apostle in this chapter often speaks con- 
junctly of the Jew and gentile, interweaving them together 
in his discourse : so ver. 20, he speaks of the wise men of the 
Grecks, and then of the scribes among the Jews; ver. 22, of 
the Jews requiring signs, and the Greeks wisdom ; of Christ 
crucified being “to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the 
gentiles foolishness.” So here, ver. 27, he seems to speak of 
the gospel, preached by the apostles in a plain familiar way, 
and by them deemed weakness, and styled foolishness, as 
confounding all the wisdom and the power of the Greeks; 
and ver. 28, of the gentile church succeeding and abolishing 
that of the Jews. Note therefore, 

Secondly, That the Jews looked upon themselves as the 
only εὐγενεῖς, persons of true nobility, as being of the stock 
of Abraham. “Even the poorest Israelite,” saith R. Aki- 
bah, “is to be looked upon as a gentleman, as being the son 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’”’ But the gentiles they horri- 
bly despised, as the base people of the earth, not fit to be con- 
versed with by them, they being in their law styled οὐκ ἔθνος, 
“nota nation,” dads ὃ τεχθησύμενος, “a people that shall be 
born” (Ps. xxii. 31), 6 κτιζόμενος, “that shall be created in 
the generation to come” (Ps. cii. 19), and so yet had no 
being (Deut. xxxi. 21), οὐ λαὸς, “not a people” (Hos. i. 10). 
And it being said by the prophet, that “all the heathens are 
as nothing, and were accounted as nothing” (Isa. xl. 17), 
they still accounted them as such. Hence Mordecai is in- 
troduced as praying thus: “ Lord, give not thy sceptre, τοῖς 
μὴ οὖσι, to them that are not” (Esth. iv. 11): and Esdras 
speaking to God thus, “As for the people which also came 
of Adam, thou hast said they are nothing, but like unto 
spittle, and hast likened the abundance of them to a drop 
that falleth from a vessel. And now, O Lord, these hea- 
thens, who have ever been reputed as nothing, have begun 
to be lords over us” (2 Esd. vi. 56, 57). Thus Abraham is 
said to be the father of the gentiles, “before that God who 
calleth things* which are not as if they were” (Rom. iv. 17) : 


* Ta μὴ ὄντα, ὡς ὄντα. 


CHAPTER II. 


made unto us * wisdom, and righteousness, and sanc- 
tifieation, and redemption : 
31 That, according as it is written, (Isa. Ixv. 16, 


and Clemens Romanus* saith of the gentiles, “He called 
us who were not, and would that of no being we should have 
a being.” So fitly are the gentiles represented here by ra 
ph ὄντα, τὰ ἀγενῆ, τὰ ἐξουθενημῖνα, the things base, accounted 
as nothing, and the things which are not (see also 1 Cor. 
vi.4). And this is the ancient exposition of Origen, who 
speaking of the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the 
gentiles, and God’s provoking the Jews “to jealousy by 
them that were not a nation,” he confirms this from these 
words,t “God hath chosen the base things of the world, and 
the things which are not, that he might abolish the things 
which were before, that Israel according to the flesh might 
not glory before God.” 

34 Ver, 30. Σοφία, &c. Wisdom.] As being the author of that 
evangelical wisdom which far excels the wisdom of the phi- 


* ᾿Εκάλεσεν γὰρ ἦμας οὐκ ὄντας, καὶ ἐθέλησεν ἐκ μὴ ὄντος εἶναι 
ἡμᾶς. Ἐρὶδί. xi. §. 1. Ut essemus qui nondum eramus. 
Tren. lib. v. cap. 1. 

ἡ “Iva ἐκεῖνα τὰ πρότερον ὄντα καταργῆσῃ, καὶ μὴ καυχήσεται ὃ 
κατὰ σάρκα ᾿Ισραὴλ καλούμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀποστύλου σὰρξ ἐνώπιον Θεοῦ. 


Philocal. p. 3. 


613 


viz.) He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord (so 
it may be done by us Christians). 


losopher and scribe, and even that legal constitution which 
is called the wisdom of the Jews, Deut. iv. 6. ‘The author 
of justification, as procuring for us that remission of sins 
which the law could not give (Gal. ii. 21, iii. 21). The au- 
thor of sanctification, as procuring for and working in us, not 
only an external and relative holiness, as was that of the 
Jews, but ὁσιότητα τῆς ἀληθείας, “true and eternal holiness” 
(Eph. iv. 24), wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. ‘The au- 
thor of redemption, not from the Egyptian bondage or Ba- 
bylonish captivity, but from the servitude of Satan, the 
dominion of sin and death, and “from the bondage of cor- 
ruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, or the 
redemption of the body” (Rom. viii. 21. 23). ‘They who 
say Christ is made our righteousness, by his righteousness 
imputed to us, have the same reason to say also that he is 
made our wisdom by his wisdom, and our sanctification by 
his holiness imputed to us. 


[See the discourse concerning the imputation of Christ's 
perfect righteousness, or obedience to the law, to us, 
for righteousness, or justification, at the end of this 
epistle.] 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Anp I, brethren, (have acted suitably to what I 
told you, that Christ sent me not to preach the gospel 
with wisdom of words, 1 Cor. i. 17, for) when I came 
to you, (7) came not with excellency of speech or of 
(human) wisdom, declaring unto you ! the testimony 
of God. 

2 For I determined ? not to know any thing among 
you (i. 6. to discover any other knowledge to you), save 
(that of ) Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 

3 And I was with you 9 in weakness, and ‘ in fear, 
and in much trembling (or, in much fear and trem- 
bling). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IL. 


UVer. 1. Τὸ μαρτύριον τοῦ Θεοῦ, The testimony of God.) 
This is the reading of Chrysostom, C&cumenius, Theophy- 
lact, who intimate not in the least that they knew any co- 
pies which read μυστήριον. The testimony of the apostles 
concerning the Messiah, or the Son of God, his death, his 
resurrection, and exaltation to be a prince and saviour, is 
called the testimony of God, 1 John v. 9, because God tes- 
tified to the truth of these doctrines “ by signs, and wonders, 
and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost” 
(Heb. ii. 4). 

2 Ver. 2. Οὐ εἰδέναι τι, Not to know any thing.) To act as 
one who knew nothing, τῆς ἔξω σοφίας, of the eloquence and 
wisdom of the Greeks, but only to give you the knowledge 
of a crucified Saviour, which was to them foolishness (i. 23). 
So Chrysostom. . 

3 Ver. 3. Ev ἀσθενεία, In weakness.] Of the body, and of 
speech, “his bodily presence being weak (and mean), and 
his speech contemptible” (2 Cor. x. 10). This infirmity of 
flesh rendering him despicable in the eyes of others (Gal. iv. 
13, 14). 

4 Ἔν φόβῳ καὶ ἐν τρύμῳω, In fear and trembling.) By rea- 
son of the violent opposition which he found from the Jews, 
which made so deep impression on him when he was at Co- 
rinth, that Christ saw fit to appear to him, and encourage 
him, by saying, “ Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy 
peace, for I am with thee” (Acts xviii. 6. 9). 

5 Ver. 4. Ἔν ἀποδείξει Πνεύματος, In demonstration of the 
Spirit.] This is, saith Origen,* by demonstration of the truth 
of what I said concerning Christ out of the prophets, who 


* Contra Celsum, p. 5. 


4 And my speech and my preaching was not with 
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but 5 in demonstra- 
tion of the Spirit and of power: (the power of God 
confirming what I preached with signs and wonders, Rom. 
xv. 19, 2 Cor. xil. 12:) 

5 That your faith should not (seem to) stand in the 
wisdom of men, but in the power of God. 

6 Howbeit we speak (the highest) wisdom δ among 
them that are perfect (men in Christ Jesus; i.e. fully 
inslructed in the principles of Christian faith): yet 
not the wisdom of this (heathen) world, nor of the 
princes of this world (the Jewish magistrates and doc- 


spake by the Spirit, and comparing spiritual things revealed 
to us with spiritual things revealed to them (ver. 13); rea- 
soning with the Jews out of the scripture, as Paul’s man- 
ner was (Acts xvii. 2): “and saying no other things but 
those which Moses and the prophets said should come, that 
Christ should suffer, and that he should rise from the dead, 
and should show light to the gentiles” (Acts xxvi. 22, 23). 

Others, as Chrysostom," ‘Theodoret, CEcumenius, and 
Theophylact, understand by this phrase the miraculous gifts 
of the Holy Ghost; only it must be noted against Mr. Le 
Clerc, that neither the word Πνεῦμα is to be restrained to the 
gift of tongues, but comprehends all the internal gifts of the 
Holy Ghost; nor must the word divas, “power,” be re- 
strained to healing diseases, but comprehend all the external 
gifts shown upon others, as casting out devils, raising the 
dead, &c. 

6 Ver. 6. "Ev τοῖς τελείοις, Among them that are perfect.) 
i. e. Fully instructed in the principles of the Christian faith 
that this is the sense of the word “ perfect’? here, appears 
from the opposition of those that are perfect to the “babes 
in Christ ;” as in those words, “ You have need that one 
teach you which be the first principles of the oracles of God, 
and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong 
drink ; for every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word 
of righteousness. Therefore, leaving the principles of the 
doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection” (Heb. v. 12, 
13, vi. 1), εἰς τὴν τελειότητα. Thus to the question of the 
young man, “ What lack I yet?” Christ answereth, εἰ Si- 
ets τέλειος εἶναι, “If thou wilt be perfect,” i. e. fully in- 
structed in the conditions of life required by the gospel, 


* Aca γὰρ τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος, καὶ τῶν ἐξ αὐτοῦ σημείων, καὶ 
δυνάμεων, τὰς ἀποδείξεις τοῦ ἀληϑῆ λέγειν παρεχύμεθα. Photius. 
3B 


614 


tors), that come to nought (and are to be abolish- 
ed): 

: But we 7 speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, 
even 8 the hidden wisdom, which God ordained 9 before 
the world (to be revealed in due time) unto our glory 
(i. e. to be the means of our happiness and glory) : 

8 Which ” none of the princes of this world knew: 
for had they known 7, they would not have crucified 
the Lord of glory. 

9 But (God hath dealt with us) as it is written, (Isa. 
Ixiv. 4,) " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
have entered into the heart of man, the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him. 

10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his 
Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the 
deep (and mysterious) things of God. + 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


11 (And as tt ts among men, so il is here in refer- 
ence to these things ;) For what man knoweth the (secret) 
things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in 
him? even so the (secret) things of God knoweth no 
man (Gr. none), but the? Spirit of God (which is in 
him). 

: Now we have received, not the spirit of the 
world (which suggests worldly wisdom), but the spirit 
which is of God; that we might know the things that 
are freely given to us of God. 

13 Which things also we speak, not in the words 
which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy 
Ghost teacheth; 13 comparing spiritual things with 
spiritual. 

14 But “the natural man (who acteih only on the 
principles of human reason, and of worldly wisdom) 


“go sell all, and follow me” (Matt. xix. 21): so Phil. iii. 
15, “ Let us therefore, as many as be perfect,” i. e. fully in- 
structed in our Christian liberty, “mind this” (see 1 Cor. 
xiii. 10, Col. i. 28). “Strong meat is for them that are 
perfect” (Heb. v. 14). 

7 Ver. 7. We speak wisdom, ἣν προώρισεν ὃ Θεὸς πρὸ τῶν 
αἰώνων, which God hath ordained before the world to our 
glory.) Hence also it seems plain, that God hath appointed 
his gospel for the salvation of all to whom it is revealed: 
for though the apostle charged many of the church of Co- 
rinth with those things that would exclude them without 


repentance from this glory, yet he excludes none of them | 


from being by God ordained or appointed to receive glory 
by it. 

Ys Τὴν ἀποκεκρυμμένην, The hidden wisdom.] i. e. Before, 
not after, the revelation of it; for this mystery, saith the 
apostle, «God has revealed to us by his Spirit” (v. 10). It 
is “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and genera- 
tions, but now is made manifest to the saints” (Rom. xvi. 
25, 26, Eph. i. 9, iii. 3, 4. 9, 10, vi. 19, Col. i. 26, 27, ii. 2, 
iv. 3, 4. 

9 Πρὸ τῶν αἱ ὄνων, Before the world.] At the beginning of 
the ages of the world (Gen. iii. 15), and before any of them 
were completed, or run out. Hence it is styled the mystery 
concealed in the times of the preceding ages (Rom. xvi. 25), 
as being “not made known in other ages to the sons of men 
as now it is” (Eph. iii. 5), but being a mystery hid from 
those ages (ver. 9). In this sense seemeth it to be, that 
God hath promised us eternal life, πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, « from 
ancient generations,” ἐξ ἀρχῆς, “from the beginning,” saith 
Photius; and this grace in the promise of it is said to be 
«given us in Christ,” 2 Tim. i. 9, πρὸ χρύνων αἰωνίων, “a long 
time,” saith Dr. Hammond; ἄνωθεν, καὶ ἐξ ἀρχῆς, “from the 
beginning, or of old,” saith Theodoret. 

10 Ver. 8. Οὐδεὶς τῶν ἀρχόντων, None of the princes.) Pi- 
late, or the Jewish rulers, for they only can be said to have 
«crucified the Lord of glory,” they only are the rulers which 
were to be “abolished” (ver. 6); and they are styled οἱ ἄρ- 
xovrés, princes and rulers,’ Luke xiv. 1, and xviii. 18, the 
princes which stood up, and the rulers which took counsel 
against the Lord, and against his Anointed (Ps. ii. 2, Acts 
iv. 26). They were the princes who delivered him to be 
condemned to death, and crucified him, and this they did 
out of ignorance (Acts ili. 17, xiii. 27). 

U Ver. 9. ᾿Οφθαλμὸς οὐκ εἶδε, Lye hath not seen.| These 
words do not immediately respect the blessings of another 
world, but are spoken by the prophet of the gospel-state, 
and the blessings then to be enjoyed by them that love God 
(Rom. viii. 28). For “all the prophets,” say the Jews,* 
“prophesied only of the days of the Messiah ; but as for the 
world to come,” or the state of things then, “(as it is writ- 
ten,) Eye hath not seen, Ὁ God, besides thee,” where the 
gloss adds, “ The eyes of the prophets could not see these 
things.” Hence the apostle adds in the following verse, 
“But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit;” 
whereas our future happiness is not yet revealed, saith John 
(1 John iii, 3). Yea, the words of Isaiah, lxiv. 4, in their 
primary sense, may only intimate that no man, by his own 


* Light. in locum. 


sense or reason, or by instruction from others, can discern 
any other God besides the true God, or know what kind- 
ness he will afford them that wait on him. And both the 
context, and the opposition of these words to the revelation 
of these things by the Spirit, show the primary intent of the 
apostle to be this, that no human wisdom, by any thing that 
may be seen, heard of, or conceived by us, can acquaint us 
with the things taught by the Holy Spirit, without a revela- 
tion. 

2 Ver. 11. Ei μὴ τὸ Πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ, But the Spirit of 
God.] 'These words accord with those of the book of Wis- 
dom, “ Thy counsel who hath known, except thou give wis- 
dom, and send thy Spirit from above, which knoweth and 
understandeth all things?” (xix. 11:) whence it seems 
plainly to follow, 

First, That the Holy Spirit is omniscient, “as knowing all 
things, even the deep things of God.” « Wisdom is a lov- 
ing Spirit, and will not acquit a blasphemer of his words ; 
for God is witness of his reins, and a beholder of his heart, 
and a hearer of his tongue: for the Spirit of the Lord fill- 
eth the world, and that which containeth all things hath the 
knowledge of the voice” (Wisd. i. 6, 7). 

Secondly, That the Holy Spirit is with God, and in God, 
even as intimately as the soul is in the body, according to 
those words of the book of Wisdom, “She is pera cov with 
thee, an assessor of thy throne, and was present with thee 
when thou madest the world” (Wisd. ix. 4. 9). 

18 Ver. 18. Πνευματικὰ πνευματικοῖς συγκρίνοντες, Compar- 
ing spiritual things with spiritual.| «That is,” says Mr. 
Le Clere, “speaking spiritual things to spiritual men.” But 
where doth cvyxpivw signify to speak, or why doth he limit 
what is spoken to the spiritual man, since the apostles spake 
as well to the unbelieving Jew and gentile, as to the spiri- 
tual man? And how doth it appear that ἄνθρωπος, man, is 
here to be understood, because it follows in the next verse, 
rather than πράγματα, things, which is understood in the 
immediate foregoing words? ‘The interpretation of the fathers 
is much more probable, viz. we speak these things in the 
words taught by the Holy Ghost,* comparing the things 
which were writ by the Spirit of the Old Testament with 
what is now revealed to us by the same Spirit, and con- 
firming our doctrines from them. Moreover, from this and 
the preceding verses, as also from the fotlowing, it is ex- 
ceeding evident that the apostles spake and writ by inspi- 
ration of the Holy Ghost, as did the prophets of old time, 
and delivered only those things as from God which God re- 
vealed to them by the Holy Spirit; according to those words 
of Peter, « We preach the gospel to you by the Holy Ghost 
sent down from heaven” (1 Pet. i. 12). 

4 Ver. 14. Ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος, The natural man.] “By 
natural man,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “is not here meant the 
man that makes use of nothing but reason; but the man 
that is wholly devoted and enslaved to earthly things, and 
entirely taken up with the concernments of this life, like a 
brute creature. The opposition made here between spiritual 
and animal things,” saith he, “plainly proves what I have 
said :”’ whereas there is not a word spoken of ψυχικὰ, “ ani- 


* Ἔχομεν yap τῆς παλαιᾶς διαϑήκης μαρτυρίαν, καὶ δι᾿ εκείνης 
τὴν καινὴν βεβαιοῦμεν, Theodoret. 


CHAPTER II. 


Sreceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for 
they are foolishness unto him (as being destitute of his 
human wisdom, i. 23): neither can he know them 
(ty any study of his own), because they are spiritually 
iscerned (7. ε. by scripture prophecies, and by the re- 
relation of the Spirit; and therefore, while he conti- 
nues to reject this way of knowledge, he cannot receive 
them). 


615 


15 But he that is spiritual (¢. 6. who hath the re- 
lation of the Spirit) ™ judgeth (or discerneth) all things 
(relating to this mystery, ver. yet he himself is 
judged of no man (or discerned by none, who hath no 
higher principles than that of nature to discern things 
by). 
τς For who (without a revelation) hath known the 
mind of the Lord, ® that he may instruct him? (or, 


mal things” in the whole chapter, but only an opposition 
between ψυχικός, the natural or animal, and πνευματικὸς, 
spiritual person, whom I shall prove to be a person endued 
with a spiritual afflatus, and by that confound his notion. 
That the natural man here is the man who rejects revelation, 
and admits of no higher principle to judge of things by but 
philosophy, and demonstration from the principles of natu- 
ral reason, or, in the words of Porphyry,” ris κατὰ τὸν λογισ- 
μὸν πειθοῦς εὑρισκομένης, * of persuasion to be found out bya 
rational deduction,” is the express assertion of Theodoret,t 
Chrysostom,+ Photius, 2cumenius, and Theophylact,§ upon 
the place; they therefore thought the word would bear this 
sense: and evident it is to any one who considers the chain 
of the apostle’s discourse from i. 17 to the end of this chap- 
ter, that this must be the sense; for, ver. 17, he begins to 
declare, he preached the gospel, οὐκ ἐν σοφία λόγου, “not in 
wisdom of words,” or human wisdom; here, ver. 1, that he 
did not καθ᾽ ὑπεροχὴν λόγου ἣ σοῤίας, “with excellency of 
speech,” or human wisdom; there the persons which reject 
the gospel are σοφοὶ, “ the wise men of the world,” ver. 19— 
21, styled σοφοὶ κατὰ σάρκα, “wise men according to the 
flesh ;’ the Greeks that “seek for wisdom,” ver. 22, they 
who esteemed it foolishness are the same Greeks, ver. 23; 
here it is the Wuyuds, “natural man” who “receives it not,” 
and to whom it is “foolishness.” Who therefore sees not 
that the natural man is the same with the wise man, the 
disputer, the philosopher, the Greek, there? There the 
gospel rejected by them for want of this wisdom, and ac- 
counted foolishness, is indeed “the power of God, and the 
wisdom of God,’ ver. 24: here it is “the wisdom of God 
in a mystery” revealed to the apostles by the Spirit (ver. 7. 
10); 1. 6. the Spirit, not of the world, or of human wisdom, 
but the Spirit they had received from God, that they might 
know it (ver. 12); and therefore they delivered it, “not in 
the words of human wisdom,” in which the Greeks gloried, 
and which they sought for in the gospel, but in words taught 
them by the Holy Ghost (ver. 13); when then it follows, 
“But the natural man receives not τὰ τοὺ Πνεύματος, the 
things of the Spirit,” must he not be the man who receives 
not the things taught by the revelation of the Holy Ghost? 
The opposition which he bears to the πνευματικὸς, the man 
who hath this wisdom revealed to him by the Spirit of 
God, demonstrates this to be the sense. 

15 Οὐ ὀέχεται, &c. He receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
of God.] But counts them foolishness (i. 23), when pro- 
pounded to him, because he doth not see them proved from 
principles of natural reason by philosophical deductions, 
which is the wisdom he seeks after (ver. 22). Hence again 
it is evident he is the Greek, and not the sensual person. 

16 Οὐ ὀύναται γνῶναι, He cannot know them.) viz. By that 
wisdom which alone he will be conducted by, because they 
are spiritually discerned, or by the revelation of the Spirit; 
for, being mysteries, they are not knowable by human rea- 
son, till God is pleased to reveal them (so ver. 9—11. 16). 

Note also, That the apostle doth not here discourse of 
the inability of a heathen to understand the sense of any 
revelations discovered to him, for how then are they to be dis- 
covered to him? but only of his ability to find out, and 
originally come to the knowledge of them by the mere light 
of reason; and from the denial of this, he infers the neces- 
sity of a supernatural revelation, that the hidden wisdom of 


* De Abs. lib. i. §. 1. 

i, ψυχικὸν ναλεῖ τὸν μόνοις τοῖς οἰκείοις ἀρχόμενον λογισμοῖς, καὶ 
τὴν τοὺ Πνεύ ττὸς διδασκαλίαν μὴ προσιέμενον. Theodoret. 

$ Ψυχικός ἐστιν ὃ τὸ πᾶν τοῖς λογισμοῖς τοῖς ψυχροῖς διῤοὺς, καὶ 
μὴ νομίζων ἄνωθέν τινος δεῖσθαι. Chrysost. 

§ Τὸν μηδὲν πίστει δεχόμενον, μῆτε νομίζοντά τινος ἄνωθεν δεῖσϑαι 


δΒοηθείας. Theoph. 


God may be made known to the world. Nor doth he say 
that the natural man cannot understand these revelations 
when discovered to him, because he wants farther means to 
do it, but only that he cannot know them before they are 
discovered by the revelation of the Spirit; and that he 
will not then receive them, because they are not taught him, 
as the wisdom of the world is, by deductions from principles 
of human reason. ‘he Jew, saith he, admits of revelation, 
and so he only doth “require a sign” to prove this revela- 
tion ; but the Greek seeks after human wisdom, and because 
he finds not that in our way of preaching, he will not receive 
the revelation, though it be confirmed “ by demonstration of 
the Spirit, and of power.” ; 

7 Ver. 15. ᾿Ανακρίνει, Judgeth all things.) The passive 
dvaxpiverae is rendered “discerned” in the foregoing verse, 
and so should have been rendered here; and the active, 
«searcheth” or “discerneth,’ as Acts xvii. 11, and here, x. 
25. 27, and xiv. 24. So Iren. lib. iv. cap. 66. Hic exa- 
minat omnes, ἃ nemine autem examinatur. τ 

18 Ver. 16. Ὃς συμβιβάσει αὐτὸν, That he may instruct 
him.] Though these words in the prophet Isaiah do certainly 
refer to God, they lying in the Hebrew thus, “ Who hath 
directed the Spirit of the Lord? . And (who is) the man as 
his counsel that made him to know ?” (xl. 13, 14,) yet, as 
they are varied here thus, “ Who hath known the mind of 
the Lord? who will (or can) direct him?” they seem 
plainly to refer to the spiritual man, and to affirm that he 
could not be instructed in the mysteries of the gospel by any 
human wisdom. (1.) Because our knowing of the mind of 
Christ may enable us to direct others ; but not that Lord who 
affords us this knowledge. (2.) Because this is plainly intro- 
duced as a proof that the spiritual man can be judged or dis- 
cerned by no other person, who is not spiritual, and therefore 
must respect not God but him. gala 

Πνευματικὸς here, and in other places of this epistle, is not 
the man who is adomed with the fruits of the good Spirit, 
much less, as Mr. Le Clere suggests, the man who “ relishes, 
or is affected with the spiritual doctrines of the gospel AM 
but* ὁ τῆς τοῦ Πνεύματος χάριτος ἠξιωμένος, “ the man who is 
endued with a spiritual afflatus,” and hath those gifts of the 
Spirit which are styled “the word of wisdom and of know- 
ledge” (xii. 8); for (1.) he is the man who speaks “in de- 
monstration of the Spirit” (ver. 4), “the wisdom of God in 
a mystery” (ver. 7), “to whom God hath revealed it by the 
Holy Spirit” (ver. 10), «that he might know the things that 
are freely given us of God” (ver. 12), and who speaks of 
them “in words taught by the Holy Ghost” (ver. 13), and 
who, by this revelation of the Spirit, hath the mind of Christ 
made known to him (ver. 16), who speaks Πνεύματι Θεοῦ, 
«by the Spirit of God,” and by the Holy Ghost (xii. 3). 
Such were the prophets in the first age of the church, who 
by this afflatus performed all sacred offices in the church, 
before they had stated church-officers among them (see note 
on 1 Cor. xiv. 32). Whence the apostle saith, «If any man 
be a prophet among you, or spiritual, let him know” (i. 6. 
acknowledge and discern by its spiritual afflatus) “that the 
things which I write unto you are the commandments | of 
the Lord” (1 Cor. xiv. 37): and to those prophets he writes 
thus, “ Brethren, if any man be overtaken with a fault, you 
that are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meek- 
ness” (Gal. vi. 1: see the note there). This is the constant 
notion of the spiritual man in Ireneus,} who, speaking of 


* Theod. 

+ Perfectos dicit eos qui acceperunt Spiritum Dei, et 
omnibus linguis loquuntur per Spiritum Dei, quemadmodam 
et multos audivimus fratres in ecclesia prophetica habentes 
charismata et per Spiritum universis linguis loquentes et 
abscondita hominum in manifestum producentes ad utilitatem, 


616 


which will and can instruct him in these things? Sure 
no man by naiural principles.) But we (who are spi- 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


ritual) have the mind of Christ (and so are able to dis- 
cern and instruct others in it). 


those men who had the prophetical gifts for the edification of 
the church, saith, “They are men whom the apostle styles 
spiritual.” When afterward church-governors were ap- 
pointed, they seem to have been chosen out of these spiritual 
men, or to have had for a time, together with their ordina- 
tion, this gift, which therefore he styles “ the gift of truth :” 
and “from whom,” saith he, «the truth is to be learned by 
others.” If the church of Rome would from this chapter 


et mysteria Dei enarrantes, quos et spirituales apostolus 
vocat, secundum participationem Spiritiis existentes spiri- 
tuales. Lib. iv. cap. 75. 


gather the infallibility of their doctors met in council, let 
them show it by their spiritual gifts, or exhibit charismata 
veritatis, as Ireneus speaks.* 


* Eis qui in ecclesia sunt, presbyteris obedire oportet 
his, qui successionem habent ab apostolis, qui cum episco- 
pattis successione charisma veritatis certum secundim 
beneplacitum patris acceperunt. Lib. iv. cap. 43. Posuit 
Deus in ecclesia 19 apostolos, 29 prophetas, 3° doctores ; 
ubi igitur charismata Domini posita sunt, ibi discere oportet 
veritatem, Ib. cap. 45. 


CHAPTER III. 


Ann I, brethren, (though Ispeak the highest wisdom 
among them that are perfect, yet) could (7) not speak 
unto you as unto spiritual (persons), but as unto car- 
nal, (6y reason of those fruits of the flesh which still abide 
tn you, ver. 3, and your affections to those who are only 
wise according to the flesh, chap. Xxviii., and) even as 
unto babes in Christ. 

2 Ihave fed you with milk, (the principles of the doc- 
trines of Christ, Heb. v. 12, 13, vi. 1: see 1 Cor. xv. 
2, 3,) and not with meat (the higher doctrines of Chris- 
tianily): for hitherto (or then) 1 ye were not able fo 
bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 

3 For ye are® yet carnal : for whereas there is (yel) 
among you envying, and strife, and divisions, (which 
are the works of the flesh, Gal. ν. 20, 21,) are ye not 
camal, and walk as men (who have little of the Spirit 
in you? see note on ix. 8). 

4 For while one saith (én opposition to each other), 


Τ am (the disciple) of Paul; and another, I am of Apol- 
los; are ye not carnal? 

5 Who then is Paul, and who ¢s Apollos, (not au- 
thors of your faith) but (only) ministers by whom ye 
believed (which faith also they wrought in you), even as 
the Lord gave (his gifts) to every man (and his bless- 
ings on their labours) 2 

6 I have planted (the gospel among you), Apollos 
watered (the seed sown); but God (only) gave the in- 
crease (of it). 

7 So then neither is he that planteth (to be esteemed 
as) any thing, neither he that watereth; 5 but (the 
glory of all must be ascribed to) God that giveth the in- 
crease. 

8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth 4 are 
one (in the design and ministry): and eyery man (of 
them) shall receive his own reward (from that God 
whose workmen they are) according to his own labour. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IIL 


1 Ver. 2. Οὔπω γὰρ ἡδύνασϑε, For yet you could not, add, 
bear it.) So in the Old Testament ays xb is often used, i. e. 
“T cannot,” or “TI would not,” where endure, or bear it, is 
understood: so Job xxxi. 23, “ By reason of his highness I 
could not,” sup. endure; Ps. ci. 5, “Him that is of any 
haughty eye and proud look, I cannot;” Isa. i. 13, “The 
calling of assemblies I cannot,” i. e. bear. 

2 Ver. 3. Σαρκικοὶ, Carnal.] This word, being here plainly 
applied to the works of the flesh, seems to imply that the 
spiritual man, opposed to him, should signify the man en- 
dued with the fruits of the good Spirit, or who “walketh in 
the Spirit, not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh” (Rom. viii. 
1. 4, Gal. v.16). And thus the Greek interpreters do un- 
‘derstand these words; hence noting, that it is possible for 
men to have great gifts, as the Corinthians had, and yet be 
carnal. Yet Ireneus* interprets the words thus, that “ they 
were carnal, because the Spirit of the Father did not rest 
upon them;’ i. 6. because he, being the Spirit of love and 
union, would not abide with them when they indulged in 
envy and divisions, or be unto them a Spirit of instruction ; 
and, according to this interpretation, he must deny them to 
be spiritual, as the word signifies one who enjoys some 
spiritual gift, and receives some illumination from him: or 
as one that is not purely governed by the revelation made 
by the Spirit, but rather walks κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον, as a man at- 
tending not the dictates of the Spirit, but of human reason, 
or of his natural inclinations, for that this is the genuine im- 
port of that phrase, to “walk as men,” see note on Rom. 
ili. 5, 1 Cor. ix. 8. Whatever be the sense, it must be 
noted that the apostle doth not here style them carnal, in 
that worst sense in which the carnal person is represented as 


* Nondum autem Spiritus patris requiescit super vos 
Propter vestram infirmitatem. Lib. iv. cap. 75. 


one who is “not subject to the law of God, neither indeed 
can be” (Rom. viii. 7, 8), and therefore can do nothing 
pleasing to God; and as it wholly doth exclude us from any 
interest in Christ (Gal. v. 24), for he allows them to be 
“babes in Christ” (ver. 1): but as it imports men, through 
the too great prevalency of their carnal appetites lusting 
against the Spirit, still subject to such things as showed some 
strong remainders of a carnal mind in them. 

But one great difficulty remains, scarce observed by any 
interpreter excepting Crellius, viz) How the same Corin- 
thians could be such “babes in Christ,” and have such 
“need of milk, and not of meat,” and yet be “enriched in 
all utterance and knowledge” (1 Cor. i. 5), and “ abound in 
faith, utterance, and knowledge” (2 Cor. viil. 7). 

I answer, that these encomiums must be restrained to 
some few of them who were their extraordinary church 
officers, and enjoyed this faith and knowledge for the in- 
struction of the rest; and then, notwithstanding this, it may 
be true that the apostle could not write to the generality of 
them as such, but rather as to “babes in Christ.” Or (2.) 
this “faith, utterance, and knowlege,” must be restrained 
to the gift of miracles, of tongues, and the interpretation of 
them, which might be given for the confirmation of the gos- 
pel, and the good of others, to them who were not spiritual 
in the best sense, but of very small proficiency in the saving 
fruits of the good Spirit. Hence we find them “puffed up” 
on the account of these gifts, envying others who had 
them in a higher measure, and abusing them to vain osten- 
tation and confusion in the church, and not to edification, 
which things sufficiently ‘evidence they were but “babes in 
Christ.” 

3 Ver. 7. ’AXN’ 5 Θεὸς, But God, &c.] Whence it is evi- 
dent, that there can be no cause why you should run into 
factions about, or desire to be named from them, who have 
no excellency but from God, and do nothing but by his 
assistance. 

4 Ver. 8. Ἕν εἰσιν, Are one.] Kara τὴν διακονίαν, according 


CHAPTER III. 


9 (Tsay, according to his labour,) For we are labour- | 
ers together with God (his grace assisting us): ye are 
5 God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. 

10 According to the grace of God which is given 
unto me, as a wise ὃ masterbuilder (assisted by divine 
wisdom), I have laid the foundation (Jesus Christ, and | 
him crucified, 1 Cor. ii. 2), and another (coming after | 
me) buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed | 
how he buildeth thereupon. 

11 For other (¢rue) foundation can no man lay than 
that (which) is laid (already by me), which is (faith 
in) Jesus Christ. 

12 Now if any man build upon this foundation 
gold, silver, precious stones (7. e. sound doctrine, which 
will bear the trial of fire), wood, hay, stubble (hu- 
man cloquence and wisdom, legal rites and Judaical 
traditions, which will be abolished and vanished 
away) ; 

13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: 7 for 
the day (of Chrisi’s advent, to destroy the Jewish temple, 
church, and nation,) shall declare it, because it shall 
be (Gr. it is) revealed by fire ; (7. δ. to be altended with 
greal tribulation, Matt. xxiv. 21, πυρώσει πρὸς πειρασμὸν; 
with burning for trial, 1 Pet. iv. 12;) and the fire shall 
try every man’s work of what sort it is (whether it be 
gold or stlver, to abide the fire ; or hay and stubble, to be 
consumed by it). 

14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built 
thereupon (as sound evangelical doctrine will, suffer- 


617 


ing nothing by, but being confirmed by, the conflagration 
which shall bor up the Jonash economy), he shall re- 
ceive a reward, (be approved as a wise builder, and shall 
be eminently preserved from the evils of that day of trial, 
Matt. xxiv. 13). 

15 If any man’s work shall be burned (as theirs 
must be, who build upon the foundation of legal obser- 
vances and Judaical rites, for they must perish with that 
church and temple, which is the foundation of them), he 
shall suffer (Λε) loss (of all his labour): but he him- 
self shall be saved; ὃ yet so as by fire (7. e. not with- 
out great hazard and difficulty, as one snatched out of the 

re). 
A τ (Moreover, to pass from their false doctrines, to the 
evil effects of them in your divisions :) Know ye not that 
ye (Christians) are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you (the Christian church, as 
the Shechinah did in the tem ΠῚ ? 

17 If (then) any man ὃ defile the temple of God (by 
dividing that church which is the temple, and in which 
one and the same Spirit dwells, into parts and_frac- 
tions), him shall God destroy ; for the temple of God 
is holy, (and therefore not lo be profaned by those divi- 
sions which render you carnal, 1 Cor. ili. 1. 3,) which 
temple ye are. 

18 (And because you break into these divisions on the 
account of, or are taught these practices by, the philo- 
sophers of this age, men in whom you glory for their 
eloquence and wisdom ;) Let no man deceive himself. 


to their ministry, saith Clemens Alexandrinus,* as being 
God’s ministers in this dispensation ; or, ἐνύτητι τοῦ Πνεύματος, 
as having both received their different gifts from the same 
Spirit, it being “one and the same Spirit, who divideth to 
every man as he will” (1 Cor. xii. 11). 

5 Ver. 9. Θεοῦ γεώργιον, God's husbandry.) This think is 
better rendered “ God’s field,” by Chrysostom, C&cumenius, 
and Theophylact, who hence infer, that the field is God's; 
the apostles only, γεωργοὶ αὐτοῦ, his labourers sent forth to 
labour in it, and enabled by hin? for that work; and that 
they ought as a field to be fenced, ἐνὶ τῷ φραγμῷ τῆς ὁμονοίας, 
with the hedge of concord, and not be divided into parties. 
Accordingly the word answers to the Hebrew yw: so Prov. 
xxiv. 30,“I went by γεώργιον the field of the slothful ;” and, 
xxxi. 16, “ The wise woman considereth, γεώργιον, a field, and 
buyeth it.” 

6 Ver. 10. ᾿Αρχιτέκτων, A master-builder.] So the Jews 
call their wise men, oyna, architecti (see Buxtorf. Lex. 
Talm. p. 318), which the apostle here uses. 

7 Ver. 13. Ἢ yap ἡμέρα δηλύσει, For the day will declare 
u.] Here observe, 

First, That a day, absolutely put, doth often signify a day 
or a time of punishment; so, “They that come after him 
shall be astonished at his day,” Job xviii. 21. “The Lord 
shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day is coming,” Ps. 
xxxvii. 13. “Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, 
what they did in the day of Jerusalem,” Psal. exxxvii. 7. 
So “the day of Midian,” Isa. ix. 4; “ Woe unto them, for 
their day is come, the time of their visitation,” Jer. ]. 27. 

Secondly, That in like manner the day, here mentioned, 
is the day of our Lord’s coming, to destroy the unbelieving 
Jews, to burn their temple, and to destroy the Jewish eco- 
nomy, will appear probable from the description of that day, 
“as a refiner’s fire,” Mal. iii. 2, 3, iv. 1, 2, Joel ii. 1.13, 30, 
$1, and as the fire of an oven, burning up the chaff and stub- 
ble; for, “behold the day of the Lord cometh, that shall 
burn as an oven, and all the proud, and all that do wickedly, | 
shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall burn them 


But whether we understand these words of that day, or | 
any other day of judgment, this is certain, that the apostle | 
cannot be here supposed to speak of the Roman purgatory 
fire; (1) because the fire the apostle speaks of, as Origen¢ 


* Strom. p. 272, D. 


In locum. 


+ dn Celsum, lib. iv. p. 168. 
Vor. [V.—78 


hath noted, is not πῦρ ὑλικὸν καὶ αἰσθητὸν, ἀλλὰ τροπολογικὸν, 
“fire properly, but metaphorically, so called,” as appears 
from those words, “ He shall escape as by fire.” (2.) Because 
this fire is to try “every man’s work,” Paul’s and Apollos’s, 
as well as theirs who built on the foundation hay and stub- 
ble; and sure they will not say Paul and Apollos went to 
purgatory. (3.) This fire shall try every man’s work “ of 
what sortit is?’ now purgatory fire doth not try every man’s 
works, but punishes them for them. 

8 Ver. 15. ‘Qs διὰ πυρὸς, As oul of the fire.) To be “saved 
out of the fire,” is a proverbial speech concerning them that 
escape with great danger out of a calamity; so it is used in 
the Old Testament, “I have plucked them as a firebrand out 
of the το," Amos iv. 11; “Is not this a brand plucked out 
of the fire?” Zech. iii. 2. So L. Amilius, in Livy,* saith, he 
“escaped the popular flame half burnt.” The interpretation 
of Sir Norton Knatchbull, “ He shall be saved, but so as he 
pass through the fire of persecution with constancy to the 
faith,” accords well with Christ’s words, Matt. xxiv. 13, but 
not with the use of this proverbial expression. Now hence 
it is evident, that the apostle speaks not of the Gnostics, who 
denied the resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 14. 17), and so believed 
in vain, and taught that Christ might be denied with the 
mouth in the time of persecution, and so were then ashamed 
of him, and also were abominably filthy both in doctrine and 
manners: for of such the apostles would not say, They 
should be saved yet, but so as by fire; but, as Jude and 
Peter do, they are “of old ordained to condemnation ; their 
judgment lingereth not, and their damnation doth not slum- 
ber” (Jude 4. 13, 2 Pet. ii. 3). 

9 Ver. 17. Ei τις τὸν ναὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ φϑείρει, If any man cor- 
rupt the temple of God.| Ihave, in the paraphrase, followed 
the common interpretation of these words; but the like 
words used ch. vi. from ver. 15 to 19, by way of dehortation 
from fornication, and 2 Cor. vi. 16, from communion with 
heathens in their idolatrous rites and evil practices, and by way 
of inducement to “ cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh 
and spirit” (vii. 1), more naturally incline us to refer these 
verses to the corrupting of the temple of God, by filthiness of 
the flesh, uncleanness, and fornication, or by filthiness of the 
spirit, i. e. idolatrous practices; both which the Corinthiaus 
did (see the note on 1 Cor. vii. 1): and then the connexion 
will run thus—I have declared you to be “a building of God” 
(ver. 9), as being “ built up together for a habitation of God 


* Lib. xxii. cap. 40. Ὁ 
3B2 


618 


If any man among you seemeth to be wise in (the 
wisdom and learning of ) this world, let him (embrace 
that gospel and doctrine of Christ, which the world calls 
foolishness, and so) become a fool (to them), that he 
may be wise (according to the wisdom of God, 1 Cor. i. 
24, 25). 

19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with 
God. For it is written (Job v. 13), He taketh the 
wise in their own craftiness (causing one sect of philoso- 
phers to destroy what another established, and so showing 
the uncertainty and vanity of their pretended wisdom). 

20 And again (Ps. xciv. 11), The Lord knoweth 
the thoughts (and machinations) of the wise, that they 
are vain. 


I. CORINTHIANS. ; 


21 Therefore let no man (so) glory in men (as to 
be induced by their esteem of them to rend or divide the 
church, or to indulge those vile practices which corrupt the 
temple of God). For" all things (or persons) are your’s 
(as being appointed for your service) ; 

22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas (they have 
received their apostleship for your sakes), or the world 
(as being made for you), or life, or death, or things 
present, or things to come; all are your’s (as being all 
designed for your good ) ; 

23 And ye are (only) Christ’s (who is your head) ; 
and Christ ” is God’s (or, of God, having, as Mediator, 
his commission and his power from him, and acting all 
things to his glory). 


through the Spirit” (Eph. ii. 22). If therefore you do not 
keep this temple of God holy, but corrupt it by “joining the 
temple of God with idols” (2 Cor. vi. 16), or profane and 
defile it by uncleanness and fornication, you may expect that 
these sins, by which God's temple is destroyed, should end 
in your own ruin and destruction. 

10 Ver. 18. Σοφὸς εἶναι ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ, To be wise in the 
wisdom of this world.) That the Corinthians were induced to 
eat things offered to idols in the idol-temples, by men pre- 
tending to great knowledge, see viii. 1, 2, that they also intro- 
duced among them the doctrine of the lawfulness of fornica- 
tion, see note on ν. 1, vi. 16, vii. 1. And to this sense of the 
two last verses agree the descants of the ancients, who say 
the apostle (ver. 17) begins to speak περὶ τοῦ πεπορνευκότος, 
“of him that had committed fornication” (v. 1), and against 
them, qui turpitér viventes corpora sua violando corruperunt, 
“who by filthy practices had corrupted their bodies, and 
violated the temple of the Holy Ghost :’’ these teachers seem 
to have been of the Nicolaitans, who received their doctrines 
from the philosophers. 

Ver. 21. Πάντα ὑμῶν ἐστιν, All are yours.] The Jews 
believed that the world was made for them, and that God 
despised the gentiles, and looked upon them as nothing when 
he made it (2 Esd. vi. 55.59). The apostle, on the contrary, 
affirms the world was made for the gentiles, converted to the 
Christian faith: and adds, that the apostles had received their 
gifts and authority for their sakes; that if life were continued 
to them under continual perils, it was “ for their furtherance 
and joy in the faith” (Phil. i. 15); or if we, saith he, be 


always given up to death, so that “death worketh in us,” it 
is that “life may work in you” (2 Cor. iv. 11, 12), for “we 
suffer all things for you” (ver. 15, 2 Tim. ii. 10); that 
«things present,” the pressures they now suffered, and “ things 
to come,” the prosperity and adversity they might afterward 
be subject to, were for their sakes; “for whether we be 
afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation ; or whether 
we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation” (2 
Cor. i. 6). 

12 Veo 23. Χριστὸς δὲ Θεοῦ, And Christ is God’s.] Here the 
Socinians cry out, Vide hic discrimen inter Deum et Christum, 
«See here the difference betwixt God and Christ.” —« Hence 
it appears,” saith Crellius, “that Christ is in nowise God 
most high, as having another above him, as his head, on whom 
he depends, and from whom he is here manifestly distin- 
guished.” 

But the fathers thought not so, who say Christ is of God, 
ὡς προαιώνιον γέννημα καὶ ὡς αἱτίαν ἔχων τὸν πατέρα, “as being 
begotten by him before all ages, and having him for his 
Father, ἐξ αὐτοῦ γεγενημένος κατὰ τὴν Sedrnra, as receiving the 
divine nature from him.” Others grant this of Christ as 
mediator betwixt us and God, in which sense he performing 
that office as man, or by virtue of his human nature, in which 
alone he could be a prophet sent from God, or offer up him- 
self to the death for us, or intercede in our behalf, or be 
“exalted to the right hand of God, to be a prince and a Sa- 
viour ;” he therefore was exalted thus “to the glory of God 
the Father,” and so depended on him in the extreise of that 
office (see note on 1 Cor. xi. 3). 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 (We are yours, T say; yet) Leta man (also) so 
account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and 
stewards of the mysteries of God (7. e. of those reve- 
lations of the gospel which are styled mysteries, as not 
being before revealed to the world. See note on ii. 
2s Ws 

2 Moreover it (chiefly) is required in stewards, that 
a men (taking that office upon him) be found faith- 
ul. 


3 But (whether it be thus, or not,) with me it is a 
very small thing! that I should be judged of you, or 
of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self 
(so as to acquiesce in that judgment). 

4 For I know nothing (of unfacthfulness) by myself; 
2? yet am I not hereby justified (at God’s tribunal): but 
he that (farther) judgeth me is the Lord. , 

5 Therefore ® judge nothing before the time, until 
the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hid- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


Ver. 3. "Iva tp! ὑμῶν ἀνακριθῶ, That Ishould be judged of 
you.] Not that he was unconcerned whether the Corinthians 
had a good esteem of him or not; the contrary is evident 


from the whole drift of his epistles, in which he labours to | 


convince them of the truth of his doctrine and of his sincerity 
in the discharge of his office, and rejoiceth greatly in their 
affection to him (2 Cor. vi. 18, vii. 14, 15, viii. 24). His 
meaning only is, that their judgment is little to him in com- 
parison of the final and unerring judgment of the Lord. 


2 Ver. 4. οὐκ τοῦτῳ dedixaiwpar, Yet am I not thereby jus- | 


tified.| Here also the apostle doth not intend to say that he, 
and others, could have no good assurance of their present 
justification and favour with God, from the testimony of an 
upright conscience, which, saith John, gives “confidence 
with God” (1 John iii. 21); for then farewell all joy and 


comfort in this world: he doth himself assure us, that their 
“rejoicing was this, even the testimony of their conscience, 
that in simplicity and godly sincerity they had their conver- 
sation in this world” (2 Cor, i, 12): he adviseth all men to 
approve their actions to themselves, and then (saith he) «they 
shall have rejoicing in themselves, and not in another’ (Gal. 
vi. 4): his meaning therefore is, that our final justification, or 
absolution from condemnation, depends not on the judgment 
which we pass upon ourselves, but upon that which God, the 
righteous judge, will pass upon us at the last day. Here 
also note in Paul another sense of justification, as it relates 
to our absolution from condemnation, and our approbation 
as righteous at the last day, which will be, saith he, accord- 
ing to our works (2 Cor. v. 10), and our fidelity in execution 
of the trusts committed to us (ver. 2). 

3 Ver. 5. Μὴ πρὸ καιροῦ τι κρίνετε, Judge nothing before the 
time.] The apostle doth not here condemn all judgment, 


CHAPTER IV. 


den things of darkness, and will 4 make manifest the 
counsels of the hearts : and then shall every man have 
praise of God. 

6 And these things, brethren, I have in a figure 
transferred to myself (one rude in speech, but not in 
knowledge, 2 Cor. xi. 6,) and to Apollos (a man of 
eloquence and wisdom, Acts xviii. 24,) for your sakes; 
that ye might learn in (the example of) us not to 
think of (other) men above that which is written (viz. 
that we are only ministers of Christ, by which ye believed, 
iii. 5), that no one of you be puffed up for one against 
another (because of the different gifts vouchsafed to 
them). 

7 Fors who maketh thee (what doctor soever thou art) 
to differ from another ? and what (gift) hast thou that 
thou didst not receive (from God)? now if thou didst 
receive ἐΐ, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not 
received zt (from him) ? 

8 Now7 ye (Corinthians) are full (of secular wis- 
dom), now ye are rich (both in wealth and spiritual 
gifts, 1 Cor. xiv. 26), ye have reigned as kings ( /lou- 
rishing in the enjoyment of these things tn all tranquillily 
and honour) without (any want of) us: and I would 


619 


to God ye did reign (indeed, and not in conceit only), 
that we also (poor, persecuted, and despised apostles,) 
might reign with you. 

9 For] think that God hath set forth us the apos- 
tles last (ἡ. e. as the last, or the meridian gladiators), 
as it were (men) * appointed to death: for we are 
made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and 
to men. 

10 We are (counted as) fools for Christ’s sake, but 
ye (who flourish in your eloquence and wisdom) are 
(accounted) wise in Christ; we are weak (as to bodily 
presence, 2 Cor. x. 10, and bodily infirmities, 1 Cor. 
li. 3, 2 Cor. xii. 9, and made still weaker by our con- 
linual wants and persecutions), but ye are strong (and 
my) ; ye are honourable (for your gifts and wisdom, 
which have gotten you a great name and reputation 
among others), but we are despised (or in disgrace every 
where). 

11 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, 
and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have 
no certain dwellingplace (or, are in no certain condi- 
tion) ; 

12 And labour, working with our own hands: 


civil or ecclesiastical, of any persons, deeds, or words, or bid 
us suspend our judgment of things oc@urring to our senses 
till the day of judgment; but only forbids our censures of 
things uncertain, of which no righteous judgment can be 
passed, because we cannot be certain of the truth of that 
judgment, and of things which it belongs not to us to judge 
of. And this appears both from the words and the occasion 
of them: from the words, for they respect “the hidden 
things of darkness,” and “the counsels of the heart,” of which 
no certain judgment can be passed; from the accasion of 
them, they passing their censures on Paul (ver. 3), and 
questioning his fidelity in his office (ver. 2), of whom they 
me no authority so to judge, nor any occasion so to 
udge. 

4 4 Ὃς φανερώσει τὰς βουλὰς τῶν καρδιῶν, Who will make mani- 
fest the counsels of the heart.| Hence note, that Jesus Christ 
must have the knowledge of the secrets of the hearts of all 
men subject to his judgment, and so must be that God who 
alone knows the hearts of all men (1 Kings viii. 39), and is 
alone “the Searcher of all hearts” (1 Chron. xxvili. 9) ; «to 
give every man according to his ways, and according to the 
fruit of his doing” (Jer. xvii. 10) ; and therefore Christ ex- 
pressly ascribes this knowledge to himself, by saying, “ All 
the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the 
reins and the hearts, and I will give to every one of you ac- 
cording to your works” (Rev. ii. 23). 

5 Ver. 6. Μετεσχημάτισα, I have in a figure transferred.] 
This seems not to refer, as most interpreters conceive, to 
what the apostle had said, i. 12, viz. their saying, “I am of 
Paul, I am of Apollos, [ of Cephas,” for here is nothing said 
of Cephas; but it refers to what he had said, iii. 5—8, that 
Paul and Apollos were only ministers by whom they believed ; 
that therefore neither Paul nor Apollos was to be looked 
upon as any thing, they doing nothing but by the grace given 
them by that God, to whom therefore the whole praise was 
due for the success of all their labours. And this scheme of 
speech I have used, saith he, touching myself and Apollos, 
instructing you not to think highly of other doctors among 
you, who have done less for the promoting your faith than 
we have done. 

5 Ver. 7. Tis σε διακρίνει ; Who maketh thee to differ ?] The 
apostle manifestly speaking here of those gifts of the Spirit 
which were immediately infused without human industry, 
and were dispensed by God and by his Spirit according to his 
good pleasure (1 Cor. iii. 15, xii. 11); it cannot be hence 
argued that no man doth any thing to make himself differ 
from another, in any virtue or pious disposition. For to 
what purpose are men continually exhorted and stirred up by 
powerful motives to all Christian duties, and particularly to 
excel in virtue, if these exhortations and motives are not pro- 
posed to engage them to exercise these Christian virtues, to 
choose the good and refuse the evil?) And if one man, upon 
consideration of these motives, doth choose to live a pious 


life, whereas another is not by the same motives prevailed on 
so to do, doth he not differ from another by virtue of that 
choice? And through the grace of God, by way of excitation, 
worketh in us thus to will; yet, since our faculties do first 
deliberate upon and then comply, and choose to do that 
thing to which this grace excites us; if to consider be to dif- 
fer from him that does not so, and to comply with and em- 
brace the call of God, be to differ from him who complies not 
with the same call, it must be certain, that as God’s grace 
preventing and exciting, so my faculties co-operating, tend 
to make me differ from another, though having also these 
faculties from God, the action may be well ascribed, and the 
whole glory of it must be due, to him. 

Seeing then no act of virtue and no good habit is produced 
in us without a frequent and manifold co-operation of our 
own faculties to the same action and habit, whereas these 
gifts of tongues, interpretation, and prophecy, were gifts con- 
ferred upon Christians in the primitive times, without any 
such co-operation of their faculties: it cannot, with like rea- 
son, be inquired of the former, as it may be of these gifts, 
“Who made thee to differ” from another in them? And 
though all ground and even pretence of glorying, by this im- 
mediate infusion of these gifts, is evidently excluded; yet 
the apostles do themselves glory in those good actions which 
they choose to do (1 Cor. ix. 15, 16, 2 Cor. i. 12, xi. 20); 
and say to others thus, “ Let every man try and approve his 
own work, and then shall he have καύχημα rejoicing, or 
glorying in himself” (Gal. vi. 4). 

7 Ver. 8. Κεκορεσμένοι ἐστὲ, ἐπλουτήσατε, Ye are filled, ye 
are rich.| All the ancient commentators having noted in 
their prefaces to this epistle, that Corinth* was a city “ which 
abounded in wealth, and was full of rhetoricians, and of phi- 
losophers,” and that hence arose their disorders, pride, and 
vain-glory, as well as from their gifts; I thought fit in the 
paraphrase to take notice of both. 

8 Ver. 9. ‘Qs imSavarionc, As men appointed unto death.} 
Here the apostle seems to allude to the Roman spectacle, 
τῆς τῶν ϑηριομάχων, καὶ μονομαχίας ἀνδροφόνου, that of the 
bestiarii} and the gladiators, where in the morning men were 
brought upon the theatre to fight with wild beasts, and to 
them was allowed armour to defend themselves, and smite 
the beasts that did assail them; but in the meridian specta- 
cle were brought forth the gladiators naked, and without any 
thing to defend them from the sword of the assailant, and he 
that then escaped was only reserved for slaughter to another 
day; so that these men might be well called ἐπιϑανάτιοι, 
“men appointed for death :” and this being the last appear- 
ance on the theatre for that day, they are said here to be set 


* Κόρινθος μὲν πλεονεκτήμασι βιωτικοῖς ἑκόμα, πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων 
πάντων τῇ χρημάτων περιουσίᾳ----ῆν δὲ καὶ ῥητόρων πολλῶν ἐμ 
πλέως ἡ πόλις καὶ φιλοσύφων. 

ἡ Iren. lib. i. p. 26. 


620 


being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer 
it (or we bear, as weak persons, who know not how to 
escape, or help ourselves) : 

13 Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as 9 the 
filth of the world, and are (as) the offscouring (or 
refuse) of all things unto this day. 

14 (But though I thus speak of your glorying in these 
things, with the neglect of us, ver. 8,) I write not these 
things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn 
you (to behave yourselves hereafter more like dutiful child- 
ren towards me). 

15 For though ye have ten thousand instructers 
in Christ, yet have ye ® not many fathers (indeed, not 
any besides me): for in Christ Jesus I have begotten 
you through the gospel. 

16 Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me, 
(adhering to the doctrine received from me, and walking 
as I do, and teach, ver. 17.) 

17 For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, 
who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


shall bring you into remembrance of my ways 
which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every 
church. 

18 Now some (among you) are puffed up, as though 
(because I have sent Timothy to you) 1 would not (my- 
self) come to you. 

19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, 
and will know (and examine), not the speech (and elo- 
quence) of them which are puffed up, but the power 
(and spiritual authority which attends their preaching, 
whether that be equal to the power God has given us for 
edification). 

20 For the kingdom of God is (confirmed and propa- 
gated) ' not in (and by the wisdom of the) word, but 
in (and by the) power (of the Spirit ; which if they want 
they cannot be sent from God, as we are). 

21 What will ye? shall I come unto you ” with a 
rod (inflicting punishments upon you), or (will you so 
reform that I'may come unto you) in love, and in the 
spirit of meekness ? 


forth ἔσχατοι, “the last.” Of these two spectacles Seneca* 
speaks thus: “In the morning men are exposed to lions and 
to bears; at midday to their spectators; those that kill are 
exposed to one another; the victor is detained for another 
slaughter ; the conclusion of this fight is death. The former 
fighting, compared to this, was mercy ; here is only butchery : 
they have nothing to cover them, their whole body is ex- 
posed to every stroke,” &c. Hence Tertulliant cites these 
words thus: Puto nos Deus apostolos novissimos elegit velut 
bestiarios; “I think God hath chosen us apostles last, as 
men to be exposed to wild beasts.” 

9 Ver. 13. Περικαϑάρματα, περίψημα. These words, which 
we render jilth and offscouring, do probably relate to the 
sacrifices which the heathens used for the lustration of a 
city. “The Athenians,” saith Phavorinus, “nourished 
some very base and refuse people, and, when any calamity 
or plague befell them, they sacrificed them for the purgation 
of the city,” and “these they called καθάρματα." And Sui- 
das§ saith, they said of such a man, “ Be thou our περίψημα, 
redemption, or propitiation, and then flung him into the sea 
as a sacrifice to Neptune.” Hence Origen] saith, that our 
Lord, giving up himself for the propitiation of our sins, was 
made much more than his apostles, περικάθαρμα τοῦ κύσμο", 


πάντων περίψημα, “the lustration of the world, and peculiar | 


sacrifice of all men.” 
1 Ver. 15. Οὐ πολλοὺς πατέρας, Not many fathers.) The 


masters of tradition among the Jews§ called them children | 


whom they instructed in their traditions; and the Targum 
upon Numb. iii. 1, observes, that Nadab and Abihu are called 


* Mané leonibus et ursis homines, meridié spectatoribus 
suis objiciuntur. Interfectores inter se jubentur objici, et 
victor in aliam detinetur cedem; exitus pugnantium mors 
est quicquid ante pugnatum est misericordia fuit: nunc, 
omissis nugis, mera homicidia sunt; nihil habent quo tegan- 
tur; ad ictum totis corporibus expositi, nunquam frustra 
manum mittunt. Epist. 7. 

+ De Pudicitia, cap. 14, p. 566. 

+ “Erpepév τινας ᾿Αϑηναῖοι λίαν ἁγενεῖς καὶ ἀγρήστους, καὶ ἐν 
καιρῷ συμφορᾶς τινος ἐπελθούσης τῇ πόλει, λοιμοῦ λέγω, ἢ τοιοῦτον 
τινος, ἔϑυον τούτους ἕνεκα rod καϑαρϑῆναι τοῦ μιάσματος, οὖς καὶ 
καϑάρματα, Phav. Ὕπερ τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ πύλεως 
ἀνήρουν ἐστολισμένον τινα ὃν ἐκάλουν κάϑαρμα, ἕο. Arist. Plut. 
p- 24, et in Equit. p. 240. 

§ Περίψημα ἡμῶν γένου, ἥτοι σωτηρία, καὶ ἀπολύτρωσις, Suid. 
Vide Outram de Sacrif. lib. 1. cap. 22. 

{ Com, in Joh. tom. xiii. p. 363, D, Εἰ, 

{ Galat. lib. i. cap. 2, p. 5. 


ἐπωνόμαζον 


“the sons of Moses,” because he had instructed them: for 
he who teacheth another is, as it were, his father. Thus the 
disciples of the prophets are called “the sons of the pro- 
phets.” So Jonathan, “'These are the names of the sons of 
Aaron, the disciples @f Moses, and the sons of Israel, who 
were called by his name:” and so both Ireneus* and Cle- 
mens Alexandrinust do observe that “they were called 
fathers, who taught and catechised others; and they sons, 
who were taught by them.” 

1 Ver. 20. Οὐ ἐν λόγῳ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν δυνάμει, Not in word but in 
power.| It is propagated, saith Theophylact, διὰ σημείων τῇ 
δυνάμει τοῦ Πυεύματος γινομένων, “by miracles done by the 
power of the Spirit ;” for to convince men of the truth of it, 
saith Chrysostom, it is not enough to use fine words, but the 
dead must be raised, the devils cast out, and other mighty 
wonders must be wrought: by these things the gospel is 
established. 

2 Ver. 21. Ἔν 6/83, With a rod.] That the apostles had 
power of inflicting corporal punishments on some who did 
oppose the progress of, or who notoriously offended against, 
the rules of the gospel, is the opinion of all the ancient com- 
mentators, who instance in the death inflicted by St. Peter 
on Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 10), the blindness inflicted 
by St. Paul on Elymas (xiii. 11), the delivery of Hymeneus 
and Alexander, and the incestuous person unto Satan (1 Tim. 
i. 20, 1 Cor. v. 5), ὥστε παιδεῦσαι τὸ σῶμα, “so as to chastise 
the body of them,” saith Theodoret; ἵνα νύσῳ αὐτὸν rity, 
«that he might macerate him with some disease,” say Chry- 
sostom, Gicumenius, and Theophylact; and so they interpret 
these words, “Shall I come unto you with a rod?” that is, 
ἐν κολάσει, ἐν τιμωρία, “with punishments and chastisements.” 
And this sense will appear highly probable, if we consider 
these words of the apostle, “1 write unto you, being absent, 
lest, being present, I should use sharpness, according to the 
power God hath given me for edification, and not for de- 
struction” (2 Cor. xiii. 10): for, that these words cannot be 
understood only of the power of excommunication, common 
to him with others, we may learn from the same words, 2 
Cor. x. 8, where the mighty weapons of his warfare, “ able to 
remove every height exalting itself against, and to captivate 
every mind to, the obedience of Christ, and to avenge all dis- 
obedience,” being premised, it follows, “ For should I boast 
exceedingly of the power God hath given me for edification, 
and not for destruction, I should not be ashamed.” 


* Qui enim est ab aliquo edoctus verbo, filius docentis 
dicitur, et ille ejus pater. Iren. lib. iv. cap. 39. 
F Πατέρας τοὺς κατηχήσαντάς φαμεν. Clem. Strom. i. p- 1, 


621 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Iris reported commonly that there is fornication 
among you, and such fornication as is not! so much 
as named among the Gentiles, (viz.) * that one should 
have his father’s wife (ἡ. e. his stepmother). 

2 And 8 ye are puffed up, and 4 have not rather 
mourned (for the scandal of this great offence, nor taken 
care) that he that hath done this deed (so reproachful to 
the sociely of Christians) might be taken away (and cast 
out) from among you (as he ought to be). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 1. Οὐδὲ ὀνομάζεται, Not named.) i. e. Not counte- 
nanced among civilized heathens, but forbidden by their 
laws; by the laws of the Greeks, say Ocellus Lucanus* and 
Jamblichus;+ and by the Romans, it being, saith Cicero, 
scelus inauditum, “an unheard-of wickedness,” of which the 
Persians only are accused by Philo,¢ Tertullian, Minutius 
Felix ;] and therefore this was one of the three great 
infamies with which the§ heathens loaded the primitive 
Christians, that they had incesta convivia among them, and 
practised the very crime here censured by Paul, and the 
words ὅλως ἀκούεται, “It is every where heard of,’ do make 
it not improbable that this very thing might give the rise to 
that vile objection against Christianity, especially if the 
Corinthians had the foundation of this practice from the 
Jews, from whom the Christians for some time were not dis- 
tinguished. 

2 “Ὥστε γυναῖκά τινα τοῦ πατρὸς ἔχειν, That one should have 
his father’s wife.] Either as his wife, or so as to commit 
fornication with her. Now this, saith Dr. Lightfoot, was 
done by them agreeably to the Jewish doctrine concerning 
cede viz. that they were “as persons new born, and 

ad lost all their kindred they had before:” so that by the 
law, as the rabbins expounded it,** they might marry their 
mother and sister. And to this Tacitust} seems to refer in 
his account of the Jews, when he saith, “All things by 
them are deemed profane, which to us are sacred, rurstim 
concessa apud illos que nobis incesta, and what we account 
incestuous is with them lawful; and that they are first of 
all taught to contemn the gods, parentes, liberos, fratres vilia 
habere, and to have no regard to parents, children, and 
brethren. But considering that Corinth abounded with 
philosophers, and that Chrysippus++ the Stoic reckons the 
enjoyment of a mother, sister, or daughter, as things blamed 
without reason; and that hence the Nicolaitans and Carpo- 
cratians§§ had their doctrine of the community of women, 
not excepting mothers, and daughters, and sisters; I think 
it probable that this corruption might have had its rise 


* Qui inter προνπάρχοντα νόμιμα ἐν ταῖς Ἑλληνικαῖς πόλεσι, 
enumerant, τὸ μητράσι συγγίνεσϑαι. De Vita Pyth. cap. 31, p. 
188, Ocel. Orat. pro Cluentio, n. 10. 

ἡ Περὶ τῆς τοῦ παντὸς φύσεως, cap. 4. Plato de Repub. lib. 
v. p. 657, E, F. 

+ De Leg. Special. p. 600. 

1 Minut. p. 35. 

« Oidirodions μίξεις. Just. Apol. 2, p. 70. 
43. Theoph. lib. iii. p. 199. 

** Per legem elicitum est ethnico ducere in uxorem ma- 
trem suam, aut sororem ex matre, que proselyte fiunt. 
Maimon. in Issurei Bia, cap. 14. Lightf. in Joh. iii. 3. 
Seld. Heb. libr. ii. cap. 18. De Jur. Nat. et Gent. lib. 11, 


§ Tertull. Apol. cap. 9. 


Athenag. p. 4, 


cap. 4. 

Tf Hist. lib. v. ab initio. 

$+ Τὸ μητράσιν ἣ ϑυγατρᾶσιν ἢ ἀδελφαῖς συγγίνεσθαι ἀλόγως 
διαβέβληται. De Stoic. Repugn. p. 1044, F. Sext. Empyr. 
lib. cap. 24, 25. 

§§ Μίγνυσθαι ὅπως ἐϑέλοιεν αἷς BovNowro. De Carpocr. Cl. 
Alex. Strom. iii. p. 430, D. Τοῦ προκαταλαβόντος ἑκάστην 
ἑκάστου εἶναι, p. 431. Imo Persarum more, μητράσι, καὶ 
ϑυγατρᾶσι, καὶ ἀδελφαῖς μίγνυσθαι. bid. Et de Nicolaitanis, 
πάνδημον ἀφροδίτην κοινωνίαν μυστικὴν ἀναγορεύουσιν, p. 436, D. 


3 For I verily, as (Jeinz) absent in body, but δ pre- 
sent (with you, Col. ii. 5,) in (and by the) spirit (ex- 
citing me so to do), have judged already, as though I 
were present, concerning him that hath so done this 
deed, (that he ought to be removed from your body, and 
delivered up to Satan. 

4 And do therefore command you) In the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together 
(in your Christian assemblies), and my spirit (supply- 


from them, and that, upon one or other of these ac- 
counts, they so tamely endured him who had done this 
infamous thing: yea, they were puffed up, say the Greek 
interpreters, on account of the eloquence and wisdom of this 
very man. 

3 Ver. 2. Πεφυσιωμένοι ἐστέ, Ye are puffed up.) Either in 
your conceit, that you have got such a profound and elo- 
quent teacher; or on the account of some high wisdom 
which makes you look on these things as indifferent. 

It is conjectured that this woman, cohabiting with her 
son-in-law, had divorced herself from her husband ; and true 
it is, as I have observed, note on vii. 11, that the Attic laws 
allowed the woman to do this, but then she was first to bring, 
τῆς ἀπολείψεως γράμματα, the causes why she desired to leave 
her husband, before the archon, or judge of such matters, and 
to have his allowance so to do: if this stepmother did not 
this, she was still her husband’s wife; if she did, and the 
causes she alleged were allowed of by the judge, this freed 
her from that relation to her former husband, and then he 
suffered no wrong by this action, as the apostle intimates 
that he did, by styling him ἀδικηθέντα “the person that had 
suffered wrong” (2 Cor. vii. 12). 

4 Kai οὐχὶ μᾶλλον ἐπενθήσατε, And have not rather mourn- 
ed.| It was the custom, both of the Jews and Christians, 
when any one was to be cut off from the church as a dead 
member, to do it with fasting and humiliation, to show their 
sympathy with him, and to demonstrate their sorrow for the 
scandal brought upon the society. 

“The school of Pythagoras,” saith Origen,* “put coffins 
in the room of them who deserted the society, looking upon 
them as dead men; and the Christians lament them who 
have been guilty of lasciviousness, or any other absurd action, 
as persons lost and dead to God.” And among the Apos- 
tolical Constitutions+ this is one, “ With sorrow and mourn- 
ing cut off from the church the incurable person; for, saith 
the apostle, You shall put away from among you the evil 
person :” and to this custom the apostle seemeth to allude, 
2 Cor. ii. 1—3, xii. 21. 

5 Ver. 3. Παρὼν δὲ τῷ πνευματι, Present in spirit.) That 
is, say the fathers, not only with mind and consent,+ but 
διὰ τῆς Πνεύματος χάριτος, “by the gift of the Spirit,” by 
which I am enabled to discern what is fit to be done in this 
case; even by the Spirit by which I am enabled, καὶ τὰ 
réppwSev εἰδέναι, “to discern things done at a distance,” as 
Elisha did the actions of Gehazi by his prophetic spirit 
(2 Kings v. 26). So Chrysostom and Theophylact. And so 
the phrase seems to be used in these words: “ For though I 
am absent in the flesh, yet Iam with you in the Spirit, re- 
joicing and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of 
your faith’ (Col. ii. 5): since in his absence he could not 
behold their order, and the steadfastness of their faith by his 
own spirit, but only by the assistance of the Holy Spirit. 
So also do they interpret, rod ἐμοῦ πνεύματος, “my spirit” 
(ver. 4), by “my spiritual gift;” so that the sense of these 
words, ver. 3,4, seems to runs thus,—I, by the spirit of dis- 
cerning, and the authority God hath given me, have already 


* Οὗτοι δὲ ἀπολωλύτας καὶ τεθνηκότας τῷ Θεῷ τοὺς ἐπ ἀσελγείας 
ἤ τινος ἀτόπου νενικημένους ὡς νεκροὺς πενθοῦσι" Contra Cels. lil. 
iii. p. 142, 143. 

ἡ Μετὰ λύπης καὶ πένθους ἀνιάτως ἔχοντα τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἀπόκοπτε" 
ἑξαιρεῖτε yap. Lib. ii. cap. 41, p. 190, 

+ Theodoret. εἶναι, p. 430. 


622 


ing my absence), ® with the power of our Lord Jesus 
Christ (cs present with you), 

5 To deliver such an one unto (the buffetings of ) Sa- 
tan for the destruction of the flesh (so lascivient in him), 
that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord 
Jesus. 

6 7 Your glorying (¢n such α doctor, or such wisdom) 
15 not good. Know ye not that (as) a little leaven 
®Jeaveneth (and sowreth) the whole lump, (so such a 
member, continued among you, will defile the whole body 
or society) 2 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


7 9 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may 
be a new lump, (forasmuch) as ye are (by your Chris- 
tianity obliged to be) unleavened. For even Christ 
our passover is sacrificed for us (Christians, and, at 
that feast, all leaven was to be put out of their houses, 
Exod. xii. 15): 

8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with (the) old 
leaven (of our former uncleanness), neither with the 
(pharisaical) © leaven of malice and (decetiful) wicked- 
ness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and 
truth. 


adjudged that this person ought to be delivered up to Satan ; 
and therefore, when you are gathered together in the name 
of Christ, and have my Spirit, who also presides in your 
assemblies, and there assists you in the performance of your 
Christian offices, and have the power of Christ ready to 
confirm and execute your sentence, do you in his name de- 
liver such a one to Satan. 

6 Ver. 4. Σὺν τῇ δυνάμει, With the power of the Lord 
Jesus Christ.) The word δύναμις, power, hath still reference 
to some miraculous and extraordinary power, and is not 
used, that I know of, concerning any simple act of disci- 
pline; as when Christ answers Paul thus, ἡ δύναμίς pov, 
“My power is perfected in weakness;” and the apostle 
saith on that account, “Most gladly will I rejoice in my 
weakness, ἵνα ἡ δύναμις τοῦ Χριστοῦ, that the power of Christ 
may rest upon me” (2 Cor. xii. 9, 10): i. e. say the 
ancients, that, in the midst of my manifold infirmities, the 
power of Christ, enabling me to do all kinds of miracles, may 
more conspicuously reside in me. ‘This miraculous assist- 
ance is by the apostle sometimes called simply, “the power,”’ 
1 Cor. ii. 4, iv. 19, 20, xii. 28, 29; sometimes “the power 
of God,” 1 Cor. ii. 5, 6. 14, xviii. 24, 2 Cor. iv. 7, xiii. 4, 
and sometimes “ the power of Christ,” as in the place now 
cited. Now among the powers of Christ, which attended 
the preaching of the gospel, this was one, of delivering men 
for their offences up to Satan, to inflict corporal punish- 
ments on them for the destruction of the flesh. This power 
seems to have been peculiar to the apostles, and therefore 
here Paul prescribes the doing of it, the authority or power 
of his Spirit being present with them. That this is indeed 
the import of delivering up to Satan “for the destruction of 
the flesh,” is evident, not only from the concurring exposi- 
tion of the ancients, who all interpret it of some disease to 
be inflicted on him by Satan,* but also from the end of that 
delivery to him, which is, saith the apostle here, «for the 
destruction of the flesh ;” and in the case of Hymenzus and 
Philetus, “that they might not learn to blaspheme.” Now 
bodily afflictions plainly tend to mortify the flesh, and to 
awaken men as oft as they came thus from a miraculous 
power, to consider of their ways, and quit those courses 
which thus subject them to the hand of God; whereas ex- 
communication hath no apparent tendency to those ends, 
when no such dreadful issue follows from it, and therefore 
seems not to be all that is intended hy this delivery up to 
Satan: though, I confesss, the Jews expected some like 
effect of their excommunication, called cherem, which, saith 
Buxtorf;~ ran in this form of words, Sint super ipsum 
plage magne, et fideles, morbi magni, et horribiles: “ Let 
his strokes be great, and his diseases horrible.” Moreover, 
the apostle speaks not of this as a common act of discipline, 
which every presbyter might exercise, but as of that which 
required his extraordinary presence in the Spirit, and the 
power of Christ assisting them; and therefore seems to 
speak of it as an act which was to be attended with some 
miraculous effect. 

7 Ver. 6. Οὐ καλὸν τὸ καύχημα Spar.) Some Latin copies 
omit the negative οὐ, whence, saith Dr. Mills, this is un- 
doubtedly the true reading ; whereas it is retained by all the 
Greek commentators, and all the versions, by Hilary the 
deacon, and Cod. Alex., and so undoubtedly ought to be 
read: that also φύραμα ζυμοῖ, and not dodo, is the true 


reading here, and Gal. v. 2, see proved Examen Milli 
here. 

8 Ζυμοῖ, Leavens.] i. 6. Soureth and corrupteth: so Je- 
rome, Totam massam corrumpit, “It corrupts the whole 
lump.” Thus Plutarch saith* the priest of Jupiter might 
not touch Jeaven, because ἡ ζύμη δὲ γέγονεν ἐκ φϑορᾶς, αὐτὴ 
φϑείρει τὸ φύραμα μιγνυμένη, “leaven both arises from cor- 
ruption, and corrupts the mass it is mixed with.” 

9 Ver. 7. ᾿Εκκαθάρατε τὴν παλαιὰν ζύμην, Purge out the old 
leaven.] Here the apostle speaks of cutting off the incestuous 
person, according to the metaphor of the Jews, whose say- 
ing is, that, “as a little leaven leavens the whole lump, so 
concupiscence corrupts the whole man;” and that, by the 
command to abstain from leaven, adultery is forbidden. 
This impurity he calls the “old leaven’”’ to be purged out, 
because the Corinthians were infamous for it to a proverb, 
as Phavorinus,t Hesychius, and Erasmus, show. He al- 
ludes also to the command to put away leaven out of their 
house, in commanding to put away the evil person; and 
to the paschal feast, in giving this reason why the old leaven 
should be put away, “because Christ our passover is sacri- 
ficed for us;’’ which being done once for all, we Christians 
must ever keep the feast, by being always a new lump, pure 
from hypocrisy, which is “the leaven of the pharisees” 
(Luke xii. 1), from the leaven of false doctrine, and cor- 
rupting of the word of God, which is the leaven of the 
pharisees and sadducees (Matt. xvi. 6. 12), and from the 
leaven of wickedness, and wicked men, according to those 
words of the psalmist, «Deliver me out of the hands of 
the wicked; and from the hands of the cruel, pnym, and 
the leavened” (Ps. lxxi. 4), i.e. the sour and the angry man, 
who corrupts and depraves others. 

10 Ver. 8. Μηδὲ ἐν ζύμη κακίας, Not with the leaven of that 
matice,| Which is usually carried on with dissimulation of 
affection, and concern for piety, and so is pharisaical. Nor 
with that wickedness which prompts us to deceive another 
to his hurt. ‘Thus Theophylact here saith, “ He 15 κακὸς, an 
evil man, who doth evil things; but he is πονηρὸς who doth 
them with profound subtlety, and deceitful (or hurtful) 
counsel.” Thus πονηροὶ καὶ γόητες, “ evil men and deceitful,” 
are joined together as “ deceiving and being deceived,” 2 Tim. 
ili. 13. “But with the unleavened bread of sincerity ;” 
which expression seems to allude to the import of the He- 
brew msn, or azyma, which, saith Bochart,+ signifies panes 
puros et sinceros, “ pure and sincere loaves,” from all mixture 
of leaven. And so this is an exhortation to reject such false 
apostles, and deceitful workers, as this doctor was, and others 
in the church of Corinth, who “ transformed themselves into 
the apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. xi. 13), and yet were not 
ἐξ εἰλικρινείας, “men of sincerity” (2 Cor. ii. 17), but cor- 
rupters of the truth, who “walked in craftiness, handling 
the word of God deceitfully” (2 Cor. iv. 2), and by their 
“subtlety seduced them from the simplicity which was in 
Christ” (2 Cor. xi. 3). More intolerable is it in the doctor 
to reject those words ἀλλ᾽ ἐν αἀζύμοις εἰλικιρνείας, καὶ ἀληθεΐας, 
upon the sole authority of the Ethiopic version, they being 
owned by all the other versions, by all the Greek scholiasts, 
by Origen, ed. Huet. in Jer. p. 143, in Matt. p. 170, in Joh. 
163. 172, by Hilary the deacon, by Jerome, lib. i. contra 
Pelag. f. 97; and the very word msn azymos, might have 
taught him the pertinency and elegancy of these words ; that 


* Hic traditur Satane in interitum carnis, ut serpens ter- 
ram ejus lingeret, anime non noceret. Ambros. de Pen. 
lib. 1. cap. 12. See note on ch. iv. 21. 

ἡ Lex. Tal. in voce cherem. 


* Quest. Rom. p. 289, E. 

+ Verba, Κόρινθος, κορινθιάζειν, Hesych. Phavor. Corinthian 
adag., p. 720; ut Corinthia videris. p. 633. 

+ Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 50, p. 601. 


CHAPTER VI. 


9 "I wrote unto you in an epistle (or, I had writ to 
you in this epistle, before I was fully acquainted with the 
stale of your affairs, by the coming of Stephanas, Forlu- 
natus, and Achaicus, 1 Cor. xvi. 17,) not to company 
with fornicators : 

10 Yet not (intending) altogether (to forbid you an 
conversation) with the fornicators of this world, or with 
the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for 
then must ye needs go out of the world. 

11 15 But now (since J heard this great miscarriage, 
and have been more exactly informed of the state of your 
church,) I have (changed my style, and) written unto 


you not to keep company, if any man that is 13 called | 


a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idola- 


623 


ter, or a railer (a contumelious person), or a drunkard, 
or an extortioner ; (and that so strictly, as lo charge you) 
with such an one " no not to eat. 

12 % For what have 1 to do to judge (or censure) 
them also that are without (the church, as heathen forni- 
cators, and the stepmother of this incestuous fornicator are) ? 
do not ye (and all other churches and societies) judge 
them that are within (their body) ? 

13 But them that are without God judgeth. There- 
fore (leaving them to the judgment of God, censure them 
that thus offended within your body, and you will, by so 
doing) put away from among yourselves that wicked 
person. 


signifying, saith Bochart, panes puros et sinceros, ch. vi. 
5. He rejects οὐδὲ εἰς, upon the sole authority of the same 
version, though it be owned by all the versions, and all the 
Greek and Latin commentators. See the mischief of this 
licentiousness, Examen Millii in locum. 

Ver. 9. Ἔγραψα ὑμῖν ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ, I had written to 
you in this epistle.| All the Greek commentators upon this 
place conclude he wrote this, οὐκ ἐν ἄλλη, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ταύτη, “not 
in another, but in this epistle :” so Chrysostom, Theodoret, 
CGEcumenius, Photius, and Theophylact, on this place. And 
who ever heard among the ancients of more than fourteen 
epistles of Paul? or of one word cited from an epistle of 
his to the Corinthians supposed to be lost? It cannot there- 
fore be concluded hence, that any epistle of Paul writ and 
sent to the church of Corinth is lost: but only that some 
things in this epistle were changed by him, before he sent it 
to them. But, saith Mr. Clerc, “there is a contrariety in 
this interpretation to all the rules of grammar,” which it 
seems none of the Greek scholiasts understood so well as he. 
Moreover, it is the common observation of grammarians, 
that the aorist is so called because it is of an indefinite sig- 
nification, and is sometimes used for the perfect, sometimes 
for the plusquam perfect tense. So Herod, laying hold of 
John, ἔδησεν αὐτὸν, “had bound him,” Matt. xiv. 3; “He 


commanded his servants to be called, οἷς ἔδωκέ τὸ ἀργύριον, to | 


whom he had given the silver,” Luke xix. 15; “Jesus ἐμαρ- 
τύρησεν, had testified,’ John iv. 44; ἐξένευσεν, “He had 
withdrawn himself,’ John v. 13; “Annas ἀπέστειλεν, had 
sent him bound to Caiaphas,” John xviii. 24. (2.) That τῇ, 
as Phavorinus saith, is put ἀντὶ τοῦ rave}, “instead of this,” 
he both confesses and proves from Col. iv. 16, 1 Thess. v. 
27, and where then is the contrariety of this interpretation 
to the rules of grammar ? 

2 Ver. 11. Νυνὶ δὲ ἔγραψα ὑμῖν, But now 1 have written to 


ou.) 
3 Obj. 1. «This only shows,” saith Mr. Clerc, “that the 
apostle here speaks of this epistle, and in ver. 9 of another.” 
Ans. This only shows that he speaks of this epistle sent, 
and of ver. 9, of what he had writ in it, before he saw this 
cause to change his style, and to add, to what he had said 
before, “a railer” and “a drunkard.” 
Obj. 2. “ But,” saith he, “he had nowhere, in the former 


part of this, admonished his Corinthians not to associate with- 


fornicators.” 

- Ans. Nor is it to be wondered, that he should nowhere 
say that which he had changed into these words, ver. 11. 
And, secondly, according to my exposition, what he before had 
written is contained in the immediate preceding words ver. 10. 


13 'Ονομαζόμενος ἀδελφὸς, Called a brother.) Some think | 


the word ὀνομαζόμενος refers to the words following, and im- 
ports that if any man be defamed and noted for the vices 


following, he is by the apostle’s direction to be avoided: but 
the word plainly refers to the brother, and imports, that if 
any one, who hath professed himself a Christian, be found 
guilty of these crimes, he is to be avoided: now of all these 
sins some among the Corinthians were still guilty ; of for- 
nication, 2 Cor. xii. 21, of covetousness and extortion, 1 
Cor. vi. 8, 2 Cor. xi. 20; they were idolaters, 1 Cor. x. 7, 
xiv. 20, railers or contumelious persons, 2 Cor. x. 2, xi. 19, 
drunkards, 1 Cor. vi. 21. 

14 Mnéé συνεσθίειν, No not to eat.) According to the Jew- 
ish canons, it was not lawful to eat or drink with one that 
was under their cherem. ‘Tertullian and Theodoret carry 
this farther and say, Cum talibus non vult nos cibum sumere, 
nedum eucharistiam, “ With such we must not eat at our 
own, much less at the Lord’s table.” But this, being a 
matter of discipline, can concern only those who are intrusted 
with the government of the church, not private communi- 
cants; though doubtless he, who was by excommunication 
separated from the place where this and other sacred func- 
tions were performed, was also separated from the table of 
the Lord. 

15 Ver. 12. Τί γάρ μοι καὶ τοὺς ἔξω κρίνειν; For what have 
I to do to judge them that are without 5] Here our critic 
Mr. Le Clere is too bold; (1.) when he quarrels with Paul’s 
Greek; asking, what construction this is, τί μοι κρίνειν ; 1 
answer, none at all, but τί pot προσῆκει καὶ τοὺς ἔξω κρίνειν ; 
« What concerns it me to judge them that are without?” 
is both good sense and good Greek. As in Latin, Quid mea 
refert? In English, “ What is it to me!” So ri μοι ὄφελος 5 
« What profit (is it) to me?” 1 Cor. xv. 32, τί yap, « What 
is it” to the truth of God? Rom. iii. 3, τί yap, Quid enim 
refert? Phil. i. 18. (2.) It is horribly bold to add, without 
any, yea, against all copies, μὲν οὖν ye instead of κρίνειν οὐχὶ, 
which have no affinity either in letters or in sense: the 
words need none of these criticisms; they are taken from 
Deut. xiii. 5, xxii. 21, and there they run thus, καὶ ἐξαιρεῖς τὸ 
πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὑτῶν, “So shall you put away the evil from 
among you;’’ and the Greek commentators read them thus, 
καὶ ἐξαιρεῖτε τὸ πονηρὸν, “ And you will put away the evil.” 
So the whole sense runs thus, κέκρικα, I have judged already 
of the incestuous person (ver. 3), and I judge concerning 
all other persons, in professién Christians, but in practice 
fornicators, &c., that you ought not to communicate with 
them; but I say nothing of the stepmother of this person, 
who hath not owned the Christian faith: for what belongs it 
to me to judge of them who are without the church? Do 
not you, in your church and civil assemblies, judge them only 
which are of your body? But them who are without the 
church, God, who is the governor of all men, judgeth; and 
by thus judging those that are within your body, you will 
put away the evil, or, this evil person, from you. 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 Dane any of you, having a matter (of complaint, 
suil, or action,) against another, ' go to law before the 


unjust (the heathen tribunals), and not (rather submit it 
to be heard) before the saints ? ϑ 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


I Ver. 1. Κρίνεσϑαι ἐπὶ τῶν ἀδίκων, Go to law before the | 


unjust.) The saying of the Jews is this, That* “he who 
goes to law before the tribunal of the gentiles, profanes the 


* Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 1666. 


624 


2 Do ye not know (from Daniel) that? the saints 
(of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, Dan. vii. 27, 
and so) shall judge the world? and if the world shall 
be judged by you (Christians, and by Christian magis- 
irales), are ye unworthy (of the smallest judicatures, or) 
to judge * the smallest matters ? 

3 Know ye not (from Christ) that we (endued with 
the Holy Spirit) 4 shall judge (condemn, and cast out, 
the prince of this world, and his evil) angels? § how 
much more (worthy are we, by the assistance of the 
ore Spirit, to judge of the) things that pertain to this 
ife ? 

4 If then ye have judgments (controversies, or judi- 
cial causes,) of things pertaining to this life, (do ye) set 
them to judge who ® are least esteemed in (and by) the 
church (2. 6. the heathen magistrates). 

5 I speak (this) to your shame. Is it so, that (by 
this action you should even confess before the heathen, thal) 
there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that 
shall be able to judge between his brethren ? 

6 But brother goeth to law with (his Christian) 
brother, and that before the unbelievers (as if there 
were not among them one believer sufficient to decide their 
controversies). 

7 Now therefore 7 there is utterly a fault (or a de- 
fect) among you, because ye go to law (about these 
matters) one with another. Why do ye not rather 
take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to 
be defrauded 1 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


8 Nay, (so far are you from this Christian temper of 
bearing injurtes with patience, that) ye do wrong, and 
defraud, and that your brethren. 

9 (And what will be the issue of these evil practices) 2 
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the 
kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornica- 
tors, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor 
abusers of themselves with mankind, 

10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor 
revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom 
of God. 

11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed 
(by baptism), but ye are sanctified, but ὃ ye are justi- 
fied in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit 
of our God. 

12 (.4nd whereas your false teachers encourage you to 
eat things offered to idols, in the idol temples, x. 23, and 
to indulge unto excess, because all meats are lawful; I 
grant that) All (these) things are lawful unto me, but 
all things (/awful) are not expedient (/o be done, espe- 
cially when tending to my brother’s ruin, or my own): 
all things (of this nature) are lawful for me, but I will 
not be brought under the power of any (so as that I 
cannot refrain from them in such cases). 

13 Meats (indeed are) for the belly, and the belly 
for meats (nor have either of them any other use): but 
(this is only for this present life: the time will come 
when) 5 God shall destroy both it and them. Now 
(but now, whereas some extend the words all things are 


name of God and gives honour to an idol; that he is to be 
accounted a wicked man, and as one that hath reproached 
and blasphemed, and lifted up his hand against the law of 
Moses.” Accordingly, the apostle here represents this ac- 
tion in the Christian, as a reproach to the society, and to the 
spirit of wisdom which was poured out upon the church (ver. 
5, 6), and as that which gave occasion to the heathens to ob- 
serve in the Christians a contentious spirit. 

2 Ver. 2. Οἱ ἅγιοι τὸν κόσμον κρινοῦσι, The saints shall judge 
the world.| We often read that even the best of saints shall 
“stand before the judgment-seat of Christ” (Matt. xxv. 33, 
2 Cor. v. 10, Rey. xx. 12), that they shall be assessors with 
Christ then, we read not; the words of Christ, Matt. xix. 28, 
in what sense soever taken, prove it not; they being spoken 
not of all saints, of whom the apostle here speaks, but of the 
twelve apostles only: these words must therefore admit of 
one of these two senses; viz. that there shall be Christian 
magistrates, who shall be governors, and so judges of the 
world, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, that “kings shall 
be their nursing-fathers, and queens their nursing-mothers” 
(Isa. xlix. 23), and that of Daniel (vii. 18), «The saints of 
the Most High shall take the kingdom;” or, that they shall 
judge and condemn the world by the faith preached for a 
testimony to them (Matt. x. 18, xxiv. 14, Luke xxi. 13, 1 
Cor. i. 6, ii. 1, 2 Thess. i. 10, 1 Tim. ii. 6, 2 ‘Tim. i. 8), as 
Noah did (Heb. xi. 7, whence is the gospel so often called, 
“the testimony of Christ”), and by the Spirit given “to con- 
vince the world of sin, of righteousness, and judgment” 
(John xvi. 8), in which sense our Lord saith, « Now is the 
judgment of this world,” John xii. 31. 

5. Κριτηρίων ἐλαχίστων, The smallest matter.] This word 
κριτήρια here, and ver. 4, saith Grotius, doth not signify tri- 
bunals, but controversies and judicial causes. Accordingly 
the βιωτικὰ κριτήρια, “judgments concerning things of this 
life,” ver. 4, are by Photius rendered ra βιωτικὰ φιλονεικήματα, 
kai τὰς πρὸς ἀλλήλους δίκας Kai ἔριδας, “Their controversies, 
contentions, and judicial causes, against each other,’ about 
these matters. 

4 Ver. 3. ᾿Αγγέλους κρινοῦμεν, We shall judge angels.] 1. 6. 
Evil angels, say all the Greek scholiasts; and this the 
Christians gloriously did by expelling them from their seats 
and their dominions, and forcing them to confess before their 
votaries they were only devils (see the general preface, 8. 18) : 
in which sense, saith our Saviour, “ Now is the prince of this 
world cast out; the prince of this world is judged,” John 
xil. 31, xvi. 11, 

5 Μήτι ye βίωτικά, How much more.| Miri ye, πόσῳ γε 


μᾶλλον, Hesychius, Phavorinus, and Photius apud Cicume- 
nium. 

6 Ver. 4. Τοὺς ἐξουϑενημένους, Them who are least es- 
teemed.] That the ἐξουϑενημένοι are the heathens, hath been 
shown, note on 1 Cor. i. 27, 28. Moreover, it is manifest 
that these words are to be read by way of question, as in 
the paraphrase; or by way of charge against them, thus, If 
you still retain your secular judicatures, or tribunals, you set 
them to be judges over you, who are despised in the church. 
For the apostle doth not here command them to do this, but 
sharply doth rebuke them for it, saying, “I speak this to 
your shame:” and this he doth by showing that this in 
effect signified that, there was “not a wise man among 
them.” ° 

7 Ver. 7. Ὅλως ἥττημα, There is utterly a defect,] 
Among you, that go to law atall; it being either on the one 
side, want of patience and Christian contentment, that 
you do not rather bear some injuries than thus seek to re- 
dress them; or, on the other, covetousness and injustice, 
which move you to do wrong to and defraud your brethren. 

8 Ver. 11. ᾿Αλλ᾽ ἐδικαιώϑητε ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι Κυρίου, &c. But 
ye are justified in the name of our Lord.] Here is the 
figure called hyperbaton, for, we are justified in the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit of our 
God: so Philem. 5, “ Hearing of thy love and faith which 
thou hast towards the Lord Jesus Christ, and towards all 
saints ;” i. e. which faith thou hast towards Christ, and love 
to his saints. Moreover, whereas Mr. Clerc here saith that 
“to be justified is the same thing with being washed, or 
sanctified, and that to be so by the name of the Lord, is to 
be so by taking upon them the profession of the Christian 
religion in baptism,” he is utterly out in both, for sure I am 
he cannot produce one passage in all Paul's epistles, where 
δικαιωϑῆναι, “to be justified,’ bears any such sense; but it 
still signifies to be absolved from the guilt of sin, and ap- 
proved as righteous, either at present, or before God’s tribu- 
nal. And so the name of Christ, when we are said to be 
justified by it, must signify, not the profession of Christianity, 
but faith in Christ dying for us, and be the same with ἐν 
αὑτῷ, “in him, for in him shall all that believe be justified,” 
&c. (Acts xii. 39). Moreover, justification here is ascribed 
to the name of Christ, i. 6. to faith in him; sanctification, to 
the Spirit of God; which shows they cannot signify the same 
thing: for, where the cause is different, the effect must be 
so also. 

9 Ver. 18. 'O Θεὸς καταργήσει, God shall destroy both it 
and them.] From these words that opinion, not of Ovigen 


CHAPTER VII. 


Jawful for me, fo fornication also; know ye that) 10 the 
body ts not (at all) for fornication, but for (the ser- 
vice of ) the Lord (the head of the body); and the 
Lord for (the resurrection and glorification of) the 
body. 

Ἢ And (accordingly) God hath both raised up 
the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own 
power. 

15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members 
of Christ (your head? 1 Cor. xii. 12. 27;) shall I 
"then take the members of Christ, and make them 
the members of a harlot (as 7 by fornication shall most 
surely do) ? God forbid. 

16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to 
an harlot is one body (with her)? for two, saith he, 
shall (by that action) be one flesh (as doing that by 
which, according to God’s instilution, two are made one 


Jfiesh). 


only, but of Athanasius,* Basil,t Hilary, Theodoret,§ 
and others, seems to be confirmed, that at the resurrection, 
when we shall neither eat nor drink, “ marry, nor be given in 
marriage” (Matt. xii. 30), there will be, as no meat, the 
world being then burnt up; so no belly, nec que sunt sub 
yentre, nor any difference of sexes. 

10 Τὸ δὲ σῶμα οὐ τῇ πορνεία, The body is not for Sornica- 
tion.] The heresy of the Nicolaitans held that it was lawful 
to eat things offered to idols, and to commit fornication (Rev. 
ii. 14, 15), as Ireneus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Theodoret, 
and Austin testify (see the notes on 2 Pet. ii. and the 
Epistle of Jude). And therefore Theodoret introduces the 
words thus, τοῦτο λέγεις, “ This thou sayest in defence of thy 
eating thus, and of thy fornication, All things are lawful for 
me.” 

τ Ver. 15. “Apasotv.] Taking them then from Christ, shall 
I make them the members of a harlot? For, saith Hilary 
here, Membra adherentia meretrici desinunt esse membra 
Christi, “The members, which cleave to a harlot, cease to 
belong to Christ.” 

2 Ver. 18. Eis τὸ ἴδιον σῶμα, Against his own body.) 
Other sins pollute the heart and the soul, but those of 
fornication and uncleanness do properly pollute the body. 
Hence are those actions styled always in the scripture, pol- 
lutions: for “though all sins,” saith Hilary, “render a man 
carnal, yet is this more especially desiderium carnis, quod 
sordibus maculatam animam cum corpore tradit gehenne, 
carnal concupiscence, which exposes to hell the soul together 
with the body, defiled by its filthiness.’” This argument 
against fornication, from the defilement of the body by it, 
plainly shows, that it is a sin against the law of nature, and 
is a fault in man, as man. 

3 Ver. 19. Τὸ σῶμα ὑμῶν ναὸς, &c. Your body is the tem- 
ple ef the Holy Ghost.] ‘Two things concur to make up the 
notion of a temple: 

First, That the divinity should either dwell in or give 
some signal tokens of his especial presence there. Hence 
was the temple of Jerusalem called “the house of God’s 
habitation,” and the tabernacle, the house where the di- 
vinity or Shechinah dwelt in the midst of them. Accord- 
ingly, “1 am with you,” Hag. ii. 4, is there interpreted, ver. 


* Orat. 3 cont. Arian. 
+ Con. 23 in Matt. 
§ In locum. Vide Huet. Orig. lib. ii. qu. 9, §. 8. 


ἡ In Ps. exiv. 


625 


17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit 
(with him, as being partaker of his Spirit; for by one 
Spirit we Christians are all united to this head, Rom. 
viii. 11, 1 Cor. xii. 13). 

18 Flee (therefore) fornication. (Fbr)Every (other) 
sin that a man doeth is without (the pollution of ) the 
body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth 
® against (and polluteth) his own body. 

19 What? know ye not that ™ your body is the 
temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, (and) 
which ye have of God, and ye are not your own (he 
having by his Spirit taken possession of you, and sealed 
you up as his own proper goods) ? 

20 (You, say, are not your own :) For ye are bought 
with a price (even the precious blood of Christ): ™ there- 
fore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which 
are God’s (by right of purchase, and the possession of his 
Spirit). 


5, “ My Spirit is in the midst of you,” or among you. Hence 
is the tabernacle styled, “'The place of the habitation of 
God’s glory,” Ps. xxvi. 8, and from thence he is said to 
“shine forth,” when he gave them a testimony of his gra- 
cious presence. Now the Holy Spirit, being that in the New 
‘Testament which answers to the Shechinah in the Old, he 
dwelling in the bodies, and being present in the assemblies of 
the saints, doth make them a “spiritual temple,” or “ habi- 
tation of the Lord” (Eph. ii. 22). 

Secondly, ‘That it be a place dedicated and appropriated 
to his use: hence were the tabernacle and temple so often 
styled the house and temple of the Lord, and by him “ my 
house,” according to those words of Christ, “ Wist you not 
that I must be ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρὸς, in my Father’s house ?” for 
as to be ἐν τοῖς rod Διὸς," is to be “in the temple of Jupiter,” 
so to be ἕν τοῖς τοῦ πατρὸς, must signify to be “in my Father's 
temple ;” and therefore, saith the apostle, “ you are not your 
own,” as being dedicated and appropriated to God’s use and 
service. 

He also saith, “If any man corrupt” or desecrate, “the 
temple of God, him will God destroy, for the temple of God 
is holy” (1 Cor. iii. 17), i. 6. appropriated and consecrated 
to his use. And he exhorts all Christians to abstain from 
all idolatrous and profane actions by this inquiry, “ What 
communion hath the temple of God with idols?” proving 
all Christians to be the temple of God, and so appropriated 
to him by these words, “ You are the temple of God, as 
God hath said, I will dwell and walk in them; I will be their 
God, and they shall be to me a people” (2 Cor. vi. 16). 

Excellent therefore is the inference of Tertullian,t that 
“since all Christians are become the temple of God, by vir- 
tue of his Holy Spirit sent into their hearts, and consecrating 
their bodies to his service, we should make chastity the 
keeper of this sacred house, and suffer nothing unclean or 
profane to enter into it, lest that God who dwelleth in it, be- 
ing offended, should desert his house thus defiled.” 

4 Ver. 20. Aozdcare δὴ τὸν Θεόν.] See this reading justified 
Examen Millii in locum. 


* Apud Joseph. lib. i. contr. Apion. 1043, A. 

+ Cum omnes templum simus Dei, illato in nos et conse- 
crato Spirit Sancto, ejus templi «ditua et antistita pudicitia 
est, qui nihil immundum nec profanum inferri sinat, ne Deus 
ille, qui inhabitat, inquinatam sedem offensus derelinquat. 
De Cult Feemin. lib. ii. cap. 1. 


CHAPTER VII. 


1 Now (to spear?) concerning the things whereof 
ye wrote unto me: (viz.) ' Jtis good for a man not 
to touch a woman (i. e. o live unmarried, or without 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIL. 
1 Ver. 1. Καλὸν ἀνθρώπῳ γυναικὸς μὴ ἅπτεσϑαι, It ts good for 
α man not to touch a woman.) It was an old philosophi- 
cal question, An uxor ducenda esset, whether a man should 
Vou. IV.—79 


the use of a woman, or, if is nol good to marry, Matt. 
xix. 10. This I grant as Christ did to him who, having 
the gift of continency, can receive the saying). 


marry? In which many of them held the negative, as Bion 
and Antisthenes,* who said, “A handsome wife would he 


* Laert. in Bion. p. 108. in Antist. lib. vi. p. 138. 
350 


626 


2 Nevertheless, fo avoid (that) fornication (which 
ts so common at Corinth, and so freely practised by 
the Nicolaitans, under the pretence that matrimony is a 
thing indifferent), let every man have (ἐχέτω, retain,) 
his own wife, and let every woman have her own hus- 
band. 

3 Let (also) the husband render unto the wife due 
benevolence (7. 6. the conjugal duty) : and likewise also 
the wife unto the husband. 

4 (For) The wife 5 hath not power of her own body, 
but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath 
not power of his own body, but the wife. 

5 Defraud ye not (therefore) one the other (of this be- 
mevolence), except zt be with (mutual) consent for a 
time, that ye may give yourselves 3 to fasting and 
prayer; and (then) 4 come together again, that Satan 
tempt you not for your incontinency. 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


6 But I speak this (which I am now about to say 
of continence, ver. 2) by permission, and not of 
commandment (of the Lord, enjoin continence, ver. 
25). 

: For I would that all men were (unmarried) even 
as I myself (am). But every man hath his proper 
gift of God, one after this manner, and another after 
that. 

8 I say therefore δ to the unmarried (men) and (to 
the) widows, It is good for them if they abide even as 
I (do). 

§ But if they 7cannot contain, let them marry: for 
it is better to marry than to burn (or do be inquieled 
with filthy lustings). 

10 And unto the married I command, yet not I 
(only), but the Lord (a/so, Matt. xix.), ® Let not the 
wife depart (or separate herself) from her husband : 


common, one deformed a punishment, οὐ ληπτέον ἄρα, there- 
fore we should have none.” Hence that of Menander,* 
οὐ γαμεῖς, ἐάν ye νοῦς ἔχεις, “if thou art wise, thou wilt not 
marry.” ‘This was held out of different sentiments; as, v. g. 
by some out of good liking to that celebrated doctrine of 
Plato, κοινὰς μὲν γυναῖκας, κοινοὺς δὲ εἶναι παῖδας, “that women 
and children should be common; and this doctrine was 
improved by the Nicolaitans into all manner of impurity, 
who therefore did ἀναίδην ἐκπορνεῦειν, “commit whoredom 
without shame.” But others of the school of Pythagoras 
refused to touch a woman, as being an impediment to phi- 
losophy, and that which defiled that purity they aimed at. 
Hence Apollonius} the magician is represented as a man 
of so great chastity, γυναικείας ὅτι καϑαρὸν ἑαυτὸν μίξεως διὰ 
τέλος ἤγαγε, “that he lived ever free from converse with wo- 
men.” And Porphyry saith; that “a philosopher must 
not marry ;” that, to live the intellectual life, we must ab- 
stain from women, all use of them being a defilement. ‘The 
word γυνὴ, which in this chapter still signifies a wife, seems 
to refer this question to the first opinion, but the phrase 
γυναικὸς μὴ ἅπτεσϑαι, inclines us to refer it to the latter; the 
first question being too gross to be propounded by the Corin- 
thians to the apostle; the second being a question then in 
vogue, on the account of which Apollonius and the Pytha- 
goreans obtained great repute. 

2 Ver. 4. Οὐκ ἐξουσιάζει, Hath not power.| Here is a plain 
argument against polygamy: for, if the man hath no power 
over his own body, he cannot give the power of it to another, 
and so he cannot marry another; nor could his wife, ex- 
clusively to him, have the power of his body, if he could 
give his body to another. 

3 Ver. 5. Τῇ νηστείᾳ καὶ τῇ προσευχῇ, To fasting and 
prayer.| The apostle speaks not here of ordinary prayer, 
which is the daily work of Christians, but of extraordinary 
devotions on some special occasions; for daily prayers, 
public or private, needed no such consent of parties, nor 
by them could either of them be defrauded of their due be- 
nevolence. Vain therefore are the questions of St. Jerome, 
Quale illud bonum est quod orare prohibit, quare non ingre- 
diuntur ecclesias ? as if the bed undefiled could hinder men’s 
prayers, or their going to church. Vain is his inference, Si 
sacerdoti semper orandum est, ergO semper carendum matri- 
monio, “If the priest must always pray, he must never 
marry :” for to pray always, and without ceasing, is also the 
duty of the laity (Luke xviii. 1, Eph. vi. 18, 1 Thess. v. 17). 

4 Kai πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνέρχεσθε, And come together 
ugain.] This chapter affords many arguments against the vow 
of continence, and those perpetual divorces from the bed, 
which are so commonly practised by the papists, on pretence 
of religion. For (1.) the apostle here admits of no separa- 
tion of the wife and husband, but only with condition that 
they “come together again” to perform conjugal duties, as 
the word συνελϑεῖν doth import, not allowing a perpetual 
separation, no, that they may “give themselves to prayer 


* Athen. lib. ili, p.559. { Euseb. contr. Hier. p. 520. 

+ Πρὸς τὴν κατὰ νοῦν ζωὴν ἀφεκτέον ἀφροδισίων. De Abst. 
lib. i. §. 41, p. 84. Οὐ γὰρ εἰς γάμον καθίησιν ὃ φιλύσοφος, lib. 
ji. §. 52, p. 92. Τὰ ἀφροδίσια μιαίνει, lib. iv. 8. 20, Ρ. 173. 
Kai καθάπαξ ἀφρυδισία μιαίνει. p. 174, 


and fasting ;” and that for a perpetual reason, at least whilst 
an age capable of temptation, and which may be subject to 
incontinence, remains. (2.) He declares the gift of continence 
not to be common to all, but proper to some only, as being 
the proper gift of God, and therefore not to be gotten by 
our industry: “I would,” saith he, “that all men were un- 
married, even as I myself am; but every man hath his pro- 
per gift of God, one after this manner, and another afier 
that;” “he then that can receive it” (Matt. xix. 12), saith 
our Saviour, “let him receive it: whence it is natural to 
conclude that all men cannot. (3.) Notwithstanding the 
present necessity which rendered it so desirable, that they 
might “serve the Lord without distraction,” and which made 
their condition better and more happy who had the gift of 
continence, he abstains from laying any obligation to celi- 
bacy upon them, lest he should lay a snare on their con- 
sciences (ver. 35), and bring them under a necessity of 
burning (ver. 9). Much less would he have urged young men 
and women to that vow, which lays a greater snare and an 
absolute necessity upon them, rather to burn than marry. 
And, lastly, he supposes that some cannot contain (ver. 9), 
some have a necessity to marry, and need so requires them 
to do (ver. 36,37). This respects not what the apostle had 
said, but what he was about to say of continence, it being 
very usual with the apostle to make this preface to what he 
was about to say: so ver. 29, of this chapter, τοῦτο dé φημι, 
“But this I say, brethren, the time is short,” 1 Cor. i. 12, 
τοῦτο δὲ λέγω, “But this I say,” viz. “That every one of 
you saith, [ am of Paul;” 1 Cor. xi. 17, τοῦτο δὲ παραγγέλ- 
λων, “ But as to this I am about to declare unto you, I praise 
you not.” 1 Thess. iv. 15 ; see Gal. iii. 17; blot out therefore 
the note there, and substitute this in the room of it. 

6 Ver. 8. ᾿Αγάμοις, The unmarried men.] The apostle 
begins his discourse concerning the virgin man and woman, 
ver. 25, here therefore he must speak of the unmarried man, 
or the man loosed from a wife, and of the widow, as, ver. 11, 
ἄγαμος is the woman who must not embrace a second mar- 
riage. And perhaps this only was St. Paul's case, as may, 
saith Grotius, be probably collected from this place, and may 
be argued from the testimony of Clemens of Alexandria,* 
and the interpolated Ignatius, who both reckon Paul among 
the apostles that were married ; and from the strictness of the 
Jewish canons, which obliged all Jews to marry at twenty. 

7 Ver. 9. Ei δὲ μὴ ἐγκρατεύονται, γαμησάτωσαν, If they con- 
tain not, let them marry.| Had the apostle then known 
of any vow of continence, or any ecclesiastical law render- 
ing it a damnable sin, and a renouncing their first faith to 
marry, though they burned, he could not so generally have 
propounded and prescribed marriage as the remedy of that 
disease; but would have restrained his word, as Esthius 
here doth, iis quibus conjugii contrahendi potestas esset, id 
est, qui ἃ lege et voto continentie sunt liberi, “to those who 
were free from the law and vow of celibacy.” But I believe 
he knew of none whom God’s law had placed under a ne- 
cessity of burning; that is, say the Greek commentators, 
of being subject to the insults of lust. 

8 Ver. 10. Γυναῖκα ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς ph χωρισθῆναι, Let not the 


* Strom. vii. p. 736. 741, et Strom. iii. p. 448. Ignat. In- 
terp. Ep. ad. Philad. §. 4. 


CHAPTER VII. 


11 But and if she depart (Gr. ἐὰν δὲ χωρισθῃν but if 
she be separated), \et her remain unmarried, or be re- 
conciled to her husband: and let not the husband put 
away (or divorce) his wife. 

12 But to the rest (you mention to me, who are 
voupled with unbelievers,) speak 1, 9 not the Lord (by 

“any decision he hath made, or any precept he hath given, 
in this case, ver. 25, as in the Siar pa ae If 
any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she 


wife depart from her husband.) Note, that the apostle speaks 
here of the married persons, who had mutually embraced 
the Christian faith, forbidding them to divorce themselves, 
except for cause of fornication, as it was customary for 
women as well as men to do, both among the Jews and 
Romans. Dr. Lightfoot on this place cites this canon from 
R. Juchanan, “The wife hath power to put away her hus- 
band ;” and he gives instances of it in Herodias divorcing 
herself from Philip, and Drusilla from Azizas; and our 
Lord supposes this was practised, in these words, “If a wo- 
man put away her husband, and marry another, she com- 
mits adultery” (Mark x. 12). That this was common among 
the heathens, is apparent from that saying of Seneca,* 
that “none blushes at it, because there was scarce a marriage 
without it.” Hence had they divers names for the divorce 
of both kinds: for the wife being after marriage carried to 
the house of her husband, her divorce was called} ἀποπομπὴ 
“a sending her away from his house;” and because the 
woman, being not mistress of the house, could not do this 
to the man, but only leave his house, her divorce was called 
ἀπόλειψις, “a leaving of the house,” though it was conceived 
in the usual form, Res tuas tibi habeto (see note on 1 Tim. 
iii. 2. 12): and therefore, though the word djiérw be used 
both ver. 12 and 13, it was not amiss in our translators, when 
it relates to the man, to render it, “ Let him not, ἀποπέμπειν, 
put, or send her away ;” and when it related to the woman, 
to render it, “ Let her not ἀπολείπειν, leave him:” that here 
the apostle condemns these divorces, with our Saviour, is evi- 
dent, because he saith, he speaks this “by commandment 
of the Lord.” 

9 Ver. 12. Οὐχ ὁ Κύριος, Not the Lord.] St. Paul doth not 
say this to intimate that this direction was given by him, only 
as a man using his natural reason to direct them to what he 
thought best, but not as delivering the mind of Christ; for 
he had before declared the contrary, saying, “ We have the 
mind of Christ,” ii. 16, and after doth it in these words, “If 
any man think himself a prophet, or spiritual, let him ac- 
knowledge that the things [ write unto you are the com- 
mandments of the Lord,” xiv. 37, but he speaks thus to de- 
clare our Lord, in his discourse touching divorce, had not 
decided the case, de imparibus conjugiis, of the marriage of 
a believer with an infidel; but left this to the decision of the 
apostles, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, promised to 
lead them into all truth. Theophylact here notes, that this 
and the former verse speak of those who were both infidels 
when they first married ; for, saith he, oid’ ὅλως ἐξῆν πρὸς ἄπισ- 
τὸν ζεύγνυσθαι, “it was not lawful for a Christian to be joined 
to an infidel.” 

10 Ver. 13. Μὴ agiéren αὐτὸν, Let her not leave him.) This 
caution was needful, because the primitive Christians were 
sometimes in doubt of this, as finding that the Jews did null 
all marriages of the holy seed with infidels; and hence con- 
jecturing that they also might be obliged to do so, and think- 
ing it ἀσεβὲς, “an impious thing” to cohabit with a heathen, 
especially if he were addicted also to unnatural lusts, and that 
by being ὁμόκοιτοι, “ bedfellows” to such a one, they com- 


* Nunquam jam ulla repudio erubescit, postquam illustres 
quedam et nobiles feemingz, non consulum numero, sed ma- 
ritorum annos suos computant, et exeunt matrimonii causa, 
nubunt repudii. Tamdid istud timebatur, quamdiu rarum 
erat. Quia vero nulla sine divortio acta sunt quod sepé audie- 
bant, facilé didicerunt. De Benef. lib. iii. cap. 16. 

F Tis ἀπολείψεως γράμματα παρὰ τοῦ ἄρχοντι ἔϑηκε κατὰ τὸν 
νόμον. Plato in Alcib. p.195, C. Vide Jul. Polluc. lib. iii. 
cap. 5. Alex. ab Alex. Gen. Dier. lib. iv. cap. 8. 8S. Petit. 
Comment. in Leges Attic. lib. vi. p. 459. Seld. de Jure 
Natural. &c. lib. v. cap. 7, p. 591. 


627 


be pleased to dwell with him, ® let him not put her 
away. 

13 And the woman which hath an husband that be- 
lieveth not, and if (yet) he be pleased to dwell with 
her, 1 let her not leave him. 

14 For the unbelieving husband is (Gr. hath been) 
sanctified " by the (elieving) wife, and the unbeliev- 
ing wife is (hath been) sanctified by the (believing) 
husband: ? else were your children (seminally) un- 
municated with him in his iniquity and idolatry ; and con- 
cluding, that as he who was joined to a harlot was “one 
body with her,” so she that was joined to an idolater was 
one body with him. Hence Justin Martyr saith of one of 
these Christian women, not without seeming approbation of 
the fact, that* τὸ λεγόμενον παρ' ὑμῖν ῥεπούδιον ἑοῦσα ἐχωρίσθη, 
“giving him a bill of divorce, she was separated from him.” 

1 Ver. 14. Ἔν τῇ γυναικὶ, By the wife.] Uxoris gratia, be- 
cause of the wife, i. ον he is to be reputed as sanctified, be- 
cause he is one flesh with her who is holy. So ἐδούλωσεν 
Ἰσραὴλ ἐν γυναικὶ, καὶ ἐν γυναικὶ ἐφυλάξατο, ““ Israel served for 
a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep,’ Hos. xii. 12; «I 
desire that you faint not, ἐν ταῖς ϑλέψεσί pov, by reason of 
my tribulations,” Eph. iii. 13; and that “no man be shaken 
ἐν ταῖς ϑλίψεσι ταῦταις, by reason of these tribulations,” 1 
Thess. iii. 3 (see Noldius in the twenty-third signification of 
the particle 3). Or we may take these words in the sense 
of the Greek interpreters, viz. ‘The unbelieving husband hath 
been sanctified by the believing wife, by his consent to co- 
habit with her, and to have seed by her. 

12 "Bret dpa τὰ τέκνα ὑμῶν ἀκάθαρτά ἔστι, νῦν δὲ ἅγιά ἔστι, 
Else were your children unclean, but now they are holy.J 
He doth not say, Else were your children bastards, but now 
they are legitimate; but, Else were they unclean, i. 6. hea- 
then children, not to be owned as a holy seed, and therefore 
not to be admitted into covenant with God, as belonging to 
his holy people. That this is the true import of the words 
ἀκάθαρτα and ἅγια, will be apparent from the scriptures, in 
which the heathens are styled “the unclean,” in opposition 
to the Jews in covenant with God, and therefore styled “a 
holy people.” So Isa. xxxv. 8, adds καϑαρὰ ἔσται ἐκεῖ, καὶ 
ὁδὸς ἅγια κληθήσεται, A highway shall be there, and it shall 
be called, The way of holiness ; ἀκάϑαρτος, the unclean shall 
not pass over it; but the redeemed of the Lord shall walk 
therein,” ver. 9; and lii. 1, God saith of Jerusalem, the 
holy city, “There shall no more come into thee, ἀπερίτμητος 
καὶ ἀκάθαρτος, the uncircumcised and unclean: so Acts x. 
28, « You know that it is unlawful for a Jew to keep com- 
pany with a man of another nation; but God hath shown 
me that I should call no man common, or dxdéSaprov, un- 
clean.” Whence it is evident that the Jews looked upon 
themselves as ἑοῦλοι Θεοῦ καθαροὶ, the clean servants of God” 
(Neh. ii. 20), and upon all heathens and their offspring as 
unclean, by reason of their want of circumcision, the sign of 
the covenant. Hence, whereas it is said that Joshua cir- 
cumcised the people (v. 4), the Septuagint say, περιεκάθαι- 
psv, “he cleansed” them. Moreover, of heathen children, 
and such as are not circumcised, they say, “ They are not 
born in holiness;” but they on the contrary are styled 
Isp pu, σπέρμα ἅγιον, “a holy seed” (Isa. vi. 13, Ezra ix. 
2), and the offspring from them, and from those proselytes 
which had embraced their religion, are said to be born 
avyp3 in holiness, and so thought fit to be admitted to cir- 
cumcision, or baptism, or whatsoever might initiate them 
into the Jewish church; and therefore to this sense of the 
words holy and unclean the apostle may be here most ra- 
tionally supposed to allude, declaring that the seed of holy 
persons, the offspring born ἐκ τῶν ἁγιασμένων “of saints,”> 
as Christians are still called in the New Testament, are also 
holy. And though one of the parents be still a heathen, yet 
is the denomination to be taken from the better, and so their ~ 
offspring are to be esteemed, not as heathens, i. e. unclean, 
but holy, as all Christians by denomination are. So Cle- 
mens Alexandrinus¢ infers, saying, “I suppose the seed of 


* Apol. i. p. 42, A, B. 
+ See note on ch. i. 2. 
8. Τῶν δὲ ἁγιασϑέντων ἅγιον οἶμαι καὶ τὸ σπέρμα εἰς τίνα λόγῳ 


628 


clean (and so not to be admitted to the Christian cove- 
nant) ; but now are they holy. 

15 But if the unbelieving (person will) depart (and 
so break off the matrimonial duly), let him depart. A 
brother or a sister 15 is not under bondage (Gr. 7s not 
enslaved) in such cases: but God hath called us to 
peace (and therefore we must give no occasion of quarrel 
with, or separation from, so near a relative, or of disturb- 
ance of the family). 

16 For what knowest thou, O wife, whether (by 
dwelling with him) thou shalt (not be a means to) save 
ihy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether 
thou shalt (not, by dwelling thus with her, be a means 
10) save thy wife? 

17 “ But (whether this be so or not) as God hath dis- 
tributed (the gift of continence) to every man (or not), 
as the Lord hath called every one (to the faith, married 
to an unbeliever, or servant to them, or not), so let him 
walk (doing nothing on his part contrary to those rela- 
tions). And so ordain I in all churches (which I have 
converted ). 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


18 Is any man called being circumcised ? 15 let him 
not (endeavour to) become (as one) uncircumcised. Is 
any (man) called in uncircumcision? let him not be 
circumcised. 

19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncireumcision is 
nothing (‘hat renders us more or liss acceptable in the 
sight of God), but the keeping of the commandments 
of God (is all in all). 

20 Let every man (s/i//) abide in the same calling 
wherein he was called (to the faith, not thinking himself 
obliged by tt to quit his calling). 

21 Art thou called being a servant? eare not for it: 
but if thou mayest (/awfully) be made free, use it ra- 
ther. (Care not I say) 

22 For he that is called in the Lord, being a ser- 
vant, is the Lord’s freeman (being delivered by him 
from his bondage to sin, John viii. 36): likewise also 
he that is called, being free, (nevertheless) is Christ’s 
servant. 

23 16 Ye are bought with a price; (Gr. Have you 
been bought with a price from your slavery ?) be not ye 


those that are holy is holy, according to that saying of the 
apostle Paul, The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the hus- 
band,” ἄς. Hence then the argument for infant baptism 
runs thus: If the holy seed among the Jews was therefore 
to be circumcised, and be made federally holy by receiving 
the sign of the covenant, and being admitted into the num- 
ber of God’s holy people, because they were born in sanc- 
tity, or were seminally holy; for, “the root being holy, so 
are the branches also:” then, by like reason, the holy seed 
of Christians ought to be admitted to baptism, and receive 
the sign of the Christian covenant, «the laver of regenera- 
tion,” and so be entered into the society of the Christian 
church. The substance of this argument is in Tertullian de 
Anima, cap. 39, and the author of the Questions, ad Antio- 
chum, qu. 114, 

Else were your children, ἀκάϑαρτα, unclean, &c.] 1 think 
that the other translation, “Else were your children bas- 
tards,”’ is not sufficiently confuted by saying that then the 
argument will not prove what the apostle had asserted: for 
what more strongly enforceth the believer of each sex to own 
that they may lawfully cohabit still as man and wife, than 
this inference, that otherwise they must own that the guilt 
of whoredom lay upon them both, and that their children 
were born ἐκ réprns, 1. 6. bastards? (Deut. xxiii. 2;) but then 
the word used for a bastard by this apostle being vé%e; (Heb. 
xii. 8), and the word γνήσιος being the proper word for a 
legitimate offspring, had the apostle intended such a sense, 
he would have used the words which in the Greek writers 
are generally used in that sense, and not such words as in 
the Septuagint and in the Jewish language always have a 
relation to federal holiness, or the want of it, but none at all 
to the legitimacy or spuriousness of the birth. 

5 Ver. 15. Οὐ δεδούλωται, 15 not under bondage.] That is, 
saith Hilary,* “the Christian in this case is free to marry to 
another Christian.” —« He is free,” saith Photius,t «to de- 
part, because the other hath dissolved the marriage.”—« If 
he depart,” say Chrysostom, Gicumenius, and Theophylact,+ 
“because thou wilt not communicate with him in his infi- 
delity, be thou divorced, or quit the yoke; for it is better 
that thy marriage should be dissolved than thy piety.” 
These fathers therefore plainly supposed that the laws which 
say, “He that marries her which is put away committeth 
adultery” (Matt. v. 32), and that «the wife is bound to the 
husband as long as he liveth” (ver. 39, Rom. vii. 1—3), 
concerned only equal marriages; partly because the apostle 
saith he had no commandment of the Lord to produce for 
the decision of this case, and partly because he doth not 


ὃ ἀπόστολος Παῦλος ἡγιάσϑαι λέγει τὴν γοναῖκα ὑπὸ rod dvdpds, ἢ 
τὸν ἀνόρα ὑπὸ γυναικός. Stroma. lib. iii. p. 445, D. 

* Liberum habet arbitrium nubere legis sux viro. 
Ambr. 

T ᾿Ελεύϑερός ἐστι καὶ αὐτοῦ λύοντος τὸν γάμον, καὶ αὐτὸς διασ- 
τῆναι. Photius. 

Ἐ Διαζεύγνυσθαι βέλτιον γὰρ τὸν γάμον, ἢ τὴν εὐσέβειαν λυϑῆ- 


ναι. Chrysost. heophylact. 


Pseud. 


here say, as in the case of equal marriages, ver. 11, ἐὰν χω- 
ρισϑῆ, “If she be separated, let her remain unmarried.” It 
is the opinion of Mr. Thorndike,* that the apostle looked 
upon marriage made by persons before they were Christians, 
to lay no stricter obligations on them than the laws which 
they were under when the marriage was contracted designed 
to lay upon them; but this seems not consistent with our 
Lord’s decision touching divorce and polygamy ; for though 
they were allowed both by Jews and gentiles, our Saviour 
pronounces them disagreeable to the first institution of ma- 
trimony by God; and, these laws binding all that were Chris- 
tians, no Christian convert could, after his or her conversion, 
do any thing on their parts opposite to them; and whatsoever 
liberty of divorce the laws of Jew or gentile might allow of, 
the apostle will not permit the believing wife or husband to 
make use of them by beginning the separation (ver. 12, 13. 
15): if then these words, “A brother or sister is not in 
bondage in these cases,” do import they are not obliged to 
live unmarried, such a total and perpetual desertion must 
dissolve the matrimony, and render the deserting person as 
dead unto the other: but though all the Romanists, and 
many of the reformed, allow of this interpretation of the 
fathers, it must be dangerous to admit of it without this re- 
striction—A brother or sister is not enslaved, after all means 
of peace and reconciliation have been in vain attempted, 
and the unbeliever hath entered into another marriage, or 
rather hath dissolved the former by adultery, as may well be 
supposed of those heathens who thus separated from their 
Christian mates: and this interpretation seems to be con- 
firmed from the former words relating to the case of the 
believing wives and husbands; “If they depart, let them 
remain unmarried:’ it being not to be supposed that be- 
lievers would dissolve the bond of matrimony by adultery. 
Therefore the apostle seems to grant this in the case of unbe- 
lievers departing from Christians on the account of their 
faith. 

4 Ver. 17. Ei μὴ, But.) Or rather, if not. So px ox and 
nb con, Gen. xviii. 21, εἰ dé μὴ, “ And if it be not so;” see 
xxiv. 8, and xlii. 16.37; Job ix. 24, εἰ δὲ μὴ, “« And if it 
be not so, who will make me a liar?”’ and xxiv. 25; John 
xiv. 2, εἰ dé μὴ, “If it were not so, I would have told you” 
(see Noldius de Partic. Hebr. p. 92). Τὸ others, εἰ dé μὴ 
seems to be misplaced, as being added to the beginning of 
this verse, when indeed it belongs to the close of the former, 
thus; “How knowest thou, O man, εἰ τὴν γυναῖκα σίσεις, 
whether thou shalt save thy wife or not?” And so the seven- 
teenth verse will begin ἑκάστῳ, as the twentieth and the four- 
and-twentieth verses, which answer to it, do. 

15 Ver. 18. Μὴ ἐπισπάσϑω, Let him not be uncircumcised.) 
Ὅτι καὶ ἀπὸ περιτομῆς ἀκρύβυστοι γίνονται, Epiph. de Ponder. 
et Mensur. p. 172. He also says that Esau did this, and 
therefore God said, “Esau have I hated” (Photius apud 
QGcum. p. 423). 

16 Ver. 23. Τιμῆς ἡγοράσϑητε, Have ye been bought with a 


* Laws of the Church, p. 117. 


CHAPTER VII. 


again) the servants of men (who are unbelievers, 1 
im. vi. 2. ; 

24 Otherwise.) Brethren, let every man, wherein he 
is called, therein " abide with God. 

25 Now ® concerning virgins I have no (parlicu- 
lar) commandment of the Lord: ® yet I give my judg- 
ment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to 
be (found) faithful (in my apostolical function, by ad- 
vising sfill what is best and most expedient in those 
cases 10 be done). 

26 I suppose therefore that this is good Ὁ for the 
present distress (of Christians, daily subject to perse- 
culion), I say, that it ts good for a man so to be (i. e. 
α virgin sill). 

27 Art thou μὴ 
loosed. Art thou 
wife. 

28 Butand if thou marry, thou hast not sinned ; and 
if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless 
such (in these limes of persecution) shall have (more) 


bound unto a wife? seek not to be 
oosed from a wife? seek not a 


629 


trouble in the flesh: but I spare you (not thinking tt 
therefore fit to lay the yoke of celibacy upon you). 

29 But this I say, brethren, (ta!) the time (of this 
life) is short: it remaineth (ten), that both they that 
have wives be as though they had none; 

30 And they that weep, as though they wept not; 
and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; 
and they that buy, as though they possessed not; 

31 And they that use this world, #4 as not abusing 
it (or, as those that use it not): for the fashion of 
this world passeth away. 

32 But (this advice, I give, because) I would have 
you without carefulness (for the things of the world. 
Now so it is that) He that is unmarried careth (on/y) 
for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may 
please the Lord : 

33 But he that is married careth (also) for the 
things that are of the world, (and ts solicittous) how 
he may please his wife. 

34 2 There is (the same) difference also between a 


price?) That the charity of Christians was employed to buy 
their brethren out of slavery, we learn from the Apologies 
of Justin Martyr,* and Tertullian,¢ who tell us, that “the 
offerings of Christians at the sacrament were, amongst others, 
employed for that use:” and that these words ought to be 
rendered by way of interrogation is evident from the pre- 
ceding discourse, which is still by way of question: “Is any 
man called, being uncircumcised?” (ver. 18,) “ Art thou 
called, being a servant?” (ver. 21.) And that they are to 
be thus interpreted the design of the apostle shows, which is 
to inform them that their Christianity did not exempt them 
from their secular relations to heathens, the believer still 
continuing in his conjugal relation, and inthe same relation 
of a servant to his heathen master. Now to tell them they 
were bought with a price by Christ, and therefore ought not 
to be the servants of men, is plainly to contradict this design ; 
but it is well consistent with the foregoing advice, “If thou 
canst be made free, use it rather,’ to add, Are ye then 
bought out of servitude by the charity of Christians? return 
not again to the service of unbelievers. 

7 Ver. 24. Let him abide with God.] Neither deserting 
his master upon pretence of being God’s servant, nor doing 
any thing against the laws of God in obedience to his 
master. 

18 Ver. 25. Περὶ τῶν παρϑένων ἐπιταγὴν Κυρίου οὐκ ἔχω, Con- 
cerning virgins I have no commandment of the Τιοτα,} To 
produce, touching their continuance in, or change of that 
state. Here Esthius takes care to add, that the apostle must 
be understood only de virginibus que nondum Deo voverunt 
continentiam, “ of such virgins which were not under the vow 
ofcontinence.” And when the apostle saith without exception, 
“Tf a virgin marry, she hath not sinned’’ (ver. 28), he adds, 
Nisi sit virgo Christo dicata, i. e. “ Unless she be a virgin con- 
secrated to Christ by such a vow;” both which exceptions, 
seeing Paul, assisted by the Holy Spirit, thought not fit to 
add; we may presume that he knew nothing of that matter. 

9 Ῥώμην δὲ δίδωμι, &e. But I give my judgment, as one 
that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be found faithful.) 
This, saith the apostle, is all that is required of a minister of 
God, and a steward of his mysteries, that he be found faith- 
ful in administering the grace of his apostleship (1 Cor. iv. 
1,2). And this fidelity was still attended with the power 
of Christ assisting them, as appears from these words, “I 
thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me, for that 
he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry” (1 Tim. 
i. 12). So that this phrase doth not imply, as some ima- 
gine, that the apostle had only an ordinary assistance in this 
advice, such as any pious skilful pastor may still expect; 


* Τὸ συλλεγόμενον παρὰ τιῦ πρεστῶτι ἐπιτίϑεται, καὐτὸς ἐπι- 
κουρεῖ dppdvots, καὶ χῆραις, καὶ τοῖς ἐν δεσμοὶς οὖσι. Apol. ii. 
Ρ. 99. 

{δος quasi deposita pietatis sunt; nam indé non epulis 
nec potaculis dispensatur, sed egenis alendis, humandisque 
et pueris et puellis re ac parentibus destitutis——Et si qui 
in metallis, et si qui in insulis, vel in custodiis, &e. Apol. 


much less that this is a counsel which might be disregarded 
without sin. 

2 Ver. 26. Διὰ τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν ἀνάγκην, For the present 
distress.) This phrase plainly shows this cannot relate ad 
pacata ecclesiw tempora, to the peaceable times of the 
church, for they are not times of tribulation, as the word 
ἀνάγκη often signifies: so Luke xxi. 23, “There shall be 
ἀνάγκη μεγάλη great tribulation, ἐν ἀνάγκαις, ἐν crevoxwpiats, 
in afflictions, necessities, distresses,” 2 Cor. vi. 4, ἐν ἀνάγκαις, 
ἐν διωγμοῖς, “in necessities and persecutions,” 2 Cor. xii. 10. 
Nor can it signify the troubles common to this life, for they 
are not always instant or present: see ver. 28, where the 
phrase is ϑλίψις ἐν σαρκὶ “ trouble in the flesh.” 

21 Ver. 31. ‘95 μὴ καταχρώμενοι, As not abusing it.) So 
this expression is used in Philo ;* “ This is another's, do not 
covet it; this is thy own, use it so as not abusing it; hast 
thou abundance? give to others: for the excellency of wealth 
consists not in thy purses, but in helping those that want.” 

Note also, That they who interpret these words, “ The 
time is short,” with relation to the troubles shortly to come 
at the destruction of Jerusalem, and the fashion of the world 
passing away, of a new scene of things beginning to appear, 
seem not to give the true import of the apostle’s words: 
for (1.) It is not easy to conceive what concernment the Co- 
rinthians then had in the destruction of Jerusalem; what 
peculiar troubles happened ; what loss of wives or of pos- 
sessions they did then sustain; or indeed, what persecution 
they then lay under, from which the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem might free them. 

Secondly, The fashion of the world passing away, seems 
plainly to refer to the dissolution of it, or at least to our 
passing out of it in a short time, according to those words of 
John, “ Love not the world, nor the things of the world: for 
the fashion of the world passeth away, and the lusts thereof” 
(1 John ii. 15. 17). Again, to have, and use these things, 
as if we had them not, or did not use them, is to be mode- 
rate in the enjoyment of them; not to be much affected 
with them when we have, or much afflicted when we want 
or lose them. 

2 Ver. 34. Μεμέρισται ἡ γυνὴ καὶ ἡ rapSévos, There is @ 
difference between a wife and a virgin.] The reading of the 
king’s manuscript is this, καὶ μεμέρισται, “ And is distracted.” 
And then begins the thirty-fourth verse, thus, καὶ 4 γυνὴ ἄγα- 
μος, καὶ ἡ xapSévos ἡ ἄγαμος, “ And the unmarried woman,” 
i. 6. the widow, “and the virgin careth for the things of the 
Lord :” but though this reading makes a good sense, it is 
not found in any of the Greek or Latin interpreters. (2.) It 
makes too great a variation from the ordinary reading, by 
adding καὶ before μεμέρισται, and by joining ἡ γυνὴ, ἡ ἄγαμος, 
which in all printed copies and ancient interpreters are 
separated. And (3.) it-makes ἡ γυνὴ here to signify the sex 
only, and to be indeed a virgin, or unmarried woinan : whereas 
in this chapter it above twenty times signifies a wife, an 
always stands opposed to the virgin, or unmarried person: 


* Ἴδιον τοῦτο χρῶ μὴ καταχρώμενος. De Joseph. p. 428. 


3c2 


630 


wife and a virgin. (For)Theunmarried woman careth 
(only) for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy 
both in body and in spirit: but she that is married 
careth (also) for the things of the world, how she may 
please Aer husband. 

35 And (of) this (difference) I speak for your own 
profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you (by re- 
straining you wholly from marriage), but for that which 
is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord 
without distraction. 

36 But if any man think that he behaveth himself 
uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower 
of her age (Gr. if it be overaged), and need so require 
(or, he thinks this ought to be done), let him do what 
he will, he sinneth not: let them (who so think) 
marry. 

37 4 Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his 
own will, and hath so decreed (or determined) in his 
heart that he will keep his virgin (7. 6. virginily), 
doeth well. 

38 So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth 
well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth 
better. (Or thus, So that he that marricth doelh well, 
but he that marrieth not doeth better.) 

39 The wife is bound by the law as long as her 
husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at 
liberty to be married to whom she will; only (she 
ought to do it) 5 in the Lord. 

40 % But she is happier if she (can, and therefore 
doth) so abide, after my judgment: and I think also 
that I have the Spirit of God (to direct me even in this 
judgment, δοχὼ δὲ xaya, I think that I also have the 
Spirit of God). 


so ver. 1, 2, ver. 3 twice; ver. 4. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 twice, 
16 twice; 27 thrice, 29. 39; which observation is sufficient 
to destroy this reading; especially seeing the common 
reading gives a good sense, and may be rendered thus, The 
virgin and the wife are divided, or drawn several ways: the 
first looking only after purity ; the second, after the pleasure 
of her husband also. 

B Ver. 36. Ἐὰν 9 ὑπέρακμος, If it be overaged.| ‘The 
Jews,* from the precept to “increase and multiply,” 
thought themselves obliged to marry at twenty, and that 
they offended against the law if they did not so, declaring 
that whosoever neglected this precept was guilty of homi- 
cide. The philosophers say, with Hesiod, that γάμος ὥριος, 
“marriage was seasonable to the women about twenty, to 
the male from thirty to thirty-five.” By the law of Lycur- 
gus,{ they who continued unmarried were prohibited to see 
the games: by the laws of the Spartans they were punished : 
and by Plato, they are declared unworthy of any honour: 
to either of these opinions the discourse of the apostle may 
relate. 

2% Ver. 37.] Note, It is generally supposed, that these 
three verses relate to virgins under the power of parents and 
guardians; and hence the usual inference is this, Children 
are to be disposed of in marriage by their parents. Now 
this may be true, but it hath no foundation in this text; for 
τηρεῖν ἑαυτοῦ παρϑένον, is not to keep his daughter’s, but 
his own virginity, or rather his purpose of virginity: for, as 
Phavorinus§ informs us, “ He is called a virgin who freely 
gives up himself to the Lord, renouncing matrimony, and 
preferring a life spent in continency.” 

And that this must be the true import of these words, 
appears from this consideration, that this depends upon the 
purpose of his own heart, and the power he hath over his 
own will, and the no ig eed from himself to change 
this purpose: whereas the keeping a daughter unmarried 


* Seld. de Jure Natural. &c. lib. v. cap. 3. 

ἡ Γάμου δὲ ὄρον εἶναι κόρη μὲν ἀπὸ ἑκκαίδεκα ἑτὼν εἰς εἴκοσι, 
κόρῳ δὲ ἀπὸ τριάκοντα μεχρὶ τῶν πέντε καὶ τριάκοντα. Plato. de 
Leg. lib. vi. p. 877. Vide que Stob. in hance rem citat ex 
Dial. 4 de Rep. Serm. 42, p. 296. 

$ Σπαρτιατῶν νόμος τἄττει ζημίαν τὴν πρώτην dyapiov, τὴν 
δευτέραν ὀψιγαμίου. Stobeus, Serm. 56, p. 412. 

§ Παρϑένος ὀνομάζεται ὃ ἑκουσίως ἑαυτὸν προσαγαγῶν τῷ Κυρίῳ, 
mai ἀποταξάμενος τῷ γάμῳ καὶ τὸν ἐν ἁγιασμῷ βιὸν προτίμησας, 


depends not on these conditions on her father’s part, but 
on her own; for, let her have a necessity, surely the apostle 
would not advise the father to keep her a virgin, because he 
hath determined so to do; nor could there be any doubt. 
whether the father had power over his own will or not, when 
no necessity lay upon him to betroth his virgin. The Greek 
runs to this sense, If he had stood already firm in his heart, 
finding no necessity, to wit, to change his purpose; and 
hath power over his own will not to marry, finding himself 
able to persist in the resolution he hath made to keep his 
virginity ; he doeth well to continue a virgin: and then the 
phrase, “If any man thinks he behaves himself unseemingly 
towards his virgin, if it be overaged,” and thinks he ought 
rather to join in marriage, refers to the aforesaid opinions 
of Jew and gentile, that all ought to marry at such an age; 
if any think thus, saith the apostle, let them do what they 
will, let them marry, for, in so doing, they do not sin: and 
then he concludes with those words applied to both cases, 
“So then both he that marries doeth well, and he that 
marries not doeth better.” 

25 Ver. 39. Ἐν Κυρίῳ, In the Lord.} That is, ὁμοπίστῳ, “to 
one of the same faith,” say Theodoret, Tertullian, Cyprian, 
and Jerome, declaring that all marriage with heathens is 
forbid to Christians. Hence also it is evident that second 
marriages are allowable (see Rom. vii. 3, 1 Tim. v. 14). 

% Ver. 40.] “This (say some) is not spoken with the 
authority of an apostle, or a teacher sent from God, but in 
such a style as implies an ordinary assistance, such as any 
skilful pastor may still expect.” 

But these men did not well consider, that the apostle was 
writing to them who were apt to question his apostleship, 
and required “a proof of Christ speaking in him” (2 Cor, 
xiii. 3), to whom it was proper to say, “ Whatsoever you 
may conceive of me, I suppose I have the Spirit of God.” 
Nor (2.) that doxéw is frequently an expletive, and so doxa 
ἔχειν may be here rendered, “I have the Spirit of God.” 
So 8 doxet ἔχειν, “ that which he seems to have,” Luke viii. 18, 
is 5 ἔχει, “that which he hath,” Matt. xiii. 125 οἱ δοκοῦντες 
ἄρχειν, “ they which are accounted to rule,” Mark x. 42, are 
ἄρχοντες, “they which rule,” Matt. xx. 25; so, in this epistle, 
ὃ δοκῶν ἑστάναι, is “he that stands,” x. 12, 6 δοκῶν εἶναι φιλό- 
vekos, “he that is contentious,” xi. 16, and εἴ τις δοκεῖ προφήτης, 
“Tf any man be a prophet, or spiritual, let him know that 
the things I write unto you are the commandments of the 
Lord,” xiv. 37. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 ' Now as (for the plea mentioned in your lelier) 
touching (the lawfulness of eating) things offered unto 
idols, we (who abstain from eating these things to the 


scandal of others) know (as well as others) that (an 
idol is nothing, for) we all have (this) knowledge. 
(Yel) Knowledge (when it is not joined with charity) 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 


Ver. 1. Περὶ τῶν εἰδωλοθύτων, Now as touching things 
offered to idols.) This is that doctrine of the Nicolaitans, 
Nullam differentiam esse docentes, idolothyton edere, « That 


things offered to idols might be eaten without discrimination ;” 
which the apostle here sets himself to confute, speaking of 
these things both in the general, x. 23 to the end; and in 
particular, as they were eaten with relation to the idols, in the 
idol’s temple. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


puffeth up (against), but charity edifieth (our bro- 
ther 


2 And (therefore) if any man think that he knoweth 
any thing (and by reason of that knowledge despiseth 
others, not regarding their welfare), he knoweth nothing 
yet ? as he ought to know. 

3 But if any man love God (and for his sake, his 
brother, John iv. 17, using his knowledge to the glory of 
God, and the benefil of his brother), the same is known 
(and accepted) of him. 

4 As concerning therefore the eating of those 


2 Ver. 2. Καϑὼς δεῖ γνῶναι, As he ought to know.) To 
know thus, saith St. Bernard,* is to know in what order, 
with what study and endeavour, and to what end, we ought 
to know all things. “In what order,” as desiring to know 
that first which is most necessary to salvation. “ With what 
study,” as desiring most ardently to know that which is most 
vehemently to be loved, and most tends to provoke love in 
us. “ΤῸ what end,” viz. not out of curiosity, vain-glory, or 
filthy lucre; but for the edification of thyself, or of thy 
brother. 

3 Ver. 4. Οὐδὲν εἴδωλον, An tdolis nothing.| This aphorism, 
that an idol was nothing, was usual among the Jews, who 
were taught by the Old Testament, that the heathen deities 
were cvdan and povdydy, “ vanities and nothings.” ‘Thus in 
Echa Rabboth,+ or the old comment on the Lamentations, 
Rachael speaks thus to God, “ Why enviest thou an idol, 
which is nothing?” And in the Elle Shemeth Rabba,+ we 
have this aphorism, “ There is nothing solid in an idol.” And 
hence the rabbins concluded, saith Dr. Lightfoot, that it could 
have no power to pollute, and that whatsoever worship was 
paid to it, if it were not worshipped under the notion of a 
God, it was nothing; but whatever they meant of an idol’s 
being nothing, it is certain the apostle only means that it is 
nothing of a God; for he proves that it is nothing, because 
“there is no God but one;’ and so all the criticisms about 
the word εἴδωλον, idol, are impertinent. 

4 Ver. δ. "Ὥσπερ εἰσὶ θεοὶ πολλοὶ, As there are gods many, 
and lords many.) Here Mr. Clerc§ translates the words thus, 
“As really there are gods many,’ &c., and magisterially 
saith, “I'he apostle hath no reference to the gods or idols of 
the heathens; but, by gods in heaven, are meant God and 
the angels; in the earth, magistrates, who are also called the 
lords of the world.” But he proves not a word of all this: 
yea, the contrary is not only said by all the ancient fathers 
and commentators] upon the place, who both assert and 
prove the contrary, but also is evident from the words them- 
selves: for, first, when the apostle had said expressly, « We 
(Christians) know there is no God but one ;” would he im- 
mediately add, There are really gods many? What would 
this have been, but, as Chrysostom and Theophylact say, 
τοῖς φανεροῖς μάχεσθαι, * to speak things repugnant?” Which 
to avoid, the apostle adds, though there be of λεγύμενοι θεοὶ, 
“those that are called gods,” by these words separating them 
from him who truly is so: and showing they are only so in 
name, but not in reality ; not in truth, but in word only. 
And this is evident from the words following: “'Though (to 
them) there be gods many, and lords many, παρ᾽ Ἕλλησι θεοὶ 
καὶ κύριοι λεγόμενοι, yet to us (Christians) there is but one God 
and one Lord.” Lastly, whereas he saith, “By gods in 
heaven are meant God and the angels,” let him show any 
instance in the New Testament where θεοὶ is put for God and 
the angels; or where both are thus mentioned under that 
one name. Here to be sure it cannot be so, for the apostle 
had not only said before, *« We (Christians) know there is no 
other God but one;” but saith after, this is he, “of whom 


* In Cant. Cantic. cap. 36, p. 151. tT F. 56, col. 1. 

¢ Sect. 30. § Vid. Art. Crit. par. ti. cap. 5, §. 77. 

ἢ Θεοὶ λεγόμενοι, ἃ paganis, Ambrosius. Kara τὴν Ελλήνων 
peSodoyiav, Theodoret. Tap’ Ἕλλησιν, Chrysostom, Photius, 
@cumenins, Theoph. 

Dixit enim et separavit cos qui dicuntur quidem, non sunt 
autem dii, ab uno Deo patre. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 6. 

Οὐχ ἁπλῶς εἰσιν, ἀλλὰ λεγόμενοι, οὐκ ἐν ἀληϑέια ὄντες, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν 
λόγῳ. Chrys. Theoph. 


Καλῶς τὸ λεγύμενοι, οὐκ εἰσὶ yap. Phot. 


691 


things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we 
(also generally) know that® an idol és nothing in the 
world (of that it is esteemed by them that worship it, 
i. δ. no deity), and that there is none other God but 
one. 

5 For though there be that are called gods, whether 
in heaven or in earth, 4 (as (to the heathens) there be 
gods many, and lords many,) (‘hey having their celes- 
tial and terrestrial gods and lords,) 

6 But (or, yet) to us (Christians) there is but ® one 
God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in 


are all things,” i. e. whose creatures the angels are; could he 
then say, in the intermediate words, ‘There really are many 
gods in heaven, God and the angels. 

5 Ver. 6. Eis Θεὸς 6 πατὴρ, One God the Father.) Hence 
the Arians and Socinians argue thus against the Deity of 
Christ, viz. “ As he who saith there is one emperor, to wit, 
Cesar, saith in effect there is no other emperor but Cesar; 
so he that saith there is one God the Father, saith in effect 
there is no other God besides the Father.” Again, “ He who, 
having separately spoken of one God, proceeds distinctly to 
speak of one Lord, to wit, Jesus Christ, doth by that distinct 
title sufficiently show Jesus Christ is not that God.” 

Ans, ΤῸ the second argument the reply is obvious, by re- 
torting the argument as do the ancient commentators, against 
this Arian objection, thus: That as the apostle, by saying, 
“there is one Lord,” to wit, Jesus Christ, cannot be reason- 
ably supposed to exclude the Father from being also the 
Lord of Christians, as he is often styled in the New Testa- 
ment; so neither by saying, “there is one God the Father,” 
ought he to be supposed to exclude Jesus Christ from being 
also the God of Christians. So Origen* and Novatian.> 
Especially if we consider, (1.) that he is here styled that one 
Lord, “ by whom are all things,” i. e. “by whom all things 
are created,” Eph. iii. 9. “ All things which are in heaven 
or in earth,” Col. i. 16,“ for he that made all things is God,” 
Heb, iii. δ, and by the work of the creation is the Godhead 
known, Rom. i. 20. And this is elsewhere made the very 
description of God the Father, that it is he “by whom are 
all things,” Rom. xi. 35, Heb. ii. 10. (2.) That all things 
were created, not only by this Lord, but eis αὐτὸν, “ for him” 
also, Col. i. 16. Now this is the very thing which the apos- 
tle here ascribes to God the Father. 

Secondly, To the other argument I answer, That we and 
all the ancients assert, as truly as they can do, the unity of 
the Godhead, and that Christ Jesus is not another God, but 
only another person from the Father; and that the applica- 
tion of the word God here to the Father, doth not necessa- 
rily exclude the Son from being God also; but only from 
being the fountain of the Deity, as the Father is. ‘Thus, 
when these words, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and 
last” (Rev. i. 17, ii. 8, xxii. 13), are by John applied to 
Christ; it cannot be concluded hence that the Father is not 
also « Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,” as he is 
often called in the Old Testament: and though “ our Savi- 
our” be the proper title of our Lord Jesus, as his very name 
informs us; yet is the Father in scripture styled “our 
Saviour,” 1 Tim. i. 1, ii. 3, and “the Saviour of all men,” 
iv. 10. ‘The primitive fathers therefore considering God the 
Father as the fountain of the Deity, and Jesus Christ as 
“ God of God,’ do frequently assert two things which may 
serve to illustrate this passage ; viz. 


* Miror quomodo quidam legentes unus Deus pater ex quo 
omnia, et unus Dominus Jesus Christus per quem omnia, 
negent filium Dei Deum debere profiteri, ne duos dicere 
videantur: sed non advertunt qui hac ita sentiunt, qudd 
sicut Dominum Jesum Christum non ita unum esse Dominum 
dixit, ut ex hée Deus pater non Dominus dicatur, ita et 
Deum patrem non dixit ita esse unum Deum, ut Deus filius 
non credatur. Origen. in Rom. ix. 5. 

+ Si non putant aliqu4 ratione offici posse ei, quod unus 
Dominus est, per illud quod est Dominus et Christus, aut illi 
quod unus est bonus, per illud quod bonus sit nuncupatus et 
Christus, eddem ratione intelligant offici non posse ab illo 
quod unus est Deus, ei quod Deus pronuntiatus est Christus, 
Novatian. cap. 30. 


632 


(or, for) him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom 
are all things, and we by him. 

7 5 Howbeit there 7s not in every man that know- 
ledge: for some with conscience of the idol (’s being 
something) unto this hour eat (what is offered to) it as a 
thing offered unto an idol (7. 6. nol as common meal, but 
as a sacred banquet in honour of the idol); and their 
conscience being weak (2. e. erroneous, subject to stum- 
ble and fall,) is defiled. 

8 But (zt ds to be considered by us, thal) meat com- 
mendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we 
the better (for so doing in the sight of God); neither, 
if we eat not, are we the worse (you therefore ought 
not so to eat, as to give occasion to the fall of your weak 
brother). 

9 But (rather to) take heed lest by any means this 
liberty of your’s become a stumblingblock to them 
that are weak? (so as lo provoke them to fall from Chris- 
tianity, or to defile themselves with idolatry). 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


10 For if any man (who with this erroneous conscience 
goes to these feasts) see thee which hast knowledge 
5 sit at meat in the idol’s temple, shall not the con- 
science of him which is weak be (the more) embold- 
ened (by thy example) to eat those things which are 
offered to idols (?n honour of the idol, or as thinking it 
no hurt to worship idols) ; 

11 And (so) through thy knowledge shall the weak 
brother perish, for 9 whom Christ died ? 

12 But (surely it deserves well to be considered, that) 
when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their 
weak conscience, ye sin against Christ (wounding and 
murdering the members of his body; difeating the great 
end of his death ; and destroying them whom he designed 
lo save). 

13 Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend 
(and so to perish), © I will eat no flesh while the 
world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend (and 
perish). 


First, That Christians* acknowledge one God only, even 
the Father, and yet that Jesus Christ was truly God, of the 
substance of the Father. 

Secondly, That God the Father was the Creator of all 
things, and yet that all things were created by the Word. 

6 Ver. 7. "ANN οὐκ ἐν πᾶσιν ἡ γνῶσις: There ts not in all 
this knowledge. This contradicts not what is said, ver. 1, 
«“ We all have knowledge;” that being spoken of them who 
abstained from things offered to idols, out of scandal to others 
only ; this of them who through weakness did eat of them: 
the first, being well-informed Christians, knew there was but 
one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, to be wor- 
shipped: the weak thought there might be some deastri, or 
“inferior lords,” to whom some reverence was due. 

7 Ver. 9. Πρύσκομμα γίνεσθαι τοῖς ἀσθενοῦσιν, To be a stum- 
bling-bluck to the weak,| Is not barely to offend them, or to 
induce them to do any thing with a doubting conscience ; but 
to make them stumble at the Christian faith, or fall off from 
it, or perish by idolatry. For thus it follows, “ And so shal! 
thy weak brother perish:” so, Rom. ix. 32, 33, «Israel 
stumbled at the stone of stumbling, as it is written, Behold, 
I lay in Zion, λίθον προσκύμματος, a stone of stumbling;” 1 
Pet. ii. 8, “To them that be disobedient, the stone, which 
the builders disallowed, is made λίθον προσκύμματος, a stone 
of stumbling.” 

® Ver. 10. Ἔν εἰδωλείῳ κατακείμενον, Sitting at meat in the 
idol’s temple.| The gentiles, saith Josephus,} offer hecatombs 


* Heretici αἱχμαλωτίζουσιν ἀπὸ τῆς ἀληθείας τοὺς μὴ ἑδραΐαν 
τὴν πίστιν εἷς ἕνα Θεὸν πατέρα παντοκράτορα καὶ eis ἕνα Ἰζύριον 
Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν υἱὸν Θεοῦ διαφυλάσσοντας. Iren.lib.i.p.18. Et 
tamen fidem ab ecclesia receptam hanc esse tradit, ἵνα Ἰριστο 
Ἰησοῦ τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν καὶ Θεῷ πᾶν γόνυ κάμψη, cap. 2, p. 50. 
Prophetis quidem et apostolis patrem et filium confitentibus, 
et ipso Domino patrem tantum Deum, et Dominum eum qui 
solus est Deus et dominator omnium, tradente discipulis, 
sequi nos oportet. Lib. iil. cap. 9. Et tamen(cap. 10) se- 
cundum id quéd Verbum Dei homo erat requiescebat 
Spiritus Dei super eum, secundim autem quod Deus 
erat, non secundum gloriam judicabit. Vide cap. 11. Apos- 
toli autem secundum eos transgressores precepli ostenduntur 
demiurgum Deum et Dominum et patrem confitentes Si 
non hic solus est Deus et pater. Lib.iv.cap.2. Et tamen 
(cap. 11) ipse igitur Christus cum patre vivorum est Deus. 
Itaque deos omnino non dicam, nec dominos, sed apostolum 
sequar, ut si paritér nominandi fuerint pater et filius, Deum 
patrem appellem, et Jesum Christum Dominum nominem, 
solum autem Christum potero Deum dicere, sicut idem apos- 
tolus, Ex quibus est Christus, qui est Deus super omnia 
benedictus in omne evum. ‘Tertul. adv. Prax. cap. 31. Est 
ergo Deus pater omnium institutor et creator, solus originem 
nesciens——unus Deus. Novatian, cap. 31. Et tamen ex 
patre processit substantia illa divini cujus nomen est Verbum, 
per quod facta sunt omnia Deus utique procedeus ex 
Deo, secundam personam efficiens, sed non eripiens illud 
patri quod unus est Deus. Ibid. 

{ Cont. Apion. lib. ii. p. 1069, A. 


‘ 


to their gods, καὶ χρῶνται ἱερείοις πρὸς εὐωχίαν, “and use their 
temples for their banqueting-house ;” so we read Judg. ix. 
27, Amos ii. 27, and in profane authors very frequently. 
When therefore, saith the apostle, the weak Jews who ab- 
horred idols, or the gentiles newly converted from the wor- 
ship of them, shall see thee doing the same thing which 
heathens do in honour of their idols, and that in places ap- 
propriated to their worship; will they not be tempted, by 
the example of such a strong and knowing Christian, to con- 
clude, that either idolatry is by Christians accounted no sin, 
or that the idol deserves some honour; and so comply with 
them from these erroneous principles in eating things offered 
to idols 1 

9 Ver. 11. At’ ὃν Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν, For whom Christ died.] 
From this, and the like place, Rom. xiv. 15, it is strongly 
argued, that Christ intentionally died for those that may for 
ever perish: for here the apostle dissuades the Corinthians 
from scandalizing their weak brethren, by an argument taken 
from the irreparable michiefs they do them, the eternal ruin 
they may bring upon them, by this scandal: whereas, if it 
be as some assert, that all things, even the sins of the elect, 
shall work together for their good, and that they can never 
perish; if the apostle knew and taught this doctrine to them, 
why doth he go about to fright them from this scandal, by 
telling them it might have that effect, which he before had 
told them was impossible? If you interpret his words thus, 
So shall he perish for whom in charity you ought to judge 
Christ died ; it is certain from this doctrine, that they must 
be assured this judgment of charity must be false, or that 
their brother could not perish. In the first case, they could 
not be obliged to act by it; and, in the second, they could 
not rationally be moved by it, to abstain from giving scandal 
on that impossible supposition. If you interpret him thus, 
So shalt thou do that which in its nature tends to make thy 
brother perish, and might have that effect, had not God de- 
termined to preserve all for whom Christ died from perish- 
ing: since this determination renders it sure to me, who 
know it, that they cannot actually perish, it must assure me 
there can be no cause of abstaining from this scandal, lest 
they should perish by it. Moreover, by thus offending, saith 
the apostle, ye sin against Christ, viz. by sinning against them 
whom he hath purchased with his blood, and destroying 
them for whose salvation he hath suffered. Deny now this 
intent of Christ’s death, and show, if you can, in what Christ 
hath demonstrated his great love to them that perish ; how 
they can ever sin against redeeming love; or, how by thus 
offending them, who neither do nor can belong to him as 
members of his body mystical, we are injurious to Christ. 

10 Ver. 18. Οὐ μὴ φάγω κρέα, I will eat no flesh: It being 
customary for the heathens to consecrate all the flesh they 
used to eat to some demon* or idol, and the weak Jews being 
so nice in matters of that nature, this necessity might some- 
times lie upon the Christians to abstain from all flesh, to 
avoid the offence of the weak brother; and the apostle here 
engageth rather to submit to it, than to be an occasion of his 


* See Dr. Spencer, de Rit. Hebr. pp. 500, 501 


CHAPTER IX. 


ruin (see Theodor. H. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 15, and the note on 
Rom. xiv. 2). 

Note also, That there is nothing in this chapter which 
intimates that the apostle discourseth of a conscience doubt- 
ing about things indifferent ; but rather that he all along dis- 
courseth of an erroneous conscience, which from a false per- 
suasion falleth into sin : for, saith he, « some with conscience 
of the idol, to this hour, eat it as a thing offered to the idol” 
(ver. 7). Now so to do, is to act plainly, not from a doubt- 
ing conscience about a thing indifferent, but from an errone- 
ous conscience about a thing unlawful; and yet this is the 
man “ whose conscience, being weak, is defiled.” And in 
this sense are the words ἀσθενὴς, ἀσθενεία, ἀσθενεῖν, to be weak, 
and wealness, commonly used in the Septuagint, answering 
to the Hebrew $y> which signifies to fall and stumUle (see 
note on Rom. v. 6). 

To scandalize, or offend this weak brother is not only to 
do a thing ungrateful to him, or to cause him to sin by act- 
ing with a doubting conscience; but to divert him from the 
faith, or cause him to dislike it, because he sees that Chris- 
tians so freely do communicate with idols; or to encourage 
him to join idolatry with the profession of it. That this is 
the constant sense of the word σκανδαλίζεσθαι, see note on 
Rom. xiv. 13. 21. 

Hence evident it is, that what dissenters say from hence 
against our ceremonies, that they offend or grieve them, that 
they cannot comply with them by reason of those doubts 
which they lie under, touching the lawfulness of the use of 
them, is impertinent to the apostle’s argument; if they 
would have the apostle here to patronize them, they must 
confess that they are acted herein by a false judgment and 
erroneous conscience, as the weak person mentioned by him 
was. 


633 


Nevertheless, this seemeth to press hard on them, who 
believe the schism of such weak persons will finally tend to 
their ruin, and render them exiles from the flock of Christ, 
and yet, in things indifferent, will in this dreadful sense cause 
their weak brother to offend, or to be scandalized ; since this 
they do for that which commends them not to God; which 
doing, they are not the better, or omitting, they are not the 
worse (ver. 8). For if schism or idolatry be equally damn- 
ing sins, and equally cause my brother to offend, and him to 
perish for whom Christ died, we are equally to take heed in 
both cases, lest ἐξουσία ἡμῶν, our powerto do the thing in- 
different become a stumbling-block to the weak, or the erro- 
neous, in their judgment of these things. For let men 
imagine what other difference they please in the case, whilst 
the sad issue or event is in general the same, to wit, the 
perishing of my brother, and my power to have abstained 
from that which, through his erroneous conscience, gave 
occasion to it, is the same, I fear the guilt will be the same. 

To this purpose tend those words of Origen :* “If we did 
more diligently attend to these things, we should avoid sin- 
ning against our brethren, and wounding their weak con- 
sciences; ἵνα μὴ els Χριστὸν ἁμαρτάνωμεν, that we may not 
sin against Christ, πολλάκις ἀπολλύμενον οὐ μόνον τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ 
γνώσει, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἄλλοις τισὶ τῶν rap’ ἡμᾶς ἀδελφῶν, δι᾿ οὖς ὃ 
Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν, ἐφ᾽ οἷς εἰς Χριστὸν ἁμαρτάνοντες τίσομεν δίκας, 
ἐνδικουμένης τῆς τῶν δι᾿ ἡμᾶς ἀπολλυμένων Ψυχῆς ἐξ ἡμῶν, our 
brethren that are among us, for whom Christ died, often 
perishing, not only by our knowledge, but by many other 
ways and things; in which things we, sinning against Christ, 
shall suffer punishment, the soul of them, that perish by 
us, being required of, and avenged upon, us.” 


* Ed. Huet. to. p. 228, A. B. 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 ' Am I not (who thus abstain from what is offensive 
to the weak) an apostle (as- well as others)? am I not 
free (fo do what they may)? ? have I not seen Jesus 
Christ our Lord (as well as they)? are not ye my 
work in the Lord? (and so if others have a power to 
live upon your temporal things, have not I rather? ver. 
11, 12.) 

2 If I be not (so visibly and demonstratively) an 
apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am (so) to you: 
for the * seal (and testimony) of mine apostleship 


are ye in the Lord; (as being converted by me, exer- 
cising the signs of an apostle among you in all patience ; 
in signs and wonders, and in mighty deeds, 2 Cor. xii. 
12. 

3 Mine answer (or apology) to them that do exa- 
mine me (why I and my companions use not the same 
freedom as other apostles and evangelists) is this, 

4 Have we not power to eat and to drink (without 
using so much abstinence ; or at the charge of the church, 
as well as they) 2 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 


1 Ver. 1. Οὐκ εἰμὶ ἀπόστολος 5 Am not Ian apostle 5] The 
apostle here, from his own example, in abstaining from the 
power which the Lord had given him to receive the 
necessaries and conveniences of life from them to whom he 
preached the gospel, shows how much it concerned them, in 
a matter unnecessary, to abstain from the exercise ris 
ἐζουσίας, of their rightful power granted by Christ; to avoid 
the scandal of the weak, and to promote men’s spiritual 
welfare (so Esthius). This condescension indeed was not in 
the exercise of his apostolical authority ; but it was in that 
which he might have challenged as an apostle of Christ 
(1 Thess. ii. 6). Hence he speaks thus, “Am not I an 
apostle?” and, therefore, have I not ἐξουσίαν, “ power to eat 
and drink?” Yea, it was in that he might have challenged 
by the nature of his office (ver. 7), by the prescription of 
the law (ver. 8), and by the ordinance of Christ (ver. 14). 
And this abstinence he used not only in Achaia, but in 
Thessalonica (1 Thess. ii. 9, 2 Thess. iii. 8), that he might 
be an example for their imitation (ver. 9). It was not 
thi-efore any private or personal right which he here waved, 
but a right of office belonging to all who did officiate in things 
sacred (see note on 2 Cor. ix. 2). 

2 Οὐχὶ Χριστὸν ἑώρακα; Have I not seen Christ 2] The 
apostles being chosen to be witnesses of the resurrection, it 
was requisite that St. Paul, being called to that office, should 
also see him risen. Hence Ananias speaks to him, “ The 
God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest see 

Vor. IV.—s0 


the Just One, and shouldest hear the words of his mouth: 
for thou shalt be his witness to all men of what thou hast 
seen and heard” (Acts xxii. 14, 15, xxvi. aes Accordingly 
we find, that Christ was seen of him (1 Cor. xv. 8), yea, 
often appeared to him after his resurrection (Acts xviil. 9, 
xxii. 18), and that he was taught the gospel by the imme- 
diate revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. i. 12). The Syriac, 
Arabic, and some MSS. read thus, “ Am 1 not free? Am 
I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord ?” 

3 Ver. 2. The seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord.) 
This text seems very much abused by our sectaries, when 
from these words they argue, That seeing they have been 
instrumental to work some reformation in others by their 
preaching or discourses, therefore they have a legal, yea, 
divine call to exercise their ministry, and to administer the 
holy sacraments; which argument will plead as much for 
masters or mistresses of large families, who have success- 
fully employed themselves in a religious education of their 
children and servants; and for schoolmasters, who have 
instilled good principles of virtue and religion into their 
scholars; and for every good man and woman, who spend 
themselves in examples of exhortation, and encouragement 
to others, to lead a virtuous and religious life, and therefore 
prevail more than others, because they know they do it not 
from prospect of advantage, or in pursuance of their calling, 
but out of pure affection to their souls. Moreover I inquire, 
what it is they would prove from these words? [5 it that 
they are of the number of Christ’s apostles? If not, why 
do they use this text? Is it that they have converted men 


634 


5 Have we not power ‘to lead (or carry) about a 
sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the 
brethren of the Lord, and Cephas ? 

6 Or I only and Barnabas, have not we power to 
forbear working (and to receive maintenance of the church 
as others do) ? 

75 Who goeth a warfare any time at his own 
charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of 
the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth 
not of the milk of the flock ? (And shall we, soldiers of 
Jesus Christ, 2 Tim. ii. 2, the planters of his spiritual 
vineyard, the pastors of his fluck, Acts xx. 28, be debar- 
red of this privilege ?) 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


8 Say I these things § as a man (only, from princi- 
ples of natural reason and equity)? or saith not the law 
the same also? 

9 For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt 
not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the 
corn. Doth God (say this only to show he) take (-th) 
care for oxen? 

10 Or saith he ἐξ altogether for our sakes? 7 For 
our sakes, no doubt, ihis is written: that (én this spi- 
rilual husbandry, 1 Cor. iii. 9,) he that ploweth should 
plow in hope (reaping some advaniage by it); and that 
he that thresheth in (/hal) hope should be partaker of 
his hope. 


from heathenism to Christianity, “by signs and miracles, 
and powers of the Holy Ghost?” or that “the signs of an 
apostle have been wrought among” their auditors, “ by signs, 
wonders, and powerful operations,” as this apostle doth? 
2 Cor. xit. 12. Or that they have given their hearers such a 
proof of Christ speaking in them, as Paul did? xiii. 3, Or 
by their means their hearers were endowed with the gifts of 
tongues and prophecy, as the Corinthians were? If not, this 
text cannot concern them at all, who had no such seal or 
sign of their apostleship, as Paul saith he did. 

4 Ver. δ. ᾿Αδελφὴν γυναῖκα περιᾶγειν, To lead about a sister, 
a wife.) It is the observation of Hilary, Gicumenius, and 
Theophylact, ‘That as some women attended on the Lord 
when he was on earth, to minister necessaries to him and 
his disciples ; so some rich women, converted by them, fol- 
lowed the apostles to provide diet and other necessaries for 
them; and they, who so interpret these words, translate 
them a sister-woman. This exposition Theodoret men- 
tions, but seems not to approve; and indeed it seems 
to have had its rise from ‘ertullian* when he was a 
Montanist. 

For Clemens of Alexandriat not only saith, that he 
that marrieth, εἰκόνας ἔχει τοὺς ἀποστύλου;, “hath the apostles 
for examples; and that Peter carried his wife with him till 
her martyrdom ;” but confutes the enemies of matrimony 
from these very words, “ Have we not power to lead about 
a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles ?”’ adding, that οὐχ 
ὡς γαμετὰς, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἀδελφὰς, περιῆγον τὰς γυναῖκας, “they 
carried their wives about, not as wives, but as sisters, to 
minister to those that were mistresses of families; that so the 
doctrine of the Lord might, without any reprehension or 
evil suspicion, enter into the apartments of the women.” 
This exposition seemeth (1.) most agreeable to the words, 
which are not γυναῖκα ἀδελφὴν, but ἀδελφὴν γυναῖκα, which 
cannot be well rendered “a sister-woman,” there being no 
sister which is not a woman. (2.) It is most agreeable to 
the context, which plainly seems to speak, not of such 
wealthy women which could nourish the apostles out of 
their abundance, but of such which were to be nourished 
with them by others. And (3.) to the language of the Jews, 
who called their wives sisters. 'Thus Tobit saith to his wife, 
μὴ λόγον ἔχε, ἀδελφὴ, “Take no care, my sister” (Tob. v. 
20): and Clemens, in the words now cited, saith, “ They 
were carried with them not as wives, but as sisters.” And, 
lastly, this seems best to consult the credit and esteem of 
the apostles, who could not, without evil suspicion, carry 
about with them single women, or the wives of other men. 
As for the women who are said to have followed Christ, they 
were none of his retinue, they attended not upon his person, 
but upon his doctrine, and so they ministered no such 
ground of suspicion. But hence I think it doth not [Ὁ] w, 
as Mr. Clerc saith, that Paul then had a wife, but only that 
he, or Barnabas, had one, or at least might have had one, 
no law then forbidding it: Tertullian saying, if not in his 
own sense, yet in the person of the orthodox, Licebat apos- 
tolis nubere, et uxores circumducere. (De Exhort. Castit. 
cap. 8). 

5 Ver. 7. Tis στρατεύεται; Who goeth a warfure?] The 
pertinency of this instance will be more visible if we con- 
sider that, both in the Old and New ‘Testament, the ministe- 


* Non uxores demonstrat ab apostolo circumductas, sed 
simplicitér mulieres. De Monag. cap. 8. 
{ Strom. vii. p. 736. 741. } Strom. iii. p. 448. 


rial function is represented as a warfare (see note on 1 Tim. 
i. 18): and the Levite, who was consecrated to the service of 
the tabernacle, is said to “ enter into the host,” Numb. iv. 3, 
λειτουργεῖν, “ to officiate,” saith the Septuagint; “to serve the 
service,” saith the Chaldee. The church of God is also re- 
presented as his vineyard, Isa. v. 1. 5, Matt. xx. 1, xxi. 18. 
33. 40, 41, Luke xili. 6, 7, and as his flock, Isa. xl. 11, 
Ixiii. 11, Matt. xxvi. 31, Luke xii. 32, Acts xx. 28, 29, 
1 Pet. v. 1, 2. But then St. Chrysostom* and Theophylact 
observe that “he saith not, Who goeth a warfare, and is not 
rich? Who plants a vineyard, and heaps not up gold of the 
fruits of it? Who feeds a flock, and makes not a merchan- 
dise of the sheep? ‘Teaching us, that the spiritual pastor 
should be content with little, and seek only what is neces- 
sary, not what is superfluous.” 

6 Ver. 8. Kar’ ἄνθρωπον, As a man.] This phrase in the 
New Testament doth always signify to speak, act, and live, 
after the manner of a mere natural man, not yet acquainted 
with the mind of God, nor acting by the guidance of divine 
wisdom, or not assisted by the Holy Spirit. So Rom. iii. 
5, “1 speak κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον, as a man” by mere strength of 
reason would be apt to argue; 1 Cor. 111. 3, “Are ye not 
carnal, and walk as men,” i. e. as natural and not spiritual 
men (ver. 1); 1 Cor. xv. 32, “If, car’ ἄνθρωπον, after the 
manner of men,” i. 6. the heathen manner, “I have fought 
with beasts at Ephesus;” Gal. i. 11, “The gospel which was 
preached by me was not κατ᾽ aSpwrov, after man,” i. 6. it 
was not the product of human wisdom, but received from 
the revelation of Jesus Christ; Gal. iii. 15, “Brethren, 
I speak afier the manner of men,” i. 6. what is acknowledged 
in all civilized nations (see note on 1 Pet. iv. 6). 

7 Ver. 10. Ac’ ἡμᾶς yap ἐγράφη, For our sakes this was 
wrillen.] A like expression occurs in Maimonides,t who, 
having cited these words, “Thou shalt not take the dam 
with the young,” saith, “If God took such care for beasts 
and birds, how much more for men?” And R. Menahem, 
on the same words, saith, The intention of the command was 
not to show mercy to birds, sed propter homines hoc dicit, 
but he saith this to teach men mildness and commiseration ; 
and Philo¢, in the beginning of his discourse περὶ ϑυόντων, 
“of those who offer sacrifice,” says, “ The law took not care 
of brutes, but of reasonable creatures,” οὐ τῶν ϑυομένων 
ἀλλὰ τῶν ϑυόντων, by its prescriptions that the sacrifice should 
be perfect and without blemish, having regard not to things 
offered, but to him that offered them, that he should be free 
from vile passions, or evil dispositions: so that these words 
do not import that God takes no care for beasts, for “he 
saveth man and beast” (Ps. xxxvi. 6), “and giveth to the 
beasts their food” (Ps. exlvii. 9); but only that the com- 
mands he gives us, to show mercy and kindness to our 
beasts, are especially designed to teach us greater kindness 
to our brother man. ‘lhus the high-priest Eleazar saith to 
Aristeas,§ that “all the precepts of this nature, delivered 
by Moses, had λύγον GaSiv, a profound sense; and that God 
did not make them as being concerned about mice, or 
weasels or such-like beasts, but that all these laws were 


* δεικνὺς ὅτι μικρᾷ παραμυϑίᾳ τὸν διδάσκαλον ἀρκεῖσθαι cer, 
τρο ῇ καὶ τῇ ἀναγκαίᾳ μόνη, τὸ χρειῶδες ζητῶν μόνον, οὐχὶ τὰ 
περι ΤΤὺνς 

+ More Nevoch. par. iii. cap. 48, p. 497. 

+ P. 656. 

§ ᾿Αλλὰ πρὸς ἀγνὴν ἐπίσκεψιν, καὶ τρόπων ἑξαρτισμὸν, δικαιοσύνης 
ἕνεκεν σεμνῶν πάντα ἀνατέτακται. Arist. p. 17. 


CHAPTER IX. 


11 If (then) we have sown unto you spiritual 
things, is ἐέ a great thing if we shall reap (some of) 
your carnal things? (Rom. xv. 27.) 

12 If others be partakers of this ὃ power over you, 
are not we rather (so, who laid the foundation of a Chris- 
tian church among you, 1 Cor. iii. 10, and have begotten 
you through the gospel? 1 Cor. iv. 15). Neverthess 
we have not used this power (among you, 2 Cor. xi. 
7—9); but (choose rather to) suffer (the want of) all 
things, lest we should hinder the (advancement of the) 
gospel of Christ. 

13 (2nd not to insist only on mystical interpretations 
of the law :) Do ye not know that they which minister 
about holy things (excoriating, washing, and preparing 
@ sacrifice for the allar, as do the Levites,) live of the 
(holy) things of the temple? and (ihat) they which 
Wait at the altar are (according to the inslitution of the 
law) partakers with the altar? (for that consumes nol 
always the whole sacrifice, but leaves some portion to be 
ealen by the priests.) 

14 Even so hath the Lord (Jesus, in the gospel, Matt. 
x. 20, Luke x. 7,) ordained that they which preach 
the gospel should live of the gospel. 

15 But (yet) 1 have used none of these things: 
neither have I written these things, that it should be 
so done unto me: for it were better for me to die (for 
want of food), than that any man should make my 
glorying (in thus advancing the gospel) void. 

16 (7 say, my glorying ;) For though I preach the 
gospel, I have nothing to glory of (upon that account) - 
for necessity is laid upon me (by the command and 
special call of our Lord Jesus Christ, so to do) ; yea, woe 
is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! (because then I 
shall be guilty of disobedience to the heavenly vision, Acts 
xxvi. 9.) 

17 9 For if I do this thing willingly (ἐγ I choose to 
take nothing for preaching the gospel, when Iam under 
no obligation so to do), 1 have a (special) reward (and 
may glory in tt): but if against my will (I preach the 
gospel, yet am I under a necessity of doing this; and 
therefore cannot glory in it, or expect any special re- 


made for righteousness’ sake and the information of our 
manners.” 

8 Ver. 12. ᾿Εζουσίας ὑμῶν, Power over you.) So ἐξουσίας 
πνευμάτων is “power over unclean spirits,’ Matt. x. 1; 
ἐξουσίας πάσης σαρκὸς, “ power over all flesh,” John xvii. 2. 

9 Ver. 17. Ei yap ἑκὼν τοῦτο πράσσω, If Ido this willingly.) 
This is the interpretation of C2cumentius, and it seems best 
to suit with the scope of the apostle ; the other sense, men- 
tioned by the ancients, and followed by most interpreters, is 
this, If I preached the gospel as a volunteer, having no com- 
mand from Christ to do it, I might expect a peculiar reward ; 
but having this command from Christ, I execute it only in 
obedience to the trust committed to me, and so I cannot 
glory in, or expect a reward for that above others.” 

10 Ver. 18.] Note, first, from ver. 12. 15. 18, that our 
power, in things indifferent and uncommanded, is not to be 
used to the hinderance of the gospel of Christ, and the 
scandal of the weak. 

Secondly, That there is καύχημα, or matter of glorying in 
things done by the assistance of the grace of God, and it is 
for the glory of a man to do them (ver. 15, 16, 2 Cor. xi. 
10), ἡ καύχησις ἡμῶν, “ Our rejoicing,” or “our glorying, in 
this, even the testimony of our conscience” (2 Cor. i. 12). 
And again, “Let every man approve himself” to his own 
conscience, “and then shall he have τὸ καύχημα, rejoicing in 
himself, and not in another” (Gal. vi. 4). The glorying 
therefore, or the καύχημα, which the apostle elsewhere doth 
Teject and exlude, is only that of the merit of our works, or 
their sufficiency to procure the justification of a sinner 

Rom. iii. 27, iv. 2), or that which doth exclude the help or 
τε assistance of the grace of God in Christ (1 Cor. i. 29. 31). 
ote, 

Thirdly, That there may be some actions entirely good, 


635 


ward above others for it, since) a dispensation of the 
gospel is committed unto me (and so in that I on'y can 
discharge my trust). 

18 What is my reward then (or, what is matler of 
special reward and glory to me)? Verily (this,) that, 
when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of 
Christ without charge, that I abuse not (or use nol, 
see | Cor. vii. 31) my power (which is given me) in 
the gospel. (4nd this matter of rejoicing I have :) 

19 For though I be free from all men (as being a ser- 
vant to none), yet have I made myself (as a) servant 
unto all, that I might gain the more. 

20 And unto the (unconverted) Jews I became as a 
Jew, (circumeising Timothy for their sakes, Acts xvi. 3,) 
that I might gain the Jews; to them that (in their opi- 
nion) are (yet) under the (obligation of the) law, as 
under the law, (purifying myself in the temple, because 
they were zealous of the law, Acts xx. 21. 26,) that I 
might gain them that are under the law; 

21 To them that are without law, (the unbelieving 
gentiles, I became) as without law (discoursing to them 
from those natural principles which they owned, Acts 
Xvii., rather than from the law and the prophets), (being 
not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) 
(or obedient to the law of Christ, and taking care notwith- 
standing that I did nothing contrary to the moral law 
God, and to the rules of Christianily,) that I might gain 
them that are without law. 

22 "'To the weak (conver's among the gentiles) be- 
came I as weak (by condescending to abstain from what 
might hurt their consciences), that I might gain the 
weak: 1am made all things to all men (by my com- 
pliance with them in all lawful matters), that 1 might by 
all means save some. 

23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might 
be partaker thereof (the promises and rewards of ) with 
yOu. 

7 24 (Which neither you nor I shall oblain by the 
bare profession or knowledge of it without charity, and 
a life suitable to the precepts of it: for) Know ye not 
(among whom the Isthmian games are acted) that they 


which fall under no particular command; I say, particular 
command; for I believe this very action of Paul, in which 
he glories, was done according to that charity which seeketh 
not her own, but the things of Jesus Christ (Phil. ii. 5), and 
that it was in general his duty to take care not to hinder 
the gospel of Christ (ver. 12), and to cut off occasion 
from others to glory, to the impairing of the truth (2 Cor. xi. 
12), to perform that which rendered him instrumental to 
gain the more (ver. 19); and therefore he saith (ver. 27), 
« All this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker 
of it with you.” I think every good work, which respects 
our duty towards God, falls under the general command of 
loving God with all our heart, our mind, and our soul; and 
all the kindness we show to our brother, under the command 
of loving him as ourselves ; and think no action eminently 
good can be done by any Christian, which is not compre- 
hended under the general precept of doing “ whatsoever 
things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good re- 
port; if there be any virtue, any praise,” d&c. (Phil. iv. 8). 
But yet this action, as to the substance of it, being under no 
precept, but being a refusal to use the power God had 
granted to him as much as others, and this refusal being 
done out of respect unto God’s glory, and the good of souls, 
was that of which he justly gloried, and for which, though he 
did not merit any thing, yet he might reasonably expect 
from God, whose glory he promoted by it, an especial re- 
compense, according to the rule of his own nation, “To him 
a reward is given, who doth any thing uncommanded.”* 

" Ver. 22, 23.] See the reading of the text vindicated 
against the surmises of Dr. Mills, as also x. 19. 24, 28. 31 
Examen Millii in hee loca. 


"© Maimon. More Nevoch. lib. iii. cap. 17, p. 381. 


636 


which run in a race run all, but one (of them only) 
receiveth the prize? So (therefore) run (your Chris- 
tian race), that ye may obtain (the reward of it). 

25 And (then you will be moved to abstain, as I do, 
from what may cause your weak brother to fall and pe- 
risk; for) every man that striveth for the mastery (or 
is a wrestler in these games) is temperate in all things 
(i. e. observeth a strict abstinence). Now they (who thus 
abstain, that they may prevail in wrestling,) do it (only) 
to obtain a corruptible crown (of bays or olives) ; but 
we (Christians, by using this temperance, shall obtain) an 
incorruptible (crown). 

26 I therefore so run (this race), not as uncertainly 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


(or not regarding whether Tam witlin the lines, or come 
Jirst to the goal or nol) ; so fight I, not as one that beat- 
eth the air (7. e. not vainly, as you seem to do: for what 
advantage have you by going to the idol’s temples, or eat- 
ing things offered to idols, to the destruction of your bro- 
ther 2) 

27 But I keep under my body, and bring 7 into 
subjection (by denying myself these liberties in things 
indifferent) : 15 lest that by any means, when I have 
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway 5 
(as being not partaker of the blessings of the gospel, ver. 
23.) 


2 Ver. 27. 'Adéxipos, Lest Imyself should be a castaway.) 
i. e. One disapproved of by God at the last. Excellent here 
is the note of the ancient commentators, εἰ δὲ Παῦλος τοῦτο 
δέδοικεν, ὃ τοσούτους didatas, τί dv εἴποιμεν ἡμεῖς ; “If Paul, so 
great a man, one who had preached and laboured so much, 
dreaded this, what cause have we to fear lest this should 
befall us ?” 

Note also, That the agonistical phrases, mentioned in these 
four last verses, are fully and excellently explained by the 
reverend Dr. Hammond, who informs us, 

First, That the Isthmian games* were celebrated among 
the Corinthians, and therefore the apostle speaks thus to 
them, “ Know ye not?” 

Secondly, That, of the five games there used, the apostle 
alludes only to two or three, running, ver. 24, 26, wrestling, 
ver. 25, cuffing, ver. 26, 27. 

Thirdly, That he, who won the race by running, was to 
observe the laws of racing, keeping within the white line, 
which marked out the path or compass in which they were 
to run, and was also to outrun the rest, and come first to the 
goal, otherwise he ran “uncertainly” (ver. 24. 26), and 
Was ἀδύκιμος, one to whom the prize would not be judged by 
the βραβευταὶ, or judges of the games. 

Fourthly, That the athlete, combatants, or wrestlers, ob- 


* In Isthmo ludi quinquennales Isthmiaci. Solin. cap. 
13. In eo est oppidum Cenchreew ludis quos Isthmicos 
vocant celebre. Mela, lib. ii. cap. 3, lin. 75. 


served a set diet,* both for the quantity and quality of their 
meat, and carefully abstained from all things that might 
render them less able for the combat ; whence they are here 
said to be the “temperate in all things” (ver. 25). 

Fifthly, That he who cuffed used to prepare himself for 
the exercise by a oxiouaxia,t or thrusting out his arm into 
the air. And this is styled, “so fighting as to beat the air” 
(ver. 26): but, when he came to the combat, then his fist 
strove to hit the face and eyes of his adversaries ; and this is, 
ver. 27, ὑπωπιάζειν, to stike under the eye, or give his adver- 
sary a blue eye, and, applied to the body, is so to keep it 
under, by beating it black and blue, as these combatants did 
one another. 

Sixthly, That the rewards of all these exercises were only 
a crown made of leaves of some plant, or boughs of some 
tree, the olive,t bays, or laurel, which therefore the apostle 
here calls ‘a corruptible crown” (ver. 25). 


Ἂ Μέλει σοὶ ᾿Ολύμπια νικῆσαι----δεῖ σ᾽ εὐτακτεῖν, dvayKorpogety, 
ἀπέχεσϑαι πεμμάτων, γυμνάζεσξβαι πρὸς ἀνάγκην, ἕν ὥρᾳ τεταγμένη, ἐν 
καύματι, ἐν ψύχει, μὴ Ψυχρὸν πίνειν, μὴ οἶνον, ὡς ἔτυχεν" ἁπλῶς, ὡς 
ἑατρῷ παραδεδωκέναι σεαυτὸν τῷ ἐπιστάτῃ" εἶτα els τὸν ἀγῶνα παρέρ- 
χεσϑαι. Epict. cap. 35. - 


Τ ᾿Αέρα ἔδαιρον, ἢ καὶ ἐσκιομάχουν. Eustath. Τινὲς μὲν ἀπὸ 


τῶν πυγμάτων τὴν τοιαύτην παροιμίαν εἰρῆσϑαι δοκοῦσιν. Idem in 
hee verba, ἀέρα rinre. Il. y. p. 1215, ed. Rom. 
¢ Tots ἀϑλήταις ἐξ αὐτῆς didorat νικήσασι στέφανος. Porphyr. 


de Antro Nymph. p. 270. 


CHAPTER X. 


1 Moreover, brethren (fo make you the more dili- 
gent in running this Christian race, and to avoid these 
sins which will cause you to fail of the prize you run 
for, I shall lay before you the case of the Israelites, 
your forerunners, showing what privileges and what 
advantages they had, and by what means most of them 
so unhappily miscarried: for, to begin with their pri- 


vileges), 1 would not that ye should be ignorant, how 
that all our fathers (the church of Israel) 1 were under 
(the protection of ) the cloud, and all passed through 
the sea; 

2 And (so) were all baptized unto (the covenant 
made with God, and the doctrine taught by) Moses in 
the cloud and in the sea; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 


Ver. 1. Ὑπὸ τὴν νεφέλην ἦσαν, Were under the cloud.) 
To understand the allusion here, note, that to be « under the 
cloud,” is to be under the protection or covert of the cloud. 
For “the cloud of glory,” saith the tradition of the Jews,* “sig- 
nified the care and providence of God, and his presence with 
them day and night;” and that accordingly it compassed 
their camp, “as a wall doth a city.” And therefore of 
the feast of tabernacles, which in the Hebrew is chagigah 
succoth, “the feast of coverings,” the Jews} say, it was es- 
pecially appointed to admonish them of the divine protec- 
tion exhibited to them by the cloud. And the Chaldee pa- 
raphrase saith, this feast was instituted, “that their posterity 
might know that I made the children of Israel to dwell un- 
der the shadow of the cloud:” and therefore Philo} styles 
A σκεπαστήριον, “a covering.” And so the psalmist repre- 


* Buxt. de Arca Feed. cap. 14, p. 126, 127. 
+ Buxt. Synag. Jud. cap. 21, p. 447. 
+ Quis Rer. Div. Her. p. 397. 


sents it, when he says, “ He spread out the cloud for a co- 
vering to them, and a fire to enlighten them by night” (Ps. 
cv. 39). And the prophet, when he says, “The Lord will 
create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon 
her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining 
of flaming fire by night; for upon all their glory shall be a 
covering” (Isa. iv. 5, 6). Πάντα τὰ περικύκλῳ αὐτῆς σκιάσει 
ἡ νεφέλη, * The cloud shall overshadow all her circuits,” saith 
the Septuagint, “ He was to them as a covering by day, and 
a light of stars in the night-season,” saith the book of Wis- 
dom (x. 17). By these things Mr. Clerc may see we have 
good warrant for saying, “The cloud was a covering to them, 
and that they were under the cloud, because it was over 
them ;” not only because it went before them, which indeed 
is a greater impropriety than that which he charges upon 
others, that being indeed none at all: for what hinders the 
same cloud from being at one time contracted into the figure 
of a pillar, and at another expanded as a covering? For 
do we not read that “ the cloud covered the mount?” (Exod. 
xxiv. 15,) that it “covered the seat of the congregation?” 
(Exod. xl. 34,) that it “covered the tabernacle?” (Numb. 


CHAPTER X. 


3 And did all eat® the same spiritual meat; (‘hat 


637 


ix. 15, 16). The learned Bishop of Ely notes, that there 
were three several uses of the cloud: (1.) To guide them in 
their journeys; and this it did as a pillar going before them. 
@) ‘To preserve them from the heat of the sun in the wil- 

lerness ; and then it was spread out as covering (Ps. ev. 39), 
and was “a cloud shadowing the camp’? (Wisd. xix. 7). 
(3.) To defend them from their enemies that they might not 
assault them; and so it stood betwixt the whole host of Is- 
rael and the Egyptians, and was a cloud of darkness to the 
latter, so that they came not near the Israelites (Exod. xiv. 
20): it therefore must be large enough to darken their whole 
camp. 

Secondly, That “they all passed through the sea, so as 
to come to the opposite shore,” saith Josephus ;* they “ went 
through it,” saith St. Paul,y elsewhere ; “ through the middle 
of it,” say the Septuagint.+ I confess some rabbins and 
commentators say, they only fetched a compass like to a 
half-circle in the sea, and came out again on the same side; 
because before they entered into the sea, they were in the 
edge of the wilderness Etham (Numb. xxxiii. 6), and after 
they had passed the sea, they go three days’ journey in the 
wilderness of Etham (Exod. xv. 22). But to this it is an- 
swered, that the wilderness on each side of that arm of the 
sea, was called the wilderness of Etham, and beyond the 
Red sea was the same with Shur (Exod. xv. 22), for the 
Hebrew word ayp which we render edge, is by the Septua- 
gint forty times rendered μέρος, “a part.’ And here, say 
they, they came to Buthan, 6 ἐστι μέρος τῆς ἐρήμου, “ which 
in some part of the wilderness” (Numb. xxxti. 6) ; intimat- 
ing that beyond the sea there was another part of the same 
wilderness. And, Thirdly, as it follows, 

Ver. 2. They were baptized unto Moses in the cloud.) i.e. 
Into the doctrine taught by Moses: for the cloud was not 
only for direction, but for a covering over them; according 
to the words of the psalmist, “ He spread out the cloud for 
a covering” (Ps. cxxxv. 29). 

And in the sea.) For they were covered with the sea, on 
both sides (Exod. xiv. 22): so that both the cloud and the 
sea had some resemblance to our being covered with water 
in baptism; their going into the sea resembled the ancient 
rite of going into the water, and their coming out of it their 
rising up out of the water. And this the Jews§ do so far 
own, that they say “they were baptized in the desert, and 
admitted into covenant with God before the law was given.” 

Note, Fourthly, That the cloud had a bright shining side, 
as well.as a dark side: so that their baptism in the sea 
answered to that of water; and the baptism in the cloud, to 
baptism by fire, or by the Holy Ghost; which, say the Jews, 
was represented by the Shechinah, or the cloud of glory. 

2 Ver. 3. Τὸ αὐτὸ βρῶμα, τὸ αὐτὸ πόμα, The same meat and 
the same drink.) For though some manuscripts omit τὸ αὐτὸ, 
“the same,” in both these verses, yet is that word to be re- 
tained in both places: for so read Ireneus§ and all the Greek 
expositors (see Examen Millii in locum). And whereas 
Esthius interprets the words thus, “They ate the same 
among themselves, not the same with us:” this exposition is 
contrary, not only to what Austin** and all the Greek fathers 
teach, but also to the scope of the apostle, which is to show 
that they had the like spiritual advantages and privileges 
with us, which yet he doth not do, unless their spiritual meat 
and drink signified or typified to them Christ, as ours doth 
to us. That all of them were not believers in Christ by 


* “EpSacay cis τὴν ἀντίπεραν γῆν. Antiq. lib. i. cap. 7. 

t Διέβησαν τὴν 'EpvSpav ϑάλασσαν. Heb. xi. 29. 

+ Διήβησαν μέσον τῆς ϑαλάσσης εἰς τὸν ἔρημον. Josh. iv. 23. 
Παρήλϑησαν. Neh. ix. 11. 

§ Maim. ex Sisra in Seder Kodash. ed. Pocock, p. 27. 

| Vide Masium in Josh. ix. 

q Lib. iv. cap. 45. 

** Aliud illi, aliud nos, sed specie visibili, quod tamen hoc 
idem significaret virtute spirituali sacramenta illa fuerunt, 
In signis diversa sunt, sed in re que significatur paria sunt. 
Aug. Tr. 26 in Joh. to. ix. p. 228, B, C. 


faith, but some of them were unbelievers, is no objection 
against this sense: for so it is with Christians now; the 
wicked not partaking of the benefit of Christ by faith, as the 
fathers speak, though they receive the sacrament of his body 
and blood with their mouths. 

Note also, That Paul represents manna as spiritual food; 
and the rock as being spiritual, and affording them spiritual 
drink, agreeably to the descants of the Jews: for manna, 
saith Philo,* “is the food of the soul; it signifies the law 
of God, and the divine Logos, whence all permanent instruc- 
tion and knowledge flow. And this is the heavenly food, of 
which Moses, in the person of God, speaketh, saying, Behold 
I rain down for you bread from heaven.” —* The food of the 
soul,” saith the same Philo, “is heavenly, not earthly, as the 
holy scripture testifieth, saying, I rain down for you bread 
from heaven.” He calls the manna put into the ark,t τῆς 
οὐρανίου καὶ ϑείας τροφῆς τὸ μνημεῖον, “the memorial of the 
divine and heavenly food,” and saith, that “ mannat is the 
divine Logos, the celestial and incorruptible nourishment of 
a soul desirous of knowledge.” ‘The Jews also declare that 
manna§ was a type of the external happiness of man: that it 
had its rise from heaven, and thence descended on the earth, 
by opening the gates of heaven; that it is “the divine light 
incorporated, the splendour of the glory of the majesty of 
God, the bread on which angels feed, and by which the sons 
of the world to come are to subsist.” And with these repre- 
sentations of it agree the words of the apostle, saying, the 
Jews by eating of it did eat τὸ αὐτὸ βρῶμα πνευματικὸν, “the 
same spiritual food” with us. But here Mr. Clere saith, 
“The word πνευματικὸς, spiritual, is here opposed to φυσικός, 
natural, not to σωματικὸς, corporeal; for manna was corpo- 
real food, which could not be spiritual in any other respect 
than as it was prepared, not by sensible causes, but by spirits; 
viz. angels, whose bread therefore it is said to be, Ps. Ixxviil. 
2.” J answer, Here is nothing true, or at least nothing 
certain: for (1.) the Chaldee paraphrast saith it is called 
the bread of angels in the psalmist, “because it came from 
heaven, the habitation of the angels;’’ as the psalmist him~ 
self interprets it, saying, “He opened the gates of heaven, 
he rained upon them manna for to eat, and gave them bread 
from heaven; bread of the mighty did man eat.” (2.) Why 
did he say, “It could not be called spiritual food in any 
other sense than as it was prepared by spirits ?” It is because it 
was corporeal food. And might it not be also the food of the 
soul? Are not bread and wine corporeal food? And yet may 
they not be also spiritual food ? Yea, doth not the apostle’s ar- 
gument plainly require that the manna should be spiritual ? 
For how else did they “ eat the same spiritual food” with us? 
And, (3.) how absurd is it to say, it is called “ spiritual food” 
because prepared by spirits? Can he give one instance of 
any corporeal things called spiritual upon that account? Was 
it not spiritual meat, as the water issuing from the rock was 
spiritual drink, and was that so because prepared by spirits ? 

3 Ver. 4. And that rock was Christ.) i. e. It typified 
Christ: for as the rock, being smitten, gave forth waters, so 
our Lord, being smitten, water came forth out of his side; 
and the Holy Ghost, signified by this effusion of waters from 
the rock, was poured forth as a river. By the solid rock,” 
saith Philo,| “Moses understands the wisdom of God, which 


* Znricavres καὶ τι τὸ τρέφον ἐστὶ τὴν Wuxi εὖρον μαϑόντες 
ῥῆμα Θεοὺ καὶ Λόγον ϑεῖον, ἀφ᾽ οὗ πᾶσαι παιδεῖαι καὶ σοφίαι ῥέουσιν 
ἀένναιο, ἣ 6 ἐστὶν ἡ οὐράνιος τροφή" μηνύεται δὲ ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς 
συγγραφαῖς, ἐν προσώπῳ τοῦ αἰτίου λέγοντος, idod, ἐγὼ ὕω ὑμῖν 
ἄρτους ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. Is. de Profugis, p. 367, B. Ὅτι dé οὗ 
γῆϊνοι αλλ' οὐράνιοι αἱ ψυχῆς τροφαὶ, μαρτυρήσει διὰ πλειόνων ὃ 
ἱερὺς λόγος, ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ tw, &c. Alleg. lib. i. p. 69, B. 

+ De Congr. Quer. Erud. Gratia, p. 344, A. 

Ἐ Τὸ μάννα τὸν Seiov Adyov, τὸν οὐράνιον φιλοϑεάμονος ψνχῆς 
ἄφθαρτον τροφῆν. Quis Rer. Divin. Her. p. 384, Ὁ. 

8 Buxt. Hist. Manna, p. 336. 339. 352. 

[ Πέτραν τὴν στέῤῥαν καὶ ἀδιάκοπτον ἐμφαίνων σοφίαν Θεοῦ, τὸν 
τρόφον καὶ τιϑηνοκόμον καὶ κουροτρόφον τῶν ἀφθάρτου διαίτης ἐφιε- 
μένων -ττ-τὴν πέτραν ταύτην A συνωνυμίᾳ χρώμενος καλεῖ 

3 


638 


the spiritual waters to be received from him, John iii. 
37. 39.) 

5 But (notwithstanding these privileges and favours 
common to them with us,) with many of them God was 
not well pleased: for they were overthrown (by him) 
in the wilderness (Heb. iii. 17). 

6 Now these things were (wrilten for) 4 our exam- 
ples (who succeed them in like privileges and favours), to 
the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they 
also lusted (after flesh, when they had manna, food suffi- 
cient for them, Numb, xi. 4). 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


7 Neither be ye idolaters (by eating things offvred to 
idols, and partaking of the tabl: of devils,) as were some 
of them ; as it is written, The people sat down to eat 
and drink (uf the sacrifices offered to lhe golden calf), and 
5 rose up to play. 

8 Neither let us commit 7 fornication, as some of 
them committed (fornicalion, αἱ the sacrifices of Baal- 
peer, Numb, xxv. 16—18), and (upon that account, 
there) fell in one day ὃ three and twenty thousand (of 
them). 

9 Neither let us tempt 9 Christ (our Lord), as some 


is the nurse and the instructor of all that desire the incor- 
ruptible life. He by a synonymous word calls the rock 
manna; that is, the most ancient of beings, the divine Lo- 
gos.” And again, “the rock, cleft in the top, is the wisdom 
of which he makes the souls that love him to drink; and 
being thus made to drink, they are also filled with the uni- 
versal manna, for manna is called τὶ, which is the progeny 
of all things. Now the most general cause of all things is 
God, and the second the Word of God.’ By these things 
Mr. Clere may be convinced, that the Jews might under- 
stand these types by tradition; and seeing them thus ac- 
complished, might be induced to believe. And as for 
Christians, the apostle here shows the influence they ought 
to have on them, viz. to preserve them from the like offences, 
lest they become subject to the like judgments to which the 
Jews were obnoxious (ver. 5,6). But Mr. Clerc denies that 
the words bear this sense, ‘The rock signifies Christ, or repre- 
sented him; and saith, the import of these words, “That 
Rock was Christ,” is only this, “Ὁ ΤΠ αὐ which may be said of 
that rock in a carnal sense, may in a spiritual be affirmed of 
Christ :” which is to expound the apostle as speaking thus, 
They all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of 
the Rock that followed them: now, what may be said of 
that Rock in a carnal sense, may be said of Christ in a spi- 
ritual; i. e. “They all drank the same spiritual drink,’ 
because what they drank was carnal. Moreover, we find 
many phrases of the like nature, both in the Old and New 
‘Testament, as when it is said, “The three branches are 
three days;” “'The seven kine, and seven ears of corn, are 
seven years;” “ΓΘ four great beasts are four kingdoms ;” 
«Thou art the golden head ;” “The seed is the word ;” 
«The field is the world, the reapers are the angels, the har- 
vest is the end of the world; “The hair is Jerusalem ;” 
«This bread is my body,” “This cup is my blood” (Gen. 
xl. 12, xliii. 26, Ezra v. 5, Dan. ii. 38, vii. 17, Matt. xiii. 38, 
39, xxvi. 26, 27, Luke viii. 11). Now in all these instances 
doth not is import typifies, signifies, represents 2. Why there- 
fore should it not do so in the like proposition, “ ‘This rock 
is Christ?’ Or what one instance can Mr. Clere produce, 
that any thing was ever said to be another thing, because 
“what might be said of it in a carnal sense might in a 
spiritual sense be said of the other?” And is it not sufficient 
prejudice against this παρερμηνεία, or uncouth interpretation, 
that it hath no parallel example? Whereas our exposition is 
confirmed from numerous examples of like nature. 

4 Ver. 6. Τύποι ἡμῶν, Our examples.) “The examples he 
here puts,” saith Theodoret, “exactly answer to the sins of 
the Corinthians ;” for as the Jews lusted to eat flesh, so the 
Corinthians lusted to eat things offered to idols, when they 
had other meat provided plentifully by God for them: 
“for the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof” 
(ver. 28). 

5 Ver. 7. ᾿Εκάϑισεν ὃ λαὸς φαγεῖν, ὅτο. The people sat down 
zo eat and drink, and rose up to play.) When the heathens 
had offered upon the altar, and consumed that part which 
belonged to the god they worshipped, they banqueted in the 
idol temple upon the remains, and so did epulis accumbere 


μάννα, τὸν πρεσβύτατον τῶν ὄντων, Adyov ϑεῖον. Quod deter. 
pot. p. 137, A, C. Ἢ yap ἀκρότομος πέτρα ἡ copia Θεοῦ ἐστιν, 
ἣν ἄκραν καὶ πρωτίστην ἔταμεν ἀπὸ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ δυνάμεων, ἐξ ἧς 
ποτίζει τὰς φιλοθέους ψυχὰς, ποτισϑεῖσαι δὲ καὶ τοῦ μᾶννα ἐμ- 
πίμπλανται τοῦ γενικωτάτου" καλεῖται γὰρ τὸ μάννα τι, ὃ πάν- 
τῶν ἐστὶ γένος" τὸ δὲ γενικωτατύν ἐστιν ὃ Θεὸς, καὶ δεύτερος ὃ Θεοῦ 


Αόγος" Legis Alleg. lib. iii. p. 853, A, B. 


diviim, as Virgil* speaks, at long tables prepared for that 
purpose, whence this is by the apostle called partaking of the 
tables of devils; and used very appositely, say the fathers, 
to convince the Corinthians, that, by eating things offered to 
the idols in the idol temple, they must be guilty of heathen- 
ish idolatry. 

δ. Rose up to play.| Here almost all the critics observe, 
that παίζειν, to play, bears an impure sense, importing their 
fornication with one another; as when we say, such a one 
hath played the whore; but this criticism seems here to be 
without foundation: for (1.) the scripture often mentions 
their idolatry, but never charges them with whoredom, then 
committed when they made the golden calf; all that God 
himself charges upon them is, that they had made them a 
molten ealf, and had worshipped and sacrificed to it, and 
said, “ These be thy gods,” Exod. xxii. 8. 35, Neh. ix. 18, 
Ps. evi. 19, 20, Acts vii. 41. (2.) The apostle speaks of 
whoredom in the verse following as a distinct sin, and there- 
fore cannot reasonably be supposed to charge them with it 
here. (3.) The exposition of the ancients, that they rose up 
to dance before the calf, is confirmed by these words, “ And 
when Moses saw the calf, and the dancing, he was wroth” 
(Exod. xxii. 19). And because this was done after the 
manner of the heathens,t and was one of the rites by which 
they honoured their gods, the apostle useth it as a confirma- 
tion of their idolatry. And this is all the fathers seem to 
mean by saying, that fo play, is used ἀντὶ τοὺ etdwoNarpeicev, 
“for committing idolatry;’ and the Jerusalem ‘Targum, 
when it saith, they did ludere cultti peregrino, “ play after the ἡ 
heathen manner.” 

7 Ver. 8. Μηδὲ πορνεύωμεν, Neither let us commit fornica- 
tion, as some of them committed.| How prone the Christians 
of the church of Corinth were to this sin, which made the 
heathen Corinth infamous to.a proverb, we learn from these 
words of the apostle, “I fear when I come, I shall bewail 
many who have sinned already, and have not repented of the 
uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness which they 
committed,” 2 Cor. xii. 21 (see 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17, v. 11, vi. 
9. 13. 15, 16). 

8 Εϊκυσιτρεῖς χιλιάδες, Three-and-twenty thousand.] The 
number of the slain was four-and-twenty thousand (Numb. 
xxv. 9), and so Gicumenius saith some ancient copies read 
here; but of this number one thousand was slain by the 
judges, and that probably the day before the plagues; three- 
and-twenty thousand by the immediate hand of God. Now 
the design of the apostle here, is only to mention them who 
fell in one day by the hand of God (see Bochart. Hieroz. lib. 
il. cap. 34). 

9 Ver. 9. Τὸν Χριστὸν, Christ.] This reading ought not to 
be questioned, for we find it not only in Hilary the deacon, 
Chrysostom, CScumenius, Theophylact, but in Irenzus.¢ 
Hence Primasius of old proved the divinity of Christ, as be- 
ing that God whom they tempted (Ps. cvi. 14), and others 
his pre-existence before the birth of the blessed Virgin, 
against the Socinians. That the apostle here cannot speak, 
as Crellius contends, of Moses, is plain: 


* #n. i. 83. Vide Turneb. lib. xxx. cap. 5. 

Τ Inter vescendum diis laudes canebant, pedibusque cir+ 
cum aras complodentes ad numeros psallebant. Rosin. 
Antig. lib. iii. cap. 33. Virgil. Eclog. v. 73. Ubi Servius, 
sané ut in religionibus saltaretur hxc est ratio, quod nullam 
majores nostri partem corporis esse voluerunt que non sen- 
tiret religionem. 


+ Lib. iy. cap. 45. 


CHAPTER X. 


of them also tempted (him), and were destroyed of 
serpents (Numb. xxi. 5, 6). 

10 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also mur- 
mured (Numb. xiv. 2), and were destroyed "Ὁ of the 
destroyer (ver. 37). 

11 Now all these things happened unto them for 
ensamples (to posterity): and they are written for our 
admonition, '! upon whom the ends of the world (the 
last of ages) are come (¢. 6. the Christian age). 

13 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth 
(and is in high favour with God, as they once were, and 
still think they are,) take heed lest he fall. 

13 (And whereas the great inducement to symbolize 
with Jew or gentile in thetr rites is this, that you may 
avyid persecution, you have no cause to doubt of Christ's 
protection under them, for he hath so preserved you 
hitherto, that)There hath no temptation taken you but 
such as is common to man (ἀνθρώπινος, supportable by 


639 


the strength and resolution of a man): but (moreover 
God is faithful, ® who will not suffer you to be tempte 
(at any time) above that ye are able; but will with the 
temptation also make ἃ way (so fair) to escape (i/), 
that ye may be able to bear 7. 

14 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from (the) 
idolatry (commitled by the participation of things offered 
lo idols in the idol temple). 

15 I speak as to wise men (in what Tam now offer- 
inz, to show the idolatry of this practice) ; judge ye (the 
reasonableness of ) what 1 say. 

16 The cup of blessing which we bless (or receive 
with thanksgiving to God for il), is it not the Καὶ com- 
munion of the blood of Christ (or that rite by which 
we Christians do profess to hold communion with, and 
own him as, our Lord and Saviour, who shed his blood 
for us)? The bread which we break, is it not (a/so) 
the communion of the body of Christ (7. e. do we not 


First, Because, though the name of Jesus be once given 
to Joshua (Heb. iv. 8) in the New Testament, as being the 
true import of his name, and the translation of it by the 
Septuagint, yet is the name of Christ never given to Moses, 
nor doth it bear any affinity with his name. Nor, 

Secondly, Is Moses ever called Christ in the Old Testa- 
ment. For though Crellius contends that name is given 
him in these words of Habakkuk (iii. 13), “Thou wentest 
forth for the salvation of thy people with thy Christ ;” yet it 
is evident that this is spoken of God’s going forth with 
Joshua, by “the captain of the Lord’s host” (who is de- 
scribed, Josh. vy. 14, 15, and so honoured by Joshua, as to 
leave no place of doubting that he was a divine person) ; 
or, ver. 11, the prophet saith, “’The sun and moon stood 
still,” as they did only in the time of Joshua (x. 12), and 
ver. 12,“ Thou didst march through the land in indignation, 
thou didst thresh the heathens in anger,” as he did by 
Joshua; and then follow the words cited. (2.) This appears 
farther from the words tempt and tempted, which, both in 
the Old and New ‘Testament, signify distrusting the power 
or the will of God to do what he had given those who 
tempted him suflicient evidence he was able and willing to 
perform (see this proved, note on Matt. iv. 7). Now thus 
they did not tempt Moses (Numb. xi. 6), but God, by dis- 
trusting his power to give them bread and water in the wil- 
derness (ver. 5). 

Their second answer therefore is, That there being no 
accusative case expressed after the words καθὼς καὶ τινες 
αὐτῶν ἐπείρασαν, “ As some of them tempted,” they may as 
well add God, as we add him. But, 

1. This exposition must ascribe that divine power to 
Christ, which belonged unto him they tempted in the wilder- 
ness, by virtue of the preceding argument, and also render 
it as wicked and as dreadful to tempt Christ now, as it 
was to tempt God then; and so by consequence it must as- 
cribe to him that divine nature, from which a divine power is 
inseparable. 

2. They have not yet produced one instance where the 
person spoken of in reference to the same action, in the same 
instance, isthuschanged. Crellius, indeed, who never wants 
a shift, such as it is, brings his instance from ver. 6, viz. 
“These things were spoken, that we might not be lusters af- 
ter evil things, as they also lusted :” but as here is the fallacy 
of a transition, cis ἄλλο γένος, from things to persons; so is 
there nothing said, ver. 6, to signify that the evil things for- 
bid to the Corinthians to be the subject of their lusts, were 
to be quails or flesh, as in the Jews they were, but only that 
they were, for the kind, evil, as theirs also were. 

10 Ver. 10. Ὑπὸ τοῦ ὁλοϑρευτοῦ, Of the destroyer.) i. 6. By 
ἃ plague sent by the hand of Sammael, the angel of death, 
called ὁλοξρεύων, “the destroyer,” Wisd. xviii. 25, Heb. xi. 
28, and “him that had the power of death,” Heb. ii. 14. 
Now the Corinthians murmured, saith ‘Theodoret, because 
some of them had received only inferior gifts; say others, by 
reason of the persecutions they suffered for the Christian 
faith. 

Vor. 11. Τὰ τέλη τῦν αἱ νων», The end of the ages.) This 
plirase cither signifies the end of the Jewish age, as if the apos- 


tle did intend to say, These things, which happened in the be- 
ginning of the Jewish age, were recorded for caution and ex- 
ample to us, who are come to the conclusion of it; or the last of 
the ages of the world, i. e. the Christian age ; for the Jews, ac- 
cording to the tradition of Elias, divide the duration of the 
world into three ages: the age before the law, the age of the 
law, and the age after the Jaw, or that of the Messiah (‘Tal- 
mud. in Sanhedr. cap. Chelek). 

1 Ver. 13. Ὃς οὐκ ἐάσει ὑμᾶς, Who will not suffer you.] 
i. e. Any of you, who do what in you lies to arm yourselves 
against them, to be tempted above what you are able; this 
therefore ought not to be restrained to the elect: for the pre- 
ceding words, “No temptation hath happened to you,” are 
spoken to all the members of the church at Corinth; and 
God hath doubtless engaged to all that enter into covenant 
with him, to enable them to perform the condition of that 
covenant, since a covenant upon an impossible condition, he 
knows, cannot be performed; and all are bound to pray in 
faith, that God would not “suffer them to be tempted above 
what they are able,” by his strength, to bear. 

13 Ver. 16. Τὸ ποτήριον τῆς εὐλογίας, The cup of blessing.] 
The paschal cup being styled by the Jews, “the cup of 
blessing,” because they sanctified it, i. e. they gave thanks 
for it in these words, “ Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, the 
King of the world, who hast created the fruit of the vine ;”” 
and being also styled «the cup of blessing of the table,” it 
cannot reasonably be doubted that the eucharistical cup was 
so called for the same reason, and that it was sanctified or 
consecrated by thanksgiving to God for it. 

M Kowavia, The communion.] This word “communion” 
hath two significations: (1.) when the subject spoken of may 
be distributed into parts, so that each man may have a share 
of it, it denotes a distribution and a communication of those 
parts to the community, or body mentioned. Thus in the 
case of alms, secing there is a distribution of our substance 
to those that want, this is in scripture styled κοινωνία, and is 
sometimes rendered “contribution” (Rom. xv. 26), some- 
times “distribution” (i. 9. 13, Heb. xiii. 16); and since 
there were διαιρέσεις “divisions and diversities” of gifts, mi- 
nistrations, and operations vouchsafed to the church; all 
which the Holy Ghost wrought, “dividing to every member 
of it severally as he would” (2 Cor. xii. 11) ; the giving these 
gifts and several operations to them, is called «the commu- 
nion of the Spirit,” 2 Cor. xiii. 13, Phil. ii. 1. Thus, be- 
cause one consecrated loaf was anciently distributed among all 
the communicants, and they all drank their share of the same 
cup of blessing, therefore the bread, thus broken and shared 
out, may be said to be the communion or communication of 
the body of Christ, as being the communication of that 
bread which represented his broken body ; and the cup they 
severally drank of may be styled the communication of the 
blood of Christ, as being the communication of that wine 
which represented his blood shed: and to this import lead 
the following words, “ Because the bread (or loaf) is one (of 
which we all partake) we being many are one body, for we 
are all partakers of one loaf,” according to the old proverbial 
EXPTeSSION, σύσσιτοι Kai σὕσσωμοι. 

But where the subject mentioned is not capable of such 


640 


by eating αἱ his table, declare our fellowship with, and 
own him as cur Lord, whose body was thus broken for 
us) 2 

17 © For we being many are one bread, and one 
body (or, because the bread ts one, one loaf being broken 
for us all, we who partake of it, being many, are one 
body, owning ourselves thereby all members of that body 
of which Christ Jesus is the head): for we are all par- 
takers of that one bread (and thus you see that, by par- 
taking of this Christian sacrifice, we own ourselves to have 
communion with the Lord Jesus, and with the whole society 
of Christians). 

18 Behold Israel after the flesh, (and see if it be not 
so there also: for) are not they which eat of the sa- 
crifices (the peace-offerings, for of these only did the people 
eat,) 15 partakers of the altar? (and so hold communion 
with him whose altar it is? ix. 13.) 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


19 What say I then (7. 6. what need I then to say)? 
that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in 
sacrifice to idols is any thing (which can in ils own 
nature pollute) 3 ; 

20 But (this) I say, that the things which the Gen- ° 
tiles sacrifice, they sacrifice ΤΠ to devils, and not to 
God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship 
with devils (or do service tu them in the idol temples ; 

or) 
᾿ 21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord (and thereby 
declare your fellowship with him, and that you own him 
as your Lord, in opposition to all others), and ( yet drink) 
the cup of devils ¢and so make the like acknowledgment 
concerning them) : ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s 
table, and of the table of devils. 

22 Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy (by bring- 
ing devils into competition with him)? are we stronger 


division, or distribution, but every one is to have the whole, 
or the same with another, it imports a fellowship and com- 
munion in the same thing; in which sense we are said to be 
called by God, εἰς κοινωνίαν “to the fellowship of his Son,” 1 
Cor. 1. 9, “to have κοινωνίαν a fellowship in his sufferings ; to 
have κοινωνίαν communion with God, and the Son,” 1 John i. 
5, and in the apostles’ symbol, to believe “the communion 
of saints:” and in this import of the word the sense runs 
thus, Do we not, by partaking of this bread and wine, con- 
secrated in memorial of Christ giving his body broken and 
his blood shed for us, hold communion, or declare our fellow- 
ship, with Christ? Both these senses seem agreable to the 
scope of the apostle, and the first infers the second. 

15 Ver. 17. “Ore εἷς ἄρτος, ἕν σῶμα of πολλοί ἐσμεν, Because 
the bread is one, we being many are one body.) These words, 
«The bread which we break,” the loaf or bread “is one,” 
and “ We all partake of one loaf,” and therefore are one 
body, show how grossly the church of Rome hath varied from 
Christ’s institution, in distributing to the communicants se- 
verally an unbroken wafer, so that they neither are partakers 
of one bread, or loaf, or of bread broken, as the custom both 
of Jews and Christians was to do. It also deserves to be 
noted from the testimonies of Jamblichus* and Laertius,t 
that anciently this was a token of friendship; and that Py- 
thagoras forbade his scholars ἄρτον καταγνύειν “to break their 
bread,” because that was not to be broken which made 
friendship. 

1% Ver. 18. Κοινωνοὶ τοῦ ϑυσιαστηρίου, Partakers of the al- 
tar.] i. 6. Do they not by partaking of the gift consecrated 
by the altar, and of which one part is consumed upon it, 
partake with the altar, and own that they communicate with 
and worship that God at whose altar or table the meat was 
offered in honour of him? (Mal. i. 7.) For as swearing by 
the altar, is also swearing by him whose altar it is (Matt. 
xxili. 20), so, having communion with the altar, is having 
communion with him whose altar it is. To illustrate this let 
it be noted, (1.) that, in these t»n5w or peace-offerings, 
there was a threefold participation; 1. God had his part, 
offered him upon the altar, viz. the blood and the en- 
trails; part was given to the priest, viz. the breast and shoul- 
der ; and part to the offerer, viz. the skin and the rest of the 
flesh; and this in token, say the Jews, of friendship and 
communion of the party offering them, with God and the 
priest: and he, by eating the remainder, and feasting on it 
in the temple, or the holy city, became partaker with the al- 
tar, or with God, who had received his share upon the altar. 
Note, (2.) that these peace-offerings were offered either by 
way of thanksgiving for mercies obtained, or by way of vow 
or of free devotion; for this division of peace-offerings, we 
find Lev. vii. Moreover, these being offered to the God of 
Israel, signified the owning him as that God from whom they 
received and expected all their mercies. 

17 Ver. 20. Δαιμονίοις, To devils.] Here Mr. Clere saith, 


ee ee ae Pr ΕΘΝ > ς 
Τὸ δὲ ἀργαῖον βαρβαρικῶς πάντες ἐπὶ ἕνα ἄρτον συνίεσαν οἱ 
φίλοι. De Vita Pythag. p. 89. 
{ “Ore ἐπὶ ἕνα οἱ πάλαι τῶν φίλων ἐφοίτων καϑάπερ καὶ νῦν οἱ 
βάρβαροι: μηδὲ διαιρεῖν, ὃς συνάγει αὑτούς. Laert. in Vita Py- 
thag. p. 222. 


“The word δαιμόνιοι doth not necessarily signify devils or 
evil spirits ; for the heathen did not always sacrifice to evil 
spirits, if we consider what were their true thoughts.” But 
the wisdom of God did not think fit to consider the specu- 
lations of some of their philosophers; but what was indeed 
their practice, and what the objects and directors of their 
worship were, and who was gratified by it: they pretended to 
own a supreme Deity; but the spirits which spake in the 
oracles they consulted, which moved their idols, and resided 
in them, and set up and promoted their whole idolatrous 
worship, were doubtless evil spirits; and so the primitive 
Christians engage to force them to confess themselves to be,* 
even before them who paid homage to them. The pulling 
down of this idolatrous worship is, in our Saviour’s Jan- 
guage, “the casting out of the prince of this world,” John 
xii. 31, and xvi. 11; the converting the gentiles from this 
idolatry to the worship of the true God, is, the “turning 
them from the power of Satan unto God,” Acts xxvi. 18; 
“the delivering them from the power of darkness,” Col. i. 
13, who before walked according to the “ prince of the power 
of darkness,” Eph. ii. 2, and were “led captive by Satan at 
his will,’ 2 Tim. ii. 26. The psalmist, according to the 
Septuagint, saith, ὅτι πάντες of θεοὶ ἐθνῶν δαιμόνια, “ that all 
the gods of the-heathens are devils” (Ps. xcvi. 5): and of 
the Jews who sacrificed to them it is said, “they sacrificed 
to devils, and not to God,” mw, to evil, wasting, and de- 
stroying spirits. The Jews said the same of the gentiles, 
that they were ϑύσαντες δαιμονίοις, “sacrificing to devils,” 
and not to God, Baruch iv. 7, and so they are also styled, 2 
Chron. xi. 15, Rey. ix. 20: and so all Christians ever did 
expound this place, and with good reason, it being absurd to 
think St. Paul is here dissuading Christians from having fel- 
lowship with good angels. 

18 Ver. 21. Καὶ τραπέζης δαιμονίων, And of the table of de- 
vils.] This being the design of the apostle, to show that the 
Corinthians could not partake of the idol sacrifices in the 
idol temples without being κοινωνοὶ τῶν δαιμονίων, “men who 
held communion with devils;” and the proof of this being 
taken from the practice of Christians in partaking of the 
eucharist, and of the Jews in partaking of sacrifices offered at 
the altar; it is evident that the sixteenth verse must be in- 
terpreted suitably to this design, and so as to bea fit medium 
to prove this conclusion. It is therefore evident, 

First, ‘That κοινωνία, “communion,” cannot here signify 
the real and substantial communication of the body and 
blood of Christ, since that sense renders the apostle’s argu- 
ment infirm; for how doth it hence, follow, that because 
Christians eat substantially the body, and drink the blood, of 
Christ, therefore they who eat of the idol sacrifices are guilty 
of idolatry, and hold communion with devils. Moreover, 
the eating of things offered to idols, could not in this sense 
make them that did it “communicators of the devils,” for 
surely they did not eat of the substance of the devils: this 
therefore cannot be the import of the words. Nor, 


* Quicquid demonum colitis, victi dolore, quid sunt elo- 
quuntur, ipsis testibus esse eos demones de se verum con- 
fitentibus credite. Minutius, p. 31. Tertull. Apol. cap. 23. 
Cyp. ad Don. 4, de Van. Idol. p. 15. 


CHAPTER X. 


than he? (so that we: need frar not the punishments he 
may inflict on them who give his honour to another. 

23 And wh reas you plead thus for ymurselves,) ΑἹ] 
things are lawful for me, (ἡ. δ. al/ meats may lawfully 
be eaten ; be it so;) but (yet) all (lawful) things are not 
expedient (to be done): all things are lawful for me, 
but all things edify not, (as charily doth, viii. 1. 

24 For the rule of charily is this:) Let no man seek 
his own (an/y), but every man another’s wealth, (pre- 

rring the public to his private good, and the good of souls | 
to thal of his own body. 

25 Concerning then the ealing of things offired to iduls 
tn th: general, and without relation to the wdol temple, in 
which to cat them is idolatry, I thus determine :) What- 
soever is sold in the shambles, ‘hal eat (ye), asking no 
question for conscience sake (as ἡ you thought tt mat- 
ter of conscience, whether you might eat il, if offered to 
tdols, or not) 

26 For the earth 7s the Lord’s, and the fulness 
thereof, (and thersfore you may eat of any creature the 
earth provideth for your food, without scruple of con- 
science, when others are not scandalized at it. 


641 


27 And again Tsey,) If any of them that believe not 
bid (or invite) you fu a feast, and ye be disposed to go; 
19 whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question 
for conscience sake. 

28 But if any man say unto you, This is offered in 
sacrifice unto idols (/hinking that, by thus parlaking in 
such meal, you must own the idol, ur concur in the wur- 
ship of it), eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for 
conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord’s, and the 
fulness thereof (who therefore can replenish thee vul of 
other meats provided fur thy fuod ) : 

29 Conscience, I say, (meaning) not thine own, but 
(that) of the other (who showed thee this was offered 
to idols): for why is my liberty (so used by me, as that 
7 be) judged of (and condemned by) another man’s con- 
science t 

30 For if I hy grace be a partaker (of God’s good 
creatures), ® why (do I use them so as that) am 1 evil 
spoken of (by others) for that for which I give thanks 
(because of benefits received by it) 3 

31. Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatso- 
ever ye do, 2! do all to the glory of God. 


Secondly, Can the sense of them be to this eflect: The 
cup and bread communicate to us the spiritual effects of 
Christ's broken body, or his blood shed for us; though this 
be in itself a certain truth. For, 

1. These spiritual effects cannot be shared among be- 
lievers, so that every one shall have a part of them only ; 
bat the same benefits are wholly communicated to every due 
receiver (see note on ver. 16). 

2. The apostle here attempts to prove, not that the Co- 
rinthians, by eating things offered to idols in the idol tem- 
ple, received any spiritual influence from devils, but only 
that, by that action, they did partake of what was offered to 
them, and was a solemn part of their religious worship, as 
the eating these sacrifices was still reputed; so that by 
it they must own themselves the worshippers of idols, and 
then, by parity of reason, he must, by the example of the 
eucharist, intend to prove, not that the Christian did partake 
of the spiritual effects of our Lord’s passion, but that he did 
partake of what was consecrated in honour of him, and re- 
ceived as a solemn act of religious worship and communion 
with him. And this appears yet farther from the words 
which the apostle useth, as the close of this argument, and 
as the thing which answers to the two preceding instances: 
for they do not run thus, By the things which the gentiles 
offer they receive spiritual influences from evil spirits; but 
thus, “ This I say,” to complete this argument, and to ren- 
der the sacrifice offered to idols parallel to those of Chris- 
tians and of Jews; that as these are offered to the honour of 
Christ and of the God of Israel, so “ the things which the 
gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and 1 would not that 
ye should be partakers with devils ;” viz. by feasting of the 
sacrifices thus offered to them, and of which the devils had 
a part; and that it was by the act of eating and drinking of 
these idol sacrifices, that they became partakers of the cup 
and table of devils, and thereby guilty of idolatry, as the fa- 
thers declare,* so is it evident from these words, “ Ye can- 
not drink of the cup of the Lord, and of the cup of devils; 
ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and the table of 
devils ;” it was therefore by these actions that they held com- 
munion with them, and committed idolatry: the eating of 
the feast made of things offered to idols in the idol temple 
being as: much a federal rite, as was the eating of peace- 
offerings of the Jews, eaten in the temple, or the holy city, 


* Que autem animam simul et corpus polluunt: partici- 
pare demonum mense, hoc est immolata degustare, et si 
quid aliud est quod demonibus oblatum est. Clem. lib. iv. 
§. 36. 

"Ard δὲ εἰδωλοϑύτων φτύγετε, ἐπὶ τιμῇ γὰρ δαιμόνων ϑύουσι 
ταῦτα, ὅτως μὴ γίνεσϑε κοινωνοὶ δαιμόνων. Const. Apol. lib. vii. 
cap. 21. 

TO μὲν γὰρ εἰδωλόϑυτον ϑόεται δαιμονίοις, yat οὐ χρὴ τὸν τοῦ 
Θεοὺ ἀνθρύπων κοινωνὸν τραπέζης δαιμονίαν γίνεσϑαι,. Orig. con- 
tra Celsum, lib. viii. p. 396, 397. 

Vor. IV.—sl 


or the sacramental bread eaten in the church by Christians, 
whence the oblations made there were styled σπονδαὶ ἐν τιμῇ 
δαιμόνων, “oblations in honour of our demons.” 

19 Ver. 27. Πᾶν τὸ παρατιϑέμενον ὑμῖν ἐσθίετε, Whatsoever 
is set before you, eal.) The apostle bad before discoursed of 
eating things offered to idols in the idol temple. and shown, 
(1.) the scandal it might give to the weak gentile Christian ; 
and (2.) that it was indeed an idolatrous action: here he 
begins his discourse of eating at all things cffred to idols, 
with respect chiefly to the weak Jewish convert. And (1.) 
whereas by their canons* an idol, and all things appertaining 
to it, and whatever was offered to it, were wholly forbidden, 
the rabbins pronouncing the eating or possessing any thing of 
it forbidden, in these words, “'Thou shalt not bring an abo- 
mination into thine house” (Deut. vii. 26): the apostle re- 
lieves the conscience of the Christian in this case, letting him 
know that he might cat these things, when sold in shambles, 
without seruple of conscience, ver. 25. (3.) Whereas their 
canons teach, that if a heathen make a banquet for his son 
or daughter, a Jew is forbidden to eat of his meat, because 
he is forbidden, if called, to eat of his sacrifice (Exod. xxxiv. 
15); the apostle exempts the conscience of the Christian 
from this obligation also, ver. 27. 

2% Ver. 30. Ti βλασρημοῦμαι ; Why am I evil spoken of 2] 
This is the exposition of all the Greek scholiasts, and it is 
confirmed by the parallel place, “ Let not your good be evil 
spoken of,” Rom. xiv. 16; i. e. let not your faith, or the 
liberty you take by reason of it, be used so as to minister 
occasion to others to speak evil of that faith, as the Jews did 
of Christianity upon occasion of this liberty ; for they held 
the eating of things offered to idols to be idolatry,+ and pro- 
nounced all idolaters to be apostates from the law and the 
prophets: and this was one of their great objections against 
Christians, that “they did eat things offered to idols, and 
thought not themselves defiled by doing so;” though in 
truth this was done chiefly by the heretics of those times, the 
Nicolaitans,§ the Gnostics,| and the followers of Basilides, 
but “the true Christians,” saith Justin Martyr,¥ “ will rather 
suffer death than be guilty of idolatry, or eating things offered 
to idols.” 

21 Ver. 31. Wivra εἰς défav Θεοῦ ποιεῖτε, Do all to the glory 


* Maim. Idol. cap. vii. §. 2, 11. 

{ Ibid. cap. ii. §. 3, 8. 

ἐ Kai piv πόλλοις τῶν τὸν ᾿Ιησοὴν λεγόντων ὅμολογειν, καὶ λεγυ 
μένων Χριστιανῶν, πυνθάνομαι ἐσθίειν τὰ εἰδιυλόϑυτα, καὶ μηδὲ» ἐκ 
τούτων βλάπτεσϑαι, λέγειν, ‘T'ryph. apud Justin. p. 253. 

§ Nicolaite indiscreté vivunt, nullam differentiam esse di- 
centes in mechando et idolothyton edere. Iren. lib. i. cap. 27. 

De Gnosticis idem, καὶ γὰρ εἰδωλήθυτα δια pips ἐσθίουσι, 
μηδὲ μολύνεσϑαι ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἠγοῦμενο:. Lib. i. p- 26. De Basilid. 
ibid. cap. 23. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 7. 

4 Μέχρις ἐσχάτου Saviroy ὑπομέ οσι περὶ τοῦ μητὲ εἰδωλο- 
λατρῆσα:, μητὲ εἰδωλύθυνα φαγεῖν. Justin. Mart. Dial. Ρ. 25%, 

ϑυ3 


642 


32 Give” none offence, neither to the (weak) Jews, 
nor to the (unbelieving) Gentiles, nor to the (weak 
members of the) church of God: 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


33 (But walk) Even as I (do, who) please all men in 
all (/awful) things, not seeking mine own profit, but 
the profit of many, that they may be saved. 


of God.] In things capable of honouring God positively, 
or proper to give glory to him, have always a general in- 
tention of glorifying God in the doing of them, that in the 
virtue of that intention you may proceed to particular 
actions. 

In things not capable of honouring God positively, be 
careful that you act so that the name of God be not blas- 
phemed, or his doctrine evil thought or evil spoken of, by 
reason of your actions: yea, do and abstain from all things 
so as to satisfy your own conscience, and discover to others, 
that the honour of God and the advancement of the in- 
terests of his kingdom are much dearer to you than any 


gratifications of your carnal appetites, or any temporal con- 
cern. 

2 Ver. 32. No offence :] As, by thus eating things offered 
to idols in the idol temple, or elsewhere, being thus admo- 
nished of it (ver. 28), you are like to do: for the Jews will 
be apt hence to conclude that Christianity renders you ene- 
mies to the law and the prophets; the gentiles, that your 
professed abhorrence of idols is not real, and that the prac- 
tice, in which you comply with them, is not sinful; and the 
weak Christian will be tempted, by your example, to eat 
these things “with conscience of the idol” (viii. 7), or to fly 
off from the Christian faith. 


CHAPTER XI. 


1 Be ye (therefore) followers of me (in this con- 
descension for the good of others), even as 1 also am of 
Christ (in it, Rom. xv. 2, 3, Gal. vi. 2, Phil. ii. 5, 6, 
2 Cor. viii. 9). 

2 Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember 
me in all things (J have taught you), ! and keep the 
ordinances (Gr. traditions), as I delivered them to 
you. 

3 But (J must farther advertise you of some things 
which I had no occasion, when present, to take notice 
of, and therefore) 1 would have you know, that the 


head of every man is Christ; and the head of the 
woman is the man; and 2 the head of Christ zs God: 
(and so, as Christ, as mediator, acts in subordination to 
the Father, so must the woman act in subordination to the 
man. 

4 very man (therefore) praying or prophesying 
3 (in the church), having his head covered, dishonour- 
eth 4 his head (Christ, as acting unsuitably to that rela- 
tion which he bears to God and Christ ; for man ought not 
to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of 
God, ver. 17). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1Ver. 2. "Ori καθὼς παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, τὰς παραδόσεις κατέχετε, 
That you keep the traditions, as I delivered them to you.] 
This commendation must be restrained to the generality, or 
sounder part of the church of Corinth, or must be understood 
as such general expressions used to be, ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ, as for 
the most part, or excepting those few things in which after- 
ward I find reason to complain of your neglect, xv. 3, and 
here, ver. 23. 

Vain is the note of Esthius on this text, that “it makes 
plainly for unwritten traditions :” for (1.) the word tradition 
is common to things written and unwritten, to things deli- 
vered by word and by epistle (2 Thess. ii. 15); the whole 
Christian faith is a tradition (Jude 3); the doctrine of 
Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, is a tradition; παρέ- 
daxa γὰρ, “For I delivered to you” these doctrines, saith 
Paul (1 Cor. xv. 13) ; and will the Romanists say that these 
things are not written in the New Testament? (2.) To 
prove traditions extra-scriptural, it is not sufficient to cite a 
passage out of scripture, speaking of traditions not then 
written by one apostle; but it must be proved that these 
traditions were neither then, when mentioned, in writing, nor 
afterward committed to writing by himself, or any other in- 
spired person. (3.) ‘The traditions mentioned here, and 2 
Thess. ii. 15, were traditions immediately delivered to those 
churches from the mouth of an apostle; and when the 
Romanists can make this good from like authentic testimony 
of any of their fardle of traditions, we shall be ready to re- 
ceive them. 

2 Ver. 3. Κεφαλὴ δὲ Χριστοῦ ὃ Θεὸς, And the head of Christ 
is God.) “ We are hence taught,” saith Schlictingius, « that 
the head of Christ is God; whereas the most high God can 
have no head above him, so that Christ, who hath this head 
above him, cannot be most high.” 

Ans. To this some of the fathers answer, That God is here 
said to be the head of Christ, as being the Father* of the Son, 
and so the cause of him; but yet, as the woman is of the 
same nature with the man who is her head, so is Christ of the 


Theod. Theoph. 
Κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Xprorot ὃ πατὴρ ὡς γεννήτωρ, προβολεὺς, καὶ ὁμοοῦ- 
σιος αὐτοῦ" κεφαλὴ δὲ γυναικὸς ὃ ἀνὴρ, ὅτι καὶ αὐτὸς γεννήτωρ, καὶ 
τιοβολεὺῦς, καὶ ὁμοούσιος ὑπάρχει αὐτῇ. Ccumen. 


* Stay δ τ » saa Ne POA τς 
Διὰ τὸ εἶναι αἴτιος αὐτοῦ ὡς πατὴρ υἱοῦ. 


same nature with God the Father: they also add, that the 
word head is here used as a note of principality,* or causality 
in the Father, but not of subjection in the Son, which wholly 
enervates the argument of Crellius from this place. And, 
though the schools seem not to allow of this language, yet it 
was used by Ireneus in these words, κι The Father is above 
all things, and he is the head of Christ; the Word is through 
all things, and he is the head of the church.’’> 

Others answer, That the Father is here styled the head of 
Christ, considered as Mediator, in which relation he received 
his kingdom and dominion from him (John xvii. 2, 1 Cor. 
xv. 27, Heb. ii. 8), and exercises it wholly to his glory (Phil. 
ii. 9—11): in which sense the Father may be styled his 
head, because he doth all things according to his Father’s 
will, to his glory, and by authority derived from him: and 
this interpretation is confirmed by these words, “The head, 
of every man is Christ;” he being man’s head by virtue of 
the power and dominion given him over all flesh (xv. 27, 
John xvii. 2, Eph.i. 19,22), and that power being given to 
the man Christ Jesus. 

3 Ver. 4. In the church.] For that the apostle speaks not 
of prophesying at home, as Mr. Clerc imagines, but in the 
church, is evident from the apostle’s argument, ver. 16, 
against this practice, in these words, “ We have no such cus- 
tom, neither the churches of God.” His argument to the 
contrary is answered in the note on ver. 6. 

“4 Τὴν κεφαλὴν αὑτοῦ, His head.] That is, Christ ;+ for (1.) 
he is the head of the man, ver. 3. (2.) This seemeth most 
agreeable to the reason assigned, why he should be uncovered 
when he doth service in the church, viz. because he is the 
image and the glory of God. And, (3.) did he dishonour 
his own head by covering it, he ought never to be covered ; 
whereas if this only respects his head, Christ, whom he repre- 
sents in praying and prophesying in the church, it is sufficient 
that he is uncovered, when he thus acteth as his minister. 
Lastly, The head the woman dishonoureth is the man, styled 
her head; and so the head the man dishonoureth is Christ, 
styled his head, ver. 3. 


* 'Apxiis μὲν ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ὑποταγῆς δηλωτικόν. Theodoret. 

{ Super omnia quidem pater, et ipse est caput Christi; 
per omnia autem Verbum, et ipse est caput ecclesia. Lib. v. 
cap. 18. 

¢ Rarawxive τὸν Χριστὸν τὴν κεφαλὴν αὑτοῦ. Theoph. 


CHAPTER XI. 


5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth 
§ with her head uncovered dishonoureth (the man) her 
head (whose glory she is, as being put in subjection to 
him): for that is even all one as if she were shaven 
(and so had removed the token of subjection to the man 
which nalure gave her). 

6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be 
shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn 
or shaven, let her be covered (see note on ver. 5). 

7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head (as 
α sign of subjection), forasmuch as he is δ the image 
and glory of God (as having the government of the world 
committed by God to him): but the woman (ought to 
cover her head, forasmuch as she) is the glory of the man 
(being taken from, made for, and put into subjection to 
him.) 

8 For the man is not of the woman; but the wo- 
man of the man. 

9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but 
the woman for the man. 


643 


10 (Moreover,)For this cause ought the woman to 
have 7 power (a veil) on her head because of the 
(evil) angels (she being tempted by the prince of them 
to do that which is perpetual cause of shame to her, and 
which increased her subjection to the man, Gen. iti. 26, 
ought therefore to use this token of shamefacedness and 
subjection). 

11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the wo- 
man, neither the woman without the man, in the (wis- 
dom of the) Lord (ordaining that one should come out of 
the other). 

12 For as the woman is (/aken out) of the man, 
even so 7s the man also (propagated) by the woman; 
but all (hese) things (are) of God (who made woman 
out of the man, and by his benediction increaseth men by 
the woman). 

13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman 
pray (publicly) unto God uncovered (when God himself 
hath given her a covering by nature, to intimate to her 
that she should be veiled) ? 


5 Ver. 5. Kara xepadis ἔχων, With his head covered, 
ἀκατακαλύπτῳ τῇ xepadj, with her head uncovered.) For ex- 
plication of these words, let it be noted from Theodoret,* 
that “the men of Corinth, according to the custom of the 
Greeks, both wore long hair, and prayed to God with their 
heads covered in the public assemblies.” So also, saith 
Plutarch,+ did the Romans; so, saith Lightfoot; did the 
Jews; so did, saith Servius,§ “all that sacrificed to any god 
excepting Saturn.” But the heathen woman paid her devo- | 
tion to the gods, resoluta comas, seu capillos, “ with her hair | 
loose and hanging down ;” or, in the language of the poets, | 
crine jacente, aut demisso. Note, 

Secondly, That the Jews judged it τὸ αἱσγρὸν, a shameful 
and indecent thing for a woman to be shaved, and permit- | 
ted this only in the case of whoredom,| as a token of their | 
shame. And among the heathens it was indicium ultimi 
luctiis, “a token of the highest grief’—«It is customary,” 
saith Plutarch,§ “for men to be shorn, and for women to 
wear long hair ; and therefore, in times of mourning, the men 
let their hair grow, and the women are shaved, this being con- 
trary to custom among the Greeks and Romans.” It was 
also customary for the Jewish women to go veiled.** Note, 

Thirdly, That the apostle doth not here approve of the 
woman’s praying or prophesying in the church, as is evident 
from 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12, though he here says 
nothing to the contrary, as intending to rectify that disor- 
der, when he spoke of other disorders in the case of prophe- 
sying, xiv. 34. 

6 Ver. 7. Εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα Θεοῦ, The image and glory of 
God.) τας here is the note of Theodoret, that man is here 
styled the image and glory of God, neither as to his body, 
nor as to his soul; for, in respect of the soul, the woman is 
equally the glory of God, as to spirituality and immortality, 
and so is equally said to be made after his image, Gen. ii. 27, 
but κατὰ μόνον τὸ ἀρχικὸν, “only as to rule and government,” 


* Kara γὰρ τὸ "E\nvixdv ἔθος, καὶ κόμας εἶχον, καὶ τὰς κεφαλὰς 
κεκαλυμμένας ἔχοντες προσεὔχοντο τῷ Θεῷ. Theodoret. 

iF Τοὺς dé Scods προσκυνοῦντες ἐπικαλύπτονται τὴν κεφαλὴν, 
ταπεινοῦντες ἑαυτοὺς τὴ ἐπικρύψει τῆς κεφαλῆς. Plutarch. Ἔν 
_ αἵτίοις ἥτοι Ρωματικοῖς. p. 266. 

+ In locum. 

§ Sané sciendum est sacrificantes diis omnibus capita | 
velare consuetos, ob hoc, ne se inter religionem vagis offerat 
aliquid obtutibus, excepto tantum Saturno. Serv. in Virg. 
Bn. iii. 405. 

| Neque radat illud nisi propter scortationem. Pirk. 
Eliezer, cap. 14, p. 31. 

4« Πένθους μὲν οἰκεῖον τὸ μὴ συνηϑὲς, συνηϑέστερον δὲ ταῖς piv 
γεναιξὶν, ἐγκεκαλυμμέναις, τοῖς δὲ ἀνόράσιν, ἀκαλύπτοις, εἷς τὸ 
δημόσιον προσιέναι" καὶ γὰρ παρ᾽ Ἕλλησιν, ὅταν δυστυχία τις 
γίνεται, κείρονται μὲν ai γυναῖκες, κομῶσι δὲ οἱ ἄνδρες" ὅτι τοῖς μέν 
τε κείρεσϑαι, τοῖς δὲ τὸ κομᾷν συνηθές ἐστιν. Plut. Quest. Rom. 
Ῥ. 267, A, B. 

** Apud Judos tam solenne est fweminis eorum velamen 
capitis, ut inde noscantur. ‘Tertull. de Coron. cap. 4. 


which is the proper glory of a man, according to the psalm- 
ist’s words, “hou hast crowned him déga καὶ τιμὴ with glory 
and honour, and hast set him over the work of thy hands, 
and hast put all things in subjection under his feet” (Ps. viii. 
5, 6). 

7 a 10. ᾿Εζουσίαν ἔχειν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς, διὰ τοὺς ἀγγέλους, 
A veil upon her head, because of the angels.| Here let it be 
noted, (1.) that all the ancient interpreters agree in this, that 
ἐξουσία, which we render power, doth signify a veil or cover- 
ing, which, being put over her head, compels her to hang 
down her eyelids; and it is here, say they, called power, as 
being τῆς τοὺ ἀνδρὺς ἐζουσίας καὶ κυριότητος ἐνδεικτικὸν, “ἴῃ token 
of the power and dominion of the man over her.” Note, 

Secondly, That the reading διὰ τῆς ἀγγελίας, “ by reason of 
her revelations,” as Mr. Clere doth, instead of διὰ τοὺς dyyé- 
λους, without consent of any copy or version, is not to be en- 
dured. Moreover, διὰ τῆς ἀγγελίας signifies barely by message, 
not “by reason of her revelations,” that being properly in 
Greek διὰ τῆς ἀγγελίας τῆς παρ' αὐτῆς. 

Thirdly, ‘That evil angels are absolutely styled angels, in 
these words of this epistle, “« Know ye not that ye shall judge 
angels?” 1 Cor. vi. 3, and elsewhere, “ ‘The angels that sin- 
ned,” 2 Pet. ii. 4, or “ that kept not their first station,” Jude 
6. Note, 

Fourthly, That among the nine maledictions of the woman, 
which the Jews reckon up, this is one, That she is to have 
caput velatum instar lugentis,* “her head covered like one 
that mourneth,” and this, they say, she is to wear, not sv 
much as a token of subjection, as of shame ; whence Philo 
calls the τὸ ἐπίκρανον, 7 “cover of the woman’s head,” τὸ τῆς 
αἰδοῦς σύμβολον, “ the symbol of her shame ;” and this shame, 
say they, is due to her, “because she brought the first sin 
into the world.”}—* It is with her,” say they, “as when one 
transgresseth and is ashamed, and therefore she comes forth 
with her head covered.”—*She ought,” saith Tertullian,§ 
“by her habit to resemble Eve, a mourner and a penitent, ob 
ignominiam primi delicti, for the shame of the first sin:” 
hence he often interprets this text of evil angels.| 

Moreover, in the judgment both of Jews and Christians, 
the serpent, which deceived Eve, acted by the suggestion of 
the devil,§ or of Sammael, whom the Jews style “the prince 
of devils.’ That therefore these words may be interpreted 
as in the paraphrase, is evident, not only from those obser- 
vations, but especially from a place parallel to this, “ Let the 
woman learn in silence with all subjection. For I suffer not 
a woman to usurp authority: for Adam was first formed, 
then Eve” (as here, ver. 8,9) ; “and Adam was not deceived, 


* P. Eliezer, cap. 14. 

ἡ De Spec. Leg. p. 606, D. 

+ Berisch. Rab. 8. 17, f. 12, col. 1. 

§ De Culti Fem. lib. i. cap. 1. 

ἢ Propter angelos quos legimus a celis excidisse. De 
Veland. Virg. cap. 7. Propter angelos apostatas. Contr. 
Marcion. lib. i. cap. 8. 

4 P. Eliez. cap. 13, Buxt. in voce Sammael. 


644 


14 8 Doth not even nature itself (which hath made 
man th: image and glory of God, created him before the 
woman, and given hine domintun over her,) teach you, 
that, if a man have Jong hair ((42 covering and token of 
subjection in th: o'h:r sex), it is a shame unto him? 
(see note on ver. 5.) 

15 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to 
her (ste being filed by tt to represent the condition of her 
sx): for her hair is given her for a covering (7. e. in 
token (f subjection to her husband ). 

16 Butif (ofier what hath been thus said) any man 
seem (s/i//) to be contentious, (7 shall add only this, 
that) we have no such custom, 5. neither the churches 
of God (ἐῤ being only customary in the assencblies of h-a- 
thens for women to pay their devolions to the gods thus. 
See note on ver. 5). 

17 Now in this (other thing) that 1 (am about to) 
declare unto you I praise you not, (viz.) that ye 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


come together (so as is) not for the better, but for the 
worse. 

18 For first of all, when ye come together in the 
church, I hear that there be 0 divisions (Gr. schisms) 
among you; and I partly believe it (ur, 7 belicve il drue 
κατὰ μέρος τιν», Uf some purl of you). 

19 " Por (according to our Lord’s saying, Matt. xviii. 
7) there must be also heresies («7 scels) among ycu 
(the fiesh, the world, and the diril, tengting to il, aid the 
wisiom of God permilting ii), that they which are ap- 
proved (\f him) may be made manifest among you. 

20 When ye come together therefore ((ius) into 
one place, ‘hrs is not (acling as if you came) to eat 
the Lord’s supper (the feast of Christian chari'y and 
communion). 

21 For in (your way of) eating * every one taketh 
before (he) other his own supper, (nol farrying fur, 
or regarding, others, ver. 23:) and (so it falls oul, thal) 


but the woman being deceived was in the transgression,” 
1 Tim. ii. 11—13, where the same reason is assigned for her 
subjection, which I offer for explication of these words. 

Others interpret the words thus: The woman ought to act 
decently in the church, and therefore to be covered, because 
of the angels, who are present in the assemblies of the saints; 
it being the opinion, both of Jews* and Christians, that the 
ministering angels are there present. 

8 Ver. 14. Ἢ addi αὐτὴ ἡ ψύσις ; Doth not even nature itself 2) 
The exposition given in the paraphrase is so natural, and so 
well founded on the words and argument of the apostle, and 
50 agreeable to the sentiments of all the ancient commenta- 
tors on the place, that we seem not here to need the indus- 
try and learning the critics have so liberally spent upon this 
place: the apostle here by na/wre understanding not any in- 
ward principle implanted in the heart and reason of a man, 
but the first rise and constitution which man and woman have 
received from the God of nature. It is against nature, say 
the fathers, for a man to wear long hair, for by it he assumes 
the habit of a woman, καὶ ἄρχειν ταχθεὶς τὸ τῆς ὑποταγῆς oop 
βόλον παραῤέχεται, “and being made hy God to rule, he takes 
upon him the symbol of subjection.” Of the criticisms upon 
the word κομᾶν they say not a word. 

9 Ver. 16. Οὐἱὲ ἐκκλησίαι τοῦ Θεοῦ, Nor the churches of 
God.] Hence it is manifest, (1.) that the apostle here can- 
not be thought to have respect only to the custom of the 
Greeks, as Mr, Le Clere imagines, for then why doth he plead 
the custom of all the churches of God against this practice ? 

Secondly, Hence note, that in things only respecting de- 
cency, and in conforming to which there is no violation of 
the command of God, the custom of the chureh should be 
our rule, it being an argument of pride and a contentious 
spirit, in matters of so little moment, to Le singular, and to 
create disturbance to the church of God. 

10 Ver. 18. Σγίσματα, Schismes.] Here the word schisms 
is not used of men separating from the church, but of them 
coming together in the church, but yet eating the Lord’s sup- 
per separately, and so as not to join with the whole assem- 
bly in that ordinance: so the word also is used i. 10, * not 
of a separation from the unity of the catholic church,” saith 
Esthius, © but of sects and divisions in the chureh.” 

"Ver. 19. Act γὰρ αἱρέσεις εἶναι, Fur there must be here- 
sies, ἄς. This necessity of heresies is not absolute, or of 
God's making, but only on supposition of the pride and vain- 
glory, strife, envyings, and contentions, which were already 
in the church of Corinth (1 Cor. iit. 3), and God's permis- 
sion that men so afiected should act according to the corrupt 
affections and dispositions of their hearts; as the necessity of 
diseases in the body arises from men’s intemperance. Nor 
is the reason here assigned of them properly causal, as if the 
wisdom of God designed there should be heresies for this end, 
that they who were approved of him might be made manifest, 
but rather eventual ;; as if the apestle had said, Whence it 
will come to pass, that they who are approved will be made 
manifest. 


* See Dr. Hammond, and Synopsis in Jocum. 
if Τὸ γὰρ tra οὐ πανταχοῦ airo\oyias ἐστὶν, ἀλλὰ πολλαγοῦ, 
καὶ τῆς τῶν πραγμίτων ἐκβάσεως. Chrysost. in locum. 


2 Ver. 21. “Ἕκαστος τὸ ἴδιον δεῖπνον προλαμβάνει, Every oné 
lakes before his own supper.) It is the opinion of Dr. Light- 
foot, that the apostle speaks not here of the agape, or love- 
feasts, which accompanied the eucharist, as the tradition of 
the ancient church supposed; but of the paschal supper, 
which these Judaizers did eat before the eucharist, as think- 
ing that the eucharist, which our Lord instituted after that 
supper, was only an appendix of it; and that it was not in- 
stituted in commemoration of the death of Christ, but as a 
new form of their commemoration of their deliverance out of 
Egypt: and that on this account the apostle here repeats the 
institution of that sacrament by our Lord, and so oft tells 
them that Christ appointed this supper for the commemora- 
tion of his death, and that we might show it forth till he 
comes; and charges them with not discerning it to be the 
Lord’s body (ver. 29). But he seems to be mistaken in both 
these conjectures. For, 

First, It is very unlikely they should mistake the Lord's 
supper, celebrated then every week at least, for that paschal 
supper which was only to be celebrated once a year, and was 
then rather to be celebrated at home, in every man’s family, 
than in the church; and which, according to the Jewish ca- 
nons, could not be observed at all in Corinth, or out of Ju- 
dea, whilst the temple stood. 

Secondly, Those words of the apostle in the precéding 
chapter, viz. “'The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not 
the communion of the blood of Christ? 'The bread we break, 
is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” and those 
that follow, “ Ye cannot drink the eup of the Lord and the 
cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, 
and of the table of devils,” do plainly show that the apostle 
there supposes they well knew that in that suppcr they were 
partakers of the cup and table of the Lord, and had eommu- 
nion with his body and blood. 

Dr. Lightfoot adds, That those words, « One is hungry, 
and another is drunken,” refer not to the poor and the rich, 
but to the gentile who came fasting to the Lord’s supper; 
whereas the Judaizing Christian, according to his custom, 
drank freely at his paschal supper; and he concludes, that 
the apostle doth not here reprehend their manner of coming 
to these suppers. but that he reprehends them for the very 
use of them. But here again he scems much mistaken, 
Tor, 

First, It is evident the apostle reprehends them not for 
the supper itself, i. e. the eating and the drinking, but because 
they did προλαμβάνειν take their meat and their drink before 
others, not staying till they came (ver. 21. 33). Hence, for 
a remedy for this disorder, he saith not, Abstain from these 
suppers, but only. “ When ye come together, tarry one for 
another.” 

Secondly, That the “hungry” here were the gentile con- 
verts, who chose to eat the eucharist fasting, 15 very impro- 
bable, not only because it was then generally received at 
night, but because the apostle, both here and ver. 34, allows 
all to eat and drink before they come, not taking notice of 
any that scrupled the doing this. Moreover, the of μὴ ἔτο; - 
res, “the hungry” here, are not men who have no houses, 
but who have nothing to cat or drink: for they were put to 
shame by this, that they had nothing to eat or drink, as 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


one (who had nothing to bring) is (still) hungry, 13 and 
another (with his plenty) is drunken. 

22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink 
in (if need be before you come? ver. δὼ or despise 
ye (those poor Christians who are members of) the 
church of God (as well as you), and (put to) shame 
them that have not (what to eat or drink)? What 
shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise 
you not. 

23 (Tb come together thus, I say, is not to come as 
they ought to do, who assemble to eat the Lord’s sup- 
per 2) For I have received of the Lord that which also 
I (as 7 received) delivered unto you, That the Lord 
Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed ™ took 
bread : 


others had, nor were thought worthy to partake with them 
that had, in the assembly of which they were a part; it being 
not the place where they assembled, which is called the 
church of God, but the persons who assembled; for by the 


same action was the church despised, and they that had no- | 


thing put to shame: now it is not easy to conceive how, by 
this separate meeting in a church, they should despise a 
church, whereas, by denying their poor brethren any share in 
their banquet, they visibly despised them. 

And with that agrees the note of Chrysostom on the place, 
that an assembly is called, οὐχ ἵνα dijpnyévor Gat ot συνελθόντες, 
ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα of διηρημένοι συνημμένοι, “not that they who came 
together might be divided, but that they who are at home 
divided may join together.” ᾿ 

Thirdly, These agapa, or feasts of charity, being men- 
tioned by Jude, ver. 12, by Ignatius, Ep. ad Smyrn. §. 8, 
by Clemens Alex. Pedag. lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 41, by Tertul- 
lian, Apol. cap. 38, by the Apostolical Constitutions, lib. ii. 
cap. 28, and by Julian the Apostate,* it is very unreason- 
able to call this custom into question, or to imagine that 
Paul here rather referred to a paschal supper than to this 
appendix of the supper of our Lord. When I call it an 
appendix, I do not mean that it was eaten by them after the 
Lord’s supper, for the word προλαμβάνειν, “to take before his 
own supper,” shows the contrary, viz. that this banquet was 
celebrated before the Lord’s supper; but only that it was 
joined to the Lord’s supper in imitation of our Lord, who 
celebrated the sacrament after the paschal supper. 

13 Ὃς δὲ μεϑδύει, And another is drunken.] This may 
either refer to the gentile converts among the Corinthians, 
retaining still their heathen custom of drinking liberally after 
their sacrifices, whence μεδύειν, “to be drunk,’ is by the 
grammarians thought to have its original from μετὰ τὸ ϑύειν, 
because of the free drinking they indulged in after their sa- 
crifices; or to the Judaizing converts, who thought themselves 
obliged to drink plentifully at their festivals, four large cups 
of wine, saith Dr. Lightfoot,; at the paschal supper, and to 
be quite drunk, saith Buxtorf,t in the feast of Purim. 

4 Ver. 23. Ἔλαβεν ἄρτον, Took bread, &c.| The argument 
lies thus: Christ gave an equal distribution of the sacra- 
mental bread to every one at the table, in token that he died 


equally for all; and he appointed them all to eat together of | 


it at one common table, in remembrance of his love to them 
all: can you then eat every one separately his own supper, 


excluding those to whom he equally distributed the sacred | 


bread from any share of yours, leaving them hungry and in 
want of bread, and yet conceive you worthily eat the Lord’s 
supper, and duly participate of, and thankfully commemo- 
rate, this great feast of love? But farther observe, 

First, That this bread is called in the present tense, τὸ 
σῶμα κλώμενον, τὸ σῶμα διδόμενον, Christ's “body broken,” 
his “ body given,” Luke xxii. 19, even whilst he was alive, 
and so his body was not actually broken, or given for us; it 
therefore could not be literally and naturally his broken 
body, but only by way of representation, as being then in- 
stituted to represent that body which was shortly to be given 
and broken on the cross for us: so also it is said of his blood, 
yet in his veins, that it is τὸ αἷμα τὸ ἐκχυνόμενον, his “ blood 
shed,” Matt. xxvi. 28, Mark xiv. 24, Luke xxii. 20, and 


* In fine Fragm. 


+ Temple Service, p. 146. 
*¢ Ley. Talm. 324. 


645 


24 And when he had given thanks, he brake if, and 
said (lo them all), % Take, eat: this is my body, which 
is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me 
(giving my body to be broken for you all). 

25 After the same manner also he took the cup, 
when he had supped, saying, This cup (¢. 6. the wine 
contained in it) is the (memorial of the) new testament 
(or covenant ralified) in my blood: this do ye, as oft as 
ye drink it, in remembrance of me (confirming this cove- 
nant with my blood). 

26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this 
cup, ye do ™ shew (by this memorial of it) the Lord’s 
death till he come (/o judgment). 

27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and 
(or) ® drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily (as they 


this according to the usual sacramental phrase. ‘Thus before 
the paschal sacrament was celebrated, it was said, “This 
πάσχα ἐστὶ ro) Κυρίῳ, is the passover to the Lord (Exod. xii. 
11. 13), i. e. this is that which is instituted to represent it; 
“for this night I will smite all the first-born of Egypt, and 
will pass over you:” and of circumcision it is said, “ This is 
my covenant” (Gen. xiv. 10), before that Abraham was ac- 
tually circumcised (ver. 23, 24). 

Secondly, Observe that Paul calleth that five times bread 
which they did eat of, which was to them “the communion 
of the body of Christ,” and by eating of which unworthily, 
they became “ guilty of the body of Christ, not discerning 
the Lord’s body,” 1 Cor. x. 16, 17, xi. 26, 27,28. He there- 
fore five times calls that bread which was consecrated, and 
by our Saviour called his body : now is it not a wonder that 
one single passage, mentioned by our Saviour whilst he was 
alive, should be deemed sufficient to make us all believe that 
his whole body, and so his hand, was in his hand, and that 
this living Christ was at the same time dead and sacrificed ; 
and that the same body which was whole before the eyes of 
his disciples was also broken for them at the same time, with 
many thousand contradictions more; and yet that what the 
Holy Ghost, who knew the meaning of our Saviour’s words 
better than any Romanist, hath said so often, to inform us 
that this element is, after consecration, bread, should not be 
thought sufficient to make us think it bread, though it appears 
to all our senses so to be? 

15 Ver. 24. Λάβετε, φάγετε. See the defence of these words 
against Dr. Mills, Examen Millii in locum. 

16 Ver. 25. Ποτήριον, The cup.] Note here two reasons for 
the participating of the cup by the whole body of the church 
at Corinth. (1.) Because it is “the blood of the new cove- 
nant,” which belongs as much to the laity as to the priests: 
the “blood shed for the remission of the sins” not only of 
the priests, but of the laity. (2.) Because, by the drinking 
of this cup they remembered Christ’s blood shed for them, 
and showed forth his death. Now since these reasons do 
equally concern all Christians, the drinking of the cup by 
which this commemoration, by our Lord’s institution, is to 
be made, must equally concern them; for sure the means 
which Christ appointed for an end ought to be used by all 
who are obliged to pursue that end; and if the apostle here 


_reprehends the Corinthians for varying from the tradition re- 


| ceived from the Lord in the celebration of the sacrament, he 


would have reprehended them much more, had they so va- 
ried from it as to neglect the distribution of that cup which 
he had instituted for those sacred ends. 

7 Ver. 26. Τὸν ϑάνατον Κυρίου καταγγέλλετε, Ye show the 
Lord's death.] If then this be the end and use of this sacra- 
ment, to be a solemn commemoration of the death of Christ 
during his absence from us; if it was designed to be a stand- 
ing memorial of his sufferings till he came again to judgment ; 
the obligation that lies upon all Christians to observe it is 
perpetual, and ought not to cease till the world ends. In- 
deed, saith Theodoret,* “after his presence there will be ne 
more of the symbols of his body, because the body itself 
will then appear.’ Which words are a full confutation of 
the doctrine of transubstantiation. 

18 Ver, 27. Ἢ πίνῃ, Or drink.] Here Obadiah Waikers 


* Mera γὰρ δὴ τὴν παρουσίαν αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔτι χρεία τῶν συμβόλων 
τοῦ σώματος, αὐτοῦ φαινομένου τοῦ σώματος. 


046 


must do who, by this practice, thwart the great design 
of this institution, which was to show his equal love to 
all to whom he equally gave these elements, and to oblige 
us to live in continua! remembrance of it), shall be guilty 
of (violating th2 sacrament of ) the body and blood of 
the Lord. 

28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him 
eat of ἐμαί bread, and drink of ‘hat cup. 

29 For he that eateth and drinketh ® unworthily 
(as they who make those divisions and distinctions, and 
commit these disorders, when they come together to eat 
the Lord’s supper dv), eateth and drinketh *' damna- 
tion (Gr. judgment) to himself, not discerning the 
Lord’s body, (to be given as an indication of his equal 
kindness to all his m-mbers, without any difference or dis- 
tinclion, and as a symbol of their mutual communion with 
one anolher, X. 16, 17.) 

30 For this cause (the not discerning the Lord’s body, 
tl ts, thal) many ure weak and sickly among you, and 
many sleep. 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


31 For if we would (/hus) judge (and discern) our- 
even we should not be judged (or, thus punish.d by 
God ). 

32 But when (neglecting this) we are judged, we 
are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be con- 
denned with the world (bul awakened by those chastixc- 
ments to reform those evil practices which render us obnox- 
tous to condemnation). 

33 Wherefore, my brethren, (that this miscar- 
riage may be rectified), when ye come together to 
eat (the Lord’s supper), tarry one for another (/iat 
ye may all eat of that and your love-feasts toge- 
ther). 

34 And if any man (pretend to do this out of ) hun- 
ger, let him eat at home (béfore he come) ; that ye come 
not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I 
set in order when I come (or, as fur the other things re- 
lating to this ordinance, or your letter, I will set them in 
order when I come). 


note is this: The Greek ἢ, or, that he might lead you to think 
there was something in the popish argument taken hence to 
prove that the whole Christ was contained in either species ; 
because either by eating or drinking unworthily, men become 
guilty of profaning both the body and blood of Christ: but 
for justification of our version, and, it may be noted that the 
Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions read and, and so does 
Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. i. p. 271, Cyril. Al. de Ador. 
Sp. p. 421, Athanas. de Pass. Domini, p. 1027, Aut. Quest. 
ad Antioch. p. 375. 

Secondly, That according to Phavorinus, ἢ κεῖται ἀντὶ τοῦ 
καὶ, that is, “ἢ is often put for and ;” so what is in the He- 
brew x, 07, is in the LXX. rendered καὶ, and, Lev. iv. 23. 
28, Numb. xv. 18, Mal. ii. 7. So what 15. ἢ, Luke xx. 2, is 
καὶ, Matt. xxi. 23, Mark xi. 28. So the promise made to 
Abraham, καὶ τῷ σπέρματι αὐτοῦ, Gen. xvil. 8, is the promise 
made to him, ἢ τῷ σπέρματι, “and to his seed,” Gal. ili. 6; 
and so the Hebrew vowel, when it divides or distributes, is 
rendered sometimes 3), or, as Exod. xxi. 17, Deut. ili. 34, 
2 Sam. xxiv. 13, Ps. viii. 4, Prov. xx. 20, and sometimes 
καὶ, and, as Josh. viil. 22, Judg. iv. 6, xiii. 7, 1 Sam. xvii. 
31, Jer. xiii. 23, Amos ν. 19, and eating and drinking going 
here before, ver. 26, and following after, ver. 28, 29, this in- 
termediate verse must bear the same sense. 

19 Ver. 28. Aoxpasérw ἑαυτὸν, Let him examine himself.) 
Δοκιμάζειν is to discern or approve: 50, ἑοκιμΐζεις, “Thou 
approvest the things which are most excellent,” Rom. ii. 18 ; 
“Happy is the man that condemneth not himself, ἐν ᾧ dox- 
pase in that which he approves,” Rom. xiv. 22.  Aoxipa- 
Sew ἑαυτὸν, is “to approve himself to himself,” or discern 
how it is with himself: so 2 Cor. xiii. 5, ἑαυτοὺς δοκιμάζετε, 
« Prove yourselves: know ye not that Jesus Christ is among 
you, except ye be reprobates?” Gal. vi. 4, δοκιμίζετω, “ Let 
every man approve his own work.” And so here the sense 
is, Let a man approve himself to his own heart, as a good 
Christian, and one that comes to celebrate this ordinance with 
a grateful commemoration of the love of Christ dying for him, 
and with true charity and unfeigned kindness to all those for 
whom he did equally shed his blood, and gave his body to be 
broken; and so he may repair to it with a true Christian spi- 
rit, and in an acceptable manner. 

20 Ver. 29. 'Avatios, Unworthily.] i. e. “Not discerning 
tne Loid’s body ;” which words plainly teach us what it is to 
eat and drink unworthily, viz. to do it so asin that action not 


to discern the Lord's body. Now this, as hath already been | 


observed, cannot signify not to apprehend the sacrament to 


represent Christ’s body broken and his blood shed for us: for 
of this ignorance had the Corinthians been guilty, the apostle 
would have argued ex non concessis, “ from things not granted 
by them” (x. 16. 21). It therefore signifies their behaving 
themselves as if they had not considered that this sacrament 
was instituted in a thankful and practical remembrance of 
Christ dying for them, and ratifying by his blood the covenant 
in which he promised to be “ merciful to their iniquities, and 
remember their sins no more ;”’ and as a feast of love, designed 
equally for the benefit of all his members, and to knit them in 
the closest bonds of unity and friendship to each other: when 
this was wanting, they did not discern aright the Lord’s body, 
or the sacrament of it, and so did eat and drink unworthily. 
In the Talmud, saith Dr. Pocock,* there is a distinction be- 
twixt a man who ate the passover, asa Cow, “in obedience 
to the command,” which was, that they should do it as a 
memorial of God’s passing over them when he destroyed the 
Egyptians, by reason of the blood of the paschal lamb (Exod. 
xii. 13, 14); and he that thus ate it, was the just man that 
walked in the ways of the Lord, mentioned Hos. xiv. 9, and 
betwixt another who did eat it only as common food, i. e. 
without respect to the commandment, or the ends of its insti- 
tution ; and is compared to the transgressor there mentioned, 
that shall fall therein. So here, he that eateth this holy sa- 
crament with a thankful memorial of the benefits conferred 
upon us, the death from which we are delivered by the blood 
of Christ, the true paschal lamb sacrificed for us, eats it wor- 
thily; but he that partakes of it only as common bread and 
wine, not considering the ends for which it was designed, and 
the benefits of Christ's death it represented and consigned, 
discerns not the Lord’s body; i. 6. he putteth no sufficient 
difference betwixt that and common food, as the word δια- 
κρίνω doth import (see note on Rom. xiv. 23). 

21 κρῖμα, Damnation.] The word imports temporal juds- 
ments; as when Peter saith, “The time is come ἄρξασθαι 
τὸ κρῖμα, that judgment must begin at the house of God” 
(1 Pet. iv. 17), not damnation surely: and this is certainly 
the import of the word here, (1.) because the Corinthians 
did thus eat unworthily, and yet the judgments inflicted on 
them for so doing were only temporal; viz. weakness, siclt- 
ness, and death, ver. 30. (2.) Because the reason assigned 
of those judgments is, that they might not be condemned 
in the other world, or that they might not be obnoxious to 
damnation. 


In Hos. xiv. 9, p. 814. 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 Now concerning spiritual g#fis, (or, persons, ver. ignorant (of what it concerns you to know of them, and 
3), brethren, (which 15 another thing in and about excr- yourselves thal exercise them). 


cise of which you offend ; making them matter of conten- 
tion. emulation, and vain-glory,) 1 would not have you 


2 Ye know that (hefore your conversion to that 
faith, by which ye received these gifts,) ye were Gen- 


CHAPTER XII. 


tiles, earriel away unto (‘he service of) 1 these dumb 
idols (which could nut speak themselves, much less 

enable yt lo speak), even as ye were led (by seducing 
utes). 

3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man 
speaking by the Spirit of God ecalleth Jesus ὃ accursed 
(or, anathema): and that no man can say that Jesus is 
the Lord (and confirm that doctrine with supernatural gifts 
and miracles), but by the Holy Ghost. 

4 Now there are 3 diversities of (these spiritual) 


gifts, but (ἡ ts) the same Spirit (which enables us to | 


exorcise any of them). 


647 


5 And there are diferences of administrations (or, 
offices in the church, to which this eiversily f° gifts be- 
| dongs), but (it ty) the same Lord (who hath ez) vinld 
all these offices, Eph. iy. 12). 

G And there are diversities of eperations (performed 
by these offices in the church by virlue of these gifts), but 
it is the same God which (by giving them this Spirit) 
worketh (//em) all in all. 

7 * But the manifestation of the Spirit (7 the exer- 
cise of these gifts) is given to every man (nol for his own 
private use, bul) to profit (others) withal. 

8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. 


1 Ver. 2. Πρὸς τὰ εἴδωλα ἄρωνα, To dumb idols.| For though 
the priests told them they were only the receptacles of those 
deities they worshipped, that they resided in the image, and 
gave answers by it, as the Christian writers own;* yet both 
the prophets and writers of the New Testament, and all the 
fathers in their apologies, still represent them as they were 
in themselves, saying, “They have mouths, but speak not” 
(Ps. exv. 5, exxxv. 16), are dumb stones (Hab. ii. 19), et 
muta simulacra, and such only as gave answers, when they 
gave any, by the means of evil spirits. 

2 Ver. 3. ᾿Ανάϑεμα, Accursed.] ‘This the Jews did, as we 
learn not only from the words of Justin Martyr,f but also 


from their nineteenth prayer against heretics,t made by | 


Samuel the younger in the days of Gamaliel: their exorcists 
and diviners therefore, though they pretend to it, saith the 
apostle, cannot be acted by the Spirit of God: nor can they 
who confirm the doctrine of Christ by miracles be acted by 
any other but the Holy Ghost; for no evil spirit would assist 
them to confirm a doctrine so opposite to, and destructive 
of, their kingdom and design. 

3 Ver. 4. Διαιρέσεις δὲ χαρισμάτων, There are diversities of 
gifis.| These gifts being in the nature of spiritual faculties, 
or habits, are very properly ascribed to that Spirit who ani- 
mates the Christian, and by whom he lives the new life; 
and these ministries as properly to the Lord Christ, whose 
ministers and servants the apostles, prophets, teachers, &c. 
are in the propagation of the gospel. ‘These operations 
being miraculous, and far exceeding the power of any crea- 
ture, as fitly are ascribed to the Creator of all things. But 
whereas Crellius hence infers, that this third person being 
distinguished from the other two by the title of “ the same 
God,” he only must be truly and properly so called; he 
might as well have argued, that because the second person 
mentioned here is styled “the same Lord,” he must be only 
so, exclusively to the same God; and because the first is 
called “the same Spirit,” he must be so exclusively of the 
same God and Lord, who are equally spirits. 

4 Ver. 7—10.] It is exceeding difficult to fix the true im- 
port of all these gilts; I therefore shall propose what follows 
by way of conjecture, till [ receive better information from 
more able hands. 

First, then, By “ the word of wisdom,” I understand the 
wisdom given to the apostles to reveal the gospel to the 
world; for that, in this epistle, is styled “ the wisdom of God 


in a mystery—the hidden wisdom,” 1 Cor. ii. 7, and else-_ 
where, “the manifold wisdom of God,” Eph iii. 10. Christ, | 
the great teacher of it, is also styled “the wisdom of God,” | 


1 Cor. i. 24, and in him are said to be contained “ all the 
treasures of wisdom,” Col. ii. 3. The apostles, to whom 
this gospel was committed, are called σοφοὶ, “ wise men ;’— 
«Behold, I send unto you prophets and apostles,” Luke xi. 
49, “and wise men,” Matt. xxiii. 34, and they are said to 
teach this gospel “ according to the wisdom given to them,” 
2 Pet. iii. 15. 

Secondly, The “ word of knowledge” being distinguished 
from that of revelation and of prophecy, 1 Cor. xiv. 6, xiii. 

* Armob. lib. vi. p. 203. Lact. lib. ii. cap. 2. 

ἡ ᾿Αδιαλείπτως καταρᾶσθε καὶ αὐτῷ ἐκείνῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀπ᾿ αὐτοῦ. 
Dial. cum Tryph. p. 363. 

+ In qua eternum exitium illis imprecantur, qui ἃ lege 
Sudaicd deficiunt ad Christianos. Buxt. Lex Talm. voce 
Min, p. 1201. 


8, and being set by way of apposition, or explication, with 
“the knowledge of all mysteries,” 1 Cor. xiii. 2, seems to 
signify the gift of understanding mysteries, or things con- 
cealed: such was the mystery of calling the gentiles, before 
| it was revealed, Rom. xi. 25, Eph. i. 9, iil. 9, the mystery 
of recalling the Jews, Rom. xi. 25, the “mystery of ini+ 
quity,” 2 Thess. ii. 7, “the mystery of the beast,” Rev. x. 
7, but more especially the gift of understanding the mysti- 
cal sense of the scriptures of the Old ‘Testament. And in 
this sense Barnabas seems to speak of it, when he saith 

(sect. 6), “ Blessed be God, ὁ copiav καὶ νοῦν θέμενος ἐν ἡμῖν 
τῶν κρυφίων αὐτοῦ, Who hath given us the wisdom and know- 
ledge of his secrets ;” and so it agrees with that gift which 
| the fathers call zpéyvwors, as when Ireneus saith,* “Some 
have the knowledge of things to come, and visions, and pro- 
phetical sayings ;” and the man thus gifted seems to be, in 
| Clemens Romanus, “the powerful man to utter know- 
| ledge.” 

Thirdly, That by « faith’? we are to understand a miracu- 
lous faith, enabling them to do things most difficult, seems 
highly probable from these words, “hough I have all faith, 
so as to remove mountains,” 1 Cor. xiii. 2. But chiefly I 
would understand by it a peculiar impulse that came upon 
them when any difficult matter was to be performed, which 
inwardly assured them God’s power would assist them in the 
performance of it (see note on James v. 15). Whence it is 
often mentioned as a preparatory disposition to the working 
such miracles, and is sometimes styled the “faith of God” 
(Mark xi. 22), sometimes faith without doubting (Matt. xxi. 
21), and so it was a prerequisite to the casting out stubborn 
| devils (Matt. xvii. 20), and to the ensuing gifts of healing and 
working miracles; and hence perhaps it is that in the follow=- 
ing enumeration of them, ver. 28—30, we find no mention 
of it. 

Fourthly, ᾿Ενεργήματα δυνάμεων, “the working of mira- 
cles,” is, by the fathers, referred to the power residing in the 
apostles to inflict diseases, and even death itself, upon offend- 
ers, as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts v. 5. 10, 
and of Elymas the sorcerer, Acts xiii. 11, and of the inces- 
tuous person, 1 Cor. v. 4, where the apostle makes mention 
τῆς δυνάμεως Χριστοῦ, of the power of Christ; and where he 
speaks of his rod, he calls it the power that God hath given 
him, 1 Cor. iv. 19, 20, 2 Cor. x. 8, xiii. 10. But yet I 
Woubt not but these words are truly rendered “the working 
of miracles ;” for to them the word δύναμις, power, generally 
relates in the New ‘Testament: as, when mention is made of 
the miracles done by Christ himself, Matt. xi. 20. 23, xiii. 
54. 58, xiv. 2, Mark v. 30, Luke iv. 36, v. 17, vi. 19, xix. 
37, Acts ii. 22, x. 38, and of the miracles done by others in 
the name of Christ, Matt. vii. 22, Mark ix. 39, Luke ix. 1, 
Acts i. 8, iv. 33, vi. 8, viii. 13, xix. 11, 1 Cor. ii. 4, 2 Cor. 
xii. 12, Gal. iii. 5, 1 Thess. i. 5. Tence it is frequently 
mentioned in conjunction with “ signs and wonders,” Acts ii. 
22, vill. 13, Rom. xv. 19, Heb. ii. 4. It is also here plainly 
| distinguished from the gift of healing; and it is as plainly 
| distinguished from the power of casting out devils, in these 
| words, “In thy name have we prophesied and cast out 
devils, and done dovayers πολλὰς, many mighty works,” Mark 
vii. 22. It therefore rightly seemeth in the paraphrase to 
be restrained to the doing things beyond the course of nature, 
and wrought by an immediate divine hand: such as the sup- 


* Οἱ δὲ πρόγνωσιν ἔχουσι τῶν μελλύετων, Kai ὑὕπτασιας, καὶ 
ῥήσεις προβητικάς. Lib. ii. cap. 57. ‘O δυνατὸς γνῶσιν ἐξειπεῖν. 


Epist. ad Cor. 8. 48. 


648 


wisdom (to reveal that faith to others which is the wis- 
dom uf God); to another the word of knowledge (to 
reveal mysteries, 1 Cor. xiii. 2, and understand the mind 
of God in the Old Testament for confirmation of that faith) 
by the same Spirit ; 

9 To another faith (40 enable him to believe firmly, 
that he should be empowered to do things most difficult) 
by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing (αὐ 
manner of diseases) by the same Spirit; 

10 To another the working of miracles (or, powers, 
such as raising the dead to life); to another prophecy 
(enabling him to foretell things future, and speak by a 
divine offlatus); to another discerning of (the) spirits 
(of others); to another divers kinds of tongues; to 
another the interpretation of tongues: 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


11 But all these (g7fls) worketh that one and the 
selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally 5. as 
he will. 

12 For as the (nalural) body is one, and (yet) 
hath many members, and (Gr. buf) all the members 
of that one body, being many, are one body (the 
body is one still; the whole being animated by the 
same soul, which is a spirit): so also ® is (it the 
body of ) Christ (all whose members, though there be 
many, and adorned with different gifls, make but one 
body mystical, united by the Spirit to their head, Christ 
Jesus). 

13 For by one Spirit 7 we are all (Gr. have been all) 
baptized into (this) one body, whether we be Jews or 
Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and (by receiv- 


plying a defective member, or the raising of the dead. Thus 
to the first order of the successors of the apostles, Eusebius* 
ascribes “many strange powers of the Holy Ghost; and 
Justin Martyrt speaks of the powers done in his time by | 
the name of Christ. 

Fifthly, The gift of “ prophecy” is not to be restrained, as 
some do, to teaching, and the interpretation of the scripture, 
which it importeth only as that was done by a particular 
inspiration of the Holy Ghost; for otherwise, as here the 
prophets and the teachers are two distinct officesin the church, 
so also are they reckoned as such in the church at Antioch, 
Acts xiii. 1, and they are reckoned as distinct χαρίσματα in | 
these words, “ Having gifts different, whether prophecy, let 
us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or minis- 
try, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on 
teaching” (Rom. xii. 6, 7). And so they are reckoned by | 
Justin Martyr,+ when he saith, “One man receives at bap- 
tism the Spirit of understanding, 6 δὲ προγνιΐσεως, 6 δὲ dedua- 
καλίας, another of foreknowledge, or prophecy, and another 
of teaching ;” and this discovers to us another sense of pro- 
phecy; viz. that it imports, as Ireneus saith, πρόγνωσιν 
τῶν μελλύντων, “the foreknowledge or prediction of things | 
future,’ and that in order to the exhortation to some duty. 
Thus Agabus foretold by the Spirit the dearth that was to 
come over all Judea, Acts xi. 28—30, that the other Chris- 
tians might be moved, as they were, to send their charity 
thither. Thus “Judas and Silas, being prophets, διὰ Aéyo» 
πολλοῦ, With many words they comforted the brethren, and | 
established them” (Acts xvi. 32). This gift was exercised 
also by foretelling who would be fit persons to do good ser- 
vice in the church. Thus Paul commits a charge to Timo- 
thy, “ according to the foregoing prophecies concerning him” 
(1 Tim. i. 18), and saith, « Neglect not the gift that is in 
thee, that was given thee by prophecy” (iv. 14). And 
in this sense the fathers understood it, is evident, not only 
from the word πρόγνωσις, foreknowledge, by which they 
did express it, but from the arguments they use against the 
Jews to convince them that God hath left their church, and | 
had owned and embraced the societies of Christians, because 
he had left them no prophets, but had transferred that gift to 
the Christians: and these predictions being made by revela- 
tion of the Spirit, ἀποκάλυψις, or revelation, is accounted a 
part of this gift; for to the prophet is ascribed “ his revela- | 
tion,” 1 Cor. xiv. 26. 30, and the Revelation of John is “the 
book of his prophecy ; and to the prophet is ascribed the 
manifestation of the secrets of men’s hearts, as in those words, 
“Tf all prophesy, and there come in an unbeliever, or one 
unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and 
thus are the secrets of his heart laid open” (1 Cor. xiv. 24, 
25). Thus of those prophets Irenzus (lib. v. cap. 6) saith, 
that they did not only explain the mysteries of God, but 
also τὰ κρυφία ἀνθρώπων εἰς φανερὸν ἄγειν ἐπὶ τῷ συμφέροντι, 
“manifest the secret things of men, when it was needful or 
profitable for them, or the church” (see Origen against Cel- 
sus, lib. 1. p. 34). 


* Toi Sefov Πνέυματος πλεῖστας παραδόξους δυνάμεις. Euseb. 
Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 17. 

{ Τῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ, Kat viv γινομένων δυνάμεων. 
Dial. p. 254. 

+ Dial. p. 250, A. 


Sixthly, The διάκρισις πνευμάτων, “ discerning of spirits,” 
not only imports the faculty of discerning betwixt the im- 
pulse of false and true prophets, which he that hath seems 
to be styled by Clemens, 6 σοφὸς ἐν διακρίσει τῶν λύγων, “a 
wise man in discerning words,” and betwixt the lying won- 
ders and magical operations of evil spirits, and the powers of 
the Holy Ghost, as 1 Cor. xiv. 29, 1 Thess. v. 20, 21, 1 John 
iv. 1, but also a judgment of discerning the spirits of other 
men, whether they were qualified for such an office in the 
church, and accordingly choosing them out for that work. 
So the Spirit, in the prophets, said, «Separate me Barnabas 
and Paul for the work whereunto I have called them,” Acts 
xiii. 2, 3, and thus the Holy Ghost is said to have consti- 
tuted the bishops and presbyters in Asia, Acts x. 28, be- 
cause, as Clemens Romanus saith,* “they constituted bi- 
shops and deacons, δοκιμάσαντες τῷ Πνεύματι, making trial of 
them by the Holy Ghost.” And Clemens of Alexandria,t 
that John “ ordained to be of the clergy, τοὺς ἀπὸ τοὺ Πνεῦς- 
paros σημαινομένους, Such as were signified to him by the 
Spirit.” Ignatius+ saith of the bishops of his time, that 
they were constituted, « not by men, but ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ γνώμη, 
by the counsel of Christ Jesus.” Cyprian,§ that they were 
constituted, “not only by the consent of the people, and 
the suffrage of their fellow-bishops, but also judicio divino 
et Dei testimonio, by the judgment and-testimony of God,” 
And, lastly, this gift seems also to imply a discovering of 
what was done inwardly, or in the spirit of a man; so Peter 
discerned the heart of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts v. 3. 9, 
and of Simon Magus, Acts viii. 21. 23, Paul of Elymas, 
Acts xiii. 10, and of the lame man, “seeing he had faith to 
be healed,” Acts xiv. 9. And Ignatius|| speaks of the Spi- 
rit in him that did foretell, and τὰ κρυπτὰ ἐλέγχειν, “ reprove 
things secret.” 

5 Ver. 11. Καϑὼς βούλεται, As he will.] Here seems to be 
a plain argument for the personality of the Holy Ghost, be- 
cause a will is here ascribed to him. (2.) Hence it is evi- 
dent that he is no creature, because no creature can enable 
others to do these works. (3.) ‘That he is God: for as all 
this diversity of operations is ascribed to the same God, ver. 
6, so it is here said, “ All these worketh one and the same 
Spirit4 

6 Ver. 12. So is Christ.] That is, saith Chrysostom, τὸ 
τοῦ χριστοῦ σῶμα, “the body of Christ,” that is, his church, 
as appears from ver. 21, “The head cannot say to the feet, 
I have no need of you;” this being not true of Christ, the 
head of that church, which is his body, but only of the mi- 
nisterial heads under him. 

7 Ver. 13. Bis ἕν σῶμα ἐβαπτίσθημεν, We were baptized 
into one body.] Vain here is the note of Mr. Clere, viz. that 
“we are baptized that we might be called by one name, be 
of one society, the church of Christ:” for it is not by par- 
taking of one spirit that we are called Christians, but by pro- 


* Ep. ad Cor. viii. 42. 

+ Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 23. 

+ Prom. Ep. ad Philad. et 5.1. Ep. ad Eph. §. 1, 3, 6. 

§ Ed. Ox. Ep. 55 et 69. 

! Ad. Philad. §. 7. 

4 ᾿Ἐνταῦϑα γὰρ εἰρηκὼς τὸν Θεὸν ἐνεργεῖν" μετὰ βραγέα φησὶ, 
πήντα δὲ ταῦτα ἐνεργεῖ τὸ ἕν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ Πνεῦμα. Chrys, Theod. 


CEcumen. ‘Theophylact. 


CHAPTER XII. 


ing of that living water, we) have been all made ὃ to 
drink into (or, of) one Spirit. 

14 (All, I say,) For (as) the (natural, so the mystical ) 
body is not one member, but many. 

15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, 
I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? 

16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the 
eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the 
body? 

17 * If the whole body were an eye, where were the 
hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the 
smelling? 

18 But now hath God set the members every one 
of them in the body, as it hath pleased him, 

19 And if they were all one member, where were 
the body? 

20 But now are they many members, yet but one 
body. 

21 And the eye (the man endowed with the word of 
wisdom or knowledge) cannot say unto the hand (the 
person employed in lesser ministries), 1 have no need of 
thee: nor again the head (the person placed in the highest 
dignitics in the church) to the feet (the deacon, or man 
employed in the lowest offices of the church), I have no 
need of you. 

22 Nay, much more those members of the body, 
which seem to be more feeble, are necessary (Gr. bud 
the members of the body which seem more weak are 


* Sed neque oculos toto corpore esse velim, ne cetera 
membra suum officium perdant. Quintil. Instit. lib. viii. 
cap. 5, ad finem. 


649 


more necessary; viz. the brain, the stomach, and the 

43). 

23 And those members of the body, which we 
think to be less honourable (Gr. more dishonourable), 
upon these we bestow (Gr. pul) ® more abundant ho- 
nour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant 
comeliness. 

24 For our comely parts have no need: but God 
hath tempered the body together (agreeably to the 
condition uf each member), having given more abun- 
dant honour (or covering) to that part which lacked : 
(placing them so, thal even nature may be a covering to 
them. 

25 And so hath he dealt also with the body mystical, 
making the meaner offices of them who attend upon the 
poor more necessary, and to them more honoured who need 
their help,) that there should be no "schism in the 
body ; but that the members should have the same care 
(and regard to) one for another. 

26 And whether one member (of the natural body) 
suffer, all the members suffer with it (by sympathy) ; 
or one member be honoured (or adorned), all the 
members rejoice with it (ἡ. e. if, being indisposed, it 
becomes sound, being weak, it recovers strength, all the 
members are eased, and so may be said to rejoice with 
it). 

on Now ye are the body of Christ, and members 
in particular, (or, severally are members of that 
body, and so ought to act in the mystical body as do 
the members in the natural, rejoicing with them that 
do rejoice, and mourning with them that weep, Rom. 
xii. 15.) 


fessing faith in Christ. The apostle is plainly proving, that 
as the natural body is one, so is the mystical: now the natu- 
ΤΆ] body is one, as being informed by one soul and spirit 
united to it, and animating all the parts of it; so is it, saith 
he, in the mystical body united together by one and the same 
Spirit received in baptism, and from our spiritual head, Christ 
Jesus, communicated to all the living members of his body, 
to give them spiritual life and motion (see Eph. iv. 16). 

8 bis ἕν Πνεῦμα ἐποτίσϑημεν, We were made to drink of one 
Spirit.] So our Lord represents the participation of the Holy 
Spirit, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come to me and 
drink. He that believeth, out of his belly shall flow rivers 
of living waters. This spake he of the Spirit, which they 
that believed in him should receive” (John vii. 37—39). 
And the apostle calls the water which was a symbol of the 
Spirit, “ spiritual drink,” 1 Cor. x. 4,and as believers are ὃν 
πνεῦμα, one spirit with Christ (1 Cor. vi. 17), so doth Christ 
invite them to come to him to drink of this Spirit. 

8 Ver. 23. Τιμὴν περισσοτέραν, More abundant honour.) 
The clothes God made to cover the nakedness of Adam and 
Eve, are styled by Onkelos “clothes of honour:” and the 
word τιμὴ, here rendered “ honour,” is in the Septuagint put 
to signify a cover ; so, * Behold, he is to thee a covering of 
thy eye” (Gen. xx. 16), is in the Septuagint, cis τὴν τιμὴν 
τοῦ προσώπου cov, “for an honour on thy face.” 

10 Ver. 24. Συνεκέρασε τὸ σῶμα, Hath so tempered the body.) 
Agreeable to this is that of Cicero,* Principio corporis nos- 
tri magnam natura ipsa videtur habuisse rationem, que for- 
mam nostram, reliquamque figuram in qui esset species 
honesta, eam posuit in promptii ; que autem partes corporis 
ad necessitatem date, aspectum essent deformem habiture, 
atque turpem, eas contexit atque abdidit; hanc tam diligen- 
tem nature fabricam imitata est hominum verecundia, que 
enim natura occultavit, eadem omnes, qui sand mente sunt, 
removent ab oculis. 

N Ver. 25. Ἵνα μὴ ἡ σχίσμα, That there may be no schism 
tn the body.) Of this schism of the members against the body, 
see Menenius apud Livium, lib. il. cap. 32, Max. Tyr. diss. v. 
Ῥ. 50. 

2 Ver. 27.] For illustration of this long comparison be- 
twixt the body natural and mystical, observe, (1.) that this 


* De Officiis, lib. i. n. 177. 
γος. IV.—82 


comparison is taken from the Jews, who teach that such order 
ought to be observed betwixt the priesthood and the people as 
in the human body, in which there are members superior, and 
others serving to the rest, for all of them serve the heart from 
whence life proceeds ; and so it is meet that the Levites should 
serve the priests, and the people the Levites (Paulus Fagius, 
in Lev. iii. 7). The argument which the apostle useth from 
the comparison of the natural with the mystical body, seems 
to consist in these particulars. 

First, That as the most inferior members of the natural 
body are as much the members of that body as the most noble, 
so are the most inferior Christians as much the members of 
Christ’s body. 

Secondly, That there would be no perfect natural body 
without this diversity of members, and in like manner no 
mystical body without such diversity of gifts and offices as 
God hath ordered in his church (ver. 17. 19). 

Thirdly, That the members are placed in the body accord~ 
ing to the wisdom and the good pleasure of God (ver. 18, 
24), and so it is in the members of the mystical body, which 
therefore ought to acquiesce in the good pleasure of his will, 
in whatsoever station and condition his wisdom doth see fit to 
place them. 

Fourthly, That the members which seem the weakest and 
the meanest are as necessary and serviceable to the body as 
the other: human life could not continue, nor human kind 
subsist without them (ver. 22) : so in the mystical body, they 
that are employed in works of charity and mercy to the poor 
and the sick, those that “serve tables,” are in their kind as 
necessary and serviceable as other members of the church, 
and had their χαρίσματα, or spiritual gifts, as well as others 
(Rom. xii. 6—8, 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11). 

Fifthly, That as nature had provided a covering for the less 
honourable parts, and taught us to employ our care in cover- 
ing and adorning them, so was it also with respect to the less 
honourable members of the ecclesiastical body ; there were 
“helps” and ministers particularly appointed to take care of 
them, to cover their nakedness and supply their wants, and 
promises were made to those who employed themselves in 
such acts of charity (ver. 23, 24). 

Sixthly, That as there was no division in the members of 
the natural body, but all the members took care of, and were 
employed for, the good of the ghee; so God hath ordered 

3 


650 


28 15 And God hath set some in the (body of the) 
church, first apostles (to exercise the gift of wisdom), 
secondarily prophets (¢o exert those of knowledge and 
prophecy), thirdly teachers (to labour in the word and 
doctrine,) after that (workers of ) miracles, then (they 
that have the) gifts of healings, helps (to take care of 
the poor), governments (rulers of the church), diversities 
of tongues. 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


29 Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teach- 
ers? are all workers of miracles ? 

30 Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with 
tongues? do all interpret ? 

31 But covet earnestly the best (and the most useful ) 
gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way 
(of ministering to the welfare of the church, and of your 
own souls ; even that of charily). 


matters thus in the body mystical, that there should be no 
divisions, no separate interests in it, but they should mutu- 
ally regard the interests of one another, sympathizing and 
rejoicing together (ver. 25, 26). 

13 Ver. 28.] Note, for explication of these offices, 

First, That to prophets I ascribe the gifts of knowledge 
and of prophecy, from these words, “If I have prophecy, 
and know all mysteries and all knowledge” (1 Cor. xiii. 2): 
and as the first gift, “the word of wisdom,” belongs espe- 
cially to the apostles, so it seems probable that the second, 
the “word of knowledge,” should belong to the second 
office, that of prophets. But whereas Mr. Clere saith that 
“the prophets did not teach by inspiration, but only had 
been fitted to teach by inspiration; that they spake as they 
saw fit themselves; and those things which they received 
from Christ and his apostles they interpreted after their own 
manner;’’ this seems to be confuted by these words of the 
apostle, “If any thing be revealed to him that sitteth by, let 
the first prophet be silent; for the spirits of the prophets are 
subject to the prophets.” 

Secondly, The “teachers” seem to be men who, having 
received the doctrine of faith from the apostles, preached it 
to others for their conversion to the faith, and so they are 
the men who “laboured in the word and doctrine,” 1 ‘Tim. 
v.17. They were, saith Eusebius,* ἀποστόλων μαθηταὶ, “ the 
disciples of the apostles, who built up the churches in the 
faith which the apostles had planted, promoting the preach- 
ing of the gospel more and more, and spreading among them 
the salutary seed of the heavenly kingdom.” And they of 
them, who preached the gospel to them who had not heard 
it, were called evangelists, and sometimes apostles: so 
Andronicus and Junia are called ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, 
“men of esteem among the apostles,” Rom. xvi. 7, and of 
these John saith, “For his name’s sake they went forth, 


* Eccles. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 37. 


taking nothing of the gentiles; we therefore ought to receive 
such, that we may be fellow-helpers to the truth” (2 John 
7, 8). But whereas Theophylact and Mr. Le Clere say, 
that the prophets indeed spake by the Holy Ghost, but these 
teachers from themselves: this I cannot assent to, for 
διδασκαλία, “teaching,” is numbered among the spiritual 
gifts, Rom. xii. 6, and διδάσκαλοι, * teachers,” among them 
to whom Christ had given these gifts (see the note on Eph. 
iv. 11). 

Thozlly, The “helps” seem to be the deacons and other 
officers who ministered, not only to the sick and poor, but in 
holy things also—in baptizing and distributing the eucha- 
rist; ἀντιλαμβάνεσθαι, whence comes the word “ helps,” sig- 
nifies, to take of others; and these also, as before I noted, 
had their spiritual gifts. As then the Talmudists, saith Dr. 
Lightfoot, call the Levites “the helps of the priests;’ so 
may the apostle call the deacons, which answered to them, 
the helps of the apostles and bishops of the church. 

Fourthly, « Governments” are almost generally supposed 
to denote the rulers of the churches planted by the apostles, 
and who are sometimes styled “bishops,” Acts xx. 28, 
sometimes ἡγούμενοι, guides” or “rulers,” Heb. xiii. 7. 17, 
and sometimes προεστῶτες, “ presidents” or “ prelates,” Rom. 
xii. 8, 1 Thess. v.12. But Dr. Lightfoot conjectures they 
were the men who had the gift of discerning spirits, because 
x βερνήσεις, which we here render governments, signifies in 
the Old Testament, wise counsels, and skill in giving judg- 
ment of things; thus ὃ νοήμων κυβερνήσεις κτήσεται. ““ A man 
of understanding shall attain to wise counsels,” Prov. i. 5, 
οἷς μὴ ὑπάρχει κυβέρνησις, “ Where no counsel is the people 
fall; but in much counsel there is safety,’’ Prov. xi. 14, and 
μετὰ κυβερνήσεως, By wise counsel thou shalt make war,” 
Prov. xxiv. 6. It is not reasonable, saith he, to suppose no 
office should be appointed for this so necessary gift, and yet 
no other is here mentioned to which we can apply it. Let 
the reader choose which of these interpretations he likes best. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


1 1 (For) Though I speak with the tongues of men 
and of angels (the languages of all nations, or knew to 
converse with angels), and have not charity, Iam become 
as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal (benefiting no 
man by my emply and confused, and pleasing no man 
with my shrill and noisy, sound ). 

2 And though I have the gifi of prophecy, and un- 
derstand all mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though 


1 have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, 
and have not charity, 1 am nothing (worlh in the sight 
of God). 

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the 
poor, and though I give my body to be burned ( for the 
(faith), and have not charity (to man, but do this rather 
oul of vain-glory, or to be admired and praised of men), 
it profiteth me nothing (as to my elernal state). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


1 Ver. 1—3.] Note. Here it is to be noted, that the apostle 
in these verses reckons up the things which were of highest 
value to the Jews, and which rendered their wise men the 
most celebrated. Thus of R. Jochanan ben Zachai,* they 
say that he understood the language of the angels; and of 
R. Azai,t that there was not in his days “a rooter up of 
mountains” like to him, or one that could do so great things 
as he did. The man on whom the spirit of prophecy did 
rest, or who was fit to receive him, must, say they, be “a 
wise man, a religious man, a temperate man, and one that is 
endued with all probity of manners.”+ Of alms they say, 
that “ whosoever diminisheth any thing of his substance to 


* Bava Bathra, f. 134, 1. 
ἡ Buxt. Lex. in voce spy. 
+ Maim. Pref. in Seder Zeraim, Poe. p. 18. 


bestow in alms, shall be delivered from hell.”* And as for 
martyrdom for the law, they thought it sufficient to expiate, 
not only for their own sins, but even for the sins of the 
whole nation. Hence Josephus} brings in Eleazar, praying 
thus for the Jews, “Let my blood be an expiation for them, 
and receive my life for their lives.’ And thus he saith of 
the martyrs that suffered under Antiochus Epiphanes, that 
“the divine providence saved all Israel from the evils they 
suffered, by the blood and the propitiatory death of those 
pious men.’’+ 


* Buxt. Floril. p. 89, 90. 

ἡ Καθάρσιον αὐτῶν ποιῆσαι τὸ ἐμὸν αἷμα καὶ ἀντὶ ψυχῶν 
αὐτῶν λάβε τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχὴν. Joseph. in Maccab. cap. 6, p. 
1090. 

$ Διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τῶν εὐσεβῶν ἐκείνων, καὶ τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου 
ϑανάτου αὐτῶν, ἡ ϑεία πρύνοια τὸν ᾿Ισραὴλ περικακωθέντα διΐσωσε. 


Ibid. p. 1101, B. ᾿ 


CHAPTER XIII. 


4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind ; charity en- 
vieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
up, 

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her 
own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil ; 
, θ Rejoiceth not? in iniquity (or falsehood), but re- 
joiceth in the truth; 

7 3 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth 
all things, endureth all things. 

8 Charity never faileth (as fo the proper and elicit 
acls of it): but (as for other gifis) whether there be pro- 
phecies, they shall fail; whether ‘here be tongues, they 
shall cease; whether there be (the gift of ) knowledge, 
it shall vanish away. 

9 For (with all our gifts) we know (still but) in part, 


651 
and we prophesy (bu!) in part (knowing but few things 
in comparison to our fulure knowledge). 

10 But when that (stale of /nowledge) which is per- 
fect is come, then that (/nowledge) which is in part 
shall be done away. 

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I un- 
derstood as a child, I thought as a child: but when 1 
became a man, I put away childish things (and the 
like difference will there be betwixt us now and then). 

12 For now we see (on/y as) through a glass, 
darkly; but then (we shall see) face to face (with the 
greatest nearness and perspicuily, which now we can- 
nol ; if no man, sailh God, shall see my face and 
live, Exod. xxxiii. 20. 23, 2 John 12, 3 John 14): 
now I know (but) in part; but then shall I know 


But here is raised a dispute, whether the gifts here men- 
tioned were at any time, or could be, exercised by them 
who wanted charity ? or such profuse alms, and constancy 
in suffering to the death, were ever, or could be, separated 
from that grace? ΤῸ which I answer, It is true that the 
apostle here speaketh hypothetically, that, were these things 
performed without charity, they would not profit to salva- 
tion; but then that supposition seems fairly to imply the 
thing itself was not impossible ; or that there was no neces- 
sary connexion betwixt these gifts and actions and the grace 
of charity. Moreover, our Saviour seems plainly to inform 
us that men might prophesy and cast out devils, and do 
mighty works in his name (Matt. vii. 22, 23), and yet be 
workers of iniquity, and persons whom he would not own at 
the last day. He also teacheth that some may do their 
alms to be applauded by men (Matt. vi. 2), and therefore 
do them so as to receive no reward from God ; and so informs 
us, that alms may be given without true love to God, or to 
our neighbour for his sake. And, lastly, All the fathers 
teach, that it is not the suffering but the reason of it, that 
makes the martyr; and that “when men, in schism or 
heresy, thus give their bodies to be burnt, they are not to 
be deemed true martyrs, by reason of the want of charity.’”* 
And the same they say of them who suffer for vain-glory ; 
viz. that “ they shed their blood in vain.’’f 


2 Ver. 6. Ἔν ἀδικία, In iniquity.) That ἀδικία here signi- | 


fies falsehood, the “truth,” to which it is opposed, shows ; so 
it signifies in the Old Testament above a hundred times, and 
the word 4p, which in the Hebrew signifies a /ie, is as often 
by the Septuagint translated ἀδικία as ψεῦδος" so “a right 
hand of falsehood” is δεξία ἀδικίας, Ps. exliv. 11, the “way 
of lying,” is ὁδὸς ἀδικίας, Ps. exix. 29, and “he that telleth 
lies,” is λαλῶν ἄδικα, see Ps. evil. 7, and ecxix. 69. 78. 86. 
118. 128. 163, Ps. Ixiii. 11, Exod. xxii. 7. Now “false- 
hood” and “a lie,” in the Old and New Testament, do often 
signify a false religion, or a religion containing a false object 
of worship. Thus “the molten image is a teacher of lies,” 
Hag. ii. 28, and he that maketh it, is said to have “a lie in 
his right hand,” Tsa. xliv. 20, he that goes after them 
“walketh in lies,” Jer. xxiii. 14, and “inherits lies,” ὡς 
ψευδὴ ἐκτήσαντο of πατέρες ἡμῶν εἴδωλα" he turns the truth of 
God into a lie, Rom. i. 25, believes a lie, 2 Thess. ii, 10, 11 
{pre the note on Rom. iii. 7). And «the truth” in the New 
Testament is emphatically put to signify the gospel, or the 
Christian faith: so the Second Epistle of John, ver. 3,4, «I 
rejoiced greatly to find thy children walking in the truth :” 
and the Third Epistle, ver. 3, 4,“1I have no greater joy than 
to hear that my children walk in the truth.” So that the 
import of these words may be this—Charity will not permit 


* Esse martyr non potest, qui in ecclesiad non est; 
exhibere se non potest martyrem, qui fraternam non tenuit 
charitatem, docet hoc, et contestatur Paulus dicens, Etsi 
tradidero corpus meum ut ardeam. Cypr. de Unit. Eccl. ed. 
Oxon. p. 113; Lib. de Orat. Dom. 150; De Zelo et Livore, 
Ῥ. 225. Ep. 55, p. 44. Ep. 73, p. 207. Chrys. in Eph. Serm. 
11, tom. iii. p. 822. August. de Verbis Dom. tom. x. 

. 192, 
F ἡ Timeo dicere, sed dicendum est, martyrium ipsum si 
ideo fiat ut admirationi et laudi habeamur a fratribus, frustra 
sanguis effusus est. Hieron. ad Gal. v. 26. 
᾿ 


us to rejoice, but rather cause us to be troubled, to find men 
still continue in their false worship, as the gentiles, or in op- 
position to the gospel delivered to them, as the Jews do; 
but it rejoiceth to see men walking according to the truth of 
the gospel. 

3 Ver. 7.] From these four comprehensive verses, we 
learn the properties and fruits of charity. (1.) What it re- 
quires us to do to all. (2.) What it will not permit us to 
do to any. (3.) What it requires us to do, or will not per- 
mit us to do, to our offending brother. 

First, What deportment it requires towards all men ; viz. 

1. It is good, kind, and tender-hearted, towards all (ver. 
4); “The Lord make your charity to abound to one an- 
other, and to all men,” 1 Thess, iii. 12; for charity requireth. 
us to love our brother as ourselves, it must engage us to 
consider him as we do ourselves, and so extend the same 
kindness to him, when he needs it, as we show to ourselves 
(Gal. vi. 10). 

2. It is active and laborious, engaging us “by love to 
serve one another” (Gal. ν. 13, 14), to do them any service 
we are able with good-will, and without grudging; for 
there must be in us, 6 κόπος τῆς ἀγάπης, “ the labour of love” 
(2 Thess. i. 3, Heb. vi. 10). 

3. Tt “rejoiceth in the truth” (ver. 6); that is, in men's 
doing righteously, and living according to the gospel, which 
is called by way of eminence ‘the truth ;” it begets in us a 
complacency and inward pleasure, to behold truth and 
righteousness, piety and goodness, prevailing in the world. 

4, It makes us ready to believe all things (ver. 7); that 
is, all the good it hears, or can have any charitable ground 
to think of others. 

5. It “hopeth all things” (ver. 7); 1. 6. it inclines us to 
hope still the best concerning men’s intentions and actions 
liable to doubt; and if our brother be at present bad, to 
hope and not despair of his amendment, and so still to en- 
deavour his reformation by all proper means. 

Secondly, The things which charity will not permit us to 
do to any are these; viz. 

1. “ Charity worketh no evil to our neighbour,” in his per- 
son, estate, good name, or relations (Rom. xiii. 10), much 
less in reference to his soul: and therefore, 

2. It will not suffer us to scandalize, or to offend our 
brother, by doing any thing which either may embolden him 
to sin, or disaflect him to religion, or discourage him in 
the practice of his duty; for, “if thy brother be grieved 
with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably” (Rom. 
xiv. 15). 

3. Οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακὸν (ver. 5). It will not permit us to 
surmise or suspect that evil of others which we do not 
know; it “imputes not evil” to them, nor puts to any man’s 
account beyond absolute necessity. It doth not censure 
their miscarriages as done out of malice, or with ill inten- 
tions. So Theodoret. 

4, It “ rejoiceth not in iniquity” (ver. 6),in any evil done 
to, much less by, others ; it permits no man to be pleased 
with any deceit, or falsehood spoken of, or done to, others, or 
with any ill stories,or malicious insinuations, concerning them, 

5. It envies not the happiness or the prosperity of others, 
but is well pleased with it (ver. 4). 

6. Οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ, “It behaveth not itself unseemingly” 
towards any, in words or gestures; it refuseth not to do the 


652 


* even as also 1 am known, (more fully and completely, 
seeing God as he is, 1 John iil. 2). 

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three 
(all great and excellent virtues, and superior to the gifts 
now mentioned); but the greatest of these 7s charity 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


(both for duration, as continuing when faith shall end in 
vision, 2 Cor. v. 7, and hope in enjoyment, Rom. viii. 
23, 24, and for perfection, as rendering us more like to 
God, and beneficial to men). 


meanest offices of kindness to them, as if it were unseemly, 
or below us to be employed in them (ver. 5). So Chrysos- 
tom, heodoret, G2cumen. ‘Theoph. 

7. Od φυσιοῦται, “It vaunteth not itself” (ver. 4): it “is 
not puffed up” against our brethren; it roots out of us all 
elation of mind, ambition, ostentation, pride in over-valuing 
ourselves, and despising others (Eph. iv. 2) ; οὐ περπερεύεται, 
it is not rash, heady, or precipitate in speaking of, or acting 
towards, others. So Chrysostom and GZcumenius. It doth 
not curiously search into other men’s matters which belong 
not tous. So Theodoret. 

8. It “seeketh not her own” praise, profit, or pleasure, to 
the hurt of others; but inclines men to seek the good of 
others (1 Cor, x. 24). 

9. Οὐ δάκνει, “It bites not” with the tongue (Gal. v. 14, 
15), but cuts off all strife, contentions, bitter zeal, animosi- 
ties (ver. 21, 22), all bitterness, wrath, clamour, evil speak- 
ing (Eph. iv. 31, 32). 

Thirdly, The deportment charity requires to our offend- 
ing brother is expressed in these particulars: 

1. Charity “ beareth long,” and causeth us to endure pro- 
vocations with much patience, before we do conceive any 
displeasure against others. 

2. It “endureth all things,” though grievous to be borne, 
without returning evil for evil, enabling us to “forbear one 
another in love” (Eph. iv. 2, Col. iii. 13); and will not 


cease from being kind and well-affected to our brother, by 
reason of any provocation whatsoever. 

3. It “covers all things,” i. e. inclines us to conceal the 
evil that we know of others; and thus it “ covers a multitude 
of sins” (James v. 20). 

4, Οὐ παροξύνεται (ver. 5), “It is not highly exasperated,” 
and breaks not forth into violent ungovernable passions on 
any provocation. 

5. It is easy to be entreated, ready to forgive, and full of 
mercy (Col. ili. 13, Eph. iv. 32, James iii. 17). 

4 Ver. 12. Καθὼς καὶ ἐπεγνώσϑην, Even as [ am known.) 
T do not think that either these, or the words of John, “ We 
shall see him as he is,” afford any just grounds for the specu- 
lations of the schools, touching the intuitive vision of the 
essence of God, or their speculum rinitatis, without which 
the invocations of saints and angels cannot be excused from 
idolatry: for as the words, 1 John iii. 2, refer not to the 
vision of God the Father, but of Christ Jesus, appearing at 
the day of judgment in his glory, and rendering “ our bodies 
like unto his glorious body ;” so these words refer not to the 
knowledge of God’s essence, but rather to the knowledge of 
those great things he hath prepared for those that love him, 
revealed now in part, by the Spirit of prophecy and wisdom 
(1 Cor. ii. 9, 10), which then, saith the apostle, we shall 
know in the most clear and perfect manner, as we ourselves 
are known of God. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


1 Foxxow (therefore) after charity (above all things), | 


and desire (also) spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may 
prophesy ({. e. expound the scripture, or reveal some mys- 
tery to the edification of the church). 

9. 1 For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue (not 
understood, nor explained) speaketh not unto (the under- 


standing of ) men, but unto (the understanding of ) God | 


(only): for no man understandeth him; howbeit (or 
though) in the spirit he speaketh mysteries (the pro- 
found things of God). 

3 But he that prophesieth (in plain intelligible words) 


speaketh unto (the profit of) men (viz.) to (their) edifi- 
cation (by the scripture he expounds), and (to their) ex- 
hortation (by what he teacheth), and (to their) comfort 
(by his revelation). 

4 He that speaketh in an unknown tongue 35. edi- 
fieth himself (only); but he that prophesieth edifieth 
the church. 

5 I would that ye all spake with tongues, but ra- 
ther that ye prophesied: for greater (because more 
beneficial) is he that prophesieth than he that speak- 
eth with tongues, except he interpret (Ais tongue, and 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV. 


1 Ver. 2. 'O γὰρ λαλῶν γλώσση, For he that speaketh 
with an unknown tongue.) That what is said in this verse 
is spoken only by way of concession, as Mr. Clere imagines, 
cannot be true, because it is expressly said, that “in the 
Spirit he speaketh mysteries ;” for mysteries, when the apos- 
tle speaketh of spiritual gifts, hath still relation to some 
profound secret things, 1 Cor. ii. 7, and xiii. 2. And Πνεύ- 
ματι λαλεῖ cannot here signify, as Mr. Clere conceives, “ He 
speaketh to his own understanding:” since the apostle, 
through this whole chapter, is speaking of spiritual gifts, 
which also he expressly calleth “spirits,” saying, “ Seeing 
you are zealous πνευμάτων, of spirits,” i. e. of spiritual gifts ; 
and the afflatus or inspiration here was to enable the man 
to speak the mystery, and not to use the unknown tongue. 
For explication of this whole matter, let it be noted, 

First, That the gift of tongues and prophecy, in their 
original donation, did still go together ; and they who spake 
with tongues, spake τὰ μεγαλεῖα τοῦ Θεοῦ, “the great things 
of God” (Acts ii. 11, x. 46), “they spake with tongues and 
prophesied” (Acts xix. 6); and the reason seems plain, viz. 
because the gift of tongues was given as a help to prophecy. 
Now these two things, thus joined by God, should not have 
been used separately by these gifted men; yea, the gift of 
tongues was only to be used when they were to speak to 
yentiles in their own language, which was one great design of 
the gift of tongues (ver. 22). Nor should they have used 


the gift of tongues when an afflatus came upon them, and 
some mystery was imparted to them, by which the church 
was to be edified, unless they knew there was one present 
who had the gift of interpretation of tongues: this therefore 
was a great abuse of this gift, that when they had a mystery 
revealed to them they did not utter it in a language under- 
stood by the assembly, but only by themselves, and so they 
did not edify the church by it, though it was given, as all 
the other gifts were, for edification (xii. 7). Note, 
Secondly, That the gift of tongues being imparted per 
modum habitus, as a permanent gift, like to a habit; they 
who had received this gift could always use it at their plea- 
sure, and so could also use it when a prophetical afflatus 
came upon them; but the gift of prophecy, being an afila- 
tus in manner of a revelation, could be only used when the 
afflatus came upon them; so that the first gift might at 
any time be used without any fresh operation of the Holy 
Ghost, whereas the second gift always required that afllatus. 
2 Ver. 4. ‘Eavrév οἰκοδομεῖ, Edifieth himself.| He therefore 
understood himself, as the church did him that prophesied : 
and indeed, by speaking what he himself understood not, 
he would have been as much a barbarian, and unprofitable 
to himself, as he was to others. To say with Cajetan, « ‘I'he 
words were pious which he uttered, and he had pious affec- 
tions when he uttered them,” is unsatisfactory: for what if 
the matter of them was so, since if he understood them no 
more than a parrot, his piety in speaking of them could be 
no more than that of a parrot; he neither could know they 


CHAPTER XIV. 


the mystery he ullers in it),* that the church may re- 
ceive edifying (hy 7). 

6 Now (/her:fure), brethren, if I come unto you 
speaking with (sfrange) tongues, what shall I profit 
you, except I shall speak to you (alsv) either by reve- 
lation (7 sume secret), or by knowledge («f some mys- 
tery), or‘ by prophesying (¢. e. furetelling of something 
to come), or by doctrine (instructing you what to believe 
or practise) 2 

7 And (thus it is) even (in) things without life 
giving sound, whether (ἐΐ 6 ) pipe or harp, ( fur) ex- 
cept they give a distinction in the sounds (to render it 
tntellizible), how shall it be known what ts piped or 
harped ? 

8 For if the trumpet (for crample) give an uncertain 
sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle (at the 
hearing of it)? 

9 So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue 
words easy to be understood (by your auditors), how 
shall it be known what is spoken (by you) ? for (by 


ὦ 
653 
speaking what they know not) ye shall (be as men who) 
speak (on/y) into the air (vain and unprofitable words, 
lost in the spealcing, as the voice is in the air). 

10 There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices 
(languages and idioms, as there be nations, or, as the Jews 
compute, to the number of seventy) in the world, and none 
of them ἐς without signification (but this signification 
they have only to them that understand them). 

11 Therefore if I know not the meaning of the 
voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh (as if he spake 
to) § a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be (as) a 
barbarian unto me (nol understanding what he saith). 

12 Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of 
spiritual gifts (Gr. of spirits, that you may nol be bar- 
barians, and unprofilable in the use of them), seek that 
ye may excel (zn them which tend) to the edifying of 
the church. 

13 Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown 
tongue (in which he cannot edify) pray that he δ may 
interpret (¢. e. pray so, as lo interpret what he prays). 


were pious, nor receive any benefit by them, supposing they 
were so, whilst he understood nothing of them; nor could 
any pious affections be raised in him by words not under- 
stood. ΤῸ say with Grotius, Sentit in se vim Christi, he 
perceives the gift of Christ operating in him, if he perceived 
not the meaning of his own words, is to talk as unintelligibly 
as he spake; for that can only signify, he knew he had the 
gift of tongues, which sure could not much edify him who 
formerly had used that gift, and so could not be ignorant he 
had that gift. Moreover, doth not the apostle bid him, who 
speaks with tongues not interpreted, “speak only to himself, 
and to God?” (ver. 28.) And can he speak to himself more 
than to others, who understands not himself? Or is it fit that 
he should speak to God he knows not what? However, it is 
certain that the apostle not only dislikes, but plainly forbids 
this way of speaking in the church (ver. 28); and so, by 
parity of reason, forbids the like way of speaking to others 
in the church of Rome. ; 

3 Ver. 5. Ἵνα ἡ ἐκκλησία οἰκοδομὴν λάβη, That the church 
may receive edification.| Hence I gather, that in this un- 
known tongue he uttered something tending to, and by God 
designed for, the edification of the church, though by utter- 
ing his mystery (ver. 2) in an unknown tongue, he frus- 
trated that design. 

4 Ver. 6. Ἢ ἐν xpopnreia, Or in prophesying.] Though 
prophesying, in this verse, being distinguished from revela- 
tion, knowledge, and doctrine, seems only to import the fore- 
telling of something to come, yet doth the apostle, in this 
and the foregoing chapter, manifestly speak of it in the 
whole latitude of the word, as comprehending all these other 
things; as v. g. revelation, so ver. 24, “If all prophesy, and 
there come in an unbeliever, and one unlearned, he is con- 
vinced of all, he is judged by all, and so the secrets of his 
heart shall be made manifest:” according to that other 
sense we have given of this gift, ch. xii., that it was that 
which enabled them to manifest the secret things of men; 
hence to the prophet is assigned “his revelation,” ver. 30. 
Secondly, γνῶσις, here rendered “knowledge,” viz. of the 
mind and will of God: so xiii. 2, “If I have prophecy, 
and know all mysteries, καὶ πᾶσαν γνῶσιν, and all knowledge.” 
Whence to the prophet belongs λύγος γνώσεως, “ the word of 
knowledge,” mentioned xii. 8. And this is the ordinary no- 
tion of it, viz. that it imports a gift by which the mind of 
God, or his will, is, by the divine afflatus, discovered for the 
good of others. And thirdly, doctrine ; whence the prophet 
is said to speak to the edifying of the church (ver. 3), so 
that “all may learn” of him, be exhorted, and comforted 
by him (ver. 3.31). And prophecy, in the Old Testament, 
doth often signify a divine afilatus, enabling him who had it 
to compose hymns or psalms of praise to God (1 Sam. x. 
5, 1 Chron. xxv. 1): accordingly the psalm here mentioned 
(ver. 26), and the singing with the Spirit (ver. 15, 16), are 
the effects of the prophetical afflatus, by which the Chris- 
tians of those times “taught and admonished one another 
in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs” (Col. iii. 16, 
Eph. v.20). And the praying in the Spirit (ver. 15), or in 


the Holy Ghost (Jude 20), seems to Be praying by a like 
afflatus of the Holy Ghost, helping their infirmities, and 
teaching them what was proper to be asked for the good of 
the church (see note on Rom. viii. 26, 27): and therefore 
though, when they came together, “every man had a psalm, 
a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, and interpretation,” for 
the correcting their miscarriages in all these things, the 
apostle gives only rules concerning tongues and prophesying. 

5 Ver. 11. Βάρβαρος, A barbarian.] It was not only the 
Greeks that called all other nations barbarians, according to 
that of the apostle, “I am debtor to the Greek and the bar- 
barian : in which sense Julius Pollux* reckons up yAorrav 
"Eada, καὶ BipB2pov, “the tongue of the Greeks and of the 
barbarians ;” but almost every nation called strangers, who 
understood not their language, by that name, as the same 
Polluxt noteth in these words, τοὺς δὲ βαρβάρους καὶ ξένους 
ixidow. So the Jews (upon those words, “« When Israel 
came out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob tyb ayn, ἐκ Aaov 
βαρβάρου, from a strange people,’’) say, “ All language that is 
not the holy language is barbarous:” so the Chaldeans¢ 
styled those who spake not the Chaldee, and the Romans 
those who spake not Latin. Hence Verres§ is, in Cicero's 
style, lingua et natione barbarus, “ by language and by na- 
tion a barbarian.” 

6 Ver. 13. Προσευχέσθω ἵνα διερμηνεύη, Let him pray that 
he may interpret.] Seeing it is evident, from the fourth and 
twenty-eighth verses, that he who spake with tongues under- 
stood the meaning of his own tongue; nor can he be said to 
have the gift of tongues who only hath the gift of talking 
he knows not what, as the Phanatici did among the hea- 
thens; nor can it be supposed the Spirit of God should 
assist men in that useless manner: these words cannot be 
here understood as an exhortation to this linguist, that he 
should pray that he might understand, and so be able to in- 
terpret his own words, which he already could do, had he 
been as willing as he was able, and had not more regarded 
the vain ostentation of his gift, than the edification of the 
church. Some, therefore, give the sense of the words thus: 
Let him rather pray that he may have the gift of interpre- 
tation, than that of tongues; for covet (saith the apostle) 
the best gifts (xii. 13), seek to excel in those which tend to 
the edification of the church (ver. 12): now this doth the 
gift of interpretation more than that of tongues. But 1 
rather choose to interpret them thus: Let him (so) pray 
(with his gift, as) that he may (by the words used in his 
prayer, or by explaining it in a known language) interpret 
and impart to others what the afflatus hath imparted to him, 
and not out of vain ostentation utter it in a tongue un- 
known. To strengthen this sense, let it be observed, first, 
that the apostle here plainly discourseth of speaking with an 
unknown tongue in prayer, and of praying also by the affla- 
tus of the Spirit, as is apparent from the illative words, “ For 
if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth,” &c. 

* Lib. ii. cap. 4, p. 26. 

+ Buxt, Lex. Talm. p. 1151. 
3E2 


ἡ Lib. i. cap. 10, p. 43. 
§ Orat. 6 in Ver. n. 12 


654 


14 For if I pray in an unknown tongue, 7 my spirit 
prayeth (7. e. my spiritual gift is exercised), but my 
understanding is unfruitful (to others). 

15 What is it then? (ὦ. 6. What then is to be 
done?) I will pray ® with the spirit (7. e. with my spi- 
vilual gifts), and I will pray with the understanding 
also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with 
the understanding also (7. 6. so using my spiritual gift 
in prayer and psalmody in public, as that I may be un- 
derstood by others). 

16 Else when thou shalt bless (. 6. give thanks to 
God) with the spirit (-wal afflatus not understood by 
others), how shall he that ὃ. occupieth the room of the 
unlearned (7. 6. the laic, or the man who only knows 
his mother-tongue) say Amen (or give his assent) at thy 
giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what 
thou sayest ? 

17 For thou verily givest thanks well (with thy 
spiritual gift, ἃ. e. ptously), but the other is not edified 


(by it). 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


18 I thank my God, I speak with tongues more 
than ye all: 
19 Yetin the church (of God) 1 had rather speak 


| five words with my understanding, (so employed) that 


by my voice 1 might teach others also, than ten thou- 
sand words in an unknown tongue. 

20 Brethren, be not (dike) children in understand- 
ing (chvosing what pleases you befure what profils olhers) : 
howbeit in ( freedom from) malice be ye (as) children, 
but in understanding be (and act as) men (as per- 
sons of maturily of judgment to know what is filling to 
be spoken). 

21 In the law it is written, (hy way of a sign to a 
disobedient and unbelieving people, thus:) With men of 
other tongues and other lips will 1 speak unto this 
people ; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith 
the Lord. 

22 Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them 
that believe (and so not to be used in their assemblies), 
but to them that believe not (they being designed for 


Secondly, Observe from Budzus, that the particle οὕτω is 
sometimes elegantly deficient, of which he gives two in- 
stances from Aristotle ; to which add these from the New 'Tes- 
tament, “ As in heaven, καὶ (pro οὔτω καὶ) ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, 50 also 
upon earth,” Matt. vi. 10; Luke xi. 2, καὶ εἰ 6 Σατανᾶς, for 
καὶ οὕτω εἰ, “And so if Satan;” Mark iii. 26, “As my Fa- 
ther sent me, κἀγὼ (for οὕτω κα γὼ), so send I you; and with 
this ellipsis the word runs thus, οὕτω προσευχέσϑω ἵνα καὶ, 
«Let him so pray, as that he also may interpret.” Or ob- 
serve from Noldius and Pasor, that ἵνα signifies adeo ut, “so 
as that:” so the word was hidden from them, ἵνα μὴ aicSwr- 
ται αὐτὸ, “so as that they perceived it not,’ Luke ix. 45; 
“He will do greater works than these, ἵνα ὑμεῖς θαυμάζητε, 
so that you may marvel” at the greatness of them, John v. 
20; “Did I purpose according to God, ἵνα ἢ rap’ ἐμοὶ, 0 as 
that there should be with me yea yea, nay nay ?” 2 Cor. i. 
17; “1 rejoiced that you sorrowed according to the flesh, 
ἵνα, so as that you might be damaged by us in nothing :” so 
Rev. viii. 12, ix. 29, xiii. 13; and then the words may be 
rendered thus: “ Let him pray, ἵνα διερμηνεύῃ, so as he may 
interpret.” 

7 Ver. 14. Τὸ πνεῦμά pov προσεὔχεται, My spirit prayeth.] 
Here Mr. Clere asks, ‘* What mortal would have rendered τὸ 
πνεῦμά pov by my gift?” I answer, Every one who knows 
the apostle is here speaking of spiritual gifts. And secondly, 
he not only warrants, but constrains them to do so, by say- 
ing, ver. 12, Seeing you are ζηλωταὶ πνευμάτων, “zealous of 
spiritual gifts;” and ver. 32, πνεύματα προφητῶν, “The spin- 
tual afflatuses of the prophets are subject to the prophets ;” 
and ver. 2, πνεύνατι, “He by the spirit speaketh mysteries.” 
And, thirdly, the word πνεῦμα never signifies the mnd in all 
this discourse, or the understanding, that being in the very 
next verse νοῦς, the word opposed to πνεῦμα, “spirit.” He 
adds, “ What intolerable language is it to say, My gift 
prays!” I answer, Just such intolerable language as “ ‘The 
Spirit intercedeth,’ Rom. viii. 26; for that is only “The 
gift of the Spirit intercedeth ; and though that may pass for 
a catachresis, yet to say, My gift is exercised in prayer, or, 
as ver. 15, “I pray with my gift,” is to give the true mean- 
ing of Paul’s words. When he adds, that “ nothing is more 
ordinary than for the spirit and the body to be opposed to 
one another :”’ this is, first, impertinent; here being no op- 
position betwixt the spirit and the body, but only betwixt 
the spirit and the mind, i. e. according to Mr. Clerc, betwixt 
my mind and my mind ; and what mortal would have so in- 
terpreted τὸ πνεῦμά pout Secondly, The thing itself is not 
proved by him; see, saith he, Rom. viii. 23; where yet 
there is no such opposition at all, but only an assertion that 


they, “who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, wait for the | 


redemption of the body.” Now what mortal would have 
interpreted these words thus, We that have the first-fruits 
of the mind groan, waiting for the body opposed to it? see 
says he, Gal. vi. 15, where again is no opposition betwixt 
the spirit and the body, but only betwixt the Spirit and the 
flesh; or rather betwixt walking in the Spirit, that is, ac- 
cording to the conduct of the Holy Spirit, and fulfilling the 


lusts of the flesh (see 1 Cor. iii. 1.3, Rom. viii. 4, 5. 13—15). 
He might more pertinently have cited 1 Cor. vii. 34, James 
ii. 26. 

8 Ver. 15. Τῷ Πνεύματι, With the Spirit.) 1 do not think 
that this phrase, “ with the Spirit,” relates here to the gift of 
tongues, but to an afflatus enabling them to pray and sing 
by the impulse of the Holy Ghost: the uttering what this 
afflatus suggested, in an unknown tongue they had before 
received, was the great fault the apostle in this chapter en- 
deavours to correct; the person speaking with an unknown 
tongue, is ὃ λαλῶν γλώσση" the person speaking with an af- 
flatus, whether mysteries (ver. 2), prayer, or psalmody, is 
ὃ λαλῦν Πνεύματι, “ he that speaketh by the Spirit.” 

9 Ver. 16. Ὃ ἀναπληρῶν τὸν τόπον τοῦ ἱδιώτου, Who Jills 
up the place of the idiot.| That is, 6 λαϊκὸς, “ the® laic,” 
say Chrysostom, 'I’heodoret, Gicumenius, and Theophylact. 
Buxtorf* informs us, this is a phrase frequent among the 
Jews: and Maimonides} teacheth, that the word place is 
used to denote the dignity or estimation of any man, it being 
frequent with their rabbins to say, “Such a one fills up the 
place of his fathers” in such a thing, that is, he resembles 
them. So Epictetus,} in his Enchiridion, saith, ἢ φιλοσόφου 
τάζιν ἐπέχειν δεῖ, ἢ ἰδιώτου, “Thou must either hold the place 
of a philosopher, or of one unlearned :” so that “to fill up 
the place of an idiot” or unlearned person, is to be one of 
them, or to be like them in want of understanding of strange 
tongues. Ridiculous, therefore, are those popish commen- 
tators who interpret this of ‘the clerk of the congregation,” 
there being no such office then, either among Jews or Chris- 
tians: but “when the minister of the synagogue said 
prayers, all the people of the synagogue answered Amen 
after him.’§ “Jt was the custom in the Jewish church,” 
saith Buxtorf,| “to say Amen to the blessings or cursings of 
the priests.” ‘To his curses; so the woman, suspected of 
adultery, was to confirm his imprecations by saying, “ Amen, 
Amen” (Numb. v. 22): so all the people answered «« Amen,” 
to the curses pronounced from mount Ebal (Deut. vii. 15. 
26); and to the oath and imprecation imposed upon them 
by Nehemiah (v. 12,13). ‘To his blessings; so when Ezra 
blessed the congregation, “ All the people answered Amen, 
Amen” (Neh, viii. 6). And this practice was from them 
translated to the primitive church. 

10 Ver. 21. Ἐν τῷ νόμῳ γέγραπται, In the law it is written.) 
All interpreters I have met with refer this to the saying of 
the prophet Isaiah, xxviii. 11, telling us, it is there men- 
tioned as a miracle shown to the people, that God would 
send prophets to them “ in a language they understood not ;” 
but I find no mention of any miracle there: wherefore it 
may be noted, that in the law, properly so called, among the 
curses threatened to them “ for a sign and a wonder,” this 
is one, “that the Lord shall bring against them a nation 


* Lex. Talm. p. 2001. 
+ Cap. 37. 

| Lex. alm. p. 114. 
4 Tépara καὶ σημεῖα. LAX, Deut. xxviii. 46. 49. 58 


+ More Nevoch. par. i. cap. 8. 
§ R. Eliez. cap. 44, p. 118. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


the more speedy and effectual propagation of the gospel 
by this gift, among those nations whose languages they 
understood not): but prophesying (by teaching the doc- 
trines of the New, or expounding the mysteries of the Old 
Testament) serveth not for them that believe not (that 
Jaith, or those scriplures), but for them which believe 
(them). 

23 If therefore the whole church be come together 
into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there 
come in those that are unlearned, or "ἢ unbelievers, 
will they not (be tempted, by hearing you thus speaking 
to one another in unknown languages, tv) say that ye are 
mad ? 

24 But if all prophesy (one after another, ver. 31), 
and there come in one that believeth not, or one un- 
learned, he is convinced (or discovered) of all, he is 
judged (or discerned ) of all (that prophesy) - 

25 And thus are the 12 secrets of his heart made 
manifest (ly the prophet’s revelation of them); and so 
falling down on his face he will worship God (the 
searcher of the heart), and report (from his own experi- 
ence) that God is in (or among) you of a truth. 

26 How is it then (or, what ts then to be done), 
brethren ? (since) when ye come together, every one of 
you (that is a sprritual or gifted person) hath a psalm, 
(or) hath a doctrine, (or) hath a tongue, (or) hath a 
whose tongue they understood not ;” and then it is intimated, 
that yet they would not hear: to both these places the apostle 
may here refer. 

In the law it is written, &c.] Jerome, upon Isaiah xxviii. 
11, 12, saith, the apostle cites this, not according to the 
translation of the Septuagint, or of Symmachus, or Thedo- 
tion, but from the Hebrew. But Origen* saith, evpov τὰ 
ἐσοδυναμοῦντα τῇ λέξει ταύτη ἐν τῇ τοὺ ‘Axd Nov Epunveta κείμενα, 
“T found in the translation of Aquila words equivalent to 
those of the apostle here.” 

1 Ver, 23. Ἢ ἄπιστοι. Here Grotius notes that the hea- 
thens and unbelievers then used to come to the asssemblies 
of the Christians; and so we read they did, Acts xiii. 44. 
48, and whilst they assembled in the Jewish synagogue, it 
could not be otherwise. 

2 Ver. 25. Τὰ κρυπτὰ τῆς καρδίας αὑτοῦ φανερὰ γινεται, 
The secrets of his heart are made manifest.) For, as Theo- 
phylact notes, ἡ ἀποκάλυψις εἶδος ἕν προφητείας, “revelation is 
one species of prophecy : and though it is taken in a re- 
strained sense, and so distinguished from prophecy, ver. 6; 
yet, ver. 30, it is supposed that revelation belongeth to a 
prophet; and the doctrine, the revelation, the psalm, ver. 
26, do all seem to belong to the prophets; the speaker with 
tongues, the interpreter of them, and the prophet, heing the 
only persons mentioned in the ensuing words, and in this 
whole chapter; so that what cannot be ascribed to the one 
must belong to the other. 

13 Ver. 28. ‘Eav δὲ μὴ ἢ διερμηνευτὴς, σιγάτω, But if there 
be not an interpreter, let him be silent.] The apostle permits 
him to use his tongue in the presence of one who had the 
gift of interpretation of tongues, because then the church 
was not only edified by the interpretation, but the faith of 
the hearers was confirmed by the exercise of two miracu- 
lous gifts: but the apostle permits him not to be his own in- 
terpreter, though he could do it; because his speaking that 
first in an unknown tongue, which he himself must after- 
ward interpret in a known language, served only for osten- 
tation, not for edification ; nor could it be known whether 
his tongue was supernatural, or acquired only. 

14 Ver. 29. Kai of ἄλλοι διακρινέτωσαν, And let the rest 
discern.] Since it is impossible that the afflatus of the Holy 
Spirit should suggest any falsehood to him that had it, there 
can be no ground to judge him that had it, as Grotius} 
hath well observed upon this place. But, saith Theodoret, 


* Ed. Huet. tom. ii. p. 428. 

+ Multum aberrant qui putant dona prophetica aliis pro- 
phetis esse subjecta: non pugnant inter se Dei dona nec 
sententie exquirende sunt, ubi Deum loqui constat. 


655 


revelation, (or) hath an interpretation (of tongues). 
Let all (these) things be done unto edifying ; (/et them 
be managed so as best conduceth to the end for which they 
were designed, Xii. 7.) 

27 If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be 
(used only) by two, or at the most by three (al one 
meeting), and that by course (ἐς e. successively) ; and let 
one (who hath the gift) interpret (what is spoken). 

28 3 But if there be no interpreter (presenf), let 
him (that only speaks with tongues) keep silence in 
the church; and let him (on/y) speak (mentally) to 
himself, and to God, (in prayer and thanksgiving, ver. 
15, 16. 

29 the prophets speak two or three (successively), 
Μ and let the other (prophets) judge. 

30 (And) If (whilst one prophesies) any thing be re- 
vealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his 
peace (or cease, before the other ulter his revelation). 

31 Vor (sv) ye (that have the gift) may all prophesy 
one by one, that (by your mutual discourses) all may 
learn, and all may be comforted (or exhorted to good 
works). 

32 And (this 7s not difficult for you to do, since) 5 the 
spirits of the prophets are subject to (and therefore may 
be restrained by) the prophets. 

33 (And God, doubtless, in this case would have the 


as the devil raised up false apostles to oppose the true apos- 
tles (1 Tim. ii. 1), so did he also false prophets (2 Pet. ii. 1, 
1 John iv. 1), in opposition to those who truly were inspired ; 
and of these, say the Greek interpreters, the true prophets 
were to judge: or else διακρινέτωσαν, “let them discern” the 
agreement of what they utter with the dictates of the same 
Spirit in the Old ‘Testament, “ comparing spiritual things 
with spiritual” (1 Cor. ii. 13). So in the conference, Acts 
xv., when Peter had given his judgment in that matter, 
James adds, “ With this agree the words of the prophets, as 
it is written,” ver. 15. 

15 Ver, 32. Πνεύματα προφητῶν, The spirits of the pro- 
phets are subject to the prophets.) The common interpreta- 
tion of these words, that the spirits of the true prophets are 
subject to the judgment, examination, and regulation of other 
prophets, seems not agreeable to the apostle’s affirmation, 
that “he that is spiritual is judged of none,” 1 Cor. ii. 13. 
15, nor is there any ground for judging his doctrine who 
speaks by the impulse of the Holy Ghost; nor doth the 
apostle say, the spirits of the prophets ought to be, but ὑπο- 
τάσσεται, actually are subject to the prophets. I prefer 
therefore the. interpretation of CEcumenius* and Theophy- 
lact, that this is spoken in opposition to the heathen pro- 
phets; for the prophets among the Greeks, receiving an af- 
flatus from the evil spirit, could not be silent if they would; 
but it was not so with the holy prophets: “They had it in 
their power to speak, or to be silent; and to this the apostle 
refers, by saying, The spirits of the prophets, that is, their 
spiritual gifts, are subject to the prophets ; that is, it is in their 
power to restrain them,” and consequently they may pro- 
phesy the one after the other. And upon this account the 
church rejected the ecstatic prophets of the Montanists, that 
they had an ungovernable impetus; for, say they, “They 
can show no truly inspired prophet in the Old or New Tes- 
tament who was moved after this manner.”+ Moreover, it 
is the opinion of persons eminently learned and judicious, 
that in Corinth, and some other churches, there were then 
no settled pastors to perform the public offices, but they 
were all performed by prophets and by gifted men, excited 
to that work in the assembly, Christ being thus in the midst 


* Οἱ piv zap’ “EMnot μάντεις, ἐπειδὰν ἅπαξ κατεσχέϑησαν ὑπὸ τοῦ 
δαίμονος, Kav ἐβούλοντο, οὐκ ἠδύναντο σιγᾶν, οἱ δὲ παρ' ἡμῖν ἅγιοι 
προφήται οὐχ οὕτως, ἀλλὰ παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς φησίν, ἐστι τὸ σιγᾷν ἢ λαλεῖν, 
καὶ τοῦτο ἔστιν ὕπερ φησὶν ὅτι τὰ πνεύματα τῶν προφητῶν, τουτέστι, 
τὰ χαρίσματα τῶν προφητῶν, ὑποτάσσεται αὑτοῖς. 

Τ Τοῦτον δὲ τὸν τρόπον οὔτέ τινα τῶν κατὰ τὴν παλαιὰν, οὔτε τῶν 
κατα τὴν καινὴν (διαθήκην), πνευματοφορηϑέντα προφήτην δεῖξαι 
δυνήσονται. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 17. 


656 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


Jirst to be silent ;) for God is not the author of con-| you (to all other churches)? or came it unto you only 
fusion (which yet would follow upon all the prophets | (and not to other churches, that you thus differ in your 


speaking tozether, so that one should confound the other), 
but of peace, as (may be seen by the regular exercise of 
these gif!s) in all churches of the saints. 

34 '7 Let your women keep silence in the churches : 
for it is not permitted unto them to speak (by way of 
teaching or prophesying, but only by joining with the 
church in prayer and psalmody); but they ure com- 
manded to be under obedience, as also saith the law 
(Gen. iii. 16). 

35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask 
their husbands at home: for it is a shame (7. e. @ thing 
indecent) for women 8 to speak in the church. 

36 (And whereas in this matler you think fit to prac- 
tise contrary to ull the churches of the saints, even those in 
Judea, I ask,) What? came the word of God out from 


practic from them) ? 

37 If any man think himself to be a prophet, or 
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I 
(now) write unto you are the commandments of the 
Lord (see note on 11. 15). 

38 But if any man (pretends to) be ignorant (whe- 
ther he be so or not), let him be ignorant (at his peril 
be it, I shall not contend farther with him; or ἀγνοεύτω, 
let him not be acknowledged as a true prophet, or spiritual 
person). 

39 Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and 
forbid not to speak with tongues, (provided these dirce- 
tions be observed: but) 

40 Let all (these) things be done ® decently and in 
order. 


of them (Matt. xviii. 20), according to his promise. And 
this they judge more probable touching the church of Co- 
rinth, because there seems no order to be observed among 
them, and no subjection of their prophets to any ruler of the 
church; no direction of the sentence to them, when the in- 
cestuous person was to be “delivered up to Satan,” or when 
he was to be absolved: but all seems to be done by the im- 
mediate authority of Paul. ‘They also, from this chapter, 
do observe, that whereas all the public offices then performed 
in the church were prayers and psalmody, expounding or 
preaching the word, and thanksgiving, all these are here 
ascribed to men endowed with these spiritual gifts; for that, 
when they came together, some of them prayed, others com- 
posed sacred hymns by their spiritual gifts, we plainly read, 
ver, 15, that their prophets did then teach for edification, 
instruction, and comfort, ver. 3. 31; that they did also 
εὐλογεῖν “bless,” and εὐγαριστεῖν “give thanks,’ we learn 
from ver. 16, 17; but that all or any of these things were 
done by stated pastors, we never read in these epistles: now 
if this were so, the occasional prophets might be subject to 
the standing prophets, mentioned ch. xii., and thus these 
words may be interpreted by them, who like not the expo- 
sition given in the paraphrase. 

16 Wer. 33. 'Axaracracias, Of confusion.) This also con- 
firms the interpretation given of the preceding words; for 


the prophesying of many together would necessarily breed 
confusion ; whereas the neglect of judging of their prophe- 
cies could only be supposed to breed error. 

7 Ver. 84. Αἱ γυναῖκες ὑμῶν, Let your women be silent in 
the church.) In that of Corinth the women not only prophe- 
sied in the church, but they did it with the head uncovered, 
1 Cor. xi. 5, the latter indesency he corrects there and the 
first here (see 1 ‘Tim. ii. 12). 

18 Ver. 35. Ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ λαλεῖν, To speak in the church.] 
So the Hebrew canon saith,* “ A woman must not read in 
the synagogue for the honour due to that assembly :” and 
the heathens declared it indecent for a woman δημηγορεῖν, 
“to speak publicly” (Stob. serm. 72, p. 443, f ff). 

19 Ver. 40. Εὐσγημόνως καὶ κατὰ τάξιν, Decently and in 
order.| This order, saith Theodoret, he had taught in the 
words foregoing, “Let all things be decently:” not like 
children (ver. 20), not so as to give occasion to others to 
say you are mad (ver. 23), not so as to breed confusion 
(ver. 33), not indecently by women speaking in the 
church (ver. 34, 35); “in order,” that is, one after an- 
other; or by course (ver. 27. 31), see Chrysostom, (Ecu- 
menius, and Theophylact, descanting upon these words to 
this effect. 


* Dr. Lightfoot in locum. 


CHAPTER XV. 


1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gos- 
pel which I preached unto you, which also ye have 
received, and wherein ye stand (Gr. have stood ) ; 

2 1 By which also ye are (in the way to be) saved, if 
ye keep in memory what (7. e. retain the gospel as) 1 
preached (7/) unto you, (which you will do) unless ye 
have believed in vain. 

3 (Ldeclare, I say, the gospel which T preached ;) For 
I delivered unto you first of all (or among the principal 
doctrines of faith) that which I also received, how 


that Christ died for our sins according to the scrip- 
tures ; 

4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again 
the third day according to the scriptures : 

5 And that he was seen (after is resurrection) of 
Cephas (Luke xxiv. 34), then ? of the twelve (ver. 36, 
John xx. 19. 26): 

6 (And, that you may not depend upon their testi- 
mony only,) After that, he was seen of above ὃ five 
hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV. 


1 Ver. 2. A’ οὗ καὶ σύζεσϑε, By which also ye are saved.] 
They who by embracing the Christian faith were brought 
into that way which leadeth to salvation, and in which, if 
they persevered, they would assuredly be saved, are styled in 
scripture, of σωζόμενοι, “the saved,” Acts ii. 47, 1 Cor. i. 28, 
and are said σύζεσϑαι, “to be saved,’ Rom. viii. 24, 2 Tim. 
i. 9, 1 Pet. iii. 21 (see note on Eph. ii. 5. 8, and on Tit. iii. 
5), so here it signifies, you are at present in a state of salva- 
tion, and will assuredly enjoy it, if you retain and live suit- 
ably to the faith delivered to you. 

2 Ver. 5. Τοῖς δύδεκα, Of the twelve.] i. e. Of the society 
or the apostles, consisting formerly of twelve persons, and 
therefore so called still (John xx. 24), though in strictness 
ef speech they were but eleven when Thomas was with 


them, and ten in his absence (Matt. xxviii. 16, Luke 
XXiv. 33). 

3 Ver. 6. Πεντακοσίοις ἀδελφοῖς, To five hundred brethren ;} 
Of whom he was seen in Galilee, where he had many disci- 
ples; for before his resurrection he told his disciples that, 
being risen, he would go before them into Galilee (Matt. 
XXvi. 32): after his resurrection the angel sent this message 
to them, “ Behold, he goes before you into Galilee, there you 
shall see him, as he said unto you” (Mark xvi. 7). Nowit 
may reasonably be thought that the eleven, who went them- 
selves into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had ap- 
pointed, even after they had seen him at Jerusalem (Luke 
xxiv. 33. 36), would acquaint the seventy, and others who 
believed in Jesus, where it was he appointed to be seen of 
them; and then, no doubt, their curiosity, as well as their 
affection. to him, would induce them to repair to the place. 


CHAPTER XV. 


remain unto this present (day to testify il), but some 
are fallen asleep. 

7 After that, he was seen of 4 James; then of all 
the apostles (al his ascension). 

8 And last of all he was seen of me also (Acts ix. 
17), 5 as of one born out of due time (or shape). 

9 For I am the least of the apostles, (and one) that 
am not meet to be called an apostle, because I perse- 
euted the church of God. 

10 But by the grace (and favour) of God (notwith- 
standing) 1 am what (now) Iam: and his grace which 
was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but 1 laboured 
more abundantly than they all: yet (7 is) not I, but 
the grace of God which was with me (lo which the 
fruit of all my labour is to be ascribed ). 

11 Therefore whether it were I or they (who preach 
the gospel), So we preach, and so ye (als) believed. 

12 Now if Christ be (sv) preached that (all who do 
so unanimously affirm) he rose from the dead, δ how 


657 


say some among you that there is no resurrection of 
the dead? 

13 But (or for) if (it be so that) there be no resur- 
rection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 

14 And if Christ be not risen, then és our preaching 
(in) vain, and your faith ἐδ also vain. 

15 Yea, and we are (dhen) found false witnesses of 
God; because 7 we have testified of (or by) God that 
he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be 
that the dead rise not (αἱ all). 

16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ 
raised : 

17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith zs vain; 
ye are yet in your sins (not justified nor absolved from 
them, seeing he died for our sins, and rose again Sor our 
justification, Rom. iv. 21). 

18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ 
(and suffered for his name) are perished (so as never to 
rise up out of that sleep, and so are truly miserable). 


Now, that they who had believed in Jesus were very many, 
will be evident, if we consider how often it is said in the gos- 
pel, that “ many believed on his name,” John ii. 23, vii. 31, 
viii. 10, x. 42, and that “great multitudes believed on him,” 
John xii. 42, iv. 1; that “many of the rulers believed on 
him,” that “he baptized more disciples than John,” and 
that the pharisees complained that “ the world was gone after 
him.” If you say we only read of the eleven going to Gali- 
lee, Matt. xxviii. 16, I answer, that others might go with 
them, though no mention be made of them; or that the rest 
might be inhabitants of Galilee, where most of Christ’s disci- 
ples dwelt. If you still object, that “the number of the 
names” of Christ's disciples, after his ascension, are reckoned 
only “one hundred and twenty,” Acts i. 15, it is answered 
by Dr. Lightfoot, that the number of one hundred and twenty 
are not to be accounted the whole number of believers at 
that time, but only the number of those who had followed 
Christ continually, ver. 21; to be sure they were not all the 
disciples in Judea, but only in Jerusalem. 

That this appearance of Christ to them was before his 
ascension, is evident, because this was in Galilee (Luke xxiv. 
50), and, saith tradition, on mount Tabor ; his ascension was 
nigh to Jerusalem from the mount of Olives (Acts 1. 12); 
and Christ and his angel giving them such timely notice of 
his going before them to the place, it is probable it was some 
considerable time before his ascension. 

As for the note of some, that Christ was seen of these 
“five hundred brethren” in the air, beause the Greek word 
is ἐπάνω, * upwards,” it seems very light; for that word joined 
with numbers still signifies plusguam or more than, as doth 
our English word upwards, and the Hebrew $yn: so Mark 
Xiv. 5, ἐπόνω τριακοσίων δηναρίων, is “ more than three hundred 
pieces of silver;” ἀπὸ πέντε καὶ εἰκοσαετοὺς καὶ ἐπάνω, “ from 
five and twenty years and upwards,” Numb. iv. 3. 23. 30. 
35. 39. 43. 47, vill. 25; ἀπὸ εἰκοσαετοῦς καὶ ἐπάνω, “from 
twenty years and upwards,” Numb. i. 3. 20. 22. 24, 26. 28, 
xiv. 29, 1 Chron, xxiii. 24, 2 Chron. xxxi. 17, Ezra iii. 8; 
ἀπὸ μηνιαίου καὶ ἐπάνω, * from a month and upwards,” Numb. 
ili. 15. 22. 28, 34. 39, 48, xxvi. 62. 

4 Ver. 7. ᾿Ιακώβῳ, Of James,) The Just, the brother of 
the Lord, saith the tradition of the church, and the gospel of 
the Nazarenes (see Dr. Hammond, and Jerome in Catal. 
Script. Eccles.). 

5 Ver. 8. ᾿Ωσπερεὶ rei ἐκτρώματι, As of one born out of due 
time.) Ἔκτρωμα, say Hesychius, Phrynicus, and Phavorinus, 


is παιδίον νεκρὸν ἄωρον, “a dead child born out of due time; | 


ἐκβολὴ γυναικὸς, one Whom the woman casts forth.” St. Paul 
therefore having not seen Christ, of whom he was to testify, 
till after his conversion, and our Lord's ascension, as the rest 
of the apostles had (John xv. 27, Acts i. 21, 22), speaks of 
himself as a witness “ born out of due time.” 

6 Ver. 12. Πῶς λέγουσί τινες ἐν ὑμῖν, How say some among 
you 2] That there were some in the apostle’s time who 
taught that the resurrection was past already, we learn from 
2'Tim. ii. 18, but that they were Jews, who of sadducees had 
embraced the Christian religion, as Mr. Le Clere asserts,* I 


7 Suppl. to Dr. Hammond, p. 363. 
Vor. IV.—83 


find no reason to believe: much less, that the false apostle 
or apostles, so styled by St. Paul, not in his First but Second 
Epistle to the Corinthians, should be of the Jewish saddu- 
cees; for they being the great opposers of Christ’s resurrec- 
tion (Acts iv. 1, 2), and the great adversaries of St. Paul, 
upon this very account, that he testified that Christ was risen 
from the dead (Acts xxiii. 6. 8), and this doctrine being of 
so great importance, that the denying of it rendered both the 
preaching of the apostles and the faith of their hearers vain 
(ver. 14 of this chapter): sure the apostle could not say of 
such men, “ Are they the ministers of Christ? I am more as 
so 2 Cor. xi. 23; or that they transformed themselves “ into 
the apostles of Christ” (ver. 13). 

The Gnostics* taught not that the resurrection was past 
already, but only that the flesh was not fit to rise, and that 
it was incapable of salvation and incorruption, and therefore 
they are generally said by the ancients to deny the resurrec- 
tion, but none of them insinuate that it was past already. 
The Marcionitest are by Clemens Alexandrinus said to have 
held this doctrine, and to have renounced matrimony, because 
in the resurrection (saith Christ) they do not marry. But 
Marcion began his heresy in the second century, and there- 
fore could not infect the church of Corinth with it in Paul’s 
time. Menander indeed taught, that they who received his 
baptism were made partakers of the resurrection by it, and 
that they should not die; and he, according to many of the 
ancients, was contemporary with Paul (see note on 2 Tim. 
ii. 18): but haply Paul refers here to none of these, but only 
to the philosophers among them, as Chrysostom thinks; for 
Corinth being an eminent city of Achaia, where the philoso- 
phers and wise men of the world abounded, who looked upon 
the resurrection of the flesh as a thing both impossible and 


| absurd (see here note on ver. 35), and placed their future 


happiness in their exemption from the clog and prison of the 
body, they might put a new construction on the doctrine of 
the resurrection, saying it only did import a renovation of 
our manners, or a resurrection from the death of sin unto a 
life of righteousness, and so it was performed already in that 
baptism in which we are raised with Christ from the dead 
(Col. ii. 12). 

7 Ver. 15. ᾿Εμαρτυρήσαμεν κατὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, We have testified 
of God.) It being very rare that κατὰ with a genitive case 
signifies de, i. e. of, these words may be rendered per Deum, 
by God; as “Because he could swear κατ᾽ οὐδενος μείζονος, 
by none greater, he hath sworn καθ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ by himself,” Heb. 
vi. 13, and ver. 16, “Men swear xara τοῦ μείζονος, by a 
greater:” so Matt. xxvi. 63, “I adjure thee κατὰ Θεοῦ, by 
God :” so in the Old Testament, “'The Lord hath sworn καθ᾽ 
ἑαυτοῦ, by himself,” or, “I have sworn κατ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ, by my- 
self,” Isa. xlv. 23, Jer. xlix. 13, Amos vi. 6: so 1 Kings 1, 
23, Solomon swears κατὰ τοῦ Κυρίου, “by the Lord ;” and iil. 
43, “The oath of the Lord.” κατὰ σοῦ, made by the Septua- 
gint “ Them that swore κατὰ τοῦ Κυρίου, by the Lord, κατὰ by 
Malcham” (see Isa. Ixii. 8, Amos iv. 2, vill. 7. 14). And then 


* See note on 2 Tim. ii. 18. 
ἡ Τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἀπειλήφασιν, ὡς αὐτοὶ λέγουσι, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο 
ἁἀϑενοῦσι τὸν γάμον. Strom. p. 3, 446, B. 


658 


19 (For) if in this life only we have hope in Christ, 
we (Christian sufferers) are of all men most miserable. 

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and be- 
come the firstfruits of them that slept, (who therefore 
shall follow after him thus risen, as the whole harvest fol- 
lows the first-fruils, ver. 23.) 

21 For since by man came death, by man came also 
the resurrection of the dead (the wisdom of God so or- 
dering it, that the same nature which had lost life and im- 
mortality should regain il). 

22 For as in (the man) Adam (and for his sin in eat- 
ing the forbidden fruit) all (men proceeding naturally 
from him) die, even so 8 in (and by the man) Christ 
shall all (partakers of his nature and Spiril) be made 
alive. 

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the first- 
fruits ; afterward they that are Christ’s 10 at his coming 
(ὦ judgment). 

24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have deli- 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


vered up (Gr. deliver up) the (mediatory) kingdom to 
God, even the Father; when he shall have put down 
all (other) rule and all authority and power (both of men 
and devils which opposed his church. 

25 Which kingdom till then he cannot deliver up ;)For 
he must reign (according to the promise, Ps. ex. 1), till 
he (who made this promise) hath put all enemies under 
his feet. 

26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed (by him) 
zs death. 

27 For he (namely the Father) hath (saith the psalm- 
ist) put all things under his feet. But when he saith 
all things are put under im, ἐξ is manifest that he is 


| excepted (from this subjection), which did put all things 


under him (see note on Heb. ii. 8). 

28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, 
then shall the Son also himself (Jay down his kingly 
office in governing his church, and as a man) be subject 
unto him that put all things under him, " that God (he 


the sense runs thus: We have pretended to be μάρτυρες 
αὐτοῦ, God's witnesses in this matter (Acts v. 32), and by the 
power of miracles, and of the Holy Ghost, derived from him, 
to bear witness to the resurrection of Christ; and so must 
be false witnesses of God, if he hath not raised him from the 
dead (see here Examen Millii). 

8 Ver. 19. Ei ἐν τῇ ζωῇ rairy, If in this life only we have 
hope.] ‘The apostle seems not here to say that if there 
should be no resurrection of the body the Christian could 
have only hope in this life; for if the soul be immortal, and 
may be happy after its separation from the body, this seems 
not to follow: but he argues thus, If Christ is not risen for 
our justification, we are yet under the guilt of sin (ver. 17), 
and if so, both soul and body must perish after death (ver. 
18), and then the hope of Christians must terminate with 
this life, which being more especially to them a life of misery, 
by reason of the sufferings to which their faith doth here ex- 
pose them, they would of all men be most miserable. 

9 Ver. 22. Ἔν τῷ Xpord, In Christ.] The opinion of the 
Jews was this, that the Messias was “ the second Adam who 
should raise the dead :” his name, say they,* is called J.nnon, 
Ps. Ixxii. 17, for “he shall raise them that sleep in the dust.” 
And the last man, or Adam, is the Messiah,t who * shall be 
above Moses, and above the ministering angels: he shall take 
away the old sin from whence death came, and in his days 
shall be the resurrection of the dead: and this God intended 
in the creation of Adam, that he should be immortal, but 
sin brought death upon him, therefore the divine intention, 


King Messiah.” ‘Thus is the doctrine of the church delivered 
by Ireneus,+ that Christ took our nature upon him, and suf- 
fered death in it; that “as, by man vanquished, death fell 
upon all mankind, so, by man conquering, we may ascend to 
life ; that, whereas we were all dead in the animal Adam, we 
may be quickened in the spiritual.” 

10 Ver. 23. Ἔν τῆ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, At his coming.) This 
chapter contains many arguments against the doctrine of the 
resurrection of some saints before the rest, to reign with 
Christ on earth a thousand years: for (1.) from the words, 
“ every man in his own order,” it might have reasonably been 


expected, that some mention should have been made, as of | 


« Christ the first-fruits,’ so of the first and second resurrec- 
tion; but yet we see that when the apostle is professedly 
speaking of the order in which we shall arise, he has nothing 
to say of this first resurrection, which, it seems, is to happen 
a thousand years before the general resurrection; and nothing 
of a first or second advent of our Lord; one to reign on 
earth a thousand years, a second to judge all the world; and 
yet this double advent is as necessary as is Christ’s reign on 
earth, 


* Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 961. 

+ Neve Shallom, lib. ix. cap. 5. 8. 

+ Ut quemadmodtim in animali omnes mortui sumus, sic 
in spirituali omnes vivificemur, Lib. v. cap. 1. Ut quemad- 
modam per hominem victum descendit in mortem genus 
humanum, sic etiam per hominem victorem ascendamus in 
vitam. Cap, 11. 


Moreover, the end and the delivery up of this kingdom 
are here made contemporary with his advent; and the re- 
surrection of all that are Christ’s is to be at this very advent: 
but how can he deliver up his kingdom, and yet reign on 
earth a thousand years? In a word, if all that are his must 
be raised at his coming to the final judgment, then none 
before that coming, and then they must be all raised toge- 
ther, not some a thousand years before the rest. 

1 Ver, 28. Ἵνα ἢ ὃ Θεὺς πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν, That God may be 
all in all.) He saith not that the Father, mentioned ver. 24, 
but that “God may be all in all,” and so he seems to lead 
us to that interpretation of the Godhead which comprehends 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and then the import of the 
phrase, «That God may be all in all,” will be this: That the 
Godhead may govern all things immediately by himself, 
without the intervention of a Mediator between him and us, 
to exact our obedience in his name, and convey to us his 


| favours and rewards, we being then to tender all our duty 


immediately to him, and derive all our happiness immediately 
from him. So that as now Christ, Theanthropos, God-man, 
is all in all (Col. iii. 11), because the Father hath put all 
things into his hands, does all things, and governs all things, 
by him; when this economy ceases, the Godhead alone will 
be all in all, as governing and influencing all things by him- 
self immediately. 

Moreover, the Jews say, that “the kingdom of the Messiah 


| shall return to its first Author,’* and so saith the apostle 
| here; for, though it shall have no such end as the preceding 


which was not fulfilled in the first Adam, was fulfilled in the | monarchies had (Luke i. 32, 33), by giving place to a suc- 


ceeding kingdom; for till the world last, οὐ παρελεύσεται, “it 
shall not pass away, or be dissolved by any other kingdom” 
(Dan. vii. 14), but shall be an eternal kingdom, in the sense 
in which he is a “priest for ever,” and hath τὴν ἱερωσύνην 
ἀπαράβατον, “a priesthood that doth not pass away” (Heb. 
vii. 17. 24, 25), and so he is able to intercede for ever for 
us; yet, as that priesthood must needs cease when the sub- 
ject of it ceaseth, and he hath none to intercede for, so must 
his kingly office cease when all his friends have that eternal 
life conferred upon them for which this power was committed 
to him (John xvii. 2), and all his enemies are become his 
footstool (Ps. ex. 1), when there is no more a house of Jacob 
to reign over, or a throne of David to sit on (Luke i. 32, 33, 
Rev. xi. 15); and the whole office of a Mediator must then 
cease, when God and man are made completely and indisso- 
lubly one. 

For farther explication of this matter, let it be observed : 

First, ‘That this mediatory kingdom was given to our Lord 
by the Father; for ‘he hath put all things in subjection to 
him” (ver. 27), and that after his resurrection ; for it was 
given as the reward of his sufferings, and so could not be 
given till they were accomplished: “he humbled himself, 
and became obedient to the death, even to the death of the 
cross; wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given 
him a name, which is above every name, that at the name 
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and on 
earth, and under the earth; and that every tongue should 


* Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 12, p. 26. 


CHAPTER XV. 


Father, Son, and Holy Ghosl,) may be (immediately) 
all in all, (4y a full communication of himself to,and an 
tnlimale union with, all his saints. 

29 Tsay, in opposition to them among you who say 
there is no resurrection from the dead, that Christ is risen, 
and become the first-fruils of them that plept a) else what 
shall (wi/!) they do ® which are baptized for the dead 


confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father” (Phil. ii. 8. 10, 11). Accordingly, after his resur- 
rection, he speaks to his disciples thus, “ All power is given 
to me in heaven and in earth,” Matt. xxviii. 18. But why 
this reward should not cease when the work is done; why, 
v. g. his dominion over death should not cease when death 
is destroyed; his power of giving eternal life, or judging, 
when all are jadged, and none are left to be crowned; I con- 
fess I do not understand. 

2. Seeing the human nature only suffered, and seeing the 
divine nature is capable of no such exaltation, or new do- 
minion, it is certain that this kingdom could be given to 
Christ only according to his human nature; for though the 
Godhead could alone enable him to execute his kingly office ; 
yet was he thus exalted, this power and judgment was con- 
ferred upon him “ because he was the Son of man” (John v. 
27). He intercedeth still in heaven by virtue of his blood ; 
all favours are granted to the church through him, and God 
will judge the world by the man Christ Jesus. 

3. During this reign of Christ, God the Father immedi- 
ately “ judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to 
the Son, that all men might honour the Son (by owning his 
authority) even as they honoured the Father” (John v. 22, 
23), by owning his authority over them. He made him 
Lord of all things, to punish and reward according to his wis- 
dom, will, and pleasure: and so his human nature, or Christ 
as man, though subject to the Father, as his viceroy, acting 
by the authority of him who « put all things into his hands,” 
and “set him over the works of his hands’’ (Heb. ii. 7, 8), 
and doing all “to the glory of God the Father,” yet seems 
not now to be in the same order of subjection to the Father 
as are other creatures, i. e. so as to act by his immediate 
command in all particular transactions, as the holy angels 
do, “ obeying his commands, and hearkening to the voice of 
his word” (Ps. ciii. 20). They are all “ ministering spirits” 
(Heb. i. 13, 14), but he is “sat down at the right hand of 
God” in full possession of his mediatory kingdom. Whilst 
he continued on earth, and acted as a prophet sent from God, 
he always owned that he could “ do nothing of himself, but 
as the Father gave him commandment, so he did, and so he 
spake” (John v. 30, viii. 38, xii. 49): but, being once ex- 
alled to be “ Lord of all things,” he acteth as a Lord in all 


things which relate to his kingly office over his church, giving | 
ver. 12, 13, “If there be no ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν, resurrection of 
| (one single person from) the dead, then is not Christ risen :” 
| yea, the resurrection νεκρῶν, “ of the dead” in general is thrice 
| mentioned by this apostle, when speaking of the resurrec- 


laws to all, as being Lord of all, and rewarding and punish- 
ing according to his will. 5 

4. The exercise of his authority he shall then lay down, 
when all things are subdued to him, no other kingdom or 
dominion being to be exercised in the celestial state, but what 
is essential to the whole Godhead: and though he shall ever 
so far reign, as to be still « at the right hand of God,” highly 
exalted in honour, dignity, and beatitude; and to have still 
religious respect and veneration from all saints who then are 
to reign with him (2 Tim. ii. 12), and be owned by them as 
their king; and though the eflects of his kingly power shall 
continue for ever, his enemies being destroyed, and his saints 
reigning in bliss for ever; yet the exercise of that kingly 
power shall then cease, and he as man shall be then subject 
to the Father, as other saints and angels will be; that so as 
Christ before was “all in all” (Col. iii. 13), with reference to 
his church, and from “his fullness did they all receive,” so 
now the Godhead may be all in all, and fill all things imme- 
diately by himself. This is only my conjecture of the sense 
of this obscure place, from which, upon better information, I 
shall willingly recede. 

Ver. 28. Tire καὶ αὐτὸς 6 υἱός. The word υἱὸς crept in, 
saith Dr. Mills, from the margin: see this confuted by full 
authority, Examen Milli. : 

2 Ver. 29. Οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, Who are bap- 
tized for the dead.) i.e. For that Jesus, who, according to 
their doctrine, must be still dead. To strengthen this expo- 
sition, let it be noted, 


659 


(as they must be, if he in whose name they are baplized be 
still dead), if the dead rise not at all (and s0 Christ 
himself is not risen)? why are they then (who hold this 
doctrine) baptized for the dead? 

30 And why stand we in jeopardy every hour (for 
a dead Jesus) ? 
31 I protest by your rejoicing (7. e. by that rejoicing) 


First, That it is absolutely certain that all who received 
Christian baptism were baptized in the name of Jesus; but 
it is very uncertain whether any in the apostle’s time were 
baptized for them who died without baptism, or to fill up 
the place of those Christians who died after baptism: there 
is no intimation of any such thing in scripture, or in primi- 
tive antiquity. 

Secondly, That the apostle doth not say, What do they 
that baptize for the dead? but τί ποιήσο ow of βαπτιζόμενοι, 
« What will they do who are baptized” already, if the dead 
rise not again? τί καὶ βαπτίζονται, * Why are they also bap- 
tized for the dead?’’ We who believe otherwise of him, 
and preach ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ, by this raised Jesus, the resurrection 
from the dead (Acts iv. 2), may well be baptized in the name 
of Christ; but why are they so, who believe him dead ? what 
will they do? what motive can they have to stand to their 
baptismal covenant, and own a dead man as their Lord and 
Saviour? what inducement can they have to continue faith- 
ful to him to the end, but this, that, “if they suffer, they 
shall also reign together with him?” what will they do for 
comfort against the fear of death, if, when they fall asleep, 
they perish, and shall not rise again? must they not be as 
well the worst of fools as the most miserable of men, to suf- 
fer thus for a dead man, who could not help himself, and 
therefore is not likely to give them any help in life, or hope in 
death ? 

Thirdly, That ὑπὲρ often signifies in gratiam, on the ac- 
count, or for the sake: so Rom. i. 5, * We have received 
grace and apostleship, &c., ὑπὲρ rod ὀνύματος αὐτοῦ, for his 
name’s sake;” Eph. iii. 13, «I desire that you faint not at 
my tribulations, ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, which I suffer for your sake ;” 
Phil. i. 29, «To you it is given ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, for the sake of 
Christ, not only to suffer; Col. ili. 24, ὑτὲρ τοῦ σήματος 
αὐτοῦ, “ For the sake of his body ;” 2 Thess. i. 5, « That you 
may be accounted worthy of the kingdom of God, ὑπὲρ ἧς 
πάσχετε, for the sake of which ye also suffer.” See more 
examples, both sacred and profane, in Schmidius on the 
place, and Dr. Edwards in his preface to the Authority, &c. 
of the Holy Scripture. 

Fourthly, Observe that of νεκροὶ is used in scripture, when 
speaking of one single person. ‘Thus, when Christ had 
raised the widow’s son, he bids John’s disciples tell him that 
νεκροὶ, “the dead are raised,” Luke vii. 15. 22, and so here, 


tion of Christ alone: thus, when he saith, “ God will judge 
the world by Christ, of which he hath given us a demonstra- 
tion, having raised him ἐκ νεκρῶν, from the dead,” Acts xvii. 
30, 31, it follows, that “when they heard him asserting the 
resurrection of the dead, ἀνάστασιν νεκρῶν, they mocked ;” 
whereas he had only asserted the resurrection of Christ from 
the dead. Thus Paul saith twice, περὶ καὶ ἐλπίδος ἀναστάσεως 
νεκρῶν, “For the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am 
called in question,” Acts xxiii. 6, xxiv. 21; and yet he was 
not called in question about the resurrection of the dead in 
general, for that the pharisees believed as well as he, but only 
“concerning one Jesus who was dead, whom Paul affirmed 
to be alive” (Acts xxv. 19), or risen from the dead. And 
so the apostle saith, Christ was declared to be the Son of 
God with power, ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, “by his rising from 
the dead,” Rom. i. 4, and here, “If Christ be risen, how say 
some among you, that ἀνάστασις νεκρῶν οὐκ ἔστιν, there 
is no resurrection of the dead?’ And this import of the 
phrase seems to be confirmed by the word ὁλῶς, viz. If it be 
wholly and entirely true of all that are dead, that they rise 
not, and so Christ is not risen, what avails it any that they 
are baptized for the dead ? 

"Exel τί ποιήσουσιν of βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ νεκρῶν, Were tt not 
so, what will they do who are baptized for the dead 3] Here 


660 


which I have (common with you under all our suf- 
Serings, Rom. v. 3) in Christ Jesus our Lord, I (run 
the hazard to) die daily (or, by that rejoicing I have in 
you, as my children and the fruits of my labours in Christ, 
1 Cor. ix. 16, 2 Cor. i. 14, vii. 4, 1x. 2, Phil. ii. 16, 
1 Thess. ii. 19). 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


32 If after the manner of men I have fought 
with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if 
the dead rise not? (7 will be then more reasonable to 
say,) let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die (Isa. 
xxil. 13). 

33 (But) Be not deceived (with such discourses, rather 


Mr. Dodwell refers to the custom mentioned by Epiphanius, 
that some heretics, when any who professed Christianity died 
without baptism, baptized others in their stead ; whereas the 
words are only capable of these two interpretations, either 
that of the ancients,* “ Why are they baptized for the re- 
surrection of the dead?’ that is, in expectation and belief 
of that fundamental article of the Christian faith? Or, why 
are they baptized for, or on the account of, that Jesus who is 
dead ; and, say they, is not risen from the dead? which is 
the sense I have given of these words. ‘l’o make this evi- 
dent, and show the vanity of the interpretation which Mr. 
Dodwell hath embraced, let it be noted, 

First, That the conjunctive particle, ἐπεὶ, as Phavorinus 
and Budeus have observed, signifies εἰ δὲ μὴ, alioquin, quod 
si non; “if it be otherwise,” or, “ were it not so:” thus it 
is used by the apostle ten several times, Rom. iit. 6, ἐπεὶ, “Tf 
it be not so, that God is righteous, how shall he judge the 
world ?” xi. 6, ἐπεὶ, “If it were otherwise, grace would not 
be grace ; ἐπεὶ, and were it otherwise, works would not be 
works ;” and ver. 22, ἐπεὶ, “Otherwise thou shalt be cut 
off;” 1 Cor. xii. 14, ἐπεὶ, « Were it not so, your children 
would be unclean;” xiv. 16, ἐπεὶ ἐὰν, “ Otherwise, when 
thou blessest in the Spirit, how shall the unlearned say, 
Amen?” Heb. ix. 17, ἐπεὶ, “Otherwise his will is of no 
force ;” and ver. 26, ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἂν ἐπαύσαντο, “ Otherwise they 
would not have ceased to be offered” (which by the way is a 
probable inducement to believe that the Epistle to the He- 
brews was written by Paul; this conjunction being not once 
used in this sense by the evangelists, or in the other epistles) : 
now hence it clearly follows, that this conjunction must 
contain an inference from what was said before, viz. that 
«Christ was risen as the first-fruits of them that slept,” 
and were to be raised by him from that sleep, and was to 
reign till he had vanquished their last enemy death; for 
(saith the apostle) if this were not so, that is, if Christ were 
not risen, or, being risen, were not to reign till he had over- 
come death, and so had raised us also from it; why are 
men baptized ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, for a dead Jesus, or in hopes 
of a resurrection by him from the dead? So that one of 
these two senses of this dark passage must obtain. 

Secondly, Observe, that the apostle’s question runs not 
thus, Why do they baptize others for the dead ? or, Why are 
others baptized in their stead? but, τί ποιήσουσιν, “ What 
will they do who are baptized?” Which question relating 
to the deportment of those who undergo this baptism, and 
not at all to them for whose sakes they do it, excludes any 
relation of these words to that pretended practice ; for, if it 
was done by any, it was not with relation to their own de- 
portment, who were living, but with relation to the dead. 
Moreover, the three questions, “ Why are they baptized for 
the dead?” or, “ Why stand we in jeopardy every hour?” 
or, “ What advantageth it me, if I have fought with beasts 
at Ephesus?” seem plainly to relate to the same matter, and 
therefore must all relate to the deportment of the living un- 
der the evils and persecutions which Christians suffered in 
this present life, and be to this effect: Why are they who 
say, Christ is not risen, and therefore can expect no resurrec- 
tion from him, baptized in his name, or in expectation of 
this benefit from him? What will they do in times of per- 
secution? What inducement can they have to stand to 
their baptismal covenant, and own a dead man as their Lord 
and Saviour? 

Add to this, that though Tertullian,y by saying, Si autem 
et baptizantur quidam pro mortuis, supposes such a thing 
might be done by some, yet he neither mentions time nor 
persons. Epiphanius,} in the fourth century, saith they 


* Cnrysost. Theodoret, Photius, Gicumenius in locum. 
Isidor. Pelus. lib. i. ep. 221. Epiph. Her. xxviii. §. 6. 

ἡ De Resurr. Car. cap. 48, et contra Marcion. b. 5, p. 473. 

+ Her. 28, 8. 6, p. 114. 


had a tradition concerning some heretics in Asia and Ga- 
latia, ὡς τινῶν μὲν παρ' αὐτοῖς πρυφθανόντων τελευτῆσαι dved 
βαπτίσματος, ἄλλους δὲ ἀντ᾽ αὐτῶν eis ὄνυμα ἐκείνων βαπτίζεσϑαι, 
“that some among them being prevented by death from re- 
ceiving baptism, others of them were baptized in their names ; 
καὶ τούτου ἕνεκα ἡ παράδοσις ἡ ἐλθοῦσα παρ᾽ ἡμᾶς φησὶ τὸν αὐτὸν 
ἅγιον ἀπόστολον εἰρηκέναι εἰ ὅλως, &c., and that he had received 
it by tradition, that upon this account the apostle said, If 
the dead rise not at all, why are they then baptized for the 
dead?” But as he is the only person who speaks of this 
tradition, so he is guilty of a manifest contradiction in his 
relation of it: for having told us that the heretics, who prac- 
tised thus, owned indeed the resurrection of our Lord; 
which saith he, the Corinthians denied, and therefore were 
not of this sect; but yet said, νεκροὺς δὲ οὐκ ἐγείρεσϑαι, that 
the dead were not to be raised, and so denied the resurrec- 
tion of the dead ; yet he adds, that they used this practice, 
ὑπὲρ rod μὴ ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει ἐναστάντας αὐτοὺς δίκην δοῦναι τιμω- 
ρίας βάπτισμα μὴ εἰληφότας, “that they who died without 
baptism might not, at the resurrection, be punished for want 
of baptism.” Chrysostom and Theophylact say that the 
Marcionites, when any of their sect died without baptism, 
put alive man under the bed in which the dead man lay, 
and then asked the dead, whether he would be baptized; 
and the man under the bed answering, Yes, they baptized 
the dead man; εἶτα ἐγκαλούμενοι, and, being accused of this 
ridiculous practice, they pleaded that the apostle spake of 
some who were baptized for the dead, τὸ dé οὐκ οὕτως ἔχει, 
«whereas he said no such matter, but only said, If the dead 
rise not, why are they baptized for the resurrection of the 
dead?” ‘They therefore knew of no such practice in the 
apostle’s time, or of any tradition relating to it: and certain it 
is, the apostle could not relate unto this practice of the Mar- 
cionites, seeing Marcion began his heresy in the second cen- 
tury, and so long after the writing of this epistle. In a word, if 
they who are supposed to practise thus, believed the resur- 
rection, they could not be concerned in the apostle’s argument 
against them who did not believe; if they did not believe 
the resurrection of the body, when once dead, it cannot be 
imagined, why they should be concerned to baptize a dead 
body, or any other body for it. See the text defended 
against the surmises of Dr. Mills, Examen Millii, ibid. 

13 Ver. 32. Kar’ ἄνθρωπον, After the manner of men.] i.e. 
After the usual manner of heathens. ‘That St. Paul thus 
fought with beasts indeed, and they would not touch him, 
they, saith Nicephorus,* who writ the life of this apostle do 
affirm. Theodoret seems plainly to hint the same thing in 
these words, “In human opinion I was made the food of 
beasts, but I was wonderfully preserved from them:”} and 
this sense will appear more probable, 

1. From the phrase κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον, which signifies, as men 
used to do, but never according to men’s purposes, or, to 
speak after the manner of men’(see the note on 1 Cor. ix. 8). 

2. From the place here particularly mentioned, Ephesus, 
which cannot refer to the tumult there caused by Demetrius, 
for the apostle suffered nothing in it. Had he intended a 
combat with metaphorical beasts, or savage men, that at 
Lystra, where he was stoned and left for dead (Acts xiv. 19), 
had been more properly mentioned ; see the note on 2 Cor. 
i.8—10, where he speaks of such troubles that befell him in 
Asia, as made him to “ despair even of life;” though as we 
read nothing in the Acts of this fight with beasts, so we read 
nothing of that trouble. It is therefore no objection against 
this interpretation, that this fight with beasts 15 not recorded 
by Luke, or that Paul speaks not expressly of it in the cata- 
logue of his afflictions, 2 Cor. xi.: it is suffiicient that there 
he tells us, he was “in deaths often” (ver. 23). 


* Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 25. 
ἡ Kara ἀνθρώπινον λογισμὸν ϑηρίων ἐγενόμην βορὰ, ἀλλὰ παρα-. 
δόξως ἐσώθην. In locum. 


CHAPTER XV. 


avoid them: for) evil communications corrupt good 
manners. 

34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; (which 
advertisement is very needful,) for some have not the 
knowledge of (that righteousness of) God (which 
doth oblige him to render to men according to their 
works, 2 Thess. i. 6,7, Heb. vi. 10): I speak this to 
your shame. 

35 But some man will (yet) say, How are the dead 
raised up (again)? “ and with what (Aind of) body do 
they come ? 

36 Thou fool, (who makest an inquiry about a matter 
of which thou hast an instance in the very seed thou sow- 
es!, for) that which thou sowest is not quickened, ex- 
cept (first) it die (and lie buried in the earth) : 

37 And (again) that which thou sowest, (when) thou 


sowest φ ts) not that body that shall be (again pro- 
duced), but ® bare (or naked) grain, it may chance of 


wheat, or of some other grain: 

38 But God giveth it a body (clothed) as it hath 
pleased him, and (yet) to every seed (he givelh with 
the clothing) his own (kind of ) body. 

39 (And as) All flesh zs not the same (/ind of ) flesh: 
but there is one kind of flesh of men, another (‘ind of ) 
flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. 

40 (And as there is a like difference in the qualities of 


If this sense be not liked, you may interpret κατ᾽ ἄνθρω- 
nov, according to the intention of men, it being the intention 
of the men of Asia in that tumult, to deal so with Paul's 
companions, and much more with him, had not-his friends 
dissuaded him from entering into the theatre (see the note on 
Acts xix. 29); and note also, that cruel and bloody-minded 
men are often represented under this metaphor of beasts: 
so Ignatius,* when he was carried from Syria to Rome, under 
a band of soldiers (who, saith he, are the worse for the kind- 
ness I show to them), he saith, ἀπὸ Συρίας μέχρι “Ῥώμης 
ϑηριομαχῶ, “From Syria to Rome I fight with beasts.” And 
Heraclitusf the Ephesian saith, Ephesiorum cives conversos 
esse in bestias, “ ‘he Ephesians were turned into beasts, be- 
cause they slew one another.” 

Ver. 35. Ποίῳ σώματι, With what kind of body 31 This was 
the question of the philosophers,+ whose chief objection against 
the resurrection of the flesh, and of the body, was this; ‘I'hat the 
body was§ “ the prison and the sepulchre of the soul,” and that 
it was her punishment to be tied to it ; that the body was “ the 
great hinderance to the knowledge of the truth ;” and that 
we could not be truly happy till by death we were delivered 
from it: it was thereby judged by them, not only an impos- 
sible thing, but even an unjust, unworthy thing, for God to 
raise these bodies to be united to those souls, whose happi- 
ness consisted in being delivered from the body, and whose 
punishment it was to be confined to it; that being according 
to their philosophy, not to make them alive but “die 


* Epist. ad Rom. sect. 5. 
+ Epist. 1, ad Hermodorum. 
+ Utrim sine corpore an cum corporibus, et corporibus 
quibus, ipsisne, an innovatis resurgatur? Cecil. apud Minut. 
je 11. 
3 § Καὶ ἡμεῖς τῷ ὄντι τεϑνᾶμεν, καὶ τὸ μὲν σῶμά ἔστιν ἡμὼν 
σῆμα. Jamb. Protrept. Adh. cap. 17. 
Καὶ γὰρ σῆμά τινὲς φασιν αὐτὸ εἶναι τὸ ψυγῆς, ὡς τεϑαμμένης 
ἐν τῷ viv παρόντι. Plato in Cratylo, p. 275, E. 
Corpus hoc animi pondus et peena est, permanente illo 
urgetur, in vinculis est. Sen. ep. 65. 
ἔΑλλοις ESos- ὥσπερ ἐκ δεσμῶν τοῦ σώματος ἀπαλλάττεσϑαι. 
Jambl. de Vita Pythag. p. 220. 
Ἕως ἂν τὸ σύμα ἔχωμεν, καὶ ξυμπεφυρμένη ἢ ἡμῶν ἡ ψυχὴ 


μετὰ τοῦ τοιούτου κακοῦ, οὐ μὴ τότε κτησώμεϑα ἱκανῶς οὗ 
ἐπιϑομοῦμεν. Jambl. Protrept. cap. 13, p. 73. Plat. ΡΗΘά. 
p- 49, 50. 


Τ Utsemel defuncti denuo existerent εἰ δίκαιον ἦν, ἦν ἂν καὶ 
δυνατόν. M. Anton. lib. xii. §. 5. 

Τοὺς πάλαι ποτὲ ἀποθανόντας αὐταῖς σαρξὶν ἐκείναις ἀπὸ τῆς 
γῆς ἀποδῦναι------σκωλήκων ἡ ἐλπὶς, σφδόρα μιαρὸν, καὶ ἀπόπτυσ- 


661 


bodies ; for) There are also celestial bodies, and bodies 
terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial ἐς one, and 
the glory of the terrestrial ἐς another. 

41 (And as in the celestial bodies) Thereis one glory 
of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another 
glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another 
star in glory. 

42 So also is (it as to) the resurrection of the dead, 
(the body raised being in quality much different from the 
earthly body we at present have; for) it is sown in cor- 
ruption (frail, morlal, subject to death and putrefaclion) ; 
it is raised in incorruption (not subject any more to death 
or dissulution) : 

43 It is sown in dishonour (wilh some dishonourable 
parts, 1 Cor. xii. 23, a vile body, Phil. iii. 21, subject to 
filth and deformity); it is raised in glory (in clarity 
and splendour, shining like the sun, Matt. xiil. 43, and 
like Christ’s glorious body, Phil. iii. 21, free from all 
defect or deformity of its members, or from any dishonour- 
able parts, 1 Cor. vi. 13): it is sown in weakness 
(subject to weakness by labour, to decays by age, to impo- 
tency and wasting by diseases); it is raised in power 
(nimble, strong, aclive, and that without renilency, or mo- 
lestalion, grief, pain, or lassilude) : 

44 It is sown a natural (Gr. ® an animal) body 
(having multiplicity of organs, muscles, tendons, arlertes, 


again.” And therefore Celsus saith, “The hope of the re- 
surrection of the flesh is the hope of worms, a filthy, an 
abominable, an impossible thing, which God neither will nor 
can do.” Hence probably it was that the Valentinians, Mar- 
cionites, Buasilidians, the followers of Saturninus, and other 
primitive heretics, denied so stiffly τῆς σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν, “the 
resurrection of the flesh” (Just. Mart. Dial. p. 307. 253), 
and said, non esse capacem carnem vita, “ that the flesh was 
not capable of life” (Iren. lib. i. cap. 29, lib. v. cap. 41), 
because they held with the philosophers, corpus esse car- 
cerem, “the body was the prison of the soul” (idem, lib. i. 
cap. 24). Now, to this objection the apostle here returns a 
full and satisfactory answer, by showing the happy change 
which shall then pass upon the raised body; and this he 
seems to do with some resemblance to the ancient philoso- 
phy of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, and to the senti- 
ments of the Jews. 

That here are two questions, but then both have respect 
to the manner or the qualities of the bodies to be raised, for 
the apostle saith not διατί, Why are dead men raised to life 
again? or, Why do they live again? but πῶς ἐγείρονται» 
“How, after what manner, are they raised?” are they 
raised with such mortal bodies as they had before, or with 
bodies subject to the like distempers and infirmities which we 
now suffer in this life? or if not, “ with what kind of bodies?” 
do their bodies rise naked? or are they clothed upon? 
This is exceedingly evident from the whole discourse of the 
apostle in answer to these questions, which gives no reason 
why they being dead do rise again, but wholly is employed 
in showing what are the qualities and conditions of the raised 
bodies of good men. 

15 Ver. 37. Γυμνὸν κόκκον, Naked grain.] Note here, that 
the Jewish rabbins* use the same similitude of grain in the 
aflair of the resurrection, and speak also of “a clothing of 
the body raised,” from the example of grain raised with a 
covering (see note on 2 Cor. ν. 2—4). Note also, that St 
Paul is not discoursing of the identity of the raised body, but 
only of the qualities with which it is raised. 

1% Ver. 44. Σῶμα ψυχικὸν, An animal body.) It seems 
hence probable that the word sown doth not relate to the 
body’s being laid in the earth, but rather to its production 
into the world; for, when it is interred, it is no more an 
animal body, but a body void of life; it is not only weak, 


τον ἅμα, καὶ ἀδύνατον-------οὔ τί ye aioxpa ὃ Θεὸς δόναται, οὐδὲ τὰ 
παρὰ φύσιν βούλεται--- “σάρκα δὲ μεστὴν ὧν οὐδὲ εἰπεῖν κακῶν 
ἀποφῆναι παραλόγως, οὐδὲ βουλήσεται ὃ Θεὸς, οὐδὲ δυνήσεται. Apud 
Orig. lib. v. p. 240. 
* Pirk. Eliez. cap. 33, p. 80. 
3F 


662 


veins, nerves, by which, by the assistance of the animal 
and vital spirits, it perceives the ubjects uf sense, moves, 
and conveys nourishment to all ils parts, wanting con- 
tinual recruits of meal and drink) ; it is raised a spiritual 
body (possessed and acted by the Holy Spirit, and ad- 
vanced sv far to the perfection of spirits, as to be free from 
grossness, ponderosily, from needing rest, sleep, or suste- 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


nance). There is a natural (Gr, animal) body, and 
there is a spiritual body. 

45 And so it is written, The first man Adam (from 
whom we all derive our bodies and our animal life) was 
made a living soul; (Gen. il. 7; urhereas) the last Adar 
(ἡ. ε. Christ) was made a quickening spirit, (as having 
power lo quicken and confer elerial life on all his mem- 


but wholly destitute of power: and this appears yet farther, 
from the following proof of these words, “It is sown an 
animal body, for so it is written, The first man Adam was 
made a living soul.” The apostle doth indeed, ver. 36, 37, 
speak of seed sown in the earth, but then he speaks of it as 
still alive, and having its seminal virtue, or animal spirit in 
it, and after dying there; whereas our bodies first die, and 
then are cast into the earth. 

Secondly, Hence it is also probable that the apostle dis- 
courseth not here of the different degrees of glory which the 
saints hereafter shall enjoy; for he speaks only of what is 
raised, that is, the body, and of the qualities belonging to all 
bodies that are raised. 

Thirdly, Certain it is that the apostle in this chapter dis- 
courseth only of the resurrection of the just, since it is alone 
their bodies that shall undergo this happy change. 

Fourthly, Observe, that there is another sense of the 
forty-fourth verse, as good as that which I have given in the 
paraphrase, viz. ‘There is an animal body, i. e. a body fitted 
for this lower sensible state in which we live at present; and 
there is a spiritual body, that is, a body fitted for our spi- 
ritual and celestial state: in this state we are forced to serve 
our bodies, and to attend their leisure, and mightily depend 
upon them in the operations of the mind; in the other, our 
bodies shall wholly serve our spirits, and minister to them, 
and depend upon them, and therefore may be styled spi- 
ritual. But, 

Fifthly, That our bodies shall be then spiritual, thin, and 
aerial, is neither a new doctrine nor proper to the fol- 
lowers of Origen; for so both Chrysostom and Theophylact 
upon the place allow it to be. “ What incredible thing as- 
sert we,” saith Isidore Pelusiota,* “if we say the body is 
small and aerial? for by this we do not deny it to be the 
same body.” And again, “'The apostle calls our bodies spi- 
Titual, διὰ τὸ κοῦφα καὶ aiSépia μέλλειν EceaSar,f because here- 
after they shall be light and etherial”’ And this, which the 
apostle here says, is suitable to the philosophy of the Py- 
thagoreans and Platonists, who taught that good and pure 
souls were by death delivered from those gross and earthly 
bodies which press down the soul (Wisd. ix. 15), and were 
after the dissolution of the body, said they, will be at the 
resurrection of the body saith he,+ “invested with thin and 
aerial, with active and spiritual, with bright and shining, and, 
lastly, with celestial and eternal bodies.” Now to this 
plainly answers the description of our raised bodies here given 
by Paul, in answer to the second question of the philosophers 
at Corinth, “ With what bodies do they come forth out of 
the grave?” declaring in their very terms, that this body 
will be σῶμα πνευματικὸν καὶ οὐράνιον, “a spiritual and celestial 
body,” ver. 44. 46. 48, 49, 2 Cor. v. 1, that it will be οἰκία 
αἰώνιος, “an eternal house,” σῶμα abSaprov καὶ ἀϑάνατον, “an 
incorruptible and immortal body,” ver. 53, 54, that it will 
be raised ἐν ὀόξη, “in glory,” and so be αὐγοειδὶς, “a shining 
body.” “The just,” saith Christ, «shall shine as the sun, 
and as the brightness of the firmament” (Matt. xiii. 49) ; 
«and as the stars,” saith Daniel (xii.3). And this answers 
to the σῶμα ἀστροειδὲς, which these philosophers mention as 
the same with their αὐγοειδὲς, “shining body.” Lastly, « It 
is raised in power,” and this is in sense the same with their 
σῶμα εὐκίνητον, “agile body,” and of quick motion. Indeed, 
the parallel is so exact, that seeing I find nothing of this na- 


* Lib. ii. ep. 42. + Lib. ii. ep. 77. 

+ Kat yap πᾶσαν Ψυχὴν ἀνάγκη πρὸ τῶν ϑνητῶν σωμάτων 
ἀϊδίοις, καὶ εὐκινήτοις τισι χρῆσϑαι σώμασιν, ὡς κατ᾽ οὐσίαν τὸ κινεῖν. 
Procl. in Tim. lib. v. p. 259. Σῶμα αὐγοειδὲς καὶ ἁΐδιον. 
Hier. in Carm. Pyth. p. 306. 313. Σῶμα οὐράνιον, ἀΐδιον. 
αὐγοειδὲς. Philoponus. Τὸ πνευματικὸν σῶμα. Idem. Vide 
testimonia Galeni, Pselli, Suide, &c., apud Ὁ. Cudworth. 
Syst. Intellect. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 783. 806, ed fol. 


ture in the life of Pythagoras, writ by Diogenes Laertius, or 
in Plato, but only in those writers who lived since Christ's 
time, and were professed enemies of Christianity, Hierocles, 
Porphyry, Proclus, and Jamblichus, I am apt to suspect, 
that as in other things they apparently dressed up their 
philosophy and morality anew, to accommodate it the better 
to the Christian philosophy, that so there might seem less 
need of Christianity ; and particularly made the felicity of 
souls hereafter much like the Christian doctrine, that so they 
might destroy, or render needless, the doctrine of the resur- 
rection; so they gave to the dying souls of good men this 
ὄχημα ψυχῆς, or “vehicle of a spiritual, immortal, shining, 
heavenly body” also, from the Christian notion of the change 
our raised bodies should then undergo. See the text de- 
fended against the surmises of Dr. Mills, Examen Millii, 
ibid. 

17 Ver. 45. Πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν, A quickening spirit.) All the 
ancients till Austin, by “a spiritual body” seem to under- 
stand a body possessed and acted by the Holy Spirit, as the 
natural body is by the animal and vital spirits; and say that 
Christ was made a quickening spirit, “by the seed of the 
Holy Spirit, which unites him to all his members,” and con- 
fers on them a new life and immortality. Ireneus* is very 
express and copious in this matter, saying that, “as from the 
beginning of our frame in Adam, that inspiration of life 
which proceeded from God, united to the body, animated 
man, and made him a reasonable creature; so in the end, 
the word of the Father, and the Spirit of God, united to the 
old substance of the frame of Adam, make a living and a 
perfect man, receiving the perfect Father; that, as we all 
died in the animal, we may be all quickened in the spiritual 
Adam; and that by the Spirit the bodies rising are made 
spiritual, as by the Spirit they have life eternal.”—«TIt is 
called spiritual, as putting on the Spirit,” saith ‘Tertullian :Ὁ 
« As receiving the whole energy and communion of the Spi- 
Tit,” saith Methodius.+ And that the resurrection of the 
just shall be effected by the Spirit of God, seems to be plainly 
taught by the apostle in these words, “If the Spirit of 
him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that 
raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mor- 
tal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. viii. 
10). And this agrees with the opinion of the Jews, who 
ascribe the resurrection of the Spirit, from Ezek. xxxvii. 10, 
and in particular to the Spirit of the Messiah. And from 
this differs not much the opinion of ‘Theodoret, and others, 
That Christ is made a quickening Spirit, because he himself, 
being quickened by the Spirit (1 Pet. iii. 18), hath himself 
the power to quicken and raise the bodies of his servants to 
eternal life; for “as the Father raiseth up the dead, and 
quickeneth them, so the Son quickeneth whom he will” (John 
v. 21), and “as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he 
given to the Son to have life in himself” (ver. 26). 

Moreover, that Christ is said here to be εἰς πνεῦμα Gow- 
ποιοῦν, “ for a quickening spirit,” not with his relation to his 
quickening the soul by the body only, is visible to any who 
will peruse the whole discourse of the apostle here, since 


* Sic in fine Verbum patris et Spiritus Dei adunitus an- 
tique substantia plasmationis Ade, viventem et perfectum 
efficit hominem capientem perfectum patrem, ut quemado- 
dum in animali omnes mortui sumus, sic in spirituali omnes 
viveficemur. Lib. v. cap. 1. Per Spiritum fiunt corpora 
spiritualia, ut per Spiritum semper manentem habent vitam. 
Ibid. cap. 7, et cap. 12. 

+ Sicut ergo ante animale corpus caro recipiens animam, 
ita et posted spirituale induens Spiritum, Vide etiam de 
Resur. 6, 50. 

+ Πνευματικὸν λέγεται τὸ χωροῦν πᾶσαν τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος 
ἐνέργειαν καὶ κοινωνίαν. Methodius apud Gicum. Vid. Chry- 
sost. Hilarium diacon. Gacumenium et Theophyl. in locum. 


CHAPTER ΧΥ. 


bers ; or, as being the giver of that quickening Spirit by 
which we shall be raised from the dead, and made spiritual 
as his body is. 

46 I say, there is an animal body, and there is a spi- 
ritual body ;) Howbeit that (body) was not first which 
is spiritual, but that which is natural (Gr. animal) ; 
and afterward that which is spiritual. 

47 (fbr) The first man (ddam) ἐς (was) of the earth, 
earthy (having a body formed of it; and so the animal 
body derived from him must be earthy): the second man 
is the Lord (descending) * from heaven (to raise our 
bodies and advance them to that place). 

48 As is (was) the earthy, such are they also that 


663 


are earthy (and live in the animal body as he did): and 
as ἐδ the heavenly, such are they ie be) also that are 
(lo have) heavenly (immortal and shining bodies). 

49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy 
(Adam, being begotten after his fall in his own likeness, 
with earthy, mortal bodies, Gen. v. 3), we shall also 
bear the image of the heavenly (partaking in our bo- 
dies of his heavenly glory, he chanzing our vile bodies into 
the likeness of his glorious body, Phil. iii. 21). 

50 Now this I say, brethren, that ” flesh and blood 
(such as ours is) cannot inherit the kingdom of God; 
neither doth (nor can) corruption inherit incorrup- 
tion. 


it relateth only to the trath and manner of the resurrection. 
For after the apostle had dispatched his proof of our Lord's 
resurrection, he concludes thus, “ Now is Christ risen from 
the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept; for 
as by man came death, so by man came also the resurrection 
of the dead:” for as, ἐν ri ᾿Αὐὰμ, “by Adam all men die, 
so also, ἐν τῷ Χριστῴ, by Christ, all ζωοποιηθήσονται, shall be 
made alive again.” Now this is the very word used by 
Christ, in reference to his power of raising the dead, when 
he saith, “As the Father raises the dead, καὶ ζωοποιεῖ, and 
makes them alive again, so the Son ζωοποιεῖ, gives life to 
whom he will. For as the Father hath given life in himself, 
so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself” (John v. 
21. 26). 

pes this the apostle proceeds to the inquiry of the un- 
believer, “ How are the dead raised up?” &c. And, in his 


answer to this, he begins with the same word ; “ That which | 


thou sowest, οὐ ζωσποιεῖται, is not quickened except it die ;” 
and then shows the difference of our present body, subject 
to death, and the condition of our future bodies, saying, «It 


is sown,” or born into the world, σῶμα ψυχικὸν, “an animal | 


body ;” that is, a body which, by the animal and vital spi- 
rits in it, lives, moves, perceives, and conveys nourishment to 
all its parts; “it is raised, σῶμα πνευματικῶν, ἃ spiritual 
body ;” that is, a body quickened by the Spirit of Christ 
(Rom. viii. 11), and advanced so far to the perfection of spi- 
rits, as to be immortal as they are (Luke xx. 35, 36), and so 
fitted for the celestial and immortal state: for, saith he, “so 
it is written, The first man Adam,” from whom we all derive 
our bodies and our animal life, was therefore made, εἰς ψυχὴν 
ζῶσαν, “ with a soul giving life” to his body, and conveying 
this animal life to others (Gen. ii. 7) ; the second was made 
tis π' εὖμα ζωοποιοῦν, to revive the body, and quicken it by 
his Spirit (John vi. 63) ; for having promised that he would 


raise up them who spiritually did eat his flesh and drink bis | 


blood, he adds, τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐστι τὸ ζωοποιοῦν, “It is the Spirit 
that quickeneth.” He saith also, that “the first man,” 
whose image we bear in our bodies, was yoixds, formed ἀπὸ 
χοῦς, from the dust, and so is to return to the dust; “the 
second man,” whose image we shall bear, “is the Lord from 
heaven ;”’ to wit, descending from it with his glorious and 
heavenly body, whose image we shall bear by having bodies 
«made like unto his glorious body ;” not then consisting, 
when they ascend thither, of flesh and blood, or subject to 
corruption, as now they are; “for this corruptible must put 
on incorruption, and this mortal body must put on immor- 
tality.” And this happy resurrection is to be effected by the 
Spirit of Christ dwelling in us; “for if the Spirit of Christ 
dwell in us, he that raised up Christ from the dead, ζωοποιήσει 
καὶ, Shall also quicken our mortal bodies, by his Spirit dwell- 
ing in us” (Rom. viii. 11); whence it is evident that Christ, 
the second Adam, is said to be εἰς rre*pa ζωοποιοῦν, not with 
relation to our souls, but to our bodies, to be raised by him. 
And thus are these words expounded by Photius in G2cume- 
nius, and by ‘'heophylact on the place. 

18 Ver. 47. "FE οὐρανοῦ, From heaven.] Not as some fancy, 
because Christ's body was from heaven, and not from the 
Virgin Mary; for the scripture expressly teacheth that he 
was begotten ἐξ αὐτῆς, from her body, Matt. i. 16, Luke i. 
35, and was the fruit of her womb, Luke i. 42, that he was 
made ἐξ γυναικὸς, “out of a woman,” and came from the fa- 
thers, τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, “according to the flesh,” Rom. ix. 5; 
and had his body been derived from heaven, it must have 
been immortal, as our bodies will be when we bear the image 


of the heavenly Adam: both which things make it neces- 
sary to interpret “ the Lord from heaven,” as I have done in 
the paraphrase. 

19 Ver. 49. Φορίσομεν, We shall bear.) Irenmus, lib. vy. 
cap. 9, Tertullian de Resur. Carnis, cap. 49, et adversus 
Marcion. lib. v. cap. 10, Cyprian adv. Jud. lib. ii. §. 10, et 
lib. iii. §. 11, de Habiti' Virg. ed. Ox. p. 103, de Zelo et 
Livore, p. 226, Hilar. diac. in locum, Jerome in Isa. lii. 
f. 84, 1, read portemus, which answers to the Greek φορέσω- 
μεν, as Chrysostom reads, and as the Alexandrian and other 
copies read. ‘he other reading is owned by Origen against 
Celsus twice, lib. v. p. 243, and also by Methodius. Theo- 
doret also and Theophylact well note, that the words are not 
to be read by way of exhortation, φορέσωμεν, “ Let us bear,” 
but φορέσομεν as a prediction of what we shall be: for the 
apostle, from ver. 42, to this verse, still passeth on from 
what we were to what we shall be; and having said, “ As 
is the heavenly, such are (i. e. shall be) they that are hea- 
venly ;” he proves this, because “ as we have borne the image 
of the earthly Adam, so shall we bear the image of the 
heavenly.” 

Note also that Philo speaks much like the apostle; for 
he saith,* “ There are two kinds of men, one made after the 
image of God, and another made out of the earth.’ The 
last he proves from the very words the apostle useth to 
prove there is a natural or animal body ; the first from this, 
that “God made man after his own image,” which image he 
styles “the divine Word;” and says he is the ἐπουράνιος 
ἀστὴρ, the heavenly star, the fountain of all sensible stars.” 
The last he calls “the earthly and corruptible Adam; the 
first, the Adam made after the image which is not,” saith 
he,f “earthly, hut heavenly. ‘The one is heavenly, as being 
made after the image of God; and so incapable of any 
corruptible or earthy substance; the other out of seminal 
matter, which the scripture calleth earth.” But then he 
saith that “the heavenly man was formed first, and after 
him the earthy ;” and perhaps, for the correction of that 
error, the apostle might here say, “ That was not first which 


| is spiritual, but that which was natural.” 


2 Ver. 50. Σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα, Flesh and blood, &c.] Most 
of the fathers interpret these words of flesh and blood, not 
naturally, but morally, taken for the corrupt affection of the 
flesh. But, 

1. Though flesh itself in scripture sometimes bears this 
sense, yet flesh and blood jointly never seems to have this 
import in scripture. 

2. It is plain, and confessed by Austin,+ that the apostle 
is not here speaking of the requisites to make our souls 
meet to inherit this kingdom, but of the manner of the resur- 
rection of the body. 


* Δύο yap ἀνδρώπων γένη, ro dé κατὰ τὴν εἰκόνα γεγονὸς, καὶ τὸ 
πεπλασμένον ἐκ γῆς. Lib. iii. Alleg. ab initio. Θεῖον Aéyov καὶ 
Θεοῦ Λύγον, εἰκόνα λέγει Θεοῦ. De Mundi Opif. p. 5. 

ἡ Ὥστε οὖν εἰ ἀκούσεις 'Αὐάμ τι γήϊνον, καὶ φθαρτὸν εἶναι wives 
ὁ yap Kar’ εἰκόνα, ob γήϊνος, ἀλλ᾽ οὐράνιος. Leg. Alleg. lib. i. p. 
43. Airra ἀνθρώπων γένη" ὃ piv γάρ ἔστιν οὐράνιος ἄνθρωπος, ὃ 
δὲ γήϊνος" ὃ μὲν οὖν οὐράνιος, ὅτε κατ᾽ εἰκόνα Θεοῦ γεγονὼς, φϑαρτὴς 
καὶ συνύλως γεώξον οὐσίας ἁμέτοχος" ὃ δὲ γῆϊνος ἐκ σποράδος ὕλης, 
ἣν χοὺν κέκληκεν, ἐπάγη. Thid. p- 34. Διαφορὰ παμμεγέϑες ἐστὶ 
τοῦ νῦν πλασϑέντος ἀνϑρώπο", καὶ rod κατὰ τὴν εἰκόνα Θεοῦ γεγονότος 
πρότερον, De Opif. Mundi, p. 23. 

+ Non de operibus, sed de modo resurrectionis. Ep. 146 
ad Consent. 


664 


51 Behold, I shew you a mystery (7. 6. a thing not 
known to you before); ὟΝ 6 shall not all sleep, but we 
shall all be changed (in our bodies, before they enter into 
this kingdom), 

52 2 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at 
the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the 
dead (in Christ) shall be raised incorruptible, and we 
(Christians that are then alive) shall be changed (as to 
this mortal body). 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


53 For this corruptible (body) must put on incor- 
ruption, and this mortal (body) must put on immor- 
tality. 

54 So when this corruptible shall have % put on 
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on im- 
mortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying 
that is written, ** Death is swallowed up in victory 
(ὦ. €. ts overcome for ever, so as never to have any strength 
or power over our bodies any more. 


3. The apostle speaks of flesh and blood as subject to cor- 
ruption here, ver. 52, or of such flesh and blood as must be 
changed, and put on incorruption, as of flesh and blood 
naturally taken. 

A. It is evident to sense that flesh may be cut and divided, 
and blood let out, and so must, whilst they continue such, 
be subject to corruption; and also that a heavenly and 
spiritual body, a “house from heaven,” cannot consist of 
such flesh and blood as we have at present. 

Τὸ therefore must be said that, though the same flesh and 
blood may rise from the grave, it will then, or afterward, re- 
ceive such a change as will render it spiritual or incorrupti- 
ble, and so perhaps, when it comes to heaven, will not be 
flesh and blood ; or that it will be clothed with such a hea- 
venly body as will keep it from a possibility of corruption ; 
and so the import of these words may be this, That flesh 
and blood unchanged, and unclothed with its heavenly body, 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 

21-Ver. 51. Πάντες μὲν οὐ κοιμηθησόμεϑα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλα- 
γησόμεϑα, We shall not all sleep, &c.] This reading is much 
to be preferred, before cither of the other two; viz. “We 
shall all rise,” or “« We shall all sleep, but shall not all be 
changed ;” as being, 

1. Not only the reading of Chrysostom, heodoret, and 
Theophylact, on the place, but also of Origen,* 'Theodotus, 
Apollinarius, Jerome, and of Pseudo-Justin, qu. 61 and 
109. 

2. As being enforced from the next words repeated thus, 
« And we shall be changed ;” from the like words, 1 Thess. 
iv. 17, and from the observation of almost all the commen- 
tators on the place, that the apostle in this chapter speaks 
only of the resurrection of the just; and from the falsehood 
of the other words, “ We shall not all be changed,” seeing 
the bodies of the wicked will certainly be changed by the 
fire they go into; and, lastly, from the sense, for what sense 
is it to say, “ We shall not be changed in a moment,” and 
to add this reason of that saying, viz. “For the dead shall 
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed ?” 

Note also, that it cannot be hence concluded that he and 
the rest of the apostles should live to the general resurrec- 
tion; no, he elsewhere discovers his expectation, that the 
same God who raised up Jesus should raise them also from 
the dead, 2 Cor. iv. 14. He speaks this therefore, not in his 
own, but in the person of all pious Christians that should then 
live (see the note on 1 Thess. iv. 15. 17). 

2 Ver. 52. "Ev ἀτόμῳ, In a moment.] It is the observa- 
tion of Jerome,f that by these words the apostle cunctam 
prime et secunde resurrectionis excludit fabulam, “ destroys 
the fable of the first and second resurrection.” He doth it 
sufficiently in the description of the state of all the raised 
bodies of the just: for though the patrons of this opinion 
would avoid it, it is certain that the old assertors of it held 
that they should be raised to enjoy the pleasures of meat 
and drink, as Ireneus¢ speaks. Now can thin, spiritual, 
glorious, heavenly bodies, and such as are made like to 
Christ's “glorious body,” eat and drink, and enjoy these 
sensual pleasures ? Moreover, who shall be changed ? Those 
that have already been raised a thousand years? If not, they 
must not be alive, for Christians then alive shall be changed ; 
but if they must be changed, then must their bodies be 
raised corruptible, and they must twice “bear the image of 
the earthy,” or the animal Adam. 

Ver. 53. Act γὰρ τὸ gSaprév τοῦτο. It is said, τὸ φϑαρτὸν 


and τὸ ϑνητὸν have not σῶμα for their substantive, but are put 
in the neuter gender absolute, and stand to represent νεκροὶ, 
“the dead ;” but this isa great mistake; for the words are 
not only τὸ ¢Saprév, τὸ θνητὸν, but τὸ φθαρτὸν τοῦτο, “this cor- 
ruptible, this mortal ;” now istuwd, saith Tertullian, is a word 
demonstrative of the body; this hoc, saith Ruffinus, est vox 
corpus suum quodammodo contingentis, “is the voice of one 
as it were pointing to the body.” Moreover, what is mortal 
and corruptible; what puts on incorruption, but the body 
sown in corruption, and raised in incorruption ? (ver. 42.) 
What is mortal but the body ? what therefore can be raised 
to immortality but the same body! When it is farther said 
that the apostle saying, οὐ πρῶτον τὸ πνευματικὸν, ἀλλὰ τὸ 
ψυχικὸν, “That is not first which is spiritual, but that which 
is natural,” he uses the neuter gender, to signify the persons 
of Adam and of Christ, that is another plain mistake; they 
plainly being used to signify the body received from Adam, 
and raised by Christ, as is evident from the precedent words, 
ἔστι σῶμα ψυχικὸν, καὶ ἔστι σῶμα πνευματικὸν, * There is an 
animal body, and there is a spiritual body ; but that body 
which is spiritual is not first, but that which is animal.” 

23 Ver. 54, "Evdicsrat aypSapciav, Shall put on incorrup- 
tion.] The scripture and all the ancients speak of a cloth- 
ing which our raised bodies shall put on. ‘hus Psellus,* in 
his commentary on the Chaldaic Oracles, saith, “'The Chal- 
dees give the soul two clothings; one of the spiritual body, 
weaved out of that which is subject to sense; the other a 
shining, thin body, not subject to the touch, which they call 
the superficies ;”’ and the conjecture of the Jews is this, that 
it shall be “a clothing of light,” or “of a pure flame.” So 
the ancient book Zohar} saith, that “the bodies of the just 
shall be clothed with the light of glory.’ R. Phineas 
saith that the blessed God will give to the bodies of the 
just νον, “an ornament,” according to that of Isaiah, Iviii. 11, 
“He shall satisfy the soul, minsnsa, with white or splendid 
things ;” and R. Levi, that “the soul, in the state of its 
glory, sustains itself by the superior light,” and when it re- 
turns to the body, “it shall come with this light, and then 
the body shall shine as with the brightness of the heavens.” 
And this agrees with the transfiguration of our Lord’s body, 
Matt. xvii. 2, and with his appearance to Paul, Acis ix. 3, 
and to John, Rev. i. 14, 15, and to the descriptions made in 
the Old Testament, of the just rising from their graves, that 
“they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as 
the stars for ever,”’ Dan. xii. 3, Wisd. iii. 7; and in the New, 
that “ they shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of the Fa- 
ther,” Matt. xiii. 43, and thus may they be “salted,” and 
preserved from corruption “ by fire,” Matt. ix. 49. 

24 Ἰκατεπύϑη ὃ ϑάνατος cis νῖκος, Death is swallowed up in 
victory.] Or, “ for ever,” cis νῖκος often signifies; so, “Shall 
the sword devour εἰς νῖκος for ever?” 2 Sam. ii. 26; Job 
xxxvi. 7, “ He will set them on the throne εἰς νῖκος for ever ;” 
Jer. iii. 5, « Will he keep his anger εἰς νῖκος for ever?” Lam. 
v. 20, “ Why dost thou forget us εἰς νῖκος for ever?” Amos 
i. 11, “His anger did tear for ever,” cis νῖκος. and viii. 7, 
“ He will not forget their works cis νῖκος for ever.’ Nor is 
the phrase εἰς νῖκος used in any other sense in the Septuagint. 
Though therefore death is represented as the last enemy to 
be vanquished, ver. 26, and the apostle asks, “" O grave, where 
is thy victory ?” and gives thanks to God “ who giveth us the 
victory,” ver. 55. 57, yet seeing he hath given us this victory 
by swallowing death up for ever, by swallowing up death of 
life eternal, 2 Cor. v. 4, I see no reason why we should think 


* Contra Marcion, §. 5, p. 143. 

+ Ep. 20, 3, f. 66, A. 

+ Et adjacentem habebunt paratam mensam a Deo pas- 
centem eos epulis. Lib. v. cap. 33. 


* Δύο χιτῶνας ἐπένδυσι τὴν ψυχὴν of Χαλδαῖοι, καὶ τὸν piv 
πνευματικὸν ὠνόμασαν ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ ἐζυφανϑέντα αὐτῆ, τὸν δὲ 
αὐγοειδῆ, λεπτὸν, καὶ ἀναφῆ, ὄνπερ ἐπίπεδον. 


+ Voisin in Pug. Fid. par. ill. cap. 8, p. 491. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


55 So that Christians may sinr triumphantly in the 
words of the prophet Hosea, xiii. 14,) O death, % where 
tx thy sting? O grave, where is (now) thy victory ? 
(it is for ever swallowed up of life, 2 Cor. v. 4.) 

56 The sting of death (ur that which causeth death) 
ts (was) sin; and the strength of sin (/o subject us to 
at) ἐκ (was) the law (threatening death for i!). 

57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory 


665 


over if) through (the death and resurrection of) our 
ord Jesus Christ. 
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, 


gon 
and be ye) always abounding ® in the work of the Lord, 


the apostle had not here respect to the constant use of this 
phrase in the Septuagint; it being taken from Isa. xxv. 8. 
See the text defended against the surmises of Dr. Mills, 
Examen Milli, ibid. 

2% Ver. 55. Where is thy sting 2) What is by the apostle 
rendered roi, “where,” is in the Hebrew sax “I will be;” 


as ax, “ where;” accordingly it is so rendered, Hos. xiii. 10, 
by the Septuagint, the Chaldee, the Syriac, the Arabic, and 
in this fourteenth verse by the LXX. the Syriac, the Arabic, 
and by many Jews, which is sufficient to justify the apostle 
here (see Dr. Pocock on Hos. xiii. 10. 14). 

2% Ver. 58. Ἔν ἔργῳ rod Κυρίου.) “Ov Κύριος ἀγαπᾷ καὶ 


but that word is thought by a metathesis to signify the same | ἀπαιτεῖ rap’ ἡμῶν. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


1 Now concerning the collection for the saints (7. δ. 
the suffering Christians in Judea), as 1 have given order 
to the churches of Galatia, even so do ye. 

2 ' Upon the first day of the week (ihe day of your 


Christian assemblies) 5 let every one of you lay by him 
in store (vn this account), as God hath prospered him, 
that there be no (farther need of) gatherings when I 
come. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI. 


! Ver. 2. Κατὰ μίαν σαββάτων, Upon the Jirst day of the 
week.) So we read in Matthew, that our Lord rose from the 
dead, τῇ ped τῶν σαββίτων, “upon the first day of the week,” 
Matt. xxviii. 1; in Mark, that “the sabbath being over, 
Mary Magdalene and others came early, τῆς μιᾶς τῶν σαββά- 
των, the first day of the week,” xvi. 9, and found Christ 
risen from the dead; and in Luke, that “ they rested on the 
sabbath-day, according to the commandment,” and that they 
came to the sepulchre, τῇ μιὰ τῶν σαββάτων, “on the first 
day of the week,” xxiii. 56, xxiv. 1, and so accordingly 
saith John, xx. 1: so that this phrase doth certainly import 
“the first day of the week,” the day of our Lord’s resur- 
rection from the dead; and this the word μία usually signi- 
fies in the Septuagint, when it is joined with days, weeks, 
and months; as “the evening and the morning were ἡμέρα 
pia the first day ;” so ἡμέρα pia τοῦ μηνὸς is “the first day of 
the month,” Exod. xl. 2, Ezra iii. 6, x. 17, and pia τοῦ μη- 
νὸς is “the first day of the month,” Lev. xxiii. 24, Numb. 
i. 1. 18, xix. 1, xxiii. 38, Deut. i. 3, Ezek. xxvi. 1, xxxii. 1, 
xlv. 18, Hag. i. 1, ii. 2. 

Moreover, κατὰ μίαν may be rendered “every first day,” 
as κατὰ πόλιν," “in every city;” κατ᾽ οἶκον, “in every fa- 
mily ;” κατ᾽ ἄνδρα, viritim, “ man by man ;” κατὰ μῆνα, “ every 
month ;”” and κατὰ μίαν, sigillatim. 

Secondly, Observe, that the Jews in every city where they 
dwelt had their collectors of alms,t who in the week days 
went about the city collecting alms, according to the quality 
and wealth of every Jew; and “in the evening of the sab- 
bath” distributed to the poor among the Jews as much as 
was needful for the following week : and after this example, 
the apostle seems to have ordained that the Christians should 
lay up for the poor, or make provisions for them on the 
Lord's day. 

Thirdly, Observe, that from the beginning the Christians 
did assemble on the first day of the week, called by them 
“the Lord’s day,” to perform their religious worship,+ “to 
read the scriptures, to preach, and celebrate the Lord's sup- 
al «This being the Lord’s day, we keep it holy,” saith 

ionysius,§ bishop of Corinth. “On Sunday,” saith Jus- 


* Lex Constant. 

+ Buxt. Lex. Talmud. voce saa, p. 375, voce πρὺρ, p. 
2096. 

ἢ Τὴν σήμτρον οὖν κυριακὴν ἁγίαν ἡμίραν διηγάγομεν. 
Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 23. 
_ § Τὴν δὲ τοῦ ἡλίου ἡμέραν κοινῇ πάντες τὴν σονέλευσιν ποιούμεϑα" 
ἐπειδὴ ὁ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, ὃ ἡμέτερος σωτὴρ, τῇ αὐτῇ τῇ ἡμέρα ἐκ νε- 
κρῶν ἀνέστη. 


Vox. 1Υ.---84 


Apud 


tin,* “all Christians in the city or country meet together, 
because that is the day of our Lord’s resurrection, and then 
we read the writings of the prophets and apostles; this being 
done, the president makes an oration to the assembly, to ex- 
hort them to imitate and do the things they heard ; then we 
all join in prayer, and after that we celebrate the sacra- 
ment.” 

Fourthly, Observe, that the apostle gave orders, that here 
and in the churches of Galatia collections should be made 
for the poor on that day; and that all Christians, in com- 
pliance with that precept, still offered their alms upon that 
day. So Justin Martyr,t “Then they that are able and 
willing give what they think fit, and what is thus collected 
is laid up in the hands of the president, who distributes it to 
orphans and widows, and other Christians, as their wants re- 

uire.” 

Fifthly, Observe, that no good reason can be given why 
the apostle should limit the collections of the churches of 
Corinth and Galatia to “the first day of the week,” but this, 
that this day was appointed for the worship of our Lord, and 
so more fit for the performance of those duties which con- 
cerned his distressed members in those times; for as the 
works of charity and mercy are proper duties of this day, so 
doth the day contain a special motive in it to enlarge their 
charity, as being the day in which they were “ begotten to a 
lively hope, through the resurrection of Christ Jesus from 
the dead, of an inheritance incorruptible,” 1 Pet. i. 3; and in 
which they constantly participated of his precious body and 
blood, and therefore, having received spiritual things so plen- 
tifully from Christ, must be more ready to impart somewhat 
of their temporals to his needy servants. 

3 "Ἕκαστος ὑμῶν παρ᾽ ἑαυτῷ τιθέτω, ϑησαυρίζων, &c. Let every 
one of you lay by him in store, that there be no eres 
when I come.| From these last words is gathered that Sn- 
σαυρίζειν is to put into a common box his charity ; because if 
they had kept it at home, there would have been need of 
gathering it when the apostle came. But the words ἕκαστος 
παρ᾽ ἑαυτῷ τιθέτω, “let every one place it with himself,” ad- 
mit not of this sense; nor when this was done could there 
be any necessity of making collections, as that imports soli- 
citing the charities of others, but only of receiving the charity 
thus laid by for the use of the saints; and yet that such need 
there was, is evident from the eighth and ninth chapters of 
the Second Epistle : for why is so much care taken that they 


* Just. Mart. Apol. ii. p. 96. 99. Vide Ignat. Epist. ad 
Magnes. §. 9. Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. p. 744. Orig. cont. 
Celsum, lib. viii. p. 399. Melito Sard. apud Euseb. lib. iv. 
cap. 26. Iren. apud Author. Q. et Res. qu. 115, 

JT Οἱ εὐποροῦντες, καὶ οἱ βουλόμενοι, κατὰ προαίρεσιν ἕκαστος 
τὴν ἑαυτοῦ, ὃ βούλεται δίδωσι. bid. 

8:53 


666 


3 And when I come, whomsoever ye shall approve 
by your letters, ?them will I send (or them will I with 
my letters send ) to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem. 

4 And if it be (thought) meet that I go also, they 
shall go with me (to be witnesses of the distribution of 
your charity). 

5 Now I will come unto you, when ‘TI shall pass 
(or shall have passed) through Macedonia: for 1 do 
(intend shortly to remove hence and to) pass through 
Macedonia. 

6 And it may be that I will abide, yea, and winter 
with you, that ye may bring me on my journey whi- 
thersoever I go. 

7 For I will not see you now by the way; but I 
trust (hereafter) to tarry a while with you, if the Lord 
permit. 

8 But I will tarry (511) at Ephesus δ until Pente- 
cost. 

9 Fora great door and effectual is opened unto me 
(for propagation of the gospel there), and there are many 
adversaries (of the truth, especially those of the circumci- 
sion, which makes my stay there necessary). 

10 Now δ if Timotheus come (fo you), see that he 
may be with you without fear (of disturbance from the 
factious): for he worketh the work of the Lord, as I 
also do. 

11 Let no man therefore despise him (because of 
his youth, 1 Tim. iv. 12): but conduct (ye) him forth 
in peace, that he may come unto me: for I look for 
mn with the brethren (or, Tand the brethren look for 

im). 

12 As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly de- 

sired him to come unto you with the brethren: but 


I. CORINTHIANS. 


8 his will was not at all to come at this time; but he 
will come when he shall have convenient time. 

13 Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you ( your- 
selves) like men, be strong. 

14 Let all your things be done with charity (or a 
sincere destre of your brother’s weal). 

15 I beseech you, brethren, (seeing) (ye know the 
house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of (‘he 
gospel in) Achaia, and that they have (ever since) ad- 
dicted themselves to the ministry of the saints,) 

16 That ye submit yourselves unto such (giving re- 
verence and honour to them), and to every one that help- 
eth with us, and laboureth. 

17 Lam glad of the coming of Stephanas and For- 
tunatus and Achaicus (whom you sent with your letters 
of inquiry to me): for that (account of your affairs) 
which was lacking on your part (in your letter) they 
have supplied. 

18 (Lam glad, I say,) For they have refreshed my 
spirit (with their presence and discourse,) and (will at 
their return refresh) your’s: therefore acknowledge ye 
them that are such. 

19 The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and 
Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, ὃ with the 
church that is in their house (¢. 6. thetr Christian fa- 
mily). 

20 All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one an- 
other with an holy kiss (see note on Rom. xvi. 16). 

21 The salutation of me Paul 10 with mine own 
hand. 

22 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let 
him be" Anathema Maran-atha (7. e. accursed when the 
Lord comes to judgment). 


might be ready, if their whole contribution was already in the 
common box ? 

3 Ver. 3. Obs eav δοκιμήσητε δι’ ἐπιστολῶν, τούτους πέμψω, 
Them with my letters will I send.| That this is the true 
sense is evident, because the apostle, supposing himself then 
to be come to them, could not need their commendatory 
epistles. 

4 Ver. 5. Μακεδονίαν διέρχομαι, Ido pass through Macedo- 
σα. Not presently, but after I have finished my stay at 
Ephesus (ver. 8): for that Paul writ this epistle from Ephe- 
sus, and not from Philippi, may be gathered from the salu- 
tations in the close of it, not from the churches of Macedonia, 
but of Ephesus; and in his Second Epistle he saith, he 
passed from T'roas to Macedonia, and that there Titus came 
to him, 2 Cor. ii. 13 and vii. 5, 6, who was not come to 
him when he writ his First Epistle. 

5 Ver. 8. “Ἕως τῆς πεντηκοστῆς, Till pentecost.] It there- 
fore was the following pentecost that he hastened to be at 
Jerusalem, Acts xx. 16. 

§ Ver. 10. "Bay δὲ ἔλθη Τιμόϑεος, If Timothy come to you.] 
Hence it appears that this epistle was not sent by ‘Timothy, 
for then he must have come to them. 

7 Ver. 11. Προπέμψατε αὐτὸν, Conduct him forth.] It is 
the observation of the reverend and learned Dr. Hammond, 
that the word προπέμπειν signifies not only to accompany 
one, and bring him on his way, as ver. 6, but also to provide 
for the necessaries of his journey. But this seems not suit- 
able to the inquiry of the apostle, “« Did [ make gain of you 
by any of them whom sent to you? Did Titus make a gain 
of you?” 2 Cor. xii. 17. 

8 Ver. 12. Οὐκ ἦν θέλημα ἵνα viv ἔλϑη, He was not willing 
to come now.] Perhaps, because he would not countenance 
a faction that was begun under his name, by his presence 
with them, which, saith Aquinas, shows he was not their 
bishop, as some of the ancients have represented him; for 
then he ought not to have left his flock under so great disor- 
ders. 

9 Ver. 19, Σὺν τῇ κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίᾳ, With the church 
in their house.| This phrase doth not import that the whole 
church of Corinth, &c. met in such a family ; for then this 
salutation would be the salutation of all the Christians in 
thet place; but (lat this is not so, is evident from so many 


salutations directed to other persons and families in the same 
place: so Rom. xvi. 5, “Salute Aquila and Priscilla, and 
the church in their house” (see the note there); and then 
follow salutations to many other persons and brethren of the 
church: so Col. iv. 15, “Salute the brethren in Laodicea, 
and Nymphas, with the church in his house” (see the note 
there): so Philem. 2, we read thus, “Paul, a prisoner, to 
Philemon—to Apphia, to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and 
to the church in thy house:” and here, after this salutation, 
follow the words, “ All the brethren greet you.” 

It rather seems to signify, as all the Greek scholiasts and 
Grotius say, “a family consisting wholly of Christian con- 
verts,” as was the gaoler’s house, Acts xvi. 31, 32, and that 
of Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue at Corinth, Acts 
xviii. 8, for when it was otherwise, and the family was not 
entirely converted, the apostle alters his style, and saith only, 
« Salute them which are of Aristobulus’s household, and of 
the household of Narcissus in the Lord,” Rom. xvi. 10, 11; 
“Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, &c. and the brethren that are 
with them,” ver. 14; 15, “The saints that are with them;” 
“They of the house of Cesar salute you,” Phil. iv. 22. 

0 Ver. 21. Τῇ ἐμῇ χειρὶ, With my own hand.] He writ- 
ing by an amanuensis, Rom. xvi. 22, still closed his epistle 
with his own hand, as a token that it came from him, 2 
Thess. iii. 17. 

M Ver. 22. ᾿Ανάθεμα μαρὰν-184.7 That maran-atha is a 
Syriac word, and signifies “the Lord comes,” most of the 
ancient interpreters inform us.* Buxtorf gives us the full 


* Maran-aiha magis Syrum est quim Hebreum, et inter- 
pretatur, Dominus venit. Hieron. Epist. 137, ad Marcel. 
Pseud. Amb. in loc. Mapin-d$a τοῦτο οὐ τῆς “EBpatas, ὥς τι- 
ves ὑπέλαβον, ἀλλὰ τῆς Σύρων ἐστὶ φωνῆς, ἡρμηνεῦται δὲ, 6 Kvptos 
ἦλϑε. Theod. in locum. Ita Philo, Carabas quidam insanus 
ab Alexandrinis in ludibrium Agripp® papav vocabatur, oi- 
τὼς δὲ φασὶν κύριον ὀνομάζεσθαι παρὰ Σύριος. Contra Flaccum, 
p- 751, F, Vox ista Syra in Novo Testamento, xnx yn, 
Dominus venit, occurrit 1 Cor. xvi. 22, qué extremum ana- 
thema indicabant, quo ex omni societate homo exclusus ; et 
omnibus peenis humanis major, committebatur judicio seve- 
rissimo anathematis divini, et exitio eterno, quasi dicere vo-~ 
luissent prisci illi pii, Veniat Dominus, et eum exitio zterno 


A DISCOURSE, &c. 


. 23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with 
ou. 


24 My love δὲ with you allin Christ Jesus. Amen. 


667 


4 The first epistle to the Corinthians was written 
from Philippi by Stephanas, and Fortunatus, and 
Achaicus, and ‘Timotheus. 


sense of it, saying, “It is a Syrian word, by which they sig- 
nified the utmost anathema, by which a man, being excluded 
from all human society, and obnoxious to greater punish- 


feriat ; commissus sit Christi totius mundi judicis adventui, ut 
mternd ipsius maledictione pereat. In voce maran, p. 1248. 


ments that man could inflict, was committed to the severest 
judgment of the divine anathema, and to eternal destruction. 
As if those pious men of old would have said, Let the Lord 
come, and smite him with eternal perdition, let him be re- 
served to the coming of the Judge of the whole world, that 
he may perish by his everlasting curse.” 


A DISCOURSE 


ONCERNING THE 


IMPUTATION OF CHRIST’S PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS, OR OBEDIENCE TO THE LAW, 
TO US, FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS, OR JUSTIFICATION. ἃ 


IN WHICH 


[. The opinion of the necessity of this imputation is delivered, in the words of the Rev. Bishop Beveridge. 


II. It is proved that this opinion hath no foundation in the holy scripture. 


And, 


III. It is proved to be fully and expressly contrary both to scripture and reason. 


TO THE READER. 


! 
I po not think it an insult upon the sacred character of 

this great and good man, that I make bold to examine one | 
article of his “ Private Thoughts,” which, in my settled judg- | 
ment, is of evil consequence to the souls ofmen. For though | 
he died a bishop, yet, saith the preface, “The following 
sheets were written by him in his younger years, upon his 
first entrance into holy orders :” and this article is considered 
by one who hath already passed the age of man. I could 
have reflected upon twenty other passages, which, in my 
judgment, might have kept these “ thoughts” still « private,” 
as the good bishop, in his lifetime, did: but what I have said | 

| 


upon this article will, I hope, be sufficient to show they are 
not so perfect and correct as to be deemed a standard of the 
truth of doctrines, though his pious resolutions are very pro- 
per to produce in us that holiness of life which will hereafter 
be of more value to us than the most refined notions. ‘Though 
therefore I cannot comply with him in his “ private thoughts,” 
to imitate him in his pious resolutions Is the desire of, 
Thy friend and servant, 
DEW: 


SECT. I. 


Tue imputation of Christ’s active and perfect obedience 
to us being, in my judgment, a very false and pernicious doc- 
trine, and yet being of late propounded by an eminent and 
good bishop, as a thing absolutely necessary to our justifica- 
tion, and to obtain a title to eternal life; I shall, 

First, Lay down this doctrine in the bishop’s own words. 

Secondly, I shall endeavour to show that it hath no foun- 
dation in the holy scripture; and that the good bishop hath 
produced nothing, either from scripture or from reason, which 
is sufficient to confirm it. And, 

_ Thirdly, That it is fully and directly contrary to scripture 
and to reason. 

And, first, the bishop, in the eighth article concerning 
his “ Private Thoughts of Religion,” delivers this doctrine 


in these words (p. $9): “He (viz. the Son of God) being 
in and of himself perfectly co-equal, co-essential, and co-eter- 
nal with the Father, was in no sort bound to do more than 
the Father himself did, and so whatsoever he should do 
which the Father did not, might justly be accounted a work 


| of supererogation, N. B. which, without any violation of di- 
| vine justice, might be set on the account of some other per- 


sons, even of such as he pleased to do it for. And hereupon, 
out of mercy and compassion to fallen man, he covenanted 
with his Father that, if it pleased his majesty to accept it, he 
would take upon him the suffering of those punishments 
which were due from him to man, and the performance of 
those duties which were due from man to him: N. B. so that 
whatsoever he should thus humble himself to do or suffer, 
should wholly be on the account of man; himself being not 
anyways bound to do or sufler more in time than he had from 
eternity. 

«This motion the Father, out of the riches of his grace 


and mercy, was pleased to consent unto: and hereupon the 


Son, assuming our nature into his deity, N. B. becomes sub- 
ject and obedient both to the moral and ceremonial laws of 
his Father, and at last to death itself, ‘even the death of 
the cross;’ in the one he paid an active, in the other a 
passive obedience, and so did not only fulfil the will of 
his Father, in obeying what he had commanded, but sa- 
tisfied his justice in suflering the punishment due to us for 
the transzressing of it. His active obedience, as it was in- 
finitely pure and perfect, did without doubt infinitely trans- 
cend all the obedience of the sons of men, even of Adam 
too in his primitive state (p. 88); for the obedience of 
Adam, make the best of it, was but the obedience of a finite 
creature, whereas the obedience of Christ was the obedience 
of one who was infinite God as well as man. By which 
means the laws of God had higher obedience performed to 
them, than themselves in their primitive institution required ; 
for being made only to finite creatures, they could command 
no more than the obedience of finite creatures; whereas the 
obedience of Christ was the obedience of one who was the 
infinite Creator as well as a finite creature. 

«“ Now this obedience being more than Christ was bound 


668 


to, and only performed on the account of those whose na- 
ture he had assumed, as we by faith lay hold upon it; so 
God, through grace, N. B. imputes it to us as if it had been 
performed by us in our own persons. And hence it is, that 
as in one place Christ is said to be «made sin for us,’ 2 Cor. 
v. 21, so in another place he is said to be ‘made our righte- 
ousness,’ 1 Cor. i. 30; and in the forecited place, 2 Cor. v. 
21, as he is said to be ‘made sin for us,’ so are we said to 
be ‘made righteousness’ in him; but what righteousness ? 
our own? No, ‘the righteousness of God,’ radically his, but 
imputatively ours; and this is the only way whereby we are 
said to be made ‘the righteousness of God,’ even by the 
righteousness of Christ being made ours, by which we are 
accounted and reputed as righteous before God. ‘These 
things considered, I very much wonder how any man can 
presume to exclude the active obedience of Christ from our 
justification before God; as if what Christ did in the flesh 
was only of duty, not at all of merit, or as if it was for him- 
self, and not for us; especially when I consider that suffering 
the penalty is not what the law primarily required, for the 
law of God requires perfect obedience, the penalty being 
only threatened to, not properly required of, the breakers of 
it; for let a man suffer the penalty of the law in never so 
high a manner, he is not therefore accounted obedient to it, 
his punishment speaks not his innocence, but rather his 
transgression of the law. Hence it is that I cannot look 
upon Christ as having made full satisfaction to God’s justice 
for me, unless he had performed the obedience I owe to 
God's laws, as well as borne the punishment that is due for 
my sins: for though he should have borne my sins, I cannot 
see how that should denominate me righteous or obedient to 
the law, so as to entitle me to eternal life according to the 
tenor of the old law (p. 89), ‘Do this and live:’ N. B. 
which old covenant is not disannulled or abrogated by the 
covenant of grace, but rather established (Rom. iii. 31); 
especially as to the obedience it requires of us in order to 
the life it promiseth, otherwise the laws of God would be 
mutable, N. B. and so come short of the laws of the very 
Medes and Persians, which altered not. Obedience, there- 
fore, is as strictly required under the New, as it was under 
the Old Testament, but with this ditference—there obedi- 
ence was required in our own persons, as absolutely neces- 
sary ; here obedience in our surety is accepted as completely 
sufficient: but now, if we have no such obedience in our 
surety (as we cannot have, if he did not live as well as die 
for us), let any man tell me what title he hath, or can have, 
to eternal life? I suppose he will tell me he hath none in 
himself, because he hath not performed perfect obedience to 
the law, N. B. and I tell him he hath none in Christ, unless 
Christ hath performed that obedience for him, which none 
can say he did, who doth not believe his active as well as 
passive obedience to be wholly upon our account.” Now 
these words contain these several propositions : 

First, * That the Son of God covenanted with his Father, 
that he would take upon him the obedience which was due 
from man to him (p. 86), so that whatever he should do 
should be on the account of man, and that to this motion the 
Father, of his rich grace and mercy, was pleased to consent. 

Secondly, “'That he, in pursuance of this covenant, be- 
came obedient and subject both to the moral and ceremonial 
laws of his Father, and so, by his active obedience to these 
laws, fulfilled the will of his Father in obeying what he had 
commanded. 

Thirdly (p. 86, 87), “That this obedience of Christ was 
perfect, and did infinitely transcend all the obedience of the 
sons of men, even of Adam in his primitive state, and so 
Christ performed higher obedience to the laws of God than 
was required of man in the primitive institution. 

Fourthly, “That this obedience being more than Christ 
was bound to do, and being only performed on the account 
of those whose nature he had assumed (p. 87), it is by vir- 
tue of our faith imputed to us, as if it had been performed 
by us in our own persons. 

Fifthly, “'That we are to be entitled to eternal life ac- 
cording to the tenor of the old law, Lev. v. 8. 15, that old 
covenant being not disannulled (p. 89) and abrogated by the 
covenant of grace, but rather established (Rom. iii. 31), es- 
pecially as tothe obedience it requires from us, in order to 
the life it promiseth.” And, 


A DISCOURSE ON THE 


Sixthly, ibid., “That therefore onedience is as strictly re- 
quired under the New, as it was under the Old ‘Testament, 
but with this difference : there obedience in our own persons 
was required as absolutely necessary, here obedience in our 
surety is accepted as completely sufficient. 

Seventhly, “That no man hath, or cat nave, a title to 
eternal life, unless Christ hath paid perfect obedience to 
the law for him, and so Christ could not have made full 
satisfaction to God’s justice for us, unless he had performed 
the obedience due to God’s laws, as well as borne the pu- 
nishment due to our sins. 

Eighthly, «That therefore the only way whereby we 
are said to be made righteous with ‘the righteousness of 
God, is by the righteousness of Christ being made ours, by 
which we are reputed and accounted righteous before God.” 

Having thus given you the state of the question in the 
bishop’s own words, I shall proceed briefly to consider what 
he hath laid down as the foundation of his doctrine, and 
then to make some brief reflections upom these several pro- 
positions. 

Now the foundation of this doctrine is laid down in these 
words :—* He (i. 6. the Son of God) being co-equal, co- 
eternal, and co-essential with the Father (and so depending 
not upon him either for his existence or actions, p. 83), was 
in no sort bound to do more than the Father himsell did, 
and so whatsoever he should do, which the Father did not, 
might justly be accounted as a work of supererogation, which, 
without any violation of divine justice, might be set upon the 
account of some other persons, even of such whom he pleased 
to do it for.” Now this is such a scheme of new divinity as 
cannot easily be matched. : 

For, (1.) here is a God, “co-equal and co-essential with 
the Father, and who depends not on him either for his exist- 
ence or his actions,” and therefore not God of God, but 
plainly another God, existing and acting independently of 
the Father; and so the Father cannot be (as, saith Dr. Bull, 
de Subord. Filii, §. 4, all the fathers without fear pronounced 
him) principium, causa, ἀρχὴ, αἰτία, auctor filli, et αἴτιον τοῦ 
eival. 

(2.) We have this God “independent in existence” (which 
is the same with essence) and “actions on the Father,” 
bound to do so much as the Father: now all obligation 
arising from a law to which the person bound is subject, by 
whose Jaw must this co-equal person be “bound to do so 
much 2” 

(3.) This independent God is said to supererogate by 
doing more than he was bound to do. Now supererogation 
supposes the person supererogating under a command, and 
exceeding the virtuous action commanded ; but how can he, 
who is independent on any, both as to existence and actions, 
be subject to the commands of another? Moreover, seeing 
the Father was not bound to create the world, or send his 
Son to be the Saviour of it, or to do any other thing which it 
was not necessary from the perfection of his nature to per- 
form, why must not he in all these actions supererogate as 
well as his co-equal, independent Son ? 

Secondly, That which merits from God must be some- 
thing from which he receives some benefit or advantage ; but 
the Father is incapable of receiving any advantage from this 
supposed supererogation of his Son. And, 

Thirdly, ‘That which merits for another must oblige the 
person of whom he merits in justice to accept his action for 
another: now God the Father cannot be obliged to accept 
this action of his Son for us, because it was not done by us~ 
and so, if he doth accept it as if it had been done by us, this 
must be perfectly of his free grace, or, as the bishop saith, 
p- 86, “ out of the riches of his grace and mercy.” For the 
obedience of man to the laws of God was certainly a personal 
due, it being that which God required of him in person ; and 
therefore the obedience of another to the law given to him 
and not to another, can do nothing to acquit him from the 
performance of what God personally required of him and not 
of another, but by a pure act of grace: nor can the action 
of another be reckoned as done by him but by a false impu- 
tation; for such must that be which imputes that as done 
by me, which indeed was not done by me, but by another. 
As therefore, to speak exactly, God doth not impute Christ's 
passive obedience to us, or account that we have suffered 
because he did, but only doth exempt us from suflering, 


IMPUTATION OF CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


because he hath suffered instead; so neither can he impute 
the obedience of another to us, or account that we have 
obeyed because another hath done it upon our account, but 
only exempt us from obedience in person upon that account. 

Lastly, Here is a rich fund for the pope’s treasury of 


meritorious supererogating actions, that which the papists | 


have imaged to fill up their treasury being only the merits 
of finite men; whereas, saith the good bishop, p. 87, «The 
obedience of Christ was the obedience of one that was infi- 
nite God as well as man, the obedience of one who was the 
infinite Creator, as well as a finite creature.” Yea, if any 
thing could be meritorious in respect to God, this doctrine 
would render every good action of a believer meritorious, or 
an act of supererogation; for if, as the bishop saith, p. 89, 
“under the new covenant obedience in our surety is accepted 
as completely sufficient,” and Christ hath performed that 


obedience for us by which we have a title to life eternal, all | 


believers “who have by faith laid hold on Christ,” and so 
have his obedience imputed to them as if performed by them 
in person, must be entirely exempted from any obligation to 
perform personal obedience, and so all the obedience they 
perform must be so many acts of supererogation. 

To proceed now to the consideration of the propositions 

lainly collected from his words; of which the first is this:— 

«That Christ covenanted with the Father that he would 
take upon him the obedience which was due from man to 
him ; so that whatever he should do should wholly be on the 
account of πὶς τ, and that to this motion the Father was 
pleased to consent.” 

This proposition is founded on a chimerical covenant be- 
twixt God the Father and the Son, of which there is not the 
least item in the holy scripture; and so the whole scheme of 
this doctrine, being built upon this vain imagination, must be 
also vain. ) 

(2.) This covenant is also both in the nature of the thing 
impossible, and in the immediate consequences of it irreligi- 
ous. It is in the nature of the thing impossible, that Christ 
should covenant to perform the obedience due from man to 
God’s law, for him, or in his stead, and that God the Father 
should accept and repute what-he thus did for him, as if per- 
formed by man personally ; because the moral law, the law 
engraven on the heart of man, is indispensable; it being ab- 
solutely necessary that man should be obliged, personally, to 
obey the moral law, and that God should require him, in 
person, so to do; and so no promise of another to perform it 
for him can avail any thing to exempt him from the obliga- 
tion he was, is, and ever will be under to perform it person- 
ally: this is apparent from those words of Christ, in which 
he gives us the abridgment of the law and the prophets; viz. 
«Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy mind, and with all thy soul; and thou shalt love 
thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. xxii. 37.39): from the 
personal observance of which laws, who ever thought he was, 
or he could be, exempted by any thing which Christ had done 
for him? It therefore is profane and irreligious to say that 
either the holy Jesus made such a covenant, or that the 
righteous God ever consented to such a motion, or that the 
obedience of our surety to the moral law should be accepted 
in the new covenant, as completely sufficient to give usa 
title to eternal life; this being in eflect to say that Christ, 
by his obedience to the moral law, hath freed every one that 
believes in him from his whole duty to God, his neighbour, 
and himself; and that God the Father hath consented that 
all such persons should be free from any obligation person- 

«ally to “live righteously, soberly, and godly, in this present 
world ;” because what hath already been performed by their 
surety, pp. 88, 89, is completely sufficient to denominate 
them righteous, or obedient to the law, so as to entitle them 
to eternal life ; and so they cannot be obliged to a personal 
performance of those duties in order to that end, though the 
apostle plainly saith they are, Tit. ii. 12, 13. 

Secondly, When he saith, in the second proposition, that 
Christ, “ by his active obedience to God's moral and ceremo- 
nial laws, fulfilled the will of his Father in obeying what he 
commanded ;”’ doth he mean what the Father had person- 
ally commanded him? If so, Christ himself must lie under 
a personal obligation to fulfil both the moral and the cere- 
monial law; and so, in doing this, he could do only what he 
himself was commanded to do, and could not merit for 


| obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’’¢ 


669 


another; and so the only reason why the bishop “ wonders 
at them who say that what Christ did in the flesh was only 
of duty,” must be this, because, as he observes, p. 88, “that 
would exclude Christ’s active obedience from our justification 
before God.” If he means what the Father had not com- 
manded him, but only had required us to obey, then can he 
not be properly said to have herein obeyed at all ; obedience, 
of necessity, importing a relation to a command laid upon 
him who is obedient; and much less could he fulfil that 
command, which was never given to him, and so the Father 
might say to him, in the words of the prophet, * Who hath 
required this at thy hand?”* He himself declares he had 
“received a commandment from his Father to lay down his 
life for his sheep ;’f and in pursuance of it, “he became 
And he 
who saith, Christ also did perform his active obedience on 
our account, and by that “fulfilled the will of his Father, in 
obeying what he had commanded for us,” must produce a 
like command of the Father, requiring him thus to obey for 
us; which is, first, needless, we being still of necessity under 
as strong an obligation of personal obedience to the moral 
law, as a rule of duty, as we were before Christ performed 
that obedience in his human nature. Secondly, It also 
necessarily infers a personal exemption of all believers from 
any obligation to obey the moral law; the pernicious conse- 
quences of which doctrine have been already shown. Thirdly, 
It is contrary to the words of the bishop himself; for he 
aflirms, p. 89, that, “under the Old Testament, obedience 
was required in our own persons as absolutely necessary ; 
and that this old covenant was not disannulled, but rather 
established by the covenant of grace, especially as to the 
obedience it requires in order to the life it promiseth.” ‘The 
obedience then required under the old law, as absolutely 
necessary, in order to the life it promiseth, being obedience 
to be performed in our own persons, to use the bishop’s 
words, p. 88, “who can see” how the obedience of Christ, 
that is, of another in our stead, “could denominate us righte- 
ous, or obedient to the law, so as to entitle us to eternal life, 
according to the tenor of the old law, Do this, in your own 
persons, and live?” In a word, we neither are nor can be 
exempted from obedience to the moral law, as a rule of duty, 
but we are exempted from obedience to it as a means of jus- 
tification; or, we are not exempted from an obligation to 
perform the righteousness of the law, but only from the curse 
of the law pronounced against them “who continue not in 
all things written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 
ili. 10). And from this curse we are delivered, saith the 
apostle, not by Christ’s active and perfect obedience to the 
law, imputed to us, but by his sufferings on the cross for us. 

Thirdly, Of the third proposition, that the obedience of 
Christ did “infinitely transcend all the obedience of the sons 
of men, as being the obedience of an infinite God,” I shall 
only observe at present, that though the obedience of “an 
infinite God” and “infinite Creator’ be absurd expressions 
(as importing a subjection of this infinite God and Creator to 
the laws of some superior, or paying infinite obedience to his 
infinite self) ; yet was it necessary to be asserted that Christ's 
active obedience might suffice, by reason of this supposed 
infinite excellency, to be imputed to all men; since other- 
wise it being only that which every individual man was per- 
sonally obliged to perform, it could only have answered the 
obedience required of one single person. 

Fourthly, ‘To the fourth proposition, that “the obedience 
of Christ being more than he was bound to, it is, by virtue of 
our faith, imputed to us, as if it had been performed ty us 
in our own persons:” I answer, 

First, hat it being certain that the obedience which God 
requires by Jaw from us must be personal (for, where there 
is no law requiring personal obedience, there can be no per 


| sonal transgression), hence it is evident that there can be 


no performance of personal obedience by a surety, and there- 
fore no true imputation of his obedience to us, but only an 
exemption from any obligation to that obedience which hath 
been performed for us by our surety. 

Secondly, When he saith that this obedience was “ more 
than Christ was bound to do,” if he means this of the obe- 
dience of the divine nature ; this, if it be not that which was 


ἡ John x. 18. + Phil. ii. 8. 


* Isa. 1, 12, 


670 


condemned in the Arian heresy, is a great absurdity in the 
supposition, that he, who is absolutely supreme, should be 


obedient, i. 6. subject to the law of a superior; if of Christ’s | 
human nature, in that he was certainly obliged to “fulfil all | 


righteousness,” i. e. all things required of all men by the 
moral law; this also was absolutely necessary to the dis- 
charge of his priestly office, viz. that he should be perfectly 
righteous, and without sin in his own person ; for “such a 
high-priest became us as was holy, ἄκακος, free from evil, un- 
defiled, separated from sinners, who had no need to offer 
first for his own sins” (Heb. vii. 26, 27), since otherwise he 
must have died not for ours, but his own sins: now the per- 
sonal righteousness which was absolutely necessary to render 
him a fit high-priest to offer a true expiatory sacrifice for our 
sins, could not be more than he was bound to do, as our 
high-priest. 

ifthly, That his fifth proposition, which affirms that “« we 
are entitled to eternal life by the tenor of the old law, Do 
this and live,” &c., is a flat contradiction to the doctrine of 
Paul in his Epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians, and to 
the Hebrews, will be hereafter fully manifested. 

Sixthly, The difference betwixt the justification and obe- 
dience required by the old and new covenant doth not con- 
sist, as the bishop saith it is, in this, “that, in the first, ohe- 
dience in our own persons was required as absolutely neces- 
sary ; in the second, obedience in our surety is accepted as 
completely sufficient :”’ but in this, that whereas the old law 
required perfect obedience, in order to our justification, allow- 
ing no pardon for sins committed, but leaving all under the 
curse, who “ continued not in all things written in the law to 
do them” (Gal. iii. 10): the new covenant requires only 
faith in the blood of Christ, for the remission of our past sins, 
as will be fully proved hereafter. And though the new 
covenant doth not exempt us from the moral law, as a rule 
of duty ; it being a contradiction to say that God permits us 
to omit our duty, or transgress his law (since that permission 
would render duty no duty, and transgression no transgres- 
sion) ; yet doth it accept of sincere obedience, pardoning the 
sins of ignorance and infirmity which still cleave to our duties 
in this imperfect state, not for the active, but passive obedi- 
ence of the blessed Jesus, according to these words of John, 
«If ye walk in the light, as God is in the light, the blood of 
Jesus Christ, N. B. cleanseth you from all sin,” 1 John i. 8. 
And again, ii. 2, “If we sin, we have an advocate with the 
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation 
for our sins.” 

Seventhly, The seventh proposition will be proved false in 
every branch of it in the third section. 

Eighthly, The eighth to be a gross mistake of the true 
sense of the apostle’s words, 2 Cor. ν. 21, section the second. 


SECT. IL. 


Having, in the foregoing section, sufficiently declared 
what is the doctrine I reject, viz. that which asserts that 
Christ's active and passive obedience must be imputed to us 
to eternal life, or to justification ; I proceed, 

Secondly, ‘To show that this doctrine hath not the least 
foundation in the holy scriptures. Now this I shall make 
evident, by a particular consideration of the texts of scrip- 
ture produced by the good bishop, and other patrons of this 
doctrine, in favour of it. And, 

First, Whereas the bishop saith, p. 87, that, as Christ is 
said to be “made sin for us,” so are we said to be “ made 
the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. v. 21), and thence 
concludes, that “the only way whereby we are said to be 
made the righteousness of God, is by the righteousness of 
Christ’s being made ours, by which we are accounted and 
reputed as righteous before God :” I am sorry to find he was 
50 unacquainted with the true import of either of these 
phrases, or so regardless of the context. For, 

First, This phrase, “ the righteousness of God,” doth never 
signify the active obedience or righteousness of Christ, per- 
formed unto the law, but always hath relation to the righte- 
ousness of faith, in opposition to the law, or that righteous- 
ness which is procured by faith in the blood of Christ, and 
accepted by God to our justification; thus, Rom. 1. 17, 
ἡ δικαιοσύνη Θεοὺ ἐκ πίστεως, “The tighteousness of God 
through faith, is revealed” in the gospel, “to beget faith in 
us, as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith” now these 


A DISCOURSE ON THE 


very words the apostle useth to prove that “no man is jus- 
tified by obedience to the law before God; for (saith the 
scripture) The just shall live by faith; but the law is not of 
faith ; but (in opposition to it, saith, Lev. xviii. 5) The man 
that doth these things shall live by them;” which are the 


| very words the bishop useth to prove against Paul, that “ we 


must be denominated righteous, or obedient tu the Jaw, so as 
to have a title to eternal life, according to the tenor of the 
old law (p. 88, 89), Do this, and live,” Lev. xviii. 5. So 
again, iii. 21, ἡ δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ, “ The righteousness of God, 
without the law, is manifested, being testified by the law and 
the prophets,” to wit, the righteousness of God, communi- 
cated to all believers, by faith in Christ’s blood (ver. 22) ; 
“ We being justified freely, by the redemption which is in 
Christ Jesus” (ver. 23); “in whom we have redemption 
through his blood, even the remission of sins” (Eph. i. 7, 
Col. i. 14); «God having set him forth for a propitiation, 
through faith in his blood;” p. 11, so evident is it, that 
“the righteousness of God,” twice mentioned, is the justifi- 
cation God vouchsafes to us, through faith in Christ’s blood, 
shed for the remission of our sins. Again, Rom. x. 3, the 
Jews “not knowing τὴν δικαιοσύνην τοῦ Θεοῦ, the righteousness 
of God, but seeking to establish their own righteousness,” 
which was by the works of the law, “have not submitted, 
τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ Θεοῦ, to the righteousness of God,” which is 
the righteousness to be obtained by faith in Christ. Now this 
righteousness of the law, which the Jews seeking after, 
“submitted not to the righteousness of God,” is, saith the 
apostle, that which Moses mentioned, Lev. xviii. 5, which 
saith, “The man that doth these things shall live by them ;” 
so grossly doth the bishop mistake, in saying, p. 89, that 
“ this very righteousness was established by the covenant of 
grace.” What is the righteousness of faith the apostles 
preached in opposition to it? even a belief that God hath 
raised Christ from the dead (ver. 9), he dying for our sins, 
and rising again for our justification (Rom. iv. 24). Can then 
any thing be more clear from the apostle’s words, than that 
“the righteousness of God through faith” stands in direct 
opposition to the righteousness of the law, which saith, « Do 
this and live;” and therefore cannot consist in Christ's per- 
fect obedience to the law imputed to us, as our righteous- 
ness? And, lastly, Phil. ili. 9, ἡ ἐκ Θεοῦ δικαιοσύνη, “the 
righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ,” stands 
directly opposite to the righteousness of the law, or to that 
righteousness which the Jews sought for by obedience to the 
law. 

Secondly, The phrase, “« He was made sin for us,” is only 
capable of these two senses;—l. He was made guilty of 
our sins by imputation, which, I fear, is the bishop's sense; 
partly because the opposite imputation of Christ’s righteous- 
ness to us, as if personally performed by us, is by him said 
to be meant by our being “made the righteousness of God 
in him;” partly because he plainly seems to own it in these 
words, p. 72, “ His righteousness being as really by faith im- 
puted to me, as my sins were laid upon him;” then, as his 
righteousness is imputed to me, as if it had been personally 
performed by me; so my sins must be imputed to him, as if 
they had been performed by him, and so he must be, by 
God’s own imputation, guilty of doing murder, idolatry, 
adultery, and all the other sins committed by mankind; 
which blasphemy will be more fully rebuked in the following 
section; or, secondly, he was made ἁμαρτία, a sin-oflering, 
or expiatory sacrifice for us, which is the frequent sense of 
the word ἁμαρτία, in the Levitical law concerning sacrifices ; 
and is here put upon the words by all the commentators I 
have seen. Now this interpretation of the phrase relating 
to the death of Christ as an expiatory sacrifice, the proper 
and immediate effect of it cannot be the imputation of the 
obedience of Christ’s life unto us, but our freedom from 
condemnation on the account of sin, in which our justifica- 
tion is still placed by the apostle; for such an eflect must 
of necessity be signified by these words, “ We are made the 
righteousness of God in him,” which suits with the cause of 
it, viz. the death of Christ as an expiatory sacrifice for the 
remission of sin; now the proper and direct eflect of such 
a sacrifice is deliverance from the guilt and punishment of 
sin, and not the imputation of Christ’s active obedience 
unto men: for Christ offered this expiatory sacrifice, not 
that men might be made righteous by the righteousness of 


IMPUTATION OF CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


his life, but that sinners might be justified by his blood, shed 
for the remission of sins, and reconciled to God by the death 
of his Son (Rom. v. 9,10). ‘This, therefore, must be the 
true import of our being made the righteousness of God in 
him. And, 

Thirdly, This is farther evident from the context; “for 
God was in Christ” (saith the ae “reconciling the 
world unto himself :”” how hath Christ done this? he hath, 
saith the apostle, “reconciled us to God in the body of his 
flesh by death” (Col. i. 21). He adds, that God was thus 
“reconciling the world unto himself, by not imputing to 
them their trespasses ;” why did he not impute them? be- 
cause Christ, by his death, had made an expiatory sacrifice 
for the remission of them; for he saith, “he made him” a 
sacrifice for “sin, who knew no sin:” whence it must fol- 
low, that we are “ made the righteousness of God in him,” 
by the reconciliation purchased for us by his death, and the 
non-imputation of sin to us, as the consequent of that death. 

And it may farther be observed, that every branch of this 
exposition is confirmed, and the sense imposed on these 
words by the bishop is plainly confuted, by the descants of 
the ancient commentators on this place. For, 

First, They plainly say that by the word* ἁμαρτία, sin, we 
are to understand, τὸ περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν Siva, “a sacrifice for 
sin ;{ non immerito peccatum factus dicitur, quia et hostia 
in lege, que pro peccatis offerebatur, peccatum nuncu- 
pabatur, “the sacrifice offered in the law for sin, being so 
called.” 

Secondly, They add, that to be made the righteousness 
of God in Christ, is,t διὰ συγχαμήσεως δικαιωθῆναι δι᾿ αὐτοῦ, 
“to be justified by a gracious pardon through him:” that 
this is the righteousness of God, ὅταν ris χώριτι ῥικαιώϑη 
ἔνθα πᾶσα ἁμαρτία ἠφάνισται, “when a man is so justified 
by grace, that all his sin is made to vanish away.” 

Thirdly, They add, that we are then righteous with the 
Tighteousness of God, when we are justified, μὴ ἐξ ἔργων 
vopov, αλλ᾽ ἐκ τῆς χάριτος τοῦ Θεοῦ, “not by the works of the 
law, but by the grace of God.” 

Ἐκείνη yap i προτέρα νόμου» καὶ ἔργων δικαιοσύνη, αὐτὴ δὲ Θεοῦ 
δικαιοσύνη, “ The first,” saith Chrysostom, “is justification by 
the law; this, that of God.’ I conclude then in the words 
of Gataker against Gomarus, producing this very text for the 
same purpose as the bishop doth, Quid feré clarius contra 
se producere poterat quam illud, 2 Cor. v. 21. 

The second text, produced by the bishop, contains these 
words, “ Of him are you in Christ Jesus, who is made unto 
us of God, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and 
redemption.” 

Ans. From these words it is evident, that Christ is in no 
other sense said to he made unto us “righteousness,” than 
he is said to be made to us “wisdom, sanctification, and 
redemption.” Hence therefore, [ retort the argument thus: 
Christ is not here said to be made unto us of God, wisdom, 
sanctification, and redemption, by his wisdom, sanctification, 
and redemption imputed to us; therefore he is not here said 
to be made our righteousness, by his righteousness or active 
obedience imputed to us. The consequence is evident; for 
they who hence say that Christ is made our righteousness 
by his righteousness imputed to us, have the same reason to 
say from this text, that he is made our wisdom by his wis- 
dom, and our sanctification by his holiness, and our redemp- 
tion by his redemption imputed to us. The antecedent is 
also evident : for, 

First, It is evidently absurd to say we are made wise by 
the same wisdom with which Christ was, imputed to us. 

And, Secondly, If we are made sanctification by the holi- 


ness of Christ imputed to us, there can be no necessity that | 


we ourselves should “have our fruit unto holiness, that the 
end may he eternal life” (Rom. vi. 22); nor can it be true, 
that, “ without (personal) sanctification, no man shall see the 


Lord” (Heb. xii. 14); nor could it be necessary that he | 


should give up himself to the death for his church, that “he 
might sanctify her” (Eph. v. 25—27) ; he having done this 
completely by the holiness of his life imputed to her. 

And, Thirdly, The redemption here mentioned being dis- 
tinguished from, and following justification and sanctifica- 


671 


tion, it must import the redemption of the body from cor- 
ruption ; now, is it not absurd to say that the redemption of 
Christ’s body trom corruption is imputed to us? and will it 
not hence follow, that we are not to expect any personal 
redemption of our own bodies from corruption? — It remains 
then to say, with the ancient commentators," that Christ is 
made to us wisdom, by being αἴτιος ris copias, * the author 
of our spiritual wisdom ;” of our justification, τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν 
τὴν ἄφεσιν dwpnoipevos,t “by procuring for us, by his 
death,” that “remission of sins,” in which consisteth our 
justification; our sanctification, τὸ Πνεῦμα χαριζόμενυς, “ by 
giving us the Spirit of sanctification ;” and our redemption, 
by procuring for us, τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς πεμιποιήσεως, “the 
redemption of life,” or of our bodies, “from corruption, 
into the glorious liberty of the sons of God” (Rom. viii. 21. 
23). 

Thirdly, Whereas the bishop argues that “the old cove- 
nant which saith, Do this, and live, Lev. xviii. 5, is not dis- 
annulled or abrogated by the covenant of grace, especially 
as to the obedience it requires from us in order to the life it 
promiseth ;” because the apostle saith, Rom, iil. 31, “Do 
we then make void the law through faith? nay, we establish 
the law, and because otherwise the laws of God would be 
mutable :”” one would wonder how he could fall into so plain 
a contradiction to the express words of the apostle, in his 
plea for justification by faith, and not by the works of the 
law; in his frequent declarations, not only of the freedom of 
Christians from the yoke of the law, but also of the necessity 
of the change of the law; and much more how he could do 
it from those words, which, considered with the context, are 
a full confutation of his doctrine. For, 

Virst, The apostle saith twice expressly, that the righte- 
ousness of the law which he disputes against, and by which 
“no man can be justified before God,” is that very righteous- 
ness which saith, Lev. xviii. 5, “The man that doeth 
these things, shall live in and by them” (see Rom. x. 5, 
Gal. iii. 12). 

Secondly, Paul having declared that the law was only 
given “till the promised seed should come,” Gal. iii. 19, and 
that he being come, we were no longer under the pedagogy of 
the law; that Christians were “dead to the law, through the 
body of Christ,” Rom. vii. 4, that it was “evacuated,” 2 Cor. 
iii, 11, and they were “loosed from the law, that being dead 
wherein they were held,’ Rom. vii. 6, that they were re- 
deemed from it by Christ, Gal. iv. 5, and ought no more to 
be subject to the “yoke of bondage,” or return to those 
“beggarly elements,” ver. 9, v. 1, that it was only to con- 
tinue to the “time of reformation,” Heb. ix. 10, that “the 
priesthood being changed, there was made of necessity a 
change also of the law,” vii. 12, and that “there was a dis- 
annulling of the commandment going before, because of the 
weakness and unprofitableness of it,” ver. 18, and that God 
by speaking of a new covenant, πεπαλαίωκε, “had pro-~ 
nounced the first old; and that that which decayeth and 
waxeth old was ready to vanish away,” viii. 13, and lastly, 
that there was to be “a removal of those things which were 
shaken,” i. e. of the law given with the shaking of the earth, 
xii. 25—27, with many things of a like nature; that, after 
all this, the bishop should so positively say, that “the cove- 
nant of grace had not disannulled, but established this old 
law,” and speak of it as an absurdity, that those laws of his 
should be mutable, which he himself declared were only to 
continue “till the promised seed should come,” and «till 
the time of reformation,” is matter of just admiration. And, 

Thirdly, This is still the infelicity of the assertors of this 
doctrine, that the texts they produce for it, considered with 
relation to the context, are the fullest confutation of it. For 
the apostle is proving, from ver. 14 of this chapter to the 
end of the fourth, that “no flesh can be justified by the 
works of the law,” ver. 16, and that the justification, which 
is of God, is manifested to be “by faith, without the works 
of the law,” and he concludes the argument of this chapter 
thus, λογιζόμεϑα οὖν, “ We reckon therefore,” from the pre- 
mises, “that a man is justified by faith, without the works 
of the law,” ver. 28. Now, can he, who is only justified by 
the works of the law accounted as if performed by himself, 


* @eum. ἡ Hilar. Diac. 
+ Gcum. § Chrysost. Theoph. 


* Chrysost. 
{ Theod. Theoph. 


672 


be justified by faith alone, without the works of the law? 
The ancient commentators here say, 

First, That the apostle, by the word* ἱστῶμεν, « We esta- 
blish,” or make the law to stand, shows it to be, κείμενον, ca- 
λευόμενον, καταλελυμένον, “fallen, shaken, and dissolved ;” 
and that non evacuat legem cum illam cessare debere jam 
docet;+ and that “he doth not make void the law by 
teaching that it must now cease.” 

Secondly, They give two senses of these words; first, that 
he established the law, by establishing the work of the law, 
which was δίκαιον ποιῆσαι τὸν ἄνθρωπον, “to maake man right- 
eous;”’ for the law being not able to do this through the in- 
firmity of the flesh (Rom. viii. 3), subjecting all men to sin, 
faith hath performed it, ὑμοῦ γάρ τις ἐπίστευσε καὶ ἐδικαιώϑη, 
“for, as soon as ἃ man believes, he is justified:” so Chry- 
sostom, (Ecumenius, and ‘Theophylact. 

Thirdly, We establish the law by faith, saith Theodoret, 
because the law and the prophets have given in their testi- 
mony to the justification by faith, Rom. iii. 21, 22, the law 
by giving us the knowledge of sin, ver. 20, the prophets, by 
saying, Hab. ii. 4, “The just shall live by faith,” and so be- 
coming “ our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, who is the end 
of the law, εἰς δικαιοσύνην, for justification,’ Rom. x. 4, Gal. 
Iv. 245 δεχόμενοι τοίνυν τὴν morw βεβαιοῖμεν τὸν νόμον, SO 
that, by embracing faith, we establish the law,’’ saith Theo- 
doret. And this I conceive to be the truest interpretation of 
the text. 

Fourthly, The bishop argues from the title of “surety” 
given to Christ, Heb. vii. 22. “For,” saith he, p. 90, “a 
surety is bound to pay our debt, in case we are insolvent. 
Now, there are two things we owe to God, first, obedience to 
his laws, as he is our creator and governor; and, secondly, 
and by consequence, the punishment that is annexed to the 
breach of those laws of which we are guilty. Now, though 
Christ should pay the latter part of our debt for us, by 
bearing the punishment that is due unto us; yet if he did 
not pay the former, and principal part of it too, i. e. perform 
the obedience which wé owe to God, he would not fully have 
performed the office of suretyship, which he undertook for 
us, and so would be but a half Mediator, and half Saviour.” 
Now here it may deserve to be observed, 

First, That the bishop cites this passage to prove our 
obligation to perform obedience to the old law, from a chap- 
ter which expressly teacheth that, “the priesthood being 
changed, there was a necessity of the change of the law,” 
ver. 12, and that “there was a disannulling of the com- 
mandment, by reason of the weakness and unprofitableness 
of it,” ver. 18, and that “the law made nothing perfect,” 
ver. 19. 

Secondly, This passage is produced to prove that Christ 
was our surety for the performance of the old covenant; 
whereas the text saith expressly, he was “the surety of a 
better covenant,” which introduced “a better hope,” ver. 19, 
and was “established upon better promises,” viil. 6, even 
“a new covenant” opposed to the old, as to that which was 
“ready to vanish away ;” and which “through his death” 
procured the “remission of sins, committed under the old 
covenant,” ix. 15. 

Thirdly, “Eyyvos, “a sponsor,” say the civilians, is only 
one that promiseth for another, and so he is obliged to do 
no more for him than he promised: and I have shown 
already, that neither could Christ promise to yield perfect 
obedience to the law for us, nor could the Father consent 
that we should be accounted as obedient to it upon such a 
promise. And, lastly, his fancy, that we can stand bound to 
yield perfect obedience to the law, so as never to offend ; 
and yet to undergo the punishment due to all our transgres- 
sions; and that, without doing both, no satisfaction can be 


made to justice, and no title to eternal life can be procured? 


will be proved false in the ensuing section; at present, there- 
fore, I shall only add, that it seems to me as ridiculous, as to 
say a thief cannot satisfy the law by being hanged, unless 
he also did yield perfect obedience to the law, which saith, 
“Thou shalt not steal.” 

This is all that the bishop hath produced to confirm this 
doctrine; others produce some other arguments from scrip- 
ture, which shall here briefly be considered ; as, v. g. 


+ Hilar. D. 


* Chrys. CEcum. Theophyl. 


A DISCOURSE ON THE 


First, That the apostle teacheth that “as by one man’s 
(Adam's) disobedience many were made sinners, so by the 
obedience of one many shall be made righteous” (Rom. v. 
19); but men were made sinners by the disobedience of 
Adam imputed to them; therefore by the active obedience 
or righteousness of Christ imputed to us we must be made 
righteous. ! 

Ans. This is the only text of scripture which speaks of 
the obedience of Christ, and of our being justified, or made 
righteous by it, and so hath any true appearance of an ar- 
gument; and yet that it is only an appearance, is evident 
from this one consideration, that the apostle, in that whole 
chapter, speaketh not one word of the antecedent obedience 
of Christ’s life, but only of his passive obedience; i. e. his 
obedience to the death. 

For the apostle having said (iv. 24) that“ Christ was de- 
livered to death for our sins, and raised again for our justi- 
fication :” he adds (v. 1), that, being “justified by this faith” 
in Christ’s death, « we have peace with God ;” he dying “ for 
sinners, and for the ungodly” (ver. 6. 8), and we “ being 
justified by his blood,” aud “reconciled to God by his 
death” (ver. 9, 10), and then follows this comparison, with a 
διὰ τοῦτο, intimating that it was made upon the account of 
our Lord’s salutary passion, and ran thus: ‘That as death, 
the punishment of sin, passed upon all men, by reason of one 
sin of one man; so, through one righteousness of one Jesus 
Christ, the free gift came upon all men to justification of 
life (ver. 18), and this justification is, saith the apostle, ἐκ 
πολλῶν παραπτωμάτων, “from many transgressions;’ and 
what can justification from offences signify, but freedom 
from the condemnation due unto us for them? now that can 
never be obtained for sinners by Christ’s active obedience, 
for could we, alter many offences committed, perform as per- 
fect obedience as Christ did, we only could thereby perform 
our duty for the future, but could do nothing to procure the 
pardon of our past offences. ‘Thirdly, he disobedience by 
which many were made sinners, is plainly declared by the 
apostle to be one single act of disobedience in Adam, and 
therefore the obedience opposed to it cannot in reason be 
the active obedience of Christ’s whole life, but that obe- 
dience to the death which the apostle mentions, Phil. ii. 8. 
Now, by this passive obedience we cannot be made formally 
righteous, but only metonymically, by being made partakers 
of that freedom from the guilt and punishment of sin, and 
of that reconciliation which Christ hath purchased by his 
meritorious death and passion. 

Secondly, I answer, that it was not by Adam’s active 
disobedience imputed to us, that death or condemnation to 
it passed upon all men, but by the punishment he suffered 
for that disobedience, as will be fully proved hereafter; for 
he being by that disobedience made mortal, and obnoxious 
to death, γεγόνασιν ἐξ ἐκείνου πάντες ϑνητοὶ, ““ all, that were be- 
gotten of him, became mortal,”’ say all the Greek commen- 
tators here; and so by the obedience of Christ to the death 
in their stead who were thus obnoxious to death, or by his 
suffering that death which was the punishment of sin, 
we became justified; i. e. exempted from that punish- 
ment. 

Obj. 2. Secondly, Whereas it is said, Rom. viii. 3, 4, that 
Christ by being “made sin for us,” i. e..a sacrifice for sin, 
“condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the 
law might be fulfilled in us,’ &c., hence some conclude 
that Christ’s active obedience must be imputed to us; for, 
say they, the righteousness of the law can in no sense be said 
to be fulfilled, in or by us, but only by Christ's perfect obe- 
dience to the law imputed to us. 

Ans. ‘The text by no means will admit of this interpreta- 
tion. For, 

First, The righteousness here mentioned is not to be ful- 
filled, ἐν Χριστῷ, in or by Christ, bnt ἐν ὑμῖν, by us personally. 

Secondly, It is not to be fulfilled by the imputation of 
Christ’s righteousness to us, but by our “walking in the 
Spirit,” for «to be spiritually minded is life,” ver. 6, «and 
if through the Spirit we do mortify the deeds of the flesh, 
we shall live,” ver. 13, “ for as many as are led by the Spirit 
of God, they are sons of God,” ver. 14, and, being sons, are 
“ heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ, and to be glorified with 
him,” ver. 17. Whence it is exceeding evident, that the 
righteousness here mentioned is to be fulfilled, not by the. 


IMPUTATION OF CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


imputation of the righteousness of another to us, but by our 
own obedience perlormed by the assistance of God's Holy 
Spirit. 

SECT. III. 


T hope I have returned a sufficient answer to the texts 
alleged to prove the necessity of the imputation of Christ's 
active aud perfect obedience to the law to us for righte- 
ousness. 

It remains now that I should propound those arguments 


which, in my judgment, seem fully to confute that doctrine, | 


and they are these. 


Arg. 1. (1.) This doctrine is contrary to all those scrip- | 


tures which expressly say, that faith is imputed to us for 
righteousness, and whieh prove this from the example of 
Abraham, the father of the faithful; for they inform us 
that “ Abraham believed in God, and it (i. e. this faith of his) 
was imputed to him for righteousness,” Rom. iv. 3, and ver. 
δ, that “to him that worketh not, but believeth in him that 
justifies the ungodly” (that is, in God the Father, for “ it is 
God that justifieth,” Rom. viii. 33), “his faith is imputed 
to him for justification ;” and ver. 9,“ We say then that 
faith was imputed to Abraham ei; δικαιοσύνην, for justification ;” 
and, ver. 20. 22, « He was strong in faith, giving glory to 
God, wherefore it (i. e. this faith) was imputed to him for 
justification.” Whence the apostle makes this general con- 


clusion, that what the scripture saith of Abraham, viz. that | 


his faith was imputed to him for righteousness, “ was not 
written for his sake alone, but for us also, to whom it (that 
is, the like faith) shall be imputed (for righteousness), if we 
believe on him who raised up Jesus from the dead” (that is, 
on God the Father). In the third chapter of the Epistle 
to the Galatians he repeats the same example of the faith 
of Abraham, saying, “ Abraham believed in God, and it 
(i.e. his faith in God) was imputed to him for righteonsness” 
ver. 6, and thence he makes this inference: “ Know, there- 
fore, that they who are (the children) of faith, are the sons 
of Abraham ;” and ver. 9, that “they who are of faith are 
blessed with faithful Abraham: and ver. 24, he adds, that 
“the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ, that 
we might be justified by faith, the scripture foreseeing that 
God would justify the gentiles through faith.” Now hence, 
First, It is evident that the doctrine of justification by 
the very act of faith is expressly and frequently delivered in 
the holy scriptures, whereas it hath been proved already, 
that the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s active righte- 
ousness to us for justification hath no ground in scripture. 
Secondly, What interpretation of the apostle’s words can 
be more uncouth and unsound than this, “ Faith is imputed 
to us for righteousness ;” i. e. it is not faith, but Christ’s ac- 
tive righteousness, which is imputed to us for righteousness ? 
Is not this evidently to convert the apostle’s affirmative into 
a negative, to deny constantly what he as constantly asserts, 
and to make him always mean what, in relation to justifica- 
tion, he doth never say? “To him that believeth on him 
that justifieth the ungodly, his faith,” saith the apostle, «is 
imputed ;” it is not his faith, saith this interpretation, but 
Christ’s righteousness which is thus imputed. And how 
then doth God justify the ungodly, if he only justifies them 


who have as true a title to Christ’s perfect obedience, as if | 


they had personally performed it, and upon that account 
alone are justified; can they be styled “the ungodly,” who 
are and must be as righteous as Christ was, before they can 
be justified ? 

Thirdly, This interpretation cannot possibly agree to the 
faith of Abraham; for it is not only said that “ he believed 
in God,” not in the righteousness of Christ, but that his faith 
was in that “God who quickens the dead, and calleth the 
things that are not, as if they were” (ver. 17) ; “that he was 
strong in faith, being fully persuaded, that what God had 
promised, he was able to perform.” It therefore is evident, 
that it was faith in God's promise, and in his power to per- 
form it, by which Abraham was justified. Now what affinity 
hath this faith with Christ’s obedience to the law, not yet 
given, as the apostle argues, Gal. iii. 17, though it hath an 
evident affinity with God's promise, of justifying him that 
believeth in Jesus, and who believeth “in that God who hath 
raised up Jesus from the dead 7” (Rom. iv. 24.) 

Arg. 2. (2.) This will be farther evident from all those 

Vor. IV.—85 


673 


| places which show that our justification consists entirely in 
| the remission of sin, and that to be justified and to be freed 
from condemnation, or to have the guilt and punishment of 
our sins remitted, are phrases of the same import. ‘This we 
| may learn, 
First, From those arguments by which the apostle proves 
' that Jew and gentile are to be justified by faith without the 
works of the law; viz. (1.) because both Jew and gentile 
lay under sin (Rom. iii. 9), and so both needed to be justi- 
fied by faith, or by an act of grace, pardoning their sins, 
through faith in Christ (ver. 24) ; that therefore « by the law 
no flesh can be justified, because by the law is the knowledge 
of sin,” rendering us obnoxious to condemnation; where 
then there remains the guilt of sin, there can be no justifi- 
cation; where therefore there is a remission of the guilt of 
sin by God, there is our justification. Again, “ All have 
sinned, saith he, and fallen short of the glory of God,” there- 
fore absolution from this sin must be sufficient to make us 
obtain this glory of God. We who have thus sinned “are 
justified,” saith he, “ freely by his grace, through the redemp- 
tion which is in Christ Jesus” (ver. 24). Now, what is this 
redemption? It is, saith the apostle twice, “remission of 
sins,” Eph. i. 7, Col. i. 14. ‘To the same effect, he saith, 
Gal. iii. 21, 22, that justification cannot be by the law, 
because the law cannot give life; and this it cannot do, be- 
cause the scripture hath “concluded all under sin,” and so 
hath shut out that way of being justified: our freedom 
therefore from the guilt of sin must be sufficient for our 
justification to life. In the fourth chapter to the Romans 
he describes that justification in which faith is accounted to 
us for righteousness, by the non-imputation and forgiveness 
of sin, and proves this from the words of David, saying, 
« Blessed is the man, whose iniquity is forgiven, and whose 
sin is covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord im- 
puteth no sin” (ver. 4—S). Since then the blessedness, of 
which the apostle there discourseth, is that of justification of 
the ungodly by faith; and since this blessedness is said to 
consist in the remission, the covering, the not imputing his 
sin to him, it cannot reasonably be denied, that the blessed- 
ness of a justified person is here described by the blessedness 
of a pardoned person, as being one and the same thing. 

Secondly, This will be farther evident from the considera- 
tion of the phrases the apostle useth as equivalent to justi- 
fication, and interpretative of it. As, 

First, Reconciliation to God; that this is the same with 
justification, appears by these words, “Much more, being 
justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath by him: 
for if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by 
the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall 
be saved by his life,” Rom. v. 9, 10, where, being justified 
by his blood, and being reconciled by his death, seem plainly 
the same thing; now, that reconciliation is effected by the 
remission of sins is evident from these words, 2 Cor. v. 19, 
«God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not im- 
puting their trespasses to them,” and therefore justification 
must be so obtained. 

Secondly, Justification stands directly opposed to con- 
demnation in these words, “ Who shall lay any thing to the 
charge of God's elect? τίς ἐγκαλέσει κατὰ, who shall object a 
crime against them? It is God that justifieth, who is he 
that condemneth them?” Rom. viii. 33, 34. And again, 
“If the ministration of condemnation,” i. e. the law which 
| renders us obnoxious to condemnation, “ was glorious, much 

more the ministration, τῆς δικαιοσύνης, of justification exceeds 
| in glory :” now, what is it that mankind 15 accused of, or 
charged with by the law, but sin? What do they stand 
condemned for at God’s bar, but the transgression of his law ? 
| Justification therefore, which stands opposed to it, must be 
a clearing and discharging them from the guilt or the con- 
| demning power of sin. ε 
Thirdly, Justification is said to be from sin ; “ By him all 
that believe are justified, ἐκ πάντων, from all those sins from 
which they could not be justified by the law of Moses,” Acts 
xiii. 39, and again, “ The judgment was from one sin to con- 
demnation, but the free gift to justification, ix πολλῶν rapa- 
πτωμήτων, from many sins,” Rom. v. 16. Now, what can 
justification from sin signify, besides our absolution from the 

guilt of sin?! 
Fourthly, The justifying Oa believer, and the remission of 

3 


674 


his sins, are only different expressions of the same thing, as 
is apparent from these words, “ God hath justified us freely 
by his grace, having set forth Christ to be the propitiation 
for our sins, through faith in his blood, to declare his righte- 
ousness in the remission of sins to those who have this faith” 
(Rom. xxiii. 24, 25) ; 1. 6. to manifest the way of justification 
by faith, which he alone admits of for the remission of sins. 

Fifthly, « We are justified,” saith the apostle, «through 
the redemption that is in Jesus, through faith in his blood,” 
Rom. iii. 24, 25, “through his blood,’ Rom. v. 9. Now 
what doth this blood procure for us? “ Remission of sins,” 
Eph. i. 7, Col. i. 14, it being “ shed for the remission of sins,” 
Matt. xxvi. 28. What benefit have believers by it? “He 
hath loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own 
blood,” Rev. i. 5. “He hath made peace for them by the 
blood of the cross,” Col. i. 20, with a God only angry for 
sin; he hath obtained eternal redemption from transgressions 
by it, Heb. ix. 12. 15, by all which equivalent expressions it 
appears that God’s justifying the sinner, in Paul’s sense of 
the expression, is his absolving him from the guilt of his past 
sins, from punishment and condemnation by the law for them, 
by an act of grace, and free pardon of them through the 
blood of Jesus, his being as fully reconciled to us as if we 
never had offended against the former covenant we were all 
under, till that new covenant was established in the blood of 
Jesus, which promises God would be “ merciful to our iniqui- 
ties,” and would “remember our sins no more,” Heb. viii. 12. 

Now this observation perfectly destroys the imputation of 
Christ's active obedience to us for righteousness, since they 
who contend for that doctrine do make remission of sins but 
one half of justification, and Christ’s active obedience im- 
puted to us still necessary to procure us a title to eternal life; 
and that by the first, p. 72, “God only looks upon us as 
perfectly innocent, and therefore not fit to be cast down to 
hell; whereas, by the other, he looks upon us as perfectly 
righteous, and therefore fit to be brought up to heaven.” 
Secondly, These two things are plainly needless and incon- 
sistent: for he that is discharged from the guilt of all his 
sins must also be discharged from that penal death which is 


the wages of sin, and so must, by that freedom, have a title | 


to life; for, between freedom from condemnation and abso- 
lution, freedom from the death due to sin and the gift of life, 
in subjects capable of either,* there is no medium. More- 
over, either this want of righteousness is our sin, or it is not ; 
if it be not, then, as it is not our duty to be thus righteous in 
order to our justification before God, so neither can we be 
under that covenant which saith, “Do this, and live,’ nor 
can Christ's active obedience be necessary on that account; 
if it be our sin, then must the want of it be forgiven by the 
remission of all our sins: whereas, if God requires that Christ’s 
perfect obedience should be imputed to us, the want of it 
neither is nor can be forgiven, since then God must impute 
that as sin to us. And hence ariseth a third argument 
against the imputation of Christ’s active and perfect obedi- 
ence to us for justification, viz. 

Arg. 3. (3.) That it renders the death of Christ to pro- 
cure the remission of our sins vain, and that upon many 
accounts. 

First, Because the perfect righteousness of Christ, im- 
puted to us, doth render his death unnecessary to procure 
any farther righteousness or justification in our behalf; for, 
if by virtue of this imputation we be as righteous as Christ 
was in his life, there can be no more need that Christ should 
die for us, than that he should die for himself, or any other 
should die for him; yea, then Christ, dying only for the bene- 
fit of believers, could not have died for the unjust, but only 
for the just, i. e. for them for whom there could be no neces- 


sity that he should die, but only that he should live for them; | 


secing faith in him as a Mediator, performing perfect obedi- 
ence to the law for them, must make them persons for whom 
there could be no necessity that he should die, but only that 
he should live for them; seeing faith in him as a Mediator, 
performing perfect obedience to the law for them, must make 
them for whom he thus obeyed perfectly obedient, and there- 
fore must have given them a full title to the promise, “Do 
this, and live.” Add to this, that perfect obedience is unsin- 
ning obedience, and sure there can be no necessity that Christ 


* Inter privativa opposita non datur medium. 


A DISCOURSE ON THE 


should die for the sins of them who by his life had performed 
unsinning obedience. ‘To strengthen this argument, consider 
that Christ performed his active obedience to the law en- 
tirely before he suffered for our sins; and so this righteous- 
ness, being first performed and purchased for us, should be 
first imputed, and made over to us; and might, for any thing 
I can perceive to the contrary, have been imputed to all that 
believed in him before he actually suffered; yea, to all such 
persons, though he had returned to heaven without dying. 
For seeing nothing more can be required to a perfect justifi- 
cation from the condemnation of the law than a perfect 
righteousness, i. e. a perfect fulfilling of the law, there could 
be no need of satisfaction made to divine justice, for any 
violations of it, since that must necessarily suppose that law 
not perfectly fulfilled by Christ upon their account. 

Secondly, According to this doctrine there remains no 
place for the remission of sins to believers, for God neither 
did nor could forgive any sin in Christ, because he was per- 
fectly righteous, “and in him was no sin ;” if then believers 
be righteous, with the same righteousness imputed to them 
with which Christ was righteous, they must be as completely 
righteous as Christ was, and so have no more sin to be par- 
doned than he had, and so no more need to be pardoned 
than he had; whereas the apostle saith that “if we (Chris- 
tians) sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ 
the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 
John ii. 1): thus doth that doctrine destroy Christ’s inter- 
cession for us, according to the words now cited; and also 
the necessity of his salutary passion, according to those words 
of Paul, “If righteousness (i. e. justification) come by the 
law, then Christ is dead in vain:;” for if righteousness cannot 
come by the law, it cannot come by Christ’s perfect obedi- 
ence to the law; but if it can, then the apostle’s inference is 
plainly this, that « Christ is dead in vain,” i. 6. there could 
be no necessity of his dying upon this account, that we had 
personally transgressed the law, since he who hath a righte- 
ousness, or an obedience to the law, imputed to him, as per- 
fect as was that of Christ, can be no more condemned for 
transgressing the law than Christ himself. 

Thirdly, According to this doctrine God can see no sin in 
believers ; for certain it is, he saw no sin in Christ: if then 
believers be righteous, with a righteousness as perfect as 
Christ’s was, imputed to them, he can see no more sin in 


| them than he beheld in Christ. 


Fourthly, This doctrine renders it unnecessary for a be- 
liever to repent, at least, of sins committed after he truly 
hath believed: for our repentance must suppose an antece- 
dent failure, since that time, in our obedience; whereas, 
there being no such failure in the active obedience of Christ, 
if that, by imputation, be made as much and truly the obe- 
dience of believers as if they personally had performed it, 
there can be no failure in the obedience of a believer, and so 
no place for his repentance. The perfect obedience which 
Christ performed to the law, was the reason why he needed 
no repentance ; if then, through faith, it be as much theirs 
by imputation as if they personally had performed it, must 
it not be equally a reason why they need no repentance ? 
Lastly, The assertors of this doctrine say, Christ's perfect 
obedience must be imputed to believers, that they may have 
a just title to eternal life by virtue of this precept, “ Do this, 
and live :” this title he who is a sinner, i. e. a violater of the 
law, requiring perfect obedience, can never have ; and there- 
fore he who needs repentance cannot have it, that being only 
needful for the remission of sins, and that we may live and 
not die. 

Arg. 4. (4.) This doctrine renders it unnecessary to have 
any personal inherent righteousness; for as Christ's passive 
obedience, sustained in our stead, makes it unnecessary, if 
not unjust, that we should personally suffer any punishment 
for the remission of those sins which render us obnoxious to 
death ; so in like manner must Christ’s active and perfect 
obedience to the law, imputed to us, render it as unnecessary 
that we should personally be righteous, by doing righteous- 
ness, that we may live; for if we can be as righteous as 
Christ was without doing righteousness, sure we need not be 
more than so: yea, then we may have a title to life eternal, 
without any inherent righteousness; and so there can be no 
need of “having our fruit unto holiness,” that the end may 
be eternal life. 


IMPUTATION OF CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


The good bishop saw the absurdity of a consequence so 
obstructive of all practical Christianity, and so plainly ex- 
cusing all men from any necessity of living “righteously, 
soberly, and godly in this present world :” he therefore saith, 
p- 89, “ [believe the active obedience of Christ will stand me 
in no stead, unless I endeavour after sincere obedience in my 


person ; his active as well as his passive obedience being im- | 
puted to none but only to them who apply it to themselves | 


by faith, which faith will certainly put such as are possessed 
with it upon obedience.” Where the bishop did well to 
deny the conclusion, seeing the consequence was so evident 


from his own words that he could not formally deny it; for | 


if, as he saith, p. 86, « Christ covenanted to perform those 
duties which were due from man to God, provided what he 
thus did should wholly be put on the account of man; and 
the Father was pleased to consent to this motion :” can the 
Father, after this consent, require that man himself should 
perform all or any of those duties to God which Christ 
already had performed on his account? If, as he saith, p. 
87, “ Christ performed that obedience only on the account of 
those whose nature he had assumed, as they, by faith, lay 
hold upon it; and God, by grace, imputes this obedience to 
them, as if it had been performed by them in their own per- 
sons: can God require that, after Christ's performance of 
it perfectly, they should imperfectly perform the same again ? 
Or, after the imputation of Christ’s perfect obedience to them, 
as fully as if they had performed it personally, require that 
they should perform it personally? When Christ, “ by his 
obedience imputed to them, hath entitled them to eternal 
life;’’ as he saith, p. 88; can it be still necessary that they 
should have their fruit unto holiness, that the end may be 
eternal life? (Rom. vi. 22;) when, as he saith, p. 89, under 
the new covenant, “obedience in our surety is accepted as 
completely sufficient; can personal obedience be required 
of us by the same covenant? 

To say, that “ faith will put the person that is possessed 
of it upon obedience to God,” is nothing to the purpose ; 
for the question is, not what faith will do, but what he is 
obliged to do, who by this faith is as much entitled to 
Christ's perfect obedience, as if-it had been personally per- 
formed by him; and what God, after this perfect obedience 
imputed to him, can require him to do, in order to that eter- 
nal life which this perfect obedience imputed hath given 
him a certain title to, whether it be necessary for him, after 
this, “ by patient continuance in well-doing, to seek for glory 
and immortality, that he may have eternal life,’’* and, 
“through the Spirit, to mortify the deeds of the flesh, that 
he may live τ Τ and to “live righteously, soberly, and godly, 
in this present world, that he may comfortably expect the 
blessed hope.” I conclude then in the words of the be- 
loved apostle, Good Christians, “let no man deceive you,” 
not he who applies Christ’s active righteousness to himself, 
though he never did it, but “he that doeth righteousness is 
righteous, even as he (i. 6. Christ) is righteous.’’§ 

Arg. 5. (5.) It is a thing impossible, that, by the obe- 
dience of another imputed to us, we can obtain a title to 
the life promised by that law, which saith, “ Do this, and live.” 

1. Because the law requires personal obedience that we 
may live, by saying, “ The man that doeth these things shall 
live by (doing) them ;” and this the bishop grants by saying 
p- 89, “The obedience the old covenant required as abso- 
lutely necessary, was that of our own persons ;” whereas the 
obedience of another cannot be our personal obedience, nor 
can it be imputed to us but by the relaxation of the law, 
which requires of us personal obedience; and so our per- 
sonal obedience, which is the only thing required by the law 


must be remitted, that we may be made righteous with the | 


righteousness of another. ΤῸ make this farther evident, let 
it be noted, that men do generally mistake, when they say 
Christ, by his sufferings in our stead, made satisfaction to the 
law, which said, “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 


die the death :” this he could not possibly do, because the | 


law expressly saith, “ The soul that sinneth he shall die ;” and 
only threatened death to the person that violates the law. 
He indeed made 4 satisfaction to divine justice, by suffering, 
in our stead, that death which justice might have personally 


* Rom. ii. 7. 


+ Chap. viii. 13. 
¢ Tit. ii. 12, 13. 


§ 1 John iii. 7. 


Ϊ 


675 


inflicted upon us; but then this admission of another to 
suffer in our stead is a full relaxation of that law, which 
required us personally to suffer, and an entire remission of 
the punishment of the law required of us personally ; and so it 
is also in this case. 

2. Because the law requires unsinning obedience, saying, 
« Cursed is the man that continueth not in all things written 
in the law to do them,’’* not promising any pardon to the gin- 
ner; so that, unless Christ's righteousness imputed to us can 
make us never to have been sinners, and so never to have 
needed forgiveness of sin, it cannot afford us a legal righteous- 
ness. Hence the apostle saith, « Christ hath redeemed us 
from the curse of the law,” not by his continuance in all 
things written in the law to do them, but by suffering the 
punishment which the law threatened to offenders, to wit, 
by being hanged on the tree. 

Arg. 6. (6.) This doctrine partly answers and partly con- 
futes all the arguments which the apostle uscth in his 
Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, to prove that 
justification must be by faith only, and not at all by the 
works of the law. For, 

First, This doctrine destroys that argument of Paul, by 
which he proves, that no man can be justified by the works 
of the law, because all men have sinned, and therefore stand 
condemned by the law of works; affording a full answer to 
it by saying, that though we could not be thus justified by our 
own personal obedience, we might be justified by Christ’s 
active obedience imputed to us, that being perfect obedience 
to the law. 

Secondly, Whereas neither the apostle nor the holy scrip- 
ture saith, that Christ was righteous or obedient to the law 
for us, or that by his obedience to the law imputed to us we 
are made legally righteous, but absolutely denies that righte- 
ousness could have been by the law, because the law could 
not give life: “for,’ saith Paul, Gal. iii, 21, “had there 
been a law which could have given life, verily righteousness 
(i. 6. justification to life) should have been by the law :” this 
doctrine plainly contradicts those words of the apostle, by 
introducing a necessity of perfect obedience to the law, that 
we may live; and contending that we must be entitled to 
eternal life, according to the tenor of that law, which saith, 
“Do this, and live,” p. 88, 89. 

Thirdly, Whereas this doctrine makes it necessary that 
the reward should be of works as well as of grace, yea, of the 
works of that law which saith, “Do this, and live ;” Paul 
put these things in an absolute opposition to each other: 
and represents the one as entirely destructive of the other. 
“For,” saith he, “to him that worketh, a reward is not 
reckoned, κατὰ χόριν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸ ὁῤείλημα, of grace, but of 
debt; but to him that worketh not, but believeth in him that 
justifies the ungodly, his faith (without works) is imputed for 
righteousness, even as David speaketh of the blessedness of 
the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness, χωρὶς 
ἔργων, without works” (Rom. iv. 4—6) ; whereas God can- 
not impute justification or righteousness to any without 
works, if he impute it to them only to whom Christ's 
perfect works of righteousness belong: nor can this right- 
eousness be “of grace, through faith,” and “not of 
debt,” if it belongs to them only who are “debtors to 
fulfil the whole law;” since the apostle saith expressly, 
that they who are thus debtors to fulfil the law, or sought 
for justification by fulfilling it, are “fallen from grace” 
(Gal. v. 4): nor can it be here said that they were not in- 
deed debtors to fulfil it personally, but only to have that 
obedience by which Christ fulfilled it imputed to them: for 
the apostle saith, in the immediate preceding words, “ Christ 
is become of none effect to you, whosoever of you are seeking 
to be justified by the law ;” whereas he could not be of none 
effect to them, who was the only person by whom they were 
enabled to perform that law to their justification. Again, the 
apostle puts this plain difference betwixt that righteous- 
ness which is by faith, and by the works of the law, that 
the first requires only believing from the heart to salvation; 
the second requires works excluding grace, by saying, “He 
that doeth these things shall live by (doing) them” (Rom. 
x. 5. 9, 10); whence he argues thus, that “if justification 
be of grace, it is not of works, otherwise grace is no more 


δ τ Gal. iii, 10. 


676 


grace; and, if it be of works, it is not of grace, otherwise 
work is no more work” (Rom. xi. 6). ‘ 

Fourthly, This doctrine flatly contradicts all the places in 
which the apostle positively asserts, that “by the works of 
the law can no man be justified, but by faith only, or by 
faith without the works of the law;” as Rom. iii, 20. 22. 
24; for, if a man be justified by the righteousness of Christ 
imputed to him, he must be justified by the works of the 
law, because the active obedience of Christ consists as truly 
in the performance of those works, as our own personal 
righteousness would have done. Moreover, if the righteous- 
ness of God consisted in the imputation of Christ’s legal 
righteousness, it could not be manifested, as the apostle saith 
it is, “without the works of the law;’ because, to such a 
righteousness, the works of the law are plainly necessary. 

So again, when he saith, Gal. ii. 16, “ Knowing that a 
man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith 
of Jesus Christ, even we ourselves have believed in Christ, 
that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by 
the works of the law:” doth not this doctrine contradict 
these words, by teaching that we are to be justified by the 
works of the law performed by Christ, and imputed to us, 
as if we personally had performed them? For Christ’s per- 
formance of them alters not the nature and property of the 
works, they being still the works of the law, whosoever doeth 
them: and so he that is justified by them, done by another 
in his stead, must be still justified by the works of the law. 

Note also here, that the apostle doth not say a man is 
not justified by the works of the law, but by the works of 
Jesus Christ, or not by the works of the law, as performed 
by us, but only as performed by Christ; but on the contrary 
saith, “ We have believed that we might be justified by faith 
in Christ, and not by the works of the law,” excluding the 
works of the law from justification by faith in Christ ; where- 
as this doctrine makes faith entitle us to the works of the 
law, performed by Christ, and made over to us for our justi- 
fication. 

Thirdly, When the apostle argues thus, “ That no man is 
justified by the works of the law is manifest, because the 
scripture saith, The just.shall live by-faith, but the law is 
not of faith,” i. e. it speaks nothing of, and promiseth no 
justification to any man by faith, but only saith, “The man 
that doeth these things (which are required of him by the 
law) shall Jive by (doing) them” (Gal. iii. 11, 12): doth 
not that doctrine fully contradict these words, which saith, 
The man that is justified by faith must do the things re- 
quired by the law, that he may live, and must have a true 
title to a perfect observance of the law, in order to that 
end? 

Fourthly, When the apostle saith, “If they who are (ob- 
servers) of the law be heirs (with faithful Abraham, who was 
justified by faith) faith is made void,” as being insufficient to 
justify us without the observation of the law (Rom. iv. 14) : 
doth not this doctrine say also, that faith is insufficient to 
justify us, without the observation of the law, and so as 
plainly make void justification by faith ? 
make them heirs who are observers of the law, as having 
life by virtue of a legal righteousness imputed to them, as 
fully as if it had been personally performed by them ? 

And though these things are so clear that they need no 
farther confirmation, yet may it here be noted, that whereas 
not one of these scriptures can be wrested from the plain 
sense they literally bear, or from assérting that no justifica- 
tion can be had by the works of the law, but by this distine- 
tion, that true indeed it is, that no justification can be had 
by the works of the law, personally performed by us, but it 
may be had by the perfect obedience of Christ imputed to 
us ; the apostle, throughout this whole discourse against jus- 
tification by the works of the law, never gives the least hint 
ot this distinction: and whereas the bishop places the better 
half of justification, to wit, that which gives us a title to 
eternal life, in this perfect righteousness of Christ imputed 
to us by faith, the apostle mentions not one word of this in 
either of his epistles, but in both sums up the matter so as 
plainly to demonstrate that he meant no such thing. For in 
his Epistle to the Romans,* he thus concludes, τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν 5 
“ What is it then that we say? (even this,) That Israel fol- 


Doth it not also | 


A DISCOURSE ON THE i 


lowing after the law of righteousness hath not attained to the 
law of righteousness, because they sought it not by faith, but 
as (if) it were (to be obtained) by the works of the law.” 
Now, might they not, according to this doctrine, that the 
works of the law, performed by Christ, are upon our faith 
imputed to us for righteousness, as truly as if they had been 
personally performed by us, have sought it both by faith and 
by the works of the law? In his Epistle to the Galatians,* 
he concludes thus, “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty 
(from the observance of the law to justification) in which 
Christ hath made you free, and be not again entangled in 
the yoke of bondage: behold, I testify to you, that, if you 
be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing ;” mark the 
reason, ver. 3, ‘‘For every one that is circumcised is a 
debtor to the whole law :” whence the argument runs thus: 
Him that is a debtor to do the whole law, Christ will profit 
nothing ; but (saith the bishop) every Christian is a debtor 
to perform the whole law, for what else can be the import of 
these words, p. 89, “The old covenant which saith, Do this, 
and live, Lev. xviii. 5, is not disannulled, but rather esta- 
blished by the covenant of grace, especially as to the obedi- 
ence it requires from us in order to the life it promiseth ?” 
therefore (according to the apostle) Christ can profit him 
nothing. Now, how could the apostle have made this in- 
ference, had he believed, as the bishop did, that even faith 
itself could profit us nothing without entitling us to that obe- 
dience which the law requires from us, as performed by 
Christ our surety: surely this doctrine saith, in full contra- 
diction to Paul, that nothing but Christ's active obedience can 
profit us as to the life which the law promiseth, and that for 
this very reason, that we are still debtors to perform the whole 
law. In fine, the great indignation of the Jews against the 
apostles, for teaching the doctrine of justification by faith, was 
this, that by it he made void the law as to justification ; but 
had he only sought it in the sense of the bishop, he had, 
as the bishop contends, “ not disannulled, but rather had 
established the law,” even as to justification of life, and so 
must rather have ingratiated himself with, than so incensed 
the Jews against him; since then he must have said what 
would have been highly acceptable to them, viz. that their 
law was still of a perpetual and necessary obligation even in 
order to justification, and that Christ himself had so esta- 
blished it, as to enable both us and them to yield perfect obe- 
dience to it, in order to that life it promised. 

Arg. 7. (7.) The apostle saith expressly, Rom. iii. 24, 
that “we are justified freely by God’s grace, through the 
redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” i. e. through the remis- 
sion of sins purchased by his blood, for “we have redemp- 
tion through his blood, even the remission of sins,” Eph. i. 
7, Col. i. 14, and ver. 25, that “God hath set forth Christ as 
a propitiation through faith in his blood, that he might be 
the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus;” and v. 9, that 
“we are justified by his blood, and reconciled to God by his 
death; ver, 10, that “Christ hath redeemed us from the 
curse of the law,” by suffering that death the law pro- 
nounced accursed, Gal. iii. 11, that Christ “entering once 
into the holy place, by his blood hath purchased eternal re- 


| demption for us,” Heb. ix. 12; and that, ‘through Christ’s 


will to suffer for us, “we are sanctified through the offering 
of the body of Christ,’ Heb. x. 10, ascribing our justifica- 
tion, our reconciliation to God, our propitiation, our redemp- 
tion from the curse of the law, our eternal redemption, our 
sanctification in the sacrificial sense, i. e. our freedom from 
the guilt of sin, for which alone we can be condemned to 
die, to the death and blood of Christ. Now all this, saith 
the bishop, p. 90, “makes him but a half Mediator, or 
half Saviour ;” this indeed, says he, frees us from death, but 
gives us no title to eternal life. “Hence it is,” saith he, 
“that I cannot look upon Christ as having made full satis- 
faction to God’s justice for me, unless he had performed the 
obedience I owe to God’s laws, as well as borne the pu- 
nishment that is due to my sins,” &ec., p. 88; so that, ac- 
cording to the bishop, Christ cannot have redeemed us from 
the curse of the law, by his death for us, or by his blood 
have obtained eternal redemption for us, that being certainly 
redemption from dying for ever, or ἀκολύτρωσις τῆς περιποιῆ- 
σεως, “redemption of life,” Eph. ii. 14. And, if our Sa- 


* Rom. ix, 29, &c. 


* Gal. v. 1, 2 


IMPUTATION OF CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS 


viour’s blood and passion gives to believers no title to eter- 
nal life, why doth the apostle say that “we have freedom 
to enter into heaven by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. x. 19), 
and that “by his death,” undergone for the redemption of 
transgressions, “we receive the promise of an eternal in- 
heritance?” (Heb. ix. 15.) Moreover, when God justifies 
from the guilt of sin, i. e. from transgressing the law, what 
charge can the law lay against us, as having not performed 
whatit required? Can God be propitious, and fully reconciled 
to us by the blood shed for us, and yet exclude us from his 
blissfal presence? Can Christ have “brought us nigh to 
God, and made him at peace with us through the blood 
of the cross” (Eph. ii. 13. 15), and yet exclude us from the 
glory of God, who, having peace with him, “rejoice in the 
glory of God?” (Rom. v. 1, 2.) 

Arg. 8. (8.) This doctrine renders it impossible that God 
should make a covenant of grace with man, and conse- 


quently asserts that Christians must be under the same | 


obligations as ever to perform the covenant of works, and 
this the bishop, p. 89, not only asserts, but contends for. 
For, how can a man be more under the law, and under the 
covenant of works, than by being under the obligation to do 
all that the covenant of works requires, and to yield perfect 


obedience to the law, that he may be accounted righteous | 


before God? whereas the apostle saith expressly, “ We are 
not under the law, but under grace,’ Rom. vi. 1; that 
δικαιοσύνη, “justification, is by faith, that it might be of 
grace,” Rom. iv. 16, that “we are justified freely by the 
grace of God,” not through the active obedience, but “ through 


the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” i. e. through the | 


remission of sins procured by his blood; that “by grace we 
are saved through faith, not of works,” Eph. ii. 8, and, in 
fine, that “ if justification be by grace, then is it not of works,” 
Rom. xi. 6. 

And this is still more evident from this consideration, that 
this doctrine plainly makes both the covenants the same; 
for, where the parties covenanting are the same, the thing 
covenanted for is the same, if the conditions of the co- 
venants be the same, the covenants must be the same: 
now here it is certain that the persons covenanting, to wit, 
God and man, are the same; the thing covenanted for, life 


and acceptance with God, is the same; if then the condi- | 


tion of both, “ Do this, and live,” be the same (which is the 
thing asserted, p. 89), the covenants themselves must be the 
same. 

Nor is it material to answer here in the bishop's words, 
that the condition of the first covenant was this, “ Do this in 
your own persons, and live ;”’ the condition of the new only, 
“ Do this by yourself, or by your surety, and live ;” for even 
this disjunctive was also contained in the first covenant, or 
it was not; if it was, then the condition of the first co- 
venant could be only that which is said to have been the con- 


dition of the second also, i. e. Do this by thyself, or by | 


another, and live; if it were not, then the doing this by 


another could not make us legally righteous; because “ the | 
law required this obedience in our own persons,” saith the — 
bishop, p. 89, “ as absolutely necessary ;”” and so Chirist’s obe- | 


dience to the law imputed to us, but not performed by us, 
could not fulfil that law, which only saith, «Do this in 
your own persons and live.” And evident it is, that the al- 
lowing another to do that duty for me, or in my stead, 
which I owe personally to God, is as truly an exempting 
me from doing that duty in my own person, as the allowing 
another to suffer the punishment due to my sins in my 
stead is an exempting me from suffering that punishment in 
my own person. And had the bishop attended to his own 
words, he would have seen this consequence ; for his argu- 
ment, p. 82, “That one man can merit by that which an- 
other performs is a plain contradiction ; for, in that he merits 
it is as necessarily implied that he himself acts that by which 
he is said to merit; but in that he depends upon another's 
action, it is as necessarily implied that he himself doth 
not do that by which he is said to merit,” by changing the 
word merit into obey, runs thus, That one person can obey 
the law by the obedience which another performs, is a plain 
contradiction ; for, in that he obeys, it is as necessarily sup- 


posed that he himself doth that by which he is said to obey; _ 


but, in that he depends on the obedience of another for the 
performing that which the law requires of him, it is as neces- 


677 


sarily supposed that he himself doth not do that by which he 
is said to obey the law. 

Arg. 9. (9.) As the foundation of this imputation is pre- 
carious, there being no evidence in scripture of such a co- 
venant as is here mentioned, p. 86, but only a command laid 
upon Christ, that he should “lay down his life for his sheep ;” 
so is there in the scripture no such notion of imputation as is 
here supposed. For, 

1, Wheresoever this phrase occurs affirmatively, that such 
a thing was imputed to such a person, itis some personal ac- 
tion or thing which is thus said to be thus imputed : as when 
it is said, Rom. ii. 26, “ If the uncircumcision (i. e. the uncir- 
cumcised person) keep the righteousness of the law, his un- 
circumcision εἰς περιτομὴν λογισθήσεται, shall be accounted 
for circumcision ;’’ i. e. he shall be as well accepted, as if 
he was circumcised: so Rom. iv. 3, “Abraham believed 
God, and it (that is, his faith) was imputed to him for 
righteousness :” for so it is explained, ver. 5, in these words, 
«To him that worketh not, but believeth, his faith is im- 
puted to him for righteousness ;” and, ver. 9, “ We say that 
faith was imputed to Abraham for righteousness :” so also, 
Gal. iii. 6, James ii. 23, and of our faith in him who raised 
Christ from the dead, it is said, Rom. iv. 24, “It shall be im- 
puted to us for righteousness.” 

I also add, that the righteousness of one cannot be truly 
thus imputed to another by him who speaks of things as they 
really are. God indeed may and often doth good to one, es- 
pecially in temporals, for the righteousness of another, as he 
did to the Jews for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
and at the prayer of Moses and Aaron, in which sense, saith 
James, “the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man 
availeth much,” v. 16; he also showeth mercy to the poste- 
rity of them that fear him, for their parents’ sake, but he 
neither doth nor truly can λογίζεσϑαι, reckon or repute them 
righteous, because Abrabam, Isaac, and Jacob, or their pa- 
rents, were so; because, as sin, so righteousness is a per- 
sonal action or a habit inherent in the subject that doth it. 
And, therefore, to remove the common instances which are 
usually produced with relation to this matter, I add, as the 
conclusion of what I shall offer on this subject, 

Lastly, hat in the holy scripture there is no mention of 
the imputation of any man’s sin or righteousness to an- 
other, but only of the imputation of his own good deeds 
for righteousness, or of his evil deeds for punishment. And 
therefore I say, 

First, That it cannot be truly affirmed, that we all sinned 
in Adam, and by his disobedience were made sinners, be- 
cause his sin and disobedience were imputed to us: for I 
have shown already, that the scripture nowhere maketh 
the least mention of any thing of any other's imputed to us, 
but only of some personal thing or action of our own, ac- 
counted to us for reward or punishment. Moreover, this 
imputation either makes the sin of Adam truly ours, or it 
doth not; if it doth not, how can we be made sinners by it? 
if it doth, then death came upon us for our own sin, and so 
not for the sin of one, but for the sin of all? whereas the 
apostle saith expressly, that death came upon us, τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς 
παραπτώματι, “by the sin of one,” Rom. v. 15. 17, δι᾽ 
ἑνὸς ἀμαρτήσαντος, * by one man sinning,” ver. 16, and δι᾿ ἑνὸς 
παραπτώματος, “by the offence of that one man,” ver. 18. 
Thirdly, I ask, whether this imputation made the posterity 
of Adam sinners, or whether it found them so before? if 
it found them so before, it must be plainly needless, see- 
ing then they might have been condemned to death with- 
out it; if it made them so, then since this imputation is 
the act of God, and not of man, it plainly follows that God 
must be the author of that sin; because this imputation 
flows immediately from him, without the intervention of any 
action on the part of any of those men to whom it is im- 
puted: moreover, then the imputation must be false, as 
charging them with sin, whom he did not find sinners, but 
only by his arbitrary imputation made them so. Now far 
be it from any Christian to assert that God should falsely im- 
pute sin to any man. In a word, λογίζεσϑαι, imputare, is 
to reckon or account any thing to any man, to charge him 
with it, or lay the charge of it to him; this therefore on 
God’s part must suppose, in the very nature of it, some 
action done by the posterity of Adam, which is blamewor- 
thy, and may be justly charged upon them, before there can 

8960" 


678 


be any ground for imputation of it; and this shows that it 
is impossible that this imputation should be the very thing 
that renders them blameworthy, or persons worthy to be 
ckarged with guilt; and yet, if the sin of Adam become ours 
only by imputation, it must be ours only because it is by 
God imputed to us, and not imputed hecause it is ours; 
that is, God by this imputation must make us sinners, and 
not find us such; for this imputation is the action of the 
judge, and not of the supposed criminal; remove or take 
away this action, and no crime can be charged upon him. 
In fine, if the sin of Adam becomes ours only by imputa- 
tion, it deserves condemnation only by the same imputation, 
that is, by the action of God; that therefore we deserve con- 
demnation for it, is to be ascribed directly to the action of 
God, and only by accident to the action of Adam. Whence, 
therefore, is our destruction, according to this opinion, but of 
God, who makes us worthy of condemnation, by imputing 
to us that sin which by his imputation only we stand guilty 
of? 

Secondly, It cannot be truly affirmed that our sins were 
50 imputed to Christ, when he became our surety, as that 
he became partaker of the guilt of them, but only so, as 
that he suffered the punishment which was due unto us for 
them, it being absolutely necessary, not only in the case 
of Christ, but of all vicarial punishments, to separate the 
punishment from the guilt; for though a man may become 
obnoxious to the punishment or sufferings of another by an 
innocent consent, he can never partake of the guilt of an- 
other’s action but by a criminal consent unto it; and so far 
as he suffers for that action of him, he becomes guilty by this 
criminal consent, he suffers for his own sin, because that con- 
sent made the sin his own; whence in such cases he suffers 
not asa subtitute, but asa party. Seeing then our blessed 
Lord could not be guilty of any criminal consent to any of 
our actions, it is impossible that he should contract the 
guilt of sin by his consent to suffer for us; when therefore 
the prophet saith,* that God “laid on him the iniquity of us 
all,” we are to understand this only of the punishment, or the 
chastisement of our sin; and to extend this farther, and 
say, with some, that, by his consent thus to suffer, he suffered 
for those sins which he had truly made his own, is not only 
false for the forementioned reason, but is contrary to the 


* Tsa. lili. 


II. CORINTHIANS.—PREFACE. 


whole tenor of the scripture, which saith negatively that he 
was “such a high-priest, who was holy, undefiled, separate 
from sinners, and who needed not to ofier up sacrifices for his 
own sins;” that “he was in all things like to us, χωρὶς dyay= 
rias, sin only excepted ;” that we “are redeemed by the 
precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot or ble- 
mish τ᾿ that “he did no sin,” that “he knew no sin,” that 
“he suffered, the just for the unjust:”* and affirmatively, 
that he died not for his own, but for our sins; that “he suf- 
fered for our sins, according to the scriptures;” he suffered 
“for the sins of the unjust;” he was “the propitiation for 
our sins,” and “made reconciliation for the sins of the peo- 
ple.’> In a word, this assertion borders upon blasphemy ; 
for if Christ made all our iniquities his own, he made himself 
as guilty and as great a sinner as were all the sinners for 
whose sake he suffered. Nor is it any refuge here to say he 
was the greatest sinner only by imputation of sin to him, not 
hy commission of sin personally : for as the righteousness of 
God cannot impute sin to him who did no sin, and gave no 
criminal consent to the sin of others; or whom he doth not 
first look upon as a sinner and a guilty person; so is it not con- 
sistent with the virtue, the intent, and nature of our Saviour’s 
sufferings, that God should look upon him asa sinner, anda 
guilty person; for then he must have looked upon him as 
one who deserved to die for his own sin, or as one guilty of 
death, and then his death could have made no satisfaction for 
the sin of others; yea, then he must have suffered death, not 
for our sins, as they were ours, but as they were his own by 
imputation ; whereas the scripture always saith he suflered 
death for our sins, but never for his own by imputation or 
inhesion. I conclude, therefore, in the words of Bishop Da- 
venantt and Dr. Outram,§ “ That Christ was willing so far 
to take our sins upon him, non ut inde peccator, sed hostia 
pro peccato constitueretur; not as to be made a sinner, but 
only a sacrifice for sin by and for them.” 


* Heb. vii. 26, 27, iv. 15, 1 Pet. i. 19, ii. 21. 24, 2 Cor. 
v. 21, 1 Pet. ili. 18. 

7 1 Cor. xv. 3, 1 Pet. iii. 18, Heb. vii. 27. 

+ Dav. de Just. Habit. p. 333. 

§ Que mala corport illius inerant, ea non ipsa vitia nostra 
seu peceata proprié dicta, sed que passim in sacris literis 
peccita appellari solent, peceatorum nostrorum pans erant. 
Outr. lib. 11. cap. 5, sect. 9. 


SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Taar this epistle was written a year after the first is pro- 
bably collected from these words, ix. 2, “ Achaia was ready 
a year ago;” for he having given instructions for that col- 
lection he in these words refers to, only at the close of his 
First Epistle, they could not have the forwardness there 
mentioned before that time. Now that the First Epistle was 
written early in the year 55, or 57, appears from these words 
in it, “I will stay at Ephesus till pentecost” (xvi. 8): for 
he stayed some considerable time in Asia after his purpose to 
Ieave Ephesus and go to Macedonia (Acts ix. 21, 22), and 
yet making here his apology for not wintering at Corinth, as 


he thought to do (1 Cor. xvi. 6), this epistle must be writ 
after winter, and so when a new year was begun. It there- 
fore seems to be written after his second coming to Macedonia, 
mentioned Acts xx. 3, for (1.) it was written after he had 
been at Troas, and had left that place to return to Macedo- 
nia; now that was at his second going thither: see note on 
ii. 19. (2.) It was written when Timothy was with him; 
now when he left Ephesus to go into Macedonia Timothy 
went not with him, but was sent before him (Acts xix. 22), 
but at his second going through Macedonia, Timothy was 
with him (Acts xx. 4). (3.) He speaks of some Macedomi- 
ans that were like to come with him, ix. 4; now, at his se- 
cond going from Macedonia, there accompanied him Aristar- 
chus, Secundus, and Gaius of Thessalonica, the metropolis 


CHAPTER I. 


679 


of Macedonia (Acts xx. 4). And (4.) the postscript saith, | as instant, xiii. 1, and that which he was now ready to do, 
this epistle was written from Philippi, as we find it in Theo- | xii, 14, and did, saith Dr. Lightfoot, in his journey from Phi- 


doret and CEcumenius, where St. Paul was ll the days of 
unleavened bread (Acts xx. 6). 


lippi to ‘Troas, he sailing about from Philippi to ‘orinth, to 


It therefore seems to be | make good his promise, whilst the rest that were with him 


sent from thence to them by ‘litus, and some other person, | (Acts xx. 4) went directly the next cut to ‘I'roas, and there 
not long before Paul’s coming to them, which he speaks of | waited for him. 


CHAPTER 1. 


1 Pavt, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of 
God, and ' Timothy our brother, unto the church of 
God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are 
in all Achaia (see note on 1 Cor. i. 1): 

2 * Grace be (given) to you and peace from God our 
Father, and frum the Lord Jesus Christ. 

3 Blessed δὲ God, even (our God and) 3 the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and 
the God of all comfort; 

4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation (by that 
tnward peace and earnest of the Spirit he gives under 
them), that we may be able to comfort them which are 
in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves 
are comforted of God (God’s servants never wanting his 
comforts under all their sufferings). 

5 For as the ‘ sufferings of Christ abound in us, so 
5. our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. 

6 And whether we be afflicted, ἐπ 7s for your conso- 
lation and salvation, which is effectual (Gr. wrought) 
in (ur by) the enduring of the same sufferings which 
we also suffer (and witch by our example you are encou- 


raged lo endure): or whether we be comforted, z/ 7s for 
your censolation and salvation, (which ts accomplished 
by your palint perseverance under all your sufferings, lo 
which patience you are animated by the experience of that 
consolation God affirds his servants under all their suff τα 
ings, Matt. v. 12, xxiv. 13, 2 Cor. iv. 17, 2 Tiin. ii. 
11, 12, James i. 12.) 

7 And our hope of you 7s stedfast, knowing, that as 
ye are partakers of the sufferings (we endure, 1 Cor. x. 
13), so shall ye be also of the consolation (we enjoy in 
all our sufferings : 

8 Our sufferings, T say,) For we would not, brethren, 
have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in 
Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above 
strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: 

9 But we (therefore) had the sentence of death in 
ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in 
God which raiseth the dead : 

10 Who (/hen) delivered us® from so creat a death, 
and (dai/y) doth deliver (us): in whom we trust that 
he will yet deliver us; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


UVer. 1. Kai Τιμήθεος ὁ ἀδελφὸ;, And Timotheus a brother.j 
I have observed, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that it is usual 
with St. Paul to call ‘Timothy his brother (Col. 1.1, 1 Thess. 
iii. 2, Philem. 1, Heb. xiii. 23), and this he probably did, 
that he might not be despised for his youth, as he intimates 
he might be, 1 Tim. iv. 12, eight years after the writing of this 
epistle, this being written A. D. 57, that to Timothy A. Ὁ. 
65. 

2 Ver. 2. Χάρις καὶ εἰρήνη, Grace and peace.} May that 
grace and favour of God on which your salvation and happi- 
ness depend (Tit. i. 1), and that peace which passeth under- 
standing (Phil. iv. 7), and is the effect of the divine favour, 
be continually with you, and derived from God the Father, 
the fountain of all blessings, and from Jesus Christ, the pro- 
curer and dispenser of them (1 Cor.i.4, Eph. i. 3) on you. 

And from our Lord Jesus Christ.) See note on 1 Cor. 
i. 3. 

Πατρὸς ἡμῶν, καὶ Kvpion ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ. Dr. Mills saith 
these words are inserted into this place from other epistles; 
whereas Origen, in Matt. p. 500, Cod. Alexandrinus, all the 
Greek commentators, and all the ancient versions, own them 
(see Examen Millit). 

3 Ver. 3. Καὶ πατὴρ, The Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ.| Why, saith Schlictingius, should God be styled 
thus, “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” if Christ be 
God equally with the Father, seeing, by being thus distin- 
guished from, he seems to be denied to be God? 

Ι answer, He is by these words denied to be God the 
Father, since that would render him father to himself; but 
his being thus distinguished from God the Father hinders 
not his being God of God the Father, who by way of emi- 
nency is sometimes absolutely styled God, because he is 
the fountain of the Deity. For as the words « Our Lord,” 
ascribed here to Christ, do not exclude the Father from be- 


ing our Lord; so the word “God,” ascribed to God the | 


Father, excludes not Christ from being what ‘'homas styles 
hin, “our Lord and our God,’ John xx. 28. And, as God 
was under the Old Testament styled “ the God of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob,” to confirm the faith of the Jews in the 
promises made to them and their seed, so is he usually in 
the New Testament styled “the Father of our Lord Jesus 


Christ,” to confirm to us his love in Christ Jesus, his “ be- 
loved Son, in whom he is well pleased ;” and to assure us 
that he is, as here it follows, « the Father of mercies,” in the 
plural, to signify, according to the Hebrew way of speaking, 
the greatness and multitude of his mercies; and “ the God of 
all consolation,” as being the giver of that “ Paraclete,” or 
Holy Spirit, whence all our comforts are derived. 

1Ver.5. Ta παθήματα ron Χριστοῦ, The sufferings of 
Christ.] ‘The sufferings of Christ's members, for his sake, 
are styled «his sufferings,” because they are evils inflicted 
on his members out of enmity to him, and by reason of their 
mystical union to him, and because of the sympathy he has 
with them in their sufferings (Luke x. 16, Acts ix. 4, Tsa. 
Ixiii. 9). Hence is he said, a rafjoar, to suffer with us” 
in our infirmities, Heb. iv. 15. But when the Greek fathers 
add here, that* “ Christ suffered more in his members than 
he did in his own person ;” this sounds harsh in the ears of 
most divines, and shows they had not those thoughts of our 
Lord’s sufferings and satisfaction which we have. 

5. παράκλησις ἡμῦν, Our consolation) Abounds by 
Christ, because, as he promised, so he conferred the Spirit 
of consolation on those who suffered for his sake; so that, 
though they received the word with much affliction, they 
did it also with “joy in the Holy Ghost,” 1 Thess. i. 6, hav- 
ing “the Spirit of faith,” 2 Cor. iv. 13, “of glory, and of 
God, resting on them,” 2 ‘Tim. i. 7, 1 Pet. iv. 14 (see here, 
ver. 21, 22). 

6 Ver. 10. "Ex τηλικαύτου ϑανάτο", From so great a death.) 
Most interpreters refer what is said in these three last verses 
to the commotion raised against Paul by Demetrius at 
Ephesus, Acts xix. from ver. 26 to the end of that chapter. 
But we read not that in that commotion any hands were 
laid upon Paul, or that he suffered any thing. He therefore 
had no occasion from it to say that he was * pressed above 
measure, and above strength, so as to despair of life;’ that 
he had “ the sentence of death within him ;” and that he was 
“delivered from so great a death,” and as it were raised 
from the dead : these high expressions rather seem to signify, 
that he indeed was put to fight with beasts at Rphesus (as 


* "Orc οὐ μόνον τὰ ἐκείνοι. ἀλλὰ καὶ πλείονα ὑπομένουσι πάθη, 


Chrys. Πλείονα, ὧν ἔπαθεν ὃ ἰριστὸ; πάσχομεν. CEcum 
Theoph. 


680 


11 7 Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that 
for® the gift bestowed upon us (or the favour conferred 
on us) by the means of many persons thanks may be 
given by many on our behalf, 

12 For (in all our afflictions) our rejoicing is this, the 
testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and 
godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but ὃ by the 
grace of God, we have had our conversation in the 
world, and more abundantly to you-ward. 

13 And of the truth of this you may rest assured ;) For 
we write none other things unto you (of it), than 
what ye read (Gr. know, remember) or © acknow- 
lede?’ and I trust ye shall acknowledge even to the 
end; 

14 As also ye have acknowledged us in part 
(ἡ. e. as to the sounder part of the church; see note 


on il. 5, though some have represented us as walking | 


according to the flesh, x. 2), that we are (just matter 
of) your rejoicing, even as ye also are (at present, 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


and much more will be) our’s in the day of the Lord 
Jesus. 

15 And in this confidence (of you) I was minded to 
come unto you before (this lime), that ye might have 
ta second benefit (or grace) ; 

16 13 And to pass by you (though not so as lo see you 
in that passage, 1 Cor. xvi. 7) into Macedonia, and to 
come again (Gr. and again to come) out of Macedonia 
unto you, and of you to be brought on my way toward 
Judea. 

17 When I therefore was thus minded (or, resolved 
thus), did I (afterward) use lightness (tn changing this 
resolution)? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose 
(them) ® according to the flesh (or, carnal tulerests), 
that with me there should be yea yea, and (again) nay 
nay? (ἢ. 6. inconslancy and mutability to serve my car- 
nal interests, so that you should hence gather, that, in 
preaching the gospel of Christ, I walk according to the 
Jlesh, χ. 2. 


he speaks, 1 Cor. xv. 32, see the note there), and was by 
God delivered from them. 

7 Ver. 11. Συνυπουργούντων καὶ ὑμῶν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τῇ δεήσει, 
You also helping together by prayer for τι5.}] Hence note 
that the more public prayers are, the more prevailing they 
will be; and also, that God will be more glorified by the 
thanksgivings rendered for the success of them. But 
whereas Esthius hence pleads for prayers to the ssuls of 
saints departed, the practice of the apostle here and else- 
where is a strong argument against them: for he passion- 
ately entreats the Christians living at Rome to strive toge- 
ther with him in their prayers to God, Rom. xv. 30; the 
Corinthians, to help together with him in prayer, 2 Cor. i. 
11; the Ephesians, to pray for him for all perseverance, 


Eph. vi. 18, 19; the Colossians, to continue in prayer for | 


him, Col. iv. 1—3,; the Thessalonians, to pray for him, 
«that the word of the Lord might have free course, and be 


glorified,” 1 Thess. v. 25, and that he may be “delivered | 


from unreasonable and wicked men,” 2 Thess. iii. 1, 2, and 
the believing Jews to pray for him that he might sooner be 
restored to them, Heb. xiii. 18, 19. But, in all his epistles, 
we have not one petition of like nature directed to any saint 
departed ; whereas, had he thought them capable of hearing 
him, and their addresses more effectual for the same ends, 
we may reasonably think his zeal would have prompted him 
to put up his requests to them, and leave us some examples 
of this nature. 

8. Τὸ cis ἡμᾶς χάρισμα, The gift bestowed upon us.) The 
word χάρισμα in the New Testament always importing a 
spiritual gift, must be interpreted here of the gifts bestowed 
on Paul for the discharge of his apostolical function; and 
if the right reading here be ὑπὲρ ἡμῖν, “on our behalf,” the 
sense of this verse may run thus, We trust that he will de- 
liver us for the furtherance of the gospel, through the assist- 
ance of your prayers, that so the gift being exercised by us 
through the joint suffrage of many persons for the benefit of 
many, thanks may be returned by many for us. If ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, 
«on your behalf,” as other copies have it, be the right reading, 
the sense runs thus: I hope to be still preserved by your 


prayers for the benefit of the church, that so the gift bestowed | 


upon us, being made useful to the benefit of others by the 
prayers of so many, thanks may be given to God by many 
on your behalf. Whichsoever be the true reading, that he 
speaks of the spiritual gift conferred upon him will be evi- 
dent from the following words, ver. 12. 

Or, Secondly, Τὸ εἰς ἡμᾶς χάρισμα, may signify that won- 
derful deliverance vouchsafed to them from so great a dan- 
ger, by the prayers of many persons. 

9 Ver. 12. 'Ev χάριτι Θεοῦ, In the grace of God.) Touréor, 
σημείοις, καὶ τεράσιν ἅτινα χαρίσματα ἦν Θεοῦ, “i. e. by signs 
and miracles;”* that is, according to the wisdom of the 
Spirit, and the miraculous power given us by the gace of 
God for the propagation of the gospel. So Chrysostom. 


* Cum multis donis spiritualibus. Grot. 


Which exposition, saith he, is confirmed from these words, 
« And more abundantly to you-ward ;” for the apostle’s sin 
cerity and care to walk according to the rules of the gospel 
was every where the same, but the powerful operations and 
gifts of the Holy Ghost seem to have been more abundantly 
exercised by him in, and vouchsafed by him to, that church 
in which he staid so long, and of which he had so particu- 
lar a promise, that Christ would be with him in his preach- 
ing to them (Acts xviii, 10, 11). ‘The connexion of this 
with the former verse seems rather to be thus: And there 
is good reason why you should thus pray for us, who have 
acted with the same sincerity towards you, and so much to 
your advantage. 

10 Ver. 13. ᾿Αναγινώσκετε. "A αὐτοὶ ὑμεῖς ἴστε, “ Which 
you yourselves know,” Chrysostom. Τουτέστιν ὑπομιμνήσ- 
κεοθε, “* Which you remember,” Cicumenius, Theophylact. 

Ver, 15. Δευτέραν χάριν, A second benefit of grace.] I 
coming to establish you, Rom. i. 11, and to promote your 
joy, ver. 24. Hence it appears, that the apostle had been 
only once with them when he writ this. 

12 Ver. 16. Kai du’ ὑμῶν διελϑεῖν εἰς Μακεδονίαν, And to pass 
by you into Macedonia.] Interpreters, ancient and modern, 
are much troubled how to reconcile these words with what 
the apostle hath said in his former epistle, “I will come 
unto you when I have passed through Macedonia,” 1 Cor. 
xvi. 5, for there he expressly declares, his purpose was first 
to go into Macedonia, and then to come to Corinth from 
thence. Here, say they, he declares he purposed first to 
come to Corinth, and then to Macedonia, and return again 
from Macedonia to Corinth: but the apostle seems to say 
no more here than he did there. There he declares that he 
would first go to Macedonia; but he adds also, that he 
would go from Ephesus, passing by them into Macedonia; 
saying also, that he would not then see them ἔν παρύδῳ, “in 
his passage by them,” ver. 7, and here he only saith he pur- 
poseth διελθεῖν, “ to pass by them into Macedonia ;”’ but saith 
not, that he would call upon them in that passage, but only 
when he came again from Macedonia, and intended to go to 
Syria; which he did not, partly by reason of Titus’s absence, 
who was not yet returned to him to give an account of their 
affairs, but went again from T'roas to Macedonia (2 Cor. ii. 
12), where he met Titus (vii. 5,6), and partly by reason of 
the Jews, who waylaid him in his passage to Syria (Acts xx. 
3): and for this delay and nonperformance of his purpose, 
that he came not from Macedonia the first time he went 
thither, to winter with them, he makes this apology (see the 
preface to this epistle). 

13 Ver. 17. Κατὰ σάρκα, According to the flesh.) Perhaps 
the Judaizers might object this, because being in Greece 
(Acts xx. 2), and so near to Corinth, and having passed 
through Macedonia, he came not to go by them into Syria, 
because the Jews laid wait for him by the way, but returned 
back to Macedonia without seeing them (ver. 3); this, I 
say, they might interpret a consulting of his carnal in- 
terests. 


CHAPTER I. 


18 No surely;) But " as (sure as) God is true, our 
word toward you ™ was not yea and nay (1. δ. our 
preaching was not variable, we now saying one thing, 
anon another). 

19 16 For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was 
preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus 
and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was 
yea. 

20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, 
and in him Amen (ἡ. δ. true and cerlain through him), 
unto the glory of God (demonstrated tn the confirmation 
of them) by us. 

21 Now he which stablisheth us with you in (the 


681 


doctrine of ) Christ, and (who) hath anointed us (with 
the Holy Ghost), is God; 

22 ' Who hath also (/hus) sealed us (up 10 the day of 
redemption, Eph. iv. 30), and given the earnest of the 
Spirit (to the pledge and assurance of it, 2 Cor. ν. 5, Eph. 
i. 13, 14) in our hearts (see note on 1 Cor. i. 5—8). 

23 Moreover (it was not therefore out of lightness, but) 
1 call God for a record upon my soul, that (7/ was 
merely) to spare you (¢hat) [came notas yetunto Corinth. 

24 (Yet this [say,)Not for that we have dominion 
over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: ™ for by 
faith ye stand (τῇ yap πίστει ἑστήχατε, for ye have stood 
in the faith). 


™ Ver. 18. Πιστὸς δὲ ὃ Θεὸς, But as God is true.) The 
phrase πιστὸς ὁ Θεὸς, “God is faithful,” is used where there 
is no oath intended; as 1 Cor. i. 9, “God is faithful, by 
whom we are called;” and, x. 13, πιστὸς 6 Θεῦς, * But God 
is faithful, who will not sufler you to be tempted above what 
you are able.” 
seems rather to be a form of swearing: and then, πιστὸς δὲ ὁ 


eis, will signify, Dei fidem testor, i. e. “I swear by the | 


faith of God; so Dominus vivit, i. e. “I swear by the life 
of God;” or, “As the Lord liveth,” Jer. xii. 16, xliv. 26, 
Hos. iv. 15, compared with Jer. xxxviii. 16, Judg. viii. 19, 
Ruth iii. 13, 1 Sam. xiv. 39. 46, xix. 6, xx. 3. So to swear, 
“as thy soul liveth,” is to swear by the life of another. 

15 Οὐκ ἐγένετο vai καὶ οὔ, Was not yea and nay.] i. e. It 
was not with any variance, but by his assistance we all said 
still the same thing, and promised the same advantages to 
those who should believe in Christ ; or it was not the preach- 
ing of what was uncertain, but fully confirmed to you by the 
power received from him. ‘That this is the true import of 
the phrase, “ Yea, yea, nay, nay,” we learn from the Jews 
from whom it is taken; for they say,* “There is a yea 
which is as nay, and a nay which is as yea,” viz. when a man 


asserts and denies a thing ironically ; but} «the just man’s | 


yea is yea, and his nay is nay ;” that is, whatever he affirms 
or denies is true and certain. - When a man gives a bill of 
divorce to his wife, we try him, say they, three times¢ 
“whether his nay be nay, and his yea be yea:”’ that is, whe- 
ther he continue firm in his resolution to divorce her. And 
whereas the Hebrew saith, when Elijah said to the Jews, 
« How long will you halt betwixt two opinions? If God be 
God, follow him; if Baal, follow him: the people answered 
him not a word,” 1 Kings xviii. 21: the Jewish gloss runs 
thus, “They would not say unto him, yea or nay, because 
they were doubtful.” And whereas, Exod. xx. 1, we read 
thus, “ And God spake all these words, saying,” R. Solomon 
notes, that this word spNb teacheth that “they answered 
to every yea, yea, and to every no, no;” that is, they 
engaged to do the affirmative, and not to do the negative 
precepts. 

1 Ver. 19.°O γὰρ Θεοῦ vidc—de’ ἡμῶν κηρυχϑεὶς, For the Son 
of God Jesus Christ preached by us.) Here Theodoret well 
notes, that Christ preached is put ἀντὶ κηρύγματος, instead of 
preaching concerning him; the sense of these words being 
this, ὁ περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγος, “the word concerning the 
Son of God” preached by me, ‘Timothy, and Silvanus, was 
still the same without any variance from one another; we 
all saying the same things of him, and confirming them by 
the like miracles. 

Ver. 20.) Or, all the promises of God made to you 
are true and certain, through Christ, the author of the new 
covenant, established upon better promises, to the glory of 
that God who made them by us. 

15. Ver. 22. 'O καὶ σφραγισάμενος ἡμᾶς, Who hath sealed 
us.] Sealing was used not only as a mark of distinction of 
what belongs to us, from what is others’, but also for con- 
firmation ; as when we set our seal to a bond, indenture, 
will, covenant, or ordinance; to a covenant, Neh. ix. 38, 
to an evidence, Jer. xxxii. 10, to an ordinance, that it may 
not be reversed, 1-Kings xxi. 8, Esth. viii. 8, Isa. viii. 16, 


* Buxt. Lex. ‘Talm. in voce γπ, p. 642, et in hune locum. 
ἡ Florileg. p. 329. 
+ Cartwright Mellif. Hebr. in hunc locum. 

Vou. 1V.—86 


But here the phrase, being used absolutely, | 


| flesh” (x. 2). 


in which sense the circumcision of Abraham is styled a 
“seal of the righteousness of faith,’ Rom. iv. 11, and the 
Corinthians, the seal of Paul’s apostleship; for preservation 
and security, as when we seal up our treasures, Deut. xxxii. 
34, so the servants of God were “ sealed in their foreheads,” 
Rev. vii. 3, ix. 4; so “the foundation of God standeth sure, 
having this seal, The Lord knoweth who are his,” 2 Tim. ii. 
19, and so the Jews made the sepulchre secure, “sealing the 
stone,” Matt. xxvii. 66. In all which senses was the Holy 
Spirit given to believers as a mark that they belonged to 
Christ, Rom. viii. 9, and were the sons of God, Gal. iv. 6, 
as a confirmation of the covenant God had made with them, 
and of the blessings promised, he being the earnest and 
pledge of them, and so a security to them against doubting 
of them; and also a preserver of them in the faith against 
all temptations (2 Tim. i. 7, 1 Pet. iv. 14). 

19 Ver. 23. Miprvpa τὸν Θεὸν ἐπικαλοῦμαι ἐπὶ τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχὴν, 
1 call God to record upon my soul.) The apostle useth this 
form of speech so oft in this epistle, that I think it not 
amiss to give an account of the reason of his doing so; which 
may be best done from the consideration of the occasion, 
the reason, and the end of assertory oaths, which are the only 
oaths he uses. 

First, Then, there must be some ἀντιλογία, i. 6, some 
doubting of, or contradiction to, the thing asserted, which 
must give an occasion to an assertory oath (Heb. vi. 16), 
there being no need to confirm, in this solemn manner, what 
nobody doubts of. Now, in the church of Corinth, the au- 
thority and the sincerity of the apostle was much doubted 
of, he being acknowledged of them but in part (ver. 14), 
some seeking still “a proof of Christ speaking by him” (χη, 
3), and others looking on him as one that “ walked after the 
This therefore gave occasion to the assertory 
oaths so frequent in this epistle. 

Secondly, The end of an oath is εἰς βεβαίωσιν, “for con- 
firmation” of the thing asserted (Heb. vi. 16); and if oaths 
were allowed, and thought necessary in civil matters for this 
end, they must be more allowable in sacred and spiritual 
matters, which concerned the truth of the gospel, and the 
salvation of souls for the same end, which manifestly was 
here the case. 

Thirdly, The matter, thus confirmed by an oath, must be 
such as could not be sufficiently confirmed by other witnesses 
of the fact, he being only privy to them, who doth thus con- 
firm them; for where sufficient testimonies of the matter of 
fact can be produced, an oath seems the less needful in the 
case. And that this was 50, in all the instances in which the 
apostle thus confirms his sayings, will be easily discerned 
from the perusal of the places, in which the apostle thus as- 
serts the truth of what he had affirmed, viz. i. 18. 23, xi. 10, 
11. 31, xii. 19. 

2 Ver. 24. TH γὰρ πίστει ἑστήκατε, For you have stood in 
the faith.) Tis piv πίστεως Evexev οὐδαμὴς ὑμῖν ἐπιμέμφομαι, 
τὴν γὰρ ratrns ὑγίειαν περίκεισθε, Theodoret ; that is, “I do not 
by this threat challenge to myself a power to exercise any 
dominion over you on the account of your faith,” as I did 
upon Hymenmus and Alexander (1 ‘Tim. i. 12), and intend 
to do upon some of your false teachers, when your obedience 
is fulfilled (x. 6); for I acknowledge, you have generally 
stood firm in the profession of the Christian faith (though 
some among you once questioned the great article of the re- 
surrection of the body, 1 Cor. xv. 12), but I design by it to 
excite you to cure your divisions and contentions, and τὸς 


682 


“orm your gross miscarriages (xii. 20, 21), that so I might not 
be found towards you “such as you would not,” nor create 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


to you any farther trouble, but may be a promoter of that 
jey which you will find in such a reformation of yourselves. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 (And indeed a helper of your joy I would gladly be,) 
But | determined this with myself, that 1 would not 
come again to you in heaviness (7. e. so as to make you 
sad, if possibly I could avoid it). 

2 For if I (be constrained by your disorders to) make 
you sorry, ' who is he then that maketh me glad, but 
the same which is made sorry by me? (2. e. What can 
make me glad but the reformation, and so the joy of the 
same persons? the apostle’s chiefest joy being in the wel- 
fare of his converts, 1. 14, Phil. ii. 2. 16, iv. 1, 1 Thess. 
ii. 19, 20.) 

3 And I wrote this same unto you (07, this very thing 
have I wrilten to you before my coming, to excite you to 
this reformation), lest, when I came, I should have 
sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; hav- 


ing confidence in you all, that (you sland so affected to 
me, that) my joy is the joy of you all. 

4 (Tsay, lest I should have sorrow ;) For out ? of much 
affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you (my 
former epistle) with many tears; (which yet I say,) not 
that ye should be grieved (or made sorry), but that ye 
might know the love which I have more abundantly 
unto you. 

5 But if any have caused grief (as the incestuous per- 
son hath already done), he hath not grieved me (only), 
3 but in part: that I may not overcharge (or be too 
heavy upon) you all. 

6 Sufficient to such a man zs 4 this punishment, 
which was inflicted of many. 

7 °So that contrariwise ye ought rather (now) to 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1 Ver. 2. Kai ris ἐστιν, Whois he then ?] The Hebrew 1 
rendered by καὶ, is very often in our translation, then. See 
Gen. xiii. 16, xxiv. 41, xxviii. 21, xxxi. 8, xlii. 34, 38, Exod. 
vi. 1, vii. 9. 11, Lev. iv. 3. 14. 23. 28, v. 5, vi. 4, Numb. v. 
15. 21, Deut. vi. 21, viii. 10, Josh. i. 15, xxiv. 12, 1 Sam. 
i.11,vi.9. And thus also is καὶ translated by us in the New 
Testament, Matt. xxiii. 32, xxv. 27, Mark vii. 1. 10. 26, 
John iv. 35, vil. 33, xiv. 9, Acts xxvi. 20, Rom. viii. 17, xi. 
5, 1 Cor. xv. 29, James ii. 4, Rev. xxii. 9. 


2 Ver. 4. ᾿Εκ πολλῆς ϑλιψεως, With much affliction, &c.] | 
As the apostle’s zeal for the good of souls made him rejoice | 
at their welfare (ver. 2), so also did it cause him to weep | 
for their miscarriages (Acts xx. 19. 31, 2 Cor. xii. 21, Phil. | 


lii. 18). 

2 Ver 5. ᾿Απὸ μὲρους, In part.] This phrase is commonly 
used by Paul for the distinction of one sort of persons from 
another: so Rom. xi. 25, “ Blindness hath happened to Is- 
rael, ἀπὸ μέρους, in part,” as to the unbelieving part of them ; 
Rom, xy. 15, “1 have written to you more boldly in part,” 
ἀπὸ μέρους, i. 6. as to that part of you who are gentiles, de- 
elaring that I was called by Jesus Christ to be “the apostle 
of the gentiles;”’ 2 Cor. i. 14, « You have acknowledged me 


2; 1 therefore say in part, that I may not too much load that 
miserable person. 

4 Ver. 6. 'H ἐπιτιμία αὕτη ἡ ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων, This punish- 
ment, &c.| Some learned persons, who exclude the laity 
from having any share in the excommunication or absolution 
of public offenders, tell us, this punishment was inflicted only 
by the clergy or the presbytery of Corinth in the presence of 


ing, ἤδη κέκρικα, “I have already judged him,” 1 Cor. v. 3, 
and also that of absolution, saying here, ver. 10, ἐγὼ κεχά- 
ρίσμαι, “I have forgiven him,” committing only the execu- 
tion of each sentence to them: so that this instance gives no 
colour to the pretences of the independents and other sec- 
taries, especially if we add, what is highly probable, that the 
Corinthian church had then no ordinary or settled governors, 
or pastors, but all their offices were performed by prophets, 
or men enabled to perform them by the gift of prophecy (see 
note on 1 Cor. xiv. 29); and if so, it cannot be expected 
that the same practice should continue when these extraor- 
dinary prophets ceased, and bishops and pastors were every 
where appointed to rule over their respective flocks. In the 
primitive church, when any person was to be excommuni- 
cated, the laity were first consulted about the fact; the guilty 
person pleaded in their presence; they judged of the matter 
of fact, as do our juries in criminal causes, and by their suf 
frage they consented to his condemnation, as Cyprian* doth 
often inform us; but then he still asserts, that neither they 
nor the inferior clergy could pass the sentence of excommu- 
nication without the bishop,t who, as the president of the 
assembly, still pronounced the sentence. ‘They also con- 
sented to the readmission of them into favour, and to the 


communion of the church, but then their actual admission 
ἀπὸ μέρους, in part,” i. e. as to the sound part of you; and | 
according to this use of the phrase, the words may be para- | 
phrased thus, He hath not only grieved me, but, as to the 
sound part, you all; for there were some among them who | 
grieved not for this crime, but “were puffed up,” 1 Cor. v. | 


the laity. But it seems clear in both these epistles, that the | 
apostle writes to the church of Corinth in the general: for | 


when he commands that the incestuous person should be ex- 
eluded from their society, and be “delivered up to Satan,” 
he speaks to all that were assembled together, 1 Cor. v. 4, to 
all that ought to have mourned for that fact, ver. 2, to 
all that were obliged to abstain from eating with him, ver. 11, 
and asserts the power they had of judging those that were 
within the church, ver. 12, and here, speaking of the execu- 
tion of that sentence, he saith it was ἐπιτιμία, “a punish- 
ment inflicted,’ not πρὸ, before, only, but ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων, 
“by the community :” hence he exhorts them all to forgive 
and comfort him, ver. 8, adding, ver. 10, «To whomsoever 
you forgive any thing, I forgive also:” but there is not in 
this whole affair the least mention of any of the clergy sepa- 
rately from the church, either executing or relaxing this cen- 
sure. Indeed Paul here carries the matter so high, that he 
alone, by his apostolical authority, passeth the sentence, say- 


was performed by the imposition of the hands of the bishop 
and clergy, the power of the keys, saith he, being given to 
them by Christ, saying, “Thou art Peter,” &c.¢ 

5 Ver. 7.] Note, Hence it appears, that in notorious crimes 
which give great cause of scandal to the church and to Chris- 
tianity, the consolation of the offender depends not only on 
his inward grief and repentance towards God, but also on 
the relaxation of his censures by the church ; for it is certain 
that the apostle is here speaking not, as Grotius thinks, of 
the taking off the disease which Satan had inflicted on the 
incestuous person, but of restoring him to communion by re- 
laxation of the church’s censures: for (1.) the word ἐπίτιμεα, 
punishment, ver. 6, refers to the canonical censures of the 
church. (2.) He commands them not only χαρίζεσϑαι, to 
“forgive” (ver. 7. 10), but also to “confirm their love to 
him ;” both which expressions plainly seem to intimate, that 


| he would have him restored to communion; and this he 


* Presentibus et judicantibus laicis, ed. Ox. 14, p. 33, Ep. 
16, p. 34, Ep. 17, p. 39, Ep. 30, p. 59, Ep. 31, p. 63, Ep. 
43, p. 82, Ep. £2, p. 97, Ep. 55, p. 102. Vide Albaspin. 
Observ. lib. ii. cap. 22. Du Pin, de Antiq. Eccles. Discipl. 
p- 247. Dodwell de Jure Laicorum Sacerd. p. 130. 

+ Inde per temporam et successionum vices episcoporum 
ordinatio et ecclesiz ratio decurrit, ut ecclesie per eosdem 
prepositos gubernetur. Bp. 33. 

+ Per manus impositionem epis~pi δὲ cleri as communi- 
cationis accipiunt. Ep. 16, p. 37. Nec ad commiunica- 
tionem quis venire possit, nisi pris "li ab episcopu et clero 
manus fuerit imposita. Ep. 17, p. 39. 


CHAPTER II. 


forgive him, and comfort him (by receiving him again | 


tnto the church, which is the proper consolation to one cast 
oul, than continue your aversion to him), ® lest perhaps 
such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch 
sorrow (and so fall inlo despair). 

8 Wherefore I (who commanded the inflicting this cen- 
sure on him, do now) beseech you that ye would con- 
firm your love toward him (by readmitting him, thus 
penitent, to your soctely ; for the church ought, after the 
example of God, to do of 

9 For to this end also did I write (ἔγραψα, have 1 
written this), that 1 might know the proof of you, whe- 
ther ye be obedient (40 me) in all things. 

10 (2nd be assured of this, that)'Towhom ye forgive 
any thing, I forgive (1) also: for if I forgave any thing 
(Gr. have forgiven heretofore), to whom I forgave it, for 
your sakes forgave I it (though I did it) 7 in the person 
(7. e. by the authority) of Christ; 

11 5 (And this forgiveness of the incestuous person I 
therefore press,) LestSatan should get an advantage of 
us (by hurrying him into despair, or representing the 
church-discipline as that which tendeth to men’s ruin, and 
so lempting him to apostasy) : for we are not ignorant of 
his devices. 


683 


12 Furthermore (/hat ye may know my great concern- 
ment for you), ® when I came to T'roas to preach Christ's 
gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord 
(for the propagation of it there), - 7 

13 I had (notwithstanding) no rest in my spirit, be- 
cause I found not Titus my brother (whom I had sent 
lo know the state of your affairs, returned): but taking 
my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia 
(hoping to find him there, where he arrived, and gave me 
a very comfortable account of yo). , 

14 Now thanks (therefore) be unto God, which 
always causeth us to triumph in (and through) Christ, 
and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by 
us in every place (where we come). 

15 For we are unto God a sweet savour (in our 
preaching) of Christ, (oth) in them that are saved, and 
in them that perish : 

16 To the one (viz. to them that perish for rejecting 
Christ preached to them) we are the savour of death 
unto death; and to the other (who believe in him) the 
savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these 
(great and weighty) things ? 

17 (We are, I say, very acceptable to God in this 
work ;) For we are not as many, " which corrupt the 


would have performed according to the discipline now men- 
tioned from Cyprian, with the consent of the pious laity. 

© Lest such a one should be swallowed up with sorrow.] 
Hence also Chrysostom observes, that, in prescribing the 
measures of penance, regard is to be had, not only to the na- 
ture of the sin, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς διάνοιαν καὶ ἵξιν τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων, 
“but also to the mind and temper of the sinner.” 

7 Ver. 10. Ἐν προσώπῳ Χριστοῦ, In the person of Christ.) 
That is, saith Theodoret, Christ beholding and approving 
what was done; for as he delivered the incestuous person 
to Satan “in the name of the Lord Christ” (1 Cor. v. 4),so 
in his person and by his authority he relaxes the sentence: 
This places teaches us, saith Schlictingius, “ that the provi- 
dence of Christ reacheth to, and inspecteth, not only our 
actions, but even our minds and thoughts.” Hence then I 
argue for his Godhead, God alone being the searcher of the 
heart, and of the secrets of it (1 Kings viii. 39). 

8 Ver. 11.] Note; Vain here is all the discourse of Es- 
thius concerning indulgences, or the remission of the satis- 
faction required by the church; for the apostle here speaks 
only of the remission of this excommunication, and hath not 
one word of any satisfaction the incestuous person had volun- 
tarily undertaken on the account of his offence, or any thing 
imposed on him to do on that account, but only of a delivery 
of him to Satan, and an exclusion of him from the church, 
in both which he was passive. 

9 Ver. 12. ᾿Ελϑὼν dé εἰς τὴν Τρωάδα, But coming to Troas.] 
That this was not the first time of St. Paul’s coming to 
Troas is plain, seeing we find him there long before, Acts xvi. 
8, though then he seems to have staid there but a night: 
it was not the time mentioned Acts xx. 6, for then he came 


from Macedonia to Troas, here he goes from Troas to Mace- | 


donia. It remains then that it was some intermediate time, 


which all interpreters I meet with think was in his way from | 
Ephesus to Macedonia, Acts xx. 1, but at his first journey | 
from Ephesus to Macedonia he sailed, not by roas, but | 


by Corinth, though not touching there (see note on i. 16) : 
it was then after passing through those parts he came hy 
Troas into Greece ; and if so, this epistle could not be written 
till after St. Paul's coming the second time to Macedonia 
(see the preface). 

10 Ver. 16. ᾽Οσμὴ ζωῆς, καὶ Savarov, A savour of life and 
death.) Were is a continual allusion to the phraseology of 
the Jews, who speak from the prophets of nr cop.” “a 
mortal savour,” or as the Chaldee saith, mrs yoo, (Esth. 
i. 21, Jer. xi. 19), and of pwna op, “a savour of life,” or 


“a vital unguent,” and saying of the law, that “it is to Is- | 


rael a savour of life, but to the nations of the world a sa- 
vour of death;” of which the apostle seemeth here to give 


* Buxtorf. in voce mp. p. 1494. 


the reverse, saying, the gospel was to them, as being the 
rejecters of it, the savour of death, but to the gentiles, who 
embraced it, the savour of life. 

Kai πρὸς ταῦτα ris ἱκανός 1] Here the Vulgar ridiculously 
read, Et ad hee quis tam idoneus, i. 6. quim ego? and this 
reading is defended by Dr. Mills, against all the Greek scho- 
lia, the Syriac and Arabic versions, Cod. Alex. and Hilary 
the deacon, and that by surmises little better than that version 
(see Examen Milli in locum). 

1 Ver. 17. Καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον, Who corrupt the word.] 
Here is an allusion to those hucksters of whom the prophet 
Isaiah speaks, saying, of κάπηλοί cov μίσγουσι τὸν οἶνον ὕδατι. 
“Thy vintners mix wine with water” (Isa. i. 22); and so 
the meaning of the words is this, We do not adulterate the 
sincerity of the word, as your false apostles do. So Theo- 
doret here. 

Who these corrupters of the word of God were, we learn 
from xi. 22, where it is evident that they were not Samari- 
tans, but Jews; not pretenders to be the Christ, or ministers 
of Simon Magus, but ministers of Christ, or such as owned 
our Jesus, not Simon Magus or Dositheus, to be Christ. 
Notwithstanding, a reverend persons asserts that they were 
Gnosties; and to this opinion he is inclined by two pas- 
sages in the epistles of Ignatius: the first is in the Epistle 
to the Magnesians, where, saith he, “speaking of the Gnostic 
Judaizers, as enemies of the cross of Christ, whose God is 
their belly, who mind earthly things (Phil. iii. 18, 19), who 
were lovers of pleasure and not lovers of God, having a form 
of godliness, but denying the power of it, he adds, that they 
were of χριστέμποροι, τὸν λύγον καπηλεύοντες, καὶ τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν 
πωλοῦντες, merchants of Christ, huckstering the word, selling 
Jesus.” But, 

1. The Gnostics were so far from being Judaizers, that 
they denied the God of the Jews, declared that he was not 
the supreme God, and taught men to despise the law and 
the prophets (see note on Col. ii. 12). 

2. All these epithets or characteristics agree perfectly to 
the Jewish false teachers; they were the men of whom the 
apostle saith, “ Their god is their belly,” &c., as both Chry- 
sostom* and Theodoret inform us. ‘They were the men 
who were “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God,” 
and who had “a form of godliness,” which the impure Gnos- 
tics had not (see note on 2 Tim. iii. 5). ‘The Jews also were 
the persons who bought Christ for thirty pieces of silver; 


| they corrupted the word here, by mixing the law and their 


* Ἐντεῦθεν δῆλον ὡς περὶ ᾿Ιουδαίων ταῦτα φησὶν, ἀεὶ γὰρ αὐτῶν 
γαστριμαργίας κατηγορεῖ, καὶ ἀλλαχοῦ φησὶν ὧν Θεὸς ἢ κοιλία. 
Theod. et Chrysost. in Rom. xvi. 17. Ex quibus quidam 
zelum habentes traditionis Judaic, nee de Christo bené do- 
cebant. Pseud. Ambr. hic. 


684 


word of God: but (πο) as (men) of sincerity, 
but as (cummissionaled) of God, (and as) in the 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


sight of God speak we in (preaching) Christ (unto 
you). 


traditions with the gospel, and they made a gain of Christ 
(see note on | ‘Tim. vi. 5). So that what is here cited from 
the ninth section of this epistle, agrees exactly to them. 

3. It chiefly is to be observed, that these words are not in 
the true Ignatius, but are the additions of his interpolator. 
And (2.) there is not a word in this place to show that they 
belonged to the Gnostics, or any other persons, who, owning 
tbe profession of the Christian faith, corrupted it; but are 
eapressly said to belong to such enemies of Christ as denied 


him:* whereas the true Ignatius is plainly in this place | 
speaking of the Jews,f of whom we interpret this; and the | 


same is also evident from the interpolator. 

The second passage is cited from the Epistle ad Trallianos, 
where he saith, “There are some vain speakers and impos- 
tors, not Christians, but merchants of Christ, ἀπάτῃ περιφέ- 
povres τὸ ὄνυμα τοῦ Xprarod Kai καπηλεύοντες τὺν λόγον τοῦ εὐαγγε- 
Nov, carrying the name of Christ for deceit, and huckstering 
the word of the gospel.” “And who these were he speci- 
fies in the process of the epistle, viz. Simon, the first-born 
of Satan, Menander, Basilides, the unclean Nicolaitans, 
τοὺς ψευδω:ὕμο ΄ς, ‘those that are falsely named,’ that is, the 
Gnostics.” But here again, 


* “Ov τὰ τέκνα τῆς ἀπωλείας ἀριοῦνται 
pos. Ibid. §. 9, 

> Mh πλανᾶσθε rats Erepodotiats, μηδὲ μυϑεύμασι τοῖς παλαι- 
οἷς αἱ ὠῤελέσιν οὖσιν" εἰ γὰρ μέχρι viv κατὰ νόμον Ἰουδαϊκὸν ζῶμεν, 


ὁμολογοῦμεν χάριν μὴ εἰληψέναι. §, 8. Ep. ad Magnes. 8, 9. 


οἱ ἐχϑροὶ τοῦ σωτῆ- 


1. We have not the true Ignatius, but his interpolator 
imposed upon us. 

2. This interpolator doth not say those persons, falsely 
named, were the Gnostics: no, that is the doctor's inter- 
pretation, against the true sense of the Greek ; and the ma- 
nifest words of the old interpreter, who says, they were the 
Nicolaitans,* so called, because they falsely bore his name, 
he being no such person as they represented him: and in- 
deed, this is the common epithet of the Nicolaitans;+ he 
himself, by Clemens Alexandrinus$ and others being de- 
clared free from the doctrines these heretics vented in his 
name. And, 

3. This interpolator plainly insinuates that, in the section 


| cited by the doctor, he meant the Judaizers,§ as using the 


same words which he had used in the Epistle to the Magne- 
slans concerning them. 


* Fugit quoque illos immundissimos falsi nominis Nico- 
laitas, amatores libidinis, malos calumniatores: nec enim 
talis fuit apostolorum minister Nicolaus. Sect. 11. 

+ Οἱ viv Wevdsv-pot Νικολαῖται. Const. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 
8. Vide Ep. interp. ad Philadelph. 5. 6. 'Theod. Her. Fab. 
lib. iii. cap. 1. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 29. 

Τ Clem. Strom. ili. p. 436. Steph. Gobar. apud Phot. p. 
902, 903. 

§ Ita et Judaizantes χριστεμπύρυυς, idem interpolator in 
Epistola ad Magnesianos nominaverat, et τὸν λόγον καπηλεύον- 
ras, Usher. 10... 26. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Do we (by speaking thus of our sincerily, ii. 16,) 
begin again to commend ourselves? or ' need we, as 
some o/hers (have), ? epistles of commendation to you, 
or /etfers of commendation from you (lo others) ? 

2 Ye are our epistle 5 written in our hearts, (you 
being always in our minds, and evidently appearing to us 
so to be, and) known and read of all men (who have 
heard the fame of your conversion) : 


3 Furasmuch as ye are (hy this conversion) manifestly 
declared to be 4 the epistle of Christ ministered (ur 
pinned ) by us, written not with ink, but with the Spi- 
rit of the living God; not in tables of stone (as were the 
ten commandments), but in fleshy tables of the heart. 

4 And such (confidence vr) trust have we through 
(the grace and favour of ) Christ to God-ward (viz. that 
he will still thus efficactously assist our ministry) : 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 1. Ei μὴ χρήζομεν ; Do we need?) These particles 
εἰ μὴ often signify mum in the Old Testament; εἰ μὴ ἔφαγες 5 
«Hast thou eaten of the tree?’’ Gen. iii. 11 (see Gen. iv. 9, 
xviii. 4. 17. 23. 27. 38, xxx. 15, xxxi. 14, xli. 38, xliii. 7). 
So μὴ also signifies, 1 Cor. ix. 4, μὴ οὐκ ἑζουσίαν ἔχομεν 5 
«“ Have we not power?” and ver. 8. 

2 Συστατικῶν ἐπιστολῶν, Letters of commendation.] ‘That 
commendatory epistles were ancient in the church, we learn 
from Tertullian* and Cyprian.t And that they had their 
rise from the tessere hospitalitatis among the heathens, is 
the opinion of the reverend Dr. Hammond on the .place. 
But others think these letters were derived from the Jews, 
among whom they were in use, as their writings, so this very 
place shows; for the persons here mentioned were the 
Judaizers. 

3 Ver. 2. Ἐγγ᾽ γραμμένη ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν, Wriften in 
our hearts.) This is a frequent phrase in the Old ‘l'estament, 


and among the Jewish doctors, importing (1.) the clearness | 


and perspicuity of what is said to be thus in our hearts, 
Deut. xxx. 11. 14, 15, Rom. x. 8, 9, and (2.) our care to 


have it continually in our minds, and upon our spirits, Deut. | 


vi. 6, Prov. iil. 3, vil. 2 (see this proved, note on Heb. 
viii. 10). 

And thus the phrase is commonly used in profane authors, 
both Greek and Latin. ‘Thus Antisthenes saith to one, who 


* Heretici nullum jus capiunt Christianarum literarum. 
Prescript. cap. 37. Vide cap. 20. 
1 Cyprian, ep. 4, §. 1. Vide Dodw. Diss. Cypr. 2. 


had lost his register or note-book, “Thou shouldest ἐν τῇ 
ψυχῆ αὐτὰ, καὶ μὴ ἐν rats χάρταις γράφειν," write these things 
in thy soul, and not in thy papers.” So Senecat saith of 
Portius Latro, who made use of no books or notes, Aiehat se 
scribere animo, “ He said he wrote all things in his mind.” 
So Terence,+ Scripta illa dicta sunt in animo Chrysidis; which 
in Pindar§ is, πύσθι φρενὸς ἡμᾶς γέγραπται, “It is written in 
my mind.” 

So that these words may be thus paraphrased, We need 
no letters of commendation to you, for we well know, and 
have continually in remembrance, how powerfully God 
wrought with us for your conversion, so that “ the seal of our 
apostleship are you in the Lord” (1 Cor, ix. 2) ; “the signs 
of an apostle being wrought among you in all patience, in 
signs, wonders, and in mighty deeds” (2 Cor. xii. 12); so 
that you are our best letters commendatory to yourselves : 
nor need we letters of commendation from you to others, the 
fame of your conversion by us, and of the gifts we, with the 
gospel, have imparted to you, being spread throughout the 
world. 

4 Ver. 3. ᾿Επιστολὴ Χριστοῦ, The epistle of Christ.) His 
commendatory epistle, declaring and commending his power 
in your conversion, by such signs and gifts of the Holy Ghost 
imparted to you, and exercised by us among you, as he 
enabled us to do: and this epistle is written in the fleshy 
tables of your hearts, i. e. in your hearts made soft, pliable, 


* Apud Laert. lib. vi. p. 189. 

+ Preefat. libri prim. Controvers. 
+ Andria. 

§ Olym. 10, v. 2. 


CHAPTER III. 


5 Not (having any confidence in ourselves) that we 
are sufficient of ourselves δ to think any thing as of 
ourselves (/o bring men to the faith of Christ by our own 
reasonings, without the power and assistance of ihe Spirit 
of God); but our sufficiency (as to this matter) ts of 
God (alone) ; 

6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new 
testament (promised in opposition to the old, Jer. Xxxi. 
33, and so) not of the letter (only as was that of Moses), 
but of the spirit, (promised, Ezek. xxxvi. 27): for δ the 
letter (of the law condemns the disobedient, and so) kill- 
eth, but the spirit (minisfered by the gospel) giveth life; 
(for if the Spirit of him that raised Jesus from the 
dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, 
shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that 
dwelleth in you, Rom. viii. 11.) 

7 7 But (then) if (that law which is) the ministration 
of death, (and was) written and engraven in stones, 
was glorious (im the ministry of il), so that the child- 
ren of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of 
Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory 


685 


(yet was only such as) was to be done away (or vanish, 
as the law was to do): : 

8 How shall not (‘hat gospel which is) the ministra- 
tion of the spirit be rather glorious (both in itself and 
ils ambassadors) ? 

9 Por if (that law, which was) the ministration of , 
condemnation (by pronouncing the sentence of death upon 
all that did not perfectly obey it) be (or was attended with) 
glory, much more doth (the gospel, which is) the minis- 
tration of righteousness (or of justification to life, Rom. 
ν. 18) exceed in glory. 

10 For even that (/au’) which was made glorious (at 
the first administration of it, may be said to have) had no 
glory in this respect, by reason of the glory (of the 
gospel) that excelleth (and so eclipseth it). 

11 For if that which is (now) done away (and abo- 
lished) was glorious, much more that which remaineth 
(for ever) is (to be) glorious (tn the powerful operations 
of the Spirit of God assisting the dispensers of il). 

12 Seeing then that we have such hope (of the glo- 
rious efficacy of our ministry, and of the power of God 


and ready to obey the word by the operation of the Holy 
Spirit, according to the promise, “I will take away the stony 
heart from you, and give you a heart of flesh,” Ezek. xi. 19, 
xxxvi. 26. 

5 Ver. 5. Λολίζεσθαί τι, &c. To reason any thing as of our- 
selves.] The apostle, in the second chapter of his First Epis- 
tle, contends that there was a necessity of a divine revelation, 
to enable them to make known to us the truths contained in 
the gospel, because human reason, without it, was not able 
to know or to discern them; and therefore here also he dis- 
claims this sufficiency as of themselves, without divine assist- 
ance for this work ; that is, without those illuminations and 
powerful operations of the Holy Spirit which made them 
“able ministers of the New ‘l’estament.’ This text, there- 
fore, is impertinently cited to show that no man is sufficient 
of himself to think a good thought, and might as well have 
been produced to prove him not sufficient of himself to think 
at all. 

6 Ver. 6. Γράμμα ἀποκτείνει, The letter killeth.| From the 
exposition of these words given in the paraphrase, it appears, 
how vain are the imaginations of those men who, by the kill- 
ing letter, understand not the law condemning to death, but 
the literal and historical sense of the scriptures in general ; 
and by the life-giving spirit, the mystical and spiritual sense 
of them. Vain also are they who by the letter understand 
the law as it was understood by the Jewish doctors in a 
literal or grammatical sense, by the Spirit, the mind of the 
lawgiver ; it being evident from the whole chapter, that by 
the letter the apostle understands the law engraved in stones, 
ver. 3. 7, the law as delivered by Moses, and as at first ad- 
ministered with an appearance of the glory of the Lord; and 
by the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, ver. 17, or the Holy Spirit 
given to the apostles to enable them to preach the gospel, 
and conferred on those that believed it. 

7 Ver. 7—11.] That the allusion here from ver. 7 to the 
eleventh may be the better understood, let it be noted : 

First, that the glory of God, or of the Lord, in the Old 
Testament, imports a bright light or flame included in a 
cloud, styled «the cloud of glory ;”’ and because this, when- 
ever it appeared, was a symbol of God’s glorious presence, it 
is styled by the Jews Shechinah,* “the habitation:” so 
Exod. xvi. 7, “In the morning ye shall see the glory of God ;” 
and ver. 10, “The glory of God abode upon mount Sinai, 
and the cloud covered it six days, and the light of the glory 
of the Lord was like devouring fire ;” Exod. x]. 34, « A cloud 
covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the 
Lord filled the tabernacle, 190, the habitation of God.”— 
“This glory,” saith the author of Cosri,} “is the divine light 
which God vouchsafeth to his people.””—* By the Shechi- 
nah,” saith Elias, “ we understand the Holy Spirit,” as it is 
evident they do in these sayings, “The Shechinah will not 
dwell with sorrowful or melancholy men. The Shechinah 
will only dwell with the strong, rich, wise, and humble man. 


* Vide Buxt. Lex. p. 2396. 
+ Par. ii. 9. 8. 


The Shechinah dwells with the meek. When ten sit, and 
study the law, the Shechinah dwells among them” (see 
many other instances in Buxtorf’s Lexicon, p. 2396, &c.). 

Secondly, Observe, that after the covenant made with God 
at mount Sinai, Exod. xxiv. 7, 8, was broken, and the law 
given from mount Sinai violated by the idolatry of the Jews, 
in making and worshipping the golden calf, Exod. xxxiii., 
Moses is again called up into mount Sinai to renew it, Exod. 
xxxiv. 27, and God there descends to him again in the cloud 
of glory, ver. 5, and then was it that the skin of his face 
shone, to the terror of those that saw him, so that he was 
forced to put a veil over his face, ver. 29, 30. And the 
allusion here is chiefly to this glory, or shining brightness of 
the face of Moses, when he received the law the second time, 
as is evident from ver. 7, and from the words here used by 
Paul, οὐδὲ ῥεδύξασται τὸ δεδοξασμένον, * That which was made 
glorious was not glorious;” for they are the very words used 
by the Septuagint, concerning the shining of the face of 
Moses, dedégacrat ἡ ὄψις τοῦ χρώματος προσώπου αὐτοῦ, Exod. 
χχχῖν. 295 καὶ ἣν δεξοζασμένη ἡ ὄψις, ver. 30. ς 

Thirdly, Observe, that as the glory of the Lord descended 
on the mount, at the delivery of the law, so, to enable the 
apostles to be “able ministers of the New Testament,” the 
Spirit of God descended on the apostles at the day of pente- 
cost, in the likeness of cloven tongues, or tongues of fire, sit- 
ting upon them (Acts ii. 3); and as the tabernacle and tem- 
ple were filled with the glory of God, so were they all filled 
with the Holy Ghost (ver. 4) ; and as the shining of the face 
of Moses signified the glory of that law which he delivered to 
the Jews, so the gifts of the Holy Ghost, shining forth in these 
ambassadors of Christ, signified the glory of the gospel. Now, 
saith the apostle, this glory is more excellent than that which 
attended the law given by Moses: 

1. Because the glory appearing on mount Sinai made the 
people afraid of death, saying, “ Let God not speak to us any 
more, lest we die” (Exod. xx. 19), “neither let us see this 
great fire any more, that we die not” (Deut. xviii. 16). 
And when the face of Moses shone, the people were afraid 
to come nigh him (Exod. xxxiv. 30), for the law being the 
ministration of death and condemnation, even the glory of 
it struck a terror into their hearts, and left a fear of death 
upon their spirits; and thus received they “the spirit of 
bondage unto fear” (Rom. viii. 15), whilst we have given to 
us “the Spirit of power and love” (2 Tim. i. 7), and “the 
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father:” and to this 
difference the author to the Hebrews alludes, xii. 18—24. 

2. Moses, with all his glory, was only the minister of the 
law, written in tables of stone; the apostles of the gospel, 
written in the heart of believers: he only gave the Jews the 
killing letter of the law, they with the gospel gave the quick- 
ening Spirit. 

3. The glory which Moses received at the giving of the 
law did more and more diminish, because his law was to 
vanish away ; but the glory which they received from Christ 
did increase “from glory to glory” (ver. 1S), the doctrine 
they delivered by it being to remain for ever. 

3H 


686 


II, CORINTHIANS 


so illustriously shining forth in it), we use great® plain- | when " it (the Jewish nation) shall turn to the Lord 


ness of speech: 

13 And (act) not as Moses (the minister of the law), 
which put a vail over his face, (even that of types and 
shadows, so) that the children of Israel could not sted- 
fastly look to the 3 end (or the accomplishment) of that 
which is (now) abolished : 

14 But (that which hinders them from seeing through 
this veil, is this, that) their minds were (‘hen and still 
are) blinded: for until this day remaineth the same 
vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; 
which vail is (only) done away (by faith) in Christ. 

15 But (or, whereas they not believing in him) even 
unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is (δἰ) 
upon their heart. 

16 Nevertheless (as when Moses turned to the Lord, 
the veil was taken from his face, Exod. xxxiv. 34, so) 


(Jesus), the vail shall be taken away (from them). 

17 " Now the Lord is (the giver of ) that Spirit (which 
as recetved by the gospel, and by which it is confirmed): 
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, 
(and so the law, which is as a yoke of bondage, Acts xv. 
10, Gal. v. 1, is taken away, and we obtain our Chris- 
tian liberty. 

18 15 And it is not with us as it was with the Jews, fur 
they only saw the face of Moses shining through the veil, 
but received no impression from, or derivation of, his glory 
upon themselves ;) But we all (under the gospel), with 
open (and unveiled) face beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the Lord (Jesus), are changed into the same 
image (wrth him) from (his) glory to glory (derived on 
us), even as by the Spirit of the Lord (or, as receiving 
it from the Lord and giver of the Spirit). 


8 Ver. 12. Παῤῥησίᾳ.] This word seems to import open- 
ness and plainness of speech. So, “he spake this, saying, 
παῤῥησίᾳ, openly,” Mark viii. 32; “If thou art Christ, tell 
us παῤῥησίᾳ, plainly,’ John x. 24; “Having spoiled princi- 
palities and powers, he triumphed over them, ἐν παῤῥησία, 
openly,” Col. ii. 15 (see John vii. 4. 13, xi. 14, xvi. 25. 
29, xviii. 20). And to this sense the opposition in these 
words, “ We use great plainness of speech, and do not put a 
veil before our face, as Moses did,” seems to lead. 

9 Ver. 19. Eis τὸ τέλος τοῦ καταργουμένον, To the end of 
that which was to be abolished,] i. 6. Hither to Christ and his 
gospel, as the body veiled under these types and shadows 
(Col. ii. 16}, or they could not look unto that Christ, who is 
the end of the law for justification (Rom. x. 4), that being 
only “our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ” (Gal. iii. 24, 
25). And here is the 

Fourth excellency of the gospel above the law, that 
whereas that was veiled under types and shadows, the gos- 
pel was delivered with great perspicuity and plainness of 
speech ; which is a confirmation of the perspicuity of the New 
Testament in all things necessary. 

10 Ver. 16. Ἥνικα δ᾽ ἂν ἐπιστρέψη πρὸς κύριον, When it shall 
turn to the Lord.| The apostle discoursing, ver. 13, of the 


sons of Israel, of those to whom belonged the old covenant, | 


and to whom the law of Moses was read, ver. 14, 15, must 
be supposed to speak here of the same persons; and then the 
apostle here plainly taketh it for granted, that there will come 
a time when the Jewish nation shall turn unto the Lord, or 
be converted to the Christian faith; and so, looking on 
Christ as the end of the law, and being enlightened by his 
Spirit, shall clearly discern the spiritual sense of the law, and 
the true meaning of their own prophecies concerning their 
Messiah. Nor is it any objection against this exposition that 
the word is ἐπιστρέψη, in the singular, for as that answers 
well to Israel, or the Jewish nation, so is it a known rule* 
that in the Hebrew tongue a verb of the singular number is 
joined to a noun or a participle plural. 

Ver. 17. Ὃ δὲ Κύριος τὸ Πνεῦμά ἐστιν, Now the Lord is 
that Spirit.) The Ethiopian version reads not 6 δὲ but οὗ δὲ 
Κύριος, “ Where the Lord is, there is the Spirit,” which makes 
the sense of these words clear; but this reading hath no 
authority from any ancient copy, or Christian writer. Ori- 
gent cites the words, according to the common reading, 


* Glassius, lib. iii. tr. 3, can. 52, p. 397. 
+ Contr. Celsum, lib. v. p. 271; in Matth. ed. Huet. 
p. 219 et p. 253. 


thrice ; nor is it suitable to the Greek, which should have 
been, according to that reading, οὗ δὲ Κύριος ἐκεῖ τὸ Πνεῦμα. 
I therefore prefer the other interpretation, which saith, ‘he 
Lord is the Spirit, as he is the way, the life, John xiv. 6, the 
resurrection and the life, xi. 15, as being the author and 
giver of them. He it is who “ baptizeth with the Spirit and 
fire” (Matt. iii, 11), who giveth this good Spirit to all be- 
lievers, and sends him to them from the Father (John vii. 
38, 39, xv. 26, xvi. 7): he is 6 Κύριος, the Lord who ministers 
to his church all the gifts and operations of the Spirit (1 Cor. 
xii. 5, Eph.iv.8). And this interpretation is favoured by the 
last words of the chapter, ἀπὸ Kvpiov Πνεύματος, “from the 
Lord of the Spirit ;” for, through the New Testament, wher- 
ever the Spirit of the Lord is mentioned, τὸ Πνεῦμα is put 
before, but never follows, the word Κύριος, as according to 
the common interpretation here it doth (see also Examen 
Millii in locum). 

2 Ver. 18.] Here are two farther excellencies of the glory 
of the gospel above that of the law, viz. 

5. That the Jews only saw the shining of the face of 
Moses through a veil; but we behold the glory of the gos- 
pel of Christ in the person of Christ, our lawgiver, with open 
face. 

6. They saw it through a veil, which hindered the reflec- 
tion or shining of it upon them, and so this glory shone only 
on the face of Moses, but not at all upon them; whereas the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ shines as in a glass, 
which reflects the image upon us Christians, so that we all 
are transformed into the same image, deriving the glorious 
gifts and graces of the Spirit, with the gospel, from Christ 
the Lord and great distributer of them (1 Cor. xii. 5), and so 
the glory which the Father gave to him he hath given us 
(John xvii. 22). It is therefore rather with us as it was with 
Moses himself, concerning whom God speaketh thus, “To 
whom will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and 
not in dark speeches, and the similitude, τὴν δόξαν Kvpiov, the 
glory of the Lord shall he behold,” Numb. xii. 8. For as he 
saw the glory of God apparently, so “we, with open face, 
behold the glory of the Lord:” as he by seeing of this glory 
was changed into the likeness of it, and his face shone, or was 
dedofacuévn “made glorious;” so we, “beholding the glory 
of God in the face of Jesus Christ (iv. 6), are changed into 
the same glory.” But then, though this may in some mea- 
sure be enlarged to the church in general, in which these gifts 
were exercised, I think it chiefly, and more eminently, refers 
to the apostles mentioned ver. 12, and iv. 1. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Tuererore seeing we have this (glorious) minis- 
try, as we have received mercy (from God, in commit- 


ting it to us, 1 Tim. i. 12, so) we faint not (under the 
pressures to which it doth expose us) ; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1 Ver. 1. Οὐκ éxxaxodpev,] Is not to slacken in, or cease 
from, the performance of an enterprise (Luke xviii. 1, Gal. 


vi. 9, 2 Thess. iii. 13), particularly μὴ ἐκκακεῖν ἐν ϑλίψεσι, 
“not to faint under tribulations,” Eph. iii. 13, and here, 
ver. 16. And this sense is confirmed by the words following, 
from ver. 7 to 16. 


CHAPTER IV. 


2 But have renounced ® the hidden things of disho- 
nesty (or shame), not walking in craftiness (and guile), 
nor handling the word of God deceitfully, (as do your 
false apostles and deceitful workers, xi. 13 ;) but by mani- 
festation of the truth commending ourselves to every 
man’s conscience (as persons acting) in the sight of God. 


687 


3% But if (notwithstanding this manifestation of 
the truth) our gospel be hid (from any to whom 
it is preached), it is hid (only) to them that are 
lost: 

4 In (or among) whom‘ the god of this world hath 
blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the 


2 Ver. 2. Ta κρυπτὰ τῆς αἰσχύνης, The hidden things of 
shame.| The apostle often speaks of some deceivers crept 
into the church, “whose glory was in their shame,”’ Phil. iii. 
19, whose exhortation was attended with uncleanness, deceit, 
and guile, 1 Thess. ii. 3,and here, who did “ the hidden things 
of shame.’ Now these, say all the Greek scholiasts, were 
‘the “false apostles, τῇ rod νόμου ἐπιμιξίᾳ τὸ θεῖον κῆρυγμα 
διαφϑείρουτες, Who corrupted the gospel, by mixing it with 
the law,” as is apparent from the apostle’s words; for speak- 
ing of these “false apostles and deceitful workers,” xi. 13, he 
saith, ver. 22, “Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they 
Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so 
am I.” And that the Jewish doctors were prone to fornica- 
tion, uncleanness, and adultery, we learn from the apostle’s 
question, “ Thou that sayest a man should not commit adul- 
tery, dost thou commit adultery ?” Rom. i. 22, and from the 
testimony of their Josephus concerning their zealots, who 
professed great sanctity, but were indeed guilty of « theft, 
treachery, adultery, the hidden things of sin:’* from the 
exhortation of Paul to them to look diligently, “lest there 


be among them any fornicator, or profane person,” Heb. xii. | 


16. And again, “ Let marriage be honourable among all, 


and the bed undefiled; for whoremongers and adulterers | 
God will judge,” Heb. xiii. 4 (see the note there). But | 
this is still more evident from these Epistles to the Corinth- | 


jans, among whom these deceivers had taught that fornica- 
tion was a thing lawful, 1 Cor. vi. 12, and so had taught 
them to “corrupt the temple of God,” 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; 
whence he says to them, “ Let no man deceive you,” ver. 
18, and demonstrates to them by many. arguments, that for- 


nication was a sin inconsistent with the profession of Chris- | 
| to that which is good,” Rom. xvi. 19, that they might “ un- 


tianity, 1 Cor. vi. 13—20, that-it excluded persons “ from 
the kingdom of God,” ver. 9, 10, and should exclude them 
from the society of Christians, v. 11. 


of the Jews did,” 1 Cor. x. 8. And in his Second Epistle, 
and twelfth chapter, he expresses his fears, lest, when he 
came among them, he should find many who, through the 
seduction of those men, “had sinned, and had not repented 
of the uncleanness, fornication, and lasciviousness, which 
they had committed.” That these men might be followers 
of Cerinthus, or of the Ebionites, see note on xi. 22. 
these things do more plainly agree to the sect of Nicolas, 
one of the seven deacons resident at Jerusalem (Acts vi. 5), 
they being, saith Peter, «men walking after the flesh, in the 
lusts of the flesh,” 2 Pet. ii. 10, and “alluring others 
through the lusts of the flesh,” ver. 18, and, saith Jude, 
“men walking after their own lusts, and foaming out their 
own shame,” ver. 13. That these men were at Pergamus, 
“teaching men to commit fornication,” we learn from Rev. 
ii. 14, 15, that they were also at Ephesus, and so near to 
Corinth, from Rey. ii. 6, and so might probably be the per- 
sons noted by Paul, saying, Eph. v. 11, 12, “It is a shame 
to speak of ra χρυφῆ γινόμενα tx’ αὐτῶν, the things done by 
them in secret ;” and that they were at Corinth, see note on 
1 Cor, vi. 13—15. 

3 Ver. 3.. Ei δὲ καὶ ἔστι κεκαλυμμένον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν, If 
our gospel be hid.| Hence we learn, that the apostles deli- 
vered the gospel, in all things necessary to be believed or 
done, with sufficient plainness and perspicuity ; for other- 


wise they could not be truly said to have “manifested the | 


truth to every man’s conscience.” ‘The apostle also, by de- 
claring, that if this gospel was hid from any to whom it was 


preached, it was only hid to them “ whose minds the god of | 


this world had blinded, lest the light of the glorious gospel 
should shine in upon them,’ doth plainly teach, that the 
gospel was not hid from them for want of clearness on the 


* Ta κρυπτὰ μὲν Τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων ἡἠδοζῆκατε, κλοπὰς λέγω, 
καὶ ἐνέδρας καί μοιχείας. De Bell. Jud. lib. xvi. cap. 26, p. 
930, C. 


But | 


Upon all which ac-_ 
counts he saith, “ Neither let us commit fornication, as some | 


part of them who preached it, but only by reason of that 
blindness which Satan had wrought in them that heard it ; 
so that, if it were not manifest to all, “the fault is not in us, 
or in the obscurity of the gospel, but in their own blindness, 
for we hide nothing from them.”* So the fathers. 

But here, saith Esthius, the apostle speaks not of the 


| scriptures to be read or understood by us, but of the gospel 


preached by him. 
Ans. “Ὁ this I answer, That the scriptures writ and read 


| to them, contain the same gospel of Christ which they 


preached; and as the reading of the law of Moses is 
styled “the preaching of Moses every sabbath-day,” 
Acts xv. 21, so is the public reading the scriptures of 
the New Testament, the preaching Christ and his gospel: 
what reason then can be assigned why they, who confessedly 
preach the gospel plainly, should write the same things to 
the same persons obscurely ; especially if we consider that 
they did τὰ αὐτὰ γράφειν, “write the same things to them for 
their safety,” Phil. iii. 1, to “ put them in remembrance of 
those things which they knew, and in which they were esta- 
blished” by their preaching, 2 Pet. i. 13, 14, and to “ stir up 
their pure minds by way of remembrance, that they might 
be mindful of the commandments of the apostles of our Lord,” 
iii. 1, 2, that by “reading them they might understand their 
knowledge in the mystery of Christ?” Eph. iii. 4. And were 
these ends best prosecuted, or to be obtained, by writing 
that obscurely which they had plainly preached to them? 
Moreover, “whatsoever things were written aforetime,” saith 
the apostle, “were written for our learning,’ Rom. xv. 4. 
And surely they, who writ after by the same Spirit, writ to 
the same end, that they to whom they wrote might be “ wise 


derstand what the will of the Lord is,” Eph, v.17, or might 
“ prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of 
God,” Rom. xii. 2. And if they writ “for our learning and 
instruction” in these things, to be sure they writ plainly and 
clearly as to them, since otherwise they writ not so as to in- 
struct and teach, but to confound the reader. Seeing there- 
fore the great end of writing the scripture was to instruct the 
world in the will and mind of God, and the great things of 
the Christian faith; either we must say, that both the writers 
of the scripture, and the Holy Ghost that inspired them, 
were defective in skill, or in care, so to write as to obtain 
this end, or that their writings are an effectual means to ob- 
tain it, which yet they cannot be, unless they are plain and 
clear, as to the great things of religion. 

In short, every wise agent pursues his end by the most 
proper and effectual means: now surely, to write plainly, 
and not obscurely, is the most proper means to instruct men 
by writing ; and so the apostles must have used this means 
of instructing in their writings, or else they cannot be esteem- 
ed wise agents. 

4 Ver. 4. 'O ϑεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος robrov, The god of this world, 
&c.] Here observe (1.) an hyperbaton, the true sense and 
position of the words being thus, “ Among whom are the 
unbelievers, whose eyes the god of this world hath blinded,” 
ἄς. Note (2.) that Satan here is called by Paul “the god 
of this world,” and Eph. vi. 12, “the ruler of the darkness 
of this world,” agreeably both to the Jewish and Christian 
notion ; the first ascribing to him the dominion over all that 
were not of the religion of the Jews, and introducing God 
speaking to the angel of death, or Satan, thus, “Though I 
have made thee κοσμοκράτορα, a ruler among the creatures of 
the nations, thou shalt have nothing to do with this people, 
because they are my sons ;"{ where also it presently follows 
“This is the angel of death, which is called Darkness.” 


* Οὐδὲν κρυπτὸν παρ' ἡμῖν. CEcum. Οὐκ ἡμῶν τὸ ἔγκλημα, 
ἡ τῆς ἀσαψφείας τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, ἀλλὰ τῆς ἐκείνων τυφλώσεως. 
Theoph. in locum. 

{ Buxtorf’s Lexicon, p. 2007. 


688 


light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the 
5 image of God, should shine unto them. 

5 (I say the gospel of Christ ;) For we preack not our- 
selves (as aiming at our own glory or profit in this work), 
but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your ser- 
vants for Jesus’ sake. 

6 (And this gospel I style the gospel of the glory ὦ 
Christ ;) For God, who (by eee ee be Τὰ 
and there was light) commanded the light to shine out 
of darkness, ® hath (a/so) shined in our hearts, to give 
(us) 7 the light of the knowledge of the glory of God 
in the face (ur person) of Jesus Christ (or, into the 
hearts of us apostles, to give us, and enable us to give 
to others, the light of the knowledge of God through Christ, 
whose ambassadors we are. See ver. 7). 

7 But we have this (glorious) treasure in earthen 
vessels (ὦ. 6. in bodies subject to be broken with continual 
pressures), that the excellency of the power (which pre- 
serves such frail creatures under them, and enables them to 
do such great things in them) may (appear to) be of God, 
and not of us. 

8 (For though) Weare troubled (and griped ) on every 
side, yet (are we) not (so) distressed (as to be brought 
unto extremities) ; we are perplexed, but not (brought) 
in (to) despair (of help from God) ; 

9 (We are) Persecuted (or pursued), but not for- 
saken (or cast behind so as to lose the crown we run for) ; 


1. CORINTHIANS. 


cast down, but not destroyed (or killed by the fall: 
see these agonistical terms explained by Dr. Ham- 
mond ) ; 

10 Always bearing about in the body (a resemblance 
to) the dying of the Lord Jesus, that 8 the life also of 
Jesus might be made manifest in our body. 

11 For we which (yet) live are alway delivered 
unto death for Jesus’ sake, (dying daily, or standing in 
jeopardy of it every hour, whilst we are ministering the 
gospel unto you, 1 Cor. xv. 30, 31,) that the life also of 
Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh 
(still exposed to death by our enemies, but still preserved 
in life by the power of Christ). 

12 So then (ihe) death (of Christ) worketh (Gr. 
wrought) in us, (who fill up that which is behind of the 
sufferings of Christ in our flesh, Col. i. 24,) but (the) life 
(of Christ only) 5 in you. 

13 (Yet) Wehavine the same spirit of faith (7. 6. the 
same fuith wrought by the Spirit), according as it is 
written, (in the Psalms, ve) 101 believed, and there- 
fore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore 
(continue still, under all these sufferings, 10) speak (and 
preach the gospel of Christ) ; 

14 Knowing that he which raised up the Lord 
Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall pre- 
sent us with you (to enjoy his heavenly kingdom together). 

15 For (or, and) all (these) things (we preach and 


And the Christians allowing him to be ruler over all that 
were not converted to Christianity, and speaking of that as 
of the dispensation which “delivered them from the power 
of darkness into the kingdom of Christ,” Col. i. 13, 1 Pet. 
ii. 9, and “turned them from Satan unto God,” Acts xxvi. 
18, and of the gentile world, as walking before “ according to 
the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in 
the children of disobedience,” Eph. ii. 2; which, had the fa- 
thers considered, they would not have contended so stiffly 
against the Marcionites and Manichees, that the god of this 
world here mentioned was the true God, as both Irenezus* 
and Tertullian,t Chrysostom, Theodoret, Photius, Theophy- 
lact, and, as Austin¢ testifies, “ almost all the ancients did ;” 
whereas, indeed, the true God is never represented in scrip- 
ture as the god of this world, but as the God of them who are 
called out of the world ; nor is it the design of God, but of the 
devil, to hide the glorious light of the gospel from the world. 

5 Ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν rod Θεοῦ, Who is the image of God.] Christ 
seems here to be styled “the image of God,” not in the sense 
of Theodoret, as being “God of God,” but rather, as the 
text insinuates, with relation to the gospel and his mediatory 
office ; in which he hath given us many glorious demonstra- 
tions of the power, wisdom, the holiness, purity and justice, 
the mercy, goodness, and philanthropy of God (Tit. ii. 4). 

6 Ver. 6. Ὃς ἔλαμψεν. Ὃς here seems put for οὗτος, he ; 
so 1 Cor. vii. 7, ὃς μὲν οὕτως, ὃς δὲ οὕτως, is quidem sic, ille 
autem sic; and xi. 21, ὃς μὲν πεινᾷ, is quidem sitit, ὃς piv pe- 
θύει, ille autem inebriatur. 

7 Πρὸς φωτισμὸν τῆς γνώσεως τῆς δόξης τοῦ Θεοῦ, The light of 
the knowledge of the glory of God.] Here seems to be an 
allusion to the shining of the face of Moses, after he had 
obtained his desire of seeing the glory of God, Exod. xxxiii. 
16. 19, upon which δεδόξασται ἡ ὄννις, “ his face was made 
glorious,” Exod, xxxiv. 29, 30, by reason of the glory of 
God that he had seen. This now, saith Paul, belongs to us 
apostles, the glory of God shining more gloriously in the face 
or person of Jesus Christ, than ever it did in Moses, and we 
“beholding with open face the glory of the Lord,” 111. 20; 
whereas the children of Israel “ could not steadfastly behold 
the glory of the face of Moses.” Note also, that ἐν προσώπῳ 
is the constant reading of the Greek scholiasts. 

8 Ver. 10. Ἵνα καὶ ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ, &e. That the life of 


* Deus excecavit mentes infidelium hujus seculi. Tren. 
lib. ili. cap. 7. 

ἡ Tertull. contra Marcion, lib. v. cap. 11. 

+ Quam quidem sententiam plerique nostriim ita distin- 
guunt, ut Deum verum dicant excecdsse infidelium mentes. 
Contra Faust. Manich. lib. xxi. cap. 2. 


Jesus might be made manifest.] It being a certain demon- 
stration that Christ is risen, and still lives, that we, who per- 
suade others to believe this, are enabled to do such mighty 
wonders in his name, and patiently and constantly to suffer 
such fiery trials by his grace. 

9 Ver. 12. Ἔν ὑμῖν, In you.] As being made partakers of 
the vital efficacy of Christ, in his spiritual gifts, and of an 
assimilation to his resurrection by a life of holiness, but not 
of the like sufferings with us (1 Cor, iv. 8. 10). 

10 Ver. 13. ‘Exiorevoa, διὸ ἐλάλησα, I believed, therefore 
have I spoken.] ‘These words of David were spoken when 
“the sorrows of death compassed him round about, and the 
pangs of sheol caught hold upon him,” and yet he believed 
he “should walk before God in the land of the living,” Ps. 
cxvi. 3. 9, 10, and therefore are applied by the apostle in 
the spiritual sense of them to the resurrection, thus; That 
as David, notwithstanding all the persecutions which he suf 
fered from the hands of Saul, firmly believed he should be 
preserved and raised to a temporal kingdom, so we apostles 
believe that, after all our sufferings for the gospel, we shall 
be raised and advanced to a heavenly kingdom. 

N Ver. 14. Ὁ ἐγείρας τὸν Κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν, He that raised up 
the Lord Jesus.] Here Schlictingius observes two things, (1.) 
That our Lord Jesus did not raise up himself, but was raised 
from the dead by the Father. (2.) That though Christ Jesus 
shall raise us up, yet shall he do this, not by his own power, 
but by the power he received from the Father. 

First, Now here I acknowledge that the resurrection of our 
Lord is frequently ascribed in scripture to God the Father, 
Acts iii. 26, xiii. 32, xvii. 31, Rom. iv. 24, x. 9, 1 Cor. vi. 
14, xv. 15, Gal. i. 1, Eph. i. 20, Col. ii 12, 1 Thess. i. 9, 
10, Heb. xiii. 20, 1 Pet. 1. 3. 21, and the reason of the Chris- 
tian dispensation requires it should be so, this being a demon- 
stration that God the Father was satisfied with his perform- 
ances and sufferings for us, and that he owned him as a true 
prophet, and his beloved Son, in that he raised him from the 
dead: but then this is not so to be understood as to exclude 
Christ wholly from the same action ; for he himself promised 
to do this when he said of the temple of his body, « Destroy 
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” John ii. 
19. 22. And that he did so, we learn from this, that after 
his resurrection the disciples “ believed the word which Je- 
sus spake;” whereas, had he not raised up himself, they 
could not have believed his word. 

Let it then be noted, that our Lord was “ quickened by the 
Spirit,” 1 Pet. iii. 18, even by the Spirit by which he offered 
up himself (Heb. ix. 15). Since then this Spirit of God 
dwelt in Christ, and is by him communicated to all believers, 
it is easy to be understood how Christ raised up himself, and 


CHAPTER V.— 


suffer) are for your sakes, that the abundant grace 
conferred upon you by our ministry) might through 
the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of 
God. 

16 For which cause we faint not (under the tribula- 
lions we thus suffer); but though our outward man 
perish, yet the 12 inward man is renewed (with vigour 
and alucrily in the performance of our duty) day by day. 


yet was raised up “by the power of God,” as the Holy Ghost 
is styled, Lukei.35. ‘Thus also the resurrection of the just 
is ascribed to God the Father, Acts xxvi. 8, 1 Cor. vi. 14, 
Heb. xi. 19, 2 Pet. i. 3, and yet the same resurrection is fre- 
quently ascribed to Christ, John ν. 28, vi. 39, 40, xi. 27, 
Rom. xiv. 19, 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. 25, 26, Rev. iii. 18. And 


this he will effect by the power he hath in himself, John vy. | 


26, by himself, John vi. 47. 54, «JT will raise him up at the 
last day ;” by his word, “The dead shall hear the voice of 
the Son of God and live,” John v. 28; by “the power by 
which he is able to subdue all things to himself,” Phil. iii. 21. 
Now to raise the dead being a thing proper to God himself 
(Rom. iv. 7, Acts xxvi. 8), an instance of the power of God 


(Matt. xxii. 29), and the belief of it being faith in God (Heb. | 


xi. 19, 1 Pet. i. 3), whosoever hath the power of raising all 


men from the dead, must have the power of God ; the God- | 


head, “the energy of the power of the might of God” (Eph. 
i. 19), and the whole fullness of the Godhead dwelling in 
him; and if Christ did receive this power from the Father, 
he must receive it from him by the communication of the 
Godhead to him. 

2 Ver. 16. 'O ἔσωϑεν ἄνϑρωπος, The inward man.) Hence 
we learn that the distinction betwixt the outward and inward 
man is not of the same import with that of the old and new 
man (Rom. vi. 6), “which is renewed after the image of 


689 


17 For (we know that) our light affliction, which is 
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding 
and eternal 13 weight of glory ; 

18 (We faint not, I say,) “While we look not at 
the things which are seen, but at the things which 
are not seen: for the things which are seen are 
temporal; but the things which are not seen are 
eternal. 


God in righteousness and holiness” (Eph. iv. 22, Col. iii. 9, 
10) ; but the “outward man” that perisheth signifies only 
the body, the “inward” is only the mind or spirit which 15 
in man: so that when the apostle saith in the person of a 
man under the law, “I delight in the law of God after the 
inward man,” Rom. vii. 22, he saith nothing which intimates 
that the person speaking was “renewed in the spirit of his 
mind,” but only that his mind was inclined to obey the law 
of God, though, through « the law in his members” warring 
against it, he was “led captive to the law of sin.” 

13 Ver. 17. Bapos d6tns, Weight of glory.) The Hebrew 
word 335 which answers to βάρος, weight, signifies not only 
multitude, but greatness, and in the rabbins, as well as scrip- 
ture, honourable : so Gen. xviii. 20, « Their sin was Wp 7732, 
very great” (see Gen. |. 11, Exod. ix. 3): honourable, so 
Exod. xx. 12, πῶ, “Honour thy father and thy mother” 
(see Deut. xxviii. 58): so that this word may signify the 
magnificence, the abundance, and the honour of the future 
glory which is prepared for the Christian sufferer. 

"ὦ Ver. 18.] Note hence, that it is not only lawful, but 
even laudable, after the example of the apostles, in our ac- 
tions and sufferings, to have respect to the recompense of 
reward, that being by the wisdom of the Holy Ghost 
propounded as our encouragement to do and suffer these 
things. 


CHAPTER V. 


1 For we know that if our earthly house of this 
tabernacle were dissolved, we have (provided for us, at 
the restoring of i!) 1a building of God, an house not 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 

2 For in this (tabernacle) we groan, earnestly de- 
siring 2 to be clothed upon with our house which is 
from heaven : 

3 (We are, I say, desirous of this,) *If so be that (or, 
seeing that at the resurrection) being clothed we shall 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


Ver. 1. Οἰκοδομὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἔχομεν, We have a building of 
God.) It was the doctrine of the Platonists,* That the soul 
was a kind of being which could not well subsist or act with- 
out a body, and therefore, after her separation from the body, 
wanted some vehicle or clothing by which she might subsist 
and act; and this notion was embraced by Origen, and this text 
was accordingly interpreted by him (see the note on 1 Cor. 
xv. 44, 45): and according to this notion, good Christians, 
as soon as they depart this life, are not found naked, but 
“clothed with their house from heaven,” which, at the re- 
surrection, shall be the ἐπένέυμα, or “ clothing” of their raised 
bodies, which renders them immortal. But the apostle can- 
not here be supposed to mean, that as soon as ever good Chris- 


tians die they shall be clothed upon with this house which is | 


from heaven, but only that they shall be so at the resurrec- 
tion. For (1.) we Christians, saith he, “groan, earnestly 
desiring to be clothed upon” with this house, ver. 2. Now, 
saith the same apostle, «we ourselves groan within ourselves, 
waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body,” 


* Σχῆμα ἄλλο ὁμοειδὲς τῷ αἰσθητῆ τούτῳ pera τὴν ἐντεῦϑεν 
ἐκδημίαν ἔχειν ἐκτιθέμενος τὴν Ψυχὴν ἀσώματον ὑπὸ τὶ πλατωνικῶς 
ἀποφαίνεται αὐτήν. Τὸ γὰρ καὶ μετὰ τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ κόσμου ἀποφοί- 
τῆσιν σχήματος αὐτὴν ἐεῖσϑαι, καὶ περιβολῆς λέγειν ὡς οὐ δυναμέ- 
νῆν κατασγεϑῆναι γνμνήν. Method. ap. Phot. p. 930. 

Vor. 1V.—87 


not be found 4 naked (7. e. since then we shall not be 
found naked as the wicked, but clothed with a body not 
subject to death). 

4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being 
burdened: not for that (through impatience under our 
sufferings) we would be unclothed (by putting off the 
body), but (as desiring, ver. 2, to be) clothed upon (with 
our celestial body), that mortality might be swallowed 
up of life. 


Rom. viii. 33. (2.) They “ groaned to be clothed upon, that 
mortality might be swallowed up of life,” ver. 4. Now 
“when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and 
this mortal immortality, then (only) shall be brought to pass 
the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” 
(1 Cor. xv. 24). 

2 Ver. 2. ᾿Επενδύσασϑαι, To be clothed upon.] By putting 
over this mortal body an incorruptible and eternal house. 
The Jews say that Adam, in his first creation, being made, 
ἐπ᾿ ἀφθαρσια, “ for incorruption” (Wisd. i. 23), his body was 
covered from corruption veste onychin4, with a clothing like 
in colour to the nail of the hand. Accordingly, the apostle 
represents the future bodies raised incorruptible, as clothed 
with an immortal covering, 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54. 

3 Ver. 3. Ei γε καὶ, If so be.] That these words may be 
also rendered since, and seeing that, is evident from scrip- 
ture, and good authors. Thus here, ver. 4, εἰ signifies 
quandoquidem, so εἴ γε ἠκούσατε, “Seeing ye have heard,” 
Eph. iii. 2 (see the note there). And again, Eph. iv. 1. 
Or else, retaining our own version, we may give this sense 
to the words, If so be that (then) we shall be found clothed 
(with our celestial bodies, and so fitted for a blessed immor- 
tality), and not (as the wicked) naked (and without this 
heavenly pending) 

4 Τυμνοὶ, Naked.] i. 6. Not clothed upon with another 
body. So, 1 Cor. xv. 37, “ Thou sowest, γυμνὸν κόκκον, naked 
grain,” not covered with a blade, or cover of chaff, as when 
it riseth up out of the earth it is, or with a cod, as in beans, 

952 


690 


5 Now he that hath 5 wrought us for the selfsame 
thing (7. 6. hath wrought in us this earnest desire) is 
God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the 
Spirit (whereby we are sealed up to the day of redemption, 
Eph. iv. 30, and wait for the redemplion of the body, 
Rom. vill. 23). 

6 Therefore (having this earnest of the Spirit) we are 
always confident, knowing (Gr. being therefore always 
confident, and knowing) that, whilst we are at home in 
the body, we are absent from the Lord: 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


7 (For (whilst it is thus wilh us) we walk by faith 
(only), not by sight:) 

8 © We are confident, 7 say, and willing (we in this 
confidence are willing) rather to be absent from (or tra- 
vel out of ) the body, and to be present with the Lord 
(or al home with him). 

9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether (we be) pre- 
sent (in) or absent (from the body), we may be ac- 
cepted of him (at his appearance). 

10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat 


peas, and lentiles: and accordingly, the rabbins* introduce 
a Samaritan or gentile, inquiring of R. Meir, « Whether the 
dead rise naked or clothed?” and him answering thus, 
that “ peas, which are sown naked, arise clothed, or covered 
with a cod, and much more the dead : but then they seem 
to restrain this to the just, saying, that “the just shall rise 
clothed.” 

5 Ver. 5. Ὃ κατεργασάμενος ἡμᾶς cis αὐτὸ τοῦτο, He that 
hath wrought us for the selfsame thing.] Hence it appears, 
there is no ground for that dangerous opinion, that the apos- 
tle here speaks as one that believed the general resurrection 
and advent of our Lord to judgment would be suddenly ; 
for, this persuasion being false, the apostle could not, in this 
sense, say, “ We know that if this earthly tabernacle were 
dissolved, we have (immediately) a building of God,” i. e. 
a heavenly body to put on. God could not “work them 
up” to this desire, that they might not be unclothed, i. e. not 
die, but live to the resurrection, to be then clothed upon ; nor 
could the apostle, consistently with this persuasion, intro- 
duce the same Christians willing to be “absent from the 
body, that they might be present with the Lord.” More- 
over, in the preceding chapter, ver. 14, he plainly says, that 
they expected to be raised up by Jesus from the dead, and 
therefore must expect to die (see the note on 1 Thess. iv. 
15). 

ye 8. Θαῤῥοῦμεν δὲ, We are confident.) i. 6. We have 
not only confidence at his appearance (John ii. 28), but 
always, even in death itself, that, though it renders us absent 
from the body, it will bring us home to Christ, and to a 
nearer fruition of him. Only here note, that according to 
the doctrine of all the ancients, the souls of pious men are 
not assumed into the highest heavens, or the immediate pre- 
sence of God and Christ, instantly upon their departure 
hence: for thus only we shall be “ever present with the 
Lord,” 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17, when, by the power of God, at the 
last trump, we shall be raised up to “meet him in the air;”’ 
this promise being made at his second coming to receive his 
disciples to himself, that “where he is, they may be also,”’ 
John xiv. 3. But yet, according to all antiquity, the souls 
of pious men, in the mean time, are “in the place ap- 
pointed for them, παρὰ τῷ Κυρίῳ, with the Lord,” that is, 
with him in paradise, where they enjoy the sight and conver- 
sation of their Saviour by way of vision: for “ Paul, and the 
rest of the apostles,” saith Polycarp,f “are in the place ap- 
pointed for them, with the Lord.”—« Not only in heaven,” 
saith Irenzus,+ “ but in paradise also, our Saviour shall be 
seen, as men are worthy to behold him.” And this doth 
Psendo-Justin§ gather from this very place, that “ the souls 
of the just go to paradise, and converse there with Christ by 
vision.” 

Ver. 9.] I confess it is difficult to give the clear sense of 
the apostle’s words from ver. 1 to 9, but, to do my endea- 
vour farther towards it, observe, 

First, hat it cannot be proved from any thing said here, 
or in any other place of Paul's epistles, that the apostle him- 
self either thought, or taught others to think, that the coming 


* Pirk. Eliezer, cap. 30, p. 80. Midrash Coheleth, cap. 
5, 11. 

} Eis τὸν ὀφειλόμενον αὐτοῖς τόπον εἰσι παρὰ τῷ Ἰζυρίῳ. 
8. 9. 

+ Πανταχοῦ καὶ ὃ σωτὴρ δραθήσεται καϑὼς ἄξιοι ἔσονται" οἱ 
ὁρῶντες. Tren. lib. v. cap. 36. 

ὃ “EvSa συντυχία τε καὶ Séa ἀγγέλων τε καὶ ἀρχαγγέλων 
κατ' δὲ καὶ τοῦ σωτῆρος Χριστοῦ κατὰ τὸ εἰρημένον, 
ἐκδημοῦντες ἐκ τοῦ σώματος, καὶ ἐνδημοῦντες πρὸς τὸν Κύριον. 


Pseudo-Justin, Quest. et Resp. 75. 


Ep. 


ὑὁπτασίαν, 


of Christ was not far off, as I have fully proved in the note 
on 1 Thess. iv. 15. And, indeed, this doctrine being found 
by experience to be false, had he himself asserted, or taught 
others to expect, that the coming of our Lord to judgment 
was at hand; seeing in that he must have been mistaken, 
and mislead others, what certainty can we have, that he was 
not mistaken, or did not mislead eee in what else he 
taught in his epistles? Thus, ver. 9, if when he said, 1 Cor. 
Vii. 8], « Brethren, the time is short, and the fashion of this 
world passeth away ;” he thus dogmatically spake not of the 
time of human life, and the relation we had to the world, 
and the world to us, but of Christ's coming to judgment, and 
the destruction of the world, he certainly taught false doc- 
trine. If, when he saith, x. 11, that upon them the end of 
the ages was come; he meant not the last, that is the Jew- 
ish, concurring with the gospel age, but the end of the 
world, he then taught false doctrine. If, when he saith, 
Heb. x. 37, “ Yet a little while, and he that shall come will 
come, and will not tarry ;” he meant this not of Christ’s 
coming to the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the Jewish 
state and nation, but of his coming to the final judgment, he 
again taught false doctrine, and endeavoured to support them 
with false hope, which sure must be sufficient to impair his 
credit in other matters taught in his epistles. Lastly, That 
there is no ground for this opinion is proved, note on ver. 5; 
they, indeed, who had «the first-fruits of the Spirit” in 
them might wait for his coming, as all good Christians 
do, but they could not by virtue of his words expect it 
suddenly. 

Secondly, Observe, that the apostle here cannot intend to 
assert, that good Christians, as soon as they die, shall in- 
stantly be clothed upon with their house from heaven, but 
only that they shall be so at the resurrection; for, saith he, 
we desire to be thus clothed upon, “that mortality may be 
swallowed up in life:” now this he had told us, 1 Cor. xv. 
54, was only to be expected, at the resurrection ; for, “ when 
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mor- 
tal immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying 
that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” 

Thirdly, Observe, that the time of the resurrection of the 
just, being declared to be the time of their recompense, their 
being crowned and like to the angels, and being “ ever with 
the Lord,” as hath been fully proved on the note on 2 Tim. 
iv. 5, they had good reason to be groaning after “the re- 
demption of the body,” and that crown of glory which God 
would give them in that day. But then, say they, we do 
not groan through impatience under our present afflictions ; 
nor, as some philosophers, from an opinion that the body 
is the prison of the soul, and hinderance to the knowledge of 
the truth, and therefore counting it a happiness to be di- 
vested of it; but from a vehement desire of that glorious 
resurrection of it, which shall complete the happiness 
both of soul and body, and place it for ever with the 
Lord. 

Lastly, Observe, that at the resurrection there shall not 
be only an ἔνδυμα, or clothing of the soul with its former 
naked body; but an ἐπένδυμα, a clothing of the body raised, 
with a covering that shall preserve it from corruption; and 
this is plainly the apostle’s meaning in the similitude of grain 
rising not “naked,” as it was sown, but “clothed upon,” as 
is proved, note on ver. 3 here, and on 1 Cor. xv. a And 
this, I think, is the meaning of those words, ver. 3, “ If so 
be,” or “ seeing we shall be ἐνδυσάμενοι, clothed upon,” as 
the hodies of the just will be, and not γυμνοὶ, “naked,” as the 
bodies of the wicked shall be: for, that the wicked shall have 
immortal bodies at the resurrection, I nowhere find clearly 
delivered in the holy scripture, but only that the destruction 


CHAPTER ΡΥ. 


of Christ; that every one may (then) receive the things 
done” in his body (or, by the body), according to that 
he hath done, whether ¢ be good or bad. 

11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we 
persuade men ({0 believe we act in ail sincerity and truth, 
when we propound these things to them) ; but (in this) we 
are made manifest unto God; and I trust also (we) 
are made manifest in your consciences (and have given 
you good assurance that we act sincerely). 

12 For we commend not ourselves again unto you 
(as if we doubled of your good opinion of us), but (we 
say these things to) give you occasion to glory on our 
behalf, that ye may have somewhat to answer them 
which glory in appearance, and not in heart (or truth 
and sincerity, but either of other men’s labours, 2 Cor. 
x. 15, or of things not really done by them, 2 Cor. xi. 
12—21). 

13 For whether we be beside ourselves (transported 
in speaking of our raplures, ecstasies, and visions), it is 
to (do service to) God: or whether we be sober (ἐπ our 
discourses, not desiring that others should think of us 
above what they see in us, 2 Cor. xii. 6), it is for your 
cause. 

14 For the love of Christ constraineth us (hus to 
promote his glory, and to seek your good); because we 
thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead 
(i. e. obnoxious to death, and condemned to it for sin) : 

15 And that ® he died for all, that they which live (by 


691 


his death) should not henceforth live unto themselves, 
but unto him which died for them (ἡ. e. for their sins), 
and rose again (for their justification, Rom. iv. 24, 25). 

16 Wherefore henceforth know we no man after 
the flesh (7. e. according to carnal interests, the richcss 
honours, pleasures, and advantages of this world, 2 Cor. 
i. 17, x. 2): yea, though we have known Christ after 
the flesh (expecting him as a temporal king, and hoping 
Sor great advancements in his kingdom, as being his dis- 
ciples), yet now henceforth ® know we him (so) no 
more. 

17 (And so it is with all his sincere votaries ;) There- 
fore if any man δὲ in Christ, he ts (become) a new 
creature: old things are passed away (his pee to 
all temporal and carnal things); behold, all things 
are become new (in him). 

18 And all (these) things (belonging to the new crea- 
tion, this change oe our affections, this constraining love,) 
are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus 
Christ, and hath given (or committed ) to us the minis- 
try of reconciliation ; 

19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the 
world unto himself, (and) not imputing their (former) 
trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the 
word of reconciliation. 

20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as 
though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in 
Christ’s stead, be ye " reconciled to God. 


of their bodies, as well as the torment of their souls, will be 
everlasting (see the reading of the text, ver. 3, vindicated, 
Examen Millii in locum). 

7 Ver. 10. Ta ὀιὰ τοῦ σώματος, The things done in the 
body.) Some manuscripts read ri tia τοῦ σώματος, propria 
corporis, “the things proper to the body;” so the Vulgar 
Latin: both readings do sufliciently confute the doctrine of 
the Roman purgatory, and their prayers for the dead, as 
teaching men shall receive hereafter, not according to the 
prayers of others for them, when they are out of the body, 
but according to what they themselves have done in the 
body. Now it is sure, that what the living do of this kind 
for them after death, they themselves do not in the body, 
and so no account will be had of it in the great day. And 
why should they before suffer such dreadful pains in purga- 
tory, who afterward must receive rewards or punishments, 
according, not to what they have suffered there, but accord- 
ing to what they had done in the flesh? The fathers here 
do farther note, 

First, That the same body, which was dissolved, shall be 
raised again, and not another; it being absurd to think that 
one body should sin, and yet another should be punished for 
it; one body suffer, another should be crowned for it: so 
Methodius, Chrysostom, and Theophylact. 

Secondly, That the soul is to receive its retributions with 
the body, and not without it, according to Methodius,” The- 
odoret,f and Hilary; the deacon, who passeth under the 
name of St. Ambrose. 

8 Ver. 15. Kai trip πάντων ἀπέϑανεν, And he died for all.) 
Here observe, 

First, That Christ died for ail, all that were dead, all who 
were by his death engaged to live to him; as all, to whom 
the knowledge of the gospel is vouchsafed, are. 

Secondly, That they do certainly mistake the meaning of 
these words, “Then were all dead,” who thus interpret 
them,§ Then were all obliged to be dead to sin; for, (1.) in 
these two verses the word ἀπέθανον, “dead,” is four times 
used, once before, and twice after these words, “ ‘Then were 


* Οὐδὲ yap γυμνὴ ἡ ψυχὴ, ἀλλὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος νομίζεται ταῦτα. 
Method. Apud (πευπιθη. in loc. 

T Ἔδειξε ὁὲ καὶ τὰς τιμουμένας, καὶ τὰς κολαζομένας ψυχὰς μετὰ 
τῶν σωμάτων δεχομένας τὰς ἀντιξύσεις. Theod. 

+ Si judicante Christo unusquisque nostriim facta corporis 
Tecipiet, non utique sine corpore adjudicabitur bono aut 
malo. Hilar. 

§ Esthius, Schlictingius. 


all dead,” and both before and after it, undeniably signifies 
death in the proper acceptation of the word: who then can 
think that, the second time in the same sentence, it should 
import only an obligation to die to sin, or to ourselves? 
Whensoever in the scripture it bears a metaphorical sense, 
some other word is joined to it, which doth enforce that 
sense ; as when we are said to “die to sin,’ Rom. vi. 2, to 
«die with Christ,” Rom. vi. 8, Col. ii. 20, to “die to the 
law,” Gal. ii. 19, to “die to the world,” Gal. vi. 14, Col. iii. 
3. Here, therefore, nothing being added to enforce that 
sense, it must be deemed alien from the text (see Examen 
Millii in locum). 

9 Ver. 16. Οὐκ ἔτι γινώσκομεν, We know him so no more.] 
It is manifest, that the disciples, whilst Christ was with 
them, were much addicted to those temporal interests, still 
striving and contending who among them should be the 
greatest in Christ’s kingdom, Luke ix. 46, xxii. 24, asking 
to “sit one at his right hand, the other on his left hand, in 
his kingdom,” Mark x. 37, and saying, “ We have left all, 
and followed thee, what shall we have therefore 7” Matt. xix. 
27, and presently after his resurrection inquiring, “ Wilt 
thou now, Lord, restore the kingdom to Israel?” Acts i. 6. 
These expectations, saith the apostle, we have now laid 
aside, and serve Christ only for spiritual and eternal advan- 
tages. Or, we may interpret these words thus: We know 
(i. 6. respect) no man according to the flesh (i. 6. according 
to his circumcision or nation), as being an Israelite, or of the 
stock of Abraham, as “ knowing that in Christ Jesus neither 
circumcision availeth any thing: but a new creature,” Gal. 
vi. 15, and though we Jews at first knew Christ according to 
the flesh, adhering to circumcision and the law, even after 
faith in Christ, yet now do we not so; but all these old 
things are now passed away, we being “dead to the law, 
that we might live to God,” Gal. ii. 20, and serving him 
now “in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter,” 
Rom. vii. 5. 

0 Ver. 17. Καινὰ τὰ τάντα, All things shall become new.] 
Kat ψυχὴ καινὴ, καὶ σῶμα καινὸν, καὶ λατρεία καινὴ, “The soul 
shall be renewed in the mind, will, and affections,” the body 
new in its actions, as being made an instrument of righteous- 
ness, Rom. iv. 13, the worship new, Rom. vii. 6, Phil. iii. 
3, the whole life new, Rom. vi. 4; so Chrysostom (see this 
reading vindicated, Examen Millii in locum). 

M Ver. 20. Δεόμεθα ὑπὶρ Χριστοῦ, καταλλάγητε τῷ Θεῷ, Be 
ye reconciled to God.] Here is observable against the So- 
cinians a double reconciliation : (1.) a reconciliation of God 
to us; for " God was in Christ reconciling the world to him- 


692 


21 For he hath 15 made him to be (a) sin (offering) 
for us, who (himse/f) knew no sin; that we might be 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


made (righteous wilh) the righteousness of God in 
him. 


self” through him; and that not by renewing our natures, 
bat by “not imputing our trespasses to us.” This reconcilia- 
tion was effected, saith the next verse, by making Christ a 
sin-offering for us, “that we might be made the righteous- 
ness of God in him ;” and this reconciliation is followed with 
an exhortation on our parts “to be reconciled to God.” 

Obj. But Crellius objects, That the reconciliation, here 
mentioned, is ascribed to God, and so it cannot be the ap- 
peasing of his anger by making any satisfaction to him; for 
can it be supposed, saith he, that God, being angry, should 
appease himself, and that by making satisfaction by another 
to himself? 

Ans. I answer, That the text doth not barely say, God re- 
conciled us to himself, but that he was reconciling the world 
to himself in Christ, that is, by Christ as the means of our re- 
conciliation, or as the sin-offering by which this reconciliation 
was procured. [{ therefore is not necessary that these words 
should import that God, being angry, should appease him- 
self, but only that he should declare himself so far appeased 
by Christ’s sufferings for us, and so well satisfied with his 
blood shed for the remission of our sins, that he would not 
impute those sins to any that believed in him: the blood 
of Christ made a sin-offering making atonement for us, as 
the blood of the sin-offering under the law made atonement 
for the sinner, and procured the forgiveness of his sins: and 
if under the law satisfaction was made by the sinner to God, 
by a beast of his own appointing, why may it not be made 
under the gospel by a Saviour of his own sending? 

12 Ver. 21. Ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίαν ἐποίησεν, He made him sin 
for us.] The words here, being sacrificial, must be explained 
by their use in the old law, when applied to legal sacrifices. 
Now the word duapria, which we render “ sin,” is used there 
customarily for a sin-offering, and is well expounded by 
CEcumenius, τὸ περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν Sina. So αἴγες, ἔριφος, μόσχος 
ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτίας, Ezek. xii. 22. 25, xliv. 29, xlv. 22, 23. 25. 
So “ the law of the sin-offering” is 6 νύμος τῆς ἁμαρτίας, Lev. 
vi. 25, the bullock appointed for a sin-offering is τὸ μοσχάριον 
τῆς ἁμαρτίας, ὃ μόσχος ὃ τῆς ἁμαρτίας, “the bullock of sin,” 
Exod. xxix. 36, Lev. iv. 8. 20; the goat to be sacrificed for 
sin, is ἡ χίμαιρα ἡ τῆς ἁμαρτίας, “the goat of sin,” Lev. iv. 
29. To make such a beast a sin-oflering for the peuple, is, 
in the sacrificial phrase, ποιεῖν ἁμαρτίαν, ποιεῖν τὸ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, 


vi. 11. 16, viii. 12, It cannot therefore be doubted, but that 
ποιεῖν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἁμαρτίαν τὸν Χριστὸν doth signify here to 
make Christ a sin-offering, or sacrifice for sin for us. ὍΠ6 
end for which he was thus made a sacrifice is this, « that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in him,” i. e. that 
we might be justified by God, or might obtain forgiveness of 
sins, through faith in the blood of this sin-offering. For 
δικαιοσῦνη Θεοῦ, “the righteousness” or “the justification of 
God,” in Paul’s style, still signifies the righteousness of faith, 
in Christ dying or shedding his blood for us; as in these 
words, δικαιοσύνη γὰρ Θεοῦ, “ For the righteousness of God in 
him is revealed from faith to faith ; as it is written, The just 
shall live by his faith,’ Rom. i. 17. Again, δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ, 
«“ The righteousness of God without the law is manifest—to 
wit, the righteousness of God through faith of Christ,’ Rom. 
iil. 21, 22. And, x. 3, 4, “For they not knowing τὴν δικαιο- 
σύνην τοὺ Θεοῦ, the righteousness of God, and going about to 
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted τῇ 
δικαιοσύνη τοῦ Θεοῦ, to the righteousness of God. For Christ is 
the end of the law for righteousness (that is, justification) 
to every one that believeth ;” Phil. iii. 9, “« That I may be 
found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of 
the law, but that which is by the faith of Christ, τὴν ἐκ Θεοῦ 
δικαιοσύνην ἐπὶ τῇ πίστει, the righteousness of God by faith.” 
The interpretation, therefore, given in the paraphrase, is very 
agreeable to scripture, whereas the gloss of the Socinians 
puts a continual force upon the words; for where in scrip- 
ture doth ποιεῖν ἁμαρτίαν signify to treat an innocent person 
as a sinner? where is it that to be made the righteousness 
of God in Christ, doth signify our being made new creatures, 
or our being sanctified ? where doth God’s reconciling us by 
Jesus Christ import his converting the world to himself by 
Christ as his ambassador? why is God said not to impute to 
men their trespasses by the preaching of Christ, who preach- 
ed “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” rather 
than by the preaching of the apostles to the whole gentile 
world? how was he “made sin” more than they, if he 
were only treated as a sinner on the account of the same 
doctrine, which they equally preached, and suffered for? and 
why may not men be said to be “ made the righteousness of 
God” in the apostles, as well as in Christ, if this only im- 
ports our being converted, and so made righteous, by the 


“to make it sin,” Ley. iv. 20, ix. 7, xiv. 18, xv. 19, Numb. | doctrine they, as well as he, delivered ? 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 We then, as workers together with him (1 Cor. 
ili. 9, and his ambassadors, 2 Cor. vy. 20), beseech you 


also that ye receive not the ' grace of God in 
2 vain. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


1 Ver. 1. Χάριν τοῦ Θεοῦ, The grace of God.] The grace of 
God, in the Old Testament, imports his favour and kind 
affection to us; and in this sense it is said in general, “A 
-good man obtaineth, ys, χάριν παρὰ Kupiw, favour of the 
Lord,” Prov. iii. 34, xii. 2, or in particular, that such a pious 
man found jn, χάρι», “ grace in the sight of God,” 2 Sam. xv. 
25, Gen. vi. 8, for as when it is said that “Joseph found 
grace in his master’s sight,” Gen. xxxix. 4, xlili. 14, xlvii. 
25, Exod. iii. 21, xi. 3, xii. 86, the meaning is, his master 
showed favour to him; and when it is added, that “the 
Egyptians found grace in the sight of Joseph,” the meaning 
is, he was inclined to show favour to them, and grant them 
corn for their subsistence: so when the scripture saith, that 
pious persons “found grace in the sight of God,” the phrase 
must signify God’s inclination to show mercy, and bear a 
kind affection to them. The grace of God in the New 
Testament, when it is not used to signify the miraculous gifts 
of the Holy Ghost, bears generally the same sense: as when 
the angel saith to Mary, “ Thou hast found grace with God,”’ 
Tiuke i. 30; Stephen of king David, that “he found grace 
with God,” Acts vii. 46 ; Luke, that “ Jesus increased, χάριτι, 
in grace with God and man,” Luke ii. 52; when Paul and 


Silas are said to be “ commended to the grace of God,” for the 
work of the ministry, Acts xiii. 3, xiv. 26, xv. 40, this being 
done by their prayers to God for his favour and assistance in 
that work. When men said to be “justified by the grace of 
God,” Acts xv. 11, Rom. iii. 24, Eph. i. 7, and so have for- 
giveness of their sins, “according to the riches of his grace,” 
it must import the same; for justification and forgiveness of 
sin are acts of God’s free grace and favour to the sinner. 
When it is said that “we are saved by the grace of our 
Lord Jesus,” Acts xv. 11; “ By grace ye are saved, not of 
works ;” « By grace we are saved, through faith,” Eph. ii. 8, 
9; seeing this is spoken to men yet alive, and so obliged to 
“ work out their salvation with fear and trembling,” it can- 
not mean they were actually saved, but only that they were 
called to a state of salvation, enjoyed the means, and were 
put in the way of salvation by grace, according to those 
words of the same apostle, “He hath saved us, and called 
us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but the 
grace given us in Christ Jesus,” 2 Tim. i. 9; and to be thus 
saved by grace, is to be saved by the mercy and favour of 
God to us, according to those words of the apostle, « When 
the kindness and love of God our Saviour to man appeared, 
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by 
his mercy he saved us,” Tit, iii. 4, 5, it being purely of the 


CHAPTER VI. 


2 (For he saith (Isa. xlix. 8),°1 have heard thee in 
a time accepted (i. δ. of favour and acceptance), and 
in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, 
now ts the (well) accepted time; behold, now is the 
day of salvation,) (when God sends his ministers to 
preach, and offer it to you, 2 Cor. vy. 20. 

3 Which we are so careful to preach, as becomes work- 
ers with God, ver.1) Giving no (just) offence in any 
thing, that the ministry be not blamed : 

4 But in all ‘Aings approving ourselves as the min- 
isters of God, in much patience, 4 in afflictions, in ne- 
cessities, in distresses, 

5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults (ratsed 
against us for preaching :he gospel), in labours, in 
watchings, in fastings (ἡ. ὁ. in constant enduring all 
sorls of sufferings, and exercising all kinds of self-denial, 
Sor the gospel’s sake) ; 

6 By pureness (of conversation), by knowledge (of 
the divine mysteries), by longsuffering (under all provo- 
cations), by kindness (towards all men), by the (various 
gifts of the) Holy Ghost, by loye unfeigned, 

7 By the word of truth (preached), by the power of 
God (confirming ii, Rom. xv. 19), by the armour of 
righteousness (which covers and protects us when as- 
saulled) © on the right hand (by prosperous) and on 
the left (by adverse events), 

8 By (going through the various conditions of) ho- 
nour and dishonour, by (going through) evil report 


693 


and good report: (being looked upon by the wise men 
of the world) as deceivers, and yet (being) true (dis- 
pensers of the word of life to them) ; 

9 As unknown (and obscure persons), and yel well 
known (by the powerful works we perform); as dying 
(daily by our continual persecutions), and (ys behold, 
we live; as chastened, and (yet) not killed ; 

10 As sorrowful (in outward appearance), yet alway 
(inwardly) rejoicing ; as poor (in the concernments of 
the world), yet making many (tru/y and spiritually) 
rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things 
(in contentedness of mind, Phil. iv. 18, in the favour 
of that God who giveth all things richly to enjoy, 1 Tim. 
vi. 17, in Christ Jesus who is all in all, Col. iii. 11, 
and in whom we are blessed with all spiritual blessings, 
Eph. i. 3, and in the promise to inherit all things, Rev. 
xxi. 7). 

11 ὺ ye Corinthians, δ our mouth is ( freely) open 
unto you (in speaking well of you, vii. 4), our heart 
(and our affection) is enlarged (to you). 

12 Ye are not straitened in us (you have a large 
room in our hearts), but ye are straitened (rather) in 
your own bowels (of affection to us). 

13 7 Now for a recompence in the same (Jsind ), (I 
speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged (im 
your affections lo me your spiritual father). 

14 ὃ Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbe- 
lievers (do not join with them in their idol-feasts, and 


mercy and the grace of God, that any nation is called to the 
knowledge of salvation by Christ. When the grace of God 
is said to have “ abounded towards us,’ Rom. v. 15. 20, xv. 
16, that grace is styled “ the free gift of God.” When Paul 
saith, “By the grace of God I am what I am,” 1 Cor. xv. 
10; that he was “called by his grace,” Gal. i. 15; and that 
“the grace of God was abundant” to him, 1 Tim. i. 13, 14, 
he himself interprets this of God’s great mercy to so great a 
sinner. When he saith, “I do not frustrate the grace of 
God,” Gal. ii. 21, this he interprets to be God’s favour to 
mankind, in sending his Son to die for us. “The exceed- 
ing riches of his grace,’ Eph. ii. 7, is God’s great kindness to 
us in Christ Jesus; and “by the grace of God” it is that 
« Christ tasted death for every man,” 2 Tim. i. 9, Heb. ii. 9. 
Hence is this gospel styled, “the grace of God, which brings 
salvation,” Tit. ii. 11; “the grace of God, which is able to 
wuild us up, and procure us an inheritance among them that 
are sanctified,” Acts xx. 32. This also must be the import 
of the word, when the apostles exhort their converts to “ con- 
tinue in the grace of God,” Acts xiii. 43; and when they 
inform us, that God “confirmed the word of his grace by 
doing signs and wonders,’ Acts xiv. 3, and that “the law 
came by Moses, but grace by Jesus Christ,” John i. 17 (see 
the notes on Heb. xii. 28, xiii. 9, James iv. 6). 

2 Μὴ cis κένον τὴν Xapw δέζασϑαι, Not to receive this grace in 
vain.} ‘This we do, (1.) when we do not obtain the end for 
which it was designed, viz. “to teach us, denying all ungod- 
liness and worldly lusts, to live righteously, soberly, and godly 
in this present world.” ‘Thus those oWations, which are not 
acceptable to God, are styled “vain oblations,” Isa. i. 13, 
and the worship which is not according to his will, “ vain 
worship,” Matt. xv. 9; because this worship, and these 
oblations, though designed to procure God's favour, will not 
do it. (2.) When we receive no benefit by the grace received, 
and it conveys no pardon or salvation to us, so upon suppo- 
sition that there will be no resurrection, “ your faith is in 
vain,” 1 Cor. xv. 17, and, if you retain it not, “ye have be- 
lieved in vain,” ver. 2. So to “labour in vain,” and “run 
in vain,” Gal. ii. 2, iv. 11, is to do these things without pro- 


. fit to them for whose sakes they are done; and those are 


- 


called “ vain questions,” and “ vain words,” Tit. iii. 9, Matt. 
xii. 36, which are unprofitable. 

3 Ver. 2. Karpo) ὀεκτῷ ἐπήκουσά σου, 1 have heard thee in 
atime acceptable.| These are the words of God the Father 
to Christ, signifying, that he had accepted his intercession 
for the conversion of the gentiles, and declaring that he had 
given him cis διαϑήκην τῶν éSvav, “for a covenant to the na- 
tions, a light to the gentiles, and his salvation to the ends of 


the earth,” Isa. xlix. 6.8; and so the Jews interpret them, 
in Pug. Fid. par. ii. cap. 11, §. 21. That salvation, either 
in the prophet, speaking of Christ as “the salvation of the 
ends of the earth,” or in the apostle, speaking of “the day 
of salvation,” should mean the deliverance of the Christians 
from the persecuting Jews, is very improbable in itself, and 
is confuted by those words, « Now is the day of salvation ;” 
for Christians then groaned under persecution, both from 
Jew and gentile; and the destruction of Jerusalem, which 
is supposed to have brought this deliverance to the Chris- 
tians from the persecuting Jews, was fourteen years after 
the writing this epistle. 

4 Ver. 4. "Ev θλίψεσιν.) Say some, imports afflictions in 
the general; ἀνάγκαι more grievous troubles; στενοχωρίαι 
such pressures as reduce us to the greatest straits (see iv. 8, 
9, vii. 11. 13). 

5 Ver. 7. Δεζιῶν καὶ ἀριστερῶν, On the right hand and on 
the left.) All the Greek scholiasts here understand by δεξιὰ 
τὰ εὐθυμότερα, “ things prosperous and grateful ;” by τὰ ἀρισ- 
τερὰ, τὰ λυπηρὰ πάντα, “all things which are grievous, or 
afflictive ;” instructing us, that both these things have their 
temptations, against which we are to arm ourselves; and 
to such things I have referred them in the paraphrase. But 
the scholiast upon Sophocles* informs us, that ἀριστερὰ of 
παλαιοὶ τὰ μωρὰ ἐκάλουν, δεξιὰ δὲ τὰ ovvera, “the ancients 
styled foolish things left-handed, but wise things right- 
handed.” And in Aristophanes,f μανθάνειν degra, is “to 
learn wise things; and so this armour may be to protect 
them against the follies of the vulgar, and the wisdom of 
the philosophers and wise men of the world. 

6 Ver. 11. Τὸ στόμα ἡμῶν dvéwys πρὸς ὑμᾶς, Our mouth is 
opened to you.) That is, say the Greek interpreters, we are 
so full of affection, that we cannot, σιγᾷν πρὸς ὑμᾶς, be silent, 
or abstain from declaring our affection to you, and our boast- 
ing of you, 2 Cor. vii. 14, ix. 2, 3. 

7 Ver. 13. Τὴν αὐτὴν δὲ ἀντιμισδίαν (ὡς τέκνοις λέγω). The 
sense of these words seems to run thus, λέγω ἐὲ ὑμῖν ὡς 
τέκνοις, “ And I say unto you as children, τὴν αὐτὴν δὲ ἂντι- 
μισϑίαν ἀναδείζαντες τὴν ἰσότητα τῆς φιλίας ἔχοντες, showing the 
same affection by way of recompense, πλατύνθητε καὶ ὑμεῖς» 
let your hearts or affections be enlarged towards us, as ours 
are towards you,” ver. 11. So Gicumenius and Theophylact. 

8 Ver. 14. Μὴ yivecSe ἑτεροζυγοῦντες ἀπίστοις, Be not un- 
equally yoked with unbelievers.] Here note, that these words 
cannot be duly brought to prove, that Christians must not 
communicate with vicious persons at the table of the Lord, 


* In Ajace, f. 6, A. T Buxt. Lex. p. 408. 


694. 


heathenish rites, or in the matrimonial yoke): for what 
fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness ? 
and what communion hath light with darkness ? 

15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or 
what part hath he that believeth with an infidel ? 

16 And what agreement hath the temple of God 
with idols? (you therefore must have none with them,) 
for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


said, I will dwell in them, and walk in (7. e. among) 
them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my 
people. 

17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be 
ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean 
thing ; and I will receive (and accept) you, 

18 And 9 will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be 
my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 


though they be Christians in profession, since the apostle 
only speaks of unbelievers. (2.) ‘The apostle here useth the 
very words by which the prophet Isaiah (lii. 11) exhorts the 
Jews to preserve themselves in Babylon from the contagion 
of their idolatry, and by which St. John exhorts all Chris- 
tians not to partake of the sins, or the spiritual whoredom 
of the beast, Rev. xviii. 4. He, therefore, cannot be sup- 
posed to forbid all Christians all converse even with the un- 
believer; for he permits the believing husband to live with 
his unbelieving wife, and will not suffer the believing wife to 
depart from her unbelieving husband (1 Cor. vii. 12, 13) ; 
he therefore only doth forbid communion with them in 
actions proper to them as heathens, and alien from the pro- 
fession of Christianity ; viz. their feastings and sacrifices in 
the idol temples (1 Cor. viii. 10, x. 21); and by analogy, he 
also may be supposed to forbid Christians to marry with an 
unbeliever ; for this was always held unlawful for the Jews 
to marry with a heathen,* till they became proselytes to 
their religion ; for they, looking upon themselves as the pure 
servants of God (Neh. ii. 20, see note on 1 Cor. vii. 14), 
thought it a corruption of the holy seed to marry with «the 
people of the earth;” and hence, when this was done Ezra 
complains, zapixSn σπέρμα ἅγιον ἐν τοῖς λαοῖς τῆς γῆς, “the 
holy seed was mixed with the people of the earth,” Ezra ix. 
9. Now, the Christians being made “a holy nation, a 
peculiar people,” the holy temple in which God by his Spirit 
dwelt, it seemeth as unfit that they should marry with hea- 
thenish idolaters; and therefore to such of them as were 
free, the apostle speaks thus, “ Let them marry only in the 
Lord,” 1 Cor. vii. 39, i. e. to one of their own religion: the 
marriage with an infidel being the closest conjunction with 
them, subjecting them many times to necessary abstinence 
from Christian assemblies, and to continual temptation to 
apostasy, or compliance with their evil manners. 

9 Ver. 18. Ἔσομαι ὑμῖν εἰς πατέρα, Twill be to you a Fa- 
ther.] These words are not to be found in Jer. xxxi. 9, but 
they are the words of God to Solomon, the ruler of his peo- 
ple, δικαστὴν υἱῶν cov καὶ ϑυγατέρων, “a judge over his sons 
and daughters,” Wisd. iv. 7; and they begin thus, τὸ δὲ 
λέγει Κύριος παντοκράτωρ, *'Thus saith the Lord Almighty,” 


* Ran. act. iv. 56, 2, p. 264. 


2 Sam. vii. 8, and ver. 14, ἐγὼ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ els πατέρα, καὶ 
αὐτὸς ἔσταΐ μοι εἰς υἱὸν, “I will be to him ἃ Father, and he 
shall be to me a son;” which words are by the apostle 
ascribed to Christ, Heb. 1. 4, 5, and here to all Christians, as 
being members of his body, and joint-heirs with him. More- 
over the Jews* boasted that “the divine Majesty dwelt 
among them.” «After the days of Jacob,” saith the book 
Cosri,t “holy men increased into a great assembly ; and the 
Shechinah, or divine Majesty, rested upon them by love, to 
be their God.” his favour God here promises to pious 
Christians, as being the true Israelites. Again, they also 
thought that purity from uncleanness was a necessary re- 
quisite to obtain this presence of God: “For God,” say 
they, ‘doth not appropriate his name to Israel, to be called 
their God, but when their camps are holy; but at that very 
moment that they are so, he makes his presence to dwell 
among them and becomes their God ;”+ and these things the 
apostle, according to the scripture language, here applies to 
the society of Christians. And oh! what a powerful argu- 
ment do they minister to all Christians, to “cleanse them- 
selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holi- 
ness in the fear of God,” as they desire this Almighty Lord 
and Protector to be still present with them, and would not 
be obnoxious to the dreadful woe which will certainly follow 
upon his departure (Hos. ix. 12); as they would have this 
God to be “their God,” which is a state of present bliss; for 
“blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God ;” 
as they would have him related to them as a heavenly 
Father, which relation secures the enjoyment of all blessings 
to them, which they daily ask (Matt. vii. 12); lastly, as 
they desire to be his “sons and daughters,” and, by that 
glorious relation, to be made “ heirs of God, joint-heirs with 
Christ” (Rom. viii. 17), and to have “the Spirit of his Son 
in their hearts, crying Abba, Father” (Gal. iv. 6). 


(See the Appendix to this chapter, at the end of this 
epistle. ] 


* Targ. in Cant. i. 4, 5. 

1 Par. iii. ὃ. 17, p. 179. 

+ Cosri, ibid. p. 178. 
xxiii. 14, 


Bamidkar. Rab. §. 8, in Deut 


CHAPTER VII. 


1 Havine therefore these promises, dearly beloved 
(of a God thus related to and dwelling with us), let us 
cleanse ourselves ! from all filthiness of the flesh (all 
uncleanness and intemperance) and spirit (all idolatry), 
perfecting (or still making progress in) holiness in the 
fear of (that holy) God (who dwelleth in, and stands so 
near related to, us. 

2 And) Receive us (into your kind affections ; for) 
we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man 
(from the truth), we have defrauded no man (as your 
false apostles have done, 2 Cor. xi. 3. 20). 

3 Ispeak not this (with an evil mind) to condemn 
you (as suspecting such things of us): for 1 have said 
before, that ye are in our hearts (iil. 2, so that we are 
ready) to die and live with you; (7%. e. we love you so 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII. 


' Ver. 1. ᾿Απὸ παντὸς μολυσμοῦ, ἄτο. From all Jilthiness 
of flesh and spirit.| The sins of the Corinthians being un- 


affectionately, that we could even die for the promotion of 
our welfare. 

4 And therefore) Great is my boldness (or freedom) 
of speech toward you, great (also) is my glorying of 
you: Iam filled with comfort (for your obedience, ver. 
14, and your liberality, 2 Cor. ix. 2), I am exceeding 
joyful (on that account) ? in all our tribulation. 

5 (1 say, our tribulations ;) For, when we were come 
into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest (from them), but 
we were troubled (and pressed) on every side; with- 
out were fightings (with the opposers of the gospel), 
within were fears (/est the fualse apostles should have 
perverted you from the simplicity which is in Christ, 
2 Cor. xi. 3). 

6 Nevertheless (that) God, that comforteth those 


cleanness and idolatry (see the preface to the first epistle, and 
the notes on ch. x.), they seem to be here more especially 
intended. 

2 Ver. 4. Ἐπὶ πάσῃ τῇ ϑλίψει ἡμῶν, Under all our tribula- 


CHAPTER VIII. 


that are cast down, comforted us (a/so) by the coming 
of Titus (with good tidings from you, ver. 13); 

7 And not by his coming only, but by the consola- 
tion wherewith he was comforted in you, (which he 
discovered to us) when he told us your earnest desire 
(to rectify whal was amiss in the malter of the incestuous 
person), your mourning (for your miscarriage in il), 
your fervent mind toward me (and zeal against my ad- 
versaries) ; so that I rejoiced the more (for ἀΐ conso- 
lation, Bn Fe his coming). 

8 For (therefore) though I made you sorry with a 
letter, 51 do not repent (Gr. 7 am nol sorry), though I 
did repent: (Gr. though I was sorry, viz. that I was 
forced to make you so, ii. 4,) for I perceive that the 
same epistle hath made you sorry, though ἐξ were but 
fora cull season. 

9 Now I rejoice, not (barely) that ye were made 
sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were 
made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive 
damage by us in nothing. 

10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salva- 
tion ‘ not to be repented of (Gr. not repented of): but 
the sorrow of the world worketh death. 

11 For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed 
after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you 
Cf obeying my directions, ver. 15), yea, what clearing 
of yourselves (from guilt, by inflicting censures on the 
guilty person, and putting away evil from among you, 1 
Cor. xv. 13), yea, what indignation (ρει him who 
had so dishonoured his profession, and defiled the church), 


695 


yea, what fear (of my displeasure, or the rod I threat- 
ened, 1 Cor. iv. 21), yea, what vehement desire (0 
rectify what was amiss in this matter, ver. 7), yea, what 
zeal (for me), yea, what revenge (in punishing the de- 
linguent! So that) in all things (by this deportment) ye 
have approved yourselves δ to be clear (from guilt) in 
this matter. 

12 Wherefore, thongh I wrote (so severely) unto 
you, J did it not for his cause that had done the 
wrong, (as delighting in his punishment,) nor for his 
cause that suffered wrong (1, e. oul of particular kind- 
ness to the father of the incestuous person), but (chiefly) 
that our care for you in the sight of God might appear 
unto you. 

13 Therefore we were comforted in your comfort 
(i. e. in the comfort we received from your deportment in 
this matter): yea, and exceedingly the more joyed we 
for the joy of Titus (in you), because his spirit was 
refreshed by you all. 

14 For (now) if I have boasted any thing to him of 
you, I am not ashamed ; but as we spake all things to 
you in truth (and sincerity), even so our boasting, 
which J made before Titus, is found a truth. 

15 And his inward affection (Gr. his bowels) is more 
abundant toward you, whilst he remembereth the obe- 
dience of you all, how with fear and trembling ye re- 
ceived him (/est there should be any thing found in you 
that might offend him, or require my rod). 

16 I rejoice therefore that I (can) have (this) confi- 
dence in you in all things. 


tions.] As ἐπὶ signifies, Mark ii. 26, Luke iii. 2, iv. 17, Acts 
xi. 28, 1 Cor. vi. 1. 6, or, “amidst them,” as Luke xii. 14, 
or, “after them,” as Phil. ii. 27, Heb. ix. 15. 

3 Ver. 8. Οὐ μεταμέλομαι, 1 do not repent.) It seems in- 
congruous that the apostle should repent of what he writ by 
the direction of the Holy Ghost, and to this very end to stir 
up a godly sorrow in them; and therefore it seems better to 
render the original, οὐ μεταμέλομαι εἰ καὶ μετεμελόμην, wilh 
Grotius and others, Non doleo quanquam doluit mihi, “IT am 
not sorry now, though I was sorry when I writ this epistle,” 
doing it with many tears (ii.4). Or thus, “Ido not repent, 
though I should have repented,” viz. if it had not found this 
good effect upon you. 

4 Ver. 10. ᾿Αμεταμέλητον, Not repented of.] That is, such 


a change from the service of sin, to the service of God, as we 
do not revoke, or repent of, by relapsing again into the sins 
once left off. Note also, that godly sorrow is not itself re- 
pentance, but that which tends to work it in us, by preserv- 
ing us from relapsing into that offence, which created so 
much bitterness and anguish to us. ‘The sorrow of the 
world worketh death,” it dries up the moisture of the 
body (Prov. xvii. 22), and hath killed many (Ecclus. xxx. 
23). 

5 Ver. 11. ‘Ayvods εἶναι, To be clear.] Note, here, that true 
repentance from sin clears us from the guilt of it, not only 
in the sight of God, but man; so that it is both uncharitable 
and unchristian, to stigmatize or reproach any person for the 
sin we know, or believe, he hath truly repented of. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of (Gr. | 
(we make known to you) ' the grace of God bestowed 
on the churches of Macedonia, (Philippi, Thessalonica, 
Berea, &c.;) 

2 How that in a great trial of affliction the abund- 
ance of their joy (in the Holy Ghost appeared, 1 Thess. 
i. 6) and their deep poverty abounded 3 unto the riches 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 

1 Ver. 1. Τὴν χάριν Θεοῦ τὴν διδομένην ἐν, The grace of God 
bestowed ον. Or the charitable contribution given in the | 
churches of Macedonia, to which they were excited by God’s | 
rich grace towards them; for that χάρις signifies liberality, | 
appears from ver. 6, “I exhorted Titus to finish in you | 
χάριν ταύτην, this charitable contribution ;” and ver. 7, that | 
ye also may abound ἐν τῇ χάριτι ταύτῃ, “in this liberal con- 
tribution ;” and ver. 19, “ Who was chosen of the churches 
to travel with us, σὺν τῇ χάριτι ταύτη, with this charity” to 
be dispensed by us. So ix. 8, “ God is able to make πᾶσαν 
χάριν, all liberality” abound among you; and 1 Cor. xvi. 3, 
“to bring τὴν χάριν, your liberality” to the poor Christians. 
Hence χάριν is by Hesychius and Phavorinus interpreted “a 
gift,’ as itis here, by the apostle saying of this abounding 
charity, “Thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift,” ix. 
14,15. This charity is styled “the grace of God,” either 
for its exceeding greatness, as “the cedars of God,” and 


of their liberality (or how they being very poor, and 
much afflicted, Acts xvi. 20, xvii. 5. 13, did notwith- 
standing, with great cheerfulness and joy, make a rich 
contribution towards the relief of their poor brethren in 
Judea). 

3 For to their power, I bear record, yea, and® beyond 
their power (or abilities) they (unsolicited by us) were 


“mountains of God,” signify great mountains and cedars 
(Ps. xxxvi. 7, Ixxx. 11, see note on Acts vii. 20, Gen. xxiii. 
6, xxx. 5, John iv. 3), or rather as proceeding from God 
as the giver of this disposition, and the motive to this cha- 
rity, as “the zeal of God,” 2 Cor. xi. 2, “ the love of God,” 
2 Cor. v. 14, “the grace of God,” ‘Tit. ii. 11. 

2 Ver. 2. Eis τὸν πλοῦτον τῆς ἁπλότητος αὐτῶν, To the riches 
of their liberality.] So the word ἁπλότης usually signifies 
both in the Old and New Testament. So Prov. xi. 25, 
ψυχὴ ἁπλῆ, “The liberal soul shall be made fat ;” Rom. xii. 
8, “He that giveth, let him do it ἐν ἁπλότητι, with libe- 
rality ;” 2 Cor. ix. 11, “Being enriched in all things, εἰς 
πᾶσαν ἁπλότητα, to all liberality; and again, ver. 13, James 
i. 5, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who 
giveth ἁπλῶς, liberally.” 

3 Ver. 3. Ὑπὲρ δύναμιν, Beyond their power.) Thus Philo* 


* L. Quis Rer. Div. Heres. p. 376, B, ©. 


696 Il. CORINTHIANS. 


willing of themselves (¢o contribute to the necessities of 
the poor saints of Judea ; 

4 Not being entreated by us, but) Praying us with 
much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and lake 
upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints ; 
(or be one of those who should take care for the adminis- 
tralion and conveyance of it to them, ver. 19—21, ix. 12, 
13, 1 Cor. xvi. 4, Acts xiv. 17.) 

5 And this they did, 4 not as we hoped (or thought 
the event would be, who could expect only a small collec- 
tion from men so poor, and so exhausted ), but first (they) 
gave their own selves to the Lord (¢. 6. to Ais service in 
it), and unto us (to be employed in the promotion of this 
charity, or the distribution of tt to others,) by the will of 
God (moving them so to do, or according to his will, 
2 Cor. ix. 4). 

6 Insomuch that (seezng this forwardness in others) we 
desired Titus, that as he had (in his last visit of you) be- 
gun, so he would also (now) finish in you the same 
grace (or charity) also (and see that ye be not defective 
in il). 

7 Therefore (Gr. ἀλλ᾽, but), as ye abound in every 
(other) thing (or gift), in faith, and utterance, and know- 
ledge (1 Cor. i. 5), and zn all diligence (10 amend what 
1 had blamed you for, 2 Cor. vii. 11), and in your love 
to us, (ibid. ver. 7, so) see that ye abound (or, J pray 
that ye would abound ) in this grace also. 

8 I speak 5 not (this) by (way of) commandment, 
but (of advice only, ver. 10) by occasion of the for- 
wardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of *your 
love (to Christ and his saints. 


* All the Greek scholiasts here read ὑμετέρας. 


9 And command you I need not;) For ye know the 
grace (or kindness) of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, 
δ though he was rich (Gr. that being rich), yet for your 
sakes he became poor, that (ὑμεῖς) ye through his po- 
verty might be rich (or, as Chrysostom and cumenius 
read, that (ἡμεῖς) we through his poverty might be rich ; 
which is the same in sense with the other reading). 

10 And herein I give my advice: for this is expe- 
dient for you, who have begun before, 7not only to do, 
but also to be forward § a year ago. 

11 Now therefore perform (or complete) the doing 
of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there 
may be a performance (of that will) also out of that 
which ye have. 

12 Forif there be first a willing mind, (whatsoever is 
given) it 7s accepted according to that a man hath, ° and 
not (expected he should give) according to that he hath not. 

13 For J mean not that other men be eased (or by 
your charity should live at ease), and ye (in the mean 
time) burdened (with want) - 

14 But (that Christian charity should be managed ) by 
an equality, ‘hat now at this time your abundance 
may be a supply for their want, that (another time) their 
abundance also may be a supply for your want: that 
there may be equality : 

15 (That in your peregrination it may be) As it is 
written (of the Jews travelling in the wilderness, where) 
he that Aad gathered much (manna) had nothing over ; 
and he that Aad gathered little had no lack (Exod. 
Xvi. 18). 

16 But thanks be to God, which put the same ear- 
nest care into the heart of Titus for you. 

17 For indeed he (not only) accepted the exhortation 


notes it as the excellency of a servant to engage in his mas- 
ter’s service, not only readily and laboriously, but even ixip 
δύναμιν, “beyond his strength.” 

4 Ver. 5. Οὐ καθὼς ἠλπίσαμεν, Not as we hoped.| The 
word ἠλπίσας, hoping, is used by the Attics, say gramma- 
rians,* “not only touching good things, but simply touching 
the event of what is future.” The word hath two senses 
which well agree to this place, viz. (1.) προσδοκᾶν, to expect ; 
and so it is rendered by Hesychius and Phavorinus. (2.) ‘To 
conjecture; so Eustachius says, ἀντὶ rod στοχάζεσϑαι κεῖται, 
τὸ ἔλπεσϑαι, “The word signifies to conjecture” (see Aris- 
totle ad Nichom. lib. ix. cap. 4). 

5 Ver. 8. Οὐ κατ᾽ ἐπιταγὴν, Not by way of commandment 
or injunction.) i. 6. The apostle commands not how much 
they should confer, much less that they should give all their 
substance and live upon a common stock, leaving nothing to 
themselves which they could call their own; for where no 
man hath any thing of his own, there is no place for libe- 
rality. 

6 Ver. 9. Ac ὑμᾶς ἐπτώχευσε πλούσιος ὧν, Se. Being rich, 
he became poor for you.] These words the Socinians inter- 
pret thus; That Christ being the only Son of God, conceived 
by the Holy Ghost, and endued with the power of the 
Holy Ghost, and being one to whose power all things in 
the earth did yield, was therefore styled rich; and that he 
became poor when he was bound, led away, exposed to con- 
tempt, spit upon, smitten on the face, whipped, crucified. 
But this interpretation seems not well consistent with the 
words of the apostle. For, 

1. All these sufferings are indeed proper indications of in- 
famy cast upon him, and seeming infirmity in him, but not 
of poverty, seeing the richest man may be exposed to all or 
any of those things. 

2. The words seem to imply some change in the person, 
of whom it is here said, that “ being rich, he became poor ;” 
whereas Christ was not less the Son of God, or less endued 
with power, when he thus suflered, as appears by the great 
miracles he then did. Others of them say, that he became 
poor by leading a poor life on earth. But (1.) it is not by 


* ᾿Ἑλπίσας, οὐ μόνον ἐπ᾿ ἀγαθῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἁπλῶς ἐπὶ τῇ τοῦ μέλλοντος 
ἐκβάσει λέγεται παρ' ᾿Αττικοῖς. Suidas. 


his poverty on earth that “we are made rich,” but by the 
humiliation of himself. And (2.) he was thus poor from his 
birth and cradle, even before the Holy Spirit descended on 
him at his baptism. How much more naturally therefore 
are these words interpreted by that of the same apostle, that 
“being in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be 
equal with God, he emptied himself” of all his glory, when 
he came to take our nature on him, taking together with it 
“the form of a servant, and humbling himself to the death, 
even the death of the cross?” Phil. ii. 7, 8 (see the note 
there). Which death, saith Ireneus, he could only suffer 
ἠσυχάσαντος τοῦ Λύγου, “ the divine nature being then quies- 
cent,” and not active in him. This is that “ glory which he 
had with the Father before the world was,” and which he, 
after his ascension, reassumed (John xvii. 5). Now, if Christ 
thus emptied himself of his glory, that we might be spiri- 
tually rich, it becomes us, in imitation of his great example, 
to part with our temporals, to supply the exigencies of his 
needy and afilicted members. 

7 Ver. 10. Οὐ μόνον τὸ ποιῆσαι, ἀλλὰ δὲ τὸ ϑέλειν, Not only 
to do, but to be willing or forward.) It is known that the 
will goes before the deed; and therefore τὸ ϑέλειν here can- 
not barely signify to will, but either to do it pera προϑυμίας, 
with readiness and zeal, as the following verse interprets it, 
or with delight, as the word often signifies: so 1 Sam. xvili. 
22, θέλει ἐν coi βασιλεὺς, * The king delights in thee.” See 
2 Sam. xv. 26, Ps. νυ. 4, xxi. 8, x]. 12, Esth. vi. 6, 7, viii 
11, Mal. iii. 1, Matt. xxvii. 43, in all which places it answers 
to the Hebrew word ypn. 

8 Απὸ πέρυσι, A year ago.) The apostle had exhorted them 
in his epistle, writ a year ago, to this contribution (1 Cor. 
xvi. 2) ; and they, in obedience to his directions, had begun 
to lay up in store willingly this charity he now exhorts them 
to consummate; and this he says, to show they were not only 
moved to it by the example of the Macedonians, but rather 
were examples to them (ix. 2). 

9 Ver. 12. Οὐ καϑὸ οὐκ ἔχει, Not according to what he hath 
not.] What is due to another, either by debt or duty of 
making provision for those of his own family, cannot be cha- 
ritably given, as being not our own. ξ 

10 Ver. 14. ᾿Ισότης, An equality.) So far Christianity seems 
to require this equality, as that we should not sufier others to 


CHAPTER IX. 


(I made to him concerning this employment); but being 
more forward (than I thought lo find him), " of his own 
accord he went unto you. 

18 And we have sent with him the brother, [5 whose 
praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches ; 

19 And not that (or so) only, but who was also 
chosen of the churches to travel with us with this 
grace (or charily), which is administered (or dispensed ) 
by us to the glory of the same Lord, and (fo the) de- 
claration of your ready mind (fo relieve your poor breth- 
ren, or of our ready mind to ‘orm this charitable office. 
Theodoret and CEcumenius read, ἡμὼν : 

20 We, by taking such faithful companions with us,) 
Avoiding (or taking care of ) this, that no man should 
blame us (or charge us with insincerity) ἴῃ this 
abundance (of your liberality) which is administered 
by us: 


697 


21 (And so) Providing for honest (Gr. creditable) 
things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in 
the sight of men. 

22 And we have sent with them ™ our brother, whom 
we have oftentimes proved diligent in many things, 
but now much more diligent (in (his employment), upon 
the great confidence which 7 have in you. 

23 Whether any do enquire of ‘Titus, he ts my part- 
ner and fellowhelper concerning you (in promoting 
your welfare and reformation, 2 Cor. ii. 13, vii. 6, 708 
or (whether) our brethren be enquired of, they are the 
messengers of the churches, and (the promoters of ) the 
glory of Christ. 

24 Wherefore shew ye to them, and before the 
churches, the proof of your love (/o me), and of our 
boasting on your behalf (ἡ. e. that we did not vainly 
boast of your readiness to perform such works of charity. 


lack the necessaries of this present life whilst we abound in 
them. 

N Ver. 17. Αὐθαίρετος, Of his own accord.) Here we see 
the sweet harmony there is betwixt the gifts of God and our 
persuasion and free-will. ‘Titus was moved to this work by 
Paul's exhortation, and was also “willing of his own ac- 
cord;” and yet God, saith the apostle, “put this earnest 
care into his heart.” ; 

2 Ver. 18. Οὐ 6 ἔπαινος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ, διὰ πασῶν τῶν 
ἐκκλησιῶν, Whose praise is in the gospel.) Who this brother 
was is much contested; antiquity hath carried it for Luke, 
worthy of praise in all churches for the gospel he writ. The 
authority of this assertion seems to rest upon the words of 
Origen,* the interpolated Ignatius,t and St. Jerome.¢ And 
this difficulty lies against it, that this brother is sent before 


* Orig. apud Euseb. lib. vi. cap. 25. 

Ἴ Ὡς μαρτυρεῖ Λοικᾶς οὗ b ἔπαινος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ, διὰ πασῶν 
τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν. Ep. ad Eph. 8. 15. 

+ Scripsit evangelium de quo idem Paulus, Misimus 


Paul to Corinth with Titus, whereas Luke went with him to 
Troas, and from thence to Corinth (Acts xx.4.6). So Dr. 
Lightfoot. ‘To which it may be answered, that it is not cer- 
tain that Paul went from Troas to Corinth; perhaps he 
rather went from Philippi to Corinth, and so to T’roas (see 
the preface). And so this person being chosen by the 
churches to travel with this charity (ver. 19), might be both 
sent before to prepare it; and being returned, to give notice 
to Paul that it was ready, might go back with him to re- 
ceive it. 

13 Ver. 22. Τὸν ἀδελφὸν ἡμῶν, Our brother.] Apollos, say 
some of the ancients, viz. Theodoret and Gicumenius, who 
before doubted of them, and so was not disposed to come to 
them (1 Cor. xvi. 12): but now upon Paul’s confidence of 
their readiness to obey his precepts, was prevailed upon to 
come. 


cum illo fratrem cujus laus est in evangelio per omnes 
ecclesias; verbo Lucas. Ita ‘Titus Bostrensis in Luc. i. 
Ρ. 763. 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 (To me, I say, and to those messengers of the 
church :) for as touching the ministering to the saints 
(in Judea), it is superfluous for me to write to you 
(again) : 

2 For I know the ' forwardness of your nate oa 
that affair,) for which I boast of you to them of Ma- 
cedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and (the 
fame and example of) your zeal hath provoked very 
many. 

3 Yet have I sent the brethren (mentioned viii. 17, 
18), lest our boasting of yon should be in vain in this 


behalf; that, as I said (viii. 11), ye may be (found) 
ready : 

4 Lest haply if they of Macedonia (who gave them- 
selves up to us, viii. 5) come with me, and find you un- 
prepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed 
in this same confident boasting. 

5 Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the 
(aforesaid) brethren, that they would go before unto 
you, and make up beforehand ? your bounty, whereof 
ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, 
as a matler of (free) bounty, and not (extorted from 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 


1 Ver. 2. Τὴν προθυμίαν ὑμῶν, Your forwardness.] Some 
tell us that St. Paul preached the gospel at Corinth freely for 
two reasons: (1.) Because he observed in them such a saving 
temper, as would hinder the progress of the gospel if it should 
prove matter of charge to them. But this cannot be a true 
account of the matter: (1.) because he doth the same at 
Thessalonica, the metropolis of Macedonia, “labouring night 
and day, because he would not become chargeable to any of 
them” (1 Thess. ii. 6. 9, 2 Thess. iii. 8), and throughout all 
Asia, saying thus to them, “ You know that these hands have 
ministered to my necessities, and to those that are with me” 
(Acts xx. 33). And it seems plain from his own words, that 
“no church communicated” any thing to him, but that of 
Philippi (Phil. iv. 15, 16). (2.) Because he commends 
them for their readiness and willing mind here, and viii. 11. 
79, and mentions the liberality of their contribution, and 
their “unspeakable gift,” with thanks to God, ver. 13—15, 
in this chapter, in which he doth exhort them to complete it. 
(3.) Because they contributed to others, who were “ false 

Vor. [V.—ss 


apostles,” and suffered them to take of them; so he in- 
sinuates in these words, “If others are partakers of this 
power over you, are not we much more?” ‘This he speaks, 
say Chrysostom and the Greek scholiasts, not of Peter or the 
other apostles; for then he would not have said, Ὁ Are not 
we much more” partakers of this power than they? adn’ 
ἑτέρων τινων νύθων, “but of some false apostles,” and cor- 
rupters of them, of whom he saith, 2 Cor. xi 20, “ You 
suffer if a man devour you, if he take of you ;” which is also 
a confutation of the second pretended reason of this absti- 


| nence, that the apostle did this to disappoint the arts of these 


false teachers, who preached the gospel freely, and gloried 
in so doing (see the note on 2 Cor. xi. 12,13). The apostle 
himself gives another reason of the doing this, both here and 
elsewhere, viz. not because we have not power, but “to make 
ourselves an example for you to follow us,” 2 ‘Thess. iti. 9. 
And again, Acts xx. 34, “I have shown you all things, how 
that so doing you ought to support the weak, and to remem- 
ber the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is better to 
give than to receive.” 

2 Ver. 5. Τὴν εὐλογίαν ὑμῶν, Your gift.) Or present, to the 

81 


698 


you with difficully) as ὃ. (a matter) of covetous- 
ness. 

6 But (lo preserve you from this temper) this TI say, 
He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly ; 
and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also. boun- 
tifully (from God again, Prov. xi. 24, 25). ‘ 

7 Every man (then) according as he purposeth in 
his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or (as) 4 of 
necessity (/o avoid shame, or only to comply wiih the ex- 
ample or importunity of others) : for God loveth a cheer- 
ful giver. 

8 And (to this end consider, that) δ God is able to 
make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always 
having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to 
every good (and charitable) work: 

9 (According) (As it is written (Psal. exii. 9), He 
hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: 
his righteousness (7. e. his liberalily) remaineth for 
ever (in remembrance before God). 

10 Now (may) he that ministereth seed to the sower 
both minister bread for your food, and multiply your 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


seed sown, and increase the fruits of your 7 righteous- 
ness ;) 

11 (That you may 511} make progress in them,) Being 
enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which 
cae through us (wév dispense il) thanksgiving to 

od. 

12 For the administration of this service not only 
supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also 
by many thanksgivings unto (he glory of ) Ged; 

13 Whiles by the experiment of this ministration 
they (who receive the benefit of it) glorify God for your 
8 professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for 
your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men; 

14 And (you also will receive, advaniage) by their 
prayer for you, which long after you (and earnestly 
desire your welfare) for the exceeding grace of God 
(they see) in you. 

15 Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gilt (7. e. 
this admirable charity, by which God is so much glorified, 
the gospel receives such credit, others are so much benefited, 
and you will be so plentifully by God rewarded ). 


churches in Judea; for as the Hebrew apna, so the Greek 
εὐλογία, oft signifies a gift, or present: as when Jacob saith 
to Esau, λάβε ras εὐλογίας pod, “ Receive my present,” Gen. 


XXXiil. 11, and Abigail to David, λαβὲ τὴν εὐλογίαν ταύτην, | 


“ Receive this gift,” 1 Sam. xxv. 27, and Naaman to Elisha, 
λαβὲ τὴν εὐλογίαν, “ Receive a gift from thy servant,” 2 Kings 
vy. 15 (see also Judg. i. 15, 1 Sam. xxx. 26). 

3 Kai μὴ ὥσπερ πλεονεξίαν, And not as a matter of covet- 
ousness.| The Corinthians abounded, saith Chrysostom,* 
περὶ τῶν ἄλλων πάντων τῇ τῶν χρημάτων περιουσία, “IN wealth 
above all other cities, as being a very famous mart,” and so 
the apostle is concerned to stir them up to an abundant cha- 
rity, as he did, ver. 14, and because riches begat covetous- 
ness, he here arms them against that vice. Note also, that 
to give alms out of shame, or to satisfy the importunity of 
others, rather than out of love and good-will, is a symptom 
of a covetous temper. 

4 Ver. 7. Μὴ ἐξ ἀνάγκης, Not of necessity.] Note, that ne- 
cessity in scripture stands opposed not to coaction, but to the 
free election of the will (see the note on Philem. 14, and on 
1 Pet. v. 2). 

5 Ver. 8. Δυνατὸς ὃ Θεῦς, God ts able.| Here note, that not 
only the promise but the power of that God, who is good to 
all, is a motive to expect his grace and favour (see the note 


* Prefatio in Epist. Prim. 


on Rom. xi. 23, Heb. ii. 18). Note, secondly, περισσεῦσαι 
here signifies fo make, or cause to abound ; so Matt. xiii. 22, 
xxv. 29. Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, καὶ 
περισσεύσεται, “and he shall be made to abound;” 1 Thess. 
iii. 12, « The Lord make you to increase, καὶ περισσεῦσαι, and 
to abound in love.” 

6 Ver. 9. 'H δικαιοσύνη αὐτοῦ, His righteousness.) That is, 
his liberality, as the word often signifies in the Septuagint. 
So Gen. xix. 19. Thou hast magnified τὴν δικαιοσύνην cov, 
“thy mercy, or kindness to me;” xx. 19, ταύτην τὴν δικπιο- 
σύνην, “This kindness thou shalt show me;” xxiv. 27, He 
“hath not left τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ, his kindness to Abraham” 
(see ver. 49, xxxii. 10, Exod. xv. 13, xxxiv. 7, Prov. xx. 
28, xxxi. 21, Isa. Ixiii. 7). Hence pprs is ten times by the 
Septuagint rendered ἐλεημοσύνη, “ alms.” 

7 Ver. 10.] Note, that all the Greek scholia read δικαιο- 
σύνης NOt διακονίας, ** ministry.” 

8 Ver. 13. 'Exi τῇ ὑποταγῇ τῆς ὁμολογίας. ‘Opodoyia in the 


. New Testament still signifies the confession of faith, 1 Tim. 


vi. 12, 13, Heb. iii. 1, iv. 14, x. 23, irorayy, subjection to 
the precepts of that faith. So the apostle signifies, that 
men seeing in them, by this charity, the sincerity of their 
love (viii. 8), and so of their obedience to the gospel, will 
be induced to glorify God, and own the excellency of 
that religion which produceth such fruits of righteous- 
ness. 


CHAPTER X. 


1 Now I Paul myself (who would not deal severely 
with you) beseech you by the meekness and gentle- 
ness of Christ (which I desire to imitate, even I), who 
in (or, as to my) presence am (esteemed) base among 
you, but being absent am (accounted ) bold toward you 
(ver. 10): 

2 But (whatsoever you esteem me) I beseech you, 
that I may not (find reason to) be bold when 1 am 
present with that confidence, wherewith I think (meet) 
to be bold against some, which think of us as if we 
walked atcording to the flesh ; (now saying one thing, 
and then another, according to our carnal interests, 2 Cor. 
1 1: 

3 Por though we walk in the flesh, we do not war 


after the flesh (exercising our authorily tn weak- 
NESS ) = 

᾿ (For ! the weapons of our warfare are not (weak, 
Isa. xxxi. 3, and) carnal, but mighty through God to 
the pulling down of (the) strong holds) (of the gentiles) ; 

5 Casting down (their) imaginations (and reason- 
ings), and every high thing that exalteth itself against 
the knowledge of God, and # bringing into captivity 
every thought to the obedience of (the gospel of ) Christ 
(i. δ. making the gentiles obedient to it in word and deed, 
by mighty signs and wonders, and by the power of the 
Spirit of God, xv. 18, 19); 

6 And having in a readiness to revenge all (the) 
disobedience (of your dissolute members, xii. 20, 21, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 


1Ver. 4. Ta ὅπλα τῆς στρατείας ἡμῶν, The weapons of our 
warfare. That these include the censures of the apostolical 
authority is certain; but that they are to be restrained to 
them I do not think; but rather that they chiefly do refer to 
the miraculous powers God hath given them for the conver- 
sion of the gentiles to the Christian faith, Moreover, the 


apostolical rod seems not to relate to the power of excom- 
munication, but of inflicting corporal diseases on persons re- 
fractory and disorderly, and seemeth not to have been con- 
tinued after the death of the apostles. 

2 Ver. 5. Aixpadwrifovres πᾶν νόημα, Captivating every 
thought.] The apostle speaks not here of captivating the 
reason of a Christian to the articles of faith, by his belief of 
any thing proposed as such, though never so absurd, or con- 


CHAPTER X. 


and of these decet!ful workers, by punishing them with our 
spiri(ual rod, 1 Cor. iv. 21),® when your obedience is 
(or shall have been) fulfilled. 

7 Do ye look on things after the outward appear- 
ance (judging of me from my outward person, and the 
infirmities of my body, v. 1, 2, and not from the power 
of Christ resting upon me, 2 Cor. xii. 9, and working 

yy me)? If any man (on account of his gifts) trust to 

himself that he is Christ’s, (a minister of Christ, 2 Cor. 
xi. 23, an apostle of Christ, ver. 13,) let him of him- 
self think (or conc/ude) this again, that, as he ¢s 
Christ’s, even so are we Chrisvs; (for the proofs of 
Christ speaking in me are nol weak, but mighty, 2 Cor. 
xiii. 3, and in nothing are we behind the very chiefest 
apostles, xii. 11.) 

8 For though I should boast somewhat more (‘han 


1 do, or they can do,) * of our authority, which the | 


Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your 
destruction, I should not be ashamed (or put lo 
shame) : 

9 (And this Isay,)ThatI may not seem as if I would 
terrify you by letters (us you say Ido). 

10 5 For Ais letters, say they, are weighty and 
powerful; but Ais ® bodily presence is weak, and his 
speech contemptible. 

11 (But) Letsuch an one think (or conclude) this, 
that, such as we are in word by letters when we are 
absent, such wi/l we be also in deed when we are 
present, ( for if I come again Iwill not spare, xiii. 2, but 
punish all disobedience. 

12 This I say only,) Vorwe dare not make ourselves 
of the number, or compare ourselves with some (among 
you) that commend themselves (for their own perform- 


699 


ances above measure, not considering how much they fall 
short of the performances of them they vilify): but they 
(thus) measuring themselves (on/y) by themselves, 
and comparing themselves (on/y) among themselves 
(one false apostle with another), are not wise. 

13.7 But we will not boast (Gr. neither will we 
boast) of things without our meee Ae the commission 
given us by Christ to go to the gentiles, Rom. xv. 16, Gal. 
ii. 7. 9), but according to the measure of the rule which 
God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even 
unto you (gentiles, we having preached through all the 
interjacent provinces from Judea to you of Corinth, Rom. 


| xv. 19). 


14 Vor we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure, 
as though we reached not unto you: for we are come 
(before any others) as far as to you also in preaching the 
gospel of Christ: 

15 Not boasting of things without our measure, that 
is, of other men’s labours; but having hope, when 
your faith is increased, that we shall be enlarged by 
you (giving testimony to our sabe) according to our 
tule (Gr. in respect of our line) abundantly, 

16 'To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, 
and not to boast in another man’s line of things made 
ready to our hand. 

17 But he (of us) that glorieth (of his apostleship or 
ministry), let him glory in the (power or assistance the) 
Lord (affordeth to render it successful). 

18 For not he that commendeth himself is (an) ap- 
proved (minister or apostle of Christ), but (he) whom 
the Lord commendeth (by his gifls vouchsafed to, and. 
by the power of Christ attending on him in that minis- 


try). 


trary to the reason of all mankind, as some popish doctors 
lewdly talk; but of captivating the reasons of Jew and gen- 
tile against the Christian faith, by the demonstration of the 
Spirit and power (1 Cor. ii. 4), Captivat intellectum, dum 
contradicentem ratione vincit. Ambr. 

3 Ver. 6. “Ὅταν πληρωθῇ ὑμῶν ἡ ὑπακοὴ, When your obe- 
dience is fulfilled.] His love to the Corinthians, whom he 
desired to spare, and the infirm state of their church at pre- 
sent, made him choose to defer the punishment of these of- 
fenders, till he had wrought off the affections of the Corin- 
thians from their false apostles, and made them more 
unanimous in their regards to him: and this is the best ex- 
cuse that can be made for the neglect of Christian discipline 
in any church, viz. that* “there is no place for severe reme- 
dies, when the disease hath infected the whole church :” the 
apostle being here forced to yield to this necessity, because 
the offenders in the church of Corinth being many, they 
could not easily be punished. Accordingly the primitive 
church relaxed the severity of its discipline, when great mul- 
titudes were concerned, or such as were like to draw great 
multitudes after them. 

4 Ver. 8. Περὶ τῆς ἐξουσίας ἡμῶν, Of our authority.) The 
apostle seems to refer to the authority peculiar to the apos- 
tles, of inflicting corporal punishments on refractory persons, 
and delivering them up to Satan (see note on 1 Cor. iv. 21, 
vy. 5): which power none of these false teachers could pre- 
tend to (1 Cor. iv. 19, 20). And this, saith he, the Lord 

Ε hath given me for edification, and not for destruction, it being 
designed for revenging men’s disobedience (ver. 6), for the 
saving of the spirit (1 Cot. ν. 5), and to teach men, by what 


* Neque enim duris remediis locus est, ubi tota ecclesia in 
morbo cubat, Grot. Neque potest esse salutaris correptio, 
nisi cum ille corripitur qui non habet sociam multitudinem. 
Ciim autem idem morbus plurimos occupaverit, nihil aliud 
bonis restat quim dolor et gemitus. August. contra Epist. 
Parmen. lib. iii. p. 61,B, Ὁ. Necessitate temporum succu- 
buit. Cypr. ed. Ox. 55, §. 3, 6, 9, 10. 


they suffer, “not to blaspheme” the truth (1 Tim. i. 
20). 

5 Ver. 10. ᾿Επιστολαὶ, Letters.) It cannot be hence con- 
cluded, that Paul writ more than one epistle to them; for 
nothing is more common than this enallage of number. So 
Polycarp, writing to the Philippians, saith, that Paul, being 
absent, ἔγραψεν ὑμῖν ἐπιστολὰς, “writ epistles to you” (see 
Cotelerius there). 

ὃ Παρουσία τοῦ σώματος doSevis, His bodily presence is 
mean,| Seems plainly to refer to that which Chrysostom,* 
Nicephorus, and Lucian, relate of Paul, that “his stature 
was low, his body crooked, and his head bald,” and so he was 
literally κατὰ πρύσωπον ταπεινὸς, “low in person” (ver. 1). 
When it is added, that his speech was contemptible, this can- 
not be understood as if it were so for want of eloquence, or 
the floridness of the Greek, for that was as much wanting in 
his letters as his speech or sermons; it therefore seemeth to 
refer to some infirmity of his speech in teaching (see note on 
2 Cor. xii. 7). 

Οὐ cvvoicw.] See this reading vindicated, Examen Milli 
in locum. 

7 Ver. 13, &c.] In these four verses the apostle seems to 
advance himself above the false apostles in these things: 
(1.) that whereas they could show no commission to preach 
to the Corinthians, no measure by which God had distributed 
the Corinthians to them as their province, he could do so, 
ver. 13, (2.) That whereas they went out of their line, 
leaping from one church to another, he went on orderly in 
conversion of churches to the faith, from Judea through all 
the interjacent provinces till he came to Corinth. (3.) 
Whereas they only came to and perverted those churches 
where the faith had been already preached, and so could only 
boast of things made ready to their hands (ver. 16), he had 
still “striven to preach the gospel where Christ was not 
named, lest he should build upon another man’s foundation” 
(Rom. xv. 20). 


* 'O rpiznxus ἄνθρωπος. Chrys. tom. v. p. 992, lin. 40. 


700 


CHAPTER XI. 


1 Woutp to God ye could bear with me a little in 
(this) ' my (seeming) folly (in boasting of my own per- 
Jjormances): and indeed bear with me. 

2 For (J therefore do it, because) 1 am jealous over 
you with a godly jealousy: for I have espoused you 
to one husband, (and desire) that I may present you as 
5 a chaste virgin to Christ (your husband). 

3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent be- 
guiled * Eve through his subtilty, so your minds 
should (by the subtlety of deceitful workers) be cor- 
rupted from the simplicity (of the faith) that is in 
Christ (by mixing the observation of the law with the 
gospel, as these Judaizers did, and so returning as it 
were to your former husband. See note on Rom. 
vii. 3). 

4 (7 say, Tam jealous of you, lest you be corrupted 
by these false apostles ;) For if he that cometh (afler 
me) preacheth another Jesus (ὦ. e. hath another Sa- 
viour to propound to you), whom we have not preached, 
or af ye receive (from him) another spirit, (affurding 
such spiritual gifts) which ye have not received (from 
us), or another gospel, which ye have not accepted 
(or received already), ye might well bear with him 
(in his pretensions to exceed us; but this cannot be 
said ;) 

5 For I suppose (in these things) 1 was not a whit 
behind the very chiefest apostles, (Peter, James, and 
John, from whom these false teachers from Judea may 
pretend to come, 1 Cor. 1. 12.) 

6 But though 7 be 4 rude in speech, yet (am J) not 
(so) in knowledge (of Christ and his gospel); but we 
have been throughly made manifest among you in all 
things (of this nature, xii. 11, 12). 


7 Have I committed an offence in abasing myself 
(so far as to labour with mine own hands) δ that ye 
might be exalted (by the spiritual riches and advan- 
tages of the gospel, and in having an apostle more regard- 
Sul of you than of other churches), because (being charge- 
able to some of them) I have preached to you the gospel 
of God freely ? 

8 51 robbed (7. ὁ. made naked ) other churches, taking 
wages (or a stipend) of them, to do you service. 

9 And when I was present with you, and wanted, 
7 I was chargeable to no man: for that which was 
lacking to me the brethren which came from (PAi- 
lippi, Phil. iv. 15, 16, ix) Macedonia supplied: and 
in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome 
unto you, and so will I keep mysc/f. 

10 As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall 
stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia. 

11 (And) Wherefore (do I thus resolve? Js il) be- 
cause I love you not? God knoweth (the contrary). 

12 But what I do (of this kind), that I will (still) 
do, that I may cut off occasion (of boasting) from them 
which desire occasion ; ὃ that wherein they glory, they 
tay be found even as we. 

13 For such are (your) false apostles, deceitful 
workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of 
Christ (seeming to do as we do, or desiring to be 
thought equal to us in all things). 

14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is (some- 
times) transformed into an angel of light (pretending 
lo do their work, and be a ministering spirit to them 
whom he intendeth to destroy). 

15 Therefore zt zs no great thing if his ministers 
also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness ; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1Ver. 1. Τῆς ἀφροσύνης pov, My folly.) Though the neces- 
sity which lay on the apostle thus to commend himself, for 
vindication of his apostleship, made him free from folly in 
this matter; yet, because self-commendation usually pro- 
ceeds from vanity and folly, and they who know not the ne- 
cessity which lay upon him so to speak, would be apt to im- 
pute this to him, he useth this word here, though saying, ver. 
16, “ Let no man think me a fool in this my boasting,” and, 
xii. 6, “Though I did glory, I should not be a fool.” 

2 Ver. 2. MapSévov ἁγνὴν, A chaste virgin.] Here is thought 
to be an allusion to the ἁρμόσυνοι of the Lacedemonians, who 
formed the lives and manners of the virgins, and made them 
regular, and so prepared them for their husbands. But the 
Greek commentators agree with our translation, rendering 
the word ἡρμοσάμην by ἐμνηστευσάμην, «“T have espoused you.” 
So Phavorinus* doth interpret these very words; and so the 
word is used frequently by Herodotus, ἀπά ἴδ bears the 
same sense in the Septuagint, παρὰ Kupiov ἁρμύζεται γυνὴ ἀνδρὶ, 
“The wife is espoused to the husband of the Lord” (Prov. 
xix. 14). As therefore the Jews say, that “Moses espoused 
Israel to God in mount Sinai,’+ when he made them enter 
into covenant with them ; so saith the apostle here, By con- 
verting you to the Christian faith, “1 have espoused you to 
one husband, even Christ.” 

3 Ver. 3. Εὔαν, Hve.] He mentions Eve, not Adam, because 
she was only personally deceived by the serpent, and was 
“first in the transgression” (1 Tim. ii. 14). And he calls 
this deceit, φθόρα, in allusion to the metaphor of virginity. 


* “Ηρμοσάμην, ἐμνηστευσάμεν, ὡς 6 ἀπύστολος, ἡρμοσάμεν ὑμᾶς ἑνὶ 
dvdpi, ἤτοι τῷ Χριστῷ ἐμνηστευσάμην ὑμᾶς. 

T Ἥρμοσται τὴν Μίλωνος ϑυγατέρα Δημοκήδης γυναῖκα. Herod. 
Tid. iii. cap. 138, “Δρμοσάμενος ThAvos θυγατέρα. v.47. Παυ- 
caving ἡρμόσατο Swyarépa. Ibid. 

+ Devarim Rabba, cap. 7, col. 4. 


4 Ver. 6. "Iduirns τῷ λόγῳ, Rude in speech.] This cannot 
refer to his want of eloquence, or rhetorical artifice in his 
compositions ; for this seems equally wanting in the epistles 
of Peter and James; it therefore must refer to some imper- 
fection in his speech, which they had not. 

5 Ver. 7. Ἵνα ὑμεῖς ὑψωϑῆτε, That you might be exalted.) 
So James useth the word, saying, “ Let the brother of low 
degree rejoice ἐν τῷ ὕψει αὐτοῦ, in his exaltation” to the riches 
and privileges of the Christian faith, i. 9. So the song of 
the virgin mother saith, that God, by sending the Messiah, 
ὕψωσε ταπεινοὺς, “hath exalted them that were low,” Luke 
i. 52; and Capernaum is said to be ὑψωϑεῖσα, “exalted to 
heaven” by our Saviour’s frequent preaching to them, Luke 
x. 15, 

6 Ver. 8. ᾿Εσύλησα, 1 robbed.] Συλᾷν, γυμνοῦν, the word sig- 
nifies “to make naked,” saith Phavorinus; “to spoil,” say 
others: for the churches of Macedonia, from whom he re- 
ceived his gifts, being poorer than that of Corinth (2 Cor. 
viii. 2), might comparatively seem by this to be spoiled of 
what was necessary for them. 

7 Ver. 9. Οὐ κατενάρκησα οὐδενὸς, 1 stunned nobody with 
complaints.] 1 importuned none of them to supply my 
wants. 

8 Ver. 12. Ἵνα ἐν ᾧ καυχῶνται, That in what they glory.] 
This most interpreters thus gloss? ‘That whereas the false 
apostles glory in preaching the gospel freely, they may be 
found even in that to do only what we have still done among 
you. And true it is, that the Jewish writers tell us, that 
their wise men of old would not be nourished so from the 
church, but rather chose to get their living by their own la- 
bour; and therefore used to say, “It is better to skin dead 
beasts, than to say to the people, Iam a wise man, or a priest, 
therefore nourish me;” and that the most excellent and per- 
fect of them clave wood, and carried timber, and drew water, 
and wrought in iron and coals, and neither asked nor would 
receive any thing of the church. And, therefore, to make 
himself equal with the best of these wise men of the Jews, 


. CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


whose end shall be according (not to their specious 
and Π ΡΟΝ βραί pretences, but) to their works (Phil. 
iii. 1 

16 I say again, Let no man think me a fool (in 
boasting thus of myself); if otherwise, yet as a fool re- 
ceive (7. δ. suffer) me, that I may boast myself a little. 

17 ‘That which I speak (thus), I speak ἐλ not after 
the Lord (as commanded by him so to speak), but as it 
were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting (though 
the false apostles have made it necessary, and so a part of 
Christian wisdom so to do, xii. 11, to vindicale my apos- 
Heship, and to confirm you in the truth). 

18 Seeing that many glory after the flesh (as being 
the seed of Abraham according to the flesh), 1 will glory 
(as lo that) also. 

19 (Nor can my seeming folly offend you, if you be 
ἐπα, εὐ what you pretend,) For ye (will) suffer fools 
gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise (in your own con- 
ceils; or, being wise, you must suffer fools gladly. 


701 

20 And sure Tam, you can bear with greater mal- 
ters ;)Forye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage 
(to the Jewish rites, Gal. iv. 9, v. 1), if a man devour 
you (as did the pharisces widows? houses, living deliciously 
upon your substance), if a man take of you ® (if he take 
away what is yours), © if a man exalt himself (above 
you), if a man smite you on the face (or use you con- 
tumeliously. 

91 That which I said of smiting you upon the face,) 
I speak as concerning (the) reproach (they cast upon 
you as profane, uncircumcised, whereas they are alla 
holy nation), "as though we had been weak (i. e. in- 
ferior to them in these things, not able to ascribe to our- 
selves these advantages as well as they). Howbeit where- 
insoever any is bold (én this kind), (I speak foolishly,) 
Lam bold also. 

22 (For,) ® Are they Hebrews (speaking the Jewish 
language? Phil. iii. 5) so am 1. Are they Israelites 
(descended from beloved Jacob, Mal. i. 2, not jrom 


Paul might refuse maintenance from the churches of Achaia 
(see Campegius Vitringa de Synag. Vet. lib. iii. par. i. cap. 
18, p. 884, 885). But this exposition is liable to this great 
objection, That the apostle, speaking to the Corinthians of 
the same persons, saith, “ Ye suffer if a man devour you, if a 
man take of you,” ver. 20, and 1 Cor. ix. 12, “If others are 
partakers of this power, are not we much more ?” and else- 
where, where he represents these Jewish teachers as “ count- 
ing gain godliness,” and doing all things for « filthy lucre,” 
Phil. iii. 19, 1] Tim. vi. 5, 2 Tim. iii. 2, Tit. i. 11. Others 
therefore interpret the words thus: This I will do, that I 
may cut off occasion of glory from them who seek occasion, 
that they might be found even as us: in which thing they 
would glory; but now they cannot do it, because they are 
known to receive of you. 

9 Ver. 20. Ei τις λαμβάνει. Supply ἀφ᾽ ὑμῶν, “If a man 
take away what is yours ;” for this word is used, saith Phavo- 
rinus, when we take that which the owner is not willing to 
part with. So the word signifies, in Christ’s exhortation to 
the church of Philadelphia, to retain what she had, ἵνα μη- 
és ABQ τὸν orépavdy co», “that none may take away thy 
crown” (Rev. iii. 11); and when it was given to the angel, 
λαβεῖν τὴν εἰρήνην ἀπὸ γῆς, “to take away peace from the 
earth :” so P. Gregory* interprets these words, Si quis rapit, 
accipere enim aliquando dicimus auferre: so the Hebrew 
word πρὸ is rendered by the Septuagint, ἀπολαμβάνω, ἀπο- 
φέρω, αἴρω, ἀφαιρέω. Others render the words thus: “If a 
man makes a gain of you:” so Budeus saith, λαμβάνειν is 
κερδαίνειν, “to gain:” so 2 Cor. xii. 16, d6\w ὑμᾶς ἔλαβον ; 
“Did I take you by guile?” is interpreted by ἐπλεονέκτησα 
tyas; “Did I make a gain of you?” ver. 17,18. And for 
this sense our Gataker pleads in his Adversaria, giving many 
instances where not only λῆμμα and λήψις, nouns derived 
from λαμβάνειν, but also where τὸ λαβεῖν bears this sense 
(Adversar. cap. 27, p. 293). 

10 Ἐπ ris ἐπα pirat, Ifa man exalt himself.) The Jews had 
a very high opinion of themselves, as being the seed of Abra- 


ham, and so of noble birth (see note on 1 Cor. i. 26); the 


people of God, and so holy and beloved of him; his “ first- 


born and only-begotten, for whom the world was made,” 2 | 


Esd. vi. 59, 60. Hence in their prayers to God they say, 
Populus tuus sumus feederati tui, progenies Abrahami, amici 
tui, cui sacramento fidem tuam obstrinxisti in monte Moriz, 
semen Isaaci dilecti tui, qui ligatus fuit super altari tuo, 
cetus Jacobi filii tui, primogeniti tui, &c. And they had as 
mean and despicable thoughts of all other men, whom there- 
fore they insulted over, calling them “the people of the 
earth, the profane:’} yea, likening them to “dogs” (see 
note on Phil. iii. 2) and “spittle” (2 Esd. vi. 56, 57): and 
from this opinion, that “ the world was made for them” (see 
note on 1 Cor. iii. 22), they might easily conclude that it 
was lawful for them to take it away from others, as being 
usurpers of it. Hence Buxtorf+ cites this passage from the 


* Lib. xxxiii. in Job. cap. 16. 
t See Buxt. Lex. voce py, p. 1626. 
+ Voce p23, p. 1345, 


Talmud, that “all the possessions of the gentiles are as com- 
mon; he that first seizes on them is lord of them.” 

Ver. 21. ‘Qs Gre ἡμεῖς ἠσϑενήσαμεν, AS if we were 
weak.] To be weak, in this epistle, ch. xili., is to be un- 
able to exercise the apostolical rod, or the power that Christ 
had given them to inflict censures and diseases on the refrac- 
tory, ver. 3, 4. 9. Todyav, “to be bold,” is to exercise 
these censures on the disobedient, x. 2, where the apostle 
argues for this boldness, ver. 7, as here, « Are they Christ's 
ministers? so are we;” and adds, as here, ver. 8, that he 
could “ glory of the power Christ had given him for edifica~ 
tion, and not for destruction.” So that the import of these 
words seems to be this; You suffer patiently from these 
false prophets, as if their power over you was to be dreaded 
(though indeed there was nothing in it besides big words, 
1 Cor. iv. 19, see note on v. 3), but we to be despised as 
weak, and having no power you need to dread ; whereas we 
shall be as bold as they, if you do not reform, as being much 
more the ministers of Christ, and having suffered more, to 
show our fidelity to him, and therefore having greater reason 
to expect his powerful assistance than they have. 

12 Ver. 22. ‘EGpaioi εἰσι ; ᾿Ισραηλῖταί εἰσι; Are they He- 


brews 2 Are they Israelites 5] Here is a certain indication 
| that these false apostles and deceitful workers were not ori- 
ginally Samaritans, as Simon Magus, Dositheus, and their 
followers were, but of the Jewish extract. Secondly, That 
they were Jews converted to, and still owning and preaching 
up, the faith of Christ, as is evident from the words following ; 
“ Are they ministers of Christ? so am I:” as also from x. 7. 
It therefore seems that they must be of the sect of Cerin- 
thus,* that great stickler against St. Paul for the necessity 


of circumcising the gentiles, and for their observation of the 
law of Moses; or the Nazarenes, or Ebionites: for these are 
| not the names of persons who were the authors of any sects; 
| but of the Jews,t which believed in Jesus, and yet were 
_ zealous observers of the law of Moses. Now these Jews, 
before they believed, were of two sorts; such as admitted 
other nations to live quietly among them, and even to em- 
| brace their religion without circumcision ; and such as by no 
means would permit them so to do. Thus when Izates, the 
son of Helen queen of Adiabene, embraced the Jewish reli- 
| gion, Ananias¢ declared he might do it without circumcision ; 
but Eleazar§ maintained that it was ἀσέβεια, great impiety to 


* Tren. lib. iii. cap. 11. Evuseb. lib. iii. cap. 28. Epiph. 
Her. xxviii. 5. 2. Theodor. Her: Fab. lib. il. cap. 3. 

ἡ Οἱ ἀτὸ ᾿Ιουδαίων, εἰς τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν πιστεύοντες, οὐ καταλελοίπασι 
τὸν πάτριον νύμον. ιοῦσι γὰρ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν, ἐπώνυμοι τῆς κατὰ τὴν 
ἐκδοχὴν πτωχείας τοῦ νόμου γεγενημένοι. ᾿Εβίων re γὰρ ὃ πτωχὸς 
παρὰ ᾿Ιουδαίοις καλεῖται, καὶ ᾿Εβιωναῖοι χρηματίζουσινοΐ ἀπὸ ᾿Ιουδαίων 
τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὡς Χριστὸν παραδεξάμενοι. Origen. in Celsum, lib. 
ii. p. 56, 

+ Ananias ἔφη καὶ χωρὶς τῆς περιτομῆς τὸ ϑεῖον σέβειν, εἴγε 
πάντως κέκρινε ζηλοῦν τὰ πάτρια τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων, τοῦτο εἶναι κυριώ- 
τερον rod περιτέμνεσϑαι. Jos. Ant. Jud. lib, xx. cap. 2, p. 
685, E. 

§ Ibid. 


312 


702 II. CORINTHIANS. 


Esau)? soamI. Are they the seed of Abraham (and 
nol proselyles)? so am I. 

23 13 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a 
fool) I am more (so); in labours more abundant (‘han 
any of them), in stripes above measure (Acts xvi. 22, 
23), in prisons more frequent (ver. 24), in deaths oft 
(1 Cor. xv. 31, 2 Cor. iv. 11). 

24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes 
4 save one. 

25 Thrice (by the gentiles) was I beaten with rods 
(Acts xvi. 23), once was I stoned (Acts xiv. 19), thrice 
1 suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been 
16 in the deep; 

26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in 
perils of robbers, zn perils by mine own countrymen 
(Acts xx. 3), in perils by the heathen, in perils in the 
city (Damascus, Jerusalem, Ephesus), in perils in the 
wilderness, zm perils in the sea, zn perils among false 
brethren ; 

27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings 
often (2 Thess. iii. 8), in hunger and thirst, in fast- 
ings often, in cold and nakedness (1 Cor. iv. 11, 2 Cor. 
vi. 5). 


28 (And) Beside those things that are without, that 
which cometh upon me daily (zs), the care of all the 
churches (planted by me, 2 Cor. vii. 5, or by others 
among the genliles, Col. ii. 1). 

29 (For)Who (of them) is weak, and I am not (as) 
weak (in compussionating them, and complying with their 
weakness? 1 Cor. ix. 22) who is offended. (or ready to 
fall from his profession), and I burn not (with zeal to 
recover him) 2 

30 If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things 
which concern mine infirmities (¢. e. rather in my suf- 
ferings for Christ, than in the great things he hath done 

me). 

31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not 
(in any thing I have now said of my sufferings). 

32 In Damaseus the governor under Aretas the 
king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garri- 
son, desirous to apprehend me (in compliance with the 
Jews) : 

33 And through a window in a basket was I let 
down by the wall, '* and escaped his hands. 


remain uncircumcised. And when two eminent persons of 
Trachonitis fled to Josephus, the zealots* among the Jews 
were urgent for their circumcision, if they would abide with 
them; but Josephus persuaded the multitude against it. 
And this controversy continued after they embraced Chris- 
tianity, some allowing them to embrace Christianity without 
submitting to circumcision and the Jewish law ; others con- 
tending, that without circumcision and the observance of the 
law they could not be saved. And these were the false 
apostles which troubled the churches of Corinth, Galatia, 
Philippi, and were great enemies to Paul, who taught the 
contrary. So Epiphanius informs us of the Cerinthians,+ 
adding also of the Nazarenes, that they in all things accord 
with the doctrines of the Cerinthians. And certain it is, 
that such persons went from Judea, and gave great disturb- 
ance to all Christian churches, especially to those which had 
been planted by St. Paul; for, in the First Epistle to Timo- 
thy, and that to Titus, we have mention of those of the 
circumcision, who were vain talkers and deceivers, Tit. i. 10, 
11, 1 Tim. i. 4. 6, vii 4, 5 (see Gal. iv. 9, 10, vi. 12, 13, 
Phil. iii. 2, Col. ii. 26, 27). 

13 Ver. 23.] Note here, that the apostle proves the truth 
of his ministry and apostleship not, as elsewhere, from the 
miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost which accompanied his 
preaching, but from his sufferings, as being the things these 
false apostles could not pretend to (Gal. v. 11, vi. 12), and 


* Τούταυς περιτέμνεσϑαι τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων ἀναγκαζόντων, et θέλουσιν 
εἶναι παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς. Vit. Joseph. p. 1007, Β. Οὐκ ὀφείλειν ζῆν 
λέγοντες μὴ μεταβῆναι θέλοντας cis τὰ παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἔϑη. Ibid. p. 
1010, C. 

J ᾿Αποστάντων γὰρ τούτων, καὶ εἰς Wevdanocré\ovs τραπέντων, 
καὶ ἄλλους ψευύδαπαοστόλους ἀποστειλάντων εἰς τὴν ᾿Αντιόγειαν καὶ 
tis ἄλλους τόπους, λέγοντας Gre ἐὰν μὴ περιτμηϑῆτε, Mc. οὖγχ ἢ 
τυχοῦσα τότε ταραχὴ ἐγένετο, καὶ οὔ roi εἰσιν of παρὰ τῷ Παύλῳ 
εἰρημένοι ψευδαπύστολοι. Her. xxviii. 8. 4. Σύγχρονοι ἦσαν 
ἀλλήλοις, καὶ ὅμοια κέκτηνται τὰ φρονῆήματα. Her. xxix. §. 1, p. 
117. 


so could not glory that they were like unto him in them 
(ver. 13). 

4 Ver. 34. Παρὰ μίαν, Save one.) The law assigned forty 
stripes to them that were worthy to be beaten, but forbade 
them to exceed that number, Deut. xxv. 3. But it being 
their custom to beat them with a whip that had three cords, 
and so every stroke with it going for three, they could only 
give them thirty-nine or forty-two, which would have ex- 
ceeded the number appointed by the law; and therefore 
Josephus says,* “He that did contrary to the law received, 
by a public whip, forty stripes save one.” 

15 Ver. 25. Ἐν τῷ βυθῷ, In the deep.) This cannot be well 
understood of the prison at Cyzicum ; for we never read that 
Paul preached there; nor of the shipwreck mentioned Acts 
xxvii., for that happened after the writing of this epistle ; but 
probably of some of the other shipwrecks mentioned here, in 
which he might be so long tossed to and fro in the sea, upon 
some broken piece of a ship, before he got to land, as 
Josephus} saith he was. ‘Theodoret saith he was put into a 
prison so called at Lystra; but of this we read nothing in the 
Acts of the Apostles, ch. xiv., where Luke gives an account 
of his treatment there. 

16 Ver. 33. ᾿Εζέφυγον.] Of such a flight as only is designed 
to preserve us still in a capacity of preaching the gospel, 
especially where our charge is not any settled church, but the 
church in general, or as Paul’s was, the whole gentile world, 
Austin¢ speaks well thus, Quicunque isto modo fugit, ut 
ecclesi@ necessarium ministerium, eo fugiente, non desit, facit 
quod Dominus precepit, sive permisit; qui autem sic fugit, 
ut gregi Christi ea, quibus spiritualiter vivit, alimenta sub- 
trahantur: mercenarius ille est, qui vidit lupum venientem 
et fugit, quoniam non est ei cura de ovibus. 


*°O δὲ παρὰ ταῦτα ποιῆσας, πληγὰς μιᾶς λειποῦσας τεσσαράκοντα 
τῷ δημοσίῳ σκύτει λαβὼν, τιμωρίαν ταύτην αἰσχίστην ἐλεύϑερος ὑπο- 
μενέτω. Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 8, p. 124, Εἰ. 

Ἴ Βαπτισθέντος yap ἡμῶν τοῦ πλοίου κατὰ μέσον ’Adpiav, δι' ὅλης 
τῆς νυκτὸς ἐνηζάμεθα. Joseph. de Vita sua, Ρ. 999. 

+ Ep. 80, ad Honoratum. 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 'Iris not expedient for me doubtless to glory. 
(Bul since it may be so to you) 1 will come to visions 
and revelations of the Lord. 


2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, 
(whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out 
of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) (J say, I 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. 


1 Ver. 1. Κανχᾶσϑαι δὴ οὐ συμφέρει por.] All the Greek 
echoliasts own our reading of these words, which may from 


the Greek be rendered, “Surely it profiteth (or it advan- 
tageth) not me to glory, for I shall come to visions ;” and then 
the sense may be supplied thus; But it may be so to you, 
for I shall come to visions and revelations of the Lord, in 


CHAPTER XII. 


knew) such an one caught up to the third heaven (the 
habitation of the blessed angels, and of the majesty of 
God 

3 ‘nad (again) I knew such a man, (whether in the 
body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God know- 
eth ; 

4 How that he was (al another time) ? caught up 
into paradise, and (¢here) heard unspeakable ‘words, 
which it is not lawful (or possible) for a man to utter. 

5 Of such an one (‘kus rapt out of himself) will I 
om yet (or, bu!) of myself (as J appear to you in 
my own person) I will not glory (willingly), but in 
mine infirmities. 


703 


6 (Not that T really esteem it a folly so to do, though 
in compliance with you I do styl: it foolishness, 2 Cor. 
xi. 1. 16, 17, xii. 113) For sesh Il would desire to 
glory (of these things), 1 shall not be a fool; for I will 
(shall only) say the truth: but now I forbear (even to 
speal: of that), lest any man should think of me above 
that which he seeth me fo be, or (hat he heareth of me 
| (above what my constant words and actions testify of 
me). 

7 And lest I should be exalted above measure 
through the abundance of the revelations (vouchsafed 
fo me), there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, 
5 the inessenger of ‘Satan to buffet me (or, that a mes- 


which I shall give such an evidence of the “heron of Christ 
to me, such a testimony of my mission from heaven, as 
none of these false apostles or deceitful workers can pretend 
to. 

ἹΚαυχᾶσθαι de οὐ συμῤέρει μοι, It becomes not me to glory.) 
Chrysostom, Theodoret, G2cumenius, and Theophylact, all 
agree in this reading, making no mention of the other, εἰ «av- 
χᾶσϑαι det; which therefore is to be rejected. 

2 Ver. 4. ‘Aprayévra.] Here (1.) it is inquired, Whether 
Paul was either, as to soul only, or as to soul and body 
jointly, rapt into heaven, or paradise, as the Spirit ἥρπατε, 
“caught up Philip,” Acts viii. 39, or whether he had only a 
vision of these things on earth, as the Spirit took up Ezekiel 
in a vision, Ezek. xi. 24, and as John was “ carried away 
into the wilderness?” I incline to the opinion that this was 
a real rapture, as being most agreeable (1.) to the words 
ἡρπάγη fos, “He was snatched up as far as to the third 
heaven,” and ἡρτάγη εἰς παράδεισον, “ He was snatched up into 
paradise ;” for these words do not well agree to a vision, or 
to an eestasy. As for the seeming raptures of Ezckiel and 
John, the text plainly informs us that they were not real, by 
saying, “ The Spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision 
by the Spirit of God into Chaldea,” Ezek. xi. 34. And 
again, “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me 
out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst 
of the valley that was full of bones,” xxxvii. 1. And of 
John, “He carried me away in the Spirit into the wilder- 
ness,’ Rev. xvil. 3; and xxi. 10, “He carried me in the 
Spirit toa great and high mountain.” In these two instances 
all is expressly said to be done ἐν Πνιεύματι, “in the Spirit;” 
but nothing of this nature is intimated in Paul’s rapture. If 
you say he owns that this was done ἐν ὀπτασίᾳ, “ in a vision ;” 
I answer, he seems not to say so, but only that in this rap- 
ture he had a vision of the Lord. (2.) He says he cannot 
tell whether he was then in the body, or out of the body ; 
whereas, in all imaginary visions, the soul continues in the 
body. (3.) He adds, that he “heard there unspeakable 
words ;” which intimates that he was really in paradise. 

Quest. 2. A second inquiry is, Whether Paul here speaks 
of one vision or rapture only, or of more? I answer, ‘I'he 
opinion of all the ancients seems to have been this, that he 
was rapt at several times into several places, and, conse- 
quently, that he speaks of more raptures than one. Ireneus* 
saith, that “he was caught up into the third heaven, and 
again was carried into paradise.” So also say Tertullian and 
Pseud-Ambrosius.t Epiphanius+ speaks thus: * Who can 
hear the opinion of Origen, which placed paradise in the 
third heaven?” And this appears highly probable, (1.) from 
these words, “ I will proceed to visions and revelations of the 
Lord ;” which intimates that he would speak of more than 
one: fac from ver. 7, “ Lest he should be exalted ὑπερβολὴ 
τῶν ἀποκαλύψεων with this multitude of revelations.” (2.) 
Methodius of old did well infer this from the repetition of 
those words, “ Whether in the body,” &c. for such a repeti- 
tion must have been needless concerning one and the same 


* Usque ad tertium celum raptum se esse significans, et 
rurstim delatum esse in paradisum quid illi prodest aut 
in paradisum introitus, aut in tertium σα πὶ assumptio, lib. 
ii. cap. 54. 

ἡ Tertul. de Prescript. cap. 34. Ambros. in locum. 

+ Quis audiat in tertio calo donantem nobis Origenem 
paradisum? Ep. ad Joh. Hieros. cap. 3. 


vision. “For hence,” saith he,* « ate intimates that he had 
seen two great visions, being twice assumed, first into the 
third heaven, and then into paradise.” Hence therefore it 
doth not follow that paradise is in the third heaven, as later 
writers have thence gathered against the opinion of all the 
ancient Christians: and therefore Epiphaniusf answers to 
this text produced by Origen, by saying, “ He was rapt up 
into the third heaven, and after adding into paradise, he shows 
heaven to be in one place, and paradise in another.” ‘Though 
therefore the third heaven here, according to the language 
and distinction of the Jews, doth signify the angelic heaven, 


it doth not follow hence, that paradise, into which the apos- 
tle was caught up at another time, and in another vision, 
must signify the third heaven. 

3. Hence we may strongly argue for the distinction of the 
soul from the body, and its capacity to receive and under- 
stand celestial things in separation from the body ; for if the 
soul be not distinguished from the body, nor is capable of 
any vision or revelation when out of the body, there remains 
no foundation for the apostle’s doubt, whether he had these 
visions in the body, or out of the body, there being a neces- 
sity, upon that supposition, to have them in the body, or not 
at all. 

3 Ver. 7. “Ayysos Sarav.] They who interpret this “ mes- 
senger of Satan,” and “ thorn in the flesh,” of the motions of 
concupiscence, and the suggestions of lust arising in Paul, 
are guilty of a great mistake: for this “thorn in the flesh” 
was given him of God, who raiseth in us no impure lustings 
(James i. 13—15), and never cures one sin by another; nor 
would Paul have wished that all men should have been as he, 
if he had felt these burnings, nor would he have refused that 
remedy against them he prescribed to others, 1 Cor. vii. 7. 9, 
nor could he have “ gloried,” much less “ took pleasure,” in 
these infirmities, as here, ver. 9, 10, he doth in this “thorn 
in the flesh.” In a word, by confessing such impure motions 
lodged in his breast, he would not have defended his reputa- 
tion against his adversaries, but rather have given them fresh 
occasion to reproach him, and would have rendered his threats 
against the unclean, xii. 21, less prevalent. Let it be then 
observed, 

1. ‘That this “ thorn in the flesh” was surely some infirmity 
in the flesh or body of Paul. So doth Paul himself inform 
us, by saying. » Τὸν πειρασμόν pov τὸν ἐν TH σαρκί pov, οὐκ ἐξου- 
ϑενήσατε, οὐδὲ ἐζεπτύσατε, “ You did not count me as nothing, 
nor spit upon me, because of my temptation, which was in 
my flesh,” Gal. iv. 14, “ but received me (notwithstanding) 
as an angel or messenger of God.” Whence two things are 
observable : (1. ) that this thorn, or this temptation, was in 
the flesh, or in his body: and (2.) that it was such as ren- 
dered him in his preaching obnoxious to great contempt, and 
made him despicable in the eyes of others. 

2. It is highly probable that this infirmity in the flesh hap- 
pened to him after these visions and revelations of which he 
here speaks; for he saith it was sent to, or befell him, “that 
he might not be exalted through the multitude of his revela- 
tions ;” and therefore must be given him after he had that 
temptation they afforded to exalt himself. 

3. Itis certain that it was some infirmity of the flesh which 


* Ais ἀναληφϑεὶς ἐναργῶς, ἅπαξ μὲν τρίτου οὐρανοῦ, ἅπαξ δὲ 
εἷς τ παράδεισον. Apud Epiph. Her. Ixiv. 8. 47, p. 572, 
C, D. 

Ἢ Ubi supra apud Hieron. tom. ii. 57, E. 


704 


senger of Satan might buffet me), lest 1 should be exalted 
above measure. 

8 For this thing 4 1 besought the Lord (Christ, ver. 
9) thrice, that it might depart from me (7. 6. that I 
might be delivered from this thorn in my flesh). 

9 And he said unto me, My grace (vr favour) is suf- 
ficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect (and 
shown more illustriously) in (this thy) weakness. Most 
gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, 
that the power of Christ may (more conspicuous/y ap- 
pear to) rest upon me. 

10 Therefore I take pleasure in (these) infirmities 
(of the flesh), in (the) reproaches (J suffer upon that 
account), in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses 
for Christ’s sake: for when I am (thus) weak (in my- 
self), then am I strong (in the power of Christ. This 
latter clause is in all the Greek scholiasts). 

11 Lam become (as) a fool in glorying (thus; but) 
ye have compelled me (fo zt): for I ought (rather) to 
have been commended of you: for in nothing am I 
behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing 
(of myself ; but through the grace of God Lam what I am, 
1 Cor. xv. 10). 

12 Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought 
among you (by me) in all patience, in signs, and won- 
ders, and (in) mighty deeds (see the note on Heb. 
li. 4). 

13 For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other 
churehes, except i! be (in this) that 1 myself was not 
burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong. 

14 Behold, the third 5 time Iam ready to come to 
you; and I will (stz// continue) not (to) be burdensome 
to you: for I seek not your’s, but you: § for the child- 
ren ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents 
for the children. 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


15 And I (like @ good spiritual father) will very 
gladly spend (my spiritual treasures on you) and be 
spent (myse/f) for you; though the more abundantly 
I love you, the less I be loved. 

16 But be it so, I did not burden you (myself): 
nevertheless (tf may be suggested by some, thal) being 
crafty, I caught you with guile (gelling much from you 
by the means of others). 

17 (J ask, therefore,) Did 1 make a gain of you by 
any of them whom I sent unto you? 

18 I desired Titus (40 go to you), and with him 1 
sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? 
walked we not in the same spirit? walked we not in 
the same steps ? 

19 Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto 
you (by specious pretences, when we say that we diferred 
our coming, that we might spare you and be helpers of 
your joy? 2 Cor. ii. 23, 24) we speak (as) before God 
in Christ (calling him again to record that we use no 
such arts) ; but we do all things, dearly beloved, (as we 
did that) for your edifying. 

20 (And too much reason had we so to do:) For ( yet) 
I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as 
I would, and that I shall be found unto you (by 
inflicling necessary censures and punishments upon 
you) such as ye would not: lest there be debates, 
envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, 
swellings, tumults (/he usual, and almost ne- 
cessary consequences of schisms and factions in a 
church) : 

21 And lest, when I come again, my God will 
humble me among you, and thai I shall (find reason 
to) bewail many which have sinned already, 7and have 
not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and 
lasciviousness which they have committed (after the 


naturally tended to obstruct the efficacy of his preaching, and 
rendered his ministry less grateful and acceptable to others, 
and made him subject to reproach and to contempt in the 
discharge of this his function. This is extremely evident 
from the place cited from Gal. iv. 14, where, saith Theodo- 
Tet, καίτοι πολλὴν ἔφερον ἐπὶ τοῦ σώματος ἀτιμίαν, “* Though I 
brought with me great ignominy in my body, you did not re- 
ject me;” and also from Christ’s answer to him, That his 
power was perfected in Paul’s weakness, i. e. The greater is 
thy infirmity in preaching the gospel, the greater is my power 
in rendering it efficacious when preached by one subject to 
50 great infirmity. 

4. It is also certain that this was objected to by the Co- 
rinthians and the false apostles, to the disparagement of Paul, 
and rendered him contemptible in their eyes, that he was 
ἐδιώτης τῷ λόγῳ, “rude in speech,” 2 Cor. x. 10 (which, as I 
have observed upon that place, cannot refer to his want of 
eloquence, that being as much wanting in his epistles, which 
they allowed to be “ powerful and weighty,” as in his ser- 


mons to them) ; that “in presence he was base among them,” | 


ver. 1, that “the presence of his body was weak and mean, 
καὶ b λύγος ἐζουϑενημένος, his speech” such as rendered him “ con- 
temptible,” where the apostle useth that very word which 
he had applied to the infirmity of his flesh, Gal. iv. 14. 

5. It cannot be denied but that an ἐσχνοφωνία, a stammer- 
ing in speech, or a squeaking shrillness in the voice, joined 
with a low deformed stature, does naturally tend to render a 
man contemptible in his preaching; and therefore Moses 
declines the message God sent him upon to Pharoah, because 
he was “slow of speech, and of a stammering tongue,” Exod. 
iv. 10, ἰσχνύῤωνος, καὶ βραδύγλωσσος. 

6. These words, “a thorn in the flesh, ἃ messenger of Sa- 
tan,” being here put by way of apposition, must signify the 
same thing; and so he must be buffeted by Satan, when, by 
these false apostles and ministers of Satan (2 Cor. xi. 15) he 
was contemned, and made the subject of their scorn, and 
laughter, for this infirmity in his speech. But it is observ- 
able, that these words may be rendered thus: “There was 
Given me a thorn in the flesh, ἄγγελος Σατᾶν ἵνα pe κολαφίζη, 


that the angel of Satan might buffet me.’ Since then he 
calls the false apostles ministers of Satan, it is not to be won- 
dered that he here styles them, or the chief of them, who 
thus reviled and contemned him for this infirmity, and there- 
fore laboured to take off the affections of the Corinthians 
from him, “an angel of Satan buffeting him” (see (icu- 
menius on the place). 

4 Ver. 8. Παρεκάλεσα, I besought the Lord.] “Here,” 
saith Schlictingius, “is an instance of prayer directed to 
Christ ;” ergo, say I, here is an instance of his divinity: 
prayer made to Christ by all Christians, in all times and 
places, and for all things, being an evidence of his omni- 
science, omnipotence, and omnipresence. 

Note also, that though this “thorn in the flesh” was not 
removed upon the prayer of the apostle, yet was that granted 
for which he desired that ‘it might be removed, viz. that he 
should preach the gospel more effectually, and to the honour 
of his Lord; and therefore he not only rests satisfied under 
this infirmity, but even glories in it on this account, that it 
tended to demonstrate the power of Christ residing in him. 
Thus doth God truly answer our requests, when he gives not 
what we would, but what he sees to be more for his glory 
and our good. 

5 Ver. 14. Τρίτον, The third time.] Most interpreters say 
that Paul had made two resolutions before to come to them; 
for proof of which they cite, 1 Cor. xvi. 5, 2 Cor. i. 16, but 
both the texts seem plainly to refer to one and the same re- 
solution, and the last to be only an apology for nonperform- 
ance of the first. His meaning therefore may be this; I 
have once actually been with you: I was ready once more 
to come, though your disorders unreformed hindered the 
performing that intended journey (2 Cor. 1. 23), and I am 
now ready the third time. 

5 Tor the children ought not to lay up for the fathers, 
but, &c.] 1. 6. If fathers of the flesh, they ought to lay up 
for them temporals; if spiritual fathers, as Paul was (1 Cor. 
iv. 15), to provide spirituals for them, good instructions, and 
advice for the welfare of their souls. 

7 Ver. 21. Meravoncdvrwy.] Hence it is evident, against 


CHAPTER XIII. 


example and by the instigation of their false teachers, 
who themselves praclise the hidden things of shame, 2 Cor. 


Novatian, that the Christian dispensation admits sinners to 
repentance, though they have, after baptism, committed great 


τὸ. 


iv. 2, and whose exhortation is of uncleanness, 1 Thess. 
ii. 3). 


offences, and lapsed into the sins of the flesh, mentioned 
Gal. v. 19—21. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


1 ' Tuts ἐξ the third time 1 am coming to you. *In | 
the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word | 
be established. 

2 I told you before (in my First Epistle, iv. 19—21, 
being then absent in body, but present in spirit, v. 3), 
and (J still continue in my resolution) foretell (ing) 
you, as if I were present, the second time (or, / fure- 
tell you as present in spirit the second time); and being 
absent (7n body) now I write to them which heretofore 
have sinned (and have not repented, xii. 21), and to all 
other (who shall fall into the like sins), that, if I come 
again (which I now am fully resolved upon), I will not 
spare (you): 

3 Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in (and 
by) me, (even that Chris!) which to you-ward is not 
weak, but is mighty 5 in (and among) you (yow shall 
Jind it in the exerting the power he hath given us to chas- 
tise such offenders). 

4 For though he was crucified through (/he) weak- 
ness (of that human nature which he took upon him, and 
tn that appeared to others as weal:), yet he liveth (and 
discovers efficaciously that he doth so) by the power of 
God (so gloriously atiending the invocation of his name, 


and faith in him). For we also (Gr. and so we also) 
are (as yet, in your apprehensions,) weak in him, but we 
shall (appear to) live with him by the power of God 
(exerling itself by us) toward you. 

5 (And for the farther evidence that Christ preached 
by me hath not been weak, but mighty towards you,) 
xamine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith ; prove 
your own selves. Know ye not (of) your own selves 
(by the miracles done among you, and the varity of 
gifts conferred upon you), how that Jesus δ Christ 1s 
in (among) you, δ except ye be reprobates (7. e. disap- 
proved by God, and so he hath withdrawn these gifls 
JSrom you)? 

6 But (however it may be with you) 1 trast that ye 
shall know that we are not reprobates. (¢. 6. not disap- 
proved of, but owned by God and Christ). 

7 Now I pray to God that ye do no evil (which may 
force us to exercise and show our power among you, as 
desiring) not that we should appear approved (by our 

wer in punishing your offences), but (rather) that ye 
should do that which is honest, though we be (ἐπ 
show) 7 as reprobates (i. 6. as destilule of the power of 
Christ in your eyes). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


1Ver. 1. Τρίτον τοῦτο, This is the third time.] Of his 
coming the third time, see note on xii. 14. These witnesses, 
saith Dr. Lightfoot, were Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achai- 
cus, sent to assure them of his coming: say others, his own 
reiterated testimony to them by letters, that if these admoni- 
tions did not prevail on them who had sinned to reform, he 
would not spare them. 

2 In the mouth of two or three witnesses.) Though these 
words seem to be cited from Deut. xix. 15, rather than from 
Matt. xviii. 16, it being rare to find this apostle citing any 
thing from the New ‘Testament without calling it “an ordi- 
nance of the Lord ;” yet it is probable that the apostle here 
alludes to the practice there prescribed for the reclaiming of 
offenders ; and then his First Epistle being written with this 
introduction, “ Paul an apostle, and Sosthenes ;” his second 
thus, “ Paul, and Timotheus,’ may pass for two or three 
witnesses; and his presence the third time in person, to ex- | 
ercise his censures on these offenders before the body of the | 
church, may bear a fair resemblance to the prescription relat- 
ing to the church. 

3 Ver. 3. Ἐν ὑμῖν, Among you.) Christ showed his power 
among them, by enabling Paul to preach the gospel to them, | 
in “demonstration of the Spirit and power,” so efficaciously, 
as to convert them to the faith, 1 Cor ii. 4; in that variety | 
of gifts conferred on them, together with the gospel, by which 
their “testimony of Christ was confirmed,” 1 Cor. i. 6; by 
his power, conspicuous in seconding St. Paul’s delivery of the | 
incestuous person up to Satan, 1 Cor. v. 4, 5; by the chas- 
tisements they suffered for communicating in the Lord’s sup- | 
per unworthily. 

4 Ver. 4. Kai γὰρ καὶ, And so we also.) These particles 
signify atque ita, even so and so, and in like manner ; and | 
accordingly are rendered by Pasor, sic et nos, as in this para- | 

| 
| 


phrase. Again, it is evident from scripture, that though 
Christ appeared to the world weak, and unable to escape his 
sufferings, by permitting himself to be taken, and carried | 
bound before the high-priest and Pilate, and at last to be 
lifted up upon the cross, and there die, yet was he only in 
appearance then weak; for he permitted not himself to be 
taken till he had with a word struck them to the ground 


Vor. IV.—s89 


who came to apprehend him (John xviii. 6), and had de- 
clared that he was able to deliver himself out of their hands 
(Matt. xxvi. 53). Even so, saith the apostle, we seem weak 
to you Corinthians, because we do not exercise that power 
among you which God hath given us, 2 Cor. x. 10, xi. 21, 
and here, ver. 9, but we shall show ourselves to live by 
the power of God exercised upon the offenders in your 
church. 

5 Ver. 5. Ὅτι Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν ἐστιν, That Christ is in you.) 
i. 6. With, or among, you: so σὺ ἐν ἡμῖν εἶ Κύριε, «Thou, 
Lord, art with us,” Jer. xiv. 9, οὐχὶ Κύριος ἐν piv; “Is not 
the Lord among us?” see Gen. xxiii. 6, Ps. cxxiv.1. The 
words seem to allude to those spoken by the tempting, con- 
tumacious Israelites, who, after all the signs and wonders 
God had shown to them, remained still doubtful of his pre- 
sence with them, inquiring, εἰ Κύριος ἐν iyiv; “Is the Lord 
among us, or not?” Exod. xvii. 7. So saith the apostle; 
Seeing, after all the miracles done among you, and the mira- 
culous gifts received by you, you still seek a proof of Christ 
speaking in or by me, ask your own selves: know ye not by 
the gifts exercised among you, except ye be rejected of God, 
that his Spirit, conveyed by my ministry, is still among you? 
But then let it be noted here, that this place speaks not of 
their being in Christ, but of Christ’s being in them; not of 
his being in them, by their faith in him, but his miraculous 
presence with them; not of his being in any private person, 
but in the church of Corinth in general. 

ὃ Bi μήτι αἀδόκιμοί ἐστε, If ye be not reprobates.) i. 6. 
Christians in name only, and “not in deeds,” so Grotius ; 
“stupid and hardened,” Dr. Hammond ; “ wicked and unfit 
for the faith,” Vorstius; “ unworthy of the name of Chris- 
tians,” Dickson ; ‘deprived of faith, light, grace, and know- 
ledge,” Menochius; “ Unless you by your crimes have cast 
off Christ,” Calvin. 

7 Ver. 7. ‘Qs ἀδόκιμοι, As reprobates.] It is to be observed, 
that the word ἀδύκιμος, which we render reprobate, hath no 
relation in scripture to any decree of God, either absolutely 
excluding men from a capacity of salvation, or doing it con- 
ditionally, on the account of the sin of Adam ; but only doth 
denote such men as have made themselves unworthy, by the 
corruption of their faith or manners, to be approved and 
owned by God. Thus they who, “ when they knew God, did 


706 


8 (And then you will be secure from our chaslisements ;) 
For wecan do nothing against the truth, but (on/y) for 
the truth (having our power given for edification only, 
and not for destruction, ver. 10. 

9 Nor have we any desire to use our power thus ;)For 
we are (rather) glad, when we are weak (as having no 
occasion to manifest our power), and ye are sérong (in 
faith and good works): and this also we wish, even 
your perfection (in them. 

10 And) Therefore I write these things being absent 
(to warn and reform you), lest being present I should (be 
constrained to) use sharpness (/owards the unreformed 
among you), according to the power which the Lord 


not glorify him as God, neither were thankful, but changed 
the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped the creature more 
than the Creator, and liked not to retain God in their hearts” 
(Rom. i. 21—28), are the men “ given up” by God, εἰς νοῦν 
ἀδόκιμον, “to a reprobate mind ;” which prompted them to 
to those things God could not approve of, but abhor: and 
they who resisted the truth through the corruption of their 
minds, are styled ἀδόκιμοι περὶ τὴν πίστιν, 1. 6. “ reprobates 
concerning the faith,” 2 Tim. iii. 8, i. e. men whose faith can- 
not be owned or approved of. They also are in scripture, as 
to their manners, styled “reprobates,” whose “mind and 
conscience is defiled ;” so that though “in word they profess 
to know God, yet in works they deny him, being abominable, 
disobedient, and to every good work, ἀδύκιμοι, reprobate ;” 
i. e. void, not of judgment only to discern, but of affection to 
approve of it. Thus, that earth is styled ἀδύκιμος, " repro- 
bate,” or rejected, which, after all the showers which fall upon 
it, “ brings forth only thorns and briers,” Heb. vi. 8, and that 
silver, ἀργύριον ἀδόκιμον, “ reprobate silver,” which, being false 
stamped, or coined, will not be received, but rejected (Prov. 
xxv. 4, Isa. i. 22): and in this sense Paul saith, he kept 


APPENDIX 
TO CHAP. VI. 


Monstrevr Le Clerc hath observed in his Ars Critica, par. 
i. cap. 8, p. 110, that “since the time of St. Austin scarce 
any word hath been used more frequently in speaking con- 
cerning the conversion of a sinner, than is that of grace; 
and yet if you ask them what use it what they mean by it, 
they can give you no clear answer: so that a Jesuit said, not 
unpleasantly, That it was nothing but a nescio quid, and that 
the grace of God in scripture doth always signify, not any 
secret afflatus, but his mercy and his kindness to us.” Now 
that I may not seem, with his witty Jesuit, to ridicule, or 
with the Pelagians to deny, that grace, because my note on 
this chapter partly accordeth with his critics, I shall here 
briefly show two things: 

1, That it seems necessary to assert, that God vouchsafes 
to men not only the outward dispensations of his word to be 
the ordinary means of their conversion and sanctification, but 
also some assistances and operations of the Holy Spirit. 

2. I shall endeavour to show that these assistances may 
be so explained as to be no more unintelligible than are all the 


influences of God upon the soul, or the temptations of the evil | 


spirit. 


to men some inward operations or assistances of his Holy 
Spirit, to incline them to what is good, convert and sanctify 
them. For, 

1. Why else is it expressly said that “God works in us 
both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. ii. 13), and 
«doth within us what is acceptable in his sight ?” (Heb. xii. 
21:) for sure he cannot properly be said ἐνεργεῖν, καὶ ποιεῖν ἐν 
ἡμῖν, “to act and work within us,” who does and worketh 
nothing in us. Yea, how doth the word of God itself, when 
heard or read, work on us, but by making impressions on our 
minds? And shall that be denied to God himself which we 
allow to his word? Or shall he not be believed when he saith 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


hath given me to edification, and not to destruction. 

11 Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect (-/y knit 
together), be of good comfort (under all calamities), 
be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love 
and peace shall be with you. 

12 Greet one another with ὃ an holy kiss. 

13 All the saints (here) salute you. 

14 9 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
love of God (the Father), and the communion of the 
Holy Ghost, δὲ with you all. Amen. 

q The second epistle to the Corinthians was written 

from Philippi, @ city of Macedonia, by Titus and 


Lueas. 


under his body, “lest whilst he preached to others, he him- 
self should be, ἀδόκιμος, disowned” and rejected by God (1 
Cor. ix. 27). 

And though ἀδόκιμοι here seems to signify one that cannot 
give a proof of his power, as when it relates to the apostle, 
ver. 6, 7, yet seeing the apostle, pretending that the Lord 
had given him this power, must be ἀδύκιμος, one fit to be re- 
jected as a false pretender if he had it not ; and though, when 
it relates to the Corinthians, ver. 5, it signifies persons who 
could not give a proof that they belonged to Christ, or‘had his 
presence with them ; yet, seeing the want of this proof showed 
they were to be rejected as persons not approved by Christ, 
this differs not much from the sense assigned of that word. 

® Ver. 12. Ἐν ἁγίῳ φιλήματι, With a holy kiss.] As bre- 
thren : for this seems to be the Jews’ osculum propinquitatis, 
of which see Buxtorf’s Lexicon, p. 1404, 1405. 

9 Ver. 14.] Note, that here plainly, as in the form of bap- 
tism, Matt. xxviii. 19, we have the names of the sacred 'Tri- 
nity ; and the Father and Son in both places being men- 
tioned as distinct persons, we have no reason to doubt of the 
personality of the Holy Ghost thus mentioned with them. 


he doth “ work in us both to will and to do?” he “doth in 
us what is acceptable in his sight τ᾽ 

Again; Does it not seem unreasonable to deny that influ- 
ence to God and the good Spirit, to excite men to goodness, 
which generally is and must, according to the scripture, be 
allowed to the evil spirit tempting men to wickedness? Now 
though this evil spirit cannot lay us under a necessity of doing 
wickedly, yet he is frequently in scripture represented as a 
tempter to sin; which he can only be mediately, by raising 
some ideas in our brain which do excite, dispose, and move 
us, as our own thoughts or inward sentiments at other times 
were wont to do, to what is evil. He also is in scripture 
styled that spirit which ἐνεργεῖ, “ works inwardly in the child- 
ren of disobedience,’ Eph. ii. 2, and “leads them captive 
sis τὸ ἐκείνου Sé\nua, to do his will,’ 2 Tim. ii. 26, which 
words seem plainly to import some inward energy of Satan 
to excite them to this disobedience to the will of God, and 
this compliance with his own will: since then “stronger is 
he that is in us than he that is in the world” (1 John iv. 4), 


| i. e. that good Spirit which dwells in pious men is more 


powerful in them than Satan is in wicked men, we must allow 
this good Spirit ἐνεργεῖν, “to work” in the children of obedi- 
ence, as Satan is allowed to work in his own children. 
Moreover, the evil spirit is represented as “ a lying spirit” 
in the mouth of Ahab’s prophets, 1 Kings xxi. 21, he “moved 


| David to number the people,” 1 Chron. xxi. 1, he “entered 
First, That it is necessary to assert, that God vouchsafes | 


into” Judas, Luke xxii. 3, he “ filled the heart” of Ananias 
“to lie to the Holy Ghost,” Acts ν. 3. All which expres- 
sions can never be accounted for without allowing him some 
power to work upon the spirits of these persons, so as to 
raise within them some such ideas as would excite and stir 
them up to the performance of those actions: nor can we 
otherwise give any rational account of the snares, methods, 
wiles, and devices of Satan, mentioned 2 Cor. ii. 11, Eph. 
vi. 11, or tell how he comes and “takes away the word out 
of the heart,” Luke viii. 12, or how he “takes advantage 
over us” when we are overwhelmed with grief, 2 Cor. ii. 10. 

When, therefore, on the other hand, God is said to “put 
his fear and his law in our hearts,” Jer. xxxii. 40, Heb. viii. 


APPENDIX. 


707 


10, and “his Spirit within us,” Ezek. xxxvi. 27, to “create | are made “the temples of God through the Holy Ghost 


in us a clean heart, and renew in us a right spirit,” ibid., to 
“ give us a new heart,” Ezek. xi. 19, “to circumcise” and to 
“convert the heart,” Deut. xxx. 6, Jer. xxxi. 18, if he by his 
good Spirit raiseth no good motions or ideas in us, which 


. . . Η͂ | 
may dispose us to his fear, and by attention to them may 


convert and cleanse our heart; if he vouchsafes unto us no 
inward illuminations, by attending to which we may discern 
“the wondrous things of this law,” what can these words or 
metaphors import? or why is his Spirit put within us if he 
hath nothing to do there? Yea, why are we said to be 
“strengthened with might through the Spirit in the inward 
man” to do his will? Eph. iii. 16; to be enabled, “ through 
the Spirit, to mortify the deeds of the flesh?’ Rom. viii. 13. 
Why is the Spirit said to « help our infirmities,” ver. 26, to 
“purify our hearts,” 1 Pet. i. 22,to be unto us a“ Spirit of 
sanctification,” 1 Cor. vi. 11, “the Comforter,” the + Spirit 
of power, love, and of a sound mind?’ 2 Tim.i. 7. For how 
is it possible he should be all or any of these things to us, 
or should do all or any of those things for us, by doing no- 
thing in us? And seeing consolation ariseth only from the 
inward testimony of the conscience; seeing sanctification 
consists in the renewing of the inward man, and hath the soul 
for its subject; seeing the heart is purified by an inward 
change and temper, which renders it averse from sin, and sets 
the aflections, desires, and inclinations of the soul against it ; 
seeing the deeds of the flesh are only mortified by such a 
renovation of the mind as makes us to discern the pernicious 
effects and dreadful consequences of living still according to 
our fleshly appetites, and so begetteth a dread and hatred of 
them, a resolution to forsake them, a vehement desire to be 
freed from them, a sincere endeavour to resist the motions of 
the flesh, and a care that we do not for the future yield obe- 
dience to it in the lustings of it, if there be no renovation 
wrought in us by the Spirit, no testimony of him “ with our 
spirits, that we are the sons of God,” how can a man conceive 
that all this should be done by the Spirit without any energy 
in the mind and the affections of a man, and by that, con- 
sequently, on the will 1 

Moreover, if the Holy Spirit hath no hand in producing 
and carrying on the new life, why is he styled Πνεῦμα ζωο- 
ποιοῦν, “a quickening,” or “life-giving, Spirit?” Seeing all 


vital operations issue from a spirit acting in us, why are we | 


said to “live in the Spirit,” Gal. v. 16, and to “walk in the 
Spirit,” Rom. viii. 14, and ἄγεσθαι, “ to be led,” or conducted 
“by the Spirit” of God? For as in natural and moral ac- 
tions we cannot be said to live or walk without an inward 
principle of life and motion, or to be led or guided in those 
actions but by the light of reason; so neither can we pro- 
perly be said to live and walk in the Spirit, or to be guided 
by him, if he imparts no inward light to guide us in the ways 
of piety, no inward motions to excite us to walk in them, 
no inward strength or vital efficacy for the performance of 
them. And were it otherwise, why are all those inward 
habits and dispositions which adorn the soul, and make it 
“meet for the inheritance of the saints in light,’ styled “ the 
fruits,” not of the preaching of the word, or of our own 


consideration, but “ of the Holy Spirit?”’ For how are they | 


his fruits, if he doth nothing to produce them? Why are 
they still ascribed, according to his doctrine, never to that 
which only doth, but to that only which doth not, produce 
them? 

To say these things and those expressions concern only 
the times in which the extraodinary gifts and operations of 
the Holy Spirit were vouchsafed, is to make future ages, since 
the ceasing of these gifts, despair of being quickened, sanc- 


tified, or comforted, or even enabled to purify the heart, or | 


to mortify the deeds of the flesh, to live or walk in the 
Spirit; and consequently to despair of being now the sons 
of God, united to Christ Jesus, or having any of the fruits of 
the Spirit wrought within them. And were it only then that 
no man could be regenerate or born again without water and 
the Holy Ghost, by what are we now regenerated ? why are 
we now baptized? or why is baptism administered still in 
the name of the Holy Ghost? 


Tn fine, it seems not possible, according to this hypothesis, | 
to explain how, or to what end, the Holy Spirit is so often | 


said to “dwell,” or to “abide” within us; how we are 
“made a habitation of God through the Spirit;” how we 


which is in us,” or united to Christ by the Spirit, or to what 
end the Holy Ghost thus dwells or takes up his abode in 
them, in whom he acteth nothing, or rests upon those Chris- 
tian suflerers whom he doth not inspire with inward courage : 
and yet this abode of the good Spirit with us, is represented 
not only as the highest privilege, but as the inestimable ad- 
vantage of the Christian. By this Christ doth encourage 
his disciples to demonstrate their love to him by keeping his 
commandments, that then “the Father will love them, and 
we,” saith he, “ will take up our abode with him,” John 
xiv. 23. By this, saith the apostle, God becomes our God, 
and we his people; he our Father, we his sons and daughters, 
2 Cor. vi. 16; and from our union by his Spirit to our head 
Christ Jesus, such an ἐνέργεια, or “inward working,” is said 
to be diflused through every part of his mystical body, as 
causeth “ the whole body to increase, and edify itself in love,” 
Eph. iv. 16, Col. ii. 19. Now what account can be offered 
of these things, without allowing some inward operations of 
the Holy Spirit, as the consequence of this spiritual union, 
and this inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in us? yea, who can 
tell what is the advantage of these promises, “J will put my 
Spirit in you,” or “pour him upon you,” Prov. i. 23, Jer. 
χχχνὶ. 27, xxxvii. 14, Zech. xii. 10, John vii. 37, 38, if we 
receive no influx from him thus put into our hearts ? what, 
lastly, is it for the Holy Spirit to “ depart,” or to be “ taken” 
from us? or what can be the dreadful misery and “ woe” 
denounced upon us when he doth so? for if he did nothing 
in us, whilst he continued to be with us, what can we lose 
by his departure? or why did David so importunately beg 
God would not take his Holy Spirit from him? Ps. li. 12. 
‘lo say here the Holy Spirit only dwelt in Christians 
whilst the extraordinary gifts and afflatus of the Holy Spirit 
were continued to the church, and they lay under persecu- 
tion from the heathen emperors, is not only to contradict 
the tenor of the scriptures, which declare that all Christ's 
living members are thus united by the Spirit to their Head 
(1 Cor. xii. 13), and that “if any man have not the Spirit 
of Christ,” dwelling in him, “he is none of his” (Rom. viii. 
9) ; he cannot be the son of God, for “as many as are led 
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (ver. 14); 
he hath no right to call God Father (ver. 15), no interest in 
the “adoption,” and in the inheritance of sons (ver. 17) ; 
but it is also to enervate the virtue of the promises of Christ, 


| and the consolation of Christians of all future ages under 


their sufferings for the sake of Christ; yea, it is in effect to 
make the dispensation of the gospel cease, the difference 
betwixt that and the law being by the apostle placed in this, 
that the one is “the ministration of the letter” only, the 
other also “ of the Spirit; and if this were so only whilst 
these extraordinary operations of the Holy Spirit lasted, 
then from the time that they have ceased, the gospel doth 
not in this differ from the law, or deserve to be preferred 


| above it on that account. 


Arg. 2. This doctrine seems to take off from the energy of 
prayer in general, and from the virtue of prayer for the Holy 
Spirit in particular, and so to make men slight and neglect 
that duty of which the scripture speaketh so magnificently, 
and to which it so frequently exhorts us; at least, it seems 


| not well consistent with the tenor of those inspired prayers, 
_ or those prescriptions for it recorded in the holy scripture: 


for who can reconcile it with those expressions, in which holy 
men of God so often beg God “ would incline their hearts’ 
unto him, since this he cannot do without some operation on 
their hearts; that he would «draw them, that they might 
tun after him;” that he would “open their eyes, and give 
them understanding to discern his law;’’ that he would 
“lead them in the right way, in the way everlasting,” and 
“guide them by his eye?’ For if God by his Spirit hath 
no ‘influence upon the heart or soul, how doth he incline or 
draw it? if none upon the understanding, how doth he en- 
lighten or instruct it? If this be done only by the word 
read, preached, and pondered in the heart, we may as well 
apply ourselves to that work without as with prayer, unless 
we in these cases pray for some new external revelation, or 
for some motives not contained in scripture. 

Moreover, according to this doctrine, it seems both fruit- 
less and absurd to pray for the assistance of the Holy Spirit, 
or to expect we should enjoy it. And so that passage of 


708 II. CORINTHIANS. 


Luke, “ Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and you shall find ; 
knock, and it shall be open unto you: for if evil parents give 
good gifts to their children, how much more will your hea- 
venly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” 
Luke xi. 9. 13, must be of no use or virtue to us. For 
what in these expressions can we pray for, but the assistance 
of the Holy Spirit? and what assistance can he aflord us, if 
he doth not operate at all upon our souls? 

To say this promise is to be confined to the apostles’ days 
seems not agreeable to reason: for why then do we hear of 
it in the sermon on the mount, which certainly was spoken 
eis ακοὰς λαοῦ, “in the audience of the multitude ?” why doth 
it run in words so general, πᾶς yap, “ For every one that 
asks receives?’ Moreover, those spiritual and ordinary 
efforts for which the Holy Spirit was then given, those fruits 
of the Spirit they produced in them, are as needful and as | 
spiritually good for Christians now, as when our Saviour 
spake these words: for as the Holy Spirit was needful then 
to strengthen Christ’s servants “in the inward man” to do 
his will, Eph. iii. 16, to comfort them in tribulations, and sup- | 
port them under fiery trials, and to preserve them from the 
subtleties of Satan, and the temptations of the wicked world ; 
so is there the same need of his assistance now for all these 
gracious ends, and therefore the same reason to expect him } 
still to all these purposes. Moreover, the conditions of this 
promise may be performed by us now as well as then; we | 
may be now sincerely desirous to obey the holy will of God, | 
and with true fervency and importunity may beg the Holy | 
Spirit to this end. And if we may acceptably perform these 
duties to which this promise is annexed, why may we not as | 
confidently expect the blessings promised from the God of | 
truth? For the encouragement here given to expect the | 
assistance of the Holy Spirit is this, that we ask him of our | 
heavenly Father: now this most comfortable relation God 
bears to all his children, of what age soever; he is “the 
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever ;” and therefore there is 
now, and ever will be, the same benignity in God, the same 
good-will and readiness in him to give his Holy Spirit 
now unto his children for all needful purposes, as in all 
former ages. If therefore in like manner we do ask, we 
must have equal reason to expect we should receive him. 
To proceed therefore, 

Secondly, ‘l’o explain, as far as I am able, and think it 
needful so to do, how those “ fruits of the Spirit,” which the 
schools call “ graces,” are wrought in us by the Spirit of God. 

First, I assert, that the manner in which the Holy Spirit 
acts upon the minds and hearts of men, for the production 
of these fruits or graces, and the preparatory dispositions of 
the soul towards them, may reasonably be conceived to be 
such as is suitable to the reason and faculties of men, viz. 
the understanding and the will. Now it is certain, that what 
naturally makes the understanding to perceive, is evidence 
proposed and apprehended, considered or adverted to; for 
nothing farther can be requisite to make men “ come to the 
knowledge of the truth,” and “ understanding what the will 
of the Lord is,” and so be “wise unto salvation.’ Hence 
the apostle prays that his Philippians might “ abound more | 
and more in knowledge, and in all wisdom,’ ἐν πάση 
αἰσϑήσει, “in all perception,” that so they may “approve 
the things that are most excellent,’ Phil. i. 9,10. Hence 
he speaks to the Romans thus, “ Be ye transformed by the 
renewing of your mind, εἰς τὸ δοκιμάζειν, that you may dis- 
cern and approve what is according to the good, and accept- 
able, and perfect will of God,’”’ Rom. xii. 2, and saith to the 
Ephesians, “ Be ye not unwise, but understanding what the 
will of the Lord is,” Eph. v. 17, and ver. 8. 10, « Walk as 
children of the light, approving what is acceptable to the 
Lord.” Again, what makes the will choose, is something 
approved by the understanding, and consequently appearing 
to the soul as good ; and whatsoever it refuseth, is something 
represented by the understanding, and so appearing to the 
will as evil: whence all that God requires of us is, and can 
be, only this, to “refuse the evil, and to choose the good.” 
Wherefore to say that evidence proposed, apprehended, and | 
considered, is not sufficient to make the understanding to | 
approve; or that the greatest good proposed, the greatest 
evil threatened, when equally believed and reflected on, is 


not sufficient to engage the will to choose that good, and to 
refuse that evil, is in effect to say, that which alone doth | 


move the will to choose or to refuse is not sufficient to en- 
gage it so to do; that which alone is requisite to make me 
understand and approve, is not sufficient so todo. Now this 
being contradictory to itself, must of necessity be false. 

Be it then that we have naturally an aversion to the 
truths proposed to us in the gospel, that can only make us 
indisposed to attend to them, but cannot hinder our convic- 
tion when we apprehend them and attend to them. Whence, 
for removal of it, the apostle only prays that “the eyes of 
our understanding may be enlightened, that we may know 
them,” Eph. i. 18, adding, that where “the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in Christ Jesus” was revealed, 
if after this “the gospel was hid” from any, it was only so, 
« because the god of this world had blinded the conceptions 
of their minds, that the light of the gospel might not shine 
into them,” 2 Cor. iv. 8, 4. Be it that there is in us a re- 
nitency to the good we are to choose, that only can indispose 
us to believe and to approve it as our chiefest good. Be it 
that we are prone to the evil which we should decline, that 
only can render it the more difficult for us to believe it is 
the worst of evils. But yet, what we do really conceive to 
be our chiefest good will still be chosen, and what we appre- 
hend to be the worst of evils, will, whilst we do continue 
under that conviction, be refused by us. It therefore can 
be only requisite, in order to these ends, that the good 
Spirit should so illuminate our understandings, that we, 
attending to and considering what lies before us, should ap- 
prehend and be convinced of our duty, and that the bless- 


| ings of the gospel should be so propounded to us, as that we 
| may discern them to be our chiefest good, and the miseries 


it threatens, so as we may be convinced they are the worst 
of evils, that we may choose the one, and refuse the other. 
Now to consider, in order to approbation and conviction, 
to choose in order to our good, and refuse, that we may 
avoid misery, must be the actions not of God but man, 
though the light that doth convince, and the motives which 
engage him thus to choose and to refuse, are certainly from 
God. 

To illustrate this more familiarly by an instance taken 
from ourselves, or our deportment towards others: When a 
man, in words plain and intelligible, speaks to another, if 
he will hearken to what he says, he must understand his 
mind; for, by that very impression the words make upon 
his brain, he immediately perceives his meaning: and can- 
not the divine impression on the brain, which is God’s 
speaking inwardly to man, do the same thing? This action 
is indeed so necessary, that as it is not virtuous or praise- 
worthy in any man to understand the mind of him who 
doth thus speak to him, so neither seemeth it praise- 
worthy in us purely to understand the mind of God thus 
speaking to us. Again, these words of man contain some 
exhortation to me to do what he desires I would do, backed 
with encouragements to do so, taken from the proposal of 
some advantage, the promise of some good I shall receive by 
complying with his exhortation; or they contain some de- 
hortation from doing what he would not have me to do, 
because it will be hurtful to me, or will be certainly at- 
tended with some evil consequences. Is not this the 
method used by all the world in dealing with one another? 
And do they not all do this with hopes and expectation of 
success? And is it not a great disparagement to the word 
of God to think that his persuasions, admonitions, exhorta- 
tions, promises, and threats, should be all insufficient to 
prevail with us to turn from our sinful courses, and turn to 
him, when all men who do use these methods towards their 
children, servants, friends, or relations, do it in hopes that 
they shall be successful by these means? Moreover, if the 
person they address be slow of understanding, do they not 
hope to overcome that difficulty by the clearness of their 
discourse, and by reiterating the same thing by such variety 
of expressions as he is best able to perceive? If he be 
averse from doing that which is desired, do they not hope 
to overcome that aversion by repeated exhortations, and 
vigorous impressions of those encouragements they tender 
to prevail upon him to comply with their desire? If he be 


| strongly inclined to that from which they vehemently dehort 


him, do they not endeavor to turn the bent and current of his 
inclinations by the like repeated exhortations, and lively 
representations of the evils he will be certainly exposed to 


APPENDIX. 


by so doing? All men are therefore of this opinion in their 
practice, that acting with men by convincing reason, and by 
motives and persuasions, is acting with them suitably to 
their faculties; and is not God himself of the same mind? 
Hath he not revealed his will on purpose that we may know 
it? Hath he not directed his letters and epistles to us, that 
by reading we may understand in them, “and know the 
things which do belong to our peace?” Did not our Saviour 
utter all his discourses to the same end? Why else doth he 
inquire so oft, “ Why is it that you do not understand my 
speech ?” (John viii. 43.) “ How is it that ye do not under- 
stand?" (Mark viii. 21.) Why doth he preface them with 
this instruction, “Hear and understand ?”’ (Matt. xv. 10.) 
Doth not God call upon us to “consider our ways, and lay 
to heart” his sayings, and his dispensations? (Hag. i. 5. 7.) 
Doth he not prescribe this as the remedy for preventing his 
judgments, when he saith, « Oh consider this, ye that forget 
God?” (Ps, 1. 22,) and of being wise, by saying, “Oh that 
they were wise, that they would consider their latter end!” 
(Deut. xxxii. 29.) Doth he not represent this as the source 
of all the wickedness and idolatry of his own people, that 
they “would not consider in their hearts?” (Isa. i. 3, xliv. 
19.) Doth he not make conversion the effect of this consi- 
deration, when he saith, “ Because he considereth and turn- 
eth away from all the transgressions that he hath committed, 
he shall surely live?” (Ezek. xviii. 29, Ps. cxix. 593) yea, 
doth he not represent this as a just ground of hope, that 
even the most stubborn sinners may be reformed, when he 
saith to the prophet, “ Remove by day in their sight; it may 
be they will consider, though they be a rebellious people?” 
(Ezek. xii. 3.) Does not the apostle pray, that his Colos- 
sians “ may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all 
wisdom, that (so) they might walk worthy of the Lord, to 
all well-pleasing, being fruitful in every good work?” (Col. 
1. 9, 10,) that his Philippians might “discern and approve 
the things that are most excellent, that they might be sin- 
cere, and without offence, being filled with all the fruits of 


righteousness ?”” &c. (Phil. i. 10,11.) And must not then | 


this knowledge and approbation of his will be a means of 
rendering us fruitful in all works of righteousness? Does 
not God require his people to “choose life” (Deut. xxx. 19), 
pronouncing a blessing on them who choose the things that 
please him (Isa. lvi. 4), and threatening destruction to them 
that “ would not choose the fear of the Lord’’ (Prov. i. 20), 
but “choose the things in which he delighteth not?” (Isa. 
lvi. 4.) Now, doth he any thing more to prevail with them 
who do “ not choose the fear of the Lord, do not the things 
that please him,” to engage them so to do, or not to do the 
contrary, but teach them his way, and persuade them to 
walk in them? Must it not then be certain, that either he 
transacts with them as men who might by these things be 
induced to choose to fear him, and do the things that please 
him, and abstain from the contrary ; or threatens to destroy 
them for doing what they could not help, and had no means 
sufficient to avoid, and for not doing what it was impossible 
for them to do? Again, doth he not exhort men to be 
“willing and obedient,’ promising a full pardon, and a 
blessing to them that do so? (Isa. i. 18, 19.) Doth not 
Christ resolve the destruction of the Jews into this, “ You 
will not come unto me that you may have life?” (John v. 
40,) declaring this to be the reason why they were not 
gathered, because he “ often would have gathered them, but 
they would not” be gathered (Luke xiii. 34), because, being 
so graciously invited to the marriage-feast, they would not 
come? (Matt. xxii. 34.) Now what did he to engage them 
to come unto him, to gather them, to prevail upon them to 
come unto the marriage-feast, but show them the way of 
life, exhort them and invite them to come unto the feast? 
Either then he transacted with them as one who knew this 
was sufficient for these ends, and that these things might 
have prevailed upon them to be willing, or else he resolved 
on their exclusion from the mariage-feast; and their not 
tasting his supper, for not doing what they could not do; and 
condemned them for not coming when they could not, because 
the Father did not draw them or give them to him (John vi. 37. 


44), and for not being gathered when indeed he would not, | 


whatever he said to the contrary, seeing he would not do 
that for them without which they could not be gathered. 
Moreover, doth he not earnestly exhort and persuade men to 


709 


repent, and turn from the evil of their ways? Doth he not 
say, “Oh that my people would have hearkened to mej; 
that Israel would have walked in my ways!” (Ps. Ixxxi. 135) 
“Oh that they were wise, that they would understand this!" 
(Deut. xxxii. 29;) “Ὁ Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made 
| clean? when shall it once be?” (Jer. xiii. 27;) “Oh that 
| thou hadst known, in this thy day, the things which belong 
| unto thy peace?” (Luke xix. 42.) Now either in these 
| exhortations and persuasions he acts with men suitable to 
| their faculties, exhorting them to do, and pathetically 
| wishing they had done, what they might have done, though 
| they did it not; or called them to repent that they did not 
do what they never could do; that they did not avoid what 
| it was impossible they should avoid; and even to repent 
that God had not irresistibly done this for them, and seri- 
ously wished they themselves would have done what, if it ever 
| had been done, must have been done by himself, and there- 
| fore was not done, because he would not irresistibly work 
the change in them. 
In fine, doth not God encourage men to repent and be- 
lieve, to be “willing and obedient,” by great and precious 
| promises of the most excellent and lasting blessings? Hath 
‘he not threatened eternal damnation to them that do not 
believe? (Mark xvi. 15, 16;) hath not he said, “He will 
come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on all that obey not 
the gospel?” (2 Thess. i. 7.) And must not all these things 
sufficiently convince us, that God acts with men es one who 
doth indeed suppose that men may hearken to his exhorta- 
tions, and comply with his persuasions to believe and to 
obey his gospel? may be prevailed on, by his promises, to 
the performance of their duty, and terrified by the con- 
sideration of the judgments threatened from their disobe- 
dience? Why else is it said that God has given us these 
“great and precious promises, that by them we may be 
made partakers of a divine nature?” (2 Pet. i. 25) or why 
are we exhorted, “having these promises, to cleanse our- 
selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holi- 
ness in the fear of God?” (2 Cor. vii. 1;) or why doth the 
apostle say, “ Knowing then the terrors of the Lord, wo 
persuade men?” (2 Cor. ν. 11.) If beyond all this there 
be some physical and irresistible operation on God’s part, 
necessary to make men know, and knowing choose the good 
and refuse the evil, this being not wrought in them who are 
not born anew, why is the want of this new birth and this 
spiritual regeneration so oft imputed to their want of con- 
sideration, and their not laying to heart the things pro- 
| pounded to them; to their not inclining their mind to wis- 
dom, and not applying their hearts to understanding; and 
their not framing their doings to turn unto the Lord? (Prov. 
i. 14. 30, Hos. v. 4.) It it be said, This may be done, be- 
cause they had grace and strength sufficient in their first 
parents so to do; I answer, Admit that vain imagination, 
that we had what we never indeed had, or could have, be- 
cause it was lost long before we had a being; yea, what 
Adam never had, because then he must have had power to 
repent after his fall, and then we must have it still; for what 
power he had to repent after his fall, he could not lose by 
his fall: I say, admit this supposition, what is it to the im- 
port of all the exhortations, persuasions, and motives, con- 
tained in the gospel, which are all directed to fallen-man ; 
and so, if God be serious in them, declare his great un- 
willingness that fallen man should perish, his passionate 
desire that he should be saved; and if he speaketh in them 
suitably to the capacities and faculties of fallen man, plainly 
suppose him still in a capacity, by these assistances and 
motives, to understand his duty, and to choose the good, and 
refuse the evil? 

Prop. 2. I add, That this is not ordinarily, and needs not 
at all to be done now, by propounding to the understanding 
| any truths, or to the will any motives or inducements, which 

are not contained in holy scripture. For, if the word of God 
| be a perspicuous and perfect rule, «able to make us wise to 
_ salvation,” and “furnished for every good work,” sure the 

good Spirit may, by suggesting the truths contained in it. 
| and bringing them to our remembrance, and “ opening our 
understandings to perceive the scriptures,” sufficiently re- 
move the darkness that is in our minds; if it be a “bight 
shining in darkness” (2 Pet. i. 19), and πάντα τὰ ἐλεγχόμενα. 
“all errors” to be corrected, all vices to be reproved, “are 

3K 


710 


made manifest by the light” (Eph. v. 13), then must it be 
sufficient to illuminate our understandings and direct our 
paths, or “lead our feet into the way of truth.” Again, 
seeing the motives contained in the scripture to engage us 
to turn from those evil ways which tend to our disquiet, 
torment, and misery at present, and will hereafter subject 
us to eternal miseries, must be sufficient to turn us from the 
evil of our ways, or else the highest motives that can be 
offered must be insufficient to that end; all other motives to 
deter us from any action, as pernicious and disadvantageous 
to us, being as nothing when compared to that, “ Depart 
from me, ye wicked, into eternal fire ;” all evils we can dread 


or suffer from the hand of man, are little in respect of that | 


we must have cause to fear from him who “ can destroy both 
soul and body in hell-fire.” Since, on the other hand, the 
promise of everlasting happiness, recorded in the same 
scriptures, as the result of our sincere obedience, must be 
sufficient to engage us in a sincere endeavour to yield that 


obedience to the good and holy will of God, or no induce- | 
ments can be sufficient to that end; seeing this motive | 


eminently contains all other motives in it, there being more 


in those two words, the enjoyment of God and everlasting | 


happiness, than kingdoms, thrones, and treasures, joy, plea- 
sures, honours, and all that can express the good things of 
this world, import; and therefore a more vehement con- 
straining power in them, to the performance of our duty, 
than in the united strength of worldly greatness, honour, 
pleasures, and that which representeth to our hopes and our 
desires that which incomparably excels all we can hope for, 
or desire, besides: I say, this being so, the Holy Spirit, by 
making deep impressions on the mind of the advantages and 
rewards promised to our conversion and sincere obedience, 
and of the dreadful evils threatened to the disobedient, and 
bringing these things oft to our remembrance, which, in the 
scripture-phrase, is “putting these laws in our minds, and 
writing them upon our hearts” (see note on Heb. viii. 10), 
must do what is sufficient to work in us conversion and sin- 
cere obedience. For what reason can be given why the 
Spirit of wisdom, having “enlightened the eyes of our un- 
derstanding to know what is the hope of our calling, and the 
glorious riches of the inheritance of the saints” (Eph. i. 18), 
and these things being thus made present to our minds, 
should not have greater prevalence upon our wills to obe- 
dience, than any temporal concerns to yield obedience to 
the laws of man? It is certain, Satan can only tempt us 
by suggesting some temporal allurements and advantages, 
or some temporal losses or affrightments to us: since then 
the scripture doth assure us, “this is cur victory over the 
world, even our faith” (1 John v. 4), i. e. our “ expectation 
of things hoped for, our evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 
xi. 1); these objects of our faith contained in the scriptures 
being presented to us, and impressed upon us by the Holy 
Spirit, must be sufficient to baffle all the temptations of sin, 
Satan, and the world. In fine, of this we may be sufficiently 
convinced from the experience of mankind; for, since the 


apprehension of good or evil is the sole motive to make us | 


undertake or decline any action, the greater the good or evil 
is, the stronger motive it must be. Now, do not many mil- 
lions in the world forego their present ease and pleasure, 
encounter difficulties, and venture upon dangers, and un- 
dergo most toilsome labours, in expectation of some finite 
temporal advantage, of which they cannot have assurance ? 
Do they not oft abstain from what they passionately love, 
only for fear of dangers which possibly might not ensue 
upon the satisfaction of their appetites? Do they not sow, 
and plant, and trade, only in hopes of an increase? And 
should not, then, the hopes of infinite eternal happiness, and 
the dread of endless miseries, more powerfully engage us to 
obey God’s precepts, and to resist all the temptations which 
flesh and blood suggest against them ? 

But, then, because the blessings and miseries of another 
world are things invisible, and only are discerned by the eye 
of faith, they being only moral and spiritual motives, which 
only work upon us as they are present to our minds by 
actual consideration and reflection on them, and this they 
are not always, when the temptations of the world, the 
devil, and the flesh, by sensual objects, are thus present with 
us; it is therefore necessary that at all times, when they are 
not thus present with us, and therefore cannot operate upon 


II. CORINTHIANS. 


us, the Holy Spirit should, either by representing to us from 
the scriptures those divine truths with which our under- 
standings have not been sufficiently enlightened, instruct and 
guide us, or else by reviving and impressing, i. e. inculeating 
on our spirits, those motives and inducements to resist those 
temptations, and to perform those duties which are required 
at our hands, assist us so to do. 

Prop. 3. I therefore humbly conceive this inward opera- 
tion of the Holy Spirit to consist in these two things: 

First, In representing divine truths more clearly to our 
understandings, that we may have a fuller evidence, stronger 
conviction and assurance of them, which is in scripture 
styled “ the illumination of the mind.” 

Secondly, In bringing these truths to our remembrance, 
that so they may be present with us, when this is requisite to 
enable us to resist temptations, and to encourage us to the 
performance of our duty. And upon supposition of these 
two things, that God acts with us suitably to the nature of 
our faculties (on our understanding, by representing the 
light to it, and on our wills by motives to choose the good 
and refuse the evil, and that the highest motives and induce- 
ments possible, when firmly believed, and present to the 
mind, must be sufficient to produce their ends), it can be 
only requisite to our conversion and sincere obedience, that 
the good Spirit should assist us in this work, by that illu- 
mination which is sufficient to produce this strong convic- 
tion and plerophory of faith, and should present those 
motives to our memories, and make a deep impression of 
them there; which, being present, will move our wills and 
our affections to prosecute the ends for which they are 
sufficient. 

I am not ignorant that there may be many who, beyond 
all this, require a physical and irresistible motion of the 
Holy Spirit, in which we are wholly passive, to the con- 
version of a sinner; and I shall not dispute with them, that 
controversy being so fully handled by Dr. Claget, but shall 
endeavour briefly to compound and state the matter. 

First, then, I say it must be granted, that in raising an 
idea in my brain by the Holy Spirit, and the impression 
made upon it there, the action is properly physical. 

Secondly, That in these actions I am purely passive ; that 
is, I myself do nothing formally to produce these ideas, but 
the good Spirit, without my operation, doth produce them 
in me. And, 

Thirdly, That these operations must be irresistible in their 
production, because they are immediately produced in me 
without my knowledge of them, and without my will, and 
so without those faculties by which I am enabled to act. 

But then I add, that, as far as they are so, they cannot 
be imputable to me; i. e. it cannot be praiseworthy in me, 
or rewardable, that I have such ideas raised in me; but only 
that, when they are thus raised in me, I attend to them, 
comply with, and improve them to the ends for which they 
were designed by the Holy Spirit. To make this evident 
by anexample: It is on all hands granted, that Satan can 
so work upon the brain, as to raise up in it impure and 
blasphemous ideas; but then it is generally held, that the 
thoughts they immediately produce will never be imputed 
to us as our sins, nor will God be displeased with us for 
them, if we do not after show any good liking of them, or 
consent to them, but manfully resist, and rise up into de- 
testation and abhorrence of them; and that, because the 
raising these ideas is the devil’s action, not our own, we are 
purely passive in them till we consent to, or show some 
liking of, them: and they are also inevitable and irresistible, 
it being in the power of no man to prevent or resist them ; 
i. 6. to hinder them from being raised in his brain, or any 
ways to suppress them, till he doth first perceive them raised 
there. And therefore, for the same reasons, those ideas 
which are objectively good, being thus raised in us, cannot 
be imputed to us for reward, nor can God be well pleased 
with us for them, till we co-operate with them ; because the 
raising of them is properly God’s, not our own action, and 
we are purely passive in it, nor is it in our power to prevent 
or to resist them: but, then, God having planted in us a 
principle of reason and discretion, we can attend to them 
being raised, and so improve them to the illumination of 
our understandings, and to the approbation of them in our 
minds. He also having given us a will to choose the good 


PREFACE TO THE GALATIANS. 


and refuse the evil, we may consent to the good suggestions, 
and pursue the good motions raised thus in us; for to what 
other ends can they be raised in us by the Holy Spirit? 
As, therefore, our attendance and consent to the suggestions 
of the evil spirit being free, and what we may avoid, is cul- 
pable; so our attendance to, and compliance with, these 
motions and ideas of the Holy Spirit, being things in which 
we are free and active, and that upon deliberation; and so 
in them we do perform the proper and free actions of a man, 
doing that which we might not do, and refusiug to do that 
we have both power and temptations to perform; therefore 
these things must be praiseworthy and acceptable in the 
sight of God, 

T also add, that these ideas being thus raised up in us by 
God alone, and even the power of attending and consenting 
to them being, together with our nature, entirely derived from 
God, and all the inducements which we have to attend to 
them, and comply with them, being properly of divine exter- 
nal revelation, or such divine internal operation as, if they 
had not intervened, we should have had none of these good 
effects produced upon us; these effects are properly to be 
ascribed to God, and all the praise and glory of them must 
be due to him alone, because the principle of acting, and the 
inducement thus to act, is solely from him. 

To conclude: The greatest instance of powerful conver- 
sion I can call to mind is that of persecuting Saul. He is 
confounded by a light shining round about him, brighter 
than the sun; by this he is struck down to the earth, and 
hears a dreadful voice from heaven, saying, “ Saul, Saul, why 
persecutest thou me?” Now in all this he was purely pas- 
sive, and the action done upon him was physical and irre- 
sistible ; and therefore this action being wholly Christ’s, not 
his, there could be nothing in it on his part praiseworthy, or 
rendering hima better man. But then, when he inquires of 
the holy Jesus, « Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do?” 
when he prays earnestly for the forgiveness of his sins (Acts 
ix. 11); when he submits to that baptism which was ap- 
pointed by the holy Jesus for that end, and for the dedica- 
tion of himself to his service ; when, being told what grievous 
things he was to suffer for the name of Jesus, he notwith- 
standing “ was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,” but 
went and preached up that faith which he had formerly op- 
posed; these being actions of deliberation and free choice, 
proceeding from reflections on the heavenly vision, and the 
conviction it had wrought upon him, must be praiseworthy 
and acceptable in the sight of God: though, being the re- 
sults of what our Lord had done upon him, he very properly 
ascribeth the whole glory of them to the grace and favour of 
our Lord towards him. Hence, say Chrysostom and Cicu- 
menius, he doth so magnify the grace of God in this matter, 
as μὴ λυμήνασϑαι τῷ αὐτεξουσίῳ, “not to invalidate man’s 


111 


free-will” (see note on 1 Tim. i. 12). And that there is a 
| perfect harmony betwixt the operation of God’s grace and 
the co-operation of our wills, we learn from two examples 
recorded in one chapter, viz. 2 Cor. viii. 1. 3, where the apos- 
tle advertiseth the Corinthians “ of the grace of God given to 
them of Macedonia :” for, saith the apostle, they were “ accord- 
ing to their power, yea, and above their power, αὐθαέρετοι, 
of themselves willing” to contribute to the necessities of the 
saints; viz. the contribution was an act of their own free 
wills, proceeding from their choice ; but the grace and favour 
of God given to them was the spring and motive of it. 
So again, ver. 16, 17, “Thanks be to God, τῷ διδόντι, to him 
that gave this care in the heart of ‘Titus ; for he accepted the 
exhortation, and being more forward, αὐθαίρετος ἐξῆλθε, he 
went to you of his own accord;” i. e. the exhortation was 
from Paul; that which gave the weight and vigour to it, and 
rendered him more forward in it, was the grace and favour 
of God to him: the reflection on both made this journey the 


matter of his own choice, and so he became “ willing of his 
own accord :” yea, this is evident even from the very words, 
by some thought to assert the contrary, Phil. 11, 12, 13, 
« Wherefore, beloved—not only as in my presence (when 
you had me to be your monitor), but much more now in my 
absence (which God by the workings and inward teachings 
of his Spirit supplies), work out your salvation with fear and 
trembling: for it is God that worketh in you, both to will 
and to do of his own pleasure” (i. 6. sometimes by outward, 
and sometimes by inward means): for if beyond these in- 
ward suggestions and persuasions some physical and irre- 
sistible operations be required on God's part, which make 
it necessary for us both to will and do, why are we then com- 
manded to work out our own salvation ; for can we act where 
we are truly passive? Or can that be a reason why we our- 
selves should work, that another will effectually do that very 
thing without our co-operation? [5 it not rather a manifest 
reason why we should neither will nor work at all, since both 
is and will be irresistibly performed without us? Why, se- 
condly, are we said to work out our salvation with fear and 
trembling? for, can there be any cause of fear and trem- 
bling, lest that salvation should not be wrought out which 
God works in us irresistibly? Surely, if God works in us 
irresistibly both to will and to do, there can be no possibility 
of miscarrying, and so no ground for fear and trembling. 
Why, thirdly, are the Philippians exhorted to do this, much 
more in Paul’s absence than in his presence, if, when he was 
present, God wrought in them irresistibly to will and do, and 
could do no more in his absence? It is therefore evident 
from these considerations, that God works in us both to wil 
and to do, by giving us our wills and faculties, and then 


stirring them up to put forth their own acts. 


THE 


EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


§. 1. Tuoveu, in the pure and primitive ages of the church 
I find no controversy touching the nature of faith, or of jus- 
tification, they saying nothing of justification but as it is in- 
cluded in the article of “remission of sins;” yet seeing both 
this faith and the justification which is ascribed to it have, 
in the latter age* ministered occasion to many questions and 
disputes, canvassed with much contention, and prosecuted 
with the greates' zeal, as being judged matters of very high 


importance; and the Epistles to the Romans and the Gala- 
tians are the epistles which treat chiefly of this subject; I 
therefore shall, by way of preface to this epistle, endeavour 
to show, 

1, What is the import of the word “ faith,” in scripture, 
especially as it relates to the matter of justification, or what 
the scripture representeth as true Christian faith. 

2. What it is to be “justified,” in Paul’s acceptation of 
that word. 

3. That this justification is by Paul ascribed to faith alone, 
in opposition to works of righteousness, done either by the 
Jew or gentile. 


712 


4, That it seems necessary from the nature of the thing, 
and the state and condition of the persons to whom the gos- 
pel was then preached, that it should be so. 

5. That though this faith doth not include sincere obe- 
dience, and much less perseverance in it to the end, which 
yet are necessary and essential conditions, even of the new 
covenant ; yet, 

1. It lays the highest obligations on us to perform them, 
under the penalty of forfeiting the blessings of it. And, 

2. It tendereth sufficient motives to this obedience, and, 
where it is sincere and lasting, it will most certainly produce 
it. 

8. 2, And (1.) as for the import of the word « faith,” in 
scripture, I think scarce any thing is more evident through- 
out the whole New Testament, than that the faith there men- 
tioned is only a cordial and firm belief that Jesus is the 
Christ, the Lord, the true Messiah, or Prophet, sent from 
God, to reveal his will to the world; the Son of God, the Sa- 
viour of the world. ‘To make this manifest, 

Consider, (1.) That divine faith, in general, is only a firm 
assent to, or full persuasion of mind concerning the truth of, 
what is testified, revealed, or reported by God himself, or 
persons commissioned by God to reveal, or to bear record to 
it: for, seeing human faith is only a persuasion of the truth 
of what is told us or testified by man, divine faith must be a 
firm persuasion of the truth of what is testified or revealed 
tous by God. And this description of faith is clearly taught 
us by John, 1 John v., who having declared, ver. 4, 5, 
that the faith by which we overcome the world, is the belief 
that Jesus is the Son of God, proceeds to show we have 
great reason to believe this proposition, that Jesus is the Son 
of God: 1. Because the Holy Spirit beareth witness to it, 
and he is the Spirit of truth, ver. 6. 2. Because “ there are 
three that bear record in heaven to it, viz. the Father, the 
Word, and the Holy Ghost,” ver. 7. Now, saith he, “if we 
receive the witness of men;” if we rely upon their testi- 
mony in any court of judicature; if by the mouth of two or 
three human witnesses our weightiest matters are determined, 
shall not the witness of God be greater? i. 6. shall it not be of 
more validity for confirmation of our faith in this particular, 
that “Jesus is the Son of God?” ver. 9. Surely we cannot 
disbelieve this truth, but we must give the lie to him, saith 
the apostle, ver. 10, “because we believe not the record 
which God hath given of his Son;” but if we do receive 
this testimony on his authority, “ we set to our seal that God 
is true,” John iii. 33. 

This being, then, the nature of divine faith in general, 
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ must be a full assent to, or 
firm persuasion of mind concerning, the truth of what is 
testified, revealed, or reported by God himself, or by per- 
sons commissioned by him to reveal his will, concerning 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Or briefly thus, It is a firm persua- 
sion that he who suffered at Jerusalem was the true Messiah, 
the Saviour of the world, the Prophet who was for to come, 
that person who was constituted Lord of all things; or, which 
amounts to the same thing, that he was Christ, the Son of 
God. For explication of this proposition, 

Consider, (1.) that the scripture mentions this as the great 
thing testified concerning him, by all the witnesses of the 
Messiah ; as, v. g. 

1. By John the Baptist, who came “for a witness to 
testify of the Light,’ John i. 7, and who “ saw, and bare re- 
cord that this is the Son of God,” ver. 34: hence do John’s 
disciples say, “ He to whom thou barest witness baptizeth,” 
John iii. 26, and Christ speaks thus to the Jews, “ You sent 
to John, and he bare witness to the truth,” John v. 33. 

2. God the Father bare him record, and testified by divers 
methods, that he was the Son of God; so do we read ex- 
pressly, John ν. 32, “There is another that beareth witness 
of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of 
me is true; the Father himself, who hath sent me, beareth 
witness of me.” And again, xvii. 18, “It is written in your 
law, that the testimony of two men is true,” i. 6. it is to be 
received as such: “J am one that bear witness of myself, 
and the Father which sent me beareth witness of me.” Now 
God the Father bore witness to his Son (1.) by a voice from 
heaven, saying, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased,’ Mark i. 1]. This voice was personally di- 
rected to Christ himself, as being that commission which was 


PREFACE TO THE 


sent him from heaven, to exercise the office of God’s su- 
preme minister, or legate, in the world; but it was also pre- 
faced with an ἰδοὺ, « Behold,” directing the people to attend 
to it (Matt. 1ii.17). (3.) By giving him the power of work- 
ing miracles for confirmation of his doctrine and his own 
testimony ; and therefore he speaks thus to the people, «I 
have a greater testimony than that of John: the works which 
my Father hath given me to do, they bear witness of me, 
that the Father hath sent me” (John v. 36). 

3. The Holy Spirit beareth witness that Jesus is the Son 
of God (1 John v. 6); and this he did, not only by his de- 
scent upon our Saviour at his baptism, and by raising him 


| from the dead, he being “put to death in the flesh, but 


quickened by the Spirit” (1 Pet. iii. 18), but by enabling 
him to cast out devils, and to perform such works as never 
any other person did, or could do. Whence he thus argues, 
“If by the Spirit of God I cast out devils, then is the king- 
dom of God come to you;” 1. 6. then is it clear that I am 
the Messiah, sent from God to preach the doctrine of this 
kingdom to you (Matt. xii. 28): since my commission is 
confirmed by these operations of his Spirit, and testified to 
“by the finger of God,” as the phrase is varied, Luke xi. 20, 
and this, after our Lord’s ascension, this Spirit was to do 
more fully: “for when,” saith Christ, “the Comforter is 


| come, even the Spirit of truth, he shall testify of me” (John 


xv. 26), and this he actually did; whence Christ is said to 
be “justified by the Spirit,” 1 ‘Tim. iii. 16, i. e. freed, by his 
testimony, from the suspicion of being an impostor, or false 
pretender, when he declared he was Christ, “the Son of 
God.” 

4. The apostles were men chosen for this-very end: « Ye 
shall bear witness of me,” saith Christ, “because ye have 
been with me from the beginning” (John xv. 27). “Ye 
shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem and Judea, and 
in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.” Hence 
are they styled “ witnesses chosen of God,” Acts x. 41, “eye- 
witnesses’ of what he did and suffered, Luke i. 2, “eye- 
witnesses of his glory,” 2 Pet. i. 16; «That which we have 
heard, and seen, and looked upon, μαρτυροῦμεν, we witness, 
and declare unto you,” saith John, 1 John i. 2. 

5. Moses also and the prophets are produced as his wit- 
nesses ; for “ unto him give all the prophets witness” (Acts 
x. 43). All the scriptures: “Search the scriptures,” saith 
Christ, “for they are they which testify of me’ (John v. 
39); and Moses in particular; “for if you believed Moses, 
you would believe me: for he wrote of me” (ver. 46). 

Consider, (2.) the things for which the witnesses are pro- 
duced, the evidence they give in concerning the Messiah, 
and that will teach us what is faith in Christ. Sometimes 
it is said that they bear record that he is “the Son of God,” 
John i. 34, 1 John v. 5. 10; sometimes they testify that he 
was “the Christ; thus Paul “confounded the Jews, testi- 
fying that he was the Christ,” Acts ix. 20. 22, Peter, testi- 
fying to all the house of Israel, that “God had made him 
Lord and Christ,” Acts ii. 36: sometimes they testify that 
he was “the Saviour of the world ;” so 1 John iv. 14, “ We 
have seen and do testify, that God hath sent his Son to be 
the Saviour of the world;” or, that he was “the Lamb of 
God, that taketh away the sins of the world,” John i. 29, 
that him “God hath exalted to be a Saviour, to give repent- 
ance and remission of sins to them that believed in his name,” 
Acts v. 31, xiii. 38; sometimes they testify that he is *« Lord 
of all things,” Acts x. 36, and, as a consequent of this, that 
he, by God’s appointment, was to be judge of all men, for 
“he commanded us,” saith Peter, “to preach to the people, 
and to testify that it was he who was ordained to be the 


judge of the quick and the dead,” Acts x. 42; sometimes 
| they are said to bear witness of his resurrection, Acts i. 22, 


saying, “ This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are 
witnesses,’ Acts xxiii. 2, for “we have testified of God that 
he raised up Christ,” 1 Cor. xv. 15. 

3. Observe that all these several testimonies, though they 
differ in expressions, they differ little in reality, and in effect 
do only signify that he is Jesus Christ our Lord : for, (1.) to 
say he is “the Son of God,” is in effect to say he “is the 
Christ,’ that person by God anointed to be our prophet. 
Matthew gives us the confession of Peter thus, “Thou art 
the Christ, the Son of the living God,” xvi. 16; Mark thus, 
«“ Thou art the Christ,” viii. 29; Luke, “Thou art the Christ 


EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 


of God,” ix. 10. And when our Lord forbids them to di- 
vulge this to the world, he only saith, “ Tell no man that I 
am Jesus the Christ,’ Matt. xvi. 20. “Art thou the Christ, 
the Son of God?” saith the high-priest to him, Matt. xxvi. 
63; whereas St. Luke relates the question only thus, “ Art 
thou the Christ?” xxii. 67. (2.) To be “the Son of God, 
is, in effect, to be “the Lord of all things,” the person to 
whom all power is given in heaven and earth; that every 
knee should bow unto him, as their sovereign Lord and 
King : and, therefore, whereas Pilate is, in the other evange- 
lists, said only to ask, “ Art thou the Christ, the Son of God ?”” 
John relates the question thus, “ Art thou the King of the 
Jews!” (3.) Τὸ be « the Son of God,” must also signify to be 
“the Saviour of the world;” the testimony of the apostles 
being this, that «God had sent his Son to be the Saviour of 
the world,” 1 John iv. 14; to testify that he was “risen from 
the dead,” was in effect to testify he was “ the Son of God;” 
for he was declared to be the Son of God with power, by 
the resurrection from the dead,’ Rom. i. 4. It was in effect 
to testify that he was made “ both Lord and Christ;” and 
therefore Peter, having proved Christ’s resurrection and 
exaltation to the right hand of God, infers that we may all 
be hence assured, that “ God hath made him Lord,” Acts ii. 
36, and Paul tells us it was a demonstration that God by 
him would judge the world, Acts xvii. 31. And since his 
resurrection was performed by the almighty power of God, 
it must be a sufficient demonstration of the truth of what 
Christ testified of himself, viz. that he was “Christ the Sa- 
viour of the world,” and that he should hereafter “ sit at the 
right hand of power,” it being impossible that God should 
have employed so great power in raising him from the dead, 
had he not been his well-beloved Son, or that Messiah he 
declared himself to be. 

This being then the thing which all those witnesses were 
so concerned to attest and to engage men to believe, we may 
be sure this is, according to the tenor of the holy scripture, 
faith in Christ; and that by heartily believing that Christ is 
the Messiah, sent into the world to instruct us in the will of 
God, the Saviour of the world, sent to redeem us by his 
death from death and misery, and give salvation to all his 
faithful servants; that he is our Lord and King, by whose 
Jaws we are to be governed, and by whose laws we shall be 
judged and rewarded at the last day : we truly do believe in 
Christ. Which yet will farther be apparent, 

1, From plain texts which seem expressly to assert the 
same. We find Nathanael saying, “ Rabbi, thou art the Son 
of God; thou art the King of Israel,” John i. 49, and Christ 
thus answering to him, “ Because I saw thee under the fig- 
tree believest thou?” Whence it is evident, that to acknow- 
ledge Jesus to be the Son of God, the king of Israel, was to 
believe in him. This was the faith of the Samaritan woman 
and her fellow-citizens, John iv. 26; for to this woman our 
Saviour testifies he was the true Messiah, saying, “I that 
speak unto thee am he,” ver. 29, then the woman goes into 
the city, and saith to the men of it, “ Come, see a man that 
told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ ?” 
‘This being said, “ many of the Samaritans believed on him, 
because of the saying of the woman ;” and many more be- 
lieved, “because of his own words,” ver. 39; that is, they 
were persuaded, partly by what they heard her testify, partly 
by what they heard our Saviour speak, to acknowledge he 
was the true Messiah, or the Saviour of the world: for so 
they do themselves explain the meaning of believing on him, 
saying to the woman, “ Now we believe, not because of thy 
word: for we ourselves have heard, and know that this is 
verily the Christ, the Saviour of the world,” ver. 42. This 
was the faith of Martha: for Jesus having said to her, «I am 
the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on me, though 
he were dead, yet shall he live: believest thou this?” she 
answers, “ Yea, Lord: I believe thou art the Christ, the Son 
of God, who wast to come into the world,” John xi. 25, 26; 
1» believe this was, therefore, to believe in Christ, if Martha 
did so. We find Paul «opening and alleging that Christ 
must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead,” 
Acts xvii. 3, and that “ this Jesus,” whom he preached, “ was 
the Christ ;” and then it follows, that “ some of them believed,” 
ver. 4, ἐπείσθησαν, they were persuaded of the truth of what 
Paul had testified. Again, it follows that those of Berea, 
searching the scriptures, and finding that these things were 

Vor. IV.—90 


713 


so, believed, ver. 11, i. e. they were persuaded of the truth 
of what Paul had taught, that “ Jesus was the Christ ;” that 
he had suffered, and was risen from the dead: this therefore 
must be to believe. Again, Paul was“ pressed in spirit, and 
testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ,” Acts xviii. 
5, whereupon Crispus, “a chief ruler of the synagogue, and 
many of the Corinthians, believed ;” i. ον they acknowledged 
the truth of Paul’s testimony, that «Jesus was the Christ.” 
«The word of faith which we preach,” saith the same Paul, 
is this, that “if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, 
and in thy heart believest that God hath raised him from the 
dead, thou shalt be saved,” Rom. x. 8, 9; and this he proves, 
because the scripture saith, “ Whosoever believeth in him 
shall not be ashamed,” ver. 10. ‘To confess, therefore, and 
acknowledge that «Jesus is the Lord,” and that God raised 
him from the dead, is to believe on him. Lastly, « This,” saith 
John, ‘is the victory over the world, even our faith,” 1 John 
ν. 4; and then it follows, “ Who is he that overcometh the 
world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” 
To believe therefore that “ Jesus is the Son of God,” is Chris- 
tian faith. 

3. This was the faith which the apostles did require in 
order to baptism; and where there was a due appearance of 
it, there persons were admitted into the number of “be- 
lievers.’ For instance, Peter saith to the Jews, “Let all 
the house of Israel know that God hath made this Jesus, 
whom ye crucified, Lord and Christ,” Acts ii. 36; this pricks 
them to the heart, and makes them to inquire, “ What shall 
we do?” Peter answers, “Repent you, and believe every 
one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the 
remission of sins,” ver. 38; and then it follows, that «they 
who gladly received his word were baptized ; and there were 
added to the church three thousand souls,” ver. 41 ; and, ver. 
47, «The Lord daily added to the church, τοὺς σωζομένους, 
the saved,” i. e. such who were by his faith put into a way 
of salvation; and if they persevered in it, would obtain it. 
Again, Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and 
“preached to them Christ,” Acts viii. 5, and “when they 
believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom 
of God,” ver. 12, i.e. when they did heartily assent to them, 
«they were baptized, both men and women :” and when the 
eunuch puts the question to him, « What hindereth me to be 
baptized?” Philip returns this answer, “If thou believest 
with all thy heart, thou mayest,” ver. 37; and when the eu- 
nuch answered, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of 
God,” then was he instantly baptized; so that the faith re- 
quired to baptism was only a hearty acknowledgment that 
“Jesus Christ was the Son of God.” 

8. 3. And because there be many false, and, in my appre- 
hension, dangerous descriptions of true faith, which have ob- 
tained in these latter ages, I will here briefly lay them down, 
and then proceed to other confirmations of the scripture 
notion of true faith, by which we may abundantly discern 
the falsehood of them. Now they are such as these, viz. 

1. That “faith is a firm assent, by which every true be- 
liever is persuaded, not only that remission of sins is pro- 
mised in the general, but to him in particular.”* So Calvin; 
and after him the generality of the French and Dutch 
divines. 

2. That faith consists “in the application of Christ’s merits 
to ourselves, in casting ourselves upon the merits of Christ, 
in apprehending, relying, or laying hold upon Christ for sal- 
vation ;’} or, as others say, “it is a recumbency on Christ for 


* Synops. Purior. Theol. Disp. 31, §.1. Hane fidem jus- 
tificantem sic definimus ; nempé esse firmum assensum pro- 
missionibus evangelii, quo fidelis non tantum credit eas esse 
veras, sed etiam ad se peculiaritér -pertinere. ‘hes. Sedan. 
vol. i. p. 633, 8. 12. Nunc justa fidei definitio nobis consta- 
bit, si dicamus esse divine erga nos benevolentiw firmam 
certamque cognitionem. Calv. Instit. lib. iii. eap. 2, §. 7, 28. 

+ “The principal acts of saving faith are accepting, re- 
ceiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification.” 
Assemb. Catech. chap. 14, q. 2. 

Quo homo electus promissiones gratuites de Christo sib 
applicat, iisque suavissimé acquiescit. Wolleb. Christ. Theol. 
lib. i. cap. 39. Fides igitur ἰδία proprié dicitur justificans, 
qué recumbimus in Christum ad remissionem peccatorum ad 
salutem. Ames. Theol. lib. i. cap. 27, §. 17. 

᾿ 3x2 


714 


salvation.” Of all which notions of justifying, or true Chris- 
tian faith, this is a full confutation, that they are perfectly 
unscriptural: for the first cannot be contained in scripture, 
it being certain, to a demonstration, that scripture nowhere 
saith, that Daniel, John, or Thomas, &c., have remission of 
sins. his, therefore, cannot be divine faith, or faith built 
immediately on a divine revelation or record, but rests upon 
our own experience, or knowledge of ourselves ; for the argu- 
ment must run thus, “ He that repenteth and believeth, shall 
be saved.” I, Daniel, and Thomas, have done this; which 
may indeed be matter of their knowledge, but not of divine 
faith, as being not revealed in scripture. 

3. Nor are the other opinions less unscriptural; for we 
do not once read in scripture any command to apply Christ’s 
merits to ourselves, or to apprehend his merits, or to lean 
and roll ourselves upon him for salvation: we find no exhor- 
tation in scripture to do so; no reprehension of any person 
for not resting on, or not applying Christ’s merits to them- 
selves; no promise made to any upon the application of 
Christ’s merits: in a word, the scripture is wholly unac- 
quainted with these phrases. And is that likely to be the 
duty on which our justification, adoption, and all our happi- 
ness depends, which hath no precept, promise, or example in 
the holy scripture? But I shall add some farther confirma- 
tions of the scripture notion of true faith, by which all these 
unscriptural opinions will be at once confuted. And therefore, 

4. The scripture frequently informs us, that the miracles 
done by Christ are propounded as the great motive to believe 
on hin, and as the aggravation of their sin, who still con- 
tinue in their infidelity ; and also that the consideration of 
them caused many to believe. On this account he requires 
to be believed; «If you believe not me, believe my works” 
(John x. 38, xiv. 11): “for the works that I do bear wit- 
ness of me, that the Father hath sent me” (John v. 36, x. 
25). On this account he pronounces the infidelity of the 
Jews inexcusable, saying, “If I had not done among them the 
works that no other man did, they had not had sin ; but now 
they have no cloak for their sin” (John xv. 22. 24). 
this consideration which induced many of them to believe ; 
for “many believed on his name when they saw the miracles 
which he did” (John ii. 23, vii. 30). Now what were all 
his miracles designed to produce in them, but a firm belief 
that he was “ Christ the Son of God?” So doth John ex- 
pressly teach us, saying, “There be many other miracles 
which Jesus did, that are not written in this book; but these 
are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Son of 
God” (John xx. 80). If you imagine that faith is a firm 
assent that Christ died for you in particular, and that you 
have remission of sins by him; that it is an application of 
Christ, or of his merits to yourselves, or a rolling yourselves 
upon him for salvation; how do his miracles convince you 
that you should thus believe on him? But if you say, it is 
a firm persuasion that he is the Christ, the Son of God, no- 


It was | 


thing can be more proper to convince us of the truth of what | 


he thus declared, than these miracles; then may you say 


with Micodemus, “« We know thou art a teacher sent from | 
God : for no man can do such miracles as thou doest, except | 


God were with him” (John iii. 2). 

5. This will be yet more evident from all those places 
which ascribe our justification and salvation to faith in God, 
or in him that sert this Jesus into the world. 
Lord himself in these words, « Verily, verily, I say unto you, 


So doth our | 


He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent | 


me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemna- 


tion; but is passed from death to life” (John v. 24, xii. 44). | 


The faith of Abraham is thus described, “ Abraham believed 
God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness,” Rom. iv. 
3, i. e. this faith in God was imputed to him for righteous- 
ness: when therefore the apostle adds, that “he is the father 


of them that believe, that righteousness might be imputed to | 


them also,” ver. 9, must it not be imputed upon their believ- 
ing in God, as he did? Doth not the apostle hence infer, 
that “unto him that worketh not, but believeth in him that 
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness ?” 
wer. 5, Now to “believe in him that justifieth the ungodly,” 
is certainly to believe in God the Father, for “it is God that 
justifieth” (Rom. viii. 33). To be justified by this faith, 
mus’, therefore signify to be justified by faith in God the 


PREFACE TO THE 


Father, according to those words of Peter, “ We through him 
believe in God, that our faith and hope might be in God” 
(1 Pet. i. 21). Now if faith is supposed to consist in believ- 


| ing that our own sins are pardoned, in application of Christ’s 


merits to ourselves, or in rolling ourselves upon the person 
of Christ, what affinity or connexion is there betwixt believ- 
ing in God, believing the truth of his promises, as Abraham 
did, and was justified, and believing that our own sins are 
pardoned, applying the merits of Christ to ourselves, or roll- 
ing ourselves upon him for salvation? But then if justify- 
ing faith doth primarily consist in a firm persuasion that 
Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world; the 
Prophet sent of God to show us the way of salvation; the 
Lord and King, by whose laws we are to be governed if we 
would obtain it, then faith in Christ and faith in God are one 
thing: for God having testified all this concerning his Son 
Jesus Christ, and also promised that “every one that hath 
seen the Son and believed on him, shall have eternal life’’ 
(John vi. 40) ; by thus believing we “receive his testimony,” 
and “set to our seal that God is true.” 

6. This may be argued from all those places which ascribe 
our justification and salvation to the belief of the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ, or of God’s power excercised in raising him 
from the dead. Thus doth Paul in that very chapter in 
which he professedly disputes of justification by faith; for 
he expressly declares, that to them that “ believe in him who 
raised Jesus from the dead, that faith shall be imputed for 
righteousness,” Rom. iv. 24, as Abraham’s faith in him that 
quickened the dead was imputed unto him for righteousness. 
And again, “If we believe with the heart that God hath 
raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead, we: shall be saved ; 
for with the heart man believeth to justification,” Rom. x. 
9,10. Now what agreement is there betwixt my believing 
my own sins are pardoned, or my applying Christ's merits to 
myself, or rolling myself upon him, and Christ’s resurrection 
from the dead by the power of God? But then if we say, 
that faith is a firm persuasion that Jesus was the Son of 
God, the Saviour of the world, the Prophet that was to come 
into the world, the Lord and ruler over all; this, as he tes- 
tified of himself whilst living, and God the Father also testi- 
fied, so was he “declared to be the Son of God with power 
by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. i. 4); by this all 
Israel might “know that God bad made him Lord and 
Christ” (Acts ii. 24. 36), and that « God had exalted him 
to his right hand, to be a Prince and Saviour, to give repent- 
ance to Israel, and remission of sins” (Acts v. 31). Hence 
the apostle teacheth that Christ «died for our sins, and rose 
again for our justification,” Rom. iv. 25, and puts the ques- 
tion, “ Who is he that condemneth us? It is Christ that 
died, yea, rather that is risen again,” vill. 34. 

7. This appears farther from this consideration, that® in 
all the scriptures of the New ‘Testament, there is not to be 
found one exhortation to any Christian to believe in Christ, 
or to act faith on Christ. When the apostles preached to 


| Jews or gentiles, men not converted to the Christian faith, 


they still exhort them to believe that Jesus was the Christ, 
the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, or to “ believe in 
the Lord Jesus.” And this was necessary to be preached to 
them, to persuade them to believe in, and to obey him: for 
till they did believe he was a person sent from God, and that 
they should receive some benefit by doing so, they could 
have no inducement to own, and no encouragement to obey 
him. It was therefore necessary that this should be first 
preached to Jew and gentile, that Christ was a person sent 
from God to preach the doctrine which he taught, and that 
remission of sins and everlasting life was to be obtained by 
his name, and by obedience to this teacher. But then I say, 
the same apostles in their epistles directed to those persons 
who were already Christians, and who had testified their faith 
by being baptized in the name of Jesus, have not one exhor- 
tation to any of them to believe in Christ; but only to be 
steadfast in the faith, to increase and grow in faith, and to 
repent of what they had done contrary to the faith they had 
received. ‘The exhortations of our Lord to the seven 
churches, and more particularly to that of Sardis, in which 


τὸ Concerning this passage, see an advertisement to the 
reader at the end of this preface. 


EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 


there were but very few who had not defiled themselves | 
(Rev. iii. ἐπὰν and that of Laodicea, which he threatened | 
to spue out of his mouth for her lukewarmness (ver. 16. 18), | 
are only to repent, and to renew their first works, not to be- 
lieve in him, or to apply his merits to themselves. Now 
what account can be given of this thing by those who are so 
zealous in their sermons to exhort Christians to believe in 
Christ, to roll themselves upon him and apply his merits to | 
themselves, and are so full of motives to persuade them so to | 
do? I say what reason can they give, why men, assisted by 
the Holy Ghost, never exhorted any Christians to be- 
lieve, but only to “show forth their faith by their works” 
(James ii. 18), and to “ add unto their faith virtue?” (2 Pet. 
1. 5, ἄς.) But then if Christian faith be only a firm persua- 
sion that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of 
the world, the reason is exceeding manifest why no Christian 
should be exhorted to believe, because whoever is a Christian 
not only doth believe all this already, but hath professed his 
belief of it by being baptized in the name of Jesus. There 
therefore needs no exhortation to any Christian to believe in 
Christ, but only to walk answerably to that faith, to be 
steadfast in it, and to “add to his faith virtue, knowledge, 
temperance, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity” (2 Pet. 
i. 5. 8), that they may not be “slothful and unfruitful in the 
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” . 

Obj. If it be here objected that John saith, “These things | 
have I written to you that believe on the name of the Son 
of God, that ye may know ye have eternal life, καὶ ἵνα πισ- 
τεύητε, and ye may believe in the name of the Son of God” 
(1 John v. 13) ; [ answer, 

First, That the Alexandrian and other Greek manuscripts, 
read not καὶ ἵνα πιστεύητε, but πιστεῦυντες, “that ye may 
know ye have eternal life, who believe in the name of the 
Son of God.” And this reading is confirmed by the Vulgar, 
the Syriac, and Ethiopic versions. 

Secondly, They who retain our version interpret the words 
thus, That ye may “continue to believe in the name of the 
Son of God ;” or, that ye may “more firmly and certainly 
believe.”* Nor will the words bear any other meaning, un- | 
less you will suppose John shonld seriously exhort believers 
to begin to do what he had told them, in the immediate pre- 
ceding words, was so effectually done by them already, that 
they might «know they had eternal life.” 

In a word, either it is true before we actually believe it, 


that our sins are pardoned, that we have a right to apply | 


Christ's merit to us, and to roll ourselves upon his person 
for salvation, or it is not. If it be true before we have be- 
lieved, we must have faith before, since nothing can produce 
his pardon of our sins, or give us any right to apply his 
merits to ourselves, or depend on him for salvation, but 
faith in Christ. If it be not true, we must obtain the par- 
don of our sins, and an interest in Christ’s merits, by believ- 
ing a lie: and so much for the first particular. ᾿ΓῸ the next 
inquiry ; 

§. 4. Secondly, What is it to be “justified” in Paul’s ac- | 
ceptation of the word? I answer, 

First, That this justification which Paul speaks of, is an 
act of God terminated upon man. ‘This the apostle expressly 
doth deliver in these words, “ Who shall lay any thing to 
the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies,” Rom. 
viii. 33. And again, “It is one God that justifies the cir- 
cumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith,” 
Rom. iii. 30. “It is God that justifieth the ungodly,” Rom. 
iv. 5. “He is just, and the justifier of him that believeth in 
Jesus,” Rom. iii. 26. Now, according to the clear tenor of 
the scripture, 

Secondly, God justifies the sinner by absolving him from 
the guilt of his past sins, by a free act of grace in pardoning 
his iniquities, or not imputing his sins to him, and so his 
justification must import his absolution from the guilt of sin, 
and, as a necessary and immediate consequence of that, our 
being reconciled to God, and received into favour with him. 
This will be evident, if we consider, 


* Ut certitis et firmius credant. Calv. Ut in fide per- 
severetis. Vorst. Episcop. “That ye may be encouraged to 


coutinue in the faith.” Dr. Hammond. Πιστεύειν ἀδιατάκτως, 
cum. 


715 


First, What the Baptist testified concerning him, that all 
men might believe, viz. that he was “the Lamb of God, that 
taketh away the sins of the world” (John i. 29); and what 
Christ testified of himself, viz. that “ he that believeth in him 


should not come into condemnation” (John iil. 36) ; that 


his blood was “the blood of the new covenant, which was 
shed for the remission of sins” (Matt. xxvi. 28), even of 
that covenant in which God promises to be “ merciful to our 
unrighteousness, and to remember our iniquities no more” 
(Heb. viii. 13, x. 17). As also from what his apostles pro- 
mised to win men to the faith of Jesus, viz. remission of 
sins. ‘Thus, when the Jews were pricked to the heart, and 
said, “What shall we do?’ Peter answers, “Repent ye, 
and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remis- 
sion of sins,” Acts ii. 37. And again, “ Repent you, and 
be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,” Acts iii. 
19: for “him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a 
Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins,” Acts v. 
13. Peter begins his sermon to Cornelius thus, “The word 
which God hath sent us to preach, is peace by Jesus Christ,” 
Acts x. 36. “To him give all the prophets witness, that 
through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive 
remission of sins.’ Acts xiii. 23, Paul declares that “God 
had raised up to Israel a Saviour, Jesus :” and then he adds, 
“Known therefore be it to you, that through this man is 
preached to you remission of sins; and in him every believer 
on him shall be justified from all things, from which they 
could not be justified by the law of Moses,” Heb. x. 1. 4, 
that law being not able to take away sins, Rom. iii. 23, i. e. 
to free men from the guilt of sin. Seeing then the benefit 
proposed to the believer, is the remission of sins to be ob- 
tained through Christ, through his name ; seeing we are said 
to be justified through Christ, Rom. v. 9, through faith in 
his blood, Eph. i. 7, that blood which is so often said to be 
«shed for the remission of our sins,” Col. i. 14. 20, and to 
procure our peace and our redemption ; since, lastly, we are 
said by believing in Christ to be justified from sin, Acts xiil. 
39, which phrase can only signify exemption from the con- 
demnation of it: I say, from these expressions it appears, 
that God’s justification of a sinner by faith, or through faith 
in the blood of Jesus, is chiefly the remission of the believ- 
er’s sins, and the exemption of him from the condemnation 
of the law, by virtue of Christ’s blood shed for the remission 
of sins. 

2. This we may learn from the reasonings by which the 
apostle confirms his conclusion, orthe arguments by which 
he proves, that both Jew and gentile are to be justified by 
faith without the works of the law, or without works. His 
conclusion is laid down, Rom. i. 17, thus, “The righteous- 
ness of God (which proceeds) from faith, is revealed in the 
gospel, to (beget) faith in Jew and gentile,” ver. 16 (see the 
note there). And this way of obtaining righteousness or 
justification he proves to be absolutely necessary to them 
both, beginning first with the gentiles, whom he pronounces 
subject to the wrath of God, for “holding the truth” they 
by the light of nature knew “in unrighteousness,” ver. 18. 
And this he proves to the end of that chapter, which con- 
cludes thus, that they, “ knowing the judgment of God, that 
they who did such things were worthy of death, not only 
did the same, but had pleasure in them that did them.” In 


| the second chapter he declares the Jews guilty of the same 


things the heathens did, and so obnoxious to the same con- 
demnation, and also guilty of violating the law of Moses; 
and thence concludes, that as to this matter there was no 
difference between them, he having proved both Jews and 
gentiles to be “all under sin” (iii. 9), and so both equally 
needing to be justified by faith, or to be justified freely by 
an act of grace, pardoning their sins through faith in Christ 
(ver. 24). His argument then is plainly this; both Jew 
and gentile lie under the guilt of sin, there being “none of 
them that is righteous” (Rom. iii. 9), i. e. free from sin, 
“no not one” (ver. 10). Neither of them can be justified 
by the law, because they by the sentence of it are ὑπόδικοι 
τῷ Θεῷ, “guilty before God” (ver. 19, 20), and obnoxious 
to punishment, as being both transgressors of it; therefore, 
saith he, “by the law can no flesh be justified, for by the 
law is the knowledge of sin,” rendering us obnoxious to 
condernnation: where then there remains the guilt of sin, 
there can be no justification; where therefore there is re- 


716 


mission of sin, and so a freedom from being guilty of it be- 
fore God, there is justification. Again, “ All have sinned,” 
saith he, “and fallen short of the glory of God” (ver. 23) ; 
that is, either of his approbation, as that phrase signifies, 
John xii. 43, or of the fruition of the glory of God, as it 
imports, Rom. v. 1, 2; therefore absolution from this sin 
must be sufficient to make us obtain this glory of God. We 
who have thus sinned, saith he, “are justified freely by his 
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (ver. 
24). Now what is this redemption? It is, saith the same 
apostle twice, “remission of our sins,’ Eph. i. 7, Col. 1. 14. 
The apostle argues to the same effect in the Epistle to the 
Galatians, that justification cannot be by the law, « because 
the law cannot give life ;’ and this it cannot do, because 
the scripture “hath concluded all under sin’’ (Gal. iii. 21, 
22), and so shut out that way of being justified: our free- 
dom therefore from the guilt of sin must be sufficient for 
our justification to life. In his fourth chapter to the Ro- 
mans he describes justification by the not imputing sin, and 
the forgiveness of it, in these words, “ΤῸ him that worketh 
not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his 
faith is counted for righteousness, as David speaks of the 
blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth right- 
eousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose 
unrighteousness is forgiven, and whose sin is covered ; blessed 
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not sin” (ver. 5—8). 
Since then the blessedness of which the apostle was discours- 
ing was that of justification, the justification of the ungodly, 
and since this blessedness is said to consist in the remission, 
covering, the not imputing his sins to him, it cannot reason- 
ably be denied, that the blessedness of a justified person is 
here described by the blessedness of a pardoned person, as 
being one and the same thing. 

3. This will be farther evident from the consideration of 
the phrases the apostle useth as equivalent to justification, 
and interpretative of it. As, 

1. Reconciliation to God: that this is the same with jus- 
tification, appears by these words; “ Much more being justi- 
fied by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath by him: for 
if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the 
death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be 
saved by his life,” Rom. v. 9, 10, where to be “justified by 
his blood,” and “reconciled by his death,” seem plainly the 
same thing. Now, that reconciliation is effected by the re- 
mission of sins, is evident from these words; “God was in 
Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing 
their trespasses unto them,” 2 Cor. ν. 19, and therefore jus- 
tification also must be so obtained: for if, upon the not im- 
puting sin to us, God did not account us as righteous, he 
could not be reconciled to us, because he cannot be recon- 
ciled to any man continuing unrighteous, or under the no- 
tion of a sinner. 

2. Justification stands utterly opposed to condemnation, 
in these words; “ Who shall lay any thing to the charge of 
God’s elect,” or to believers? Τίς ἐγκαλέσει κατὰ, who shall 
object a crime against them? “It is God that justifieth, 
who is he that condemneth them?” Rom. i. 33, 34, And 
again, “If the administration of condemnation,” i. e. the 
law, which chargeth us with guilt, and so rendereth us ob- 
noxious to condemnation, “was glorious, much more the 
ministration, τῆς δικαιοσύνης, of justification, doth exceed in 
glory,” 2 Cor. iii. 9. Now what is it that mankind is ac- 
cused of, and charged with by the law, but sin? What is 
it that they stand condemned for at God's bar, but the 
transgression of his law? Justification, therefore, which 
stands opposed to it, must be a clearing and discharging 
them from the guilt or the condemning power of sin. 

3. Justification is said to be from sin; “ By him all that 
believe are justified, ἐκ πάντων, from all those sins from 
which they could not be justified by the law of Moses,” 
Acts xix. 39. And again, “The judgment was from one 
sin to condemnation, but the free gift to justification, ἐκ 
πολλῶν ἁμαρτημάτων, from many sins,’ Rom. ν. 16. Now 
what can justification from sin signify besides our absolution 
from the guilt of sin? 

4. The justifying the believer and the remission of his 
sins are divers expressions of the same thing, as is apparent 
from these words, «God hath set forth Christ to be a propi- 
tiation through faith in his blood:” this he hath done, saith 


PREFACE TO THE 


the apostle, “to declare his righteousness in the remission 
of sins,” Rom. iii. 25, viz. to those that have this faith, i. e. 
to manifest the way of justification by faith, which he alone 
admits of for the remission of sins. He did this, saith the 
next verse, “to declare his righteousness, that he might be 
just,” in requiring this propitiation for our sins, “and the 
justifier of him that believeth in Jesus,” ver. 26, Is it not 
therefore manifest, that to justify the believer and to remit 
his sins, must be the same thing ? 

5. “ We are justified,” saith the apostle, “through the 


| redemption that is in Jesus, through faith in his blood,’ 


Rom. iii. 24, 25, “through his blood,’ Rom. v. 9. Now 
what doth this blood procure for us? ‘Forgiveness of 
sins,” Eph, i. 7, Col. i. 14, saith the apostle, it being “shed 
for the remission of sins,” Matt. xxvi. 28, he appearing “in 
the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of 
himself,” Heb. ix. 26. What benefit have believers by it? 
“He hath loved them, and washed them from their sins in 
his blood,” Rev. i. 5; he hath made peace for them ‘by 
the blood of his cross,” Col. i. 20, with a God only angry 
for sin; he hath “obtained eternal redemption” from 
transgressions by it, Heb. ix.12. 15. By all these equiva- 
lent expressions it appears, that God’s justifying the sinner, 
in Paul’s sense of the expression, is his absolving him from 
the guilt of his past sins, from punishment and condemna- 
tion by the law for them, by an act of grace and free pardon 
of them through the blood of Jesus; his being as fully re- 
conciled to us as if we never had offended against the former 
covenant we were all under, till the new covenant was esta- 
blished in the blood of Jesus. 

§. 5. Thirdly, I add, that this justification is, by St. 
Paul, ascribed to faith alone, in opposition to works of 
righteousness done, either by the Jew or gentile. This 
plainly follows from that notion of justification which I 
have established as the true sense of the expression in Paul; 
for how could Jew or gentile be justified by the works of 
that law, whether Mosaical or natural, which rendered them 
both obnoxious to condemnation for sin, and guilty before 
God? Could they receive remission of sins by compliance 
with that law which left them under condemnation for it? 
Can any man imagine, after the charge he lays against the 


| gentiles, ch. i., and against the Jews, ch. ii. iil., he could 


have any inclination to assert they should be justified, or 
absolved from the guilt of those offences, by their works, 
and not by faith only? The mistake in this matter seems 
to lie here, that men look upon justification, not as looking 
backward only, and procuring an absolution from our past 
sins ; but as looking forward to our whole Christian conver- 
sation, and importing our absolution from all our sins com- 
mitted against the tenor of the covenant of grace, or the 
new covenant; whereas it only doth consist, ἐν τῇ παρέσει 
τῶν mpoyeyovérwy ἁμαρτημάτων, “in the remission of our past 
sins,” Rom. iii. 25, in the “redemption of us from τῶν ἐπὶ 
τῇ πρώτη διαϑήκη παραβάσεων, the sins committed against our 
former covenant,” Heb. ix. 15, in the purgation of the be- 
liever, τῶν πάλαι αὐτοῦ ἁμαρτιῶν, “from his old sins,” 2 Pet. 
i. 9, and leaves us afterward to be absolved or condemned, 
as we obey, perform, or violate the conditions of the new 
covenant, and so to be judged hereafter, not according to our 
faith, but works (see the note on Rom. iii. 25). 

Secondly, This is exceeding evident from the plain words 
of the apostle, and by the arguments by which he proves we 
must be justified by faith, and not by works. « For,” saith 
he, “by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in 
his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of (that) sin 
(which renders us obnoxious to condemnation).” Now this 
knowledge of sin, being chiefly produced by the moral law, 
Rom. vii. 7, shows the apostle excludes as well that as the 
ceremonial law from justification. And evident it is, that 
the antithesis runs all along not between ceremonial and 
moral works, or between works done by the law of Moses, 
or by the tenor of the law of nature, but between works in 
general, and faith, the law of works and the law of faith. 
Again, “ We are,” saith he, “justified freely by his grace,” 
Rom. iii. 24, 1. 6. by a free act of grace,in pardoning our 
past sins, by which we had “fallen short of the glory of 
God.” Now a free act of grace is still opposed to works. 
Thus, if our election or calling to the faith of Christ, «be of 
grace, then is it not of works,” Rom. xi. 6. “By grace ye 


EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.. 


are saved through faith, not of works,” Eph. ii. 8, 9 (see 
the note there). ‘ Not by works of righteousness which we 
had done,” before the goodness and loving-kindness of God 
our Saviour appeared to us, “ but according to his mercy he 
saved us,” Tit. ili. 5 (see the note there). Moreover, “ we 
reckon,” saith he, “that a man is justified by faith without 
the works of the law,” ver. 28, where it is on all sides 
granted, that the works of the law of Moses are entirely ex- 
cluded from justification by faith, and then much more the 
works of the gentiles; it being “the same God who justifies 
the cireumcision by faith, and the uncircumeision through 
fuith,”’ ver. 30. In the next chapter he saith, “ΤῸ him 
that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the 
ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness,” Rom. iv. 5. 
Now, how can the ungodly be justified by works, and by 
what words can works be more entirely excluded, than by 
not working ? 

Thirdly, That evangelical obedience, or works of right- 
eousness, done by us after faith in Christ, are excluded 
from that faith which justifies, is evident, because they fol- 
low the faith which justifies, i. e. procures the pardon of our 
past sins. “For,” saith the apostle, “we are saved” from 
the wrath due unto us for our past sins, Rom. v. 9, or, we 
are put into the way or state of salvation “ by grace through 
faith, not of works; for we are created in Jesus Christ to 
good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk 
in,” Eph. ii. S—10. So that we must be first in Christ by 
virtue of this faith, before we can be fitted to do works of 
evangelical righteousness. And this argument may be con- 
firmed from many instances of persons who believed, and 
were immediately baptized the same day; for, being bap- 
tized “for the remission of sins,” they must be justified. 
Thus, at Peter’s sermon, three thousand believed, and were 
“baptized the same day,” Acts ii. 41. Thus the Samari- 
tans, upon the hearing Philip preach “concerning the king- 
dom of God, and the name of the Lord Jesus,” were imme- 
diately baptized, Acts viii. 12; so also was the eunuch upon 
his preaching to him, ver. 38; so was Cornelius, and all 
that heard Peter’s sermon, Acts x. 48; so was the gaoler, 
and “all his house straightway,’? Acts xvi. 33 (see Acts ix. 
35. 42, xi. 21, xiii) 12. 48, 49, xiv. 1, xvii. 4, 12. 34, xix. 
1s. Now what evangelical obedience could these men per- 
form to render them justified by works? 

Fourthly, This may be fairly argued from the example of 
Abraham’s justification, and the passage whence St. Paul 
concludes it; “ Abraham believed God, and it was imputed 
to him for righteousness:” for it deserves to be observed, 
that Abraham had faith, or was a believer, before this was 
said unto him; for “ by faith Abraham, being called, obeyed, 
and went forth,” Heb. xi. 8, and after by a strong faith he 
offered up his son Isaac, “believing that God was able to 
raise him from the dead,” ver. 17. But neither of these in- 
stances is pitched upon by the apostle as fit for his purpose, 
because in both obedience was joined with faith, whereas 
here was a pure act of faith without works; and of this act 
of faith it is said, what is not said of either of the other, «it 
was imputed to him for righteousness.” If therefore thus it 
was in the example of the «father of the faithful,” we may 
hence conclude it was so also in the children of “ faithful 
Abraham.” 

Lastly, The scripture is express and frequent in this asser- 
tion, that believers are justified by faith; in which expres- 
sion either faith must include works, or evangelical obedi- 
ence, or it doth not; if it doth not, we must be justified by 
faith alone: and that it doth not formally include works of 
evangelical righteousness, appears, 

First, From the plain distinction which the scripture puts 
between them, when it informs us, Gal. v. 6, James ii. 18. 
22,2 Pet. i. 5,6, Rom. xvi. 26, 1 Thess. i. 3, that “ faith 
works by love, acts with our works, and is made perfect by 
them ;” when it calls upon us to “show forth our faith 
by our works,” and to “add to our faith, virtue, know- 


ledge, godliness, temperance, patience, brotherly-kindness, | 


’ and 


charity ;” and when it speaks of the “works of faith,’ 
the “ obedience of faith.” 

Secondly, Faith, in the nature of it, is only an assent to a 
testimony; divine faith, an assent to a divine testimony ; 
faith in Christ, an assent to the testimony given by God of 
Christ. Now it is not reasonable to conceive, that Christ 


717 


| and his apostles, making use of a word which had this known 

and fixed import, should mean more by the word than what 
] it signified in common use, as sure they must have done, had 
| they included in the meaning of the word the whole of our 
| evangelical righteousness. ‘Though therefore faith is the 

spring and the foundation of that righteousness, and, where 
| it is cordial and lasting, will most assuredly produce it; yet 
| is not that righteousness included in the very nature, or con- 
tained in the very import of it. 

Obj. But doth not St. James say expressly, that “a man 
| is justified by works,” and “not by faith only 1) ii. 24. 
| Ans. In answer to this capital objection, I shall first 
| produce the words of the apostle James, with a short para- 
| phrase, and then return a positive answer to the objection. 
‘The words I paraphrase thus: 

Ver. 14. (And let not any Jew or Christian think his 
faith sufficient to justify and save him, without those works 
of charity and mercy here spoken of, ver. 8—13, for) what 
doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, (ἐς δ. 
in words profess to have fuith in God, ver. 19, or in Christ, 
ver. 1,) and have no works (to evidence the truth of that 
profession) ? can (such a naked, fruitless) faith save him ? 

Ver. 15. “If a brother or sister be naked, or destitute of 
daily food ; 

Ver. 16. “And one of you say unto them, Depart in 
peace, be you warmed and filled, (snaking profession of 
compassion for and good will to them in your words, but) 
notwithstanding ye give them not those things which be 
needful for (‘he clothing or feeding of ) the body, what doth 
it profit (them to hear your kind words) 2 

Ver. 17. “Even so faith ( professed with the mouth), if it 
hath not works (answerable to that profession, or conse- 
quent upon it), is dead (and fruitless as those words), being 
alone (¢. 6, without works showing the truth of it). 

Ver. 18. «Yea, a man may say (/o such a solifidian), 
Thou hast (in profession) faith, and I have (real) works: 
show ime thy faith (which thou professest) without thy works 
(which thou canst never do, faith being seated in thy heart, 
and only discoverable by its effects), and I will show thee by 
my works my faith (as the cause is demonstrated by the 
effect). 
gh ae 19. «Thou (being a Jew) believest there is one 
God; thou (in this) doest well: (but doest no more than 
the very devils; for) the devils also believe and tremble 
(and if thow hast no better faith than they, thow hast the 
same reason to tremble which they have). 

Ver. 20. “ But wilt thou know, O vain man (who makest 
Frefesion of such a naked faith), that faith without works 
15 dead? (and so unable to justify or save thee: see it in 
the example of that very Abraham, in thy relation to whom 
thou so confidest : 

Ver. 21. « For) was not Abraham (whom we style) our 
father justified by works (proceeding from his faith), when 
he had offered his son Isaac upon the altar? (counting 
that God was able to raise him from the dead, Heb. xi. 17. 
19.) 

Ver. 22. “Seest thou how (Gr. thou seest by this example 
that) faith wrought with his works (to produce them) ? and 
by works was faith made perfect (and advanced in him to 
the greatest height). 

Ver. 23. “ And the scripture was (again) fulfilled, which 
saith, Abraham believey (in) God, and it (viz. that faith 
which produced these works) was accounted to him for 
righteousness: and (upon that account) he was called the 
Friend of God. 

Ver. 24. “Ye see then how that by works (proceeding 
from fuith) a man is justified, and not by faith only (i. e. 
being alone, and without them.) 

Now, in answer to the objection from these words, I say, 

That when Paul saith, we are justified “ by faith without 
the works of the law,” and that “to him that worketh not, 
but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, faith is im- 
puted for righteousness,” or to justification; justification 
there ascribed to faith without works, imports only our ab- 
solution from condemnation by reason of our past sins com- 
mitted before faith in Christ, and our reconciliation to God 
by the pardon of them, or the not imputing them to those 
who believe in him. This I have shown already. and it is 
apparent, from the chief argument the apostle useth, to prove 


718 


that both Jew and gentile should be justified freely by his 
grace, and not by works, because they were all under sin, | 
and become guilty before God, all having “ sinned, and come 
short of the glory of God,” Rom. iii. 9. 19. 23, whereas, 

saith he, “ being justified by faith, we have peace with God, 

and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,” Rom. v. 1, 2. 

Therefore, ch. iii, he must be speaking of the condition 

both of Jew and gentile, before faith in Christ. So again 

when the apostle saith, “The scripture hath concluded all 

under sin, that the promise (of justification) by (the) faith of 

Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe (in him). 

Wherefore the law was (then) our schoolmaster to bring us 

to Christ, that we might be justified by faith (in him) ; but 

now, after that faith is come, we are no longer under a 

schoolmaster (i. e. under the pedagogy of the law); for ye 

are all the children of God through faith in Jesus Christ,” | 
Gal. iti. 22—26, he plainly insinuates that we cannot be jus- 

tified by the works of the law, because the law leads us to | 
Christ for justification. And again, “ We are justified by 
grace, not of works; for we are God’s workmanship, cre- 
ated in Christ Jesus to good works,” Eph. ii. 10; where the 
argument seems plainly to run thus, We cannot be justified 
by works preceding faith, because we do no good works till 
by faith we are interested in Christ Jesus: whereas James | 
speaks plainly of those works which follow faith, are wrought 
by it, and are the effects of it, and of their necessity in or- | 
der to our continuance in a state of justification, and our | 
freedom from final condemnation. James speaks of a mere 
profession of faith with the mouth; Paul of believing from 
the heart: James of a faith dead and fruitless, when we have 
it; Paul of a faith working by love when we have it, and of 
a person only justified without works, because he had no 
faith to produce them. 

§. 6. Fourthly, It seemeth necessary from the nature 
of the thing, and the state and condition of the persons to 
whom the gospel was first preached, that they should be 
justified, or absolved from the guilt of their past sins, without 
new obedience, or without actual obedience to all the com- 
mandments of Christ; though not without that faith which 
did engage them to it, and was sufficient to produce it. 
For, 

First, This was all that could be done by the convinced 
Jews or gentiles, who at one sermon or discourse believed, 
and were baptized for the remission of sins. It is manifest 
they then knew but little of the commandments of Christ, 
and so could not be doers of them. Either then they were 
not justified, and faith is not “ imputed to them for right- 
eousness,” nor did baptism consign to them “ remission of | 
sins;” or they were justified by that faith which did not in- 
clude actual obedience to all the commandments of Christ, 
as the condition of that justification. And seeing perse- 
verance to the end, and being “ faithful to the death,” are 
by our Lord himself made the condition of salvation, and of 
receiving from his hands “the crown of life;” if these be 
also the conditions of the justification promised to faith in | 
Christ, no person is or can be justified by faith till he dies. | 
This faith, therefore, in Jew and gentile, thus converted, 
could only import three things: (1.) By way of preparation 
for it, an owning the true God, who gave this testimony to 
his Son, and so a “turning from dumb idols to serve the 
living God,” and a sorrow for their sins committed against 
him in the time of their ignorance; and in the Jews, a sor- 
row for their past sins, and in particular for having “cruci- 
fied the Lord of life ;”’ and in this sense repentance goes 
before faith: and Christ’s apostles preached to the Jews 
“repentance for the remission of sins through faith in his 
name,” Acts. xiv. 15, and to the gentiles, to “ turn from these 
vain things to the living God, who made heaven and earth ;” | 
and to both, “repentance towards God, and faith in our 
Lord Jesus Christ,” Acts xx. 21. (2.) As a means to obtain | 
this remission of sins, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (3.) | 


An engagement for the future to cease from sin, and to give 
up themselves to the service of God, according to the rules 
and precepts delivered to them by his Son. Now this en- 
gagement was virtually contained in their repentance and 
their faith in Christ, and was solemnly made by them at | 
their baptism, as will be proved hereafter. Now this being 
all that they could then do, it must be all they were obliged 
to do, ir order to their justification; and yet it is certain, 


| God. 


PREFACE TO THE 


that a promise of obedience is not obedience, and that even 
the new covenant requires, in order to salvation, a sincere 
and constant performance of the obedience thus promised : 
so that the conditions of salvation, and of justification from 
our past offences, can never be the same. 

Secondly, This will be farther evident, if we consider that 
no man can enter into covenant with God, be reconciled to 
him, be admitted to his grace and favour, or be enabled to 
serve him acceptably, till his sins be pardoned; for God 
cannot be reconciled to sinners whilst they continue under 
the guilt of sin unpardoned ; nor can he enter into covenant 
with them, or receive them to his grace and favour, or ace 
cept their services, till he be reconciled to them. When 
God entered into covenant with his own people, a sacrifice 
was first offered to make atonement for their sins, and the 
blood of it was sprinkled upon all the people (Heb. ix. 19) ; 
and the new covenant, in which he promised to “be merei- 
ful to our iniguities, and to remember our sins no more,” 
was established in the blood of Jesus shed for the remission 


| of our sins: so that the sins of a believer must be imme- 


diately pardoned upon his faith in Christ, or he can have no 
peace with God, no reconcilement to him, no interest in the 
new covenant, and be in no capacity to do him any accept- 
able service. ‘This is the import of those words, “ Christ 


suffered for our sins, ἵνα ἡμᾶς προσαγάγη τῶ Oca, that he 
| μ pee τὰ : 


might bring us to God,” 1 Pet. iii. 18, for “to bring us to 
God,”’ in all other places of the New Testament in which 
this phrase is used with respect to Christ, is to give us free- 
dom of access to God, who by our sins were formerly ex- 
cluded from it, and banished from his gracious presence: 
« By him,” saith the apostle, “we have προσαγωγὴν πρὸς τὸν πα- 
τέρα, admission to the Father,” Eph. ii. 18. By him we do 
obtain “a freedom εἰς τὴν προσαγωγὴν, of access to God with 
confidence,” Eph. iii. 12. This is obtained, saith the same 
apostle, by virtue of Christ’s blood; for “we, who some- 
times were afar off, are by the blood of Christ brought nigh 
unto him, for he is our peace,” ver. 13, 14, and he hath re- 
conciled both Jew and gentile to God by his cross. If then 
the blood of Christ procured this freedom of access to God, 
it is certain we had no freedom of access to him without it; 
and it is as certain we must have it by that faith which 
giveth us an interest in the propitiation purchased by it. 

To set this matter in the clearest light, and show the rea- 
son why it was necessary that such an act of grace in par- 
doning our past sins upon our faith in Christ should be 
vouchsafed, that so we might be reconciled to God, capaci- 
tated for his friendship, and fitted for his service, let it be 
observed, 

First, That “to come to God,” is to approach him in the 
way of worship, as in those words, “" He that cometh to God 
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them 
that diligently seek him,” Heb. xi. 6 (see Psal. xlii. 2, Ixv. 
2, Ixxxvi. 9, xcv. 26, Isa. i. 12). 

Secondly, That God being a holy God, none were to come 
into his presence who had any pollution or defilement upon 
them, upon pain of death, till they were sanctified, or cleansed 
from it, by some purification or atonement made for them to 
He dwelt in the whole camp of Israel, and so those 
lepers, who were so unclean as to pollute the camp, were 
driven from it (Lev. xiii. 46, Numb. v. 2, 3, 2 Kings xv. 5): 
and those sin-offerings which were polluted with the sins of 
the whole congregation, were carried out of the camp (Lev. 
Xvi. 21, 22. 27, Heb. xiii. 11). God dwelt more especially 


| in the temple, and therefore they who had lesser impurities, 


i. e. who were defiled by the dead, or by an issue, aqd all 
menstruous women, were not to come thither till they were 
cleansed from those defilements (Ley. xii. 14, xv. 21). 
Moreover, he being a God “of purer eyes than to behold 
iniquity,” they who had committed any sin of ignorance, or 
lay under the guilt of it, were not permitted to come into the 
court of the God of Israel till they had brought their offering 
of atonement (see Ainsworth on Numb. v. 3). 

Thirdly, They who had no ceremonial defilement to be 
purged away, and no known sin to make atonement for, were 
admitted to come near to God, as being holy; they had 
προσαγωγὴν τῷ Gea, “a freedom of access to God” in his 
tabernacle, and in his temple; whence they are styled, ὁ λαῦς 
ἐγγίζων αὐτῷ, “the people that draw near to God,” Ps. lxv. 
4, exlviii. 14, Lev. x. 3. And God is said to be 6 Θεὸς 


EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 


719 


ἐγγίζων αὐτοῖς, “a God drawing near to them,” Deut. vii. 4, | iii. 5); and to encourage us to “do evil that good may come” 


both by relation, as having owned them as his children, and 
entered into covenant to be their God, and by his more 
especial presence with them; for the Shechinah, or the glo- 
rious presence, dwelt among them in the holy place, and so 
to them belonged, ἡ λατρεία, the privilege of coming to his 
court to worship him, and a promise of his blessing if they 
sincerely did it: whereas the heathens, who by reason of 
their idolatry were not permitted to serve him, are said to be 
« afar off,” and so far without God in the world, as to have 
no freedom of access to his service, no such converse with 
him, or relation to him (Eph. 1. 12, 13. 17. 19). 

Now God being still as holy a God as ever, and still « of 
purer eyes than to behold iniquity,” the scriptures of the New 
‘Testament seem as plainly to make our freedom of access to 
God to depend upon our being sanctified in the sacrificial 
sense, i. δ. our being purged and delivered from the guilt of 
sin by an atonement made for us by the blood of Christ, that 
our sins being thus pardoned through faith in his blood, we 


may have peace with God, and an access to his favour. This | 
plainly seems to be the import of those words, “If the blood | 


of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the 
unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh” (and by so 
doing procureth an admission of the person cleansed to serve 
God in the sanctuary), “how much more shall the blood of 
Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself with- 
out spot to God (for us), purge your conscience from dead 
works, (or works exposing you to death, the punishment 
of the person who came unclean into God’s presence, that 
so you may be admitted) to serve the living God!” Heb. 
ix. 12 (see the notes there). So again, the apostle having 
said that the covenant established in the blood of Christ was 
this, that he would “be merciful to our iniquities, and re- 
member our sins no more ;” and having thence inferred, that 
having thus obtained remission for us, there was no need that 
he should make himself again “an offering for sin,” he adds, 
that “ therefore we may draw near to God with full assurance 
of faith,” that we shall be accepted through the Beloved, 
“as having our hearts sprinkled” by his blood, and therefore 
cleansed from all guilt of conscience, “and our bodies washed 
(by baptism) with pure water” (Heb. x. 16—21). 

Two things observed by the judicious Dr. Barrow seem 
here considerable : 

First, “ That the apostle in this discourse implies that no 
precedent dispensation had exhibited any manifest overture 
or promise of pardon, and upon that account we were in a 
main point defective ; for the light of nature doth only direct 
to duty, condemning every man in his own judgment and 
conscience, who transgresseth ; but as to pardon, in case of 
transgression, it is blind and silent: and the law of Moses 
rigorously exacteth punctual obedience, denouncing in ex- 
press terms a condemnation and curse to the transgressors of 
itin any part; and so it was a law, οὐ δυνάμενος ζωοποιῆσαι, 
‘not able to give life’ (Gal. iii. 21), or save us from death. 
Hence doth the apostle lay down this as the foundation of 


this whole dispute, that the gospel alone was the ‘ power of | 


God through faith to the salvation’ both of Jew and gentile, 
Rom. i. 16, 17, because in that alone was ‘ the righteousness 
of God by faith revealed’ to beget faith in them, even the 
faith by which ‘the just shall live,’ declaring that no prece- 
dent dispensation could justify any man, and that a man is 
justified by faith, or hath an absolute need of such a justifi- 
eation as that which the gospel tendereth. Λογιζόμεϑα οὖν, 
‘We therefore collect, saith he, ‘that a man is justified by 
faith without the works of the law,’ whether natural or Mo- 
saical; which justification must therefore import their re- 
ceiving that free pardon which the criminal and guilty world 
did stand in need of, and without which no man could have 
any comfort in his mind, or peace with God : for if the state 
of man was a state of rebellion, and so of heinous guilt, of 
having forfeited God's favour, and of obnoxiousness to his 
wrath, then that justification, which he needed, must be a 
dispensation of mercy removing that guilt, and restoring him 
to the favour of God.” 

And this may also strongly be argued from the objections 
which the Jew and gentile made against this doctrine of jus- 
tification by a free act of grace, that it seemed to render it 
unjust in God to take vengeance on those sins which tended 
so highly to the glory of God’s grace (see the note on Rom. 


(see the note on ver. 8) ; and more especially from the ob- 
jections which be answers, vi. 1. 15. - For thus they run; τί 
οὖν ἐροῦμεν ; * What do we say then? (do we say this,) Let 
us (who have received this grace) continue (still) in sin, that 
grace may abound (towards us)!’ And ver. 15, « What 
then, shall we (go on in) sin, because we are not under the 
law (which condemns us to death for every transgression), 


| but under (that covenant of) grace (which allows the par- 


don, and promises the forgiveness of it)?” ‘That is, do we, 
by declaring that “we are justified freely by his grace, 
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (iii. 24), 
and that “as sin abounded, grace did more abound,” give just 
occasion for these inferences? Now, if the faith to which 
Paul, in this discourse, ascribed our justification, did not 
oblige us to, but even comprehend and include evangelical 
and constant obedience, what colour could there be for these 
objections? And therefore, 

Secondly, The doctor (p. 83) proposes it as his conjecture, 
that the apostle in this discourse designedly sets himself to 
answer this objection of the Jew and gentile against this doc- 
trine of Christianity ; viz. That it did upon so slender a con- 
dition or performance as that of faith, tender to all persons 
indifferently, howsoever culpable their former lives had been, 
a plenary remission of their sins, and reception into God's 
favour. ‘The Jews could not conceive or relish, that any man 
so easily should be translated into a state equal or superior 
to that which they supposed they did enjoy. The gentiles 
themselves could hardly digest it, that the Christians said, 
“ Believe, and ἡ πίστίς cov σίσει σε, thy faith shall save thee :” 
this is one of the exceptions which Celsus makes against it. 
And Zosimus* having said, that the heathen priests having 
told Constantine that their religion aflorded no purgation for 
his crimes, he was persuaded to embrace Christianity, as 
being told the Christian doctrine would take away all sin; 
and had this promise annexed to it, “‘That the ungodly who 
would embrace it, should presently be absolved from all sins,” 
intimates, that he looked on this as a just exception against 
the Christian faith.t This prejudice against the gospel, saith 
he, Paul removes, by showing, that “because of all men’s 
guilt and sinfulness, such an exhibition of mercy, such an 
overture of acceptance and remission of sins, was necessary 
in order to salvation ; so that without it no man could be ex- 
empted from wrath and misery, and that consequently all 
other religions, as not exhibiting such a remission, must be 
esteemed in a main point defective.” 

§. 7. Obj. 1. But against this it may be objected, that 
our justification seems to be connected with our glorification ; 
for “whom he justifies, them he also glorifies” (Rom. viii. 30). 
Now it is certain that our future state of glory depends not 
only on our faith, but works ; and by the same apostle, in 
the same epistle, is promised to him that “ worketh good” 
(Rom. ii. 6, 7. 10), we being all to be hereafter recompensed 
“according to our works.” 

Ans. 1. Τὸ this it may be answered in the words of the re- 
verend Dr. Hammond (Pr. Cat. p. 89), “That whom God 
justifies, if they pass out of this life in a justified state, them 
he will certainly glorify ;” or, as in this paraphrase, “ Whom 
he called to suffer after the example of his Son, them, upon 
patience and perseverance under those sufferings, he justifies, 
i.e. he approves of as sincere and worthy, as they suffer for, 
so to be glorified with him, Rom. viii. 17, 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12, 
1 Pet. iv. 13, and whom he thus justifies, them he will also 
glorify.” And according to this import of the words, justifi- 
cation doth not signify, as in the great dispute of the apostle, 
the remission of our past sins committed before faith in 
Christ; but rather our justification at the great day of our 
accounts, as his sincere and faithful servants. As it seems 
to import most clearly in those words of the same apostle, 
«I know nothing of myself (whereby to condemn myself of 
unfaithfulness in the discharge of my office), yet I am not 
thereby justified, but he that judgeth me is the Lord,” 1 Cor. 


* Προσίη τοῖς ἱερεῦσι καϑάρματα τῶν ἡμαρτημένων" αὐτῶν δὲ εἰπόντων 
ὡς ob παραδέδοται καϑαρμοῦ τρόπος δυσσιβήματα τηλικαῦτα καϑῆραϊ 
δυνάμενος. Hist. lib. ii. p. 61. 

{ Πάσης épaprados ἀναιρετικὸν εἶναι τὴν τῶν Χριστιανῶν δόξαν, 
καὶ τοῦτο ἔχειν ἐπάγγελμα τὸ τοὺς ἀσεβεῖς μεταλαμβάνοντας αὐτῆς, 
πάσης ἁμαρτίας ἔξω παραχρῆμα καϑίστασβαι. bid. 


720 


iv. 4. And in those words of the Epistle to the Romans, 
« Not the hearers of the law only shall be δίκαιοι, just before 
God, but the doers of the law, δικαιωϑήσονται, shall be justi- 
fied” (Rom. ii. 13): and so James, « Abraham was justified 
by works, and he was called the friend of God.” 

Ans. 2. But secondly, There is another ancient interpreta- 
tion of these words, which cuts off the whole force of this ar- 
gument, viz. “Those he glorified, by giving them that Spirit 
of glory,” and of God, who is the earnest of their future in- 
heritance. “He glorified them,” say Chrysostom,* Theo- 
doret, G2cumenius, and Theophylact, “ by the Spirit of adop- 
tion, calling them sons, and giving them the grace of the 
Holy Spirit’’ To strengthen this interpretation, let it be con- 
sidered, that our Saviour is said, whilst he was on earth, to 
have wrought his miracles by the Spirit of God ; and by those 
miracles he is said sometimes to be δοξαζόμενος, “ glorified” 
(Luke iv. 15), sometimes to “show forth τὸν dégav αὐτοῦ, 


his glory” (John ii. 11), and sometimes it is said that God 


ἐδόξασε, “ glorified him” (John viii. 54, xi. 4, xiii. 31, 32, xvi. 
14). And when Christ gave to his apostles and believers 
the Holy Spirit, to enable them to work the like miracles, he 
expresses himself thus to his Father, “The glory which thou 
gavest me I have given them, that the world may know that 
thou hast sent me” (John xvii. 22, 23). Moreover, by rea- 
son of this Spirit given with the gospel, the ministration of 
justification is said to be ἐν δύξη, with, or “in glory” (2 Cor. 
111. S—11), as being the ministration of the Spirit; and be- 
lievers, by the participation of this Spirit of the Lord, are 
said not only to “behold the glory of the Lord,” but also 
to be “changed into the same image with him from glory to 
glory” (ver. 18), and so to be “conformed to the image of 
his Son.” And thas, saith Origen on this place,t “they may 
be said to be glorified in this life.’ Note also, that when 
the apostle speaks of our final glorification in this chapter, he 
still speaks of it as a thing future, saying, “ We shall be glo- 
rified with him” (ver. 17, 18. 21), whereas here he speaks of 
it as a thing past already, saying, ots δὲ ἐδικαίωσε, τούτους Kai 
ἐδόξασε, “ Whom he hath justified, them he hath also glori- 
fied ;’’ which confirms this interpretation. And, lastly, thus 
it connects well with the foregoing words, “'The Spirit which 
helpeth our infirmities, intercedeth according to the mind 
of God for the saints; οἴδαμεν δὲ, we know therefore that all 
things shall work together for good to them who love God, 
who are called according to his purpose (of making them the 
sons of God by adoption, and giving them the Spirit of his 
Son in their hearts, Gal. iv. 6, Eph. i. 5, 13), for whom he 
(thus) foreknew, them he predestinated (or appointed) to be 
thus conformed to the image of his Son ; and whom he (thus) 
predestinated, them he also called (to the Christian faith) ; 
and whom he called (upon their cordial embracing of that 
faith) he justified (we being amade the sons of God through 
faith in Christ Jesus, Gal. iii. 26), and whom he (hath thus) 
justified, them he hath also glorified.” 

§. 8. Obj. 2. It may be said, that not only our justifi- 
cation, but salvation, is by the apostle ascribed to faith: as 
when he says, “ By grace ye are saved through faith,” Eph. 
ii. 8, 9, and, “If thou believest with the heart, thou shalt be 
saved,” Rom. x. 9, Tit. iii. 5, whereas doubtless salvation 
dependeth on our works, which therefore must be included 
in this faith. 

Ans. To this objection I answer, that salvation may very 
well in scripture he ascribed to faith upon these two accounts : 

1. Because faith puts us in the way of salvation; that 
way of owning the Saviour of the world, and subjecting our- 
selves to his government, which gives us a present right to 
salvation, should God take us hence soon after baptism into 
this faith, or a sincere belief in Christ; as in the case of those 
many martyrs who believed and suffered the same day ; and 
if we live by, and suitably to, this faith, still owning the 
Lord Jesus, and still subjecting ourselves to his laws and 
government, will keep us in the state of salvation; for “he 
that (thus) believeth in the Son hath eternal life,” John ii. 


* ᾿Εδόξασε διὰ χαρισμάτων διὰ τῆς υἱοθεσίας" διὰ τῶν χαρισμά- 
τῶν τῆς vioSecias. Chrys. cum. ᾿Εδόξασεν υἱοὺς ὀνομαζόμενος, 
καὶ Πνεύματος aytov δωρησάμενος χάριν. Theodor. Theoph. 

+ De glorificatione in presenti seculo possumus illud in- 
telligere quod dicit apostolus, Nos autem omnes revelataé 
facie gloriam Domini speculantes, eddem imagine transforma- 
mur ἃ gloria in gloriam. 


PREFACE TO THE 


36 (see ver. 16), i. 6. he hath a present right to it,and may 
“rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,” and by continu- 
ing so to do, he shall receive “ the end of his faith, even the 
salvation of his soul.” It puts us in a present state of free- 
dom from condemnation, by procuring the pardon of all our 
past sins; for he that thus “believeth shall not come into 
condemnation, but is passed from death to life” (John ν. 24, 
iil, 18). It doth at present save us from the wrath of God, 
he being only angry with us on the account of sin unpar- 
doned ; for “ being justified,” saith the apostle, “ by faith in 


| his blood, we shall be saved from wrath by him” (Rom. v. 


9). Now this is all which very frequently is signified by the 
words saved and salvation: as when it is said of Zaccheus, 
“This day is salvation come unto this house;” and “The 
Lord daily added to the church τοὺς σωζομένους, the saved,” 
Acts ii. 47, and again, “'The word of the cross is τοῖς σωζομέ- 
νοις ἡμῖν, to us the saved, the power of God,” 2 Cor. i. 18. 
See this farther proved in the notes on Eph. iii. 8, Tit. iii. 5. 

Secondly, Salvation may be well ascribed to faith, not in- 
deed in opposition to, or exclusion of works, but rather as 
the cause and the producer of all works of piety and righte- 
ousness: and both the wisdom and the excellency of this 
method for the procuring the great ends of Christian piety, of 
purity of life, and of sincere obedience to the whole will of 
God, will be extremely evident from these considerations : 

1. That this faith consigned by baptism doth lay the 
highest obligations on us to a life of holiness and obedience, 
under the pain of forfeiting all the blessings of the new 
covenant, or all the privileges of Christianity. For (1.) 
faith in him as the true Messiah, the prophet sent from God 
to declare his will, and make known his precepts, and to lay 
down the terms on which we say expect salvation from him, 
must surely oblige us to perform that will, and to submit to 
the terms on which alone salvation is thus tendered to us, 
not only that we may not miss of that salvation, but that we 
may not be condemned as despisers of so great salvation. 

Again, Faith in him as our Saviour, one who hath, by his 
death, purchased deliverance to us from death, and from the 
wrath to come, must surely oblige us, as well in point of duty 
as of gratitude, to “live to him who died for us” (2 Cor. v. 
15), and being bought with such a price, “ to glorify him with 
our souls and bodies which are his” (1 Cor. vi. 20) ; especially 
we consider that this was one great end of these his suffer- 
ings; he having “ died for all, that they who liye should not 
henceforth live to themselves, but to him that died for them ;” 
that he might “ redeem us from this present evil world” (Gal. 
i. 4), “and purify us to himself, a people zealous of good 
works” (Eph. v. 25, 26), and that we, “being dead to sin, 
might live to righteousness” (1 Pet. ii. 24): and surely, 
they cannot expect the blessings of his salutary passion, who 
defeat the design and frustrate the purpose of it. 

Faith in him, as our Lord and King, as it doth presuppose 
his right to require service from, and prescribe laws to us, so 
must it engage us to the honour and service of this Lord (for 
“why” saith he, “call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the 
things that I say ?” (Luke vi. 46 :) to fear and to obey this 
King of saints, as knowing he will say to all his disobedient 
subjects, “Bring these mine enemies, which would not I should 
reign over them, and slay them before me” (Luke xix. 27). 

Faith, lastly, in him as our Judge and our Rewarder, must 
cause us herein to “exercise ourselves always to have con- 
sciences void of offence towards God and man” (Acts xxiv. 
16), as we desire to be found blameless at that day, and to 
be steadfast and abounding in the work of the Lord, which 
will so plentifully be rewarded (1 Cor. xv. 58). 

In a word, to what other end can we think a holy God 
was so concerned that we should firmly be persuaded of, and 
yield a free assent to, these things? Can it be only this, 
that he should fill our heads with notions, but leave us still 
at liberty to disobey the message sent us from heaven by his 
only Son? why then said he, “This is my beloved Son; 
hear him ?” (Matt. xvii. 5). Can he suffer us to slight the 
terms on which alone salvation is thus tendered to us? why 
then were they at all propounded? Can he permit us to be 
disobedient to this Lord, or rebels to this King of saints? why 
then was this authority conferred upon him? Hath he made 
him the judge and rewarder of all men at the great day? 
and will he not reward them all according to their works ? 

But then if we consider farther this faith, as 1t hath bap- 
tism annexed to it, according to these words of Christ, « He 


EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. 


that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ;” our obliga- 
tion to obedience by it will still be more evident. For is 
not our baptism “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost,” an entire dedication of ourselves to the service of 
the blessed ‘Trinity, a solemn entrance into covenant that we 
will own no other God, will serve no other Lord, will not be 
led by the unclean, but by the conduct of the good and 
Holy Spirit? Did not Christ command bis disciples to teach 
them whom they baptized, to “ observe all things which he 
commanded?” (Matt. xxviii. 20,) and must they not be 
obliged to obey what they were to be taught in his name? 
What is it to baptize, but μαθητεύειν, to “make disciples” to 
the holy Jesus? and hath he not said, “Then only are ye 
my disciples indeed, when ye continue in my word?” (John 
vii. 31.) What is it to be baptized, but to make “ the stipu- 
lation of a good conscience towards God?” (1 Pet. iii. 21 ;) 
and are not we obliged to be true to this solemn promise 
made to God? or can we neglect to do so without mocking 
him, and taking his sacred namein vain? Are we not bap- 
tized in the name of Christ? and are not they who name 
that name engaged to “depart from all iniquity 7” (2 ‘Tim. 
ii. 19). Hath not Paul informed us, that “as many as are 
baptized into Christ, are baptized into his death ?”’ (Rom. vi. 
3,) and so are by that baptism obliged to “die to sin” (ver. 
6. 11), “not to obey it in the lusts thereof; not to yield their 
members instruments of sin to unrighteousness,” but to 
«walk in newness of life” (ver. 12, 13); to “live to God,” 
and to “present their members instruments of righteousness 
to God” (ver. 4. 10.13), and to “ have their fruit to holiness, 
that the end may be eternal life” (ver. 22); and that upon 
this conformity to Christ's death and resurrection depends 
our hope that we “shall live with him?” (ver. 8.) So that 
it is evident, to a demonstration, that both our faith and 
baptism do lay upon us the strictest obligations to depart from 
all iniquity, and yield sincere obedience to the laws of God 
and Christ, as we expect the blessings purchased by him for or 
promised to believers. As then Peter saith on this account, 
that “baptism now saveth us” (1 Pet. iti, 21), so may sal- 
vation be on the same account ascribed to our faith in Christ. 

Secondly, Faith is the spring and the foundation of all 
the obedience we afterward perform, and therefore may be 
well said to save as many as obtain salvation, because it 
worketh in them that obedience by which they are saved, 
and moves them to’perform those conditions on which their 
actual salvation doth depend. Thus of faith in God, the 
apostle teacheth, that it must be necessarily laid as the foun- 
dation of all the service we perform unto him; for “he that 
cometh to God must believe that he is a rewarder of them 
that diligently seek (to please) him” (Heb. xi. 6). And 
thus he shows it was with all the patriarchs and holy peo- 
ple of God before the revelation of the gospel; they by 
that faith, which was “the expectation of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen, obtained testimony that they 
were righteous” (Heb. xi. 4), and that they “pleased God” 
(ver. 5. 8. 18, 19), obeyed his call in the most difficult in- 
stances, “chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of 
God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; wrought 
righteousness, and suffered death, not accepting a deliver- 
ance” (ver. 25, 26.33.35). And so itis with faith in Christ; 
it is the foundation of all our obedience, which therefore is 
in scripture styled “the obedience of faith,” Rom. i. 5, xvi. 
26, and of all our good works, they being all the “work of 
faith,” 2 Thess. i. 11. It is by virtue of this faith that 
we are enabled to “overcome the world,” to “resist the 
devil,” and to “quench all the fiery darts of Satan” (1 John 
vy. 5, 1 Pet. v. 9, Eph. vi. 16). It is “faith that works by 
love” to God, and to our brother; which love we testify to 
God, by “keeping his commandments,” and to our neigh- 
bour, by fulfilling the laws of justice and charity ; and this 
is very evident, even from the nature of faith: for can any 
man obey the precepts this Prophet hath delivered in his 
Father’s name, unless he believes he was that prophet which 
was sent by him to reveal his will, and that king by whose 
laws we must be governed? Can he submit to the terms of 
salvation. propounded by him, till he believes “he is the 
author of salvation to all that obey him?” Can he herein 
“exercise himself to have always a conscience void of offence 
towards God and man,” but by that faith which doth assure 
him that he will judge all men by these laws, awarding 

Vou. IV.—91 


721 


“glory and immortality to every man that worketh righte- 
ousness” Rom. ii. 8), and “ punishing them with everlasting 
destruction from his presence that obey not his gospel?” 
(2 Thess. i. 8.) And is not then this faith the true founda- 
tion of al! Christian piety? ‘Thus doth «the just man live 
by his faith,” and doing so “ believeth to the salvation of his 
soul.” As therefore we are said to be “saved by hope,” 
Rom. viii. 24, because it is the motive to steadfastness in our 
obedience, so may we be said to be saved by faith upon the 
same account. And, 

Thirdly, We may be well said to be saved by faith, be- 
cause where faith is hearty and constant it will produce sin- 
cere obedience, and holiness will follow in the life: and when 
it doth not follow, this is to be ascribed to the want of faith. 
This will be evident if we consider the material objects of 
our faith, the blessings promised to the obedient, and the 
evils threatened to the disobedient: for it is certain that 
the blessings promised in the gospel do far exceed all other 
blessings that we can enjoy; and that the evils threatened 
there are far more lasting and intolerable than any other 
evils we can suffer: and it is no less certain that these bless- 
ings are by our Lord confined to the obedient ; for “ not every 
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter,” saith he, 
“into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of 
my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. vii. 21); and it is as 
sure that these tremendous evils are entailed upon the wicked, 
Christ having solemnly declared he will say to them at the 
great day, “Depart from me, I know ye not, ye workers of 
iniquity” (ver. 23): and if we do believe our Saviour was a 
prophet sent from God, we must believe these revelations he 
hath made concerning both our future happiness and misery, 
and the conditions on which alone the one can be obtained, 
and the other is to be avoided. Now, can a man at the 
same time believe these are the greatest blessings that he can 
enjoy, and yet prefer a lesser good before them? if not, 
whenever he doth this, he ceases in effect to have this faith. 
Can a man fully be persuaded, that what he is about to do, 
will render him obnoxious to the worst of evils, and yet be 
moved to do it to avoid a lesser evil? if not, whenever he 
doth choose to do what renders him obnoxious to the worst 
of evils, he ceaseth to believe they are so. When therefore 
we neglect to do that which is by our Lord declared abso- 
lutely necessary to obtain and to secure our eternal interests, 
and venture upon that to which he threateneth everlasting 
misery, it is certain that we have no lively full persuasion of 
these truths then present to our minds, and therefore do not 
actually believe them then. So that although we may have 
still such an habitual assent to all that this great Prophet 
hath delivered, as that we do not doubt the truth of what 
he taught: yet doth not Christ “dwell in our hearts by 
faith,” nor have we any living sense or permanent persuasion 
of these truths on our souls, but faith is at the present dead, 
and so no more deserves the name of faith than a dead man 
can properly be called a man. Thus, for example, when 
Christ saith to his disciples fearing to perish in the storm, 
« How is it that ye have not faith ?” (Mark iv. 40,) he lays 
this to their charge, not that they disbelieved his power to 
save them, for this they testify, by saying, “ Master, save us ;” 
but they did not actually exert this trust by an entire com- 
mission of themselves to the protection of his providence. 
As therefore, when we do what is contrary to our love to 
God, or to our hope, and our affiance in him, there always is a 
want of love and hope and trust in God: so when we do what 
is opposite to the great objects of our faith, there must be in 
usa like want of faith ; and so when this is customarily done, 
there must be a defect as to the habit, or the grace of faith. 

Secondly, This will be still more evident, if we consider 
all the glorious things which are ascribed in scripture to this 
faith, and do compare them with other passages of the same 
scripture: for inetance, “ Whosoever believeth that Jesus is 
the Christ, is born of God,” saith the apostle John, 1 Epist. 
v. 1; but then he adds in the same chapter, “ Whosoever is 
born of God overcometh the world,” ver. 5, by virtue of this 
faith : and again, “ We know that whosoever is born of God 
sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth him 
self, and the wicked one toucheth him not,” ver. 18, iil. 
9. Whence it must follow, that he believeth not in the 
apostle’s sense, that “Jesus is the Christ,” who overcometh 
not, by virtue of that faith, the temptations of the world the 


722 


flesh, and the devil. ‘“ Whosoever confesseth,” saith the 


same apostle, “ that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth | 


in him, and he in God” (1 John iv. 15), but then he also 
saith, “He that abideth in him ought also to walk as he 
walked,” 1 John ii. 6, that we do hereby “ know that we are 
in him, by keeping of his word,” ver. 5, that “ whosoever 
abideth in him sinneth not, and he that sinneth hath not seen 
him, neither known him; that if we say we have fellowship 
with him, and walk in darkness, we lie :” so that if this faith 
doth not preserve us from sin, and engage us to walk in the 
light, and as he walked, it is not that faith in the Son of 
God the apostle speaks of. We are not “justified by the 
works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus,” saith Paul to 
the Galatians, Gal. v. 6, vi. 15; but then it is, saith he, 
that “faith which works by love,” and renders us “ new 
creatures.’ The same he saith in the Epistle to the Romans, 
declaring that his gospel was “the power of God through 
faith unto salvation,” Rom. i. 16, ver. 5; but then it is “ the 
obedience of faith,’ in the same chapter; “obedience in 
word and deed,” xv. 18, “ obeying from the heart the form 
of doctrine delivered to them,” vi. 16, which makes this 
faith become the power of God to salvation. Whence it is 
evident that he esteemed that alone true faith which was 
productive of obedience, and so doth virtually, although not 
formally, include obedience, as the effect is virtually con- 
tained in the cause: so that the difference between men of 
judgment, as to saving faith, is more in words than sense, 
they all designing the same thing, that we cannot be saved 
by that faith which doth not produce in us a sincere obedi- 
ence to the laws of Christ. 


AN ADVERTISEMENT 


RELATING TO THE 


FOREGOING PREFACE 


TO THE 


EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.* 


One passage in the preface to the Epistle to the Galatians 
hath met with very hard usage from different hands; but 
more especially from one who styles his book, “« The Preach- 
er,” but gives full demonstration that he is no Solomon. 
His words are these, p. 159,7 «And can we imagine that 
that other author hath a better opinion of the writings of the 
New Testament, who tells us, that ‘in all the scriptures of 
the New Testament, there is not to be found one exhorta- 
tion to believe in Christ, or to act faith on Christ ?’ and ac- 
cordingly he adds afterward; ‘ Now what account can be 
given of this thing by those who are so zealous in their ser- 
mons to exhort Christians to believe in Christ, and are so full 
of motives to persuade them so to do?’ It seems we have 
been in a great error and mistake hitherto; and all our ser- 
mons to our Christian auditors, to persuade them to exert 
faith in our Lord Christ, have been idle and vain; and the 
more zealous we have been in this matter, the more foolish 
we have been; for Christians are nowhere exhorted in the 
New Testament to believe in Christ; they are only uncon- 
verted Jews and gentiles who are called upon to do this.” 
And such were the apostles and disciples, when our Saviour 
exhorted them to believe in God, and to believe also in him: 
«who 5665 not that is abusing the scriptures?” Now here, 

First, Sure I have reason to complain of very hard mea- 
sure, and of great injustice, that after all the pains I have 
taken to prove this proposition, hat the apostles and evan- 
gelists indited these scriptures by the assistance of the Holy 


PREFACE TO THE GALATIANS. 


| Ghost ;* and that, therefore, I allow no slips of memory, no 
rules of human prudence, without the guidance and direc 
‘tion of the Holy Spirit, §. 3, I should be publicly traduced 
as one, that “cannot be imagined to have a better opinion 
of the writings of the New ‘Testament,’ than one who as- 
serts, that “there are several repugnances in several parts 
of it; that it is altered in very many places, and some of the 
greatest moment; and hath too many disagreements, which 
are material and weighty.” How far I am from thinking 
any thing of this nature, how zealous in my opposition to 
such sentiments, the world will shortly farther see. And, 
that the words here cited by the Preacher have no relation 
to, and contain no detraction either from the authority or 
veneration due to that inspired book, is evident to all dis- 
cerning persons: such vile and scandalous suggestions, with- 
out all ground or show of reason, is that of which I hope 
I never shall be guilty. 

Secondly, I add, that the assertion here exposed, as “a 
visible abuse of scripture,” is as certain and demonstrable as 
any proposition in the book of Euclid. Thus, 

Definition. A Christian is one that believes in Christ; 
nor can he cease to do so whilst he is a Christian ; as aman 
cannot cease to have a human nature whilst he lives. 

Postulatum. It cannot be consistent with the wisdom of 
the Holy Ghost, or of the holy scripture, to exhort any 
Christian to do what he knows every Christian must do, and 
cannot choose to do, any more than a living man can cease 
to have a human nature. 

Ergo. It cannot be consistent with the wisdom of the Holy 
Ghost to exhort any Christian to believe in Christ ; this being 
the same in effect as to exhort a living man to retain his hu- 
man nature during life. 

Thirdly, To the argument of the Preacher, from John 
xix. 1, I have returned a full reply in my answer to a late 
pamphlet, p. 20—23, to which I add, that it is not certain 
that these words contain any exhortation to believe in Christ; 
even the Synopsis informs us, that they may be rendered in 
the indicative mood thus, Creditis in Deum, et me creditis: 
in which sense they contain no exhortation, but an assertion 
only of this great truth, that the disciples of Christ believed 
in God the Father, and in Christ his only Son; and from 
that faith had ground of comfort under all the troubles they 
should meet with in the world. 

Fourthly, Had he not changed my words, he would have 
had no show of ground for his vain imagination, that I count 
it “a great error to persuade Christians to exert faith in our 
Lord Christ.” Now this I nowhere say, but only that there 
is no exhortation in the New Testament to any Christian to 
believe in Christ, or (in the sense of the presbyterians, and 
independents, against whom I there dispute) to “act faith on 
Christ ;” to exert that faith we have in Christ, by showing 
forth the fruits of it, and walking answerably to it, and com- 
forting and supporting ourselves from the consideration of 
it; and the encouraging ourselves to the performance of all 
Christian obedience, is the duty of all Christians, to which 1 
there say the scripture doth exhort them; but to act faith on 
Christ for justification, or that Christians may be believers, 
which is the sense those writers put upon the phrase, is an 
unscriptural expression. 

In fine, it might have reasonably been expected, that after 
all these hideous outcries, after these terrible accusations, 
that by this assertion I have visibly abused the holy scrip- 
tures, and made it unimaginable that I have any good opi- 
nion of the writings of the New Testament, some plain text 
should have been produced from those scriptures exhorting 
those, who were already Christians, to believe in Christ; and 
though I judge my assertion a truth, equally certain to a 
demonstration, yet when either the Preacher or the Pam- 
phleteer, or any other bold condemner of it, shall show the 
contrary by one plain text containing such an exhortation, I 
promise to renounce it publicly. 


- 5, Arg. 7. Ἵ + Pref. p. 255. 


* Gen. Preface to the Gospels, 8.1. Τ Preacher, p. 152. 


723 


CHAPTER I. 


1 (J) Paut, (who am) an apostle, ' (not of men, nei- 
ther by man (for I received not my call or my commis- 
sion to that office from man, nor was I chosen to it by 
man, as Matthias was), but by Jesus Christ (appear- 
ing to me in person for that end, that he might send me 
to the gen'iles, Acts xxii. 21, xxvi. 16, 17), and God 
the Father, (who chose me that I should know his will, 
and see that Just One, and be his witness to all men of 
what I had seen and heard, Acts xxii. 14, 15, and re- 
vealed his Son to me, ver. 13, even that God) who 
raised him from the dead ;) 

2? And all the brethren which are with me (and 
own the doctrine which I preach, send greeting) unto the 
churches of Galatia : 

3 (Wishing that) Grace (may) be to you and peace 
from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Οὐκ ἀπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων, οὐδὲ dt’ ἀνθρώπον, Not of man, 
neither by man.) It is no objection against the truth of these 
words, that the Holy Ghost, saying by the prophets at An- 
tioch, «Separate me Barnabas and Saul to the work of the 
ministry, to which I have called them,” they fasted and 
prayed, and laid their hands on them, and sent them away 
(Acts xiii. 2, 3) : for that this was not a mission to the apos- 
tolical office, appears, because Paul, at least nine years be- 
fore, was immediately called to it by God, and sent to exer- 
cise it by Jesus Christ ; and because Barnabas is here equally 
separated to this office, and sent with him, who yet was never 
an apostle properly so called. This separation and mission 
therefore of them was only by way of prayer and benedic- 
tion of them in their ministry ; or by way of special com- 
mission to preach in the synagogues of the Jews (ver. 5). 
And this mission they presently completed, and then returned 
to Antioch, declaring to them what they had done in pur- 
suance of it (Acts xiv. 26, 27). 

2 Ver. 2. Kai of civ ἐμοὶ πάντες ἀδελφοὶ, And all the bre- 
thren that are with me.) It is the conjecture of the reverend 
Dr. Hammond, that the word “ brethren” here denotes those 
that accompanied St. Paul in his travels, and assisted him in 
preaching the gospel ; in which sense Sosthenes is called “a 
brother,” 1 Cor. i. 1, as also Apollos, 1 Cor. xvi. 12, Timothy, 
2 Cor.i. 1, Titus, ii. 12, Tychicus, Eph. vi. 23, Epaphroditus, 
Phil. ii. 25, Onesimus, Col. iv. 9, Sylvanus, 1 Pet. v. 12, 
Paul, 2 Pet. iii. 15. And in this sense the word « brethren” 
seems to be distinguished from that of “saints,” Phil. iv. 
21; and mention is made of the “brother whose praise is 
in the gospel,” 2 Cor. viii. 18, of Titus, Paul’s « fellow- 
worker; of the brethren who are the “apostles of the 
church,” and of the brethren who, for his name’s sake, went 
forth to preach the gospel, “ taking nothing of the gentiles,” 
3 John 3.7, or else it may be said, that the apostle writes 
according to the form of epistles, used in the beginning of 
Christianity, when bishops sent to other churches, not in 
their own names only, but in the names of the whole church 
where they resided: so Clemens* begins his epistle to the 
church of Corinth thus, “The church of God in Rome, to 
the church of God at Corinth ;” and so this epistle being 
writ from Rome, shows the consent of that church with him 
in his doctrine. 

3 Ver. 4. Ἵνα ἐξέληται ἡμᾶς ex τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος αἰῶνος πονηροῦ, 
That he might deliver us from this present evil world.) 
That “this present evil age” should signify “the present 
Jewish constitution and nation together,” is very improba- 
ble: for did Christ die for our sins, to deliver the Galatians 
and other gentiles from the Jewish nation, or from that con- 
stitution they were never under?’ How much more natural is 
it to say, with the fathers, he died for our sins, that he might 


Ἢ ἐκκλησία Θεοῦ ἢ παροικοῦσα Ῥώμην τῇ ἐκκλησία Θεοῦ 
παροικούσῃ Κύρινθον. 


4 Who gave himself (an expiatory sacrifice) for our 
sins, * that he might deliver us from (the wrath and 
condemnation of, or from conformity to,) this present 
evil world, 4 according to the will of God and our Fa- 
ther er of our God and Father) : 

5 ‘To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed ° from him 
that called you into δ the grace of Christ unto another 
gospel : 

7 Which (whatsoever some may suggest, who preach 
another thing, under the special title of the gospel) 7 is 
not (indeed) another (gospel, nor would be so esteemed 
by any of you); but (that) there be some that trouble 
you (with false stories), and would pervert the gospel 
of Christ (δ mixing with it the necessary observance of 
the law of Moses). 


deliver us ἐκ τῶν πονηρῶν πράξεων καὶ διεφθαρμένης ζωῆς, “from 
the evil actions and corrupt manners of this present world,” 
or age; from those lusts of the flesh, and that corruption of 
mind, in which the heathens formerly lived, κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα 
τοῦ κύσμου rovrov, “according to that course of life” the men 
of the world then led (Eph. ii. 2,3), when they were guided 
by the wisdom, τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου, “ of this world’”’ (2 Cor. iv. 
4), and under the power of the rulers, τοῦ σκότους τοῦ αἰῶνος 
τοῦτον, “of the darkness of this world” (Eph. vi. 12). 

4 Κατὰ τὸ ϑέλημα τοῦ Θεοῦ, According to the will of God.} 
These words may refer to our deliverance, ἐκ τῶν πονηρῶν 
πράξεων καὶ τῆς διεφθαρμένης ζωῆς, CEcum., from the evil man- 
ners of this world; this being “the will of God, even our 
sanctification” (1 Thess. iv. 3), and the great end of our 
Lord’s salutary passion, “who gave himself for us, that he 
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a 
peculiar people, zealous of good works; and bare our sins in 


that we might do ourselves what he already had done for us, 
and so what he had made it needless for us to ἄο, Or else 
these words may be connected thus; Christ gave himself for 
us according to the will of God, viz. that he should die for 
our sins; and then the apostle here asserts, in opposition to 
the Judaizing Christians, that our justification by faith in 
Christ's death is according to the will of God, and that he 
died in pursuance of his decree to establish that new cove- 
nant in his blood by faith, by which we are translated from 
that wrath and state of alienation from God in which the 
world lies, and have obtained peace with God, and are be- 
come his church and people. 

5 Ver. 6. ᾿Απὸ τοῦ καλέσαντος ὑμᾶς, From him that called 

you.) i.e. From God: for the apostle scarce ever ascribes 
this work to himself, but constantly to God the Father: see 
Rom. ix. 24, 1 Cor. vii. 15, Gal. 1. 15, 1 Thess. ii. 12, iv. 7, 
v. 24, 2 Thess. ii. 14, 2 Tim. i. 9. 
' 6 Ἐν χάριτι Χριστοῦ, To the grace of Christ.) Or rather, 
“by,” or “through, the grace of Christ” offered you in the 
gospel ; for though ἐν be often put for εἰς, yet ἐν χάριτι, where 
it is elsewhere used, doth either signify, “in the grace,” or 
“through the grace,” as Rom. v. 15, 2 Cor. i. 12, 2 Thess. 
ii. 16, 2 Tim. ii. 1; nor dol find where it is ever used in the 
epistles for εἰς χάριν. 

7 Ver. 7. Ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλο. These words cannot signify, 
“ Which is not any thing else ;” or, “ Which is not owing to 
any thing else,” as one here thinks: for the pronoun ὃ hath 
no other antecedent but frepov εὐαγγέλιον, ver. 6. Nor is it 
any objection against our translation that the apostle doth 
not say, ὃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἕτερον, as before, but ἄλλο ; it being noted 
by Budeus and others, that the Greeks use, ἄλλο καὶ ἕτερον 
ἐκ παραλλήλου, these two words as equivalent: and when two 
ἄλλοβ come together, the second is always rendered, érepos,, 
“another ;” ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, “Saying one to an 
other,” Acts ii. 12, xxi. 345; so ἄλλη σὰρξ ἀνθρώπων, ἄλλη δὲ 


724 


8 But (whatsoever they suggest to you of another gos- 
pel, taught by Peter, James, and John,) though we (apos- 
tles), or (even) an angel from heaven, (should) preach 
any other gospel unto you than that which we (Paul 
and Barnabas) have preached unto you, let him be ac- 
cursed. 

9 (And that ye may not think this proceeds rashly from | 


GALATIANS. 


me, but may the more regard il,) Aswe said before, so 
say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel 
unto you than that ye have received (from us), ὃ let 
him be accursed. 

10 (But this you cannot reasonably suspect concerning 
meé,) For do I now (in the execution of my aposileship) 
5 persuade (obey, or seek to please) men, or God? " or 


«τήνων, “There is one flesh of men, and another flesh of | 
beasts,” ὅτε. 1 Cor, xv. 31; and again, ver.41. ‘The apostle’s 
meaning then is, that the preaching of the gospel to you, | 
παρ᾽ ὃ εὐαγγελισάμεϑα, “ besides that which we have preach- | 
ed,” would be the preaching of another gospel: but that | 
which these perverters of the Galatians taught as such, was | 
not indeed another gospel, but rather a setting up of the | 
law in opposition to the gospel. Note also, that ci μὴ here 
is used as ii. 16, 1 Cor. vii. 17, Rev. ix. 4. 21. 27. 

8 Ver. 9. ᾿Ανάϑεμα ἔστω, Let him be anathema.| Hence 
it follows, (1.) that the doctrine of justification by faith, as 
it stands opposed to the contrary doctrine of the necessity of | 
the observance of the Mosaical law to justification, is a fun- 
damental doctrine, to which he that opposeth himself, main- 
taining the necessity of observing the law of Moses to that 
end, deserveth an anathema, as introducing another gospel: 
whence commentators here observe, that the apostle calls not 
the Galatians “saints,” because they had begun to decline 
from the gospel, by seeking thus to be justified by the law ; 
but speaks of them as those who had Christ yet to be formed 
in them, and who were to be “ born again,” iv. 19. 

(2.) Hence it appears, that a man may err fundamentally, 
not only by rejecting a fundamental article of faith, but also | 
by maintaining and teaching in the name of Christ things 
unnecessary to be necessary, so as to say, salvation cannot 
be obtained without them: and herein consists the great 
guilt ef the church of Rome, and particularly of the Trent 
council, that they have added many unnecessary articles to 
the Christian creed, and have defined them to be so necessary 
to be believed by all Christians, that no salvation can be ob- 
tained without the belief of them: and so they seem plainly to 
have fallen under the anathema of St. Paul, more dreadful 
than all the vain anathemas they have thundered out against 
the protestants. 

Mr. Obadiah Walker end Grotius note, that the apostle 
speaks here only of doctrines contrary to his gospel; but 
this exposition is (1.) contrary to the very words of the 
apostle, who saith not “against,” but rap’ ἃ, “ besides what | 
I have delivered :” and it is contrary to the exposition of 
the fathers,* Chrysostom, Gicumenius, among the Grecks, 
and Austin among the Latins, whose note is this: * He saith 
not, If they preach things contrary, but, If they preach 
things never so little different from the gospel which I have 
preached to you.” It is very true, as Esthius suggests, that | 
the apostle doth not pretend to propound an anathema 
against any man who shall suggest any thing farther in con- | 
firmation of Christ's gospel, as John after did, or give any 
farther rules pursuant to the precepts of it, by the sugges- 
tion of that Spirit by which the gospel was indited, for then 
he would have pronounced an anathema upon all that writ 
after him, and even upon himself, who writ many epistles af- 
ter this; but yet he pronounceth an anathema upon all those 
who preached a gospel which differed from the gospel which 
they preached, to whom alone it was by Christ committed 
to propound the terms of salvation; and this is that of which 
we do accuse the church of Rome, that they propound terms 
of salvation nowhere delivered by Christ or his apostles. 


* Καὶ οὐκ εἶπεν ἐὰν ἐναντία καταγγέλλουσιν, ἀλλὰ κἂν μικρόν τι 
εὐαγγελίζονται nap’ ὃ εὐαγγελισάμεϑα. Restat ergo, ut non ex 
divinis scripturis, sed ex vobis ἰδία dicatis. Proinde dig- | 
nissimé respondebitur, Anathema sitis. ‘Tenent enim ec- 
clesie apostolico labore fundate, cum quanta curd sibi 
predictum sit ; Si quis vobis evangelizaverit preterquam quod 
accepistis, anathema sit. De Unitate Eccl. contra Epist. 
Peril. tom. vii. cap. 15, p.542. Sive de Christo, sive de ejus 
ecclesia, sive de quacunque alia re, que pertinet ad fidem 
vitamque nostram, si angelus de ccelo nobis evangelizaverit 
preterquam quod in scripturis legalibus et evangeliis accep- 
istis, anathema sit. Lib. iii. contra Lit. Peril. cap. 6, p. 167. 


Secondly, This exposition of Mr. Walker will not free 
them from the anathema of the apostle; for by this very 
thing, that they add any thing to the gospel of Christ as ne- 
cessary to be believed, or done to salvation, they do no less 
oppose the doctrine of the apostle, than they did who joined 
the observation of the law of Moses, as necessary to the 
faith of Christ: for therefore did they oppose his doctrine, 
because they teaching this was needful to salvation, did 
thereby teach, that what the apostle had taught as sufficient 
to salvation, was not so without their additions, which is the 
very thing the papists do by their new articles and tradi- 
tionary doctrines, for if they be indeed necessary to salvation, 
what is delivered in the gospel, in which confessedly some of 
their doctrines are not, cannot be sufficient to salvation. 
Moreover, it is extremely evident, that prayer in unknown 
tongue 1s plainly contrary to the apostle’s doctrine, 1 Cor. 
xiv., and that communion in one kind is opposite both to 
Christ’s institution, and to Paul’s discourse upon that sacra- 
ment, 1 Cor. xi. 

9 Ver. 10. Πείθειν, To persuade.] The critics here observe, 
that the word πείθειν signifies to pacify and appease any one 
incensed against us. So when David's soldiers, hunted and 
harassed by Saul, were earnest, when they found Saul in the 
cave, that they might have liberty to slay him, ἔπεισε Aaid τοὺς 
ἄνδρας αὐτοῦ ἐν λύγοις, * David pacified his men with words,” 
1 Sam. xxiv. 7. So, to induce the soldiers to own that 
Christ’s body was stolen away by his disciples from the se- 
pulchre whilst they slept, the chief priests and elders pro- 
mise, that if this come to the governor’s ear, πείσομεν αὐτὸν, 
“we will appease him,” Matt. xxviii. 14. And Menelaus 
promised Ptolemy to give him much money, πρὸς τὸ πείσαι 
τὸν βασιλέα, “if he would pacify the king towards him,” 2 
Mace. iv. 5. Or (2.) the word may signify fo obey ; for so 
the word is used by Paul in this epistle, when he says, “ Who 
hath bewitched you, τῇ ἀληϑείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι, that you should 
not obey the truth?” iii. 1, and, * Ye did run well, who hin- 
dered you, τῇ ἀληϑείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι, that you should not 
obey the truth?” v. 7, and elsewhere: so τοῖς ἀπειθοῦσι μὲν 
τῇ ἀληθεία, πειθομένοις δὲ τῇ ἀδικία, “'To those who obey not 
the truth, but obey unrighteousness,’ Rom. ii. 8, πείθεσθε 
τοῖς ἡγουμένοις, “Obey your governors,” Heb, xiii. 17 (see 
also Acts v. 36,37, James iii. 3). And so is the word often 
used by heathen authors when they treat of moral subjects : 
so Plato* saith, philosophy “compels the irrational affec- 
tions to obey reason,” and introduceth Socrates saying, 
πείσομαι τῷ Θεῷ pa\dov' ἢ ὑμῖν, “I will obey God rather 
than you.” Plutarch} saith, “It is the same thing, ἕπεσθαι 
Θεῶ, καὶ τὸ πείσασϑαι byw, to follow God, and obey reason.” 
So Arrian,§ “This is to be placed among the highest plea- 
sures, ὅτι πείϑη τῷ Θεῷ, that thou obeyest God; I am free, 
and the friend of God, ἵν᾿ ἑκὼν πείθωμαι αὐτῷ, that I might 
willingly obey him. I know to whom I ought to be subject, 
τινὶ πείϑεσϑαι, τῷ Θεῷ καὶ τοῖς per’ ἐκεῖνον, and to obey God, 
and those that are next to him.” And Zeno, “That it is 
fit, τὸ πείϑεσθαι παῖδας τοῖς παιδαγωγοῖς, that children should 
obey their masters” (Diog. Laert. lib. vii. p. 432). So then 
the import of these words is this: Do I in preaching the gos- 
pel act in obedience to men, who every where persecute me 


| and oppose me for it, or in obedience to that God who called 
| me to be an apostle of the gentiles? (ver. 15,16.) And 


this sense is confirmed by the verse following. 

10 Mr. Clere here is positive that πείϑω signifies only to 
persuade ; whereas the lexicographers say expressly, Tria 
significat pareo, morem gero, suadeo, persuadeo. So Hesy- 


* Τὸ piv ἄλογον τῷ λογικῷ πείθεσθαι. Tim. Locr. 
1096, Ο. 
+ Apol. p. 23, B. + De Audit. p. 37, F. 
§ Arrian. lib. iii. cap. 4, p. 343, lib. iv. cap. 3, 12. 


! Constantine. 


Pp. 


CHAPTER I. 


do [ seek to please men? (no sure,) for if I yet pleased 
men (if 7 made that my business), " L should not be the 
servant of Christ (in that work of the gospel which cre- 
ales me so much hazard from them). 

11 But (howsoever oth rs may lessen my gospel) I 
certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was 
preached of me (i. δ. by me to you and others) is not 
after man. 

12 δὲ For I neither received it of man (as the Jews 
do their traditions from their fathers), neither was I 
taught i, but by the (immediate) ™ revelation of Jesus 
Christ. 

13 And of this you may be farther satisfied from my 
former conversation, and my deportment since J began to 
preach the faith of Christ ;)¥or (doubtless) ye have heard 
of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, 
(which was such) how that beyond measure I persecuted 
the church of God, and wasted it (Acts viil. 3, ix. 1. 
13, 14, xxii. 4, xxvi. 10, 11): 

14 And profited in the Jews’ religion above many 
my equals in mine own nation (ur above many Jews 
of the same age with me), being more exceedingly 


726 


zealous (than thy were) “ of the traditions of my 
fathers. 

15 (Thus, 7 say; was my conversation in times past ;) 
But when it pleased God, who separated me from my 
mother’s womb (as he had-furmerly done Jeremiah, to be 
a prophet of the nalions, i. 5), and (ofler) called me by 
his grace (lo preach the gospel, Acts xxil. 14), 

| 16 To reveal his Son 15 in (10) me, that I might 
preach him among the heathen; immediately I con- 
ferred not ' with flesh and blood (ἑ, 6. with any man 
so as to receive any mission from them to that work, or any 
instructions how to perform tl) + 

17 Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which 
were apostles before me (as, if I had wanted either 
authorily or instruction, I should have done) ; but I went 
(from Damascus, the place of my conversion) into " Ara- 
bia, and returned again unto Damascus (preaching the 
gospel there). 

18 Then after three years (uf my conversion) I went 
up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fif- 
teen days. 

19 But other of the apostles saw I none, save 


| 


chius, πείθω σ- τόδε τὸ πράγμα, “I obey thee in this thing τς 
and πείϑυμαί σοὶ τοῦτο, saith Stephanus, ought to be rendered, 
pareo tibi in hide re, or, pareo consilio tuo in πᾶς re. And 
whereas he fancies an ellipsis of μὴ ἀγανακτεῖν por, “not to 
be displeased with me;” making the sense to run thus, For 
do I now persuade men, or God, not to be displeased with 
me? he is still out; for who can see either any connexion 
of these with the former words, or any force in the apostle’s 
reason, according to this strained sense? “If any man,” 
saith he, “ preach any other gospel than that which ye have 
received from us, let him be anathema” (ver. 9): for do I 
in preaching this gospel obey men or God? saith our inter- 
pretation, making both the connexion clear, and the reason 
strong; seeing God could not command him to preach one 
gospel and others another. “Let him be anathema,” saith 
Mr. Clere, « for do I now persuade God not to be displeased 
with me?” where, let him that can, show either reason or 
connexion. Secondly, how could Paul say, he did not per- 
suade men not to be displeased with him, when in this 
epistle he so often doth it, saying, Brethren, I beseech you 
be as I am,” iv. 12; “Am I therefore become your enemy, 
because I tell you the truth?” ver, 16; “From henceforth 
let no man trouble me,” vi. 17 (see v. 11). And, thirdly, why 
should he tell the Galatians he persuaded God not to be dis- 
pleased with him, when he was so honestly discharging his 
office, that he knew nothing of insincerity by himself in the 
execution of it (1 Cor. iv. 4), and surely had no mind to 
give them any reason to suspect he had displeased him. 

Ἢ ζητῶ ἀνϑρύποις ἀρέσκειν 3] ‘These words, which Dr. Mills 
saith crept in from the margin, are owned by all the Greek 
scholiasts, by the Vulgar, the Cod. Alexandrinus, Hilarius 
Diac. and Jerome (see Examen Millii in locum). 

1 Xprorod δοῦλος οὐκ ἂν ἤμην, 1 should not be the servant of 
Christ.] That is, say the Greek commentators, I should 
not have left Judaism to embrace Christianity ; 1. 6. I should 
not have quitted honour, friends, and kindred, for dangers, 
persecutions, and dishonours, which I continually suffer for 
the cause of Christ. And this exposition is confirmed from 
those words, “If I preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer 
persecution, since then is the offence of the cross ceased ?” 
vy. 11, and from this account, that others preached up circum- 
cision only “lest they should suffer persecution for the cross 
of Christ,” vi. 12. 

12 Ver. 12. Οὐ rap’ ἀνθρύτου, I received tt not by man.) 
In the first verse he saith, he was not an apostle by man, 
“but by Jesus Christ:” here, that he was not taught his 
gospel by man, but “ by Jesus Christ ;” whence Chrysostom, 
Theodoret, Jerome, @2cumenius, and Theophylact conclude, 
that our Lord was not only man, but God ; and so Novatian 
(ch. xiii.) argued before the Nicene council, “If Paul 
Was not constituted an apostle of, or by man, and yet 
was constituted such by Jesus Christ, merito Christus 
est Deus, Christ must be God: for though the scripture 
sometimes calleth magistrates and judges gods, as Crellius 


here notes, it never saith, that what was done by them was 
not done by man. Crellius adds farther, that our Lord, being 
the only-begotten Son of God, and having now obtained his 
celestial kingdom, was exempted from the common rank of 
men; “and from the state of mortal men,” saith Grotius: 
and so the apostle might speak of him not as a man, as Sam- 
son saith of himself, «If they bind me with wreaths I shall 
be as a man” (Judg. xvi. 7. 11. 17), but o-s sno, “as one 
man ;” i.e. as weak as one man only, or having no more 
strength than another man. Crellius therefore hath not 
said any thing apposite in answer to this argument: nor doth 
the apostle here oppose man to man, or mortal man to those 
blessed spirits who are immortal, but only to Jesus Christ and 
God the Father. 

13 Av’ ἀποκαλύψεως, By revelation.| At what time this reve- 
lation was made to him is uncertain, but it is probable it 
must be before he went to preach the gospel to the gentiles ; 
for the words following, “I consulted not with flesh and 
blood, but preached at Damascus,” seem plainly to imply 
this revelation was made to him before he preached there, or 
went to Jerusalem. 

4 Ver. 14. Τῶν πατρικῶν παραδύσεων, Of the traditions of 
my fathers.) He being a pharisee, and speaking of the tra- 
ditions not of the law, but of the fathers, seems to mean the 
oral traditions that sect so highly magnified, even above the 
law and the prophets (see note on Mark vil. 3, Acts xxvil. 
17). Now there is reason to believe, that a man so exceed- 
ing zealous for the religion of the Jews, and so full of hatred 
to that of Christians would not have renounced a religion he 
had so great a reverence for, to embrace that he was so in- 
censed against, without some more than human motive. 

5 Ver. 16. Ἔν ἐμοὶ, To me.] So ὃ λαλῶν ὃ ἐν ἐμοὶ, “ He 
that speaketh to me shall be a barbarian,” 1 Cor. i. 11 (see 
Mark i. 15, Acts iv. 12, 1 Cor. ix. 15, 2 Cor. iv. 3, viii 1). 

16 Σαρκὶ καὶ αἵματι, With flesh and blood). This phrase in 
scripture and among Jewish writers is only a periphrasis for 
man, as Matt. xvi. 17, 1 Cor. xv. 20, Eph. vi. 12, Heb. ii. 
14, Ecclus. xiv. 18, and so all other interpretations of it 
must be alien from the scope of the apostle. 

17 Ver. 17. Eis ᾿Αραβίαν, Into Arabia.| Of this journey 
into Arabia, St. Luke, not being with him, saith nothing. 

18 Ver. 19. “Ἕτερον τῶν ἀποστόλῶν, Other of the aposiles.] 
Hence it appears, 

First, That only Peter and James were then at Jerusalem, 
for Barnabas brought him to the apostles that were there 
(Acts ix. 27). 

Secondly, That James, the Lord’s brother, was an apos- 
tle in the strict and proper sense of the word, since Peter, 
who is mentioned with him, was doubtless so, and Barna- 
bas, who brought him to Peter and James, is said to bring 
him to the apostles: and Peter, James, and John, who are 
here called the “men of reputation,” and “pillars of the 


| church,” ii. 6. 9, seem plainly to be the same persons who, 
‘in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians are called λίαν ἀπό, 


312 


126 


James the Lord’s brother (and therefore could not learn 
my gospel from them). 

20 Now (of the truth of) the things which I write 
unto you (yuu may rest assured, fur), ® behold, before 
God, I lie not. 

21 Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria 
(i.e. to Cxsarea, Acts xxii. 17, 18) and Cilicia (to 
Troas, Acts ix. 30, xxii. 3, in Asia Minor) ; 


GALATIANS. 


22 And was (all the while) unknown by face unto 
the churches of Judea which were in Christ: s 

23 But they had heard only, That he which perse- 
cuted us (Christians) in times past now preacheth the 
faith °° which once he destroyed. 

24 #1 And they glorified God (for the conversion he 
had wrought) in me. 


στολοι, “the chief of the apostles: and Origen* saith ex- 
pressly of James the Just, “ This is that James whom Paul, 
in his Epistle to the Galatians saith he saw,” citing these 
very words for the proof of it. See this confirmed in the 
preface to the Epistle of James. Note, 

Thirdly, That the apostle’s argument is to this effect, 
Having therefore preached the gospel so long before I saw 
them, and staying so little while with them, and going then 
only to see, not to learn of them, it cannot be conceived I 
should receive my instructions how to preach the gospel 
from them. 

Note also, that Nicephorus} saith, this James was τοῦ 


* ᾿Ιάκωβος dé ἐστιν οὗτος, ὃν λέγει Παῦλος ἐδεῖν ἐν τῇ πρὸς Tada- 
τας ἐπιστολῇ, εἰπὼν ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων, &c. Hom. 13 in 
Matt. ed. Huet. p. 223, C, et lib. 1. contra Celsum, p. 35. 

{ Hist. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. 3. 


μνήστορος τοῦ ᾿Ιωσὴφ παῖς, “the son of Joseph, the husband of 
the mother of our Lord.” 

19 Ver. 20. ᾿Ιδοὺ ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ, Behold, before God.} 
Hence it is evident that the apostle, when it was necessary 
to confirm the truth of the gospel, or of his commission to, 
or his sincerity in preaching it, i. e. when the benefit of 
souls required him thus to attest to men, what otherwise 
they could not be assured of, refused not to swear, and so 
esteemed not our Saviour’s prohibition of an oath to be ab- 
solute (see Rom. i. 2, ix. 1, 2 Cor. i. 23, xi. 31, 1 Thess. ii. 
5, see the note on 2 Cor. i. 23). 

20 Ver. 23. “Hv ποτε ἐπύρϑει. See this reading vindicated, 
Examen Millii in Jocum. 

21 Ver. 24.] This testimony of the Jewish Christians was 
a confirmation of his doctrine; for if they could have found 
any just exceptions against it, they would not have glorified 
God for his preaching of it. 


CHAPTER IL. 


Tuen ! fourteen years after (my first journey thi- 
ther) I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, 
and took Titus with me also (‘hough uncircumcised, to 
show the liberty I took of conversing with persons not 
circumcised ). 

2 And I? went up by revelation, and communicated 


unto them (at Jerusalem) that gospel which I preach 
(every where) among the Gentiles, but (‘Ais 7 did ) 3 pri- 
vately to them which were of reputation, (or the chief 
men there; not that I distrusted my doctrine, or needed 
their instructions, but) lest by any means (or false 
suggestions of the Judaizers, that my doctrine was con- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1 Ver. 1. Διὰ δεκατεσσάρων ἐτῶν, Fourteen years after.] I 
cannot assent to those critics who, for δεκατεσσάρων, * four- 
teen,” would read τεσσάρων, “four years after ;” for not only 
all the manuscript copies and versions read “ fourteen,” but 
Treneus, lib. iii. cap. 13, doth confirm this reading in these 
words: “Then after fourteen years I went up to Jerusalem, 
&c. If any man carefully examine, by the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, the time mentioned of his ascent to Jerusalem for the 
question aforesaid, he will find the years agreeing with those 
mentioned by Paul.” Now these years must be reckoned 
from the time of his conversion, mentioned here, i. 18, which 
happened in the year of our Lord 35, his journey to Peter 
was A. D. 38, and then between that and the council of Je- 
rusalem, assembled anno Christi 49, will be fourteen inter- 
vening years; for whereas some reckon these fourteen years 
from the third year of his conversion to the council met at 
Jerusalem, and so make that council meet anno Domini 52, 
because it is said here, ἔπειτα “afterward,” and πάλιν ἀνέβην, 
«T went up again ;” it may be answered, that the word ἔπειτα, 
“afterward,” doth not connect these words with the three 
years mentioned i. 18, as is evident, because there follows 
another ἔπειτα, “afterward,” ver. 21, nor doth πάλιν ἀνέβην, 
«“T went up again,” relate to his first journey to Jerusalem, 
mentioned i. 18, for he had been twice at Jerusalem; three 
years after his conversion to see Peter, and nine years after 
that to carry alms to the brethren at Jerusalem (Acts xi. 
30), though, seeing then none of the apostles, he makes no 
mention of that journey here, as being nothing to his pur- 
pose (see Dr. Pearson’s Annal. Paulin. p. 8, 9): so that 
whereas he had said, i. 18, that « three years after” my con- 
version “I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter,” he saith 
here, “and fourteen years after it I went up again.” Now, 
that the apostle here speaks of the journey to Jerusalem 
mentioned Acts xv. will appear, 

First, From the agreement of what he here relates with 
what then happened, as that he “ communicated to them the 
gospel, which he preached among the gentiles,” ver. 2, as he 
then did. Acts xv. 4, that circumcision was not then judged 
necessary to the gentiles, ver. 3, as we find, Acts xv. 24, 


that “ when they saw the gospel of uncircumcision was com- 
mitted to him, they gave to him and Barnabas the right 
hand of fellowship,” ver. 9, as then they did, sending their 
very decree, with one consent, to the gentiles, “ by the hands 
of Paul and Barnabas,” Acts xv. 22. 25, who were received 
by the “whole church,” ver. 4, and styled “beloved,” ver. 
25. 

Secondly, It seems not likely that the apostle, writing 
this epistle about nine years after the decree of that council, 
should make no mention of a thing so advantageous to the 
cause he is pleading here, and so proper to confute the pre- 
tences of the adversaries he disputes against. And 

Thirdly, James, Peter, and John, being all the apostles 
that were present at the council then held at Jerusalem, 
the mention of their consent to his doctrine and practice was 
all that was necessary to his purpose to be mentioned con- 
cerning that council. Itis no objection against this opinion, 
that we find no mention, Acts xv., of ‘Titus’s being with him ; 
for he is not mentioned in the whole book of the Acts, during 
which interval this joumey must have happened. 

2 Ver. 2. ᾿Ανέβην κατὰ ἀποκάλυψιν, 1 went up by revelation.} 
Made to the apostle, saith Dr. Hammond, to comply with 
this determination of the church of Antioch; made to the 
prophets of the church of Antioch, to send them, saith Dr. 
Lightfoot, which Ido not gainsay. But the apostle doth not 
say he went up, δ ἀποκαλύψεως, “ by revelation,” but xara 
ἀποκάλυιψιν, “according to revelation: now he had said 
before he received not his doctrine or gospel by men, or of 
men, “ but by the revelation of Jesus Christ ;” and here he 
may be supposed to add, that in his journey he acted suita- 
bly to the revelation which constituted him the apostle of 
the gentiles ; telling the church of Jerusalem what things he 
had done among the gentiles in pursuance of it, not inquiring 
what they did, but declaring what God did by him, not per- 
mitting Titus, a Greek, to be cireumeised, “ not giving place 
for an hour” to the “ false brethren,” &c. 

3 Kar’ idiav δε τοῖς δοκοῦσι, Privately to them of reputation.) 
Not that his doctrine might be confirmed by the concurrence 
of Peter, or others with him in it, as Esthius from Jerome 
and Austin here suggests; for sure that doctrine, which he 
received by immediate revelation from Jesus Christ and God 


CHAPTER II. 


trary to what they who were called before me preached, 
and such as they would not own) 1 should run (hereaf- 
ter), or had run (hitherto), in vain. 

3 But (even then was nothing done by me, which 
showed any change in my doctrine or practice, ur any op- 
position made by them to it; for) neither Titus, who 
was (then) with me, being a Greek, was (upon that 
account) compelled to be circumcised (as they would 
have contended he shiuld, had they thought circumcision 
necessary lo the gentiles) : 

4 And that (which concerns the bringing and retain- 
ing Tilus with me uncircumcised was done) * because 
of false brethren (who came down to Antioch, Acts 
xv. 1) unawares brought in (Gr. introduced into the 
assembly, Acts xv. 5, or insinualing themselves into the 
church of Antioch, ver. 1), who came in privily to spy 
out (Gr. to ensnare us in) our liberty (from the observ- 
ance of the Jewish law) which we have in (and through) 
Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage 
(to it, they pleading for the necessity uf circumcising the 
gentiles, and commanding them to keep the law, Acts 
xv. 1): 

5 5 To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not 
for an hour (by submission to their demands, but conti- 
nued firm to our resolution, not to subject the gentiles to 
this yoke of bondage) ; that the truth of the gospel (of 
Christ, which frees the gentiles from the obligation of the 
law) might continue with (or among) you. 

6 But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (what- 


727 


soever they were (or, but whalsorver they were who 
seemed tu be somewhat), it maketh no matter to me 
(their seeming, or thetr real greatness, affects not my 
ductrine): God accepteth no man’s person:) for they 
who seemed to be sumwhat in conference added no- 
thing to me (ur to my dvclrine, wr currecled any thing 
in it; and sv neither am I concerned for their greal- 
ness, nor doth Gud respect them the more upon that ac- 
count: 

7 They added, I say, nothing to my doctrine,) But con- 
trariwise (they approved of it ; for) when they saw that 
the gospel of the uncireumcision was committed unto 
me (and I was authorized to preach tu the ventiles), as the 
gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter (he being ap- 
pointed to preach to the Jews : 

8 As evidently it was ;)(For he that wrought effectu- 
ally in (wilh) Peter to the apostleship of the cireumci- 
sion, the same was mighty in me (Gr. wroughi also in 
me) toward the Gentiles :) (Rom. xv. 19 :) 

9 δ And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed 
to be pillars (uf the church), perceived the grace (of 
God) that was given unto me ( fur the apostolic office), 
they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fel- 
lowship ; (concluding) that we should (still) go (on to 
preach) unto the heathen, and they (should still continue 
preaching) unto the circumcision. 

10 7 Only they would that we should remember the 
poor (Chrislians in Jude) ; the same which (Gr. which 
same thing) 1 also was forward to do. 


the Father, needed no farther confirmation from the autho- 
tity of man; but only to obviate the cavils of those who 
laboured to hinder the effect of his gospel, by suggesting that 
it was contrary to, or disowned by, those apostles who were 
called before him. 

4 Ver. 4. Διὰ τοὺς ψευδαδέλφους, Because of false brethren.) 
These false brethren, saith Epiphanius,* were Cerinthus, 
and those of his party. 

Διὰ δὶ, &c.] Here also it seems necessary to supply the 
sense from the first verse thus; συμπαμέλαβον δὲ Τίτον διὰ τοὺς 
Wendadé\pone; “And I took with me Titus, because of the 
false brethren.” Examples of the like ellipsis, or deficiency, 
to be supplied from the precedent words, in the Old ‘l'esta- 
ment, are very numerous; see Glassius de Figuris Gramma- 
ticis, lib. iv. tract. 2, observ. 11. So Matt. ii. 10, ἰδόντες dé 
τὸν ἀστέρα, “seeing the star,” éordra ἐπάνω οὗ ἣν τὸ παιδίον, 
add, “ standing over the place where the child was, (ver. 9), 
they rejoiced.” This addition was necessary, because they 
before saw the star going before them (ver.9). So John ix. 
3, “Neither hath he sinned, nor his parents;” add, from 
ver. 2, ἵνα τυφλὸς γεννηθῆ, “that he should be born blind,” 
ἀλλὰ ἵνα, but add again, “he was so born, that the works of 
God might be made manifest in him ;” 1 John ii. 19, « They 
went out from us, but they (who thus went out) were not of 
us; for if they had been of us, they might have remained 
with us,” ἀλλ᾽, supply, ἐξῆλθον ἐξ ἡμῶν, “but (they went out 
from us) that it might appear they all were not of us.” 

5 Ver. 5. Οἷς οὐδὲ πρὸς ὥραν εἴξαμεν τῇ ὑποταγῇ. Here Dr. 
Mills contends from the authority of the Vulgate, Tertullian, 
and Hilary the deacon, that οὐδὲ is an addition to the text; 
though Jerome positively saith, that this was only the read- 
ing quorundam Latinorum codicum, reclamantibus Grecis, 
“of some Latin copies against the authority of the Greek 
fathers :” see this reading confuted, Examen Millii in locum. 
And there also, οἵ doxoivres, ver. 6, is proved against the 
doctor, not to be irreptitious. 

Ver. 6. Οἱ ἀπὸ di,) As some would read, if not suitable 
to the Greek idiom; begin the words as you must the con- 
struction, ὁποῖοι dé ποτε ἦσαν ἀπὸ τῶν δοκοῦντων εἶναί τι, and the 
sense is plain, But of what quality they were, who seemed 
to be somewhat, or were of reputation, οὐδὲν por darpéper, I 


* Kai ἄλλοτε στάσιν 5 Ἰζήρινθος, καὶ of per’ αὐτοῦ εἰργάσαντο, 
ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ “Ἱερουσαλὴμ, ὁπηνίκα Παῦλος ἀνῆλθε μετὰ Τίτου---διὸ 
καὶ Παῦλος λέγει, ἀλλὰ οὐδὲ Τίτος ὁ σὺν ἐμοὶ, &c. Her. xxviii. 
§ 4, p. 112. 


was not the better for it; where note, that the scholiast 
on Thucydides saith thus, δια νέμει, 1. 6. ὠγελεῖ, the word sig- 
nifies “to profit, or be advantageous.” Phavorinus and He- 
sychius say, that it signifies βέλτιον εἶναι, “ to be the better “i 
so that the words may be thus rendered : “It was no advan- 
tage to me, I was not the better for it;” and this sense is 
confirmed by the following reason, “ For they who were of 
reputation added nothing to me.” 

6 Ver. 9.] Note, that the beginning of this verse from the 
Greek runs thus, “And James, Cephas, and John, who 
seemed to be pillars of the church, knowing the grace,” d&c. 

7 Ver. 10.] Note, that from these four verses, the supre- 
macy of Peter over the rest of the apostles, and the whole 
church, may be by many arguments refuted. For, 

1. James is here mentioned first among the apostles of the 
circumcision, according to the common doctrine of the an- 
cients, who style him," “ the first bishop, archbishop, prince, 
and bishop of bishops, τὸν τῆς νέας “Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἀρχιστράτηγον, 
τὸν τῶν ἱερέων ἡγεμόνα, τῶν ἀποστόλων τὸν ἔξαργον τὴν ἐν κεφαλαῖς 
κορυφὴν, the chieftain of the new Jerusalem, the leader of the 
priests, the prince of the apostles, the top of the heads.” 
And this agrees with the ecclesiastical tradition mentioned 
by Eusebius,t that the brethren and kinsmen of our Lord, 
whilst they lived, were preferred before other apostles and 
bishops, and that therefore Peter and John contended not 
with James, the Lord’s brother, but “chose him bishop of 
Jerusalem, and after his death judged Simeon, his cousin- 
german, worthy of that see, ὡς ἀπὸ γένους ὄντος τοῦ Κυρίου, as 
being of the kindred of our Lord.” 

Secondly, He puts no difference betwixt these “pillars” 
or “chief of the apostles ;’ which no more agrees with the 
supposed supremacy of Peter, than it would with the pope’s 
supremacy to be reckoned among or after some of the 
cardinals; which as it is never done by them who own the 
pope's supremacy, so neither would this have been done by 
Paul, had he owned the supremacy of Peter. 

Thirdly, He says the gospel of the uncircumcision was 
committed to him, as was that of the circumcision to Peter, 
by which words “he shows himself equal to Peter,” say the 
scholiasts.; By these words, saith Hilary the deacon, Plena 

* Hesych. apud Phot. Cod. 275, p. 1525. See Cotel. 
Not. in Barnab. p. 6. 

+ Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 1, lib. iii. cap. 11, lib. iv. eap. 
20, 32. 

$ Δείκνησιν canréy ἰσύτιμον τῷ Πέτρῳ, ἑαυτὸν ἐξισοῖ τῷ Πέτρω 


Chrys. cum. Theoph. 


728 


11 But when Peter was come to Antioch, § I with- 
stood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. 

12 For before that certain (bre/hren of the Jews) came 
from James, he did ( free/y) eat with the Gentiles: but 
when they were come, he withdrew and separated him- 
self (from then), fearing (lo exasperale or scandalize) 
them which were of the circumcision. 

13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with 
him; insomuch that (even) Barnabas also was carried 
away with their dissimulation. 

14 But when I saw that (in this matter) ° they 
walked not uprightly according to the truth of the 
gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being 
a Jew (one of that nation to which alone the law of 
Moses was given), livest after the manner of Gen- 
tiles (conversing freely wilh them, and eating of their 
meals, as, since the vision which thow sawest, how hast 
done), and not as do the Jews (abslaining from their 
meats and persons as tinclean), why (now) compellest 
thou the Gentiles (by thy example) to live as do the 
Jews? 

15 We who are Jews by (birth or) nature, and not 
© sinners of the Gentiles (nol zdolatrous heathens), 

16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the 
works of the law, but (un/y) by the faith of Jesus 
Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that 
we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and 
(thereby have testified to our conviction, that we could ) 
not (be justified) by the works of the law (as indced 
we cannot be): for by the works of the law shall no 
flesh be justified. 

17 ™ But if, while we (hus) seek to be justified by 
Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners (as we 


GALATIANS. 


must be, if we be still obliged to observe that law we have 
renounced as unable to juslify us), is therefore Christ 
(who taught us thus lo renounce the law, and to seek jus- 
tification by faith in him) the minister of sin? God 
forbid (that we should charge this on him. 

18 And yet we, by asserting the necessi'y that the gen- 
tiles should observe the law, and so much more the Jews, 
do in effect say that Christ hath taugh! us to be sinners ;) 
Forif I (thus) build again the things which I destroyed 
(urging the necessity of observing that law to justification 
which I declared wnable to jus!ify, and therefore renownced 
for faith in Christ), | make myself a transgressor (by 
not observing it to thal end. 

19 But whalsoever others may think fil to do, for be 
it from me to imitate them,) For 1 through the law 
(teaching me that it condemns all men to deaih, und bear- 
ing witness to the justification which is of God by faith, 
Rom. iii. 21) am (become) dead to (the observance of ) 
the law. that I might (for the fulure) live unto God 
(Rom. vii. 4). 

20 Iam crucified with Christ (and so dead to the law, 


‘Rom. vi. 4): nevertheless I live; yet not I (as for- 


merly, a Jew and an observer of the law), but Christ 
liveth in me (and I am acted by his Spirit: Rom. vii. 
6): and the life which I now live (/ead) in the flesh I 
live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and 
gave himself for me. 

21 Ido not frustrate the grace of God (as 7 should 
do, did I seek for righteousness by the law): for if righte- 
ousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain 
(there being then no necessity that he should die to, pur- 
chase justification for us, and no sufficient virlue in his 
death to procure it). 


autoritas Petri in predicatione Judaismi data dignoscitur, 
et Pauli perfecta autoritas in predicatione gentilium inve- 
nitur. So that then Peter's supremacy was not owned at 
Rome. 

Lastly, “It makes no matter to me,” saith he, “what 
they were; which sure could not fitly be said of him whom 
Christ had constituted to be his head and judge. 

8 Ver. 11. Αὐτῷ ἀντέστην, I withstood him, &c.| Quis ergo 
auderet Petro, primo apostolo—resistere, nisi alius talis qui 
fiducid sux electionis, sciens se non esse imparem, constanteér 
improbaret quid ille sine consilio fecerat ?* 

*9 Ver. 14. Οὐκ ὀρϑιποδοῆσι πρὸς τὴν ἀλήϑειαν rod εὐαγγελίου, 


They walled not uprightly, δες. By this action Peter is 
charged with a sinful fear, ver. 13, « not walking uprightly ac- 
cording to the truth of the gospel,” ver. 14, with hypocrisy and 
dissimulation against his own knowledge and practice else- 
where, ver. 13, with “building again what he had pulled 
down,” ver. 18, and with “compelling the gentiles to live as 
do the Jews,” ver. 14; where observe, that he is said to “com- 
pel,” in scripture, not only who doth violently force, but who, 
being of authority, provokes by his example, as here; as 
also they who lay a necessity on others to do any thing, either 
by their deportment, as the Corinthians who “compelled” 
Paul to glory, 2 Cor. xii. 11, or by their doctrine, as did the 


* Hilar. in locum. 


Judaizers, “ compelling the gentiles to be circumcised,” Gal. 
vi. 12, and in this sense our Saviour says to his disciples, 
«“Compel them to come in,” Luke xiv. 23. 

10 Ver. 15. ᾿Αμαρτωλοὶ, Sinners of the gentiles.| This 
word in the scripture phrase signifies a great and habitual 
sinner; and because the gentiles were by the Jewish nation 
still esteemed such, and generally were so, therefore the word 
is used to denote the gentiles that knew not God. So what. 
is ἐδνικοὶ, the heathens,’ in many copies, Matt. v. 46, 47, 
is ἁμαρτωλοῖ, “ sinners,’ Luke vi. 32—34, and to be delivered 
sis χεῖρας τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν, “into the hands of sinners,” Matt. 
xxvi. 45, Mark xiv. 41, is, to be delivered τοῖς ἔθνεσι, “to the 
gentiles,” Matt. xx. 19, Mark x. 33, Luke xviii. 32, 

Ver. 17, 18.] This exposition of these two verses, 
which I have taken from Hilary, and all the Greek scho- 
liasts, seems much better than that of late commentators, 
who make the seventeenth verse to be an objection against 
Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith, and the eighteenth an 
answer to it; for which I sce no ground in the apostle’s 
words. 

Or these words may be paraphrased thus: εἰ γὰρ ἃ xaré- 
λυσα, If the things which (by Christ’s authority committed 
to his apostles, Matt. xvii. 18) I have loosed (by declaring 
men absolved from the ritual precepts of the law of Moses), 
I again build up (by teaching they are to be observed), I 
make myself a transgressor. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 'O roortsn Galatians, ? who hath bewitched you, | (or envied your happiness, and so endeavoured) that 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


' Ver. 1. *@ ἀνόητοι, O foolish, &c.) The apostle, by call- 
ing the Galatians “ foolish,” doth not contradict our Saviour’s 


precept, because he doth it not εἰκῆ, “rashly and without 
cause,” saith Theophylact, nor out of anger and ill-will to 


them, but from an ardent desire to make them sensible of 


their folly. 
2 τίς ὑμᾶς ἑβάσκανε ; Who hath bewitched you 2] Tis ἐφ- 


ϑόνησε ; “ Who hath looked upon you with an evil or envious 
eye,” as envying you the blessings of the gospel? So the 
Greek scholiasts. ‘lhe word also signifies, oculis prestigia 
imponere, “to put delusions,” or, as we say, “ mists before 
the eyes,” which import suits best with the following words. 
The reverend Dr. Hammond observes here, that this seduc- 
tion may refer to the Ebionites, if the time would permit, 
as doubtless it will; for they were only a branch of the 
Nazarenes or Cerinthians, who were contemporary with 


CHAPTER III. 


e should not obey the truth, * before whose eyes 
tone Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified 
among you? 

2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye 
the Spirit (tn his σὴ and powerful operations) by 
(obedience to) the works of the law, or by the hearing 
of faith? (7. e. the belief of the gospel: if by the lat- 
ter, this is a manifest token that your justification and 
acceptance with God was the fruit of your faith, and 
not of your obedience to the law; since God, by giving 
yon his Spirit whilst uncircumcised, as well as to the 
elieving Jews, bare witness to this very thing, that he 
puls no difference betwixt you and them on that account, 
Acts xy. 8, 9.) 

3 Are ye (then) so foolish? having (thus) begun in 
the Spirit (as to receive his miraculous gifis by faith, 
without the works of the law), are ye now (seeking to be) 
made perfect by the flesh (by cércumcision, and observ- 
ing the carnal ordinances of the law)? 


7129; 


4 Have ye suffered so many things (from the per- 
seculing Jews, Acts xvii. 5) in vain? ‘if it be yet (or 
even) in vain. 

5 (Tb reassume my argument :) He therefore that 
ministereth to you the Spirit (én Ais extraordinary 
| gifis), and © worketh miracles among you, docth 
he il by (virlue of your obedience to) the works of 
the law, or by the hearing of faith? (ἐς. e that 
faith which taught you to believe in a crucified Sa- 
viour. 

6 For we must be justified) Even as Abraham (the 
father of the faithful was, who) δ᾽ believed God, and it 
was accounted to him for righteousness, 

7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith 
(and seek justification by it), the same are the (frue) 
children of (fai/hful) Abraham. 

8 And the (Hnly Ghost in) scripture, foreseeing that 
God would justify the heathen through faith,? preached 
before (the giving of the law, and before his circumci- 


Paul; and all his epistles show that then there were many 
who maintained and eagerly promoted, among the gentile 
converts, the chief doctrine of those sects, viz. «that they 
were obliged to observe the legal constitution,* as being not 
capable of salvation only by faith in Christ, and a life agree- 
able to it.” And if this once be granted, there will be no 
need of his Gnostics in this, and perhaps not in any other of 
Paul's epistles. 

Τῇ ἀληϑεία μὴ πείϑεσϑαι 1} These words, saith Jerome, are 
not extant, in exemplaribus Adamantii, “in the copies of 
Origen ;” but they are extant in the Arabic version, the 
Vulgar, Hilary the deacon, Theodoret, G2cumenius, and 
Theophylact. 

I cannot sufficiently wonder at Mr. Le Clere’s wild con- 
jecture, that the Ebionites were Samaritans, especially after 
he had given us the words of Origen, in which he twice 
saith, they were of ἀπὸ ᾿Ιουδαίων εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν πιστεύοντες, 
“those of the Jews that believed in Jesus,” lib. ii. contr. 
Cels. p. 56. Had he not read in Ireneus that they did 
prophetica curiositis exponere, et Judaico charactere vite 
uti, et Hicrosolymam adorare, quasi domus sit Dei? lib. 1. 
cap. 26. And could the Samaritans do this? doth not St. 
Jerome say of them, Dum volunt Judwi esse, et Christiani, 
nec Judi sunt, nec Christiani? Ep. ad August. Yea, even 
his own Epiphanius informs us (Her. x. Anaceph. p. 240), 
that Ἰονόατοι ὄντες, “ being Jews,” they used the gospel. 

3 Οἷς κατ' ὀφθαλμοὺς ᾿Ιησοὴς Χριστὸς προεγράφη, ἐν ὑμῖν 
écravpwpévos.] These words may bear this construction, 
“Before whose eyes Jesus Christ crucified, hath been evi- 
dently set forth to, or among you;” viz.in and from the 
scriptures of the Old Testament; for the words ἐν ὑμῖν are 
not in the Alexandrian manuscript, and so may be here 
omitted, or construed with the word προεγράφη ; and so they 
accord both with the context and with the way of preaching 
used by the apostles, whose custom it was to prove, out of 
the Old Testament, that « Jesus was the Christ,” and that 
« Christ ought to have suffered for us according to the serip- 
tures” (Acts xvii. 3): and then the argument runs thus, If 
he died to procure the pardon of our sins, and so our justifi- 
cation, why do we render his death upon the cross vain, by 
seeking to be justified by the law ? He having by his suffer- 
ings “ blotted out the hand-writing which was against us, and 
nailed (these ordinances) to the cross, why is it that you, 
who are dead with Christ from these elements of the world, 
are still subject to ordinances?” (Eph. ii. 15, 16, Col. ii. 
14, 20). 

4 Ver. 4. Εἴ γε καὶ εἰκῆ, If it be in vain.] As it must be 
upon your hypothesis of the necessity of the observance of 
the law, for “then is the scandal of the cross ceased” (v. 
11), and all necessity of suffering persecution is removed ; 
these deceivers themselves doing and urging others to these 
things, only “lest they should suffer persecution for the cross 
of Christ” (vi. 12): for the first persecutions which the 
church suffered, were either from the Jews in person, or by 


* "Os μὴ διὰ μόνης τῆς cis τὸν Χριστὸν, καὶ τοῦ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν βίου 
σωϑησομένους. Euseb, Eccl. Hist. lib. ili. cap. 27. 
_ Vor. [V,—92 


the incitation of the Jews (Acts viii. 1, 1 Thess. ii. 14—16, 
Acts xiii. 15, xiv. 19, xvii. 5. 13), who being every where 
dispersed, “sent chosen men from Jerusalem to all places, 
where they and the Christians were, to stir up the heathen 
governors against them,” as Justin Martyr® testifies. Note 
also, that they were chiefly scandalized at the doctrine of 
the cross (1 Cor. i. 23), not only as it contradicted their 
pleasant dream of a temporal Messiah, under whom they 
should live gloriously and triumphantly, but as being that 
which put an end to the Jewish ceremonies, and taught men 
to expect justification, not by observance of the law, but by 
faith in the blood of Christ shed for us; upon which ac- 
count they were incensed against all who thus taught or thus 
believed it. 

Note also hence, that all the good actions we have done 
will be done in vain, if we persevere not in well-doing to 
the end. 

5 Ver. δ. ᾿Πνεργῶν δυνάμεις, He that worketh miracles 
among you.) This is the observation of all the ancients,t 
that comment upon this and the second verse, that “ to 
commend the beginning of the Christian faith, the gift of 
tongues, prophecy, and working of miracles, were vouch- 
safed to believers, as to the apostles at the beginning, accord- 
ing to our Lord’s prediction,” Mark xvi. 17, 18. 

And let those that question the truth of Christianity ob- 
serve, that this was the chief argument which carried the 
cause in the council at Jerusalem, that the miraculous gifts 
of the Holy Ghost were equally vouchsafed to the uncir- 
cumcised gentile and to Jews, Acts xv. 8,9; and that this 
is here urged by Paul as a thing undeniable, to confirm the 
Galatians, and to confute those who endeavoured to prevail 
on them to admit of circumcision, and the observance of 
other legal rites. This confirmation, therefore, of the truth 
of Christian faith, was such as none, concerned to do it then, 
were able to gainsay, much less can any now find reason to 
doubt of it. 

ὁ Ver. 6. 'Exicrevoe τῷ Θεῷ, Believed God.] Hence it is evi- 
dent, that it is the act of faith, and not the object of it, which 
doth justify ; for Abraham believed God ayn, et imputavit 
eam fidem, “and he imputed that faith in him for righteous- 
ness,” Gen. xv. 6. “The blessed God,” saith R. Salom, “ im- 
puted this to Abraham for righteousness, for the faith by 
which he believed in him.” 

7 Ver. 8. Preached the gospel to Abraham, saying, &c.] 
Well might the apostle argue thus from the example of 
Abraham, he being styled by the Jerasalem ‘Valmud, “ Abra- 
ham the just,” Gen. xv. 1, xviii. 2; and these words being 
paraphrased thus, ‘In thy righteousness shall all the families 
of the earth be blessed.” Here Jerome saith, Hoc autem 
in oninibus pené testimoniis, que de veteribus libris in Novo 


* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, 

} Ad rudimenta fidei commendanda, Hilar. in locum. 
Kar’ ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν οἱ τῆς πνευματικῆς χάριτος ἀξιούμενοι, καὶ 
γλώτταις διαφύροις ἐλάλουν, καὶ προεφήτενον, καὶ ἐθα"ματούργουν, ἀπὸ 
τῶν θαυμάτων λαμβάνοντες τοῦ κηρύγματος τὴν βεβαίωσιν. ‘heo- 


doret. Chrysost. Gicum. ‘Theophylact. 


730. 


sion) the gospel unto Abraham, (by) saying (Gen. xii. 
3), 5 In thee shall all nations be blessed. 

9 So then they which be of faith (and seek justifica- 
tion by it, Rom. ix. 32) are blessed with faithful Abra- 
ham, (and as he was ; 

10 And not by the works of the law ;)Foras many as 
are of the works of the law (and seek to be justified by 
them) are under the curse (uf it, and so incapable of jus- 
tification by it) : for it is written (there), Cursed is every 
one that continueth not in all things which are written 
in the book of the law to do them (Deut. xxvii. 26. 
Now this being perfectly done by none, all that are under 
the law are under the curse of it). 

11 But that no man is justified by (observance of ) 


GALATIANS. 


the law in the sight of God, it 7s ( farther) evident: for 
(the prophet Habakkuk saith, ii. 4),9 The just shall live 
by faith. 

12 And (now, or whereas) the law is not of faith: 
but (sai/h), The man that doeth them (ἡ. e. that perfectly 
observes what is required by the law) shall live in (or by) 
them. 

13 (This being so) Christ hath redeemed us from the 
curse of the law, (by) being made (according to ihe sen- 
tence of the law) a curse for us: for (there) it is written, 
0 Cursed zs every one that hangeth on a tree (as you 
know he did upon the cross : 

14 And this he suffered,) That the blessing of Abra- 
ham might come on the Gentiles through (faith in) 


assumpta sunt Testamento, observare debemus, quod me- 
moriz crediderunt evangeliste, vel apostoli, et tantum sensti 
explicato, sepé ordinem transmutaverunt, nonnunquam vel 
detraxerint verba, vel addiderint: for which wild note this 
verse ministers no occasion: for though the words “in thy 
seed,” occur not, ch. xxii., yet xii. 2, they are found ex- 
pressly as they are cited here, only with the addition of 
ἀπὸ γῆς, of the earth, which adds nothing to the sense. So 
again, on ver. 10, he makes this note, Incertum habemus 
utrum Septuaginta interpretes addiderint ‘omnis homo,’ et 
‘in omnibus,’ an in veteri Hebraico ita fuerit, et postea a 
Judzis deletum sit; in hane me suspicionem illa res stimu- 
lat, quod verbum ‘omnis,’ et ‘in omnibus’ apostolus vir He- 
bree peritie, et in lege doctissimus, nunquam protulissit, 
nisi in Hebreis voluminibus haberentur ; whereas, as I have 
shown, that nothing is here added, but what was necessarily 
included in the full sense of the words, and therefore is 
in the version of the Septuagint; so to imagine, that all 
the apostles who understood Hebrew must have cited all 
that they produced out of the Old Testament, exactly ac- 
cording to the Hebrew, and not at all according to the 
Septuagint, is an imagination contrary to ocular demonstra- 
tion. 

8 Ἔν σοι, In thee.] That is, “in thy seed,” ver. 6; so Acts 
lil. 25, “ Ye are the sons of the prophets, and of the cove- 
nant which God made with your fathers, saying, And in 
thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed;” that 
is, in Christ: for so it follows, ver. 26, “ΤῸ you first, God 
having raised up his child Jesus, sent him to bless you.” 
And this confutes them who, with the Jews, interpret these 
words as a form of benediction thus, “God make thee like 
to Abraham. ” 

9 Ver. 11. 'O δίκαιος, &e. The just shall live by faith.) 
Thus do the Jews themselves expound these words of Ha- 
bakkuk, “ Faith is the cause of blessedness, as it is the cause 
of eternal life, according to these words, The just shall live 
by his faith” (Sepher Ikkarim, lib. i. cap. 21). 

10 Ver. 13. For it is written, ἐπικατάρατος πᾶς ὃ κρεμάμενος 
ἐπὶ ζύλου.] Here again St. Jerome’s note is, Scire non pos- 
sum, quare apostolus in eo, quod scriptum est, ‘ maledictus 
a Deo omnis, qui pendet in ligno,’ vel subtraxerit aliquid, 
vel addiderit ; si enim semel autoritatem Septuaginta inter- 
pretum sequebatur, debuit, sicut ab illis editum est, et Dei 
nomen adjungere, sin vero, ut Hebreus ex Hebreis, id quod 
in lingua sua legerit, putabat esse verissimum, nec ‘ omnis,’ 
nec ‘in ligno,’ que in Hebrzo non habentur, assumere ; ex 
quo mihi videtur, aut veteres Hebreorum libri (libros) 
alitér habuisse quam nunc habent, aut apostolum sensum 
scripturarum posuisse, non verba; aut quod magis xstiman- 
dum est, post passionem Christi, et in Hebrzis, et in nostris 
codicibus ab aliquo Dei nomen appositum, ut infamiam 
nobis inureret, qui in ligno Christum maledictum a Deo 
credimus. But to omit the incredible supposition, that the 
Jews should have falsified both the Hebrew and Greek text, 
and the Samaritan copy should agree with them in that 
falsation ; 

First, The words ἐπὶ ξύλον are no addition to the text, 
yy Sy being in the former verse, which saith, “ You shall 
hang him on a tree;” and ἐπικατώματος is in eflect κατάρατος 
ἀπὸ τοὺ Θεοῦ. 

Secondly, The business of the apostle here is, to show 
that Christ had redeemed us, ἐκ τῆς κατήρας, “ from the curse, 
by being made a curse for us; i. 6. by suffering that death 


which by the law was counted execrable: now to prove this, 
it was sufficient to show, that by being hanged on the tree 
Christ suffered that punishment which by the law was styled 
execrable. 

Thirdly, The Hebrew saith, oabxa adn “ accursed by 
the judges,” is he that is hanged on a tree. Now these 
judges being the ordinance of God, he that receives an 
execrable sentence from them may be said to lie under the 
curse of God, as receiving that execrable punishment, which 
his vicegerents do inflict upon him, by the determinate coun- 
sel of God; in which sense Christ is said to be “smitten of 
(that) God,” who made our sins to meet upon him (Isa. 
lii. 4. 6), and to be “delivered up for our offences; and 
he who suffers a death which the law styles accursed by the 
Dynbx or magistrates, who are appointed to execute the 
judgment of the Lord, may be said to undergo his curse. 

᾿Επικατάρατος πᾶς, Cursed is every one.] When all were 
obnoxious to the curse of the law, saith Theodoret, he un- 
dertook that death which by the law was accursed, to free 
us from the curse. ‘To restrain the words, ‘He redeemed 
us from the curse of the law,” to the Jews only, is in effect 
to say, Christ only suffered for the Jews, seeing he only 
suffered by hanging on the cross, the tree on which he did 
expire. ‘I'he gentiles were not indeed subject to the par- 
ticular maledictions contained in the law of Moses, because 
that law was not given to them, but only to the Jews: but 
they were subject to that death, which was the general 
punishment threatened to the violators of the law, and was 
the curse denounced against Adam and his seed. And 
since it was by virtue of Christ’s hanging on the cross that 
“the blessing of Abraham came upon the gentiles,” he must 
have been thus made a curse for them also, and not for the 
Jews only. 

Now here seems to be a plain evidence that our Lord suf- 
fered in our stead, by way of surrogation, the punishment 
the law denounced against us for sin: for we were obnoxious 
by the law to a curse; he, that he might redeem us from it, 
did for our sakes, and in our stead, willingly submit himself 
to that death which, by the sentence of the law, did render 
any man accursed ; for “he bare our sins in his own body 
on the tree.” Now the law expressly saith, «« Cursed is every 
one that hangeth on a tree ;’”’ and Crellius here is forced to 
own a double commutation, both of the person suffering and 
of the evils suffered ; for whereas we ought to have suffered, 
Christ, saith he, suffered for us; and whereas we ought to 
have suflered a curse, Christ suffered a curse for us. But 
then he adds, that we ought to have suffered a real curse, 
Christ only suffered a curse improperly so called for us. The 
curse threatened by the law to us was death eternal, the 
curse Christ suffered for us was only temporal death. But, 

First, If the curse threatened to us was only the curse of 
the law, and Christ suffered the curse of the law, both which 
things the apostle here affirms, what ground hath Crellius 
to put these differences betwixt the curse Christ suffered, 
and the curse threatened by the law? or does he not hereby 
seem to make the apostle’s argument sophistical and uncon- 
cluding ? 

Secondly, The sins to which the curse is threatened, 
Deut. xxvii., were either such to which God elsewhere 
threatened death, or cutting off, or such as he required them 
to abstain from, that they might live, and not die. Now, 
seeing the Socinians so stiffly do contend that the life pro- 
mised to the observers of the law was only temporal, why 


CHAPTER IIL. 


Jesus Christ; that we (gen/iles, believing in him) might 
receive the promise of the Spirit " through faith ; (fur 
we are all the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus; 
and because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of 
his Son into our hearts, iv. 5, 6.) 

15 Brethren, I speak after the. ? manner of men; 
(using an example taken from the common praclice of all 
men, and speaking what is owned in all civilized na- 
tions: see note on 1 Cor. ix. 8;) Though it be but 
a man’s covenant (ihat is made), yet if it be (/egal- 
ly) confirmed, no man disannulleth (i), or addeth 
thereto. 

16 Now to Abraham and his 13 seed were the pro- 
mises made. He (God) saith not, And to seeds, as 
of many; but as (speaking) of one, And " to thy seed, 
which is Christ. 

17 And this I (farther) say, that the covenant, 


731 


that was confirmed before of God in Christ (7. δ. 
the covenant made in Christ the promised seed, and 
confirmed by God lo Abraham fore the law was uiven), 
the law, which was (giver) four hundred and thirty 
years after, cannot disannul, (sv) that it should make 
the promise (be) of none effect (vx if must have done, 
were justification to be vbtained by the law ; for then none 
could be blessed in and by the promised seed only, or with- 
out the law). 

18 For if the inheritance (of the blessing promised 
to Abraham) be (to be obtuined by observance) of the 
law, if is no more (fhe cffect) of (the) promise: but 
(thal cannot be said, for) God gave it to Abraham by 
promise. 

19 (But you will inquire,) Wherefore then serveth 
the law? (J answer,) It was added (after the promise 
made) 18 because of transgressions, till the seed 


should they say, that the death threatened to the violation 
of it is eternal death? It is true, all death must be eternal 
to them that cannot raise themselves, and have no promise 
of a resurrection; upon which two accounts our Saviour's 
death was not eternal, because he had power to revive him- 
self, and had a promise that “he should not see corrup- 
tion;” but the death threatened by the law, in its own 
nature, being only the separation of the soul and body, this 
our Lord did as truly suffer, as they could do who should 
never live again. 

The distinction, therefore, which the case requires, is only 
that which results necessarily from the difference of the 
person ; i. e. we should have suffered the curse of the law 
for our own sins, and consequently should also have been 
accursed in the sight of God. Christ actually suffered the 
legal curse to obtain pardon for the sins of others, and there- 
fore only was accursed in the eye of the law, and in the 
sight of men; but being in his own person wholly innocent, 
he could not be accursed in the sight of God: and thus it 
is, and must be, in all vicarial sufferings, the person sinning, 
and he that undertakes to suffer for him, are both guilty in 
the eye of the law, and suffer the punishment the law re- 
quires, but one of them alone is guilty in the sight of God. 
Christ therefore was so made a curse, as he was “made sin 
for us” (2 Cor. v. 20), not by contracting the guilt, but by 
suffering the punishment of our sins, by being “ numbered 
with transgressors,” and condemned with them to the death 
which the law styles “ accursed.” 

Ver, 14. διὰ τῆς πίστεως, Through faith.) It seems to 
follow from these words, and from 2 Cor. ii. 7, 8, that the 
ministration of the Spirit belonged not to the jaw, but to the 
gospel, the law being rather the ministration of death: hence 
the apostle here opposes to the curse of the law, “ the bless- 
ing of Abraham, which,” saith he, “is the promise of the 
Spirit through faith.” 

2 Ver. 15. Ὅμως ἀνθρώπου κεκυρωμένην διαϑήκην οὐδεὶς ἐπι- 
διατάσσεται.Ἶ Here I would read ὁμῶς, which signifies ὁμοίως, 
similiter, in like manner; in which sense ὅμως is plainly 
used in these words, ὅμως τὰ ἄψυχα, and is translated, “ in 
like manner,” 1 Cor. xiv. 7. 

3 Ver. 16. Ai ἐπαγγελίαι, The promises.] Made to Abra- 
ham, Gen. xii. 3; and repeated, Gen. xxii. 18; and to Isaac, 
Gen. xxvi. 4. 

M4 Kai τῷ σπέρματί cov, And to thy seed, which is Christ.) 
This interpretation is owned by the Jews,* who observe, that 
“it is not written here, thy son, but thy seed; that is, the 
King Messiah.” And, as Theodoret observes, the words are 
capable of no other sense; for by Christ only was the pro- 
mise fulfilled, and in him alone did the gentiles receive this 
blessing. He, therefore, in whom alone this promise was 
verified, must be the person of whom it was chiefly, if not 
only, intended. And so Peter, assisted by the Holy Ghost, 
interprets these words, saying, “ You are the children of the 
prophets, and of the covenant which God hath made to your 
fathers, saying, And in thy seed shall all the families of the 
earth be blessed: to you first, God having raised up his 
child Jesus, sent him to bless you:” this child therefore is 


the seed. We need not the gloss of Mr. Clerc, that Paul 
here argues “according to the allegorical interpretation of 
that age; but if it be considered in itself, it cannot be 
thought of any force by those who have other sentiments, 
because the Hebrew y-y is a collective name:” for this is 
the very objection of R. Isaac, that great enemy of the 
Christian faith, and is answered by the right reverend Bishop 
of Bath and Wells, by showing that the Hebrew word 1s 
used of one, Gen. iii. 15, iv. 25, xv. 3, xxxviil. 8, 9, and 
that the Jews themselves so expound it (Demonstrat. of the 
Messiah, par. ii. p. 256): nor his other corrupt gloss, that 
“by Christ is meant Christ's disciples ;” for is this sense, In 
thy seed, i. e. in Christ’s disciples, shall all the families of 
the earth be blessed? [5 not this to ascribe that to Christ’s 
disciples which belongs to him alone; and to make them 
the saviours of the world?) And why does he say that 
“nothing was promised to Christ,” when the apostle tells us, 
that “in thee” and “in thy seed” signifies Christ, who was 
to be the blessing both of Jew and gentile? for though in- 
deed the promise was to Abraham, the first subject of it was 
Christ, which is all the apostle here intends. 

16 Ver. 17. Mera ἔτη τετρακύσια καὶ τριάκοντα, Four hun- 
dred and thirty yeors after.) Hence it is evident, that the 
apostle here refers primarily to the promise made, Gen. xii. 
3; since from that only are the four hundred and thirty 
years to be computed; for then Abraham was seventy-five 
years old (Gen. xii. 4); from thence to the birth of Isaac, 
which happened when Abraham was a hundred years old 
(Gen. xxi. 5), is five-and-twenty years; from his birth to the 
birth of Jacob was sixty years; for Isaac was sixty years old 
when Rebecca bare him (Gen. xxy. 26); from Jacob's birth 
to his descent into Egypt was one hundred and thirty 
years, as he saith to Pharaoh, Gen. xlvii. 9; the abode of 
him and his posterity in Egypt was two hundred and fifteen 
years; so that, with their sojourning in Canaan, was four 
hundred and thirty years (Exod. xii. 40), according to the 
Septuagint. 

16 Ver, 19. Τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν, Because of transgres- 
sions.] Maimonides,* in his More Nevochim, acknowledges, 
that the ceremonial Jaw was given for the extirpation of ido- 
latry : “For (saith he) when God sent Moses to redeem his 
people out of Egypt, it was the usual custom of the world, 
and the worship in which all nations were bred up, to build 
temples in honour of the sun, moon, and stars, and to offer 
divers kinds of animals to them, and to have priests ap- 
pointed for that end: therefore God, knowing it is beyond 
the strength of human nature instantly to quit that which 
it hath been long accustomed to, and so is powerfully in- 
clined to, would not command that all that worship should 
be abolished, and he should be worshipped only in spirit; 
but that he only should be the object of this outward wor- 
ship; that these temples and altars should be built to him 
alone; these sacrifices offered to him only, and these 
priests should be consecrated to his service” (Exod. xx. 24, 
xxv. 24, xxxiv. 14, Lev. i. 2, xxii. 19. And the like 
is said by Cedrenus{ of their festivals, separations, purga- 
tions, oblations, decimations, that God enjoined them, that 


* Moses Haddarsan ad Gen. xix. 3-4. 


* Par. ii. cap. 32, p. 432,433. { Comp. Hist. p. 239, 


732 


was ordained (ur deltsercd, not as the promise, imm-di- 
ately by God himself to Abrahum, bul) by angels: (i 
being ihe word spolen by angels, Heb. 11. 2, nol as the 
promis, without a mediator betwixt God giving and 
Abraham recetvin’, bul) in the hand of a mediator (even 
Moses, who stood between them and the Lord at that lime, 
to show them the word of the Lord, Deut. v. 5, and τα 
the covenant on the people’s part). 

20 Now (but the promise required no mediator, for) 
™ a mediator is not a mediator of one (party only), but 
God (who made the promise to Abraham) is one (only). 

21 Js the law then against the promises of God, (as 
it must be, if zt condemns them to whom the promise 
doth assign a blessing? or is tt against those promises 
which say, The just shall live by faith, and the blessing 
of Abraham shall come upon us by faith; as tt must 
be, provided we are to be justified not by faith, but by 
the works of the law? but) God forbid (ὦ should be 


GALATIANS. 


should come to whom the promise was made}; and Zt, 


thowzh! he had given a law which disannulled his pro- 
miss; as it must have done, had justification to life 
depended on the observance of il): for if there had 
been (such) a law given which could have given life, 
verily righteousness (7. €. justification to lif, Rom. v. 
18) should have been by the law; (whereas il subject- 
ing us tu deat, we may be sure God never did intend it 
Jor that end.) 

22 But the scripture hath concluded all (men of all 
nalions) under sin, (and so under condemnation by the 
law moral and ceremonial, and sentenced not to life, but 
death by it, and thereby shown the necessity) that the 
promise (uf juslificalion) by faith of Jesus Christ (the 
promised seed) might be given to them that believe (in 
him ; and thus the law is not contrary, but subservient to 
the promises of living by faith). 

23 But before faith came (fo be revealed), we were 
kept under (‘he discipline of ) the law, ® shut up unto 
the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 


τῆς πολυθέον πλάνης εἐκστήσωνται, “being employed in doing 
these things to the true God, they might abstain from ido- 
latry.” And thus, saith Dr. Spencer, were. they kept or 
guarded under the discipline of the law, and shut up from 
the idolatrous rites and customs of the heathen world, by 
the strictness of these legal observations, and the penalties 
denounced against the violators of them. And it is well 
known that all the ancient fathers were of this opinion, that 
God gave the Jews only the decalogue, till they had made 
the golden calf, and that afterward he laid this yoke of cere- 
monies upon them to restrain them from idolatry. Thus 
when God first brought them out of Egypt, and commanded 
them not to “defile themselves with the idols of Egypt” 
(Ezek. xx. 7), he is said to have “ given them his statutes, 
and showed them his judgments, which if a man do he shall 
live in them” (ver. 11). But, saith he, still their hearts 
were after their fathers’ idols, the Egyptian Apis, &c. 
“ Wherefore I gave them statutes which were not good, and 
jadgments whereby they should not live” (ver. 24, 25), that 
is, that law of carnal commandments, which, saith the apos- 
tle, was abolished for «the weakness and unprofitableness of 
it,’ Heb. viii. 16. 18. And those words of Maimonides 
give us a clear reason why these rituals were called by Paul 
στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμο", “the rudiments of the world,” Gal. vi. 
3, Col. ii. 28, namely, because, for matter, they were the 
same which heathens used before to their false gods. This 
is a very ancient exposition, and is partly true, but it con- 
taineth not the whole truth; for the apostle, in the Epistle 
to the Romans, which is the best expositor of this, informs 
us, that “the law entered, that sin might abound,” Rom. v. 
20, i. 6. that it might appear to abound unto death, that 
“sin might appear sin, working death in us,” vii. 13, and 
that “the law worketh wrath,” iv. 15, iii. 20, by giving us 
the knowledge of that sin which deserveth it: and this 
answers to that which the apostle here saith, that “the law 
was added because of transgressions,” viz. to discover them 
and their punishment; that “the scripture hath concluded 
all men under sin,” viz. by virtue of the law; that “as many 
as are under the law are under the curse,” ver. 10, and that 
upon these accounts, “ the law is our schoolmaster, to bring 
us to Christ, that we may be justified through faith in him,” 
who are condemned by the law, ver. 24, “ Christ being the 
end of the law for justification to every one that believeth,” 
Rom. x. 3. 

7 Ver. 20. 'O dé μεσίτης. Perhaps these words may 
better be expounded thus :* “ But this mediator (viz. Moses) 
was only the mediator of the Jews ; and so was only media- 
tor of one party, to whom belonged the blessing of Abraham, 
ver. 8. 14, but God who made the promise, that in one 
should all the families of the earth be blessed, is one,” the 
God of the other party, the gentiles, as well as of the Jews, 


* Λέγει τοίνυν ὅτι Μωσῆς μὲν ἐμεσίτευσε πρὸς τὴν δύσιν τοῦ νύμου, 
ἀλλ᾽ Evi μῦνον ἐμεσίτευσεν ἔϑνει, δεῖ δὲ τὸν ὡς ἀληθῶς μέλλοντα 
μεσιτεύειν πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἁπάντων ἔθνων ἕνα Θεὸν, οὐκ ὑπὲρ ἑνὸς ἔθνους 
ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὲρ πάντων κοινὴν τὴν μεσιτείαν ποιῆασθαι, ἐπειδὴ καὶ πάντων 
ἐθνῶν εἷς ἐστι Θεύς. Gennadius in locum. 


and so as ready to justify the one as the other; ἐπείπερ εἷς ἢ 
Θεὸς, “ seeing he is one God who will justify the circumcision 
by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith” (Rom. iii. 
30). ‘To strengthen this exposition, let it be noted, that the 
ancient Jews thought, that in those words, «‘Phe Lord thy 
God is one God” (Deut. vi. 4), was contained this mystery, 
that God should be owned and celebrated not by the Jews 
only, but by the gentiles; that he should be the king over 
all the earth, and in that day the Lord should be one, and 
his name one. So Jarchius on these words, « The Lord our 
God is one God,” says, “It is intimated that Jehovah, who 
is now our God, and not the God of the gentiles, shall here- 
after be one God, as it is written, Zeph. iii. 9, Then will T 
turn to the nations the pure lip, that they may all call upon 
the name of the Lord; and Zech. xiv. 9, The Lord shall be 
king over all the earth, and in that day shall the Lord be 
one, and his name one”’ (see Campegius Vitringa de Synag. 
Vet. lib. iii. par. ii. cap. 17, p. 1084. 1086). 

Secondly, This exposition is confirmed from the place 
parallel to this, Rom. iy. 14. 16; for as there it is argued, 
that if of ἐκ νόμο» κληρονόμοι, “they that are of the law be 
heirs,” faith is made void, “ and the promise is of no effect :” 
so here he argues, ver. 18, that if ἐκ νόμου κληρονομία, “ the 
inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise.” And 
as there the apostle adds, ver. 16, that “therefore the inhe- 
ritance is of faith, that the promise might be made firm to all 
the seed ; not to that of the law only,” but to that part also. 
which becomes so by the faith of Abraham, “who is the 
father of us all:’’ so here he must be supposed to argue, that 
the inheritance could not be by the law delivered by Moses 
to the Jews, as the mediator betwixt God and them, be- 
cause he was not the mediator, παντὶ τῷ σπέρματι, “to all 
the seed of Abraham,” but to that part of it only which was 
of the law, that is, to the Jews only: or the words may be 
paraphrased thus; “The promise, I say, was made to the 
seed of Abraham, ὡς ἀφ᾽ ἑνὸς, “as of one,” ver. 16, ὁ δὲ 
μεσίτης, but this mediator, Moses, is not the mediator of 
one (i.e. of that one seed, Christ, which was to bring the 
blessing), but God (who made the promise, that in one seed 
all the nations of the earth, whether Jew or gentile, should 
be blessed) is one (and the same, always true to his word).” 
So Dr. Allix. 

18 Ver. 23. Συγκεκλεισμένοι.] The apostle having said in 
the foregoing verse, συνέκλεισεν, “ The scripture hath shut up 
all, both Jew and gentile, under sin,” it seems most reason- 
able to interpret the word here, of men shut up as prisoners, 
condemned by the law to death, the punishment of sin, till 
that faith came to be revealed, by which we obtain a happy 
freedom from condemnation to death. 

Or this may be spoken of the Jews, who only were under 
the law, and were, by virtue of the peculiar observations it 
required, an enclosed people, separated from communion 
with all other nations, till the Messiah, the great object of 
their faith, should be revealed. 

And having thus explained the apostle’s argument, it 
seemeth necessary a little to consider what Mr. Clerc here 
offers in his notes upon this chapter, from ver. 10 to the end. 


CHAPTER III. 


24 Wherefore the law was (hen) our schoolmaster 
to bring us unto Christ (and cause us, thus condemned 
by the law, to fly to him who is the end of the law for 


733 


| righteousness, Rom. x. 3), that we might be justified by 
faith 


Ks him). 
25 But (now) after that faith is come, we are no 


1. Therefore when he says, “It was very difficult indeed 
to observe all the rites of Moses, yet he supposes his law 
might be observed, and that it did not require a degree of 
holiness above human strength:” I answer, with the dis- 
tinction mentioned note on ver. 24, This is all true as to 
such a sincere performance of it as God would accept 
of; but it is not true as to the most exact, perfect, and 
unsinning observation of it in the highest import of the 
words. 

Obj. But doth then God command what is impossible? 
Ts it not absurd to make laws that cannot be kept, and to 
punish men for what they cannot do? 

Ans. God never commands what is naturally impossible, 
and which when we offend against, we can justly plead, that 
had we used our utmost strength and diligence, we could 
not have avoided the doing what was forbid, or leaving un- 
done what was commanded ; for of what is so impossible no 
man can rationally repent, nor can his conscience condemn 
him for it; but he may require what, through the weakness 
of the flesh, is morally impossible to be always done or 
avoided ; v. g. an infinitely holy God cannot but command 
that we should not sin against him, “sin being a transgres- 
sion of the law:” but though there be no particular sin of 
which we can truly say, it is impossible we should have 
avoided it; yet, through the infirmity of human nature, we 
have too much cause to say that it is morally impossible we 
should live without or always be free from sin. 

Secondly, When he says, “The laws of Moses are not so 
severe as not to pardon the least sin, God having instituted 
sacrifices for some sins: this also I grant, according to the 
distinction mentioned, viz. that God for the sake of those 
sacrifices cleansed them from ceremonial defilements, and 
freed them from the civil and ecclesiastical punishments 
which by the law of Moses they would have been subject to, 
had no such sacrifice been offered for them. God also fully 
pardoned the sins of the upright Jews, and freed them from 
the punishments of the other life, but not by virtue of “the 
blood of bulls and goats,” for the reasons there alleged, but 
by virtue of their faith in the Messiah, owned by them to be 
“the Messiah their righteousness.” 

Thirdly, When he says that « the Jews in Paul’s time had 
got quite another notion of it than the law of Moses, as it is 
set down in the Pentateuch, had, and boasted it to be the 
most complete and perfect pattern of sanctity imaginable ; 
as appears by several places in Josephus, and particularly 
in his books against Apio :” 

Ans. I answer, that neither is Josephus in this matter of 
much credit; neither saith he more than Moses had said 
before him in these words, “ What nation is there so great, 
that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all the law 
which I set before you this day ?” Deut. iv. 8, and much less 
than David, when he saith, “'The law of the Lord is per- 
fect,” Ps. xix. 8. Besides, our Saviour seems to give us a 
contrary account of this matter, in his sermon on the mount, 
where though it be disputed whether he added to the law 
itself, yet no man questions but that he added to the gross 
senses the Jews had then of it, and had upon it. 

Fourthly, When he adds, that «the rabbins used (as ap- 
pears by the version of the Septuagint and the citations of 
St. Paul in this place) to interpret Deut. xxvii. 26 as if the 
meaning of Moses was there, that God required of them the 
most perfect holiness, which if they did not perform, they 
must expect to be cursed by him; but in reality all that 
Moses says, is only, that the people were to curse him that 
did not confirm the words of the law to do them.” 

Ans. In all this there is scarce one word of truth: for, 
(1.) the rabbins were so far from expounding this, or any 
other text of Moses, in so high a sense, that they thought it 
sufficient to exempt them from God's curse, that they were 
«of the seed of Abraham,” and had him “ for their father’ 
(Matt. iii. 8, 9), that they should be accepted for “ the merit 
of circumcision,” and that it was enough to be “hearers of 
the law, though they were not doers of it” (James i. 22), 
and that the observation of some precepts of the law would 
excuse their neglect of the rest (see note on Rom. ii. 13, and 
James ii. 10, 11, and the note there). 


(2.) Whereas he saith, «This appears by the version of 
the Septuagint :” if that way of arguing be of any force, then 
the contrary appears from the ‘Targum of Onkelos, and 
B. Uziel, who have added nothing to the words. Moreover, 
what hath the Septuagint here added, which is not necessa- 
rily contained in the sense of the words, as they lie in the 
Hebrew? For (1.) whereas they add, πᾶς ἄνθρωπος, “ every 
man ;” do not all interpreters add “he,” and is not that the 
same in sense? Ought not every man, who committed the 
sins against which any of these curses were denounced, to 
think himself subject to these curses? (2.) Whereas they 
add ἐν πᾶσι to the Hebrew, doth not the context plainly 
lead them to that addition? when it saith, ver. 3. 8, « Thou 
shalt write, » 374 55, all the words of this law,” were not the 
Jews obliged to do all the words of the law, i. e. all things 
commanded by the Jaw of Moses? Deut. xix. 9. ,Yea, are 
not the blessings in the next chapter promised to them only 
who “observe to do all the commandments,” ver. 1, and 
the curses denounced against them who “do not observe to 
do all his commandments and statutes?” ver. 15, Doth not 
the Holy Ghost, assisting the sacred penman, warrant this 
addition in other places? “See that thou make according 
to the pattern,” say the Hebrew and the Septuagint, Exod. 
xxv. 43, “ See that thou make πάντα, all things according to 
the pattern,” saith Paul, Heb. viii. 5, “At the mouth of 
two or three witnesses shall a word be established,” saith the 
Hebrew: σταϑήσεται πᾶν ῥῆμα, “shall every word be esta- 
blished,” say the Septuagint and Paul. Nor (3.) hath 
Paul added any thing to the sense of the words; for all 
the words of the law being written by Moses in the book 
of the law, it is plainly the same thing to say, “all the 
words of the law,” and “all the words written in the book of 
the law.” 

(4.) When he saith, “Doubtless St. Paul would never 
have altered any thing in the words of Moses, nor followed 
the Septuagint at all, but rendered the Hebrew himself ex- 
actly, if he had reasoned from the bare authority of the 
prophet, and not from the opinion of the Jews:” I an- 
swer, 

First, That he casts the vilest imputation on St. Paul, by 
saying here, that he argues only upon the false supposition 


of the Jews: for St. Paul lays down this general proposition, 
“As many as are under ‘the law are under the curse:” 
“This is false,” saith Mr. Clere: “for in reality all that 
Moses says is only, that the people were to curse him that 
did not confirm the words of the law to do them.” [ΙΕ is so, 
saith St. Paul, γέγραπται yap, “for it is written :”’ By your 
good leave, St. Paul, you are out again, there is no such 
thing ; but you are guilty of adding to the word of God; if 
you understand yourself, you do not, and if you understand 
the words of Moses, you cannot in this argument depend 
upon what is written, but only on the false and rotten no- 
tion of the Jews touching these words: so Le Clerc. 

Secondly, Through the sides of Paul here he wounds our 
blessed Saviour, and all the sacred penmen: for if it be 
true of Paul, it must be also true of them, that if they had 
reasoned from the bare authority of the prophets, and not 
from the opinion of the Jews (not grounded on the true 
sense of the prophets), they would have rendered the He- 
brew exactly, and never have altered any thing in the words 
of Moses, nor followed the Septuagint at all; which, seeing 
ocular demonstration shows, that both our Lord and his 
apostles have often done, “you must not think,” saith Mr, 
Clere, “that they have given us the true sense of the pro- 
phets,” but only some corrupt opinions which the Jews had 
of them. And let Mr. Clerc say as dogmatically as he pleases, 
that “it is common with St. Paul to cite the Old Testa- 
ment,” so as it was usually alleged by the doctors of the 
Jews, whom they call p:2w75, that is to say, “with little 
regard to the circumstances of the place, or the proper signi- 
fication of the words, and to argue from them so alleged,” 
I cannot but look upon it as a very bad suggestion. 

19 Ver. 24.] Note, for the right explication of these words 
from ver. 21 to this verse, 

First, That it cannot be denied that good and holy men 
i under the law were — Ὁ τὼ obtained the pardon of 

3 


734 


longer under a schoolmaster (being no longer children 
in minority, Rom. vil. 3). 

26 For ye are all the (adu//) 39 children of God (and 
so heirs of God) by faith in Christ Jesus. 

27 For as many of you as have (believed in Chris’, 
and upon thal faith have) been baptized into Christ have 
put on Christ, (and so are become sons of God ; for to as | 
many as believed in him he gave power to be the sons of | 
God, John i. 12.) 


their sins; since otherwise they could not be accepted by 
God here, or saved hereafter. 

Secondly, It also seemeth evident from the discourse of | 
the apostle in this and the Epistle to the Romans, that they | 
could not be justified by the observance of the law; for he | 
lays down this as the foundation of his discourse, that “ by 
the works of the law no man is justified,’ Rom. iii. 20, and 
“no flesh shall be justified,” Gal. ii. 16. The proofs he 
offers to confirm this position do equally concern all times 
and persons, from the giving of the law to the revealing of 
the gospel: as, v.g. (1.) Because “by the law is the know- 
ledge of sin,” condemning us to death, Rom. iii. 20, vii. 
9—11. 13, Gal. iii. 22. (2.) “ Because the just,” saith the 
prophet Habakkuk, “shall live by his faith,” Rom. i. 17; 
whereas “the law is not of faith;’’ whence he infers, that 
“no man is justified in the sight of God by the works of the 
Jaw,” Gal. iii. 11. (3.) Because “as many as are under 
the law are under the curse,” ver. 10. (4.) Because it was 
impossible, through the weakness of the flesh, that the law 
should justify (Rom. viii. 3), or that it should give life (Gal. 
iii. 21), and so it never was designed for that end. It had 
indeed its expiatory sacrifices, but they procured only par- 
don of that guilt which rendered them obnoxious to the 
violent death threatened by the law to such and such offend- 
ers, but gave no remedy against natural death, by the pro- 
mise of a resurrection to eternal life, and so exempted no 
man from the punishment of Adam’s sin; or they only re- 
leased offenders from the obligation to civil and ecclesiasti- 
cal punishments, but could not free them from the punish- 
ment of the other life: for the apostle assures us, that “ the 
blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin,” Heb. x. 
4, and that they did only “sanctify to the purifying of the 
flesh,” Heb. vii. 13 (see the note there). 

Now, Thirdly, Hence it follows, that they also must be 
justified by faith from all those sins from which they could 
not be justified by the law of Moses (Acts xiii. 39). 

Obj. But are not the Jews styled “righteous before 
God,” by virtue of their obedience to the law of Moses? 
As in these words of David, “The Lord rewarded me ac- 
cording to my righteousness; for I have kept the ways of 
the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God; 
for all his judgments were before me, and I did not put 
away his statutes from me: I was also upright before him, 
and kept myself from mine iniquity, therefore hath the 
Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness,” Ps. 
xviii. 20—24, Is it not said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, 
that “they were both righteous before God, walking in all 
the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless ?” 
Luke i.6. Yea, doth not our apostle say, « Not the hearers 
of the law are δίκαιοι, just before God, but the doers of the 
Taw δικαιωθήσονται, shall be justified 1 Rom. ii. 13. 

Ans. Now to this I answer, That there is a double justi- 
fication of which the scripture speaks: (1.) that which con- 
sists in the absolution of a sinner from the guilt of sin, by 
God’s free pardon or remission of it, or his not imputing it 
tu the sinner. And thus no man is or can be justified by 
the law, either ceremonial or moral, since neither of them 
does contain any promise of the pardon of it. Now all men 
being sinners, this justification must be necessary to all men, 
to put and keep them in a state of favour with God. And 
this is that justification which Paul ascribes to faith, and 
which, saith he, could never be obtained from the works of 
the law. But, 

(2.) There is justification to be undergone by all men 
at the great day of their accounts; and this is only the pro- 
nouncing them sincere in the performance of their covenants, 


legal or evangelical, or in compliance with the laws of na- 
ture, Moses, or of grace, the providence of God had placed 


GALATIANS. 


28 There is (under the gospel dispensation) neither 
(disttvclion made of) Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
(of) bond nor free, there is neither (of) male nor 
female (as under the Jewish economy, the male only beare 
tag the sizn of the covenant): for ye are all one (as to 
the privileges of the cospel) in Christ Jesus. " 

29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye (indeed) Abra- 
ham’s seed (nol from Ismael, but Isaac), and (therefore) 
heirs # according to the promise. 


them under; and in this sense we find mention of men 
“working righteousness” under the law of nature, Job i. 1, 
Acts x. 35, under the law of Moses, Psy xviii. 20. 24, Luke 
i. 6, and under the law of grace, 1 Jobn iii. 7, Rev. xxii. 11. 
And thus all pious persons, who made it their sincere en- 
deavour to obey the law of Moses, were righteous before 
God; though still the imperfections which cleaved to their 
obedience were pardoned through faith, ‘To explain this, 
note, 

First, That the whole nation of the Jews believed in the 
promised Messiah, or the Messiah that was to come, and 
that in the seed of Abraham should all the families of the 
earth be blessed ; this being one of their fundamental articles, 

Secondly, They believed that this Messiah should confer 
upon them not only temporal, but spiritual, yea, eternal 
blessings; they expected spiritual blessings from him, even 
remission of sins. So Zacharias speaks of the Baptist, that 
“he should go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give 
knowledge to his people of salvation through the remission 
of sins,” Luke i. 76, 77. «ΤῸ him,” saith Peter, “give all 
the prophets witness, that through his name all that believe 
in him should receive remission of sins,’’ Acts x.43. So the 
Jews say, that the Messias* was to remove 5592 pra, “the 
general sin of mankind,” or “ the sin of the first man.” 2. 
They expected by him justification, he being styled by the 
prophet, “the Lord our righteousness,” and by the Jews, 
ὩΣ mw, “ Messiah our justitication.”” Now this, say the 
ancient fathers, might be a justifying faith in them, without 
explicitly believing that Christ should die for their sins; 
though we have no reason to think, that they who were so 
plainly taught this by the prophet Isaiah, by the type of 
Isaac, the lifting up of the serpent, and by their sacrifices, 
should he wholly ignorant of it. 

20 Ver. 26. Yioi Θεοὺ διὰ τῆς πίστεως, The sons of God, 
through fuith.] Hence, saith the antipedobaptist, it ap- 
pears, that infants cannot be made the sons of God by bap- 
tism, because we are all made the sons of God « by faith in 
Christ Jesus :” now infants have no faith. Ans, They might 
as well argue thus: “By grace you are saved, through 
faith,” Eph. ii. 7, but infants have no faith, therefore they 
cannot be saved. Or thus: “He that believeth not shall 
be damned,’’ Mark xvi. 16, no infants do believe, ergo, all 
infants shall be damned. The apostle plainly speaks here 
of persons converted from heathenism to Christianity, who 
were therefore baptized, being adult persons, as he doth in 
the Gospel of Mark and the Epistle to the Ephesians. 
This place can therefore with no more reason be applied to 
the case of infants, than the places cited from Mark and 
that Epistle (see the preface to this epistle). 

2 Ver. 29. Kar’ ἐπαγγελίαν κληρονόμοι, Heirs according to 
the promise.| It is to be observed, for the explication of 
many places in these epistles, that there is frequent mention 
in the New Testament of the promises in the plural number ; 
to the Israelites “ belong the promises,” Rom. viii. 4, “ Je- 
sus Christ was a minister of the circumcision to confirm the 
promises,” Rom. xv. 8; “Τὸ Abraham and his seed were 
the promises made,” Gal. iii. 16; and, ver. 21, “Is the law 
then against the promises? These all died in faith, not 
having received the promises,” Heb. xi. 13. 17, and, ver. 
39, «They all having obtained a good report through faith, 
recei¢ed not the promises.” 

Now there is mention made in the New Testament of 
three sorts of promises: 

First, The promise of a seed, “in which all the families 
of the earth shall be blessed,” viz. in Christ, Acts iii. 25, 


* Voisin de Leg. Div. lib. i. cap. 8, p. 6. 66—68. 


CHAPTER IV. 


xii. 23. 33, xxvi. 6, Rom. iv. 13, 14. 20, ix. 9, Gal. iii. 21, 
22 (see the note there). 

Secondly, The promise of the Holy Spirit, in his extraor- 
dinary gifts and operations, Acts ii. 33, 39, by which believ- 
ers were then “sealed up to the day of redemption,” Eph. 
i. 13, and this is called “ the promise of the Father,” Luke 
xxiv. 49, Acts i. 4, And this promise was not immediately 
made to Abraham, but was the consequent of the blessing 
which God had promised to his seed ; “ the blessing of Abra- 
ham” being first to come upon the gentiles, that they might 
receive the promise of the Spirit, i. 6. that being made «the 
sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” the seed pro- 
mised, “God might send the Spirit of his Son into their 
hearts, crying, Abba, Father,” iv. 6. 

Thirdly, The promise of a future rest, and an eternal in- 
heritance; there being “a promise made of entering into 
rest,” Heb. iv. 3. 9 (see the note there), peculiar to believ- 
ers, and to the people of God, after the rest which God had 
given them in Canaan, and a promise of “an eternal inherit- 
ance,” Heb. ix. 15, x. 36. For that the patriarchs did by 
faith expect “a city having foundations, whose builder and 
maker was God,” and “a heavenly country,” we learn from 
Heb. xi. 9. 14, 15; yea, they expected to obtain “a better 
resurrection,” ver. 35, viz. by virtue of their Messiah, this 
being their common saying, “'The Messiah shall raise up 
those that sleep in the dust ;”* and one of their fundamen- 

* Maim. Expl. cap. 10. ‘Tract. 
not. p. 109, 110. 


735 


tal articles is this, That the Messiah will come, xnox on, 
“and will raise the dead,’ and bring them into paradise. 
This faith generally obtained among them before our Sa- 
viour’s advent, as we learn, not only from the book of the 
Maccabees, but from Paul’s plain words, Acts xxiv. 15, 
xxvi. 7, 8. If you inquire, where any such promise was 
made to Abraham or others, [ answer, That such a pro- 
mise was made to him and to the patriarchs, we are assured 
from this, that they by faith expected such things, all faith 
being built upon a promise ; this promise therefore might be 
made to Abraham, Gen. xvii. 7, where God saith, «I will 
establish my covenant betwixt thee and thy seed after thee, 
in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be thy 
God, and the God of thy seed after thee;” for that to be 
“the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” is to be the God 
that will raise them up from the dead, we learn from our 
Saviour’s argument, Matt. xxii. 32 (see the note there), and 
that he therefore was “called their God, because he had 
prepared for them a city,” from Heb. xi. 15. And in re- 
ference to this future recompense it is that the apostle saith, 
«These all died in faith, not having received the promise, 
God having provided some better thing for us, that they 
without us should not be made perfect,” Heb. xi. 39, 40 
(see the note there); now this seems to be the promise 
mentioned here, of which Christians are said to be the heirs, 
they “being heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ,” Rom. 
viii. 15, Gal. iv. 7. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Now I say (to show how you, who are heirs of the 
romises, should be kept in bondage under a schoolmaster, 

lii, 23. 25), That the heir, as long as he is a child, 
differeth nothing (as to the possession and free use of his 
estale) from a servant, though he be (by right of inhe- 
retance) lord of all (Ais father left) ; 

2 But is under tutors and governors until the time 
appointed of the father (zn his last will and testament). 

3 Even so we (the seed of Abraham), when we were 
children (as till faith came we were), were in bondage 
under the ' elements of the world (as servanis were of 
old to their masters) : 

4 But when the fulness of the time (appointed for the 
appearance of the Messiah for the benefit of the Jew and 
gentile, that they might be made sons by him,) was come, 
God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under 
(subjection to) the law, 


5 To redeem them that were under the law (from 
the bondage of it), that we (together with them) might 
receive the adoption of sons. 

6 And beeause ye are (now made) sons (of God by 
faith, iii. 25), God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father (7. 6. wit- 
nessing to your spirits that ye are the sons of God, 
and that he is your Father, Rom. viii. 15, 16, and ena- 
bling you to use the language, not of servants, but of 
sons). 

7 wWherdtore thou art (afler this redemption wrought) 
no more a servant, 2 but a son; and if a son, then an 
heir of God through Christ. 

8 (I say, thou art no more a servant,) Howbeit then, 
when ye knew not God, * ye did service unto them 
which by nature are no gods. 

9 But now, after that ye have known God, or 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


Ver. 3. Στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου, The elements of the world.) 
i. 6. ‘I'he Jewish rites so called; because, as was observed, 
iii. 19, they were for matter mostly the same which had be- 
fore obtained in the world, only they were directed to a better 
object and a better end. 

2 Ver. 7. ᾿Αλλ᾽ vids, But a son.] That the notion of adop- 
tion includes a state of immortality; and that the sons of 
God were to be “sons of the resurrection,” I have shown 
upon the parallel place, Rom. viii. 16—23, and that the 
Jews were not ignorant of this import of the phrase, we 
learn from the author of the Book of Wisdom (ii. 12), 
who introduces the wicked atheists speaking thus, “ Let us 
Jay in wait for the righteous, for he calieth himself a child of 
God. He maketh his boast that God is his Father. Let us 
see if his works be true for if the just man be the Son of 
God, he will help him. Let us condemn him to a shame- 
ful death, for by his own saying he shall be respected. Thus,” 
saith he, “ were they deceived, neither hoped they for the 
wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for blameless 
souls. For God created man to be immortal, and made him 
an image of his own eternity. ‘The souls of the righteous 
are in the hands of God, and their hope is full of immor- 
tality. Having been a little chastised, they. shall be greatly 


rewarded; for God tried them, and found them worthy of 
himself.” And ch. v. he introduced the same wicked per- 
sons, saying, “ We fools counted his life madness, and his 
end to be without honour; how is he numbered among the 
children of God, and his lot is among the saints!” where, 

1. The righteous are represented as “the sons” and 
«children of God :” and it is farther said, 

2. That as such they are to be rewarded in their souls, 
which are to be received “into the hands of God,” and to be 
at rest: and in their bodies, which are to be immortal. 

3. That, at the day of recompense, they shall “stand in 
great boldness,” and shall, as being “the sons of God,” 
have their “lot and portion with the saints,” ἐν ἁγίοις ὃ κλῆρος 
αὐτοῦ, that is, he shall be 6 κληρονόμος, “an heir’ with the 
saints. 

3 Ver. 8. ᾿Εδονλεύσατε, Ye did service.] Hence we leam 
how frivolous is the distinction of the papists, that /afria is 
indeed service proper to God, but dulia is such worship as 
may be paid to saints and angels; for seeing saints and an- 
gels are by nature no gods, the giving du/ia to them must be 
the thing condemned here in the heathens, that being only 
this, that they did dovAcéew, “give dulia to them which by 
nature were no gods.” 

4 Τοῖς μὴ φύσει οὖσι Scots, To them which are not gods by 
nature.| Hence we learn the consequence of the Socinian 


736 


rather are known of God (being made his sons by adop- 
tion), how (after this freedom purchased by Christ) turn 
ye again to the weak and beggarly elements (of the 
law), whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage ? 

10 (for) Ye observe (the Jewish sabbath) δ days, and 
months (the new moons), and times (of their solemn fes- 
livals), and (sabbalical) years. 


GALATIANS. 


11 7 Lam afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon 
you labour in vain (in preaching the gospel lo you). 

12 Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for ὃ I am 
as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. 

13 Ye know how (that) through infirmity of the 
flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. 

14 And (notwithstanding) 5 my temptation which 


hypothesis, that Jesus Christ is not‘by nature God, and yet 
is to be honoured with the same worship, which all Chris- 
tians give to him who is by nature God, seeing it teacheth 
us to do what Paul here condemneth in the very heathens: 
and surely it must be absurd to make that an article of 
Christian faith, and a part of Christian worship, which the 
apostle here makes a great crime of the heathen world, and 
a certain evidence of their ignorance of the true God. ‘That 
the Socinians cannot answer this objection, appears from 
what they here return to it; viz. that “‘gods by nature’ is 
not here opposed to ‘gods by grace,’ or to those who have 
received their divinity from the one true God; for to serve 
and worship such a God, by reason of the empire which he 
hath received from God, is not profane and wicked, but 
pious and necessary.”* Now in answer to this, I say, 

First, That it is very evident from the text, that those 
who “are not gods by nature,” are opposed to him who is 
God by nature; viz. to him whom the heathens knew not, 
and to him whom the Galatians, being Christians, knew, 
and by whom they were known. Since then the Socinians’ 
““God by grace” is not a “ God by nature ;” since he is not 
the God intended in these words, “« Ye knew not God :” he 
must be ranked among those who are here opposed to him. 

Secondly, I have elsewhere shown, that the heathens had 
the very same sentiments with the Socinians, as to the wor- 
ship of their inferior deities; and it is wonderful to see how 
they concur in sense, and almost in words. 


SOCINIANI. 


1. Qui divinitatem habet ab illo uno Deo acceptam. Crell. 

2. Christum pro ratione imperii, quod ἃ Deo accepit, colen- 
dum sentiunt. Crell. 

3. Eum sic colere pium et necessarium est. Crell. Christi 
enim honor et adoratio spectat ad gloriam Dei patris. 


Wolf. 
ETHNICI. 


1. Dii minores ab uno illo facti, et sublimitér collocati. 
Apud August. de Civ. Dei, lib. iv. cap. 1. 

2. Τοῦτον οὖν, τὸν ἐκεῖθεν ἐζουσίας τετυχηκότα, οὐ ϑεραπεῦει δι- 
καίως ὃ σέβων τὸν Θεύν ; Cels. apud Orig. lib. vii. p. 377. 
3. Τὸν ϑεραπεύοντα ϑεοὺς πλείονας τῷ Ev τι τῶν τοῦ μεγάλου 
ϑεραπεύειν φίλον καὶ ἐν τούτῳ ἐκείνῳ ποιεῖν. (615. ibid. lib. 

viil. p. 381. 


Indeed, there is scarce any plea they use for the worship 
of Jesus Christ, as a “made God,” which was not before 
used by the philosophers} for the worship of their inferior 
deities. 

Secondly, Hence also it appears to be a mistake, to say 
that the Galatians, to whom the apostle here writes, before 
they received the gospel, were, as to the greatest part of 
them, proselytes of the gate, or also of righteousness; see- 
ing it is plain that they were heathens, not knowing the true 
God, but serving them which “by nature were no gods,” 
iv. 8, 9, and by the gospel were to be delivered ἐκ τοῦ ἐνεστῶ- 
τὸς αἰῶνος πονηροῦ; from the present evil age,” i. 4,from which 
they who were made proselytes of the gate, and worshipped 
the true God, were in a good measure delivered. ‘Thirdly, 
The great endeavour of the Judaizers that crept in among 
them, was to persuade them to be circumcised (Gal. v. 2, vi. 
12), whereas all the proselytes of righteousness, all the gen- 
tiles which had before been subject to the Jewish rites, must 


* Natura dii non opponuntur diis ex gratia, qui divinita- 
tem habent ab illo uno Deo acceptam; tali enim Deo, pro 
ratione imperii quod ἃ Deo accepit, servire, eumque colere, 
non est profanum et impium, sed pium et necessarium. 
Crellius in locum. 

ἱ Vide Tract. de Vera Christi Deitate. 


be circumcised when they were admitted to be proselytes of 
righteousness, they being made such by circumcision, and a 
promise of obedience to the law of Moses. 

Obj. It is the Jewish law which is styled “the elements 
of the world, to which they were in bondage,” iv. 3. 

Ans. The Jewish law is indeed so called, but it was for 
this reason, that it was made up of ceremonies, which for the 
matter were the same with those which had been used by 
other nations of the world, the object of them only being 
changed (see the note on iii. 19): and they are nowhere 
called the “elements of piety,” as Mr. Clere supposes. 

5 Ver. 9. Πάλιν ἐπὶ τὰ ἀσϑενῆ καὶ πτωχὰ στοιχεῖα, Again to the 
weak and beggarly elements.) Here interpreters find great 
difficulty to show how the Galatians, who were never under 
the law, can be said to be “ again,” and “ anew, in bondage 
to these elements.” But the observation made on iii. 19, 
that the rites of the Jews and heathens were for the matter 
mostly the same, removes that difficulty ; and shows that 
they are said to return to these elements, not because they 
before observed the Jewish ceremonies, but because the ce- 
remonies of the law, being for the matter mostly the same 
with those the gentiles used to their heathen deities, by re- 
turning to them, they returned to those elements. These 
rites are also weak and beggarly elements in comparison of 
the riches of the Holy Ghost, and the power of the Holy 
Ghost; they are weak, as having no power to cleanse the 
soul; and beggarly, as not being able to confer upon us the 
spiritual riches of the gospel, pardon of sins, adoption, the 
gifts and graces of the Spirit, eternal redemption. 

6 Ver. 10. Ἡμέρας καὶ μῆνας, Days and months.) That 
this verse is to be interpreted of the Jewish solemn times, 
and the festivals observed by them, as far as they could be 
observed out of Judea, the whole drift of this epistle shows, 
which is to bring off the Galatians from thinking they were 
obliged to observe the rites and ceremonies of the law: for 
that the Jews did ἑορτάζειν, “keep their feasts” in Egypt and 
Alexandria, and wherever they were settled among the 
heathens, we learn from Philo,* in his oration against 
Flaceus; that they were very numerous in Asia Minor, of 
which Galatia was a part, see the note on James 1. 1, that in 
those places where they dwelt, they had converted a great 
many to the Jewish worship, and made them as it were a 
part of themselves, Josephus testifies (see note on 1 Pet. 


i. 1): and if it were so at Galatia, this might make them so- 


ready to relapse to their old Jewish rites. 

7 Ver. 11. Φοβοῦμαι ὑμᾶς, I am afraid of you.] As well 
he might; for by this practice they must revolt again from 
Christ to the Jewish synagogues: for it belonged only to 
their great Sanhedrin,} or to the doctors of the law, to state 
the certain times of their new moons and other festivals ; so 
that for the due observation of them they must entirely de- 
pend upon the Jewish Sanhedrin. 

8 Ver. 12. “Ort kaya ὡς ὑμεῖς, Tam as you are.) That is, 
say the fathers, I was once zealous for the law as you are; 
but now I live as do the gentiles, and not as do the Jews; 
do you who are not Jews, but gentiles, live in like manner, 
as men exempted from the law: but this exposition seems 
not to cohere with these words, “ Ye have not injured me at 
all.” They may therefore be thus interpreted: Brethren, be 
still as affectionate to me as I am to you, and count me not 
your enemy, because I tell you the truth; for I am still as 
affectionate to you as ever you were to me (ver. 14), I do 
not look upon you as persons who have done any thing with 
an intent to injure me;” and though your false teachers have 
done you this injury, by their pernicious doctrines, yet have 
they not prevailed on you to speak evil of me, or act injuri- 
ously towards me. 

9 Ver. 14. Τὸν πειρασμόν μου τὸν ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ, My tempta- 


* P. 760, A, 8. 7 Mechilta Parasch. 


— 


CHAPTER IV. 


was in my flesh ye despised (me) not, nor rejected 
(me); but received me (rather) as an angel of God, 
even as Christ Jesus (thinking yourselves very happy in 
having such an apostle). 

15 Where is then the blessedness ye spake of (én 
having me for your apostle, who taught you no such thing 
as this, that you were to be justified by the observance of 
the lrw) ? for Lbear you record, ( you had once such a great 
affection to me,) that, if it had been possible, ye would 
have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them 
to me. 

16 (And after this) Am 1 therefore become your 
enemy (or lovked upon as such), because I tell you the 
truth? 


you, but not well (and in a due manner); yea, they 


tion which was in the flesh.| It is the opinion of the Greek 
commentators, and of the reverend Dr. Hammond, that the 
ἀσθένεια τῆς σαρκὸς, * the infirmity of the flesh,” ver. 13, and 
“the temptation in the flesh,” here, only signify the persecu- 
tions the apostle suffered for preaching the gospel; but that 
this cannot be the full import of the words, is evident from 
these considerations: (1. ) That the persecutions which he 
suffered for the cause of Christ could administer no reason 
to the Galatians, ἐξο Sevjoa καὶ ἐκπτύειν, " to condemn, vilify, 
despise” him as nothing, and even to “spit upon him,” 
who preached the gospel with such great demonstration of 
the Spirit, and such power of miracles under all his persecu- 
tions. Moreover, the apostle, in the Epistles to the Co- 
rinthians, represents these sufferings as a vindication of the 
truth of his apostleship; yea, as an argument of the «life 
and power of that Jesus’ who did such mighty things by his 
apostles under all their sufferings, and as that which should 
create the greater respect to him; and gives them a large 
catalogue of them, confirming it with an oath, 2 Cor. xi. 21; 
which shows, that though he sometimes feared the greatness 
of his tribulations might make them faint, or shake them who 
were taught that they must also be partakers of the like suf- 
ferings; yet did he not conceive himself more contemptible 
or vile in his own person for his persecutions ; and therefore, 
as he mentions this to the ‘Thessalonians as a proof of his sin- 
cerity, that “ having before suffered, and been shamefully en- 
treated at Philippi, he was still bold to preach the gospel to 
them,” 1 Thess. ii. 2; as he mentions his sufferings to the 
Ephesians, as “their glory,” iii. 13, so here he declares to 
his Galatians, that he still suffered persecution ; and he con- 
cludes his epistle thus, “ From henceforth let no man trouble 
me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,” 
Gal. v. 11, insinuating that these sufferings were so far from 


giving any person a just reason to despise him, that they | 


were rather an inducement to a more honourable treatment 
of him. 

Secondly, Though doSévera and πειρασμὸς, “infirmity” and 
“ temptation,” absolutely put, do sometimes signify afflictions 
or persecutions; yet do we never elsewhere read that ἀσϑέ- 
vera σαρκὸς, πειρασμὸς ἐν σαρκὶ, σκόλοψ ἐν σαρκὶ, an “infirmity, 
temptation, or thorn in the flesh,” is used in fhat sense. Nor 
was it only the sufferings he endured in his body, but the 
very presence of his body, which was weak: see note on 2 
Cor. xii. 7—9. Having therefore in that place proved, that 
besides his persecutions, he had a weakness and imperfec- 
tion in his body; which rendered both his person and his 
speech contemptible, I think it reasonable to refer these 
words to it. 

Ver. 18. Ἔν καλι).1 It is thought, that by this expression 
Paul means himself; but it seems not reasonable to think 
that he would call himself “a good man,’’ when he was 
speaking to them who had so bad an opinion of him ; but he 
might say this of his doctrine, nor will the Greek bear the 
other sense. 

10 Ver. 20. ᾿Αλλάξαι τὴν φωνήν. To temper my voice to 
you, as your affairs require; lamenting the fall of some, and 
striving to recover them, and commending the stead{astness 
of others in the faith. 

"Ver 21. Τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἀκούετε; Do not you hear the 
law 31 i. e. Do not you, Christians, to whom the law and the 
prophets are read every Lord’s-day, and which you have the 

Vor. IV.—93 


737 


would exclude you (from your offections), that ye might 
affeet them (on/y). 

18 But it ἐν good (fur you) to be zealously affected 
always in a good thing (as your affection to mé, and to 
the truth I preached, is), and not only when I am pre- 
sent with you. 

19 My little children, of whom IT travail in birth 
again (fo renew you in the faith from whence ye are 
fallen) antil Christ be (fully) formed in you (as the 
child is in the womb), 

20 I desire to be present with you now, and to 
0 change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you. 

21 "Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, 


| do ye not hear (what is contained in the Pentateuch, the 
17 They (who seduce you, do indeed ) zealously affect 


book of) the law? 
22 For it is (/Aere) written, that Abraham had two 


liberty to read at all times, hear what the law speaks? 
Here, saith Mr. Clerc, “it is to be noted, that St. Paut 
argues from some received midrash vulgarly known; for if 
that allegory whereof he here speaks had not been before 
heard of, he would have had no reason to wonder that the 
Galatians had never collected any such thing from the story 
which he refers to.” 

Ans. 1. To this I answer, That no such interpretation of 
this passage was vulgarly known among the Jews, is appa- 
rent from the silence of all the Jewish paraphrasters upon 
the place, and of all those interpreters who have conversed 
most in the writings of the Jewish rabbins; and yet produce 
not the least hint of any such thing, nor can Mr. Clerc do it. 
It is true indeed that the Jews had this canon, that proles 
sequitur matrem, and so allowed that the offspring of a bond- 
woman must be born in bondage, the offspring of a freewo- 
man must be free; but it is not true that they ever deemed 
Agar the representative of those under the first or legal 
covenant, and Sarah only of those who were under the new 
and gospel covenant. 

Secondly, This supposed midrash is contrary to their 
known and avowed principle, that their law was to be 
eternal, and so that there was no new covenant to succeed 
for the abolishing of it, as is plain from the apostle’s dispute 
against them, both here and in the Epistle to the Romans, 
and in that to the Hebrews. Moreover, doth not Mr. Clere 
tell us, in his annotations on the former chapter, that “the 
law, and a perfect pattern of holiness, was the same in the 
opinion of the Jews?” and must this “ perfect pattern of 
holiness” here, in the opinion of the same Jews, be only a 
“covenant gendering to bondage,” and represented by Agar, 
a bondwoman ? 

Thirdly, The apostle doth not wonder that the Galatians 
had collected no such allegory from the story referred to; 
but only asks, if they had not heard the words he doth thus 
allegorically expound to them. He proceeds thus: 

Obj. “Farther, seeing this interpretation could not be 
urged against those who might deny that the scripture ought 
to be so understood, and the apostle doth not make use of 
his authority to confirm it; it is evident that he argues here 
from what was generally allowed, which kind of things it is 
not material should be true, or well-grounded, as long as 
they contain nothing prejudicial to true piety, and are be- 
lieved by those against whom we dispute. So that from St. 
Paul's using such an allegory against the Judaizing Galatians, 
it does not follow that we in this age are bound to admit it 
as a secret revealed from heaven to the apostle.” 

Ans. To this I answer, (1.) That it is too confidently said, 
that “the apostle doth not make use of his authority to con- 
firm this interpretation ;” for is it not “ Paul an apostle, not 
of man, but of Jesus Christ, and of God the Father” (i. 1), 
who writes thus to the Galatians? And had not the apostles 
from the Holy Ghost “the word of wisdom, and of know- 
ledge,” to direct them in the understanding the mysteries of 
the Old Testament? Does he not declare, they spake “the 
wisdom of God in a mystery?” 1 Cor. ii. 7. That wisdom 
“which God had revealed to them by his Spirit?” ver. 10, 
that they had “ received the Spirit which is of God that they’ 
might know the things which are freely given us of God; 
which things they also spake not in the words which man’s 
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; cons 

3m 2 


738 


sons, the one (to wit, Ishmael) by (Agar) a bondmaid, 
the other (to wit, Isaac) by (Sarah) a freewoman (a 
lady or princess, as her name imports). 

23 But he who was of the bondwoman 13 was born 
after the flesh (and so was not to be accounted for the 
seed) ; but (whereas) he of the freewoman was by 
promise, (and so was only to be accounted for the promised 
seed, Rom. ix. 8.) 

24 Which things are an allegory (expressing one 
thing, and by that hinting another to us): for these 
(two, Agar and Sarah,) are (intended typically to repre- 
sent to us) the two covenants; the one (viz. that of the 
Jaw, given) from the mount Sinai, (ts that covenant) 


GALATIANS. 


which gendereth to bondage, (7. 6. subjects its children 
to bondage, and is the covenani) which is (typified by) 
Agar (the bondwoman). 

25 % For this Agar (whose name significs a rock) 
is (in the allegory) mount Sinaisin Arabia (whence the 
law was given), and (so she) answereth to (thal) Jeru- 
salem which now is (they living long in the wilderness, 
and receiving the law from mount Sinai, in Arabia), 
and is in bondage with her children (to the law given 
there). 

26 (Thus it was and is with the terrestrial Jerusa- 
lem,) But (the) Jerusalem which is (from) above 
(and is signified by Sarah, the type of the second cove- 


paring spiritual things with spiritual?” see the note, ver. 12, 
13, there. And is not this a sufficient confirmation of all 
which they declared they writ, as the apostles of Jesus 
Christ ? 4 

Secondly, I add, that it cannot reasonably be said, “He 
argues here from what was generally allowed,” not only be- 
cause I have proved that nothing of this nature ever was, or 
could be, allowed by the Jews; but also because no one in- 
stance can be produced where the apostle useth any such 
argument ad hominem, or from their own mistaken princi- 
ples; but where it is evident from his own words and de- 
clarations that he doth so. Had the apostle said, as he is 
forced in his paraphrase to make him speak, “These things 
used to be allegorically explained by the Jews, and may be 
interpreted so as to signify what I a little before said;” or, 
as he begins his Christian allegorist, “« We take you at your 
word, O Jews!” there might have been some probability in 
this fancy : but the apostle having not given us the least hint 
of any thing of this nature, it must pass for mere romance ; 


and the other things he adds can be no better than a reflec- | 
Ξ : ae | 
tion on the authority and writings of the apostles; for “« Do 


you not hear the law?” saith the apostle: No, saith Mr. 
Clerc, that they do not, yea, they cannot in this case; “it 
being not at all necessary that the words of scripture should 
have any such allegorical interpretation as that which is 
suppused (here) to belong to them.”—* Do you not hear the 


law, for itis written?” saith the apostle: What then, saith | 


Mr. Clere, you grossly impose upon us in these words, con- 
necting them to the former by a γὰρ, “for,” and saying 
gravely, “It is written ;’ when indeed you argue not from 
what is written, but from some whimsies of the Jews, per- 
haps neither true nor well-grounded. ‘These things “ are an 
allegory,” saith the apostle: So you say, St. Paul, quoth 


this critic: but “if we thoroughly consider it, we shall find | 
that most that hath been said by learned men against this | 
way of interpreting scripture in the general, may be objected | 
against this particular allegory.’—«'These are the two testa-_ 


ments,” saith St. Paul; “ But,” saith Mr. Clerc, “we of this 
age are not bound to admit this as a secret revealed from 
heaven to you:” and by your good leave, “ this interpreta- 


tion cannot be urged against those who deny that the scrip- | 


ture ought to be so understood.” 

To conclude, what shall we say to the unbelieving Jews, 
objecting thus from this interpretation? “Finding that 
your apostle hath produced against us a weak argument, 
false and ill-grounded, you pretend to help him out by say- 
ing, itis a Jewish midrash vulgarly known: this we must 
take for an officious lie, till you can show that either we, or 
our fathers, or Philo the allegorist, who speaks of Agar and 
Sarah in a quite different way of allegory, had any such sen- 
timents. And if your apostle hath imposed upon you here 
with such ill-grounded arguments and interpretations, with- 
out giving you the least hint that he was arguing only from 
our concessions, how know you that he hath not often done 
the like in all his other writings?” 

2 Ver. 23. Κατὰ σάρκα γεγέννηται, Was born after the flesh.) 


i. e. By natural generation, and the strength of the flesh, | 


before Abraham’s body became dead (Rom. iv. 19); the 
other by virtue of the promise made to him by God, when 
his body and Sarah’s womb were both dead (ver. 20), and 
only quickened by that Spirit which is the power of God. 

13 Ver, 25. Τὸ γὰρ “Ayap Σινᾶ ὅρος ἐστὶν, For this Agar is 
mount Sinai in Arabia.) i. 6. She represents it (1.) in her 
name, for 437, in the Arabian language, signifies a rock, as 


mount Sinai is called. (2.) By her flight, she flying twice 
into Arabia from her mistress, Gen. xvi. 7, into the wilder- 
ness of Shur, called by the Chaldee « Chagra,” there and 
Gen. xxv. 18, and after flying again into the same wilder- 
ness. And (3.) by her station, for there dwelt the posterity 
of Ishmael, called from her name Hagarens, as the oriental 
writers witness: see Bochart. Geogr. Sacr. lib. iv. cap. 11, 
Ρ. 255, cap. 27, p. 312, and Grotius here. 

Τὸ γὰρ “Ayap, Σινᾶ ὄρος ἐστὶν év’ Apafia.] Note, that it seems 
very unreasonable to me to expunge these words, Σινᾶ ὄρος 
ἐστὶν ἐν Ἀραβία, against the plain evidence of all the ancient 
versions, and the current suffrage of all the ancient interpret- 
ers, Chrysostom, Theodoret, G8cumenius, and Theophylact, 
among the Greeks; Ambrose and St. Jerome among the 
Latins, who take not the least notice of any various reading 
here; and to add δὲ for γὰρ, only to solve a difficulty: for if 
this liberty may be allowed, we may take the same liberty in 
all other places, and strike out such words as spurious or sus- 
pected, which create the difficulty. And this is less to be 
allowed when the words rejected, according to the descants 
of the ancients, give a plain reason why Agar is made the 
symbol of the covenant given from mount Sinai, viz. 76 yap 
ὄνομα τοῦ ~Ayap, “because the name Agar,” saith Bochart, 
“is by interpretation a rock;” and, say the Greek interpret- 
ers, “is the name given to mount Sinai, ἐν ᾿Αραβῶν γλώσσῃ, 
in the Arabian tongue.” But we need here no various lec- 
tion, the interpretation which Dr. Mills hath excellently 
given us of this place being very clear, only by adding κατ᾽ 
ὑποτύπωσιν, “ by representation,’ after the word ἐστὶν, which is 
the sense it usually bears in allegorical propositions, and by 
referring συστοιχεῖ δὲ τὴ viv ᾿Ιερουσαλὴμ, not to the mountain, 
but to Agar, for then the sense of the whole runs thus: 
These two sons of Abraham, Ishmael born of Agar his 
handmaid, and Isaac born of Sarah the freewoman, contain 
an allegory, in which the name is put for the thing signified 
or represented by it; for these two women and their children 
are, by representation, the two covenants; the one covenant 
being that from mount Sinai, gendering to bondage, ἥτις 
ἔστιν, which is, by representation, Agar the bondwoman, and 
so bearing a child which also was in bondage, τὸ yap “Ayap, 
for that which is signified by Agar, from whom Ishmael 
descended, is mount Sinai in Arabia, whence the Jaw was 
given ; and this Agar answers to Jerusalem that now is, and 
is in bondage with her children to the law, as the bondwo- 
man and her child were to Abraham; but the Jerusalem 
which is above, ἐλευϑέρα ἐστὶν, is by representation Sarah the 
freewoman, whose son was born, not according to the flesh, 
but “according to the promise;” and this woman is the 
mother of us all; for “we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the 
children of the promise,” and so the spiritual seed of Abra- 
ham, and “heirs according to the promise.” And this in- 
terpretation is confirmed by the conclusion of the whole 
allegory thus: “So then, brethren, we are not the children 
of the bondwoman, but of the free.” O si sic omnia! 

M Ver. 26. Ἢ ἄνω Ἱερουσαλὴμ, The Jerusalem which is 
above.] As the state of the church under the gospel is styled, 
by the evangelists, “the kingdom of heaven ;” so here the 
Jerusalem which is from above, the gospel-state, or new 
kingdom, being erected by the Holy Ghost sent down from 
heaven, and leading us to it, is styled “ the heavenly Jerusa- 
lem.” Note also, that the Jews tell us,* that «the inferior 
Jerusalem is a type of that which is above.” 


* Voisin de Lege, p. 369. 


CHAPTER V. 


nant) is free, (is the freewomun, and so her children 
cannot be in bondage to the law, as the Jews were, and 
tt ts this Jerusalem) which is the mother of us all. 

27 For (of this Jerusalem, Isa. liv. 1) it is written, 
Rejoice, ‘how barren that bearest not; break forth 
and cry, thou that travailest not (and so in this art 
like to Sarah): for (now) the desolate hath many 
more children than she which hath an husband (the 
genttle, than the Jewish church). 

28 Now (to apply these things to us) we, brethren, 
as Isaac was, are the children of promise (as being 
born, not of the flesh, but of the Spirit, by virtue of the 
promise, In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be 
blessed). 

29 But as then he that was born after the flesh 
(i. e. Ishmael) ™ persecuted him that was born after 


739 


the Spirit, (ἐν 6. Isaac, the seed produced by the Spirit 
of God, and the representative of us who are born of the 
Spirit, John iii. 3. 5) even so tt is now; (the Jews, the 
seed of Abraham according to the flesh, every where perse- 
culing us Christians, 1 Thess. ii. 14—16.) 

30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? (% δ. 
What is contained in the scripture? even these words, 
approved by God, Gen. xxi. 12,) Cast out the bond- 
woman and her son: for the son of the bondwo- 
man ' shall not be heir with the son of the freewo- 
man. 

31 So then, brethren, we (being children of the 
promise, ver. 28) are not children of the bondwoman 
(and so in subjection to the law), but of the free (wo- 
man, and therefore at liberty from the obligation or bond- 


age of it). 


Ver. 27.] Note, that the Jews themselves interpret these 
words, cited from Isa. liv. 1, of the times of the Messiah 
(Midrash Shir Hashirim, ad Cant. i. 5). 

16 Ver. 29. ᾿Εὐίωκε, Persecuted.] Jerome here saith, ‘Ish- 
mael struck Isaac; but the text, Gen. xxi. 9, saith only, 
that he mocked him: this derision therefore must be reputed 
as a persecuting him with the tongue. 

16 Ver. 30. Οὐ κληρονομήση, Shall not be heir.] Hence we 
may learn what that persecution, mentioned ver. 29, was, 
even a derision of Isaac’s pretensions to be the heir of 
Abraham; (so among the Jews Rabbi Salom,* cited by 


* R. Sal. ait, Ismaelem cum Isaaco de hereditate con- 


Cartwright on Gen. xxi. 9, and Jerome in his Questions and 
Traditions upon Genesis;) even as the carnal Jews con- 
tended with the believing gentiles, that they must be the 
true heirs of the promise made to Abraham, who were his 
seed according to the flesh. 


tendisse, dicentem, ego sum primogenitus, et duplex portio 
ad me pertinet. Duplicitér hoc ab Hebreis exponitur, sive 
quod idola ludo fecerit, sive quod adverstim Isaac quasi 
majoris wtatis joco sibi et ludo primogenita vendicaret. 
Tom. ult. f. 73, L. 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Sranp fast therefore in the liberty wherewith 
Christ hath made us (Christians) free, and be not en- 
tangled again with the yoke of bondage (do the law, 
Acts xv. 10). 


‘2 Behold, I Paul say unto you (Galatians), that if 
ye be circumcised (in order to your justification), Christ | 


shall profit you nothing (ii. 1. 3, 4). 


3 For 'I testify again to every man that is circum- 
cised, that he is a debtor (by virtue of that circum- 
a to do the whole law. 

4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever 
of you are (seehing to be) justified by the law (and not 
by faith in him only) ; ye are fallen from ( justification 
by) grace. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 3. Μαρτύρομαι πάλιν, I testify again.) These words 
must not be thought to import, that he had testified this 
before in this epistle, and now did it again, there being no- 


thing said before of this matter; but thus, “I Paul say to | 


you, that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you no- 
thing:” and again, “I testify that you are debtors, by ad- 
mitting this circumcision, to yield obedience to the whole law 
of Moses :” for as by baptism we Christians do oblige ourselves 
to observe all the institutions of the Christian faith; so did 
the Jews by circumcision oblige themselves to yield obedi- 


ence to the whole law of Moses. ‘This the apostle elsewhere | 


intimates, by saying to the Jews, “ Circumcision verily pro- 
fiteth, if you keep the law,” Rom. ii. 25, to which thou art 
obliged by it; and by objecting to them who were so zealous 
for the circumcision of others, that they acted insincerely in 
that zeal, because they themselves did not keep the law, 
Gal. vi. 13. When any one became a proselyte of justice, 
or turned from heathenism to Judaism, they first instructed 
him in the law of Moses, and when he declared himself re- 
solved to obey it, then they circumcised him, and so ad- 
mitted him into the congregation, and he became as one of 
them. For circumcision being the sign by which they entered 
into covenant with God, when the Mosaical law became the 
covenant betwixt God and the seed of Abraham; that cir- 
cumcision, by which they entered into covenant with him, 
must lay an obligation on them to observe the law of Moses. 
And hence the Judaizing Christians, who held that the law 
of Moses was an everlasting covenant, thought that the be- 
lieving gentiles were to be dealt with as their proselytes ; 
that is, unless they were circumcised, and observed the law, 
they could not be saved (Acts xv. 1). 


But still it remains a great inquiry, whether the words con- 
tained in the second, third, and fourth verses, are to be taken 
generally, so as to exclude all believing Jews from any bene- 
fit by Christ, or by the covenant of grace, who sought for 
justification by the works of the law? or whether they are 
to be restrained only to the believing gentiles? Now in an- 
swer to this question, let it be noted, 

First, That it is not the being circumcised, which is here 
said to exclude from grace and salvation, but the being cir- 
cumcised to obtain justification and salvation by it; as is 
apparent from the words, “ Christ is become of none effect 
to you, whosoever of you are justified by the law.” Had the 
bare use of circumcision rendered Christ unprofitable to the 
Jew and gentile, or put them under the curse of the law, 
Paul would not have circumcised Timothy, nor have owned 
the believing Jews as Christian brethren, who were still zea- 
lous for the law. 

Secondly, Observe, that the law of Moses, being given to 
the Jews, and some of its precepts being styled “everlasting 
covenants and commandments,” and they having all engaged 
to observe it, might think themselves obliged still to be cir- 
cumcised, and observe the law, by virtue of God’s precept, 
till it was more solemnly by God declared to be abrogated, 
though they expected not to be justified by it: for so we 
find it was with the believing Jews: they all continued 
“zealous of the law,” Acts xxi. 20, and thought all Jews 
obliged to observe it, ver. 24, but then they thought to be 
saved, not by the law, “but by the grace of our Lord Jesus 
Christ,’ Acts xv. 11, as the believing gentiles were, and they 
“believed in Christ, that they might be justified by faith in 
Christ, and not by the works of the law,” Gal. ii. 16. But 
now the gentiles being not under the obligation of the law of 
Moses, they having first believed in Christ, and received, 


740 


we have received) wait? for the hope of righteousness 
by faith. 

6 (We expect it, I say, by thal faith which ministers 
this Spirit, and not by etrcumersion ;) For in (‘he eco- 
nomy of) Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth 


any thing, nor uncireumeision (as fo vwr acceptance with | 


God, and our reward from him) ; but® faith which work- 
eth by love. 

7 Ye did run well (in the beginning of your Christian 
race) ; who did hinder you that ye should not (continue 
tv) obey the truth? 

8 4'This persuasion (of the necessity of your being cir- 
cumcised, and obeying the law vf Moses) cometh not of him 
(i. ε. that God) that calleth (Gr. called) you (to the 
Sfuith of Christ. 

9 Nor ought this circumcision to seem a little thing to 
you, nor are these Judaizers to be disregarded because they 
are feu:, for they are like to leaven; now ye know) &A 
little Jeaven leaveneth (and so corruptelh) the whole 
lump (see the note on 1 Cor. v. 6). 


upon that faith, the Holy Ghost, they could not afterward 
submit to the observance of the law; but by so doing, they 
must testify they thought not faith in Christ sufficient to 
justification, or acceptance with God, without the observance 
of the law; and therefore must submit to it for these ends, 
and so must in effect deny that faith in Christ would jus- 
tify them, or that the giving of the Holy Ghost was a suffi- 
cient evidence of their acceptance with God; which was a 
tempting or distrusting of God, after so full a demonstration 
of his grace and favour to them (Acts xv. 8—10). 

I therefore think these words concern as well those Jews 
as gentiles, who sought for justification still, not by their faith 
in Christ, but through the works of the law (Rom. ix. 31, 
32), and held circumcision necessary to all; not by way of 
precept only, but as a necessary means of salvation: for by 
these things, saith the apostle, they in effect declared that 
“Christ was dead in vain,” and “frustrated the grace of 
Christ” (Gal. ii. 21), and so fell from it. Nor is it easy to 
perceive how they should have justification and salvation 
from him, from whom, after the revelation of him, they did 
not expect it; or have faith in him to justification, by whom 
they thought not that they should be justified. 

2 Ver. 5. ᾿Βλπίδα δικαιοσύνης, Hope of righteousness.] Or 
justification, i. e. the hope of glory, the consequent of our 
justification: for, “ being justified by faith, we have peace 
with God, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God :” it 
is through the Spirit that we wait for, and expect this glory: 
for he is the pledge and earnest of it; “by him we are 
sealed up to the day of redemption, and wrought up to the 
expectation of it’ (Rom. v. 1, 2, Eph. i. 14, 2 Cor. i. 22, 
Eph. iv. 33, 2 Cor. v. 5, Rom. v. 5); and therefore are not 
ashamed of our hope, “because the love of God is shed 
abroad in our hearts by the Spirit he hath given us:” and 
thus we do, “ who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, wait for 
the redemption of our bodies, and the glorious liberty of the 
sons of God” (Rom. viii. 21. 23). 

3 Ver, 6. Πίστις δι᾿ ἀγάπης ἐνεργο"μένη, Faith working by 
Jove.| There be great disputes about, and divers interpreta- 
tions of, these words, which I think may be rendered, Faith 
working or made active by love, or excited to perform our 
duty to God, and to our neighbour for his sake, by that love 
which we bear to him; or from considerations of his great 
love to us, according to those words of the apostle, “The 
love of Christ constraineth us,” 2 Cor. v. 14. And here, 
«The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the 
Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me,” Gal. 
ii. 20. 

4 Ver. 8. This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth 
you.) Here Jerome’s note runs thus: Persuasio nostra non 
est ex eo qui vocavit nos, sed ex nobis qui consentimus, vel 
non consentimus vocanti; aliud quippe Dei opus, aliud ho- 
minum: Dei opus est vocare, hominum credere, vel non 
credere; et sicubi alitér de scripturis liberum hominis affir- 
matur arbitrium, ut ibi, Si volueritis, et si audieritis me, Exod. 
xix. 2, et iterum, Et nunc Israel, quid petit ἃ te Dominus 


GALATIANS. 
5 For we (Christians) through the Spirit (which | 


10 (But) Thave confidence in you through the Lord, 
that (ufler consideration of what I have writen) ye will 
be none otherwise minded (than 7 exhort you to be): 
but he that troubleth you shall hear his judgment (τὸ 
xptipa, the sentence «f condemnalion due to him on that 
account), whosoever he be. 

11 And I (whereas some of the Judaizers have sug- 
gested, that I elsewhere preach up that circumcision I op- 
pose in you), brethren, (you may larn th: falsehood of 
that suggestion from my sufferings, for) δ if 1 yet preach 
circumeision, why do I yet suffer persecution (from 
the Jews? since) then is the offence (they lake αἱ preach- 
tng) of the cross ceased. 

12 ΤΊ would they were even cut off (from the com- 
munion of the church) which (do thus) trouble (and wn- 
sellle) you. 

13 For, brethren, ye have been called (hy Chris- 
tianily) unto liberty (from the Jewish yoke); only 
(be careful that ye) use not (your) liberty § for an 
occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one an- 
other. 


Deus tuus? Deut. x., et ex héc loco vel maximé comproba- 
tur. Accusat enim, quare non obediverint veritati, ostendens 
in eorum arbitrio positum vel obedire vel non obedire. And 
in this he speaks the sense of all the ancients till Austin’s time. 

5 Ver. 9. A liltle leaven, ὅκα. That is, saith Chrysostom, 
circumcision, though it be but one command, brings us under 
an obligation to obey the whole Jewish law, as the apostle 
teacheth, ver. 3. - 

© Ver. 11. Ἐλ περιτομὴν ἔτι κηρύσσω, If I yet preach cir- 
cwmeision.] All the Greek interpreters say, this verse re- 
turns an answer to the suggestions of the patrons of the law, 
viz. that* « he was a hypocrite, in some places preaching up 
circumcision, in others not” (see the note on iii. 4). 

7Ver. 12. “Opedov καὶ ἀποκόψονται, I wish they were even 
cut 47 The interpretation of all the Greek fathers, and of 
Ambrose, Austin, and Jerome on this place, is this, Utinam 
non solum cireumcidantur, sed etiam abscindantur, “I wish 
not only they were circumcised, but even made like the 
priests of the mother of the gods, worshipped formerly by 
you of Galatia, who had that member cut off.” But if this 
interpretation seem too light to be affixed to the words of 
the apostle, I rather choose to interpret them as a wish, that 
they were cut off from the communion of the church, because 
this seems agreeable to a like passage, 1 Cor. v. 6, 7, where 
having said, as here, “ A little leaven leavens the whole lump,” 
he adds, “ Purge out therefore the old leaven,” i.e. “ Put 
away from yourselves the wicked person,” which he himself 
here would not do alone; because he saw his authority 
among them was impaired, and he feared this rather might 
exasperate, than cure their distemper (see note on 2 Cor, 
x. 16). That ὄρελον is sometimes joined with an aorist, and 
sometimes with an imperfect of the indicative mood, we 
learn from these examples, dpedov ἐν ἅδη με ἐφύλαξας, “1 wish 
thou wouldest hide me in the grave,” Job xiv. 13; djedov yé 
ἐβασιλεύσατε, “1 wish you did reign,” 1 Cor. iv. 8. 

8 Ver. 13. Eis ἀφορμὴν τῇ σαρκὶ, For an occasion of the 
Jlesh.| This is done (1.) by a carnal use of it to gratify the 
motions of the flesh, as they who “turned the grace of God 
into lasciviousness,” and thought they might sin more freely, 
“because they were not under the law, but under grace” 
(Rom. vi. 1. 15): or, (2.) by an uncharitable use of it, to 
the scandal of their weak brethren; or the contempt of 
those who did not fully understand their liberty ; or by con- 
tending with, or biting one another (ver. 16), which was an 
evidence that they were carnal (1 Cor. iii. 3): or, lastly, by 
refusing obedience to their masters (see note on 1 Tim. vi. 
1, 2), and subjection to superiors (see note on 1 Pet. ii. 16) ; 
the remedy of which distempers is true Christian love; for 
“he that loves sincerely will not refuse to serve him whom 
he loves.”+ 


* 'Yroxpizis ἐστιν ἀλλαχοῦ περιτομὴν κηρύσσων, ἀλλαχοῦ δὲ ov. 
Theodoret. 
O yap εἰλικρίνως ἀγαπῶν οὐδὲ δουλεύειν παραιτεῖται τῷ φιλοὺυ- 


Theophylact. 


μένῳ. 


CHAPTER VI. 


14 9 For all the (moral) law (respecting our neigh- 
bour) is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour as thyself. 


15 But © if ye (én contradiction to this law) bite | 


(calumniate) and devour one another, take heed that 
ye be not (én the tssue) consumed one of another. 

16 " This I say then (/o prevent these miscarriages), 
Walk in the Spirit (ἐν e. according to the motions of 
the Holy Spirit, Rom. viii. 1, 2. 9. 12—14), and ye 
shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh: (7. e. these car- 
nal motions, ver. 13, and those uncharilable contentions, 
ver. 15. 

17 For the flesh (indeed) lusteth against the Spirit 
(and so incites you to these things), and (bul) the Spirit 
(dusteth) against the flesh: and these (two principles) 
are contrary the one to the other: so that ye (who are 
led by the Spirit) cannot do the things that ye would 
(according to the flesh ; nor ye who are led by the flesh, 
the things that ye would according to the Spirit). 

18 But if ye be led of the (conduct of the Holy) 
Spirit, ye are not under the law (and so sin shall nat 
have dominion over you, Rom. vi. 14). 


741 


19 ® Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which 
are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasci- 


| viousness, 


20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, 
wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 

21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and 
such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have 
also told you in time past, that they which do such 
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 
longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 

23 Meekness, temperance: against such ” there is 
no law (δαὶ can condemn or render them obnoxious to 
the wrath of God). 

24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the 
flesh with the affections and lusts (of 7/). 

25 If (then) we (pretend to) live in (and by) the 
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit (according to the 
motions, not of the flesh but of the Spirit). 

26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory (Gr. vain- 
glorious), provoking one another, envying one an- 
other. 


9 Ver. 14. The whole law is fulfilled in this, That thow 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.) So that if thou be still 
desirous to fulfil the law, thou mayest do it by observing 
this comprehensive law of love. So Cicumenius. 

0 Ver. 15. El δὲ ἀλλήλους δάκνετε, If ye bite, &c.] Theo- 
doret here notes, that the contentions and quarrels which 
arose betwixt them that stood firm, and those who warped 
to the legal observances, gave occasion to these words: and 
as I have observed, that the zeal of the Jews would not 
suffer an uncircumcised person to live among them, so might 
it be also with these zealous Judaizers. 

1 Ver. 16, 17.] Note, that I have interpreted these verses 
as most commentators do; but I conceive, they may be 
best interpreted from Rom. vii. thus: 

Ver. 16. «But this 1 say ({0 take you off from this 
bondage to the law), Walk in the Spirit (in newness of the 
Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, Rom. vii. 6) and 
ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh; (2. δ. fhe motions of 
the flesh shall not have dominion over you, and bring you 
captive to the law of sin, as it doth in them ; because ye are 
not under the law, but under grace, Rom. vi, 14.) 

Ver. 17. “For (in them) the flesh lusteth against the 
Spirit (or inward man not renewed, ver. 23. 25), and the 
Spirit lusteth against the flesh (ver. 19—22), and these two 
are contrary ; so that ye (who are under the law, and walk 
not in newness of the Spirit) cannot do the things that ye 
would (for the good that ye would, ye do not, ver. 19).” 

2 Ver. 19. Ta ἔργα τῆς σαρκός, The works of the flesh.] 
That some of these may very properly be called works of 
the flesh, cannot be doubted; but seeing some of these sins 
seem chiefly to consist in errors of the mind, as heresy and 
idolatry, and others of them to derive from evil dispositions 
of the spirit, as envy, malice, witchcraft, it seems not easy to 
perceive with what propriety they are here called the works 
of the flesh. But, 

1. That « strife, contentions, bitter zeal,” are indeed works 
of the flesh, we may discern from a reflection on the usual 
objects of them; for we do not use to contend with or envy 
men on the account of things truly spiritual, because they 
bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, or have the pleasures of 
an upright conscience; but our contentions generally are 
about worldly, carnal things, the pleasures, honours, or en- 


joyments of the present world: for “ whence come zeal and 
envy?” saith James, “come they not from your lusts which 
war in your members?” James iv. 1. 

Moreover, “ murder” and “ witcherafts,” or φαρμακείαι, as 
that word imports, those poisonous ingredients which are 
used to destroy human life, are the fruits of this hatred, 
envy, malice; and so must have their rise from the same 
sensual lusts. ‘ 

The idolatry of the heathens, not only as it was attended 
with revellings and uncleanness, but as it represented God 
to corporeal eyes in images, and brought him down unto the 
senses, may well be deemed a sensual crime. 

And, lastly, heresy, according to the scripture notion, be- 
ing nota pure mistake of judgment, but an espousing a false 
doctrine out of disgust, pride, or envy, or from worldly princi- 
ples, or to avoid persecution or trouble in the flesh, may well 
be ranked among carnal lusts. Hence are such men said, 
“not to serve God, but their own belly” (Rom. xvi. 17, 
18), to “teach what they ought not for filthy luere’s sake” 
(Tit. i. 11), to “account gain for godliness” (1 Tim. vi. 5),and 
“through covetousness, with feigned words, to make mer- 
chandise of others” (2 Pet. ii. 3) ; and therefore the apostle 
doth not advise us to convince, but only to admonish and 
reject the heretic, as knowing that “he sins, being convinced 
ot his own conscience” (see note on Tit. iii. 10). 

13 Ver. 23. Οὐκ ἔστι νύμος, There is no law.) The expo- 
sition of those who say, “Such persons had no law,” is not 
to be approved, because it suits not with the word κατὰ 
τοιούτων, “ Against such there is no law.’ Moreover, the 
law of liberty they are under was given to oblige them to 
the practice of these virtues; and so was needful to that 
end. 

M Ver. 26. ᾿Αλλήλους προκαλούμενοι, Provoking one another, 


‘&c.] Theodoret here observes, that they who stood firm in 


the faith, and so enjoyed their spiritual gifts, might be apt 
to condemn, and glory over the weak on that account; and 
others might envy their gifts: and this shows the seasonable- 
ness of this exhortation, and connects these words with the 
beginning of the following chapter, where the apostle con- 
demns them who had high thoughts of themselves, and upon 
that account were apt to overlook and to neglect their fallen 
brother. 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 Breruren, if a man be overtaken in? a fault, | 2 ye which are spiritual (endowed with those spiritual 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


VVer. 1. Παραπτώματι, With a fault.) They seem not well 
to have considered the use of this word in scripture, who 
say it is, lapsus hominis ex improviso impingentis, “a fault 


committed unawares, or for want of circumspection ;” since 
the apostle applies it to all the sins of the heathen world, 
styling them νεκροὶ ἐν rots παραπτώμασι, “ dead in trespasses,” 
Eph. ii. 1. 5, Col. ii. 13, and to all the sins forgiven us 
through faith in Christ, Rom. iv. 25, v. 16, 2 Cor. v. 19, Eph. 


742 


gifts which enable you for the public ministrations in the 
church), restore such an one *in the spirit of meek- 
ness (lo a right understanding of his duty, and a suitable 
practice); considering thyself, 4 lest thou also be 
tempted (and so fall as he did). 

2 Bear ye one another’s burdens (¢nfirmities in judc- 
ment or in manners), and so fulfil the law of Christ 
(which requires you by love to serve one another, v. 13). 

3 For ὃ if a man think himself to be something, 
when (wanting charity, 1 Cor. xiii. 2, 3) he is nothing, 
he deceiveth himself. 

4 But (fo avoid this deceit) δ let every man prove 
his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in 
himself alone, and not (only) in (comparing himself with) 
another. 

5 For every man shall bear 7 his own burden. 

(The apostle having thus instructed their teachers, or 
spiritual men, not to despise or undervalue their Chris- 
tian brethren, proceeds now to inslruct these brethren 
how to behave themselves towards their teachers, say- 
ings) 


GALATIANS. 


6 Let him that is taught in the word § communicate 
unto him that teacheth in all good things (he stands in 
need of, as God’s blessing may enable him). 

7 Be not deceived (by your false teachers); God is 
not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, (of) that 
(kind ) shall he also reap. 

8 For he that soweth to his flesh (by doing the works 
of the flesh, v. 20, 21) shall of the flesh reap corrup- 
tion; but he that soweth to the Spirit (by bringing 
forth the fruits of the Spirit, mentioned ν. 22, 23) shall 
of the Spirit (raising him up to it, Rom. viii. 11) reap 
life everlasting. 

9 And (but then) let us not be weary in well doing 
(or of exercising these fruits of the Spirit): for 9 in due 
season we shall reap (/he rewards of them), if we faint 
not (but hold out unto the end). 

10 As we have therefore opportunity (ability), let 
us do good (and charilable offices) unto all men, ™ espe- 


| cially unto them who are of the houshold of faith. 


11 Ye" see how large a letter I have written unto 
you with mine own hand. 


1, 7. The word προληφϑῇ seems rather to import such a 
surprise. 

2 Ὑμεῖς of πνευματικοὶ, You that are spiritual.) I have 
noted on 1 Cor. xiv, 32, that in the beginning of Chris- 
tianity, when churches were first converted, they had for a 
time no settled church-governors; but all their church-offices 


were performed by men who had spiritual gifts; and by | 


them are said to prophesy in the church, to their edification, 
exhortation, and comfort, ver. 3. So I conceive it was when 
Paul writ to the Galatians: for, here is no direction of this 
epistle to any stated church-governors; no salutation of any 
in the close; no charge against any for suffering these great 
miscarriages in the church; no exhortation to them to take 


heed of their ministry, and to oppose themselves to these | 


deceivers: and then the spiritual men here mentioned must 
be the prophets, who then performed all spiritual offices 
among them. 

3 "Ev πνεύματι πραύτητος, In the spirit of meekness, | 2 Tim. 
li. 24, that so they may not provoke them to fly off to Juda- 
ism (v. 26), whom they should restore to a right under- 
standing of their Christian liberty, and to a freedom from 
that yoke of bondage. 

4 Μὴ καὶ σὺ πειρασθῆς, Lest thow also be tempted.) i.e. Lest 


thou fall by temptation: for to stand firm against tempta- | 


tion, when it assaults us, is not a proper consideration to 
engage us to pity those that fall by it. 
of the word, when we are taught to pray, That we enter not 
into temptation, Matt. vi. 13, when the apostle bids the 
married persons live together, “that Satan tempt them not 
for their incontinence,” 1 Cor. vii. 5; when he is solicitous 
for the Thessalonians, “lest the tempter should have tempted 
them, and rendered his labours vain,” 1 Thess. iii. 3; and 
when James saith, “ Every man is tempted when he is led 
away by his own lust,” James i. 14. 

5 Ver. 3. Ei yap δοκεῖ τις εἶναι τι, μηδὲν ὧν, If a man thinks 
himself something, being nothing,| Of himself, but “ by the 
grace of God being what he is” (1 Cor. xv. 10, 2 Cor. xii. 
11): so some truly, but not so pertinently to the scope of 
the text: say others, “ Being nothing in the sight of God ;” 
who regards him not for his knowledge, but his charity 
(1 Cor. xiii. 2, 3); i. e. if upon this account he overlooks 
und despiseth his weak offending brother, not sympathizing 
with him (ver. 2), or endeavouring to restore him (ver. 1), 
but rather glorying in this, that he is a strong Christian 
in comparison of others; he is then nothing in the sight 
of God. 

8 Ver. 4, Δοκιμαζέτω ἕκαστος, Let every man prove.] i. e. 
Let him approve his actions to God and his own conscience ; 
and then he may take comfort simply in himself, that he is 
a good man, and not in this only, that he is better than 
others. So the word signifies, Rom. i. 28, οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν, 
“They approved not” of God; Rom. ii. 18, ἑοκιμάζεις, 
“Thou approvest the things which are most excellent;” 
Rom. xii. 2, “Be transformed by the renewing of your 
mind, εἰς τὸ ὁοκιμάζειν, that you may approve the good, and 


This is the import | 


acceptable, and perfect will of God ;” and, xiv. 22, “ Happy 
is the man who doth not condemn,” or act against his con- 
science, ἐν « δοκιμά ει, “in that which by his actions he ap- 
proves of” (see Eph. v. 10, Phil. i. 10, 1 Thess. ii. 4, 1 ‘Tim. 
ul. 10, and note on 1 Cor, xi. 28). 

7 Ver. 5. Τὸ ἴδιον φορτίον, His own burden.) i. 6. This 
every man is concerned to do; viz. to make his own work 
good, and approved in the sight of God: for another man’s 
greater sins will not excuse thee from bearing the burden of 
thy own. 

8 Ver.6. Kowwveirw, Left him communicate.] This he else- 
where styles, “communication, εἰς λόγον décews, καὶ λήψεως, 
by giving” their good things, and “ receiving” his good in- 
structions (Phil. iv. 15), by “sowing spirituals’”’ and “ reap- 
ing” of them “carnal things” (1 Cor. ix. 11): and if this 
was their duty towards such teachers, as had no need of 
books or study to fit themselves for the work, they being 
enabled for it by immediate assistance and gifts of the Holy 
Ghost; how much more towards them who spend much 
time and money to fit themselves for that work, and must 
be still employed in studying and reading, to make them- 
selves such “ workmen as need not to be ashamed ?”” 

The following words, ver. 7, are by most interpreters re- 
ferred to the same subject thus, “ Make no false excuses in 
this case, God will not be mocked with vain pretences.” 
But I rather think the apostle proceeds to a new general 
exhortation against the carnal doctrines of their deceivers, 
“the hidden things of dishonesty,” which he charges them 
with, 2 Cor. iv. 2, vii. 1, 2, xii. 21, whose “ exhortation was 
attended with uncleanness,” 1 Thess. ii. 2 (see note on 2 Cor. 
iv. 2), against which doctrines this is his usual preface, “ Let 
no man deceive you with vain words,” Eph. v. 6, 1 Cor. vi. 
9, James i, 16, 

9 Ver. 9. Καιρῷ ἰδίῳ, In due season.) i. 6. In the proper 
time of recompense: for the encouragement Christ gives 
unto the works of charity is this, “Thou shalt be recom- 
pensed at the resurrection of the just,” Luke xiv. 14. 

0 Ver. 10. Let ws do good to all men.) By this precept, 
saith Chrysostom, he extends the love of the Christian be- 
yond that of the Jews, which was confined, πρὸς τοὺς ὅμο- 
φύλους, to men of their own nation and religion.” 

N Ver. 11. Ἴδετε πηλίκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα τῆ ἐμὴ χειρὶ, 
See how large a letter I have written to you with my own 
hand.| It is true that γράμματα sometimes signifies “ epis- 
tles,” as when the Jews say to Paul, οὔτε γράμματα περί cov 
ἐδεξάμεϑα, We have received no letters concerning thee,” 
Acts xxviii. 21; but then it is also true, that Paul else- 
where uses seventeen times the word ἐπιστολαὶ, but never the 
word γράμματα, when he speaks of his epistles. Though, 
therefore, it be true that Paul wrote his other epistles by an 
amanuensis (Rom, xvi. 22), adding only in the close of 
them the salutation with his own hand, as an indication 
that he indited the epistles (see note on 2 ‘Thess. iii. 17); 
whereas this whole epistle was written with his own hand 
for their greater assurance, and as a testimony of his great 


PREFACE TO EPHESIANS. 


12 As many as desire to make a fair shew in (/hings 
concerning) the flesh (end avouring to gratify men, and 
avoid ther displeasure), they (would) constrain you to 
be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecu- 
tion (from their hands) "5 for the cross of Christ. 


13 (1 say, tt is upon this account, and not out of re- | 


gard to the law, that they so zealously plead for cir- 
cumetsion, and the observation of it;) ™For neither they 
themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but 
desire to have you circumcised, “ that they may glory 
in your flesh. 

14 But (whatsoever they may glory in) God forbid 
that I should glory, save in the (Anowledge and in the 
profession of the) eross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by 
whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the 
world (ii. 20, as being dead to sin, Rom. vi. 3, 4, to the 
Slesh, Gal. v. 24, to the law by the body of Christ, and 
separated from the world to live unto God ). 

15 For "in (the economy of) Christ Jesus neither 


743 


circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncireumcision, 
but a new creature (one dead tu sin, the fish, and the 
world, but Heing unto God). 


16 And as many as walk aceording to this rule 
(being chifly concerned that the new civenant may be 
formed iu them), peace (shall) be on them, and merey, 
and (or, thal is) upon the Israel (not of th: flesh, but) of 
God. 

17 From henceforth let no man " trouble me (with 
their contentions against my office; because 1 renvunce 
circumcision, and my legal righteousness): for 1 hear in 
my body the marks of (a servant, not of the law, but of) 
the Lord Jesus (these wounds and stripes which testify 
me lo be a faithful servant of that Jesus for whose sake ἢ 
suffer them). 

18 Brethren, the grace ( favour end good-will) of our 
Lord Jesus Christ be " with your spirit. Amen. 


4“ Unto the Galatians written from Rome. 


affection and concernment for them: yet πήλικα γράμματα, 
“what kind of letters,” may not refer to that; but, as the 
Greek scholiast conceives, to the largeness or inelegancy of 
gthe characters in which it was written, this inaccurateness 
in writing or forming the Greek characters being the most 
probable account why all his other epistles were written by 
another hand. 


2 Ver. 12. Τῷ σταυρῷ, &c. For the cross of Christ.) 1 | 


have shown (note on v. 11) that this was the great stum- 
bling-block of the Jews, partly because their law pronounced 
a curse on those that “ hanged on a tree” (see note on | Cor. 
i. 23) ; partly because the cross, and sufferings of Christ on 
it, was the foundation of the doctrine of justification by 
faith in his blood, of the cessation of the ceremonial law, 
and the removal of the partition-wall betwixt the Jew and 
gentile (Col. ii. 14. 16) ; on which account chiefly they were 
scandalized at it, and persecuted those who thought that this 
was the result of our Lord’s death and sufferings. St. Jerome 
here saith, that Octavianus Augustus, Tiberius, and Caius 
Cesar had made laws that the Jews dispersed through the 


whole Roman empire should live according to their own | 
laws and ceremonies ; whosoever therefore was circumcised, | 


though he believed in Christ, was by the gentiles deemed a 
Jew; but they who had not this token of a Jew, viz. the 
circumcision of the flesh, were persecuted both by Jew and 
gentiles: has igitur persecutiones hi, qui Galatas deprava- 
verant, declinare cupientes, circumcisionem pro defensione 
discipulis persuadebant; “and hence they who perverted 
the Galatians persuaded them to be circumcised, that they 
might avoid persecution.” , 


daizing Christians: for how, saith Theodoret, could they in 
Galatia regularly observe the Jewish feasts, or offer sacrifice, 
or cleanse themselves from their defilements, by touching 
any thing that was unclean? 

M "Iva ἐν τῇ ὑμετέρα σαρκὶ καυχήσωνται, That they might 
glory in your flesh.) i.e. Might boast of this among the 

ews, that they promoted circumcision even among the 
gentiles, and by that pretence might avoid persecution from 
them. 

15 Ver. 15. "Ev yap Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ οὔτε περιτομῆ τι ἰσχύει. 
Dr. Mills omits the words scored, and reads οὐ περιτομή re 
ἐστίν" but the words, as they are in the text, are not only 
owned by the Vulgar, Arabic, Theodoret, G3cumenius, and 


| Theophylact, but are exactly the same in v. 6 (see Examen 


Millii in locum). 

6 Ver. 17. Let no man trouble me, ἐγὼ yap τὰ στίγματα 
τοῦ Κυρίου ᾿Ιησοῦ ἐν τῷ σώματί pov βαστάζω, for I bear in 
my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.) i.e. Let no man 
henceforth question, whether I truly style myself Paul the 
servant of Jesus Christ, or fight the good fight of faith, as a 
good soldier under this Captain of salvation ; seeing whereas 
servants and soldiers have only one στίγμα, as a mark of 
their relation to their masters and generals, in their hands or 
wrists, I bear many marks of these relations to the Lord 
Jesus, throughout my whole body, in those many wounds 
and stripes I have received for his sake. 

17 Ver. 18. Mera τοῦ πνεύματος ὑμῶν, With your spiri.] 
That is, “with you; for in other epistles it is μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν, 
“with you,” 1 Cor. xvi. 23, Col. iv. 18, 1 Thess. v. 28, or 
μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν, “with you all,” Rom. xvi. 24, 2 Cor. 


13 Ver. 13. Οὐδὲ γὰρ νόμον φυλάσσουσιν, For neither do they | xiii. 13, Phil. iv. 23, 2 Thess. iii. 18, Tit. iii. 15, Heb. 
keep the law.) This was unquestionably true of these Ju- | xiii. 25. 


THE 


EPISTLE TO THE EPHESIANS,’ 
WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


§.1. Tar this Epistle to the Ephesians was indeed 
written by Paul, and directed to them, and not to any other 
church, we cannot doubt, if we believe either the epistle or 
Paul himself. For, ‘ 


* Ἡ πρὸς ᾿Εῤεσίους ᾿Επιστολή. See this title confirmed by 
the clear testimony of the fathers of the four centuries, and 
the mistakes of Dr. Mills discovered, Examen Milli. 


First, It begins thus: “ Paul, an apostle (writeth these 
things) to the saints that are at Ephesus.’ And im this 
reading all the versions and all the manuscripts agree. 

Secondly, In the close of this epistle he speaks thus to 
them: “That you may know my affairs, and how I do, 
Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the 
Lord, shall make known to you all things; whom I have 
sent unto you,” vi. 21, 22: and in the Second Epistle to 
Timothy he saith, “Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus,” 
iv. 12, 


744 


Moreover, all antiquity agrees in this, that this epistle was 
written by Paul: Ignatius* is express for it in his Epistle 
to the Ephesians. Irenwus,t Clemens of Alexandria,} and 
Origen,§ in divers places of their works. We learn, indeed, 
from the argument of this epistle in G2cumenius, and more 
fully from ‘heodoret,|| that some of the ancients thought 
this epistle was writ by Paul before he had seen the Ephe- 
sians, or at least before his three years’ converse with them: 
but not any of the ancients, excepting Marcion, ever thought 
that-this epistle was not written among other churches to 
that of Ephesus, but that of Laodicea; and therefore Ter- 
tullian{ takes notice of it as a thing proper to those here- 
tics, though indeed both might be true; for this epistle being 
writ not only to the saints at Ephesus, but also “to the 
faithful in Christ Jesus,’ might be writ also to the Colos- 
sians, the Laodiceans, and others, who had not seen his face 
(Col. ii. 1, see note on Col. iv. 16). And this observation 
gives a sufficient answer to the arguments from i. 15, iii. 2, 
from which some have conjectured, that this epistle could 
not be writ to them after St. Paul had staid three years in 
Asia, though they more fully are considered in their respec- 
tive places. 

§. 2. That this epistle was written when Paul was pri- 
soner at Rome, is evident from iii. 1, where he is styled 
« Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ ;” and, iv. 1, “a prisoner 
in the Lord.” Now, it must be at soonest in the third year 
of Nero that he was sent prisoner to Rome; for Felix was 
made procurator of Judea by Nero in his first year, saith 


* Ὃς ἐν πάσῃ ἐπιστολὴ μνημονεύει ὑμῶν. Ep. ad Eph. §. 12. 

ἡ Apostolus Ephesiis ait, lib. v. cap. 8, 14. Quemadmo- 
diim beatus apostolus in ed que est ad Ephesios Epistola, 
cap. 2. Paulus, lib. i. p. 16, A. p. 37, A, D. lib. iii. cap. 20, 
Apostolus Paulus, lib iv. cap. 55. 

+ Percurre ecclesias apostolicas 
authentice litere eorum recitantur- si potes in Asiam ten- 
dere habes Ephesum. De Prescript. cap. 36. 

§ 'O ἀπύστολος ᾿Εφεσίοις γράφων. Clem. Alex. Padag. lib. i. 
cap. 5, p. 88, C. Paulus, Strom. lib. 111. p. 490. Φησὶ δὴ ὃ 
τοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ ἀπύστολος Παῦλος, τὸ μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστὶν. Orig. 
adv. Cels. lib. iv. p. 197. 211. 

|| Τὸν ϑειότατον Παῦλον μηδέπω τοὺς ’Epeolovg reSeapévov, τὴν 
ἐπιστολὴν πρὸς αὐτοὺς γεγραφέναι. 

{ In ορἰβίοϊἃ quam nos ad Ephesios prescriptam habe- 
mus, heretici vero ad Laodicenos. Adv. Mare. lib. v. cap. 
11, Paulus ad Ephes. In the fourth century, Athanas. Or. 
3, adv. Ar. p. 446, ibid. p. 416, 6 δὲ Παῦλος ἐν τῆ πρὸς ᾿Ἐφεσίους, 
Epiphan. τῆς πρὸς ᾿Εφεσίους, p. 371, 372, Gr. Nyssen. φησὶ yap 
πρὸς ᾿Εἰεσίους γράφων, in Cant. p. 396, διὰ τῶν πρὸς ᾿Εφεσίους 
λόγων, Orat. 1, de Resur. p. 828. 


apud quas ipse adhue 


EPHESIANS. 


Josephus,* and after two years he left Paul prisoner at Cx- 
sarea (Acts xxiv. 27). Portius Festus succeeds him, and 
after some time hears him twice at Caesarea, and sends him 
afterward to Rome; which interval, if we consider how 
long it was before he reached Rome, may very well be 
supposed to take up another year: he therefore could not 
write this epistle till the fourth or fifth of Nero. He did 
not write it, saith Bishop Pearson, till the eighth of Nero, 
A. D. 62. 

§. 3. That this epistle was writ against Simon Magus, and 
his followers, as Esthius hints, none of the ancients say. 
More probable is the conjecture of Grotius, that the apostle 
rather designed by it to arm them against the doctrines of 
the philosophers, and of those Jews who endeavoured to 
bring them to the observation of their rites; for that there 
were then many Jews at Ephesus, and throughout Asia, we 
learn both from the Acts of the Apostles, which inform us, 
that Paul being at Ephesus, “entered into a synagogue of 
the Jews” (Acts xviil. 19, xix. 8—10), and discoursed with 
them, till by their perverseness he was forced to separate 
from them; and that by his preaching, “all that were in 
Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks :” 
as also from Philo,t who informs us, that “the Jews in- 
habited the most and best cities in the provinces and islands- 
both of Europe and Asia.” And that these Jews were dis 
turbers of the churches of Asia, and of Ephesus in particu- 
lar, and sticklers to introduce a mixture of Judaism with 
Christianity, we learn from both the Epistles to Timothy. 
Against their doctrine of the necessity of the observance of 
the law of Moses to justification and salvation, he seemeth 
to oppose these words, ‘‘ By grace ye are saved, not of works, 
lest any man should boast,” ii. 8, 9, which manifestly an- 
swer to his discourse upon that subject, Rom. iii, where he 
asserts, that “we are justified freely by his grace,” ver. 24, 
“and not by the works of the law,” ver. 20, and that all 
“boasting is excluded, not by the law of works, but of 
faith.”+ Against that other notion of theirs, depending on 
the former, that the gentiles should be admitted into the 
church only as proselytes, and not assumed to the same 
privileges with the Jews, he declares himself more largely, 
i. 12—20, iii. 6—10. 


* Bis δὲ τὴν λοιπὴν ᾿Ιουδαίαν Φήλικα κατέστησεν ἐπίτροπον. De 
Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 22. Ted πρώτω τῆς Νέρωνος ἀρχῆς ἔτει. 
Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5 vel 11, p. 694, P. 

T ‘Ioudatous yap χώρα pia διὰ πολυανθρωπείαν οὐ χωρεῖ, ἧς αἰτίας 
ἕνεκα τὰς πλείστας καὶ εὐδαιμονεστάτας τῶν ἐν Ἐϊῥρώπη καὶ ᾿Ασίᾳ 
πόλεων, κατά τε νήσους καὶ ἡπείρους ἐκνέμονται. In Flaccum, p. 
752, et Leg. ad Caium, p. 768, C. 

+ See also the note on iii. 15, 16. 


CHAPTER I. ; 


1 Pavt, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of 
God (calling me to that office), !to the saints which are 
at Ephesus, ? and to the faithful in Christ Jesus 
(throughout all Asia) : 


2 3 Grace be (given) to you, and peace, from God 
our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

3 Blessed be the (that) God and (who is) Father of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with 4 all 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Τοῖς ἁγίοις, To the saints.) See the note on 1 
Cor. i. 1. 

2 Kai, And, that is.| See note on Col. i. 3. 

Kai πιστοῖς, And (that is) to the faithful. So οἱ ἐκ περι- 
τομῆς πιστοὶ, are “the believers of the circumcision,” Acts 
x. 253 ris pépts πιστῷ per’ ἀπίστου, “ What portion hath a 
believer with an infidel?” 2 Cor. vi. 15; so Acts xvi. 1, 
1 Tim. iv. 3. 10. 12, Tit. i. 6; yet it is very probable, as 
Mr. L. here suggests, that here and Col. i. 2, these words 
may particularly relate to such Christians as kept the doc- 
trine of Christ from the corrupt mixtures of those Judaizers, 
who went about, καπηλεύοντες, 2 Cor. 11. 17, καὶ dododvres τὸν 
λόγος “corrupting and handling the word of God deceit- 
ully.” 

3 Ver. 2. Χάρις, Grace.] This grace is given by the com- 
munication of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son 


to the church (John xiv. 23), which is the reason that the 
Holy Ghost is not mentioned in these salutations. 

4 Ver. 3. "Ev πάσῃ εὐλογίᾳ nvevpartxn ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις." 
These words ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, “in heavenly places,” may 
probably refer to the gifts of the Holy Ghost then conferred 
upon the church, and styled by the prophet, εὐλογίαι Θεοῦ, 
“the blessings of God :”—« Fear not, Jacob my servant, and 
Israel whom I have chosen, for I will put my Spirit on thy 
seed, καὶ ras εὐλογίας pov, and my blessings on thy children,” 
Isa. xliv. 2,3, where the word in the Hebrew and Chaldee is 
ὙΓΞ., “and my. benediction,” and so well correspondeth 
with the words of the apostle, “God hath blessed us with all 
spiritual blessings.” The same apostle styles these gifts 
εὐλογία τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, “the blessings of the gospel;” for 
having said to the Romans, “I Jong to see you that I may 
impart unto you χάρισμα τὸ πνευματικὸν, Some spiritual gift, 
to the end you may be established,” i. 11, he adds, « When 
I come to see you, I shall come in the fullness, τῆς εὐλογίας, 


CHAPTER I. 


spiritual blessings in heavenly places (or, things) in 
(and through) Christ: 

4 According as he hath δ chosen us ( genti/es, iii. 6) 
in him before the foundation of the world, (ch. ii., 
designing) that we (‘hus chosen) should be ® holy and 
without blame before him in love, (by virtue of our 
faith in Christ, and love to one another, iii. 17, Gal. 
νι 0: 
5 Having predestinated (or foreappointed) us unto 
the 7 adoption of children by (through) Jesus Christ 


of the blessing of the gospel,” xv. 29. And the promise of 
the Spirit is styled, εὐλογία τοῦ ᾿Α βραὰμ, “the blessing of that 
Abraham in whom all the families of the earth were to be 
blessed,” in these words, “That the blessing of Abraham 
might come upon the gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we 
might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith,” Gal. 
iii. 14. These gifts“are also called ἐπουράνια, “heavenly 
things:” thus when our Saviour had discoursed of the Spirit 
to be received in baptism, he saith, he had told them ra 
ἐπουράνια, “heavenly things,” John iii. 12, 
were made partakers ofthese gifts were said to have tasted 
τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς ἐπουράνιου, “of the heavenly gift,” Heb. vi. 4. 
Or (2.) God's blessing us ἐν ἐπουρανίοις, “ with heavenly things 
in Christ Jesus,” may signify his exalting us to a blessed 
state of immortality in the heavens through him; his giving 
us “a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens” 
(2 Cor. v. 1, 2), and “clothing us with a house from 
heaven ;” his giving us “an inheritance incorruptible, unde- 
filed, reserved in the heavens for ἃ: on the account of 
which incorruptible and immortal bodies, we are styled éxov- 
ράνιοι, “ heavenly,” as Christ is, 1 Cor. xv. 58; and the apos- 
tle saith, that as we have borne the image of the earthly 
Adam by our mortal bodies, so by our bodies made immortal, 
“we shall bear, εἰκόνα τοῦ ἐπουρανίου, the image of the heavenly 
Adam,” ver. 49, and hence we are said to be partakers, 
κλήσεως ἐπουρανίου, “of our heavenly calling.’ In a word, 
Christ, having delivered us from that death and mortality 
which came upon us by the sin of Adam, hath blessed us 
with this heavenly blessing, having “made us sit together 
with him in heavenly places,” Eph. ii. 6. And this is the 
hope of our calling, ver. 18 of this chapter. 

5 Ver. 4. ᾿Εζελέξατο jas.) It was the opinion of the Jews, 
that God in framing the world had a particular regard for 
them, and that the world was made for their sakes (Esd. il. 
55.59), and that the Messiah being created before the world, 
God entered into covenant with him, that he should redeem 
the world, and them especially. “The holy blessed God,” 
say they, “began to covenant with the Messiah when he 
created him, and said unto him, The sins of those who are 
Jaid up in secret with thee, will make thee to come under an 
iron yoke, and make thee like to this young heifer, whose 
eyes ure dim, and fill thy spirit with anguish; and because 
of their iniquity, thy tongue shall cleave to the roof of thy 
mouth: wilt thou undergo their condition for them? The 
Messiah said, I undertake it with joy, and exultation of 
heart, on this condition, That not one of Israel may perish ; 
and that not only they may be saved, who live in my days; 
but also they who are dead from the days of the first man to 
this very day.”* And again, “ When God created the world, 
he held forth his hand under the throne of glory, and created 
the soul of the Messiah and his company, and said to him, 
Wilt thou heal, and redeem my sons after six thousand 
years! He answered, Yes. God said to him, If so, wilt 
thou bear chastisement to expiate their iniquities? according 
to what is written, Isa. liii. 4, Surely he bare our griefs. He 
answered, I will endure them with joy.”+ Now because the 
Jews held, that God thus elected them from the beginning of 
the world, and sent the Messiah that none of them should 
perish, the apostle, to take from them all cause of boasting 
against the gentiles upon that account, declares the gentiles 
were thus elected in Christ Jesus, even before the foundation 
of the world; i. e. that he designed then to choose them to 
be his church and people, i. e. a holy people to the Lord. 


* Cartw. Mell. lib. i. Crit. Sac. tom. ix. p. 2974. 
a ibid. p. 2975. Huls. de Jud. Mess. par. ii. p. 
Vor. IV.—94 


and they who | 


745 


to himself (Gr. εἰς υἱοδεσίαν εἰς αὐτὸν, unto the adop- 
tion of sons to him through Christ Jesus, we being all 
the sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, Gal. iii. 
26, John i, 12), according to the good pleasure of his 
will, 

6 (And this he hath done)To the praise of the Flory 
of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted (or, 
with which he hath favoured us, ἐχαρίτωσεν xmas) in 
(and through) the beloved. 

7 In whom we have " redemption (from the curse of 


6 That we may be sancti et immaculati, holy and unblame- 
able.| There is a difference, saith Jerome, betwixt these two 
things, parvuli quippe immaculati sunt, quia integro corpore 
nullum fecerunt peccatum; et tamen non sancti, quia sanc- 
titas studio et labore comparatur; “so children are unblame- 
able, as having done no sin in the body; and yet they are 
not holy, because holiness proceeds from the will and the en- 
deavour.” This in other men would be styled Pelagianism. 

7 Ver. 5. Εἰς υἱοϑεσίαν, To the adoption of children.) This 
in the scripture phrase imports adoption to a blessed resur- 
rection, and a state of immortality both of soul and body: 
for being sons of God, saith Luke (xx. 36), we are “sons of 
the resurrection ;” “and if sons,” saith the apostle, “then 
heirs of God, joint-heirs of Christ” (Rom. viii. 16,17). The 
“revelation of the sons of God” is their future glory to be 
revealed at Christ’s appearing (ver. 18, 19, see Col. ili. 4). 
Their adoption is “ the redemption of their bodies” from cor- 
ruption (ver. 23). This being so, God’s “electing us in 
Christ before the foundation of the world,” is his purpose 
before the world was made, or from the fall, to give to those 
that should believe in Christ this adoption, i. e. the redemp- 
tion of their bodies from that mortality to which the fall of 
Adam had subjected them (Gen. iii. 15) ; whence he is said 
to have elected us, zpoopicas ἡμᾶς εἰς vioSeciav, “ foreordained 
as to this adoption, κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν, according to the good 
pleasure of his will,” or his free grace and favour, there being 
nothing in us, or even in our faith, that could deserve this 
glorious adoption. 

8 Ver. 7. Τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν, Redemption.) All mankind lying 
under the sentence of condemnation on the account of sin, 
“all having sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God” 
upon that account (Rom, iii. 23), it was necessary that some- 
thing should be done to take away the guilt of sin, and recon- 
cile us to a God displeased with us for it, that so we, as to 
our persons and performances, might find acceptance with 
him: this could not be done by any righteousness of our own 
before faith in Christ, we “ being in Christ Jesus created to 
good works” Eph. ii. 10), and therefore was necessary to be 
done by an act of grace on God’s part, accepting us as 
righteous through faith in Christ, and justifying us freely 
through faith in his blood. Hence do the scriptures of the 
New Testament seem plainly to make our reconciliation, and 
so our access to God, depend on our being purged from the 
guilt of sin, by an atonement made by the blood of Christ 
for our iniquities, that so, they being pardoned, we may have 
peace with God, and freedom of access to him ; “ Christ suf- 
fered,” saith Peter, ἵνα ἡμᾶς προσαγάγῃ τῷ Θεῷ, “that he 
might bring us to God,” 1 Pet, iii. 18; i. 6. to give us free- 
dom of access to God; “for, by him we have, προσαγωγὴν, 
admission to the Father,” Eph. ii. 18 (see the note there) ; 
and “ God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, 
not imputing their trespasses to them,” 2 Cor. v. 18, 21; 
and this reconciliation was effected by making Christ ἁμαρτία, 
“a sin-oflering for us, though he knew no sin, that we might 
be made the righteousness of God (or righteous with that 
righteousness which God only will accept through faith) in 
him” (see the note on that verse). And the author to the 
Hebrews having said, that the covenant established in the 
blood of Christ was this, that he would “be merciful to our 
iniquities, and remember our sins no more,” Heb. x. 16,175 
and having thence inferred, that having thus obtained remis- 
sion for us by his blood, there was no need that he should 
again make himself an offering for sin, ver. 18, he adds, that 
therefore we may “draw near with full assurance of faith,” 
that we should be accepted through his Beloved, as “ having 
our hearts sprinkled by his blood,” ver. 19—22, and there- 
fore cleansed from any guilt of conscience on that account. 

3N 


746 


the law, Gal. iii. 13, and from the condemnalion due to 
us for sin, Rom. iii. 24, 25) through his blood, (the 
blood of atonement shed for) the forgiveness of sins, ac- 
cording to the riches of his grace; 


EPHESIANS. 


8 Wherein (or, in which dispensalion) he hath 
abounded toward us in 9 all wisdom and prudence ; 

9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his 
will, according to his good pleasure which he hath 


And this remission was also necessary, that we might obtain 
that adoption of sons to which believers were afore appointed, 
because into the new Jerusalem can “nothing enter that is 
defiled, or unclean :” nor can there be any enjoyment of God 
till “the blood of Christ hath cleansed us from all sin;” and 
therefore, saith the apostle, “ he became the mediator of the 
new covenant,” that having suffered death for the redemption 
of us from the sins we formerly had committed under the old 
covenant, “they that were called might receive the promise 
of an eternal inheritance,” Heb. ix. 15. 

Redemption through his blood.| Here Jerome saith, Du- 
plicitér sanguis Christi et caro intelligitur; vel spiritualis ista, 
atque divina, de qua ipse dixit, Caro mea est veré cibus, et 
sanguis meus veré est potus; nisi manducaveritis carnem 
meam et sanguinem meum biberitis, non habebitis vitam 
wternam,—vel caro, et sanguis, que crucifixa est, et que 
militis effusa est lancea: where he plainly distinguishes the 
flesh and blood received in the sacrament, from the flesh of 
Christ crucified, and his blood shed upon the cross; calling 
the first spiritual, in opposition to his material flesh and 
blood. 

9 Ver. 8. "Ev πάσῃ σοφίᾳ καὶ φρονήσει, In all wisdom and 
prudence.| 'That is, say some, in the spiritual gifts of wisdom 
and prudence; but though σοφία be reckoned among spiritual 
gifts, I find not that φρόνησις is so. Moreover, he hath thus 
“abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence,” saith 
the apostle, “by making known to us the mystery of his 
will ;” which leads to the other exposition, that refers this to 
the manifold wisdom of God, shown in contriving this dispen- 
sation (iii. 10), and his prudence in executing the counsel of 
his will by this means, viz. by sending of his Son to be our 
Saviour. And whereas the deists seem to side with the 
Socinians, in denying the wisdom of this dispensation of God, 
in sending his Son into the world to suffer for our sins, and 
by his sufferings to make an atonement for them, it seemeth 
easy to demonstrate, as well the manifold wisdom, as the rich 
grace and favour of God to us in this dispensation. For, 

First, It seemeth absolutely requisite, either that the sub- 
stitution of another to suffer in our stead should be admitted, 
or that we ourselves should suffer the reward of our iniquities, 
or that a full remission and free pardon of our sins should be 
vouchsafed us without any suffering: now the admission of 
another to suffer in our stead is the thing pleaded for; if 
therefore that be granted, the wisdom of that God who act- 
eth all things “according to the counsel of his will,” must 
also be acknowledged in this dispensation: if we ourselves 
must suffer the reward of our iniquity, that being death 
eternal, or death without recovery from it by a blessed resur- 
rection, all mankind must inevitably be subject to that 
punishment, “all having sinned, and fallen short of the glory 
of God” (Rom. iii. 33): and, thirdly, should God have 
issued outa free pardon, and given usa full remission of our 
sins, without any thing required by way of reparation for the 
violation of his law, he must have pardoned sinners without 
any thing required to show his hatred of sin, and his resolu- 
tion not to let it go unpunished; and so without sufficient 


motive to deter us from it for the future, which seems not | 


well consistent with his holiness and justice, and the relation 
of a governor, which seemeth plainly to require the vindica- 
tion of his honour, and the preservation of the laws he hath 
established from contempt: it was then an act of grace not 


to require we should personally suffer the reward of our ini- | 


quities; it was an act of wisdom not to afford a full remis- 
sion of our sins, without requiring any thing by way of repara- 
tion for the violation of his law; it must be therefore an act 
of wisdom also to admit another to suffer in our stead ; 
especially if we consider, 

Secondly, That by the obedience of our Lord Christ to the 
death in our stead, all the great ends of punishment designed 
by governors were very signally obtained, and that with more 
advantage to God’s glory, than if the punishment of our 
offences had been inflicted upon us, and so God by it may be 
*ruly said to have been satisfied; seeing that justice, which 


consists in punishing for the transgression of a law, is truly 
satisfied, when all those ends for which the punishment of 
the offenders could be desired are obtained. Now the ends 
of punishment are, 

1. Παράδειγμα, That they who suffer may be exemplary to 
others; and may, by what they do endure, deter others from 
the commission of the offences for which they suffer. 

2. NovSecia, ‘That the offender may learn wisdom by the 


| rod; that the remembrance of what he suffered for it might 


prevent the repetition of his sin, and that he may be fitted 
to embrace the counsel of our Saviour, “Sin no more, lest a 
worse thing come upon thee.” 

3. Τιμωρία, The vindication of the prince’s honour, and 
the preservation of the laws he hath established from con- 
tempt. 

Now, First, God by this dispensation hath given us the 
most effectual example to deter us from sin. For, (1.) by 
what our Saviour suffered in our stead, we see that God is 
certainly in earnest when he threateneth death to sinners; 
that he is thoroughly resolved upon the punishment of sin, 
since he inflicted so great punishment on the Beloved of his 
soul, when he became our surety; for if on this account 
“ God spared not his only Son” (Rom. viii. 32), we may be 
sure he will not spare his stubborn enemies. But let us say 
with the Socinians, that Christ suffered all his bitter agonies, 
his ignominious and painful death, not as the punishment of 
sin, or to make an atonement for it, but froma pure act of 
God’s dominion; how will it follow hence, that God will 
surely punish sin, and with severity avenge the transgressions 
of his law, if he laid none of these sufferings on Christ for the 
punishment of sin? Seems it not strange to say that the 
severities laid on Christ without respect to sin, should be de- 
signed as an instance of God’s severity against sin? “This 
shows,” saith Crellius,* “that he, who laid such bitter suf- 
ferings on his innocent and well-beloved Son, will inflict the 
severest punishments on wicked men.” 

I answer, This will indeed follow in respect to sufferings 
for the same cause; for “if the righteous be recompensed 
upon earth, much more the sinner, and the wicked” (Prov. 
xi. 31). If good Eli and holy David suffered so great 
punishments for their sins, much more shall a wicked Cain, 
and a profane Esau. But will it follow, that because holy 
Job suffered so much by way of trial, or St. Paul for propa- 
gation of the Christian faith, that therefore sinners shall be 
obnoxious to greater punishment? Crelliusf himself saith, 
Christ’s sufferings cannot be an exemplary punishment, be- 
cause, abundé fuerint 4 Deo compensate, “they were so 
abundantly rewarded by God;” and doth not the same rea- 
son show that they could not be a warning to us, if he only 
suffered “ with respect to the recompense of reward?’ For 
are the light afflictions which Christians suffer here in pros- 
pect of an eternal recompense, ever made an instance of 
God’s severity against sin? Moreover, this example shows 
how insupportable the punishment will be, which justice will 


| inflict upon the sinner; for if the apprehension of it pro- 


duced such agonies and consternations in the soul of Christ, 
that God saw need to send an angel to support him 
(Luke xxii. 43), how must the sinner sink under the burden 
when it is laid upon his shoulders? If he, who was the 
well-beloved Son of God, found it so dreadful to lie under 
the burden for some hours, to lie exposed for ever to it must 
be far more intolerable. 

Secondly, Whereas inevitable ruin must have followed 
upon the execution of the deserved punishment on the 
offending person, God by this method hath taken a fit way 
for reformation of the sinner, which was the second end of 


* Nam si Deus Christo licét innocentissimo, et unigenito 
filio suo non pepercit, sed tam dire, tamque ignominiose 
morti eum subjecit; quanta censemus, quamque acerba sup- 
plicia Deum sumpturum de hominibus impiis? Resp. ad 
Grot. cap. 1, par. 57. 

ἱ Ibid. 


CHAPTER I. 


purposed in himself, (vtz. his secret purpose to choose us 
gentiles to be fellow-heirs of the same body, iil. 6 :) 

10 That (so) in the dispensation (which was lo be ac- 
complished by sending of Christ) of the fulness of times 
he might gather together in one all things in Christ, 
both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; 
even in him: 


747 


11 In whom also we (believing Jews) have " ob- 
tained an inheritance (or, are become his portion), being 
predestinated (or foreordained to it) according to the 
purpose of him who worketh all things after the coun- 
sel of his own will: 

12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, 
12 who first trusted in Christ (the glorious gifls he hath 


punishment; for what can be a more effectual motive to 
abstain from sin than this example, which represents the 
greatness of the provocation in the greatness of the punish- 
ment, and shows it is impossible the guilty person should 
avoid the stroke of God's vindictive justice, or bear the 
weight of his almighty arm. But the Socinian tenet, which 
denies that God was angry with us on the account of sin, 
or that he did require any punishment or satisfaction, in 
order to the pardon of it, so far obstructs this reformation, 
as it affords the sinner hopes that he may not hereafter be 
angry with him on that account, or require any punishment 
or satisfaction in order to the pardon of his future sins. 

Thirdly, God by this dispensation hath sufficiently con- 
sulted the preservation of his honour, and secured the re- 
verence and observation of his laws; which was the third 
great end of punishment: he, by declaring that he would 
not pardon our offences, without a satisfaction made for the 
violations of his law, hath fully vindicated his institutions 
from contempt, seeing, by this example, he hath let all men 
know, that though he be a God of mercy and long-suffering, 
he will by no means “clear the guilty,” or let the transgressor 
of them go unpunished. 

Again, God by this dispensation hath vindicated his 
honour more than if he had destroyed the sinner, having 
more evidently showed his hatred of, and great displeasure 
against, sin, by punishing it so severely in his own Son ; for 
the greater is the inducement to remit the punishment of 
sin, the greater must be his hatred of it who inflicts it. 
That therefore this consideration, that he whoysuffered was 
his only beloved Son, would not induce him to remit the 
punishment, must be the strongest demonstration of his 
most perfect hatred of all iniquity. 

But now remove this supposition, and say, with the Soci- 
nians, That God pardoned all men’s sins against him with- 
out any valuable consideration, and with an absolute 
freedom forgave men all the punishments his law had 
threatened to them; and ceased from all his anger and dis- 
pleasure against sinners, without any atonement made unto, 
or required by, him; and how will it appear God was at all 


concerned to vindicate the honour of his laws, or show his | 


hatred against sin? Hence Crellius* saw it necessary to 


own, that “the sufferings of Christ are a demonstration of | 


God’s hatred of iniquity, because our sins were the cause of 
them ;” but he means not that they were the meritorious, 
but only that they were the /ina/ cause of his sufferings ; not 
that he suffered to prevail with God to pardon sinners, but 
only to prevail with sinners to break off their sins. Now 
hence, indeed, We may conclude that God is very desirous 
that sinners should desist from sin; but it follows not hence, 
that they must certainly expect the most heavy punish- 
ments if they do not: for if God could freely pardon the sins 
of the whole world, without any satisfaction made to his 
offended justice ; if there be nothing in God, as rector of the 
universe, that requires he should punish sin, or show his dis- 
pleasure against it; if the punishment of sin depends 
purely upon his arbitrary will, why may not sinners hope, 
notwithstanding all that Christ hath suffered for their 
good, for a like act of his free grace hereafter, in the 
remission of their sins, without a reformation ; and that God 
may be reconciled to them again, whilst they continue in 
their sins? 


Since then no laws require the punishment of the offender | 


himself, rather than of another who is willing to be his 
surety, and suffer for him, on any other account than this ; 
that the punishment of the offender, and not another for 
him, will only answer the forementioned ends of punishment; 
when that can equally be done by what another suffers, the 


* Hinc enim manifestissimé apparet summum Dei adver- 
sus peceatum odium, si quidem Deus, ut ab illis nos penitus 
abstraheret, unigenito filio suo non pepercit. Ibid. 


law given must equally be satisfied, because the ends of the 
law are equally obtained. 

Ver. 9.1 From this ninth verse it appears, that the elec- 
tion and foreappointment, mentioned ver. 4, 5, is as large 
as is his manifestation of his will to the gentiles: for as 
προώρισεν, “he foreappointed them to sonship by Jesus 
Christ,” ver. 5, so here, προέϑετο, “he purposed before to 
make known his will unto them; ἐν αὐτῶν in him,” accord- 
ing to the same “ pleasure of his will.’ Note also, that the 
words being not ἐν ἑαυτῷ, but ἐν αὐτῷ, should not have been 
rendered “in himself,” that is, in God the Father, but “in 
him,” that is, in Christ (ver. 4), as the following preceding 
verses show. 

10 Ver. 10. ᾿Ανακεφαλαιώσασϑαι, To gather together in 
one.] i. 6. God hath now by the gospel accomplished the 
secret purpose of his will; to “ make the gentiles fellow-heirs 
of the same body” and privileges with the Jews; having re- 
conciled both Jew and gentile to him in one body on the 
cross (Eph. ii. 14. 16), and so “ gathered together in one all 
things on earth;” and by procuring for us that adoption, 
which is the redemption of the body from mortality (Rom. 
viii. 23), and making us like to the angels, by being “ child- 
ren of the resurrection,’ be hath “summed up in one all 
things in heaven;” for they being styled the sons of God, 
Job i. 6, ii: 1, xxxviii. 7; because they live already in their 
Father’s house, and are an image of his immortality; when 
the resurrection hath put us into that happy state, that we 
“can die no more, but are equal to the angels, and are the 
children of God, being the children of the resurrection” 
(Luke xx. 35, 36), then shall we be made one with ther. 
The interpretation of the ancient fathers seems to give this 
sense, That God hath by this dispensation gathered under 
one head, viz. Christ, the head of the church, “all things on 
earth,” i. e. Jews and gentiles; and “all things in heaven,” 
Christ being the “head over all angels and principalities ;” 
they being all ministering spirits to him. And this sense 
seems agreeable to the like words, Col. i. 20 (see the note 
there). 

τι Ver. 11. ᾿Εκληρώϑημεν, We have obtained an inherit- 
ance.| The Jews were before chosen of God, to be a people 
of inheritance, Deut. iv. 20, and “a peculiar people,” Exod. 
xix. 5; and as such, God provided for them a habitation 
and inheritance in the land of Canaan; but the Jewish 
church being now to be dissolved, the Jews being to be 
banished from their own land, and the unbelieving Jews cut 
off from their relation to God as his people; the believing 
Jews were through faith in Christ to be chosen again, to be 
God’s portion, and inheritance, and his peculiar people 
(1 Pet. ii. 9, Tit. ii. 14), and to be admitted to a better in- 
heritance, cis τὴν μερίδα τοῦ κλήρου τῶν ἁγίων ἐν τῷ φωτὶ, VIZ. 
“to the portion of the inheritance of saints in light” (Col. 
i. 12). And to this, saith the apostle, they believing were 
appointed, God having foreordained that this inheritance 
should be the portion of believers, and the consequent of 
faith in Christ; by virtue of which we become the sons of 
God. 

Ἔν ᾧ καὶ éx\npSSnpev.] Note also, that here the Alexan- 
drian copy and the Syriac read ἐκλήϑημεν, “we are called,” 
and the note of Jerome here is this: Vult Deus quecunque 


sunt rationis plena et consilii, vult ‘salvari omnes, et in 
᾿ 


agnitionem veritatis venire τ᾿ sed quia nullus, absque pro- 
prid voluntate servatur, liberi enim arbitrii sumus, vult 
nos bonum velle, et cum voluerimus, vult in nobis ipse 
suum implere consilium. 

2 Ver. 12. Τοὺς προηλπικότας, Who before trusted in 
Christ.) T see no reason why us and we, in the first ten 
verses, may not signify believers in the general, and then us 
and we, ver. 11, may signify the believing Jews, who lite- 
rally were προηλπικότας, believers in Christ before the gen- 
tiles; nor could any thing tend more to the establishment of 
the freedom of the believing gentiles from Judaical ob 


148 : 


bestowed upon us, and the eminent graces he hath wrought 
in us, lending highly to the glory of his grace, ver. 6, 
Phil. i. 11). 

13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard 
(or, hearing) the word of truth, the gospel of your sal- 
vation: in whom also after that ye believed (or, be- 
lieving), ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of pro- 
mise, (7. 6. the Spirit promised to the sons of God; for 
because ye are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son 
into your hearts, Gal. iv. 6,) 

14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until 
® the redemption of the purchased possession (fur the 
procuring this salutary redemption), unto the praise of 
his glory. 

15 Wherefore I also, ™ after I heard (Gr. having 
heard) of your (steadfast) faith in the Lord Jesus, and 
( your increasing) love unto all the saints (7. e. thal the 


EPHESIANS. 


faith and love wrought in you continue steadfast, and 
abound), 

16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making men- 
tion of you in my prayers; 

17 (Praying) Thatthe God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
the Father of glory, may give unto you (in greater 
measure) the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the 
knowledge (or to the farther acknowledgment) of him : 

18 The eyes of your understanding being enlight- 
ened (or, that he would give you understandings en- 
lightened) ; that ye may know what (i. e. how glori- 


| ous) is the hope of his ealling (é. 6. to which he hath 


called you), and what the riches of the glory of his 
inheritance in the saints (7. e. how great is the inherit- 
ance he hath designed for the saints), 

19 And what zs ' the exceeding greatness of his 
power (which he will exert) to us-ward who believe 


servances than this consideration, that the Jews them- 
selves could only obtain the benefits of Christianity, by 
being chosen anew to be God’s people through faith in 
Christ. 

3 Ver. 14. Bis ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς περιποιήσεως, Till the re- 
demption of life.) There is a twofold ἀπολύτρωσις,  redemp- 
tion,” mentioned here, and in other places of the New Tes- 
tament. The first consists in the remission of sin, or our 
redemption from the guilt of it; and of this we have men- 
tion, ver. 7, Rom. iii. 24, Col. i. 14. The second in the 
redemption of the body from corruption, that it may be par- 
taker of eternal life: and of this the apostle speaks, Rom. 
Vili, 23, calling it “the adoption,” and ἀπολύτρωσιν τοῦ 
σώματος, “the redemption of the body,” or “the glorious 
deliverance of the sons of God from the bondage of corrup- 
tion,” ver. 21. Thus 1 Cor. i. 30, “ Christ is made to us jus- 
tification, καὶ ἀπολύτρωσις, and redemption :” where ‘redemp- 
tion being distinguished from, and following justification and 
sanctification, it must import the redemption of the body 
from corruption. And Eph. iv. 80, where we are said to be 


. “sealed by the Spirit, εἰς ἡμέραν ἀπολυτρύσεως, to the day of 


redemption :” the first delivers us from the guilt which con- 
demns us to death; the second confirms the promise of 
eternal life on them who are thus delivered. Heb. ix. 15, 
περιποιεῖν, is to save alive, and περιποίησις is preservation, 
neptroinots Ψυχῆς, “the salvation of the soul,’ Heb. x. 39. 
So Gen. xii. 12, « They will kill me, σὲ δὲ περιποιήσονται, but 
they will save thee alive;’ Numb. xxii. 23, «I had killed 
thee, ἐκεῖνον δὲ περιεποιησάμην, but him I have saved alive :” 
Josh. vi. 17, “As for Rahab, περιεποιήσεσϑε αὐτὴν, ye shall 
save her alive.” “Go slay Amalek, οὐ περιποίησατε ἐξ αὐτοῦ, 
ye shall save none of them alive,” 1 Sam. xv. 3; “but Saul, 
περιεποιησάτο, saved Agag alive,” ver. 9.15; 2 Chron. xiv. 
13; “The Ethiopians were overthrown, ὥστε μὴ εἶναι ἐν 
αὐτοῖς περιποίησιν, SO that none of them were left alive.” So 
Phavorinus, περιποιῆσαντες ἀντὶ τοῦ διασώσαντες. See also Ps. 
Ἰχχῖχ. 11, Exod. i. 16. Whence it appears that ἀπολύτρωσις 
τῆς περιποιήσεως, 18 fitly rendered “the redemption of life ;” 
or, the redemption of those who are to be preserved from 
death. 

“Os ἐστιν ἀῤῥαβὼν, &e. Who is the earnest of our inherit- 
ance.] It was the custom, both of the Jews and heathens, 
to confirm a promise or a bargain, by giving something as 
an earnest of, or an obligation to perform it. This the La- 
tins styled arra, the Greeks ἀῤῥαβὼν, καὶ ἐνέχυρον (see Plaut. 
Mostell. act. iii. sc. 1, Miles Glorios. act. iv. sc. 1); the 
Jews eraban: so when Judah had promised 'Famar a kid, 
he gives her ἀῤῥωβῶνα, “an earnest,” that he would per- 
form his promise, Gen. xxxviii. 17, 18. And in like man- 
ner God having promised to his faithful servants an eter- 
nal inheritance, gives them his Holy Spirit as “ the earnest’ 
of it. 

M4 Ver. 15. ’Axotcas, Having heard.| Hence some infer, 
that Paul could not write this to the church of Ephesus, 
where he abode about three years (Acts xx. 31), and had 
converted many to the faith throughout most parts of Asia 
(Acts xix. 26): he therefore could not need to hear of 
their faith. 

To this it is answered by the Rev. Dr. Hammond, that 
the word ἀκούειν, as the Hebrew ypyw not only signifies to hear, 


| Jesus 


| God;nor could it truly and proper! ‘be sai 
T to 


but to understand and know ; and therefore should be ren- 
dered here, Cum sciverim, “ knowing,” or “ Having known 
your faith.” And indeed the word bears this sense undoubt- 
edly in those words, 1 Cor. xiv. 2, “He that speaketh in an 
unknown tongue, speaketh not to man, οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἀκοῦει, for 
no man understands him:” so Gen. xi. 7, “ Let us confound 
their language, ἵνα μὴ ἀκούσωσιν, that they may not under- 
stand one another's speech :” and xlii. 23, « They knew not, 
ὅτι ἀκούει, that Joseph understood them, for he spake to them 
by an interpreter” (see Deut. xxviii. 29, 2 Kings xviii. 29, 
Jer. v. 15, Ezek. iii. 6). But, 

Secondly, I answer, that this epistle was writ, not only to 
the metropolis of Ephesus, but to “the faithful in Christ 
” in the general, and more especially to those of the 
Lesser Asia; among whom many might have been converted 
by Apollos and others, and Paul might have only heard of 
it; he preaching only at Ephesus, and they of Asia hearing 
the gospel only by their resort unto him there (see the note 
on Acts xix. 10). Yea, he insinuates that this epistle was 
read at Laodicea; and gives order fur the reading of it at 
Colosse, Col. iv. 16 (see the note there); at both which 
places he had never been (Col. ii. 1). And, 

Thirdly, From the epistle of Paul to Timothy it appears, 
that a dangerous and almost epidemical apostasy from the 
purity of the Christian faith happened among the Jewish 
churches in Asia; which verified Paul’s prediction concern- 
ing them, that “after his departure,” not only “ grievous 
wolves should enter in among them,” but that “ among them- 
selves should arise men speaking perverse things, to draw 
away disciples after them,” Acts xx. 29, 30; and made it 
proper for him, after eight years’ absence, to give thanks to 
God for the steadfastness in the faith, which he had heard 
of in the rest (see 1 Thess. iii. 6). 

15 Ver. 17. Πνεῦμα copias, The Spirit of wisdom]. Paul 
having asserted the necessity of the revelation of the Spirit, 
“that we may know the things that are freely given us of 
God,” they being not naturally to be perceived (1 Cor. vi. 
2. 12), doth therefore pray, that the Spirit of wisdom, know- 
ledge, and revelation, may be imparted to Christians for that 
end. 

1 Ver. 19. Τὸ ὑπερβάλλον μέγεϑος τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ, The 
exceeding greatness of his power.| Some interpret these two 


| verses of the power of God, working faith in believers, making 


it equal to that which eflected the resurrection of our Lord, 
and thence concluding, that we are merely passive in the 
whole work of our conversion: but as this power is not con- 
sistent with persuasion and a alee SS eae 
exerted, would not render it praiseworthy in us to turn to 
; ἜΞΕΝΣ Ser that we turned, 
but only that-we-were turned to God ;~s0 isnot this €x posi- 
tion agreeable to the words: for the apostle speaks not of the 
power exercised on us, to render us believers; but of the 
power which shall be exercised on us, who believe already ; 
not of the power exercised upon our souls, to raise them 
from a death in sin; but of the power to be exercised upon 
our bodies, to give them a glorious resurrection to eternal 
life. 
Kai τί τὸ ὑπερβάλλον μέγεϑος, And what is the exceeding 
greatness of his power towards us.) The apostle doth not 
here pray, as Mr. L. suggests in his paraphrase, that the 


CHAPTER II. 


(by raising us up to the enjoyment of this inheritance), 
according to the working of his mighty power, 

20 Which (power) he (hath already) wrought in 
Christ (our head), when he raised (Gr. raising) him 
from the dead, and set him (whom he hath set) at his 
own right hand in the heavenly places, 

21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, 


Ephesians might have the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, 
that they might know the exceeding greatness of that power 
God “had employed already in bringing them to the faith ;” 
for that they knew already; it being the mighty power of 
those miracles they had seen done before their eyes, which 
induced the gentiles to believe (Rom. xv. 18, 19), but he 
prays, that by these means they might know, what at present 
they had no experience of, viz. how glorious was the object 
of their hope, how great their future inheritance, and how 
excellent was the power God would show in raising them up 
from the dead, as he had done Christ, to the enjoyment of it. 

7 Ver. 21. Οὐ μόνον ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τούτῳ, Not only in this 
world.] By comparing these words with Col. ii. 10, where 
Christ is said to be “ the head of all principality” and power ; 
and with Phil. ii. 9, where God is said to have “given him a 
name above every name,” I am inclined to think these 
words only signify, that our Lord Christ is exalted above all 
power that is, or ever shall be; for, not to be done “in this 
world, nor in the world to come,” Matt. xii. 32, is never to 
be done, Luke xii. 32 (see note on Matt. xii. 32). Note 
also, that the word ὄνομα, name, doth also signify persons: 
(see the note on Acts i. 15): and that men of great power 
and dignity are styled, both in scripture and in other writings, 


749 


and dominion, and every name that is named, " not 
only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 
22 And (Ae) hath put all things under his feet, and 
gave him fo be the head over all things to (the benefit of ) 
the church, 
23 Which is his body, (and so) the fulness of him 
(even that Jesus) that filleth ' all in all. 


ὌΨΙ WIN, ol ἄνδρες ol ὀνομαστοὶ, men of name,” that is, re- 
nown; so are the giants styled, Gen. vi. 4, and “ the princes 
of the congregation,” Numb. xvi. 2; so that to be “exalted 
above every name that is named,” is to be advanced, even in 
his human nature, above men and angels of the highest 
power and dignity, by being exalted to the right hand of the 
Father (Heb. i.4,5). After the dignity of Christ was con- 
tested. by the Arians, the fathers, to avoid their argument 
from these words, chose rather to interpret this of the name 
of the Son, mentioned by Paul, Heb. i. 5, «'T'o which of the 
angels said he, 'Thou art my Son?” So Theodoret, G2cume- 
nius, Theophylact, on this place, and Epiphanius, Her. Ixix. 
p- 325, though the words, ver. 20, “He hath raised him 
from the dead, and set him on his right hand in heavenly 
places,” strongly plead for the first interpretation (see the 
note on Heb. i. 4). 

18 Πάντα ἐν πᾶσι, All in all.] For he ascended up on high, 
that he might fill the members of his church with all gifts 
necessary for the edification of his saints, till they came “ to 
the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ” (iv. 10 
—12); “In him all fullness dwells, and we are πεπληρωμένοι, 
filled full in him, who is the head of the principalities and 
powers” (Col. ii. 9, 10). 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Anp you (also) hath he (raised and) quickened 
(with and by Christ, i. 20, ii. 5), who were 1 dead in 
trespasses and sins ; 

2 Wherein (tn which sins) in time past ye walked 
(living) * according to the course (and fashion) of this 
(evil) world, ° according to (the suggestions of ) the 
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that (even) 


| now worketh in the children of disobedience (the hea- 
| then world ) 

3 Among whom also we all (who are gentiles) had 
our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, 
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind (or 
of our hearts); and were by ‘ nature (indeed by birth 
among heathens, and in our natural estate before 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1 Ver. 1. Nexpods rats ἁμαρτίαις, Dead in sins.] They who 
interpret the phrase thus, “ You who are dead to sins by 
baptism,” seem not to have looked to the fifth verse, where 
they who are here said to be “dead in trespasses and sins” 
are said to be “quickened ;” or to the parallel place, Col. 
ii. 13, where it is said, « You who were dead in sins, and the 
uncircumcision of the flesh, he hath quickened ;” nor indeed 
to the phrase, which is never used in the plural number in 
that sense, but only in the singular, viz. Rom. vi. 2, x. 11. 

Kai, And.] That this glorious hope, this blessed inherit- 
ance, this happy resurrection, will be your portion, you may 
learn from what God hath already done for you; “for he 
hath quickened you who were dead in trespasses and sins,” 
ver. 1, and so hath brought you into a state of salvation, ver. 
5, “and made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance 
of the saints in light,” Col. i. 12. He also hath raised up 
your head, and placed him, and in him your nature in hea- 
venly places, and so hath, in a manner, “ raised you up, and 
made you sit together with him there,” ver. 6, you being 
hence assured that all his living members shall be raised up 


to live for ever with him: for “if we believe that Christ*is | 


risen, we must believe that them who sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with him, to be for ever with the Lord,” 1 Thess. iv. 
14.17. “And to him that overcometh,” saith Christ, «will 
I give to sit down with me on my throne, even asI also have 
overcome, and am set down with my Father on his throne,” 
Rev. iii. 21. 

2 Ver. 2. Κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα, According to the course of this 
world.] That is, according to the life which men of this 
world, destitute of faith in Christ, do live: for, as Phavori- 


nus saith, αἰὼν, “the word age is ἡ ζωὴ, καὶ 6 Bios, the life of 
man, OF τὸ μέτρον τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ζωῆς, the measure. of human 
life’ Thus, τὸν αἰῶνα διάγειν, in Isocrates and Xenophon, is 
to pass the time of life; τελευτῆσαι τὸν αἰῶνα, in Herodotus, 
and Sophocles, is to end this life, or to die. 

3 Kara τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐζουσίας τοῦ dépos, According to the 
prince of the power of the air.| It was the opinion both of 
Jews and heathens, εἶναι τὸν ἀέρα ψυχῶν ἔμπλεον, “ that the 
air was full of spirits,” called «« demons,” as Diogenes* saith 
in the life of Pythagoras: and the Jews in the Pirke Avoth 
teach, ἃ terra usque ad firmamentum omnia esse plena 
turmis et prefectis, that “from the earth to the firmament 
all things were full of these companies and rulers ;” and that 
there was a prince over them, who was called 6 κοσμοκράτωρ, 
“the governor of the world,” that is, of the darkness of it, 
see note on vi. 12. This evil spirit is here said, ἐνεργεῖν, 
“inwardly to work in the children of disobedience ;” and 
elsewhere, to “lead them captive at his will,” 2 Tim. ii. 26; 
and their conversion is styled a recovery of them “from the 
power of Satan,” Acts xxvi. 18, And hence we may ra- 
tionally conclude, that the good Spirit doth also inwardly 
work in pious persons, enabling them to will and to do; it 
being unreasonable to conceive the evil spirit should have 
more power over those wicked men in whom he dwells, than 
the good Spirit hath in those pious persons in whose hearts 
he is said to dwell. 

4 Ver. 3. Kai ἦμεν τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς, And were by nature 
children of wrath.] The ancient fathers generally affirm, 
that sin cannot owe its original purely to that nature in which 
we were born, but only τῷ αὐτεξουσίῳ, i. 6, to the choice or 


* Lib. viii. τ. 221. 
3x2 


750 


Christ) the children of wrath, even as others (of the 
gentiles were. 

4 This, I say, was our former state ;) But God, who 
is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved 
us (gentiles), 

5 Even when we were (thus) dead in sins, 5 hath 
quickened us together with Christ, (through his rich 


grace ; for) (by grace ye are saved) (7. 6. are brought | 


tnto a slate of salvation) ; 
6 And hath raised us up together, (not only by a 
spiritual conformity to his resurrection, Rom. vi. 5. 11, 


EPHESIANS. 


but also by an assurance of a like resurrection, 1 Pet. i. 
3; he being risen as the jirst-fruils, 1 Cor. xv. 20, and 
the first-born from the dead, Col. i. 18,) and made us sit 
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: (our head 
thus raised and exalted, and thus ascended into heaven, as 
our forerunner, Heb. vi. 20, x. 13, 14:) 

7 That in (and through) the ages to come he might 
(by this means) shew the exceeding riches of his grace 
in (dis) his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 

8 (1 say, the riches of his grace,) for ® by grace are 
ye saved through faith (in Christ); and that (faith 


consent of the will; and that they who make us to be sin- 
ners, merely by the derivation of our natures from our pro- 
genitors, do make God, the author of our nature, to be the 
author of our sin. 


The same they seem to do, who say that | 


sin is propagated by generation, and that an infant is there- | 


fore properly by birth a sinner, it being God who hath esta- 


blished that order in the generation of mankind, which nei- | 


ther he that begets, nor he that is begotten, can correct, and 
by whose benediction mankind increase and multiply: and 
reason will instruct us, that to be born or not is not in our 
power, and that what is not in our power to avoid can never 
be our crime, nor render us obnoxious to the eternal wrath 
of God. 

Moreover, the circumstances of the text demonstrate, that 
the apostle here intendeth no such thing, because he speaks 


of persons “dead in (actual) trespasses and sins, in which | 


in times past they had walked, according to the course of 
the (heathen) world,” and the suggestions of Satan; of men 
“who had their conversation in times past in the flesh; ful- 
filling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were 
(on that account) the children of wrath as well as other 
heathens.” And therefore Suidas, agreeably to the context, 
saith, that “nature is here put for customary practice,” ac- 
cording to the frequent import of that word in the profane 
authors; in Philo,* in whom custom is ἐχϑρὰ φύσις ἀληϑείας, 
“a nature opposite to truth;” and in our common proverb, 
that “custom is a second nature.” His words are these ;f 
«“ When the apostle saith, We are by nature the children of 
wrath, he saith not this according to the proper acceptation 
of the word nature, for then he had cast the blame on the 


Author of nature; but he understands by it a long and evil | 


custom.” And Didymus Alexandrinus saith,+ the apostle 
intends by it τὸ προκείμενον τῇ φύσει, οὐ τὸ κατὰ φύσιν, “not 
that which is according to nature, but that which is acces- 
sory to it.” 

2. The fathers do more generally say, That to be by na- 


ture the children of wrath, is here the same as to be “truly | 


and indeed so ;’’§ and that the Ephesians and other nations are 


styled such here, because in that estate they continually pro- | 


voked God to wrath by their idolatries and fleshly lusts; and 
so they are here styled, say they, “children of wrath,” partly 
as being born in heathenism, and therefore indole idolatre,| 
and so out of covenant with God (in which estate the whole 
body of the heathens are represented, as having no hope of 
the blessings promised to those who were in covenant with 
God), and “without (the favour and protection of ) God in 
the world :” and persons so abandoned by him are in scripture 
styled the objects of his hatred, comparatively to those 


who are in covenant with him, as in these words, “Jacob | 


And | 


have I loved, and Esau have I hated,’ Mal. i. 2. 
when God determined to reject and to forsake his people, he 
styles them “the generation of his wrath,” Jer. vii. 29, as 
being worthy of ‘his wrath, as wicked persons are styled 
“sons of death and of perdition,” as having done those things 


* De Temul. p. 205, C. Μελιτὴ χρονισθεῖσα εἰς φύσιν KaSic- 
Stob. Eccl. &e., p. 181. 

T Ὅταν δὲ λέγει ὃ ἀπόστολος, Kat ἦμεν τέκνα φυσει ὀργῆς, οὐ 
κατὰ τοῦτο τὸ σημαινόμενον φύσεως λέγει, ἐπεὶ τοῦ ποιήσαντος ἦν τὸ 
ἔγκλημα, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἔμμενον καὶ κακίστην δίαϑεσιν, καὶ χρονίαν, καὶ 
πονηρὰν συνηθείαν, intelligit. 

ὁ Apud Combes. 

§ Τὸ δὲ φύσει ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀληϑῶς καὶ γνησίως. @cum. Theoph. 
prorsus et omnino apud Hieron. vel τὰ τῆς ὀργῆς ἄξια πράτ- 
rovres. Chrysost. Theodoret. Hieron, 

| See Cl. Art. Crit. par. ii. cap. 7, §. 6, p. 104. 


ταται. 


| 


which rendered them worthy of death and destruction, i. e. 
not for original sin, but for a long series of actual and habi- 
tual transgressions. So Abiathar is, ἀνὴρ θανάτου, “a man 
of death,” 1 Kings ii. 26. And whereas Esthius saith, 
that τέκνα, “ children,” shows that this phrase relates to what 
they were from their nativity; this may be easily confuted 
from these following expressions, some of them frequent in 
the holy. scripture, viz. τέκνα Θεοῦ, “the children of God :” 
John i. 12, τέκνα σοφίας, “the children of wisdom,” Matt. x, 
19, τέκνα ὑπακοῆς, “children of obedience,” 1 Pet. i. 14, 
τέκνα τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, “children of the promise,” opposed to 
children of the flesh, Rom. ix. 1, Gal. iv. 28, κατάρας τέκνα. 
“accursed children,” 2 Pet. ii. 14; for we are not sons of 
God, of wisdom, of obedience, of the promise, or curse, by 
nativity ; but by our own good or evil actions. And whereas 
he adds, that the apostle writes this in the person of the 
Jews, this is most plainly false, the Jews being not under 
“the prince of the power of the air,” i. e. the conduct and 
government of Satan, as were those heathens, whose gods 
were demons, and who “sacrificed to devils, and not to 
God.” Moreover, they who are here said to be quickened, 
when they were “dead in trespasses,” are said, Col. ii. 13, 
to be quickened when “ dead in trespasses, and the uncircum- 
cision of the flesh,’ which cannot possibly agree to the 
Jews. “We all” here therefore is only all the gentiles, 
whatsoever Mr. Clerc says to the contrary ; nor is there any 
thing more common than for Paul to speak thus. So Tit. 
ili. 3, “« We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedi- 
ent, deceived; serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in 
malice and envy, hateful and hating one another ;” not we 
apostles, or we Jews, but we gentiles. And this is here evi- 
dent to demonstration ; for what is here we, ver. 2 and 5, is 
ye, ver. 8; what is we, ver. 10, is again ye, ver. 11, 12, 135 
what is we, ver. 18, is ye, ver. 19. 

Kat ἦμεν τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς, And were by nalure children of 
wrath.] We were chiidren of wrath, saith Jerome, vel prop- 
ter corpus humilitatis, corpusque mortis, “by reason of the 
vile mortal body to which our souls were condemned,” which 
was the opinion of Origen; or, quod ab adolescentia mens 
hominum apposita sit ad malitiam, “because the mind of 
man is prone to iniquity from his youth; vel qudd ex eo tem- 
pore quo possumus habere notitiam Dei et ad pubertatem 
venimus omnes aut opera, aut lingua, aut cogitatione pecca- 
mus; or, because, when we come to ripeness of years, and 
attain to the knowledge of God, we offend all in thought, 
word, and deed:” where it is observable, that though he 
brings in Origen’s peculiar opinion, as one reason of this ap- 
pellation; yet hath he not the least hint of our being “the 
children of wrath,” on the account of Adam’s sin. See my 
interpretation confirmed by Mr. Thorndike, &e. 

5 Ver. 5. Συνεζωοποίησε τῷ Χριστῷ, Hath quickened us to- 
gether with Christ.| Not only by giving us a new birth, or 
renovation of life, but an assurance also of eternal life; for 
«because I live,” saith Christ, “you shall live also” (John 
xiv. 19), “ We shall be saved by his life’ (Rom. v. 10). 

6 Ver. 8. Τὴ yap χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμένοι, For by grace ye 
are saved.| That we may understand aright how we are 
here, and in other places, said to be saved by grace and 
mercy, and not by works, it may deserve to be observed, 

First, That though the apostle here saith, “By grace ye 
are saved, not of works;” yet, lest any man should hence be 
tempted to infer, that Christians may be saved without doing 
works of righteousness, when they have time and opportu- 
nity to do them, he expressly adds, and that by way of rea- 
son of what he had asserted, that «‘ we are his: workmanship, 
created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God hath or- 


CHAPTER II. 


δὴ not of (and from) yourselves: it is the gift of God 
(the objects of ΤΩ ΤΑΝ being only made known by di- 
vine revelation, 1 Cor. ii., and only confirmed and so made 
creditable to us, by the testimony which God hath given to 
them) : 

9 Not of works (done before faith by us), lest any 


man should boast (as doing any thing which might an- | 


tecedently deserve, or make him meet to be acquainted with, 
and made partaker of this saving grace. 

10 Not of works, for this reason also ;) For we are 
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good 


dained that we should walk in them.” Since then to “ walk 
in righteousness,” according to the import of that phrase in 
scripture, implies, that the tenor of our lives be spent in 
works of righteousness ; surely we cannot reasonably hope to 
be accepted by God, if we neglect the very end for which 
we are created in Christ Jesus, or decline that way in which 
God hath ordained us to walk. Hence the apostle tells the 
same Ephesians, that if they had been taught the Christian 
faith, “as the truth was in Jesus,” they knew themselves 
obliged to “ put off the old man, and to put on the new, 
which after God is created in righteousness and true holi- 
ness;” and that it was their duty to “walk as children of 
light, proving what is acceptable to the Lord,” and bringing 
forth those fruits of the Spirit, which “are in all goodness, 
righteousness, and truth,” iv. 21, 22, v. 8, 9. 

Note, Secondly, That when the apostle saith, “ We are 
saved not by works,” his meaning is not to exclude all 
works from having any influence on our salvation; but only 
to exclude those works, which are done antecedently to 
faith, and to the renovation of the Holy Ghost, or antece- 
dently to their being called by the gospel to salvation: this 


is apparent from the reason here assigned, why we are not | 


saved by works, viz. because we were not fitted or prepared 
to do good works till we were first in Christ; which, as it 
doth exclude good works performed before faith in Christ, 


so doth it as effectually establish those which are afterward | 


to be performed by virtue of the new nature given to us, 
and the renewing of the Holy Ghost. 

Obj. And whereas some object against this answer, that 
the apostle saith, “We are saved by grace, not of works, 
lest any man should boast,’ which boasting doth not seem 
to be excluded, if our salvation doth any way depend on 
works done by us, whether they be legal or evangelical, done 
before or after faith : 

Ans. To this I answer, That though salvation doth depend 
upon good works, or on sincere obedience to be performed 
by us after faith; yet is all boasting utterly excluded; (1.) 
Because the good works we do proceed not from ourselves, 
but purely from the grace and Spirit of God, for “it is God 
that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good plea- 
sure.” 


church of Corinth, and were occasions of their boasting, 
«“ Who maketh thee to differ in these things from others? or 
what gift hast thou which thou hast not received? and if 
thou hast received it, wherefore dost thou boast, as if it were 
thine own, and thou hadst not received it?” 1 Cor iv. 7, so 


may we here: What good work dost thou, which thou hast | 


not received grace and the good Spirit to perform? And if 
thou hast received strength from God, for the performance 
of them, wherefore dost thou boast? ‘his being the apos- 
tle’s rule, that we can boast of nothing but of that which 
we have not received, or which is purely from ourselves. 
(2.) Though God is pleased to make the doing good 
works a necessary condition of salvation, so that without 
them we shall not obtain it; yet is all boasting utterly ex- 
cluded, because it is of grace, that our imperfect works are 
counted good, and that they are at all rewarded by God. 
For it is alone through that new covenant which God hath 
established in Christ Jesus, that all the imperfections which 
adhere to our best performances are pardoned; seeing the 
covenant of works requires perfect obedience, and tendereth 
no pardon to the least offence. Now upon what account can 
any of us boast of doing that which in itself deserves con- 
demnation, though through grace it finds acceptance? Boast- 
ing, saith the apostle, is not excluded by the law of works 


As therefore the apostle saith, of the gift of tongues, | 
and healing, and the like, which were so frequent in the | 


751 


works, which God 7 hath before ordained (οἷς προητού- 
μασεν (Sub.) ἡμᾶς ὁ Θεὸς, lo which God hath prepared us) 
that we should walk in them. 

11 Wherefore remember, that ye being (were) in 
time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called the 
Uncireumeision by that (nation of the Jews) which is 
called the Cireumcision (by reason of their ctreumcision) 
in the flesh made by hands ; 

12 (4nd)That at that time ye were without (the 
| knowledze of ) Christ, being aliens from the common- 
wealth of Israel (to whom the Messiah primarily be- 


(Rom. iii. 27, iv. 4), because “to him that worketh, the re- 
ward is not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (Rom. xi. 6), 
grace and works that deserve justification and salvation, be- 
ing perfectly opposite to one another. Where therefore the 
reward is still of grace, and not of debt; where it is given 
on the account of works imperfect, which deserve nothing 
from God, there boasting is excluded. Note, 

Thirdly, That when the apostle saith, “ We are saved by 
grace,” there the word “ saved” doth not signify the final and 
complete salvation which we shall enjoy in heaven ; but only 
our being placed in the way of salvation, and put into 
that estate, in which “if we continue grounded and settled 
in the faith, and be not moved from the hope of the gospel’” 
(Col. i. 23), we shall undoubtedly be saved. That this may 
be the sense of these expressions, “ We are saved by grace,” 
and “According to his mercy he saved us” (Tit. iii. 5), 
cannot be doubted, if we consider that this is frequently 
the import of this phrase in other places; as when it is 
said at the conversion of Zaccheus, “This day is salvation 
come to this house,” Luke xix. 3, that “baptism doth save 
us,” 1 Pet. iii. 21, that “there were added to the church οἵ 
σωζόμενοι, the saved,” Acts ii. 47 (see John iv. 22, Rom, viii. 
24, 1 Cor. i. 18). That this must be the proper import of 
it in these places, is evident from this consideration, that the 
persons to whom the apostle here speaks were not actually 
and completely saved, but only by embracing the gospel, 
which is styled “the word,” “the gospel of salvation,” « the 
power of God through faith to salvation,” were placed in 
that way which leadeth to eternal life, and which is called 
the way of salvation. It being therefore of God’s free grace 
and mercy that any church or nation is called to the know- 
ledge of salvation, and hath the word of life revealed to 
| them, it being by that faith which is the gift of God that 
| they are justified, and so placed in the way of salvation, and 
| by his free gift that they enjoy the Holy Spirit, by which 
| they are enabled to work out their salvation; they may well 
| be said to be saved by grace, through faith, according to those 
| words of the same apostle (2 Tim. i. 9), “He hath saved 
| us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our 

works, but according to his purpose and grace, which was 
given us in Christ.” But then this hinders not our complete 
salvation at the great day, from being conferred upon us, 
with respect to our works, by him who hath declared, “« He 
will render to every one according to his works: glory, ho- 
nour, and immortality, to every one that worketh good, and 
| that by patient continuance in well-doing seeketh for it” 
(Rom. ii. 6, 7). 

7 Ver. 10. Προητοίμασεν, He hath before prepared us.] 
i. e. Before we do them, by giving us the knowledge of his 
will, and the assistance of his Spirit to perform them: i. e. 
our entire renovation or new creation, by which alone we are 
enabled to do works good and acceptable in his sight, is 
from God, who by Christ Jesus hath given us the knowledge 
of our duty, and by his grace and Spirit hath enabled us for 
the performance of it. They mislead men who extend this 
to our whole salvation, from the beginning to the end, which 
though it be so of grace, as to be carried on from the begin- 
ning of the new nature to the end of our life, by the assist- 
ance of God’s grace and Holy Spirit ; yet is not so of grace 
as to exclude those works of righteousness God hath pre- 
pared us to walk in, they being the conditions requisite to 
make faith saving, the terms on which alone we are to enter 
into life (Matt. vii. 21, Luke x. 25. 28, Rom. ii. 6, 7. 10, 2 
Pet. i. 5. 11, Rev. xxii. 14), and according to which we 
shall receive our future recompense (Rom. u. 6, 1 Cor. iii. 
8, 2 Cor. v. 10, Gal. vi. 4, 5). 


752 


longed), and strangers from the covenants of promise 
(made to their forefathers), ὃ having no ( firm and lively) 
hope (of spiritual and future blessings), and (being) 
9 without (/he knowledge ie true) God in the world: 

13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were 
far off (from God, and from the blessings imparted to the 
Jews,) are made nigh (fo God, as they were) by the 
blood of Christ. 

14 For he is our peace (maker), who hath made both 
(Jew and gentile) one (as to the privileges of the gospel, 
John x. 16, Gal. iv. 28), and hath broken down the 
U middle wall of partition between us (7. e. abolished the 
ceremonial law, which was a partition wall betwixt Jew 
and gentile) ; 

15 Having abolished in (or by) his (own) flesh 
(that which made) the enmity (betwixt Jew and gentile), 
even the law of commandments contained (consisting) in 
ordinances (peculiar to the Jews) ; for to make in him- 
self (or create) of twain ® one new man, (lo whom as 


EPHESIANS. 


their head they are both united into one body,) so (thus) 
making ™ peace (belwiaxt both) ; 

16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in 
one body ™ by the cross, having slain the enmity (be- 
twixt both to God) thereby (or, upon it; for when we 
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of 
his Son, Rom. v. 10, 2 Cor. v. 18, Col. 1. 21, or, hav- 
ing slain, that is, abolished by his cross, those ordinances 
which were ὑπεναντία ἡμῖν contrary to us, Col. ii. 14, 
as excluding us from the society of God’s people, and 
causing the enmity betwixt the Jews and gentiles, ver. 
15): 

17 And (having procured this reconciliation, he) came 
and (ἐλθὼν εὐηγγελίσατο, he coming by his apostles) 
preached peace to you (genftles) which were afar off, 
and to them that were nigh (2. e. Jews). 

18 For through him (thus reconciling us to God) 
8 we both (Jew and gentile) have access by one Spirit 
(of adoplion conferred upon us) unto the Father, (and are 


8 Ver. 12, ᾿Ελπίδα μὴ ἔχοντες, Having no hope] After this 
life (1 Thess. iv. 13) ; “1 would not have you sorrowful for 
them that sleep, as of λοιποὶ, the residue of the world, who 
have no hope” (see note on 2 Tim. i. 10). 

9. ἤλθεοι, Without the true God.] For then not knowing 
God, they served τοῖς μὴ φύσει οὖσι θεοῖς, “ those which by 
nature were not gods” (Gal. iv. 8); even their wise men 
«changed the truth of God into a lie,” and worshipped the 
vulgar deities (Rom. i. 25); they were heathens, “carried 
about to dumb idols” (1 Cor. xi. 2). Hence at their con- 
version they are said to “turn from idols to serve the living 
and true God” (1 Thess. i. 9). In this sense the Christians 
styled the heathen ἄϑεοι “atheists,” because τὸν μὲν ὄντως 
ὄντα Θεὸν ἡγνοῆκασι, “they knew not the true God.” So 
Clem, Alex. Protrept. p. 14, and Theodoret here. And the 


heathens styled the Christians so, because they denied those | 


to be gods whom they esteemed truly such; so Just. Mart. 
Apol. ii. p.56, Athenag. p.6. And the stoics reckoned two 
kinds of atheists; one that “contemned the gods, τόν ze 
ἐναντίως Θείῳ λεγόμενον, the other that “spake things contrary 
to the Deity,” Laert. lib. vii. §. 119. 

10 Ver, 13. Ἐγγὺς, Mgh.] Those Jews who had no cere- 
monial defilement to be purged away, and who had made an 
atonement for their known sins, were admitted to come near 
to God, as being holy; they had a freedom of access to God 
in his tabernacle and temple, whence they are styled, ὃ dads 
ἐγγίζων αὐτῷ, “ the people that draw near to God,” Lev. x. 3, 


Ps. Ixv. 4, exlviii. 14, and God is said to be, 6 Θεὸς ἐγγίζων | 


αὐτοῖς, “ἃ God near to them,” Deut. vii. 4, both by relation, 
as having owned them as his children and family, and en- 
tered into covenant to be their God, and by his more espe- 
cial presence with them; for the Shechinah, or the glorious 
presence, dwelt among them in the holy place. Now all 
these privileges, saith the apostle, are equally conferred 


upon the gentiles, they are now made near to God, ver. 13, } 


have “access to him,” ver. 18, are “ fellow-citizens of the 
saints, and of the family of God,” ver. 19, the Shechinah 
dwells in them as in a temple, and they “ are made a habi- 
tation of God through the Spirit,” ver. 21, 22. 

τ Ver. 14. Τὸ μεσύτοιχον, The middle wall.] This refers 
to that partition-wall in the temple which separated the 
court of the gentiles from that into which the Jews entered, 
on which was written, “ That no alien might go into it;” it 
being, saith Josephus,* a sanction of Antiochus, μὴ δεῖν ἀλ- 
λύφυλον ἐντὸς τοῦ ἁγίου προσιέναι, “that no alien should enter 
into the court of the sanctuary, which was enclosed with the 
sept:” and this inscription was writ in Greek and Latin. 

2 Ver. 15. Eis ἕνα καινὸν ἄνθρωπον, Into one new man.] 
As being both to walk in newness of life, and by the new 
law of Christianity, and by Christ’s new commandments of 
love. 

13 Eipiynv, Peace.] This peace Christ hath made between 
Jew and gentile, by abolishing the ceremonial law, which 
made the enmity ; and with God, by reconciling both to him 
by his death. 


* Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 3, De Bello Jud. lib. v. cap. 14. 


4 Ver. 16. Ἔν atrd.] 1. 6. Ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ, “ By the cross.” 
So Chrysostom, Theodoret, Gicumenius, and 'Theophylact, 
read. Other copies read, ἐν ἑαυτῷ, “in himself: but this 
reading, saith Jerome, is only of the Latin copies, and it 
seems to have had its rise from the former verse (see Exa- 
men Milli). 

16 Ver. 18. Οἱ ἀμφότεροι, We both.) Hence we learn (1.) 
that Christ not only reconciled Jew and gentile to one ano- 
ther, but that he reconciled both to God, “for by him we 
have, προσαγωγὴν, access to the Father,” a freedom of access 
to God, ver. 28, and iii. 12. Now where this phrase in the 
New ‘Testament is used with respect to Christ, it still im- 
ports the freedom of access vouchsafed to them who formerly 
were by their sins excluded from God's gracious presence: 
this is obtained, say these words, by virtue of his blood. 
making our peace by him, reconciling us to God by his 
cross, and bringing them near to God who were afar off. 
How is he our peace? because “the chastisement which 
procured our peace was upon him,” Isa. hii. 5. How did 
he reconcile us to God, but “by the cross;” i. e. “ by bear- 
ing our sins in his body on the cross?” 1 Pet. ii. 934. By 
virtue of his blood the gentiles, who formerly were aliens, 
are made near to God ; they who were strangers were made 
God's domestics; they who emphatically were “sinners,” 
Gal. ii. 15, were made “ fellow-citizens of the saints ;” they 
who were “children of wrath,” ver. 2, to them is God “re- 
conciled:” and after all this can it be reasonably denied, 
that Christ hath pacified God to the gentiles by his blood? 
or doth not all this import a reconciliation, on God's part, to 
them? 

To show the reason of this reconciliation let it be noted, 
that God being a holy God, none were to come into his pre- 
sence who had any pollution or defilement on them, upon 
pain of death, till they were sanctified or cleansed from it 
by some purification, or atonement made for them to God. 
He dwelt in the camp of Israel; and so those lepers which 
were so unclean as to pollute the camp were driven from it 
(Lev. xiii. 46, Numb. v. 2, 3, 2 Kings xv. 5), and those sin- 
offerings, which were polluted with the sins of the whole 
congregation, were carried out of the camp (Ley. xvi. 21, 
22, Heb. xiii. 11). 

God dwelt more especially in the temple, and therefore 
they who had lesser impurities, i. e. who were defiled by 
the dead, or by an issue, or a menstruous woman, were not 
to come thither, till they were cleansed from those defile- 
ments (Lev. xii. 4, xv. 31). 

Moreover, he being a God of purer eyes than to behold 
iniquity, they who had committed any sin of ignorance, and 
lay under the guilt of it, were not permitted to come into 
the court of the men of Israel, till they had brought their 
offering of atonement (Ainsworth on Numb. v. 3). 

Now God being still the same holy God, of purer eyes 
than to behold iniquity, the scriptures of the New Testa- 
ment seem as plainly to make our freedom of access tu God 
to depend upon our being sanctified, or purged from our de- 
filement, and our being delivered from the guilt of sin, by 
an atonement made by the blood of Christ for our iniquities - 


CHAPTER III. 


enabled to come unto him as our Father, Rom. viii. 
15.) 

19 Now therefore ye (gentiles) are no more (to be 
reckoned as) strangers and foreigners, but (as) fel- 
loweitizens with the saints, and of the houshold of 
God ; 

20° And are built upon the foundation of the apostles 
(yf the new) and prophets (of the old covenant), 

esus Christ himself being the chief corner stone 
(who supports and cements the whole building, both of 


that so they being pardoned, we may have peace with God, | 


and an access to his favour. This plainly seems to be the 
import of the words, Heb. ix. 13, “If the blood of bulls and 
goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanc- 
tifieth to the purifying of the flesh,” and by so doing pro- 
cureth an admission of the person cleansed to serve God in 
the sanctuary (Numb. xix. 9. 12. 17), “how much more shall 
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered 
himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from 
dead works (or works exposing you to death, the punish- 
ment of the person who came unclean into God's presence, 
that so you may be admitted) to serve the living God ?” 

16 Ver. 19. Ξένοι, Strangers.] The proselytes who joined 
themselves to the God of Israel, were by the Jews, and by 
the scriptures, styled “strangers.” He that only took upon 
him to worship the true God, and observe the precepts of 


753 


believing Jews and gentiles, and unites both into one 
body by the Spirit, Ps. exvii. 22) 5 

21 In whom all the building (being thus) fitly 
framed together (or compacted) groweth unto an 
holy temple in the Lord: (they then belong not to this 
building, whose bodies are not a holy temple to the 
Lord :) 

22 In whom ye (Zphesians) also are builded to- 
gether for 7 an habitation of God through the 
Spirit. 


Noah, was 32)n 73, ἃ stranger permitted to dwell among 
them, and to worship in the court of the gentiles: he that 
was circumcised, and became obedient to the law of Moses, 
was pry 72, “a proselyte of righteousness:” but both were 
called strangers, according to that maxim of the Jews, « All 
the nations of the world are called Ὅν), strangers before the 
God of Israel: but the Jews are said to be Ὁ)» “near 
to him.” But now, saith the apostle, there is no such dif- 
ference, the believing gentiles being equally admitted with 
the believing Jews to the privileges of the new Jerusalem, 
and equally relaled to God, as part of his family. 

7 Ver. 22.] Thus Philo* saith, that good men are Θεοῦ 
οἶκος καὶ ἱερὸν, “ God’s house and holy temple” (see note on 
1 Cor. vi. 20). 


* L. de Somnis, p. 456, E. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 1 For this cause I Paul, (am) the prisoner of Je- 
sus Christ for you Gentiles, 

2 (Lam, I say, a prisoner for you gentiles, as you 
must know,) 5 If (since) ye have heard of the dispensa- 
tion of the grace of God which is given me to you- 
ward (or, for you gentiles) : 

3 How that (ότι, for he, or that he,) by (particular) 
revelation he made known unto me the mystery (of the 


calling of the gentiles, Gal. i. 16, Acts ix. 15, 21, 22); 
(as I wrote afore in few words, (viz. i. 9—12, ii. 19,) 

4 Whereby, when ye read (εἰς ὃ ἀναγινώσκοντες, to 
which attending), ye may understand my knowledge 
in the mystery of Christ) (touching the calling of the 
gentiles,) 

5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the 
sons of men, 3588 it is now revealed unto his holy apos- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 1. Τούτου χάριν, For this cause.] i. 6. Because 1 
assert that these privileges belong equally to the believing 
gentiles, though they be not circumcised : this being the rea- 
son why the Jews so fiercely persecuted him, and forced him 
to appeal to Cesar (Acts xxii. 22, xxv. 11, 12, xxvi. 17) ; 
and why, after he came to Rome, the Jews preached Christ 
not sincerely, but out of envy to him, to “add affliction to 
his bonds” (Phil. i. 15, 16). 

2 Ver. 2. Eiys ἠκούσατε, If ye have heard.) Hence some 
raise a second objection against this epistle’s being written 
by Paul to the Ephesians; for, say they, to them with whom 
he had so long conversed, there could be no doubt, whether 
they had “heard of the dispensation of the grace of God 
given him towards them.” But indeed this is no objection to 
them who will consider, that this epistle was not written to 
the Ephesians only, but also to “all the faithful in Christ 
Jesus ;” many of whom had never seen his face, nor heard 
his voice. And, secondly, if we consider, that he speaks 
here particularly of the manner of his receiving this dispen- 
sation, viz. “by immediate revelation from Christ Jesus ;” 
of which the Galatians, among whom he had also preached, 
were ignorant: and therefore the apostle in his epistle to 
them, saith, γνωρίζω ὑμῖν, «OF this I certify you,” confirm- 
ing his assertion with an oath (Gal. i. 11, 12.16). Add to 
this, thirdly, that the particle εἴγε is not here a particle of 
doubting, but of affirmation, and is to be rendered, as ‘The- 
ophylact doth, éxedi, “since: so the Hebrew ox is often 
rendered quandoquidem ; and so Philo uses this particle in 
these words,” εἴγε τὰ ἀκούσια, καὶ τὰ κατ᾽ ἄγνοιαν οὐδὲ ἀδικημά- 
τῶν λόγον ἔχειν φασί τινες, “Seeing some say of things done 
involuntarily, and out of ignorance, that they are not to be 


* Alleg. lib. i. p. 26, G. 


Vor. IV.—95 


accounted sins; and when he says, “ Abel yet lives,* εἴγε καὶ 
ἱκέτης ὧν Θεοῦ καὶ φωνῇ χρώμενος εὑρίσκεται, seeing that he had 
still a voice to cry to God;” and that Sarah is represented 
by Moses both as barren and very {ΓΟ [Ὁ], εἴγε τὸ πολυαν- 
θρωπότατον τῶν ἐθνῶν ἐξ αὐτῆς ὁμολογεῖ yevécSa, “since he con- 
fesses, that from her should proceed the most populous of 
nations” (see also the note on i. 15). 

3 Ver. 5. ‘Os viv ἀπεκαλύφϑη, As it hath been now re- 
vealed.| It was in the general made known, that in Abra- 
ham should « all the families of the earth be blessed : and 
that Christ should be “a light to the gentiles;” of which 
see note on ver. 10. But it was not made known to the 
Jews, that the gentiles should be “ fellow-heirs with them’ 
of the same salvation and celestial inheritance: for that this 
was matter of admiration to the first Jewish converts, we 
learn from these words, “Then hath God also given to the 
gentiles repentance unto life,’ Acts xi. 18. They did know, 
or believe, that the gentiles should be made members of the 
same body, and admitted to the same privileges, and made 
partakers of the same Spirit with them. Hence the believing 
Jews, ἐξέστησαν, “ were in an ecstasy,’’ when they saw that 
the gift of the Holy Ghost was poured on the gentiles (Acts 
x. 45, Gal. ii. 14) ; and much less did they know, that the 
partition-wall, which made the distance and enmity between 
them, should be taken away by the Messiah as the apostle 
here teacheth (ver. 14, 15), that “ the hand-writing of ordi- 
nances” was to be blotted out on this account (Col. ii. 
24), and that these privileges were to be conferred upon 
them without circumcision, or observation of the law of 
Moses. They rather thought they were either first to be 
made Jews, and then Christians, or only were to come 
as slaves and drudges to them, who were the children of the 
kingdom. And hence the apostle spends a great part of the 


* Quod. deter. p. 230, E. 
{ De Congressti Quer. p. 532. B. 


754 


tles and 4 prophets by the Spirit (of wisdom and of 
knowledge, given them to discern all mysteries, 1 Cor. xii. 
8, xiii. 2; 

6 It being not before revealed as now zt is,)' That the 
Gentiles should be fellowheirs (of God with the be- 
lieving Jews), and of the same body (with them), and 
partakers of his promise (the promise of his Spirit, 
Gal. iii. 14) in (and through) Christ (only) by (virtue 
of) the gospel (preached to them, and belicved by 
them) : 

7 Whereof (gospel) I was made δ ἃ minister, ὃ ac- 
cording to the gift of the grace of God given unto me 
(to be the apostle of the gentiles; for which work I was 
enabled) by the effectual working of his power (in 
stgns and wonders, &c., Rom. xv. 19). 

8 Unto me (J say), who (by reason of my former 


EPHESIANS. 


persecutions of the church of Christ, 1 Cor. xv. 9) am less 
than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I 
should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable 
riches of Christ (ἡ. e. the exceeding blessings to be oblained 
by faith in him) ; 

9 And to make all men (Jews and gentiles) sce what 
is the fellowship of the mystery (of the calling of the 
gentiles to be thus fellow-heirs with the Jews), which 
from the beginning of the world hath been hid (ἀπὸ 
τῶν αἰώνων, from former ages) in (the purpose of ) God, 
7 who created all things (belonging to the old and new 
crealion) by Jesus Christ: ' 

10 To the intent that (Gr. iva, thal) now unto the 
§ principalities and powers in heavenly places might be 
known by the (things done in and by the) church the 
manifold wisdom of God, 


Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, to assert this privi- 
lege of the gentiles against the Judaizing Christians. Ina 
word, to the Jews anciently belonged vioSecia, the sonship,” 
and so the inheritance, for “if sons, then heirs” (Rom. viii. 
17); and “the promises” (Rom. ix. 4); and they con- 
ceived that none were ever to be admitted into their body, 
or partake of those privileges, unless they were circumcised, 
and become obedient to the law of Moses (Acts xv. 1), 
which they thought never was to cease, or to be antiquated. 
And therefore, say the Greek fathers, the apostle here de- 
clares, that God now, under the gospel dispensation, equally 
admitted the unbelieving gentiles to these privileges by faith 
without circumcision, or obedience to the law of Moses. 

4 Kai προφήταις, And to the prophets.) That the apostle 
here understands the prophets of the New ‘Testament, or 
those who in the first ages of the church received the pro- 
phetical grace, and by it understood “all mysteries” (1 Cor. 
xiii. 2), the words ὡς viv, “« Now it is revealed” under the 
gospel to the prophets, will not suffer us to doubt. And 
this fully answers all the objections of Esthius against the 
expositions I have given of the former words. 

5 Ver. 7. Οὐ ἐγενόμην διάκονος, Of which I am made a 
minister.) Mr. L. thinks, that “this strongly implies a de- 
nial, that others were made ministers of the same doctrine ;”’ 
but as it cannot imply that Barnabas, and others appointed 
to go with him, or that Silas and Timotheus, who preached 
the same doctrine (2 Cor. i. 19), were not also ministers of 
that doctrine ; so the commission Christ gave to all his apos- 
tles, being to preach the gospel, and to make disciples 
through all the gentile world, it is not easy to conceive, that 
those nine, who were sent to preach to the gentiles, as well 
as Paul, should none of them understand their commission 
aright; especially if we consider how fully the council met 
at Jerusalem establish Paul’s doctrine, with respect to the 
gentile converts, declaring, as Peter doth, that they, being 
Jews, expected to be saved by faith in Christ as did the gen- 
tiles; that God had put no difference betwixt them and the 
circumcised Jews, “purifying their hearts by faith,’ and 
giving them the Holy Spirit, as he had done to his believing 
Jews; and that therefore to endeavour to put the yoke of 
circumcision on their necks, was to “tempt God ;” that is, 
to distrust the evidence that he had given of his acceptance 
of them without circumcision (Acts xv. 8—11). And the 
whole synod declare that they who said, they ought to be 
circumcised, and to keep the Jaw, troubled them with words 
tending to the subversion of their souls (ver. 24) ; whereas 
“it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to them, to lay 
upon them none of these burdens” (ver. 28). And lastly, 
that they who were pillars of the church of the circumcision, 
knowing the grace given to Paul, approved his commission 
of preaching to the gentiles, as he did, Gal. ii. 9. 

6 Kara τὴν δωρεὰν τῆς χάριτος, According to the gift of 
grace.| That the apostolate is by Paul oft styled grace, see 
the note on Rom. i. 5. And that in this sense he under- 
stands the gift of grace here, is evident from the following 
words. 

7 Ver. 9. Τῷ πάντα κτίσαντι, Who created all things.] 
The ancients commonly say, that God the Father is ὃ πρῶτος 
δημιουργὸς, “the prime and chief Creator of the world,” as 
being the original of all creating power, and he as it were 
commanding, and the Son executing his command, who is 


hence styled,* ὃ προσεχὴς δημιουργὸς, “ the immediate Creator,” 
Or avronpyds τοῦ κύσμου, “ the Artificer of the world.” Hence 
Treneust so often saith, Patrem omnia fecisse per Verbum, 
or Verbo virtutis; and that the Son and Holy Spirit are} 
quasi manus, “as it were the hands of God by which he 
made all things,” and to both which all the angels are 
subject. 

Διὰ Ἰησοῦ Xptorod.] See these words vindicated, Examen 
Millii in Jocum. 

8 Ver. 10. Ταῖς ἀρχαῖς καὶ rats éfovotas, To the principali- 
ties and powers.] This phrase, though used of evil spirits, 
vi. 12, may be understood of good angels, the mystery of 
godliness being then “seen of angels,” 1 ‘Tim. iii. 16, and 
the things which the apostles preached by the Holy Ghost, 
being such as « the angels desired to look into,” 1 Pet. i. 12. 
That the words ἐπουράνιος, and ἐπουράνια, always signify things, 
or persons in heaven, is very evident. So πατὴρ ἐπουράνιος 
is “our heavenly Father,” Matt. xviii. 25, 6 ἐπουράνιος, “ the 
Lord from heaven,” 1 Cor. xv. 48, 49, τὰ ἐπουράνια, “ hea- 
venly things,” to be taught only by him “ who was in hea- 
ven,’ John iii. 12, 13, σώματα ἐπουράνια, “ heavenly bodies,” 
viz. the stars, 1 Cor. xv. 40, βασιλεία ἐπουράνιος, “ the king- 
dom to be enjoyed in heaven,” 2 ‘l'im. iv. 18, Heb. xi. 16, 
Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐπουράνιος, “the Jerusalem that is above,” Heb. 
Xii. 22, ὑπόδειγμα τῶν ἐπουρανίων, “the pattern of things in 
heaven,” Heb. viii. 5, τὰ ἐπουράνια, “ heavenly things,” Heb. 
ix. 23. Hence are they distinguished from “things on 
earth,” or “under the earth,” Phil. ii. 10. The words are 
five times used in this epistle, and always signify “ heavenly 
places.” So it doth when we are said to “sit down with 
Christ, ἐν τοῖς ἐπουμανίοις, in heavenly places,” ii. 6, when 
Christ is said to be “sat down with God, ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανΐοις, In 
heavenly places,” i. 10; that being the consequence of his 
ascension into heaven (1 Pet. iii. 22, Heb. xiii, 10. 12), and 
therefore it is well rendered “in heavenly places,” ver. 3. 
So it signifies, when the apostle speaks of “ principalities, 
powers, and spiritual wickedness,” ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, vi. 12, 
and so it must signify, when he speaks here of good angels 
in the same places; nor can it be well joined with σοφία, be- 
cause διὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας intervenes. 

To Mr. L.’s objection, that “it is not easy to conceive 
that the declaration of this mystery should be to this intent, 
that the angels, good or bad, should be acquainted with it,” 
it may be ayswered, 

First, That the apostle doth not say this was God's sole 
intent in the revelation of this mystery ; but only, that this, 
amongst others more important, might be one. 

Secondly, That the particle ἵνα signifies, adeo ut, “so 
that” (see note on 1 Cor. xiv. 13) ; and then the words will 
not respect God’s intention in this revelation, but only the 
consequence of it. But whereas from those words, ver. 6, 
τ Was not made known,” &c., Mr. Le Clerc saith thus, “ The 
same thing which is there said in other ages not to have been 
made known to the sons of men, is said here to have been 
unknown also to angels; which being so, I confess I do not 
well understand how they who are neither prophets nor an- 
gels can find out so many places in the prophets, in which 


* Orig. in Cels. lib. vi. p. 317. 
+ Lib. ii. cap. 2. lib. iii. cap. 8, 11. 
+ Lib. iii. Pref. cap. 17. 


CHAPTER III. 


11 9 According to the eternal purpose which he 
purposed (or made) in Christ Jesus our Lord : 

12 In whom we have boldness (or freedom) and 
access with confidence (fo God the Father) by the 
faith of him (7. e. the faith we have in him as our 
Mediator : see note on ii. 18). 

13 Wherefore I (Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ 
for you genliles, ver. 1) desire that ye faint not (that 
you be not disheartened) at my tribulations for you, 
which is (rather matter of ) your glory, (you having 
cause lo glory, that I, your apostle, suffer so much for 
the gospel I preach to you, this being to you a confirma- 
tion of the truth of it. 

14 .2nd)For this cause I bow my knees unto the Fa- 
ther of our Lord Jesus Christ (praying to him), 

15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and 


755 


earth is named (the angels in heaven and saints on earth 
being styled the sons of God), 

16 That he would grant you, according to the 
riches of his glory (% e. according to his glorious 
riches), to be (si¢/l more) strengthened with might by 
his (J/vly) Spirit in the inner man; 

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith 5 
that ye, being (firm/y) rooted and grounded in love 
(to him, who sent his Son to die fur you), 

18 May be able to comprehend (together) with all 
saints what 7s " the breadth, and length, and depth, 
and height (of this mysterious love towards you) ; 

19 And to (be able to) know the love of Christ, 
which (in its full extent, even) passeth knowledge, that 
ye might be filled with all the 15 fulness of God. 

20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abun- 


the calling of the gentiles is manifestly and directly foretold : 
for certainly if it was revealed to the prophets, they under- 
stood it; and if it could be gathered from the literal sense 
of any prophecies, the angels might have understood it by 
those prophecies :” whereas, I say, he descants thus: What 
would he have? Would he deny against the plain and fre- 
quent sayings of Paul, that the calling of the gentiles was 
revealed to, and plainly foretold by, the prophets, as his 
words do import? Let him, if he can, confute Paul proving 
it against him, that the Lord had commanded the gentiles 
should be called in these words of the prophet Isaiah, “1 
have set thee to be a light to the gentiles, and to be for sal- 
vation to the ends of the earth” (Acts xiii. 46, 47): and 
his four other proofs from the prophets, Moses, David, and 
Esaias, that the gentiles were to glorify God for his mercy to 
them, in Christ Jesus, that root of Jesse, who was to rise up 
to govern the gentiles, and in whom the gentiles were to 
trust (Rom. xv. 9—12): yea, let him confute the apostle 
James, saying, “Simeon hath declared how God at first did 
visit the gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name: 
and to this agree the words of the prophets, After this I will 
build again the tabernacle of David, &c. that the residue of 
men might seek after the Lord, and all the nations upon 
whom my name is called” (Acts xv. 14.17). Nor doth the 
apostle any where hint, that the calling of the gentiles was 
not revealed to or by the prophets; but only that it was not 
so made known in all the particularities of it, ὡς viv, “ as it 
is now discovered” by the apostles and prophets of the New 
Testament (see the note on ver. 6). Secondly, It was also 
known to, and preached by, the angels, declaring the glad 
tidings of great joy “ which should be to all nations” through 
Christ (Luke ii. 10, 11), he being as well «a light to lighten 
the gentiles,” as “the glory of his people Israel.” Nor does 
the apostle here say, as he suggests, that this was unknown to 
the angels, but only that what was before made known to 
them by prophecies, was now made known to them by the 
church, i. 6. the gentiles actually called ; though all the cir- 
cumstances mentioned note on ver. 6, might not be fully 
known before, even to them. 

9 Ver. 11. Κατὰ πρόϑεσιν τῶν αἰώνων, According to the fore- 
disposing of the ages.) In the first of the ages his wisdom 
seeing fit to give the promise of a Saviour to a fallen Adam ; 
in the second age to typify and represent him to the Jews in 
sacred persons, rites, and sacrifices; and in the age of the 
Messiah, or the last age, to reveal him to the Jews, and 
preach him to the gentiles. 

0 Ver. 15. Πᾶσα πατριὰ, The whole family.) It is fre- 
quent with the Jews to make mention of the angels as “ the 
family in heaven ;” and of men, especially those that are in 
' covenant with God, as his “ family on earth ;” as when they 
say, “ God doeth nothing but he first consults with his family 
mbynow above,” that is, with the angels: and that “he that 
addicts himself to the study of the divine law for the sake of 
the law, conciliates to himself peace with the family above, 
and with the family below ;” that is, with angels in heaven, 
and men on earth. They are also called abyn wp “the 
saints above,” Targ. in Job xv. 15, and “the sons of God,” 
as in these words of Job i. 6, and ii. 1, “ And on a day came 
ἄγγελοι Θεοῦ, the sons of God,” and xxxviii. 7,“ Where wast 
thou when ἄγγελοί pov, all the sons of God shouted for joy ?” 
And so are all true believers styled, for “to as many as be- 


lieved, he gave power to be the sons of God,” John i. 12, 
and they at the resurrection shall be “like the angels, and 
be the sons of God,” Luke xx. 36. 

" Ver. 18. Τὸ πλάτος καὶ μῆκος, &e. The breadth, length, 
depth, and height.) By “the breadth” of this love, some of 
the fathers understand the great extent and generality of 
Christ's affection : his death being designed for the benefit of 
all persons, Jew and gentile, through all ages, from Adam to 
the end of the world, and in all places, he having by it 
“reconciled things in heaven, and things in the earth” (i. 10). 
By “the depth” of it, say they, is signified the greatness 
of his humiliation; love to mankind having induced him to 
change “the form of God” for that of a servant, humbled 
the Lord of life to an ignominious and painful death, and 
brought him from the highest heaven to the lowest hell, into 
which, they conceive, he descended for our sakes. “The 
length” of it imports, say they, his love to us from the be- 
ginning of the world, we being “chosen in Christ from the 
beginning (i. 4, iii. 11). “The height” of his affection is 
manifested, say they, in that being now exalted to the right 
hand of Majesty, he is still there employed in acts of great- 
est kindness to us, using his whole power in heaven and earth 
for the benefit of his church. But it seems more natural to 
say, that the apostle, by enumerating these dimensions, only 
intends to signify the exceeding greatness of “the love of 
Christ, which passeth knowledge.” Thus Job, speaking of 
the unsearchable wisdom of God, and his unfathomable per- 
fections, puts these inquiries: “Canst thou search. him out 
to perfection? It is higher than the heaven, what canst 
thou do? Deeper than hell, what canst thou know? 
The measure of it is longer than the earth, and the breadth 
of it than the sea” (Job xi. 7,8); and the son of Sirach 
saith, “The height of heaven, and the breadth of the earth, 
the abyss and wisdom, who can search out?” (Bcclus. i. 
3), and the apostle cries out, “O the depth of the wisdom 
and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments,” 
ἄς, (Rom. xi. 33). And in this sense these four dimen- 
sions will chiefly be designed to import what the apostle 
styles, (ver. 8), “the unsearchable riches of the love of 
Christ.” Jt therefore seems unreasonable to think, that 
“the love of Christ passing knowledge,” should import only 
the love of Christ passing, i. e. “excelling the knowledge or 
skill in mystical interpretations, which the Gnostics pre- 
tended to:” for, as the word γνῶσις put absolutely hath no 
such import, that I know of, in the holy scripture; so after 
the mention of all these dimensions, and “ the unsearchable 
riches” of it (ver. 8), it seems a very faint expression to say, 
it surpasseth that vain and insignificant knowledge to which 
the Gnostics pretended; their mystical interpretations, re- 


| corded by Irenzus, being above measure vain and impious, 


even a mystery of iniquity: and as for the phrase ὑπερβάλ- 
λουσα τῆς γνώσεως, it is justified by Aristotle,* who hath it 
twice in one chapter, viz. ὑπερβάλλειν τῆς συμμετρίας, “to ex- 
ceed the measure,” ὑπερβάλλειν τῶν πλωτήρων, “to excel other 
navigators.” 

12 Ver. 19. Eis πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα rod Θεοῦ, Wilh all the full- 
ness of God.| Eis pro iv (see note on Col. i. 20), that is, 
say some, with the highest degrees of faith and love; or with 
all fullness of spiritual gifts, especially those of knowledge 


* Polit. lib. iii. cap. 13, p. 447, 448. 


” 


756 


dantly above all that we ask or think, according to the 
power (of the Holy Ghost) that worketh in us (and so 
miraculously confirms his doctrine to the world), 

21 Unto him (J say) be (ascribed all) glory in the 


EPHESIANS. 


(assemblies of the) church by (and through) Christ Jesus 
(through whom we «offer up all prayers and praises, Heb. 
xiii. 15, Eph. v. 20) throughout all ages, world with- 
out end. Amen. 


and wisdom, which might enable them to comprehend the 
greatness of his love. Thus iv. 10, «He ascended up on 
high, that he might fill all things” with spiritual gifts, men- 


tioned ver. 10, that he might “ give gifts unto men,” ver. 8; 
and i, 23, his church is styled, “ the fullness of him that filleth 
all in all;” i. 6. who filleth all his members with those gifts. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 I rnrrerore, the prisoner of the Lord (ἐν Κυρίῳ, 
in bonds for Christ), beseech you that ye walk worthy 
of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 

2 1 With all lowliness and meekness, with long- 
suffering, (and sv) forbearing one another in love ; 

3 Endeavouring (thus) to keep the unity of the Spi- 
rit in the bond of peace. 

4 (For ye know, that)There is one body (of the whole 
church), and * one Spirit (which animates the whole 


body), even as ye are called in one hope of your call- 
ing; (i. e. and you know also, that you are all called to 
the same hope of eternal life. 

5 There ts also to us Christians)One Lord, 8 one faith 
(in this Lord), one baptism (by which we do profess this 

aith), 

᾿ θ ὴ One God and Father of all, who zs above all (by 
his essence), and through all (by his providence), and in 
you all (by his Spirit). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


Ver. 2, 3.] Note here from the fathers, that ἐὰν τὴν 
ἀγάπην ἔχωμεν ἀνεζόμεϑα ἀλλήλων, “where love is retained, 
there will be mutual forbearance ;” and from Zanchy, that 
peace cannot be preserved without that mutual forbearance, 
and that humility, which exclude, and that meekness, which 
is opposite to, anger and contention. 

2 Ver. 4. “Ev Πνεῦμα, One Spirit.] From these and the 
former words, “the unity of the Spirit,” it seems plain to 
me that the union of the mystical body of the church catho- 
lic consists in this, that they all have the same Spirit com- 
municated to them from their head Christ Jesus. For the 
whole body of Christians is here said to have “ one Spirit,” 
and their unity is styled, «the unity of the Spirit.” “'The 
body is one,” saith the apostle, 1 Cor. xii. 12, “for by one 
Spirit we are all baptized into one body,” ver. 23. And to 
the whole body of the church of Corinth he speaks thus, 
«Know ye not that you are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 1 Cor. iii. 16; “ Know ye 
not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, that is 
in you?” vi. 19, Christ, saith the apostle here, ii. 16—18, 
hath reconciled both Jew and gentile into one body unto 
God, and hath made peace between them; “for by him we 
have both access by one Spirit to the Father;” ἄρα οὖν, and 
therefore having thus one Spirit, by which we are made one 
body, and sons of the same Father, “we are all fellow-citi- 
zens of the saints, and of the family of God ;” and are “built 
up all together into a habitation of God through the Spirit.” 
Now hence it follows, 

First, That only sincere Christians are truly members of 
that church catholic of which Jesus Christ is the head, since 
the whole body is united to him by the communication of 
the Holy Spirit, whom the wicked of the world “ cannot re- 
ceive” (John xiv. 17), they being “sensual, having not the 
Spirit” (Jude 19). 

Secondly, That nothing can unite any professor of Chris- 
tianity to this one body, but the participation of the Spirit of 
Christ; and therefore nothing else can make him a true 
member of that church which is hisbody. Hence the apostle 
doth inform us negatively, that “if any man have not the 
Spirit of Christ” dwelling in him, “he is none of his,” Rom. 
vili. 9. 11, and affirmatively, that «by this we know that he 
abideth in us, by the Spirit that he hath given us,” 1 John 
ii. 24. And again, “ΒΥ this we know that he abideth in 
us, and we in him, because he hath given us of his Spirit,” 
iv. 13, For “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they 
are sons of God,” Rom. viii. 14, and “ because we are sons, 
God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,” Gal. iv. 
6. It therefore must be owned as a certain truth, that no- 
thing can unite us to that church and body, of which Christ 
Jesus is the head, but the participation of the Spirit. 

Thirdly, That no error in judgment, or mistake in practice, 
which doth not tend to deprive a Christian of the Spirit of 
Christ, can separate him from the church of Christ. 


Fourthly, Hence it demonstratively follows, that no church- 
governors, jointly or severally, can be by God appointed to 
be the living judges, or the infallible directors of our faith. 
For since in matters of faith we must have a judgment of 
certainty, we cannot own him as such by virtue of that 
assistance of the Holy Ghost, which alone can make them 
such, till we are certain they belong to that church of which 
Christ Jesus is the head, and to which only the promise of 
the Spint doth belong; i. e. till we are certain they are sin- 
cere and upright Christians. Since therefore God hath given 
us no certain rule to know this by, we may rest satisfied, that 
he designed no such magisterial guides should be continued 
in his church. 

3 Ver. 5. Mia πίστις, One faith.] It plainly is asserted 
in the holy scriptures, that there is one “common faith,” 
Tit. i. 4, one “like precious faith,” 2 Pet. i. 1, of all that 
bear the name of Christians; a “unity of faith,” and “ of 
the knowledge of the Son of God,” to which we must all 
arrive, Eph. iv. 13; a “faith once delivered to the saints,” 
Jude 3, for which we must “strive earnestly,” and in which 
we must “build up ourselves;” a “faith of the gospel’ for 
which we are exhorted to “contend as with one soul,” Phil. 
i, 27. But vain is hence the inference of the papists, that 
this one faith must be either theirs, and then we cannot be 
saved without it; or ours, and then they cannot be saved: 
for this “one faith,” into which all Christians were baptized, 
contains neither the doctrines in which they differ from us, 
nor we from them, but only the Apostles’ Creed, which the 
whole church of Christ, for many centuries, received as a 
perfect system of things necessary to be believed in order to 
salvation ; as I have fully proved, ‘Treatise of Tradition, par. 
11. chap. vii. §. 4—8. 

4 Ver. 6. Εἷς O:ds, One God.] Here, say the Socinians, 
that God who is styled “one,” is also styled « the Father,” 
and to him is ascribed this epithet so common among the 
philosophers, to denote the supreme Deity, that he is 6 ὧν ἐπὶ 
πᾶσι, * God over all.’ But to this it is answered, 

1. That we deny not that God the Father is “one God 
over all,” or that there is one who is both God and the 
Father; only we add, that there is also one who is one God 
of the same essence, and the Son; and so also say we of the 
Holy Spirit: and that as the one Lord, and the one Spirit 
here, do not exclude the Father from being both Lord and 
Spirit, so neither doth the “one God and Father” exclude 
the Son, or Holy Spirit, from being God, but only from being 
God the Father. It is also to be noted, that the primitive 
fathers before the Nicene council did not scruple to distin- 
guish Christ from God the Father, by styling him another 
God from the maker of all things, ὑπὲρ ὃν ἄλλος Θεὸς οὐκ ἔστι, 
“above whom there is no other God.” Justin Martyr* 
twice describes the Father by this distinctive character, that 
he is God, ὑπὲρ ὃν ἄλλος Θεὸς οὐκ ἔστι, “ above whom there is no 
other God ;” saying, that Christ did nothing but what ὁ τὸν 


* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 275, cap. 276, D. 


CHAPTER IV. 


7 But (though the body is but one, yet) unto every 
one of us (who are members of this body) δ is given grace 
(enabling us to serve this body) according to the measure 
of the gift of Christ. 

8 δ Wherefore (fo manifest this) he (the psalmisl) 
saith, When he (Céris!) ascended up on high, he led 
captivity (Satan and death) captive (Judg. v. 12, Heb. 
ii. 14), and? gave gifts unto men (i. 6. received them, 
Ps, Ixviii. 19, to give to them). 

9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but (a demon- 
stration) that he also descended first ® into the lower 
parts of the earth? 

10 He that descended (thus into the lower parts of 
the earth) is the same also that (afler his resurrection) 


157 


ascended up ° far above all heavens, that he might fill 
all things) (with his gifts, according to his promise, that 
when he was ascended he would send the Spirit upon 
his apostles and disciples, John xiv. 17, xv. 26, Xvil. 5, 
Luke xxiv. 49). 

11 And (accordingly) he gave some, apostles (to 
reveal his will); and some, prophets (lo explain the 
mysteries of faith); and some, evangelists (to prepa- 
gate this faith to other nations); and ™ some, pastors 
and teachers (to instruct others in it. 

12 " And this variety of gifls was conferred upon 
them) for the perfecting (Gr. compacting) of the saints 
(into one body), For the work of the ministry (that they 
who had them might minister to the temporal necessity, 


κόσμον ποιῆσας, ὑπὲρ ὃν ἄλλος οὐκ ἔστι Θεὸς, “the Maker of the 
world, above whom there is no other God, would have him 
do;” and yet he at least twenty times asserts, that Christ is 
“God and Lord,” and that he is the person, aj’ od οὐρανὸν 
καὶ γῆν," “by whom he made the heaven and earth,” and by 
whom he will renew them; the Word of God, δι᾿ οὗ οὐρανὸς 
καὶ γῆ, καὶ ἡ πᾶσα κτίσις ἐγένετο, “ by whom the heaven and 
the earth, and the whole creation was made.” So Ireneust 
often saith that “the Father is only to be called God and 
Lord ;” and yet he adds, that this is not said to exclude the 
Son, “who isin the Father, and hath the Father in him, 
and hath his principality in all things.” 

5 Ver. 7. ᾿Εῤόϑη ἡ χάρις, Is given grace.] These graces 
being therefore the gift of Christ, and not our own, no one 
should be puffed up, or despise others on the account of 
them; nor should envy any others to whom he thinks fit to 
give them in a higher measure. 

6 Ver. 8. Διὸ λέγει, Wherefore he saith.] That this psalm 
relates to the Messiah, we learn from the Jews themselves, 
who interpret this psalm of him ; for the words, ver. 32, are 
by them thus paraphrased, “ All nations shall bring gifts to 
the King Messiah,” Schemoth Rabbah, §. 15. Let it be 
also noted, that Christ triumphed over death and Satan on 
the cross” (Col. ii. 15), but he led Satan captive more 
gloriously, when, after this ascension, he poured his Holy 
Spirit on his apostles and disciples, and by that Spirit enables 
them to cast out devils in his name, and turn men from the 
power of Satan to God (Acts xxvi. 18). He also then tri- 
umphed over death most signally, when, thus ascending, he 
became Lord over the dead, and “had the keys of death and 
hades in his hand” (Rom. xiv. 9, Rev. i. 18). Note also, 
that to “lead captivity captive,” is a phrase common in the 
Old Testament, to signify a conquest over enemies, especially 
over such as formerly had led them captive: so Judg. v. 12, 
« Arise, Barak, αἰχμαλώτισον αἰχμαλωσίαν, lead captivity cap- 
tive” (see 1 Kings viii. 46, 2 Chron. xxviii. 5. 11.17, Numb. 
xxi. 1, Deut. xxi. 10). 

7 Καί ἔδωκε ὁόματα, And gave gifts.| That is, saith Dr. 
Hammond, “he received gifts to give to men,” from the 
nature of the Hebrew np, which signifies both to give and 
to receive, and thus itis rendered by the Targum, Syriac, and 
Arabic: but, saith Mr. Clerc, « When the word signifies to 
give, there follows a dative case, Exod. xxv. 2, whereas the 
Hebrew here hath p4~3, which has made learned men con- 
jecture, that St. Paul read ox, to man.” But, first, this is 
not always true, for, Hos. xiv. 2, we read thus, “ Take away 
iniquity, 3 np), and give good;” and where a dative case 
is added, an accusative either goes before it, as, “Thou hast 
received, nynp, gifts for men,” and Judg. xiv. 2, +5 ans wp, 
«Give her to me,” and ver. 3; or else follows after it, as 1 


* P. 340. 

+ Nemo igitur alius Deus nominatur, aut Dominus appel- 
latur, nisi qui est onnium Deus et Dominus—Et hujus filius 
Jesus Christus Dominus noster, lib. 111. cap. 6—Qui et solus 
Deus super quem alius Deus non est, ὅσο. 9. Ipsum Domi- 
num sequi nos oportet; patrem tantim Deum et Dominum 
eum qui solus est Deus, et Dominator omnium, tradentem 
discipulis, et tamen hee dicta esse pronuntiat de prophetis 
quidem, et apostolis patrem, et filium confitentibus, alteram 
autem neminem, neque Deum nominantibus, neque Domi- 
num confitentibus, lib. iii. cap. 6. Filius est in patre, et habet 
in se patrem, et in omnibus principatum ejus habet. 


Kings iii. 24, 35 1 γπρ, “ Give me a sword” (see xvii. 10, 
Exod. xviii. 12, xxv. 2): and as for 3 in pina, who knows 
not that it sometimes signifies pro, for, and sometimes only 
is the sign of the dative case? (see Noldius de Partic. Hebr. 
p. 158. 163.) 

8 Ver. 9. Eis τὰ κατώτερα μέρη τῆς γῆς, Into the lower parts 
of the earth.) That is, into the grave: so Ps. Ixiii. 9, 
“They that seek my soul to destroy it, shall go into the 
lower parts of the earth,” i. 6. they shall fall by the sword, 
ver. 19; Isa. xliv. 23, “Sing, O heavens! shout, the lower 
parts of the earth.” “ We cannot be assured,” saith Bishop 
Pearson,* “that the descent of Christ, which St. Paul here 
speaketh of, was performed after his death, nor can we be 
assured that ‘the lower parts of the earth’ do signify hell; 
they may as well refer to his incarnation,” according to that 
of David, Psal. exxxix. 15, “ My substance was not hid from 
thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in 
the lower parts of the earth;” or to his burial, according to 
that of the prophet, “ They that seek my soul to destroy it 
shall go into the lower parts of the earth; κατώτερα yap μέρη 
τὸν ϑάνατον ἐκάλεσεν, “ He calls his death his descent into the 
lower parts of the earth, say Chrysostom and Theodoret on 
the place. 

9 Ver. 10. Ὑπεράνω πάντων τῶν οὐρανῶν, Far above all hea- 
vens.] He being made “higher than the heavens,’ Heb. 
vil. 26, that is, than the airy and the starry heavens, and 
ascending above them into the presence of God, who hath 
“set his glory above the heavens,” Psal. viii. 1, and is ex- 
alted above them, Psal. vii. 5. 11, ον]. 4, 5. 

10 Ver. 11. Τοὺς δὲ ποιμένας καὶ διδωσκάλους, And some pas- 
tors and teachers.| That these “ pastors and teachers” were 
in the first ages men of extraordinary gifts, is evident from 
this very place ; for the preceding words, “ He gave gifts unto 
men, some apostles, some prophets,” &c., show that all the 
persons mentioned here were partakers of the gifts which 
Christ, ascending up on high and sending down the Holy 
Spirit, gave to men. Hence, among the different χαρίσματα, 
gifts of the Holy Ghost, are reckoned, éidackaXéa, “ teach- 
ing,” Rom. xii. 6, 7; and among the gifts exercised in their 
assemblies, διδαχὴ, “ doctrine,’ 1 Cer. xiv. 6. 26; among the 
persons who had received the διαιρέσεις χαρισμάτων, “ di- 
versities of gifts,’ are reckoned, after prophets, διδάσκαλοι, 
“teachers,” 1 Cor. xii. 28, Rom. xii. 6, 7, and here: and so 
Tertulliant makes mention of them, as persons “endued 
with the grace of knowledge.” The “pastors” seem proba- 
bly the same with the κυβερνήσεις, “ governments,” 1 Cor. xii. 
28, and the προεστῶτες, Rom. xii. 8: and it is evident, from 
both those places, that there were also men endued with 
those spiritual gifts there mentioned. Hence it is observable 
of these doctors, that when the extraordinary gifts of the 
church ceased, their very names grew out of use, they being 
very rarely mentioned in the succeeding ages of the church. 

11 Ver. 12—15.] From these five verses the papists argue 
for an infallible guide, thus: “ Christ gave apostles, pastors, 
and teachers, that Christians might not be tossed to and fro 
with every wind of doctrine : this end could not be compassed 
by giving us such guides and instructors in belief as were 
merely fallible, and who might lead us into circumvention of 
error. Moreover, God gave such pastors to his church, tilk 


* Art. v. p. 228. 
+ Est itaque frater aliquis doctor gratia sapientie donatus 
De Prescript. cap. 3. 
30 


758 


as did the deacons, and the spiritual concerns of others, 
as did the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and doc- 
tors), for the edifying of the body of Christ (in faith 
and love) : 

13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge (or acknowledgment) of the Son of God, 
unto a perfect man (7. 6. to perfection in knowledge of the 
faith and of the will of God, Col. i. 28), unto. the mea- 
sure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (ἡ. e. so as 
to be Christians of a full maturily and ripeness in all the 
graces derived from Christ Jesus to the body) : 

14 That (so arriving to perfection in faith and know- 
ledge) we henceforth (may) be no more children, toss- 
ed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of 
doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, 
whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Gr. by the sub- 
tlety of men, through their crafliness, for the managing of 
deceit) ; 


EPHESIANS. 


15 But speaking (or keeping) the truth in love, may 
grow up into (or increase in) him in all things, which 
is the head, even (ἐπί) Christ : 

16 12 From whom the whole body fitly joined toge- 
ther and compacted by that which every joint sup- 
plieth, according to the effectual working in the mea- 
sure of every part (Gr. compacied and cemented together 
by every joint of supply, according to ils power in propur- 
tion of every part), maketh increase of the body unto 
the edifying of itself in love. 

17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that 
ye (who have these assislances in faith and piely) hence- 
forth walk not as other (wnconverted ) Gentiles walk, 
in the vanity of their (vwn) mind, 

18 Having the understanding darkened, (and) being 
4 alienated from the life of God "5 through the igno- 
rance that is in them, because of the ἰδ blindness of 
their heart : 


we all come to the unity of the faith, which will not be till 
the last days of all; wherefore, till the end of the world, the 
world shall be provided of them, and by them be secured 
from being ‘like children tossed to and fro.’” 

Ans. I answer, That this text is so far from proving a suc- 
cession of infallible guides, in matters of faith, to the world’s 
end, that it seems rather to establish the doctrine of the pro- 
testants, touching the fullness and perspicuity of the holy 
scripture in all necessary articles of Christian faith, and to 
overthrow the pretended necessity of infallible guides in order 
to that end. For 

First, ΤῸ “come to a perfect man,” as to the unity of 
faith and knowledge of the Son of God, is, in the scripture 
language, to be sufliciently instructed in the articles of the 
Christian faith and knowledge. ‘Thus, when our Lord saith 
to the young man, “If thou wilt be perfect, sell all that thou 
hast,” Matt. xix. 21, by comparing these words with those 
in Mark and Luke, Mark x. 21, “ One thing is lacking,” or, 
is wanting to thee, Luke xviii. 22, it is evident, that to “be 
perfect” there, is not to be wanting in the knowledge or 
practice of any thing to be done, that this young man might 
have eternal life. 

When Paul saith, “ We speak wisdom, ἐν τοῖς τελείοις, 
among them that are perfect,” 1 Cor. ii. 6, the meaning is, 
say the Greek commentators,* παρὰ τοῖς τελείαν παραύεζα- 
μένοις πίστιν, “among those who are perfectly instructed in 
the faith :” and when he saith, «As many as are perfect, let 
us mind the same thing,” he speaks of persons fully instruct- 
ed in their Christian liberty : and when he saith, “ Leaving 
the principles of the oracles of Christ, let us go on to perfec- 
tion,” he calls us to advance to a more full instruction in the 
faith and knowledge of Christ (see note on 1 Cor. ii. 6). 

Secondly, Note, that the apostles and first preachers of 
the gospel were made ministers of his church, πληρῶσαι τὸν 
λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ, “ to teach fully the word of God,” Col. i. 25, 
26; “to teach every man in all wisdom, that they might 
present every man perfect in Christ Jesus,” ver. 28. And 
accordingly, departing from the churches planted by them, 
they commended them only “to the word of grace, which 
was able to build them up, and give them an inheritance 
among all that are sanctified,’ Acts xx. 32. 

Thirdly, Observe, that the apostles, prophets, evangelists, 
pastors, and teachers, here named, were given at our Lord’s 
ascension for these ends ; for « when he ascended up on high, 
ἔδωκε, he (actually) gave some apostles,” &c.; and that even 
those pastors and teachers had their χαρίσματα, or super- 
natural gifts of the Holy Spirit, to fit them for that end. 
Whence it demonstratively follows, that these gifts ceasing 
soon after, a succession of such persons was neither pro- 
mised nor was necessary to this end; for if so, Christ must 
be charged with breach of promise, and being wanting to the 
church in what is necessary for the obtainment of those ends. 

Fourthly, Observe, that these apostles, prophets, evan- 
gelists, pastors, and teachers, endued with these supernatural 
gifts, “for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the 
body of Christ into a perfect man,” not doing all or any of 


* Theodoret. 


these things in person since their death, and yet being given 
for the accomplishing these ends, must be acknowledged to 
have done all these things, as far as they were needful, by 
some other way. Now there being no other way in which 
they could do it, but by their writings left behind them as a 
rule of faith, and by which “they being dead yet speak ;”’ it 
follows, that these writings, duly attended to, must be sufhi- 
cient for these ends; and consequently they must, both with 
sufficient fullness and perspicuity, instruct us in all the ne- 
cessary articles of Christian faith and knowledge. Hence 
Chrysostom* informs us, that they writ the gospel, πρὸς 
καταρτισμὸν τῶν ἁγίων, “ for the perfecting the saints, for the 
work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” 
In a word, it is evident this text doth as much prove a neces- 
sity of apostles, prophets, and evangelists, in all future ages 
of the church, to keep her members fixed in the truth, as of 


| pastors and doctors; these apostles, prophets, and evange- 


lists, being here placed in the first rank of those whom God 
hath given for this end: since therefore these apostles, pro- 
phets, and evangelists were only given in the first ages of the 
church, it evidently follows, that the persons mentioned in 
this text were not given them to do this personally to the 
world’s end, but only to do it by the doctrine they then 
taught. 

2 Ver. 16. Ἐξ οὗ, From whom.] That is, from which 
head the whole body of Christians, duly compacted together, 
some sustaining the office of an inferior head, some of an eye, 
some of a hand, some of a foot (1 Cor. xii. 15—17), by the 
assistance which every of these parts, thus united together, 
gives to the whole, according to the particular proportion of 
its gifts, increaseth or grows in love, and so each member 
edifies one another. 

3 Ver. 17. Ἔν ματαίοτητι τοῦ νύος, In the vanily of the 
mind.] The heathen idols are frequently in the Old ‘Testa- 
ment stvled μάταια, “ vain things ;” and the apostles preached 
to the gentiles to abstain and turn ἀπὸ τῶν ματαίων τοῦτων, 
“from those vain things,” Acts xiv. 15, by compliance with 
which they became “ vain in their imaginations, and their 
foolish hearts were darkened,” Rom. i. 22, and this seems to 
be the “vain conversation” from which, saith Peter, they 
were redeemed, 1 Pet. i. 18, and the “ vanity of the mind” 
here mentioned. 

14 Ver. 18. ᾿Απηλλοτριωμένοι, Alienated from the life of 
God.] i. e. Not only from that way of life which God ap- 
proves of, but which resembles him in purity, righteousness, 
truth, and goodness. 

15 Διὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τὴν οὖσαν ἐν αὐτοῖς, By the ignorance that 
is in them.] This seems to refer to their ignorance of the 
nature, the attributes, and the providence of God, and of a 
future state of happiness and misery. 

16 The blindness of their hearts,) Here mentioned, they 
had contracted by wicked habits and customs, the frequency 
of vile examples, and by those corrupt principles which 
made them insensible of their impurity and lasciviousness ; 
for they committed whoredom and adultery, saith Origen, 


* Tn locum. 
+ Contra Celsum, lib. iv. p. 177, et Hom. v. in Joh. p. 79. 


CHAPTER IV. 


19 Who being past feeling (insensible of the vileness 
of their actions) have given themselves over unto lasci- 
viousness, to work all uncleanness 7 with greediness. 

20 But ye have not so learned (the doctrine of ) 
Christ; 

21 If so be (or since) that ye have heard him (by 
our preaching), and have been taught by him (Gr. in- 
structed in him), as the truth is in Jesus : 

22 (70 wit,)Thatye put off concerning the former 
conversation (in heathenism) the old man, which is 
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; (¢. δ. the dusts 
which deceive you, promising that pleasure and salis- 
faction which they cannot yield; or which you prac- 
lised whilst heathens, being deceived by your heathen 
priests, declaring that they were acceptable to the gods, 
and the philosophy and vain deceit of those men who 
allowed them ;) 

23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind ; 
24 And that ye (may) put on the new man, which 


3 
759 


after (the image of ) God is created in righteousness 
and true holiness. 

25 Wherefore putting away ™ lying (a vice foo com- 
mon among heathens, and opposite to truth and righte- 
ousness), speak every man truth with his neighbour: 
for we are members one of another: (now lying tends to 
dissolve societies, and hurt the members of the same body. 

26 If you) ™Be ye angry (take heed), and sin not: 
2! let not the sun go down upon your wrath : 

27 5 Neither give place to the (lemplation of the) 
devil. 

28 33 Let him that stole (before his conversion) steal 
no more: but rather let him labour, working with 
his hands the thing which is good, that he ** may have 
to give to him that needeth. 

29 Let no corrupt communication proceed out of 
your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edi- 
fying, % that it may minister grace unto the hearers. 

30 % And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, where- 


διδάσκοντες μὴ πάντως παρὰ τὸ καϑῆκον τοῦτο γίνεσθαι, “ teach- 
ing that in these things they did nothing contrary to good 
manners.” 

7 Ver. 19. Ἔν πλεονεξία, With greediness.) Hoc totum 
fecerunt in avaritid, dum nunquam luxuriando saturantur, 
nec eorum terminum habet voluptas (Hieronymus in 
locum). ὶ 

18 Ver. 22. Τὸν παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον, The old man,] Signifies 
those evil habits they so long practised in the state of hea- 
thenism; “the new man,” that divine life, that life of 
righteousness and holiness which Christianity requires: and 
it is called “holiness of truth,” or inward holiness, in oppo- 
sition to the outward and ceremonial holiness of the Jews. 

19 Ver. 25. Τὸ ψεῦδος, Lying.] Which the heathen phi- 
losophers thought lawful, when it was good or profitable for 
them; as owning that rule of Menander, κρεῖττον δὲ ἑλέσϑαι 
ψεῦδος, ἢ ἀληθὲς κακὸν, “ A lie is better than a hurtful truth :”’ 
and that of Proclus, τὸ γὰρ dyaSdv κρεῖττόν ἐστι τῆς ἀληθεΐας, 
«Good is better than truth:” and that of Darius in Hero- 
dotus,* ἔνϑα γάρ τι det καὶ ψεῦδος λέγεσϑαι, λεγέσϑω, “ When 
a lie will profit, let it be used:” and that of Plato,t “ He 
may lie, who knows how to do it, ἐν δέοντι καιροῦ, in a fit sea- 
son:” for “there is nothing decorous in truth,” saith Maxi- 
mus Tyrius,+ “but when it is profitable: yea, sometimes,” 
saith he, καὶ ψεῦδος ὥνησεν ἀνθρώπους, καὶ τ᾽ ddnSis ἔβλαψεν, 
“truth hurts, and a lie profits men.” And to countenance 
this practice, both Plato§ and the stoics| seem to have 
framed a Jesuitical distinction between lying in words, and 
with assent to an untruth, which they called “lying in the 
soul:” the first they allowed “to an enemy in prospect of 
advantage; and for many other dispensations of this life :” 
that is, their wise man may tell a lie craftily, and for gain; 
but he must not embrace a falsehood through ignorance, or 
assent to an untruth. 

2 Ver. 26. ᾿Οργίζεσϑε καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε, Be angry, and 
sin not.] These words, though spoken imperatively, are not 
a command to be angry, but a caution to avoid sinful anger; 
as when the prophet saith to Nineveh, “ Fortify thy strong 
holds, the sword shall cut thee off,” Nah. iii. 14, i. 6. though 
thou dost fortify them, it shalldoso. And the son of Sirach, 
«Cocker thy child, and he shall make thee afraid,” xxx. 9, 
i, 6. this will be the issue of it. So Isa. viii. 9, 10. 


* Lib. iii. p. 191. 

f Apud Stob. Serm. 12. 

+ Diss. iii. p. 29. 

§ Τῇ ψυχῆ περὶ τὰ ὄντα ψεύδεσθαι πάντες μισοῦσι, τὸ δὲ ἐν 
τοῖς λόγοις ψεῦδός ποτε καίτοι χρήσιμον, ὥστε μὴ ἄξιον εἶναι 


μίσους. Plato de Republ. lib. ii. p. 607. Τοῖς ἄρχουσι τῆς 
πόλεως προσήκει ψεύδεσϑαι, i) πολεμίων ἢ πολιτῶν ἕνεκα. Lib, iii. 
Ρ.611. 


[Tor μέντοι Weider ποτε συγγρήσασϑαι νομίζουσιν αὐτὸν κατὰ 
πολλοὺς τρόπους ἄνευ συγκαταϑίσεως, καὶ γὰρ κατὰ στρατηγίαν 
ἀντιπαλῶν, καὶ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ συμφέροντος προύρασιν, καὶ κατ᾽ 
ἄλλας οἰκονομίας τοῦ βίου πολλὰς, ψεῦδος δ' ὑπολαμβάνειν οὐδέποτε 
φασὶ τὸ" σοφόν. Stob. de Stoicis, tom. i. lib. ii. tit. 4, 8. 4, et 
Eccl. &c. p. 183, 


e 

21'O ἥλιος μὴ ἐπιδυέτω, Let not the sun go down upon thy 
wrath.| This precept, saith Plutarch,* the scholars of Py- 
thagoras observed, who, when they had been angry, and re- 
proached one another, πρὶν ἢ τὸν ἥλιον divar, &e., before the 
sun went down, they shook hands, and embraced one an- 
other.” This must the Christian do, before he offers up to 
God his evening sacrifice, that so he may lift up to God 
« pure hands without wrath” (1 Tim. ii. 8). 

2 Ver. 27.] Let a man be always careful that he be not 
angry, say the Jews;+ for whoso is angry, omnes species 
gehenne ei dominantur, “is subject to the dominion of the 
infernal fiends.” 

23 Ver. 28. 'O κλέπτων, Let him that stole, &c.] This ex- 
hortation was needful, because “in many nations it was not 
counted a sin to steal,” saith Sextus Empiricus :+ “nor were 
they much ashamed at it, when it was objected to them,” 
saith Bardesanes.§ 

34 "Iva ἔχῃ μεταδιδόναι, That he may have to give.] This 
charity the primitive Christians expected even from them 
that laboured with their own hands. So Hermas| saith, 
“Tt is good to give liberally to all that are in need, out of 
the labour of our own hands.” 

Ver. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of 
your mouth, but that whichis good for edification]. Severe 
here are the words of Jerome; Quotiens loquimur aut non 
in tempore, aut opportuno loco, aut non ut convenit audien- 
tibus, totiens sermo malus procedit de ore nostro ad destruc- 
tionem eorum qui audiunt; consideremus itaque quid 
loquimur, quia ‘pro omni verbo otioso reddituri sumus ra- 
tionem in die judicii, et etiamsi non Irdamus, non tamen 
edificemus, mali verbi nobis luenda sit pena. ‘To qualify 
the rigid severity of these words, see the note on Matt. xil. 
36. See the reading of this and the thirty-second verse vin- 
dicated, Examen Millii ibid. 

35 Ἵνα dd χάριν, That it may minister grace.] That is, 
saith Theodoret, that it may be acceptable to as well as good 
for the hearers: see the note on Col. iii. 16. 

26 Ver. 30. Καὶ μὴ λυπεῖτε, And grieve not the Holy Spi- 
rit.| The Holy Spirit being a divine person, it is certain that 
he cannot properly be grieved or vexed as we are. We 
therefore must remove from this expression, when it is ap- 
plied to him, all turbulent motions, all real pain, disquiet, 
discontent, and look upon it as spoken ἀνϑρωποπαϑῶς, 1. e. 50 
as to intimate we do that to him, which, when it is done to 
men, creates grief to them. As (1.) when we refuse to 
hearken to his counsels, rebel against his government, and do 


* De Fratr. Amor. p. 488. 

+ Buxt. Floril. p. 135. 

+ Τὸ dé ληστεύειν παρ᾽ πολλοῖς τῶν βαρβαρων οὐκ ἄτοπον. Pyr. 
Hypot. lib. iii. cap. 34. Bessi, Coralli, Medi quidam ac 
Danthelite, πάντα ταῦτα ληστρικώτατα ἔϑνη. Strabo, lib. vii. 

§ ᾿Απὸ Εὐφράτου ποταμοῦ, καὶ μέχρι rod ὠκεανοῦ, ὡς ἐπὶ ἀνατολὰς, 
ὁ λοιδοροῦμενος ὡς κλέπτης οὐ πάνυ ἀγανακτεῖ. Apud Euseb. 
Prepar. Evan. lib. vi. cap. 10. 

|| Καλὸν οὖν ἐστιν, ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων κόπων, dv Θεὸς ἐπιχορηγεῖ, πᾶσιν 
| στερουμένοις παρέχειν ἁπλῶς. Lib. ii. Mand. 2, p. 45. 


G 
760 


by ye are sealed unto the day of redemption (i. 13, 14). 
31 (And to this end) Let all bitterness, and wrath, 


EPHESIANS. 


32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, 
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake 


and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put | hath forgiven you. 


away from you, with all malice : 


that which is opposite to his holy nature. (2.) He is said 
to be grieved, by a metonymy of the effect, when he acts so 
towards us, as men are wont to do when they are grieved 


by us, and displeased at us, withdrawing their wonted kind- 
ness, flying our company, and abandoning us to our ene- 
mies. 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Br ye therefore followers of (his love of ) God, as 
(becomes his) dear children ; 

2 And walk in love, as Christ also (hath given an 
example, who) hath loved us, and hath given himself 
for us 1 an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet- 
smelling savour. 

3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, cr covet-= 


ousness (inordinate desire), let it not be once named 
among you, (that you may walk) 2 as becometh saints ; 

4 Neither (Gr. xai, and let nol) * filthiness, nor 
(and) foolish talking, nor jesting, which are (things) 
not convenient (to your calling, be used among you): 
yeh iets (let your employment be that of) giving of 
thanks. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver, 2. Προσφορὰν καὶ ϑυσίαν, An offering and oblation.] 
That the death of Christ is here styled an oblation offered up 
to God for us, cannot be denied: but Crellius saith that the 
apostle speaks not here of an expiatory oblation; because 
the oblation here mentioned is said to be offered for a sweet- 
smelling savour, which phrase is scarce ever used concerning 
expiatory sacrifices, but chiefly of burnt-offerings, which were 
not of themselves expiatory, and are by Moses distinguished 
from sacrifices for sin. 

But (1.) that sacrifices of a sweet-smelling savour were 
used to make atonement for, and to expiate the sin of, men, 
is proved from the sacrifice of Noah: for, whereas in the 
Greek we read, that when that sacrifice was offered, God 
smelled ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας, “a sacrifice of a sweet savour ;” in the 
Hebrew he is said to smell τ) ΠῚ Ἢ nN “a savour of rest;” 
that is, which made God’s anger to rest, say the Jewish 
writers. Josephus* informs us, that Noah by this sacrifice 
“entreated that God would now be atoned, and would no 
more conceive such displeasure against the earth,” i. e. the 
inhabitants of it. And by the Syriac version it is rendered 
an “odour or placability,” because, as Vatablus and Munster 
on the place observe, God then ceased from his anger, and 
was appeased: so that the first time this phrase is used it is 
taken for an expiatory sacrifice, and is designed to appease 
the wrath of God. The sacrifices which Job offered for his 
sons and daughters, and for his three friends, were burnt- 
offerings, as the phrase my shows, and yet they were offered, 
the one to expiate for the sin of his children (Job i. 5), the 
other to appease the wrath of God kindled against his three 
friends (xlii. 7). Moreover, it is evident from scripture that 
this phrase ὑσμὴ εὐωδίας, “a sweet savour,” is used, not only 
of burnt-offerings, but of sacrifices for sin: thus, “If any 
people of the land sin through ignorance—when his sin comes 
to his knowledge,” the text saith, “he shall bring his offer- 
ing, a kid of the goats, a female without blemish, περὶ τῆς 
ἁμαρτίας a sacrifice for the sin he hath sinned, and the priest 
shall burn it upon the altar, εἰς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας, for a sweet 
savour to the Lord; and the priest shall make atonement for 
him, and it shall be forgiven him.” ‘To this importance of 
the phrase doth David manifestly allude, when he saith to 
Saul, “If the Lord hath stirred thee up against me, ὀσῴραν- 
Sein ἡ ϑυσία, let him smell an offering.” And when this 
ὑσμὴ εὐωδίας, “sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour” is applied 
to burnt-offerings, they are declared to be “favourably 
accepted, to make atonement for him that offers them.” This 
the son of Sirach seems plainly to say, of their sacrifices of 
sweet savour in the general, when he speaks thus of Aaron ;f 
“He chose him out of all the people to offer sacrifices to the 


* Τὐμενῶς οὖν αὐτὸν προσδέχεσϑαι τὴν θυσίαν παρεκάλει, καὶ 
μηδεμίαν ὀργὴν ἔτι τὴν γῆν ὁμοίαν λαβεῖν. Antiq. Jud. lib. i. 
cap. 4. 

tT Kat εὐωδίαν εἰς μνημόσυνον, ἐξιλάσκεσθαι περὶ τοῦ λαοῦ cov. 
Ecclus. xly. 16. 


Lord, incense and a sweet savour, for a memorial, to make a 
reconciliation for his people.” ‘Thus of the burnt-offerings in 
Leviticus it is said, that he that brings them “shall put his 
hand upon the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be ac- 
cepted for him to make atonement for him,” Lev. i.4. Now, 
as the Hebrew doctors* tell us, that this imposition of hands 
was always joined with confession of sins over the sacrifice, 
which confession still concluded with a prayer, that the sacri- 
fice might be an expiation for them: so the phrase, “It 
shall be accepted to make atonement for him,” Lev. xiv. 20, 
used here and elsewhere concerning holy things, is as much 
as is ever said of expiatory sacrifices: nor is it any objection 
to the contrary, that burnt-offerings are usually distinguished 
from sin-offerings; the reason of that being this, saith Ains- 
worth,t that burnt-offerings were for the atonement of 
general sins, and such as often were unknown to men, 
whereas for special sins there was appointed a special sacri- 
fice and sin-offering. This, saith Dr. Outram,+ was the 
opinion of the Jews, that burnt-offerings were intended for 
the expiation of sin. And this, saith Mr. Selden,§ was their 
practice, to offer these as expiatory Sacrifices for strangers. 

2 Ver. 3. Καϑὼς πρέπει ἁγίοις, As becometh saints.) Wor- 
thy of observation is the note of Jerome here, Ex quo sanctus 
non potest appellari, quicunque, extra fornicationem, in ali- 
qua immunditid, et avaritia voluptatum, qua se delectaverit, 
invenitur. 

3 Ver. 4.] That the words μωρολογία and εὐτραπελία, are 
to be interpreted to an impure sense, may probably be 
gathered from the words joined with them, fornication, un- 
cleanness, filthiness, and more probably from the reason 
rendered for the abandoning them all; viz. that “no forni- 
cator, or unclean person, hath any inheritance in the king- 
dom of God, or of Christ.’ Mwpodoyéa is in the rabbinical 
phrase, pp mi7a3, turpitudo oris, of which they|| proverbially 
say, 1D $33 52, Quicunque fcedé loquitur, perinde est ac si 
introduceret porcum in sanctuarium. To commit a3, 
“folly in Israel,” is to commit whoredom, or adultery: and 
the word by the Septuagint is sometimes rendered τὸ ἄσχημον, 
“indecency,” sometimes ἀφροσύνη, sometimes μωρία, “ folly,” 
and sometimes ἀκαϑαρσία, “filthiness.” And the soliciting 
a woman to fornication by filthy words is in the ‘l'argum ex- 
pressed thus, 533n xb, Non deturpabis verbum oris, “' Thou 
shalt not speak impurely with thy mouth, to cause thy flesh 
to sin,” Eccles. v. 6. 

EirpazeNia is by Suidas rendered μωρολογία, koupérns, “ Scur- 
rility, levity ;” by Phavorinus, Bwyodoxéa. Now βωμολόχος, 
is a filthy scurrilous man; and in Aristophanes, βωμολύχοις 
ἔπεσι χαίρειν, is “to be pleased with filthy scurrilous words.” 
Hence Cicumenius and Theophylact reckon them both as 
ὀχήματα τῆς πορνείας, the forerunners or incentives to forni- 


* Vide Outram, lib. i. cap. 15, 8. 8—11. 
+ In Lev. i. 4. + Ibid. 

§ De Jure Nat. et Gent. lib. 111. cap. 2, 6. 
|| Buxt. Lex. in voce 533. 


CHAPTER ν. 


5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor un- 
clean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, 
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of 
God (the Father). 

6 * Let no man deceive you with vain words (as if 
these things might be consistent with the favour of God) + 
for because of these things cometh the wrath of God 
upon the children of disobedience. 

7 Be not ye therefore partakers with them (in those 
sins). 

8 For ye were ὅ sometimes (children of) darkness, 
(being subject to those deeds of darkness, ii. 1—3, iv. 
18, 19,) but now are ye (children of the) light (by 
your faith) in the Lord: walk (therefore) as children 
of light: 

9 (For the fruit δ of the (Holy) Spirit (by which you 
are enlightened) is in all goodness and righteousness 
and truth ;) (and so instructs you to avoid these deeds of 
wickedness. 


761 


10 Walk then as children of the light ;) Proving (80- 
χιμάζοντες, approving) what is acceptable unto the Lord. 

11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works 
of darkness (committed by the heathens), but? rather re- 
prove them. 

12 (They being such as deserve to be reproved ;) For it 
is a shame even to speak of those things which are 
§ done of them in secret. 

13 But all things that are reproved are made ma- 
nifest by the light (or being discovered by the light are 
made manifest) : for whatsoever doth make (any thing) 
manifest is light. 

14 Wherefore (to show that Christians are light, and 
so obliged to avoid the works of darkness) 5 he (the Lord) 
saith (to those gentiles who are yet in darkness), Awake 
thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
shall give thee light. 

15 See then that ye walk cireumspectly (or how ex- 
actly you walk), not as fools (running yourselves into 


As for the word πλεονεξία, that it hath sometimes an im- 
pure sense, see note on 1 Thess. iv. 6; though being here 
styled “idolatry,” it seems more naturally to relate to the 
love of riches, which renders us most truly guilty of that sin: 
though it be also true that he who loveth pleasures more 
than God is guilty of that sin, and this impurity was a fre- 
quent and almost general appendix of idol-worship. 

That the Ephesians stood in need of these instructions we 
learn from Democritus Ephesius,* who, speaking of the tem- 
ple of the Ephesian Diana, hath much περὶ τῆς χλιδῆς αὐτῶν, 
“of the softness and luxury of the Ephesians ;” and from 
Euacles in his book de Ephesiacis,f who saith, ἐν 'Epéow ἱερὰ 
ἱδρύσασϑαι éraipa ᾿Αφροδίτη, “In Ephesus they built temples 
to Venus, the mistress of the whores ;” and from Strabo, who 
informs us that “in their ancient temples there were old 
images, but in their new σκολιὰ ἔργα, vile works were done,” 
lib. xiv. p. 640. 

4 Ver. 6. Μηδεὶς ἀπατάτω, Left no man deceive you.) 
Among the heathens, simple fornication was held a thing in- 
different; the laws allowed and provided for it in many 
nations; whence the grave Epictetus counsels his scholars, 
“only to whore, ὡς νόμιμον ἔστι, according to law:” and in 
all places they connived atit. “He that blames young men 
for their meretricious amours,” saith Cicero,§ “ does what is 
repugnant to the custom and concessions of our ancestors, for 
when was not this done? when was it not permitted?” This 
was suitable both to the principles and practices of many of 
their grave philosophers, especially of the stoics,| who held 
it “lawful for others to use whores, and for them to get their 
living by such practices.” Hence even in the church of 
Corinth some had taught this doctrine (see note on 1 Cor. 
vi. 13). 

5 Ver 8. Tore σκότος, Sometimes darkness.] hat the state 
of the gentile world, both in the Old and the New ‘Testament, 
is represented by a state of darkness, and that of Christians 
by a state of light, see note on Rom. xiii. 12. 

6 Ver. 9. Tod Πνεύματος, Of the Spirit.) Many Greek 
copies, and all the Latin and the Syriac, read τοῦ φωτὸς, “ the 
fruits of the light,” with which you are enlightened ; and so 
doth Jerome here, taking no notice of the other reading. 

7 Ver. 11. ᾿Ελέγχετε. Reprove them, make them ashamed 
of them, by bringing them to the light, ἐλέγχειν yap ἀντὶ τοῦ 
αἱσχῦνειν, ἐλέγχω, τὸ κεκρυμμένον ἀτύπημά τινος εἰς φῶς ἄγω. 
Phavorinus. 

8 Ver. 12. Ta κρυφῆ γινόμενα, Done of them in secret.) 
In their mysteries, which therefore were styted ἀπόῤῥητα 


* Atheneus. lib. xil. p. 585. 

f Idem, lib. xiii. p. 573. + Enchir. cap. 47. 

§ Abhorret non modo ἃ licentia hujus seculi, verim 
etiam ἃ majorum consuetudine atque concessis: quando 
enim hoc non factum est? quando non permissum ? quando 
reprehensum? quando denique fuit ut quod licet non lice- 
ret? Orat. pro Coelio, p. 533. n. 37. 

ἢ Καὶ τοὺς στωϊκοὺς δὲ ὁρῶμεν, οὐκ ἄτοπον εἶναι λέγοντας τὸ 
ἑταίρα συνοικεῖν, ἢ τὸ ἐξ ἑταίρας ἐργαζίας διαζῆν. Sext. Empir. 
Pyr. Hypot. lib. iii, cap. 24. 

Vor. 1V.—96 


μυστήρια, none being permitted to divulge them upon pain 
of death. Hence even the word μυστήριον hath its name, 
say grammarians, from μύειν τὸ στόμα, “to stop the mouth.” 
The Eleusinia Sacra were performed in the night, agreeably 
to the deeds of darkness committed in them; so were the 
Bacchanalia, hence called Nyctelia ; and they were both full 
of detestable iniquity ; and upon that account, saith Livy,* 
were banished by the Roman senate out of Rome and Italy : 
ἀκόλουθα yap τῷ διόνυσιακῷ πότῳ τὰ ἀφροδίσια, “ lust being ἃ con- 
sequent on the bacchanalia,” says the scholiast} on Aristo- 
phanes. Hence is that of Aristippus,{ ἐν βακχεύμασιν οὖσ᾽ 
ἡ σώφρων ob διαφθερήσεται, A chaste woman will not be cor- 
rupted at the bacchanalia :’”’ and those precepts, that a mar- 
ried woman should abstain§ τοῖς ὀργιασμοῖς καὶ parpwopots, 
“from the feasts of Bacchus, and the mother of the gods,” 
because they tended to drunkenness, and the corrupting of 
chaste women. 

9 Ver. 14. Aéye, He saith.] Epiphanius| saith these words 
were spoken by Elias; and Georgius Syncellus,{ that they 
were taken from the apocryphal books of Jeremiah; others 
think they are cited from Isa. Ix. 1. 19, 22, « Awake, thou 
that sleepest, and arise from the dead, καὶ ἐπιφαύσει cor ὃ 
Χριστὸς, and Christ shall enlighten thee, or shine upon thee :” 
and yet our translation, that « Christ shall give thee life,” is 
very justifiable; as giving the true sense of the metaphor: so 
Ps, xiii. 14, “« Lighten my eyes, that I sleep not in death,” 
i. e. preserve my life: Prov. xxix. 13, «The poor and rich 
meet together, the Lord enlighteneth both their eyes” (see 
Job iii. 20, xxxiii. 30), Mr. Dodwell, citing these words, 
saith, “ Christ shall give thee light, is the same with the 
immortal light ; and this is an address to the dead, who are 
frequently said to sleep, in the prophetic style of the New 
Testament; and the light seems to allude to the baptismal 
illumination of the Spirit, upon owning of the true faith :” 
but as in this he is singular, and hath not one authority, 
ancient or modern, agreeing with him in this interpretation, 
or to the application of it to Christ preaching to the dead 
in hades, and baptizing them; St. Chrysostom, ‘lheodoret, 
Photius, and Theophylact, among the Greek interpreters, 
Ambrose, or Hilary the deacon, and St. Jerome among the 
Latins, all saying positively, that the words are to be under- 
stood metaphorically of a sleep, and death in trespasses and 
sins; so is it also evident, that the words cannot bear this 
sense: for, 

First, If “they that sleep,” here signifies literally those 
whose bodies sleep in the grave, the address to them to rise 
from the dead, must be an address to their bodies to rise 
from the grave; and so they must be first raised from the 
dead before Christ gives them light. 

Secondly, To “ sleep,” when it is used to signify death, in 
the New Testament, always relates to the body sleeping in 


* Lib. Ixxxix. dec. 4. 

+ Apud Stob. Serm. v. p. 66. 

§ Ibid. Serm. 72. p. 444, 445. 

| Her. xlii. p. 372. 

4 Non posse suaviter vivi. Secunp. Epic. p. 1101, F 
302 


} Aristoph. p. 384, 
~ 


762 


unnecessary dangers, by an indiscreet zeal), but as wise 
(lo manage your affairs so as to avoid them by all lawful 
means), 

16 Redeeming the time (z. e. using all prudent 
means to prolong your lives), because the days (in 
which you live) are evil (and therefore perilous, and 
such as will require much wisdom to preserve you from 
dangers). 

17 Wherefore be ye not unwise (in managing this 
and other affairs), but (act as) understanding what the 
will of the Lord zs (viz. that in such cases he requires you 
to be as wise as serpents, and not to cast pearls before 


EPHESIANS. 


swine who will tear you from them ; and sembably not to 
sacrifice your lives by an indiscreet zeal in discovering 
those mysteries, but to show the vileness of them with such 
prudence as may preserve you from perishing by the dis- 
covery). 

18 11 And be not drunk with wine (as the heathens 
use to be in the festivals of their gods, and especially 
in their bacchanalia), * wherein is excess (Gr. ἀσωτίαν 
dissoluteness) ; but be (ye) filled with the (Holy) Spirit 
(as Christians use to be in their assemblies: see Prov. 
xxiii, 30, xx. 1)5 

19 Speaking to yourselves 13 in psalms and hymns 


the grave, or in the dust, as John v. 28, 29, 1 Cor. xi. 30, 
xv. 20. 51, 1 Thess. iv. 14, v. 10, and never to the soul in 
hades, or to the spirits in prison there: for, as Jerome notes 
on the place, spirittis mortem nunquam legimus ; “ we never 
read in scripture of the death of the spirit” in the literal 
sense. And, 

Thirdly, The preceding verses plainly show, that the 
apostle introduceth these words as a call to the gentiles, 
sitting in darkness, to awake out of their sleep in sin, their 
death in trespasses and sins (ii. 1.5), that they might enjoy 
the light of Christ’s gospel: for, saith he, ver. 8, “« Ye were 
once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk as 
children of the light, and have no fellowship with the un- 
fruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them,” ver. 11, 
which you, who are “children of the light, and on whom 
God hath shined to give the light of the glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ”? (2 Cor. iv. 6), may do; “for all that 
maketh manifest is light,” ver. 13. Whereforé, λέγει, “ the 
scripture saith” to those gentiles who are yet in darkness, 
« Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and 
Christ shall give thee light :” so again, 1 Thess. v. 5, 6, « Ye 
are the children of the light, and of the day, not of the 
night, nor of darkness; therefore let us not sleep as others 
do” (see the note on Rom. xiii. 12). So Clemens Alexan- 
drinus,* in his exhortation to the Gentiles, saith, ἀφυπνίζει γε 
τοι, καὶ τοῦ σκότους αὐτοῦ τοὺς πεπλανημένους ἀνίστησιν, “He, 
by his exhortation, raises out of sleep those that erred in 
and through darkness.” See also the reading of the text 
confirmed, Examen Millii in locum. 

10 Ver. 16. ᾿Εξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρὸν, Redeeming the time.] 
Here note, 

First, That the times of peril and trouble are styled “ evil 
days:” in this sense Jacob saith, his days were “ evil,” zovn- 
pai ἡμέραι, by reason of the troubles he met with from Laban 
and his brother Esau, Gen. xlvii. 9; the psalmist, that the 
righteous shall not be ashamed, ἐν καιρῷ πονηρῷ, “in the evil 
day,” Ixxvii. 19; the wise man shall be silent, saith Amos, 
in that time, for it is, καιρὸς πονηρὸς, “an evil time,” v. 13; 
i. e. “a time of lamentation,” ver. 16, “ of darkness,” ver. 
18; and that is by the prophet Micah styled, ὃ καιρὸς πονηρὺς, 
“an evil time,” Micah ii. 2, which brought those judgments 
on them which they could not escape. And in the close of 
this epistle, to stand ἐν τῇ ἡμέρα τῆ πονηρᾷ, is to stand in the 
times of fiery trials and severe persecutions, by the instru- 
ments of Satan, vi. 13. 

᾿Εζαγοράζειν τὸν καιρὸν, To redeem the time,| Is, by all 
honest ways and prudent methods, to endeavour to avoid 
the dangers, and to escape the persecutions, to which these 
perilous times may render us obnoxious. So when king 
Nebuchadnezzar had threatened that the Chaldeans and 
magicians should be cut in pieces, if they declared not his 
dream, and they still put him off with this answer, “ Let the 
king tell the dream, and we will tell him the interpreta- 
tion:” the king replies, “Of a truth I know, ὅτι καιρὸν ὑμεῖς 
ἐζαγοράζετε, that you would gain the time;” i. e. you hope 
by these answers to delay the time of your punishment, and 
to contrive some way to escape it. So the scholiast upon 
the place expounds it, καιρὸν ὑμεῖς ἀγομάζετε, τουτέστιν ὑπέρ- 
θεσιν ϑερᾶσθε διασκεδάσαι τῇ ἀναβολὴ τοῦ καιροῦ σκωτιοῦντες τὸ 
zap’ ὑμῶν ζητούμενον, “Ὑοα hunt after delays; seeking, by 
the protracting of the time, to make me forget what I asked 
of you:” and Theodoret expounds it thus; «You prolong 
the time, τῆς ἐκβάσεως τὸν καιρὸν ἀναμένοντες, hoping for time 
to escape:” so also, Col. iv. 5, “« Walk in wisdom towards 


* P. 54, 


those that are without,” 1. 6. your heathen governors and 
magistrates, “redeeming the time;” i. e. endeavouring, by 
all Christian prudence, to avoid the calamities they are still 
ready to bring upon you, answering them with as much 
wisdom and gentleness of speech as you are able; for, walk- 
ing among wolves, it concerns you to be “ wise as serpents.” 
And though it may be so pertinent to this text, yet will it 
be very profitable to the men of this age to consider the 
practice of the heathen in this case: for Mlian* informs us 
of the Lacedemonians, that they were much concerned that 
men should spend their time well, ταμιεύμενοι πανταχύθεν εἰς 
ἐπειγόμενα, “ employing it still upon urgent business, and suf; 
fering no man either to be idle, or to employ himself about 
trifles, ὡς ἂν μὴ πρὸς τὰ ἔξω τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀναλισκόμενος, 50 that 
he might employ his whole time in virtuous actions:” and 
Stobeusf saith that the Lucani, a people of Italy, and the 
Athenians, punished those that were idle as well as those 
that were guilty, ἄλλου τινὸς ἀδικήματος, of any other crime. 
And seeing time is a talent given us by that God in whose 
hand our lives are, it must be given us for some good 
end, and must be misspent when it is not employed to 
such ends. 

" Ver. 18, Μὴ μεθύσκεσϑε οἴνω, Be not drunk with wine.j 
The heathens, who held drunkenness unlawful at other 
times, thought it a duty at the solemnity of Bacchus, and 
of other gods. Plato saith, that «no man should be allowed 
to be drunk, but at the solemnities of the god that gave 
them wine.” And when Megillus, the Lacedemonian, had 
told the Athenians that he saw their whole cities drunk at 
the solemnities of Bacchus, and that the inhabitants of 
Tarentum did the same, “Marvel not at that,” saith the 
Athenian, “for the law with us requires it :”+ and Plutarch 
saith, that ὀργιάζοντες ἢ ϑυσίαις πάροντες, ἣ τελεταῖς, “ when 
they celebrated the orgia of Bacchus, or were present at 
their sacrifices or sacred mysteries, they allowed themselves 
to be delighted, μέχρι μέϑης, even to drunkenness.” This 
was the usual appendix of their sacrifices, they thinking 
this a duty, saith Atheneus,§ in the service of their gods. 
Hence Aristotle and others say, that drunkenness had its 
name from the intemperance they used after they had 
offered sacrifice. 

2 Ἔν ᾧ ἔστιν dcwria, In which is excess.] That dcwria 
signifies luxury, is proved from the prodigal, of whom it 
being said, that he lived ἀσώτως, Luke xv. 13, this is inter- 
preted, ver. 30, by “ devouring his living with harlots ;” and 
from Hesychius, who interprets ἀσώτως by the word αἰσχρῶς, 
“filthily.” Phavorinus saith, the ἄσωτος is the ἀκύλαστος, 
ἀσελγὴς, “lustful and unchaste person;” and hence ἀσώτιον 
signifies a stew, or brothel-house. Now that this drunken- 
ness ministers to this lasciviousness, as the poets often 
teach, so the practice and experience of the heathens found 
it true, their compotation and banquetings seldom con- 
cluding without the introduction of lewd women, and their 
bacchanalia ending in whoredom and adultery, ἀκόλαστον 
οἶνος, Prov. xx. 1. 

18 Ver. 19. ¥adyots καὶ ὕμνοις, In psalms and hymns, 


* Var. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 5. + Serm. 42. p. 291. 

¢ Πίνειν δὲ εἰς μέθην οὔτε ἄλλοθί που πρέπει πλὴν Ev ταῖς τοῦ τὸν 
οἶνον δόντος Θεοῦ évprats. De Leg. lib. vi. p. 870, F. Mi 
ϑαύμαζε, ὦ ξένε, νόμος ἐσϑ' ἡμῖν οὗτος. Ibid. lib. i. 777. 

§ Σέλευκος δὲ φησὶ τὸ παλαιὸν οὐκ εἶναι ἔθος οὔτ᾽ οἶνον, obr’ ἄλλην 
ἡδυπάθειαν προσφέρεσθαι, μὴ θεῶν ἕνεκα τοῦτο ὁρῶντας, διὸ καὶ Boivas, 
καὶ θαλίας, καὶ μέϑας ὠνύμαζον, τὰς μὲν διὰ θεοὺς οἱνοῦσθαι ὑπελάμ- 
Bavov- τὸ δὲ μεϑύειν φησὶ ᾿Αριστοτελὴς τὸ μετὰ ϑύειν χρῆσϑαι, 


Athen. lib. ii. p. 40, C. 


CHAPTER V. 


and spiritual songs (pots which the Christians were 


inspired in their assemblies, 1 Cor. xiv. 15, 26), singing | 


(them with the mouth) and (also) making melody in 
your heart to the Lord ; 

20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God 
and (or, who zs) the Father (of us all, iv. 6) in the name 
of our Lord Jesus Christ; 

21 Submitting yourselves one to another (accord- 
ing ἰο the divine ordinance) in the fear of God (who is 
the author of that order. 

22 And therefore) Wives, submit yourselves unto 
your own husbands, as unto the (ordinance of the) 

ord Ge husband of his spouse the church). 

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as 
Christ is the head of the church: and (this) he is (as 
being) the saviour of the body. 

24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, 
so let the wives be to their own husbands in every 
(lawful) thing. 

25 (4nd ye) Husbands, (also, see that you) love your 
wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave 
himself (up to the death) for it; 

26 That he might sanctify (or consecrate and fit it 


763 


| for his service) and cleanse it (Gr. having cleansed it) 
with the washing of water (7. e. by that baptism which 
is the laver of regeneration, Tit. ili. 5, and) % by the 
word (of his grace, which is able to sanctify us, Acts xx. 
32, John xvil. 17), 

27 That (so) he might present it to himself a glo- 
rious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any 
| such thing; but that it should be holy and without 
blemish, 

28 So ought men to love their wives " as their own 
bodies (they two being made one flesh ; so that) he that 
loveth his wife loveth himself. 

29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but 
nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as (doth) the Lord 
the church (which ts his spouse) : 

30 For we are members of his body, 18 of his flesh, 
and of his bones. 

31 For this cause (was it said at the production of 
Eve, and her being given for a meel-help to Adam, Gen. 
11. 24, fa) shall a man leave his father and mother, 
19 and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall 
be one flesh. 

32 30 This is a great mystery : but (when I represent 


τ 
ἄχο.7 In their bacchanalia they sung their drunken hymns 
to Bacchus, saying, εὐοῖ Σαβοῖ, εὐοῖ Baxx?, and had their 
φαλλικὰ ἄσματα. In opposition to which drunken and im- 
pure songs, the apostle here exhorts the Christians to sing 
the psalms of David, or the hymns composed by spiritual 
men, such as Zacharias and Simeon, or by the afllatus of the 
Spirit vouchsafed unto them, 1 Cor. xiv. 15. Jerome here 
saith, Canere igitur et psallere, magis animo quam voce de- 
bemus, hoc est, quippe quod dicitur ‘ cantantes, et psallentes 
in cordibus vestribus Domino.’ Audiant hee adolescentuli, 
audiant hi, quibus psallendi in ecclesia officium est, Deo non 
voce sed corde cantandum, nec trageedorum ad modum gut- 
tur et fauces dulci medicamine colliniendas, ut in ecclesid 
theatrales moduli audiantur, et cantica, sed in timore, in 
opere, in scientid scripturarum ; which shows that choristers, 
or choir-men, had then obtained an office in the church, 
though he seems not much to approve them. 

4 Ver. 20. Πάντοτε, Always.] See note on 1 Thess. v. 17; 
ὑπὲρ πάντων, “for all things;” for his sparing mercies, Ps. 
ciii. 3, 4, his preventing mercies, Eph. i. 4, Tit. i. 2, his 
distinguishing and peculiar mercies, Heb. ii. 16, for his com- 
mon mercies and benefits bestowed daily upon us, as well 
as his extraordinary favours; for past mercies to be cele- 
brated by annual festivals, Exod. xii. 14. 17. 24, Lev. xxiii. 
21, for the mercies we hope for, 1 Pet. i. 3, 4, for adverse as 
well as prosperous events, blessing him who doth thus give 
us warning, Ps. xvi. 17, but chiefly for spiritual blessings. 

6 Ver. 26. Ἔν ῥήματι, By the word.] That is, saith Chry- 
sostom, by the words used in the form of baptism; to wit, 


+] baptize thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy | 


Ghost.” 

16 Ver. 27. Mi ἔχουσαν σπίλον, ἢ ῥυτίδα, Not having spot 
or wrinkle.| This seems to refer to the accuracy of the 
Jewish baptism, who thought not the person well baptized, 
if there were any wrinkle which kept the flesh from the 


water, or any spot or dirt which was not thoroughly washed | 


by it. And thus the church is cleansed at present from the 
guilt of sin by the blood of Christ, 1 John i. 7, 2 Cor. xi. 2, 
Col. i. 22. 

7 Ver. 28. 'ῶς ἑαυτῶν σώματα, As their own bodies.) The 
Jews say, “ He that loveth his wife as his own body, and 
honoureth her more than his own body, of him the scrip- 
ture saith, Peace shall be in his tabernacle, and he shall 
visit his tabernacle, and shall not sin” (‘l'almud. Sanh. fol. 
76, 2). 


8 Ver. 30. Ἔκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ. Ὁ 


Of his flesh, and of his bones.] This phrase being not only | 


used to express an intimate relation, Gen. xxix. 14, Judg. 
ix. 2, but being the very words which Adam used concern- 
ing Eve, made out of his rib, Gen. ii. 23, shows that the 
apostle had his eye upon the mystical sense of the produc- 
tion of the woman from the man, of which the Jews speak. 

19 Ver. 31. Kai προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ. 


Jerome being an enemy to wedlock, insinuates that these 
words are an addition to the text; but the contrary is evident, 
they being found in all versions, all the Greek scholiasts, in 
the Codex Alex., and Hilary the deacon. 

20 Ver. 32. Τό μυστήριον τοῦτο μέγα ἐστὶν, This ts a great 
mystery.| He doth not say as Mr. Clerc interprets the words, 
« But I speak concerning the love of Christ to his church ν᾽" 
nor was that any mystery at all, as being long ago revealed, 
and a thing known to all Christians. But this was indeeda 
mystery, till the apostle here revealed it to the Ephesians, 
that, as the learned Dr. Allix* saith, “The first match be- 
tween Adam and Eve was a type of that between Christ 
and his church; and in this,” saith he, “the apostle followed 
the Jewish notions; for the Jews say,t according to Voisin, 
‘The mystery of Adam is the mystery of Messiah,’ who 
is the bridegroom of the church.” These two great persons, 
therefore, confirm the observation of Munster, that “ the 
creation of the woman from the rib of the man, was made 
by the Jews to signify the marriage of the celestial man, 
who is blessed, or of the Messiah, with the church ;’ whence 
the apostle applies the very words which Adam said con- 
cerning Eve his spouse, to those Christians, who are the 
| spouse of Christ, saying, “ We are members of his body, of 
his flesh, and of his bones,” ver. 30. For the fuller expli- 
cation of these words, note from the bishop of Ely,+ «that 
the profoundest of the Hebrew divines, whom they now call 
cabbalists, having such a notion as this among them, that 
sensible things are but an imitation of things above, con- 
ceived from thence, that there was an original pattern of love 
and union, which is between a man and his wife in this 
world; this being expressed by the kindness of Tipheret and 
Malcuth, which are the names they give to the invisible 
bridegroom and bride in the upper world ; and this Tipheret, 
or the great Adam, in opposition to the terrestrial and little 
| Adam here below; as Malcuth (i. e. the kingdom) they call 
also by the name of cheneseth Israel, ‘the congregation of 
Israel,’ who is united, say they, to ‘the celestial Adam,’ as 
Eve was to the terrestrial. So that, in sum, they seem to 
say the same that the apostle doth, when he tells us that 
‘marriage is a great mystery; but he speaks concerning 
Christ and his church: for the marriage of Tipheret and 
Malcuth, or cheneseth Israel, is the marriage of Christ, the 
| Lord from heaven, with his spouse the church, which is the 
| conjunction of Adam and Eve, and of all other men and 
| women descended from them.” Origen§ seems to have had 
some notice of the relation this passage had to Adam and 
Eve, when he speaks thus, “If any man deride us for using 
| the example of Adam and Eve, in these words, ‘« And Adam 


* The Judgment of the Jewish Church 
{ Tzeror. Hamor. SS. Berischitz, 

+ Preface to the Canticles, ii. 4. 

§ Com. in Joh. p. 264. 


164 . 
it as such) I speak (chiefly of the mystical sense of it) 
concerning Christ and the church. 

33 Nevertheless (on the other account also) let every 


EPHESIANS. 


one of you in particular so love his wite even as him- 
self; and (/el) the wife see that she reverence her 
husband. 


knew his wife,’ when we treat of the knowledge of God, let 
him consider these words, ‘ This is a great mystery.’” 'Ter- 
tullian frequently alludes to the same thing, saying, This is 
a great sacrament, carnalitér in Adam, spiritualitér in 
Christo, propter spirituales nuptias Christi et ecclesie ; ἐς car- 


nally in Adam, spiritually in Christ, by reason of the spiri- 
tual marriage betwixt him and his church” (Exhort. ad 
Castitat. lib. v. p. 521; de Anima, cap. 11, 12; et adv. 
Marcion. lib. iii. cap. 5). 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 Cuitpren, obey your parents ' in (compliance 
wilh the commandment of) the Lord: for this is right 
ed you should yield obedience to them who gave you 
ife. 

2 For) Honour thy father and mother (with reve- 
vence, obedience, and maintenance, saith the fifth command- 
ment) ; which is the first commandment (in the deca- 
logue) 5 with (a) promise (anneed to it ; 

3 5 And the promise is this,) That it may be well 
with. thee, and (‘hat) thou mayest live long on the 
earth. 

4 And, ye fathers, provoke 4 not your children to 
wrath (by severe treatment und rigid injunctions: see 
Col. iii. 21): but (rather) § bring them up in the nur- 
ture and admonition of the Lord (instructing them in 
the principles of piety towards God, and faith in our 
Lord Jesus). 

5 Servants, be obedient to them that are your mas- 


ters (though they be only so) according to the flesh (the’ 


spirit being immediately subject to God alone), with fear 
(of displeasing them) and trembling (Jest you justly 
should incur their anger, serving them) in singleness of 
your heart, as (Anowing that in thus serving them, you 
do service) unto Christ (who requires this of you; whose 
gospel you will credit by your sincere obedience to your 
masters for his sake, Tit. ii. 2, and whose doctrine you 
will blaspheme by your disobedience, under pretence of any 
Christian liberty from the observance of your duty to them, 
ΤΠ η: νἱ 1 9 

6 Serve them therefore) Not with eyeservice (and 
whilst they behold you), as menpleasers (use to do) ; but 
as (becomes) the servants of Christ, (in this relation) 


doing the will of God (who requires this obedience to 
them, 1 Pet. ii. 18—20) from the heart; 

7 With good will doing (them) service, as (consi- 
dering you do il) to the Lord (himse/f), and not to men 

only) : 
: aa (end) Beewing that whatsoever good thing any 
man doeth (out of obedience to the Lord, a reward of ) the 
same shall he receive ® of the Lord, whether he be (a) 
bond (man) or free. 

9 And, ye masters, do the same things απο them 
(show the like good-will to and concern for them), forbear- 
ing threatening (Gr. ἀνιέντες, remitting oft the evils 
which you threaten to them): 7 knowing that your Mas- 
ter also is in heaven; neither is there respect of per- 
sons (or condilions) with him. 

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, 
and in the power of his might. 

11 (And to this end) Put on the whole armour of 
God, that ye may be able to stand (your ground) 
against 5 the wiles of the devil. 

12 For we wrestle not (on/y) against flesh and 
blood (7. 6. men who are compounded of them, see note 
on Gal. i. 16), but (also) against (evi/ ) principalities, 
against powers (such as Christ triumphed over, Col. 
ii. 15), against the rulers of the darkness of this world 
(i. δ. those evil spirits which still rule in those heathen 
nations which are yet in darkness, v. 8, 1 Thess. v. 5, 
see note on Rom. xiii. 12), against spiritual wicked- 
ness in high places (7. e. against those evil spirits which 
have their stalions in the regions of the air: see note on 
ii. 2). 

13 Wherefore (7 again exhort you to) take unto you 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἐν Κυρίῳ, In the Lord.] That is, say Gicume- 
nius and Theophylact, as far as their commandments are 
consistent with the will of God. 

2 Ver. 2. Ἔν ἐπαγγελίᾳ, With the promise.] i. e. A special 
promise; for that which is annexed to the second com- 
mandment, is rather a general assertion than a special pro- 
mise. 

3 Ver. 3.] The apostle doth not add these words, “Which 
the Lord giveth thee;” because they particularly belonged 
to the Israelites, who were to be excluded from their own 
land, and he would give them no ground to think they should 
continue in it. Note also hence, that the gospel hath its 
temporal promises as well as spiritual, Matt. vi. 33, 1 Tim. 
iv. 8, 1 Pet. iii. 1O—12. That this promise did not at all 
concern the Ephesians, is Mr. Clere’s mistake; for God is 
not the God of the Jews only, but also of the gentiles, and 
will reward moral duties performed by them as well as by 
the Jews. 

4 Ver. 4. Provoke not your children to anger.] By disin- 
heriting them, by laying heavy burdens upon them, and using 
them rather as slaves than sons, but “bring them up in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord.” For it is not, saith 
Aristides, a thing of a small consideration, what principles 
are put into them in their youth; but it is, τὸ πᾶν, the foun- 
dation of all they do hereafter. “And if lovers of horses, 
birds and dogs, are careful of their education; is it not just,” 


saith Chrysostom, ‘that Christians should be more careful of 
the education of their children?” especially if they consider, 
that upon this education depends much their eternal state ; 
and that they will contract the guilt of their eternal ruin, 
who neglect this duty. 

5 ᾿Βντρέρετε, Bring them up in the nurture.] This, saith 
(&cumenius, is the way to make them obedient; and if you 
furnish them with spirituals, temporal things will follow: 
« Make them read the scriptures,” saith Theophylact, “which 
is the duty of all Christians ; for is it not a shame to instruct 
them in heathen authors, whence they may learn bad things, 
and not to instruct them in the oracles of God ?” 

6 Ver. 8. The same shall he receive of the Lord.] So that 
though he be not rewarded for the good he doth by his 
earthly and unbelieving master, he will, most certainly, be 
recompensed by his Lord Christ. ; 

7 Ver. 9. Eidéres, Knowing.] (1.) That you with respect 
to God are servants, and that as you mete to your servants 
he will mete to you. (2.) That his compassion and readi- 
ness to forgive your trespasses should make you also ready 
to remit the trespasses of your servants. (3.) That the re- 
lation of servants doth not make God less ready to show 
kindness to them, and own them as his children, and therefore 
should not induce us to despise and deal severely with them. 

8 Ver. 11. Τὰς μεθοδείας, The wiles.) That is, saith Pha- 
vorinus, ἐπιβουλὰς, ἐνέδρας, δόλους, the deceits he puts upon us, 
the snares he lays for us, the machinations he contrives 
against us. 


CHAPTER VI. 


®the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to 
withstand (these dangerous enemies) in the evil day (of 
trial, persecution, and temptation), and having done all, 
to stand (firm against them). 

14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about 
% with truth, and having on the breastplate of righte- 
ousness ; 

15 "And your feet shod with the preparation of 
the gospel of peace ; 

16 Above all (the rest), taking 15 the shield of faith, 
wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery 
darts of the wicked ee 

17 And take the "3 helmet of salvation (fur α hel- 
met the hope of salvation, 1 Thess. v. 8), and the sword 
of the Spirit, which is the word of God (by hiding 


765 


to others beng a means to procure God’s favour to your- 
selves) ; 

12 and for me (in particular), “ that (a door of) 
utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my 
mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the 
gospel, 

20 For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that 


, therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. 


21 But (and) that ye also may know my affairs, 
and how I do (at Rome), Tychicus, a beloved brother 
and faithful minister in (the things of ) the Lord, shall 
make known to you all things: 

22 Whom I have sent unto you for the same pur- 
pose, that ye might know our affairs, and ‘hat he 
might comfort your hearts. 

23 Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, 
from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

24 Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus 
Christ in sincerity. Amen. 


4 Written from Rome unto the Ephesians by Ty- 
chicus. 


9 Ver.13. Τὴν πανοπλίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, The whole armour of 
God,] Here, and ver. 10, 11, which makes us “strong in the 
Lord, and in the power of his might,” consists of such 
things as either are in us, as truth, faith, righteousness, peace, 
the hopes of salvation ; or are to be used by us, as prayer, and 
attendance on the word of God; and not in any immediate 
influx of the power of God without the use of these. Yea, 
this is here styled, “the whole armour of God,” nothing 
more being requisite to enable us to come off victors in this 
combat; so that in these things doth consist the power of 
his might; or by these it is certainly to be obtained. 

That “the evil day” is the day of trial, and persecution, 
see note on v. 16. 

10 Ver. 14. Ἔν ἀληθεία, With truth.) That the gospel is 
throughout the epistles emphatically styled “the truth,” see 
note on Rom. ii. 8. And this seems to be the truth here 
mentioned, viz. a full persuasion of the truth of that reli- 
gion we profess, or that steadfastness in the faith, by which 
we are enabled to resist the roaring lion (1 Pet. v. 8, 9, see 
1 Thess. iii. 5, James i. 6). The “breast-plate of righteous- 
ness” is an exact observance of our duty to God, and a 
righteous deportment towards men, in all the offices of jus- 
tice, truth, and charity, which will beget in us that good 
conscience which will support us in the day of temptation, 
and procure honour and esteem, love and compassion, from 
men. The phrase is taken from Isaiah lix. 18. 

N Ver. 15. Ὑποδησάμενοι τοὺς πόδας, And your feet shod, 
&c.] For explication of this phrase observe, first, that shoes 
were anciently a part of military armour; for in the story 
of Goliath there is mention of his “greaves of brass upon 
his legs” (1 Sam. xvii. 6), and in the story of the Trojan 
wars, χαλκοκνημίδες ᾽Αχαιοὶ, “the Grecians which were shod 
with greaves of brass,’ are the armed Grecians. Note, 
secondly, that to “be shod” doth signify our- being ready 
for the work we go about: thus the Israelites were com- 
manded to eat the passover “shod,” i. e. ready for their 
journey out of Egypt: and the apostles are required to be 
“shod with sandals,” that they might be ready to go whither 
their Master should be pleased to send them (Mark vi. 8). 
«The gospel of peace” is either that gospel which proclaims 
peace with God, through faith in Christ, or which lays upon 
us the highest obligations to live peaceably with all men: so 
that the meaning of these words seems to be this, That ye 
miay be ready for the combat, be ye shod with the gospel of 
peace, i. e. endeavour after that peaceable and quiet mind 


the gospel calls for; be not easily provoked or prone to 
quarrel, but show all gentleness and long-suffering to all men; 
and this will as certainly preserve you from many great 
temptations and persecutions, as did those shoes of brass the 
soldiers from those sharp sticks and gall-traps, which were 
wont to be laid privily in the ways, to obstruct the marching 
of the enemy. 

12 Ver. 16. Τὸν θυρεὸν τῆς πίστεως, The shield of faith.) 
That faith which is the confident “expectation of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. xi. 1,) “ for 
this is the victory over the world, even our faith” (1 John 
v. 5). 

> Ver, 17. Τὴν περικεφαλαίαν τοῦ σωτηρίου, The helmet of 
salvation.] i. e. We must be well assured, that if we “ fight 
the good fight of faith,” there will be “laid up for us an im- 
mortal crown of glory, which God the righteous judge will 
give us” ( 2 Tim. iv. 8): that he who cannot lie, hath pro- 
mised “to him that overcometh, to eat of the tree of life” (Rev. 
ii. 7), to taste “ the hidden manna” (ver. 17), to be “a pillar” 
in the new Jerusalem (Rev. iii. 12): that you strive and 
fight for “an incorruptible crown” that fadeth not away - 
(1 Cor. ix. 25): and this hope will be as a helmet to defend 
your heads from all the strokes of a temptation. This in 
Isaiah lix. 17, is περικεφαλαία σωτηρίου, “the helmet of salva- 
tion upon the head.” 

M Ver. 19. Adyos ἐν ἀνοίξει στύματος, That ulterance may 
be given to me.) “A door of utterance,” Col. iv. 6. This 
is a rabbinical phrase,* πρὸ yynnp, “ the opening of the mouth 
signifying an occasion of speaking, and confidence in speak- 
ing:” so that the,apostle here requests their prayers, that 
he, being loosed from his bonds, may have again an oppor- 
tunity of preaching the gospel, and also that he may do it 
publicly and plainly, pera παῤῥησίας, “with due confidence 
and boldness.” 

15 Ver. 24. "Ev aySapcia, In sincerity.] i. 6. Not only 
with a sincere love, uncorrupted by the opposite love of any 
lust forbidden by him; but with a constant and perpetual 
love, which no temptation can abate, or cause to cease, or to 
wax cold. Or, as Mr. L., without the mixture of those 
legal observations, by which the enemy, saith Paul, φϑαρῆ, 
corrupts the minds of Christians from the simplicity of the 
gospel (2 Cor. xi. 3. See the note on i. 2). 


* Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 1872. 


766 


THE 


EPISTLE. TO THE .PHILIPPIANS;, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. / 


PREFACE. 


Tr is the observation of Theodoret, Gicumenius, and 
others, that Philippi was a city of Macedonia, under the 
metropolis of ‘Thessalonica, which is confirmed, note on the 
first verse. 

This epistle is by the same Greek scholiasts said to be 
written by Paul when he was in bonds at Rome. That he 
had been in bonds some time before, we may gather from i. 
12. 14, from the Philippians sending Epaphroditus to him 
with relief, and his return to them with this epistle, after a 
dangerous sickness, and from his hopes to come quickly to 
them, ii. 24; and therefore he is supposed, by the most ex- 
act chronologers, to have writ this epistle in the eighth year 
of Nero, and the sixty-second of our Lord. 

That the apostle here warns them against the Gnostics, or 
that “ these Gnostics joined with the Judaizing Christians to 
persuade the gentiles to Judaize,” I have not read in any 
of the ancients; but the Greek scholiasts agree in this, that 


he warns against* τὴν ἐξαπατὴν τῶν ἐξ ᾿Ιουδαίων μὲν πεπιστευ- 
κότων, “the deceit of the believing Jews,’ who endeavoured 
to corrupt them, προφάσει τῆς σκιᾶς τοῦ νόμου, καὶ περιτομῆς, 
“by imposing on them circumcision, and the shadows of the 
law, and saying, that without these they could not be justi- 
fied” (iii. 18, 19). And this is abundantly confirmed from 
the whole third chapter, where the apostle declares, he judges 
it for their safety to write to them to “beware of dogs, of 
evil-workers, and of the concision,” and his styling them 
“the enemies of the cross of Christ,” ver. 18 (see note on 
iii. 2, 3. 15, 16). 

And, lastly, it is noted by Theodoret, and others of the 
fathers, that Epaphroditus, mentioned in this epistle as 
“their messenger” (ii. 15, and iv. 18), was also their bishop,f 
ὃς τῶν Ψυχῶν αὐτῶν ἐπιστεύθη ἐπιμέλειαν, or “the person to 
whom the care of their souls had been committed ;” though, 
I confess the words τὸν ἀπόστολον ὑμῶν, “ your apostle,” do not 
prove it. 


* Theod. Chrys. Theoph. ἡ Ibid. 


CHAPTER I. 


11 Paun and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus 
Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at 
(Gr. in) Philippi, * with the bishops and deacons 

. (there = 


2 I wish) Grace be unto you, and peace, from God 
our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

3 (And) 1 (Paul) thank my God upon every remem- 
brance of you (in my prayers), 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1.] Note, that Timothy is here joined with Paul 
in the salutation, not in the writing this epistle (see ver. 3). 

2 Div ἐπισκύποις καὶ διακόνοις, With the bishops and deacons.] 
Various are the expositions of these words, and great are the 
contentions about the true import of them. For, 

1, Some, with the Pseud-Ambrosius, interpret these words 
thus: “Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ, 
with the bishops and deacons that are with us, to the saints 
in Philippi.” But as none of the Greek fathers thought fit 
to take any notice of this strained exposition, so may the 
harshness of it appear by comparing it with the like prefaces 
to some of the other epistles; v. g. 1 Cor. i. 1, 2, “« Paul, an 
apostle of Jesus Christ, to the church of God that is at 
Corinth, civ πᾶσι τοῖς ἐπικαλουμένοις τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Κυρίου, with 
all that call upon the name of the Lord ;” 2 Cor. i. 1,“ Paul, 
an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the church of God that is at 
Corinth, σὺν τοῖς ἐν ὄλη τῇ ’AXaia, with all the saints that are 
in all Achaia,” are places exactly parallel to these words, 
«Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the 
saints that are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons :” 
and yet can any man think, that Paul the apostle, with all 
that call upon the name of the Lord Christ, or with all the 
saints that were in all Achaia, writ to the church of Corinth, 
which was part of that Achaia? (2.) When the apostle takes 
in those that were with him as copartners in writing to 
another church, he doth it thus, “ Paul an apostle καὶ of σὺν 
ἐμοὶ πάντες ἀδελ οὶ, and all the brethren that are with me,” 
write to the churches of Galatia, Gal. i. 1. 3. Had he then 
intended to greet the Philippians in the like manner, he 
would have writ in the like style, “ Paul and Timothy, καὶ 


ot σὺν ἐμοὶ ἐπίσκοποι καὶ διάκονοι, and the bishops and deacons 
that are with me,” to the church in Philippi. 

The learned Dr. Hammond saith, that Philippi was a 
metropolis, which had many bishops under it, on which ac- 
count it is styled, πρώτη τῆς μερίδος τῆς Μακεδονίας πόλις, “ the 
chief city of that part of Macedonia,” Acts xvi. 12, and by 
Photius, τῆς Μακεδόνων ἐπαρχίας μητρύπολις, “ the metropolis 
of the province of the Macedonians.” And “ by this,” saith 
he, “it appears, that in Philippi there might be more 
bishops than one, even as many as there were cities under 
that metropolis.” But this solution was, 

First, Unknown to the ancient fathers, Chrysostom, The- 
odoret, and Jerome, who all contend that “bishops here 
must signify presbyters, because there could not be more 
bishops than one, properly so called, in one city τ᾿ whereas 
had they known this to have been a metropolis, they must 
have known that this had been a satisfactory answer to 
that objection. 

Secondly, They tell us, that Philippi was then under the 
metropolis of T'hessalonica, which was the metropolis of all 
Macedonia. Thus Chrysostom on these words, iv. 16, 
«“ When I was in Thessalonica ye ministered to my neces- 
sity,” &c., observes, this was a great encomium of the Phi- 
lippians, that ἐν μητροπύλει καθήμενος παρὰ τῆς μικρᾶς ἐτρέφετο 
πόλεως, “ being in the metropolis, he was nourished by a little 
city.’ Thus Theodoret,* in his preface to this epistle, saith, 
Φιλιππήσιοι τῆς Μακεδονίας ἦσαν ὑπὸ μητρύπολιν τότε Θεσσαλο 
νίκην, “The Philippians were inhabitants of Macedonia 
under the metropolis of Thessalonica:” and Theophylact, 
that they were, ὑπὸ μητρόπολιν τότε Θεσσαλονίκην τελοῦντιμ, 


* Apud GEcum. 


CHAPTER I. 


4 Always in every prayer of mine for you all making 
request with joy, 

5 (Which joy I have) For your * fellowship in the 
gospel from the first day until now (i. e. for your 
continuance in the faith and the profession of the gos- 
pel); 

6 * Being confident of this very thing, that he which 
hath begun a good work (the good work of faith) in 
then, when the apostle writ this to them, “ under the metro- 
polis of Thessalonica.” ‘That Thessalonica was then the 
metropolis of Macedonia, is plain from Antipater, the Thes- 
salonian poet, who flourished in the time of Augustus 
Cesar, and calleth Thessalonica* “ the mother of all Mace- 
donia.” It is called also “the metropolis of Macedonia” by 
Socrates: and in the ecclesiastical sense it is so called by 
/Etius,t the bishop thereof, in the council of Sardica: and 
so say all the Notitie Antique, at the end of Carolus Pau- 
Jus, who saith that Philippi was no metropolis for the first 
six centuries; but after that Macedonia was divided into 
Prima and Secunda, it came to have the honorary title of 
the metropolitan. city, and therefore might be styled so by 
Photius, who lived in the ninth century: but by Luke it is 
not styled the first city, τῆς ἐπαρχίας, “ of the province;” but 
τῆς μερίδος, “of that part of Macedonia” which they that 
came from Thrace thither touched at ; as appears by Dion’st 
description of it, and chiefly from Diodorus Siculus,§ who 
saith, ἡ δὲ πόλις αὐτὴ κειμένη κατὰ τῆς Θράκης, that “ this city,” 
being taken by Philip, was very serviceable to him, as “ ly- 
ing near Thrace,” and other places very conveniently. 

Thirdly, ‘The Greek and Latin fathers do with one consent 
declare, that τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους οὕτως ἐκάλεσε, “the apostle 
here calls their presbyters their bishops.’’ So Chrysostom, 
Theodoret, G2cumenius, and Theophylact, among the 
Greeks, and among the Latins, Jerome,|| Pseud-Ambrosius,§ 
Pelagius, and Primasius; and that not only for the afore- 
mentioned reason, that “there could be but one bishop pro- 
perly so called in one city ;” but for another alleged by them 
all, that τέως ἐκοινώνουν τοῖς ὀνόμασι, “then the names were 
common to both orders,” the bishops being called presby- 
ters, and the presbyters bishops. And this, saith ‘Theodoret, 
is manifest in this place, because “he adds here deacons to 
the bishops, making no mention of their presbyters.”** ‘The 
learned Dr. Pearson therefore seems δουλεύειν τὴ ὑποϑέσει, too 
much to favour his own hypothesis, when, against all these 
testimonies both of Greek and Latin fathers, he saith, «It 
is not yet proved, that there was then at Philippi any pres- 
byters of the second order;” for surely this is proved from 
the authority of all these fathers. He therefore saith, (1.) 
That before the converted Jews and gentiles did unite into 
one church, there were two bishops of the same church. 
This he proves from those words of Epiphanius,++ “ Alexan- 
dria never had two bishops at a time, ὡς af ἄλλαι ἐκκλησίαι, 
as other churches had:” but if Iam not much mistaken, 
this relates not to the primitive and apostolic time, but to 
the times of the Meletians, who founded bishops, presbyters, 
and deacons, and by them ἐκκλησίας ἰδίας, “ private churches,” 
calling them “churches of the martyrs;’ whereas those 
of Peter’s party called theirs catholic churches. 
though this schism continued long, and even in the time 
of Theodoret prevailed in Egypt, and, as Daneus notes, in- 
fected almost all Christian regions; yet, saith Epiphanius, it 
never so prevailed in Alexandria as in other churches, there 
being never there two bishops, one of the catholic, another 


of the Meletian churches, as there were in many other | 
places: and if this be the true import of these words, it is | 


easy to discern how impertinent they are to the true exposi- 
tion of this place. He adds also from the same Epiphanius, 
that Paul and Peter were both apostles and bishops of 


* Soi με, Θρηϊκίης σκυληφόρε, Θεσσαλονίκη, 
Μήτηρ ἡ πάσης πέμψε Μακηδονίης. Anthol. lib. i. 

+ Cap. 16. + Lib. xlvii. 327. 

§ Lib. xvi. p. 514; al. 412. 

lj Ep. 89, ad Evagr. et Ep. ad Tit. i. 9. 

§ Com. in Ep. ad Eph. 

** Kai ἐνταῦθα δὲ δηλὸν τοῦτο πεποίηκε" τοῖς yap ἐπισκύποις 
διακόνους συνέζευξε, τῶν πρεσβυτέρων οὐ ποιησάμενος μνήμην. 


ti Her. Ixviii. §. 6, p. 722. 


But | 


767 


ur among) you will perform ¢f until the day of Jesus 
Shrist: 

7 Even as it is meet for me to think this of you 
all (Gr. τοῦτο φρονεῖν, to have this care for you all, which 
7 show in my prayers, and my continual remembrance 
of you, ver. 4), δ because I have you in my heart 
(or you have me in your heart); inasmuch as both in 
my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the 


Rome, as doubtless they also were at Antioch, and wherever 
they met; but they were only bishops there, because apos- 
tles there, one of the Jews, the other of the gentiles, and in 
this they had no successors. Jerome* indeed takes notice 
of this evasion, but then he lays the censure of contentious 
persons upon them that made it. 

The same learned bishop adds, That were it true, that 
there were but one bishop in one city, it would not follow 
that the word « bishops” here could not be taken in the pro- 
per sense, because the apostle doth not here call them 
bishops of the church or city of Philippi, but only saith, 
they were then at Philippi; he might write therefore to 
them whom he knew to be then at Philippi, though they 
were bishops of other churches. But, (1.) as none of the 
ancients have ever said one word of any other bishops than 
those met at Philippi, so the words seem not well consis- 
tent with this evasion ; for writing τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις, he 
doubtless writes “to the saints dwelling in Philippi;” writ- 
ing therefore to them with the bishops and deacons, he must 
be supposed to write also to the bishops and deacons dwelling 
at Philippi. 

I therefore acquiesce in the opinion of Theodoret, who 
says, that Paul then writ to the presbyters and deacons of 
that city, because their bishop Epaphroditus, whom he styles 
his brother and companion in labour, and fellow-soldier, and 
their apostle, was then with him at Rome, ii. 25, and that he 
therefore mentions them, because they were so instrumental 
in sending the contributions to him, mentioned iv. 15. 

3 Ver. 5. Κοινωνία.] That “fellowship ;” for that κοινωνία 
here doth not signify their liberality towards the propagation 
of the gospel, but their communion with the apostles in 
the gospel, as it doth, 1 John 1. 3.7, I gather (1.) from 
the phrase ἔργον ἀγαθὸν, which is emphatically put to signify 
τὸ ἔργον πίστεως, “the work of faith;” as when we are said, 
xaS’ ὑπομονὴν ἔργου ἀγαθοῦ, “by patient continuance in the 
good work to seek for glory,” Rom. ii. 7, that “being the 
work of God that we should believe in his Son,” John vi. 
29. (2.) From the phrase, “ He that hath begun the good 
work in you, will perform it to the day of the Lord Jesus 
Christ,” that being still used by the apostle to testify’ his 
hopes, that they would continue steadfast in faith and obedi- 
ence, till they received their crown, 1 Cor. i. 8, 1 Thess. iii. 
13, v. 23. 

4 Ver. 6. Πεποιθὼς αὐτὸ τοῦτο, Being confident, &c.] This 
the apostle speaks, not out of any opinion of the election of 
all the Philippians to eternal life, or of the certainty of their 
perseverance to the end by virtue of that election; for then 
why doth he exhort them to “ work out their salvation with 
fear and trembling,” ii. 12; «to standdast in the Lord,” iv. 
1; and to “retain the word of life, that he might have joy 
in the day of Christ, that he had not run in vain, or laboured 
in vain among them?” (ii. 16.) He speaks this therefore 
from a judgment of charity, ἀπὸ τῶν παρ:λβόντων καὶ περὶ τῶν 
μελλόντων στογαζόμενος, conjecturing, saith Theophylact, from 
what was past, what they would be for the future ; because, 
saith he, it seems just or fit for me to conceive this good 
hope of you, by reason of that great affection you retain to 
me, and your patience in enduring the like afflictions: now 
he that only gives these reasons of his confidence, gives us 
just reasons to conceive, he knew nothing of the neces- 
sity of theif perseverance by virtue of any absolute election 
to salvation. 

5 Ver. 7.] i.e. Because you have had your hearts upon 
me in my bonds, sending Epaphroditus to minister to me in 
my necessities (ii. 25), and contributing of your own sub- 
stance to me (iv. 14), sending once and again to me, whilst 
I was in bonds for the defence of the faith (ver. 15, 16), 


* Ac ne quis in und ecclesia contentiosé plures episcopos 
fuisse contendat. Epist. ad Evagrium. 


768 


gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace; (Gr. as 
those who are all my copartners of grace in my bonds, 
&e. 

8 And of this my care for you I can call God to wit- 
ness :) For God is my record, how greatly I long after 
you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ (or the most pas- 
sionate degree of Christian love). 

9 And this I pray (for you), that your love may 
abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all 
δ judgment ; 

10 That ye may approve (the) things that are ex- 
cellent; 7 that ye may be sincere and without offence 
till the day of Christ, 

11 8 Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, 
which are (/aught) by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and 
praise of God. 

12 But (0 proceed to my own affairs, about which you 
have been so solicitous, ver. 7) I would ye should under- 
stand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me 
(through the malice of my adversaries) have fallen out 
rather unto the furtherance (than the hinderance) of the 
gospel ; 

13 So that my bonds in (and for the cause of ) 
Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other 
places (i. 6. tt is manifest not only in the palace, but 
throughout all Rome, that Iam in bonds for the faith of 
Christ) ; 

14 9 And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing 
confident by my (patience and courage in my) bonds, 
are (become) much more bold to speak the word (of 
God) without fear. 

15 Some indeed (‘here are who) preach Christ even 
of envy and strife; and some also of good will (and 
kind affection to me and to the gospel): 


PHILIPPIANS. 


16 The one (party) preach Christ of contention, not 
sincerely, (not from love to him, but disaffection towards 
me,) supposing (by this means) to add afiliction to 
my bonds (or to bring farther tribulation on me now 
in bonds) = 

17 But the other (party preach Christ out) of love (to 
him, and me his servant), knowing that I am set (or lie 
in bonds) for the defence of the gospel. 

18 What then? (shall this afflict me? No, since) 
notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or 
in truth, Christ is (sté//) preached; and I therein do 
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. 

19 For I know that this shall (be so far from accom- 
plishing their end of adding tribulation to my bonds, that 
it shall) turn to my salvation (7. 6. my deliverance) 
through your prayer (for me), and the supply of the 
Spirit of Jesus Christ, (enabling me to plead so as shall 
tend to my enlargement, ver. 25,) 

20 According to my earnest expectation and my 
hope, that (through the assistance of the Spirit of courage 
which God hath promised and given to us, 2 Tim. i. 7) 
in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all bold- 
ness, as always (hitherto), so now also 10 Christ shall 
be magnified in my body, whether it be by (my) life 
(now), or by (my) death (hereafter). 

21 For (the motive) to me to live is (the service of ) 
Christ, and to die (for him) is (my greatest) gain. 

22 But if (zt happen that) I live in the flesh, this zs 
the frnit of my labour (Gr. 7s worth my labour): yet 
what I shall choose " I wot not (z. e. were it left to my 
choice, I should be in a strait which of the two conditions 
to choose). 

23 For I am in a strait betwixt (/hese) two, having 
a desire ” to depart, and to be with Christ; which is 


those things, which, being “a sweet savour, a sacrifice ac- 
ceptable and well-pleasing to God” (ver. 18), confirm my 
hope concerning you; especially when I find you yet stand- 
ing firm under the like afflictions, “ having the same conflict 
which you saw in me,” when I was among you (Acts xvi.), 
«and now hear to be in me” (i. 30). 

δ Ver. 9. Ἔν πάσῃ αἰσϑήσει.) The outward senses being 
the instruments by which we discern and distinguish ma- 
terial objects; the word αἴσϑησις, which is here rendered 
“judgment,” is from them derived to the mind discerning 
and passing judgment on spiritual things; and is by Phavo- 
rinus styled ἡ νοὺς γεῦσις ἀκριβὴς τῶν διακρινομένων, “the exact 
taste of things that differ, or are to be discerned by the mind :” 
in which sense the word is often used by the LXX., especi- 
ally in the book of Proverbs, where it is twenty times so 
used ; and hence it bears the like sense in the apostle; and 
they, who have this exactness of judgment, are said to have 
αἰσθητήρια, “senses exercised” to discern betwixt good and 
evil (Heb. v. 14). 

7 Ver. 10. “Iva ἦτε εἰλικρινεῖς, καὶ ἀπρύσκοποι.Ἶ Εἰἱλικρινεῖς πρὸς 
τὃν Θεὸν, ἀπρύσκοποι κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον, * Sincere in their deportment 
towards God, inoffensive in their behaviour towards man.” 

8 Ver. 11.] For all that Christ does as a prophet sent 
from God, or as assuming the person of a mediator, must 
refer ultimately to the glory of the Father (ii. 11). 

9 Ver. 14—18.] For explication of these four verses, let 
it be noted in the general, that they, who preached Christ ἐξ 
ἐριϑείας, “out of contention,’ did not preach Christ, or the 
gospel in truth, and out of love to it (ver. 17, 18), but only 
in pretence, or upon this occasion, from strife and envy 
against Paul, being grieved that he had free liberty of preach- 
ing Christ to all that came to him for two years (Acts xxviii. 
30), and also that they did not acknowledge Paul to be “ set 
up,” or by God appointed for the defence and propagation of 
the gospel. Whence it appears, that they could be only the 
persons who did contend with Paul for the glory of being 
the most diligent and successful promoters of the gospel; or 
as such, envying the apostle’s glory, set up for themselves, 
boasting as if they were the only publishers of the gospel: 
but yet it is difficult to assign the persons here intended by 
Paul: G2cumenius and Theophylact say, they were the un- 


believing Jews, who, by divulging every where about Rome 
what was the doctrine of Christianity which Paul preached ; 
how opposite it was to the Roman gods and their worship; 
what tumults it had caused; how many it had turned from 
their old religion to the faith of Christ; and who he was in 
whom the Christians did believe ; thought to enrage the em- 
peror against Paul, the great promoter of this doctrine: and 
in this, say they, might Paul rejoice, as giving occasion to 
others to inquire into the Christian faith, and so to come unto 
it; for, saith Tertullian, desinunt odisse quod desinunt igno- 
rare; “when they once know they cease to hate it;” but 
such cannot be said to preach Christ without an intolerable 
catachresis ; nor can Paul be supposed to rejoice in such a 
representation of the Christian faith as they made. Others 
therefore say, with a greater likelihood, these were the Juda- 
izing Christians, who with the gospel taught the observation 
of the law; for from these arose ἔριδες καὶ διχοστασίαι, “ strife 
and dissensions,” 1 Cor. i. 11, iii. 3, “zeal, animosities, and 
contentions,” 2 Cor. xii. 20, and that on the account of this 
apostle, whom they would scarce own as an apostle of Christ, 
2 Cor. vii. 2, but rather looked upon as one that “ walked 
according to the flesh,” x. 2, and would have “excluded 
him” from the churches, Gal. iv. 16, 17, and yet at their 
preaching Christ, though not sincerely, the apostle may be 
supposed to rejoice, because he knew the time was near when 
the “ hay and stubble” they built on the foundation should be 
revealed, and the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusa- 
lem would sufficiently confute their vain additions to the faith. 

10 Ver. 20. Ἔν τῷ σώματί μου, Christ shall be magnified 
by me in my body.| For if I live in the body, the power of 
Christ will be magnified in delivering me out of so great dan- 
ger: butif I be put to death for his sake, that power will 
be magnified which enables me so cheerfully to die for the 
faith, as I am ready to do. 

1 Ver. 22. Οὐ γνωρίζω, Tknow not.] “Anat λεγόμενον ἐν τοῦ- 
τῷ τῷ σημαινομένῳ. This γνωρίζω, saith J. Gregory, is but 
once used in this sense; which is true, if he confines this to 
the New Testament. But Phavorinus mentions another 
Gregory who used it in this sense; and Constantine says it 
occurs thus in Isocrates and Lucian. 

12 Ver. 23, Πολλῷ μᾶλλον κρεῖσσον, To depart and to be 


CHAPTER II. 


far better (for me than continuing here, were I only to 
respect my own interest) : 

24 Nevertheless (for me) to abide in the flesh zs 
more needful for you. 

25 And having this confidence (‘hat you will receive 
this advantage by my abiding in the flesh), 1 know that 
I shall abide and continue with you all for your fur- 
therance (in) and joy of faith ; 

26 That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus 
Christ for me by (or through) my coming to you again. 

27 Only let (this be your care, that) your conversation 
be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether 
I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear (a 
comfortable account) of your affairs, that ye stand fast 
13 in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the 
faith of the gospel ; 


with Christ, which is much better.) “Because,” saith Crel- 
lius, “the time betwixt death and the resurrection is not to 
be reckoned, therefore the apostle might speak thus, though 
the soul hath no sense of any thing after death.” But conld 
Paul think a state of insensibility much better than a life 
tending so much as his did, to the glory of God, to the pro- 
pagation of the gospel, and the furtherance of the joy of 
Christians? Could he call such an insensate state, a being 
«with Christ,” and a “walking by sight,” in opposition to 
the life of faith? (2 Cor. ν. 7,8). Others say the apostle 
speaketh thus because he expected that the general resur- 
rection, and the day of judgment, should be in his time: but 
the words will not bear this sense ; for the apostle saith, he is 
in a constraint betwixt these two, whether he should choose 
that life which would enable him to gain many to Christ, 
and minister greatly to the necessities of his church; or 
that which would cause him to live with Christ, viz. as to his 
better part, i. 6. whether his body and soul should be dis- 
solved, or he should live in the flesh. Now it is impossible 
that the same man, at the same time, should expect the re- 
surrection and the day of judgment, and yet expect to live 
in the flesh, and to abide with the church in the flesh, when 
none of the members of the church should abide in the flesh, 
but should enjoy that resurrection which would place them 
with Christ, as well as himself; that he should desire his 
soul should be dissolved, or separated from the body, that he 
might be present with the Lord, and yet at the same time 


769 


28 And (being) in nothing terrified by (/he threats 
and persecutions of ) your adversaries: which is to 
them an evident token of (your) perdition (viz. that 
you are an obstinate people, bent on your own ruin), 
but to you (7 7s a token) of salvation, and that of 
God, (ἡ being righteous with God to recompense tribu- 
lation to them that trouble you, but to you rest, 2 Thess. 
i. 5. 

29 For ™ unto you it is given (by God as an especial 
pow) in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on 
iim, but also to suffer for his sake ; 

30 Having the same conflict ee the enemies of the 
faith) which ye saw in me (when I was among you, 
Acts xvi. 23, 1 Thess. ii. 2), and now hear fo be in me 
(ver. 16). 


expect that day when he should be clothed upon with his 
celestial body. Moreover, he himself informs us, that the 
apostles expected only the resurrection, when other Chris- 
tians should arise, at the great day; for thus he speaks, “ He 
that raised up the Lord Jesus from the dead, will raise us 
also by him, and will present us with you,” 2 Cor. iv. 14, 
and this confutes their gloss, who say the apostle expected 
to be with Christ, as an especial privilege belonging to him 
as an apostle, or a martyr for Christ (see the note on 2 Cor. 
v. 8). 

3 Ver. 27. In one spirit, with one mind.] That is, with 
love and concord, saith CEcumenius (see note on 1 Cor. i. 10, 
11), or with full consent: so Ψυχῇ pia, 1 Chron. xii. 38; so 
in Ireneus, lib. i. cap. 3, to act, συμφώνως, “ with one accord 
and consent,” is to act as having, μίαν ψυχὴν, καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν 
καρδίαν, kai ἕν στόμα, “one soul, heart, and mouth.” 

4 Ver. 29. To you it is given not only to believe in him, 
but also to suffer for his name.] Where note, (1.) that to 
suffer for Christ’s sake is, χάρις, “grace and favour,” ver. 7; 
it isa gift which is matter of great joy, Matt. v.12, Rom. 
ν. 13, James i. 2. (2°) That they who, from these words, 
“To you it is given to believe,” infer, that faith is so far the 
gift of God as that men are purely passive in it, have as 
much reason to infer that we suffer for the name of Christ 
without the concurrence of our own wills both being said 
to be equally given. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Ir there be therefore any consolation (παράκλησις, 
any force of exhortation) in (beseeching you in the name 

) Christ, if (there be) any comfort of (mutual) love, 
if (there be) any fellowship of the Spirit (of love exciting 
you to it), if (ye have) any bowels and mercies (for 
me the prisoner of Christ), 

2 Fulfil ye my joy (in this), that ye be (all) like- 
minded, having the same love (one to another), being 
of one accord, of one mind (or minding the same 
thing). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IL. 


1 Ver. 3. Let each esteem, &c.] This refers not to judg- 
ment, it being not in our power always thus to esteem of 
others, but to practice; as if he should have said, Be as 
ready to assist and help others, as if you were their subjects 
and inferiors: so the example of Christ requires, and so the 
precept runs, that “he who is the greatest should be a ser- 
vant” to others. 

2 Ver. 6. Ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ, In the form of God.] By this ex- 
pression most interpreters do understand, that the apostle 
doth intend Christ was essentially and truly God ; but though 
this be a certain truth, yet I conceive this cannot be the im- 
port of this expression in this place. 

First, Because the apostle exhorteth his Philippians to hu- 
mility, after the example of our Lord: now humility con- 
sists not in the change of nature, but of condition; and 

Vor. [V.—97 


3 Let nothing be done (among you) through strife 
(who shall be the greatest) or (through desire of ) vain- 
glory ; but in lowliness of mind ' let each esteem (an) 
other better than themselves. 

4 Look not every man on his own things (or con- 
cernments only), but every man also on the things of 
others (being concerned four their welfare). 

5 Let this mind be in you (with respect to these mat- 
ters), which was also in Christ Jesus: 

6 Who, being 2 in the form of God (when he ap- 


therefore his exinanition of the form of God seems rather 
to respect our Lord’s condition, than his nature. 

Secondly, ‘There is no more reason to say, “the form of 
God” signifies the essence of God, than that “the form of a 
servant” signifies the essence of a servant; but evident it is, 
that “the form of a servant” doth not signify the essence, 
but the state and the condition of a servant, which is a mere 
relation; nor doth his manumission change his nature, but 
his state. 

Thirdly, According to this import of the phrase, it cannot 
well be shown how he did “ empty himself,” or lay aside this 
form: for though by taking of a body, he concealed, yet 
could he not be said to empty himself of, or lay aside, the 
Godhead ; especially when in that body he gave such nume- 
rous and signal demonstrations of divine power and wisdom, 
both in his miracles, his doctrine and knowledge of the 
hearts of men. 

3P 


770 


PHILIPPIANS. 


Fourthly, This word μορφὴ, “form,” both in the Old and | midst of the fire of the cloud: and you said, Behold, the 


New Testament, doth often signify the external shape: as 
when it is said of Belshazzar,* Dan. v. 6. 10, and of Da- 
niel,f vii. 28, that their “forms were changed ;” of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, thatt “his form returned to him,” Dan. iv. 46; 
of Christ, that he appeared to two of his disciples, ἐν ἑτέρα 
poppy, “in another form,” Mark xvi. 12, and that μετεμορ- 
φώϑη, “he was transfigured” before three of them, Matt. 
xvii. 2; but it nowhere seems to signify the essence of a man 
either in the Old or the New Testament. 

Grotius and the Socinians say, that Christ is said to be 
«jn the form of God,” by reason of the miracles he wrought 
on earth, they being indications of the power of God resid- 
ing in him. But this interpretation cannot stand. For, 

First, Christ is here plainly said to have been “in the form 
of God,” before he took upon him “the form of a servant,” 
or the similitude of a man; for as these words, “ being found 
in the fashion of a man, he humbled himself, and became obe- 
dient unto death,” do show that he was “ found in the fashion 
of a man” before “he humbled himself to become obedient 
to the death ;” so, by parity of reason, these words, “ Being 
in the form of God, &c., he emptied himself, and took upon 
him the form of a servant, being found in the likeness of 
man,” do show that he was first in the form of God, before 
that, being found in the likeness of man, he took upon him 
the form of a servant. 

Secondly, It is plainly here asserted, that Christ “emptied 
himself” of this “form of God” at his humiliation; whereas 
he never laid aside his power of working miracles, but did 
continue to exert it to his death. 

Thirdly, This power of miracles is never in the scripture 
styled “the form of God;” and were this all that was in- 
tended by that phrase, both Moses and Elias, and our 
Lord’s apostles, might upon that account be said to have 
been “in the form of God;” seeing both Moses and Elias 
wrought many miracles on earth, and Christ declared con- 
cerning his disciples, that they should work “ greater miracles 
than those which he had done,” John xiv. 12. 

I therefore by this “form of God,” do understand that 
glorious form in which God on his throne is represented ; that 
majesty in which he is said to appear in scripture, and in which 
the Λόγος, or the Word, did show himself of old to Moses 
and the patriarchs. For explication of this sense, I shall 
show, (1.) how God in the Old Testament is represented 
as appearing, showing his form and glory to the sons of 
men. 

Secondly, That Christ did in this form appear to Moses 
and the patriarchs of old. 

Thirdly, That since our Lord’s ascension he hath been in- 
vested with tke form of God, he hath appeared in it, and 
hath deelared it belongs to him; though, for the time of his 
humiliation, he was pleased to dispose, or put it off. And, 

First, The appearance or similitude of God is represented 
in the Old Testament in a bright shining cloud or light, a 
flame of fire, or the attendance of a host of angels. ‘Thus 
in that vision of the prophet Daniel, «'The Ancient of days 
did sit; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as 
burning fire; a stream of fire did issue from before him, 
thousand of thousands ministered unto him, and ten thou- 
sand times ten thousand stood before him,” Dan. vii. 9, 10. 
Thus God appeared on mount Sinai, where his presence was 
attended with a host of angels, according to that saying of 
the psalmist, «The chariots of God are twenty thousand, 
even thousands of angels, and the Lord is among them as 
in Sinai,’ Ps. Ixviii. 17, where the Targum adds, “The 
Word of the Lord desired to place his majesty upon it;” 
Jehovah dwelleth only in the heaven of heavens for ever. 
He appeared there also in a bright shining cloud, or flame of 
fire ; for “ the glory abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud 
covered it six days, and the sight of the glory of the Lord 
was like devouring fire,” Exod. xxiv. 16,17. And seeing 
of these majestic symbols, is to see God, ver. 12, to “see the 
God of Israel,” ver. 10; that is, say Onkelos and Jonathan, 
“the glory of God.” And when Moses doth again repeat 
the decalogue he adds these words, Deut. v. 22. 24, «The 
Lord spake to all your assembly in the mount, out of the 


* Tod βασιλέως ἡ μορφὴ ἠλλιώθη. 


Ἷ T Ἧ μορφή. 
Ὁ Ἢ μορφή μου ἐπέστρεψεν ἐπ᾽ ἐμέ. 


Lord God hath shown us his glory, and we have heard his 
voice out of the midst of the fire. We have seen this day 
that God doth talk with man, and he liveth.”"—* The Word 
of the Lord our God showed the divine majesty of his glory,” 
saith the Targum of Jonathan; and “ We heard the voice of 
his words,” saith Onkelos. And the prophet Habakkuk, in 
his song of God, saith thus, “His glory covered the heavens, 
his brightness was as the light, and bright beams came out of 
his side,’ Hab. iii. 3,4. ‘There he discovereth “his She- 
chinah,” i. e. “his glorious majesty,” saith the Targum. 
When Jacob had a vision of angels ascending and descend- 
ing, he presently cries out, “ This is no other than the house 
of God; this is the gate of heaven: surely Jehovah is in this 
place; and I knewit not,” Gen. xxviii. 17; νυ ΤΣ, « The 
glory of the Lord is here,” say the Targums. And when God 
showed himself to the people in the cloud, then did the glory 
or similitude of God appear, as the expression is, Numb. 
xii. 8, τὴν ὁόζαν Κυρίου, “Ihe glory of the Lord,” saith the 
Septuagint ; so 1 Kings viii. 11. ‘Thus doth the scripture re- 
present that God who dwelleth in light inaccessible, before 
whose face the angels do continually stand as ministering spi- 
rits. And this also is the rabbinical exposition of the 
v3 39," “the glory of the Lord ;” that it is either a ray of 
divine light, or a guard of angels. 

Secondly, That Christ was in the form of God, even be- 
fore he took upon him human nature, will be apparent, if 
we consider, that even before he purged our sins, he was “ the 
brightness of his Father’s glory,” light of light, Heb. i. 3, 
and, in the language of the book of Wisdom, “A pure 
stream flowing from the glory of the Almighty, the bright- 
ness of the everlasting light,” Wisd. vii. 25, 26, and that he 
at the conclusion of his humiliation prays, that God would 
“glorify him with the glory, which he had with him before the 
foundation of the world,” John xvii. 5, (2.) That it was the 
opinion both of the ancient Jews and of the Christians, from 
the beginning, that it was the Λόγος, or the Messiah, who ap- 
peared to the patriarchs of old in light and splendour, and 
sometimes with the attendance of holy angels. And, (3.) 
that we have great evidence of this matter, both in the Old 
and New Testament. In the books of Exodus and Num- 
bers we read, that the children of Israel tempted the Lord, 
saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?” Exod. xvii. 7, 
Numb. xxi. 6, and that the Lord sent therefore fiery serpents 
among them; but in the tenth chapter of the First Epistle 
to the Corinthians, we are informed that “they tempted 
Christ, and were destroyed of serpents.” See this reading 
justified, note on 1 Cor. x. 9. Christ, therefore, as to his di- 
vine nature, was then present with, and tempted by them. 
God also saith to his people thus, Exod. xxiii. 20. 23, “ Be- 
hold, I send an angel before thee to keep thee in thy way, 
and to bring thee to the place which I prepared. Beware 
of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; he will not 
pardon your transgressions: for my name isin him.” Now the 
ancient rabbins} say, this was “the Angel, the Redeemer ;” 
or an uncreated angel, in whom was Jehovah: and the 
words plainly seem to intimate this to us, seeing the power 
of remitting sins, ascribed here to him, belongeth only to 
that God against whom they were committed. Moreover, 
when God, being incensed against Israel for making the 
golden calf, had threatened to withdraw himself, and only 
send an angel before them to drive out the inhabitants of Ca- 
naan before them, Exod. xxxiii. 2, this seems an evil word 
to the people, and they mourn because of it, viz. of those 
words, “I will not go up in the midst of thee ;” that is, say 
Onkelos and Jonathan, “I will not cause sm)»>¥, my glorious 
presence to go up with thee.” Nor doth Moses himself rest 
in this answer, but speaks thus to God, “If thy presence go 
not with me, carry us not up hence,” ver. 15; “If the She- 
chinah go not with us,” saith Onkelos, εἰ μὴ αὐτὸς σὺ, “If 
thou thyself go not with us,” say the Septuagint, R. Salo- 
mon, and Aben Ezra: which sense the following words re- 
quire, “ For wherein shall it be known that I and thy people 
have found grace in thy sight, is it not in that thou goest 
with us?” ver. 16. Whence it is evident, that they were 
not contented with the promise of a created angel, but 


* Cosri, par. ii. §. 2, p. 81, par. iv. p. 277, 278. 
{ See Ambr. in locum, et Cartw. 


CHAPTER II. 


peared to the patriarchs), ὃ thought it not robbery to be | 
4 equal with God (Gr. did not covet to appear as 
God): 


771 


7 But (divesting himself of his former glory) made 
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the 
5 form of a servant (by ministering to others), and 


required God’s presence to go with them; and that God 
granted this request, ver. 17. Thus Philo Judeus* often 
informs us, that the angel who went before them was no 
created angel, but the divine Word, or God himself: “ For,” 
saith he, “ Moses prays to God himself to be his governor, 
in the way that leadeth to himself, saying, If thou go not | 
with us, carry us not up hence.” And again, “ He uses the 
divine Word for a guide, for so speaks the oracle, Behold, I | 
will send my angel before thy face, to lead thee in the way,” 
Exod. xxiii. 20. 

Thirdly, That after his ascension to the right hand of ma- 
jesty and glory, the Lord Christ did again reassume this form, 
and appear in his majestic splendour, is evident from the 
New Testament: thus he appeared to Stephen, who, looking 
up steadfastly to heaven, “saw the glory of God, and the Son 
of man standing at the right hand of God,” Acts vii. 55. | 
Thus he appeared to a persecuting Saul, in “a light from 
heaven, above the brightness of the sun, saying to him, Iam 
Jesus whom thou persecutest,” Acts xxvi. 13. Thus in the 
vision of John, Rev. i. 14. 16; “ His eyes were as a flaming 
fire, and his countenance as the sun shining in its strength.” 
Thus he declared he would appear at the destruction of Je- 
rusalem, to punish that rebellious people, «‘The Son of 
man,” saith he, “ will come in the glory of his Father, with 
his holy angels,” Matt. xvi. 27, Luke ix. 26. 28. And his 
second advent shall be with the same tremendous glory, for 
“he shall be then revealed from heaven with his mighty an- 
gels, in flaming fire,” 2 Thess. i. 7, 8. 

Fourthly, Seeing then this splendour, and this attendance 
of holy angels, is represented in scripture as the similitude, 
the shape, the face, and majestic presence of God; seeing it 
is evident, before the incarnation, the Aéyos, or divine Word, 
had this glory, and in it did appear to Moses and the patri- 
archs, and that in order to the exercise of a regal power over 
his church; seeing it is certain from the New Testament, 
that after his ascension he again reassumed this form and 
power, it is highly probable this was the form of God here 
mentioned ; this was the likeness to God in which, at his hu- 
miliation, he “ did not covet to appear,” but rather chose to 
lay it aside, that so he might appear amongst us, not as the 
Lord of heaven,‘attended with a host of angels, or in the 
dazzling brightness of his Father’s glory, but in the fashion 
of a man. 

3 Οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα Θειῇ, Thought it no rob- 
bery to be equal with God.] This Greek phrase is only to be 
met with in Plutarch, saith Grotius (though I cannot find it 
there), and in Heliodorus; in which writer it plainly signi- 
fies, to “covet earnestly,” or look upon a thing as much to 
be desired, and snatched at. Thus when Cybele went about 
to allure Theagenes to the lustful embraces of Arsace, find- 
ing him out of the temple, in a bye apartment, she didt 
ἅρπαγμα ποιεῖν τὴν ξυντυχίαν, i. 6. “she snatched at the occa- 
sion,” or looked upon it as a thing desirable for her purpose ; 
and when none of her proposals or allurements would pre- 
vail with Theagenes to gratify the queen’s desires, she brake 
forth into this admiration,} “ What adverseness from love is 
this? A young man in the flower of his age thrusts from 
him, or refuses a woman like unto himself, and desirous of 
him, καὶ οὐχ ἅρπαγμα οὐδὲ ἕρμαιον ἡγεῖται τὸ πράγμα, and does 
not look upon this as a great offer, and a thing very de- 
sirable :”” and when she had found out that his affection to 
Chariclea was the cause of this averseness, she proposes to 
Arsace the death of Chariclea, as an expedient to gain his 
affection, and§ ἅρπαγνα τὸ fnSiv ἱποιήσατο ἢ ᾿Ἀρσάκη, “ Arsace 
embraces the motion as a thing very desirable, or to be co- 
veted.” So that ἅρπαγμα ἡγεῖσϑαι, saith Semidius, is rem 
optatam persequi, et studiosissimé occupare. 

4 Τὸ εἶναι ἴσα Θεῷ. Is to be, or appear as God, or in the 


* Διόπερ εὔχεται Mwiions αὐτῷ τῷ Θεῷ χρῆσϑαι ἡγεμόνι πρὸς τὴν 
αὐτὸν ἄγουσαν δόύν" λέγει γὰρ, εἰ μὴ αὐτὸς σὺ συμπορεύση, μὴ με 


ἀγάγης ἐντεῦϑεν. De Migrat. Abrah. p. 394, , ᾿Ἡγεμόνι τῆς 

δὲῥοῦ χρῆται Λογῳ θείῳ, γρησμὸ γάρ ἐστιν, ἰδοὺ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν 

μου πρὸ προσώπου cov. Ibid. lit. F. 
{ Heliodor. lib. vii. p. 322. 


ΞΡ, 340. § P. 337. 


likeness of God: so the word ica is adverbially used fre- 
quently in the Septuagint, answering to the Hebrew 9, 
Job v. 14, “They grope in the noon-day, ἴσα vvxri, as in the 
night,” x. 10, “Hast thou not curdled me, ἴσα τυρῷ, as 
cheese ;” xi. 12, “Man is born, ἴσα ὄνῳ ἐρημίτη, like a wild 
ass’s colt ;” xiii. 12, « Your remembrance is, ἶσα onod3, like 
unto ashes ;” and, ver. 20, “He consumeth, ἴσα ἀσκῷ, as a 
bottle ;” xv. 16, “Man drinketh in iniquity, ἴσα ποτῷ, as 
drink ;” xxiv. 20, “ Wickedness shall be broken, ἴσα ξυλῳ,, as 
a tree ;” xxvii. 16, “He prepareth raiment, ἴσα πηλῷ, as the 
clay ;” xxviii. 2, “ Brass is molten out of the stone, σα λιθῳ, 
as ‘the stone;” xxix. 14, “I put on judgment, ἴσα διπλοίδι, 
as a robe,” xl. 15, “ He eateth grass, ica βουσὶν, as an ox;” 
Isa. li. 23, “Thou hast laid thy body, ica τῇ γῆ, as the 
earth ;” Wisd. vii. 1, “I myself am a mortal man, ἶσον ἅπασι, 
like to all men; and the first voice I uttered was πᾶσιν ἴσα 
κλαίων, Weeping as all others do,” ver. 3. So that the sense 
of these words seems to me to be this, That though Christ in 
his former appearances still represented himself in the form 
and likness of God; yet coming now into the world for the 
salvation of mankind, he did not covet or desire to appear 
in that majestic splendour and authority, but rather chose to 
come in the similitude or a man, and in the form of a ser- 
vant. Nor doth this exposition give any advantage to the 
Socinians, but equally confutes their heresy, and gives a better 
answer to their arguments than the usual exposition can 
give. For, 

First, Hence the pre-existence of Christ, before his being 
born of the blessed virgin, is proved to a demonstration. 

Secondly, Hence also it is evident, that there must be two 
natures in Christ; that of the Λόγος, which appeared from 
the beginning to the patriarchs; and that which he received, 
when as man he was conccived in the virgin’s womb. 

Thirdly, Hence it appears that this nature in which he 
appeared before his conception in the virgin’s womb must 
be divine. For what other nature could appear in the form 
of God, and challenge to itself the glory, which by the Jews 
was still a certain indication of the divine presence, and in 
the New ‘Testament is styled “the glory of the Father?” 
Especially if we consider, that he who thus appeared hath 
the incommunicable name Jehovah so oft ascribed to him, is 
styled «the Judge of the whole earth,” and either challengeth 
to himself the divine attributes and offices, or never doth re- 
fuse them when they are offered to him by men. Morcover, 
where is the humiliation, or the exinanition here mentioned 
in that Christ would not be, or appear as Godin the world, 
if having only a human nature, he could not do so without 
being guilty of the blasphemy the Jews laid to his charge, 
«That he, being a man, made himself God?” Whereas he 
differed in nothing from an ordinary man, but only in the 
extraordinary gifts conferred by God upon him. And if his 
nature was divine, it of necessity must be eternal, since the 
divine nature can have no beginning of existence. 

5 Ver. 7. Moppiv δοῦλον λαβὼν. He took wpon him the form 
of a servant.) This phrase cannot import only his taking of 
the human nature, that being sufficiently expressed by say- 
ing that “he was made in the likeness of man:” besides, 
he still retains the human nature, but doth not now retain 
the form of a servant, but of “the Lord of all things.” Nor 
are we to understand by it “his outward poverty, which 
equalled him to servants,” saith the learned Grotius, “as 
having nothing of his own ;” for that is not the state of a 
servant only, but of a son in his minority, and of many un- 
fortunate persons who were never servants. Nor, thirdly, 
must we understand by it, as the Socinians do, his submis- 
sion to be used as a slave or servant, by being whipped, and 
bound, and crucified ; for that is the humiliation which he 
suffered after he had taken upon him the form of a servant, 
as those words plainly show, “He took upon him the form 
of a servant, and being found in the fashion of a man, he 
became obedient to the death ;” nor is this proper to a ser- 
vant, but to a malefactor; for a servant is not less a servant 
when he is not whipped or scourged ; he therefore may be 
rather said to have taken upon him the form of a servant, 
by ministering to men, and being among them “as one that 


112 


δ was made in the likeness of men (Gr. being in the 
likeness of man) : 

8 And being found in fashion as a (n ordinary) man, 
he humbled himself (yet more), and became obedient 
unto death, even the death of the cross. 

9 Wherefore 7 God also hath highly exalted him 
(even as to his manhood), and given him a name (ἃ 
dignity and majesty) which is above every name (of 
majesty, Eph. i. 21, Heb. i. 4): 

10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should 
bow, (humbly acknowledging his superiority, even those) 
of things in heaven (7. e. the holy angels), and things 
in earth (ἡ. e. men), and things under the earth (the 
dead, who, being raised by him, shall acknowledge his 
power ; for to them the apostle doth apply these very words 
of the prophet Isaiah, Rom. xiv. 11, 12, Rev. v. 13, Isa. 
xly. 23); 


PHILIPPIANS. 


11 And that every tongue (7. e. men of all nations 
and languages, Rey. vii. 13) should confess that 
Jesus Christ 7s Lord, ® to the glory of God the Fa- 
ther. 

12 Wherefore, my beloved (remembering the dignily 
of Christ, and your subjection to him), as ye have always 
obeyed, not as in my presence only (when you had me 
to be your monitor), but now much more in my ὃ ab- 
sence (which God by the workings of his Holy Spirit 
supplies), work out your own salvation with fear and 
trembling. 

13 For itis God which (in my absence, by his inward 
teachings) worketh in you both to will and to do of his 
good pleasure. 

14 (4nd) © Doall things without murmurings and 
disputings (7. e. obey the precepts of the Christian 
Saith and of your spiritual monitors cheerfully, and 


served ;” for as the business of a servant is to do nothing 
for himself, but for the good of others, and to spend himself 
in ministering to their advantage ; so the Son of man “ came 
not to be ministered to, but to minister, and” at the close of 
that ministry, “to give his life a ransom for many.” 

6 Ev ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος, And being in the lilce- 
ness of man.] That our Lord had the real nature, and not 
only the outward shape or resemblance of a man; that he 
had a body consisting of flesh, blood, and bones; a soul and 
spirit; and so all the constituent parts of a man, the scrip- 
ture plainly testifies. Nor doth this phrase ἐν ὑμοιώματι, 
«cin the likeness of man,”’ contradict it, it being used of a 
real likeness by the participation of the same nature as to 
kind. Thus Adam is said to beget a son, ἐν ὁμοιώματι αὐτοῦ, 
“in his own likeness,” who yet was certainly of the same 
nature with him: and Christ is said, ὁμοιωϑῆναι, «to be made 
like to his brethren,” by the participation of the nature of 
Abraham, and his communion with them in the same flesh 
and blood, Heb. ii. 14. 16, 17, and it was both proper and 
elegant for the apostle to use this expression here, by reason 
of the opposition he designed to show, betwixt Christ’s 
former glorious and his then present humble state, he being 
then ἐν μορφῇ rod Θεοῦ, “in the form of God,” now ἐν ὁμοιώ- 
part τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, “in the likeness of a man.” 

7 Ver. 9. Αὐτὸν ὑπερύψωσε, God hath exalled him.) The 
fathers on this place advise us, cis τὴν ἀνθρώποσιν, καὶ οὐκ εἰς 
τὴν Seérnra ταῦτα διανοεῖν, “ to refer these things not to the 
divine, but to the human nature,” the apostle not speaking 
here of the exaltation of the divine nature of Christ, by the 
manifestation of his concealed glory and power, but of the 
exaltation of that nature which had suffered; this exalta- 
tion being in scripture represented as the reward of our 
Lord’s salutary passion : for “ we see him,” saith the apostle, 
«who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffer- 
ing of death, crowned with glory and honour,” Heb. ii. 9; 
and again, the elders about the throne say, “ Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wis- 
dom, and strength, and honour, and glory,” Rev. iv. 11, v. 
12. Moreover, John declares, that this dominion and power 
was given to the Son of man because he was so (John v. 17), 
though it was given to the man Christ Jesus, because the 
fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him. 

8 Ver. 11. Eis dézav, To the glory.| He does not say, as 
the Socinians contend, that Christ is exalted to the glory of 
God the Father, though that be true of the advancement of 
his human nature; but he saith, that being thus exalted, he 
is to be acknowledged of all tongues and nations as their 
Lord, to the glory of the Father; nothing more tending to his 
glory, than that all persons owning Christ as their Lord, and 
yielding obedience to him, should abound in these works of 
righteousness, “which are through Jesus Christ to the 
glory of God the Father,” i. 11, Eph. i. 12. Moreover sce- 
ing the Father thus exalted the humanity of Christ since he 
united the Λόγος to the human nature (for “it pleased the 
Father that in him should all fullness dwell’’), what hinders 
that this exaltation should be said to be to the glory of God 
the Father, from whom he received even the divine nature? 

9 Ver. 12. Ἔν τῇ ἀπουσία pov, In my absence.) i. 6. When 
I was present with you, I by my counsels and exhortations 
stirred you up to desire and do what was according to the 


mind of God: he, in my absence, is more immediately pre- 
sent with you, by the inward motions of his Holy Spirit to 
excite you both to will and to do what is well pleasing to 
him. Having therefore now all things administered more 
immediately by God, which are requisite to make you will- 
ing and able to perform your duty, it doth more highly con- 
cern you to work out your salvation. Thus Ignatius* saith 
that he being now in chains, and going to Rome to receive 
the crown of martyrdom, the church of Syria had God, in- 
stead of him, to be ber pastor, and that Christ alone was 
bishop over her. This sense I gather from these words, 
“much more in my absence ;” for what other reason can be 
offered of these words than that which this interpretation 
gives? 

Hence it is evident, that God worketh in us to will and 
to do, not by a physical operation, which makes it necessary 
for us to will and to do what he would have us do; for why 
then doth the apostle admonish his Philippians to “ work 
out their salvation with fear and trembling?” For what is 
more absurd, than to exhort another to do himself what God 
doth for him without his concurrence; or to require him to 
will what he cannot but will and do for this reason, because 
another renders it necessary for him so to will? and what 
ground of fear can there be, lest God should fail in his work? 
That the word ἐνεργεῖν doth not require this sense, is evident, 
because in scripture it occurs very often, where it must be 
understood, not of a physical, but only of a moral operation ; 
as when Satan is said, ἐνεργεῖν, to “ work in the children of 
disobedience,” Eph. ii. 2, and of the mystery of iniquity, 
that ἐνεργεῖται, “it now works,” 2 Thess. ii. 7. (2.) When it 
is attributed to those causes which produce not their effects 
by any physical, but only by moral operations, as when the 
word is said to be évepyic, powerful,” Heb. iv. 12; “The 
word ὃ ἐνεργεῖται, which eflectually works in them that be- 
lieve,’ 1 Thess. ii. 13; that “faith that worketh by love,” 
Gal. v. 6; that charity is ἐνεργὴς, “ effectual,’ Philem. 6; 
and of concupiscence, that ἐνεργεῖται, it “ worketh in our 
members,” Rom. vii. 5. (3.) When it is ascribed to God 
sending upon men ἐνέργειαν πλάνης, “ the efficacy of deceit ;” 
for surely God worketh no evil physically. In a word, did 
God thus work in us to will and to do, the work could no 
more be ascribed to us, than the motion which was impressed 
on the body of Lazarus, when he came out of the grave, or 
upon Paul, when rapt up to the third heavens, could be 
ascribed to them ; and the will would not deserve that name, 
as being neither free nor praiseworthy. And therefore all 
the Greck interpreters observe, that the apostle saith, “It is 
God that worketh in us both to will and to do, οὐχ ὡς ἀφαιρῶν 
τὸ αὐτεζούσιον, not as denying our free-will, or τοὺς ἄκοντας 
βιαζόμενος, constraining the unwilling,’> ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι προϑυμίαν 
εὑρίσκων, αὔξει ταύτην διὰ τῆς χάριτος" but, because finding a 
readiness of mind, he increaseth it by his grace; and be- 
cause he works together with those who work out their sal- 
vation with fear and trembling, τοῖς yap τοιούτοις συνεργεῖ, for 
with such he co-operates,” saith Gcumenius. 

10 Ver. 14. Do all things without murmurings, καὶ διαλο- 


* "Auri ἐμοῦ ποιμένι τῷ Θεῷ χρῆται, μόνος αὐτὴν ἸΙησοὺς Χριστὸς 
ἐπεσκότησε. Ep. ad Rom. §. 9. 
+ Theodoret in locum. 


CHAPTER II. 


without grudging, and readily, without exacling a reason 
of every command they lay upon you) : 

15 ‘That ye may be blameless and harmless, (as be- 
comes) the sons of God, (being) without rebuke, in the 
midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom 
ye shine as lights in the world ; 

16 Holding forth (ἐπέχοντες, holding fast) the word 
of life (under all persecutions and temptations); that I 
may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run 
in vain, neither laboured in vain. 


17 (And as for me, a prisoner, if I not only should | 


continue absent from, ἀλλ᾽ εἰ xai,) Yea, and if I be (also) 
offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith 
(i. e. that I may present you gentiles an acceptable sacri- 
fice to God, through faith, and the sanctification of the 
Holy Spirit, Rom. xv. 16), I joy, and rejoice with you 
all: (1 count these sufferings the matter, not of my sorrow, 
bul my joy. 

18 And if this come to pass,)For the same cause (or 
in the like manner) also do ye joy, and rejoice with me. 

19 But (though I speak thus) 1 trust in the Lord 
Jesus (that he will work such a deliverance for me, i. 19. 
25, as that, not needing him so much here, I may be able) 
to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that (whatever be 
my condition here) I also may (or J may yet) be of good 
comfort, when I know your state (¢. e. your sleadfast- 
ness in the faith, and your charity to one another. 

20 Tb send Timothy, [say :)ForI have no man (with 
me) likeminded, who will (so) naturally (and with like 
affection) care for your state. 

21 For all (here) seek their own (interests and safety, 
and) not the things which are Jesus Christ’s (that 
is, comparatively to Timothy and Epaphroditus, men- 
tioned ver. 25, for I find others too generally more 
concerned for their own safely, than fur advancing the 
kingdom of Christ with the hazard of their own lives and 
fortunes). 


773 


22 But ye know the proof (ye have had experience) 
of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served 
with me in the gospel ( yielding honour and obedience to 
me, and with the like spirit labouring to promote the 
affairs of the gospel). 

23 Him therefore I hope to send (to you) presently, 
so soon as I shall see how it will go with me (ἐ. e. 
what will be the issue of my bonds). 

24 But I trust (or J trust also) in the Lord that I 
also myself (being set at liberty) shall come shortly (lo 

Ou). 
4 2 Yet (being not hitherto able to come myself, or to 
send Timothy,) I supposed it necessary to send to you 
Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, 
and fellowsoldier, but your * messenger, and he that 
ministered to my wants. 

26 For he longed after you all (¢. 6. desired much to 
see you), and was full of heaviness, because that ye 
had heard that he had been sick (as knowing your af- 
fection to him would render you full of sorrow upon his 
account). 

27 3 For (and) indeed he was sick nigh unto 
death: but God had merey on him; and not on him 
only, but on me also, lest (by his death) 1 should have 
sorrow upon sorrow. 

28 I sent him therefore the more carefully, that, 
when ye see him again (recovered ), ye may rejoice (on 
the account of it), and that I may be the less sorrowful 
(finding your sorrow for him turned into joy). 

29 Receive him therefore in the Lord (aud for his 
sake) with great gladness; and hold such (as stand 
thus affected to his service) in reputation : 

30 Because for the work of Christ (7. e. the promo- 
tion of his gospel, and the ministration to me, the prisoner 
of the Lord) he was nigh unto death, ™ not regarding 
(but freely hazarding) his (own) life, to supply your 
lack of service toward me. 


γισμῶν, and disputings.] That is, say the Greek commenta- 
tors, without murmuring under your sufferings for the sake 
of Christ (i. 20), or doubtings, or reasonings, whether you 
should continue steadfast in the faith, or not. 

1 Ver. 17. Ei σπένδομαι, If I offered.] The apostle here 
hath an elegant allusion to the Jewish sacrifices: they were 
prepared for the altar, on which they were to be offered, by 
the Levites and the priests, and this was their λειτουργία, 
“service,” and there was poured upon the sacrifice oil or 
wine, which was the σπονδὴ, or “ libation:” if then, saith the 
apostle, whilst I am thus, λειτουργῶν, wholly employed in 
rendering you gentiles an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord, 
my blood should be the libation to be poured out upon this 
sacrifice; I should rejoice even thus to die in your service, 
and for the confirmation of your faith (see Rom. xv. 16). 

12 Ver. 35. Ὑμῶν ἀπόστολον, Your apostle.) So they were 
usually styled, who gathered sacred money, and carried it 
up to Jerusalem: and so, say some, he calls Epaphroditus, 
because he brought the contributions of the Philippians to 
him at Rome. But the word apostle is never used in the 
New Testament, but either of those who were in the strict 
sense “apostles of the Lord,” or else were eminent minis- 
ters and preachers of the gospel: thus Titus and the brother 
of Paul (which is the usual appellation of Timothy, see note 
on Heb. xiii. 23) are ἀπόστολοι, “the apostles of the 
churches,” 2 Cor. viii. 22, 23, and Andronicus and Junia, 
who had long preached the gospel, are styled ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς 
ἀποστόλοις, “eminent among the apostles of Christ.” I 
therefore conclude with Theodoret* upon the place, and 
upon i. 1, that “the episcopal care of this church was com- 
mitted to him ;” and that this is the import of the word apostle 
here. This heing the note of the same Theodoret, that 
formerly, τοὺς viv καλουμένους ἐπισκόπους, ἀποστόλους ὠνόμαζον, 


“they who are now called bishops were styled apostles ;” 


* Σαφῶς τοίνυν ἐδίδαξεν, ὡς τὴν ἐπισκοπικὴν οἰκονομίαν αὐτὸς 
ἐπεπίστευτο, ἔχων ἀποστόλου προσηνορίαν. 


and Hilary the deacon saying here, Erat enim eorum apos- 
tolus, ab apostolo factus, ‘He was constituted their apostle 
(i. 6. bishop) by Paul,” who therefore commands them to 
receive him “in the Lord,” ver. 28, i. e. for the sake of the 
Lord Christ, whose minister he was. 

13 Ver. 27.] Note, that here we find Epaphroditus was 
not recovered by the gift of healing, then frequent in the 
church, that gift being not exercised by them to whom it was 
imparted at their own pleasure; but as God was pleased 
by a special instinct, and a strong faith, to incite them to 
the exercise of it: these gifts being therefore given for the 
sake of unbelievers, to convince them of the truth of the 
Christian faith, God thought not fit that it should be ordi- 
narily exercised upon believers, lest it should be looked upon 
not as a gift, but as the effect of art or skill, or a thing done 
among them by confederacy. 

4 Ver. 30. Παραβουλευσάμενος, Not regarding his life 3] 
Or as others read, παραβολευσάμενος, or παραβολησάμενος, 
“hazarding his life;” that is, say the Greek commentators, 
εἰς κίνδυνον ἔξῥιψεν ἑαυτὸν, “ He brought himself in danger of 
death ;” not by venturing on the emperor's displeasure, but 
by labouring so as to contract a dangerous disease (which 
he did, saith the apostle, “to supply your lack of service 
towards me’’), which is not so to be understood, as if he 
charged them with any want of service or affection to him 
(see iv. 10); but thus, that Epaphroditus did this, being 
present with him, to supply that service, which they, being 
absent, were not in a capacity to perform. Note also, that 
παραβουλευσάμενος is the reading of all the Greek scholia, 
Photius, and Cod. Alexand., and, say Hesychius and Phavo- 
tinus, is in sense the same with παραβολευσόμενος, and so it 
is not certain that there was ever any other reading. And 
therefore Theodoret on the place saith, the apostle speaks 
thus, οὐκ ἐπειδὰν καὶ τοὺς ἄκοντας βιάζεται, ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι προϑυμίαν 
εὑρίσκων αὔξει ταύτην διὰ τῆς χάριτος, “ not as if God constrained 
the unwilling, but because, where he finds a readiness of 
mind, he increaseth it by his grace” 

Re2 


TIA 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Finaty (τὸ λοιπὸν, henceforth), my brethren, re- 
joice in the Lord. To write the same things (which 
L have delivered) to you (by word of mouth), to me in- 
deed ἐξ not grievous, but for you ! ἐϊ zs safe. 

2 (I therefore exhort you again, to) Beware of 
2 dogs, beware of 3 evil workers, beware of the 4 con- 
cision. 

3 For we are the (true and spiritual) circumcision, 
which worship God in the spirit (of our mind, Eph. iv. 
23), and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have § no confi- 
dence in the (ctrewmeision of the) flesh (as if this would 
commend us to God). 

4 Though (were this any proper ground of confidence) 
I might also have confidence in the flesh (as well as 
they who boast of this: for) if any other man thinketh 
that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I 
(have) more (reason so to do: 

5 Fur I was)® Circumcised the eighth day, (the very 
day prescribed by the law, Gen. xvii. 12,) of the stock 
of Israel (my parents and anceslors being all of Israel), 
of the tribe of Benjamin, (that tribe which cleaved to 
Judah, and revolted not with Jeroboam to the worship 
of the calves, 1 Kings xii. 21,) an Hebrew of the He- 
brews (both by nation and language, 2 Cor. xi. 22, 


Acts xxi. 40) ; as touching (the observance of ) the law, 
a Pharisee (one of the strictest sects of our religion, Acts 
xxvi. 5); 

6 Concerning zeal (for the Jewish religion, I have 
shown that above others, in) persecuting the church (of 
Christ, Acts xxii. 3, 4, xxvi. 11); touching the righte- 
ousness which is in (and by) the law, ( have lived) 
blameless (as to thal, Acts xxxili. 1). 

7 But what things (of this nature) were (then re- 
puted) gain to me, those I (have) counted (as) loss for 
Christ (’s sake). 

8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things (of this 
world) but loss 7 for the excellency of the knowledge 
of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered 
the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, 
that I may win Christ (ἡ. e. oblain an interest in him, 
and the blessings purchased by him), 

9 And be found in him, not having mine own 
righteousness, which is of the law, (which cannot jus- 
tify me, but leaves me still under the curse of it, Rom. iii. 
20, Gal. iii. 10,) but that which is through the faith 
of Christ, (viz.) " the righteousness which is (approved ) 
of God (@. e. the rightcousness which is) by faith (in 
Chris!) = 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1Ver. 1. ᾿Ασφαλὲς, It is safe.) viz. Because things only 
delivered by word of mouth may slip out of memory ; litera 
scripta manet. Here is Paul’s judgment against oral tradi- 
tion. 

2 Ver. 2. Τοὺς κύνας, Dogs.] It is the observation of the 
fathers,* that the name of “dogs’’ was anciently given to 
the gentiles, as being without the covenant, according to 
those words of Christ, “It is not meet to take the children’s 
bread, and give it to dogs:” but with the things the names 
are now changed, they being now without the covenant, and 
the believing gentiles admitted to it; and therefore they are 
called the children, but the Jews dogs. And it is well noted 
by Dr. Lightfoot,; that our Lord used this language, Matt. 
xv. 26, “not to express his own sentiments of the gentiles, 
but in compliance with the common language of the Jews, 
who proverbially said, The gentiles are likened to dogs, 
whereas we are God's peculiar people, even his sons and 
daughters.” Where also is observed by the same worthy 
person, that even the Talmudists say of the generation in 
which the Messiah, or the Son of David, should come, that 
“the synagogues should become stews, and the faces of that 
generation shall be as dogs. 

3 Evil-workers.) For they labour only to pull down God’s 
building, and to destroy the church of Christ. Elsewhere 
he styles them “deceitful workers,” 2 Cor. xi. 13, not 
speaking of the Gnostics, as some imagine, but of the Jews; 
for so it follows: “« Are they Hebrews? Are they Israelites? 
so am J,”’ ver. 22. 

4 Tiv κατατομὴν, The concision.] For circumcision being 
no longer a rite of entering into covenant with God, it is no 
better than a cutting off the flesh; and they, who still in- 
sisted on it as a thing necessary to justification and salva- 
tion, cut themselves off from Christ (Gal. v. 2, 3). 

5 Ver. 3. Νὺ confidence in the flesh.] That the Jews had 
a great confidence in the merit of circumcision, see note on 
Rom. ii. 13. 

6 Ver. 5. Περιτομὴ ὀκταήμερος, Circumcised the eighth 


* Τοῦτο πάλαι τῶν ἐϑνῶν ἦν ὄνομα, οὐκ ἔστι yap, φησὶν ὃ Κύριος, 
καλὸν λαβεῖν τὸν ἄρτον τῶν τέκνων καὶ δοῦναι τοῖς κυναρίοις" ἀλλὰ 
μετέβη μετὰ μὲν τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα, καὶ τὰ μὲν ἔϑνη viol, 
“Ἰουδαῖοί γε προσαγορεύονται κυνές. ‘Theod. Chrysost. Gicum. 
Theophylact. 

1 Harm. p. 136. 


day.] The Jews themselves say, that circumcision before 
that time was no circumcision, and after that time it was of 
lesser value (see Buxtorf. Synag. Jud. cap. 4, p. 109): and 
Origen* informs us, that “the Jews held, that the circum- 
cision performed on the eighth day was that which was 
chiefly intended, and that the performing it on any other 
day was only allowed in case of sickness.” Hence they 
thought it necessary to circumcise a child on the sabbath-day, 
though all manner of work was forbidden on that day, rather 
than defer circumcision a day beyond the time (John vii. 
22), and made it a rule, that} “the rest of the sabbath gives 
place to circumcision.” And this opinion, as it agrees with 
the text, Gen. xvii. 12, so it seems to have obtained long be- 
fore our Saviour’s time; for the Septuagint and the Samari- 
tan version read thus, “The uncircumcised male, who is not 
circumcised, τῇ ἡμέρα τὴ ὀγδόη, the eighth day, shall be cut off, 
he hath broken my covenant,” Gen. xvii. 14. 

7 Ver. 8. Διὰ τὸ ὑπερέχον τῆς γνώσεως Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, For 
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.] There 
hath been a sharp contention about the import of these plain 
words; some contending that the apostle here intends the 
knowledge of the person of our Lord, and of his offices, 
and of the benefits which he hath purchased for us in his 
person, and doth convey to us by his offices: and others 
pleading, that it is the knowledge of the gospel of Christ 
which is here intended, and the excellency of it which is 
here commended ; whereas I think there is no real difference 
betwixt these two opinions: for we know nothing of the 
person and of the offices of Christ, or of the benefits which 
he hath purchased for us, and conveys to us by them, but by 
the revelation of the gospel, and so the excellency of his 
person and offices, and of that gospel which reveals them to 
us, must be in effect the same; nor would the knowledge of 
the gospel be so excellent, were it not for the revelation of 
the dignity of his person and of his offices, and of the bene- 
fits we receive from them. 

8 Ver. 9. τὴν ἐκ Θεοὺ δικαιοσύνην, The righteousness of 
God.] That the righteousness of God, in Paul’s style, doth 
always signify the righteousness by faith in Christ Jesus 
dying for us, see note on Rom. i. 17. And hence it is evi- 
dent, that the apostle cannot here speak of the righteousness 


* Λέγουσι δὲ of ᾿Ιουδαῖοι τὴν μέν οκταήμερον περιτομὴν εἶναι τὴν 
προηγουμένην, τὴν δὲ μὴ τοιαύτην ἐκ περιστάσεως. Contra Celsum, 
lib. v. p. 263. ; 

1 Buxt. cap. 16 p. 366. 


CHAPTER III. 


10 That I may know him (lo be the Messiah, and 
the Saviour of the world, which knowledge is necessary 
to life eternal, John xvii. 3, 1 Cor. ii. 2), and the 
® power of his resurrection, and the ™ fellowship 
of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his 
death ; 

11 If by (these, or) any (other) means I might at- 
tain unto the resurrection of the dead (promised by him 
to all his faithful servants and sufferers. 

12 " Mr Ican) Not (look upon myself) as though I 
had already attained (or caught hold of the prize of my 
high calling, ver. 14, the resurrection of the dead, ver. 


11), either “were already perfect (ἡ. e. crowned with it) : | 


but I follow after (or pursue it), if that I may appre- 
hend (or reach) that ( prize) for (the oblaining of ) which 
also Lam apprehended of Christ Jesus. (Jur when I 

ed from him, he caught hold on me, converted me to the 
faith, that believing in him Imight oblain life everlasting, 
1 Tim. i. 15, 16, εἰ xai, if that, or that also: see note 
on 1 Tim. v. 10. 

13 Brethren, 1 count’ not myself to have appre- 
hended (7. e. caught hold of the prize): but this one 
thing 7 do, forgetting (not looking after) those things 
which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things 
which are before, 

14 I press toward the mark (the goal) for the (ob- 
taining the) prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus. 


| 


775 


15 Let us therefore, as many as be ™ perfect (or 
thoroughly instructed in our Christian duty), be thus 
minded (as 7 have told you Iam, t. δ. so as to believe the 
circumcision of the spirit, not that of the flesh, and the 
righteousness which is of God by faith, are the things 
especially lo be regarded for the oblaining of this prize) 
and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded (imagining 
the Judaical pr rforman ces may also commend you ἰυ God), 
God shall (in due time) reveal even this unto you (i. δ. 
he will convince you of the no necessily of these things in 
order to his favour). 

16 Nevertheless (ἐπ the mean time), whereto we have 
already attained (7. e. as far as we have attained to the 


| knowledge of it), let us walk by the same rule, (viz. 


that circumeiston availeth nothing, but a new creature, 
Gal. vi. 15, 16,) let us mind the same thing. 

17 Brethren, be (ye) followers together of me (in 
this matter, who have renounced all my Jewish privi- 
leges), and mark them (for your patlerns) which walk 
so as ye have us for an ensample (uf the spiritual 
circumcision, and of minding the prize of our high call- 
ing 

τὸ (For many (zealots of the law so) walk, of whom 
I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, 
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 

19 13 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their 
belly, and whose glory ts in their shame, who mind 
earthly things.) 


of Christ imputed to us: for, (1.) he does not oppose to 
his own righteousness, which is of the law, the righteousness 
of Christ imputed to him, but his own faith in Christ «im- 
puted unto him for righteousness,” Rom.iv.5. (2.) He speaks 
of his faith in Christ dying and shedding his blood for him ; 
and therefore not of his active obedience, constituting us 
righteous as Christ was, but of his passive obedience, pro- 
curing for us justification, or the remission of sins. 

9 Ver. 10. Kai τὴν ὀύναμιν, &e. The power of his resur- 
rection.] i. e. The power exercised in his resurrection, “ by 
which we are begotten to a lively hope of an inheritance in- 
corruptible,” (1 Pet. i. 3,4), and are assured of our own 
resurrection (2 Cor. iv. 14, Col. ii. 12), this being that know- 
ledge he so earnestly requests for his Ephesians (i. 19, 20), 
and also the power of it, to assure us of our justification 
through faith in him (Rom. iv. 24, 25), and of our freedom 
from condemnation (Rom. viii. 34). 

10 Τὴν κοινωνίαν, &c. The fellowship of his sufferings.] 
By being conformed to his death: (1.) spiritually, by Hl 
unto sin; as knowing that “ if we be (thus) conformed to him 
in the likeness of his death, we shall be like unto him in his 
resurrection,” and shall live with him (Rom. vi. 5.8). And 
(2.) by suffering and taking up the cross for his sake ; as know- 
ing that “if we (thus) suffer with him, we shall be also glori- 
fied with him” (Rom. viii. 17, 2 Tim.ii. 11, 12, 1 Pet. iv. 


13). | 


MN Ver, L2—14. 'Q¢ ἐτὶ ὁὀρύμεως τὰ πάντα λέγει. He in these | 


verses makes a continual allusion to the race run in the 
Olympian games, where he that ran was still ἔμπροσϑεν εἰς 
τεινόμενος, * upon the stretch, and pressing forwards,” without 


looking back to those whom he had left behind; and pur- | 
suing the goal, that first coming to it, he might catch hold of | 


the prize, and so be crowned with it. And two things are 
here noted by the fathers, worthy of our observation : 

(1.) That if this great apostle, who had suffered so many 
things, and was “in deaths often,” 
60 abundantly, οὔτω ἐθάῤῥει περὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως ἐκείνης, * Was 
not yet confident of a blessed resurrection, but only striving, 
if so be he might attain unto it: such as we must have less 
ground of confidence. 

(2-) What continual diligence and labour this pursuit re- 
quires: for you know, saith Chrysostom, with what great 
stretch the pursuer runs; he looks upon no man, he throws 
out of the way every thing that might binder him; he em- 
ploys his body, eye, strength, soul, and mind, upon the work, 
πρὸς ἕτερον piv οὐδὲν ὁρῶν, πρὸς dé τὸ βραβεῖον μύνον, “looking to 
nothing else, but only to the prize.” 

2 Ver. 15. Τέλειοι, Perfect.) ‘That to be perfect, is to be 


and who had laboured | 


Christian faith, hath been shown, note on 1 Cor. ii. 6, and 
on Matt. xix. 21, and by comparing this passage with the 
discourse of the same apostle in his fifth and sixth chapters 
to the Galatians, we may learn what it is, τῷ αὐτῷ στοιχεῖν 
κάνονι, to “walk by the same rule:” for as there he sharply 
inveighs against the Galatians, for hearkening to the teach- 
ers oF the “necessity of circumcision; so here he warns his 
Philippians to beware of them and their doctrine, from ver. 
2 to 7, as there he opposeth to circumcision the cross of 
Christ, in which alone he gloried, Gal. vi. 14, so here he 
opposeth to it “the fellowship of his sufferings,” ver. 8, 9, 
as there he says, he is persuaded of his Galatians, that οὐδὲν 
ἄλλο φρονήσουσιν, “they will be no otherwise minded,” Gal. v. 
10; so here he exhorts his Philippians, τοῦτο φρονεῖν, to 
“mind the same thing,” ver. 16, as there he teaches them 
by his own example, not to yield to those who urged on them 
circumcision, Gal. ii. 14. 20, so here he exhorts the Philip- 
pians to “ walk” in this case, “as they had him for an ex- 
ample,” ver. 17; which example he had laid before them, 
ver. 4. 9, and as there he promised mercy and peace, τῷ 
κανόνι τούτῳ στοιχήσουσιν, “to them that walked by the rule,” 
or canon, he had laid them down, Gal. vi. 15, 16, so here he 
admonisheth the Philippians, τῷ aired στοιχεῖν κανόνι, to 
“walk by the same rule:” this rule must therefore be that 
which he there lays down, that “in Christ Jesus neither cir- 
cumeision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new 
creature.” ‘Those who are fully persuaded of this, he styles 
“the perfect,” requiring of them a life exactly conformed to 
this rule, from others only as far as they had attained to the 
knowledge of it, informing them that the time was at hand, 
when God, by destroying the Jewish temple, and dissolving 
the Jewish church and economy, would farther reveal this 
truth to them, and convince them of the vanity of these 
Judaical performances. 

18 Ver. 19. Ὧν τὸ τέλος, Whose end is destruction.| That 
the description here given of these men agrees well with the 
manners of the Gnosties, cannot be denied ; but yet that the 
apostle speaketh not of them, but of the Jews, most ancient 
and modern commentators do assert: and there seems rea- 
son to prefer this latter exposition (1.) because he saith, he 
had told his Philippians often of these men: now, ver. 1, he 
informs them, that he then writ to them of the same things 
which he had before spoken to them by word of mouth, viz. 
that they should beware of those Jews whom he there styles 
« dogs,” “ evil-workers,”’ “the concision.” (2.) He opposes 
his own example, who had renounced all his Jewish privi- 
leges, and the example of those who “ worship God in the 


sufficiently mstructed in the true grounds and principles of | Spirit,” and « rejoiced in Christ Jesus,” and “ had no confi- 


776 PHILIPPIANS. 


20 (Imitate us, I say,) For our conversation (or our 
cily) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the 
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 

21 Who shall change © our vile body (now subject 


to corruption, passions, and sorrows), that it may be 
fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the 
working whereby he is able even to subdue all things 
unto himself. 


dence in the flesh,” ver. 3. 17, to the example of these men. 
And, (3.) the description he gives of them is agreeable to 
what he elsewhere saith of the same Jews. For, 

First, They were “enemies to the cross of Christ;” that 
being not only a stumbling-block to the unbelieving Jews 
(1 Cor. i. 23), but being also overthrown by them who 
preached up the necessity of circumcision and of legal ob- 
servations to salvation: from hence, saith the apostle, it fol- 
lows, that “Christ is dead in vain,” Gal. ii. 21, and that 
then, “the scandal of the cross is ceased,” Gal. v. 10, and 
that “ Christ would profit them nothing, who were upon this 
account circumcised,” Gal. v. 2, and that they were “ fallen 
from grace,” ver.4. And from the apostle’s discourse in the 
beginning of this chapter, it appears, saith Esthius, that he 
here speaketh of these men. 

Secondly, That their end was to be destruction, the apos- 
tle teacheth in these words, “Such are false apostles, deceit- 
ful workers, whose end shall be according to their works,” 
2 Cor. xi. 13. 15. And this he speaks of them who were 
Hebrews and Israelites, ver. 22, as also here, ver. 4. 

Thirdly, That their “god was their belly,” i. e. that they 
chiefly had regard to that, as we learn from the same apos- 
tle, saying, “These serve not the Lord, but their own bel- 
lies ;” which, saith Theodoret, he speaks of the evil defend- 
ers of the law (see note on Rom. xvi. 18), and that they 
were γαστρίμαργοι, “slow bellies,” or luxurious people (Tit. 
i. 12, see note there): and that they devoured those they 
perverted (2 Cor. xi. 20). Their “glory was in their shame ;” 
that is, say the ancient fathers, in the circumcision of the 
shameful member: say others, in those evil works (ver. 2) 
which ought to be the matter of their shame, they being 
such as “ blasphemed the name of God among the gentiles,” 
Rom. ii. 24, they “ minded earthly things,” “counting gain 
godliness,” 1 Tim. vi. 5, Tit. i. 11. 

14 Ver. 20. ᾿Ημῶν γὰρ τὸ πολίτευμα ἐν οὐρανοῖς, Our conver- 
sation is in heaven.] So Philo* represents God’s priests and 
prophets; for having said of men, οἱ μὲν γῆς, οἵ δὲ οὐρανοῦ, 
«Some are of the earth, some of heaven,” he adds, that of 
the latter sort are priests and prophets, who transcending all 
sensual things would not be called κοσμοπολῖται, “ citizens of 


* Lib. de Gigant. p. 227, E. 


the world ;” but translating themselves into the intellectual 
world, dwell there, éyypapévres apSéprav ἀσωμάτων ἱδεῶν 
πολιτεία, “ being enrolled in the polity of incorporeal and in- 
corruptible beings.” ‘They, saith the apostle, «mind earthly 
things,” and so are κοσμοπολῖται, “ men who have this world 
for their city ;” nos autem civitatem celum habemus; “ but 
we have heaven for our city” (as Budeus renders the words), 
as living in expectation of “a city whose builder and maker 
is God,” Heb. xi. 10. 

15 Ver. 21. Τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως ἡμῶν, Our vile body-] 
“The body of our humiliation ;” that is, saith Methodius, 
our body which ταπεινοῦται ἀπὸ σφάλματος, “is humbled by 
the fall, and become mortal.”—*« That body,” saith Irenzus,* 
“ which is humbled by falling into the earth, and which shall 
be transformed from a mortal and corrupiible, into an im- 
mortal and incorruptible body.” 

Note here, (1.) what a value is put upon the resurrection 
and redemption of the body from corruption, as if it were 
the chief thing which Christians waited for, and expected 
from onr Saviour at his coming (Rom. viii. 23). 

(2.) Note, the divine power is Christ, to whom is here 
ascribed that resurrection, which is frequently made an indi- 
cation of the Godhead, it being “ God who raiseth from the 
dead” (Rom. iv. 17, Acts xxvi.6), and which is ascribed to 
the exceeding greatness and to the energy of his mighty 
power (Eph. i. 19), and yet is here ascribed to the energy of 
Christ. And, 

(3.) Note the pious observation of the fathers, that their 
folly can never be sufficiently lamented, who deprive them- 
selves of such a glorious resurrection. So Gicumenius and 
Theophylact. 

Note, (4.) That Philot and the Platonists so call these 
bodies, ὡς ταπείνωσιν ἐπάγοντα τῇ ψυχὴν because these earthly 
tabernacles do “humble and depress the soul.” See also 
the reading of the text defended, Examen Millii, ibid. 


* Quid est humilitatis corpus manifestum est, quod 
est corpus, quod est caro, quod et humiliatur cadens in 
terram ; transfiguratio autem ejus, quoniam cum sit mortalis 
et corruptibilis, immortalis sit et incorruptibilis. Lib. v. 
cap. 13. 

+ Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres. p. 405, C. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Tuererore, my brethren dearly beloved and 
longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the 
Lord, my dearly beloved, (as those who do expect his 
coming to confer these blessings on you, 1 Cor. xv. 58, 
or, so stand fast in the liberty wherewilh Christ hath 
made you free, as I have taught you, Gal. v. 1.) 

2 1 beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that 


they be of the same mind !in (the concerns of ) the 
Lord. 

3 And I intreat thee also, true ? yokefellow, help 
those women which laboured with me in the (promotion 
of the) gospel, with Clement also, and with other my 
fellowlabourers, ὃ whose names are in the book of 
life. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1 Ver. 2. Τὸ αὐτὸ φρονεῖν, To mind the same thing,] Here, 
is not to be of the same judgment in all things; for no man 
can become of the same judgment with another by entreaty, 
but only by conviction: the exhortation therefore is, (1.) to 
have the same love to one another (ii. 2), with the same soul 
and spirit to promote the gospel of Christ (i. 27), to walk 
by the same rule, as far as they have attained to the know- 
ledge of it (iii. 16, 17). 

2 Ver. 3. Σύζυγε, Yoke-fellow.] That this yoke-fellow 
cannot be Paul’s wife, is certain; because he declares him- 
self an unmarried man, 1 Cor. vii. 7, i. e. either a virgin or 
a widower. Secondly, Because a woman cannot be styled 
γνῆσιε, but γνησία σὔζυγε" it is unlikely he should mean Epa- 

hroditus, he being not then at Philippi, but with him at 
ome (ver. 11): it may be therefore one of the rulers 


of the church, whom he saluted in the front of this epis- 
tle. 

8 Ἔν βίβλῳ ζωῆς, Whose names are written in the book of 
life.) This is a Judaical phrase, viz. “They are written for 
life,” Isa. iv. 3 (see the ‘Targum there); and “They shall 
not be written in the book of eternal life, which is written 
for the just of the house of Israel,” Targum in Hzek. xiii. 
9; and it doth not signify the absolute election of any to 
eternal life, but only their present right to that inheritance, 
by virtue of the obedience of faith (Rev. xx. 15, xxi. 7). 
For (1.) the apostle declares of all the Jews to whom he 
writ, that they were come to the general assembly of the 
firstborn, who “were written in heaven,” Heb. xii. 23, and 
yet he in the following verse saith to them, “See that ye re- 
fuse not him that speaketh.” (2.) Christ threateneth to 
some that he would “blot their names out of the book of 
life,’ Rev. xxii. 19, and promiseth to him that over 


CHAPTER IV. 


4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Re- 
joice. 


cometh, that he would “not blot his name out of the book 
of life,” Rev. iii. 5; and God himself saith to Moses, “ Who- 
soever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of the 
book which I have written,” Exod. xxxii. 32, 33, that 
is, “out of the book of the just,” saith the Targum of 
Jonathan. 

The Apostolical Constitutions say,* we come to be written 
in this book τῇ ἡμετέρα εὐνοίᾳ καὶ σπουδῇ, “by our good affec- 
tion and industry.” Basil,;f that “as men are written in 
this book, when they are converted from vice to virtue; so 
may they be blotted out of it, when they backslide from vir- 
tue to vice,” according to the saying of the psalmist, Ps. 
Ixix. 28, “ Let them be blotted out of the book of the liv- 
ing and not written with the righteous ;” that is, saith Ains- 
worth, “ Let them be cut off from being any longer thy peo- 
ple, or registered in the writing of the house of Israel.” And, 
saith Jerome,} “ They were written in the book of God, who 
in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, legem fortissimé defen- 
derant, firmly continued in the law, and they were blotted 
out of it, qui legis prevaricatores extiterant, who were de- 
serters of it.” 

4 Ver. 5. Τὸ ἐπιεικὲς, Your moderation.] Your meekness 
and patience under all your trials: “ Be ye patient,” saith 
James, “for the coming of the Lord is at hand,” v. 8 (see 
Heb. x. 36, 37). This is almost the constant sense of the 
Greek word in the Septuagint, where it answers to πὶ and 
nbo, and signifies to be gracious and propitious, 1 Sam. xii. 
22, Ezra ix. 4, Ps. Ixxxv. 4, ἐποίησας εἰς ἡμᾶς κατὰ πᾶσαν 
ἐπιείκειάν gov, “Thou hast dealt with us according to all thy 
goodness, and thy great mercy.” So Song of the Three 
Children, ver. 18 ;—*« Let us torture the just man, that we 
may know, τὴν ἐπιείκειαν αὐτοῦ, his meekness,” Wisd. ii. 19; 
“Thou judgest, ἐν ἐπιεικείᾳ, with mildness,” xii. 18; “He 
will yield to your desires, ἐπιεικῶς καὶ φιλανθρώπως, favourably 
and kindly,” 2 Mace. ix. 27. So the Syriac and Arabic, who 
render it mansuetudo vestra. So Phavorinus, ἐπιεικὴς, zpais, 
παρὰ τὸ εἴκειν, τὸ ὑποχωρεῖν ; and yet that rd ἐπιεικὲς is well 
rendered “ moderation,” is certain; for, ἐπιείκεια is rendered 
by Phavorinus, μετριύτης, “ moderation,” ἐπιεικῶς by Suidas 
and Phavorinus, μετρίως ἤτοι συμμέτρως, “ moderately,” or 
“in measure ;” ἐπιεικὴς and ἐπιεικὸς by Hesychius and Suidas, 
μέτριος, that is “moderate,” and in the same Suidas, ἐπιεικῶς 
ζήσεσϑαι, is “to live moderately,” that is, temperately ; and 
ἐπιεικῶς γεγράφϑαι, is “to be written moderately,” without 
bitterness or passion. 

Now because this moderation is much talked of, but nei- 
ther rightly understood nor duly practised, I shall endea- 
vour to show what is the proper import of the word, and 
what are the proper objects of it. And, 

First, Moderation is not derived from the word medium, 
but from modus; and that is from the Hebrew, snadad, he 
measured ; or middah, a rule, or measure; and in the Greek 
is styled, μετριότης, from μέτρον, a measure; whence it is evi- 
dent, that moderation, properly so called, and in the moral 
sense of the word, belongs only to things in which we are 
subject to a vicious excess, or to act beyond that rule, or 
measure, which scripture or religion doth prescribe for the 
due regulation of our actions and passions; and it respects, 
first and principally, the government of our passions; 
whence the due government of them is by philosophers 
styled μετριοπαϑεία, “the moderation of our passions.” Now 
they are either our concupiscible passions, that is passions 
of desire, and then the moderation required of us must con- 
sist in such a government or restraint of our affections and 
desires, that in our love, desire of, or our delight in, any 
thing, we never do exceed the worth or excellency of the 
object, or of the end we do pursue; or, 

Secondly, Our angry passions, which render us averse 
from things or persons, or displeased with them, and then 
we moderate these passions, when, 

(1.) We have no aversion from, or hatred to, or displea- 


* Lib. viii. cap. 1. 
{ In Isa. iv. 3. tom. ii. p. 123. 
+ On Dan. xii. 5. 

Vor. IV.—98 


777 


5 Let 4 your moderation be known unto all men: 
(for) the ® Lord is at hand. 


sure against, those things, which have no real evil in them, 
and so can be no proper objects of our aversation, or dis- 
pleasure; or, (2.) when we are not more displeased at, or 
grieved for, any thing, than reason, or the laws of Christianity 
permit us so to be; for then we can never exceed the mea- 
sure of that aversation and displeasure, which reason and 
Christianity allow, and so we never should offend in the ex- 
ertion of our angry passions. And with respect to this, the 
wise man saith, “ He that is slow to anger is better than the 
mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a 
city.” (3.) This moderation must be extended to the effects 
of these passions; (1.) in the tongue, by evil speeches; 
whence the good man is said to “moderate his words with 
discretion,” Ps. cxii.5.  (2.) In his actions proceeding from 
those appetites, as in Our pursuit of temporal good things; 
and in our strife and contentions about them. And, (3.) in 
the effects of our angry passions, that is, in our deport- 
ment to, and our punishment of, offenders. Now, hence it 
follows, 

First, That moderation can have only place in things 
which are not always evil in themselves, but become so by 
exceeding that rule and measure which is prescribed for the 
due management of them. ‘This word must therefore be 
abused, and falsely used, when it is applied to things which 
are always evil in themselves, in what degree soever they 
are done. They therefore abuse this word, who talk of 
whoring moderately, or being moderately wicked; for 
what we neither ought to be, or do at all, can never be 
done moderately, or without exceeding the rule we ought to 
walk by. 

Secondly, Hence it is demonstratively evident, that mo- 
deration is always a virtue, it being always virtuous to re- 
strain the excesses of our passions and appetites, and the ex- 
orbitances of our angry passions, and to regulate our words 
and actions according to the rule and measure by which we 
ought to act. 

Thirdly, Hence observe, that they who render the word 
ἐπιείκεια, here used, meekness and patience, mildness or gen- 
tleness, mean the same thing as they who render it modera- 
tion; for meekness, gentleness, mildness, is only the due 
moderation of our angry passions, in respect to those injuries 
and provocations which we meet with in this world. And 
patience is that virtue which teacheth us to suffer any 
worldly evil without murmuring, discontent, or discomposing 
our spirits, and results evidently from a due moderation of 
our affections to these things; and this seems clearly to be 
the import of the word in this text: for, saith the apostle, 
ver. 4, though you are sufierers with me for the sake of 
Christ, yet “rejoice always ;” and, ver. 6, μὴ μεριμνᾶτε, « Be 
not anxious about any temporal concerns,” or events; let 
not either your care for them, or fear of losing them, dis- 
tract your spirits, but “Jet your moderation,” as to these 
things, “be known unto all men,” ver. 5, “for the Lord is 
at hand,” to protect, preserve, support you, and to reward 
your patience and resignation, as to these affairs. 

Fourthly, And whereas, by a late author, this moderation 
of the passions, and of our concerns about things, suitably to 
their nature, is commended highly; but, saith he, “the 
moderation pleaded for by many hath no affinity with this 
virtue :” in this he is exceedingly mistaken, for all the mo- 
deration that hath, or can be pleaded for by men of sense 
and reason, is only this, that men would be concerned for 
things suitably to their natures ; that as for things indifferent 
and mutable, they would be indifferent in their concerns 
about them; neither quarrelling with the church established, 
nor refusing communion with her, because she doth enjoin 
them; nor being so stiff in the retaining of them, as not to 
suffer mutable things to be changed by the same power by 
which they were at first appointed, when the wisdom of our 
governors shall think this fit for the good of the church, 
which is the moderation of the church of England ;* and 
that men would set such a true value upon peace, union, and 
charity, which are great Christian virtues, and very beneficial 


* Rubr. of Cerem. 


778 


6 Be careful (anxiously solicitous) for nothing; but 
in every thing by prayer and supplication (Gr. depre- 
cation) with thanksgiving let your requests be made 
known (ὦ. 6. presented) unto God. 

7 And δ the peace of God, which passeth all under- 


PHILIPPIANS. 


standing, shall keep your hearts and minds (steadfast) 
through Christ Jesus. 

8 7 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 


to the church, as to let indifferent and circumstantial rites 
give place to those more necessary things, when these 
governors, the proper judges in that case, think there is ground 
of hope, that they may be promoted by a little yielding in 
those things which do not commend us to God, or by a 
change of some doubtful, and even innocent expressions, into 
expressions which remove the doubt, and minister no occa- 
sion of offence to the weak. 

This I conceive is the true import of the word modera- 
tion, when it refers to actions and passions, words and cen- 
sures, subject to a vicious excess. 

Sometimes the adjective moderate, or adverb moderately, 
hath respect to measures either of things dry or liquid; and 
then it is not a measure of things moral, or as they are 
capable of being good or evil; but as they are more or less, 
great or small, high or low, long or short, or of a middle 
nature betwixt both; and in this sense, a man is said to be 
moderately learned, wise, or rich; and hence you may per- 
ceive the fallacy they put upon us, who say moderation is 
not always a virtue, because it is no virtue to be moderately 
learned, or wise; this being that which logicians call 
μετάθεσις eis ἄλλο γένος, or “a transition from one meaning 
of the word to another,” which always makes the syllogism 
to consist of four terms, and therefore the conclusion false: 
for whensoever moderation is required, or commendable, 
there the excess is always vicious and blameworthy ; 
whereas it is rather commendable, and an ornament of the 
mind, to be more than moderately wise and learned, and no 
disparagement to be more than moderately rich. 

5'O Κύριος ἐγγὺς, The Lord ts at hand.] “So the apostles 
thought,” saith Grotius upon the place; tacitly insinuating 
that they were mistaken in this matter: but this exposition 
reflecting very injuriously upon the authority of the apostles, 
and the Spirit by which they spake; and that of the fathers, 
ἡ κρίσις ἤδη ἐπέστη, “ The day of judgment is at hand,” being 
found by experience false, we of necessity must have re- 
course to some other exposition of their words, when they so 
often tell the Christians to whom they write, that «the Lord 
is at hand ;” that he “stands even at the door,” James v. 9, 
that “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh,” ver. 8, that 
“the end of all things is at hand,” 1 Pet. iv. 7, that “the 
day of the Lord is near,” Heb. x. 25, that “it is but a little 
while, and 6 ἐρχόμενος, he that is coming will come, and will 
not tarry : I say, we must of necessity, for exposition of 
these places, have recourse to some other advent of our 
Lord: for it is by no means to be granted, that the apostles 
were mistaken in their apprehensions of this matter, and 
that they confidently asserted, that the great day of judgment 
was then at hand; when after sixteen hundred years it is 
yet far off, the destruction of antichrist, the calling of the 
Jews, and the millennium, succeeding these great epochas, 
being to precede that day. For this bold conjecture shakes 
the foundations of the Christian faith; it imputes not only 
fallibility, but actual falsehood, to the writers of these epis- 
tles, and makes them guilty of falsehood in the promises of 
the New Testament, and in the motives which they used, to 
encourage believers to a Christian patience under the pres- 
sures they endured, and renders them deceivers of their 
hopes. Let it be therefore noted, 

First, That these expressions are chiefly used in the 
catholic epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews; that is, in 
the epistles directed to the Jewish churches, who were no 
strangers to these phrases, and who were well acquainted 
with a tremendous advent of the Lord to punish the rebel- 
lions and infidelity of that nation: so, for instance, Joel 
ii. 1, “« All the inhabitants of the land (of Judah) shall be 
confounded, diort πάρεστιν ἡμέρα Κυρίου ὅτι ἐγγὺς, because the 
day of the Lord is at hand, ἃ day of darkness and gloomi- 
ness ; a day of clouds and of thick darkness.” And, ver. 11, 
«ΤῊ day of the Lord is great and very terrible; who can 
abide 11 And, ver. 31, “The sun shall be turned into 
darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and ter- 


rible day of the Lord come ;” Zech. xiv. 1, 2, «« Behold, the 
day of the Lord cometh, and I will gather all nations 
against Jerusalem to battle ;” Mal. iii. 2,“ Who may abide 
in the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he ap- 
peareth?” And iv. 1, “Behold the day cometh that shall 
burn as an oven.” 

Secondly, There is also frequent mention of this time and 
day in the New Testament, when the Lord would come to 
destroy the unbelieving Jews, and also of the nearness of 
that time; for the Baptist calls them to repentance from 
this very motive, that “the axe was then laid to the root of 
the tree,” Matt. iii. 10, that “one was coming whose fan 
was in his hand,” ver. 12. Our Saviour spends a whole 
chapter in speaking, περὶ ἡμέρας ταῦτης, “of that day,” 
Matt. xxiv. 36, and “ of the coming of the Son of man” to 
the destruction of that nation, ver. 27. 37, “of the coming 
of the Lord,” ver. 42, of the age in which he would thus 
come, ver. 34, of the signs when his coming was, ἐγγὺς» 
“near at hand, καὶ ἐπὶ ϑύραις, and at the door” (which are 
the very words, both of Paul and James); when there 
would be a τέλος, “an end of all things” belonging to the 
Jewish temple and constitution, ver. 14. Now to this com- 
ing of the Lord, foretold by his own self in the very expres- 
sions of the prophets, and in the words used here by the 
apostles, in their writings to the Jewish converts, we may 
very well refer the words forecited, and if there be any other 
of like nature. 

And the fitness of these exhortations to meekness and 
patience, on the account of the nearness of this day, and the 
advent of the Lord to punish the unbelieving Jews, will be 
apparent from this consideration, that they were the chief 
persecutors of those of their own nation who embraced the 
Christian faith (Rom. xv. 31, 1 Thess. ii. 14), and they also 
sent out their messengers to other nations, to represent the 
Christians to them as the worst of men, and to excite them 
to join with them in the persecution of them, as Justin 
Martyr doth inform us; and therefore it must be very ac- 
ceptable to the poor persecuted Christian Jews, to hear that 
these enemies of the cross of Christ, these instigators of the 
heathen to persecute them, should, by the coming of the 
Lord to destroy their church and nation, be disabled from 
doing them any farther mischief; and also, that those de- 
ceitful workers of the same nation, who troubled the churches 
with preaching the necessity of circumcision, and the obser- 
vation of the law of Moses, should not be able long to instil 
those doctrines, their church and temple being to be shortly 
ruined, and they themselves being no longer able to observe 
the law. 

6 Ver. 7. Εἰρήνη Θεοῦ, The peace of God.] As ἀγάπη Θεοῦ 
and χάρις Θεοῦ do generally signify the love and favour of 
God to us, so εἰρήνη Θεοῦ, “ the peace of God,” most naturally 
imports the peace and reconciliation which we have with 
God through faith in Christ; for “being justified by faith, 
we have peace with God:” hence is the gospel, which pro- 
claims this pardon and justification to believers, styled “the 
gospel of peace,” Eph. vi. 15, “the preaching peace by 
Jesus Christ,” Acts x. 80, Eph. ii. 17, who is our peace,” 
ver. 14, and in the preface to all the epistles, the apostle 
wisheth to the Christians, χάριν καὶ εἰρήνην, “grace and peace 
through God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ: and 
this peace is styled, εἰρήνη ψυχῆς» “the peace of the soul,” 
Hag. ii. 9. So that the sense of these words seemeth to be 
this; The sense and experience of the divine favour, and the 
inward peace and security which arise from it, shall be suffi- 
cient to keep you steadfast in the faith of Christ. He pro- 
miseth not deliverance from calamities, but inward peace 
and tranquillity of mind under them, and that as the 
effect of constant prayer, and a sense of the divine favour to 
them. 

7 Ver. 8.] Hence two things may be noted: (1.) That 
there are things naturally honest, just, lovely, and praise- 
worthy. (2.) That there is no virtue, nothing praise- 


PREFACE TO COLOSSIANS. 


are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if 
there be any virtue, and if there be any (thing) praise 
(-worthy), think on these things (to do them). 

9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and 
received, and heard (from me), and seen in me, do: 
and the God of peace (the giver of internal peace) shall 
be with you. 

10 But§ I rejoiced (ἐχάρην δὲς for this cause Trejoiced ) 
in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of 
me (7%. δ. do supply my wants) hath flourished again; 
® wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked oppor- 
tunity. 

11 Not that I speak (his) in respect of (any desire 
in me, that you, or others, should supply my) want: for 
I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to 
be content. 

12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how 
to abound: every where and in all things I am in- 
structed both to be full and to be hungry, both to 
abound and to suffer need. 

13 T can do all (these, and other) things (required by 
Christianity) through Christ which strengtheneth me. 

14 (But) Notwithstanding (this my proficiency) ye 
have well done, that ye did (¢hus) communicate with 
(me in) my affliction. 

15 Now ye Philippians know also (for your ho- 
nour), that in the beginning of (my preaching) the 
gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church 
communicated with me as concerning giving and re- 


worthy, but what falls under the compass of this general 
precept. 

8 Ver. 10. I rejoiced in the Lord.] i.e. In your liberality, 
not as a thing tending only to supply my wants, but as a 
thing highly acceptable to the Lord (ver. 8), and as a fruit 
of your affection to him, which he will reward (ver. 17). 

9 "Ev ᾧ ἐφρονεῖτε, ἠκαιρεῖσϑε δὲ, Of which thing you were still 
mindful, but you wanted ability.] Οὐκ εἴχετε ἐν χερσὶν, οὐδὲ 
ἐν dpSovia gre, “ You had it not in your hands, you were not 
in a condition to help me;” so Theodoret, Chrysostom, Theo- 
phylact, though G2cumenius and Phavorinus render it, with 
our translation, καιρὸν οὐκ eixere, “ You lacked opportu- 
nity.” 

10 Ver. 13. Hence the fathers observe three things: (1.) 


“9 


ceiving, but ye only (7. 6. J have received supplies from 
no other church but yours. 

16 You indeed kindly did it ;)Foreven (when 7 was) 
in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto (supply) 
my necessity. 

17 (And of this Tremind you) Not because I desire a 
(farther) gift (for my own benefit): but (because) 1 de- 
sire fruit that may abound to your account (in the day 
of the Lord, who will not then forget your labour of love, 
in ministering to his saints, Heb. vi. 10. 

18 7 say, not that I desire more :) But I have (received ) 
all (that can be needful for me), and abound: 1 am full, 
having received of Epaphroditus the things which were 
sent from you, (which are) an odour of a sweet smell, 
a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God. 

19 But (and) my God shall supply all your need 
according to his riches in glory (7. e. his glorious riches) 
by Christ Jesus (ἡ, e. he shall return you a supply of 
your spiritual wants, for your charity to me in St rid 

20 Now unto God and (7. e. who is) our Father be 
glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

21 Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. 
ren which are with me greet you. 

22 All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of 
Cesar’s houshold. 

23 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you 


The breth- 


all. Amen. 
q It was written to the Philippians from Rome by 
Epaphroditus. 


That the art of contentment requires much learning, exer- 
cise, and meditation. (2.) That it is as difficult to learn 
how to be full, as to be hungry ; abundance having destroyed 
more than penury, and exposed them to more pernicious 
lusts. (3.) That our proficience in this, or any other virtue, 
is to be ascribed not to ourselves, but to the divine assistance. 

1 Ver. 18. ᾿Οσμὴν εὐωδίας, A sacrifice acceptable.| There 
were two altars, saith Dr. Hammond, in the temple of the 
Jews, the altar of incense within the temple, and that of 
sacrifice without in the court : on these two were offered all 
things that were offered to God, and under these two heads, 
an odour of incense and a sacrifice, are works of charity here 
represented, as being the prime things now under the gospel 
to obtain God’s favour and acceptation. 


THE 


EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Taar St. Paul writ this Epistle to the Colossians when he 
had not yet seen them, is the opinion of most of the ancient 
scholiasts: this is confessed even by Theodoret, though he 
saith this doth not follow from the words cited to confirm 
this opinion, but the contrary. ‘The words are these: “1 
would have you know what great solicitude I have for you, 
and for them of Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen 
my face in the flesh,” Col. ii. 1, which he renders thus; « Not 
for you only, and for them of Laodicea, but also for them 
that have not seen my face in the flesh:” but the connective 
particle being not ἀλλὰ, or ἀλλὰ καὶ, but also, but only καὶ, 


and, seems to favour our translation, and the opinion of the 
ancients.* He adds, that the apostle went from Phrygia, of 
which Colosse was the metropolis; whence he collects he 
must have preached there: but this will not follow; since 
the first time he only went through Phrygia en passant, Acts 
xvi. 6, and the second time, xviii. 23, he only stayed to con- 
firm the brethren already converted ; but that he came to 
Colosse, is not said. The arguments offered to prove he had 
not seen them seem stronger, as appears not only from the 
words now cited, but from other expressions in the same 
epistle; for he intimates, i. 4, that he had only “heard of 
their faith in Christ ;” and, ver. 7, that they had learned the 


* Chrysost. CEcum. Theoph. Οὐχ ἑωρακὼς μὲν αὐτοὺς, his 
quos in carne minimeé vidit. Ambros. 


780 


faith not from him, but Epaphras, whom he styles, “to 
them a faithful minister of Jesus Christ.” 

Note also, that this epistle was writ at the same time with 
that to the Philippians, and so A. D. 62. 

As for the occasion of it, Theodoret* informs us, that it 
was writ against those Jewish Christians who endeavoured 
to impose the observation of the law upon the gentile con- 
verts, as is apparent from his caution to them, to beware of 
them who “spoiled them after the rudiments of the world,” 
ii. 8, and that because they were “circumcised in Christ, 
ver. 11, and he had « blotted out the hand-writing of ordi- 
nances which was against them,” ver. 14, and from the in- 
ference thence made, “ Let no man judge you therefore in 


ἘΞ Ἢ δὲ ὑπύθεσις τῆς ἐπιστολῆς ἐστιν αὐτή" τινές τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων 
πεπιστευκύτων ἐξηπάτησαν, καὶ παρεσκεύασαν rovrous φυλάττειν τοῦ 
νόμου τὰ περιττά. 


COLOSSIANS. 


meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holiday, or of the new 
moons, or of the sabbath-days; which are a shadow,” ver. 
16,17. The rest say that it was written against them who 
sowed among them Jewish and heathenish doctrines ;* and 
in particular against them who endeavoured to bring in the 
worship of angels;} of the Gnostics, here mentioned by Es- 
thius, they have not one word to say. 


* Παρατηρήσεις εἶχον πολλὰς, καὶ ᾿ἸΙουδαϊκὰς, καὶ “Ἑλληνικάς. 
Chrys. Τοὺς Κολοσσαεῖς ἐβούλοντό τινες ἀπατῆσαι σοφίσμασιν 
Ἑλληνικοῖς κατὰ τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως, καὶ περὶ τῶν ἐν νόμῳ 
βρωμάτων, καὶ περιτομῆς. Cicum. 

T Πονηρόν τι δόγμα αὐτυῖς ἐνεπολιτεύετο" wovro γὰρ, οὐ διὰ τοῦ 
υἱοῦ, ἀλλὰ δι᾿ ἀγγέλων προσαχϑῆναι τῷ Θεῷ, ἄτοπον οἱόμενος τὸν 
υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν ἐσχάτοις καιροῖς φανῆναι, ὅπου γε ἐν τῇ παλαιᾶ 


πάντα dv ἀγγέλων ἐγένοντο. 'ΓΏΘΟΡΗ. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Paut, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of 
God, and Timotheus our brother, 

2! To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ 
which are at Colosse (writeth thus): Grace be unto 
you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

3 We give thanks to God 2and (who is) the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 

4 Since * we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, 
and of the love which ye have to all the saints, 
(which love is still the fruit of a true faith, 1 Cor. xiii. 2, 
Gal. v. 6. 

5 We give thanks, I say,) For the hope (of an eter- 
nal inheritance, 1 Pet. i. 3) which is laid up for you 
in heaven, whereof ye heard before (from Epaphras) 
in the word of the truth of the gospel {preached by 
him) ; 

6 Which (gospel) is come unto you, as it zs (also 
heard of )4 in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit 
(in them), as τὲ doth also in you, since the day ye ( first) 
heard of zt, and knew (ἐπέγνωτεν acknowledged) the 
grace (and favour) of God (to you) in truth (and sin- 
cerily) : 


7 As ye (have) also learned of Epaphras our dear 
fellowservant, who is for youa faithful minister of 
Christ; : 

8 Whoalso declared unto us your love (to me) in the 
Spirit (your spiritual and affectionate love to me, wrought 
in you by that Spirit whose fruit ἐδ love). 

9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard of 
il (1. e. this your affection to us), do not cease to pray 
for you, and to desire (of God) that ye might be filled 
with the knowledge of his will (advancing) 5 in all 
(the gifls of ) wisdom and spiritual understanding ; 

10 That (having thus attained to the knowledge of the 
things of God) ye might walk worthy δ of the Lord 
unto all pleasing (7. e. so as lo please him in all things), 
being fruitful in every good work, and increasing (stz// 
more) in the knowledge of God ; 

11 (That knowing the hope of your calling, and. the 
riches of the glory of the inheritance of the saints, 
Eph. 1. 19, Rom. xv. 13, ye may be) Strengthened 
with all might, according to his glorious power, unto 
all patience and longsuffering with jcyfulness; (Eph. 
ili. 16,72. e. that through the Spirit of glory and power, 
1 Pet. iv. 14, 2 Tim. i. 7, given to you, you may be 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 2. To the saints.] See note on 1 Cor.i. 1. Note 
also, that the Holy Ghost is mentioned in these places, be- 
cause he is the fountain of this grace, and by him God the 
Father and the Son dwell in us (John xiv. 23); so that 
praying for this grace is praying for the communion of the 
Holy Ghost. 

2 Ver. 3. Ἐὐχαριστοῦμεν, We give thanks.] From this 
and the ninth verse note, that the good shepherd should 
not only feed his flock, but pray continually for them, and 
give thanks for the spiritual blessings conferred on them. 

Kai.] As the Hebrew 1 hath oft the import of id est in 
the Old Testament (see Noldius, p. 280. 27) ; so Matt. xxiii. 
5, “Thy King cometh, sitting upon an ass, καὶ πῶλον, i. 6. a 
colt, the foal of an ass” (see Matt. xi. 2. 7, Luke xix. 30. 
35, John xii. 14, 15): and frequently it signifies nempé, to 
wit: so, “'That mountain, 7335) to wit, Lebanon,” Deut. 
iii. 25; so Judg. vi. 25, 2 Sam. xx. 14, Jer. xxi. 7. So John 
xii. 23, “We stone thee for blasphemy, καὶ ὅτι, to wit, be- 
cause thou, being a man, makest thyself God : Rom. xv. 6, 
«That with one mouth ye may glorify God, καὶ πατέρα, 
who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ;” so Gal. i. 4, 
Phil. iv. 20, Col. ii. 2, James vii. 3.9. As therefore God, 
who is “the God of Israel,’ was the characteristic of the 
true God to the Jewish nation; so God, “who is the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ,” is the characteristic of the same 
God to the Christians, who worship him under that title, as 
being “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and in him, 
“our Father,” we being the sons of God through faith in him, 


and deriving all our blessings from the Father through him. | 


3 Ver. 4. ᾿Ακούσαντες, Hearing.| From this verse, and 
from ii. 1, it is evident that Paul did not in person preach 
to the Colossians, and indeed that he never had seen them, 
they being converted by Epaphras (i. 7. 23), and perhaps 
also by the means of Timothy, who therefore is mentioned in 
the beginning of this epistle, as saluting them together with 
Paul. 

4 Ver. 6. Ἐν παντὶ τῷ κόσμῳ, In all the world.) And 
««which is preached to every creature under heaven,” ver. 23. 
This, by a usual hyperbole, is to be understood of the most 
noted parts of the world, from which the rest might hear of 
it. In which sense Cyrus saith, that God had given him 
“all the kingdoms of the earth,” Ezra i. 2, and God, saith 
Jeremiah, will call for a sword upon “all the inhabitants of 
the earth,” xxv. 29, i. e. of the whole kingdom of Babylon ; 
“and the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the 
earth to the other, over all the kingdoms of the world,” ver. 
26, and the Romans, Asiatics, Egyptians, &c. are styled, 
« devout men of every nation under heaven,” Acts ii. 5. 

5 Ver. 9. Ἐν πάσῃ copia, In all wisdom.] Among the spi- 
ritual gifts vouchsafed for the edification of the church, are 
reckoned “the word of wisdom and of knowledge,” 1 Cor. 
xii. 8, whereby they were enabled, “through the Spirit, to 
know the things which are given them of God,” 1 Cor. ii. 12, 
and to “compare spiritual things with spiritual,” ver. 13, 
For the abundance of these gifts vouchsafed to the churches, 
he sometimes gives thanks, as 1 Cor. i. 4, 5. 7, Eph. i. 3, 
and for the increase of them he sometimes prays, as here, 
and Eph. i. 17. 

6 Ver. 10. Περιπατῆσαι ὑμᾶς ἀξίως τοῦ Κυρίου, &c. 


That 
you may walk worthy of the Lord, to all well-pleasing.] 


CHAPTER I. 


enabled constantly to suffer all afflictions you endure for 
the sake of Christ, and of the glory he hath promised, with 
patience and joy ;) 

12 Giving thanks unto the Father, 7 which hath 
(thus prepared and) made us meet to be partakers of 
the inheritance of the saints in light (for which we suf- 
Ser, 2 Thess. i. 5): 

13 Who hath delivered us from the® power of dark- 


781 


| ness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his 
dear Son (or the Son of his love): 

14 ° In whom we have redemption through his 
blood, even the forgiveness of (our) sins (see note on 
Eph. i. 7): 

15 Who is the image (and representation to us) of 
the invisible God, "the firstborn (or Lord) of every 
creature : 


Note here the end of all our Christian knowledge, viz. a con- 
versation fruitful in good works, and a life acceptable and 
well-pleasing to God. 

7 Ver. 12. Ἱκανώσαντι ἡμᾶς εἷς τὴν μερίδα τοῦ κλὴρου τῶν 
ἁγίων ἐν φωτὶ, Who has made us meet to be partakers of the 
inheritance of the saints in light.| The other reading, viz. 
καλέσαντι, “who hath called you,” for ἱκανώσαντι, “ who hath 
made you meet,” is contrary to all the old versions, the Sy- 
riac, Arabic, and Vulgar, and all the Greek scholiasts; and 
therefore not to be admitted as a various lection, but only as 
the mistake of some copyist. Note also, that here is an 
allusion to the inheritance of the Jews in Canaan, styled 
“the land of their inheritance;” for it was divided into so 
many μερίδες, or places measured out by line, to be possessed 
by the several tribes, excepting that of Levi, and then by 
lot assigned to every respective tribe (Josh. xiii.), according 
to God’s commandment, Numb. xxvi. 55, xxxiii. 54, and 
that division which thus came to any of them by lot, was his 
μερὶς κλήρου, “the portion which by lot befell him ;” but, 
saith the apostle, We are made meet, not for an earthly in- 
heritance, as that was in Canaan,.but for that heavenly por- 
tion God hath allotted us in heaven, the region of light and 
happiness, we being already translated into the kingdom of 
his Son Christ, become his subjects, and so under his care 
and conduct and protection, ruled by his word, which is “ the 
word of life ;” and by his Spirit, the earnest of this inherit- 
ance, and shall hereafter be advanced by him into his hea- 
venly kingdom. 

§ Ver. 13. Ἔκ τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ σκότους, The power of dark- 
ness.| That “darkness” signifies the state of heathen igno- 
rance, see note on Rom. xii. 2. The power of it, is that 
power which Satan, the prince of darkness, had over the 
heathen world, to keep them in idolatry and brutish lusts: 
(Eph. ii. 2): hence the apostle saith, he was sent unto the 
gentiles, “to turn them from darkness to light, and from 
the power of Satan unto God,” Acts xxvi. 17 (see Luke 
xxii. 53). 

9 Ver. 14, Τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ. That 
these words do indeed belong to the text is evident, not only 
from Theodoret, Gcumenius, Iren. lib. v. cap. 2, p. 395, 
and the Arabic, but from Paul himself, Eph. i. 7. 

0 Ver. 15. Εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ, The image of the invisible God.] 
The Socinians contend that Christ is here styled the image 
of the invisible God, because he, by his gospel, hath made 
known the will of God unto us: in this sense, say they, he is 
styled the image of God, 2 Cor. iv. 3, and in this sense he 
saith to Philip, “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Fa- 
ther.” Schlictingius notes, that he is called the image of God, 
now that he is in heaven, and so not according to any thing 
appertaining to him which is invisible, but according to some- 
thing by which he may be seen and known, i. 6. saith he, as 
he hath made himself known to us in the gospel. 

But the more natural import of the phrase seems to be 
this, that Christ is “the image of God,” as making him, who 
is invisible in his essence, conspicuous to us by the divine 
works he wrought, they being such as plainly showed that 
in him “dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily ;” for an 
invisible God can only be seen by his effects of power, wis- 
dom and goodness, by which, saith the apostle, “from the 
creation of the world, the invisible things of God, to wit, his 
power and Godhead, have been made known by the things 
that are made,” Rom.i. 20. He therefore who, in the works 
both of the old and new creation, hath given us such clear 
declarations of the divine power, wisdom, and goodness, is 
upon this account as much an image of God as any thing can 
be. ‘To this sense the image of God here seems necessarily 
restrained by the connective particle ὅτι, He is the image of 
God, “for by him all things were created.” Moreover, that 
this place is parallel to that in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 


the words sufficiently declare: here he is “ the image of God,” 
there “ the brightness of his glory, and the express image of 
his person :” here he is the first-born, or Lord of every crea- 
ture; there, “the heir of all things:’’ here it is said, that 
“all things were created by him;” there, that he “ made the 
world:” here, that “by him all things do consist ;” and 
there, that “he supporteth all things by the word of his 
power :” now that there he is styled, “the image of God’s 
glory,” and “the character of his person,” by reason of that 
divine power, wisdom, and majesty, which shined forth in his 
actions, Schlictingius is forced to confess. Itis not therefore 
to be doubted, that he is here styled “the image of God” 
in the same sense; and it is highly probable that he is 
called the image of the invisible God, as appearing to the 
patriarchs, and representing to them that God, who lives “in 
light inaccessible, to which no mortal eye can approach,” 
according to these frequent descants of the Ante-Nicene 
fathers,* that “God the Father being invisible, one whom 
no man hath seen, or can see, he appeareth to the patriarchs 
by his Son :” and that in this sense Christ saith to Philip, 
“He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father,” he himself 
intimates, by adding, that “the Father, abiding in him, did 
the works” he performed, John xiv. 9—11, and that they 
ought to believe “he was in the Father, and the Father in 
him, for the works’ sake.” And in the Epistle to the Corin- 
thians, he is plainly styled “the image of God,” for the like 
reason, viz. because that God, “ who at first created light out 
of darkness, had shined upon the gentiles, to make known to 
them the glory of God, in the person of Jesus Christ.” Now 
this glory of God is, ch. iii., those miraculous gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, by which the gospel was confirmed, and, iv. 7, 
ἡ ὑπερβολὴ τῆς δυνάμεως τοῦ Θεοῦ, “the excellency of the power 
of God.” 

M Πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, The Jirst-born of every crea- 
ture.] Since, say the Socinians, the first-born is of the order 
and number of those things of which he is the first-born: 
Christ therefore being here styled “the first-born of every 
creature,” must be in the order and of the number of crea- 
tures. But this inference is neither consistent with their 
own principles, nor with the words of the apostle. Not with 
their own principles: for, in what rank of creatures will they 
place Christ? if among the old, then they must allow him 
an existence before the beginning of the world, which yet 
they peremptorily deny ; if among the new, they must con- 
fess he had a nature which wanted to be renewed, changed, 
and reformed ; that in him, as well as in us, though in hira 
before us, all “old things passed away, and all things became 
new ;” since otherwise he cannot be of the order and number 
of them who underwent this change. 

Secondly, This opinion cannot consist with the words of 
the apostle, who styles Christ “the first-born of every crea- 
ture, because by him all things were created,” ὅς ἐστι πρωτό- 
Toxos πάσης κτίσεως, ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη ra πάντα. Now he, 
who is therefore the first-born of the whole creation, because 
he created all things, cannot himself be any part of the crea- 
tion, either in heaven or earth, or be numbered amongst his 
creatures; but only be so called, because he was πρὸ πάντων, 
“before all things :” so is ἼΔ ὯΝ πρωτότοκος ἐγὼ ἢ συ, 2 Sam. 
xix. 43, “I am before thee.” (2.) Christ, saith our excellent 
primate, is here styled ὃ πρωτότοκος, the first-born, as being 
the Lord of all things. For, first, it is reasonable to conceive, 
that ὁ πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, “the first-born of every crea- 
ture,” should be the same in sense with that of the same 
apostle in the parallel place, where he is styled, ὁ κληρονόμος 
πάντων, “ heir of all things.” Now thus it will signify in this 


* Tren. lib. iv. cap. 37, p. 372. Vide cap. 26. Tetull. adv. 
Prax. cap. 16. Novatian. cap. 26. Euseb, Demonst. Evan- 
gel. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 11, D. 

58 


782 


16 For ® by him (who ἐξ the first-born of every crea- 
ture) were all things created, that are in heaven, and 
that are in earth, visible (¢he sun, moon, and stars,) and 
invisible (the whole host of angels), whether they be 
(named) thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 


sense, according to that of Justinian, “To act as an heir is 
to act as lord; for the ancients used the word heir for a 
lord,” Pro herede se gerere, est pro domino gerere ; veteres 
enim heredes pro dominis appellabant (Instit. lib. ii. tit. 
19, §. 6). 

In this sense also is the word primogenitus used in the 
scriptures; for because the dominion and principality an- 
ciently followed the primogeniture, according to those words, 
«He gave the dominion to Joram, ὅτι οὗτος 6 πρωτότοκος, be- 
cause he was the first-born,” 2 Chron. xxi. 5, it came in com- 
mon use to signify that dominion. So of David, saith God, 
«T will give him to be “123, πρωτότοκον, the first-born, high 
above the kings of the earth.” —*I will give him τῶν βασιλέων 
ἁπάντων τὴν ἑζουσΐαν, power over all kings,” saith Aquila ;* 
“(1 will set him ἀνώτατον τών βασιλέων τῆς γῆς, the supreme 
over the kings of the earth ;” so Symmachus. No, saith Mr. 
Clerc, “this doth not signify a lord over other kings, but a 
most excellent and glorious king.” But for this we shall not 
acquiesce in his bare word against the opinion of all the 
ancient commentators on the place, seeing the foregoing 
words, ver. 26, “I will set his hand in the sea, and his right 
hand in the river,” are equivalent to these ;—«I will give 
him power over the kings of the Philistines,” on the one 
hand (see 2 Sam. viii. 12), and over the Syrians on the 
other (ver. 6); “He shall have,” saith the Chaldee, »my305w, 
« his empire over the kings of the earth ;’—«I will elevate 
him over them,” saith the Syriac; and so accordingly we 
find he did; exalting him over the Syrians, who were tri- 
butaries to him (2 Sam. vili. 6), “and over all the kings,” 
which were servants to Hadarezer (2 Sam. x. 19) ; and this 
was necessary to be done, to render him a fit type of that 
“Son of David,” who was to be “ King of kings, and Lord 
of lords.” And thus he is also πρωτόποκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, “ the 
first-born from the dead” (ver. 18), as being “ Lord over the 
dead,” since “ for this cause he died, and rose again, ἵνα κυρι- 
sion, that he might be Lord over the dead, and over the 
living” (Rom. xvi. 9), and so might be ἐν πᾶσιν πρωτεύων, 
primas tenens, imperium habens in omnibus, “ pre-eminent 
in all things.” Since then the first-born is naturally the 
heir, and so the lord of the family, and therefore the word 
heir amongst the ancients did signify lord ; seeing Paul, who 
here styles him “the first-born,” doth in a place parallel to 
this, style him “ the heir of all things,” why may we not con- 
ceive the person of whom David was a type, may be also 
here styled “the first-born,” as being Prince over, and high 
above, all creatures, they being all the work of his hands? 
for so the reason follows. 

12 Ver. 16. Ἔν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσϑη τὰ πάντα ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, καὶ 
τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, All things were created by him, that are in 
heaven, and that are in the earth.| The gloss of Grotius,t 
and the Socinians,} runs thus: That “to Christ is here 
ascribed, not the creation of the old world and all things 
that are in it, but only the creation, that is, the renovation 
of all things under the gospel-state, or the reformation of 
mankind by Jesus Christ,” and the gospel preached to them, 
and the reconciliation of angels to men. But this interpre- 
tation is so forced and remote from the most usual sense of 
the words, and it is so flat and mean to say, that “Jesus 
Christ was before every new creature ;” that is to say, before 
the renovation made by himself, or rather by his apostles 
after his exaltation; and to prove this by that very renova- 
tion, that even Mr. Clere is forced to reject it as evidently 
false, which it will certainly appear to be from these con- 
siderations : 


* Vide Theodor. in locum. 

+ Rectius est ἐκτίσθη interpretari, ordinata sunt, novum 
quendam statum sunt consecuta, angeli hominibus, homines 
inter se reconciliati sunt sub Christo. Grotius. 

+ Quia ex Christi exaltatione, et divino quod accepit im- 
perio, consecuta est hee angelorum hominumque reformatio, 
ac renovatio, per illum et in illo facta esse dicitur, seu illi 
creati, id est, renovati dicuntur. Cell. in loc. 


COLOSSIANS. 


powers: all things were created by him (as the cause), 
and for him (as the end of their creation) : 

17 And he is before all things (as to his being), and 
by him all things consist. 

18 And he is the head of the body, the church 


First, That the apostle speaks here of the creation of such 
things as are not capable of this moral creation, viz. the 
creation πάντων τῶν ὁρατῶν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, “Of all things visible 
upon earth.” Now the τὰ ὁρατὰ, Rom. i. 20, and τὰ βλεπύ- 
μενα, Heb. xi. 31, i. e. “the things which are made and 
seen,’ comprise the whole visible creation, all things with- 
out life, metals, stones, elements, all vegetables, and all 
beasts ; and did the gospel come to make a moral renova- 
tion among these? did Christ and his apostles preach to 
stones and trees? (2.) Under “all things in heaven,” and 
“all things invisible,” must be comprised all the good angels, 
which are therefore elsewhere styled κυριύτητες, ἀρχαὶ, καὶ 
ἐξουσίαι, Eph. i. 21, iii. 10, 1 Pet. iii. 22. Now they cannot 
be proper subjects of this new creation, or moral renovation ; 
for of this new creation the scripture never speaks, but in re- 
lation to an old, which was to be abolished, changed, and 
done away by it; for in them who are made καινὴ κτίσις, 
“a new creation, all old things are passed away, and all 
things are become new” in them, 2 Cor. v.17. They “put 
off the old man, and put on the new, which is created after 
God in righteousness and holiness,” Eph. iv. 22. 24, Col. iii. 
9,10. Now it is manifest that nothing of all this can agree 
to the good angels, and much less to the evil angels, who are 
still creatures, and therefore not to be excluded from expres- 
sions so general as these are. 

Secondly, The words in this sense were far from being 
true when the apostle spake them ; for a very small remnant 
of the Jews were then converted to the Christian faith, and 
of the gentiles few, in comparison of those multitudes which 
afterward embraced the faith; and yet the apostle plainly 
speaks of a creation wholly past already, using the aorist in 
these words, é αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα, “By him have all 
things been created ;’’ and the perfect tense in these words, 
dt’ αὐτοῦ πάντα ἔκτισται, By him all things were created.” 

Thirdly, Though the Socinians may be able to produce 
some few instances where the words κτίσις and κτίζειν are to 
be taken in a moral sense, yet cannot they show one instance 
where the creation of “all things in heaven and in earth, 
visible and invisible,” is ever used in a moral sense, or con- 
cerning any other creation than that of which Moses speaks, 
saying, “ Thus the heavens and the earth were made, and all 
the host of them,” Gen. i. 2. 

Fourthly, The apostle afterward begins his discourse of 
this moral creation or reconciliation of the world to God by 
Christ, and the renovation of his church, in these words, ver. 
18—21, « And he is the head of the body of the church, &c. 
For it pleased the Father by him to reconcile all things 
to himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in 
heaven. And you that were sometimes alienated, and ene- 
mies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he recon- 
ciled in the body of his flesh by death, to present you holy 
and unblameable, and unreprovable in his sight.’ Now 
these things being thus connected by the particle xai, to what 
he had before said of the creation of all things by Christ, 
demonstratively show that he was not then speaking of that 
renovation which he begins to speak of in the following 
words. 

Fifthly, This exposition of this place touching a true and 
proper creation of all things by Jesus Christ, is by the fathers,* 
from the beginning, laid down as “a rule, to which the ortho- 
dox keeping close, might easily show that the heretics, who 


* Cum teneamus autem nos regulam veritatis, id est, quia 
sit unus Deus omnipotens, qui omnia condidit per Verbum 
suum, nam omnia per ipsum facta sunt, et sine ipso factum 
est nihil, ex omnibus autem nihil subtractum est, sed omnia 
per ipsum fecit pater, sive visibilia, sive invisibilia, sive sen- 
sibilia, sive intelligibilia, sive temporalia propter quandam 
dispositionem, sive externa, et ea omnia non per angelos—— 
sed per Verbum et Spiritum suum omnia faciens, et dis- 
ponens, et gubernans, et omnibus esse prestans——hane 
ergo tenentes regulam, licét valdé varia et multa dicant, facilé 
eos ἃ veritate devidsse arguimus. Iren. lib. i. cap. 19. 


CHAPTER I. 


(Gr. of the church, as to government and gracious in- 
fluences) : who is the beginning (of the Christian church), 
the firstborn 15 from the dead; that in all things he 
might have the preeminence. 

19 "™ For it pleased the Futher that in him should all 
fulness (of divine power) dwell (all fullness of power to 
create, redeem, preserve, and raise the church, which ts his 
body) ; 

20 And, having made peace through the blood of 
his cross, by him to 15 reconcile all things unto him- 
self (Gr. and by him to make all things friendly in him, 
making peace betwixt them by the blood of his cross) ; by 
him, J say (did he thus reconcile all things), whether they 
be things in earth, or things in heaven. 

21 And you (genttles), that were sometime alienated 
(from the life of God, Eph. iv. 18) and enemies in your 
mind (to him) by wicked works, yet now hath he re- 
conciled (to the Father) 

22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present 
you (fo the Father) holy and unblameable and unre- 
proveable in his sight (Eph. i. 4, v. 7: 


783 


23 As you will be,) If ye continue in the faith 
grounded and settled (in i/), and be not moved away 
(by the floods of affliction, or by the blasts of persecution, 
which may come upon you, Matt. vii. 24, 25) from the 
hope of the gospel (¢. 6. the hope laid up for you in 
heaven, ver. 5), which ye have heard (of from Epuphras, 
viz. the hope), and which was preached to every crea- 
ture under heaven (i. e. gentile as well as Jew) ; whereof 
I Paul am made a minister ; 

24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and 
fill up that which is behind of the 17 afflictions of 
Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the 
chureh : 

25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the 
dispensation of God which is given to me for you 
( gentiles), to fulfil (πληρῶσαι; fully lo preach) the word 
of God; 

26 Even the mystery (of the calling of the gentiles 
to the same hopes and privileges with the believing Jews, 
Eph. iii. 3—6) which hath been hid from (past) ages 
and from (former) generations (ver. 5), but now is 


held the world was created by angels, deviated from the 
truth.” Now this was the heresy of Simon Magus* and 
Cerinthus, as Irenawus there informs us. 

138 Ver. 18. Πρωτύτοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, The first-born from 
the dead.] Eis γὰρ ἀϑάνατόν re καὶ ἀφθαρτὸν ζωὴν οὔπω γέγονέ τινος 
ἡ ἀνάστασις, πλὴν τοῦ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, “ For none besides 
our Saviour ever yet rose to an immortal and incorruptible 
life’ (Author. Quest. Resp. ad Orthod. qu. 85), See the 
following note. 

4 Ver. 19.] For explication of these words it is to be 
noted, That the great end of our Suaviour’s sufferings was to 
rescue our bodies, condemned for sin unto death, from that 
mortality, and to bestow on all, whom God shall give him, 
eternal life, by raising of their bodies to a state of incorrup- 
tion; for, “ because the children were partakers of flesh and 
blood,” and thereby subject to mortality, «he also took part 
of the same, that through death he might destroy him that 
had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver 
them who, through the fear of death, were all their lifetime 
subject to bondage” (Heb. ii. 14, 15). 

That therefore the church, which is his body, is represented 
as “the church of the first-born, enrolled in the heavens,’’ 
Heb. xii. 23, a church against which “the gates of hades,” or 
of death, “shall not prevail” to hinder their enjoyment of 
this resurrection to a life of happiness; they are the sons of 
God, and therefore “children of the resurrection,” Luke 
xxi. 36; therefore “heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ,” 
who shall be glorified with him, Rom. viii. 17, «shall be de- 
livered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious 
liberty of the sons of God,” ver. 21, shall have “the adop- 
tion, to wit, the redemption of the body,” ver. 23; and they 
are also represented as persons foreordained to be conformed 
to the image of Christ, by having their « vile bodies changed 
into the likeness of Christ's glorious body,” ver. 29. 

Note, Secondly, That to this end was Christ raised, that 
he, « the first-born from the dead,” might raise up his whole 
body from the dead, he being raised from the dead as “the 
first-fruits of them that slept,” 1 Cor. xv. 20; for “to this 
end Christ both died and rose again, that he might be Lord 
both of the dead and of the living,’ Rom. xiv. 9, and God 
hath therefore exalted him, that “at the name (i. e. the 
power) of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, 
in the earth, and under the earth,” Phil. ii. 10; that is, the 
bodies of the dead; for by this argument, and from these 
very words, the apostle proves the resurrection, and a future 
judgment, Rom. xiv. 10—12. He is therefore so “ the first- 
born of the dead,” as to be the Lord of them, according to 
our former interpretation of the word “ first-born,” and as to 
have power to “raise them up who sleep in him, and bring 
them with him,” 1 Thess. iv. 14, to “give eternal life unto 
them, and raise them up at the last day,’ John v. 28, 29, 
xvii. 2. And thus hath he the pre-eminence in all things, 


* A quibus et mundum hunce factum dicit. Cap. 20, de 
Cerinth. cap. 25, V. lib. ii. cap. 9. 


being Lord of all creatures dead and living, and giving both 
their first and their new being to them, and rendering his 
members conformable to his glorious image, that so they may 
be joint-heirs with him in glory: and this is the constant 
doctrine of Irenwus,* who informs us, that “Christ died, 
that he might be the first-born from the dead, and the prince 
of life. ‘That the death of this just man gave him the prin- 
cipality of things under the earth, he having before the prin- 
cipality in heavenly things; that they who denied the resur- 
rection of the flesh, contradicted the salvation of that for 
which the whole dispensation of the Son of God was de- 
signed; that he died, that exiled man might be delivered 
from condemnation, and might return without fear to his 
inheritance.”+ 

15 Ver. 20. ᾿Αποκαταλλάξαι, To reconcile.| This word, say 
Hesychius, Suidas, and Phavorinus, signifies φιλοποιῆσαι, 
“to make friends,” or “to reduce persons to their former 
amity.” This by the fathers,} is thus explained, That whilst 
man continued in his obedience to God, angels and men 
were in a perfect friendship; but when men became disobe- 
dient to their sovereign Lord, the angels became averse to 
them, because their Lord was dishonoured by them. But 
God being reconciled to us by the death of his Son, they also 
became friends and ministering spirits to us, and we became 
of the same church and body with them, under the same 
head Christ Jesus (Heb, xii. 22); and so “all things in 
heaven and earth were gathered into one Christ,” Eph. 
i. 10. 

16 Ver. 23.] Note, hence it follows, that they who have 
true faith, and just ground of hope, may fall away from 
them. 

17 Ver. 24. Τῶν ϑλίψεων τοῦ Χριστοῦ, The afflictions of 
Christ.) Christ having told us that what was done to his 
members is done to him, Matt. xxv. 40. 45, the afflictions of 
his members are styled “the persecutions and afilictions of 
Christ,” Acts ix. 4,5. Now the Jews speak much of the 
afflictions of Christ and his disciples, comprehending both 


* Usque ad mortem pervenit ut sit primogenitus ex mor- 
tuis, ipse primatum tenens in omnibus, princeps vite, prior 
omnium, et precedens omnes. Lib. ii. cap. 39. 

+ Verbum caro factum est, ut quemadmodiim in ceelis 
principatum habuit Verbum Dei, sic et in terra haberet prin- 
cipatum, quoniam homo justus, qui peccatum non fecit, 
principatum autem habeat eorum que sunt sub terra, ipse 
primogenitus mortuorum factus. Lib.iv. cap. 37. Quecun- 
que enim cum gravitate summa dixerunt heretici, in ultimum 
ad hoc deveniunt, ut blasphement fabricatorem, et contra- 
dicant saluti plasmatis Dei, quod quidem est caro, propter 
quam omnem dispositionem fecisse filium Dei multis modis 
ostendimus. Lib. iv. prefat. Ipse moriens ut exiliatus 
homo exiret de condemnatione, et reverteretur intrepidé ad 
suam hereditatem. Ibid. cap. 19. 

+ ᾿Απεστρέφοντο yap ἡμᾶς καὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων of dijpor διὰ τὸ 
ὑβρίζεσϑαι τὸν αὐτῶν δεσπότην ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Theod. 


784 COLOSSIANS. 


made manifest (by the apostles and prophets) to his 
saints : 

27 To whom God would make known what 7s the 
riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gen- 
tiles (Eph. iii. 8, 9); which is Christ (preached to and 
received ) in (1. 6. among) you, (as) the hope of glory: 

28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and 
teaching every man in all (spiritual) wisdom; that 


(so) we may present every man perfect (7. 6. fully in- 
structed, see note on Eph, iy. 13) in Christ Jesus: 

29 Whereunto (ets ὃ. fur which thing) 1 also labour, 
(earnestly) striving according to his working, which 
worketh in me mightily (¢. 6. according to the mighly 
power of God assisting me to confirm the doctrine of 
Christ, by signs, and miracles, and mighty deeds, Rom. 
xy. 19). 


under the name of mwp San, * “ the afflictions of the Mes- 
siah,” dividing them into three parts, of which, say they, the 
fathers and the preceding generation suffered one part; an- 
other part was suffered by the generation of destruction, or 
the Jews destroyed by Titus; and a third by the genera- 
tion of the Messiah, or by his disciples. Of these afflictions 


* Midrash Tehillim, in Psal. ii. 7, et Sanhedrin, cap. 10. 
Vide Buxtorf. Lex. Talm. p. 700. 


of Christ, I, saith the apostle, have already had a share, and 
I go on to fill up the residue of these my sufferings in the 
flesh, which I am to bear in the discharge of my ministry, 
for the benefit of his church. And suitable to this interpre- 
tation is that of Lyranus on the place, Passiones Christi du- 
plicitér accipiuntur, uno modo pro illis quas sustinuit in cor- 
pore proprio, et sic nihil ibi restat ad implendum ; alio modo 
| quas in finem usque seculi patietur in corpore mystico, et 
| sic restant multarum passionum reliquie adimplende. 


‘CHAPTER IL. 


1 (J say, I labour, ἀγωνιζόμενος, striving to make 
every man perfect in Christ Jesus:)ForI would that ye 
knew what great conflict (ἡλίκον ἀγῶνα, what conten- 
tion in prayer, iv. 2) Ihave for you, and for them at 
Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face 
in the flesh ; 

2 (Praying)That their hearts might be comforted, 
being knit together in (mutual) love, and (that they 
may advance) unto all riches of the full assurance of 
understanding, ' to the acknowledgement of the ? mys- 
tery of God, and (7. e.) of the Father, and of Christ; 


3 3In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and | 


knowledge. 
4 And this I say, lest any man should beguile you 
with enticing words (see note on ver. 8). 


5 For though I be absent (from yow) in the flesh, 
yet am I (present) with you in the spirit (by which I 
discern your affairs, as Elisha did his servant, 2 Kings 
v. 26, see 1 Cor. v. 3), joying and beholding (behold- 
ing with joy) 4 your order, and the stedfastness of your 
faith in Christ, 

6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the 
Lord (by the teaching of Epaphras, i. 7), so walk ye 
(steadfastly) in him : 

7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the 
faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with 
thanksgiving (lo him who called you to it). 

8 Beware lest any man spoil you (or make a prey of 
you) through (heathen) § philosophy and vain deceit, 
(ading you) after the tradition of men, (or) after 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1 Ver. 2. His ἐπίγνωσιν, for ἐν ἐπίγνωσει, In the knowledge.] 
See note on i. 20. 

2 Tod μυστηρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ, The mystery of God, even the 
Father, and of Christ.) i. e. The dispensation of the divine 
grace of God, in offering salvation to the gentiles by Christ, 
and conferring on them, equally with the Jews, the blessings 
of the gospel. This is the mystery which, saith he, “in the 
former ages was hid, but now is manifested to the saints, to 
whom God would make known what was the riches of the 
glory of this mystery among the gentiles, which is Christ 
(preached) among you (as) the hope of glory,” ver. 26, 27. 
« This,” saith he, “is the mystery, which from the beginning 
hath been hid in God,” Eph. iii. 9, “ the mystery of God and 
of Christ,” ver. 3—5, “That the gentiles should be fellow- 
heirs (with the believing Jews) and of the same body, and 
partakers (with thern) of his promises in Christ by the gos- 
pel,” ver. 6 (see also Rom. xvi. 25, 26, Col. iv. 3). And 
that the gentiles might have a perfect knowledge of this 
mystery, and of the riches of divine grace, and love to them 
in it, is the apostle’s prayer, Eph. iii. 16—19. But whereas 
Crellius and Schlictingius here note, that the particle καὶ, 
“and,” added to the word “Christ,” distinguishes him as 
well from God as from the Father: it doth no such matter, 
but only distinguisheth the mystery of the Father, sending his 
Son into the world to be a Saviour to the gentiJes, from the 
mystery of Christ, procuring this salvation for them by 
his blood. “ The ecclesiastical tradition,” saith Irenzus,* 
“teaches us to believe in God the Father omnipotent, who 
made heaven and earth, and in one Jesus Christ the Son of 
God, incarnate for our salvation, our Lord, God, Saviour, 


* Τὴν cis Eva Θεὸν πατέρα παντοκράτορα πίστιν, καὶ εἰς ἕνα 
Χριστὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν, τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν σαρκωθέντα, ὑπὲρ τῆς ἡμετέρας 
σωτηρίας----ἶνα Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ τῷ Κυρίῳ καὶ Θεῷ ἡμῶν, καὶ βασιλεῖ 

πᾶν γόνυ κάμψη. Lib. i. cap. 3. 


and King.” And so these words may be construed, “ the 
mystery of both the Father and Christ” (see note on i. 3). 

3 Ver. 3. Ἔν ᾧ, In whom.] Some make these words relate 
to the mystery mentioned in the foregoing verse: but it 
seems rather to respect the person of Christ as Mediator, the 
knowledge of whom, saith the apostle, hath an excellency 
beyond all other knowledge (Phil. iii. 8). For ἐν ᾧ περιετ- 
wiSnze, “In whom ye are circumcised,” ver. 11 of this chap- 
ter, and ἐν ὦ, “In whom ye are risen again,” ver. 12, plainly 
relate to Christ’s person and his performances as Mediator ; 
and the whole following chapter speaketh of him, and of the 
benefits we have received, ἐν air, by him. The apostle also 
doth apply this to him, by saying, ver. 8, “As you have re- 
ceived the Lord Jesus Christ, so walk in him:” and by 
warning us against the deceit of vain philosophy, because 
“in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead.” But yet 
seeing these hid treasures of Christ’s wisdom are revealed to 
us by his gospel only, and thence alone we obtain all om 
knowledge of him as Mediator, and of all the offices he sus- 
tains as such, there seemeth to be no great difference be- 
twixt referring this to his person, and referring it to his doc- 
trine. 

4 Ver. 5. Τὴν τάξιν ὑμῶν, Your order.) As, to “walk dis- 
orderly,” in the apostle’s style, is not to walk according to 
the traditions they had received from the apostles, or 
preachers of the gospel (2 Thess. iii. 6), so their order may 
import their compliance with them in manners, discipline, 
and union. 

5 Ver. 8. Διὰ φιλοσοφίας, By philosophy, &c.] What is 
the πιϑανολογία, the “ enticing speech,” ver. 4, and the “phi- 
losophy and vain deceit,’ which the apostle warns them 
against, is not so easy to determine. Some good interpreters 
refer what follows in this chapter to the heresy of Simon 
Magus, and the Gnostics, to which many passages in this 
chapter may be well applied. Others refer them to the Jew- 
ish doctors, who had then mixed the philosophy of the 
heathens with their ceremonial worship, and had thence 


CHAPTER II. 


the rudiments of the world, (tie Jewish rudiments and 
traditions, Gal. iv. 3,) and not after (the doctrine of) 
Christ. 

9 (Of which philosophy you can have no need ;) For 
in him dwelleth © all the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily. 


785 


10 And ye are complete in him (as fo all saving 
knowledge and virtue, 1 Cor. i. 30), which is 7 the head 
of all principality and power (Eph. i. 20): 

11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the cir- 
cumcision made without hands, (as that of the Jews is, 
but consisting) in ® putting off the body of the sins of 


learned to allegorize it; and others divide the matter be- 
twixt Jew and gentile. And that the Jewish doctors are 
very much concerned in this chapter, we learn from ver. 14 
to 16, and “the rudiments of the world,’ relate to the legal 
observations, as being common to them with the gentile 
world (see note on Gal. iv. 8). “The commandments of 
men,” or their traditions, may also have respect to them who 
were the zealous assertors of them (int xv., Acts xxi. 21). 
And indeed this verse seems to be the key to, or the founda- 
tion of, all that follows in this chapter, ranking the discourse 
of the apostle under these two heads, viz. cautions against 
the seductions of the Jews, zealous for the observation of 
their rites and ceremonies; and against the seductions of 
heathens by their “ vain philosophy,” dressed up by them 
anew, both as to its doctrines and morals, and set off with the 
most specious pretences, styled here πιϑανολογία, “ enticing 
speech.” 

6 Ver. 9. Πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς Sedrnros, All the fullness of 
the Godhead.] This fullness, according to the Gnostics, was 
made up of their thirty gons. ‘The heathens, besides the 
Supreme God, owned many other local gods, presiding over 
nations, and so made up the plenitude of the Godhead of 
them all, as of so many partial deities, Against such 
opinions the apostle here asserts, that “ the whole fullness of 
the Godhead dwelt” in Christ, and that “ bodily,” i. e. in his 
body, as its temple: and, say the fathers, as the soul dwell- 
eth in the body ; say others, bodily, that is, essentially. The 
apostle doth not roundly say that Christ is God, but expresses 
his divine nature thus, partly to represent to the Jews the 
divinity of Christ, with allusion to the God of Israel dwelling 
in the temple; partly to oppose him to the πλήρωμα of the 
Gnostics, and to the partial deities of the heathens. Here 
therefore it is to be observed, 

First, That the apostle doth not here say that the divinity 
is assistant to Christ, but that the fullness of it doth κατοικεῖν, 
“reside in him ;” which is never said in scripture of any other 
person, but of him alone, who having styled his body a 
“temple,” John ii. 19. 21, “the fullness of the Deity” may 
be properly said to dwell in him bodily, as it dwelt symboli- 
cally in the ark. 

Note, Secondly, That Christ is not here said to be « filled 
with the fullness of God,” as the church is, by reason of the 
gifts with which she was replenished, and the doctrine she 
had received from God, Eph. i. 23, but «the whole fullness 
of the Godhead” is here said to reside in him. Now ϑειότης 
and τὸ ϑεῖον do never signify the gifts of God, or the doctrine 
of the gospel, but the divine nature only ; nor can the will 
or revelation of God be said to “dwell bodily” in any per- 
son. I conclude, therefore, that* “the body born of the 
virgin, receiving the whole fullness of the Godhead bodily, 
was immutably united to the divinity, and deified; which 
made the same person, Jesus Christ, both God and man.” 

7 Ver. 10. Κεφαλὴ πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας, The head of all 

rincipality and power.) Epiphanius informs ys,} that Simon 
Magus devised some names of principalities and powers, say- 
ing, that “none could be saved, who learned not the sacred 
discipline, and how to offer his sacrifice to the Father of all 
things, by these principalities and powers.” In opposition 
to these things, say some, the apostle asserts that Christ 
created all these principalities and powers (i. 15), and was 


* Τὸ ἐκ τῆς παρϑένου σῶμα χωρῆσαν πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τὴς ϑεότητος 
σωματικῶς, τῇ θεότητι ἀτρέπτως ἤνωται, καὶ τεθευοποίΐεται, οὗ χάριν ὃ 
αὐτὸς Θεὺς καὶ ἄνϑρωπος ᾿Ιησοὺῦς Χριστὸς. Cone. Antioch. ad Paul. 
Samos. tom. i. p.848. Porrd legunt σωματικῶς patres Greci 
omnes, et de Latinis Hilarius, August. pluresque alii. Grab. 
in Iren. p. 18. 

ἡ ᾿Ονόματα dé τινα ὃ αὐτὸς ὑποτίϑεται ἀρχῶν re καὶ ἐξουσιῶν 
μὴ ἄλλως δὲ δύνασϑαι σώζεσϑαί τινα, εἰ μή τι ἂν μάϑοι 
ταύτην τὴν μυσταγωγίαν, καὶ τὰς τοιαῦτας θυσίας τῷ πατρὶ τῶν 


ὅλων διὰ τῶν ἀρχῶν τούτων καὶ ἐξουσιῶν προσφέρειν. Her. xxi. 
8. 4, p. 58. 
Vor. [V.—99 


| 


the Head and Lord of them, and so in him, without their 
assistance, the Colossians were complete, and fully instructed 
to salvation. 

Or else these things may be referred to Cerinthus and his 
followers. For, 

First, He lived in the apostle’s times, and was a great op- 
poser of the truth of the gospel, and particularly an enemy 
to Paul,* because he contended it was not necessary for the 
Jews, nor lawful for the gentiles, to observe the law of 
Moses, for which Cerinthus was a zealot. And he, saith the 
same Epiphanius,t “reproved Peter for going in to the uncir- 
cumcised, and raised the tumult in Antioch about circum- 
cision.” 

Secondly, He lived long in Egypt,} and was instructed in 
philosophical sciences, and from thence went and set up his 
sect in Asia the Less, and Syria, say Theodoret and Epipha- 
nius.§ Being therefore skilled in philosophy, and setting 
up his heresy in Asia Minor, where Colosse was, he may well 
be here reflected on by St. Paul, especially if we consider 
how much his opinions agreed with those which are here cen- 
sured by him. For, 

Thirdly, He was zealous for circumcision, and other obser- 
vances of the law of Moses, and so concerned in what is here 
said, ver. 11, 14d—17. (2.) He said,| “The world was 
made by angels, or inferior virtues, and not by the supreme 
God; and that he himself received his doctrine by the reve- 
lation of angels.” (3.) He held Jesus to be born of Joseph 
and Mary, as other men, and Christ to have “descended 
upon him, and at his passion to have returned to his 
pleroma.” 

And John refuted him, saith Ireneus, “by establishing 
the principle of one God omnipotent, who made all things 
visible and invisible by his Word ;” which is the very thing 
the apostle in this chapter doth assert. 

8 Ver. 11. Τῇ ἀπεκδύσει, &e. The pulling off the body of 
the sins of the fiesh.] Thus Philo informs us,{ that circum- 
cision imports “the cutting off our sinful pleasures and pas- 
sions, and our impious opinions” (see Rom. ii. 28, 29; and 
the reading of the text defended, Examen Milli). 


* Tov δὲ Παῦλον ἀϑετοῦσι διὰ τὸ μὴ πείϑεσθαι τῇ περιτομῇ. Heer. 
XXxviii. 5. 4, 5, 8. 

7 Οὗτος dé ἐστιν εἷς τῶν ἐπὶ τῶν ἁποστύλων τὴν ταραχὴν épya- 
σαμένων, ὅτι of περὶ ᾿Ιάκωβον γεγράφασιν εἰς τὴν ᾿Αντιοχεΐίαν ἐπισ- 
τολήν" οὗτος παρεκίνει περὶ τοῦ Πέτρου ἀνελϑόντος εἰς “Ἱερουσαλὴμ τὰ 
πλήϑη τῶν ἐκ περιτομῆς, λέγων ὅτι εἰσῆλθε εἰς dxpobvortay ἔχοντας. 
Her. xxviii. lxii. §. 2. 

ἢ Οὗτος ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ πλεῖστον διατρίψας χρόνον, καὶ τὰς φιλοσύ- 
φους παιδευθεὶς ἐπιστημὰς, ὕστερον εἰς τὴν ᾿Ασίαν ἐφίκετο. Hern 
Fab. lib. ii. cap. 3. 

§ ᾿Εγένετο δ' οὗτος ὃ Ἰζήρινϑος ἐν τὴ ᾿Ασίᾳ διατρίβῶν, κἀκεῖσε τοῦ 
κηρύγματος τὴν ἀρχὴν πεποιημένος. Heer. xxviii. 

| Cerinthiani ἃ Cerintho mundum ab angelis factum esse 
dicentes, et carne circumcidi oportere, atque alia hujusmodi 
legis precepta observare. August. de Her. cap. 8, Epiph. 
Her. xxviii. §. 1. 

᾿Αλλὰ καὶ Κήρινθος ὃ dv ἀποκαλύψεων ὡς ὑπὸ ἀποστόλου μεγά- 
Nov γεγραμμένων τηρατολογίας ἡμῖν, ὡς δι ἀγγέλων αὐτῷ dedery- 
μένας, ψευδόμενος ἐπεισάγει. Caius apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 
lib. ili. cap. 22. 

Illi dicunt alterum quidem fabricatorem mundi, alium 
autem patrem Domini, et alium quidem fabricatoris filium, 
alterum vero de superioribus Christum, quem et impassibilem 
perseverdsse descendentem in Jesum filium fabricatoris, et 
itertim revolisse in suum pleroma, et eam conditionem que 
est secundiim nos non a primo Deo factam, sed ἃ virtute ali- 
qua valde deorsim subjecta et abscissd ab eoram communi- 
catione, que sunt invisibilia et innominabilia. Tren. lib. i. 
cap. 25, lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 257. 

1 Ὅτι τὸ περιτέμνεσθαι ἡδονῶν, καὶ παϑῶν πάντων ἑἐκτομὴν, καὶ 
δόζης ἀναίρεσιν ἀσεδοὺς ἐμφαίνει. De Migrat. Abr. p. 315, A, B. 
De Circumcis. p. 626. 


3a2 
‘ 


786 


the flesh (which is done) by the (spiritual) cireumci- 
sion of Christ, (and so ye need not any legal rites, to make 
you complete Christians : 

12 We being) Buried with him in baptism, (the out- 
ward symbol of our spiritual circumcision, and so dead 
unto sin, Rom. vi. 2—4) wherein also ye are risen with 
him (to newness of life, Rom. vi. 4, and to the expectation 
of a future life through him, ver. 8,) through the faith 
of the operation of God, who hath raised him from 
the dead (by which faith we believe thal he will raise us 
also from the dead, Eph. i. 19, 20, 1 Thess. iv. 14, 
1 Pet. 1. 3). 

13 And you (gentiles), being dead (before) in your 


COLOSSIANS. 


sins and (by reason of) the 9 uncireumcision of your 
flesh, hath he (God, ver. 12) quickened together with 
him (by his Spirit), having forgiven you (through faith) 
all ( your former) trespasses ; 

14 (.2nd) Blotting out the 10 handwriting of (Jegal) 
ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to 
us, and (dying this so that he) took it out of the way, 
nailing it to his cross; 

15 And having spoiled " principalities and powers, 
he made a shew of them openly (thus despoiled of their 
authority), triumphing over them in it (7. 6. by virtue 
of the same cross). 

16 Let no man therefore judge (or condemn) you in 


The apostle here plainly discourseth against those heretics, 
or false apostles, who laboured to introduce the necessity of 
circumcision. Now that Cerinthus was one who pleaded 
for the necessity of it, Epiphanius, St. Austin, and others, 
do inform us; but that Simon Magus did so, I find not in 
church history. The Apostolical Constitutions* speak of 
some false apostles, who held it necessary περιτέμνεσθαι vopi- 
pos, “to circumcise men according to the law;” but then 
they are distinguished from the impure heresy of Simon 
Magus, who was so far from contending for the observation 
of the law and prophets, that he taught his followers, νύμῳ 
kat προφήταις μὴ χρᾶσθαι, “not to regard them,t μηδὲ φρίτ- 
τειν, not to fear the threats of the law,’ as being not the 
law of God, ἀλλ᾽ ἀριστερᾶς δυνάμεως, “but of some evil 
power,” saith Theodoret ; and declaring, saith Epiphanius,§ 
that “whosoever believed the Old Testament incurred 
death.” Note, 

Secondly, That the apostle speaking here of the circum- 
cision made without hands, and of the circumcision made 
in baptism, and consisting in the putting off the sins of the 
flesh, cannot, by the circumcision of Christ, mean his own 
personal circumcision which was made with hands, but that 
which he hath instituted in the room of it, viz. baptism. 
Note, 

Thirdly, That baptism therefore is a rite of initiation to 
Christians, as circumcision was to the Jews; for, by virtue 
of our spiritual circumcision in baptism, he proves we have 
no need of the outward circumcision to be a type of the 
purity obtained by baptism. 

Fourthly, Hence I infer, that baptism is Christ’s ordi- 
nance for infants of believing parents, as circumcision was 
of old for the infants of the Jews; for if it had been other- 
wise, and infants under Christianity had not been received 
by any federal rite into covenant with God, the objection of 
the necessity of circumcision as to them would have still 
held, they entering into covenant by no other rite, and so 
Yemaining strangers from the church, and as much aliens 
from the adoption, the covenant, and promises, as the gen- 
tiles were; which sure the Jews would have objected, if 
truly they could have done it, to the reproach of Christianity. 
That institution therefore must, for the comfort and satisfac- 
tion of their parents, afford some way of sanctifying these 
infants, or of admitting them among the number of God’s 
children, which being confessedly no other than that of 
baptism, it must be supposed to allow that to them, that by 
it, in the phrase of Ireneus,|| infantes et parvuli renas- 
cantur in Deum, “infants and little children may be re- 
generated.” 

9 Ver. 18, Καὶ τῇ axpobvoria τῆς σαρκος, And the uncir- 
cumcision of the flesh.| By the defect of circumcision, they 
being, saith the parallel place, on that account without 
Christ, being “aliens from the commonwealth of Isreal, and 
strangers from the covenant of promise,” Eph. ii. 11, 12. 

10 Ver. 14. Χειρόγραψον τοῖς déypaow, The hand-writing of 
ordinances.] Δόγμα is a rescript or ordinance concerning 
any thing, a royal or imperial decree (Dan. ii. 13, iii. 10. 12. 
29, vi. 8. 10. 13, 15. 26, Luke ii. 1, Acts xvii. 7). Hence 
ritual prescriptions are called ὀύγματα, Ezek. xx. 26. “The 
hand-writing of ordinances,” in the parallel epistle, Eph. ii. 
15, is “the law of commandments, ἐν δόγμασι, in ritual ordi- 


nances,” or the ceremonial law; and it is said here to be 
against and contrary to the gentiles, as being “a middle 
wall of partition,” hindering them from coming to God, and 
putting an emnity betwixt them and God’s people (ver. 14, 
15), which Christ hath taken away by abolishing and dis- 
solving the obligation of it, and admitting the gentiles « fel- 
low-heirs of the same promises” and blessings with the Jews 
without it; or it is contrary to us, as being the ministration 
of death and condemnation (2 Cor. iii. 7. 9). 

Ver. 15. Τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ ἐξουσίας. The principalities 
and powers here mentioned, are the powers of wickedness, 
the spirits of Satan, who is styled ἡ éovcia τοῦ σκότους, «the 
power of darkness,” Luke xxiii. 53, and “of the air,’ Eph. 
li. 23 ὁ ἄρχων, “the prince of the world,’ John xii. 31, xiv. 
30; whose emissaries are ‘the principalities and powers, the 
tulers of the darkness of this world, the spiritual wicked- 
nesses in high places,” against which we wrestle, Eph. vi. 
12. These powers Christ destroyed by his cross, because, 
as the apostle saith, “through death he destroyed him that 
had the power of death, that is, the devil; and delivered 
them who, through the fear of death, were all their lives 
subject to bondage,” Heb. ii. 14,15, Moreover, the heathen 
lay under two great infelicities; (1.) That they were “aliens 
from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the 
covenant of promise, and without God in the world.” The 
remedy which divine wisdom found out, and our Lord’s 
salutary passion effected, with respect to this, is discoursed 
of in the preceding verse. (2.) That they were subject to 
the power and delusions of evil and apostate spirits, “" walk- 
ing according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit 
that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” These 
principalities and powers Christ despoiled on the cross, by 
the name of a crucified Jesus, and by the very sign of the 
cross, casting out the prince of the world from his dominions, 
temples, and oracles, and from those human bodies he pos- 
sessed; and so openly convincing the heathens, that the 
deities they so long had worshipped, were evil spirits, and, 
by the miracles wrought in his name, drawing them from 
their heathen worship to him. And this exposition is con- 
firmed from these words, “ He made a show of them openly,” 
which plainly seemeth to refer to this conquest over them. 
Moreover, it may be noted, that Simon and Cerinthus held, 
εἶναι τὸν αἰῶνα ἀπὸ ἀρχῶν τυύτων καὶ ἐξουσιῶν τῆς κακίας κατεσ- 
κευασμένον, “that the world was made by these evil spirits,” 
and men were subject to the power of them; “and were 
per eum et Helenam suam ex illis angelicis potestatibus 
liberandos,* to be delivered by Simon and his Helen from 
them.” This, saith the apostle, our Lord hath fully done 
upon the cross, and so we need no assistance of Simon or 
Cerinthus to perform this work; and much less need we the 
assistance of those demons which the heathens worshipped as 
good angels, who had the government of the inferior world 
committed to them, Christ having triumphed over them, 
and wholly spoiled them of that power. And from these 
heathen deities he passes on again to the rudiments of the 
Jews, making that inference from what had been discoursed 
from ver. 11 to the 14th, which we see in the following 
verses. 

2 Ἔν αὐτῷ, In it.) It is certain that Origenj and others of 
the ancients read, ἐν ξύλῳ, “on the wood ;” so did the Arabic 


* Lib. vi. cap. 10. 
+ Her. Fab. lib. i. cap, 1. 
ἢ Lib. ii. cap. 39. 


ἡ Ibid. 
§ Her. xxi. 9. 4. 


* Tren. lib. i. cap. 20. Tert. de Angelis, cap. 34. Theod. 


Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1. 
+ Hom. in Matt. p. 282, 288, 289, in Joh. p. 144. 


CHAPTER II. 


(not observing a distinction in) meat, or in drink, or in 
respect of (your neglect of ) an (Jewish) holyday, or of 
the new moon, or of the sabbath days (observed by 
them) : 

17 Which are (all only) 33 a shadow of things to 


787 


come; but the body (ana substance of those shadows) 18 
of Christ (and exhibited by him). 

18 “Let no man beguile you of (damnify you as 
to) your reward 15 in a voluntary humility (Gr. pleas- 
ing himself in, or affecting humility,) and (upon that 


version; others read, ἐν ἑαυτῶ, “in himself;” but seeing that 


teading, as St. Jerome testifies, is only in the Latin copies, | 


and since Chrysostom, Theodoret, Gicumenius, heophy- 
lact, read as we and most copies do, without taking notice 
of any other reading, we may rely securely on it. 

8 Ver. 17. xia τῶν μελλύντων, A shadow of things to 
come.] Dr. Spencer well observes, that there is no necessity 
from these words, of asserting that these, and all the ritual 


constitutions of the law of Moses, shadowed forth some | 


Christian mystery; but only that they were but as mere 
shadows, compared to that solid and substantial truth Christ 
by his gospel hath discovered to us, as Josephus, speaking 
of Archelaus, who exercised the kingly power without the 
title of it, saith, ἥκει παρὰ rod δεσπότου σκίαν αἰτησάμενος δασιλείας, 
τῆς ἥρπασεν ἑαυτῷ τὸ σῶμα, “He came to request of (βὰν 
the shadow of that kingdom, the body of which he had 
usurped or snatched to himself before” (De Bello Jud. lib. 
ii. cap. 4, p. 777). 

Note, Secondly, That ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς, is well rendered “in 
respect,” or ‘on account of a feast; as when the apostle 
saith, “That which was made glorious was not glorious, ἐν 
μέρει τούτῳ, in this respect,” 2 Cor. iii. 10, and, “J have sent 
the brethren, lest our boasting of you should be found vain, 
τούτῳ μέρει, in this respect,’ ix. 3; and when Peter saith, 
“Tf any man suffer as a Christian, let him glorify God, ἐν 
τούτῳ μέρει, on this account.” So 2 Mace. xv. 18, “The 
care they took for their wives and children, was ἐν ἥττονι 
μέρει, of no account with them, their chief care being for the 
temple.’ Now hence, to make out the argument against 
the Sabbatarians, note, 

First, That the hand-writing of ordinances here mentioned 
respecteth ceremonial ordinances; for of them only it can 
be truly said, they were “against us,” and were “contrary 
to us;” they were blotted out, and “nailed to the cross” of 
Christ, and were “ shadows of,” or in respect of “ things to 
come.” 

Secondly, That when it is said, “ Let no man judge you 
in respect of those things,” the meaning is, Let no man cen- 
sure or condemn the Christian for not observing these new 
moons, feasts, or sabbaths. 

Thirdly, That the apostle here by “sabbaths” does not 
mean the first and last days of the great Jewish feasts, which 
were by them observed as sabbaths; or the sabbath of the 


seventh year, or of the year of jubilee: but only, or chiefly, | 


the weekly sabbaths of the Jews. 
First, Because the apostle having said before, «Let no 
man condemn you” for not observing the Jewish festivals, 


or any part of them, cannot rationally be supposed in the | 


words following to condemn only the same thing. 
Secondly, In the New Testament the word “sabbath,” or 
“«sabbaths,” is used above sixty times, and in fifty-six of 
those places it doth unquestionably signify the Jewish weekly 
sabbaths, and in the other the whole weck. Since, then, the 
“sabbath” in the New Testament is never used for the first 
or last days of the Jewish feasts, but is there ordinarily 
used for their weekly sabbath, we ought in reason to con- 


clude, it here imports that seventh-day sabbath which it | 
doth usually import in other places; and not those solemn | 


days of the Jewish feasts, those jubilees, or seven years’ 
sabbaths, which it doth never elsewhere signify in the New 
Testament. 

Thirdly, Where the word “sabbath” is mentioned in the 
Old Testament, in conjunction with new moons, or Jewish 
feasts, it doth import the seventh-day sabbath distinctly 
from all others; as will appear from the persual of all the 
places where these things are jointly mentioned, as 2 Kings 
iv. 23, Isa. i. 13, Ixvi. 23, Lam. ii. 6, Ezek. xlv. 17, xlvi. 
1, Hos. ii. 2, Amos viii. 4. Being then here mentioned with 
new moons and Jewish feasts, it is reasonable to conceive it 
signifies the seventh-day sabbath. 

Fourthly, The sabbath-day in the Old Testament is often 


contradistinguished to all other solemn feasts, and more par- | 


ticularly to new moons and anniversary feasts; and there- 
fore, being here mentioned with them, we may presume it 
cannot signify them, or any portion of them, but rather that 
it doth import that Jewish sabbath which in other places is 
put in opposition to them, as 1 Chron. xxiii. 31, 2 Chron. 
ii 4, xxxi. 3, Neh. x. 32, 33. Seeing then the word “sab- 
bath,” wherever it is used in conjunction with new moons or 
| feasts, in scripture, still signifies the Jewish weekly sabbath, 
we cannot doubt, but, in conjunction with them here, it sig- 
nifies the same thing. Seeing the word is often put in op- 
position to new moons and solemn feasts, indefinitely taken, 
what reason have we to conceive, that in this place it should 
| be taken for any part or portion of them? Hence then [ 
argue thus: 

No man ought to condemn the Christian for not observing 
the Jewish sabbath, because Christ hath “blotted out the 
hand-writing of ceremonial ordinances which was against 
them ;” wherefore the Jewish sabbath being a ceremonial 
ordinance, therefore it is blotted out; therefore the Christian 
is not obliged to observe it. Again, that which is joined 
with meats and drinks, and with new moons, which are 
things confessedly eeremonial, no difference at all being ob- 
served by the apostle, as to their being named hand-writings, 
things cancelled, shadows, and the like, that must be cere- 
monial. Lastly, That which is a shadow of, or in respect of 
things to come, of which Christ by his advent exhibited the 
body, that must be ceremonial, that must be cancelled and 
| abolished by Christ, and then the Jewish sabbath must 

be so. 

4 Ver. 18. Καταβραβευέτω, Let no man beguile you of 
your reward.| So Suidas, παραλογιζέτω, “ Let no man put a 
cheat upon you.” So Phavorinus, ἐπηρεαζέτω, “ Let no man 

| damage you” (Chrysostom and Theophylact). 
| Καταβραβεύειν.] ‘This word signifies to give the prize to one, 
| when the victory was obtained by the other; so Chrysostom, 
| Theodoret, Theophylact ; accordingly Suidas* saith, This is 
| the thing which the apostle means by the word, and because, 
| by this unjust sentence, the person to whom it is due is de- 
prived of his reward, hence it comes to bear that sense; and 
| so the whole is by Stephanus rendered, Nemo vos debito bra- 
| bio fraudet; which, as it justifies our translation, so it shows 
| the damage Christians will sustain by thus worshipping an- 
gels, even the loss of that crown of glory, which Christ hath 
purchased for his faithful subjects. 

15 Θέλων ἐν razewohpocivy, Pleasing himself in his humi- 
lity.] Or, affecting it, and so not addressing to God imme- 
diately, but by angels; for so the word ϑέλειν answers to the 
Hebrew yon, which imports pleasing or delighting ourselves 
| inany thing. So 1 Sam. xviii. 12, θέλει ἐν σοὶ 6 βασιλεὺς, “ The 

king is pleased with thee ;” 2 Sam. xv. 26, “If he say, οὐκ 
| ἐδέλησα ἐν σοὶ, I am not pleased with thee ;” Matt. xx. 26, 
| 27, ὃς ἂν ϑέλη ἐν ὑμῖν, “ Who among you affects to be great or 
first ;” and, xxvii. 43, « Let him deliver him, εἰ θελεῖ αὐτὸν. 
if he delighteth in him.” As for the persons here referred 
to, note, 

First, That the Greek commentators affirm generally, that 
the apostle doth through this whole epistle oppose himself to 
some false Christians, who held δεῖν cuvayecSat ἡμᾶς πρὸς τὸν 
| πατέρα διὰ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων, “that we ought to address to 
the Father by the holy angels.” But then some of them 
add, that the pretence of humility was this “that it was 
too much for us to come to God immediately by Christ, this 
being above our infirmity.” But this, though it agrees well 
with the humility here mentioned, it seems not to accord 
either with the principles of Simon Magus, who held himself 
| to be both the Father and the Son; or of Cerinthus, who 


* Τοῦ ἄλλου ἀγωνιζομένου τὸν ἄλλον στεφανοῦσϑαι λέγει ὃ ἀπόστολος 
| καταβραβεῦεσθαι. 

ἡ Ἤσάν τινες of λέγοντες οὐ δεῖ ἡμᾶς διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ προσάγεσϑαι 
(Ged) ἀλλὰ διὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων, ἐκεῖνο γὰρ μεῖζόν ἔστιν ἢ ἡμᾶς 
Chrysost. Photius, cum. Theoph. in locum. 


788 COLOSSIANS. 


account) worshipping of angels, 6. intruding (or 
searching) into those things (by the strengih of 
his natural reason) which he hath not seen, (being) 


vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind (as if he were 
able by it to know the nature and the offices of an- 
gels), 


held Christ was only a man, born after the common way 
of generation, and so could not exalt him thus above the 
angels; and much less doth it accord with the sentiments of 
the heathens. C&cumenius saith, the apostle speaketh here 
of them who did, τὰς νομικὰς παρατηρήσεις τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ 
ἐπιμιγνύειν, “mix legal observances with the gospel :" and 
Theophylact, that he speaks περὶ τῶν ᾿Ἰο"δαιζομένων, “ of the 
Judaizers.” And Theodoret* explains this more fully thus: 
« They who were zealous for the law, persuaded men to wor- 
ship angels, because, say they, the law was given by them: 
this they advised men to do, pretending humility, and saying, 
that the God of all things was invisible, and inaccessible, and 
incomprehensible, and that it was fit we should procure the 
divine favour by means of angels.” Now if this be so, this 
passage cannot well agree to Simon Magus and his followers ; | 
for though they worshipped angels, as Ireneus,t Tertullian,+ 
Epiphanius,§ Theodoret\| note, and held that their proarche 
or propator, was so inaccessible and incomprehensible; yet | 
did they not seem to worship God by angels, but rather to 
perform their magical operations by invoking them. He also, 
and his followers, as hath been shown, were enemies to the 
Jaw, and so could not introduce the worship of good angels 
upon this account, that the law was given by them. 

But then as for Cerinthus, and other false apostles of | 
the Jews, they owned Christ Jesus as the Messiah, and | 
yet were stiff assertors of the obligations of the law; and 
they by their philosophy had introduced the worship of an- | 
gels, after the heathen manner. For Epiphanius informs us 
of Cerinthus, that he said,§ “The law and the prophets 
came from the angels; and that he who gave the law was one 
of the angels that made the world.” They had imbibed the 
philosophy of Plato,** which saith, “The demons are of a mid- 
dle nature betwixt gods and mortals ; that they brought our 
prayers and offerings to them, and their commands to us, and 
were to be worshipped and invoked upon that account :” 
that God had no immediate commerce with men, but all 
his converse with us was by the mediation of these de- 
mons. And suitably to this philosophy we find the angel, 
Tobit xii. 12. 15, saying that he was “ one of the seven an- 
gels οἱ προσαναφέρουσι τὰς προσευχὰς τῶν ἁγίων, who offered up 
the prayers of the βαϊηΐβ : and that when ‘Tobit and Sara 
prayed, he “brought the memorial of their prayer before 
the Holy One.” And Philo,t{ in several places declares, 
that as the philosophers said of their demons and heroes, so 
Moses “ introduces the angels, πρεσβευομένας, doing the office 
of ambassadors, καὶ διαγγελλοῦσας Tare παρὰ τοῦ ἡγεμύνος τοῖς 
ὑπηκόοις ἀγαϑὰ, καὶ τῷ βασιλεῖ ὧν εἰσιν ὑπήκοοι χρείας, and be- 
ing messengers of good things from God to his subjects, and 


Ξ.ΩΣ τῷ νόμῳ συνηγοροῦντες καὶ τοὺς ἀγγέλους σέβειν αὐτοῖς 
εἰσηγοροῦντο, διὰ τούτους λέγοντες δεδόσϑαι τὸν νύμον, τοῦτο τοίνυν 
συνεβούλευον ἐκεῖνοι γίνεσϑαι, ταπεινοφροσύνη δῆϑεν κεχρημένοι καὶ 
λέγοντες ὡς, ἀόρατος ὃ τῶν GAwy Θεὸς, ἀνέφικτός τε, καὶ dva- 
κατάληπτος προσήκει διὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων τὴν ϑείαν εὐμενείαν πραγ- 
ματεύεσθαι. In locum. 

ἡ Simoniane discipline magia angelis inserviens. Tertull. 
de Prescript. cap. 33, p. 214. 

+ Iren. lib. i. cap. 28, lib. ii. cap. 57. 4 

§ Epiphan. Her, xxi. §. 4. 

|| Theodoret, Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 13. ᾿Αγώύρητος 
ἀνεξιχνίαστος, ἀκατάληπτος. Tren. lib. i. p. 10, 12. 14. 

4 Φάσκει δὲ οὗτος τὸν νόμον καὶ προφῆτας ὑπὸ ἀγγέλων dedéoSar, 
καὶ τὸν δεδωκότα νύμον ἕνα εἶναι τῶν ἀγγέλων τὸν κόσμον πεποιη- 
κότων. Her. xxviii. §. 1. Pp: 110. 

** Πᾶν yap τὸ δαιμώνιον μεταξύ ἐστι τοῦ Θεοῦ τε καὶ θνητοῦ 
punvetov καὶ διαπορδμεῦον θεοῖς τὰ nap’ ἀνθρώπων, καὶ 
ἀνθρώποις τὰ παρὰ ϑεῶν, τῶν μὲν τὰς δεήσεις καὶ θυσίας, τῶν δὲ 
τὰς ἐπιτάξεις. Conviv. p. 1194, A, Β. Θεὸς δὲ καὶ ἄνθρωπος οὐ 
μίγνυται, ἀλλὰ διὰ τούτου πᾶσά ἔστιν ὁμιλία, καὶ ἡ διάλεκτος θεοῖς 
πρὸς ἀνϑρώπους. Tbid. Aaipovas τῆς ἑρμηνείας αἴτιον εὐχαῖς 
τιμᾶν μάλα χρεὼν χάριν τῆς εὐφήμου διαπορείας. Epin. p. 1010, 
1011. 

{ft Lib. de Plant. No. p. 168, Vide insignem hac de re 
Se in Platonis Symposio, apud Stob. Eclog. Phys. p. 

» 25. 


carrying back to God their needs.” In his book of the Gi- 
ants* he styles them “ambassadors of good communica- 
tions of men to God, and of God again to men.” And in 
his book de Somniis,t he represents them as “the ears and 
eyes of the great King, seeing and hearing all things, for,” 
saith he, “they bring the commands of the Father to his 
children, and the needs of the children to the Father: not 
that God needs their ministry, but that it is very needful and 
beneficial for us frail men to have such mediators, as being 
unable, not only to receive God’s chastisements, but even his 
very benefits, should he immediately confer them on us by 
himself.” If Cerinthus had imbibed this philosophy, which 
had then obtained among the Jews, and was so well known 
in the world, that one so much instructed in it, as Theodoret 
saith he was, could not well be ignorant of it, here is a suffi- 
cient foundation for his introducing the worship of those an- 
gels which gave the law, under pretence of humility ; Philo¢ 
declaring, that when the law was first given, “ the people de- 
sired it might be so, and requested of God these mediators ; 
saying, Speak thou to us, and let not God speak to us, lest 
we die.” 

16 "A μὴ ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων, Intruding into those things he 
hath not seen.) So read all the Greek and Latin copies now 
extant; Esthius. Now this did the philosophers, and those 
Christians, which embraced their sentiments, in all their in- 
ducements to worship these angels and inferior spirits ; as, 
Vv. δ. 

First, In their pretence that§ “the divine nature could 
not immediately be conversed with, but that all the inter- 
course betwixt God and men was by the intermediation of 
these demons; it being a debasing of the divine nature, to 
think we could converse with him without their interven- 
tion.” 

Secondly, In saying that they were to be worshipped, 
χάριν τῆς εὐφήμου διαπορείας, «for their laudable intercession ; 
and, διὰ τῆς εὐεργεσίας, for the benefits of common life we re- 
ceive from them.”’|| 

Thirdly, As having from the supreme Deity their power 
and authority, and presiding over us, xara τάξιν ἡ ἕκαστος 
ἐτάχϑη, “according to the order appointed to them ;” and 
being therefore worshipped, ϑείῳ νύμῳ καὶ Seta βουλήσει, “ by 
the divine law and counsel ;” and only, saith Celsus, as he 
will have them to be honoured (Plato in Phedro, p. 264. 
Hierocles in Carm. Pythag. p. 9,18. Celsus apud Orig. 
lib. viii. p. 381). 

Fourthly, Because, by worshipping these ministers of 
his, we do a thing, φίλον ἐκείνῳ, “grateful to him,” saith 
Celsus.{ Nowin all these things they did manifestly ἐμβα- 
rete, “intrude into things” of which they neither had, 
nor could have, any knowledge from the light of nature. 
And so do also the Romanists, in saying that saints and an- 
gels see all things, or perceive our prayers, by seeing him who 
seeth all things; that they are worshipped by the divine law 
and counsel; and that by invoking them we do a thing 
grateful to him: it being certain that nothing of this na- 
ture can be proved from scripture, or from primitive tradition. 

Moreover, Theodoret and CEcumenius here observe, that 
this worship of angels continued long in Pisidia, Phrygia, 
and Laodicea, near to Colosse, where they had** εὐκτήρια τοῦ 


* P. 222, 5. 

ἡ Kai yap τὰς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐπικελεύσεις τοῖς ἐκγόνοις, καὶ τὰς τῶν 
ἐκγόνων χρεΐας τῷ πατρὶ διαγγέλλουσι, p. 458, 456. 

+ Οὗ λάβοντες ἔννοιαν ἐδεήϑημέν ποτέ τινος τῶν μέσων λέγοντες, 
λάλησον ἡμῖν, καὶ μὴ λαλείτω πρὸς ἡμᾶς ὃ Θεὸς, μὴ ἀποθάνωμεν. 
1014. 

§ Τὸν Θεὸν αὐτὸν καταμιγνὺς ἀνϑρωπίναις χρείαις οὐ φείδεται τῆς 
σεμνότητος, οὐδὲ τηρεῖ τὸ ἀξίωμα αὐτὸ τῆς ἀρετῆς. Plutarch. de 
Orac. Defect. p. 414. Οἱ δαιμόνων γένος μὴ ἀπολείποντες 
ἀνεπίμικτα τὰ τῶν ϑεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων ποιοῦσι, καὶ ἀσυνάλλακτα τὴν 
ἑρμηνευτικὴν ὡς Πλάτων ἔλεγεν, καὶ διακονικὴν ἀναιροῦντες φῦσιν 
P. 416, E. 

|| Euseb. Prep. Evang. lib. v. cap. 3, p. 128, Ὁ. 

4 Ibid. p. 381, 382. } ν᾿ 

** cum. apud. Heschel. Not. in Orig. p. 233. 


CHAPTER II. 


19 And (so) “ not holding the Head (Christ), from 
which all the body δ by joints and bands having 
nourishment ministered, and (being) knit together, 
increaseth with the increase of God, 

20 Wherefore if ye (by your profession) be dead 
with Christ from the ® rudiments of the world (which 
he hath nailed to his cross,~and took out of the way, 
ver. 4), why, as though living (yet) in Coaiucrmly to) 
the world,» are ye subject to (/he) ordinances (and 
decrees of men? 

21 Such as these are,) 3) (Touch not (what ts offered 


789 


to an idol; or, touch not a woman, 1 Cor. vii. 1); 
2 taste not ( forbidden meats) ; * handle not (an unclean 
thing) ; 

we Which all are to perish with the using) (or 
tend to corruption by the using or abusing them) ; after 
the commandments and doctrines of men? 

23 Which (are) ® things have indeed a shew of 
wisdom in will worship, and humility (ver. 8), and 
neglecting of the body (ver. 21); (and) not in 
(giving) any honour (to it) to the satisfying of the 

esh. 


ἁγίου Μιχαὴλ, “ oratories of St. Michael, the captain of the 
Lord’s host,” as he is called, Josh. v. 14; which leads us 
to the very rise of this worship, both among Jews and 
Christians. For the Jews generally held, that he who is 


styled “ the captain of the Lord’s host,” was the angel Mi- | 


chael (see note on Heb. ii. 5). And his office, saith Origen,* 
is mortalium preces, supplicationesque curare, “to present 
the prayers of men;’ and in the book of the Pastor we read, 
saith he, that Christians, ἅμα τὸ πιστεῦειν ὑπὸ rod Μιχαὴλ γί- 
vovrar, “as soon as they believe are under the government 
of Michael.’’-—* The good messenger,” saith Hermas,7 “ be- 
ing Michael, qui populi hujus habet potestatem, et gubernat 
eos, who hath the government over his people.” Whence by 
Nicephorus,+ he is styled, ὃ τῆς Χριστιανῶν πίστεως ἔφορος, 
“the president or overseer of the Christian faith.” 

7 Ver. 19. Kai οὐ κρατῶν τὴν κεφαλὴν, And not holding the 
head.) Hence it appeareth, First, ‘That the apostle here 
speaks of such persons as had embraced Christianity, own- 
ing Christ Jesus to be the head of the church, and being by 


profession “dead with Christ from the rudiments of the | 


world,” ver. 20. 

Secondly, That the fault they were guilty of, was not the 
worshipping angels, as mediators of redemption, but of inter- 
cession only ; i. e. as mediators to bring us to God, and to pre- 
sent our prayers to him, as appears from the foregoing note. 

Thirdly, That Jesus Christ is represented in the holy 
scripture as he by whom we have, προσαγωγὴν πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, 
“access to God” in prayer with confidence (Eph. ii. 18, ili. 
12, Heb. x. 19—22); and so having access to him by prayer, 
through any other mediator of intercession, must be intrench- 
ing on the office of the head of the church, and so not hold- 
ing the head: and that the practice of the church of Rome 
in praying to angels is here condemned, I have fully proved 
in a discourse of the idolatry of the church of Rome, ch. xi. 

18 ᾿Ἐπιχορηγούμενον, By joints and bands having nourish- 
ment ministered.) i.e. From which head communicating 
the gifts of the Spirit to his mystical, as the head doth its 
spirits to the natural body, the whole body of Christians 
(duly compacted together, by the assistance which every 
part of it gives to the whole; some sustaining the office of 
inferior heads, some of an eye, some of a hand or foot, 1 Cor. 
xii. 15—17,) increaseth in that love which proceedeth from 
the God of love, which he requires and approves, and which 
tends to his glory, and is therefore styled “the increase of 
God ;” as that righteousness which he approves and accepts 
of, is styled “the righteousness of God,” Rom. i. 17, 2 
Cor. v. 21, Phil. iii. 9, Jam. i. 20 (see the note on Eph. iv. 
15, 16). : 

19 Ver. 20. ᾿Απὸ τῶν στοιχείων ror κόσμου, From the rudi- 
ments of the world.] That these rudiments signify the Mo- 
saical institutions, as being, for matter, mostly the same with 
the rites used by the heathens, is proved by the note on 
Gal. iv. 3. And this is also evident from the argument 
here used to restrain the Colossians from being still in bond- 
age to them, viz. that they are blotted out, cancelled, and 
done away by the death of Christ, to which we profess to 
be conformed (ver. 14). To “live in the world,” is to live 
after the prescripts of the men of the world, by whom these 
rites were used. 

20 Δογματίζεσθε: Are ye subject to ordinances 31 Aoypari- 
ζεσθαι is to make rules and constitutions concerning these 
things. Thus of the feast of dedication of the temple purged 
from defilement, ἐδογμάτισαν μετὰ κοινοῦ προστάγματος, “ they 


* Περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν, lib. i. cap. 8, in Matt. ed Huet. p. 361, Ὁ. 
+ Lib. iii. sim. 8, 8. 3. + Hist. lib. vii. cap. 50. 


ordained by a common statute and decree, that every year 
those days should be kept” (2 Mace. x. 8). So when Judas 
had slain Nicanor, idoyparicay πάντες μετὰ καινοῦ Wnpicparos, 
“they ordained all with a common decree, in no case to let 
that day pass without solemnity” (xv. 36, see Esth. iii. 9, 
3 Esdr. vi. 34). And so that may be rendered here, « Why, 
as living yet in conformity to the world, are ye subject to the 
decrees and constitutions about them?” Such as are, 

21 Ver. 21. Mi ἅψη, Touch nol.] ‘This may refer either to 
what is mentioned by Paul, as the aphorism of some philo- 
sophers or heretics, “It is good for a man, μὴ ἅπτεσϑαι, not 
to touch a woman:” or it may be referred to things suflo- 
cated, or dead of themselves, or offered to idols; which, as 
Clemens of Alexandria saith,* the Jews were not allowed 
to touch. 

2 Μηδὲ γεύση, Taste not.| This, doubtless, refers to meats 
and drinks, either flesh and wine, which some of the philo- 
sophers, particularly the Pythagoreans, would not taste of. 
And some false apostles, mentioned by the Apostolical Con- 
stitutions,} forbade marriage, and “ required men to abstain 
from flesh and wine; representing marriage, and the pro- 
creation of children, and the eating of flesh, as things abomi- 
nable.” 

23 Mnéé Sins, Handle not] Any thing which may pollute 
you by touching it, or being offered to idols. 

2 Ver. 22. "A ἔστι πάντα εἰς φθορὰν τῇ ἀποχρήσει, All 
which things perish in the using.) The word φθύρα is used 
often by Peter speaking of such men, not for a natural, but 
a moral corruption, as when he saith, they were partakers 
of the divine nature, “who have escaped τὴν φϑορὰν, the 
pollution which is in the world through lust,” 2 Pet. i. 4, 
and that “they, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken 
and destroyed, speak evil of the things they understand not, 
and shall perish, ἐν τῇ φϑορᾷ αὐτῶν, in their own corruption,” 
2 Pet. ii. 12, and ver. 19, « Whilst they promise them liberty, 
they themselves are the servants, τῆς φϑορᾶς, of corruption.” 
And so the meaning of these words may be, That when 
these things are observed in compliance with the commands 
and doctrines of men, as things necessary, they corrupt men 
who use them thus. But I prefer the other sense, which 
saith, that these meats perish in the using, according to that 
aphorism of the civil law,§ “ We use those things which re- 
main after the use of them;” his vero abutimur, que nobis 
utentibus pereunt. 

35 Ver. 23. "Arwa ἔστι λόγον μὲν ἔχοντα τῆς σοφίας, Which 
things have a show of wisdom.) ‘These words plainly refer 
to the former verses; ἐθελοθρησκεία, “ will-worship,” to the 
ϑέλων ἐν ϑρησκείᾳ τῶν ἀγγέλων, “ pleasing themselves in the 
worshipping of angels;’ and so it must be as bad as that; 
the “ show of humility,” to the doing this from a pretence of 
humility, ver. 18, the “neglecting of the body, and making 
no provisions for it, to the satisfying of the flesh,” to the ab- 
stinence from flesh, wine, and women, and from things of- 
fered to idols. 

It remains only to consider who were the persons here in- 
tended. ‘That they were not the Gnostics, or followers of 
Simon Magus, is evident: “For they,” saith Ireneus,§ 


* τῶν yap ἐφῆκεν ἅπτεσϑαι, πάλιν κεκώλυκε τούτων τὰ θνησιμαῖα, 
rare εἰδωλόθυτα, rare ἀποπεπνιγμένα, οὐδὲ γὰρ τούτων Ψαῦειν ϑέμις. 
Ῥαάαρ. lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 149. 

ἡ Καὶ of μὲν αὐτῶν ἀγαμίαν διδάσκουσι, καὶ κρεῶν ἀποχὴν, καὶ 
οἴνου, βδελυκτὰ λέγοντες εἶναι, καὶ παίδων γένεσιν, καὶ δρωμάτων 
μετάληψιν, Const. Apol. lib. vi. cap. 10. 

+ Cicero, Top. c. 8. Pandect. lib. vii. tit. 5. 

§ Ταῖς τῆς σαρκὸς ἠδοναῖς κατακύρως ἑουλεύοντες, Kat λάθυν 


790 


“were men who indulged to the flesh, and who privily cor- 
rupted the women whom they taught; they were carefully 
to meditate upon the mystery of wedlock, and upon that ac- 
count enticed other men’s wives to themselves.” And Epi- 
phanius adds,* that “they participated of all manner of 
flesh : that they indulged to drunkenness and venery, execrat- 
ing them who were used to fastings.” ‘hey therefore could 
not be the men who neglected the body, by abstaining from 
meats, and made no provision for the flesh. They therefore 
seem to me to have been partly the Essenes, and partly the 
Pythagorean philosophers. For, Ἶ 

First, Of the Essenes, Josephus saith, that οὐτὲ γαμετὰς 
εἰσάγονται, &c.,f “they neither would have wives nor ser- 
vants:” as thinking servitude an injury to our common na- 
ture, or tending to injustice: and marriage, to sedition, And 
again, γάμου μὲν, tropia παρ᾽ airois,¢ “'lhey contemn mar- 
riage, not because they would have marriage taken away, or 
the succession of mankind to cease; but to avoid the in- 
temperance of women, and because they think none of them 
can keep their faith to one.” Philo says,§ « They have wo- 
men with them, but they are only such as are γηραιαὶ, old 
women, or, παρϑένοι τὴν ἁγνείαν, virgins as to their chastity, 
not out of necessity, but, διὰ ζῆλον καὶ πόϑον copias, from their 
zeal to, and desire of, wisdom.’ He adds, σιτοῦνται δὲ πολυ- 
τελὲς οὐδὲν, AANA ἄρτον εὐτελῆ Kai ὕψον ἁλὲς, Ke.,|| “ They eat 
nothing that is delicate, having only mean bread, and salt 
for their meat; and if they be delicate, hyssop for their 
sauce, and river-water for their drink. They use no wine 
in their feasts, οἶνος μὲν yap ἀφροσύνης φάρμακον, for wine (say 
they) is the incentive to madness.” He goes on, τράπεζα 
καϑαρὰ τῶν ἑναΐμων, “* Their table is pure from all things that 
have blood in them, or from the flesh of living creatures ; for 
such things (say they) irritate concupiscence.” And of this 
abstinence from certain meats they are so tenacious, saith 
Josephus,** that “ they will rather endure all sorts of tor- 
ments, ἢ φάγωσί τι τῶν ἀσυνήϑων, than eat any thing they 
were not accustomed to eat.” Moreover, there were some 
things they must not touch, as oil : Ὁ “for κηλίδα ὑπολαμβά- 
νουσιν τὸ ἔλαιον, they look on oil as a defilement; so that if 
any of them be unwillingly anointed with it, he must wash 
it off from his body. The younger amongst them must not 
touch the elders,++ ὥστε et ψαύσείαν αὐτῶν ἐκείνους απολούεσϑαι, 
καϑάπερ ἀλλοφύλῳ συμφέροντας, and if they touched them, the 
elders washed themselves as if they had touched an alien.” 
They were such strict observers of the sabbath, that they 
would provide no meat for themselves, nor go to stool on 


τὰς διδασκομένας tx’ αὐτῶν γυναῖκας διαφθείροντες. Tren. lib. 1, 
cap. 1, p. 28, A. Διὰ παντὸς τρύπου δεῖν αὐτοὺς ἀεὶ τὸ τῆς συ- 
ζυγίας μελετᾶν μυστήριον. Ibid. Ταύτας ἀπ᾽ ἄνδρων ἀποσπάσαν- 
τες ἰδίας γαμετὰς ἡγήσαντο. bid. 

* Καὶ πάντῶν μεταλαμβάνουσι κρεῶν: 
λάζοντες, καὶ καταρῶντες τὸν νηστεύοντα. 
§. 4, 5, 9. 

ἡ Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 2, p. 618, A, B. 

+ De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 785. 

§ De Vita Contemp. p. 695, F. 

|| P. 692, B. q P. 696, Ὁ. 

** De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 787, F. 

tt P. 785, C. + P7777, 8. 


καὶ rats μέθαις σχο- 


Epiph. Her. xxvi. 


COLOSSIANS. 


that day. ‘They had also* ra τῶν ἀγγέλων ὀνόματα, “ certain 
names of angels which they held in veneration; and also 
proper δόγματα, “opinions or decrees, which they swore never 
to deliver to others, otherwise than as they had received 
them.” And thus they dogmatized. And, lastly, all this 
was the effect τῆς περὶ φιλοσοφίας ὁρμῆς, “ of their passion for 
philosophy,” of which Philot so often speaks in his descrip- 
tion of them. So great reason is there to conceive they may 
be concerned in this chapter. 

Secondly, ‘These things being introduced as the rudiments 
of the world, and living according to these δόγματα, “ pre- 
scriptions,” being living as in the world, I chiefly incline to 
refer these things to the abstinence from touching and tasting 
flesh and wine, and handling women, and from all the objects 
which gratify the senses, the taste, the eye, the touch, taught 
by the followers of Pythagoras and Empedocles; and de- 
fended with such variety of learning by Porphyry, the very 
title of whose book is, De Abstinentia ab Esti Animalium, 
«ΟΥ̓ abstinence from eating the flesh of any living creature.” 
This he founds upon this principle, that τὸ ζῆν κατὰ τὸν voiv,¢ 
“to live the intellectual life, and to enjoy the contemplation 
of the most perfect Being, it is necessary we should abstract 
our minds, as much as is possible, from all sensual objects ;”” 
from the pleasures which arise, διὰ γεύσεως, “ from the taste,” 
particularly of wine; and from the touch: for, saith he, agai, 
“the sensual objects which we touch are not only σωματοῦσαι 
τὴν ψυχὴν, Such as transform the soul into the body, but also 
such as stir up swarms of lusts and passions in it.” Hence 
he infers, that all these things are, τὰ αἰσχρὰ, “filthy and 
polluting, and such as hinder τῆς Ψυχῆς καθαρὰν ἐνέργειαν, the 
pure operations of the soul;” therefore, he that would live 
the intellectual life, must abstain§ “not only from the use 
of women, but from all sensual things, they being such as do 
defile the soul.” Moreover, what the apostle speaks of the 
deceit of philosophy, exactly agrees with the sentiments of 
those men. Doth he say, that it is κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν ἀνθρώ- 
πων; i.e. “according to the tradition of men?” this absti- 
nence is styled by Porphyry,|| νόος ἄγραφος καὶ θεῖος, “a di- 
vine, but unwritten law.” Doth he say of them, doypart{ov- 
rat, * They make decrees and ordinances?” this opinion is by 
Porphyry styled δόγμα παλαῖον καὶ θεῖος φίλον, “ an ancient de- 
cree, and acceptable to the gods;” and, τὸ διοριζόμενον, “a 
constitution,” or a thing defined. Doth the apostle style it 
é0cdo8pnoxeia, “ will-worship ?” it is also by Heraclides Pon- 
ticus** styled δεισιδαιμονία, “ superstition ;” and said by Por- 
phyry especially, to be done on the account of wisdom, and 
the subduing of the body: so full an agreement is there be- 
twixt this philosophy, and that which the epistle hath here 
said concerning it. 


* P. 786, F, G. 

+ De Vita Contemp. p. 695, F. 698, Ὁ. 

8 Οὐκ ἔστιν ἄλλως τυχεῖν τοῦ τελείου μὴ προσηλωϑέντα μὲν, εἰ 
χρὴ φᾶναι, τῷ Θεῷ, ἀφελωθέντα δὲ ἐκ σώματος, καὶ τῶν διὰ τοῦτο 
τῆς ψυχῆς ἡδυπαδειῶν. Lib. i. §. 57. 

§ Αἰσχρὰ yap πάντα ὡς πρός ye τὴν κατὰ νοῦν ζωὴν, καὶ πάν- 
των ἐφεκτέον, καθάπερ τῶν ἀφροδισίων. Lib. i. §. 41, Διὸ καὶ τὰ 
ἀφροδίσια μιαίνει, P, 173, 174, et lib. i. p. 44, ξ. 52. 

|| Lib. i. §. 28 


4 Lib. 1, 8. 3 ἘῈ Lib. i. 8. 6. 


CHAPTER III. 


. Ir ye then be risen with Christ (through faith, 
ii. 12, and by newness of life, Rom. vi. 4, 5), ! seek 
those things which are above, where Christ (now 
raised from the dead) sitteth on the right hand of 
God. : 


2 Set your affections on things above, not on things 
on the earth. 

3 For ye are dead (to sin, Rom. vi. 6—8, and to the 
world, Gal. vi. 14, and from the rudiments of tt, li. 20), 
2 and your (future) life is hid with Christ in God. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 1, 2..Ta ἄνω ζητεῖτε, ver. 1, φρονεῖτε, ver. 2.1 These 
phrases seem to import (1.) that we should put the highest 
estimate and value on things above. (2.) That we should 
have them fixed on our spirits, and familiarly occurring to 
our thoughts, by fervent meditations and serious reflections 
on them. (38.) That we should have our wills inclined to 


them, and our affections possessed with frequent love, and 
passionate desires of them; for φρονεῖν is, saith Phavorinus, 
λογίζεσϑαι, καὶ ἐνθυμεῖσθαι, στέργειν καὶ ἀποδέχεσϑαι. (4 That 
we should employ our faculties and members in pursuit of 
them with diligence and constancy; for ζητεῖν 15 nti, curare, 
summo studio querere, as ζητῶ ποιῆσαι in Demosthenes, ζητῶ 
ἀφελέσϑαι, nitor auferre, Plutarch, ζητεῖν δὲ πολυπραγμονεῖν, 
Schol. Aristoph. p. 289. 

2 Ver. 3. Ἢ ζωὴ ὑμῶν ἐν τῷ Θεῷ.] 1. 6. Your true life, 


CHAPTER III. 


4 3 When Christ, who is (‘he author and purchaser 
of ) our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear 
with him in glory. 

5 4 Mortify therefore (in order to the enjoyment of this 
life with God) your members which are upon the earth 
(ὦ. δ. your earthly carnal members); fornication, unclean- 
ness, inordinate affection, δ evil concupiscence, and 
δ᾽ covetousness, which is idolatry : 

6 For which things’ sake (done by them) the wrath 
of God cometh on (men, as being) the children of diso- 
bedience (or upon those who obey not the commands of 
God, to abstain from them) : 


7 7In the which ye (of Colosse) also walked some | 


time, when ye lived in them. 


791 


8 But now ye also put off all these (following vices ; 
viz.) anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy (é. 6. evi/-speak- 
ing), § filthy communication (or reproachful words, 
which arise from wrath,) out of your mouth. 

9 (4nd )® Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have 
put off the old man with his deeds (see note on Eph. 
lv. 22); 

10 ia have put on the new man, which is renewed 
in 19 knowledge (or by the acknowledgment of the truth, 
Eph. iv. 22) after the image of him that created him 
(in righteousness and holiness of truth, Eph. iv. 24): 

11 Where (or under which economy) there is neither 
(respect had to any man, as being) Greek nor Jew, (of 
the) circumeision nor uncireumeision, (as being) Bar- 


which consists in fruition of God, and which you shall live 


for ever with him, is hid with Christ, who is now removed 
from your sight, and placed at the right hand of God; for 
«jt doth not yet appear what we shall be,” 1 John iii. 2. 

3 Ver. 4.) Note, hence we learn that Christians are not 
to expect to reign with Christ on earth a thousand years, 
because they are not to mind or seek, τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς, “ the things 
upon earth,” but only “those above, where Christ sitteth at 
the right hand of God :” whereas, were this life on earth a 
blessing and reward, which God had promised to them for 
their sufferings, they might mind it, and set their affection 
on it: as also from all those places where the hope, reward, 
inheritance of Christians, is said to be reserved in the heavens 
for them: for, as Gicumenius notes, εἰ ἐν οὐρανοῖς ἡ κληρονομία 
μυθώδης ἡ χιλιοέτης ἀποκατάστασις, “if our inheritance be in 
heaven, the supposed millennium on earth must be but a 
fable.” “Great is your reward in heaven,” saith Christ to 
the Christian sufferer, Matt. v. 12, Luke ix. 23, “ Your hope 
is laid up for you in heaven,” Col. i. 5 (see 1 Pet. i. 4). 

4 Ver. 5. Nexpicare οὖν, Mortify therefore your earthly 
members.| There being in us naturally “the old man,” ver. 
9, Eph. iv. 22, and “ the body of sin ;” the inordinate affec- 
tions and lustings of it are styled the members of that body ; 
partly, because they exert themselves by the members of the 
natural body; and partly, because, as the members of the 
body are employed to fulfil and accomplish the desires of 
the natural body, so these affections are employed to gratify 
the desires of the body of sin: these members are styled 
“earthly members,” because they respect only earthly things, 
they fix our hearts upon, and employ our minds about them ; 
to mortify them is to resist and to suppress their motions, 
that we do not obey them, or gratify them in their inordi- 
nate desires and affections, but carefully shun all the occa- 
sions of sin, and use those means which tend to the subduing 
of it. And this exhortation being directed to believers, 
shows that as they are, by profession and by baptismal obli- 
gation, dead to sin, so have they continual need to proceed 
in the practice of this duty, that they be not overcome by 
the deceitfulness of sin, by their fleshy lusts, which tend to 
fornicajion and uncleanness, their desires of worldly honours 
and vain-glory, which are evil concupiscences, and by the 
inordinate love of the world, which is styled “ covetousness.” 

5 ᾿Ἐπιθυμία κακὴ, Evil concupiscence.| If hence it follows 
that all concupiscence is evil, then from διαλογισμοὶ κακοὶ, 
mentioned Mark iii. 21, it follows, that all thoughts and 
reasonings are evil: and from ὁμιλίαι κακαὶ, mentioned 1 Cor. 
xv. 33, it also follows, that all our conversation with one 
another must be evil: so certain is it, that this place doth 
not prove that all concupiscence is evil. And to be sure the 
very first motions of concupiscence, which arise naturally in 
the sensual appetite, and prevent our reason and deliberation, 
cannot be here intended, because the apostle reckons this 
concupiscence among those members of the body which 
must be mortified, which the first motions of the body can 
never be, 

Secondly, Because he adds, that “ because of these things 
cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience :” 
now these first motions, if suppressed, and not consented to 
when they arise, can never render us “children of disobedi- 
ence,” and much less subject to the wrath of God. And if 
Satan hath the power to inject such motions, or raise such 
ideas in the brain, if they be our sins, though not consented 
to, it must be in his power to make us sin, whether we will 


orno. From all which considerations, it seems necessary to 
understand this of deliberate fleshly lustings indulged to, and 
not restrained by us. 

6 "Ἥτις ἐστιν εἰδωλολατρεία, Covetousness, which is idolatry.] 
Because, as heathens place their confidence in idols, even 
so the avaricious man doth place his confidence in gold and 
silver, which are the matter of their idols; he chiefly doth 
pursue them, and for their sakes only doth other matters. 
And that such actions do partake of the true nature of idola- 
try, reason as well as scripture will evince ; for reason shows 
that love, hope, trust, obedience, are parts of that internal 
worship which we owe to God in the most excellent degrees, 
and which he more regards than building temples, or erect- 
ing altars, the bending of the knee or body, or any act of 
outward worship; and therefore in those acts doth more 
especially consist God's worship; wherefore he that confers 
them upon any creature in that degree, or in those actions 
in which they only ought to be ascribed to God, must be as 
truly an idolater, as he that payeth to a creature any out- 
ward act of religious and divine worship; and as the covet- 
ous person, though he doth not indeed believe his riches or 
his money to be a god, yet by so loving, and so trusting in 
them, as God only ought to be loved and trusted in, he is as 
truly guilty of idolatry as if he so believed. So, though the 
Roman catholics do not believe their saints and«angels 
to be God, yet by addressing to them even mental prayers,* 
and giving them the inward worship of the soul, which, as 
Austint well observes, “ the catholic church always reserved 
to God,” they are as guilty of idolatry, as if they did believe 
them to be gods, since thereby they ascribe to them the 
knowledge of the heart, and of the inward motions of the 
soul, which only do belong to God. 

7 Ver. 7.1] The Colossians dwelling in Phrygia celebrated 
the sacra of Bacchus,} and of the mother of the gods, called 
therefore Phrygia Mater, and doubtless complied with all the 
luxury of Asia Minor, of which they were a part. 

8 Ver. 8. Αἰσχρολογίαν, Filthy communication.] This is 
usually referred to obscene and impure words; but Hesy- 
chius, Phavorinus, and J. Pollux, lib. ii. cap. 4, have in- 
formed us, that the word signifies “reproachful words,” such 
as tend to put a man to shame; and to this sense the words 
preceding make it most proper to refer it, “wrath, anger, 
malice,” or evil machinations of the heart, being the inward 
dispositions which render us disaffected to, and prone to do 
evil to others; railing and opprobrious speeches, which tend 
to render our brother infamous to others, being the usual 
effects of these evil dispositions. 

9 Ver. 9.] Hence it appears, that to be addicted to lying 
is an evidence that we have not yet put off the old man. 

0 Ver. 10. Bis ἐπίγνωσιν, In knowledge.) The Christian 
faith being “ the knowledge of the truth which is after godli- 
ness,” Tit. i. 1, it being that by which “we escape the pol- 
lutions of the world through lust,” 2 Pet. ii. 20, and “ recover 


* Qui dicit stultum esse (sanctis) in colo regnantibus 
voce vel mente supplicare, Anathema sit. Concil. Trid. 
sess. 25. 

ἡ Divine et singularitér in ecclesia catholicd traditur, nul- 
lam creaturam colendam esse anime (libentiis enim loquor 
his verbis, quibus hec mihi insinuata sunt) sed ipsum tan- 
tummodo rerum, que sunt omnium, creatorem. De Quantit. 
Anims, cap. 34. 

+ Strabo, lib. x. p. 469—471. 


792 


barian, Scythian, bond nor free: but (his belonging to) 
Christ zs all, and in all. 

12 Put on therefore, as (becometh new creatures, 
and) " the elect of God (or persons chosen to be his 
church and people), holy and beloved (of him), bowels 
of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, 
longsuffering 5 

13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one an- 
other, if any man have a (ground of) quarrel against 
any: even as Christ (freely) forgave you (the greatest 
sins out of mere grace and mercy), so also €0 ye (to 
others). 

14 And above all these things put on charity, which 
is the bond of perfectness (ὦ. 6. the most perfect bond of 
union among Christians, Eph. iv. 15, 16, the end, and 
the perfection of the commandments, 1 Tim. i. 5, that 
which fulfils the rest, Rom, xiii. 8, Gal. v. 14, and that 
which renders us perfect, and unblameable in holiness be- 
Sore God, 1 Thess. ii. 12, 13). 

15 And let the peace of God rule (or be the umpire) in 
your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body 


COLOSSIANS. 


(by being all made members of one body, Eph. iv. 4); 
2 and be ye thankful (unto him that hath called you to 
peace, 1 Cor. vii. 15). 

16 15 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in 
all wisdom; (so that you may be employed in your as- 
semblies, by virtue of this gift of wisdom, in) teaching 
and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns 
and spiritual songs, “ singing with grace in your 
hearts to the Lord. 

17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in 
the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God 
and (or, who is) 16 the Father by him. 

18 Wives, submit yourselves (or be subjec!) unto 
your own husbands (én the offices belonging to that rela- 
tion), as it is fit (for them to do that are) in the Lord 
(that the name of the Lord may not be blasphemed, by your 
pretending a Christian liberty from the observances of the 
duty of a wife, Tit. ii. 5, but that, by your greater ex- 
actness in it, you may commend Christianity to others, 
1 Pet. iii. 5, or, in obedience to the Lord, requiring this 
submission, Eph. vi. 6). 


out of the snare of Satan,” 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26; that by which 
we have “all things given us which appertain to life and 
godliness,” 2 Pet. i. 3, and that, saith the apostle here, by 
which we are enabled to “walk worthy of the Lord unto 
all well-pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and in- 
creasing in them,” as we increase, εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν τοῦ Θεοῦ, “in 
the knowledge of God :” the being “renewed in this know- 
ledge,” may well import our being “ renewed in righteousness 
and true holiness,” as the apostle speaks, Eph. iv. 24; espe- 
cially if we consider, that whilst the judgment still continues 
to “approve the things which are most excellent,” the will 
still chooses, and the inferior faculties will be employed in 
prosecution of them. 

τ" Ver. 12. ‘Qs ἐκλεκτοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ, As the elect of God.] 
That the apostle speaks not here of any absolute election 
of some particular persons to eternal life, but of their being 
chosen out of the heathen world to be his church and peo- 
ple, is evident, because he speaks to the church in general ; 
and yet to these elect he promiseth the blessings of Chris- 
tianity, only if they ‘continue in the faith rooted and 
grounded, and be not moved away from the hope of the 
gospel,” i. 23, ii. 2. 4. 18, expressing his care and fear, lest 
they should “be deceived, and robbed of their rewards.” 

2 Ver. 15, Βραβευέτω, Rule.] Mectrevérw, ἰϑυνέσθω, saith 
Phavorinus; i. 6. Let that peaceable disposition which God 
requires from all Christians be the umpire and director to 
compose all differences among you, for peace hath God for 
its author. He hath called us to it, he hath made us all one 
body, and nothing is more unseemly or pernicious, than 


that the members should be at discord with each other. In | 


Josephus* it signifies, “ Let him have the chief place :” thus 
of Jehoshaphat he saith, he did βραβεύειν, ἅπασι ἴσος, “ excel, 
as being equal to them all.” i 

13 Ver. 16. 'O λόγος τοῦ Χριστοῦ, The word of Christ.] The 
word dictated by the Holy Spirit is therefore the word of 
Christ (1 Pet. i. 11), as proceeding both from the Father 
and the Son. 

14. Ἔν χάριτι, Singing with grace.] That is, say some in- 
terpreters, χαριέντως, 1Π2, 50 as that their hymns may be 
grateful to others, and be received by them with spiritual 
delight; which is, say they, the import of the phrase, Eph. 
iv. 29, Col. iv. 6, but this seems rather to depend on others 
than ourselves. Say others, he exhorts them to sing with 
a grateful mind, full of the sense of divine goodness, in 
which sense, χάρις τῷ Θεῷ is often used (see 1 Cor. xv. 27, 
2 Cor. ii. 14): but according to the ancients,t he exhorts 
them, ἀπὸ χαρίσματος dew “to sing by the gifts given them 
by the Holy Ghost,” of which one is the word of wisdom ; 
and this exposition is confirmed by the parallel place, Eph. 
v. 18, 19, “Be ye filled with the Spirit, speaking to one 


* Arch. lib. ix. cap. 1. 

ἡ Καὶ τῷ Θεῷ δὲ καὶ πατρὶ εὐχαριστίαν dt’ αὐτοῦ ἀναπέμπειν, 
μὴ διὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων. Theod. Τὸ δι᾿ υἱοῦ προσάγεσθαι αὐτῷ 
ἀνθρώπους, καὶ μὴ δι’ ἀγγέλων. (ΕΠ ουμη. 


another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Now 
these gifts being chiefly exercised in their assemblies, where 
especially they did ψάλλειν τῷ Πνεύματι, “sing in the Spirit,” 

1 Cor. xiv. 15, 16, and every one had his psalm, and his 
διδαχὴ, * doctrine,” ver. 26, I conceive these spiritual songs, 
in which they were to teach and to admonish one another, 
may refer chiefly to their assemblies, then managed by their 
prophets, in which they met together for thatend. So Pliny 
doth inform us, that the Christians used to meet together 
on a certain day, carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere se- 
cum invicem, “and sing a hymn to Christ as God,” lib. x. 
ep. 97. 

Ps Ver. 17. Ἔν ὀνόματι Κυρίου, In the name of the Lord.] 
To do all in the name of the Lord, is, First, To have respect 
in all things to his will, as knowing we are obliged to live to 
him (2 Cor. v. 14), to the honour of his name and doctrine. 
Secondly, To be desirous that our actions may be well- 
pleasing to him (2 Cor. v. 8,9). Thirdly, To expect accept- 
ance of our actions, prayers (John xiv. 13—16), and 
praises, through him (Heb. xiii. 15), and a recompense of 
them hereafter (Eph. vi. 8, here, ver. 25). And, saith Chry- 
sostom,™ ἐπὶ πάντων πρότερον αὐτῷ εὐχόμενος, “ Praying to him 
before we begin our work.” 

16 Πατρὶ δι᾿ αὐτοῦ, To the Father by him.) “It is the man- 
ner of the scriptures,” saith Bishop Davenant, “ to refer our 
prayers and praises to the person of the Father, because he 
is the fountain of the Deity ;” add, and because they are to 
find acceptance through the intercession of, and the present- 
ing of them by, the Son (Rev. viii. 3,4). Our prayers must 
be offered to the Father in his name (John xvi. 23), and 
yet the blessing asked is to be given by him (John xv. 
16); that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 
xiv. 13, 14). Our praises must be offered up to the Fa- 
ther in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. v. 20), 
by him we must “offer the sacrifice of praise to God con- 
tinually” (Heb. xiii. 15), these spiritual sacrifices being 
“acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. ii. 4). 
And yet it is very frequent in these epistles to pray as well 
to our Lord Jesus Christ as to God the Father (see note on 
Rom. x. 13); and in the Revelation, to give praise and 
glory to him (iv. 9.11, v. 12, 13) : but it is especially to be 
noted, that all the Greek interpreters here observe that this 
is spoken against the worship of angels or demons, which 
the philosophers, and especially the Platonists, had intro- 
duced, as thinking them the persons who carried up all our 
prayers and praises to God, and conveyed down all his 
blessings to us. 

Do all, ἐν ὀνύματι Κυρίου, in the name of the Lord.) It is 
well worth the observation, that all the ancient commenta- 
tors on this epistle do frequently inform us, that it was writ- 
ten to “ prevent the worship of angels,” and to fix Christians 
to the worship of Jesus Christ only. Hilary’s preface to 


* In Col. hom. ix. 


CHAPTER III. 


19 Husbands, " love your wives, and be not 18 bit- 
ter against them (in the asperity of words, or the severity 
of αν actions, to the alienation of your affections from 
them). 

20 Children, obey your parents in all (lawful) 
things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord (and 
in all things to which the power of the parent reaches ; for 
if he commands him not to marry, when he cannot contain, 
or to marry one he cannot love, he exceeds his paternal 
authority). 

21 Fathers (whose names speak clemency and kindness), 
provoke not your children ¢o anger (irritate them not 
with sourness and hard usage, immodgrate or undeserved 
stripes), lest they be discouraged (7. ὁ. despair of pleas- 
ing you). 

22 © Servants, obey in all (/awful) things (those 


793 


who are) your masters according to the flesh; not 
(as those who do business) with eyeservice, as (being) 
menpleasers ; but in singleness of heart, (as persons) 
fearing God (see the reason of this precept, note on 
ver. 25): 

23 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the 
Lord, and not unto men, (having respect to his glory and 
his recompense. See the notes on Eph. vi. from ver. 1 
to ver. 9.) 

24 ™ Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive 
the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord 
Christ. 

25 But he (of you) that doeth wrong (fo his master) 
shall receive (of the Lord punishment) for the wrong 
which he hath done: and (καὶ, for) there is no * re- 
spect of persons. 


= -΄- 
this epistle saith, it is an exhortation to the Colossians, ne 
alicui preter Christum aliquam esse spem putarent, “to 
place no hope in any other but in Christ.” Chrysostom 
notes on the first verse of the first chapter, that the disease of 
the Colossians being this, that δι᾿ ἀγγέλων προσάγεσθαι corto τῷ 
Θεῷ, “they thought they were to come to God by angels,” 
the apostle endeavours to correct this distemper, by telling 
them that what he said in this epistle to them was according 
to the will of God: and Gicumenius brings in the apostle 
speaking thus; “ Know, therefore, that it is according to the 
will of God: ὑπὸ υἱοῦ ὑμᾶς προσάγεσϑαι, that you should 
come to him by his Son ;” and then, πῶς δι᾿ ἀγγέλων προσα- 
γωγὴν εἶναι ὑπειλήῤατε ; “ How is it that you think you should 
come to him by angels?” And again, “ This is the will of 
the Father, δι᾿ υἱοῦ προσάγεσθαι αὐτῷ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, καὶ μὴ 
δι ἀγγέλων, that men should have access to him by the Son, 
and not by angels.” ‘The same words he repeats on ver. 
16, and on ii. 3. Chrysostom notes, that by saying that 
“all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in 
him,” he teaches πάντα δι᾿ αὐτοῦ αἰτεῖν, “to ask all things 
by Christ : G&cumenius, that “the mystery of the Father 
and the Son is this, τὸ τὴν προσαγωγὴν, τὴν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα διὰ 
τοῦ υἱοῦ γίνεσϑαι, καὶ οὐ διὰ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων, that the intro- 
duction to the Father should be by the Son, and not by the 
holy angels.” ‘Theodoret upon this verse saith thus, ἐπειδὴ 
γὰρ. ἐκεῖνοι τοὺς ἀγγέλους σέβειν ἐκέλευον, αὐτὸς τὸ ἐναντίον 
παρεγγυὰ ὥστε καὶ τοὺς λύγους καὶ τὰ ἔργα κοσμῆσαι τῇ μνημῆ 
τοῦ δεσπότου “Χριστοῦ, καὶ τῷ Θεῷ dé καὶ πατρὶ τὴν εὖχα- 
ριστίαν dt’ αὐτοῦ ἀναπέμπειν, “ Because they (who perverted the 
Colossians) persuaded them to worship angels, he enjoins 
the contrary, that they should adorn their words and deeds 
with the commemoration of the Lord Christ, and send up 
thanksgiving to God the Father by him, μὴ δι᾿ ἀγγέλων, and 
not by angels.’’ Chrysostom here having said that “he 
commands us to do all things according to God, μὴ τοὺς 
ἀγγέλους ἐπεισαγαγεῖν, and not to introduce the angels,” adds 
that “the devil, envying our honour, τὰ τῶν ἀγγέλων ἐπει- 
σῆγαγε, hath introduced the worship of angels;” and con- 
cludes thus, “ Be he an angel, an archangel, or a cherubim, 
endure it not, ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ αὐτοὶ of δαίμονες καταδέζονται, ἀλλὰ 
καὶ ἀποσείσονται, for neither will they receive but reject it 
when they see their Lord dishonoured; ἐγώ ce ἐτίμησα καὶ 
εἴπον, ἐμὲ κάλει, καὶ σὺ ἀτιμάζεις αὐτὸν, 1 have honoured thee, 
and said, Call upon me, and thou dishonourest me.” 

Ver. 19. ᾿Αγαπᾶτε, Love your wives.) Delighting in 
their conversation (Prov. v. 18, 19), desiring to promote 
their welfare both temporal and eternal; for this is surely 
comprehended in loving her as we do ourselves (Eph. v. 
33), providing for her all things necessary to the happiness 
and comfort of her life; for this is loving her as Christ did 
love his church (ver. 25). This, say the very heathens, is 


* Τὸ φιλεῖν ἐστι βούλεσϑαί τινι ἃ οἴεται ἀγαθὰ ἐκείνου ἕνεκα, 
ἀλλὰ μὴ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τὸ κατὰ δύναμιν πρακτικὸν εἶναι τούτων. 


Arist. Rhetor. lib. ii. cap. 8. 
Vor. IV.—100 


the property of a “sincere affection in the general, and there- 
fore much more of that affection which we are to bear to our 
own flesh and body, as the wife is to be esteemed (Eph. v. 
28, 29). 

18 Kat μὴ πικραίνεσϑε πρὸς αὐτὰς, And be not bitler against 
them.] For, as Ambrose saith, Non es dominus, sed mari- 
tus; non ancillam sortitus es, sed uxorem; gubernatorem 
voluit te esse Deus sextis inferioris, non tyrannum, Hexam. 
v. 7. Hence they who sacrificed to Juno Nuptialis, saith 
Plutarch,* “did separate the gall from the sacrifice, and 
throw it away, signifying, τὸ μηδέποτε δεῖν χύλην μηδὲ ὑργὴν 
γάμῳ παρεῖναι, that there should be no bitterness or wrath 
betwixt those that were married.” 

19 Ver. 22. Servants, obey, &c.] In omnibus ad que jus 
domini quod in servum habet, extenditur, et in quibus do- 
minus carnis Domino spiritiis contrarius non est. Hieron. 

Κατὰ πάντα, and κατὰ σάρκα, iv. 2, ἐν εὐχαριστία, ver. 3, 
τοῦ λόγου, ver. 10, ὃ συναιχμάλωτύς μου, are all defended 
from the censure of Dr. Mills, that they are additions to the 
text; see Examen Millii. 

2 Ver. 24.] Note, “ We are,” saith Schlictingius, a Soci- 
nian, “to serve Christ as our heavenly Lord, which,” saith 
he,t “ comprehends faith in him, obedience in him, and wor- 
ship and adoration of him, the giving him the honour which 
agrees to him, and invocation of him.” Now, saith Christ, 
“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt 
thou serve,” Matt. iv. 10, and God alone is worthy of reli- 
gious invocation from all Christians, as being only omni- 
scient, omnipresent, and the searcher of all hearts; Christ 
therefore must be truly God. Moreover, the apostle reckons 
it part of the idolatry of the heathens that they served or 
paid religious worship “to them which by nature were no 
gods,” Gal.iv.8. The Socinians therefore either must con- 
fess Christ is by nature, as well as by office, God; or else 
acknowledge that they are guilty of idolatry, in giving this 
religious worship to him. 

2 Ver. 25. Προσωποληψία, Respect of persons.] Christ, in 
judging men at the last day, will have no respect to the 
quality or external condition of any man’s person ; but whe- 
ther he be bond or free, he shall receive recompense “ for 
the good that he hath done” in obedience to him; whether 
he be master or servant, he shall be punished « for the wrong 
that he doth” in those relations. It being certain from the 
second chapter, that the Judaizers were got into the church 
of Colosse; and that many of them denied that the Jews 
ought to be servants to any ; and the Essenes judging all 
servitude unlawful (see note on 1 Pet. ii. 15, 1 Tim. vi. 1, 
2), this might be the reason why here, and Titus ii., the 
apostle is so large in charging this duty upon servants. 


* Precepta Conjugalia, p..141. 

+ Quod servitium et fidem in ipsum, et obedientiam, et 
cultum, adorationem, honorem ei convenientem, et invoca- 
tionem complectitur. 


3R 


794 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Masters, give unto your servants that which is 
1 just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master 
in heaven (who, with what measure you mete to others, 
will mete to you again, Matt. vii. 2, and deal with you 
his servants, as you deal with yours). 

2 Continue (inslant) in prayer, and watch in 
the same (γρηγοροῦντες» being vigilant in il) with 
thanksgiving (for the mercies you have already re- 
ceived ) ; 

3 Withal 2 praying also for us, that God would 
open unto us a door of utterance, (by enabling us) to 
speak (with freedom) the mystery of Christ, for which 
1 am also (mow) in bonds (see note on Eph. vi. 19, 
20): 

4 That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak 

il). 

: ὶ Walk in wisdom (or discretion) toward them that 
are without (the church, 2. 6. the heathens, 1 Thess. iv. 
12), redeeming the time (7. e. endeavouring to avoid, as 
much as you are able, by careful circumspection and inof- 
fensive carriage, the dangers you may be exposed to from 
them. See the note on Eph. v. 15.) 

6 Let your speech be alway ® with grace (mild and 
courteous), seasoned with salt (wise and discreet), that 
ye may know how ye ought to answer every man, (so 
as conduceth to the credit of Christianity, 1 Pet. iii. 
15, and to your own safely in these evil times, Eph. v. 
16, 17. 

7 And as for what concerns me,) All my state shall 


4 Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, 
and a faithful minister and fellowservant in the (work 
of the) Lord : 

8 Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, 
thathe might know your estate, and comfort your hearts 
(under your pressures ; 

9 And) With (him I have sent) 5 Onesimus, a faith- 
ful and beloved brother, who is one of you (being ser- 
vant to Philemon, a chief man in Colosse). They shall 
make known unto you all things which are done here 
(at Rome). 

10 Aristarchus my fellowprisoner saluteth you, and 
5 Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas, (touching whom 
(ὦ. e. which Marcus) ye received commandments: if he 
come unto you, (to) receive him) (Aindly) ; 

11 And Jesus, which is called Justus (Acts xviii. 
5—7), who are of the circumcision. These 7 only (of 
the Jews) are my fellowworkers unto (the promotion of ) 
the kingdom of God, which have been a comfort unto 
me. 
12 8 Epaphras, who is one of you (a citizen of Co- 
losse, see ver. 9), a servant of Christ, saluteth you, 
always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye 
may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God, 

13 For I bear him record, that he hath a great zeal 
for you, and them dhat are in Laodicea, and them in 
Hierapolis (two other cities in Phrygia). 

14 Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas, greet 
you. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1 Ver. 1. Τὸ δίκαιον, What is just and equal.) Hence it is 
evident, that justice is to be observed towards servants, and 
that there be offices of humanity and charity due to them: 
as, (1.) that we do not look upon them as vile persons, but 
as partakers of the same grace and nature with us, and so 
not only servants, but as brethren, Philem. 16. (2.) That 
we do not always punish all their miscarriages, but sometimes 
do remit the punishments which in anger we threatened to 
inflict, Eph. vi. 9. (3.) That we do not make them serve 
with rigour; οὐ κατατενεῖς αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ μόχϑῳ, “ ‘Thou shalt 
not oppress, afflict, or wear him out with labour, but shalt 
fear the Lord,” Lev. xxv. 43. (4.) That we permit them to 
plead their cause, and to defend their right; provided they 
do it with humility, not contradicting or speaking against the 
commands of their masters, ‘Tit. ii. 9. “If I did despise the 
cause of my man-servant, or maid-servant, when they con- 
tended with me; what then shall I do when God riseth up? 
and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?” Job xxxi. 
13,14. (5.) That to well-deserving servants we give some- 
thing even above their wages; and after a long and profit- 
able service, we do not suffer them to go empty from us: 
«“ When thou sendest him out from thee, thou shalt not let 
him go away empty; thou shalt furnish him liberally out of 
thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press; 
of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou 
shalt give unto him,” Deut. xv. 18,14. These things the 
Lord commanded under the Old Testament, because their 
servants were his servants also, redeemed by him out of 
Egypt (Lev. xxv. 15, Deut. xv. 15): and therefore they 
seem as strongly to oblige under that economy where we 
are all the servants of Christ, our common Lord, and 
redeemed by his precious blood (Eph. vi. 6, 1 Cor. vii. 
22, 23). 

2 Ver. 3. Προσευχόμενοι περὶ ἡμῶν, Praying for us.] That 
this apostle, who so passionately writes to Christians, desiring 
that they would “strive together with him in their prayers 
to God,” Rom. xv. 30, 31; “that they would always with 
all perseverance pray for him;’ that they would “ continue 
in prayer, that God would open to him a door of utterance 
to speak the mystery of Christ” (Eph. v. 18, 19, Col. iv. 2, 


3), and that he might be “delivered from unreasonable and 
wicked men” (1 Thess. v. 25, 2 Thess. iii. 1, 2), should 
never pray to the Virgin Mary, and to angels, or to saints 
departed, for any of these things, is an evidence that he ap- 
proved not of those prayers. 

3 Ver. 6. Ἐν χάριτι, With grace.] i. 6. « With sweetness 
and courteousness,”’ saith Theodoret, “ that it may be accept- 
able to the hearers;” ἵνα αὐτοὺς κεχαριτωμένους ἐργάζοιτο, 
“that it may render you gracious to and favoured by them ;” 
so Theophylact. «Seasoned with salt ;” salt is the symbol 
of wisdom, and in this sense the word is used, Matt. v. 13, 
Mark ix. 15. “Have,” saith Theodoret, σύνεσιν πνευματικὴν, 
‘spiritual wisdom, that ye may know,” &c. 

4 Ver. 7. Τυχικός.] That this epistle was written at the 
same time with that to the Ephesians, is pleaded from this, 
that it was sent by the same person ‘T'ychicus, with the very 
same words contained in this and the following verse, Eph. 
vi. 21, 22. 

5 Ver. 9. Onesimus.] Of whom Jerome saith, “ We read, 
that of a servant he was made a deacon,”* 

6 Ver. 10. Μάρκος. It seems evident hence, that Paul’s 
displeasure against him, mentioned Acts xv. 38, lasted not 
long; for he desires Timothy to bring him with him, as be- 
ing “profitable to him for the ministry,” 2 Tim. iv. 11, 
and styles him his “ fellow-labourer,” Philem. 24. 

7 Ver. 11. These only are my fellow-workers in the (pro- 
motion of the) kingdom of God which have been a comfort to 
me.] Hence it is evident, that either St. Peter was not at 
Rome when St. Paul was, or that he was no comfort to him, 
no promoter of the kingdom of God with him: which sure 
is no compliment to St. Peter. 

8 Ver. 12. 'Exagpas.] ‘That Epaphras was about this time 
prisonerat Rome, is concluded very probably from Philem. 23, 
where he is styled by Paul his “ fellow-prisoner ;” for that the 
Epistle to Philemon and this were written at the same time, 
may be conjectured, by the naming Timothy at the begin- 
ning, and all the same persons, save only Justus, viz. Epa- 
phras, Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, at the end of both 


* Legimus Onesimum, inter Pauli renatum vincula, diaco- 
num esse ceepisse ἃ servo. Contra Error. Joh. Hieros, 


PREFACE ΤῸ I. THESSALONIANS. 


15 Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and 
Nymphas, and the church which is in his house (7. e. 
his Christian household ). 

16 And when this epistle is read among you, cause 
that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and 
(see) that ye likewise read " the epistle from Laodicea. 

17 And say to" Archippus, Take heed to the ministry 
which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it. 


of them; but that he was bishop of Colosse, is not said by 
any of the Greek commentators on the place: he might have 
this zeal for them mentioned in these two verses, either as 
being one of them (ver. 12), or as being employed in preach- 
ing the gospel to them. 

9 Ver. 15. The church which is in his house.) i. e. His 
Christian household; for all the brethren are mentioned be- 
fore. So Theodoret, G2cumenius, Chrysostom, and Theo- 
phylact, note, that, τὸν οἶκον πάντα πιστοὺς εἶχεν, ὥστε καὶ 
ἐκκλησίαν καλεῖσϑαι, “he had made his whole family Chris- 
tians, so as to be called a church.” 

10 Ver. 16. Kai τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας, And that from Laodicea.) 
Some say, that the epistle here mentioned, as from Lao- 
dicea, was the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, because the 
postscript saith it was written from Laodicea; but that sub- 
scription is easily confuted, both from this consideration, that 
the First Epistle to Timothy was written two or three years 
after this (see the preface to it); and from this very epistle, 
in which the apostle mentions them of Laodicea among 
those who had not seen his face in the flesh, ii. 1. Chrysos- 
tom, Theodoret, G2cumenius, and Theophylact, understood 
by it some epistle writ by them of Laodicea to Paul; but the 
apostle doth not say, Read the epistle sent from me to Lao- 
dicea ; nor doth he mention one word of such an epistle sent 
from them to him here, or elsewhere ; nor is it to be doubted 
but he would have answered their epistle, had they sent any, 
as he did that which the church of Corinth sent to him. 
Others understand this of an epistle sent by Paul to them 
which is now lost; but all the ancients are not only silent in 
this matter, but some of them expressly do explode this 
imagination, observing, that the apostle proposes to their 
reading, not τὴν πρὸς Λαοδικεῖας, αλλὰ τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας 
γραφεῖσαν, an epistle writ to the Laodiceans, but only from 
Laodicea, to be sent to Colosse.” I therefore acquiesce in 
their opinion, who understand this of the Epistle to the 


795 


18 The salutation (written) by the hand of me Paul 
(is in tokenthat this is my epistle, 2 Thess. iii. 17). Re- 
member my (being in) owie (so as to pray for my 
deliverance, ver. 3, and to prepare for patient suffering, 
by my example). Grace be with you. Amen. 


4 Written from Rome to the Colossians by Tychicus 
and Onesimus. 


Ephesians, sent, by the admonition of Paul, from Ephesus, 
the metropolis of Laodicea, subject to it; as the epistles to 
the church of Corinth belonged to all the churches of 
Achaia, 2 Cor. i. 1. For Tertullian* witnesseth, that this 
Epistle to the Ephesians was, by Marcion, styled the Epis- 
tle to the Laodiceans; and the place which Marcion cites in 
Epiphanius,t as from the Epistle to the Laodiceans, is in 
the Epistle to the Ephesians, iv. 5, 6, viz. “There is one 
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, 
who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” More- 
over, the Epistle to the Colossians, as I have shown, and as 
Theodoret notes, was writ soon after that to the Ephesians, 
and sent to them both by the hands of ‘T'ychicus; and there 
is a great resemblance observable betwixt them, both in the 
doctrines and exhortations, and in the very expressions: so 
that it is not to be wondered, that the apostle would have 
that epistle also read to the Colossians, to let them see, that 
he writ the same doctrine, and gave the same instructions, 
to other churches of the saints. 

UN Ver. 17. ᾿Αρχίππῳ, Archippus.] That this Archippus 
should be then bishop of Colosse, as Jerome, on the Epis- 
tle to Philemon, thinks; and that Paul should not write 
one word, or send one salutation to him, but send to the 
people of Colosse to admonish him of his duty, is not very 
credible in itself, nor do the ancients testify that he bore that 
character. 


* Preterea hic de alia epistolé quam nos ad Ephesios 
prescriptam habemus, heretici vero ad Laodicenos, Adv. 
Marcion, lib. v. cap. 11, p. 476, et cap. 17, p. 481. Eccle- 
sie veritate epistolam istam ad Ephesios habemus emissam, 
sed Marcion ei titulum interpolare jussit. 

Tt Προσέθετο dé ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ ἀποστολικῶ καλουμένῳ, καὶ τῆς 
καλουμένης πρὸς Λαοδικεῖας, εἷς Κύριος, μία πίστις, ὅζο. Epiph. 
Her. xlii. p. 374, B. 


THE 


FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Tuar Paul laid the foundation of the gospel among the 
Thessalonians,* ἀντιλεγόντων μὲν Ἰουδαίων, “the Jews contra- 
dicting, and openly contending against it,” we learn from the 
history of the Acts; and this church consisting, as Gicume- 
niust notes, “partly of Jews, and partly of gentiles,” they 
were persecuted both by the unbelieving Jews and gentiles ; 
the Jews exciting the gentiles to this persecution (Acts xvii. 
5). The apostle therefore writes to confirm them in the 


* Theodoret in Acts xvii. 5. 
J Ἢσαν "EX quixai καὶ ᾿Ιδυδαϊκαὶ ἐκκλησίαι, in cap. i. v. 1. 


faith, and to prevent their being shaken by tl.ese persecu- 
tions: informing them that it was nothing strange they 
should thus suffer from those Jews, who had “killed the 
Lord Jesus, and had persecuted both the apostles and 
their own prophets :” or that they should suffer from their 
own countrymen, as the Jews in Judea did from theirs 
ii. 14). 
( se Re concerning this epistle, the first note of the 
fathers is this;* “'Thessalonica was the metropolis of 
Macedonia, whence we may certainly conclude that Philippi 
was not so.” 

This epistle must be written after the council held at 
Jerusalem, A. D. 49. From thence Paul goes to Antioch, 


* Θεσσαλονικὴ πρωτεύει μὲν τῆν Μακεδονίας. 


796 


Acts xv. 30; stays there some considerable time, ver. 35; 
from thence goes through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the 
brethren, ver 41; thence to Derbe and Lystra, xvi. 1, 
through Phrygia and Galatia, ver. 6; then to Troas, ver. 8, 
to Samothracia and Neapolis, ver. 11; and so to Philippi, 
ver. 12; then to Amphipolis and Apollonia, and so to Thes- 
salonica, xviii 1, there planting the gospel: thence they are 
expelled by the Jews and gentiles, and go to Berea, ver. 10; 
thence to Athens, ver. 15; and from thence to Corinth, 
xviii. 1, where Timotheus coming to him, and giving him a 


I. THESSALONIANS. 


comfortable account of their faith and constancy, he writes 
this epistle to them, iii. 6. Whence it appears that it 
could not be written in less time than a year or two 
after that council ; and that the inscription of it running thus, 
«Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, to the church of the 
Thessalonians,” it must be written after their return to him; 
and so not from Athens, as the subscription hath it, but 
from Corinth, Acts xviii. 1. 5, A. Ὁ. 51 or 52; for it was 
written after he had been “separated from them but a little 
while,” ii. 17. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 (J) Paut, (the apostle of Jesus Christ), and Silva- 
nus, and Timotheus, (my fellow-labourers, write) | unto 
the church of the Thessalonians which is (established ) 
in (the knowledge and worship of )? God the Father and 
in the Lord Jesus Christ: (wishing) grace (may) be 
unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and (from) 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 

2 (And advertising you, that) We give thanks to God 
always for you all, making mention of you in our 
prayers ; 

3 9 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, 
and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord 
Jesus Christ, (ver. 10, when we appear) in the sight of 
God and (even) our Father; 

4 (And) Knowing, brethren beloved, (by your pro- 
Sictency in thes Christian virtues,) + your election of 
God. 

5 For our gospel came not unto you in word 
only, but also in (the) power (of miracles), and in (or 
with the distributions of ) the Holy Ghost, and in much 
assurance (or full conviction both to you of the truth 
of our doctrine, and to us, that God had chosen you to 


be his church and people); as ye know what manner 
of men we were among you for your sake (or how we 
were enabled by these things to give full proof of our mi- 
nistry). 

6 sek ye became followers of us, and of the Lord 
(in your sufferings for his sake), having received the 
word in much affliction, (Acts xvii. 5, and yet) ® with 
joy of the Holy Ghost: 

7 So that ye were ensamples (of faith and patience) 
to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. 

8 For from you sounded out the word of the Lord 
not only in Macedonia and Achaia (and so they could 
not be ignorant of your good works), but also in every 
place (the fame of ) your faith to God-ward is spread 
abroad (or hath gone forth); so that we need not to 
speak any thing (to others of the grace of God given us 
towards you, Eph. iii. 3, Col. i. 25). 

9 5 For they themselves shew of us what manner 
of entering in we had unto you ({. 6. with what power 
and assistance of the Holy Ghost we preached the gospel to 
you, ver. 5), and how (thereupon) ye turned to God 
from idols to serve the living and true God ; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ Θεσσαλονικέων, To the church of the 
Thessalonians.) « He names not the presbyters and deacons,” 
saith Grotius, “because the church was newly planted, and 
had not received its full form:” and yet in his note on those 
words, v. 12, “I entreat you, brethren, know them that | 
labour among you, and are over you in the Lord,” he saith, 
οἱ κοπιῶντες, “ the labourers are the princes of the assembly, 
called bishops; οἱ προϊστάμενοι, they that are over you, are 
the presbyters ;” but against this, see the note there. 

2° And Θεοῦ πατρὸς, From God the Father, ver. 1, and in 
the sight of God and our Father, ver. 3.] The Spirit of God 
vouchsafed under the gospel, enables us to ery ‘Abba, 
Father,” i. e. to come to God with the assurance of his 
fatherly affection to us, as being now the sons of God through 
faith in Jesus Christ; on which account is God “our 
Father,” or the Father of us Christians (Eph. iii. 15), so 
often mentioned for their consolation in those times of | 

ΠΡ 

8 Ver. 3. ᾿Αδιαλείπτως μνημονεύοντες, Remembering without 
ceasing.) i. e. As often as we appear before God our Father, 
thankfully remembering your faith, fruitful in good works; 
your love to the saints making you laborious to promote 
their good, and your hope in the Lord Jesus (ver. 10), ren- 
dering you patient in all tribulations for his sake, ver. 17 
(see note there). 

Your labour of love and patience.) Ccumenius here 
notes, that it is the property of true love, τὰ πάντα ὑπὲρ τοῦ 
ἠγαπημένου πάσχειν, “to suffer all things for the sake of the 
beloved.” 

4 Ver. 4. Τὴν ἐκλογὴν ὑμῶν, Your election of God.) The 
gospel came to some in word only, i. 6. they heard the sound 
of it, but did not believe and obey it, and so “the word did 
not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that 
neard it,” Heb. iv. 2, and these were only κλητοὶ, “ called,” 
but not ἐκλεκτοὶ, “chosen,” Matt. xxii. 14. To others, the 
preaching of the apostles was attended with a greater power 
of miracles, and extraordinary effusions of the Holy Ghost, 


prevailing on many to embrace it as the word of God; so 
that from hence the apostles had a full assurance, that it was 
the good pleasure of God to gather a church of believers, and 
faithful people there; and these were called the elect, ἐκλογὴ 
Θεοῦ, “the election of God,’ “the election of grace,” i. e. 
men chosen to be partakers of the blessings of the gospel, 
and to be God’s peculiar church and people. For the apos- 
tle doth not here speak of any absolute election of the whole 
church of the Thessalonians to eternal life, because he could 
have no certain knowledge of it; or if he had, he could not 
have been under any just grounds of fear, as we find he was, 
“Jest by some means the tempter should have tempted them, 
and his labour be in vain among them” (iii.5). Moreover, 
the reason of his knowledge here assigned, viz. the miracles 
and gifts of the Holy Geost, with which his preaching was 
attended, gave him a certain knowledge that God designed 


| to gather there a church of Christians; but it was no certain | 


indication of their election to eternal life, seeing the apostle 
informs us, that they who had «tasted of these powers of 
the world to come,” and received these gifts of the Holy 
Ghost, might « fall away,” so as not to be “renewed to re- 
pentance” (Heb. vi. 4—6), and many of the converted Jews 
actually did so afterward. 

5 Ver. 6. Mera χαρᾶς, &e. With joy of the Holy Ghost.) 
In the foregoing verse he lays before them the outward tes- 
timonies of the truth of Christianity from the miracles 
wrought, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost exercised among 
them: here he appeals also to the inward testimonies they 
had received of it, even a strong spiritual joy wrought in 
them by the Holy Ghost, under the sharpest sufferings, ac- 


| cording to those words of Peter, “If ye suffer for the sake 


of righteousness, and be reproached for Christ’s sake, happy 
are ye, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” 
(1 Pet. iv. 14). 

6 Ver. 9.] These words, saith Theodoret,* instruct us 


* Od γὰρ τῷ υἱῷ συγκρίνων, ἀλλὰ τοῖς οὐκ οὖσι θεοῖς, τὸν ὄντα 
Θεὸν, Θεὸν ζῶντα, καὶ ἀληϑινὸν, αὐτὸν προσηγόρευσε. 


CHAPTER II. 


10 And to wait for (the coming of) his Son from 
heaven (lo be glorified in his saints, 2 Thess. i. 10), 
whom he (hath already) raised from the dead, even 


797 


Jesus, which (by his death hath) delivered us from the 
wrath to come. 


how to expound our Saviour’s words, “This is life eternal, | so styled, in opposition not to Jesus Christ, but to idols 
to know thee the only true God,” teaching us that he is ! only. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 (We need not, I say, speak any thing farther of the 
effectual working of God with us in our entrance in unto 
you:)For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in 
unto you, that it was not ‘in vain (7. e. not without 
demonstration of divine assistance, i. 5): 

2 But (we had such assurance of God’s call to preach 
to you, thal) even after that we had suffered before, and 
were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi 
(Acts xvi. 23), we were (s/¢//) bold in (the strength of) 
our God to speak unto you the gospel of God (though 
this we did) with much contention (and opposition from 
the unbelieving Jews, Acts xvii. 5). 

3 For our exhortation (made to you to embrace the 
gospel) was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in 
guile (as are the exhortations of the philosophers among you, 
and ths decet{ful workers of the Jewish nation, who endea- 
vour to corrupt you) : 

4 But as we were allowed (Gr. have been approved ) 
of God (as persons fil) to be put in trust with the gos- 
pel, even so we speak (the truth sincerely); not as 
pleasing men, but (as approving ourselves to that) God, 
which trieth our hearts (Gal. i. 10). 

5 For neither at any time used we ® flattering words, 


as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God 7s wit- 
ness (2 Cor. ii. 17): 

6 Nor of men sought we glory (or high estimation), 
neither of you, nor yel of others (provisions), when 
we might (not only with a fair pretence, but with just 
reason) have been (dius) * burdensome, as (being) the 
apostles of Christ. 

7 (I say we sought not high esteem, or rich provisions :) 
But we were ὁ gentle (meek and unburdensome) among 
you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children (bear- 
ing herself the burden of them, and giving them her 
mill, as we dispense to you the sincere milk of the word 

reely : 
᾿ 8 .7π41} So being affectionately desirous of you (-r 
good), we were willing to have imparted unto you, not 
the gospel of God only, but also our § own souls (¢. e. 
lo have spent our lives in your service), because ye were 
dear unto us. 

9 (And of this affection you cannot well be ignorant ;) 
SFor ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail : 
for labouring night and day, because we would not be 
chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you 
(freely) the gospel of God. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1 Ver. 1. Οὐ κενὴ, Not vain.) I grant that the apostle 
doth not intend to signify by this phrase, only that his word 
was not ineffectual among them, but also to declare the rea- 
son why it was not so; to wit, because it wanted not a de- 
monstration of divine authority and power to confirm them 
in the faith that heard it, and those that heard it in their 
expectations of success, and their assurance that the Thessa- 
lonians were by God designed to receive the faith; as it 
would have been had it come to them in word only, and not 
“in power, and the Holy Ghost, and much assurance.” For 
the word “ vain,” when it is applied to God’s message, sig- 
nifies the not accomplishing the great ends for which it was 
designed ; so Isa. lv. 11, «The word that goeth out of my 
mouth shall not return to me in vain, but it shall accomplish 
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the things where- 
to I sent it:” and, Jer. viii. 8, “How do ye say, We are 
wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in 
vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain: and, 
Jer. ii. 33, “In vain have I smitten your children, they have 
received no correction.” “ Our entrance therefore to you was 
not in vain;” that is, it was not without such divine assist- 
ance as was sufficient to work conviction in you, and to em- 
brace the truth to you. 

2 Ver. 5. Ἔν λόγῳ κολακείας, Here signifies “ in flattering 
words,” or words that are flattery, as λόγος ἀκοῆς, ver. 13, is 
“the word heard ;” λόγος ἀληϑείας, “the word which is the 
truth,” 2 Cor. vi. 7, Col. i. 5, and πρόῤασις πλεονεξίας, is “a 
pretence to gratify their covetousness:” for that the apostles 
never were under a defamation or accusation of these things, 
neither could the Thessalonians know, nor was it a thing 
proper to call God to witness to; but that no such guilt 
could truly be charged upon them, the Thessalonians might 
know, and that they inwardly designed no such thing God 
only could be witness, as being alone the searcher of the 
heart. : 

3 Ver. 6. Ἐν βάρει εἶναι, Be burdensome.) This seems not 
to refer to the censures of the church, but to the apostles 
living at the charge of their converts; for he saith, ver. 9, 
that he and his companions “Jaboured night and day, πρὸς 


τὸ μὴ ἐπιβαρῆσαι, that they might burden none of them.” 
So 2 Cor. xi. 9,“ Other churches supplied my wants, so that 
in all things I have kept myself, ἀβαρῆ, unburdensome to 
you:” and 1 ‘Tim. v. 16, “If any man or woman that be- 
lieveth have widows, let them relieve them, καὶ μὴ βαρεῖσθω 
ἡ ἐκκλησία, and let not the church be burdened with them.” 

When we might have been burdensome.] Here Theophy- 
lact cries out, βαβαὶ τῆς προϑυμίας καὶ τῆς trip τοῦ μὴ σκαν- 
δαλίσαι τίνα σπουδῆς, “}} the study and sedulity of the apos- 
tle, not to scandalize any person!”—And the descant of 
Esthius upon the words is this, We accommodated ourselves 
to you in all things, neque jus nostrum, neque imperium ur- 
gentes, ul vestram promoveamus salutem, “ forbearing our 
own right to promete your happiness.” And if the apostles 
forbore to exercise their own power, that they might not be 
burdensome to the weak Thessalonians, how much more 
would they have done it to prevent their ruin ? 

4 Ver. 7. Ἤπιοι, Meek.) If the various lection noted by 
Theodoret, G2cumenius, and Theophylact, who here read 
νήπιοι, “ children,” were the original, the sense would run 
thus: “But, we, O children, were among you as a nurse 
that cherisheth her children” (see ver. 11), And that 
Origen read so is certain from his commentary on Matthew, 
p. 372. 375. 

5 Ver. 8. Τὰς ἑαυτῶν ψυγὰς, Our own souls.] i. 6. Our 
own lives; as when Christ is said to give τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ, 
“his life a ransom for many,” Matt. xx. 28, to “lay down, 
τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ, his life for his sheep,’ John x. 11. 15. 17, 
xv, 13,1 John iii. 16; and when we are bid to “lay down, 
τὰς ψυχὰς, Our lives for the brethren,” 1 John iii. 16, or said 
to lose or gain, τὴν Ψυχὴν, “ our life,” Luke ix. 24, John xii. 
15 (see Acts xx. 10, Rom. xi. 3, xvi. 4, 2 Cor. xii. 15, 
Philem. ii. 13, 1 Pet. iv. 19). 

6 Ver. 9.1 It is the opinion of Dr. Hammond, that the 
apostle here, from the third to the fourth verse, refers to the 
Gnostics, and clears himself from the vile arts they used, and 
ill designs they had in promoting their delusions. But this 
epistle being writ, saith the same reverend person, about the 
year 50, and whilst Simon Magus was yet living, it cannot 
be proved that these Gnostics were thei in being, much less 
that they ever were at ‘T'hessalonica. 

Sr2 


798 


10 Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily (to- 
wards God) and justly and unblameably we behaved 
ourselves (whilst we conversed ) among you that believe: 

11 As (and likewise) ye know 7 how we exhorted 
and comforted and charged every one of you, as a 
father doth his children, (Gr. how we loved every one of 
you as a father doth his children, exhorting you to the per- 
formance of your duty, comforting you under your tribu- 
lations, and testifying) 

12 That ye would (ought to) walk ® worthy of God, 
who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. 

13 For this cause also (or, and for this thing) thank 
we God without ceasing, because, when ye received 
the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received τί 
not as the word of men (speaking from their own human 
wisdom), but as it is in truth, the word of God, 5 which 
effectually worketh also in you that believe (‘he fruits 
of Christian patience). 

14 For ye, brethren, (in this) became followers of 
the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ 


I. THESSALONIANS. 


Jesus : for ye also have suffered (patiently) like things 
of your own countrymen, even as they have of the 
Jews (their countrymen) : 

15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and (before 
him) their own prophets, and have (since) persecuted 
us (hzs apostles); and they please not God, and are 
% contrary to all men (who are yot of their own nation 
or religion: 

16 And this they show in)Forbidding us to speak to 
the Gentiles that they might be saved (by the preach- 
ing of the gospel), to fill up their sins alway (7. e. 
which they are given up to do, to fill up the measure of 
their sins, which, being thus disposed, and thus deserted by 
God, they will do) : for the wrath (of God) is come upon 
them to the uttermost. 

17 But we, brethren, being (by their impatient ma- 
lice) taken from you for a short time (Acts xviii. 5, 10, 
and this) in presence (only), not in heart, endeavoured 
the more abundantly to see your face (again) with 
great desire. 


We read in scripture of some teachers of the law, who 
“gave heed to fables,” 1 Tim.i. 4. 7, and who “counted gain 
godliness,” vi. 5; of some Jews who were “ deceitful work- 
ers,” 2 Cor. xi, 13. 22, 1 Cor. iv. 2, and had their πανουργίαι, 
« subtleties,” 2 Cor. xi. 3; and who were given to unclean- 
ness, Rom. ii. 22, and taught unclean doctrines, 1 Cor. iii. 
16, 17, vi. 13. 19, 2 Cor. xii. 21 (see the note there): and 
it is likely the apostle might in these words respect those 
deceivers. 

Or we may refer these thing to the philosophers of those 
times, who did συλαγωγεῖν, “ make a prey of men by philoso- 
phy and vain deceit,” Col. ii. 8 ; who were, saith the poet in 
Atheneus,* μειρακιεξαπάται, “deceivers of young men, and 
δοζοματαιόσοφοι, desirous of vain-glory,’’ whose business it 
Was χαριτογλωσσεῖν, “ to speak to please men,’} who taught 
only « for stipends,” or ἐργολαβίας évexev, as Diodorus Siculus¢ 
saith of the Grecian philosophers ; and rod κατὰ τὴν ἐργολα- 
βίαν κέρδους στοχαζύμενοι,  philosophized,” saith Plato,§ ‘ out 
of love of gain;” and who are every where represented as 
“given to impurity,”|} and exercising the vilest practices 
with those they taught their vain philosophy. Whence they 
were sometimes banished from the places of their abodes, 
saith Athenzus,§ ὡς διαφθείροντες τοὺς νέους, “as corrupters 
of the youth,” and did κυνικῶς ζὴν, “lead the lives of cynics.” 
And Plato** himself confesseth, That one reason why they 
were so generally decried, was this, that most of them were 
παμπόνηροι, “ the worst of men.” 

7 Ver. 11, 12. Oidare ὡς ἕνα ἕκαστον ὑμῶν, ὡς πατὴρ τέκνα 
ἑαυτοῦ παρακαλοῦντες ὑμᾶς, You know how we exhorted, and 
comforted, and. charged every one of you, as a futher does 
his children.] Here our translation puts the μαρτυρούμενοι, 
“persuading,” testifying, or charging, which begins the 
twelfth verse, before the beginning of the eleventh, which is 
an unusual transposition, and changes the participles into 
verbs, which, though it be usual, cannot here be admitted, 
because of the ὑμᾶς following παρακαλοῦντες" I think there- 
fore it is better to own an ellipsis or deficiency of the word 
ἐφιλήσαμεν, OF ἠγαπήσαμεν, Or ἐθάλψαμεν, from ver. 7, of 
which ellipsis we find many instances; v. g. there is an 
ellipsis of the verb ἐποίει, Rom. viil. 3, of ἐλπίζετε, Eph. 1. 
13 (see 1 Cor. iv. 15, Gal. ii. 7, 2 Thess. ii. 7, 1 John ii. 
19, Matt. xx. 23). And then the words may be thus trans- 
lated, «« Ye know how I loved every one of you, as a father 
doth his children,” exhorting and comforting you (ver. 12), 
and charging you. 

8 Ver. 12. ᾿Αξίως τοῦ Θεοῦ, Worlhy of God.] i. ὁ. That 
you would walk, (1.) so as is best pleasing to him: (2.) as 
becomes them who are called to enjoy a glorious kingdom: 


* Lib. iv. p. 162. 

7 P. 165. 

+ Hist. lib. ii. p. 115, 116. 

§ Men. p. 422. Phed. p. 1245, 1246. 
ἢ Plutarch de Lib. Educ. p. 11. 

q Lib. xiii. p. 610, 611, lib. iv. p. 162. 
** De Repub. lib. vi. p. 675, B. 


(3.) as most conduceth to his glory: and, (4.) so as to re- 
semble his imitable perfections in your conversation. 

9 Ver. 13. Ὃς ἐνεργεῖται, Which effectually worketh in 
you.] For, saith Theodoret, προφητικῆς καὶ αὐτοὶ χάριτος ἀπο- 
λαύσαντες, καί προεφήτευον, καὶ γλώσσαις ἐλάλουν, καὶ ϑαύματα 
ἐπετέλουν περίδοζα: “They, partaking of the prophetical grace, 
both prophesied, and spake with tongues, and did great 
miracles;” for to those who in those times embraced the 
gospel, were granted χαρίσματα καὶ ἐνεργήματα, “the gifts 
and operations of the Holy Ghost,” I Cor. xii. 6. 10—12, 
Eph. ili. 20. So that as Satan was πνεῦμα ἐνεργοῦν, “a spirit 
working in the children of disobedience,” Eph. ii. 2, and 
they that were possessed by him were styled ἐνεργουμένοι ; 50 
they who had the afflatus of the Holy Spirit found him 
effectually working in them (James v. 16). And as the an- 
tichrists, or adversaries of the truth, wrought “lying won- 
ders, κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶς, according to the deceitful 
working of Satan,” in and by them (2 Thess. ii. 9. 11), so 
had the Christians, from the Holy Spirit, their ἐνεργήματα 
δυνάμεων, miraculous operations,” by whieh they were en- 
abled to confirm their faith: and these spiritual gifts were to 
them strong confirmations of the faith, the seals, and earnest 
of the blessings promised; and that which did enable them 
not only to suffer patiently, but also to “rejoice in tribula- 
tions,’ Rom. v. 3—5, 1 Thess. i. 6, 2 Tim. i. 7, 8, 1 Pet. 
iv. 14. 

10 Ver. 15. Contrary to all men.] Thus Tacitus* saith 
of them, Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptd, 
sed adversus omnes alios hostile odium: “They have great 
fidelity and kindness towards men of their own nation, but 
as great hatred to all others.” But that which the apostle 
chiefly here respects, was their fond imagination, that God 
would grant no salvation to the gentiles upon any other 
terms than their being circumcised, and obedient to the law 
of Moses (Acts xv. 1), on which account they became ene- 
mies to the gospel, and the preachers of it: because they 
offered salvation to the gentiles, through faith in Christ, 
without observation of the law (Rom. xi. 28, Gal. iv. 16). 
Hence also note, that none are greater enemies to the good 
of mankind, than they who do obstruct the preaching and 
the propagating of the gospel through the world. 

UW Ver. 16. ᾿Αναπληρῶσαι, To fill up the measure of their 
sins.) Our Lord hath said to them, “ Fill ye up the mea- 
sure of your fathers,” by adding to the murder of the pro- 
phets the murder of me, and of those prophets and wise 
men I shall send to you (Matt. xxiii. 32—35), “that 
upon you of this generation may come all the blood shed 
from Abel to this present time” (Luke xi. 49.51). This 
prediction, saith the apostle, is now fulfilled; and they, by 
fulfilling it, have filled up the measure of their sins; and 
God’s wrath is so incensed against them, that it will now de- 
stroy their church and nation, εἰς réAvs, “to the uttermost ;” 
so that it shall not be now as formerly, when they were 
sometimes in bondage, and again in freedom from their ene- 


* Hist. lib. v. p. 616. 


CHAPTER III. 


18 Wherefore we would have come unto you, even 
I Paul, once and again; but ? Satan (by his ministers 
stil!) hindered us. 

19 For what ¢s our hope, or joy, or crown of re- 


mies; sometimes were captives, and then returned again, 
after seventy years, to their own land ; found God for awhile 
angry, and anon reconciled to them: but this wrath shall 
now remain upon them to the uttermost, «till the times of 
the gentiles are come in” (Luke xxi. 24, see note on Rom. 
xi. 25), or εἰς τέλος, “till they be consumed ;” so the phrase 
is used often in the Old Testament, as εἰς τέλος ἀποθάνωμεν, 
«Shall be consumed without dying,” Numb. xvii. 13; “They 
fell by the sword, εἰς τέλος, till they were consumed,” Josh. 


799 


joicing? Are not even ye (Gr. ἢ οὐχὶ καὶ ὑμεῖς, will it 
not among others be you also when we stand) in the pre- 
sence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? 

20 For ye are (even at present) our glory and joy. 


viii. 24, “Slaying them, εἰς τέλος, till they were consumed ;” 
and x. 30; i. e. God’s wrath hath begun to fall upon them ; 
and they will still continue under it till they are consumed 
by it. 

12 Ver. 18. Ὃ Σατανᾶς, Safan.] Hence note, that they who 
obstruct the progress of the gospel, and persecute the pro- 
moters of it, are the ministers of Satan, and therefore bear 
his name (see iii. 5, 2 Cor. xi. 15, Rev. ii. 10). 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Waererore when we could no longer forbear, 
(unxére στέγοντες, no longer enduring to want the cer- 
lain knowledge of your affairs, though we had given 
commandment to Timothy to come quickly to us to 
Athens, Acts xvii. 15, yel, as for me and Si/as,) we 
thought it good to be left at Athens alone; (rather 
than to conlinue ignorant of the state of your faith, 
ver. 5;) 

2 And (therefore) sent Timotheus, our brother (in 
Christ, Philem. 16, Heb. xiii. 23), and (the) minister 
of God, and our fellowlabourer in (advancing) the 
gospel of Christ, to! establish you (in), and to com- 
fort you concerning your faith : 

3 That (sv) no man should (might) be moved (from 
his steadfastness in the faith) by these afflictions (and 


nol you especially) : for yourselves know (from us) that | 


we (Chrisfians) are appointed thereunto ; (for hereunto 
are we called, 1 Pet. ii. 21.) 


4 For verily, when we were with you, we told you | 


before (7! came to pass) that we should suffer tribulation ; 


even as it (short/y after) came to pass (Acts xvil.5—10), | 


and ye know (it did sv). 
5 For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, 
Isent (xayd μηκέτε στέγων txeuta, I also, not bearing 


| longer the uncertainty of your affairs, have sent) to know 
| (the steadfastness of ) your faith, lest by some means the 
|? tempter (may) have tempted you, and (so) our labour 
(among you should) be in vain. 

6 But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, 
and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, 
|and (in particular) that ye have (still) good remem- 
brance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we 
also (dv) to see you: 

7 Therefore (διὰ τοῦτο, by this), brethren, we were 
| comforted over you (ἐφ᾽ ὑμῖν, concerning you, or in youy) 
| in all our affliction and distress by (reason of) your 
(constancy in the) faith: 

8 For 3 now we live (joyfully), if ye stand fast in 
| the Lord. Ἶ 

9 ‘For what (sufficient) thanks ean we render to 
God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy 
| for your sakes before our God ; 

10 Night and day (also) praying exceedingly that 
we might see your face, and might perfect that which 
is (ye!) lacking in your faith (by reason of our very small 
stay with you, Acts xvii. 1. 10)? 

11 § Now God himself and (or, who ts) our Father, 
and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 2. Srepitat ὑμᾶς, To establish you] In it, by con- 
sideration of that miraculous power and those gifts of the 
Holy Ghost which accompanied our preaching, and your 
receiving of it (1 Thess. i. 5,6), and which are still exercised 
among you (v. 19, 20), to comfort you concerning it; by 
consideration of the joys of the Holy Ghost, which you have 


found already under your afflictions (i. 6) ; by the salvation | 


you are to obtain by Christ, the life you shall for ever live 
with him in glory (iv. 17, 18, v. 9—11), the eternal rest 
you shall have when the Lord Jesus Christ shall come to be 
« glorified in his saints ;” and of which your constancy in the 
faith under these sufferings will make you to be “ accounted 
worthy,” 2 Thess. i. 5—7. 10. 

2 Ver. 5. Ὁ πειράζων. Here note, First, hat the persecu- 
tions of the saints are ascribed to Satan the tempter, who 
by his ministers endeavours to hinder the progress of the 
gospel (ii. 18), and by their persecutions to terrify men, 
and seduce them from the profession of it (see Rev. ii. 10). 

Secondly, That πειρίζειν here doth signify, not barely to 
tempt, but to succeed in his temptation; for otherwise the 
labour of the apostle could not be rendered vain among them 

see note on Gal. vi. 1). 

Thirdly, Note, that it is hence evident, that the apostle 
did not think them secure (by the election of them, men- 
tioned i. 4), from falling so as that his labour might have 
been in vain among them. 

Fourthly, Note, from Esthius, that a faithful person, truly 
justified, may so fall from the faith as that it shall become 
in vain to him. ᾿ 

3 Μεγ. 8. Nov ζῶμεν, Now we l've.] Ζῆν, saith Suidas, “is 


| to live, μετὰ τρυφῆς καὶ πολυτελείας, with delight and magni- 
| ficence ;’’ according to that of Horace, Vivendum hodié, 
| which is the frequent import of the Hebrew word pyn, as in 
that wish, “ Let the king live,” 1 Sam. x. 24, 1 Kings. i. 25, 
2 Kings xi. 12; i.e. let him have a prosperous and happy 
reign: and in the words of the psalmist, xvi. 11, “Thou 
wilt show me the way of life; in thy presence is fullness of 
joy :” xxxiv. 13, “He that would live, i. 6. see good days = 
so xxii. 26, xxxviil. 19, Eccles. vi. 8, vii. 12; “Our masters 
teach,” saith Maimonides,* “that the just are called living, 
even in their death: the wicked, dead while they live; be- 
cause the first are happy in their death ; the second, misera- 
ble in their life.” 

4 Ver. 9.1 Esthius observes from the ninth verse, that 
| both the apostle’s joy and their faith and constancy were the 
gift of God; nam gratiarum actio non est nisi de beneficiis 
acceptis. He might also have observed with others, the ex- 
| cellent pattern the apostle here gives to all the bishops and 
pastors of the church, to be continually solicitous to know of 
the welfare of their flock, incessantly praying for it, blessing 
God daily for it, and looking upon it as the very felicity of 
their own lives. 

5 Ver. 11.] Here the note of Schlictingius runs thus: 
« You see that our Lord Jesus takes care of our affairs and 
actions, and therefore we deservedly invoke him in our ne- 
cessities;” as the apostle again doth, ver. 12. But since 
this invocation of him by all Christians in all places must 
suppose him omniscient, omnipresent, and the searcher of 
the heart; and these are the properties of God alone; it also 
must suppose him to be truly God. 


* More Nevoch. lib. i. cap. 48, 


800 


12 6 And the Lord make you to increase and abound 
in love one toward another, and 7 toward all men, 
even as we do (abound in love) toward you: 

13 § To the end he may stablish your hearts un- 


I. THESSALONIANS. 


blameable in holiness before God, even our Father 
(τοὺ Θεοῦ καὶ Πατρὸς ἡμῶν, our God and Fiuther), at the 
(glorious) coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all 
his saints. 


6 Ver. 12. 'Ypas δὲ ὁ Κύριος πλεονάσαι καὶ περισσεῦσαι.] These 
are optative aorists, which signify transitively, μέταβατικῶς, say 
the grammarians; and therefore are well rendered by our 
translation, ‘The Lord make you to increase, and make 
you to abound” (see note on 2 Cor. ix. 8, Ecclus. xlv. 5). 

7 And towards all men.) “This,” saith Theophylact,* 
“is the character of divine love, to comprehend all; whereas 
human love hath respect to one man, and not to another.” 

8 Ver. 18. ᾿Αμέμπτους, That he may stablish your hearts 


* Τοῦτο yap τῆς kara Θεὸν ἀγάπης ἴδιον, τὸ πάντας περιπλέκεσθαι" 
ἐὰν δὲ τὸν δεῖνα μὲν, τὸν δεῖνα δ' οὐ, κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον ἡ φιλία. 


unblameable in holiness.] Hence note, that a general and 
abounding charity to all men, being that by which we be- 
come most like to God, and that which tends to cover our 
own sins (1 Pet. iv. 8), especially if it be charity to the 
souls of men (James v. 20), tends to “stablish our hearts 
unblameable before God in love,” and to procure our ac- 
ceptance with him at the great day of our accounts (Matt. 
xxv. 35,36). 

Note also, that to stablish our hearts unblameable at 
Christ's coming, is so to confirm us in holy living, that we 
may be found unblameable by him at that day (see note on 
1 Cor. i. 8, 1 Thess. ν. 23, 2 Pet. iii. 14). 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Furruermore then we beseech you, brethren, and 
exhort yow by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received 
of us (direclions) how ye ought to walk and to please 
God, so ye would abound more and more (in your care 
to conform yourselves to them. 

2 In which thing you need no farther instructions :) For 
ye know what (/o/y) commandments we gave you ! by 
the Lord Jesus. 

3 For (we have already told you, that) this is the 
will of God, even your sanctification, (and this sanc- 


tificalion requires) that ye should abstain from fornica- 
tion: 

4 ? (.4nd)That every one of you should know how 
(much zt is your duly) to possess his (body, which is the) 
vessel (uf the Holy Spirit) in sanctification and honour 
(ἡ. e. free from those lusts which are πάδη ἀτιμίας, Rom. 
1. 26, dishonourable passions) ; 

5 Not in the lust of concupiscence, * even as the 
Gentiles (dv) which know not God: 

6 That 4no man go beyond (the bounds of matri- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


' Ver. 2. Διὰ rod Kupiov, By the Lord.] Note hence, that 
the instructions and commandments which the apostles gave 
to the churches, are to be looked upon as the commandments 
of the Lord, and as the will of God; they being dictated by 
his Spirit (ver. 8), and delivered by his authority who said, 
«He that heareth you heareth me; and he that heareth 
me heareth him that sent me” (Luke x. 16). 

2 Ver. 4, 5.] Here note (1.) That these instructions were 
very necessary for the Thessalonians, ἐκεῖ γὰρ πλείστη ἀταξία, 
καὶ dxaSapaia, for “ there was all manner of disorder and im- 
purity,” saith Socrates.* And Atheneus} informs us, τὴν 
τούτων τρυφὴν, that “their luxury invited the Persians into 
Greece :” that it was their custom in their banquets to bring 
in their} “ wenches dancing naked,’ and afterward they 
enjoyed them at their pleasure.” 

Secondly, Note also, that having mentioned fornication, 
ver. 3, he seems, ver. 4 and 5, to advance to other heathen- 
ish lusts, desiring them to keep their vessels in sanctification 
and honour: (1.) By preserving their bodies from unnatural 
lusts, which are by the apostle styled πάϑη ἀτιμίας, “dis- 
honourable passions ;” and their matrimonial bed from de- 
filement, by the use of other women (Heb. xiii. 4). Accord- 
ingly, these things in scripture are expressed by ignominy 
and vileness: in the Septuagint, hy τὰ ἄσγημα, “things in- 
decorous and dishonourable ;” which word the apostle applies 
to unnatural lusts, Rom. i. 26; and in the language of the 
Targum and the rabbins, they are styled Nabp, “ ignominy 
and vileness.”’ Thus Shechem is said to have wrought x35p, 
saith the Chaldee; τὸ ἄσχημον, the Septuagint; i. e. “igno- 
miny in Israel,” by knowing Dinah. ‘This is the name the 
Chaldee gives to the adultery committed by the men of 
Benjamin upon the Levite’s concubine, Judg. xix. 24, the 
incest committed by Amnon on his sister Tamar, 2 Sam. 
xiii. 1, 2; and in the rabbinical language,§ “ to abuse boys,” 
p pa, is to use them to the satisfying of unnatural lusts. 

3 Ver. 5. Καθάπερ ra ἔϑνη, Even as the gentiles.| Among 


* Apud Plat. 

{ Lib. xiv. p. 663; vid. eundem, lib. xii. p. 527. 
+ Lib. xiii. p. 607, lib. vi. p. 206. 

§ Buxtorf. in voce jp, p. 2035. 


whom these lusts abounded, and by whom they were al- 
lowed. For whoredom was esteemed no crime;* they 
taught, μὴ πάντως παρὰ τὸ καϑῆκον τοῦτο γίνεσϑαι. Their 
oratort speaks thus; Si quis est qui etiam meretriciis amor- 
ibus interdictum juventuti putet abhorret non modo ab 
hujus seculi licentia, verim etiam ἃ majorum consuetudine 
atque concessis. Quando enim hoc non factum est? quando 
reprehensum? quando non permissum? quando denique 
fuit, ut quod licet, non liceret? Epictetus+ advises them 
who cannot abstain, to use it only, ὡς νομιμόν ἐστι, “as the 
laws allowed it.’ Now that, saith Plato,§ was τῶν ἐλευϑέρων 
γυναικῶν μὴ ἐρᾶν, “not to meddle with free-women, but only 
libertines, and servants, and those that sold themselves to it.” 
And Demosthenes|| declares of all the Grecians thus: τὰς 
μὲν ἑταίρας ἔχομεν, τὰς δὲ παλλακὰς τῆς Kad’ 
ἡμέραν παλλακεΐας, τὰς δὲ γυναῖκας τοῦ παιδοποιεῖσϑαι γνησίως. 

The τὸ παρὰ φύσιν τόλμημα, as Plato styles it, obtained in 
Greece without blame, saith Bardesanes;J amongst the 
Grecians and many barbarians, saith Plato ;** amongst the 
Cretians and Lacedemonians, saith the same Plato. How 
prone the Romans, and other nations were to it, Plautus, 
Petronius Arbiter, Aristophanes, and Atheneus,t{ suffi- 
ciently inform us, as also that it was the sin of the philoso- 
phers especially. 

4 Ver. 6. Μὴ ὑπερβαίνειν καὶ πλεονεκτεῖν, Not to go beyond 
or defraud.) It is the opinion of all the Greek scholiasts, 
that this verse contains a prohibition of adultery, πλεονεξίαν 
ἐνταῦῆϑα τὴν μοιχείαν ἐκάλεσε. “ΒΥ the word πλεονεξία, he de- 
notes adultery,” say heodoret and Theophylact. God 
hath put bounds to this appetite, say C2cumenius and The- 
ophylact, by tying us to one wife, ὥστε ἡ πρὸς ἑτέραν μίξις, 
rapaBacis τις καὶ πλέονεξία ἐστὶν, “SO that to be familiar with 
one another is excess and covetousness ;” and when this is 


ἠδονῆς ἕνεκα 


* Orig. in Celsum, p. 177. 

+ Cap. 47. 

§ Conv. p. 1180; de Leg. lib. viii. p. 914, A, B. 

|| Orat. contra Neream, apud Athen. p. 573. 

§ Apud Euseb. Preparat. Evang. lib. vi. cap. 10, p. 
276, B. 

** De Leg. lib. viii. p. 913, D. ibid. p. 910, Ὁ, E. lib. i. 
Ρ. 776, E. 

{1 Athenzus, lib. xiii. p. 605. 


{ Orat. pro Ceelio. 


CHAPTER IV. 


mony) and defraud his brother in any matter (Gr. or 
exceed towards his brother in this matler): because that 
the Lord ἐς the avenger of all such, as we also have 
forewarned you and testified. 

7 (He is, I say, the avenger of all such Christians, as 
acling oppositely to their holy calling ;) For God hath 
not called us (Christians) unto uncleanness, but unto 
holiness. 

8 He therefore that despiseth (/his command), de- 
spiseth not man (only), but God, who hath also given 
§ unto us his Holy Spirit. 

9 (This I thought necessary to say, to warn you against 
that uncleanness which so retgneth in the heathen world, 
and to which you so strongly were addicted, whilst you 
were without the knowledge of God in the world :) But as 
touching brotherly love ye need not that I write (so 
fully) unto you: for ye yourselves are ὃ taught of God 
to love one another. 


801 


10 And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren 
which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, 
brethren, that ye increase more and more (in this Chris- 
tian virtue) ; 

11 And that ye study to be quiet, and? to do your 
own business (not meddling with olher men’s matters), 
and to work with your own hands, as we commanded 
you; 

12 That (so) ye may walk honestly (εὐσχημόνως, 
decently, and in good behaviour) toward them that are 
without, and that ye may have ὃ lack of nothing. 

13 But (especially) I would not have you to be igno- 
rant, brethren, concerning (the slate of ) them which are 
asleep, that ye sorrow not (for them), ὃ even as others 
(other gentiles do) which have no hope (of a resurrec- 
lion of the body). 

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again 
(as the first-fruits of them that slept, 1 Cor. xv. 20), 


done to another man’s wife, it is to accede to the injury of 
his brother. And as Jerome* hath observed, the words pre- 
ceding, which speak of “abstaining from fornication, and 
keeping our vessels in sanctification and honour, and not in 
the lusts of concupiscence ;” and the words following, which 
give this reason of the precept, that “God hath not called 
us to uncleanness, but to holiness,” seem also plainly to en- 
force this sense, which the Greek, in the judgment of the fore- 
cited fathers, will bear: for, 

1, The words ὑπερβαίνειν and ἐπιβαίνειν bear this sense in 
other authors. Thus Philo, speaking of unnatural lusts 
committed by men, saith ἄνδρες ὄντες ἄῤῥεσιν ἐπιβαίνονσι. And 
Plutarch saith of the Egyptians, that “they call that land 
which Nile ascends, mixing and engendering with it, the 
body of Isis.” And when Nile is thus, ὑπερβαλῶν καὶ 
πλεονάσας, “ filling and ascending, they call this the joining 
of Osiris with Nephthe.” So the Hebrew word y)3, from 
which βῶ and βάω, and from them βαίνω, is derived, hath 
this signification, as Josh. xxiii. 12, “If you contract affinity 
with the heathens, pa onnn), and go in unto them; εἰ 
ἐπιγαμίας ποιήσητε, καὶ συγκαταμιγῆτε αὐτοῖς, “ If you marry and 
mix with them,” saith the Septuagint, “the Lord will not 
drive them out.” And in the Mishna, ymin Syran is, “he 
that revealeth the nakedness of his sister,” and may be ren- 
dered ὑπερβαίνων τὴν ἀδελφὴν αὐτοῦ. 

2. The word πλεονεξία bears the same sense in that verse 
in which Venus promises to him that finds and brings her 
Cupid to her, “not a bare kiss, but something more,” say- 
ing οὐ γυμνὸν τὸ φίλαμά τοι ξένε, καὶ πλέον ἕξει. And Socrates§ 
tells Callicles, pleading for those pleasures, that men ought 
not to be ἐπιϑυμίας ἀκολάστους, “of unbounded lusts; od dé 
πλεονεξίαν οἴει δεῖν ἀσκεῖν, but thou,” saith he, “ thinkest that a 
man may exceed in these matters.” And in the scholiast of 
Aristophanes, these are put as words equivalent, ὑπερπαίειν, 
ὑπερβαίνειν, πλεονάζειν. 

And whereas against this interpretation it is objected, 
that the words following, viz. “in any matter,” being gene- 
ral, will not admit of this restrained sense: 

I answer, that in the Greek the words are ἐν σῷ πράγματι, 
and may be rendered, “in this matter,” or “in the matter ;” 
viz. forementioned; or absolutely, in the matter; for so it 
plainly signifies in these words, 2 Cor. vii. 11, “ You have 
approved yourselves clear ἐν τῷ πράγματι, in this matter:” 
And it being observed by Phavorinus and Suidas,{ that the 


* Diligentér observa, quia ad castitatem nos provocans, 
et volens uxoribus tantum esse contentos, dixerit, Ne quis 
supergrediatur, et circumscribat negotio fratrem suum, id 
est, ne suam conjugem derelinquens, alterius polluere queat 
uxorem. In Eph. iv. 19. 

+ De Abrahamo, p. 285, B. 

$ “Iowdos σῶμα γὴν ἔχουσι καὶ νομίζουσιν οὐ πᾶσαν, ἀλλ᾽ ἧς ὃ 
Νεῖλος ἐπεβαΐνει σπερμαίων καὶ μιγνύμενος ------τοῦτο μίξιν 'Oci- 
ριδις πρὸς Νέφθην καλοῦσιν. De Isiride et Osir. p. 366, A, Β. 
[ta ἐπιβαίνειν, Aristoph. Βάτραχ. p. 211. 

§ Apud Platon. Gregor. p. 346, C, D. 

I Ἔκκλησ. p. 757. 

ἡ Πράγματος ἐπὶ τῷ κακῶ χρῶνται τῇ λέξει of παλαιοί. Phav. 

Vor. IV.—101 


word πρᾶγμα is used by the ancients in an evil sense; and 
the Apostolical Constitutions complaining that the younger 
widows marrying again, under pretence that they* could 
not contain, were “engaged in an evil matter;” and by 
Q&cumenius being glossed thus, ἐν τῇ μίξει. I hope I have 
sufficiently vindicated this interpretation of Dr. Hammond 
and the ancients, from the exceptions of Mr. Le Clerc. 

Ἔν τῷ πράγματι, In this matter.) So it plainly signifies in 
those words, 2 Cor. vii. 11, You have approved yourselves 
clear ἐν τῷ πράγματι, in this matter.” 

5 Ver. 8. Eis ἡμᾶς, To us.] To us apostles, to enable us 
to give you these commandments; and to us Christians, to 
render us the temples of the Holy Ghost, which temples we 
corrupt by our uncleanness (1 Cor, iii. 15, 16, vi. 15—17, " 
xi. 19, 2 Cor. vi. 16). 

6 Ver. 9. Θεοδίδακτοι, Taught of God.| By this new 
commandment, “that we love one another,” 1 John iii. 11. 
23, iv. 21, Matt. xxii. 39. Θεοδίδακτοι yap ἡμεῖς ἱερὰ ὄντως 
γράμματα παρὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ παιδεύομενοι, saith Clemens 
of Alexandria,t “ We are taught by God, having the holy 
scriptures ; and by the example of that God, who loved us, 
and gave his Son for us’ (Eph. v. 2). Hence they who 
are taught of God are said to hear his commands, and learn 
by his example (John vi. 45). 

7 Ver. 11. Ta ἴδια, To do your own business.) 1 follow 
here the sense of Dr. Hammond, and other interpreters; 
though the following words, “ to work with your own hands,” 
seem to lead to the doing their own business themselves, 
and not to leave all to slaves and servants, as the idle and 
luxurious of old were wont to do (see Athenzus, lib. xii.). 

8 Ver. 12. Kai μηδενὸς χρείαν ἔχητε, And that ye may have 
lack of nothing.) i. e. From the heathen. So the Greek 
scholiasts: for, say they, if Christians, seeing a Christian beg 
when he is able to live by his work, are scandalized, how 
much more will heathens be so? And indeed, this was one 
objection of the heathens against Christians, that they were¢ 
infructuosi in negotiis, “useless creatures.” The apostle 
therefore doth exhort them so to provide for their necessi- 
ties by their honest labour, that they may not need the help 
of infidels, and never may be forced by their wants to ask it 
of them. , 

9 Ver. 13. Καϑὼς of λοιποὶ, As do others.) Though many 
heathens believed the immortality of the soul, none of them 
had any expectation of the resurrection of the body. This 
the philosophers, who styled the body “the prison of the 
soul,” and thought it the great hinderance of knowledge and 
of virtue, represented as a very despicable thing, τὸ σφύδρα 
μιαρὸν, Kai ἀπόπτυστον ἅμα καὶ ἀδύνατον. So Celsus;§ “It is 
vile,” saith he, “abominable, and impossible; σκωλήκων 4 
ἐλπὶς, a hope fitter for worms than men.” And he confutes 
the possibility of it, not only from the repugnancy of the 
thing to nature, but also from the vileness of it, declaring 


* Μήποτε πρύφασει τοῦ μὴ δύνασθαι κρατεῖν τῆς ἀκμῆς, ἐπὶ 
δευτερογαμίαν, ἐλθοῦσαι ἐν πράγματι γένωνται ἐν πράγματι 
ἀπρεπεῖ σχεϑῶσι. Lib. iil. cap. 2. 

ἡ Strom. i. p. 318, L, Ὁ. 

§ Apud Orig. p. 240. 


+ Tertul. Apol. cap. 42, 


802 


even so (are we to believe, thal) them also which 
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him (when he comes 
to judge the world, and reward all his faithful ser- 
vants). 

15 For this we say unto you (not from ourselves, but) 
by the word of the Lord, that !! we which are (then) 
alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall 
not prevent them which are asleep (so as fo receive our 
happy change, before their resurrection). 

16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 


I. THESSALONIANS. 


with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, ? and 
with the tramp of God: and (chen) the dead in Christ 
shall rise first : 

17 Then we which are alive and remain (on the 
earth) shall be caught up together with them in the 
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we 
ever be 13 with the Lord. 

18 Wherefore comfort one another (concerning your 
deceased friends) with these words. 


God therefore cannot do it,* “because as he will not do 
what is against nature, so he cannot do what is vile.” ΡΙ]ο- 
tinus saith, that such a resurrection would only be ἀνάστασις 
eis ἄλλον ὕπνον, “a resurrection to another sleep.’ And all 
the other heathens held it a thing impossible, and without 
example, and therefore made it a matter of their sport; it 
being, saith Origen, μυστήριον γελώμενον ὑπὸ τῶν ἀπίστων (see 
Justin. M. Apol. 2, p. 57, C, D. Theophilus ad Autol. 1. p. 
77. De Minue. p. 11. Amob. lib. ii. p. 51. Lact. lib. vii. cap. 
22). 

10 Ver. 14. Τοὺς κοιμηϑέντας διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦν Those that sleep 
in, or through Jesus.) That the martyrs are not here ex- 
cluded is certain; but I see no reason to grant that this ex- 
pression should peculiarly respect them. All the Greek 
scholiasts interpret the words generally: Chrysostom and 
Theophylact say, that they who sleep in Jesus are “the 
faithful,” in general: GEcumenius, “those that sleep in the 
faith of Jesus.” The apostle, treating of this subject, calls 
all the dead, τοὺς κοιμηθέντας ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ, “ those that sleep 
in Christ,” 1 Cor. xv. 18, and the context here requires this 
sense ; for the apostle speaks, ver. 13, of them that sleep 
in general, and of the hope of the resurrection in general. 
And when Christ comes to judgment, he will not bring the 
martyrs only, but all the faithful with him. See ver. 15, 
16, where the same persons are “the dead with Christ.” 

τ Ver. 15. Ἡμεῖς οἱ ζῶντες, We who are alive.) It is well 
observed by the Greek scholiasts, that the apostle speaks 
these words, οὐκ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ προσώπου, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τῶν κατ᾽ 
ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν περιόντων ἀνθρώπων, ““ not of himself, but of the 
Christians that were to remain alive at the day of judgment:” 
so Chrysostom, Theodoret, Gicumenius, and Theophylact ; 
for he well knew he was not personally to live till the resur- 
rection; yea, he himself expected a resurrection, saying to 
the Corinthians, “He that raised up the Lord Jesus, shall 
raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you,” 2 
Cor. iv. 14; he laboured that he “ might attain to the resur- 
rection of the dead,” Phil. iii. 11. Yet there are some 
divines who, from this and some other places in the epistles, 
conceive that the apostles sometimes thought and declared 
to other Christians, that they themselves might live until the 
resurrection ; and that Paul afterward changed this opinion, 
and admonished the ‘Thessalonians of it, 2 ‘Thess. ii. This I 
conceive to be a dangerous mistake, and highly prejudicial to 
the Christian faith, and the authority of the apostles; for if 
the churches of Christ had once received this doctrine from 
them, and afterward had understood, even from their own 
confession, that it was a mistake, this would have naturally 
led them to conceive that they might have been mistaken 
also in any other doctrine contained in their epistles, and to 
suspect the certainty and truth of all that was contained in 
them. And this the apostle seemeth to insinuate in these 
words, 2 Thess. ii. 1, 2, “1 beseech you, brethren, that you 
be not soon shaken in mind, or troubled, either by word or 
letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand :” for 
these words seem plainly to import, that in the apostle’s own 
judgment, the belief that the apostles had taught by word or 
by epistle, this doctrine, would tend to the unsettling of their 
minds in the faith. 


* "AYN οὔτι ye τὰ αἰσχρὰ ὃ Θεὸς δύναται οὐδὲ τὰ παρὰ φύσιν 


βούλεται. Ibid. 


But that Paul taught no such doctrine in any of his Epis- 
tles to the Thessalonians, will be exceeding evident, 

First, From the following words in that chapter: for 
there, saith he, ver. 8, « Let no man deceive you by any 
means ;” declaring them deceivers who either taught this 
doctrine, or imposed it on them as spoken or indited by 
them: there also having said, in opposition to that vain 
imagination, that day was not to come till there was “a fall- 
ing away first, and the man of sin was revealed,” he adds, 
“Remember you not that when I was yet with you, I told 
you these things?” (ver. 5.) He therefore had taught them 
the contrary before he had indited either of these epistles, 
and therefore in them cannot rationally be supposed to con- 
tradict himself. 

Secondly, From the very words used for proof of this 
opinion; for they are introduced with this solemnity, “his 
we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are 
alive:” in which words he most plainly voucheth the au- 
thority of Christ Jesus for the truth of what he saith; and 
therefore, if he were mistaken, either our Lord himself must 
err with him, or the apostle must vouch Christ's word and 
his authority, when Christ had spoken no such word, and 
given him no authority to speak this doctrine in his name; 
both which assertions overthrow the certainty and truth of 
all Paul’s epistles. Now hence it follows, that the apostle 
could not deliver this assertion in any other of his epistles; 
for all the learned do agree in this, that these epistles to the 
Thessalonians were the first epistles Paul wrote; whence it 
must follow, that he could not deliver, in his following writ- 
ings, to that church or any other churches, that doctrine 
which he had so industriously before confuted, and declared 
very dangerous, in his epistle to the church of Thessalonica. 

The truth seems therefore to be this: That as our Lord 
had told them, it was not for them to know the times and 
seasons (Acts i. 7), so were they left still in the dark touch- 
ing the time of the general judgment; and therefore they 
continually speak of it as a day that was to come upon men 
“as a thief in the night,” ipsis insciis, as here, v.1. They, 
perhaps, did not know when it might happen; and so they 
say nothing at any time dogmatically, but only ἐνδοιάστως, 
and disjunctly, “If we shall be found clothed, and not 
naked ;” and here, v. 10, “ Whether we sleep or wake.” 
Nor are these sayings to be taken personally, as meant of 
the apostles, but rather as spoken by them in the person of 
Christians in the general, some of which would be then sur- 
viving. See a discourse at the end of 2 Thessalonians, by 
way of inquiry, whether the apostles, in their writings, 
spake as conceiving the day of judgment might be in their 
days, &c. 

12 Ver. 16. Kai ἐν σάλπιγγι Θεοῦ, And in the trump of God.] 
Pious here, and fit to be regarded, is the note of ‘Theodoret, 
That if the loud sound of the trumpet, when the law was 
given from mount Sinai, was so dreadful to the Jews, that 
they said to Moses, « Let not the Lord speak to us, lest we 
die :” how terrible must be the sound of this trumpet, which 
calls all men to the final judgment! 

18 Ver, 17. Σὺν Κυρίῳ, With the Lord.] From which words 
it may be probably collected, that even the souls of the 
faithful were not ever with the Lord, or in his celestial pre- 


sence, before the resurrection. 


803 


CHAPTER V. 


1 ' Bur of the (exact) times and the (crilical) sea- 
sons, brethren (when the coming of the Lord shall hap- 
pen), ye have no need that I write unto you. 

2 For (you) yourselves know perfectly (from what 
T taught when present with you) that the day of the Lord 
so cometh as a thief in the night (of the time of whose 
coming the master of the house can have no certain know- 
ledze, Matt. xxiv. 42, 43, xxv. 13, Mark xiii. 33, Luke 
xii. 39, 40, xxi. 36). 

3 2 For when they (they of the Jewish nation then, 
and the wicked at the great day of wrath) shall say, 
Peace and safety (expecting no such thing as wrath and 
judgment); then sudden destruction cometh upon them, 
as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall 
not escape (?/). 

4 But ye, brethren, are not (as formerly) in (a state 
of ) darkness, that that day should overtake you as a 
thief (or come upon you unexpected, or unprepared 
for it). 

5 Ye are all (by virtue of your faith, and knowledge, 
and your profession of Christianily,) the children of 
light (as having the light, and believing in it, John xii. 
36, Eph. v. 8), and the children of the day (of grace, 
Rom. xiii. 12, 13, and of salvation, 2 Cor. vi. 2): we 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 1, 2.] That all this, to the twelfth verse, doth evi- 
dently belong only to the destruction of the persecuting 
Jews and Gnostics, at the time of Christ’s coming to destroy 
the Jewish church and nation, is confidently asserted by a 
reverend and learned commentator on this place; but is not 
once hinted by the ancients, who all interpret these words; 
περὶ τῆς κοινῆς συντελείας, “of Christ’s general advent.” Nor 
do his arguments prove his assertion. 

Arg. 1. First, Whereas he saith, ἡμέρα Χριστοῦ, “ The day 
of Christ (here mentioned) is, without question, the same 
which is so often called the coming of Christ for the de- 
stroying of the enemies of Christianity :” 

Ans. It is certain that this “day of Christ,” in the epis- 
tles, doth almost generally signify the day of our Lord’s 
coming to the final judgment, as in the following words: 
“He shall confirm you unto the end, that you may be blame- 
less in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor. i. 8; «That 
the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ,” 
1 Cor. y. 5; “ You are our rejoicing in the day of the Lord Je- 
sus,” 2 Cor. i. 14; “He that hath begun a good work in you, 
shall perfect it to the day of the Lord Jesus,” Phil. i. 6; 
« That ye may be sincere and blameless until the day of Jesus 
Christ,” ver. 10 ; « That I may rejoice in the day of Christ,” 
Phil. ii. 16 (see 2 Tim. 1. 12. 18, iv. 8). 

Arg. 2. Secondly, Whereas he adds that “this cannot be- 
long to the last coming of Christ to judgment, because the 
apostle had made that the subject of his former discourse 
(ch. iv.), and enters upon this as a distinct matter with a 
περὶ dé,” ἄτα. 

Ans. It is granted, That the time when this judgment 
shall be, is a distinct matter from the judgment itself; which 
is all that this argument proves. 

Arg. 3. Thirdly, Whereas he argues thus, “From the 
end of this discourse, which is to comfort the Christians 
which are under persecution, and give them patience and 
constancy ; for which this was a fit consideration, That this 
judgment of God would come suddenly, and when it was 
least expected, and so would surprise them if they were not 
watchful; all which belonged peculiarly to this doom upon 
the Jews, and not to the general judgment, which those who 
then lived were not concerned in:” 

Ans. First, It is certain that the apostle, both in this 
epistle, iv. 18, and in his other epistle, ch. i., doth com- 
fort his Thessalonians under their persecutions, from the con- 


are not of the night, nor of darkness (as the Jewish 
nation αἱ present is, upon whom the darkness is come, 
John xii. 35, and who are cast into ulter darkness, see 
note on Matt. vili. 12, and as the heathen always were: 
see note on Rom. xiii. 12). 

6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others (securely in 
their sins, without expecting judgment, or preparing for 
it, Matt. xxviii. 38, Luke xvii. 26. 30); but let us 
watch and be sober (that that day do not come upon us 
unawares, nor finding us overcharged with surfetling and 
drunkenness, Luke xxi. 34. 36, this being only proper to 
them who are of the night). 

7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they 
that be drunken 5 are drunken in the night. 

8 But let us, who are (chi/dren) of the day, be sober 
(and vigilant, 1 Pet. iv. 7, v. 8), putting on the ὁ breast- 
plate of faith and love (that firm assurance of faith, which 
will not suffer us to doubt of the divine assistance, and that 
love which casts out fear of any thing we may suffer for 
the cause of Christ) ; and for an helmet (to your head), 
the hope of salvation. 

9 (Which hope of salvation we Christians have) For 
God hath not appointed us to wrath (as he hath 
done the heathen world, who are children of wrath, 


sideration of Christ’s coming to reward them at the day of 
judgment. 

Secondly, It is also certain, that Christ and his apostles 
exhort Christians to be watchful that they may not be “sur- 
prised at the day of judgment.’ So doth Christ, Matt. xxv. 
13, Luke xii. 35. 40, so doth Paul, 2 Cor. v. 9, 10, so doth 
St. Peter, 2 Pet. iii. 11, 12. 14, as being that which all men, 
who must die, and after that be judged “according to what 
they have done in the flesh,’ must be as well concerned to 
prepare for, by watchfulness, as if it were to come while they 
were living; and upon this account it is that the apostle, in 
this chapter, ver. 23, and in the forecited places, prays so oft 
that Christians “may be confirmed, and kept blameless to 
the day of the Lord Jesus.” 

Let it be then observed, that the apostle had spoken, i. 
10, of their “waiting for the coming of the Lord from hea- 
ven,” iii. 13, of his “ coming with all his saints,” iv. 16, of 
his “coming with the voice of the archangel, and of the 
trump of God.” He had also hinted, ii. 10, that the unbe- 
lieving Jews were, by their opposition to the gospel preached 
to the gentiles, and by their persecutions of them who had 
embraced it, filling up the measure of their sins, and draw- 
ing down that day of wrath upon them, which is mentioned 
Matt. xxiv. I therefore shall descant on these words, as re- 
lating to hoth these days of judgment. 

2 Ver. 3.] Josephus* informs us, that when the tumults, 
foretold by our Saviour, were begun, the Jews were expecting 
σημεῖα ἐλευθερίας, * signs from God of their liberty ;” and that 
“after all the clear signs God hath given them of their ap- 
proaching ruin, and when it was even accomplished, they 
were confidently expecting,} τὴν ἀπὸ Θεοῦ βοήϑειαν, the divine 
aid:” and, which is more remarkable, that the promise of a 
Messiah, which their sacred books declared was to come, 
κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἕκεῖνον, “ about that time,’’+ was τὸ ἐπάραν αὐτοὺς 
μάλιστα πρὸς πύλεμον, “that which chiefly incited them to the 
war.” 

3 Ver. 7.] Note, Oh, the sad dissoluteness of the manners 
of the Christians of our age, who frequently are guilty of 
that drunkenness in the day time, which heathens only 
practised in the night! 

4 Ver. 8. Θώρακα, The breastplate of the faith, &c.] This 
metaphor, relating to our Christian warfare, is taken from 
soldiers, who anciently watched or kept sentinel in their ar- 


* De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 22, p. 796. 
{ Lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 960. + Cap. 61, p. 961, F. 


804 


Eph. ii. 3, and the unbelieving Jews, who are vessels of 
wrath filted for destruction, Rom. ix. 22, and upon whom 
wrath is coming to the end, 1 Thess. ii. 16), but to ob- 
tain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, 

10 Who died for us, that whether we 5 wake or 
sleep (7. e. whether he come én the night, and so finding 
us taking our natural rest, or in the day, when we are 
eee we should live together with him (when he 
comes). 

11 Wherefore comfort yourselves together (with this 
hope), and δ edify one another, even as also ye do. 

12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know (and 
reverence) them which labour among you, and 7 are 
over you in the Lord, and admonish you; 

13 And to esteem them very highly in love for their 
work’s sake. And be at peace among yourselves. 

14 Now (παραχαλοῦμεν δὲ, and) we exhort you, 


I. THESSALONIANS. 


brethren, warn them that are unruly (as walking not 
according to the doctrine they have received from us, 
2 Thess. iii. 6. 14), comfort the feebleminded (who are 
of @ wounded spirit under afflictions, ὀλυγόψυχοι, Prov. 
xviii. 14, that are of a fearful spirit under them, Isa. 
xxxv. d, of α grieved spirit, Isa. liv. 6, whose spirit fails 
under them, Isa. lvii. 16, whose hands hang down, and 
whose knees are feeble, Heb. xii. 12), support the weak 
(in faith, who are soon scandalized, and apt to perish by 
it, Rom. xiv. 1, 2. 21, 1 Cor. viii. 7. 9—12, be patient 
toward all men. 

15 See that none render evil for evil unto any man 
(whatever the provocation may be, Rom. xii. 27); but 
ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, 
and to all men, (even them that hate you, Matt. v. 44.) 

16 8. Rejoice evermore. 

17 Pray 9 without ceasing. 


mour, having especially their helmet and breastplate on; for, 
as Livy* notes, scuto pre se erecto stabant galeati, «they 
stood with their shield before them, and their helmet on 
their heads.’ Whence he says of Paulus Amilius, that 
milites novo more scutum in vigiliam ferre vetuit; “after a 
new manner he forbade the soldiers to wear their shield when 
they watched.” Now the head and heart being the two 
chief fountains of life and sensation, the preserving them 
safe is, in effect, the preserving of the whole man. 

5 Ver. 10. Eire ypnyopapev, εἴτε καϑεύδωμεν.] That is, say 
some, “ whether we live or die.’ And true it is that Chris- 
tians dying, are said to “fall asleep.” So 1 Cor. xi. 30, 
κοιμῶνται ἱκανοὶ, “Some are fallen asleep:” xv. 51, πάντες 
μὲν ob κοιμηϑησόμεϑα, “ We shall not all sleep.” So here, iv. 
13, “I would not have you ignorant, περὶ τῶν κεκοιμημένων, 
concerning them that are fallen asleep,” and, ver. 14, τοὺς 
xotunSévras, “Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
him :” but because in all these places the Greek word is ne- 
ver καϑεύδω, but always κοιμάομαι, I prefer the exposition of 
the paraphrase. 

But then, that the “hope of salvation,” ver. 8, the περι- 
ποίησις σωτηρίας, “the obtainment of salvation by Christ Je- 
sus,” ver. 9, the “living with him,” ver. 10, should refer 
chiefly to the purchase of deliverance from Jewish persecu- 
tions, and the enjoyment of this present life, I can by no 
means grant; for the Christian’s hope is, «the hope of the 
glory of God,” Rom. ν. 3, «the hope of the redemption of 
the body from corruption,” viii. 23, 24, “the hope which is 
Jaid up for us in heaven,” Col. i. 5, “ the hope of glory,” ver. 
27, “a blessed hope,” Tit. ii. 13, “the hope of eternal life,” 
iii. 7. 

The salvation purchased for us by Christ’s death, is not 
deliverance from persecutions; for “all that will live godly 
in Christ Jesus must suffer persecutions,” 2'Tim. iii. 12. In 
these we are to be “ conformed to his death,” Rom. viii. 17, 
2 Tim. ii. 12, “he having suffered; leaving us an example, 
that we should follow his steps,” 1 Pet. ii. 21. 

And to “live with Christ,” is to live in a state of glory 
with him, and be conformed to his resurrection, Rom. vi. 8, 
2 Tim. ii. 12, Col. iii. 3, 4, 1 Pet. iv. 13, and this is the com- 
fort which the apostle had given him, iv. 18, and to which 
he now proceeds. 

6 Ver. 11. Οἰκοδομεῖτε εἰς τὸν ἕνα, Edify yourselves into one 
body,] By your mutual love to one another, as being mem- 
bers of the same body (Eph. iv. 16), and by your strict 
union, and peaceable conversation with one another, which 
is the edification of one of us unto another, commanded, 
Rom. xiv. 9 (see note on Rom. xv. 2). 

7 Ver. 12. Kai προϊσταμένους ὑμῶν. That the persons here 
mentioned as labouring among them, as being over them, in 
the plural, should be the bishops of the metropolis of Thes- 
salonica, seems very improbable; there being scarcely any 
ordinary fixed officers then placed in the church, anno Christi 
49 or 51, when this epistle was written: and therefore the 
learned Mr. Dodwell,t notwithstanding these words, saith, 
quod nulla sit rectorum mentio in utravis Epistola ad Thes- 


* Lib. xliv. 
} Lib. de Jure Laic. Sacerdotali, cap. 3, 18, p. 232, 


salonicenses ; ‘‘that there is no mention of any fixed rulers 
in either of the Epistles to the Thessalonians.” And (1.) 
we find no notice taken of them in the front of these epistles, 
as there is of the bishops and deacons, Phil. i, 1; no salu- 
tation of them in the close of these epistles, the words of 
salutation being only these, “Salute all the brethren with a 
holy kiss.” (2.) We find no directions given to them in par- 
ticular (but only to the brethren in general) touching such 
matters as must have related to their office only, or chiefly, 
had they been settled rulers in the church. ‘he charge in 
the very next verse runs thus: “ We exhort you, brethren, 
warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, sup- 
port the weak.” In the Second Epistle, iii. 6, thus: “ We 
command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that 
walks disorderly, and not according to the tradition which 
ye received from us:” and, ver. 13, 14, « And ye, brethren, 
if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that 
man, and have no company with him, that he may be 
ashamed ; yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him 
as a brother ;” and, lastly, to these brethren the adjuration is 
here directed, ver. 27, “ charging them by the Lord, that this 
epistle be read to all the holy brethren.” It is therefore to 
be noted, that the apostles, prophets, preachers, evangelists, 
who were all extraordinary officers, are reckoned among those 
whom God had settled in the church, 1 Cor. xii. 12, and 
Christ ascending up on high, had given for the edification of 
his body, Eph. iv. 11, 12. Some of these prophets and 
teachers were in most churches, as at Antioch, Acts xiil. 1, 
and officiated in them, ver. 3, at Rome, xii. 6, 7, at Corinth, 
1 Cor. xiv., at Galatia, see note on vi. 1. Some of them were 
itinerants, sent by the apostles, or prophets, to teach other 
churches, and by the Holy Spirit separated to that work, 
Acts xiii. 2—4, exhorting and confirming the Christians 
where they came, as being prophets authorized so to do, 
Acts xvi. 32, and travelling up and down for the converting 
and establishing of the gentiles, 3 John 7, 8 (see note on 1 
Cor. xii. 28). Of one of these two kinds of prophets, and 
teachers, and spiritual men, the apostle may here be under- 
stood. 

Know them who labour among you, and are over you in 
the Lord.] Here saith Theophylact, «If you honour them 
who preside over you in temporal affairs, how much more 
should you respect them who do it in spiritual things, who 
regenerate you in baptism, pray for you, visit you in sick- 
ness, and minister physic to your souls.” 

8 Ver. 16. Πάντοτε χαίρετε.) Thus κα εἰς πειρασμοὺς, καν 
εἰς λύπας ἐμπέσητε, CEcumenius; “Though you fall into 
manifold temptations and afflictions” (James i. 2), and be 
brought into a very low condition in this world ; yet “rejoice 
in the Lord always” (Phil. iv. 4), “rejoice in the hope of 
the glory of God” (Rom. v. 3), and of that great reward 
you shall receive for all your sufferings (Matt. v. 11, 12, 
Heb. x. 34), and in the spiritual fruits they work in you 
(Rom. v. 4, James i. 3), 

9 Ver. 17. ᾿Αδιαλείπτως, Without ceasing.] To give, once 
for all, the true sense of those injunctions, so frequent in the 
scripture, to “ pray, and give thanks always,” and “ without 
ceasing ;”’ observe, 


CHAPTER V. : 


18 "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will 
of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 

19 ™ Quench not the Spirit. 

20 12 Despise not prophesyings. 

21 Prove all things (by the spirit of discretion 
which is in the church, and the consonancy of their pre- 


805 


tended prophecies and interpretations wilh what we have 
delivered to you; and then) hold fast that which is 

ood. 

22 (4nd) Abstain from all appearance of evil. 

23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; 
and 7 pray God (that) your 15 whole spirit and soul 


. roe 
First, That these phrases do, in the mildest sense, import, 
that these should be the employment of every day, our morn- 
ing and evening sacrifice; that so beginning and ending the 
day with them, we may be, in the scripture language, said to 
do them “always.” ‘Thus Luke tells us, xxiv. 53, that the 
apostles * were continually in the temple, διαπαντὸς, praising 
God ;” that is, they were, καϑ᾽ ἡμέραν, “ daily in the temple,” 
Acts ii. 46, 47, resorting thither at the third hour of the 
morning, and at the ninth of the evening sacrifice (Acts iii. 
1). The sacrifice which was appointed to be thus offered 
daily at morning and evening, is in the Hebrew, +ynnz, “ the 
continual sacrifice,” Dan. viii. 11, and accordingly is render- 
ed by the Septuagint, ἡ ϑυσία διαπαντός. ‘Thus the mincha, 
which the high-priest offered every day, half of it in the 
morning, and half in the evening, is styled by them, ἡ ϑυσία 
διαπαντὸς, * the continual sacrifice,” Lev. vi. 20. The burnt- 
offering which was offered, without intermission, twice a day, 
is, in the Hebrew, syonm Sy; and in the LXX,, ὁλοκαύτωμα 
τὸ διαπαντὸς, “the continual sacrifice,’ Numb. xxviii. 24. 
31. And in allusion to it, the author to the Hebrews saith 
of our high-priest, “ By him let us offer up the sacrifice of 
praise to God continually.” ‘This therefore is the prime im- 
port of the phrase. 

Secondly, These phrases do import, that we should be 
employed in the performance of these duties, as Providence 
doth minister occasion for them. In this sense is the word 
“always” used twice, when our Lord saith, “I was always 
in the temple, whither the Jews always resort,” John xviii. 
20; for neither did the Jews always resort unto the temple, 
but only at the hours of prayer; nor did Christ always teach 
in it, but only when he went up to Jerusalem. And thus 
the Holy Ghost, in scripture, leads us to expound these 
phrases, enjoining us to “abound always in every good 
work,” 2 Cor. ix. 8, and elsewhere, to “do good, ὡς καιρὸν 
ἔχομεν, as we have occasion,” Gal. vi. 10. So, to “pray 
always,” Luke xviii. 1, is to pray ἐν παντὶ καιρῷ, “in every 
season,” xxi. 36. And, to “pray without ceasing,” here, is 
to pray, ἐν παντὶ καιρῷ, “in every opportunity,’ Eph. vi. 
18. So 1 Mace. xii. 11, ἡμεῖς οὖν ἐν παντὶ καιρῷ ἀδιαλείπτως, 
“We at all times, without ceasing, both in our feasts and 
other convenient days, do remember you in the sacrifices 
which we offer ;” i. e. we do it as oft as we have occasion to 
offer sacrifice. 

Thirdly, In reference to our prayers particularly, it im- 
ports, that we should not grow faint and weary, when Pro- 
vidence seems for a season to defer the blessing we implore 
(Luke xviii. 1), but should still προσμένειν, “abide in sup- 
plication,” 1 Tim. v. 5, and ἀγρυπνεῖν, “watch unto it with 
all perseverance,” Eph. vi. 18. 

10 Ver. 18. "Ev παντὶ, In every thing.] For sparing and 
preventing, for common and extraordinary, general and spe- 
cial, past and present, temporal and spiritual mercies; not 
only for prosperous and grateful, but also for afflicting pro- 
vidences, for chastisements, and seasonable corrections ; 
πάντας yap πρὸς τὸ συμφέρον ποιεῖ ὃ Θεὸς, Kav ἡμεῖς ἀγνοοῦμεν 
αὐτοῦ τὰς οἰκονομίας, “ for God designs them all for our good, 
though we at present see not how they tend unto it.” 

MN Ver. 19. Quench not the Spirit.) Τουτέστι χάρισμα μὴ 
ἐκφράσσατε καὶ κωλύετε, τῷ ἀποστρέφεσϑαι καὶ μὴ ἐᾶν λαλεῖν, 
Ccumen, i. 6. « Hinder not the gifts of the Spirit, by turn- 
ing away from them that have them, and not suffering them 
to speak.” These gifts were quenched by strife, emulation, 
schisms, and contention about them (1 Cor. iii. 1. 3): (2. 
By a disorderly use of them, not to the edification of the 
church, but to vain ostentation, confusion in the church, 
and the scandal of heathens (1 Cor. xiv.), by a neglect to 
exercise them : “ Forbid not to speak with tongues” (1 Cor. 
xv. 39). 

ἐπ Ver 20. Despise not prophesyings.] Προφάσει τῶν ψευ- 
δοπροφητῶν, Kai τοὺς ἀληϑεῖς διέπτυον, CEcumenius. Some of 
these false prophets had crept into the church at Thessa- 


lonica, as is hinted in those words, “Be not troubled by 
(them, who pretend a revelation from the) Spirit, as if the 
day of Christ were at hand” (2 Thess. ii. 2), which made 
them less regardful of what was delivered by men pretending 
to this gift: and made it necessary for John to say, “ Believe 
not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God: 
for many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 
iv.1). And to prevent the mischief the Thessalonians might 
receive from them, the apostle here adds, « ‘I'ry all things,” 
ἄς. ver. 21. 

8 Ver. 21. Δοκιμάζετε, Try.) Note, That the apostle doth 
not here bid the guides of the church try all things, and the 
people hold fast that which they delivered to them ; but gives 
an injunction common to all Christians, “ having their senses 
exercised to discern betwixt good and evil;” to all who are 
obliged to hold fast that which is good, and not to believe 
false prophets ; whichis a strong argument for the perspicuity 
and the sufficiency of holy scripture for this work, and 
against the necessity of a living judge: for he that must try 
all things, must also try the doctrine of this living judge; 
and therefore till he hath made this trial, must not admit his 
doctrine as an article of Christian faith; for these words 
plainly teach that what we must hold fast, must first be tried. 
“ Hearers,” saith Basil, “who are instructed in the scrip- 
tures, ought to try the things spoken by their teachers, καὶ τὰ 
μὲν σύμφωνα ταῖς γραφαῖς déxecSat, τὲ δὲ ἀλλότρια ἐκβάλλειν, 
and receive those doctrines which are consonant, and reject 
those which are alien from the holy scriptures; because 
St. Paul hath said, Try all things; hold fast that which is 
good.” See Clem. Alex. Strom. i. p. 354. Strom. vi. p. 655. 
Orig. in Joh. tom. xix. ed. Huet. p. 268, and Hom. 2 in 
Ezek. f. 135, G. Jerome in Ep. ad Eph. lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 
101, Cyril of Alex. in Joh. lib. iv. p. 374. 407, and lib. i. 
adv. Nestor. p. 2. 

M Ver. 22. ᾿Απὸ παντὸς εἰδους πονηροῦ, From all kinds or 
sorts of evil.] So the Syriac doth render these words. So 
Chrysostom and Theophylact upon this place. So Basil and 
Leontius, cited by Dr. Hammond,.who descant thus upon 
the words: “ Fly not from this or that only, but from every 
sin.” Or, secondly, if the apostle here exhorts us to abstain 
from “all appearance of evil;” his meaning cannot be this, 
that we should abstain from what appears evil to others: it 
being, in many cases, impossible to know what appears so, 
and impracticable to act by such a rule; because it would 
destroy our Christian liberty in things indifferent, and create 
in our minds continual perplexities, there being scarcely 
any thing which may not appear evil, to some or other of 
those numerous sects which swarm among us: he therefore 
only τη δὲ enjoin us to abstain from that which, after trial, 
seems evil to ourselves, and is judged by us so to be; for 
the apostle makes these two things, the “ holding that which 
is good,” and the “abstaining from all appearance of evil,” 
the consequent of trying all things. Now we try all things, 
that, after trial, we may hold that which seemeth to us good, 
and abstain from that which seemeth to us evil, not to ab- 
stain from that which seemeth so to others only. 

15 Ver. 23. 'Ολόκληρον ὑμῶν τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ, καὶ τὸ 
σῶμα, Your whole spirit, and soul, and body.| Here the 
apostle justifies the ancient and true philosophy, that man 
is, as Nemesius styles him, τριμερὴς ὑπόστασις, “a compound 
of three differing parts.’ ‘This was the doctrine of the 
Pythagoreans, as we learn from Jamblichus,* who, having 
told us that man consists of soul and body, adds that “the 
soul consists of two parts; one endued with reason, and one 
without reason.” This also was the philosophy of the Pla- 
tonists, as we lear from Nemesius,j Sallust, and Laertius, 


* φυχῆς dt, τὸ piv ἦν ἔχον λύγον, τὸ dé οὐκ ἔχον. Protrept. 
Ρ. 34, 35. 
ἡ Kat ἡ piv ἄλογος τοῖς σωματικοῖς ἕπεται πάθεσιν" ἡ δὲ 
λογικὴ aisSnceds, καὶ φαντασίας ἄρχουσα: τοῦ ὁὲ σώματος 
95 


806 ‘ 


and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. 

24 Faithful zs he that calleth you (to this holiness), 
who also will do (his part towards) it. 

25 Brethren, pray for us (see note on Col. iv. 4). 

26 Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss. 


PREFACE TO 


27 "I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be 
read unto all the holy brethren. 
28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 
Amen. 
4 The first epist/le unto the Thessalonians was writ- 
ten from Athens. 


who inform us, that “there is in man a soul irrational, which 
follows the affections of the body ; and a mind, which useth 
the body as its instrument, and fights against it.” This also 
was the doctrine of the stoics ; whence Antoninus saith, the 
three constituent parts of man are, σῶμα, ψυχὴ, νοῦς, “the 
body, soul, and mind.” Trenzus,* and Clemenst of Alex- 
andria, and Origen,+ say the same. Mr. Le Clerc here is 
very positive, that “ this philosophy is false,” and that « there 
is nothing in man but his body, and his reasonable soul.” 
But he saith nothing to sustain this confidence against those 
two excellent philosophers, Gassendus,§ and Dr. Willis,|| 
who have established this philosophy beyond all reasonable 
contradiction. Nor can the conflict betwixt the mind and 
spirit, and the flesh, mentioned Rom. viii. from ver. 14 to 
the 25th, and Gal. v. 16, 17, be explained; nor can any 
man tell what the τὸ ἀρχικὸν, or ruling principle in us, is to 
govern, without admitting this inferior soul as the fountain 
of our sensual appetites, or even tell us what it is to die; 
unless it be to make this inferior soul, which consists in the 
motion of the animal spirits, and the sensitive appetites they 
produce in us, to cease to act, or move, as formerly. He 
will have ψυχὴ here to signify /ife, as indeed it doth in other 
places; but never where constituent parts of a man are 
enumerated as here they are; and seeing the spirit and the 
body are unquestionably the constituent parts of a man, it 
is reasonable to conceive, that the ψυχὴ mentioned here 
must be so also, especially since it is divided from the spirit 
and the body by the particle καὶ. Moreover, by following 
the motions of this brutish appetite, is a man styled ψυχικὸς, 
«the animal man,” and by being animated and informed by 


μετὰ λόγου καταφρονεῖ: De Diis, &c. cap. 8. D. Laert. lib. 
li. p. 219. 

* Perfectus homo constat came, animo, et spirit, Iren. 
lib. v. cap. 9, p. 446, et lib. ii. cap. 62. 

ἡ Οἱ μὲν τρεῖς σὰρξ δὲ, καὶ ψυχὴ, καὶ πνεῦμα. Strom. iii. p. 

$'O ἄνϑρωπος συνέστηκεν ἐκ σώματος, καὶ ψυχῆς, καὶ πνεύματος. 
Orig. Philoc. p. 8. 

§ Phys. lib. ix. cap. 11, 8. 3. 

| De Anima Brut. cap. 7. 


this ψυχὴ, is the body called σῶμα ψυχικὸν, “an animal 
body,” 1 Cor. xv. 44, 45; and by conveying of this Wuxi, 
or inferior soul, to his posterity, is the first Adam said to be 
made εἰς Ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, to convey this animal life to his pos- 
terity ; though this at last may be only a strife about words, 
the animal spirits being included in the body. 

16 Ver. 24. Πιστὸς ὃ καλῶν ὑμᾶς, Faithful is he that calleth 
you.] Who therefore will not be wanting in what is requisite 
on his part towards it; I say his part, for if the fidelity of 
God required that he would sanctify and preserve us blame- 
less to the end, without our care and industry, or should 
work in us absolutely and certainly that care, and the apos- 
tle believed this, how could he fear lest the Thessalonians 
should be so overcome by Satan’s temptations, as that his 
labour with them might have been in vain (1 Thess. iii. 5), 
this being in effect to fear that God might be unfaithful to 
his promise ? 

7 Ver. 27. ‘OpxiSw ὑμᾶς, Tadjure you by the Lord.) In 
judicial oaths the custom among the Jews was, not for the 
person who came under the obligation of an oath to pro- 
nounce the words of swearing with his own mouth, but an 
oath was extracted from him by the magistrate or superior, 
and so he became bound to answer upon oath, “ by hearing 
the voice of adjuration,” φωνὴν ὁρκισμοῦ, so the Septuagint, 
Ley. v. 1. So Gen. 1. 16, “Our father, ὥρκισε, made us 
swear before he died : Josh. vi. 26, ὥρκισεν "Ingots ἐναντίον 
Κυρίου, “Joshua adjured them, saying, Cursed is the man 
before the Lord, that raiseth up and buildeth Jericho ;” 1 
Sam. xiv. 24, “Saul had adjured the people, bpxicas ὥρκισε 
τὸν λαὸν, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food ;” 
that is, he charged the people with an oath: 1 Kings xxii. 
16, ποσάκις dxpicw ce; “ How oft shall I adjure thee?” So 
in the New Testament, the high-priest saith to Christ, bpxitw 
σε κατὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ ζῶντος, “1 adjure thee by the living God.” 
Now hence two things are evident; (1.) That Paul did not 
judge all judicial oaths unlawful, for then he would not have 
laid this oath upon his Thessalonians. (2.) That Christ did 
not forbid judicial, but only voluntary oaths, because it was 
not in the power of the Jews, to whom he spake, to avoid 
judicial oaths, nor would he then have answered to the 
adjuration of the high-priest. 


THE 


SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE, 


Havrne offered a new interpretation of the second chapter 
of this epistle, which treateth of “the man of sin,” com- 
monly called “antichrist,” there mentioned, I shall here 
give the reasons why I could not acquiesce in any of the 
expositions already given either by protestants or papists, 
and answer some objections against the exposition I have 
put upon the words of the apostle in that chapter. And, 

§. 1. First, Whereas Mr, Obadiah Walker hath taken a 
great deal of pains to apply all that the apostle saith to 
Mahomet and his followers, that vain conceit will be demon- 
stratively confuted from the following considerations : 


1. That the apostle here exhorts the Thessalonians “ not 
to be shaken in mind, or troubled, either by spirit, or by 
letter, or by word, as from us (the apostles), as if the day of 
the Lord were at hand,” ver. 2. Now what day doth the 
apostle mean? Surely that day when “ the Lord shall con- 
sume the wicked one by the breath of his mouth, and by 
the brightness of his coming,” ver. 8. Now sure it is, that 
Mahomet came not till five hundred and sixty-seven years 
after the writing this epistle, viz. A. D. 608, nor is our Lord 
yet come to “consume him with the breath of his mouth,” 
nor know we when he will do so. How therefore could it 
be, that they, who were foretold so punctually of the apos- 
tasy which should introduce “ the man of sin,” and what 
yet hindered the revelation of him in his season, as the 


II. THESSALONIANS. 


Thessalonians were (ver. 5, 6), should think the day of the 
Lord’s coming to destroy Mahomet and his followers was at 
hand? or that they should be led into this apprehension 
by any word, epistle, or revelation, made, spoken, or written, 
by the apostles or prophetic men concerning him. Could 
they then know from the mouth of Paul, that this man of 
sin was one Mahomet, who was not to appear till five hun- 
dred and sixty-seven years after his speaking of him; and 
when he did appear, was to continue above a thousand years 
before the coming of our Lord to consume him, and yet by 
any of his words be induced to conceive “the day of the 
Lord was at hand?” 

Moreover, If the coming of our Lord here mentioned, 
was to consume the beast, or Roman antichrist, seeing this 
beast was to arise out of the ruins of the Roman empire, 
and if Paul had told them any thing from Daniel of this 
matter, he must have let them know that this was so; and 
also that this antichrist, when risen out of the ruins of that 
empire, was to continue for “a time and times, and half a 
time,” that is, twelve hundred and sixty years before the 
coming of our Saviour to destroy him. It is as difficult to 
conceive how, after this, the Thessalonians could think 
Christ's coming to consume the beast could be then instant 
when this epistle was indited. 

§.2. Arg. 2. I argue, Secondly, against this opinion, from 
those words, “ Remember ye not that when I was with you, 
I told you of these things?” ver. 5—7. That is, I told you 
of the apostasy that was to precede the man of sin; how 
he should “exalt himself above all that is called God,” &c. 
and what it was that hindered his being revealed in his sea- 
son: now can any one believe that the apostle, who was 
not with the Thessalonians long enough to “ perfect what 
was lacking in their faith” (1 Thess. iii. 10), should yet em- 
ploy his time in telling them a long story of the apostasy of 
the Arians and Nestorians, saith Mr. Walker, and of one 
Mahomet, who should thus exalt himself, and what then hin- 
dered his being revealed? Could he say that very “ mystery 
of iniquity,” this Mahomet was to bring into the world, then 
wrought, only because there were some heretics, already 
come, who “ confessed not that Jesus Christ was come in the 
flesh,” though Mahomet confessed this very freely? As well 
may it be said, that the mystery of quakerism was wrought 
in the second and third centuries, because some heretics of 
those times taught doctrines like those they now profess. 

And since it is equally improbable the apostle, in that 
little time, should speak to them of the apostasy of the 
church of Rome from the faith, and how the bishop of 
Rome should lord it over Christian emperors, and over the 
laws of God and Christ, and “wear out the saints of the 
Most High” for twelve hundred and sixty years; and is still 
more improbable, that he should say all this then to them, 
and here again bring the same thing to their remembrance, 
and yet that not the least intilnation of any thing of this na- 
ture should appear in any Christian writers on this subject 
for six following centuries: since, I say, this is so, this argu- 
ment must be of equal strength against those who conceive the 
papal antichrist should primarily and chiefly be intended here. 

§.3. Arg. 3. Thirdly, largue against this opinion from those 
words, “ And then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom 
the Lord shall consume with the breath of his mouth,” &c. 
ver. 8. For hence it seems plain this wicked one was to 
be destroyed by the coming of our Lord soon after the time 
of his revelation, and not above a thousand years after; as 
both the opinion of those papists, who say that he is Ma- 
homet, and of those protestants, who say that he is the pope 
and his clergy, must make the interval betwixt his revelation 
and destruction be; for the same thing that hindered his 
revelation, hindered the coming of our Lord to destroy 
him thus revealed; and these two things seem to be thus 
connected: The day of the Lord will not come, till there 
come first an apostasy, and by that a revelation of the man 
of sin; when therefore this apostasy, and this revelation of 
the man of sin happens, then will Christ come to consume 
him. And otherwise the Christians of after ages might 
have been subject, from the apostle’s wards, to a like mistake 
to that here mentioned, seeing, to tell them they had no 
Teason yet to expect this day of the Lord, because it was 
not to come till the man of sin was revealed ; and to add, 
when that which hindered the revelation of him in his sea- 


807 


son was once taken away, then should he also be revealed 
whom the Lord should consume with the brightness of his 
coming, must fairly lead them to expect this day soon after 
his revelation, and not after he had been thus revealed above 
a thousand years. 

§. 4. Those arguments are such as equally confute the 
opinion of those protestants, who conceive the apostle pri- 
marily to characterize the pope and his clergy, and of those 
who apply these words to Mahomet. 

Arg. 4. But, Fourthly, I argue against them, who suppose 
Mahomet to be the man here intended, from these words of 
the apostle, that the coming of this wicked one shall be 
“according to the working of Satan in all power, signs, and 
lying wonders,” ver. 9; for the words δυνάμεις, σημεῖα, τέρατα, 
“powers, signs, and wonders,” are never used in scrip- 
ture for any wonderful things done by God upon men, or 
any ecstasies or conferences of angels with them, but always 
for outward signs done by men upon other things or persons : 
such as were the healing of the sick and lame, the casting 
out of devils, the raising of the dead (see note on Heb, 
ii. 4). Now Mahomet every where professeth that he camo 
not with any such miracles, and therefore he could not be 
the person here designed : for his opposers demanded of him 
such miracles, saying, “ Moses and Jesus, according to thy 
own doctrine, wrought miracles to prove their mission from 
God; and therefore if thou be a prophet, and greater than 
any that were ever sent before thee, as thou boastest thyself 
to be, do thou the like miracles to manifest it to us; do thou 
make the dead to rise, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear, 
&c., and then we will believe in thy word.” This objection, 
saith Dr. Prideaux,* he endeavoured to evade by several an- 
swers: ‘one while he tells them, he is only a man sent to 
preach to them the rewards of paradise, and the punish- 
ments of hell: at another time, that their predecessors con- 
temned the miracles of Salch and the other prophets, and that 
for this reason God would work no more among them: and 
a while after, that those whom God had ordained to believe, 
should believe without miracles ; and those whom he had not 
ordained to believe, should not be convinced, though all 
these miracles should be wrought in their sight, which they 
required. But this not satisfying, as being a plain confes- 
sion that he wanted that power of miracles which all other 
prophets had to prove their mission, several of those that 
were his followers departed from him. Having therefore 
got the sword into his hand, and an army to back his cause, 
his doctrine then was, that God had sent Moses and Jesus 
with miracles, and yet men would not be obedient to their 
word ; and therefore he had now sent him, in the last place, 
without miracles, to force them by the power of the sword 
to do his will. 

« However (says he) it is not to be denied, that there are 
several miracles reckoned up which Mahomet is said to have 
wrought ; as that he did cleave the moon in two; that the 
trees went forth to meet him; and that the stones saluted 
him ;” which are the miracles here mentioned by Mr. Walker. 
But then he adds, that «they who relate them are only such 
as are reckoned among their fabulous and legendary writers ; 
their learned doctors renounce them all, as doth Mahomet 
himself, who in several places of his Aleoran owns that he 
wrought no miracles.” 

§. 5. Against the opinion of Grotius, that Caius Caligula 
was the man of sin, it is superfluous to say much, it being 
grounded upon an error in chronology, that St. Paul writ 
this epistle, A. D. 40, when Caius appeared ; whereas it is 
certain, from 1 Thess. i. 5, that Paul had been at Thessa- 
lonica before this epistle was writ; for Paul went up to Je- 
rusalem, say the best chronologers, A. D. 49, and itis evident 
that then he had not been at Thessalonica, and so had writ 
no epistle to them, it being writ after “his entrance in to 
them,” ver. 9, after he had “spoken to them the gospel of 
God,” ii. 2, after he had been “taken from them a short 
time,” ver. 17. Now that he had not been at Thessalonica 
before his going up to the council at Jerusalem, appears from 
the history of the Acts, which saith, that after this council 
he went to Antioch, xv. 30, then through Syria and Cilicia, 
ver. 41, then to Derbe and Lystra, xvi. 1, 2, then through 
Phrygia, Galatia, and Mysia, and so to 'T'roas, ver. 6—8, 


* Life of Mahomet, p. 30—32, 


808 PREFACE TO 


then to Samothracia, Neapolis, and Philippi, ver. 11, 12, 
and having passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, he 
came to Thessalonica, xvii. 1. He therefore coming only 
thither eight years after the death of Caius, and not writing 
this epistle till after he had left them, could not then write of 
Caius, as “ the man of sin” to be yet revealed. 

§. 6. I pass on to the interpretation of Dr. Hammond, 
which is this : 

1. “That the man of sin, the son of perdition, was Simon 
Magus, together with his followers the Gnostics, designed for 
destruction (Paraph. on ver. 3). 

2 «That Simon Magus setting himself at the head of 
them, Christ should destroy him by extraordinary means, as 
the preaching and the miracles of St. Peter; and the Gnos- 
tics that adhered to him, at the destruction of the unbelieving 
Jews (Paraph. on ver. 8). 

3. “That the falling away first, must be a great departure 
or defection from the faith to the heresy of the Gnostics, or 
the Christians breaking off their compliance with the im- 
penitent Jews, leaving them as obdurate, and departing 
avowedly to the gentiles (Paraph. on ver. 3). 

4, “'That which withholdeth, and he that letteth, was the 
apostles not giving over preaching to the Jews, as hopeless 
and refractory, and going to the gentiles (Paraph. on ver. 
6); and the Christians walking warily, and doing nothing 
contrary to the Mosaical law. 

5. “That the mystery already working was this sort of 
men already formed into a sect under their ringleaders Simon 
and Carpocrates” (Paraph. on ver. 7). 

Now against this opinion I argue, 

First, From “the day of the Lord” here mentioned, ver. 
1,2; for that indeed doth often signify in scripture the day of 
the Lord’s coming to the destruction of the temple, city, and 
nation, of the Jews; which, saith the reverend Dr. Ham- 
mond, is the true import of the phrase here; but it never 
signifies his coming to destroy Simon Magus. Moreover, it 
is plain from the eighth verse that this coming of the Lord 
is to destroy “the man of sin,” he being to be destroyed “ by 
the brightness of his coming ;”” how then can this day be the 
time appointed for the destruction of Simon Magus, who 
perished some years before Christ’s coming to the destruction 
of Jerusalem? for, according to Valesius,* Eusebius, and 
Symeon Metaphrastes, Simon perished in the reign of Clau- 
dius; he coming then to Rome, and St. Peter then also com- 
ing after him, to detect his frauds; whence he well argues, 
that “it is not probable he should long there insult over 
the Christian faith, St. Peter being then present to op- 
pose him.”} Now if this be true, he perished at the least 
sixteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and Christ 
came to destroy him within four years after the writing 
this epistle. If he perished, as others will have it, in the 
fourth of Nero, he must die twelve years before Christ came 
to destroy Jerusalem; or if he continued till the twelfth 
of Nero, opposing Christianity twelve years at Rome, under 
the very nose of the two chief apostles, which is not very 
probable, yet must he die four years before Christ’s coming 
to the destruction of Jerusalem, and therefore could not be 
destroyed, “ by the brightness of his coming.” 

Must we then refer this only to the destruction of his fol- 
lowers the Gnostics? That they were then in being, I could 
never yet see proved, and much less that any of them perished 
at the destruction of Jerusalem. I know the doctor cites Eu- 
sebius,} as saying, that the Gnostics “in a moment were ut- 
terly extinct ;” whereas it is manifest, Eusebius says this not 
of the Gnostics, but the Nicolaitans; nor could he say it of 
them, who flourished chiefly in the second century ; whence 
it is styled, seculum Gnosticum: moreover, it is a plain flaw 
in this, or any like interpretation, to make the head of any 


* Eusebium secutus Symeon Metaphrastes Simonis interi- 
tum Claudii temporibus accidisse scribit. Not.in Euseb. lib. 
il. cap. 15. 

+ Ego Eusebii sententiam veriorem esse puto ; cim enim 
constet ex Justino (Apol. ii. p. 69, E. et p. 91, B. et Ireneo, 
lib. i. cap. 20) Simonem sub Claudio Romam venisse, et 
fraudulenta edidisse miracula, cumque etiam constet Petrum 
ejusdem Claudii temporibus Romam se contulisse, ad Simonis 
fraudes confutandas, verisimile non est Simonem tamdiu, 
presente et adstante Petro, insultasse fidei Christiane. 

+ Lib. iii. cap, 29. 


party, with his followers, to be the “man of sin” to be con- 
sumed by the coming of our Lord; and yet to make the anti- 
signanus perish before his coming, and his followers only 
at it. 

Add to this, that the whole foundation of this opinion 
depends upon the tale of Simon Magus'’s* flying in the air 
at Rome, and his falling down and breaking his bones at the 
prayer of St. Peter;f which is a thing not only uncertain, 
but, in the judgment of many learned persons, absolutely 
false. Cotelerius, a Romanist, is forced, ἐπέχειν, to suspend 
his judgment about it: First, By reason of the original of the 
story, which, saith he, had its rise, ὁ libris apocryphis et 
pseudepigraphis,¢ “from apocryphal and spurious authors.” 

Secondly, By reason of the great discrepancy to be found 
among them, in their relations of divers circumstances of this 
story: some of them saying, that Simon Magus made him- 
self “wings to fly; some, that he was “held up by two 
devils ἢ others, that he made himself “a chariot,’ or 
ascended in a fiery chariot, drawn by four horses; and all 
say that he did this “ by magic.” 

Again, they differ equally as to the effects this fall had 
upon this magician; some saying that he died by it, and 
was seen dead upon the spot,** that it dashed out his 
brains,j{ broke his whole body,#+ yea, broke it into four 
parts:§§ others, that Peter prayed he might not die, and so 
he only broke his thigh, say some;|\\| or his hands and feet, 
as others. 

Some tell us, this was done in the reign of Claudius; and 
others, that it was done in the reign of Nero; some, that it 
was done by Peter{4 only; others, that it was done by 
Peter and Paul;*** some, that it was done by prayer ΓΤ 
and others, that they added fasting to their prayer: so little 
agreement is there amongst them in any circumstance of this 
action. And, 

Thirdly, he story may deserve to be suspected, by reason 
of the silence of all the ancients of the three first centuries, 
who speak much of his being at Rome, and of his being 
honoured with a statue there; but say nothing of his flight 
or fall, by virtue of the prayers of Peter, though they had 
just occasion to speak of it, had they believed the story, 
For Justin Martyr,++ in his Apology, speaks twice of this 
statue; and desires the emperor and senate, that, learning 


* Hc fabula ἃ scriptoribus ecclesiasticis passim inculea- 
tur. Heraldus ad Arnob. lib. ii. p. 50. 

+ Viderant enim currum Simonis Magi et quadrigas 
igneas, Petri ore difflatas, et nominato Christo evanuisse : 
viderant, inquam, fidentem diis falsis, et ab eisdem metuenti- 
bus proditum, pondere precipitatum suo, cruribus jacuisse 
perfractis. Arnob. p. 50. Tum illustris illa adversis Si- 
monem Petri ac Pauli congressio fuit, qui cum magicis arti- 
bus, ut se deum probaret, duobus suffultus demoniis evolas- 
set, orationibus apostolorum fugatis demonibus, delapsus in 
terram, populo inspectante, disruptus est. Sulp. lib. ii. cap. 
41. Petrus Simonem alta ceeli magico volatii petentem, 
dissoluté carminum potestate, dejecit et stravit. 

+ Constit. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 9. Abdias Hist. lib. i. cap. 
15. Hegesip. de Bello Jud, lib. iii. cap. 3. Autor Actorum 
Petri et Pauli. 

§ Hegesippus, Abdias, Patres vi. Syn. Act. 18. 

|| MerewpioSeis ὑπὸ δαιμόνων ἵπτατο μετάρσιος εἷς dépa. Const. 
Apost. ᾿Ἐπ᾽ ὑχήματος δαιμόνων ἐπ᾽ ἀέρος φερομένου. Cyril. Cat. 
vi. p. 54, A. Sulpitius. 

4“ Arnobius. Magicis artibus volare ccepit. August. tom. 
x. serm. 2, de Petro et Paulo Apostolis. 

ἘΞ Νεκρὸν εὐθὺς ἀπέδειξαν. Cyril. Hieros. ibid. 

+t In caput collapsus cerebro viam dispersit. Nicet. 
Thess. lib. iv. cap. 1. 

++ Συντριβεὶς ἅπαν τὸ δύστηνον σῶμα. Metaphrast. 

§§ Τέσσαρα μέρη γενόμενος. Act. Petri et Pauli apud Cotel. 
Not. in lib. vi. Const. Apost. p. 269. 

Il ἹΡήξαντα δὲ, μὴ ϑανατῶσαι, ἀλλὰ συντρίψαι---συντρίβεται τὸ 
ἰσχίον, καὶ τῶν ποδῶν τοὺς ταρσοὺς. Const, Apost. 

«4 Arnobius. Constit. Apost. S. Ambros. S. Austin. 

*** Sulpitius Sev. Cyrillus Hieros. Pridié cum ejusdem 
urbis ecclesid jejunaverit. August. Ep, ad Casul. 

THT Διὰ τῆς προσευχῆς. Cyril. Hieros. &c. 

+44 Taw re ἱερὰν σύγκλητον, kai τὸν δῆμον τὸν ὑμέτερον ouverte 
γνώμονας ταὔτης ἡμῶν τῆς ἀξιώσεως παραλαβεῖν αἱτοῦμεν" ἵν᾽ εἴ τις 
ἐν τοῖς dx’ ἐκείνου διδάγμασι κατεχόμενος, τ᾽ ἀληθὲς μαθὼν, τὴν 


II. THESSALONIANS. 


809 


the truth, they would abolish that statue; but he saith not | ites rejected all his epistles,” ἀποστάτην ἀποκαλοῦντες αὐτὸν τοῦ 


one word of this illustrious combat, which was so admirable 
a conviction of his fraud. Clemens of Alexandria® saith, 
that Simon heard Peter preach a little while, but addeth 
not one word of what he suffered by Peter's prayers. Ter- 
tulliant having noted, that after the coming of the gospel 
magicians were always punished, speaks only of Simon Ma- 
gus as ejected out of the church; though he observes, that 
Elymas was struck blind: and that in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles,¢ he received a just sentence, and worthy of himself, 
from the apostle Peter, but addeth not one word of what he 
suffered from Peter at Rome. Origen§ proves, that there 
Was otdsv ϑεῖον, “ nothing divine” in Simon, from the nature 
of his doctrine, which made “idolatry a thing indifferent;” 
and from the success of it, it being in his time almost ex- 
tinct, and that he perished with his silver; but adds not a 
hint of his perishing by the prayers of the apostles, which was 
the strongest proof against his pretensions that he was “ the 
power of God.’ Eusrbius] declares, how the devil raised 
up Simon as the great adversary to the apostles, and how 
the divine grace, by their appearance and presence, extin- 
guished that flame; and how the providence of God sent 
Peter after him to Rome, in the days of Claudius, to set 
himself against him; and how he prevailed, by causing the 
light of the gospel to shine there; but gives not the least 
hint of his being thus overcome, or thrown down, by the 
prayers of Peter. The bishops of Rome, who, saith Cotele- 
Trius, sua tacere non solent, “ use not to be silent in matters 
relating to themselves,” say nothing of it. Nor is it credible, 
saith Hornius,§ scriptores Romanos tam memorabilem rem 
preterituros fuisse; “that all the Roman writers of those 
times, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, &c. should pass over so 
memorable a thing in silence;” especially if Simon was so 
honoured by Claudius, and beloved by Nero, as some authors 
of this story say he was. It seems inconsistent, saith Vale- 
sius, with that other story, of Simon’s being honoured at 
Rome “as a god, by the emperor, senate, and the people, 
and the continuance of his statue there in Justin Martyr’s 
days ;” which sure it would not have done, had he been so 
remarkably defeated or destroyed before their eyes. And, 
lastly, Austin** freely owns, that “at Rome this story was 
by most people deemed false.” And is such a tale fit to be 
laid as the foundation of the interpretation of this chapter? 

§. 7. Arg. 2. This opinion may also be confuted from 
those words, “ This day shall not come, unless there be an 
apostasy first, and the man of sin be revealed.” For, 

1. It is intolerable to think that act, which was so neces- 
sary for the promotion of the gospel among the gentiles, viz. 
the not imposing on them circumcision and the Jewish yoke, 
and the ceasing to preach in the synagogues of the Jews, was 
the apostasy intended by the apostle in these words. The 
zealots among the Jews might say of Paul, “ Thou teachest 
apostasy from the law of Moses ;’ for afterward the Ebion- 


πλάνην φυγεῖν δυνηϑῆ, καὶ τὸν ἀνδριάντα, εἰ βοὔύλεσϑε, καϑαιρήσητε. 
ho) Baw. 

* M:6' ὃν Σίμων, ἐπ᾿ ὀλίγον κηρύσσοντος rod Πέτρου, ὑπήκουσεν. 
Strom. vii. p. 764, D. 

+ Post evangelium nusquam invenies magos nisi plané 
punitos. Simon Magus jam fidelis—maledictus ab apostolis 
de fide ejectus est: alter Magus qui cum Sergio Paulo, quo- 
niam iisdem adversatur apostolis, luminum amissione mulc- 
tatus est. De Idol. cap. 9. 

+ Ex quibus est primus Simon Magus, qui in Actis Apo- 
stolorum, condignam meruit ab apostolo Petro justamque 
sententiam. De Prescript. adv. Her. cap. 46. 

§ Kai ἡ ἐνέργεια ἐμαρτύρησεν, ὅτι οὐδὲν θεῖον ὃ Σίμων gv. Lib. 
i. contra Celsum, p. 45. Οὐδαμοῦ γὰρ τῆς οἰκουμένης Σιμωνι- 
ανοί. Lib. vi. p. 282. Διόπερ Σίμωνα τὸν Μάγον αὐτὸν, dvayo- 
pstovra δύναμιν Θεοῦ, ἴσμεν ἅμα τῷ ἀργυρίῳ αὐτοῦ, εἰς ὄλεϑρον καὶ 
ἀπώλειαν κεχωρηκέναι. Com. in Johan. Ρ. 36, D. 

! ᾿Ὡσπερεὶ μέγαν ἀντίπαλον τῶν θεσπεσίων τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν 
ἀποστόλων----ῦμως δ' οὖν ἡ θεῖα καὶ ὑπερουράνιος χάρις τοῖς αὐτοὶς 
συναιρομένη διακόνοις, δι᾿ ἐπιφανείας αὐτῶν καὶ παρουσίας ἄναπτο- 
μένη, τοῦ πονηροῦ τὴν φλόγα ἡ τάχος εσβέννυ, &c. Hist. Eccl. 
lib. cap. 2, 14. 

4 Not. in Sulpitium, p. 369. 

** Est quidem hee opinio plurimorum, quamvis eam per- 
hibeant esse falsam plerique Romani. Ep. 86, ad Casulanum, 

. 387. 
᾿ Vor. IV.—102 


νύμου, “calling him an apostate from the law;” but that 
Paul himself, speaking to the gentiles, should call this his 
own practice an apostasy, is incredible. 

Moreover, what advantage would it do them in this mat- 
ter, to tell them of an apostasy which had happened before 
their conversion (Acts xiii. 46), “Lo, we turn unto the 
gentiles, for so hath the Lord commanded us,” and happened 
again about the time of writing this epistle (Acts xix. 9) ; 
and finally, saith the doctor, was completed when Paul 
came to Rome, about five or seven years after, at the most? 
Might not the coming of the Lord be at hand, though an 
apostasy, so near tu be completed, were to go before it? 
(see James v. 8, 9, 1 Pet. iv. 7.) 

2. As for the apostasy of a considerable part of Christians 


“to the abominable impiety of the Gnostics, I have all along, 


in the interpretation of these epistles, considered that, and 
find no reason to assert it, nor any thing that favours it, till 
we come to 2 Pet. ii. 20, 21. It is true, indeed, as Justin 
Martyrf and Eusebius testify, that most of the Samaritans 
worshipped Simon “as the chief god; but ὀλίγοι ἐν ἄλλοις ἔθ- 
νεσιν, few in other nations,” say they, “ did it;” but that one 
single person fell off from Christianity to him, they say not. 
Eusebius} is express, that, “neither the heresy of Simon 
Magus, nor of others, had any prevalency in the times of the 
apostles.” The great apostasy, which, after the writing this 
epistle, first appeared, and against which the catholic epistles 
of James, Peter, and John, and especially the epistle to the 
Hebrews, were written, was that of the converted Jews to 
Judaism again: and to this Dr. Lightfoot probably refers the 
apostasy here mentioned ; our Lord having foretold, that the 
devil, once cast out of them by the gospel, should return to 
them with seven more evil spirits than himself; and con- 
cluding that parable with those words, “So shall it be with 
this present generation,” Matt. xii.43—45. Which opinion is 
well consistent with my interpretation of this chapter, and may 
be embraced by them who like not my notion of this apostasy. 

Secondly, This man of sin was yet to be revealed, ver. 3, 
and there was yet a season to come, in which he was to be 
revealed, ver. 6. 8; whereas, by the confession of Dr. Ham- 
mond, Simon Magus was revealed as an opposer of Christ, 
and an ἀντίπαλος, or “ antagonist” to the apostles long before: 
for he saith, that§ « being denied the power of working mira- 
cles, which he would have bought of the apostles, soon after 
he set up, and opposed himself against Christ; and accord- 
ingly is here called, ὁ ἀντικείμενος, the adversary, or he that 
opposeth himself.” Now the time when he would have 
bought of them this power of working of miracles was A. D. 
35; that is, fourteen years before Paul wrote this epistle: if 
then soon after he set up, and opposed himself against Christ, 
he must discover himself soon after the year 35, and so 
before the writing this epistle. He adds in the same note, 
« that Simon Magus came to Rome in the beginning of Clau- 
dius’s reign, and there did such miracles by the help of the 
devils, that he was taken for a god, and accordingly had a 
statue erected to him, with this inscription, Simoni Deo 
Sancto.” Eusebius there adds, that the devil had set him up 
as the great and equal antagonist of the divine apostles. 
Jerome|| also saith, that “in the second year of Claudius, 
Peter came to Rome to oppose him.” He, therefore, 
who was then set up as the great adversary of the apostles, 
and as such opposed by them, in the second year of Claudius, 
that is, A. D. 42, must be discovered then, that is, nine years 
before the writing this epistle. Eusebius there adds, that 
the flame he had there raised, by the appearance and pre- 
sence of the apostles, i. e. of Peter, as the words following 
show, 7 τάχος ἐσβέννυ, “ was soon extinguished ;” which seems 
to prove, that Simon Magus’s opposition to Christ was not 
only discovered, but even extinguished with his person be- 
fore the writing this epistle. And indeed Ireneus, and 
almost all the ancients agree in this with Dr. Hammond, 


* Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iil. cap. 27. 

+ Just. Mart. Ap. ii. p. 69, E. 

$+ Aw δὴ οὔτε Σίμωνος, οὔτε ἄλλου τοῦ τῶν τότε φυέντων συγ- 
κρότημά τι, κατ᾽ αὐτοὺς ἐκείνους ἀποστολικοὺς ὑπέστη χρόνους. 
Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 14, 

§ Note E. 

|] Ted δευτέρῳ Κλαυδίου ἔτει, εἰς τὸ ἐκπολεμῆσαι Σίμωνα τὸν μάγον 
τῇ Ῥώμη ἐφίσταται, In Petro. 

332 


810 


that Simon Magus, having suffered this repulse from Peter 
at Samaria, “began to search still more into the depths 
of magic, that he might be more able to contend with the 
apostles,’’* and that by this means he astonished many, was 
honoured by Claudius with a statue, and glorified by many 
asa god. “He soon returned,” saith Theodoret,t « to his 
former arts.” Now, can we think that a man who designed 
to be reckoned μέγας τις, “some great one,” and to seem 
glorious in the world, should pursue that design, by hiding, 
and not discovering himself about fifteen years ? 

Tn a word, it cannot reasonably be thought that almost all 
Samaria should worship him; that he should be honoured 
in the days of Claudius as a god at Rome, by the emperor, 
the senate, and the people; and that the devil should set 
him up as the great adversary of the apostles, long before 
this time; and that the season of his being revealed should 
be yet to come. 

§. 8. Arg. 3. Thirdly, I argue against this opinion from 
these words, “ He sitteth in the temple of God,” ver. 4; for 
whether we interpret this of the temple of Jerusalem, or of 
the church of God, which are all the interpretations known 
to the ancient fathers, or applied by them to these words, it 
is certain that neither Simon Magus, nor his followers, sat in 
any of them. ‘The doctor+ therefore is forced to say, this 
agrees to Simon, as being worshipped at Samaria, in those 
places which had been set apart to the worship of the true 
God, they worshipping him there, ϑυμιάμασι καὶ ϑυσίαις, καὶ 
σπονδαῖς, “ with all sorts of sacrifices.” But would Paul style 
the Samaritan temple, had it been then standing, as it was 
not, “the temple of God?’ Would he have done this, after 
our Lord’s declaration made against them, that they “ wor- 
shipped they knew not what?” The truth is, that the tem- 
ple built upon their holy mountain was long before destroyed 
by Hyrcanus; and that which Herod built them, they 
regarded not, as standing not upon that mountain. Where 
therefore was the temple in which they offered all kind of 
sacrifices to this magician? Indeed, the doctor useth too 
much artifice, in thus connecting these things; for that al- 
most all the Samaritans did worship Simon Magus as the 
first or principal god, Eusebius doth say from Justin Martyr, 
Hist. Eccl. ii. 13; but that they then worshipped him with 
any kind of sacrifices, he doth not say ; but only, that some 
of his followers, ‘who pretended to embrace the Christian 
religion”§ (which Simon Magus then professedly opposed), 
«fell back to the worship of demons, and had got images of 
Simon and Helen, which they thus worshipped with sacri- 
fices.” 

8. 9. Arg. 4. “Remember you not,” saith the apostle, 
“that I told you of these things?”” Now is it probable that, 
in the short time he stayed with them, he should tell them 
how Simon Magus sat in the temple of God, and that Christ’s 
coming was to destroy him; and thatso soon as Paul should 
leave off preaching in the Jewish synagogues, Simon Magus 
and his followers would be revealed? Credat Judeus 
apella. “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work,” 
ver. 7, that is, saith Dr. Hammond, this sort of men are al- 
ready formed into a sect, under their ringleaders, Simon and 
Carpocrates. Wonderful! that Carpocrates, who, say 
Clemens of Alexandria. Eusebius, and Theodoret, appeared 
only in the time of Hadrian, that is, A. D. 107, at the soonest, 
should be the ringleader of a sect at the writing of this 


" Cupidius intendit contendere adverstis apostolos, uti et 
ipse gloriosus videretur esse, et universam magiam adhuc 
amplits inscrutans, ita ut in stuporem cogeret multos homi- 
num, quippe cim esset sub Claudio Cesare, 4 quo etiam 
statua honoratus esse dicitur propter magiam; hic igitur ἃ 
multis quasi deus glorificatus est. Lib. i. cap. 20. 

εἶ Εὐθὺς ἐκεῖνος πρὸς τὴν προτέραν ἐπανῆλθε κακοτεχνίαν. 
Fab. lib. i. cap. 1. 

+ Note E and G. 

§ Χριστιανών φιλοσοφίαν ὑποκρινόμευοι, ἧς μὲν edofav drad- 
λάττεσϑαι περὶ τὰ εἴδωλα δεισιδαιμονίας, οὐδὲν ἧττον αὖϑις ἐπι- 
λαμβάνονται, καταπίπτοντες ἐπὶ γραφὰς, καὶ εἰκόνας αὐτοῦ τὲ τοῦ 
Σίμωνος, καὶ τῆς Ἕλενης θυμιάμασι re, καὶ ϑυσίαις, καὶ σπονδαῖς 
τούτους θρησκεύειν ἐπιχειροῦντες. hid. 

I ᾿Αδριανοῦ βασιλεύοντος. Theod. Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 6. 
Περὶ τοὺς ‘Adpiavod τοὺ βασιλέως χρόνους. Clem. Strom. vii. Ρ.- 
764. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. iv. cap. 7. 


Her. 


PREFACE TO 


epistle; that is, at least fifty-six years before he began his 
heresy. 

It follows, ver. 8, « And then shall that wicked one be re- 
vealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his 
mouth,” &c. “δ: is,” saith Dr. Hammond, “then immedi- 
ately shall ye see the sect of the Gnostics show itself, join 
with, and stir up the Jews, and bring heavy persecutions 
upon the Christians; and having this opportunity to calum- 
niate them to the Jews, behave themselves as their professed 
opposers. And Simon Magus shall set himself forth in the 
head of them, whom, as a professed enemy of Christ, Christ 
shall destroy, by extraordinary means, by the preaching and 
miracles of Peter; and for all the apostatizing Gnostics that 
adhere to him, they shall be involved in the destruction of 
the unbelieving Jews, with whom they have joined against 
the Christians.” In which long paraphrase there is nothing 
certain, and nothing which can be confirmed, either from 
scripture or antiquity. ‘That there were then any Gnosties 
in being; that they ever then did, or were in a capacity to 
persecute the Christians ; that any single person of them 
perished, at the fatal time of the destruction of the unbeliev- 
ing Jews, I never yet saw proved. ‘That Simon Magus 
should set himself at the head of these Gnostics, or of any 
other of his followers, who was extinct before they bore that 
name, it is not credible. That his followers, who pretended 
that Simon himself was the chief or principal god ; who wor- 
shipped him, and the very images of Simon and Helena, with 
all kind of sacrifices; who held, “the law and prophets were 
not to be regarded,” should ingratiate themselves, and join 
with the Jews, is still more incredible. And, lastly, that 
Simon Magus perished by the miracles of Peter, I have 
shown to be improbable. And this I think sufficient to be 
offered against this interpretation. 

§. 10. I should proceed to those considerations which 
seem to lie against that opinion, which holds that the apos- 
tle primarily intends the papal antichrist; but Ihave already 
done this, both in this preface, and in the following annota- 
tions; and therefore shall at present only add, that this 
“man of sin” is to sit “in the temple of God,” and probably 
to do it then when the apostle writ: for he gives it as a 
character, by which the Thessalonians, to whom he wnit, 
might know him, and then he could be no other than the 
Jewish doctors. Moreover, this “temple of God” must 
either be the temple of God, properly so called, which was 
destroyed by Titus, A. D. 70, and then again, “the man of 
sin,” who was to sit in it, must denote the same persons; or, 
as some of the most ancient fathers, Ireneus,* Hippolytus,+ 
Cyril,+ and Ambrose,§ thought, either the ruins of that tem- 
ple, or another to be built by antichrist in behalf of the Jews ; 
and then, as it is not reasonable to think the apostle would 
absolutely style that “the temple of God,” which had never 
been so, and which was only built by one who “ magnified 
himself against,” and openly blasphemed the true God; so is 
it more unreasonable to think the pope and his clergy should 
sit in it. They therefore who think that they are here espe- 
cially intended, embrace the sentiments of the fathers of the 
fifth and the following centuries, viz. of Chrysostom,|| Theo- 
doret, Austin, and Jerome, that by “the temple of God,” we 
are to understand the Christian church. But this interpre- 
tation is liable to this objection, that it is not reasonable to 
conceive the Holy Spirit, without any mark of distinction, 
would give that name to the apostate church, in which “the 
beast” and “the false prophet” did preside, she being by the 
same Spirit, when he speaks more unquestionably of her, still 
represented as “ spiritual Sodom and Egypt, mystical Baby- 


* In templo Dei sedebit, seducens eos qui adorant eum, 
quasi sit Christus. Lib. v. p. 475. 

+ Templum construet Hierosolymis, quod confestim exci- 
tatum tradet Judeis. P. 27, 33. 

+ Ποῖον ἄρα ναόν; τὸν κατάλελυμένον τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων φησί. 
Catech. 15, p. 164, 165. 

§ Ergo sedebit in templo interiori Judeorum, qui Christum 
negant. In Luce. xxi. 

! Ναὸν δὲ Θεοῦ τὰς ἐκκλησίας ἐκάλεσεν. 
ταχρὴ ἐκκλησίας. Chrys. 

Hierosolymis ut quidam putant, vel in ecclesia, quod verius 
arbitramur. Hieron. ad Algas. qu. 11, f. 60. D. August. 
de Civ. Dei, lib. xx. cap. 19. 


Theod. Τὰς παᾶν- 


II. THESSALONIANS. 


Jon,” and “the mother of fornications and abominations,” | 


Rey. xi. 8, xvii. 5. Hence Bellarmine* makes this infer- 
ence from the interpretation of the protestants, that, if it be 
true, the Roman church, in which the pope presides, must 
be the church of God. To this our writers answer, that this 
name was given to the church of Rome because she once 
was so. Butwhenwasthat? Was it not before «the man 
of sin” sat in her, and exalted himself above God and 


Christ? and can he properly be said to sit in the church of | 


God, who, whilst he sitteth in it, is not “the man of sin,” 
nor does those things which belong to him; and when he is 
“the man of sin,” sitteth no longer in the church of God, but 
in “spiritual Egypt,” the oppressor of God’s people, in 


“mystical Babylon,” the mother of idolatry, and the great | 


enemy of the church of God, and in the “synagogue of 
Satan ?” 

But that I may not wholly differ from my brethren in this 
matter, I grant these words may, in a secondary sense, be 
attributed to the papal antichrist, or man of sin, and may be 
signally fulfilled in him, in the destruction of him by «the 
spirit of Christ's mouth,” he being the successor to the apos- 
tate Jewish church, to whom these characters agree, as well 
as to her; and therefore in the annotations I have still given 
a place to this interpretation also. 

§. 11. Lastly, As for the objections which may be raised 
against the sense which I have put upon these words, I shall 
answer most of them in the annotations, therefore shall only 
give a more full answer to these two; viz. 

Obj. 1. That all the fathers and ancient interpreters seem 
not only silent as to this import of these words, but generally 
seem to refer the τὸ κατέχον, that which withheld this reve- 
lation of the man of sin, to the Roman empire. 

Ans, To this I answer, (1.) That this objection may be 
retorted upon all the other opinions with equal strength; for 
what is there said by any of the fathers or ecclesiastical 
writers for six hundred years, whence it may be concluded 
that either Mahomet or the pope of Rome was the “ man of 
sin” here mentioned? What hint hath any commentator, 
Greek or Latin, in his notes upon this chapter, for a thou- 
sand years given, that the pope and his clergy were the per- 
sons here intended ? 

If it be here replied, that they do consequentially over- 
throw this opinion, by making the Roman empire to be the 
τὸ κατέχον, “ that which withheld ;” I answer, that they more 
fully overthrow the opinion, which saith the papal govern- 
ment is antichrist, or the man of sin. 

1. By saying that antichrist} was coming, and at hand, 
long before the appearance of « the little horn,” which sprung 
up only from the ruins of the Roman empire, which hap- 
pened A. D. 475. 

2. By teaching, so generally as they did, that antichrist, 
being once revealed, was to continue not twelve hundred 
and sixty years, but only “three years and a half” (see note 
on ver. 8). 

3. That he was to be of the Jewish extract, one “of the 
tribe of Dan,” who was also to be circumcised. And, 

4. That he should be an enemy to§ idolatry and image- 
worship, as Ireneus, Hippolytus, Cyrillus Hieros., St. Chry- 
sostom, and Theodoret, say. 

In a word, they generally held, as I have shown, note on 
ver. 10, that antichrist was to come with signs and wonders 


* Lib. iii. de R. Pont. cap. 13. 

+ Antichristo jam instante. Tertul.de Fuga, &e. Anti- 
christi tempus infestum appropinquare nunc cepit. Cyprian. 
Exhort. ad Martyr. Scire debetis, et pro certo tenere, et 
credere antichristi tempus appropingudsse. Ep. 58, p. 120, 
59, p. 139, Et de Juda Euseb. 

Ὃς καὶ τὴν ϑρυλλουμένην τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου παρουσίαν ἤδη τότε 
πλησίαζειν wero. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 7. 

+ Hieremias tribum ex qua veniet, manifestavit, dicens ex 
Dan. Tren. lib. v. cap. 30. Hippol. p. 24, 25. Ambros. de 
Benedict. Patriarch. cap. 7. Aug. tom. iv. qu. 22, in Jos. p. 
295. Prosper. Dimid. Temp. cap. 9. Theodor. in Gen. qu. 
110, p. 75. 

§ Idola quidem seponens. Iren. lib. v. cap, 25. Tdolo- 
latriam non admittet. Hippolyt. p. 33. Μέλλει ὀῆϑεν τὰ 
εἴδωλα μισεῖν ὃ ἀντίχριστος, p. 164. Chrysost, in 2 Thess, ii. 
4. 'Theod. ibid, et Com. in Dan. xi. 30. 


811 


to deceive the Jews, that they might be punished for their 
infidelity. All which things must be manifestly inconsistent 
with the common notion, that the pope's hierarchy must be 
the man of sin here primarily intended by St. Paul. 

Thirdly, I answer, that though the fathers do not express- 
ly say the Jewish nation was “the man of sin,” which the 
apostle here intended; yet many of them have said those 
things on which this our interpretation doth depend; as, 
vy. g. that this man of sin was to be of Jewish extract, that he 
was to sit in the temple of Jerusalem, and that he was to 
come chiefly to deceive the unbelieving Jews, that so they 
might be punished for their infidelity. And, 

Lastly, As to the τὸ xaréyov, or rather ὁ κατέχων, “he that 
letteth,” I only in this differ from them, that whereas they 
refer this to the Roman empire, I do refer it to a Roman 
emperor; and as some of them held that Nero* was this 
antichrist, and man of sin, and others, that he was Domitian st 
so do I hold that Claudius, the predecessor of that Nero, was 
the person that withheld. 

§. 12. Obj. 2. It farther is objected, That the Jews were 
long before revealed to be the great opposers of Christianity, 
and the scribes and pharisees had Jong sat in the temple of 
God ; wherefore the revelation of the man of sin, being only 
to take place for some considerable time after the writing of 
this epistle, the Jewish nation cannot be reasonably deemed 
“the man of sin.” 

Ans. I shall answer this objection in the paraphrase, by 
showing that these are the descriptions of the man of sin, by 
which the ‘Thessalonians and others might then know him; 
and that they were all spoken in the present tense, showing 
what he already did, and that he was yet more fully to be 
revealed, either by his actual apostasy from the Roman 
government, which happened in the twelfth of Nero, or by 
the great apostasy of the believers of that nation from the 
faith. 

Secondly, I add, That the Jewish nation not only had a 
great opinion of their dearness to the God of heaven, but 
were also looked upon by their proselytes, and others, as 
God’s peculiar and beloved people; and therefore such a 
change of providence as made it appear to all men, they 
were become “the generation of his wrath,” must also be a 
revelation of them as the greatest of sinners. And since this 
came upon them after they had rejected our Messiah, and 
crucified the Lord of life, it must be a discovery that they 
became “sons of perdition” upon this account; and in this 
sense the removing that which letted, must make way for 
the revelation of that “wicked one, whom the Lord would 
consume with the breath of his mouth.’ As then the 
Roman church, though she is thought by us to be the anti- 
christ here spoken of, and the beast mentioned in the Reve- 
lation, is yet, by many other Christian churches in the west, 
thought to be the true catholic church of Christ, and her 
bishop to be the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter, and 
the head of the universal church, and so will only be revealed 
to them to he what we now deem her, when she shall “ go 
into destruction” and be destroyed « by the sword of Christ, 


and by the breath of his mouth;” so was the church of Jeru- 
salem then only fully revealed to Jew and gentile, and to the 
Judaizing Christians, to be not what they did erroneously 
think her, but what the apostle here doth represent her, 


| when our Lord cid thus “consume her by the breath of his 


mouth,” and God so signally demonstrated she was a “ ves- 
sel of his wrath fitted for destruction.” See the parallel be- 
twixt the Jewish and the papal antichrist, &c. as at large 
set forth after the annotations on 2 ‘Thessalonians. 

§. 13. This epistle seems to have been written soon after 
the First, and, as Bishop Pearson probably conjectures, in 
the same year, Silvanus and ‘l'imotheus being still with him 
when he writ it, as they were at the writing of the First 
Epistle (2 Thess. i. 1). Now Paul staid at Corinth only 
“a year and six months” (Acts xviii. 11), and there he had 
preached a considerable time every sabbath-day before they 
came to him (Acts xviii. 45), and so before he writ his First 


* Opinione multorum receptum est ipsum antichristum 
venturum. Sulp. Hist. S. lib. ii. cap. 10. 

+ Multi nostrorum putant, ob svitie ac turpitudinis mag- 
nitudinem, Domitianum Neronem antichristum fore. Hieron 
in Dan. xi. f. 267, M. 


812 


II. THESSALONIANS. 


Epistle, it being written after that Timothy was come to | with him Priscilla and Aquila (Acts xvii. 18); so that the 
him (1 Thess. iii. 6), and they seem to be gone from him | interval betwixt these two epistles could not be above a 
before he left Corinth to go to Syria, for then he had only | year. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Pavt, and Silvanus, and Timotheus, (write) unto 
the church of the Thessalonians (established) in (the 
kingdom and worship of ) God our Father and the Lord 
Jesus Christ: 

2 (Wishing) 'Grace unto you, and peace, from God 
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

3 We are bound to thank God always for you, 
brethren, as it is meet (for us to do), because that your 
faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one 
of you all toward each other aboundeth ; 

4 So that we ourselves glory in you (or boast of 
yow) in the churches of God for your patience and 
(for your) faith (which produceth this patience) in 
a your persecutions and tribulations that ye en- 

ure: 

5 Which (dispensation of divine wisdom appointing 
you to suffer, 1 Thess, 111. 3, and permitting others thus 
to persecute you) ts a manifest token of the ? righteous 
judgment of God, (these sufferings befalling you) that 
ye may be counted worthy of the (celestial) kingdom 
of God, for which ye also suffer (and so are in assurance 
of a day when God will thus reward you) : 

6 * Seeing i zs a righteous thing with (thal) God 
(to whom belongeth recompense, Rom. xii. 19, and who 


will avenge his elect, that ery unto him day and night, 
Luke xviii. 7,) to recompense tribulation to them that 
trouble you; 

7 And to you who are troubled (as we are) rest 
with us, (which rest we both completely shall enjoy) when 
the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven (atlend- 
ed) with his mighty angels, (as he shall be at the last 
day, 1 Thess. iv. 16, when he will come to give every one 
according to his works, Matt. xvi. 27, Mark viii. 38, and 
gather all the nations of the world before him, Matt. xxv. 
32, Jude 14, 15. 

8 When he shall come, I say,) In flaming fire taking 
vengeance on them (among the heathens) that know not 
God, and (of those Jews and gentiles) that (having heard ) 
obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: 

9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruc- 
tion from the presence of the Lord, (from whose bliss- 
ful presence they shall for ever be excluded, Matt. Xxv. 
41. 46,) and (shall find that destruction inflicted on them) 
‘ from the glory of his power; (that being the time when 
God will make known his power on the vessels of wrath 
Jilted for destruction, Rom. i. 23. 

10 And it is also a righteous thing with him, then to 
recompense to you eternal rest)When he shall come to 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. 1. 


1Ver. 2. Grace and peace from God the Father, καὶ 
Κυρίου ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, and our Lord Jesus Christ.| Because 
he saith not by our Lord, but, “ and our Lord Jesus Christ :” 
hence Theodoret pleads for an equality in power, and by 
consequence in essence of the Father and the Son. 

2 Ver. 5. Τῆς δικαίας κρίσεως, Of the righteous judgment of 
God, &c.| “This place,” saith Esthius,* “ proves against the 
heretics, that life eternal is not so to be ascribed to the grace 
of God, as not to be attributed also to the worth and merits 
of men, proceeding from the grace of God.” 

But the true import of these words will be sufficiently 
contained in these following particulars : 

First, That the justice of God obligeth him to recompense 
the obedience and sufferings of his faithful servants, either in 
this or in the world to come; since, were it otherwise, we 
could have no sufficient motive to perseverance in obedience 
to him, or suffering for his sake; and therefore this by the 
apostle is laid as the foundation of all the service which we 
pay unto him, even the firm belief that “ God is, and that he 
is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,” Heb. xi. 6. 

Secondly, That since God doth not, and, according to the 
nature of the thing, he cannot, recompense them in this life, 
who suffer all calamities and losses they can endure here, and 
even death itself for his sake, his justice will oblige him to 
do it in the next. Hence the apostle saith to himself and 
all his fellow sufferers, «If in this life only we have hope in 
Christ, we are of all men the most miserable,” 1 Cor. xv. 19; 
and puts the question thus, “If the dead rise not at all—why 
stand we in jeopardy every hour?” ver. 29, 30. But, 

Thirdly, That this reward should be for kind so excellent, 
as is the beatific vision, the being “heirs of God, joint-heirs 
with Christ,” the being “like to bim in glory,” and for dura- 
tion should be eternal, can never be on the account of that 
strict justice which “ rendereth to every one his due,” seeing 
there can be no proportion betwixt a finite action or passion 
aud an infinite reward ; and therefore the same apostle who 


* Monstrat hic locus contra hereticos, vitam «ternam, 

quz in regno Dei intelligitur, non ita gratie Dei tribuendam 

* esse, ut non etiam dignitati, et meritis hominum ἃ gratia Dei 
profectis, retribuatur. 


saith here, ἀξιωθῆναι ἡμᾶς, we for these sufferings “are ac- 
counted worthy of this kingdom,” doth elsewhere positively 
declare “the sufferings of this present life, οὐκ ἀξία, not wor- 
thy of the glory which shall hereafter be revealed,” Rom. 
viii. 18. Nor can the grace of God, vouchsafed to enable us 
thus to perseverance in sufferings, enhance the merit of those 
sufferings, or make the reward in justice due unto us; since, 
“if it be of grace” that we thus suffer, “then it is not of 
debt” that we are thus rewarded; God being not in strict 
justice obliged to reward his own free gifts and graces he con- 
fers upon us. But, 

Fourthly, Even this eternal recompense being promised to 
those who suffer for the sake of Christ, by him who hath 
said, “ Be thou faithful to the death, and I will give thee a 
crown of life,” Rev. ii. 10, and propounded as the chief en- 
couragement thus to endure with patience to the end, Matt. 
v. 12, it may be said, by virtue of that promise, to be in jus- 
tice due to them who do thus suffer for it, it being a part of 
justice to perform our promises, and be faithful to our words. 
This therefore is a faithful saying, “If we suffer with him, if 
we endure, we shall live and reign with him,” 2 Tim. ii. 11, 
12, and we may rest assured, that “ God the righteous judge 
will give this crown of righteousness to us at that day,” 2 
Tim. iv. 8, that, being approved, “ we shall receive that crown 
of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him,” 
James i. 12. But then God being not obliged in strict jus- 
tice to promise so great a recompense, he cannot be said to 
confer it, ex dignitate, merito, aut equalitate rei, “ by reason 
of the dignity or worth of these our sufferings,” or because 
the reward is only equal to the merit of them, but only, ex 
justitid pacti, because his promise hath made it just and 
equal for him so to do. 

3 Ver. 6. Εἴπερ δίκαιον, Seeing it is a righteous thing.] 
Here the Greek scholiasts note εἴπερ is put for ἐπείπερ or ἐπεί- 
δήπερ, that is, siquidem for quandoquidem, as it is, Rom. viii. 
9, and so the Hebrew px oftentimes signifies (see Nold. de 
Partic. Heb. p. 88) : and therefore, say they, it is not a par- 
ticle ἀμφιβολίας ἀλλὰ βεβαιώσεως, “of doubting, but of con- 
firmation.” 

4 Ver. 9.] This phrase, καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ, 
“and from the glory of his power,” is taken from Isa. ii. 
19. 21. 

[See the Appendix to this chapter at the end of this 


epistle.] 


CHAPTER II. 


be glorified in (Azs dealings with) his saints, and to be 
admired (for his great love) in (and by) all them that 
believe (and particularly by you,) (because our testi- 
mony among you was believed) in that day. 

11 Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our 
God would count you worthy (ἀξιώσῃ τῆς κλήσεως, 
would make you worthy, ver. 5,) of this calling (to his 
kingdom and glory), and fulfil all the good pleasure of 


813 


his goodness (in you), and the work of faith with 
power : 

: 12 That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be 
glorified in you (by your continuance in your faith), and 
ye in him (or by him), according to the grace of our 
God and the Lord Jesus Christ (by which you are en- 
abled to continue in the faith, and fulfil the good pleasure 
of his will). 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by (or, concern- 
ing) ἢ the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by 
our gathering together unto him (mentioned Matt. xxiv. 
31), 

) That ye be not soon shaken in mind (ἀπὸ τοῦ vods, 
From the sentence you formerly received from me), or be 
troubled, neither by spirit (¢. e. by any pretended reve- 
lation), nor by word (spoken by us, and by others misun- 


derstood, 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16), nor by letter as from us, 
(ὦ. e. by any thing contained in our former epistle, iv. 15, 
v. 2, or rather in those words, ii. 16, Wrath is come upon 
them, εἰς τέλος» to the uttermost, so) as (to conceive) that 
the day of Christ 5 is at hand. 

3 Let no man deceive you (by these pretences) by 
any means: for that day shall not come, except there 
come 5. ἃ falling away first (of the Jews from the Ro- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IL. 


VVer. 1. Ὑπὲρ τῆς παρουσίας τοῦ Kupiov, By the coming of 
the Lord.] That snip, with a genitive case, signifies de, or 
circa, about, or concerning, cannot be doubted. It is ren- 
dered “ concerning,” Rom. ix. 27 (see 2 Cor. xii. 5. 8). It 
is thrice rendered of, in the same import as 2 Cor. i. 7, 
“Our hope, ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, of you is certain ;” viii. 23, “ Whe- 
ther any inquire, ὑπὲρ Τίτου, of Titus; and, ver. 24, “ Our 
boasting, ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, concerning you;” Phil. i. 7, “It is 
meet for me to think thus, ὑπὲρ πάντων ὑμῶν, of you all.” 
Hence Phavorinus saith it is used, ὁμοίως τῇ περί (see 2 Cor. 
vii. 5, ix. 3). 

The coming of Christ is, by the reverend Dr. Hammond, 
referred to Chnist’s coming to destroy the unbelieving Jews, 
and throw down their temple, and their worship which de- 
pended on it. This is the παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, 
“the coming” of Christ, or “of the Son of man,” so often 
mentioned in our Lord’s prediction of the destruction of Je- 
rusalem, and of the temple, Matt. xxiv. 3. 27. 37. 39. This 
is most certainly the import of the phrase in James twice, 
when he exhorts the brethren to “be patient, ἕως τῆς παρου- 
σίας rod Kupiov, till the coming of the Lord;” adding, that 
this παρουσία τοῦ Ἰζυρίου, ““ coming of our Lord was at hand, 
and the Judge stood before the door,” James v. 7—9. 

As for the phrase, “our gathering together to him,” it 
seems parallel to the words of Christ, Matt. xxiv. 31, ἐπισυν- 
ἄζουσι τοὺς ἐκλεκτοὺς αὐτοῦ, * His angels shall then gather his 
elect.” And to apply it to the Thessalonians, let it be 
noted, that they were partly converts of the Jews and prose- 
lytes. For the converts made by Paul’s preaching to them, 
were of the believing Jews and “the devout Greeks,” Acts 
xvii. 4, who, in expectation of our Lord’s prediction, as well 
as from their observation of the Jewish festivals, might be 
inclined to go up to Jerusalem. Moreover, till the writing 
of this epistle, if not long after, even till the destruction of 
Jerusalem, the Jewish converts kept up their synagogue 
worship ; and many proselytes and other Christians did not 
scruple to assemble with them; the Jewish converts thought 
themselves obliged to do it, they being all “zealous of the 
law,” Acts xxi. 20; and many of the gentile Christians com- 
plied with it at Corinth, Galatia, and Philippi; but after the 
destruction of Jerusalem there was an end of this synagogue 
worship, the day having revealed that God was no longer 
pleased with it, and then they met together still as churches 
of Christ, and this might be their ἐπισυναγωγὴ πρὸς αὐτὸν, 
“the gathering together to him,” here spoken of. 

But yet, considering that this παρουσία, or coming of 
Christ, in the former epistle, is used four times with relation 
to Christ's coming at the day of judgment, viz. ii. 19, iii. 13, 
iv. 15, v. 23, it may be thought more reasonable to refer 
this passage to the same advent, and paraphrase it thus; «I 
beseech you, brethren, by (the blessing you expect at) the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and at our gathering to- 
gether to him.” 


2 Ver, 2. Ἐνέστηκεν, Is, or hath been, instant.) To con 
ceive that signal day of the destruction of their enemies the 
Jews, and the deliverance of the Christians, mentioned Joel 
il. 31, 32, Mal. iv. 1, 2, come, and find themselves deceived 
in that conception, might cause great trouble to them, and 
even shake their steadfastness in the faith. 

3 Ver. 3. ᾿Αποστασία πρῶτον, A falling away Jirst.) The 
rebellion of the Jews against the Chaldeans was always 
styled “apostasy,” and the Jews, upon that account, “ apos- 
tates.” So Jerusalem is represented as πόλις ἀποστάτις, “a 
city that rebelled against kings;” and in which ἀποστάσεις 
γίνονται, “ rebellions were found,” Ezra iv. 12.15.19. Thus, 
Ezra iii. 2. 18. 22, they are styled ᾿Ιουδαῖοι ἀποστάται, “re- 
bellious Jews ;” and, ver. 27, it is said, that they were given 
to rebellion and war (see Neh. ii. 19, vi. 6, 1 Mace. xiii. 16, 
2 Macc. v.11). And, in like manner, their revolt from the 
Roman government is by Josephus generally expressed by 
the same word:* “Coming from Rome,” saith he, “in the 
time of Nero, when Felix was procurator of Judea, I found 
then the beginnings of innovations, καὶ πολλοὺς ἐπὶ τῇ 'Ῥω- 
μαίων ἀποστάσει μέγα φρονοῦντας, and many much addicted to 
apostasy from the Roman government.” «One Justus,’ 
saith he, “ provoked the people, εἰς ἀποστασίαν, to rebellion; 
but John, the son of Levi, seeing some of them, διὰ τὴν 
ἀποστασίαν τὴν ἀπὸ Ρωμαίων μέγα φρονοῦντας, prone to apos- 
tasy from the Roman government, endeavoured to keep them 
to their duty.” 

But if any like not this notion of apostasy, they may un- 
derstand these words of the great apostasy of the Jews, fore- 
told by Christ, Matt. xxiv. 11, 12, and which happened not 
only in Judea and Palestine, but throughout Asia, 2 Tim. 
i. 15, and in all other places where they had embraced the 
gospel. Of which apostasy, note, 

First, That when the apostle wrote this epistle, it was yet 
to come; for though “the mystery of iniquity was already 
working,” in the seductions of the false apostles and deceit- 
ful workers of the Jewish nation, endeavouring to corrupt 
the minds of the gentile converts “from the simplicity that 
was in Christ” (2 Cor. xi. 3), and to bring them into bondage 
to the Jewish law (Gal. ii. 4), and so deprive them of that 
“liberty wherewith Christ had made them free ;” yet the 
greater defection of the Jewish converts to their old Ju- 
daism seems to have had its rise about ten years after the 
writing of this epistle. For it is certain, that A. D. 63, 
when the apostle wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, it was 
begun already, and many of the Jewish converts then were 
in great danger of falling back unto perdition, as appears 
from the vehement admonitions and exhortations of the 
apostle to them, to “beware lest there should be in any of 
them an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living 
God ;” and to “exhort one another daily to this steadfast- 
ness,” as knowing we are only “partakers of Christ, if we 
hold the beginning of our confidence firm to the end,” iii. 


* De Vita sua, p. 999, E. 7 P. 1001, B 


814 II. THESSALONIANS. 


12—14, to “abour to enter into that rest” Christ had pre- 
pared for them, “lest any man fall, after the same example 
of unbelief,” iv. 11 ; “ not to forsake the assembling of them- 
selves together, as the manner of some was,” x. 25, nor to 
“cast away their confidence,” ver. 35; to “lift up the hands 
which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight 
paths for their feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of 
the way,” and to “look diligently lest any man fall from 
the grace of God,” xii. 12, 13.15. And also from the repre- 
sentation of the dreadful state of all who should apostatize 
after this manner, that it was “impossible to renew them 
to repentance,” vi. 46, that they were “nigh to cursing ;” 
and “their end was to be burned,” ver. 8 ; that there was “no 
more sacrifice for their sin, but a fearful looking-for of de- 
struction, and fiery indignation,” x. 26, 27, and “ vengeance 
from the living God,” ver. 30, 31; that it would certainly be 
a “ falling back to perdition,” ver. 38, 39; that there would 
be no escaping for them who “turned away from him who 
spake to them from heaven,” xii. 25. The same we learn 
from the like exhortations of James, to joy and patience 
under their afflictions, i. 1—12, v. 7—12, of Peter, 1 Pet. 
111, 14, 15, iv. 12—19, v. 8—10, and from John’s frequent 
exhortation, to hold to that which they had received from 
the beginning, and to continue “walking in the truth.” 
Now the occasions of this great apostasy seem to have been 
these three. 

First, Their zeal for the observation of the law, which 
they conceived to be of eternal obligation, especially to the 
Jews, to whom particularly it was given; and for the cove- 
nant of circumcision, which they esteemed highly merito- 
rious (see note on Rom. ii. 13), that which made them 
perfect, gave them life, and delivered them from hell, ac- 
cording to these sayings of theirs,* “ He that is circumcised 
is perfect: he that is circumcised shall not go to Gehinnom: 
and I said unto thee, in thy blood, Live (Ezek. xvi. 6) ; 
this is the blood of the circumcision.” 'This they endeavoured 
to impose upon the gentile converts: and all the myriads 
of Jewish converts were all “zealous” for the observation of 
it by the Jews, and looked upon it as downright apostasy 
for them to “ forsake Moses,” and “not to circumcise their 
children, and walk according to their customs” received 
from Moses, or from their traditions, ἀποστασίαν διδάσκεις 
ἀπὸ Μωσέως, Acts xxi. 21. And this seems to be the reason 
why Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, discourseth so 
largely of the “necessity of the change of the law;” viz. 
that by establishing that truth he might put a stop to the 
apostasy occasioned by their contrary persuasion. 

Secondly, Their beloved dream of a temporal kingdom to 
be erected by their Messiah at his coming, the halycon days 
that were then expected by them, and the dominion they 
should then have over the nations, who were not, according 
to their sentiments, to come in to the Messiah, otherwise 
than as their slaves or servants. How deeply this imagina- 
tion was fixed even in the hearts of Christ’s apostles, we 
learn, as from many other things, so especially from their 
question to him after his resurrection: ‘ Lord, wilt thou at 
this time restore the kingdom unto Israel?” Acts i. 7. 
And because our Lord gave this answer to it, viz. “ It is not 
for you to know the times and seasons, which the Father 
hath put in his own hands; but ye shall receive power, the 
Holy Spirit coming upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses 
in Jerusalem, and all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends 
of the earth,” ver. 7,8. They were prone to think, that, at 
least, after the apostles had done this, they might expect our 
Lord should come “in the clouds of heaven,” to set up this 
kingdom ; they therefore believed in him rather as a temporal 
than a spiritual king; they owned him rather as a true pro- 
phet, to persuade them to be righteous, than as a Saviour, to 
procure to them remission of sins, and a new covenant es- 
tablished in his blood. Hence Origen, speaking of those 
words of Christ, “If I say the truth, why do you not be- 
lieve ?” which, he conceives, were spoken to those Jews 
which believed ; he saith, « They might be said to believe in 
one sense, and not to believe in another.” So, v. g. “ They 
that believe in Jesus Christ crucified in the days of Pontius 
Pilate, but believe him not to be born of the Virgin Mary 


* Targum in Gen. xvii. 18. 


(i. 6. the Ebionites), believe in him, and do not believe in 
him.”* And again, “ They who believe in Jesus, who did 
in Judea the signs and wonders which were written of him, 
but believe him not to be the Son of that God who made 
heaven and earth, believe in him, and believe not in him ;” 
and this relateth to others of the Jews. And hence it seems 
to be, that the apostle is so large in treating of the sacerdotal 
office of our Lord, and of the new covenant established in 
his blood. Moreover, the Jews were generally possessed 
with this opinion, that “ about that time their Messiah should 
set up this temporal kingdom ;’’+ and they generally expect- 
ed, not a Messiah to suffer for their sins, of whom they seem 
then to have had no notion, John xii. 34, but a great king 
to “subdue their enemies under them.” And this was their 
great stumbling-block, that§ our Jesus appeared not to be 
such ἃ one; and this was the great thing that animated 
them to the war. When therefore the gospel had been 
preached to the world, and there was no appearance of 
Christ’s coming in the clouds to be their king, and their de- 
liverer, but rather to destroy their temple and their nation, 
they began to fall off from him, as not answering their expec- 
tation, or the predictions of their prophets, and to give ear 
to their false prophets, saying to them, “ Lo, here is Christ, 
and there is Christ,” according to our Lord’s prediction, 
Matt. xxiv. 22, and promising freedom and deliverance, saith 
Josephus,|| to as many as should follow them. 

And, Lastly, The great cause of this apostasy, of which the 
scriptures take a more special notice, was the grievous per- 
secutions they suffered in all places from their fellow Jews, 
and from those heathens they had instigated against them. 
This, by Paul, is styled “a great fight of afflictions,” against 
which he desires them to arm themselves by faith and pa- 
tience, and the consideration of the coming of their Lord, 
and by the example of that “cloud of witnesses,” which 
they had set before them (Heb. x. 11, 12). By Peter it is 
styled, the “ fiery trial, which was come to try them,” 1 Pet. 
iv. 12, and by which they were “in heaviness, through mani- 
fold tribulations,” 1 Pet. i. 6; and against which James en- 
deavours to strengthen them, by the consideration of the 
blessed fruits, and glorious recompense, their patience under 
them would produce, ch. 1. and of the presence of their 
Lord, who would shortly come to rescue them, and give a 
happy issue of them, ch. v. By reason of which persecutions 
some began to use great compliances with the Jews, to avoid 
their rage; others, to fall away from the Christian faith, 
hoping perhaps that they might still obtain salvation in that 
religion in which they expected to find it before they em- 
braced Christianity. 

Others, who refer this to the church of Rome, understand 
by this apostasy, a falling away from the doctrine, and the 
true worship of God and Christ, by idolatry in the worship 
of a consecrated wafer, of angels, saints, images, and relics ; 
on which account that church is represented under the cha- 


* Of πιστεύοντες μὲν εἰς τὸν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου ᾿Ιησοῦν ἐσταυ- 
ρωμένον ἐν τὴ ᾿Ιουδαΐα, μὴ πιστεύοντες δὲ εἰς τὸν γεγενημένον ἐκ τῆς 
Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου, οὗτοι εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν πιστεύουσι, καὶ οὐ πιστεύουσι. 
Vide Euseb, lib. iii. cap. 34. Orig. contra Celsum, lib. v. 
Ρ. 272. 

ἡ Kai πάλιν of πιστεύοντες μὲν εἷς τὸν ποιήσαντα ἐν τῇ ᾿Ιουδαίᾳ 
τὰ ἀναγεγραμμένα τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα ᾿Ιησοῦ, μὴ πιστεύοντες δὲ εἰς τὸν 
ἸΙησοῦν, υἱὸν τοῦ ποιήσαντος τὸν οὐρανὸν, καὶ τὴν γῆν, εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν 
πιστεύουσι, καὶ οὐ πιστεύουσι. Tom. ii. in Joh. P. 322, A, B. 

3 Τὸ δὲ ἐπάραν αὐτοὺς μάλιστα πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἦν χρησμὸς, ὡς 
κατὰ καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας τις αὐτῶν ἄρξει τῆς οἰκουμένης. 
Joseph. de Bell. Jud. lib. vil. cap. 31. 

§ ὮὯ ἄνϑρωπε, αὖται ἡμᾶς αἱ γραφαὶ, καὶ τοιαῦται ἔνδοξον καὶ 
μέγαν ἀναμένειν τὸν παρὰ τοῦ παλαιοῦ τῶν ἡμερῶν ὡς υἱὸν ἀνθρώπου 
παραλαμβάνοντα τὴν αἰώνιον βασιλείαν, ἀναγκάζουσιν. Tryph. ad 
Just. p. 249, B. 

“Ὅταν ἐμφανὴς καὶ ἔνδοζος γέννηται" τότε γνωσθήσεται ὃς ἐστι φασί. 
P. 336, C. 

Οὐκ ἔτι χρεία ἡμᾶς ἀπολογήσασϑαι πρὸς τὸ λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ 
Ἰουδαίου, ὅτι μέγαν, καὶ δυνάστην, καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς, καὶ πάντων 
τῶν ἐθνῶν, καὶ στρατοπέδων Κύριον, φασὶν οἱ προφῆται εἶναι τὸν 
ἐπιδημήσαντα. Orig. contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 78. 

|| Τὰ σημεῖα τῆς σωτηρίας, καὶ τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ βοήϑειαν, De 


Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 960, et lib. ii. cap. 23, 


CHAPTER II. 


man empire, or from the faith), and (by that means) that 
4 man of sin be revealed, (who is) the ® son of perdition; 


racters of “spiritual Egypt,” of “mystical Babylon,” and 
“the mother of fornication,” Rev. xi. 8, xvii. 5. 

4'O ἄνϑρωπος τῆς ἁμαρτίας, The man of sin.) If you read 
here, 6 ἄνθρωπος ἀνομίας, “The man of disobedience,” who 
will not submit to law and government, as do the manuscripts 
of Stephanus and Lincoln, nothing can more exactly agree 
to the Jewish nation, which, in the times of Josephus,* had 
this character, that it was ἔθνος δυσάρκτον καὶ δυσπειθὲς φύσει 
πρὸς τοὺς βασιλέας, “a nation naturally averse from subjec- 
tion to kings.’ If we retain the common reading, no nation 
under heaven more deserved to be styled “the man of sin,” 
than did the Jewish nation, after the spirit of slumber and 
blindness was come upon them (Rom. xi. 8), for the rejec- 
tion of the promised Messiah. Their own Josephus saith, 
“Tt is impossible to recount severally the particulars of their 
wickedness; but in the general it may be said, that never 
any city suffered such calamities, μήτε γενεὰν ἐξ αἰῶνος γεγονἐ- 
vat κακίας γονιμωτέραν, Nor was ever any generation, since the 
memory of man, more fruitful in iniquity.’ See this more 
fully proved, note on Rom. ii. 1. Then therefore more 
especially was this “man of sin” revealed to be so. This 
character doth also very well agree to the beast mentioned 
in the Revelation, which being spiritual Sodom and Egypt 
(Rev. xi. 8), the mother of fornications, and the abomina- 
tions of the earth (xvii. 5), may very well deserve the title 
of “the man of sin.” 

Obj. If it be here objected against the application of this 
character to the Jewish nation, that “the man of sin” seems 
to relate to some single person, and therefore cannot be in- 
terpreted of a whole nation, especially if they act not under 
some head or other: 

Ans. I answer, That I have for this the authority of the 
prophet cited here, ver. 8, who saith, “He shall smite the 
land (Chald. the sinners of the land) with the word of 
his mouth, and with the breath of his lips; yw nn, 
ἀνελεῖ ἀσεβὴ, he shall consume the wicked one;” which 
wicked one, whether we understand it with the fathers of 
antichrist, or with the Jews of Armillus, i. e. the Romans, 
or with the protestants of the papal polity, under the name 
of one, must comprehend all his associates and followers, 
though they be many nations. Thus also doth the prophet 
Isaiah introduce God speaking to all the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem and Judah: “ And now aw, inhabiter of Jeru- 
Tusalem wn), καὶ ἄνϑρωπος τοῦ ᾿Ιυὔδα, and man of Judah,” 
v. 3; and ver. 7, καὶ ἄνϑρωπος, “The man of Judah is my 
pleasant plant.” And Jeremiah speaks in the person of the 
whole Jewish nation, saying, ‘I am the man that have seen 
affliction,” Lam. iii. 1, and so on to ver. 22. So in the 
parable, Matt. xxii. 11, our Saviour represents the Jewish 
nation, from whom the kingdom of God was to be taken 
away, andgwho were to be cast out into outer darkness, ver. 
13, by the man who had not on his wedding-garment. So 
the “ two witnesses,” Rev. xi. 3, and the “ woman clothed 
with the sun,” Rev. xii. 1, represent the whole body of true 
Christians ; and the beast, xiii. 1, “ the woman arrayed in 
purple and scarlet,” xvii. 4, and “the great whore,” xix. 2, 
include all the members of the Roman church. And there- 
fore it is evident, that this objection of a single person seems 
equally to lie against all the other hypotheses. And as 
they had their heads in which they were united, so had the 
Jewish nation their high-priest and sanhedrin, their rulers of 
the people, their scribes and pharisees, the heads of this man 
of sin, as the pope and his clergy are the head of the beast. 

δ. Ὃ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας, The son of perdition.] This also 
perfectly agrees to the Jews, not only because Christ was to 
“smite them with the breath of his mouth” (see note on 
ver. 8), and to “smite the land with a curse,” Mal. iv. 6, 
but beeause thev are set forth as “vessels of wrath fitted, 
εἰς dmuiecav, for destruction,” Rom. ix. 22, as men “ap- 
pointed to wrath,” 1 Thess. v. 9, to “sudden destruction,” 
ver. 4, as men whose end is ἀπώλειαν, “ destruction,” Phil. 
iii. 19. Note also, that this agrees exactly to the great 


* De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 8, p. 782, F. 


815 


4 Who ® opposeth (himself now to the Christian 
church) and exalteth himself above all that is called 


whore, who is to go, εἷς ἀπώλειαν, “into destruction,” Rev. 
xvii. 8. 11. 

6 Ver. 4. 'O ἀντικείμενος, Who opposeth hunself.) This 
word in the Old Testament represents the adversaries of 
God and his church. So Isa. Ixvi. 6, ‘lhe voice of the 
Lord rendering recompense, τοῖς ἀντικειμένοις, to his ene- 
mies.” And Esth. ix. 2,“ They who sought the hurt of the 
Jews” are of ἀντικείμενοι τοῖς ᾿Ιουδαίοι. And in like manner 
in the New Testament, 6 ἀντικείμενος, is in the general the 
adversary of Christ, and of Christianity; as in those words, 
“ Give no occasion, τῷ ἀντικειμένῳ, to the adversary to blas- 
pheme” (1 Tim. v. 14). In particular the Jews, as they 
were of ἀντικείμενοι τῷ Χριστῷ, “the adversaries of Christ” 
(Luke xiii. 17) ; so, in our Lord’s discourse on the destrue- 
tion of Jerusalem, they are styled the adversaries of the 
apostles, in these words, “I will give you a mouth and wis- 
dom, which of ἀντικείμενοι ὑμῶν, your adversaries shall not be 
able to resist, or gainsay” (Luke xxi. 15). They are the 
ἀντικείμενοι πολλοὶ, of which Paul speaks, saying, “A great 
door and effectual is opened to me in Ephesus, and there be 
many adversaries” (1 Cor. xvi. 9) ; as you may learn from 
Acts xix. 9, where we find them speaking evil of the way 
of Christianity before the multitude, and Paul separating 
from them upon that account; and in those words of Paul 
to the Philippians, i. 58, “ In nothing be ye terrified by (the 
malice and persecution of) your adversaries, ὑπὸ τῶν dvrixer 
μένων, Which malice and persecution is to them ἔνδειξις ἀπω- 
λείας, an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation” 
(see 2 Thess. i, 5). And with good reason is this name 
given to them especially, they being the men “who killed 
the Lord Jesus, and persecuted his apostles; who pleased 
not God, and were adversaries to all men; forbidding the 
apostles to preach to the gentiles, that they might be saved” 
(2 Thess. ii. 15, 16). When they began to preach the word 
of life, the high-priest, “the captain of the temple, and the 
sadducees” (Acts iv. 1), and the whole order of the priest- 
hood (ver. 6), styled, τὸ συνέδριον, “ the sanhedrin” (ver. 15), 
command them “not to speak at all in the name of Jesus” 
(ver. 18), on which account these rulers are said to be 
“assembled against the Lord, and against his Christ” (ver, 
26). And the answer of the apostles to them is, That God 
was rather to be obeyed than man. After this, the high- 
priest and all his associates place the apostles, ἐν τῷ συνεδρίῳ, 
“in the sanhedrin” (Acts v. 17. 27), calling them to an ac- 
count for disobeying their commands ; and having received 
this answer from the apostles, that «God must be obeyed 
rather than man,” they beat them in the sanhedrin, and 
again command them “ not to speak in the name of Jesus” 
(ver. 40, 41). Soon after we find Stephen brought before 
the scribes and elders, cis τὸ συνέδριον, “into the sanhedrin” 
(vi. 12), and the high-priest (vii. 1), and they who sat ἐν τῷ 
συνεδρίῳ, “in the sanhedrin,” having examined him, and the 
witnesses against him, “they stoned Stephen” (ver. 59), 
which death could only be inflicted on him by the sanhe- 
drin. After this Saul receives “letters from the high-priest” 
(ix. 1), and “from all the elders” (xxii. 5), to bind all 
Christians he could find in any of their synagogues, and 
bring them to Jerusalem (Acts ix. 2. 14). Yea, in the 
second, or as Bishop Pearson saith, in the fourth year of 
Nero, the high-priest, καὶ ὅλον τὸ συνέδριον, and the whole 
sanhedrin meet (Acts xxii. 30), and Paul is brought before 
them (xxiii. 1). By all which passages, as we see how they 
are still showing themselves adversaries to Christ, and his 
disciples; so we learn the falsehood of that Jewish story, 
that forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem, the 
Jewish sanhedrin removed from thence to Joppa; which, 
saith Mr. Selden,* as I have never read any such thing in 
the ancients, so it may be confuted from the life of Jose- 
phus. It was this sanhedrin that admitted that public prayer 
against the Christians called ΝΠ ΤΥ) 2» “the cursing of 
the heretics.” They therefore called Jesus accursed, 1 Cor. 


* Seld. de Syn. lib. ii. cap. 15, p. 629. 
quid apud veteres legi, p. 745. 


Non ejusmod: 


816 


God, Τ or that is worshipped (Gr. ἢ σέβασμα; or wor- 
shipped); so that he as God  sitteth in the temple of 
God, shewing himself that he is God. 


II. THESSALONIANS. 


5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, 
91 told you (of) these things (viz. of the man of sin to 
be revealed, and of these characters of him) ? 


xii. 2; and so, as Justin Martyr* saith, they dishonoured 
Christ as much as they could, καταρώμενοι ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς 
ὑμῶν τοὺς πιστεύοντας ἐπὶ τὸν Χριστὸν, “cursing in their syna- 
gogues those that believe in him.” Thus did they “crucify 
afresh the Son of God, and put him to an open shame;” 
yea, saith the same Justin,t ἄνδρας ἐκλεκτοὺς ἀπὸ “Ἱερουσαλὴμ 
ἐκλεξάμενοι τότε ἐξεπέμιψατε eis πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν, “they sent 
chosen men from Jerusalem throughout the whole earth, 
representing the Christian faith as an atheistical heresy.” 
Now this could be done only by the sanhedrin. It was, 
lastly, by the high-priest and his sanhedrin assembled at 
Jerusalem, thatt James the brother of our Lord, with 
some other Christians, was condemned to be stoned for blas- 
phemy against the law. Yea, when the war was begun, 
affairs seem still to be ordered by the high-priest and sanhe- 
drin: for it was after the flight of Cestius Gallus from Jeru- 
salem, that Josephus§ was made governor of Galilee, and 
thence he writes,|| τῷ συνεδρίῳ τῶν Ἱεροσολυμιτῶν, “to the 
sanhedrin of Jerusalem” for instruction. And Ananias¥ 
the high-priest acknowledges that they had engaged in the 
war against the Romans only for their liberty. So that 
things seem to have been managed to that time by the high- 
priest and sanhedrin, who appearing thus upon all occasions 
with the utmost rage against Christ and Christians, might 
well be deemed not only ἀντικείμενοι, “their adversaries,” 
but antichrists. But then the Roman antichrist being also 
to “wear out the saints of the Most High,” Dan. vii. 25, 
and “ cast down some of the host of heaven,” Dan. viii. 10, 
the beast being to slay the witnesses, Rev. xi. 7, to “make 
war with the saints, and overcome them,” xiii. 7, and even 
to be “drunk with the blood of the saints, and of the mar- 
tyrs of Jesus,” xvii. 6, xviii. 24, she doubtless must em- 
phatically deserve this title. 

7 Ὑπεραιρόμενος ἐπὶ πᾶν τὸ λεγόμενον Θεὸν, ἢ σέβασμα, Ex- 
alteth himself above all that is called God, or is worship- 
ped.] The word λεγόμενος, “ called,” shows the apostle here 
speaks of magistrates, who are “called gods” in scripture, 
Ps. Ixxxii. 6, and particularly of the Roman emperor, whose 
title was σεβαστὸς, “ Augustus,’ and who are here signified 
by σέβασμα, as God is by the word Θεὺς. And how the 
Jews “exalted themselves against every thing that is called 
God,” or the magistracy, we may observe, saith Dr. Light- 
foot, in such passages as these, 2 Pet. ii. 10, «They despise 
government ;” Jude 8, “They despise dominion, and speak 
evil of dignities : and in their own stories to endless exam- 
ples. How they stood affected to them, we may learn from 
the question they put to our Saviour, “Shall we pay tribute 
to Cesar or not?” Matt. xxii. 17; for had he answered No, 
they then thought they should have ground to represent 
him as an enemy to Cesar; if Yea, to represent him to the 
people as a betrayer of his country’s liberty and freedom,** 
τὴν ἐπιτίμησιν οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ ἀντικρὺς δουλείαν ἐπιφέρειν λέγοντες, 
«they looking on this tribute-money as a sign of slavery :” 
and from their Talmudical saying, «‘ We have no king but 
God:” and from their imagination, that it was a wicked 
thing} pera τὸν Θεὸν φέρειν θνητοὺς δεσπότας, “to own any 
mortal governor under God” (see note on 1 Pet. ii. 16). 
And that the pope and his church have thus exalted them- 
selves above kings and emperors, church history and their 
own canon law will not suffer us to doubt (see Downham 
de Antichristo, lib. iv. cap. 2, 3). 


* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, et p. 323, C. 

+ P. 234, D. 

+'O Άνανος καθίζει συνέδριον κριτῶν, kat παραγαγὼν εἷς αὐτὸ 
τὸν ἀδελφὸν ᾿Ιησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ, καί τινας ἑτέρους, ὡς 
παρανομησάντων κατηγορίαν ποιησάμενος, παρέδωκε λευσϑησομένους. 
Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 8, p. 698, B. 

§ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 32. 

! De Vita sua, p. 1003, B. 

4 Τίνα ὁ᾽ οὖν ἔχει πρύφασιν, od τὴν ἐλευϑερίαν. Be Bello Jud. 
lib. iv. cap. 13, p. 874. 

** Joseph. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1. 

tt De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, 32. 


8 "Ὥστε αὐτὸν eis τὸν ναὸν Θεοῦ ὡς Θεὸν καθίσαι, So that he 
sitteth in the temple of God as God, showing himself that 
heis God.] Only the Jewish sanhedrin, their priests, high- 
priests, and doctors, or expounders of the law, sat in the 
temple of God, then properly so called, and there the high- 
priest and the sanhedrin took upon them the power of judg- 
ing in capital causes. ‘Thus they stoned Stephen; thus also 
they stoned James the brother of our Lord, and others with 
him; and Paul persecuted the Christians even to death by 
their authority (Acts xxii. 4, 5); and thus “they sat in the 
temple of God as gods.” The scribes and pharisees also 
showed themselves “as God,”’ by setting up their traditions 
above the commandments of God, pretending to dispense 
with them, and, by so doing, saith our Saviour, ὀκυροῦν, 
ἀφιέναι, ἀθετεῖν, “to lay aside, reject, and to make void, the 
commandments of God” fee xv. 16, Mark vii, 8—10. 
13), to establish their traditions. And, secondly, by pre- 
ferring them to, and requiring greater reverence to be given 
to their traditions and their doctrines, than to the written 
word of God; saying that “the words of the scribes are 
more amiable than the words of the law, and more weighty ; 
that a prophet was not to be believed without a sign or a 
miracle, but they were to be believed without them;” with 
other blasphemous sayings, cited by Dr. Lightfoot* on Matt. 
xv. 2, and by Dr. Pocock, who shows that they held their 
vows so sacred, that they were obliged to violate the laws 
of God to keep them, and that in such cases they could not 
observe God’s precept without great sin. And thirdly, this 
they did by taking to themselves the titles of “guide” and 
“ father,” which, in our Saviour’s interpretation, belonged only 
to God and Christ, Matt. xxiii. 8—10 (see the note there). 
And, fourthly, as being by their own confession ϑεύμαχοι, 
“fighters against God,” by their opposition to the apostles 
commissionated by God (Acts v. 39, xxiii, 9). Here then 
let it be noted. 

First, That these are the descriptions of “the man of sin,” 
by which the Thessalonians might then know him, and they 
run all in the present tense, showing what he already did; 
and therefore it is no objection against my interpretation of 
these words, that the sanhedrin, the scribes and pharisees, 
had long sat in the temple of God, and done the things here 
attributed to “the man of sin.” 

Secondly, Let it be noted, that it is prophesied, Dan. xi. 
35, 36, that “a king shall do according to his will, and shall 
exalt himself, and shall magnify himself above every god ;” 
and that this, by Jerome and Theodoret upon the place, is 
interpreted concerning antichrist. And that the pope of 
Rome hath manifestly not only thus “exalted himself above 
all that is called god,” by usurping a power over kings and 
emperors, as in the former note; but also sho n himself 
in the church “as God,” by claiming that infallibility which 
is the property of God, and by dispensing with his laws, and 
also by equalling himself to Christ, who is God (see Down- 
ham de Antichristo, lib. iv. cap. 5) : and therefore, according 
to the sentiments of all those fathers, who by “the temple” 
do understand the church of God, he hath by these things 
shown himself «that he is God.” 

Ὡς Ocdv.] I doubt not, saith Dr. Mills, that these words 
are added to the text, they being wanting in Ireneus, lib. v. 
cap. 25, in Origen, contra Celsum, p. 89, 307, in Cyril 
Hieros. p. 161, in the Vulgar, and Cod. Alex. ; which, if true, 
would be a great advantage to my hypothesis; but they 
being owned by all the Greek scholiasts, the Syriac and 
Arabic versions, by Cyril. Alex., Glaph. in Gen. p. 178, and 
by Theodoret, Her. Fab. lib. v. cap. 23, I dare not depend 
upon his confidence. 

9 Ver. 5. Ταῦτα ἔλεγον ὑμῖν, Ttold you of these things.] 
These are the words which seem to me to settle my inter- 
pretation of this chapter: for of the Jews, and their op- 
posing of themselves to the doctrine of Christianity, and the 
professors of it, he told them in the first epistle (ii. 15, nae 
and when he was with them, the persecutions that both he 


* Pp, 415. 


CHAPTER II. 


6 And now ye know ” what withholdeth that he 
might be revealed " in his time. 


and they suffered from them (Acts xvii. 15, 16) gave him a 
just occasion to speak both of their opposition to the gospel, 
and of the deliverance they shortly might expect from such 
enraged persecutors; this being hinted for the encourage- 
ment of Christians, in most of his epistles: but that he 
should tell them any thing of Mahomet or of the papal 
antichrist, who were not then in being, or to be known then 
to the Thessalonians by any of the characters here men- 
tioned, is not so easy to conceive. ‘Though since the charac- 
ters here referred to are partly to be found, Dan. xi. 35, 36, 
and that place by the ancients* is thought to relate to anti- 
christ, and to be here referred to by St. Paul, this is by some 
expositors thought to refer to something the apostle might 
have taught them from the prophet Daniel, touching anti- 
christ (see the Preface, §. 1—3). 

10 Ver. 6, Kai νῦν τὸ κατέχον οἴδατε, And now ye know what 
withholdeth.] Or rather, “And ye know what now with- 
holdeth ;’’ and according to this sense of the words, that 
which hindered the full revelation of this man of sin, must 
be in being, and actually withholding, when this epistle was 
indited. Some of the fatherst have conjectured, that the 
τὸ κατέχον, or that which hindered, was “the gifts of the 
Holy Spirit” then given to believers, and exercised in the 
assemblies of Christians; but they more generally do refer 
this to the Roman empire,+ saying, that the apostle here 
teacheth, that “till that be taken away, antichrist shall not 
come.” This,” say they, “the apostle here expresseth so 
covertly and obscurely,§ that he might not incense the 
Roman emperors against the Christians ;” as he must have 
done, had he openly and boldly said, “ Antichrist shall not 
come until the Roman empire be destroyed” (see note on 
1 Pet. v. 13). What I conceive to be the τὸ κατέχον, see 
note on the verse following. 

NE τῷ ἑαυτοῦ καιρῷ, In his season.] i. 6. In the time 
prefixed for the false Christs and antichrists to come, Matt. 
xxiy. 5. 24, in “the last hour’ of the Jewish church and 
economy, according to these words of St. John (1 John ii. 
18), «Little children, it is the last hour, and as ye have 
heard (from Christ) that antichrist shall come, so now are 
there many antichrists, by which ye may know that this is 
the last hour.” 

They, who refer this to the papal antichrist, say that this 
season relates to the tempus statutum, “the time prefixed” 

Dan. xi. 35) ; for antichrist, saith he, shall prosper « till 
the indignation be accomplished,” or till God’s indignation 
against the Jewish nation ceaseth: and to the “time, times, 
and half a time,” mentioned Dan. vii. 25; during which time 
“the little horn” was to “ wear out the saints of the Most 
High ;” and to the twelve hundred and sixty days in which 
the beast should triumph, and “the witnesses should be 
clothed in sackcloth,” Rev. xi. 3, or to the “ time, times, and 
half a time,” mentioned Rev. xii. 6. 14. 

2 Ver. 7. Τὸ yap μυστήριον ἤδη ἐνεργεῖται ἀνομίας, For the 
mystery of iniquity doth already work.) That is, the Jews 
have already imbibed their pernicious principles, that it is 
not lawful to pay tribute to Cesar, or to be subject to any 
other government under God: they have already made 
some seditious attempts, not only in Babylon, but in Judea, 


* Ab hoc loco Judai dici de antichristo putant quod 
quidem et nos de antichristo intelligimus. Hieron. in locum. 
et Theodoret. 

t Τινὲς τὸ κατέχον τὴν Ῥωμαϊκὴν ἐνόησαν 6acieiav, τινὲς δὲ τὴν 
χάριν τοῦ Πνεύματος. Οἱ μὲν τοῦ Πνεύματος τὴν χάριν φασὶν, οἱ δὲ 
τὴν 'Ῥωμαϊκὴν, οἷς ἔγωγε μάλιστα τίϑεμαι. Theod. Chrysost. 

+ Nisi, inquit, fuerit Romanum imperium ante desolatum, 
et antichristus precesserit, Christus non veniet. Hieron. Ep. 
ad Algas. q. 11, f. 60. Post defectum regni Romani appa- 
riturum antichristum,—dicit Ambros.in locum. Ita Chrysost. 
QGEcum. Theoph. in locum. Severianus apud CEcum. Iren. 
lib. v. cap. 26. 

§ Si enim aperté et audactér dixisset, Non veniet anti- 
christus nisi prids Romanum deleatur imperium, justa causa 
persecutionis in orientem tunc ecclesiam consurgere videba- 
tur. Hieron. ibid. Chrysost. in locum, 

Vor. 1V.—i03 


817 


7 For the 15 mystery of iniquity doth already work 
(ὦ. e. the Jews are already making some efforts towards 


under Theudas Gaulonites;* and also have been incited 
farther to do so by one Dortus, and his associates, who per- 
suaded the multitude, ἐπὶ τῇ Ῥωμαίων ἀποστάσει, “to revolt 
from the Romans.” Josephus also doth inform us,t that 
before that time there were many tumults in Judea, καὶ ovx- 
νοὺς βασιλείαν ὃ καιρὸς ἀνέπειϑε, and that “the time prevailed 
with many to usurp the kingdom.” ‘This mystery was also 
working by the false apostles and deceitful workers of the 
Jews, causing some of the gentile Christians to warp from 
the simplicity of the faith to the Jewish rites, to mix Ju- 
daism with Christianity, and so to “turn from him that 
called them to another gospel.’ The fathers, Theodoret 
only excepted, say this mystery of iniquity was already 
working, “in Nero, the forerunner of antichrist,’+ and the 
calamities he brought upon the Christians ; on which aceount 
some of them taught that he was antichrist; and others, 
that he was to be raised again to be so: but this is an ex- 
travagancy sufficiently confuted from this one observation, 
that these words were written in the reign of Claudius, 
whereas the persecution of the Christians happened only 
twelve years after, in the reign of Nero. Others, who say this 
mystery was working in the false prophets then in being, till 
they can show us any false prophets then in being, which 
were not of the Jewish nation, do not contradict, but esta- 
blish our assertion. And, lastly, others, though they do 
zealously contend against Dr. Hammond, that Simon Magus 
could not be the “man of sin” here mentioned, yet say, it 
is probable he was the “ mystery of iniquity” then working, 
and the forerunner of antichrist, because he did “set up 
himself as the supreme God, brought in the invocation of 
angels, and the worship of images, and taught idolatry to be 
a thing indifferent, and was the father,” as the beast is styled 
the mother “ of abominations:” but thus they seem to me 
to build up again what they had so industriously pulled 
down: for it is highly reasonable to conceive “the mystery 
of iniquity” then working, should be that very mystery 
which after was to be completed by a more full appearance 
of the “man of sin,” as will appear from the connexion of 
the words, “ Remember ye not, that when I was with you, E 
told you these things?” (who was the man of sin to be re- 
vealed, and what were his characters, ver. 3, 4, and what it 
was that hindered at present the revealing of him) «for the 
mystery of iniquity is already working” (i. e. he is doing 
that covertly, which when he is revealed he will do more 
openly) ; “ only he that hinders (his full appearance) will do 
so, till he be taken away ; and then shall this wicked one be 
revealed.”” Who sees not now, that all those interpretations 
must be false, which make the “ mystery of iniquity” to be 
one person, or one kind of persons; and the “man of sin,” 
or antichrist, another; as they must do, who make the 
“mystery of iniquity” to be Simon Magus, or the false 
prophets or heretics in being when this epistle was indited ; 
and the “man of sin,” the pope of Rome and his clergy? 
This “mystery of iniquity,” saith Dr. Lightfoot, cannot be 
understood but of the Jewish nation. And so it is explained, 
again and again, by John, saying, “This is the last hour; 
and as you have heard that antichrist cometh, so now are 
there many antichrists, by which we know this is the last 
hour,” 1 John ii. 18; and ch. iv.; “ Every spirit that con- 
fesseth not Jesus Christ, who is come in the flesh, is not of 
God; and this is the spirit of antichrist; this is the deceiver, 
and the antichrist,” ch. ii. 7. Here, therefore, is a plain ac- 


* Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5, p. 692. 

ἡ De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 6. 

+ Multis malis——quibus Nero impurissimus Cesarum 
mundum premit, antichristi parturitur adventus, et quod ille 
operatus est posted, in istoex parte completur. Hieron. Ep. 
ad Algas. ibid. Mysterium iniquitatis 4 Nerone inceptum 
est, qui zelo idolorum apostolos interfecit, &c. Ambros. 
Νέρωνα, ἐνταῦθα φησὶν, ὡσανεὶ τῦπον ὄντα τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου. Chrys, 
CEcum. Theoph. Dignus extitit qui persecutionem in Chris- 
tianos primus inciperet, nescio an et postremus expleret, 
Siquidem opinione multorum receptum sit, ipsum antichris. 
tum venturum. Sulpitius de aaa lib. ii. cap. 40. 

3 


818 


this apostasy): only he 13 who now letteth will let (or, 
only there is that withholdeth as yet, and will continue so 
to do), until he (or z/) be taken out of the way. 

8 And then shall 15 that Wicked be ™ revealed, 


II. THESSALONIANS. 


whom the Lord shall 17 consume with the spirit (or 
breath) of his mouth, and shall 18 destroy with the 
brightness of his coming :" 

9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of 


count of the working of the “mystery of iniquity” in the 
false Christs and prophets of the Jewish nation, who also 
were the great incendiaries to, and agents in, the apostasy 
of that nation from the Roman government (see note on 
ver. 10). 

13'O κατέχων, He that letteth.] Quis nisi Romanus status ? 
« Who but the Roman state?” saith Tertullian :* so many 
of the fathers, as hath been noted on the foregoing verse ; 
and whereas it may be objected against this sense, that it 
seems plainly from the word 6 κατέχων, that he must be a 
person, rather than a state; they who are of this opinion 
answer, he is here spoken of as one single person, though 
the government consisted of a succession of emperors, be- 
cause one of them reigned only at a time, and the govern- 
ment was dissolved, by taking away the last governor. My 
conjecture is this, “ He who now letteth,’ i. e. the emperor 
Claudius, “will let till he be taken away;’ i. e. he will 
hinder the Jews from breaking out into an open rebellion in 
his time, they being so signally and particularly obliged by 
him, that they cannot for shame think of revolting from his 
government; for he had made two edicts in their favour, 
the one concerning the Alexandrian Jews, to this ἴδοι, Ὁ 
« That the just Jews should suffer nothing, because of the 
madness of Caius, who would be worshipped as a god, and 
that they should have liberty to observe their own laws and 
customs.” And that other edict,+ in which he gives them 
«liberty over his whole empire, without molestation, to ob- 
serve their own laws and customs ;” declaring that he did it, 
“because he judged them worthy of that favour for their 
affection and fidelity to the Roman government.” 

After his death, the affairs of the Jews, saith Josephus, 
became worse and worse, not only by reason§ γοήτων dvSpa- 
πων οἱ τὸν ὄχλον ἡπάτων, “of those magicians who deceived 
the people,” and of those thieves who stirred them up to 
the war against the Romans,|| μηδὲν ὑπακούειν αὐτοῖς λέγοντες, 
“persuading them not to be subject to them ;” but because 
Nero, in his third year, sends a letter to Portius Festus, 
governor of Judea, by which the Jews are deprived of their 
ἰσοπολιτεία, “equal share of government” in Cwesarea; 
whence, saith Josephus, was the rise of all our calamities, 
the Jews persisting still in sedition, μέχρι δὴ τὸν πόλεμον 
ἐξῆψαν, “till they broke out into the war.” In the seventh 
of Nero, Albinus succeeds Festus, then dead, who, saith 
Josephus, was ὃ μάλιστα λυμαινύμενος τὴν χώραν, Ἷ “one who 
exceedingly wasted the country,” and laid the seeds of their 
future captivity. In the tenth of Nero, Gessius Florus suc- 
ceeds him, who** ro\\dv ἀνέπλησε κακῶν ᾿Ιουδαίους, “ brought 
many calamities upon the Jews,” saith Josephus; which 
having tragically represented, he concludes thus, “ What 
shall I say more? τὸν yap πρὸς ‘Pwpaiors πόλεμον ὃ xaravay- 
κάσας ἡμᾶς ἄρασθαι Φλῶρος, for it was this Florus who com- 
pelled us to the war against the Romans, which began in 
the twelfth of Nero.” 

14 ως ἐκ μέσου γένηται, Till he be taken away.) i. 6. Say 
some, till the Roman government be taken away ; as it was 
by the exile of Augustulus, A. D. 476; say I, till Claudius 
be taken away, as he was by poison, saith Suetonius ; for, 
as tolli de medio, among the Latins, so in the Greek, ἐκ μέσου 
yevéoSat, imports, one to be taken away by death, and oft- 
times by a violent death; so ἐξαναλῶσαι ἐκ μέσου τῆς πα- 
ρεμβολῆς is “ to destroy them out of the middle of the camp,” 
till they were consumed: so of Korah and his company it 


* De Resur. Carnis, cap. 24. 

ἡ Βούλομαι μηδὲν διὰ τὴν Γαῖου παραφροσύνην τῶν δικαίων τῷ 
Ιουδαίων ἔθνει παραπεπτωκέναι, φυλάσσεσθαι δὲ αὐτοῖς πρότερον 
δικαιώματα, ἐμμένουσι τοῖς ᾿Ιουδαίων ἔθεσι. Joseph. Antiq. lib. 
xix. cap. 4, p. 678. 

$ Καλῶς οὖν ἔχειν, καὶ ᾿Ιουδαίους τοὺς ἐν παντὶ τῷ ἐφ᾽ ἡμᾶς 
κόσμῳ τὰ πάτρια ἔϑη ἀνεπικωλύτως φυλάσσειν -------ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτοὺς, 
ὑκπὲρ ὧν παρεκλήθην, ἀξίους κρίνας διὰ τὴν πρὸς “Ῥωμαίους πίστιν, 
καὶ φιλίαν. Joseph. ibid. 

§ Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6, p. 690. | Tbid. 

q Ibid. cap. 7, p. 696, 697. ** Lib. ii. cap. 24. 


is said, ἀπώλοντο ἐκ μέσου τῆς συναγωγῆς, “They were destroyed 
from the midst of the congregation,’ Numb. xvi. 33. ‘Thus 
of the righteous, saith the prophet, ἤρται ἐκ μέσου, “He is 
taken away,” he rests in his grave, Isa. lvii. 2; so Jeremiah, 
ἐξῆρε ἐκ μέσου, The Lord hath taken away all my mighty 
men from the midst of me,” Lam. i. 15. And so God saith 
of the false prophet, Ezek. xiv, 8, 9, ἐξαρῶ αὐτὸν, ἀφανιῶ 
αὐτὸν ἐκ μέσου τοῦ λαοῦ pov, “1 will cast him off from the 
midst of my people.” 

15 Ver. 8. ‘O ἄνομος, The wicked ;] Who will not be sub- 
ject to the laws to which their forefathers, from the time of 
Pompey, have submitted. 

16 ᾿Αποκαλυφϑήσεται, Shall be revealed ;] Either by his 
actual apostasy from the Roman government, or by the great 
apostasy of the unbelievers of that nation ; of which, see note 
on ver. 3. 

7 Ὃν ὃ Κύριος ἀναλώσει τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὑτοῦ, 
Whom the Lord shall consume by the spirit of his mouth.] 
That the apostle here refers to Isaiah x. 4, appears by his 
using the very words of that prophet, which run thus: « He 
shall smite the land with the rod of his mouth, and with the 
breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked one.” Now what 
is the dand there is well expounded by Malachi in these 
words (iv. 6), “Lest he smite the earth with a curse.” 
Where both the Hebrew and the Greek use the same words, 
Now in Malachi it is evident, and confessed, that by “the 
earth,” the land of Judea must be meant, as it is usually in 
the book of Psalms, Ps. xvi. 3, xxv. 18, xxxvii. 3. 9. 11. 22. 
29. 34; seeing to them alone the prophet was then sent to 
prophesy: it is therefore reasonable to conceive, that the 
same phrase should have the same import in the prophet 
Isaiah; to smite this land “with the breath (or spirit), of 
his mouth,” is, to “smite in his wrath and indignation.” So, 
Job iv. 9, “ΒΥ the blast of God, by the breath of his nos- 
trils, (ἀπὸ πνεύματος ὀργῆς αὐτοῦ, or, of his anger,) are they 
consumed ;” and to “consume with his fiery indignation.” 
‘Thus “ Tophet is ordained of old, the pile thereof is fire and 
much wood; the breath of the Lord, (ϑύμος Κυρίου, the in- 
dignation of the Lord,) like a stream of brimstone, doth 
kindle it.’ So Ps. xviii. 8, “A smoke ascended in his 
anger, and fire out of his mouth devoured.” And, ver. 15, 
«Αἵ thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy 
nostrils,’ ἀπὸ ἐμπνεύσεως πνεύματος ὑργῆς cov, “by the breath 
of the wind of thine anger.” This therefore again answers to 
the words of Malachi, iv. 1, “ Behold, the day cometh that 
shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, and all that do 
wickedly, shall be as stubble ; and the day that cometh shall 
burn them up;” and to that of the Baptist, Matt. iii. 10, 
«“ And now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree 
therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be hewn 
down, and cast into the fire :”” which also evidently belongs 
to the Jewish nation, which said, “ We have Abraham for 
our father,” ver. 9, and to whom alone the Baptist is there 
speaking ; and again, ver. 12, he saith of Christ, « His fan 
is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor—and 
burn the chaff with unquenchable fire :” plainly alluding to 
the words of Malachi, that “all the wicked shall be as chaff, 
or stubble.” This being so, “the earth” to be “smitten 
with the rod of his mouth,” must be “the people,” or “in- 
habitants of the land : or, as the Chaldee, “ the sinners of 
the earth,” the unbelievers and wicked of Judea, to be con- 
sumed by that indignation and fire of the Lord, Mal. iv. 1. 
So saith Procopius on the place, “ Doth the Lord threaten to 
Judea, ἐπὶ τῇ κατ' αὐτοῦ παροινία, for her contumely against 
him? saying, Thy house is left unto thee desolate; and 
ἐγκαταλειφϑεῖσα πολέμῳ καὶ πυρὶ δαπανᾶται, being left desolate, 
is consumed by sword and fire.” 

‘That these words may have a more full completion in the 
destruction of “ the beast,’”’ or “mystical Babylon,” which is 
also to be “slain by the sword” proceeding from the mouth of 
Christ, and destroyed by “the fierceness of his wrath,” and, 
with “the false prophets,” to be “cast alive into the lake of 
fire and brimstone,” I deny not: but that this should be the 
primary intent of the words of Isaiah, and that he should be 


CHAPTER II. 


Satan with ® all power and signs and lying wonders, 
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness 


there prophesying of the destruction of the church of Rome, 
seems to me a rabbinical gloss, not much to be insisted on, 
especially since the apostle, Rom. xv. 12, applies the tenth 
verse of this chapter to the first calling of the gentiles. 

8 Kai καταργήσει τῇ ἐπιφανείᾳ τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ, And 
shall consume with the brightness of his coming.) The day 
of the Lord’s coming to destroy Jerusalem, is styled by Joel, 
ii, 31, ἡμέρα Κυρίου ἡ μεγάλη καὶ ἐπίφανὴς, “the great and 
bright day of the Lord:” and, Mal. iv. 5, “ Behold, I send 
you Elias the prophet” (i. e. the Baptist, in the spirit and 
power of Elias, Luke i. 17), πρὶν ἐλθεῖν τὴν ἡμέραν τοῦ Κυρίου 
τὴν μεγάλὴν καὶ ἐπιφανὴ, “ before the coming of the great and 
bright day of the Lord.” And that our Lord’s coming in 
his day, after he had suffered, and been rejected of that age, 
or generation, in which he suffered, should be “as lightning 
shining from one end of the heaven to the other,” he ex- 
pressly tells his disciples, Luke xvii. 24. And when this 
ἐπιφάνεια καὶ παρουσία, “brightness and appearance of the 
Son of man” was to happen, he sufficiently instructs them 
in these words, “ As the lightning, φαίνεται, shineth from the 
east to the west, οὕτως ἔσται καὶ ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ 
ἀνθρώπου, so shall the coming of the Son of man be, ὅπου 
γὰρ, for wheresoever the carcase is, there shall the eagles be 
gathered together,” Luke xvii. 24. 37; which sensibly applies 
this matter to the destruction of the Jews by the Roman 
army, whose ensign was the eagle. ‘This therefore is a far- 
ther confirmation of our exposition. 

Lastly, Observe the connexion of these verses; there is a 
τὸ κατέχον νῦν, something, or person, “ that withholdeth now ;” 
and, ὁ κατέχων ἄρτι, “he that now withholdeth, will do so, 
until he be taken away, καὶ τότε, and then shall the wicked 
one be revealed, whom the Lord shall destroy.” Now would 
not any one here think, that if the Roman government were 
that which withheld, antichrist should presently be re- 
vealed, and appear to the world to be so (as all the fathers,* 
who were of that opinion, held), soon after the dissolution of 
that government, according to those words of Jerome,t Qui 
tenebat de medio fit, et non intelligimus antichristum 
appropinquare; quem Dominus Jesus Christus interficiet 
spiriti oris sui? “He that withheld is taken away ; and do 
we not understand that antichrist is at hand?” And again, 
would not any one hence be prone to think, that the Lord 
should be as quick to consume him, when he was revealed, 
as all the fathers+ thought, allowing but “three years and a 
half” for the whole reign of antichrist, and declaring, that 
they had this not from apocryphal writings,§ but from the 
holy scriptures? and were it otherwise, those Christians 
which saw the dissolution of the Roman empire, A. D. 476, 
might lie under the same doubts as did the Thessalonians 
here, touching “the man of sin ;” for then they saw no Ro- 
man antichrist appearing, nor that “ mystery of iniquity” yet 
working; for the pope and clergy of Rome were then ortho- 
dox, free from “exalting themselves above all that is called 
God,” or from “wearing out the saints” with persecution, 
till some hundred years after. And if, after his appearing 
thus, he were to continue twelve hundred and sixty years 
before our Saviour’s coming to destroy him, as he must do, 
according to that hypothesis; might not the Christians be 
tempted, in that long interval, to say,“ Where is the promise 
of his coming?’ This therefore seems to lie as a strong 


* Ἔρχεται ὃ dvrixptoros Grav πληρωθῶσιν of καιροὶ τῶν Ρωμαίων 
βασιλεῖας. Cyril, Catech. 15, p. 163, Ambros. et Chrysost. 
in 2 Thess. ii. Hieron. 4. 11, ad Algas. August. de Civ. 
D. lib. xx. cap. 19. 

¢ Epist. ad Geront. f. 33, L, H. 

+ Usque ad tempus temporum et dimidium tempus, hoc 
est triennium et sex menses, in quibus veniens regnabit super 
terram. Iren. lib. v. cap. 25. Dimidium hebdomade, hoc 
est, tres annos cum dimidio regnabit antichristus super ter- 
Tam; post auferetur regnum illius et gloria. Hippol. de 
Consum. Mundi, p. 36. 

§ Βασιλεῦσει dé ὃ dvrixptaros τρία καὶ ἥμισυ ἔτη μόνα, οὐκ ἐξ 
ἀποκρύῤων λέγομεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ Δανίηλ. Cyril. Hieros. Catech. 
15, p. 163, 165. Hieron. et Theodoret. in Dan. cap. vii. 
25. August. de Civ. lib. xx. 23. 


819 


in them that perish; ” because they received not the 
love of the truth, that they might be saved. 


bar against that, as the primary sense and meaning of these 
words. 

99 Ver. 9. "Ev πάση δυναμει καὶ σημείοις, With all power 
and signs.) This our Lord foretold, that before his advent 
to destroy Jerusalem, there should appear “ false prophets, 
and false Christs, who should deceive many,” Matt. xxiv. 11, 
who should “ show signs and wonders, to deceive, if it were 
possible, the very elect,” ver. 24. Now that these “ false 
prophets,” ver. 11. 24, were the same, we learn from Luke, 
who sums both up in one, xxi. 8, and, from the work of 
both, which was to “deceive many.” ‘That they were all to 
appear in the same age in which his disciples, to whom he 
spake these words, lived, is also evident from Christ’s cau- 
tion to them, in respect of both; “See to it, lest any man 
deceive you,” Matt. xxiv. 4; “See to it: behold, I have 
foretold you all things,” Mark xiii. 23, Matt. xxiv. 26. It 
cannot then be doubted, but that there were such persons as 
are here mentioned, which then arose among the Jews. Such 
were the Jews of whom Paul speaks, comparing them to 
Jannes and Jambres, the celebrated magicians of Egypt, 
because of their resistance of the truth of the gospel, as 
those magicians resisted Moses, and whom he styles, πονηροὶ 
ἄνθρωποι καὶ yonres, “wicked men and jugglers,” 2 Tim. iii. 
8. 13, or those who did strange things by the invocation of 
devils, as the word imports, say Phavorinus and Suidas. The 
magicians were men of the same art and tricks. Now to 
these Josephus doth ascribe the beginning of the apostasy from 
the Roman government, and by them, he informs us, that it 
was carried on to the last: the affairs of the Jews, saith he, 
became worse daily, by reason* γοήτων ἀνθρώπων οἱ τὸν ὄχλον 
ἡπάτων, “ of those impostors who deceived the people,” of 
which he immediately gives an instance in the Egyptian, 
who set up for a prophet. He adds, that in the beginning 
of the reign of Nero,t “impostors and deceivers, under a 
pretence of divine impulse, endeavouring innovations and 
changes, made the people mad, and led them into the wilder- 
ness, promising there to them signs of liberty from God:” 
and {παῖε γόητες πολλοὺς εἰς ἀπύστασιν ἐνῆγον, “ the impostors 
prevailed with many to revolt.” And even when their tem- 
ple was in flames, he saith, there were many prophets§ who 
encouraged them to expect τὴν ἀπὸ Θεοῦ βοήθειαν, “ help from 
God,” and that they gave credit to them. Accordingly of 
the dragon it is said, that “the unclean spirits which went 
out of his mouth, were the spirits of devils, working mira- 
cles,’ Rev. xvi. 13, 14; that “the false prophet wrought 
signs before the beast,” Rev. xix. 20; and that the beast 
“wrought great signs, so as to make fire descend from hea- 
ven,” Rev. xiii. 13 ; and that by these things they did πλανῶν, 
«deceive the inhabitants of the earth,” Rev. xiii. 13. 19, 20, 
xx. 10. Of which miracles done by the members of the 
Roman church, to establish their idolatry and superstition, 
see Downham de Antichristo, lib. vi. cap. 1. 

20 Ver. 10. Τὴν ἀγάπην τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἐδέξαντο, They re- 
ceived not the love of the truth.) From these words some 
conceive that antichrist, or “the man of sin,” must in pro- 
fession be a Christian; because he is said “not to receive 
the love of the truth” only. But all the fathers,|| and many 
others say, “not to receive the love of the truth,” is, “not 
to receive the truth which is worthy to be loved,” and which 
would have taught them charity to those they persecuted, it 
being the same with “not believing the truth,” ver. 12. And 
this emphatically belonged to those unbelieving Jews to 
whom Paul speaks thus, “It was necessary that the word 
of God should be first spoken to you: but since you thrust 
it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, 
lo, we turn to the gentiles’’ (Acts xiii. 46) : and to whom he 


* Antiq. xx. cap. 6. 

JT Πλάνοι ἄνθρωποι, καὶ απατεῶνες, προσχήματι ϑειασμοῦ, vew= 
τερισμοὺς καὶ μεταβυλὰς πραγματενύμενοι, δαιμονᾷν τὸ πλῆθος, 
ἀνέπειθον, καὶ προῆγον eis ἐρημίαν, ὡς ἐκεῖ" τοῦ Θεοῦ δείξαντος 
αὐτοῖς σημεῖα ἐλευθερία. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 23. 

+ Ibid. p. 797. § Lib. vii. cap. 30, 31. 

! Τὴν ἀγάπην τῆς ἀληϑείας τὸς Χριστὸν λέγει. Chrysost. 
Theod. CEcum. Theoph. Spiritum Dei. Hieron. Ep. ad 
Algas. qu. 11. 


820 


11 And for this cause 3: God shall send (among) 
them strong delusion, (which will have this effect upon 
them) that they should (shal) believe a lie: 

12 That they all might be damned (Gr. judged and 
condemned) who believed not the truth, (the gospel 
preached to them, see note on Rom. ii. 8,) but had 
pleasure in unrighteousness (or, falsehood, see note on 
1 Cor. xiii. 6). 

13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God 
for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God 
hath from the beginning (of our preaching to you, shown, 
1 Thess. i. 4, 5, that he had) chosen you to salvation 
through sanctification of the Spirit (which gives the 
earnest of tt, and makes us meet for it,) and belief of the 
truth (which promiseth it) : 


II. THESSALONIANS. 


14 5 Whereunto (i. 6. 10 which faith and sanctifica- 
tion) he called you by (the preaching of) our gos- 
pel, % to the obtaining of the glory (Gr. to the glorious 
salvation) of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast (in the faith), 
and * hold the traditions which ye have been taught, 
eee by word (ver. 5, 6), or (by this) our epis- 
tle. 

16 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, 
even our Father (through him), which hath loved us, 
and hath given us everlasting consolation and good 
hope through grace, 

17 Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every 
good word and work. 


applieth that of the prophet, “ Behold, ye despisers, and 
perish ; for I will work a work in your days, which ye will 
in no wise believe,” ver. 41 (see Acts xxviii. 27, Heb. iv. 2. 
12, 1 Pet. ii. 7, 8), and all the fathers which speak of anti- 
christ, and “the man of sin,” not one of them excepted, de- 
clare, that this and the two following verses belong to the 
unbelieving Jews,* that “he is thus to come with signs and 
wonders to deceive them;” and that “they who would not 
receive Christ, confirming his doctrine with true miracles, 
shall be deceived by the lying miracles of antichrist.’ And 
if this be so, that these things are intended of the unbelieving 
Jews, they can agree in the primary import of them to them 
only. 

21 Ver. 11. Πέμψει ὃ eis, God shall send.] As he sent a 
lying spirit into the mouths of Ahab’s prophets (1 Kings 
Xvii. 21, 22), by permitting the evil spirit to go forth for 
that end; or as he is said to deceive his people (Jer. iv. 10), 
because he suffered them to be deceived by false prophets 
(Jer. vi. 14). And as he deceived the false prophets, by 
giving them up unto a spirit of delusion (Ezek. xiv. 9), this 
must be the true interpretation of all such passages as these ; 
for, 

First, God cannot secretly inspire into us any evil, or in- 
fuse any evil principle into our hearts; for evil can never 
proceed immediately from him who hath an absolute and 
entire freedom from it; were it his offspring, it must cease to 
bear that name, his works being all very good, and “ wrought 
in righteousness.” Nor, 

Secondly, Can he incline, excite, encourage, or entice to 
sin: for then he must excite men to perform “the abomina- 
ble thing which his soul hates,” to do that which is infinitely 
displeasing to him, and must incline them secretly to that 
which he openly deters all persons from; and that he can- 
not truly be offended with such persons, he cannot punish 
them for their iniquities: or else he must be angry with 
them because they do obey his motions, and sentence them 
to endless misery because they do comply with his own in- 
clinations. Nor, 

Thirdly, Can he necessitate any man to sin: for then he 
must by force compel them to it, and then the action done 
by virtue of that force cannot be theirs, but God’s; nor 
would our consciences condemn us for sin, were we assured 
we could not help it. 


2 Ver. 14. Bis 6.] Here Beza notes, that many copies | 


read εἰς ἥν, which agrees with πίστιν, ver. 13, and that many 
Latin copies accord with them. But it is common for this 
pronoun to vary in gender from the noun to which it relates ; 
ΒΟ σκεύη ἐλέους οὕς, Rom. 1x. 23, 24, rexvia pov otic, Gal. iv. 
19 (see Phil. ii. 15, Col. ii. 19, Philem. 10, 2 John 1). 


* Apud eos omnes signa edet et horrenda miracula- 
ad seducendos sui similes impios. 
lib. v. cap. 25. Facit hee omnia propter Judgos, ut qui 
noluerunt caritatem recipere veritatis. Hieron. Ep. ad 
Algas. q. 11. August. tom. ix. tr. 29, p. 246, C. 

᾿Ιουδαίους τοὺς ἡλεμμένον προσδοκῶντας draravra, Cyril. Hieros. 
Catech. 15, p- 163, B. 164, D. Ιουδαίους μάλιστα. Theod. 
Chrys. G2cumen. Theoph. in locum. 

Ad quem fugiet vidua oblita Dei, i. 6. terrena Jerusalem, 
Tren, lib. v. cap. 25. Cum autem alius venerit in nomine 
meo, illum recipietis, alium dicens antichristum. Ibid. 


Hippol. p. 32, 34. Iren. | 


% Eis περιποίησιν δόξης, To the glorious life or salvation.) 
That περιποιεῖν is to save alive, see note on Eph. i. 14, and 
περιποίησις is pon “ life,” 2 Chron. xiv. 13, « They fell down, 
Gore μὴ εἶναι ἐν αὐτοῖς περιποίησιν, So that there was no life in 
them ;” Mal. iii. 17, “ The day which I make:cis περιποίησιν, 
LXX. 

24 Ver. 15. Kparetre τὰς παραδόσεις, Hold the traditions 
which ye have been taught.] This passage proves not in the 
least, that, in the judgment of Paul, there were any tradi- 
tions wholly extrascriptural ; that is, such as were neither 
then committed, nor after to be committed to writing, by 
himself or any other inspired person; but only, that he 
himself had not writ all things to them by epistle, being 
absent, but had preached many things to them being 
present. 

Now that the word which Paul preached orally was after 
written by Luke, his amanuensis and companion, we learn 
from the tradition of the church of Christ, recorded by 
Treneus* and Eusebius. 

Secondly, All that the apostle here exhorts the Thessalo- 
nians to do, is to retain the traditions they had immediately 
received from the mouth of an apostle, and which he per- 
sonally had delivered to them; which traditions, when we 
know them to be such, there is no doubt but they ought 
with all reverence to be received: when therefore the 
church of Rome hath proved that the traditions she obtrudes 
upon us were immediately received from the mouth of an 
apostle, then, and not till then, will this text oblige us to 
receive them. 

Thirdly, This text is so far from being an argument for 
receiving doctrinal traditions, nowhere wnt in scripture, 
upon the sole authority of the church of Rome, or even of 
the church catholic, that it is rather a demonstration that 
she is no sure preserver of them, she having actually lost 
those very traditions touching the “man of sin,” which are 
mentioned in this chapter, and particularly referred to in 
this text ; “I told you these things when I was with you,” 
ver. 8, and “ Now ye know what letteth; wherefore stand 
fast, holding the traditions” touching his coming, which when 
I was with you I delivered by words, and now hint to you 
by epistle, and which, as it appeareth by this epistle and 
his exhortation, were of great moment to be known. Now, 
hath this tradition been preserved by the Roman, or by 
the catholic church? or must she not confess with An- 
selm,* and their own Esthius on the place, “Truly the 
Thessalonians knew what letted, but we know it not?” So 
that the tradition which the church received from the apos- 
tles, touching this matter, is wholly lost; how therefore can 
she be relied on as a sure preserver, and a true teacher of 
traditions, which hath confessedly lost one of great mo- 
ment, deposited with the Thessalonians, and the primitive 
church ? 


* Lucas autem sectator Pauli, quod ab illo predicabatur 
evangelium, in libro condidit. Iren. lib. iil. cap. 1, Λουκᾶς 
ὃ dxédovSos Παύλου, τὸ ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου κηρυσσόμενον εὐαγγέλιον ἐν βιβ- 
λίῳ κατέϑετο. Euseb. Hist. Ecel. lib. v. cap. 8. 

+ Nos nescimus quod illi sciebant. Anselm. Noverint 
utique Thessalonicenses, at nos nescimus. Esth, 


821 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Fivarty (τὸ λοιπὸν, furthermore, I entreat you), 
brethren, (10) pray for us (apostles and ministers of 
the gospel), that the word of the Lord (preached by 
ts) may have free course, (τρέχῃ, may run to) and be 
glorified (among other gentiles), even as it is (hath been) 
with (or among) you: 

2 And (pray also) that we may be delivered 1 from 
unreasonable and wicked men, (such as the unbelieving 
Jews, the great opposers of our preaching to the gen- 
tiles, are, 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16:) ἢ for all men have not 
faith. : 

3 But (‘hough men may prove unfaithful) the Lord is 
(always) faithful (/o his promises), who (therefore) shall 
(or, will do all things requisite on his part, tv) stablish 
you, and keep you from evil. 

4 And (therefore) we have confidence in the Lord 
touching you, that ye (through his assistance) both do 
(at present) and will (siz//) do the things which we (by 
his authority) command you. 

5 And (that we may not be mistaken in this confidence, 
we pray that) the Lord (would) direct your hearts into 
the love of God, (which will constrain you to this obedi- 
ence, 2 Cor. v. 14, and from which nothing shall separate 
you, Rom. viii. 35. 39,) and into the ὅ patient waiting 
for (of ) Christ (mentioned 1 Thess. i. 10, 2 Thess. i. 
10, Phil. iii. 20). 

6 Now we (being thus confident of your obedience) 
command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every 
brother that walketh disorderly, and not after 4 the 
tradition which he received of (7. e. from) us. 

7 For yourselves know how ye ought to follow 
us: for ® we behaved not ourselves disorderly among 
you; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 2.] Note, It is well known, and hath been often 
observed, that the unbelieving Jews were in all places bitter 
enemies to the preachers of the gospel, and sent their emis- 
saries into all places to incite the governors against them, 
and therefore, as here, so Rom. xv. 31, the apostle entreats 
Christians to contend with him in prayer, that he might be 
delivered from the unbelievers in Judea; whereas Simon 
Magus and his followers were a despicable crew at the writ- 
ing of this epistle, and could have no power to persecute 
the apostles or preachers of the gospel on this account: and 
therefore Eusebius* informs us, that his heresy prevailed 
little in the apostles’ days, and that his power was presently 
extinguished with his person. 

2 For all men have not faith.] Here, saith Theodoret, 
Θεοῦ γὰρ ἴδιον καλεῖν, ἡμῶν δὲ τὸ πείθεσϑαι, “ It is of God to call 
us, but of men to obey his call. Whence Christ saith (Luke 
ix. 23), If any man will come after me, οὐ yap ἀνάγκῃ Bid- 
ζεται, ἀλλὰ γνώμην ζητεῖ, for he compels no man.” 

3 Ver. 5. Or, εἰς ὑπομονὴν τοῦ Χριστοὴ, Into the patience of 
Christ.) i. e. Into an imitation of his patience, in suffering 
“the contradiction of sinners against himself,” that ye may 
“run with patience the race which is set before you, looking 
unto Jesus,” &c. (Heb. xii. 1, 2). 

4 Ver. 6. Kari τὴν παράδοσιν. The tradition here men- 
tioned is, say Chrysostom, Theodoret, G2cumenius, and 
Theophylact, the tradition which he delivered διὰ τῶν ἔργων, 
“by his works,” in which he was an example to them of 
industry ; and therefore he adds, at ver. 7, 

5 Ver. 7. Οὐκ ἡτακτήσαμεν, We behaved not ourselves dis- 


*°H μὲν τοῦ Σίμωνος ἀνέβη καὶ παραγρῆμα σὺν τῷ ἀνδρὶ καταλέλυτο 
δύναμις. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 15; vide cap. 14. 


8 Neither did we eat any man’s bread for nought; 
but wrought with labour and travail (weariness and 
lotl) night and day, that we might not be chargeable 
to any of you: 

9 Not because we have not power (lo live of the 
gospel, for the labourer is worthy of his hire, Luke x. 7, 
and so hath the Lord appointed, that they that preach the 
gospel should live of the gospel, 1 Cor. ix. 14), but to 
make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us (in 
this our industry ; for if we, who might lawfully live 
upon other men’s labours, choose rather to work for our 
own living, how much more ought ye to do so? 

10 And this we have formerly taughl,) for even 
when we were with you, this we commanded you, 
that if any (being able) would not work, neither should 
he eat. 

11 (And of this we have cause to remind you ;)For® we 
hear that there are some which walk among you dis- 
orderly, working not at all, but are busybodies (med- 
dling with that which belongs not to them). 

12 Now them that are such we command and exhort 
by (the authority and in the name of) our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that with quietness they work, and (so) eat 
their own bread. 

13 (Thus I hear it is with them :) But ye, brethren, 
Tbe not weary in well doing (let not their example make 
you neglect your industry). 

14 And if any man (among yow) obey not our word 
by this epistle (tn which we exhort and command them 
thus to work), ® note that man, and have no company 
with him, that he may be ashamed. 

15 Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish 
him as a brother. 

16 Now the ® Lord of peace himself give you peace 


orderly.] That is, saith Theophylact, “ We were not idle ;” 
for God having ordered man to labour, and fitted him with 
members for that end, he that will not do so, ἐκλέλοιπε τὴν 
τάξιν, “deserts the order” in which God hath placed him; 
and so the apostle expounds himself, ver. 11. 

§ Ver. 11. Μηδὲν ἐργαζομένους, ἀλλὰ περιεργαζομένους. Not 
working at all, but being busy-bodies, or, but being employed 
about vain things: so περιεργάζεσθαι, πράττειν τὰ περισσὰ, 
Hesych. Phavorinus. So Ecclus. iii. 23, ἐν rots περισσοῖς τῶν 
ἔργων cov μὴ περιεργάζου, TInanem vanamque operam ne sus- 
picias, “ Be not employed in vain things.” 

7 Ver. 13.] Note, The fathers interpret these words thus, 
Let not their sloth hinder your charity, in giving them what 
is necessary to preserve life: but this exposition suits not 
with ver. 10, 

8 Ver. 14, XnuewicSe.] Most interpreters say, that the 
apostle, ver. 6, and here, requires the church-governors to 
use the censures of the church upon these disorderly walkers ; 
but I have shown it to be highly probable, that when this 
epistle was writ, there were no such governors settled in this 
church (see note on 1 Thess. v. 12). 

Secondly, These exhortations plainly are directed to all 
the brethren in general; if therefore they relate to excom- 
munication, and such like censures, it will hence follow, 
that the power of the keys belongs to all the brethren in 

eneral. 

Thirdly, The apostle exhorts them still to own them as 
Christian brethren, which they at present are not, who by 
excommunication are excluded from the church in the society 
of Christians. 

9 Ver. 16. Ο Κύριος, The Lord.) Both here, and ii. 16, the 
apostle prays to the Lord Jesus Christ for peace, which, in 
the Hebrew phrase, imports all happiness; and for esta- 
blishment “in every good word and work,” which isa strong 

372 


822 


always ty all means. The Lord be with you all. 

17 The salucation of (me) Paul with mine own 
hand, which is ® the token in every epistle (that it 
comes from me): so I write. 


A DISCOURSE ON THE 


18 The grace of our Lord sesus Christ be with you 
all. Amen. 
4 The second epistle to the Thessalonians was writ- 
ten from Athens. 


argument for his divinity, especially considering that every 
good work derives from God. 

10 Ver. 17. "O ἐστι σημεῖον ἐν πάσῃ ἐπιστολῇ, Which is the 
token in every epistle.| Hence Grotius concludes, that this 
must be the first of his epistles; for, had he, saith he, writ 
any epistle before, this admonition had been needless. I 
should rather think that this supposes he had writ some 
epistle before, because he saith not this shall be, but this is 
the sign in every epistle. And this is evident, almost to a 
demonstration, from these words, il. 2, “ Be not troubled by 
epistle as from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand” 
(see the note there); and from these words, ver. 15, « Hold 


the traditions you have (formerly) received, whether by 
word, or our epistle.” To which words Grotius hath nothing 
to answer. Add to this the note of the learned Mr. Dod- 
well,* cited in the margin. 


* Ex quo intelligimus, salutationem in epistolis apostoli 
propria ejus manu subscribi solitam : eamque notam in om- 
nibus ejus epistolis (excipias forsan eam que ad Galatas 
propria mani integra sit scripta, cap. vi. 11), adhibitam, ut 
proinde que illi nota carerent, commentitie haberentur. 
Dissert. Cypr. ii. in Epist. 4. 


A DISCOURSE 
BY WAY OF APPENDIX TO THE FIRST CHAPTER} 


SHOWING, 


That the endless miseries or torments of the wicked are well 
consistent both with the justice and the goodness of God. 


Tue apostle in this chapter seems plainly to assert, That 
wicked persons “shall be punished with everlasting destruc- 
tion,” and also to resolve this punishment into the dixato- 
κρισία, or just judgment of God. 

Whereas it is pretended that “it is contrary to the jus- 
tice of God, to punish temporary crimes with eternal punish- 
ments, because justice always observes a proportion be- 
tween offences and punishments; but between temporary 
sins and eternal punishments there is no proportion. And 
if it be hard to reconcile this with divine justice, it will be 
much more so, to show how it comports with that great good- 
ness we suppose to be in God ;” 

They who assert the eternity of future torments inflicted 
on the wicked, abiding in a state of misery, attempt by se- 
veral ways to answer this objection. I shall begin with those 
answers which to me seem not satisfactory, and briefly show 
the reasons why I think they are not so; and then return that 
answer which I think fully clears the justice and the good- 
ness of God in this dispensation, from the strength of this 
objection. And, 

§. 1. First, Some make out the proportion thus, That 
“because sin is infinite in respect of the object against which 
it is committed, therefore it deserves an infinite punishment : 
now because a finite creature cannot suffer a punishment, 
which is infinite as to intension; therefore he suffers that 
which is infinite as to pretension or duration.” 

But to this it is replied, That if all sins be for this reason 
infinite as to demerit, then the demerit of all sins must ne- 
cessarily be equal, and so there must be equal reason for the 
pardon of all sins; for the demerit of no sin can be more 
than infinite. Secondly, Hence it will follow, that God can- 
not “render unto every man according as his works shall be ;” 
because, though they commit innumerable sins, he can only lay 
upon them the punishment due to one only ; because he cannot 
lay upon them a punishment which is more than infinite. 

§. 2. Secondly, Others say, That “if wicked men lived 
for ever in this world, they would sin for ever, and therefore 
they deserve to be punished for ever.” But, 

1, Who can be certain of this, since, whilst we live in this 
world, we are in a state of trial, and so may be in a possi- 
bility of repenting and growing better? 

2. God hath expressly declared, that men should be 
judged hereafter, not according to what they would have 
done, had they lived longer, but according to what they ac- 
tually have done in this present life, according to their 
“works done in the body ;” and so he hath sufficiently de- 
clared, he doth not punish them for what they would have 
done, had they lived longer; but for what they actually had 
done whilst they lived. So that this answer recoils thus; 
Wicked men, by God’s declaration, are only to be punished 
for what they did whilst they lived here; now they did not 


live here for ever in a state of sin: therefore they are not to 
live forever hereafter in a state of punishment. 

§. 3. Thirdly, Others say, That “God having set before 
the sinner life and death ; and having so expressly forewarned 
him this would be the certain consequence of his iniquity, 
he cannot charge God with injustice, in allotting to him the 
portion which he chose, and would incur, after all admoni- 
tions to the contrary.” 

But though this may be sufficient to stop the sinner’s 
mouth, it will do little to stop the mouth of intidels; because 
it seemeth not to answer the objection arising from the 
disproportion between the fault and the punishment: for 
it renders not the fault less finite, or the punishment less in- 
finite; and so it doth not render it less inconsistent with 
divine equity and goodness to threaten so to punish finite 
crimes, and execute that punishment upon the sinner. 

§. 4. A very great and learned person hath attempted a 
solution to this objection from these considerations: 

First, That ‘‘the measure of penalties is not to be taken 
from any strict proportion betwixt crimes and punishments, 
but from one great end and design of government, which is, 
to secure the observation of wholesome and necessary laws ; 
and consequently whatever penalties are proper and neces- 
sary to this end are not unjust. 

Secondly, «That whosoever considers how ineffectual the 
threatening, even of eternal torments, is to the greatest part 
of sinners, will soon be satisfied that a less penalty than that 
of eternal suffering would, to the far greatest part of man- 
kind, have been, in all probability, of little or no force; and 
that if any thing more terrible could have been threatened to 
the workers of iniquity, it had not been unreasonable; be- 
cause it would all have been little enough to deter men effec- 
tually from sin.” But then he adds, 

Thirdly, “ That after all, he that threateneth hath still the 
power of execution in his own hands: for there is this re- 
markable difference betwixt promises and threatenings, that 
he who promiseth passeth over a right to another, and there- 
by stands obliged to him, in justice and faithfulness, to make 
good his promise: but in threatenings it is quite otherwise ; 
he that threatens keeps the right of punishing in his own 
hand, and is not obliged to execute what he hath threatened, 
any farther than the reasons and ends of government do re- 
quire; and that he may, without any injury to the party 
threatened, remit and abate as much as he pleaseth of the 
punishment that he hath threatened ; and because in so doing 
he is not worse, but better than his word, nobody can find fault 
or complain of any wrong or injustice thereby done him. 

“Nor is this any impeachment of God’s truth and faith- 
fulness, any more than it is esteemed among men a piece of 
falsehood, not to do what they have threatened.” 

But here, with submission to better judgments, I conceive 
are many things propounded which are not exactly true, or 
reach not the objection; since that relates not to God’s 
threats of punishment, but to his execution of the threatened 
punishment. 

And, First, When it is said, that “ what proportion ought to 
be appointed betwixt crimes and penalties, is not so properly 
a consideration of justice as of prudence in the lawgiver;” 
and thence inferred, that “ whatever the disproportion may 


ENDLESS TORMENTS OF THE WICKED. 


be between temporary sins and eternal punishments, justice 
cannot be said to be concerned in it.” 

It is owned, that by the sanctions annexed to his laws, the 
lawgiver designs the preservation of his laws from being vio- 
Jated ; which is an eflect of prudence, but still of prudence 
tempered with equity, not unregardless of it, since it cannot 
be prudence to threaten what I know I cannot justly exe- 
cute; for this, in human laws, doth null the penalty; and 
could it be supposed in divine, would even frustrate the end 
of all God's threats, since every body would rest assured that 
a just God would never execute them. 

But, Secondly, The execution of the threatened judgment, 
which is the only thing against which the objection lies, is 
certainly an act of distributive justice, and is so represented 
in the holy scriptures, when it said to be done “ according to 
our works,” and “according as our works shall be,” Rom. 
ii. 16, 2 Cor. v. 10, Rev. xxii. 12, Matt. xvi. 27; and when 
it is declared to be δικαιοκρισία, “ the just judgment of God ;” 
and δίκαιον παρὰ τῷ Θειῦ, “just with God, to render this ven- 
geance to those who obey not the gospel,” which consists in 
their “ everlasting destruction,” 2 ‘Thess. i. 6. 8, 9. So that 
though prudence was properly concerned in promulging the 
penalty, because it is prudence which directs us to choose the 
means most proper to the end we aim at; yet seeing the pri- 
mary end of the lawgiver, i.e. the preventing the transgress- 
ing of his law, is wholly lost, and entirely defeated, before 
this punishment comes to be executed, justice alone can be 
concerned in the execution of it; and if the continuance of 
the sinner under misery for ever be the execution of the 
threatened punishment, justice alone can be concerned in the 
subjection of the sinner to that punishment: so far is it from 
being true, that if prudence be requisite for the proportion- 
ing penalties to crimes, justice cannot be concerned in the 
disproportion that may be between them, and much less that 
it cannot be concerned in executing a penalty which bears so 
great a disproportion to the crime. 

I confess also, that in human governments prudence may 
fitly be called in to deliberate, not whether it be lawful, but 
whether it be expedient to execute the threatened penalty ; 
as when the government is feeble, and the multitude or 
power of offenders may render it hazardous to do justice on 
them; but nothing of this nature can happen in theocracy, 
where there can neither be a want of wisdom in appointing, 
or equity in proportionating, the penalty to the offences, and 
much less want of power to execute what in his equity and 
wisdom he saw fit to threaten. 

Secondly, When it is said, that “a less penalty than eter- 
nal sufferings would not have been sufficient to deter men 
from sin; and therefore it could not be unreasonable, but 
rather suitable to divine prudence, to threaten eternal mise- 
ries :”” 

I am not willing to admit that God should threaten what 
he knows he cannot with consistence to his justice or his 
goodness execute; this being, in effect, to threaten in this 
wise, “ΤΕ you will do to me what you in justice ought not 
to do. I will execute upon you what I in justice ought not 
to do to you.” It is also to insinuate that an all-wise God 
could not so well provide for human government, or carry 
on his great designs. without abusing men’s credulity, and 
searing them with dreadful expectations of what he never 
did intend to execute. Lastly, this seemeth even to insi- 
nuate, that prudence in God may act without regard to equity 
and goodness, and even be separated from them; as it must 
be, in appointing, and even proportionating, those penalties 
to crimes which it is not consistent with his equity or good- 
ness to inflict. 

Thirdly, When it is added, that «God is not obliged to 
execute what he hath threatened, any farther than the rea- 
sons and the ends of government do require ;” and that “ he 
may, without any injury to the party threatened, remit and 
abate as much as he pleaseth of the punishment that he hath 
threatened. and that without any impeachment of his truth 
and faith!nIness :” 

This I allow of in the case of temporal punishments in 
this world, designed not for excision, but the amendment of 
the sinner; because there may be a just ground for the re- 
mission of such threatened penalties, even the repentance 
and reformation of the sinner, by which the primary end of 
all God's threats, in some good measure, is obtained: and 


823 


also because these threats, in what expressions soever they 
are made, if they be only threats, are still conditional; the 
meaning of them being only this,—I will inflict this judg- 
ment, if you repent not of your evil ways: “For at what 
instant I shall speak,” saith God, « against a nation, and 
concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to de- 
stroy it; if that nation, against which I have pronounced 
these things, turn from their evil ways, I will repent me of 
the evil which I thought to do unto them” (Jer. xviii. 7, 8). 
And again, “ When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, 
thou shalt surely die; if he do not turn from his way he 
shall die in his iniquity. Say therefore to them, As I live, 
saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of him 
that dieth, but that the wicked turn from his way and live 5 
wherefore, turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezek. xviii. 32, 
xxxiii. 8, 9.11). Thirdly, Because God threateneth judg- 
ments, not that he takes any pleasure in his punishments, 
but rather to awaken and reform the sinner: when, there~ 
fore, by his comminations, he hath wrought this good effect 
upon him, it is not to be wondered that he doth not proceed 
to execute that judgment which hath already done its work 
by being threatened. And all this well comports, not only 
with divine justice, but also with his immutability and truth, 
because this reformation and repentance change the subject 
of the threat; the change in every instance of this nature 
being not in God, but man. Thus, v. g. we cannot charge 
God with mutability, because he doth not execute the 
threatened judgment on repenting Nineveh ; because it was 
impenitent, and not repenting Nineveh, he threatened: nor 
with injustice, because it was only her impenitence which 
rendered her the proper object of vindictive justice. 

But then this notion seems to be stretched too far, when 
it is extended to God’s threats of future and eternal punish- 
ments to be inflicted upon those who die in an impenitent 
and unreformed estate. For, 

First, In all these cases, the evil threatened hath entirely 
lost its first and salutary end upon them, and therefore must 
be threatened to such persons to no end, or else to show the 
justice of God in punishing these “vessels of his wrath,” 
thus “ fitted for destruction.” ‘Thus, v. g. when Christ saith, 
« Except ye repent, ye shall all perish” (uke xiii. 3. 5), 
that “in the day of wrath, and revelation of his righteous 
judgment,” God will “give to every one according to his 
works; to them that obey not the truth, but obey unrighte- 
ousness, indignation and wrath” (Rom. ii. 5—8) ; “to them 
that obey not the gospel, everlasting destruction ;” these 
threats are plainly made to those who die in their im 
penitence and disobedience, by that God “who will judge 
every man according to his works ;” declaring, that in the 
day of the revelation of his wrath and righteous judgment 
they shall perish everlastingly ; because, “ through the hard- 
ness and impenitency of their hearts, they have treasured up 
wrath against the day of wrath,” and rendered themselves 
“vessels of his wrath fitted for destruction.” Can it be rea- 
sonably said then, because God does them no injury if he do 
not execute his wrath upon them, that though they do not 
repent, they may not perish? that indignation and wrath 
may not be the portion of the disobedient? and that this 
righteous Judge may not give to them according to their 
works? May we not rather say unto them, as doth this very 
person in another place,* “If thou continuest impenitent, 
however he may defer the execution of temporal evils, his 
truth and veracity is concerned to inflict eternal punishments 
upon thee ?” 

Secondly, God’s threats of everlasting miseries have for 
their object the impenitent, and therefore do exclude the 
supposition of any change in them, which may induce God 
to remit or to abate the threatened judgment : if then this pu- 
nishment may be remitted to them, either in part or in 
whole, it must be either by a change in God, or by a secret 
intention in him not to inflict what he thus threateneth. 
That there was in God no such secret intention, this learned 
person thus declares, by saying,t “ When God did threaten, 
he spake what he did really purpose and intend, if something 
did not intervene to prevent the judgment threatened.” 
And indeed, these threats declaring what a righteous God 


* Sermon on the Truth of God, vol. vi. p. 361. 
+ Sermon on the Unchangeableness of God, vol. vi. p. 110, 


824 


will do, and what they who are finally impenitent and diso- 
bedient shall suffer, such a secret will must plainly be re- 
pugnant to his revealed will, and therefore must suppose in 
God two contrary wills. Moreover, to say that such a secret 
intention may be in God, notwithstanding these declarations 
to the contrary, is in great measure to enervate even the pri- 
mary intention of these threats, viz. the deterring the sinner, 
by the greatness and duration of them, from a continuance 
in his sin; for this intention, if it may be in God, it follows, 
that it may be his will not to inflict what he hath threatened 
to the sinner: now so much hopes as you give the impeni- 
tent sinner, that he may escape eternal punishment, so much 
encouragement you give him to continue still in his im- 
penitence. Now “the belief of the threatenings of God, 
in their utmost extent, is of so great moment to a good life, 
and so great a discouragement to sin,”’ saith this reverend per- 
son,* “that if men were once set free from the fear and be- 
lief of this, the most powerful restraint from sin would be 
taken away.” 

That this cannot be expected, by reason of any change in 
God, this excellent person thus declares and evinceth :+ 
“Let but the sinner consider what God is, and his un- 
changeable nature must needs terrify him ; he is a holy God, 
who therefore ‘hateth all the workers of iniquity ;’ a just 
God, who ‘ will by no means clear the guilty,’ nor let the 
sinner go unpunished. He is also omnipotent, and able to 
execute the vengeance threatened against sinners. And, 
which gives a sad accent to all this, he that is thus holy, 
and just, and powerful, continues ever the same; he will 
never cease to hate iniquity, and to be an implacable enemy 
to all impenitent sinners.—Let, then, all obstinate sinners 
hear this, and tremble ; you cannot be more obstinately bent 
to continue in your ways, than God is peremptorily resolved 
to make you miserable; if you be determined on a sinful 
course, God is also determined how he will deal with you; 
that ‘he will not spare,’ but that‘ his anger and jealousy 
shall smoke against you; and, that ‘all the curses which 
are written in this’ book shall light upon you.’ 
sworn in his wrath, that unbelieving and impenitent sinners 
‘shall not enter into his rest;? and for the greater assurance 
of the thing, and that we may not think that there is any 
condition implied in these threatenings, he hath confirmed 
them by an oath, that by this ‘immutable sign, in which it 
is impossible for God to lie,’ sinners might have strong ter- 
rors, and not be able to fly to any hopes of refuge.”” 

Thirdly, Either God may in justice inflict upon the wicked 
these punishments which he hath threatened, or else it is 
unjust in God to execute upon them the judgment written ; 
i.e. the punishment which he hath threatened to them in 
the word of truth. If it be said, it is unjust in God to 
execute them on the sinner dying in his impenitence, either 
we cannot be obliged to believe that word in which these 
threats are contained ; or else an obligation must lie upon us 
to believe that God will act unjustly. 
said, these threats do not discover certainly what God will do, 
but only what the sinner doth deserve to suffer, read them 
once more, and you will find, that they expressly say of those 
who shall be at the great day condemned, that “ they shall 
go away into eternal punishment,” Matt. xxv. 46, that they 
“shall be punished with eternal destruction from the pre- 
sence of the Lord,” 2 Thess. i. 8, and that they “shall be 
tormented day and night for ever and ever,” Rev. xiv. 10, 11, 
xx. 10. 

Moreover, when our Saviour argues thus, to induce men 
to cut off their offending hands, and pluck out their offend- 
ing eyes, “It is better to enter into life halt and maimed, 
than to be cast into eternal fire (or in hell), where the 
worm dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched, Matt. 
xviii. 8, 9, doth ke not sufficiently inform us, there is an ab- 
solute necessity of doing the one, or suffering the other ? 
When he saith, “He that blasphemeth against the Holy 
Ghost shall never be forgiven in this, or in the world to 
come, but shall be obnoxious to eternal judgment,” Matt. 
xii. 32, Mark iii. 29, doth he not insinuate, that he who 
never is forgiven, must be for ever subject to this judgment? 
It is therefore certain, that our judge hath expressly taught 


* Ibid. p. 4. 
+ Ibid. p. 112—115, 


He hath | 


If, to avoid this, it be | 


A DISCOURSE ON THE 


us, not only that the impenitent sinner doth deserve, but that 
he shall actually suffer, «the worm that never dies, the fire 
that shall not be quenched.” 

If God in justice may inflict upon the wicked these pu- 
nishments which he hath threatened, then the objection can- 
not need this answer; yea, what can move him not to inflict 
what he, by threatening, hath engaged his truth to do? 
What, I say, can move him not to do it, but an act of 
mercy exercised to them, of whom the scripture saith, 
“They shall have judgment without mercy?” James ii. 13. 
What, but remission of that sin, which, saith the scripture, 
“shall never be remitted !” What, but mercy in the day of 
wrath and judgment? What, but remission exercised to the 
impenitent, without any interest in the blood of our redemp- 
tion? To which imaginations I conceive the scripture gives 
but little countenance. 

Nor are we to conclude, that the non-execution of these 
threats lays no impeachment on God’s truth and faithfulness ; 
because it is not esteemed, among men, a piece of falsehood, 
not to do what they have threatened. For men may rea- 
sonably be moved to remit their threatenings; because they 
oft are made in passion, or may exceed the rules of justice : 
but these are things not incident to an all-perfect God ; or, 
because the person threatened repents, begs pardon, and re- 
turns unto his duty, which the damned cannot be supposed 
to do. 

§. 5. It is farther said, in answer to this objection, that 
macula peccati est eterna, “the stain of them who die in 
their impenitence will be perpetual ;” and he that dies thus 
filthy, will be “ filthy still; now it seems equitable that, is 
qui nunquam desinit esse malus, nunquam desineret esse 
miser, “he who never ceases to be wicked, should never 
cease to be miserable.” Now this, rightly explained, affords 
a clear and satisfactory answer to the objection, as showing 
that the sinner becomes for ever miserable, not by any posi- 
tive act of God inflicting everlasting stripes upon him, or 
loading him perpetually with fresh torments, but wholly from 
his own sin, which renders him incapable of the enjoyment 
of a holy God, and so perpetually excluded from his blissful 
presence ; which, toa soul that is immortal, and can never 
die, must be the source of everlasting torment, and from 
the natural workings of its faculties, will necessarily subject 
it to the worm that never dies. 

T own, and really believe, that positive torments, such as 
the schools call pcena sensus, shall be inflicted on the body ; 
but then I have insinuated my present notion of them to be 
this: 

First, That these positive torments on the body are not 
to begin until the raising of the body, when Christ “ shall 
come in flaming fire, to take vengeance on them who would 
not obey his gospel; the world that now is, being reserved to 
(be set on) fire, for the day of judgment, and perdition of 
ungodly men.’”’ At which time, I conceive, the righteous 
shall be snatched up “into the air, and be for ever with 
the Lord” (1 Thess. iv. 17), and the wicked shall be left 
to the devouring flames. See for this, the note on 2 Pet. 
iii. 7. 

Secondly, I also do conjecture, that this fire may be called 
“eternal ;’ not that the bodies of the wicked shall be for 
ever burning in it, and never be consumed by it, since this 
cannot be done without a constant miracle; but because it 
shall so entirely consume their bodies, as that they never 
shall subsist again, but shall perish, and be destroyed for ever 
by it. In which sense “ Sodom and Gomorrah were set forth 
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (see 
the note on Jude, ver. 7). And if so, this punishment be- 
ing only temporary, the objection doth not lie against it; 
God being no more obliged, either in justice or in goodness, 
to snatch the wicked out of these flames, when they thus 
kindle on them, than he was to snatch the wicked of the old 
world out of that deluge which overwhelmed them. These 
I call my conjectures, or my private sentiments. But then 
Ι add, as certain matter of my faith, 

First, That the soul, even from the time of its separation 
from the body, in its impenitency, shall find itself in such a 
dismal state, as shall then fill it with perpetual horror, and 
dreadful expectation of the punishment which God hath 
threatened to the wicked. And thus it shall be like those 
devils which “ believe and tremble” (James ii. 19), as know- 


ENDLESS TORMENTS OF THE WICKED. 


ing that there is reserved for them “a time of torment” 
(Matt. viii. «ip 

Secondly, ‘That when the final sentence shall be passed 
upon the wicked, and they shall be for ever separated from 
the presence of the Lord, their soul shall be perpetually 
subject to the height of misery, or to that worm which never 
dies; and that this misery will be the natural and the per- 
petual result of such separation. 

To explain this, let it be considered, 

1. That there is scarce any thing in which the heathen 
moralists so universally accord, as in this fixed rule, μὴ 
καϑαριῦ xaSapod ἐπύπτεσϑαι οὐ ϑεμιτὸν gy, “that an impure 
soul can have no commerce with a pure God ;” and that « it 
is not congruous to his nature to admit such soul into his 
presence.” And this assertion is built upon a sure and in- 
contestable foundation: for seeing God is absolute in holi- 
ness, he cannot but retain the greatest hatred to, and ab- 
horrence of, all actions and persons that are unrighteous and 
impure ; and since his nature is immutable, his holiness un- 
changeable, he must for ever hate, with a most perfect 
hatred, whatsoever is unholy and impure; and therefore to 
suppose an interruption of his hatred of evil-doers, is to ima- 
gine he can cease to be a pure and holy God. Consider, 

2. That the soul of a wicked man being immortal must 
abide for ever, if it be not annihilated ; and that God neither 
is obliged to annihilate it, nor hath he any where declared 
that he will do so. 

I say, he is not obliged to annihilate the souls of wicked 
men, for then it must be so on this account, because he is 
obliged to put them out of that misery which they have 
brought upon themselves by their own folly and rebellions ; 
and if so, since this must certainly be an act, not of strict 
justice, but of grace and favour, God must be bound to 
show an act of grace and favour towards men, purely because 
they have provoked and rebelled against him, i. e. because 
they have done that which renders them the proper objects 
of his hatred and his indignation; and be obliged to save 
men from that misery, which by their stubborn disobedience 
to all his calls and admonitions, his exhortations, and all the 
gracious methods his providence had used to preserve them 
fromit, they wilfully have brought upon themselves. Whereas 
indeed “ the riches of his goodness” being designed to “lead 
men to repentance,” or to encourage them in the ways of 
holiness and piety, hath only for its proper object such as 
are capable of being made the better by it; it cannot there- 
fore be the goodness and mercy of a God, to show kindness 
to persons obstinately and incorrigibly wicked ; because it 
cannot be the goodness and mercy of a Being infinitely just 
and holy. For seeing all the divine perfections must agree 
together, that cannot be a divine perfection, which contra- 
dicts any other perfection. 

The original of our mistakes in matters of this nature 
seems to arise from our own imperfection, which naturally 
leads us to consider of the divine attributes apart, and as it 
were in separation from each other, and, by so doing, to frame 
such wide and large notions of the one, as to exclude the 
other: whereas indeed they ought to be considered as really 
they are in God himself, i. 6. goodness and mercy joined 
with infinite holiness and justice; and as it is the goodness 
and mercy of a lawgiver, governor, and righteous judge, 
which never regularly can be exercised without some pros- 
pect of reclaiming, or doing good unto the object of it. 
And thus it is well consistent with the prayer of David, 
« Be not thou merciful to them that offend of malicious wick- 
edness,” Ps. lix. 5. 

§. 6. 1 add, that God hath not declared in scripture, that 
he will annihilate the souls of wicked men, or that this is 
the punishment which he designeth to inflict upon them. 
This is generally said to be the doctrine of the Socinians, 
though Crellius* expressly says, Animas impiorum Deum 
post judicium annihilaturum nec scriptura asserit, nec ratio 
evincit; that “neither reason doth evince, nor scripture as- 
sert, it will be so.” And, 

Obj. 1. It is certain that this follows not from any of those 
places of the Old Testament in which the dead are said to 
be no more, or not to be: as, v. g. “Let the sinners be 
consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more,” 


* Solut. Problem. tom. iv. p. 533, 
Vor. IV.—104 


825 


Ps. civ. 35. “Our fathers have sinned, and are not,’ Lam. 
v. 7 I have made Esau bare—his seed is spoiled, and 
he is not,” Jer. xlix. 10; see x. 20, xxxv. 15. 

For (Ὁ if any of these places speak of annihilation, they 
must speak of such a one as was then past already, and so is 
inconsistent with the future judgment of those persons ; be- 
cause it is not said they shall not be, but they are not ; they 
therefore cannot refer to any future annihilation at the day 
of judgment. 

(2.) Then must the righteous be annihilated as well as the 
wicked ; for of righteous Enoch it is said, “ He walked be- 
fore God, and was not,” Gen. v. 24 ; of Joseph, “ One is not,” 
Gen. xlii. 13; and David prays thus for himself, “O spare 
me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence 
and be not,” Ps. xxxix. 13. It is therefore evident these 
places only were intended to import, those persons were not 
“in the land of the living.” 

Obj. 2. But it is objected, that the wicked after the resur- 
rection shall be punished with “ the second death :” where- 
fore they cannotin any proper sense be said to live, and to 
subsist, and to have sense of pain, this being not consistent 
with a state of death. 

Ans. I answer (1.) That this second death cannot consist 
in the annihilation of the wicked, or in their exemption 
from all sense of punishment, because it is promised, that 
“he who overcometh shall not be hurt by the second death” 
(Rey. ii. 11), whence it is manifest, that they who die this 
second death shall be hurt by it; but were it to the wicked, 
condemned to an eternal separation from God, and from all 
hopes of happiness, a conclusion of their being, and of all 
sense of misery, it would be no more hurtful, but highly be- 
neficial to them, as being a conclusion of that life which they 
must otherwise have spent in endless misery. And therefore 
even Hierocles represents this as the choice of wicked men, 
by saying in his commentary on the verses of Pythagoras, p. 
164, οὐ βούλεται yap ὃ κακὸς ἀθάνατον εἶναι τὴν αὐτοὺ ψυχὴν, wa 
μὴ ὑπομένη τιμωρούμενος, “ The wicked man would not have 
his soul to be immortal, that he might not abide under 
punishment.” Moreover, those very torments which the 
damned suffer, are declared to be the second death; and 
wicked men are therefore said to die the second death, be- 
cause they do endure eternal torments: for “the fearful and 
unbelievers, &c. shall have their part in that lake of fire and 
brimstone, which is the second death,” Rev. xxi. 8. This 
death, then, when it is threatened as the final punishment 
of the wicked, cannot import a state of non-existence, or in- 
sensibility, but only an unhappy miserable state, a separation 
of the soul from him who is the fountain of our life and all 
our comforts ; an absolute exclusion from that felicity which 
only renders life a blessing; and a life of infelicity and 
misery. To make this still more evident, 

Consider, (2.) That this is a Jewish phrase used often by 
and borrowed from the ancient Hebrews, with whom it doth 
import the punishment of damned persons in the life to come. 
So, Deut. xxxiii. 6, “Let Reuben live, and not die the 
second death,” saith the 'argum of Onkelos; i. 6. “" Let 
him not die that death, which the wicked die in the age to 
come,” saith the Targum of B. Uziel: «Let him not die 
the second death, which the wicked die in the age to come,” 
saith the Jerusalem Targum. Now that the death of the 
wicked, in the age to come, did really subject them to eternal 
torments, the Jews still thought, asis apparent not only from 
the plain testimony of Josephus,* who saith, the pharisees 
assigned to the wicked εἰργμὸν ἀΐδιον, an eternal prison,” in 
which they were to be tormented, didia τιμωρίᾳ, “with 
eternal punishment;” and from Philo,t who saith, that 
“some conceive death to be the last of punishments, whereas 
it scarcely deserveth to be named the beginning of them, see- 
ing the punishment reserved for the wicked person is, ζῆν 
ἀποθήσκοντα ἀεὶ καὶ τρόπον τίνα Savarov ὑπομένειν drédevrov, to live 
for ever in a dying state, and suffer such a death as hath no 
end;” but also from the apocryphal books, which say, κλαῦ- 
σονται ἐν αἰσϑήσει ἕως αἰῶνος, “They shall feel them, and weep 
for ever,” Judith xvi. 17. So again, Isa. xxii. 14, “his sin 
shall not be forgiven till the second death;” that is, saith 


* Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 2. 
{ De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 788, Ε΄, 
+ De Prem. et Penis, p. 713, D. 


826 


Kimchi, “till the soul dieth in the world to come.” And, 
lv. 5, 6. 15, of the same persons it is said, “God will kill 
them with the second death ; and he will deliver them up to 
the punishment of hell, where the fire burneth all the day.” 

Obj. 3. It farther is objected, That eternal life is said to 
be peculiar to the saints in bliss, whereas unto the wicked it 
is threatened that “they shall not see life,” John iii. 36. 

Ans. To this I answer, that “life,” in scripture, when it 
is mentioned as the end of our faith, and the reward of our 
obedience, is not intended only to signify our permanence in 
being, but to assure us of our advancement to a state of hap- 
piness, and is equivalent to everlasting life. So to the law- 
yer asking, “ What good thing shall I do that I may inherit 
eternal life?” our Saviour answers, “ Do this, and thou shalt 
live,” Luke x. 25. 28. So Christ saith, « He that eateth me 
shall live by me,” John vi. 57, i.e. he shall live for ever, ver. 
58; “I came that my sheep might have life,” John x. 10; 
«“T give unto them life eternal,” ver. 28. And that this is 
the life denied to the wicked, John iii. 36, is evident from 
the preceding words of the same verse, “He that believeth 
on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth not 
the Son shall not see life. ‘This is a phrase so known, and 
this use of it is so frequent, saith Maimonides, that hence 
our masters say, “ The just are styled living in their death, 
because they then are happy.” And that the phrase, “not 
to see life,” cannot import the state of non-existence, or in- 
sensibility, is evident, because it is said of them who do not 
see life, that “the wrath of God abideth on them;” they 
therefore must abide under a sense of it. 

Obj. 4. Lastly, it is objected, that the wicked are in scrip- 
ture said to “perish utterly,” 2 Pet. ii. 12, and to be “ pu- 
nished with everlasting destruction :” now these expressions 
seem to signify a deprivation of all sense and being. 

Ans. But nothing is more common, both in Greek and 
Latin, and in other languages, than to say, when we con- 
ceive our future life is likely to be miserable, ὄλλυμι, perii, 
41 am undone, I perish.’ See the note of Taubman* 
upon these words of Plautus, Qui per virtutem periit, is non 
interit. 

That only in this moral sense the damned are in scripture 
said to perish, viz. by having all their hopes of future happi- 
ness destroyed, and being sentenced to those torments, which 
are exceedingly more heavy than the loss of being, is evident 
first, from the scripture, which informs us, that to cast the 
soul and body into hell-fire is to destroy them; as is appa- 
rent from these two expressions, “ Fear him who can destroy 
both soul and body in hell-fire,” Matt. x. 28; “ who after he 
hath killed hath power to cast into hell,” saith Luke, xii. 
5, that is, into that place “ where the worm dieth not, and 
where the fire is not quenched.” Moreover, the devils put 
the question to our Saviour thus, ἦλϑες ἀπολέσαι ἡμᾶς, Art 
thou come to destroy us before the time ?”’ Luke iv. 34, and 
yet that “to destroy” is only βασανίσαι, “to torment” them, is 
evident from the same question recited by Matthew thus, 
« Art thou come to torment us before the time?” viii. 29. 
And had the devils thought, that at Christ’s coming they 
might have been reduced into the state of non-existence, or 
insensibility, they could have had no reason to dread, or de- 
precate so vehemently that perdition, which would so long 
ago have freed them from that horror which they still 
endure. 

Moreover, this opinion is so far from being contained in 
the holy scripture, that it is plainly contrary to many things 
contained in it: for, (1.) the scripture plainly intimates, 
some in the other world shall suffer more, some less; for “ it 
shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day 
of judgment” than for Capernaum, Matt. xi. 21. 25; that 
some shall be beaten with fewer, some with many stripes, 
Luke xii. 47, 48, some shall receive “greater damnation” 
than others, Matt. xxiii. 14. But if annihilation only be the 
second death, the punishment and perdition threatened to 
sinners in the other world, they must all suffer equally ; be- 
cause if there be no degrees of annihilation, or not being, 
then all will equally not be, or lose their being, and nothing 
by annihilation can lose more. (2.) It is said of the wicked 
that they shall be cast into the place “where their worm 
dieth not ;’ of them that shall not see life, that “the wrath of 


* Cap. act. ili. 5. 3, ver. 32, 


A DISCOURSE ON THE 


God abideth on them ;” of them that are cast into utter dark- 
ness, that “ there is weeping and wailing.” Now that of the 
schools is absolutely true, that non entis nulle sunt affectiones, 
“that which is not, cannot be in misery ;” that which abides 
not cannot abide under the wrath of God ; that which so dieth 
as to cease to be, cannot be subject to a worm that dieth not, 
whatever be the import of that phrase. Consider, 

§. 7. Secondly, That we have two passions of the soul, 
which are still conversant about good present and to come; 
viz. desire of the good we want, and joy in that which we at 
present have. When therefore we are in a state in which 
we cannot possibly enjoy the good we above all things want 
and naturally desire, we must for ever lie under the torment 
of dissatisfaction and despair; and when we fall into that 
state in which we can enjoy no comfortable or real good, we 
never can have any joy. Again, we have two other passions, 
which are employed about a present or a future evil, fear that 
it may befall us, and grief when it hath actually taken hold 
upon us. It therefore being natural to all men to desire to 
be freed from an afflictive evil, when they lie under it with- 
out all hopes or prospects of any end of, or deliverance from, 
the worst of evils, they must be swallowed up of grief; and 
when their guilt hath rendered them still obnoxious to the 
divine displeasure, they must be subject to eternal fears. 
Consider, 

Thirdly, That the proper action of the soul is thought, 
and that whilst she continues, she must be conscious to her- 
self of her own actions; when then the soul hath nothing 
comfortable to employ her thoughts upon, but an eternal 
scene of misery, to which her wilful sin and folly have ever- 
lastingly confined her, to be the doleful subject of her con- 
tinual reflections, when she hath nothing to divert her from 
these rueful thoughts, she must become an endless torment 
to herself. Now from these three considerations it will de 
monstrably follow, that the soul, which in this life hath not 
been purged from the dominion or the guilt of sin, and 
therefore is excluded from a state of happiness, and from en- 
joyment of that God in whom its happiness consists, must 
be for ever miserable. 

For, it must be perpetually tormented with the thoughts 
of its eternal separation from God’s blissful presence, and 
its exclusion from the state of happiness which saints made 
perfect do enjoy. Now, as a heathen, Plutarch,* puts the 
question, “ Must it not be very sad to be deprived of the hope 
of everlasting blessings, and to be excluded from the com- 
pletest happiness ?”’ Were the damned obnoxious to no other 
punishments besides this loss, even this would beget in them 
such a worm of conscience, as would perpetually subject 
them to the worst of miseries; as will be evident, if we con- 
sider, 

First, That the earnest and impetuous desire, which is in 
all men, to be happy, is rooted in their very nature, and 
therefore must continue as long as they retain that nature ; 
and yet it is impossible that this desire should in the least 
be gratified, when we are once condemned to an eternal sepa- 
ration from the place and object of our happiness, there be- 
ing no hope that they should ever see his face, who at the 
coming of their Judge shall be “ punished with everlasting 
destruction from the presence of the Lord.” Now the wise 
man tells us, that even “hope deferred makes the heart sick” 
(Prov. xiii. 12). Hope therefore irrecoverably disappointed 
must create in it an excess of torment. A wicked Cain ac- 
counted it an insupportable calamity to be excluded from 
God’s gracious presence here on earth; “ My punishment” 
(saith he) “is greater than I am able to bear; for from thy 
face shall I be hid” (Gen. iv. 13, 14). How dreadful there- 
fore must that sentence be, which doth eternally exclude us 
from his blissful presence, and force us to a continual despair 
of that which we most ardently desire? For as itis one great 
ingredient of our future happiness, that it is that which can 
never be lost, so must it be a signal aggravation of our 
future misery, and loss of happiness, to know it is irre- 
parable. 

Secondly, This loss will be enhanced from the great change 
the other world will make in our condition. The terrors of 


* Πῶς otk ἀνιαρὸν αἰωνίων ἀγαθῶν ἐλπίδος στερεῖσϑαι, καὶ τὴν 
ἀκροτάτην εὐδαιμονίαν ἀποθαλεῖν ; L. Non posse suavitér, &c. 
P. 1006, Ὁ. 


ENDLESS TORMENTS OF THE WICKED. 


an awakened and guilty conscience, even in this life, are very 
grievous ; but here we may be able to mitigate the gripings 
of it by the society of others, or by the pleasures of the world ; 
we may deceive it with false opinions, and flatter it with false 
hopes and promises of reformation and amendment; but 
when we are passed hence into another world, our vain 
imaginations will be all confuted, our hopes of reformation 
will be at an end, and we shall be eternally deprived of all 
those enjoyments in which we once placed our happiness, 
and shall have nothing to divert us from our saddest thoughts : 
now, what condition can be more deplorable than this, viz. 
to be deprived of all those comforts in which we placed our 
former happiness, and find it utterly impossible to purchase 
the least glimpse of real happiness, or to divert our thoughts 
from a continual remorse for our irreparable loss ? 

For, Thirdly, The sinner’s memory reflecting on this pu- 
nishment of loss, will create fresh and never-ceasing torments 
to him. It will torment him to remember what an inesti- 
mable blessing he hath lost, in losing the enjoyment of that 
God, who is the chiefest good, and of that happiness, which 
passeth understanding: for the greater still we apprehend 
the good to be, the greater will the trouble we endure be, 
when we have wholly lost the hopes ofits enjoyment. Again, 
it will add still to the torment of the sinner, to consider that 
he hath exchanged this exceeding and eternal weight of glory 
for things of no intrinsic value and duration; that for the 
pleasures of a moment, which are now turned into sadness, 
he should forego those pleasures which are at God's right 
hand for ever; that for a little fading earth, which he soon 
left behind him, he should deprive himself of an “ inheritance 
incorruptible, reserved in the heavens for him.” It will also 
torment him to consider in what a fair capacity he was once 
placed of being happy; what frequent calls and invitations 
he hath had to be for ever so; what importunity the God 
of heaven used to bring him thither; and with what stiffness 
he resisted all these gracious motions. These, and such-like 
considerations, will fill the miserable soul with constant mat- 
ter of most sad reflections. ‘ Now,” saith the heathen orator,* 
‘ suppose a person subject to the extremest miseries which 
can be incident to soul and body, without all hope of the 
alleviation of this misery, or expectation of any future good, 
what can be imagined farther to complete his misery ?” 

And now to answer the objection, by removing the foun- 
dation of it: hence it is easy to demonstrate, that all these 
evils, which the soul suffers after death, may rather be 
esteemed the necessary consequents, as Ireneust hath ob- 
served, than positive and formal punishments of sin by an 
immediate hand of God. For being destitute of all good 
things, “they are,” saith Ireneus, “in all torment, τοῦ Θεοῦ 
μὲν προηγητικῶς μὴ κολάζοντος, ἐπακολουθούσης δὲ ἐκείνης τῆς κολά- 
σεως διὰ τὸ ἐστερῆσϑαι πάντων τῶν ἀγαϑῶν, God not internally 
tormenting them, but their torment following upon the de- 
privation of all good; and likewise because the good things 
proceeding from God are eternal and without end, therefore 
the want of them is an eternal and endless punishment.” 
Mercurius Trismegistus} saith in like manner, that ἀσεβὴς Ψυχὴ 
μένει ἐπὶ τῆς ἰδίας οὐσίας ὑφ᾽ ἑαυτῆς κολαζομένη, “the soul of the 
wicked man continues in its proper essence, being tormented 
from itself.” Apollodorus adds, that ἀδίκων εἶναι τά κολαστή- 
pia διὰ τοῦ λογισμοῦ, καὶ τῆς μνήμης τῶν βεβιωμένων τὰς κολά- 
σεις ἔχοντων, “ the unjust are punished from their own reason- 
ings, and their punishment results from the remembrance 
of what they had done in this life: and when the remem- 
brance of these things ceaseth, καὶ ἡ κόλασις τῆς ψυχῆς πέπαυ- 
ται, the punishment of the soul ceaseth.” For instance, 
That souls departed are deprived of the love of God, are ob- 
jects of his wrath, and are excluded from his presence, hap- 
peneth not merely because they are souls separated from the 
body ; for pious souls, after their separation, are entirely 
exempted from these evils; but this ariseth from the natural 
purity and holiness of God, which renders it incongruous to 


* Statue aliquem confectum tantis animi corporisque do- 
loribus, quanti in hominem cadere maximi possunt, nulla spe 
proposita fore levius aliquands, nulla preterita, nec presenti, 
nec expectata voluptate, quid eo miserius dici aut fingi po- 
test? Torquat apud Cic. de Finibus, lib. i. n. 33, 

+ Lib. v. cap. 7. 

+ Apud Stob. Eclog. Phys. 129—131. 


827 


him to admit such souls into his presence, and the defilement 
and impurity which these unhappy souls lie under, and by 
which they are rendered unable to converse with the God of 
holiness. The worm of conscience, the desperation, the 
direful expectations which follow from this sense of loss, and 
the divine displeasure, are also the natural results of the 
soul’s separation in an impure and unsanctified condition, 
and therefore being “filthy still.” Moreover, it being natu- 
ral to all men, say the very heathens,* “to give good things 
to them they love, and in whom they delight, and to inflict 
evil things on those to whom they stand affected contrariwise,” 
how can it be, but that the soul, thus conscious of those 
abominable things which the Lord hates, and which most 
justly have incensed this righteous Judge, should live under 
most dreadful expectations of his wrath? Now, true is that 
of the tragedian, Peenas dat qui expectat, qui autem meruit 
expectat ; he suffers, whose conscience tells him he deserves, 
and therefore cannot but expect to suffer. Lastly, That he 
is thus to be eternally a torment to himself, ariseth from the 
immortality of the soul, which cannot cease to be, without 
an immediate dissolution from the hand of God; and whilst 
it doth continue, cannot cease to be desirous of that happi- 
ness from which it will for ever be excluded, or cease to be 
tormented with the thoughts of that stupendous folly which 
did subject it to this heavy doom. 

And now what a poor comfort is it to the sinner, to laugh 
at what is said touching hell-fire, and a lake of brimstone, as 
unphilosophical; and say, that these are things improper to 
torment a spiritual soul, if undeniably it may be subject to the 
loss of all that is desirable to make it happy, to endless grief, 
to remediless remorse, and dreadful expectations of the wrath 
of God, and a perpetual despair of being ever freed from 
these tormenting evils, which, as the heathen hath observed, 
are πυρὸς καὶ σιδήρου βεβαιότερα, “more violent and insupport- 
able than any punishment by fire and sword.” What if the 
fire, in which the bodies of the wicked are to be tormented, 
should not be kindled till our Saviour “ come in flaming fire 
to take vengeance on them?” What comfort will this yield 
the sinner, if, from the day of its departure from the body, 
his soul will be obnoxious to this greater misery? What, 
lastly, if that fire of the damned, in which their bodies are to 
be tormented, should only be eternal, in that sense in which 
Jude informs us, that “Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities 
round about them, have been set forth for an example, suf- 
fering the vengeance of eternal fire ;”’ if this amazing torment 
of the soul, which, in propriety of speech, is only capable of 
feeling torment, will be eternal, in the highest and most in- 
tensive import of that word? 

If it be still objected, That it seems not consistent with 
divine goodness, to have framed man so, as that he should 
be miserable from himself; this, at one blow, cuts off both 
heaven and hell: for it is to find fault with God, and repre- 
sent him as less good, for making any beings capable of vice 
and virtue. For all our virtue, in a state of trial, consists in 
choosing well, when we had freedom, and some temptations 
to do otherwise ; and all our vice, in choosing to do ill, when 
we had laws directing us to avoid the evil, and to choose the 
good, and had the highest motive so to do: to say, then, a 
good God could not create a creature capable of vice and vir- 
tue, is in effect to say, it is inconsistent with divine goodness 
to create such creatures as should be subject unto govern- 
ment ; since government supposes laws, and laws must be 
attended with the sanction of rewards and punishments. 
Here then again the mistake lies in separating the divine 
goodness from his holiness and justice ; whereas justice and 
holiness are as essential to the notion of a God as goodness: 
for it is impossible that justice should belong to the idea of 
God, if it were irreconcilable with the divine goodness to 
make such creatures as may deserve well or ill; i. e. to be 
rewarded or punished. And seeing the holiness of God ren- 
ders it necessary for him to retain the greatest hatred to, and 
abhorrence of, incorrigible sinners, if it be inconsistent with 
divine goodness to make any creature which may deserve to 
be the object of his hatred, goodness and holiness cannot both 
belong to the idea of God. 


* Πάντες yap obs μὲν ἂν φιλῶσι, καὶ οἷς ἂν χαίρωσι, τοιοῦτοις 
διδύασι τ᾽ ἀγαϑὰ, πρὸς οὖς δὲ ἐναντίως ἔχουσι, τὰ ἐναντία, Pythag. 


apud Jamblic. cap. 48, p. 89, 


828 


Tf, lastly, it be still inquired, why divine goodness and 
mercy doth not leave condemned sinners in a capacity of 
that repentance and reformation, which might, after a season, 
fit them for the enjoyment of himself, and thereby put a 
happy end to all their misery ? 

I answer, That both the Christians and heathens do ac- 
cord in this, that these eternal punishments shall only be 
inflicted,* ἐπὶ τοὺς καταλαμβανομένους ἐν τῇ ἀνιάτῳ κακία, “on 
those that are incurably wicked : and they who shall here- 
after be found thus confirmed in wickedness are by the hea- 
thenst given up to torments without end. Yea, Celsust 
dogmatically says, that “they judge rightly who say, The 
just shall be happy ; οἱ δὲ ἄδικοι πάμπαν αἰωνίοις κακοῖς συνέζον- 
ται, but the unjust shall be always subject to eternal evils.” 
And this was the opinion of the heathens as well as of the 
Christians, and that no man ought ever to depart from it. 
Now that which haply may render their state incurable may 
be, 

1, That their day of grace is past and turned into a day 
of wrath; their time of trial and probation is expired, and 
they are come to the time of retribution. For, as the 
Christians teach, that a man cannot be truly good and holy 
without the assistance of the Holy Spirit; so did the hea- 
thens§ teach, that there was an absolute need of a divine 
afflatus, or good assisting genius, to preserve them from sin, 
and to advance them to a virtuous life. Now, why is it un- 
just with God to say, his “Spirit shall not always strive” 
with them who have so long resisted all his motions, and 
hardened their hearts against him? whom all the riches of 
his goodness could not lead to repentance, or preserve from 
“treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath?” Hither the 
day of grace must never end, or there must be a time when 
they that are filthy will “be filthy still.” 

Moreover, To assert, it is unjust with God, or inconsistent 
with his goodness, to “appoint a day in which he will judge 
the world in righteousness, and render to men according to 
their works ;” as it seems plainly to border on a contradiction 
in the terms, so it cuts off all future judgment; it being cer- 
tain, God neither will nor can do what is inconsistent with 
his goodness to do; and according to this hypothesis, he 
must never pass the final and decretory sentence upon wicked 
men. 

2. The place and company to which the damned shall be 
sentenced, seem to render them incapable of growing better ; 
for when they are once given up to the tormentor, and kept 
in chains of darkness, what expectation can there be they 
should grow better under this enemy of God and goodness ? 
and yet that this is one ingredient of their future state, is not 
the sentiment of Jews and Christians only from the holy 
scripture, but also of the heathens from the tradition they 
had received, as is evident both from their own words, and 
from their Adrastia, Nemesis, Alastores, their furies, hurtful 
demons, and their evil geniuses. 

3. The alteration of their condition and their state, seems 
to exclude all place for reformation, and for the exercise of 
piety and virtue. For the sentence of condemnation and ex- 
clusion from God's blissful presence being passed upon them, 
they have no hope of being happy, or of escaping the misery 
to which they are exposed ; and so can have no motive to be 
better, nor can they be in a capacity to love that God from 
whom they can expect no good. There also seems to be no 
place for virtue in a future state; no room for temperance, 
where there is no capacity of enjoying meats or drinks, or 
any pleasures of the flesh ; no place for justice, where there 
is no meum and tuum; no possibility to kill or maim, or be 


* Orig. contra Cels. p. 403. 

T Οἱ δ᾽ ἂν τὰ ἔσχατα ἀδικήσωσι, καὶ διὰ τοιαῦτα ἀδικήματα 
ἁνίατοι γένωνται, ἐκ τούτων τὰ παραδείγματα γίγνεται, καὶ οὗτοι 
αὐτοὶ μὲν οὐκέτι ὀνίνανται, ἅτε ἀνίατοι ὄντες, Plat. Georg. p. 357, 
358. 

+ Apud Orig. lib. viii. p. 409. 

§ Οὐδὲ yap ἄλλός τις δυνηθείη πρὸς τὸ θειότατον αὐτοῦ, Kai 
κυριώτατον τῆς οὐσίας ἀναδραμεῖν, εἰ μὴ τῷ τοιαύτῳ δαίμονι ἡγέμονι 
χρήσαιτο. Jamb. Protrept. p. 11, see the note on Rom. ii. 15. 

! Τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων θεοὺς μὲν ἡμῖν οὐκ ἑόντων ἐκλάμπειν, dai- 
μοσι dé κολαστικοῖς συναπτόντων, Sallust. de Diis, dc. cap. 14. 
Κολάζονται δὲ τοῦ σώματος ἐξελϑοῦσαι ὑπὸ δαιμόνων ταραττόμεναι, 


Ρ. 18. 


WHETHER THE APOSTLES SPAKE OF THE DAY 


cruel to another, when none can be defamed to their preju- 
dice, and hurt in their concerns: lastly, no place for charity, 
where there is either none that can want any thing, or none 
that can receive advantage by us. 


A DISCOURSE 


BY WAY OF INQUIRY, 


Whether the apostles, in their writings, spake as conceiving 
the day of judgment might be in their days; and accord- 
ingly suited their phrases and exhortations. 


I nave shown in the note upon 1 Thess. iv. 15, and in an 
additional note on 2 Cor. v. 1. 9, that the apostles of our 
Lord neither did nor could use any expressions importing 
“that the day of judgment might happen in their days,” or 
in that age in which they lived: but Mr. Whiston, in his 
excellent essay on the Revelation of St. John, hath very 
largely endeavoured to prove the contrary; I shall therefore 
impartially consider what he hath offered for the support of 
his two corollaries, and shall endeavour to show the weakness 
of his arguments, and the pernicious consequences of his 
assertion, and then shall leave the reader to judge of this im- 
portant point, and where the fatal mistake lies. Now his 
first assertion is, that “ Our Saviour himself, as man, whilst he 
was on earth at least, did not know the duration of the days 
of the Messiah, nor the time of the rise and the duration of 
antichrist, which was included init.” Now in this proposition 
Ihave no concern, and so shall not be long either in answer- 
ing what he alleges for, or in the confirmation of it. I there- 
fore grant that our Saviour, whilst he acted as a prophet, or 
a revealer of his Father's will, whilst he was here on earth, 
did not by the revelation of the Spirit know the day or hour 
of the day of judgment; but I deny that hence it follows, 
that he did not know the age in which it was to happen, or 
what great occurrences or previous mutations were to happer. 
that day. (2). I grant, that he that was the “ Lamb slain,” 
was therefore “worthy to open the sealed book ;” but I deny 
that hence it follows that he was not able to know the con- 
tents of it before. (3.) I grant that to the question of his 
disciples, “ Wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom unto 
Israel ?” our Saviour answers, “It is not for you to know 
the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in his 
own power” (Acts i. 6,7); but I deny that hence it fol- 
lows, that he “in whom were hid all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge” (Col. ii. 3) did not know them, When 
Mr. Whiston proves all or any of these consequences, he will 
have something to support his corollary ; but till this be done, 
it must pass for an assertion which hath no foundation in the 
holy scripture. Let us now see what just ground he had to 
own, “that this is a strange assertion.” And surely it must 
be exceeding strange to any considering person, that he in 
whom “dwelt the fullness of the Godhead,” and in whom 
were “hid all the treasures of wisdom,” should be thought 
ignorant, whether his own kingdom, to which he was ad- 
vanced, should continue only for a few or for some thousand 
years; that he should be ignorant of the reign of his own 
saints a thousand years, and of the time when all the pro- 
phecies of the Old Testament, concerning the glorious con- 
version of the Jews, should happen; that Daniel should so 
plainly say, that in the time of the fourth monarchy, “ the 
God of heaven should set up a kingdom which should never 
be destroyed, but should consume all other kingdoms, and 
should last for ever (ii. 44), an everlasting kingdom that 
should not pass away ;” and yet our great Prophet, who was 
“the wisdom of the Father,” and the very king who was to 
tule over this kingdom for ever, should be so ignorant of the 
import of these prophecies relating to his own kingdom, as 
not to know it was to last one quarter of the duration of 
some of the other kingdoms, but might be, for any thing he 
knew to the contrary, res unius etatis, only the business of 
one age. Lastly, Is it not very strange, that these masters 
of revelations should be able so punctually to declare to us 
the very year of the fall of the Roman empire; the time of 
the rise of the little horn, and the period of his duration; 


OF JUDGMENT TO BE IN THEIR DAYS. 


and the true import of the words of that prophet, “a time, 
and times, and half a time ;” and yet our blessed Lord should 
be so much an ignoramus as to the true import and extent 
of that whole prophecy, as to imagine, that it might be ful- 
filled in the very first century; and that what they knew 
imports one thousand two hundred and sixty years, he should 
imagine might only signify three years and a half?’ And so 
much for the first corollary. 

Secondly, He positively asserts,* Christ’s apostles seem to 
have really imagined, “that the great day of judgment 
might not be very long deferred beyond the destruction of 
Jerusalem, which was to be in that age (A. D. 70), and ac- 
cordingly to have suited their phrases and exhortations.” 

Now against this corollary I argue as before, that either 
these inspired apostles knew and understood the import and 
meaning of the prophecy of Daniel, concerning the “king- 
dom to be given to the saints,” the fall of the Roman empire, 
the rise of antichrist; or, “the little horn,” “the time, 
times, and half a time,” of his duration, and the millennium 
that was to follow; and also of the prophecies of the Old 
Testament, concerning “ the blindness of the Jews,” and the 
time of their general conversion; or they did not, but were 
ignorant of all these things. If they did know these things, 
it is certain that either they must think that these things 
were to happen after the day of judgment; or that they 
could not think that the day of judgment might happen in 
that age, or while they lived. If they knew not these things, 
which were spoken for their instruction, by their own pro- 
phets, how came these men to be so positive and certain of 
all these things, of which inspired apostles, “led by the 
Spirit into all truth,” should know little or nothing? That 
the apostles should be ignorant of that exact time of the day 
of judgment, which divine wisdom still conceals from all 
men, and never made the matter either of revelation or pre- 
diction, I very heartily believe; but that they should be so 
ignorant of all the famous epochas, foretold by their own 
prophets, concerning the state of Christ’s church, and their 
own nation; that they should not know whether the Roman 
empire was to fall in their own days, or in the fifth century ; 
whether antichrist was to come in their days, or only was to 
arise after that fall; whether being come he was to continue 
only three years and a half, or to last one thousand two hun- 
dred and sixty years; or whether Daniel’s “ time, times, and 
half a time,” did signify the one or the other period; whether 
the mystery of the glorious conversion of the Jews, “when 
deliverance should come to them out of Sion, and so all Israel 
shall be saved ;” and the “new heaven and new earth” they 
expected, according to God’s promise, was to be expected in 
their days, or about one thousand seven hundred years after 
their decease ; whether the kingdom, which was to “ be given 
to the people of the saints of the Most High,” and the millen- 
nium promised, was to begin and end in their days, or to 
commence and end so long after, according to the time as- 
signed for these epochas by these more knowing men; these, 
I confess, are things I cannot easily believe. 

In particular, who can imagine, that Paul should say to 
the first persons to whom he wrote any epistle,t That the 
day of judgment should not come till that which letted, i. e. 
the Roman empire, was taken away, and that then the man 
_ of sin was to be revealed, and was only to be consumed by 
the coming of our Lord to judgment; that he should endea- 
vour to remove their scruple, touching the nearness of his 
coming, by remembering them, that when he was with them, 
he told them these things ; and yet should tell them, the very 
next year, that this day might happen whilst he was alive ἢ 
for if indeed he told them truly when these things were to 
happen, it was impossible that he should tell them the day 
of judgment might happen in his days or age; but if he told 
them, that they might expect that all these things should 
happen in his days or age; that being, as experience shows, 
manifestly false, why doth he, by the direction of the Holy 
Ghost, conclude that discourse thus? “ Wherefore, brethren, 
stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have received, 
whether by our word or our epistle,” ver. 15. Again, who can 
think that the same apostle should tell the Christians of this 
time, that “the Spirit had said expressly, that in the latter 
times some should depart from the faith, giving heed to de- 


+ 2 Thess. ii. 


* Corol. ii. p. 130. 


829 


ceivers, and to doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypo 
crisy ; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from 
meats,” 1 Tim. iv., &c., i.e. that he should, as Mr. Mede 
saith, “use these words (‘the latter times’) as a mark to in- 
form them, to whom he wrote, when these things should 
come to pass ;” and, as he adds, that “the Holy Ghost had 
marked out these times in Daniel, by the time of the fall of 
the Roman empire, and the rise and duration of the little 
horn ;” and yet that Paul himself, in express contradiction 
to this declaration of the Holy Ghost, should teach that the 
day of judgment might happen in his time. Could Peter 
arm the believing Jews against the scoflers at the promise, 
or prediction of the day of judgment, by bidding them « re- 
member the words of the holy prophets, Esaias and Daniel,” 
says Mr. Mede,* who prophesied of things not yet come to 
pass, and yet tell the same persons, that God was then ready 
to judge the quick and the dead!+ Could he say dogmati- 
cally, in Mr. Whiston’s sense, ‘I'he end of all things is at 
hand ;”} and yet soon after tell the same persons, as Mr. 
Whiston§ saith he did, that the day of judgment might, 
through the long-suffering of God, be prolonged for a thou- 
sand years, without any impeachment of his veracity ? 

And whereas he absolutely denies, “that the apostles, 
who thus conceived of the day of judgment, and accordingly 
suited their phrases and exhortations, were herein properly 
deceived, or that they ever preached or declared, as from 
God, that the day of judgment was to be in that age; or that 
they were deceived in any part of their doctrine, or that they 
preached false doctrine;” I, on the contrary, undertake to 
prove, that if the places, produced by Mr. Whiston, bear the 
sense which he hath put upon them, all these things must 
follow with the clearest evidence. And, 

First, I say, That on this supposition they must have 
preached false doctrine; for if, when Paul saith to the be- 
lieving Jews, “ Christ hath appeared in the consummation 
of ages,” Heb. ix. 26, this signifies his positive assertion, that 
he appeared “but a little time before the day of judgment,” 
as Mr. Whiston doth interpret his words; if, again, when he 
says dogmatically, “ Yet a little while, and he that shall 
come will come, and will not tarry,” he saith this of the day 
of judgment, must he not preach false doctrine, in saying so 
dogmatically, he would come in a little time, and would not 
tarry, when in truth he was to tarry nigh two thousand 
years, and Paul knew nothing to the contrary, but he might 
do so? 

Moreover, James, Peter, and John, according to this hy- 
pothesis, must have taught false doctrine. For doth not 
James say dogmatically, “ The coming of the Lord draweth 
nigh, and the Judge standeth at the door ; 4 and if he saith 
these things of the day of judgment, must he not speak what 
experience shows to be notoriously false? When he adds, 
ver. 5, that God was “ready to judge the quick and the 
dead,” if he meant, as Mr. Whiston saith he did, “that he 
was then ready to begin the fatal judgment,” must he not 
speak the plainest falsehood? When John saith as dog- 
matically, “ Little children, this is the Jast hour,” and that, 
by the coming of the many antichrists, who are now upon 
the stage, “ you may know this is the last hour,’** he meant 
“this is the time of the last judgment,” did he not manifestly 
teach false doctrine 1 

Secondly, They must delude their hearers, and all those 
Christians to whom they wrote, and all those Christians who 
were obliged to believe their writings, with false hopes, false 
motives and encouragements to the performance of their 
duty. For instance; when Paul exhorts the Romans to 
“awake out of sleep, εἰδότες τὸν καιρὸν, knowing the season, that 
now is their salvation nearer than when they believed ;’++ 
when he advises them to “put off the works of darkness, and 
to put on the armour of light,” because “the night was 
far spent and the day was at hand;” here are not only two 
assertions notoriously false, if, according to Mr. Whiston, 
these passages relate to the nearness of the day of judgment, 
but also two motives to Christian duties, both grounded on 
these false assertions. When he exhorts his Philippians to 


* 2 Pet. iii. 2. 

+ 1 Pet. iv. 7. 

! Heb. x. 37. 

** 1 John ii. 18, iv. 3. 
3U 


+ 1 Pet. iv. 5. 

§ P. 134. 

4 James v. 8, 9. 

tt Rom. iii. 11, 12. 


890 


moderation because “the Lord is at hand,”’* if he meant 
this of the day of judgment, there is another motive to a 
Christian duty grounded upon a false assertion. When he 
exhorts the believing Jews to patient suffering, because after 
a little while Christ will come, and would not tarry, he again, 
according to this supposition, endeavours to support them 
under their afflictions by false hopes. When James, v. 8, 9, 
saith to the same Jews, “ Be patient: stablish your hearts; 
for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Speak not evil 
one of another, brethren, that ye be not condemned; behold, 
the Judge standeth at the door:” and when Peter saith, 
« The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and 
watch unto prayer:” if all these passages spake of the day 
of judgment as near at hand, and “even at the door,” must 
not all these motives to patience, to forebear evil speaking, to 
sobriety, to vigilance in prayer, be built upon false grounds? 
When John exhorts them not to love the world, “ because the 
world passeth away, and they knew it was the last hour; 
if these words relate to the day of judgment, he must build 
his exhortation upon a manifest falsehood, it being impossi- 
ble that either he or they should know what was not true. 

Moreover, they speak of these things as both known to 
themselves, and visible to those to whom they write, by 
certain tokens, as when John saith, “ Now there are many 
antichrists, by which we know this is the last hour;” when 
Paul saith to the Romans, that “now is the hour to awake 
out of sleep,” and to the Jews, “exhort one another, and 
this so much the more, ὅσῳ βλέπετε ἐγγίζουσαν τὴν ἡμέραν, as 
you see the day approaching,’ Heb. x. 25. Since it is cer- 
tain they could not know that to be true which by experience 
we know to be false, or see that day was then near, or ap- 
proaching, which is not yet come, how impossible is it that 
these things should relate to their knowledge of the day of 
judgment? 

Lastly, The apostle Paul, discoursing of the desire that 
the Christians had to be “ clothed upon” with their celestial 
bodies, saith expressly, 2 Cor. v. 5, “ He that hath wrought 
in us this very thing is God, who hath also given us the ear- 
nest of his Holy Spirit ;” and 1 Thess. iv. 15, he speaks thus, 
«This I say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who 
are alive shall not prevent them that are asleep.” Now if 
these things relate, as Mr. Whiston thinks they do, to the 
coming of the day of judgment whilst the apostles were 
alive, must not the apostle deliver that as a truth taught by 
“the word of Christ,’ and a desire erected in them by God 
himself, which experience shows to have been a great mistake 
and manifestly false? and sure these things must be suffi- 
cient to impair the credit of these apostles in other matters. 
I therefore heartily wish that learned, good, and ingenious 
men would be more careful to avoid those things which do 
so plainly shock the very foundations of Christianity, and 
strengthen the hands of those who question the authority of 
these sacred books. 

And having thus vindicated my notes upon these two 
places, I have done also that which shows my arguments, 
to prove that the pope and church of Rome could not be 
the primary subject of Paul’s discourse in 2 Thess. ii., were 
not grounded, as Mr. Whiston thinks, on a mistake, but on 
those solid grounds, which I believe he never will be able to 
evert, and therefore wisely waved. 

But though he was not pleased to consider my arguments, 
I can assure him, that in the very place I had considered 
and even answered his, before he produced them; for in- 
deed the excellently good man is so intent upon what he 
conceiveth to be right, that, as it plainly appears from this, 
and the discourse on Matt. xxiv., he is not at leisure to con- 
sider what is said against him. 

He begins with a bare citation of the apostle’s words, and 
then adds,} “This description is so lively and clear, that I 
look upon it so far from needing any large paraphrase itself, 
that it serves well for a paraphrase to all the other pro- 
phecies hereto relating, viz. the little horn, and the second 
beast ;’ where he manifestly begs the question, supposing 
that it manifestly relates to those other prophecies, one of 
which was not then in being, and neither of them rightly 
understood, saith Mr. Whiston, by the apostle; he thinking 


{ 1 John ii, 16. 18. 


* Phil. iv. 5. 
+ P. 453, 


WHETHER THE APOSTLES SPAKE OF THE DAY 


that the day of judgment might happen in his time, that the 
fall of the empire might be then, and that the “ time, times 
and half a time,” might only signify three years and a half; 
whereas I verily believe that Paul’s discourse had no rela- 
tion at all to them, unless it be by way of accommodation ; 
and desire him to be so merciful to such blind creatures as I 
am, as to let us see by any good proof that there is any afii- 
nity betwixt them, save in this one thing, that the man of 
sin is to be destroyed with the spirit, and the beast with the 
sword of Christ’s mouth, but with this difference, that the 
man of sin, saith Mr. Whiston, is only to be destroyed by 
his coming at the day of judgment, and the beast above a 
thousand years before; the millennium of the saints, the con- 
version of the Jews, the fullness of the gentiles, and the 
war with the saints, being all to precede the day of judg- 
ment. 

I know that our revelation-men call the apocalyptical 
beast, “antichrist,” but that the scripture doth, or ever in- 
tended so to do, I find no reason to believe, but rather reason 
to believe the contrary ; for, 

First, An antichrist, or a false Christ, in the scripture 
sense, is one who sets up himself for a true Christ, saying 
to others, “ Lo, here is Christ;’’ he is “another, who shall 
come in his own name,” and be received by the Jews (John 
ν. 43) ; the antichrists of John were such as “denied that 
Jesus was the Christ,’ 1 John ii. 22, or “that Christ was 
come in the flesh,” 1 John iv. 3, 2 John, ver. 7: and that 
the ohurch of Rome either was John’s antichrist, or con- 
cerned in John’s description of him, no ancient commenta- 
tor ever said. 

Secondly, The false Christs and antichrists belonged only 
to the first age of Christianity ; the false Christs mentioned 
by our Lord, Matt. xxiv. 24, and who should come in his 
name, saying, ἐγώ εἰμι, “I am Christ,” Mark xiii. 6, Luke 
xxi. 8, were to come before the destruction of Jerusalem; 
and, as John saith, they heard that he was to come in the 
last hour, so, saith he, from his being “now in the world,” 
you may “know that it is the last hour,” 1 John ii. 18, iv. 
3. Let then that be granted which no authority affirms, 
and therefore none of us can know, that this epistle was 
written after the destruction of Jerusalem: why may not 
the words of John refer to the then present age, and the 
false Christs among the Jews and Samaritans, since he doth 
not say that the last hour is near, or is yet to come, but 
that it was already come, and represents this as a thing 
known to them by the antichrists that were “then in the 
world?” That he cannot be interpreted of the day of 
judgment, hath been fully manifested; and of any antichrists 
that were yet to come, of which these come already were 
the forerunners, he saith not one word: and so there is no 
reason to imagine that any such thing was intended by 
him. 

Thirdly, The church-history assures us, that Simon Ma- 
gus, Dositheus, Barchochebas, and others among the Jews, 
were such as answered these descriptions; but of any anti- 
christ that was to be amongst the Christians of the church 
of Rome, neither the scripture nor antiquity for many ages 
give us any intimation. 

He adds, that* I “allow the agreement of this description 
to the great antichrist mentioned in the Revelation ;” whereas 
indeed I do not allow that any antichrist at all is mentioned 
in the revelation, but only say, that “in a secondary sense 
this may be attributed, i. 6, accommodated, to him who is 
commonly called the papal antichrist, and may be signally 
fulfilled in him, in the destruction of him by the spirit of 
Christ’s mouth ;” and this I say, not from any conviction of 
the thing, but only that Imay not wholly differ from my 
brethren in this matter ; giving in my annotations first what 
I think is the true sense and intendment of the apostle’s 
words, and then the sense which protestants put upon the 
words, and introducing it thus, “ Others who refer this to the 
church of Rome,” I proceed to show that the arguments 
brought against my exposition were answered in the ex- 
position. 

Arg. 1. « What need of all this solicitude of Paul to free 
himself from the scandal of having affirmed, that the de- 
struction of Jerusalem was at hand, when the greatest part 


* P. 254, 


OF JUDGMENT ΤῸ BE IN THEIR DAYS. 


| persions, but, as Justin Martyr® assures us, stirred up the 


within which our Saviour expressly had asserted that de- 
struction was to come, was already past?” 

_ Ans. Paul expressly says, his solicitude was to prevent 
the trouble of the Thessalonians on the imagination that 
the day of the Lord évéornxe, “ was,” or “had been instant,” 
for which solicitude he had good reason; for, saith the note 
there, to conceive that signal day of the destruction of their 
enemies the Jews, and the deliverance of the Christians, 
mentioned Joel ii. 31, 32, Mal. iv. 1, 2, come; and find 
themselves deceived in that conception, might cause great 
troubles to them, and even shake the steadfastness of their 
faith.” Τὸ which add, 

Secondly, ‘That the Judaizing Christians, who could 
hardly think of “wrath coming to the uttermost’ on this 
once beloved people, might persuade the Thessalonians that 
the slaughter threatened to them was already executed, by 
the great desolation made of them in Egypt by Flaccus, in 
the time of Caius, of which Philo* speaks, and the great 
slaughter made of them at the same time in Mesopotamia, 
Babylon, Syria, and Seleucia, which, saith Josephus,t was 


φόνος πολλὸς Kai brda0s οὐκ ἱστορούμενος πρότερον, “a greater de- | 


struction than ever was before recorded of them.” 

Arg. 2. “ How absurd is it to interpret the rapovcfa, or 
solemn ‘coming of Christ, in the former epistle, nay in 
this epistle, and in the first verse of this very chapter, of his 
coming to judgment at the last day, and yet in the eighth 
verse to interpret it of his coming to destroy the Jews only, 
especially when no exampie can be shown, that ever St. 
Paul uses that word in that acceptation ?” 

Ans, To this imputation of absurdity the answer is re- 
turned (note on ver. 1) in these words: “The coming of 
Christ is by the reverend Dr. Hammond referred to Christ’s 
coming to destroy the unbelieving Jews; this is the zapov- 
cia, ‘coming of the Son of man,’ so often mentioned in our 
Lord’s prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and of 
the temple, Matt. xxiv. 3. 27, Luke xvii. 24.” This is most 
certainly the import of this phrase in St. James twice, when 
he exhorts the brethren to be “patient, ἕως τῆς παρουσίας τοῦ 
Kvpiov, till the coming of the Lord,” adding, that this παρου- 
σία, “coming, was at hand,” νυ. 7,8. And to his saying 
that I “interpret the first verse of the coming of our Lord 
to judgment,” and therefore do absurdly interpret the eighth 
verse of his coming to destroy the wicked Jews, I have 
answered in the note on the eighth, by showing that the 
words there are taken from Isaiah, xi. 4, and that they ne- 
cessarily refer to the smiting of the land of Judea, and 
therefore cannot be referred to Chyist’s coming to judge all 
men at the last day ; to which I do not find that any good in- 
terpreter refers these words. 

Arg. 3. “ How comes the apostle to inform the Thessalo- 
nians, who were almost all gentiles, of the destruction of 
Jerusalem in Judea at a thousand miles’ distance, which 
was of little more consequence to them than the destruction 
of any other church or city in a remote country ?” 

Ans. To the ignorance and mistake on which this argu- 
ment is wholly founded, he hath had one answer in the note 
on ver. 1, in which words let it be noted, « That the church 
of the Thessalonians were partly converts of the Jews and 
proselytes; for the converts made by Paul preaching to 
them were of the Jews and the devout Greeks (Acts xvii. 4), 
who, in expectation of our Lord’s prediction, and their ‘re- 
demption’ by it «drawing nigh’ (Luke xxi. 28), might long 
for the execution of it.” 

Secondly, Had he mentioned the destruction of the 
wicked Jews, “by the spirit of Christ’s mouth,” as the apos- 
tle doth, there would have been no appearance of any 
strength in that argument, to which a farther answer is given 
(note on ver. 5), in these words: “OF the Jews, and their 
opposing themselves to the doctrine of Christianity, and the 
professors of it, the apostle had told them in his First Epistle, 
li. 15, 16, and when he was with them, the persecutions 
that both he and they suffered from them (Acts xvii. 15, 
16), gave him a just occasion to speak both of their opposi- 
tion to the gospel, and of the deliverance they shortly might 


831 


heathen governors in all places where Christians were, to do 
the like, and sent chosen men from Jerusalem for that very 
end.’ Nor was the slaughter of them in those “days of 
vengeance” confined to Judea, but, as I have fully proved 
from Josephus, they suffered the like calamities in the re- 
motest places from it. ‘hough therefore the Thessalonians 
might be less concerned for the destruction of the city or 
temple of Jerusalem, they might be very much concerned 
that these men should be disabled from executing any 
more their rage upon them, or against the church of 
Christ. 

Arg. 4. “Lastly, How comes the church of the Thessalo- 
nians to be in such a consternation and disturbance, Spocie- 
Sa, at the supposal that Jerusalem should be destroyed, 


ae . - - - 
since therein none but the unbelieving Jews and the enemies 


of Christ were to perish ?”” 

Ans. How came you to fall into this imagination? Their 
trouble, saith the text, being only this, that they conceived 
the apostle had spoken of the destruction of the wicked 
and persecuting Jews as instant, whereas by sad experience 
they found that they lay still as much as ever under such 
rage and cruel persecution of these men (1 ‘Thess. ii. 15), 
that the apostle was afraid lest these temptations should 
have rendered his labour vain among them (iil. 5). 

Secondly, The opinion having obtained among the Jews 
that the destruction of their temple, and the destruction of 
the old world, should be contemporary, this might be among 
the believing Jews a farther reason of their trouble. And 
this should be more considerable to him who earnestly con- 
tends that the apostles spake, in all their epistles, as men 
who believed the day of judgment might happen soon after 
the destruction of Jerusalem. 

In the following words he attempts to answer an objection 
thus: “If it be still wondered at that St. Paul should here 
say that ‘the mystery of iniquity doth already work:’ I 
say it is not strange, that he that knew that the great 
man of sin was to corrupt and spoil the purity of the 
Christian religion, and turn the mystery of godliness into 
a mystery of iniquity, and who found already the begin- 
nings of such mischiefs creeping into the church, and that, 
in some of the same points which antichrist was to cor- 
rupt, looks upon such beginning of antichristianism as pre- 
ludes and forerunners of that grand corruption to come 
afterward.” 

But this evasion is fully confuted, in the note on ver. 7, 
by this argument: “It is hizhly reasonable to conceive, that 
‘the mystery of iniquity’ already working should be that 
very mystery which after was to be completed by the more 
full appearance of ‘the man of sin,’ as will be evident from 
the connexion of the words, ‘Remember ye not, that when 
I was with you, I told you these things” (viz. who was the 
man of sin to be revealed, what were the characters of him, 


| and what it was that did at present hinder him from a full 


revelation of himself, ver. 3, 4;) for ‘the mystery of iniquity 


| is already working, i.e. he is doing that covertly, which, 


when he is revealed, he will do more openly; only ‘he that 
hinders (his full appearance) will do so till he be taken 
away, and then shall this wicked one be revealed, whom the 
Lord shall destroy with the spirit of his mouth ; whence it 
seems clear, that the man of sin, then covertly working his 
mystery, and only hindered from appearing openly by some- 
thing that then letted, must be that man of sin, who after 
was to be revealed, and then destroyed ‘by the spirit of 
Christ’s mouth.’ All those interpretations therefore must 
be false, which make the mystery of iniquity to be one per- 
son, or one kind of persons, and ‘the man of sin,’ or ‘ anti- 
christ,’ another, as they must do who make the mystery of 
iniquity to belong to Simon Magus, the false prophets, or 
heretics, in being when this epistle was indited, and the 
man of sin to be the pope and his clergy.” In a word, dolo- 
sus versatur in generalibus; till Mr. Whiston can name 
some false prophets, or false apostles, or corrupters of the 
gospel, by turning it into a “ mystery of iniquity,” in being 


expect from such enraged persecutors, who not only fell | when this epistle was indited, who were not of Jewish ex- 
severely on the converted Jews throughout all their dis- | tract, or appeared not then amongst them; and in what 


* Contr. Flac. 
{ Antig. lib. xviii, cap. 12, 


* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, 235. 
T Pref. to the Ep. of St. James, §. 5, 


832 


particulars of that pernicious influence they conspired with 
the present church of Rome (which neither yet hath been, 
norI think can be done to satisfaction), it is evident he hath 
said nothing which hath the least appearance of an answer 
to the objection he himself hath started. 


A PARALLEL 


BETWIXT 


The Jewish and the Papal Antichrist, in their apostasy from, 
and corruption of, the doctrine delivered to them. 


Havine given my conjecture, that the Jewish church, 
with their rulers, were the antichrist mentioned by Paul, 
I proceed to show how their apostasy, when they were 
thus deserted by God, resembled and ran parallel to the 
apostasy of the Roman church, when she began in like 
manner to apostatize from and to corrupt the Christian 
faith. 

And here it cannot be expected that I should draw the 
parallel betwixt them, in those doctrines which never were 
nor could be owned by the unbelieving Jews, viz. in the 
doctrines of transubstantiation, the adoration of the host, 
the sacrifice of the mass, communion in one kind, and the 
number of the Christian sacraments; but yet in most of 
their other doctrines, it is very easy to discern it. 

First, In the doctrine of infallibility, the mother of incor- 
rigible errors. 

For, First, As Roman catholics assert the infallibility of 
councils, which they are pleased to call general councils, 
and plead for a living and infallible judge of controversies ; 
so the Jews looked upon the judgment of their great sanhe- 
drin, and the concurring suflrage of their rulers and phari- 
sees, as free from error, and not to be gainsaid by any of the 
people. ‘Their way of arguing, John vii. 38, seems plainly 
to insinuate, that they thought themselves the only fit and 
proper judges of the true sense and meaning of the law; 
that the people were wholly to be guided by them; and 
that they who would not submit to their judgment were de- 
ceived, and would be accursed for their obstinacy in things 
in which they neither had, nor could have, any certain know- 
ledge without their guidance and assistance ; for thus they 
speak to those officers whom they had sent to apprehend 
our Saviour: “Are ye also deceived? Have any of the 
rulers, or of the pharisees, believed on him? But this people 
which knoweth not the law (and yet will take upon them to 
dissent from their judgment) are accursed ;” which is the 
very language of the church of Rome in her anathemas. 
They were the supreme judges, and the keepers of oral tra- 
ditions ; and the fear that, when the sanhedrin was dissolved, 
these traditions might be lost, produced the Mishna, or 
the second law, commonly called by them, “the oral law,” 
or the law given to Moses by word of mouth, as they gather 
from Exod. xxxiv. 27. They also took upon them to be 
authentic interpreters of the written law ; and that by virtue 
of these traditions, given, say some of them, to this end. 
Now this, as the excellent Mr. Chillingworth* observes, is 
indeed to make men “ apostates from God, and to dethrone 
him from his dominion over men’s consciences, and to set 
up themselves;” and why else doth our Saviour charge 
these men with « making void the commandments of God,” 
not in one only, but in many cases, “by their traditions,”’> 
and in opposition to these teachers of traditions, as received 
from their forefathers, require them to “call no man father 
upon earth,” because “one only was their Father” in that 
sense, in which the Jewish doctors claimed that title, even 
“their Father which was in heaven:” and that he had great 
reason to speak thus, we learn from the Jewish canon cited 
by Dr. Pocock,+ vota cadere in res mandati, “that vows 
reach even to things commanded, or take place as well in 
things commanded by the law, as in things indifferent ; and 
that aman may be so bound by them, as that he cannot, 
without great sin, do what God had by his law required to 
be done; so that if he made a vow which laid him upon a 


+ Mark vii. 9. 


* Preface, sect. 10. + Miscell. p. 45. 


A PARALLEL BETWIXT THE JEWISH 


necessity to violate God’s law, that he might observe it, the 
vow must stand, and the law be abrogated.” 

Secondly, The like infallibility they ascribe to the words 
of their rabbins, wise men, and scribes. ‘Thus R. Isaac 
Abuhaf* saith, that «to all things which their rabbins have 
taught in their homilies, the same faith is to be given as to 
the law of Moses.” In the Talmudt they say, that «all 
their words are the word of the living God;”’ and that: 
“the righteous nation that keepeth the truth (mentioned 
Isa, xxvi. 2), are they who receive all their wise men have 
said for undoubted truth, and say Amen to it:”§ and that 
when two of them differ in their opinions, neither of them 
is to be condemned, “for the words of them both are the 
words of the living God.” That they are] “to attend 
more to the words of the scribes than to the words of the 
law; and that they are more amiable than the words of the 
prophets; the prophets being obliged to work a miracle, 
that they might be credited; whereas they were to be be- 
lieved without a miracle, it being said (Deut. xvii. 10), Thou 
shalt observe to do according to all that they shall teach 
thee” (see of this more in Buxtorf’s Recensio Operis 
Talmudici, from p. 221 to 228). Maimonides] saith, “If 
a thousand prophets, who were equal to Elias and Elisha, 
bring one interpretation; and a thousand and one wise men 
bring a contrary to it, they must incline to the most; and 
be obliged rather to act according to the sentence of their 
wise men, than that of the thousand prophets.” In his ex- 
plication of the thirteenth treatise of the sanhedrin, he 
distributes men who interpreted the sayings of their wise 
men into three ranks: first, those who thought their sayings 
were figurative and tropological; secondly, those who said 
their words were to be interpreted according to the letter, as 
thinking, sapientes in omnibus indubitate veritatis in dictis 
suis,** ‘the wise men were of undoubted truth in all their 
sayings ;” thirdly, those who allude the words of the wise 
men, judging themselves more wise, and saying, thaty;} “they 
were deceived ;” these he pronounces fools, and accursed, 
for saying these things of those great men of whose wisdom 
they were well assured. Josephus++ says, that “they who 
were of the sect of the pharisces, ἕπονται τῇ ἡγεμονίᾳ followed 
their guidance, and thought it necessary to observe and con- 
tend for every thing their guide commanded. The saddu- 
cees,” saith he, “held it a virtue to contend πρὸς τοὺς διδασκά- 
λους σοφίας, against the teachers of wisdom, but they yielded 
such honour, τοῖς ἡλικίας προήκουσι, to their ancestors, that 
they durst not be so bold as to gainsay any thing that they 
had introduced as fit to be observed.” Here we have, in 
express words, the teachers, guides, and fathers mentioned 
by our Lord, Matt. xxiii. 8, 9, and all of them represented as 
persons whose doctrines none ought to doubt of, and whose 
sayings none should gainsay. This then was the authority 
the Jews of those times lodged in their fathers, teachers, rab- 
bies, their scribes and pharisees, who “sat in Moses’ chair,” 
and gloried in the name of “Rabbi, Rabbi,’ Matt. xxiii. 7. 
And this usurped authority is the very thing our Saviour 
forbids, as prejudicial to his office, in these words, Matt. 
xxviii. 8, * Be not ye called Rabbi, for one is, ὑμῶν 6 διδάσ- 
καλος, your teacher, even Christ;” and ver. 10, «Be not ye 
called xaSnynrai, guides, for one is your guide, even Christ.” 
And therefore it is observable, that though the apostles had 
an express commission from Christ to teach all nations all 
that he had commanded, and a promise, that in the execu- 
tion of this office the Holy Spirit should « bring these things 
to their remembrance,” and so were infallible revealers of the 
mind and the commandments of Christ, which the church of 
Rome neither doth nor can pretend to, without falling un- 
der Paul’s anathema for preaching “another gospel ;” yet 
none of them pretended or ever attempted to be interpreters 
of the words of Christ, or infallible judges of the true sense 
of what he had already taught or commanded ; which is the 
thing the Romanists now challenge to themselves, and which 
the Jewish doctors did pretend to be, with respect to the 
mind of God, revealed in the scriptures of the Old Testa- 


+ Lib. iii. p. 69. 


* Buxt. Synag. 


+ Ibid. p. 70. § P. 71. | P. 72. 
4 Pref. in Seder Zeraim, edit. Pocock, p. 32. 
ἘΞ Tbid. p. 144, tt P. 146, 147. 


++ Antiq. lib. xviil. cap. 2. 


AND THE PAPAL ANTICHRIST. 


ment. And indeed this claim of the church of Rome to be 
the infallible judges, interpreters of the laws, doctrines, and 
commands of Christ, must give them power without control 
to alter any of the laws of Christ, and under pretence of in- 
terpreting to overthrow them, and so to dethrone Christ 
from his dominion over men’s consciences, and instead of 
Christ, set up themselves: for he that requires that all his 
interpretations of the laws of Christ should be obeyed as the 
true mind of Christ, seem they to the understandings of 
many myriads never so dissonant or discordant from it, re- 
quires indeed that his interpretations should be received as 
Christ's laws, and that all men should obey rather what he, 
than what they think Christ hath taught them ;and whosoever 
is firmly prepared in his mind to believe and obey all such 
interpretations without judging them, though to his own 
judgment they seem most unreasonable, whatsoever he may 
pretend, he makes both the law and the law-maker stales, 
and obeys only the interpreter; for seeing the true sense of 
the law is indeed the law, he must be to me the only giver 
of the law, who alone gives me the true sense of it. Thus, 


if any person should pretend he would submit to the laws of | 


the king of England, but should resolve to obey them only 
in that sense, whatsoever it were, which the French king 
should put upon them, I presume every understanding man 
would say, that he obeyed only the French king, not the 
king of England. 

§. 2. Secondly, Whereas the Trent council, in her fourth 
session, determines that “besides the written word con- 
tained in the canon of the New Testament, there were also 
oral traditions, concerning both faith and manners, received 
by the apostles from the mouth of Christ, or dictated to 
them by the Holy Spirit, and preserved in the church 
catholic by a continual succession, which therefore they 
received pari pietatis affectti, with the same pious affection 
as the holy scriptures of the New Testament:” in all this 
ΠῈΣ plainly copied from the apostatizing Jewish church. 

or, 

1, As the Romanists plead, that their traditions are of a 
divine original, as being derived partly from the mouth of 
Christ, partly from his inspired apostles; so do the Jews ex- 
pressly teach, that their “oral law came from the mouth of 
God,”’* and that “God delivered it to Moses on mount 
Sinai with the written law, and that he received it by divine 
tevelation.”+ 

2. As the Romanists say, that their unwritten traditions 
were preserved, and handed down to this present age, by the 
“catholic church in a continual succession;’ so the Jews 
say their traditions were “deposited with the whole congre- 
gation, the great sanhedrin, and the high-priest;” and give 
us the very names of the eminent persons through whose 
hands their traditions came down to their days (Voisin, 
Proem. Pug. Fid. ἃ p. 10 ad p. 16). 

3. As the Romanists affirm,+ that the scriptures are im- 
perfect and obscure without their traditions, and conse- 
quently make their traditions necessary to the expounding 
of the scriptures ; so also do the Jews say, that the§ “oral 
law is the foundation of the written law,” and that «they 
cannot come to the knowledge of the scriptures, unless they 
insist on the words of their wise men of blessed memory ; 
that the written law cannot be expounded without the oral; 
that they cannot be established upon the written law without 
the oral, which is the explication of it; that it is rather the 
oral than the written law, which is the foundation of all their 
religion, there being no demonstration to be taken from the 
written law, because tradition explains the secret of it” (Cod. 
Jur. Chagiga, t. x. 1). 

4. As the Trent council declares concerning the unwritten 
traditions, “that they are to be received and reverenced with 
the same pious affection as the holy scriptures ;” so must the 
Jews do in consequence of that opinion, which makes them 
both to proceed immediately from the same divine authority, 
and both derived to them by the same means; for, say they, 


* Cartw. Mellif. lib. iv. cap. 5, p. 3070. 

+ Buxtorf. Synag. Jud. cap. 3. 

+ Bell. de Verbo Dei, lib. iv. cap. 5, 5. Nune ut. et 8. 7. 

§ Aben Ezra Pref. in Pentateuchum. R. Becha, lib. Hak- 
kemah. Altare Aureum, cap. 5. Buxtorf. Synag. Jud. cap. 3, 
p. 63. 

Vor. 1V.—105 


833 


« Aswe have received the written word, so have we received 
the oral law, nyaxn pp, from the fathers:” hence, like good 
Roman catholics, they are “ more exceedingly zealous for the 
traditions of their fathers,” than for the law itself, Gal. i. 14: 
they accuse all that walk not according to the customs of 
their fathers, as persons who forsook the law of Moses, Acts 
xxi. 21; and it was esteemed a great erime to do any thing 
against the σθείσιῃ of their fathers, or the traditions of the 
elders, Matt. xv. 2, Acts xxviil. 17. 

5. As the Jews “call them ΙΝ “scripturists,” and 3+, 
“heretics,” who reject their oral traditions; so do the Ro- 
manists style us hereties and scriptuarit for rejecting their 
supposed apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions (Prateolus 
Elencho, lib. xvii. cap. 16). And as the ox p were, saith 
Manasseh ben Israel,* exclusi communione I[sraclitarum, 
“excluded from the communion of Israel;” so do the Ro- 
manists exclude us from their communion upon the same 
account. 

§. 3. Thirdly, As the church of Romef hath received 
many apocryphal books as canonical scripture, pronouncing 
an anathema on all who deny them so to be; so did her 
apostatizing sister also receive many such books, as of equal 
ae and authority with the scripture. As, 

. Lhe 'Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan; for their Tal- 
mudical doctors declare, that Jonathan received his Targum, 
or exposition of the prophets, from the mouth of Haggai, 
Zachary, and Malachi, three prophets, and keepers of the 
oral traditions belonging to the consistory of Ezra; and so 
they make them equal to the writings of these three prophets. 
Moreover, they say, that “if any other person, interpreting 
any verse of scripture in the Chaldaie tongue, add any thing 
to it, he blasphemes; because he may do this contrary to 
the mind of the author :” but then they add, that Onkelos 
and Jonathan “did not offend in any of their additions, be- 
cause they did this always according to the mind of the au- 
thor” (so Buxtorf, in voce fargum). Hence Raymundust 
saith, that this translation of Onkelos, tantam inter Judzos 
autoritatem obtinet, “is of so great authority among the 
Jews, that none of them dares presume to contradict it.” 

And Paulus Burgensis§ saith, that the Chaldaic transla- 
tion among them tante autoritatis est sicut textus, “is of 


| equal authority with the text” (see N. Lyranus, in Isa. cap, 


vili.). ‘Such 

2. Is their Mishna, or fardle of traditions, collected by 
R. Jehudah Hakkadosh “the Holy,” or R. Jehudah Han- 
nisi “the Prince,” anno Christi 150; which, saith Buxtorf,]} 
is publicly received by all the Jews, both in the Holy Land 
and in Babylon, as an authentic body of their law: hence, 
as we have shown before, they call it a “secondary law re- 
ceived from the mouth of God,” and prefer it much before 
the written law, comparing the text only to water, but these 
traditions to wine: and the school of Elias used to say, 
“that whosoever learned the traditions of the Mishna might 
be assured he should have eternal life.” 

3. 'The Talmud, which contains the explications of their 
doctors upon the Mishna, is of such veneration among them 
that they place the Talmud, or Gemara, which by way of 
eminence they call the Talmud, “ among the books given by 
tradition from the mouth of God” (see Cartwright’s Mellif. 
lib. iv. cap. 5, p. 30, 70; saying that “nothing is superior 
to the most holy Talmud ; and that by reading in the scrip- 
tures they can get little profit; more by reading in the 
Mishna, but by reading in the Talmud most of all: with 
many other things of a like nature, collected by Buxtorf, 
Synag. Jud. cap. 3, Recensio Operis Talmudici, p. 225, 
226, et Lex. Talmud. in voce talmud, p. 2475. 

§. 4. Fourthly, As the church of Rome pretends to be 
the catholic church, out of whose communion there is no 
salvation, requiring all men to own her faith, and to “ receive 
her mark,” Rev. xiii. 16; so also did the apostatizing church 
of the Jews: for when the gospel was first preached, they 
thought that the salvation promised by it belonged to them 
alone, and therefore “forbade” the apostles “to preach to 
the gentiles that they might be saved” (1 Thess. ii. 16). They 
also earnestly contended, that unless they who believed in Jesus 


* Conciliator, p. 177. + Concil. Trid. sess. 4. 

+ Pug. Fid. par. ii. cap. 4, §. 3. § In Gen. iv. 

| Bibl. Rab. p. 230, 232. « Ibid. p. 233. 4 
νυ 


834 


would be circumcised and “ keep the law” and so receive 
the mark of, and became proselytes to, their religion, “ they 
could not be saved” (Acts xv. 1. 24). Even those Chris- 
tians who were dispersed into other parts by the persecution 
of their fellow Jews, preached the word only to the Jews of 
their own language (Acts xi. 19), and to the Hellenistic 
Jews (ver. 20) ; and the rest of them thought it a great sin 
in Peter to “go in to the uncircumcised and converse with 
them,” though this was only done to convert them to the 
Christian faith (Acts xi. 3), and it was matter of great ad- 
miration to them, that God should “grant repentance to 
salvation to the gentiles” (ver. 18). So deeply was this 
Jewish principle then rooted even in the first converts of 
that nation to the Christian faith. 

§. 5. Fifthly, As the church of Rome hath introduced 
the religious worship of saints and angels; so also did the 
apostatizing church of the Jews: for they had imbibed the 
philosophy of the Platonists, who taught,* “that demons 
were of a middle nature betwixt gods and mortals; that they 
brought our prayers and offerings to the gods, and their com- 
mands to us, and that it was very fit, εὐχαῖς τιμᾷν, to honour 
them with our prayers upon these accounts :” and that “ God 
had no immediate commerce with men, but all his converse 
with them was by the mediation of those demons.” And 
suitably to his philosophy we find the angel saying, Tobit xii. 
12. 15, that he was one of the seven angels, οἱ προσφέρουσι τὰς 
προσευχὰς τῶν ἁγίων, who offered up the prayers of the saints, 
and that when Tobit and Sarah prayed, he “ brought the me- 
morial of their prayers before the Holy One.” And Philo 
in several places declares, that as the philosophers said of 
their demons and heroes, so Moses “ introduces the angels as 
messengers of good things from God to his subjects, and car- 
rying back their needs, not that God needs their ministry, but 
that it is very needful and beneficial for us frail men to have 
such mediators” (see the full proof of this in the note on 
Col. ii. 18). Accordingly Theodoret on that place saith, 
“They who were zealous for the law persuaded men, τοὺς ay- 
yedous σέβειν, to worship angels because the law, say they, 
was given by them. And this they persuaded men todo out 
of humility, saying, that the God of all things was invisible, 
and inaccessible, and incomprehensible, and that it was fit 
we should procure the divine favour by the means of the an- 
gels.” Hence Clemens Alexandrinusf brings in Peter for- 
bidding Christians “to worship God as the Jews did, be- 
cause, pretending that they only knew God, they indeed did 
not know him, as worshipping angels and archangels.” 

In their office for the dead, saith Voisin,+ “they pray 
thus, Ye fathers of the world, who sleep in Hebron, open to 
him the gates of the garden of Eden, and say, Let him come 
in peace.” And again, “ Ye angels of peace, come forth to 
meet him, and unlock for him the gates of the garden of 
Eden, and say, Let him come in peace” (Theolog. Judaic. 
lib. i. cap. 1, p. 80, 81). 

§. 6. Sixthly, As the church of Rome gives an inferior 
kind of veneration to images, and by some nice distinctions 
eludes the prohibition of the second commandment; so do 
the apostate Jews, by the same arts, declaring “ that he who 
worships an idol, taking it for God, is guilty, but if not, he is 
free ;” and the gloss there adds, “that if he adore God in it, 


* Plato, Epin. 1010, 1011. 

T Kai yap ἐκεῖνοι μόνον οἱόμενοι τὸν Θεὸν γινώσκειν, οὐκ ἐπίσταν- 
ται λατρεύοντες ἀγγέλους καὶ ἀρχαγγέλους. Strom. vi. 

+ P. 695, D. 


A PARALLEL, &. 


it is no crime, for his heart is towards God.” And again, 
“Tf a Jew see a statue, such as useth to be set up for a king, 
if he adore it not under tke notion of an idol, but in honour 
to the king, it is nothing.” And this corrupt notion pre- 
vailed upon the Corinthians to eat freely “in the idol’s tem- 
ple” of their sacrifices, as thinking they did not offend, be- 
cause they did not own the idol to be God (see for this 
Dr. Lightfoot on 1 Cor. viii. 10). 

§. 7. Seventhly, The apostatizing Jews do so plainly 
symbolize with the Romanists in the doctrine of purgatory 
and prayers for the dead, that Bellarmine confirms those doc- 
trines from the practice of the Jews recorded in the book of 
Maccabees, lib. ii. cap. xii. 39. 46, from Tobit iv. 18, and 
from their other writings, Bellarm. de Purgatorio, lib. ii. 
cap. 3. 8. Hine etiam, §. Secundus, et cap. 11, 8. Tertia 
ratio, 

And indeed the parallel is very clear, for as the papists 
pray for the souls of the dead, that they may be delivered 
from the pains of purgatory, and go thence to heaven; so 
do the Jews in their liturgy pray “for the souls of their 
friends, and kindred, grandfathers, and grandmothers, that 
they may be admitted to the rest of the righteous in the 
garden of Eden” (see Dr. Lightfoot, vol. i. p. 1017, 1018). 
As the papists say, those souls they pray for go to purgatory, 
“in order to their purgation from some defilements they 
have contracted in this world, and afterward to heaven ;” so 
the Jews say, that anima gehenne igne purgatur, ut pura 
evadat et candida, “ the soul is purged with hell-fire, that it 
might be made pure and white, and then put into the hands 
of the angel Michael, who offers up the souls of the just” 
(Voisin, Theolog. Jud. lib. i. cap. 1, p. 78). As the papists 
give so much money to have so many masses said for the de- 
liverance of souls out of purgatory; so the Jews vow “ to 
give alms, that they may be conveyed into the garden of 
Eden ;” and the priest pronounces a blessing upon him “ who 
hath vowed so many alms for the souls of the dead” (see 
these prayers and benedictions in Lightf. ibid.). And in re- 
lation to this opinion, the son of Sirach seems to say, vii. 
33, “A gift hath grace in the sight of every man living, and 
for the dead detain it not.” 

§. 8, Eighthly, As the papists hope to be helped, both 
living and dead, by the merits of the saints, and especially 
by the martyrs; so the Jews pray, that God would show 
kindness to them, “for the sake of all those who are slain 
and massacred for his sake, and went through fire and water, 
for the hallowing of his name” (Lightf. ibid.). They thought, 
in the time of the Maccabees, that the death of ‘their good 
men, or martyrs, might be an expiation for their sin. This 
being among them a received rule, that σπουδαῖος τοῦ φαύλου 
λύτρον, * the good man is the redemption of the wicked ;”* 
and hence Josephus} brings in Eleazar praying thus to God, 
“ Be thou gracious to thy nation, being satisfied with the pu- 
nishment I suffer for them ; make my blood an expiation for 
them, καὶ ἀντὶ Woxady αὐτῶν λάβε τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχὴν, and accept my 
life instead of theirs.’ Hence have we frequent mention of 
merita patrum, “the merits of the fathers,” in their books, 
and of the merits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; from which 
they did expect great things, even deliverance from hell, say- 
ing, that “ hell-fire hath no power over the sinners of Israel ; 
because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob descend thither to fetch 
them thence.” Pocock, Miscellan. p. 172. 227. 


* Philo, de Sacr. Cain, p. 118, D. 
+ L. de Maccab. p. 1050, C. 


890 


THE 


FIRST EPISTLE TO: TIMOTHY, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Tuar this epistle was written after Paul’s departure from 
Ephesus to Macedonia, some gather from these words, 
« When I went into Macedonia, I besought thee to abide at 
Ephesus,” i. 3. And that it was written when he was in 
expectation of returning shortly thither, they conclude from 
these words; “I write to thee, hoping to come unto thee 
quickly,” iii. 14. It therefore, say they, must be writ before 
he came to Melitus, Acts xx.17. For then he, sending for 
the bishops of Ephesus thither, speaks thus to them: “« And 
now I know, that all you, among whom I have gone preach- 
ing the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more,” ver. 25. 
For then he must have laid aside all thoughts of returning 
any more to Ephesus. It therefore must, say they, be 
written while he was in Macedonia, or thereabouts ; and so, 
A. Ὁ. 55, and the first of Nero. So Dr. Lightfoot. 

Bishop Pearson grants, that it was written after Paul was 


gone into Macedonia; but then he adds, that it was writ after | 


his enlargement from his bonds at Rome, A. D.65. That it 
could not be writ at any time of Paul's going to Macedonia, 


before his journey to Jerusalem, he proves, because before | 


that time Paul could not have exhorted him to “abide at 
Ephesus ;” for the first time he went to Macedonia, by the 
direction of the Holy Ghost, Acts xvi. 9, 10, he had not seen 
Ephesus, for he came not thither till a long time after, Acts 
xix. 1. The second time he came to Macedonia was after 
the tumult which forced him to leave Ephesus, Acts xx. 1, 
when he could not exhort him to abide at Ephesus, for he 
had sent him thence to Macedonia at that very time when 
that tumult began, Acts xix. 22,23. This argument, I con- 
fess, is not very strong ; it being plain, from his First Epistle 
writ to Corinth, while he was at Ephesus, 1 Cor. xvi. 8. 10, 
11, that he expected then his return to him: but then it ap- 
pears, that Timothy was with him when he went first from 
Macedonia to Achaia, and at Corinth writ his Epistle to the 
Romans, xvi. 21 ; and also when he returned from Achaia to 
Macedonia, for then he accompanied him from Achaia to 
Macedonia, and so to Asia, and so he abode not then at 
Ephesus, Acts xx. 4. Now from thence Paul goes to Jeru- 
salem, and from thence bound to Rome, and so he could not 
after go to Macedonia till he was set at liberty. This there- 
fore, saith he, was done afterward, in the tenth year of Nero, 
A. D. 65, and soon after he writ this epistle to him. 

And whereas against this it is objected, that in this epistle 
he speaks twice of his coming to Ephesus, saying, “I write 
unto thee, hoping to come to thee shortly,” iii. 14, and «Till 
I come, give thy diligence to reading,” iv. 13, whereas before 
his going up to Jerusalem he had expressly said to them of 
Ephesus, “I know that all you shall see my face no more ;” 
whence it is gathered, that this epistle must be writ before 
that time. 

To this I answer, that Paul saith plainly in this epistle, 
that he proposed to come to him; but he saith not, that he 
purposed to come to him to Ephesus. If you reply, that in 
this epistle he commands him to stay at Ephesus, and so 
must be supposed to speak of coming thither to him, i. 3: 
this, I confess, is true, according to our version, which adds 
unto the words, “so do:” but if you read the words thus, 
“ As I exhorted thee to abide (some time) at Ephesus, when 
J went into Macedonia, (so I did it) that thou mightest ad- 


monish some to teach no other doctrine ;” it will be left un- 
certain, whether he were at Ephesus at the inditing this 
epistle ; for then, having done the work for which he was bid 
to stay at Ephesus, he might go on to other places, doing the 
work of an evangelist, and settling ordinary church-governors, 
bishops, presbyters, and deacons, where they were wanting, 
and doing all the other things mentioned in this epistle, as 
things to be performed in the church of God. For, 

First, It is certain, that when the Second Epistle was writ 
to Timothy, he was not at Ephesus, as I have there proved, 
note on iv. 12. He therefore might have been gone thence 
also at the writing of this epistle, to settle the affairs of other 
churches, 

Secondly, It is certain, that this First Epistle was writ to 
him, that, in Paul’s absence he might know “ how to deport 
himself in the church of God,” especially in reference to the 
prescriptions here laid down, iii. 15. Now there was little 
need that he should stay there, to do the great work pre- 
scribed in this epistle, touching bishops and deacons, they 
being settled among them by Paul himself before he left 
Ephesus; and they being after, in his journey to Jerusalem, 
summoned to Miletus, and taught how to demean themselves 
in the respective provinces committed to their trust; it is 
therefore highly probable, that these directions were given 
him, in reference to other churches to which this evangelist 
was to travel, and in some of which he might then be. If 
this conjecture may take place, the difficulty is fully an- 
swered ; if not, I must confess myself unable to return any 
satisfactory answer to it, and so leave the reader to his 
choice, whether he will follow the opinion of Dr. Lightfoot 
or Bishop Pearson, in this matter. 

But though there be a great difference as to the time of 
writing this epistle, the ancient commentators all agree in 
this, «That St. Timothy* was left at Ephesus, to preserve 
that church from the endeavours of the Judaizing Christians 
to introduce circumcision, and the observance of the law, 
and to amuse them with their Talmudical fables, and with 
their genealogies from Abraham and the patriarchs.” A 
reverend person saith, “It is evident, the Gnostics were now 
scattered in Asia, and so characterized by the apostle, ch, 
iv. and vi., and there distinctly specified, under the title of 
Wend svopos γνῶσις, «science falsely so called,’ ver. 20, they 
being the men who assumed to themselves the names of 
‘Gnosties,’ or knowing men.” And it must be confessed, 
that Theodoret; accords with him in this matter, saying, 
“That the apostle styles the pretended knowledge of 
the Gnostics, ‘science falsely so called.” And Chry- 


* Obsecrat episcopus coepiscopum suum, ne pateretur 
Judeos alitér populum quam ab apostolo tradebatur docere, 
ne oblectarentur fabulis quas narrare consueti sunt Judei de 
generatione suarum originum, de Abraham, et de cireumci- 
sione, et his que posted tradita sunt ἃ Moyse. Ambros. in 
locum. ᾿Ενταῦθά τινες ἦσαν ἐξ ᾿Ιουδαίων ψευδαπόστολοι βουλόμενοι 
πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸν νόμον ἕλκειν τοὺς πίστους----τοῦτό ἐστιν ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖν. 
Chrysostom. in cap. i. 3. 

Οἱ ἐξ Ιουδαίων πεπιστευκότες ἐπὶ τῇ γνώσει τῆς παλαίας διαθήκης 
μέγα φρονοῦντες, ζητήματα ἄττα τοῖς ἐξ ἐϑνῶν πεπιστευκύσι προσέφερον, 
ἐλέγχειν μὲν αὐτοὺς ὡς ἀμυήτους τῶν ϑείων λογίων πειρώμενοι, φυλάτ- 
τειν δὲ τὴν νομικὴν πολιτείαν παραπείθειν ἐπιχειροῦντες. CEcum. et 
Theoph. proleg. in locum. 

T Ταύτην εἰκότως Wevddvupov ἐκάλεσε γνῶσιν. Theod 


896 


sostom* saith, “ Perhaps this was spoken by reason of some 
who were then called Gnostics.” And Theophylactt says, 
“T think the apostle speaks this concerning some then called 
Gnostics.” But yet there lies this strong objection against 
this exposition of this phrase, or the ascribing of it to the 
Gnostics, that, according to all the accounts we receive from 
the ancients, these Gnostics were not then in being, at least 
under that name; for whether, with Irenzus, we derive 
their original from Valentinus,; or Carpocrates; or, with 
Clemens Alexandrinus, from Epiphanes the author of the 
sect of the Carpocratians; or, as Jerome saith, from Basili- 
des ;§ it is evident, and confessed by all these authors, that 


* Taxa τοῦτο φησὶ διότι τινὲς ἑαυτοὺς ἐκάλουν τότε γνωστικοῦς. 
Chrys. : 

ἽἼ Οἶμαι δὲ ταῦτα λέγειν τὸν ἀπύστολον περὶ τῶν τότε λεγομένων 
Γνωστικῶν. 

+ See the note on chap. vi. 20. 

§ Mortuus est autem Basilides, ἃ quo Gnostici, tempori- 
bus Hadriani. Hieron. in voce Agrippa. Basideidys atyeri- 
Gpxns ᾿Αλεξανδρεὺς ap’ οὗ οἱ Ῥνωστικοί. Wuseb, Chr. A. 1). 134. 
Valentinus venit Romam sub Hygino, increvit sub Pio, et 
prorogavit tempus usque ad Anicetum. Tren. lib. iv. cap. 4. 
Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 11, et Chron. ad An. Christi 


I. TIMOTHY: 


all these, and even Menander, whom Treneus sometimes 
makes the father of the Gnostics, were long after the writing 
of this epistle. Whereas the Judaizing Christians were, 
saith Theodoret, μέγα φρονοῦντες ἐπὶ τῇ γνώσει, “ great boasters 
of their knowledge of the law ;” and yet, that their pretended 
knowledge was false knowledge, we learn from those words 
of the apostle, that these teachers of the law, “knew not 
what they said, or whereof they affirmed,” 1 Tim. i. 7. 
Hence is their doctrine styled paracodoyia, “ vain-talking,” 
ver. 6, and here xsvopwvia, “empty babbling ;” as also, 2 Tim. 
ii. 16, ἄνοια, “ foolishness,” 2 ‘lim. iii. 9, and they are said to 
be ματαιολυγοὶ, “ vain-talkers,” Tit. i. 10, “men puffed up, 
and knowing nothing, but doting about questions, and strife 
of words,” 1 Tim. vi. 4 (see the note on vi. 20). So that I 
can see no objection against that opinion which refers this 
phrase to those Judaizers whom the apostle elsewhere styleth 
“false apostles and deceitful workers.” 
[See the preface to the Epistle to Titus.] 


141, de Carpocrate et Epiphane Theodoretus hec habet, 
"A4piavo® ὀὲ καὶ οὗτοι βασιλεύνυτος τὰς πονηρὰς αἱρέσεις ἐκράτυναν. 
Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. de Menandro. Vide Dodwel. dis. iv. 
in Iren. sect. 10, p. 308. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Pavr, an! apostle of Jesus Christ by the 2 com- 
mandment (χατ᾽ ἐπιταγὴν, according to the appointment) 
of God our Saviour (who called me to this office by his 
grace, Gal. i. 15), and (by the appointment of the) 
Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope (of glory, Col. 
i. 27) 5 

2 Unto ‘Timothy, * my own son in the faith: (do T 
wish) grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father 
and (from) Jesus Christ our Lord. 

3 (Declaring, that) Ἀ51 besought thee to abide still 
at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia (so 7 did it to 
this end), that thou mightest charge some (Judaizers 
there) that they teach no other doctrine (than that which 
zs according to godliness, vi. 2), Z 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1Ver. 1. ᾿Απόστολος, An apostle, &c.] Thus he writes to 
Timothy and Titus, not to assert his apostolical authority to 
them who doubted not of it, but for their sakes over whom 
they were to preside, that they might not despise what they 
did and enjoined by so great authority. 

2 Kar’ ἐπιταγὴν Θεοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν καὶ ἹΚυρίου, ὅτ. Some | 
construe these words thus, “Δ σοογάϊησ to the commandment 
of Jesus Christ, who is God our Saviour ;” but the words τῆς 
ἐλπίδος ἡμῶν, “ our hope,” must he construed with the words 
«Jesus Christ:” and this sufficiently confutes that version, 
which, as none of the ancients followed, so it is not supported 
by the word “ Saviour” added to “God,” that epithet being ] 
twice applied to God the Father in this epistle, viz.. ii. 3, iv. 
10, and twice in the Epistle to "Titus, viz. i. 3, ii. 10. More- | 
over, some ancient copies read τοῦ πατρὸς, “of God our | 
Father.” 

3 Ver. 2. Τνησίῳ τέκνῳ ἐν πίστει, My own son in the faith. 
This phrase compared with 1 Cor. iv. 14, 15, seems plainly 
to import, that Timothy was converted to the Christian faith 
by Paul; as also he seems to intimate when he saith, he | 
“served with him in the gospel, as a son with the father,” 
Phil. ii. 22; and again calls him his “beloved Son,” 2 Tim. 
i. 2. Wor find I any thing in scripture to the contrary ; for | 
though it is said that he had learned the scriptures of the 
Old Testainent from his youth, 2 Tim. ili. 15; yet is that 
true also of Paul, when yet he was no convert to the Chris- 
tian faith, but a zealous persecutor of it. And though he 
was a disviple when Paul circumcised him, and took him 
with him trom Lystra (Acts xvi. 1), that hinders not but 
that he might be made so by Paul himself. 

4 Ver. 4. μᾶλλον ἢ οἰκονομίαν Θεοῦ τὴν ἐν πίστει, Rather than 
godly edifying, which is in faith.) Here first the gramma- 
rians note, that comparative particles, and especially this of 


4 Neither give heed (or inelinc) to (Jewish) fables 
and endless genealogies, which minister questions (or 
disquisilions into pedizrees), 4 rather than godly edifying 
which is in faith: so do. 

5 Now (for) the 5 end of the commandment is cha- 
rity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and 
of faith unfeigned : 

6 From which (commandment) some having swerved 
have turned aside unto vain jangling (vain discourses 
of Talmudical fables and endless genealogies) ; 

7 © Desiring to be teachers of the law; (and yet) 
understanding neither what they say (of 11), nor 
whereof they affirm (7. 6. neither the sense, scope, or true 
meaning of thal law of which they speak, nor having any 


μᾶλλον, “ rather,” are often in sense negative, as Luke xviii. 
14, He went to his house justified, ἢ ἐκεῖνος, rather than the 
other; i. e. the publican, and not the pharisee; 1 Pet. iii. 
17,“ Itis better to sufler for well-doing, than for evil-doing ;” 
John iii. 19, “Men loved μᾶλλον τὸ σκότος ἡ φῶς, darkness 
rather than light; 2 Tim. iii. 4, φιλήδονοι μᾶλλον ἢ φιλύθεοι, 
i. e. * lovers of pleasure, and not of God” (see John xii. 43, 
Heb. xi. 25). The edification in the faith here mentioned, 


| is styled the edification of God, because it hath God for its 


ohject and its end, as tending to the true knowledge and 
rizht worship of God; it is efficiently from him (on which 
account justification by faith is styled “ the righteousness of 
God”), and tendeth highly to his glory. 

5 Ver. 5. Τὸ τέλος τῆς παραγγελίας, The scope of the com- 
mandment.| This some refer to the law, which, saith the 
apostle, “is fulfilled by love,” Rom. xiii. 10; but ἀγγελία, 
1 John iii. 11, παραγγελία, 1 Thess. iv. 2, and ver. 18 of this 
chapter, and ἐπαγγελία, being in the epistles always used of 
the gospel, and the latter word spoken of it in opposition to 
the law, which saith the apostle was not ἐξ ἐπαγγελίας, “ of 
promise” (Rom. iv. 13, Gal. iii. 18), I rather think it here 
refers unto the gospel, or to that dispensation, in which no- 


| thing availeth but faith working by love (Gal. ν. 6), and 


which requires fervent and unfeigned love out of a pure 
heart, from all that do obey the truth (1 Pet. i. 22). 

6 Ver. 7. Θέλοντες εἶναι νομοδιξάσκαλοι, Desiring to be teach- 
ers of the law.] That those persons were not Gnostics, but 
ἐξ Ιουδαίων, “the Jews,” is manifest, say the Greek com- 
mentators, from these words: for the Gnostics were the 
greatest adversaries of the law and the prophets; and even 
rejecters of that God who gave the one and inspired the other. 
Simon Magus taught, that the prophets* “received their 


* Prophetas autem ἃ mundi fabricatoribus angelis inspira- 
tos, dixisse prophetias; quapropter nec ulterius curarent eos 


CHAPTER I. 


certainty of the traditions of which they talk so confi- 
dently). 

8 Bit (though they are thus ignorant) we know that 
the law (ἐπ tlse/f) is good, 7if a man use it lawfully ; 
hey as a means of justificalion, but as a restraint from sin, 

al. iii. 19, and as a schoolmaster to bring him to Christ, 
the end of the law, Gal. iii. 24, Rom. x. 45) 

9 Knowing this, that 5 the law is not made for a 
righteous man (0 condemn, or work wrath lo him, Rom. 
iy. 15, as failing in the strict observance of it), but for 
(restraining and condemning) ® the lawless and disobe- 
dient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and 
profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mo- 
thers, for manslayers, 

10 For whoremongers, for them that defile them- 


837 


selves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for 
perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that 
is contrary to sound doctrine ; 

11 (That is the doctrine which is) According to the 
glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was com- 
mitted to my trust. 

12 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath 
enabled me (hy the assistance of the Spirit and power of 
wisdom, who of myself was insufficient for this work, 
2 Cor. iii. 5, 6), Ὁ for that he counted me (one that 
would be) faithful (in the discharge of tt), putting me 
(therefore) into the ministry ; 

13 (Me, I say,)Who was before (this gracious call) 
a blasphemer (of Christ, Acts xxvi. 11), and a perse- 
cutor (of his servants, Acts vill. 3), and injurious (to 


prophecies only from angels,” and that therefore “they that 
believed in him, and his Selene, should not regard them ;” 
Saturninus, that “Christ came to destroy the God of the 
Jews ;* which God Simon himself denied, saith the Pseud- 
Ignatius.| ‘They taught men «not to use the law and the 
prophets,”+ nor to fear their threats. Now they who held 
and taught these things must be the greatest adversaries to, 
and not the teachers of, the law. 

Hence it follows, first, that the fables and the genealogies, 
mentioned ver. 4, and the vain janglings, ver. 6, cannot 
relate tothe wons of the Gnostics, which seem not then to be 
hatched ; but that the apostle rather here respects, as heo- 
doret observes, τὴν ᾿Ιουδαϊκὴν ἑρμηνείαν τὴν bx’ αὐτῶν καλουμένην 
δευτέρωσιν, “ the vain traditions, οὐ Talmudical fables, of the 
Jews,” as the apostle explains himself, when he instructs 
Titus to teach the Cretans, μὴ προσέχειν ᾿Ιουδαϊκοῖς μῦϑοις, 
“not to give heed to the Jewish fables of men,’ who turn 
from the truth (i. 14), especially those traditions and fables 
they had received of a Messiah ben Joseph that was to suf- 
fer, and a Messiah ben David that was to triumph gloriously 
and abide for ever (John xii. 34), if that distinction was so 
ancient; and of the golden days they were to have at the 
coming of this Messiah, of which Trypho in his dialogue with 
Justin speaks, p. 249, B, saying, that their prophets taught 
them, ἔνδοξον καὶ μέγαν ἀναμένειν----παραλαμβάνοντα τὴν αἰώνιον 
βασιλίεαν, “ to expect a great and glorious Messiah, who should 
have an endless kingdom ;” and, p. 306, 307, of the haleyon 
days they should enjoy in Jerusalem, rebuilt at his coming. 
The endless genealogies are, say the fathers, γενεαλογίας τὰς 
ἐξ ᾿Αβραὰμ καὶ Δαβὶδ, “their genealogies from Abraham and 
David,” which they were concerned for, that they might know 
they came from the promised seed, or their title to the 
privileges belonging to the children of Abraham; or that 
they might have the preference: for those of the tribe of 
Judah and of the family of David were held more honour- 
able than those of other tribes (see Campeg. Vitringa, de 
Syn. Vet. lib. iii. cap. 71, p. 871). ‘They were, saith Dr. 
Lightfoot, the long and intricate pedigrees they stood upon 
to prove themselves priests and Levites ; for, as Josephus§ 
notes, they thought themselves obliged to be very exact in 
that affair, and therefore «had genealogies of them preserved 
two thousand years.” ‘To these we may add the genealogy 
and pedigree of their traditions, which they derived from 
Joshua in a long line of succession to their times. ‘I'hat 
they were genealogies belonging to the Jews, we learn from 
Tit. iii. 9, where they are joined with “ strifes about the law.” 

7 Ver. 8. ᾿Εάν τις αὐτῷ νομίμως χρῆται, If a man use it 


hi qui in eum, et in Selenen ejus spem habeant. Lib. i. 
cap. 10. 

* Advenisse Christum ad destructionem Judxorum Dei. 
Cap. 22. 

T 'Apvetrat δὲ τὸν Θεὸν τοῦ νόμου, καὶ τῶν προφητῶν. 
Philadelph. sect. 6. 

+ Νόμῳ καὶ προφήταις μὴ χρᾶσϑαι. 
cap. 30. Μηδὲ φρίττειν τῶν νόμων τὰς ἀπειλάς. 
Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1. 

§ Τὴν περί τὰς ἀναγραφὰς ἐπιμέλειαν. Lib. i. contra Ap. p. 
1036, A. Τεκμήριον δὲ μέγιστον τῆς ἀκριβείας, of γὰρ ἀρχιερεῖς 
οἱ παρ' ἡμῖν ἀπὸ δισχιλίων ἐτῶν ὀνομαστοὶ παῖδες ἐκ πατρός εἶσιν ἐν 


ἀναγραφαῖς. Ibid. D. 


Ep. ad 


Constit. Apost. lib. vi. 
Theodoret. 


lawfully,] That is, saith 'Theodoret, ἐάν rig ἀκολουϑῇ αὐτοῦ 
τῷ σκόπῳ, “if he complieth with the scope of it, which is to 


| bring him to Christ.” 


8 Ver. 9. Δικαίῳ νόμος οὐ κεῖται.] i. 6. «The law was not 
made to condemn the just man; for against such there is 
no law” condemning them (Gal. v. 23), ἀντίκειται δὲ, but 
“it lies against the lawless,” to condemn them. 

9’ Avéyois, &c.] From this enumeration of offenders against 
the law, we learn that the apostle is here speaking of the 
moral law contained in the ten commandments; for the sins 
here mentioned respect them; “the ungodly” being sinners 
against the first commandment; the ἁμαρτωλοὶ, “sinners” 
(as that word signifies the idolatrous gentiles, Gal. ii. 15) the 
transgressors of the second, the perjured persons of the third, 
the unholy and profane of the fourth, the murderers of fa- 
thers and mothers of the fifth, the manslayers of the sixth, 
the fornicators and defilers of themselves with mankind of 
the seventh, menstealers of the eighth, liars of the ninth; as 
also from the following words, “If there be any other thing 
contrary to the sound doctrine of the gospel.” Note, 

Thirdly, That fornication is here reckoned among sins 
committed against the law of nature, or the moral Jaw ; as it 
is also Rom. i. 29, and among the manifest “works of the 
flesh” (Gal. v. 19), yea, among the things “for which the 
wrath of God comes upon the children of disobedience,” or 
unbelief, that is, the heathens (Eph. v. 5, 6), for which 
men are to be excluded from the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 
vi. 10, Rev. xxii. 15), and to be cast into “the lake of fire 
and brimstone” (Rev. xxi. 8); whence it is to be wondered 
that this sin should be so generally committed by some, and 
pleaded for by others, who are called Christians. 

10 Ver. 12. "Ore πιστόν pe ἡγήσατο, He accounted me faith- 


ful.) Paul was “a vessel of election” to bear Christ’s name 


before the gentiles (Acts ix. 15); in order thereunto he was 


| by him to be filled with the Holy Ghost (ver. 17), and so 


enabled to perform this work with “the power of signs and 
wonders, and of the Spirit of God” (Rom. xv. 19). Christ 
also appeared to him for this very end, προχειρίζεσϑαι, “ to 
constitute him first,” and set him apart, as it were, by laying 
hands upon him, to make him a minister and witness of 
what he had seen and heard (Acts xxvi. 16, xxii. 14, 15), 
and accordingly he sent him to the gentiles (Acts xxvi. 17), 
and thus he put him into the ministry, Christ did this be- 
cause “he accounted him one that would be faithful” in the 
discharge of his duty (1 Cor. iv. 2, vii. 25) ; i. 6. such a one 
who, by the consideration of so great a mercy and abundant 
grace, vouchsafed to one so unworthy, would patiently suffer 
for (Acts ix. 16), and labour more abundantly in propaga- 
tion of the gospel, when thus assisted by the grace and Spirit 
of Christ (1 Cor. xv. 10). Whence it is observed by the 
fathers here, that* “there was not only something of God, 
but also something of himself, for which he was chosen to 
this ministry ; and that he so magnifies the grace of God, as 
not to invalidate man’s free-will.”” 


* Δείκνυσιν ὅτι δεῖ rap’ ἡμῶν εἰσενεχθῆναί τινα, οὐ yap ἀκρίτως 
Θεὸς ἐπιλέγεται τινάς. CEcum. “Opa πῶς καὶ τὸ αὐτοῦ τίϑησι, 
καὶ τὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ, τὸ πλέον νέμων τῆ τοῦ Θεοῦ προνοίᾳ, τὸ δέ αὐτοῦ 
συστέλλων, πλὴν ὅσον μὴ λυμήνασϑαι τῷ αὐτεζουσίῳ----χάριν ἔχω, 
&e. Τοῦτο τοῦ Θεοῦ, εἶτα πάλιν τὸ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι πιστόν pe ἡγήσατο 
Chrysostom. 


838 


them): but 1 obtained mercy (from him), because " I 
did tt (not against knowledge, for [verily thought I ought 
to do many things against the name of Jesus, Acts XXVi. 
9, but) ignorantly in unbelief. 

14 And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abun- 
dant (tn its power to enable me to promote the faith, Rom. 
xv. 19) with (/hrough that) 13 faith and love which is 
in Christ Jesus. 

15 This (therefore) is a faithful saying, and worthy 
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
world 15 to save sinners; of whom ™ 1 am (ihe) chief 
(and so a great example of the truth). 

16 Howbeit for this cause (even) I (the chief of sin- 
ners) obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ 
might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern (of 
it) to them which should hereafter believe on him to 
life everlasting. 

17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, 


I. TIMOTHY. 


the only wise Ged, be honour and glory for ever and 
ever. Amen. 

18 This charge (07 remaining some time αἱ Ephesus, 
Sor the benefit of the churches there, ver. 3) | commit unto ἡ 
thee, son Timothy, ® according to the prophecies which 
went before on thee, that thou (encouraged and excited ) 
by them  mightest war a good warfare; (even that of 
faith, vi. 12, fighting and suffering as a good soldier of 
Jesus Christ, 2 Tim. ii. 3 5) 

19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which 
(last) some having put away concerning faith have 
made shipwreck : 

20 Of whom is Hymeneus (2 Tim. ii. 17) and Alex- 
ander (2 Tim. iv. 14); whom I have delivered unto 
Satan (fur the destruction of the flesh, 1 Cor. v. 5), that 
they (by what they suffer) may learn not to blaspheme 
(or speak evil of the faith). 


11 Ver. 13. "Or ἀγνοῶν ἐποίησα ἐν ἀπιστία, 1 did it ignorant- 
Zy.] Being an unbeliever, as he might be by reason of those 
many prejudices the learned Jews and zealous assertors of 
their traditions laboured under. For to this Peter doth 
ascribe their crucifixion of our Lord, saying, “I know you 
did it, κατ᾽ ἀγνοίαν, through ignorance” (Acts iii. 17), and 
Paul saying they did it, τοῦτον ἀγνοήσαντες, * not knowing 
him (Acts xiii. 27, 1 Cor. 11. 8), and Christ himself, when he 
prays thus, “ Father, forgive them, they know not what they 
do” (Luke xxiii. 34), giving the same reason of his prayer 
for their forgiveness, as Paul here doth of his own actual for- 
giveness; so that it is needless to endeavour, as some do, to 
wrest these words to another sense. 

2 Ver, 14. Mera πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης, Through fuith and 
love.] Love constraining him to labour more abundantly 
(2 Cor. v. 14), and his strong faith enabling him to do it in 
the power of “signs and wonders, and of the Holy Ghost” 
(Rom. xv. 29). 

Mera πίστεως, With fuith.| Or, per fidem, « through 
faith,” or by faith: so Paul and Barnabas declared what 
things God had done, per’ αὐτῶν, “by them,” Acts xiv. 27, 
xv. 4, which is, ver. 12, δι᾿ αὐτῶν. 

18. Ver. 15, ᾿Αμαρτωλοὺς σῶσαι, To save sinners.] Hence 
divines have well observed, that if man had not sinned Christ 
had not come into the world. 

1 Bie ἐγώ, 1 απι. He saith not, “I was,” but «I am;” 


because even when sin is pardoned, we ought to have the | 
prospect of it still before our eyes, to keep us humble and | 


sensible of the grace of God to us. 

Ver. 17. Méve σοφῷ Θεῳ.1 Dr. Mills seems very averse from 
the word σοφῷ, admitting it neither here nor Jude 25; but 
see it defended in both places, Examen Millii in locum. 

15 Ver. 18. Kara τὰς προαγοὕύσας ἐπὶ σὲ προφητείας, According 
to the foregoing prophecies concerning thee.) So iy. 14, 
“Neglect not, τὸ χάρισμα, the gift of the Holy Ghost which 
was given thee, διὰ προφητείας, according to the prophecy.” 
Thave shown (note on 1 Cor. xii. 10) that among the gifts of 
prophecy and discerning of spirits, this was one, to foretell 
and choose out persons meet to do God service in the minis- 
try. Hence Paul charges the bishops of Ephesus to feed the 
flock, “ over whicn the Holy Ghost had made them over- 
seers,” or bishops, Acts xx. 28. 
saith, the apostles “chose bishops and deacons, with full 
assurance of the Holy Ghost, πρόγνωσιν εἰληφύτες τελείαν (Ep. 
ad Cor, §. 42, 44), having a perfect knowledge of them, and 
making trial of them by the Spirit.” So was it in the case 
of Timothy, say all the Greek scholiasts on the place. 
Chrysostom* saith, he was “ chosen by prophecy, that is, by 
the Spirit of God ;” 'Theodoret,t that «he received imposi- 
tion of hands, not by man’s calling, but by divine revelation ;” 
Ccumenius,} that “by the revelation of the Spirit, he was 


* Τί ἐστιν ἀπὸ προφητείας, ἀπὸ Πνεύματος ἁγίου. Chrysost. in 
locum. 

ἣν Οὐ yap ἀνθρωπίνης τετύχηκας κλήσεως, ἀλλὰ κατὰ ϑείαν ἀποκά- 
λυψιν τὴν χειροτονίαν ἐδείζξω. ‘Theod. 

+ Kara γὰρ Πνεύματος ἀποκάλυψιν καὶ ἠρέϑη παρὰ τοῦ Παύλου, 
καὶ περιετμήθη, καὶ ἐπίσκοπος ἐχειροτονήθη. Cicum. 


And Clemens Romanus | 


both chosen by Paul to be a disciple, and was circumcised, 
and ordained a bishop ;” and 'Theophylact affirms the same. 
Being thus designed and notified by the spirit of prophecy, 
they were, by prayer and imposition of hands, consecrated to 
their office. ‘Thus, when the Spirit in the prophets had said, 
«Separate me Barnabas and Sau! for the work of the minis- 
try to which I have called them” (Acts xiii. 2—4), “ they 
prayed, and laid their hands upon them, and sent them 
away ;” and they are said to be “sent forth by the Holy 
Ghost.’ And with this imposition of hands they, who had 
them not before, received χαρίσματα, gifts answerable to 
their calling. ‘Thus Paul charges Timothy to stir up xapicua 
Θεοῦ, “the gift of God that was in him, by the laying on of 
his hands,” 2 Vim.i.6. And Treneus saith, lib. iv. cap. 33,, 
that “the bishops who succeeded the apostles, with their 
succession into their bishoprics, received a certain χάρισμα 
of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father” (see 
note on | Cor. ii. 16, xii. 10). Vain therefore are they who, 
pretending to an internal call of the Spirit, which they can- 
not prove to others, think imposition of hands, and conse- 
cration to the work of the ministry, unnecessary to the per- 
formance of the ministerial office. 

16 “Ἵνα στρατεύη τὴν καλὴν στρατείαν, That thou mayest war 
a good warfare.] i.e. Perform the office of an evangelist 
well (2 Tim. iv. 5), so as to be “a good minister of Jesus 
Christ” (1 Tim. iv. 6). Thus in the Old Testament, the 
Levite that entered upon the service of the tabernacle of the 
congregation, is, in the Hebrew, one that enters “into the 
host,’ Numb. iv. 3. 23. 30. 35. 39. 43, vili. 24, and goes 
Nas Nas, “to war the warfare,” i. e. “ to serve the service,” 
saith the Chaldee ; and so the following words explain it: 
and to be superannuated, and so to cease from the work, is 
to “return from the warfare,” vill. 25. Thus also in the 
New Testament, the Christian minister is “a soldier of Jesus 
Christ,” 2 Tim. ii. 3, στρατευύμενος, “a warrior,” ver. 4. He 
hath “the weapons of his warfare,” 2 Cor. x. 4; and ought 
to have his wages, because “no man goeth to warfare at his 
own charge,” 1 Cor. ix. 7. 

17 Ver. 20. Ots παρέδωκα τῷ. Larava, Whom T have delivered 
to Satan.] I have shown (note on | Cor. v. 5), that the an- 
cients say, this phrase signified that some disease was to be 
infficted on them by Satan. Thus Theodoret, Chrysostom, 
and Cicumenius, here say of these men,* that, being sepa- 
rated from the church, they were cruelly chastised by the ad- 
versar{, falling into diseases and grievous afflictions, and 
other damages and calamities ;” and this, in the foremen- 
tioned place, is argued, from the ends of this delivery to 
Satan, viz. “for the destruction of the flesh; that they might 
learn not to blaspheme” that doctrine which could so severely 
punish them that did so. Note also, that Hymenzus and 
Alexander “ made shipwreck of the faith,” not by renouncing 
Christianity, for “what have I to do,” saith the apostle, 


* Tod γὰρ ἐκκλησιαστικοῦ σώματος χωρισθέντες, καὶ τῆς ϑείας 
χάριτος γυμνωϑέντες, πικροὺς παρὰ τοῦ δυσμενοῦς ἐδέχοντο μάστιγας. 
καὶ νόσοις καὶ παϑήμασι χαλεποῖς παραπίπτοντες, καὶ ζημίαις, καὶ 
συμφοραῖς ἑτέραις. Theod. 


CHAPTER II. 


839 


“to judge them that are without?” (1 Cor. ν. 12) but by | denying the resurrection of the body, as Hymenaus did (2 


maintaining such doctrines as overthrew the faith, i, e. by 


Tim. i. 18). 


CHAPTER II. 


1 I exnorr therefore, (in pursuance of the design of 
Chris’’s coming to save sinners, i. 15, and here, ver. 
3, 4) that, first of all, (Gr. first, that) ' supplications, 
prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made 
for all men; 

2 (Particularly)? For kings, and for all that are in 
authority ; that we (under their government) may lead 
a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and ho- 
nesty. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1Ver. 1. Δεήσεις προσευχὰς ἐντεύξεις, Supplications, pray- 
ers, intercesstons.) Δεῆσεις are deprecations for the par- 
don of sin, and the averting divine judgments: προσεὺ- 
nas, prayers for the obtaining of all spiritual and temporal 
blessings; and in this we have the suflrage of the Greek 
scholiasts and lexicographers: but as for the word ἐντεύξεις, 
they almost unanimously say it is a complaint or accusation 
made to God, against those who deal injuriously with them, 
and a desire that he would avenge their injuries; to which 


I cannot think the apostle would so passionately exhort | 


them. Nor is the word capable of this sense, when the 
apostle saith, iv. 5, “The creature is sanctified to us, διὰ ἐν- 
τεύζεως, by prayer.” 

I therefore prefer the other import of the word mentioned 
in Phavorinus, that it is παράκλησις ὑπό τινος προσαγομένη Θεῷ 
περὶ σωτηρίας ἑτέρων, “an address presented to God for the 
salvation of others.” And by this rule were the devotions 
of the church continually directed : for, saith the author of 
the book De Vocatione Gentium,* “The devotion of all the 
priests and all the faithful doth so unanimously observe this 
tule of prayer, that there is no part of the world in which 
the Christian people do not put up such prayers as these, 
praying not only for the saints, but for infidels, idolaters, the 
enemies of the cross, and the persecutors of Christ's mem- 
bers, for Jews, heretics, and schismatics.’”’ But then, as 
these addresses had a particular respect to men in these cir- 
cumstances, so the other must have respect to men in gene- 
ral; all these addresses being to be made, not only for our- 
selves, but for all men. 

2 Ver. 2. Ὑπὲρ βασιλέων, &c. For kings, and all that are 
in authority.] So the Jews prayed, and offered sacrifices 
for the Persian kings,j and the welfare of their government, 
Ezra vi. 10. Thus Jeremiah sends to them in their capti- 
vity, “to pray for the peace of the city whither God had 
caused them to be carried captive,” xxix. 7. And the Jews 
in Babylon send to those in Judea, to pray for the life of 
Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and for the life of Baltha- 
zar his son, “that their days may be upon the earth as the 
days of heaven,” Baruch i. 11. When they came under the 
government of the kings of Egypt, Eleazar, their high-priest, 


3 For this (prayer for them, and fur all men) is good 
and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 

4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come 
(Gr. who wills thal all men should be saved, and come) 
unto the knowledge of the truth. 

5 For there is one God, (who is the God of the gen- 
liles, as well as of the Jews, Rom. 11, 29, 30, the Crea- 
tor, Eph. iii. 9, the Father, Matt. ii. 10, the Lord, Acts 
xvii. 24, (he Saviour of all men, ivy. 10,) and * one 


writes to Ptolemy thus:+ “ We continually offer sacrifice 
for thee, thy sister, thy children, and friends; and the peo- 
ple pray for thy happy success in all things, and for the 
peaceable state of thy kingdom.” And so when they were 
under the Seleucid. ~ And, lastly, when they came under 
the Roman government,* this was their constant practice, 
till they began that rebellion under which their city, country, 
religion, and nation, were destroyed. This being, saith Jo- 
sephus, the cause of the war, that the seditious did ϑυσίαν 
τοῦ Καίσαρος ἀποῤῥίπτειν, “reject the sacrifice oflered for Ca- 
sar,” though the priests and nobles earnestly entreated them 
μὴ παραλείπειν τὸ ὑπὲρ τῶν ἡγεμόνων ESos, “not to desert the 
custom concerning their rulers which always had obtained 
among them.” 

And that the Christians, following their examples, thus 
prayed continually, from the beginning, for their kings,f we 
learn from Polycarp,+ Justin Martyr,§ Tertullian, Cy- 
prian,j Origen,** Lactantius,;> and from all the ancient 
liturgies. And this it became them to do, that the heathen 
emperors, finding them thus solicitous for the welfare and 
prosperity of their government, might permit them quietly 
and peaceably to enjoy their religion. 

3 Ver. 5. Megirns, Mediator.] 'Thatis, saith Suidas, cipnvo- 
ποιὸς, “a peace-maker,” ‘This, say the Socinians, is not ne- 
cessary, that a mediator should appease or reconcile parties 
at variance; but only that he should deliver the mind of 
one to the other, and strike a covenant or league betwixt 
them, as in the case of Moses, Gal. iii. 9. To this I an- 
swer ; 

First, That though this be not necessarily contained in the 
signification of the word, yet it is evidently implied in that 
which is annexed to our Mediator, wherever he is mentioned 
in the New ‘Testament, viz. here and in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews ; for he is “such a mediator” as “ gave himself a 
ransom to God for us,” ver. 6, and there he is “a mediator 
of the new covenant of his blood,” the covenant made by 
intervention of his death, cis ἀπολύτρωσιν, “for redemption 
of the transgressions of the former covenant,” ix. 15, viii. 6, 
xii. 24. 

Secondly, This seemeth to have been the Jewish notion, 
both of “a mediator” in the general, and of our Mediator, 
or the divine Logos, in particular. Thus Philo saith,+; that 


* Quam legem supplicationis, ita omnium sacerdotum, et 
omnium fidelium devotio concorditér tenet, ut nulla pars 
mundi sit in qué hujusmodi orationes non celebrentur a po- 
pulis Christianis; supplicat ergo ubique ecclesia Deo, non 
solim pro sanctis, et in Christo jam regeneratis, sed etiam 
pro omnibus infidelibus et inimicis erucis Christi, pro omni- 
bus idolorum cultoribus, pro omnibus qui Christum in mem- 
bris ipsius prosequuntur, pro Judwis, quorum cecitati lumen 
evangelii non refulget, pro hereticis et schismaticis, qui ab 
unitate fidei et charitatis alieni sunt. Lib. i. cap. 4. 

Ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ καὶ Περσῶν εὐχύμενοι τῷ Θεῷ. Darius apud Jo- 
seph. Απίᾳ. lib. xi. cap. 4. 

$ Ὑπὲρ cod καὶ τῆς ἀδελφῆς σοῦ, καὶ τῶν τέκνων, kai φίλων 
προστ γάγομεν θυσίας, καὶ τὸ rATSos εὐχὰς ἐποιήσατο γενέσθαΐ σοι τὰ 
κατὰ νοῦν, καὶ φυλαχθῆναί σου τὴν θασιλείαν ἐν εἰρῆνη. Jos. Antiq. 
lib. xii. cap. 2, p. 392. Τὰς θυσίας ἐπιδείκνυον ἃς ὑπὲρ τοῦ 
Βασιλέως ἔλεγον προσφέρειν τῷ Θεῷ» Ibid. cap. 17. 


* Περὶ μὲν Καίσαρος καὶ τοῦ δήμου τῶν 'Pwpatwy dis τῆς ἡμέρα 
θύειν ἔφασαν. Joseph. de Bell. {π4.. 11}. ii. cap. 17, ἄς. 80 
per totum. 

AL Ἔν καιρῷ μυστηρίων μέμνηται βασιλέως πολλάκις, καὶ ἀπίστου 
ὄντος. CEcumen. 

+ Orate pro regibus et potestatibus et principibus, Polye. 
§.12. 

§ P. 52, 395. 

¢ Ad Procunsulem. 

** Contra Celsum, lib. viii. p. 427. 

tt In fine Theoph. ad Autol. p. 76. Dionys. Alexand. 
apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles, lib. vii. cap. 11, p. 258. Const. 
Apost. lib. ii. cap. 57. 

ἘῈ Τῷ dé ἀρχαγγέλῳ καὶ πρεσθυτάτῳ Αόγῳ coped ἐξαίρετον ἔδω- 
κεν ὃ τὰ da γεννήσας πατὴρ, ἵνα μεϑύριος στὰς τὸ γενόμενον διακρίνῃ 
τοῦ πεποιηκότος, ὃ δ' αὐτὸς ἱκέτης μέν ἐστι τοῦ ϑνητοῦ κηραίνοντος 
ἀεὶ πρὸς ἄῤθαρτον, πρεσβυτὴς δὲ τοῦ ἡγεμόνος πρὸς τὸ ὑπήκοον-------᾿ 


| Apol. cap. 30—32. 


840 


mediator between God and men, the man Christ 
Jesus ; 
6 Who gave himself (up to death, as) 4 a ransom 
5 for all (men), to be testified in due time (Gr. for a 
testimony in due time of God’s love to all, Tit. iii. 
- 4). 


I. TIMOTHY. 


7 Whereunto (¢. 6. for the accomplishment of which 
will of God) 1 am ordained (appuinted of Christ) a 
preacher, and an apostle, ® (I speak the truth in Christ, 
and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and 
verity. 

8 I will therefore that men pray every where, lift- 


«the Father of all things hath granted to his most ancient 
Word an excellent gift, viz. that, standing in the confines of 
both, he should put a difference betwixt the maker and the 
thing made, as being an intercessor for mortal man to the 
immortal God, and an ambassador from the king to his sub- 
jects; in which gift he rejoiceth, saying, κἀγὼ εἱστήκειν ἀνὰ 
μέσον Κυρίου καὶ ὑμῶν, ‘And I stood betwixt God and you, 
being neither unbegotten as God, οὔτε γενῃτὸς ὡς ἡμεῖς, nor 
made as we are,’ but a middle of the extremes, and a pledge 
to both ; to the Creator, engaging that all mankind shall not 
corrupt itself and apostatize, choosing disorder before order ; 
to the creature, that he may have good hope that the mer- 
ciful God will not wholly overlook his own work ; for I de- 
nounce τὰ εἰρηνεῖα, ‘peaceable things to the creature from 
the God of peace.’”” And speaking of their high-priest, 
who was a type of Christ, he saith,* “The law will have 
him raised above human nature, and coming near to the di- 
vine; and, if I may say the truth, a middle betwixt both, 
that men may atone to God by a mediator, and God may 
reach forth and distribute his favours to men by a certain 
minister.” And again,} “ It was necessary that he who per- 
forms the office of a priest to the Father of a world, should 
have for his advocate his Son most perfect in virtue, to ob- 
tain the pardon of sins, and the participation of the greatest 
blessings.” ‘So that here it is made the office of a mediator, 
to procure peace to the creature from God, to make atone- 
ment to God, and to be an advocate to obtain the pardon of 
sins; and if Christ, our mediator and advocate with the Fa- 
ther, was, by virtue of his office, to do this, surely it must be 
part of his office to appease and reconcile God to us. 

4 Ver. 6. ᾿Αντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων, A ransom for all;] And 
Matt. xx. 28, λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, “a ransom in the stead of 
many.” Hence then it is evident beyond contradiction, that 
our Lord Jesus suffered in our stead. For when the scrip- 
ture saith, οὐ λήψεσθε λύτρα περὶ ψυχῆς παρὰ τοῦ φονεύσαντος, 
« Ye shall admit no satisfaction for the life of a murderer 
who is worthy of death,” Numb. xxxv. 31, 32, “but he 
shall surely be put to death; for, οὐ ἐξιλασϑήσεται ἡ γῆ ἀπὸ 
τοῦ αἵματος, the land cannot be cleansed or expiated from 
the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that 
shed it:” is not this the plain import of these words,—that 
no price shall be admitted instead of his life? Again, when 
Ahab passed this judgment on the disguised prophet, ἔσται 
ἡ ψυχῆ cov ἀντὶ τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ, “Thy life shall go for his 
life whom thou hast let go,” 1 Kings xx. 39, 40, and when 
the prophet thus returns upon him, “Thus saith the Lord, 
Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I 
have appointed to utter destruction, καὶ ἔσται ψυχή cov ἀντὶ 
τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ, therefore thy life shall go for his life : and 
when Jehu saith to the men appointed to slay the priests of 
Baal, “If any of them escape, he that letteth him go, ἡ ψυχὴ 
αὐτοῦ ἀντὶ τῆς Ψψυχὴς αὐτοῦ, his life shall be for his life that 
escapeth of them,” 2 Kings x. 24, do not all these expres- 
sions plainly signify, Thou shalt die instead of him? When 
therefore Christ elsewhere declares, that he would “ give his 
flesh for the life of the world ;” that he “ gave his life a ran- 
som for many,” “a ransom for all ;” must he not signify by 
these expressions that he would give up his life to the death, 


οὔτε ἁγενῆτος ὡς ὃ Θεὸς ὧν, οὔτε γενητὸς ὡς ἡμεῖς, ἀλλὰ μέσος τῶν 
ἄρκων ἀμφοτέροις ὁμηρεύων. Lib. Quis Rerum Divin. Heres, p. 
397, G. 398, A. 

* Βούλεται yap αὐτὸν ὃ νόμος μείζονος μεμοιρᾶσϑαι φύσεως ἣ 
κατὰ ἄνθρωπον, ἐγγυτέρω προσίοντα τῆς θεΐας, μεθόριον, εἰ det τ᾽ 
ἀληϑδὲς λέγειν, ἀμφοῖν" ἵνα διὰ μέσου τινὸς ἄνθρωποι μὲν ἱλάσκων- 
ται Θεῦν, Θεὸς δὲ τὰς χάριτας ἀνβρώποις ὑποδιακύνῳ τινὶ χρώμενος 
ὁρέγῃ καὶ χορηγῇ - Lib. ii. de Monarch. p- 369, E. 

{ ‘Avayxatoy γὰρ ἦν τὸν ἱερώμενον τοῦ κοσμοῦ πατρὶ, παρακλήτῳ 
χρῆσϑαι τελειοτάτῳ τὴν ἀρετὴν υἱῷ, πρὸς τε ἀμνεστείαν ἁμαρτη- 
μάτων, καὶ χορηγίας ἀφϑονωτάτων ἀγαϑῶν. De Vita Mosis, lib. 
lil. p. 521, Β. 


instead of them who had deserved death? which sure he 
could not do, but he must suffer in their stead. Moreover, 
by the Jewish law, the first-born of every beast was to die ; 
or, to rescue him from it, the owner was to pay, λύτρον ἀντὶ 
ψυχῆς, “ἃ price to redeem his life,”’ Numb. xviii. 15, and 
the pushing ox, provided the owner did not pay, τὸ λύτρον τῆς 
ψυφῆς αὐτοῦ, “a price or ransom for his life,’ Exod. xxi. 31. 
Every Israelite was also to bring in yearly his half-shekel, 
λύτρον τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ ἐξιλάσασϑαι περὶ τῶν ψυχῶν ὑμῶν, “to 
be the ransom of his life, that he die not” (Exod. xxx. 19, 
15, 16): and this money was appointed to buy the daily 
sacrifice which was to expiate or make atonement for their 
lives. Moreover, among the Jews it was a received opinion, 
that σπουδαῖος τοῦ φαῦλου λύτρον, “ the good man was the re- 
demption of the wicked” (Philo de Sacrif. Cain, p. 111, D.): 
and hence Josephus* brings in Eleazar praying thus to God, 
“Be thou gracious to thy nation, being satisfied with the 
punishment I suffer for them: make my blood an expiation 
for them, καὶ avri ψυχῶν αὐτῶν λάβε τὴν ἐμὴν ψυχὴν, and take 
my life instead of theirs” (see the note on Matt. xx. 28). 
When therefore, in allusion to these things, it is said Christ 
gave himself, ἀντίλυτρον, or λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, “a ransom for 
many,” can we put any other sense upon these words than 
this,—that he gave his life instead οἵ. ours, to expiate and 
atone for those lives which we, by sin, had forfeited? 

5 Ὑπὲρ πάντων, For αἰ] These verses contain several 
convincing arguments that God wills the salvation of all men 
in particular, and that Christ thus died for all. For, 

First, The apostle here enjoins us to pray for all men, 
because “ God will have all men to be saved.” Now it is 
unquestionably the Christian’s duty, and was the constant 
practice of the church, to pray for all men in particular; 
and therefore the reason here assigned of this duty must 
reach to all men in particular. 

Secondly, The apostle reasons thus: “ God will have all 
men to be saved,” because he is the God of all, the common 
Father, Creator, Governor, and Preserver of all men: now 
thus he is the God of all men in particular; and so this ar- 
gument must show he would have all men in particular be 
saved. For, as the apostle argues for God’s readiness to 
justify the gentiles by faith as freely as the Jews, by asking, 
“Ts he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the 
gentiles?” Rom. iii. 29, and answering that there is no dif- 
ference betwixt them, “the same God being rich unto all 
that call upon him,” Rom. x. 12; so may we argue in this’ 
case by a like inquiry, Is he the God of a small remnant of 
the Jews and gentiles only? Is he not the God and Sa- 
viour of them all! (iv. 10.) 

Thirdly, He would «have all men to be saved,” saith the 
apostle; “for there is one mediator betwixt God and man, 
the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.” 
Now if the argument from one God was, as we have proved, 
designed to show he was the God of all men in particular, 
the argument from this one Mediator must also prove Christ 
the mediator of all men in particular. Hence he is here 
emphatically styled «the man Christ Jesus,” to intimate 
unto us, that having taken upon him the nature common to 
us all, to fit him for his office, he must design it for the good 
of all who were partakers of that nature; for, as he was a 
man, he surely was endued with the best of human affec- 
tions, universal charity, which would excite him to promote 
the welfare of all; as he was a man, he was subject to the 
common law of humanity, which obliges us to endeavour 
the common benefit of men (see the note oniv. 10). 

6 Ver. 7. ᾿Αλήϑδειαν λέγω, speak the truth in Christ.] 
This oath or vehement affirmation could not be necessary to 
confirm Timothy in the belief of this matter. But this 
epistle being sent to Ephesus, or some other place where 
there were many Jews, who either denied that salvation was 


* Lib. de Mac. p. 1090, C. 


CHAPTER II. 


ing up 7 holy hands, δ without wrath and 5. doubt- 
ing. 

9 In like manner also, (J will) that (Christian) wo- 
men adorn themselves in modest apparel, with "shame- 
facedness and sobriety; not (setlérig out themselves) with 
broided hair, or gold, or pearls, er costly array ; 


841 


10 But (wiih that ornament) (which (Des!) becometh 
women professing godliness) (thal is) with good 
works. 

11 Let the women learn in silence with all subjec- 
tion (to the betler sex). 

12 But Ce) 111 suffer not a woman to teach (pub- 


to be preached to the gentiles, or only on the terms of being 
also circumcised, which this apostle did so stoutly oppose, it 
might be necessary for their sakes. 

7 Ver. 8. 'Οσίου; χεῖρας, Holy hands.) It is certain that it 
was the custom of the heathens to wash sometimes their 


heads, sometimes their whole bodies, but generally their | 


hands, before they came to their temples to pay their homage 
to their gods. And to this purpose they had their χερνίθια, 
or χειρόνιπτρα, basins, or lavers, placed before the temples, 
which they were to use before they sacrificed: it being 
thought so great a crime to come to the gods with hands un- 
washed, illotis manibus libare, that it is* proverbial with 
them to signify; by that phrase, those who come irreverently 
and unprepared to their service, say Diogenianus and St. 
Gregory ; and to come reverently to the gods 15,7 περιῤῥαινά- 
μενον, drofpuipapevoy, ἀπονιψάμενον, ὡσιωμένον προσιέναι, to come 
cleansed and washed ; and therefore holy. As for the Jews, 
the learned Dr. Pocock saith that this is a law among them, 
that “every one must wash his hands when he arises from 
his bed, that he may be pure when he offers up his prayers 
to God,” not thinking any man 4,9 (ὅσιος, Prov. xxii. 11) 
“pure,” till he hath washed his hands. This they were to 
do, say their rabbins, « lest God, seeing his creature defiled, 
should be angry ;” and because prayer succeeded to those 
sacrifices, which were not to be touched by the priest till he 
had washed his hands (Exod, xxx. 27, 28). This they looked 
upon as a part of sanctification, and therefore pray thus, 
« Blessed be thou, O Lord God, γ»ντρ qwx, who hast sanc- 
tified us by tty precepts, and commandest us to wash our 
hands.” ‘This washing was to signify three things: 

First, That the hands should be innocent and pure from 
all blood and cruelty, injustice and bribery, all filthiness and 
impurity, before we come to this sacred Majesty, as David 
saith, “I will wash my hands in innocency, and so will I 
compass thine altar,’ Ps. xxvi. 6, and Philo, of the Es- 
senes,¢ that they lifted up pure hands to heaven; that is, 
hands, καϑαραὶ λημμάτων, καὶ ὑπ᾽ οὐδεμίας Ἐκ βάσεως τῶν εἰς 
τορισμὸν μιαινόμεναι, “pure from gifts, and stained with no 
unjust gain ;” and so, saith he, must the person who lays his 
hand upon his offering be able to say,§ αἱ χεῖρες αὖται οὔτε 
δῶρον ἐπ᾿ ἀδίκοις ἔλαβον, “©These hands have received no gift 
to do injustice, are not polluted with innocent blood; they 
have maimed, wounded, done violence to no man; they have 
been employed in no culpable action, but have ministered to 
all good and profitable things.” 

Secondly, That our hearts should much more be purified 
from all lusts and filthiness of spirit, pride, hatred, malice, 
covetousness, &c. ; so“ clean hands” and “a pure heart,” in 
the psalmist, go together, Ps. xxiv. 4; “ He that offers sa- 
crifices,” saith Philo], “must be xaSapés σώματι καὶ Ψυχὴ, 
pure in body from whatsoever defileth that; and in soul from 
all evil passions and vices: for it is folly to think we may 
not come to the temple till we have washed the body, and 
yet may pray and offer sacrifice with a spotted and defiled 
mind.” 

Thirdly, That we be purified from all worldly and distract- 
ing thoughts, that the mind may be at leisure to attend purely 
to heavenly things, that we may bring to God, saith Philo,§ 
τὴν Ψυχὴν τοῦ τῶν αἰσθήσεων καὶ αἰσθητῶν ὄγκου παντελῶς ἐπι- 
κουφισϑεῖσαν, “ἃ soul eased of all the weight of the senses 
and sensible objects.” These are the things which the apos- 
tle here enjoins, when he commands us to lift up holy hands; 
not that we should wash them with water, which Tertullian** 
reckons among things vacue observationis, of vain observa- 
tion, superstitious, and rather curious and affected than rea- 


* Vide Erasm. Adag. chil. i. cent. ix. p. 246. 

ἡ Pol. lib. i. c. sect. 24. 

+ De Vita Contemplat. p. 695. § De Vict. p. 649. 

1 De Vict. Offer. ab Init. 

q De Vita Contemplat. p. 691, B. 
Vor. [V.—106 


** De Orat. cap. 12. 


| 


bobble devotion, ae ΕΙΣ i some Christians, from 
the heathen or the Jewish practice, as a preface to prayer. 

8 Χωρὶς ὀργῆς, Withoul wrath.) As being contrary to that 
charity and forgiveness, and that sedateness of spirit, we ought 
to have when we address to God in prayer, and being the 
forerunner of that cruelty which defiles the hand. 

9 Kai δῥιαλογισμοῦ, And doubting.} I find not that the 
Greek ever bears the sense of doubling, but always imports, : 
in the New Testament, either inward reasonings, or tyraul- 
tuating thoughts; διαλογισμοὶ πονηροὶ, * evil thoughts” in” the 
heart, “Matt. xv. 19, Mark vii. 21, James ii. 4, διαλογισμοὶ 
καρδιῶν, «ἴῃ thoughts of men’s hearts,” Luke it. 95, ix. 46; 
διαλογισμοὶ αὐτῶν, “their thoughts,” Luke v. 22, vi. 8, or 
their imaginations, Rom. i. 21, Luke xxiv. 38, or conten- 
tion and disceptation among them, Luke ix. 46, or inward 
murmurings, Phil. ii. 14; all which are plainly opposite to 
that peace, concord, and sedateness of spirit we should bring 
to our devotions, and are apt to distract us in them, especi- 
ally “ evil imaginations.” 

The scripture itself seems to direct us to the prime sense 
of this word: for what is διαλογισμοὶ, Luke ix. 47, is ἐνθδυμῆ- 
σεις, “ inward thoughts,” and “ reasonings,” Matt. ix. 4; and 
this sense the word will bear in all places where we render it 
either “doubting” or “ disputing.” So Phil. ii. 14, « Do all 
things without murmuring,” καὶ διαλογι topcov, and inward rea- 
sonings, whether you should continue in the faith or not; 
or why such commands should be laid upon you; and here, 
without inward thoughts or resentments of the injuries done 
to you. Theodoret here interprets it agreeably to the mat- 
ter in hand, ἀμῥιβολίας χωρὶς, “ without hesitation, firmly 
believing thou shalt receive what thou askest;” and of this, 
saith 'Theophylact, thou mayest be assured, if thou still 
askest according to his will; if thou askest, μηδὲν avagiov τοῦ 
Βασιλέως, “nothing unworthy of God,” but all things spiri- 
tual, and askest these things without wrath and hesitation, 
or a mind wavering betwixt hope and fear. 

10 Ver. 9. Mera ators καὶ σωφροσύνης, With shamefacedness 
and sobriety, or chastity.) Tt seems inpossible to fix a cer- 
tain rule for the attire of women of all states and conditions, 
at all times and in all places; but from what the apostle 
saith here, and 1 Pet. iil. 3 (see the note there), it seems 
evident, first, that περιπλοκαὶ τῶν τριχῶν ἑταιρικαὶ, all attire 
which suspected women used, either to provoke lust in others, 
or to show any inclination to it in themselves; and all attire 
which hath any tendency to any thing of this nature, or to 
raise a suspicion of it, must be here forbidden, as being con- 
trary to the modesty and chaste behaviour of a godly matron: 
and, secondly, all attire which, by the richness and costliness 
of it, shows any pride, or vanity of spirit, or an ambition to 
excel others: and, thirdly, all great concernment, care, and 
study to appear in such attire, as if it were indeed our truest 
ornament, and that which made us truly to excel, and be 
more honourable than others: this vanity and pride, this 
esteem of and concern for these things, being not well con- 
sistent with sobriety, and much less with the profession of 
true godliness. Andhere it is worthy to be noted by the 
women, first, that this precept ought not to be slighted by 
them, as of little moment, seeing it is so carefully inculcated 
by the two chief apostles of the Jew and gentile, Peter and 
Paul; and the contrary is represented as a practice opposite 
to godliness. Secondly, Let them especially mark the cha- 
racter here given of a Christian woman, viz. that she is one 
who doth not only profess and declare, that she serves and 
worships God, but also doth ἐπαγγέλλειν, “show forth god- 
liness in her life and conversation.” And, Thirdly, Let the 
men note hence that of Esthius, That if it be so unbecoming 
a Christian woman, to be thus concerned in adorning and 
tricking up her body, it must be much more unbecoming a 
Christian man to put on such attire, which makes him truly 
to deserve the name of fop. 

1 Ver, 12. Οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, a suffer not a woman to 

3 


842 I. TIMOTHY. 


licly), nor to usurp authority over the man ({0 whom 
she was subjected by God’s precept, Gen. iil. 16), but (I 
command her rather) to be in silence. 

13 For Adam was first formed, (and) then Eve 
(after him, and out of him, to denote subjection to him; 
and for him, to show she was to serve him, 1 Cor. xi. 8). 

14 ® And Adam was not (¢mmediately) deceived (by 
the serpent as Eve was), but the woman being deceived 
was (firs!) in the transgression. 


15 Notwithstanding she (7. e. the female sex) shall 
be saved in ™ childbearing (διὰ zexvoyovias, through 
child-bearing ; ἢ. 6. they shall go through the sorrow 
threatened to her sex for that sin with safety), if they con- 
tinue in faith (ἡ. 6. trusting in God) and charity (do 
others, especially in the like condition,) and holiness (Gr. 
in sanctification, i. 6. in chaslity of manners, and freedom 
from uncleanness,) with sobriety (ἐν σωφροσύνῃ» in tem- 
perance, or freedom from excess). ; 


teach.] i. 6. Publicly, 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35 (see the note there). 
‘They may privately instruct, as Priscilla did Apollos, Acts 
xviil. 26, and as a believing wife may instruct her unbe- 
lieving husband, when he requires a reason of her faith ; 
but then she must not challenge any authority to do this, 
this being to usurp an authority not due unto her. 

2 Ver. 14. Οὐκ ἡπατήδη, He was not deceived.) i. 6. By 
the serpent, who never attempted him, but was only seduced 
by the woman; she therefore was both guilty of her own 
and of her husband’s sins. 

13 Ver. 15, Διὰ τῆς zexvoyovias, In child-bearing.] That is, 
some say, by bearing the Messiah, the promised seed; but 
there is no instance that can be produced, where this phrase 
is used in this sense. Say others, by education of her child- 
ren; but neither is there any instance of this signification 
of the word; nor is it fit that her salvation should depend 
on the faith, and charity, and holiness of her children, these 
being things not in her power to produce in them. And (3.) 
what then shall become of barren women, and those that 
live and die virgins? To establish therefore the sense given 
in the text, let it be noted, 

First, That this enallage numeri, or change of the number, 
in words that comprehend all of the same kind, is very com- 
mon both in the Old and New Testament, and in profane 
authors: so Gen. xxxili. 13, Morientur totus grex ; Gen. xli. 
57, Universa terra venerunt; “The whole land came into 
Egypt;” Psal. cxl. 8, “ Grant not the desires of the wicked, 
further not his wicked devices, lest they exalt themselves ;” 
Prov. ii. 12, 13, “The evil man—who leave the paths of up- 
rightness” (see Numb. x. 3, 1 Kings i. 40, 1 Chron. x. 6, 
Ezra x. 12, Ps. Ixviii. 11, Esd. xxv. 3, xxxiv. 10, Mark iii. 
7, 8); and here, v. 4, χῆρα----μανϑανέτωσαν, “ If any widow— 
Jet them learn.” Note, 

Secondly, That the preposition διὰ doth not always signify 
a means or a condition, but sometimes a term to be passed 


through; as when it is said, διὰ πολλῶν θλίψεων, « Through 
many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God,” 
Acts xiv. 22; “He shall be saved διὰ πυρὸς, as one passing 
through the fire,” 1 Cor. iii. 15; “ Let us behave ourselves 
as the ministers of God, passing inoffensively, διὰ δόξης καὶ 
ἀτιμίας, διὰ δυσφημίας καὶ εὐφημίας, through honour and dis- 
honour, through good and evil report,’ 2 Cor. vi. 8; in 
which sense we are said ambulare per viam, per plateam. 
But against the interpretation given in the paraphrase, it is 
objected, that the following words, “If they continue in the 
faith,” &c. cannot be mentioned here as a condition of their 
safe deliverance in child-bed, since that deliverance is com- 
mon to the believer and the pagan, the charitable and tem- 
perate, and the uncharitable and intemperate, the chaste 
and the unchaste women. 

Ans. Now to this I answer, That this objection seems to 
be of no force against the sense here given: for though 
health, riches, a good name, and other temporal blessings, 
be common to the pagan and believer, to the good and bad, 
that hinders not but godliness may “have the promise of 
this life ;” as health, riches, a good name, and other outward 
blessings, are promised to those that fear God; it being suf- 
ficient to make good this promise, that God is pleased some- 
times to vouchsafe this safe deliverance from the dangers of 
child-birth to women, by virtue of their trust in God, their 
charity to others, especially in the like condition, their tem- 
perance, sobriety, and chastity, as to the observation of the 
matrimonial vow ; and that others may sometimes miscarry 
through the want or neglect of these duties. In a word, 
seeing it cannot be denied that these things are likely to en- 
gage God’s providence to be with them in that needful hour, 
and the neglect of them may provoke him to abandon 
others, they must be deemed fit matter of a temporal 
promise. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 ! Tuis 7s a true saying, If a man desire the office 


of a bishop, he desireth a good work (ἡ. 6. a work that 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 1.] Note, concerning the import of the word “bi- 
shop” here, I find three different opinions among the an- 
cients; viz. that of Theodoret, that “the apostle here calls 
the presbyter* bishop,” which he thus proves; “because, 
after the rules prescribed concerning bishops, he descends to 
those concerning deacons, omitting presbyters; because,” 
saith he, “anciently the same persons were styled presbyters 
and bishops, the name apostles being then given to them 
who are now called bishops; but in process of time, they 
left the name of apostles to them who were apostles indeed, 
and gave this name of bishop peculiarly to them who an- 
ciently were styled apostles. And though,” saith he, 
“these rules are given to the presbyters by name, it is clear 
that they more eminently belonged to bishops, ἅτε δὴ καὶ 
μείζονος μεταλαχύντας τιμῆς, aS being of a higher dignity.” 


* Ἑπίασκοπον δὲ ἐνταῦθα τὸν πρεσβύτερον λέγει" μετὰ yap τοὺς 
ἐπισκοπικοὺς νόμους τοὺς τοῖς διακόνοις προσήκοντας γράφει, τοὺς 
πρεσβυτέρους παραλιπών, τοὺς αὑτοὺς γὰρ ἐκάλουν ποτε πρεσθυτέ- 
ρους" καὶ ἐπισκόπους, τοὺς δὲ νῦν καλουμένους ἐπισκύπους ἀποστύλους 
ὠνόμαζον" τοῦ δὲ χρόνου προιόντος, τὸ μὲν τῆς ἀποστολῆς ὄνομα τοῖς 
ἀληθῶς ἁποστόλοις κατέλιπον, τὴν δὲ τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς προσηγορίαν τοῖς 
πάλαι καλουμένοις ἀποστόλοις ἐπέϑεσαν. In locum. 


And this opinion, if true, is a full confutation of the presby- 
terian hypothesis; for it declares, that there were three dis- 
tinct orders from the beginning of the church, apostles or 
bishops, presbyters, and deacons; and that the bishops were 
of a higher dignity than the presbyters. 

Secondly, The second opinion is that of Epiphanius, 
that* “the apostles could not order all things at one time, 
there being then a necessity of presbyters and deacons, by 
both which ecclesiastical matters were to be administered ; 
they placed no bishops there, where they found no persons 
worthy of that office; in other places, where they found 
persons worthy of it, but by reason of the paucity of con- 
verts found scarce any fit to be presbyters, they constituted 
only bishops and deacons. And this account,” saith he, is 
taken, βαθυτάταις ἱστορίαις, from the most ancient histories of 
the church ;” I suppose from the known passage of Clemens 


* Οὐ yap πάντα εὐθὺς ἠδυνήθησαν of ἀπόστολοι καταστῆσαι" πρεα- 
βυτέρων γὰρ ἐγίνετο χρεῖα, καὶ διακόνων, διὰ γὰρ τῶν dio τούτων τὰ 
. See ἘΞ “ ΕΠ ον τ τ τ 
ἐκκλησιαστικὰ δύνανται πληροῦσθαι. Ὅπου dé οὐκ εὑρήθη εἷς ἄξιος 
ἐπισκοπῆς, ἔμεινεν ὃ τόπος χωρὶς ἐπισκόπου" ὅπου δὲ γέγονε χρεῖα, καὶ 
ἦσαν ἄξιοι ἐπισκοπῆς, κατεστάϑησαν ἐπίσκοποι, πλήθους δὲ μὴ ὄντος, 
οὐχ εὑρήθεσαν ἐν αὐτοῖς πρεσβύτεροι κατεσταϑῆναι, καὶ ἠρκέσϑησαν ἐπὶ 
τῷ κατὰ τόπον μόνῳ ἐπισκόπῳ. “Ανεὺ δὲ διακόνου ἐπίσκοπον ἀδύνατον 


εἶναι. Epiphan. Her. Ixxv. §. 5. 


CHAPTER III. 


ts honourable in itself, and so requires such dispositions 
and qualifications in the person who desireth it, as may 
render him worthy of that honour). 

2 A bishop then must be ἢ blameless (7. e. free from 
just ground of blame), the ὃ husband of one wife (ἡ, e. 
not guilty of polygamy, or of divorcing one woman and 
marrying another, as many of the Jews and Greeks 
then were), vigilant (in his functions), sober (govern- 
ing his passions), of good behaviour (in words, in 
habit, or in aspect), ὁ given to hospitality (or the en- 
terlainment of strangers), apt to teach (not so much 
{" his eloquence, as for his skill in divine things, and 

owledge of what is filling to he taught: so Theo- 
doret) ; 

3 Not given to (much) wine (ver. 8), no striker, not 
greedy of filthy lucre; but ® patient, not a brawler (or 
contentious person), not © covetous ; 

4 One that ruleth well (én) his own house, having 


843 


his children in (due) subjection (and behaving himself 
in it) with all gravity ; 

5 (For if a man know not how to rule (well in) his 
own house, how shall he (be able to) take care of the 
church of God?) (which is a larger family, and so re- 
quires greater skill in government ;) 

6 7 Not a novice (in religion), lest being lifted up 
with pride (2x τῆς προεδρίας, by reason of his high ad- 
vancement) he fall ὃ into the condemnation of the 
devil. 

7 Moreover he must have a good report of them 
which are without (ἡ. e. the unbelieving Jew or gentile, 
with whom he formerly conversed); lest he fall into 
reproach (from them) and (into) the ® snare of the 
devil. 

8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double- 
tongued, (not fraudulent and deceiiful, Chrysostom: 
not saying one thing to one, another to another, Theo- 


Romanus to this effect. And this also yields a full confu- 
tation of the presbyterian hypothesis ; for it declares, that it 
was the design of the apostles to institute three several or- 
ders in the church, viz. bishops, presbyters, and deacons; 
and where this was not done, it was only through want of 
persons fit to complete these orders, and only during that 
defect; and this being writ in answer to A®rius’s heresy, 
that “a bishop differed not from a presbyter, they being 
both one order, dignity, and honour,”* shows that opinion 
was then counted not only false and novel, but heretical. 

Thirdly, The third opinion is that of Chrysostom,+ CEcu- 
menius,¢ and Hilary the deacon, on the place,§ that “the 
apostle includes presbyters under the name of bishops, be- 
cause there is no great difference between them, they being 
appointed, as well as bishops, to teach, and to preside over 
the church ; and being only inferior to the bishops, as to 
the power of ordination, which belongs alone to bishops, and 
not to presbyters.” Now even according to this opinion; 
the bishop is above the presbyter, and all ordinations which 
are not performed by the bishop are irregular, and performed 
by them who have no power to ordain. 

2 Ver. 2. ᾿Ανεπίληπτος, Blameless.) For “the life of a 
bishop,” saith Chrysostom, “should shine so bright, and be 
so free from spot, that others may not only behold it, but 
live by his example.” 

3 Μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρα, The husband of one wife.| For «the 
Jews and Greeks,” saith Theodoret,* “were wont to be 
married to two or three wives together.’ The apostle, there- 
fore, doth not say this to depreciate second marriages, which 
he elsewhere allows (1 Cor. vii. 8. 39), and from which it 
may not be in a man’s power to abstain: “If then a man, 
τὴν προτέραν ἐκβαλὼν, ἑτέρα συνεζύγη, rejecting his former wife, 
be joined to another, he deserveth blame; but if death have 
disjoined him from his former, and nature, urging, doth ne- 
cessitate him to take another, it is otherwise.” Considering 
these and other things, I approve of this interpretation of 
some of the ancients, which is also mentioned by Jerome,t 
and by Chrysostom, declaring, that the apostle doth not here 
oblige the bishop to be married, but only corrects the im- 
moderateness of some; because among the Jews it was 
lawful both to marry twice, καὶ dio ἔχειν κατὰ ταυτὸν γυναῖκας, 
“and to have two wives together ;” and it was more common 
with them to divorce one, and take another. And whereas 


* Ti ἐστιν ἐπίσκοπος πρὸς πρεσβύτερον ; οὐδὲν διαλλάττει οὗτος 
τοῦτου" μία γάρ ἐστι τάξις, καὶ μία φησὶ τιμὴ, καὶ ἕν ἀξίωμα. 

T “A περὶ ἐπισκόπων εἶπε, ταῦτα καὶ πρεσβυτέροις ἁρμόττει" τῇ γὰρ 
Xetporovia μόνη ὑπερβεβήκασι, καὶ τούτῳ μόνον δοκοῦσι πλεονεκτεῖν 
τοὺς πρεσθυτέρους. Chrysost. in locum. 

$ Ὁμοίως yap καὶ αὐτοὶ ἱερεῖς τέ εἶσι, καὶ διδασκαλίαν εἰσὶ 
πεπιστευμένοι. Cicumen. 

§ Post episcopum tamen diaconatus ordinationem subje- 
cit; quare? nisi quia episcopi et presbyteri una ordinatio 
est, uterque enim sacerdos est, sed episcopus primus est. 
Hilar. in locum. 

[ Πάλαι γὰρ εἰώϑεισαν καὶ “Ἕλληνες καὶ ᾿Ιουδαῖοι, καὶ dio καὶ 
τρισὶ καὶ πλείοσι γυναιξὶ νόμῳ γάμου κατὰ τουτὸν σνοικεῖν. 

§ Com. in Tit. i. 


against this interpretation it is objected, that the apostle re- 
quires also, that the widow should be “the wife of one 
husband ;” whereas it never was permitted, among any but 
barbarians, for women to have more than one husband at 
once ; this objections hath some strength against the inter- 
preting that passage of polygamy, but none against that 
interpretation which relates to marriage after dismission of 
the former husband; the law allowing this in Greece, and 
the practice having made it common among the Romans, 
and not unusual among the Jews (see note on v. Νὰ Ori- 
gen* seems plainly to insinuate, that this law, in the strict 
sense, seems harsh and unreasonable, since he that hath a 
wife might lose her in his youth, and so have need of a 
second ; and this law allowed the bishop to enjoy his first 
wife even to old age, ἐσθ᾽ dre μήδὲ γυμναζόμενον cis ἀγνείαν, καὶ 
σωφροσύνην, “though he never exercised himself to chastity 
and continence:” and therefore he things fit to interpret 
these words by analogy to the bill of divorce, plainly de- 
claring against the church of Rome, that neither bishop, 
priest, nor deacon, of whom there he speaks, were either by 
scripture, or the laws of the church, restrained from co- 
habiting with their wives, after their promotion of those or- 
ders. See the confirmation of our exposition in Suicerus, 
vocibus διγαμία and ὀΐγαμος. 

4 Φιλόξενον, Given to hospitality.] Not in our common 
sense, of keeping a good table, or an open house, for all 
comers; but, τοὺς ὑποδημοῦντας ὑποδεχόμενον, “an entertainer 
of strangers,” as the fathers say, that the word φιλύξενος, sig- 
nifies. 

Ver. 3. Μὴ aioxpoxepdi.] ‘These words, saith Dr. Mills, 
crept into the text from ‘Tit. i. 7, whereas they are found in 
Chrysostom, and Gicumenius, Cod. Alex. and Basil, tom. 
ii. p. 416, 417; and are fully confirmed from the words fol- 
lowing, διακόνους ὡσαύτως μὴ αἰσχροκερδεῖς, and from Tit. i. 7, 
where Paul treats of the same subject. 

5. Ἐπιεικῆ, Patient or gentle ;] i. e. Saith Theodoret, in 
reference to offences committed against himself; for it is no 
part of meekness or patience, when others are injured, to 
overlook the injury. 

δ ᾿Αφιλάργυρον, Nor covetous, or a lover of money. Theo- 
doret here notes, that the apostle doth not say he must be 
ἀκτήμονα, “one who possesseth none ;” for a man may pos- 
sess these things, and yet distribute them as he ought, so as 
not to be a slave to them, but a lord over them. 

7 Ver. 6. Μὴ νεύφυτον, Not α novice.| This, say Chrysos- 
tom and Theodoret, is not spoken with respect to age; for 
‘Timothy himself, to whom he writes, was a youth (iv, 12), 
but in respect to his knowledge of the faith. 

8 Eis κρῖμα τοῦ διαβύλον.] That the devil fell by pride, 
Theodoret here notes: but yet both he and Chrysostom say 
that by “condemnation” here, the apostle means not his sin, 
but his punishment for it. 

9 Ver. 7. Kai παγίδα διαβόλου, And the snare of the devil.] 
i. e. Saith Theodoret, lest, being tempted by Satan, he res 
lapse into his former sins; or lest, being reproached by 


* A. in Matt. ed. Huet. tom. i. p. 362, 363 


844 


doret :) not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy 
lucre (ὦ. 6. of lucre gained by sordid and filthy arts) ; 

9 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure con- 
science (7. 6. in a life so pure that conscience may not 
smile him; for when a good conscience is once pul away, 
the loss of faith will follow, i. 19). 

10 And let these also first be proved (by the exa- 
mination of the soundness of their faith, and the purity of 
their former lives); then let them (be admitted ic) 
use the office of a deacon, being (thus) found blame- 
less. 

11 Even so must their ™ wives be (γυναῖκας ὡσαύτως; 
the women in like manner must be) grave, not slanderers, 
sober, faithful in all things. 

12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife 


I. TIMOTHY. 


(see ver. 2), ruling their children and their own houses 
well. 

13 For they that have used the office of a deacon 
well (2. e. accurding lo these rules, do by so doing) pur- 
chase to themselves 15 ἃ good degree (or higher office in 
the church), and great 15 boldness in (preaching) the 
faith which is in Christ Jesus. 

14 These things write I (now) unto thee, hoping to 
come unto thee shortly (and furnish thee with other in- 
structions, iv. 13): 

15 ™ But if 1 tarry long (they will be the more need- 
ful), that thou mayest know how thou onghtest to 
bchave thyself in the house of God, which is the 
church of the living God, 15 the pillar and ground of 
the truth, 


those he is set over, for his former life, Satan tempt him to 
apostasy, v. 15. 

10 Ver. 10. Καὶ οὗτοι δοκιμαζέσϑωσαν πρῶτον, And let these 
be first proved.) These words καὶ αὖτοι, show that this trial 
belonged also to the higher orders; and so it seems to have 
been from the beginning, where the Holy Ghost did not im- 
mediately interpose in designation of the person. .The em- 


peror Severus takes notice of it,* as of “a practice observed | 
both by the Jews and Christians, in order to the ordination | 


of their priests, and fit to be imitated in choosing a rector, 
or procurator of the provinces subject to the Roman govern- 
ment.” The epistles of Cypriant make frequent mention 
of this practice observed in the church, in imitation of the 
Jews. “This,” saith he, “was observed in the Acts of the 
Apostles in the ordination both of bishops, priests, and 
deacons: and therefore this,” saith he, “is derived from a 
divine and apostolical tradition, observed almost throughout 
all provinces, that the bishops of that province where the 
bishop is to be placed, should come thither and choose the 
bishop, the people being present who were acquainted with 
his life and conversation.” 

1 Ver. 11. Τυναῖκας ὡσαύτως, The women also,) i. 6. That 
are admitted to be deaconesses, Tit. ii. 35 περὶ τῶν τὸ ἀξίωμα 
τῆς διακονίας ἐχυύσων λέγει, Chrysostom, Theodoret. 

12 Ver, 13. Βαϑμὸν καλὸν, A good degree.) It being the 
custom to choose presbyters out of the deacons, and bishops 
out of the presbyters; and therefore, at his ordination, they 
prayed, that he, using the office of a deacon unblameably, 
might} μείζονος ἀξιωϑῆναι βαϑμοῦ, “be held worthy of a 
higher degree.” 

15. Παῤῥησίαν, Boldness, or freedom.] The deacons some- 
times preached and converted men to the faith, as Stephen 
and Philip; and this they could more freely and more 


* Ubi aliquos voluisset vel rectores provinciis dare, vel 
procuratores, id est, rationales ordinare, nomina eorum pro- 
ponebat, hortans populum, ut si quis quid haberet criminis, 
probaret manifestis rebus.—Dicebatque grave esse quum id 
Christiani et Judwzi facerent id predicandis sacerdotibus, 
qui ordinandi sunt, non fieri in provinciarum rectoribus, 
quibus et fortune, hominum committerentur, et capita. 
Lamprid. in Vita Severi, cap. 45. 

Coram omni synagoga jubet Deus constitui sacerdotem, 
id est, instruit et ostendit ordinationes sacerdotales non nisi 
sub populi assistentis conscientia fiere oportere; ut plebe 
presente, vel detegantur malorum crimina, vel bonorum 
merita predicentur, et sit ordinatio justa et legitima, que 
omnium suffragio et judicio fuerit ordinata Quod posted, 
secundum divina magisteria, observatur in Actis Apostolo- 
rom Nec hoc in episcoperum tantum, et. sacerdotum 
ordinibus, observasse apostolos animadvertibus, de quo et 
ipso in Actis eorum scriptum est Propter quod diligentér 
de traditione divina, et apostolicd observatione, servandum 
est et tenendum, quod apud nos quoque, et feré per provin- 
cias universas tenetur, ut ad ordinationes rité celebrandas, 
ad eam plebem cui prepositus ordinatur, episcopi ejusdem 
provinciew proximi quique conveniant, et episcopus delegatur, 
plebe presente, que singulorum vitam plenissimé novit, et 
uniuscujusque actum de ejus conversatione perspexit. Ed. 
Ox. ep. 67, §..2, p. 172. 

+ Constat. Apost lib. viii. cap. 18. 


successfully perform, when they lived suitably to the qualifi- 
cations of their function, and to the rules of the gospel they 
professed and taught. 

4 Ver.15, Ἐὰν dé βραδύνω, But if Itarry long.| Here Theo- 
doret well notes, that neither the holy prophets, nor apos- 
tles, knew all things, the grace of the Spirit dictating to them 
only the things which were expedient; as appears from 
these expressions, “ hoping to come shortly,” and, “ but if I 
tarry.” 

15 Srédos καὶ Elpatwpa τῆς ἀμηϑείας, The pillar and the 
ground of truth.) Here, say the Romanists, the church is 
styled “the pillar and the ground of truth,” surely from her 
teachers being so; they being elsewhere styled “ pillars,’” 
Gal. ii, 9, and “ foundations,” Eph. ii. 20. Now, say they, 
may not all securely rely in their faith on the pillar of truth? 
May they not securely ground their faith upon the ground 
of truth? The church therefore being the pillar and the 
ground of truth, we may, without fear of ever erring, rely 
upon her. 

Ans. 1. Whereas the objection represents it as certain that 
the church is here styled “the pillar and the ground of 
truth,’ in respect of its teachers, the text seems clearly to 
intimate the contrary : for whether we supply the sense of 
the words thus, πῶς det (ce), How thou oughtest;” or with 
Theophylact, πῶς det τὸν ἐπίσκοπον, “ How a bishop ought to 
behave himself in the house of God, which is the church,” 
it is evident, that the church,* here mentioned, is put in op- 
position to the bishop of it, and is, according to ‘Theodoret 
on the place, σύλλογος τῶν πιστευόντων, * the collection of be- 
lievers:” and therefore not the church representative, which 
is only σύλλογος τῶν ἐπισκόπων, “an assemby of bishops,” 
according to the doctrine of the church of Rome; and there- 
fore the infallibility of the church representative can never 
be concluded from these words, which so expressly do relate 
to the whole system of believers, in distinction from their 
bishops. 

Ans. 2. The church here is “the church of the living 
God ;” not as it comprehends the major part of her visible 
members, but only as it comprehends the true and living 
members of Christ's body, they being only “the church of 
the living God ;” so that we must first know who they are, 
before we can be guided by them. Now, because this is 
impossible to be known with any assurance, it is impossible 
that we should be obliged to rely on their judgment in de- 
ciding what is truth. 

Ans. 3. There is nothing more common, in the language 
of the writers of the church, than to style any eminent father 
of the church, or assertor of her faith, “the pillar and the 
ground of faith.” ‘This title is by Basil} given to Musonius 
bishop of Czsarea, to Athanasius, and to the orthodox bishops 
banished for the truth; by Nazianzen,+ to Basil, to Atha- 
nasius, and to Eusebius, bishop of Samosata; by Lanfranc 
and Rupertus Tuitiensis, it is given to Austin; and yet sure 
they were far from thinking that any of these single fathers 
were infallible. Whence it must follow, that, according to 
the judgment of the church, this phrase did not import in- 
fallibility. 


* See Const. Apost. lib. iii. cap. 15. 
+ Epist. 62, 67, 70, 349. 
+ Orat. 19, 21, 23, 29. 


CHAPTER III. 


16 And without controversy (or, confessedly) great 
is the mystery of godliness: (consisting in these arti- 
cles,) ‘© God was manifest in the flesh, justified in 


Ans. 4. The church cannot here be styled «the pillar and 
the ground of truth,” as being the foundation on which truth 
is built, and which giveth it authority; truth being, saith 
Chrysostom,* τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ στῦλος καὶ ἑἱδραίωμα, “ the 
pillar and the ground of the church,” which is, saith the 
apostle, “built on the foundation of the apostles and the 
prophets,” Eph. ii. 19, 20. She therefore is the church of 
Christ, because she holds the truth; as is demonstrative from 
this, that purely ceasing to do so, her members cease to be 
the members of the church: she therefore cannot, by me, 
be known to be the church, until I know she holds the truth, 
and doth not cease to make profession of it: and when I 
first know this, what need have I of her infallible direction 
to find out the truth? She therefore may be rather said to be 
“the pillar and the ground of truth,” because it is essential 
to her being, to maintain and teach all necessary truths; 
and because her living members do and will maintain them, 
when concealed, denied, or misrepresented by hypocritical 
professors: and because she doth preserve and own those 
oracles in which the saving truth of Christ is fully and per- 
spicuously maintained; and doth baptize her children into 
that symbol, which was always held to be a perfect summary 
of Christian faith. 

Lastly, The church of that age might be well said to be 
“the pillar and the ground of truth,” because then the 
apostles presided in it, who were the pillars and foundations 
of the Christian faith, according to the scriptures and the 
ancient fathers: thus Theodoret} styles Peter and John, 
τοὺς στύλους τῆς ἀληϑείας, “the pillars of truth;” and Cicu- 
menius,t στύλους τῆς πίστεως, i. e. “the pillars of the faith.” 
Then also did the apostles and evangelists deliver, and the 
church receive, those scriptures which were to be the 
standard of the Christian faith, and which were written, saith 
Treneus,§ “by the will of God, to be hereafter, columna et 
fundamentum fidei nostre, the pillar and foundation of our 
faith:” and which are, saith Athanasius,|| τῆς πίστεως 
ἡμῶν ἀγκυραὶ καὶ ἐρείσματα, “the anchors and stabiliments of 
our faith.” Then did her members confirm the Christian 
faith by miracles, which, by St. Hilary] upon this place, 
are styled, “the confirmation of this truth ;’ and by their 
sufferings for it: on which account the martyrs are peculiarly 
styled by the fathers “the steady pillars and the grounds of 
Christians.” Now seeing none of these reasons can be ap- 
plied to the present church, it will not follow, that she can, 
in like manner, claim this title. 

16 Ver. 16. Θεὸς ἐφανερώϑη, God was manifested in the 
Jlesh.| Here Grotius saith, Suspectam nobis hanc lectionem 
faciunt interpretes veteres, Latinus, Syrus, Arabs, et Am- 
brosius, qui otmnes legunt ὃ ἐφανερώϑη, i. 6. “The Latin, 
Syriac, Arabic versions, and Ambrose, all read, ‘The mys- 
tery which was revealed in the flesh;’ which gives us reason 
to suspect the other reading, viz. ‘God manifested in the 
flesh.” But, (1.) this is a great mistake as to the Arabic ver- 
sion, for that reads thus, Quod Deus, «That God was mani- 
fested in the flesh ;” and so doth the Syriac, according to the 
version of Tremellius: in the Polyglot it runs thus, Magnum 
est arcanum justitie quod justificatus est carne; which can- 
not refer to mystery, but must refer to God or Christ: and 
though the Vulgar Latin, and the commentator under the 
name of Ambrose, read, Quod manifestum est in carne ; yet 
he adds, agreeably to the opinion of the Latins, that this 
mystery is Christus in carne, “ Christ manifested in the flesh, 
but concealed in the Spirit,” or, as to ats Godhead (see Dr. 


* In locum. 

+ In Gal. ii. 9. 

ἢ Tom. ii. p. 61. 
{| Firmamentum veritatis hujus sunt signa et prodigia. 


7 Orat. de Provid. tom. iv. p. 441. 
§ Lib. iii. cap. 1. 


845 


Cr by) the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the 
yentiles, believed on in the world, received up into 
glory. 


Pearson’s Vindication of this place against Grotius, Creed, 
Ρ. 128). In a word, the reading which our translation 
follows is owned by all the Greek scholiasts, Chrysostom, 
Theodoret, G2cumenius, and Theophylact, and is found in 
all the manuscripts, excepting that of Clermont and Lincoln 
College, and the phrases here used do make it necessary to 
expound the words, not of the gospel, but of Christ, the 
subject of it. For, 

1. That exposition, which refers these words unto the 
gospel, puts such a strained sense on some of these expres- 
sions, of which we meet with no example in the whole New 
Testament: for where doth “manifestation in the flesh” 
signify the manifestation of a thing by weak and mortal 
men? and where is the gospel said to be manifested in the 
flesh? where doth ἀνελήφθη signify the exaltation of the 
gospel? or where is it said, that the gospel was received into 
glory? 

2. It turns many of those expressions into a metaphorical 
sense, which are literally true of Christ; for, according to 
this exposition, “flesh” signifies weak men; to be “ justi- 
fied,” to be owned and approved; to be “seen,” is to be 
known or revealed; to be “taken up,” is to be exalted in 
the minds of men. 

3. This strained exposition reduces three of these articles 
into one; it being, in effect, the same, to be “believed on in 
the world,” by reason of those glorious miracles by which it 
was confirmed ; and to be owned and approved, by reason 
of the operations of the Holy Spirit, which did assist the 
preachers of it; and, by that approbation, gloriously exalted 
in the minds of men. 

These are the inconveniences which attend that exposi- 
tion; whereas the other interpretation, which refers this 
mystery to Christ, affords a very plain and literal exposition 
of the words, confirmed by parallel expressions frequent in 
the holy scripture. For, 

1. “The Word,” saith John, “was made flesh, and dwelt 
among us (John i. 14), and we have seen his glory ;” ἐφανε- 
ρώϑη, “He was manifested,’ 1 John iii. 5.8; iv. 2, “and 
came in the flesh, who was the Son of God ;” «« He who was 
in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal 
with God, was found in the likeness of a man,” Phil. ii. 6, 
7; “He that was God, blessed for evermore, was also of the 
seed of David, according to the flesh,” Rom. ix. 5. 

2. He was “justified by the Spirit,” as doing those mira- 
cles on earth, by which he justified his mission against all 
the accusations of the Jews, by the Spirit of God, Matt. xii. 
28, being “declared to be the Son of God with power, by 
the Spirit of holiness,” Rom. i. 3, 4, by sending that Spirit 
after his ascension into heaven, Acts ii. 32, which he had 
promised to his disciples upon earth, and by which the world 
was convinced, περὶ δικαιοσύνης, “ of his righteousness,” John 
xvi. 10. 

3. He was “seen of angels,” who at his entrance into the 
world did worship him, Heb. i. 6; who celebrated his birth, 
and gave notice of it to the world, Luke ii. 9. 13; who 
ministered to him in the desert, Matt. iv. 11, and in his 
agonies, Luke xxii. 43, xxiv. 4; who were present at his 
resurrection, and attended him at his ascension into heaven, 
Acts i. 10. 

4, The whole history of the gospel shows, that he was 
« preached to the gentiles,” and « believed on in the world.” 

5. And, lastly, he was “received up into heaven;” dve- 
φέρετο, ἀνήρϑη, ἀνελήφϑη, “He was taken, he was carried up 
into heaven, and sat at the right hand of Majesty in glory,” 
Matt. xvi. 19, Luke xxiv. 51, Actsi. 2.11. And sure so 
plain, so full, and literal an exposition of these articles, de- 
serves to be preferred before the strained and metaphorical 
interpretations of Grotius, Erasmus, and the Socinians, 


3v2 


é 


846 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Now (but though the mystery of godliness be 
so fully confirmed,) } the Spirit (im the scripture) 


speaketh expressly, that 5 in the latter times 3 some 
shall depart from the faith (once embraced by them), 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


γεν. 1. To Πνεῦμα ῥητῶς λέγει, The Spirit saith expressly.) 
Hence Mr. Mede concludes, ‘That the apostle must refer to 
some prophecy of these things recorded in the scriptures; 
for though the Spirit in the apostles advertised them of 
many things, viz. “'The Spirit said to Peter, Behold three 
men seek thee,” Acts. x. 19; “The Spirit said, Separate me 
Barnabas and Saul, for the work of the ministry,” Acts xiii. 
2 (see Acts xvi. 6, xxi. 11); yet he did this only, ἐν ὁράματι, 
“in a vision,” Acts x. 19, or by secret inspirations (and so 
not ῥητῶς, “ expressly”). But to this the fathers answer, 
That the word ῥητῶς here signifies only φανερῶς, σαφῶς, 
“clearly and perspicuously ;”’ to which it may be added, 
that in those times of prophecy, when the prophets had the 
government of the churches, and spake still in the public 
assemblies, it might reasonably be said, «The Spirit speak- 
eth expressly,” what they taught expressly in the church. 
And whereas hence he infers, that this prophecy must be 
found somewhere in the Old Testament, the reverend Dr. 
Hammond thinks that unnecessary, this apostasy being fore- 
told by our Prophet, who had the Spirit without measure, 
saying, Matt. xxiy. 11, 12, «Then many shall be scandalized, 
and many false prophets shall arise, καὶ πλανήσουσι, and shall 
deceive many; and because iniquity shall abound, the love 
of many shall wax cold.” I confess, Mr. Mede seems to 
have found this prophecy, Dan. xi. 86—39. But to omit 
all other objections against his interpretation of the words, 
I can by no means think that Daniel, so well acquainted 
with the import of “strange gods,” both in the law and 
the prophets, should give that infamous name, 43) mys, 
“a strange god,” to our blessed Saviour; or that he should 
at the same time prophesy, that antichrist should acknow- 
ledge and increase Christ with honour, and yet divest Christ 
of his glory and honour, by setting up makuzzim in oppo- 
sition to his offices. But considering that this epistle, ac- 
cording to Bishop Pearson, was writ in the eleventh of Nero, 
A. D. 64, why may we not refer this prediction, either to the 
apostasy, ῥητῶς, “expressly” mentioned 2 Thess. ii. 3. 9, or 
to the predictions of the apostles mentioned by Jude, ver. 
17—19? 

2 "Ev ὑστέροις καιροῖς, In the latter times.] The Jewish doc- 
tors lay this down as a rule, that wherever we find this phrase, 
Don nvjnsa, “in the latter days,” we are to understand it 
of the age and times of the Messiah: so, Gen. xlix. 1, « Ga- 
ther yourselves together,” saith Jacob to his sons, “that I 
may tell you what will befall you, ἐπ᾿ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν, in 
the last times, i. e. the days when “the sceptre shall depart 
from Judah, and Shiloh (the Messiah) shall come ;” Numb. 
xxiv. 14, « Come,” saith Balaam, “and I will tell thee what 
shall befall thy people ἐπ᾿ écyarov τῶν ἡμερῶν, in the latter 
days,” i. 6. when “the Star comes out of Jacob, and the 
Sceptre ariseth out of Israel;” i. e. “when the Messiah 
comes,” saith the Targum of Onkelos, on ver. 17; Isa. ii. 2, 
“Tn the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be esta- 
blished on the top of the mountains, and all nations shall 
flow into it:” “In the times of the Messiah,” say R. Salo- 
mon, and other Jews. Jer. xxiii. 20, “In the latter days 
ye shall understand this;” “In the days of the Messiah,” 
Targum on ver. 5; Dan. ii. 28, “There is a God of heaven 
who maketh known to the king what shall come to pass,” 
én’ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν, from his times, till the kingdom of 
the Messiah be set up, ver. 44; see also x. 14; Hosea iii. 5, 
« Afterward they shall return, and.sball seek the Lord, and 
David their king” (Targ. “Messiah their king, the Son of 
David”), “in the latter days;? Micah. iv. 1, “In the last 
days shall the mountain of the Lord be established upon the 
top of the mountains :” where Dr. Pocock saith, that “by 
*the last days’ are meant, the days or times of the Messiah 
or Christ, is agreed on by some Jews and most Christians.” 


And wherever we meet with this phrase in the New Testa- 
ment, it manifestly refers to the beginnings of Christianity, 
and signifies the last times of the Jewish state or economy, 
concurring with the times of the Messiah, and the erecting 
of his kingdom, by calling the gentiles, and settling a Chris- 
tian church, to succeed that of the Jews. Thus, when the 
Holy Ghost fell down on the apostles and disciples, “This 
is that,” saith Peter, “ which was spoken of by the prophet 
Joel, saying, In the Jast days I will pour my Spirit upon 
all flesh,” Acts ii. 17; so, Heb. i. 1, “God, who of old 
spake to our fathers by the prophets, ἐπ᾿ ἐσχάτων τῶν χρόνων, 
in these last days hath spoken to us by his Son,” i. 6, 
by him who, saith Peter, was “foreordained from the be- 
ginning of the world, but was manifested, ἐπ᾿ ἐσχάτων τῶν 
χρύνων, in the last times;” where the times of Christ’s 
manifestation to the world, and of his preaching to the Jews, 
are manifestly styled “the last times,’ So, James v. 3, 
« You have treasured up your gold and silver, as fire, which 
shall eat your flesh, ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέραις, in the last days ;” 
2 Pet. iii. 3, “This know ye, ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν, in the 
last times there shall come mockers,” &c., and that they 
were then come, we learn from ver. 5, “This they are igno- 
rant of;” and Jude, ver. 17, 18, “Remember the words 
spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
they said unto you, that ἐν ἐσχάτῳ χρόνῳ, in the last time 
there should be mockers, walking after their own lusts ἢ 
and that they were then come, is evident from the following 
words, “ These are they who separate themselves,” &c. ver. 
19. And, 1 John ij. 18, “Little children, ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστὶ, 
it is now the last hour, and, as you have heard, that anti- 
christ shall (then) come, so now are there many antichrists, 
whereby you may know that this is the last hour:” so 
2 Tim. iii. 1, 2, «This know, that in the last days, ἐν ἐσχά- 
rats ἡμέραις, there shall be perilous times, for men shall be 
lovers of themselves;” and that those times, or days, and 
persons, were then come, is evident from his exhortation to 
“tum away” from them, ver. 5, and his character of them, 
ver. 6, ix τούτων, “ Of these are they that creep into houses,” 
&c. And that the “ last times” here mentioned were already 
come, we learn from his admonition to Timothy, to “put 
the brethren in mind of these things,” ver. 4. Here, then, 
is another defect in Mr. Mede’s ingenious interpretation of 
these words, that he hath not made it out that “ the last times” 
are to be extended beyond the first century, or the age of 
the apostles. Mr. Mede saith, “« These words are not a nar- 
ration of things present, but a prediction of what shall betide 
the Christian faith in aftertimes.” I answer, they are in- 
deed a narrative of what the Spirit had foretold should hap- 
pen “in the latter times,” by an apostasy from the faith; 
but the determination of the time when what was thus fore- 
told should be accomplished, depends on the fixed import of 
“the latter times:” for these “last times,” saith Mr. Mede, 
being mentioned as the indication when this apostasy should 
take place, must therefore be sufficient to determine the 
time of this apostasy: and so they plainly do, according to 
my interpretation. But if, with others, you refer these “last 
times” to the whole times of antichrist, they began not till 
above four hundred years after the writing of this epistle; 
and why then is the apostle so concerned that Timothy then 
should “ put the brethren in remembrance of these things ?” 
ver. 6, and they contain twelve hundred and sixty years; 
and so cannot inform us in what period, or precise portion 
of that time, this apostasy should have its rise. 

8 ᾿Αποστήσονταί tives τῆς πίστεως, Some shall depart from 
the faith.| Here seems another defect of Mr. Mede’s hypo- 
thesis, that he makes these words to signify only a partial 
declining from the faith, and that again only virtual and con- 
sequential, by setting up doctrines opposite to or inconsistent 
with it, though not owned to be so by them that embrace 
them; whereas apostasy from the faith seems plainly to in- 


CHAPTER IV. 


‘giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of 
devils; aut 

2 Speaking lies in δ hypocrisy; (Gr. ἐν ὑποχρίσει 
ψευδολόγων, through the hypocrisy of liars, and of men) 


port a falling off from it wholly, or at least an actual and 
professed renouncing of some essential part of it. 
4 Προσέχοντες πνεύμασι πλάνοις, καὶ διδασκαλίαις δαιμονίων, Giv- 


ing heed to seducing spirits, and to doctrines of devils.) | 


These words, by all the ancient commentators, seem to be 
taken actively for those doctrines which are introduced by 
men led by the suggestions of Satan and of evil spirits; 
these doctrines being, saith Theodoret, ἐκείνων κυήματα, “ the 
productions of those evil spirits ;” and they who vent them 
are, saith Chrysostom, of ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων ἐνεργούμενοι, “men acted 
by them.” ‘I'he false prophets and false apostles, saith the 


author of the interpolated Epistle to the Philadelphians, had | 


λαοπλάνον πνεῦμα (8. 5), “a spirit that deceived the people ;” 
they preached ἁπάτην καὶ πλάνην, “ deceit and error,’”’. and 
had dwelling in them, τὸν δράκοντα τὸν ἀποστάτην, “the apos- 
tate dragon.” These false prophets had, saith John, πνεῦμα 
τῆς πλάνης, “a spirit of error;’’ as the apostles had Πνεύμα 
τῆς ἀληϑείας, “the Spirit of truth,” 1 John iv. 1.6. So far 
it is from being true, that the word spirit signifies doctrines, 
and not those “deluding spirits” which taught them; yet 
because “the prince of devils,” Matt. ix. 34, “ the spirit of 
the devil,’ Luke iv. 33, Rev. xvi. 14, the “sacrifice,” the 
“table,” the “ cup of devils,” 1 Cor. x. 20, 21, the “ habita- 
tion of devils,” Rev. xviii. 2, are phrases where δαιμόνια, “ de- 
vils,” are still taken objectively, I admit that sense also here: 
and then the apostasy, procured by “ the spirits of deceit,” 
is that of the Judaizers, relapsing from the profession of the 
Christian faith, through those false Christs and false pro- 
phets, of which our Saviour foretold they should “deceive 
many,” Matt. xxiv. 11. 24; whereas they, who apostatized 
by falling back to heathenism, are they who give heed to the 
doctrines of demons: for dii gentium dwmonia, “the gods 
of the heathens are demons.” 

5 Ver. 2. ᾽ν ὑποκρίσει ψευδολόγων, Through the hypocrisy 
of false speakers.) "Ev pro διὰ, through, is very common ; 50 
ἐν πάσῃ ἀπάτη ἀδικίας, “Through all deceivableness of un- 
righteousness,” 2 Thess. ii. 9, 10 (see Mark ix. 29, Luke i. 
17, Acts xvii. 31, Rom. xii. 21, Tit. i. 9, 2 Pet. iii, 1), 
κεκαυτηριασμένων τὴν συνείδησιν, “of seared consciences,” i. 6. 
of consciences, which have lost the sense of good or evil, and 
no longer do their office: for this expression, saith 'Theo- 
doret, signifies, τὴν ἐσχάτην αὐτῶν ἀναλγησίαν, “the extreme 
stupor of their consciences ;” for the member seared, νεκρω- 
Seis τὴν προτέραν αἴσθησιν ἀποβάλλει, “ being mortified, hath lost 
its former sensation.” 

6 Ver. 3. Κωλυύντων γαμεῖν, ἀπέχεσϑαι βρωμάτων, Forbid- 
ding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.) 
It is here to be noted from Theophylact, that in construing 
these words, οὐκ ὀῤείλεις ἀπὸ κοινοῦ λαβεῖν τὸ κωλυόντων ἀλλ᾽ 
ἔξωϑεν προσθεῖναι τὸ συμβουλεύουντων ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων, “ἐ we 
must not repeat the word ‘ forbidding, but add, in lieu of it, 
‘counselling to abstain from meats:’” so all the ancients 
have interpreted these words of Clemens Alexandrinus,* when 
he saith, οὐ κωλυτέον γαμεῖν, οὐδὲ μὲν κρεωφαγεῖν, “ We must 
not forbid to marry, nor yet to eat flesh.” ‘The apostle, 
saith Tertullian; notes them who wholly forbade marriage, 
and interdicted meats. And Epiphanius saith,+ This of the 
apostle is fulfilled in the Cataphryge and other heretics, for 
most of them, τοῦ γαμεῖν κωλύουσιν, ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων πα- 
ραγγέλλουσιν, “forbid marriage, and command to abstain 
from meats.” This, in effect, is the interpretation of all the 
ancient commentators on the place, who give us the same 
sense of the words as do the fathers cited; and of all the 
translations, which, though they do not add the word 
commanding, yet they add a copulative, and change the 
infinitive into a participle, thus, Prohibentes nubere, et 
abstinentes ἃ cibis, Syriac; Prohibentes matrimonium, et 

* Strom. lib. iii. p. 462. 

+ Notat apostolus eos qui in totum nubere prohibebant, 
quiet de cibis interdicebant quos Deus condidit. De Monog. 
cap. 15. 

+ Her. xlviii. p. 410, sect. 8, 


847 


having their conscience seared with a hot iron; (ἑ. 6. 
of corrupt and profligale consciences 5 

3 Of men) *Vorbidding (those whom they have se- 
duced) to marry, and commanding (them) to abstain 


amoventes cibos, Arabic. And Bochart gives us instances 
of the like nature from the Old Testament, viz. Gen. xxxi. 
40, « By the heat of the day was I burnt, and by the frost 
of the night (obrigescebam) I waxed stiff with cold;” Ps. 
exxi. 6, “ The sun shall not burn thee by day, nor the moon 
(refrigerate thee) by night: so Luke xiii. 9, “If it bring 
forth fruit (it shall stand), if not, thou shalt cut it down.” 
That all these things happened in the apostle’s times, and 
many of them were to happen before the destruction of Je- 
rusalem, is evident ; that there was to be a great apostasy 
before that time, carried on by prophets and false Christs, 
our Lord expressly had foretold ; and that in great measure 
it had obtained, especially among the Jews, we learn from 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, writ purposely to put a stop to it ; 
that the great promoters of it were “deceitful workers, false 
apostles,” and that they carried on that work in hypocrisy, 
esteeming gain godliness, this apostle doth often inform us 
(see 2 Cor. ii. 17, xi. 13—15) ; that they were men whose 
minds and consciences were defiled, see Tit. i. 15; that their 
doctrine was this, “It is good for a man not to touch a wo- 
man,” 1 Cor. vii. 1; their vain philosophy this, “ 'l'aste not” 
(forbidden meats), “handle not” (an unclean thing), see 
Col. ii. 21. It remains only to consider, who they should 
be: that they could not be the Gnosties, the followers of 
Simon Magus, I have proved against Dr. Hammond, note 
on Col. ii. 21. Moreover, according to his exposition, they 
were to appear before the destruction of Jerusalem; for he 
interprets these words, “The Spirit speaketh expressly” of 
our Lord's prediction, Matt. xxiv. Now there were no such 
heretics among the Gnostics until the second century. Sa- 
turninus, saith Theodoret,* “ was the first who named matri- 
mony the doctrine of devils, and taught men to abstain from 
living creatures.” Now this Saturninus was before Ba- 
silides,t who by Jerome,+ is often called “the father of the 
Gnostics ;” whereas that these men were in the apostle’s 
times, we learn, saith Tertullian,§ from the apostles them- 
selves. I have noted on 1 Cor. vii. 1, and on Col. ii, 21 
conjectured, that they were the Essenes among the Jews; 
and that with them agreed the magicians and idolaters 
among the heathens, we learn from Clemens of Alexandria, 
who speaking of those heretics, who said « the resurrection 
had passed on them already, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἀθετοῦσι τὸν γάμον, 
and therefore rejected matrimony,” he saith this was not pe- 
culiar to these Menandrians,|| “but they who worshipped 
idols did also abstain from meats and venery ; and the magi- 
cians, who worshipped angels and demons, did also carefully 
abstain from wine, from living creatures, and from venery.” 
And if Saturninus, who succeeded Menander, who flou- 
rished in the time of Domitian and Trajan, did in this, as 
in most other things, ra αὐτὰ τῷ Μενάνδρῳ ψευδολογῆσαιν 


“agree in sentiments with Menander,” as Eusebius] saith 


he did, the apostle may reasonably be conceived to include 
him: for Epiphanius saith of him in the very words of Ire- 
neus,** that}} “he affirmed that to marry, and beget chil- 


* Tov δὲ γάμον οὗτος πρῶτος τοῦ διαβόλου διδασκαλίαν ὠνόμασε, 
νομοϑετεῖ δὲ καὶ ἐμινύχων ἀπέχεσθαι. Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 3. 

+ Mortuus est autem Basilides, ἃ quo Gnostici in Alexan- 
dria, temporibus Hadriani in Agrippa. 

$ Βασιλείδης αἱρεσιάρχης "Adetavdpeds af’ od of γνωστικοΐ. 
Buseb. Chr. ad An. 134, A quo Gnostici. Hieron. 

§ Que sub apostolis fuisse ab ipsis apostolis discimus. 
De Preescr. cap. 33, 34. 

[ ᾿Αλλ᾽ of καὶ τὰ εἴδωλα σεβόμενοι βρωμάτων re ἅμα καὶ ἀφρωδι- 
σίων ἀπέχονται: ἀμέλει διὰ φροντίζος ἐστὶ καὶ τοῖς μάγοις οἴνου τε 
ὑμοῦ καὶ ἐμψύχων καὶ ἀφροδισίων ἀπέχεσθαι, λατρεύουσιν ἀγγέλοις» 
καὶ δαίμοσιν. Strom. iii. p. 446, B, C. 

4 Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 7. 

** Nubere et generare a Satand dicunt esse, multi autem 
ex iis sunt qui ab eo et ab animalibus abstinent, per fictara 
hujusmodi continentiam seducentes multos. Iren. lib. i. 
cap. 22. 

Tt Τὸ γαμεῖν δὲ καὶ τὸ γεννᾶν------ἐκ τοῦ Σατανᾶ ὑπάρχειν λέγει, 


848 


from meats, which God hath created to be received 
with thanksgiving of them which believe and know 
the truth (ἡ. e. who are instructed aright in their Chris- 
tian liberty ; for though nothing be unclean of itself, yet 
to him who through weakness esleemeth any thing unclean, 
to him it is unclean, Rom. xiv. 14), 

4 For every creature of God is good (for food), and 
nothing (15) to be refused (as polluted), if it be (Gr. 
being) received with thanksgiving : 

5 For it is7 sanctified by the word of God (giving 
us commission to eat of all things, Gen. ix. 2, 3, or by 
the gospel, taking off the difference betwixt things clean 
and unclean, Rom. xiv. 14,) and (by) prayer (for a 
blessing on it, and thanksgiving for it). 

6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these 
things (to preserve them from these impostors), thou 


I. TIMOTHY. 


shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished 
up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, where- 
unto thou hast attained (or, which thou hast followed 
hitherto). 

7 But refuse (avoid) profane and old wives’ fables, 
(such as the Jewish doctors tell, i. 4, 6, Tit. i. 14, iii. 9,) 
and exercise thyself rather (tn those things which tend, 
not as they do, to endless questions, and law-strifes, and 
the perversion of the faith, but) unto godliness, 

8 For® bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness 
is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the 
life that now is, and of that which is to come. 

9 This zs a faithful saying and worthy of all ac- 
ceptation (a truth most worlhy to be relied on, viz. 
that godliness hath the promise of that life which is to 
come). 


dren, was from Satan, and that hence many of them ab- 
stained from living creatures; and by this feigned continence 
seduced many to their heresy.’ And this is the more 
likely, because it is noted of this Menander, that he pro- 
ceeded εἰς ἄκρον τῆς payias, “to the height of that magic,” 
which was attended with that abstinence, Iren. lib. i. cap. 
21, Euseb. H. Eccl. lib. iil. cap. 26. It is no objection 
against this interpretation, that the Essenes mentioned by 


Philo and Josephus were not Christians, and so could not | 


“depart from the faith :” for who can prove that none of 
them embraced the faith of Christ, or that they could not do 
it, and yet retain their old sentiments concerning meats and 
marriage? It may be also true, that the Menandrians were 
not yet formed into a sect when this epistle was indited ; 
but that affects not my interpretation, since it is certain 
from 1 Cor. viii. 1, Col. ii. 16 (see the notes there), that 
their doctrines obtained before; and that the persons here 


intended must be Judaizers, is fairly gathered from ver. 7, | 


and from these words, “ Commanding to abstain from meats, 
which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of 
them that believe and know the truth ;” for those last words 
show, that these persons were such as had no faith, or know- 
ledge of that Christian truth, that “every creature of God 
was good (for food), and nothing was to be refused,” as pol- 
luted or unclean, ver. 4. Add to this, that Dr. Lightfoot, 
note on Acts xv. 20, quotes this passage from Bava Bathra, 
fol. 602, viz. that “when the temple was destroyed the 
second time, the pharisees (i. e. separatists) were greatly 
multiplied in Israel, who taught that it was not lawful to eat 
flesh, or to drink wine,” and a little after say, “It is but just 
that we should ordain among ourselves not to marry wives, 
nor beget children:” and if these pharisees then espoused 
these tenets, they may be the persons here noted by the 
apostle. Thus I have given my own opinion concerning 
the true and primary import of these words. Others, I 
know, conceive that they refer to the apostasy of the church 
of Rome, and therefore descant on them thus: 

Ver. 1. « But (in opposition to this mystery of godliness, 
mentioned iii. 15, 16, there is another mystery of iniquity, 
of which) the Spirit speaketh expressly (Dan. xi. 36—39, 
saying), that in the latter times some shall depart from the 


Ver. 1. Ἔν ὑστέροις, In the latter days.] That is, in the 
times of antichrist, 1 John ii. 18, Dan. ii. 44 (see Hos. iii. 
5, Micah iv. 1). 

"Arooricovrat τῆς πίστεως, Some shall depart from the faith.) 
Idolatry being represented in the Old Testament as apostasy 
from the law of Moses, and the God of Israel, the like idola- 
try in the church of Rome may well be cowsted an apostasy 
from the Christian faith. 

Προσέχοντες πνεύμασι πλάνοις, Giving heed to seducing 
spirits.] i. e. Men acted by seducing spirits; for πνεύματα 
doth often signify the impulses or afflatuses of good or evil 
spints; of good, so 1 Cor. xiv. 12, « You are zealous, mvev- 
μάτων, of spiritual gifts,” or afflatuses, and so throughout the 
chapter; of evil spirits, as 1 John iv. 1, « Believe not every 


ὅθεν καὶ of πλείους αὐτῶν ἐμψύχω;», ἀπέχονται, ὅπως διὰ τῆς 
προσπηιητῆς ῥῆϑεν πολιτείας αὐτῶν τινα ἐπαγάγωνται eis τὴν 
αὐτῶν ἱπάτην. Her, xxiii. §. 2. 


spirit, but try the spirits.” Accordingly, the coming of the 
man of sin is to be κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν rod Σατανᾶ, “according to 
the energy of Satan, with all lying wonders” (2 Thess. ii. 
9): so was the idolatrous worship of the gentiles promoted, 
say Tertullian,* Eusebius, and Chrysostom :} so also was 


| the worship of saints promoted in the church of Rome (see 


Mr. Mede, lib. ili. cap. 3, 4). 

Kai διδασκαλίαις δαιμονίων, And to doctrines of devils sJive. 
To the heathen theology concerning demons, or giving heed 
to the doctrine concerning the worship of dead men, or 
departed saints, brought in by their pretended apparitions 
and wonders wrought at their tombs after death, which were 
indeed, if at all done, wrought by the illusions of devils. 

Ver. 2. Ἔν ὑποκρίσει, Which apostasy shall be promoted.) 
By the hypocrisy of liars, which have their conscience seared. 

Through the hypocrisy, &c.] Hence it is argued, that 
they, who thus promote and carry on this apostasy, must 
not be open deserters, but hypocritical professors of that 
faith, from which they by their actions virtually depart. 

Ver. 3. Κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, Forbidding to marry.] “ (And 
the men I speak of may be discerned by these marks, that 
they are) of those who forbid to marry, and command to 
abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received 
with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the 
truth :”’ as is done in the Roman church to monks and nuns, 
(see Mr. Mede, lib. iil. cap. 7), and to the clergy ; and that, 
saith pope Siricius, quoniam qui in carne sunt, Deo placere 
non possunt, “because they that are in the flesh cannot 
please God.” 

᾿Απέχεσϑαι βρωμάτων, To abstain from meats.) That this 
is done in the Roman church, by a law obliging some orders 
of monks to abstain from all flesh, see Mr. Mede, ibid.: and 
this may well be reckoned as a character of apostasy from 
the Christian faith, because it seems to be a reducing of them 
back from their Christian liberty, to a.conformity to the 
legal rites. 

7 Ver. 5. ᾿Αγιάζεται, It ts sanctified.) So the Jews from 
these words, Ps. exxxiv. 2, “Lift up your hands (wp, ad 
sanctitatem), and bless the Lord,” gather, that the bene- 
diction is the sanctification of the meat, and that it is not 
lawful to eat of it till it be thus sanctified (Buxt. Syn. Jud. 
cap. 12, p. 241). 

8 Ver. 8. Σωματικὴ γυμνασία, Bodily exercise.] The apos- 
tle in the former verse exhorted Timothy, γυμνάζειν, to 
exercise himself unto godliness, as the athletics did, in the 
Olympic games, exercise themselves for their combats; 
adding here, that their exercises, though they were very hard 
and difficult, tended little to profit, they striving for mastery 
only that they might obtain “a corruptible crown,” 1 Cor. 
ix. 25; whereas that piety, in which he did advise him to 
exercise himself, was “ profitable for all things ;”’ or, because 
Philo makes mention τῶν συνεχῶν πόνων, “of the continual 
labours” of the Essenes,§ and Josephus,| of their ἐργασίαι, 
or “exercises morning and evening,” he perhaps may oppose 
unto them this exercise of piety. 


* Apol. cap. 21. 

+ Pref. Evang. lib. v. cap. 2. 

+ Orat. contra Judaiz. tom. vi. p. 375. 
§ De Vita Cont. p. 692, B. 

| De Bello Jud. p. 785, 786. 


CHAPTER IV. 


10 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, 
because we trust in the living God, 9 who is the Sa- 
viour of all men, specially of those that believe. 

11 These things command (Gr. exhort) and teach 
(men to believe). 

12 Let no man (have occasion to) despise ™ thy 
youth (or thy function, by reason of it); but be thou an 
example of (and to) the believers, in word (of doctrine), 
in (gravity of ) conversation, in charity (fo all), in 
(fervency of) spirit, in faith, in purity (of life). 

13 "Till I come (to thee), give attendance to read- 
ing (the holy scriptures, whence thou mayest learn to 
teach others), to exhortation (ἰο what they ought to do, 
and to avoid ), to doctrine, (leaching them what lo believe). 


849 


14 Neglect not (to stir up) the gift that is in thee, 
(see note on 2 Tim, i. 6) which was given thee by 
prophecy (according to the foregoing prophecies concerning 
thee, see note on 1 Tim. i. 18), 12 with the laying on 
of the hands of the presbytery. 

15 Meditate upon these things (which thou readest 
in the holy scriplures, and in which thou instructest others, 
ver. 15); give thyself wholly to them (to exhortation 
and doctrine, ver. 13); that (so thou mayest perform them 
with such readiness and exactness, that) thy profiting 
may appear to all. 

16 ™'Take heed unto thyself (that thou livest exem- 
plarily, ver. 12), and unto the doctrine (that it be sound 
and edifying, ver. 6); continue in them (in the exercises 


9 Ver. 10. Ὃς ἐστι σωτὴρ πάντων ἀνθρώπων, Who is the Sa- 
viour of all men.) The author of the book De Vocatione 
Gentium expounds this very well, telling us, that “ by saying 
(lib. 11. cap. 31), ‘He is the Saviour of all men,’ he con- 
firms the general goodness of God towards all men; and by 
adding, ‘especially of them that believe,’ he shows there is 
one part of mankind, which, through the benefit of divinely- 
inspired faith, is, by special benefits, advanced to the highest 
and eternal felicity.” He is the Saviour of all men, (1.) 
Leaving none of them without some testimonies of his good- 
ness (Acts xiv. 17), suflicient to engage and direct them so 
to seek the Lord, that they may find him (Acts xvii. 27), 
lib. ii. 5, Nulli nationi hominum bonitatis sum dona sub- 
traxit, saith the same author. (2.) Showing to them so 
much of himself, i. e. of his eternal power and godhead, as 
might render them inexcusable, in that they “ did not glorify 
him as God, neither were they thankful” (Rom. i. 20, 21) ; 
and writing in their hearts the law of nature, which enabled 
them by nature to do the things of the law, and made their 
consciences accuse them, when they neglected so to do; 
(Rom. ii. 14, 15), they knowing so far the righteousness of 
God, that “ they who did those things” which were contrary 
to the law of nature, “ were worthy of death” (Rom. i. 32) : 
for, adhibita est semper universis hominibus quedam superne 
mensura doctrine, que etsi occultioris, parciorisque gratie 
fuit, suffecit tamen quibusdam ad remedium, omnibus ad 
testimonium. (3.) Accepting every where him that worked 
righteousness, of what nation soever he might be (Acts x. 
35), and accounting him as circumcised who kept the right- 
eousness of the law (Rom. ii. 26): and, lastly, rewarding 
the good deeds of all that diligently sought him (Heb. xi. 6). 
Mr. Clere understands this salvation of deliverance from 
temporal dangers, in which sense it is also true; but that 
cannot be the entire sense of the apostle, who had said be- 
fore, ver. 8, that “ godliness had the promise of this life, and 
that which is to come,” i. e. both of temporal and eternal 
salvation; and adds, ver. 9, “This is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation ;” i. e. that not temporal only but 
eternal blessings are to be expected from him, and that there- 
fore they, the apostles, laboured and suffered reproach, “ be- 
cause they trusted in the living God, who is the Saviour of 
all men ;” whereas, doubtless, they did this, not only with 
respect to temporal, but especially to eternal salvation (1 
Cor. iv. 17). 

10 Ver. 12. Τὴν νεότητα, Thy youth.] The presbyters were 
generally in those times aged, as their name imports; but 
Timothy, because the gift of prophecy had pointed him out 
for that work (ver. 14), and because the gifts of the Spirit 
had rendered him fit, was made an evangelist in his younger 
age, and therefore the apostle doth exhort him to make up 
in the excellency of his doctrine, and the gravity of his con- 
versation, what was wanting in his age. 

1 Ver. 13.] Here, First, It is well noted by the fathers, 
and by Esthius, that if Timothy, who had spiritual gifts, was 
yet, by Paul, commanded to be thus diligent in reading the 
scriptures, that in his exhortations he might profit others, 
then much more should other bishops and ministers be so, 
quos omnes Paulus in Timotheo instruit; then also should 
they not depend upon extemporary effusions, without attend 
ance unto reading. 

Secondly, That the illumination or gifts of the Holy Spirit 
should not hinder our diligence in reading and studying what 
we are to exhort others to, and instruct them in: for, saith 

Vor. 1V.—107 


Theodoret, it becomes us to bring our labour, καὶ οὔτω λαμ- 
βάνειν τὴν χάριν τοῦ Πνεύματος, “ and so to receive the grace of 
the Spirit. 

2 Ver. 14. Mera ἐπιϑέσεως τῶν χειρῶν πρεσβυτερίου, With 
the imposition of the hands of the presbytery.) The χάρισμα, 
or spiritual gift here mentioned, is expressly said to be given, 
διὰ τῆς ἐπιϑέσεως τῶν χειρῶν pov, by the laying on of the 
hands of Paul, 2 Tim. i. 6; the giving of the spiritual gifts 
seeming to be peculiar to this or some other act of an apostle, 
Acts viii. 17, xix. 6. But other seniors, or presbyters, as 
Treneus, lib. iv. cap. 43, calls them, qui cum episcopatus 
successione charisma veritatis certum acceperunt, “ who 
with their succession received the certain charisma of truth,” 
might and did lay on their hands together with him. This 
ceremony of imposition of hands in ordination is confirmed 
from the practice of the apostles and apostolical men, thus 
ordaining deacons, Acts vi. 6, pastors, or teachers of the 
word, Acts xiii. 3, elders, whether bishops or presbyters, in 
every city, Acts xiv. 23, and evangelists, here. And this 
practice they certainly derived from the Jews, who created 
governors of criminal causes, or ruling elders, and masters, 
doctors, and rabbins, to be teachers of the law; 1. 6. to labour 
in the word and doctrine, by that imposition of hands which 
they called p>»np, as Moses did to Joshua, Numb. xxvii. 18, 
Deut. xxxiv. 9, and as Maimonides* saith he did when he 
assumed the Seventy to assist him; and as the first-born 
“Jaid their hands upon the Levites,’ Numb. viii. 10, who 
were chosen to serve in their stead, and so consecrated them 
to God in their name. And this way of consecration, by 
imposition of hands, say they, came down from Joshua,¢ 
“by a perpetual succession to their rabbins.” Though there- 
fore I scarce find any footsteps of it in the first century, or 
second, yet Cyprian, in the third, speaks of it as that which, 
de traditione divind et apostolic& observatione servandum 
est et tenendum, “ was to be observed and held from divine 
tradition, and apostolical observation, in the collation of the 
episcopal office,” and as that which they§ practised in the 
ordination of Sabinus to that office. Eusebius saith,|) Origen 
also was thus advanced to the presbytery by the bishops of 
Cwsarea: and the Apostolical Constitutions give us this as 
an ordinance of John the apostle,{ who, doubtless, when he 
returned from Patmos to Ephesus, regulating the churches, 
and constituting bishops, did it according to the rites of the 
Jews, and practice of the other apostles; whence I conclude, 
this is no accidental but a necessary rite of the due ordination 
of bishops, presbyters, and deacons. 

13 Ver, 16. "Επίμενε ἐν airots.] See the defence of these 
words, Examen Milli. 


* Sanhed. cap. 4. { See Chaskuni on the place. 

+ Morin. de Sacr. Ordin. par. iii. ex. 7, §. 3. 

§ Quod et apud vos factum videmus in Sabini college 
nostri ordinatione, ut de universe fraternitatis sufiragio, et 
de episcoporum qui in presentia convenerant judicio, episco- 
patus ei deferretur, et manus ei in locum Basilidis imponere- 
tur. Ed. Ox. ep. 67, p. 172. 

|] 'O ᾿Ωριγένης πρεσβυτερίου χειροϑεσίαν ἐν Ἰζαισαρεία πρὸς τῶν 
ride ἐπισκόπων ἀναλαμβάνει. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 23. 

4 Ὅπου piv ἐπισκύπους. καταστήσων, ὅπου δὲ ὅλας ἐκκλησίας 
ἁρμόσων. Evuseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 23, p. 92. Πρεσ- 
βύτερον χειροτονῶν, ὦ ἐπίσκοπε, τὴν χεῖρα ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς émeriOce 
αὐτός. Const. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 16. Vide De Diaconis, 
cap. 17. 


850 


I. TIMOTHY. 


mentioned ver. 12, 13): for in doing this thou shalt | them that hear thee (by engaging them to perform 
both save thyself (by doing faithfully thy duty), and | theirs). 


CHAPTER V. 


1! Resuxe not ? an elder (with severity), but in- 
treat him as a father; and the younger men as breth- 
ren (in respect of thy youth, iv. 12); 

2% The elder women as mothers; the younger as 
sisters, (being careful to converse with them, when neces- 
sity requires it,) with all purity (with gravity in your 
words and countenance, observance of your eyes and heart, 
αἱ times and places which can minister no suspicion of 
undue behaviour towards them). 

3 4 Honour widows that are § widows indeed. 

4 But if any widow have children or nephews, § let 
them (7. 6. those children or grand-children) learn first 
(or chiefly) to show piety at home (7. 6. fo their own 
family or household), and to requite their parents (who 


have bred them up, ver. 10): for that is good and ac- 
ceptable before God (and then, if they be able, extend 
their charity to others). 

5 Now she that is a widow indeed, and 7 desolate 
(being left quite alone, without any children to relieve her), 
5. trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and 
prayers night and day. 

6 But 9 she that liveth in pleasure (/icentiously) is 
dead (to God) while she (thus) liveth (and so is not to 
be respected as a vital member of the church, or nourished 
by her). 

7 And these things give in charge, that they (Z. e. 
the widows) may be blameless. 

8 But if any (having ability) provide not for his own 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 1. Μὴ ἐπιπλήξης, Rebuke not.] The word signifies 
to chastise, or rebuke with severity, and sometimes with 
stripes. 

2 Πρεσβυτέρω, An elder.] In the judgment of Chrysostom, 
Theodoret, Gicumenius, and Theophylact, the “ elder” here 
signifies, οὐ τὸν ἱερέα, ἀλλὰ τὸν γεγηρακότα, “not a priest, but 
a grave ancient man,” such being, in all ages and nations, 
styled fathers ; and this sense the distinction here, of ages 
and of sexes, seems to plead for. 

3 Ver. 2. Πρεσβυτέρας, The elder women.] “The widows 
of the church,” saith Dr. Hammond, very improbably ; 
they being mentioned particularly in the sequel of the 
chapter. 

4 Ver. 3. Τίμα, Honour.] i. e. Yield them reverence 
and alimony; for that provision for them is included in this 
“honour,” is evident from ver. 4 and 8. ‘Thus, not to give 
parents what is needful for them, is to transgress the precept 
which commands us to “honour our father and our mo- 
ther,” Mark vii. 1O—12. So Acts xxviii. 10, πολλαῖς τιμαῖς 
ἐτίμησαν ἡμᾶς, “They honoured us with many honours, 
giving us, τὰ πρὸς τὴν χρείαν, such things as were necessary,” 
Hence, in the Jerusalem Targum,* Honorare, est viaticum 
providere; “To honour is to make provision for any per- 
son:” so here, “ Honour widows ;” that is, saith Theophy- 
lact, τὰ ἀναγκαῖα χορήγει, “ provide them necessaries” (see 
note on Mark vii. 2). 

5 Τὰς ὄντως χήρας, That are widows indeed.| Answering 
that name, by being χηροῦσαι, “desolate,” and destitute of 
any other to relieve them, and being also exemplarily pious 
(ver. 5). “ Widows,” saith Cotelerius, hath divers signifi- 
cations ; it signifies, (1.) Any woman that survives her hus- 
band. (2.) Poor women, who, after the death of their hus- 
bands, need the alms of the church (as here). (3.) Such 
as consecrated themselves to God, professing perpetual 
widowhood (ver. 5). (4.) Such as were chose into the 
ecclesiastical ministry, or made deaconesses (ver. 9). That 
there should be any ἀειπαρϑένοι, or persons that were always 
virgins, called, τὰς mapSévous, τὰς λεγομένας χήρας, widows ; 
though the passage of Ignatius, according to Vossius’s read- 
ing, seems to make for it; yet, according to the reading of 
Bishop Usher (dewapSévovs καὶ χήρας), it makes against it; 
and virgo vidua, “a virgin widow,” that is admitted to the 
degree of a deaconess, is, in Tertullian’s language,t a mira- 
cle or monster in the church. Itis certain, such a one could 
be none of the apostle’s widows here ; for he supposeth his 
widows may have children, ver. 4, and expressly forbids 
any to be chosen into the number of widows, that hath not 
nourished or brought up children, ver. 9, 10; aud it is not 
reasonable to conceive the church of Smyrna should so 


* In Deut. xv. 14. : 
+ Ne tale nunc miraculum, ne dixerim monstrum, in 
ecclesid denotaretur virgo vidua. De Virgin. Veland. cap. 9. 


soon transgress against this rule of the apostle, or that this 
famous martyr should approve such a violation of the apos- 
tle’s precept. 

Note also, That the reading of Bishop Usher is confirmed 
from the like words, ἡ παρϑένος, καὶ ἡ χῆρα, found in the 
Apostolical Constitutions, lib. iil. cap. 6. 

ὃ Ver. 4. MavSavérwoav πρῶτον τὸν ἴδιον οἶκον εὐσεβεῖν, Let 
them learn first to show piety αἱ home.| The apostle here 
speaks of the care the children should take to nourish their 
parents, which are widows, πρῶτον, before they suffer them 
to be burdensome to the church, as it is evident from ver. 
16, which saith, “If any man or woman have widows (be- 
longing to their families), let them relieve them, and let not 
the church be charged with them;” and also from the fol- 
lowing words here, “and to requite their parents,” which 
only can belong unto the children, and was always reckoned 
an act of piety towards them,* “as, after God, the authors 
of our being ;’ whence anciently they were so reverenced, 
saith Simplicius,} “as to be called gods.” 

7 Ver. 5. Μεμονωμένη, Solitary.| So Philo saith, the 
widow efthe priest, which hath no children, must return to 
her father’s house, as dvdpds καὶ παίδων ἔρημος, οὐδεμίαν ἔχουσα 
καταφυγὴν, “having no other refuge, when destitute of hus- 
band and children, but her father ;” but if she have sons, or 
daughters, it is necessary that the mother should be placed 
with her children, υἱοὶ καὶ Suyartpes τῆς τοῦ γεννήσαντος οἰκίας 
dvres,t “for sons and daughters, being of the house of their 
parents, draw the mother to it:” whence also we learn, 
what it is to “show pity to their own house,” ver. 4, viz. to 
do it to their parents. 

8 Ἤλπικεν ἐπὶ τὸν Θεὸν, Trustelh in God.] i. 6. Having no 
other helper, she reposeth herself on him alone, committing 
herself to him, by constant prayer, for his help. This is 
Cotelerius’s third kind of widows, compared, by the author 
of the Apostolical Constitutions, lib. ili. cap. 1, to the widow 
of Sarepta, and to Anna the daughter of Phanuel, mentioned 
Luke ii. 36, who does not oblige herself, by vow or promise 
so to do, but only remains single, capov ἔχουσα χηρείας, “as 
having the gift of widowhood.” So Jerome describes those 
widows in these words, Honora viduas, que veré vidue 
sunt, hoc est, que omni suorum auxilio destitute sunt, que 
manibus suis laborare non possunt, quas paupertas debilitat, 
wtasque conficit, quibus Deus spes est, et omne opus oratio 
(Ep. ad Gerontiam). 

9 Ver. 6. Ἢ δὲ σπαταλῶσα, She that liveth in pleasure.) 
This word properly signifies to feed deliciously, and drink 
choice liquors; τῇ γαστρὶ ζῆν μόνη, “to live only for the 


* Χρὴ οὖν ἐπιμελεῖσθαι παντοίως αὐτοῦ, ὅτι αἴτιος ἡμῖν, κατὰ 
εὸν, τοῦ εἶναι γέγονε, καὶ ὅτι διὰ τὰς ἐπεμελείας αὐτοῦ καὶ συμ- 
παθείας ἐτράφημεν. 

ἡ Οἱ dé ἔτι παλαίοτεροι τοσοῦτον τοὺς γόνεας ἐσέφϑησαν, ὡς καὶ 
Θεοὺς αὐτοὺς ὁρμῆσαι καλεῖν. Simpl. in Epict. cap. 37, p. 178, 
179. 

+ Lib. ii. de Mon. p. 641, in fine. 


CHAPTER V. 


kindred), and specially for those of his own house, 
he hath (in works) denied the faith, and is ® worse 
than an infidel. 

9 ™ Let not a widow be taken into the number (of 
widows to be maintained by the church) under ™ three- 
score years old, having been the wife ™ of one man 
(not one that hath divorced herself from one husband, and 
married again, 
belly,” saith Chrysostom. So Ezek. xvi. 49, “This was the 
sin of thy sister Sodom, in pride, in fullness of bread, καὶ ἐν 
et3nvia ἑἱσπωτάλων, and in abundance, she and her daughters 
rioted ;” Amos vi. 4, “They lie upon beds of ivory, καὶ 
κατασπαταλῶντες, and, abounding with superfluities, they eat 
lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the 
stall:’’ and because such eating and drinking provoke to 
carnal pleasures, it is joined with them; as when the apostle 
saith, “ Ye have lived in pleasure and been wanton,” Gr. 
ἐσπαταλήσατε, James v.5. Such a woman “is dead while 
she liveth,” according to that of the Jews,* «The just in 
their death are styled living; the wicked, whilst they live, 
are styled dead” (Maimonides). 

10 Ver. 8. Ἔστιν ἀπίστου χείρων, He is worse than an infi- 
del.) For they put this among the first and most indisso- 
luble principles of nature, requiring us, πρῶτα θεοὺς τιμᾷν, 
μετέπειτα τοκῆας, “first to honour the gods and then our 
parents ;” placing among the things in which they are to 
be honoured, χρημάτων χορηγίαν καὶ σώματος ὑπηρεσίαν, * the 
making provision for them, and serving them with our 
bodies.” So Aristotle¢ saith, “ We must rather make pro- 
vision for them than for ourselves, and yield them, τιμὴν 
καϑάπερ θεοῖς, honour, as they do unto the gods.” Plu- 
tarch§ saith, that ‘all men, though some may think other- 
wise, say, that nature, and the law of nature, require, that 
parents should have the highest honour next the gods; that 
men can do nothing more acceptable to the gods, than by 
readily heaping favours upon their parents, and that nothing 
is a greater evidence of atheism or impiety, than to despise 
them.” Some here are guilty of a great mistake, scraping 
together great fortunes, and hoarding them up for their 
children, with a scandalous neglect of that charity to their 
Christian brethren, which alone can sanctify those enjoy- 
ments to them, and enable them to “lay up a good founda- 
tion against the time to come;” pleading these words to 
justify, or to excuse their sordid parsimony, and want of 
charity, that “he that provideth not for his own household, 
hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel ;”’ whereas 
these words plainly respect the provision which children 
should make for their parents, and not that which parents 
should make for their children. 

ors the defence of the text, ver. 16 and 19, Examen Milli, 
ibid. 

Ver. 9. Χήρα καταλεγέσϑω μὴ, Let not a widow be taken 
into the number.| The apostle now comes to speak of such 
widows as were not only to be maintained by the church 
(for they were doubtless to receive her alms, if really they 
were poor, without these qualifications), but of such as were 
to be admitted into the number of deaconesses, whose office 
it was to instruct the younger women, to attend the women 
when sick and in labour, and to assist at the baptism of the 
female sex. 

12 Μὴ ἔλαττον ἑξήκοντα, Not less than sixty years old.} It 
is the mistake of Zonaras, Balsamon, and Blastares, to think 
to reconcile this with the fifteenth canon of the council of 
Chalcedon, and the fourteenth of Trullo, by saying, That 
widows might only be admitted deaconesses at sixty, but 
virgins at forty. This last was done in after-ages, and after 
that Apostolical Constitution, which, agreeably to Paul, 


* More Nev. lib. i. cap. 14. 
Hieroc. in hee verba Pythag. 

+ De Mor. lib. ix. cap. 2. 

§ Πάντες λέγουσι γοῦν, ὡς γονεῦσι τιμὴν μετὰ θεοὺς πρώτην καὶ 
μεγίστην ἥτε φῦσις, 6 τε τὴν φῦσιν σώζων νόμος ἀπέδωκε" καὶ οὐκ 
ἔστιν ὅτι ἄνθρωποι μᾶλλον κεχαρίσμένον θεοῖς ὁρῶσιν, i) τοκεῦσιν 
τὐτῶν, καὶ τροφεῦσι, παλαίαις ἐπὶ νέας δανεισθείσας χάριτας εὐμενῶς 
καὶ προθύμως ἐκτίνοντες" οὐ δ᾽ αὖ πάλιν μείζων ἐπίδειξις ἀθέου γέγονε 
τῆς περὶ γονεῖς ὀλιγωρίας καὶ πλημμελείας. De Fraterno Amore, 

᾿ς Ρ. 479, E, ¥ 


τοῦς TE γονεῖς τίμα. 


851 


10 Being also)Well reported of for good works ; " if 
(ci, thal) she have brought up children, if (that) she 
have lodged strangers, if she fats washed the saints’ 
feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have dili- 
gently followed every good work. 

11 But the younger widows refuse: for when they 
have begun to © wax wanton against (or, grow weary 
of ) Christ, they will marry ; 


saith, lib. iii. cap. 1, χήρας δὲ καϑιστᾶτε μὴ ἔλαττον ἐτῶν ἑξήκοντα, 
“Let not the widows be constituted under sixty years ;” and 
they who first began to alter the time, did at last take away 
the office. 

13 Peyovuta ἑνὸς dvdpds γυνὴ, Being the wife of one husband.] 
i. ὁ. One who had not divorced herself from one, and mar- 
ried another husband; for otherwise, the younger widows, 
whom Paul bids to marry, could never be admitted deacon- 
esses, though they had all the other qualifications. ‘That 
such divorces were then common on the wife’s side both 
among Jews and gentiles, we learn, concerning the Romans, 
from the complaint of Seneca,* that “none in his time 
blushed at it, thetr noble women marrying that they might 
divorce themselves, and there being scarce any marriages 
without divorces.” Ciceroft complains of many things of 
this kind, which happened in his time. Plutarch} men- 
tions it as a thing common, and customarily done by any 
women that were jealous; and the law among the Athenians§ 
allowed it: instances we have of it in Justin Martyr] and 
Tertullian.§ And that this also was frequent in the practice 
of the Jews, and allowed by their rabbins, see note on 1 Cor. 
vii. 11. I confess that wnivira, the wife of one husband, in 
Livy, lib. x. cap. 23, is one, que uni viro nupta fuisset, ad 
quem virgo deducta sit, who from her virginity had been 
married only to one man; and that univira sacerdos bears 
the same sense in Trebellius Pollio, c. de Tito, p. 795, and 
that this monogamy was counted honourable, even among 
the heathens; and they who were content with it, wore pu- 
dicitis coronam, “the crown of chastity” (Val. Max. lib. 11. 
cap. 1); whereas they who proceeded to a second marriage, 
sacerdotio arcebantur, “ were thought unworthy of the priest 
hood,” as Servius notes upon those words of Virgil (in. 
iv. 19), Huic uni forsan potui succumbere culpe: and the 
flamines, among the Romans, were to be the “husbands of 
one wife,” and the flaminice, the “wives of one husband” 
(Rhodig. Lect. Antig. lib. xxviii. cap. 22). That therefore 
the sacred ministers in the church of Christ might be no- 
thing inferior to those of heathens, the apostle may require 
that, in this sense, the bishop should be the “husband of 
one wife,” and the deaconess the “ wife of one husband.” 

M Ver. 10. Ei ἐτεκνοτρύφησεν, If she hath brought up child- 
ren.] That εἰ signifies that, as well as if, see note on Acts 
XXVi. 23, Ei παϑητὸς 6 Χριστὸς, εἰ πρῶτος, &e., «That Christ 
hath suffered,’ and “that he was the first that rose from the 
dead ;” and that so it should be rendered here, the word 
μαρτυρουμένη, “ testified,” seems to require: for a testimony 
of the good works of others is, that they have done such 
and such laudable actions. 

15 Ver. 11. Ὅταν καταστρηνιάσωσι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, When they 


* Desinit esse probri loco commune maledictum. Nun- 
quid jam ulla repudio erubescit, postquam illustres quedam 
ac nobiles feemine non consulum numero sed maritorum 
annos computant, et exeunt matrimonii causa, nubunt repu- 
αἰ Tamdit istud timebatur, quamdiu rarum erat; quia 
ver6 nulla sine divortio acta sunt, quod sepé audiebant, id 
facere didicerunt. De Benef. lib. iii. cap. 16. 

+ Paula, Valeria, soror Triarii, divortium sine causa, quo 
die vir ὃ provincia venturus erat, fecit, nuptura est D. Bruto 
multa in hoc genere incredibilia, te absente, acciderunt. 
Cic. Epist. Famil. lib. viii. ep. 7. 

+ Τυνὴ τοίνυν διὰ ζηλοτυπίαν ἀπόλειψιν γράφουσα. De Precept. 
Conjug. p. 144, A. 

§ ᾿Εδεῖτο τῆς ἀπολείψεως γράμματα παρὰ τῷ ἄρχοντι θέσϑαι, μὴ 
δι᾿ ἑτέρων, ἀλλ' αὐτὴν παροῦσαν, ὡς οὖν παρῆν τοῦτο πράζουσα κατὰ 
τὸν νύμον, loquens de uxore Alcibiadis. Plut. de Alcib. p. 195. 

|| Ubi mulier Christiana viro τὸ λεγόμενον παρ᾽ ὑμῖν pexovdiov 
δοῦσα, ἐχωρίσϑη. Apol. i. p. 42, B. 

« Repudium vero in feeminis jam et votum est quasi ma 
trimonii fructus. Apol. cap. 16. 


809 


12 Having damnation, because they have cast off 
their first faith. 

13 And withal they learn to be idle, wandering 
about from house to house; and not only idle, but 
tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which 
they ought not, 

14 I will therefore that the younger women (rather) 
marry, bear children, guide the house, (and so) give 
none occasion to the adversary (of Christianity) to 
speak reproachfully (of 7. 

15 The necessity of which precept is too great,) For 
some (of these young widows) are already 16 turned aside 
after Satan. 

16 If any man or woman that believeth have wi- 
dows (belonging to their family), let them relieve them, 
and let not the church be charged (with them); that 


*.. 


T. TIMOTHY. 


(being free from that charge) it may (the better be able to) 
relieve them that are widows indeed (/hat is, are wholly 
destitute of help, ver. 5). 

17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy 
of 7 double honour (i. e. of a more liberal maintenance), 
18 especially they who labour in the word and doc- 
trine. 

18 19 For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle 
the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer 
zs worthy of his reward. 

19 Ὁ Against an elder receive not an accusation, 
but before (é2i, upon the testimony of ) two or three 
witnesses. 

20 5: Them that sin rebuke before all, that others 
also may fear. 

21 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus 


have waxed wanton against Christ.] That is, say Chrysos- 
tom and C8cumenius, ὅταν ἀκκισϑῶσιν, “when they have cast 
off or fastidiously refused and rejected Christ ; ὅταν καπα- 
βλακευσϑῶσιν, when they have contemned, and made light 
of him; when they do βαρέως φέρειν, καὶ ἀποσπᾶν τὰς ἡνίας, 
bear Christ’s yoke grievously, and cast off his reins:” so 
Hesychius and Phavorinus. So that this phrase signifies to 
east off Christ and Christianity, and, as the apostle after- 
ward explains it, ἐκτρέπεσθαι, “to turn from him after 
Satan,” or to fall off from him to heathenism or Judaism ; 
and then, πρώτην πίστιν aSerciv, “to violate their first 
faith,” cannot be to violate the promise made, when chosen 
into the order of widows, not to marry, but their faith given 
unto Christ at baptism ; the other, if any such promise were 
then made, being not their first, but second faith. So 
Chrysostom and Gicumenius expound it, from those words 
of the apostle to the Corinthians; “TI have espoused you to 
one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin 
unto Christ.” 

16 Ver. 15. ᾿Εζετράπησαν ὀπίσω τοῦ Σατανᾶ, Have turned 
aside after Satan.) The converting men to the Christian 
faith, being the turning men “from the power of Satan unto 
God” (Acts xxvi. 18); the “rescuing men from the snare 
of the devil, who were taken captive by him at his will” 
(2 Tim. ii, 26), and who “ walked according to the prince of 
the power of the air” (Eph. ii. 2); the casting off the faith 
may well be styled, the “turning aside after Satan.” 

1 Ver. 17. Διπλῆς τιμῆς, Double honour.] That is, τῆς 
ἐλευϑερίου τροφῆς, “of a liberal maintenance” out of the pub- 
lic stock; it signifies, saith Chrysostom, τὴν τῶν ἀναγκαίων 
χορηγίαν, “ provision of things necessary,” as is evident from 
the reason following, ver. 18, « ‘he labourer is worthy of his 
hire.” 

18 Μάλιστα of κοπιῶντες ἐν λόγῳ καὶ διδασκαλίᾳ, Especially 
those who labour in the word and doctrine.] Οἱ πρεσβύτεροι, 
the elders among the Jews were of two sorts: first, such as 
governed in the synagogue; and, secondly, such as minis- 
‘tered in reading and expounding their scriptures and tradi- 
tions, and from them pronouncing what did bind or loose, 
or what was forbidden, and what was lawful to be done :* 
for when, partly by their captivity, and partly through in- 
erease and traffic, they were dispersed in considerable bodies 
through divers regions of the world, it was necessary they 
should have governors or magistrates to keep them in their 
duty, and judge of criminal causes, and also rabbins to teach 
them the law, and the traditions of their fathers, the first 
were ordained, ab judicandum, sed non ad docendum de 
licitis et vetitis, “to judge and govern, but not to teach;” 
the second, ad docendum, sed non ad judicandum, “to teach, 
but not to judge or govern:” and these the apostle here de- 
clares to be the most honourable, and worthy of the chiefest 
reward: accordingly the apostle, reckoning up the offices 
God hath appointed in the church, places “ teachers” before 
“governments,” 1 Cor. xii. 28. 

19 Ver. 18. Λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφὴ, For the scripture saith.] 
"Lhe former words, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that 
treadeth out the corn,” being expressly found in Deut. xxv. 


* Morin. de Ordin. par. iii, exer. 7, cap. 4. Buxt. in voce, 
naynp- 


4, and the latter, expressly in the Gospel of Luke, x. 7, and 
with a little variation, Matt. x. 10, and in no other place in 
scripture (for in Lev, xix. 13, and Deut. xxiv. 14, there is 
nothing to this purpose), it follows, that Paul must here 
reckon the gospel of Luke among the holy scriptures; from 
which such doctrines, as he is now teaching, may be infal- 
libly confirmed. Note, 

Secondly, That the apostle, both here and 1 Cor. ix. 9, 
proves this from what was written in the law of Moses, ap- 
plying in both places that which primarily must belong to the 
Jewish priesthood, to the preachers of the gospel ; and hence 
allowing us to argue for the maintenance of the latter, by 
analogy to what was appointed for the former; as the apostle 
himself doth in this very case, in these words, « Do you not 
know, that they who minister about (legally) holy things, 
eat of the things of the temple ; and that they which wait at 
the altar, are partakers with the altar?” i.e. are fed and 
liberally maintained, by the portions God allowed them of 
what was offered at his altar; “even so hath the Lord 
Christ appointed, that they who preach the gospel should 
live of the gospel,” 1 Cor. ix. 14. Whence note, 

Thirdly, That this is a standing ordinance of Christ, to 
continue as long as the preaching of the gospel doth, built 
upon reasons of equal obligations at all times; the labourer 
being always worthy of his hire; the shepherd to eat of the 
milk of the flock, and he that soweth spirituals, to reap car- 
nals, 1 Cor. ii. 7. 10, 11. Note, 

Fourthly, From whom this reward is to be received ; from 
them amongst whom these pastors labour, to whom they sow 
spiritual things, and who are taught by them: for, “ Let 
him,” saith the apostle, “ who is taught in the word commu- 
nicate to him that teacheth in all good things,” Gal. vi. 6. 
So that he is to have a supply of all things needful for the 
discharge of his function here, double honour, i. e. a liberal 
maintenance. Note, 

Fifthly, That as the command of being charitable to the 
poor, gives just occasion to those laws which are made in all 
communities to oblige men, according to their abilities, to 
distribute to the necessities of the poor; because, otherwise, 
the general rules of scripture would not be obeyed, nor the 
poor provided for: so the standing ordinance of Christ and 
his apostles, concerning the “double honour” due to them 
who “Jabour in the word and doctrine,” and the “ commu- 
nicating to them in all good things,” justifies these laws 
which ascertain what shall be communicated to them; since 
otherwise, it is much to be feared, the general rules of scrip- 
ture concerning this matter would not be obeyed, nor the 
clergy sufliciently provided for. 

2% Ver. 19. Κατὰ πρεσβυτέρου.] The “elder” here seems 
to relate not to one who was such by age, but by office, be- 
cause the apostle was before speaking, ver. 17, of “elders 
which rule well,” or “laboured in the word and doctrine -” 
and whereas the law had taken care that no man should Le 
condemned, but “ by the mouth of two or three witnesses,” 
the apostle, knowing how much the church would suffer by 
the rash accusations of her governors, bishops, and presb*r 
ters, seems to rise higher, not suffering an accusation to be 
admitted against them, without the like number of wit- 
nesses. 

21 Ver. 20. Τοὺς ἁμαρτάνοντας, i. 6. Them that sin] 


CHAPTER VI. 


Christ (whom thou servest, and by whose authority thou 
aclest in this ministry), and 33 the elect angels (who are 
inspectors and observers of what is done in the churches, 
1 Cor. xi. 10), that thou observe these things without 
preferring one before another (out of favour lo their per- 
sons), doing nothing by partiality. 

22 8 Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be 
partaker of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure (from 
them). 

23 51: Drink no longer water (only), but use a little 
wine (together with it) for thy stomach’s sake and 
(for) thine often infirmities. 

24 (And, to preserve thee from mistake, or rash proceed- 
ing, eilher in ordinations, ver. 22, or in rebuking the 


853 


scandalous offender, consider, that) Some men’s sins are 
open (and discernible) beforehand (#. 6. before any wit- 
nesses are come in against them), going efore to (or, 
for) judgment (or, to bring the censures of the church 
upon them); and (in) some men they follow after (7. e. 
their evil dispositions appear afterward). 

25 % Likewise also the good works of some are 
manifest beforehand (and so less examination is need- 
ful concerning them) ; and they that (i. e. whose works) 
are otherwise cannot be (long) hid (their vices will, by 
information of others they converse with, or by tempta- 
lion, and their own evil inclinations, be at last disco- 
vered ). 


Grievously and scandalously, and are convinced of their 
offences before two or three witnesses, were to be rebuked, 
saith Theodoret, πάντων παρόντων, “in the presence of all;” 
such public censures being, according to the custom of the 
church, done by the presidents or rulers of the church, ὑπὸ 
πλειόνων, “ before and with the consent of all,’ as Tertullian* 
saith (see note on 2 Cor. ii. 6). 

22 Ver, 21. And our Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect an- 
gels.) He joins the angels with Jesus Christ, saith Theodoret, 
οὐχ ὡς ὁμοτίμους, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς δούλους, “not as equal in honour, but 
as servants to him,” and those who are to attend him at the 
great day of judgment. 

3 Ver. 22. Χεῖρας ταχέως μηδενὶ ἐπιτίϑει, Lay hands sud- 
denly on no man.) 'This, saith the reverend Dr. Hammond, 
belongs to “the laying on of the bishop’s hand in absolving 
penitents :” saith the reverend Bishop of Worcester, to “the 
laying of hands on bishops, priests, and deacons;” (1.) 
Because Paul had not mentioned laying on of hands in re- 
lation to penitents in this epistle, but he had done it with 
respect to ordination, and that in Timothy’s own case, iv. 
14, (2.) Because the apostle, in this epistle, gives no rules 
concerning the qualifications of penitents, saying nothing 
what penitents were to be reconciled, and after what time, 
and under what conditions they were to have hands laid on 
them, in token of reconciliation; nor is there a concurrent 
evidence of such a practice so early in the church; but he 
had given rules touching bishops and deacons, and their 
qualifications ; and therefore we have more cause to apply it 
according to the chief intention and design of this epistle. 
) Because the great use of laying on of hands, in the New 
Testament, is for the setting persons apart for the discharge 
of a sacred office; so it was in the first institution of deacons, 
Acts vi. 6, and of Paul and Barnabas to a particular charge, 
Acts xiii. 2, 3. This was an ancient ceremony among the 

@Jews, in the solemn designation of persons to sacred offices, 
Numb. xxvii. 18, 23, Deut. xxxiv. 9, either to be rulers or 
teachers in their synagogues; and from thence it was 
brought into the church, in the solemn designation of persons 
to the ministry. And, (4.) if these words do not relate to 
ordination, Paul would have given Timothy no particular 
direction about that which was one main part of his office; 
wherefore, as he left Titus at Crete, to “ordain elders in 
every city ;” so, doubtless, Timothy had the same commis- 
sion, which yet is nowhere intimated but in these words. 
And, according to this sense, the following words are 
capable of a very good meaning, thus; Be not partaker of 
the sins of them, who rashly, and without due qualifications, 


rush upon sacred offices; for by want of due examination, 
and trial of them, thou wilt become partaker of their guilt. 

24 Ver. 23.] So Justin Martyr* saith, that wine is to be 
used “for the help of the body, and the cure of inward dis- 
tempers.” And Platot saith it was given for the health 
and strength of the body. The Essenes abstained wholly 
from wine (see note on Col. ii. 21), but the Gnostics 
freely used it, when they went to the heathen feasts, and 
otherwise. 

25 Ver. 25.] I find three expositions of these words: the 
first is that of Basil and Austin, which refers them to the 
judgment of God, thus: The good and evil works of some 
men are so manifest, that they may be discerned of all men 
before the day of judgment, and so, in discerning them, thou 
canst not err; but if they be latent here, and so escape thy 
examination and censure, they will be manifested at the 
great day of their accounts. 

2. Others, referring this to the censures of the church, 
the ἐπιτιμία, mentioned ver. 20, make the sense run thus: 
Some men’s sins are so open and notorious, as to bring 
them under the censures of the church, by way of precedent 
merit; others appear more criminal after the censures 
passed upon them, and so less fit to be absolved ; and some 
men’s reformation, or good works, are so manifest after 
censure, as to evidence they deserve absolution; and if 
they continue evil, or do but few good works, that also will 
be in time discernible: so that thou mayest know who are 
fit to be absolved, who not. But against this exposition 
there lies this objection, That no man should incur the cen- 
sures of the church, but by way of precedent merit; and so 
no man’s evil works, for which he is to be censured, should 
follow after that act of discipline: and, secondly, the last 
clause of the last verse seems, by the antithesis, to refer not 
to evil, but to good works, though done as the works of 
charity ought to be, so as not to be observed by men. 

3. The ancient Greek expositors, with Grotius, refer these 
words to ordination, thus: When I said, « Lay hands sud- 
denly on no man,” I spake not of men whose good or bad 
works are manifest beforehand; for they, without farther 
discussion or examination, may be admitted, or are to be 
rejected : but of those whose vices or good works are latent; 
for they, after examination and inquiry, cannot be long hid: 
and so, if thou be not hasty in laying on of hands, thou 
timely mayest discover them; or if by this means thou canst 
not do it, thou wilt not be partaker with the sinner, as 
having done as much as was in thy power to discover 
them. 


* Summum futuri judicii prejudicium est, si quis ita de- 
liquerit ut ἃ communione orationis, et conventtis, et omnis 
sancti commercii relegetur; president probati quique seni- 
ores. Tertul. Apol. cap. 39. 4 


* BonSeias χάριν τοῦ σώματος, καὶ διὰ τὴν τῶν ἐντὸς θεραπείαν, 
Ep. ad Zen. p. 512, A. 
Σώματος dé εὐγιείας, καὶ ἴσχυος ἕνεκα. De Leg. p. 800, D. 
+ Iren. lib. i. p. 26, Ὁ. Epiph. Her. xxvi. §. 5. 


CHAPTER VI. . 


1 Ler as many servants as are under the yoke (of 
bondage to the heathens) count their own masters wor- 
thy of all (due) honour, that the name of God and his 
doctrine be not blasphemed (or evil spoken of, as tend- 


ing to dissolve those civil obligations, but rather honoured in 
all estates of men, as tending to make them betler in their 
several relations, Tit. ii. 10, and more subject even to hard 
and froward masters, 1 ile 18). 

3 


854 


® 


I. TIMOTHY. 


2 And they that have believing masters, let them | destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godli- 


not despise them, because they are (advanced to be) 
brethren (and so equal to them in Christ); but rather 
(let them) do them service, because they are faithful 
(of the household of faith) and beloved (of God), 
1 partakers of the benefit. ‘These things teach and ex- 
hort. 

3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to 
wholesome words, 2 even the words of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, (Matt. xx. 27, He that would be first among 
you, let him be your servant; or, servant of all, Mark 
x. 44,) and to the doctrine which is according to god- 
liness ; 

4 He is proud (Gr. puffed up), knowing nothing, but 
doting (séek) about questions and strifes of words, 
whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 

5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and 


ness: 5 from such withdraw thyself. 

6 But (whatsvever they esteem so, we know thal) god- 
liness with (¢hat) 4 contentment (which atlends it) is 
great gain. 

7 (1 say, with contentment, which it becometh us to 
have ;)For we brought nothing into this world, and it is 
certain we can carry nothing out (of 1). 

8 And having (ἔχοντες δὲν having therefore) food and 
raiment let us be therewith content. 

9 But (for) they 5 that will be rich fall into tempta- 
tion and a snare, and info many foolish and hurtful 
lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 

10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: 
which while some coveted after, they have erred from 
the faith, and pierced themselves through with many 
sorrows. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


1 Ver. 2. Οἱ τῆς εὐεργεσίας ἀντιλαμβανόμενοι. These words, 
being not connected to the preceding by καὶ, and the article 
οἱ showing that they relate not to the predicate, but to the 
subject, will be best rendered thus; “Because they who 
partake of the benefit of the service are faithful and be- 
loved ;” and therefore more worthy of their service, the more 
they are honoured of God, and of the number of them whom 
we stand bound to serve in love. 

That the Gnostics taught any such doctrine, that Christian 
servants were not obliged to obey their heathen or their 
Christian masters, there is not the least hint in any of the 
commentators on this place, or in any of the fathers, who 
have given us the largest account of their doctrines: I find, 
in the epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp, these words,* “ De- 
spise not men and maid-servants, nor let them be puffed up: 
but let them serve the more for the glory of God, that they 
may obtain a better liberty; let them not covet to be free 
from their masters :” but neither doth the martyr, nor any 
of his commentators, intimate that this relates to any doc- 
trine of the Gnostics ; and considering how much he endea- 
voured to imitate Paul, we may more probably conjecture it 
hath relation to this very place: moreover, though I have 
given you the words as Dr. Hammond translates them, yet 
I think the true meaning of these words, μὴ ἐράτωσαν ἀπὸ 
τοῦ κοινοῦ ἐλευϑεροῦσϑαι, is this, “ Let them not be importu- 
nate to be delivered, and made free by the church, or by 
her common stock ;” for τὸ κοινὸν signifies “ the community ;” 
and so, τὸ κοινὸν τῆς ἐκκλησίας, in Eusebius,t is “ the commu- 
nity, or body of the church ;” and also in Lucian,+ where 
he speaks of the Christians; and τὰ κοινὰ in Aristophanes, 
Demosthenes, and Lucian, signifies the common stock : now 
it is evident from Justin Martyr and Tertullian, that the 
common stock of Christians was employed to buy their 
brethren out of bonds and servitude (see note on 1 Cor. vii. 
23, and Lucian, de Pereg. ed. Gr. p. 594, 595). 

But that many of the Jews were of this opinion, and 
might be apt to introduce it into Christianity, we find just 
reason to believe: for they thought themselves privileged, 
by their relation to God, from being the servants of men: 
some of them, saith Josephus, thought it a wicked thing, 
pera τὸν Θεὸν φέρειν θνητοὺς δεσπότας, “to own, besides God, 
any mortal lords or masters.” ‘Their rabbins thought it un- 
becoming any Jew to be a bond-slave to a heathen or idola- 
ter; for that was, say they, to be servi servorum, “servants 
of servants,” which the servants of the Lord must not be 
(see Dr. Lightfoot on 1 Cor. vii. 23). 

2 Ver. 3. Αὔγοις τοῖς τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν, The words of our 
Lord Jesus.| This phrase being often used of the very words 
which Christ spake, as Matt. xxvi. 75, Acts x. 16. 20. 35, I 
thought fit to refer it to those words which might most like- 


* Δούλους κα δοῦλας μὴ ὑπερηφάνει, ἀλλὰ μηδὲ αὐτοὶ φυσιούσϑωσαν, 
ἀλλὰ εἰς δόξαν Θεοῦ πλέον ὁουλευέτωσαν, ἵνα κρείττονος ἐλευθερίας 
ἀπὸ Θεοῦ τύχωσιν" μὴ ἐράτωσαν ἀπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ ἐλευϑεροῦσθαι. 8. 4. 
See Coteler. in locum. 

} Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 1. ‘Yrnpecias ἕνεκα τοῦ κοινοῦ. 

+ Christiani mittebant Peregrino ἀπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ. ‘Lucian, 


ly be aimed at by the apostle; though seeing they also may 
refer to the doctrine of Christ, preached by the apostle, this 
phrase being so used, Acts xix. 10, and the doctrine of the 
Lord very often, 1 Thess. i. 8, 2 ‘Thess. iii. 1, in this sense it 
affords this useful observation, That the words written by 
Paul in these epistles are the words of the Lord Jesus. 

3 Ver. 5. ᾿Αφίστασο ἀπὸ τῶν τοιούτων, From such withdraw 
thyself.| From these words it is plain that the apostle 
speaketh here of persons then in being; that they were 
Jews, seems evident from the foregoing note, showing, that 
they were in this matter, ἑτεροδιδάσκαλοι, “men that taught 
otherwise ;” that these νομοῤιδάσκαλοι were men knowing no- 
thing, or not knowing what they said, or whereof they affirm- 
ed, see 1 Tim. i. 9, that they did ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖν, “teach 
otherwise” than the doctrine which is after godliness, ver. 3; 
that they had their fables which ministered ζητήσεις, “ ques- 
tions,” ver. 4; that they had their ματαιολογίας, “vain 
wranglings” about words, ver. 6; that they had their “ fool- 
ish questions, which begat strifes and contentions about the 
law,” see Tit. iii. 9; that they of the circumcision were “ vain 
talkers, teaching things which they ought not for filthy 
lucre’s sake,” see Tit. i. 10, 11, and so “accounted gain for 
godliness ;” that their minds and “consciences were defiled” 
and perverted, see Tit. i. 14; that they “turned aside from 
the faith to vain janglings,” see 1 Tim. i. 6; how they were 
puffed up, see note on 2 Tim. iii. 4. See the defence of 
these words, Examen Millii in locum. 

4 Ver. 6. Αὐτάρκεια, Contentment.] This the apostle well 
explains by being satisfied é ois εἶμι, “in the condition we 
are in,” Phil. iv. 4, and τοῖς παροῦσιν, “ with the things we 
have at present,’ with “food and raiment,” ver. 8, i. 6. 
“with those things which are needful for this present life’™ 
Matt. vi. 31, 32, in opposition to anxiety, distrust, or mur- 
muring; and it is never separable from true piety, but is 
the natural result of that love to, and that value the good 
man hath for God, and the things of God; that trust he 
hath in God, and the entire resignation of his will, in all af- 
fairs, to the conduct of his providence. 

5 Ver. 9. Οἱ βουλόμενοι πλουτεῖν, They that will be rich,] 
i. 6. On whom the love of money so prevails, that they are 
resolved they will be rich, if by any means they can compass 
wealth, are in the ready way to yield to any lust which will 
gratify their greedy humours; μηδενὸς χρηματισμὸν συντελοῦν- 
τος αἰσχροῦ μηδ᾽ ἁνιαροῦ φειδόμενοι, “abstaining,” saith Plu- 
tarch,* “from nothing that is base or impious that tends to 
enrich them :” whence the ancients, agreeably to the apostle 
here, avaritiam omnia vitia habere putabant, “thought covet- 
ousness to comprehend all vices;” as A. Gellius, lib. xi. 
cap. 2, from Cato, and Cicero, n. 45, in his oration, pro 
Roscio Amerifio, have observed: it also causeth us to make 
“shipwreck of faith, and a good conscience,” and whatsoever 
else is sacred, when they cannot be held without the loss of 
that wealth we so love and admire: whence Cicero notes,t 
nullum esse officium tam sanctum atque solenne, quod non 
avaritia comminuere, atque violare soleat ; “that there is no 
duty so holy or solemn which covetousness is not wont to 
impair and violate.” 


* Περὶ Φιλοπλουτ, p. 524, Τ Pro P. Quinto, n. 13. 


* 


CHAPTER VI. 


11 But thou (thou therefore), O man of God, flee 
these things; and follow after righteousness, ® godli- 
ness, faith, love, patience, meekness. 

12 7 Fight the good fight of faith, (and so) lay hold 
on eternal life, whereunto thou art also (both) called, 
and (according to that calling) hast professed a good 
profession (by enduring persecutions for it) before many 
witnesses. 

13 I give thee charge in the sight of (that) God, 
Who quickeneth all things (and therefore is able to 
raise them that suffer for him from the dead), and before 
Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a 
good confession, (confirming truth to the death, John 
Xvili. 375) 

14 That thou keep this commandment ( given to thee, 
ver. 11, 12) without spot, unrebukeable, ὃ until the ap- 

earing of our Lord Jesus Christ: 

15 Which (appearance) in his times (or, in the pro- 
per season) he shall shew (forth), who is the blessed 
and only (absolute) Potentate, the 5 King of kings, and 
Lord of lords (who therefore is more to be feared than all 
earthly potentates, and will more assuredly punish those 
who submit not to his laws and government) ; 

16 Who only hath (of himself) immortality (and so 
only can confer it wpon others, and only lives for ever, to 
reward and punish), dwelling in the light which no 


6 Ver. 11. Εὐσέβειαν, πίστιν, &e.] That “ godliness,” which 
gives contentment, with food and raiment, and what at pre- 
sent we enjoy; that “faith,” which assures us of “a better 
and a more enduring substance, reserved in the heavens for 
us” (Heb. x. 34) ; that “justice,” which requires us to in- 
jure no man, but to let every man enjoy his own; that 
*« Jove,” or “charity,” which makes us “ready to distribute, 
and willing to communicate” of these things to others (ver. 
11) ; that “patience,” which makes us, with tranquillity and 
equanimity, submit to a low fortune and adversity ; that 
«“meekness,” which suppresses our wrath and indignation 
against them who are injurious to us in temporals, and take 
away that which is ours: all these are proper preservatives 
against, or indications of a mind free from, covetousness. 

7 Ver. 12. ᾿Αγωνίζου τὸν καλὸν ἀγῶνα, Fight the good fight.) 
These words are plainly agonistical, relating to the Olympic 
games, and particularly to that of racing, to which the 
apostle doth so oft allude, where the crown being hung up 
at the end of the goal, he that came first did ἐπιλαμθάνειν, 
“lay hold of it,” and take it to himself : and because these 
games were performed in the presence of many spectators, 
the apostle continues the allusion, saying that Timothy had, 
in the presence of “many witnesses,’ shown his readiness 
to suffer for the faith. 

8 Ver. 14. Μέχρι τῆς ἐπιφανείας rod Κυρίου ἡμῶν, Till the 
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.| Here, saith Grotius, it 
appears, that Paul speaks to Timothy, as one who might 
live to the last judgment: but this vain conceit hath been 
sufficiently confuted, note on 1 Thess. iv. 15. Nor doth 
this exhortation prove it; it being used, rather than that, 
“until death,” saith Theophylact, to mind us of that glo- 
rious appearance: and, because, saith Austin,* the day of 
our death is, to us, as that day: Tunc enim unicuique ve- 
niet dies ille, cum venerit ei dies, ut talis hinc exeat, qualis 
judicandus est illo die: in quo enim quemque invenerit suus 
novissimus dies, in hc eum comprehendet mundi novissimus 
dies. 

9 Ver. 15. 'O βασιλεὺς, &c. King of kings, and Lord of 
lords.) This title the great empires took to themselves: the 
king of Babylon is so styled by Daniel, ii. 37; by Jeremiah, 
xxvii. 6: of Persia, Ezra vii. 12 (see Brisson. de Regno 
Pers, lib. i. p. 3, 4). And therefore the apostle saith here, 
that it truly belongs to God only, and to our Lord Jesus 
Christ, Rev. xvii. 14, xix. 16. 

0 Ver. 18. That they do good.] See note on Tit. iii. 8. 

N Ver. 19. Θεμέλιον καλὸν, A good foundation.) Τῶν ped- 


λόντων ἀγαθῶν απύλαυσιν ϑεμέλιον κέκληκεν ἀκίνητον, “The en- 


* Epist. 80, ad Hes. Ρ. 350. 


855 


man can approach unto (and live, and so, whom no man 
Sully can enjoy in this ia whom no man hath seen, 
nor can see: to whom δὲ (ascribed) honour and power 
everlasting. Amen. 

17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that 
they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, 
(the two diseases of rich men ; for the rich man’s wealth 
is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own conceit, 
Proy. x. 15, xviii. 11, and riches and strength lift up the 
heart, Ecclus. xl. 26), but in the living God, who 
giveth us richly all things to enjoy (and in whom there- 
Sore we may safely trust) ; 

18 © That they do good, that they be rich in good 
works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate (to 
others of their wealth) ; 

19 Laying up in store for themselves "a good foun- 
dation against the time to come, that (when these things 
fail) they may lay hold on eternal life. 

20 O Timothy, keep that (¢ruth) which is committed 
to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and 
oppositions of science falsely so called : 

21 Which some professing ” have erred concerning 
the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. 


q The first to Timothy was written from Laodicea, 
which is the chiefest city of Phrygia Pacatiana. 


joyment of good things to come, he calls an immoveable 
foundation,” say the Greek commentators. So the doctrine 
of the resurrection is styled «the foundation of God,” 2 Tim. 
ii. 19; and the heavenly Jerusalem, “a city that hath foun- 
dations,” Heb. xi. 10; and the “good foundation,” here, 
being, in the words following, “ eternal life,” confirms their 
interpretation. ‘Chey who think the word ϑεμέλιος signifies 
here “a treasure,” or an obligation on the part of God to give 
them life eternal, mean the same thing, though they-give us 
no just evidence that the word hath any such signification. 

2 Ver. 21. Περὶ τὴν πίστιν noréxncav, Have erred from 
the faith.] These, in all reason, must be the same with the 
τῆς πίστεως ἀστοχήσαντες, “those who erred from the faith” 
(i. 5, 6) ; and that they were the νομοδι δάσκαλοι, “ the assertors 
and teachers of the law,” and so the opposites to the Gnos- 
tics, who were, saith Ireneus, legis adversarii, “ adversaries 
of the law,” the seventh verse demonstrates; as Theodoret* 
well observes upon the place: of them it is also certain, that 
they pretended, above all men, to be γινώσκοντες τὸ ϑέλημα, 
«skilled in the knowledge of the will of God,” and ἔχοντες 
τὴν μόρφωσιν τῆς γνώσεως, “men that had the scheme or form 
of knowledge” (Rom. ii. 1S—20). They were the great as- 
sertors and promoters of the cabbala, or cabbalistical doc- 
trine, which was in their account, scientia arcana divinitus 
accepta,t “a secret mystical knowledge of divine things 
received from God,’ and equal, in their opinion, to the 
scriptures, according to their rule, Verba cabbale equiparan- 
tur verbis legis. And they, doubtless, opposed this their 
knowledge of the law, and of these cabbalistical traditions, 
to the gospel taught by Paul, which opposed and slighted 
them; and their stiff adherence to them caused them, ἀστο- 
xeiv, “to shoot off from the faith” of the Messiah, which 
was the mark they aimed at: that therefore the ψευϑώνομος 
γνῶσις, the “falsely-named knowledge,’ mentioned here,+ 
may agree to them as well as to the Gnostics, is manifest 
from these things, that it cannot agree to the Gnostics, if 
these persons were teachers of the law, as it is very probable 
they were (see note on i. 7) ; and that it cannot be attributed 
to Simon Magus, the father of the Gnostics, of whom alone 
the apostle can be supposed here to speak, appears from this 
—that he cannot properly be said to err concerning the 
faith, who was so far from being then of it, that he himself 
set up for the Christ, and opposed the profession of the gos- 


* "Ort καὶ ἐξ ᾿Ιουδαίων οὗτοι ἦσαν σαφῶς διδάσκει, τὸ ϑέλοντες 
εἶναι νομοδιδάσκαλοι. 

7 Buxt. in voce, πι53. 

+ Questiones Judzorum que videntur questiones esse 
scientie, Haymo in loc. 


856 


pel with all his might. As for the Gnostics, it is agreed 
among the learned, that though they conspired with former 
heretics, yet were they not known by that name, nor had 
they taken it upon them, till the time of Anicetus bishop 
of Rome, and the reign of M. Aurelius Antoninus and L, 
Verus, that is, not till the year 129. Hence Dr. Cave makes 
them a heresy of the second century. Eusebius says,* that 
Carpocrates, who flourished in the time of Hadrian, gave rise 


* Τράφει δὲ καὶ Eipnvatos συγχρονίσαι τοῦτοις Kaproxparny ἑτέρας 
αἱρέσεως τῆς τῶν Τνωστικῶν ἐπικληθείσης πατέρα. H. Eccl. lib. iv. 


= 


PREFACE TO Il. TIMOTHY. 


to the sect of the Gnostics: but Clemens Alexandrinus seems 
to aflirm, that one Epiphanes,* the author of the sect of the 
Carpocratians, gave birth to this name and sect; and if it 
went so, it is improbable that the “knowledge falsely so 
called,’ here mentioned, should have relation to the Gnos- 
tics. 


cap. 7, p. 120, B. See the note on iv. 3. Gnosticos se 
vocant de Carpocrate. Tren. lib. i. cap. 24. 

* Καθηγήσατο ἐὲ τῆς μοναδικῆς γνώσεως, ἀφ᾽ οὗ καὶ ἡ τῶν Kap- 
ποκρατιανῶν αἵρεσις. Strom. lib. iil. p. 428, C, 


THE 


SECOND EPISTLE TO TIMOTHY, 


ΙΗ ΑΝ IN OF ΤΟΝ: 


PREFACE. 


Tue ancients,* from these words of this epistle, «I am 
ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand,” 
iv. 6, do generally conclude this was the last of Paul’s 
epistles, he being, πρὸς τῷ τέλει, “near the end of his life,” 
when he writ it. And truly the words of the apostle are 
not well capable of any other sense ; for he says expressly, 
ἤδη σπένδομαι, “1 am now offered, and the time of my disso- 
lution, ἐφέστηκε, is instant,” ver. 6; “I have finished my 
course,” ver. 7, 8, λοιπὸν, “ from henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of glory.” Whereas he not only expected to 
be delivered from his first bonds, but saith expressly, “I know 
that I shall abide and continue with you all, for your further- 
ance and joy of faith, that your rejoicing may be more 
abundant in Christ Jesus, for my coming to you again,” 
Phil. 1. 25, 26 (see ii. 24, Philem. 22) ; yea, he was actually 
delivered, and ready to go to Judea, when he writ the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, xiii. 23. Secondly, This epistle, saith Bishop 
Pearson, was writ from Rome (i. 17), by Paul in bonds (i. 
8, ii.9). Now these bonds could not be his first bonds ; for 
then he was in liberad custodia, “in his own hired house, re- 
ceiving all that came to him, none forbidding it,” Acts xxviii. 
30, 31; yea, his bonds were “ known throughout Czsar’s pa- 
lace, and to all others,” Phil.i. 13. Here he is in aretd cus- 
todia ; so that Onesiphorus was forced to “ inquire moreddili- 
gently” after him, that he might find him out,i.17. Again, 


* Chrysostom, Theodoret, @icumenius, Theophylact, &c. 


in his first bonds, saith he, “ many of the brethren of the Lord 
being encouraged by my bonds, were bold to speak the word 
more abundantly without fear,” Phil. i. 14; here, all men for- 
sake him, iv. 16. See a third argument for this opinion, iv. 
13, a fourth, ver. 16, a fifth and sixth, ver. 20; so that I con- 
clude, with the postscript, that this epistle ἐγράφη ἀπὸ “Ῥώμης, 
ὅτε ἐκ δευτέρου παρέστη ἸΤαῦλος τῷ Καίσαρι Νέρωνι, “ was writ from 
Rome, when Paul stood the second time before Nero.” 
That this epistle was writ to “stir up Timothy to caution, 
diligence, and discharge of his office, on occasion of the 
creeping heresy of the Gnostics (ii. 17), stolen in among them, 
which had much debauched the Asiatics (i. 15), and made 
use of magic to oppose the truth of the gospel (iii. 8),” is 
said by a reverend and learned person: but there is nothing 
inany of the ancient commentators of this nature, which 
speak here only of the “heresies arising from the Jewish 
doctors,”"* as that which gave occasion to the writing this 
epistle. And, secondly, the places cited by this reverend 
person do not prove that the apostle speaketh of the Gnos- 
tics: for, i. 15, he only says, “ All those that were in Asia 
had forsaken him ;” which they might do by cleaving to the 
Cerinthians and Ebionites, rather than to the Gnostics (see 
the note there). That they who taught “the resurrection 
was past already,” were not Gnostics, is proved, note on ii. 
17; and that the words, iii. 8, 9, agree not to the Gnostic 
heretics, but to the Jewish false teachers, who were also 
great magicians, is there shown (see note on 2 Thess. ii. 10). 


* Αἱρέσις ἦσαν ἐξ ᾿Ιουδαϊκῶν διδασκάλων ἀρχόμεναι, ἅπερ ἐν τῇ 
προτέρᾳ ἐνέῤηνεν ἐπιστολῇ. Chrysost. Prefat. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Paut, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of 
God, 1 according to the promise (for declaration of the 
promise) of (eternal) 3 life which is (made to us) in 
Christ Jesus, 

2 (Writeth) To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: 


(wishing to him) grace, mercy, and peace, from God 
the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord (by whom all 
mercies are derived to us from the Father through ihe 
Spirit). 

3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1Ver.1. Kar’ ἐπαγγελίαν. “Ὥστέ με τὴν ἐπαγγελϑεῖσαν alwviov 
ζωὴν τοῖς ἀνϑρώποις κηρῦζαι, “* That I might declare that eternal 
life which is promised to men :” so Theodoret. So, Tit. i. 1, 


“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, κατὰ πίστιν, for (the pro- 
motion or declaration of) the faith of God’s elect :” so κατὰ 
πᾶσαν airiav, “for every cause,” Matt. xix. 3; Phil. iv. 11, 
«TJ speak not καϑ᾽ ὑστέρησιν, for the want of any thing.” 

3. Ζωῆς ἐν Χριστῷ, Life which is in Christ Jesus.] Adam 


4 


CHAPTER I. 


3 with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have 
remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day; 

4 Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy 
tears (shed when thou départedst from me), that (as then 
Twas filled with sorrow, so, by seeing thee again) 1 may 
be filled with joy ; 

5 (J thank God, I say,)When I call to remembrance 
the unfeioned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in 
thy grandmother Lois, and (in) thy mother Eunice 
(converted to the faith before thee, Acts xvi. 1); and lam 
persuaded that Gt dweils) in thee also. 

6 Wherefore [ put thee in remembrance that thou 
δ stir up the gift of God, which is in thee δ by the put- 
ting on of my hands. 

7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear 
(as under the Mosaical dispensation; Rom. viii. 15); 
7 but (the spirit) of power, and of love, and of a sound 
mind. 

8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony 
of our Lord (i. e. of giving testimony to the death and 


brought the sentence of death upon us all, and the promise 
of deliverance from that death is only made to us in and 
through Christ Jesus, by virtue of that death he suffered in 
our stead. 

3 Ver. 3. Ἔν καϑαρᾷ συνειδήσει, With a pure conscience.) 
So, Acts xxiii. 1, “I have lived in all good conscience to this 
day before God ;” i. e. a conscience free from insincerity, or 
wilful disobedience to the dictates of his mind, or the rule by 
which he thought himself obliged to walk: for, as “ touching 
the righteousness” which was required by the law, he was 
“blameless ;” and as for his blasphemies against Christ, and 
his persecutions of his church, that he did ἐς ignorantly in un- 
belief,” 1 Tim. i. 13, thinking he “ ought todo many things 
against the name of Jesus,” Acts xxvi. 9. But yet he was 
not free from sin; for he confesses, that upon this account 
he was “ the chief of sinners,” 1 Tim. i. 15. 

4 ᾿᾿Αδιάλειπτον, Without ceasing, day and night.| To pray 
morning and evening is to pray continually, or without ceas- 
ing: thus Zadok, and his brethren, offered burnt-offerings 
before the Lord continually, διαπαντὸς, morning and evening 
(1 Chron. xvi. 42, 43, see note on 1 Thess. v. 17, 18). 

5 Ver. 6. ᾿Αναζωπυρεῖν. Philo* saith, that “where there 
is any spark of true probity, being ventilated, it will shine 
and break forth into a flame.” And this is also true, as well 
of spiritual gifts as graces; even the gifts of miracles, of 
healing, and casting out of devils, were strengthened and in- 
creased by prayer (Matt. xvii. 21), and by faith (ver. 20), 
and the internal gifts of wisdom and knowledge, by reading 
and meditating on the word; the illumination of the Holy 
Spirit coming then upon gifted persons when they were so 
employed (1 Cor. xiv. 23—26, 1 Tim. iv. 13—15). How 
they may be extinguished, see Eph. iv. 30, 1 Thess. v. 19. 
Thus Pythagoras, saith Jamblichus,j purged the souls of the 
scholars from ignorance and sensual passions, and then ἀνεζω- 
πύρει τὸ ϑεῖον ἐν ἑαυτῇ, cap. 16, 

δ Διὰ τῆς ἐπιβέσεως, ὅζο. By the laying on of my hands.) 
The presbytery also laid their hands upon him, 1 Tim. iv. 
14, but the χάρισμα, or gift here mentioned, being the gift 
of the Holy Ghost, was usually conferred by laying on of the 
hands of an apostle, Acts viii. 17, xix. 6. Vain therefore is 
the inference of Esthius from these places, that ordination is 
a sacrament, seeing the grace here mentioned is no ordinary 
grace, but an extraordinary gift conferred only in those times 
by the hands of an apostle, and now wholly ceased. 

7 Ver. 7. Πνεῦμα δυνάμεως, The Spirit of power,] Used 
Luke xxiv. 19, Acts i. 8, partly to assist us in the preaching 
of the gospel, ἐν δυνάμει, “in the power of miracles,” and in the 
power of the Spirit of God (Rom. xv. 19), and to render it 
effectual to the hearers, it being “ the power of God through 
faith to their salvation” (Rom. i. 16), and preached by the 
apostles “with great power” (Acts iv. 33, 1 Thess. i. 5, 


* Μόνον ἕν rt ὑφεστάσθω καλοκαγαθίας ἐμπύρωμα rats Ψυχαῖς, 
ὅπερ ἀναγκαῖόν ποτε ῥιπιζόμενον ἐκλάμιναι. 1,. de Joseph, p. 442, 
Ἐς et p. 318, D, 

7 De Vita Pythag. p. 76. 

Vor. IV.—108 


857 


resurrection of Christ, 1 Cor. vi., which were the great 
things they chiefly were to testify, Acts i. 8. 22, iv. 33, 
vy. 32), nor of me (though I am now) his prisoner ( for 
that testimony): but be thou partaker of the afflictions 
of the gospel (Gr. συγκαχοπάθησον, suffer thou evil with 
the preachers of it) according to the power of God (given 
thee for this end, ver. 73 

9 Even that God) Who hath saved us, (ἑ. 6. designed 
us for salvation, 1 Thess. v. 9, see note on Eph. ii. 7, 
8) and (in pursuance of that design, hath) called us 
with an holy calling, not according to our works, but 
according to his own purpose and grace (see note on 
Tit. iii. 5, 6), which was given (ἡ. e. determined to be 
given) us in Christ Jesus * before the world began, 

10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of 
our Saviour Jesus Christ (the Lord and giver of life), 
who (by his death) hath abolished death, and hath 
brought (this) 9 life and immortality to light through 
the gospel : ! 

11 Whereunto (eis 8, for which thing) I am appoint- 


Col. ii. 9); and partly to enable us to endure afflictions, 
for the sake of Christ, τὸ Πνεῦμα τῆς δυνάμεως, “the Spirit of 
power resting upon us” for that end (1 Pet. iv. 14, and 
here, ver. 8) ; and the Spirit of « love to Christ,” which “ con- 
strains” us to our duty (2 Cor. v. 14), and casteth out the 
fear of any thing we may suffer for the performance of it 
(J John iv. 18); and “of a sound mind,” Gr. σωφρονισμοῦ, 
“ of wisdom” to discharge that duty, so as either to avoid 
dangers (Eph. v. 15, 16, Col. iv. 5), by giving no offence 
to the heathens, or else to speak the word with convincing 
power (Luke xxi. 15), and to walk so exactly, that they may 
be “ashamed to speak evil of us,” or to do evil to us, “ who 
behold our good conversation in Christ” (1 Pet. iii. 16) : all 
these were spiritual gifts, not now conferred in ordination, 
as Esthius vainly conceives. 

8 Ver. 9. Πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, Before any age hath passed.) 
The promise that the seed of the woman should break the 
serpent’s head being made at the beginning of the world, the 
promise of that life to which we were to be restored by the 
seed, and had lost by the subtlety and malice of the serpent, 
is said to be given πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, Tit. 1, 3 (see the note 
there). ὃ 

Note also, that these words may be connected thus, “ Ac- 
cording to his purpose before all ages, and the grace given 
us in Christ Jesus.” And this import of the words may be 
confirmed from the like passages of the apostle, saying, God 
hath elected us in him before the foundation of the world 
(Eph. i. 4), and promised us eternal life before the world 
began (Tit. i. 2). 

9 Ver. 10. Φωτίσαντος ζωῆν, ὅτε. Hath brought life and im- 
mortality to light.) It is to be acknowledged, that the hea- 
thens had by tradition, and the light of nature, conceived 
some hope of some future good things to be received after 
this life was ended; that being absolutely necessary, saith 
the apostle, that they might “« come to God,” or do him any 
acceptable service ; for, *he that cometh to God, must be- 
lieve that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that dili- 
gently seek him” (Heb. xi. 6). But yet this hope was very 
weak and feeble in them, and scarce credited by their philo- 
sophers. It is styled by Cicero, T'usc. Q. 1, futurorum quod- 
dam avgurium seculorum, ‘‘a surmise of future ages.” It 
is, saith Seneca,* “that which our wise men do promise, but 
they do not prove.” Socrates,j even at his death, speaks 
thus: “I hope to go hence to good men, but of that I am 
not very confident; nor doth it become any wise man to be 
positive that so it will be. I,” saith he, “ must now die, and 
ye shall live; but which of us is in the better state (the 


* Credebam opinionibus magnorum virorum rem gratis- 
simam promittentium, magis quam probantium. Ep. 
102. 

ἡ Kai τοῦτο μὲν οὐκ ἂν πάνυ διϊσχυρισαίμην. Phed. p. 48, 
B, C. Τὸ μὲν οὖν ταῦτα ὁδιϊσχυρίσασϑαι οὕτως ἔχειν, ὡς ἐγὼ 
διελήλυϑα, οὐ πρέπει νοῦν ἔχοντι ἀνὸρί. Ibid. p. 84, F. ᾿Οπότεροι 
dé ἡμῶν ἔρχονται ἐπὶ ἄμεινον πρᾶγμα, ἄδηλον παντὶ πλὴν ἢ τῷ Oecd 
Apol. in fine. 


i 


3w2 


858 


ed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the 
Gentiles. 

12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: 
nevertheless (though I suffer thus) 1 am not ashamed 
(of my hope): for I know (in) whom I have believed, 
and am persuaded that he is able to keep "that which 


II. TIMOTHY. 


I have committed unto him (¢. δ. my soul and life, 
1 Pet. iv. 19) against (or to) that day (of recompense). 

13 Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou 
hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ 
Jesus (i. δ. with ἃ firm faith, and true Christian love : 
see note on ii. 2). 


living or the dead) God only knows.” Both he and Cebes* 
do ingenuously confess, that these things relating to the soul 
were disbelieved by the greatest part of mankind.” 

Aristotley held, that death was therefore φοβερύτατον, “ the 
most terrible,” as putting an end to all things: “neither 
good nor evil happening to any man after his death.” Yea, 
he says, “It is absurd to say that any man can be happy 
after death, since happiness consists in operation.” Hence 
Atticus} reckons him among those who held that souls 
could not remain after their bodies. And Origen§ saith, 
that he did τοῦ περὶ τῆς dSavacias τῆς ψυχῆς λόγου κατηγορηκέναι, 
“condemn the doctrine of the soul’s immortality.” The 
poets Sophocles, Euripides, Astydamas, agree in this, that 
ἄλγος δ' οὐδὲν ἅπτεται νεκροῖς, “the dead are sensible of no 
grief or evil” (Vide Stob. Serm. 119, p. 602). 

Lipsius|| confesseth, that amongst the stoics this was a 
controverted point, and was not received by them with any 
full consent; and whosoever reads, will find them still at 
their zfs and ands,{ not knowing whether there were any 
thing after death, εἰ δὴ μηδέν ἐστι τελευτήσαντι, “ or nothing,” 
as Socrates in Phedo speaks; whether their souls should 
be extinguished, or only change their place; whether they 
were in a state of sense, or ἐν ἀναισϑησίᾳ, “ without sense ;” 
whether soul and body were extinguished together, or not, 
as Cicero, Seneca, and others; or else were still at their dis- 
junctives,** ἥτοι. σβέσις, ἢ μετάστασις, fluctuating still betwixt 
extinction or translation, a profound sleep, a long peregrina- 
tion, or an utter dissolution (see Hyperides, apud Stob. 
Serm. 124, p. 618). 

Cesar}} declares, that “death removes all our evils and 
our torments, as leaving no farther place for joy or fear.” 
And Pliny,++ that “neither soul nor body hath any more 
sense after death, than before it was born.” 

Cicero§§ begins his discourse upon this subject with a pro- 
fession, that he intended to deliver nothing as fixed and cer- 
tain, but only as probable, and having some likelihood of 
truth. And having reckoned up the different sentiments of 
the philosophers about it, he concludes thus, ||| “Which of 
these opinions is true, some god must tell us; which is most 
like to truth, is a great question.” And when he had con- 


* Ta dé περὶ τῆς ψυχῆς πολλὴν ἀπιστίαν παρέχει----τοῖς ἀνθρώποις 
τοῖς πολλοῖς. In Phaed. p. 53, A. 

T Πέρας yap, καὶ οὐδὲν ἔτι τῷ τεθνεῶτι δοκεῖ οὔτε ἀγαθὸν, οὔτε 
κακόν. Moral. lib. ili. cap. 9. "Αρά γε καὶ ἐστιν εὐδαίμων τότε 
ἐπείδαν ἀποθανῇ ; ἣ τοῦτό γε παντελῶς ἄτοπον, ἄλλῳ τε, καὶ τοῖς 
λέγουσιν ἡμῖν ἐνεργείαν τινα τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν. 

+ Apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. lib. xv. cap. 5. 

§ Cont. Celsum, lib. ii. p. 67. 

|| Phys. Stoic. lib. iii. diss. 11. 

4 Anton. lib. iii. §. 3. Si est aliquis defunctis sensus, 
Sen. Consol. ad Polyb. cap. 27. Eph. 63, 71, 76. Val. 
Max. lib. iv. cap. 6. Si supremus ille dies non extinc- 
tionem, sed commutationem affert loci. Οἷς, Tusc. Qu. 1. 
n. 105, 106. 

** Anton. lib. iv. 14, vi. 24, vii. 32, χ. 7. Aut beatus, 
aut nullus. Polyb. apud Sen. Consol. cap. 27. Aut finit, 
aut transfert. Seneca, Cur bonis mala, cap. 6. Cic. Tusc. 
Qu. 1, n. 22. Plut. de Consol. ad Apollon. p. 107, Ὁ. 

tt} Ultra neque cure, neque gaudio locum esse. Apud 
Sallust. in Catilina. 

$+ Omnibus ἃ supremé die eadem qu ante primam, nec 
maagis ἃ morte sensus ullus aut corpori, aut anime, quim 
ante natalem. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 55. 

§§ Ea quevis, ut potero, explicabo, nec, tamen quasi 
Pythius Apollo, certa ut sint, et fixa, que dixero; sed ut 
homunculus unus ὁ multis, probabilia conjectura sequens ; 
ultra enim quo progrediar quam ut verisimilia videam, non 
habeo. Tusc. Qu. lib. 1. ἢ. 15, 16. 

|| Harum sententiarum que vera est, Deus aliquis vide- 
rit; qu verisimillima est, magna questio est, n. 20. 


firmed, as much as he was able, the doctrine of the soul’s 
immortality, he ingenuously confesses, Caterve veniunt con- 
tradicentium, that his “opinion was contradicted, not only 
by whole troops of the sect of Epicurus, but also by the 
most learned of the other sects.’’* 

Plutarch} saith, that if men will be restrained from their 
evil courses by fear, they must be kept “under the super- 
stition of the dread of hades ;” but to them who have cast 
off those fears must be propounded, ἡ περὶ τὸ μυϑῶδες τῆς 
ἀϊδιότητος ἐλπὶς, “the fabulous hope of immortality.” And 
this, saith he, is one great benefit of philosophy, that it hath 
taught us to look upon that death which others fear, ὡς μηδὲν 
πρὸς ἡμᾶς, “as nothing to us.’ Now the philosophers them- 
selves saw the evil effects that this denial or doubting of these 
things would have upon the lives of men; viz. 

1. That it would yield a great encouragement to men to 
go on in their evil ways; for if death, saith Socrates, in 
Phed. p. 80, A, be the extinction of the whole, or a free- 
dom from all evils, ἑρμαῖον ἂν αὖ τοῖς κακοῖς droSavoicar, “ this 
will be good news to the wicked, that they have nothing to 
suffer.” 

2. That it tended to discourage men from leading virtu- 
ous and pious lives, as cramping all their hopes of happi- 
ness: for, as Dionysius Halicarnasseus+ well observes, “If 
the soul, when separated from the body, perisheth, it is not 
easy to discern how good men can be happy, who receive no 
fruit of their virtue here, but often perish by it.” 

3. That it very much staggers our patience and persever- 
ance in virtue, and our concern for fidelity and equity, when 
we must suffer for them in this world: for it is truly said by 
Cicero,§ that “it is not possible for any one to have that 
esteem for faith and equity, as to endure the most dread- 
fal punishments to preserve them, unless he be assured 
that the things he hath assented to cannot be false” (see 
note on Heb. xi. 6). And yet, after all this uncertainty, it is 
worthy of our deists to reflect on Plato’s inference from his 
discourse upon this subject; viz. that though no wise man 
could be positive in these things, yet it became him to do 
his utmost to obtain virtue and wisdom, καλὸν γὰρ τὸ ϑλον, 
καὶ ἡ ἐλπίς μεγάλη, “ because great was the hope, and the prize 
excellent,” and that it was worthy of them, κιυδυνῆσαι, “to 
make a trial, though with hazard, as if we did believe them; 
καλὸς γὰρ ὃ κίνδυνος, for it is,’ saith he, “a noble trial, and 
it behoves us to have these things impressed upon our souls.” 

As for the immortality the body shall obtain at the resur- 
rection, the heathens knew and believed nothing of it: they 
laughed at it, and looked upon it as a thing impossible, and 
unworthy of God to do, and without any example to con- 
vince them that it might be done. Hence then we see the 
necessity that this “life and immortality” should be “brought 
to light by the gospel ;” and what continual thanks we owe 
to the blessed Jesus, who hath, by his death, not only re- 
moved the fear and sting, but even the being of death, and 
hath procured a blessed immortality, not only for the soul, 
but for the body also. 

10 Ver. 12. Τὴν παρακαταϑήκην μου, My soul ;} Which 
persons dying used to commit into the hands of God. So 
Josephus, De Bello Jud. lib. iii. p. 852, “The immortal 
soul, which hath its original from God, dwells in the body : 


Ibid. 


* Nescio quomodo doctissimus quisque contemnit. 
n. 63. 

} Non posse suaviter vivi, &c. p. 1104. 

+ Ei μὲν οὖν ἅμα τοῖς σώμασι διαλελυμένοϊῖς, καὶ τὸ τῆς Ψυχῆς 3, 
τι δήποτέ ἐστιν ἐκεῖνο συνδιαλύεται, οὐκ olda ὅπως μακαρίους ὑπολάβω 
τοὺς μηδὲν ἀπολαύσαντας τῆς aperns ayaSdv, δι᾿ αὐτὴν δὲ ταύτην 
ἀπολλυμένους. Lib. viii. p. 529. 

§ Nullo igitur modo fieri potest, ut quisquam tanti xsti- 
met wquitatem et fidem, ut ejus conservandi causé nullum 
supplicium recuset, nisi iis rebus assensus sit, que falsa esse 
non possunt. Acad. Quest. lib, 11, n. 25. 


14 That good thing which was committed unto thee 
. δ. the doctrine of the gospel, 1 Tim. vi. 20) keep by 

e Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us (and confirms it 
to us, 1 John ii. 20. 27). 

15 This thou knowest (by messengers from Rome, or 
those who travel from thence to Rome), that all they 
"which are in Asia be turned away from (Gr. have 
forsaken) me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermo- 
genes. 

16 The Lord give (i. δ. show) mercy unto the” house 


CHAPTER II. 


now if any one embezzles, or evilly entreats that which is 
committed to him by man, he is accounted a wicked and per- 
fidious man, εἰ dé τις τοῦ σφετέρου σώματος ἐκβάλλει τὴν rapa- 
καταϑήκην τοῦ Θεοῦ, λεληϑέναι δοκεῖ τὸν ἀδικούμενον ; if therefore 
any one casts the depositum of God out of his body by self- 
murder, can he hope to conceal himself from him that is in- 
jured?” And Philo* in like manner saith, that “God hath 
given to man a soul, speech, and sense, which he must en- 
deavour so to keep, that he who committed them to him may 
find no cause to blame him for his custody.’ And again,t+ 
« This is the praise of the wise man, that he keeps the sacred 
depositum of the soul, sense, speech, the divine wisdom, and 
human understanding, purely, and without deceit, not to him- 
self, but only to him who committed them to him.” And 
again, lib. De Abr. p. 302, “ No wise man,” saith he, “is of- 
fended that any one calls for τὴν παρακαταϑήκην, his depositium : 
why therefore should he be offended, that God, or nature, 
calls for that which they have intrusted with us?” And 
Hermes saith, lib. ii. mandat. 2, “They that lie defraud the 
Lord, not rendering to him τὴν παρακαταϑήκην ἣν ἔλαβον, the 
deposiium they received from him; for they received a spirit 
free from falsehood ; and therefore by lying, ἐμίηναν τὴν τοῦ 
Θεοῦ παρακαταϑήκην, they have defiled God’s depositum.” The 
Jews,¢ make mention of two depositums of God: the lamp 
which is in us, or the soul: and the lamp without us, which 
is the law; or according to Philo,§ ϑείων rapaxaraSijxn ὀργίων, 
“the depositum of the divine mysteries :” and they introduce 
God speaking thus; “ My light or lamp is in thy hand, and 
thy lamp, which is thy soul, isin mine; if thou shalt dili- 
gently keep my lamp, I will keep thine; if thou extinguish- 
est mine, I will put out thine.” ‘This depositum they, dying, 
did commit into the hands of God; as you may see Sepher 
Tephiloth Lusitanorum.| The apostle seems to have respect 
to both these depositums in his Epistles to Timothy; to the 
light of the gospel, when he saith, τὴν παρακαταϑήκην φύλαξον, 
« Keep that which is committed to thee,” 1 Tim. vi. 20, and 
here, ver. 14, to the lamp within us, ver. 13. 

τ Ver, 15. Ἐν τῇ ‘Asia, Which arein Asia.] This Ccume- 
nius and Theophylact expound thus, of ἐν τῇ ᾿Ασια, τουτέστιν, 
ἐκ τῆς ᾿Ασίας, “Those of Asia, that either went with him to 
Rome, or came to him there, or were found there at his com- 
ing, in the time of his distress, forsook all converse with him, 


* TlapaxaréSero dé σοι αὐτῷ ψυχὴν λόγον, αἴσϑησιν, que ita 
conservanda sunt, ut ὃ παρακαταθέμενος, μηδὲ ἔχη τῆς παρὰ cov 
φυλακῆς αἰτίασθαι. Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres, p. 387, B. 

ἡ Tovr’ ἔπαινός ἐστι τοῦ σπουδαίου, τὴν ἱερὰν ὡς ἔλαθε παρακα- 
ταθήκην Ψυχῆς, αἰσθήσεως, λόγου, ϑείας σοφίας, ἀνθρωπίνης ἐπιστήμης, 
καθαρῶς καὶ ddodds, μὴ ἑαυτῷ, μόνῳ δὲ τῷ πεπιστευκότι φυλάξαντος. 
Ibid. p. 389, F, G. 

+ In Elle Haddabarim Rabba. 

§ De Sacrif. Cain, p. 108, D. 

| Vide Cartw. in locum. 


859 


of Onesiphorus (the Ephesian, iv. 19); for he oft re- 
freshed me (with his presence and relief), and was not 
ashamed of my chain (as the rest of the Asiatics were) : 

17 But, when he was (Gr. being) in Rome, he sought 
me out very diligently, and found me. 

18 15 The Lord (therefore) grant unto him 
showed such mercy to me) that he may find merey of the 
Lord in that day (of recompense we Christians expect) : 
and in how many things he ministered unto me at 
Ephesus, thou knowest very well. 


for fear of Nero.” But this exposition seems not consistent 
with the words. For, (1.) he saith, οἷδας τοῦτο, “ This thou 
knowest :” now Timothy, being not at Rome, could not well 
know what was done there ; and therefore the apostle gives 
him an account how all men had deserted him in his first 
defence, iv. 16. But then in Asia, or Achaia, he might know 
what happened there. (2.) The words ἀπεστράφησάν με, 
“have been averse from me,” seem to import a departure 
from Paul and his doctrine ; and may be rendered “ ‘They 
have turned me off.’ He having therefore told them long 
before, that “ after his departure grievous wolves should enter 
in, not sparing the flock; and that from themselves should 
arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples 
after them” (Acts xx. 29, 30); and charging Timothy to 
stay some time at Ephesus, to oppose himself to the false 
teachers of the Jewish nation, and to exhort the Ephesians 
not to give heed to these teachers of the law (1 Tim. i. 7), it 
seems most proper to refer these words to the rejecting St. 
Paul, as an adversary to the law, by the persuasions of the 
Cerinthians and Ebionites, who laid this charge against him. 

12 Ver. 16. ᾿Ονησιφόρου οἴκῳ, The household of Onesiphorus.] 
Onesiphorus seemed to be dead when Paul writ this, saith 
Grotius on the place: and if so, saith Esthius, here is a 
strong confirmation of the practice of praying for the saints 
deceased. I answer, (1.) That it follows not that Onesipho- 
rus was dead, because Paul here mentions, and in the close 
of this epistle salutes his family, without mention of him; 
the reason of that being this, because Onesiphorus was not 
yet returned from Rome to Ephesus, where his family was ; 
but, as Chrysostom, Theodoret, Gicumenius, and Theophy- 
lact say, on 2 Tim. iv. 19, was then ἐν “Ῥώμῃ, “at Rome,” 
serving Paul. (2.) The apostle here only prays that he might 
“find mercy at the great day” of recompense, as doth our 
liturgy, and all the ancient liturgies, « for deliverance in the 
hour of death, and at the day of judgment ;” which is per- 
fectly exclusive of prayers supposed to be made for souls in 
purgatory, which, if they do them any good, must be sup- 
posed to do it before that day. 

13 Ver. 18. Δῴη αὐτῷ ὃ Κύριος εὑρεῖν ἔλεος παρὰ Κυρίου. The 
Lord grant he may find mercy from the Lord.) Here is a 
plain example of the known rule of the grammarians, that 
the noun is frequently repeated for the pronoun: so, Gen. 
xix. 24, “ Jehovah rained fire and brimstone, »yay ΓΝ, Κύ- 
ptos παρὰ Κυρίου, from Jehovah.” So Exod. xxiv. 1—3, 
“He,” i. 6. Jehovah, ver. 3, “said to Moses, Ascend” 5x 
mm, i.e. to me. And, 1 Sam. iii. 21, * Jehovah appeared to 
Samuel in Shiloh, myqy 4373, by the word of the Lord.” So 
Chrysostom, CEcumenius, and Theophylact, say here, τουτέστι, 
παρ᾽ éavrov* and that it is the custom of the scriptures so to 
speak, they prove from Gen. xix. 24, not fearing the ana- 
thema, which the great council of Sirmium, through igno- 
rance of the Hebrew tongue, pronounced against them who 
did so interpret it. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Tuov therefore, my son, (follow not the example 
of those that turn from me, but) be (thow) strong in (and 
through) the grace that is (given thee) in Christ Jesus 
(see 1. 6—8). 


2 And ' the things that thou hast heard of (from) 
me (established) among many witnesses, the same 
commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to 
teach others also. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 
1 Ver. 2. “A ἤκουσας zap" ἐμοῦ, The things which thou hast 
heard from me.] “ That depositum, cap. i. 14, which I com- 


mitted to thee, in the public assembly, at thine ordination, 
do thou also, in like manner, deposit with other faithful men, 
that the truth may be continued in an uninterrupted succes- 


860 


3 Thou therefore (assisted by his grace) endure hard- 
ness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 

4 (Not loving this present world, or entangling thyself 
with the affairs of it, for) No man that warreth 5 entan- 
gleth himself with (any other of ) the affairs of this 
life; (but quits all these concerns,) that he may (be more 
at leisure to) please him who hath chosen him to be a 
soldier. 

5 And (it ts in this militia, as in the wrestling at the 
Olympic games, where) if a man also strive (with an- 
other) for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he 
strive lawfully, (according to the rules of wrestling, 7. e. 
unless he wrestle naked, and have put off all the clothes 


Ὁ 


If. TIMOTHY. 


which might hinder him in wrestling, or give another ad- 
vantage to take hold of him. 

6 Nor let it discourage thee, that thou dost not re- 
ceive thy wages presently, as other soldiers do; for)The 
husbandman that laboureth (Gr. first labouring) must 
be (afterward) first partaker of the fruits (of his 
labour). 

7 Consider what I say; and the ® Lord give thee 
understanding in all things (belonging to thy duty). 

8 (And, to fortify thee wnder thy sufferings,)4 Remem- 
ber that Jesus Christ® of the seed of David (after all his 
sufferings) was raised from the dead according to (the 
the testimony of ) my gospel : 


sion of such persons: so Mr. Obadiah Walker. «'The 
things agreed on, and consented to by all the other apostles, 
do thou commit to able men, and appoint them as bishops 
of the several churches under thee:’’ So Dr. Hammond. 
Τ think there is no foundation for all this in the text ; no in- 
timation that these things were taught him at his ordination, 
or that they were things agreed on, and consented to by all 
the apostles, as if they had met and consulted about a system 
of articles of faith and good life, to be held by all that taught 
the Christian faith; or that God chose this way to continue 
down the faith, in an uninterrupted succession, from age to 
age, of such persons; or, that this was a commission to Ti- 
mothy to appoint bishops under him in the several churches 
of Asia: for he doth not appoint him as he did Titus, “to 
ordain elders in every city” (i. 5), the bishops of Ephesus, 
and the adjacent cities, being before not only appointed but 
convened by himself (Acts xx. 27, 28): the things which 
Timothy had heard “ confirmed by many witnesses,” seem 
to refer to Christ’s death, his resurrection, and ascension, 
which were matters of testimony, and contained the prime 
doctrines which Paul delivered to the churches, 1 Cor. xv. 
8, 4, and which were confirmed by the testimony of Paul, 
the twelve apostles, and five hundred brethren, ibid. ver. 5— 
8, Luke xxiv. 50—52; or to the mystery of godliness, men- 
tioned 1 Tim. iii. 16, and testified in every part of it by men 
and angels. I grant also that the apostle seems to refer to 
some form of doctrine delivered to them who received the 
Christian faith, when he speaks of “the mystery of faith,” 
and “the mystery of godliness,” 1 Tim. ili. 9. 15, 16, of 
“the first principles of the oracles of God,” Heb. v. 12, and 
of «the principles of the doctrine of Christ,” vi. 1—4, enu- 
merating them in the Epistle to the Hebrews; there being a 
faith once, and at once delivered to the saints, Jude 3, in 
which they were to “stand fast,” and for which they were 
to “contend” (Phil. i. 27) : and that there was also a zapaxa- 
ταϑήκη, or depositum of Christian doctrine delivered to them 
who were to preach and instruct others in the faith; and 
which he commands Timothy, to keep, 1 Tim. vi. 20, 21, 
as being entrusted with it, in opposition to those who had 
erred from the faith, which he calls “ the form of sound words 
which he had been taught,” and which he was to keep, “in 
faith and love of the truth” (5 Tim. i. 13); and “that good 
thing committed to him” (ver. 14), which he was to “keep 
by the Holy Ghost,” the Spirit which leadeth into all truth, 
the unction which taught them all things belonging to their 
office (1 John ii. 20. 27), the things in which he was to “ con- 
tinue, knowing of whom he had learned them” (2 Tim. iii. 
14). I lastly grant, that all the fathers, from Ireneus down- 
wards, speak of such a symbol of faith delivered to the church 
by the apostles and their disciples, which the church received 
from them, and distributed to her sons, being the one and 
the same faith which the church retained throughout the 
world, than which they believed neither less nor more, and 
which, for substance, was the same with the Apostles’ Creed. 
‘This I have* elsewhere largely proved, and thence demon- 
strated the falsehood of the whole doctrine of the church of 
Rome, and of her new creed, delivered as necessary to be 
oelieved unto salvation: and if Obadiah Walker means no 
more, I shall not contend with him. 

2 Ver. 4. ᾿Ἐμπλέκεται rats τοῦ βίου πραγματείαις, Entan- 
fleth himself with the affairs of this world.| The apostle 


* Treatise of Tradit. par. ii. ch. 7, 8. 


here, by two plain similitudes, requires Timothy, as a good 
soldier and bishop of the church of Christ, and an evangelist, 
not to engage himself in any temporal affairs or secular 
negotiations; of which the first is taken from the compari- 
son of a soldier, who was, by the Roman laws,* armis, non 
privatis negotiis occupari: “to be employed wholly at his 
arms, and not in any private business.” ‘The second is taken 
from the similitude of wrestlers,t who did not strive accord- 
ing to the laws, unless they wrestled naked, and put off all 
their garments, and therefore could not win the crown of 
laurel. Hence is that inquiry of St. Basil, ris στεφανοῖ nore 
τὸν μηδὲ ἀποδύοντα πρὸς τὸν ἀντίπαλον 3 “ Who crowns him who 
comes not naked to his adversary 1) And those words of 
Chrysostom,+ “If thou art a wrestler, thou must come naked 
to the combat; thou must put off the affairs of this life, and 
be made a wrestler ; divest thyself of worldly cares, for it is 
the time of conflict.” Hence the Apostolical Canons declare, 
can. iv., those bishops, priests, or deacons, ought to be deposed, 
who do κοσμικὰς φροντίδας ἀναλαμβάνειν, “immerse themselves 
in worldly affairs.” Cyprian§ represents it as a thing wor- 
thy of the divine judgments, that bishops, contemning the 
office, become proctors for secular affairs.” And this prac- 
tice was condemned by the general council of Chalcedon, 
can. ii, 12, and by a council of Carthage, as repugnant to 
these words of the apostle; and by the council of Sardica, 
can. vili. And even before Cyprian was bishop, this was 
established in{ Africa by council, from this very text, « No 
man that warreth, entangleth himself with the affairs of this 
life.” 

3 Ver. 7. Acin-] Other manuscripts read, δώσει γὰρ, “For 
the Lord will give thee understanding,” &c. And ὁῴη is oft 
put for ὁώσει. So Gen. xxvii. 28, dain σοι ὃ Θεῦς, “The Lord 
shall give thee of the dew of heaven.” 

4 Ver. 8. Μνημόνευε, Remember.) To maintain this against 
the unbelieving Jews, that Jesus Christ, the promised Mes- 
siah, of the seed of David, not of Joseph, was raised from 
the dead, according to the gospel that I preach, 1 Cor, xv. 

5 Of the seed of David.] It is certain that the Jews, be- 
fore our Saviour’s time, thought the Messiah, the Son of 
David, was not to die; and therefore, when Christ had told 
them he was to be “lifted up,” they answer, “ We have 
heard, out of the law, that the Messiah abideth for ever; 


* Militares viros civiles curas arripere prohibemus. Col. 
lib. xii. 12, Tit. 39, 9, 13, 15, 16. Ambros. Offic. lib. i. 
cap. 36. 

} See Faber’s Agonist. lib. i. cap. 3, p. 118, 119. 

+ Πρὸς τοὺς ἀγῶνας ὃ ἀϑλήτης ἀποδύεται καὶ γυμνοῦται καὶ 
ὡς ἀθληταὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἀγῶνας ἀποδυσώμεϑα. εἰ ἀθλητὴς εἶ, γυμνόν 
σε εἰς ἀγῶνα εἰσελθεῖν det, drodicavra βιωτικὰ πράγματα, καὶ γέγονας 
ἀθλητὴς: γύμνασον σεαυτὸν τῶν βιωτικῶν φροντίδων, πάλης γάρ 
ἔστιν ὃ καιρός. ᾿Ανδριαντ. 3, tom. vi. p. 475, 476. 

§ De Lapsis, ed. Oxon. p. 123. 

! ᾿ὈὈφείλουσι yap ἀποβλέψαι εἰς τὸ γεγραμμένον, οὐδεὶς στρα- 
τευόμενος τῷ Θεῷ ἐμπλέκει ἑαυτὸν πράγμασι κοσμικοῖς. Can. 
16. 

4 Cum jampridem in concilio episcoporum statutum sit, 
ne quis de clericis, et Dei ministris, tutorem vel curatorem 
testamento suo constituat, quando singuli divino sacerdotio 
honorati, et in clerico ministerio constituti, non nisi altari, et 
sacrificiis deservire, et precibus atque orationibus vacare 
debeant: scriptum est enim, Nemo militans obligat se mo- 
lestiis secularibus, ἄς. Ed. Oxon. ep. 1. 


᾿ ἡ 


9.5 Wherein (for which gospel) I suffer trouble 
(from the Jews, Acts xxv. 19, 26, and vi. 7, and others), 
as an evil doer, even unto bonds; but (though I am 
bound) the word of God (which I preach) is not bound, 
(but hath its free course. 

10 And) Therefore (for this cause) I endure all 
(these) things (cheerfully) 7 for the elect’s sakes (Col. 
i, 24), that they (being confirmed by an example in suf- 
fering, 2 Cor. 1. 6, xiv. 15) may also obtain the sal- 
vation which is (tendered) in (and through) Christ 
Jesus with eternal glory. 

11 /t is a faithful βασι δι (λα! by Christ Jesus we 
shall obtain this salvation): For if we be dead (Gr. 
have died) with him (in baptism, by dying unto sin), we 
shall also live with him (in conformity to his resurrec- 
tion, Rom. vi. 8): 

12 If we suffer (as he did), we shall also reign with 
him: (but) if (through persecutions) we deny him, he 
also will deny us (Matt. x. 33): 


CHAPTER II. 


861 


13 If we believe not (these pons of salvation to his 
faithful sufferers), yet he abideth faithful: he cannot 
deny (what he) himself (hath promised ). 

14 Of these things put ¢iem in remembrance (in 
the churches of Christ), charging them before the 
Lord that they ὃ strive not about words (which tend) 
to no profit, but (rather) to the subverting of the 
hearers. 

15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a 
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, 3 rightly 
dividing the word of truth. 

16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they 
will increase unto more ungodliness (rendering men 
more and more profane). 

17 And their word will eat as doth a canker (or, 
gangrene, infecting the whole body): of whom (i. e. of 
the number of which profane talkers) is  Hymeneus and 
Philetus ; 

18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying 


and how sayest thou, that he must be lifted up?” (John 
xii. 34.) And when first he tells his disciples of it, Peter 
began to rebuke him, with an adsit, “ This shall not be unto 
thee” (Matt. xvi. 22). When he tells them again of it, 
«They understood not the word,” saith Mark ix. 32; “It 
was hid from them that they perceived it not,” saith Luke 
ix. 45. And again, “They understood none of these things, 
and this saying was hid from them; neither knew they the 
things which were spoken” (xviii. 34). Surely Christ’s 
words were plain, “ They shall put him to death ;” but they 
knew not how to reconcile them with their received doc- 
trine, that he was to “abide for ever” (John xii. 34); and 
therefore, because Isaiah speaks so plainly of a Messiah, who 
was to suffer death, they invented, afterward,* a distinction 
betwixt “ Messiah of the tribe of Ephraim,” the son of Jo- 
seph, who was to die, and “ Messiah of the tribe of Judah,” 
the Son of David, who was to reign, and conquer, and never 
die. This distinction is to be found in their Talmud, in the 
Targum upon the Canticles, iv. 5, vii. 3,in Bereschith Rabba, 
in Gen. xlix. 14, in R. Solomon, and Kimchi on Zech. xii. 
10. Now if this invention obtained in the times of Paul, he 
might here have respect unto it; if not, because in the dia- 
logue of Justin with Trypho we read nothing of it, their 
notion, that the Messiah “of the seed of David” could not 
die, must be confuted by his resurrection from the dead. 

Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed af David, was 
raised from the dead.| ‘Theodoret here observes, that Simon 
Magus} began to broach his heresies about this time ; and he 
and all his followers denied that Christ had taken flesh upon 
him, saying, that his incarnation, or anthropism, was only in 
appearance, or ἐν φαντασία ; and, in opposition to this heresy, 
he is here styled Jesus Christ “ of the seed of David ;” and 
because from that heresy it must follow, that he could not 
truly die or suffer in the flesh, and so could not be truly 
raised from the dead; therefore the apostle bids Timothy 
remember, that he was raised from the dead, who was of the 
seed of Abraham, according to the promise. 

6 Ver. 9. Ἔν «,] Pro &’ οὖ, cujus causi, more Hebreo, 
Grotius. So, Matt. vi. 7, “They think to be heard, ἐν τῇ 
πολυλογία, for their much speaking.” So, δέσμιος ἐν Κυρίῳ, 
« A prisoner for the Lord ;” Heb. xi. 2, ἐν ταύτη, “ For this 
the elders received a good report.” See Nold. Concord. p. 
158: see in the LXX. Gen. xxxi. 41, 2 Sam. xxiv. 24, 1 
Kings x. 28, Lam. i. 11, v. 4, Hos. xii. 12, 13, Amos viii. 6, 
see here, ver. 10. 

7 Ver. 10. Διὰ τοὺς ἐκλεκτοὺς, For the elect’s sake x] i. 6. 
For the sake of Christians, who are all γένος ἐκλεκτὸν, “a 
chosen generation” (see the note on 1 Pet. ii. 9), and who 
may be confirmed in the faith, by the example of my patient 
sufferings, and continuing in it may obtain that salvation to 
which they are called. Vain therefore are these following 
notes of Esthius; first, that there is a certain election of God, 
which hath infallibly chosen us to salvation : unless he means 
this of a conditional election, God having infallibly determined 
to save them who “ make their calling and election sure,” 


by perseverance in good works (2 Pet. i. 10). Secondly, 
that as Paul suflered those things only for the elect, so 
Christ died only for them: for, “he tasted death for every 
man,” Heb. i. 9; “he died for all,’ 1 Tim. ii. 6; “not 
for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world,” 1 John 
ii. 2; “for them that perish,” Rom. xiv. 15, Thirdly, that 
neither Christ did, nor ought we to do, any thing that the 
reprobates may obtain salvation: which is horribly false; 
Christ’s preaching to the unbelieving Jews being intended 
for their salvation, John iii. 17, xii. 47, and ν. 34.40. For 
the blinded Jews the apostle prays and labours that they 
might be saved, Rom. ix. 1. 11. 14. 

8 Ver. 14. Mi λογομαγεῖν, That they strive not about words.} 
Here we learn, First, What are the things which ought not to 
be matters of contention among Christians: (1.) Such things 
in which we differ from each other rather in words than 
sense; mean the same thing, but differ only in the expressing 
of our sentiments: which rule observed would put an end 
to many of our controversies. (2.) Such things as tend to 
little or no profit, either as to edification in the faith, or edi- 
fying of the body in love (Eph. iv. 16, see note on 1 Tim. i. 
4, vi. 3, Tit. iii. 9), or, by knowing which, we may be the 
more learned, but not the better Christians. Again, Hence 
we learn why we should not contend about such things, viz. 
because they tend to beget strife and contentions (ver. 23, 1 
Tim. i. 4), which divide Christians into parties, and dissolve 
or obstruct Christian charity. (2.) Because they tend to the 
disturbance of the hearers, they not knowing to which party 
to adhere; and also to their subversion, causing them to ἢ 
doubt of the truth of that faith about which the contending 
parties cannot agree. 

9 Ver. 15. ᾿Ορϑοτομοῦντα τὸν λόγον, Rightly dividing, or 
handling, the word of truth.| This word épSoropetv is ἃ 58- 
crificial word, relating to the right dividing of the sacrifice 
which was to be laid upon the altar, by cutting off and lay- 
ing aside those parts which were not to be offered, and 
severing them from those that were: and to this sense Chry- 
sostom, G3cumenius, and Theophylact, refer the word here, 
saying, that he requires Timothy to separate from the 
preaching of the word all noxious and idle questions, πάντα 
τά περιττὰ, all superfluous things, and give his hearers only 
«the sincere milk of the word :” and this sense agrees well 
with the preceding and the following words. Others think it 
refers to the cutting out a straight path to walk in; and so 
it is an admonition, saith Theodoret, to keep close to the 
truth of the gospel, in all his exhortations, τῷ κανόνι τῶν 
ϑείων λόγων ἑπόμενος, “following the canon of the holy scrip- 
tures.”” 

10 Ver. 17. Ὑμέναιος, &c. Hymenzxus and Philetus.] That 
these two were Gnostic teachers, none of the ancients do 
insinuate ; nor did the Gnostics teach, that “ the resurrection 
was past already,” but that the flesh was not fit to rise, and 
that it was incapable of salvation and of incorruption. So 
Treneus* often doth inform us, by saying, they deny the sal- 
vation of the flesh, denying it to be capable of incorruption , 


* In Maseechel Succa, dist. δ. 
} Vid. Theod. Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1. 


* Carnis salutem negant, dicentes non eam esse Capacem 
incorruptibilitatis. Lib. v. cap. 2. 


5 


Ἦν; 


862 Il. TIMOTHY. 


that the resurrection is past already; and (by that doc- 
trine) overthrow the faith of some. 

19 Nevertheless " the foundation of God (the hope 
and promise of the resurrection) standeth sure, * having 
this (as the) seal (of zt), The Lord knoweth them 
that are his. And (therefore), Let every one ™ that 
nameth the name of Christ depart © from iniquity. 

20 (And be not disturbed, that such heretics as these 
arise out of the members of the church ;) But (δὲ, for) in 
a great house (such as the church 7s) there are not only 
vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of 
earth; and some (viz. those vessels of gold and of sil- 
ver, representing the orthodox Christian, 1 Cor. iil. 12, 
are, εἰς τιμὴν.) to honour, and some (viz. those of wood 
and earth, representing the heterodux) to (uses of ) dis- 
honour. 

21 If a man therefore purge himself from these 


(false doctrines, and the teachers of them), he shall be a 
vessel unto honour, 15 sanctified, and meet for the mas- 
ter’s use (serviceable to Christ, the master of the family), 
and prepared unto every good work. 

22 (Avoid these, therefore, and) “Flee also youthful 
lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, 
with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 

23 But (the) foolish and unlearned questions (of the 
Jews, see note on 1 Tim. iv. 7, 'Tit. iil. 9) avoid, know- 
ing that they do gender strifes. 

24 And (for) the servant of the Lord must not 
strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 

25 In meekness instructing those that oppose them- 
selves (to the gospel); if God  peradventure will give 
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 
(they contend now against) ; 

26 And that they may recover themselves (or awake) 


and with him agree Pseud-Ignatius,* the Apostolical Consti- 
tutions, and others. Valentinus,} who flourished only A. D. 
145, and so could not be touched at in these words, was of 
the same opinion, say all the ancients. So that Tertullian 
must either be mistaken, when, speaking of them, who held 
the resurrection was past already, he adds, Id de se Valen- 
tiniani adseverant, or means this, not of Valentinus himself, 
whom he there numbers with those, qui resurrectionem 
carnis infringunt, “ who deny the resurrection of the flesh,” 
but of some of his followers. But then Irenrus+ informs 
us, that this was part of the heresy of Menander, who taught 
resurrectionem per id auvod est in eum baptisma accipere 
ejus discipulos ; “ that his disciples obtained the resurrection 
by his baptism, and so could die no more, but were to perse- 
vere immortal.” Justiz Martyr§ also saith, he persuaded 
his disciples, ὡς μὴ ἀποϑνήσκοιεν, that they should not die.’ 
He taught, saith Timothy,|| priest of Constantinople, that 
“they who received his baptism should be immortal, ὡς μῆ- 
kere ἀποϑνῆσκειν, and should never die.” Now he was con- 
temporary to Simon Magus, and so might be also with Paul 
(see note on 1 Cor. xv. 12. 44, and Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. 
ili. cap. 26, Tertul. de Anima, cap. 50). 

Ver. 19. Θεμέλιος τοῦ Θεοῦ, The foundation of God.} 
The fundamental doctrine of the resurrection to life eternal 
is so styled, in these words, “ Let us not lay again, τὸν θεμέλιον, 
the foundation of the resurrection of the dead,’’ Heb. vi. 1, 
2. This is the “ faithful saying,’ mentioned ver. 11, which 
he exhorts Timothy to bring to their remembrance, ver. 14, 
and by denying which, saith he, the Christian faith is over- 
turned, ver. 18. But notwithstanding all the vain babblings 
of Hymenzus and Philetus, “this foundation,” saith the 
apostle “ standeth sure.” 

12 Τὴν σφραγίδα ταύτην, Having this seal.) Sealing seems 
always mentioned in the New Testament for confirmation 
and assurance; as when the apostle saith, ‘The seal of my 
apostleship are you in the Lord,” 1 Cor. ix. 2, i.e. the effects 
I have wrought upon you, and the gifts of the Spirit im- 
parted to you, prove the truth of my apostleship: and when 
he tells his converts, that by the Spirit they were “sealed up 
to the day of redemption,” 2 Cor. i. 22, v. 5, Eph. i. 13, iv. 
30, and were established in the truth of the gospel: the gifts 
of the Spirit they had already received, according to Christ’s 


* Docent ἀνάστασιν πιστεύειν. Apost. Const. lib. vi. cap. 
10. Vide cap. 26. De Simone et Cleobio. Docent non 
esse futuram corporis resurrectionem. Epist. Corinth. ad 
D. Paulum; Usher Not. in Epist. ad Tral. p. 29. “On ἡ 
σὰρξ αὐτὴ οὐκ ἐγείρεται. Pseud-Ignat. Ep. ad Tars. §. 2. ad 
Smyrn. §. 7. 

+ Vani igitur qui ἃ Valentino sunt dogmatizantes uti ex- 
cludent salutem carnis. Tren. lib. v. cap. 4. Epiph. Her. 
xxxi. p. 171, D. Οὐδὲν γὰρ τῶν ἐκ τῆς ὑλῆς ἐπιῤέχεται σωτη- 
ρίαν. Theodoret. Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 200. August. 
adv. Her. cap. 11, Carnis resurrectionem negat. Οἱ σαρκὸς 
piv ἀπαγορεύουσιν ἀνάστασιν. Damasc. de Her. sect. 3, presb. 
1. “AAXo σῶμα éysipecSat πνευματικὸν, καὶ οὐχὶ τοῦτο. ‘Timoth. 
Presb. Ep. apud Coteler. tom. iii. p. 381. 

+ Et ultra mori non posse, sed perseverare non senescentes, 
et immortales. Iren. lib. i. cap. 21, 

§ Apud Buseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 26, 

| Apud Cotel. tom. iii. p. 386. 


promise, being a confirmation of that glorious redemption he 
had farther promised. 

13 Ἔγνω Κύριος τοὺς ὄντας αὑτοῦ, The Lord knoweth who 
are his.] i.e. He owns and approves those he hath commis- 
sioned to reveal his mind to others: for this expression is 
taken from Numb. xvi. 5, where Korah, Dathan, and Abi- 
ram, rise up against Moses and Aaron, declaring they took 
too much upon them, in pretending the one to be their pro- 
phet, and the mouth of God to them, the other to be the 
high-priest, whom God had consecrated to his peculiar ser- 
vice above all others of the tribe of Levi. Now to this im- 
putation Moses replies, according to the Septuagint, ἔγνω ὃ 
Θεὸς τοὺς ὄντας αὐτοῦ, “ God knoweth who are his,” and by 
him separated to his service, and will maintain their cause 
and calling against all opposers; as in that instance he did 
in a wonderful manner, causing the earth to open, and 
swallow them up: so also will God own us his apostles 
against Hymeneus and Philetus, and all that set up against 
us and our doctrine. As therefore Moses said then to the 
Israelites, “Depart you from the tents of those men, καὶ 
ἀπέστησαν, and they departed ;” so say I now to all Christians, 
Let them depart from this impiety, i. 6. from these pernicious 
doctrines, which increase to ungodliness, and cause men to 
make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. 

4 That nameth the name of Christ.| i. 6. That professeth 
to own him, or to be his disciple: so Isa. xxvi. 33, τὸ ὄνομά 
cov ὀνομάζομεν, * We have no other God but thee, we name 
thy name”’ (see Isa. xliif. 7, lxiii. 19, Ps. xxx. 19, Gen. iv. 
26, 2 Chron. xii. 13). 

15" Απὸ ἀδικίας.1 Justum pro vero, et injustum pro falso, 
frequentes tam nos quam Attici ponimus, saith Priscian: 
“« Both Greeks and Latins frequently use the word injustice 
to denote falschood” (see note on 1 Cor. xiii. 6), so that 
these words may thus be rendered, “ Let every one that 
names the name of Christ depart from falsehood ;” i. e. let 
him preserve himself from the pernicious errors of these 
apostates from the truth. 

16 Ver. 21. ᾿Ηγιασμένον, Sanctified.] The vessels of the 
sanctuary were consecrated to the service of God, and were 
also, saith the apostle, purified by the sprinkling of the blood 
upon them (Heb. ix. 21). And so are Christians sprinkled 
by the blood of Jesus from their sins, and consecrated by 
baptism to his service, and so made meet for the service of God 
(see the reading of the text justified, Examen Millii,in locum). 

17 Ver. 22.] Note, that hence it follows, that we must 
maintain peace with, and therefore must not separate from our 
communion, any person who serves Christ with a pure heart 

(8 Ver. 25. Μήποτε, If peradventure.] This word in the 
Septuagint answers to the Hebrew particle Sys, st forté or 
fortasse. So, Gen. iii. 25, xxiv. 5. 39, μήποτε οὐ πορεύσεται 
ἡ γυνὴ, “ Perhaps the woman will not come with me ;” xxvil. 

2, μήποτε ψηλαφήση, “ Perhaps my father will handle me ;” 
μήποτε ἀγνύημά ἐστιν, “ Perhaps it is an error,” Gen. xliii, 12; 
1 Kings xviii. 27, μήποτε χρηματίζει, ἢ μήποτε καϑεύδει, “If 
perhaps he be busy, or perhaps sleepeth” (see also Job i. 5, 
Luke iii. 15). So Philo,* ἀλλὰ μήποτε ὃ λέγει τοιοῦτόν ἔστιν, 
« Perhaps that which he saith is to this effect ;’ and again, 
μήποτε οὖν τὴν τοῦ παντὸς οὐρανοῦ περιφορὰν, δι᾿ ὑπόνοιαν εἰσάγει 
--πομήποτε δὲ καϑ᾽ ἑτέραν éxdoxiv,f “Perhaps he signifies the 


* Alleg, lib. ii. p. 52, B. 


+ Cherub. p. 85, G. 86, E. 


out of the snare of the devil, ® who are (now) taken 
captive by him at his will (Gr. εἰς τὸ ἐκείνου ϑέλημα, 
to the performance of the will of God; penitents being 


CHAPTER III. 


circumference of the whole heaven—or perhaps, by another 
interpretation, either hemisphere: and, p. 88, I, μήποτε 
εἰκότως, “ Perhaps fitly ah p. 110, D, μήποτε διὰ τὴν αὐτὴν 
αἰτίαν, “ Perhaps for this cause; and De Abrahamo, p. 
285, E. 

19 Ver. 26. ᾿Εζωγρημένοι ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ εἷς τὸ ἐκείνου ϑέλημα, 
Who are taken captive by him at his will.| Some refer this 
to the devil, as being the nearest substantive to the relative 
ἐκεῖνος. But (1.) this seems not agreeable to the use of the 
two relatives, which, when they come together, seldom relate 
to the same person. (2.) Satan is the nearest substantive 


® 


863 


turned from the power of Satan unto God, Acts xxvi. 18, 
Col. i. 13). 


rather in place than in sense, the words being capable of this 
construction; “If peradventure God will give them re- 
pentance to do his will, that they who are taken captive by 
the devil, may awake out of his snare.” ‘This is the sense 
which best accordeth with the work of conversion and re- 
pentance, which is a recovering men from the service of Sa- 
tan to the service of God (Acts xxvi. 18); a freeing them 
from sin, that they may be servants of God (Rom. vi. 17); 
a delivering men from the power of darkness, and trans- 
lating them into the kingdom of his Son (Col. i. 13). 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Tus know also, that in the last days (of the Jew- 
ish economy, and the erecting of Chrisl’s kingdom, see 
note on 1 Tim. iv. 1) perilous times shall come. 

21 For men shall be lovers of their own selves 
(ἢ. e. their own temporal pleasures and profits), co- 
vetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers (evil speakers), 
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy (or pro- 
Sane), 

3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false 
accusers, incontinent, fierce (or cruel), despisers of 
those that are good, 


4 Traitors, heady, highminded, loyers of pleasures 
more than lovers of God ; 

5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the 
power thereof: from such turn away. 

6 For of this sort are they which ? creep into houses, 
and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led 
away with divers lusts, 

7 Ever learning (of new teachers), and never able to 
come to the knowledge of the truth. 

8 Now as®Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses 
(when working his miracles in Egypt before Pharaoh), 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP, III. 


1 Ver. 2. “Eoovra yap of avSpwro.] That the apostle here 
speaks of such persons as were in being when this epistle was 
indited, is evident from his command to Timothy, to “turn 
away” from them, and from the description of them. 

That they were not the Gnostics, or the followers of Simon 
Magus, seems apparent; first, because Simon Magus could 
not make the times perilous by any oppos#tion he could 
make to Christianity, he being a despicable and beggarly ma- 
gician, of whose power or endeavour to persecute the Chris- 
tians, I remember not one word in church history applicable 
to the times of this epistle; but that the Jews were zealous 
persecutors of them, not only in Judea, but through all parts 
of the world where they were dispersed, both scripture and 
Justin Martyr fully testify; and the supposed combination 
betwixt the Jews and Gnostics is not only groundless, but 
incredible: for what accord could there be betwixt him who 
set up for a god, yea, for a father over all, and them who 
were zealous for the true God, and hated idolatry with a 
perfect hatred ? or between them who had the highest vene- 
ration for the law and the prophets, and him who taught 
they were not at all to be regarded? Secondly, because 
the Jews had “a form of knowledge” (Rom. ii. 20), and 
“a zeal for God” (Rom. ix. 1), and a settled form of wor- 
shipping the true God; they were great zealots for the 
observation of the sabbath, and all the sacrifices and institu- 
tions required by the law of Moses; and served God fre- 
quently day and night (Acts xxvi. 7), and so they had “ἃ 
form of godliness,” though not worshipping God in the spirit 
(Phil. iii. 3) ; but only with these carnal ordinances “ they 
denied the power thereof:” but what form of godliness do 
we find in Simon Magus and his followers in the times of 
the apostles ? what profession of Christianity could he make, 
who set himself to oppose the apostles, and the doctrines 
which they taught? See a third argument against this ex- 
position, ver. 9. 

But that these characters agree to the Jews, and particu- 
larly to the Judaizing Christians, and false teachers, is evi- 
dent from scripture and church history, and from the writings 
of Josephus: for, Rom. i. 29—31, we have mention of 
gentiles that were “covetous, proud, boasters, disobedient 
to parents, without natural affection, truce-breakers, unclean, 
unthankful;” and, ii. 21, the Jew is condemned as doing the 
same things; and, ver. 22. 24, as guilty of adultery and 


blasphemy. They were blasphemers and false accusers of 
the apostles, as if they walked after the flesh (2 Cor. x. 2), 
contradicting and blaspheming Christianity (Acts xiii. 45) ; 
they represented it to all the world, when it was first preached, 
as an atheistical sect,* and were the authors of all the 
vile stories which the heathens objected against it: and in 
despising of the apostles and Christians, they were despisers 
of those that were good. They were great lovers and ad- 
mirers of themselves, proud, boasters, and high-minded, boast- 
ing of God as their Father, and of their knowledge of the 
law (Rom. ii. 17. 23), magnifying themselves above others 
(see note on 2 Cor. xi. 12. 20), glorying in their circumcision 
(ver. 18), and in their being of the seed of Abraham (ver. 
22, Phil. iii. 5), and exalting themselves upon these accounts 
above the gentiles, whom they styled dogs, and sons of the 
earth, and uncircumcised ; whilst they were the noble, the 
sons of God,” and his beloved people. ‘They were διάβολοι, 
“contentious, and obeyed not the truth” (Rom. ii. 8, Phil. 
i. 15, 16); they were covetous, perverting others “ for filthy 
lucre’s sake” (Tit. i. 11), “counting gain godliness” (1 ‘Tim. 
vi. 5), “minding earthly things” (Phil. ili. 10); they were 
fierce, heady, cruel in their persecutions of the Christians 
(1 Thess. ii. 15, 16) ; they were traitors and truce-breakers 
in their revoltings from the Roman government: they were 
disobedient to their parents in their corban (Matt. xv. 5), 
and without natural affection, not in that only, but in their 
persecutions of Christians of their own family and blood 
(Lule xxi. 16): they were unholy and incontinent, defiled, 
and abominable (Tit. i. 14, 15), in their adulteries, and 
continual divorces; lovers of pleasure, making “ their belly 
their god” (Phil. iii. 19), feasting luxuriously on their sab- 
baths, and given to drunkenness in their feasts of Purim (see 
the reading, ver. 3, justified, Examen Millii, ibid.). 

2 Ver. 6.] That these perverters of men from the truth 
and creepers into houses, were of the circumcision, and ad- 
dicted to Jewish fables, see Tit. i. 10, 11. 14. 

3 Ver. 8. Jannes and Jambres.] Though we have no 
mention of the names of these magicians in the Old ‘Testa- 
ment, yet were their names celebrated both among the hea- 


* “Avdpas ἐκλεκτοὺς ἀπὸ “Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐκλεξάμενοι τότε ἐξεπέμ- 
Ware cis πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν, λέγοντες αἵρεσιν ἄθεον “Χριστιανῶν πεφηνεναι, 
καταλέγοντες ταῦτα ἅπερ καθ' ἡμῶν οἱ ἁγνοοῦντες ἡμᾶς πάντες 
λέγουσιν. Justin Martyr. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234, E. 
235, A. 


864 


so do these also resist the truth: (being) men of cor- 
rupt minds, * reprobate concerning the faith (Tit. i. 
14—16). 

9 Bu 5 they shall proceed no further (Gr. not much 
farther) : for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, 
as their’s also was (i. 6. the folly of Jannes and Jam- 
bres). 

10 But (be not troubled at such times or persons, having 
in me good experience of the power and readiness of God to 
deliver them who suffer for his sake, for) δ thou hast fully 
known my doctrine, (mz) manner of life, (my) purpose 
(to adhere to Christ, seeking his glory, not my own, and 
to promote his gospel to the uttermost, my) faith, longsuf- 
fering (2 Cor. vi. 6), charity (1 Cor. viii. 13, ix. 22, 
2 Cor. xi. 29, my) patience, 

11 (The) Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto 
me at Antioch (Acts xiii. 50), at Iconium (xiv. 2), at 
Lystra (where I was stoned, ver. 19);.what persecu- 


II. TIMOTHY. 


tions I endured (from the Jews): but out of them all 
the Lord delivered me. 

12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus 
shall suffer persecution (especially in such perilous 
times ; and at all times, either openly or secretly, from 
the hatred and malice of wicked men, or from their taunts 
and calumnies, which are styled persecutions, Gal. iv. 29, 
nor is it to be expected that it should be otherwise). 

13 But (δὲ, for) evil men and 7 seducers (impostors) 
shall (till the wrath of God takes hold upon them) wax 
worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. 

14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast 
learned (from me) and hast been assured of, knowing 
of whom thou hast learned them ; 

15 And that* from a child thou hast known the 
holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto 
salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 

16 5. All scripture 7s given by inspiration of God, 


thens, as Pliny* and Numenius{ inform us, who represent 
them as Egyptians skilled in the art of magic; and in the 
Jewish writings,+ who do not only say that they were princi- 
pes prestigiatorum, “the chief of the magicians;” but also 
that they were the two sons of Balaam. Origen§ informs 
us, that there was a book writ by them, bearing this title, 
Jannes et Mambres liber. 

4 Adbxcpor περὶ τὴν πίστιν, Reprobate concerning the faith.) 
So they are styled in scripture, who, through their resistance 
of, and contentions against, the truth, are unworthy to have 
the faith made known to them, or indisposed to receive it. 
Thus the heathens, who, “when they knew God, did not 
glorify him as God, neither were thankful” (Rom. i. 22, 25), 
are therefore delivered up cis νοῦν ἀδόκιμον, “to a reprobate 
mind :” and they here who resist the truth, being “men of 
corrupt mind,” are therefore “reprobate concerning the 
faith” (see note on 2 Cor. xiii. 5), 

5 Ver. 9. Οὐ προκόψουσιν, They shall proceed no farther.) 
This agrees well with the Jewish false doctors, who were 
soon disabled from carrying on their false doctrines, by the 
destruction of Jerusalem; but not so well with the Gnostic 
heretics, who spread themselves wide in the second century. 
The fancy of a reverend person, that Paul here prophesies, 
that as Jannes and Jambres perished in the Red sea, so 
should Simon Magus at Rome, falling down headlong, when 
he was flying in the air, perish at the prayers of Peter and 
Paul, is in every part of it uncertain. For, 

First, Though the Jews tell us Jannes and Jambres were 
with Pharaoh at the Red sea, they say not that they pe- 
rished there, but say they rode with Balaam to meet Balak, 
and lived to the making of the golden calf, and then perished 
(Targ. Jon. in Numb. xxii. 22). 

Secondly, I have shown in the preface to the Epistle to 
the Thessalonians, §. 6, that the story of Simon Magus’s 
flying in the air in a fiery chariot, and being thrown down 
by the prayers of those two apostles, in the sight of the peo- 
ple at Rome, is of no credit among learned men. 

6 Ver. 10. Παρηκολούθηκας, Thou hast fully known.) TWapa- 
κολουθεῖν, relatum ad animum, est συνιέναι, saith Constantine. 
So the Greek commentators thought it here signified, ren- 
dering it οἷδας, μεμάϑηκας ἀκριβῶς, “Thou hast known, thou 
hast learnt exactly,” as the word imports, Luke i. 4. *The 
primary sense of it, “Thou hast followed, or resembled me, 
in my persecutions,” may also be applied to Timothy, who 
was in bonds at Rome also, Heb. xiii. 23 (see the note on 
1 Tim. vi. 12). 

7 Ver. 13. Kat γόητες, Impostors.| That the impostors 
among the Jews continued till the very time of the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, more and more deceiving the people, and 
that the whole nation of the unbelieving Jews grew then to 


* Hist. Nat. lib. xxx. cap. 1. 

+ Apud Euseb. Prepar. Evang. lib. ix. cap. 8. 

+ Buxt. Lex. Talm. col. 945, 946. Targ. Jon. in Ex. i. 
15, vii. 11. 

§ Sicut Jannes et Jambres restiterunt Moisi non inveni- 
tur in publicis scripturis, sed in libro secreto qui suprascribi- 
tur Jannes et Mambres liber. Tract. 35 in Matth. 


the highest pitch of wickedness, Josephus fully testifies (see 
notes on Rom. ii. 2, 2 Thess. ii. 10). 

8 Ver. 15. From a child thou hast learned the scriptures.] 
Note here, the care of the Jews to teach their children the 
scriptures even from their childhood: from five years old, 
say the Talmudists, we put our children to read the Bible. 
Josephus* informs us, that their children “learning their 
laws, ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης εὐθὺς αἰσθήσεως, from the first dawnings 
of sense and reason in them,” had them engraven in their 
souls: which, as it condemns the practice of the church of 
Rome, in withholding those sacred oracles from old and 
young, so also it does reprehend the generality of Christians, 
who are more concerned to teach their children things un- 
necessary, or, at the best, things only needful for this present 
life, than to instruct them in that word of God, “which is 
able to make them wise to salvation.” 

9 Ver. 16. Πᾶσα γραφὴ, All scripture.] Here note, 

First, That the scriptures of the Old Testament, not of 
the New, must be the scriptures here intended, they only 
being the scriptures which Timothy had known from a 
youth ; that is, before the scriptures of the New Testament 
were written ;gand so he could not speak of the scriptures, 
as πε τον them who were then guides of the church, 
viz. the Jewish sanhedrin, or the scribes and pharisees ; see- 
ing they so interpreted them, as to make void the command- 
ments of God, and to deny our Saviour to be the promised 
Messiah. 

Secondly, Observe, that the apostle doth not say, that 
these scriptures were of themselves sufficient to make Timo- 
thy wise to salvation; but only, that with “faith in Christ 
Jesus” they were sufficient for that end. Now faith in Christ 
Jesus doth only signify a firm belief that Jesus was the 
Christ, the true Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the 
world; as is evident from these words, “ This is the victory 
over the world, even our faith,’ 1 John v. 4, i. e. our belief 
that “Jesus is the Son of God,” ver. 5 (see the preface to 
the Epistle to the Galatians, §. 2). Hence then I argue for 
the perfection of the scriptures thus: If the scriptures of the 
Old Testament were sufficient to make a man wise unto sal- 
vation, provided only that he believed that “Jesus was the 
Christ ;” the scriptures of the Old and the New Testament 


| must much more be so, because the scriptures of the New 


Testament must needs more plainly and fully contain the 
faith and duty of all Christians, than the scriptures of the 
Old only can be supposed to do. 

Obj. But, saith Esthius, “If the scriptures of the Old 
Testament were sufficient to make men wise unto salvation, 
then there is no need of the gospels, or of the epistles, of the 
New Testament.” 

Ans. I answer, Yes: there was need of them, both to be- 
get in men, and to confirm this faith in Christ, they being 
written “that we might believe, and believing might have 
life through his name” (John xx. 31); and also to give the 
Christians of succeeding ages a more full, plain, and perspi- 
cuous knowledge of those things, which were not so fully 
and plainly, to the capacity of the meanest, to be learnt in 


* Contra Apion. lib. ii. p. 1072, E. 


ἊΝ, 


CHAPTER IV. 


and ts (Gr. being inspired by God, is also) profitable 
for doctrine (¢o teach us what we are to believe), for re- 
proof (or conviction of error), for correction (and re- 
formation of vice, and ) for instruction in (the way of ) 
righteousness : 


the Old Testament. Thus, though the five books of Moses 
sufficiently contained the whole Jewish law, it follows not 
that the historical and prophetical books, or the hagiographa, 
were superfluous. 

Thirdly, Observe, that the apostle saith, these scriptures 
were therefore able to make ‘Timothy, a Christian bishop, 
“wise to salvation,” because they were “ profitable for doc- 
trine,” to teach the Christian all that he was to believe, πρὸς 
ἔλεγχον, “ for the correction” of every error in the faith, « for 
the conviction” of every vice which they were obliged to es- 
chew, and for their “instruction in” every way of “right- 
eousness ;”’ even so profitable for these ends, as “to make 
the man of God perfect ;” i. 6. wanting in nothing he ought 
to practise or believe himself or teach others, for the edifica- 


865 


17 That the man of God (or teacher of il) may be 
perfect, (both as to his own practice and his teaching 
olhers, and so) thoroughly furnished ὑπο to this or 
that only, but) unto all good works (belonging to his 


office). 


tion of a Christian into “a perfect man in Christ Jesus,” and 
to make him “thoroughly furnished to every good work.” 
So Chrysostom, ‘I'heodoret, G2cumenius, and 'Theophylact, 
upon the place. 

False therefore here is the note of Esthius, That the 
scriptures are here said to be profitable, but not sufficient 
to these ends; vain is his subterfuge, that the apostle, by 
“every good work,” understands only singula generum, 
“every kind of good works,” but not “every good work of 
that kind,” i. e. every work of faith and instruction in 
righteousness : for if these good works be requisite “to make 
the man of God perfect, and thoroughly furnished” for his 
office, they must be here included; if they be not, they must 
be needless in order to the discharge of it. 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Icuarce thee therefore before God (the Father), 
and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick 
and the dead 1 at his appearing and his kingdom ; 

22 Preach the word; be instant (in that work) in 
season, (and) out of season (publicly and privately, by 
day and night, in times of peace and of danger); re- 
prove (ἔλεγξον, repel false teachers), rebuke (evil livers), 
exhort with all longsuffering (though they long seem not 
to regard thy exhortations) and doctrine (?. e. all manner 
of instructions. 

3 Thus it becomes thee to be instant now,) For the time 
will (shortly) come when they will not endure sound 
doctrine ; but after their own lusts shall they heap to 
themselves teachers, having itching ears ; 


4 And they shall turn away their ears from the 
truth, and shall be turned unto 3 fables. 

5 But watch thou in all things (which respect thy 
office), endure afflictions (patiently), do the work of an 
evangelist (see the note on Eph. iv. 11), make full 
proof of (Gr. fulfil) thy ministry. 

6 For I am now ready to be offered (Gr. Iam already 
poured out), and the time of my departure (or dissolu- 
lion) is at hand. (See the Preface.) 

7 (But be it so, this is my comfort, that) I have fought 
a good fight (suffering hardship as a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ), 1 have finished (or run) my course, I have kept 
the faith : 

8 (So that)Henceforth (I may be confident) there is 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1 Ver. 1. Κατὰ τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὑτοῦ, καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὑτοῦ, 
At his appearance, and his kingdom.) “This appearance,” 
saith Mr. Mede, “is the appearance of Christ, the word ἐπι- 
φάνεια always importing Christ’s advent, who, after the re- 
surrection, and the judgment of the quick and dead, must 
give up his mediatory kingdom to the Father; it therefore 
must signify some other kingdom, proper to Christ’s second 
coming ; and what can that be, but the kingdom of the mil- 
lennium?” But, 

First, This appearance of Christ is his glorious appearance, 
when we shall receive “the blessed hope,’*i. 6. the eternal 
happiness we hope for, Tit. ii. 13, when “we shall appear 
with him in glory,” Col. iii. 4, when we shall be “made like 
unto him, and see him as he is,” 1 John iii. 2; which can- 
not be expected till after this supposed millennium. It is 
the same with “the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ from 
heaven,” 2 Thess. i. 7, his “glorious revelation,” 1 Pet. iv. 
13, and with his παρουσία, second “coming” which is, “a 
coming with all his saints,’’ 2 Thess. iii. 13, “a coming of 
our Lord from heaven,” 1 Thess. iv. 15, 16. Now Mr. 
Mede himself confesses, That he dares not so much as ima- 
gine, that the presence of Christ in the millenary kingdom 
would be visible upon earth: for the kingdom of Christ, 
saith he, p. 603, ever hath, and shall be regnum ccelorum, 
“a kingdom, whose throne and kingly residence is in hea- 
ven.” And, thirdly, at this appearance, and his kingdom, 
saith the apostle, he shall judge the quick and the dead; 
not the dead only, but the quick and the dead; not some 
of them only, but all of them without exception. Now the 
judgment of the dead, is to be after the conclusion of the 
supposed millennium, Rev. xx. 12. 

Secondly, Though Christ will, after the judgment of the 
quick and dead is completed, give up his mediatory king- 
dom; yet, since that very judgment consists in retribution 
of his final punishments upon his enemies, and crowning 

Vor. [V.—109 


of his loyal subjects with eternal glory, which are the two 
chief acts of kingly government, and the very end for which 
all power was committed to him (John xvii. 2), it very pro- 
perly is styled his “kingdom :” and though he shall then de- 
liver up this kingdom, as it is a kingdom, which respects the 
rewarding of his servants, and the punishment of his enemies, 
when the first shall be crowned with eternal glory, and the 
last doomed to endless punishments; yet shall he still 
continue to be “King of saints,” highly exalted above 
them in honour and dignity, and honoured still by them 
with religious respect and veneration. 

2 Ver. 2. Κήρυξον, Preach, &c.] In Timotheo omnes pas- 
tores officii sui commonitos esse voluit Spiritus Sanctus, 
Esthius. 

Εὐκαίρως, καὶ ἀκαίρως, In season, and out of season.) That 
is, saith Chrysostom, not only when thou art in the church, 
but also in thine house; not only in times of peace and 
safety, but also when thou art in prison; not only in time of 
health, but even when thou art about to die. 

3 Ver. 4. "Eri τοὺς μύθους, To fables.) To the fabulous 
divinity of the Gnostics, and made up of gentilism and Juda- 
ism, say some; but it doth not appear that the fabulous 
divinity of the Gnostics, mentioned by Ireneus, was then 
hatched: it is far more probable, that he here speaks of the 
Jewish doctors, and their fabulous traditions; for in his 
First Epistle he saith, he left Timothy at Ephesus, that he 
might charge some among them not to teach other doctrines, 
«nor to give heed to fables and endless genealogies,” 1 Tim. 
i. 3, 4, which, as it relates to the genealogies of the Jews, 
touching their tribes, their relation to the house of David, 
and their traditionary men (see the note there) ; so, ver. 7, 
the apostle plainly tells us, they were “ teachers of the law ;” 
which Simon and his followers said was not to be regarded. 
And in his Epistle to Titus, he sends a like exhortation to 
him, to preserve the Cretians from giving heed to Jewish 
fables (Tit. i. 14), and “doctrines of men that turn from 
the truth ;’ which the rire who never sincerely em- 

3 


866 


laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord (Jesus), the righteous judge, shall give me 4 at 
that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also 


Il. TIMOTHY. 


that love (Gr. have loved) his appearing (and shown that 
love by patient suffering for his sake). 
9 Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me: 


braced the truth, could not do; and to avoid « foolish ques- 
tions, and genealogies, and contentions, καὶ μάχας νομικὰς, 
and quarrels about the law,” as being unprofitable and vain 
iii. 9). 

( 4 Ver. 8. Ἔν ἐκείνη τῇ ἡμέρα, At that day.] The council of 
Florence hath defined “« That pure and cleansed souls, when 
they quit the body, are presently received into heaven, and 
there have a clear vision of the holy Trinity.” And the 
‘Trent council, sess. 25, hath laid this as the foundation of 
the invocation of saints departed, that they do now, cum 
Christo regnare, et eterna felicitate in ccelu frui; “reign 
with Christ, and enjoy eternal felicity in heaven.” But in 
this they seem to deviate from scripture and the primitive 
antiquity : I say, from scripture; for, 

First, Charity is represented by Paul as the most ex- 
cellent of Christian virtues, and therefore that which will 
obtain the highest recompense; and yet the motive by 
which our Lord excites us to perform it runneth thus, 
“ Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just” 
(Luke xiv. 14). 

Secondly, ‘lo those who suffer death and persecution for | 
the name of Christ, our Lord hath promised “a great reward 
in heaven” (Matt. v. 12), but this reward will only be con- 
ferred upon them “at the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ | 
from heaven with his mighty angels” (2 Thess.i.7). “The 
trial of their faith shall be found to praise, glory, and honour, 
ἐν ἀποκαλύψει, at the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet. i. 17). 
Then they, who communicate with him in sufferings, shall 
rejoice with him, ἐν τῇ ἀποκαλύψει, “ at the revelation of his | 
glory” (1 Pet. iv. 13) ; till then, the souls of them who were 
slain for the word of God are represented as “ under the 
altar,” Rev. vi. 9. 

Thirdly, To those who “ feed the flock of Christ,” a great 
reward is promised, even a never-fading “crown of glory ;” 
but it is to be received then only, “when the great Shepherd 
doth appear” (1 Pet. ν. 4). A reward is to be rendered to 
the servants of God, the saints, and prophets; but it is to be 
rendered, “when the time comes that the dead shall be 
judged” (Rev. xi. 18). The apostles are to have their man- 
sions in heaven with Christ, but not till he comes again 
from heaven: for then, saith he, “I will receive you to my- 
self; that where I am, you may be also” (John xiv. 2, 3). 

Fourthly, The retribution “to every man according to his | 
works” is also to be made at the same time; for “the Son | 
of man will come in the glory of his Father, with his holy 
angels ; and then will he render to every man according to his 
works” (Matt. xvi. 27) : « At the end of the world shall the 
righteous shine as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father” 
(Matt. xiii. 40. 43): this shall be done, “in the day when 
God shall judge the secrets of men’s hearts” (Rom. ii. 15), 
and when we shall “appear before the judgment-seat of 
Christ” (2 Cor. v. 12, Rev. xxii. 10). 

Fifthly, Hence, in the scripture, the time of recompense 
and the time of judgment are represented as the same; as 
in these words, “The time is come that the dead shall be 
judged, and that thou shouldest give rewards to thy servants 
the prophets, and to the saints” (Rev. xi. 18). The time of 
glory, and of the apparition of our Lord ; as in these words, 
“When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you 
appear with him in glory” (Col. iii. 4), The time of Christ’s 
appearance, and of our salvation ; for, “he shall appear a 
second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb. ix. 28). The 
time of his appearing, and of our beatific vision ; for, “ when 
he doth appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as 
he is” (1 John iii. ἘΣ 

Sixthly, Hence Christians are so often said to expect 
“the adoption of the sons of God, viz. the redemption of 
the body” from corruption (Rom. viii, 23) ; to “expect the 
revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. i. 7) ; to “ ex- 
pect the Son of God from heaven” (1 Thess. i. 10) : to “ex- 
pect the blessed hope and glorious appearance of the great 
God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Tit. ii. 14) ; to “ hope 
for the grace that shall be given them at the revelation of our 


Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. i. 13). 
Now let it be observed, That the body, compared to the | 


soul, is the vilest and least considerable part of man; and 
therefore, the hope, the glory, the reward, inheritance, adop- 
tion, bliss, and happiness, reserved to the time of the resur- 
rection, cannot respect the body only. Moreover, the apostle 
saith of the incestuous person, that his body was « delivered 
up to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that his soul 
might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus’’ (1 Cor. ν. 5), 
which shows, that the complete salvation of the soul is then 
to be expected. 

As for the judgment of primitive antiquity in this matter, 
it may be learned from these considerations : 

First, That they ascribe this opinion of the soul's imme- 
diate ascent to heaven, and its enjoyment of God’s imme- 
diate presence after death, to the heretics of those times; 
representing it as proper to the followers of Valentinus, 
Basilides, and Marcion; and, after them, as a part of the 
heresy of the Manichees. Thus Justin Martyr, speaking of 
those who were called Christians, but blasphemed the God 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saith, in his Dialogue with 
Trypho, p. 307. 354, “'They denied the resurrection, and 
held, ἅμα τῶ ἀποθνήσκειν τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν ἀναλαμβάνεσϑαι εἰς 
τὸν οὐρανὸν, that as soon as they died, their souls were received 
into heaven.” Irenzus saith in like manner,* that “the 
heretics despised the formation of God,” 1. 6. the body formed 
by him, “and not receiving (the doctrine of) the salvation 
of the flesh, simul atque mortui fuerint, dicunt se supergredi 
ceelis et demiurgum, et ire ad matrem vel ad eum qui ipsis 
affingitur patrem, say, that as soon as they are dead, they 
ascend above the heavens, and go to him whom they call 
their Father.” And having said, that “our Lord’s soul 
went not to heaven, but continued in the place of the dead 
till the resurrection ;” he saith, “This is sufficient to con- 
found these men, qui dicunt interiorem hominem ipsorum 
derelinquentem, hoc corpus in super-ccelestem ascendere lo- 
cum, who say, that their inward man, leaving the body here, 
ascends to the super-celestial mansions.” And then he gives 
the orthodox opinion thus τὸ “It is manifest that the souls 
of the disciples of our Lord shall go into the invisible place 
appointed for them by God, expecting the resurrection ; and 
then receiving their bodies, and rising with them, as our 
Lord did, shall come in the presence of God.” ‘Tertullian, 
having produced the same instance of the death of Christ, 
and the continuance of his soul apud inferos, till the resur- 
rection of the body, positively concludes, that,+ nulli patet 
celum, terra adhue salva, cum transactione enim mundi re- 
serabuntur regna celorum ; “ heaven is open to none whilst 
the earth remains; the kingdom of heaven being only to be 
opened at the dissolution of the world.” And in his fourth 
book against Marcion, be saith,§ “ The bosom of Abraham, 
which is higher than the inferi, but not so high as heaven, is 
that which gives refreshment to the souls of the just, till the 
consummation of all things produces the resurrection of all, 
with a full reward.” 

The Manichees, who also denied the resurrection of the 
body, contended, that good souls had their whole reward im- 
mediately after death ; because Christ promised to the thief, 
that he should be that day with him in paradise. Ὁ which 
objection Chrysostom answers, by concession, that the thief 
was indeed admitted to paradise; but then he adds, that 
paradise was not the same with heaven, μὴ yap ταῦτά ἔστι τὰ 
dyaSa, ἅπερ ὑ Θεὸς ἡμῖν ἐπαγγέλλεται, “for it contains not the 
good things which God hath promised to us ;” and then con- 


* Adv. Her. lib. v. cap. 31, p. 491. 

ἡ Manifestum est, quia discipulorum ejus anime abibunt 
in invisibilem locum definitum eis ἃ Deo, et ibi usque ad 
resurrectionem commorabuntur, sustinentes resurrectionem, 
post recipientes corpora, et perfecté resurgentes, hoc est cor- 
poralitér, quemadmodum et Dominus resurrexit, sic venient 
ad conspectum Dei. Ibid. 

+ De Anima, cap. 55. 

§ Sinum dico Abrahe, etsi non ceelestem, superiorem ta- 
men inferis, interim refrigerium prebiturum animabus justo- 
rum, donec consummatio rerum resurrectionem omnium 
plenitudine mercedis expugnat, cap. 34. 


Ζ' 


CHAPTER IV. 


10 For Demas hath forsaken me, § having loved 


867 
13 9 The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, 


this present world (¢. e. the safety of his life), and is |" when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, 
departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus | but especially the parchments. 


unto Dalmatia (these two not deserting St. Paul, as 
Demas did, but going thither for the promotion of the 
ospel). 

ll Salty 5 Luke is with me. ‘Take Mark, and bring 
him with thee: for? he is profitable to me for the mi- 
nistry (Mark therefore was not then in Egypt). 

12 (Lsay, only Luke is with me,)And (Gr. for) Ty- 
chicus have I sent to § Ephesus. 


cludes, that if God promised “ the kingdom of heaven,” and 
only brought the thief into paradise, οὐδέπω ἀπέδωκεν αὐτῷ 
τὰ ἀγαϑὰ, “he hath not yet given to him the good things 
promised.” 

2. That they expressly teach, that the souls of good men 
remain till the day of judgment in a certain place, extra 
celum beatorum, “ out of heaven,” expecting the day of judg- 
ment and retribution. ‘Thus Justin Martyr* saith, that no 
souls die; but, τὰς μὲν τῶν εὐσεβῶν ἐν xpeirrové τινι χύρῳ μένειν, 
τὰς δ᾽ ἀδίκους καὶ πονηρὰς ἐν χείρονι, τὸν τῆς κρίσεως ἐκδεχομένας 
Χρόνον, that “ the souls of good men remain in a better place, 
the souls of bad men in a worse, expecting the day of judg- 
ment.” Treneust gives us the tradition of the church 
touching this matter, thus; “The presbyters, who were the 
disciples of the apostles, say, Those that were translated, 
were carried into paradise ; for that place is prepared for just 
men, and such as have the Spirit, and there they remain till 
the consummation, expecting, or beginning immortality ;” 
and that there shall be “ new heavens and new earth ;” and 
then, of μὲν καταξιωθέντες τῆς ἐν οὐρανῷ διατριβῆς ἐκεῖσε 
χωρήσουσιν, “ they that are worthy of the celestial mansions 
shall go thither.” 
the apostle, “ And the God of peace sanctify you throughout, 
in body, soul, and spirit, and keep you unblameable to the 
coming of the Lord” (1 Thess. v. 23), saith thus, Habes om- 
nem substantiam hominis saluti destinatam, nec alio tempore 
quam in adventti Domini, qui clavis est resprrectionis; 
“Here you see the whole substance of man designed for sal- 
vation, nor at any other time but the appearance of our 
Lord, who is the key of the resurrection.” ‘There is a place, 
saith Novatian,§ quo piorum anime impiorumque ducuntur, 
futuri judicii prejudicia sentientes, “whither the souls of 
good and wicked men are carried, having some foretastes of 
their future judgment.” And Caius, a presbyter of the 
church of Rome, saith, that just souls being celebrated by the 
angels placed over them, ἄγονται cis χωρίον φωτεινὸν ἐν ᾧ οἱ ἀπ᾽ 
ρχῆς δίκαιοι πολιτεύονται, “are led by them into a place of 
light, called the bosom of Abraham, where the just from the 
beginning have been; where they are delighted with the 
vision of the just fathers, expecting, τὴν μετὰ τοῦτο χωρίον 
ἀνάπαυσιν, καὶ aiwvinv ἀναβίωσιν ἐν οὐρανῷ, after this place, their 
rest and everlasting habitation in heaven.” Let no man 
think, saith Lactantius,{ animas post mortem protinus judi- 
cari, “that souls are forthwith judged after death; they are 
all held in one common custody, till the time may come that 
the great Judge shall make a trial of their merits” (see Dall. 
de Peen. et Satisf. lib. v. cap. 3—6). 

5 Ver. 10.'Ayanjoas τὸν viv αἰῶνα, Having loved this present 
world.) He doth not say, that Demas had forsaken the 
Christian religion, or that he betook himself to his own secu- 
lar affairs, forsaking his attendance on the service of God in 
the church, or preferred the things of this life before those 
of a future; but, as the ancients do expound the words, he 
left the apostle in this time of danger, consulting the safety 
of his own life; for 6 viv aiév,in the scripture phrase, still 
signifies “ this present life :” so, οἱ πλούσιοι ἐν τῷ νῦν αἰῶνι are 


* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 223. 

J Quapropter dicunt presbyteri qui sunt apostolorum dis- 
cipuli, eos qui translati sunt illic translatos esse ; justis enim 
hominibus, et spiritum habentibus, preparatus est paradisus 
Et ibi manere eos, qui translati sunt, usque ad consum- 
mationem, coauspicantes incorruptelam. Lib. v. cap. 5. 

+ De Resur. Carn. cap. 47. § De Trin. cap. 1. 

} Apud Heschel. Not. in Phot. p. 10. 

4 De Vit. Beat. lib. vii. cap. 21, p. 717. 


Tertullian,t having cited those words of | 


14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the 
Lord (sha/l) 12 reward him according to his works : 

15 Of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly 
withstood our words. 

16 ™ At my first answer no man stood with me, bat 
all men (of my acquaintance at Rome) forsook me: I 
pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. 

17 Notwithstanding the Lord (Jesus) “ stood with 


“those that are rich in this life” (1 Tim. vi.17). “To live 
soberly, righteously, and godly,” ἐν τῷ νῦν αἰῶνι, is to do it in 
“this present life’ (see Mark x. 30, 1 Tim. iv. 8), He 
seems therefore only to say of him here, what he says of 
others, ver. 16, “In my first apology no man stood by me, 
but all left me.” 

6 Ver. 11. Luse.] Hence it appears that Luke must be 
alive at the twelfth or thirteenth of Nero, when this epistle 
was indited. 

7 Εὔχρηστος εἰς διακονίαν, He is profitable for the ministry.] 
i.e. For the work of an evangelist (ver.5). As Peter, being 
shortly to put off his tabernacle, was the more diligent in 
giving instruction to the churches of the Jews (2 Pet. i. 13, 
14), so was Paul, now in bonds, in sending his messengers to 
the churches of the gentiles (ver. 10. 12). 

8 Ver. 12. To Ephesus.] Hence it is evident, that Timothy, 
at the writing of this epistle, was not at Ephesus ; for if so, 
why should the apostle advertise him, that he had sent Ty- 
chicus thither? 

9 Ver. 13, Τὸν φελόνην, The cloak.| Or rather, the roll :” 
for φελόνη, saith Phavorinus, is ἐιλητάριον μέμβρανον, “ a parch- 
ment rolled up; φελόνη εἴλητον ropipiov μέμβρανον, a folded 
vellum or parchment :” and Hesychius saith the same. 

10 Ὃν ἀπέλιπον ἐν Τρωάδι, Which I left at Troas.] Not when 
he went from Troas to Assos, in his journey to Jerusalem ; 
for then, saith Bishop Pearson, he could have no cause to 
leave any thing of moment with him, having so many that 
accompanied him in that journey (Acts xx. 4. 6), and a ship 
still attending on them (ver. 13): but in his travels, after he 
was set at liberty, and had left Rome. 

IL ᾿Ἐρχόμενος, Coming,| Probably from thence; for he 
does not bid him send thither for them, or go thither to fetch 
them: whence it follows, that Timothy was then at Troas, 
when this epistle was directed to him. 

2 Ver. 14. ’Axoddn.] The king’s manuscript reads ἀποδώσει, 
“will or shall reward him.” And all the ancients note, that 
this is not an imprecation, but πρόῤῥησις πρέπουσα ἀνδρὶ dno- 
στόλῳ, “a prediction becoming an apostle.” So Pseudo- 
Justin, Qu. et Resp. 125. So Chrysostom, Theodoret, 
Qcumenius, Theophylact, on the place. Who this Alex- 
ander was, or where he lived, is uncertain ; as also whether 
he were a Christian, but zealous for the Jewish rites, as he 
must be, if he were the Alexander delivered up to Satan 
(1 Tim. i. 20), or a heathen, zealous, as Demetrius was, for 
his trade, and on that account opposing the apostle. 

13 Ver. 16, Ἔν τῇ πρώτῃ pov ἀπολογία, In my first apology.) 
If the date of this epistle, contended for in the preface, stand 
good, this could not be his first defence of the gospel, of 
which he speaks, Phil. i. 17. For after that, he was set at 
liberty ; whereas after this, he is still a prisoner (i. 8, ii. 9). 
Moreover, Timothy was then with him at Rome, as appears 
from the salutations then sent to the churches of Philippi 
(i. 1) and Colosse (i. 1), from Paul and Timothy ; yea, he 
was a prisoner there, even after that Paul was set at liberty, 
and so needed not to be taught how things went with the 
apostle then. He therefore calls this his “ first apology,” or 
defence, because, after he had made it, he was still kept in 
bonds (i. 8, ii. 9), and so reserved for another hearing. He 
escaped then, say Chrysostom* and C&cumenius: “but 
when he instructed Nero’s butler or cupbearer in the faith, 
he was cut off.” 

14 Ver. 17. Παρέστη, Stood by me] In a vision, to comfort 


* Ποίαν δὲ πρώτην ἀπολογίαν λέγει ; παρέστη ἤδη τῷ Νέρωνι καὶ 
διέφυγεν" ἐπειδὴ δὲ τὸν οἰνοχόον αὐτοῦ κατήχησε, τότε αὐτὸν ἀπέτεμεν. 


Chrysost. 


868 


me, and strengthened me; that by me (thus standing 
up in defence of the gospel) the preaching (of zt) might 
be fully known (Gr. fulfilled), and that all the Gentiles 
right hear (my defence of it): and I was (then) deli- 
vered out of the mouth of the lion. 

18 And the Lord ® shall (will) deliver me from 
every evil work, and will preserve me unto his hea- 
venly kingdom: to whom (therefore) be glory for ever 
and ever. Amen. 

19 Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the houshold of 
Onesiphorus. (See note on Acts xviii. 18). 


PREFACE TO 


20 " Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have 
Τ left at Miletum sick. 

21 Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubu- 
lus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, 
and all the brethren. 

22 The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace 
be with you. Amen. 

4 The second epistle unto Timotheus, ordained the 
first bishop of the church of the Ephesians, was 
written from Rome, when Paul was brought before 
Nero the second time. 


and support me; as, Acts xviii. 9; so ἐπιστὰς is used Acts 
Xxiii. 11, and παρέστη, Acts xxvii. 23; or to “give me mouth 
and wisdom,” according to his promise, Luke xii. 12, xxi. 
14, 15. 

15 'Ex στόματος λίοντος, From the mouth of the lion ;] i. e. 
Of Nero, or of Helius Cxsareanus. So when Tiberius* 
died, Marsyas said to Agrippa, τέθνηκεν ὃ λέων, * The lion is 
dead.” And so speaks Esther, touching Artaxerxes, “ Put 
a word in my mouth, ἐνώπιον τοῦ λέοντος, before the lion” 
(Esth. xiv. 13), 

16 Ver. 18. Kai ῥύσεταί με, And will deliver me.] If he 
will deliver him, saith Chrysostom, why saith he, “Iam now 
offered 1 Mark therefore his words, he saith not, He will 
again deliver me out of the mouth of the lion; but only, 
that “he will preserve me from every evil work, and to his 
heavenly kingdom.” 

1 Ver. 20.) That Paul was in bonds when he writ this 


* Joseph. Antiq: lib. xviii. cap. 8. 


epistle, and at Rome, he himself saith, i. 8. 17. Now this 
verse affords two arguments, to prove he could not be then 
in his first bonds: first, from these words, “ Erastus abode at 
Corinth :” when was it ? when Paul went from Corinth to go to 
Jerusalem? then Timothy accompanied him, at least as far 
as Asia, and so needed not to be told that, from Rome, so 
long after: it therefore must refer to the time when, saith 
the reverend Bishop Pearson, Paul went from Nicopolis to 
Corinth, A. D. 65, and the twelfth of Nero. Secondly, 
From these words, “Trophimus have I left at Miletum 
sick :” now this cannot relate to the time when Paul went 
to Miletus, near Ephesus (Acts xx. 17); for as Timothy was 
then with him (Acts xx. 4.15), so was not Trophimus then 
left at Miletum, but carried up thence with Paul to Jerusa- 
lem (Acts xxi. 29); nor did Paul ever return thither (Acts 
xx. 25): he must be therefore left at Miletus in Crete, 
where Paul was, saith Bishop Pearson, after his first bonds, 
A. Ὁ. 64, Ner. 10. 


THE 


Bers DEES TO, be es: 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


8.1, Tuat Paul was at Crete, we learn from these words 
of this Epistle to Titus, “I left thee in Crete:” when he 
went thither is uncertain. Dr. Lightfoot conjectures that 
he touched there when he went from Macedonia to Greece, 
Acts xx. 2. “For,” saith he, “if we consider that after 
their parting at Ephesus, when Titus was sent to Corinth 


with his first epistle to them, they never met till Titus | 


cometh up to him, when he was come from Ephesus to 
Macedonia, 2 Cor. vii..5, 6; we may thence learn, that in 
that first journey to Macedonia, he left him not at Crete, 
because Titus and he were not yet met again after their 
parting at Ephesus; and yet, after his second return thither, 
he had not only left him there, but writes to him to come 
thence to Nicopolis, bordering on Macedonia, iti. 12, so that 
this epistle must be writ in his return, or at his coming 
thither, A. D. 55; and not from Nicopolis, as the postscript 
dates it; for he saith not, I have determined to winter 
ἐνταῦθα, here, but ἐκεῖ, there; which shows he was not yet 
come thither.” 

§. 2. But that it could not be written at that time, the 
learned Bishop Pearson proves, not only from the silence of 
Luke in that very chapter, where he so particularly enume- 
rates all Paul's journeys, after he came from Ephesus, till 
his arrival at Jerusalem, without the least mention of his 
being at Crete; but saith expressly, that διελθὼν, “ passing 


through those parts (viz. of Macedonia), and exhorting them 
with many words, he came to Achaia,” representing him 
still in transit, and as passing immediately from Macedonia 
to Greece, not going from Macedonia farther beyond it than 
was to it, and then returning back to Greece, as he must have 
done had he gone from Macedonia to Crete, and so to Achaia. 
Secondly, This opinion he more demonstratively confutes 
from these words, iii. 12,“ When 1 send to thee Artemas, 
or Tychicus, make haste to come unto me to Nicopolis, for 
I have determined there to winter:” for, besides that Arte- 
mas, before his going to Jerusalem, seems not to have joined 
Paul, and Tychicus then was part of his retinue, there is not 
any mention of Paul’s going to Nicopolis, in the whole his- 
tory of his journey to Jerusalem ; nor is it possible he should 
then determine to winter at Nicopolis, who being at Philippi 
in the days of unleavened bread, made all the haste he could 
to be at Jerusalem before pentecost, Acts xx. 6. 16 (see 
more to this purpose, Dissert. 1, de Success. Prim. Rome 
Episc. cap. 9, 8. 7). He therefore places Paul’s journey to 
Crete after his freedom from his bonds at Rome, A. D. 63, 
and the tenth of Nero, and saith, that this epistle was writ- 
ten the year following: that it was writ after his freedom 
from the bonds in which he was from his going to Jerusa- 
lem till his freedom at Rome, he gathers from this note of 
Chrysostom* and Theophylact, That the apostle seemeth 


* Δοκοῦσι δέ μοι χρόνοι εἶναι μεσοΐ τινες, καὶ ἐν ἀδείᾳ Παῦλος 
γράφει ταῦτα" οὐδὲν γὰρ περὶ πειρασμῶν φησί. Proem. 


TITUS. 


to have been then at ease, as making mention in it of his 
bonds, or his temptations, ashe doth in his Epistle to the 
Ephesians, iii. 1, iv. 1, to the Philippians, i. 7. 13, 14, to the 


869 


fore were to do the work of an evangelist: now the work of 
an evangelist, saith Eusebius* was this, “ to lay the founda- 
tions of the faith in barbarous nations, to constitute them 


~Colossians, iv. 18, to Philemon, ver. 1. 9; and in his Second | pastors, and having committed to them the cultivating of 


Epistle to ‘Timothy, i. 8, ii. 9. ‘That after his freedom he 
determined to go to Philippi in Macedonia, he bimself inti- 
mates, Phil. i, 26, ii. 24. “ And this,” saith Bishop Pearson, 
“he did in the twelfth of Nero, in which year he wrote 
this epistle.”” And that he writ it a little after he had been 


at Crete, may be gathered from these words, Tim, iv. 20, | 


“Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick ;” which cannot be 
understood of Miletus near Ephesus, mentioned Acts xx. 
17, for from thence he carried him to Jerusalem, Acts xxi. 
29, never returning thither, Acts xx. 25. He must be there- 


those new plantations, they passed on to other countries and 
nations.” 

Secondly, As for Titus, he was only left at Crete to “ or- 
dain elders in every city, and to set in order the things that 
were wanting ;” having therefore done that work, he had 
done all that was assigned him in that station: and there- 
fore Paul sends for him the very next year to Nicopolis, Tit. 
iii. 12. And so, according to Bishop Pearson’s chronology, 


| he was left at Crete only A. Ὁ. 64, and sent for thence A. D. 


fore left sick at Miletus in Crete, mentioned by Homer,* | 


and by Strabo.f 

§. 3. It is the opinion of all the ancient commentators 
upon this epistle, that ‘Titus was left in Crete, not only to 
ordain bishops in every city, and deacons to minister to them, 
but also to rebuke sharply, and with authority, unruly walk- 
ers ; and this epistle was writ to him, say the ancients, “ to 
make him watchful over, and to oppose himself against the 
Jews and Judaizers in that island, as many passages in this 
epistle do sufficiently demonstrate. 

§. 4. But the great controversy concerning this, and the 
Epistle to Timothy, is, whether Timothy and Titus were 
indeed made bishops, the one of Ephesus and the Proconsu- 
lar Asia, the other of Crete, having authority to make, καὶ 
τοσούτων ἐπισκόπων κρίσιν, 5 “and jurisdiction over so many 
bishops as were in those precincts.” Now of this matter, I 
confess I can find nothing in any writer of the first three 
centuries, nor any intimation that they bore that name: but 
this defect is abundantly supplied by the concurrertt suffrage 
of the fourth and fifth centuries. For, 

First, As for Timothy, he is styled bishop of Ephesus by 
Eusebius, and that with respect to former histories; and 
the same he saith of Titus. And the council of Chalcedon§ 
reckons from Timothy to their time twenty-seven bishops. 
The anonymous author of his life,** in Photius, makes him 
bishop of the metropolis of Ephesus, with seven assistants ; 
and either he, or Photius, say that he was constituted bishop 
by Paul; and the Apostolical Constitutions say the same,tt 
as do also Jerome,+} and all the ancient commentators on his 
epistles. 

Secondly, That Titus had τὴν νῆσον ὁλόκληρον, “ the whole 
island” of Crete committed to his care, is testified not only 
by Eusebius, but also by Jerome in his Catalogue, by Am- 
brose, Chrysostom, ‘Theodoret, Gicumenius in the preface to 
this epistle, to omit many others cited by Dr. Cave in the 
Life of Titus, p. 58, 59. Now to pass my judgment in this 
case : 

First, I assert, that if by saying Timothy and Titus were 
“bishops,” the one of Ephesus, the other of Crete, we un- 
derstand that they took upon them those churches or dio- 
ceses, as their fixed and peculiar charge, in which they were 
to preside for the term of life, I believe that ‘Timothy and 
Titus were not thus bishops: for, 

First, Both Timothy and Titus were evangelists, and there- 


Iliad. B. 


* Αὕὔκτον, Μίλητόν re, πόλεις εὖ ναιετα ἴσας. 

ἡ Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 684. 

ΒΞ ᾽᾿Αποτείνεγαι καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ᾿Ιουδαίο"ς ἐπιστολή. Chrysost. 
Theod. CEcumenius. Πολλῶν ὄντων ἐκεῖ ἐπιχειρούντων προφάσει 
τοῦ νόμου ἀπατᾶν τοὺς λαοὺς, μαϑὼν ὃ Παῦλος γράῤει, καὶ ἐπιτιμᾶν 
δὲ ἐντέλλεται αὐτῷ τοῖς ἀντιλέγονσι τῇ ὑγιαινοῦση πίστει, μάλιστα δὲ 
τοῖς ἐκ περιτομῆς. CEcum. Theoph. Hi sunt de circumci- 
sione Judzi, qui tune temporis nascentem Christi ecclesiam 
subvertere nitebantur, et introducere precepta legalia. Hieron. 
in cap. i. ver. 10. 

§ Chrysost. Preefat. 

ἢ Τιμύθεός γε μὴν τῆς ἐν ᾿Εφέσῳ παροικίας ἱστορεῖται πρῦτος τὴν 
ἐπισκοπὴν εἰληχέναι, ὡς καὶ Τίτος τῶν ἐπὶ Κρήτης ἐκκλησιῶν. Eccl. 
Hist. lib. iti. cap. 4. 

4 Act. 11, tom. iv. col. 600. 

** Καὶ αὐτὸς di’ ἑαυτοῦ, ἑπτὰ συμπαρόντων ἐπισκόπων, τῆς Ἔφ:- 
σίων ἀντιλαμβάνετει μητροπύλεως -----πὸ τοῦ μεγάλου Παῦλο», καὶ 
Χειροτονεῖται τῆς "» ησίων μητροπόλεως ἐπίσκοπος, καὶ ἐνθρονίζεται. 
Phot. Bibl. Num. 254, p. 1403, 


{7 Lib. vii. cap. 46. +¢ Verbo Timotheus. 


' 65, and returned thither, as the ancients conjecture, after the 


death of Paul: for they sayt he died in the ninety-fourth 
year of his age, and was buried in Crete. 

As for Timothy, Paul saith he exhorted him to abide at 
Ephesus when he went into Macedonia: now, as he writes 
to the church of Philippi in Macedonia A. D. 62, and the 
ninth of Nero, that he hoped to be shortly with them, Phil. 
i. 25, 26, ii. 24; so, saith Bishop Pearson, he went thither 
A. D. 64, and the eleventh of Nero, and writ his First 
Epistle to him, A. D. 65. ‘wo years after this he sends for 
him to Rome, 2 ‘Tim. iv. 9. 21; and there he continued, as 
the ancients conjecture, till the martyrdom of St. Paul; 
after which time he must, as they suppose, return to Ephe- 
sus: for they tell us, that in the reign of Domitian he was 
martyred in that city, and lay buried there. But since we 
read not any thing in scripture of their return to either of 
these places afterward, and the authorities on which his re- 
turn dependeth are not very ancient, we cannot much rely 
upon them. 

Prop. 2. But if by “bishops” we only understand persons 
who had authority to ordain, and to govern the clergy of 
their province, and to exercise acts of discipline and censure 
over more than one single congregation, I believe both Ti- 
mothy and Titus had this episcopal jurisdiction, and so 
might properly be styled “ bishops.” 

First, hat the jurisdiction of Titus extended to all the 
Christians in the whole island of Crete, is apparent from 
these words, “ For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou 
mightest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain 
elders in every city,” Tit. 1. 5. Hence is he said to have 
received “the episcopal care, τῶν ἐπὶ Kpijrns ἐκκλησιῶν, of the 
churches in Crete,” and to have the whole island committed 
to him. 

And if the church at Ephesus, committed to the care of 
Timothy, did not exceed the compass of one particular con- 
gregation, Paul had very little success in the great pains he 
took “for three whole years to teach them publicly, and 
from house to house, exhorting every one of them night and 
day,” Acts xx. 30, 31. Whereas Paul himself informs us, 
that at Ephesus “a great door, and effectual, was opened to 
him,” 1 Cor. xvi. 8, 9; Luke, that “all that dwelt in Asia 
heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and gentiles ;” 
that “ the word of God prevailed and grew mightily, and that 
fear fell upon them all,and the name of the Lord Jesus was 
magnified,” Acts xix. 10. 17. 20. But that which puts this 
matter beyond doubt, is the observation of the learned Bi- 
shop Stillingfleet, that the elders Paul sends for to Miletus 
were all of Ephesus, and to them he commits, not only the 
church of Ephesus, but all the flock over which the Holy 
Ghost had made them overseers, i. 6. all that had been con- 
verted in Asia through his means, during his abode there 
three years. Irenwus, indeed, saith he summoned them 
“from the neighbouring cities,” as well as Ephesus: “but,” 
saith he, “ Paul was in so great haste, that he would not so 
much as go to Ephesus, nor send any whither but to that 
city ; and yet those to whom he committed the whole flock, 
then in Asia, came from Ephesus to Miletus: which makes 
it probable that there Paul had raised a nursery for the 
churches thereabout; as Clement observes the apostles were 


* οὗτοι δὲ ϑεμελίους τῆς πίστεως ἐπὶ ξένοις τισὶ τόποις αὐτὸ μόνον 
καταβαλλόμενοι, ποιμένας τε καθιστάντες ἑτέρους, τούτοις τε αὐτοῖς 
ἐγχειρίζοντες τὴν τῶν ἀρτίως εἰσαχθέντων γεωργίαν, ἑτέρας αὐτοὶ 
πάλιν χώρας τε καὶ ἔθνη μετήϊσαν. 
+ Sophronius apud Hieron, in Tito. Isidor. de Vita et 
Obitd. S.S. p. 542. 
3x2 


870 


wont to do in fruitful soils, with a prospect of such churches 
as were to be formed, τῶν μελλόντων πιστεῦειν, “of those that 
should after believe :” and the same Clement observing that 
they did this, δοκιμάσαντες τῷ Πνεῦματι, “ making trial of 
them by their spiritual gifts,’ he very probably conjectures 
that the twelve persons who, “when he laid his hands upon 
them, received the Holy Ghost, and spake with tongues, and 
prophesied,” Acts xix. 6, 7, being thus qualified in an ex- 
traordinary manner to be teachers of others, might be in the 
number of those elders whom Paul charges to “take heed to 
themselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost 
had made them overseers,” ver. 28. 

As to the jurisdiction belonging to them in their several 
districts, it is also manifest concerning Timothy, that he was 
set over the house of God, 1 Tim. iii. 14, 15; that in that 
house he was to ordain, and to lay hands on the elders to be 
chosen to that office, v. 22; to choose such to the episcopal 
office, or to the office of elders, who were duly qualified for 
that work, iii. 2. 7; to admit and consecrate others to the 
office of deacons, ver. 8; to take widows into the number of 
deaconesses, under such qualifications, and to refuse others, 
v. 9.11; to receive accusations against the elders, v. 19; 
and to rebuke them, ver. 20. Which plainly shows there 
was a right of judging and censuring offenders in Timothy, 
by virtue of his office. He had power also to order the 
maintenance of the elders, ver. 17; to take care that the 
public offices of divine worship were performed regularly, ii. 
1.8; to “charge others not to teach any other doctrine” 
than what they had received, i. 3; to “command and teach 
with authority,” v. 11; and not to suffer others to “despise 
his authority,” ver. 12. And all these things seem plainly 
to belong to the trust committed to him, vi. 20. 

And as for Titus, it is certain he was left in Crete by Paul, 
“to set in order the things which were wanting,” i. 5; and, 
in order to this end, to inspect the qualifications of them 
who were to be admitted to the episcopal office, ver. 17; 
and so “to ordain elders in every city.’ And he was also 
to admonish and reject heretics, ili. 10. 

Now I confess that these two instances, absolutely taken, 
afford us no convincing arguments for a settled diocesan 
episcopacy, because there is nothing which proves they did 
or were to exercise these acts of government rather as bi- 
shops than evangelists; for it is certain that the order of 
evangelists was superior to that of governments, and so in- 
cluded an authority to do those acts of government which 
belonged to bishops. Accordingly, in those places where 
these evangelists preached they did, ποιμένας καϑιστάναι, ἢ 
“constitute pastors,” and then went on to preach in other 
places. Yet these things evidently follow hence : 

1, That such superiority over other pastors cannot be con- 
trary to the gospel rule; or that the nature of church govern- 
ment doth not imply an equality among the governors of it: 
and that the apostles, if they pleased, might have fixed per- 
sons in any other churches, to exercise these acts of ecclesi- 
astical authority and jurisdiction, as well as Paul placed 
these two persons, the one at Ephesus, the other at Crete, 
for these ends. 

2. That it is not repugnant to the constitutions of churches 
in the apostolical times, “sr men to have jurisdiction over 
more than one particular congregation ; for such a power 
Titus had over all Crete, and Timothy over many elders: 
which, had it been contrary to the nature of church-govern- 
ment, would not have been permitted, and much less or- 
dained, by St. Paul, in any of the churches planted by him. 

3. Hence also it appears, that the apostolical power of 
governing churches and ordaining elders in them, was not so 
limited to the persons of the apostles but that it might be 
communicated to others, whom the apostles would entrust 
with it; and therefore might be continued in the church after 
their decease: and if it be granted that such an apostolical 
power of governing churches might be committed to others, 
and was actually so, by the apostles; it remains only to in- 
quire, whether, upon their remove or departure, they did 
entrust any persons in such a manner as, it is certain from 
scripture, Paul did Timothy, as to the churches of Asia: of 
which we shall discourse hereafter. 

4, From these words, “'The things which thou hast heard 


* Euseb. Eccles Hist. lib. iii. cap. 37. 


PREFACE TO 


from me, confirmed by many witnesses, commit thou to faith- 
ful men, who shall be able to teach others also ;” it may be 
fairly argued that the apostle here appoints Timothy* to 
constitute a succession of men vested with ecclesiastical au- 
thority, to teach them, and command others to observe them. 
And from those words to Titus, “I left thee in Crete, to or- 
dain elders, κατὰ πόλιν, ὡς ἐγώ σοι διεταξάμην, in every city, as 
I ordered thee,” Tit. i. 5; “for a bishop must be blameless, 
as the steward of God,” ver. 7, it is also fairly gathered that 
a succession of bishops was to be constituted in every city, 
as persons that were to take care of the church of God there, 
1 Tim. iii. 5. And my conjecture is, that Paul, after his 
liberty from his first bonds, having travelled into Spain and 
Judea, and from thence to Macedonia, began to settle this 
church-government in all the churches where they before 
were wanting ; that so, after his death, they might be all pro- 
vided with them: that upon this account Titus was sent by 
him to Crete, i. 5, and afterward to Dalmatia, 2 Tim. iv. 11; 
and that the First Epistle to Timothy was not writ to him to 
require him to stay at Ephesus, where bishops had been set- 
tled long before, but to instruct him “how to behave himself 
in the church of God” in general, iii. 15; doing the office of 
an evangelist, by ordaining church-governors where he found 
them wanting, and ordering other matters, as he saw them 
needful, in any of those places to which he resorted. But 
then, if we take in the suffrage of antiquity, and consult 
them who were nearest to the fountain of church-govern- 
ment, we shall find still greater reason to believe that it was 
διάταξις ἀποστολικὴ, “an apostolical ordinance,” to appoint 
bishops with the chief jurisdiction over cities: for we find 
plainly, by the forementioned instances, that the apostles 
had this power in themselves, and did convey it to some 
others; but whether they did this universally, and with a 
design to continue this order, being an inquiry about matter 
of fact, must be proved by the best means we can use in a 
matter of fact of so great antiquity. Now there can be no 
stronger proof of such a matter of fact, than the general 
sense and concurrent practice of the Christian church in the 
ages next succeeding the apostles. And this general sense 
of the Christian church may be demonstrated, 

1. From undoubted testimonies affording a clear evidence 
of this succession in the most conspicuous churches. And 
as for the undoubted testimonies of this succession in the 
most conspicuous churches, “I shall first appeal,” saith the 
learned Bishop of Worcester, “to Ireneus and Tertullian, 
as least liable to exception.” The former not only mentions 
a succession of persons to the apostles, but he saith,t “« The 
apostles committed the care of the churches to them, and 
left them to succeed in their places :” whch implies, that as 
the apostles had themselves the care of ministering to the 
church, and the power of governing and presiding over it, so 
they committed it to the bishops whom they chose to suc- 
ceed them. ‘Tertullian not only mentions them in general 
who succeeded the apostles,+ but particularly instances in 
Polycarp, placed by John at Smyma, and Clemens, by 
Peter at Rome; and then he adds, that “the other churches 
had bishops placed in them like to these:” so that what 
authority Clemens had at Rome, and Polycarp at Smyma, 
that, Tertullian affirms, the bishops had in other churches. 


* Πιστοῖς ἀνθρώποις, ἤγουν, ἐπισκύποις καὶ πρεσβυτέροις, οὖς 
ἔμελλεν ὃ Τιμόθεος χειροτονεῖν. Photius apud CGicumen. Δῆλον 
ὅτι περὶ πρεσβυτέρων καὶ ἐπισκόπων αὐτῷ διατάττεται. Theoph. 

+ Habemus annumerare eos qui ab apostolis instituti sunt 
episcopi in ecclesiis, et successores eorum usque ad nos, qui- 
bus etiam ipsas ecclesias committebant, quos et successores 
relinquebant, suum ipsorum locum magisterii tradentes. Lib. 
iii. cap. 3. Lino episcopatum administrande ecclesie tra- 
debant. Ibid. 

¢ Evolvant ordinem episcoporum suorum (heretici), ita 
per successiones ab initio decurrentem, ut primus ille episco- 
pus aliquem ex apostolis, vel apostolicis viris, qui tamen cum 
apostolis perseveraverit, habuerit auctorem, et antecessorem ; 
héc enim modo ecclesie apostolice census suos deferunt, sic- 
ut Smyrnzorum ecclesia Polycarpum ad Joanne conloca- 
tum refert, βίους Romanorum Clementem ἃ Petro ordinatum 
itidem: perinde utique et cwtere exhibent, quos ab aposto- 
lis in episcopatum constitutos apostolici seminis traduces 
habeant. De Prescript. Heret. cap. 32, 


TITUS. 


Now Ireneus saith that Linus and Clemens had the episco- 
pal power of governing the church : and as for Polycarp, he, 
even by the Jews* and gentile’, was styled, 6 rig ᾿Ασίας δι- 
δάσκαλος, “the master, or teacher of Asia;” by Jerome,t 
πάσης τῆς ᾿Ασίας ἀρχηγὸς, “the governor of all Asia; and 
by Ignatius,+ κυβερνήτης, “the governor of the church of 
Smyrna.” 

Add to this, these words of Mr. Dodwell, to those who 
denied the presidency of bishops over the church in those 
ages: “ What can they say to the angels ‘in the Revelation? 
What, to the testimony of Irenwus, concerning Polycarp ? 
What, to the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus,§ who 
mentions bishops among other officers of the church, settled 
by John? What, to the testimony of Hegesippus,|| who 
makes the kinsmen of our Saviour, ἡγήσασϑαι τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν, 
“to have been governors of the churches, from Domitian’s 
time to that of Trajan?’ What to those who mention 
James{ as made bishop of Jerusalem by the apostles them- 
selves? What, of the seven Polycrates mentions as bishops 
in his own see before himself? Nay, what, to all those ca- 
talogues of bishops succeeding in the four patriarchal sees, 
particularly the fifteen in Jerusalem, from James, to the de- 
struction of the Jews under Hadrian? Nay, what, to the 
succession of all the apostolical sees, to which the fathers of 
the second century do so solemnly appeal, to prove their 
own doctrine apostolical, in opposition to the contrary pre- 
tences of the heretics? Can they think them all to have been 
either wilful forgeries, or general mistakes, in a matter of fact, 
so near their own time, without so much as any likely ground 
in history ἢ How will they then assure us, that they were 
not mistaken, in delivering to us the books of the apostles, 
which were not more notorious to them than their govern- 
ment.” 

2. This general sense of the church may be demonstrated, 
from the unreasonableness of the supposition, that the form 
of government, left to the churches by the apostles, should 
be so quickly changed, as they suppose, who do conceive 
that the apostles left no governors superior to presbyters, or 
pastors of one congregation, in the church: for it is clearly 
proved, by the learned bishop of Chester, that the writers of 
the second century distinctly mentioned the several orders of 
bishops, and their inferior presbyters in the same church; 
and thereby give us reason to conclude, that disparity was 
settled in that age, and therefore it is very improbable it 
should be otherwise in the preceding age of the apostles: for 
that, in the frame and substance of the established govern- 
ment of the church, a thing always in use and practice, there 
should be so sudden a change, so universal a corruption, in so 
short a time ; and that all Christians, all the degraded clergy, 
without the least degree of opposition that we meet with, or we 
read of, should conspire in, or consent to this innovation and 
corruption, isa thing morally impossible: for, as Tertullian** 
argues in a like case, “ What all Christian churches did so 


* De Martyr. Polycarp. §. 12. 

Ἴ Catal. 

+ Epist. ad Polycarp. §. 2. 

§ Ὅπου μὲν ἐπισκόπους καταστήσων, apud Euseb. lib. iii. 
cap. 23, p. 92. 

! Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 20. 

4 Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. v. cap. 24, p. 192. 

** Varidsse debuerat error doctrine ecclesiarum, quod au- 


871 


early agree in practising uniformly, came not by error, bu 
by tradition.” he improbability of this sudden and general 
innovation will be farther evident, if we consider, 

1. The subjects of this constitution, viz. the persons ap- 
pointed by the apostles, or apostolical men, to govern and 
preside in every church ; they being constant objects of every 
person’s common sense, seen in every assembly, employed 
in every ecclesiastical affair, public or private, in which 
Christians, sick or well, living or dying, were concerned. 
Now in a matter of this kind, which was the daily object of 
the senses of all Christians, we cannot easily conceive how 
they could possibly mistake, and not perceive that such a 
change was made, if really it was done. 

Again, We shall be more convinced, that this was not per- 
formed by conspiracy, or by a joint consent of Christians, to 
make this alteration in that form of government which the 
apostles had established, if we consider, 

1. The general agreement of all churches in this matter ; 
since not one single church can be produced, in which this 
government did not obtain, For how can we imagine, that, 
in a time when no general council could meet to appoint 
it, and when there were no Christian princes to set it forward 
on a political account; and when, by reason of the heat of 
persecution, and the distance of Christian churches, there 
was so little commerce and intercourse between them, from 
the churches of Armenia and Persia in the east, to those of 
Spain in the west; from the African churches in the south, 
to our British churches in the north ; this constitution should 
universally be received, and submitted to, if it had not been 
established by the apostles, or the first founders of those 
churches ? 

2. If we consider how much it did concern all churches, 
that such an innovation should not obtain amongst them, 
and tamely be submitted to ; for all the people were obliged 
to know their governors, to which they were by scripture 
obliged to submit, and so they could not yield to this inno- 
vation, without the greatest danger to their souls: the pres- 
byters, if they had by the apostles been advanced to the 
highest power, would not so weakly have submitted to an 
authority usurped over them; but either out of a just zeal 
to assert their freedom, or out of indignation at the inso- 
lence of the usurping bishops, or out of that unwillingness 
to submit and obey, which is natural to all men, would have 
asserted their equality. 

3. This will be farther evident, if we consider, that even 
the persons then exalted could have no motive or temptation 
to accept of this advancement: for men do not easily de- 
sire a change, but upon prospect of some ease or temporal 
advantage ; much less when they perceive the change is like 
to add to their trouble, and increase their danger. Now 
this was really the case of the first Christian bishops, they 
being still exposed to the sharpest fury of their persecutors, 
and commonly begun with first, when any storm was raised 
against the church: their labours also were very great; for 
the care of the flock lay on them, and they were unwearied 
in the discharge of the pastoral care. Can we then reason- 
ably think, that they could be so fond of so much toil and 
peril, as to violate the institution of the blessed Jesus or his 
apostles to obtain it? 


tem apud omnes unum est, non est erratum, sed traditum. 
De Prescript. cap. 28. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Paur, 'a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus ; faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of ὃ the 


Christ, ? according to (xara, for the promotion of ) the 


truth which is after godliness ; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Δοῦλος Θεοῦ, A servant of God.] He writes not 
this to confirm his authority to Titus. who doubted not at 
all of it; but to confirm it to others with whom he did con- 
verse, or to whom this epistle might come; it being of use 
not only to direct Titus then, but all bishops and rulers of the 
church for ever. 

2 Kara πίστιν, For the promotion of the faith of God's 


elect.) i. e. The faith of Christians in the general, they being 
all γένος ἐκλεκτὸν, “an elect generation,” 1 Pet. ii. 9, and 
Paul being an apostle in reference to them all, to them to 
whom he was “a savourof death,” as well as to them "Ὁ 
whom he was “a savour of life,” 2 Cor. ii. 16. 

3 πῆς κατ᾽ εὐσέβειαν ἀληϑείας, The truth which is after 
godliness.) 'The “ mystery of godliness,” 1 Tim. iii. 16, the 
«doctrine which is afler godliness,” 1 Tim. vi. 3, This is 
therefore only necessary to be believed, so far as that belief 


872 


24In (ἐπ᾽, wilh thal) hope of eternal life, which | 
God, that cannot lie, (ath) promised before the world 
began (7. 6. from the beginning of ages) ; 

3 But hath in due times manifested (ἐφανέρωσε δὲ 
χαιροὺς ἐδίοις, and hath, in tls proper season, manifested 
this) his word (of promise) through preaching (of it to 
the gentiles), which (office) is committed unto me ac- 
cording to the commandment of God our Saviour; 

4 (1, Paul, write this)To (thee, O) Titus, mine own 


TITUS. 


son after the common faith: (wishing to thee) grace, 
mercy, and peace, from God the Father and (from) the 
Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour. 

5 (Advertising thee, that) For this cause left I thee in 
Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that 
(as yel) are wanting, and ordain § elders in every city, 
as I had appointed thee: 

6 If any be blameless, δ the husband of one wife 
(neither guilty of polygamy, nor married again after 


is necessary to a holy life. To confirm this inference, let 
these following arguments be considered : 

First, That which “ hath the promise of this life, and that 
which is to come,” must be sufficient to secure us of the 
enjoyment of the life to come; but godliness, saith the | 
apostle, “hath the promise of this life, and that which is to 
come,’ 1 Tim. iv. 18. Ergo, again, that which hath con- 
tentment is great gain, and must sure avail us to salvation, 
seeing, without salvation, we can gain nothing which is truly 
good; but “godliness with contentment is great gain,” 1 
Tim. vi. 6. Ergo, 

Secondly, If this be the great end, for which ἡ χάρις τοῦ 
Θεοῦ ἡ σωτήριος, “the saving grace of God hath appeared to 
us, viz. To teach us that, denying all ungodliness, and 
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godlily, 
in this present world ;” and if, by doing so, we may “expect 
the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our Lord” with 
comfort, then must this holiness administer to us an as- 
surance of our future happiness. Now all this is the express 
saying of Paul, Tit. ii. 11, 12. 14, Ergo, 

Thirdly, By what we do entirely attain the end for which 
our Saviour died, or suffered on the cross, by that we must 
attain assurance of the benefits of his death and passion, 
viz. remission of sins, justification, and salvation; but this 
we do, by “dying to sin and living unto righteousness ;”’ that 
is, by being holy in our lives and conversations: for “ Christ 
bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead 
to sin, might live to righteousness,” 1 Pet. ii. 24. And to as 
many as are thus conformed to his death, by dying unto sin, 
he hath promised that they “shall be conformed to him in 
likeness of his resurrection,” Rom. viii. 11. Faith therefore 
cau be no farther necessary, than it is requisite to engage us 
“to die unto sin, and to live to righteousness.” 

Fourthly, This will be farther evident even from the na- 
ture of true holiness ; for seeing that consisteth in a partici- 
pation of the divine nature, 2 Pet. i. 4, in “ putting on the 
new man, which is created after God in righteousness and 
true holiness,” Eph, iv. 24, in being “holy in all manner of 
conversation, as he that has called us is holy,” 1 Pet. i. 15, 
it plainly follows, either that they who live to God, who are 
like him in holiness, who have the image of God instamped 
upon them, and who are “ made partakers of the divine na- 
ture,” may notwithstanding, perish everlastingly, or that true 
holiness may render us secure of happiness. 

Fifthly, It seems evident, that a good and a wise God 
cannot reveal things only to stuff our heads with notions, 
when they have no influence upon our hearts to make us 
better: since, then, to disbelieve them would be pernicious, 
and yet the believing them would do us no good, and a wise 
God must require this faith to no end, his design in requiring 
us to believe in Jesus Christ being this, “ that believing we 
may have life through his name,” John xx. 31, and the very 


“end of our faith” is “the salvation of our souls,” 1 Pet. 1. 
9, he therefore can require us to believe nothing but what 
hath a real tendency to the obtainment of that life, and that 
salvation, which is the end of our whole faith. 

4 Ver. 2, 3.] Note, By comparing these two verses with 
those words in Timothy, “ He hath saved us, and called us 
with a holy calling; not according to our works, but according 
to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ 
Jesus, πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, before the world began ; but is now 
made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Christ, who 
hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality 
to light through the gospel; whereunto I am appointed a 
preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the gentiles,” 
2 Tim. i. 9—11; I say from these words compared together, 
it may be inferred, 

First, That the promise of eternal life, mentioned in both 


places, is the promise of calling those gentiles, to whom Paul 
was an apostle, to that faith which had the promise of eter- 
nal life annexed to it: for this promise God is said to 
have performed, by Paul’s preaching this word of life to the 
gentiles, 

Secondly, That this hope of eternal life was not made 
manifest till the appearing of our Saviour, and the preaching 
of the gospel to the world; he having “ brought life and inm- 
mortality to light by the gospel,” 2 Tim. i. 10, and mani- 


| fested the hope of it by the preaching of the word of 


faith. 

Thirdly, Seeing no such promise could be made to men, 
no such grace given to them, before there were any men in 
the world, these words, πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, cannot properly 
be rendered “ before the world began ;” but, as Chrysostom, 
Theodoret, and Cicumenius, render them, ἄνωθεν “ἐξ ἀρχῆς, 
“of old time,” or “ from the beginning:” so, the revelation 
of the calling of the gentiles is styled, “ The revelation of the 
mystery, χρόνοις αἰωνίοις σεσιγημένου, kept secret from men 
since the world began,” Rom. xvi. 25, but now manifested 
by the scriptures of the prophets. ‘This promise therefore 
was contained in the writings of the prophets, and either 
must relate to the promise made to Adam immediately after 
the fall, that “the seed of the woman should break the ser- 
pent’s head,” which was a promise made from the beginning, 
and πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων, before any of the three ages of the 
world were passed; or, to the promise made to Abraham, 
that “in his seed should all the families of the earth be 
blessed,” which was a promise made a long time.ago, and be- 
fore the first age of the world expired. So Zacharias speaks 
of the promise of the Messias, made διὰ τῶν ἀπ᾽ αἰῶνος mpopn- 
τῶν, “by the holy prophets from the beginning,” Luke i. 70. 
And Jerusalem is mentioned as an apostatizing city, αφ᾽ ἠἡμέ- 
ρὼν αἰῶνος “from the days of old,” Ezra iv. 15. 19, and, az’ 
αἰῶνος, “of old,’ Esd. ii. 23. 26. If it refer to the promise 
or declaration made to Adam, that “the seed of the woman 
should brnise the serpent’s head,” that must be a declaration 
that the Messiah should exempt us from that mortality the 
serpent had brought upon the seed of Adam, and ‘conse- 
quently a promise that he should procure for us a happy 
resurrection to eternal life: if we refer it to the promise made 
to Abraham, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be 
blessed,” we, by that blessing, being made the adopted “sons 
of God, and heirs according to the promise,” Gal. iii. 29, 
must have a title by it to the “redemption of our bodies,” 
and must become sons of the resurrection to eternal life, and 
by it receiving the promise of that Spirit, which is the earnest 
of that inheritance, Gal. iii. 14, must thereby be assured 
of it. 

5 Ver. 5. Πρεσβυτέρους. Hence it appears, that at the first 
conversion of the Cretians to the faith, they had no bishops 
or presbyters set over them, but had all their church-offices 
performed by men assisted by that Holy Spirit, which God 
shed on them abundantly, through faith in Christ (iii. 6), 
though out of these, bishops and deacons usually were 
chosen: but then it is observable, that things were then 
wanting: or, that this was a deficiency in that church. 

6 Ver. 6. Mids γυναικὸς avip, The husband of one wife.] 
Here Chrysostom, Ccumenius, and Theophylact, have well 
observed, against the heretics and papists, that marriage is so 
honourable, that any clergyman may ascend to the episcopal 
throne with it, ὥστε per’ αὐτοῦ xai ἐπὶ τὸν ἅγιον θρόνον ὀύνασϑαι 
ἀναβαίνειν, Chrysost.'Theoph.: yea, that he may do the office 
of bishop, and retain the nuptial bed, ὡς δυναμένου καὶ pera 
γάμου ἐπισκοπῆς προνοεῖν τινος. (Ecumenius. 

To show the antiquity of that interpretation of those words, 
«the husband of one wife,” which I incline to, Jerome saith, 
that, quidam de héc loco ita sentiunt; Judaice, inquiunt, 


CHAPTER I. 


divorce from his former wife; see note on 1 Tim, iii. 
2), having faithful children not accused of riot or 
unruly. 

7 7 For a bishop must be blameless, as (being) the 
steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not 
given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy luere ; 

8 5 But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men 
(or things), sober (or prudent), just, holy, temperate ; 

9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been 
taught (xara τὴν διδαχὴν, according to the doctrine of 
Christ and his apostles), that he may be able by sound 
doctrine ® both to exhort (both to admonish, or instruct 
in sound doctrine,) and to convince the gainsayers. 

10 For there are many unruly ' and vain talkers 


873 


(in Orete) and deceivers (of men’s minds), " specially 
they of the circumcision : 

11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert 
whole houses, teaching things which they ought not 
(to teach), for filthy lucre’s sake. 

12 One of themselves, even (Epimenides) 12 a prophet 
of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil 
beasts, 13 slow bellies (ἡ. e. g/uttons). 

13 This witness is true (of them who inhabit Crete, 
whether natives or Jews). herefore ™ rebuke them 
sharply (ἔλεγχε αὐτοὺς ἀποτόμως, convince them power- 
fully), that they be sound in the faith ; 

14 Not giving heed "5 to Jewish fables, and com- 
mandments of men, that turn from the truth. 


consuetudinis fuit vel binas uxores habere, vel plures, 
quod etiam in veteri lege de Abraham, et Jacob, legi- 
mus; et hoc nunc volunt esse preceptum, ne is qui epis- 
copus est eligendus, uno tempore duas pariter habeat uxores. 
He also seems to show his dislike of the other opinion, in 
these words, Multi superstitiosius magis quam verius, etiam 
eos, qui ctim gentiles fuerint, et unam uxorem habuerint,— 
qui amiss&, post baptismum Christi alteram duxerint, putant 
in sacerdotio non eligendos. 

7 Ver. 7. ᾿Ανέγκλητον εἶναι, (1 left thee in Crete to ordain 
elders ; if any be blameless ;) for a bishop must be blame- 
less.] Hence, say the Greek and Latin commentators, it is 
manifest that the same person is called a presbyter in the 
fifth, and a bishop in the seventh verse, καὶ ἐντεῦθεν δῆλον ὡς 
τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους ἐπισκόπους ὠνόμαζον, εἰρηκὼς yap ἵνα xaracrij- 
σῆς κατὰ πόλιν πρεσβυτέρους, ἐπῆγαγε, det γὰρ ἐπίσκοπον ἀνέγκλη- 
τὸν εἶναι" ἐν ἑκάστη δὲ πόλει οὐκ ἐπισκόπους, ἀλλὰ πρεσβυτέρους 
ἔϑος εἶναι πόλλους, Theodoret. “ When he had said, I left 
thee in Crete, that thou mighest ordain presbyters in every 
city,* postea intulit; Oportet enim episcopum sine crimine 
esse, tanquarn Dei dispensatorem ; idem est ergo presbyter 
qui episcopus: he after makes this inference, For a bishop 
must be blameless: the bishop therefore and presbyter are 
here the same.” The reverend and learned Bishop Pearson 
proves, from Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen, 
that in their judgment, the apostle speaks of presbyters pro- 
perly so called ; as doth also Theodoret, from this argument, 
That the apostle requires presbyters in the plural to be or- 
dained in every city, whereas there was to be only one single 
bishop in a city. ButI find no answer to the argument, that 
the same person is a presbyter in the fifth, who is a bishop 
in the seventh verse; and therefore I still incline to the 
opinion of Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, Gicumenius, and 
‘Theophylact, that the names were then common. 

A bishop must be blameless.] Jerome, understanding this 
of presbyters, speaks to the bishops thus; Audiant episcopi, 
qui habent constituendi presbyteros per urbes singulas potes- 
tatem, sub quali lege ecclesiastice constitutionis ordo tenea- 
tur: and then proceeds thus; At nune cernimus plurimos 
hanc rem beneficium facere, ut non querant eos qui possunt 
ecclesie plus prodesse et in ecclesia erigere columnas: sed 
quos vel ipsi amant, vel quorum obsequiis sunt deliniti, vel 
pro quibus majorum quisquam rogaverit, et ut deteriora 
taceam, qui ut clerici fierent, muneribus impetrérunt. 

8 Ver. 8. Φιλόξενον, A lover of hospitality.] Not in the 
modern sense of keeping hospitality, that is, a great table for 
persons of quality to come to; but, say Chrysostom and 
Theophylact, τὰ αὐτοῦ τοῖς ξένοις προϊέμενος καὶ τοῖς δεομένοις, 
“one so far from filthy lucre, that he spends what he has 
upon the stranger and the poor.” Σώφρονα οὐ τὸν νηστευτὴν 
εἶπεν évradSa, ἀλλὰ τὸν πάϑους κρατοῦντα, “He saith sober, 
i. e. not one that is much in fasting, but an exact governor 
of his passions, his tongue, hands, and eyes.” 

9 Ver. 9. Παρακαλεῖν.} i. 6. NovSeretvy, Theoph. See Rom. 
Xii. 8. Τὸ δὲ μάλιστα χαρακτηρίζον τὸν ἐπίσκοπον, τὸ διδάσκειν ἐστὶν, 
“The chief character of a bishop is τὸ διδασκαλικὸν, his ability 
to teach,” say Chrysostom and Theophylact.” 

10 Ver. 10. Ματαιολόγοι, Vain talkers.) That the Jews 
Were ματαιολόγοι, “vain talkers,” and ἑτεροδιδασκαλοῦντες, 
“teachers of things which they ought not,” we learn, 1 Tim. 
i. 3, 4. 6, and that they were desirous of filthy lucre, robbing 


* Jiieron. in locum. 
Vor. IV.—110 


and devouring those they taught, see 2 Cor. xi. 20. Of the 
covetousness of the pharisees, the great sticklers for the 
necessity of circumcision, and of the observation of the law 
of Moses, by all Christians (Acts xv. 5), our Saviour gives 
us a large account, Matt. xxiii, 14, 25, Luke xvi. 14, Their 
mouths must be stopped, not with force, but with conviction 
(ver. 2), by such strength of conviction, say the fathers, as 
will not suffer them to speak any thing by way of answer, or 
gainsaying the truth. 

NM Μάλιστα δὲ of ἐκ περιτομῆς, Especially they of the cir- 
cumeision.] He doth not say, Especially those gentiles or 
Samaritans, who are advocates for the observation of the 
Jewish law, but of ἐκ περιτομῆς, “they of the circumcision,” 
which, throughout the New Testament, signifies the Jews, 
men of that nation and religion: so Acts x. 45, “ And οἱ ἐκ 
περιτομῆς, the Jews which came with Peter were amazed, 
when they saw the gift of the Holy Ghost poured out upon 
the gentiles;” Acts xi. 2, of ἐκ περιτομῆς, “The Jews con- 
tended with Peter, saying, Thou wentest in to men uncir- 
cumcised, and didst eat with them’’ (see Rom. iv. 12, xv. 8, 
Gal. ii. 7—9, Eph. ii. 11, Col. iv. 11). Moreover, the 
Gnostics and Simonians were so far from being advocates for 
the observation of the Jewish law, that it was one part of 
their doctrine,* νόμῳ καὶ προφῆταις μὴ χρᾶσϑαι, that “no man 
should observe the law or the prophets” (see note on 1 ‘Tim. 
i. 7): they therefore cannot be the men here intended. 

2 Ver. 12. Προφήτης, A prophet of their own.] Theodoret 
expressly says, this poet was Callimachus ; GZcumenius and 
Theophylact cite the words of Callimachus, and so doth 
Chrysostom, though he confesses the poet was Epimenides. 
Callimachus it could not be, for he was no Cretian, but a 
Cyrenian, nor hath he this whole verse, but only the begin- 
ning of it, Κρῆτες det ψεῦσται, which, saith Jerome, he bor- 
rowed from Epimenides; who by Plato} is styled ἁνὴρ 
ϑεῖος" by Diodorus Siculus,t 6 ϑεύλογος, “the divine ;” by 
Diogenes Laertius,§ ϑεοφιλέστατος, and γνωστικώτατος, “one 
skilled in divination ;” by Cicero,|| futura presentiens, et 
vaticinans per furorem, “one that foretold things future by 
ecstasy ν᾿ by Plutarch, σοφὸς περὶ τὰ Seta, “a wise man con- 
cerning divine things ;” by Apuleius,** fatidicus, “a sooth- 
sayer;” by Maximus Tyrius,}} δεινὸς τὰ Seta, “ one skilled in 
divine things;” by Dion Prusiensis, and the apostle here, 
“one of their prophets.” 

13 Tacrptyapyés.] ἤΛλπληστος, Suidas, Yacrpipapyot, ἀκρατεῖς, 
ἄπληστοι, πολυφάγοι, Hesych. Ταστριμαργία ἀκρασία περὶ τὴν 
τροφὴν, Clem. Al. Ped. lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 146, Ὁ. Vide Jul. 
Pollux, lib. 11. cap. 4, p. 109, 37, cap. 111, 26. 

4 Ver. 13. Ἔλεγχε αὐτοὺς ἀποτύμως, Rebuke them sharply. 
If these words relate to the Cretians deceived by the Jews, 
as the verse following seems to hint, they are fitly translated, 
“Rebuke them sharply.” To be “sound in faith,” is, say 
Ccumenius and Theophylact, to retain it so as it was deli- 
vered by the apostles, without adding any thing to it from 
Judaism or gentilism, and especially without adding to it 
the necessity of observing the Jewish law or rites by the 
gentiles. 

15 Ver. 14. ᾿ἸΙουδαϊκοῖς piSos.] By “Jewish fables,” some 


* Const. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 8, 10. 
+ De Leg. lib. i. p. 780, E. 

+ Lib. v. p. 239. 

| De Divin. lib. i. 

** Florid. lib. 11. 


§ Lib. i. p. 29, 30. 
§ In Solone. 
tt Dissert. 22, p. 313. 


814 


15 (For, whatsoever they may say or think, concern- 
ing unclean meats, persons, or things) Unto ® the pure 
(the gentile, whose heart is purified by faith,) all things 
are pure (in their use): but unto them that (though 
they count themselves the only pure persons) are defiled 
and unbelieving zs nothing (/ru/y) pure; but even their 


TITUS. 


mind and conscience is defiled (and by that their aclions). 

16 "They profess that they know God (above others, 
Rom. ii. 17); but in works they (practically) deny him, 
being abominable (now, to him, of whom they were once 
beloved), and disobedient, and unto every good work 
reprobate. 


here understand the Gnostics’ cabbalistical interpretations of 
the Old Testament: but (1.) if we look into Irenzus, we 
shall find their senseless interpretations chiefly related to the 
New Testament. Their thirty eons they gathered from the 
thirty years our Saviour spent in silence, before he preached, 
and from the parable of those who wrought in the vineyard, 
and from Paul; from whom he shows, lib. i. cap. 1, p. 16, 
18, they gathered most of their wild fancies, and so they 
must, in time, be after the writing of his epistles. (2.) It 
does not appear that the cabbalistical Jews had any such 
interpretations as favoured the mad doctrines of the Gnostics. 
‘The fathers therefore generally interpret these words of the 
vain traditions of the Jews, especially concerning meats, and | 
other things, to be abstained from, as unclean, which our | 
Lord also styles “the doctrines of men,” Matt. xv. 9; and 
of the teachers of them, Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, 
saith, that “they were turned from the faith,” 1 Tim. i. 5, 6. 
And this, saith G&cumenius, is evident from the ensuing 
words, 

16 Ver. 15. To the clean all things are clean.] Here, saith 
Jerome, considerandum ne ista tractantes, occasionem illi 
heresi demus, que juxta Apocalypsin, et ipsum quoque 
apostolum Paulum scribentem ad Corinthios, putant, de 
idolothytis esse vescendum, quia omnia munda sunt mundis. 

7 Ver. 16.] It is the opinion of all the ancient commen- 
tators upon the place, that the apostle speaks this ad- 


verstis Judzos, “against the Jews,” nor is there any thing 


said in these two verses which may not be applied to them. 
For, 

First, We have observed already how the scripture gives 
those very names to the unbelieving Jews, which they were 
wont to give unto the gentiles, styling them “dogs,” Phil. 
iii. 2, as they styled the gentiles; and “vessels of wrath,” 
Rom. ix. 22, 1 Thess. ii. 16, who thought themselves 
the only vessels of mercy ;” and here (ver. 15) “defiled,” 
who counted themselves the only “pure servants of God,” 
Neh. ii. 20. 

Secondly, Of their profession “to know God, when in 
works they deny him,” the apostle gives a large account, 
Rom. ii. from ver. 17 to ver. 25; and again, ch. iii. from 
ver. 10 to ver. 19. That they were “abominable” in the 
sight of God, our Lord not only saith of the pharisees, Luke 
xvi. 15; but Paul of the Jews in general, declaring that 
they “pleased not God ;” yea, they were so displeasing 
to him, that “wrath was come upon them to the utter- 
most,” 1 Thess. ii. 15,16. Of their disobedience to the law, 
we read in the forecited places of the Romans, and of their 
“evil works,” Phil. iii. 2, 2 Cor. xi. 13. 15. And, lastly, 
that a defiled mind and conscience polluted all their actions, 
even those that were done according to the will and the 
command of God, see Isa. i. 11. 16, lxvi. 8, Jer. vi. 20, 
Amos v. 21, 22. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Bur (howsoever they live and teach) speak thou the 
things which become sound doctrine : 

2 (To wit,)That 'the aged men be sober, grave, 
temperate, sound in faith, (s¢ncere) in charity, (constant) 
in patience. 

3 The ® aged women likewise, that they be in beha- 
viour (in habit and gesture) 2s becometh holiness, not 
false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of 
good things (uf piety, charily, chastity, to those with 
whom they do converse) ; 


4 8 That they may teach the young women to be 
sober, to love their husbands, to love their child- 
ren, 

5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, 
obedient to their own husbands, 4 that the word of 
God be not blasphemed (by reason of thetr crimes). 

6 Young men likewise exhort to be soberminded 
(Gr. σωφρονεῖν, to govern not only their concupiscible, but 
their trascible passions). 

7 In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1 Ver. 2. Πρεσβύτας, The aged.| See the note on Philem. 
9. So the word signifies in all the other places of the New 
Testament where it is found; so ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι πρεσβύτης, “1 
am aged,” saith Zacharias, Luke i. 18, and Παῦλος πρεσβύτης 
is «‘ Paul the aged,” Philem. 9. And in this sense the true 
St. Jerome, and all the Greek commentators on the place, 
expound it. The reverend Dr. Hammond thinks it here 
signifies “church officers,” and in particular the deacons, 
mentioned in Timothy, after the bishops, 1 Tim. iii. But of 
five qualifications there required of the deacons (ver. 8), the 
apostle here mentions only one, that of gravity; nor is it 
necessary that these πρεσβῦται should be church officers, be- 
cause the apostle here enumerates their qualifications: for, 
as Jerome on the place observes, he reckons up the qualifi- 
cations of the younger women, ver. 4, 5, and of the younger 
men, ver. 6, and of the servants, ver. 9, 10. But hence 
it will not follow that they were church officers: nor, 
secondly, because Titus was sent to ordain such ; for we find 
not that he was sent to ordain any but presbyters or 
bishops, ii. 5. 7; though doubtless he did ordain deacons to 
attend them. 

2 Ver. 3. Πρεσβυτίδας.1 That “the aged women” here 
imports the deaconesses of the church, some of the commen- 


tators say was the opinion of some ancients; and indeed they 
were so necessary, (1.) for the baptism of women, when that | 


was performed by dipping, as in the apostle’s days it was; 
and (2.) for the converting some young women to, and the 
instructing others in, the faith they had already owned 
(which aged women, though not permitted to “speak in the 
church,” might do in private houses, without scandal; but the 
apostles, and a young Timothy, could scarcely do without 
suspicion) ; that for these reasons I doubt not but this office 
obtained in the first preaching of the gospel. 

3 Ver. 4. Ἵνα σωφρονίζωσι τὰς νέας, That they may teach 
or admonish the young women.] Stephanus renders the 
words thus, “* That they may teach them by chastisement;” 
but women, who had hushands and children, as these in the 
next verse are supposed to have, were not to be chastised by 
others. Observe then, that young men and women become 
wise by hearkening to the admonitions and instructions of 
persons aged and experienced in the practice of it, and they 
who were set over the youth and the young women for this 
end were called by the Greeks σωφρονιστῆρες, that is, “ direc- 
tors of their manners,’”’ because they admonished them how 
to behave themselves in their stations: hence σωφρονιστὴς is 
by Hesychius rendered νουϑετὴς, “an admonisher,” and in 
Julius Pollux, σωφρονίζειν is νουϑετεῖν, “to admonish,” and 
cwppovieuds is the same with yovSecia, “admonition,” lib. iii. 
cap. 17, p. 153, lib, xli. ἄς, 

4 Ver. 5. That the word of God be not blasphemed.] For, 
say Theodoret and Theophylact, when wives leave their 
husbands, or servants their masters, προφάσει τῆς εὐσεβείας, 


CHAPTER II. 


works: in doctrine skewing uncorruptness, gravity, 
5 sincerity, 
8 © Sound speech, that cannot be condemned ; that 


he that is of the contrary part (whether Jew or gentile) | 


may be ashamed (of Ais opposition to you), having no 
evil thing to say of you. 

9 Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own 
masters, and to please them well in all (/aw/u/) things ; 
7 not answering again ; 

10 Not purloining (or filching from their masters), but 


«from a pretence of religion, they cause men to speak evil 
of the gospel.” 

5 Ver. 7. ᾿Αφϑαρσίαν, Sincerity.) This word is not to be 
found in Chrysostom, Theophylact, nor in many copies; but 
it is in Theodoret, G2cumenius, Cod. Alex. Arab. 

6 Ver. 8.1 The doctrine to be preached must be pure, and 
free from all corrupt mixtures; it must be entire, so as to 
want nothing necessary to be known; it must be such as 
is ὑγιὴς, wholesome and beneficial to the hearer; it must be 
delivered with gravity and with care, that there be nothing 
spoken which may be subject to reprehension. And he that 
teacheth it must in his conversation practise suitable to 
what he teacheth, lest his own heart should inwardly con- 
demn him, and he should be condemned both by God and 
man from his own mouth. 

7 Ver. 9. Μὴ ἀντιλέγοντες, Not answering again.) Not 
murmuring against their commanders, or contradicting them, 
but only with submission pleading their own cause ; for that 
even nature doth allow. 

8 Ver. 12.] The first thing Christianity requires of them, 
who would enjoy this saving grace, is to deny all practical 
ungodliness, by carefully abstaining from all idolatry, super- 
stition, and false worship, and to discard all those princi- 
ples which tend to cherish in us a profane and irreligious 
conversation, viz. all principles of atheism and infidelity, all 
denial of providence, and of a future recompense ; for as all 
our false worship will render our whole service vain, and 
our pretended piety a provocation, so these pernicious prin- 
ciples will render our religion none at all: for how can he 
be seriously employed in religious actions who questions the 
very object of religion, denies the motives to it, and reckons 
it “a vain thing to serve the Lord.” 

Secondly, To deny all worldly lusts; i. 6. all inordinate 
affections to the enjoyments of this present world, as know- 
ing that the friendship of this world is enmity to God; all 
« the pollutions which are in the world through lust” (2 Pet. 
ii. 20); “ walking not in riot and drunkenness, in banquet- 
ings and revelling, in lasciviousness and uncleanness, in strife 
and envy ; but putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, and making 


no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof’’ (Rom. | 


xiii, 13, 14, 1 Pet. iv. 2, 3). : 

Thirdly, To live soberly, in the due moderation of all our 
appetites, the exact government of all our passions, and in 
the regular exercise of our affections and desires; i. 6. we 
must so far restrain our angry passions, that they do never 
indecently boil up within us, or break forth into opprobrious 
words or rancorous expressions, or proceed to malicious and 
spiteful actions; and that we never do exert them, but 
upon occasion of something that is truly evil and displeasing 
to God, or when it may be for the benefit of others: we 
must so moderate our affections to, and our desires of, all 


worldly things, as to sit down contented with our present | 


portion, not being anxiously solicitous about them, not pur- 
suing them by unlawful means, not much cast down when 
we lose them, nor much delighted with them when we do 
enjoy them; but living still as men whose conversation is in 
heaven, and whose hearts are chiefly set on things above. 
We must so temper our desires of applause and reputation 
in this world, as only to pursue it by exact regards to what 
is virtuous and praiseworthy, and for virtuous ends, the 
doing good to others; never endeavouring to obtain or to 
preserve it by any sinister attempts, sinful compliances, 
or by neglect of duty. We must so regulate the cravings 
of the throat, and the gratifications of the palate, as not 
to eat or drink to the impairing of our health or reason, 
to the inflaming of our lusts or passions, or to the rendering 
ourselves unfit for the performance of that duty which we 


875 


shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the 
doctrine of God our Saviour in all things (belonging to 
their station). 

11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath 
appeared to all men (as well servants as masters, yea, to 
men of all nations), 

12 5 Teaching us that, denying (a//) ungodliness 
and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, 
and godly, in this present world ; 


13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious 


owe to God. We must be so moderate in reference to 
the pleasures of the world, that all the pleasures in which 
we do allow ourselves may be still ἡδοναὶ ἀμεταμέλητοι, “ such 
as call for no repentance ;” we must pursue them with such 
indifference, as that we can freely deny ourselves in the en- 


| joyment of them, when the concernments of God’s glory, 


or the welfare of our own or other men’s souls is prejudiced 
by them; preferring still the pleasures of religion much 
above them. 

Fourthly, We must live righteously, i.e. in all the offices 
of exact truth and justice betwixt man and man, being true 
in our words, exact to the performance of our promises, 
doing no injury to any in his good name, estate, or person, 
much less in the concernments of his soul, but dealing still 
with others as we would be dealt with. 

We must live δικαίως, charitably; preserving an un- 
feigned good-will, an affectionate kindness to, and having a 
sincere concernment for, the good of all men ; and this affec- 
tion must restrain us not only from biting them with the 
tongue, suspecting evil of them, or doing evil to them; but 
must engage us to hope well, and believe well of them, 
where we know nothing to the contrary ; to rejoice in their 
prosperity, to be ready to promote it, to sympathize with 
them in their afflictions; and, as far as we are able, to sup- 
ply their wants, relieve their miseries, and contribute to the 
ease and comfort of their lives; and more especially to la- 
bour to prevent their ruin, and further the eternal interests 
of their precious souls; to conceal the evil that we know of 
others, where no necessity, i. e. no duty to durselves, our 
brother, or the public, requires us to divulge it; to endure 
all things, without returning evil for evil; to be long-suffer- 
ing, and bear with patience the infirmities of others: that, 
lastly, upon any reasonable submission, any fair acknow- 
ledgment of the offence, any desire of reconciliation, we be 
easy to be entreated, and ready to forgive: in a word, that 
in all cases of the same kind, we prefer the public before our 
private interest. 

Fifthly, To teach us to live godlily ; (1.) By keeping up 
a high esteem, an admiration of God in our minds, acknow- 
ledging his excellences, by our repairing to, and our con- 
tinual dependence on, his wisdom, power, and goodness, in 
our addresses to the throne of grace; by ascribing all the 
mercies we enjoy to his sole, free, and undeserved goodness, 
and therefore highly esteeming them, paying the tribute of 
our praises, and suitable returns of duty for them, and by 
performing that public and external homage to the Author 
of them, which may best testify to others the inward venera- 
tion we have for him. (2.) By yielding a firm assent to all 
his revelations, depending on his all-sufficiency and good- 
ness, to order all things for us to the best, and hoping in his 
mercy for preservation from, or support under, and a good 
issue from, the troubles of this present life, and a supply of 
all those blessings which he sees needful for us, or most con- 
ducing to our good. (3.) By valuing him as our chief and 
all-sufficient good, the only proper object of our happiness, 
and upon that account preferring him before whatever stands 
in competition with him; having none in heaven but him, 


/and none on earth that we desire in comparison with 


him; doing all things to his glory, and for the promo- 
tion of his honour, and being zealous to remove whatso- 
ever doth obstruct or oppose it. (4.) By being in the 
fear of the Lord all the day long, and herein exercising our- 
selves to have always consciences void of offence towards 
God, so that we never wilfully do any thing which argues a 
contempt of him, or is a provocation to the pure eyes of his 
glory. (5.) By acquainting ourselves with his sacred will, 


_ that we may do it; esteeming all his commandments con- 


876 


appearing of ° the great God and our Saviour Jesus 
Christ ; 

14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem 
us from all iniquity, and (so might) purify unto himself 
a peculiar people, zealous of good works. 


TITUS. 


15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke 
(the opposers of this doctrine) with all authority. Let 
no man despise thee (but use the censures of the church, 
and deliver up to Saian those Jews who gainsay this doc- 
trine). 


cerning all things, to be right; yielding a cheerful, constant, 
and sincere obedience to them, labouring to walk before 
him in all well-pleasing ; and when we are convinced that 
we have deviated from his good and holy laws, returning 
by a speedy and sincere repentance and reformation of 
our evil ways. (6.) By an humble submission to his 
chastisements, and a contented acquiescence in all the dis- 
pensations of his providence, and an entire resignation of 
ourselves and our concernments to the pleasure of his good 
and holy will. 

Thus Philo doth inform us, That he that would be truly 
virtuous, must, in the first place, μεταναστεύειν τοῦ σώματος, 
“become an exile from the enjoyments of the body, so far as 
not to be enslaved, ἐπιϑυμίαις καὶ ἡδοναῖς, to the importunate 
desires of worldly things, or to the pleasures of the world, 
οὔτε φόβοις οὔτε λύπαις, nor to the fears of losing them; nor 
to excess of grief, that he doth not enjoy them, that, being 
thus prepared, he must govern his whole life by these three 
Tules or canons, τῷ φιλοϑέῳ, καὶ φιλαρέτῳ, καὶ φιλανθρώπῳ, 
the love of God, the love of virtue, and the love of man” 
(Lib. Quod omnis probus liber, p. 676, C). 

9 Ver. 13. Tod μεγάλου Θεοῦ, The great God.| Here it 
deserveth to be noted, that it is highly probable, that Jesus 
Christ is here styled “the great God ;’ first, because in the 
original the article is prefixed only before the great God, 
and therefore seems to require this construction, “the ap- 
pearance of Jesus Christ the great God, and our Saviour.” 
Secondly, because, as God the Father is not said properly to 
appear, so the word ἐπιφάνεια never occurs in the New Testa- 
ment, but when it is applied to Jesus Christ, and to some 
coming of his; the places in which it is to be found being 
only these, 2 Thess. ii. 8, 1 Tim. vi. 14, 2 Tim. i. 10, iv. 1. 
8. Thirdly, because Christ is emphatically styled “ our 
hope,” “ the hope of glory,” Col. i. 23, 1 Tim. i. 1. And 
lastly, because not only all the ancient commentators on 
the place do so interpret this text, but the Ante-Nicene fa- 
thers also ; Hippolytus,* speaking of the “ appearance of our 


* De Antichrist. §. 64. 


God and Saviour Jesus Christ ;” and Clemens of Alexandria* 
proving Christ to be both God and man, our creator, and 
the author of all our good things, from these very words of 
Paul (Vid. Tract. de Vera Christi Deitate, p. 44, 45). 

10 Ver. 14, “Iva λυτρώσηται, ὅς. That he might redeem 
and purify.) The words λυτρῶσαι and xaSapica, here used, 
being sacrificial ; the first signifying redemption, by paying a 
price, here said to be, the “ giving himself ;” the second, to 
purify from the guilt of sin, by an atonement offered for it 
(Heb. ix. 22,1 John i. 7. 9); I conceive the import of them 
to be this, That Christ our Saviour gave himself a ransom for 
us to redeem us from the guilt and punishment of our sins; 
that being, by this atonement, thus purified and reconciled to 
God, we might become, as the Jews were before, “a peculiar 
people” to him, and upon that account “zealous of good 
works.” 

11 Λαὸν περιούσιον, A peculiar people.| So τι") is rendered 
by the Septuagint, Exod. xix. 5, “ You shall be to me, λαὺς 
περιούσιος, a peculiar people above all people;” Deut. vii. 6, 
“Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him, λαὸν 
περιούσιον, a peculiar people above all the people of the earth :” 
so, xiv, 2, xxvi. 18. This, by the Chaldee, is always ren- 
dered, “a beloved people.” ‘This title belonged to all Israel 
in general, Ps. exxxv. 4, “ Jehovah hath chosen Jacob for 
himself, and Israel for his peculiar people.’ As therefore 
all Israel, being sanctified to the Lord, became to him a pe- 
culiar treasure, and a beloved people, above all other nations 
or religions in the world; so are now all Christians, God 
having “ purified their hearts by faith” (Acts. xv. 9). Se- 
condly, As then salvation was of the Jews (John iv. 22), 
and belonged to others, only by being proselytes so far as to 
own their God, or their religion ; so now that salvation which 
is promised in the gospel, and which consists in life eternal, 
is promised only to them who own the God and Saviour of 
the Christians, or embrace their religion: for “ this is the tes- 
timony that God hath given us eternal life; and that life is 
in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath 
not the Son hath not life” (1 John v. 11, 12). 


* Admon. ad Gent. p. 5, 6. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Pur them in mind to be ' subject to principalities 
«nd powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to (Gr. 
for) every good work, 

2 To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers (Gr. 


no fighters), but gentle, shewing all? meekness unto all 
men (with whom they do converse). 

3 3 For we ‘ ourselves also were sometimes foolish, 
disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and plea- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1Ver. 1. ᾿Αρχαῖς καὶ ἐξουσίαις ὑποτάσσεσθαι, To be subject 
to principalities.] Besides the turbulent spirit of the Jews 
then in Crete, Suidas* hath left upon record concerning them, 
that the Cretians, fearing they should suffer punishment from 
their superiors, stirred up the people, “exhorting them to 
maintain the liberty which they always had enjoyed.” By 
which we see how needful this instruction was. 

2 Ver. 2. ᾿Επιείκεια, Meekness.] This is that virtue which 
inclines us to be easy and merciful to offenders, kind in inter- 
preting the actions of others, and yielding, in matters of our 
own concern, for peace’ sake : and we “show all meekness,” 
not by being never severe (for severity, at some times, towards 
some persons, is necessary), but by being mild in all cases, 
τῇ which the circumstances of time, place, and persons, will 
admit of it. 

3 Ver. 3. "Hyev γάρ ποτε, For we ourselves were some- 


* Οἱ δὲ Κρῆτες φοβοῦμενοι μὴ re τιμωρίας τύχωσιν, ἀνέσειον τὰ 
πνήθη, παρακαλοῦντες ἐξ αἰῶνος παραδεδομένην ἐλευϑερίαν διαφυλάτ- 
τειν. Voce ᾿Ανέσειον. 


] 


times.] That these were the vices that reigned in the heathen 
world, see Rom. i. 26. 31, xiii. 13, Col. iii. 5. 8. That the 
Cretians were prone to disobedience, we have proved from 
Suidas: that they were foolish, and deceived, is evident 
from their multitude of false gods, mentioned by Diodorus 
Siculus, lib. v., and their vain imagination, in thinking that 
their gods were mortal, with which Callimachus charges 
them. The lusts and pleasures they served were unnatural 
lusts, say CEcumenius and Theophylact: of which the Athe- 
nian, in Plato, speaketh thus to Clinias of Crete ;* “OF un- 
natural lusts your cities are chiefly guilty ; for, taking up 
your laws from Jupiter, and retaining the fable of his Gany- 
mede, they committed this unnatural lust in imitation of their 
Jupiter.” 

4 Kai ἡμεῖς, We ourselves.) I cannot think, as Jerome 


* Καὶ τούτων τὰς ὑμετέρας πόλεις πρώτας ἂν αἰἱτιῶτο: 
πάντες δὲ δὴ Κρητῶν τὸν περὶ Γανυμήδη μῦθον κατηγοροῦμεν, ὡς λο- 
γοπηιησάντων τούτων, ἐπειδὴ παρὰ Διὸς αὐτοῖς οἱ νόμοι πεπιστεῦ- 
μένοι ἦσαν γεγονέναι, τοῦτον τὸν μῦϑον προστεθεικέναι, ἵνα ἑπόμενοι 
τῷ Θεῷ καρπῶνται καὶ ταῦτην τὴν ἡδονήν. Plato de Leg. lib. i, 
p- 776, Ὁ. 


CHAPTER IIL. 


sures, living in malice and envy, hateful (to), and 
hating one another. (See i. 10—12). 

4 5 But after that the kindness and love of God our 
Saviour toward man appeared, 

5 Not by works of righteousness which we have 
done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the 
washing of regeneration (in baptism), and (by the) re- 
newing of the Holy Ghost (given then to the bap- 
tized) ; 

6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus 
Christ our Saviour; 

7 That being (thus) justified by his (free) grace, we 


877 
should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal 
life. 

8 This is a faithful saying, and these things I will 
that thou affirm constantly, that they which have 
believed in God might be careful δ to maintain good 
works. ‘These things are good and profitable unto 
men. 

9 7 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, 
and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they 
are unprofitable and vain. 

10 § A man that is an heretick after the first and 
second admonition reject ; 


doth, that Paul here condemns himself as one formerly guilty 
of all these vices; for then he could not have said, that “he 
had lived,” before his conversion, “in all good conscience to- 
wards God” (Acts xxiii. 1); that he had «served God, from 
his progenitors, with a pure conscience” (2 Tim. i. 3), and 
that, “as to the righteousness which was by the law, he was 
blameless” (Phil. iii. 6). Nor is any thing more common 
with Paul, than to speak thus, in the person of those to 
whom he writes (see the note on Eph. ii. 3). 

5 Ver. 4—7.] For the explication of these four verses, let 
it be observed ; 

First, That the apostle, in the very next verse, saith, 
«This is a faithful saying; and of this I will that thou affirm 
constantly, that they who have believed in God should be 
careful to maintain good works:” and, as he saith, that “we 
are justified by grace ;” so doth he teach us, that this grace 
hath appeared for this very end, to “ teach us, denying un- 
godliness and worldly lusts, to live righteously, soberly, and 
godly, in this present world, looking for this blessed hope ;” 
clearly insinuating, that without living godly, righteously, 
and soberly, we cannot reasonably hope for happiness at our 
Lord’s second coming. Wherefore these words could never 
be intended to excuse Christians from a necessity of being 
holy, in order to their being happy. 

Secondly, That the apostle only saith, « We are not saved 
by works of righteousness which we have done,” before faith, 
before the laver of regeneration; but doth not in the least 
exclude the works of righteousness they should hereafter do 
by virtue of the new nature given to them, and the renewing 
of the Holy Ghost, from being conditions of their future hap- 
piness; and therefore hence it doth not follow, as Esthius 
suggests, that God hath predestinated us to salvation of his 
mere mercy, without any respect to our works; but only, 
that he hath thus freely called any nation to the knowledge 
of that faith, that will, in the end, bring salvation to them 
that obey the prescripts of it. 

Thirdly, That when the apostle saith, «By his mercy he 
saved us;” his meaning is, that by his free mercy he brought 
us from a state of wrath and condemnation, into the way of 
salvation ; in which if we walk, and continue, we shall as- 
suredly obtain salvation (see note on Eph. ii. 8, 9). 

Fourthly, Some, by “the laver of regeneration,” under- 
stand that inward renovation which cleanseth the soul, as 
washing doth the body; but that the apostle, by “ the laver 
of regeneration,” understands that baptism by which Chris- 
tians, coming then from heathenism, engaged to renounce 
idolatry, the works of the flesh and of the world, and dedi- 
cated themselves to the service of the sacred Trinity, and 
testified their faith in Christ, cannot reasonably be doubted, 
if we consider, 

First, How expressly our Saviour saith, we must be born 
again of water and of the Holy Ghost, that we may “en- 
ter into the kingdom of God” (John iii. 5): how he com- 
missionated his apostles to “ make disciples in all nations, by 
baptizing them’’ (Matt. xxviii. 16) ; and how, from the begin- 
ning, the word παλιγγενεσία, “ regeneration,” used here, was 
used to denote baptism, as Justin Martyr,* Ireneus,t and 
Clement of Alexandria,+ do inform us. 

Secondly, That the same apostle elsewhere ascribes this 
virtue to baptism, saying that Christ doth “ purify and 
cleanse his body, by the washing of water’? (Eph. v. 26) ; 


* Justin. M. Ap. ii. p. 93, 94. 

ἡ Iren. lib. i. cap. 18, lib. ii. cap. 39, lib. iii. cap. 19. 

+ Clem. Alex. Peed. lib. i. cap. 6, p. 93. av’ ὕδατος καὶ 
λούτρον παλιγγενεσίας. Theoph. lib. ii. p. 95, B. 


and that Peter saith, that “baptism now saves us’’ (1 Pet. 
ili. 21); and that baptism, at the first, was still attended with 
the vouchsafement of the Holy Ghost, here joined unto this 
“laver of regeneration” (John iii. 5): so that all Christians 
are said to be baptized into one Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 13), which 
is here said to be plentifully poured out upon believers. 

Thirdly, That being justified by faith, we become « the 
sons of God” (John i. 12), and being sons of God, are “ heirs 
of glory” (Rom. viii. 17), and “sons of the resurrection ;” or 
such as, if we do continue in the faith, and our baptismal 
covenant, shall enjoy a happy resurrection (Luke xx. 36, 
see note upon that place, and upon Rom. viii. 17). 

6 Ver. 8. Καλῶν ἔργων προΐστασθαι, To maintain good works.} 
That is, say some, to employ themselves in honest trades and 
professions: but all the ancient commentators, on this and 
the fourteenth verse, interpret these words of alms-deeds or 
charity, to supply the necessary wants of orphans, widows, 
ἃς, And they are followed by the learned Dr. Barrow, who 
observes, “That as in every kind, that which is most excel- 
lent doth commonly assume the name of the whole kind; 
so are these works of charity, by way of excellency, styled 
‘good works; ” thus Dorcas was “full of good works; 
i. e. of alms-deeds which she did,’ Acts ix. 36; “See 
you abound in every good work;” i. e. in all charitable 
offices, 2 Cor. ix. 8; “ Let a widow be well reported of for 
good works,” 1 Tim. v. 10, i. e. for “bringing up children, 
lodging strangers, washing the saints’ feet, relieving the 
afflicted, and following every good work;” “Charge them 
who are rich in this world, that they be rich in good works,” 
1 Tim. vi. 18 (see Heb. x. 24). And this sense may be 
confirmed, first, from the phrase itself; for it is not épyd- 
ζεσθαι τὰ καλὰ ἔργα, but προΐστασϑαι καλῶν ἔργων. Now προΐ- 
στᾶσθαι signifies to excel and outstrip others in good works; 
which, as to works of charity, is certainly the Christian’s 
duty, and was the thing by which the primitive ages gained 
great credit to Christianity: but it is not the Christian's 
duty to labour more than others at their trades or callings. 
Secondly, from the reason here assigned, why they must ex- 
cel in good works; because they were not only profitable, 
but καλὰ, “creditable,” in the sight of men, as are such 
works of charity more conspicuously than labouring in our 
professions; and ver. 15, “that they be not unfruitful;” i. 6. 
saith Dr. Hammond, that they may have to give to others: 
these acts of charity being styled, “fruit abounding to their 
account,” Phil. iv. 17, “good fruits,’ James iii. 17, “the 
fruits of righteousness,” ver. 18. 

7 Ver. 9.1 See note on 1 Tim. i. 4; and note here, and 
from that place, this excellent rule; That disputes about 
matters which only serve to beget strife and contention, but 
tend little to edification in the faith, or to the edifying of the 
body in love (Eph. iv. 16), or the promoting that doctrine 
which is after godliness (1 ‘Tim. vi. 3), are vain talking and 
unprofitable disputes. 

8 Ver. 10.] Hence we may learn who is a heretic, in the 
apostle’s sense. 

1.) He is one who ἐξέστραπται, “is perverted from the 
true faith ;” holding some doctrine or opinion which sub- 
verteth the foundation of it (2 Tim. ii. 18, 1 Tim. i. 19, 20). 
(2.) He is atroxardxpiros, a man “condemned by his own 
conscience,” and who, in what he doth maintain or practise, 
sins against his own convictions: for, (1.) the apostle saith 
not to Titus, Do thou convince or inform him of his error, 
but, Do thou admonish him of his fault; which shows the 
crime lay not in his head, or his mistaken judgment, for that 
can never be corrected by admonition, but only by instruc- 
tion ; but that it lay in the ey of his affections, and 

3 


878 


11 Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and 
sinneth, being condemned of himself. 

12 When I shall send Artemas unto thee, or Tychi- 
cus (lo supply thy absence, say the ancients), be diligent 
to come unto me to? Nicopolis: for I have determined 
there to winter. 

13 Bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their 
journey diligently, (and see) that nothing be wanting 
unto them. 


TITUS. 


14 And let our’s (ἐ. 6. Christians) also learn to main- 
tain good works for necessary uses, that they be not 
unfruitful (see note on ver. 8). 

15 All that are with me salute thee. Greet them 
that love us in (and for) the faith. Grace be with you 
all. Amen. 

4 It was written to Titus, ordained the first bishop 

of the church of the Cretians, from Nicopolis of 
Macedonia. 


the perverseness of his will: and, (2.) because otherwise 
he could not “ condemn himself” by maintaining his heresy ; 
for no man who acts according to his judgment, how erro- 
neous soever it may be, is self-condemned in that action. 

Obj. 1. Against this exposition it is objected, First, That 
he who oppugns a doctrine, which he knows to be true, is 
indeed perverse, but he is no heretic. 

Ans. 1. Yes, he is properly a heretic, according to St. 
Austin, because he follows or starts a new opinion, not from 
regard to truth, but to vain-glory, or temporal advantage: 
whence, saith he, Errare possum, hereticus esse nolo; “1 
may err, but I will not be a heretic;” placing heresy not in 
the judgment, but in the will. 

2. He is so also, according to the proper import of the 
word, because he properly doth choose to be of his opinion: 
whereas the judgment of the erroneous person doth oblige 
him to hold his error, it being not in our power to be- 
lieve otherwise than our mind and judgment doth inform 
us; so that, in this case, we do not properly αἱρετίζειν, choose 
what opinion we will hold. And, 3. he is most properly a 
heretic in the scripture sense; which still ascribeth to such 
men something relating, not to the error of their judgments, 
but to the perverseness of their wills, or the corruption of 
their affections; as, that they designed not to “serve the 
Lord, but their own bellies” (Rom. xvi. 18); that they 
“turned away from the truth, supposing that gain was godli- 
ness” (1 ‘Tim. vi. 5); that they “taught things which they 
ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake” (‘Tit. i. 11); that “through 
covetousness, with feigned words, they made merchandise of 
them whom they deceived” (2 Pet. ii. 3. 14); “having 
hearts exercised with covetous practices)’ and that they 
«went greedily after the error of Balaam for reward” (Jude 
11, Matt. xxiv. 11, 1 John iv. 1, 2 Cor. xi. 13, 2 Pet. ii. 1, 
1 Tim. iv. 2). 

Hence they are often styled “ false prophets, false Christs, 
false apostles, false teachers, deceitful workers, transforming 
themselves into the apostles of Christ ;’ men who insinuated 
their doctrines, ἐν ὑποκρίσει ψευδολόγων, “ by hypocritical false- 
hoods,” who preached up the necessity of circumcision, “ not 
that they themselves observed the law,” or thought it neces- 
sary so to do, “but that they might avoid persecution” 
(Gal. vi. 12, 13) ; that they were men risen up among Chris- 
tians, “ speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after 
them” (Acts xx. 30); “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt. 
vii. 15), men that “ went out from them, when indeed they 
were not of them” (1 John ii. 19). 

Obj. 2. Secondly, It is objected, That there be few who 
oppose the truth wittingly, and they are only known to God, 
not to the church; which therefore cannot admonish, avoid, 
or excommunicate them. He therefore must be self-con- 
demned, not because he maintains what himself thinks to be 
false, but because he inflicts upon himself that punishment 


and condemnation which the bishop and church useth to do 
upon malefactors, by separating himself from the communion 
of the faithful. 

Ans. To this I answer, (1.) That I do not find that the 
word airoxardxptros bears any other sense but this; viz. 
“one condemned by his own mind, or inward sentence ;” 
ὑφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ, καὶ τῆς οἰκείας συνειδήσεως κατακρινόμενον, saith 
CEcumenius. (2.) Nor is it true that heretics did always 
cut themselves off from the church; for then what need was 
there of their excommunication? The scripture shows the 
contrary, declaring, that these false teachers, that brought in 
damnable doctrines, were ἐν ὑμῖν, lurking among Christians 
(2 Pet. ii. 1, 1 John ii. 19, 2 Pet. ii. 18, Jude 12. 19); yea, 
saith the apostle, “there must be heresies, ἐν ὑμῖν, among 
you,” 1 Cor, xi. 9; they kept their love-feasts with them, till 
for fear of persecution they departed from them (Gal. vi. 12). 
They were inwardly “wolves,” but “in sheep’s clothing,” 
εὐπροσωπήσαντες ἐν αὐτοῖς, “making a fair show among them.” 
Moreover, what need was there of avoiding men already 
separated, and gone out from them? or to what end should 
the apostle give them any admonitions, or excommunicate 
them, who had already excluded themselves from the church’s 
communion? ‘This exposition therefore agrees not with the 
words of the apostle. 

And whereas it is said, such heretics are only known to 
God; I hope they might be known also to Titus, the only 
person here bid either to admonish or avoid them, especially 
if we consider, that to him belonged, in those times, διάκρισις 
πνευμάτων, “ the discerning of spirits.’ Moreover, the church 
of those times, in which the apostles were still preaching, 
could easily know whether the doctrines which others taught 
in opposition to them, were indeed doctrines received from 
the apostles, or not; if they were not, they who taught them 
must know they received no such doctrine from them, and 
so must be self-condemned in teaching it, as received from 
them, or as the faith once delivered to the saints; and they 
who heard them must know they wilfully opposed the 
doctrine of those apostles, who had confirmed the faith with 
such authentic testimonies as their opposers could not ques- 
tion. Moreover, they being then bid to “try the spirits, 
whether they were of God” (1 John iv. 1), and the gift of 
discerning spirits being then given to the prophets, who 
managed the church affairs, they might then very well be 
able to judge of these deceivers and false teachers. 

Μετὰ μίαν καὶ δευτέραν vovSeciav.] See this reading confirmed 
by full authority, and the mistakes of Dr. Mills discovered, 
Examen Millii in locum. 

8 Ver. 12.] These words made the author of the post- 
script date this epistle froin Nicopolis of Macedonia, whereas 
they rather prove the contrary; for he saith not, I have 
determined to winter here, but there, which shows he was 
not yet come thither. . 


879 


EPISTLE TO PHILEMON, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Some have thought this epistle was not worthy to be 
ranked among the epistles of Paul, as being writ upon an 
occasion of no great moment: but it contains instructions 
sufficient for so short an epistle; as, v. g. 

First, That no Christian, though of the meanest sort, is to 
be contemned: that Christianity makes the vilest servant 
both profitable and worthy to be highly loved and honoured 
by persons in the highest dignity; Onesimus being by the 
apostle styled his “son,” and his “ bowels.” 

Secondly, That Christianity doth not impair the power 
of masters over their servants, or give any authority to them 
who convert them to use them as their servants, without 
leave granted from their masters. 

Thirdly, That servants ought to make satisfaction for any 
wrong or injury they have done to their masters. 


Fourthly, That there is an affection due from the master 
to a profitable servant. 

«“ Who then,” say the Greek interpreters,* “would refuse 
to number an epistle so profitable, with the rest ?” 

The Apostolical Constitutions} have made this Philemon 
bishop of Colosse, and Jerome seems to incline to that opi- 
nion; but Hilary+ the deacon saith expressly, that “he was 
of no ecclesiastical dignity, but one of the laity.” ‘Theodoret, 
QS cumenius, and Theophylact, seem also of the same opinion. 

This epistle was writ in the same year with that to the 
Philippians, viz. the eighth of Nero, A. D. 62, when Paul 
expected to be delivered from his bonds, ver. 22. 


* Tis γοῦν ἐστιν ὃ ἀπαξιῶν ταὔτην ταῖς λοιπαῖς συναριϑμεῖν τοσαῦτης 
ὠφελείας γέμουσαν ; Prefat. GEcum. Chrysost. Theoph. 

T Κολοσσέων δὲ Φιλήμων. Lib. vii. cap. 46. 

+ Philemon nulla erat ecclesiastice ordinationis preditus 
dignitate, sed vir laudabilis, unus ex plebe. In locum. 


1 Pavt, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy 
our brother, (wrife) unto Philemon our dearly beloved, 
and ! fellowlabourer. 

2 And to our ? beloved Apphia, and Archippus ὃ our 
fellowsoldier, and ὁ to the church in thy house: 

3 (And I wish) Grace to you, and peace, from 5 God 
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

4 I thank my God, making mention of thee always 
in my prayers (or, J thank my God always when I men- 
tion thee in my prayers), 

5 Hearing δ of thy love and faith, which (faith) 
thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and (love) toward 
all saints ; 


6 (And my prayer is,)That? the communication of 
thy faith (or, thy liberality to the saints, which is the fruit 
of thy faith,) may become effectual (10 bring others to it) 
by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in 
you in Christ Jesus, (or, may become effectual to the ac- 
knowledgment of thy good works by other Christians who 
have such instances of thy charity. 

7 And I have reason thus to give thanks to God for 
thee,) for we have great joy and consolation in thy 
love (to the saints), because (hereby) the bowels of the 
saints (yearning for relif) are refreshed by thee, bro- 
ther. 

8 Wherefore, though I might be much bold (or, 


ANNOTATIONS. 


1 Ver. 1. Kai συνεργῷ ἡμῶν, Our fellow-labourer.] Hence 
Chrysostom conjectures, that he must be one of the clergy: 
but this is no good argument, seeing Christians in general, 
that promoted the interests of Christianity, and even women, 
are by the apostle styled συνεργοὶ, his “ fellow-labourers.” For 
the first, see 3 John, ver. 8, for the second, Rom. xvi. 3. 

2 Ver. 2. ᾿Απφίᾳ τῇ ἀγαπητῇ.] He salutes also Apphia the 
wife of Philemon; as CEcumenius and Theophylact conjec- 
ture, and Theodoret positively asserts, and that very probably, 
she being here ranked before Archippus: and this he doth, that 
he might obtain her good will also in behalf of Onesimus. 

3 Συστρατιώτῃ, Our fellow-soldier.] So also he calls Epa- 
phroditus fellow-prisoner with him at Rome, Phil. ii. 23. 25, 
either because they suffered with him as good soldiers of 
Jesus Christ (2 Tim. ii. 23), or, as Jerome* saith, because, 
being ministers with him in the work of the gospel (Phil. ii. 
25, Col. iv. 17), they were more particularly engaged in 
fighting the good fight of faith (see note on 1 ‘Tim. i. 18). 

4 Kai τῇ κατ᾽ οἶκόν cov ἐκκλησίᾳ, And to the church in thy 
house.) He calls his house a church, saith Theodoret, ὡς 
εὐσεβείᾳ λαμπρυνομένη, “ as being illustrious for the piety of all 
its members” (see note on 1 Cor. xvi. 19). 

5 Ver. 3. ᾿Απὸ Θεοῦ πατρὸς, καὶ Κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, From 

* Commilitoni quod in eodem certamine belloque supera- 
verit. Hieron. in locum. 


God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ.] Ex quo 
ostenditur unam filii patrisque esse naturam, cum id potest 
filius prestare quod pater, et dicitur id pater prestare quod 
filius. Hieronymus in locum. 

6 Ver. δ. Τὴν ἀγάπην καὶ τὴν πίστιν, Thy love and faith.) 
Here the apostle useth the figure synthesis; for “faith is to 
be referred to Christ, and love to the saints;” according to 
those words of the same apostle, “ We give thanks for you, 
since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love 
which you gave to all the saints,” Col. 1. 4. So Matt. xii. 
22, «The blind and dumb both spake and saw;” i. 6. the 
blind saw, and the dumb spake: 1 Cor. vi. 11, “ But ye are 
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God;” i. e. ye are sanctified 
by the Spirit, and justifiéd by the name of Jesus. And so 
Theodoret interprets these words. Hence therefore papists 
vainly gather, that we may place our faith in saints de- 
parted; for even their own Esthius declares,* that, “in the 
ecclesiastical phrase, to believe in any one, is a profession 
of divinity.” 

It is also farther to be noted from these words, That we 
ought to render thanks to God, not only for the blessings 
vouchsafed to ourselves, but to others also (Rom. i. 8, 1 Cor. 
i. 4, Eph. i. 16). 

7 Ver. 6. Ἢ κοινωνία, The communication.] Kowwviav xic- 


* Credere in aliquem, ecclesiasticd phrasi ὃ scripturis do 
sumpta, professio divinitatis est. Esth. in locum. 


880 


having great power) in Christ to enjoin thee that which 
is convenient, 


9 Yet for love’s sake I rather beseech thee, (or, J | 


rather beseech thee for love’s sake), being such an one as 
Paul (the apostle of Christ) ὃ the aged (and upon that ac- 
count worthy of reverence), and now also a prisoner of 
Jesus Christ (and therefore worthy of respect, Gal. vi. 17, 
Eph. iv. 1, Col. iv. 18). 

10 I beseech thee (I say) for my son Onesimus, 
whom I have begotten (¢. e. converted to the faith, when 
1 was) in my bonds: 

11 Which in time past was to thee (an) 9 unprofita- 
ble (servant, ver. 18, 19), but now (if recetved, will be) 
profitable το thee and (7f sent back) to me: 

12 Whom I have sent again (unto thee, he being in 
duly thine, and not to be employed by others, or detained 
withoul thy leave): thou therefore receive him, (Aim, I 
say,) that is, mine own bowels (he being as dear to me 
as if he had proceeded from mine own bowels) : 

13 Whom I would (willingly) have retained with 
me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto 
me (being) in the bonds of the gospel : 

14 But without thy mind would I do nothing (of 
this nature); that thy benefit (ur, the advantage I re- 
cetve from him who is thy servant) should not be (on thy 
part) "as it were (a matler) of necessity (because thow 
couldest not have him returned to thee), but willingly (by 
thy own grant). 

15 For perhaps he therefore departed (rom thee) for 
a season, 15 that thou shouldest receive him for ever 
(ὦ. e. to serve thee during life ; 

16 That thow shouldest receive him, I say,) Not now 
as a servant (only), but above a servant, (as being also 


PHILEMON. 


in Christ) a brother " beloved, specially (or, particu- 
tarly) to ἸῸΝ but how much more unto thee, both in 
the flesh, and in the Lord? (ἐ, δ. as being of thy family, 
and of thy faith.) ( Said 

17 If thou count me therefore a partner (in thy 
friendship), receive him as myself. 

18 If he hath wronged thee (in any thing), or oweth 
thee ought, put that on mine account; 

19 I Paul have written ἐΐ with mine own hand, (and 
so have entered into a solemn obligation, that) 1 will re- 
pay ἐξ: albeit 1 do not say to thee (7. 6. I insist upon 
zt) how thou owest unto me (by whom thow wast con- 
verted) even thine own self (or, the well-being of thy 
soul ) besides. 

20 4 Yea, brother, (Gr. vai, I pray thee therefore) 
let me (for thy compliance with me in this matter) have 
joy of thee in the Lord: 15 refresh my bowels in the 

ord. 

21 Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote 
(thus) unto thee, knowing thou wilt also do more than 
I say. 

22 But withal prepare me also a lodging (wherefore 
prepare me a lodging also): for 1 trust that through 
your prayers I shall be given unto you. 

23 There salute thee Epaphras, my fellowprisoner 
in Christ Jesus; 

24 Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow- 
labourers. 

25 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your 
spirit. Amen. 


{ Written from Rome to Philemon, by Onesimus ἃ 
servant. 


Tews τὴν ἐλεημοσύνην καλεῖ, ὡς διὰ πολλῆς. πίστεως γενομένην" 
Theodoret, Ccumenius, and Theophylact, expound these 
words thus, “I pray that the faith in Christ, which thou 
hast common with us, may be operative in thee, to make 
thee know how to perform every good'work.” 

8 Ver. 9. Πρεσβύτης, The aged.] This epistle being writ, at 
the farthest, but twenty-eight years from his conversion, when 
he is styled νεανίας, “a young man” (Acts vil. 58), it is in- 
quired, How he could be now πρεσβύτης, “ Paul the aged 2” 

Tanswer, That both the words, νεανίσκος, “ young,” and 
mpeoBirns, “aged,” are of that large signification, as is suffi- 
cient to remove this seeming difficulty. Phavorinus,* from 
Hippocrates, saith, a man is styled νεανίσκος, “a young man,” 
till twenty-eight, and πρεσβύτης, “ aged,” from forty-nine to 
fifty-six; making but twenty-one years’ difference betwixt 
them: elsewhere he saith, that old age begins, ἀπ᾿ ἐτῶν 
ἑξήκοντα ἐννέα, “from sixty-nine years ;” but then he saith, a 
man. is, νεανίσκος “ young from twenty-three, ἕως ἐτῶν recoa- 
paxovra ἑνὸς, till forty-one years ;” making the difference be- 
tween them twenty-eight years. Varro, in Celius Rhodi- 
ginus, lib. xxix. cap. 21, says, a man is juvenis “young,” 
till forty-five, and aged at sixty. And thus Paul, according 
to the computation of Chrysostom,t might be a young man 
of thirty-five years at his conversion, an old man at the 
writing this epistle, as being then sixty-three, and suffering 
martyrdom in the fourteenth year of Nero. 

9 Ver. 11. ”Axpnoros.] Not only an unprofitable, but an 
injurious servant, having not only run away from his master, 
but purloined some of his goods, and spent what he had thus 
purloined; for had it not been thus, saith Jerome,+ the 
apostle needed not to have stipulated for satisfaction of the 
injury (ver. 18, 19). 

10 Ver. 13. Ὑπὲρ σοῦ, In thy stead.) A ministry seems 


* Tn vocibus, rats, νεανίσκος, et πρεσβύτης. 

“Os (ἔτη) τριάκοντα πέντε ἐδούλευσε τῷ Κυρίῳ κατὰ πάσης 
προϑυμίας, τελέσας δὲ τὸν ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐσεβείας ὁρόμον ἀνεπαύσατο ὡς 
ἑξήκοντα ὀκτώ, Orat. de Petro et Paulo, tom. v. p. 994, 
lin. 28. 

+ Nec sponsor fieret rei ablate, nisi esset id quod ablatum 
{nerat dissipatum. 


due from all that are able, towards those that suffer, and are 
in bonds for Christ’s sake; and when it is not performed, 
there seems to be a lack of service due to them, especially 
to the ambassadors of Christ (Phil. ii. 30). 

Ver. 14. "Qs κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην, As of necessity.) Here again, 
freedom of will is put in opposition to necessity (see note 
on 2 Cor. ix. 7): according to those words of Seneca, De 
Benef. lib. ii. cap 4, Si vis scire an velim, effice ut possim 
nolle. 

2 Ver. 15. Ἵνα αἰώνιον αὐτὸν ἀπέχης, That thou mightest 
have him during life.] Δουλεύσει αὐτῷ εἰς αἰῶνα, “He shall 
serve him during life,” Exod. xxi. 6; ἔσται σοι οἰκέτης εἰς 
αἰῶνα, “ He shall be thy servant whilst he lives,” Deut. xv. 
17; καθήσεται εἰς αἰῶνα, “ He shall abide for ever there,” 1 
Sam. i. 22; that is, ἕως ἡμέρας ϑανάτου αὐτοῦ, “ till the day of 
his death,” ver. 11, “all the days of his life,” ver. 28. 

13 Ver. 16. ᾿Αγατητὸν, Beloved.] Note here, that love is 
due even to bond-servants from their masters, when they are 
useful and profitable to them; for where advantage is re- 
ceived from the labours of another, there love is due. 

14 Ver. 20. Nai.] As the Hebrew yy is verbum obsecrandi, 
“a word of entreating ;” so is the Greek vai very frequently 
(see note on Matt. xv. 27). 

'5 Mov τὰ σπλάγχνα, Refresh my bowels.) Either meaning 
Onesimus, whom he calls his “ bowels,” ver. 12, or rather 
himself, whose bowels would be refreshed by Philemon’s re- 
ceiving Onesimus kindly, for the Lord’s sake. 

16 Ver. 22. Διὰ τῶν προσευχῶν ὑμῶν, By your prayers.) 
The apostle knew the efficacy of the prayers of the church, 
for preservation of Christ's eminent servants from impen- 
dent dangers; as in the case of Peter, Acts xii., and there- 
fore, in most of his epistles, he doth most earnestly entreat 
them, that he might be enabled to preach the gospel with 
freedom and success (Eph. vi. 19, Col. iv. 3, 2 Thess. iii. 1), 
and for deliverance from the malice of his persecutors (Rom. 
xv. 30, 31, 2 Thess. iii. 2); or else express his confidence 
that their prayers will be effectual to that end, as here, 
and 2 Cor. i. 10, 11, iv. 14, 15, Phil. i. 19. And had he 
thus conceived of prayers directed to angels and departed 
saints, why doth he not afford one instance of them in all 
his epistles? 


881 


THE 


EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS, 


WITH 


ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


By way of preface to this excellent epistle, I shall in- 
quire, 

1, Concerning the author of it. 

2. Touching the canonical authority of this epistle. 

8. Concerning the language in which it was originally 
written, 

4. To whom it was indited and sent, and when. 

5. Concerning the occasion and design of writing this 
epistle. And, 

1. That Paul was the author of this epistle, I prove, 

First, From these words of Peter, “ As our dear brother 
Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, hath written 
unto you, as in all his epistles,” 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16; whence 
it is evident, (1.) that the apostle Paul had writ to them to 
whom Peter was then writing; i.e. to the believing Jews in 
general, 2 Pet. i. 1, to those of the dispersion, mentioned 
1 Pet. i. 1; (2.) that he writ to them some certain letter, dis- 
tinct from all his other epistolary writings; as appears from 
those words, “as also in all his epistles,’’ i. e. his other epis- 
tles. Since then none of the ancients say that this epistle 
was lost, it must be that which bears the name of the Epis- 
tle to the Hebrews. 

Obj. To this it is answered, That the epistle intended by 
Peter may be that written to the Romans, in which he 
speaketh to the Jews by name, ii. 17; and in which is an 
exhortation found, to “ count the long-suffering of God sal- 
vation,” or that which “leadeth to repentance,” ver. 4. 

Ans. But, (1.) that which is written there, is plainly writ- 
ten to the unbelieving Jews, and concerns them only: 
whereas Peter writes to the “brethren,” iii. 12, the “be- 
loved,” ver. 1, 14. 17, to them “ who had received like precious 
faith,” i. 1; he therefore could not mean the Jews of whom 
Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Romans: nor, (2.) can 
that epistle be properly said to be writ to the dispersed Jews, 
it being writ to those at Rome only, i. 7, and chiefly to the 
gentiles there, i. 13, xi. 13, xv. 15, 16. (3.) The words, ii. 
4, are not an exhortation to “count the long-suffering of 
God salvation ;” but a reproof for despising this long-suffer- 
ing; whereas, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. x., he 
commends their patience under sufferings, and assures them 
it would find salvation ; and that if they lived by faith, the 
Lord would come and would not tarry. 

Arg. 2. A second argument to prove Paul the author of 
this epistle, is taken from these words, “ Know ye that our 
brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come 
shortly, I will see you: they of Italy salute you,” xiii. 23, 
24; and from those also, “Pray for us;” and, “Do this 
now the rather, that I may be restored to you the sooner,” 
ver. 18, 19. For, first, it is customary with Paul, when he 
writes to others, to call Timothy his “brother :” so, “ Paul 
te apostle of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother,” 2 
Cor. i. 1; and again, Col. i. 1, in the same words; « We 
sent Timothy our brother,” 1 Thess. iii. 2; and, “ Paul, a 
prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother,” Philem. 
ver. 1, This Timothy was a prisoner at Rome in the se- 
venth year of Nero; and set at liberty the eighth, saith Dr. 
Lightfoot, Harm. p. 139, 140, of which here the author of 
this epistle gives notice, and saith, he would come with him 
to them; i. e. to the Jews in Judea, to whom I shall prove, 
anon, that this epistle was indited. Now Timothy, we know, 
was still the companion of Paul. Lastly, he desires them to 

Vor. IV.—111 


pray for him, which is frequently done by Paul in most of 
his epistles, viz. in that directed to the Romans, Rom. xv. 
30; to the Ephesians, Eph. vi. 19; to the Philippians, Phil. 
i. 19; to the Colossians, Col. iv. 3; and to the 'Thessalo- 
nians, 2 Thess. iii. 1; and is never done in any of the 
catholic epistles. Pray for me,” saith he, “that I may be 
restored to you the sooner.’ Now Paul was sent bound 
from Judea to Rome, and therefore his return from Rome to 
Judea was properly a restoring of him to them. And that 
he was thus restored to them, we learn from Chrysostom,* 
declaring, that being at liberty, he went to Spain, thence to 
Judea, and so back to Rome. 

Arg. 3. That this epistle was written or composed by 
Paul, may yet more strongly be concluded from the autho- 
rity of the ancients; for that they did deliver this as the 
epistle of Paul, and that they were not rash in so doing, we 
learn from the words of Origen.- Now among these an- 
cients we may reckon, 

1, Clemens Romanus, the companion of and co-worker 
with Paul, who, as Eusebiust and Jerome§ note, “hath 
many notions which are in this 2pistle, and used many ex- 
pressions, word for word, taken thence:” which show this 
epistle not to be new, and to be duly reckoned among the 
writings of this apostle. 

2. Ireneus, in the second century, by whom this epistle 
is supposed to be cited as a book written by the Spirit, Adv. 
Her. lib. iii. cap. 6. But not to insist on that, as being 
uncertain, 

3. Clemens Alexandrinus|| cites those words of Paul, 
« Without faith it is impossible to please God,” Heb. xi. 6; 
adding that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things not seen,” ibid. ver. 1, κατὰ τὸν ϑεῖον 
ἀπόστολον, “according to the divine apostle.” And again he 
saith,§ ὁ Setos ἀπύστολος, “The divine apostle fears not to 
say, Remember the former days, in which ye, being enlight- 
ened, suflered a great fight of affliction,” Heb. x. 32; and 
so he cites him on to the end of that chapter; then gives 
the substance of the eleventh chapter, and the exhortation in 
the beginning of the twelfth, ver. 1,2. And that this divine 
apostle was Paul, we are assured from these words,** énci 
καὶ Παῦλος τοῖς 'EGpaios γράφων τοῖς ἀνακάμπτουσιν sis νόμον ἐκ 
πίστεως" “ Paul also writing to the Hebrews, relapsing from 
faith unto the law, saith, Ye have need that one teach you 
again which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and 
are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong 
meat,” Heb. v. 12. 

4, In the third century, Origen{{ citing the very words 


* δύο μὲν οὖν ἔτη ἐποίησεν ἐν Ῥώμη δεδεμένος, εἶτα ἀφείσθη, εἶτα 
sis τὰς Σπανίας ἐλθὼν, εἰς Ἰουδαίαν ἔβη ὅτε καὶ ᾿Ιουδαίους εἶδε, καὶ 
τότε πάλιν ἦλθεν εἰς Ρώμην. Chrys. Prefat. See Theophyl. ibid. 

T Et τις οὖν ἐκκλησία ἔχει ταύτην ἐπιστολὴν, ὡς Παῦλον αὐτὴ 
εὐδοκιμείτω, καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ" οὐ γὰρ εἰκῆ of ἄρχαιοι ἄνδρες ὡς Παύλου 
αὐτὴν παραδεδώκασι. Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 25, 
p- 227, 0, Ὁ. 

+'Ev ἢ τοῖς πρὸς "EGpaiovg πολλὰ νοήματα παραθεὶς, ἤδη δὲ 
καὶ αὐτολεζεὶ ῥητοῖς τισιν ἐξ αὐτῆς χρησάμενος σαφέστατα παρίσ- 
τησιν, ὅτι μὴ νέον ὑπάρχει τὸ σύγγραμμα. Ὅθεν εἰκότως ἔδοξεν 
αὐτὸ τοῖς λοιποῖς ἐγκαταλεγθῆναι γρήμμασι τοῦ ἀποστόλους Hist. 
Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 38. See Epist. Clem. ad Corinth. §. 12, 
17, 36, 43. 

§ Catal. Scrip. Eccl. || Strom. ii. p. 362, B. 

4 Strom. iv. p. 514, C, Ὁ. 515, A, B. 

** Strom. vi. p. 645, ), +f Adv. Celsum, lib. iii. p. 143. 

3x2 


882 


now mentioned, and the following words, ver. 13, “For 
every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of 
righteousness ;” he saith, “ He that writ this was the same 
Paul who said to the Corinthians, I have fed you with milk, 
and not with meat,” ἄς. 1 Cor. iii. 2. In his Philocalia* 
he saith, “'The apostle Paul, who said to the Corinthians, 
These things happened in a figure, and they were written for 
us, on whom the ends of the ages are come (1 Cor. x. 11), 
doth also, in another epistle, use these words, relating to the 
tabernacle, Thou shalt make all things according to the pat- 
tern shown thee in the mount” (Heb. viii. 5) ; and that the 
apostle who said, “ Jerusalem which is above is free, and 
is the mother of us all,’ Gal. iv. 26, said also in another 
epistle, « Ye are come to mount Sion, the city of the living 
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels,” 
&c. Heb. xii. 22, 23. In his Exhortation to Martyrdom, 
he hath these words, φησί που ὃ Παῦλος, “ Paul, speaking 
somewhere to them who suffered from the beginning, and 
exhorting them to suffer patiently the trials which afterward 
fell upon them for the word, saith, Call to remembrance 
the former days in which ye, being enlightened, suffered a 
great fight of afflictions—Cast not away therefore your con- 
fidence, which hath great recompense of reward; for ye have 
need of patience,” Heb. x. 32—36. And in his answer to 
Africanus, having cited these words from this epistle, «'They 
were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were slain with 
the sword,” Heb. xi. 37, he saith,§ “If any person being 
pressed with these words should fall into the opinion of them 
who reject this opinion as none of Paul's, he would use 
other words, to demonstrate to him that it was the epistle of 
Paul.” He also adds,|| that “the sentences contained in it 
are admirable, and no whit inferior to the writings of the 
apostles; as he who diligently reads them must confess.” 

In a word, when this epistle was denied by the Arians in 
the fourth century, because they were not able to resist the 
conviction it affords us of our Lord’s divinity, Theodoret] 
saith, “They ought at least to revere the length of time in 
which the children of the church have read this epistle in 
the churches, viz. as long as they have read the apostolic 
writings: or, if this be not sufficient to persuade them, they 
should hearken to Eusebius,** of whom they boast, as of the 
patron of their doctrine; for he confesses this was Paul’s 
epistle, and he declares that all the ancients had this opinion 
of it.” 

That they of Rome, and other Latins, did, for a while, re- 
ject this epistle, will not much weaken this tradition, if we 
consider, 

First, That this epistle was not writ to them, but to the 
Hebrews, who, as Eusebiustf testifies, “delighted much 
in it.” 

Secondly, That it was rejected by them, not that they 
had any thing to say against it, but because they could not 
answer the arguments which the Novatian schismatics 
among them produced from the sixth and tenth chapters of 
this epistle, against receiving lapsed penitents into the 
church, whence, as Philastrius informs us, they rejected it, 
as thinking it was depraved by heretics: or 

Thirdly, Because it wants its name, which he concealed, 
not as Jerome conjectures, διὰ φϑόνον, “to avoid the offence 
of those who liked not his person,” by reason of his doctrine 


* Philocal. p. 10. 

+ Philoc. p. 17, et adv. Celsum, lib. vii. p. 351. 

+ Philoc. p. 209, 210. 

§ Τῶν ἀθετούντων τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ὡς οὐ Παύλῳ γεγραμμένην, πρὸς 
ὃν ἄλλων λόγων κατ᾽ idiav χρήζομεν eis ἀπόδειξιν τοῦ εἶναι Παύλου 
τὴν ἐπιστολὴν. P. 232. 

|| "Ore τὰ νοήματα τῆς ἐπιστολῆς ϑαυμάσιά ἐστι, καὶ οὐ δεύτερα τῶν 
ἀποστολικῶν ὁμολογουμένων γραμμάτων, καὶ τοῦτο ἂν συμφῆσαι εἶναι 
αληθὲς πᾶς ὃ προσέχων τῇ ἀναγνώσει τῇ ἀποστολικῇ. Apud Euseb. 
lib. vi. cap, 23, p. 227, C. 

4 Ἔδει γὰρ αὐτοὺς rod χρόνου γοῦν αἱδεσθῆναι τὸ μῆκος, ἐξ οὗ γὰρ 
τῶν ἀποστολικῶν γραμμάτων αἱ τοῦ Θεοῦ μετέλαχον ἐκκλησίαι, ἐξ 
ἐκείνου καὶ τῆς προς Ἑβραίους ἐπιστολῆς τὴν ὠφέλειαν καρποῦνται. 
Pref. in Epist. ad Hebr. 

ἘΞ Kai τοὺς παλαίους ἅπαντας ταύτην περὶ αὐτῆς ἔφησεν ἐσχηκέναι 
τὴν δόξαν. Pref. ibid. 

TH "Qt μάλιστα “Efpaiwy οἱ τὸν Χριστὸν παραδεζάμενοι χαίρουσι. 
Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 25, p. 97. 


PREFACE TO THE HEBREWS. 


concerning the non-observation of their law ; for it is evident, 
from his desire of their prayers, and from his intimation that 
he designed shortly to be with them, that he must be well 
known unto them; but, as ‘Theodoret observes, ‘‘ because he 
was made an apostle, not of the circumcision, but of the 
gentiles,” 

Lastly, The difference in style some mention, is so nice a 
thing, and may happen upon so many accounts, that it de- 
serves not to be looked on as an argument of any force, 
against plain testimonies of the ancients, that Paul was the 
author of this work. 

2. That this epistle was written and directed to the Jews 
dwelling in Judea and Palestine, is the opinion of the an- 
cients,* though not so as to exclude the believing Jews of 
the dispersion. ‘This may be argued from the endorsement 
of it, “To the Hebrews,” rather than “ΤῸ the Jews.” It 
cannot be imagined but that he sends it to be delivered at a 
certain place, within some reasonable compass, seeing the 
bearer of it, whoever he was, could not deliver it to all the 
Jews dispersed through the whole world; and because he 
directs them to pray, that he “ might be restored to them,” 
and promiseth to come and see them. The title therefore, 
“To the Hebrews,” must determine the place, and point out 
the Jews that dwelt in Judea, or the land of Israel; and 
this sense doth the Holy Ghost put upon the title, «the 
Hebrews,” when it is said, “ There was a murmuring of the 
Hellenists against the Hebrews,” Acts vi. 1; by the Hellen- 
ists meaning the Jews that dwelt in foreign countries among 
the Greeks; and by the Hebrews, those that dwelt in Ju- 
dea. So again, 2 Cor. xi. 22, “ Are they Hebrews? so am 
I. Are they Israelites? so am I.” And, Phil. iii. 5, « Of 
the stock of Israel, a Hebrew of the Hebrews;” i. 6. a He- 
brew not only by descent, as were all of the stock of Israel, 
but by language, which some of them had lost; and by habi- 
tation in the holy land, and not among the uncircumcised 
gentiles, he being bred up at the feet of Gamaliel. And so 
it is most proper to understand the inscription of this epis- 
tle, namely, that Paul directs and sends it to the believing 
Jews of Judea, which he styles his own nation, Acts xxiv. 
17. For though he, doubtless, did intend it also for the 
benefit of the believing Jews dispersed, yet might he send it 
first and chiefly to those in Judea, the principal seat of the 
circumcision ; from whence it might, in time, diffuse itself 
through the whole circumference of the circumcision. 

3. But hence it cannot reasonably be concluded, that 
this epistle was writ in Hebrew, or in Syriac: for the Gos- 
pel of John, and his First Epistle, the catholic epistles of 
James, Peter, and Jude, were also written to the Jews, and 
yet were writ in Greek, that being a tongue so well known 
to the Jews, that they call it the vulgar tongue; therefore in 
all the discourses of the Jews with the Roman governors, 
who understood the Greek tongue, we never read, either in 
scripture or Josephus, that the Jews spake to them, or they 
unto the Jews, by an interpreter; nor is there any of the 
ancients, who pretends to have seen any Hebrew copy of this 
epistle. ‘That it was writ in Greek appears not only from 
the passages of scripture so often cited in it from the Sep- 
tuagint, even where they differ from the Hebrew, i. 6, iii. 
8—10, viii. 8, 9, x. 5.37, 38; but also from vii. 2, where we 
read thus, πρῶτον μὲν ἑρμηνευόμενος βασιλεὺς δικαιοσύνης, “ First 
being interpreted King of Righteousness, and afterward King 
of Salem, which is, King of Peace ;” for both the word Mel- 
chisedec and King of Salem, being in the first verse, should 
have been there interpreted, had this been the addition of 
the interpreter ; for so we find it is throughout the New 
‘Testament, where the interpretation immediately follows the 
Hebrew word or phrase, as Mark vy. 41, “ Talitha, cwmi ; 
which is, by interpretation, Daughter, arise;” “ Golgotha, 
which is, by interpretation, The place of a skull,’ Mark xv. 
22. So Matt. xxvii. 46, Mark xv. 34, John i. 38, “ Rabbi, 
which is, being interpreted, Master ;” and, ver. 41, “ Mes- 
siah, which is, being interpreted, The Christ.” So ix. 7, 
xix. 37, Acts iv. 36, ix. 36, xiii. 8. Whereas here the word 
Melchisedec is in the beginning of the first verse, and the 
supposed addition of the interpreter is added where the 
word is not; so “ King of Salem” is in the first verse not in- 


* Ποῦ δὲ οὖσιν ἐπιστέλλει; ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ ἐν “Ἱεροσολύμοι; καὶ 


| Παλαιστίνη. Chrys. et Theodoret. Prefat. 


CHAPTER I. 


terpreted, and when it is repeated, then comes the interpre- 
tation; which plainly shows, that it is not made to give the 
sense, but the mystery contained in the words, viz. that 
Christ was “our peace,” Eph. ii, 14, and “his sceptre was a 
sceptre of righteousness,” i. 8. 

4. As for the time when this epistle was indited, (1.) it 
seems evident, that it was written after that to the Colos- 
sians and to Philemon; for there he is Paul the prisoner, here 
he is set at liberty, and hoping to come quickly to them to 
whom he writes: those epistles therefore being writ in the 
sixty-second year of Christ, and the eighth of Nero, this must 
at least be written in the following year. Again, in the 
Epistle to the Colossians, we have mention of ‘Timothy, but 
nothing of his bonds; here we have mention both of his im- 
prisonment and his ensuing liberty, which may well cast 
this epistle into the ninth of Nero, where it is placed by 
Bishop Pearson. 

5. To speak a little of the occasion of it: I have shown, 
in the preface to the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, 
and in the preface to the Epistle of James, that it was writ- 
ten chiefly to prevent that epidemical apostasy from Christ 
to Moses, which the believing Jews were then too prone to. 
But we learn also from the matter of the epistle, that it was 
written to prove that Jesus was the Son of God: now in 


883 


what sense this chiefly was denied by the Jews, we learn 
from the Gospel of John, where, when our Lord had said, 
“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” John v. 17, 
the Jews seek to kill him, because πατέρα ἴδιον ἔλεγε τὸν 
Θεόν, “he said God was his own Father, making himself 
equal to God,” ver. 18. And again, “ We stone thee,” say 
they, “for blasphemy, because thou, being a man, makest 
thyself God,” John x. 33. What was this blasphemy of 
which they thus accuse him? It was only this, that he said, 
ΑἹ am the Son of God,” ver. 36. It is therefore plain, they 
judged it the same thing to say he was “ the Son of God,” 
and to say that “he was God;” whence we may rationally 
conclude, it was also in this sense that the apostle here as- 
serts, and doth endeavour to confirm this truth. 

And, Lastly, This epistle being written to persons now 
relapsing from Christ to Moses, and to the law given, said 
they, by angels ; this seems to he the reason why the apostle 
is so large in showing that Christ was greater than the 
angels, a greater lawgiver than Moses, a greater priest than 
Aaron, and that the Levitical priesthood, covenant, and law, 
were to give place to Christ our great high-priest, to his new 
law of liberty, and that new covenant he had established 
upon better promises. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Gop, who ! at sundry times and 3 in divers man- 
ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the pro- 
phets, 

2 Hath in these last days (the times of the Mes- 


siah, see note on 2 Tim. iii. 1) spoken unto us by - 
his Son, whom he hath appointed (?Syxe, constituted 
3 heir of all things, 4 by whom also he iade the 
worlds; 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Πολυμερῶς, At sundry times.] Before the flood 
by Enoch, Jude 14, and by Noah, 2 Pet. ii. 5; after the 
flood by Abraham the prophet, Gen. xx. 7, who gave to 
his “children and household after him” the commandments 
of the Lord, Gen. xviii. 19. By Jacob, “ prophesying to his 
sons of things to come in the last days,” Gen. xlix.1. By 
Moses, during their abode in the wilderness. By Deborah, 
Samuel, and other prophets, in the time of the judges, Judg. 
vi. 8. By Nathan in the time of David and Solomon. By 
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, in the time of the kings. 
By Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, in and after the 
captivity. 

2 Πολυτρύπως, In divers manners.] In a cloud, fire, a still 
breath ; by visions, dreams, a voice from heaven, and by 
the Holy Spirit speaking in the prophets, 2 Pet. i. 21. 


3 Ver. 2. Κληρονόμον πάντων, Heir of all things Ἢ; As it) 


were by succession to his Father, who now “judgeth no man, 
but hath given all judgment to his Son,” John v. 22, Heb. 
iii. 6. We cannot desire a fairer comment on these words, 
than that of the Socinians on the place,* “That Christ is 
made heir of all things in heaven and earth, yea, of heaven 
and earth itself; that he is heir and Lord of all angels, and 
of all men living and dead, Rom. xiv. 8, 9. That he is ab- 
solutely the heir of all things, and hath the highest empire 


and dominion over all angels and men; by which words is | 
signified the highest excellency and divinity, and, as it were, 


the unity of Christ with God, though with diversity,” in that 
he is his Son and heir, and received this dominion from 
another. And I believe it is as impossible to understand 
how a man should have this empire over all things in heaven 
and earth, and over death itself, and yet be a mere man, as 
it ls to understand any mystery of the sacred Trinity. The 
word “heir” doth also signify “ Lord of all things” (see the 
note on Col. i. 15). 

4 Av οὗ καὶ τοὺς αἰῶνας ἐποίησεν, By whom also he made the 


* Christus solus omnium plané rerum hereditate gaudet, 
et summo in omnes, tam angelos, quam homines, imperio 
ac dominatti pollet-————Licét autem istis verbis significata 
sit summa Christi prestantia, ac divinitas, ac veluti cum 
Deo unitas, tamen simul significata etiam Christi ἃ Deo di- 
versitas. Cell. in loc. 


worlds.| Thatis, saith Grotius, propter quem, “ for whom he 
made them,” according to the doctrine of the rabbins, that 
«the world was made for the Messiah.” But this exposi- 
tion is contrary to the rule of all grammarians,* that τὸ διὰ, 
Gre μὲν συντάσσεται γενικῆ, μεσιτείαν, ὅτε δὲ airtarixy, αἰτίαν δηλοῖ, 
“that the preposition διὰ, when it is joined with a genitive 
case, signifies the means by which, and the final cause only 
when it is joined with an accusative case.” It is contrary to 
the exposition of all the Greek fathers, who unanimously 
say, τοῦτο δηλωτικὸν τῆς Sedrnros, ““ This shows the divinity of 
Christ.” It is also without example in the New Testament, 
for διὰ τῆς dbfns τοῦ πατρὸς, Rom. vi. 4, which is the only 
place he cites, signifies “by the glory” or power “of the 
Father,” by which Christ was raised from the dead (Eph. i. 
19, Col. ii. 12). ‘The Socinians by «the worlds’”’ here un- 
derstand the new creation, or the church begun by Christ's 
ministry upon earth, begotten and renewed by the evangeli- 
cal dispensation. But neither can this exposition stand : 
for (1.) though Christ be styled, in some of the Greek ver- 
sions, πατὴρ τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, Isa. ix. 6, “the Father of 
the age to come,” yet οἵ αἰῶνες, absolutely put, doth never 
signify the church or evangelical state; nor doth the scrip- 
ture ever speak of « the world to come” in the plural, but in 
the singular number only, preserving the phrase xan Dory, 
as they received it from the Jews. (2.) Were this the im- 
port of the words, the worlds might as well have been said to 
have been created or made by Christ's apostles, they being 
the great converters of the world; or, at least, this being 
done by them, assisted by the power of Christ, after he had 
been thus made « heir of all things,” it must have properly 
been said that Christ made the worlds by his apostles, which 
yet the Holy Ghost never thinks fit to intimate. Moreover, 
whereas this making of the world by Jesus Christ is done by 
his prophetic office, i. e. his speaking to us in the last days, 
the apostle had mentioned this already, and makes a plain 
gradation from it to his kingly office, in saying he was con- 
stituted « Lord of all things,’ not speaking of making the 
world by way of consecution, thus, καὶ δι᾿ οὖ, “and by whom,” 
but, by way of farther gradation, δι᾽ οὗ καὶ, “ by whom also” he 
made the world; as if he should have said, Nor is it to be won- 
dered that he should be constituted Lord of the whole world, 
seeing he made the whole. And that the apostle here doth 


* Phavorinus. 


884 


3 Who being the ® brightness of Ais glory, and the 


HEBREWS. 


δ express image of his person (or, character of his sub 


speak, not of the reforming of the new, but of the forming 
of the old world, he himself sufficiently instructs us, by say- 
ing in this same epistle, “ By faith we understand, κατηρτίσ- 
Sat τοὺς αἰῶνας ῥήματι Θεοῦ, that the worlds were formed by 
the word of God,” xi. 3. For that by τοὺς αἰῶνας we are to 
understand the material world, the Socinian commentators 
grant, and the parallel place in Peter doth enforce, when he 
saith that “ the heavens were of old, and the earth, ἐξ ὕδατος 
συνεστῶσα τῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγῳ, consisting out of water by the 
Word of God,” 2 Pet. iii. 5, and this « world” is mentioned 
in both places in the plural number, agreeably to the phrase 
and doctrine of the Jews,* who speak of typ, i. e. “the 
worlds,” in the plural, and divide them into —jn tdi, or 
Spwn poy, 1. e. “this inferior and habitable world,” called 
by Peter, 6 τότε κύσμος, “the then world,” which perished 
by water, ver. 6, and “the y»5yq toby, superior world,” 
that is, the heavens. And it is no improbable conjecture, 
that when Peter saith, “ [he heavens and earth consisted by 
the Word of God,” and Paul, that “by faith we learn that 
the worlds were framed, ‘Piyart Θεοῦ, by the Word of God,” 
they mean this substantial world, of which the apostle is 
here speaking; for the word 434 seems plainly to be used 
in this sense, when we read in the Targum of Jerusalem, on 
Gen. xxviii. 11, την 2 nas, “For his Word,” i. 6. the 
Word of God, “desired to speak with Jacob ;” and in that 
of Jonathan, yas, “'The Word would speak with him ;” 
which in Bereschith Rabba, 8. 68, runs thus, “God would 
speak with him:” and the word 'Pijza seems also to be 
either used in this sense, or applied to the Adyos, often by 
Philo ἢ as when he saith that “ Moses was translated, διὰ 
Ῥήματος τοῦ Airiov, δι᾿ οὗ καὶ σύμπας κόσμος ἐδημιουργεῖτο, by 
the Word of the First Cause, by which the world was made ;” 
and that God “made both¢ the heavens and the earth by 
a Word, by his most illustrious and resplendent Λόγος. 
And to be sure, Philo was of the same opinion with Paul, 
that the Word made and fashioned the world; whence he 
so often mentions the divine Word§ “adorning all things,” 
“the Word of God that maketh the world,” “the Word by 
which the world is fashioned and made, and by which, as his 
organ, God gave being to it ; and saith, in words like those 
of the apostle, that “« God possesseth all things, using that 
Word as the dispenser of his gifts, by which also he made 
the world.” And this was also the doctrine of all the pri- 
mitive fathers from the beginning, as well as of all the com- 
mentators on this text. Barnabas] declares that he is «the 
Lord of the world, the maker of the sun, the person by 
whom and to whom are all things.” “ He is,” saith J. Mar- 
tyr,** “the Word by which the heaven, the earth, and every 
creature was made, by whom God at the beginning made 
and ordained all things, viz. the heavens and the earth, and 
by whom he will renew them.” This Ireneust} delivers as 


* Buxt. voce obiy. 

{ De Sacrif. Abel. p. 102, C. Ὁ. 

+ To yap περιφανεστάτῳ καὶ τηλαυγεστάτω ἑαυτοῦ Λόγῳ ᾿Ῥήματι 
ὃ Θεὸς ἀμφύτερα ποιεῖ. Alleg. lib. i. p. 38, G. 

§ Τὸν θεῖον Λόγον τὸν ταῦτα διακοσμήσαντα. De Opif. p. 8, F. 
Θεοῦ Adyov ἤδη κοσμοποιοῦντα, p. 4, C. Δι᾿ οὗ ὃ κόσμος κατεο- 
κευάσϑη. De Cherub. p. 100, B. Ὧι καϑάπερ ὀργάνῳ χρώμενος 
ἑκοσμοποίει. ΑἸ]. 2, p. 60. Τὸν κύσμον ἐδημιούργησε. De Pro- 
fugis, p. 362, F. 

| Ae’ οὗ σύμπας ὃ κύσμος ἐδημιουργεῖτο. Lib. 11. de Monar. p. 
636, Β. Λόγῳ χρώμενος ὑπηρέτη δωρεῶν, ᾧ καὶ τὸν κόσμον εἰργάζετο. 
Lib. Φυδὰ Deus sit immutab. p. 235, G. 

§ Orbis terrarum Dominus. Antiq. Vers. §. 5. 
ἔργον χειρῶν αὐτοῦ ὑπάρχοντα. Ab. init. et §. 12. 

ἘΣ Αὐδὴν ἐνταῦϑα τὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ ὀνομάζει Λόγον, de’ οὗ οὐρανὸς, 
καὶ γῆ, καὶ ἡ πᾶσα ἐγένετο κτίσι.. Cohort. ad Gree. p. 16, B. 
“Ὅτε τὴν ἀρχὴν δι᾿ αὐτοῦ πάντα ἔκτισε καὶ ἐκόσμησε. Apol. i. p. 44. 
Οὗτος γάρ ἐστιν ἀφ᾽ οὗ καὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν. Καὶ cx’ οὗ ὃ 
πατὴρ μέλλει καινουργεῖν. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 340, D. 

{{ Cum autem teneamus nos regulam veritatis, id est, quia 
sit unus Deus omnipotens, qui omnia condidit per Verbum 
suum, et aptavit et fecit, ex eo quod non erat, ad hoe ut sint 
omnia, quemadmodum scriptura dicit, Ps. xxxii. 9, John 1. 
3, Col. i. 16. Hance ergo tenentes regulam, licct valde 


Ἤλιον 


the rule of faith contained in the scripture, « which they 
who hold to may easily prove that the heretics had deviated 
from the truth.” He adds, that “the barbarians who held 
the ancient tradition did believe in one God, the maker of 
heaven and earth, and of all things therein, by Jesus Christ 
the Son of God;” and this doctrine he repeats almost a 
hundred times elsewhere. “ Our doctrine,” saith Athenago- 
ras,* “celebrates one God, the creator of all things, who 
made all things by Jesus Christ, from whom and by whom 
all things were made.’ “ God,” saith Theophilus,t “made 
all things by him, and he is called the beginning, because 
he is the principle and ruler of all things made by him.” 
He adds, that “by this principle God made the heavens: 
that God said to him, Let us make man ; he being his Word, 
by which he made all things.” « Him,” saith Tatian,+ « we 
know to have been the author of the world, for that which 
was begotten in the beginning, gave beginning to the things 
made: he made man the image of his immortality, and be- 
fore man he made the angels.” ‘ We rational creatures, 
saith Clement of Alexandria,§ “are the work of God the 
Word ; for he was and is the divine principle of all things, 
by whom all things were made, and who, as the framer of all 
things in the beginning, gave also life tous; by whom are all 
things; who made man; our God and Maker, the cause of 
the creation.” In the third century we learn the same 
from Origen, Tertullian,{ Novatian,** Cyprian,j} and 
others cited by the learned Dr. Bull. So that in these two 
verses there be visible these gradations; one, from Christ’s 
prophetic office to his kingly office, conferred on him as 
“heir of all things ;” the other, from his kingly office to the 
foundation of it, laid in his divine nature, and in the work 
of the creation; it being, say Ireneus and the ancient fa- 
thers, fit that he should reform and govern the world, by 
whom it was formed, that he should give new life to man 
who gave him his being and first breath. 

5 Ver. 3. ᾿Απαύγασμα τῆς ditns, i. 6. The resplendence or 
shining forth of his glory.) This metaphor, some of the 
fathers think, is taken from the sun, whence Justin Martyr+ 
saith he proceedeth from the Father, as τὸ τοῦ ἡλίου φῶς, 
“the light of the sun, without division or separation, from 
him.” Others, with him, παραδείγματος χάριν, “for exam- 


varia et multa dicunt (heretici), facilé eos devidsse ἃ veri- 
tate arguimus. Lib. i. cap. 19. Cui ordinationi assentiunt 
multe gentes barbarorum veterem traditionem diligentér 
custodientes, et credentes in unum Deum fabricatorem ceeli, 
et terre, et omnium que in eis sunt, per Jesum Christum 
filium Dei. ib. iii. cap. 4; vide lib. ii. cap. 2, lib. iii. cap. 
8, 10, 11, p. 257, 259, lib. iv. pref. cap. 37, p. 369, 370, 
ἄς. lib. v. cap. 15, 18. 

*'O Λόγος ἡμῶν Eva Θεὸν ἄγει τὸν τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς ποιητὴν, 
πάντα δὲ διὰ τοῦ rap’ αὐτοῦ Adyou πεποιηκότα, p. 5, Ὁ, "EX αὐτοῦ 
γὰρ cai δι᾿ αὐτοῦ πάντα ἐγένετο, p. 10, C. 

ἡ Καὶ δι᾿ αὐτοῦ τὰ πάντα πεποίηκεν, οὗτος λέγεται 'Apxh, ὅτι 
ἄρχει καὶ κυριεύει πάντων τῶν δι᾿ αὐτοῦ δεδημιουργημένων, Ad Autol. 
ii. p. 88, C. διὰ τῆς ᾿Αρχῆς γεγενῆσθαι τὸν οὐρανὸν, p. 92, Β. 
Τῷ Eavrod Λόγῳ καὶ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ σοφίᾳ, p. 96, D. 'Ὃ Λόγος αὐτοῦ 
δι' οὗ τὰ πάντα πεποίηκε, p. 100, A. 

¢ Τοῦτον ἴσμεν τοῦ κόσμου τὴν apyiiv—— Λόγος ἐν ἀρχῇ γεννη- 
ϑεὶς ἀντεγέννησε τὴν καϑ' ἡδᾶς ποίησιν, αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ τὴν ὕλην én 
μιουργήσας, p. 145, B,C. Εἰκόνα τῆς ἀθανασίας ἄνθρωπον ἐποίη- 
σεν. καὶ πρὸ τῆς τῶν ἁνόρῶν κατασκευῆς ἀγγέλων δημιουργὸς 
γίνεται, p. 146, B, C. 

§ Tod Θεοῦ Λόγου ra λογικὰ πλάσματα, ἡμεῖς -------ἀρχὴ θεῖα 
τῶν πάντων ἦν τε καί ἐστιν. Adm. p.5,C, D. ὯΩι, τὰ πάντα 
δεδημιούργηται. Λόγος ὃ καὶ τὸ Τὴν ἐν ἀρχῆ κατὰ τοῦ πλάσαι πα- 
ρασχὼν ὡς δημιουργὸς, p. 6, Β.. Ac ὃν τὰ πάντα, p. 69, A. 
᾽Ὃ δημιουργῆσας τὸν ἄνϑρωπον, Peed, lib. i. cap. 2, p. 81, Β. 
"Ore Θεὸς καὶ δημιουργὸς, cap. 11, p. 138, A. Ὃ δημιουργίας 
αἴτιος. Strom. v. 553, A. 

! Origen. contra Celsum, lib. ii. p. 63, lib. vi. p. 308. 
317. 

4 Tertul. adv. Marcion. lib. v. cap. 19, adv. Hermog. 45, 
adv. Praxeam, cap. 19. 

** Novat. cap. 13, Μ. +7 Cyprian. Test. lib. ii. cap 1. 

++ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 358, B. 


CHAPTER I. . 


ple’s sake,” say,* “He proceedeth, ὡς ἀπὸ πυρὸς ἀναπυρόμενα 
πυρὰ, as fire is kindled from fire, without the diminution of 
the fire that kindles it,” or as ἀπὸ δαδὸς dds, “ as one torch is 
lighted from another,” which is the metaphor of Tatian, p. 
145; which metaphors they have borrowed from Philo,t 
who, speaking of the Spirit in Moses, derived upon the se- 
venty elders, cautions us not to understand this to be done, 
κατὰ ἀποκοπὴν, καὶ διάζευξιν, “by abscission, or disjunction, 
ἀλλ᾽ ola γένοιτ᾽ ἂν ἀπὸ πυρὸς, but as light from fire, at which 
if you light a thousand torches, it is not diminished.” Ac- 
cordingly the Nicene council style him “ Light of light,” 
and hence they argue his consubstantiality with the Father, 
who produces not another essence, or substance in the Son, 
but communicates the same essence to him. The like notions 
the Jews seem to have had of their Λόγος, or “ Wisdom,” 
which is with them the same: for the book of Wisdom saith 
of her, that she is ἀπόῤῥοια τῆς τῶν παντοκράτορος δόξης εἰλικρι- 
vis, καὶ ἀπαύγασμα φωτὸς ἀϊδίου, an efflux of the sincere glory 
of the Almighty, and the splendour of eternal light” (vii. 25, 
26). And Philoy saith of the Adyos, that he is τὸ τοῦ ἀορά- 
τοῦ καὶ μεγίστου Θεοῦ περιφεγγέστατον καὶ περιαυγέστατον φῶς, 
“the most illustrious and splendid light of the invisible and 
highest God.” And this the Jews might better understand, 
if it were taken, as probably it was, from the glory that con- 
ducted them out of Egypt, and led them through the wilder- 
ness, and dwelt among them, first in the ark and tabernacle, 
and afterward in the temple. For it is observable, 

First, That this ὀόξα, “glory,” or Shechinah, so often 
mentioned in the Old Testament, and in the writings of the 
Jews, was not the cloud itself, that being only the cover of 
it, but the light, fire, or splendour that issued from it. So 
Exod. xxiv. 16, “And the glory of the Lord dwelt upon 
mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it (viz. the glory of the 
Lord) six days; and the sight of the glory of the Lord (when 
it broke out of the cloud after six days) was as burning fire 
on the top of the mount, in the sight of the people of Is- 
rael.” And, Exod. xl. 34, “Then a cloud covered the tent 
of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the ta- 
bernacle.” And, ver. 35, “Moses was not able to enter 
into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode 
thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the house.” 
1 Kings viii. 10, 11, “ When the priests were come out of 
the holy place the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that 
the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud ; 
for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.” 
Ezek. x. 4, “ And the house was filled with the cloud, and 
the court was full of the brightness of the glory of the Lord.” 
Note, 

Secondly, That this glory is styled “the glory of the 
Lord,” not as being itself a divine thing, or a ray of divinity, 
but as being the symbol of God’s glorious presence and abode 
where it appeared and resided. Thus the cloud, which con- 
sisteth of a dark part to cover the fire, or light, and a brigh 
side by the appearance of the light, is called “the cloud o 
Jehovah,” Exod. iv. 38, Numb. x. 34, because God was 
gloriously present in it; or, as Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, 
on Exod. xl. 34, saith, py qyna yw W327 532, “ because 
the glory dwelt in the midst of it;’”” whence God said, “ Lo, 
I come to thee in a thick cloud,” Exod. xix. 9; “I will ap- 
pear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat,” Lev. xvi. 2; “He 
spake to Moses out of the cloud,” Numb. vii. 89. And 
when he went to receive his commands, it is said, “ And 
Moses drew near to the thick darkness, where God was,” 
Exod. xx. 21. And, lastly, God is said to “go before them 
by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in the pillar of 
fire,’ Exod. xiii. 21, Numb. xiv. 14. 

Again, The ark in which this glory dwelt between the 
cherubims, is called 4 4), “the glory of the Lord,” i. e. 
of that glorious Majesty who dwelt in it; whence the God 
of Israel is often styled “the God that sitteth between the 
cherubims ;” because here, say the Jews,§ he fixed his resi- 
dence and presence, notwithstanding that he fills heaven 
and earth, and his majesty is in heaven, and in all the earth. 


885 


And when the ark was to be taken up and carried any whi- 
ther, they sang thus, “ Arise, Jehovah, and let thine enemies 
be scattered,” Numb. x. 35, Ps. Ixviii. 2; and when it rested, 
thus, “ Give rest, Jehovah, to the many thousands of Israel ;’” 
not styling the ark “Jehovah,” but “the glorious Majesty 
that dwelt in it,” or “him, and the ark of his strength,” 
Ps. exxxii. 8, where also it may be noted, that the Targums 
of Jerusalem and Jonathan read thus, “ Rise up, Ὁ Word 
of the Lord,” and, “Return, O Word of the Lord.” And, 
Ps. xxiv., when the ark was brought from the house of Obed- 
edom, and settled in mount Sion, and placed in the holy of 
holies, they sang thus, “ Lift up your heads, O ye gates, that 
the King of glory may come in ;’ i. 6. “ the Lord of hosts,” 
who dwelt in the ark. 

Accordingly our Lord Jesus, after his ascension, appeared 
still in or with the glory of the Lord. When he was trans- 
figured on mount ‘Tabor, he was in this splendour, Matt. 
xvii. 2, styled by Peter, μεγαλοπρεπὴς δύξα, “ the magnificent 
glory,” 2 Pet. i. 17; so he appeared to Stephen, who “ saw 
the glory of the Lord, and Jesus standing at the right hand 
of God,” Acts vii. 55; so to Saul, when “a light brighter 
than the sun shone round about him, and he heard a voice 
out of it, saying to him, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest,” 
Acts ix. 5, xxvi. 13; he being 6 Κύριος τῆς δόξης, “ the Lord 
of glory,” 1 Cor. ii. 8 (see Rev. i. 14, 15, ii. 18, xviii. 1, 
xix. 12); and because of God’s residence in this glory, the 
word “glory” doth often signify God himself, as when we 
read of “the throne” and “the house of Glory,” i. e. of the 
glorious God. So Rabbi Joseph Abbo;* « It is the manner 
of the scripture to call the visible glory and splendour of the 
divine Majesty by the name of God.” So Ps. cvi. 20, 
“They turned their Glory into the similitude of a calf:” 
Jer. ii. 12, My people have changed their Glory for that 
which doth not profit :” and so the fathers seem to take the 
word “glory” here for “ the divine Glory.” Note, 

Thirdly, That from this glory, when God did any won- 
drous works of power, mercy, and judgment, there is said 
to be an emanation or shining forth of glory ; as when “ fire 
went forth from the glory of the Lord to consume their sa- 
crifices,” in token of his favourable acceptance of them: so 
Lev. ix. 23, 24, “The glory of the Lord appeared, and 
there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed 
upon the altar the burnt-offering and the fat:” so 2 Chron. 
vii. 1—3 ; accordingly they begged his favour in these words, 
“Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth,” 
Ps. Ixxx. 1 (see Ps. ]. 2, Deut. xxxiii. 2). And to con- 
sume transgressors, viz. Nadab and Abihu, Lev. x. 2, and 
“the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense,” 
Numb. xvi. 85 (see Exod. xiv. 24, 25). And in like man- 
ner may the Son be said to be ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δύξης, “an 
emanation or shining forth from the glory of the Father ;” 
as being before all things, prolatus ἃ patre sive generatus, 
“begotten or brought forth by the Father,” saith Ireneus, 
lib. 11. cap. 48, 4, 28; being always in him, “but τῶν ὑλικῶν 
ξυμπάντων idéa καὶ ἐνέργεια εἶναι προελϑὼν, coming forth before 
all things, to be the idea and active power of all material 
beings:” so Athenagoras, p. 10, «The Word, whom the 
Father begat, ἐξερευξάμενος πρὸ πάντων sending him forth be- 
fore all things, who was always in God, and became Aéyos 
προφορικὸς, When he would create the world.” So Theophi- 
lus “Whom he made προπηδᾶν, to leap from him,” say 
Justin Martyrt and Tatian. “He being in him before all 
ages; προελθὼν ὃ Λόγος δημιουργίας, the Word coming forth, 
which is the cause of the creation, προγεννηϑεὶς, de’ οὗ τὰ πάντα, 
and fore-begotten, by which all things were made,” saith 
Clemens Alexandrinus.§ ‘The Word brought forth by the 
Father, and by that prolation generated, and therefore the 
Son of God,” saith Tertullian.| 

6 Καὶ χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ, The impression, or reé- 
presentation of his subsistence.] The phrase signifies, saith 
Theodoret, that he subsists by himself, καὶ ἐν ἑαυτῷ δείκνυσι 
τοὺς πατρικοὺς χαρακτῆρας, and in himself represents the 
characters of his Father.” Xapaxrip, saith Phavorinus, is 


* "Os φῶς ἀπὸ πυρύς. 
p. 384, C. p. 145. 

{ Lib. de Gigant. p. 223, F. 

+ De Somn. p. 448, D. 

§ Buxt. Hist. Arce, p. 109, 


Athen. p. 27. Justin. ibid. D, E, et 


* Ibid. p. 7. 

+ Ad. Autol. lib. ii. p. 88, B. p. 100, A. 

+ Just. Dial. p. 359, B, et Tat. p. 145, B. 

§ Clem. Alex. Strom. v. p. 553, B. Strom. vi. p. 644, A, 
| Tertul. Apol. cap. 21, 


886 ; 


stance), and 7 upholding all things by the word of his 
power, ὃ when he had (Gr. having) by himself purged 


HEBREWS. 


our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty 
on high; 


διατύπωσις δηλοῦσα τὴν ὑπόστασιν, “a form or draught mani- 
festing the substance whence it was taken.” ὉὙπύστασις, 
saith he, “is the substance with the properties ;” οὐσία μετὰ 
τῶν ἰδιωμάτων, OF συνδρομὴ τῶν rept ἑκάστου ἰδιωμάτων, “a 
concourse of all the properties of any being;” so that “the 
character of his subsistence” here is, according to him, “a 
draught manifesting or exhibiting the substance and proper- 
ties of God.” According to the Greek commentators on the 
place, it is the same with our Lord’s béing “in the form of 
God,”’ before he took our nature on him (Phil. ii. 6). Ac- 
cordingly, Wisdom is, by the author of the book that bears 
that name, styled ἔσοπτρον ἀκηλίδωτον τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐνεργείας, 
καὶ εἰκὼν τῆς ἀγαϑότητος αὐτοῦ, “the unspotted mirror of the 
power or activity of God, and the image of his goodness,” 
vii. 26. The Λόγος is, saitll Philo,* disios εἰκὼν αὐτοῦ, “ the 
eternal image of God. The image of God,t δι᾽ οὗ σύμπας 6 
κόσμος ἐδημιουργεῖτο, by which the whole world was made.” 
And of the angel, which God sent before Israel, in whom 
God’s name was, Exod. xxiii. 21, the Jews say he was, 
2) ἽΝ 5, 1. 6. “the angel of his face ;” because, saith Rabbi 
Moses Cerundensis,+ God’s face, or glory, might be seen in 
him, or be exactly represented by him: yea, the goverment 
of the whole world was committed to him, and God had 
made him Lord over his whole house, and had made all 
things subject to him. Now these things so exactly agree 
with what the apostle here ascribes to Christ, that I could 
not think them unworthy to be noted here. 

7 Φέρων τε τὰ πάντα τῷ ῥήματι τῆς δυνάμεως αὑτοῦ, And 
holding all things by the word of his power.) ‘The Hebrew 
word sw) is sometimes rendered φέρω, sustineo; as when 
it is said of Moses, Numb. xi. 14. 17, “I cannot φέρειν, 
sustain, or bear, all this people.” And, Deut. i. 9. 12, « How 
can I alone, φέρειν τὸν κύπον, bear the labour of all this peo- 
ple?” And, of Christ, that φέρει, “he bears the burden of 
our sin,” Isa. liii, 4. Sometimes it signifies to govern ; 
whence gz) is sometimes rendered βασιλεὺς, “ἃ king ;” Gen. 
Xxiii. 6, sometimes ἄρχων, “a prince,” as it is rendered above 
sixty times; sometimes ἀρχηγὸς, in the same sense, Numb. 
xiii. 3, xvi. 2, and sometimes ἡγούμενος, a governor,” Josh. 
xiii. 22, 2 Chron. v. 1 ; and the Greek φέρειν signifies not only 
to sustain, but also, suo arbitratti moderari, “to govern at 
His will :” now which of these two senses you put upon the 
words it is not much material, since it is equally the effect of 
a divine power to sustain and govern all things; whence this 
is, by the Jews, made the description of God himself, that 
he is a God, x55 $yap,§ “ sustaining all things,’ the heavens, 
the earth, and the abyss, and bearing all people, axe. m2, 
“by the Spirit of his Word.” Accordingly, of the Adyoc, 
Philo|| often saith, that he is πηδαλιοῦχος καὶ κυβερνήτης πᾶν- 
τῶν, “he that sits at the helm, and governs all things :” that 
he is] ὃ συνέχων καὶ διοικῶν τὰ πάντα, “he that containeth 
and dispenseth all things :” that God, as a king and shep- 
herd, rules according to law and right, and placing over us 
“his first begotten Son,** ὃς τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν τῆς ἱερᾶς ταύτης 
ἀγέλης oid τε μεγάλου βασιλέως ὕπαρχος διαδέγεται, Who, as the 
pro-rex of the great King, takes care of the sacred flock.” 

It remains yet to be inquired, whether these things are 
spoken of our Lord, as acting here on earth, or purely of 
the divine nature he had before the world was made. ‘The 
Socinians, and some others, think all this relates to our Sa- 
viour, as acting here on earth, that he was the splendour of 
his Father’s glory ; because “God, who commanded the light 
to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts, to give 
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6): on which account the apostle 
saith, “ We have seen his glory, the glory as of the only-be- 
gotten Son of God” (John i. 14): that he was the character 
of his substance, or his attributes, as he was “the image of 
the invisible God” (Col. i. 15), in which his power, wisdom, 
holiness, love, and mercy, shined forth conspicuously: that 


* De Confus. Ling. p. 267, B. 
+ De Monarch. p. 363, B. 

§ Targ. in 2 Chron. ii. 6. 

|| De Cherub. p. 88, Ὁ. 

4 De Vita Mos. p. 521, B. 


+ Masius in Jos. v. 14. 


** De Agricult. p. 152, B. 


he did φέρειν, prestare, perform all things by the word of his 
power; as he made the winds and seas calm, rebuked dis- 
eases, and cast out devils by his word. And Mr. Clerc is po- 
sitive that it must be the human nature which this sacred 
writer spake of, that the Jews might understand what he said 
was true: “for that alone is visible; and nothing but what 
is such can be called the image or brightness of any thing 
among men.” On the other hand, it is certain that all the 
fathers were of another mind; that when Philo and the an- 
cient Jews spake thus of Wisdom, the Logos, the Angel of 
God's face, they understood all that they said of the Logos 
and Wisdom subsisting long before our Saviour’s incarna- 
tion, and so thought this Logos the splendour and image of 
the Father, when he was not visible among men, as the 
apostle saith he was, when he was taken from them into 
heaven. It is certain also, that the preceding words, “ By 
whom also he made the worlds,” cannot be spoken of Christ 
incarnate; and the words, “ Upholding all things by the 
Word of his power,” seem to import the same with that ex- 
pression of the apostle, Col. i. 17, “ By him all things con- 
sist.’ Moreover, could these things be attributed to our 
Lord Christ as acting in the flesh, yet have I proved, note on 
Col. i. 15, that they must be ascribed to a divine nature re- 
siding in him, or to “ God manifested in the flesh ;” and so, 
what Mr. Clere says “must be the human nature,”—must 
(say I) be the divine nature. 

8 Ac ξαυτοῦ καϑαρισμὸν ποιησάμενος τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, When he 
had by himself purged our sins.) i. 6. When he had made 
himself an expiatory sacrifice, to purge us from the guilt and 
punishment of our transgressions. ‘T’o confirm this, let it be 
noted, 

First, That this was the opinion of all nations, that their 
expiatory sacrifices were designed to take away the guilt of 
sin, and make atonement for it to an offended Majesty. For 
why are they still said, ἁγνίζειν, καθαρίζειν, purgare, lustrare, 
“to purge, and to make clean,” but from their supposed vir- 
tue to purify them from the guilt of sin? and because sin is 
often represented in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, 
under the metaphors of uncleanness, filthiness, defilement, 
and pollution; therefore their sacrifices also are still repre- 
sented as cleansing them from the guilt and the defilement 
of sin, and so making the pollution to pass from them. 
Hence the blood which made the atonement is styled, αἷμα 
καθαρισμοῦ, “the blood of cleansing,” or purgation. So 
Exod. xxx. 10, “ And Aaron shall make an atonement upon 
the horns of the incense-offering once a year, ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος 
καθαρισμοῦ καϑαριεῖ αὐτὸ, with the blood of the sin-offering 
shall he make atonement upon it.” And the sacrifice of- 
fered for sin is said to be offered καθαρίσαι, “to purify” them 
fgom it by an atonement: so, Lev. ix. 15, “ And he brought 
the people's offering, and took the goat which was the sin- 
offering and slew it, καὶ ἐκαθάρισεν αὐτὸν, and offered it for 
sin.” And, Lev. xvi. 30, in the great day of atonement, “ the 
priest shall make an atonement for you, καϑαρίσαι ὑμᾶς, 
to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins 
before the Lord, καὶ καϑαρισϑήσετε, and you shall be cleansed.” 
So Job is said καϑαρίζειν, “to cleanse” his sons from their 
supposed sins by a burnt-offering, i.5; and so he inquires, 
vil. 21, “ Why dost thou not make καϑαρισμὸν τῆς ἁμαρτίας 
μου: i. 6. Why dost thou not forgive my sins? Since 
therefore it is very reasonable to conceive that the word 
καθαρίζειν, used in an epistle written to the Jews touching the 
expiatory sacrifice of Christ, is used in the sense. in which 
they always took it, when applied in the Old Testament to 
sacrifices, which made atonement for their sins; it follows, 
that when the apostle here saith, Christ made καθαρισμὸν, “a 
purgation of our sins by himself;” and when he adds, that 
whereas the blood of the legal sacrifices did expiate εἰς τὴν 
τῆς σαρκὸς καϑαρότητα, “ to the purification of the flesh, the 
blood of Christ, καϑαριεῖ, shall much more expiate to the 
purification of the conscience from the guilt of sin,” ix. 13; 
when he proceeds to say, that whereas “under the law al- 
most all things ἐν αἵματι καϑαρίζετα', were purified by blood, 
and without shedding of blood there was no remission,” ver. 
22, 23; and thence argues, that “the heavenly things must 
be purged with better sacrifices ;” he, in these cases, must 


CHAPTER I. 


4 Being made (Gr. being) so much better than the 
angels (and superior to them by this exaltalion to the 
right hand of Majesty), as he hath by inheritance ob- 
a ®a more excellent name ((it/e and authority) than 
they. 

5 For unto which of the angels said he at any time 
(as he did to Chris!), © Thou art my Son, this day 
have I begotten thee? And again (10 Solomon the son 
of David, what did more eminently belong to this Son 
and Lord of David), "I will be to him a Father, and 


887 


he shall be to me a Son? (2 Sam. vii. 14, 1 Chron, 
xxii. 10.) 

6 And again, when he bringeth in (ὅταν δὲ πάλιν, 
and when he brings again) the first-begotten (from the 
dead, Col. i. 18) into the world, he saith, And "ἢ let all 
the angels of God worship him (establishing thus his 
dominion over them, and their subjection to him, and also 
the divine excellence of him who was thus lo be worshipped 
by the highest of created beings). , 

7 And (moreover, speaking) ™ of the angels he (7. e. 


speak of the blood of Christ as making atonement for our 
sins, by purging away the guilt of them, and averting the pu- 
nishment due to us for them (see the reading vindicated, 
Examen Milli). 

9 Ver. 4. Διαφορώτερον ὄνομα, A more excellent name.] i. e. 
Not only title, but authority and superior excellency. So 
Phil. ii. 9, “God hath highly exalted them, and given him 
ὄτομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα, ἃ Name above every name,” i. 6. the 
highest dignity and power, “that at the name of Jesus every 
knee should bow ;” i. e. that all creatures in heaven or earth, 
or under it, should own his power and dominion, ver. 10. 
Eph. i. 21, “He hath set him at his right hand, above all 
principality, power, might, and dominion, καὶ παντὸς ὀνόματος, 
and every name.” In both these senses Christ hath a more 
excellent name, viz. the name of his “only Son” (ver. 5), 
the name of God (ver. 8), and a more excellent authority 
and dignity, viz. that of sitting at the right hand of Majesty” 
(ver. 13), and “ruling all things by the word of his power;” 
and this excellency he hath upon a better foundation, as be- 
ing the maker of the world,” &c. (ver. 2, 3). 

10 Ver. δ. Υἱός μου ef σὺ, Thou art my son.] R. Solomon* 
here saith, « Our masters have interpreted all that is written 
in this psalm of the king Messiah.” And Saadias Gaont 
doth, from these very words, prove the dominion and king- 
dom of the Messiah, because it is here said, “I have set thee 
my King, upon the holy hill of Sion; I will declare the 
command, Jehovah hath said unto me, Thou art my Son,” 
&c.; which also is apparent from the following words, «T will 
give the heathen for thine inheritance,” &c. (ver. 8), and 
from the exhortation to all kings to submit to him. And 
that this was the ancient and received exposition of these 
words, confirmed by the Holy Ghost, we learn from this apos- 
tle, who disputing with the Jews touching our Saviour’s re- 
surrection, when all power in heaven and earth was given to 
him, Matt. xxviii. 18, he proves it from these very words, 
Acts xiii.33. And again, speaking of his priesthood, which 
he was to exercise in heaven after his resurrection and ascen- 
sion, he proves it to the same Jews from the same words, 
Heb. v. 5. 

1 Ἔχομαι αὐτῷ eis πατέρα, I will be to him a Father, &c.] 
These words are cited from 2 Sam. vii. 14, and they do pro- 
mise to Solomon, the type of Christ, a kingdom to be esta- 
blished for ever, ver. 13. 16, and so to Christ the antitype, 
and eminently “the Son of God,” an everlasting kingdom 
and dominion (see the Judgment of the Jewish Church, 
p- 61). 

Note also, That though the angels be sometimes in scrip- 
ture, called “the sons of God,” Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxvili. 7, 
God never said to any of them, “I will be to him a Father,” 
to protect him in his kingdom; much less, “Thou art my 
Son, this day have I begotten thee,” to a kingdom ; and so 
these passages, in the true and full extent of them, cannot 
agree to any of the angels. 

12 Ver. 6. Προσκυνησάτωσαν αὐτῷ πάντες ἄγγελοι Θεοῦ, Let 
all the angels of God worship him.} It is generally thought 
these words are cited from Ps, xevii. 7, where in the Sep- 
tuagint we have words very like them, viz. προσκυνήσατε αὐτῷ, 
πάντες ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ, “ Worship him, all his angels;” in the 
Hebrew it is indeed pynbx $3, “all ye elohim ;” but Aben 
BEzra’s note is, that some think py2xbpn om onde 53, “ the 
word elohim always denotes the angels: and Kimchi 
saith,+ the Hebrews did expound this psalm “of what was 
to come to pass in the days of the Messiah.” In the Sep- 


* In Dan. vii. 13. 
+ Vide Cart. Mell. Hebr, lib. ii. cap. 5. 
+ Pug. Fid. p. 133. 


tuagint it is styled a psalm of David, ὅτε ἡ γῆ αὐτῷ καθίστατο, 
“when the land was established to him,” or when he was 
made master of all those countries which God designed to be 
the inheritance of Israel, and therefore may very probably 
be referred to the Son of David, at his resurrection, or his 
coming again into the world, that being the time when “all 
power in heaven and earth was given to him,” when he was 
solemnly inaugurated, and installed in his spiritual and hea- 
venly kingdom, and “the government was upon his shoul- 
ders,” and “he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty 
on high,” ver. 3. 

But it is observable, that these words are expressly to be 
found, Deut. xxxii. 43, as here they are cited: and it is cer- 
tain from Paul, that God there speaks of the times when the 
Messiah was to be preached unto the gentiles; for “that the 
gentiles should glorify God for his mercy,” he proves from 
these words of the same verse, “ Rejoice, ye gentiles, with 
his people,” Rom. xv. 9, 10. Accordingly, the Jews ex- 
pound many of the words of Moses here recorded. Thus 
Jonathan on ver. 39, saith thus, “ When the Word of the 
Lord shall reveal himself to redeem his people, he shall say 
to all people, See, I am he thgt am, and have been, and 
shall be (see Heb. xiii. 8); I by my Word kill and make 
alive ; I smite the people Israel, and I will heal them in the 
end of the days.’ On ver. 40, the Targum of Jerusalem 
saith thus, “I live 32.92 by my Word for ever 3” that of 
Jonathan, “I have prepared in the heavens, »m}2w nya, the 
house of my Majesty ;” that is, saith R. Solomon, »n3:3¥ opp 
«the place of my Majesty ;” expressions often used by Philo* 
to signify the Adyos, as when he saith, οἶκον ἔχειν τὸν ἑαυτοῦ 
Aéyov, God hath his house, viz. his own Word,” and thatt 
ὁ θεῖος Λόγος, “ the divine Word in his place ;” and upon ver. 
43, Jonathan ben Uziel paraphraseth thus, “ He with his 
Word will expiate for the land, and for his people,” viz. as 
the high-priest did on the great day of expiation. The 
other words, “He will render vengeance to his enemies, and 
make his arrow drunk with the blood of the slain,” are fit 
expressions of Christ’s exercise of his kingly government over 
his enemies, by which he was to “break them with a rod of 
iron, and dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel” (Ps. ii. 
9). The import of these words therefore may be this, When 
God was to introduce his first-born again into the world by 
the resurrection, and give him power and dominion over all 
things in heaven and earth, he said, Let all the angels of 
God worship him, and own him as their Lord and Maker. 
Dr. Owen saith, this cannot be applied to the resurrection, 
because Christ did not leave the world, or go out of it at his 
death ; but to this it may be answered, that “ going hence” 
(Ps. xxix. 13), and “ going out of the world” (1 Cor. v. 10), 
are common expressions to signify death. And, secondly, 
God being said to “ beget” Christ, when he raised him from 
the dead (Ps. ii. 7, Acts xiii. 33, Heb. v. 5), and gave him 
power over all things in heaven and earth, i. e. over all the 
world, this may be fitly called a second introduction of him 
into the world. Thirdly, whereas he saith, that these words, 
προσκυνῆσαι αὐτῷ, &c. cannot be taken from Deut. xxxii. 43, 
because there are no such words in the original, and it is 
absurd to think the apostle should cite that from the serip- 
ture as the word and testimony of God, which indeed is not 
in it, nor was ever spoken by God, for this and for two other 
reasons oflered by the reverend Dr. Hammond, note on Ps, 
xcevii. 7, I think it more reasonable to conceive these words 
were taken from the psalms. 

13 Ver. 7. Πρὸς τοὺς dyyéAovs.] The psalmist speaking, Ps 


* De Migr. Abr. ab initio, 
+ De Somn. p. 447, C. 


888 


David, only) saith, (He is that God) who maketh his 
angels spirits (or wends), and his ministers a flame of 
fire; (giving them no higher titles than those of his mes- 
sengers and ministers, and showing their efficacy and swift- 
ness in doing his commandments, and hearkening to the 
voice of his words, by comparing them to the winds and 
γε, Ps. exxiii. 20, 21.) 

8 But (speaking) unto (of) the Son he (i. e. David, 
moved by the Holy Ghost,) saith, Thy throne, Ὁ God, is 
for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness 7s the 
sceptre of thy kingdom (Ps. xlv. 7). 

9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated ini- 
quity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed 
thee with the oil of gladness (7. e. advanced thee in emi- 
mence and dignity) above thy fellows (styling him, in 
these words, God, and an eternal king ; ascribing to him 
a throne and kingdom, and a righteous government, to 


HEBREWS. 


reward his righteous servants, whom he loves, and to 
punish his obdurate enemies, whose iniquities render them 
hateful to him. So that these words again prove both his 
divine nature, and his exaltation to the government of the 
whole world). 

10 And (that also by him he made the heavens, is tes- 
tified in these words spoken of him), © Thou, Lord, in 
the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; 
and the heavens are the works of thine hands: 

11 They shall perish ; but thou remainest; and they 
all shall wax old as doth a garment; 

12 And as ἃ vesture shalt thou fold them up, and 
they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy 
years shall not fail (Ps. cii.). 

13 But (yea) to which of the angels said he at any 
time (as he did to Christ, Ps. ex. 1), ® Sit on my right 
hand, until 1 make thine enemies thy footstool ? 


civ. 4, not to, but of, the angels, it is necessary to translate 
these words as our version doth, “Of the angels he saith;” 
and as the Hebrew 5x, so the Greek πρὸς, is oft of the same 
import with de and περὶ. He spake this parable πρὸς αὐτοὺς, 
“concerning them,” Luke xix. 20, Mark xii. 125 πρὸς dé τὸν 
᾿Ισραὴλ, “ But of Israel he saith,” Rom. x. 21 ; πρὸς dv, “ΟΥ̓ 
whom we speak,’ Heb. iv. 13. So Neh. ii. 18, “He 
spake to you of the good hand of God upon him, καὶ πρὸς 
τοὺς λύγους τοῦ βασιλέως, and of the words of the king.” Of 
the particle $x, see Noldius, p. 458. 

M4 Ver. 9. Ὃ Θεὸς, ὃ Θεός cov, God, even thy God.] For 
Christ is God of God, according to the Nicene symbol. 
Hence do the primitive fathers thus distinguish betwixt him 
and the Father; that “God the Father is that God above 
whom there is no other God ;” whereas “ Christ is God of 
God ;” and as to that, “inferior to God the Father:” so 
Justin Martyr* and Ireneus. That this psalm was spoken 
of the Messiah, is evident from the Targum on the place, 
which saith, “ Because thou, Ὁ king Messiah, hast loved jus- 
tice,” ἄς. And on ver. 3, “Thy fairness, O king Messiah, 
exceeds the sons of men.” ‘To this purpose, see Rabbi So- 
lomon and Aben Ezra on this psalm. 

15 Ver. 10.] That this psalm hath relation to the times of 
the Messiah, we learn from the Chaldee paraphrast, which 
saith on ver. 16, Zion is builded by the Word of the Lord:” 
and from the creation of a new people to praise the Lord, 
ver. 18, which the Jews themselves expounded of “the 
world to come,” or the state of the church under the Mes- 
siah; and, thirdly, from the calling of the gentiles, men- 
tioned ver. 15, «So the heathens shall fear the name of the 
Lord; and all the kings of the earth thy glory :” and, ver. 22, 
«“ When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms 
to serve the Lord” (see the Judgment of the Jewish Church, 
p- 38). ‘That these things are here spoken of, and applied 
to Christ, is also evident, (1.) from the connective particle καὶ, 
which knits this to the former citation, and makes it to run 
thus: “ Of the Son it is said, Thy throne, O God, is for ever, 
καὶ, and of him it is also said, Thou, Lord, in the beginning 
hast Jaid the foundations of the earth.” (2.) From the 
scope of the apostle, which, both before and after, is to bring 
testimonies to prove the excellency of the Messiah, and the 
truth of what he had asserted of him (ver. 2, 3), and there- 
fore he must pursue the same design here. And, (3.) from 
the concession of the Socinians upon the place, that the 
latter words, which speak of the destruction of the heavens 
and the earth, belong to Christ. Now these words, “They 
shall perish, but thou remainest,” are plainly spoken of the 
same person who “ founded the earth in the beginning ;” and 
therefore must equally belong to Christ. But here it is 
objected : 

Obj. That if the author of this epistle had indeed believed 
that Christ was the creator of the world, to what purpose 


* Ἔστι καὶ λέγεται Θεὸς, καὶ Κύριος ἕτερος ὑπὲρ τὸν ποιητὴν τῶν 
ὅλων-ττοὑπὲρ ὃν Θεὸς ἄλλος οὔκ ἐστιν. Just. Mart. Dial. cum 
Tryph. p- 275... Et Ρ. 276, Θεὸς ἕτερός ἔστι τοῦ τὰ πάντα ποι- 
ἥσαντος Θεοῦ----ὑπὲρ ὃν ἄλλος οὔκ ἔστι Θεός. Et p. 284, Θεὸν 
ὑπηρετοῦντα τῷ ὑπὲρ ὃν οὔκ ἐστι. Invoco te, Domine Deus, qui 
es solus et veruS Deus, super quem alius Deus non est, lib. 
iii. Lib. vi. Ubi filium sepius Deum vocat. 


doth he spend so much time to prove him more excellent 
than the angels? For who can doubt that the Creator is 
more excellent than his creatures? 

Ans. First, He doth not absolutely go about to prove him 
more excellent than the angels, but comparatively, so far 
more excellent as the titles given him in scripture showed 
that he exceeded them; and that was as much as the Crea- 
tor doth exceed his creatures. 

Secondly, I have shown, note on the second and third 
verses, that the apostle had asserted, not only Christ’s dig- 
nity, as “heir of all things,” and so succeeding in his Fa- 
ther’s kingdom, but also that he was therefore “ Lord of all 
things,” because “he made the world,” and therefore was 
obliged, in his testimonies, to prove both these things; as he 
doth in most of the testimonies produced. 

Thirdly, As there were then divers heretics, who ascribed 
the creation of this visible world to angels, and not to Christ; 
so also were there divers Jews, who held that they were 
God's ministers, or συνεργοὶ, “ coworkers, in the creation of 
the world;” and that God said to them, “Let us make 
man,” Gen. i. 26. Now against these Jews and heretics, the 
apostle very appositely proves, that the creation of the world 
was not to be ascribed to those angels, who, they say, “ gave 
the law,” ii. 2; but to that Jesus from whom we have 
received the gospel. Of the sayings of the Jews, concern- 
ing the assistance of the angels in framing man, see note on 
ii. 5, and Maimonides, More Nevochim, par. ii. cap. 6. Of 
Simon Magus, Ireneus doth inform us, lib. i. cap. 20, that 
he held, that his Ennoia produced angelos et potestates ἃ 
quibus et mundum hune factum esse dixit, “angels and 
powers by whom the world was made ;” that Menander also 
held, mundum factum ab angelis, «that the world was made 
by angels,” lib. i. cap. 21, lib. ii. cap. 9; that Cerinthus held 
that “the world was made by some separate virtues, inferior 
to God,” lib. ii. cap. 22, 23; and that «the world was not 
made by Christ,” but that “he rather came ad dissolvenda 
omnia opera ejus Dei qui mundum fecit, to dissolve all the 
works of that God who made the world:” and, lastly, 
Χριστῷ ὁμογενεῖς ἀγγέλους συνπροβεβλῆσϑαι, “ that the angels 
were of the same rank with Christ, and produced together 
with him.” All which vain fancies gave just occasion to 
the apostle to assert, that Christ was thus superior to the 
angels, and the creator both of them and of the world. Ac- 
cordingly, the Targum of Jerusalem gives this description 
of the Word of the Lord, that, «it is he who said to the 
world, Be, and it was; and who shall say unto it, Be, and 
it shall be.” Which words the Targum of Ben Uziel (in 
Exod. iii. 14) applies to the Lord himself. 

16 Ver, 13. Κάϑου ἐκ δεξιῶν pov, Sit thou on my right hand.] 
That these words were spoken of the Messiah, appears (1.) 
from the two Targums on this psalm, both declaring, that 
this was spoken qyqpn3 “in or to his Word.” That is, saith 
R. Saadias Gaon, on Dan. vii. 13, “the Messiah, our right- 
eousness ;” as it is written, Psal. ex. 1, “‘The Lord said to 
my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand.” R. Moses Haddar- 
son says (Beresch. Rabba, in Gen. xviii. 1), “ Hereafter 
God will cause the Messiah to sit on his right hand; as it is 
said (Psal. cx. 1), The Lord said unto my Lord, &c. 
Midrash Tehillim, on Ps. ii. 7, saith, “The affairs of the 
Messiah are set forth in the hagiographa in these words (Ps. 


CHAPTER II. 


14 Are they not all (declared, Ps. ciii. 20, 21, civ. 4, 
to be) ministering spirits, sent forth (not fur government 


889 


and dominion, but) to minister for them who (being sons 
by adoption) shall be (also) "7 heirs of salvation ? 


ex.), The Lord said.” And again, R. Joden on Ps. xviii. 35, 
in the name of R. Chija, said, that “in the age of the Mes- 
siah, the blessed God will set the king Messiah on his right 
hand; as it is written, The Lord said to my Lord.” And 
though on this psalm he expounds the words, first of Abra- 
ham, whom they introduce complaining that God has placed 
his Son on his right hand, and him only on his left; yet 
presently follow these words, “ And so he saith to the Mes- 
siah.”” And R. Obadiah not only saith, “The Psalmist 
composed this psalm of the Messiah, “but adds what illus- 
trates ver. 14, that “God farther said, Thou shalt sit on 
my right hand, and the ministering angels on gny left” 


(see more in Cartw. Mellificium, p. 2969). And since our 
blessed Saviour confounded the scribes and pharisees with 
this inquiry, How the Messiah could be the Son of David, 
since David here “in spirit calls him Lord?” Matt. xxii. 42, 
it is evident this was then the received exposition of these 
words. 

17 Ver. 14, Μέλλοντας κληρονομεῖν σωτηρίαν, Who shall be 
heirs of salvation.) i. 6. By right of sonship; for if sons, 
then heirs,” Rom. viii. 17; “If a Son, then κληρονόμος Θεοῦ, 
an heir of God through Christ,” Gal. iv. 7; “ Heirs according 
to the promise,”’ Gal. iii. 29; “For to as many as believed 
he gave power to be the sons of God,” Jolin i. 12. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Tuererore we (knowing the excellency of the per- 
son speaking now to us in the gospel above all other pro- 
phets, and above those angels which were employed in de- 
fivering the law of Moses) ought to give the more earnest 


heed to the things which we have heard (from the Son 
of God), ' lest at any time we should let ‘hem slip (out 
of our memory). 

2 For if the word 5 spoken by angels (from Sinai) 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


1 Ver. 1. Mi ποτε παραῤῥυῶμεν.} Τουτέστι, μὴ ἐκπέσωμεν, “ Lest 
we fall off from them.” So Gcumenius, Theophylact, 
and Phavorinus, which sense agrees well with the scope 
of this epistle: but the sense given by our translation is 
also very good and proper; for in this sense παραῤῥυεῖν is used 
in those words of Solomon: “ My son, μὴ παραῤῥυῆς, τήρησον 
δὲ ἐμὴν βουλὴν, be not forgetful of, but keep in mind, or lay 
up in thy heart, my counsel,” Prov. iii. 21. So the wise 
man interprets himself, in the beginning of that chapter: 
«My son, forget not my precepts, but let thy heart keep my 
words,” ver. 1. So Origen," speaking of the festivals of the 
church, the Lord’s-day, Easter, pentecost, saith, “ ‘he com- 
mon people had need of those sensible admonitions, or me- 
morials of the blessings then celebrated, iva μὴ τέλεον παραῤ- 
vy, that they may not entirely slip out of their memories :” 
and this translation and interpretation is confirmed from the 
word ἀμελεῖν, ver. 3, which signifies “to be unmindful of” 
this great salvation. 

2 Ver. 2. Ὃ dt’ ἀγγέλων λαληϑεὶς λόγος, The word spoken by 
angels.] Maimonides saith expressly,t Non invenies Deum 
ullum opus fecisse, nisi per manum alicujus angeli; « God 
doth no work but by the hand of some angel.” ‘To confirm 
this he cites that passage of their wise men, that “ God does 
nothing without consulting before the family above.” And 
that in Bereschith Rabba,+ « Wheresoever it is said in scrip- 
ture, ya», And Jehovah did this or that, ibi intelligitur ipse 
et domus judicii ejus, there we must understand, that all things 
are done by him, mediantibus angelis, by the mediation of 
angels.” Josephus§ saith, “ The law was given, τοῦ Θεοῦ 
διαλεγομένου πρὸς αὐτοὺς περὶ τῶν πρακτέων, by God declaring to 
them what they ought to do:” and yet he introduces Herod, 
proving that legates, or ambassadors, were sacred from this, 
that!) “the Jews had received the choicest of their laws from 
God by angels,” i. e. by messengers, or legates, as that name 
imports. Philo is express, that God spake the law, δι᾿ αὐτοῦ 
μόνου, οὐ προσχρησάμενος adda, “ by himself, using no other ;” 
but yet, saith the same Philo,** he did this, κελεύσας ἡχὴν 
ἀόρατον ἐν ἀέρι δημιουργηϑῆναι, "' commanding an invisible sound 
fo be formed in the air.’ And to whom could this command 
be directed, but to some of the angels then attending on him? 
He therefore seems only to mean, that the decalogue was ad- 
ministered by God himself speaking to the people, and not 


* In Cels. lib. viii. p. 393. 

t More Nevoch. lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 200. 

§ Antiq. lib. iii. cap. 4, p. 78, F. 

! Ἡμῶν 62 τὰ κάλιστα τῶν ἐογμάτων, καὶ τὰ ὁσιότατα τῶν ἐν 
τοῖς νόμοις de’ ἀγγέλων παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ μαϑόντων. Antigq. lib. xv. 
cap. 8, p. 522, Β. - 

§ Lib. de Decal. p. 576. 

Vou. IV.—112 


+ P. 201. 


** P. 577, lin. penult. 


by Moses the mediator betwixt God and them, as the residue 
of his laws were. For in his book De Somniis, he observes 
that the holy scripture speaks of those dreams, as, ϑεύπεμπ- 
ro, “sent from God, which proceed, διὰ τῶν ὑποφητῶν αὐτοῦ 
καὶ ὁπαδῶν ἀγγέλων, from his ministers and attendants the an- 
gels,” p. 461. He adds, that these messengers are employed 
in bringing τὰς τοῦ πατρὸς ἐπικελεύσεις τοῖς ἐκγόνοις, “the com- 
mands of the Father to his sons :” and that this is done, be- 
cause we cannot bear his immediate chastisements, nor yet 
his excellent benefits, p. 455, F. 

As for the fathers, they seem universally to conspire in 
this doctrine, that the apostle speaks here, and Gal. iii. 19, 
περὶ τῶν διακονησαμένων τῷ λόγῳ ἀγγέλων, “of the angels mi- 
nistering to the delivery of the law.’ So Origen ;* so Chry- 
sostom on this place; Theodoret on Gal. iii. 19, @2cumenius, 
and Theophylact. Origen,t speaking of Jerusalem, saith, 
«The angels have now deserted her, who before were always 
helpful to her; δι᾿ ὧν διετάγη καὶ ὁ Μώσεως νόμος, by whom also 
the law of Moses was ordained ;” it being, saith the apostle, 
“ordained by angels.” The same is the opinion of Jerome 
on Gal. iii. 19. 

And though Jehovah speaks to Moses in and from mount 
Sinai, and from him the Jews received the law; yet that he 
used the ministry of angels in the dispensing of it, is evident 
from many passages of the New Testament. For, 

First, Stephen speaketh thus unto the Jews, “You have 
received the law, εἰς διαταγὰς (κατὰ διαταγὰς, Gcumenius) 
ἀγγέλων, by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it” 
(Acts vii. 53). Now when he was aggravating their guilt, 
in violating this law, from the consideration of the dignity of 
the persons who were by God employed in giving it to them, 
he would not have omitted the Son of God, or the Aéyos, 
the principal actor, and spoken of these inferior ministering 
spirits, could he both truly, and according to the then present 
notion of the Jews, have said it was the Λόγος, who by his 
Father was employed in giving the law. For though most 
of the fathers say, the Λόγος, or “the Son of God,” appeared 
to Moses and the patriarchs, and others under the Old Tes- 
tament, they+ all agree in this, that he appeared then as 
ἄλλος, one that sustained another person ; or, as the legate, 
the ambassador; or, as ὑπουργὸς, 1. 6. the minister of God 
the Father, as also Philo still saith. 

Secondly, When the apostle Paul affirms, after Stephen, 
that the law was, dtaraycis δι᾿ ἀγγέλων, “ administered by an- 
gels” (Gal. iii. 19), he cannot reasonably be supposed to mean 


* In Matt. ed. p. 454, E. 

ἡ Hom. xiii. in Jer. ed. Huet, p. 129, Ὁ. 

+ Τῷ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ὑπηρετῶν, Just. Martyr. Dial. p. 279, 
A, ἢ, p. 280, B. 283, A, B. 284, A. 293, 299, 311. Et pas- 
sim Philo, “Ayyedos ὑπηρέτης τοῦ Θεοῦ Aébyos, De Nom. Mut 
p- 819, C. Alleg. lib. ii. p- 60, C. Ὄργανον Θεοῦ, p- 100, B. 

3Z 


890 


was stedfast (and by God’s dealing with the Jews con- 
Jirmed ), and every (wilful) transgression and disobe- 
dience (of it) received a just recompence of reward (‘he 
atonements of the law being only for sins of ignorance 
and error, V. 2, and cutting off being the punishment for 
wilful sins, as being acts of rebellion against God their 
governor) ; 


HEBREWS. 


3 How shall we escape (the divine wrath), if we (Chris- 
tians) neglect ὃ so great salvation; which at the first 
began to be spoken by the Lord (Christ himself ), and 
(afler) was‘ confirmed unto us by them that heard him ; 

4 God also bearing them witness, both with signs 
and wonders (as he did to Moses delivering the law to 
the Jews), and ® with divers miracles, and gifts (or dis- 


only, that it was delivered, inter angelos, between angels ; or, 
by God attended with his angels. For, (1.) as by is the pro- 
per import of the word διὰ, so it is very rarely, if at all, that 
it is rendered, inter, between, or among : itis so rendered, in- 
deed, by our translators, 2 ‘Tim. ii. 2, but with the note in 
the margin, by, to show they thought it might there bear 
that sense, as it doth, thus; “The things which thou hast 
heard from me (and which have been confirmed), διὰ πολλῶν 
μαρτύρων, by many witnesses, commit to faithful men.” (2.) 
Seeing here the word spoken, δι΄ ἀγγέλων, being put in oppo- 
sition to the word spoken, διὰ Χριστοῦ, «by Christ,” shows 
that dia retains its proper sense, and must be rendered, “ by 
angels ;” why should we put another sense on the same par- 
ticle used, Gal. iii. 19, by the same apostle, with respect to 
the same subject 1 

Thirdly, That the word spoken “by angels” here, respects 
the law in general, and not only the threatenings made by 
the prophets, to whom the Λόγος sent his angels, to bring 
back the people of Israel from their wickedness, is also evi- 
dent from these words: for (1.) «the word spoken by an- 
gels” here seems to be the same with the word “adminis- 
tered by angels,” Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 19. Now that was the 
law, say both Stephen and Paul. (2.) It was ὁ λύγος Bé- 
βαιος, “ the word made firm,” by the miracles done by Moses 
to establish it, as was the gospel by more glorious miracles : 
the miracles done by Moses being only σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα, 
“signs and wonders :” whereas the gospel was confirmed also 
“by divers powers, and distributions of the Holy Ghost,” 
ver. 4. (3.) As the apostle saith here, “ Every transgression 
~ of this word received a just recompense of reward ;” so he 
saith, x. 28, “ He that despised Moses’s law, died without 
mercy ;” where the argument being in sense the same, demon- 
strates that “the word spoken” here must be the law of Mo- 
ses. (4.) We are properly said to transgress, and disobey a 
law ; but as for threatenings, though we may disregard, we 
are not properly said to transgress them. In fine, 1 can an- 
swer the argument of Schlictingius on the place, “ That 
God, in person, could not give the law from mount Sinai; 
since, were it given by God himself, it must, on that account, 
be preferred before the gospel ;” by saying, The comparison 
is here made only betwixt God speaking to the Jews by the 
ministry of angels, and the same God speaking to us “ by 
his Son,” which supposes God the Father to be the supreme 
author both of the law and the gospel; asserting only, that 
his ambassadors, or ministers, in the one, were much inferior 
to his ambassador, and his great Prophet, by whom the other 
was revealed: but I am not able to resist the evidence of his 
second argument, that “ the opposition put between the word 
spoken by angels* to them, and the gospel delivered to us 
by the Son of God, will not permit us to own, that the law 
was given to the Jews by the same Son of God, seeing that 
supposition wholly destroys the force of the apostle’s argu- 
ment in this place.” But then Ido not think that any angel 
was so employed in the delivery of the law, as to take upon 
him the person of God; or, that any creature said, “I am 
the Lord thy God,” &c. but only, that the divine Majesty, 
there present with his “ thousands of angels” (Deut. xxxiii. 
2, Ps. Ixvili. 17), made some of them his ministers to form 
the voice, by which he said, “I am the Lord thy God,” &c. 
And it may probably be conjectured, that wherever there is 
mention of an “angel” and “ Jehovah” together, or any wor- 
ship or excellency specified which is proper to God, there 


* Nam si lex per Dei filium, quomodo divus autor per an- 
gelos eam traditam fuisse affirmare, et hdc in parte eam evan- 
gelio, quod hoe per Dei filium et Dominum ipsum annuncia- 
tum sit, opponere, eoque nomine evangelio postponere potuit, 
si non minus lex quam evangelium ipsum Dei filium, et nec- 
dum in stati humiliationis constitutum, latorem et predicato- 
rem habuit ? 


was an appearance of the Shechinah, or divine Majesty, con- 
junct with the angel. Dr. Lightfoot, in his note on Acts 
vil. 53, and in his sermon on the text, solves this objection, 
by saying, that by “angels” there, and here, and Gal. iii. 
19, we are not to understand angels, properly so called, but 
God’s messengers ; i. e. the prophets and teachers who are 
styled “sangels,’ Mal. 11. 7, iii, 1. But this seems a very 
forced exposition of these words: for (1.) after Stephen had 
said (Acts vii. 53), that the Jews had slain those prophets, 
which had told them of the coming of that Just One, he 
adds this farther aggravation of their guilt (ver. 53), that they 
had “received the law by the dis] osition of angels, and had 
not kept it,” plainly distinguishi ig these angels from the 
prophets. Paul also saith, “The law was given by angels in 
(or through, or by) the hand of a mediator,” that is, of their 
great prophet Moses, plainly again distinguishing those angels 
from that prophet; when therefore the same Paul saith, the 
law was spoken not by an angel, to wit, Moses, but by “ an- 
gels,” in the plural number, it is most reasonable to inter- 
pret his words to the same sense, especially considering 
his inference from these words (ver. 5), “ For God hath not 
subjected to angels the world to come, of which we now 
speak.” 

3 Ver. 3. Τηλικαύτης σωτηρίας, So great salvation.) That 
under the dispensation of the gospel, the deliverance of the 
faithful from persecutions, at or after the destruction of Je- 
rusalem, should here be represented as that “ great salvation 
which began to be spoken by the Lord,” was testified to by 
the apostles, and even by God himself, by so great miracles, 
is incredible. No, sure, our Saviour “ brought life and im- 
mortality to light by the gospel,” 2 Tim. ii. 11 ; his apostles 
testified to us “eternal life,’ 1 John i. 2; and “ this isthe 
testimony of God” himself, «that he hath given us eternal 
life, and that life is in his Son,” 1 John ν. 11 (see note on 
iv. 3). 

4 cae εἰς ἡμᾶς, Was confirmed to us,) Jews; not 
to us apostles, by whom it was confirmed. Vain therefore 
is the argument taken from these words, to prove Paul was 
not the author of this epistle; because the gospel was not 
confirmed to him by them that heard Christ, he receiving it 
by immediate revelation from him (Gal. i. 12). And usual 
is it with Paul, in this and other epistles, to say « We;” 
when not he himself, but only they he speaks to, or of, must 
be understood. So vi. 1, “ Let us go on to perfection” (see 
X. 25, xii. 1, Rom. iii. 5.7, 1 Cor. x. 8, 9, 2 Cor. vii. 1, Eph. 
ii. 3, 1 Thess. iv. 15, Tit. iii. 3). 

5 Ver. 4. Ποικίλαις δυνάμεσι, With divers miracles.) “Be- 
cause,” saith Theodoret, “the law was confirmed by mira- 
cles, the apostle thought it necessary to show the gospel was 
in this superior to it,” as it was in these two respects: 

1. That the apostles and disciples of our Lord abounded 
in these miraculous dispensations which confirmed the gos- 
pel, as well as Christ himself. 

2. That Moses chiefly wrought σημεῖα καὶ τεράτα, “ signs 
and wonders; whereas the δυνάμεις, “ powers and distribu- 
tions of the Holy Ghost,” here mentioned, were the proper 
confirmations of the gospel dispensation. For here are four 
things mentioned, which will admit of a distinct considera- 
tion; the first and second are, σημεῖα καὶ τεράτα, “signs and 
wonders,” which refer to portentous actions done in the 
heavens, as when the sun stood still; in the earth, as when 
it opened to swallow up Dathan and Abiram; in the air, as 
when it was turned into darkness; in the waters, as when 
they were turned into blood: and these were often wrought 
by Moses and others under the Old Testament, and still are 
styled σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα. So Exod. vii. 2, πληϑυνῶ τὰ σημεῖά 
μου καὶ τέρατα, “I will multiply my signs and wonders in 
the land of Egypt.” And again, ver. 9, Deut. iv. 32, « He 
took his people out of that nation, ἐν σημείοις καὶ τέρασι, by” 
signs and wonders:” showing, σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα μεγάλα, 


CHAPTER II. 


tributions) of the Holy Ghost, (performed) according 
to his own will? 


891 


5 © For unto the angels hath he not put in subjec- 
tion 7 the world to come, whereof we speak (but unto 


“signs and great wonders upon Pharaoh, and all his house,” 
vi. 22, vii. 19, xi. 3, xxvi. 8, xxix. 3: “ And there arose not 
a prophet like unto Moses, ἐν πᾶσι rots σημείοις καὶ τέρασιν, in 
all the signs and wonders which God sent bim to do in the 
land of Egypt,” Deut. xxxiv. 11 (see Neh. ix. 10, Ps. 
exxxiv. 9, Jer. xxxii.42). Thus Nabuchodonosor declares, 
σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα, “the signs and wonders which the most 
high God had shown aim,” Dan. iv. 2. And Darius saith 
of him, vi. 27, ποιεῖ σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ 
τῆς γῆς, “He doth signs and wonders in the heavens, and on 
the earth.” 

Moreover, σημεῖα and δυνάμεις are used in the New Testa- 
ment, with relation to the miracles wrought by the apostles 
upon others, in casting out devils, making the blind to see, 
and the lame to walk, and healing all manner of diseases ; 
now none of these things were done by Moses, and very 
rarely by any of the prophets. And, lastly, as for the dis- 
tributions of the Holy Ghost, consisting in the internal gifts 
of wisdom, knowledge, faith, the gift of tongues, and the in- 
terpretation of them; these were peculiar to the latter days, 
that is, the times of the Messiah. 

δ Ver. 5.) For explication of these words, let it be ob- 
served, 

1. That both the scriptures, the Jewish records, and the 
primitive fathers,do represent the state preceding our Lord’s 
advent, and his advancement to the right hand of Majesty 
in the heavens, as a state subject to angels, or in which God 
dealt with them by the ministry of his angels; this of the 
Jews hath partly been confirmed already, by showing, that 
their law was “the word spoken by angels.” ‘That they were 
brought out of Egypt by the ministry of an angel, Moses 
himself declares, in his message to the king of Edom, 
«“ When we cried to the Lord, he heard our voice, and sent 
an angel, and has brought us forth out of the land of Egypt,” 
Numb. xx. 16. This angel, saith the Targum of Jonathan, 
was “a ministering angel.” Nor is it to be thought the 
king of Edom, who had no notion of the Logos, could un- 
derstand him otherwise. And hence the note of Paulus 
Fagius runs thus: Omnis Israclitici populi salus et ductio 
per angelos administrata est, «'The whole conduct and pre- 
servation of the people of Israel was administered by an- 
gels.” That they were led through the wilderness by an 
angel, and that an angel’drove out the inhabitants of the 
land of Canaan before them, we learn from these words of 
God himself, « Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep 
thee in the way, and bring thee into the land I have pre- 
pared for thee,” Exod. xxiii. 20. “He shall go,” saith the 
Greek, ἡγοῦμενύς cov, “as thy guide and captain.” And, 
ver. 23, “My angel shall go before thee, and bring thee to 
the Amorites and Hittites, &c. and I will cut them off.” 
Now that here he speaks of “a ministering angel,” may be 
argued from these words, “ My name is in him,” that is, as 
the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan well expound the 
phrase, “ His word is in my name;” by him I do declare 
my will and pleasure. So Maimon. in More Nevoch. par. 
i. cap. 64, “Some think this angel was the eternal Son of 
God; but this I am afraid to assert,” saith the Bishop of 
Ely, “because it seems dangerous to me to call him simply 
an angel, i.e. a minister or messenger, without any such 
addition as that in Mal. iii. 3, The angel of the covenant; 
for so he was at his incarnation, of which he there speaks, 
before which I dare not ascribe to him such ministerial 
works as these, of bringing the children of Israel out of 
Egypt, and going before them to lead them in the way to 
Canaan: this was properly the work of an angel, to whom 
Moses ascribes it.” But though we thus understand it, this 
excludes not the presence of God himself, but rather proves 
it; for this angel was sent from the Shechinah, or majestic 
presence of God which was in the cloud, and is therefore 
styled “the angel of his presence,” Isa. Ixiii. 9; because, 
saith the Targum, he was an angel sent »qyn7p 3p, “from 
before him,” or, “from before his face:’’ and thus it was 
true, which the Lord said to Moses, « My presence shall go 
with thee (Exod. xxxiii. 14) in the cloud, and my angel 
shall go before thee” (Exod. xxiii. 23), as being sent from 


i 


before me, to conduct thee. And again, Exod. xxxiii. 2, 
ΚΤ will send an angel before thee, and will drive out the 
Canaanite, the Amorite, ἄς, for I will not go up in the 
midst of thee, for thou art a stiffmecked people, lest I con- 
sume thee in the way.” He therefore who was to be sent 
could not be God himself, or the divine Logos equal to him, 
for then he would have had the same reason to consume 
them for their disobedience. Accordingly we find Masius 
on Josh. v. 13, confessing that the Jews generally thought 
this was the angel Michael. And partly from them, and 
partly from Daniel, who styles him “ Michael their prince,” 
x. 21; “And Michael the prince which standeth for the 
children of thy people,” xii. 1, it seems to be, that many 
Christian fathers* and ancient commentators have so ex- 
pressly said, that “God over all placed over them the angel 
Michael, as Daniel hath taught us; and God also promised 
Moses, he would send an angel with his people.” And both 
Theodoret and Jerome, in their comments on Dan. xi. 21, 
say, that Michael, est archangelus cui creditus est populus 
Judzorum, “is that archangel to whom was committed the 
care of the people of the Jews.” And the author of the 
Recognitions, speaking of God’s dividing the nations to an- 
gels, adds,t that “the government of the Jews themselves, 
and the disposal of their affairs, were by God committed to 
an archangel.” Certain it is from the scripture, that the 
law, which was the foundation of the Judaical church-state, 
was given by the disposition of angels, Acts vii. 53, Gal. iii. 
19; whence the apostle here styles it “the law spoken by 
angels,” ver. 2. They being therefore so far interested in 
the promulgation of the law, as that it was given to the 
Jews by their ministry (though they did this in the name 
and by the authority of God), the Mosaical church-state 
was so far put in subjection to them. 

Now if this supposition be admitted, and «the world to 
come,” according to the Jewish import of that phrase, be 
taken for the gospel-state, then the apostle’s argument runs 
thus: You have greater reason to take heed to the things 
taught by Christ under the gospel dispensation, than had the 
Jews to take heed to the things taught by the Mosaical dis- 
pensation: for “unto the angels God hath not subjected the 
gospel-state,” but unto Christ; i. 6. to him who is more 
able to reward his obedient servants, and bring them into the 
celestial Canaan, and more able to consume and punish 
them, who do neglect the great salvation tendered in this 
dispensation. ; 

As to the gentile world, the doctrine of the Jews, in rela- 
tion to them, is evident from these words of the Septuagint, 
«“ When the Almighty divided the nations, he set the borders 
of them, car’ ἀριδμὸν ἀγγέλων Θεοῦ, according to the number 
of the angels of God,” Deut. xxxii. 8: “ That is,” saith 
R. Menachem, “he placed seventy angels over the seventy 
nations.” For, saith the son of Sirach, ἑκάστῳ ἔϑνει κατέσ- 
τησεν ἡγούμενον, “In the division of the nations of the whole 
earth, he set a ruler over every people,” Ecclus. xvii. 17. 
Accordingly in Daniel we find mention of the prince of 
Persia, and of Greece, i. e. of the angels which presided over 
those places. Eusebius? doth frequently inform us, that 
“all the nations of the earth were formerly, by lot, divided to 
many angels :” and this was the doctrine of Justin Martyr,§ 


* Καὶ γὰρ τὸν Μιχαὴλ αὐτοῖς ἐπέστησεν ὃ τῶν ὅλων Θεὸς, καὶ 
τοῦτο ἡμᾶς ὃ μακάριος ἐδίδαξε Δανιὴλ, καὶ τῶ μεγάλῳ δὲ Μωσῆ, 
ὑπέσχετο συμπέμψειν τὸν ἄγγελον τῷ λαῷ. Theod. in Gal. iii. 
ἜΘ τ 

+ Uni vero, qui in archangelis erat maximus, sorte data 
est dispositio eorum, qui pre ceteris omnibus excelsi Dei 
cultum et scientiam receperant. Recog. lib. ii. 8. 42, p. 
428. ‘ 

$+ Αὐτὸς ἤδη λοιπὸν ὃ σωτὴρ καὶ ἰατρὸς τῶν ὅλων κατεῖσεν eis 
ἀνθρώπους πάντα τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς ἔθνη τὸ πρότερον πλείοσιν ἀγγέλοις 
κεκληρωμένα, ὑπὸ τὴν οἰκείαν ὑποβάλλων ἐξουσίας. Euseb. De- 
mon. Evang. lib. iv. cap. 10, p. 162, D. 163, A. 

§'O Θεὸς τὸν πάντα κόσμον ποιῆσας, τον μέν τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ 
τῶν ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν πρόνσιαν ἀγγέλοις, obs ἐπὶ τούτοις ἔταξε, 


παρέδωκεν. Just. Martyr, Apol. i. p. 44. 


892 


Christ, now crowned with honour and glory, ver. 9, to 
whom all power both in heaven and earth is given). 

6 5 But one in a certain place (viz. David, Ps. viii. 
4) testified, saying, What is man, that thou art (sv) 


HEBREWS. 


mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou (so) 
visitest him ? 

7 Thou madest him (but) a little lower than the 
angels; ° thou crownedst him with glory and honour, 


of Ireneus,* Athenagoras,; and the two Clements.¢ So 
that, in the judgment of the Jews, and of the primitive 
fathers, all the whole heathen world were subject to the 
government of angels. 

And then the argument of the apostle is to this effect: 
‘That now the world of believers, gathered from the heathens, 
is put under Christ’s immediate power, and subject not to 
angels, but to him who will come in flaming fire to execute 
vengeance upon all that obey not his gospel; and that there- 
fore it concerns them to give more diligent heed to the 
words spoken by him, and not to neglect that great salva- 
tion which he tenders. 

7 Οἰκουμένην τὴν μέλλουσαν, The world to come.] This I 
conceive imports primarily the Christian state ; and in order 
to the government of that, the whole world subjected to 
Christ, from the time of his resurrection and ascension 
(“when he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on 
high,” and had “all power in heaven and earth committed 
to him:” for when God brought him, by his resurrection, 
εἰς οἰκουμένην, “into the earth,” he said, “ Let all the angels 
of God worship him;” i. 6. let them all bow, and be subject 
to his authority, i. 6), to the time when he shall abolish 
death, the last enemy of his subjects, and put the crown 
upon their heads, and condemn all his enemies to endless 
punishments, and so give up his mediatory kingdom to the 
Father (1 Cor.xv. 28). And this I gather from the follow- 
ing proof of this subjection of the world to Christ, taken 
from Ps. viii.; for the apostle plainly doth insinuate, that it 
is begun already, in that Jesus is already “ crowned with 
glory and honour,” ver. 9, and he as plainly testifies, that it 
must continue till the day of judgment, and only will be 
then completed, by saying that “he must reign till all his 
enemies be put under his feet,” 1 Cor. xv. 25; and proving 
this, from those words of the psalmist, “ For he hath put all 
things under his feet,” ver. 27. So then the argument runs 
thus: How shall they escape, who neglect that great salva- 
tion, tendered by him who hath all the world, and all things 
in it, so subject to him, as to continue so, till he hath put 
all his enemies under his feet. 

It may be also noted, that when this world to come doth 
respect only the Christian state, from the resurrection of 
Christ to the final judgment, then it is styled xan Ody 
the age to come; which is the frequent import of the 
world to come, in the Jewish writers; and in this sense is 
Christ styled, 4 πατὴρ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, ‘the Father of the 
world to come,” Isa. ix. 6; and the gifts vouchsafed to be- 
lievers, and exercised by them in the first ages of the 
church, are styled, in this epistle, δυνάμεις μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, 
«the powers of the world to come:’’ but when it also doth 
include that earth in which they dwell, and in which they 
are to continue to the day of judgment, then is it styled 
οἰκουμένη μέλλουσα, “the world to come,” after the other 
four kingdoms, which are styled οἰκουμένη, “the earth,’ and 
are said to “have dominion over all the earth.” Thus, of | 
the kingdom of Assyria and Babylon, Daniel saith to Ne- | 
buchadnezzar that « God had made him lord of all things,” 
and settled his kingdom “ wherever the sons of men dwell,” 
Dan. ii. 37, 38. And this kingdom is, by Isaiah, often 
styled οἰκουμένη, and the fall of it is represented as « the de- 
sclation of the whole earth.” Thus, in his vision against 

* Et quando divisit Altissimus gentes, statuit terminos gen- 
tium secundum numerum angelorum Dei; populum autem 
qui credit Deo, jam non esse sub angelorum potestate, sed 
sub Domini. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 12, p. 266. Vid. Feuar- 
dentium in locum. 

tH γὰρ τῶν ἀγγέλων σύστασις τῷ Θεῷ ἐπὶ προνοίᾳ γέγονε τοῖς 
ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ διακεκοσμημένοις. Athenag. Legat. p. 27, C. 

$ Εἰσὶ yap συνδιανενημένοι προστάξει θεία re καὶ ἀρχαία ἄγγέλοι 
κατὰ ἔθνη, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ μερὶς Κυρίου ἡ δόξα πιστευόντων. Clem. Al. 
Strom. vii. p. 702, Ο, Ὁ. Est enim uniuscujusque gentis 
angelus, cui credita gentis ipsius dispensatio ἃ Deo, Clem. 
R.  Recog. lib, ii. §. 42, | 


Babylon, he saith, «The Lord cometh, καταφϑεῖραι πᾶσαν 
τὴν οἰκουμένην, to lay waste the whole earth,” ver. 6; “ Bee 
hold, the day of the Lord comes cruel, and with fierce anger, 
ϑεῖναι τὴν οἰκουμένην ἔρημον, to lay the land (of Babylon) deso- 
late,” xiii. 9; and, ver. 11, ἐντελοῦμαι τῇ οἰκουμένη ὅλη κακὰ, 
“T will pronounce evil to the whole earth” (see also xiv. 
26); Cyrus the king of Persia speaks thus: “The Lord 
hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth,’’ Ezra i. 2; 
and he is styled, τῆς οἰκουμένης ὃ Κύριος, * The Lord of the 
earth,” Esd. ii. 3. And Artaxerxes, in his epistle for the 
destruction of the Jews, writes thus; “ Being lord over 
many nations, καὶ πάσης ἐπικρατήσας οἰκουμένης, and having 
dominion over all the world,” &c. Esth. xiii. 2. 4. 

As for the third, that is, the Grecian monarchy, the pro- 
phet Daniel saith expressly of it, “ It shall bear rule over all 
the earth,” Dan. ii. 39. Accordingly, Alexander is cele- 
brated, in all historians and poets which speak of him, as the 
conqueror of the world; when he came to Babylon, ambas- 
sadors were sent to him, ἐξ ἁπάσης σχεδὸν τῆς οἰκουμένης, 
“ from almost the whole world,” saith Diodorus Siculus, Hist. 
lib. xvii. p. 579, and when he died, this inscription was writ 
upon his tomb, γᾶν ὑπ᾽ ἐμοὶ τέϑειμαι, “1 have put the earth 
under me.’ And, lastly, as for the Roman monarchy, as it 
was styled by the poets, παμβασιλεία, “ the universal king- 
dom ;” and by the historians, orbis terrarum, “the world ;” 
so is it in the scripture represented as the government, πάσης 
τῆς οἰκουμένης, “ of the whole earth,” Luke ii. 1; for, saith 
Dionysius Halicarnasseus,* ἡ Ῥωμαίων πόλις ἁπάσης piv ἄρχει 
τῆς γῆς, ὅση μὴ ἀνέμβατός ἐστιν, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀνδρώπων κατοικεῖται, 
“« Rome presides over the whole habitable earth.” Now this 
kingdom of Christ being prophesied of by Daniel, as that 
which was to be set up “after these kingdoms” which bore 
that name, and to break in pieces all other kingdoms, is 
therefore styled ἡ οἰκουμένη μέλλουσα, “ the kingdom of the 
world to come:’ and if (as we may probably conjecture from 
“the angel of the prince of Persia,’ and “the angel of the 
prince of Greece,” Dan. x. 13. 20) angels were by God ap- 
pointed to preside over those monarchies, then hence ariseth 
another reason why the apostle might say, “ Unto the angels 
hath he not subjected the world to come, of which we 
speak.” 

8 Ver. 6, &c.] Here note, first, that though these words 
of the psalmist may be allowed, in their first and obvious 
sense, to relate to the first Adam, created after God in his 
similitude and likeness, with respect to his dominion; yet 
doth not this hinder that they be expounded in the mystical 
sense, of Christ the second Adam; for the Jews acknowledge 
that the first Adam was a type of the second Adam, that is, 
of Christ, who is by them styled, γγηπνσι Cra, “ the last,” 
or “second Adam.” Moreover, “the mystery of Adam is, 
say they, “ the mystery of the Messiah ;” and the man created 
the sixth day signifies the Messiah. For thus they speak 57 
«ΟἿ redemption is signified by the six days of the creation, 
especially by the sixth, in which man was created ;” by whom 
we are not to understand the nations of the world, but 
N17 DIN TWD Mw “Vo, “the mystery of man is the mystery 
of the Messiah ;” as it is said, Dan. vii. 13, “He came like 
to the Son of man.” And this lays a foundation for the in- 
ference of the apostle, that what was spoken of man in general, 
and more particularly related to the first Adam, was only 
punctually fulfilled in the second Adam taking the nature of 
man on him: for, saith he, we see it not in any measure ful- 
filled in any other man; but as for Christ, we do already see 
it actually fulfilled, as to the first cause of it, he being now 
“ crowned with glory and honour;” and so, as all things are 
already subject to his feet, as far as the present necessities of 
the church require (Eph. i. 22), so will they completely and 
actually be so, when “death, the last enemy, shall be de- 
stroyed” (1 Cor. xv. 25—27). 


9 Ver. 7. Kat κατέστησας αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὰ ἔργα τῶν χειρῶν σου. 


* Vid. Lipsium de Magn. Rom. lib. i. cap. 3. 
1 Tzeron, Hammor. sect. Bereschith. 


CHAPTER II. 


and didst set him over the works of thy hands (Ps. | 
vill.) : 

8 Thou hast put all things (and so the world to 
come) in subjection under his feet. For in (saying) | 
that he (hath) put all (things) in subjection under 
him, (i is manifest that) he left nothing (besides him- 
self, 1 Cor. xv. 27) that is not put under him. But 
now (as for dam and his posterity, of whom these things 
were primarily spoken) we see not yet all things put 
under him. 

9 But we see Jesus (the second Adam), who was 
made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering | 


893 
of death, (already) © crowned with glory and honour; 
that he by the grace of God should taste death for every 
man; (and therefore know that all things are, and shall 
be subjected to him. 

10 7b this Jesus, I say, who by the grace of God 
tasted " death fur every man:) For it became him, for 
whom are (were) all things, and by whom are (were) 
all things (ordered), in (his design of ) bringing many 
sons unto glory, to (¢ffect this, by) make (ing) the cap- 
tain of their salvation 15 perfect through sufferings 
(τελειῶσαι, fo consecrate him to that work, by suffer- 
ings). 


These words are wanting in Scumenius, Theophylact, and 
some MSS., but they are in Chrysostom, Theodoret, and all 
the ancient versions. 

10 Ver. 9. δόξη καὶ τιμὴ ἐστεφανωμένον, Crowned with glory 
and honour.| That these words are, in construction, to fol 
Jow the ensuing words, that “he by the grace of God might 
taste death for every man,” see note on vii. 20; but the 
apostle puts these words last, as being to discourse of our 
Lord’s sufferings for us. 

" Ver. 10. He, χάριτι Θεοῦ, by the grace of God tasted 
death.) Origen,* in his commentary upon the Gospel of St. 
John, twice saith, that some copies read χωρὶς Θεοῦ, without 
God,” so read the Syriac, and Ambrose, lib. ii. de Fide ad 
Gratian. cap. 4, and Vigilius T'apsensis, lib. ii. p. 17, 20. 
And this reading either confutes the Patropassians, or con- 
firms the doctrine of Ireneus, that Christ suffered ἠἡσυχόζοντος 
τοῦ Λόγου, “the divine nature being quiescent,” and not ex- 
erting its energy to strengthen him against, or deliver him 
from, these sufferings; it making its impressions upon the 
human nature, saith Grotius, not always, but pro temporum 
ratione. Note also, that to “ taste death” is a Jewish phrase, 
signifying fo die, as when they say “The first Adam was 
worthy not to taste of death.” 

Ἔπρεπε yap.) Conveniens hoc fuit Dei sapientie, saith 
Grotius: He thought fit to do this, saith Dr. Hammond; 
first, because thus the same nature suffered which had sin- 
ned, and therefore purged us from the guilt we in that nature 
had contracted, and so dissolved that death to which we be- | 
came subject by the sin of Adam. This is the reason of 
Christ's sufferings, which all the primitive fathers do suggest, 
and on which they especially insist, assigning this reason of 
our Lord’s death, ἵνα τὸ θνητὸν ἡμῶν καϑαρισθὴ, “that our ob- 
noxiousness to death might be expiated :” so Ignatius He 
died, saith Justin Martyr,t for mankind, 5 ἀπὸ rod ᾿Αδὰμ 
ὑπὸ θάνατον, καὶ πλάνην τὴν τοῦ ὄῤεως ἐπεπτώκει, * which, from 
Adam, became subject to death, and the deceit of the ser- 
pent.” Trenwus saith,§ that “as mankind, by man over- 
come, was obnoxious to death, sic enim per hominem victo- 
rem ascendamus in vitam, so by a man conquering death we 
may rise to life :” and as death prevailed against us by man, sic 
iterdm nos adverstis mortem per hominem accipiamus pal- 
mam, “so we may prevail against it by man ;” that as in the 
animal Adam we all died, so in the spiritual we might all be 
made alive. And Athanasius, in his Oration of the Incarna- 
tion, is very copious on this subject; declaring, that Christ 
“took our nature on him, πάλιν τὸ φθαρτὸν cis ἀφϑδαρσίαν 
ἐνεγκεῖν, to reduce again our corruptible to incorruption :” 
that our Lord seeing mankind lost by death exercising the 
dominion of corruption over them, and seeing the punish- 
ment threatened to our transgression, διακρατοῦσαν τὴν Kad’ 
ἡμῶν φθορὰν, “ prevailing over us to corruption; and seeing 
the whole race of men subject to death, he, in compassion to 
them,** καὶ τὴν ϑανάτου xparnow οὐκ ἐνέγκας, and not enduring 
this dominion of death, that what he created might not | 
perish, took a body to himself, not alien from ours ; and be- | 
cause we were all subject to corruption,t{ ἀντὶ πάντων αὐτὸ | 


* P. 33, 360. 

7 Apud Theod. Dial. 1. 

+ Just. Mart. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 316, A. 

§ Iren. lib. v. cap. 21, 23, lib. iii. cap. 20, 31, et passim. 

] Athan. Orat. Incarn. p. 60. Ofey εἰκότως ἔλαβε σῶμα 
θνητὸν, ἵνα καὶ ὃ θάνατος ἐν αὐτο λοιπὸν ἐξαφανισδῆναι δυνηθῆ, καὶ | 
οἱ κατ᾽ εἰκόνα πάλιν ἀνακαινισϑῦσιν ἄνθρωποι, Ρ. 66,6. 


4 Ibid. ©. ** Ibid. D. ff P-61, A. 


ϑανάτῳ παραδιδοὺς, delivering it to the death for us all, he 
offered it to the Father, that, as it were, all men dying in 
him, the law of the corruption of mankind might be dissolved, 
and he might translate them again to incorruption: and 
this,” saith he,* “is the first cause of his incarnation.” 
Hence many of them say,} that “the handwriting which 
was blotted out by the death of Christ, was the threat made 
to Adam, In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
die.” Here then is one reason why the death or “ blood of 
bulls or goats could not take away sin;” viz. they did not 
partake of the same nature that had sinned, and therefore 
could not in that nature dissolve the debt we had contracted, 
and so translate us to incorruption. Secondly, it became 
him thus to suffer, because these sufferings fitted him to be a 
merciful high-priest to them that suffer as he did, and also to 
be a faithful high-priest, “to make atonement for our sins” 
(ver. 17). Observe here, that the apostle does not say, 
Christ's sufferings were absolutely necessary to satisfy divine 
justice; that infinite mercy could not pardon sin, without a 
satisfaction made to justice; and that infinite wisdom could 
contrive no other way for the atonement of our sins: but, 
that divine wisdom saw it fit that Christ should suffer for the 
ends forementioned. And why then may not others be per- 
mitted to think and speak with the apostle, without adding 
that which the apostle, in all this long and excellent dis- 
course, concerning the ends, the reason, and necessity of our 
Saviour’s sufferings, thought not once fit to mention? 

2 Τελειῶσαι διὰ παθημάτων, To sanctify, to consecrate and 
dedicate him to that work, by his sufferings.] That this is 
the true import of these words will appear, first, from the like 
words used by this apostle, ν. 8—10, “« Though he were a 
son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered ; 
and being made perfect (τελειωθεὶς), (i. 6. being consecrated 
to his priestly office,) he became the author of eternal salva- 
tion to all that obey him, being called of him a high-priest 
after the order of Melchisedec.” And again, vii. 27, 28, 
“The law maketh them high-priests which have infirmity ; 
but the word of the oath, which is after the law, maketh the 
Son ΞΟ, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τετελειωμένον, who is consecrated ἃ high- 
priest for evermore.” Secondly, from the collation made 
betwixt the call of Aaron to his priesthood, and of Christ to 
his: for as Aaron took not this honour to himself, but was 
« called of God” to it; so Christ “ glorified not himself to be 
a high-priest,’ but was constituted so by him who said, 
“ Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” 
Now the consecration of Aaron and the legal priests is con- 
tinually expressed by this word: for what is in the Hebrew, 
“Thou shalt fill the hands of Aaron and his sons,” and is 
by us translated, “Thou shalt consecrate them,” is by the 
Septuagint thus rendered, τελειώσεις ᾿Ααρὼν τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ 
ἁγιάσαι αὐτοῖς. So Numb. iii. 3, ἐτελείωσαν τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν 
ἱερατεύειν, “ They consecrated them to the priesthood.” Ac- 
cordingly, the priest consecrated is, in the Greek, 6 rers- 
λειωμένος, Lev. xxi. 10; the day of his consecration is ἡμέρα 
τῆς τελειώσεως, Lev. viii. 33; the sacrifice then offered for sin 
is θυσία τελειώσεως" the burnt offering, ὁλοκαύτωμα τελειώσεως, 
ver. 28; the ram offered is κριὸς τελειώσεως, ver. 22; the 
flesh of consecration, τὸ κρέας τῆς τελειώσεως, Exod. xxix. 34. 
By these sufferings he became “a high-priest for ever, after 
the order of Melchisedec,” and “the author of salvation to 
all that obey him: because appearing with this sacrifice 
before God in heaven for ever, “he is able to save for ever 
them that come unto God by him.” 


* P. 68, B. + Chrys. Gicum. Theod. in Col. iii. 14 
τις 


894 


11 For 15 both he (our priest) that sanctifieth (7. e. 
by his oblation purgeth us from sin) and they who are 
sanctified (or purged from it) are all of one (original 


and nalure) : for which cause he is not ashamed to call, 


them brethren, 

12 Saying, “ (Ps. xxii. 22) I will declare thy name 
unto (among) my brethren, in the midst of the church 
(or congregation) will I sing praise unto thee. 

13 And again, (Isa. viii. 17) 151 will put my trust 
in him. And again, (ver. 18) Behold I and the child- 
ren which God hath given me. 


HEBREWS. 


14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of 
flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of 
the same; that through (the) death (they had deserved, 
and he suffered in their stead) he might destroy (evacuate 
and frustrate) him ® that had the power of death, that 
is, the devil ; 

15 And (might) deliver them (from the sting of it,) 
who ™ through fear of (the) death (threatened to the pos- 
lerity of Adam, without any promise of a resurrection) 
were all their lifetime subject unto bondage. 

16 For verily he 18 took not on him the nature of 


3 Ver. 11. 'O ἁγιάζων, He that sanctifies, &c.] I have 
shown, note on ix. 13, that the word ἁγιάζειν, in this epistle, 
is used in the sacrificial sense, or with relation to the expia- 
tion of sin: in the Old Testament, when it respecteth sacri- 
fices, it sometimes signifies to devote, consecrate, and offer 
them to God. So Lev. xxii. 3, “The holy things which the 
children of Israel hallow to the Lord,” ὅσα ἂν ἁγιάσωσιν, 
“which they shall offer to the Lord:” for, Numb. xviii. 9, 
these holy things are thus enumerated ; « Every heave-offer- 
ing (ver. 8), every meat-oflering, every sin-offering, every 
trespass-offering ν᾿ Deut. xv. 19, “ All the firstlings of thy 
flock, thou shalt sanctify to the Lord thy God,” ἁγιάσεις τῷ 
Κυρίῳ. For if they were clean, they were to be offered to 
God, and their blood was to be sprinkled on the altar, and 
their fat burnt for an offering made by fire (Numb. xviii. 19) : 
but if they were unclean, οὐ Sices αὐτὸ τῷ Κυρίῳ, “ Thou 
shalt not sacrifice them to the Lord,” saith the text, Deut. 
xv. 21, and 1 Chron. xxiii. 13. Aaron was separated, “ that 
be might sanctify the most holy things,” τοὺ ἁγιασϑῆναι, i. 6. 
that he might offer them in sacrifice, «and to burn incense,” 
for he was separated to execute the priesthood (Exod. xxviii. 
1) ; and that was to be performed by offering gifts and sacri- 
fices for sin (Heb. v. 1): and in this sense our Saviour saith, 
trip αὐτῶν ἁγιάζω ἑμαυτὸν, ἵνα ᾧσιν ἡγιασμένοι ἐν ἁληϑεία, “ For 
their sakes I sanctify myself,” i. e. I offer myself a piacular 
victim, that they may be sanctified in the trnth (John xvii. 
19); 1. 6. that they may be consecrated to their office, or 
set apart for my service: for as Aaron and his sons were hal- 
lowed, and set apart for God’s service by a sacrifice, to ex- 
plate them from their sins; and this was done, ἁγιάζειν 
αὐτοὺς ὥστε ἱερατεῦειν, “to sanctify them to the priesthood” 
(Exod. xxix. 1. 14, 21), as well as by the holy anointing 
(Exod. xxx. 30, 31, xl. 10) : so Christ’s apostles were sanc- 
tified, and set apart to their office, not only by the unction 
of the Holy Ghost, but also by that piacular victim Christ 
offered for their sins: and accordingly, in these words, “he 
that sanctifies” is Christ that offers himself, that he might 
sanctify, ἁγιάζειν, i. 6. purge them from their sins by his own 
blood (Heb. xiii. 12); and “they that are sanctified,” are 
they that by this blood are purged from their sins, and so are 
fitted to draw nigh to God, and made “a royal priesthood to 
show forth his praises, and offer up spiritual sacrifices accept- 
able to God, through Jesus Christ.” 

Secondly, The word doth also signify, to purge, purify, 
and make clean, by sacrifice, both in the scripture and pro- 
fane authors. ‘Thus of the altar it is said, “« He shall sprin- 
kle the blood upon it with his fingers seven times, and he 
shall cleanse it, and hallow it, καϑαριεῖ αὐτὸ καὶ ἁγιάσει αὐτὸ, 
from the uncleanness of the children of Israel,” Lev. xvi. 19. 
So Exod. xxix. 33, “« And they shall eat those things ἼΡ9 wx 
313, ἐν ols ἡγιάσϑησαν ἐν αὐτοῖς, by which,” or “ for whom, the 
atonement was made, to consecrate, καὶ ἁγιάσαι αὑτοὺς, and 
to sanctify them ;” and, ver. 36, “Thou shalt cleanse the 
altar, woy ynpaa, ἐν τῶ ἁγιάζειν σε ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ, when thou hast 
τὰ δ an atonement for it.’ In profane authors, to purge 
Ly sacrifices, from guilt or uncleanness, is sometimes ἁγιάζειν, 
sometimes ννίζειν ς and the sacrifices that did this are styled, 
ἁγνιστικὰ, “ sacrifices of purgation.” According to this sense 
of the word, “he that sanctifieth,” is he that purgeth ; and 
“they rhat are sanctified” are they who are purged from the 
guilt of sin. 

M Ver. 12.] Ps. xxii. 22. This psalm being interpreted 
by the Jews themselves, concerning the Messiah, the apos- 
tle might well apply this passage of it to him. 

1% Ver. 13. Iwill put my trust in him ; and again, I and 
the children which God hath giver: me.] ‘These two citations 


being from the same place, Isa. viii. 17, make but one proof, 
that “he who sanctifies, and they who were sanctified,” have 
the same nature; showing, that he who said, “I will put 
my trust in him,” called them whom God had given him, 
his “children,” or “offspring,” and so declared them to be 
of the same nature or original with him. Now that these 
words were anciently adapted to Christ, we learn from the 
words of Simeon, who applies the words following to him, 
Luke ii. 4, and from the Jews, who expound the words, 
“He shall be a stumbling-stone, and a rock of offence,” 
of our Saviour, Pug. ΕἾΔ. par. ii. cap. 5, §. 2; to whom 
they are applied by Paul, Rom. ix. 33, and by Peter, 1 
Pet. ii. 7. Dr. Owen here contends, that the words ἐγὼ 
ἔσομαι πεποιθὼς ἐν αὐτῷ, are not taken from Isa, viil. 17, where 
they are almost expressly found, but from Ps. xviii. 3, 
12 MDNR, ἐλπιῶ ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν, where they are not found; because, 
saith he, were both these citations taken from the same place, 
the apostle would not have said, καὶ πάλιν, “and again,” 
this being an evidence that he cites another place. .To 
which the answer is, that he doth so, citing the first words 
from ver. 17, and the second from ver. 18. 

16 Ver. 14. Καταργῆση τὸ κράτος ἔχοντα τοῦ θανάτου, That 
had the power of death.| That by seducing Adam to eat of 
the forbidden fruit, the devil, whom the Jews called Sam- 
mael, had power to accuse men, and to demand that they 
might die according to the threat pronounced against them, 
is the constant opinion of the Jews. “Our wise men say,* 
it is a tradition, that Satan, the adversary, the angel of death, 
descendeth and seduceth, ascendeth and accuseth, receives 
power, and takes away the soul or life.’ Hence they say of 
him, thatt “he causeth death to the whole world.” 

Καταργεῖν τὸν διάβολον, is to frustrate and bring to nought 
his design of subjecting all men to the power of death, and 
keeping them under the dominion of it, and render it of no 
eflect (Rom. iii. 3. 21, iv. 14, 1 Cor. i. 28, ii. 6, vi. 13, xiii. 
8. 10, 11, xv. 24. 26, 2 Cor. iii. 7. 11. 13, 14, Gal. iii. 17, v. 
11, 2 Thess. ii. 8). And thus Christ is said, xarapyetv Sava- 
τὸν, “to abolish death,” 2 Tim. i. 10. ‘That therefore we 
are still subject to death, is, say the fathers, not that we are 
now punished with it; but out of mercy, that sin might not 
be immortal in us, the time of our resurrection being that 
in which death shall be totally abolished (1 Cor. xv. 26). 

7 Ver. 15. Φόβῳ Savérov, Through fear of death.) That 
the whole heathen world was subject to this fear, and that it 
was the king of terrors to them, see note on Rom. viii. 2. 
From this fear we are delivered at present, by our deliver 
ance from that guilt of sin, which alone makes it truly ter- 
rible (1 Cor. xv. 55, 56), and by the promise of a glorious 
resurrection, when “ death shall be swallowed up in victory” 
(ver. 54). 

18 Ver. 16. Οὐκ ἐπιλαμβάνεται.) This word, say the glos- 
saries, signifies, manum injicere, “to lay hold upon,” mani 
prehendere, “to hold with the hand ;” so Ecclus. iv. 11, 
“Wisdom, ἐπιλαμβάνεται, layeth hold of them that seek 
her ;” Susan. ver. 36. 40, “The man we could not hold, 
being too strong for us; ταύτης δὲ ἐπιλαμβανόμενοι, but lay- 
ing hold on her, we asked her,” &c. And so, in the Sep- 
tuagint, it signifies almost continually; ἐπιλάβου, “Take 
hold of his tail,” Exod. iv. 4 (see Kircher, in the words, 
ins, pin, wen). But then, that he thus laid hold of fallen 
man, and of the seed of Abraham, by taking of the human 
nature from one derived from the stock of Abraham, that πὶ 
that nature he might suffer death for the propitiation of those 


* Maim. Duct. lib. iii. cap. 22, p. 398, 
ἱ Buxt. in voce Sammael. 


CHAPTER III. 


‘ 


895 


(οὐ ἐπιλαμβάνεται, he laid not hold of, he helped not the forming his priestly office) in things pertaining to 


fallen) angels; but he took on him (Gr. he laid hold | 


of ) ® the seed of Abraham. 

17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be 
made like unto (/hese) his brethren, that he might 
be a merciful (high-priest to them, under all their suf- 
Serings,) and (a) faithful high priest (eractly per- 


God, (so as) to make reconciliation ® for the sins of 
the people. 

18 For in that he himself hath (aclual/ly) suffered 
2! being tempted, he is (become) 33 able (and willing) to 
succour them that (at any time) are tempted (i. 6. ex- 
posed to sufferings). 


sins which rendered them so obnoxious to death, is extremely 
evident, both from the words preceding, and from the words 
following: for, ver. 14, we read thus, “ Because therefore the 
children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also did par- 
take of the same flesh and blood, or mortal nature, that 
through (his) death he might destroy him that had the power 
of death, for (saith he) he took hold of the seed of Abra- 
ham,” i. e. by partaking of the same nature with them (ver. 
14). And again, he took hold on the seed of Abraham, to 
rescue them from that death they feared, by his own death 
(ver. 17), ὅϑεν cperde, “ wherefore he ought in all things (be- 
longing to their nature) to be made like to his brethren,” 
that, as their high-priest, he might make an atonement for 
the sins of the people, by his sacrifice made on the cross; ἐν 
ᾧ γὰρ πέπονθεν, “ for in that he suffered,” &c. (ver. 18). 

19. The seed of Abraham.) ‘The note of the best commen- 
tators here is this, that the apostle, writing to the Jews, 
thought it sufficient to mention only the mercies designed 
hy the Messiah for the Jews. And true it is, that they con- 
fined the seed of Abraham to themselves; but the apostle 
reckons all believers as the seed of Abraham, Rom. iv. 12. 
16, 17, Gal. iii. 14. 29, though Christ is here said to have 
taken upon him the seed of Abraham, because he derived his 
flesh from: his posterity. 

20 Ver. 17. Ets τὸ ἱλάσκεσθαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας rod λαοῦ, To 
make atonement for the sins of the people.) i. e. ᾿Ιλάσκεσϑαι 
τὸν Θεὸν περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν, “to make atonement to God for their 
sins.” So in Porphyry,* ἀπομειλίσσειν τὰς τῶν πολλῶν ἁμαρ- 
τίας, “to propitiate for the sins of many,” is, in the same 
Place ἀτομειλίσσειν τὸ Θειὸν, “to propitiate the Deity” for 
them. This sense the words require: for Christ is here 
said to “be a faithful high-priest, τὰ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν εἰς τὸ 
ἱλάσκεσθαι, in things pertaining to God, that he might make 
atonement,” surely, to him. This reconciliation, therefore, 
must respect God. Again, this phrase, when it respects the 
Jewish sacrifices, hath still relation to the guilt of sin to be 
expiated and taken away by them; and every sin-oflering of- 
fered by the priest, is said to be offered by him, ἱλάσκεσθαι 
περὶ ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν, “to make atonement for their sins” 
(Lev. iv. 35, v. 6. 10, xiii. 44, Ezek. xliv. 27). And of the 
piacular victim it is still said, καὶ ἐξιλάσεται περὶ αὐτῶν 6 ἱερεὺς, 


* De Abstinentia, &c. lib. iv. §. 5, p. 148. 


καὶ dheSiicerat αὐτοῖς ἡ ὁμαρτία, “The priest shall make atone- 
ment for them, and the sin shall be forgiven” (Lev. iv. 20. 
31, v. 6. 10, 13. 18, xii. 7, 8, xiv. 18, 19. 29. 31, xv. 30, 
xix. 22, Numb. vi. 11. 15. 28). ‘I'he apostle, therefore, 
here speaking to the Jews, in the phrase always used by 
them, of such sacrifices as suffered in their stead, to ex- 
piate the guilt of their sin, must be supposed to teach 
them that the like was done for them by our Saviour's 
sacrifice. 

21 Ver. 18. Πειρασϑεὶς, Being tempted .} 1. e. Exposed to 
agonies and sufferings; for rspacSiaz, in the epistles, signi- 
fies to be exposed to such afflictions, as subject us to great 
temptations to desist from our duty and obedience; as when 
the apostle saith, “No temptation hath befallen you, but 
what is ἀνθρώπινος, supportable by man; for the Lord is faith- 
ful, who will not sufler you, πειρασϑῆναι, to be tempted above 
what you are able (or, exposed to ‘sufferings bey®nd your 
strength), but will, with the temptation, make a way (so far) 
to escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. x. 13). 
So the apostle, finding his Thessalonians, ἐν rats ϑλίψεσι, 
in great afflictions from their persecutors, sends to know 
their faith, μήπως ἐπείρασεν ὑμᾶς 6 πειράζων, “ lest the tempter 
might have prevailed on them,” by reason of these tribula- 
tions, to desert it (1 ‘Thess. iii. 5); Rev. ii. 10, “ Fear none 
of those things which thou shalt sufler: Behold, Satan shall 
cast some of you into prison, ἵνα πειρασθῆτε, that you may 
be tempted,” i. e. be tried by temptations (see James i. 2. 12, 
1 Pet. i. 6, 2 Pet. ii. 9, Rev. iii. 10). So here, our Saviour, 
tried by these agonies, which he suffered in the hour of dark- 
ness, when the tempter fell upon him with all his fury, is be- 
come experimentally able to succour us under those sufferings 
which render obedience so hard to flesh and blood. 

2 δύναται, Ile is able.) He hath δύναμιν συμπαθητικὴν, ἃ 
power joined with a sympathy towards us, and a propen- 
sity to succour us. So Rom. xi. 23, “« They shall be graffed 
in, ¢wards γάρ ἐστιν ὁ Θεὸς, for God is able:” and, xiv. 4, 
«“ The weak shall stand, δυνατὸς yap, for God is able to make 
him stand.” ‘Thus to encourage us to charity, the apostle 
saith, δυνατὸς 6 Θεὸς, “God is able to make all grace abound 
towards us” (2 Cor. ix. 8); “I know whom I have believed, 
and I am persuaded ort δυνατός ἐστι, that he is able to keep 
that which I have committed to him to that day” (2 ‘Tim. 
i. 12). 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Waererore, holy brethren, partakers of the hea- 
venly calling (2. 6. the calling to celestial blessines), con- 
sider the Apostle and Hich Priest of our profession, 
Christ Jesus (who, as our apostie, taught these things ; 
and, as our high-priest, suffered, to obtain these blessings 
Sor us, and confirm them to us) ; 

9.1 Who was faithful to? him that appointed him 
(lo be an apostle and high-priest), as also (tt is said of ) 


Moses (thal he) was faithful in all his house (¢. e. tn 
all the house of God, Numb. xii. 7). 

3 For this man (this Jesus) was counted worthy of 
(or, dignified with) more glory than Moses, inasmuch 
as he 3 who hath builded (Gr. 6 xavasxevacas, who or- 
ders, or governs) the house hath more honour than the 
house (of which Moses only was a part). 

4 For every house is builded (χατασχευάζεται, or- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


Ver. 2. Πιστὸν ὄντα, Who was faithful, &c.] i. 6. As 
Moses faithfully discharged all that the Lord commanded 
him to say or do for the church of Israel; so Christ was 
faithful in the discharge of his prophetic office, doing and 
speaking as the Father had given commandment, John xii. 
49, 50, xiv. 10, and in his priestly office, in laying down his 
life for the sheep, according to the commandment he had 
received from the Father, John x. 18, and doing all things 
requisite to make atonement for the sins of the people, ii. 17. 
¥ know, indeed, the critics say, ἸῸΝ) and τιστὸς signify one 


established in his office; as in those words, πιστὸς Σαμουὴλ 
εἷς προφήτην τῷ Κυρίῳ, * Samuel was established a prophet to 
the Lord:” but this criticism is here needless; and the 
word πιστὸς, ii. 17, bearing not this sense, I choose rather to 
follow the ordinary import of the word. 

2 Τῷ ποιήσαντι αὐτὸν, To him that appointed him.) So the 
word signifies, 1 Sam. xii. 6, “God is witness, ὃ ποιῆσας, who 
appointed,” or chose Moses and Aaron (see ver. 8). 

3 Ver. 3. 'O κατασκευάσας) Is he that orders, and governs, 
and provides, or prepares all things. So Phavorinus, xare- 
σ΄ενάζω, καταρτύομαι, ἐξαρτύομαι, ordino, guberno, moderor. 
And thus, τὴν πολιτείαν καὶ πόλεις κατασκευασϑῆναι, in Plato, 


896 


dered and governed) by some man; θὲ ὁ Π6 that built 
(6 χατασχευάσας, that orders and governs) all things is 
God. 

5 And Moses verily was faithful in (the administra- 

tion of ) all (things in) his house, (but this he was only) 
.δ 85 a servant, for a testimony of those things which 
were to be spoken after (by God to them) ; 

6 But Christ as a son (28 placed) over his own house 
(i. e. he enters upon the government of il, as an heir and 
successor to the rights of his Father ; the Father now judg- 
ing no man, but having committed all judgment to his Son, 
John ν. 22); whose house are we (Christians, and shall 


HEBREWS. 


continue to he), if we hold fast the 5 confidence and 7 the 
rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. 

7 Wherefore (as the 8 Holy Ghost saith (by David, 
Ps. χουν. 8), 3 To day if ye will hear his voice, 

8 Harden not your hearts, as (your forefuthers did) 
in the (dime of) provocation, in the day of temptation 
in the wilderness: (hence learn, that it was in their 
power lo prevent the hardness of their hearts :) 

9 When (where) your fathers " tempted me (i. e. 
doubled of my presence with them, saying, Is the Lord 
among us, or nol? Exod. xvii. 7, Numb. xiv. 11, 21), 
2 proved me, and saw my works " forty years. 


epist. 11, is to “have cities and polities well ordered.” So 
Wisd. ix. 2, “Thou in thy wisdom, κατασκευάσας ἄνϑρωπον, 
hast ordered man to have dominion over thy creatures.” 
Thus Philo, de Cherub. p. 100, saith, «God is the cause of 
the world, dv’ od γέγονεν, by which it was made, and the Adyos 
δι᾿ οὗ κατεσκευάσϑη, Logos, the cause by which it was ordered,” 
or put into that frame and order in which it is. The words 
preceding, ἠξίωται, “he was dignified with more honour,” 
seem plainly to refer to Christ’s regal office, by which all 
power in heaven and earth was given to him, and he was 
made “ head over all things for his church,” which is his body, 
and in which he dwells, as in his house (Eph. ii. 21, 22). 
and this to me seems to establish this sense of the word. 

4 Ver. 4. 'O δὲ κατασκευάσας τὰ πάντα ὃ Θεῦς, He that 
built all things is God.| The apostle, say the Socinians on 
the place, proves Christum tanto prestantiorem esse Mose, 
quanto Deus prestantior est suo populo, qui Dei domus est ; 
idque merito ; “that Christ is as much more excellent than 
Moses, as God is more excellent than his own people; and 
this he had just cause to say.” And if so, Christ must be 
properly and truly God; for nothing else can so far excel 
Moses, the chiefest of that people, as God himself excels 
them. By this interpretation therefore they do not avoid, 
but confirm the argument for our Saviour’s Deity, from this 
text. he argument seems plainly to run thus,—He that 
governs all things is God; but Christ, as pater-familias, 
father of his family, governs all things,in his house, that is, 
the church dispersed throughout all the world; and hath, in 
order thereunto, all judgment, and all power in heaven and 
earth, committed to him: he therefore must be God; that 
is, the exercise of his kingly office shows, that he must be 
God as well as man. Thus Philo (de Victim. Offer. p. 661, 
C), often saith of that power, καϑ᾿ ἦν ἀνῆπται τῶν ὅλων τὸ 
κράτος, * to which the government of all things is committed,” 
that οὐκ ἀνθρώπων μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ϑεῶν ἔστι Θεὺς, μέγας τέ ἔστιν, 
ὄντως καὶ ἰσχυρὸς, καὶ κραταιὸς, “he is ἃ God not only of men, 
but angels, a great being, who truly doth exist, both strong 
and mighty.” 

5 Ver. 5. ‘Qs ϑεράπων, As a servant.] The government | 
of Israel was a theocracy, where God gave all the laws and 
precepts ; and Moses, only as his servant and minister, told 
them what things God thought fit to command them: but 
the government of the Christian church is entirely committed 
to our Lord Jesus, and he, as supreme head, and Lord of 
all things, governs both it, and -all things in earth and hea- 
ven for the good of it; and therefore, if he be not truly God, 
God doth not now govern the world as formerly, but hath 
given up the administration of it to a creature. 

Whose house we are ;] Christ living in our hearts by faith, 
Gal. ii. 20, Eph. iii. 17; abiding in us by his Spirit, John 
xiv. 23, Rom. viii. 9—11; and dwelling in our bodies, and 
in the body of the church, as in his temple, 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17, 
vi. 17, 2 Gor. vi. 15, 16, Eph. ii. 20—22, iv. 16. 

6 Ver. 6, Παῤῥησίαν, The confidence.| Or, the free profes- 
sion of the faith: for παῤῥησία is a liberty of freedom of 
speaking; as when it is said of Christ, that he spake, ἐν παῤ- | 
ῥησία, “freely,” Mark viii. 32, John vii. 13. 18. 20, and of 
his apostles, that they spake, μετὰ παῤῥησίας, “ with all free- 
dom and courage,” Acts ii. 29, iv. 13. 29. 31, xxviii. 31, 2 
Cor. iii. 12, vii. 14, Eph. vi. 19, Phil. i. 20, 1 Tim. iii. 13, 
Heb. iv. 6. So Phavorinus, παῤῥησίαζομαι, ἐλευϑεροστομῶ. 

7 Καύχημα τῆς ἐλπίδος, The rejoicing of hope.) i. e. The 
hope which causes us to rejoice, in expectation of the glory 
of God, Rom. v. 2, 2 Cor. i. 14, Gal. vi. 4, “If we hold 
this firm unto the end;” which supposes that they who | 


were partakers of this heavenly calling, and had at present 
this cause of rejoicing, might not “hold it firm unto the 
end,” but might fall off from it, ver. 14, might “depart from 
the living God,” ver. 11,iv.11. Yea, the apostle, in this 
epistle, plainly doth suppose, that they who had «tasted of 
the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy 
Ghost, &c. might fall away,” vi. d—6; that “the just who 
live by faith,” might “draw back into perdition,” x. 38, 39; 
that they might “fall from the grace of God,” xii. 15. See 
the reading of the text justified, Examen Millii hic. 

8 Ver. 7. Τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, The Holy Ghost saith.) 
Hence it appears, that David writ his psalms by the afflatus 
or inspiration of the Holy Ghost (see note on Matt. 
xxiii. 43). 

9 Σήμερον, To-day.] At present; for “now is the day of 
salvation,” 2 Cor. vi. 2; the present time being only ours. 
“We must do God’s commandments to-day,” say the Jews, 
from Deut. vii. 11, “and receive the reward to-morrow. We 
must repent to-day, lest we die to-morrow, before we have 
repented” (see Cartw. in locum). And again, “If Israel 
would repent but one day, the Messiah would come ;” and 
this they prove from these words of the psalmist, yyown oR 
γ503, “" When you hear his voice,” speaking in the prophets; 
or, as the Targum, τ 2 Dw, “ When you hear him 
speaking by the Word,” proceeding from the Father, “ har- 
den not your hearts.” ‘That this is the frequent sense of the 
particle =x, see Noldius, p. 89, 8. 31; and it is also the 
sense of the Greek ἐὰν. So ἐὰν εἴπη, ᾧ When he said thus,” 
Gen. xiii. 8; ἐὰν ἐξελδῶσιν, “ When the daughters of Shiloh 
come forth,” Jud. xxi. 215 ἐὰν κοιμηϑῶ, “ When I lie down,” 
1 Sam. xi. 125 ἐὰν πληρωϑῶσι, " When thy days be fulfilled,” 
1 Kings xiii. 315 ἐὰν ἀποϑάνω, « When I die,” Job vii. 4; 
ἐὰν κάϑη, “ When thou sittest ;” ἐὰν καϑεύδης, “When thou 
liest down,” Prov. iii. 24, 25; ἐὰν πορεύη, * When thou go- 
est; ἐὰν τρέχης», * When thou runnest,” Prov. iv. 12. See 
also in the New Testament, ἐὰν ὑψωϑῶ, « When I shall be 
lifted up,” John xii. 325 ἐὰν πορευϑῶ, “ When 1 shall go,” 
John xiv. 3, xvi. 73 ἐὰν φανερώϑη, “ When he shall appear,” 
1 John iii. 2. These words are therefore to be extended to 
the whole time of their hearing God speaking to them by his 


| prophets, and especially to the time of God’s speaking to 


them by his Son, who was to bring them into a better rest 
than that of Canaan, into which Joshua led them. 

10 Ver. 9. When,] οὖ, “where.” So the Hebrew swx 
is rendered, Numb. xxii. 26, Deut. viii. 15, Ps. Ixxxiv. 3, 
Eccles. viii. 10. So Numb. xx. 13, “These are the waters 
of contention, ws, where the children of Israel con- 
tended.” 

Ul ᾿Ἐπείρασάν ps, Tempted me.] That to tempt God, in the 
scripture phrase, is always to distrust his power or goodness, 
after sufficient demonstrations given of it, see note on Matt. 
iv. 7. And note here, that the apostle saith, they tempted 
Christ (1 Cor. x. 9), which shows, that these words may 
truly be applied to him. 

12 ᾿Εδοκίμασαν, Proved me.] The Hebrew word, which is 
here rendered “proved me,” is, Mal. iii. 16, rendered by the 
Greek ἀντέστησαν, “ they resisted” God; and by the Chal- 
dee, the Syriac, and by our version, they who * tempted” 
God ; that is, saith Dr. Pocock, who went about to try and 
prove him, whether he could or would punish sinners, and to 
provoke and dare him to do his worst to execute his judg- 
ments, if he were a God of judgment: and then to “see his 
works forty years,” must be, to see his judgments executed 
upon them forty years. ᾿ . 

13, Τεσσαράκοντα ἔτη, Forty years.} If this be the right 


CHAPTER III. 


10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, 
and said, They do alway err in their heart (not with 
the heart believing, yer. 11); and they have not known 
my ways (i. e. not hearkened tome, to walk in them, 
ver. 22). 

11 So I sware in my wrath (ver. 21), * They shall 
not enter ae If they shall enter) into my rest) (i. e. 
into the land where they were to rest from their 
wars). 

Ὥ Take heed (therefore), brethren, lest there be in 
any of you (as there was in them) an evil heart of un- 
belief, © in departing from the ™ living God. 

13 But exhort one another ve steadfastness in the 
faith) daily, while it is called To day (before the night 
cometh upon you, John xii. Bhs "Jest any of you be 
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 

14 For we are made partakers of (the blessings pur- 


connexion of the words, then, to see God’s works forty years, 
must be, to see his punishments so long upon them, as he 
plainly threatened they should, saying, “ You shall bear your 
iniquities forty years,” Numb. xiv. 33, and that so visibly, 
that all the nations should discern his judgments on them: 
for, “Surely as I live,” saith he, “all the earth shall be filled 
with the glory of God,” ver. 21. But if, according to the 
reading of the Hebrew and the Septuagint, the forty years 
should be added to the following verse, thus, “ Wherefore I 
was angry with that generation forty years,” as the apostle 
doth intimate by that inquiry, ver. 17, “ With whom was he 
angry forty years?” then the ἸΝ 53, and, καὶ εἴδον, will be 
best rendered, “ though they saw my work,” as 53 signifies, 
Noldius, p. 220, and xai, Luke xviii. 7, John xvi. 32, Acts 
vii. 5. According as God speaks to them, Numb. xiv. 22, 
“For all these men which have seen my glory, and my signs 
which I did in Egypt and the wilderness, and yet have 
tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to my 
voice, surely they shall not see the land.” And ver. 11, 
“How long will it be ere they believe me, after all the 
signs,” &c. 

MM Ver. 11. N39 ON, Εἰ εἰσελεύσονται, If they shall enter.) 
i, 6. Let me not be God, or, Let me not be true, if they en- 
ter. This is a form of swearing very frequent in the Old 
Testament. So Deut. i. 35, “The Lord was wroth, and 
swore, saying, εἰ ὄψεται, nN7 ON, If any of these men shall 
see that good land of promise” (Ps. xcv. 11) : so 1 Sam. iii. 14, 
ApIN DN, εἰ ἐξιλασϑήσεται, “If the iniquity of the house of 
Eli shall be purged with sacrifices ;” Ps. Ixxxix. 35, “ Once 
have I sworn by my holiness, 3398 con, εἰ ψεύσομαι, if I fail 
David ;” Ps. exxxii. 1—4, “ Lord, remember David, how he 
sware; NIN ON, εἰ εἰσελεύσομαι, If 1 go into my tabernacle; 
moyN OR, εἰ ἀναβήσομαι, If I climb up into my bed; ynx ox, 
εἰ dow, if I give sleep to my eyes.” So Mark viii. 12, 
«Verily, Tsay unto you, εἰ doSicerat τῇ γενεᾷ ταύτη σημεῖον 
(Let me not be frue), if a sign be given to this generation ;” 
where Christ himself swears, and therefore cannot be sup- 
posed absolutely to forbid all swearing, Matt. v. 34. 

18 Ver. 12. Ἔν τῷ ἀποστῆναι, In departing.) The Jews 
that tempted God, Numb. xiv., are sald, ἀποστῆναι, “to de- 
part” from the land of Canaan, ver. 31, «They said one to 
another, Come, let us make a captain, καὶ ἀποστρέψωμεν, and 
let us turn back into Egypt,” ver. 4; and are said, οὐ πισ- 
τεύειν, “not to believe” God, ver. 11. 

16 The living God :} So styled, to show that he is always 
able to punish unbelievers. Note also, that as he who believ- 
eth in Christ, believeth in God the Father also (John xii. 
44) ; so he that deserts him, doth also desert the Father, who 
sent him, and makes him a liar (1 John v. 9, 10): “for he 
that denies the Son hath not the Father” (1 John iii. 23). 

Vor. IV.—113 


897 


chased by) Christ, if we hold the ® beginning of our 
confidence stedfast unto the end; 

15 While it is said, (Gr. "Ev τῷ λέγεσϑαι, In that it 
is said,) To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not 
your hearts, as in the provocation. (You may discern 
the mischief of unbelief, and hardness of heart, and the 
necessily of the exhortation tendered, ver. 12, 13.) 

16 For some, when they had heard, did provoke: 
howbeit not all that came out of Egypt (not Caleb and 
Joshua) by Moses. 

17 But (and) with whom was he grieved forty years? 
was it not with them that had sinned (by unbelief), 
whose careases fell in the wilderness ? 

18 And towhom sware he that they should not enter 
into his rest, but to them that believed not? 

19 So we see (Kai βλέπομεν, We see therefore) that 
they could not enter in because of unbelief. 


17 Ver. 13. Ἵνα μὴ oxAnpwS7 τις, Lest any man be har- 
dened.) ‘To be hardened, in the New Testament, imports in- 
fidelity, and want of faith. Thus Christ upbraids to his dis- 
ciples their unbelief, καὶ σκληροκαρδίαν, “and hardness of 
heart,” that they believed not, Mark xvi. 14, And the Jews 
that believed not are said to be “hardened,” Acts xix. 9, 
and so it will be evident that here it signifies, to him that 
compares ver. 15 with ver. 19. 

18 Ver. 14. Τὴν ρχὴν ὑποστάσεως, The beginning of their 
hope.| That hope to which we have “ fled for refuge,” vi. 18 ; 
that hope which causeth us to rejoice, ver. 6; faith being, 
ἐλπιζομένων ὑπόστασις, “the firm expectation of things hoped 
for,” ch. xi. (see the note there). 

19 Ver. 16. Τινὲς yap ἀκούσαντες παρεπίκραναν ; ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πάντες, 
&c.] I would render these words thus; “ ΤῸΓ who are they, 
that, hearing, did provoke? Were they not all that came 
forth out of Egypt ?”’ For τινὲς signifies as well who as some. 
So Acts xix. 15, τίνες ἐστέ; “ Who are ye?” Rev. vii. 13, 
τίνες εἰσί ; * Who are they that are clothed with white robes?” 
Isa. Ix. 8, τίνες οἵδε; Who are these?”’ So Heb. i. 5, τίνι 
γάρ; “For to whom of the angels said he?” And here ver. 
18, τίνι dé; “To whom did he swear?” So Josephus, ch. 
xvii. of his Maccabees, τίνες οὐκ ἐθαύμασαν τοὺς τῆς Seias vopo- 
Seaias ἀϑλητάς ; τίνες οὐκ ἐξεπλάγησαν ; “ Who did not ad- 
mire? Who were not astonished at the champions of the 
divine law?” And the answer to this inquiry must be this, 
“Were they a few? Yea, were they not all?” &c. as if it 
had been οὐχὶ πάντες; It is also evident, that οὐ and οὐκ are 
often interrogatives, as 1 Cor. xii. 15, John vii. 42, see Nol- 
dius, p. 487. And if the Greek will bear this construction 
it answers best, (1.) to the story, as it is represented, Numb, 
xiv.: for, notwithstanding the exception made, ver. 38, of 
Joshua and Caleb, it is said, ver. 19, that πᾶσα ἡ συναγωγὴ, 
“all the congregation, καὶ πάντες, and all the children of 
Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron ;” that πᾶσα ἡ 
συναγωγὴ, “all the congregation spake of stoning Joshua and 
Caleb,” ver. 10 ; and πάντες οἱ ἄνόρες, “all men,” ver. 22, are 
the of παροξύναντες, “ provokers,” ver. 23, the συναγωγὴ πονηρὰ, 
“evil congregation,’ and “the murmurers,” ver. 27. 35, 
Josh. v.6. And (2.) it agrees best with the following verses, 
which are plainly interrogatives and answers, “ With whom 
was he grieved ? was it not with them? ΤῸ whom sware 
he? was it not to them that believed not?” And, lastly, 
with the close of the argument, which saith generally, “« They 
could not enter in.” 

2 Ver. 19.) Kai here signifies idcirco, therefore ; as the 
Hebrew ) often does (see Noldius, p. 279): so Josh xxiii. 
11, καὶ φυλάξετε, “Take good heed therefore;” Ps. ii. 10, 
καὶ viv σύνετε, “Be wise now therefore” (sce Ps. vii. 7, 
xviil. 42). 


898 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Ler us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left 
us of entering into his rest (in the celestial Canaan, as 
to them in the terrestrial), any of you should 1 seem to 
come short of it (z. e. should fail of it). 

2 For unto us was (Gr. 7s) the gospel preached, 2 as 
well as (Gr. as it was also) unto them, (they being οἱ 
πρότερον εὐαγγελισϑέντες. the first to whom tt was preach- 
ed, or formerly evangelized, ver. 6:) but the word 
preached (Gr. heard) did not profit them, not being 
mixed with faith in them that heard 7. (That is, we 
have now the glad tidings, and gospel-promise of a future 
rest; as they also had in types: their rest in Canaan 
being a type of their future rest with God in the heavenly 
Canaan.) 

3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as 
(may be gathered from what) he said, As I have sworn 


in my wrath, if they shall enter® into my rest: al- 
though the works were finished from the foundation of 
the world. (Gr. xatvo τῶν ἔργων ἀπὸ χαταβολῆς τοῦ 
χόύσμου γεννηδέντων, and indeed, or for, see Budeus and 
Stephanus : this phrase, my rest, relates to the works done 
by God from the foundation of the world. This sense 
seems certain from the reasons following.) 

4 For he (Moses) spake in a certain place (Gen. ii. 
1) of the seventh day ( from the beginning of God’s work 
of creation, saying) on this wise, And God did rest the 
seventh day from all his works. 

5 And in this place (he, z. e. God saith) again (long 
after), If they shall enter into my rest (7. e. Jf they 
shall have a rest from their labours and travels, resem- 
bling that of mine from the creation of the world, see 
ver. 10). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


UVer. 1. Δοκῇ ris ὑστερηκέναι, Should seem to come short.) 
That the word torepnxévar, signifies to fail of, or full from, 
any thing, see note on xii. 13; and that δοκέω is oft an exple- 
tive, all critics do acknowledge: so, μὴ δόξητε λέγειν, “ Say 
not,” Matt. ili. 9; of δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν, “They who rule,” 
Mark x. 42; ὃ δοκεῖ ἔχειν, “That which he hath,” Luke viii. 
18, Matt. xxv. 29; 6 ὡοκῶν ἑστάναι, “He that standeth,” 1 
Cor. x. 12 (see the note on 1 Cor. vii. 40). 

2 Ver. 2. KaSanep κἀκεῖνοι, As well as they.] This, by some 
is referred to their hearing of the law, as in the paraphrase ; 
by others, as probably, to the gospel blessings then typified 
to them: for the apostle informs us, that “they all did eat 
the same spiritual meat, and drank the same spiritual drink ; 
for they drank of the rock that followed them, and that 
rock was Christ” (1 Cor.x. 3,4). This sounds flat to them 
only who are averse to this doctrine, that the blessings of 
the gospel were typified to the Jews; but is confirmed from 
ver. 6. 

3 Ver. 3. His τὴν κατάπαυσίν pov, Into my rest.] Upon the 
true interpretation of these words here, and ver. 1, κατάπαυ- 
σιν αὐτοῦ, depends the true sense of this chapter. Now some 
refer this to that deliverance from their persecutors, and the 
peaceable days of professing the gospel, the Christians in 
Judea and elsewhere should enjoy after the destruction of 
Jerusalem: but to this I can by no means assent; for (1.) 
the bearing of the cross, the suffering persecution, being so 
often hinted as the portion of “all that will live godly,” I 
cannot believe that a promise of deliverance from them 
should be so often represented by the Holy Ghost, as the 
great gospel blessing promised to believers, the εὐαγγελία, 
the evangelical promise made to Christians by God, that 
they should enter into his rest, ver. 1, the “sabbatism re- 
maining for the people of God,” ver. 9, the rest which they 
should “strive to enter into,” ver. 11, and “be afraid lest 
they should fail of,” ver. 1. (2.) I know of no such happy 
change of the affairs of Christians in all other parts of the 
world, that the apostle should here, and almost in all his 
other epistles, speak of it, as this interpretation maketh him 
to do, as one of the greatest blessings of Christianity; nor 
were there any such halcyon days enjoyed by Christians 
after the desolation of Jerusalem. This will be evident from 
Christ’s message to the Asiatic churches, after the times of 
Domitian ; for there he speaks to the angel of the church of 
Smyrna, “Fear none of those things which thou art about 
to suffer: behold, Satan is about to cast some of you into 
prison, that ye may be tried ten days. Be thou faithful to 
the death, and I will give thee a crown of life,” Rev. ii. 10. 
To the church of Pergamos thus: “I know thy works, and 
where thou dwellest, where is the throne of Satan; and thou 
holdest my name, and hast not denied the faith in the days 
in which Antipas my faithful martyr suffered, who was 
slain among you where Satan dwells,” ver. 13. ΤῸ the 
chureh of Philadelphia thus: « Because thou hast kept the 
word of my patience, I will also keep thee from the hour of | 


temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try 
them that dwell upon the earth,” iii. 10. This argument 
a reverend person endeavours to evade, by saying, that 
John writ his Revelation in the ninth year of Claudius. 
But, first, this is contrary to the testimony of all antiquity, 
excepting only the single testimony of Epiphanius; which 
also is fully answered by Dr. More; for it is generally 
agreed, that he writ his Revelation in, or after he came from 
the isle of Patmos, as may be proved from i. 9—11. Now 
all the ancients say, that John was banished thither by Do- 
mitian ; and writ his Revelation about that time. So Ire- 
neus* speaks expressly, saying, “If the name of antichrist 
had been to be divulged, it would have been mentioned by 
him who saw the revelation; for it was.not seen long ago, 
but almost in our age, at the end of the reign of Domitian :” 
which passage cannot be understood of the name only of 
the beast, but of the whole revelation; as is evident, (1.) 
because Eusebius, who cites this passage, must understand 
him so: for he saith, that “he returned from his exile in 
this island, μετὰ τὴν Δομιτιανοῦ τελευτὴν (ch. xxiii.), after 
the death of Domitian;’’ and so he must have writ his Reve- 
lation while he lived. And (2.) because “the name of the 
beast” is not said to be revealed to the evangelist, but only 
“the number of his name.” And (3.) the words καὶ τὴν 
ἀποκάλυψιν ἑωρακότος even force this sense; for they are pro- 
perly rendered “ who saw also the revelation,” distinguishing 
the revelation from the name. And, lastly, a name cannot 
properly be said to be seen, nor doth John ever use any 
such expression about it; but a revelation may be properly 
said to be seen, and John often saith he saw them. Again, 
in this persecution of Domitian, saith Eusebius,t κατέχει 
λόγος, “the tradition runs, that John the evangelist was ban- 
ished to the isle of Patmos, for the testimony he gave to the 
divine Word.” And in his Chronicon¢ he adds, that under 
him the apostle John, “being banished into the isle of Pat- 
mos, ἔνϑα τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν ἑώρακεν, ὡς δηλοῖ Eipnvaios, there saw 
his revelation, as Ireneus testifies; which both confirms 
the tradition, and gives the true sense of the words of Ire- 
neus, cited by him. So also Jerome§ saith, that “John 
being banished into the isle of Patmos, in the fourteenth 
year of Domitian, scripsit Apocalypsin, composed the book of 
the Revelation.” So almost all the Greek and Latin writers, 
saith Huet. in Orig. Com. p. 72. Vid. Oros. lib. vii. cap. 
10, 11. Martyr. 'Timoth. apud Phot. Cod. 254, p. 1403. lib, 
i. Aret. in Apoc. i. 9. Secondly, it is certain, from the se- 
cond text here cited, that Antipas had suffered martyrdom 
before the writing of these epistles to the churches. Now 
that Antipas suffered martyrdom under Domitian, the old 


* At’ ἐκείνου ἂν ἐῤῥέϑη τοῦ καὶ τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν ἑωρακότος" οὐδὲ 
γὰρ πρὸ πολλοῦ χρόνου ἑωράϑη, ἀλλὰ σχεδὸν ἐπὶ τῆς ἡμετέρας γε- 
νεᾶς, πρὸς τῷ τέλει τῆς Δομιτιανοῦ ἀρχῆς. Apud Euseb. Hist. 
Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 18. 

ἡ Τῆς εἰς θεῖον Λόγον ἕνεκεν μαρτυρίας Πάτμον οἰκεῖν καταδικασ- 
ϑῆναι τὴν νῆσον. Ibid. cap. 3, 


+ Ad An, 14 Dom, § Verbo Johannes. 


CHAPTER IV. 


6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must 
enter therein (to the rest of God spoken of in these words), 
and they to whom it was first preached (οἱ πρότερον 
evayyercoséivres, they who had the gospel first preached to 
them, concerning the rest of God,) entered not in (to #t) 
because of unbelief: 

7 * Again, he (God) limiteth a certain day, saying 
in (these words of ) David, 'l'o day, after so long a time 


Roman martyrology assures us, and Dr. Hammond on the 
place confesses; it is therefore evident, that John, speaking 
of this martyrdom, which happened in the days of Domitian, 
as a thing past, must write the Revelation in or after the 
teign of Domitian. ‘This the doctor saw, and therefore in- 
terprets these words, “ Thou hast not denied my faith, καὶ 
ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις, even in those days (of fiery trial) in which 
Antipas, ἀπεκτάνϑη, was or hath been slain :” thus, “ The time 
is approaching wherein Antipas I foresee will be cruelly 
martyred ;” that is, if this was written in the ninth of Clau- 
dius, and Antipas slain the tenth of Domitian, I foresee he 


will be slain forty years hence ; which descant, to speak in | 
his own words, “is too vain to be seriously considered.” | 


Lastly, the Christians had no such halcyon days for any con- 
siderable time after the destruction of Jerusalem; for Jeru- 
salem was destroyed anno Christi 70; and the second per- 
secution began under Domitian, anno Domini 96. They 
had therefore only rest for twenty years, and then comes the 
second persecution, in which many Christians* were exiled, 
and some suffered martyrdom; for “even heathen writers,” 
saith Eusebius,f “mention τὸν διωγμὸν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτώ μαρτῦ- 
pa, the persecutions and the martyrdoms of our men.” 
And in his Chronicon he saith, that “ Brutus, in_his history, 
affirms, that πολλοὶ Χριστιανῶν ἐμαρτύρησαν κατὰ Δομιτιανὸν, 
many Christians suffered martyrdom under Domitian.” T'en 
years after the end of this persecution, comes on a third 


persecution under Trajan, in which, saith Eusebius,} “so | 


great and heavy was the persecution, in most places, that 
Pliny, one of the celebrated presidents of the provinces, 
being moved with the multitude of the martyrs, writ to the 
emperor concerning the multitude of the martyrs that 
had suffered ; and received this answer from him, That they 
should not be inquired after, but only punished as they fell 
into their hands.” And that§ though hereupon the open 
persecutions ceased, yet in divers provinces they continued, 
and exercised many of the Christians with divers kinds of 
martyrdom,” 

In the seventeenth year of Trajan, the Jews in Mesopo- 
tamia rebel, and many myriads of them perish. In the 
second of Hadrian they rebel again, and overcome. In the 
seventeenth of Hadrian, Barchochebas set himself up for 
their Messiah, “and drew an infinite multitude of Jews after 
him.” Now all these, and especially the last, were severe 
persecutors of the Christians of those places. For Justin 


Martyr] oft informs us, that “even after the destruction of | 


Jerusalem, they retained still the same hatred to the Chris- 
tians, and cut them off wherever they had power and oppor- 
tunity ;” and in the days of Barchochebas “put those Chris- 
tians to exquisite torments, who would not deny Christ.” 
And could these be the times of quiet and safety to the 
Christians, from their persecutors? and of prosperous and 
peaceable days for the public worship and service of God? 


* Mera πλείστων ἑτέρων καὶ Φλαβίαν. 
+ Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 18, 


$+ Τοσοῦτός ye phy ἐν πλείοσι τύποις ὃ καθ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐπετάϑη ὃ 
γε μ μ 


διωγμὸς, ὡς Πλίνιον Σεκοῦνδον ἐπὶ τῷ πλήϑει τῶν μαρτύρων κινη- | 


vivra βασιλεῖ κοινῶσαι περὶ τοῦ πλήθους τῶν ὑπὲρ τῆς πίστεως 
ἃναιρημένων 

§ 'ῶς καὶ ἄνευ προφανῶν διωγμῶν μερικοὺς κατ᾽ ἐπαρχίαν ἐξ- 
ἄπτεσϑαι, πλείους τε τῶν πιστῶν διαφόροις ἐναγωνίζεσθαι μαρτυ- 
ρίοις, Hist. Eccl. lib. ili. cap. 33. 

| ᾿Εχθροὺς ἡμὰς καὶ πολεμίους ἡγοῦνται, ὁμοίως ὑμῖν ἀναιροῦν- 
τες καὶ κολάζοντες iis, ὑπόταν δύνωνται.--- Καὶ γὰρ Βαρχοχέβας 
--- Χριστιανοὺς μόνους εἰς τιμωρίας δεινὰς, εἰ μὴ ἀρνοῖντο ᾿Ιησοῦν τὸν 
Χριστὸν καὶ βλασφημοῖεν, ἐκέλευεν ἀπάγεσθαι. Apol. ii. p. 72, E. 
Dial. Ρ. 384. Kai viv, &e. B, Ὁ, p. 335, D. ᾿Αλλὰ καὶ ἡμᾶς 


μισεῖτε ra? φονεύετε ὑσάκις ἂν λάβητε ἐξουσίαν, p. 363, D. 


899 


(of their continuance in the rest of Canaan); as it is 
(there) said, To day, if ye will hear his voice, hardeu 
not your hearts, (speaking not of the rest of Canaan, of 
which they were possessed in the days of Joshua, as he svith 
lo the Reubenites and Gadiles: And now the Lord hath 
given rest unlo your brethren, as he promised them, Josh. 
xxii. 4. 

B's For if Jesus (i. e. Joshua) had given them (a) 


Is this the ἐπαγγελία, “ gospel-promise of a rest and sab- 
batism to the people of God?” the reward, which it is just 
with God to render them for all their sufferings for his sake? 
(2 Thess. i. 7; see Dr Hammond on that place.) 

To come then to the true import of this phrase, let it be 
noted, that there is a double rest mentioned in this and the 
former chapters ; viz. 

1. The rest promised to the Jews in the land of Canaan, 
iii. 11. And this, saith the apostle, could not be the rest of 
God; for “if Joshua had given them (such) rest, David 
could not have spoken of another day,” ver. 8. Why not? 
saith Mr. Clere. Answer, Because then, by entering into 
that, they would have already entered into the rest of God. 

2. A rest, after the example of God, “ceasing from his 
labours,” when he had finished the creation, which is the 
rest of the blessed that die in the Lord, ἵνα ἀναπαύσωνται ἐκ 
τῶν κύπων αὐτῶν, “that they may rest from their labours,” 
Rey. xiv. 13. And that this is the rest which the apostle 
now begins to speak of, is evident from these words, ver. 10, 
“He that is entered into rest, he hath also ceased from his 
own works, as God did from his ;” for what can we under- 
stand by resting from his own works, but as the fathers* do 
interpret it, τῶν διωγμῶν, τῶν πειρασμῶν, τῶν ϑλιψέων, “from 
his persecutions, temptations, and afflictions,” to which he is 
obnoxious in this present world? ‘The phrase seems plainly 
to be taken from Isa. lvii. 1; where it is said of the “ righteous 
taken away from the evil to come, They shall enter into 
peace, they shall rest in their beds.” Of this rest, that of 
Canaan, and the sabbatism there observed, were a type, as 
the Jews themselves inform us; and therefore it seems rea- 
sonable to interpret these words agreeably to that sense. 

4 Ver. 7.1 Here Mr. Clere speaks thus; “I say again, 
There is no mention in the psalmist of any future rest :” 
which, if true, there is no sense in the apostle’s words, nor 
any strength in his argument, for it doth evidently run thus, 
‘There must be a rest to the people of God, besides, i. e. suc- 
ceeding, that which Joshua procured them in the land of 
Canaan; because the psalmist, so long after their rest in 
Canaan, makes mention of a future rest: so the apostle. 
«'There isno mention in the psalmist of a future rest,” saith 
Mr. Le Clere. He had spoken in one place of “the rest of 
God,” saith the apostle, ver.4. And he speaks again, ἐν 
τοῦτῳ, “in this place” of the psalmist, of this rest, ver. 5, 
| into which unbelievers not entering, in this passage of David, 
he again, τίνα ὑρίζει ἡμέραν, “sets or defines a certain day,” 
by saying to them, who lived so long after these unbelievers 
miscarried, “To-day if you will hear his voice” (and so 
enjoy this rest), iii. 18, 19, “harden not your hearts;” 
speaking there of a rest not already enjoyed, but hereafter to 
be enjoyed by them, and so not of the rest procured to them 
by Joshua: εἰ yap, “ For if Joshua had given then the rest 
called the rest of God,” David would not have here “ spoken 
of another day of rest;” but having done so, dpa, certo, utique, 
“we conclude, there remains yet a rest to be enjoyed by the 
| people of God.” 
| 5 Ver. 8. Ei yap ᾿Ιησοῦς, For if Joshua.] For explication 

of the apostle’s argument here let it be noted, that all the 
| Greek commentators on this place concur in this, that the 
| apostle speaketh of a threefold rest. 

First, Of the rest of God, mentioned Gen. ii. 2, in these 
words, “ And God rested on the seventh day from all his 
works that he had done.” Which rest, say the ancients, 
was “the symbol of the rest of the just from all their labours.” 
So Ireneust saith, “The seventh day, which was sanctified, 


“. Chrysost. Theod. GEcum. Theoph. 
Hee sunt in regni temporibus, hoc est, in septima die 
que est sanctificata, in qué requievit Deus ab omnibus operi- 


900 


rest (like to that of God), then would he not (7. 6. God, 
by David) afterward have spoken of another day (of 
rest, afler their rest in Canaan). 

9 There remaineth therefore (yet) a (more glorious 
and complete) ὃ rest to the people of God. 

10 For he that is (thus) entered into his rest, he also 
hath ceased from his own works (7. e. from the labours 
and travails of this life, Rev. xiv. 13), as God (afler he 
had finished the creation) did from his. 


11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest | 
(which yet remaineth for the people of God), lest any | 


HEBREWS. 


|man fall (Gr. that we may not fall from it) after the 
| same example of unbelief (by our infidelity, as they 
did). 
12 7 For the word of God (mentioned ver. 1, 2) zs 
quick and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged 
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul 
and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a dis- 
cerner (or censurer) of the thoughts and intents of the 
heart. 

13 Neither is there any creature that is not mani- 
fest in his sight (whose word this is): but all things 


and in which God rested from all his works, is the true sab- | 
bath of the just, in which they shall do no earthly labour:” | 
and Origen* saith, that « Celsus understood not the mystery 


of the seventh day, and the rest of God, in which all that 
had done their work in six, and had Jeft nothing undone 
which belonged to them, should feast with God, ascending 
to the vision of him, and in that to the general festivity of the 
just and blessed.” And ap “If we farther inquire 
which are the true sabbaths, we shall find that the observa- 
tion of the true sabbath reaches beyond the world; the true 
sabbath, in which God will rest from all his works, being 
the world to come then when all grief, sorrow, and sighing, 
shall fly away, and God shall be all in all.” 


Secondly, Of the rest of the Jews in Canaan: which is the | 


rest God sware the murmuring and unbelieving Jews should 


not enjoy, perhaps as well ip the spiritual sense as in the | 


natural. For the Jews themselves represent their sin, as 
that in which they made bold,+ ἱψευδολογίαν κατακρίυειν τῷ 
Θεῷ, “to charge God with a lie.” And the Jerusalem Tar- 


gum saith,§ God threatened to remember it in the day of | 


judgment. In Midrash Tillim an evil tongue is said to be 
worse than idolatry; and this is proved from what these 
rebels spake against God, γγ1 713, “the sentence of judgment 
being passed upon them for their evil words,” Numb. xiv. 28. 
Now idolatry is still reckoned by them a sin exclusive from 
the heavenly Canaan; “ They shall not enter into the rest 


of the house of my sanctuary,” saith the Chaldee, on Ps. | 
However, those Jews who entered into Canaan, | 
when they were to have rest from all their enemies round | 
about, so as to dwell safely (Deut. xii. 9, 10), did so far | 


xev. 11. 


disobey the voice of the Lord, that he said he would not 
drive their enemies out from before them, but would leave 
them to be “as thorns in their sides, and pricks in their eyes, 
to vex them in the land where they dwelt,” Judg. ii. 2, 3, 


Josh. xxiii. 13, Numb. xxxiii. 55: so that the Jews them- | 
selves expected a farther completion of that promise, in the | 


times of the Messiah, as we learn from those words of Zecha- 
rias the father of the Baptist, “ς Blessed be the God of Israel ; 
who hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised 
up a mighty salvation for us in the house of his servant 
David ; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which 
have been since the world began: that we should be saved 
from our enemies, and from the hands of all that hate us: 
that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, 
might serve him without fear,” Luke i. 68—71. 74. And 
hence the apostle here concludes, that Joshua gave them not 
the rest emphatically styled “ the rest of God,” as resembling 


his rest from all his works, when he had finished the world; | 


and so there must be yet another rest remaining to the peo- 
ple of God, as it follows, ver. 9. 


bus que fecit, que est verum justorum sabbatum, in qué non 
facient omne terrenum opus. Lib. v. cap. 33. 

* Οὐ yap οἷδέ τις ἡ τοῦ σαββάτου, καὶ τῆς καταπαύσεως Θεοῦ 
ἡμέρα, ἐν ἡ ἑορτάσωσιν ἅμα τῷ Θεὼ οἱ πάντα τὰ ἔργα ἑαυτῶν ταῖς Et 
ἡμέραις πεποιηκότες, καὶ διὰ τὸ μηδὲν παραλελοιπέναι τῶν επιβαλλόν»- 
των, ἀναβαίνοντες ἐπὶ τὴν ϑεωρίαν, καὶ τὴν ἐν αὐτῇ τῶν δικαίων καὶ 
μακαρίων πανήγυριν. Lib. vi. p. 317. 

+ Si altiis repetamus que sint vera sabbata, ultra hune 
mundum est veri sabbati observatio—Erit ergo verum sab- 
batum, in quo requiescet Deus ab omnibus operibus suis, 
seculum futurum; tune ctim aufugiet dolor, et tristitia, et 
gemitus, et erit omnia et in omnibus Deus. Hom. 23, in 
Num. f. 136, A. See Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. p. 682, 683. 
Barnab. Ep. §. 15, et Coteler. ibid. 


+ Joseph. Ant. lib. 111. cap. 13. § In Ps, xxxix. 2. 


6 Ver. 9. A rest, σαββατισμὸς. The apostle, by thus 
changing the word ἀνάπαυσις, “rest,” into “sabbatism,” and 
by comparing of this “sabbatism” with “the rest of God” 
on the sabbath, or seventh day, clearly leads us to the 
interpretation of all the ancient Christians, that our glorious 
and complete rest hereafter with God, is that of which God’s 
resting on the seventh day was a symbol ; and to the spiritual 
sabbath, of which the Jewish doctors speak so generally, as 
the great thing signified by their sabbath ; as when they say,* 
“The sabbath was given to be xan adn Sw Npans, δεῖγμα, 
a sign, or exemplar, of the world to come.” “The sabbath- 
day, what is it?; A figure of the land of the living, to wit, 
of the world or age to come, the age of souls, the age of con- 
solations.’” Thus in their descants upon Ps. xcii., which 
bears this title both in the Hebrew and the Greek, “ A song, 
navn ond, εἰς τὴν ἡμέραν τοῦ σαββάτου, upon the sabbath- 
day,” they say,+ “This is the age to come, naw $:2¥, which 
is all sabbath.” The psalmist, saith R. Solomon JSarchi, in 
locum, “speaks of the business of the world to come, which 
is all sabbath.” “ A psalm upon the sabbath-day,” saith R. 
Eliezer, cap. 19, p. 42, “that is, upon the day which is all 
sabbath, and rest, in the life of the world to come.” And 
again, cap. 18, p. 41, “The blessed Lord created seven 
worlds (i. 6. ages), but one of them is all sabbath, and rest 
in life eternal : where he refers to their common opinion, 
that the world should continue six thousand years, and then 
a perpetual sabbath should begin, typified by God’s resting 
the seventh day, and blessing it. So Bereschith Rabba; 
“Tf we expound the seventh day of the seventh thousand 
years, which is the world to come, the exposition is, And he 
blessed ; because that in the seventh thousand all souls shall 
be bound in the bundle of life; for there shall be there the 
augmentation of the Holy Ghost, wherein we shall delight 
ourselves. And so our rabbins, of blessed memory, have 
said in their commentaries, God blessed the seventh day, the 
Holy Ghost blessed the world to come, which beginneth in 
the seventh thousand of years.’ Philo§ is very copious in 
this allegory, who, disputing against those who, having 
learned that the written laws were σύμβολα νοητῶν πραγμάτων, 
“symbols of intellectual things,” did upon that account 
neglect them, saith, that “though the seventh day was a 
document of the power of God, and of the rest of the crea- 
ture, yet was not the outward rest to be cast off.’ And 
| again, “It is fitly said, d ὑπονοιῶν, by allegories, or figurative 
| expressions, The sabbaths of the land shall be meat for you,” 
| Ley. xxv. 6. “For rest\| in God producing the greatest 


good, peace, secure from war, is only that which nourisheth, 
and is to be enjoyed with pleasure.” And a third time, 
«This is] the reason of the seventh day, or the septenary ; 
| i. e. of the soul resting in God, and performing no more 
| mortal works.” 

7 Ver. 12. 'O λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, The word of God.] The 
apostle seems not to speak here of the essential Word of God, 
| the second person of the Trinity: (1.) Because Paul, in all 


+ Midrash Tillim, in v. 15. 

§ Μὴ yap δτι ἡ ἐβῥόμη δυνάμεως μὲν τῆς ἐπὶ τὸ ἀγένητον, ἀπραξίας 
| δὲ τῆς περὶ τὸ γενητὸν δίδαγμά ἐστι, τὰ ἐπὶ αὐτῇ νομοθετηθέντα λύωμεν. 
| De Migr. Abr. p. 314, E. 315, A. 
| |] Τρόφιμον yap καὶ ἀπολαυατὸν μόνον ἡ ἐν Θεῷ ἀνάπαυσις, τὸ 
᾿μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν, περιποιοῦσα ἀπόλεμον εἰρήνην. Lib. de 

Profug. p. 371, Ὁ. 

4 Αὐτη δ᾽ ἡ κατάστασίς ἔστιν ἑθῥομάδος ἀναπανομένης ἐν Θεῷ 

ψυχῆς, καὶ περὶ μηδὲν τῶν ϑνητῶν ἔργων ἔτι πονουμένη. Lib. 


| Quod Deus sit Immut. p. 230, F. 


| 
* Buxt. Flor. 299. + Zohar, in Gen. fol. 5, col. 2. 
| 
| 


τὴν 


CHAPTER V. 


arenaked and opened unto the eyes of him § with whom 
we have to do (Gr. fo whom we must give an account, 
and so there is no hope these unbelievers should escape his 
judgments). 

14 Seeing then that we have a great high priest 
(merciful and faithful to make reconciliation for our sins, 
ii. 17), that is passed into the heavens, (0 appear for 
ever there to make intercession, and to prepare this resting- 

lace for us, John xiv. 2, even) Jesus the Son of God, 
et us hold fast our profession (without wavering). 

15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be 


his writings, never applies this phrase to our Lord Christ, it 
being peculiar to John. (2.) The apostle must have very 
abruptly spoken here of him, under this metaphor, of whom 
nothing went before, but very appositely of the gospel, to 
which these attributes do well agree: for, (1.) the word is 
quick and vital, not only promising life to the obedient, but 
threatening death to the disobedient, from the living God, 
who can quickly execute it, iii, 12. (2.) It is powerful, 
being “the power of God for the destruction of strong holds, 
and every thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of 
God,” 2 Cor. x. 4. 7. (3.) It is “sharper than a two-edged 
sword, and piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul 
and spirit, the joints and the marrow :” slaying Ananias and 
Sapphira, and delivering up others to Satan, “ for the destruc- 
tion of the flesh,” 1 Cor. v. 5, 1 Tim. i. 20. It is, (4.) «A 
discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart,”’ there 
being then “a gift of discerning spirits,” attending the 
preachers of it, by which they judged and discerned of them ; 
and so “the secrets of their hearts were made manifest,” 1 
Cor. xiv. 24, 25. And, which makes this extremely perti- 
nent to the present exhortation, all this was very visible in 
the instance of the unbelievers here mentioned, to terrify the 
Jews from falling by the same example of unbelief. For, 
(1.) the word of threatening was so quick upon those spies, 
who “brought up the evil report upon the land,” that they 
died immediately by the hand of God, or “by the plague 
before the Lord,’ Numb. xiv. 37. And as for the rest of 
the unbelievers, “they were consumed,” saith Moses, * by 
God’s anger, and by his wrath were troubled: they were 
carried away as with a flood; they vanished as a dream, or 
as the morning grass, which in the evening is cut down, and 
withereth” (Ps. xc. 5, 6). And thus they found the weight 
of that threat, γνώσετε τὸν ϑυμὸν τῆς ὀργῆς μοῦ, “Ye shall 
know the vehemency of my wrath,” Numb. xiv. 384. They 
were also thus punished for the evil intentions of their hearts; 
for, saith Stephen, “In their hearts they turned back into 
Egypt,” Acts vii. 30: so that, by “the word of God,” I am 
inclined to understand his threats denounced against unbe- 
lievers, Numb. xiv., Ps. χον. 11. It also may deserve to 
be noted, that Philo, lib. de Cherub. p. 86, G, ascribes most 
of these epithets to the Aéyos, saying, “The flaming sword 
was a symbol of the Word, especially of the First Cause, 
ὀξυκινότατον γὰρ καὶ ϑερμὸν ὃ Λόγος, for his Word is quick and 
fervent.” And again, “God,” saith he,* “whetting his 
sword, the dissector of all things, divides the inform essence 
of all things, and cuts them in the middle.” 

8 Ver. 13. Πρὸς ὃν ἡμῖν 6 λόγος, To whom we must render 
an account.) So Matt. xii. 36, “Of every idle word that 
men shall speak, ἀποδώσουσι λόγον, they shall give an account 
in the day of judgment ;” Matt. xviii. 23, «The kingdom of 
heaven is like to a certain king, who would, owdpa déyov, 
make up an account with his servants;” Luke xvi. 2, ἀπόδος 
λόγον, “ Give up an account of thy stewardship; Rom. xiv. 


*"O Θεὸς ἀκονησάμενος τὸν τομέα τῶν συμπάντων, αὐτοῦ λόγον, 
διαιρεῖ Gyoppov καὶ ἄποιον τῶν ὅλων οὐσίαν. Lib. quis Rer. 
Divin. Heres, p. 391, A. 


i 


901 


touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but (one 
who) was in all points tempted (7. e. exposed to suffer- 
ings) like as we are, yet (and this) without sin (lo de- 
serve the least of them: see note on ii. 18). 

16 Let us therefore (depending on his power, his in- 
tercession for, and sympathy with us) come boldly * unto 
the throne of grace, (ihis ἱλαστήριον, or mercy-seal, 
Rom. iii. 25,) that we may obtain mercy (in the par- 
don of our sins), and find grace (or favour) to (a suif- 
able) help in time of need (Gr. εἰς edxacpov Boy Sear, for 
seasonable help in all our sufferings for his Ais 


12, “Every one, λύγον ἑώσθθτω Θεῷ, shall give an account of 
himself to God;” Phil. iv. 17, “I desire fruit that may 
abound, εἰς λόγον ὑμῶν, to your account;” Heb. xiii. 17, ὡς 
λόγον ἀποδώσοντες, “As they that must give an account;” 1 
Pet. iii. 15, “ Being always ready to give to every one that 
asks you, \éyov, an account of the hope that is in you ;” and, 
iv. 5, of ἀποδώσουσι λύγον, “ Who shall give an account to him 
that is ready to judge the quick and dead.” 

9 Ver. 16. To the throne of God.] The Jews say, God 
hath a double throne, one of judgment, and the other of 
mercy : and when he beholds the world obnoxious to con- 
demnation he rises from his throne of judgment, and places 
himself on that of merey. This throne of mercy is our 
blessed Jesus, styled by this apostle, ἱλαστήριον, the true 
“ propitiatory,” or “ mercy-seat:” by this high-priest and in- 
tercessor we must come unto God, “he being able to save 
to the uttermost them that come unto God by him,” vii. 25. 

Note also, That some great men think the rest and sab- 
batism, discoursed of, ch. iii. iv., refers to the millennium, 
or the time of the conversion of the Jewish nation, and the 
new heavens and new earth, then promised; but I am not 
able to assent to that opinion, for this reason, that the apos- 
tle writes to the believing Jews of the present age, warning 
them, that “ there be not in them an evil heart of unbelief in 
departing from the living God,” and exhorting them to con- 
tinue unto the end in faith, iii, 13, 14, that so they might 
“not fail of this rest” of God; and to “ fear lest, a promise 
being made of entering into this rest, any of them should fall 
short of it,” iv. 1, 3, And again, ver. 11, “Let us give dili- 
gence to enter into this rest, that we fall not by the same 
example of unbelief.” Now these exhortations could not pro- 
perly be directed to the believing Jews of that age, concern- 
ing the millennium, or the glorious times which were to hap- 
pen at the conversion of the Jewish nation, they being to 
die one thousand seven hundred years before that conversion, 
which is not yet accomplished, and before those glorious days, 
which are not yet come; for what advantage, in reference to 
that, could they receive by this diligence, who were to die so 
long before it happened, and being once in heaven or para- 
dise, could neither expect nor desire to come down thence to 
be partakers of any enjoyments, or better company here on 
earth? But these exhortations are very properly directed 
to them, to take care they fail not of their rest in the celes- 
tial Canaan, typified by their rest in the earthly Canaan, the 
time when they should rest with God, saith Origen, “ascend- 
ing to the vision of him, the rest of souls in the land of the 
living, the rest in the life and the world to come, and in life 
eternal” (see note on ver. 8. 10); seeing these blessings only 
can belong to, and at the time of retribution will only be 
conferred upon, them who use this diligence. And hitherto 
the apostle seems plainly to refer it, when he speaks of “so 
great salvation,” ii. 3, of “bringing many sons to glory,” 
ver. 10, of their being partakers κλήσεως ἐπουρανίου, “of a 
heavenly calling,” iii. 1, the hope and confidence of which 
he exhorts them to “hold fast unto the end,” ver, 6, and 
then immediately begins his discourse of this rest. 


CHAPTER V. 


[Ler us come forth, saith he, to God’s throne of 
grace with freedom, as having there such a high-priest 
in whom are all things by way of excellency to be 
found, for which the Levitical priesthood was ordained, 
and repaired to; as having, 


1 A better priesthood, viz. after the order of Met 
chisedec, ch. vii. 

2 A better consecration to it, viz. by an oath. 

3 A better tabernacle in which he ministers, 

4 A better sacrifice offered there. 


" 


902 


5 A better covenant established in his blood.] 

1 For every high priest taken from among men is 
ordained for (the service of ) men in things ! per- 
taining to (the worship and propitiation of) God, 
that he may offer both ? gifts and sacrifices for 
sins: 

2 (And he is one)Who can have compassion ὃ on the 
ignorant, and on them that are out of (Gr. err from) 
the way (offering willingly and interceding affectionately 
on their behalf); for that he himself also is compassed 
with (the like) infirmity. 

3 And by reason hereof (of which infirmilies) he 
ought (by God’s command, agg from the nature of the 
thing), as for the people, so also 4 for himself, to offer 
(sacrifices) for sins. 

4 And*no man taketh this honour unto himself, but 


HEBREWS. 


he (only enjoys zt) that is called of God, as was Aaron 
(and his posterity. 

5 And) So also (was zt with our Lord) Christ (for 
he) glorified not himself to be made an high priest; 
but he (appointed him to be so) that said unto him, Thou 
art my Son, ὃ to day have I begotten thee. 

6 As he saith also (of Aim) in another place, Thou 
art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec (as 
being raised up to appear for ever in the heavens, and there 
officiate as a priest for us). 

7 Who in the days of his (continuance in the) flesh, 
when he had offered up (Gr. offering up) prayers and 
supplications with strong crying and tears unto him 
that was able to save him from death, and was (Gr. 
being) 7 heard ὃ in that he feared ; (and being heard so 
far as to obtain deliverance from his fears, which he 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


' Ver. 1. Τὰ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, In things pertaining to God.] 
“To procure and perform those things which relate to the 
worship and the propitiation of the Deity.’ So Crellius. 

2 Δῶρά re καὶ Svoias, Gifts and sacrifices.] Both these 
may relate to sacrifices for sin; for not only peace-offerings, 
but gifts of any kind are called pyya5pa, dopa, Matt. v. 23, 
and nn is by the seventy interpreters often rendered ϑυσία, 
Gen. iv. 3.5, Exod. xxix. 41, xxx. 9, xl. 26. Levit. and 
Numbers, centies. 

3 Ver. 2. Tots ἐγνοοῦσι καὶ πλανωμένοις. He refers to the 
sins which go under the names of xyn and own: for the 
word non belongs properly to the thing, in doing which we 
err from the way; and an expiatory sacrifice was therefore 
required from him that did so, because he knew 33v) xonw 
+72, ‘that he had erred and gone from the way :” but pwx 
was asin committed out of ignorance of the command of 
God: so Abarbanel. For sins committed ἑκουσίως, “wit- 
tingly,” and “ with a high hand,” or from a will set in oppo- 
sition to the law of God, there was no sacrifice appointed by 
the law: and to this the apostle alludes, x. 26, saying, 
“To them that sin wilfully there remains no more sacrifice 
for sin.” 

4 Ver. 3. Περὶ ἑαυτοῦ, For himself.) Here Grotius notes, 
that this being spoken generally of every priest taken from 
among men, Christ also must have offered for himself a sa- 
crifice for sin; i.e. that he might be delivered from those 
sorrows, which were the punishment of sin, and were inflicted 
on him upon occasion of our sins. But in this he seems 
guilty of great and manifold mistakes; for, (1.) the apostle 
plainly speaks of the sinful infirmities of these priests, who 
therefore were to offer for their own sin, vii. 27, whereas of 
Christ he declares, that though he was “in all other things 
made like to us, yet χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας, without sin,” iv. 15, that 
“he offered himself to God a lamb without spot,” ix. 14, that 
being thus “holy, free from evil, undefiled, and separate 
from sinners, he needed not (upon a day), as those high- 
priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then 
for the people’s,” vii. 26, xxvii. 2. He was not nor could 
he, after he became our surety, be delivered from those sor- 
rows, which were the punishment of our sins, he being, as 
our expiatory sacrifice, not only on occasion of our sins, but 
in our stead, to bear the punishment of our iniquity. 

5 Ver. 4. Kai οὐχ ἑαυτῷ τις, No man.] i. 6. According to 
the law, say most interpreters ; but I see no necessity of this 
limitation, it being true that no man can promise to himself 
God will accept his offerings, who hath no commission from 
God to make such offerings; whence doth arise a good ar- 
gument, to show that sacrifices are of divine, and not of 
human institution only. 

6 Ver. 5. This day.] I have shown, note on ii. 10, that 
Christ was by his death consecrated to his priesthood; 
whence it must follow, that he could not exercise his sacer- 
dotal function till after death: and this the apostle showeth 
here, by saying, he was made a high-priest by the Father, 
saying, “ Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee :” 
for that this relates unto the resurrection of our Lord, is evi- 
dent, because we find the same apostle proving his resur- 


rection from these words, Acts xiii. 33, which he could not | 


have done, had they not been intended as a prediction of his 
resurrection. 

7 Ver. 7. Εἰσακουσϑεὶς, He was heard.) i. 6. Delivered 
from his fear. So the word doth and must signify, when it 
relates to prayer for deliverance from evils. So Ps. xxii. 21, 
σῶσόν pe, “Save me from the mouth of the lion, καὶ ἀπὸ 
κεράτων μονοκερώτων, and hear me from the horns of the uni- 
corns ;” Ps, xxxiv. 6, “This poor man cried, καὶ εἰσήκουσε 
αὐτοῦ, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his 
troubles ;”’ and, ver. 4, “I sought the Lord, καὶ εἰσήκουσε, 
and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears;”’ Ps, 
Iv. 2, 3, Attend unto me, καὶ εἰσάκουσόν pe, and hear me, 
ἀπὸ φωνῆς ἐχϑροῦ, καὶ ἀπὸ ϑλίψεως ἁμαρτωλοῦ, from the voice 
of the enemy, and from the vexation of the wicked ;” and, 
ver. 16, “I cried to the Lord, and the Lord εἰσήκουσέ pov, 
heard me ;” ver. 18, “He delivered my life, ἀπὸ τῶν ἐγγιζόν- 
τῶν pot, from those that drew nigh to me;” Ecclus. li. 10, 11, 
εἰσηκούσϑη ἡ δέησίς pov, “My prayer was heard, for thou 
savedst me from destruction” (see Ps. xxxi. 7). 

8 ᾽Απὸ τῆς εὐλαβείας, From his fear.| Some would have 
this rendered so, “ He was heard by reason of his reverence 
of God ;” but it is truly rendered, “from his fear :” and so 
the word continually signifies, both in the Old and the New 
Testament, and when it is used, as it very often is, by Philo. 
So Josh. xxii. 24, ἕνεκεν εὐλαβείας ἐποιήσαμεν τοῦτο, “ We did 
this out of fear;’”’ and, Wisd. xvii. 8, καταγέλαστον εὐλαβειαν 
ἐνόσουν, * They were affected with a ridiculous fear;” Heb. 
xii. 28, “Let us serve God acceptably, per’ αἰδοῦς καὶ εὐλα- 
Betas, with reverence and godly fear; Acts xxiii. 10, εὐλαβη- 
Seis 6 χιλίαργος, “The captain fearing ;” Heb. xi. 7, “ Noah, 
εὐλαβηθεὶς, fearing, prepared an ark:” so Josephus saith of 
the king, Esther’s husband, that he “held forth his sceptre, 
εὐλαβείας αὐτὴν ἀπολύων, delivering her from her fear :” and 
in the Septuagint, εὐλαβεῖσθαι ἀπὸ προσώπου Κυρίου, is to “fear 
before God,” Exod. iii. 6, Jer. v. 22, Hab. ii. 20, Zeph. i. 7, 
iii. 13, Zech. ii. 13; and εὐλαβεῖσθαι ἀπὸ προσώπου αὐτοῦ, is to 
“fear before man,” or be afraid of men, 1 Sam. xviii. 15, 
Job xix. 29, Isa. Ivii. 11, Jer. xxii. 25, Ecclus. vii. 7. This 
sense also the particle ἀπὸ doth require, which rarely doth 
import the meritorious cause. His prayers and tears also do 
express the greatness of his fears; and, lastly, the scope of 
the apostle requires this sense, he being here representing 
our Lord as one of like passions with us, that he might show 
he was “a merciful high-priest.” This fear he became sub- 
ject to, say Grotius and the fathers, because the divinity for 
a season as it were withdrew its influences from the human 
nature, καὶ yap τὴν ἀνθρωπύτητα τοῦτο παϑεῖν ἡ Θεύτης συνεχύρησε, 
“for the Deity permitted the humanity thus to suffer,” saith 
Theodoret. And this doubtless all those fathers intended, 
who followed that reading, ii. 9, that “he tasted death for 
every man,” χωρὶς Θεοῦ for that this was no depravation of 
the Nestorians, as CEcumenius and Theophylact fancied, is 
evident from this, that his words are thus cited by Origen,* 
and by Ambrose,t who lived before Nestorius. 


* Χωρὶς καὶ Θεοῦ ὑπὲρ παντὸς ἐγεύσατο Savdrov, ὅπερ ἐν τισὶ 
κεῖται τῆς πρὸς Ἑβραίους ἀντιγράφοις χάριτι Θεοῦ. Orig. Com. in 
Joh. ed. Huet. tom. ii. p. 38, Ὁ. 

+ Ut sine Deo pro omnibus gustaret mortem De Fide 
ad Grat. lib. ii, cap. 4. Theodoret in Jocum. 


CHAPTER VI. 


did by an angel sent to strengthen him, Luke xxii. 
43; 

2 Phough he were a Son, yet 3 learned he (the dif- 

lty of ) obedience (to death) by the things which 

e suffered (¢. e. by the agonies and terrors which he suf- 
fered at the apprehension and approach of the death he 
was to suffer, and so was the more fitted to be to us a 
compassionate high-priest under our sufferings for his 
sake) ; 

9 And being (by these sufferings) Ὁ made perfect 
(τελειωδ εὶς, consecrated to his priesthood), he became 
the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey 
him; 

10 (Being) called (or, constituted) of God an high 
priest after the order of Melchisedec (¢. e. for ever). 

11 Of whom (ἡ. 6. whose priesthood) we have many 
things to say, and (those) " hard to be uttered, (or ex- 


903 


plained, not from the nature of the things themselves, but) 
seeing (ἐπεὶ, because) ye are dull of hearing. 

12 For when for the time (ye have professed the faith) 
ye ought to (have been able to) be teachers (of it to 
others), ye have need that one teach you again which 
be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are 
become such as have need of milk (the food of babes), 
and not of strong meat (the food of men). 

13 For every one that useth milk 7s (as yet) unskil- 

ful in the word of righteousness: for he is (but) a 
babe (in Christ, 1 Cor. iii. 2, xiv. 20, Gal. iv. 19, Eph. 
iv. 14). 
14 But strong meat belongeth to them (only) ™ that 
are of full age (7. e. perfect men), even (to) those who 
by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern 
both good and evil. 


9 Ver. 8. Ἔμαθεν ay’ ὧν ἔπαθε τὴν ὑπακοὴν, He learned obe- 
dience, from or by the things that he suffered.) These 
words I have expounded thus: “ He learned (the difficulty 
of ) obedience (to the death) by the things that he suffered.” 
But I conceive they may be also rendered and expounded 
thus: ver. 7, “He was heard and delivered from his fears,” 
to wit, from those fears which threw him into an agony in 
the garden, and against which an angel was sent from hea- 
ven to comfort him; ver. 8, καίπερ ὧν υἱὸς, * Though being a 
Son (even the proper Son of God), he taught us obedience 
by the things that he suffered,” or by the death he suffered 
in obedience to the will and commandment of his Father 
(John x. mh for as the Hebrew +p} signifies both to learn 
and to teach, and is by the Septuagint above twenty times 
rendered διδάσκειν, “to teach;” and as the word /earn in our 
language signifies also to teach, as in these words of the old 
translation, Ps. exix. 66, “Ὁ learn me understanding and 
knowledge:” so also, saith Eustathius,* the word μανθάνω 
is μέση λέξις, a word that signifies both to teach and to be 
taught, and is so used by the authors that lived after Homer’s 
time, and by the sophisters. 

10 Ver. 9. Τελειωθεὶς, Made perfect.| That this word is 
here taken in the notion of consecration, may appear, saith 
the reverend Dr. Hammond, by the words following; as the 
application of it, ‘being pronounced or declared a high- 
priest,” which belongs to Christ after his resurrection, and 
not before, that being the time when he entered into his hea- 
venly tabernacle, living there for ever to appear before God, 
and exercise that function in his presence for us; and so he 
became a high-priest for ever. 

1 Ver. 11. Δυσερμήνευτος, Hard to be utlered.] See here 
what are Paul’s δυσνύητα, “things hard to be understood” 
(2 Pet. iii. 16) ; viz. those things which were not so in them- 
selves, or through the difficulty of the matter revealed, but 
through the imbecility and weakness of them to whom they 
were spoken. 

12 Ver. 12. Στοιχεῖα τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν λογίων τοῦ Θεοῦ, The first 
principles of the oracles of Οοα.} It is the descant of all the 
ancient commentators on this place,t that by these “ first 


* "Ὥσπερ δέδαεν οὐ μόνον τὸ ἐδιδάχθη, ἀλλὰ Kai τὸ ἐδίδαξεν, οὕτω 
καὶ τὸ μανϑάνειν ἄμφω ταῦτα δηλοῖ, in Homer, ed Rom. p. 
1561, lib. xii., et rurstis, οὕτω καὶ τὸ μανθάνειν μέσως ἔχει, ὡς 
δηλοῖ τὸ μανθάνω γράμματα παρὰ τοῖς σοφισταῖς. Ibid. p. 1883, 
lib. xlv. 

Ἢ Στοιχεῖα τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν λογίων τοῦ Θεοῦ, τοὺς ταπεινοτέρους 
ὑπὲρ τοῦ Χριστοῦ λόγους ἐκάλεσε. Τοῖς γὰρ μηδέπω τὴν πίστιν 


principles” the apostle understands “the humanity of Christ, 
because the preachers of the gospel spake of that only to 
them who were not yet perfect in the faith:” and yet this 
seemeth neither to be true nor safe; not true, because the 
apostle had in the first and second chapters of this epistle, as 
all these commentators teach, spoken to those rude Jews of 
the deity of Christ, and because he mentions not Christ’s 
human nature among the principles of the doctrine of Christ, 
reckoned up vi. 1, 2; not safe, because it seems to intimate 
that Christians might be taught the faith before they had the 
knowledge of the divinity of Christ, and consequently that 
this was no necessary part of the Christian faith. 

Note, Secondly, That hence we may fairly guess who 
were, in the Epistles to Timothy, the teachers of the law 
who “neither understood what they said, nor whereof they 
affirmed,’ 1 Tim. i. 7; and the ἑτεροδιδάσκαλοι, “the false 
teachers, who were proud, knowing nothing, but doting 
about questions and strifes of words, men of corrupt minds, 
and destitute of the truth,” vi. 3—5, and who were always 
learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the 
truth,’ 2 Tim. iii. 7; viz. not the Gnostics, but in all likeli- 
hood the Jewish false teachers, and such as were perverted 
by them. 

Note, Thirdly, That this seems not to be spoken of all the 
Jews, but only of the greatest part of them; that therefore 
which is spoken of the deity of Christ, the Melchisedecian 
priesthood, the virtue of Christ’s priesthood, belonged to the 
more perfect, who were not to be debarred of the knowledge 
of these things by reason of the imbecility of their brethren. 

13 Ver. 14. Τελείων δὲ. See the sense of the word « per- 
fect,” note on 1 Cor. ii. 6. This metaphor seems to be 
taken from the digestion of the stomach: that which is light 
of digestion, and needs not much concoction, as solid food 
and strong meat do, being here represented by the name of 
milk; and so in reference to the judgment, that which can 
easily be learned, and apprehended aright, and in which we 
are in no great danger of mistaking, as ars the first princi- 
ples of religion, mentioned ch. vi., is compared to “ milk;” 
but that we cannot easily discern, and about which we are 
subject to mistakes and wrong conceptions, as the things 
mentioned in the former note were to the Jews, is called 
“strong meat.” 


ἐσχηκόσι τἔλειαν, τὰ περὶ τῆς ἀνδρωπότητος προσέφερον μόνα τῆς 
ἀληθείας οἱ κήρυκες. Ita heodoret. Chrysost. Gicum. Theo- 
phylact. in locum. Τὴν μὲν καὶ ἀνθρώπινον παρουσίαν τοῦ Κυρίου. 
Tren. lib. iv. cap. 75. 


CHAPTER VI. 


1 Tuererore leaving the principles of the doc- | them to you), ' let us go on unto perfection (i. e. to 
trine of Christ (‘hough your small proficiency in them | the doctrines which will render you perfect men in the 
makes it seem almost necessary to discourse anew of | knowledge of Christ); not laying again the founda- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


perfect signifies to be fully instructed in the principles of 


1 Ver. 1. 'Exi τὴν τελειότητα, To perfection.) That to be | Christian faith, see note on 1 Cor. ii. 6. 


904 


tion of (Christianity in the doctrines of ) repentance from 
dead works (7. e. from works deserving death, Rom. vi. 
23, viii. 13), and of faith toward God, 

2 (And) Of the 2 doctrine of baptisms (that of water 
and of the Spirit, by which they that repent and believe 
are initiated into the church of Christ), and 3 of laying 
on of hands (after baptism, for the receiving of the Holy 
Ghost), and of resurrection of the dead, and ¢ of eternal 
judgment (the great motives to engage all Christians herein 
to exercise themselves, to have always consciences void of 
offence towards God and towards all men, Acts xxiv. 
15, 16). 


2 Ver. 2. Βαπτισμῶν διδαχῆς, The doctrine of baptisms.) 
He speaks not of the baptism of John and of Christ, for the 
baptism of John was preparatory to repentance and faith in 
Christ; nor of the baptism of martyrdom, that being not 
ordinarily known to the Jews by that name; but of the 
double baptism, of which the Baptist spake in these words, 
“T baptize you with water, but there is one who cometh 
after me, he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and 
with fire” (Matt. iii. 11); and of which our Saviour speaks 
to Nicodemus, saying, “ Except a man be born again of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
of God” (John iii. 5); for this in order follows the doctrine 
of repentance, and faith in God and our Lord Jesus Christ. 

5. ᾿Επιθέσεώς re χειρῶν, Imposition of hands.| Imposition 
of hands was used in ordination, healing of the sick, and ab- 
solution of penitents; but this imposition of hands was not 
common to all Christians, nor joined with baptism ; nor was 
it to be reckoned among the principles or initiatory doctrines 
of the Christian faith. It remains therefore that we under- 
stand this of the imposition of the apostles’ hands, used after 
baptism, for the receiving of the Holy Ghost, mentioned Acts 
vill. 17, «Then laid they their hands on them, and they re- 
ceived the Holy Ghost” (see xix. 6). 

4 Kai κρίματος atwviov, Of eternal yudgment.] Hence inter- 
preters observe that the doctrine of Origen, touching the 
period of the torments of the damned, is here condemned : 
and indeed the primitive fathers, not Origen himself excepted, 
taught the contrary. “If we do not the will of Christ,” 
saith Clemens Romanus,* οὐδὲν ἡμᾶς ῥύσεται τῆς αἱωνίου κολά- 
sews, “nothing will deliver us from eternal punishment.” 
«The black way” in Barnabast is ὁδὸς τοῦ ϑανάτου αἰωνίου pe- 
τὰ τιμωρίας, “the way of eternal death with punishment.” 
“The punishment of the damned,” saith Justin Martyr,+ 
“is κύλασις καὶ τιμωρία ἐν αἰωνίῳ πυρὶ (κόλασις ἀπέραντος, κύλασις 
αἴωνιος, πυρὸς αἰωνίου δίκη), endless punishment and torment 
in eternal fire:” in Theophylact§ it is κύλασις αἰώνιος, αἰώνιος 
τιμωρία, “eternal punishment.” Ireneus,| in his symbol of 
faith, makes this one article, that τοὺς ἀσεβεῖς καὶ ἀδίκους εἰς τὸ 
αἰώνιον πῦρ πέμψῃ, * Christ would send the ungodly and unjust 
into everlasting fire.” 

Tertullian declares, omnes homines aut cruciatui desti- 
nari aut refrigerio, utroque sempiterno, “that all men are 
appointed to eternal torments or refreshments. And if any 


man,” saith he, “thinks the wicked are to be consumed,’ 


and not punished, let him remember, ignem gehenne zter- 
num predicari in peenam eternam, that hell-fire is styled 
eternal, because designed for eternal punishment ;” and thence 
concludes “ their substance will remain for ever, whose pu- 
nishment doth so.” Cyprian** saith, Servantur cum cor- 
poribus suis anime infinitis cruciatibus ad dolorem; that 
“the souls of the wicked are kept with their bodies, to be 
grieved with endless torments.” Tormentis nec modus ul- 
lus aut terminus, “'There is no measure nor end of their tor- 
ments,” saith Minutius.t+ Lastly, Origent+ reckons this 
among the doctrines defined by the church, that “ every soul, 
when it goes out of this world, shall either enjoy the inhe- 
ritance of eternal life and bliss, if its deeds have rendered it 


* Frag. Ep. 2. Sect. 20, 

+ Ap. i. p. 41, 46. Ap. ii. p. 57, 64, 71, 87. 

§ Ad Autol. p. 79. 

|| Lib. i. cap. 2, lib. ii. cap. 6, lib. iii. cap. 4. 

{ De Test. Anime, cap. 4, et de Resur. Carnis, cap. 35. 
** Ep. iii. lib. de Laude Mart. et libr. contr. Demetr. 

ἢ P. 39. + Proem, Περὶ 'Apxav. 


HEBREWS. 


3 © And this will we do, if God permit. 

4 (1 say, let us not attempt wholly to lay again the 
foundation of Christianity;) For it is impossible for those 
who were once ® enlightened (in baptism), and 7 have 
tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers 
of the Holy Ghost (sent down from heaven, and conferred 
on them by the imposition of hands), 

5 And have tasted the good word of God (preached 
among them with such variety of tongues, and confirmed 
by so many miracles), and (have seen and fell) * the 
powers of the world to come, 

6 If they shall fall away (from Christianity), 


fit for life, sive igni eterno ac suppliciis mancipanda est, or 
is to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishment, if its 
sins have deserved that state.” 

5 Ver. 3. Kai τοῦτο ποιήσομεν, And this will we do, δες. 
This verse by Grotius and Dr. Hammond is thus interpreted ; 
We purpose some other time to instruct you farther in these 
rudiments of Christianity, if you do not in the meantime 
fall from the Christian faith (ii. 1. 3); “If there be not in 
you an evi] heart of unbelief, in departing from the living 
God” (iii. 12); “If you fall not after the same example of 
unbelief which your forefathers gave” (iv. 11). 

Others put this verse in a parenthesis, and make it relate 
to these words, ver. 1, “ Let us go on unto perfection,” or 
to the higher doctrines of Christianity, as God willing we 
now intend to do. So Acts xviii. 21, “God willing I will 
return unto you. I will come to you speedily if God will,” 
1 Cor. iv. 19. And this interpretation I like best. 

6 Ver. 4. Φωτισθέντας, Enlightened.] That baptism from 
the beginning was called φωτισμὸς, “ illumination,” we learn 
from the concurrent testimonies of Justin Martyr,* Ire- 
neus, and Clemens Alexandrinus,t which makes it very 
probable that this phrase obtained from the beginning of 
Christianity, and so this answers to the doctrine of baptisms, 
ver. 2. 

7 Γευσαμένους re τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς ἐπουρανίου, And have tasted 
of the heavenly gift.) i. 6. The Holy Ghost sent down from 
heaven, styled by our Saviour, τὴν éwpeay τοῦ Θεοῦ, “ the gift 
of God,’ John iv. 10. Thus our Saviour, discoursing of 
baptism by water and the Holy Ghost, and of regeneration, 
ἄνωθεν, “from above,” by virtue of this Spirit, saith, he dis- 
coursed περὶ τῶν ἐπουρανίων, “of heavenly things,” John iii. 
12, and they, who were sealed with the Spirit of promise, 
Eph. i. 13, are said to be blessed with spiritual blessings, ἐν 
τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, “in heavenly things;” and this gift was im- 
parted by imposition of hands, Acts viii. 17, xix. 6. 

8 Ver. 5. Kai καλὸν γευσαμένους Θεοῦ ῥῆμα, And have tasted 


‘the good word of God.) i. e. And have been acquainted 


with the gospel, which affords the promise of remission of 
sins, and of justification here, and of a resurrection to eternal 
life hereafter (ver. 2). So the promise of bringing the 
children of Israel into the land of Canaan is styled 7377 
wen, ῥῆμα καλὸν, “a good word,” Josh. xxi. 45, xxiii. 15; 
the word of God for bringing his people out of captivity is 
styled 3122 135, “ my good word,” Jer. xxix. 10; the words 
of consolation, which the angel spake to Jerusalem, are 
ἘΞ. Ona, ῥήματα καλὰ, “ good words,” Zech. i. 133; the 
promise made to God's people of remission of sins, and 
peace and truth in the days of the Messiah, is awa 7277; 
“a good word ;” and the prophet speaking of the Messiah 
saith, “My heart meditateth a good word,” ay 735, λόγον 
ἀγαθὸν, Ps. xlv. 1. This word they saw confirmed by the 
gift of tongues and prophecy, vouchsafed to the first 
preachers of it, and daily experimented in their assemblies 
(1 Cor. xiv.), and so they could not but be convinced of the 
truth of it. 

9 Δυνάμεις τε μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, The powers of the world to 
come,] ‘Che world to come doth, in the language of the pro- 
phets and of the Jewish doctors, signify the times of the 
Messiah, who, in the prophet Isaiah, is called, 6 πατὴρ 


* Καλεῖται dé τοῦτο τὸ λύτρον φωτισμὸς, ὡς. φωτισμένων τὴν 
διάνοιαν τῶν ταῦτα μανθανόντων. Justin. Dial. ii. p. 94. 

7 Καλεῖται δὲ πολλαχῶς τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο χάρισμα καὶ φώτισμα, 
καὶ τέλειον, καὶ λουτρόν. Clem. Alex. Ped. lib. i. cap. 6, lib. 
ix. A. 


CHAPTER VI. 


% to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they 
(by so doing) crucify to themselves (or by themselves) 
the Son of God “afresh, and put Aim to an open 
shame. 

7 For (as) the earth which drinketh in the rain 
that cometh oft (from heaven) upon it, and (so) bring- 
eth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, 
receiveth (farther) blessing from God, (so is it with 
them who become fruilful under the dew and showers of 
divine grace :) 

8 But that (earth) which (being thus dressed and 
watered) beareth (only) thorns and briers is " re- 
jected, and zs nigh unto cursing; whose end és to be 
burned. 

9 But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of 
you, and things that accompany salvation, though we 
thus speak (to warn you of the danger of falling off from 
the gee kena 

10 For (if ye be not wanting to yourselves) God is 
not unrighteous to forget ® your work (of faith) and 
(your) labour of love, which ye have shewed toward 


905 


his name, in that ye have ministered to the (necessities 
of the) saints, and (yet) do minister (to them). 

11 And we desire (ἐπιθυμοῦμεν de, we desire there- 
fore) that every one of you do shew the same diligence 
(which hitherto ye have done,) to the (intent that ye may 
retain a) full assurance of hope unto the end : 

12 15 That ye be not slothful (Gr. may not be sloth- 
ful), but followers of them who through faith and pa- 
tience inherit (ed) the promises. 

13 For when God (upon his faith in offering his son 
Tsaac) made promise to Abraham, ™ because he could 
swear by no (one) greater, he sware by himself, 

14 Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and 
multiplying I will multiply thee. 

15 Arla so (accordingly), after he had patiently en- 
dured, he obtained the ® promise (of a seed multiplied 
greatly to him, Gen. xxii. 17. 

16 God confirming his faith in the promises made to 
him after the manner of men :) For men verily swear by 
the greater: and an oath for confirmation és to them an 
6 end of all strife (or contradiction). 


μέλλοντος αἰῶνος, “the Father of the world to come” (see 
note on ii. 5). “The powers,” therefore, “of the world to 
come,” according to the scripture idiotism, must be the ex- 
ternal operations of the Holy Ghost, viz. the gifts of faith, of 
healing, of casting, out devils, ἐνεργήματα δυνάμεων, 1 Cor. xii. 
8, 9, “the working of miracles,” or “the operations of 
powers.” Or, secondly, this fourth particular may answer to 
the day of judgment, which is the fourth thing mentioned, 
ver. 2, as the three former seem to do to the three other 
things there mentioned, and then “the powers of the world 
to come” may signify the powerful persuasions the doctrine 
of a future judgment administers to repentance and a new 
life (Acts xvii. 30, 31, 2 Cor. v. 10, 11); though of this 
import of the phrase I find no example. 

10 Ver. 6. ᾿Αδύνατον τούτους πάλιν ἀνακαινίζειν εἰς μετάνοιαν, It 
ts impossible to renew these to repentance.) For these be- 
ing all the means, internal and external, by which God gave 
testimony to the truth of Christian faith, and the prophetic 
office and glorious resurrection of our Lord; they, saith the 
apostle, who, after a full experience of them, do of their own 
accord renounce that faith, cannot be renewed to repent- 
ance, because they have already resisted all that evidence 
which God saw fit to give men of the truth of that faith and 
of this Messiah; and so they become guilty of that sin 
against the Holy Ghost, which, saith our Saviour, shall 
never be forgiven (Matt. xii. 32). 

But then the παραπεσόντες, “men that thus fall away,” 
are not those who lapse in the times of persecution, and much 
less those who, through the temptations of the flesh, may 
sometimes fall into great sins, for to such the apostle grants 
place for repentance, 2 Cor. xii. 21; and one of these he 
delivers to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, “that the 
spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus,” 1 Cor. 
v. 5; exhorting his Corinthians, upon his repentance, to re- 
ceive him into their communion, 2 Cor. ii. 7, 8 ; but such as 
after these experiences of the truth of the Christian faith, 
have voluntarily renounced it, relapsing either to heathenism 
or Judaism ; for they are such as “ apostatize from the living 
God,” iii. 12, such as “ fall through unbelief,” iv. 11, such 
as “hold not the profession of the faith,” x. 23, such as 
«draw back from the faith,” ver. 38. 

Secondly, This will be farther evident from the description 
of these persons, they being here said ἀνασταυροῦν ἑαυτοῖς, 
“by themselves to crucify Christ afresh,” and παραδειγ- 
ματίζειν, “to put him to an open shame,” as one that de- 
served the punishment which the Jews inflicted on him, and 
being apostate Jews, to crucify Christ again. 

Ver. 8. ᾿Αδόκιμος, Rejected.] It is rejected of the hus- 
bandman, who will spend no more labour upon it, but leave it 
to be scorched by the heat, and so to be like the heath, which 
is the emblem of the cursed man, Jer. xvii. 5, 6; or like the 
barren fig-tree which the Lord cursed, saying, “ Never fruit 
grow on thee more,” Matt. xxi. 19. Accordingly, they on 
whom the showers of divine grace fall down from heaven, if 
they bring forth no good fruit, shall be ἀδύκι μοι, “ rejected” 

Vor. IV.—114 


by God, continue under the curse of the law, and their end 
shall be destruction. 

2 Ver. 10. Tod ἔργου ὑμῶν, Your work.] This seems to be 
the ἔργον πίστεως, “ work of faith,’ mentioned 1 Thess. i. 3, 
2 Thess. i. 11, and joined with ὃ κύπος τῆς ἀγάπης, “ the la- 
bour of love,” as here; and which is styled ἔργον dyaSév, “ the 
good work,” Phil. i. 6, Rom. ii. 7 (see note on that verse), 
the following exhortation being this, That they would con- 
tinue in the faith to the end, and be imitators of them “who 
through faith and patience did inherit the promises.” 

18 Ver. 12. Ἵνα μὴ νωθροὶ, That ye be not slothful.] 1. 6. 
God being so engaged on his part to let nothing be want- 
ing which is requisite to enable you to persevere, and so 
to enjoy the fruits of your faith in the salvation of your 
souls, see that ye be not slothful, nor faint-hearted, but still 
continuing the same Christian diligence to the end, that so 
ye may at last enjoy the blessings promised by this gospel, 
and live in an assured hope of them, as your father Abraham 
did. - 

M Ver. 13. Ἐπεὶ κατ' οὐδενὸς εἶχε μείζονος ὁμόσαι, Because he 
could swear by no greater.) So Philo, ὁρᾶς γὰρ ὅτι οὐ Kad? 
ἑτέρου duvier ὃ Θεὸς, οὐδὲν γὰρ αὐτοῦ κρεῖττον, ἀλλὰ καϑ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ, 
«Thou seest that God sweareth not by another, for there is 
nothing better than he, but by himself” (Leg. Alleg. lib. ii. 
p- 75, D.) 

He swears, δι ἑαυτοῦ, by himself.| It may perhaps not 
be unworthy of our observation, that where God saith in the 
Old Testament, “i swear by myself;’”’ the Jerusalem Tar- 
gum renders this frequently ν᾽, “ by my Word,” as Exod. 
xxii. 16, Deut. i. 1, xxxii. 22. 26. 

15 Ver. 15. Τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, The promise.] This cannot be 
understood of Isaac the promised seed, he being not only 
born, but offered, when God made this promise to Abraham ; 
nor can it be said that he inherited the promise because he 
saw it afar off, that being a sign he did not yet inherit it ; or 
that he did this in his posterity, for the apostle saith, he him- 
self inherited the promises: which is exactly true of the 
words cited here by the apostle, “Surely, blessing I will 
bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee;” for the 
book of Genesis assures us, this promise was exactly fulfilled 
in his life: for the Lord blessed him in all things (Gen. xxiv. 
1). He had a numerous seed by his wife Keturah (Gen. 
xxv.), to whom he gave gifts (ver. 6). From Ishmael arose 
twelve sons, which were princes of their tribes (ver. 13, 16). 
He lived fifteen years after the birth of Jacob and Esau by 
Rebekah, of whom the oracle declared, that “ there were two 
nations in her womb:” for Isaac was sixty years old when 
they were born to him (ver. 23. 26) ; he himself was born 
when Abraham was a hundred years old (Gen. xxi. 5); 
Abraham was a hundred and seventy-five years old when he 
died (Gen. xxv. 7): he therefore lived fifteen years after the 
birth of Jacob and Esau, and ninety years after the birth of 
Ishmael; and so lived to see this promise verified to 
him. 

6 Ver. 16. ᾿Αντιλογίας πέρας, An end of contradiction.) 

442 


906 HEBREWS. 


17 Wherein (ἐν ῳν in which thing accordingly) God, 
(being) willing more abundantly to shew (not only to 
Abraham, but also) unto the heirs of promise the im- 
mutability of his counsel, confirmed zt by an oath: 

18 That by two immutable things, in which 7t was 
impossible for God to lie (viz. his promise and his 
oalh), we might have a strong consolation, who have 
fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before 
us: (who, to escape the wrath impendent on the unbe- 
lieving Jews here and hereafler, have fled to the hope 
of glory set before us in Christ Jesus, the lively hope of 


Diodorus Siculus* informs us, that the Egyptians styled an 
oath, μεγίστην πίστιν, “the greatest confirmation.” It is, 
saith Dionysius Halicarnassensis, τελευταία πίστις, «the last 
or utmost assurance.” It is, in the language of Procopius, 
ὕστατον, καὶ ἐχυρώτατον πίστεώς re καὶ ἀληϑείας ἐνέχυρον, “ the 
last and firmest pledge of faith and truth.” That the apos- 
tle here speaks of promissory oaths, is evident from the oc- 
casion of this discourse, viz. his promise made to Abra- 
ham. Now these oaths being equally conducing to this 


7 

* Τὰ ἐνῥοιαζόμενα τῶν πραγμάτων ὅρκῳ διακρίνεται, καὶ τὰ 
ἀβέβαια βεθαιοῦται, καὶ τὰ ἄπιστα λαμβάνει πίστιν. Philo de 
Somn. p. 441, 442. 


an inheritance incorruptible, to which we are begotten 
by Christ Jesus, 1 Pet. i. 3:)- 

19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, 
both sure and stedfast (in all the storms and billows of 
the world), and which " entereth into that within (Gr. 
the inward part of ) the veil ; 

20 Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even 
Jesus, (who is) made an high priest for ever after the 
order of Melchisedee (and so one that can never die, 
or miscarry in his office, but lives for ever, there to ap- 
pear in the presence of God for us, vil. 24, 25). 


good end in all ages, we have just reason to believe that 
Christianity allows of them for these ends. 

17 Ver. 19. Eis τὸ ἐσώτερον τοῦ καταπετάσματος, Which en- 
tereth into the veil.| Which, being the hope of the heavenly 
mansions typified by the sanctum sanctorum, within the veil, 
carries our expectation thither: the Jews had the highest ex- 
pectations from the service of the high-priest entering into 
the holy of holies; if on the day of expiation he came out 
alive, “ there was great joy, for then they thought they were 
accepted.”’* How then may we rejoice in contemplation of 
that heavenly sanctuary ! 


* Gemar. tit. Joma. 


CHAPTER Vial. 


1 (Which order, sure, was very excellent, and there- 
fore fit to represent the priesthood of the holy Jesus, 
the King of saints, and Prince of peace:)For this Mel- 
chisedec, ' king of Salem, priest of the most high 
God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter 


of the (four) kings (mentioned Gen. xiy. 9), and 
blessed him (ver. 18) ; 

2 To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all 
(the spoils taken by him); first being by interpreta- 
tion (of the word Melchisedec,) King of righteousness, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII. 


1 Ver. 1. Βασιλεὺς Σαλὴμ, King of Salem.] They seem 
mistaken who think this Salem was the same with Jerusa- 
lem; for it is plain from this very place, Gen. xiv. 15—17, 
that Salem was in the way which led from the valley of Da- 
mascus unto Sodom. Jerome* also saith that he learned, 
ab eruditissimis gentis illius, “from the most learned of the 
Jews, that Salem was not Jerusalem, but a town near Scy- 
thopolis,” which till then was called Salem: and it retained 
its name in our Saviour’s days, as appears by the evangelist 
saying that “John baptized near Salem,” John iii. 23. Now 
of this Melchisedec, king of Salem, let it be noted, 

First, That he must be a man, not an angel, not the Holy 
Spirit: for (1.) “every high-priest,” saith the apostle, “ 15 
taken from among men,” y. 1. (2.) The scripture still 
speaks of him as a man, describing him by his proper name, 


his kingly dignity, and the city where he dwelt, and by his | 


personal actions, proper to a man, his bringing forth bread 
and wine, and his receiving the tithes of the spoils. And, 
(3.) from these words, “Consider, πηλίκος οὗτος, what an 
eminent person this Melchisedec was, to whom Abraham 
gave the tenth of the spoils ;” things, surely, which neither 
angels nor the Holy Spirit would receive, nor was it neces- 
sary to prove their dignity. Accordingly, Josephus} saith 
expressly that “he was a king of the city of Salem;” and 
Philo,+ that “he was a king, and not a tyrant.” 

Secondly, He could not be Sem, as the Jews vainly ima- 
gine, for the apostle saith here expressly, that Melchisedec 
was not ysveadoyotpevos ἐξ αὐτῶν, i. e. “one who had his pe- 
digree or descent from them,’ which is not true of Sem: 
nor could he be said to be “without father or mother,” 
whose genealogy is evident from Adam, Gen. v. 32, x. 1, 
and who was the son of Noah. Nor was Sem’s priesthood, 
if he had any, of a different order from Levi’s, who was “in 
his loins,” as well as Levi was “in the loins of Abraham ;” 
and therefore it could not be said that “ Levi paid him tithes 
in the loins of Abraham,” but it would be as true that he 


* Ep. ad Evagrium, tom. iii. f. 14, C. 
t Antig. lib.i. 4 Cap. 11, lib. ii. de Legis Alleg. p. 57. 


received tithes in the loins of Sem: for, according to this 
interpretation, he was in the loins both of him that received 
tithes, and of him that paid them ; which destroys the whole 
argument of the apostle here. Moreover, there is no visible 
cause why Moses should call Sem, whom he so often men- 
tions, by any other name than his own, by which he doth so 
oft make mention of him; nor is it likely that Sem reigned 
in the land of Canaan, which now was in the possession of 
his brother’s son ; nor could Abraham be said to “sojourn 
there as in a strange country,” if his noble ancestor Sem 
had been king there. 

Thirdly, Much less could he be the eternal Λόγος, or the 
Son of God himself; for as he only was a priest according 
to his human nature, i. e. that nature in which he was infe- 
rior to God, and which he had not yet assumed, and was 
then constituted a high-priest, when God said to him at his 
resurrection, “This day have I begotten thee,” v. 5; so 
could he not be a high-priest after his own order, or made 
like unto himself. But Melchisedec was in this like unto 
him, that he was both “a priest of the most high God,” and 
a “king” also in that country, those two offices being an- 
ciently in the same person; whence the Hebrew jap, “a 
priest,” is by the Targum often rendered Ν 5, “a prince;” 
see Gen. xli. 45, Exod. ii. 16, iii. 1, 2 Sam. viii. 18, xx. 26, 
1 Kings iv. 6, Job xii. 19; and on those words, Ps. cx. 4, 
“Thou art a priest for ever ;” “ Thou shalt be a great prince 
for ever,” is the descant of the Jewish ‘Targum : 

Note also, that here again Mr. Le Clere is insufferable, 
when he says, “ Because the allegorical writers of the Jews 
at that time accommodated innumerable places to the Mes- 
siah, not relying upon any grammatical interpretation, but a 
certain old custom of explaining the scripture after this man- 
ner; and because they interpreted Ps. cx. of the Messiah, 
the sacred writer makes use of that interpretation to his pur- 
pose ; and because they acknowledged the Messiah ought to 
be like Melchisedec, he reasons against them from their own 
concessions, not against other men, who might have denied 
what he affirmed: otherwise, if the thing be considered in 
itself, no strong or grammaticalargument can be drawn against 
others from that history ; and therefore such things are not 
too much to be urged now, because that way of explaining 


CHAPTER VII. 


and after that also (s/y/ed) King of Salem, which (by 
interpretation) is, King of peace; (and being) 

3? Without father, (or) without mother (of any 
priestly order), without descent (from any of the pedi- 
gree of Abraham, ver. 7). having neither beginning of 
days (from which his priestly office was to commence), 
nor end of life (in which it terminated); but (being) 
4 made like unto the Son (@ son) of God; abideth a 
priest continually. 

4 Now consider how great this man (Gr. he) was, 
unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave δ the 
tenth of the spoils (which anciently were given to kings 


907 


and priests, as belonging to God, whom they servcd or re- 
presented ). , 

5 And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, 
who receive (7. e. they indeed of the sons of Levi 
receiving) the office of the priesthood, have a com- 
mandment to take tithes of the people according to 
the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come 
out of the loins of Abraham (i. e. they receive tithes only 
by virtue of the law, and that from them only who come 
out of the loins of Abraham, as well as they, Numb. xvill. 
21. 26): 

6 Bat he ® whose descent is not counted from them 


scripture is grown out of use :” that is, the apostle proceeds 
all along upon weak grounds, and urges arguments that in 
themselves depend on falsehoods, only because some silly 
Jews had said the same thing before him. I read, indeed, 
in profane Celsus,* this vile reflection on the sacred penmen, 
that “they produce things unknown, fanatical, uncertain, 
and which no wise man thinks to be of any strength ;” but 
I am sorry to find a Christian writer thus exposing them to 
the contempt and scorn of anti-scripturists. “Christ is a 
priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec,” saith the 
apostle, vi. 20. So indeed you tell us, out of the idle tales 
and “allegorical interpretations of some brain-sick Jews,” 
saith Mr. Le Clerc; but without all ground. “It is περισ- 
σότερον κατάδηλον, exceeding manifest,” saith the apostle, 
“that another priest should arise after the order of Melchise- 
dec,” vii. 15. It is no such thing, saith Mr. Le Clerc; this 
follows only from the vain concessions of the Jews: “an- 
other man may deny what you thus confidently affirm.” « It 
is exceeding manifest,” saith the apostle, “for the scripture 
testifies this, by saying, Thou art a priest for ever after the 
order of Melchisedec,” ver. 17. And God hath confirmed 
this by an oath, in these words, “ ‘The Lord sware and will 
not repent, Thou art a priest for ever.” You make use of 
a rabbinical interpretation, saith Mr. Le Clerc, and call that 
falsely a scripture testimony ; “but another may deny what 
you thus assume, for no strong or grammatical argument can 
be drawn from these words.” 

2 Ver. 3. ᾿Απάτωρ, &e. Without futher, without mother, 
&c.] It being certain that these things cannot be properly 
spoken of a man, it is necessary to interpret them as I have 
done in the paraphrase ; and to this interpretation the apostle 
leads, by styling him, dyeveadéynrov, “ without pedigree,” as 
being μὴ γενεαλογούμενος ἐξ αὐτῶν, “not of the genealogy of 
the people of Abraham.” 

3 Μήτε ἀργὴν ἡμερῶν, μῆτε ζωῆς τέλος ἔχων, Having neither 
beginning of days nor end of life.| Though I have placed 
another exposition of these words in the paraphrase, I con- 
demn not the ordinary sense which interpreters put upon 
these words, viz. That in scripture there is nothing said of 
the beginning or end of his life; for so Philo saith of Cain, 
« Perhaps the sign that Cain should not be killed was this, 
τὸ μηδέποτε ἀναιρεϑῆναι, that he should never be taken away 
by death, οὐδὲ γὰρ ϑάνατον αὐτοῦ διὰ πάσης τῆς νομοϑεσίας δεδή- 
λωκεν, for Moses had said nothing of his death” (L. Quod 
deter. p. 145, C.). 

4 ᾿᾿Αφωμοιωμένος δὲ τῷ υἱῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ, But made like to the 
(a) son of God.] All the interpreters I have met with refer 
this to Christ, of whom Melchisedec was a type, he being the 
antitype, as being emphatically “a King of righteousness,” 
and “a Prince of peace,” without earthly father, as to his 
divinity ; without mother, as being not of the genealogy of 
the Aaronical priesthood ; “ without beginning of days” as to 
his divine nature, “and without end of life” as to his priest- 
hood. But the apostle is not here speaking of Melchisedec’s 
likeness to Christ, but of Christ’s likeness to him, as being 
“a priest after the order of Melchisedec:” nor do these 
things well suit with our Lord Christ, who, as to his human 
nature, was not “without mother,” nor, as to his priesthood, 
“without beginning of days,” Luke iii. 23. I therefore 
rather think, that as in all the former characters, so here the 
apostle speaks of Melchisedec, and saith, he was, in this, 


* "Ayvwora, καὶ πάροιστρα, καὶ πάντα ἄδηλα, ὦν τε μὲν γνῶμα 
οὐδεὶς ἂν νοῦν ἔχων εὑρεῖν ὀύναιτο, ἀσαφῆ γὰρ καὶ τὸ μηδὲν. Orig. 


lib. vii. p. 888. 


“Jike to a son of God,” or to one of the angels, who are im- 
mortal, and never cease to be: for it is certain, that the 
angels are often styled “the sons of God:” so Job i. 6, 
pnbs 923, “the sons of God,” are, in the Septuagint, ἄγγελοι 
τοῦ Θεοῦ. So also ii. 1, xxxviii. 7, Ps. xxix. 1, Chal. So 
Dan. iii. 25, “lhe vision of the fourth is like υἱῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ, a 
son of God,” i. e. an angel of God: for so it follows, ver. 28, 
« He sent his angel, and delivered them.” It is the observa- 
tion of the book of Wisdom, ii. 3, that “man was made im- 
mortal, and to be an image of God’s eternity ;” and at their 
resurrection, saith Luke, “they shall die no more, but shall 
be like unto the angels, καὶ υἱοί εἰσι rod Θεοῦ, and are the sons 
of God, being sons of the resurrection ;” and our υἱοϑεσία, or 
«sonship,” is by this apostle made to consist in “the re- 
demption of the body from corruption” (see note on Rom. 
viii. 23). Melchisedee therefore being here represented as 
one who had no end of his life; and upon-that account, one 
who “ abides a priest for ever,” is in this said to be like to 
“a son of God;” whence, ver. 8, the apostle opposes him to 
priests that die, saying, “ There he received tithes, of whom 
it is testified that he liveth,” viz. Ps. cx. 4. 

5 Ver. 4. Δεκάτην τῶν dxpoSwiwy, The tenth of the spotls.] 
Ta dxpoSivia, saith Phavorinus, are, τὰ τῶν πολέμων, “the 
spoils of war;” they are, saith Hesychius and Suidas, af 
λαφύρων ἀπαρχαὶ, “the first-fruits of the prey ;” or, as Jose- 
phus* saith, δεκάτη τῆς λείας, “ the tenths of what was gotten 
by war;” it being a very ancient custom to give partly to 
the gods, and partly to kings, the tenths or first-fruits of these 
spoils : and so Melchisedec might here receive them both as 
a king and as a priest. That they were given to the gods, 
we learn from those words of Arrian,t “ We ought, in hunt- 
ing, to begin from the gods, and to present to them the first- 
fruits of what we have taken, οὐ μεῖον ἢ ἐν τῆ νίκη πολέμου 
ἀκροϑίνια, no less than in a victory in war, the chief of the 
spoils.” Thus did the Athenians, saith Herodotus,+ who, 
τῶν λύτρων τὴν δεκάτην ἀνέϑηκαν, “consecrated the tenth of 
their prize to the gods.” Diodorus Siculus saith, all the 
Greeks did it; and Josephus saith, that Joshua preserved 
fhe gold and silver of the inhabitants of Jericho to be 
ἀπαργὴν éalperov τῷ Occ, “excellent first-fruits to God of 
their spoils” (Anti. lib. v. cap. 1, p. 136). See this as to 
both parts largely proved by Dr. Spencer. And evident it 
is, that Abraham here paid not the tithes of all he had, but 
only the tenths of the spoils: (1.) Because he had nothing 
else there, the remainder of his estate being at Mamre. 
(2.) The manner of paying tithes being not this, that aman 
shall pay the tenth of all he hath, but only that he pay “the 
tenth of his increase ;” and that not whenever he meets the 
priest, but at the time of harvest only, or when he receives 
from God’s hands the increase of it: it cannot then be 
thought reasonable, that Abraham should give to Melchise- 
dec the tithes of any other spoils than those he had now 
reaped by way of harvest. 

δ Ver. 6. Ὃ δὲ μὴ yeveadoyotpevos ἐξ αὐτῶν, Whose descent, 
ἄς. Thus Philo] saith, that ἱερέα ἑαυτοῦ πεποίηκεν ὃ Θεὸς 
οὐδὲν ἔργον αὐτοῦ προδιατυπώσας, " God made him his priest, 
having not mentioned any work that he did before: and 
elsewhere he saith that “he received αὐτομαδϑῆ καὶ αὐτο- 
didaxrov ἱεροσύνην, a priesthood taught and learned by him- 
self.” 


* Antiq. lib. i. cap. 11, p. 18. 
+ Lib. v. cap. 77. 

§ Lib. iii. 10, sect. 1, 2. 

| Lib. ii, Alleg. p. 57, E. 


+ Hist. lib. ix. p. 543. 


908 


(being no kin to Abraham) received tithes of Abraham 
(himself), and blessed him that had the promises 
(that in him should all the families of the earth be 
blessed ). 

7 And without all contradiction (in all solemn bene- 
dictiuns, ex officio,) the less is blessed of the better 
(and so he that blessed Abraham must be greater than 
he was). 

8 And here (under the Levitical priesthood) men that 
die receive tithes; but there (ἐπ the instance of Melchi- 
sedec) 7 he recetveth them, of whom it is witnessed (Ps. 
ex. 4) that he liveth. 

9 And § as I may so say, (the family of ) Levi also, 
who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. 

10 For he was yet in the loins of his father (Abra- 
ham), when Melchisedec met him. 

11 If therefore 9 perfection (ἡ. e. full expiation of 
sins) were (to be oblained) by the Levitical priesthood, 
(as it must have been, had it come by the law, ver. 18, 
19,) (for under (Gr. about) it the people received the 
Jaw,) what further need was there that another priest 
should rise (as the psalmist saith) after the order of 
Melchisedec, and not be (rather) called (ἃ priest) after 
the order of Aaron? 

12 (And yet you see this need there was;) For the 
priesthood being changed (7. 6. translated from the 
order of Aaron to that of Melchisedec), there is made 
of necessity a change also of the law (concerning priest- 


HEBREWS. 


hood, ver. 14, or touching priests to be repaired to for 
expiation. 

13 And this change is signified by these words, Thou 
art a priest for ever afler the order of Melchisedec ;)For he 
(ὦ. e. Christ) of whom these things (words) are spoken 
pertaineth to another tribe (than that of Levi), of which 
(tribe) no man gave attendance at the altar. 

14 For zt ts evident that our Lord (to whom these 
words belong) sprang out of (the tribe of ) Juda; of 
which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priest- 
hood. 

15 And it is yet far more evident: (by saying,) 
"for that (Gr. εἰς that) after the similitude of Mel- 
chisedec (not of Aaron, ver. 11) there ariseth another 
priest, ; 

16 Who is made (a priest), not after the law of a 
carnal commandment (relating to men that are flesh and 
blood, and so infirm, and subject to mortality ; for all flesh 
is grass, Isa. xl. 6, and therefore must be succeeded by 
others), but after the power of an endless (or indissolu- 
ble) lite. 

17 For (thus) he testifieth, (by saying,) Thou arta 
priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. 

18 (J say, not after the law of a carnal command- 
ment,) For there is verily (tn these words) a disannul- 
ling of the commandment going before (the preceding 
commandment concerning the Levitical priesthood and 
sacrifices,) for the weakness (of zt as to justifica- 


7 Ver. 8. He.] They seem to be mistaken who think this 
only belongs to Christ, and not at all to Melchisedec: the 
contrary is manifest, (1.) from the particle καὶ, which shows 
that the apostle is still speaking of the same person, i. e. 
Melchisedec ; and from the three following verses, which all 
speak of him: nor is here more said of him than ver. 3, 
where it is affirmed, he had “ neither beginning of days nor 
end of life.” And by the opposition betwixt the Aaronical 
priests as dying, and him as living, and by the word μαρτυ- 
poopsvos, which respects a testimony of this thing, it is evi- 
dent that the apostle infers this from the words of the 
psalmist, “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Mel- 
chisedec.” 

8 Ver. 9. ‘Qs ἔπος εἰπεῖν] Is not here to speak briefly, and, 
as in a word ; but ὡς ἂν εἴπη τὶς, “as a man may say,” or, ἵνα 
οὕτως εἴπω, that I may so say ;” because, saith Theophylact, 
it was τύλμημα, “a harsh figure ;” “for in such a manner,” 
saith Quintilian,* “we use to mollify harsh expressions :” 
which is enough to guard us against the inference which some 
make from these words, that “in like manner’? we may be 
said to have sinned in Adam, as being in the loins of Adam 
when he sinned. Which may be granted τρόπον τινα, “in ae 
manner,” because we derived from him that death which 
was the punishment of his sin, as coming from the loins of 
one mortal, and deriving from him a nature subject to that 
sin which deserveth death: and more cannot be inferred 
from these words, because the apostle here says no more of 
Levi, but that he, “in a manner,” paid tithes in Abraham. 
(2.) Because by the like argument it may be proved, that 
Jesus Christ himself, as man, paid tithes to Melchisedec, for 
he also was in the loins of Abraham when Melchisedec met 
him, and consequently that he was also inferior to Melchise- 
dec; which perhaps was the very reason why the apostle 
thus mollifies his words, and is so careful to let us know he 
useth here a form of speech which is not proper and exact, 
and such as ought not to be pressed too far. And therefore 
(3.) the subject-matter fairly shows the difference : for tithes 
are paid out of such things as are the fathers’ goods, and so 
would have descended, by the laws of nature and nations, to 
their posterity, had they not been thus given to another ; but 
good and evil actions are merely personal, and therefore, 
though the effects of both may, and often do, descend unto 


* Et si quid periculosius finxisse videmur, quibus- 
dam remediis premuniendum est, Ut ita dicam, Si licet 
dicere, Quodammods, lib. viii. 3. Twa τρόπον. CEcum. 
pic. 


posterity, the good actions of the parents bringing temporal 
blessings on their offspring, and their evil actions subjecting 
them to temporal calamities and diseases; yet their merit or 
demerit cannot be properly derived or propagated to their 
posterity: for as no man is a good man, in the account of 
God, purely because his father, or some of his progenitors, 
were so ; so neither is any man properly a sinner, or evil in 
the sight of God, merely because his parents were so before 
he was born. 

9 Ver. 11. Τελείωσις, Perfection.| That this word, relating 
to priests and oblations, signifies expiation and purification, 
see note on x. 1. 

10 'Ἔπ᾽ αὐτῇ γὰρ ὃ λαὸς vevopoSérnro, For about that the 
people received the law.] i. e.'The law appointed that the 
people, under all their defilements which needed any expia- 
tion and purgation, should repair to the Levitical priests: or, 
Under the priesthood, the people received the law concern- 
ing sacrifices; the priesthood being first instituted, and then 
the laws concerning sacrifices and expiation. 

Kai οὐ κατὰ τάξιν ᾿Ααρὼν λέγεσθαι. ‘The words are in all the 
Greek scholia, Vulgate, Syriac, Arabic, and yet are by Dr. 
Mills rejected as a marginal note, upon the sole authority of 
the Ethiopic (see Examen Millii) : so viii. 4, τῶν ἱερέων 15 re- 
jected upon the authority of the Vulgar and three MSS. 
though it be in all the Greek scholiasts, the Syriac, and 
Arabic: so ix. 22, cxédov is wanting only in the Syriac and 
Ethiopic, and yet rejected by the doctor: so ὃ Θεὸς, x. 9, is 
rejected upon the sole authority of the Ethiopic, against the 
authority of the Greek commentators and all the other ver- 
sions: and, xiii. 21, he rejects ἔγνω upon the sole authority 
of the Vulgar (see Exam. Millii). 

U Ver. 15. Ei, For that.] The particle εἰ often signifies 
quod, that, in scripture, as doth the Hebrew px. So Acts 
xxvi. 8, * Why should it be thought impossible, εἰ Θεὸς ve- 
κροὺς ἐγείρει, that God should raise the dead?” And ver. 23, 
ei παϑητὸς ὃ Χριστὸς, εἰ πρῶτος, Ke., * That Christ hath suf- 
fered, and that he is the first that rose from the dead.’ So 
Jer. ii. 28, “ Where are thy gods, εἰ ἀναστήσονται, that they 
may arise and save thee?” (see 1 Tim. v. 10, 2 Chron. vi. 
18. 

2 Ver. 18. Διὰ τὸ αὐτῆς ἀσθενὲς, For the weakness of it.) 
«“ For what the law could not do,” i. 6. that deliverance from 
death, that justification to life, it could not give, ἐν ᾧ jjoSévce 
διὰ σαρκὸς, “in that it was weak through the flesh,” rendering 
us subject to the transgression of it, and so to death by the 
sentence of it, Christ, by his sacrifice for sin, did (Rom. 
viii. 3). 


CHAPTER VII. 


tion,) and 13 unprofitableness thereof (as to the expiation 
of sin). 

19 For (thus) “ the law made nothing perfect, but 
the bringing in of a better hope did; by the ® which 
we draw nigh unto God. 

20 And (by so much is Jesus made the mediator of a 
beller covenant,) inasmuch as (his priesthood, by virtue 
of which he became this mediator, was) not without an 
oath he was made priest (as was that of the tribe of 
Levi) : 

21 (For those priests were made (such) without an 
oath; but this with an oath by him that said unto 
him (Ps. ex. 4), The Lord sware and will not repent, 
Thou arta priest for ever after the order of Melchi- 
sedee:) (Now where no oath intervenes, God may change 
his institution, but not after his oath. 

22 I say,) By so much was Jesus made a surety of 
a better testament (established upon belter promises, 
viii. 6). 

23 ind (to proceed in the comparison) they truly were 
many priests (successively), because they were not suf- 
fered to continue by reason of death : 

24 But this man (Gr. but he, ὃ. e. Jesus, ver. 22), 


909 


because he continueth (for) ever, hath an unchange- 
able (high) priesthood (which passeth not away, and so 
admits of no succession to it). 

25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the 
uttermost (Gr. for ever) that come unto God by him, 
seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them 
(and by that intercession to become the propiliation for their 
sins for ever, 1 John ii. 2. 

26 And thus was he a high-priest suited to our con- 
dition :) For such an high priest became us (sinners), 
who is holy (ἡ, 6. consecrated to his office, and so holiness 
lo the Lord, Exod. xxviii. 36), harmless (dxaxos, free 
from evil in himself), undefiled (by the impurities of 
others), separate from sinners (and so not liable to any 
defilement by dwelling among them), and (therefore) made 
higher than the heavens; (he being ascended far above 
the heavens, Eph. iv. 10, and passed through the heavens, 
Heb. iv. 14, into the presence of God, there to appear for 
ever for us ; 

27 And so one) Who needeth not daily, as those 
high priests (under the law cig to offer up sacrifice, 
first for his own sins (which he, being free from evil, 
ver. 26, could not do), and then for (the sins of ) the 


13 Τὸ ἀνωφελὲς, The unprofitableness] Of the law, here 
mentioned, must not be taken absolutely, for that the apos- 
tle denies, declaring in his answer to that question, “ What 
advantage then hath the Jew” above the gentile? or, ris ἢ 
ὠφέλεια ; * What is the profit of the circumcision ?”’ that it 
is “much every way” (Rom. ili. 1, 2) : and reckoning among 
their advantages, the giving of the law (Rom. ix. 4), and 
showing the uses of it, and the reason which moved God to 
give it (Rom. vii. 8, Gal. iii. 19.24). But the precepts of 
the ceremonial law were ἀσθενῆ καὶ πτωχὰ στοιχεῖα, “ weak 
and beggarly elements,” compared to those of the gospel 
(Gal. iv. 9), and wholly unprofitable as to justification, or 
the absolution of the sinner, or transgressor of it, from the 
guilt of sin, as the apostle testifies in these words, Rom. iii. 
9, « What then are we (Jews) better than they (the gentiles) ? 
οὐ πάντως, not altogether; for we have before proved (touch- 
ing) both Jews (ch. 11.) and gentiles (ch. i.), that they 
are all under sin (and so both equally stand in need of justi- 
fication by faith).” 

M4 Ver. 19. Οὐδὲν yap ἐτελείωσεν ὁ νόμος, For the law made 
nothing perfect.| Nor is it to be wondered, that the law, of 
which the Levitical priesthood was the chiefest part, and that 
only which concerned the expiation of sin, should be thus 
disannulled, since it was thus weak and unprofitable as to 
the absolution of the sinner from the guilt of sin, and could 
not, by its sacrifices, τελειῶσαι, procure an absolution as to 
conscience, to those that came unto God by them, from the 
guilt of sin (x. 1, a They could not make “ the worship- 
pers” of God by them “perfect, as appertaining to con- 
science” (ix. 9); i. e. so as to have no more conscience of 
the guilt of sin. This made it necessary that they should 
give place to the introduction of a better hope. 

15 'Eneicaywyh κρείττονος ἐλπίδος, The introduction of a 
better hope =] i. 6. The introduction of that sacrifice, which 
gives a better hope ; a hope of entering, not into an earthly 
tabernacle, which was all the Jewish sacrifices could procure, 
“the way of entering into the holy of holies being not yet 
made manifest,” ix. 8, but of “entering within the veil,” vi. 
19; the “hope of good things to come, by a better and more 
perfect tabernacle,” ix. 11; the hope, not of an annual, but 
of an eternal redemption (ver. 12); not of an inheritance to 
be continued for a little time in the land of Canaan, but of 
an “eternal inheritance” (ver. 15) ; “ Christ being entered,” 
not into an earthly tabernacle, as the Aaronical priests did, 
which was the figure of the true, “but into heaven itself, 
there to appear in the presence of God for us” (ix. 24), and 
so procuring to us “freedom to enter into the holiest by the 
blood of Jesus.” 

1 Ad ἧς ἐγγίζομεν τῷ Θεῷ, By which we draw nigh to God :} 
Having our consciences purged from dead works, by the 
blood of Christ, to serve the living God (ix. 14), and having 
through him “ freedom to come unto him with full assurance 
of faith” (x. 22), and by which “we are made, ἐγγὺς» nigh 


to God through the blood of Jesus” (Eph. ii. 13), and have 
“access unto the Father” (ver. 18). 

7 Ver. 20. Kai καϑ' ὅσον.----κατὰ τοσοῦτον. Here is plainly 
the figure called σύγχυσις, OF συμπλοκὴ, verborum, that which 
is put last being to be construed first, as is manifest from the 
6 δὲ, “but he,” relating to the “ Mediator of the better cove- 
nant,” in the following verse. So Mark xiv. 23, 24, “ And 
taking the cup, he gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they 
all drank of it; and he said unto them, This is the blood of 
the new testament,” &c. For it is manifest from Matt. 
xxvi. 27, 28, that Christ first said, “This is my blood of the 
new testament,” before they drank of it. And so those 
words, ver. 23, “ And they all drank of it,” must in con- 
struction follow those of ver. 24, “This is the blood of the 
new testament:” so Rev. xx. 12, “And I saw the dead, 
small and great, standing before the throne of God, and they 
were judged,” &c.; and ver. 13, «And the sea gave up her 
dead, and death and hades gave up their dead, and they were 
judged according to their works:” and yet it is certain, that 
the sea and hades must give up their dead, before they could 
stand before the throne of God, or be judged. So Heb. ii. 1, 
«“ We sce Jesus made a little lower than the angels, for the 
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that he, 
by the grace of God, might taste death for every man ;” 1. 6. 
for the suffering of death, that so by the grace of God he 
might taste death for every man, crowned with glory and 
honour. 

18 Ver. 26. *Axaxos, Harmless.] ”Axaxos, ἀπόνηρος" the word 
imports “one free from sin: so Chrysostom and Theophy- 
lact; and this place, saith Philo,* must be the property of 
a true high-priest, for ὃ πρὸς ἀλήϑειαν ἀρχιερεὺς, καὶ μὴ Ψευδώ- 
νυμος, ἀμέτοχος ἁμαρτημάτων ἐστι, “he that truly, and not 
improperly, bears that name, is free from sin ;” and of him 
that was to enter once a year into the holy of holies,j he 
saith, “ He must be, δλύκληρος καὶ παντελὴς, περὶ μηδέν, μὴ μέ- 
γα, μὴ μικρὸν, ἁπλῶς κεραίνων πάϑος, "GAN ἀρτίῳ καὶ πλήρει καὶ 
πάντα τελειοτάτη κεχρημένος φύσει, entire, perfect in all things, 
not tainted at all with any passion, great or small, but of a 
nature sound, whole, and every way perfect.” Κεχωρισμένος 
ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν, “separate from sinners.” This must 
signify something different from ἄκακος, “free from evil,” 
and undefiled by sin. And what can that be, besides what 
I have hinted in the paraphrase? Now to clear up this, let 
it be noted, that though the holy of holies was the place into 
which none entered but the high-priest, and he only “ once 
a year,” after a sin-offering had been first offered for him, 
yet God commands that an atonement should be made « for 
the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of 
Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins” 
(Lev. xvi. 16) ; i. 6. because it was seated among an unclean 


* De Victimis, p. 652, E. 
{ Lib. de Temul. p. 202, Ὁ. 


910 


people’s: for this (Jast) he did once, when he offered 
up himself. 

28 For the law maketh men high priests which 
have infirmity, (subjecting them to sin, and by that to 
mortality, whence they have need to offer, as well for 
themselves as for the people, ver. 27;) but the word of 


people, it needed an atonement. That therefore our high- 
priest might be every way clean and undefiled, he was to be 
not only free from sin, but also “separate from sinners,” as 
the high-priest* was seven days before the expiation, and 
when he made the expiation (Lev. xvi. 17). 
19 Ver, 27. Τοῦτο yap ἐποίησεν ἐφάπαξ, For this he did once 
fm αἰ.) Grotius and the Socinians contend, That Christ is 
ere said to have offered up himself « for his own sins ;” but 
then by sins, they say, is improperly signified his natural in- 
firmities and sufferings. But where hath the word sin any 
such import? It is indeed sometimes applied to impurities, 


* See Seld. de Syn. lib. iii. cap. 11, et Codex Joma, cap. 1. 


HEBREWS. 


the oath, which was since the law (as being in the 
psalms written, afler it), maketh the Son (our highs 
priest), who is consecrated (to this office) for evermore 
(he being not subject to those infirmities which brought 
mortality upon others). 


not moral, but only legal; as in the case of menstruous 
women, Lev. xii. 8, xv. 13, and to leprosies sent by the 
hand of God, for the punishment of sin, Ley. xiv. 30, but 
never to any thing which by the law of Moses was accounted 
no defilement. And how improper is it to make the same 
words, used but once, signify properly sin, when respecting 
the people, and only sufferings, with respect to Christ? 
Moreover, how did he offer up himself for his own sufferings? 
Did he suffer, that he might not suffer? or, that he might 
not be obnoxious to them? The interpretation therefore of 
all the ancient commentators, which I have given in the 
paraphrase, ought to stand, in opposition to this vain inven- 
tion. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


1 Now (for) of the things which we have spoken 
this ts the sum: (¢. e. To give you a summary of the 
things spoken in the former chapters, touching our high- 
priest, Christ Jesus; or, But the chief of the things 
spoken is this, That) we have (in him) such an high 
priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of 
the Majesty in the heavens, (there to officiate for us ; 

2 And who is therefore) A minister of the (heavenly) 
sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, ! which the Lord 
pitched, and not man, (for by the Word of the Lord 
were the heavens made, Ps. XXXxii. 

3 A high-priest, I say, of the heavenly sanctuary, 
and therefore one who must have something to offer in 
that sanctuary :) For every high priest is ordained to 
offer gifts and sacrifices (in that sanctuary in which he 


execules that office): wherefore it is of necessity that 
this man (the high-priest in heaven) have somewhat also 
to offer (there. 

4 I say there, and not on earth:) For if he were on 
earth, he should not be a priest, (or, had he been (still) 
on earth, he had not been a priest at all,) seeing that 
there are (other) priests that (are appointed to) offer 
gifts according to the law: 

5 2 Who serve unto the example and shadow of hea- 
venly things (or, in that holy place and tabernacle 
which is an example and shadow of the heavenly), as 
(we learn from whal) Moses was admonished of God 
when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, 
saith he (Exod. xxv. 40), that thou make all things 
according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 


1 Ver, 2. Ἣν ἔπηξεν ὃ Κύριος, The sanctuary which the Lord 
pitched and not man.) That is, of heaven itself. For, first, 
τὸ ἅγιον, in this epistle, being put absolutely, oft signifies 
“the heavenly sanctuary,” the holy mansion in which the 
divine Majesty resides gloriously, in opposition to the ἅγιον 
κοσμικὸν “earthly holy,” mentioned ix. 1. And “the true 
tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man,” is the 
heavenly tabernacle, set in opposition to the χειροποίητον, or 
that of Moses, “which was made with hands,” and styled 
by the Chaldee paraphrast, “the sanctuary above,” in which 
the angels sing God’s praises, Ps. xxix. 9. So, ix. 11, 
« Christ being come a high-priest of good things to come, by 
a greater and more perfect tabernacle, οὐ χειροποιήτου, not 
made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, but by 
his own blood he entered once into the holy place’ (ἐφάπαξ 
εἰς τὰ ἅγια, “once for all into the holy places”); x. 19, 
« Having freedom of access into the holy place, and having 
a high-priest over the house of God;” and, ix. 23, 24, «It 
was necessary that the examples of the things in the heavens 
should be purified with these, but the heavenly things them- 
selves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ entered 
not into the holy places made with hands, εἰς χειροποίητα 
ἅγια, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, 
to appear now in the presence of God for us.” And this is 
suitable to the old notions of the Jews, who oft declare, that 
the chief intention of making the tabernacle, and other 
things, was, That they might be a book of wisdom to in- 
struct them in the things above, which they respected ; and 
that when Moses made one tabernacle on earth, another was 
made by the angels in heaven (Buxt. Hist. Arce, p. 83, 84). 
It was also their opinion, that the second part of the taber- 
nacle was made to be an image of the visible world; and 
«the holy of holies to be a resemblance, mundi superceelestis, 


of the celestial world.” So Philo* often calls the tabernacle 
of the Jews, τὸ χειροποίητον, and says, it was “a shadow or 
resemblance, τοῦ ἀρχετύπου, of the archetypal or original in 
heaven.” Moses, says he, “framed τὰ ἀρχέτυπα, the arche- 
typal plan of the tabernacle; Bezaleel only, τὰ αὐτῶν μιμή- 
ματα, the resemblance of things :” and this he proves by the 
apostle’s argument, used ver. 5. For Moses, saith he, “ used 
God for his guide, who said to him, See thou make all things 
according to the pattern shown thee in the mount. Beza- 
leel,” saith he,t “signifies one, ἐν σκιαῖς ποιῶν, employed in 
making shadows; whereas Moses was employed, not to 
frame the shadows, but, ἀρχετύπους φύσεις αὐτὰς τῶν πραγμά- 
τῶν, the archetypal natures of the things themselves.’’+ 
Elsewhere he distinguisheth betwixt the τὰ δρώμενα ἐκ τῆς 
aWixou καὶ φϑαρτῆς dnutovpynSévra ὕλης, “ visible things of the 
tabernacle, made of inanimate and corruptible matter, and 7a 
ἀόρατα καὶ τὰ νοητὰ Sewphara, the invisible and intellectual 
ideas, of which the other were the images.”§ The first he 
calls, ἱερὸν χειροποίητον, “ the sanctuary made with hands, of 
which Moses had the incorporeal ideas.” And Josephus 
saith,| that “the second part of the tabernacle signified that 
earth in which men conversed, but the third part was appro- 
priated to God, heaven being inaccessible to men 3’ which 
seems to be the very thing the apostle intendeth by those 
words, “ The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into 
the holiest of all was not yet manifested, whilst the first 
tabernacle was yet standing,” Heb. ix. 8, 

2 Ver. 5. Ὑποδείγματι καὶ σκιᾷ, To the example and sha- 


* Legis Alleg. lib. ii. p. 61, B. 

+ D. de Plan. Now, p. 170, B. 

+ Lib. de Temul. p. 202, A, B. 

§ Lib. de Vita Mos. p. 515, 516. 

|| Τὴν δὲ τρίτην νόμῳ περιέγραψε τῷ Θεῷ διὰ τὸ καὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἂνε- 


πίβατον εἶναι ἀνθρώποις. Απίϊᾳ. Judaic. lib. ili. cap. 8, p. 86, G, 


CHAPTER VIII. 


For calling it, ὃ τύπος, a type or pattern, he shows that 
it was only a resemblance of the things in heaven, and not 
the heavenly things themselves, ix. 23.) 

6 But now hath he (Christ) obtained a more excel- 
lent ministry (viz. that of officiating in the heavenly sanc- 
tuary), by how much also (Gr. ὅσῳ xai, inasmuch as 
also) he is the mediator of a better covenant, which 
was established upon ὅ better promises. 

7 (4 better covenant, I say:) For if that first cove- 
nant (made by Moses with the Jews) had been * fault- 
less (so that God should have found no cause of blam- 


911 


ing them who lived under it), then should no place have 
been sought for (the introduction of) the second. 

8 (But so it was not ;)¥or finding fault with them 
(for the breach of it), he (ἡ. e. the prophet) saith, Be- 
hold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make 
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the 
house of Judah: 

9 Not according to the covenant that I made with 
their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand 
to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they 
continued not in (the observance of ) my covenant, and 


dow.] These words, saith Mr. Le Clerc, “ can by no means 
signify a prefiguration of something future,” for heaven was 
a great while before the tabernacle and temple. But this 
argument is of no force; for though heaven be older than 
the tabernacle, yet that considered as a place in which the 
Jews then worshipped, and enjoyed communion with God, 
might be a type of that place in which they were hereafter 
to worship and enjoy him. 

The argument of the apostle is to this effect : Christ could 
not be a priest on earth, because he could have there no 
tabernacle in which to offer sacrifice; the only place God 
had appointed upon earth to offer sacrifice in, being the Mo- 
saical tabernacle, and the temple, in which no other sacri- 
fices could be offered but those appointed by the law; no 
oblation made, or to be made, but by the Levitical priest- 
hood. Moreover, this tabernacle being the shadow of the 
heavenly one, that must succeed it as the substance; there- 
fore the oblation to be made by this high-priest after the or- 
der of Melchisedec, must be made in that tabernacle which 
was to succeed and follow this, as being the substance of 
that shadow. So GEcumenius here, “ Had he not died, and 
been received up into heaven, οὐκ ἂν ἦν ἱερεὺς, he had not been 
a priest.” 

3 Ver. 6. Better promises.) Those of the law being only 
temporal promises, relating to blessings to be conferred upon 
them in the land of Canaan; this covenant had the promise 
of an eternal inheritance, to be conferred upon them in the 
celestial Canaan, ix. 15. These spiritual promises were in- 
deed made to the fathers also of old, before the Jaw, whence 
they are said by faith to look for a better country, that is, a 
heavenly, and to have expected “a city that hath founda- 
tions, whose builder and maker is God,’ Heb. xi. 10. 16. 
But then these promises of a Saviour, and of such salvation 
by him, were not made in and by the law, but long before 
it (Rom. iv. 13, Gal. iii. 15. 17), as they must be, if made 
to them who lived and died long before it. Under the law 
also they had spiritual promises, and types of the Messiah in 
it, who was the promised seed, in whom all these promises 
were made, and by whom they were purchased; but then 
they had not these promises by the law, nor these blessings 
by the Levitical priesthood, but by the virtue of the Lamb 
slain from the beginning. 

4 Ver. 7. “Apeurros, If the first covenant had been fault- 
less :| That is, say the fathers, ef ἀμέμπτους ἐποίει, “if it 
could have made them blameless that were under it.” So 
Theodoret, Chrysostom, Gicumenius, Theophylact; and so 
the words following do force us to interpret this clause: for 
the apostle and the prophet plainly charge the breach of the 
old covenant upon the Jews themselves, blaming them for 
it, ver. 9. I know some interpreters render the words μεμ- 
φόμενος αὐτοῖς λέγει, “ Blaming it, he saith to them;”’ but 
the observation of the ancient fathers is this, οὐκ εἶπε μεμφό- 
μένος αὐτῇ, ἀλλὰ μεμφόμενος αὐτοῖς, “He said not, Blaming it, 
but, Blaming ‘hem ;” and the words following, « Because 
they continued not in that covenant,” do justify that expo- 
sition. 

Obj. But you will say, How doth it follow that the cove- 
nant was faulty, because the Jews continued not in it, any 
more than that the new covenant is also faulty, because many 
Christians do not observe the conditions of it? I answer, 
That the word “ faulty” doth not here signify sinful in itself, 
for so this apostle denies it to be faulty, Rom. vii. 7, but 
only imperfect and defective as to the great end of the cove- 
nant, “ Do this, and live,” it being a law “that could not 
give life” (Gal. iii. 21), and as to preserving those that were 
under it from offending, and so becoming blameworthy, and 


obnoxious before God (Rom. iii. 29). This being premised, 
I say, two things show, that the prophet and the apostle so 
lay the fault on them, as plainly to insinuate, there was also 
an imperfection and deficiency in the law they were under, 
which ministered occasion to it; first, because he lays the 
blame not on some refractory persons only, but on the whole 
house of Israel and Judah. Now where all, good and bad, 
come under blume, there must be some imperfection and de- 
fect in the law, with reference to the two great ends afore- 
mentioned. Secondly, because, for the prevention of this 
blame, God, by his prophet, doth not call them to a more 
exact observance of that law and covenant, but promiseth a 
new covenant; plainly insinuating thereby, that there was 
need of a new and better covenant, to prevent their trans- 
gression, and render them fit objects of his grace and favour 
for the future. Accordingly this weakness of the law is by 
Paul resolved, partly into such causes as respect the offen- 
ders, and partly into such as respect the law itself: into such 
as respect the offenders, as ver. 9, “the weakness of the 
flesh,” which made them unable to perform that exact obe- 
dience the law required, and so it became unable to justify 
them ; “for this the law could not do, in that it was weak 
through the flesh” (Rom. viii. 3), and their carnal inclina- 
tions, which made them averse to the spiritual precepts of 
the law (Rom. vii. 14). And this the new covenant reme- 
died, by requiring, not perfect, but only sincere obedience, as 
the condition of those blessings which it promiseth, and giv- 
ing the assistance of the Holy Spirit to perform that obe- 
dience. For, to come to the imperfections of the law itself, 
compared with this new covenant ; 

First, The first is this, that the law required exact obedi- 
ence, but gave no inward spiritual assistance for the perform- 
ance of that duty. Hence the apostle puts this difference 
betwixt the law and the gospel, that the first is only “the 
ministration of the letter,” the second is “the ministration 
of the Spirit” (2 Cor. iii.): that under the law, the Jews 
served God “in the oldness of the letter ;” whereas under 
the gospel, we serve him “in the newness of the Spirit” 
(Rom. vii. 6): that then the inclinations and desires of the 
things forbidden by the law, “wrought in our members to 
bring forth fruit unto death ;’ whereas, “if we, through 
the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the flesh, we shall live” 

Rom. viii. 13); then, “the good which they would, they 

id not” (Rom. vii. 19); but now, “the righteousness of 
the law is fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but 
after the Spirit” (Rom. viii. 4). 

Secondly, The law not only made all that were subject to 
it obnoxious to condemnation for the guilt of sin, but also 
was unable to remove that guilt, and clear the conscience 
from the sense and terror of it. It could not justify us, 
saith the apostle; “for by the deeds of the law shall no flesh 
be justified” (Rom. iii. 23, Gal. ii. 16), i. e. it could not 
absolve us from condemnation on the account of sin: it 
“could not, by the sacrifices it offered daily, take away the 
guilt of sins” (Heb. x. 4. 11), and so could not make the 
worshipper perfect as pertaining to conscience (Heb. ix. 9) ; 
whereas, by virtue of the blood of Christ, a full remission of 
them was procured, so that God would remember them no 
more (Heb. x. 17, 18), and so the conscience was by it puri- 
fied from dead works (Heb. ix. 14). 

Thirdly, The law, considered not as moral, that beg the 
law common to all mankind, but as purely Mosaical, con- 
tained in it only ceremonial precepts, which had no real or 
intrinsic goodness in them to commend them to our prac- 
tice : whence, by the apostle, it is said to consist of outward 
and “carnal ordinances, imposed on them only till the time 


912 


I (the fore) 5 rexarded them not, saith the Lord (Jer. 
xxxi, 31—33), 

10 (7 say, not according to that covenant :) For this 
ts the covenant that I will make with the house of 
Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my 
laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: 
and f will be to them a God, and they shall be to me 
a people: 


HEBREWS. 


11 And they shall not (have need to) teach every 
man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, 
Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least 
to the greatest. 

12 (Lsay, I will be their God:)Forl will be merciful 
to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their ini- 
quities will I remember no more. 

13 In that he saith, ® A new covenant, he hath made 


ef reformation” (Heb. ix. 10), and to contain only “ the ele- 
ments of the world” (Gal. iv. 3), “ weak and beggarly ele- 
ments” (ver. 9), whereas the new covenant is a law written 
in the heart (ver. 12). 

Lastly, As the Mosaical law had no inward goodness to 
commend it, so also was it wanting in the promise of those 
spiritual and eternal blessings, which are the sovereign mo- 
tives to obedience, and to purification of ourselves from all 
filthiness of flesh and spirit; whereas, by virtue of the death 
of Christ, “a promise of an eternal inheritance is procured 
for us” (Heb. ix. 15), and “an entrance into the holy of 
holies through the blood of Jesus” (x. 19). On which ac- 
count the apostle saith, «The law made nothing perfect, but 
the bringing in of a better hope did” (Heb. vii. 19). 

5 Ver. 9. And 1 regarded them not.] Kaya ἠμέλησα αὐτῶν. 
So the Septuagint, and from them the apostle; whereas the 
Hebrew runs.3 sndy3 y23n) “ And,” or “Though [ was a 
husband to them:” but the Jearned Dr. Pocock hath shown, 
that the Hebrew 5y3 not only signifies in the Arabic, to 
govern, and be a husband, but also to refuse, despise, and 
nauseale. And so it well accords with the words of the 
Septuagint. 

δ Ver. 13.] For explication of this new covenant, let it 
be considered, 

First, That it is expressly promised to be made with the 
whole house of Israel, with them to whom the old covenant 
was made, with them who were brought out of the land of 
Egypt; it therefore is not a promise made to, or a covenant 
made with, some few elect and chosen people out of Israel 
and Judah, but with those who“ abode not” in their former 
covenant, and so were “not regarded’”’ by God. Now hence 
it is manifest, 

That this can be no promise of absolute election, or 
vouchsafing irresistible grace to any of the Jews, because then 
the whole nation of the Jews must have been converted. 
(2.) Because this is a promise of something to be done “ in 
the last times,” or in the times of the Messiah, whereas God 
hath at all times his elect, and doth at all times vouchsafe 
them his effectual grace. (3.) Because this is here called a 
covenant, which implies two parties covenanting, or stipu- 
lating; the one obedience, and the other blessings on the 
performance of it; whereas an absolute promise permits of 
no conditions. (4.) The elect always persisted in their 
covenant with God, and were always regarded by him ; they 
always were his people, and he always was their God; this 
therefore can be no new covenant with them. 

Secondly, This being a promise of a new covenant, of 
which new covenant Christ is declared here to be the medi- 
ator through his blood, it cannot properly be said to be ful- 
filled, in the complete import of it, before our Saviour’s 
sufferings, and the preaching of justification through faith in 
his blood. Nor seems it to have been yet accomplished in 
the extent and the full meaning of it, as it will be, when 
the blindness of the Jews shall be removed, “and so all 
Israel shall be saved” (Rom. xi. 25, 26) : « for this is God’s 
covenant with them, when he shall take away their sins” 
(ver. 28); which though he did make good at the first 
preaching of the gospel to as many as believed in Jesus; 
yet, since that was the time of the falling and casting off 
the generality of that nation, “a remnant” only being 
then preserved from Judaical blindness, I believe there 
will be a time, when this, and other like promises made to 
them in the Old Testament, shall have a more complete 
accomplishment. But to proceed to the proper import of 
the words; 

First, I conceive that the phrase, “I will put my laws 
into their minds, and write them on their hearts,” imports 
that he would clearly and conspicuously make known his 
will to them, and by his Holy Spirit make such a deep im- 


pression of it on their spirits, and so continually bring it to 
their remembrance, that it should be as powerful upon 
them, and as present to them, as if it were writ upon their 
hearts. For these two metaphors, both in the scripture and 
the Jewish writers, chiefly signify two things ; 

1, A clear and perspicuous revelation of the mind and 
will of God, so that we need not be at much pains to search 
it out: as in these words, “lhe commandment which I 
command thee this day, is not hidden from thee, neither 
it is far from thee: the word is near unto thee, in thy mouth, 
καὶ ἐν τῇ καρδία cov, and in thy heart, and in thy hands, 
that thou shouldest do it. See, I have set before thee life 
and death” (Deut. xxx. 11. 14, 15). And so, saith the 
apostle, it is with “that word of faith which we preach ;” it 
is nigh to the Christian in his mouth to confess, and in his 
heart to believe it (Rom. x. 8, 9). And the law written in 
the hearts of heathens, is the law so plainly taught them, 
that their own consciences do inwardly condemn them when 
they do transgress it (Rom. ii. 15). This also is apparent 
from the consequent effect of writing this law in the Chris- 
tian hearts, and “putting it in their inward parts;” viz. 
“that they shall have no need to teach every one his neigh- 


bour, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know him _ 


from the least to the greatest.’ This law therefore must be 
plain to the capacities of, and easy to be perceived by, them 
all: and to this interpretation the fathers* give a general 
consent. 

2. An efficacious impression of them on the soul, and 
on the memory, so that we do not let them slip out of 
our minds. So Deut. vi. 6, “These words which I com- 
mand thee this day shall be in thy heart ;” “They shall be 
p23 md Sy yarns, writ upon the table of thy heart,” 
saith Jonathan ben Uziel; “and thou shalt talk of them 
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by 
the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest 
up” (ver. 7); “They shall be ἐν καρδίᾳ καὶ ψυχῃ σου, in thy 
heart and soul,” saith the Septuagint. As the expression is, 
Deut. xi. 18, by which expressions he requires μὴ ἀποστῆναι 
τὸν νόμον ἀπὸ τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, “that the law should not de- 
part from their hearts” (2 Mace. ii. 3): so, Prov. vii. 1, “ My 
son, forget not my law, but let thy heart keep my com- 
mandments ;” ver. 3, “ Write them upon the table of thy 
heart.”’ And again, vii. 1, “My son, keep my words, and 
lay up my commandments with thee: bind them upon thy 
finger, write them upon the table of thy heart,” ver. 3. So 
the Targum on Cant. viii. 9 saith, God will remember them 
for the sake of the law which is written, nabs ΤΥ) Ὁ} 
“upon the table of the heart of his children.” And, Jer. 
xvii. 1, the sin of Judah is said to be “ written on the table 
of their hearts ;” as if the memory of it, and affection to it, 
could never be obliterated. And the Targum on Job xxx. 


4, saith, “ They who let the law slip γγπ2 mb Sy, from the- 


table of their hearts, burning coals shall be their meat.” So 
frequent is this phrase in this sense, both in the scripture 
and the Jewish writers. Accordingly, Clemens gives this 
commendation of the Corinthians, that “the commandments 
of the Lord, ἐπὶ τὰ πλάκη τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν ἐγέγραπτο, Were 
written upon the tables of their hearts.” 

Secondly, That the words in which this new covenant is 
framed, Jer. xxxi. 33—35, may have a more exact and full 
completion, at the second calling of the Jewish nation, this 
apostle seems to intimate, Rom. xi. 27; but that they also 
were fulfilled by the first advent of our Lord, can only be 
denied by them who think, with Mr. Le Clerc, that the apos- 
tle argues upon unsound foundations: for he most clearly 


* St. Jerom. in Jer. xxxi. 31. Chrysost. on Rom. x. 8. 
Theod. in loc. Cyril. Alex. Com. in Joh, 110. xii. p. 1071. 
Chrysost. in Heb. hom. 14, tom. iv. p. 509. 


CHAPTER IX. 


(a declaration that) the first (is) old. Now that which 


913 


decayeth and waxeth old 77s ready to vanish away. 


saith, (1.) That the old covenant was only to continue till 
the new covenant, in which God promised to “be merciful 
to their iniquities,” took place; and also, that this new cove- 
nant was established “in the blood of Jesus, the mediator of 
a better covenant,” ver. 6, and proves that Christ had by his 
sufferings perfectly procured the remission of the sins of them 
that were sanctified, or cleansed from the guilt of sin, by 
faith in his blood, by the words of this new covenant, x. 14— 
17. (2.) He says, that the old covenant, there mentioned, | 
was to “ vanish away” at the coming of this new covenant, 
ver. 13, and thereby intimates, that this new covenant, men- 
tioned Jer. xxx. 33, began to take place, even from the abo- 
lition of the old covenant, consisting in ordinances which 
were only to continue “till the time of reformation” (Heb. | 
ix. 11), and which were taken away by the death of Christ. | 


This therefore seems to be one of those places which prove 
there will be a double completion of the promises and pre- 
dictions combined in the Old, and perhaps in the New Tes- 
tament, and thereby show they may admit of a double sense, 
the one relating to the first, the other to the second coming 
of our Lord. 

7 'Eyyis ἀφανισμοῦ, Is ready to vanish away.) Though 
the Judaical sacrifices, which signified the death of Christ, 
after his death, ceased to be obliging, and their discrimi- 
nation from all other nations on the account of circum- 
cision, and the distinction of meats, ceased, as Paul 
often testifies; yet these words seem to intimate, that 
the church, state, and polity of the Jews was not to come 
to its full period, till the destruction of the temple and city 
of Jerusalem. 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 (The apostle had declared, viii. 5, that the taber- 1 table, and the shewbread; which (first tabernacle) is 


nacle had only a shadow of heavenly things; this he 
now proceeds to show in the following words:) Then 
verily ! the first covenant had (εἶχε μὲν οἷν πρώτη 
σχηνὴν the first tabernacle therefore had) also ordi- 
nances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary 
(in which that worship and these ordinances were per- 
formed). 

2 For there was a tabernacle made; the first (Gr. 
σχηνὴ yap χατεσχευάσϑη ἡ πρώτη, for a first tabernacle 
was prepared), wherein was the candlestick, and the 


2 called the sanctuary (or, holy). 

3 And after the second veil, the (other) tabernacle 
(was prepared, ver. 2. 6) which is called the Holiest 
of all ; 

4 Which had (for zts use) the ® golden censer (used 
only on the day of expiation), and the ark of the cove- 
nant overlaid round about with gold, ὁ wherein was the 
golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that bud- 
ded (Numb. xvii. 10, Exod. xvi. 33, 34), and the 
tables of the covenant (1 Kings viii. 9); 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἢ πρώτη διαϑήκη, The Jirst covenant.) Some of 
the ancients, as Chrysostom, read only ἡ πρύτη, but none of 
them read διαϑήκη, but many of them σκηνὴ, as Theodoret 
and C2cumenius ; and this I believe to be the true reading: 
for it is well observed by the fathers, who do, and who do not 
read the word σκηνὴ, that the apostle having before proved 
from the enallage of the priest and priesthood, and of the 
former covenant, that an end was put unto the Jewish con- 
stitutions, proceeds now to prove the same from the conside- 
ration of that tabernacle which was “a shadow of good 
things to come.” Secondly, because the thread or the con- 
texture of the apostle’s argument seems plainly to require 
this reading: for the tabernacle, consisting of two parts, an 
outward house called “ the holy place,” and an inward house 
called “the holy of holies; the apostle here calleth the 
outward house “ the first tabernacle,” and discourses of it as 
such, ver. 1, 2; and then, ver. 3, proceeds to the “holy of 
holies,” or “the second tabernacle,” saying, “The first or 
outward tabernacle had a worldly sanctuary,” in which the 
rites of the Jewish worship were performed ; for a first ta- 
bernacle was prepared by Moses, containing such and such 
things ; and then a second, containing other things: now this 
first tabernacle is called “a worldly tabernacle,” because, as 
both the Jews and fathers say, it was designed to represent 
this lower world; the earth and the sea, saith Josephus.* 
Tt was xécpov τοῦ αἰσϑητοῦ σύμβολον, “a symbol of the sensi- 
tive world,” saith Clemens Alexandrinus} (see Dr. Spencer, 
De Legibus Hebr. p. 188). 

The δικαιώματα λατρείας are the constitutions, or the rites 
and rules of worship prescribed to be used in the service of 
the tabernacle; δικαιώματα, τουτέστι, σύμβολα, ϑεσμοὺς, νομο- 
ϑεσίας, “ ordinatices, that is, symbols, constitutions, laws.” 
So Chrysostom, CEcumenius, Theophylact. 

2 Ver. 2. Ἥτις λέγεται ἅγια, which ts called the Sanctuary.) 
Or, as other copies read, ἥτις λέγεται ἁγία, “ which is called 
holy.” Vain therefore is the argument of Mr. Le Clerc, 
that the writer of this epistle did not well understand He- 
brew, and therefore cannot be thought to have been St. Paul, 
but rather some Grecian ; to wit, because he calls the sanc- 


* Anti. lib. iii. cap. 8. 


Strom. v. p. 562, B. 
Vo. IV.—115 Ϊ ia 


tuary only ἅγια, “ holies ;” whereas, according to the constant 
usage of the Hebrew, he should have called it ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, 
“holy of holies.” For (1.) all this depends on an uncertain 
accent ; read but ἁγία, and there is no foundation for this ar- 
gument; seeing, then, the apostle speaks not of the sanc- 
tuary, but of the first tabernacle, which was only called 
“holy.” And so Chrysostom, Gicumenius, and 'Theophy- 
lact read; and Theodoret observes that the tabernacle was 
divided into two parts by the veil, the one was called « holy,” 
the other “the holy of holies,” and that ἡ πρώτη εἶπεν, ὡς 
πρὸς τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, the apostle calls this the first taber- 
nacle, to distinguish it from the sanctuary; as it is evi- 
dent he doth from the verse following, which demonstrates 
that ἁγία is the true reading in this verse. (2.) It depends 
upon a false criticism, for w>pn yn, 1 Kings viil. 8, signifies 
ex adyto, or “from the most holy place,” where the ark was 
as appears from 2 Chron. v. 8 (see Dr. Lightfoot’s Treatise 
of the Temple, ch. 15, sect. 4). 

3 Ver. 4. Χρυσοῦν ϑυμιατήριον, The golden censer.] Of this 
golden censer the Jews inform us, that it was only used on 
the great day of expiation, when the high-priest entered into 
“the holy of holies ;” and that on other days they offered 
incense in a silver censer. So Maimonides and Abarbanel 
(see Buxt. Hist. Arce, p. 76). 

4 Ἔν ἡ, In which, &c.] Of the ark the scripture saith ex- 
pressly, that there was “ nothing in it but the tables of the 
covenant,” 1 Kings viii. 9, 2 Chron. v. 10; whereas “ the 
pot of manna and Aaron’s rod” are here said to be also in 
it. To solve this difficulty, some interpreters say, that as, 
ver. 2, the apostle tells us what was in the first tabernacle, 
viz. the candlestick, the table, and the shew-bread; so here 
he seems to tell us, not what was strictly in the ark, but in 
the holy of holies, saying, it had for its use “the golden cen- 
ser; and the ark, and in it the tables of the covenant; the 
pot of manna and Aaron’s rod :’’ but the words “ Over it 
were the cherubims,” relating not to the holy of holies, but 
to the ark, confute that exposition. 

Others say, that the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod are 
said to be in the ark, as being placed in the receptacles of 
the ark, or the coffers in the side of it, mentioned Deut. xxxi.' 
26, 1 Sam. vi. 8. Hence they are said to be laid up, not in 
but “before the ark of the testimony,” Exod. xvi. 34, 
Numb. xvii. 10, or “ with the ark,”’ as 3, which answers to 

4B 


914 


5 And over it (the ark, were) the ® cherubims of 
glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot 
now speak particularly (so as to give the mystical sig- 
nification of them). 

6 Now when these things were thus ordained (or, 
things being thus prepared), the priests went always 
into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of 
God. 

7 But into the second went the high priest alone 
® once every year, (2. 6. one day only in the year, and 
then) not without blood, which he offered for himself | 
(first), and (then) for the 7 errors of (Gr. sins of ig- 
norance committed by) the people : 

8 The Holy Ghost (by whose afflatus Moses was di- 
recled to prepare the tabernacle) this signifying (by this 


HEBREWS. 


admission of the high-priest alone, and that but once a 
year, and that then only when all the people were gone 
out of the tabernacle of the congregation), that ὃ the 
way into the (true) holiest of all was not yet made 
manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet stand- 
ing: 
9 Which was a figure for the time then present 
(τις ὃ. παραβολὴ εἰς τὸν χαιρὸν τὸν ἐνεστηχότα, which 
igure continues till this present time, viz. in the like 
service performed in the temple), in which were 
(προσφέρονται, are) offered both gifts and sacrifices, 
that could not (ut δυνάμεναι. which sacrifice cannot) 
make him that did the service (7. 6. who brings these 
gifs and offerings) © perfect, as pertaining to the con- 
science ; 


iv, here signifies, viz. cum, ad, propé, juxta (see Noldius de 
Partic. p. 144,145). So ἐν Γαβαὼν is “ near Gibeon,” Josh. 
x. 10, and ἐν Καριαϑιαρὶμ, “ near Kirjath-jearim,” Judg. xviii. 
(Bochart. Hieroz. lib. ii. cap. 50, p. 590). And this expo- 
sition solves the difficulty, and agrees fully with the tradition 
of the Jews; for that there were such capsulas to the ark 
for this use is owned, saith Buxtorf,* both by the Talmud 
of Jerusalem and Babylon. Maimonides saith,+' There was 
a stone in the west part of the holy of holies, on which the 
ark was placed, and “before it the pot of manna, and the 
rod of Aaron.” Moses Mikkotsi says the same, and Abar- 
banel adds,¢ that “our interpreters write, that this place 
does not deny that the pot of manna and the rod of Aaron 
were kept there for the children of Israel, as it is said in a 
certain tradition of our rabbins.” 

5 Ver. 5. Cherubims of glory.| So called, because “the 
glory of the Lord” dwelt between the cherubims, and shined 
forth from them; Ps. Ixxx. 1, « Thou that dwellest between 
the cherubims, shine forth :” and they being emblems of the 
angelical nature, were also emblems of the divine presence, 

¢ before which the angels stood continually. 

6 Ver. 7. "Anat τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ, Once every year.] The 
priest entered into the holy of holies on the great day of ex- 
piation four times, to offer incense (Lev. xvi. 12), to offer 
the blood of the goat (ver. 15), and to make an atonement 
for himself (ver. 17), which makes it necessary to paraphrase 
the words as I have done. 

7 Καὶ τῶν τοῦ λαοῦ ἀγνοημάτων, And for the ignorance of the 
people.| It is certain that the law allowed of sacrifices for 
sins committed not out of mere ignorance; 1. e. for lying and 
false swearing (Lev. vi. 1.6). We therefore must either say 
with Vatablus and Munster in locum, that sins committed 
through the violence of our passions and affections are called 
sins of ignorance, and so they stand opposed to sins of pre- 
sumption (Numb. xv. 27, 28. 30), or that the sins of the 
people are here so styled because they are mostly such. 

8 Ver. 8. Τὴν τῶν ἁγίων ὁδὸν, The way into the holy of 
holies,| i. 6. Into the heavens, was not yet revealed nor 
opened. ‘Thus did the Jews themselves interpret this sym- 
bol, saying, that* “the adytum, ὃ τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν ἦ ἄβατον, which 
was inaccessible to the priests, represented the heaven where 
God dwelt.” his interpretation all the ancient commenta- 
tors give us of this place, viz. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Ecu- 
menius, Theophylact, saying, These things were so prepared, 
that they might learn, ὄτι τὰ ἅγια τῶν ἁγίων, τουτέστιν, ὃ οὐρα- 
νὸς, ἔτι ἐστὶν ἄβατος, that is, “ that heaven, represented by the 
holy of holies, was as yet inaccessible,” for Christ first entered 
into heaven, καὶ βατὸν ἡμῖν τοῦτον ἀπέφηνε, “and so rendered 
it accessible to us:” and therefore, as the apostle saith here, 
μήπω πεφανερῶσθαι τὴν τῶν ἁγίωυ biév, “The way into this 
holy of holies was not yet manifested,” so he saith in the 
next chapter, that we Christians have τὴν εἴσοδον τῶν ἁγίων ἐν 
τῷ αἵματι Ἰησοῦ, “an entrance into heaven by the blood of 
Jesus,” and ὁδὸν πρόσφατον, “a new way which he hath made 
new through his flesh;” i. e. our forerunner being thus en- 
tered into heaven with his blood to appear before God, and 
so to prepare these mansions for us, the way of our entrance 
into heaven is now made manifest. And this the ancients 


* Hist. Arce, p. 72. 
+ In 1 Reg. viii. 9. 


ἡ Ibid. cap. 5, p. 69, 70. 
§ Jos. Antig. lib, iii. cap. 8. 


say was signified by the rending of the veil, at our Lord’s 
death; viz. ra ἄβατα εἶναι λοιπὸν Bara, τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνοιγήσεσϑαι, 
that heaven, before inaccessible, was now opened, and a way 
was made into the true holy of holies (Chrysostom, Hom. 
Ixxxviii. in Matt. p. 541); and the hope of Christians being 
now to “enter within the veil,’ because our forerunner is 
gone before (Heb. vi. 19, 20), seems to intimate the same 
thing. 

9 Ver. 9. Ἥτις παραβολὴ εἰς τὸν καιρὸν τὸν ἐνεστηκότα, xa’ ὃν, 
&c.} Here the Vulgar and Ccumenius read καθ᾽ ἣν, which, 
saith Dr. Mills, is the true reading, adding, that κατὰ συνείδη- 
σιν, accessit aliunde, has been added to the text. ‘he second 
opposes the Ethiopic, which is a version of no credit, to the 
Syriac, Arabic, Vulgar, all the Greek scholiasts, and Cyrillus 
Alexandrinus, who all own the reading of the text: which 
liberty, if it be allowed, the scripture must be a very uncer- 
tain and precarious rule. In the first, the reading of the text 
is approved by Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Cyril of 
Alexandria, de Ador. Sp. p. 357, and by all the eastern 
versions. The other reading indeed gives a very good sense 
thus, Which tabernacle was a figure of the present time, ac- 
cording to which figure, gifts and sacrifices were offered ;— 
but since the reading of the text, which runs thus, Which 
figure continues to this present time, in which, by the Jews, 
are still offered gifts and sacrifices—bears the same sense, 
and is supported by better authority, what reason can be 
given why it should be changed ? 

10 Τελειῶσαι κατὰ συνείδησιν, To perfect according to the 
conscience.| The best account of this phrase relating to 
what the law and its sacrifices could not do, may be learned 
from what the new covenant, and the blood of Christ, in 
which it was established, is said to do. First, then, that 
blood, offered in the presence of God, is said to take away sins 
εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς, So as that there shall be no return of them upon 
the conscience; no need of any more oblation for the sins of 
such a person ; there being in him no more consciousness of 
guilt, after his justification by faith in the blood of Jesus; 
“for where remission of sins is, there is no more offering for 
sins,” because the tenor of the new covenant runs thus, 
« Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” 
(x.17,18). Hence the apostle argues thus, “ That the law, 
with those sacrifices which were offered every year, could 
not εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς τελειῶσαι, perfect for ever them that come 
to God with them, because, (if they could have done that,) 
the worshippers once purged by them would have had no 
more conscience of sins” (Heb. x. 1, 2); i. 6. they would 
not have been still conscious of the guilt of sin, and so could 
have no need yearly to repeat the same sacrifices. And of our 
Saviour’s sacrifice he speaketh thus, “That by one offering, 
τετελείωκεν εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς, he hath perfected for ever them that 
are sanctified,” i. e. are purged by it from the guilt of sin 
(Heb. x. 14). Wherefore, to “ perfect according to the con- 
science,” is so fully to expiate from the guilt of sin, that it 
shall no more be remembered by God, and we shall have no 
more conscience of the guilt of it. Now the consequents of 
of this full remission are these two, (1.) A coming unto God 
with freedom and full assurance of acceptance with him, 
This the apostle frequently ascribes unto the death of Christ, 
who “suffered for our sins that he might bring us to God” 
(1 Pet. iii. 18), saying, “ By him” who hath reconciled us 
to God by the cross, « we have freedom and access with con- 


CHAPTER IX. 


10 Which stood (as being conversant) only in meats 
and drinks, (to be abstained from by these worshippers, 
Lev. x. 9,) and divers washings, (to be then used by the 
priests officiating, Exod. xxix. 4, by the Levites, Numb. 
viii. 7, and by the people defiled, Lev. xv. 8, before they 
might enter into the temple,) and (in other) carnal 
ordinances, (which only sanctified to the purtfying of 
the flesh, ver. 13, and were therefore) imposed on them 
(on/y) "until the time of reformation (of all things, 
by this new high-priest. These carnal ordinances include 
all the sacrifices and other services performed in the taber- 
nacle. 

1 But Christ being come (γενόμενος, made) an 
high priest (not of present temporal blessings in the land 
of Canaan, bul) of good things to come, (nol by the ser- 
vice of the tabernacle made with hands, ver. 23, but) by 
(a service performed in) a greater and more perfect  ta- 


bernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of | 


fidence to the Father, by faith in him” (Eph. ii. 16. 18, iii. 
12); and upon that account exhorts us to “ come to him in 


full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil | 


conscience” (Heb. x. 22). (2.) A right of entrance into 
heaven. This, saith the apostle, could not be obtained by the 
service of the tabernacle (ver. 8), but only by the death of 
Christ, by which the way into the holy of holies is laid open 
(x. 19, 20), eternal redemption is obtained for us (ix. 12), 
and we receive the promise of an eternal inheritance ; and so 
it consequently signifies to have a full assurance of acceptance 
with God here, and of happiness with him hereafter. 

Which could not perfect according to the conscience.] To 
clear up what has been said upon this verse, let it be noted, 
that God declares the tenor of the new covenant should run 
thus: “I will be merciful to their iniquities, and remember 
their sins no more.” Whence observe, 

First, That there was no such promise or condition made 
under the old covenant, that requiring for every new sin of 
ignorance a new oblation ; whereas sins of ignorance and in- 
firmity being not contrary to the sincerity of our obedience, 
they do not violate the new covenant, and so are pardoned 
by virtue of the blood of the new covenant, shed ἐφάπαξ, 
“once for all, for the remission of sins:” for if we thus sin, 
saith the apostle John, “we have an advocate with the 
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation 
for our sins,” 1 John ii. 2; “and if we walk in the light as 
he is in the light, the blood of Christ cleanseth us from all 
sin,” 1 John i. 7. 

Secondly, Observe, that the legal sacrifices served only for 
the purification of the flesh from ceremonial defilements, and 
restored to them only a right to the benefits of the Mosaical 
covenant, viz. life and prosperity in the land of Canaan, but 
did not so far purify the conscience, as to procure them an 
admittance into the heavenly Canaan, which, if they had en- 
tirely cleansed them from the guilt and the defilement of sin, 
they would have done ; and hence the apostle says, the way 
into the holy of holies was not opened, whilst the first taber- 
nacle was standing (ver. 8, see the note there). 

11 Ver. 10. Μέχρι καιροῦ διορθώσεως, Till the time of the 
reformation.) That is, as the next verse expounds it, till the 


coming of Christ, the Messiah of the Jews, when they them- | 


selves expected a “reformation of the law,” saying, that 
“the law which was learned in that age was vanity, in re- 
spect of the law of the age to come;’* that is, saith the 
gloss on Eccles. xi. 8, myn Sy ΓΟ +399, “in respect of the 
law of the Messiah ;” and that “then the law will be re- 
newed.”” For our doctors, saith the author of Sephir Ikka- 
rim,t declare, that “all Israel shall receive a second law 
from the mouth of God immediately, as formerly ;” and this 
itd all prove, as the apostle doth, ch. viii., from Jer. xxxi. 

—33. 

12 Ver. 11.] That the tabernacle here mentioned is not the 
body of Christ, but heaven itself, see note on viii. 2. 

18 Ver. 12. Αἰωνίον λύτρωσιν, Eternal redemption.] Here 
it is evident, (1.) that this our high-priest had procured for 


* Pug. Fid. par. iii. dist. 3, cap. 11, p. 608. 611. 
ἡ Voisin, ibid. p. 123. 


915 


this building; (i. ¢. the building of this wordly sanctu- 
ary, ver. 1; ; 

12 Neither (yet to be procured as the Mosaical 
blessings were) by the blood of goats and calves, but 
by his own blood he (to procure those good things 
for us) entered in (not as the high-priest did yearly 
into the earthly tabernacle, but, épaxag,) once ( for all) 
into the (heavenly) holy place (with his dont having 
obtained (by it, not an annual, but an) ® eterna redemp- 
tion for us. 

13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the 
ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean (Numb. ix. 
2. 4), " sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh (from 


| ceremonial defilements, and so procures a free admission to 


the service of the tabernacle) : 

14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who 
(being sanctified) through the " eternal Spirit ' offered 
himself (as a lamb) without spot to God (John i. 29, 


us a perfect and perpetual expiation from the guilt of sin; 
and this Schlictingius on the place fully grants. (2.) ‘That 
this λύτρωσις, or “redemption,” was procured by the blood 
of Christ, we having ἀπολύτρωσιν, “redemption through his 
blood, even the remission of sin” (Eph. i. 7). That there- 
fore was the λύτρον, or « price’”’ paid, to procure this redemp- 
tion. That this ἀπολύτρωσις παραβάσεων, “redemption from 
transgressions” was made ϑανάτου γενομένου, “by the death 
of Christ,” suffering as a piacular victim for us, there being 
no other way of procuring this remission under the law (ver. 
22), and so no other known to, or heard of by, the Jews. 
And, lastly, that suffering thus, he must also suffer in our 
stead, as all piacular victims did. Whence he is said “to 
give his life, λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν, a ransom for many,” Matt. 
XX. 28, ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων, “ a ransom for all,” 1 ‘Tim. il. 
5 (see the note there). 

M Ver. 13, "Αγιάζει πρὸς τὴν τῆς σαρκὸς καϑαρύτητα, Sane- 
tifies to the purifying of the flesh.) It is truly observed by 
the reverend Dr. Hammond, that to “sanctify to the purify- 
ing of flesh,” is to make legally clean, i. e. so as that they 
might come into the congregation again, it being the sanctifi- 
cation τῶν κεκοινωμένων, “ of the unclean;” but still in a me- 
tophorical signification, as cleansing signifies expiation, and 
obtaining pardon of sin; and when this is done by a sacri- 
fice, ἁγιάζειν signifies to expiate, and cleanse from guilt by 
virtue of it. In which sense it is used throughout this epis- 
tle, and that agreeably to the import of it, when it relates to 
sacrifices in the Old Testament. So x. 10, ἡγιασμένοι ἐσμὲν, 
«“ We are sanctified ;” i. 6. are purged from the guilt of sin 
“by the body,” or, as other copies read, “by the blood of 
Christ, offered once for all.’’ And, ver. 15, “ By one offering 
he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified ;” i. 6. hath 
entirely purged them who by this offering are cleansed from 
the guilt of sin: “he being offered once, εἰς τὸ πολλῶν dvevey- 
κεῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας, to bear, or take away, the sins of many, and 
eis ἀϑέτησιν ἁμαρτίας, for the putting away sin by the sacrifice 
of himself,’ ix. 26, 27; and, ver. 29, where it is styled “ the 
blood of the covenant, ἐν ᾧ ἡγιάσϑη, by which he,” who now 
counted it as common, “ was sanctified,’ or cleansed from 
the guilt of sin ; it being the blood shed for the remission of 
sin, the blood of that new covenant which said, “I will be 
merciful to their impieties, and their sins and their transgres- 
sions will I remember no more,” ver. 17, 18: so, xili. 12, 
“ Therefore Jesus, that he might sanctify the people by his 
own blood, suffered without the camp :” where both the blood 
sanctifying, and περὶ ἁμαρτίας, “the sacrifice for sin,” ver. 
11, to which it answers, show that Christ sanctified the peo- 
ple by the oblation of himself as a sin-offering, to cleanse 
them from the guilt of sin (see the note on Heb. ii. 11). 

5 Ver. 14. διὰ Πνεύματος αἰωνίου. The Vulgar, Chrysos- 
tom, and Cyril. Alex. de R. Fide, p. 73, read ἁγίου, but 
Theodoret, C&cumenius, Theophylact, Athanas. Ep. ad 
Serap. p. 180, Ambros. de Sp. S. cap. 8, Cod. Alex. Syr. 
Arab. read as the text. 

16 "Eavrdv προσήνεγκεν, Offered himself without spot to God.) 
In heaven, saith Dr. Hammond: for that oblation, saith 
Grotius, must be here understood, which answers to the legal 
oblation made in the holy of holies, which the oblation of 


916 


1 Pet. i. 19), 7 purge your conscience from dead 
works (7. e. from works deserving death, Rom. vi. 23, 
that so you may be admitted) 15 to serve the living God 
(in his church here, and in his heavenly sanctuary here- 
after, x. 19—21)? 

15 © And for this cause (διὰ τοῦτο, or, by his blood) 
he is (become) the mediator of the new testament (in 
which he promises to be merciful to our iniguities), that 
by means of (Ais) death, * for the redemption of the 
transgressions (hat were (committed by us) under the 
first testament (and not by that fully expiated), they 
which are ealled (to be God’s church and people) might 
receive *! the promise of (an) eternal inheritance. 

16 (Lsay, by means of his death,) For where a testa- 
ment 7s (thal is unchangeable), there must also of ne- 
cessity be the death ~ of the testator. 

17 For a testament zs of force (un/y) after men are 


HEBREWS. 


dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the 
testator liveth (and so hath power to revoke his testa- 
ment). 

18 Whereupon (o3«v, whence it is thal) neither the 
first testament (made with the Jews, Exod. xxiv. 8) 
was dedicated without blood (which blood showed the 
death of the sacrifice was necessary to make that tesla- 
ment). 

19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to 
all the people according to the law (given at mount 
Sinai), he took the 3. blood of calves and of goats, 
with water (mixed with the blood to keep it from con- 
gealing), and (with) scarlet wool, and hyssop, (the 
wool to receive and imbibe the blood, and the hyssop to 
sprinkle it, Exod. xii. 22, Levy. xiv. 49, 50, Ps. li. 7,) 
and sprinkled (the blood) both (upon) the book (of the 
covenant), and (upon) all the people, 


Christ upon the cross doth not, but his oblation in the hea- 
vens. Against this interpretation some object, that Christ 
presenting himself with his blood in the heavens, is never 
styled an oblation ; but that is a plain mistake (see note on 
vili. 3, 4), and of evil consequence: for if Christ had no ob- 
lation to offer in heaven, he could not be a high-priest there, 
since every high-priest. must have something to offer in that 
sanctuary, in which:he exercises his priestly office. But yet 
it being said, not that he offered up his blood, but that προσή- 
νεγκεν ἑαυτὸν, “ he offered up himself,” which he did upon the 
cross (Eph. v. 2, Heb. ix. 25, 28), and the προσφορὰ, or ob- 
lation of the sacrifice, being properly the giving it up to the 
death, or to be a piacular victim in the sinner’s stead, these 
words may very well be thus interpreted, Who, through the 
Holy Spirit, by which he was sanctified from the very womb, 
offered himself a piacular victim without spot to God. But 
then the blood of Christ here mentioned, as “ purging the 
conscience from dead works,” must be his blood presented 
before God in the heavenly sanctuary; for the apostle had 
spoken before, ver. 7, of the blood brought into the holy of 
holies by the Aaronical high-priest, and declared that it 
could not perfectly expiate the conscience from the guilt of 
sin, ver. 10; and therefore here the analogy requires that he 
should speak of the blood of Christ, brought by our high- 
priest into the heavenly sanctuary. Moreover, he had said 
before, that he entered with his blood into the holy of holies, 
ver. 12, and therefore, ver. 14, must be still speaking of the 
effect or influence of*this blood, there presented for us. 

1 Ἰζαϑαριεῖ τὴν συνεΐδησιν ἀπὸ νεκρῶν ἔργων, Purge the con- 
science from dead works.| Τὸ καϑαρίζειν, here, as the com- 
parison clearly shows, being in sense the same with ἁγιάζειν 
in the verse preceding, must signify the cleansing of the con- 
science not from the inclination to sin, by the Holy Spirit, 
but from the guilt of sin, by the blood shed for the remission 
of it. And, secondly, this is the constant sense of the word 
καϑαρίζειν in the Old Testament, when joined with ἀπὸ 
ἁμαρτιῶν. So Lev. xiv. 19, “ The priest shall make an 
atonement for him that is to be cleansed from his unclean- 
ness,” écAdosrar ὃ ἱερεὺς περὶ τοῦ καϑαριζομένου ἀπὸ τῆς 
ἁμαρτίας αὐτοῦ. And, xvi. 30, “The priest shall make an 
atonement for you to cleanse you, καϑαρίσαι ὑμᾶς ἀπὸ πασῶν 
τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν, from all your sins” (so Josh. xxii. 17, Ps. 
li. 3, Jer. xxxiil. 8, Ezek. xxiv. 13). Hence then it fol- 
lows, that the dead works, from which their conscience was 
to be thus cleansed, must signify works which deserved death 
by the tenor of the old covenant. 

18 Aarpevew Θεῷ ζῶντι, To serve the living God.] God, be- 
ing a holy God, can enter into covenant with none, or admit 
them into his service, whilst they lie under the guilt of sin 
unpardoned, and so have not found grace in his sight. Noah 
found grace in the eyes of God, and with him he established 
his covenant, Gen. vi. 8. 18. Abraham believes in God, 
and “this was counted to him for righteousness ;”’ and then 
the Lord makes a covenant with him by sacrifice, Gen. xv. 
10.18. So Exod. xxiv. 6, the Jews offer burnt-offerings, and 
sacrifice peace-offerings to the Lord, and the blood is 
sprinkled upon all the people, and then he enters into cove- 
nant with them. Hence the apostle saith, “Let us draw 
nigh to God with full assurance of faith, having our hearts 


sprinkled from an evil (or condemning) conscience,” Heb. 
X. 22. 

19 Ver. 15. Ara rodro,] May either relate to the end of 
Christ’s mediatory office, and so be rendered « for this end,” 
or, “ for this cause; or to the means, by which that new 
covenant, of which he is the mediator, was established, and 
then it will be best rendered, “ by this blood ;” his blood 
being styled «the blood of the new covenant,” Matt. xxvi. 
28, Mark xiv. 24, and the covenant being styled “the new 
covenant in his blood,” Luke xxii. 20, 1 Cor. xi. 25. 

20 Eis ᾿ ἀπολύτρωσιν τῶν ἐπὶ τῇ πρώτῃ διαϑήκῃ παραβάσεων, 
For the redemption of sins under the first covenant.) Paul’s 
design, in the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, is 
to show, that the law could not justify any man, i.e. that it 
could not procure his absolution from the guilt of sin, but 
rather left all guilty before God; and his design in this epis- 
tle is to show, that the ‘sacrifices offered, under the law, 
could never take away sin (x. 4). And hence ariseth the 
necessity that Christ should shed his blood for the redemp- 
tion, i. e. for the remission of sins committed under the old 
covenant, before we could be capable of entering into the 
new, or have a right to the blessings of it. 

21 Τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν, The promise of an eternal inheritance.] 
The immediate promise of the new covenant, established in 
the blood of Christ, is “ remission of sins” (x. 17); but then 
this being an “eternal redemption” from them (ver. 12), 
and such as “perfects for ever them that are sanctified” 
(x. 14), upon it necessarily follows the promise of an eternal 
inheritance, there being nothing to exclude us from it, 
but the guilt of sin. Hence is there a close connexion be- 
twixt Christ’s overcoming death, and “bringing life and 
immortality to light;” and this emphatically is styled the 
promise of the gospel, Tit. i. 2, 1 John i. 2, v. 11. 

2 Ver. 16. ᾿Ανάγκη φέρεσϑαι, There must be.] “There 
must be produced,” saith Dr. Hammond, as the word φέρειν 
signifies, John xviii. 28, Acts xxv. 7; “There must inter- 
vene;” so Schmidius and Budeus. 

38 Ver. 19. Τὸ αἷμα τῶν μύσχων, &e. The blood of calves 
and goats.) There seems no need of the conjecture of 
Bishop Usher and others, that besides the burnt-offerings 
and peace-offerings mentioned by Moses, Exod. xxiv. 5, 
there were then offered sin-offerings, the holocausts them- 
selves being expiatory sacrifices; as is evident from these 
words, Lev. i. 4, «He shall put his hand on the head of the 
burnt-offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make an 
atonement for him.” Now the Jewish* doctors tell us, that 
this imposition of hands was always joined with confession 
of sins over the sacrifice, which confession still concluded 
with a prayer, that the sacrifice might be an expiation for 
them. And the phrase, “It shall be accepted, ἐξιλάσασϑαι 
περὶ αὐτοῦ, to make an atonement for him,” used here, and 
Lev. xiv. 20, concerning holocausts, is as much as ever is 
said of expiatory sacrifices. (2.) This may be farther urged 
from the word sp, used concerning holocausts, Lev. i. 3; 
that being the word used to import expiation for sin; on 
which account the Syriac version saith, that the burnt-offer- 
ing was designed, ad placationem obtinendam a Deo, “to 


* Joh. in Lev. vi. 7. 


CHAPTER IX. 


20 Saying, This ¢s the blood of the ™ testament 
which God hath enjoined unto you. 


917 


21 Moreover he 55 sprinkled with blood both the 
tabernacle, and the vessels of the ministry. 


appease God;” and the Chaldee* paraphrast, that the 
burnt-offering came ad expiandum pro cogitationibus cordis, 
“to expiate for the thoughts of the heart.” And it was the 
general opinion of the’Jews, saith Dr. Outram,} that some 
kind of sins were expiated by holocausts. And, (3.) all the 
sacrifices of living creatures, before the law, were holocausts; 
and yet it is certain that many of them were offered to ap- 
pease God, and expiate for sin. Thus Noah, after the flood, 
offered burnt-oflerings, Gen. viii. 20; and yet Josephus, Antiq. 
lib. i. cap. 4, hath informed us, that he offered a sacrifice to 
atone God, and appease his displeasure. ‘The sacrifices 
which Job offered for his children were burnt-oflerings, 
yet were they also offerings for sin, Job i. 5; the reason 
of their oblation being assigned, “It may be that my sons 
have sinned.” ‘The oblation which God commanded his 
friends to make, was a burnt-offering, Job xliii. 7, and 
yet it Was offered to appease God’s wrath, and prevailed, 
with the prayer of Job, λύειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν αὐτοῖς, “ to procure 
absolution from their sin.” Nevertheless, because Jose- 
phus, speaking of this matter, mentions the blood, τῶν 
κριῶν opayévrwv, “of the rams slain,’ as the apostle doth 
τῶν τράγων, “the blood of the goats;’ hence it seems 
necessary to allow these also were slain then, either as 
sin-offerings, or as burnt-offerings, as they are allowed to be, 
Lev. i. 2, 3. 10. 

24 Ver. 40. διαϑήκη, Covenant, or testament.) “This dis- 
course,” saith Mr, Le Clere, “is to be looked upon merely 
as the play of an Hellenistical writer ; who, because he saw 
that διαϑήκη was used for that covenant whereof Christ is 
the mediator, and signified also a testament, and Christ was 
dead, thence deduced consectaries which are true indeed, 
considered in themselves, but here rely upon weak principles, 
rather to set off his discourse according to the custom of that 
age, than to convert the Jews to the faith by the force of 
reasoning.’ Thus isthe great apostle of the gentiles turned 
into a Jewish rabbin, setting off his discourse by weak rea- 
sonings, because it was customary for the Jews to do so. 
“Our word and preaching is,” saith the apostle, “not in the 
words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit,” 
1 Cor. ii. 4. “By your leave,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “you 
sometimes speak not in the words of man’s wisdom, but of 
Jewish folly, talking plainly like an allegorical Philo, mak- 
ing often such accommodations of scripture, and such conse- 
quences deduced from them, in which no regard at all is 
had to grammar.” “We speak the wisdom of God,” saith 
the apostle, “No,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “ your discourse is 
to be looked upon merely as the play of an Hellenistical 
writer.” “ We speak,’ saith the apostle, “the things which 
God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit, and have received 
this Spirit, that we may know the things which are freely 
given us of God; which things we speak not in words taught 
by human wisdom, but in words taught us by the Holy 
Ghost.” “ No,” saith Mr. Le Clerc, “ even in things relating 
to the new covenant, established in the blood of Christ, your 
discourse relies upon weak principles, and is no better than 
playing with the ambiguity of words, and deducing conse- 
quences without any regard to grammar. For, true it is 
indeed, that a testament is ratified by the death of the testa- 
tor, and Christ is dead, but Christ was not the mediator of a 
testament; for testaments do not want mediators: and if it 
should be granted that he was, he could not be thought at 
once a mediator and a testator, by whose death alone a tes- 
tament was confirmed. The testator here is God the Father, 
whose heirs men are in conjunction with Christ, but God the 
Father can in no sense be said to die.” ‘Thus Mr. Clere 
confutes the author, and yet says, he does not lessen the 
authority of this epistle, though others think he plainly 
overthrows it; but, God be thanked, he does it still without 
just ground. For, Η 

First, It is plainly false that God can be the testator here; 
and that for his own reason, because “ God the Father can 
in no sense be said to die:” for a testator must have his tes- 


* Ibid. p. 111, 8. 7. 
+ De Sacrif. lib. i. cap. 15, 8, S—10. 


{ 


tament, and where there is a valid testament, “there,” saith 
the apostle, “ must of necessity be the death of the testator.” 
“A testament,” saith Mr. Clere, “being ratified by the death 
of the testator.” 

Secondly, I grant that Christ was not the mediator of a 
testament, but then he was the mediator of a covenant; 
which, as it was sealed with and confirmed by his blood, pro- 
curing for us such blessings as he by his will designed for, 
and declared should be conferred upon, believers, “ through 
faith in his blood,” became also a testament. ‘Thus when 
he said, “For their sakes, ἁγιάζω ἐμαυτὸν (John xvii. 19, 
i. e.) I will offer myself as a piacular victim, that they 
might be sanctified,” or truly purged from their sins; he 
adds,* as his last will and testament,—* Father, I will that 
those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am.” 
So here he is become “a high-priest of good things to come,” 
purchasing eternal redemption for us by his blood. And, 
ver. 15, he became the mediator of that new covenant, in 
which God promised to “ be merciful to our transgressions, 
and to remember our sins no more ;” procuring the remission 
of them by the intervention of his death, “ that we that be- 
lieve in him might receive the promise of an eternal inherit- 
ance,” which he died to entitle us to, and confer upon us; 
whence it is styled “ the purchased possession.” 115 there- 
fore was his will and testament, that they for whom he died 
“should live through him,” and this testament could not be 
confirmed but by his death: he therefore was at once the 
mediator, in whom the new covenant, promising to us re- 
mission of sins, was made; and the testator, by whose death 
the testament, that they who believed in him “ should have 
eternal life,” was ratified. 

Moreover, what if, after all, here should be nothing said 
of a testator, but only of a mediator of such a covenant as 
was to be ratified in the blood of Jesus?’ This sure would 
confound all that Mr. Le Clere here offers; and yet I think, 
with submission to better judgments, that even this may be 
maintained against him. 

For though there be here mention, ver. 16, 17, rod διαϑε- 
μένου, yet it is not necessary that word should signify a tes- 
tator properly so called, but only a promiser, and one that 
confirms his promise with his own blood. For διατίϑημι, 
in Phavorinus, is ὑπισχνοῦμαι, συντίϑεμαι, “I promise, I 
covenant,” and διατίθεσθαι διαϑήκην is very properly, in pro- 
fane authors, “to enter into covenant;” and so the phrase 
διαϑήσομαι διαϑήκην, and διέϑετο διαθήκην, Γ is constantly used 
in the Old Testament; and therefore the participle διαθέμε- 
vos, derived from the same verb, must commonly have the 
same signification here, in which it is still used by the Sep- 
tuagint, and which it always bears in the New Testament. 
Thus, Acts iii. 25, “ You are the children, διαθήκης ἧς διέθετο, 
of the covenant which God made to our fathers ἢ Luke xxii. 
29, kaya διατίθεμαι ὑμῖν, * And I appoint to you a kingdom, 
καθὼς διέθετο, as my Father hath appointed me:” so here, 
vili. 10, x. 16, αὕτη ἡ διαϑήκη ἣν ζιαϑήσομαι, “ This is the 
covenant which I will make with the house of Isreal.” And 
because covenants were usually made, victimas cedendo, 
“by sacrifices,” and established in blood, as both the Hebrew 
mya, the Latin fadus, and the Greek σπονδὴ, whence the 
word spondeo is derived, show; and the phrases, ὅρκια 
τέμνειν, foedus ferire, and percutere ; accordingly it was in 
the new covenant established in the blood of Jesus. Hence 
the apostle speaks thus of this covenant, and the appointer, 
disposer, or the maker of it: 

Ver. 15. That by virtue of this blood he is “ become the 
mediator of a better covenant.” 

Ver. 16. “ For where there is a covenant (θανάτου γενομένου, 
made by death, or ratified by the blood of him that makes it, 
ver. 15), there of necessity must intervene the death, τοῦ 
διαϑεμένον, of him that makes the covenant (07 promise). 

Ver. 17. “For a covenant (of this nature) is only firm 
(ἐπὶ νεκροῖς) in the death of them who make it (as other 


* “Auxe γοῦν τῆς κατὰ Χριστὸν διαθήκης θέλω ἵνα ὅπου ἐγώ εἰμι 
καὶ οὗτοι wot. Theoph. in locum. 
{ See Kircher’s Cone, vol. i. p. 2139. 
45 


918 


22 And % almost all things are by the law purged 
(purified) with blood; and without shedding of blood 
is no remission. 

23 Jt was therefore necessary (by virtue of the 
Mosaic institution) that the patterns of things 7 in the 
heavens should be purified with these (sacrifices) ; but 
the heavenly things themselves (our bodies to be re- 
ceived into heaven are to be purified) with better sacri- 
fices than these. 

24 (1 say, the heavenly things themselves,) For Christ 
is not entered into the holy places (of the tabernacle) 
made with hands, which are the figures of the true 
(holy place) ; but into heaven itself, now to appear in 
the presence of God (and so prepare and consecrate those 
mansions) for us : 


HEBREWS. 


25 (Il was not necessary, I say, that he should enter 
with his blood, as the high-priest did into the earthly ta- 
bernacle,) Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as 
the high priest (did, who) entereth into the holy place 
every year with (the) blood of others (fo make an ane 
nual atonement for the guilt of sin) ; 

26 For then must he often have suffered * since 
the foundation of the world (his offering himself be- 
fore God with his blood being the consequence of his 
sufferings): but now once * in the end of the world 
(ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων, in the end of the ages) hath 
he appeared to put away (the guilt of) sin by the sa- 
erifice of himself. 

27 And (in this the death of Christ resembles that 
of all other men; for) as it is appointed unto men 


covenants were ratified by the death of the sacrifices used at 
the making of them), and is of no force whilst (6 διαϑέμενος) 
the maker of the covenant lives. 

Ver. 18. « Whence (i. e. because, without shedding of 
blood there is no remission ; so it was also in) the first cove- 
nant (for it) was not dedicated without blood.” 

To this sense the contexture of the apostle’s argument 
doth plainly lead; for, ch. viii, he introduceth the pro- 
mise of a new covenant, in which God engageth to “ be mer- 
ciful to our iniquities, and to remember our sins no more” 
(ver. 12), and so, by removing our guilt, make us fit to be 
partakers of “an eternal inheritance.” This “remission of 
sins,” saith he, could not be purchased by the gifts and sa- 
crifices under the law, for “they could not fully purge the 
conscience from the guilt of sin” (ix. 9), but Christ, “ by his 
own blood, hath purchased eternal redemption for us” (ver. 
12), and by this blood “ he is become the mediator of a bet- 
ter covenant ;” he having suffered death “for the remission 
of sins committed under the old covenant, that we might re- 
ceive the promise of an eternal inheritance” (ver. 15). 

And this death was necessary for him to suffer, for the ob- 
taining of these ends; for “ where there is such a covenant, 
there is a necessity that the death of him who rafifies this 
covenant with his blood should intervene.” For such a 
covenant is only ratified upon the death of them by whom 
it is made, and is of no force, whilst he lives that makes the 
covenant, because this “remission of sins is not to be pro- 
cured without shedding of blood :” which was a thing so ab- 
solutely necessary under the law, that “ neither was the first 
covenant dedicated or established without blood.” 

Now if this be so, here is no “ playing with the ambiguity 
of the word διαϑήκη,᾽ nor any intimation of a Hellenist, but 
rather of a Hebrew, using the word in the sense which both 
the Hebrew nia usually bears, and in which διαϑήκη answers 
to it in the Septuagint: and so there was no just occasion 
for the dangerous reflections which Mr. Le Clere hath made 
on this discourse of the apostle. 

25 Ver. 21. "Ejfavrice, &c.] Of this “sprinkling of the ta- 
bernacle and all the vessels,’ we read nothing in the place 
of Exodus forecited, or in any other part of the law; but 
Josephus saith,* that Moses did θεραπεύειν τὴν σκηνὴν, καὶ τὰ 
περὶ αὐτὴν σκεύη ἐλαίῳ, καὶ rad αἵματι τῶν ταύρων καὶ κριῶν σῴφα- 
γέντων, “ consecrate for God’s service the tabernacle, and all 
the vessels of it, anointing them with oil, and with the blood 
of bulls and rams.” 

35 Ver. 22. Almost all things.) He saith, “almost ;” be- 
cause some things, which could abide the fire, were purified 
by the fire, Numb. xxxi. 23, and others by water, Lev. 
Xvi. 28. 

27 Ver. 23. Αὐτὰ δὲ τὰ ἐπουράνια, The heavenly things.) 
For explication of these words, let it be observed, First, 
That the apostle here speaketh all along, not of purification 
of persons, but of things of the tabernacle, and of the vessels 
of it, ver. 21, of the ra πάντα, “all other things” which were 
to be purified; of the ὑποδείγματα τῶν ἐν οὐρανοῖς, “ the pat- 
terns of things in heaven,” ver. 23, that is, “the tabernacle 
and the utensils of it,” viii.5. “The heavenly things them- 
selves,” opposed to them, cannot therefore signify men in 
yeneral, viz. the church triumphant or militant, or, in parti- 
cular, our souls or consciences, but the heavenly place, 


* Antiq. lib. iii. cap. 9, p. 89, B. 


styled, ver. 24, “heaven itself,” the place into which Christ 
entered, in which he appears before God, the place of which 
the tabernacle made with hands was a figure. 

Secondly, Observe, that by God’s appointment an atone- 
ment was to be made for the holy place, by the blood of a 
sin-offering sprinkled upon and before the mercy-seat seven 
times, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, 
and because of their transgressions and their sins (Lev. xvi. 
16). Now these could not defile that holy place into which 
they never entered, but yet they rendered them and their 
services unworthy to appear, and to be tendered before it, as 
they still did, worshipping towards or before this footstool of 
the divine Majesty. An atonement was also to be made for 
the tabernacle of the congregation, in which God dwelt 
among them, because of their uncleanness, which rendered 
them unworthy to come into that tabernacle where he was 
present ; whence it is observable, that no man was permitted 
to be in the tabernacle till the atonement was made for it ; 
so that the purification of the holy of holies was only the 
preparing of it to be still a mercy-seat, to which they might 
repair with their prayers, praises, and adorations, and from 
which God might graciously shine forth upon them, when 
purified by this atonement from the defilements of their sins. 
And the purification of the tabernacle was only to prepare it 
to be a place in which they might present their persons be- 
fore God, thus cleansed by this atonement from the guilt of 
sin. 
And in like manner was heaven itself to be prepared or 
purified for us, by our Lord’s entrance into it with his own 
atonement, or propitiatory sacrifice ; First, That our prayers 
and praises might ascend up thither, and be accepted at 
God’s mercy-seat, as being offered to God by our high-priest, 
and rendered acceptable by the atonement he had made for 
the pollutions cleaving to them. Hence is he represented 
as having a golden censer, and much incense to offer, with 
the prayers of all saints, Rev. viii. 3,4. Secondly, That our 
persons might be admitted into this heavenly tabernacle, as 
being cleansed by his blood from those defilements which 
they had contracted. Accordingly, our Lord tells his disci- 
ples, «In my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to 
prepare a place for you,” John xiv. 2, 3. And here he is 
said to purify and prepare these heavenly mansions for us, 
by entering into heaven, there to appear with his blood of 
sprinkling in the presence of God for us. 

23 Ver. 26. ᾿Απὸ καταβολῆς κύσμου, From the foundation of 
the world.] This phrase is used six times elsewhere in the 
New Testament, viz. Matt. xiii. 35, xxv. 34, Luke xi. 50, 
Rev. xiii. 8, xvii. 8, and in this epistle, iv. 3, «God’s works 
were finished from the foundation of the world.” And in 
all these places it manifestly signifies, “from the beginning 
of the world” (see Ps. Ixxviii. 2, Matt. xiii. 35) ; and there- 
fore must in reason bear the same import in this text; and 
then it proves, against Crellius, that the sufferings of Christ 
had respect to all preceding generations : for if his sufferings 
had not respected the sins of the whole world, where is the 
necessity, upon the supposition here made, of the reiteration 
of his sacrifice, that he should have suffered from the begin- 
ning of the world? 

39 'Επὶ τῇ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων, At the end of the world.] 
Dangerous here is the note of Grotius, that Paul, in id pro- 
pendebat, ut crederet de propinquo imminere mundi ruinam. 
See this confuted, note on 1 Thess. iv. 15. And that τὰ 


CHAPTER X. 


once to die, but after this (comes) the judgment (when 
they shall die no more) : 

28 So Christ was (Gr. being) once offered to bear 
the sins of many; and unto them that look for him 


919 


shall he appear (Gr. shall appear to them that look for 
him) the second time ® without (any more sacrifice for) 
sin unto salvation (ἡ, e. fur their salvation). 


τέλη and ἡ συντέλεια τῶν αἱ νων signifies, not the end of the 
world, but the last of the three celebrated ages of the world, 
see note on 1 Cor. x. 11. 


80 Χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας, Without a sin-offering.] See note on 2 
Cor. v. 20. 


CHAPTER X. 


(The legal high-priest, I say, went yearly into the holy | 
of holies, ix. 25, as it was necessary for him to do in that | 
tmperfect dispensation.) ] 

1 For the law having (only) ἃ ' shadow of good 
things to come, and? not the very image of the things 
(themselves), can * never with those sacrifices which | 
they (who officiated under it) offered year by year con- 
tinually make the comers thereunto perfect (7. 6, ab- 
solved from the guilt of sin for ever). 

2 For‘ then would they not have ceased to be offer- 
ed? because that the worshippers once purged (by hem 

“ets τὸ διηνεκὲς» for ever) should have had no more consci- 
ence of sins (ἡ. e, would not have been after conscious of 
the guilt of sin). 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 


1 Ver. 1. Σκιὰν τῶν μελλόντων ἀγαθῶν, A shadow of good 
things to come.) i. e. Of those good things to come, of which 
Christ is the high-priest ; their tabernacle being only a sha- 
dow or figure of that celestial tabernacle, into which he, as 
“our forerunner, hath already entered” (ix. 11) ; the purga- 
tion they obtained by their sacrifices, “ from the defilements 
of the flesh,” of “the purifications of our consciences from 
dead works” (ver. 13, 14); their annual redemption, of the 
“eternal redemption” obtained by Christ (ver. 12); their 
freedom of entrance, being cleansed by their sacrifices, into 
the tabernacle of the congregation, of our “ freedom to enter 
into the holy of holies.” 

2 Οὐκ αὐτὴν τὴν εἰκόνα τῶν πραγμάτων, Not the very image 
of things.) The apostle here distinguishing betwixt «the 
things” and “the image” of them, I think the word “image” 
cannot properly be rendered substance: but we under the 
gospel do enjoy such lively representations of the good things 
to come, as are both assurances, and foretastes, and begin- 
nings of them, the earnests of our future glory, in the enjoy- 
ment of the Holy Spirit, who is the earnest of it (Eph. i. 14) ; 
and by whom we are changed “into the image” of our glori- 
ous Lord (2 Cor. iti. 18); the image of our enjoyment of 
God, and dwelling for ever with him, by being made “a ha- 
bitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. ii. 22) ; the image 
of our entrance into his presence, in that “ freedom of access 
we have already to the Father” through Christ (Eph. ii. 18, 
lil. 12); the image of our final absolution, in that justifica- 
tion which is attended with that “peace of God which pass- 
eth all understanding.” And this sufficiently answers the 
objection of Esthius against this sense, viz. ‘That a more ex- 
press signification of these future good things would not more 
efficaciously avail towards the exhibition of them: for such 
an image of them as also is an earnest, foretaste, assurance, 
and an inchoation of them, is sufficient to « make the comers 
to God perfect” for ever, as far as we are capable of being so 
in this life ; as being fully assured of the entire pardon of our 
past sins, so as that they shall not be remembered any more, 
and of the enjoyment of those future blessings, of which we 
have received already the earnest, first-fruits, and assurance. 

3 Eis τὸ διηνεκὲς οὐδέποτε δύναται τοὺς προσερχομένους τελειῶσαι, 
Could never make the comers to them perfect for ever.) All 
interpreters allow a σύγχυσις, or trajection of the words in 
this verse. Now this, which I make in the translation, seems 
to be confirmed by the effect of our Lord's sacrifice opposed 
to these; for that, saith the apostle, τετελείωκεν εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς, 
“hath perfected for ever them that were sanctified,” i. e. 


hath cleansed them for ever from the guilt of sin (ver. 14). 


3 But (so far are they from procuring this perpetual 
remission, or freeing those that offered them, from being 
any more conscious of sin, that) in those sacrifices there 
is a remembrance again made of sins every year (viz. 
in the great day of expiation; whereas, where there 
is full remission of sins, there is no remembrance of 
them. any more, and so no more offering for sin needful, 
ver. 16, 17. 

4 They could not, 7 say, expiate for ever, or clear them 
from all conscience of sin;) For it és not possible that 
the blood of bulls and of goats ὃ should take away 
sins (fur ever, so that no farther sacrifice should be need- 
Sul to that end). 

5 Wherefore when he (the Lamb of God, that 


That therefore which he here denies to the legal sacrifices, 
must be also this, that they could τελειῶσαι εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς» 
“ expiate sins for ever;” or so as that they who were once 
purged by them, should have no more conscience of sin 
(ver. 2); and to this sense the following argument inclines. 

The words τελειοῦν and τελειῶσαι have two significations ; 
the one is agonistical, and then it signifies to reward and 
crown, as in those words, “ That they without us, μὴ τελείω- 
ϑῶσι, might not be made perfect,” i. e. be crowned, or have 
their fall reward, Heb. xi. 40 (see the note there): the other 
is sacrificial ; for when it is joined with sacrifices, or hath re- 
lation to them, it signifies, ἁγιάζειν, καὶ καϑαρίζεσϑαι, “to 
sanctify and purge from the guilt of sin.” Whence τελειώσεις 
is rendered by Hesychius and Phavorinus ἁγιάσεις. So the 
sin-offering, by which Aaron and his sons were sanctified, 
and set apart for the priesthood, is styled, Sucia τελειώσεως, 
Exod. xxix. 34; and the sacrifice by which the temple was 
sanctified, or purged from its defilements, is styled, Svcia 
τελειύσεως, 2 Mace. ii. 9, and therefore what is here, “can- 
not make perfect,” is, ver. 4, “cannot ἀφαιρεῖν ἁμαρτίας, take 
away sins;” and, ver. 2, καϑαρίζεσϑαν is to purge from the 
conscience of sin (see ix. 9. 12. 14). 

And, lastly, the word προσεργομένους here, seems not to 
signify, the comers to it, i. e. the law, but the comers to God 
for pardon by these legal sacrifices; for the word in this 
whole epistle still relates to coming to God, as the phrase is 
expressly, vii. 25, xi. 6, the “ coming to the throne of grace,” 
iv. 16; and in this chapter, ver. 2, προσερχώμεϑα, “Let us 
come (to God) with a true heart.” 

4 Ver. 2. ᾿Επεὶ οὐκ ἂν ἐπαύσαντο προσφερόμεναι, For then 
they would not have ceased to be offered.) Some, leaving out 
the οὐκ, translate the words thus, “ For then sure they would 
have ceased to be offered ;”’ but the οὐκ is found in Chrysos- 
tom, Theodoret, 2cumenius, Theophylact, and the Alexan- 
drian manuscript, and therefore ought not to be omitted: 
others, with the Arabic version, read the words interroga- 
tively, “ For then would they not have ceased to be offered 1 
which gives a very good sense. But yet there seems to be 
another sense of them very agreeable to the context; viz. 
“For then they would not have ceased,” or “ been taken 
away,” to give place to another sacrifice for sin, as the apos- 
tle proves they were, from ver. 5. 9. 

5 Ver. 4. ᾿Αφαιρεῖν ἁμαρτίας, To take away sins,) Is not, 
as Grotius here notes, efficere ne ultra peccetur, “ to make 
us sin no more ;” for that is not the effect of Christ’s blood, 
but, as far as in this imperfect state we are enabled so to do, 
of his sanctifying Spirit. Moreover, the apostle speaks, ver 
1, of expiation of the conscience from the guilt of sin, of ex 
piation by the legal sacrifices, which did not inwardly sane 


920 HEBREWS. 


taketh away the sins of the world) ® cometh into the } 
world, he (tn the psalmist) saith, Sacrifice and of- | 
fering thou wouldest not, but 7a body hast thou pre- 
pared (for) me: (ὦ. e. thow wouldest not have them to 
continue after my coming inlo the world to offer myself 
a sacrifice for the sins of the world, they being only to 
continue till the time of reformation, ix. 10, and here, 
ver. 9: 

6 ee offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast 
had no pleasure. 

7 Then said I, Lo, I come (as) § (in the volume (or, 


roll) of the book it is written of me,) to do (τοῦ ποιῆ- 
gary that I should dv) thy will, O God (i. 6. to offer 
my body a sacrifice for sin, according to thy will). 

8 Above when he said, (ἀνώτερον λέγων, when he, 
i. e. Christ had said before, Ps. xl. 6), Sacrifice and 
offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin 
thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein 
(speaking of the sacrifices); which are offered by the 
law ; 

9 Then said he (afterward, ver. 7), Lo, 1 come to 
do thy will, O God. (.2nd thus) he taketh away the 


tify, of purgation by the oblation of them, ver. 2, from that ] 
sin of which there was “a yearly remembrance” in the obla- | 
tion of those sacrifices “to make atonement” for them, ver. | 
3; and therefore the ἀδύνατον yap, which connects this verse | 
with the former, and shows that to be impossible to be 

effected, which he had said before was not effected by those 

sacrifices, must confine this phrase to the taking away the 

guilt of sin, by* expiation and atonement for them; not to 

the removal of the power and dominion of them, by internal 

sanctification. And so ἀφαιρεῖν ἁμαρτίαν always signifies, 

either to take away sin by a mere act of grace, absolving from 

the punishment due to it (as when Nathan said to David, 

ἀφέλη ὃ Χύριος τὸ ἁμάρτημά cov, «The Lord hath taken away 

thy sin; thou shalt not die,” 2 Sam. xii. 13, and the seraph 

to Isaiah, “This hath touched thy lips, καὶ ἀφελεῖ τὰς 

ἁμαρτίας cov, and he will take away thy sins,” Isa. vi. 7; 

and, Isa. xxvii. 9, “By this, ἀφαιρεϑήσεται ἀνομία Ἰακὼβ, 

shall \he iniquity of Jacob be forgiven ; and this is the bless- - 
Ing, ὅταν ἀφέλωμαι τὴν ἁμαρτίαν αὐτοῦ, when I shall take away 

his siri;’ and when God saith to Joshua, ἰδοὺ ἀῤήρηκα τὰς 

dvouias cov, “ Behold, I have taken away thy sins,” Zech. iii. 

4); or, when this phrase hath relation to a sacrifice, to take 

it away by that; as when it is said, Lev. x. 17, “ Wherefore 

have ye not eaten the sin-offering in the holy place, seeing 

itis most holy, and God hath given it you, ἵνα ἀψέλητε τὴν 

ἁμαρτίαν τῆς συναγωγῆς, καὶ ἐξιλάσησϑε περὶ αὐτῶν ἔναντι Κυρίου, 

that you might bear (away) the iniquity of the congregation, 

to make an atonement for them before the Lord?” (see ver. 

11.) 

6 Ver. 5. Eicepxéyevos εἰς τὸν κύσμον, Coming into the 
world.] The Socinian gloss here, de ingressti Christi in mun- 
dum futurum, i. e. “of Christ’s going out of this world into 
the next,” or into heaven, is so absurd, that it needs no re- 
futation; his “coming into the world,” in the scripture 
phrase, being his descending from heaven to be with us; 
John xvi. 28, “I came down from the Father, and came into 
the world ;” and his going hence into heaven being styled, | 
his leaving of the world, John xiii. 1, xvi. 28, xvil. LL. And 
though the phrase of “entering into the world” may some- 
times in John import Christ’s entering on his prophetic office, 
or his appearing publicly in the world, as 6 ἐρχύμενος is, 
“that Prophet which was to come into the world;” yet the 
connexion of it here with the time when a body was prepared | 
for him, will not suffer us to doubt, that it importeth here 
his assumption of the human nature, and his being born into 
the world in it. And so this phrase is used, when Christ is 
styled “the true Light, that enlighteneth every man that | 
cometh into the world,” John i. 9. For though the gram- 
matical construction doth not hinder but that ἐρχόμενον εἰς 
τὸν κόσμον, may be construed with “ Light” thus, “ Which 
coming into the world enlighteneth every man;”’ yet 
cody wa 55, “all that come into the world,” being the con- 
stant phrase by which the Jews express all men living, as | 
Dr. Lightfoot on the place observes; and the Jews | 
themselves, speaking of God himself after this manner, | 
tod ἸΝΔ 52 aN ons, T* Thou art he that illuminates 
every man that comes into the world ;” this is a plain con- 
firmation of our translation of these words. 

7 Σῶμα κατηρτίσω μοι, A body hast thou prepared, or framed, 
for πιο The words in the Hebrew are, Ὁ M2 ons, 
«My ears hast thou bored,” in plain allusion to the cere- 


mony used to a slave that would not have his liberty, but 


| ovpdyy, “an eternal salvation ; 


would continue in his obedience to his master, and would not 
go free (Exod. xxi. 6, Deut. xv. 17). And seeing this was 
done out of love to his master, the boring of his ear seems 
not to be commanded as a note of infamy, but as a solemn 
devoting of him to his master’s service ; though were it used 
as a mark of servitude, it answers still exactly to our Saviour, 
who “took upon him,” saith the apostle, μορφὴν δούλου, * the 
form of a servant,” or of a slave, and “became obedient to 
the death” for us, when he might have been free from it, out 
of love to his Father and ushis children (Heb. ii. 14). And 
because he only could appear in this form, and performed 
this obedience in the body he assumed for this purpose, the 
seventy interpreters, perhaps by the internal motion of the 
Holy Spirit, translated the phrase thus, “A body hast thou 
prepared (or framed) for me:” for that the apostle did not 
change the translation of the Septuagint, but find it thus, his 
words declare, when he saith, “ He taketh away the first,” 
viz. sacrifice, and offering, according to the law, “ that he 
might establish the latter,” i. 6. the oblation of his body, or 
his obedience to the death in his body thus prepared for him. 
So read Theodoret, Austin, Euthymius, Chrysostom, A polli- 
narius, and Ambrosius; so read the Arabic and Ethiopic 
versions ; and they who read otherwise, may be supposed to 
have followed not the Greek, but the Hebrew. And this 
reading the apostle approves and follows, as the true meaning 
of the Hebrew phrase, and that which so fitly doth express 
our Saviour’s oblation of himself (as that sacrifice which was 
to put an end to those which only were the types and sha- 
dows of it), and his giving up himself, entirely a servant, to 
do the will of God; on which account, slaves and servants, 
who were altogether at the beck and will of their lords, were 
both by Jews and heathens called σώματα, “ bodies.”’ Thus 
Raguel gave to Tobias half his goods, σώματα, καὶ κτήνη, καὶ 
ἀργύριον, “servants, and cattle, and money,” Tobit x. 10. 
The sale of the captive Jews, by Nicanor, is in the Greek 
thus, dvopicpds ᾿Ιουδαϊκῶν σωμάτων, 2 Mace. viii. 11, Joseph. 
Antiq. Jud. lib. xii. cap. 2, p. 390, F. So all the servants 
of the men of Sichem are, πάντα τὰ σώματα αὐτῶν, Gen. 
xxxiv. 29. And σήματα is by our translation rendered 
« slaves,” Rev. xviii. 13. So Aristotle, Strabo, Demosthenes, 
and Julius Pollux, use the word (see Constantine). 

I do not find that the ancient Jews interpreted these words 
of Christ in express terms; but they say enough to justify 
the apostle’s argument from this text. For hence they con- 
clude, that* “ God had no principal regard to sacrifices, and 
that obedience and praise were better than sacrifice ;” and 
that? “a farther salvation was to be expected, even the 
salvation of God,” Ps. 1. 23, Isa. xlv. 17, which was nywn 
” or, in the language of the 
apostle here, “salvation, εἰς τὸ παντελὲς, for ever,” Heb. vii. 
25, εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς, X. 14. 

8 Ver. 7. In the volume of the book it is written of me, 
that I should come to do thy will.] It being there written, 
that the Messiah was to “make his life an offering for sin,” 
Isa. lili. 10, and by that to “cause these offerings and sacri- 
fices to cease,’ Dan. ix. 27; therefore he is said to go to his 
cross, ‘as it was written of him,” Matt. xxvi. 24; and the 
rulers of the Jews are said to have “ fulfilled the scriptures” 
in condemning him, and to have “done that which was 
written of him,” Acts xiii. 27. 29 (see Luke xxiv. 44. 46). 

9 Ver. 10.] Though perhaps the article of should be left 
out, it being not read by Chrysostom and Theodoret, or by 


* See Grot. de Satisf. contra Soc. cap. 10. | 
{ Vejikra Rab. sect. 31. 


* Maim. More Nev. par. iii. cap. 32. 
{ Pug. Fid. par. iii. dist. 3, cap. 12, §. 14. 


CHAPTER Χ. 


first (the legal sacrifices), that he may establish the se- 
cond (the oblation of his body, ver. 10). 

10 ® By the which ” will we are sanctified through 
the offering (Gr. διὰ τῆς προσφορᾶς, who are sanclified 
by the offering) of the body of Jesus Christ (ἐφάπαξ) 
once for all (not as the legal sacrifices, once every year, 
ix. 25, 26). 

11 And every priest (according to the law) standeth 

Gr. stood) daily ministering and offering oftentimes 
the same sacrifices, which can never take away (the 
guilt of ) sins : 

12 But this man (Christ Jesus), after he had offered 


921 


one sacrifice for sins (by which the guilt of them hath 
been fully taken away, Heb. i. 3, is) " for ever, sat 
down on the right hand of God; (and so is placed 
over all his works, according to Ps. viil. 6 3) 

13 From henceforth esate, till his enemies be 
made his footstool ((i/l the devil, antichrist, death, the 
wages of sin, and the last enemy, be abolished, 1 Cor. 
xv. 15, and so the following words of the psalmist, 
Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet, be 
fully accomplished). 

14 For by (his) one offering (of himself to the death 
for us) he hath ® perfected for ever (i. 6. completely 


the Syriac version ; yet, because it is in the Alexandrian 
copy, in GEcumenius, Theophylact, the Arabic version, and 
in many manuscript copies, I thought fit to give it a place in 
the paraphrase, and then it is easy to perceive that ἡγιάσμεϑα 
must be repeated, to complete the sense. 

10'Ev ᾧ θελήματι, By the which will.) Christ had said in 
the psalmist, that his Father would not have the sacrifices 
and oblations of the law continued, but that his will was, 
that he should once for all suffer for the sin of man ; by the 
execution of which will, performed by Christ’s oblation of 
his body for us, we are sanctified: where ἁγιάζειν, or ἁγιά- 
ζεσϑαι, doth not signify to be freed from the power and do- 
minion of sin, but from the guilt of it; as is proved, note on 
ix. 13: and this is farther proved, from the means of this 
sanctification, viz. the oblation of Christ's body, that being 
offered as a piacular victim, to purge us from the guilt of 
sin, and from the condemnation due unto us for it: nor doth 
the apostle heré understand the oblation of Christ’s body in 
the heavens for us, that being properly his intercession, but 
the oblation of his body on the cross, and his sufferings 
(Heb. ii. 10, 11, xiii. 12). And, lastly, this being effected 
by the oblation of Christ’s body, ἐφάταξ, “once for all;” as 
it restrains the word to his oblation on the cross, which was 
but once performed, and is past (whereas his appearance in 
the heavens for us is still present and perpetual), so doth it 
perfectly overthrow the pretended sacrifice of the mass: for, 
if “by this one oblation he hath perfected for ever them 
that are sanctified,” what efficacy can there be in this vain 
repetition of it? nay, must it not import, that remission of 
sins is not fully obtained for us by our Lord’s sacrifice on 
the cross? for, saith the apostle, “ where remission of these 
is, there is no more offering for sin” (ver. 18). 

NM Ver. 12. Bis τὸ διηνεκὲς, For ever.] By comparing this 
with ver. 14, « By one offering he hath perfected, εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς, 
for ever them that are sanctified,’ and with ver. 1, where it 
is denied that the legal sacrifices could, τελειῶσαι εἷς τὸ διηνεκὲς, 
“‘expiate sins for ever;” and from the stress the apostle 
here (ver. 10), and elsewhere, lays upon this προσφορὰ ἐφάπαξ, 
“ oblation once for all,’—I imagine that these words may be 
better rendered thus, “This man, after he had offered one 
sacrifice for sin for ever, is sat down.” 

2 Ver. 14.) That reredeiwxev εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς is to “ expiate 
sin for ever,” see note on ver. 1; and that the apostle here 
speaks of them who are sanctified by this expiation, hath 
been observed, note on ix. 13; as is apparent from the testi- 
mony of the Holy Ghost produced here to confirm this, viz. 
that “God would remember their sins no more” (ver. 
17). 

A question ariseth from ver. 4 and 11, Upon what ground 
is it here asserted, that the legal sacrifices could never take 
away sin? and wherein lies the difference, in point of expia- 
tion, between the sacrifices of the law and the oblation of the 
body of Christ, that one could purge the conscience from the 
sense of guilt, and take away sin for ever, and the other 
could not? “If all must be resolved into divine appointment 
and divine acceptation, how is it ‘impossible that the blood 
of bulls and goats should take away sin?’ Was it not pos- 
sible that God might have appointed and accepted of the 
life of a beast, instead of that of the greatest malefactor, who 
thereby might be freed, not only from a temporal, but like- 
wise from the obligation to eternal death?” Now in answer 
to this question, I conceive, that divine acceptation must 
neither wholly be excluded, nor wholly be assigned, as the 
cause that the oblation of our Saviour’s body was thus avail- 
able for that expiation of the guilt of sin, which could not 
be obtained by the legal sacrifices. 

Vor. IV.—116 


And, First, I say, divine acceptation must not, yea, can- 
not wholly be excluded; for that would render the oblation 
of our Lord’s body, of what virtue soever it might be in itself, 
wholly unable to procure the pardon of our sin, and exclude 
all true remission and forgiveness of sin. For, 

The punishment of another, being not the thing threatened 
or required, but only the death of the offender, can be of no 
avail to free the criminal from punishment, though he, that 
is the substitute, be never so able or so well inclined to suffer 
it; unless the governor, or he to whom the execution of the 
law belongs, be willing to accept of his vicarious punishment ; 
and whensoever he is pleased, and sees just cause to do so, 
it is an act of grace and favour to the criminal, and a remis- 
sion of his personal obligation to bear the punishment he had 
deserved. In punishments inflicted on the criminal, it is 
true, that so far as he suffers what the law exacts, so far doth 
he dissolve the obligation to further punishment, and so far 
must his punishment be inconsistent with remission ; for as 
far as any man is punished, he is not forgiven. But by ad- 
mission of another to suffer in our stead, we are as much for- 
given as we could be, did he not suffer in our stead, because 
we are as much exempted from suffering any punishment on 
the account of our ofiences; and how can we be more for- 
given, than we are by such an act as removes from us the 
whole punishment as much as if we had never offended ? the 
vicarious punishment is indeed the motive and the procuring 
cause of this forgiveness, as it renders it consistent with the 
governor's honour, and with the ends of government, to grant 
it; but it takes off nothing from the freedom of the pardon. 

Secondly, I add, That divine acceptation must not be 
assigned as the only cause that the oblation of our Saviour’s 
body was thus available for the expiation of the guilt of sin ; 
for then no reason can be given why he might not have 
accepted of the blood of bulls and goats, and much more the 
sufferings of any ordinary man, for the procuring our exemp- 
tion from the guilt of sin; whereas two reasons have been 
already offered in the note on ii. 14, why the blood of bulls 
and goats could never take away sin; viz. first, because they 
were not of the same nature and original with man, who 
sinned, and so could not dissolve the debt his nature had 
contracted. Secondly, they never could procure for us a 
resurrection, and so they could not free us from that eternal 
death our sins deserved; nor could any mortal man do it, 
because he never could have power to raise his own body ; 
only that Jesus who had “ power to lay down his life, and 
take it up again” who “ hath life in himself,” and who can 
make “the dead hear the voice of the Son of man, and live,” 
can do this. Indeed, they could do nothing of that which 
was requisite, saith this epistle, and the whole scripture, for 
that end. But the great reason why the blood of bulls and 
goats could never take away sins, is this, that they could 
never answer the great ends of punishment, and thereby 
render it consistent with the honour of the governor, and 
with the ends of government, to admit the substitution of 
them in our stead. Now the ends which wise men do 
assign to punishments, are these : 

First, Παράδειγμα, That they who suffer may be exem- 
plary to others, and may, by what they suffer, deter others 
from the commission of the like offences; by letting them, 
in their example, know what they must suffer, when the 
guilt of their own sins is laid upon them. 

Secondly, Νουθεσία, That the offender may learn wisdom, 
by the rod: that the remembrance of what was suffered ἴοι 
it might prevent the repetition of his sin; and that he may 
be fitted to embrace that counsel of our Saviour, “Sin no 
more, lest a worse thing come upon thee,” 


922 


expiated the sins of ) them that are sanctified (through 
faith in his blood, procuring the remission of sins, Acts 
XXvi. 18). 

15 Whereof (and of this) the Holy Ghost also 
is a witness to us: for after that he had said be- 
fore, 

16 This zs the covenant that I will make with them 


Thirdly, Τιμωρία, The vindication of the prince’s honour, 
and the preservation of the laws he hath established from 
contempt. Now to appply this to our purpose, I say, 

1. That by the obedience of our Lord Christ unto the 
death in our stead, these ends of punishment are very sig- 
nally obtained, and that with more advantage to God’s glory 
than if the punishment of our offences had been inflicted 
upon us; and so God, by it, may be truly said to have 
been satisfied, seeing that justice, which consists in punishing 
for the transgression of a law, is truly satisfied, when all those 
ends, for which the punishment of the offender could be de- 
sired, are obtained. 

2. Ladd, That none of these ends could be at all obtained 
by the suffering of bulls and goats, and not comparatively 
by the sufferings of any mortal man whatsoever. And, 

First, God, by this dispensation, hath given us the best 
and most effectual example to deter us from sin: for three 
things only can be requisite to this end, viz. that the punish- 
ment of sin be insupportable, when we sufler it ; inevitable, 
when we, by our rebellions, have made ourselves the vessels 
of God’s wrath; and that we have a lively sense and deep 
impression of ull this upon our spirits. Now, 

The example of our Saviour's sufferings shows how insup- 
portable the punishment will be, which justice will inflict 
upon the sinner; for if the apprehension of it produced such 
agonies and consternations in the soul of Christ, that God 
saw need to send an angel to support him under them, how 
must the sinner sink under that burden, when it is laid upon 
his shoulders! if he, who was the well-beloved Son of God, 
found it so dreadful to lie under the burden for some hours ; 
to lie exposed for ever to it, must be far more intolerable: 
if the consideration of God's paternal love, and of the glorious 
issues of his sufferings, was scarce sufficient to support our 
Lord under the terrors of that cup; what will support the 
sinner, when he shall know himself to be the everlasting ob- 
ject of God’s wrath ! 

This example also shows, that impenitent sinners cannot 
escape this wrath of God, since he inflicted so great a punish- 
ment on the beloved of his soul, when he became our surety. 
For if on this account “ God spared not his only Son,” we 
may be sure he will not spare his stubborn enemies. With 
what strong cries, and with what earnestness, did our Lord 
pray to be delivered from this cup? and yet, when he had 
“ made his soul an offering for sin,” thus did it « please the 
Lord to bruise him.” If then his ears were shut against the 


cries of his beloved Son, how can they be opened to the | 


howlings of rebellious sinners ? if God was pleased to lay so 
great a load on him who was but sponsor for our sins, their 
punishment cannot be milder who commit them. And, 

Lastly, This example gives us the most lively sense and 
deep impression of these things, as being the most sensible 
demonstration of God’s indignation against sin, which is 
recorded in the sacred writings. ΤῸ find God drowning the 
whole world, and raining fire and brimstone on Sodom and 
Gomortha for sin; to see the darling objects of his lové, the 
Jewish nation, become for above seventeen hundred years 
the objects of his sorest wrath, are instances sufficient to 
deter men from sin: but then to see God mix a cup so bitter, 
so full of gall and wormwood, for his own innocent and well- 
beloved Son, and make him drink it off, only because he 
undertook to be our surety ; to see him lifted up upon the 
cross, the earth trembling under him, as if unable to bear his 
weight, the heavens darkened over him, as if shut against his 
cry, and all this because our sins did meet upon him,—is a 
sure and eminent demonstration of God's indignation against 
sin. 

Secondly, Whereas inevitable ruin must have followed, 
upon the execution of the deserved punishment on the of- 
fender’s person, God, by this method, hath taken a most ex- 
cellent way for reformation of the sinner, which was the se- 


HEBREWS. 


after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws 
into their hearts, and in (or, upon) their minds will I 
write them; (Jer. xxxi. 33,) 

17 (He adds, as a farther promise, or part of the 
new covenant,) And their sins and iniquities will I re- 
member no more. 

18 Now where (such a) remission of these is (as 


cond end of punishment: for what can be a more effectual 
motive to abstain from sin, than this example, which so 
clearly represents the greatness of the provocation in the 
greatness of the punishment, and shows it is impossible that 
guilty persons should avoid the stroke of God’s vindictive 
justice, or bear the weight of his almighty arm? 

Thirdly, God, by this dispensation, hath sufficiently con- 
sulted the preservation of his honour, and secured the reve- 
rence and observation of his laws ; which was the third great 
end of punishment. For, 

God, by declaring thus, he would not pardon our offences, 
without this satisfaction made for the violation of his law, 
hath fully vindicated his institutions from contempt; seeing, 
by this example, he hath let all men know, that though he 
be a God of great long-suffering and mercy, he “will by no 
means clear the sinner,” or suffer sin to go unpunished. + 

Again, God, by this dispensation, hath vindicated his ho- 
nour more than if he had destroyed the sinner ; having more 
evidently shown his hatred of, and great displeasure against 


| sin, by punishing it so severely in his only Son, when he be- 


came our surety: for the greater the inducement is to remit 


| the punishment of sin, the greater must be his hatred who 


inflicts it; that therefore this consideration, that he who 
suffered was his well-beloved Son, would not induce him to 
remit the punishment, must be the highest demonstration of 
his most perfect hatred of all iniquity. 

But that none of those ends could be at all obtained by 
the substitution of a bull, or goat, or ram, to suffer in our 
stead, must be extremely evident, this being a substitution 
very supportable, especially by the rich, who very freely 
spend much more upon the satisfaction of their lusts, and 
who would therefore gladly buy a freedom to commit them 
at so small expense. This then would be so far from tending 
to reform the sinner, that it would rather be a great encou- 
ragement to him to continue in his evil courses, when he 
thus knew the damage would be very little to him; this 
also could not tend to the honour of the lawgiver, but rather 
would tempt men to conceive that his displeasure against 
sin could not be great, since he required so little to repair 
his honour; and that he was not much concerned for any 
satisfaction for the violations of his law, when such slight 
matters were by him thought sufficient expiations for them. 

Moreover, the oblations of any ordinary man could not 
procure this expiation for us: (1.) Because he could only 
suffer that punishment he had deserved by his own sins: 
now evident it is, no satisfaction can be made by me for 
others, by suffering that which justice doth require me to 
sufler for my own offences. (2.) Because he could not over- 


| come death, he never could raise up himself from the grave, 


] 


and so could not procure that redemption from it to another, 
which he could not obtain for his own self. Nor (3.) is it 
visible how he can serve the ends of justice, or of government, 
by doing so, more than the criminal himself would do by his 
own sufferings. For, (1.) what great indication would it be 
of divine hatred to sin, that he required only the death of a 


| mortal man, to expiate the sins of the whole world? Or, (2.) 


what discouragement could this afford to sinners from con- 


| tinuing in their evil courses, or what great dread of divine 


vengeance? for if, as it was conjectured by most nations, 
the death of a malefactor might be sufficient for this purpose, 
what nation could ever want such expiations for their sins ! 
or, if it were to be a good man, seeing they bore so great love 
to mankind in general, and to their country in particular, 
some of them would still be ready to offer their own lives 
for preservation of their nation: or how, by this, would God 
consult either the honour of his government, or secure the 


| reverence and observation of his laws, by thus requiring only 


one criminal to suffer less than he himself deserved, to make 
atonement for the continual violations of his sacred laws by 
a whole nation, or even the whole race of men ? 


CHAPTER X. 2 


culs off the remembrance of them any more), there is 
% no more (need of) offering for sin (see ver. 2, 


19 Having therefore, brethren, boldness (or, liberty, 
see note on iii. 6) to enter into the holiest by the 
blood of Jesus (from which the Jews were typically de- 
barred, the way into the holiest being not then revealed, 
ix. 8), 

20 By a new ™ and "5 living way, which he hath 
consecrated (or, made new) for us, through the veil, 
that is to say, (¢hrough) his flesh (offered for our sins 
upon the cross) ; 

21 And having (such) “an high priest over the house 
of God (i. 6. the church, ili. 6, 1 Tim. iii. 15, or, over 
the house not made with hands, in which God dwells, viii. 
1 ΕΙΣ 

22 Let us (who are of this house, iii. 6, and for 
whom this freedom is procured by this high-priest) 
draw near (/o God) with a trae (upright) heart in full 
assurance of faith, (that our services shall be accepted 
now, and our persons hereafter admilted into his pre- 


923 


sence, as) having ΠΤ our hearts sprinkled (by the blood 
of Jesus) from (the accusations of) an evil conscience, 
and our bodies washed with pure water (viz. ‘he laver 
of regeneration). 

23 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith (Gr. 
the hope we profess) without wavering ; (or, being moved 
from the hope of our calling, Col. ii. 23, that hope which 
causeth us to rejoice, iii. 6, which entereth within the veil, 
vii. 27), (for he zs faithful who hath promised) (this en- 
trance into it) ; 

24 And Jet us consider one another (as members of 
the same body) to provoke (one another) unto love and to 
good works: (or, works of charity; see note on Tit. 
lll. 8: 

25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves to- 
gether, (not drawing back from Christianity to Juda- 
ism, ver. 26. 38,) as the manner of some is; (who, 
for fear of perseculion from the Jews, return to the wor- 
ship of the synagogue, ver. 32. 36;) but exhorting one 
another (to perseverance in the faith): and (that) so 
much the more, as ye see ® the day (of vengeance 


8 Ver. 18. Οὐκ ἔτι προσφορὰ, &e. No more offering for sin.] 
From these and many other passages of this epistle, the sa- 
crifice of the mass, declared by the Trent council (see xxii. 
can. 2,3) to be “a true and proper propitiatory sacrifice 
for sin,” is utterly overthrown. For, (1.) from these words 
of the apostle, “It was not needful that he should offer him- 
self often, for then must he have often suffered,” ix. 24—26, 
it is very evident, that Christ cannot offer himself but he 
must suller: since then they dare not say that Christ suffers 
in the mass, neither can they say that Christ offers himself 
there. (2.) From those words, “ Without shedding of blood 
there is no remission,” ix. 22, it follows, either that the sacri- 
fice of the mass must be a bloody sacrifice, and so Christ’s 
blood must be as often shed as he is offered in the mass, or 
else that it obtaineth no remission of sin. (3.) This follows 
from these words, “ By one oblation he hath perfected,” (i. 6. 
hath perfected and fully expiated, and that) “for ever, them 
that are sanctified ;” for what necessity of, what virtue can 
there be in, doing that again, which is perfectly and fully 
done already, and that for ever? And, lastly, where remis- 
sion of sins is so obtained by Christ’s own oblation, that 
God will “remember them no more,” there is, saith the 
apostle, “no more need of offering for sin;’’ but by the 
blood of Christ, the blood of the new testament, such remis- 
sion is obtained, saith the same apostle, ix. 15.17. Ergo, &c. 

4 Ver. 20. ‘Oddy πρόσψατον, A new way.) The way into 
the highest heaven being before ἄθατος, “ impassable,” saith 
Josephus (see note on ix. 8); there being no entrance for 
us into that place, till our forerunner had entered into it, vii. 
20 ; till he had purified and prepared it for us by his better 
sacrifice, ix. 23, John xiv. 2. This was the doctrine of all 
the primitive Christians, that Christ, by his death, opened 
this veil for the just that were, from Adam,* ἀπυκεκλεισμένοι, 
excluded from those blissful regions: fthat διέσχισε φραγ- 
μὸν τὸν ἐξ αἰῶνος μὴ σχισϑέντα, “he rent open the enclosure 
which from the beginning had not been laid open.” Hence, 
Tertulliant saith, the patriarchs were Dominice resurrec- 
tionis appendices, “the appendants of our Lord's resurrec- 
tion ;” and therefore, as καὶ ἔχοντες is here to be repeated 
from ver. 19, so the preposition διὰ, “through,” seems here 
not to denote the means, or the condition of entrance into 
the holy of holies, but rather the term to be passed through; 
as if he should have said, “ We have a new way of entrance 
through the veil, now rent;’’ which, before it was so, hin- 
dered our entrance into that place; that is, through the 
flesh or body of Christ broken upon the cross, and so let- 
ting out that blood which procures that entrance, as the 
blood the high-priest carried with him procured his entrance, 
rave 

15. Kai ζῶσαν, And living way :] That is, ζωοποιοῦσαν, 


* Cyril. Hieros. cat. 4, p. 27. 

+ Thad. apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 13, p. 35. 

+ De Anim. cap. 55. See Petay. de Incar. tom. ii. lib. 
xiii. cap. 16—18. 


“leading to and giving life,” saith Grotius. He dying for us, 
“that we might live through him,” 1 John iv. 9. ‘Thus the 
“bread of life,” John vi., and the “ word of life,” Acts v. 20, 
Phil. ii. 16, is the bread and word giving life, in opposition 
to the dead shadows of the law, saith Dr. Hammond, or the 
sacrifices prescribed by it, all whose virtue was in their 
death; we being “reconciled by the death of Christ,” but 
“saved by his life’ (Rom. v. 10); our access to these 
mansions being obtained by this “forerunner, made higher 
than the heavens” (vii. 26), “ made a priest there, after the 
power of an endless life” (ver. 16), and “ therefore able to 
save us to the uttermost, because he lives for ever, there to 
make intercession for us” (ver, 25). 

‘6 Ver. 21. A high-priest.] i. e. A high-priest so merciful 
and able to help us when tempted, and so faithful in the 
performance of his office (ii. 14). 

1 Ver. 22. ᾿Εῤῥαντισμένοι τὰς καρδίας, &e. Having our 
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, &c.] Here is ἃ mani- 
fest allusion to the things requisite to procure to a defiled Jew 
admittance to God’s sacred presence in the temple or the ta- 
bernacle. The Jewish maxim saith, that “ the very root and 
essence of the sacrifice was sprinkling of blood ;” and therefore, 
on the great day of expiation, the blood of the bullock for 
the sin-offering, and the goat for the sin-oflering, which was 
brought in to make atonement in the holy place for the peo- 
ple, was sprinkled before the mercy-seat seven times (Lev. 
xvi. 14, 15, 27), and so they were made clean from all their 
sins before the Lord (ver. 30), and admitted again into the 
tabernacle of the congregation, from which they were ex- 
cluded till this sprinkling was performed (ver. 17). Again, 
when the Israelites were in a great fear, that by coming near 
the tabernacle they should be consumed, saying, “ Behold, 
we die, we perish: whosoever cometh any thing near unto 
the tabernacle of the Lord, shall die” (Numb. xvii. 12, 13); 
God appoints the water made of the ashes of the red heifer, 
to cleanse them from those legal impurities, which rendered 
them unfit to come into his tabernacle, and made it dan- 
gerous for them to approach unto it, styling it on that ac- 
count a “parification from sin” (ver. 9); and this water 
was to be sprinkled on the unclean, and he was to wash his 
clothes, and bathe himself in water, and being thus purified, 
might come into the sanctuary (ver, 19, 20): this sprink- 
ling of the blood and water, “ sanctifying to the purifying of 
the flesh” (Heb. ix. 13). “Let us therefore,” saith the 
apostle, “« who have (not our flesh only, but) our consciences 
purified from the guilt of sin, by the sprinkling (not of the 
blood of bulls and goats, but) of the blood of Christ, and 
have our high-priest still presenting this blood before the 
mercy-seat, and who have our bodies washed with the pure 
water of baptism, the laver of regeneration (as the clothes 
and bodies of the unclean were with fountain-water), draw 
near to God” with greater freedom than they could. 

8 Ver. 25. ‘Hyipav, The day approaching.) i. e. The day 
of the Lord’s coming to destroy the unbelieving Jews, and 
to execute his vengeance on them, for rejecting and crucifying 


924 


upon the unbelieving and apostalizing Jews) approach- 
ing. 

26 ' For if we sin wilfully (by renouncing and fall- 
ing off from Christianity) after that we have received 
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more 
sacrifice for sins, (οὐκ ἔτι» there is not yet left any other 
sacrifice, besides that which you reject, to purge you from 
the guilt of sin ; and therefore nothing can remain for such 
apostates) 

27 But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and 
fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries 
(of Christ the Son of God, ver. 29. 

28 And of this you may be assured, from what befell 
those who revolted from the law of Moses ; for) He that 
despised Moses’ law died without mercy under (the 
testimony of ) two or three witnesses (of that apostasy, 
Numb. xv. 30, 31, Deut. xxvii. 2. 7): 

29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye 
(then), shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden 
under foot the Son of God (using him with the greatest 
contempt), and hath counted the blood of the (new) 
covenant, ™ wherewith he was sanctified (or, purged, 
Srom the guilt of his sins, ii. 11, ix. 13, xiii. 12), an 
unholy thing (such as pollutes, rather than purges, as 
being the blood of a malefactor), and hath done despite 


HEBREWS. 


unto the Spirit of grace (by refusing to own him as the 
Spirit of God ; yea, rejecting him as a lying spirit, and 
his gifts and miracles as illusions) 2 

30 For we know him that hath said (ἡ. e. who intro- 
duceth God thus speaking), Vengeance belongeth unto 
me, I will recompense, #! saith the Lord (Deut. xxxii. 
35). And ” again (7 the same place, ver. 36, saith of 
him), The Lord shall judge his people. 

31 Jt 7s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the 
living God, (who ever lives to punish those who revolt 
from him ; see iii. 12.) 

32 But call to remembrance (᾿Αναμιμνήσκχεσϑδε δὲ, 
Remember therefore) the former days, in which, after 
ye were illuminated (2. 6. baptized into the Christian 
faith, vi. 4), ye endured (courageously) a great fight 
(Gr. conflict) of afflictions; (for a great persecution then 
befell the church which was at Jerusalem, Acts viii. 2, 
1 Thess. ii. 143) 

33 Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock (or 
spectacle) both by reproaches and afflictions ; and partly, 
whilst ye became companions of them that were so 
used (Acts v. 41, the apostles, especially Paul and Bar- 
nabas, Acts xiy. 5. 19, 20, xvii. 10. 14, 15). 

34 For ye had compassion of me in“ my bonds 
(Acts xx. 23, xxi. 4. 11—13), and took joyfully the 


their Messiah, styled by Luke, “the days of vengeance,” 
XX1. 225 ἡμέρα τῆς εἰσύδου αὐτοῦ, “the day of the Lord’s 
coming, which who can bear ?”’ saith the prophet, Mal. iii. 
25 ἡμέρα καιομένη ὡς κλίβανος, “ the day burning like an oven ;” 
ἡμέρα ἡ ἐρχομένη, “the day coming that shall so burn up 
them that do wickedly, as not to leave them root or branch ;” 
ἡμέρα Κυρίου ἐγγίζουσα, “ the day of the Lord drawing near, 
when all the inhabitants of the land shall tremble,” Joel ii. 
15 μεγάλη ἡ ἡμέρα Κυρίου καὶ ἐπιφανὴς, “the great and terrible 
day of the Lord,” ver. 11. 81; ἡμέρα αὐτοῦ, “the day of the 
Son of man.” ‘That this is the meaning of the place, will 
appear from the scope of the apostle, which is to terrify them 
he writes to, by the consideration of that dreadful day of 
vengeance threatened to the unbelieving Jews, not only by 
our Lord, but their own prophets, and now near at hand; 
as it follows from ver. 26 to 32. 

19 Ver. 26. ᾿Ἑκουσίως γὰρ ἡμαρτανόντων ἡμῶν, For if we sin 
wilfully.] That these words do not concern every sin com- 
mitted knowingly against the laws of Christ, but only such 
as do consist in apostatizing from the faith after we have re- 
ceived the knowledge of it, and rejecting him as our prophet 
and lawgiver, will appear, (1.) from the parallel place, vi. 4 
—6; for they who there “cannot be renewed unto repent- 
ance,” are they who «fall away” from the faith, after they 
have been “enlightened,” &c. ; which plainly answers to these 
words here, “ They who sin wilfully, after they have received 
the knowledge of the truth.” They are there said to “cru- 
cify afresh the Lord of life, and to put him toan open shame ;”” 
yea, to “fall away”’ after « they have tasted of the heavenly 
gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Ghost ;” 
which always answers to the “trampling under foot the Son 
of God,” and the “doing despite to the Spirit of grace.” 
(2.) From the instances produced out of the Old Testament : 
for the argument used, ver. 28, from the comparison of “ him 
who despised Moses’ law,” and therefore was to “die with- 
out mercy, under the hand of two or three witnesses,” Deut. 
xvii. 6, plainly concerns them only who transgressed God's 
covenant, by “going.and serving other gods,” ver. 2, 3. 
And as for those who sinned voluntarily,” or « with a high 
hand,” under the law, and so were to be “cut off,” and have 
no sacrifice allowed to expiate their sin (Numb. xv. 30,31), 
they were such as “blasphemed” or “ reproached the Lord,” 
i. e. revolted from, and would not own him as their governor; 
they “despised the word of the Lord;” they made the cove- 
nant given in Sinai void, by contemning the authority by 
which it was enjoined, as the Hebrew signifies, and so they 
were indeed apostates from God. (3.) From the preceding 
exhortation, ver. 25, not to fall off from the assemblies of 
Christians; and the following, not to “cast away their con- 
fidence,” ver. 35, not to “draw back” from the faith, ver. 


38; it being “better not to have known the way of right- 
eousness, than, having known it, to depart from the holy 
commandments delivered to them,” 2 Pet. ii. 21 ; and, lastly, 
from the expressions used, ver. 29, which can agree to none 
besides apostates from the Christian faith: for, to “tread 
the Son of God under foot,” must surely signify the ex- 
tremest contempt that can be cast upon him; to “count the 
blood of the covenant” (by which we are purified) itself, κοι- 
νὸν, “unclean,” and polluting, can be only done by him who 
looks on Christ, not as the Saviour of the world by it, but 
as one who deserved to suffer what from the Jews he did: 
and to “do despite to the Spirit of grace,” cannot well sig- 
nify less than that which our Lord styles the “sin against 
the Holy Ghost,” which men cannot commit, and in their 
hearts continue Christians. . 

20 Ver. 29. Ἔν ᾧ ἡγιάσθη, By which he was sanctified.} 
That this refers not to Christ sanctifying himself, or offering 
himself as a piacular victim for us (John xvii. 19), but to 
him who “counted this blood an unholy thing,” seems clear, 
first, from the constant usage of this phrase in this epistle, 
where “ he that is sanctified” is he “ that is purged from the 
guilt of sin,” ii. 11; and in this very chapter, where it is 
said, ver. 10, that we are ἡγιασμένοι, “ sanctified by the ob- 
lation of the body [or, the blood] of Christ ;” and, ver. 14, 
that “by one oblation he hath perfected for ever τοὺς ἁγια- 
ζομένους, them that are sanctified.” Secondly, from the 
phrase, “the blood of the [new] covenant,” i. 6. of that co- 
venant in which God promises to “be merciful to our ini- 
quities, and remember our sins no more,” viii. 12, x. 17. 
Thirdly, because, though Christ is said to “ sanctify himself,” 
yet is he never said to be sanctified, but only ἁγιάζειν τὸν λαὸν, 
“to sanctify the people by his own blood,” xiii. 12 (see the 
reading justified, Examen Millii). ‘ 

21 Ver. 30. Saith the Lord, λέγει Krpios.] These words are 
not to be found in many manuscripts; they are not in the 
Vulgar, Syriac, or Ethiopic version; not in the original, or 
in the Septuagint ; and therefore seem to have crept in here 
from Rom. xii. 19; where, instead of οἵδαμεν γὰρ τὸν εἰπόντα, 
«“ We know him that speaketh, we find, γέγραπται γὰρ, “ For 
it is written ;” which reading Chrysostom here hath, and 
without these words the sense runs better. 

2 And again :| Not Ps. exxxv. 14; the words there being 
taken from Deut. xxxii. 36, but in the same place, or in the 
following verse. So ii. 13, «I will put my trust in him,” 
Isa. viii. 17, καὶ πάλιν, « And again (ver. 18), Behold, I and 
the children which God hath given me.” 

33 Ver. 34. Τοῖς δεσμοῖς μου, My bonds.] Were this cer- 
tainly the true reading, it would fairly prove Paul the au- 
thor of this epistle ; but the other reading, τοῖς δεσμοῖς cu= 
ἐπαϑῆσατε, * You had compassion of them that were bound.” 


CHAPTER X. 


spoiling of yuu: goods, knowing in yourselves (by the 


testimony of that Spirit who is the earnest of our fu- | 


ture inheritance, Eph. i. 14, iv. 30,) that ye have in 
heaven a better ἘΠ an enduring substance. 

35 Cast not away therefore your confidence (wa/- 
fnovay, your freedom in profession of the faith), which 

ath great recompence of reward, (fur with the mouth 
confession is made unto salvation, Rom. x. 10.) 

36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have 
done the will of God (¢. e. have suffered according to 
his will, 1 Pet. iv. 19), ye might receive * the promise 
(reward). 

37 For (the vision of Habakkuk, respecting the com- 
tng of Christ, and exhorting you to wait for him, said 


925 


then, Yet for a time, as I do now,) yet a little while, 
% and he that shall come (Gr. ὁ épyouevos, he that com- 
elh now to reward your patience) will come, and will 
not tarry. 

38 (tt also adds these words uf comfort to the faith- 


| ful, and terror to the revoller, Expect him now, Δύχαιος 


δὲν for) Now the just shall live by (Ais) faith: but 35 if 
any man draw back (xai ἐὰν ὑποστείληται, and if he 
draw back from it), my soul (saith God) shall have no 
pleasure in him. 

39 But we { hope, vi. 9) are not of them who draw 
back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the 
saving of the soul. 


is more likely to be the true reading, for so read the Alex- 
andrian and two other manuscripts, the Syriac, the Vulgar 
Latin, and Chrysostom. 

Γινώσκοντες ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς κρείττονα ὕπαρξιν ἐν οὐρανοῖς, καὶ 
μένουσαν. Note that Origen, in his book de Martyrio, omits 
the words ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, that Clement of Alexandria* reads ἐπ᾽ 
ἑαυτοὺς, that some read instead of it ὑμᾶς, and that all the 
ancient versions follow this reading. Note also, that all the 
Greek fathers read ἐν οὐρανοῖς, which two various readings 
make the Greek run clear and smooth (see Examen Milli 
in locum). 


34 Ver. 36. Τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν, The promise.] That is prima- | 


rily “the recompense of reward,” mentioned ver. 35. So, 
xi. 39, ἐπαγγελία, “the promise,” is the same with “the re- 
compense of reward,” ver. 26, the “things not seen,” but 
“hoped for,” which are the objects of our faith, ver. 1. 
then this epistle being directed to the believing Jews, who 
had both from their prophets and from our Lord a promise, 
that “in the great terrible day of the Lord, whosoever should 
call upon the name of the Lord should be saved,” Joel ii. 
32, and that the εὐαγγελιζόμενοι obs Κύριος προσκέκληται, i. 6. 
“they whom the Lord hath called by his gospel should be 
delivered,” ibid.; that when the day was to come that 
“burned like an oven,” then was “ the Sun of righteousness 
to rise on them that feared him, with healing on his wings,” 
Mal. iv. 1,2; that “he who endured to the end shall be 
saved,’ Matt. xxiv. 13; and to whom it was said, Hab. ii. 3, 
4, «The vision is, spy ἪΡ. yet for a time” then, now “ for 
a very little time ;” ὑπόμεινον αὐτὸν, With patience wait for 
him [the Messiah, say the Jews], for he that cometh will 
come, and will not tarry :” « Wait for him,” say the Jews,t 
soy Sapd, “to receive your reward.” Christ alse having 


But | 


taught them by a parable that God would come, ἐν river, | 


“speedily to avenge his elect who cried unto him (under 
persecutions) day and night” (Luke xviii.), I believe that 
the receiving this promise verified to them, which tended so 
exceedingly to confirm their faith, might be here intended, 
especially if we consider that the apostle could not properly 
affirm of our Lord’s coming to judgment, that it was μίκρον 
ὅσον ὅσον, “a very very little while, and he would come, and 
would not tarry.” 

35 Ver. 37. ‘O ἐρχόμενος. This is the peculiar title given 
to the Messiah by the Jews, as we learn from the Baptist’s 
question to him, σὺ εἶ ὁ épyspevos ; “ Art thou he that should 
come, or look we for another ?” (Matt. xi. 3) and from the 
hosannas of the Jews, sung to him in these words, « Blessed 
be, 5 ἐρχόμενος, he that cometh in the name of the Lord” 
(Matt. xxi. 9). And the Jews do not only interpret this 
passage of him, but also encourage themselves to wait for 
him by this very argument of the apostle, τον Sap, “that 
they may receive their reward,” for “blessed,” say they, 
“are all that hope in him” (Isa. xxx. 18). 


* Strom. iv. p. 514. 
+ See Pug. Fid. p. 212, 742. 
+ Ibid. p. 212, 354, 742 


86 Ver. 38. "Ὑποστείληται, If any man draw back.] The 
reverend Dr. Hammond hath shown from Phavorinus, and 
from Acts xx. 20, 21, Gal. ii. 12, that this word signifies to 
draw back, refuse, and fly from a thing ; and so the object of 
it being here faith, must signify his flying from and drawing 
back from the faith, or refusing still to profess it; and, as it 
follows, must be his “drawing back unto perdition ;” and 
because this is done usually from fear of persecution, hence 
it is joined with fear; Gal. ii. 12, Peter ὑπέστελλεν ἑαυτὸν, 
‘withdrew himself, fearing the circumcision ;” and sometimes 
is put to signify fear: so Deut. i. 17, μὴ ὑποστείλη πρόσωπον 
ἀνθρύπου, * You shall not be afraid of the face of man ;” 
and because men’s cowardly fears make them to hide, dis- 
semble, and play the hypocrite, hence it is reckoned by Ju- 
lius Pollux,* among the words which signify to conceal and 
hide ; and by Hesychius and Suidas is rendered, ὑποκρίνεται 
δολιεύεται, “* He plays the hypocrite, and deals deceitfully ;” 
all which, in things which do respect our God and our reli- 
gion, are pernicious to the soul; especially if we consider 
that “he that draws back” stands opposed, ver. 39, to “him 
that believeth,” and therefore is an unbeliever ; and, ver. 38, 
to “him that liveth by his faith,” and therefore can have 
none, or only a dead faith: and, lastly, that God here so- 
lemnly declares, his “ soul shall have no pleasure in him,” 
and then he must still lie under his sad displeasure. 

Note, Secondly, That ἐὰν δὲ ὑτοστείληται refers plainly to 
“the just man,’ the man who “lives by his faith ;” and in 
the prophet, to him that is with faith and patience to wait 
for the accomplishment of the vision ; and, ver. 39, the ὑπο- 
στειλάμενος, “the drawer back” stands opposed to him that 
“believeth to the salvation of the soul.” The words do 
therefore plainly suppose, that “the just man,” who “ liveth 
by (that) faith,” in which, if he persisted, he would “save 
his soul,” may “draw back unto perdition.” And this is 
elso evident from the ensuing words, “My soul shall take 
no pleasure in him,” for they do plainly intimate that God 
took pleasure in him before his drawing back ; for otherwise 
this threat would signify nothing, the Lord taking pleasure 
in no man but in just men only, and such as “live by 
faith.” 

Note, Thirdly, That ἐὰν δὲ may be rendered not hypothe- 
tically, “And if,” but cm vero semet subtraxerit, “ But 
when he shall draw back ;” which I have shown to be the 
common import of the Greek ἐὰν, note iii. 15. But if we 
read them hypothetically, the supposition cannot be of a 
thing impossible; for then God must be supposed to speak 
thus, If the just man do that which I know is impossible 
for him to do, and which I am obliged by promise to pre- 
serve him from doing, my soul shall have no pleasure in 
him; which is to make God seriously to threaten men for 
such a sin, of which they are not capable, and of which they 
are engaged to believe they are not capable, if they believe 
the doctrine of perseverance, and so to threaten them to 


none effect. 


* Lib. vi. cap. 53, p. 223, lin. 41. 
0 


926 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


1 Now (the) faith (by which the just man lives, x. 
38) is the 1 substance (or, the firm expectation) of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (7. e. by 
which we are confirmed in the truth of them). 

2 For by it the elders (7. 6. the fathers before and since 
the flood) obtained a good report (or, testimony from 
God, left on record in the holy scriptures). 

3 Through (that) faith (which zs the evidence of things 
not seen) we understand that the worlds (the lower, 
middle, and superior worlds, see note on i. 2) were 
framed ? by the word of God, so that (the) things (of 
them) which are seen were not made of things which 
do (did then) appear (but, ἐκ τῶν ἀοράτων, of things 
not then visible, Gen. i. 2). 


4 By faith Abel offered unto God 2a more excellent 
sacrifice than (that of ) Cain, by which (faith) he ob- 
tained witness (7. e. a testimony from God ) that he was 
righteous (or, accepled by him), 4 God testifying (his 
acceptance) of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet 
speaketh (7. e. declareth by his faith, that God is a re- 
warder of the righteous, though they die). 

5 By (virtue of this) faith (that God would reward 
those that serve him, though in this world he might not do 
it,) Enoch was translated that he should not see death ; 
and ® was not found (on earth), because God had trans- 
lated him (from it): for before his translation he had 
this testimony (from God, Gen. ν. 22. 24), that he 
pleased God. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


1Ver. 1. Ὑπύστασις τῶν ἐλπιζομένων. The word ὑπόστασις, 
in the Old Testament answers either to the Hebrew >ypn, 
which signifies expectation, as Ruth 1. 12, ἔστι μοι ὑπόστασις ; 
“Have I any expectation of a husband?” Ezek. xix. 5, 
ἀπώλετο ὑπύστασις αὐτῆς, “ Her expectation was lost:” or to 
the word n$myn, which is of the same import, as Ps. xxxix. 
7, ἡ ὑπόστασίς μου παρά σοί ἔστι, “My expectation is from 
thee,” Ps. lxxxix. 47. It also bears the same sense in the 
New Testament, signifying there a confidence of expectation, 
as 2 Cor. ix. 4, “ Lest we should be ashamed, ἐν τῇ ὑποστάσει 
ταύτη τῆς καυχήσεως, in this confidence of boasting :” and, xi. 
17, “That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as 
it were foolishly, ἐν τῇ ὑποστάσει ταύτη τῆς καυχήσεως, in this 
confidence of boasting:” and in this epistle, iii. 14, “ We 
are made partakers of Christ, if we hold, τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς 
ὑποστάσεως, the beginning of our confidence firm to the end.” 
And this import of the word accords best with the instances 
of this faith that follow, they being such as generally con- 
sisted in the expectation of some future good, which, saith 
the apostle, they have not yet received completely, ver. 39. 
Hence it is that I render the words thus, “ Faith is the con- 
fidence, er firm expectation, of things hoped for.” 


2 Ver. 3. Ῥηματι Θεοῦ, By the word of God.) 'That is, as | 


the comparing this with i. 3 shows, by the word of the divine 
Λόγος. So Philo, speaking of the framing of the heaven and 
earth, saith, τῷ γὰρ περιφανεστάτῳ καὶ τηλαυγεστάτῳ ἑαυτοῦ 
Λόγῳ ῥήματι ὃ Θεὸς ἀμφότερα ποιεῖ, “God hath made them 
both by his illustrious and splendid Logos, with a word” 
(Leg. Alleg. lib. i. p. 33, G). And of Moses he saith, that 
dying, he did not, ἐκλείπειν, “ cease to be, nor was he gathered 
to the most,” as others, ἀλλὰ διὰ ῥήματος τοῦ Airiov μετανίσ- 
rarat, δι᾿ οὗ Kai ὃ σύμπας κόσμος ἐδημιουργεῖτο, “but he was 
translated by the word, or command, of that Cause by which 
the whole world was made” (L. de Sacrif. Abe] et Cain, p. 
102, Ὁ.) Now, whether this ῥῆμα be the word of the Father 
speaking to the Son or Logos, or the word of the Aéyos, saying, 
«Let them be made, and they were made,” it is hence evi- 
dent that this Logos must be a person, and not an attribute 
(see the note on Heb. i. 3). 

3 Ver. 4. Πλείονα θυσίαν, A more excellent sacrifice.) 
Philo, in his discourse on this subject, De Sacr. Cain et Abel, 
p- 107, makes the defect of Cain’s sacrifice to consist in 
two things; first, that he did not offer it soon enough, but 
ueS’ ἡμέρας, “after certain days:” secondly, that he did not 
offer the first-fruits of the earth, as did Abel of the first-fruits 
of his sheep, but only of the fruits; but there is no ground 
for either of these things in the text, which seems to intimate, 
that they both offered at the same time; nor doth it say 
that Cain offered not of the first-fruits of the earth. The 
apostle here plainly discovers, that the thing which gave the 
preference to Abel’s sacrifice above that of Cain’s was his 
faith, viz. that “faith” which is “the substance of things 
hoped for,” or his expectation, or persuasion, that God 
would certainly reward those who diligently endeavour to 
please him in this or in the other world. Accordingly the 
Targum of Jerusalem, and Jonathan ben Uziel, upon the 


place, declare, that “Cain denied that there would be any 
future judgment or reward hereafter to the just, and that 
Abel did maintain the contrary, that there should be a future 
recompense for the righteous : and this he, being dead, yet 
preaches by his faith; for this faith, which God so signally 
approved of, and confirmed with so great a testimony, he 
will not suffer to go unrewarded, as he must do in one so 
quickly slain, because God thus preferred his sacrifice before 
his brother's, if he did not reward him in the other world. 
And therefore Philo says, that “seeming to die, as to this 
corruptible life, Gj τὴν ἄφθαρτον, καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ Θεῷ ζωὴν εὐδαίμονα, 
he lived the incorruptible and blessed life in God” (L. Quod 
deter. &c. p. 127,C, D.) To say, as do the fathers, « He yet 
speaketh, because he is still celebrated in the world,” is to 
say nothing proper to Abel, that being also true of all the 
other patriarchs; and to refer this to the ery of his blood for 
vengeance, is to refer to that which seemeth not to be the 
commendation of his faith, by which the apostle here declares 
he speaketh. 

4 Maprupotvros, God testified upon his gifts.) Thatis, saith 
Theodotion, ἐνέπρησε, * he caused fire to descend from hea- 
ven, and consume his sacrifice,” and thereby testified his ac- 
ceptance of it: so he discovered his acceptance of the sacri- 
fice of Abraham, Gen. xv. 17, and of the sacrifices of Aaron, 
Lev. ix. 24, of Gideon, Judg. vi. 21, of David, 1 Chron. xxi. 
26, of Solomon, 2 Chron. vii. 1, and of Elijah, 1 Kings xviii. 
38. And accordingly the prayer of the Israelites for their 
king runs thus, “The Lord remember all thy offerings, and 
turn to ashes thy burnt sacrifice,” Ps. xx. 3. To this agrees 
the interpretation of R. Solomon and Aben Ezra, among 
the Jews; of G&cumenius and Theophylact on the place: 
and Jerome* confirms it by this inquiry, “ Whence could 
Cain know that God accepted the sacrifice of Abel, and 
rejected his, if the interpretation of Theodotion was not 
true ?” 

5 Ver. 5. Οὐχ εὑρίσκετο, &c. Was not found on earth, be- 
cause God had translated him.] God killed him not, saith 
Onkelos: and this we may sufficiently learn from the story, 
Gen. v.; for of all the rest mentioned in that chapter, it is 
said they “died ;” but of him this is not said, but only that 
“he was not, because God took him,” ὅτι μετέϑηκεν αὐτὸν ὃ 
Θεὸς, “because God translated him,” saith the Septuagint, 
the book of Wisdom, and the son of Sirach (Wisd. iv. 10, 
Ecclus. xiv. 44). Moreover, it is said of Noah and of Abra- 
ham, that they “ walked with God,” Gen. vi. 9, xvii. 1; but 
it is not said that they “ were not, because God took them ;” 
this phrase must therefore import something which happened 
not to them: many of the Hebrew doctors say, that he was 
taken into heaven, or into paradise; “ He was taken into 
heaven by the Word of the Lord,” saith the Targum of 
Jonathan ; “ He was translated into paradise,” say the Arabic 
and Ethiopic versions; “God showed him the tree of life,” 
say R. Menachem, and Zohar, in 2 Kings ii. 1; “ He trans- 
tated him into paradise,” say Kimchi and Menasseh ben 
Israel.t Hence Munster on the place speaks thus, Asserunt 
nostri hunc Enoch cum corpore et anima translatum esse in 


* Trad. Heb. sup. Gen. tom. iii. p. 70, lit. K. 
+ De Fragil. Human. §. 12. 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


6 5 But without (¢his) faith it 7s impossible to please 
him: for he that cometh to God (in a way of duty) 
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of 
them that diligently seek (to please) him. (Tb believe 
that he is, relates to that faith which is the evidence of things 
not seen ; for God is invisible: to believe that he is a re- 
warder, to that faithewhich is the expectation of things 
hoped for.) 

7 By faith Noah, being warned of God of things 
not seen as yet (i. e. of a future deluge), moved with 
fear (of what God threatened), prepared an ark to the 
saving of his house (from that deluge) ; by the which 
he condemned the (o/d) world (which would not believe 
his prediction of this deluge), and became 7 heir of the 
righteousness which is by faith. 

8 By faith (in God’s promise) Abraham, when he 
was called to go out into a place which he should 
after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went 
out, not knowing whither he went, (no, not so much as 
wha! the land of promise was ; God’s first command unto 
him being only this, Get thee into a land which I shall 
show thee, Gen. xii. 1.) 

9 By faith (Gen. xil. 7. 13. 15) he sojourned in the 


927 


land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in 
tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him 
of the same promise (i being renewed to Isaac, Ger. 
xxvi. 3, and to Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 13) : 

10 5 For (God having said unto him, Iam thy shield, 
and thy reward shall be exceeding greal, Gen. xv. 1) he 
looked for a city which hath foundations (a heavenly 
one, ver. 16, which cannot be shaken, Heb. xii. 28), 
whose builder and maker ts God, (tt being not a build- 
ing made with hands, as those on earth, but eternal in the 
heavens, 2 Cor. v. 1, Heb. ix. 11. 

11 Through faith also Sara herself (who at first be- 
lieved not, Gen. xviii. 12, after that the Lord had renew- 
ed the promise to her, saying, Al the time appointed 7 will 
return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah 
shall have a son, ver. 14) received strength to conceive 
seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past 
(the ordinary) age (of bearing children), because she 
judged him faithful who had promised. 

12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as 

ood as dead (his body being dead, and the womb of 
Sarah dead, as to the procreation of children, Rom. iv. 
19), so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as 


paradisum. To be translated, saith Philo,* is μετοικίαν στεί- 
λασϑαι τὴν ἀπὸ ϑνητοῦ βίου πρὸς τὸν ἀϑάνατον, “to go from this 
mortal to an immortal life.’ The same was the opinion of 
the ancient fathers, of Ireneus,t and of Pseudo-Justin,+ 
who saith, that “they who rose with Christ are with Enoch 
and Elias, ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ, in paradise.” See others cited 
for this opinion by Feuardentius upon Ireneus. Note, lastly, 
that this translation into paradise was the fruit of his faith, 
that faith which was “ the expectation of things hoped for,” 
and that God would reward his diligence in seeking him: 
for since he by this faith “obtained this testimony, that he 
pleased God,” God could not take him hence in displeasure, 
but out of favour to him. 

6 Ver. 6.] In this sixth verse we have the heathen’s 
creed, that “ God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that 
diligently seek him;” without which the apostle declares, 
(1.) That it was impossible for them to please God, and so 
God must either have laid upon them no obligations to please 
him, or required what he knew to be impossible, or given 
them sufficient means to know this. (2.) That they could 
have no sufficient motives to serve him, or to come unto him 
in expectation of his blessing upon them that did so, and 
therefore the heathens embraced this as a principle of natural 
religion, that “God could not suffer it to go ill with good 
men, either in life or death,” but would be sure to take care 
of and provide good things for them. ‘Thus Socrates§ re- 
quests his judges to receive this as a certain truth, that “a 
good man, living or dying, can be subject to no evil, because 
the gods never neglect his affairs ;” and this is recommended 
by Cicero,} and by Jamblichus,§ as the great principle which 
philosophy suggests as an encouragement to virtue; that “if 
we believe that nothing is cdncealed from God, we must be- 
lieve that which happens to the friend of God, happens for 
the best; and that what seeming evils happen to him, will 
do him good, in this or in the other life. For he can never 


be neglected by the gods who is desirous to be a virtuous and | 


good man, and as like to God as he is able; but περὶ τοῦ ἀδί- 
κου τἀναντία τούτων δεῖ διανοεῖσϑαι, of the wicked and unjust 
man we are to believe just the contrary.” And this again 
Jamblichus** delivers us as a great principle of philosophy, 
that “if we believe there is a God, who is Lord of all things, 
we must own that whatsoever is good and honest must be 
asked of him, for all men give good things to them they love 
and rejoice in, and the contrary to them to whom they are 
disaffected, and therefore much more will the gods do so.” 
Another principle, also founded in the nature of man, and 


* De Nom. Mut. p. 812, B. 

ἡ Lib. iv. cap. 30, lib. v. cap. 5. + Resp. ad qu. 85. 
§ Apol. p. 31, D, et de Rep. cap. 10, p. 760. 

 Tusc. Qu. 1, §. 82. 

{ Protrept. cap. 13, p. 84. 

** De Vita Pythag. cap. 18, p. 89. 


laid down by them as the foundation of all religion, was this, 
That if piety were not advantageous to them, no man would 
embrace it, it being natural to all men to pursue their advan- 
tage, and to decline the contrary. So Arrian,* upon Epic- 
tetus, lays down this for an axiom, that “if piety and profit 
did not go together, piety would be preserved in none; the 
reason is, because nothing is so natural to us as to affect and 
pursue our own advantage: so that if you place what is 
holy and just in that which profits, you preserve them; but 
if you separate what is honest from what is advantageous, 
you destroy what is just and honest, as being weighed down 
by profit.’ Simplicius adds,¢ that “where is profit, there 
we place our piety τ᾿ and thence infers, that “ we cannot love, 
honour, and worship the Deity, whatsoever reasons may be 
alleged for so doing, if we conceive him hurtful, and not pro- 
fitable to us, because every living creature flies what is hurt- 
ful, and the causes of it, and affects and follows what is pro- 
fitable:” and this they learned from their master Epictetus,$ 
who lays the foundation of all religion upon this principle, 
that “ where profit is, there is piety :’”’ and he, perhaps, from 
Plato, who lays it down for an axiom, that τὸ μὲν ὠφέλιμον 
καλὸν, τὸ δὲ βλαβερὸν αἰσχρὸν, “ what was good was profitable, 
what evil hurtful.” 

7 Ver. 7. Κληρονόμος, &c. Heir of the righteousness.] i. 6. 
Of the happiness promised to them who are justified by 
faith, or to persons who by faith had an hereditary right to 
it, viz. not only to the temporal salvation the ark afforded, 
but to that spiritual and celestial which the ark typified 
(1 Pet. iii. 21). For “ being justified through faith, we are 
made heirs through hope of eternal life,” Tit. iii. 7, “ heirs 
of salvation,” Heb. i. 14, “heirs of the kingdom,” James ii. 
5 (see note on Gal. iii. 29, and on Heb. i. 14). 

8 Ver.10. Thy exceeding great reward.] Thus the Jeru- 


* Act τὸ σὔνολον ἐκείνου μεμνῆσϑαι, ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ ἡ 
εὐσεβὲς καὶ συμφέρον, οὐ δύναται σωθῆναι τὸ εὐσεβὲς ἔν τινι" lib. 
i. cap. 27, p. 53. Πᾶν ζῶον οὐδενὶ οὕτως ὠκείωται ὡς τῷ ἰδίῳ 
συμφέροντι. Οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτω φιλεῖν πέφυκεν ὡς τὸ αὐτοῦ συμ- 
φέρον------- 

Τ Διὰ τοῦτο ἂν μὲν ἐν ταυτῷ τις ϑῆ τὸ συμφέρον, καὶ τὸ ὅσιον καὶ 
τὸ καλὸν-------σώζεται ταῦτα πάντα “Av δ' ἀλλαχοῦ τὸ συμφέρον, 
ἀλλαχοῦ δὲ αὐτὸ τὸ δίκαιον, οἴχεται ταῦτα πάντα καταβαροῦμενα ὑπὸ 
τοῦ συμφέροντος" lib. ii. cap. 22, p. 243, et lib. iil. cap. 3, p. 
269. 

+ “Ὅπου γὰρ rd συμφέρον, ἐκεῖ καὶ τὸ εὐσεβὲς τιθέμεθα. Οὗτε 
αἴτιον νομίζοντας κακῶν αὐτὸν τιμᾶν ἣ φιλεῖν ἣ σέβειν ὀύνατον. Πᾶν 
γὰρ ζῶον τὰ μὲν βλαβερὰ, καὶ τὰ αἴτια αὐτῶν, φεύγει τε καὶ ἐκτρὲ 
πεται, τὰ δὲ ὠφέλιμα καὶ τὰ αἴτια αὐτῶν μέτεισί τε, καὶ ϑαυμάζει. 
In Epictet. p. 80. 

§ Τῆς περὶ τοὺς θεοὺς εὐσεβείας ἴσϑι, ὅτι τὸ κυριώτατον ἐκεῖνό 
ἐστιν, ὀρθὰς ὑπολήψεις περὶ αὐτῶν ἔχειν, ὡς ὄντων καὶ διοικοῦύντων τὰ 
ὅλα καλῶς καὶ δικαίως, ὅζο. Ὅπου γὰρ τὸ συμφέρον, ἐκεῖ καὶ τὸ 


εὐσεβές. Enchir. cap. 8, 38. 


928 


the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable (ac- 
cording to God’s promise, Gen, xv. 5, Xxii. 17). 

13 These all ( forementioned that died, or all these pa- 
triarchs) died in faith, not having received the 9 pro- 
mises, but having seen them afar off, and were per- 
suaded of them, and embraced them (as certain), and 
confessed that they (/hemselves) were (only) strangers 
and pilgrims on the earth. 

14 (1 say, they died in faith, or in firm expectation, not 
only of these temporal, but of spiritual and heavenly pro- 
mises :) for they that say such things (viz. that they, 
even in the land of promise, are pilgrims and strangers,) 
declare plainly that they seek a country (where they 
may rest and dwell, when this their pilgrimage on carth 
is ended). 


HEBREWS. 


15 And truly, if they had been (only) mindful of 
that country from whence they came out, they might 
have had opportunity to have returned (fo it, 7. 6. 
from Canaan and Egypt, to Ur of the Chaldeans). 

16 But now (by this professing themselves strangers 
and pilgrims upon earth, they declared that) they 10 de- 
sire a better country, that is, (not one on earth, where 
they profess they are but strangers, but) an heavenly : 
wherefore (the)! God (of heaven) is not ashamed to 
be called their God (and to own them as his sons and 
children): for he hath prepared for them a (heavenly) 
city. 

Ἢ By faith (ἐπ God’s power, ver. 19) Abraham, 
when he was tried, ” offered up Isaac (laying him 
upon the wood, which was upon the allar, Gen. xxii. 


salem ‘T'argum, and that of Jonathan, interpret this phrase, 
“Fear not, the reward of thy work shall be great in the 
world to come.”—* So ought we,” saith Theophylact, «to 
look to things above, and make no great account of those on 
earth.” 

Ver. 12. Kai ταῦτα. Some manuscripts read τοῦτον, but 
all the Greek scholiasts read καὶ ταῦτα, being, according to 
the custom of the Greek language, used by way of amplifi- 
cation, and signifying idque, and is well rendered by our 
translation, “ and that.” 

9 Ver. 13. Τὰς ἐπαγγελίας, The promises.] Here note, (1.) 
that these words καὶ πεισϑέντες, “ And were persuaded,” are 
neither to be found in the ancient version, nor the Greek 
commentators. (2.) [hat the promises here mentioned, as 
not received by these patriarchs, cannot be temporal pro- 
mises: for οὗτοι πάντες, “all these,” as it cannot be referred 
to the whole Jewish offspring, since many of them, as the 
apostle has observed, iii. 18, 19, iv. 2. 6. 11, “died in unbe- 
lief;” so neither to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob only: for 
(1.) they are not all that died in faith ; and, (2.) the same is 
said of all in general, ver. 39, οὗτοι πάντες, These all died in 
faith, not having received the promise.” Now we find no 
temporal promise made to Abel and to Enoch; and that 
temporal promise which God made to Noah, he fulfilled. 
(2.) The text saith, «'‘They embraced them, confessing they 
were strangers and pilgrims upon earth ;” whence the apostle 
makes this inference, that “they sought another country, 
that is, a heavenly ;” which makes it necessary to conceive, 
that the promises here mentioned, as not received, were, as 
QGcumenius saith, τὰ οὐράνια, “ heavenly promises,” τὰ περὶ 
τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως, “ the promise of 
the kingdom of heaven and the resurrection,” saith Theophy- 
lact. Thus Philo* saith, of κατὰ ΜΙωνσὴν σοφοὶ πάντες εἰσά- 
γονται παροικοῦντες, “All the wise men are introduced by 
Moses as strangers, their souls coming from heaven to travel 
here on earth,” and that they desire to return thither; πατ- 
οἶδα μὲν τὸν οὐράνιον ἐν ᾧ πολιτεύυνται, ζένον δὲ τὸν περίγειον ἐν ὦ 
παρώκησαν νομίζουσαι, “ looking upon heaven as the city where 
they dwell, and the earth in which they travel, as their place 
of pilgrimage.” And again, πᾶσα piv ψυχὴ δοφοῦ πατρίδα 
μὲν οὐρανὸν, γῆν δὲ ζένην ἔλαχε, “The soul of every wise man 
looks on heaven as his country, the earth as the place of his 
pilgrimage” (De Agric. p. 153). So did Abraham, saying, 
“Tam ἃ stranger and a sojouner with you,” Gen. xxiii. 4. 
And Jacob, calling the time he lived here, “the years of his 
pilgrimage,” Gen. xlvii. 9. So David, saying, “I am a 
stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were,” 
Ps. xxxix. 18. The same he speaks of the whole Jewish 
nation, saying, 1 Chron. xxix. 15, “ We are strangers before 
thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers.” And this he 
learned out of the law, where God speaks thus to them, Lev. 
xxv. 23,“ The land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners 
with me, ἐναντίον μου, saith the Septuagint. Accordingly, 
the philosophers taught, that to die was to go into our coun- 
try, πρὸς τὴν πατρίδα τὴν ἀληϑινὴν ὅϑεν ἤλθομεν, “to the true 
country whence we came” (Simpl. in Epict. p. 77). 

10 Ver. 16, Kpeirrovos ὀρέγονται, They desire a better country.) 
The ancient Jews declare, that “the earthly Canaan was a 
type of the spiritual Canaan, and the promise of living in it 


* De Confus. Ling. p. 259, 260. 


for ever, was a parable representing their future happiness 
in the world to come.” It is written,* “ All Israelites have 
their portion in the world to come, as it is said, And thy 
people shall be all just, they shall inherit the land for ever,” 
Isa. Ix. 21. “This land,” saith Maimonides,t “is a para- 
ble, as if he should say, The land of the living; and that is 
the world to come.’ And R. Menachem on Gen, xii. 
refers it to “the land which is above, watered with waters 
which are above.” If they received this parabolical inter- 
pretation from the patriarchs, here is the reason of their 
faith, and expectation of this better country. Vain here is 
the interpretation of Mr. Le Clerc, both upon the tenth and 
sixteenth verses; for, (1.) a city which has foundations is, 
saith he, Jerusalem; whereas, in Abraham’s time there was 
no such city that he could expect; nor was that “a city 
which could not be shaken,” Heb. xii. 28, it having been 
long since destroyed; nor was it “a city whose builder and 
maker was God,” but man. Again, he expected a better 
country, that is, a heavenly, “i.e. the land of Canaan, which 
was an antitype of heaven:” so Mr. Le Clerc, in flat contra- 
diction to the apostle, saying, the country they expected 
“was not that from whence they came out,” ver. 14, 15; 
i. e. was not Canaan, but “a heavenly country ;” and he 
adds, “ God had provided for them a city,” not Jerusalem, 
sure, but “ἃ heavenly city.” 

1 Οὐκ ἐπαισχύνεται, God is not ashamed to be called their 
God.) i. e. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ‘To be 
their God and their Father is the same thing. ‘hus, Jer. 
xxxi. 1, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel,” 
ver. 9, is thus varied, “I am a Father to Israel.” «I will 
be their God, and they shall be my people,” 2 Cor. vi. 16, 
is, ver. 18, “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be my 
sons and my daughters.” To be sons of God, is to be « heirs 
of God,” Rom. viii. 17, to be “sons of the resurrection,” 
Luke xx. 36, to “inherit all things,” Rev. xx. 7. And the 
vioSecia, ΟΥ̓“ adoption” promised by God, is “the redemp- 
tion of the body” from corruption (sce note on Matt. xxii. 
31, 32, and on Rom. xviii. 17. 23): and this is the reason 
why God, taking upon himself the title of their God and 
Father, answers this title, by “preparing for them a 
city.” 

2 Ver. 17. Προσενῆνογεν, &c. He offered up Isaac.) So 
speaks the New Testament twice, here and James ii. 21. 
So the Jews constantly ; Philo informs us, that though the 
fact was not perfected, ‘yet it was preserved in the minds 
of the readers, and mentioned in the sacred volumes, as a 
thing entirely and absolutely done.” And to this day they 
pray,§ * That God would be gracious to them for the merit 
of the sacrifice of Isaac,” according to the prayer which both 
the Targum of Jerusalem and Jonathan mention on Gen. 
xxii. 14, as made by Abraham; to this effect, viz. “I beseech 
thee, O God, by thy mercies, that when the sons of Isaac 
shall offer to thee in the time of their necessity, thou wilt be 
mindful of this binding of Isaac.” Hence have they framed 


* Talm. Bab. in Sanhed. c. Chelek. 

+ ‘Treat. of Repent. cap. 3, sect. 5. 

+ Ολόκληρος καὶ παντελὴς οὐ μόνον ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς βίβλοις, ἀλλὰ 
καὶ ἐν ταῖς τῶν ἀναγινωσκύντων διανοίαις ἀνάγραπτος ἑστηλίτευται. 
De Ab. p. 293. 

§ Vide Clem. Rom. Ep. ad Corinth. §. 10. 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


929 


9): and he that had received the promises («f a nume- | them when they returncd to Canaan, ver. 25, which was 


rous seed lo issue from him) offered up his only begotten 
son, 

18 (Lven him)Ofwhom it was said (by God), That 
in Isaac shall thy seed be called: 

19 Accounting that God was able to raise him up, 
even from the dead; from whence also he received 
him in a figure (é. e. from his own dead body, and the 
dead womb of Sarah, Rom. iv. 19). 

20 By faith (or, a firm expectation that God would 
make good his benediction) Isaac ™ blessed Jacob and 
Ksau concerning things to come (Gen. xxvii.). 

21 By (the like) faith Jacob, when he was a dying, 
blessed both the sons of Joseph; ™ and worshipped 
(God), leaning upon the top of his staff (by which he 
was supported from falling). 


22 By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of | 


the departing of the children of Israel (out of Egypt, 
saying, God will surely visit you, and bring you oul of 


this land, Gen. 1. 24) ; and gave commandment con- | 


cerning his bones (that they should be carried with 


an evidence of his faith in the promise of God). 

23 By (the) faith (of his parents, that God would send 
them a deliverer,) Moses, when he was born, was hid 
three months of his parents, because they saw he was 
5a proper (Gr. comely) child (and therefore hoped he 
might be that deliverer God had promised) ; and (there- 
fore) they were not (so) afraid of the king’s command- 
ment (as to deliver him up to be slain). 

24. By faith (in God’s promise of a deliverance 
out of Ezyp!,) Moses, when he was come to years (0 
discretion), refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s 
daughter ; 

25 Choosing rather (by his owning himself to be one 
of them) to suffer affliction with the people of God, 
than to enjoy (in Pharaoh’s court) the pleasures of sin 
for a season 5 

26 Esteeming the "reproach of Christ greater riches 
than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto 
the 18 recompence of the reward. 

27 By faith he forsook Egypt, ' not fearing the 


this story,* “That when the knife touched the throat of 
Isaac, his soul departed, and that when God said, Lay not 


thy hand upon the lad, it returned, and so he, being dead, | 


revived.” And truly Abraham, having done all that be- 
longed to him to do towards this offering his son, and being 
fully resolved to have gone through the work, had not God’s 
call restrained him, may well be said, in the divine construc- 
tion, to have actually done it; and to this some refer Abra- 
ham’s receiving Isaac “ from the dead in a figure,” he being 
thus snatched from the jaws of death, and restored to him 
when he expected nothing but his death. 

18 Ver. 20. Εὐλόγησεν τὸν ᾿Ιακὼβ, He blessed Jacob.) It 
may be inquired how he could bless Jacob by faith, when 
he knew not that it was Jacob. To this I answer, that to 
the blessing him by faith, it was not necessary he should 
know him to be the person he intended thus to bless, but 
only that he should feel the divine afflatus, or the Spirit of 
prophecy upon him when he blessed him ; that being sufficient 
to confirm him, that his benediction should be established by 
that God before whom he blessed him, and who guided his 
lips and his heart in it: and though we have translated it as 
a prayer, it mostly runs in the future tense, and may 
wholly be translated as a prophecy, and so it must be uttered 
in faith. And whereas it is objected farther, that Isaac 
thought he was blessing Esau; now so to bless him as to 
make him lord over his brother (ver. 29), could not be 
spoken in faith, because the oracle had before declared to 
Rebekah, “that the elder should serve the younger:” I an- 
swer, first, that this rather is an argument against the truth 
of his benediction, than the faith of it; it rather proves that 
Tsaac should not thus have blessed Esau, than that he be- 
lieved not what he said: but indeed it proves neither, for 
Isaac might feel such a strong afflatus upon him, as might 
convince him that his benediction was derived from the gift 
of prophecy, and so would certainly be accomplished, whom- 
soever it concerned. Secondly, the learned Bishop of Ely 
on ver. 4 answers, that either Rebekah had not acquainted 
Tsaac with the oracle, or it seems he did not understand it as 
Rebekah did. 

4 Ver. 21. Kai προσεκύνησεν, And worshipped] God, for 
the assurance he had of being buried in the land of promise, 
which he desired out of faith in the promise God had made 
to him, Gen. xxviii. 13. 

15 Ver. 23. ᾿Αστεῖον, A comely child.) He was, saith Ste- 
phen, ἀστεῖος τῷ Oe, “of a very excellent beauty,” Acts vii. 
20, μορφὴ ϑεῖος, “of a divine form,” saith Josephus Ὁ “of 
an angelical form,” say the Jews.t He was, saith Justin, 
one, quem forme pulchritudo commendabat, renowned for 
his beauty. Josephus also adds,§ that an Egyptian scribe, 
to whose predictions they gave great credit, had foretold one 


* Pirk. Eliez. cap. 31, p. 74. 

+ Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 5. + Pirk. Eliez. cap. 48. 

§ Τὸ μὲν Ἑϑραίων γένος τῆς παρ᾽ Αἰγυπτίοις ἀνάγκης ἀπολύσει. 
Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 5. 

Vor. IV.—117 


should be born of Israel, “who, if he came to age, should 
grievously afflict the Egyptians, and bring out the Israelites 
from among them; and that God had by a vision declared to 
Amram, that this child, to be born to him, should deliver the 
Israelites out of Egypt;’’ which, if true, gives a farther 
ground of their faith. 

16 Ver. 24.] Josephus informs us, that when Pharaoh had 
put the crown upon his head, adopting him as the son of his 
daughter, to be his successor, “ he let the crown fall to the 
ground, and stamped upon it with his ἴδοι." But the words 
μέγας γενόμενος being the very words used Exod. ii. 11, where 
it is said, “It came to pass, that when Moses was grown, he 
went out unto his brethren ;” the apostle doubtless had rela- 
tion to them, and interpreted his going out unto them to be 
his owning himself to be one of them. “It came into his 
heart,” saith Stephen, “ to visit his brethren” (Acts vil. 23) ; 
i. e. to join himself to the afflicted Jews. 

17 Ver. 26. Τὸν ὀνειδισμὸν, The reproach of Christ.) The 
seed of Abraham, even before they went down to Egypt, 
are styled “the christs of God;” Ps. cv. 15, μὴ ἅψησϑε τῶν 
χριστῶν μου, “Touch not my christs.” And the prophet 
Habakkuk, speaking of God’s judgments upon Pharaoh, and 
God's deliverance of them from him, saith, ἐξῆλϑες εἰς σωτη- 
ρίαν λαοῦ cov rod σῶσαι τὸν χριστόν cov, “Thou wentest forth 
for the salvation of thy people, to preserve thy christ” (Hab. 
ili. 13): so that “the reproach of Christ’? may be the re- 
proach of the people of God (ver. 15). Moreover, the re- 
proach which he and they suffered was for their faith in the 
promised seed, and that was Christ (Gal. iii. 16) ; on which 
account it might be truly styled « the reproach of Christ,” as 
the afflictions of the apostle are styled “the afflictions of 
Christ,” Col. i. 24, and he himself “ the prisoner of Christ,” 
Eph. iii. 1, as being the reproach he suffered for his faith in 
the promised seed, which was Christ. 

Photius here saith, « The reproach of Moses may be called 
the reproach of Christ, as being such as Christ suffered,” υἷος 
ὃ Χριστὸς ἔπαϑε, in which sense we are bid to “go forth to 
him without the camp, bearing his reproach,” xiii. 13. Be- 
twixt this and the following verse some Latin copies insert 
these words, Fide magnus factus Moses occidit gyptium, 


| considerans dolorem suorum, which Dr. Mills thinks genuine, 


though they are neither owned by any of the versions, nor 
any of the Greek commentators. 

18 Bis τὴν μισϑαποδύσιαν, The recompense of reward] 
Here mentioned could not be temporal, for Moses came not 
into the land of Canaan, nor could he expect any greater 
blessings in that land than he might have had in Egypt. He 
therefore must have respect to some spiritual and heavenly 
recompence. 

19 Ver. 27. Μὴ φοβηϑεὶς, Not fearing.) It is expressly said 
that Moses, when he fled from the face of Pharaoh, “ fear- 
ed,” Exod. ii. 14; and it is farther evident from these words 
of God to him, “ Go, return into Egypt, for all the men are 
dead that sought thy life,” iv. 19. And therefore they who 
refer this to that flight say, “He did not fear his wrath, so 

4c2 


990 


wrath of the king (when he pursued afler him, Exod. 
xiv. 13): for he endured, as seeing him (present with 
them) who is invisible (and therefore said unto the people, 
ver. 30, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of 
God, Exod. xiv. 14). 

28 Through faith (in God’s promise, that upon see- 
ing the blood of the paschal lamb upon the upper door- 
posts, and the two side-posts of the houses of the Israelites, 
he would pass over them, when he slew the first-born of the 
Egyplians, Exod. xii. 13. 23) he kept the passover, 
and (observed) the sprinkling of (the) blood (of it; and 
this he did) lest he that destroyed the firstborn (see 
note on 1 Cor. x. 10) should touch them. 

29 By faith they passed 39 through the Red sea as 
by dry /and: which the Egyptians assaying to do 
were drowned, 

30 By faith (in God’s promise, Josh. vi. 5) the walls 
of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about 
seven days. 

31 5: By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with 
them that believed not, (which faith she testified) when 
she had received the spies with peace. 

32 And what shall I more say? for the time would 
fail me (should I proceed) to tell of Gedeon (who, 
through faith overthrew the Midianites, Judg. vii.), and 
of Barak (who slew the Canaanites, Judge. iv.), and g 
Samson (who vered the Philistines), and of Jephthae 
(who slew the Ammonites, Judg. xi.; and) of David 
also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 

33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms (as Joshua 
and David did), wrought righteousness (as Abraham, 
Gen. xv. 6, Phinehas, Ps. evi. 30, or turned the people 
from idolatry into the way of righteousness, as Samuel, 
1 Sam. xii., Zlijah, 1 Kings xviii. 39), obtained pro- 
mises (as 2braham and David), stopped the mouths of 
' lions (as Daniel), 


HEBREWS. 


34 Quenched the violence of fire (as the three child- 
ren, Dan. iii. 17), eseaped the edge of the sword (as 
David did the sword of Goliath, 1 Sam. xvii. 46, 47, and 
of Saul; the Jews the sword of Haman, Esth. iv. 14, 
Elijah the sword of Ahaziah, 2 Kings i. 15), out of 
weakness were made strong (as Gideon with his three 
hundred men, Judg. vii. 15, Samson, Judg. xvi. 28, 
Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron, xx. 12, Jonathan, 1 Sam. xiv. 
12, Job and Hezekiah, 2 Kings xix.), waxed valiant in 
fight (as Joshua, Gideon, David), turned to flight the 
armies of the aliens (the Maccabees). 

35 Women received their dead raised to life again 
(the widow of Zarephath, 1 Kings vii. 20, the Shunam- 
mite, 2 Kings iv. 36): and others were tortured (Hlea- 
zar, 2 Mace. vi. 28), not accepting deliverance (ver. 
26. 30); that they might obtain a better resurrection 
(2 Mace. vii. 9. 11. 14. 23. 29. 36) : ; 

36 And others had trial of crwel mockings (2 Mace. 
vii. 7. 10) and scourgings (μαστιγούμενοι, 2 Mace. vi. 
30, vii. 1. 37), yea, moreover of bonds and imprison- 
ment (as Joseph, Samson, Jeremiah) : 

37 They were stoned (as Zechariah, 2 Chron. xxiv. 
21), they were sawn asunder (σώματα λυμαινόμενοι, 
Isaiah, by Manasseh ; see Buxt. Lex. p. 1360), 33 were 
tempted (or, ἐπυράσϑησαν, they were scorched and fried, 


of | 2 Mace. vii. 5), were slain with the sword (1 Mace. 


ii. 38): they wandered about in sheepskins and goat- 
skins (Zlijah, 1 Kings xiii. 19, 2 Kings ii. 8. 14); 
being destitute, (as Elijah when fed by crows, 1 Kings 
xvii. 4,) afflicted, tormented; (Gr. evilly entreated, 
1 Kings xix. 10. 

38 And though they were men) (Of whom the world 
was not worthy :) (yet) they wandered in deserts (1 
Mace. ii. 29), and in mountains (ver. 28), and zn dens 
and caves of the earth (2 Mace. vi. 11). 

39 And these all, having obtained a good report 


as to distrust the providence of God in working a deliverance 
to his people by his hand ;” but his unwillingness, when God 
commanded him to go back to Egypt, confutes this gloss. 
Others say he feared not the wrath of the king, when he said 
unto him, “Take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for 
in that day thou seest my face thou shalt die,” Exod. x. 28. 
But then he had not forsaken Egypt, and when he went from 
it, he did so by the command of Pharoah, Exod. xii. 31, and 
so needed not to fearhim. Against the exposition given in 
the paraphrase it is objected, that it agrees not with the order 
of the words, because the passover, mentioned ver. 28, was 
kept in Egypt. But this objection will be of little force, if 
we consider that other things are mentioned in this chapter 
out of the order in which they were performed ; thus, ver. 32, 
Gideon is mentioned before Barak, and Samson before Jeph- 
thah, as also ver. 33—36. 

20 Ver. 29. Through the Red sea.] That this they truly 
did, see note on 1 Cor. x. 1. 

21 Ver. 31.) She testified her faith, not only by preserving 
thus the spies, but by saying to them, “I know that the 
Lord hath given you this land,” Josh. ii. 9 ; and again, “The 
Lord your God he is God in heaven above, and on earth be- 
neath,” ver. 11. 

22 Ver. 37. ᾿Επειράσϑησαν. That this is not the right read- 
ing, may easily be gathered from this one consideration, that 
after two such great punishments as stoning and being sawn 
asunder, it is very improper to introduce their “being 
tempted,” which signifies no certain kind of punishment at 
- all, and is included in all the other punishments here men- 
tioned. Some therefore read ἐπυράσϑησαν, some ἐπυρώσϑη- 
σαν, some ἐπρήσϑησαν, all signifying, “’They were burnt ;” 
which reading agrees well with the story of the Maccabees, 
where they bring Eleazar and the young men ἐπὶ τὸ mip κα- 
ταφλέγοντες αὐτοῖς, “to the fire, and burnt their flesh: so 
that Josephus (from cap. 6 to cap. 12) saith, they were, ὡς 
ἐπὶ πυρὶ μετασχηματιζύμενοι sis ἀφϑαρσίαν, “as one might 
say, translated in the fire to incorruption.” But yet I pre- 


fer the opinion of those who think this was an error arising | 


ix durroypadtas, “from writing the same word twice,” or ra- 
ther that some who knew not what ἐπρίσϑησαν meant, writ 
for it ἐπειράσϑησαν, and so in time they came to be both 
written; because the Syriac hath not ἐπειράσϑησαν. Euse- 
bius* cites Paul's words thus, ἐλιϑάσϑησαν, ἐπρίσϑησαν, ἐν 
φύνῳ μαχαίρας ἀπέϑανον. ‘Tertulliant paraphrases them thus, 
Hieremias lapidatur, Esaias secatur, Zacharias inter altare 
et xdem trucidatur. Clement+ of Alexandria reads thus, 
ἐλιϑάσϑησαν, ἐπειράσϑησαν, ἐν φόνῳ, &c., which gives just ground 
to conjecture that some ignorant writer put ἑπρειράσϑησαν 
for ἐπρίσϑησαν. This fault is very visible in the transcriber 
of Origen ;§ for in his fourth homily of Jeremy we read in 
the Greek, ἐπρίσϑησαν, ἐπειράσϑησαν, but in the old translation 
there is only secti occisione gladii occubuerunt. And in 
the fifteenth homily, ἄλλον ἐλιϑεβύλησαν, ἄλλον ἐπισϑησαν, 
ἄλλον ἐπέκτειναν, Which shows that Origen did not own the 
word éreipacSncav, And though we find the word again in his 
homilies] on Matthew, yet whosoever reads the place will find 
that Origen takes no notice of it, but proceeds immediately 
from ἐπρίσϑησαν to ἐν φόνῳ μαχαίρας ἀπέϑανον, saying, the word 
ἐπρίσϑησαν refers to Isaias, and the words ἐν φόνῳ paxatpas 
ἀπέϑανον to Zacharias. In the fourth dialogue against Mar- 
cion, p. 125, he proves that the prophets were not phan- 
toms, but men consisting of flesh and blood, because ὃ piv 
ἐπρίσϑη σαρκὶ, 6 dé ἐλιδάσϑη, καὶ of λοιποὶ ἐν φόνῳ μαχαίρας 
ἀπέϑανον, “one of them was sawn asunder, another was 
stoned, and the rest were killed by the sword:” and in his 
Exhortation to Martyrdom, p. 232, he adds, “The writer of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews saith, ἐλιϑάσϑησαν, ἐπρίσϑησαν, ἐν 
φόνῳ paxaipas ἀπέϑανον, hey were stoned, they were sawn 
asunder, they were slain with the sword.” From all which 
places it is evident, that ἐπρίσϑησαν was the reading followed 
by the ancients. 


* Prep. Ev. lib. xii. cap. x. p. 583. 
+ Strom. iv. p. 515, A. 

§ Ed. Huet. tom. i. p. 141, D. 

| P. 147. 


ἡ Scorp. cap. 8. 


4 Tom. i. p. 225. 


CHAPTER XII. 


farough faith, (μαρτυρηθέντες, having ublained a testimony 
from God, or from his word, that they pleased him through 
faith, notwithstanding) ® received not the promise (of @ 
heavenly country, ver. 13. 16, not the recompense of re- 
ward, ver. 26, not the better resurrection, ver. 35): 


3 Ver. 39. Οὐκ ἑκομίσαντο τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν (or, aS some Co- 
pies read, τὰς ἐπαγγελίας), Received not the promises.) ‘These 
words being the same with those in ver. 13 of this chapter, 
“All these died in faith, μὴ λαβόντες ἐπαγγελίας, not having 
received the promises,” it is reasonable to interpret them to 
the same sense, viz. of their not having received the heavenly 
kingdom and blessed resurrection they expected. And so 
the whole current of this epistle will force us to interpret 
them: for it is the promise of “entering into rest’’ after we 
have “ceased from our labour” here on earth (iv. 1. 10), 
“the promise of an eternal inheritance” (ix. 15), the pro- 
mise we are to receive after we haye “patiently done the 
will of God” (x. 36). 

24 Ver. 40. Kpstrrév re περὶ ἡμῶν, Some better thing con- 
cerning us.) viz. Our hope of entering into the veil, by 
reason of our forerunner entering in thither first (vi. 19, 20) : 
we having a high-priest “ higher than the heavens” (vii. 26), 
“set on the throne of majesty in the heavens” (viii. 1), who 
by his death hath procured, that “they which are called 
might receive the promise of an eternal inheritance” (ix. 15), 
and who hath, by his entrance into this holy place with his 
blood, “ purified and prepared these holy places for us,” (ver. 
23, 24; the way into which was “not opened before,” ver. 
8), and given us “freedom of entrance into the holiest 
through the blood of Jesus, by this new way which he hath 
consecrated through his flesh” (x. 20); we being therefore 
“come to mount Sion, the city of the living God, to the 
heavenly Jerusalem, and to the spirits of just men made 
perfect” (xii. 22). 

35 “Ἵνα μὴ χωρὶς ἡμῶν τελειωϑῶσι, That they without us may 
not be made perfect.] ‘This all the fathers interpret of their 
receiving their crowns or their rewards hereafter. ‘Thus of 
Abel and Noah Chrysostom saith, “That they might not be 
crowned before us, ἕνα ὥρισε πᾶσι τῶν στεφάνων καιρὸν, God 
hath appointed one time of coronation for them all.’ Οὐδέ- 
mw τῶν στεφάνων ἐπήλαυσαν, “'They have not yet obtained 
their crowns,” saith Theodoret, “God expecting still those 
that are to combat, that he may proclaim them victors alto- 
gether.” Origen having cited this place, saith thus:* “« You 


* Vides ergo quia exspectat adhuc Abraham, ut que per- 


931 


40 God having provided (Gr. forescen) * some bet- 
ter thing for us (and so deferring the completion of 
that promise till we also should be made partakers of 
it), ® that (so) they without us should not be made 
perfect. 


see that Abraham yet expects to obtain perfection, yen, 
Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets expect us, that with 
us they may obtain perfect bliss.” Yea, he says the same, 
not only of all the saints of the New ‘Testament, but even of 
the blessed apostles, saying,* “Even the apostles have not 
received their joy, but wait that I might be partaker with 
them; nor do the saints departed obtain the full reward of 
their good actions.” Nor did the primitive fathers mean 
this only of their bodies, but also of their souls, which they 
conceived not to be exalted to the highest heavens; saying, 
that they had not yet received their full reward, yea, that 
they were not to expect it till the day of judgment (see 
note on 2 Tim. iv. 8). And therefore I cannot but wonder to 
hear a very learned person, in his note on this place, saying, 
“Tt will be acknowledged by all, that then,” i. e. at our 
Saviour’s resurrection, “the patriarchs received this promise, 
or that the sufferers here mentioned then received it;” espe- 
cially when the apostle here saith, “They were tortured, 
not accepting a deliverance, that they might obtain a better 
resurrection,” which surely they have not yet obtained: and 
I more admire that this should by him be interpreted of 
« deliverance from their persecutors, and rest from persecu- 
tions ;” for is this promise fulfilled to Christians? To them, 
who, “if they will live godly, must suffer persecutions,” 
and “through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of 
God?’ And do they who were thus tortured find this per- 
fection “with us?” Or had they any other rest or freedom 
from them, than what death gave them? Surely the expo- 
sition of all the ancient fathers is much to be preferred be- 
fore this new and singular invention, as also before the new 
doctrine of the Florentine council, “« That the souls of saints 
departed do already behold the face of God in heaven.” 


fecta sunt consequatur, exspectat et Isaac et Jacob, et om- 
nes prophet# exspectant nos, ut nobiscum perfectam beati- 
tudinem eapiant. In Lev. hom. vii. f. 71, D. 

* Nondum enim receperunt lwtitiam suam ne apostoli 
quidem, sed et ipsi exspectant ut et ego letitie eorum parti- 
ceps fiam ; neque enim decedentes hine sancti continuo in- 
tegra meritorum suorum premia consequuntur, sed exspec- 
tant etiam nos licet morantes. Ibid. 


CHAPTER XII. 


1 Wuererore seeing we also are compassed about 
with so great a! cloud (7. 6. α mullitude) of witnesses, 
let us (who are to run a Christian race) lay aside every 
weight (of worldly cares and affections), and the 3 sin 
which doth so easily beset (and circumvent) us (and so 


hinders our feet from making a due progress in il), and 
let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

28% Looking unto Jesus (who, by his prophetic of- 
fice, was) the author and (by his regal office, will be 
the) finisher of our faith; who for the 4 joy that was 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. 


1 Ver. 1. Νέφος, A cloud,) For a multitude, is a phrase 
used by Homer, who calls a multitude of footmen, νέμος 
πεζῶν, which Virgil* thus translates, Insequitur nimbus 
peditum: this cloud of witnesses therefore contains all 
the worthies mentioned in the former chapter, who by 
their words and actions have testified how much the ob- 
jects of their faith were valued before all worldly things, 
and how equitable it was to “endure afflictions, not ac- 
cepting a deliverance, that they might obtain a better resur- 
rection.” 

2 Τὴν εὐπερίστατον ἁμαρτίαν, The sin that easily besets us.] 
The apostle being here speaking of the Christian’s race, this 
phrase is best interpreted with relation to it, and so it must 
tespect the sin which cleaves to our affections, which are the 


* An. vii. ver. 793, and note in Georg. lib. iv. ver. 20. 


feet of the soul, like a long garment wrapt about us, and so 
hinders the running of our Christian race ; for it is either our 
affection to, and our desire of, what we ought not to desire 
or affect at all, or which we ought not comparatively to 
affect or desire, which gives the rise and prevalence of all 
temptations to sin, and renders self-denial so exceeding diffi- 
cult: he therefore requires us to put off this sin as racers 
did their garments, running naked, that without hindrance 
we may run our Christian race. 

3 Ver. 2. ᾿᾿Αφορῶντες, ce. Looking to Jesus,] As an exam- 
ple of patience under sufferings, fit to be imitated by his dis- 
ciples, and as one gloriously recompensed in bis human 
nature for the sufferings he sustained in it, and as one who 
will give to us the same happy repose after our sufferings; 
he having, as the author of our faith, promised, and being 
able, as the finisher of our faith, to confer that glorious re- 
compense (x. 35, 36). 

4"Avri τῆς προκειμένης αὐτῷ χαρᾶς, For the joy set before 


932 


set before him (as a reward of his sufferings) endured 
the cross, despising the shame (of it), and (therefore) is 
set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

3 For consider him that (being so excellent a person, 
and so dear to God, yet) endured (patiently) such con- 
tradiction of sinners against himself (such blasphemies 
against his doctrine, such calumnies against his person, 
such malicious and unwearied attempts against his life), 
5 lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds, (under the 
conflict of afflictions ye endure. 

4 For which fainting ye have no such cause as this 
Captain of salvation, and this cloud of witnesses had : for) 
®Ye have not yet resisted unto blood (as they did), 
striving against sin. 

5 And (by your proneness to grow weary, and even 


faint under the combat,) ye (seem tv) have forgotten the | 


exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children 
(thus), My son, 7 despise not thon (be not slothful and 
dispirited under) the chastening of the Lord, nor faint 
when thou art rebuked of him (Prov. iii. 11, 12): 


HEBREWS. 


6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and 
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth (into that rela- 
tion). Ρ 

> If ye (then) endure chastening, 8 God dealeth 
with you as (a father) with (his) sons; for what son 
is he whom the father chasteneth not (fur his of- 
fences) 2 

8° But if ye be without (such) chastisement, 
whereof all (sons) are partakers, then are ye (trealed 
as) bastards (whom the repuled parent disregards), and 
not (as) sons (whom he loves, ver. 6). 

9 Furthermore (zc δὲ, and if) we have had fathers 
of our flesh which corrected us, and (yel) we gave 
them reverence (and honour, in expectation of the long 
life promised to them that do so, Exod. xx. 12): shall we 
not much rather be in subjection unto the " Father 
of (our) spirits (who gives and who recalls our spirits at 
pleasure), and (so) live (everlastingly) 2 

10 For they verily " for a few days chastened us 
after their own pleasure (Gr. as seemed best to them); 


him.] That ἀντὶ is used for the final cause, appears from 


these examples in the New Testament; “He gave himself , 


a ransom ἀντὶ πολλῶν, for many,” Matt. xx. 28; “ Render 
not evil, ἀντὶ κακοῦ, for evil,” Rom. xii. 17; “Her hair is 
given, dvri περιβολαίου, for a covering,” 1 Cor. xi. 15; ἀντὶ 
τούτου, * For this cause shall a man leave father and mother ;” 
and here, ver. 16, ἀντὶ βρώσεως μιᾶς, “For one morsel of 
bread he sold his birthright” (see 1 Thess. v. 15, 1 Pet. iii. 
9). Note also, that the apostle goes on in his agonistical 
terms, and having spoken, ver. 1, of the προκείμενος ἡμῖν 
ἀγὼν, “race before us” to run, he here speaks in the same 
language, of the joy set before our Saviour in his race ; that 
is, of the βραβεῖον, the “ prize” or crown placed in his view 
for his encouragement to run to it; it being the custom in 
those games* “to hang the crown at the end of the goal, 
that he who came first to it might snatch it, or lay hold of 
it:” “the joy set before him” must therefore be the prospect 
of that majesty and glory, power and dominion, he in his 
human nature was to be invested with, as the reward of 
these his sufferings; “he for the suffering of death being 
crowned with majesty and honour” (Heb. ii. 9); “God 
having therefore highly exalted him, and given him a name 
above every name” (Phil. ii. 9): and thus we have just 


cause to look upon him as an example of faith and patience, | 


and of God’s especial favour to them that suffer for his 
sake. 

5 Ver. 3. Ἵνα μὴ κάμητε ἐκλυόμενοι, Lest you be wearied 
and faint in your minds.] These also are two agonistical 
terms; the one signifies to be weary, as in those words of 
C. Marcius,f νικώντων οὐκ ἔστι τὸ κάμνειν, « Conquerors must 
not be weary, and so give over the fight ;” the other, to faint 
and be dispirited, so that we can run or fight no longer: 
and because in those combats they fought spfocradny, 
«standing upright,’ and χεῖρας ἐκτείνοντες, “stretching out 
their hands,” therefore the apostle exhorts them, in their 


spiritual combat, to “stretch out the hands that hang down, | 
and ἀνορθοῦν, to erect their feeble knees,” ver. 12 (Faber. | 


Agon. lib. i. cap. 8). 
© Ver. 4. ᾿Ανταγωνιζύμενοι μέχρις αἵματος, Ye have not re- 
sisted unto blood.) This is another agonistical expression 
belonging to the pugiles, who were oft besmeared with 
blood, and sometimes died under the blows they received 
from the clubs of their adversary (Faber. Agon. lib. i. 
cap. 7). 
7 Ver. 5. Mi GArycpe.] ᾿Ολιγωρεῖν is, say Phavorinus and 
_ Hesychius, ἀμελεῖν, ῥαϑυμεῖν, “to be unregardful of, to be 
slothful : ἢ ὀλίγωρος, μικρόψυχος, “to be crest-fallen;” dva- 
πίπτειν, animo concidere, “to faint, and be dispirited.” Τὸ 
ἀναπίπτειν, κυρίως ἐπὶ Ψυχὴν ἐστὶν, οἷον ἀθυμεῖν ὀλιγωρεῖν. Athen. 
Deip. lib. i. p. 23, B. 
8 Ver. 7. God dealeth with us as with sons.] Here the 


* He did, saith Plutarch, καθελεῖν τὸν στέφανον κρεμάμενον. 
Περὶ Φιλοπλουτίας, p. 523. And “1 run,” saith the apostle, 
ἐσεκτεινόμενος ἐπὶ τὸ βραβεῖον, Phil. iil. 14. 

fT Plutarch in Vita C. Mare. p. 218. 


note of Chrysostom is this, That from those things, 
whence men usually conclude they are deserted by God, 
the apostle shows, that God demonstrates his fatherly affec- 
tion to them. 

9 Ver. 8.] Hence the Jews speak thus, « Woe to the man 
who goeth out of the world without tribulation” (Buxt. Lex. 
p. 1528). 

10 Ver. 9. To πατρὶ τῶν πνευμάτων, To the Father of spi- 
rits.] ‘This phrase is not here put to signify the author of 
our new spiritual birth; for spiritual graces and dispositions 
are never called πνεύματα, “ spirits” in scripture ; nor is the 
Holy Spirit, who produceth them, ever mentioned in the 
plural, when they are spoken of. It is plainly a Hebrew 
phrase, used twice by Moses when he speaks thus to God, 
«Ὁ God of the spirits of all flesh” (Numb. xvi. 22); and 
again, “ Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a 
man over the congregation” (Numb. xxvii. 16) ; and he isso 
styled, both as the Creator of them, or that God who “ form- 
eth the spirit of man within him” (Zech. xii. 1), and the 
preserver and governor of them; “‘The God in whose hand 
is the soul of all living, and the spirit of all flesh of man” 
(Job xii. 10), and into whose hands they do “return” at 
death (Eccles. xii. 7), according to that old tradition of the 
heathens, preserved in Epicharmus,* that man dying, 
ἀπῆλθεν ὅθεν ἦλϑε πάλιν, ya μὲν eis γᾶν, πνεῦμα δ᾽ ἄνω, “Te- 
turns from whence he came, his earthly part to the earth, his 
spirit upwards:” and the tradition of the Hebrews, that in 
the time of our dissolutiont “ God comes and takes away his 
part, and leaves the part of our father and mother,” styled 
here, “the fathers of the flesh.” Josephus saith,+ that at 
the formation of Adam, “God made man out of the earth, 
and sent him a soul and spirit.” Philo saith,§ that “his 
body was indeed made of earth, shaped into human form, 
but his soul was only derived from the Maker and Governor 
of all things; and this was signified by these words, “ He 
breathed into him the breath of life:” so that though ac- 
cording to his visible part he was mortal, as to his invisible 
he was immortal: hence saith the Targum of Jonathan, on 
Numb. xvi. 22, xxvii. 16, “Tt is God that putteth the 
spirit of the soul in the bodies of all men:” and the Targum 
of Jerusalem, “It is God who ruleth over the souls of all 
flesh” (see Pug. Fid. p. 401). 

1 Ver. 10. Πρὸς ὀλίγας ἡμέρας, For a few days} Seems not 
here to refer to the days of children’s minority, for that 
makes nothing to the purpose of the apostle’s argument; 
and the motive to suffer divine chastisements, used by the 


* Plutarch de Consol. ad Apol. 110, A. 

} Midrash Cohel. in cap. 5, ver. 11. 

+ Kat πνεῦμα ἑνῆκεν αὐτῷ καὶ Wuxi. 
2, p. 5. 

§ Τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν dx’ οὐδενὸς γεννητοῦ τὸ παράπαν, ἀλλ' ἐκ τοῦ 
πατρὸς καὶ ἡγεμόνος Τὸ γὰρ ἐνεφύσησεν, οὐδὲν 
ἕτερον ἣν ἢ πνεῦμα θεῖον ἀπὸ τῆς μακαρίας, καὶ εὐδαίμονος ἐκείνης 
φύσεως ἀποικίαν τὸν ἐνθάδε στειλάμενον, Lib. de Mundi Opificio 


Antiq. lib. i. cap. 


τῶν ἁπάντων. 


1}. 23, C, ἢ. 


CHAPTER XII. 


but he (our heavenly Father, doth il) for our (own) profit, 
that we might be partakers of his holiness. 

11 (Nor let it discourage you that these afflictions seem 
grievous to the flesh, xasa δὲ.) Now no chastening for 
the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous (lo i/)- 
nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of 
righteousness unto them which are " exercised thereby 
(ὦ, e. those fruits of righteousness which end in Bees: 

12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down 
(as if wearied with, and giving over the combat), and 
(strengthen) the feeble knees (which seem unable to 
stand firm, and run on this race with patience ; see note 
on ver. 3); . 

13 And (so) make (ποιήσατε, ye will make) ® straight 
paths for your feet (¢o walk in), lest that which is lame 
be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed 
(Gr. ἕνα μὴν that that which is lame may not be turned 
out of the way, but rather may be healed. 

14 And in order thereto) “Follow peace with all 
men, and holiness, without which no man shall see 
the Lord: 

15 Looking diligently lest any man Κα fail of the 
grace (Gr. ὑστερῶν ἀπὸ, fall from the grace) of God; 


scripture, is, not that they are long, but that they are but 
“for a very little while,’ Heb. x. 7, “momentary,” 2 Cor. 
iv. 17, ὀλίγον ἄρτι, “but for a little,” 1 Pet. i. 6; nor is κατὰ 
τὸ δοκοῦν αὐτοῖς, “after their pleasure,” but “as it seemed 
good to them.” This therefore seems to be the meaning of 
the words, That earthly parents chastise their children, aim- 
ing at that which seems best for them in this present life, 
consisting of few days, or for their temporal good in this life : 
but God doth it for their spiritual and eternal benefit, to 
make them here “ partakers of his holiness,’’ and so fit them 
for “the peaceable fruits of righteousness” hereafter. 

2 Ver. 11.] The word γεγυμνασμένοις, used here, shows 
that this phrase is agonistical, and taken from the exercises 
performed by them naked in the Olympic games, where one 
of the crowns given to the victors being crépavos ἐλαϊνὸς, * of 
olive,” the symbol of peace; hence Faber conceives the 
Christian’s crown is here represented by « the peaceable fruits 
of righteousness.” 

18 Ver. 13. Τροχιὰς ὀρθὰς, Straight paths.) i. 6. Make 
straight paths in the way of Christianity, not stepping out 
of it to avoid persecution, that they who are already lame 
and feeble, may not be moved, by your example, to go out 
of it, but rather, by your constancy in it, may be con- 
firmed. 

Ver. 14.] Be of a pure and peaceable conversation 
towards all with whom you do converse; for as this is ne- 
cessary in order to your living with God, so will it tend 
much to prevent the persecutions of men. 

15 Ver. 15.] That ὑστερηκέναι is the same with ἀφίστασϑαι, 
“to depart from the grace of God, which brings salvation ;” 
or, to depart from the faith, and by so doing fall short of 
the promised rest, Heb. iv. 1, the words of the apostle, and 
his scope, which is to preserve the Jews from backsliding 
from Christianity to Judaism, and the following exhortation, 
not to “refuse him that speaketh now,” ver. 25, and ἔχειν 
τὴν Xipw, “to retain and hold fast the grace of God,’ ver. 
28, sufficiently show. But this is still more clear from the 
words of Deut. xxix. 18, whence this whole verse is taken, 
which runs thus; μῆ τίς ἐστιν ἐν ὑμῖν. τινὸς ἢ διανοία ἐξέκ- 
Awev ἀπὸ Κυρίου, “ Lest there be among you any man or wo- 
man whose heart turneth away from the Lord our God, to 
go and serve the gods of the nations, μή τίς ἔστιν ἐν ὑμῖν ῥίζα 
ἄνω φύουσα ἐν χολῇ καὶ πικρία, lest there should be among you 
a root springing with gall and wormwood ;” which makes it 
probable that the true reading here should be, not ἐνοχλῇ 
but ἐν χολῇ" though it be certain, that the word évoxyAéw sig- 
nifies to create trouble to ourselves or others, as Dan. vi. 21, 
Esth. ii. 22. 29, and in those words of Antoninus, lib. vii. 
§. 16, τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν αὐτὸ οὐχ ἑαυτῷ ἐνοχλεῖ ; “ Doth not the 
mind create trouble to itself!” See the full consent of the 
ancients to the word ἐνογλῆ, which is here rejected by Dr. 
Mills, Examen Millii in locum. : 

© Ver. 16. Πρωτοτοκία, The birthright] Which Esau sold 


933 


lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, 
and thereby many be defiled ; 

16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person 
(among you, such) as (was) Esau, who for one morsel 
of meat sold his ® birthright. 

17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would 
have inherited the blessing (he had lost), he was re- 
jected (by his father, saying of Jacob, I have blessed 
him, and he shall be blessed): for he found no place of 
repentance ed change of the blessing pronounced by his 
father), ™ though he sought it carefully with tears, 
(crying with an exceeding great and bitter cry, Gen. 
xxvil. 34.) 

18 For ye (believing Jews) are not come (as your 
forefathers, when they entered into the old covenant with 
God,) unto * the mount that might be touched (and so 
you might die, Exod. xix. 12), and that burned with fire 
(Gr. to the burning fire, Deut. ν. 23), nor unto black- 
ness, and darkness, (caused by the cloud, slyled νέφελη 
γνοφώδιδς, Exod. xix. 16,) and (lo the) tempest (uf 
thunder and lightning, Deut. v. 22), 

19 And the sound of a (the) trumpet (exceeding 
loud, which made the people tremble, Exod. xix. 16), 


contained these privileges: (1.) a double portion of his 
father’s goods, Deut. xxi. 17; (2.) power and dominion 
over the younger; for he succeeded in the government of 
the family, or kingdom: “ Reuben, thou art my first-born, 
the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power,” 
Gen. xlix. 3; “The kingdom gave he to Jehoram, because 
he was the first-born,’ 2 Chron. xxi.3. This Isaac gave to 
Jacob in these words, “Be thou a master to thy brethren, 
and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee,’ Gen. xxvii. 
29. (3.) The honour of priesthood, in their own family at 
least: so, Exod. xxiv. 5, “He sent the young men” (Chald. 
“the first-born”) “of the sons of Israel, and they offered 
burnt-offerings, and sacrificed sacrifices to Jehovah.” After- 
ward the Levites were taken into the service of God, in- 
stead of all the first-born among the “children of Israel,” 
Numb. iii. 41, consecrated before to God, Exod. xxii. 29, 
Numb. viii. 17, Gen. xxv. 29. This birthright Esau sold, 
when he was faint, ἐκλείπων, and this shows how proper this 
instance is to preserve them from being “ wearied and faint- 
ing in their minds.” 

The Targum of Ben Uziel saith, that he was made faint 
by committing idolatry, shedding innocent blood, and going 
in to a damsel betrothed, that day ; and this shows him a 
fornicator, both in the spiritual and carnal sense, and a pro- 
fane person. And, lastly, Mercer saith, Primogenituram 
hereditatem calestem adumbrisse ; “ that the primogeniture 
was a type of their celestial inheritance :” which also seems 
to be hinted by the paraphrases on the place; for that of 
Uziel saith, “ He denied the life of the world to come and 
contemned his birthright: and the Targum of Jerusalem, 
that “he contemned his birthright and despised bis part in 
the life to come, and denied the resurrection ;” and Chry- 
sostom here sty les him ἀκρατὴς καὶ πνευματικὰ ἄπεμβολῶν. And 
as this shows his profaneness, so also doth it show the appo- 
siteness of his example to the apostle’s purpose. 

7 Ver. 17. ᾿Εκζητήσας μετὰ δακρύων αὐτήν, Though he 
sought it carefully with tears.) Though these words, thus 
expounded, do not immediately prove that true repentance 
may find no acceptance with God (that which Esau sought 
with tears, being not his own repentance, but the blessing 
which Isaac gave to Jacob, and would not repent of, Gen. 
XXvil. 33), yet are they designed to insinuate, that men may 
so despise the blessings of Christianity, as to be after thought 
unworthy to enjoy them; that by their apostasy they may 
fall so entirely from God, as that he will not be prevailed on 
to restore them to their lost and despised privileges, upon 
their tears and fastings; as is apparent in the case of the 
Jews, who have large times of penance and humiliation, bu! 
are not to this day restored to the grace and favour of God, 
and to the privilege of being his peculiar people, and first 
born, as once they were. 

18 Ver. 18. ψηλαφωμένῳ ὄρει, To the mountain that might 
be touched.] And therefore was corporeal and terrene, and 


. 


934 


and the (great) voice of words; which voice (was so 
terrible, thal) they that heard (z/) intreated that the 
word should not be spoken to them any more (lest 
they died for it, Exod. xx. 19, Deut. v. 25, xviii. 16): 

20 (For they could not endure ® that which was 
commanded (that severe cautionary command which 
runs thus), And if so much as a beast touch the 
mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a 
dart : 

21 And so terrible was the sight, that ® Moses said, 
T exceedingly fear and quake :) 

22 But ye are come (under the gospel dispensation, 
to things of a more excellent nature, not apt to terrify and 
discourage, but create joy and comfort to you: not as then 


to mount Sinai, but) 31 unto mount Sion, (whence you | 


expect all your spiritual blessings ; not to the terrestrial Jeru- 
salem, which is in bondage with her children, Gal. iv. 25, 
but) and unto the city of the living God, ” the heavenly 


HEBREWS. 


Jerusalem, and (not to thousands of angels attending 
on God, as at mount Sinat, Ps. Ixviii. 17, but) to an 
innumerable company of angels, (ministering to them 
who shall be heirs of salvation, Heb. 1. 14, 

23 And)Tothe general assembly and church (not 
of the Jews, and of the first-born registered amongst them, 
Numb. i. 16, but) * of the firstborn, which are written 
in heaven, 5 and to God (now declared to be) the Judge 
of all (Acts xvii. 30, 31), % and to the spirits of just 
men made perfect, (who have run their race, and are to 
be crowned at the great day, 2 Tim. iv. 8,) 

24 And to Jesus the mediator (not of the old covenant, 
which promised only the land of Canaan, but) of the new 
covenant (established in his blood, by which we receive the 


promise of an eternal inheritance, Heb. ix. 15), and to 


the” blood of sprinkling, * that speaketh better things 
than that of Abel. 
25 * See (therefore) that ye refuse not him that 


by being touched after the prohibition (Exod. xix. 12) 
would procure present death : but you are come to the spiri- 
tual and heavenly Zion, which will certainly give life to all 
that belong to it. 

19 Ver. 20. Τὸ διαστελλόμενον.] Διαστέλλομαι signifies to 
command with vehemence, or severity, Matt. xvi. 20, Mark 
ν. 43, vili. 15, 


20 Ver. 21. Mwiisis εἶπεν, Moses said.] This, interpreters | 


think, Paul received by tradition of his ancestors, though no 
footsteps of this tradition have been found among them. 
But doubtless the apostle had respect to Deut. ix., where, 
ver. 15, Moses sees the mount “ burning up to heaven,” and 
ver. 19, saith ἐφοβός εἰμι, “1 exceedingly fear.” 

21 Ver. 22. Σιὼν ὄρει, To mount Zion.| All the good things, 
blessings, and comforts, which God will give to Israel, are 
only out of Zion, say the Jews, Vajikra Rabba, §. 24, Mid- 
rash Tillim ad Ps. xiv. Hence came their strength, Ps. ex. 
2, and help, Ps. xx. 2, blessings, Ps. cxxviii. 5, life, Ps. 
exxxiii. 3, and salvation, Ps. xiv. 7. 

23 Ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐπουρανίῳ, To the heavenly Jerusalem,} 
“Ὁ Which is the mother of us all,” Gal. iv. 26; where “ our 
city is,” Phil. iii. 20, This the rabbins call “the Jerusalem 
of the age to come, to be built in the days of the Messiah ;” 
saying also, that “the inferior Jerusalem is a figure of that 
which is above” (see note on Gal. iv. 26). And it is here 
styled “ the heavenly Jerusalem ;” not that heaven is prima- 
rily intended by it, and not the church of Christ on earth; 
but propter originem et finem, as having its rise from heaven, 


and as leading to it; on which account the gospel-state is | 


styled oft “the kingdom of heaven.” 

3 Mopdow ἀγγέλων, To myriads of angels.) The glorious 
citizens of heaven who attend at the throne of God, to whom 
we are united, they being made “ one with us, in Christ” (Eph. 
i. 10), and to whom we are reconciled by him (Col. i. 20). 


4 Ver. 23. Πρωτοτύκων, Of the Jirst-born :] 1. e. Of the | 
apostles, who received the first-fruits of the Spirit (Rom. viii. | 
23), and of the churches which received first the Christian | 
faith (Eph. i. 12), “ whose names are written in heaven,” | 
i. e. who are enrolled among the citizens of the new and | 
heavenly Jerusalem, or among the just, for whom the king- | 


dom is prepared. ‘In this rejoice,” saith Christ, that your 
names are written in heaven,” Luke x. 20. Thus, Exod. 
XXxxii. 32, Moses, by the Targum, is introduced speaking thus, 
“1 know thou hast writ my name in the book of the just :” 
and of the false prophets, the Targum on Ezek. xiii. 9 saith, 


“They shall not be written in the book of eternal life, which | 
is written for the just of the house of Israel ;” and into this | 


kingdom they only are to enter, whose “names are” thus 
“enrolled in the book of life” (Rev. xxi. 27.) 

35 Kai κριτῇ Oecd, And to God the judge of all.) Who will 
adjudge the crown of glory to those who have “ fought the 
good fight of faith” (2 ‘Tim. iv. 8), who “run this race with 
patience” (1 Cor. ix. 24, 25), and will give them “the 
kingdom prepared for them” (Matt. xxv. 34, Luke xii. 32). 


% And to the spirits of just men, τετελειωμένων, made per- | 
26, Acts x. 22, Rom. xi. 4, Heb. viii. 5, xi. 7). 


fect.| This word here cannot well signify them who are 
crowned in the agonistical sense ; because the apostle, in the 


former chapter, had asserted of those witnesses which died | 


in faith, that they had “not yet received the promise,’ and 
were not to be crowned before us Christians; and saith, that 
he himself expected to receive his “crown” only “at the 
great day” (2 Tim. iv. 8). But it signifies either that they 
had fulfilled their course, and so rested from their labours 
and conflicts, as Chrysostom here saith, and so have nothing 
more to do but to receive their crown: or, in the other sense 
of the word, τελειοῦσϑαι, “to be made perfect” in holiness, 
or to be perfectly purged from all guilt of sin, and so fit to 
be admitted to this kingdom: in which sense the apostle 
here denies that there was any τελείωσις, or “ perfect expi- 
ation” made by the Levitical priesthood ; “the law making 
nothing perfect” (Heb. vii. 11. 16): and that the offerings 
prescribed by it could not, τελειῶσαι, “make perfect the 
worshipper, as to his conscience” (Heb. ix. 9): that they 
could not τελειῶσαι εἰς τὸ διηνεκὲς, * perfect him for ever,” so 
as that he should need no farther expiation for sin (Heb. x. 
1); and that Christ, “by one offering, τετελείωκεν εἰς τὸ διη- 
vexés, had perfectly expiated for ever them that were sancti- 
fied” (ver. 14). And accordingly the Targum upon 1 Chron. 
xxi. 15, saith, “God saw the house of his sanctuary which 
is above the heavens, where the souls of the just are ;” and 
hence it is evident, that the souls of just men are not re- 
duced by death to a state of insensibility; for can a soul 
that reasons, and perceiveth good things, be made perfect by 
perceiving nothing at all? Cana spirit, which here enjoyed 
the pleasures of a good conscience, of a life of faith, and of 
communion with God, and the comforts of the Holy Ghost, 
be advanced to perfection by a total deprivation of all those 
satisfactions and enjoyments ? 

7 Ver. 24. Αἴματι ῥαντισμοῦ, The blood of sprinkling.] 
Not that of bulls and goats, with which Moses sprinkled the 
people, when they entered into the old covenant (Exod. xxiv. 
8), and the tabernacle, and the vessels of the ministry, to 
sanctify them for the Levitical service; but the blood of 
Christ, by which the heavenly places are purified and pre- 
pared for us (ix. 28, 24), and by which we have entrance 
into the holiest (x. 19, 20): whereas the blood sprinkled 
seven times, for their purification under the old testament, 
was sprinkled before the veil, because the priests could not 
enter with it within the veil. 

28 Kpeirrova λαλοῦντι παρὰ τὸν, OF, παρὰ τὸν ABA, Which 


| speaketh better things than that of Abel.) Than the blood 


of Abel; not because that called for vengeance, this for 
mercy; but than the blood of the sacrifice of Abel offered 
by faith, by which God testified his acceptance, and by 
which he, being dead, yet speaks (Heb. xi. 4); that pro- 
curing acceptance for himself alone; this, for all believers: 
that, speaking only for him, and declaring him righteous ; 
this, interceding to God, for the justification of all men, 
through faith in his blood. 

29 Ver. 25. Χρηματίζοντα, Him that speaketh.) This word 
both in the Old and New Testament, signifies speaking as 
from God, or words proceeding from him (see Jer. xxv. 30, 
XXvi. 3, xxix. 23, xxx. 2, xxxvi. 4, Matt. ii. 22, Luke ii. 
So 2 Mace. 
11. 4, χρηματισμοῦ γενηθέντος αὐτῶ, “* The prophet being warn- 
ed of God, commanded that the ark should go with him.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 
speaketh (now by his Son to you). For if they escaped | 


not (God’s severe judgments) who refused him that 
spake on earth (by Moses); much more shall not we 
escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh (by his 
Son coming down, and by his Spirit sent down) from 
heaven (1 Pet. i. 12): 

26 3: Whose voice then shook the earth (when the 
law was given, Exod. xix. 18, Ps. Ixviii. 8): but now 
(under this dispensation) he hath promised (yet a farther 
shaking), saying, * Yet once more (at the making my 
new covenant) ™ I shake not the earth only, but also 
heaven (Hag. ii. 7, 8). 


8) Mi παραιτήσησϑε, Refuse nol.) As they did, saith 
Theodoret, “ desiring, ἐντὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν Mwoéa λαβεῖν, instead 
of God to have Moses ;” by saying, “ Speak thou to us, and 
let not God speak to us” (Exod xxix. 19) : “desiring not God 
but an angel,” saith Philo on these words, De Somniis, p. 
455, E (see note on Col. ii. 19). 

3t Ver. 26. Οὗ ἡ φωνὴ, Whose voice.) He speaks here not 
of the voice of Christ, but of the God of Israel, who, at his 
appearance on Sinai, “shook the earth;’ of his voice who 
made the promise, that Christ, “the Desire of all nations, 
should come.” Nor can the apostle, or the prophets, speak 
of Christ’s second coming, to give new heavens and new 
earth, by the conversion of the Jewish nation : for, first, this 
shaking was to be the forerunner of the coming of the Desire 
of all nations, or contemporary with it; now he was to come 
to “fill that very house” then built “ with glory,” and to 
make the glory of it greater than the glory of that house 
built by Solomon. The prophet must therefore speak of a 
shaking antecedent to the destruction of the temple: and 
therefore the apostle, speaking of the very thing promised in 
the words of the prophet Haggai, must also speak of the first 
advent of our Lord. Secondly, the prophet speaks of a 
shaking which was to happen “after a little time” (Hag. ii. 
7), and therefore not of an advent of our Saviour, after two 
thousand years expired, yet to come. And, thirdly, the 
apostle says plainly, that Christians had then “ received this 
kingdom, which could not be shaken” to give place to 
another; and upon that grounds his exhortation to them, to 
retain or hold fast the grace received (ver. 28) : which shows, 
it was not a kingdom yet to come after one thousand seven 
hundred years; but that which, throughout the gospel, is 
styled “the kingdom of God,” and “ of heaven,” and is said 
to be then come unto them, Matt. xii. 28. 

2 "En ἅπαξ, Yet once more.] The word “yet” signifies, 
that there was yet to be another shaking, for the introduction 
of another covenant, and consequently for the abolishing 
the first; and the word “once” only that there should be 
no more shaking, after the introduction of the second co- 
venant. 

38. ᾿γὼ σείω, &e., I shake not the earth only, but the 
heavens.) Hag. ii. 7. The ancient Jews speak of this place 
thus; “I will give a short glory to the Israelites, and after- 
ward shall the Messiah come,” Talm. Tr. Sanhed. cap. 11. 
Expounding this place of the coming of the Messiah, they 
add, that as the first tabernacle and temple were built and 
destroyed, so was the second temple, but the Messiah should 
build a temple, and God had built a tabernacle and temple 
in the heavens, which should never be destroyed,” Pug. Fid. 
p. 304, 309. 

Now this shaking of the heaven and earth, being to be ac- 
complished at the coming of the Messiah, or, “the Desire of 
all nations,” cannot signify the removal and subversion of 
the material heavens and earth, they being not thus shaken 
at Christ’s coming: but this is a metaphor frequently used 
in the prophets, to signify the subversion of a state and king- 


935 


27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the re- 
moving of those things that are shaken, as of things 
that are made, that those things which cannot be 
shaken may remain. 

28 Wherefore we receiving (the promise of ) a king- 
dom which cannot be moved, (or shaken, or give place 
to another,) ™ let us have (or retain that) grace, whereby 
(alone) we may serve God acceptably with reverence 
and godly fear: 

29 For our God is (to the disobedient and rebellious 
among us, as he was to them, Deut. iv. 24, ix. 3) 5 ἃ 
consuming fire. 


dom, and of the government which obtains amongst them ; 
as when the prophet, speaking of the destruction of Babylon, 
saith, “I will make the heavens shake, and the earth shall 
be removed out of its place,” Isa. xiii. 13. And of the de- 
struction of the Jews by the Assyrians, he useth these very 
words, “ I'he earth shall be moved, and the heavens shaken,” 
Joel ii. 10 (see Judg. v. 4, Ps. Ixxvii. 15, Isa. xxiv. 19, 20). 
Thus, at our Lord’s coming to destroy Jerusalem, say some 
interpreters; to destroy antichrist, as others think; “the 
powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Matt. xxiv. 30, Mark 
xiii. 25, Luke xxi. 26), which import of this phrase being not 
understood by Esthius, he, without cause, rejecteth this in- 
terpretation of the word. 

Secondly, This shaking, being “for the removal of things 
which were shaken,” and they being not the material earth, 
must signify the things which were then introduced with the 
shaking of the earth, i. e. the covenant made, and the wor- 
ship and tabernacle, and other materials then appointed to 
be made with hands for God's service ; which, as the apostle, 
throughout this whole epistle, contends, were to be abolished, 
and to continue only until the time of reformation (ix. 10), 
and then to give place to that new covenant and dispensa- 
tion, which procured for us an eternal redemption, and an 
entrance, “not into the holy places made with hands, but 
into heaven itself.” 

3 Ver. 28. Ἔχομεν xdpw.] It is the observation of critics 
here, and elsewhere, that ἔχειν, to Aave, is often put for xaré- 
xew, to retain, or hold fast : sO ἔχειν πίστιν καὶ ayaSiv 
συνείδησιν, is “ to hold faith and a good conscience,” 1 Tim. i. 
195 ἔχειν τὸ μυστήριον τῆς πίστεως, “to hold the mystery of 
faith ;” ὑποτύπωσιν ἔχειν, “to hold fast the form of sound 
words,” 2 Tim.i.13. Χάρις, throughout the whole New Tes- 
tament, doth signify the favour and the grace of God, so 
freely tendered to us in the gospel (see note on 2 Cor. vi. 1) : 
so that the import of those words seems to be this; Let us 
continue steadfast in that faith and dispensation delivered in 
the gospel, as being that alone which renders both our per- 
sons and our services acceptable to God; let us not « fall 
from the grace of God”’ (ver. 15) ; let us not “ cast off our 
confidence” (x. 35); “let us hold fast the profession of our 
hope without wavering” (ver. 23), continuing to serve God 
with a holy reverence. 

35 Ver. 29. Πῦρ καταναλίσκον, A consuming fire.| To con- 
sume thine enemies, if thou obey him, and to “bring them 
down before thy face” (Deut. ix. 3); but to consume thee, 
if thou forget the covenant thou hast made with him (Deut. 
iv. 24). This hath relation to the Shechinah, or glorious 
presence of God, “ the sight of which was like devouring fire” 
(Exod. xxiv. 17), and from which went out fire to consume 
Nadab and Abihu (Lev. x. 2), and those two hundred and 
fifty persons who burnt incense (Numb. xvi. 35), and of 
whom the psalmist speaketh in these words, “ A fire burned 
in their congregations, the flame burnt up the wicked” (Ps. 
cvi. 18). 


CHAPTER XIII. 


1 Ler brotherly love continue. 
2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for there- 


by some (viz. Jbraham, Gen. xvii., and Lot, Gen. xix.) 
have entertained ! angels unawares. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 
' Ver, 2. ᾿Αγγέλου;, Angels.) It follows not hence, say the 


commentators here, that all the three persons which appeared 
to Abraham were created angels; for one of them being 
! 


996 


3 Remember them that are in bonds, as (affection- 
ately as if you were) bound with them; and them which 
suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body 
(and so as being subject to the like afflictions). 

4 ® Marriage 7s honourable in all (persons), and (so 
as) the bed undefiled: but (or, wherefore) whoremon- 
gers and adulterers ὃ God will judge (7. e. adjudge to 
condemnation). 

5 4 Let your conversation be without covetousness ; 
and be content with such things as ye have (at pre- 
sent): for he hath said (Deut. xxxi. 6, Josh. i. 5), I 
will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, 

6 So that we may boldly say (as the psalmist doth, 
Ps. lvi. 4), The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear 
what man shall do unto me. 

7 Remember them which have the rule over you 


HEBREWS. 


(Gr. be mindful of your governors, or guides), who have 
spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith fol- 
low, considering the end (or close) of their conversa- 
tion: (with what constancy and perseverance they conti- 
nued in the failh, and sealed it with their blood, in hopes 
of that crown of glory Christ had promised to them that 
were faithful to the death. 

8 Even that) Jesus Christ (who, both as to his doctrine, 
and his promises, 18) the same ® yesterday, and to day, 
and for ever. 

9 Be not carried about with divers and 8. strange 
doctrines (1. 6. doctrines diverse from them, and new, 
i. δ. not taught by those guides who spake to you the 
word of God, ver. 7). For it is a good thing that 7 the 
heart be established (7. 6. comforted and strengthened ) 
8 with grace (1. 6. the sense of the divine favour, and 


styled, by Abraham, “the Judge of all the earth,’ Gen. 
xviii. 24, “« Jehovah,” ver. 22, and Abraham praying to him 
with so great humility, “Oh! let not the Lord be angry, and 
I will speak unto him, who am but dust and ashes,” ver. 27. 
31, it seems more proper with the ancients to conceive, he at 
least should be “the Son of God, the Angel of the covenant ;” 
for the Word of God, saith Justin Martyr,* καὶ ἄγγελος 
καλεῖται, καὶ Θεὸς, ral Κύριος, καὶ ἁνὴρ, καὶ ἄνθρωπος, ᾿Αβραὰμ 
καὶ ᾿Ισαὰκ φανείς. Yet since, in the opinion of the Jews, they 
were three angels (as Ainsworth and Cartwright note upon 
the place, the apostle, writing to them, saith no more of 
them), I rather think, with the reverend Bishop of Ely, that 
it may be granted, that the three that appeared to Abraham 
were created angels; but then they appeared only as the re- 
tinue of the Shechinah, or divine Majesty, styled “ the Lord,” 
ver. 1. 13. For after the same men, who came in, and did 
eat with Abraham, and rose from the table, were departed 
(ver. 16. 22), Abraham stands yet “before the Lord,” that 
is, before the divine Majesty who appeared to him, ver. 1, 
and styles him “the Judge of the whole earth.” And this 
agrees well with the opinion of the Jews, who, as they ac- 
knowledge that the three men whom Abraham entertained 
were created angels, so also do they own that there was then 
a separate appearance, or divine Majesty, which talked with 
Abraham. And this takes off the observation of Crellius, 
and others, on this place, that the name “ Jehovah” is given 
to angels; for according to this interpretation, the name 
Jehovah is not given to any of the three angels which were 
entertained by Abraham, but only to the Shechinah, or divine 
Majesty, which appeared with them, and spake to Abraham, 


from ver. 10 to 17, and to whom, after the departure of 
these three, one into heaven, and two to Sodom, Abraham | 


still speaks to the end of that chapter. 

2 Ver. 4. Τίμιος 6 γάμος, Marriage is honourable.) It is 
not worth disputing, whether these words should be rendered 
as a precept, thus, “ Let honourable marriage, and the bed 
undefiled, obtain among all ;” or, as our version renders them, 
by way of assertion. The observation of the ancients upon 
the place is this, that “ marriage is honourable in all persons,+ 
old and young, and in all things.” 

3 Κρινεῖ ὃ Θεὸς, God will judge ;] 1. 6. Κατακρινεῖ, “ He will 
condemn” them: so, John iii. 16, «God sent not his Son 
into the world, ἵνα κρίνη τὸν xéopor, that he might condemn the 
world ;” “He that resisteth, shall receive to himself, κρῖμα, 
punishment,” or ** condemnation,” Rom. xiii. 2; so Matt. 
xxiii. 14, 1 Cor. xi. 29, 1 Tim. iii. 6, Jude 4, Mark iii. 29, 
Luke xxiii. 40 5 τοῦτον κρίναντες, by “condemning” Christ, 
they fulfilled the voice of the prophets, Acts xii. 27. That 
the apostle here should give these cautions against the 
Gnostics amongst the Jews, is said without ground, for no 
man can prove that any Gnostics had been then among 
them ; but they had then the sect of the Nicolaitans} among 
them, mentioned Rev. ii. 6.15, who did ἀναίδην ἐκπορνεῦειν, 
“fornicate without shame, holding whoredom and adultery 


* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 282. 

t Μὴ ἐν τοῖς προβεβήκσσι μὲν, ἐν δὲ rots νέοις οὐκ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν πᾶσιν. 
Theoph. Οὐκ ἐν τούτῳ μὲν τῷ μέρει τίμιος, ἐν ἑτέρῳ δὲ οὐ, ἄλλ᾽ 
ὅλος δι᾿ Gov πᾶσι τρόποις τιμιος. (ουπι. 

+ Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 29, Iren. lib. i. cap. 27. 


to be things indifferent.” Moreover, Justin Martyr saith,* 
that wherever they travelled, they multiplied to themselves 
Wives, ὀνόματι γάμου, “ under pretence of marriage” (see note 
on Rom. ii. 22). On which account there was ground sufti- 
cient for this exhortation. Note hence, that whoredom is a 
mortal sin. 

4 Ver. 5.] Hence we learn, First, That we are then “co- 
vetously minded,” when we are not content with the things 
We enjoy at present, but are impatiently desirous of having 
more. 

Secondly, That what God promises to any of his servants, 
may, in like circumstances, be applied to them all; for this 
promise, which the apostle here makes and applies to all good 
Chnistians, was particularly made to Joshua, i. 5. 

5 Ver. 8.] 1. 6. Through all times and ages: for, as Philof 
observes, τριμερὴς yap 6 χρόνος ἐκ παρεληλυϑότος, καὶ ἐνεστῶτος, 
καὶ μέλλοντος, “Time consists of three parts, the past, present, 
and to come, and these three signify, fravra τὸν αἰῶνα, all 
time,” or the whole compass of it: so that, as the same doc- 
trine of Christianity must always be professed by all Chris- 
tians, so the same Jesus is always ready to assist and reward 
the sincere professors of it. 

That the apostle speaks here, not of their living but dead 
guides, will appear, partly from his exhortation to remember 
them, the living guides being the objects, not of their memory, 
but sense; partly from the phrase ἐλάλησαν, “who have 
spoken,” which intimates, they had now left off speaking; 
and partly from the ἔκβασις, «the close,” or period of their 
conversation here on earth, they are exhorted to look back 
unto ; their living bishops they are commanded to obey (ver. 
17), their dead bishops to remember (ver. 7): for I think, 
saith Origen on Matthew (ed. Huet. tom. i. p. 420), he who 
is styled by Christ, ὁ ἡγούμενος, “a guide,” Luke xxii. 26, is, 
ὃ καλούμενος ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις ἐπίσκοπος, “ he who is called in 
the churches a bishop.” 

® Ver. 9. διδαχαῖς ξέναις, I render, “ new doctrines,” and 
therefore strange to the ears of them that hear them first ; so 
ξένα δαιμόνια are “ new demons,” Acts xvii. 18 ; and the apos- 
tle saith, they were not to look upon their fiery trial, ὡς ξένου 
ὑμῖν rapaGBaivovros, “as if some new thing had happened to 
them,” 1 Pet. iv. 12. 

7 Βεβαιοῦσϑαι τὴν καρδίαν, That the heart is established, ] Ts 
a Hebrew phrase, signifying to comfort, strengthen, and re- 
fresh the heart. So, Gen. xviii. 5, “I will fetch a morsel of 
bread, 935 yyp1, and comfort your hearts ;” Judg. xix. 5. 


| 8, στήρισον καρδίαν cov, Comfort thy heart with a morsel of 


bread ;” of which the psalmist saith, that καρδίαν sivSpGrov 
στηρίζει, “it strengthens man’s heart,” Ps. civ. 15; whence it 
is often styled στήριγμα ἄρτου, Ps. cv. 16, Ezek. iv. 16, v. 16, 
xiv. 13, “the staff of bread.” 

8 The « grace” here mentioned is, say the ancients, ἡ ris 
χάριτος διδασκαλία, “the doctrine of the gospel,” or of the 
grace of God tendered in it.” The “ meats” here mentioned 
are the meats eaten in the Jewish festivals, new moons, and 
sabbaths, Col. il. 16, or their peace-offerings and oblations, 
styled βρώματα, “meats,” Heb. ix. 10; which feasts some 
Jewish zealots would have observed with the Christian festi- 


* Dial. p. 371, B. 
ἡ De Sacrif. Abel et Cain, p. 106, C. 


——— 


CHAPTER XIII. 


the grace brought to us by the gospel); not with meats 
(eaten at the Jewish festivals, and their peace-offerings), 
which have not profited (to the purifying of the con- 
science from guill, Heb. ix. 9) them that have been oc- 
cupied therein. 

10 We (Christians) have (a sacrifice upon) ὃ an altar 
(that of the cross), whereof they have no right to eat (or 
to partake) which serve the tabernacle (ἡ, 6. cleave still 
to the worship appointed Jor the Jewish tabernacle. 

11 The truth of this they may learn from their own 
tnslilutions concerning sacrifices:) For the bodies of 
those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanc- 
tuary by the high priest © for (a) sin (offering), 
are (by the law of Moses not to be eaten, bul) burned 
without the camp (Exod. xxix. 14, Ley. iv. 21, vi. 30, 
xvi. 27). 

12 Wherefore Jesus also, (our sin-offering, the person 
typified by theirs offered on the great day of expiation, 
Ley. xvi.,) that he might sanctify the people with his 
own blood (carried into the heavenly sanctuary), " suf- 
fered without the gate. (He therefore thus answering 
the type of that sin-offering, of which neither priest nor 
people were to eat, they who still do adhere to the legal 
enstitutions, are by that law excluded from partaking of 
this sacrifice.) 

13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the 
camp (the terrestrial Jerusalem, the Jewish church and 
service), ® bearing his reproach. 

14 For here have we (especially, who are thus perse- 


937 


culed,) no continuing city, but we seek one to come 
(even the city of the living God, xii. 22). 

15 By him therefore (our high-priest) let us offer 
the (Christian) "3 sacrifice of praise to God continually, 
that is, (in the language of the prophet, Hosea xiv. 2,) 
" the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. 

16 But (and for the other Christian sacrifices, those of 
alms,) to do good and to communicate forget not: for 
with such sacrifices God is (s/i//) well pleased. 

17 Obey them that have " the rule over you, ( your 
bishops and pastors, ver. 24,) and submit yourselves (lo 
their godly admonitions) : for they watch for your souls, 
as they that must give account (lo God for them), 
that they may do it 15. with joy (¢n the presence of 
Christ, that they have gained you to him, and built you 
up in the faith, 1 Thess. ii. 19), and not with grief 
(that they could not prevail upon you to live suitably to 
their instructions) : for that is unprofitable for you (and 
pernicious lo you). 

18 Pray for us (for our freedom and success in preach- 
ing the gospel, Eph. vi. 19, Col. iv. 3, and our deliver- 
ance from the enemies of our faith, 1 Thess. iii. 1, 2): 
for we trust we have a good conscience, in ” all things 
(being) willing to live honestly. 

19 But I beseech you the rather to do this (now), 
that I may be restored to you the sooner. 

20 '§ Now the God of peace, that broucht again 
from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of 
the sheep, through (with) the blood of the everlasting 


vals, viz. their passover and pentecost (1 Cor. xi.), and in the 
same riotous manner (ver. 21). And these sacrifices, or 
peace-offerings, they would have still retained, perhaps as 
being not sacrifices for sin, but freewill-offerings, and only 
sacrifices of praise. So that the import of these words is 
this; It is good the soul, or heart, be established, refreshed, 
and comforted, not with meats eaten in the Jewish festivals, 
or at their eucharistical oblations, which profit or avail 
nothing to the peace and quiet of the conscience, but with the 
divine favour, and that gospel grace by which justification 
and remission of sins is obtained through the blood of Jesus; 
of which they cannot be partakers who still cleave to the 
legal observations. 

9 Ver. 10, Θυσιαστήριον, An altar.] That the “altar” here, 
signifies the sacrifice offered upon the altar, is plain from 
this, that of this altar they were to eat. So they that eat of 
the Jewish sacrifices are said to be, κοινωνοὶ ϑυσιαστηρίου, 
“partakers of the altar,” 1 Cor. x. 18, i. e. of the things 
offered at the altar; and then it must import the body of our 
Lord offered and broken on the cross: by partaking of the 
memorials of which body, we testify our communion with 
Christ and his church (ibid. ver. 16, 17) ; and of this, saith 
the apostle, they have no right to partake who adhere still to 
the Mosaical oblations. 

0 Μεγ. 11. Περὶ ἁμαρτίας. That περὶ ἁμαρτίας signifies 
“a sacrifice for sin,” or “a sin-oflering,” see note on 2 Cor. 
ult. 

" Ver. 12. Without the gate.) That sin-offering which 
was carried without the camp, whilst they were in the 
wilderness, when the temple was seated at Jerusalem, 
was carried “without the gate” of the city (Maimon. 
de Rat. Sacrif. Faciend. cap. 7, 8. 4, Ainsw. in Lev. 
vi. 30). And this is the reason of the variation of the 
phrase here. 

2 Ver. 13. Τοίνυν ἐξερχώμεθα.] Some quarrel with the apos- 
tle for beginning a sentence with τοίνυν, which it is confessed 
that the best Grecians rarely do; but this, saith Stephanus, 
is not without example; and Vigerus notes, τοίνυν initio 
quidem periodi ponitur, sed tamen vocem sequi, that is, “it 
is sometimes first in position, but it is not so in construc- 
tion.” 

His reproach.) i.e. His cross and sufferings, which the 
persecuting Jews inflict upon his followers, as they did upon 
him, “ persecuting them even to strange cities” (Acts xxvi. 
11), and “ from city to city.” 

8 Ver. 15. Θυσίαν αἰνέσεως, The sacrifice of praise.) The 

Vor. IV.—118 


Jews say that, in seculo futuro, “in the age to come”* 
(which often signifies the age of the Messiah), « all oblations 
shall cease, but the oblation of thanksgiving, which shall 
never cease,” and that praise is more acceptable to God than 
all sacrifices; which they prove from those words of the 
psalmist, “I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, because 
they were not always before me: offer unto God thanks- 
giving,” Ps, 1. 23, “ He that offereth praise, honoureth me.” 
And the Greek commentators observe, that the sacrifices 
God now requires, are unbloody sacrifices, to wit, those of 
praise and thanksgiving, and imitation of Christ. So Chry- 
sostom and Cicumenius. 

14 Καρπὸν χειλέων, The calves of our lips.] Hos. xiv.2. So 
the Jews themselves interpret these words, “ What shall we 
render for the calves of our lips?” Dr. Pocock notes,+ That 
καρπὸς is here taken for κάρπωμα, which in the Septuagint 
signifies “a holocaust,” which being usually of young bul- 
locks, corresponds to “the calves of our lips” in Hebrew. 
So in the Song of the Three Children, καρπῶσαι ἐπί cov, is to 
“sacrifice before thee,” ver. 14, 

16 Ver. 17. Τοῖς ἡγουμένοις ὑμῶν. Περὶ ἐπισκύπων λέγει, “ He 
speaks of bishops,” say Chrysostom, G2cumenius, and Theo- 
phylact. Clemens Romanus} places them before the pres- 
byters, saying, τοῖς νύμοις Θεοῦ ἐπορεύεσϑε, ὑποτασσόμενοι τοῖς 
ἡγουμένοις ὑμῶν, καὶ τιμὴν τὴν καϑήκουσαν ἀπονέμοντες τοῖς παρ᾽ 
ὑμῖν πρεσβυτέροις, “Ὑ 6. walked in the laws of God, being sub- 
ject to your guides or rulers, and giving convenient honour 
to your presbyters or elders.” 

'© Mera χαρᾶς, With joy:] That is, say others, that they 
may go on with their work joyfully, which they can only ex- 
ecute with trouble and sadness, when they find you refrac- 
tory to their admonitions ; but these words, “ That they may 
do it,” seem plainly to relate to the account they must give 
up hereafter to God. 

7 Ver. 18. Ἐν πᾶσι.] In all times, circumstances, things, 
and places. Here is the true test of an upright conscience, 
that in all times, things, and cases, it renders us industrious 
to walk exactly according to the rules of righteousness. 
The want of this some of the Jews might suspect in the 
apostle, as not being concerned for the observation of the 
law. 

18 Ver. 20.] These words seem to express all the three 
offices of our great Mediator, which are the foundations of all 


* Pug. Fid. par. iii. d. 3, cap. 12, 8. 14—17. 
+ Ibid. §. 20. 2 + Epist. ad Rom. §. 1. 
4 


938 


covenant (to be offered by him in the heavenly sanc- 
tuary), 

21 '§ Make you perfect in every good work to do 
his will, 29 working in you (by his grace given to, and 
his Spirit residing in you,) that which is wellpleasing 
in his sight, through Jesus Christ; 2! to whom be 
glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

22 And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of 
exhortation (to perseverance wilh patience in the Chris- 
tian faith): for I have written a letter unto you (of this 


HEBREWS. 


subject) in (as) few words (as the importance of the mat- 
ter and my affection to you would permit). 

23 Know ye that our brother Timothy (see the pre- 
face) is set at liberty ; with whom, if he come (hither 
again) shortly, I will (God willing) see you. 

24 Salute all them that have the 33 rule over you, 
and all the saints. They of Italy salute you. 

25 Grace be with you all. Amen. 


- 
4 Written to the Hebrews from Italy by Timothy. 


our prayers and praises directed to God, and of all the bless- 
ings we receive or expect ‘from him; his prophetic office, in 
that he is styled “the great Shepherd of the sheep ;” his 
priestly office, in that he is said to be “brought again from 
the dead with the blood of the everlasting covenant ;” and 
his kingly office, in that he is styled “ our Lord Jesus.” 

19 Ver. 21. Karapricac ὑμᾶς, Make you perfect.) Here is 
the duty of every good Christian, to be “ready for every 
good work” (Tit. iii. 1), “doing the will of God from the 
heart” (Eph. vi. 6). 

30 Ποιῶν ἐν ὑμῖν, Working in you, &c.] Here is the power 
by which we are enabled so to do, and the motive to the per- 
formance of our duty, viz. the grace of God teaching us, 
« denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live righte- 
ously, soberly, and godly, in this present world ;” and « the 
expectation of the blessed hope and glorious appearance of 
our Lord,” to reward our services (Tit. ii. 11—13). The 
love of Ged the Father, in giving up his Son to the death for 
us; and of Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, “ that he 
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a 
peculiar people zealous of good works” (ver. 14), and who 
«died for all, that they who live might not henceforth live 
unto themselves, but unto him that died for them” (2 Cor. 
y. 15). And, lastly, the inward assistances of the Holy 
Spirit, bringing these things to our remembrance, exciting us 
to the performance of our duty, strengthening us against our 
temptations, and comforting and supporting us under our 
sufferings. 

Ποιῶν ἐν ὑμῖν τὸ εὐάρεστον ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, Working in you that 
which is well pleasing in his sight.] That God doth some 
way work in us every good work, and whatsoever is well 
pleasing in his sight, can be denied by none who understand 
the scriptures; and one would think it should be as little the 
subject of dispute, whether God works these things as a vomit 
or a purge works in us by physical and irresistible operations, 
or whether he works on reasonable creatures by offering rea- 
sons to persuade them, and upon men endowed with a will, 
to make them willing, as all men do, by propounding motives 
and encouragements of a prevailing nature, to engage them 
to choose the good and refuse the evil; of which I have said 
so much in the treatise of grace, annexed to 2 Cor. vi. 1, that 
I shall say nothing more at present, but that it is unaccount- 
able how actions should be good, unless we consent to them, 
or how they should be ours, unless we choose and do them. 
This text is therefore vainly urged to prove, that we are 
purely passive in the work of our conversion, and that we 
neither do nor can do any thing towards it: 

First, Because God evidently speaks this to them who 
were already true believers, and converts to the Christian 
faith, and wanted only to be “ made perfect in every good 
work.” Secondly, Because he exhorts all Christians to 
“work out their salvation with fear and trembling ;” upon 
this very account, that “it is God that worketh in them both 
to will and to do” (Phil. ii. 13). For if God so worketh in 


us, that we do not co-operate with him, why are we com- 
manded to “ work out our salvation?” For can we act where 
we are purely passive? Or can that be a reason why we 
ourselves should act, that another will effectually do this very 
thing without our co-operation? Is it not rather a reason 
why we should not work at all; since this work will be cer- 
tainly performed without us? See more to this effect in the 
note on Phil, ii. 10. Note also, that the word καταρτίσαι, 
which begins this verse, signifies “fully to instruct,” as in 
those words, Luke vi. 40, “ The disciple is not above his mas- 
ter, karnpricpévos δὲ πᾶς, but he that is fully instructed is as 
his master ;” 1 Cor. i. 10, ἥτε δὲ κατηρτισμένοι, “ Be ye per- 
fectly instructed in the same mind and judgment,” Eph. iv. 
12. God hath appointed apostles, prophets, and evangelists, 
pastors, and teachers, πρὸς τὸν καταρτισμὸν τῶν ἁγίων, “for the 
full instruction of the saints, till we all come to the unity of 
the faith, and knowledge of the Son of God,” ver. 13. So 
the Glossa Greco-Latina, καταρτίζω, struo, instruo, κατηρτισ- 
μένος, constructus, instructus; and in this sense this may be 
reasonably deemed a prayer, that God would fully instruct 
the believing Jews in every good work requisite to be done 
in obedience to his will, and so would work in them that 
which was well pleasing in his sight, we being thus “ trans- 
formed by the renewing of our mind, εἰς τὸ δοκιμάζειν, that we 
may approve (and so be inclined to do) the good, εὐάρεστον, 
well pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Rom. xii. 2). 

27 Or ἡ δόξα eis rods αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, To whom be glory 
for ever, Amen.) Here Schlictingius saith, that he who is a 
Christian cannot be ignorant, that “glory for ever and ever” 
is to be ascribed to Christ, as well as to the Father, as it is 
Rev. v. 12, 13, 2 Pet. iii. 18. And how then can he be ig- 
norant that Christ is to be owned as the true God? This 
being the doxology ascribed in the New Testament to him, 
“of whom, and by whom, and to whom, are all things,” 
Rom. xi. 36; to God the Father, Gal. i. 5; to the omni- 
potent God, Eph. iii. 20. 24; to him “who dwelleth in 
light inaccessible,” 2 Tim. iv. 15, 16; to “the God of all 
grace,” 1 Pet. v. 10,11; to “the only wise God our Sa- 
viour,” Jude 25. In Clemens,* it is frequently ascribed, 
τῷ Θεῷ παντοκράτορι, “to Almighty God, to whom be glory 
for ever and ever, Amen,” as a character peculiarly be- 
longing to him. And in the Jerusalem Targum,t this is 
the frequent appendix to the mention of the great God, 
“Let his name be blessed (i. 6. glorified) for ever and 
ever, Amen:” so that both in the opinion of Jews and 
Christians this was a doxology proper to the true God. 

2 Ver. 24. Τοὺς ἡγουμένους, &c. That have the rule over 
you.| Hence it seems evident, that this epistle was not sent 
to the bishops or rulers of the church, but to the whole 
church, or to the laity. 


* Sect. 33, 38, 43, 45, 50. 
{ In Gen. xlix. 2, Exod. xv. 18, Deut. iii. 2, vi. 4. 


939 


THE 


GENERAL EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


GENERAL PREFACE TO THE SEVEN CATHO- 
LIC EPISTLES. 


Or these Epistles in the general, I have only this to note, 
That from the fourth century they have both obtained the 
name of Catholic Epistles, and also have been ranked in the 
same order in which they now stand in our bibles, viz. by 
the council of Laodicea,* by Cyril of Jerusalem,t by Atha- 
nasius,} and Greg. Nazianzen ;§ by Amphilochius,| and by 
others. 

Only it is not easy to assign the reason why they in a 
particular manner were so called; it could not be, because 
they were, passim recepte ab omnibus et ubique, “generally 
received by all:” for we learn from the testimonies of Ori- 
gen,§ Eusebius,** Amphilochius,t} and St. Jerome,#¢ that 
the ancients doubted of four of the seven, or five of them. 

CEcumenius and others say, they were so styled, because 
they were written, not to one nation, as were generally those 
of Paul, ἀλλὰ καϑόλου τοῖς πιστοῖς, ἤτοι Ιουδαίοις τοῖς ἐν τὴ δια- 
cxopd, “but generally to the faithful, or to the Jews of the 
dispersion :” which last expression seems to hint the true 
reason of the name, viz. because, excepting the two brief 
Epistles of John, they were written to the Jews dispersed 
throughout the world. Which, though it be true also of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, yet hath that no inscription, and for 
a long time was also questioned ; nor was it written to the 
dispersed Jews, but to the inhabitants of Judea, ch. xiii., and 
upon these accounts might not come into the number. 


PREFACE TO JAMES, 


§. 1. Tuar the author of this epistle was an apostle, hath 
been proved, note on ver. 1, whence it must follow, that he 
could not be James, the son of Zebedee, because that James 
was slain by Herod, A. D. 44, twenty-eight years before the 
destruction of Jerusalem, which yet was nigh at hand, and 
even at the door, when this epistle was indited ; see note on 
v. 8,9. Nor could he be James the Just, bishop of Jerusa- 
lem, for he was no apostle, if he was not the same person 
with James the Less. It seemeth therefore that he was 


* "Exwrodai καθολικαὶ ἑπτὰ, οὕτως, Ἰακώβου pia, Πέτρου doo, 
Ἰωάννου τρεῖς, ᾿Ιοῦδα μία. Concil. Laod. can. 59. 

ἡ Πρὸς τούτοις δὲ καὶ τὰς ἑπτὰ ᾿Ιακώδου, καὶ Πέτρον, Ιωάννου, καὶ 
Ἰούδα καϑολικὰς ἐπιστολάς. Cyril. Hier. Catech. iv. p. 38. 

ξ ᾿Επιστολαὶ καθολικαὶ καλοῦμεναι τῶν ἀποστόλων ἑπτὰ, οὕτως, 
Ἰακώβου μία, Πέτρου dé dbo, εἶτα ᾿Ιωάννου τρεῖς, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτας 
"Totda μία. Festiv. Ep. 

§ 'Exra δὲ καϑολικαὶ, ὧν Ἰακώβου μία. In Jam. apud Bals. 
Ato δὲ Πέτρου, τρεῖς δ᾽ ᾿Ιωάννου πάλιν. p. 1082. Vide ibid. 

! Amp. ᾿Ιοὔδα δ᾽ ἐστιν ἡβδόμη, πᾶσας ἔχεις. p. 1084. 

« Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. cap. 25, p. 297. Τοι- 
αὗτα καὶ τὰ κατὰ ᾿Ιάκωβον, οὗ ἡ πρώτη τῶν ὀνομαζομένων καϑολικῶν 
εἶναι λέγεται" ἱστέον δὲ ὡς νοϑεύεται μέν" οὐ πολλοὶ γοῦν τῶν παλαιῶν 
αὐτῆς ἐμνημόνευσαν, ὡς οὐδὲ τῆς λεγομένης ᾿Ιοῦδα μιᾶς καὶ αὐτῆς οὔσης 
τῶν ἑπτᾶ λεγομένων καϑολικῶν ἐπιστολῶν, Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 
23, de Petri Ep. Sec. 

** Vide Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 3, et de Joannis Secunda 
et Tertia, cap. 24, p. 96. 


Ampbhiloch. ibid. ++ Hieron. Catal. 
Ρ 


James the son of Alpheus, apostle and brother of our Lord, 
styled James the Less, in distinction from James the son of 
Zebedee, styled the Greater, by reason of his age. For that 
the James mentioned by Paul, Gal. i. 19, was an apostle in 
the strict acceptation of the word, is evident from this, that 
having spoken of Peter, who doubtless was an apostle in 
that sense, he adds, “ Others of the apostles saw I none, 
save James the Lord’s brother ;”’ and, ii. 6, he reckons him, 
with Peter and John, among the στύλοι, or “the chief pil- 
lars” of the church; and to me he seems to be the same 
with James the bishop of Jerusalem. For, 

First, Of this James, the bishop of Jerusalem, who was 
styled the Just, Jerome* saith, that “he was the son of 
Mary, the sister of the mother of our Lord, of whom John 
makes mention,” xix. 25, where she is styled “the wife of 
Cleophas” or “ Alpheus ;” and by Mark, xv. 40, “the mo- 
ther of James the Less.” 

Secondly, It seems highly probable, that the James men- 
tioned in Acts xv. was strictly an apostle; for Paul and 
Barnabas were sent up to “ the apostles and elders,” ver. 2; 
they were received by the apostles and elders, ver. 4; “the 
apostles and elders were gathered together,” to decide the 
question touching the circumcision of the gentiles, ver. 6. 
The first person that speaks to it is Peter the apostle, the 
second James, who having determined the question, “it 
seemed good to the apostles and brethren to send letters to 
the churches,” ver. 22; and these they send with this inscrip- 
tion, “The apostles, elders, and brethren.” In all which 
places it is evident, that the word “apostles” must be taken 
in the proper sense, they being still distinguished from all 
the elders or bishops which were not apostles: nor can it 
be thought reasonable that James here should be ranked 
amongst the elders, or the inferior sort of the clergy; it re- 
mains then that he was in the strict sense an apostle. There 
being therefore no other of that name then living, but “James 
the son of Alpheus,” who also was the brother of our Lord, 
i. e. his mother’s sister’s son (i. 6. his cousin), he in all like- 
lihood must be the bishop of Jerusalem. 

Thirdly, The story of three that were called James, viz. 
James the Great, James the Less, and James, bishop of Jeru- 
salem, is, saith Dr. Cave,j “a great mistake, and built upon 
a sandy bottom:” “For besides that the Scripture men- 
tions no more than two of this name, and both apostles, 
nothing can be plainer than that James the apostle, whom 
Paul calls the brother of our Lord, was the same that pre- 
sided among the apostles, and determined in the synod at 
Jerusalem. Nor do either Clemens Alexandrinus¢ or Eu- 
sebius out of him, mention any other than two, St. James, 
put to death by Herod, and St. James the Just, bishop of 
Jerusalem, whom they expressly affirm to be the same with 


* Jacobus qui appellatur frater Domini cognomento Jus- 
tus, et nonnulli existimant, Josephi ex alid uxore; ut autem 
mihi videtur, Marie sororis matris Domini, cujus Joannes in 
libro suo meminit, filius, post passionem Domini ab apostolis 
Hierosolymorum episcopus ordinatus, unam tanttm scripsit 
epistolam, que de septem catholicis est. Verbo Jacobus. 

+ Life of James the Less, p. 144. 

+ Ato dé γεγόνασιν ᾿Ιάκωβοι, εἷς ὃ Δίκαιος ὃ κατὰ τοῦ πτερυγίου 
βληθείς. “Ἕτερος δὲ 6 καρατομηθεὶς, αὐτοῦ δὲ Δικαίου καὶ 6 
Παῦλος μνημονεῦει γράφων, ἕτερον δὲ τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐκ εἶδον εἰ μὴ 
Ἰάκωδον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Κυρίου. Clem. apud Euseb. lib. ii. 
cap. 1, p. 8. 


940 


him whom St. Paul calls ‘the brother of our Lord.” Once 
indeed Eusebius makes our St. James one of the seventy, 
though elsewhere quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria,* 
he numbers him with the chief of the apostles, and expressly 
distinguishes him from the seventy disciples.” And though 
Jerome,t when he represents the opinion of others, styles 
him the thirteenth apostle, yet elsewhere, when speaking his 
own sense, he sufficiently proves that there were but two, 
Jamest the son of Zebedee, and the other the son of Al- 
pheus, the one surnamed “the Greater,” the other the 
Less ;” and he frequently styles the author of this epistle, 
writ to the twelve tribes, “James the apostle :” besides, 
saith he, the main support of the other opinion is built upon 
the authority of Clemens’ Recognitions, a book, in doubtful 
cases, of no esteem and value. 

§. 2. And having thus shown, that James the apostle, and 
brother of our Lord, was the author of this epistle, we can- 
not reasonably doubt the authority of it: especially if we 
consider that it is cited by Clemens Romanus,§ four several 
times by Ignatius,| in his genuine Epistle to the Ephe- 
sians, and by Origen,{ in his thirteenth homily upon Gen- 
esis. Eusebius*® saith, it was “known to most, and pub- 
licly read in most Christian churches ;” Jerome,ft that in 
process of time it obtained authority. Esthius$ notes, that 
“they who before doubted of it, in the fourth century em- 
braced the opinion-of them who received it, and that from 
thence no church, no ecclesiastical writer, is found who ever 
doubted of it; but, on the contrary, all the catalogues of the 
books of holy scripture, published by general or provincial 
councils, Roman bishops, or other orthodox writers, number 
it among the canonical scriptures; que probatio ad certam 
fidem faciendam cuique eatholico sufficere debet; which 
proof must give sufficient certainty of it to any catholic.” 
As for the seeming contradiction of this epistle to the doc- 
trine of Paul, in the: matter of justification by faith, see it 
sufficiently cleared in the close of the annotations on the 
second chapter. 

*® 9.3. Fourthly, That this epistle was directed to “the 
twelve tribes which were scattered abroad,” the words of this 
epistle show ; but whether “the twelve tribes” import only 
those of them which returned into Judea, or those of them 
also who were carried away by the Assyrians, and never re- 
turned to their own nation, so as to make any more a dis- 
tinct people, or a body ‘politic under their own governors, is 
uncertain: thdt God had absolutely determined that the ten 
tribes should never more return to such a state, the prophet 
Hosea in many places doth inform us; as when God by him 
saith, “I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel, 
but I will utterly take them away,” i. 6; that they should 
be among the gentiles as “a vessel wherein is no pleasure,” 
viii. 8; and they should not “ dwell in the Lord's land,” ix. 
3. And again, “1 will drive them out of my house, I will 
love them no more: my God will cast them away, because 
they did not hearken to him, and they shall be wanderers 
among the nations,”’ ver. 15. 17. 

And yet that God designed not to exclude them from the 
blessings promised in the days of the Messiah, or from being 
called into the church of Christ, is as evident from many ex- 
pressions, and gracious promises of God, recorded in that 
prophet, concerning the same tribes of Israel ; as, v. g. that 
“the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of 
the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered: and it 
shall come to’ pass, that in the place where it was said unto 
them, Ye are not my people: there it shall be said unto them, 
Ye are the sons of the living God,” i. 10, &c. And again, 
“1 will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth 
thee unto mein righteousness and judgment, and in loving- 
kindness, and in mercies; I will even betroth thee unto me 
in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord,” ii. 19, 20; 
«T will have mercy on her which hath not obtained mercy ; 


* Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 12, p. 81, lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 38. 

+ Comment on Es. 17, f. 60 

+ Adv. Helvid. f. 8, B, C. 

§ Ep. Epiph. ad Joh. Hieros. f. 57, in lib. Iviii. C. Adv. 
Pelag. lib. i. f. 96. cap. 2, f. 101, E. 103, C. 

| Sect. 10, 12, 17, 30. 

ἘΣ Lib. ii. cap. 22, lib. iii. cap. 25. 

tt Verb. Jacob. ++ Esthius in Epist. Jacob. 


4« Sect. 5. 


PREFACE TO JAMES. 


and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art 
my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God,” ver. 23. 
And again, “ Afterward shall the children of Israel return, 
and seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and shall 
fear the Lord, and his goodness, in the latter days,” iii. 5 
(see xiv. 4.8). Now these prophecies being not to be ful- 
filled upon them, by bringing them into their own land; it 
seemeth reasonable to conceive, they might be fulfilled by 
calling them to embrace the gospel; and that by doing so 
were those words fulfilled, «I will call them my people, who 
were not my people,” not only towards the gentiles, Rom. 
ix. 24—26, but also towards those Israelites of whom they 
primarily were spoken, 1 Pet. ii. 10. And to this the inscrip- 
tion seems to lead us, it being ταῖς δύδεκα φυλαῖς ταῖς ἐν τῇ διασ- 
ropa, “ to the twelve tribes, to those who are in the dispersion.”” 
That the places whither these ten tribes were carried by the 
Assyrians were well known to the other Jews, see proved by 
Dr. Lightfoot ; that in Mesopotamia, Media, and Babylon, 
where they were placed, the Jews abounded in a very great 
measure, Josephus* testifies. ‘They had there three famous 
universities, Neerda, Sorana, and Pombeditha. We therefore 
have great reason to believe the gospel was then preached 
among them by the apostles of the circumcision. See the 
preface to the First Epistle of John. 

There is one farther observation taken notice of by Gro 
tius and Dr. Hammond, That some part of this epistle 
seems to be directed, not only to believers, but even to the 
unbelieving Jews, especially the first six verses of the fifth 
chapter, where he saith, “ Ye have killed the Just, and he doth 
not resist you ;” which cannot well agree to the converted 
Jews, to whom he seems to turn his speech, in these follow- 
ing words, “ Be patient, therefore, brethren,” ver. 7: yea, 
the whole third and fourth chapters may be equally directed 
to both; the name of brethren suiting to both, when used by 
a Jew writing to them, Rom. ix. 2. 

§. 4. As for the occasion of this epistle, it seemeth to be 
written upon two accounts: 

First, To correct the pernicious errors both in doctrine 
and manners, which had crept into the theology of the Jews, 
and had an evil influence on their practice. See note on ii. 
11, and ver. 14, to the end of the chapter. 

Secondly, To comfort and establish the sincere believers, 
under the pressures which they then suffered, or were shortly 
to expect, from the unbelieving Jews, or their false brethren. 
Where note, 

That though the Jews, from the beginning of the apostles’ 
preaching, were still incensed against the Christians ; yet see- 
ing Christianity, whilst they continued preaching to the Jews, 
did not spread much among other nations, and since the Jews 
were under restraints in the time of Caius, who had no good 
affection to them, they could not proceed far in showing 
their hatred to the Christian faith. What persecutions there- 
fore happened in those early times, concerned only the 
churches of Judea, or thereabouts, or spent themselves on 
the chief leaders and assertors of the Christian faith, Stephen, 
James, Peter, and Paul, or on the churches converted from 
the Jewish synagogues, and reached no farther than the 
places where they were converted; and though they were 
begun by instigation of the Jews, yet were they chiefly man- 
aged by the heathen powers, or by their own countrymen. 
For about the thirty-ninth year of Christ, “then had the 
churches peace throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria,” 
Acts ix. 31; and so they seem to have continued till after 
the council of Jerusalem, the churches being then “ esta- 
blished in the faith, and increasing in number daily,” Acts xvi. 
5. Yea, when Paul comes to Rome, he receives all that 
came unto him for two whole years, “ preaching the kingdom 
of God, and teaching the things which concerned the Lord 
Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him,” 
Acts xxviii. 30, 31. So that at least till the fourth or fifth 
year of Nero, the gospel was freely preached at Rome, with- 
out any contradiction either of the Romans or the Jews: but 
then, in his sixth year, afflicti suppliciis Christiani, - the 
Christians were subjected to punishment by him,” saith 
Suetonius ;f “and it seems very probable,” saith Dr. Light- 
foot, “that even then Nero had by some act or edict sup- 


* Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 16. 
+ In Neron. cap. 16. 


PREFACE TO JAMES. 


pressed Christianity, not only at Rome, but also at Judea ;” 
as he gathers from that clause in ‘l'acitus, Repressaque in 
presens exitiabilis superstitio, rurstis erumpebat, non modo 

τ Judeam, originem ejus mali sed per urbem etiam; which 
shows, that before the persecution began, in the tenth of 
Nero, of which Tacitus there speaks, Christianity had been 
by him suppressed, not at Rome only, but Judea. Here 
then some place Peter’s πύρωσις πρὸς πειρασμὸν, “ burning for 
trial,” which forwarded the defection which was so general 
in the churches of the Jews that had received the gospel, they 
falling to Moses again, or joining the adhesion to the law with 
the profession of the gospel, that so they might retain their 
liberty, the religion of the Jews not being at aH suppressed 
by him, and that they might escape the rage of the Jews; 


who doubtless, by his example, would be induced to express | 


that hatred they had still borne against the Christians. ‘The 
same Nero, in his tenth year, renews this persecution of the 
Christians; “and this he did,” saith Orosius,* “not only at 
Rome, but by his edict, through all the provinces of his em- 
pire ;” and this encouraged the Jews every where to show 
their utmost rage against all those of their religion, whether 
Jews or proselytes, who had embraced the faith of Christ 
sincerely ; and the more they drew nigh to their final deso- 
lation, the more did Satan enhance their fury against those 
Christians whom he found the fatal enemies and overthrow- 
ers of his kingdom. 

§. 5. Note, Lastly, That whereas Mr. Le Clerc saith, note 
on v. 3,“ that St. James doth not speak hereto the Jews who 
had embraced the faith in Palestine, but to those who were 
scattered abroad,” seeing he speaks to the whole twelve tribes, 
I doubt not but these of Palestine must be included; but 
when he adds, that those “ Jews only who lived in Palestine 
and the neighbouring countries, and had risen up in arms 
against the Romans, were destroyed by them,” suggesting 
that the Jews, dispersed through the other parts of the Ro- 


: Ἶ ae 5 | 
man empire, received no harm—this is a great mistake ; for 


these being the days of vengeance upon the unbelievers of | 


that nation, God’s severe judgments reached them every where, 
as we may fully learn from the rueful account Josephust 
gives us of their calamities throughout all their dispersions: 


for, saith he, “when the Romans had no enemies left in 
Judea, the danger reached, πολλοῖς καὶ τῶν ἀπωτάτω κατοικούῦν- | 


των, to many of them living the remotest from it; for many 
of them perished at Alexandria, and Cyrene, and in other 
cities of Egypt, and throughout all Syria.”’ And Eleazar, 
in Josephus,+ having reckoned up many places where they 
were cruelly slaughtered, concludes thus, μακρὴν ἂν εἴη viv 
ἰδία λέγειν, “It would be too long to speak of all these places 
in particular.” 

We know from Tacitus,§ and others, that the Jews were a 
nation generally hated by all about them, and by those 


among whom they lived, partly because they used, ritus con- | 
trarios cxteris mortalibus, “ rites contrary to all other nations,” 


and spake and thought contemptuously of their deities and 
worship ; partly because they bore adverstis omnes alios hos- 
tile odium, “ the greatest hatred to men of other nations,” and 


showed the greatest contempt of them, calling them dogs, and | 


thinking it unlawful to converse with them, and a pollution 
even totouch them. All nations, therefore, where they lived, 
must upon all occasions be ready to rise up against them, as 
we may learn from the slaughter of them in Cesarea,| Da- 
mascus, Scythopolis, and throughout all the cities of Syria, 


* Nam primus Rome Christianos suppliciis et mortibus 
affecit, ac per omnes provincias pari persecutione excruciari 
imperavit. Lib. vii. cap. 7. 

+ Lib. vii. cap. 36, p. 995, A. lib. xxxvii. cap. 38, p. 
996. 

+ Cap. 34, p. 992. § Hist. lib. v. ab initio. 

Ι De Bello Jud. lit ii. cap. 30, p. 813, 814, cap. 41, 
p. 822, 


941 


about the beginning of the war, of which Josephus gives us 
the account. When therefore the Romans were very much 
incensed against them, because when other nations had sub- 
mitted to their empire, soli Judi non cessissent, they dared 
to rebel, must they not be sure to suffer in every province 
where they dwelt, not only from the Roman governors, but 
also from those people in every nation who bore so great 
hatred to them? And hence Eusebius* informs us, that 
«they did thus suffer in all other places.” 

Secondly, Josephust doth confess, that the Jews in Judea 
did expect, ἅπαν τὸ ὑπὲρ Εὐφράτην ὁμόφυλον ἡμῖν συνεπαρϑήσεσ- 
Sat, “that all of their own nation, even beyond Euphrates, 
should be assistant to them in this war;” and doubtless they 
were not wholly disappointed in their expectation; for in 
their war commenced under Hadrian, Dion} expressly says, 
that “the Jews out of all nations came to their help.’ We 
therefore reasonably may conceive, this also was so in the 
former war under Vespasian and Titus, and then we cannot 
doubt that who shared in the war must also bear a share in 
the calamities it brought upon that nation, in those days of 
vengeance, which befell them for their infidelity, and the re- 
jection of the true Messiah, of which the Jews who lived in 
other nations were as guilty as those who lived in Judea. 

§. 6. And hence also I return an answer to an objection 
which I foresee may be made against my interpretation of 
some passages in the fourth and fifth chapters of this epistle, 
viz. that I restrain them to what was done to and by the 
Jews in Judea; whereas this epistle is written “ to the twelve 
tribes which were scattered abroad,” ver. 1. 

For, First, As all the Jews of the dispersion were under the 
government of the sanhedrin, and after, of the patriarch of 
the Jews residing in Judea, and obeyed his pleasure; so 
many, both Jews and proselytes, went up out of all nations 
to their feasts: when the Holy Ghost fell down on the apos- 
tles at the day of pentecost, we find them there, Acts ii., and 
when Jerusalem was besieged, at their paschal feast,§ and 
so, even upon that account, they must be somewhat con- 
cerned in what was done and suffered in Judea ; and if they 
sided with them in that war, as I have shown it probable 
they did, they must be more concerned in these matters. 
But, 

Secondly, Josephus tells us, that they had wars about the 
same time, in many places of their dispersion, with the gen- 
tiles; that when the Alexandrians, in the reign of Nero, had 
impeached three of their brethren as enemies and spies,_|| 
ἤρϑη πᾶν τὸ ᾿Ιουδαϊκὸν ἐπὶ τὴν ἄμυναν, “all the Jews there rose 
up to their aid; and that Tiberius Alexander, the governor 
of the city, commanded the Roman legions to slay them, καὶ 
τὰς κτήσεις αὐτῶν διαρπάζειν, καὶ τάς oixias καταφλέγειν, “and 
to seize upon their goods, and burn their houses;” which 
they did, killing fifty thousand of them on the spot: that 
the Jews invading the cities and villages of Syria, the Syrians 
fell upon them in all their cities, and were especially moved 
thereunto by covetousness, τὰς γὰρ οὐσίας τῶν ἀναιρεϑέντων 
ἀδεῶς διήρπαζον, “ for they fell boldly upon the substance of the 
slain :” and in these, and all the other places mentioned by 
Josephus, the Jews were as forward to take up arms against 
the gentiles, as they were to suppress the Jews. Here 
then is a sufficient account of their “ wars and tumults,” 
mentioned ch. iv., and of their *‘ riches being corrupted,” and 
their “ flesh eaten by fire,” ch. v. 


* Kara πάντα τόπον ὅλῳ τῷ ἔθνει συνεῤῥόη κακά. Hist. Eccl. 
lib. ili. cap. 5. 

{ Prowm. de Bello Jud. 

+ Kai of ἁπανταχοῦ γῆς ᾿Ιουδαῖοι συνεταράττοντο, καὶ συνήεσαν, 
καὶ πολλὰ κακὰ εἰς Ῥωμαίους τὰ μὲν λάϑρα, τὰ δὲ καὶ φανερῶς» 
ἐνεδείκνυντο. In Vita Adrian. p. 263. 

§ Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 8. 

| De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 36. 


4n2 


ι 942 


CHAPTER I. 


1 ! James, a servant of God (the Father) and of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, (sendeth) * to the twelve tribes 
which are ὃ scattered abroad, greeting. 

2 My brethren, count it (matter, not of sorrow, but 
of) all joy when (through the divine permission) ye 
fall 4 into divers temptations (7. 6. afflictions from the 
world ) ; 

3 Knowing this, that (this outward trouble, sent 
for) δ the trying of your faith (by the help of God’s 
overruling grace, and the aid of his Holy Spirit then 
especially residing on you, 1 Pet. iv. 14) worketh (in 
you) patience. 


4 But (and) let patience have her perfect work (in 
you), that ® ye may be perfect and entire, wanting no- 
thing (to make you perfect in Christ Jesus, and enlire as 
to all Christian graces. 

5 Ei δὲ, 4nd) If any of you lack wisdom (how to 
exercise and preserve this patience, under the various tempt- 
ations he may be subject to), let him ask (it) of (that) 
God, that giveth to all men liberally (whatsoever he 
sees needful for us), and upbraideth (us) not (for want 
Mies wisdom) ; and (if he duly ask) 7 it shall be given 

im. 
6 But (then) let him (take care to) 8 ask in faith, no- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Ἰάκωβος, James.] That this was James an apos- 
tle, is confirmed from the testimony of Eusebius,* who de- 
clares of that James to whom the ancients ascribed this 
epistle, that “he was the brother of the Lord.” The same 
we learn from the Syriac, Arabic, Vulgar, and Ethiopic ver- 
sions, by all which he is styled “ James the apostle.” 

2 Ταῖς δώδεκα φυλαῖς, To the twelve tribes.] That some of 
the ten tribes remained in, and some of them returned to, 
the land of Israel, we are assured from the cities of Manas- 
seh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even to Naphtali, purged by 
Josiah from their idols (2 Chron. xxxiv. 6,7): as also from 
the money sent in to repair the house of the Lord from 
Manasseh, Ephraim, and the remnant of Israel (ver. 9), 
from the mention made of the children of Israel, that were 
come again out of their captivity (Esd. vi. 21), and the sin- 
offering made by Ezra, at the dedication of the temple, of 
twelve goats, “according to the number of the tribes of 
Tsrael” (v. 17), and from these following words, viii. 25, 
“The children of those which had been carried away, which 
were come out of the captivity, offered twelve goats for a 
sin-offering :” and, lastly, from the mention of the twelve 
tribes by the apostle Paul, who “instantly served God day 
and night” (Acts xxvi. 7). 

8 Ἔν τῇ διασπορᾷ, Which are scattered abroad.] That the 
Jews were dispersed throughout the world, we learn from 
the words of Agrippa, in his oration to them, who tells 
them, that} “ there was not a nation upon earth where some 
part of them were not seated;” and that if they of Judea 
should rebel, all of them that resided in other places wou!d 
be destroyed, and every city would be filled with the blood 
of them: from the words of Strabo, cited by Josephus,+ 
that “it was not easy to find an eminent place in the whole 
world where the Jews did not reside ;” from Philo,§ in his 
oration against Flaccus, where he makes mention, τῶν παντα- 
χόθεν τῆς οἰκουμένης ᾿Ιουδαίων, * of the Jews dispersed through- 
out all the world :” adding, that one region could not con- 
tain the Jews, but! “they dwelt in most of the flourishing 
cities of Asia, and in Europe, in the islands, and in the con- 
tinents, not much less in number than the inhabitants ;” and 
introducing Agrippa{ interceding to Caius for them, as in- 
habiting in the most celebrated parts of Africa, Asia, and 
Europe. And even Cicero,** in his oration for another 
Flaccus, declares, that the gold which the Jews sent to their 


* Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 23. 

Ti Οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἐπὶ τῆς οἰκουμένης δῆμος, ὃ μὴ μοῖραν ὑπετέραν 
ἔχων, ols ἅπαντας, πολεμησάντων ὑμῶν ἕνεκα, κατασφάζουσιν οἱ 
διάφοροι. Jos. de B. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 20, p. 808, G. 

+ Καὶ τόπον οὐκ ἔστι ῥαδίως εὑρεῖν τῆς οἰκουμένης, ὃς οὐ mapa- 
δέδεκται τοῦτο τὸ φῦλον. Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 12. 

§ P. 752, F. 

Tas πλείστας καὶ εὐδαιμονεστάτας τῶν ἐν Etporn καὶ 'Acia, 
κατά τε νήσους, καὶ ἠπείρους ἐκνέμονται. ΤΙ ]4. E. Κέχυται γὰρ 
ava τε τὰς ἠπείρους καὶ νήσους ἁπάσας, ὡς τῶν αὐθιγενῶν μὴ πολλώ 
τινι δοκεῖν ἐλαττοῦσϑαι. Ad Caium, p. 791, F. 

4 Ibid. p. 798, C. 

** Cum aurum Judeorum nomine quotannis ex Italia, 
et ex omnibus vestris provinciis exportari soleret. Orat. 24, 
n. 52, p. 367. 


temple at Jerusalem, “ was sent from Italy, and all the other 
provinces of the Roman empire.” 

4 Ver. 2. Πειρασμοῖς ποικίλοις, Into divers temptations.} 
Temptations, saith C2cumenius, are of two kinds ; (1.) Such 
as lead to sin, which “ the lusts of the flesh” and “ the love 
of riches” produce in us (1 Tim. vi. 9), against which our 
Lord instructs us to pray that we enter not into them; and 
of these the apostle begins to discourse, ver. 13, Or (2.) 
such as are sent for the trial of our constancy and sincerity 
in the faith ; and to our patience and perseverance under 
these is promised a great reward in heaven; and of these 
the apostle speaketh here, and ver. 12 (see Luke xxii. 28, 
Heb. iv. 15). 

5 Ver. 3. Τὸ ἐοκίμιον ὑμῶν, The trial of your faith,] Being 
attended with these assistances, and consolations of the 
Holy Ghost, and these firm hopes of a most glorious re- 
ward of all our sufferings, tends naturally to make us bear 
them patiently (as the apostle speaketh here). But then 
it is as true, that ὑπομονὴ κατεργάζεται τὴν δοκιμὴν (Rom, 
v. 4), i.e. “this patience worketh the trial ;” and by that, 
in good Christians, ths experience of their sincerity and 
constancy in the faith. and therefore it concerns them not 
to faint under these ti ibulations. 

6 Ver. 4. Τέλειοι καὶ δλόκληροι, That you may be perfect 
and entire.) For where there is the perfect work of patience 
there must be a strong faith as the foundation of it, a steady 
virtue, or Christian fortitude, enabling us thus to sustain these 
fiery trials; an exact knowledge of our duty, to bear these 
afflictions with a meek and quiet spirit, with forgiveness of, 
love to, and prayer for, them that persecute us, which in- 
cludes the height of charity under the highest provocations: 
a great love to God, for whose sake we suffer, and strong af- 
fection to his service; a greater fear of his displeasure, than 
of the wrath of man; an entire trust and dependence on 
him, and a full resignation to his will of providence, in which 
consists the life of godliness; an exact temperance, as to 
the honours, pleasures, and temporal concernments of this 
life we lose by these our sufferings, and a true charity to 
our Christian brethren, for whose example and encourage- 
ment we do thus suffer. Now these are all the graces 
which the apostle Peter doth require to make us fruitful and 
perfect Christians (2 Pet. i. 5—8). 

7 Ver. 5. Δοϑήσεται, It shall be given.] Hence it appears, 
that this wisdom depends not on our own skill or strength; 
nor can it be obtained without divine assistance. 

8 Ver. 6—8. Aireirw—pydév διακρινόμενος----ἀνὴρ δίψυχος.ἢ 
Who is the ἀνὴρ δίψυχος, καὶ διακρινόμενος, « the double-minded 
and the wavering man,” we may learn from Hermas,* who 
informs us, that “ visions and revelations are, διὰ τοὺς διψύ- 
xovs, for the double-minded,” that is for τοὺς διαλογιζομένους 
ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις αὐτῶν, εἰ ἄρα ἐστὶ ταῦτα ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν, “ them who 
reason in their hearts, whether these things will be or not.” 
And again,j Credite Deo, qui estis dubii, “ Believe in God, 
you that are doubtful, for he can do all things. Woe to 
the doubtful, who have heard these things, and contemned 
them. And again,} “'They that doubt of God, they are the 


* Lib. i. vis. 3, 9. 4. 

{ Vis. 4, 9. 2. 

+ Οἱ yap διστάζοντες εἰς τὸν Θεὸν, οὗτοί εἰσιν of δίψυχοι καὶ οὐδὲν 
ὅλως ἐπιτυγχάνουσιν τῶν αἱτημάτων αὐτῶν. 


CHAPTER I. 


thing wavering. For he that wavereth (in the time of 
temptation) is jike a wave of the sea driven with the 
wind and tossed (fo and fro by every temptation). 

7 For let not (μὴ γὰρ, let not then) that man think 
that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 

8 (Fur) A double minded man is unstable in all his 
ways, (and therefore cannot pray in faith, as he that would 
be heard must do. 

9 And if temptations be matter of the Christian's 
joy,) Let the brother of 9 low degree (impoverished by 
them) rejoice (stil) in that he is exalted (lo be rich in 
faith, and an heir of the kingdom of God, ii. 5, Luke 
vi. 20): 

10 But (/et) the " rich (rejoice), in that he is made 
low : because as the flower of the grass he shall pass 
away (Gr. for as the flower of the grass he shall pass away, 
when it ts scorched with the sun). 

11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning 
heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof 
falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: 
so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. 

12 Blessed is the man that (¢hus) endureth tempta- 
tion (for the sake of Christ): for when he is tried (Gr. 
δόκιμος γενόμενος, being approved ), he shall receive the 
crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them 
that love him (i. δ. being, by his patient enduring of 
these afflictions for the sake of Christ, approved as one that 
loves him more than the world, he shall receive the reward 
promised to them that do so. 


! 
| 


943 


13 As for the other sorts of temptations unto sin,) Let 
no man say when he is (thus) tempted, I am tempted 
of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither 
tempteth he any man (fo 1): ‘ 

14 " But every man is tempted, when he is drawn 
away of his own lust, and enticed (Gr. being drawn 
and enticed by his own lust). 

15 Then when lust hath conceived (7. 6. obtained 
any consent to, or approbation and good-liking to the 
desire of the sensual appetite), it bringeth forth (and 
engazeth the soul in) sin: and sin, when it is finished 
(in the deliberate outward action, or such endeavours to 


perform and execule it, as want nothing on the part of 


the will to the completion of it, and much more when by 
@ customary practice it becomes habitual), 12. bringeth 
forth death (the wages of sin). 

16 Do not err, my beloved brethren (by ascribing 
your sin, or your temptations to it, unto God). 

17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from 
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights 
(i. δ. the light of nalure and of grace), with whom is no 
variableness, neither shadow of turning (from good to 
evil; he therefore never will deny those gifls lo them that 
duly ask him, nor will he ever be wanting in his grace 
and favour to them that love him, and much less wiil he 
tempt any one to depart from him. 

18 Fur) Of his own will begat he us (Jews) with 
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first- 
fruits of his (new) creatures (we thercfore have liltle 


double-minded, who shall receive none of their requests.” 
See the whole mandate to the same effect. And from that 
of Barnabas,* touching him that walketh in the way of light 
that οὐ μὴ διψυχήση, “ he will not be doubtful whether a thing 
will be so, or ποῖ. From the like precept of the A postolical 


Constitutions,f μὴ γίνου δίψυχος, “Be not doubtful in thy | 


prayer whether thy petition will be heard, or not:” and from 


Clement,; with whom οἱ δίψυχοι, “ the doubtful” are οἱ διστά- | 


ζοντες περὶ τῆς rod Θεοὺ δυνάμεως, “the distrusters of the power 
of God.” 
belief that God will afford to his sincere servants, under all 
their sufferings for his sake, such aid as will enable them to 
bear them with true Christian patience (1 Cor. x. 13),and such 
wisdom as will direct them to improve these sufferings to his 
glory, and their good. He that doubts of this will be now 
hoping, and anon desponding, apt to quit his dependence on 
God, and Jean on his own wisdom, and ready to cast off that 
religion which subjects him to these temptations from which 
he expects no good issue: and therefore, wanting that faith 


in God which he has here made the condition of an accepta- | 


ble prayer, &e., he cannot hope to obtain any thing of him. 

9 Ver. 9. Ὃ ταπεινὸς, The man of low degree,} In the 
Old Testament, is the poor and afflicted man. So Ὁ» is, in 
the Septuagint, πένης, ταπεινὸς, “the poor, the afflicted,” 
mp, πενία, ταπείνωσις, “ poverty or lowness of state.” 
this sense here is confirmed from the opposition of the rich 
to him. 


10 Ver. 10. Ὃ πλούσιος, The rich.] “Let God,” saith Phi- | 
lo,§ “be the matter of thy chief joy, not riches, honour, | 


strength, or beauty, these being μαραινόμενα τρόπον τινὰ πρὶν 
ἀνδῆσαι βεβαίως, things which wither before they are fully 
grown up.” Let then the Christian consider, that the things 
he loseth for the sake of Christ, are only things of such a fad- 
ing nature; whereas he doth secure, by his perseverance, 
an everlasting treasure reserved for him in the heavens; and 
then he may rejoice in his humiliation. Note also an ellip- 
sis of the verb καυχάσϑω, “let him rejoice,” ver. 10, to be 
taken from ver. 9: so, John xv. 4, 1 Cor. iv. 15, Gal. ii. 7, 
Eph. i. 12. 

"Ver. 14.) Note here, that the desires, or lustings of the 
sensual appetite, put us only under a state of temptation, 
not of actual sin: they are indeed the root of sin, but so is 


* Sect. 19. 
+ Ep. ad Cor. §. 11. 
§ De Victim. Offerent. p. 661, E, F. 


ἡ Lib. vii. cap. 11. 


This faith therefore relates to prayer, and is a firm | 


And 


temptation to sin, and the suggestions of Satan; but they 
are not our sins, till we consent to them: they are not a 
transgression of the law, for there is no law given to the sen- 
sual appetite alone, but to the whole man, who cannot hin- 
der sensual appetites from arising in him before he perceives 
them; but he can restrain the will from consenting to them 
as soon as he perceives them; and can refuse to admit of 
them, or suffer them to make stay in, or gain upon his 
mind, to contemplate them with delight, or assent to them: 
and this being all he can do, must be all he is obliged by 
the lawto do. ‘There be many scriptures urged against this 
opinion in the Synopsis, but they are too impertinent to be 
insisted on. 

2 Ver. 15. ᾿Αποκύει Sdvarov, Bringeth forth death :] 1. 6. 
Not only deserveth death, for so doth the consent of the will; 
but it renders us obnoxious to death, and will end in it, 
without repentance. Hence therefore note, that not only 
the soul hardéned in sin, and given up to the frequent prac- 
tice of the same sin, is guilty of mortal sin, but every delibe- 
rate sinful action done against the convictions and checks of 
conscience, till by repentance it is retracted, puts us under 
that state, as being a breach of the gospel-covenant of sincere 
and impartial obedience, a departing of the heart from God, 
and a wilful and presumptuous sin: and therefore David 
after his adultery and murder prays, that God would “create 
in him a clean heart, and renew in him a right spirit.” 
Though therefore God in mercy may and will deal with such 
men, not according to their particular failures, but according 
to the general tenor of their lives; yet can they claim no 


| covenant right to such a favour, till they have thoroughly re- 


pented of such wilful sins, and returned to the sincere per- 
formance of their duty. 

13 Ver. 18. Λόγῳ ἀληϑείας, By the word of truth.] Here is 
a plain evidence, that the word of God is the ordinary means 
of our regeneration, it being “the word preached,” the word 
we are to hear (ver. 19. 22), and to “ receive with meekness,” 
by which the new birth is by God wrought in us, and which, 
saith the apostle, is able to save the soul. And it is surely 
a great disparagement to the word of God, to think that his 
persuasions, admonitions, exhortations, and threats, should 
be all insufficient to prevail with us to turn from our sinful 
courses, and to turn to him; when all men who do use these 
methods towards their children, servants, friends, or rela- 
tions, do it in hopes they shall be successful by these means: 
only this is not so to be understood, as to exclude the bless- 
ing and co-operation of God with the word preached, or the 


944 


cause to think he will do any thing to destroy that life, or 
deny us any thing which he sees necessary to preserve that 
life, which he so freely gave). 

19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren (being regenc- 
rated by this word of truth), let every man be swift to 
hear (2), ' slow to speak (ver. 26, or be a teacher of it, 
iii. 1), slow to wrath (or contention about it) : 

20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteous- 
ness of God (i. 6. tends not to beget or to improve that 
faith by which we are righteous before God, but rather to 
hinder it in ourselves and others). 


JAMES. 


21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness (all evil lust- 
ings, ver. 14) and superfluity of naughtiness, (all the 
distempers of your tongue, and of your angry passions, 
ver. 19,) and receive with meekness the engrafted 
word, which (being thus receieed) is able to save your 
souls. 

22 But (thal it may have this effect upon you) be ye 
doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving 
your own selves (by thinking that sufficient to procure 
favour with God). 

23." For if any (man) be a hearer of the word 


assistance of his Holy Spirit, setting it home upon our hearts ; 
provided this be not by way of physical but moral operation, 
by that illumination of the understanding from the word, 
which produceth that renovation in the spirit of the mind, 
by which we are enabled to discern and to approve “the 
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” (Rom. xii. 2, 
Eph. iv. 23), to “discern what is acceptable to the Lord” 
(Eph. v. 10), to “understand what the will of the Lord is” 
(ver. 17), the things that are most excellent. And if the 
word of God be a perfect rule, able to make us wise unto 
salvation, and furnish us for every good work, sure the good 
Spirit may, by his suggestion of the truths delivered in it, by 
“bringing them to our remembrance,” and “opening our 
understanding to perceive the scriptures,” remove that dark- 
ness which is in our minds, either by natural corruption, or 
by the mists which Satan casts upon them ; whence the apos- 
tle doth inform us, 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4, that if the gospel be hid- 
den from any to whom it is preached, it is “because the god 
of this world hath blinded the conceptions of their minds, 
that the light of the glorious gospel should not shine into 
them.” And, secondly, by making deep impressions on the 
mind, of the advantages and rewards promised to our con- 
version, and sincere obedience, and the tremendous evils 
threatened to the disobedient ; and bringing these things oft 
to our remembrance, which, in the scripture phrase, is “ put- 
ting these laws in our minds, and writing them upon our 
hearts, that we may not depart from him,” Heb. viii. 10 (see 
note on that place). For what reason can be given, why the 
Spirit of wisdom, having enlightened the eyes of our under- 
standing, to “know what is the hope of our calling, and the 
glorious riches of the inheritance of the saints” (Eph. i. 18), 
and these things being as firmly believed, and made thus 
present to our minds, should not have greater prevalence 
upon our wills to obedience, than any temporal concerns to 
yield obedience to the laws of sin? It is certain Satan can 
tempt us no other way, than by suggesting some temporal 
allurements and advantages, or some temporal losses and 
affrightments to us. Since then the scripture doth assure 
us, “this is our victory over the world, even our faith” (1 
John v. 4), even that faith which is “the firm expectation 
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 
xi. 1), why should not these objects of our faith, presented 
to us,) and impressed on us by the Holy Spirit, be more 
powerful to baffle all the temptations of sin, Satan, and the 
world? If beyond this there be some physical and irresisti- 
ble operation on God's part, requisite to make men know 
the things which belong to their peace, and knowing, to 
choose the good, and refuse the evil, this being not wrought 
in them who are not “born anew ;” why is the want of this 
new birth, and this spiritual renovation, so oft imputed to 
men’s want of consideration, and of laying to heart the things 


propounded to them; their not “inclining their ear to wis- | 
dom,” and “applying their heart to understanding;” their | 


«hatred of knowledge,” their “ rejecting the counsel of God,” 
and “not choosing the fear of the Lord?” 
29, 30.) Why is it said, that they continue thus unreformed, 
because “they would have none of God’s counsel, but de- 
spised all his reproofs;” because “they would not frame their 
doings to turn unto the Lord?” To omitinnumerable expres- 
sions of the like import, see note on Rom. x. 17, 1 Pet. i. 23. 

M4 Ver. 19. Bpadis εἰς τὸ λαλῆσαι, Slow to speak.) It was 
the imputation which the heathens cast upon the Christians, 
that they were in publico muti, not being inclined palam 
loqui, ‘to speak openly”’ of their religion: and this is con- 
fessed by Christians* to be true of the laity, who were not 


* Hee nostra sapientia, quam tanquam stultitiam deri- 


(Prov. i. 24, 25. | 


by office engaged to preach it to the world, that it was not 
their custom to assert and defend their religion publicly, but 
only to give an answer to them who required a reason of the 
hope that was in them: and in this sense good commenta- 
tors do expound these words, viz. as an admonition to be 
slow to speak of divine things, and much more to be teach- 
ers of them; but in the usual sense it agrees with that of 
Bias;* μίσει τὸ τάχυ λαλεῖν, μὴ ἁμαρτῇ, μετάνοια yap ἀκολουϑεῖ, 
“Be averse from rash speaking, lest thou offend, for thou wilt 
repent of it;” as ϑυμοῦ κρατεῖν, “to curb our angry passions,” 
agrees with the following words, “ Be slow to wrath.” 

15 Βραδὺς εἰς ὀργὴν, Slow to wrath.] This was an admonition 
needful for the Jewish zealots, who were ἐξ ἐριθείας, “ of con- 
tentious spirits” (see note on Rom. ii. 8) ; filled with wrath 
against the teachers of Christianity, and especially against 
those who denied the necessity of circumcising the gentiles, 
or requiring them to observe the law of Moses (Acts xiii. 45, 
xvil. 5): “theyt compelling all men to be circumcised, if 
they would abide with them; and looking upon this as a 
thing of absolute necessity,’ without which nothing else 
would satisfy them. 

Now these disputes naturally tended to obstruct that faith, 
by which men were justified, and not by circumcision, or the 
works of the law, and which in the epistles of Paul is still 
styled « the righteousness of God” (see note on Rom. i. 17). 
(2.) They were very prone to set up for teachers of the law, 
though they understood not aright those things of which they 
spake (1 Tim. i. 7, Rom. ii. 18) ; and this might give occa- 
sion to the other admonition here, to be “slow to speak.” 
and iii. 1: they also were incontinent, and very prone to 
lustings and to fornications (see note on Rom. ii. 22,2 Tim. 
iil. 5, Heb. xii. 16); and therefore fitly are admonished to 
“Jay aside all filthiness, and superfluity of naughtiness.” 

16 Ver. 21. Τὸν ἔμφυτον λόγον, The ingrafted word,] Saith 
(2cumenius, is that principle of reason by which we are en- 
abled to discern good from evil; but of that the apostle 
would not say, that it “is able to save our souls.” But the 
apostles, or preachers of the Christian faith, being said, φυ- 
revew, “to plant the word” among their hearers (1 Cor. iii. 
6—8), “the ingrafted word” seems to be the word planted 
in the heart of believers by the ministers of Christ, which 
Barnabas styles, τὴν ἔμφυτον δωρτὰν τῆς διδαχῆς αὐτοῦ, “the 
ingrafted gift of his doctrine” (§. 9, p. 6) So they who 
made the Jews understand the law read tu them, are said, 
éuprowiv ἅμα τὴν ἀνάγνωσιν, “to imprint upon them the 
knowledge or remembrance of what they read,” Esd. ix. 48. 
55. Against this sense it is objected, that the word thus 


| planted in us is not properly λύγος ἔμφυτος, but ἐμφυτευϑεὶς" 


but since νύμος ἔμφυτος is “ the law planted” in the heart by 
God, I think this criticism not sufficient to destroy the sense 
of the words here given, especially if we consider that “all 
filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness” must be first laid 
aside, that we may be fitted to receive with meekness this 
λόγος ἔμφυτος, “ingrafted word ;” which shows it cannot im- 
port any thing which is by nature always in us. 

17 Ver. 23.] hat many of the Jews had conceived an 
opinion, that even the study and knowledge of the law 
would procure them a reward in heaven, see note on Rom. 
ii. 13. 


dent, quia non defendere hance publicé, atque asserere nos 
solemus, &c. Lact. lib. vii. cap. 26. 

* Apud Stob. Serm. p. 461, 47. 

ἡ Τούτους περιτέμνεσϑαι τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων ἀναγκαζόντων, εἰ Sédov- 
σιν εἶναι παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς. Vita Joseph. p. 1007, B. Et Antiq. 
Jud. lib. ii. cap. 2, p. 685, B. 


CHAPTER II. 


(only), and not a doer (of it), he is like unto a man 
beholding his (own) natural face (which he was born 
with) in a glass: 

24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth (presently) 
his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of 
man he was. 

25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty 
& e. the gospel, which gives the spirit of liberty, and free- 

lom from the power of sin and death, and from the spirit 
of bondage, Rom. viii. 2. 15, 2 Cor. iii. 17), and continueth 
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of 
the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. 


945 


26 If any man among you seem to be religious, 
and bridleth not his tongue, (from bitler zeal, conten- 
tions, and imprecations, iil. 10. 14,) ™ but deceiveth 
(Gr. deceiving) his own heart (thinks his zeal for God 
will bear him out in all this), this man’s religion ts vain 
(iii. 14, 15). 

27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and (i. e. 
who is) the Father is (visible in) this, (that it engages 
the Christian) ™ to visit the fatherless and widows in 
their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the 
world. 


18 Ver. 26. 'Arardv, &e. Deceiving his own heart.) That 
the unbelieving Jews had a zeal for God, the apostle bears 
them record, Rom. x. 2, but then that zeal wrought so great 
a bitterness of spirit in them, that in those very synagogues, 
in which they met to bless God, they imprecated a curse 
upon the Christians, created anew after his image (iii. 10) ; 
«“T being zealous for God, as all you are this day,” saith 
Paul, “persecuted this way unto the death,” Acts xxii. 3, 
4; and in thus doing, they thought «they did God service,” 
John xvi. 2. “The zealots among them,” saith their own 
Josephus," “who gave themselves that name, from their 
zeal to what was good, committed all manner of wickedness, 
and accounted the worst of evils good :” and yet Eleazar,t 
the ringleader of them, represents them as “ persons who had 
cause to hope they should be by God preserved, as having 
not offended against him, and being guilty of no fault, and 
being teachers of others.” That the believing Jews, who 


ὃ χὸ τῶν ζηλωτῶν Ἐληθέντων γένος: πᾶν κακίας ἔργον éfepi- 
μῆσαντο-------καΐτοι τὴν προσηγορίαν αὐτοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπ᾿ ἀγαϑῷ 
ζηλουμένων ἐπέθεσαν --------τὰ μέγιστα τῶν κακῶν ἀγαθὰ νομίζοντες. 
De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 986, D, E. 

t Ἡμεῖς δ' ἄρα καὶ μόνοι τοῦ παντὸς ᾿Ιουδαίων γένους, ἠλπίσαμεν 
περιέσεσθαι τὴν ἐλευθερίαν φυλάξαντες, ὥσπερ ἀναμάρτητοι πρὸς Θεὸν 
γενόμενοι, καὶ μηδεμιᾶς μετασχόντες, οἱ καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἐδιδάξαμεν. 


Lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 990, Β. 


urged upon the gentiles the necessity of circumcision, had a 
zeal for God, we learn from Gal. iv. 17, 18: yet that they 
had the spirit of contention and envy (Phil. i. 15, 16), and 
were deceitful workers, the apostle doth inform us: so that 


| neither of them were truly religious ; and to those latter the 


apostle seems chiefly to speak in these words, “If ye have 
bitter zeal and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not 
against the truth,” &c. 

199 Ver. 27. ᾿Επισκέπτεσθαι, To visit the fatherless and 
widows.] It is very true, that Ignatius* saith of some who 
maintained opinions contrary to the grace of God come 
unto us, that “they had no regard to charity, to the widow, 
and to the orphan, to the oppressed, to those that were in 
bonds, to the hungry and thirsty :” but then, as it is not ma- 
nifest from his words that these were the Gnostics, nothing 
hinders, but what the apostle here speaks of may be also 
true of the Jews, who, as Josephus notes,t were great ene- 
mies one to another, and wanted mercy most of all, or to 
those zealots who spared none who would not be of their 
opinion, and their bitter zeal. 


* Περὶ ἀγάπης οὐ μέλει αὐτοῖς, οὐ mEpt χήρας, οὐ περὶ dppavov, οὐ 
περὶ θλιβομένον, οὐ περὶ δεδεμένου, ἢ περὶ λελυμένου, οὐ περὶ πεινῶντος 
ἢ διψῶντος. Epist. ad Smyrn. sect. 6. : 

{ De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 22. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 My brethren, have not! the faith of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Lord of glory, 5 with respect of persons. 


2 For if there come’ unto your assembly (or con- 
sistories for judicature) a man with a gold ring, in 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


UVer. 1. Τὴν πίστιν rod Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τῆς δόξης, 
Tie faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.) This 
version seems obnoxious to this exception, that the pronoun 
ἡμῶν will not suffer the word “Lord” to be joined with 
“glory ;” therefore that which renders the words thus, 
“The faith of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,” or, 
“Hold not the glorious faith of the Lord Jesus Christ with 
respect of persons,” seems to be the better version, and more 
agreeable to the design of the apostle, as giving the best rea- 
son against the accepting persons on the account of their 
riches, or their gay attire; because their faith hath clothed 
them with a greater and more valuable glory, which renders 
them more honourable than any riches or gay clothing could 
do. For this faith, saith the apostle, is “the ministration 
of glory,” and by it “ we all beholding the glory of the Lord, 
are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by 
the Spirit of the Lord,” 2 Cor. iii. 3. 18 (see the note there) : 
and whom God hath justified by faith, “he hath also glori- 
fied,” by giving them this Spirit of glory, Rom. viii. 30 (see 
the note there). 

3 Ἔν προσωποληψίαις, With respect of persons.| Προσω- 
ποληψία is the respect of persons in judgment, not purely 
according to the merits of the case, but according to exter- 
nal respects, which relate not to it. As for instance, the 
dread of any man’s power, or the fear of what he may do to 
us, if we judge against him. So, Lev. xix. 14, «Thou shalt 
not honour the person of the great, or respect the person 
of the poor; in justice shalt thou judge thy neighbour.” 
And, Deut. i. 17, “ Ye shall not respect persons in judg- 

Vor, IV.—119 


ment, ye shall hear alike the small and the great; ye shall 
not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is the 
Lord’s.” Or, (2.) the poverty of any man, which renders 
him less able to suffer the punishment of his injustice; 
“Thou shalt not respect a poor man in his cause” (Exod. 
xxiii. 3). (3.) It is the respecting persons in judgment, by 
reason of any gift, or hope of gain, by favouring any cause; 
«Thou shalt not wrest judgment, thou shalt not respect per- 
sons, neither take a gift” (Deut. xvi. 19). Or, (4.) by rea- 
son of relation, affinity, friendship, or affection. In spiritual 
or evangelical matters, it is to have regard to men, in refer- 
ence to things, which render them neither better nor worse, 
more or less acceptable in the sight of God. As for in- 
stance, to regard them, (1.) in respect to their nation, and 
their offspring ; “ Of a truth I perceive that God is no re- 
specter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him, 
and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him’ (Acts x. 31)" 
he will have no respect to nations, or external professions, in 
his future recompenses (Rom. ii. 6. 10). Or, (2.) with 
regard to their condition, as being masters, or servants ; 
hence masters are bid to deal with their servants, as “ know- 
ing they have a Master in heaven, with whom is no respect 
of persons” (Eph. vi. 9): and servants to be just to their 
masters; because “he that is unjust shall receive for the 
wrong that he hath done, and there is no respect of persons 
with God” (Col. iii. 25, 1 Pet. i. 17). Or, (3.) to their 
quality ; for “ God accepteth not the persons of princes, nor 
regardeth the rich more than the poor; for they are all the 
works of his hands” (Job xxxiv. 19). And this is the thing 
here censured. 

3 Ver. 2. Eis τὴν συναγωγὴν, Into your assembly.] That 


946 


goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in 
vile raiment ; 

3 And ye have respect to him that weareth the 
gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a 
good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or 
sit here under my footstool : 

4 1 Are ye not then partial in yourselves? (Do you 
not both put a difference among yourselves on these ac- 
counts,) and (also) are become ® judges of evil thoughts 
(én thinking that the rich is to be preferred in judgment, 
and the poor despised, ver. 6,*on these accounts) ? 

5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God 
chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs 
of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that 
love him (and are they fit to be despised by you, who are 
80 highly honoured and enriched by him)? 

6 But (so tt ἐδ, that) ye have despised the poor (and 
had a partial respect to the rich: and yet) do not 
(these) rich men oppress you, and draw you before the 
Judgment seats (on the account of your Christian profes- 
sion) 2 

7 Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the 
which ye are called ? 

8 If (én this matter) ye fulfil the royal law (which 
is) according to® the scripture, (saying,) Thou shalt 


JAMES. 


love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well (fur then ye 
be not guilly of this respect of persons ; for you would not 
be despised, because you are poor, or have a rich man pre- 
ferred before you in judgment) : 

9 But if ye have (such) respect to persons (as to ho- 
nour the rich and despise the poor, in judicial causes), ye 
commit sin, and are convinced of (or, by) the law (now 
mentioned ) as transgressors (of God’s law in the gene- 
ral; this law comprehending all the duties of the second 
table; Rom. xiii. 9, Matt. xxii. 39). 

10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law (in other 
matters), and yet (knowingly) offend in one point, he is 
guilty of all. 

11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said 
also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, 
yet if thou kill, thou art become 7a transgressor of 
the law (of love, mentioned ver. 8, which comprehends 
all the duties of the second table, in which here the apostle 
instanceth). 

12 So (therefore) speak ye, and so do, as they that 
(know they) shall be judged § by the law of liberty. 

13 ° For he shall have judgment without mercy, 
that hath shewed no merey (and so hath highly 
thwarted the great law of love); and mercy rejoiceth 
against (or triumpheth over) judgment (7. 6. enables the 


here the apostle speaketh of consistories for civil judicatures, 
is argued, (1.) from the accepting of persons, mentioned ver. 
1, which in the Old Testament and the New, as often as it is 
“applied to men, respecteth human judicatures. (2.) From 
the ““ footstool,” mentioned ver. 3, which obtained a place 
in their judicial consistories, and which was proper to princes 
on their thrones, and judges on their tribunals. (3.) From 
the “judges,” mentioned ver. 4, and the κριτήρια, or “ judg- 
ment-seats,” ver. 6. (4.) From the “law” violated by this 
respect of persons, ver. 8, 9; and, lastly, from the canon of 
the Jews, by which it is provided, “ that when the rich and 
poor have a suit together in their consistories, either both 
must sit, or both stand, to avoid all marks of partiality” (R. 
Levi Barcinon, lib. exlii. Juris Hebraici). 

Yet, because the Jewish Christians then had no distinct 
churches of their own, much less any with such distinct seats 
for men of rank, or such zpwroxaSedpia, “chief places” as 
the Jews had (Matt. xxiii. 6), both in Judea, Alexandria, 
and other places (Campeg. Vitringa de Synag. Vet. lib. i. 
cap. 9) ; but rather assembled still in the Jewish synagogues, 
where there was a 70 m3, or house of judgment, where the 
head of the synagogue, and the seniors that assisted him, 
sat to give judgment on offenders, and where they were 
brought before them, and scourged for their offences (Matt. 
x. 17, xxiii. 34, Acts xxii. 19, xxvi. 11, see the notes 
there), the assembly here mentioned might be a Jewish 
synagogue. Moreover, the Jews, living among the gentiles, 
retained still a jurisdiction over men of their own nation and 
religion, even as to matrimonial and pecuniary, as well as 
religious causes, and so the Jewish Christians might be drawn 
before their judgment-seats on those accounts (ver. 6): this 
being long after forbidden by a law of Honorius and Theo- 
dosius (Theod. Cod. 16, tit. 8, leg. 22, vid. not. Gothofr. p. 
240). 

4 Ver. 4. Καὶ οὐ diexpiSnre ἐν ἑαυτοῖς 3] “Do ye not put a 
difference or discrimination among yourselves” on those ac- 
counts which are alien from the cause? ‘That this is the 
frequent sense of the word διακρινόμενοι and διακρίνεσϑαι, see 
Acts xv. 9, where οὐδὲν διέκρινε is rendered, “He put no 
difference betwixt us and them.” And Jude 22, where we 
read thus, “ Of some have compassion, διακρινόμενοι, making 
a difference” (see note on Rom. xiv. 23). 

5 Kpirat διαλογισμῶν πονηρῶν, Judges of evil thoughts.] 
i. 6. Who pass judgment from your own evil thoughts, as 
judging the rich worthy of respect in judgment, for his gor- 
geous attire and outward appearance, and the poor fit to be 
despised for his outward meanness. 

§ Ver. 8. Νόμον βασιλικὸν, The royal law.) Not so much 
because it is the law of Christ, our king, it being a law of 
the Old Testament, as because it is the law which, of all 
laws which concern our neighbour, is most excellent, and 


which governs and moderates other laws, especially the 
ceremonial and positive laws, which are to give place to 
that of charity and mercy. Moreover, the Jews themselves 
so interpret this law, as to forbid the contempt of our 
brother, as you may see in Dr. Cartwright’s Mellificium on 
this place. 

7 Ver. 11. MapaBarns νόμου, A transgressor of the law.) 
Or, because the authority of the lawgiver is as much despised 
by the breaking any one of his laws, as by the violation of 
them all; and he that by it will not be restrained from the 
violation of it in one point, under the like temptations, will 
do it in another. 

Note farther, that these words seem to be directly levelled 
against that loose doctrine of the Jewish doctors, mentioned 
by Dr. Pocock,* “ that God gave so many commandments to 
them, that by doing any of them they might be saved.” So 
Kimchi expounds these words of Hosea, “ Take away iniqui- 
ty, 2.5 np), and receive good;” i. 6. saith he, “ Receive in 
lieu of them any good, m\sp πΦῸΝ, any commandment that 
we have done.” Jt was a vulgar rule among them, saith 
Dr. Smith,t that men should “single out some one com- 
mandment of God’s law, and therein especially exercise 
themselves, that so they might make God their friend by 
that, lest in others they should too much displease him.” 
And he cites from them this rule,+ “ He that observes any 
one precept, it shall be well with him, and his days shall be 
prolonged, and he shall possess the earth.” And this pre- 
cept was with them usually that of the sabbath, of sacrifices, 
or of tithes, for these they looked upon as the great com- 
mandments of the law, not those of mercy and judgment, 
which in our Saviour’s account were so. 

8 Ver. 12. Διὰ νόμου édevSepias, By the law of liberty.] 
By that law of love, which makes all men our neighbours, 
and frees us from those restraints which the ceremonial law 
and the traditions of the Jewish doctors lay upon them, of 
confining their love, and freedom of converse, to those that 
were of their own nation, or were circumcised. ‘The Jews 
had great need of these instructions; for as they held it un- 
lawful to converse with “ publicans and sinners” (Luke xv. 
1, 2), though it were to instruct them in the way of life: so 
much more “to come to, or converse with, one of another 
nation” (Acts x. 28): yea, they would not suffer them to 
be among them who would not be circumcised (Vid. Joseph. 
in Vita sua, p. 1007, B). , 

9 Ver. 13.] Of this mercy the Jews were so unmindful, 
that Josephus§ having said, “they violated the laws of na- 
ture, and polluted the Divinity with their injustice towards 


* In Hosea xiv. 2, p. 774. 
+ P. 354. + P. 300. 
§ De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap 22, p. 886. 


CHAPTER II. 


merciful man to rejoice, as being free from the judgment 
of condemnation from that God, who to the merciful will 
show himself merciful, Ps. xviii. 27. 

14 And let not any Jew or Christian think his faith 
sufficient to justify and save him, without these works of 
charily and mercy ; for)What doth it profit, my breth- 
ren, though a man say he hath faith (in God, ver. 19, 
or in Christ), and hath not works (¢o evidence his faith) ? 
can (such a naked, fruitless) faith save him ? 

15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of 
daily food, 

16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, 
be ye warmed and filled (wishing only that they may be 
so); notwithstanding ye give them not those things 
which are needful to (the clothing or feeding) the body ; 
what doth it profit (them to hear your kind wishes) ? 

17 Even so faith, ifit hath not works, is dead ( frutt- 
less and lifeless as these words), being alone (without 
works showing the truth of it). 

18 © Yea, a man may say (to such a solifidian), Thou 
hast (in thy pretensions) faith, and I have (real) works: 
shew me thy faith (of which thou boastest) without thy 
works (which thou canst never do ; since faith being sealed 
in the heart can only be discovered by iis effects), and 1 
will shew thee my faith by my works (as the cause is 
demonstrated by the effect). 

19 Thou (eing a Jew) believest that there is one 
God; thou (in that) doest well, (but doest no more 
than the very devils: for) the* devils also believe, and 
tremble (and if thou hast no betler faith than they, 


* Gigantes contremiscunt, Targ. in Job xxvi. 4. 


947 


thou hast the lo tremble which they 
have). 

20 But wilt thou know, O vain man (who boastest of 
a faith destitute of works), that faith without works is 
dead, (and so unable to justify and save thee? see it in 
the example of that very Abraham, in thy relation to whom 
thou so conjfidest.) 

21 (fur) Was not Abraham (whom we style) our 
father justified by works (proceeding from his faith), 
" when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar, 
(counting that God was able to raise him from the dead? 
Heb. xi. 17. 19.) 

22 Seest thou how (Gr. Thou seest (by this example) 
that) faith wrought with his works (to produce them), 
and by works was faith made perfect (in him) ? 

23 And the seripture was (again) fulfilled which 
saith, Abraham believed God, and it (viz. that faith 
which produced these works) 15 was imputed unto him 
for righteousness: and (upon that account) he was 
called the Friend of God. 

24 Ye see then how that by works (proceeding from 
faith) a man is justified, and not by faith only (alone 
without them). 

25 Likewise also was not ® Rahab the harlot justi- 
fied by works (proceeding from her faith), when she 
had received the messengers, and had sent them out 
another way ? 

26 (And so it must be in all other persons who would 
be saved, they must show their faith by their works :) “For ¢ 
as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith with- 
out works is dead also (and therefure cannot save us, or 
give life unto us). 


same reason 


men,” he adds, “ that no good affection was so entirely lost 
among them, ὡς ἔλεος, as that of mercy.” 

10 Ver. 18.] The Greek in most copies runs thus, δεῖξόν 
μοι τὴν πίστιν cov ἐκ τῶν ἔργων cov, κἀγὼ dsitw σοι ἐκ τῶν ἔργων 
pov τὴν πίστιν pov, i. 6. “Show me thy faith by thy works, 
and I will show thee by my works my faith:” i. 6. Show me, 
by the proper fruits of it, the faith of which thou boastest, 
and I, by the same effects, will show I have that faith also, 
though I boast not of it. But it is farther to be observed, 
that ἐκ τῶν ἔργων cov is left out in C&cumenius and one 
Greek copy; and, (2.) that the Alexandrian MSS. and 
those perused by Curcelleus, read χωρὶς τῶν ἔργων σου, 
“ without thy works:” so did the Vulgar, the Syriac, and the 
Ethiopic versions; and so the following words, ver. 20, 
« Know, Ὁ vain man, that faith, χωρὶς ἔργων, without works 
is dead,” seems to require; and this reading our translation 
follows. 

Ver. 21. ᾿Ανενέγκας, &c. When he offered his son Isaac.) 
‘This being a greater act of faith than that by which he was 
at first justified ; for that was only faith in God’s promise, 
that he would raise up seed from his dead body, and the 
dead womb of Sarah (Rom. iv. 20). This was a belief, that 
he would raise up this very seed, consumed to ashes, from 
the dead; and therefore by this work was “his faith made 
perfect,” i.e. advanced to the greatest height; there being no 
more noble act of faith, than this of the resurrection of the 
dead consumed to ashes, and none by which we give more 
glory to God (see Ecclus. xliv. 20). 

12 Ver. 23. ᾿Ελογίσϑη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην, Was accounted to 
him for righteousness.] That is, it engaged God to own him 
as a truly religious person, or one that did sincerely fear 
him, by saying, “ Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing 
thou hast not withheld thy only son from me” (Gen. xxii. 
15); or as one who upon trial had been found faithful: so 
Matthias, “ Was not Abraham found faithful in temptation, 
and that was accounted to him for righteousness ?”’ (1 Macc. 
ii. 52) and also to deal with him as a righteous person, so 
a& to renew the covenant made with him, and to establish it 
with an oath (Gen. xxii, 16—18), and to give him the high 
title, not only of his servant, but his friend (2 Chron. xx. 7, 
Isa. xli. 8). 

13 Ver. 25. ᾿Ραὰβ ἡ πόρνη, Rahab the harlot.] That Ra- 
hab had a strong faith in God, the apostle testifies, by say- 


ing, “ By-faith Rahab the harlot perished not with those that 
believed not, receiving the spies in peace” (Heb. xi. 31) ; 
and this she showed, by saying, “The Lord your God he 
is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath” (Josh. ii. 11) ; 
and this she testified, by being so industrious to preserve the 
messengers, and to do all things agreed on betwixt them and 
her, for her safety. 

44 Ver. 26.] There have been many ways invented how to 
reconcile these words of James with the apostle Paul, as- 
serting, that “a man is justified by faith, without the deeds 
of the law,” Rom. iii. 28. As, 

First, That when Paul saith, « We are justified by faith, 
without the works of the law ;” and that “to him that work- 
eth not, but believeth, faith is imputed unto him for righte- 
ousness” (Rom. iv. 5), or “to justification :” justification, 
there ascribed to faith alone, imports only our absolution 
from condemnation, by reason of our past offences com- 
mitted before faith, and our reconciliation to God, by the 
pardon, or not imputing them to believers. It consists, 
saith the apostle, “in the remission of sins that are past,” 
Rom. iii. 25. It is, saith Peter, “the purgation of us from 
our old sins,’ 2 Pet. i. 9. It is effected by the death of 
Christ, procuring “ redemption for sins committed under the 
old covenant’ (Heb. ix. 15). This is apparent from the 
chief argument the apostle useth to prove the necessity, that 
both Jew and gentile should be justified freely by his grace, 
and not by the works of the law; because they were “all 
under sin,” all become “guilty before God,” all having 
“sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. iii. 9, 
xix. 23). Whereas, saith he, “ bemg justified by faith, we 
have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” 
(Rom. v. 1, 2) ; therefore, chapter the third, he must be speak- 
ing of the condition of Jew and gentile before faith. So again, 
when the apostle saith, “The scripture hath concluded all 
under sin, that the promise (of justification) by (the) faith 
of Jesus Christ, might be given to them that believe (in 
him),” Gal. iti. 22—24; “ Wherefore the law was (then) 
our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be jus- 
tified by faith (in him) ;” ver. 25, “But now, after that 
faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster (i. e. 
under the pedagogy of the law) ;” ver. 26, “ For ye are all 
the children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus;’ he 
plainly insinuates, that we cannot be justified by the works 


948 


of the law; because the law leads us to Christ for justifica- 
tion, and ceaseth, now the way of justification by faith in 
Christ is made known. And again, “ We are justified by 
grace, not of works: for we are his workmanship, created 
in Christ Jesus to good works” (Eph. ii. 8—10) : where the 
argument seems plainly to run thus; We cannot be justified 
by works preceding faith, because we do no good works, 
till by faith we are interested in Christ Jesus: whereas 
James speaks plainly of those works which follow faith, are 
wrought by it, and are the fruits of it, and of their necessity, 
in order to our continuance in a state of justification and 
freedom from our final condemnation. 

Secondly, That Paul excludes from justification, only 
those works which are opposed to justification by an act of 
grace, and make it to be of debt, and so give occasion to our 
glorying in our being righteous in the sight of God, purely 
by reason of our works, as in these words, “If it be of 
grace, it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more 
grace; but if it be of works, then it is no more of grace, 
otherwise work is no more work” (Rom. xi. 6). And 
again, “To him that worketh, the reward is reckoned, not 
of grace, but of debt: but to him that worketh not, but be- 
lieveth, faith is accounted unto him for righteousness” 
(Rom, iv. 4, 5). 
is excluded. By what law? by that of works? No: but by 
the law of faith” (Rom. iii. 27). Whereas James requires 
only those works to our salvation, and our continuance in a 
state of justification, which proceed from, and are accepted 
through grace, and so can never render our justification of 
debt, or give us a just ground of boasting. 


And again, “ Where then is glorying? it | 


Thirdly, That Paul is arguing against the Jews, who | 


JAMES. 


sought for justification by virtue of the law ot Moses, and 
sought it not by faith (Rom. ix. 32), nor ever conceived that 
sufficient for that end, declaring against that way of justifi- 
cation, because it would confine the blessing of Abraham to 
the circumcision only (Rom. iv. 9), and because the law of 
Moses was four hundred and thirty years after the promise 
made to Abraham; speaking of that law which said, « Do 
this, and live” (Gal. 111. 17) ; which was “ our schoolmaster, 
to bring us to Christ,” and which was then to cease, as to 
the obligation of it: whereas James speaks of justification 
by works performed under the covenant of grace, and as 
conditions even of that new covenant. Now I except not 
against any of these ways of reconciling these two apostles 
in their discourse upon this subject; but then I also think 
we may add this other to them. 

Fourthly, That Paul plainly speaks to Christians only, 
concerning their justification from their past offences by 
faith in the blood of Jesus ; but James speaks as well to the 
unbelieving as believing Jews, touching faith in God, such 
as Abraham had when he believed God's promise (ver. 23), 
and such as Rahab the harlot had (ver. 25), saying, « hou 
believest there is one God” (ver. 19), without the least men- 
tion of faith in Christ; and who, perhaps, thought it suffi- 
cient to keep them in the favour of God, and render them 
his friends, that they had cast off all idolatry, and owned 
the true God; proving this not to be sufficient to procure 
the divine favour, unless by the obedience of their lives 
they glorified him as God, since otherwise they only did in 
words profess to own him, but in works deny him, being 
disobedient. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 My brethren, ! be not many masters, (7. 6. διδάσ- | 


καλου, teachers of the law), knowing that (‘hereby) we 
shall receive the greater condemnation (fur our offences 
against that law we teach to others. 

2 And this we ought the rather to beware of ;) For in 
many things we offend all (against the law, and more 
especially in that member that we employ in teaching of 
others: for) if any man offend not in word, the same is 
2 a perfect man, and able also to bridle (curb and direct 
the motions of ) the whole body. 

3 (1 use the metaphor of a bridle as apposite in this 
case; for) Behold, we put bits (or bridles) in the 
horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and (with 
those bits) we turn about their whole body, (even so, 
if we by any means can bridle, and thereby govern the 
tongue, by the like means we may govern the whole 
man.) 

4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so 


great (in bulk), and are driven of fierce winds, yet are 
they turned about with a very small helm, whitherso- 
ever the governor (or pilot of the ship) listeth. 

5 Even so (is zt with) the tongue (as with this bit 
and helm: it) is a little member, 5 and boasteth great 
things (χαὶ μεγαλαυχεῖν bul it mightily exalls itself by its 
great performances). Behold, how great a matter (how 
much wovd ) a little fire kindleth! 

6 4 And the tongue ¢s (as) a fire, a world of iniquity 
(is kindled by it): so is the tongue among our members 
(as fire among wood), that it defileth (Gr. spoiling or 
blackening) the whole body, and setteth (Gr. inflaming 
or setting) on fire the course of nature (or the succession 
of men in the world); and it is set on fire of hell (Gr. 
being set on fire by hell. : 

7 And it resembles fire in this also, that when it hath 
once got the mastery it cannot easily be subdued and 
extinguished :) For every kind of beasts, and of birds, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 1. Μὴ πολλοὶ διδάσκαλοι γίνεσϑε, Be not many teach- 
ers.) The Jews had, not only in Judea, but in their several 
dispersions, their τυ, or “ doctors of the law,” who being 
created doctors, masters, or rabbins, by imposition of hands, 
were authorized to teach the law to others. This office the 
Jews much affected, ϑέλοντες εἶναι νομοδιδόσκαλοι, « affecting 
to be teachers of the law” (1 Tim. i. 7), and being confi- 
dent of their abilities to be “ guides to the blind, a light to 
them that sat in darkness, instructors of the foolish, and, 
διδάσκαλοι νηπίων, teachers of babes” (Rom. ii. 19, poe And 
such especially were the zealots among them. Whence 
Eleazar* the chief of them saith, «They had especial rea- 
son to expect a share in the divine favour, as being blame- 
less as to the observation of the law, and also teachers of it 
to others.” This affectation of that office, the apostle here 


* Ὥσπερ ἀναμάρτητοι πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν γενόμενοι, καὶ μηδεμιᾶς 
μετασχόντες, of καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἐδιδάξαμεν. Apud Joseph. de 
Bello Jud. lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 990, C. 


warns them to avoid, as that which would expose them to 
greater condemnation, for their offences against that law 
they taught to others, and so confessed they knew them- 
selves. 

2 Ver. 2. Τέλειος ἀνὴρ, A perfect man,] Is a person fully 
instructed in his duty (see note on 1 Cor. ii. 6). 

3 Ver. 5. Kai μεγαλαυχεῖ, And boasteth great things.) This 
word signifies not only to yaunt of, but also to do great 
things; μέγαλα ἐργάζεται καλὰ καὶ κακὰ, “It works great 
good and evil,” saith (ΕΠ απηθπϊαβ: Magnificatrix est, “It is 
a doer of great things,” so Faber; it answers to the Hebrew 
pry, which signifies to be valid, and move itself violently, to 
be haughty, and exalt itself (Ps. ix. 19, Ezek. xvi. 50, Zeph. 
iii. 11, Ecclus. xlviii. 18), And this signification, both the 
text, and the resemblance of the tongue to fire, seem plainly 
to require (see Examen Milli). 

4 Ver. 6. Ἢ γλῶσσα πῦρ, The tongue is a fire.] The com- 
parison of the tongue to fire, first blackening, and then 
wasting the whole world (or wood), is taken from the 
scripture, and from the sayings of the Hebrew doctors: 
“The froward man bringeth destruction, in his mouth there 
is a burning fire,” Prov. xvi. 37. And ver. 28, λαμπτῆρα 


CHAPTER III. 


949 


and of serpents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and| meekness; i.e. let him, by his charity and meckness to- 


hath been tamed δ by mankind : 

8 But the tongue (of ofhers) can no man tame; {ΐ 
ts an unruly evil, (and, like the serpents, mentioned ver. 
7,) full of deadly poison. 

9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father (of us 
all) ; and therewith ® curse we men, which are made 
7 after the similitude of God (and upon that account are 
to be reverenced by us), 

10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and 
cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to 


be. hea 

11 Doth a fountain send forth at the same place 
sweet water and bitter? 

12 Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? 
either a vine, figs? (surely no: even) so can no foun- 
tain both yield salt water and fresh (and if nature pro- 
duceth no such contrary fruils, much less should grace 
produce things so extremely opposite as our blessing and 
cursing). . 

13 Who (then) is δ ἃ wise man and endued with 
knowledge among you which you are great pretend- 
ers)? let him shew out of a good conversation his works 
with meekness of wisdom (or the works of wisdom with 


wards his brethren, show forth his wisdom). 

14 But if ye have ® bitter envying and strife in your 
hearts, glory not (of your wisdom), and lie not against 
the truth (in pretending to be wise as to tt). 

15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but ts 
earthly (from the love of earthly things), sensual, (pro- 
ceeding from the lust of the flesh, among which strife and 
envy are reckoned, Gal. v. 20), devilish, (coming from 
Satan, the promoter of strife and envy, and from pride and 
ambition, by which he fell, 1 Tim. iii. 6.) 

16 For where envying and strife is (as the root), 
there 7s ™ confusion and every evil work (as the 
Sfruil). 

17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure 
(from sensuality and earthly-mindedness, ver. 15), then 
peaceable, (and) gentle (in opposition to contention, ver. 
14), and easy to be intreated (or persuaded, in opposilion 
to the inflexibility of the Jews)," full of merey and good 
fruits, (wanting in them, ver. 13,) 5 without partiality, 
and ® without hypocrisy (of which things the Jews were 
highly guilty). 

18 And " the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace 
of (for, or to) them that make peace. 


d6\ov πυροεύει κακοῖς, “ He kindles a firebrand of deceit to the 
wicked.” “As the matter of fire, κατὰ τὴν ὕλην πυρὸς, ac- 
cording to the wood of the fire, so it burneth; and the 
stronger they are that contend, the more they will be in- 
flamed,” Ecclus. xxviii. 10. “A hasty contention kindleth 
a fire, the fire burning kindles great heaps,” saith Ben Syra; 
which is thus explained, “ As a little fire consumes great 
heaps of wood, so nothing more wastes the world than an 
evil tongue.” 

Note, Secondly, If the original was as our translation 
hath it, “« A world of iniquity,” something must be added to 
it to make the sense complete, as I have done in the para- 
phrase, or as the Ethiopic, “ A world of iniquity is contained 
in it.” But the Syriac reads thus, “ And the wicked world 
is as the wood;” and this makes both the sense and the 
similitude run clear. 

5 Ver. 7. Τῇ φύσει τῇ ἀνθρωπίνη, By mankind,] Is the He- 
brew phrase for man, as ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις is “a man,” 1 Pet. 
ii. 13. 

6 Ver. 9. KarapspsSa, Curse we men.] This the unbe- 
lieving Jews did towards the Christians, cursing and ana- 
thematizing them in their synagogues; as Justin Martyr* 
often testifieth to the face of T'rypho the Jew. 

7 Ka’ ὁμοίωσιν Θεοῦ, After the similitude of God.) From 
this ninth verse it appears, that man lost not the image of 
God by the fall, and thence it is probable that it consists not 
primarily in holiness, but in dominion (Gen. i. 26). 

8 Ver. 13. ᾿Ετιστήμων ἐν ἡμῖν, A wise man among you.) 
That the Jews were great pretenders to knowledge, see Rom. 
ii. 18. That they gloried in the title of ap2n or “ wise 
men,” see note on | Cor. i. 20, iii. 18. Hence their divines 
are still moNm »pon, “wise men as to the truth,” saith 
Buxtorf. PA 

9 Ver. 14. Ζῆλον πικρὸν καὶ épiSetav, Bitter envy and strife.) 
The unbelieving Jews are represented still as οἱ ἐξ ἐριϑείας, 
“men of contention, who obeyed not the truth” (Rom. ii. 
8) : men who were filled with bitter zeal against the preach- 
ers of the gospel (Acts xiii. 45, xvii. 5), and very “mad 
against them.” And some of them who owned the gospel, 
did yet preach Christ, ἐξ ἐριϑείας, “out of contention,” and 
envy against Paul (Phil. i. 15), and the effects of their dis- 
putes were, saith the apostle, ¢36:0; καὶ ἔρις, “envy and strife,” 
1 Tim. vi. 4, ἔρεις καὶ μάχαι νομικαὶ, “contentions and fight- 
ings about the law:” and where they were mixed with the 
converted gentiles, we find especial cautions against strife 
and envy, as at Rome, Rom. xiii. 13; against “ provoking 


* Καταρώμενοι ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς ὑμῶν τοὺς πιστεύοντας ἐπὶ 
τὸν Χριστόν. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 334, Β. Αὐτοῦ τε ἐκείνου, 
καὶ τῶν εἰς ἐκεῖνον πιστευόντων καταρᾶσϑε. P. 323, B: see p. 


335, Ὁ. p. 363, Ο. 


one another, and envying one another,” Gal. v. 26; against 
doing things “through strife and vain glory,’ Phil. ii. 3, or 
complaints of the abounding of these vices, 1 Cor. i. 11, iii. 
3, see especially, 2 Cor. xii, 20. 

10 Ver. 16. ᾿Ακαταστασία, Confusion.] i. 6. Tumult, sedi- 
tion, and disturbance of peace and order; for contention 
naturally tends to fighting, and envy to the destruction of 
him we hate. 8oveicre καὶ ζηλοῦτε, “ Ye are envious and 
zealous against one another,” iv. 2; and then it follows, 
paxeaSe καὶ πολεμεῖτε, “ Ye fight and war.” 

"Ver. 17. Μεστὴ ἐλέους, Full of merey.] Which, saith Jo- 
sephus,* “of all good passions, was most of all lost among 
the Jews.” 

12 ᾿Αδιάκριτος, Without partiality.] Or, as the word sig- 
nifies, without putting a difference betwixt men of their own 
and other nations, as the Jews did, accounting all other na- 
tions dogs, unclean, not fit to be conversed with; and deal- 
ing with them accordingly, for as Tacitus} hath observed of 
them, Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptd, 
adverstis omnes alios hostile odium; i. 6. “They would be 
merciful to men of their own religion and country, but hated 
all mankind besides:” confining brotherly love to men of 
their own nation, as we learn from our Saviour’s parable of 
the good Samaritan. When they broke into sects and par- 
ties, they had the same hatred to those of their own nation 
who would not think and do as they did. ‘The zealots, and 
those that were for war, set themselves against, and even 
threatened death to them who were for peace, looking upon 
them as no better than heathens, saith Josephus :+ whereas 
true Christian wisdom requires us to live peaceably with, 
and to do good to all. 

13 ᾿Αγυπύκριτος, And without hypocrisy.) For which our 
Saviour so severely inveighs against the scribes and phari- 
sees, the leaders of the Jews. 

14 Ver. 18. Καρπὸς τῆς δικαιοσύνης, The fruit of righteous- 
ness,| i. 6. The reward of the righteousness to them, who 
make it their business to live peaceably themselves, and in- 
cline others to it, is here sown happily and quietly, by the 
preachers of the gospel of peace declaring it to the world, 
and shall hereafter assuredly be reaped by them. Or thus, 
These fruits of righteousness, now sown by the Christian 
endued with this heavenly wisdom, will yield a plentiful and 
happy crop to them who are promoters of peace. 


* Οὐδὲν οὕτως ἀπολώλει χρηστὸν πάθος ἐν ταῖς τότε συμφοραῖς ὡς 
ἔλεος. De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 22, p. 885, G. 

+ Hist. lib. v. ed. Lips. p. 616. 

+ Ἣν δὲ τῶν ἐρῶντων τοῦ πολέμου πρὸς τοὺς ἐπιθυμοῦντας τῆς 
εἰρήνης ἔρις χαλεπή. De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 10, p. 87) 
Vid. p. 797, C, D. Ἐ 

4 


950 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 From ' whence come wars and fichtings among 
you (Jews)? come they not hence, even of your lusts 
(or pleasures) that war in your members (against ihe 
soul? 1 Pet. ii. 11.) 

2° Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to 
have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye 
have not, because ye ask not. 

3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, 
that ye may consume 7 upon your lusts. 

4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that 
5 the friendship of the world (which stands in comypeli- 
tion with, and indisposeth you to believe and obey God’s 
will) is enmity with God (and so idolatry, which in the 
language of scripture is adultery)? whosoever therefore 
will be (thus) a friend of the world is the enemy of 
God (having renounced him to have mammon for his 
Lord, Matt. vi. 24). 


5 ‘Do ye think that the scripture saith (Gr. speais) 
in -vain (against this worldly-mindedness), The spirit 
that dwelleth in us (Christians) lusteth (he) to envy 
(as yours doth? ver. 2. Js he not rather the Spirit of 
love and goodness, engaging us to_love all men, and espe- 
cially our Christian brethren? 1 Pet. i. 22.) 

6 But (so far is he from this envy, that where he 
dwells) 5 he giveth more grace (or favour). Wherefore 
he (or zt. the scripture) saith, God resisteth the proud, 
but giveth grace (or showelh favour) unto the humble 
(Prov. iii. 34). 

7 (Be ye then humble, and)Submit yourselves there- 
fore to (that) God (who giveth grace to the humble). 
Resist the devil, (the author of those wars, envyings, and 
lustings which are among you,) and (ihen) he will flee 
from you. . 

8 δ Draw nigh to God (by prayer, humiliation, re- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1 Ver. 1. Πύθεν πόλεμοι ; Whence come wars 8] This epis- 
tle seems to have been writ about the eighth year of Nero, 
and the sixty-second of Christ, the year before the death of 
James; before which time the Jews had great wars and 
fightings, not only with their neighbours (see note on Matt. 
xxiv. 6), but even among themselves in every city and 
family, saith Josephus ;* not only in Judea, but in Alexan- 
dria, Syria, and many other places (see the preface, §. 5, 6). 

2 Ver. 2. ᾿Επιθυμεῖτε, Se. Ye lust, &e.) For explication of 
these words we are to note, that the Jews were then vehe- 
mently lusting after two things: 

First, Liberty and freedom from tribute; which was, say 
they, the token of subjection. Josephus saith,+ they were 
“continually clamouring to have the tributes took away,” 
and that upon this very account; and} that “the zealots, 
the band of thieves, and their magicians, were still press- 
ing the people to fight for their liberty against the Roman 
yoke.” 

Secondly, Dominion over other nations; for having got 
this fancy into their heads, that their Messiah| was to be a 
temporal prince, who should enable them to lord it over the 
heathens, they were zealous to have these pretended pro- 
phecies accomplished; and|| “the hopes of it encouraged 
them to fight.” Whence we may paraphrase on these two 
verses thus; “ Ye lust (for liberty and dominion), and ye 
have it not; ye (in pursuit and desire of them) kill, and 
(yet) ye cannot obtain (them), because ye ask not (whether 
that be according to the will of God which ye so greedily 
desire). Ye ask these things, and receive them not, because 
ye ask amiss, that ye may consume them upon your lusts; 
(viz. that having this liberty and empire, ye may possess 
the good things of this world ye lust after, and may lord it 
over the heathen world.)” 

3 Ver. 4. Φιλία τοῦ κόσμον, ἔχϑρα rod Θεοῦ ἐστιν, The friend- 


* "Exwetro ἐν ἑκάστη πόλει ταραχὴ, καὶ πόλεμος ἐμφύλιος" ὅσον τε 
ἀπὸ 'Ρωμαΐων ἀνέπνεον, εἷς ἀλλήλους τὰς χεῖρας ἀπέστρεφον καὶ 
στάσις μὲν ἦν πανταχοῦ. De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 10, p- 871. 
Vide Reliqua. 

t ᾿Αναιρεῖν τὰ τέλη. De Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 1. Τήν re 
ἀποτίμησιν οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἢ ἄντικρυς δουλείαν ἐπιφέρειν λέγοντες. Antiq. 
lib. xviii. cap. 1. Vide de Bello Jud. 

$+ Οἱ yap γύητες καὶ ληστρικοὶ συναγϑέντες πολλοὺς εἰς ἀπό- 
στασιν ἐνῆγον, καὶ πρὸς ἐλευθερίαν παρεκρότουν, ϑάνατον ἐπιτιμῶντες 
τοῖς πειθαρχοῦσι τῇ Ῥωμαίων ἡγεμονίᾳ. Lib. ii. cap. 23, p. 
797, C. 

§ Ὅτι μέγαν, καὶ δυνάστην, καὶ πάσης τῆς γῆς, καὶ πάντων τῶν 
ἐθνῶν, καὶ στρατοπέδων κύριόν φασιν of προφῆται εἶναι τὸν ἐπιδη- 
(vicavra. Jud. apud Orig. contra Cels. lib. ii. p. 78. 

Τὸ δὲ ἐπάραν αὐτοὺς μάλιστα πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον, ἦν χρησμὸς 
Φμμίβολος" ὁμοίως ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς εὑρημένος γράμμασιν, ὡς κατὰ τὸν 
καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας τις αὐτῶν ἄρξει τῆς οἰκουμένης. Joseph. 
de Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 31, p- 961, F. Vide lib. i. p. 705, 
D. Tryph. apud Just. p. 246. 


ship of this world is enmity to God.] This, one mentioned 
here by Ccumenius explains thus; κόσμον ἐνταῦϑα πᾶσαν 
τὴν ὑλικὴν ἀποκαλεῖ, “ He here styles the whole sensual life, 
the world, ὡς μητέρα τὴς φθορᾶς, ἧς 6 μετασχεῖν σπεύδων ὄλι- 
γώρως ἔχει τῶν θείων, καὶ ὑπεροπτικῶς, AS being the mother of 
corruption, which he that is hasty to enjoy overlooks and 
despiseth divine things.” (See the text defended here, Ex- 
amen Milli.) 

4 Ver. 5. Ἢ δοκεῖτε ὅτι κενῶς ἡ γραφὴ γέγει; Or do ye think 
that the scripture saith in vain? &c.) They who make 
this whole verse one sentence, are obliged to show where the 
scripture hath these words, “The spirit that dwelleth in us 
lusteth to envy ;” which no interpreter hath yet successfully 
attempted. But in this exposition given in the paraphrase, 
which makes the whole to consist of two questions, this is 
needless. Now in favour of this exposition, let it be noted, 

First, That nothing is more ordinary than for particles 
to be repeated 'from the precedent member. So Ps, ix. 19, 
“The needy shall not always be forgotten, the expectation 
of the poor shall (not) perish for ever” (see Ps. xxxviil. 1, 
xliv. 19, 1 Sam. ii. 3, Job xxx. 25, xxxi. 20, Prov. xxv. 27, 
xxx. 3). So on, 7f, Ps. exxxix. 8, Prov. vi. 1, ix. 12 (see 
Glassius de E]lipsi Partic. lib. iv. tr. 2, observ. 10, p. 721). 
So here the particle ἢ may be repeated thus, “ Or, doth the 
spirit that is in you lust to envy ?” though the sense be full 
only by reading the words by way of interrogation. Note, 

Secondly, That “not to speak in vain,” is not to do it 
without cause or just reason, as Ezek. vi. 10. And God, or 
the scripture, is said to “speak in vain’ to them who at- 
tend not to, or receive no benefit by, his words, Jer. viil. 8. 
So then the sense runs thus, Doth the scripture speak with- 
out cause against this worldly-mindedness? Would it not 
have you attend to, and receive advantage by, what it saith 
against it? 

5 Ver. 6. MeiSova δὲ δίδωσι χύριν, But he giveth more 
grace.] That yn and χόρις throughout the scripture signifies 
favour, ana good will, see note on 2 Cor. vi. 1. And this 
sense the opposition here requires; God being displeased 
with, and opposing himself to, the proud, but showing fa- 
vour to the humble, and causing them to find favour among 
men (Prov. iii. 34). What Mons. Le Clerc here saith, 
«That in those times the Jews used to produce, as out of 
scripture, not only the sense of places without regarding the 
words, but also a Jewish tradition, or interpretation of 
scripture, and so we are not to look for what is here said, in 
the Old Testament,” is intolerable: for is it fit to make an 
apostle, giving us those scriptures which are to be our rule 
of faith, speak thus, Do you think the scripture speaks in 
vain, what it speaks not at all? and to call a Jewish tra- 
dition the scripture ? 

6 Ver. 8. Ἐγγίσατ: τῷ Θεῷ, Draw nigh to God.) The way 
of drawing nigh to God being now, under the gospel dispen- 
sation, through faith in Christ, and in his blood shed for the 
propitiation of our sins, we being “ made nigh to him through 
the blood of Christ” (Eph. ii. 13), and through the intro- 
duction of that better hope, by which ἐγγίζομεν τῶ Θεῷ, “ we 


CHAPTER IV. 


patience, and obedience), and he will draw nigh to you 
in mercy). 7 Cleanse your hands (from rapine and 
injustice), ye sinners; and purify your hearts (from 
the love of the world), ye double minded (whose hearts 
are divided betwixt God and mammon). 

9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your 
laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to 
§ heaviness. 

10 Humble yourselves (therefore) in the sight of 
the Lord (and under his mighty hand that is upon you, 
1 Pet. v. 6), and he shall lift you up (that he may ex- 
alt you, ἐν καιρῷ, in that season of his visitation, as he 
did then his faithful servants, by a wonderful deliver- 
ance, according to his promise, see note on Matt. xxiv. 
31). 

1 ® Speak not evil one of (or agains!) another, 
brethren. He that speaketh evil of (or against) his 
brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the 
law, and 10 judgeth the law (or speaketh against the 
law, as being evil or imperfect, in thal it doth not com- 
mand or condemn those things which thou dost command 
or condemn): but if thou (dake upon thee to) judge the 
law, thou art not (in thy behaviour as) a doer of the 
law, but a judge (of i. 


| what és your life? 


951 


12 Whereas indeed)There is (only) one lawgiver, 
who is able to save and to destroy: who (¢herefore) 


| art thou that judgest another? 


13 Go to now, ye that (presume to) say, To day or 
to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue 


| there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain (as if both 


life and the advantages of life depended wholly on your- 
selves, and not αἱ all on divine providence) : 

14 Whereas ye (who speak with such confidence of the 
future) know not what shall be on the morrow. For 
It is even (as) a vapour, that ap- 
peareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 

15 (Thus ye are wont to speak;) For that (Gr. whereas) 
ye ought to say, " If the Lord will, we shall live, and 
do this, or that. 

16 15 But now ye rejoice in your boastings (of the 
future): all such rejoicing is evil (as being an assum- 
ing to yourselves what belongs to God only, and so an 
evidence that you do not subject your own will to the 


| will of God: for since this life is so short and uncer- 
| tain, and thereby teaches you to think humbly, and speak 
| modestly, and with due dependence on the divine provi- 
| dence, with respect both to your lives and fulure ac- 


tions; you by thus pleasing yourselves in these vain 


draw nigh to God” (Heb. vii. 19) ; it being Christ alone by 
whom we have an introduction to the Father through faith 
in him (Eph. ii. 18, iii. 12), and who “hath suffered for us, 
that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet. iii. 18): this may 
be looked on as an exhortation to the ἁμαρτωλοὶ, the wn- 
believing Jews, to believe in Christ, and to the dipuxor, the 
wavering Jews (see note on i. 8), to cleave steadfastly to the 
faith. 

7 KaSapicare χεῖρας, Cleanse your hands.] That the hands 
of the Jews, and especially of the zealots among them, were 
“full of blood and rapine,” we learn from Josephus,* who 
makes very often sad complaints of the murders and rapines 
committed by them (see v. 4. 6); and so this exhortation 
must he very properly directed to them. True also is the 
note of Esthius here, Porro si jubentur homines emundare 
manus, et purificare corda, nec jubetur quid impossibile: 
consequens est eos posse hrc prestare. 

8 Ver. 9. Eis κατήφειαν, Into heaviness.] For now the day 
of vengeance upon the unbelieving and backsliding Jews 
approacheth (Luke xxi. 22). Now the coming of the Lord 
to execute vengeance on them draweth near (v. 8), when 
“wrath shall come upon them to the uttermost” (2 Thess. 
ii. 16). 

9 Ver. 11. Μὴ καταλαλεῖτε, Speak not evil.) For explica- 
tion of these words, let it be noted, that the great exception 
which both the unbelieving Jews and the Judaizing Chris- 
tians among them had against the believing gentiles, was 
this, that? “they observed not their feasts or sabbaths, and 
that they were not circumcised,” whence they concluded 
they differed little from the heathens. This was the thing 
for which the Christian fatherst did contend against them; 
viz. that the ancient patriarchs of old were acceptable to 
God, and consequently the Christians, and especially the 
converted gentiles, might be acceptable to God without the 
observation of these feasts and sabbaths, or of circumcision. 
Hence the apostle is so concerned that they should not 
judge one another “ on the account of days or meats” (Rom. 


* Πόθοι δὲ ἦσαν ἁρπαγῆς ἀναπλήρωτοι, καὶ τῶν πλουσίων οἴκων 
ἔρευνα, φόνος τε ἀνδρῶν καὶ γυναικῶν ὕβρεις ἐπαίζοντο, μεθ᾽ αἴματος 
δὲ τὰ συληϑέντα κατέπινον, &c. De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 34, 
p- 897, C. 

ἡ ‘Exsivo δὲ ἀποροῦμεν μάλιστα, εἰ ὑμεῖς, εὐσεβεῖν λέγοντες, καὶ 
τῶν ἄλλων οἱόμενοι διαφέρειν, κατ' οὐδὲν αὐτῶν ἀπολείπεσϑε, οὐδὲ 
διαλλάσσετε ἀπὸ τῶν ἐθνῶν τὸν ὑμέτερον βίον, ἐν τῷ μήτε τὰς ἑορτὰς 
pars τα σάββατα τηρεῖν, μήτε τὴν περιτομὴν ἔχειν. Tryph. apud 
Just. p. 227. 

$+ Πρὺ τοῦ ᾿Αθραὰμ οὐκ ἦν χρεῖα περιτομῆς, οὐδὲ πρὸ ΝΙωθσέως 
σαββατισμοῦ καὶ ἑορτῶν καὶ προσφορῶν. Just. M. p. 240, D. 
241, B. 245, Β. Iren. lib. iv. cap. 80. Tertul. adv. Jud. 
cap. 2, 


xiv. 4. 6). Hence he inveighs against the Galatians, as be- 
ing brought in bondage by the Judaizers, to the observation 
of circumcision (v. 5), and of “days, months, times, and 
years” (iv. 10) : and warns his Colossians not to be induced 
to follow those rudiments of the world, as being circumcised 
in Christ (Col. ii. 11); and saith “ Let no man judge you 
in respect of feasts, or new moons, or of the sabbaths” (ver. 
16): so that the argument of the apostle here seems to run 
thus, Let no man speak against his Christian brethren the 
gentiles, for not observing these things; for the law itself 
requiring these things, not of the gentiles that even dwelt 
among them, but only of the Jews, he that speaks against 
them, and judgeth them for the non-observation of these 
things, he in effect speaks against and judgeth that law as 
deficient, which required not these things. And thou who 
takest upon thee to say they cannot be saved (Acts xv. 1), 
and so judgest them to destruction, without the observation of 
them, thou even takest upon thee the office of the great 
Lawgiver, who alone is able to save and to destroy, and who 
by not requiring those things of the gentiles, shows he will 
save them without them, and not destroy them for neglect of 
them. So the Targum on Ezek. xiii. 18 brings in God 
speaking to the false prophets thus, “Can you kill or make 
alive the souls of my people?”’ Others indeed refer this to 
the law of Christian love, but that is still styled “ the law of 
Christ,” Gal. vi. 2, or “the law of liberty,” ii. 12; but never 
absolutely “the law,” as here; and therefore I prefer the 
former interpretation. 

10 Kpiver νόμον, Judgeth the law.] Thatis, saith Gicumenius, 
κατακρίνει, καταφρονεῖ, “he condemns and despiseth the law, 
forbidding him to condemn and to speak evil of his brother, 
and so will not be a doer of it, od yap τις καταφρονεῖ, πῶς 
ἀνέξεται ὑπ' αὐτὸν ἔτι ζὴν ; for how will a man be induced to 
live by that law. which he despiseth ?” 

M Ver. 15. ᾿Εὰν 6 Κύριος ϑελήση, If the Lord will.] It was 
a rule of Ben ὅντα (Buxt. Flor. p. 4), “Let no man say 
he will do any thing, unless he first say, If the Lord will:” 
who also adds, that “one died before night, for refusing to 
add this.” And when Alcibiades had said to Socrates, «I 
will do so, if you will,” Socrates* tells him he ought to have 
said, ἐὰν 6 Θεὸς ἐδέλη, “If God will.’ Not that we are 
obliged always to say thus (Rom. xv. 28), but only still to own 
our dependence on divine providence (ver. 17). Eidére οὖν, 
«To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, it is 
sin:” so Menander saith, εὐηϑία μοι φαίνεται δηλουμένη τὸ νοεῖν 
μὲν ὅσα δεῖ, μὴ φυλάττεσϑαι ὁ' ἃ δεῖ, “It is manifest folly 
to know what we ought to do, and not to do it” (Apud 
Stob. serm. 4, p. 53). 

12 Ver. 16. Niv dé καυχᾶσϑε ἐν ταῖς ἀλαζωνείαις ὑμῶν" πᾶσα 


* Plat. Alcib. 1, in fine. 


952 


boastings, and talking as if you were immortal, and inde- 
pendent upon providence, are guilty of an evil exaltation, 
and vain boasting.) 

17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and 
doeth it not, to him itis sin. (Jf after my admonilion 
to avoid this and other crimes, you continue in them, 
ye will be inexcusably guilty of sin, John xv. 22, and 


JAMES. 


the guilt of il will abide upon you, John ix. 41, as it 
will also in all other things done against knowledge, 
and the convictions of your consciénce: for in such 
things the heart departs from and rebels against the 
Tord; he that thus sins, despiseth the word of the 
Lord, and reproacheth him that spake it, Numb. xv. 
30, 31.) 


καύχησις, &c.] These words I would render thus, « But now 
ye vaunt yourselves in your boastings; all such vaunting is 


evil:” i. e. Ye boast how much ye will gain, and then what 
brave men ye will be. 


CHAPTER V. 


1 ! Go to now, ye rich men (of the Jewish nation, ye 
will have cause to) weep and how] for your miseries that 
shall come (Gr. are coming) upon you. 

2 Your riches are corrupted (or, are as things putre- 
Jied by being kept too long), and your garments are 
(become) motheaten (they being laid up in your ward- 
robes, and not used to clothe your naked brother, shall 
be as useless to you as if they were devoured by the 


pee 

3 Your gold and silver is cankered (or eaten out 
with rust); and the rust of them shall be a witness 
against you (of your covetous and worldly minds), 


2and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have 
heaped treasure together for the last days (Gr. It shall 
eat your flesh as fire, ye have treasured it up for the last 
days). 

4 hold, the 3 hire of the labourers who have 
reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back 
by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have 
reaped (and are thus defrauded of their wages by you) 
are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. 

5 4 Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and 
been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in 
(or for) 5 a day of slaughter. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1Ver. 1. “Aye viv, Go to now.] This is only a form of 
transition (iv. 13), and converting of speech to any person ; 
as if he should have said, And now to speak to you that 
are rich, I call upon you to weep, &e. 

That this prediction was exactly fulfilled by the slaughter 
and spoiling of the rich Jews throughout Galilee and Judea, 
Josephus* will not suffer us to doubt: for he informs us, 
that “the zealots spared none but those who were ταπεινοὶ 
διὰ τυχὴν, poor and low in fortune ;”’ and that they-were so 
insatiably rapacious, that they searched all the houses of the 
rich, killing the men, and abusing the women: and that it 
also was fulfilled touching those of the dispersion, see the 
preface, §. 5, 6. 

2 Ver. 3. It shall eat your flesh as fire, ἐν ἐσχάταις ἡμέ- 
pats, in the last days.| As the rust eats into the gold and 
silver, so shall your flesh and substance be eaten up as with 
fire, as if you had treasured up fire in the midst of it. 
For, 

First, This is a frequent metaphor among the prophets, 
who often speak of the fire eating up the wicked, and de- 
vouring their flesh ; “ Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven 
in the time of thy wrath, καὶ καταφάγεται αὐτοὺς πῦρ, and 
the fire shall eat them up,” Ps. xxi. 9; “The light of Israel 
shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall 
burn, καὶ φάγεται, and eat up his thorns and briers in one 
day, καὶ καταφάγεται ἀπὸ ψυχῆς ἕως σαρκῶν, and it shall eat 
up from the soul to the flesh,” Isa. x. 16, 17 ; nip τοὺς ἐναν- 
τίους ἔδεται, *The fire shall eat up the adversaries,” xxvii. 
11; “Behold, the name of the Lord cemeth forth from far, 
burning with anger, καὶ ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ ϑυμοῦ ὡς πῦρ ἔδεται, and 
the anger of his fury shall eat as the fire,’ xxx. 11; “Βε- 
hold, I will make my word in thy mouth fire, and this peo- 
ple wood, καὶ καταφάγεται αὐτοὺς, and it shall eat them up,” 
Jer. v. 14; “ They shall go out from one fire, καὶ rip αὐτοὺς 
καταφάγεται, and another fire shall eat them up,” Ezek. xv. 
7; “I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, and the 
fire, xaraddyerai σε, shall eat thee up,” see Amos νυ, 6. 

Secondly, This was punctually fulfilled in the destruction 
of that nation by their own seditions and the Roman wars: 
for, amongst the sicarii and the zealots, the ringleaders of all 
their seditions, it was a crime enough to be rich; and their 
insatiable avarice induced them still to make, τῶν πλουσίων 
οἴκων ἔρευναν, “a search into the houses of the rich.” For 
them to remain among these tyrants was destruction ; “ for 


* De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 20, 34, lib. iv. cap. 19. 


by false accusations they were slain as deserters,’”* for their 
substance. Yea, both their substance and their flesh were 
devoured by the flames,t which burnt up the city and the 
temple, “and so consumed both their dead bodies, and their 
substance, and their wardrobes ;” and that which remained 
became a prey to the army of the Romans. See the like 
done in their dispersions, preface, §. 6. 

3 Ver. 4. 'Ο μισϑὸς, The hire.] The precept in the law 
touching this matter running thus, “Thou shalt not defraud 
thy neighbour—the wages of him that is hired shall not abide 
with thee all night until the morning,” Lev. xix, 13, this 
keeping of it back is truly styled fraud and oppression ; and 
all sins of that nature cry to heaven for vengeance on the 
fraudulent oppressor. So “the cry” of the Israelites under 
their oppression in the land of Egypt, “came up’’ to God, 
Exod. ii. 23, iii. 7; «The cry of the afflicted widow and the 
fatherless,” Exod. xxii. 27; “The cry of the poor and the 
afflicted,” Job xxxiv. 28, Ps. ix. 12; “ The cry of him that 
wants his pledge to cover him,” Exod. xxii. 27; and the 
cry of him whose wages is kept back. “Thou shalt not op- 
press a hired servant that is poor and needy; at his day thou 
shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon 
it—lest he cry against thee to the Lord, and it be a sin unto 
thee,” Deut. xxiv. 14, 15. 

4 Ver. 5. ᾿Ετρυφήσατε καὶ ἐσπαταλήσατε, Ye have lived in 
pleasure, and been wanton.) The first word, ἐτρυφήσατε, say 
critics, refers to their luxurious eating; the second, ἐσπατα- 
λήσατε, to their carnal lustings and lasciviousnesss (1 Tim. v. 
6, Ezek. xvi. 49), both which were vices the Jews then were 
very subject to, eating and drinking to excess in their feasts 
(see note on 1 Cor. xi. 21); and were, saith Tacitus,+ pro- 
jectissima ad libidinem gens, “a nation very prone to lust.” 

5 As for a day of slaughter.) i.e. As the sacrifices, which 
are first fattened and then slaughtered, saith the Chaldee 
paraphrase on those words, “The enemies of the Lord shall 
be as the fat of lambs,” Ps. xxxvii. 20 (see Examen Millii). 


* Tots ye μὴν εὐπόροις, καὶ τὸ μένειν πρὸς ἀπώλειαν ἴσον ἦν" 
προφάσει γὰρ αὐτομολίας ἀνηρεῖτό τις διὰ τὴν οὐσίαν. De Bell. Jud. 
lib. vi. cap. 27, F. οἱ ἐν ἀξιώματι καὶ πλούτῳ πρὸς τοὺς τυράννους 
ἀνήγοντο, τούτων οἱ μὲν ἐπιβουλὰς Ψευδεῖς ἐπικαλούμενοι διεφϑείροντο, 
οἱ δὲ ὡς προδιόοῖεν ἱ Ρωμαίοις τὴν πόλιν. Ibid. p. 931, 932, F. 

ἡ “Exatoy dé καὶ τὰ γαζοφυλάκια ἐν οἷς ἄπειρον μὲν χρημάτων 
πλῆϑος, ἄπειροι δ᾽ ἐσθῆτες καὶ ἄλλα κειμήλια" συνελόντι δ᾽ εἰπεῖν, πᾶς 
6 Ιουδαίων ἐσεσώρευτο πλοῦτος ἀνασκευασμένον ἐκεῖ τῶν οἴκων τῶν 
εὐπόρων. Lib. vii. cap. 29, p. 959, G. Vide cap. 32, p. 962, 
B. cap. 37, p. 964, F. cap. 46, p. 969, B. cap. 34, p. 990, E. 

+ Hist. lib. v. ab initio. 


CHAPTER V. 


6 Ye have condemned δ and killed the just; and he 
doth not resist you. 

7 Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming 
of the Lord (to avenge you of these murderers). Be- 
hold, the 7 husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit 
of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he re- 
ceive the early and latter rain (the first to make the corn 
sown swell and grow up, the latter to make the ear plump 
before harvest). 

8 Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts (in ex- 
pba of this advent): for ὃ the coming of the Lord 

raweth nigh. 

9 5 Grudge not (Gr. groan nol) one against another, 
brethren (as men impatient, and desiring vengeance, 
use to do), lest ye be condemned (as wanting in that 
patience, which ought to have its perfect work in you; 
and in that Christian charity, which requires you to 
pray for mercy, and not to cry for vengeance on your 
enemies): behold, the judge (who will plead your 


953 


cause against your perseculing brethren) standeth before 


“the door. 


10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have 
spoken (to you Jews) in the name of the Lord, for an 
example of suffering affliction, and of patience (7. δ. 
of patient suffering ; for they had experience of cruel mock- 
ings, and of death, and yet they suffered these things pa- 
tiently). 

Tt Behold, we count them happy which endure (af- 
flictions for righteousness’ sake, and for the trial of 
their faith, Matt. v. 12, 1 Pet. iv. 14). Ye have 
heard of the 1 patience of Job, and have seen (7. ¢. 
known) the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very 
pitiful, and of tender mercy (as then he was to him a 
deliverer, and a rewarder of his patience, so will he be to 

ou). 

ty " But above all things, my brethren, swear not, 
neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any 
other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay 


6 Ver. 6. 'Epovetcare, Ye have killed, ὅς. Here GEcume- 
nius saith, ἀναντιῤῥήτως τὸ ἑψονεύσατε δίκαιον ἐπὶ τὸν Χριστὸν 
ἀναφέρεται, “This is undoubtedly to be referred to Christ, 
who is emphatically styled the Just One,” Acts iii. 14, vii. 
52, xxii. 14. So Justin Martyr," ἀπεκτείνατε τὸν δίκαιον, “Ye 
have killed the Just One, and before him the prophets.” 
But against this interpretation it is objected by Esthius, 
(1.) That the apostle here speaks by way of distinction to 
the rich, who dragged the Christians before the tribunals ; 
whereas the death of Christ is imputed to the princes and 
Tulers of the Jews, and to the people in general, Acts iii. 14, 
vii. 52, xiii. 27,28. (2.) It is said in the present tense, 
“And he doth not resist you;” whereas, had this been 
spoken of Christ, it should have been said, “He did not 
resist you:” and therefore Gicumenius doth acknowledge 
this is to be extended also to all those just men, Stephen, 
and others who suflered in like manner from the Jews, ac- 
cording to our Lord's prediction, Matt. xxiv. 9, and Paul’s 
confession, that before his conversion he “ persecuted this 
way unto the death,” Acts xxii. 4. Hence this passage is 
connected to the ensuing words directed to the Christians 
in general, by this particle, “ therefore.” 

7 Ver. 7. The husbandman waiteth, δες. So the Targum 
of Jonathan on 2 Sam. xxiii. 4 compareth those who expect 
“the years of consolation” to the husbandman, who in a 
year of drought waiteth for rain upon the earth (see the 
text defended, Examen Millii). 

8 Ver. 8. Ἢ παρουσία rod Κυρίου ἤγγικε, The coming of the 
Lord is at hand.) He speaks, saith CEcumenius,t “ of the 
coming of the Romans to captivate the Jews, which he calls 
The coming of our Lord;” as John does, ch. xxi. xxii. And 
this exposition is confirmed, (1.) from the constant use of 
the like phrase, ἐγγὺς ἡμέρα Κυρίου, “The day of the Lord is 
at hand,” Isa. xiii. 6, Ezek. xxx. 3, Joel i. 15, ii. 1, iii. 14, 
Obad. ver. 15, Zeph. i. 7. 14. From the evils which he 
saith are coming on the rich, ver. 1, and which then especi- 
ally came upon them. (2.) From his saying, This coming 
“is at hand,” and “ The Judge standeth at the door” (ver. 
9), or in Peter’s phrase, τὸ τέλος ἤγγικε, “ The end is at hand” 
(1 Pet. iv. 7), which answers exactly to the words of Christ, 
touching the destruction of Jerusalem, “Then shall τὸ τέλος, 
the end come” (Matt. xxiv. 14); «It is near, ἐπὶ Spars, even 
at the door” (ver. 33); “Her desolation, ἤγγικε, draweth 
nigh” (Luke xxi. 20, see note on Phil. iv. 5). And this 
was a true ground for patience, and answers the objection 
of Esthius against this exposition. 

9 Ver. 9. Μὴ στενάζετε, Groan not.] These groanings in 
the scripture have a voice and cry ; and God is said to hear 
them. Thus “the children of Israel groaned, by reason of 
their hard bondage, κατεστέναξαν" and their cry came up to 
God” (Exod. ii. 23): and the Spirit is said to intercede in 


* Dial. cum Tryph. p. 234. 
ἡ Λέγει δὲ τὴν 'Ρωμαϊκὴν ἔφοδον, καὶ τὴν ὑπὸ τούτων αἱχμαλω- 
σίαν, τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ἣν καὶ παρουσίαν καλεῖ τοῦ Κυρίου ᾿Ιωάννης. 


Cap. v. 22. 
Vot. IV.—120 


Christ’s suffering members, “ with groans unuttered” (Rom. 
viii. 26). Thus David prays that God would “hear the 
voice of his groanings,” and “the groanings of the prisoners” 
(Ps. cii. 5. 20). These groanings, when they are only the 
natural issues of an afflicted soul, move God to pity (Judg. 
ii. 18), and to remember us in mercy (Exod. vi. 5); but 
when they are the fruits of impatience under troubles, and 
a desire of revenge upon our enemies, they tend to our con- 
demnation; and the persecuting Jews, being of the same 
stock with the converted Jews, their groaning against them 
is styled “ groaning against one another.” 

It is the observation of Justin,* that the converts among 
the gentiles were not only more than those among the Jews 
and the Samaritans, but also that they were better Christians, 
and more truly so; for these Jewish converts were still lea- 
vened with an expectation of a temporal kingdom, and of 
liberty frofh the Roman yoke, and the dominion over all 
heathen governors. Whence the apostles do so frequently 
enjoin them to be “subject to the higher powers” (Rom. 
xill. 1), to be “subject to principalities and powers” (Tit. 
iii. 1), to be “ subject to every human ordinance,” and “not 
use the liberty to which they were called as a cloak of mali- 
ciousness (1 Pet. ii, 13. 16. Now these, as Dr. Hammond 
well observes, lived intermixed with the unconverted Jews 
and zealots, who were still grudging and contending against 
all that would not stand up for liberty and fight for this 
temporal kingdom, “accounting them no better than the 
very heathens,” on that account: and these may be the 
grudgers here intended. 

10 Ver. 11. The patience of Job.| Hence may we very 
probably conclude, that what is written in the book of Job 
is truly a history of what happened to him: and not, as 
some conceive, a parable or fiction of a thing not truly done: 
for feigned things contain no serious motives to, nor just ex- 
amples of patience. (2.) We find this holy man numbered 
with Noah and Daniel, as persons very prevalent in prayer, 
Ezek. xiv. 14. 20. As therefore Noah and Daniel were per- 
sons truly prevalent in their supplications, Gen. viii. 21, Dan. 
ix. 23, so also Job must be, as he is represented, xliii. 8. 10. 

1 Ver. 12. Μὴ ὀμνύετε, Swear not.] 1. 6. Let not your 
afflictions move you to use rash oaths, as men are wont to 
do when much provoked. hat rash oaths only are forbid- 
den here, and Matt. v. 34, see the note there: the oaths here 
forbidden being such as our impatience under sufferings and 
our unbridled passions do produce; or else the oaths forbid- 
den here may be illusive oaths, viz. such as the Jews were 
free to use, because they thought they did not bind (see 
note on Matt. ix. 34), and so were free to make, to purchase 
their deliverance. 


* Πλείονας καὶ ἀληθεστέρους τῶν ἀπὸ ᾿Ιουδαίων καὶ Σαμαρέων 
Χριστιανοὺς εἰδότες. Apol. ii. p. 88, B. 

ἡ Οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀλλοφύλων αὐτοὺς ἔφασκον διαφέρειν, οὕτως ἀγεννῶς 
τὸν περιμάχητον ᾿Ιουδαίοις ἐλευθερίαν προιεμένους, καὶ δουλείαν av 
ρεῖσθαι τὴν ὑπὸ Ρωμαίοις ἀνωμολογηκότας, Joseph. de Bello Jud 
lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 985, F. 

452 


954 


(t. δ. let your actions be agreeable to your words, sce note 
on 2 Cor. i. 17); 15 Jest ye fall into condemnation. 

13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray (to God 
to alleviate and sanctify his affliction). Is any merry? 
let him sing psalms (of praise to that God, who hath 
given him this cheerfulness of spirit). 

14 Is any (man) sick among you? ® let him call 
for the elders of the church; and let them pray over 


JAMES. 


him, ™ anointing him with oil in the name of the 
Lord: 

15 % And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, 
and the Lord (in answer to this prayer of faith) shall 
raise him up; and if he * have committed (such) sins 
(as brought this sickness on him), they shall be forgiven 
him (upon this prayer of faith). 

16 Confess (therefore) your faults one to another, 


2 “Ἵνα μὴ ὑπὸ κρίσιν πέσητε, That ye full not into condemna- 
tion.] Some copies read εἰς ὑπόκρισιν, “into hypocrisy :’”’ but, 
(1.) this reading is not found in many copies. (2.) The 
apostle, ver. 9, puts them in mind of “the Judge standing 
at the door,” requiring them not to “ grudge against one an- 
other, lest they be condemned” by him; it is therefore far 
more probable he speaketh also here of condemnation by 
the judge. (3.) To be false to the oath of God is perjury 
in the proper sense, for which God threatens he « will not 
hold the offender guiltless,” but is not properly hypocrisy. 
If therefore this had been the meaning of James, Swear 
not, lest you be tempted to the violation of your oaths; he 
should have called that perjury, not hypocrisy. 

13 Ver. 14. Προσκαλεσᾶσθϑω τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους τῆς ἐκκλησίας, 
The elders of the church.| That it was the office of the 
presbyters, ἐπισκέπτεσθαι πάντας ἀσθενεῖς, “to visit all the 
sick,” we learn from the Epistle of Polycarp, ad Philip. 
§.6. But that these presbyters should be bishops properly so 
called, as some conceive, seems not very probable; for then 
it must not only be the office of the bishop personally to 
visit the sick, but the duty of every sick person to send to 
him, and to no other. Yea, there must be more than one 
bishop in the church of which the sick man is a member, 
and he must be obliged to send to more; for the text runs 
wholly in the plural, “Let him call for the elders of the 
church, καὶ προσευξζάσϑωσαν, and let them” (not one of them) 
“pray over him;” and therefore the sick man must be 
obliged, by this text, to call for more than one of them, 
where more were to be had, as we know there were in the 
primitive constitution of the church. 

M4 Anointing him with οἱ! This was agreeable to the 
practice of the Jews,* who anointed the sick, pro more, 
customarily, saith their tradition: hence, though our Lord 
only commissionated his disciples to “heal the sick,” Matt. 
x. 8, Luke ix. 2, yet Mark informs us that they added their 
usual ceremonies in doing this, for they “anointed many 
that were sick with oil, and healed them” (Mark vi. 13) ; 
and James, speaking to the elders of the Jews, bids them 
use this unction “in the name of the Lord,” as doubtless 
the apostles did; as in casting out of devils, Luke x. 17, so 
in healing the sick, Acts iii. 16, iv. 10. 30, and this addition 
made the cure miraculous. 

15 Ver. 15. Ἢ. εὐχὴ τῆς πίστεως, And the prayer of faith 
shall save the sick.) Among the χαρίσματα, or the miracu- 
lous and extraordinary gifts, vouchsafed at first to the preach- 
ers of the gospel, and to the rulers or elders of the churches, 
was “the gift of faith,” as in these words, “To another is 
given faith by the same Spirit,” 1 Cor. xii. 9, i. 6. by a strong 
impulse of the Spirit, fully persuading them that God would 
enable them to do this or that. This seems to be that faith 
which is styled πίστις Θεοῦ, “the faith of God,” to which 
even the removing of mountains, or the performing things 
most difficult and extraordinary, is promised, Mark xi. 22, 
23, Matt. xxi. 21, and of which the apostle speaks, saying, 
“Tf I had all faith so as to remove mountains,” 1 Cor. xili. 
2; and by which they healed the sick, “even by faith in his 
name,” Acts iii. 16: and therefore this is here promised, 
that where the prayer of the elders was attended with such 
a faith, it should still be successful for the healing of the sick, 
or the raising him up again from the bed of sickness; for 
σώσει, “ will save,” is ἐγερεῖ, “ he will raise him up.” 

16 And if he hath committed sins.] i. e. Such sins for 
which God was pleased to inflict this bodily disease upon 
him, as he did on the members of the church of Corinth, for 
their disorderly celebrating the Lord’s supper; “for which 
cause,” saith the apostle, «many are weak and sickly among 
you” (1 Cor. xi. 30), they being thus “chastened of the 


* See Light. in Matt. vi. 17. 


Lord” (ver. 32) ; and where the sickness is by way of chas- 
tisement, the healing it is a testimony of God’s forgiveness of 
it. Hence, “Thy sins be forgiven,” is our Lord’s usual 
expression when he healed the sick (Matt. ix. 2. 6, 7; see the 
note there), according to those words of the prophet Isaiah, 
« The inhabitants shall not say they are sick, the people shall 
be forgiven their iniquity” (xxxiii. 24). Hence it is evident 
that here is no foundation for the sacrament of extreme unc- 
tion, called by the Romish church “the sacrament of the 
dying,” and administered for the purgation of their sins when 
they seem past hopes of recovery ; for how can they gather a 
sacrament of extreme unction from an unction that is not 
extreme, or a perpetual ordinance from an action that was 
extraordinary and miraculous, and is long since ceased ? how 
can they prove a sacrament that is proper to dying persons, 
from a rite used only upon persons who were not to die, but 
to be raised up from sickness? or promise to him forgiveness 
of his sins, to whom they cannot promise that recovery which 
was the token of it? Moreover, the things already observed 
afford us a sufficient answer to the objections of Esthius 
against our exposition, which are these : 

Obj. 1. First, That the grace of miracles extended not to 
spiritual effects, as the forgiveness of sins, but to temporal. 

Ans. This is said in flat contradiction to our Lord, who 
doth so often preface his miraculous cures of the sick with 
this expression, “ Thy sins are forgiven thee,” Matt. ix. 2. 
Nor was this forgiveness so much a spiritual effect as tempo- 
ral, it being only the remission of a temporal punishment of 
sin, viz. sickness inflicted for it. 

Obj. 2. Had the apostle spoke of miraculous cures, he 
would only have advised them to call those who had the gift 
of healing, whether presbyters or not; not the presbyters, 
and them only. 

Ans. He reasonably adviseth to call them, and them only, 
to pray over the sick, who were by office appointed for that 
work, and doth here only tell them what they might expect 
from it, when that iniraculous faith was raised in thern which 
often, in those times of miracles, accompanied their prayers. 

Obj. 3. The apostle speaks of a sick Christian brother to 
be anointed by a faithful presbyter, whereas the use of mi- 
racles was chiefly for converting infidels: and hence this unc- 
tion was not used towards Trophimus, left at Miletum sick 
(2 Tim. iv. 20), or to Epaphroditus, sick near unto death 
(Phil. ii. 27). 

Ans. If it were not used by Paul to them, and especially 
to Epaphroditus, it is certain that he knew nothing of this 
sacrament. (2.) Esthius has no cause to assert that of mi- 
racles in general, which the apostle saith only of the gift of 
tongues, that they were only for unbelievers; the gift of 
healing, for aught he knows to the contrary, might be still 
exercised upon believers, but only under the conduct of the 
Spirit raising up this miraculous faith, which assured them 
of it in respect to some, and not to others, as he saw fit (see 
note on Phil. ii. 27). ἢ 

Obj. 4. ‘That had the apostle intended miraculous healing, 
oil had not been prescribed ; Christ having said they should 
“Jay their hands on the sick” only, Mark xvi. 18. 

Ans. One ceremony excludes not the other; moreover, 
laying on of hands is there prescribed in preaching to the 
gentiles, anointing with oil here to the Jews, as being cus- 
tomary in case of sickness. 

Obj. 5. All the other things delivered in this epistle be- 
long to the Christians of all ages; this therefore must do so 
too. 

Ans. As if this hindered the apostles, as they had occa- 
sion, to give rules touching the spiritual gifts proper to their 
own times; that, when they spake of other matters not to 
cease, their precepts reach unto all times. Peter, in his fol- 
lowing epistle, hath one direction concerning those spiritual 


PREFACE TO I. PETER. 


and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The 
ἡ effectual fervent (Gr. the inspired ) prayer of a right- 
eous man availeth much. 

17 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we 
are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: | 
and it rained not on the earth by the space of * three 
years and six months. ] 


955 


18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, 
and the earth brought forth her fruit. 

19 Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and 
one convert him ; 

20 Let him know, that he which converteth the sin- 
ner from the error of his way shall save a soul from 
death, and ® shall hide a multitude of sins. 


gifts, 1 Pet. iv, 10, 11, though the other precepts contained | 
in that epistle do concern all ages. 

7 Ver. 16. Δέησις ἐνεργουμένη, The inspired prayer.) As 
they who were inwardly acted by an evil spirit were styled | 
ἐνεργούμενοι, SO they that were acted by the Holy Spirit, and 
inwardly moved by his impulses, were also ἐνεργούμενοι, in the 
good sense; and therefore it seems most proper to apply | 
these words, not to the prayer of every righteous person, but | 
to the prayer offered by such an extraordinary impulse: not 
only from the force of this expression, but, (2.) from the 
same thing here mentioned as the subject of this prayer, that | 
our sick brother may be healed, which was to be done by | 
the prayer of faith (ver. 15). (3.) From the example of 
Elias, for his prayer was the prayer of faith in the sense now 
mentioned ; for he absolutely foretold, and confirmed it with 
an oath, that there “should be no rain those years, but ac- | 


cording to his word,” 1 Kings xvii. 1. And his prayer for 
rain was upon God's promise to “send rain upon the earth,” 
xviii. 1. 

18 Ver. 17. Three years and six months.] So Luke iv. 35. 
When therefore it is said, that Elijah came to Ahab the 
third year, and the Lord said, I will send rain upon the 
earth ;” note, that Elias tarried before a year at the brook 
Kerith, and then in the middle of the third year came to 
Ahab. 

19 Ver. 20. Shall hide, &c.] This seemeth to be meant, 
not of the sins of the person thus converted (for the saving 
of his soul includes the remission of his sins), but of the 
sins of him that converts him ; i. e. this charitable work shall 
be so pleasing to God, as to prevail with him to cover many 
of his own sins. 


ἘΠΕ oe a ly 


EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. PETER, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Concenn1né this epistle, allowed by the church of all ages 
to be the genuine work of the apostle Peter, it may be in- 
quired, 1. When? 2. Whence? 3, ΤῸ whom? 4. On what 
account, it was written? And, 

Quest. 1. First, Whereas it is ordinarily affirmed by the 
Romanists, that this epistle was written in the forty-fourth 
year of Christ ; as that opinion seems to have been taken up 
by them in favour of their avowed tenet, that Peter was 
twenty-five years in that see; and therefore, he dying in the 
year of our Lord 69, must have come thither in the year 
44; so is it easily confuted, both from this epistle, and by 
many other cogent arguments. 

1. From these words of this epistle, iv. 8, rd τέλος. πάντων 
ἤγγικε, “ The end of all things is at hand :” that is, saith Dr. 
Hammond, who also follows this opinion, “The great and 
fatal destruction to the obdurate Jews, so often spoken of by 
Christ and his apostles, is now near at hand.” Which could 
not have been said in the forty-fourth year of Christ, that is, 
about twenty-six years before it happened ; seeing the apostle 
Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (writ, saith 
the reverend Dr. Hammond, A. D. 51), warneth the Thes- 
salonians “not to be shaken by any word or epistle, as com- 
ing from” the apostles, which intimated that “ the coming of 
the Lord was at hand ;’’ and so he must have contradicted 
Peter, had he delivered this positively seven years before. 
(2.) The apostle James hath the like expressions, saying, ἡ 
παρουσία rod Κυρίου ἤγγικε, “The coming of the Lord draw- 
eth near,”’ v. 8, “ Behold the Judge stands πρὸ τῶν ϑυρῶν, be- 
fore the door.” Whence Dr. Hammond and Dr. Lightfoot 
well conclude, that this epistle could not be written long be- 
fore the death of James, which happened in the year 63, 


And this argument concludes as strongly for this epistle’s 
being indited after the same time. Add to this, that these 
expressions, τέλος, ἡ παρουσία τοὺ Κυρίου ἤγγικε, “The end, the 
coming of the Lord is at hand,” and, πρὸ τῶν ϑυρῶν, “ before 
the door,” are plainly taken from our Saviour’s words, in 
his prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem ; where also 
the time is fixed by two remarkable characters: (1.) “ When 
you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with armies, then 
know ye, ὅτι ἤγγικεν ἐρήμωσις αὐτῆς, that her desolation draw- 
eth near,’ Luke xxi. 20: that is, saith Dr. Hammond, 
“When you see Jerusalem besieged by the Romans, then 
know the destruction of the city is near.” Now this hap- 
pened not at all till the twelfth of Nero, and the sixty-sixth 
year of our Lord, when Cestius* besieged Jerusalem: it 
happened not, say the best interpreters, according to the 
words of the evangelist, till the year 68, when Vespasian 
coming thither, his armyt compassed the city round about. 
« These,” saith Luke, “are the days of vengeance, when all 
things which are written shall be fulfilled,” ver. 22; and 
“then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds,” 
ver. 27. Again, our Lord having foretold all the signs of 
his coming, καὶ τῆς συντελείας. and of the end of the Jewish 
age, adds, “ When you shall see all these things come to 
pass, then know that this desolation, ἐγγύς ἐστιν ἐπὶ ϑύραις, is 
nigh, even at the door,” Matt. xxiv. 33, Mark xiii. 29, 
clearly showing that phrase importeth still a nearer approach 
of that great desolation. 

Secondly, That Peter was not at Rome, nor departed 
from Judea, till a long time after the forty-fourth year of 
Christ, is so evident from the history of the Acts, and the 


* Joseph. de Bello Jud. lib. ii. cap. 39. 
Eipyev ἢ στρατιὰ πανταχόθεν τὴν πύλιν περιέχουσα. 


lib. v. cap. 28, p. 893, Β. 


Ibid. 


956 


epistles of Paul, that he that runs may read it. Tor, that 
Luke, in a history designed especially to record the acts of 
Peter and Paul, should omit a matter of such vast moment 
and importance to the whole Christian world, happening 
within that very time in which he speaketh of Peter: that, 
saying of him, xii. 17, “He departed, and went to another 
place ;” he should not say, as Bellarmine and Baronius, that 
place was Rome, but, in flat contradiction to them, that “he 
went down from Judea to Cesarea, and there abode ;” ver. 
19; that he should tell us how Aquila and Priscilla came 
from Italy, because Claudius had commanded that all the 
Jews should depart from Rome; but should not tell us, as 
they do, that Peter came thence to Jerusalem on the same 
account, and therefore was found present at the council of 
Jerusalem about six years after ; but speak of him there, as 
if he never had left Jerusalem : that in this council he should 
urge, against the necessity of imposing circumcision on the 
gentiles, only the example of Cornelius and his kinsmen, 
converted and not circumcised ; and say not one word of the 
church of Rome, the seat of all spiritual power and infalli- 
bility, and to which all other churches were to veil, and do 
homage, converted by him in like manner, and free also from 
the yoke of circumcision: nay, that he should not mention 
that ever he was there, in a history continued tll the fifth of 
Nero, though he mentions his travels to, his preaching and 
abode at, several other places: these, sure, are things suffi- 
cient to convince all unprejudiced persons, that Peter was 
not then at Rome, 

Thirdly, The same may strongly be concluded from the 
epistles of Paul. For about the year 57, saith Bishop Pear- 
son, he writ his Epistle to the Romans, in which he spends 
the greatest part of one chapter in saluting particular persons 
that were there: but yet we find no salutation to Peter, who, 
had he been then at Rome, would doubtless have been men- 
tioned in the first place; and yet, in so large an epistle, he 
neither is directly nor indirectly taken notice of. Moreover, 
Paul himself, in the beginning, intimates his earnest desire 
to come thither, that he might “impart unto them some spi- 
ritual gifts, to the end they might be established” in the 
faith ; for which there could be no apparent cause, had the 
apostle Peter been there so long before him. Paul himself 
soon after comes to Rome; which, when the brethren heard 
of, they “came to meet him, as far as Appii Forum,” Acts 
xxviii. 15 ; but not a word of Peter either coming or sending 
to him. When he is come, he goes not to sojourn with, or 
so much as to salute Peter (which sure he would have done, 
if he had been there), but dwells in his own hired house. 
Being come, he calls the chief of the Jews together, who 
desire to hear of him what he thought of the sect of the 
Christians, they knowing this only of it, that “it was every 
where spoken against,” ver. 22. What then had Peter, the 
apostle of the circumcision, been doing all this while among 
them? And how unlikely is it that there should be then, 
as Dr. Hammond* saith, a church consisting much of the 
Jews residing there? And how reflecting on the supposed 
labours of Peter, among the Jews there, are the following 
words, ver. 26—28, that “ because they would not hear, or 
be converted, he would not leave them to St. Peter, but turn 
unto the gentiles,” who would hear? After his coming to 
Rome, he writes epistles to several churches, to the Ephe- 
sians, Philippians, Colossians, and one to Philemon; in 
which two last we have sent from Rome the salutation of 
Aristarchus, Marcus, Justus, Epaphras, Luke, and Demas, 
Col. iv. 10. 14, Philem. ver. 23, 24, but not a word from 
Peter. In that to the Colossians, he tells them, he had no 
other helpers, or fellow-workers, unto the kingdom of God, 
among the Jews, which had been a comfort to him, but Aris- 
tarchus, Marcus, and Justus, iv. 10,11, which evidently ex- 
cludes Peter. In his Epistle to Timothy, he saith, that at 


* Preface to the Epistle to the Romans, 


PREFACE TO I. PETER. 


his first answer to Rome, “all men forsook him,” 2 Tim. iv. 
16, which we can hardly believe, had Peter been there. He 
adds, that “ only Luke was with him;” that Crescens was 
gone to this place, Titus to that, and Tychicus was left at 
another. Strange therefore it is, that if Peter was then gone 
from Rome, Paul should take no notice of it. Was he a 
person so inconsiderable, as not to deserve to be remembered 1 
Or was he gone upon a sleeveless errand, not worthy of the 
notice of Paul? Or was he not rather one who, being not 
at Rome, could give Paul no reason to take notice of him, 
when he writ from thence? But this subject is so fully 
handled, and the hypothesis of Baronius so learnedly con- 
futed by Dr. Cave,* that it is superfluous to insist longer on 
this subject. 

Quest. 2. To the second inquiry, Whence this epistle was 
indited? I have returned a sufficient answer in the note 
upon these words, ν. 13, “The church which is at Babylon 
saluteth you;” by showing that by Babylon Rome is to be 
understood ; whence this epistle must be therefore written: 
and then it must be written after the persecution in the 
tenth of Nero, at which time neither Paul nor Peter was at 
Rome. 

Quest. 3. That it was written to the Jews dispersed 
through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia (Minor), and 
Bithynia, the inscriptiont shows; but that it must be also 
written either to the gentiles proselyted to the Jewish reli- 
gion, of whom see the note on 1 Pet. i. 1, or to the converts 
of the twelve tribes scattered among the heathens, and there 
serving their gods, according to the threat denounced upon 
them, Deut. xxviii. 36. 64, that they “should serve other 
gods, which neither they nor their fathers had known,” seems 
evident from these words, that they were “delivered from 
their vain conversation, delivered to them from their fathers,” 
1. 18 (see the note there): that, “ in times past they were not 
the people, but now are the people of God: that they had 
not obtained mercy, but now had obtained mercy,” ii. 10; 
which words were spoken of the ten tribes, Hos. i, 10, ii. 23, 
and that the time past might suffice them to have done the 
will of the gentiles, when they «walked in lasciviousness, 
lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abomina- 
ble idolatries,” iv. 3. 

To imagine that the apostle is here speaking of « the dis- 
persion,” mentioned Acts viii. 1, is to speak what is very 
improbable, they being dispersed only into the countries of 
Judea and Samaria, saith the text there: nor is it said that 
any travelled farther than Pheenice, Cyprus, and Antioch, 
xi. 19. Nor is it likely that many of them travelled so far, 
for the churches of Judea and Samaria having peace soon 
after this dispersion, Acts ix. 31, that any of them went to 
all or any of the places here mentioned by Peter, we have 
no reason to imagine ; but that there was long before a great 
dispersion of the Jews throughout these parts of Asia, see 
the note on James i. 1. 

Lastly, Upon what account this epistle was written, we 
may best learn from the epistle itself; which informs us, 
first, that it was written to encourage them to persevere, and 
to continue constant under these “manifold temptations,” i. 
6, those «fiery trials,” iv. 12, and “ persecutions,” ii. 3—5, 
they were then subject to. Secondly, to preserve them from 
being concerned in the Jewish wars, or bearing any part in 
that rebellion against Cxsar and his officers, which was then 
beginning among the Jews, ch. ii. from ver. 12 to 23, and 
iii. 16—18. And, thirdly, to engage them to lead a Christian 
conversation, that so they might bring over others to the 
Christian faith, ii. 12, iii. 1, and might stop the mouths of 
those who spake against them as evil-doers,” iii. 16. 


* In the Life of St. Peter. : 
+ Whence by Tertullian in Scorp. and by St. Cyprian, lib 
iii. Test. §. 39, it is styled Epistola Petri ad Ponticos. 


957 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Perer, an apostle of Jesus Christ, (writeth) to the 
' strangers * scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, 
Cappadocia, Asia (Minor), and Bithynia, 

2 (That is, to those of them who are) ὃ Elect * ac- 
cording to the foreknowledge of God the Father, 
5 through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience 
and (¢o the) ® sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: 


(wishing thal) grace unto you, and peace, (may) be 
multiplied. 

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, 7 which according to his abundant mercy 


| hath begotten us again unto a ® lively (Gr. ving) 


hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
dead, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. 1. 


1 Ver. 1. Παρεπιδήμοις, To the strangers.) He writes es- 
pecially to the dispersion of the Jews, to whom the word 
“strangers,” or foreigners, here chiefly doth belong ; but not to 
them only, for he speaks to them also who in time past had 
“ walked according to the will of the gentiles, in abominable 
idolatries” (iv. 3), and of them who “ formerly were not the 
people of God, and had not found mercy :” we therefore are 
to understand, that among them were many devout Greeks 
and proselytes of the gentiles, converted with them to the 
Christian faith. Thus, when Paul and Barnabas preached 
in the synagogue of the Jews at Iconium, “a great multitude 
both of Jews and Greeks believed” (Acts xiv. 1): and Paul 
preaching at Ephesus, and thereabouts, two years, prevailed 
so, “that all that dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord 
Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts xix. 10, see xvii. 4. 
12, xviii. 4). In the Acts of the Apostles, we read of pro- 
selytes of all nations, They were reckoned, in the days of 
David and Solomon, one hundred and fifty-three thousand 
six hundred persons (2 Chron. ii. 17). In the days of 
Artaxerxes, we are told, that πολλοὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν περιετέμνοντο, 
καὶ ᾿Ιουδάϊζον, “many of the heathens were circumcised, and 
turned Jews” (Esth. viii. 17). And so it was also in the 
succeeding ages; for Josephus* informs us, that after the 
times of Antiochus Epiphanes, “the Jews, in Antioch and 
other places, always converting to their worship a great 
many Greeks, made them, as it were, a part of themselves :” 
and at Damascus,} he saith, “ They would have destroyed 
the Jews among them, but that they feared their own wives, 
who all, except some few, were converts to the religion of 
the Jews.” 

2 Διασπορᾶς, Of the dispersion,] i. e. Dispersed through 
Pontus, &c. The apostle speaks not of the dispersion made 
by the persecution, mentioned Acts viii. 1; for that scattered 
the Christians only through Judea and Samaria (ibid) : nor 
were they afterward dispersed farther, by the malice of the 
Jews, but went themselves to preach the word, not in Asia, 
but in the parts of Syria, in Phcenice, Cyprus, and Antioch 
(Acts xi. 19). Of their dispersion thence into Asia we read 
not one word; but that there were great dispersions before 
of the Jews through the places here mentioned, from the 
time of the captivity under Shalmaneser, we learn from 
Agrippa’st address to Caius, wherg he informs him, that 
“they possessed most parts of Asia, to the utmost borders 
of Bithynia and Pontus.” 

3 Ver. 2. 'Exdexrots, Elect.] i. 6. To the converted Jews, 
styled “the elect,” Matt. xxiv. 22 (see the note on ii. 9). 
So also Gicumenius interprets these words, “to the elect,” 
that is, τοῖς ἀφωρισμένοις ἐκ τῶν ἄλλῶν ἐϑνῶν εἶναι λαὸν περιούσιον, 
“to them that are separated from other nations, to be his 
holy and peculiar people.” 

4 Kara πρόγνωσιν, According to the foreknowledge of God,} 
Discovered in the prophetical writings, which foretold of 
these blessings to be conveyed to them by the Messiah, who 
also is said to be foreknown before the foundation of the 
world ; i. 6. prophesied of from the beginning (Gen. iii. 15), 
but manifested in the last times for them (ver. 20). 


* "Aci προσαγόμενοι ταῖς ϑρησκείαις πολὺ πλῆθος Ἑλλήνων, 
κἀκείνους, τρόπῳ τινὶ, μοῖραν αὐτῶν ἐποίησαν. De Bell. Jud. lib. 
vii. p. 973, Β. 

ἡ ᾿Απάσας πλὴν ὀλίγων ὑπηγμένας τῇ ᾿Ιουδαϊκῃ θρησκείᾳ. Lib. 
ii. cap. 41, p. 822, B. 

$ Πολλὰ τῆς ᾿Ασίας ἄρχι Βιϑυνίας καὶ τῶν rod Πόντου μυχῶν. 


Philo, Legat. ad Caium. p. 798, C. 


5 Ἔν ἁγιασμῷ, Through sanctification of the Spirit,) The 
great principle of all true obedience: so, ver. 22, “ Having 
sanctified your souls, or lives, to the obedience of the truth 
through the Spirit. 

© Kai ῥαντισμὸν, And sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.) By 
way of obsignation of that covenant, by which we are en- 
gaged to that obedience: for so it was tn the delivery of the 
old law; for upon the reading of that covenant in the au- 
dience of all the people,,and upon their professing, “ All that 
the Lord hath said, we will do, and be obedient,” Moses 
took the blood, and sprinkled it upon the people, and said, 


| « Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath 


made with you concerning all these words,” Exod. xxiv. 7, 
8 (so Dr. Hammond). Or to that sprinkling of the blood 
of Jesus Christ which “cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 
i. 7); i.e. from all the sinful imperfections which cleave to 
our obedience, and by which the full pardon of our past sins 
is procured, and we obtain an entrance into the holy of 
holies (Heb. x. 19, 20), and which procures for us, not only 
acceptance upon earth, but “an inheritance in heaven” 
(Heb. ix. 15, xii. 24); whence this blood is styled, αἷμα 
ῥαντισμοῦ, “ the blood of sprinkling,” Heb. xii. 24. And of 
Christ it is said, “ He shall sprinkle many nations,” Isa. lii. 
15. 

7 Ver. 2. 'O Θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ, The God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. Here, saith Schlictingius, as formerly 
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, distinguisheth the one 
true God from any other; so now this phrase distinguisheth 
him who is called his “ God and Father,” from Jesus Christ. 
But yet the primitive fathers* thought otherwise; for they 
stiffly maintained, against the Gnostics, who held there was 
another God above the God of Abraham, &c. or the God of 
the Jews, that “he was the God and Father of all,” supra 
quem non est alius; and yet, that Jesus Christ was God, as 
being “in the Father from all eternity, and receiving the 
divine nature from him.” 

8 Els ἐλπίδα ζῶσαν, To a living hope.| Either a hope that 
giveth life, as ὕδωρ ζῶν, © living water,’ John iv. 10, 11. 14; 
ὃ ἄρτος ὃ ζῶν, “ the living bread which came down from hea- 
ven; of which if a man eat, he shall live for ever,” John vi. 
51, vii. 38; λόγια ζῶντα, “the living oracles,” Acts vii. 38, 
which if a man observe, saith Moses, “ he shall live by them,” 
Ley. xviii. 4 ; ὁδὸς ζῶσα, “a living way,” Heb. x. 20, as lead- 
ing to life eternal; and ζωῆς πηγαὶ, “living fountains of wa- 
ters,” Rev. vii. 17; for “by hope we are saved,” Rom. viii. 
24: or a hope that makes us active and lively, joyful and 
comfortable in our lives, “rejoicing in hope of the glory of 
God,” Rom. v. 2; in which sense it is said of the word of 
God, that it is ζῶν καὶ ἐνεργὴς, “ living and active,” Heb. iv. 12; 
of the members of Christ’s spiritual house that they are λίθοι 
ζῶντες, 1. e. “living stones,” | Pet. ii. 5; and we are bid to 
offer our bodies, ϑυσίαν ζῶσαν, “a living sacrifice,” Rom. xii. 
1. Hence it seems to follow, that the Jews before had not 
this “lively hope” which our Lord’s resurrection minis- 
ters. 


* Justin. M. de Angelo Domini Mosi apparente, Κύριον 
αὐτὸν ὄντα καὶ Θεὸν cnpaiver. Τὸν αὐτὸν λέγει ὃν καὶ διὰ πολλῶν 
τῶν λελεγμένων ὑπηρετοῦντα τῷ ὑπὲρ κύσμον Θειῦ, ὑπὲρ ὃν ἄλλος 
οὐκ ἔστι, σημαῖνει. Dial. cum Tryph. p. 284, A. et p. 275, 
Ὁ. Ὃ yap Χριστὸς καὶ Θεὸς καὶ Κύριος, p. 251, Ὁ. 287, B. 354, 
A. 335, B. Solus et verus Deus, super quem alius non est. 
Tren. lib. iii. cap. 6. Neminem alium Deum vel Dominum 
vocaverunt apostoli, nisi solum Deum verum patrem et 
Verbum ejus, qui in omnibus principatum ejus habet, lib. 
iii. cap. 16. 


958 I, PETER. 


4 (We being begotten by his resurrection, as the first- 
fruits of ours, 1 Cor. xv. 20. 23,)To (the hope of ) an 
inheritance incorruptible, and ° undefiled, and that 
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you (be- 
lievers), 

5 ® Who are kept by the power of God through 
faith ™ unto (the) salvation ready to be revealed in the 
last time. 

6 Wherein (7. 6, on the account of which) ye greatly 
rejoice, though now for a season, ” if need be, ye are 
in heaviness through manifold temptations : 

7 That the trial of your faith, being (which is) much 
more precious (and advantageous to you) than (the trial) 
of gold that perisheth, though it be ® tried with fire (or, 
though upon trial it endure the fire), might be found unto 


praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus 
Christ (in glory) : 

8 4 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, 
though now ye see him not, yet (Gr. not now seeing, 
bul) believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and 
full of glory : 

9 Receiving the end of your faith, ® even the salva- 
tion of your souls. 

10 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired 
and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace 
that should come unto you (i. e. of the grace to be brought 
unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ, ver. 13, Matt. 
xili, 17): 

11 τὸ Searehing what, or what manner of time the 
7 Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify (or, 


9 Ver. 4. ᾿Αμίαντον, Undefiled.| The land, in which men 
who are sinners dwell on earth, is said to be defiled by their 
sins, Lev. xviii. 28, Numb. v. 3, xxxv. 34, Deut. xxi. 23, 
158. xxiv. 5, Jer. ii. 7, xvi. 18; heaven, into which no un- 
clean thing can enter, being the only inheritance undefiled. 
CEcumenius hence observes, first, that this therefore was not 
such a hope as that which was contained in the law of Moses, 
ἥτις ϑνητὴ, ϑνητοῖς ἐπαγγέλεται ϑνητὰ, “a dying hope, which 
promised dying things to mortal men :” secondly, that if this 
inheritance be in heaven, μυϑώδης ἡ χιλιοέτης ἀποκατάστασις, 
“the opinion of the millenaries must be fabulous.” 

10 Ver. 5. ᾿Εν δυνάμει Θεοῦ φρουρουμένους διὰ πίστεως, Who 
are kept by the power of God through faith.) Not that all 
who have true faith are kept by the power of God, so as that 
they shall certainly continue in the faith; but that they shall 
be thus preserved, “if they continue in the faith, rooted and 
settled, and are not removed from the hope of the gospel” 
(Col. i. 23) : “if they hold the beginning of their confidence 
firm unto the end” (Heb. iii.4). ‘This place therefore only 
proves, first, that all who are preserved to salvation are pre- 
served by God, but not that all true believers will be certainly 
so kept. Secondly, this place proves only, that they who 
are thus preserved, are kept through faith, i. e. “if they hold 
the beginning of their confidence firm to the end” (Heb. v. 
14). For this faith, thus continued in them, will render 
them victorious over the world (1 John ν. 4). It will enable 
them to “resist the devil” so effectually, that “he shall fly 
from them” (1 Pet. v. 9), and to “quench all the fiery darts 
of Satan” (Eph. vi. 16), and to “suffer death, not accepting 
a deliverance, that they may obtain a better resurrection.” 
But this place does not prove that all, who are once true 
believers, shall certainly continue in the faith, and never 
make shipwreck of the faith, as did Hymeneus and Alexan- 
der (1 Tim. i. 19); never have their faith overturned, as 
some had, 2 ‘Tim. ii. 10, never “draw back to perdition,” as 
the apostle supposeth some might do, Heb. x. 38, 39. 

11 Bis σωτηρίαν ἑτοίμην ἀποκαλυφϑῆναι ἐν καιρῷ ἐσχάτῳ, The 
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.) i. 6. Say 
some, the deliverance ready to be vouchsafed to the Chris- 
tians, at the destruction of the church and polity of Jerusa- 
lem ; this being the salvation then ready to be revealed. But 
this seems not very probable: first, because in this salvation 
Christians are said to “rejoice greatly,” or, to “exult for 
joy” (ver. 6) ; which it becomes not them to do for temporal, 
but for spiritual blessings. Secondly, because it is the salva- 
tion, not of our bodies, but our souls, even that salvation 
which is “the end of our faith,” ver. 9 (see the note there). 
To the argument produced for the other sense from the 
words, 

I answer, First, That though “ the last times” and “ days,” 
in the plural, do mostly signify the times of the gospel dis- 
pensation, concurring with the last times of the Jewish state ; 
yet “the last time,” or “ day,” in the singular, often signifies 
the time of the resurrection, or the last judgment, especially 
when it is joined with the resurrection of the body, mentioned 
here, ver. 3. So, John vi. 39, “I will raise him up, ἐν τῇ 
ἐσχάτη ἡμέρα, in the last day” (see ver. 40. 44, 45) ; xi. 24, 
“1 know that he shall rise in the last day;” and, xii. 48, 
«The word that I have spoken shall judge him in the last 
day.” 

Secondly, As there is mention of a double revelation of 


Jesus Christ; one, when he appeared as a prophet to the 
world, styled usually φανέρωσις, “the manifestation of Jesus 
Christ ;” another at the day of judgment, styled ἀποκάλυψις» 
“the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor. i. 7; “ the 
revelation of Jesus Christ from heaven,” 2 Thess. i. 7; his 
“ glorious revelation,” 1 Pet. iv. 13; and here emphatically, 
“the revelation of Christ,” ver. 7. 13; so is there a double 
revelation of the salvation promised in the gospel ; one by 
the preaching of the gospel, which “ brought life and salva- 
tion to light,’ 2 Tim. i. 10, and a farther revelation of it to 
be made hereafter, “ when Christ who is our life shall appear,” 
Col. ili. 3, 4, 1 John iii. 2; styled, “the glory ready to be 
revealed, when the great Shepherd shall appear,” 1 Pet. v. 
4; “the glory ready to be revealed at the redemption of our 
bodies,” Rom. viii. 18. 23 ; to which this passage may refer. 

2 Ver. 6. Ei δέον ἐστὶ, If need be.) This is great conso- 


then only shall befall them, when God sees them needful for 
the promotion of his glory, or for the furtherance of our sal- 
vation ; as when they tend to make us partakers of his holi- 
ness, and to work in us the comfortable fruits of righteous- 
ness (Heb. xii. 10, 11), or “ work for us an exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. iv. 17), by conforming us 
to him in svfferings, to whom we shall be like in glory (1 
Pet. iv. 13, Rom, viii. 17, 2 Tim. ii. 11). 

3 Ver. 7. Διὰ πυρὸς δοκιμαζομένου.] Proved to be genuine 
by the fire it endures; as your faith is, by patiently endur- 
ing fiery trials (see note on iv. 12). 

4 Ver. 8. “Ov οὐκ eidéres.] If this reading be true, it is most 
proper to translate the words thus, “ Whom having not 
known;”’ if ὃν οὐκ ἰδόντες, as other copies have it, and all the 
versions do translate it, be the true reading, then our trans- 
lation is right. 

15 Ver. 9. Σωτηρίαν ψυχῶν. “The preservation of your 
lives;’ so Dr. Hammond. But there is no ὑμῶν in the Greek, 
to answer to the word “ your,” in the English; and the sal- 
vation of lives seems not so properly assigned as the end of 
our faith, as the salvation of souls; as we may learn also 
from the following words: 

16 Ver. 11. Eis τίνα ἢ ποῖον καιρὸν, What, or what manner 
of time.] The particle cis is oft redundant (see Nold. p. 66, 
67,464). Or it may be here rendered de, “ of what time we 
as 2 Cor. xii. 6, “ Let no man think, εἰς ἐμὲ, of me more 
than he ought to think ;” Eph. v. 32, “I speak, cis Χριστὸν, 
καὶ εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, of Christ and the church ;” Acts ii. 25, 
“David spake εἰς αὐτὸν, of him.” So Acts xxv. 20, Heb. vii. 
14, cis ἣν φυλὴν, “ OF which tribe.” ‘They testified of his suf- 
| ferings, saith CEcumenius, in those words of Isaiah, “He 
was led as a sheep to the slaughter.” 

1 Τὸ ἐν αὐτοῖς Πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ, The Spirit of Christ which 
| was in them.] That is, say the Socinians, the Spirit in them, 
| which spake of Christ as the word of life and salvation, is the 

word which speaks of Jife and of salvation. But in this sense 
| he might as well have been styled the spirit of antichrist or 
the false prophets, because he also spake of them. ΑἹ] the 
ancients agree in the other sense, That Christ* spake by his 


* Ἐμπνεύμενοι ὑπὸ τὴς χάριτος αὐτοῦ" τῷ Πνεύματι ὡς διδάσκαλον 
αὐτὸν προσεδόκουν. Ign. Ep. ad Magnes. 8. 8, 9. Spiritus 
prophetarum, Πνεῦμα Κυρίου, Barnab. §. 9. ᾿Απὸ τοῦ" κινοῦντος 
αὐτοὺς θείου Λόγου. Just. M. Apol. i. p. 49, A. Apol. ii. p. 


lation under all the afflictions of God’s servants, that they ~ 


CHAPTER I. 959 


to what time he did relate), when it testified before- 
hand 15 the sufferings of Christ (in himself and his 
members), and the glory that should follow (them, 
Dan. ix. 24). 

12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto them- 
selves, but unto us they did minister the (same) things, 
which are now reported (or have been declared ) unto you 
by them that have preached the gospel unto you ® with 
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things 
the ® angels desire to look into. 

13 *! Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be 
sober (Gr. vigilant), and hope to the end for the grace 
that is to be brought (Gr. ¢Aat is brought) unto you at 
(by) the revelation of Jesus Christ (who hath brought 
ife and immortality to light by the gospel, 2 Tim. i. 
10); 

4 As (it becometh) obedient children, not fashioning 
yourselves according to the former lusts (ye practised ) 
in your ignorance : 


Spirit in the prophets, “they being inspired with his grace, 
and taught by his Spirit, their words proceeded from the 
divine word moving them, and by him they prophesied; he 
spake in Isaiah, in Elias, and in the mouth of the prophets.” 
So the fathers. 

18 Τὰ εἰς Χριστὸν παϑήματα, The sufferings of Christ.) 
Not only in himself, but in his members, and the glories 
which should be after, as well to them, as to their Saviour 
(Rom. viii. 18, 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12, 1 Pet. iv. 13), as appears 
from i. 13, where this glory is styled, « the grace to be brought 
to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 

19 Ver. 12. Ἐν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, By the Holy Spirit sent 
down from heaven.] Hence it is evident, that the apostles, in 
all those writings in which they declared the gospel of Christ, 
were ϑεόπνευστοι, “men assisted by the Holy Ghost; and 
that they, in preaching and inditing the gospel, were acted 
by the same Spirit who moved formerly the prophets (see 
the general preface). 

30 Παρακύψαι, Angels desire to look into.) And shall holy 
prophets be so desirous to know the time when these things 
should happen, and holy angels so diligent to look into these 
glorious revelations ; and shall we, to whom, and for whose 
happiness, this gospel was revealed, neglect not only to ob- 
tain, but even to know this great salvation? Some refer 
this to Dan. viii. 13. 

2! Ver. 13.] Note, that from this and the foregoing verse, 
we have several arguments to prove these things relate not 
to the temporal deliverance of Christians from the persecu- 
tion of the Jews, but to their deliverance from the guilt of 
sin by the blood of Christ (ver. 19), and that eternal deliver- 
ance which is the object of the Christian’s hope. For, (1.) 
that cannot properly be styled “the grace which is to come 
to us by the revelation of Jesus Christ,” that being “ the 
grace which brings salvation,” Tit. ii, 11.13, (2.) That 
was not the thing which they, who preached the gospel, did 
ἀναγγέλλειν ἡμῖν, “ declare unto us; but, as John informs us, 
they did, ἀναγγέλλειν ζωὴν αἰώνιον, “show unto us eternal 
life,” 1 John i. 2. (3.) They could not be the things the 
angels did desire to look into. (4.) The motive to perse- 
verance to the end, is not a temporal: deliverance from the 
Jews, but a spiritual and eternal deliverance (Rom. viii. 18, 
2 Cor. iv. 17, Heb. x. 35, 36). 

2 Ver. 16. ᾿Εγὼ ἅγιός εἰμι. The holiness of God, in 
scripture, hath respect to a double object, viz. sin ; and so it 
doth import his perfect freedom from, his hatred of, and op- 
position to, all impiety. (1.) His entire freedom from all 
impurity ; for “ God is light,” saith the apostle, “and in him 
is no darkness at all,” 1 John i. 5; “ He is a just God, and 
without iniquity,” Deut. xxxii. 4; a God “of purer eyes than 
to behold evil,’ Hab. i. 13, i. 6. without the greatest detesta- 


76, D. Αὐτὸς ἐν Ἤσαΐα, ὁ Κύριος αὐτὸς ἐν ᾿Ηλία, ἐν στύματι προ- 
φητῶν αὐτός. Clem. Al. Adm. ad Gent. p. 7, B, et Strom. 
vi. p. 642, B. Theoph. ad Autol. lib. ii. p. 88, Iren. lib. iv. 
Ρ. 29, Hippol. de Antichristo, 5. 2. Tertul. adv. Marcion. 
lib. 11, cap. 27, adv. Prax. cap. 16. 


15 But as he (God the Father, ver. 17) which hath 
called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of con- 
versation 5 

16 Because it is written (/hus), Be ye holy; for 
2. 1 (the Lord your God) am holy (Lev. xi. 44, 
xix. 2). 

17 And if ye call on the Father, who without 
respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s 
work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear 
(of condemnation from this impartial Judge at that 
day): 

43 Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeem- 
ed with corruptible things, (such) as (are) silver and 
gold (such as the Jews brought up to Jerusalem to buy 
their offerings), * from (ihe demerit of) your vain con- 
versation received by tradition from your fathers; 

19 But with the precious blood of Christ (who was 
delivered up to death for you), as of % a lamb without 
blemish and without spot: 


tion. (2.) His perfect hatred of it; whence he is said to 
loathe, detest, and to abhor it, and the workers of it; and it 
is styled, “the abominable thing which his soul hateth,’”’ Jer. 
xliv. 4, And since God’s nature is immutable, his holiness 
unchangeable, he must for ever hate, with a most perfect 
hatred, whatsoever is unholy and impure; and to suppose 
an interruption in his hatred of evil-doers, is to suppose he 
can cease to be a pure and holy God. And, (3.) from this 
hatred naturally flows a just assurance of his opposition to 
all impiety and unholiness, that he “by no means will clear 
the guilty,” Exod. xxxiv. 7, or “let the sinner always go un- 
punished,” Nahum i. 3. And this seems to be the import 
of the holiness of God we are here called to imitate, because 
it stands in opposition to “the former lusts of their igno- 
rance :”’ or, (2.) God’s holiness respects such persons as are 
by consecration, or by resemblance of him, holy ; and so it 
intimates his great affection to them, and concernment for 
them. 

33 Ver. 17. ᾿Απροσωπολήπτως.Ἷ i. 6. Without difference of 
nations, whether Jew or gentile, or without respect had to 
any man’s progenitors, in the great day of his account (Acts 
x. 34, 35, Rom. ii. 58: see note on James ii. 1). 

21 Ver. 18. "Ex τῆς ματαίας ὑμῶν ἀναστροφῆς, From your 
vain conversation.| ‘Two expressions in this chapter seem to 
intimate, that the apostle speaks here, not only to the native 
Jews, but Also to the converted gentiles. (1.) His exhorta- 
tion to them, “not to fashion themselves according to their 
former lusts, ἐν τῇ ἀγνοίᾳ ὑμῶν, in their ignorance ;’”’ which 
phrase, in the New Testament, hath still relation to the times 
of ignorance in which the gentiles lay, before the preaching 
of the gospel to them. So, Acts xvii. 30, τοὺς χρόνους τῆς 
dyvoias, " The times of ignorance God winked at ;” Eph. iv. 
18, “ Being darkened in your mind, διὰ τὴν dyvotav, by the 
ignorance that is in you.” (2.) ‘This of their conversation, 
“received by tradition from their forefathers :” for though 
the scribes and pharisees had delivered traditions to the peo- 
ple, which rendered the worship of God vain (Matt. xv. 9) ; 
yet a “vain conversation received by tradition from their 
forefathers,’ seems rather to respect the conversation of the 
heathens, ἀναστροφὴ being the word by which “ the conversa- 
tion of the gentiles’’ is designed, Eph. ii. 3, iv. 22, 2 Pet. ii, 
7. 18; and μάταια, here added to it, determining the “con- 
versation” to the worship of “ vain” gods (Acts xiv. 15, Eph. 
iv. 17). Their plea for their religion and vain worship being 
also this, that they “ received it from their fathers,’ saying, 
that* they “were not to be moved, by any persuasions, from 
the religion which they had} received from their forefathers.” 
But yet I confess, these things may relate to the gentile pro- 
selytes among the Jews, which were very numerous (see 
note on ver. 1). 

% Ver. 19. ‘25 ἀμνοῦ ἀμύμον, A lamb without blemish.) 
Christ being perfect, and without spot or sin, was typified by 
the lamb offered daily for their sins; and that lamb being 
bought with the half shekel every one gave for the buying 


* Plato Tim. p. 1053, E. 
ἡ Οἷς, de Nat. Deor. lib. iii. n. 3, 6. 


960 I. PETER. 


20 Who verily was 35 foreordained (Gr. foreknown, 
a. 6. designed as the Messiah) before the foundation of the 
world, but was manifest in these last times for you (r 
sakes), 

21 7% Who by ( fazth in) him (thus risen) do believe 
in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave 
him glory ; that your faith and hope (of a blessed resur- 
rection) might be in God. 

22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in (by) obey- 
ing the truth through the Spirit (by whom ye are en- 
abled to perform this obedience) unto unfeigned love of 
the brethren (which ts one part of that obedience), see that 
ye love (Gr. ye shall love) one another with a pure heart 
fervently : 


of the daily sacrifice (Exod. xxx. 12. 15, 16, and which was 
therefore styled py7)5) pa, “ the money of expiations,” and 
was sent up to Jerusalem from every city of Judea, and all 
the provinces where the Jews lived, in silver and gold), the 
apostle may here allude to this, when he saith, «« Ye were 
not redeemed with silver and gold, by which the daily sacri- 
fice was bought, which made atonement for your souls, but 
with the precious blood of Jesus, who shed his blood for your 
redemption from that death which by your sins ye had con- 
tracted.” Others refer this to the paschal lamb, by the 
sprinkling of whose blood they were delivered from destruc- 
tion, when the first-born of the Egyptians perished (Exod. 
xii. 11. 17). Both these lambs were to be ἀμνοὶ ἄμωμοι, 
“perfect, and without spot,” that they might be accepted 
(Exod. xii. 5, Lev. xxii. 21, Numb. xxviii. 3. 9. 11.19, &c.). 

2% Ver. 20. Προεγνωσμένου, Foreknown.] The Jews say, 
that* “when God created the world, he held forth his 
hand under the throne of glory, and created the soul of the 
Messiah and his company, and said to him, Wilt thou heal 
and redeem my sons, after six thousand years? He an- 
swered, Yes. God said to him, If so, wilt thou bear chas- 
tisements, to expiate their iniquity, according to what is 
written (Isa. liii. 4), Surely, he bore our griefs? He an- 
swered, I will endure them with joy.” And to this repre- 
sentation of this covenant made with the Messiah, “before 
the creation of the world,” it may be the apostle here refers 
(see the note on Eph. i. 4). In the style of Philo,t he is 
ἀΐδιος Aéyos, “the eternal Word, the first-born, and the most 
ancient Son of the Father, by whom all the species were 
framed.’ This therefore is according to the received opinion 
of the Jews. 5 

31 Ver. 21. Πιστεύοντας εἰς Θεὸν, By him do believe in God.) 
Here the Socinians object thus; He by whom we believe in 
God, is not that God in whom we believe ; for the means of 
faith can never be the object of it: but Christ is he by whom 
we believe in God ; ergo, Christ is not God. To this I an- 
swer, That Christ, according to the nature which died for us, 
and which was raised from the dead, is he by whom we be- 
lieve in God ; i. e. own him to be able to raise us also from 


* Cartw. Mellif. lib. i. p. 2974, 2975. 

} De Plant. Noe, p. 169, 1. Τοῦτον μὲν yap npeoBirarov 
υἱὸν ὃ τῶν ὄντων ἀνέτειλε πατὴρ, dv ἑτέρωθι πρωτόγονον ὡνόμασε" 
καὶ ὃ γεννηϑεὶς, μιμούμενος τὰς τοῦ πατρὸς ὁδοὺς, πρὸς παραδείγματα 
ἀρχέτυπα ἐκείνου θλέπων ἐμύρφου εἴδη. De Confus. Ling. p. 258, 


2 


23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed (as zs 
that from which ye had your first nativity, whence ye also 
who are thus begotten are corruptible), 3. but of incor- 
tuptible, (as being born again) ™ by the word of God, 
which liveth and abideth for ever, 

24 For all flesh zs as grass, and all the glory of man 
as the flower of grass. (75 then) the grass withereth, 
and the flower thereof falleth away (so will it be with 
our body of flesh) : 

25 But the word of the Lord (saith the prophet, Isa. 
xl. 8) endureth for ever (in itself, as being of eternal 
truth ; and in its effects upon us, as nourishing us to life 
eternal). And this is the word which by the gospel is 
preached unto you. 


the dead ; and according to the same nature we acknowledge 
him not to be God: but that hinders not his being God, ac- 
cording to that nature by which he had power to (and did 
actually) raise himself from the dead (John x. 18, ii. 19). 

But still they object, That “by him, we believe in him 
that raised him from the dead, that our faith and hope might 
be in God, to wit, the Father;” faith therefore and hope in 
Christ, is not faith and hope in God. Ans. First, it only 
follows hence, that it is not faith and hope in God the Fa- 
ther; but, secondly, the apostle here saith, that by believing 
in him who raised up Christ from the dead, “we believe in 
God,” because we believe in that divine power which can 
raise us also from the dead: since therefore the holy scrip- 
ture expressly and frequently asserts, that we shall be raised 
up from the dead, “by the voice of the Son of God” (John 
v. 25. 28), and that because “as the Father hath life in him- 
self,” and so is able to give life to the dead; so hath he given 
to the Son to have life in himself (ver. 26): seeing Christ 
often saith of him that believeth in him, “I will raise him 
up at the last day” (John vi. 39, 40. 44,45), for «Iam the 
resurrection and the life” (John xi. 24, 25) : since the apos- 
tle saith, he hath “dominion over the dead, and over the 
living” (Rom. xiv. 9), that “by him all men shall be made 
alive” (1 Cor. xv. 22), and that “he will change our vile 
bodies into the likeness of his glorious body, according to the 
mighty power whereby he is able to subdue all things to him- 
self ;”—it rather follows hence, that our faith and hope in 
Christ, thus raising us from the dead, as his Father did him, 
is faith and hope in God. 

2 Ver. 23. ᾿Αλλὰ apSdprov, Being born again of incor- 
ruptible seed.] Here is a farther evidence, that the word of 
God is the ordinary means of our new birth: for it is τὸ 
ῥῆμα τὸ εὐαγγελισθὲν, “ the word preached” (not any inward 
word infused), which is here styled, that “ incorruptible seed” 
from which this new birth is derived. 

29 Διὰ λύγου ζῶντος Θεοῦ, The living word of God.] This 
epithet is ascribed to the word of God, Heb. iv. 12: and 
that this is not spoken of the living God, is evident; because 
in the Greek it is not διὰ λόγον Θεοῦ ζῶντος, but ζῶντος Θεοῦ, 1. 
e. not “by the word of the living God,” but “by the living 
word of God.” Secondly, that it is to be understood of the 
word preached, is clear; because the epithet, “ living,” and 
“ abiding for ever,” agrees to the same thing. Now the apos- 
tle saith, it is “ the word preached” that “ abideth for ever ;” 
and so the prophet Isaiah had said before him, xl. 8, τὸ δὲ 


ῥῆμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν μένει eis τὸν αἰῶνα. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Wuererore laying aside all malice, and all 


guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and evil speak- | 


ings, (vices to which the Jewish nation was then very 
prone, and for which they are severely taxed by their 
own Josephus, see the parallel place, James i. 21, and 
which are contrary to the great Christian command of love, 


and obstructive of the word of truth, by which we are born 
again,) 

“2 As newborn babes, desire the 1 sincere milk of 
the word, that (as ye were begotten, i. 23, 80} ye may 
grow thereby (unio a perfect man in Christ Jesus, Eph. 
lv. 13): 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 
Ver. 2. Τὸ λογικὸν yada.] The milk which rational crea- 


tures feed on. So λογικὴ λατρεία is the service performed by 
men of reason, Rom. xii. 1. It seems to be the same in 
sense with “the ingrafted word,” James i. 21. 


CHAPTER II. 


961 


3 If so be (εἴπερ, since) ye have tasted that the Lord | writlen in the same seriplure, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone 


ἐδ gracious, (as having pardoned them why crucified him, 
and procured the favour of God to them. That εἴπερ, sig- 
nifies since, see note on Eph. iii. 2.) 

4 To whom coming, as unto a living stone, ? disal- 
lowed (Gr. rejected ) indeed of men, but chosen of God, 
and precious, 

5 Ye also, as ὃ lively (Gr. diving) stones, are built 
a spiritual house, (and are) an ‘holy priesthood, to 
offer up © spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by 
Jesus Christ. 

6 Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture 
(Isa. xxviii. 16), δ Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner 
stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him 
shall not be confounded (Gr. ashamed). (And it is also 


of stumbling, and a rock of offence, Isa. viii, 14, 15, Rom. 
ix. 33. 

7 Unto you therefore which believe he is precious 
(Gr. ἡ τιμὴν belongs the honour of being thus built upon 
the corner-stone to a spiritual house): but unto them 
which be disobedient (belongs what is written, Ps. 
exviil. 22), the stone which the builders disallowed, 
the same is made the head of the corner, 

8 And (also what is written, Isa. viii, 14, 15) a 
stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence (or, 
falling), even to them which stumble at the word, 

eing disobedient: 7 whereunto also they were ap- 
pointed. 

9 But ye (who are built upon him) are ὃ a chosen 


2 Ver. 4, ᾿Αποδεδοκιμασμένον, Disallowed, or rejected, of 
men.) i.e. Of the Jewish sanhedrin, the “builders” men- 
tioned Ps. exviii. 22. So R. Solomon Jarchi on those words 
of Micah, v. 2, “« Out of thee shall come a governor that shall 
rule my people Israel;” i. 6. “the Messiah, the Son of 
David, shall come from thee ; asit is written (Ps. cxviii. 22), 
The stone which the builders refused, is become the head- 
stone in the corner.’ And so our Lord expounds these 
words to the high-priests, scribes, and pharisees, Matt. xxi. 
42. 45, Luke xx. 17. 19. So Peter, “full of the Holy 
Ghost,” Acts iv. 11. 

3 Ver. 5. 'Ὡς λίϑοι ζῶντες, A living stone, ver. 4. Living 
stones.] The Christian church being not a building made up 
of materials without life, as was the temple of Jerusalem ; 
but aspiritual building, consisting of the members of Christ’s 
body, living by the Spirit communicated from Christ their 
head, and the fountain of life, to them (Eph. iv. 16, Col. ii. 
19); he who communicates this life to them is therefore 
styled “a living stone ;” and they who receive it from him, 
are also styled “living stones:” and being by this Spirit thus 
fitly put together, compacted, and edified into one building 
(Rom. xiv. 19, 1 Thess. v.11), are said to be “ built up a 
spiritual house.” 

4 Ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον, A holy priesthood.] The legal sacrifices 
were to be offered by the priests alone, and only in the tem- 
Re accordingly the Christian church is here represented as 

od’s temple; the praises they offer up to God in their as- 
semblies are styled “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God 
through Jesus Christ,” Heb. xiii. 15; the persons who offer 
them, “a holy priesthood” (see ver. 9). 

5 Πνενματικὰς θυσίας, Spiritual sacrifices.) Thus Philo* 
having said, agreeably to the psalmist, that God delights not 
in hecatombs, “since the whole world is his, and he can 
want nothing,” adds, that men, τὴν ἀρίστην ἀνάγουσι ϑυσίαν 
ὕμνοις τὸν εὐεργέτην καὶ σωτῆρα yepatovres, “then offer the best 
sacrifice, when they honour their Benefactor and Saviour 
with hymns:” he adds, that “the altar for burnt-offerings 
was made of stone, and placed in the court before the taber- 
nacle, but the altar of incense of gold was in the holy place 
within the veil:”’ whence he infers, that “as much as gold is 
better than stone, and the holy place more sacred than the 
court,t τοσούτῳ κρεῖττον ἡ διὰ τῶν ἐπιθυμιωμένων εὐχαριστία τῆς 
διὰ τῶν ἐναίμων, 50 much is the thanksgiving offered up with 
incense better than that of sacrifices.’ And, lastly, he saith, 
that “the fire always burning on the altar, was, τὸ σύμβολον 
τῆς εὐχαριστίας a symbol of thanksgiving.” And this thanks- 
giving, sent up to God with the oblation of bread and wine 
in the eucharist, in commemoration of our Saviour's passion, 
and with prayer for our acceptance through his beloved, is 
by the primitive Christians styled their “ spiritual sacrifice,” 
and that “pure incense,” which, according to the prophet 
Malachi, i. 11, the gentiles were to offer to God throughout 
the world (see the text defended, Examen Milli). 

® Ver. 6.] That both these stones relate to the Messiah see 
Voisin on Rom. ix. 33, and Pug. Fid. par. iii. cap. 5, §. 2, 
p. 274. 

Ver. 7. Αἴθον ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες, οὗτος ἐγενήθη εἰς 
κεφαλὴν γωνίας. See these words vindicated against Grotius 


* De Vict. Offer. p. 657, F. 
ἡ P. 698, B, F. 
Vor. IV.—121 


and Dr. Mills, Examen Millii, as also the reading of the text, 
iii. 5. 16. 

7 Ver. 8. Bis 8 καὶ ἐτέϑησαν, Whereunto also they were ap- 
pointed.| That is, saith the reverend Dr. Hammond, they 
that disobey the gospel, that stand out obstinately against it, 
were appointed by God to stumble and fall at that stone, i.e. 
to be bruised, and ruined by that means, to be destroyed 
among the crucifiers of the Messiah, and condemned with 
them hereafter ; it being just with God, that they who will 
not reform, and amend, at the preaching of the gospel, and 
so receive the benefit by it, should, for their obstinacy, be 
condemned, and so the worse for it; Christ being “set for 
the falling” as well as “ the rising of many in Israel” (Luke 
ii. 34), and the gospel being “a savour of death to them that 
perish” (2 Cor. ii. 15, 16), and they being those whom, ἔθετο 
ὃ Θεὸς εἰς ὀργὴν, “ God hath appointed for wrath” (1 Thess. v. 
6). And to be swe it cannot signify, that God absolutely or- 
dained the unbelieving Jews cis ἀπείθειαν, “ to disobedience ;” 
for then this disobedience would be a compliance with the 
divine ordinance or will, and so could not deserve the name 
of disobedience: nor could this disobedience be objected to 
them as their crime, unless compliance with his ordinance 
and will be so, and it be a fault to be such as God by his im- 
mutable counsel and decree hath ordained we should be ; or 
it should render men criminal, and obnoxious to punishment, 
that they have not made void God’s absolute decree, or done 
what that made it impossible for them to do. Wherefore 
this passage cannot signify, that the unbelieving Jews were 
appointed to disobedience: but only, that being disobedient 
to the gospel so clearly revealed, and by so many miracles 
and distributions of the Holy Ghost confirmed, they were 
appointed, as the punishment of that disobedience, to fall and 
perish: for so the Hebrew 5w3, and the Greek πρόσκομμα, 
and σκάνδαλον, import, viz. the ruin and fall of them who 
stumble at this stone; as hath been proved on Rom. xiv. 13 
(see Prov. xvi. 19, Isa. viii. 14, 15, Jer. vi. 21, Ezek. iii. 
20, xxi. 15, Zech. xii. 3, Matt. xxi. 41, Luke xx. 18). So 
Ccumenius* on this place. Or, secondly, the words may be 
thus construed, “ΤῸ them who are disobedient,” and through 
that disobedience stumble at the word, this other character 
of the stone belongs, of “a stone of stumbling; whereunto 
those stones were put, one for honour to the believer, the 
other for a stone of stumbling to the unbeliever and disobe- 
dient:” for to both these stones the apostle Paul, Rom. ix. 
33, and Peter here, do put this preface, “ Behold, I lay in 
Zion a stone.” And this agrees with that of Simeon, “ Be- 
hold, this child is placed for the fall and rising of many in 
Israel” (Luke ii. 34). 

Ver. 9.] The titles here given to the Christians are the 
same which formerly were given to the whole Jewish nation, 
and are accordingly to be interpreted : ᾽ 

8 Τένος ἐκλεκτὸν, A chosen or elected nation.] Not only the 
righteous and obedient persons among them, but the whole 
nation of the Jews, are styled “the elect of God,” through- 
out the Old Testament: thus, Deut. iv. 37, “Because he 
loved thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, therefore 


* Οὐδεμία yap αἰτία ἀπωλείας παρὰ τοῦ πάντας ἀνθρώπους θέλον- 
ros σωϑῆναι βραβεύεται, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἑαυτοὺς σκεύη κατηρτηκόσιν ὀργῆς» 
καὶ ἢ ἀπεΐϑεια ἐπηκολοὔύϑησε καὶ παρεσκεύασαν ἑαυτοὺς εἰς ἣν τάξιν 
ἐτέθησαν. i 

4F 


962 


generation, ἃ 9 royal priesthood, ® an holy nation, "a 
peculiar people; that ye should shew forth ” the 
praises of him who hath called you out of darkness 
into his marvellous light: 


I. PETER. 


10 15 Which in time past were not a people, but are 
now the people of God: which had not obtained 
mercy, but now have obtained mercy. 

11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you ™ as strangers 


ἐξελέξατο τὸ σπέρμα αὐτῶν per’ αὐτοὺς ὑμᾶς, he chose you their 
seed after them, and brought you out of Egypt by his 
mighty power.’ Where it is evident, that their whole seed, 
“even all that came out of Egypt,” were the elect; Deut. 
vii. 6, 7, “Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be a pecu- 
liar people to himself, above all people that are on the face 
of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, be- 
cause ye were more in number than any people; but because 
the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath 
which he had sworn to your fathers, hath he brought you out 
with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of 
bondmen.” Where it is evident, first, that their being chosen, 
before other nations, to be God’s “ peculiar people,” is their 


election. Secondly, that all that were brought out of Egypt | 
were thus beloved, and thus elected. Thirdly, that to these | 


elect, and chosen people, God only promiseth to “keep cove- 
nant and mercy,” provided they would love him and obey 
him ; and that he threateneth to destroy them, and to “re- 
pay them to their face,” if they neglect so to do. In the 
tenth chapter, ver. 14—16, he speaks thus, “ The Lord had 
a delight in thy fathers, to love them, καὶ ἐξελέξατο, and he 
elected you their seed after them above. all people; cireum- 
cise therefore the foreskin of your hearts, and be no more 


stiffmecked.” Where again evident it is, that the whole seed | 


of Abraham, by Isaac, even the “stiffnecked” of them, were 
“the beloved” and “elect of God.” Ch. xiv., he saith to all 
to whom the following precepts did belong, and therefore 
doubtless to all Israel, “Thou art a holy people to the Lord 
thy God, καί ce ἐξελέξατο ὃ Κύριος, and the Lord hath chosen 
thee out to be a peculiar people above all nations.” 

And with this notion of the words, accords the constant 
use of the same phrase in all the prophets and sacred writers 
of the Old Testament: thus Solomon saith, 1 Kings iii. 8, 
«Thy servant is in the midst of thy people, ὃν ἐξελέξω, which 


thou hast elected; a great people that cannot be numbered, | 


nor counted for multitude.” 
Jews in general are styled “the seed of Israel his servant, 
the children of Jacob, ἐκλεκτοὶ αὐτοῦ, his elect,” Ps. ον. 6. 
43, cxxxy. 4; there doth he say, τὸν Ἰακὼβ ἑαυτῷ ἐξελέξατο 
ὁ Κυρίος, © The Lord hath chosen Jacob to himself, and Israel 
for his own inheritance,” Ps. evi. 5; there doth he tell us, 
that “the Lord brought forth his people with joy, καὶ τοὺς 
ἐκλεκτοὺς αὐτοῦ, and his elect with gladness ;” there he de- 
sires of God, χρηστότητα τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν, “ the good of his elect, 
to rejoice in the gladness of his nation:” so that throughout 
the Psalms, God’s “servants,” his ‘people,’ his “nation,” 
his “inheritance,” and his “ elect,’ are the same persons. 

In the evangelical prophet we read, God speaking of 
Jacob, ὃ ἐξελεξάμην, “ whom I have elected, and Israel whom 
1 have loved,” Isa. xli. 8, 9, and to whom he speaks thus, 
«Thou art my child, whom I have chosen,” xliii. 20, 21. 
There God declares, “ς He will make waters in the wilder- 
ness, and rivers in the deserts, ποτίσαι τὸ γένος μου τὸ ἐκλεκτὸν, 
to give drink to my chosen generation, my people whom I 
have chosen to show forth my praise,” xlv.4. There we 
read of «Jacob my servant,” and “ Israel mine elect,” Ixv. 6, 
and of a mountain which his “elect shall inherit, and in 
which his servants shall dwell.” 

In the prophet Jeremy we find God is displeased with 
them who said, “The two families Onan may ana WR, 
whom the Lord had chosen, he hath even cast them off,” 
Jer. xxxiii. 24. The prophet speaks of the day “ when the 
Lord chose Israel, and lifted up his hand to the seed of the 
house of Jacob,” Ezek. xx. 5. The prophet Zechariah 
styles God, “the Lord who hath chosen Jerusalem,’ Zech. 
ili. 2. And Daniel speaks of a time when οἱ ἐκλεκτοὶ αὐτοῦ, 
«his elect should not be able to stand before their enemies,” 
Dan. xi. 15. 

And to carry on this phrase even to the times of the New 
Testament; in the book of Esther, we are told of a time in 
which τὸ γένος ἐκλεκτὸν, “the chosen generation should have 
perished,” Esth. xvi. 21, i.e. in which the wicked Haman 
designed to cut off the Jews. In the book of Ecclesiasticus 

Θ are informed, that “Joshua was made great, ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ 


In the book of Psalms, the | 


ἐκλεκτῶν αὐτοῦ, for saving the elect of God, and taking ven- 
geance on their enemies that rose up against them (Ecclus. 
xlvi. 1), that he might set Israel in their inheritance.” 

Thus have I traced this phrase throughout the whole Old 
Testament, and shown, that it belongs not to particular per- 
sons, but to the whole Jewish church and people in the 
general; to the bad as well as to the good among them; to 
them to whom God threateneth the worst of evils, as well as 
to them to whom he promiseth the greatest blessings. 

When in the New Testarnent this phrase is applied to the 
Jews, it plainly signifies as many of them as were converted 
to the Christian faith; though afterward too many of them 
fell off from it, or brought not forth those fruits of righteous- 
ness which Christianity required ; and is applied to them all 
in general, and without distinction. And itis highly reason- 
able to conceive it should be so; for the apostle writing to 
that nation, who had been still accustomed to this notion of 
the word, and were all styled “the elect,” they must be sup- 
posed to use the words of the Old Testament in that sense in 
which they always understood them: that the apostle doth 
here so use the word, is evident from this consideration, that 
the “holy nation,” the “ peculiar people,” the “ royal priest- 
hood,” joined with it, are expressions belonging primarily 
to that nation, and from them derived to the Christians. 
Secondly, that this epistle is writ to “the elect,” that is, the 
“strangers of the dispersions of Pontus, Galatia, Cappado- 
cia, Asia, and Bithynia,” they all being styled “the elect,” 
i. e. such as professed Christianity, and so were visible mem- 
bers of the church of Christ; whereas too many of them 
were not so, according to that meaning of the word elect, 
which makes it to import men absolutely designed for eter- 
nal happiness, as this and the Second Epistle may inform 
us. Thirdly, that the Second Epistle, sent to the same per- 
sons, writes only “to them who had obtained like precious 
faith with us;” and so informs us, that the « faithful” and 
“elect” are in Peter’s phrase the same. And that this is the 
notion of the word in all the other places of the New ‘Testa- 
ment, see proved in the notes upon them; and that it is ap; 
plied to whole churches, and scarce ever to any individuat 
person, in that sense in which it hath been so generally 
used by some late divines. 

9 Βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, A royal priesthood.) Exod. xix. 6 
«“ A kingdom of priests:” «Kings and priests,” saith ths 
Chaldee. And so John declares, that Christ hath “made 
us kings and priests to God,” Rey. i. 6, v. 10, kings to 
“reign with him,” xx. 6, and priests to “ offer up unto Link 
our spiritual sacrifices” (see here, ver. 5). 

10 Ἔϑνος ἅγιον, A holy nation.) i.e. A people separated 
to God from all other nations, and from their idolatry, or 
false and antiquated worship, to serve him in an acceptable 
manner: on which account all Christian churches, being 
called out of the world, and dedicated to the service of God 
by Jesus Christ, are, in the prefaces to Paul's epistles, styled 
“saints” (see note on 1 Cor. i. 2). 

1 Aads εἰς περιποίησιν, A peculiar people.) A treasure, as 
the word »byp signifies, a people in covenant with God, and 
so become his pecudium, whom he will be careful to protect 
and preserve, and to whom belong his peculiar favours and 
privileges. 

2 Tas ἀρετὰς, His praises ;] Or, glory: dan is so ren~ 
dered by the Septuagint, Isa. xlii. 8, “I will not give my 
glory to another, οὐδὲ ris ἀρετάς pov, nor my praise to graven 
images ;” and, ver. 12, “Let them give glory to the Lord; 
τὰς ἀρετὰς αὐτοῦ ἀναγγελοῦσι, let them show forth his praises in 
the islands :” and, xliii. 21, he styles Israel “ my elect; as 
here, my peculiar people, ris ἀρετάς μου διηγεῖσϑαι, to show 
forth my praise” (see also Ixiii. 7, Hab. iii. 3, Zech. vi. 13, 
Esth. xiv. 10). 

13 Ver. 10. Οἱ ποτὲ οὐ λαὸς, Who in times past were not a 
people.| These words plainly relate to God’s dealing with 
the ten tribes of Israel, when he had given them a bill of 
divorce (Jer. iii. 8), and sent his prophet Hosea to say unto 
them, “Ye are not my people, neither will I be your God” 
(Hos. i. 6. 9). And again, “I will no more have mercy on 


CHAPTER II. 963 


and " pilgrims, (to) abstain from fleshly lusts, which 
% war against the soul; 

12 Having your conversation honest (Gr. honour- | 
able) among the Gentiles: that, whereas they " speak | 
against you as evildoers, they may by your good 
works, which they shall behold, (be induced to) glo- 
rify God " in the day of visitation. 

13 Submit yourselves (Gr. be ye subject therefore) to 
every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether | 
it be to the king, as supreme; 

14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent 
15 by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the 
praise of them that do well. 

15 For so is the will of God (concerning you), that 
(so) with well doing ye may put to silence the igno- 
rance of foolish men: (2. δ. of those gentiles, which, es- 
timating you by the turbulent Jews, are apt to represent 
you as ἔθνος δυσαρχτὸν xai δυσπειθὲς φύσει πρὸς τοὺς 
βασιλέας, a people naturally averse from subjection to 
kings, Jos. de Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 8, p. 782, Ε΄) 

16" As free (men), and (but) not using your liberty 
for a cloke of maliciousness (as the Jews do), but as 
(those who are) the servants of God (and so, for con- 
science towards him, are subject to his ordinance). 


17 Honour ae mi all men (eee heathens). Gove 
the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king (who 
then was Nero, the worst of kings, and the persecutor of 
Christians). 

18 Ὁ Servants (also), be subject to your masters with 
all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to 
the froward. 

19 For this is 3) thankworthy, if a man for con- 
science toward God endure grief, suffering wrong- 
fully. 

20 2 For what (ground of) glory is it (lo you), if, 
when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it 
patiently ? bat if, when ye do well, and (yet) suffer 
fit ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with 
God. 

21 (And il ts also suitable to your profession ;) For 
even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also 
(whose followers ye profess to be) suffered for us, leaving 
us an example’ (both of well-doing and patient suffering), 
that ye should follow his steps: 

22 (For he was one) Who did no sin, neither was 
guile found in his mouth (and so he could not suffer for 
evil-doing : 

23 And also one)Who, when he was reviled, reviled 


the house of Israel, but will utterly cast them away :”” and 
indeed, God having so expressly said, that “the children of 
Judah and Israel should be gathered together, and appoint 
themselves one head,” that he would “have merey upon her 
who had not obtained mercy, and would say to them who were 
not his people, ‘hou art my people” (Hos. i. 11, ii. 23), and 
that they should say, “ Thou art my God,” and that “ the house 
of Judah should walk with the house of Israel ;’ doubt not but 
that there was a considerable return of the ten tribes, or at least 
a considerable conversion of them in the places where they 
were: and though they, being mixed with the heathens, did 
many of them “serve their gods,” as he threatened they 
should, Deut. xxviii. 36. 64, and so may be also said to be 
« called from darkness to this marvellous light ;” yet since 
the apostle Paul applies this passage to the gentiles (Rom. 
ix. 25), I doubt not but that, in my mystical sense, it must 
relate to them also. 

M4 Ver. 11. ‘25 παροίκους, As strangers and. pilgrims.) 
They whose “citizenship is in heaven,” and whose “ names 
are written in heaven” (Phil. iii. 20, Heb. xii. 23), must 
be “ pilgrims and strangers upon earth” (see note on Heb. 
xi. 13). 

15 ater, War against the soul.) For whereas the 
natural motion of that spiritual being is towards spiritual and 
heavenly things, “these lusts,” saith CEcumenius, “ draw 
down and captivate the soul to sensual and worldly things :” 
as therefore strangers and pilgrims are not wont to be affected 
much with the objects which they see in their travels ; so 
neither should we who profess to be pilgrims in this world, 
be much affected with sensual objects. 

16 Ver. 12. Καταλαλοῦσιν ὑμῶν, Speak evil of you as of 
evil-doers.) Here Gicumenius gives this relation from Ire- 
neus, bishop of Lyons, concerning the martyrs Sanctus and 
Blandina; “That the heathens apprehending the servants 
of some Christians, and compelling them to declare what 
evil*they knew of them, those servants having heard from 
the Christians that the holy sacrament was the body and blood 
of Christ, and thinking that it was, τῷ ὄντι, verily and sub- 
stantially, his flesh and blood, related this to the inquirers, 
and they thinking, ὡς αὐτόχρημα, that this was done in very 
deed by Christians, told this to other heathens, and compelled 
the martyrs Sanctus and Blandina,*by torments, to confess 
it; to which Blandina answered, How can they be guilty of 
such things, who by exercise (i.e. through temperance) per- 
mit not themselves to enjoy lawful flesh?” 

Ey ἡμέρα ἐπισκοπῆς, In the day of visitation.] That is, 
when they afflict and persecute you: so ἐπισκοπὴ and ἡμέρα 
ἐπισκοπῆς often signify in the Septuagint; Isa. x. 3, “ What 
will ye do, ἐν τῇ ἡμέρα τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς, in the day of visitation, 
when your affliction shall come from far;” Jer. vi. 15, ἐν 
καιροῦ ἐπισκοπῆς, “In the time of their visitation they shall 


the time of their visitation they shall shine ;” Ecclus. ii. 14, 
« Woe to them who have lost patience, what will they do, 
ὅταν ἐπισκέπτηται ὃ Κύριος, when the Lord visits?” and xviii. 
20, “ Before the judgment examine thyself, καὶ ἐν Spa ἐπισκο- 
πῆς, and in the hour of visitation thou shalt find propi- 
tiation.” 

18 Ver. 14. Ac αὐτοῦ, By him.] That is, by God, saith 
Esthius, because these governors were not always sent by 
Cesar for these good ends; but it is sufficient that this was 
the general end of punishment, &c., and therefore they, in 
charity, must be supposed to be sent by kings and emperors 
for these ends. 

'9 Ver. 16. ‘Qs ἐλεύθεροι, As free, &c.] That the Gnos- 
tics pretended to any such liberty as exempted them from 
subjection to superiors, I find not in church history: but, 
that the Jews, to whom Peter writes, and especially the zea- 
lots among them, were notorious for this doctrine, and were 
practising it at the writing of this epistle, is evident: for, 

First, They held themselves obliged to own* “ God alone 
as their only Lord and Governor, in opposition to Cesir, 
and all kings which were not of their own nation,” and did 
not govern them by their own laws, or his immediate ap- 
pointment. 

Secondly, They, many of them, rebelled against the Ro- 
mans, and against the governors sent by them, upon this 
very pretence, thatt “they were a free people, and ought to 
preserve their liberty: and thus they “used their liberty 
for a cloak of maliciousness.” 

2 Ver.18. Of οἰκέται, Servants, be subject.| This also 
was a lesson needful for the Jews, because the Essenés 
against them, say Philo and Josephus, thought it “ against 
the law of nature to be servants to any;” and their rabbins 
allowed not “a Jew to be a servant to a heathen” (see note 
on 1 Tim. vi. 1, 2). 

21 Ver. 19. Τοῦτο γὰρ xaprc-] This will procure the divine 
favour and reward. So what is, ποία ὑμῖν χάρις; “ What 
thank have ye?” Luke vi. 32, 33, is, τίνα μισθὸν ἔχετε; 
«“ What reward have ye?” Matt. v. 46; and in the follow- 
ing verse this phrase is rendered, “This is acceptable.” 

2 Ver. 20.] Note, First, From comparing this and the 
preceding verse, ‘that to suffer (ver. 19), and to fake our 


* Μήτε 'Ῥωμαΐοις, μήτε ἄλλῳ τινὶ δουλεύειν, ἢ Θεω. Μόνος yap 
αὐτὸς ἁληϑῆς ἔστι καὶ δίκαιος ἀνθρώπων δεσπότης. Eleazar apud 
Joseph. lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 989, G. Ἔπειϑον τῆς ἐλευϑερίας 
ἀντιποιεῖσθαι, καὶ “Ῥωμαίους μὲν μηδὲν κρείττους ἑαυτῶν ὑπολαμ- 
βάνειν, Θεὸν δὲ μόνον ἠγεῖσθαι δεσπότην. Cap. 37, p. 995, B. 
Vide D, E, F, et Not. in 2 Thess. ii. 4. 

T Πρὸς ἐλευθερίαν ἐπεχρότουν, θάνατον ἐπιτιμῶντες rots πειθαρ- 
χοῦσι τῇ Ῥωμαίων ἡγεμονία. Th. lib. ii. cap. 23, p. 797, C, Ὁ. 
| Vid. lib. ii. cap. 28, p. 804, E. lib. iii. cap. 25, p. 851, F 


perish :”’ and again, x. 15, Wisd. iil. 7, ἐν καιρῷ ἐπισκοπῆς, In 


lib. iv. cap. 13, p. 874, C. lib. vii. cap. 20, p. 988, F. 


964 


not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but 
committed himse/f to him that judgeth righteously (and 
so was an example of perfect patience) : 

24 Who (was not only to us an example of suffering, 
but) his own self * bare our sins in his own body on 


I, PETER. 


the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto 
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. 

25 % Bor ye were as sheep going astray (from); 
but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop 
of your souls. 


sufferings patiently (ver. 20), in the scripture import, is the 
same thing, 

Secondly, That to do that which is truly acceptable to 
God, is also matter of our glory (see note on 1 Cor. ix. 6, 
Jer. ix, 24, Rom. ii. 7. 10). 

23 Ver. 24, ᾿Ανήνεγκεν, Bare our sins.] If these words be 
rendered, “ He bare our sins,” it is certain that an innocent 
person can only bear them by bearing the punishment due 
to them: and that this is the proper import of these words, 
Tas ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν ἀνήνεγκεν, is evident both from the prophet’s 
exposition of them, when he saith of the same person, αὐτὸς 
ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνήνεγκε, “ He bare the sins of many” (Isa. 
hii. 12), and expounds this thus, διὰ ras ἀνομίας αὐτῶν παρεδύθη, 
“ He was delivered up to death for their iniquities;’ and 
from the usual import of the phrase in the Old Testament ; 
as, when we read in the book of Leviticus, vii. 18, « He that 
eateth of the peace-offering in the third day, it shall not be 
favourably accepted, τὴν ἁμαρτίαν λήνψεται, he shall bear his 
iniquity.” 
thy heart, thou shalt in any wise rebuke him, καὶ οὐ λήψῃ 
δι᾿ αὐτὸν ἁμαρτίαν, and not bear sin for him” (Lev. xix. BY) 
and in the book of Numbers thus, “ Your children shall 
wander in the wilderness forty years, καὶ dvoiconct τὴν πορνείαν 
ὑνῶν, and shall bear your whoredoms”—« Ye shall bear 
iniquities forty years” (Numb. xiv. 33, 34): when we hear 
the prophet Jeremy complaining, “Our fathers have sin- 
ned, and are not, τὰ ἀνομήματα αὐτῶν ὑπέσχομεν, and we 
have borne their iniquities’” (Lam. v. 7): when we hear 
God saying to Ezekiel, «Lie thou upon thy left side, and 
lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it; according to 
the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it, λήψη τὰς 
ἀδικίας αὐτῶν, thou shalt bear their iniquities” (Ezek. iv. 4— 
6): when it is farther said, “The soul that sinneth it shall 
die; the son οὐ λήψεται, shall not bear the iniquity of the 
father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son” 
(Ezek. xxviii. 20) : when we read so often in the law of 
Moses, that such persons have been guilty,* “ and shall bear 
their iniquity, they shall die for it ;” and find so many cau- 
tions there given to the Jews, that they offend not in such 
a kind,t “ that they bear not iniquity and die ;” or, lest they 
bear iniquity and die: in all these places, neither the Soci- 
nians, nor any other persons, do. fancy any other import of 
these words, but that by bearing of iniquity and sin is meant 
bearing the punishment of sin; and in these latter places, 
being punished with death for it. When therefore the same 
Jews found it foretold of their Messiah, by their own pro- 
phet, that he should “bear the sins of many,” what could 
they understand by these expressions, but that he was to 
suffer the punishment, and bear upon him the burden of 
their sins? When the apostle informs those very Jews who 
were so well acquainted with the import of this phrase, that 
“ Christ was once offered, or given up to death, to bear the 
sins of many;” and when Peter, writing to the same Jews, 
informs them that “he bare our sins in his own body on the 
tree,” how can we think otherwise, than that they both ap- 
prehended, and the blessed apostle did design to teach them, 
that he sutfered this death as the punishment of their iniqui- 
ties? Let Mr. Le Clerc continue, if he please, to be confi- 
dent that “it is not so much the expiation of sins, as the 
mortification of them, that is here signified,” whilst we poor 
mortals rather think our sins must be mortified in us than on 
a tree, and in our own bodies than in Christ’s, or in the suf 
ferings of his body; and that it is not very good sense to say, 
He mortified our sins, that we might die unto them. 

24 Ver. 25.] These and the former words are taken from 


* Τὴν ἁμαρτίαν λήψεται. Lev. v. 1, vii. 18, xxiv. 15, Numb. 
ix. 13, Ezek, xxiii. 49, ᾿Αμαρτίαν κομιοῦνται. Lev. xx. 17. 
“Apapriav dnoicovrat, ver. 19, 20. 

T Ἵνα μὴ λάβωσι bv αὐτὰ ἁμαρτίαν καὶ ἀποθάνωσι. Lev. xxii. 9. 
Καὶ οὐ λήψεσϑε dt’ αὐτὸ ἁμαρτίαν, ἵνα μὴ ἀποθάνητε. Numb. xviii. 
22, 29. 


And again, « Thou shalt not hate thy brother in | 


158. liii. 7, where the words are, “We as sheep have gone 
astray, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” 
Hence are both Jews and gentiles represented as “lost sheep,” 
and Christ as the “ good Shepherd” who goes after them, 
and brings them home upon his shoulders (see Isa. xl. 11, 
Ezek. xxxiv. 23). Here then is a farther confutation of the 
Socinian* gloss upon the former verse, viz. that “Christ 
took away our sins by his own body crucified upon the cross, 
procuring our absolution from them by his sufferings; not 
that he underwent the punishment of our transgressions, but 
because his voluntary death prevailed with God to give him 
power to absolve his servants at the last, and to reward them 
with eternal glory.” For were this the whole import of the 
words, why is it added, in plain allusion to those emphati- 
cal words of the prophet Isaiah, “He bare our sins, the 
chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes 
we are healed?” Why is it so emphatically noted, that he 
who « did no sin” (ver. 22), yet “bare our sins?” Doth not 
this lead us to this sense, that he thus suffered not for his 
own, but for our sins? Why is he said to “take away our 
sins in his own body?” Doth not that seem to intimate, that 
the punishment of our sins was laid upon his body? Why 
is he said to do this “ upon the tree?” Must not that inti- 
mate, that what he did to take away our sins was done upon 
the cross? especially if we consider, that the cross was the 
altar upon which he suffered, and that ἐπιφέρειν, ἀνενεγκεῖν ἐπὶ 
τὸ Ovotacriipiov,f “to carry up upon the altar,” is the usual 
phrase for offering the sin-offering or the burnt-oflering upon 
the altar. And so the import of this whole sentence seems 
to be this; He bare, or took away, our sins in his own body 
offered upon the altar for us. Moreover, if this be chiefly 
done after Christ's resurrection, and the great day of recom- 
pense, and only by Christ’s death, as it prevailed with God 
to give him power then to absolve us from our sins, why 
doth the author to the Hebrews make such a plain distine- 
tion betwixt Christ’s bearing our sins, and his second coming 
to give a final absolution from them, saying (Heb. ix. 27. 
29), “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and 
to them that look for him he will appear a second time, 
χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας, without a sacrifice for sin, unto salvation?” 
Crellius allows that χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας signifies “ without a sin- 
offering ;” and doth it not hence follow, that his first coming 
to bear our sins'was his coming with a sin-offering for 
them? Since then the sin-offering still suffered in the sin- 
ner’s stead, and bare the punishment of his iniquity, it fol- 
lows, that he who came to be a sin-offering for us, must 
come to suffer in our stead, and bear the punishment of our 
iniquities. 

Lastly, Admit the words may be translated thus, « He took 
away our sins,” it is most reasonable so to interpret them as 
this phrase is used in scripture, when it is applied to the 
same purpose ; now when it is there used of “ taking away 
sin” by a sacrifice offered up to God for sin, it always hath 
relation to an atonement made by the sacrifice for that ini- 
quity ; and that sin-offering is said to “bear away the ini- 
quity,” by taking it upon himself. So when it is said that 
the sin-offering is given, ἵνα ἀφέλητε τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τῆς συναγω- 
γῆς, καὶ ἐξιλάσασϑε περὶ αὐτῶν ἔναντι Κυρίου, “ἴο take away the 
iniquity of the congregation,” it is there said to do it, “by 
making an atonement for them before the Lord,” Lev. x. 
17. So it is said of the scapegoat, that “he shall bear 
away all their iniquities:;” but then he must be presented 
before the Lord, rod ἐξιλάσασϑαι ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῦ, “to make atone- 


* Neque enim Christus perpessionibus suis iram Dei in 
nos conceptam exsatiavit, aut debita nostra proprié loquendo 
exsolvit; sed tanta sua et tam grata Deo obedientia, et sibi 
ceelestem gloriam, et suis omnibus peccatorum remissionem, 
regni ceelestis hereditate,conjunctam, Dei beneficio compara- 
divit. Schlictingius in locum. 

+ Lev. iii. 5, 11. 17, iv. 10, 26, vi. 10. 15, viii. 17, Numb. 
v. 25, 26, 


CHAPTER III. 


ment with,” or “upon him,” Lev. xvi. 1; i. e. Aaron must 
“confess their iniquities upon his head, and he shall bear 
upon him all their iniquities, λήψεται ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῷ τὰς ἁμαρτίας 
αὐτῶν, he shall take their iniquities upon himself, and shall 
bear them away into the wilderness.” So, Deut. xxi. 9, 
«Thou shalt take away innocent blood from among you;” 
but this is to be done by making an atonement for the inno- 
cent blood shed. When therefore it is said, that « Christ 


965 


was manifested to take away sin,” 1 John iii. 5, and that he 
“took away our sins in his own body,” and was offered to 
“take away the sins of many,” Heb. ix. 28, is it not reason- 
able to suppose he did this by taking the punishment of 
them upon himself, and making an atonement for them be- 
fore God? especially if we consider that he is speaking to 
those Jews to whom these phrases were familiar. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 (And to proceed to the other relations, of man and 
wife;) Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own 
husbands; that, if any (be such as) obey not the word, 
they also may without the word (ἡ. δ. without attending 
to the other demonstrations of the truth of it,) be won (to 
the faith) by the conversation of the wives ; 

2 While they behold your chaste ἢ conversation 
coupled with fear. 

3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorn- 
ing of ? plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold 
(chains), or of putting on of (gorgeous) apparel ; 

4 But με tt be (that of ) the hidden man of the heart, 
in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a 
meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of 
great price. 

5 For after this manner in the old time the holy 
women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves 
(with chastity and subjection), being in subjection unto 
their own husbands : 

6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham (in token of that 
subjection), calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IIL. 


1 Ver. 2. Τὴν ἐν φύβῳ ἁγνὴν ἀναστροφὴν ὑμῶν, Your chaste 
conversation in fear.) i. 6. That they observing that the 
fear and reverence of that God you serve, produceth in you 
all due subjection and obedience to them, great chastity, and 
freedom from all suspicion of lust, great meekness and quiet- 
ness of spirit in the family, sobriety in your apparel, and 
care of their concerns, you may by these things commend 
to them, not only your own persons, but that faith which 
produces in you these good fruits. 

2 Ver. 3. ᾿Εμπλοκῆς τριχῶν, Not the outward adorning, 
&c.] These, in the words of Clemens of Alexandria,* are τὸ 
ἑταιρικὸν καλλώπισμα, “ the ornaments of whores; and such 
as demonstrate, τὸ σοβαρὸν, καὶ ϑρυπτικὸν, καὶ dBpodiatrov, 
“their arrogance, softness, and lasciviousness; the plaiting 
of the hair was,” saith he,f “a sign of corrupt women, καὶ 
γὰρ al περιπλοκαὶ τριχῶν Eraipxai> and they that use them,” 
he saith, “were éraipixds κοσμούμενοι, attired like whores.” 
And in his third book, and fourth chapter, he saith, af χρυσο- 
φοροῦσαι γυναῖκες, * The women that wear gold, plait their 
hair, paint their faces, have not the image of God in the in- 
ward man, but, in lieu of it, a fornicating and adulterous 
soul.” The Apostolical Constitutions: also forbid women to 
Wear τῆν ἐπιτηδευμένην ἐσθῆτα εἰς ἀπάτην, “exquisite garments, 
or garments fitted to deceive, or gold rings upon their fingers, 
ὅτι ταῦτα πάντα ἑταιρισμοῦ τεκμήρια ὑπάρχει, because all these 
things are signs of whoredom.” And as for the “ wearing of 
gold,” Jamblichus,§ in the life of Pythagoras, saith, τὸ χρυ- 
σὸν ἐλευϑέραν μηδεμίαν φορεῖν, μόνον δὲ τὰς ἑταίρας, “that no free 
women wore gold, but whores only.” The precious apparel is 
the thing which all the comedians mention as the attire which 
such women sought after, and gloried in. ‘These things 
therefore, when they are used as such marks of distinction, 
are absolutely forbid chaste women: but when they cease to 
be so, they may be worn by Christian women, provided they 
do it without pride, or much concern about them; and still 
remembering that gravity in apparel is still more honourable 


* Pedag. lib. ii. cap. 12. 


ἡ Lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 248. 
+ Lib. i. cap. 3, 8. ; 


§ Lib. i. eap. 31, p. 165, 


as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any 
amazement (ἡ, 6. and be not moved by your fears to deny 
the truth, as she was, ἐφοβήθη yap, for she was afraid, 
Gen. xviii. 15). 

7 3 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them accord- 
ing to (the) knowledge (of your Christian duly, which 
requires you to love and cleave to your wives, forsaking 
all others, and to render them due benevolence), giving 
honour (or conjugal affection) unto the wife, as unto the 
weaker vessel (and so less able to contain, and more liable 
to temptations), and as being heirs together of the grace 
of life ; that your prayers be not hindered (as they must 
be if ye refuse to cohabit with them). 

8 Finally, be ye all of one mind (minding the same 
things), having compassion one of another (wnder all 
your afflictions), love as brethren, be pitiful, be courte- 
ous (these being the effects of love): 

9 Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing 
(things contrary to love, as showing rancour in the 
heart and tongue): but contrariwise blessing; know- 
ing that ye are thereunto called (¢. e. for this very end), 


and becoming Christian matrons, and that the ornaments of 
the mind, which are not subject to corruption, are much to 
be preferred before them. 

3 Ver. 7. Οἱ ἄνόρες ὁμοίως, Likewise, ye husbands.] I am 
very uncertain what is the true sense of these words. The 
reverend Dr. Hammond interprets them thus, “ Let the hus- 
bands in.like manner live conjugally with their wives, as 
Christianity requires of them ; giving them maintenance, as 
persons less able to provide for themselves, and considering 
that they are by God’s appointment co-partners with them 
of the good things of this life; that so they may not be dis- 
turbed in their prayers by their distractions and solicitudes 
for this world.’ Which interpretation I should acquiesce 
in, could I find that the phrase cvyxAnpovépor ζωῆς or Gions, 
« Being heirs together of the grace of life,” was ever used 
only with respect to the good things of this present life; 
or that ἐκκόπτεσϑαι τὰς προσευχὰς signified only “to be distracted 
in prayers,” and not rather to have them only hindered. 

Others interpret them thus: Let the husbands live with 
their wives as Christianity requires, not irritating or provok- 
ing them (Col. iv. 19), not despising their company; but 
giving honour to them as most needing it, and as considering 
that they are equal to them in respect of spirituals; and 
that by your discontents, displeasure against and separation 
from one another, your prayers be not hindered. 

Others, as in the paraphrase, refer this to conjugal rela- 
tion, and to conjugal duties; as all the ancients, who have 
spoken of these words, interpret them. CEcumenius saith, 
he thinks they are to be interpreted, ἐπὶ τῆς γαμικῆς χρήσεως, 
of the conjugal use of one another; and the word συνοικεῖν 
seems to plead for this sense as being so used by the Sep- 
tuagint, Gen. xx. 3, Deut. xxiv. 1, xxv. 5, Isa. lxii. 5, Esd. 
i. 8. 70. 84. 92; but then I find not that the word τιμὴ 
beareth any such sense. Only to this it may be answered, 
that Origen* seems to point the words thus: “Let the hus- 
band dwell with the wife according to knowledge, as being 
more infirm, giving honour to them also, as being heirs of 
the grace of life.’ And seeing συνοικέω signifies [0 marry, or 


* "Ort det τὸν Gvdpa συνοικεῖν τῇ γυναικὶ, ὡς ἁσθενεστέρῳ σκεύει 
ἀπονέμοντα τιμήν. Hom, xxiv. in Matt. tom, i. p. 355. 
472 


966 


that ye should inherit a blessing (and so by blessing 
others, will imitate your gracious God, and show how 
willing ye are the same mercies may be conferred on 
others). 

10 For he that will love life (7. e. who is desirous of 
a quiet, pleasant life), and (would) see good (7. e. pros- 
perous) days, let him refrain his tongue from evil 
(speaking, so that men may refrain from speaking evil of 
him again), and his lips that they speak no guile: 

11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek 

peace, and ensue it (that so men may be disposed to speak: 
uprighily, and do good to you, and live peacably with you, 
and you may live under the protection of divine provi- 
dence). 
᾿ ia Fox the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous 
(to protect them from evil), and his ears are open unto 
their prayers: but the face of the Lord ἐξ against them 
that do evil (to return tt upon thetr own heads). 

13 And (this deportment doth also naturally tend to 
preserve you from evil, for) who is he that will (be so 
unnatural and ungrateful as to) harm you, if ye be fol- 
lowers of that which is good (and obliging to them) ? 

14 But and if (ὦ should so happen, that notwithstand- 


I. PETER. 


ing) ye (should) suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy 
are ye (iv. 14): and (therefore) 4 be not afraid of their 
terror (7. 6. of what they threaten), neither be troubled 
(for what they can inflict upon you) ; 

15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and 
be ready always to give an ® answer (or account) to every 
man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in 
you with meekness and fear: 

16 Having (or retaining) a good conscience ; that, 
whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers (and 
consequently represent your faith as instigating you to evil 
practices), they may be ashamed (of such accusations) 
that falsely accuse your good conversation in (the faith 
of ) Christ. 

17 (This care of retaining a good conscience is neces- 
sary, that ye may have comfort in your sufferings, and 
be conformed to Christ by them;) For it is better, if the 
will of God be so (and he sees fil to permit ii), that ye 
suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. 

18 For Christ also hath once 7 suffered for sins, the 
8 just for the unjust, 9 that he might bring us to God, 
being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the 
Spirit : 


contract matrimony, the words may be thus paraphrased : 
Likewise, ye men, be ye joined in marriage with the women, 
as ye find them endued with the knowledge of Christianity, 
they being the weaker vessels, and so more subject without 
this knowledge to miscarry : giving preference in your choice 
to such as be heirs together with you of the grace of life, 
that, through difference in religion, your prayers be not cut 
off. 
4 Ver. 14. Τὸν φόβον αὐτῶν ph φοβηϑῆτε, Fear not their 
fear.] These, and the following words, «Sanctify the Lord 
God in your hearts,” are plainly taken from Isa. viii. 12, 
and they are there an exhortation not to fear the Assyrians, 
nor to be dismayed, as those Jews were, who out of fear 
were desirous to confederate with them; and so accordingly 
they must here signify, that Christians were not so to dread 
those by whom they suffered for the sake of righteousness, 
nor any that out of fear conspired with them to avoid per- 
secution, as too many of the Jews did (Gal. vi. 12, 13), as 
to do any thing contrary to the fear of God, or unbecoming 
their profession. 

5 Ver. 15. Κύριον ἁγιάσατε, But sanctify the Lord God in 
your hearts.) This phrase in scripture seems to import these 
things: 

First, That we should always have upon our spirits such 
a holy fear and reverence of God, as will prevail upon us to 
dread more his displeasure than any thing which we can suf- 
fer from the hand of man (Matt. xx. 28), and so enable us 
to stick close to our duty, and to endeavour to secure his 
favour, whatsoever we may suffer for so doing. So, Isa. vii. 
12, 18,“ Fear not their fear, but sanctify the Lord of hosts 
himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your 
dread :” so, xxix. 23, «They shall sanctify the Holy One of 
Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.” 

Secondly, To “sanctify the Lord God in our hearts,” is 
from the heart to own and to believe the truth of all that 
God delivers by his word and promise: as when God saith 
to Moses and Aaron, “ Because ye believed me not, to sanc- 
tify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye 
shall not bring this congregation into the land which IT have 
given them” (Numb. xx. 12). Hence the apostle, having 
told the Christians, he writeth to them of the engagements 
God had made, that “his eyes should be over the righteous, 
and his ears open to their prayers,” and minded them of 
“the hope that was in them,” requires them thus to “ sanc- 
tity the Lord God in their hearts.” 

Thirdly, ‘his phrase imports a firm belief of his almighty 
power, which makes him able to protect his people against 
all their enemies, and an affiance in his goodness and espe- 
cial providence towards them: “Sanctify the Lord God in 
your hearts, and he shall be for a sanctuary,” Isa. viii. 13. 
So Ezekiel, xxxvi. 22—24. 

“Fourthly, To “ sanctify the Lord,” is to acknowledge and 
believe his justice, and that he is a God who will be sure to 


execute his judgments on the wicked, and more especially 
upon the persecutors of his people. So when he executed 
his judgments on Nadab and Abihu, Moses declares, “ ‘This 
is the thing the Lord had spoken, I will be sanctified in 
those that come nigh to me.’ So Numb. xx. 13, “ This is 
the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel con- 
tended with the Lord, and he was sanctified in them ;” «by 
punishing their rebellion,” saith the Targum. So God de- 
clares he would be sanctified upon Sidon, which had been to 
the house of Israel “a pricking brier, and a grieving thorn” 
(Ezek. xxviii. 24), and upon Gog, the great enemy of Israel 
(xxxvili. 3). So the rabbins say, that “when God doth 
judgment, he sanctifies himself before his creatures ;”’ ac- 
cording to these words of the prophet Isaiah, « The Lord of 
hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy 
shall be sanctified in righteousness” (v. 16). 

6 Τιρὸς ἀπολογίαν. This apology for “ the hope that was in 
them,”’ seems rather such as should be made by works than 
words ; against them who accuse the professors of it as evil- 
doers, rather than against them who only doubt of the truth 
of it. 

7 Ver. 18. Περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν ἔπαϑε, Hath suffered for sins.] 
Here note, that Christ is not only said to suffer for us, but 
to “suffer for our sins.’ Now was ever any man said to 
suffer for his own sins, who did not suffer the punishment of 
his iniquity? Why therefore should our Lord be said to 
“suffer for sins,” if he did not some way suffer the punish- 
ment of our iniquity 1. Again, is not the sin-offering in the 
Old Testament styled above sixty times, τὸ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, 
and τὸ περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν, “ the offermg for sin?” When there- 
fore the oblation of our Lord is also called, τὸ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, 
“an offering for sin,’ Rom. viii. 3, when he is said to suffer 
περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν, “ for sins,” 2 Cor. v. 21, what could the Jews, 
to whom the apostle writes, conceive to be the proper import 
of these words, but that he suffered to make atonement for 
their sins, as did all their sin-offerings, by suffering in their 
stead the punishment of their iniquity? (see the notes on 
Rom. viii. 3, 2 Cor. v. 21.) 

8 Δίκαιος ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων, The just for the unjust.] That is, 
saith Schlictingius,* “that the unjust might not suffer death, 
nor bear the punishment of their iniquities ; for the victim 
suffers lest the guilty should be punished.” 

9 Ἵνα προσαγάγη, That he might bring us to God.) This 
phrase, in all other places of the New Testament, where it 
is used with respect to Christ, imports his procuring to us 
freedom of access to God, who by our sins were formerly ex- 
cluded from him, and banished from his gracious presence. 
« By him we have,” saith the apostle Paul, προσαγωγὴν πρὸς 
τὸν πατέρα, “ admission to the Father ” by him we do obtain 


* Ne injusti paterentur mortem #ternam, et suorum pec- 
catorum pcenas darent: victima enim patitur ne reus pu- 
niatur. 


CHAPTER IIT. 


19 By which (Spirit) also he went and preached | 
1 unto the spirits in prison; 

20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once 
the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, 
while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, 
eight souls were saved by water. 

21 The like figure whereunto even (Gr. the antilype 


παῤῥησίαν cis τὴν προσαγωγὴν, “a freedom of access to God 
with confidence” (Eph. ii. 18, iii. 12). This is obtained, 
saith the same apostle, by virtue of his blood ; « for we who 
sometimes were afar off, are by the blood of Christ brought 
nigh unto him:” we are brought nigh unto him, saith Peter | 
here, by his suffering for our sins. Must not then we, who 
were excluded and banished from him by our sins, be 
brought nigh and reconciled to him by the blood of Christ, | 
and by his sufferings for us on the cross? 

10 Ver. 19. Τοῖς ἐν φυλακῇ πνεῦμασι, To the spirits in pri-- 
son.] Or, as other copies read, Πνεύματι, by which Spirit 
going, he preached to those in prison. For explication of 
which words, note, 

First, "hat by those “in prison” we may understand the 
gentile world in bondage and captivity to sin and Satan, and 
held in the chains of their own lusts, and in the bonds of | 
their iniquity. For by this phrase the evangelical prophet 
doth thrice express the preaching of the gospel by our Lord 
Jesus Christ: as in those words, “I gave thee for a cove- 
nant to the people, for a light to the gentiles, to open the 
blind eyes, to bring, ἐκ δεσμῶν δεδεμένους, καὶ ἐξ οἶκον φυλακῆς, 
the prisoners out of prison, and them that sit in darkness out 
of the prison-house,” Isa. xlii. 17. And again, “I will give 
thee for a light to the gentiles, that thou mayest be my sal- 
vation to the ends of the earth, that thou mayest say, τοῖς ἐν 
δεσμοῖς, ἐξέλϑετε, to the prisoners, Go forth,” xlix. 9. And | 
a third time, “ The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to pro- 
claim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison | 
to those that are bound,” lxi. 1,2. To this effect are all 
these places interpreted by Jerome, Theodoret, and Proco- 
pius, upon Isaiah ; viz. of those gentiles who were “bound | 
in the chain of their sins,” and captivated by Satan. Ac- | 
cordingly Lactantius, having cited the words extant, xlii. 7, 
saith, Cum igitur nos antea tanquam ceci, et tangquam car- 
cere stultitie inclusi, sederemus in tenebris, iznorantes Deum 
et veritatem, illuminati ab eo sumus, qui nos testamento suo 
adoptavit, et liberatos malis vinculis, atque in lucem sapien- 
tie productos, in hereditatem regni ccelestis ascivit (Lib. iv. 
cap. 20). Accordingly Philo* doth often represent men 
brought in bondage to their lusts ὡς ἐν δεσμωτηρίῳ καϑειργμέ- 
νην Ψυχὴν ἔχοντες, “as persons whose souls are shut up in a 
prison-house ;” and those who have overcome their lusts and 
sinful pleasures,t ὥσπερ ἐξ εἱρκτῆς προσεληλυϑότων, καὶ δεσμοῖς 
οἷς ἐπεσφίγγοντο διαφειμένων, as persons who are come out of 
prison, and have put off their chains:” adding, that God 
promised liberty to the souls that seek to him for it,t οὐ μό- 
vov λῦσιν δεσμῶν καὶ ἔξοδον ἐκ τῆς περιφρουρουμένης εἱρκτῆς παρα- 
σχόμενος, “not only affording them freedom from their 
bonds, and an exit from the prison in which they were kept; | 
but giving them provisions for their journey, and safe con- 
duct.” 

Now the antediluvians, who lived about the time of Noah, 
were ἐν φυλακῇ, “in prison,” upon adouble account: (1.) by 
reason of their bondage to sin: for then ‘all flesh had cor- 
rupted their way,” their “wickedness was great upon the 
earth,” and “every imagination of their heart was to do evil, 
and that continually” (Gen. vi. 5, 6.13): and, (2.) they 
were in prison, or ἐν φυλακῆ, as having from God received the 
sentence of destruction, if they repented not within a hun- 
died and twenty years, according to these words, “« My Spi- 
rit shall not always strive with man, for that he is flesh: yet 
his days shall be a hundred and twenty years” (Gen. vi. 3) : 
i, e. so long will I expect his reformation before I bring the | 
flood upon them. ‘Thus “the long-suffering of God waited 
for them in the days of Noah,” expecting their repentance, 
and keeping them, as it were, “in prison” for the day of 


* Quis Rer. Div. Her. p. 387, E. 
ἡ Quod omnis prob, liber. p. 672, A. 
+ Quis Rer. Div. Her. p. 405, F. 


967 


of which ark is thal) baptism (which) doth also now 


| save us (not (merely as it is) the putting away of the 


filth of the flesh, but (as i 5) the ! answer (or stipu- 
lation) of a good conscience toward God,) (and this sal- 
vation it works for us,) by (virtue of 13 the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ: 

22 Who is (Gr. being) gone into heaven, and is on 


slaughter, if they did not repent. During this time, and be- 


| fore, God sent unto them his prophets, denouncing by his 


Spirit his judgments against the wicked ; for to them“ Enoch, 
the seventh prophet from Adam, prophesied, saying, The 
Lord cometh with his thousands of angels to do judgment 
against all, and to reprove all the ungodly concerning all 


_ their ungodly works which they had wickedly committed, 


and concerning all their hard speeches which ungodly sin- 
ners had spoken against him” (Jude 14, 15). And he sent 
also Noah to them, “a preacher of righteousness” (1 Pet. ii. 
5), who, by preparing an ark before them for his own pre- 
servation, in obedience to the oracle delivered to him, con- 
demned the old world (Heb. xi. 7). Thus did Christ by 
his Spirit preach to them in the days of Noah: and there- 
fore the antediluvian age is even by the Jews styled “the 
age of the Holy Ghost;” according to those words, “« My 
Spirit shall not always strive with man ;” that is, say Ains- 
worth and the Bishop of Ely, My Spirit in my prophets, 
Enoch and Noah, shall not be always chiding and reproving, 
and thereby endeavouring to bring men to repentance, but 
shall proceed to punish them. Now this punishment being 
the drowning of the old world, their spirits have been ever 
since kept in prison, or reserved in chains of darkness, to 
the judgment of the great day: for by the consent of the 
Jewish nation,* “the generation of the old world have no 
portion in the world to come, neither shall they stand up in 
judgment; for it is said, My Spirit shall not always judge 
with man.” The phrase « My Spitit,” saith Dr. Fuller, is 
never used of any other but the Spirit of God, and therefore 


| must here be interpreted of the same Spirit.” 


Now from that time to our Saviour’s advent, God sent no 
prophet to the whole heathen world, no person with commis- 
sion to preach to all nations, or teach the gospel to every 
creature, but “suffered them to walk in their own ways” 
(Acts xiv. 16), whence they are said to have been disobe- 


| dient only once of old time, “in the days of Noah.” 


10 Ver. 19. By which he preached to the spirits in prison.} 
Hence Mr. Dodwell concludes, that our Saviour after his 
death did, in the interval betwixt that and his resurrection, 
preach to the separated souls in hades; but to this the 
reverend Bishop Pearson answers: 

First, That those words cannot prove this assertion, un- 
less it were certain, that by, the word spirit we were to 
understand the soul of Christ, whereas indeed the spirit by 
which he is said to preach, was not the soul of Christ, but 
that Spirit by which he was quickened; as is evident from 
the connexion of the words thus, “ He was quickened by that 
Spirit, ἐν @, by which he went and preached to the spirits in 
prison,” that is, by the eternal Spirit of God, who is the 
author of the resurrection. 

Secondly, He adds, that the persons to whom he preached 
by the Spirit, were only such as were “disobedient in the 
days of Noah, while the ark was preparing” (ver. 20) ; i. e. 
those who were disobedient before the flood, as were the 
antediluvians, all that time that the long-sufferance of God 
waited on them, and consequently so long as God gave them 
time for repentance, which was one hundred and twenty 
years, striving then with them for that end by his Spirit in the 
prophets Enoch and Noah, but adding that his Spirit should 
not “always strive with them:” in vain then, saith he, are 
we taught to understand Peter of the promulgation of the 
gospel to the Jews or gentiles then in hades, since the words 
so evidently relate to the long-suffering of God to men, then 
living in the days of Noah. 

"Ver. 21. ᾿Επερώτημα, The answer of a good conscience.) 
Therefore, say the anabaptists, baptism cannot be salutary 
to those infants who cannot make this answer of a good con- 
science. To this I answer, that Paul also saith, that “the 


* Sanhedr. p. 10, halech. 8. 


968 


the right hand of God (there interceding for us, and in- 
vested with all power to give elernal life to those whom God 
hath given him, and who is able to save us lo the uttermost 
who come unto God by him, Heb. vii. 25); angels and 
authorities and powers being made subject unto him 


I. PETER. 


(who therefore will use the good angels as ministering spi- 
rits sent forth to minister to them who are heirs of salva- 
tion, Heb. i. 14, and will preserue them from those autho- 
rilies, and powers, and evil spirits, which oppose and per- 
secule them, and seek their ruin). 


true circumcision before God is not the outward circumcision 
of the flesh, but the internal circumcision of the heart and 
spirit” (Rom. ii. 29). But will any one hence argue, that the 
Jewish infants, for want of this, were not to be admitted 
into covenant with God by circumcision? And yet the ar- 
gument is plainly parallel: “the answer of a good con- 
science” is required, that the baptism may be salutary; 
therefore they only are to be baptized who can make this 
answer: and the inward circumcision of the heart is required 
as the only acceptable circumcision in the sight of God; 
therefore they only are to be circumcised who have this in- 
ward circumcision of the heart. ‘The Jews did not admit 
proselytes to circumcision without this answer of a good con- 
science; but yet they admitted their infants without any 
such thing: why therefore may we not allow the Christian 


church, in the administration of baptism, to observe the 
same custom in admitting the children of their proselytes 
to baptism, as they admitted them both to circumcision and 
baptism. 

2 Av ἀναστάσεως ᾿Ιησοὴ Χριστοῦ, By the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ,) “« Who died for our sins, and rose again for 
our justification” (Rom. iv. 25), “and hath by his resurrec- 
tion begotten us to a lively hope of an inheritance incorrupti- 
ble” (1 Pet. i. 2, 4), is risen as the first-fruits of them that 
sleep (1 Cor. xv. 20), and so hath assured us, that they who 
are Christ’s shall also be raised by him to eternal life (ver. 
23, 2 Cor. iv. 14,1 Thess. iv. 14), and who, being risen, is 
now in heaven promoting our salvation (ver. 22), and pre- 
paring mansions for us (John xiv. 2). 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Forasmucn then as Christ hath suffered for us 
in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same 
mind (or resolution to be conformed to him in his suf- 
ferings, as being buried with him in baptism, Rom. vi. 
4, and so planted together with him in the likeness of his 
death, ver. 5, the old man being crucified with him, that 
the body of sin might be abolished, that henceforth we might 
not serve sin): for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath 
ceased from sin ; 

2 (Jnsomuch) That he no longer should live the rest 
of his time in the flesh (in obedience) to the lusts of 
men (zgnorant of the truth, 1 Pet. i. 14), but to the will 
of God (Rom. vi. 10, 11). 


3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to 
have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we 
walked in lasciviousness, (flesh/y) lusts, excess of 
wine, revellings, banquetings, and ! abominable idola- 
tries : 

4 Wherein they think it strange (Gr. wonder) that 
ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, 
speaking evil of you: 

5 Who shall give (an) account (of these sins against 
nature) to him that is ready to judge the quick and the 
dead. 

6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also 
5 to them that are dead (@. e. to the gentile world, dead 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


1 Ver. 3. ᾿Αθεμίτοις εἰδωλολατρείαις, Abominable idolatries .] 
i.e. In idolatries joined with divers abominations (i. 6. with 
drunkenness, uncleanness, unnatural cruelties to their own 
children, homicide). 

Note here, that this is an evidence, that this epistle was 
directed not only to the Jewish nation, but to the gentile 
converts. 

2 Ver. 6.] For explication of these words, note, 

First, That οἱ νεκροὶ, « the dead,” in scripture, doth often 
signify, not those who in a natural sense are dead by disso- 
lution of the soul and body, but those who are spiritually so, 
as being alienated from the life of God, and dead in tres- 
passes and sins; as when the apostle saith, the widow “that 
liveth in pleasure, is dead while she liveth,’ 1 Tim. v. 6; 
and Christ unto the church of Sardis, “ Thou hast a name to 
live, and art dead,” Rev. iii. 1; and when he speaks to one 
of his disciples thus, “Follow thou me, and let the dead 
bury their dead,” Matt. viii. 22. This is a phrase so com- 
mon with the Jews, that, as Maimonides* informs us, they 
proverbially say, Impii etiam viventes yocantur mortui, “The 
wicked are dead even while they are alive:’’ for he, saith 
Philo, « who lives a life of sin, τέϑνηκε τὸν εὐδαίμονα, is dead, 
as to a life of happiness ;” his soul is dead, and even buried 
in his lusts and passions. And because the whole gentile 
world lay more especially under these most unhappy circum- 
stances, whence the apostle styles them “sinners of the gen- 
tiles,” Gal. ii. 15, it was proverbially said by the Jewish 
doctors, Populi terrarum, i. e. ethnici non vivunt, “The hea- 
thens do not live ;” and they in scripture are more peculiarly 
intended by that phrase. Hence the apostle saith to the 
Ephesians and Colossians (Eph. ii. 1, Col. ii. 13), that they 


* More Nevoch. lib. i. 
+ Leg. Alleg. lib. i. p. 45, Quod deter. pot. p. 127. 


were νεκροὶ τοῖς ἁμαρτήμασι, “dead in trespasses and sins ;” 
and brings in God thus speaking to the gentiles, “« Awake, 
thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give 
thee life,” Eph. v. 14. 

Secondly, The ends for which this gospel was revealed to 
these gentiles, thus spiritually dead, and buried in sensuality, 
were these: 

1, Ἵνα κριϑῶσι κατ᾽ ἀνδρώπους σαρκὶ, That they might con- 
demn, might strive against, might mortify those sensual de- 
sires, and carnal appetites, which they had indulged whilst 
they lived, κατ᾽ dvSparovs, “as natural men,” wanting the 
knowledge of God’s will, and the assistance of his grace and 
Spirit. This I conceive to be the genuine import of the 
Greek: for, (1.) the word “ flesh” being here set in opposi- 
tion to the “Spirit” not of man, but God, or at the least to 
the renewed spirit of man, cannot be reasonably thought to 
signify that fleshly body which we bear about us, but rather 
that sinful flesh, which lusts against the Spirit (Gal. v. 17), 
that “law of our members, which wars against the law of 
our minds’ (Rom. vii. 23), that φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς, OF 
“fleshly wisdom,” which is “ not subject to the law of God” 
(Rom. viii. 7). 

This being so, κριϑῆναι τῇ σαρκὶ, cannot be truly rendered, 
to be condemned, judged, and punished in the flesh, that is, 
the body, but to strive with, to mortify, and subdue the 
flesh, with its affections and lusts; which is the common im- 
port of the word κριϑῆναι, both in the Septuagint and the 
New Testament: so, Job ix. 3, ἐὰν βούληται κριϑῆναι αὐτῷ, 
«Tf he will contend with God, he cannot answer him one of 
a thousand ;” and, xiii. 19, τίς ἐστιν ὃ κριϑησόμενος, “ Who is 
he that contendeth with me?” Isa. xliii. 26, “Put me in 
remembrance, καὶ κριϑῶμεν, and let us plead together ;” 1. 8, 
“He is near that justifieth me, ris ὃ κρινόμενός μοι, who is he 
that contendeth with me?” Ixvi. 16, é rad πυρὶ κριϑήσεται ὃ 
Κύριος, “ By fire will the Lord plead with all flesh; Hos. ii. 
22, κρίϑητε πρὸς τὴν μητέρα ὑμῶν, κρίϑητε, “Plead with your 


CHAPTER IV. 


in trespasses and sins), that they might be judged 
(might judge, condemn, and oppose their former life, 
led) according to men (not enlightened by the gospel) 
in the flesh, but (and might) live according to God in 
the spirit. 

7 But the ὅ end of all things (belonging to Jewish 
state, mentioned Matt. xxiv. 6, Mark xiii. 7, Luke xxi. 
9,) is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto 
ptayer (according to our Lord’s advice in that case, Luke 
xxi. 34. 36). 

8 And above all things have fervent charity among 
yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of 
sins, (which ye may have been guilly of in the time of 
your enmity to Christ and his servants ; or those manifold 
infirmities ye may have commitied, in building hay and 
slubble on the foundation, to your great hazard, 1 Cor. 
xili, 12. 15. Or, it covers the sins of others, preventing 
them by patience, not taking notice of them when commit- 
ted, and concealing them from others: to this sense the 
words of the wise man lead, Proy. x. 12.) 

9 Use hospitality one to another without grudging 
(or murmuring that you bestow your charity on them who 
are not of your nation, or are not circumcised, and obedi- 
ent to the law, as ye think yourselves obliged to be). 

10 As every man hath received * the gift (of the 


969 


Spirit), even so (let him) minister the same one to an- 
other, as (becomes) good stewards of the manifold grace 
of God (to dv). 

11 If any man speak (7. 6, teach), let him speak as 
(he ἐς instructed from) the oracies of God; if any man 
minister (as @ deacon), let him do it as of the ability 
whieh God giveth: that God in all things may be glo- 
rified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and 
dominion (ascribed) for ever and ever. Amen. 

12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery 
trial which is (come) to try you (Gr. wonder not at the 
burning that is among you, and is befallen you for trial), 
as though some strange (and unexpected) thing (had) 
happened unto you: (‘his being only that which was 
Soretold by us, 1 Thess. ili. 4, fo which ye were appointed, 
and to which ye were called, 1 Pet. ii. 21.) 

13 But rejoice (in it rather), inasmuch as ye are © 
(thus made) δ partakers of (sufferings resembling) Christ’s 
sufferings ; that (so), when his glory shall be revealed, 
ye may (resembling him then in glory, as ye do now in 
sufferings, Rom. viii. 17, 2 Tim. ii. 11, ὧς.) be glad 
also with exceeding joy. 

14 (And) If (zt so happen, that) ye be reproached 
for the name of Christ, happy are ye (in such suffer- 
ings) ; for the ® spirit of glory and of God resteth 


mother, plead ;” and, Micah vi. 1, “ Arise, xpiSnre πρὸς τὰ 
ὅρη, contend against the mountains:” so also, Matt. v. 40, 
ϑέλοντί σοι κριϑῆναι, is, “ to him that will contend with thee ;” 
and, Jude 9, τῷ διαθόλῳ διακρινόμενος is, “contending with the 
devil” (see also Judg. xxi. 22, Jer. ii. 9). And this, I think, 
is sufficient to justify the rendering these words actively, 
without referring to Glassius’s Canon (lib. iii. tr. 3, can. 24), 
that verbs passive sometimes signify actively. 

Note, thirdly, that the phrase κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον, in the New 
Testament, doth always signify to live, speak, or act, after 
the manner of mere natural men, not yet acquainted with 
the mind of God, or not assisted by his Spirit: as in those 
passages of the apostle Paul, “Speak I these things, κατ᾽ 
ἄνϑρωπον, according to the dictates of mere human wisdom ? 
Saith not the law the same also?” (1 Cor. ix. 8.) “ My 
doctrine is not, κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον, the product of man’s wisdom, 
but I received it from the revelation of Christ Jesus” (Gal. 
i, 11); κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον λέγω, “ I speak what men would” from 
the mere strength of reason argue (Rom. iii. 5). And 
again, κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον λέγω, “1 speak what is acknowledged 
among men,” that a man’s testament is accounted sacred, 
and no man addeth to it, or taketh from it (Gal. iii, 15). 
“Tf I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, κατ᾽ ἄνδρωπον, 
after the heathen manner, what advantageth it me, if the 
dead rise not?” (1 Cor. xv. 32.) And, lastly, “ Whereas 
there are contentions among you, are ye not carnal, and 
walk, κατ᾽ ἄνϑρωπον, as natural men” (1 Cor, iii. 3), not as 
men acted by the Spirit? 

So that κριϑῆναι κατ᾽ ἄνθρωπον σαρκὶ, is, “to condemn their 
former life led as natural men,” or as mere heathens in the 
flesh, or to strive against that flesh which they indulged 
in their heathen state; and to “live unto God in the 
Spirit,” which is the second end for which the gospel was 
preached unto the gentiles, is, by the assistance of the Holy 
Spirit, to live according to the will and the example of a 
holy God. 

To this interpretation of this text the context plainly 
seems to lead ; for the apostle’s argument runs thus: “ Christ 
having suffered for us in the flesh,” it doth become us also, 
in a spiritual sense, to suffer in the flesh, by the mortifica- 
tion of our fleshly lusts; that though we still live in the 
flesh, we “ may not henceforth live unto the lusts of men, 
but to the will of God” (ver. 2). Isay, the Christian must 


no Jonger live “ after the will of the gentiles in lasciviousness, | 


lusts,” &c. (ver. 3), for which things heathens will be obnox- 
ious to God's just displeasure at the great day of their ac- 
counts ; since “for this cause the gospel hath been preached 


unto them,” that they might be engaged by it to condemn | 


and strive against that fleshly conversation, in which they 
lived formerly, according to the lusts of men, not yet ac- 
quainted with the mind of God, and might henceforth live 
according to God in the Spirit, 

Vor. [V.—122 


For this cause was the gospel preached to them that are 
dead, that they, being judged according to men in the flesh, 
might live unto God in the Spirit.] That this text can have 
no relation to the preaching of the apostles to the dead gen- 
tiles in hades is evident: 

Because the apostle saith this whilst Paul, John, and 
himself were living, and speaks of it as a thing already past, 
saying, εὐηγγελίσϑη, “The gospel hath been preached to 
them,’ not that it shad? be preached to them when dead. 

3 Ver. 7. Τὸ τέλος ἤγγικε, The end of all things is at 
hand.] This phrase, and the advice upon it, so exactly 
parallel to what our Lord had spoken, will not suffer us to 
doubt that the apostle is here speaking, not of the end of 
the world, or of all things in general, which was not then, 
and seems not yet to be at hand, but only of the end of the 
Jewish church and state, mentioned in the inquiry of the 
apostles, thus, “Tell us when πάντα ταῦτα, all these things 
shall be finished ?” (Mark xiii. 14.) And in our Saviour’s 
answer, thus, “ This generation shall not pass away, ἕως ἂν 
πάντα γένηται, till all things be fulfilled,” Luke xxi. 32; that 
is, πάντα ταῦτα, “all these things,’ Matt. xxiv. 34, Mark 
xiii. 30, And it isthe observation of interpreters upon these 
words, τοῖς πᾶσι γέγονα τὰ πάντα, “I became all things to all 
men,” 1 Cor, ix. 22, and, πάντα μοι ἔξεστιν, “ All things are 
lawful for me,” x. 23, that the word πάντα must be restrained 
to the subject-matter. 

4 Ver. 10. Χάρισμα, The gift.) That “the gift” should 
here signify wealth, I cannot think, for though χάρις some- 
times bears that sense, yet χάρισμα is never used to signify 
wealth, but hath always relation to the spiritual gifts vouch- 
safed then to the church of Christ. (2.) Because the 
“speaking as the oracles of God” seems plainly to be the 
same with “ prophesying according to the analogy of faith,” 
mentioned Rom. xil. 6, and the “ ministering” here, with 
the διακονία there, both which are mentioned as “spiritual 
gifts according to the grace given to them ;” see note there, 
and on the “helps,” mentioned 1 Cor, xii. 27. 

5 Ver. 13. Tuts rod Χριστοῦ παϑήμασι, Are partakers of 
Christ’s sufferings.] Because he looks upon the sufferings 
of his members as his own (Acts ix. 4, Col. i. 14). 

6 Ver. 14. Πνεῦμα τῆς δόξης, The Spirit of glory ;| (Or,as 
some copies read, τῆς dégns καὶ δυνάμεως, “of glory and 


| power,”’) is doubtless that Holy Spirit which attended the 


preaching of the glorious gospel, and made it to be “the 
ministration of the Spirit, ἐν ὀύξη, in glory ;” and by partaking 
of which Spirit we Christians are said to be “transformed 
from glory to glory,as by the Spirit of the Lord,” 2 Cor. iii. 
8, 9. 18; and who is also styled Πνεῦμα Juvdpews, “the 
Spirit of might,” 2 Tim, i.7; and being promised and given 
to those who suflered for Christ’s sake, to “ abide with them 
for ever,” as their Comforter, and to “ help their infirmities” 
(Rom. viii. 26, 2 Tim, i. 7, 8), must make them happy suf 


970 


upon you: (so that though) on their part (who are unbe- 
lievers) he (7. e. Christ) is evil spoken of, but (Gr. yet) 
on your part he is glorified. 

15 But let (especial care be taken that) none of you 
suffer 7 as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, 
or as a busybody in other men’s matters. 

16 Yet if any man suffer as a Christian (7. 6. only 
on that account), let him not be ashamed; but let him 
8 glorify God on this behalf. 

17 For the time zs come that judgment must (ac- 
cording to our Lord’s prediction, Matt. xxiv. 21, 22, 
Mark xiii. 13, Luke xxi. 16, 17), begin at the house 
of God: and if ἐΐ first begin at us (believing Jews), 
what shall the ὃ end be of them that obey not the gos- 
pel of God? 

18 And if (some of ) the righteous scarcely be saved 
(i. e. preserved from this burning, ver. 12, being saved, 


I. PETER. 


yel so as by fire, 1 Cor. iii. 15), where shall the un- 
godly and the sinner appear (in safety from these dread- 
ful judgments which are coming on the Jewish nation, 
Prov. xi. 31)? 

19 Wherefore (seeing the sufferings of Christians 
then will be so little, in comparison of those which shall 
befall the unbelievers, ver. 17, 18, seeing the Spirit of 
glory and power shall support and comfort them under 
these sufferings, ver. 14, and Christ hath promised 
them protection in that dreadful day, and said, He that 
endureth to the end, shall be saved, Matt. xxiv. 12, 13,) 
let them that suffer according to the will of God 
commit the keeping of their souls (ἡ. e. their lives) 
to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator (who, 
being their Creator, must be able to deliver them; and 
being faithful, will not suffer them to be tempted above 
what they are able, 1 Cor. x. 13). 


ferers; and being also that Spirit by which they were en- 
abled to work many miracles, and endued with extraordinary 
gifts, Christ must be glorified by him, as he foretold he 
should, John xvi. 14. 

Kara μὲν αὐτοὺς Θλασφημεῖται, κατὰ δὲ ὑμᾶς δοξάζεται. 
Injecta hee videntur, Millius, Proleg. p. 67, col. 2. See, 
for the defence of them, Examen Millii. 

7 Ver. 15. ‘Os φονεὺς, As a murderer, &c.] Whoever 
reads Josephus, will find there was the greatest reason to 
give these cautions to the Jewish nation, which then prodigi- 
ously abounded with thieves, who were continually employed 
in murdering not only heathens, but their own brethren; 
were κακοποιοὶ, OF, aS some copies read xaxovpyoi, to such a 


high degree, that he saith, “'They practise all manner of in- 
justice and wickedness that was ever thought of or com- 
mitted; and ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοποι, men who would have the 
government of other men’s consciences, and overrule their 
actions, especially the zealots. 

8 Ver. 16. Δοξαζέτω τὸν Θεὸν, Let him glorify God.) i.e. 
Let him give glory to God, who enables him thus patiently 
to suffer for his sake, or, let him be so careful to behave 
himself under his sufferings, that he may glorify God by 
them, in the day of visitation (ii. 12), which day is now 
at hand. 

9 Ver. 17. Τὸ τέλος, The end.] Foretold by Christ, of the 
unbelieving Jews (see note on ver. 7). 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Tue ! elders which are among you I exhort, who 
am also an elder, and.a witness of the sufferings of 


Christ, and also (shall be) 5 ἃ partaker of the glory that 
shall be revealed : 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VY. 


1Ver. 1. Πρεσβυτέρους τοὺς ἐν ὑμῖν, The elders that are 
among you.| ‘That is, the bishops, saith Dr. Hammond, here, 
and wheresoever the word occurs in the New ‘Testament; 
for the order of presbyters was not yet in being, but only | 
afterward appointed by John: for that the apostle is here 
speaking of elders, not by age, but office, appeareth by his 
exhortation directed to them, to “feed the flock” committed 
to their charge (ver. 2). But this notion seems not well | 
consistent with what others have discoursed upon this sub- | 
ject; for, 

First, They who make the bishop, priest, or elder, and 
deacon, to be appointed, as answering to the high-priest, | 
the priests, and Levites, must suppose that all these three | 
orders were at first appointed, especially in the church of | 
Jerusalem, as being derived from their platform. And so | 
must all those learned men, who say the church was mo- 
delled after the manner of the Jewish synagogue; for as to 
that, the parallel must run between the chief of the syna- 
gogue, the elders, and their ministerial officers, and the 
bishops, priests, or elders, and the deacons: and if the 
middle order had been wanting so long as is supposed, the | 
government of the church would not have been formed after | 
that platform; which, as Epiphanius* and the Jews inform | 
us, had these several offices in it. ‘The same may be said of | 
those who make the elders or presbyters to be answerable to 
the seventy, appointed by Christ as inferior officers under | 
the apostles, and make this an argument of an inequality | 
betwixt bishops and presbyters, established in the church of 
Christ. 

Secondly, Hence it must necessarily follow, that not only 
in the times, but even in the writings of the apostles, the 
names of the presbyters and bishops were so far confounded, 


*Apxiwvaywyav, καὶ πρεσβυτέρων, καὶ ᾿Αζανιτῶν τῶν παρ᾽ 
αὐτοῖς διακόνων, Her. xxx. §. 1]. 


that a presbyter, in their style, did always signify one that 
was properly a bishop; which yet the learned Bishop Pear- 
son” seems not to allow. 

Thirdly, This seems to make the work and office of a 
bishop too great to be discharged by a single person, espe- 
cially in such great churches as that of Jerusalem, where 
there were many myriads of believing Jews (Acts xxi. 20). 
For it was his office, saith that reverend person, to be the 
teacher of the whole flock committed to him: Acts xx. 28, 
« Ye that are bishops of the several churches of Asia, look 
to the churches committed to your trust, to rule and order 
all the faithful Christians under you;” so the paraphrase. 
See the paraphrase and note on Heb. xiii. 7. 17, where he 


| saith, that “to teach, exhort, and confirm and impose hands 


were all the bishop’s office in Judea.” He was to exercise 
the whole discipline of the church, by “hearing all the ec- 
clesiastical causes, inflicting censures, and receiving peni- 
tents” (see the paraphrase and note on Titus iii. 10) ; he 
was to take the principal care of the poor, “to receive, and 
distribute to them the church’s stock ;” so here: the supreme 
trust and charge of that, saith he, “being always reserved 
to the apostles and bishops of the church” (note on 1 Cor. 
xii. 28) ; he was to visit the sick, and pray with them; that 
being, saith he, “ one branch of the office of bishops” (note 
on James y. 14): and how one bishop could perform all 
this to a church consisting of many myriads of persons, it is 
not easy to conceive. I therefore think it better to admit 
of the ordinary acceptation of the word presbyter here ; that 
is, to think they also may be included in the term. 

2 Κοινωνός δύξης, And also a partaker of the glory which 
shall be revealed.] i. e. Saith one, present at the discourse, 
concerning the glory that should be consequent to his death, 
the remarkable destruction of his crucifiers, and the deliver- 
ance of bis faithful disciples. But, first, it is certain, that 
the scripture mentions nothing of any such discourse: but 
only that Moses and Elias then “spake of his decease which 


Vind. lib. ii. cap. 12. 


CHAPTER V. 


2 Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking | 


(upon you) the oversight thereof, ὃ not by constraint, 
but willingly; 4 not for filthy lucre, but of a ready 
mind ; 

3 5 Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but 
being ensamples to the flock. 

4 And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye 
shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away 
(and so receive a full and better reward of your labours, 
than others aim at). 


5 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the | 


elder (or aged). Yea, all of you be subject one to an- 
other (7. δ. be as ready to do kind offices to others, as if ye 
were subject to them, see note on Phil. ii. 3), and δ be 
clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, 
and giveth grace to the humble. 

6 7 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty 
hand of God (now coming upon you, iv. 17), that he 
may exalt you in due time: 

7 Casting all your care upon him (and commitling 
yourselves to the conduct of his all-wise providence, iv. 19) ; 
for he careth for you. 

8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary 


971 


the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking 
whom he may devour: (and by his persecutions tempt to 
an apostasy from the faith), 1 Thess. iii. 5, Rev. ii. 10:) 

9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that 
the same afflictions (which ye now endure) are accom- 
plished in your (Christian) brethren that are in the 
world (see James tv. 7). 

10 But (and) the God of all grace, who hath called 
us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye 
have suffered a while, make you perfect (in patience), 
stablish, strengthen, settle you. 

11 To him be glory and dominion for ever and 
ever. Amen. 

12 By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, ὃ as I 
suppose, I have written briefly, exhorting, and testify- 
ing that this is the true grace of God wherein ye (now) 
stand. 

13 The church that is at (Rome, figuratively called) 
9 Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; 
and so doth Marcus my son (@. e. who as a son with his 
father hath served me in the gospel, Phil. ii. 22). 

14 Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. 
Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen. 


he was to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke ix. 31). And 
though Peter was then present, he heard not a word of that 
discourse ; being then fast asleep (ver. 32). This glory there- 
fore is doubtless the glory which we shall enjoy at the re- 
surrection, or the redemption of our bodies from corruption 
(Rom. viii. 18. 23); styled the “glory of God,” Rom. v. 
2; the glory we shall enjoy when Christ appears, Col. ili. 4, 
when “ our vile bodies shall be made like unto Christ’s glo- 
rious body,” Phil. iii. 21, and shall be “raised up in glory,” 
1 Cor. xv. 43; “eternal glory,” 1 Pet. v. 10; this being 
that we shall enjoy at the revelation of Christ Jesus, ver. 4, 
1. 7. 13, iv. 13. Of this Peter was partaker then in the pro- 
mise, and in the earnest of it, the first-fruits of the Spirit. 

3 Ver. 2. Not by constraint, but willingly ; μὴ ἀναγκαστῶς 
ἀλλ᾽ ἑκουσίως. Not as it were constrained to it by the dread 
of what ye may suffer, the woe impendent if ye do not per- 
form this office; but voluntarily, and as a free-will-oftering 
to that God who hath loved you so much, and from a ready 
tind to serve the interests of souls; as in those words of 
Paul, ἀνάγκη, * A necessity is laid upon me, and woe unto 
me, if I preach not the gospel; but if, ἑκὼν, willingly I do 
this, I have a reward” (1 Cor. ix. 16, 17). 

4 Μηδὲ aicxpoxepdas, Not for filthy lucre.] As did the false 
apostles and Judaizers, “ teaching things they ought not, for 
filthy lucre’s sake,” Tit. i. 11; “thinking gain godliness,” 
1 Tim. vi. 5. 

5 Ver. 3. Μηδὲ ὡς κατακυριεύοντες τῶν κλήρων, Not as lords 
over God’s heritage :] Or, as it might be rendered, “of the 
possessions of the church.” It was the custom then of many 
to sell their heritages, and give the money to the governors 
and bishops of the church, to be distributed to the use of 
poor Christians; and these inheritances and moneys were 
styled κλῆροι, both the scriptures and the best Greek authors 
using it for a patrimony or heritage obtained by lot, as the 
inheritance of the Jews was (Josh. xii. 8) ; whence the word 
κλῆρος is so often used in this sense through the books of 
Joshua and Judges. And so the bishops, to whose hands it 
Was committed, are here required not to act as if they were 
lords, but only as stewards of it; and so as to be examples 
(to others) of freedom from avarice, and diligence in reliev- 
ing the poor, sick, and needy. But seeing what is here κλῆρος, 
is in the same sentence styled τὸ ποίμνιον, the flock of God, 
the common interpretation of the word for heritage seems 
to be established by this latter word. 

6 Ver. δ. ᾿Εἰγκομβώτασθε, Be ye clothed with humility.] The 
word hath two significations; it signifies a frock put over 
the rest of our clothes, and so imports, that this humility 
should be visible in us, above all other Christian virtues, in 
our whole conversation, our words, and actions. Secondly, 
it signifies a belt which girds about our garments, and so im- 
ports we should tie it fast unto us, and have those conside- 
rations always fixed upon our spirits, which may still keep 
us in an humble frame of soul. 

7 Ver. 6. Ταπεινώθητε.} 1. 6. Submit with patience to the 


chastisements sent by his powerful hand upon you; that be- 
ing truly sensible of the divine displeasure, being afflicted, 
and mourning for those sins which brought these evils down 
upon you, and turning unto him that smites you, he may 
draw nigh to you, and in due season work for you a deliver- 
ance from this afflicted state. See this in the place parallel 
to this, James iv. 7. 10. 

8 Ver. 12. ‘Qs νομίζω, As I suppose.]) From these and 
many like expressions used in the epistles of the apostles it 
is evident, that the divine afflatus, by which the Holy Ghost 
assisted them to write, did not dictate the very words, but 
only presided over them to preserve them from error in writ- 
ing, seeing the Holy Ghost could not say, “ As I suppose ;” 
nor could Peter have used this phrase, if the divine illumi- 
nation had influenced and instructed him in this matter. 

9 Ver. 13. Ἢ ἐν Βαβυλῶνι, The church in Babylon.) That 
Babylon is figuratively here put for Rome, is an opinion so 
early delivered by Papias,* and which afterward so gene- 
rally obtained (as we learn from Eusebius, Jerome,j and 
Ccumenius, on this place), that I subscribe to the note at 
the end of this epistle, that ἐγράφη ἀπὸ “Ρώμης, “it was writ- 
ten from Rome,” styled also Babylon by the author} of the 
Revelation, ch. xvii. xviii. For the apostle must, at the 
writing of it, be at Rome, figuratively, or at some city pro- 
perly called Babylon: now, as it is uncertain whether Peter 
ever was at Babylon in Chaldea, or in Egypt, and improba- 
ble that he ever made any considerable stay there; so is it 
very improbable he should do it so near his end. At Rome 
and Antioch, where he confessedly resided, church history is 
copious in giving an account of his successors in those sees : 
but who can show any thing of this nature, with reference to 
either of these Babylons? As to the reason why Rome is 
covertly thus represented by the name of Babylon, I cannot 
think, with Ccumenius, it was so styled διὰ τὸ ἐπιφανὲς, 
“because advanced to as great eminency” as Babylon ever 
had been; for then why should Peter have disguised the 
matter? 1 rather think it was so styled, either because it did 


| resemble that city in its idolatries, and opposifion to the 


church of God; or because it was to be destroyed for ever, 
as the prophets had foretold of Babylon; which, though 
the primitive Christians§ did believe, it was their wisdom to 
conceal. ‘hus Jerome saith, that the prophet Jeremiah 
covertly spake of Babylon, under the name of Sesach, that 


* Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. cap. 15. 

+ Verbo Marcus, et in Isaiam, cap. 47, F. 77, B. 

+ Ea que dicuntur Apoc. xviii. de Babylone que est apud 
Romanos, intelligenda sunt juxta veterum ecclesie doctorum 
sententiam. Andr. Cesar in Apoc. cap. 55. 

§ Sic et Babylon apud Johannem Rome urbis figuram 
portat ; proinde et magne et regno superbe et suorum de- 
bellatricis. Ter. contra Judwos, cap. 9, p. 193, et contra 
Marcion. lib. ili. cap. 13. . 

| In Jerem. p. 145, A. 


972 


PREFACE TO II. PETER. 


he might not incense the Babylonians against him, who be- | for speaking of the Roman empire, which was by them es- 


sieged Jerusalem; and that the apostle speaks of the Roman 
empire under the name of τὸ κατέχον, “ that which letteth,” 
that he might not provoke them to persecute the Christians 


teemed imperium sine fine,* or eternal. 


* Dempst. p. 8. 


THE SECOND 


EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. PETER, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Tuart this epistle also was written by the apostle Peter, 
is evident beyond all exception: (1.) From the inscription of 
it, in which the writer styles himself, « Simon Peter a servant 
and apostle of Jesus Christ ;” there being no other apostle 
of that name. Moreover, of this apostle it is particularly 
noted in the scripture that he was Σίμων ὃ λεγόμενος Πέτρος, 
«Simon called Peter;” Matt. iv. 18 and x. 2; Σίμων 6 
ἐπικαλούμενος Πέτρος, “Simon which was surnamed Peter,” 
Acts x. 18, χὶ. 183, He is styled Simon Peter once by Luke, 
v. 8, and by John the evangelist seventeen times, i. 41, vi. 
8. 68, xiii. 6. 9. 24. 36, xviii. 10. 15. 25, xx. 2. 6, xxi. 2, 
3. 7, 11. 15. Whereas Simeon bishop of Jerusalem, to 
whom Grotius ascribes the writing of this epistle, was neither 
Peter, nor apostle. (2.) From a concurrence of circum- 
stances in it relating to Peter and no other: as, First, When 
he says, he “shortly must put off this tabernacle, even as 
our Lord Jesus Christ had shown him,” i. 14. This’ well 
agrees to Simon Peter, to whom our Lord signified “ what 
death he should die,” John xxi. 18,19. And that this death 
should befall him before his coming to the destruction of Je- 
Tusalem, ver. 22, which was then at hand when Peter writ 
this, see note on 1 Pet. iv. 7. Secondly, He adds, that he 
was “with him in the holy mount,” when our Lord Jesus 
was transfigured, and was an “ eye-witness of his majesty,” 
and heard these words, This is my beloved Son, in whom 
Ι am well-pleased,” 2 Pet. i. 1G6—18; which he could hear 
only then, no such words being spoken John xii. 28, to 
which Grotius would refer this passage. Now at our Lord’s 
transfiguration, besides Peter, were only present the two 
sons of Zebedee, James and John, neither of which was ever 
thought to be the author of this epistle. Thirdly, This also 
may be gathered from these words, ili. 1, 2, «This second 
epistle, beloved, I write unto you; in which I stir up your 
sincere minds, by way of remembrance: that ye may be 
mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy 
prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of 
the Lord and Saviour.” Whence it is manifest, First, That 
this epistle was writ by an apostle, and therefore not by Si- 
meon bishop of Jerusalem. Secondly, That this was writ 
by an apostle, who had before directed an epistle to the 
same persons. Now though some of the ancients doubted 
whether this Second Epistle were canonical; yet they all 
owned,* that it bore his name and was ascribed to him, and 
never, that we find, was ascribed to any other apostle: we 
therefore have just reason to conclude, according to the title 
of it, that it was also the epistle of Simon Peter the apostle 
of our Lord, to whom both these epistles expressly are 
ascribed by Origen;¢ who also adds, that “ Paul is called 


* τὴν δὲ φερομένην αὐτοῦ δευτέραν. Evuseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 
iii. cap. 8, ᾿Αλλὰ τὰ μὲν ὀνομαζόμενα Πέτρου. Ibid. 

+ Petrus duabus epistolarum suarum personat tubis. 
Hom. vii. in Josh. f. 156. Ὑπὸ Πέτρου τοῦ ἀποστόλου γεγραμ- 


his brother, by Peter the apostle,” which he is only in this 
epistle. Being therefore written by an apostle assisted by 
“the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven,” 1 Pet. i. 12, we 
cannot doubt of the authority of this epistle: for whereas 
Grotius, to avoid the strength of this argument, imagines 
that this chapter contains a Second Epistle; and that the 
First Epistle referred to, ended at the close of the second 
chapter of that which is now called the Second Epistle ; he 
not only doth this without all authority of any ancient ver- 
sions or authors to countenance his opinion, but against the 
frame and the contexture of epistles, which usually begin 
with an inscription, which is not to be found in the third 
chapter. 

As for the time when this epistle was indited, I lay down 
this as certain, against Grotius, from what hath been dis- 
coursed already, that it could not be written after the de- 
struction of Jerusalem: for Peter here saith, that he was 
“shortly to put off this tabernacle,” or, to die; whereas, he 
was actually dead in the fourteenth year of Nero, that is, 
three years before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. 
But that it was written but a little before his death, may 
justly be concluded from this declaration, that he knew, 
either by revelation or by our Lord’s discourse, that the time 
of his death was “ suddenly to follow,”* or was nigh at hand. 

Of the persons to whom it was written, we are assured 
also from these words, “This second epistle, beloved, I write 
unto you;” they being a demonstration that it was written 
to the very same persons to whom the first bad been directed, 
viz. to the converted Jews, dispersed through Pontus, Gala- 
tia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 1 Pet. i. 1. 

And, lastly, as for the occasion of his writing, that plainly 
seems to have been double. (1.) ‘To arm the Jews converted, 
against the fiery trial which was then come upon them; and 
against that apostasy from the faith, that “turning away 
from the holy commandment,” ii. 21, that “falling from 
their own steadfastness,” iii. 17, to which they of that nation 
were so prone. And evident it is, that the chief design of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews was to put a stop to it: and 
many passages in all the catholic epistles, not excepting the 
Second and Third Epistles of John, are evidently writ for the 
same purpose; and to warn them of, and to preserve them 
from, the destructive doctrines of those Jewish solifidians, 
who held it unnecessary to “add unto their faith, virtue.” 
(2.) To arm them against those impure Nicolaitans and 
Simonians, who “turned the grace of God into lascivious- 
ness :” of whom see the notes on the second chapter. And 
(3.) Against those scoffers at the promise of Christ’s com- 
ing, as it were a promise which never would be verified. 

But then I am constrained to dissent from the opinion of 
the reverend and judicious Dr. Hammond and Dr. Lightfoot, 


μένον μετὰ τὴν σοφίαν, φησὶν, τὴν διδομένην τῷ ἀδελφῷ pov Παυλῷ 
(2 Pet. iii. 15), Contra Marcion. p. 58. Vide Firmilianum 
apud Cyprian. ep. 75, ed. Ox. p, 220, et Concil. Laod. can. 
59. 


* Ταχινή ἐστιν, 2 Pet. i, 14 


CHAPTER I. 


who conceive, that the apostle doth not discourse of our 
Lord’s coming to the general judgment, in his third chapter, 
but only of his coming to execute his judgments on the 
Jews, by the destruction of Jerusalem. For not to insist 
upon this consideration, that this opinion is wholly new, and 
contrary to the judgment of all the ancients who own this 
epistle, and have occasion to make mention of these words, 
they all agreeing in this, (with G3cumenius) that the apos- 
tle speaketh, ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τοῦ αἰῶνος, “of the end of the 
world ;” it is extremely evident, 

1. From these very words, iii. 7, “ But the heavens and 
earth which now are, by the same word are kept in store, 
reserved to fire against the day of judgment, and perdition of 
ungodly men;” and, ver. 10, « But the day of the Lord will 
come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall 
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are 
therein, shall be burnt up.” ‘To interpret all these words only 
of the destruction of Jerusalem, is to turn them into meta- 
phor and allegory; whereas Peter plainly says, that as the 
old world was destroyed by water, so shall the world that 
now is be destroyed by fire. «« Here then,” as one says truly, 
“is no room for allegories, or allegorical expositions; for, as 
the heavens and earth were destroyed by water, so are they 
to be destroyed by fire: and if in the first place you under- 
stand the natural material world, you must also understand 
it in the second; they are both allegories, or neither.” 

2. Were the apostle speaking of the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, which happened thirty-seven years after the death of 
Christ, and was, according to our Lord’s prediction, to fall 
out whilst some of them whom he spake to were yet living, 
what need was there of saying, “ One day with the Lord is 
as a thousand years,” &c., when he was speaking, it seems, 
of that which he knew was to happen before four years were 
expired? And, lastly, the solemn exhortation, “Seeing then 
all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons 
ought we to be, in all holy conversations and godlinesses, 
looking for and hastening to the coming of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, that we may be found of him without 
spot and blameless ?”’—this, I say, sounds too high for the 
destruction of Jerusalem, in which they of Pontus axd 
Galatia could not be much concerned; but it is an exhorta- 
tion very proper for those who had the lively idea of the 
conflagration of the world, and the tremendous “judgment 
and perdition of ungodly men,” then set before them. 

There is, I confess, a middle opinion betwixt both these, 
which interprets the words of Peter, in the third chapter, of 
the judgment of the great whore, or the antichristian church, 
mentioned Rey. xvii. 1; after which is to follow the new 


973 


heaven and new earth, promised to the Jews, and to be 
accomplished in the calling of them to the Christian faith, 
and the flowing in of all nations to them. Concerning which, 
note, 

First, That the judgment, according to the predictions 
both of the prophets in the Old and of John in the New 
Testament, is to be executed upon her by fire. So Dan. vii. 
11, “The beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and 
given to the burning flame :” and, ver. 26, « The judgment 
shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume 
and to destroy it to the end.” Accordingly, in the judgment 
of the whore, “ She shall be utterly burnt with fire ; for strong 
is the Lord that judgeth her,’ Rev. xviii. 8—10. 

Note, Secondly, That it is usual with the prophets to 
represent God’s judgments on the enemies of his church and 
people, by the tragical expressions of « burning up the earth,” 
« dissolving the heavens.” Thus of the destruction of Baby- 
lon, which name was writ upon the forehead of the great 
whore, God speaks thus: “ Behold, the day of the Lord 
cometh, cruel, and with fierce wrath, to lay the land deso- 
late : for the stars of heaven and the constellations shall not 
give their light: and the sun shall be darkened in his going 
forth, and the moon shall not give her light: and I will 
make the heavens to shake (or, move away), and the earth 
shall remove out of its place,” Isa. xiii. 9, 10, 13. The 
indignation of the Lord against the Idumeans is represented 
in these dreadful words :* “'The mountains shal] be melted 
with their blood, and all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, 
and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all 
their host shall fall down as a leaf falleth from the vine, and 
as a falling fig from the fig-tree.’ Of the destruction of 
Sennacherib and his people, God speaketh thus : “ The hea- 
vens shall vanish away like smoke ; the earth shall wax old 
like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like 
manner,” Isa. li. 6 (see Deut. xxxii. 22, Jer. iv. 23, 24, Joel 
ii. 30, iii. 15). Here then we see all the expressions used 
in the third chapter of Peter used also by the prophets, when 
they speak of the desolation of a nation and people, and 
especially of the enemies of the church: which Is sufficient 
to evince that the apostle, being himself a Jew, and writing 
to those Jews who were accustomed to these expressions, 
might thus set forth the great destruction of the beast, men- 
tioned Rev. xvii. xviii, and by the “new heavens and new 
earth,” that glorious state of the church, which was to ensue 
by the conversion of the Jewish nation, and the flowing in 
of all nations to them. 


* Τακήσονται πᾶσαι al δυνάμεις τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ πᾶσα στρατιὰ 
αὐτῶν ἀποῤῥεῦσει. Isa. xxxiv. 3, 4. 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Srmon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus 
Christ, (writing) to them that have obtained like pre- 
cious faith with us ' through the righteousness of God 
(by faith, Rom. i. 17,) and (the sufferings of ) our Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ : 

2 (Wisheth that) Grace and peace (may) be multi- 
plied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of 
Jesus (Christ) our Lord, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


Ver. 1. Ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ τοῦ Θεοῦ, By the righteousness 4 
God.] That this phrase signifies our justification throug 
faith in the death and sufferings of Christ, the meritorious 
cause of it, see the note on Rom. i. 17. Or, since the He- 
brew word πρὸς in the Old, and the Greek δικαιοσύνη, both 
in the Old and New Testament, do often signify kindness 
and mercy, it may here also bear that sense. 

2 Ver. 3. Διὰ détns καὶ ἀρετῆς, By glory and virtue.] i. 6. 
Who hath called us with a glorious calling, as being attended 
with the glorious effusion of the Holy Ghost; by reason of 
which the revelation of the gospel is said to be ἐν ὀόξη, or 
διὰ ὀύξης, “in” or “with glory” Ὁ Cor. iii. 7.. 11); and 
showed his power, might, and virtue, by the miraculous 


3 According as (il hath been with us already, for) his 
divine power hath given unto us all things that perlain 
unto life and godliness (or, to the life of godliness), 
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to 
(Gr. by) ® glory and virtue: 

4 3 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great 
and precious promises: that by these ye might 
be 4 partakers of the divine nature, having escaped 


operations with which it was confirmed. For though Mr. 
Le Clere is positive, that ἀρετὴ nowhere signifies δύναμις, 
“ power ;”’ yet in Hesychius we read thus, ἀρετὴ, ϑεία δύναμις, 
« virtue, i. e. divine power, ἡ κατὰ πόλεμον δύναμις, strength for 
war, fortitude, dexterity in wrestling.” 

3-Ver.4. a’ ὧν, By which.) If the reading of other 
manuscripts, ἐν ὃν, obtain, the sense runs plain and easy, 
thus, By whom, thus calling you, are given great and precious 
promises, Christ having brought life and immortality to light 
(2 Tim. i. 10), and established the new covenant in better 
promises (Heb. viii. 6). But if we retain the common read- 
ing é ὧν, “by which” the sense seems to run thus; By 
which two, the effusion of the Holy Ghost upon us, as the 
earnest of them, and his miraculous operations, as the con- 
firmation of them and of A gospel which contains them, 

4 


974 Il. PETER. 


the corruption that is in the world through lust. 

5 5 And beside this (Gr. Καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦτο; And for this 
cause), giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue (or 
courage tn the profession of it, and sincerity in the prac- 
tice of those things this faith requires) ; and to virtue (an 
exact) knowledge (of your duty) ; 

6 And to knowledge temperance (in carefully ab- 
staining from those sensual affections and disorderly pas- 
sions which obstruct the performance of your duty) ; and 
to temperance patience (under all the sufferings which 
may affright you from it); and to patience godliness 
(that fear of God which will restrain you from sin; 
that love of him which will constrain you to your duty ; 
that conformily of will which will cause your mind to 
approve of, your heart to affect and choose, what ts accord- 
ing to his will, and your whole man to be exercising itself 
to godliness) ; 

7 And to godliness brotherly kindness (7. 6. fervent 
love to Christians, as being children of our heavenly Father, 
and fellow-members of Chrisi’s body); and to brotherly 
kindness charity (to all men, as proceeding from the same 
stock, having the same nature, and being subject ἰο the same 
necessilies). 

8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they 
make you that ye shall neither be ® barren (Gr. sloth- 
ful) nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

9 But (on the other hand) he that lacketh these things 
is 7 blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten 
that he was purged from his old sins (by that baptism 


in which he, being washed from the guill of them, engaged 
to die to sin, Rom. yi. 4). 

10 Wherefore (being called to this faith) the rather, 
brethren, give diligence (Gr. give the more diligence by 
practising these things) ὃ to make your calling and 
election sure (7. e. to secure to yourselves the blessings 
of Christianity, to which God hath called you, and for 
which end he hath chosen you to be-his people): for if 
ye do these things, ye shall never fall (ur, miscarry 
eternally) : 

11 For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you 
abundantly 9 into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

12 Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you 
always in remembrance of these things, though ye 
know them (before), and be established in the present 
truth (viz. that the practice of these Chrislian virlues is 
necessary to the making your calling and election sure, 
and to your entrance into Christ’s heavenly iingdom). 

13 Yea, 1 think it meet, as long as I am in this 
tabernacle (of the body), to stir you up (lo the perfurm- 
ance of your duty) by putting you (s///) in remembrance 
(of these things) ; 

-14 Knowing that shortly I must put off ‘hts my 
tabernacle (by martyrdom), even as our Lord Jesus 
Christ '' hath shewed me (John xxi. 20). 

15 Moreover I will endeavour (by leaving these epis- 
tles, designed for that end,) that ye may be able after 
my decease # to have these things always in remem- 
brance. 


are given to us great and precious promises; or, rather, By 
which God, and our Lord Jesus Christ, mentioned ver. 1 
and ver. 3, are given great and precious promises, they being 
the promises made by God the Father (2 Cor. vii. 1), and 
by the Son (1 John ii. 25), and confirmed to us in and 
through Christ Jesus (2 Cor. i. 20, 21). 

4 Θείας φύσεως κοινωνοὶ, Partakers of the divine nature.] 
Both Philo* and Josephus represent them who had the gift 
of prophecy as having τὴν ψυχὴν ϑειάζουσαν, “a soul inspired 
by the Deity,” and, by the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, 
made divine. Thus Josephusy saith of one Papius, renowned 
for his wisdom and foreknowledge of things to come, that he 
did, Sefas μετασχηκέναι φύσεως, “ partake of the divine nature.” 

5 Ver. 5. Kai αὐτὸ τοῦτο, And for this cause.] Or, as other 
manuscripts read, καὶ αὐτοὶ, “ So ye.” Esthius here probably 
conjectures, that the sense hitherto is pendent, thus: As ye 
have received from the gift of God all things necessary to 
life and godliness, so do ye add, or, for this cause add, to 
your faith virtue, &c. 

6 Ver. 8. Οὐκ ἀργοὺς, Ye will not be slothful,] Or negligent, 
in the concerns of God’s glory and your soul’s welfare; for 
sloth proceeds from want of faith, or courage, or love: nor 
unfruitful, i. e. unprofitable to others; for that proceedeth 
from want of brotherly kindness, or charity. 

7 Ver. 9. Τυφλύς ἐστι, He is blind.] For want of know- 
ledge, and blinded by his passions and sensual affections, and 
cannot see to the end and design of Christianity, and the 
rewards of faith and patience; nor considers he the obliga- 
tions which lie upon him to depart frominiquity. ‘The word 
μυωπάζων following, is by our translators rendered “ one that 
cannot see afar off;” agreeably to these words of Aristrotle, 
«“ They are said, μυωπάζειν, who from their birth are, ra μὲν 
ἐγγὺς βλέποντες, τὰ δὴ ἐξ ἀποστάσεως οὐχ ὁρῶντες, Men who can 
only see things near, not those that are remote ;” and it is 
ordinary to say, that such a one is blind, as being compara- 
tively so, and to many things: and to this sense the follow- 
ing words, “They cannot look back to their purgation of 
old,” seem to lead; though the great Bochart saith, the word 
here signifies “to close the eyes against the light” (Hieroz. 
lib. i. cap. 4, p. 31, 32). 

8 Ver. 10. Βεβαίαν ὑμῶν κλῆσιν ποιεῖσϑαι, To make your 
calling and election sure.) Many manuscripts, and masy 
of the ancients, add, διὰ τῶν καλῶν ἔργων, by good works:” 
and this the text seems to require; for it immediately fol- 


* Phil. de Mut. Nom. p. 824. { Contra Apion. p- 1052. 


lows, “If ye do these things, ye shall never fall;” plainly 
declaring, that the making of their calling and election sure 
depended on the doing those works of virtue, temperance, 
patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity (mention- 
ed before), and so was only a conditional election, upon their 
perseverance in a life of holiness. And from the following 
words, “ He that doth these things shall never fall,” it plainly 
seems to follow, that even the elect, by their neglect to do 
these things, may fail of an entrance into this heavenly 
kingdom. 

9 Ver. 11. Eis τὴν αἰώνιον βασιλείαν, Into the everlasting king- 
dom.] As ζωὴ αἰώνιος is “ everlasting life,” Luke x. 25, ai.i- 
νιος κληρονομία, “an everlasting inheritance,” Heb. ix. 15, 
αἰώνιοι σκηναὶ, “everlasting tabernacles,” Luke xvi. 9, οἰκία 
αἰώνιος, “an everlasting house,” 2 Cor. v. 1, δόξα αἰώνιος, 
“ everlasting glory,” 2 Tim. ii. 10, σωτηρία αἰώνιος, “ everlast- 
ing salvation,” Heb. v. 23; so αἱώνιος βασιλεία is doubtless the 
“everlasting kingdom” prepared for Christ's faithful ser- 
vants, and not his vindictive kingdom over the Jews; nor 
yet the kingdom of saints, mentioned by Daniel, as never to 
give place to any other kingdom, they to whom the apostle 
writ being to die long before the coming of that kingdom. 

10 Ver. 12. Ἔν ὑπομνήσει, In remembrance.) For could 
we be established in the belief of heavenly things, and have 
them still in remembrance, we should not flag in the per- 
formance of our duty. Moreover, from these verses, and 
from ch. iii., it seems reasonable to conceive, that they, who 
were so concerned to write those things the Christians had 
“already heard,” and in which they were “established,” 
would not neglect to write whatever else was necessary to be 
known to salvation. 

1" Ver. 14. ᾿Εδήλωσέ μοι, Hath shown me.] Declaring to 
him, in a vision, say Hegesippus* and Ambrose,t that he 
must go again to Rome, to be crucified. [hus Polycarp,+ 
in a vision, saw his pillow, or nightcap, burning with fire, a 
little before he was consumed by the flames: and Cyprian, 
by a vision, was admonished of his death, and of the kind 
of martyrdom he was to suffer (Pontius in Vitdé Cypr. ed. 
Ox. p. 7). 

2 Ver. 15. Τὴν τούτων μνήμην ποιεῖσϑαι, To make a remem- 
brance of these things.] Peter therefore was not of the 


* Hegesip. de Excid. Hieros. lib. iii. cap. 2. 

+ Ambros. Ep. 33. 

+ Προσευχόμενος ἐν ὀπτασίᾳ γέγονε, kat εἶδεν προσκεφάλαιον αὐτοῦ 
ὑπὸ πυρὸς κατακαιόμενον. Martyr. §. 5. 


CHAPTER I. 


16 For we have not followed cunningly devised 
fables, when we made known unto you the power 
(given to our Lord Christ over all flesh, that he might 

ive eternal life to them that believe, John xvii. 2) and 
the) coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 crown 
them with glory), but were eyewitnesses of his ma- 
jesty. 

17 For he received from God the Father honour and 
glory, when there came such a voice to him from the 


opinion, that oral tradition was a better way than writing, to 
preserve the memory of these things; and that without 
writing they might be able so todo. Accordingly Ignatius,* 
advising the churches to stand fast in the traditions of the 
apostles, thought it necessary, “for the greater security, to 
commit them to writing.” For, saith Origen,} “that which 
is delivered only by mouth, quickly vanisheth, as having no 
certainty.” 

138 Ver. 17. Ὑπὸ τῆς μεγαλοπρεποῦς δόξης, From the magni- 
Jicent glory.] Some considering, that in all the three evan- 
gelists, the transfiguration of our Lord is mentioned, after he 
had spoken of the coming of the Son of man in glory, or in 
the glory of the Father, think this transfiguration was an 
image of that glorious kingdom he was to erect at the calling 
of the Jews; and that Peter here refers to this, when he 
saith, “ We made known to you the power and coming (or 
the illustrious coming) of our Lord Jesus Christ 3” whence 
Moses and Elias are here seen with him in glory, and, ac- 
cording to some manuscripts, are said to speak of the déga, 
i.e. “his glory,” which was to be hereafter in Jerusalem. 
But that glory being not yet come, to what purpose should 
the apostle write to them of that age, to give all diligence to 
obtain an entrance into that kingdom? Or why doth he so 
generally promise an entrance into it, to them who were to 
die so Jong before, and were not at all, unless they died 
martyrs, to enter into it? Nor was it to be an everlasting, 
but only a millenary kingdom. Wherefore, for explication 
of the words, observe, concerning the transfiguration of our 
Lord, First, That when he was transfigured, “ his face did shine 
as the sun, and his garments were splendent” (Matt. xvii. 
2). And this, saith Nazianzen, God did, τὸ μέλλον μυσταγω- 
γῶν, “showing what he was to be hereafter,” and as an 
introduction to that glory in which he was to shine “at the 
right hand of Majesty in the heavens :” for, to “shine as the 
sun,” is a phrase expressing something belonging to celestial 
Majesty, Matt. xiii. 43; the white and splendid garments 
being also proper to kings and the royal ministers of the 
heavenly court, Rev. iii. 4. And hence, when Christ is 
represented as “the first-born from the dead,” and « the 
prince of the kings of the earth,” to whom power and glory 
belonged, he appears in splendour, as the sun shining in his 
power, Rev. i. 14,15. And this is the majesty of Christ, of 
which Peter, James, and John, were eye-witnesses on the 
mount. b 

Secondly, Of the testimony given to him, observe, (1.) that 
it was, “ This is my beloved Son;” i. e. This is he who is 
“heir of all things,” Heb. i. 2, and is“ sat down at the right 
hand of Majesty and glory,” ver. 3. And therefore this is 
made a proof of our Lord’s resurrection and exaltation to 
the highest glory, that the Father said to him, “'Thou art my 
Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Acts xiii. 33, Heb. i. 
5, v.5). This is he to whom the Father hath « given to have 
life himself” (John v. 26), and so to raise the dead (ver. 24), 
and “give eternal life” to them (John xvii. 1, 2). Nowall 
this being comprehended in this testimony, shows the truth 
of what Peter said he had declared to them. Note, (2.) that 
this voice was given “from the magnificent glory,” or bright 
cloud, which then appeared, and was the constant symbol of 
the divine presence (see note on Phil. ii. 6) ; and so assured 
them, this testimony was given by the God of truth. Note, 
(3.) that this testimony is delivered in the very words spoken 
of that Prophet which should come after Moses, viz. «A 
Prophet will the Lord your God raise unto you, like to me, 


* "Yrip ἀσφελείας καὶ ἐγγράφοις ἤδη paprvpodpsva διατυποῦσθαι 
ἀναγκαῖον ἡγεῖτο. Apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 55. 

ἡ Ta γὰρ ἀγράφως λεγόμενα παύεται per’ ὀλίγον οὐκ ἔχοντα 
ἀπόδειξιν. Dial. contra Marcion. p. 89. 


975 


excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
am well pleased. 

18 And this voice which came from heaven we 
heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. 

19 We have also “a more sure word of prophecy ; 
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light 
that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and 


observe, that God the Father here owned him as his “only 
Son,” “in whom he is well pleased,” and as the only pro- 
phet whom they ought to hearken to. 

M Ver, 19. Βεβαιότερον τὸν προφητικὸν λύγον, A more sure 
word of prophecy.) ‘This is spoken in comparison of the 
apostle’s testimony of what he heard; which to the Jews was 
not so certain and convincing, as was the record of their own 
prophets: whence the apostles, both in disputing with the un- 
believing Jews, and writing to the believers among them, con- 
firm their doctrines from the writings of the Old ‘Testament. 

15 Kat φωσφύρος ἀνατείλη, &c. And the day-star arise in 
your hearts.) Some, considering that Balaam prophesies 
of the Messiah, as a “ star” that was to “come out of Jacob;” 
by which star, say the three Targums, Bereschith Rabba, R. 
Moses Haddarson, and R. Isaac, is meant the Messiah, 
“ compared to a star, because of the splendour of his dominion 
and kingdom,” and who is styled by John, 6 ἀστὴρ λαμπρὸς, 
ὃ ὀρϑρινὸς, “the bright and morning star” (Rev. xxii. 16), 
refer this to Christ’s second coming to convert the Jews, and 
set up the kingdom of the saints (Dan. vii. 27), saying, that 
the apostle compares the intermediate time, in which antichrist 
was to reign, to the night and darkness, according as the 
scripture useth to express the times of ignorance and idolatry 
(Eph. v. 8, 1 Thess. v. 4, see note on Rom. xiii. 12), and 
the time of Christ’s advent to call all Israel, and to bring in 
with them “the fullness of the gentiles,”’ to the light dissipat- 
ing that darkness; and doth here bid the Jewish nation to 
attend to the prophecies in the Old Testament, touching this 
glorious time, till it should be accomplished upon them. 
But the apostle writes not here to the unbelieving Jews, who 
are to be the only subjects of that calling, but « to them who 
had obtained like precious faith” with him. Moreover, that 
the time from writing this epistle to the conversion of the 
Jews, which is not yet accomplished, should be accounted as 
darkness, or a time in which the light, or day, appeared not, 
seems not suitable to that expression of Paul, « The night is 
far spent, and the day is at hand” (see note on Rom. xiii. 
12): nor could he bid those of that age to expect, till that 
day-star should arise in their hearts, which to this very day 
is not yet risen. It therefore seems plain to me from these 
words, though Dr. Hammond and others would interpret 
them to another sense, that the apostle speaketh this con- 
cerning some other light that was to enlighten and affect 
their hearts, and give them full assurance, that our Jesus was 
the Son of God, the Prophet God had sent into the world. 
Now this was done by the internal gifts and illuminations of 
the holy Spirit vouchsafed to believers; by which, saith the 
apostle Paul, “the testimony of Christ,” or which the apos- 
tles gave of him, ἐβεβαιώθη ἐν ὑμῖν, “was confirmed in” or 
“upon them” (1 Cor. i. 6), by which God did βεβαιοῦν ἡμᾶς 
σὺν ὑμῖν εἰς Χριστὸν, “ confirm both the apostles and those that 
believed, in the faith of Christ” (2 Cor. i. 21,22,v. 5). So 
that the import of the words seems to be this; Till ye your- 
selves have those prophetic gifts, by which ye may be able, 
from what ye find in yourselves, to know by the Spint, that 
« Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (1 Cor. xii. 13), and 
have “the unction of the Holy Ghost,” by which ye know 
all things (1 John ii. 27), and have also the scriptures of the 
New Testament committed to you, which contain a more 
perfect light (Rom. xiii. 14), and are indited also by “ the 
Holy Spirit sent down from heaven” (1 Pet. i. 12). Like 
to this is that expression of Philo,* « What reason is in us, 


* L, Quis Rer. Div. Heres, p. 404, F. 


976 II. PETER. 


learn from the prophetic writings), ® that no prophecy 
of the scripture is of any private interpretation (Gr. 
of their own incitalion, motion, or the suggestion of their 
own private spirils). 


that is the sun in the world, ἐπειδὴ φωσφορεῖ ἑκάτερος, both 
being unto us a phosphorous; the sun giveth light to our 


21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the 
will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost. 


xxiv. 20), and, (3.) from the nature of the thing itself, and 
the constant opinion of the Jews about it; which was, as 


senses, and reason intellectual rays to our conceptions: and } Philo saith,* that “a prophet speaketh nothing of himself, 


when φῶς ἐπιλάμπει τὸ θεῖον, the divine light shines upon us, 
that of our reason sets; and when that sets, this ariseth, τῷ 
δὲ προφητικῷ γένει φιλεῖ τοῦτο συμβαίνειν, and so it was with the 
prophets.” 

16 Ver. 20. "Idias ἐπιλύσεως οὐ γίνεται, No prophecy is of 
private interpretation. i.e. Prophesy comes not from the 
prophet’s own suggestions, but from the inspiration of the 
Holy Ghost. That this is the true sense of these words, 
appears, (1.) from the apostle’s own interpretation; for, 
not to be of the prophet’s own incitation or suggestion (ver. 
20), is, “not to come by the will of man” (ver. 21), i. e. 
not by human reason, “but by the will of God” (John i. 
13). (2.) From the use of the phrase; for ἐπίλυσις, ac- 
cording to Phavorinus and Suidas, is ἔφοδος, “accession, or 
incitation, or insult; and the word ἰδία, added to it, must, 
therefore, signify, that “ prophecy is not of private impulse 
or incitatidn:” whence the expression, used by the true 
prophets, is generally this, ἐπῆλθεν ἐπ᾽ ἐμὲ, “ The Spirit came 
upon me” (Numb. xxiv. 2, 1 Sam. x. 10, 2 Chron, xv. 1, 


but he is the organ of God in what he speaks, God speaking 
in and by him.” Whence, to “speak of himself,” or, « of 
his own heart or mind,” is always made the sign of a false 
prophet, whom God had not sent (Numb. xvi. 28, xxii. 18, 
xxiv. 13, Jer. xxiii. 16. 26, Ezek. xxiii. 17). Ridiculous 
therefore, and full of ignorance, is the inference of Esthius 
hence, that the reformed, and their pastors, must not inter- 
pret the scriptures according to their own sense or judg- 
ments, which surely they may do, as well as he, or any 
other Romish commentator, who have nothing but their 
own private sense for many interpretations of the scriptures 
they discourse upon. 


* Προφήτης καὶ ἴδιον οὐδὲν ἀποφϑέγγεται, ἀλλότρια δὲ πάντα 
ὑπηχοῦντος ἑτέρου. Quis Rer. Div. Heres, p. 404, C. *Opyavov 
Θεοῦ ἐστιν ἠχοῦν, κρουόμενον, καὶ πληττόμενον ἀοράτως ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ. Dy 
Ῥρμηνεὺς γάρ ἔστιν ὃ προφήτης ἔνδοθεν ὑπηχοῦντος ra λεκτέα τοῦ 
Θεοῦ, De Prem. et Pen. p. 711, E. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 Bur there were false prophets also among the 
people (in the former ages of the Jewish church), even 
as there shall be (hereafter) ' false teachers ® among 
you, who privily shall bring in ὃ damnable heresies, 


(ἢ. e. doctrines tending to the destruction of them that 
hold them, and) even * denying the Lord that bought 
them, and (shall) bring upon themselves 5 swift de- 
struction. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IL. 


1 Ver. 1. Ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι, Ialse teachers.) Concerning the 
persons chiefly concerned in this chapter, and in the parallel 
Epistle of Jude, I find three opinions; 

1. That of Dr. Lightfoot, who thinks these chapters speak 
chiefly of the Jews, i. e. of the false teachers of that nation. 
The second is, 

2. That of the ancients, who say expressly, ἄργεται ἐν- 
τεῦϑεν τῆς κατὰ τῶν Νικολαΐγων αἱρέσεως, He begins to speak 
of the heresy of the Nicolaitans.” So Gicumenius. The 
third is, 

3. That of the reverend and learned Dr. Hammond, and 
of the ancients also; that the apostles speak these things 
touching the Gnostics. And this opinion seems not much 
to differ from the second. For the ancient fathers say, he 
Gnostics sprang from the Nicolaitans, and borrowed from 
them all their filthiness and laseiviousness.* Moreover, the 
apostle Peter speaketh plainly of the “false teachers” which 
were to be hereafter; for, ver. 1—3, he speaks still in the 
future tense; though both Jude in his Epistle, and Peter in 
the following words, do plainly intimate, that some of them 
were come already : so that in the exposition of this chapter, 
and the Epistle of Jude, we have reason to take in those 
heretics, who appeared after the writing of these epistles. 

Nevertheless, because the false apostles, and false teachers 
of the Jewish nation, and the Nicolaitans, were certainly 
then come, and we have express and frequent mention of 
them in the epistles of Paul, and in the Revelation of John, 
and because Peter speaks of them in the plural number; 
therefore I shall apply the words to all of them, giving the 
preference to them, in the exposition of these words, who 
aie expressly mentioned in the holy scriptures. 

3. Ἔν ὑμῖν ἔσονται Ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι, There shall be false teach- 
ers among you.| The apostle, writing to the Jews, seems by 
these words to intimate, that these “false teachers” should 
be among the Jewish converts, especially, as being either 


* Kat ἐντεῦθεν ἄρχονται of τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως κακῶς τῷ 
κόσμῳ ἐπιφύεσϑαι, Epiph. Her. xxv. 8. 2. "EX αὐτοῦ of λεγύ- 
μένοι γνωστικοί. Timoth. et Damasc. 


Jews by birth, or proselytes to that religion, as was Nicolas 
of Antioch (Acts vi. 5). But then their entering in among 
the Jewish converts (Jude 4), and being among them “in 
their feasts of charity” (ver. 12), their “leaving the right 
way” (2 Pet. ii. 15), and their “ returning with the dog to 
the vomit,” make it probable that they once professed the 
Christian faith; though afterward they revolted from it, or 
introduced such doctrines of perdition as fundamentally de- 
stroyed the faith which they professed. 

3 Αἱρέσεις ἁπωλεΐας, Damnable heresies.) Such as tended to 
the present destruction and future damnation of them who 
taught, and who believed them. Thus the doctrine of the 
false apostles, among the Jews, tended to the perverting of 
souls (Acts xv. 24), to make Christ die in vain (Gal. ii. 21), 
and their faith to profit them nothing (Gal. v. 2), and “ Christ 
become of none effect” unto them; they being by them 
“fallen from grace (ver. 4) and “become “enemies to the 
cross of Christ” (Phil. iii. 18). 

The heresy of the Nicolaitans is styled by Epiphanius,* 
a heresy which did, Savrois καὶ rods πειϑδομένους ἀπολλύειν, * de- 
stroy them that taught, and them that believed it:” yea, 
Christ himself declares his hatred of it, Rev. ii. 15. And the 
same all the fathers say of the Gnostic heresy. 

4 Tov ἀγοράσαντα αὐτοὺς δεσπύτην ἀρνούμενοι, Denying the 
Lord that bought them.) Christ being never styled δεσπότης 
in the New Testament, and Jude distinguishing this δεσπότης, 
or “ Master,” from our Lord, it seems most reasonable to in- 
terpret this of God the Father, who is said to-have bought 
the Jews: “Is he not thy Father who hath bought thee ?” 
Deut. xxii. 5; and the Christians: « Ye are bought with a 
price, therefore glorify God with your souls and bodies, which 
are his,” 1 Cor. vi. 20. Hence also it is truly observed by 
Esthius, that Christ died for them that perish, and bring de- 
struction upon themselves. 

5 Ῥαχινὴν ἀπώλειαν, Shall bring upon themselves swift de- 
struction.] ‘That the apostatizing Jews did this, the scripture 
every where informs us, and the apostles frequently warn them 
of it. Paul doth it throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
elsewhere speaking of them as men “ whose end is destruc- 


* Her. xxv. §. 4, p. 79. 


CHAPTER II. 


26 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; 
by reason of whom the way of trath shall be evil 
spoken of. 

3 And through 7 covetousness shall they with 


977 


feigned words make merchandise of you: ® whose 
judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their 
damnation slumbereth not. 

4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, 


tion,” Phil. iii. 19, on whom should come « swift destruc- 
tion,” 1 Thess. v. 3; they being “appointed for wrath,” 
ver. 9; James as of men “ fattened for a day of slaughter,” 
y. 5, and that “suddenly” to come upon them, their “Judge 
standing at the door,” ver. 9. Christ also threatens to them 
that held the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, that he would 
“come against them swiftly, and fight against them with the 
sword of his mouth,” Rev. ii. 16; i, 6. he would destroy 
them, Rev. xix. 15.21. Aceordingly church history informs 
us, that they were extinct,* λόγου Sarrov, in a very little 
time. 

But I find nothing of any such remarkable or swift de- 
struction which befell the Gnostics, in church history; not 
one word that any of them perished at the destruction of 
Jerusalem by the Roman army, though doubtless their ini- 
quities would find them out. We rather read in the church 
history, that they were never persecuted by the heathen em- 
perors; this being the observation of the fathers, that the 
Simonians,t and the Menandrians, “ were never persecuted 
by the heathens, their fury being only poured out upon the 
Christians.” Nor could it probably be otherwise, seeing 
they made the doctrine of the cross no part of their religion ; 
but held it lawful} to deny the faith in times of persecution, 
to avoid suffering for it, and counting idolatry, in such cases, 
a thing indifferent; whence, saith Origen, “ they were never 
persecuted at all.” 

6 Ver. 2. Καὶ πολλοὶ, And many shall follow, &c.] That 
the Judaizers much infested the Christian church, and per- 
verted many in the churches of Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, 
and Crete, we learn from Paul's epistles; and that by reason 
of the Jewish zealots, who “despised dominions, and 
spake evil of dignities,” the “way of truth was evil spoken 
of,” from 1 Pet. ii. 12. Indeed the heathens seem to have 
made little or no distinction betwixt the Jews and the Chris- 
tians that sprang from them; but imputed all the disturb- 
ances they made to Christ, or to the Christians. Hence 
Suetonius§ saith of Claudius, that Jude@os, impulsore 
Chresto assidué tumultuantes, Roma expulit ; “he expelled 
the Jews from Rome, as being frequently tumultuous, through 
the instigation of Christ.” Of the Nicolaitans, Epiphanius|| 
saith, that “great was the deceit which they brought upon 
mankind.” And Clemens Alexandrinus{ professeth to 
write against them and the Gnostics, “ to remove the scandal 
which they, by their doctrines, might bring upon Christi- 
anity :” as Justin Martyr** also hints. Yea, Clemens adds,{+ 
that from these men, who taught, that women should be 
common, arose the greatest blasphemy against the name of 
Christ, or Christians.” 

Moreover, it is to be noted, that instead of ἀπωλείαις, many 
copies read ἀσελγείαις, “their lascivious ways :” which read- 
ing may be confirmed from Jude, who begins his description 
of the same persons thus, “ They turn the grace of God, εἰς 
ἀσέλγειαν, into lasciviousness.” And this character agrees in 
some measures to the “ false teachers’’ among the Jews, who 


* Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 29, 

ἡ Οἱ οὐ μόνον οὐκ ἐδιώχϑησαν ὑφ᾽ ὑμῶν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τιμῶν κατη- 
ξιώθησαν. Σίμωνα μὲν, &e. ᾿Αλλὰ Gre μὴ διώκονται, μηδὲ φονεῦ- 
ονται ὑφ᾽ ὑμῶν, κἂν διὰ τὰ δόγματα ἐπιστάμεθα. Justin M. Apol. 
p- 67, 70. 

$ Σίμων τε ὁ Σαμαρεὺς: ὑπὲρ τοὺς πλείονας ὑπαγάγεσϑαι τὸν 
περὶ τοῦ θανάτου κίνδυνον περιεῖλε τῶν μαθητῶν, ἐνδιαφορεῖν αὐτοὺς 
διδάξας πρὸς τὴν εἰδωλολατρείαν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν Σιμωνιανοὶ 
ἐπεβουλεύθησαν. Orig. contra Cels. lib. vi. p. 282. 

§ Sueton. in Claud. cap. 25. 

I] Καὶ πολλὴ ἁπλῶς ἡ διὰ τῆς πλάνης αὐτῶν γινομένη τῷ γένει τῶν 
ἀνθρώπων ἐπιβουλή. Heer. xxv. 9. 8. ; 

4 Μὴ τοίνυν ὑποδυόμενοι τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, καὶ τῶν ἐν ἔθνεσιν 
ἀκρατεστάτων ἀκολαστότερον διοῦντες; βλασφημίαν τῷ ὀνόματι προστρι- 
βέσϑων. Strom. iii. ab initio. 

“* Πάντες of ἀπὸ τούτων ὁρμώμενοι Χριστιανοὶ καλοῦνται. Just. 
Mart. p. 70. 

TH Kowas εἶναι τὰς γυναῖκας ἀξιοῦσιν, ἐξ ὧν ἡ μεγίστη κατὰ τοῦ 
γύματος ἐῤῥύη βλασφημία. Strom. iii. p. 428, Β. 

Vor. IV.—123 


taught fornication and uncleanness (see note on 1 Cor. vi. 
13, Eph. v. 6); practised, τὰ κρυπτὰ τῆς αἰσχύνης, “ the hid- 
den things of shame,’ 2 Cor. iv. 2; and “ gloried in their 
shame,” Phil. iii. 19; and whose “exhortation was, ἐξ dxa- 
Sapoias, of uncleanness,” 1 Thess. ii. 3; and many of whose 
followers were guilty of “uncleanness, fornication, καὶ dac\- 
yetas, and lasciviousness,” 2 Cor. xii. 21. But this is more 
emphatically the character of the Nicolaitans, and of the 
Gnostics, the successors of them: for they were, saith Gicu- 
menius, περὶ μὲν ὀύγματος ἀσεθέστατοι, περὶ δὲ βίον ἀσελγὲσ- 
τατοι, “most ungodly in their principles, and most lascivious 
in their lives.” Refert complexus, et permixtiones execra- 
biles, obsecenosque conjunctus, et quedam ex ipsis adhue tur- 
piora, saith Tertullian ;* “ yea, things so exceedingly filthy, 
that we blush to mention them, and therefore pass them by.” 
Πάνδημον ἁφρούΐτην κοινωνίαν μυστικὴν ἀναγορεύουσιν, saith Cle- 
menst of Alexandria. Τὴν aicxpoupyiav ἅμα τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐπι- 
τελεῖν τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ μαϑητὰς ἐδίδαξεν, saith Damascen.t Hence 
Pseud-Ignatius§ styles them dxaSdprovg Νικολαΐτας, im- 
mundissimos Nicolaitas, amatores libidinis; Austin, sectam 
turpissimam: for, saith 'Timotheus,|| οὐδεὶς τῶν ἄλλων aipe- 
σιαρχῶν φαίνεται οὕτως αἴτιος πάσης βύελυκτῆς καὶ μυσερᾶς καὶ 
ἀῤῥήτου πράξεως διδάσκαλος, “amongst all the masters of he- 
resy, none taught such filthy and abominable actions.” 

7 Ver. 3. "Ev πλεονεξία, Through covetousness.] If πλεονεξία 
should here and ver. 14 signify adultery, as 1 ‘Thess. iv. 6, 
it seems to do (see note there), and as Dr. Hammond thinks 
it doth here, there will be no difficulty in applying this to 
the Nicolaitans, as well as to the Gnostics and false teachers 
among the Jews; the note on the second verse showing that 
this emphatically belonged to them, and gave the rise to that 
impure sect. But because they are accused, ver. 15, of 
“ following the way of Balaam, who loved the wages of un- 
righteousness,” and by Jude, ver. 11, of “running greedily 
after the error of Balaam for reward,” I think it better to 
admit of that sense which our translation giveth of the word, 
and then to apply it at once to the false teachers among the 
Jews, and to the Nicolaitans: it seems highly probable, 
from the sixth, eighth, and the tenth chapters of the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians, that the apostle is there discours- 
ing against the Nicolaitans. Now of these false teachers he 
said, that they “devoured” the Corinthians, 2 Cor. xi. 20. 
Paul, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, iii. 6, speaks of a 
sort of men who “crept into houses, leading captive silly 
women laden with sins, and led away with divers lusts;” a 
character which perfectly agrees to the Nicolaitans: and 
speaking to Titus of the same persons, he saith (i. 10, 11), 
“They subverted whole houses, teaching things which they 
ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.” Ireneus{ informs us of 
the Valentinians, that “ they would not impart their myste- 
ries to all, but to-them only who were able to pay great sums 
for them: whence the Pseud-Ignatius** styles them, “ co- 
vetous of what belongs to others, and violent lovers of riches.” 

8 Οἷς τὸ κρῖμα ἔκπαλαι οὐκ ἀργεῖ, Whose judement now of a 
long time lingereth not.] Sude, in the parallel place, ver. 4, 
saying they were men, οἱ πάλαι προγεγραμμένοι εἰς τοῦτο τὸ 
κρῖμα, “of old assigned to this condemnation,” viz. by the 
prophecy of Enoch (see the note there); I think these 
words may be best rendered thus, “To whom the judgment 
pronounced of old lingereth not,” it being a swift destruc- 
tion, which the false teachers among the Jews and the Nico- 
laitans brought upon themselves (see note on ver. 1 of this 
chapter). Note also, that “ their damnation” is in the Greek 
“ their destruction.” 


* Prescript. cap. 47. 

ἡ Strom. iii. p. 436. 

§ Ep. ad Tral. §. 11. 

| Apud Cotel. tom. iii. p. 381. ᾿ ᾿ 

FA καὶ εἰκότως δοκοῦσί μοι μὴ ἅπαντας θέλειν ἐν φανερῷ ὁιδάσ- 
κειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἢ μόνους ἐκεΐνους τοὺς καὶ μεγάλους μισϑοὺς ὑπὲρ τηλικούτων 
μυστηρίων τελεῖν δυναμένους. Lib. i. cap. i. p. 20. ai 

** Τῶν γυναικῶν φθορεῖς, καὶ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων ἐπιϑυμηταὶ; καὶ 


Xpnuarodaidares, Ep, ad Magnes. 8. 9, 
4a2 


+ Coteler. tom. i. p. 286. 


978 


but cast them down ° to hell, and delivered them into 


II. PETER. 


chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; 


9 Ver. 4. Ταρταρώσας, Casting them down. to hell.) Tarta- 
Tus, saith Phavorinus, is ἀὴρ ὑπόγαιος, καὶ ἀνήλιος, “ the subter- 
restrial air, where the sun comes not.” It signifies also, 
saith Suidas, τὸν περὶ τὰ νέφη τόπον, “ the place in the clouds,” 
or “in the air:” hence réprapov ἠερύεντα, and ζόφον ἠερόεντα, 
in Homer, to intimate that Tartarus was “the dark air:” 
as Crates in Stephanus saith, 6 a@'ins ὑπόγειός ἐστι τόπος σκοτει- 
νὸς, “ Hades is a dark place under the earth;’ saith Por- 
phyry, “where souls are tormented, ἐν ἀκραιφνεῖ σκότῳ, in 
utter darkness” (Apud Stob. Eccl. Ph. p, 133). These 
angels being therefore placed in the bright regions of the 
heavenly light, and being now confined to the dark air 
(whence Satan is called “the prince of the power of the 
air”), are said to be cast down into Tartarus: and this suits 
with the opinion both of the heathens and the Jews, who 
held that “the air was full of spirits or demons” (see note 
on Eph. ii. 2); but chiefly of the ancient fathers, according 
to those words of Jerome, in his comment on that passage 
of Paul, “against spiritual wickedness, ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, in 
celestibus;’’ that is, saith he, “in the air:* for this is the 
opinion of all the doctors, That the air, which divides be- 
tween the earth and heaven, is full of contrary powers.” He 
is styled “the prince of the power of the air,” saith Ccu- 
menius,t ‘because he is the prince of the evil spirits that 
are in the air;” “not as having dominion,” saith Theophy- 
lact, “but only his habitation there.” That this was the 
opinion of most of the ancients, see Petavius de Angelis, lib. 
iil. cap. 4. Now hence it follows, that though the devil and 
his angels are at present for ever banished from the divine 
presence, and so do suffer the punishment of loss now of the 
beatific vision; though they are, in the language of Tertul- 
lian, predamnati ad judicii diem, “condemned beforehand 
to the tremendous day ;” predestinati supplicio sempiterno, 
“foreordained to eternal punishment,” saith Austin; reser- 
yati in diem judicti, “reserved to the day of judgment,” 
saith Origen, and Peter here; or “kept in chains of dark- 
ness to that day,” saith Jude; and knowing and believing 
this, they cannot choose but “tremble,” and be filled with 
present horror: yet is the doctrine of Rupertusy highly 
probable, that “at present they are not suffering in the in- 
fernal flames, but have their residence in the dark air; 
whence, at the day of judgment, they shall be precipitated 
into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” 

First, Because this seems to have been the opinion of all 
antiquity, for five whole centuries together, as appears not 
only from their common doctrine mentioned before, that they 
at present had their habitation in the air, but also from their 
express words, who spake still in the future of their infernal 
punishments, saying, as Justin Martyr,§ that “they should 
be punished with eternal fire ; for that they are now banished 
by the name of Jesus, is an indication of their future pu- 
nishment in everlasting fire.” This he confesseth, μηδέπω 
τοῦτο πράζαι τὸν Θεόν, “that God hath not yet done;” but 
yet he saith, “Christ hath foretold that he and his angels 
shall be cast into the fire, and everlastingly tormented there.” 
And Tatianus saith of them,J “The Lord of all things suf- 


* Hec autem omnium doctorum opinio est, quod aer iste, 
qui, calum et terram medius cividens, inane appellatur, ple- 
nus sit contrariis fortitudinibus. 

Ἵ Τῶν ἐναερίων καὶ πονηρῶν πνευμάτων, τὸν τοῦ ἀέρος ἄρχοντα, 
τουτέστι τὸν ἐναεριων ἄρχοντα" οὐ γὰρ ἀέρος ἄρχεται, ἀλλὰ ἐναερίων, 
οἷον τῶν depiwy πονηρῶν πνευμάτων. In locum. ᾿Αλλ᾽ ὡς ἐν 
αὐτῷ ἐμφιλοχωροῦντα. 

+ Et nune quidem in hunc aerem illum esse dejectum, et 
‘omnes satellites ejus, quos aéreas catervas dicimus, passim in 
scripturis habemus—futurum est autem ut in infernum infe- 
riorem videntibus cunctis precipitetur in ignem #xternum, 
qui paratus est ei et angelis ejus. Com. in Gen. xvii. 

§ Οἱ τὴν ἀξίαν κόλασιν καὶ τιμωρίαν κομίσονται ἐν αἰωνίῳ πυρὶ 
ἐγκλεισθέντες. Et γὰρ ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων διὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος Ἰησοῦ 
Χριστοῦ ἡττῶνται, didaypa ἔστι καὶ τῆς μελλούσης αὐτοῖς ἐν πυρὶ 
αἰωνίῳ κολάσεως. Apol. i. p. 46, D. Vide p. 45, E. 

! Ὃν εὶς τὸ. πῦρ πεμφθήσεσϑαι μετὰ τῆς αὐτοῦ στρατιᾶς κο- 
λασθησομένους τὸν ἀπέραντον αἰῶνα προερμήνευσεν ὃ Χριστός. Apol. 
ii. p. 71, B. 

: > ς ΤΥ as 
Ἵ Ὁ ὁὲ τῶν ὅλων δεσπότης ἐντρυφᾶν αὐτοὺς εἴασε μέχρις ἂν ὃ 


fers them to expatiate, or insult, till the time of the dissolu- 
tion of the world, and till the Judge comes.” ‘Tertullian 
saith,* that “their desperate condition, on the account of 
their being condemned before, receives some comfort from 
the delay of their punishment.” Minucius Felix saith,+ 
that “ he foreknowing, trembles at the punishment appointed 
for him, and those that worship him.” Lactantius,+ that 
“at the time of judgment, this prince, with his ministers, 
will be laid hold on, and condemned to punishment.” 

Secondly, This must be the doctrine of those fathers who 
held, that the devil knew not that ehe should be certainly 
condemned till our Lord’s advent, and therefore durst not 
before blaspheme God; which was the doctrine of Justin 
Martyr, Eusebius,§ Ireneus,| and Epiphanius;] or, as 
(Ecumenius** interprets them, “ He did not know it ma- 
nifestly, as being only obscurely hinted by the prophets; 
but when Christ coming, declared manifestly that everlasting 
fire was prepared for him and his angels, he ceased not to 
practise his wiles against his saints:” and this doctrine they 
founded on the following scriptures, viz. 

First, That question which these devils put to Christ, 
« Art thou come to torment us before the time?” concluding 
hence, that “not this present age, but the future, was the 
time when these evil spirits were to be punished ;” as Ori- 
gen saith twice-t{ ‘They thought,” saith Jerome, ad judi- 
candos se venisse, “that Christ was to come to judge them :” 
saith Chrysostom, οὐκ ἀναμένειν τὸν καιρὸν τῆς κολάσεως, “ that 
he would not stay till the time of punishment,” i.e. the day 
of judgment. Hence Maldonate, upon the place, admires 
at the great consent of the ancients in this opinion. 

This, Secondly, they gathered from those words of Christ, 
“ Depart, ye wicked, into the fire prepared for the devil and 
his angels.” Whence they concluded, with St. Bernard,++ 
that “the sentence against them was determined, but was 
not yet passed upon them ;” and that jam diabolo ignis pa- 
ratus, etsi nondum ille precipitatus in ignem, “the fire was 
indeed prepared for the devil, but he was not yet cast into 
it; concluding that was only to be done “at the end of the 
world, at the day of the great judgment, or in the world to 
come.’’§§ 


κόσμος πέρας λαβὼν ἀναλυθῆ, καὶ ὃ δικαστὴς παραγένηται, Pp. 
151, D. 

* Desperata conditio eorum ex predamnatione solatium 
reputat fruende interim malignitatis ex pene mora. Apol. 
cap. 27. 

ἡ Destinatam enim sibi cum suis cultoribus penam pre- 
scius perhorrescit. P. 39. 

+ Sed et dominus illoram cum ministris suis comprehen- 
detur, ad peenamque damnabitur, cum quo paritér omnis 
turba impiorum pro suis facinoribus perpetuo igni crema- 
bitur in wternum. Lib. vii. cap. 26, p. 729. 

§ Καλῶς 6 Ἰουστῖνος ἔφη, ὅτι πρὸ μὲν τῆς τοῦ Κυρίου παρουσίας 
οὐδέποτε ἐτόλμησεν ὃ Σατανᾶς βλασφημῆσαι τὸν Θεὸν, ἅτε μηδέπω 
εἰδὼς αὐτοῦ τὴν κατάκρισιν. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 18. 

| Tren. lib. v. cap. 26. 

« Epiph. Her. xxxix. n. 8, 

ἘΣ Φησὶν ᾿Ιουστῖνος, Ac. ὡς ὃ διάβολος τρὸ τῆς τοῦ Κυρίου παρου- 
σίας οὐκ ἤδει τρανῶς, οὕτω τῆς ἑαυτοῦ τιμωρίας τὴν δύναμιν τῶν 
ϑεῖων προφητῶν αἰνιγματωδῶς ταύτην διαγορευσάντων. ᾿Εν οἷς δὲ 
τοῦ Κυρίου παραγενομένου, καὶ διάβολῳ σαφῶς ἀποκεῖσϑαι, καὶ 
ἡτοιμᾶσθαι τὸ αἰώνιον πῦρ, καὶ τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ ἤκουσεν, οὗ 
παύεται τοῖς πιστοῖς ἐπιβουλεύειν. In 1 Pet. v. 8. 

tf} Diabolus in héc seculo neque corripitur, pro peccato, 
neque flagellatur, omnia namque ei servata sunt in futurum, 
unde et ipse sciens sibi illud statutum tempus esse peenarum 
dicebat ad Salvatorem, Quid venisti ante tempus torquere 
nos? Hom. 8 in Exod. f.44,H. Non vult Deus demonum 
genus ante tempus damnare. Sciunt enim et ipsi demones, 
quia tempus eorum presens hoc seculum continet. Prop- 
tered denique et Dominum rogabant, ut non torqueret eos 
ante tempus. Hom. 13 in Numer. f. 116, J. 

4+ Serm. de Trans. S. Malachie. 

§§ Sunt reservati in diem judicii. Orig. _Indigni sunt qui 
in presenti seculo corripiantur, sed in futuro recipient que 
merentur. Hom. 8 in Ex. ibid. Dominus in die judicti, 
quasi in uno fasce paritér colligatos, mittet in lacum inferni. 


CHAPTER IT. 


5 And spared not the old world, but saved (on/y) 
Noah " the eighth person, a preacher of rizhteous- 
ness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the un- 
godly 5 

6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha 
into ashés condemned ‘hem with an overthrow, making 
them an ensample unto those that after should live 
ungodly (see note on Jude 7); 

7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy con- 
yersation of the wicked : 

8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, 


But, Thirdly, This they chiefly concluded from these 
words of Peter* and Jude, that they were “referred unto 
the day of judgment to be punished.” Nor is it easy to 
conceive a more natural consequeace than this;—they are 
reserved unto the day of judgment to be punished, therefore 
they are not yet punished with the fire prepared for the devil 
and his angels. 

And, Lastly, This they gathered from the Revelation of 
John (to which the frequent sayings of Austin do refer); who 
often saith that “the old serpent the devil” shall be “ cast 
into the lake of fire and brimstone, at the day of judgment.” 

Since, then, to torment the devils at our Saviour’s advent, 
was to torment them “ before the time” of torment; seeing 
our Saviour, when he shall pass the final sentence, will only 
amand the wicked to the fire “prepared for,’ not actually 
tormenting then, “the devil and his angels ;” seeing they 
only are ‘reserved in chains of darkness, to the day of judg- 
ment, to be punished :” and so the sentence, and the execu- 
tion of it, is no more passed upon them, than upon the pri- 
soner that is kept in chains for the assizes: seeing the devil 
is only said to be then: “ cast into the lake of fire and brim- 
stone,” when the Judge “sat upon the throne,” and “all 
men were judged according to their works ;” there seems suf- 
ficient reason to assert, that the devils shall not be tormented 
in the infernal flames, until the day of judgment: and if not 
they, then much less wicked men. 

10 Ver. 5. Οὐκ ἐφείσατο, And spared not the old world.} 
This instance agrees very exactly to those Nicolaitans and 
Gnostics, who had corrupted their ways; as they of the old 
world did, by taking to them what women they pleased to 
enjoy, as far as appears, without any solemnity of matrimony 
(Gen. vi. 2. 4); for it is only said, that «the sons of God 
went in unto the daughters of men:” hence are these giants 
said to be οἱ ἐκπίπτοντες of βίαιοι, “ violent men,” who by force 
invaded them : and also by idolatry (see Ainsworth on Gen. 
iv. 26). 

N*Oydoov, The eighth person,] One would think, from 
Adam; whereas indeed he rather was the tenth from Adam 
(δέῦι ν.), and so it is the eighth of them that were saved 
rom the deluge (1 Pet. iii. 8). So Plutarch saith of Pelo- 
pidas, that he came, cis οἰκίαν δωδέκατος, “ unto his house with 
eleven more: and Polybius of Dionesidorus, that τρίτος 
ἀπενήξατο, “ he swam out with two more : so here, Noah was 
saved, with seven persons; so celebrated in history, that the 
hill where the ark rested is called, “the hill of the eighth,” 
or Themanim ; and a village by it bears the same name (see 
Dr. Hammond on the place). 

2 Ver. 9. Ode, The Lord knoweth.] God’s knowledge 
here includes his power and his will: so Ps. i., *« Whatsoever 
the righteous doth, it shall prosper; for the Lord knoweth 


Hieron. in cap.xxv. Esaiz. In fine corporeo igne cruciandi. 
Greg. Servantur in judicium puniendi. Fulg. apud Petav. 
tom. iii. lib. iii. cap. 4. 

* Mirum quanto consensu plerique veteres auctores do- 
cuerint demones ante diem judicii non torqueri, quod Pe- 
trus scribat (2 Pet. 11. 4). Si angelis peccantibus non peper- 
eit, &c., et Judas (ver. 6). Si angeli qui non servarunt 
suum principatum. Maldonat. in Matt. viii. 29. Vide Au- 
gust. lib, xxi. cap. 27, &c. de Civ. Dei. 

ἡ Sicut etiam desertores angeli, licét secundim modum 
quendam mortui sunt peceando, quia fontem vite deseruerant, 
qui Deus est in secundam mortem post ultimum preci- 
pitabuntur judicium. De Civ. Dei, lib. xiii. cap. 14, p. 746, 
Ο. Vide eundem, lib. xxi. cap. 23. 

+ Rev. xx. 10. 15, 


979 


in seeing and hearing (of them), vexed his righteous 
soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds ;) 

9 (Then may we rest assured, that)! The Lord know- 
eth how to deliver the godly ont of temptations (as he 
did Noah and Lot), and to reserve the unjust ® unto the 
day of judgment to be punished : 

10 But chiefly them “ that walk after the flesh in 
the lust of uncleanness, and % despise government. 
Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid 
to speak evil of dignities. 

11 Whereas angels, which are greater in power 


the way of the righteous” (ver. 6), i.e. he is able and willing 
to make it prosper; Matt. vi. 31,“'Take*no thought what ye 
shall eat or drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed; for 
your heavenly Father knoweth ye have need of all these 
things” (ver. 32). 

13 is ἡμέραν κρίσεως, To the day of judgment, to be pu- 
nished.] Note, that this is signally the time when the un- 
godly shall be punished: secondly, that the evils which 
wicked men suffer in this life, will not exempt them from 
future punishments in the world to come; even Sodom and 
Gomorrha must then suffer (Matt. x. 15, xi. 22). 

4 Ver. 10. ᾿Οπίσω σαρκὸς, Who walk after the flesh.) See 
note on ver. 2. 

15 Καὶ xupiérnros καταφρονοῦντας, And despise government.) 
The note of Esthius on the place is this; That “ we read not 
in church history, that the Gnostics despised governments, 
but rather flattered them.’ What Dr. Hammond saith, of 
their teaching Christians to despise all authority of magis- 
trates, or masters, is not proved by him; for he attempts 
not to prove, that they were κυριύτητος xarappovoivres, “ de- 
spisers of government:” and his attempt to prove, that « they 
taught Christian servants to despise their masters,” from 1 
Tim. vi. 2, hath been considered already. Nor 401 find 
any thing of this nature charged upon the Nicolaitans. But 
then it may he noted, that κυριύτητες καὶ dégar, “ dominions 
and glories,” in the New Testament, do often signify the an- 
gelical powers ; as when Christ is said to be exalted, ὑπεράνω 
πάσης κυριότητος, “above all dominion,’ Eph. i. 213 and 
when κυριότητες are mentioned among “the invisible things 
of the creation,” Col. i. 16. Accordingly some of the fathers* 
refer this to the angelical powers; and this they do, with 
great probability: for (1.) the apostle Peter here asserts, 
that they blasphemed, ἐν οἷς ἀγνοοῦσι, “in things of which 
they had no knowledge:” Jude, that they “blasphemed 
things that they knew not;” which very well agrees with 
their bold assertions touching the angels; in which they did, 
as Paul saith, ἃ μὴ ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων, “intrude into those 
things they had not seen” (Col. ii. 18) ; but cannot so well 
be applied to civil dignities, of which these heretics must 
have sufficient knowledge. (2.) The apostle adds, that 
whereas these men did not tremble to blaspheme these dig- 
nities, the holy angels, οὐ φέρουσι κατ᾽ αὐτῶν BAdopnpov κρίσιν, 
« durst not use railing or blasphemous words against them.” 
Now they whom Michael, and his good angels, durst not 
blaspheme, were, saith Jude, “ the devil and his angels,” who 
were in scripture styled “the principalities, and powers, and 
rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph. vi. 12): and 
therefore they whom these heretics blasphemed, must also be 
angelical dignities. 

But against this it is objected, That we read notin church 
history, that the heresy of the Gnostics had any thing in it of 
particular opposition or defiance to the angels; but, on the 
contrary, the mons, noting the angels, make up a great part 
of their divinity. Ans. This seems a great mistake ; for both 
Ireneust and Epiphanius+ aver, that when they practised 
their most vile impurities, they invoked some of the angels, 
to whom they did ascribe that work, saying, when they per- 
formed it, 6 detva ἄγγελε, καταγρῶμαί cov τὸ ἔργον, ἢ δεῖνα 
ἐξουσία, con τὴν πρᾶξιν, “Ὁ angel, I am doing thy work, I am 
employed in thy service ;” which sure must be, to blaspheme 
these dignities. 


* Δόξας dé ἤτοι τὰς ϑείας φησὶ δυνάμεις ἢ καὶ τὰς ἐκκλησιαστικὰς 
ἀρχάς. CEcum. 

ἡ Iren. lib. i. cap. 35. 

+ Epiph. Her. xviii. §. 2. 


980 


and might (than evil spirits), bring not railing accusa- 
tion against them before the Lord (see note on 
Jude 9). 

12 But these, as natural brute beasts (Gr. as ir- 
rational, natural living creatures, rather than men), 
made to be taken and destroyed (or, to raven and de- 
stroy), speak evil of the things that they understand 
not (2. e. of the angelical powers whom they blaspheme, 
ver. 10); and shall utterly perish in their own corrup- 
tion ; 

13 And shall receive (Gr. receiving, by this de- 


Il. PETER. 


struction, ver. 12) the reward of unrighteousness, as 
they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. 
Spots they are and blemishes, 15 sporting themselves 
with their own deceivings while © they feast with 
you; 

14 Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot 
cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart 
they have exercised with * covetous practices; cursed 
children : 

15 *! Which have forsaken the right way, and are 
gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of 


Moreover, it is evident, that the Nicolaitans did also hor- 
ribly blaspheme them. For (1.) “they made the angels to 
be the offspring of an obscene and filthy zon,” as both 'Ter- 
tullian* and Epiphaniust inform us. (2.) They add, that 
the mother appears in a beautiful form to princes, and ex- 
tracts their seed from them with pleasure, that she may re- 
collect her power, or virtue, dispersed among many: and 
from this hypothesis, saith Epiphanius,+ “ Nicolas brought 
the mystery of his filthiness into the world:” they doing all 
their villanies, I suppose, in imitation of her. 

16 Ver, 12.] This verse, in Jude, runs thus: “But these 
speak evil of the things they know not; but what they know 
naturally, as brute-beasts, in these things they corrupt them- 
selves,” ver. 10. And therefore to make this verse parallel 
to it, it seems necessary to make the construction run thus; 
οὗτοι dé, * But these blasphemers of dignities, ἐν οἷς ἀγνοοῦσι 
βλασφημοῦντες, bDlaspheming in things of which they have no 
knowledge, shall perish in their own corruption; as do the 
natural brute-beasts, made to be taken and destroyed,” to 
whom they are, in this practice, of making all women com- 
mon, like; and whose example they plead, in favour of 
their common whoredoms, especially the followers of Carpo- 
crates,§ and his son Epiphanes, “making the marriage of 
one a violation of the community ordained by God, and ex- 
emplified in other living creatures.” 

17 Ver. 13. Τὴν ἐν ἡμέρα τρυφήν, Riot in the day.] This is 
exactly true of the Nicolaitans ; who practised their impuri- 
ties “day and night;” and held, that “if a man were not 
lascivious every day, he could not be saved.” f 

18 Sporting themselves in their own deceils.] i. 6. In those 
practices which were the effects of their deceitful principles. 
So that there seems no need of reading ἀγάπαις, “ their love- 
feasts ;” for they were the feasts of the church, not of the 
heretics. 

19 Συνευωχούμενοι, When they feast with you.] Of these 
feasts, see note on Jude, ver. 12. And also Ireneus’s say- 
ing of Marcus, and other heretics, that εἰώϑασιν ἐπὶ τοῖς 


* Mones refert quosdam, turpitudinis natos, et com- 
plexus, et permixtiones execrabiles, obscaenosque conjunc- 
tus, natos preterea demones, et deos et spiritus septem. De 
Presc. cap. 47. 

T Ὕστερον δὲ pera πάντας τούτους προβεβλῆσϑαι φησί τινα αἰσχρὸν 
αἰῶνα, μεμίχϑαι δὲ τοῦτον τῇ μήτρα, καὶ ἐκ τοῦτου τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ 
αἱσχροῦ τῆς μήτρας γεγονέναι θεοῦς τε καὶ τοὺς ἀγγέλους, καὶ δαίμονας, 
καὶ ἑπτὰ πνεύματα. Epiph. Her. xxv. §. 5. 

+ Matrem viventium. Iren. lib. i. cap. 24. Ταύτην dé 
(φασὶν) det φαίνεσθαι τοῖς ἄρχουσιν ἐν εὐμορφία τινὶ, καὶ ἀποσυλᾶν 
τὸ ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν σπέρμα dv ἡδονῆς καὶ ἐκχώσεως, ἵνα δῆθεν τὴν αὐτῆς 
δύναμιν, τὴν εἰς διαφόρους σπαρεῖσαν, αὖθις πάλιν ἀνακομίζη, καὶ 
οὕτως ἐκ τοιαύτης ὑποθέσεως τὸ τῆς αὐτοῦ αἱσχρολογίας μυστήριον τῷ 
κόσμῳ ὑπεισήνεγκε. Epiph. Her. xxv. §. 2. 

§ Carpocrates λέγει τὴν δικαιοσύνην τοῦ Θεοῦ κοινωνίαν τίνα 
εἶναι per’ ἰσότητος, cujus exemplum dat ἐν τοῖς ἀλύγοις, in ge- 
nere bovim, sutim, ovium, et reliquorum omnium. Clem. 
Alex. Strom. iii. p. 428, C, D, et p. 429, A. “Δικαιοσύνη 
γὰρ ἐν αὐτοῖς φαίνεται ἡ κοινότης, ἔπειτα κατὰ κοινότητα πάντα 
ὁμοίως κατὰ γένος σπείρεται" σπείρουσι δὲ καὶ γεννῶσιν én’ ἴσης 
κοινωνίαν ὑπὸ δικαιοσύνης ἔμφυτον ἔχοντες. [014.ὕ ἘΠ μίαν 


ἀγόμενος ἐχέτω, δυναμένων κοινωνεῖν ἁπάντων, ὥσπερ ἀπέφηνε τὰ 


λοιπὰ τῶν ζώων. bid. D. 

| Tunc Nicolaus, die noctuque nuptias faciens obsccenas, 
et auditu quoque erubescendos coitus somniavit. Hieron. 
adv. Lucif. f. 53, A, Y. Αὐτὸς yap καὶ προήρξατο τοῦ λέγειν, 
ὅτι ἐὰν μή τις καθ᾽ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν λαγνεύη, ζωῆς μὴ δύνασθαι 
μετέχειν τῆς αἰωνίου. Epiph. Her. xxv. §. 1. 


δείπνοις τοῦ κλήρου οὗτοι πάντοτε παίζειν, “ they are always accus- 
tomed, in those suppers which they make, by lot to play ;” 
or, as the Latin hath it, sortibus ludere, “to play by lot:” I 
suppose, what women they should commit lewdness with, 
or who should provide the supper; which being ended, 
there followed, as Justin Martyr* hints, “the putting out 
of the candle, and their promiscuous lusts:’”’ he speaking 
thus of the Marcionites; and Clemens Alexandrinus,t of 
the Carpocratians. 

2 Ver. 14, Covetous practices.] See note on ver. 3. 

21 Ver. 15.] This in Jude runs thus; τῇ πλάνῃ τοῦ Βαλαὰμ 
μισϑοῦ ἐζεγύϑησαν, “ They ran forth into the error of the re- 
ward of Balaam,’’ i. e. the error which the children of Israel 
committed, through the counsel which Balaam gave to Balak. 
To explain this, let it be noted ; 

First, That Balaam not only went with the princes of 
Balak, but also had the reward of his divination; for it is 
expressly said, Deut. xxiii. 4, Neh. xiii. 2, that “the Am- 
monites and Moabites hired Balaam.” Note, 

Secondly, That Balaam, for his reward, gave counsel to 
Balak to entice the children of Israel to idolatry and forni- 
cation: this is hinted in those words, “Come therefore, I 
will advertise thee” (Numb. xxiv. 14), i.e. what to do to 
this people now, and what they will do to thee in the latter 
days: so the Chaldee paraphrast upon the place; “I will 
counsel thee what thou shalt do to this people, that thou 
mayest make them to sin:” so the Jerusalem Targum. ‘This 
counsel, saith Josephus, was, “that Balaam told Balak, upon 
his departure, that the only way to prevail upon this people 
would be to draw them into sin; and to that purpose he 
counselled him to tempt them with their beautiful women: 
these were first to entice the Israelites with their beauty and 
compliant conversation, and when they had entangled their 
affections, they were to consent to their embraces, upon con- 
dition that the Israelites would forsake their own law, and 
worship the god of the Moabites” (Joseph. Antig. lib. iv. cap. 
6). Note, 

Thirdly, That this counsel made them “err in the matter 
of Peor;” and so not only to commit fornication with the 
women of Midian (1 Cor. x. 8), but also to commit idolatry. 
Now this Baal-peor, saith Jerome, and other critics, was 
Priapus, who was worshipped by showing of their shame; 
to which these words of the prophet Hosea may refer, “ They 
set up altars to Baal-peor, and separated themselves to that 
shame” (ix. 10); and those of Jeremiah, “ Ye have set up 
altars to shame, even altars to burn incense to Baal” (Jer. 
xi. 13). And then, as ἐζεχύϑησαν, “ they were dispersed,” 
or ran about after the Midianitish women, answers to the 
practice of those men who “crept into houses, leading cap- 
tive silly women;” so “the matter of Baal-peor” answers 
exactly to the execrable villanies these men committed cum 
membris pudoris. 

Moreover, this passage seems to confirm that exposition, 
which refers what is here spoken to the Nicolaitans. For 
John speaks thus to the church of Pergamus, “I have a few 
things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold 
the doctrine of Balaam; who, as he taught Balak to cast a 
stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things 


* Ta δύσφημα ἐκεῖνα λυχνίας μὲν ἀνατροπὴν, καὶ τὰς ἀναΐδην 
μίξεις. Ap. ii. p. 70, B, σ. 

Ἴ Τούτους φασὶν eis τὰ δεῖπνα ἁθροιζομένους ἄνδρας ὁμοῦ καὶ 
γυναῖκας, μετὰ δὴ κορεσθῆναι ἐν πλησμόνη τῇ κυπρίση,) τὸ καταιο- 
χῦνον αὐτῶν τὴν πορνικὴν ταύτην δικαιοσύνην, ἐκποδῶν ποιησαμένους 
φῶς τῇ τοῦ λύχνου περιτροπῆ, μίγνυσθαι ὅπως ἐθέλοιεν, αἷς βούλοιντυ. 


Strom. lib. iii. p. 430, C, Ὁ. 


CHAPTER II. 


Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness (and 
to obtain them, counselled Balak to entice God’s people to 
commit fornication with the Midianites, Numb. xxxi. 16, 
Βαλαὰμ τοῦ Βόσορ' that is, saith Grotius, of the city of 
Bosor, as Pethor his city, Numb, xxii. 5, is called) ; 

16 But was rebuked for his iniquity: (for) the dumb 
ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of 
the * prophet. 

17 These are wells (Gr. fountains) without water, 
clouds that are carried with a tempest (unprofilable for 
any good, as fountains without water ; and pernicious as 
tempests, which blast and root out all before them) ; to 
whom the mist (Gr. the blackness) of darkness is re- 
served for ever. 

18 For when they speak great * swelling words of 
vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, 
through much wantonness (or, lo lasciviousness), those 
that were clean escaped from them who live in error. 


981 


19 While they promise them * liberty, they them- 
selves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a 
man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bond- 
age. 

“20 % For if after they have escaped the pollutions 
of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, 
and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than 
the beginning. 

21 Vor it had been better for them not to have known 
the way of righteousness, than, after they have known 
if, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto 
them (because they sin by apostasy against the light re- 
ceived, and with ingratilude to the Author of it). 

22 But it is happened unto them according to the 
true proverb, ® The dog is turned to his own vomit 
again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing 
in the mire. 


sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication ; so hast thou 
also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which I 
hate.” Now the church history informs us, this was the 
doctrine of the Nicolaitans, that* “it was lawful to eat 
things offered to idols, and to commit fornication ;” as Ire- 
neus, Austin, and others teach. 

2 Ver. 16. The prophet.| That Balaam was indeed a pro- 
phet of God, and well acquainted with his revelations, the 
history in the book of Numbers will not suffer us to doubt: 
for those words, “I cannot go beyond the commandment of 
my God, to do good or evil” (Numb. xxii. 18), show he was 
not unacquainted with the true God (see also xxiv. 4); 
though after, through a covetous desire of gain, he used en- 
chantments. “The madness of the prophet’? appeared in 
this, that hearing the ass speak, which argued the miracu- 
lous assistance of God enabling him so to do, he goes on in 
his mad fury, and saith he would kill him. 

2 Tw τοῦ προφήτου παραφρονίαν, The madness of the pro- 
phet.| The Jerusalem Targum and Ben Uziel on Numb. 
xxii. 30, introduce the ass speaking thus to Balaam, “ Woe 
to thee, Balaam, thou art xnyy -yon, mente captus, i. 6. 
mad.” 

3 Ver. 18. Ὑπέρογκα, Swelling words of vanity.) This 
did the heretics many ways (ver. 9), by their barbarous 
names, quibus terrebant auditores, “ by which they affrighted 
their hearers,” say Austint and Epiphanius,+ and imposed 
upon them by those vile words; or by those proud words, 
that they are the spiritual, the perfect, the seed of the elec- 
tion, men who have perfect knowledge of God (see note on 
Jude 19); that they have grace, ἀπὸ τῆς ἀῤῥήτου καὶ ἀνωνομάσ- 
του συζυγίας, “from the ineffable and not-to-be-named con- 
jugation,” and§ “therefore ought to be always meditating 
the mystery of conjugation ;” and that\| “he that being in 
the world, does not love a woman, so as to enjoy her, is not 
of the truth ;” and that “except a man be lascivious every 
day, he cannot enjoy eternal life;” and that they «being 
Faas cannot receive corruption by any evil actions they 

Ὁ, or be hurt by any material actions, so as to lose their 


* Turpissima secta in qua placet usus indifferens feemina- 
rum: hi nec ab iis, que idolis immolantur, cibos suos sepa- 
rant. De Her. cap. 5. Iren. lib. i. cap. 28. 

{ Her. v. + Epiph. Her. xxv. §. 3. 

§ Διὸ καὶ ἐκ παντὸς τρύπου δεῖν αὐτοὺς ἀεὶ τὸ τῆς συζυγίας 
μελετᾷν μυστήριον.---Ἰτοη, lib. i. p. 28, ed. Ox. 31. 

Ὃς ἂν κόσμῳ γενόμενος γυναῖκα οὐκ ἐφίλησεν ὥστε αὐτὴν 
κρατηϑῆναι, οὐκ ἔστιν ἐξ ἀληϑείας, καὶ οὐ χωρήσει εἰς ἀλήϑειαν. 
Thid. 

“ Τὸ πνευματικὸν θέλουσιν of αὐτοὶ εἶναι ἀδύνατον φϑορὰν κατα- 
ὀέξασϑαι, κἂν ποίαις συγκαταγένωνται πράζξεσι------καὶ αὐτοὺς 
λέγουσι kav ἐν ὁποίαις ὑλικαῖς πράξεσι καταγένωνται, μηδὲν αὐτοὺς 
παραβλάπτεσϑαι, μηδὲ ἀποβάλλειν τὴν πνευματικὴν ὑπύστασιν. Ibid. 


p. 26. 


spiritual substance.” In opposition to which vain boasts, 
these apostles so expressly say, “They shall perish in their 
corruption.” 

Ῥοὺς ὄντως dropuysvras.] See this reading defended, Exa- 
men Millii in locum, 

2 Ver. 19. 'EAevSepiav, They promise them liberty.) They 
promised them a double liberty: first, a liberty to do any 
thing they pleased, without fear: secondly, a liberty from 
the eye and hand of their Judge; as we learn from the 
ὑπέρογκα, “ swelling words of vanity,” cited by Irenzus* from 
them, which are a full comment on ver. 18. 

2 Ver. 20.) From ver. 18. 20. 21, it seemeth to be 
strongly argued, that they who were once truly faithful, may 
totally and finally fall away. For, first, that the persons 
here mentioned were once truly faithful, seems evident from 
this, first, that they had once ὄντως, “truly,” and entirely 
‘escaped from thei that live in error” (ver. 18), being not 
then “entangled with,’ nor “ overcome by, the pollutions 
which are in the world, through lust,” but having escaped 
them “through the knowledge of Christ Jesus:” that they 
“turned from the holy commandment” in which they for- 
merly had walked: that they were once washed from that 
“mire” to which they returned (ver. 22), All which can- 
not be truly said of hypocritical professors, who are “still in 
the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity.” 

That these men after fell away totally and finally, we learn 
from these expressions, that they “were again allured to 
wantonness,” that they were “again entangled and over- 
come by the pollutions which were in the world, through 
lust,” and therefore “ brought in bondage ;” that they “turned 
from the holy commandment delivered to them ;” yea, “with 
the dog to the vomit, and the washed sow to the wallow- 
ing in the mire:” and this so far, as that “it had been better 
for them not to have known the way of righteousness.” 

26 Ver. 22. Κύων ἐπιστρέψας, The dog is turned to his 
vomit, δες. 'These two proverbs, of which the first is taken 
from Prov. xxvi. 11, and the second is common among the 
writers de Re Rusticd (see Schotii Adag. Sacra, in locum), 
are very expressive of the folly of those men who return to 
those vices they had formerly renounced; and therefore the 
fathers apply them to Julian, returning to that heathenism 
he had renounced in his baptism: so Nazianzen. Orat. 
Stel. 1. 


* Τυναικάρια πολλὰ διέφθειραν, τελείους ἑαυτοὺς dvayopevovres, 
ὡς μηδενὸς δυναμένου ἐξισωθῆναι τῷ μεγέθει τῆς γνώσεως αὐτῶν, 
μηδ' ἂν ἸπΠαῦλον, pnd’ ἂν Πέτρον εἴπης, μηδ' ἄλλον τίνα τῶν ἁποστύ- 
λων, ἀλλὰ πλείω πάντων ἐγνωκέναι, καὶ τὸ μέγεϑος τῆς γνώσεως τῆς 
ἀῤῥήτου δυνάμεως μόνους καταπεπτωκέναι, εἶναί τε αὐτοὺς ἐν ὕψει 
ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν divapw, διὸ καὶ ἐλευθέρως πάντα πράσσειν, μηδένα 
φόβον ἔχοντας, διὰ γὰρ τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν ἀκρατήτους καὶ ἀοράτους 


γίνεσθαι τῷ κριτῇ. Lib. i. cap. 9, p. 72. 


1 Tuts second epistle, beloved, I now write unto 
you; in both which I stir up your ' pure minds by 
way of remembrance : 

2° That ye may be mindful of the words which 
were spoken before by the holy prophets (of the Old 
Testament, Enoch, Jude 14, and Daniel, xii. 2, touching 
the judgment of ungodly men), and of the commandment 
of us the apostles of our Lord and Saviour (or, of the 
commandment of the apostles of our Lord and Saviour, as 
St. Jude, ver. 17, that is, to expect patiently and with un- 
shaken faith that day, Heb. x. 23. 35. 39, James i. 6, 
Vaeglls 1 beta. laste): 

3 Knowing this first, that (according to their predic- 
tions) there shall come in the last days ὃ scoffers, walk- 
ing after their own lusts, 

4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming 
(to judge the world, and raise his faithful servants from 
the dead)? for 4 since the fathers (lo whom these pro- 
mises were made) fell asleep, all things continue as they 
were from the beginning of the creation. 


CHAPTER III. 


5 For this they willingly are 5 ignorant of (Gr. they 
that are of this mind are ignorant), that by the word of 
God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing 
out of the water (viz. dry land) and in the water (viz. 
that part of it which ts covered with the sea) : 

0 Whereby the world that then was, being over- 
flowed with water, perished : 

7 But the heavens and the earth, which now are, by 
the same word are kept in store, (be/ng) reserved unto 
fire against δ the day of judgment and perdition of un- 
godly men (who, as the antediluvians have been punished 
by water destroying the world then, shall be punished with 
Jire destroying it again). 

8 But (for farther answer to this question), beloved, 
be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day 7s with 
the Lord as a7 thousand years, and a thousand years 
as one day. 

9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as 
some men count slackness (concluding thence, that he 
hath changed his purpose, or will not perform it); but 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 1. Τὴν εἰλικρινῆ διάνοιαν ὑμῶν, Your sincere minds.] 
A sincere desire to know, and regard to the truth, being once 
seated in the mind and heart, we shall readily embrace and 
firmly stand in the truth delivered to us. 

2 Ver. 2.) That these words should relate to that nota- 
ble destruction of the unbelieving Jews, foretold by Christ, 
seems not very probable; since the believers are instructed 
to be mindful of these commands, that they might be 
armed against the “coffers,” mentioned ver. 3, who said, 
«Where is the promise of his coming?” Now that the 
thing questioned by them was not our Lord’s coming to the 
destruction of the Jews, but to the judgment of the world, 
is evident; it being styled emphatically, ἡμέρα κρίσεως, “the 
day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men,” ver. 7. 
10—12. 

3 Ver. 3.] Since both Peter, and, as Jude tells us, the 
. Test of the apostles, were so careful to mind those to whom 
they writ, or preached, of these scoffers, we may conjecture 
that these scoffers were then come; though in respect of the 
prophecies concerning them, they were yet to come; whence 
Jude saith of them, “These are they that separate them- 
selves,” &c. ver. 18, 19. 

᾿Ἐμπαῖκται, Scoffers.| Jude seems to teach us, that these 
«scoffers” were the heretics mentioned in the former chap- 
ter, viz. the Simonians, who, being Samaritans, held still 
their old heresy,* that «there should be no resurrection of 
the flesh ;” and therefore walked after their own lusts: for 
those of whom, saith he, I have treated, and am speaking, 
are they of whom the apostles did forewarn you, ver. 17, 18, 

4 Ver. 4. ‘Ag’ ἧς, viz. ἡμέρας. “For from the day that 
the fathers,” to whom this promise of a resurrection, and a 
heavenly country, Heb. xi. 16, is supposed to be made, and 
who had foretold this judgment to come upon the wicked, 
Jude 14, “have slept,” we see no such thing verified to 
them ; nothing answering their predictions, but “all things 
continue as they were.” That ay’ ἧς should signify except 
that, I find no instance or example. 

5 Ver. 5. Λανθάνει γὰρ αὐτοὺς. ‘hat is, that consider not 
God’s power in making the world, which must enable him 
also to destroy it, if he please; and that by his word the 
earth was separated from the waters which covered it, and 
gathered into its channels, so that the dry land, which we 
call earth, appeared ; and that by these very waters, descend- 
ing partly from the heavens, and partly from the great deep 
(Gen. vii. 11), the earth was again overwhelmed, for the sin 


* ᾿Ηγνόησαν μὲν νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν καὶ ἀπιστοῦσι. Epiph, lib. 
i. p. 22. Her. Samar. Valentiniani etiam λέγουσι μὴ εἶναι 
νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν. Just. Mart. p. 207, 253. 


of the antediluvians (eight persons being only preserved) ; so 
that those wicked men, which then lived, perished in their 
wickedness; and so the prophecy of Enoch was remarkably 
fulfilled upon them. 

6 Ver. 7. Bis ἡμέραν κρίσεως, To the day of judgment.) 
From these words it seems to follow, first, that the day of 
judgment and perdition of ungodly men, and the conflagra- 
tion of the world, must be contemporary ; and that therefore 
“new heavens and new earth,” in the literal sense, must 
vainly be expected before the final judgment of ungodly 
men. Secondly, that the ungodly are not to be judged, or 
punished by fire, before the conflagration of the world : « for 
the heaven and earth that now are,” are to be burnt up with 
that very fire by which the ungodly are to be destroyed, they 
being left in the midst of those flames, whilst the godly, 
being snatched up into the air above the reach of them, 
“shall be for ever with the Lord” (1 Thess. tv. 16); for 
the wicked are “reserved unto the day of judgment, to be 
punished” (2 Pet. ii. 9); that fire in which they are to be 
tormented and destroyed is reserved unto the same day 
(Matt. xxv. 41. 46); the fallen angels, for whom the fire is 
prepared in which the wicked shall be punished, are reserved 
to that day (2 Pet. ii. 4, Jude 6): and, lastly, Sodom and 
Gomorrah, who perished by fire and brimstone, and set forth 
ὡς δεῖγμα, “as an example” of that punishment the wicked 
shall suffer at that great day of retribution (2 Pet. ἢ. 5, 
Jude 7): they are not therefore to be cast into the lake of 
fire and brimstone, before that day. Moreover, that the 
world was to be dissolved by fire, was the opinion of Anax- 
imander, Anaxiphanes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Diogenes, 
and Leucippus (Apud Stob. Eclog. Phys. p. 44). 

7 Ver. 8. Χίλια ἔτη, A thousand years.] That is, though 
God defer his coming to this judgment a thousand years or 
more, we must not think this long; for in respect of him 
whose duration is eternal, and so who ever lives to make 
good his promises and threats, a thousand years are as one 
day. In like manner, Zosimus,* in bis history, produces a 
prediction from the sibyls, or from one Phaellon, and then 
adds, “ Let none think that this prophesy was of some other 
thing, because it was fulfilled, pera χρύνους οὐκ ὀλίγοῦς, a long 
time after; zap yap χρόνος τῷ Θεῷ βραχὺς det τε ὄντι, Kai 
ἐσομένῳ, for all time is short to that God who ever is, and 
ever will be.” Mr. Mede indeed saith, that these words 
cannot be thus interpreted, because the question is not, whe- 
ther the time in which they expected the coming of the 
Lord, were long in respect of God, but only in respect of us, 
and so he would have the words interpreted thus, “The day 
of judgment spoken of shall be a thousand years.” But (1.) 
the text saith not, “One day shall be a thousand years,” 


* Lib. ii. ed. Steph. 1581, p. 67. 


CHAPTER III. 


is (in this) longsuffering to us-ward, * not (deing) will- 
ing that any should perish, but that all should come to 
repentance. 

10 But (though it be thus deferred for a time, yet) 
the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night 
(i. e. suddenly and unexpectedly to them, Luke xxi. 34, 
1 Thess. v. 2,3); in the which the heavens shall pass 
away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that 
are therein shall be burned up. 

11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dis- 


983 


solved (by fire designed to punish the ungodly), what 
manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversa- 
tion and godliness, 

12 Looking for ὃ and hasting unto (prepare for) the 
coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being 
on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat? 

13 Nevertheless we, " according to his promise, 
look for (χαινοὺς δὲ οὐρανοὺς προσδοχῶμεν, we also do 
expect) new heavens and a new earth, ® wherein 
dwelleth righteousness. 


but “as a thousand years,” and that again not absolutely, 
but only παρὰ Κυρίῳ, “ with respect to God.” (2.) Here is 
no question mentioned touching the length of time, either 
with respect to God, or us, but only touching the truth of 
God’s promise (ver. 4): and to this the interpretation well 
agrees, that God’s promise may be true, and in his time ful- 
filled, though he, who ever lives to make it good, should de- 
fer it a thousand years. And, (3.) that this respects God’s 
promise, and not the length of the day of judgment, is evi- 
dent from the ensuing words. 

8 Ver. 9. Μὴ βουλόμενός τινὰς ἀπολέσϑαι, Not being willing 
that any should perish.] Note here, that when it is said, God 
“ would have all men come to repentance,” it is certain that 
this will refers to all to whom the preaching of the gospel is 
vouchsafed, to all to whom in “ the times of ignorance God 
winked at, for now he commandeth them all every where to 
repent” (Acts xvii. 30). When therefore it is said, he is 
“not willing any one should perish,” he must be supposed 
to mean, he would have none to whom the gospel is vouch- 
safed, to perish. Vain therefore here are the descants of 
Esthius upon this place; as v. g. 

First, When he says, “God would have none to perish, 
because he gives to all some general means of conversion to 
~God, though they be not sufficient for that end without these 
special aids he will not give them.” Yor certain it is, that 
he who wills not the means necessary to bring them to re- 
pentance, wills not that they should come to repentance : 
and he that determines to withhold the means, which being 
withheld they must perish, wills they should perish. 

Secondly, When he restrains this to “the elect,” saying, 
“God is not willing any of them should perish ;” for the 
words are too general to admit of this restriction, for they 
run thus, first, he “ would have all to come to repentance ;” 
he “would not that they should perish.” Secondly, he is 
here speaking of “ the day of judgment, and perdition of un- 
godly men,” and gives this reason why it is deferred, viz. 
because God is long-suffering, and would not any man should 
perish. He therefore must in reason be supposed to speak 
of God’s long-suffering in the general. 

Thirdly, When he adds, “« He would not any man should 
perish, because he excites good men to pray they may re- 
pent, and so not perish.” For if this prayer be according to 
the will of God, then must it also be his will they should not 
perish ; if it be not, they cannot thus pray in faith or with 
expectance to be heard, because they know, according to his 
doctrine, they do not pray according to his will: nor can God 
excite them thus to pray. 

9 Ver. 12. Προσδοκῶντας καὶ σπεύδοντας τὴν παρουσίαν, And 
hastening to the coming.] Though πρὸς here may be taken 
from the foregoing words, yet σπεύδω hath sometimes an 
accusative case like this without it. As when Thucy- 
dides saith, σπεύδω τὴν ἡγεμονίαν, “I hasten to the go- 
vernment ;” and Pindar,* μὴ βίον dSdvarov σπεῦδε, i. 6. ἐπὶ βίον 
ἀθάνατον. 

ἸῸ Στοιχεῖα δὲ καυσούμενα, And the elements being burnt, 
shall be dissolved.) That the elements cannot be here taken 
in the common sense, Mr. Mede proves well, because one of 
them is that fire which shall consume these elements; but, 
that they signify the planets, he proves from the testimo- 
nies of Justin Martyr,t Theophilus of Antioch,+ of Poly- 


crates,* and other ancient fathers. So ἐνέργεια στοιχείων is the 
influence of the stars, Wisd. vil. 18, and στοιχεῖα ἐπουράνια, the 
celestial signs or constellations, as Valesius proves (in his 
notes upon these words of Polycrates bishop of Ephesus, 
κατὰ τὴν ᾿Ασίαν μεγάλην στοιχεῖα κεκοίμηται, “In Asia great 
lights are extinct,”) out of Diogenes, Laertius, and Epipha- 
nius : and since the planetary bodies are found to be as much 
earth as that we tread on, and borrow all their light from 
the irradiations of the sun, I think there is no need of those 
criticisms which turn παρελεύσονται, * They shall pass away,” 
into “They shall be changed,” and καυσούμενα λυθήσονται, 
«They shall be dissolved being burnt,” into “ They shall be 
refined ;’” whereas, if they be refined as silver is by fire, they 
must be dissolved as that is. Nor see I any reason why we 
should prefer either an unusual or metaphorical, before the 
proper import of these words. 

4 Ver. 13, Κατὰ τὸ ἐπάγγελμα αὐτοῦ, According to his pro- 
misé.| This cannot relate, as I have proved, to John’s dis- 
course of these new heavens, &e. for this farther reason, That 
he speaks of them only as in a vision, not by way of promise; 
it remains therefore, that the new heavens and new earth pro- 
mised by Isaiah, be the thing here referred to. Now these 
new heavens and new earth are manifestly promised to the 
Jewish nation, to whom also the apostle here writes: nor 
can they possibly admit of any other sense, or be primarily 
accomplished upon any other people: for God having said 
by his prophet, “ Behold, I create new heavens and a new 
earth,” immediately adds, « Be ye (Jews) glad, and rejoice 
for ever in what I do create; for behold, I create Jerusa- 
lem a rejoicing, and her people a joy; and I will rejoice in 
Jerusalem, and joy in my people.” Now sure this new 
heaven and earth promised to the Jews must be created be- 
fore the conflagration of the world, that is, before the Jews 
be burnt to ashes, they being not likely to be converted 
afterward. John indeed speaks of his “new heaven and 
earth,” after he had mentioned the day of judgment; but 
that he doth this by a prolepsis, is evident from this consi- 
deration, that after his whole discourse of these “new hea- 
vens and earth,” the new Jerusalem coming down from 
heaven, and of the bride, and of the Lamb’s wife, i. e. the 
Jews converted then to Christ, follow these words, “ Behold, 
I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to 
every one according to his works,” xxii. 13; which words 
contain a repetition of what was said, xx. 13, to show that 
what was mentioned there was not to be accomplished 
till after the appearance of the “new heavens and the new 
earth.” 

2 Kawots οὐρανοὺς, New heavens and new earth.] That 
this cannot refer to the millennium, supposed to be pro- 
mised in the Revelation of John, appears, not only be- 
cause this epistle was writ before the Revelation, which, 
saith Ireneus,} was seen, ad finem Domitiani imperii, “ about 
the end of the reign of Domitian,” whereas Peter suffered 
martyrdom in the reign of Nero; but also, (1.) because the 
millennium of John is peculiar to the martyrs, and those 
who have suffered for the cause of Christ; the “« new heavens 
and earth,” here mentioned, are the common expectation of 
all Christians, who upon this account are admonished to be 
“found of him without spot, and unblameable, in peace” 
(ver. 14). (2.) I grant, that the apostle is here speaking 


* Pyth. 3, ver. 1. 

ΤῸ Θεὸς τὰ οὐράνια στοιχεῖα eis αὔξησιν καρπῶν καὶ ὡρῶν 
μεταβολὰς κοσμῆσας. Justin M. Ap. i. p. 44, A. 

$ Προγενέστερα γέγονεν ra φυτὰ, καὶ ra σπέρματα τῶν στοιχείων. 


Theoph. lib. ii, p. 94, B. Lex non soltim vetat εἰδώλοις 


προσκυνεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ στοιχείοις, ἡλίῳ καὶ σελήνη, καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς 
ἄστροις. Ibid. p. 110, D, et lib. i. p. 72, A. 
Ἥλιος καὶ σελήνη καὶ ἁστέρες στοιχεῖα αὐτοῦ εἰσιν. Vide ib. C, 
¢ Apud Euseb. H. Ecel. lib. iii. cap. 31. 
+ Lib. v. cap. 30. 


984 


14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that 13. ye look for 
such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him 
in peace, without spot, and blameless. 

15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord 
ts (designed for the) salvation (of you Jews); even 
as our beloved brother Paui also according to the 
(spirit of ) wisdom given unto him hath written unto 
you (in these. words, Rom. ii. 4, Despisest thou the 
riches of his goodness and long-suffering, not knowing that 
the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? And 
more especially in these, And so all Israel shall be saved, 
&c. Rom. xi. 26. For God hath concluded them all 
in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all, ver. 


II. PETER. 


32. See the preface to the epistle to the Hebrews); 

16 ™ As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of 
these things; in which are some things hard to be 
understood, which they that are unlearned and un- 
stable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto 
their own destruction. 

17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these 
things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with 
the error of the (-se) wicked (scoffers), fall from your 
own stedfastness. 

18 But (rather) ® grow in grace, and in the know- 
ledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him 
be glory both now and for ever. Amen. 


of the destruction, not only of the sublunary heavens and 
earth” (ver. 12) by fire: but this concession is so far from 
doing any service to the hypothesis of the millennium of 
John, that it doth perfectly destroy it: for this conflagration 
of the world is contemporary with “the day of judgment, 
and perdition of ungodly men:” and by that very fire 
which consumes the world, are they to perish (see note on 
ver. 7). So doth the scripture constantly express the 
punishment of the wicked, saying, that “at the end of the 
world the ‘angels shall cast them into a furnace of fire” 
(Matt. xiii. 28), and that Christ shall “come in flaming fire 
to take vengeance” on them (2 Thess. i. 7, 8). Whereas 
the millennium of John must be at an end before that day : 
for after he had spoken of «the first resurrection,” and the 
conclusion of one thousand years, in which they were to 
reign who were then raised, ἀπά οὗ the insurrection of Gog 
and Magog against them: I say, after the conclusion of 
those years, doth he introduce One “sitting on a great 
white throne, and the dead both small and great stand- 
ing before him, and being judged out of those things which 
were written in the book, according to their works” (Rev. 
xx. 13, 14). 

I also grant, that after the apostle had spoken of the con- 
flagration of the world, he hath these words, We also do 
expect new heavens and new earth;” but then I add, that 
these words are not to be rendered thus, “ Nevertheless, 
after this violent dissolution of the world, we expect new 
heavens and new earth,” which are to succeed them: but 
rather, as Dr. More renders them, “ But before this confla- 
gration we expect them;” or rather, “ But Jesides this con- 
flagration, we expect new heavens and new earth.” As if 
the apostle should have said,—I hitherto have answered 
this question of these scoffers, by showing what substantial 
mutations have been, and will be, brought upon the world 
by the word of the Lord, and his coming to judge his peo- 
ple: this also I think fit to add in answer to them, That 
we Christians expect the coming of our Lord to make sucha 
moral change in the affairs of the church, as will amount to 
the new creation of heaven and earth, promised to the Jews 
(Isa. Ixv. 16—18): so that these scoffers have no cause to 
doubt of onr Lord’s coming in behalf of his faithful ser- 
vants, since he will come to raise his church, by his calling 
the Jewish nation to the faith, and so to such a glorious 
state. 

Nor is it to be wondered that the apostle should speak of 
these two things together, in answer to that question, 
«Where is the promise of his coming?” seeing the Jews 
thought them connected, expecting these “new heavens and 
new earth,” at the coming of the Messiah, and his coming 
“at the end of the world ;” according to that question of the 
disciples to our Lord, “ When is the time of thy coming, and 
of the end of the world?” Matt. xxiv. 3. “In the end of 


the world,” saith R. Saadias Gaon, “there shall be to the 
Jews a world full of joy and exultation: so that their hea- 
ven and earth shall be as it were new, as it is said, Isa, Ixv. 
17” (see this more fully in Mr. Mede, p. 535—537). 

18 Ver. 14. Taira προσδοκῶντες, Expecting these things.] 
These words, directed to the Jews then living, seem to 
prove, that in some inferior sense this promise of the new 
heavens, &c. was to be made good in their times: for why 
should he exhort them to this diligence, on the account of 
what should only happen one thousand seven hundred 
years after they were dead? for he plainly speaks to them 
to whom Paul had written, ver. 16, and therefore to the 
Jews at that present age. 

M Ver. 16. 'Ὡς καὶ ἐν πάσαις rats ἐπιστολαῖς, As also in 
all his epistles.) 1 do not think it necessary so to under- 
stand these words, as if the apostle were said to have spoken 
in all his epistles, that «the long-suffering of God was de- 
signed for their salvation ;” for I do not find any thing of that 
naturein many of them: he speaks indeed generally of Christ's 
coming to judgment in them, but that seems not pertinent 
to the text. I therefore give the sense of the words thus: 
As also, according to the same wisdom, he hath written 
in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, of 
which I am now discoursing, that is, of the day of the 
Lord’s coming, and of the preparation we should make 
for it. 

15 Ἔν οἷς, In which.] This cannot relate to the epistles 
of Paul, because the words being of the neuter gender, can- 
not agree with ἐπιστολαὶ, “epistles,” which is of the femis 
nine; but to those things of which Peter had been discours- 
ing in this chapter, and which were so wrested by the un- 
learned and unstable, that some of them thought, long before 
the writing of this epistle, that the day of the Lord was in- 
stant (2 Thess. ii. 2), and so became unstable in the faith 
(ver. 15). Some said, “the resurrection was past already, 
and thereby overthrew the faith of some” (2 Tim. ii. 18) ; 
some, wanting patience to expect it longer, left the assem- 
blies of Christians (Heb. x. 18), and some questioned whe- 
ther this promise would be made good at all, as here, ver. 
4, 9, the resurrection of the flesh being by some thought “a 
thing absurd,” they holding that it was “incapable ef salva- 
tion ;”* and the resurrection of the same body being by 
some looked on as a thing impossible ; and these seem to be 
the δυσνόητα here mentioned. 

'6 Ver. 18. Αὐξάνετε ἐν χάριτι, Grow in grace.| That grace 
signifies generally, in the New Testament, the favour of God 
to us, see note on 2 Cor. vi. 1. 


* Carnis salutem negant, et regenerationem ejus sper- 
nunt, dicentes non eam esse capacem incorruptibilitatis. 
Iren. lib. v. cap. 2. 


985 


THE FIRST 


EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. JOHN, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Concrrntne the author of this epistle, all ages have 
agreed that it was John, the apostle of our Lord and Saviour. 

As for the time when it was written, some (both ancient 
and modern) writers think his epistles to be the last of his 
works, and therefore to have been written in the last years of 
Domitian. But Dr. Hammond hath very well observed, 
that this epistle must have been written some time before 
the great destruction which befell the Jews: (1.) Because 
he speaks of the last hour as now at hand; which that it 
must be understood of the last times of the Jewish state, 
see note on ii. 18, (2.) Because he speaks of the anti- 
christ, ii. 18, and the false prophets, iv. 1, which were 
then among them, or come into the world; such as Christ 
tells us were to be the immediate forerunners of that de- 
struction, Matt. xxiv. 24, declaring, that they went out from 
them of Judea, ver. 19. (3.) It being written by an 
apostle of the circumcision, it is not doubted but it was writ- 
ten to the Jews; but that it was an Epistle to the Parthians, 
as Austin,* Posidonius in his Index, and Idacius, contra 
Verim. aver; as I know nothing can be said against it, but 
that it only is asserted by authors of a later date: so, if 
Parthia be taken for the whole empire, as it was enlarged by 
the Arsacide, it is a farther proof, not only that this epistle 
was written to the Jews, who, saith Josephus,t abounded 
in Babylon and Mesopotamia, and had there three famous 
universities, one of them at Neerda, mentioned by Josephus ; 
but also, that many of the ten tribes were then converted, 
they being seated in Mesopotamia and Media: for the text 
saith, that “they were carried away into Assyria, and placed 
in Halah and Habor, by the river Gozan, and in the cities of 
the Medes,” 2 Kings xvii. 6, xviii. 11. Now all these places, 
saith the learned Bochart,t are to be found thereabouts; 
and therefore John, being an apostle of the circumcision, 
may well be supposed to have written to them, though per- 
haps he was never there; as Paul writ some of his epistles 
to churches he had never seen. 

Whence it was written, neither scripture nor any thing 
in antiquity that I have met with, give any ground for a 
conjecture. 

The occasion of it seems to be, (1.) To arm those Jewish 
converts against those loose and pernicious doctrines which 
had obtained among the Jews, viz. that solifidian doctrine 
of being righteous by a faith that is not fruitful in good 
works, or without doing righteousness, 1 John ii. 29, iii. 7. 10, 
being children of the light, without walking in the light; 
favourites of God without obedience to his laws, or love to 
his servants. (2.) Against the madness of their zealots, 
abounding every where among them, who thought their zeal for 
God and for his laws would atone for their hatred and mur- 
der of their brethren, and for all the other sins, which, saith 
Josephus, they did so greedily commit (see note on Rom. ii. 


* Qu. Evang. lib. ii. cap. 39. 

+ Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 16. 

; In Assyria vel Mediz parte illi vicina reperiuntur loca, 
quorum sacra historia meminit: Chaluch est Ptolemai Calu- 
chena ad aquilonem Assyriz, Chabor est ejusdem Ptolemei 
mons Chaboras inter Mediam et Assyriam, ἃ quo monte ad 
Caspium mare euntibus, medio forte spatio, occurrit Gauza- 
nia urbs. Geogr. S, lib. iii. cap. 14, p. 220. 

Vor. IV.—124 


1, 24, James i. 26). And, (3.) to preserve them steadfast in 
the truth, which they had “heard from the beginning,” 
against those deceivers, antichrists, and false prophets, which 
were then among them, ii. 19. 26, iv. 1—3, and to continue 
them steadfast in the belief that “ Jesus was the Christ the 
Son of God,” v. 1. 

And here, because that question hath made so great a noise 
of late, « Whether salvation or perdition depends upon be- 
lieving or rejecting this one proposition, That Jesus was the 
Messiah,” as, saith the author of the Reasonableness of 
Christianity, p. 43, adding, p. 47, that “all that was to be 
believed for justification, was no more but this single propo- 
sition, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, or the Messiah ;” 
I shall endeavor briefly to state and explain this matter, 
and so give farther light to those words of this epistle, iv. 
2. 15, vi. 1. 5, which seem to say the same thing. 

Whereas then this author challenges all the systematical 
divines, p. 192, “to show that there was any other doctrine, 
upon their assent to which, or disbelief of it, men were pro- 
nounced believers or unbelievers, and accordingly received 
into the church of Christ as members of his body, as far as 
mere believing could make them so, or else kept out of it :” 
this I shall undertake to show, 

First, From the express words of Christ, who requires of 
all his disciples, in order to their admission into the church 
by baptism, faith in “the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” 
Matt. xxviii. 19, saying, “He that believeth (this) and is 
baptized, shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be 
damned,” Mark xvi. 16, he adds with an asseveration, 
“ Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of 
the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you,” 
John vi. 53; clearly declaring the necessity of faith in the 
body given, and his blood shed, for the remission of sins, to 
justification and salvation ; we being “justified by his blood,” 
and “through faith in his blood,” Rom. iii. 25, v. 9. 

Secondly, From the plain declaration of Paul, who, 
among the first things he preached to the Corinthians, as 
things by the belief of which they should be saved, men- 
tions three articles; first of all, that «Christ died for our 
sins, according to the scriptures,” 1 Cor. xv. 1—4. (2.) That 
“he was buried.” And, (3.) that « he rose from the dead.” In 
the same chapter he plainly asserts the necessity of believirf& 
the resurrection of the body, ver. 19. 32. Among the foun- 
dations and first principles of the doctrine of Christ, from 
which all Christians were to go on to perfection, he reckons 
“the doctrines of repentance, of faith towards God, of bap- 
tism, of laying on of hands (for the receiving of the Holy 
Ghost), of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judg- 
ment,” Heb. vi. 1,2. These therefore were then necessary 
to be believed by all Christians. The doctrine of the suffi- 
ciency of faith in Christ’s death for justification without the 
works of the law, is by the same apostle declared to be so 
necessary, that he saith of them who gainsaid it, “ Christ 
is become of no effect to you; ye are fallen from grace,” Gal. 
v. 2. 4. 

Moreover, it will be easy to account for the practice of 
our Lord and his apostles, who insist so much and lay so 
great stress upon this one article, if we consider who they 
preached to, and how much was contained in, or necessarily 
depended upon, the cordial belief of this one article. 

First, then, Our Lord and his apostles, whilst he was on 
earth, preached only to the Jews, Matt. x. 6, that is, to them 
to whom “ pertained the adoption, the glory, the covenants, 
the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises,” 

4H 


986 ἢ 


Rom. ix. 4, and to whom “were committed the oracles of 
God,” Rom. iii. 2 ; i. e. those scriptures which were “ able to 
make them wise to salvation, with faith in Christ Jesus,” 
2 Tim. iii. 5, i.e. if they, to the belief of them, added faith in 
Christ, they teaching them the knowledge of the true God 
and the way in which he would be worshipped, and showing 
them “ what was good, and what the Lord required of them.” 
They also were writ by, and made frequent mention of, the 
Spirit of God, of the new covenant God would establish 
with them, “of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glory 
that should follow,” 1 Pet. i. 11, of his prophetical, priestly, 
and his kingly office, of an Emanuel that should be born to 
them, whose “name should be called Wonderful, Counsellor, 
the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of 
peace,” Isa. vii. 1. 14, ix. 6. It is not therefore to be won- 
dered, that whilst our Saviour was on earth, he only called 
them to repentance, and faith in the promised Messiah. 

Moreover, Paul’s sermon, Acts xlii., was preached to the 
«children of the stock of Abraham,” ver. 26; and yet he 
preached to them not only that Jesus was the Christ, but 
also that “he died, and rose again,” and that “remission of 
sins was to be obtained through his name;” and that «by 
him all that believed were to be justified from all those 
things frgm which they could not be justified by the law 
of Moses,” ver. 38, 39. And though we find him once dis- 
puting in the school of one Tyrannus, we seldom find him 
preach any where but in a Jewish synagogue. Others also 
preached to the same persons; for “they that were dispersed 
upon the persecution of Stephen preached to the Jews only,” 
Acts xi. 19. 

We have, in the whole Acts of the Apostles, mention only 
of four persons who were not Jews by birth, to whom the 
gospel was thus preached; one of these was the eunuch, 
who was before a worshipper of God, as is probably con- 
jectured, of the Jews’ religion ; and therefore “came up to 
Jerusalem to worship.” Paul preacheth to Lydia in a 
Jewish synagogue, Acts xvi. 13, 14, and she was also one 
that worshipped God, and so in all probability of the Jews’ 
religion. The centurion to whom Peter preached, was ‘ one 
that feared God, wrought righteousness, was much in prayer 
and alms;” and yet Peter, before his baptism, preaches to 
him, and his friends, of “the word that God sent to the 
children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ;” de- 
claring how he was “anointed by God with the Holy 
Ghost, healed all that were oppressed of the devil, suffered 
and rose again,’ that he was “made Lord of all things,” 
that he was “ordained of God to be the Judge of the 
quick and the dead,” and that “through his name who- 
soever believed in him should receive remission of sins,” 
Acts x. 36.43. The only heathen family, that Paul ad- 
mits to baptism, is the jailor’s; and he first preaches to 
them “the word of the Lord,” Acts xvi. 32; i. 6. say even 
the Socinians, he summarily expounded to them* who this 
Jesus, this Son of God, was, what miracles he did, how he 
was crucified by the Jews, raised up again by God, taken up 
into heaven, made Lord of all things;” what promises he 
had made, what precepts be enjoined. I know this author 
saith, that preaching the word was only preaching that Jesus 
was the Messiah: but the scriptures cited by him do not 
say so: for the word, mentioned Acts x. 37, is the whole 
word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching 
peace by Jesus Christ. It is the word of the gospel, Acts 
xv. 7. It contains the whole ministry of the gospel, Acts 
vi. 4. All the counsel of God being « the word of his grace 
which was able to build them up, and give them an inheritance 
among them who were sanctified through faith in Christ,” 
Acts xx. 27. 32. It cannot therefore be concluded, from 
the preaching of our Lord or his apostles, that they thought 
nothing more was necessary to be believed by Christians 
saving this one article, that “Jesus was the Christ.” 

Secondly, The belief of this proposition, that “ Christ is 


* Woltzog. in locum. 


PREFACE TO I. JOHN. 


the Messiah, and the Son of God,” may well be represented 
as the chief initiating article of Christian faith; because 
where it is heartily professed, it carries with it a profession 
of believing all Christ’s sayings, and of obeying all his pre- 
cepts: and where it cordially is embraced, it produceth 
both this faith and practice. That “ Jesus is the Christ,” as 
it is the principal article of pure faith, the most peculiar 
doctrine of our religion, as it stands opposed to that of Ju- 
daism ; so it doth virtually comprehend all other doctrines 
of moment in it, regarding either faith or practice. For to 
believe him to be the Christ, is to believe him to be “a 
Prophet sent from God, to teach the way of life unto us,” 
John iii, 3, even “that Prophet which was to come into the 
world.” Hence Christ applies these words to himself, « The 
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath appointed 
me to preach the gospel,” &c. Luke iv. 18. Now sure we 
are obliged to embrace as truth whatsoever was taught by 
such a Prophet, and to obey all his precepts upon pain of 
destruction; for ‘* whosoever will not hear this Prophet, 
shall be destroyed from the people,” Acts iii. 23. 

Again, To believe him to be the Christ, is to belieye 
him to be the Son of God, according to that profession of 
Peter, “ Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God,” Matt. 
xvi. 16, and the inquiry of the high-priest, «Art thou the 
Christ, the Son of God?” Matt. xxvi. 63. Now this lays 
an obligation upon us to hear, that is, obey him; according 
to those words of God, « This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
am well pleased; hear him,” Matt. xvii. 5. It is also to 
believe him to be our Lord and King, according to those 
words of the angel, “To you is born a Saviour, who is 
Christ the Lord,” Luke ii. 11, and of Nathaniel, « Rabbi, 
thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.” Now 
this relation calls for obedience: “ for why,” saith our Sa- 
viour, “call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I 
say ?” Luke vi. 46, and that on penalty of ruin from him, 
when he shall say, “ Bring those mine enemies, who would 
not I should reign over them, and slay them before me,” 
Luke xix. 27. It was also Jesus who was called Christ, 
even that Jesus who was to “save his people from their 
sins,” and “a Saviour to give repentance and remission of 
sins,” Matt. 1.21. Now upon such a King, and such a Sa- 
viour, we may securely rely for the obtainment of all the 
blessings and rewards which he hath promised to the obe- 
dient. Hence we may learn, that it was highly reasonable 
that the apostles should begin their preaching with proving 
and persuading this doctrine; that they should give such 
great commendations, annex such excellent privileges, offer 
such high rewards, to the hearty belief of such a comprehen- 
sive article, and should admit them to baptism who pro- 
fessed it; since “ by that baptism, (saith this author, p. 196, 
197,) they owned themselves the subjects of this Jesus whom 
they believed to be their Messiah (i. e. the Prophet sent 
from God to teach them), and received him for their Lord 
and King; and this was the solemn visible act whereby 
they who believed him to be the Messiah, received him as 
their King, and professed obedience to him, and so were ad- 
mitted as subjects into his kingdom.” For as every one 
who was circumcised, “became a debtor to obey the whole 
law” of Moses, Gal. v. 3, and therefore to believe it; so 
every person baptized, being of age, doth by that very bap- 
tism profess to believe all the doctrines, and obey the pre- 
cepts, of the holy Jesus, in whose name he is baptized. And 
therefore, though John here says, “ He that confesseth that 
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in 
God,” iv. 15, and, “ Every one that believeth that Jesus is 
the Christ, is born of God,” v. 1, yet he requires of the same 
persons, in order tothe same ends, that they should walk in 
the truth of the gospel, in conformity to the example of 
Christ, and to the love of God, and in obedience to his 
commands ; and adds, that “he that is born of God sinneth 
not, neither can sin;” clearly insinuating, that this proposi- 
tion, when cordia!ly embraced, will produce a faith and prac- 
tice answerable to it in our lives. 


981 


CHAPTER I. 


1 Tat which was ἢ from the beginning (of the 
gospel dispensation, that) which we have heard, which 
2 we have seen (i. e. discerned as clearly as if we had 
ssen il) with our eyes, (that) which we have looked 
upon, and our hands have (as it were) handled, of the 

ord of life, (declare we to you ; 

2 Nor have ye the least reason to suspect our tesli- 
mony, either of this life, or the author and procurer Ο 
il:)(For the life (we speak of) was manifested (in the 
author and the promise of it), and we have seen (or 
known) it, and bear witness (to ἐΐ), and shew unto you 
3 that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was 
manifested unto us ;) 

3 That which we have seen and heard (of this 
Word of life) declare we unto you, that ye also may 
have 4 fellowship with us (én the same life): and traly 
our fellowship ἐδ δ with the Father, and with his Son 
Jesus Christ. 

4 And these things write we unto you, that your 


joy may be full (7. e. that believing this eternal life, ye 
may rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory, 1 Pet. 
i. 8,9. For which cause ye must carefully attend to an- 
other message he hath sent by us). 

5 This then (and this) is the message which we 
have heard of him (7. e. from God by Jesus Christ), and 
declare unto you, that God is light (@ pure and spotless 
Spirit), and in him is no darkness at all; (nothing of 
impurity or iniquily in his commands which are all holy, 
Rom. vii. 12, or in his actions, as in the heathen deities, 
he being holy in all his works. 

6 And therefore) If we say that we have fellowship 
with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not 
(speak) the truth : 

7 But if we walk in the light, ®as he is in the light 
(endeavouring to be holy, as he is holy), we have” fel- 
lowship one with another, and the ὃ blood of Jesus 
Christ his Son cleanseth us from all (those) sin 
(which might obstruct our communion with this holy 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


1 Ver. 1. Ὃ ἦν dx’ ἀρχῆς. This I here render, “From the 
beginning” of the gospel dispensation ; “because IJ find that 
is the constant import of the phrase in this epistle, and else- 
where, where it relates to what Christians had heard and 
seen, as here. In this sense is, “ That which ye have heard, 
dz’ ἀρχῆς, from the beginning,” used six times by our apos- 
tle in these epistles; viz. First Epistle, ii. 7. 24, twice, iii. 
11; Second Epistle, ver. 6. So, « The commandment which 
we have received, dz’ ἀρχῆς, from the beginning,” First Epis- 
tle, ii. 7, Second Epistle, ver. 5, doth necessarily import its 
being Christ’s new commandment of love. So, ax’ ἀρχῆς 
αὐτόπται, are “those who from the beginning of Christ’s 
preaching were witnesses of what he said and did,” Luke i. 
2. And in this sense Christ saith to his disciples, “« Ye have 
been with me, dx’ ἀρχῆς, from the beginning,” John xv. 
27. 

3 Ὃ ἑωράκαμεν, Which we have seen.] That is, in the 
scripture phrase, said to be “seen” and “looked upon,” 
which is as truly known and discerned by us, as if we had 
seen it. So the Jews are said to do the things which they 
have “seen with their Father,” John viii. 38, and to have 
“seen the end of the Lord’s dealing with Job,” James v. 
11. So we are said to “see God,” or not to see him, 1 John 
iii. 6, Third Epistle, ver. 11; to “see the life” here, ver. 2. 
So also ψηλαφᾷν, when applied to spiritual things, is not to 
touch with the hand, but to apprehend with the mind, Acts 
xvii. 27. I confess, all these things are more properly true 
of the “ Word made flesh ;” of whom the apostles declared 
what they had heard from him, and seen of him, who“ saw 
his glory,” John i. 14, and what one of them had touched. 
But then the Aéyos agreeing only to the divine nature, a 
metaphorical sense must be allowed, in seeing and handling 
that. 

3 Ver. 2. Τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον, ἥτις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, That 
eternal life which was with the Father.) Thus of our eternal 
life, the apostle saith, it is “hid with Christ in God,’ Col. 
iii. 3, and of the evangelical dispensation, that before the re- 
velation of it by Christ and his apostles, it was “a mystery 
hid in God,” Eph. iii. 9. But this also may be applied to 
the divine Αόγος, styled by this apostle, «Life eternal ;” v. 
20; who was “in the bosom of the Father, and was mani- 
fested to us,” John i. 18. Yet two things seem to favour 
the first interpretation. 

First, That the phrase here used, being not ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν, He 
subsisted in the beginning of all things; but only, ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς 
ἣν, “He was from the beginning,” this phrase excludes not 
his creation, as the other seems to do; and, as [ have ob- 
served, it chiefly is applied, by this apostle, to the beginning 
of the gospel dispensation. 

Secondly, That though ὃ λόγος and ζωὴ, absolutely put, 
are spoken of Christ, yet 5 λόγος τῆς ζωῆς, is never used con- 


cerning the person of Christ, but is expressly used of that 
word by which eternal life is manifested; as when we are 
bid to “hold fast, λόγον ζωῆς, the word of life,’ Phil. ii. 16, 
and when the apostles are bid to teach, τὰ ῥήματα τῆς ζωῆς, 
“the words of this life,” Acts v. 20 (see Acts xiii. 16). 

4 Ver. 3. Κοινωνίαν μεϑ' ἡμῶν, Fellowship with us.) It doth 
not follow hence, as Esthius imagines, that no man can have 
fellowship with God, who hath not fellowship with the 
church (though that be doubtless true of fellowship with the 
invisible church, united to Christ by the Spirit, and so made 
a habitation of God through the Spirit, and of fellowship in 
doctrine, and communion with the church of the apostles) : 
for, as “like precious faith with us” is only such faith as we 
have, 2 Pet. ii. 1, so here, “fellowship with us,” is only 
such fellowship as we have. 

5 Mera τοῦ πατρὸς, With the Father.] We being “heirs of 
God, joint-heirs with Christ,” Rom. viii. 17, and being united 
to, and having communion with, the Father and the Son, 
by the Spirit of both dwelling in us, John xiv. 21. 23, Eph. 
ii, 21, 22, Rom. viii. 9. 11, and he being to us the earnest of 
this life, 2 Cor. i. 22, v. 5, Eph. i. 13, 14, who “seals us up 
to the day of redemption,” Eph. iv. 30. 

6 Ver. 7. ‘Qs αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτὶ, As he is in the light. 
That this metaphor of “light” relates not to the knowledge 
or the felicity, but to the purity of the divine nature, appears, 
(1.) from the injunction, to “ walk in the light, as he is in 
the light ;” for we are not any where bid to resemble God in 
knowledge or in happiness, but we are commanded to “be 
holy as he is holy.” (2.) From the darkness set in opposi- 
tion to it; which doth not refer so much to the ignorance of 
men, as to the vices they practised in a state of ignorance 
(see note on Rom. xiii. 12). 

7 Κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων, We have communion one 
with another.| Some manuscripts read, per’ αὐτοῦ, “ with 
him ;” which either is the true reading, or gives the true 
sense of the other reading: i. e. We have communion with 
God, and he with us; as is evident from ver. 6. Moreover, 
the apostle had said nothing before of our communion with 
one another, but only of our “fellowship with God,” ver. 
6, “with the Father and the Son,” ver. 3, which makes it 
reasonable to refer the words to that communion, of which 
the apostle so often speaketh in this epistle (see ii. 5, 6. 24, 
iii. 24, iv. 13). Notwithstanding, it is true, that then we 
have communion with one another, by virtue of that Holy 
Spirit which enlightens us, and enables us to walk in the 
light. 

8 Τὸ αἷμα Χριστοῦ, The blood of Christ cleanseth us from 
all sin.] This cannot well relate to that effect of the blood 
of Christ, which we call “justification by faith in his blood,” 
or the remission of our past sins, by virtue of our faith in 
Christ dying for us; for that follows immediately upon our 
faith, and cannot require that a habit of purity, or of walk- 
ing in the light, should precede it: it therefore seemeth to 


988 


-God, and our attainment of the life thus manifested 
to us. 

8 And of this expiation we shall have need, for) 31 we 
say that we have no sin (10 be thus cleansed from), we 
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: (for in 
many things we offend all, James iii. 2, and therefore 
are required to pray daily for the remission of our sins, 
and have even after our regeneration need of this advocate 
for the propitiation of our sins, ii. 1,2. See 1 Kings 
vili. 46, Eccles. vii. 21. 

9 But) If we confess (these) our sins, he (who hath 


I. JOHN. 


made this new covenant in the blood of Christ that he will 
be merciful to our iniquities, Heb. viii. 8) is faithful (to 
his promise) and just to forgive us our sins (upon the 
satisfaction made to his justice by the death of Christ), 
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

10 (But) If we (continue to) say that we have not 
sinned (and therefore do not need this expiation through 
the blood of Christ), we make him a liar, (who hath de- 
clared, both in the Old and New Testament, that all have 
sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God, Rom. i. 23,) 
and his word is not in us. 


refer to those sinful infirmities and defects, which, in this 
state of imperfection, cleave to our best actions, and even 
good men are still subject to, and which do not deprive us of 
the divine favour, or of an entrance into that new Jerusalem, 
“into which nothing enters that is polluted or unclean ;” 
because in this new covenant of grace, established in the 
death of Christ, his blood doth cleanse all faithful and sin- 
cere Christians from the guilt of them. 

The blood of Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.J 
Here note, that these words confute the quakers, who hold 
that those who are in the light, are guilty of no sin: for were 
this so, they could be cleansed from none by the blood of 
Jesus (see the text defended, Examen Milli). 

9 Ver. 8—10.] The question is, of whom the apostle 
speaketh here, whether of sincere Christians, after their 
conversion to the Christian faith, or only of them consi- 
dered before they entered on that state. That John here 
speaks only of the latter, is argued from these considera- 
tions: 

1. That the apostle doth plainly teach the contrary to the 
first exposition, by saying, “ He that is born οὗ God, sinneth 
not,” iii. 9, v. 18. But to this I shall return an answer in 
the comment on those places. 

2. That these words run in the preterperfect tense, “If we 
say, οὐχ ἡμαρτήκαμεν, we have not sinned ;” whereas some 
single acts of lesser sins they were then still subject to, to 
whom he speaks. 

Ans. True; and therefore he adviseth them to confess 
‘them, that they might obtain forgiveness of them: now 


confessing of them must be after they have been commit- 
ted. 

3. Because this phrase, ἁμαρτίαν ἔχειν, “to have sin,” is 
still used of such sins as will condemn us at the last, John 
ix. 41, xv. 22. 24, xix. 11. 

Ans. The text cited from xix. 11 is impertinent: the 
other two may be taken absolutely, as to the matter spoken 
of: 1. 6. they had been guilty of no sin of infidelity, if Christ 
had not come to them, or if he had not proved his mission 
(xv. 22. 24), or if he had wanted means to discern the truth 
(ix. 41); nor would their sin of infidelity have been con- 
demning, had they confessed it, and forsaken it. 

Since then the apostle was speaking (ver. 7), of them who 
“walked in the light,’ who had “communion with God,” 
and who were “cleansed from the guilt of sin ;” and (ver. 8) 
goes on to add, “If we say we have no sin ;” it seems more 
probable, that he speaks there at least of the same persons. 

Note also, that some of the Jews* professed to be ἀναμάρ- 
trot πρὸς Θεὸν, καὶ μηδεμιᾶς μετασχόντες, supply ἁμαρτίας, 
“free from all sins and offences against God ;” and of such 
may the last verse be interpreted. They varying in this 
from the doctrine of other Jews: for Maimonidest truly 
saith, Nullus homo dari potest qui non peccet, vel ignorantér 
in dogmate et sententid aliqua amplectendd, aut qualitate 
eligenda que non eligenda est, vel ob ire aliorumque affec- 
tuum vehementiam et predominationem. 


* Jos. de Bello Jud. lib. vii. p. 990, B. 
+ More Nevoch. lib. iii. cap. 36, p. 443. 


CHAPTER II. 


1 My little children, these things (concerning the ne- 
cessity of walking in the light, and putting off the deeds of 
darkness,) write I unto you, that ye sin not (@. 6. that 
ye live not in any course of sin). And! if any man 
(through the infirmity of the flesh be overtaken with a) 


sin, we (Christians) have an advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ the righteous, (the Just One, in whom was 
no sin, 1 Pet, ill. 18 :) 

2 And ? he is the propitiation for our sins: and not 
for our’s only, but? also for the sins of the whole world. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IL. 


ἰ, Ver. 1. ᾿Εάν τις ἁμάρτῃ, And if any man sin.] Though 
that is not to be interpreted of sins of infirmity only; yet 
since the apostle is here speaking of his “little children,” 


whose past sins were already “ forgiven them, for his name’s | 
sake” (ver. 12. 16), and the apostle would not encourage | 


them in wilful or habitual sins, I think, as it relates to them 
it chiefly is to be referred to those sins of ignorance, weak- 
ness, and infirmity, which will be pardoned by the tenor of 
the new covenant, through Christ’s intercession. 

2 Ver. 2. Ἱλασμός ἐστι περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, He is the 
propitiation for our sins.) In the Old ‘Testament, the sin- 
offering which made atonement for a trespass, that it might 
be forgiven, is called, xpios ἱλασμοῦ, “ the ram of atonement,” 
Lev. vi. 6,7, Numb. v. 8; and that which in the law is 
φέρειν, OF προσάγειν τὸ περὶ ἁμαρτίας, “to bring an offering for 
sin,” is in Ezekiel, προσφέρειν ἱλασμὸν, “to bring an atone- 
ment,” or propitiation (Ezek. xliv. 27). When therefore it 
is said here of Jesus Christ, that he is ἱλασμὸν, “the propitia- 
tion for our sins;” and, iv. 10, that God sent him into the 
world, to be, ἱλασμὸν, “the propitiation for our sins; have 
We not reason to conclude, he was so our propitiation, as 
were all the sin-offerings of the Jews for them, viz. by suffer- 


ing in our stead, to make atonement for our sins, and so to 
render God propitious to us, in the forgiveness of them? 
Moreover, why is he styled “Jesus Christ the just,” or 
“ righteous,” who made propitiation for our sins, if he intend- 
ed not to intimate, that the just suffered instead of the un- 
just, to make an atonement for their sins?’ To this Crellius 
replies, that δίκαιος should be rendered, not “the just,” but 
“the faithful.” - 

Ans. This is to say, it must here signify, not what it or- 
dinarily and truly signifies, but what it both improperly and 
rarely signifies; and when it is ascribed to Christ, as here it 
is, it never signifies: for it is ascribed to him elsewhere ten 
times in the New Testament, Matt. xxvii. 24, Luke xxiii. 
47, Acts iii. 14, vii. 52, xxii. 14,2 Tim. iv. 8, 1 Pet. iii. 18, 
Rev. xvi. 5; and in those places it doth always signify that 
just or righteous person; yea, in this very chapter, and the 
next, it is twice spoken of him, first in these words, ver. 29, 
“Tf ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one 
that doeth righteousness is born of him;” and, iii. 7, “ He 
that doeth righteousness, is righteous, even as he is right- 
eous :” where it is evident, that it retains its proper sense. 
Why, therefore, in the place contested, should it import 
that which, when it is applied to Christ, it never signifies ? 

Obj. And whereas Crellius objects, That the apostle 


CHAPTER II. 


3 4 And hereby (Gr. in this) we do know that we 
know (Gr. have known) him (truly and acceptably), if 
we keep his commandments. 

4 He that saith, I (have) know (n) him, and keep- 
eth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth 15 
not in him: (he ts a false pretender to the knowledge of 
God ; for such persons do in words profess to know God, 
bul in works they deny him, being disubedient, Tit. i. 16. 
They likewise know not Jesus Christ according to the truth, 
iv. 21.) 


speaks of Christ here, as of our advocate in heaven, where 
he doth not satisfy God, or suffer any punishment on our 
account: 

Ans. I answer, That seeing Christ there intercedes, by 
virtue of his blood shed to satisfy for our offences, and of 
the death he suffered as the punishment of our iniquities, 
the parallel runs clearly thus; That as the sacrifices of the 
Old Testament were slain, and the blood shed, before it was 
brought to the mercy-seat, and yet the high-priest made 
atonement with it, when, at his entrance into the holy place, 
he offered up that blood to God, in his peculiar presence ; 
60, though our Lord was slain, and shed his blood on earth, 
yet may he make atonement in the presence of God with it, 
by virtue of the sufferings he endured when his blood was shed. 

3 Περὶ ὅλου rod κύσμου, For the sins of the whole world.) 
i.e. Of all men in general. For when he saith, “ He is the 
propitiation for our sins,” sure he intends this comfort to all 
them to whom he speaks, and means not, that Christ was 
the propitiation for some of their sins only; for this would 
have left them all in doubt, whether this advocate, and this 
propitiation did belong to them, but would have comforted 
none of them. When then he adds, “ He is the propitiation 
not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world,” 
he in like manner must extend this phrase to all men in the 
world. 

Again, when he saith, “ He is the propitiation for oursins,” 
he doth not mean, that he was so sufficiently, but not in- 
tentionally : for what comfort would that afford them, that 
his death was sufficient to procure the pardon of their sins, 
had God designed it for that end, unless they also knew that 
he intended it for their propitiation? When therefore he 
proceeds to say, “ And not for ours only, but for the sins of 
the whole world,” he must mean also, that he was the pro- 
Pitiation for their sins, not only sufficiently, but also in his 
gracious intention. And indeed, otherwise, it might as pro- 
perly have been said of the fallen angels, or the whole host 
of devils, he is the propitiation for their sins, as for the sins 
of those who are not elected; seeing, had God designed it 
for that end, Christ’s death, by reason of its intrinsic value, 
might have been sufficient to procure atonement for the sins 
of fallen angels. Lastly, the import of these words cannot 
be only this, He died, or is the propitiation, for the sins of 
the elect throughout the world. For (1.) “the whole world,” 
in scripture, never signifies the elect only, in opposition to 
the wicked in the whole world ; but in this very epistle, and 
in these words, “ We know that we are of God, and that 
the whole world lies in wickedness” (v. 19), plainly signi- 
fies the wicked of the world, in opposition to the faithful 
Christians. (2.) Would it not be strange, and alien from 
the mind of scripture, to say, The whole world is elected to 
salvation ; the whole world shall be justified: by Christ, and 
sanctified by his Spirit dwelling in them, and obtain a happy 
resurrection? and yet all this must be true of the whole 
world of the elect. Why therefore are none of these things 
equally affirmed of the whole world, as well as that Christ 
died, and is the propitiation, for the sins of the whole world, 
if they be words of equal latitude and truth? These argu- 
ments are as strong against the exposition of others, who 
say, The apostle means, not only for the sins of the Jews, 
but also of the gentiles. 

If we sin we have an advocate with the Father, and he 
ts the propitiation for our sins.] Moreover, this being spoken 
by this apostle to his “little children,” whose past “sins 
were already forgiven” (ver. 12), must relate to their future 
sins, to which they might be afterward obnoxious, and there- 
fore must suppose them still subject to sins of infirmity. 

4 Ver. 3.] It is a rule in divinity, that verba notitie de- 


989 


5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the 
5 love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are 
in him. 

6 © He that saith he abideth in him (in Christ by 
the Spirit) ought himself also so to walk, even as he 
walked. 

7 Brethren, I write 7no new commandment unto 
you (when I thus call upon you to walk in the light, as 
he is in the light, or to walk as Christ walked), but 
an old commandment which ye had from the begin- 


notant affectum, adde et effectum: i. e. “that when the 
knowledge of God, or Christ, is put absolutely, it signifies 
a knowledge which is fruitful in love; and obedience, as 
the effect of that love and knowledge.” Whence they who 
disobey him are still, in scripture, said “not to know God,” 
1 Sam. ii. 12, Hos. v. 14, Jer. ii. 8, ix. 3, Tit. i. 16, and 
here, ver. 4; and they that do what is acceptable and de- 
lightful to him, are said to “know” him, Jer. xxii. 15, 16, 
xxiv. 7, xxxi. 33, 34, Hos. ii. 19, 20, John x. 4, Eph. 
ili. 19. 

Moreover, it is observable, that many of the Jews had 
an apprehension, that their knowledge and belief of the 
true God would be sufficient for their justification and ac- 
ceptance with him ; whence they are represented as “ boast- 
ing in God, and in the knowledge of his will,” Rom. ii. 17, 
18, and expecting justification on this account, that they 
“believed there was one God,” James ii. 19; and this might 
cause the apostle to be so diligent in teaching them, That 
the true knowledge of God consisted in keeping his com- 
mandments. 

5 Ver. 5. 'H ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ, The love of God perfected.) 
«The love of God’’ here may signify either God's love to 
us; as when it is said, “ Who shall separate us from the 
love of God which is (shown to us) in Christ Jesus?” Rom. 
viii. 39, and that “the love of God is shed abroad in our 
hearts, through the Spirit that he hath given us,” Rom. v. 
5 (see Jude 21) ; and then this love is “perfected” in us, by 
that assurance the Holy Spirit giveth of it, and that humble 
confidence we have of it, “because we keep his command- 
ments” (iii. 21, 22) ; so the apostle seems to interpret this 
perfection in love, iv. 16—18; or, secondly, this love may 
signify, our love to God and Christ; as when Christ up- 
braids the pharisees with the want of the love of God 
(Luke xi. 42), and saith to the Jews, “I know that ye have 
not the love of God in you” (John v.42); and when Christ 
saith, “ He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, 
he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved 
of my Father’ (John xiv. 21); and (ver. 23), “If any 
man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will 
love him, and we will come to him, and take up our abode 
with him;” and this “love is perfected in us, by keep- 
ing his commandments ;” because that shows, we are fully 
instructed in the nature of that love, which is in one sense 
of perfection (see note on 1 Cor. ii. 6): and it engages us 
to the sincere performance of our whole duty to God, which 
is another sense of the word perfection: and hereby we 
know that we are in him, even by his Spirit, by which God 
abideth in us (iii. 24), and who sheds abroad the sense of 
the divine love in our hearts. 

Note also, that hence we may pass a certain estimate of 
necessary and fundamental doctrines; for if they be such 
as are necessary to the love of God to us, or to that love of 
ours to him, which consists in keeping his commandments, 
they are doctrines truly necessary to salvation: if not, they 
cannot be so; because we may truly love God, and abide 
in his love, without the knowledge of them, 

6 Ver. 6.] For seeing we abide in God the Father and 
the Son, only by the communion of the Spirit (ili. 24, iv. 13), 
whehce “he that is in Christ is one spirit with him” (1 Cor. 
vi. 17), and “ he that hath not the Spirit of Christ, is none of 
his” (Rom. viii. 9), we that are animated with the same 
spirit that was in Christ, as we are enabled, so also are we 
thereby engaged to walk after his example, or to “ walk in 
the light as he is in the light” (i. 7). 

7 Ver. 7. Οὐκ ἐντολὴν καινὴν, No new commandment.] Most 
interpreters conceive, this relates to the commandment of 
Christian love, that being the commandment which they are 

4u2 


990 


ning (of Christ’s preaching, John iii, 21, viii. 12, xii. 35, 
see note oni. 1). The old commandment is the word 
which ye have heard from the beginning. 

8 8 Again, a new commandment I write unto you, 
which thing is true in him (who is the author of it; 
for no such light ever came into the world before, and 
no such love was manifested to the world before,) and 
in you (who before were darkness, but now are light in 
the Lord, Eph. v. 8, children of the light and of the 
day, 1 Thess. v. 5, and to whom not long ago the light 
appeared, 2 Cor. iv. 6, and who are taught of God to 
love one another, 1 Thess. iv. 9): because (by your late 
receiving the gospel) the (former) darkness (ye were 
in) is past, and the true light now shineth (in and 
upon you: wherefore the night of ignorance and darkness 
being far spent, and the day being nigh at hand, and 
shining more and more upon you, ye are obliged to put 
off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of 
light, Rom, xiii. 12).—Or thus; Again (being now to 
speak to you of Christian love), a new commandment 
I write unto you, which thing is true in him ( for thus 
he speaks, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye 
love one another, as I have loved you, John xiii. 34,) and 
in you: because (zt shows) the darkness (you were in 
whilst Jews, bearing affection only to them of your own 
nation and religion) is past, and the true light (of the 
gospel) now shineth (upon you). 

9 He that saith he is in the light (that he lives under 
the influences of the light of the gospel, and walks accord- 
ingly to it), and (yet) hateth his brother (wishing iil to 
him, and, from that disaffection doing ill offices to him), 
is (whatsoever he professes to the contrary) in darkness 
even until now. (But) 

10 He that loveth his brother (as Christ loved us, 
being willing to do him all kind offices which he is able, 


I. JOHN. 


from love to God, and as a fellow-member of Christ’s 
body,) abideth in the light, and there is 3 none occa- 
sion of stumbling (Gr. no scandal) in him. 

11 But he that hateth his brother "is in darkness, 
and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither 
(the way leadsin which) he goeth, because that dark- 
ness hath blinded his eyes (John xii. 35). 

12 "TI write unto you, little children, because your 
sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake. 

13 I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known 
him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, 
young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. 
I write unto you, little children, because ye have known 
the Father. 

14 1 have written unto you, fathers, because ye have 
known him that is from the beginning. I have written 
unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the 
word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the 
wicked one. 

15 Love not the world (2. 6. neither the men of the 
world, who will not own you, but hate and persecule 
you, iii. 1. 18, and who live in wickedness, v. 19; love 
them not, so as to be conformed to their manners, Rom. 
xii. 2), neither the things that are in the world, (the 
pleasures, honours, or enjoyments of it, so as to cleave to 
them, Matt. vi. 24, or to be unwilling to part with them 
for Christ’s sake, and to secure the favour of God, Matt. 
xix. 28.) If any man (/hus) love the world, the love 
of the Father is not in him ( for seeing God is to be loved 
above all, he loves him not at all truly, who cleaves to any 
other thing in opposition to him, or hazards his favour to 
secure 11). 

16 For all that zs in (vogue or esteem with the men 
of ) the world, the lust of the flesh (all voluptuous en- 
joyments which tend to sensuality and intemperance, 


said to have “heard from the beginning” (iii. 11), and said 
to be, on that account, “no new commandment” (Eph. ii. 
5), and yet being styled by Christ, «a new commandment” 
(John xii. 34). Nor are the arguments of Episcopius 
against this exposition cogent : for whereas, 

Obj. 1. He objects, That these words seem to be spoken, 
to remove the thought of some, that he was propounding a 
new doctrine which they had not learned; whereas no man 
who was acquainted with the law of Moses, or even with 
that of nature, could think the law of charity was new: 

Ans. I answer, It is not the law of charity in general, 
which our Lord and his apostles style a new commandment; 
but that of loving one another, as he had loved us (John 
xiii. 34, 35). And this might justly be looked on as a new 
commandment; it being a commandment of “ laying down 
our lives for the brethren” (iii. 16), and therefore a com- 
mandment not contained in the law of nature, nor in that 
of Moses. 

Obj. 2. Whereas he adds, That these words, “I write 
unto you,” seem to respect not any thing that was to follow, 
but which was said before ; and to contain this sense, When 
I write this to you, I write nothing new; 

Ans. I answer, That it may be so; for having told us, 
that “he that saith he abideth in Christ, ought also to walk 
as he walked,” he may well be conceived to have an especial 
eye to the great example of love Christ showed to mankind 
both in his life and death. Yet his exposition given in the 
paraphrase seems also very probable, by reason of the fol- 
lowing words, “ Because the darkness is past, and the true 
light now shineth ;” and therefore I shall have respect to 
both. 

8 Ver. 8.] The ceremonials of the law are sometimes 
called a “ shadow,” but never “ darkness;” and though the 
Alexandrian manuscripts read σκιὰ, “a shadow,” yet, be- 
cause all other copies read cxéria, “darkness,” and the fol- 
lowing words, ver. 9. 11, show that this is the true reading, 
and because it is so easy, in short writing, to mistake cxoria 
for σκιὰ, the interpretation of these words, which depends 
upon that reading, cannot be relied on. 

9 Ver. 10, Σκάνδαλον ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν, i. 6, There is no- 


thing at which he will fall, or stumble.| So Ps. exix. 156, 
«Great peace have they that love thy law, καὶ οὐκ ἐστὶν at- 
τοῖς σκάνδαλον, and they have no stumbling-block.” The 
labour of love, they must undergo; the evils they may be 
exposed to will not hinder them from doing the duty they 
owe to God, and their brother, for his sake; but they go 
on securely and cheerfully in it; for “perfect love casts out 
fear” (iv. 18). 

10 Ver. 11. Ἔν τῇ σκοτίᾳ ἐστὶ, Is in darkness.) i. 6. He 
lives in great ignorance of his duty, and of the way to life, 
as not guiding his actions by that light of the gospel which 
hath appeared unto him. 

1 Ver. 12—14.] Note, that these words may either relate 
to the foregoing; and then they are to be interpreted as 
motives to walk in the light, and as Christ walked, and in 
particular to walk in Christian love, thus; “I have written 
to you, children,” touching this love, and walking in the 
light, and after Christ’s example, ‘* because your sins have 
been forgiven, for his name’s sake;” and so, in gratitude to 
him who hath procured the pardon of them, you “ ought to 
walk as he walked,” and to love the brethren: ye also have 
“known the Father, and had experience of his love to you, 
and therefore stand obliged to intimate his love to you, and 
to “walk in the light,” that you may still have fellowship 
with him. 

«“T have written to you, fathers, because ye have known 
him who was from the beginning,” i. e. Christ Jesus, and so 
know how to walk by his example, and to imitate his obedi- 
ence to the Father, and his love to mankind. 

« Thave written to you, young men, because yeare strong,” 
by virtue of the word of God abiding in you; and by the 
sword of the Spirit, and shield of faith, have been enabled 
successfully to combat and overcome that wicked one, who 
tempts you to the deeds of darkness, and to hatred of the 
brethren (iii. 10). 

If they relate to the words following, they must be an ex- 
hortation to the little children to take off their affections from 
the world, and place them upon God and Christ, on the ac- 
count of the love and mercy shown to them by God the 
Father through Christ. To the fathers so to do, because 


CHAPTER II. 


and making provision for the flesh), and the lust of the 
eyes (he desire of gold, silver, stately houses, rich furni- 
ture, fair gardens, which tend to gratify the eye), and the 
pride of life (the desire of places of dignity, high titles, all 
the honour, glory, and splendour of the world, which tends 
to gratify our pride), is not of the Father (they are nol 
desires excited by him, nor ts tt according,to his will, that 
we should set our hearts upon them), but is (the desire) of 
(the men of ) the world (whose chief concern is to gratify 
these sensual appetites). 

17 And the world passeth away, and the (things 
which minister to the) lusts thereof: but he that doeth 
the will of God abideth for ever. 

18 Little children, it is the last time (or hour of the 
Jewish economy): and as ye have heard that 15 anti- 
christ shall (short/y) come, (so) even now are there 
many antichrists (7. e. opposers of Christ, and deniers of 
him to be the Christ, ver. 22); whereby we (may) know 
that it is the last time. 

19 They went out from us (Christians of Judea, 
Acts xv. 1, and from us the apostles, Acts xv. 24), but 
they were not of us (but were false brethren, Gal. ii. 


they have known Christ, how dead he was to the world, 
and how he despised the pleasures, honours, and enjoyments 
of it. Τὸ the young men so to do, because they had over- 
come the wicked one, all whose temptations arise from some 
allurements or affrightments of the world. Or, lastly, the 
words may be extended to all he saith to them in this whole 
epistle; and then both expositions may take place. 

2 Ver. 18.°'O ἀντίχριστος, Antichrist cometh:] To wit, 
then in “the last hour.” And this being represented, as 
the character by which they might « know that the last hour 
was now come,” it is manifest, that “the last hour’ cannot 
signify the end of the world, or include the times of the last 
judgment; but must be restrained to the last times of the 
Jewish state, which only then were instant, or at hand. 

Secondly, The 5 ἀντίχριστος, “ antichrist” then in being, 
if it refer to any nation, must be the nation of the unbe- 
lieving Jews, persecuting and opposing Christianity with their 
whole might, and denying Jesus to be the Christ, or pro- 
mised Messiah; and then the many antichrists here men- 
tioned may be the false prophets, and deceitful workers, 
who transformed themselves into the apostles of Christ (2 
Cor. xi. 13—15), who “ preached Christ not sincerely, but 
out of contention” (Phil. i. 15), who “as Jannes and Jam- 
bres withstood Moses, so also did resist the truth” (2 Tim. 
iii. 8), who were “men of corrupt minds, and destitute of 
the truth” (1 Tim. vi. 5). 

18 Ver. 19. "Ex ἡμῶν ἐξῆλθον, They went out from us] Of 
Judea. For some xare\Sévres ἀπὸ τῆς ᾿Ιουδαίας, “ going out 
from Judea, taught the brethren, That except they were 
circumcised after the manner of Moses, they could not be 
saved” (Acts xv. 1): and from the apostles; for so they 
speak, “ We have heard, that τίνες ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξελθόντες, some 
going out from us, have troubled you with words subverting 
your souls, saying, That ye ought to be circumcised, and to 
keep the law” (ver. 24). The persons who taught the doc- 
trines are styled ψευδάδελφοι, “false brethren,” Gal. ii. 4, 
ψευδαπόστολοι, “false apostles, deceitful workers, ministers of 
Satan,” 2 Cor. xi. 13. 15, “dogs, evil workers, the con- 
cision,” Phil. iii. 2: their doctrine tended to the subversion 
of souls, Acts xv. 24, to the corrupting and turning the 
minds of men from the simplicity of Christ, 2 Cor. xi. 3, 
to hinder the truth of the gospel from continuing with them, 
Gal. ii. 5, to make Christ die in vain, ver. 21, to cause Chris- 
tians to fall from grace, so that Christ should profit them 
nothing, Gal. v. 2.4. So that they were false prophets, false 
apostles, and antichrists, in the worst of senses; and by go- 
ing out from the apostles and churches of Judea, to preach 
this destructive doctrine to the gentiles, which both the whole 
church of Judea, and the apostles assembled for that pur- 
pose, flatly disowned and censured, it sufficiently appeared 
that all the preachers of these doctrines, so opposite to 
Christianity, and destructive of it, were not of them. These 
therefore, doubtless, were some of those many antichrists 
which the apostle speaks of here, as writing to the Jews; 


991 


4, and false apostles, 2 Cor. xi. 13); for if they had been 
of us, (conspiring with us the apostles and true churches 
of Christ, in the doctrine and truth of the gospel,) they 
would no doubt have (Gr. μεμενήχεισαν av, they might 
have still) continued with us (preaching that doctrine 
which we leach): but they went out (from us), that they 
might be made manifest “ that they were not all (Gr. 
that they all were not) of us. 

20 But ye have an unction "5 from the Holy One, 
and ye know all things (ye to whom I write ; which 
shows, he speaks not of the Christians of all ages in gene- 
ral, but of them in particular). 

21 I have not written unto you because ye know not 
the truth (¢.-e. ἐο instruct you as persons ignorant of it), 
but because ye know it, and that no lie (uttered by these 
antichrists and false prophets) is of (or hath any commu- 
nion with) the truth (of the gospel). 

22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is 
the Christ? (7. e. who so emphatically deserves that litle, 
seeing) he is antichrist (by way of eminence), " that de- 
nieth the Father and the Son. 

23 (And let not the Jewish antichrists pretend, this 


and they also divided, and separated themselves from the 
church, and became heretics under the name of Cerinthians, 
Nazarenes, and Ebionites. Cerinthus* spread his heresy in 
Asia, the province of John, saith Theodoret, and wast con- 
temporary with the apostles: whence the church+ desired 
him to write against Cerinthus and the Ebionites: and John§ 
left the bath, because Cerintbus the enemy of truth was in 
it. Moreover these words, “They were not of us,” cannot 
be interpreted of the elect, but of the church in general; 
for, from them they went out, and with them might have 
remained ; not from the elect, who are not visible, nor could 
they have remained with the church of the elect, who were 
never of them. Secondly, their going out from them for a 
season, was no certain argument they were not of the elect; 
since it is confessed, they may fall totally, though not finally. 

"Ort οὐκ εἰσὶ πάντες, That they all were not of us.) So 
ver. 21, πᾶν ψεῦδος οὐκ, “No lie is of the truth ;” οὐκ ἂν ἐσώϑη 
πᾶσα σάρξ, “No flesh shall be saved,” Matt. xxiv. 22, οὐ 
δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα capt, “No flesh shall be justified,” Rom. 
iii. 20 (sce Gen. iv. 15, Ps. exliii. 2, Luke i. 37, Hab. ii. 9). 

5 Ver. 20. ᾿Απὸ τοῦ ‘Ayiov, From the Holy One.] i. 6. 
From Jesus Christ, emphatically so called, Acts iii. 14, Rev. 
iii. 7. But then that unction is the Holy Spirit, which he 
hath given to them that believe: for he being “anointed 
with the oil of gladness above his fellows” (Ps. xlv. 7), 
“anointed by God with the Holy Ghost” (Acts x. 38), this 
grace is given to Christians, “according to the measure of 
the gift of Christ” (Eph. iv. 7), and “we all beholding, as 
in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same 
likeness, as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. iii. 18, see the 
note there). 

16 Kai οἴδατε πάντα, And ye know all things.] Belonging 
to the saving truths of the gospel, he being promised to teach 
them all things (John xiv. 26), and to lead them into all 
truth (John xvi. 13), so G&cumenius;|| “ You have received 
in baptism the unction of the Holy Spirit, who leads you 
into all truth.” 

17 Ver. 22. ’Apvoipevos τὸν πατέρα, That denieth the Father, 


* Bis τὴν ᾿Ασίαν ἀφίκετο. Theodoret. Her. Fab. lib. ii. 
cap. 3. 

ἡ Kai KijpwSov δὲ φασὶν, ᾿Ιωάννου τοῦ πανευφήμο", τοῦ τό θεῖον 
συγγράψαντος εὐαγγέλιον, ἔτι περιόντος, τὰ τῆς οἰκείας αἱρέσεως 
παρασπεῖραι ζιζάνια. Ibid. cap. 1. 

+ Προτραπέντα ὑπὸ τῶν γνωρίμων. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 
vi.cap. 14. Rogatus ab Asie episcopis, adverstis Cerinthum 
aliosque hereticos, et maximé tunc Ebionitaruam dogma 
consurgens, qui asserunt Christum ante Mariam non fuisse, 
compulsus est divinam ejus nativitatem edicere. Hieron. in 
Johan. 

§ Φύγωμεν, μὴ καὶ τὸ βαλανεῖον συμπέση, ἔνδον ὄντος KnpivSov 
τοῦ τῆς ἀληθείας ἐχθροῦ. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 14. 

|] ᾿Ελάβετε διὰ rod ἁγίου βαπτίσματος τὸ χρίσμα τὸ ἱερὸν, καὶ διὰ 
τούτου τὸ εἰς πᾶσαν ἀλήθειαν ὁδηγοῦν ὑμᾶς θεῖον Πνεῦμα. 


992 


belongs not to them who know the Father ; for)Whosoever 
denieth the Son (of God), the same hath not (the true 
knowledge of) the Father: [but] he that acknowledgeth 
the Son hath the Father also. 

24 Let that (doctrine) therefore abide in you, which 
ye have heard from the beginning (preached to you: 
for) if that which ye have heard from the beginning 
shall remain (and bring forth its due fruits) in you, ye 
also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father, 
(united to them by the Spirit, who also will instruct you 
in the saving knowledge of them both, John xiv. 23, 
vi. 56.) 

25 And this is the promise that he hath promised 
us (who thus remain in him), even eternal life. 

26 These things have I written unto you concerning 
them that seduce you (7. e. who endeavour so to do). 

27 © But (this not out of absolute necessity, as if through 
ignorance ye could not otherwise be preserved from their 
seductions, ver. 2, for) the anointing which ye have re- 
ceived of him (who 7s your head ) abideth in (or among) 


I. JOHN. 


you, and (so) ye need not that any man (should) teach 
you: but as the same anointing (ἡ. 6. Spirit of wisdom 
and knowledge) teacheth you all things (necessary), and 
(for it) is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath 
taught you, ye shall abide in him. 

28 And now (xai νῦν, now therefore), little children, 
abide in him (én the profession and practice of what he 
hath taught you) ; that, when he shall appear, we may 
have confidence (of the life promised to them that do so, 
ver. 25), and (may) not be ashamed before him (Gr. 
may not be put to shame by him, or, go ashamed from 
him,) at his coming (to judgment, iv. 17, as being judged 
by him unworthy of this life; as we shall not be, if we be 
found doing righteousness ; for,) 

29 If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that 
every one that doeth righteousness is born of him; (as 
being born again of the Spirit derived from him, and so 
become a son of God, and an heir of life, Rom. viii. 14. 
17, and by thes Spirit sealed up unto the day of redemp- 
tion, Eph. iv. 30.) 


or, Hath not the Father.| To “deny the Father,” here, is 
not, to deny him to be the true God, as the heathens did; 
but, (1.) to deny the truth of his testimony: for, “He that 
believeth not in the testimony which God hath given to his 
Son, hath made him a liar” (v. 10); whereas, “ he that re- 
ceives his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true” 
(John iii. 33). (2.) To deny the doctrine of the Father, or 
that doctrine which proceedeth from him; for, “he whom 
God hath sent, speaketh the words of God” (John iii. 34). 
Whence it is evident, that he who denieth the Son, cannot 
thus retain the true knowledge of the Father, because “no 
man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who 
is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him (John 
i. 18). He only hath done it; for “no man knoweth the 
Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal 
him” (Matt. xi.27). By him only can we come acceptably 
to the Father, so as to have life; for, he is “ the way, the 
truth, and the life” (John xiv. 6): and by him only are we 
taught how to worship the Father “in spirit and in truth” 
(John iv. 23,24). Hence Christ so often tells the Jews, they 
therefore wanted the true knowledge of the Father, because 
they knew not him, saying, « Ye neither know me, nor my 
Father; if ye had known me, ye should have known the 
Father also” (John viii. 19, xiv. 7): and “ These things will 
they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, 
nor me” (John xvi. 3). 

Ver. 23.] See Examen Milli. 

18 Ver. 25.] For the fruit of the Spirit is life (Rom. viii. 
6. 11. 13. 16, 17, Gal. vi. 8), and he is given as the earnest 
of our future inheritance, to “seal us up to the day of re- 
demption” (2 Cor. i. 22, v.5, Eph. i. 13, 14, iv. 30), and 
this life he hath often promised to us, John y. 25, 26. 29, 
vi. 27. 29. 33. 39, 40. 47. 50, 51. 54. 57, 58, 

19 Ver. 27. Kai ὑμεῖς, Vos quod attinet, And as for you.] 
So Isa. lix. 21, «And I,” i.e. As for me, this is my cove- 
nant,” Ixi. 18, »381, κἀγὼ, “As for me” (see 1 Chron, 
XXvill. 2). 

The Quakers and other sectaries hence argue against the 
necessity of the ministerial function, or any teachers of the 
word, it being here said, « You need not that any teach 
you,” ἄς. And others say, this seems to make all scrip- 


ture, and all that the apostle writ to them, needless. But 
for answer to this objection, I say, 

First, That it must be granted, that in those times of the 
effusion of the Spirit, and his miraculous gifts upon believers, 
this unction was promised to teach them all things necessary 
who had then no other rule of knowing what was so, but by 
the teaching of the apostles and prophets then among 
them, acted by this Spirit, and teaching in their assem- 
blies, and doing other public offices by this afflatus, and 
by the spirit of wisdom and instruction then imparted to 
them; and hereby they were enabled to distinguish betwixt 
pretenders to the Spirit, and those who were really acted by 
him (see note on iv. 1—3), and to know they dwelt in Christ, 
“because he had thus (given) them of his Spirit” (John iii. 
24, iv. 13), which things do certainly imply, that they who 
then had the Spirit, could certainly know they had it, and 
make an argument of it to try the doctrines.and spirits of 
others, and much more in themselves; but now these sensi- 
ble indications and extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are long 
since ceased, and therefore now they are to be directed by 
those writings which were indited for their perpetual use, by 
men assisted with that Spirit, who led them into all truth: 
and surely, if in those times, when the gifts of the Spirit 
were so generally vouchsafed, they were yet taught by apos- 
tles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and doctors, assisted by 
the Spirit for that work; it is reasonable to believe that, now 
these gifts are ceased, believers should be instructed by pas- 
tors and doctors, assisted by the scriptures indited by these 
spiritual men. And therefore, 

Secondly, It is observable, that the apostle doth not here 
absolutely say, they need not any one should teach them, 
but only that they “need not any one should teach them but 
as this unction taught them.” Now the apostles having this 
unction in the highest measure, these words cannot exclude 
their teachings, or render them unnecessary, but rather must 
confirm them as a standing rule to all posterity. ‘Till then 
these sectaries can show that they have still sach an imme- 
diate and extraordinary afflatus of the Holy Spirit, as was 
then vouchsafed to the primitive Christians, they cannot 
hence conclude the outward ministry of the word, by pastors 
and doctors set apart for that work, to be unnecessary. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Benoxtp, what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should be called 1 the sons 
of God: therefore the world knoweth us not (7. 6. 


doth not acknowledge and affect us Christians), because 


it knew him not. (The heathens being wholly ignorant 
of the true God, and the Jews not knowing him accord- 
ing to his will, John viii. 55, xv. 21, xvi. 3, and as he 
had discovered himself to them by his Son, 1 John ii. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


1 Ver. 1, Τέκνα Θεοῦ, The sons of God.] The Jews were 
styled the children and the sons of God, because they owned 
him as their God and Father, and entered into covenant to 
serve him, and so became a holy people to the Lord, and he 
had chosen them to be his people (Deut. xiv. 1), So “we 


_all are sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. iii. 


26, John i. 12). The land in which they dwelt is styled 
“the Lord’s land,” Hos. ix.3; and they, as being his “ first- 
born” (Exod. iv. 22), have it given them for an inhe- 
ritance; but we, as being in a more spiritual sense the 
sons of God, are “heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ,” 
as being those that shall reign with him in his heavenly 


CHAPTER III. 


23. And this may comfort you against the persecu- 
tions of the world, that it is their want of thal saving 
knowledge of the true God, which ministers so great 
advantage to you, which causes them to disaffect 
Ou. 

2 eloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth 
not yet appear what we shall be (made farther par- 
takers of, as the complete import of that title): but (this) 
we know that, ? when he shall appear, we shall be like 
him; for we shall see him as he is. 

3 And every man that hath this hope in him (of see- 
ing him in his glory) purifieth himself, even * as he 
is pure (in whom was no sin, ver. 5). 

4 4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also 
the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. 

5 And ye know that he (%. e. Christ, ver. 8) was 
manifested to take away our sins; (not only by suffer- 


993 


ing to remove the guilt of our past sins; but also to 
purify us from the power and dominion of it, that 
henceforth we might not serve sin, Rom. vi. 6, that 
ἁμαρτίας anoysvouevac, being freed from sin, we might 
live unto righteousness, 1 Pet. ii. 24;) and in him is no 
sin (and so our likeness to him must consist in ceasing 
from it). 

6 Whosoever (therefore) abideth in him sinneth 
not: ® whosoever (/hus) sinneth hath not seen him, 
neither known him (as the truth is in Jesus, Eph. 
iv. 21). 

7 rite children, let no man deceive you (wilh pre- 
tensions, that faith without works of righteousness will 
make you righteous before God: for only) he that doeth 
righteousness is righteous, even as he (7. e. Christ) 
is righteous (by doing the will of his Father, John 
xv. 10). 


kingdom (Rom. viii. 17, see the note there). ΠΟΥ in that 
land enjoyed the majestic presence of that God who dwelt 
among them; and therefore, saith he, “the land is mine” 
(Lev. xxv. 23) ; we, as his sons, shall be admitted to his ce- 
lestial presence, where “ we shall see him as he is” (ver. 2). 
The enjoyment of that land was unto them a type of the 
heavenly Canaan, which the faithful among them were to en- 
joy ; and therefore they are represented as “strangers and 
sojourners with him in it:’”” whence the apostle tells them, 
that “there remained yet a rest for the people of God” (Heb. 
iv. 9), and the patriarchs are said to have confessed that 
“they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth,” and thereby 
to declare that “ they desired (and sought) a better country, 
that is, a heavenly τ and that upon this account God called 
himself “ their God,” viz. “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob,” because “he had prepared for them a city” (Heb. 
xi. 13. 16). Now because they in their own persons could 
not enjoy this heavenly country without a resurrection, hence 
the evangelist informs us, that they were the “sons of God, 
τῆς ἀναστάσεως υἱοὶ ὄντες, as being sons of the resurrection ;” 
the redemption of their bodies from corruption, and the dva- 
βίωσις, reviviscence of that which once died and saw corrup- 
tion, being the consequent of this υἱοϑεσία, adoption, or 
sonship of God’s children; hence therefore doth our Saviour 
firmly prove the resurrection from those words, “I am the 
God of Abraham,” &c. (Matt. xxii. 32, Luke xx. 36, 37). 
And thus you see how great is the love of God in owning us 
as his sons; and have also a just comment on the following 
words. 

2 Ver. 2. "Eav φανερωϑῆ, When he doth appear.] Note here, 

1, That as the Hebrew word Sx, so the conjunction ἐὰν, 
signifies as well when (or, postquam, after that), as if. So, 
Judg. vi. 2, ἐὰν ἔσπειραν, « When Israel sowed ;” 1 Sam. i. 
22, ἐὰν ἀπογαλακτίσω, “ When I have weaned him,” Prov. 
ili. 24, ἐὰν καϑῆ, ἐὰν καϑεύδης, “ When thou liest down thou 
shalt not be afraid :’”’ so Judg: xxi. 21, Ps. cxxxviii. 7, Prov. 
iv. 12 (see Nold. Partic. p. 87. 89), so, John xii, 32, ἐὰν 
ὑψωϑθῶ, “ When [am lifted up;” xiii. 20, ἐᾶν πέμψω, « When 
I send ;” xiv. 3, ἐὰν πορευϑῶ, When I go away.” Note, 

2. That this is spoken of Christ, seems evident, (1.) from 
the word φανερωϑη, which is used of Christ, ver. 5, and agrees 
properly to him alone; and (2.) from the phrase “ We shall 
be like him,” viz. “ who shall change our vile bodies into the 
likeness of his glorious body” (Phil. iii. 21), and cause us to 
“bear the image of the Lord from heaven,” by being raised 
with glorious and incorruptible bodies (1 Cor. xv. 47. 49). 
And from the words, “ We shall see him as he is,” i. 6. in 
glory; this being his prayer, that “they whom God had 
given him, might be with him, and behold his glory” (John 
Xvii. 24), 

3 Ver. 3. Καϑὼς ἐκεῖνος, As he is pure.| For he being ma- 
nifested to take away our sins (ver. 5), and to destroy the 
works of the devil in us (ver. 8), they who expect to be 
made like to him hereafter, must be so here in purity and 
righteousness. But then let it be noted, 

First, ‘That this imitation doth not require our likeness to 
him we are to imitate, in the manner or inward principle of 
his actions; but only in the quality, and, as far as human 
frailty will permit us, in the measure of them: for instance, 
it is as necessary for God to be absolutely perfect in holiness 

Vor. IV.—125 


and goodness, as to be God; and yet we must be “holy as 
he is holy,” and “perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.” 
And itis generally asserted in the schools, that the obedience 
and perfect holiness of Christ did necessarily result from the 
most intimate union of the divine and human nature, and 
from that grace of unction which he received without mea- 
sure; whereas our holiness and obedience must be acts of 
choice, and so our holiness and virtue will proceed, not from 
an inward principle, which doth necessitate us to be good, 
but from the choice of our own wills; and yet we must 
“walk as he walked,” and must “purify ourselves as he 
is pure.” ‘ 

Secondly, This imitation doth not require an absolute 
equality, or fall proportion of our actions to the example set 
before us, this being not consistent with the frailty of our hu- 
man nature. For the example here is that of the holy 
Jesus, “in whom was no sin,” and who performed perfect 
obedience to the whole law of God; whereas “in many things 
we offend all,” and our obedience will be still imperfect in 
this life. When therefore we are commanded to be holy and 
perfect as God is, to walk as Christ walked, and to purify 
ourselves as he is pure, it is sicwt similitudinis, non #quali- 
tatis ; i. 6. the word as binds us not to equal them in holi- 
ness and perfection, but to bear such a likeness to them in 
these perfections as may discover that we truly aim at being 
holy in all manner of conversation, and heartily endeavour 
to continue so, through the whole tenor of our lives. 

Vain then is that objection of the Socinians, 'That were 
Christ truly God, we could not possibly expect, nor therefore 
would it be our duty, to imitate him ; for seeing the example 
of God himself is made the matter of our imitation, the ar- 
gument must equally conclude against the Deity of God the 
Father. In a word, a likeness to him as far as human 
frailty will permit, may be our duty, though he should be 
God: a perfect likeness to him who did no sin, could never 
be our duty, though he were but man. 

4 Ver. 4. Ὃ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, He that committeth sin ;] 
i. e. Who lives in the commission of it, lives in an opposi- 
tion to the law of God; for he is “of the devil,” ver. 8, he 
is “not born of God,” ver. 9; which could not be truly said 
of him that is guilty of any one sin, or violation of God’s 
holy law. 

5 Ver. 6. Whosoever sinneth, οὐχ ἑώρακεν αὐτὸν, οὐδὲ ἔγνω- 
κεν αὐτόν, hath not seen him, neither known him.] To “know 
God,” in the sense of this apostle, is to know him as he is 
revealed by Jesus Christ, and represented to the world by 
him. Hence Christ saith, “If ye have known me, ye have 
known the Father also” (John xiv. 7); and denies that the 
Jews knew God, “ because they knew not him” (John viii. 
19, xv. 21, xvi. 3). “To see God,” is to see his will, love, 
and goodness, as it is revealed by Jesus Christ; and thus 
saith Christ, “ He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” 
(xii. 45, xiv. 9): because he is only known to them, to whom 
Christ Jesus doth reveal him (Matt. xi. 27, Luke x. 28, 
John i. 18, vi. 46. And in this sense all that the apostle 
saith in this epistle of seeing and knowing God is true, viz. 
that he who knoweth God, as he is revealed by Jesus Christ, 
“keepeth his commandments,” ii. 3, 4, he “loves his bro- 
ther,” iv. 7, 8, he that is of the world, “knows not God,” 
iii. 1, nor “he that committeth sin,” as here. 


994 


8 5 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the 
devil (thus) sinneth from the beginning. For this pur- 
pose the Son of God was manifested (to the world), 
that he might destroy the works of the devil. 

9 Whosoever is born? of God doth not commit sin; 
for his seed (the word of God, Matt. xiii., 1 Pet. i. 23) 
remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is 
born of God. 

10 In this the children of God are manifest, and 


I. JOHN. 


the children of the devil: whosoever ® doeth not 
righteousness is not of God, neither (is) he (so) that 
loveth not his brother (and so both these are children of 
the devil). 

11 For this is the message that ye heard from 
the beginning (or, from the first preaching of the gos- 
pel), that we should love one another (from a pure heart 
fervently, 1 Pet. i. 23, and as Christ hath loved us, John 
xv. 12. 


6 Ver. 8, 9. ‘O ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, He that committeth sin.] 
i. e. He that lives or goes on in any way of sin. ‘That this 
is the true import of this phrase in the writings of this apos- 
tle, will appear (1.) from the same phrase used in his gospel, 
πᾶς ὃ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, * Whosoever committeth sin is the 
servant of sin” (John viii. 34). Now to be the servant of 
sin, is plainly to continue and to live in it (Rom. vi. 1, 2); 
to “ yield obedience to it in the lustings of it” (ver. 12) ; for 
then “sin reigns in our mortal bodies” (ibid.), and we are 
slaves and subjects to it; then doth it, κυριεύειν, “lord it over 
us,” and we are δοῦλοι εἰς ὑπακοὴν, “servants to yield obe- 
dience to it’ (ver. 14.16). Though the conscience may 
boggle at it, our reason may condemn it, our will be some- 
what averse to it, so that in obeying it we “do the evil we 
would not;” yet if ἐμπλακέντες ἡττώμεϑα, “we are so en- 
tangled as to be overcome by it,” we are servants to corrup- 
tion ; “ for of what a man is overcome, to that is he brought 
in bondage” (2 Pet. ii. 19, 20). If “the law of our mem- 
bers lead us captive to the law of sin” (Rom. vii. 23), so that 
“we yield our members instruments of unrighteousness to 
sin,” we so commit sin as to be the servants of sin: and 
“he that is born of God, cannot (thus) sin,” because by that 
new birth he is “ made free from (the service of ) sin” (John 
viii. 36), and become “a servant to righteousness” (Rom. vi. 
18): he hath that seed within him which alienates his mind 
and his affections from sin, and that Spirit which causes him 
to mortify the deeds of the flesh (Rom. viii. 13), to die to sin, 
and to live to God (Rom. vi. 10). 

(2.) From those words, “ neither can sin,” for so he doth 
not do it, as he cannot do it. Now that doth not import 
a good man cannot be overtaken with a fault (Gal. vi. 1). 
No, even those “little children” whose “sins are forgiven,” 
and who have “known the Father,” may and will be ob- 
noxious still to some infirmities, and wandering out of the 
way (iil.1). They may “sin not unto death,” and therefore 
may have still the spiritual life remaining in them (v. 16— 
18). But the true import of that phrase is this,* ‘That he 
hath such an inward frame of heart, such a disposition of 
spirit, as renders sin exceeding odious and hateful to him; 
so that he cannot entertain the thoughts of doing it, or a 
temptation to commit it, without the utmost detestation, and 
the greatest horror, and so can very rarely, and only through 
surprise, or want of due deliberation, or through such violent 
temptations as prevent or hinder his consideration, be ob- 
noxious to sin; and when he comes to consider of such an 
action, is presently condemning himself for it, bitterly re- 
penting of it, and for the future watching most carefully 
against it. ‘Thus, they that are evil “cannot speak good 
things” (Matt. xii. 34); “a good tree cannot bring forth 
bad fruit” (Matt. xvii. 18); “the world cannot hate those 
that are of it” (John vii. 7). The Jews could not hear 
Christ’s word (John viii. 43); “could not believe” (John 
xii, 39). The world “could not receive” the Spirit (John 
xiy. 17), “They that are in the flesh cannot please God” 
(Rom. viii. 7, 8), “The natural man cannot know the things 
of God” (1 Cor. ii, 14), The church of Ephesus “could 
not bear the wicked” (Rev. ii. 2). 

(3.) From the phrase, “" He that committeth sin is of the 
devil ;” for it is not he who committeth one or more sins of 
infirmity, for so did Christ’s disciples while they were with 
him; nor he who committeth one great sin through the 
power of a strong temptation, of which he bitterly repents, 


multe a Catone Minore Velleius Paterculus. Homo vir- | 


tuti simillimus, et per omnia ingenio diis quam hominibus 
propior, qui nunquam recte fecit ut facere videretur, sed quia 
aliter, facere non poterat. Hist. R. lib. ii. cap. 84. Omni- 
bus humanis vitiis immunis. Ibid. 


| 


and from which he returns to his obedience; for thus did 
David and Peter, who yet were not then the children of the 
devil ; but they who comply with the lusts of Satan, and who 
‘will do” them (John viii. 44). 

The other interpretations which are given of these words, 
seem either vain and impertinent, or false and dangerous. 
And, 

1, Vain is that sense which some put on these words, 
“He that is born of God, non debet peccare, ought not to 
sin,” or, that it is absurd for him to sin; for the apostle 
speaks not of what he ought not to do, but of what he doth 
not. Such is that also of those fathers, who interpret this 
of him who is perfectly born of God, by a παλιγγενεσία, or 
“a resurrection from the dead ;” for the apostle speaks not 
of what he shall not do hereafter, but of what he doth not do 
at present. 

2. False seems to be the sense which Origen, Jerome, and 
Ambrose, put upon the words, that «he that is born of God 
sinneth not, quamdiu renatus est, whilst he is born of God,” 
because he ceaseth to be a child of God when he sins; for 
this is not only confuted by the examples of David and 
Peter, whose faith under that great miscarriage failed not 
(Luke xxii. 32), but by the words of the apostle, « Little 
children, if we sin we have an advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our 
sins” (ii. 1), who yet is only the advocate for the sons of 
God. For the same reason I cannot assent to that ex- 
position which saith, “A child of God cannot be guilty of 
any great or deliberate crime,” as Tertullian de Pudicitia, 
cap. 19. 

3. Dangerous is the exposition of Bernard,* that «they 
who are born of God sin not, quia etiamsi peccata illis neuti- 
quam imputentur, because their sins will never be imputed 
to them:” and of those who think it sufficient to say, “ He 
sins not without great reluctancy, or not willingly, the evil 
that he doeth being that which he would not do;” for the 
will of that man, who, after some contest in his soul, yields 
to the commission of sin, is more strongly inclined to sin 
than to the avoiding of it, and so is not renewed. Nor doth 
the apostle say, He that is born of God sins not willingly, 
or without reluctance; but absolutely, * He doth not com- 
mit sin.” 

I conclude this note with that of our judicious Gataker, 
“He that is born of God sinneth not:” that is, Vitam ἃ 
peccato immunem quantum potest sibi proponit, nec peccato 
unquam sponte dat operam; si aliquando preter animi pro- 
positum deliquerit, non in eodem persistit, sed errore agnito, 
ad institutum vite pristinum quamprimum quantumque 
potest, festinus revertitur. 

7 Ver. 9. Ἔκ Θεοῦ, Of God.] By the Spirit and the Word 
(John iii. 6. 8, James i. 18, 1 Pet. i, 23); that is, he is pre-= 
served from, and hath his heart framed into a hatred and 
loathing of, sin: (1.) From the word of God treasured up in 
his heart, demonstrating to him the vileness of sin, that he 
may hate it; the danger of it, that he may fly from it; «I 
have hid thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against 
thee” (Ps. exix. 11); and by attending to it as his rule, 
and taking heed to his ways according to his word (ibid. 
ver. 9). (2.) By the Holy Spirit abiding in him, as a new 


| principle of life lusting against the flesh, so that we cannot 


do the things which that would have us do (Gal. v. 16, 17). 

8 Ver. 10. 'O μὴ ποιῶν δικαιοσύνην, That doeth not righteous- 
ness.] That is, he that doth not (from a heart studious of 
conformity to him who is righteous, ver. 7, and in obedience 
to his law, commanding us to live righteously,) exercise him- 
self in sincere endeavours of walking righteously through the 


* In Septuag. serm. 1. 


CHAPTER III. 


12 And if we he not the children of the devil, but of | 
God, we shall) Not (be) as Cain, who was ® of that 
wicked one, and (therefore) slew his brother. And 
wherefore slew he him? (viz.) Because his own 
works were evil, and his brother’s righteous, (as God 
himself testifieth by respecting the offering not of Cain, but | 
of Abel ; and this begat in him that hatred which concluded | 
in his brother's death. 

13 And) Marvel not, my brethren, if (in ike man- | 
ner) the world (the seed of Cain, who are also of that 
wicked one, Jolin viii. 44, 1 John v. 19) hate you 
(i.e. if they persecute and kill the just, as being con- 
demners of their actions, and alien from their ways and 
manners, in affection, aim, desires, and therefore hated by 
them, John xv. 19, for whatsoever they may do to destroy 
this life). 

14 We know that we have passed from death unto 
life (ἡ. e. that we have obtained a right to escape death 
elernal, and enjoy everlasting life, John v. 24), because 
we love the brethren (in deed and truth, ver. 18, for 
this is a sign that we are translated from darkness to 
light, ii. 10, and so are the children of the light; yea, 
that we are born of God, iv. 7, and therefore are 
children and heirs of God, Rom. viii. 17). He that 
loveth not his brother abideth in (the state, and under | 
the sentence of ) death: (he ts still in that darkness of 
sin and ignorance, ii. 11, which will end in eternal 
death. 

15 For)Whosoever hateth his brother is (in the dis- 
position of his heart, and the construction of God’s 
/aw,) a murderer (Matt. v. 21, 22): and ye know that 
no murderer (being so great and wilful a violator ὁ 
the moral law) hath eternal life abiding in him; (he 
therefore must be obnoxious to death eternal, till with 
holy David, by a deep and long repentance, he is deli- 
vered from bloud-guiltiness ; as in the case of David, 2 
Sam. xii. 13.) 

16 Hereby perceive we the love of God (to us), be- 
cause he (who was his beloved Son, at his command, 
John x. 18) laid down his life for us (ἡ, δ. for our sal- 
vation, and the propiliation of our sins): and we (also) 
ought (in imitation of this example) to lay down our 


995 


lives (ὦ, e. expose them to the death) for (the salvation of’) 
the brethren (going on in the prosecution of our duly, to 
win them to life eternal, though with the hazard, and even 
the ioss, of this temporal life). 

17 But (if love requires us to part even wilh life for 
them, then) whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth 
his brother have need (vf some of them), and (yet) 
shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, (not 
being moved out of compassion to his indigence to give 
him what he hath to spare,) how dwelleth the love of 
God in him? 

18 My little children, let us not love in word, 
neither in tongue (on/y, James ii. 15); but in deed 
and in truth (in true affection of heart, 1 Pet. i. 22, 
and sincerity of action, Rom. xii. 9, by love serving 
one another, Gal. v. 13, not pitying only, but relieving 
them according to their wants, and our ability to supply 
them). 

ἵν And hereby we (may) know that " we are of the 
truth, and shall ' assure our hearts before him. 

20 12 For if our heart (the inward witness of our 
thoughts and actions) condemn us (of want of sincerity, 
and obedience to the truth of the gospel), God is greater 
than our heart, (both in holiness to condemn) and (in 
knowledge to perceive the evil of them, for he) knoweth 
all things. 

21 (Whereas,) Beloved, if our heart (after a diligent 
search of it, and a comparing of our actions with the law 
of liberty,) condemn us not (of insincerity in our obedi- 
ence), then have ™ we (humble) confidence toward 
God (in our addresses). 

22 And whatsoever we ask (according to his will, 
John v. 14), we receive of him, because we keep his 
commandments, and do those things that are pleas- 
ing in his sight. 

23 And this is his commandment, That we should 
believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love 
one another, as he gave us commandment. 

24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwell- 
eth in him (i. 6. in God), and he (God) in him. And 
hereby we know that he abideth in us, by (the effica- 
cious gifts of ) the Spirit which he hath given us. 


general course of his life, is not a child of God; because he 
only is born of God, and hath the divine nature in him, who 
thus doeth righteousness (1 John ii. 29). - And he who doth 
not in truth, and in actions demonstrating the sincerity of 
his affection to his brother (ver. 18), show his love to him, he 
hath no true love to God (iv. 21), and so is not born of God, 
nor can he be the child of God, since he obeys not his com- 
mandments (v. 1). 

9 Ver. 12. Ἔκ τοῦ πονηροῦ, Of that wicked one.] The Jews 
say that Cain was begot of the seed of the devil; this the 
apostle mystically expounded, saying of Cain as our Saviour 
doth of the Jews in general (John viii. 44), that “they were 
of their father the devil, who was a murderer from the be- 
ginning,” because they did his work, being maliciously bent 
upon the murder of our Lord. 

0 Ver. 19. "Ex τῆς ἀληϑείας ἐσμὲν, We are of the truth.) | 
i.e, We are rightly acquainted with, and truly live accord- 
ing to, the rules delivered in that gospel which is emphati- 
cally styled “the truth” (see note on Rom. ii. 8). This is 
the truth so often mentioned in these epistles, 1 John i. 6. 8, 
ii. 4. 21, iv. 6, Second Epistle, ver. 1—4, First Epistle, iii. 
3, 4. 8. 12, and in the Gospel, i. 14. 17, iii. 21, iv. 23, 24, v. 
33, viii. 32, xvii. 17, xviii. 37. 

M Kai πείσομεν τὰς καρδίας ἡμῶν, And shall persuade our 
hearts ;] viz. That we are so in the sight of God. 

2 Ver. 20. “Ὅτι ἐὰν, For if our hearts condemn us, ὅτι 
μείζων. Some are inclined to read, ἔτι μείζων, “God is yet 
greater than our hearts ;”’ and others to make it an expletive, 
or to approve of those few copies where it is wanting: but | 


-- κ᾿ 


seeing it is retained in most copies, and is translated by the 
Arabic profecto, this I believe to be the true import of it 
here; and to confirm this import, let it be noted, that the 
Hebrew 55, which in its primary import signifieth for, and is 
by the Septuagint rendered ὅτι, doth also signify certé, and 
is by our translation often rendered “ surely,” or “ certainly.” 
So, Gen. xliii. 10, “ For if we had not lingered, ἤδη ἂν, surely 
we had returned twice ;” Exod. iii. 11, ὅτι, “ Surely I will be 
with thee ;” iv. 25, ὅτι, “Surely a bloody husband art thou ;” 
Numb. xxii. 23, ἂν, “Surely I had slain thee ;” Judg. vi. 16, 
καὶ, “Surely I will be with thee;” Ruth i. 10, “Surely we 
will return with thee;” 1 Kings i. 13, ὅτι, “Surely Solomon 
shall reign after me;” Josh ii. 24, ὅτι, “ Truly the Lord hath 
delivered the land into our hands;” Ps. Ixxvii. 12, ὅτι, 
“Surely I will remember thy works of old;” exii. 6, ὅτι, 
“Surely he shall not be removed for ever” (see Job xxviii. 
1, Isa. vii. 9, see Exemen Millii here, ver. 16, v. 10. 12). 

13 Ver. 21. Παῤῥησίαν ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, We have confi- 
dence with God.] “« When is it,” saith Philo,* “that a ser- 
vant may use, παῤῥησίαν πρὸς τὸν δεσπότην, confidence towards 
his lord? Is it not then, ὅταν ἠδικηκότι μὲν ἑαυτοῦ οὐδὲν 
συνειδῇ, When he is not conscious of doing any evil against 
him?” A 

4 Ver. 24. Ἔκ rod Πνεύματος, By the Spirit.] So the 
word “ Spirit” is taken in the words following (iv. 1), and 
so was he given in those times to them that believed (Acts 
v.82). 


* L. Quis Rer. Div. Heres, ab initio. 


996 


CHAPTER IV. 


1 Betoven, ! believe not every (pretender to the) 
spirit (of God), but try the spirits whether they are of 
God (or not): because many false prophets are gone 
out into the world. 

2 (And, for your direction in this trial,) Hereby 
know ye the Spirit of God (from that of error): 
Every spirit (ἡ. e. person pretending to the Spirit of 
God, or of prophecy,) that confesseth that Jesus 
Christ (Gr. Jesus Christ which) is come in the flesh is 
of God: 

3 And every (pretender to the) spirit that confesseth 
not that Jesus Christ (Jesus Christ which) is come in 
the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of anti- 
christ, whereof ye have heard that it should come; 
and even now already is it in the world. 

4 Ye (to whom he hath given this Spirit, iii. 24) are 
of God, little children, and 2 have overcome them (these 
antichrists and false prophets): because greater is he 
(the Spirit) that is in you, than he (the spirit) that is 
in the world. 

5 They (these antichrists and false prophets) ° are of 
the world : (setting up to be temporal princes, and to give 
the Jews dominion over the heathen world, and ) therefore 
speak they of the world (2. 6. of that temporal dominion 
over the heathens, which the carnal Jews expect, when their 
Messiah doth appear), and the world (he that is worldly- 
minded ) heareth them. 


6 4 We are of God: (deriving our faith and doctrine 
from that Jesus who was a Prophet sent from God, and 
delivered his doctrine in his name: as therefore he said 
to the Jews then, as we his disciples say now,) he that 
knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God hear- 
eth not us (John viii. 47, vi. 45). Hereby know we 
the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error (see note on 
ver. l—3). 

7 Beloved, let us (who are of God, ver. 6) love one 
another: for love is of God (the fruit of his good Spirit 
in us, Gal. v. 22, 1 Pet. i. 22); and every one that 
loveth is born of God, (dy the Spirit, John iii. 5.) and 
(this resemblance he hath to him, in love to mankind in 
general, and to those he hath so highly loved in particular, 
ver. 9,10, shows that he) knoweth God (aright, because 
he keepeth his commandments, ii. 3, 4). 

8 He that loveth not (his brother) knoweth not (Gr, 
hath not known) God (aright) ; for® God is (the God of ) 
love. 

9 In this was manifested (the greatness of) the love 
of God toward us, because that God sent his only 
begotten Son into the world, (and freely gave him up 
to the death, Rom. viii. 33,) that we might live through 
him. 

10 86 Herein is (the demonstration of his) love, not 
that we loved God, but that he loved us ( first, ver, 
19), and sent his Son fo be the propitiation for our 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV, 


1 Ver. 1, 2.] The Jews being then generally in expecta- 
tion of their Messiah, were divided into two parts; a rem- 
nant who believed that he was come already, and that our 
Jesus was the very person promised under that character ; 
and a more prevailing part of them who rejected him and 
looked for another. Now among these appeared many who 
took upon them to be the Messiah, or the prophet promised 
by Moses, “like unto him,” saying, “ Lo, Christ is here, and 
lo, he is there” (see the note on Matt. xxiv. 24. 26) ; and 
these declaring themselves prophets, must also pretend to the 
Spirit of prophecy, and do this as Josephus saith they did, 
προσχήματι θειασμοῦ, “under the pretence of a divine affla- 
tus.” These, saith the apostle here, are antichrists; i. 6, 
pretenders falsely to be Christ, in opposition to him who was 
truly so: nor could they belong to him, or truly confess him, 
who was “the Word made flesh.” Now the strength of this 
argument depends on these considerations, that the effusion 
of the Spirit, promised in the times of the Messiah, could 
only belong to them who owned and believed in the true 
Messiah ; this being made one character of the true Messiah, 
that he should baptize them who believed in him with the 
Holy Ghost (Matt. iii. 11). This promise of the Father, as 
the Holy Ghost is styled, was to be sent by Christ (Luke 
xxiv. 49) to his disciples (John xvi. 7, xv. 26), to be sent in 
his name (John xiv. 26) : and when he came, his office was 
to enable those who received him to testify of Christ, that he 
was indeed risen from the dead, and was the Christ (John 
xv. 26, Acts i. 8, v. 32), and to “convince the world of sin,” 
because they believed not in him (John xvi. 9). The con- 
dition of receiving him was faith in Christ (John vii. 37, Acts 
ii. 88, 39) ; and by his assistance did his disciples prove that 
Jesus Christ, who appeared to the Jews in the flesh, and was 
crucified among them, was the Christ. He therefore who 
was made partaker of the χαρίσματα of the Holy Ghost, 
must be one who believed in that Jesus who suffered in the 
flesh for us; and therefore they who denied this, could not 
be assisted by that Spirit who was only sent by him, and 
given to believers: whence the apostle saith, that “no man 
speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus anathema,” as 
these false prophets, who owned him not, must do (1 Cor. 
xii. 3), and that “no man could say that Jesus was the 
Christ, but by the Holy Ghost :” that is, he could not con- 


fess and testify to the world this truth, but by the assistance 
of the Holy Ghost, promised and given to believers for that 
end (see ver. 6. 13—15). 

Note therefore, that the apostle is not here speaking of the 
trial of doctrines, but of spirits, not of the faith necessary to 
be believed to salvation, but only of the faith necessary to 
the reception of the Holy Ghost, that unction which would 
teach them all things (1 John ii. 27). 

2 Ver. 4. Kai νενικῆἥκατε, And have overcome. | The doc- 
trine which you preach and confirm by these gifts, and dis- 
tributions of the Holy Ghost, hath mightily prevailed over 
all the opposition which the unbelieving Jews, and their 
false prophets, and false apostles, make against it; because ἡ 
the spirit which acts in them is only able to work by them 
τέρατα ψεύδους, “false, counterfeit, and lying wonders;” 
whereas the Spirit that is in you, enables you to confirm the 
truth with real “miracles, and signs, and divers distributions 
of the Holy Ghost,” by which God beareth witness to the 
truth of that doctrine which you preach (Heb. ii. 4, Rom. 
xv. 19, 1 Thess. i. 5), 

3 Ver. 5.] That the hopes of dominion over the heathens, 
encouraged some of them to set up for the Messiah, and 
others to fight, see the testimonies of Josephus, note on James 
iv. 1—8. And on this account they rejected the true Mes- 
siah, because his kingdom was not of this world. 

4 Ver. 6.] When the Romish prelates have once proved 
they are of God, as the apostle did, it will be time to con- 
sider the inference of Esthius from this place, That he that 
is of God must hear their prelates and their church, and 
come to them to be resolved of any doubt. 

5 Ver. 8. Ὃ Θεὸς ἀγάπη, God is love.) The apostle by these 
words intends not to express what God is in his essence, or 
to say, as the schools do, that he is love essentially, and love 
causalitér, as being the cause; or objective, as being the 
object of his love; but that he is so demonstrative, and 
évepyntixas, Showing great philanthropy to men in all his 
dealings with them, or his dispensations towards them, as 
appears from the two following verses. 

6 Ver. 10. 'Ev τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἣ ἀγάπη, Herein is love.) Here 
the apostle most lively doth express the freedom and the 
greatness of the love of God; the freedom of it, in that “he 
loved us first,” when there was nothing in us to deserve or 
move affection but our misery ; but many things which both 
deserved, and might have moved him to the execution of his 


CHAPTER IV. 


sins (which deserved death, and so to fit us for eternal 
life). 

if): Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to 
love one another. 

12 (πὰ say not, that it is enough that ye love God 
again, though ye love not your brother, ver. 20, for) No 
man hath seen God at any time (as we daily see and 
converse with our brother; and therefore if we love not 


him whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we | 


have not seen? ver. 20, bul) if we love one another, 
(after his example, though we see him not, we may be sure 
thal) God dwelleth in us (by Ais Spirit), and (that) his 
love 7 is perfected in us. 

13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he 
in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit (who by 
his powerful energies proves whose Spirit he is). 

14 And (by the Spirit given to us according to his pro- 


mise) we have seen (i. δ. perceived) and do testify that | 
the Father sent the Son fo le the Saviour of the world | 


(see note on ver. 3). 


15 ὃ Whosoever (believeth this our testimony) shall | 


rome his heart believe, Rom. x. 9. 19, and) confess that 
esus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he 
in God (by the Spirit of adoption). 

16 And we (by this Spirtt) have known and be- 
lieved the love that God hath (shown) to us (in sending 
his Son to be the Saviour of the world, ver. 10, 11. 14). 


997 


God is Jove; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in 
God, and God in him (ver. 7). 

17 Herein is our love made perfect, (7. e. ewactly 
corresponding to the divine pattern and command, note 
on ver. 12, 80) that we (who tus love) may have bold- 
ness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are 
we in this world, (conforming ourselves to the patlern of 
God’s uffection to mankind, and walking as Christ walked, 
uu. 6. 

‘3 There is no fear (of fuiling αἱ that day) in love 
(thus perfect); but perfect love casteth out fear: be- 
cause (hat) fear (which takes away this boldness) hath 
torment (in it; torments the mind with dreadful expec- 
lations, and) he that (thus) feareth is not made perfect 
in love. 

19 © We love him (and testify this love to him by 
loving our brother for his sake, after his example, and 
in obedience to his command), because he first loved 
us. 
20 " Τῇ any man say, I love God, and (yet) hateth 
his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his 
brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God 
whom he hath not seen? 

21 And (hé moreover shows, by his disobedience to the 
command of God, the want of true affection to him; for) 
this commandment have we from him, That he who 
loveth God love his brother also. 


wrath, we being “enemies to God by wicked works:” the 
greatness of it, first, in the person sending, the great God of 
heaven, who “humbles himself even to behold what is done 
in heaven and earth;” oh, therefore, “what is man that he 
should be thus mindful of him?” Secondly, the person 
sent, τὸν μονογενῆ, “his only-begotten,” τὸν ἴδιον υἱὸν, “ his pro- 
per Son” (Rom. viii. 32): for if to call God πατέρα ἴδιον, “ his 
proper Father,” was to make himself “ equal to God” (John 
v. 18), the Father himself by calling him his “ proper Son,” 
must equally exalt him. Hence even Episcopius here de- 
clares him to be so called, because essentiam suam ἃ patre 
per veram generationem accepisset, “he had received his 
essence from the Iather by a true generation :” for it is cer- 
tain that the apostle is here extolling the love of God to the 
highest pitch, and therefore must use this phrase, «the only- 
begotten Son of God,” in the sublimest sense in which that 
word is used in scripture. Thirdly, the place whither he 
was sent, into that world which “lay in wickedness.” 
Fourthly, the errand for which he was sent; (1.) to “give 
up himself a sacrifice for the propitiation of our sins” (see 
note on ii. 2): (2.) to procure to us, who were dead in tres- 
passes and sins, eternal life. 

7 Ver. 12. Τετελειωμένη, His love is perfected in us.) He 
then loves us entirely, according to those words of Christ, 
“Tf any man keep my words, my Father will love him, and 
we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” 
(John xiv. 23): or, then is our love to him entire, because 
then we love him so as to keep his commandments (ii. 5), 
and so as to follow that example of love which he hath set 
us; and “as he is, so are we in the world” (ver. 17). 

8 Ver, 15.] For “to as many as received him, gave he 
power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe 
on his name” (John i. 12); and “ because we are sons, God 
hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba 
Father” (Gal. iv. 6). Only let it be noted, that this hearty 
confession must be attended with a readiness to believe all 
that this Son of God hath taught us in his Father’s name, 


for, “ if he say the truth, why do we not believe him ?” (John | 


viii. 46,) and a firm purpose to obey his commandments, for 
“why call we him Lord, Lord, and do not the things that he 
saith ?” (Luke vi. 46.) 


9 Ver. 18. Φόβος οὐκ ἔστι, There is no fear in love.) Christ 
having so expressly promised a “ Come ye blessed” to the 
charitable person (Matt. xxv. 34—36), and the apostle re- 
commending it as the most excellent of Christian graces (1 
Cor. xiii. 13), and «the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. xiii. 8. 
12), when this love is made perfect in us, it may well give 
boldness, and cast out fear of condemnation in the day of 
judgment. 

Others expound the words thus: “There is no fear of 
what we may lose or suffer in (perfect) love (of our bro- 
ther), but (such) love casteth out (this) fear, for fear (of 
what we may lose or suffer) hath torment in it: (and there- 
fore) he that thus feareth, is not made perfect in love (to 
him).” 

er 19.] That is, whosoever thus loves God, and shows 
it by loving thus his brother, can challenge nothing on that 
account as due from God ; it being God’s preventing love to 
him, which gave the rise to all the love he bears to God, or 
to his brother for his sake. If therefore any person be con- 
strained by this love to that obedience which testifies the sin- 
cerity of his affection to God, or to imitate his love to us by 
fervent love to the brethren, it is the divine philanthropy 
which hath excited this affection in him. Or, if ἀγαπῶμεν 
be the subjunctive mood, the sense runs thus: Let the great 
love of God to us, mentioned ver. 9, 10, provoke us to re- 
turns of love to him, and to our brethren for his sake ; since 
we do hypocritically pretend to love him, if we do not show 
it by fervent charity towards his children, and our bre- 
thren. 

1 Ver. 20.] That is, if what we have more opportunity to 
do, and can perform with less difficulty, we do not do, how 
shall we perform what is more difficult! Now we have our 
Christian brethren still in our view, they are the object of our 
senses, we daily converse with them; and their wants and 
miseries being the object of our senses, must naturally move 
compassion in us; and so it is less difficult to express our 
love to them, than to that God whom we have not seen, and 
who is only present to our minds by raised meditations, 
which do not naturally occur to us, and which we cannot 
long continue, and so is more difficult than the love of our 
brother. 

41 


998 


ΟΗΑΡΤΕΕΥ. 


1 Waosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ 
‘is born of God: and every one that loyeth him that 
pegat loveth him also that is begotten of him, (as 
being by his new birth partaker of the divine nalure, and 
created anew afler the image of God, Eph. iv. 24, Col. 
iii. 10. 

2 And this note ts reciprocal; for) By this we know 
that we love the children of God, when we love God, 
and keep his commandments (when our affection lo God 
prevails upon us to do to them all acts of charity he hath 
required, and by his example recommended to us, 1 John 
iii. 11. 23, iy. 21). 

3 For this is (the genuine test of ) the love of God, 
that we keep his commandments: and his command- 
ments (to the true lover of him) 5 are not grievous. 

4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the 
world (his affections are taken off from it, and set upon 
his God; and so it cannot be grievous to him to part 
with it, or suffer the loss of any worldly good, to se- 


eure the divine favour): and this is the victory that 
overcometh the world, even our faith (to wit, that 
faith which is the substance of things hoped fur, the 
evidence of things not seen, Heb. xi. 1, which gives us 
the assurance of a betler and a more enduring substance, 
and so makes us take joyfully the spoiling of our goods, 
Heb, x. 34, and patiently endure those light afflictions 
which are but for a season, as knowing they work for 
us an exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor. 
lv. 7). 

5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he 
that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? (And so 
the author of eternal salvation to all that obey him ; for 
hence we know that we have eternal life, v. 11—13.) 

6 This is he? that came by (or, with the testimony 
of ) water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not * by water 
only, but by water ® and blood. And it is ® the Spirit 
that beareth witness (and on his testimony we may rely), 
because the Spirit is truth. 


ANNOTATIONS ON. CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 1. ᾿Εκ Θεοῦ γεγέννηται, Is born of God.] The Jews 
gloried in this title, that they were “the children of God,” 
and had him for their Father (John viii. 41, 42. 45), they 
being called his sons, Deut. xiv. 1, xxxii. 19, Ps. Ixxii. 15, 
and his first-born, Exod. iv. 22. The apostle therefore here 
informs them, that this relation would stand them in no 
stead, unless they were “ born again of water and of the Spirit” 
(John iii. 5), or baptized into the name of Christ, and, by 
that faith, had “ power to become the sons of God” (John i. 
12), and also loved those Christians which were born of him; 
which the unbelieving Jews, and the false teachers among 
them, were so far from doing, that they every where persecuted 
the true believers (see note on iii. 1). 

2 Ver. 3. Βαρεῖαι οὐκ εἰσὶν, Are not grievous.] Because his 
will is conformed to do the will of God, and so he only doth 
what he would do, and his affections are chiefly placed upon 
him, and so he is then doing what he chooseth and delighteth 
in; and it cannot be grievous to be employed as we would, 
and as we do delight to be. 

3 Ver. 6. That came.] viz. In the name of God, Matt. 


xxi. 9; in his Father’s name, John ν. 43 (see Matt. xi. 3, | 


John 1. 9. 15, Matt. xxi. 9). 
4 Av ὕδατος, By water.] i.e. With the testimony of water, 
or the testimony given to him by St. John at his baptism ; 


for when John was baptizing, he testified of him, saying, | . 
| that the God of truth should thus exert the greatness of his 


«This is he that cometh after me, who was before me” (John 
1. 27, 28). He also declared, that he came baptizing, for 
this very end, “that he might be made manifest to Israel” 
(ver. 31) ; and testified, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending 
from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him, and I knew 
him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the 
same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit 
descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which bap- 
tizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record, 
That this is the Son of God” (ver. 32—34). Hence is he 
styled, “a man sent from God, who came for a witness, to 
bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might 
believe” (ver. 6—8). Hence do John’s disciples say to 
him, “He to whom thou bearest witness, baptizeth,” John 
iii. 26. And Christ himself appealeth to his testimony, John 
vy. 32, 33. Now this testimony could not be rejected by 
them, “for all men held John as a prophet ;” nor durst the 
pharisees themselves deny that his testimony was from hea- 
ven (Matt. xxi. 25, 26). 

5 Καὶ αἵματος, And blood.] For he died in testimony of 
the truth, and came into the world for this end, “that he 
might bear witness to the truth” (John xviii. 37): whence 
he is said to “ witness before Pontius Pilate a good confession,” 
viz. that he was the Son of God, or the Messiah, the King 
of the Jews (1 Tim. vi. 13): this he also testified to the high- 
priest (Matt. xxvi. 63, 64) ; and for this testimony was he 


condemned as worthy of death (ver. 66) : for this they mock 
him at his sufferings, that “he said, he was the Son of God” 
(Matt. xxvii. 43, Mark xv. 32), and at his death he com- 
mends his spirit to God, as his Father (Luke xxiii. 36. 46). 
The miracles which attended his crucifixion were so great, 
that they forced the Jews, the centurion, and those that were 
with him, to confess, “Truly this was the Son of God” 
(Matt. xxvii. 54), and the whole multitude to “smite their 
breasts” (Luke xxiii. 48). In a word, the Spirit which 
assisted the Baptist, proclaimed him, “the Lamb of God, 
who taketh away the sins of the world” (John i. 29), and 
that supposeth, he was to offer up himself unto the death, 
for the propitiation of their sins: yea, he himself doth fre- 
quently declare, that he was to be slain (Matt, xvi. 21); to 
be “ delivered into the hands of men, and killed” (Matt. xvii. 
22, 23), to be “condemned to death” (Matt. xx. 18, 19), 
and to “rise again the third day ;” that he was to be « lifted 
up” upon the cross (John ii. 14), and that being thus lifted 
up, he would ‘draw all men to him” (John xii. 32). Now 
what impostor would lay this as the foundation of the truth 
of all his sayings, and all the hopes of any blessings which 
were to be expected from him, that he should be crucified, 
and die an ignominious and painful death? Or what could 
tempt him thus to die, who had no hopes to rise again, if he 
were not the true Messiah, or the Son of God? How was 
it possible he should be raised from the dead, but by the 
mighty power of God? And is it reasonable to imagine, 


power, in confirmation of a lie? that he should work so great 
a miracle, in favour of a vile impostor falsely usurping his 
name? or give such large credentials to one who falsely 
did pretend to be a prophet sent from God, and to be ho- 
noured as his Son by all men? 

8 Kai Πνεῆμά ἐστι, ὅτε. And it is the Spirit that beareth 
witness.| Here it is to be noted, that the “ witness,” in this 
verse, is only styled τὸ Πνεῦμα, viz. that Spirit which enabled 
Christ to heal diseases, cast out devils, raise the dead, and 
work all sorts of miracles, for confirmation of his mission: 
but in the seventh verse he is styled, τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, “ the 
Holy Ghost ;” which doth distinctly signify the inward gifts, 
by which the understanding is enlightened, and is enabled to 
perform things which by nature it could not do, without 
the immediate workings of the Holy Ghost; as, v. g- the 
gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, prophecy, discerning of 
spirits, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of them. 
That there is ground for this distinction, will appear from 
these considerations. 

1. Because our Saviour, whilst he was on earth, gave to 
his apostles, and the seventy disciples, power to “heal the 
sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils” 
(Matt. x. 8, Luke x. 9), and yet the evangelist John informs 
us, that “the Holy Ghost was not yet, because that Jesus 
was not glorified” (John vii. 39). Our Saviour also tells his 


CHAPTER V. 


7 (The law judges that sufficiently proved, which is 
confirmed by two or three witnesses, Deut. xix. 15. 
That Jesus is the Son of God, ver. 5, is thus proved, 
by witnesses from heaven, and on earlh:) For 7 there 
are three that bear record (fo this truth) in (and from) 
heaven, the ὃ. Father, the ® Word, and the ” Holy 


999 


Ghost: and these three are one (as in testimony, so in 
essence). 

8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, 
the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these 
three '' agree in one. 

9 2 If we receive the witness of men (in these 


disciples, that the Holy Ghost would not come, till he 
departed (John xvi. 7), and Peter, that our Lord «being 
exalted to the right hand of God, received the promise of the 
Holy Ghost” (Acts ii. 33). The Holy Ghost must therefore 
signify something distinct from the power of working miracles. 

2. The prophecy of Joel, which by Peter is mentioned as 
the promise on which the giving of the Holy Ghost was 
founded, is only a promise of visions, dreams, and prophe- 
cies, but not of miracles; and the gifts of the Spirit, men- 
tioned by the prophet Isaiah, are only those of wisdom, know- 
ledge, understanding, counsel, courage, piety, and of the fear 
of the Lord; no mention being made there of signs and 
wonders. 

3. Because, throughout the history of the Acts of the 
Apostles, where Luke hath occasion to mention the miracles 
which the apostles and primitive professors did, he always 
uses these words, τέρατα, σημεῖα, δυνάμεις, wonders, signs, 
and powers :” but where he speaks of persons prophesying 
or speaking with tongues, he doth as constantly ascribe this 
to the Holy Ghost descending on them. 

And, lastly, Where the scripture mentions these things 
together, it puts a manifest distinction betwixt signs and 
wonders, and the gifts and distributions of the Holy Ghost. 
Thus God, saith the apostle, bare witness to the doctrine 
which they preached, “ by signs and wonders, and divers mira- 
cles, καὶ Πνεύματος ἁγίου μερισμοῖς, and distributions of the 
Holy Ghost,” Heb. ii. 4 (see Rom. xv. 19, Gal. iii. 5). 

The Spirit, therefore, bare witness to Christ on earth by 
the enabling him to do so many mighty works in confirma- 
tion of his mission, to heal all manner of diseases, sick- 
nesses, and maladies, to command the wind and seas to be 
obedient to him, to cast out devils, and to raise the dead, 
and by assisting his apostles and disciples to do these things 
in his name: for that not only his disciples, but even our 
Lord himself, did cast out devils by the Spirit of God, he 
himself expressly testifies, Matt. xii. 23, and saith, moreover, 
that in him was fulfilled that of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon me, wherefore he hath anointed me to preach 
the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken 
in heart, to preach deliverance to the captives (to sin and 
Satan), and to give sight to the blind” (Luke iv. 18. 20). 
Hence Peter speaks thus to Cornelius and his friends, « You 
know how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy 
Ghost and with power, who went about doing good, and 
healed all that were oppressed of the devil” (Acts x. 38). 
And to these works thus wrought by the assistance of the 
Spirit of God, our Lord doth frequently appeal, as to a sure 


testimony that God had sent him: for, “'The works,” saith | 
he, “that I do in my Father’s name, bear witness of me:” | 


(John x. 24, v. 36), yea, they showed that “the Father was 
in him, and he in the Father” (John x. 37, 38, xiv. 10, 11). 

7 Ver. 7. Τρεῖς εἰσιν of μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῶ οὐρανῷ, There are 
three that bear witness in heaven, &c.] I shall say nothing 
of the dispute, whether this verse be genuine or not, seeing 
the learned Dr. Mills treats so copiously on that subject, in 
his edition of the New Testament. I only note, that the 
place cited from Tertullian and Cyprian agree not exactly 
with the words of John; seeing they speak de Patre, Filio, 
et Spiritti Sancto, not of “the Father, the Word, and the 
Holy Ghost.” The objections of Schlictingius against this 
verse are these : 

Obj. 1. That this verse, though it be introduced with ὅτι, 
“for,” hath no coherence with the former verse. 

Ans. It coheres well with it, thus: The witness of the 
Spirit ought in this matter to be received, because he is the 
Spirit of truth, sent from the Father, and the Son; for in 
the testimony of the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven is 
contained the witness of the Father, and the Son also: so 
that we may truly say, “There be three that bear witness.” 

Obj. 2. But if so, the testimony of the Father is included 
in the testimony of the Holy Ghost. 


Ans. True: and by this these three witnesses become one 
in testimony ; and yet they differ, as the person sending and 
the person sent. ‘ : 

Obj. 3. The Λόγος, or “ Word,” is the Son of God; and 
therefore, to say he testifies of the Son of God, is to make 
him testify of himself. 

Ans. It is confessed, that the same person is both the Aéyos, 
and the Son of God; but the thing testified, is not, that 
Christ was the Aéyos, or the Son of God, by eternal genera- 
tion, or by his miraculous conception ; but that he was the 
Christ, the promised Messiah, and in that sense the Son of 
God: and to this the dive nature might give testimony. 

8 Ὃ πατὴρ, The Father] Testified thi# at his baptism, by 
a voice from heaven, saying, “ This is my beloved Son,” &c. 
(Matt. iii. 17), and at his transfiguration, saying again, “ This 
is my beloved Son, hear him” (Matt. xvii. 5, 6, see note on 
2 Pet. i. 14—16) : and chiefly, by sending of the Holy Ghost, 
which he had promised in the times of the Messiah, and who 
is therefore styled, “the promise of the Father” (Luke xxiv. 
49, Acts i. 4). 

9'O Λόγος, The Word.] Not only by appearing to Stephen 
(Acts vii. 56), and saying to Saul, “I am Jesus, whom thou 
persecutest”’ (Acts iv. 5), but chiefly by shedding the Spirit 
on the apostles and other believers, according to his promise ; 
for, “ he being exalted to the right hand of God, and receiving 
from the Father the promise. of the Holy Ghost, hath,” 
saith Peter, «shed forth this which you now see and hear: 
wherefore, let all the house of Israel know, that God hath 
made this Jesus Lord and Christ’ (Acts ii. 33. 36). 

10 Τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, The Holy Ghost.) The « power from 
on high” they were to be “ endued with” (Luke xxiv. 49), 
by falling down from heaven upon his disciples; whence 
“they were filled with the Holy Ghost, and spake with 
tongues,” to men of all nations, «the wonderful things of 
God.” ‘Till his descent upon them, they were not to stir 
from Jerusalem, as being not fitted for their work (Acts i. 4), 
but when he was once given to them that believed, they 
proved and bare witness, that “God exalted Jesus to his 
right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour” (Acts v. 31, 32), 
And this our Lord, by his omniscience, foretold that he should 
testify of him (John xv. 26), yea, that at his coming he 
should “convince the world of sin, because they believed 
not in him; of (his) righteousness, because he was gone to 
the Father; and of judgment, because the prince of this 
world was judged,” and cast out of his kingdom by him 
(John xvi. 9—11, and xii. 31). 

And thus it is easy to discern how these three are one in 
testimony, because both the Father and the Son give in their 
testimony by the Holy Ghost: but then if these be three 
witnesses properly so called, they must be three persons; 
and more especially the Holy Ghost, by whom the other 
persons do bear witness, must be so; and if his testimony be 
also the testimony of God the Father, and the Word, he 
must be one in essence with them: for if the Spirit be a 
creature, how tan his testimony be formally the testimony 
of God? as it is styled, ver. 9. 13. 

"Ver. 8. Bis ἔν εἶσιν, Agree in this one.) If by ἕν εἰσι, 
ver. 7, were meant no more than εἰς ἕν εἰσι, here, why did 
the apostle change the words, since these three also are one 
in testimony, as that imports this only, that they confirm 
this fundamental truth, that “ Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God?” especially if we consider what is insinuated, ver. 6, 
that of these three, the Spirit only beareth witness properly ; 
the other, by some action of the Spirit attending them, 
and by the testimony of others of it; the water, by the Spi- 
rit descending on Christ whilst he was in the water, and the 
Baptist’s testimony, that by this sign God had declared to 
him, that he was the Christ; the blood, as it assures us, that 
he who shed it died for the truth. 

12 Ver. 9. Ei τὴν μαρτυρίαν τῶν ἀνθρώπων λαμβάνομεν, If we 
receive the witness of men.) This is not so to be interpreted, 


1000 


cases), the witness of God is greater (of more validity 
and certainty, than that of men; he being neither liable 
to ignorance nor falsehood: and if his testimony be of 
such force, we must believe that Jesus is the Christ): for 
this is the witness of God which he hath testified of 
his Son. 

10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the 
witness in himself (as having in himself that Spirit of 
God which gives this testimony to Christ) : he that believ- 
eth not (this testimony of ) God hath made him a liar; 
because he believeth not the record that God gave of 
his Son. 

11 And this is the (subject of this) record, that God 
hath given to us (Christians the promise of ) eternal 
life, and this life is in his Son, (he being the hope of 
glory, Col. i. 27, this life being hid with Christ in God, 
Col. iii. 4, and he being our life, ibid., he being the author 
and procurer of it, and having power lo confer it on us, 
John xvii. 9.) , 

12 He that hath the Son hath life ; and he that hath 
not the Son of God hath not life: (for we are all the 
children of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, Gal. iii. 26, 
and if children, then heirs, Rom. viii. 17.) 

13 These things have I written unto you that believe 
on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know 
that ye have (by promise, a right to, and, by the Spirit, 
an earnest of ) eternal life, and that ye may (more firmly) 
believe on the name of the Son of God. 

14 And this is the (farther) confidence that we have 
in (and through) him, that, if we ask any thing (of 
God, iii. 21, 22) according to his will, he heareth us: 
(according to Christ’s promise, John xiv. 13—15, vii. 16, 

' xvi. 23; 24.) 
15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever 


% 


I. JOHN. 


we (/hus) ask, we know that we have the petitions 
that we desired of him (iii. 22). 

16 If any man see his (sick) brother sin a sin 
which is not 15 unto death (ἢ, e. for which God hath 
nat peremplorily threatened, and required that he should 
die for it, as he did to them that were guilly of murder, 
Gen. ix. 5, 6, Numb. xxxv. 30, 31, and for idolatry, 
Deut. xvii. 2—5), he shall ask (of God restoration of 
his life and health), and he shall give him life for them 
that sin not (¢hus) unto death. There is a sin unto 
death (of which God hath denownced, That he that doeth 
it, shall die for it): 1 do not say that he shall pray 
for it (ἡ. 6. fur deliverance of the person guilly of it from 
death). 

17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin 
(of unrighteousness against our brother, which is) not 
unto death (the law requiring, not that the guilly person 
should die for it, but only, that he should bring his offer- 
ing, and make reparation for it). 

18 We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth 
not (thus, iii. 15); but he that is begotten of God keep- 
eth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not 
(see note on iii. 9). ot 

19 nd we know that we are (begotten) of God, 
and (dhat) the whole world lieth (s/é//) “in wicked- 
ness. 

20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and 
hath given us an understanding, that we may know 
him that is (the) true (God), and we are in him that 
is true, even (or, to wil,) in his Son Jesus Christ. 
15 This is the true God, and (in him is) eternal life. 

21 (Having therefore this knowledge of the true God,) 
Littlechildren, keep yourselves from idols (or, false 
gods). Amen. 


as if the three witnesses on earth related only to the testi- 
mony of men; and the three from heaven, only to the tes- 
timony of God; and so that the apostle intended here to 
signify, we had greater reason to believe the witnesses in 
heaven, than those on earth: for, (1.) the testimony of the 
Spirit and of the Holy Ghost are of equal certainty and va- 
lidity : and, (2.) John Baptist being “sent from God” (John 
i. 6), and his baptism being “from heaven,” and not “ of 
men” (Matt. xxi. 25), was also, in effect, the testimony of 
God. The import therefore of these words is rather this: 
If the testimony of two or three men be thought sufficient to 
give credit to any matter in all courts of judicature, surely 
the testimony of that God (ver. 8), who cannot lie or de- 
ceive us, must be of greater force and strength to produce 
faith in us. 

Ver. 13. Ἵνα εἰδῆτε ὅτι ζωὴν ἔχετε αἰώνιον, καὶ ἵνα πιστεύητε. 
Here the Codex Alexandrinus reads thus, ὅτι ζωὴν ἔχετε aid- 
νιον of πιστεύοντες" SO also read the Vulgate and the Syriac ; 
the Arabic thus, Hec scripsi vobis, O qui creditis in nomen 
filii Dei, ut sciatis quod vitam habetis eternam quamdiu 
creditis in nomen filii Dei. C2cumenius, ἵνα πιστεύητε ἀδια- 
στάκτως Kai ἁμώμῳ πίστει. 

13 Ver. 16. ᾿Αμαρτία πρὸς ϑάνατον, A sin unto death.) Note 
here, that the phrase, “ He shall give him life,” cannot rea- 
sonably be interpreted of eternal life, for that depends not on 
the prayers of other men; nor can they be certain that their 
intercession shall prevail for it, since it belongs only to them 
who truly repent and reform their lives. (2.) Because the 
person to be prayed for, is one that hath “not sinned unto 
death ;’” i. 6, hath not committed a sin which renders him 
obnoxious to death eternal. (3.) They who interpret this 
phrase, “a sin unto death,” of a sin on which eternal death 
will certainly follow, by the decree of God, (1.) make the 
duty here enjoined impracticable ; for who can know when 
his brother’s sin is thus to death, or not? who is acquainted 
with any such decree of God? (2.) They make the differ- 
ence betwixt a sin unto death, and not to death, to consist, 
not in the nature of the sins themselves, but in the decree 
hy God passed upon the sinner. (3.) They make the apos- 
tle say, He dares not encourage them to pray for the salva- 
tion of them who are at present in a state of death and con- | 


demnation, which is against the tenor of the scriptures (see 
Rom. x. 1). The words, “If a man see his brother sin a 
sin not unto death,” seem like unto those of Paul, «If he 
see him overtaken with a fault” (Gal. vi. 1), i. e. with an act 
of injustice against his brother, to awaken him out of which 
sin, God hath inflicted sickness on him, as he did on the Co- 
rinthians (1 Cor. xi. 30). The words, “ Let him ask, and 
he shall give him life,” seem parallel to those of James, “The 
prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise 
him up” (see the note on James v. 15). If this interpreta- 
tion will not stand good, consider, that after all the miracles 
and distributions of the Holy Ghost, vouchsafed in confirma- 
tion of the gospel, too many of the Jews apostatized from 
the profession of it, relapsing to their former Judaism: and 
this apostasy may here be termed, the “sin unto death ;” it 
being also that which our Saviour represents as the sin 
against the Holy Ghost, which should not be forgiven (Matt. 
xii. 32). And they who commit it, being men, saith the 
apostle, whom “it is impossible to renew unto repentance” 
(Heb. vi. 4—6), and to whom there remaineth nothing but 
“fearful looking for of judgment” (Heb. x. 26, 27), the 
apostle might well add, “I do not say, that you shall pray 
for them.” 

M Ver. 19. 'Ev τῶ πονηρῷ.] In Satan, who worketh in the 
children of disobedience (Eph. iil. 2), and leads them cap- 
tive at his will (2 Tim. ii. 26); whence, by faith in Christ, 
we are said to be translated “from the power of darkness” 
(Col. i. 13), “from the power of Satan” (Acts xxvi. 18). 
and “recovered from the snare of the devil.” 

15 Ver. 20. Οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ ἀληϑινὸς Θεὸς, He is the true God.] 
That this is not spoken of Christ, the Socinians endeavour to 
prove, because the article is here added to the word Θεῦς, 
“God ;” which is never, say they, done when Chiist is called 
God. But this is manifestly false; for Thomas saith ex- 
pressly of him, 6 Κύριός μου, καὶ ὁ Θεύς μου, “ My Lord and 
my God” (John xx. 28); and the apostle, 6 dy ἐπὶ πάντων 
6s, “Who is God over all, blessed for ever” (Rom. ix, 5). 
We prove that this is spoken of Christ ; 

1. Because the demonstrative pronoun οὗτος most appo- 
sitely relates to that which immediately went before; now 
this is Jesus Christ the Son of God. 


ΟΝ 


PREFACE TO II. JOHN. 


To this the Socinians* answer, That this is not always 
so; these relatives often referring to what is more remote: 
and so this οὗτος may refer to the true God going before. ‘To 
this we reply ; 

1, ‘That when this happens to be so, the necessity of re- 
ferring it to what is more remote, is evident from the text, 
and necessary from the nature of the thing; as when it is 
said, Acts iv. 11, οὗτος, This is the stone set at nought by 
you builders,” this cannot be referred to the man that was 
made whole, ver. 10, and Acts vii. 19, οὗτος, “ He dealt sub- 
tly with our nation ;” this cannot refer to Joseph, but to the 
king of Egypt: so also, Acts x. 5, 6, 2 Thess. ii. 9, 2 John 7: 
but here is no necessity of referring the pronoun to any thing 
more remote, but on supposition that Christ is not truly God. 

2. This never happens when the pronoun relates to any 
thing that is spoken of professedly, but only when the nearest 
antecedent is only mentioned accidentally, and by the by. 
So Eph. ii. 7, « Many deceivers are gone out into the world, 
who confess not that Jesus is the Christ; otros, he is a de- 
ceiver, and an antichrist ;” where the pronoun refers not to 
Christ, because he is there mentioned only by accident, as 
being the object of the error of those seducers; and so it is in 
all the other places cited. But here the apostle is professedly 
speaking of Christ, through the whole verse ; and of the Fa- 
ther, only as we, by Christ, are taught to know him. And, 


3. To refer this to “the true God” going before, makes | | 


the apostle guilty of a tautology, by saying, The true God, 
he is the true God. 


* See Cl. Ars Critic. par. ii. cap. 9, p. 121, 


1001 


4. Of the same person it is said, «He is the true God, 
and eternal life.” Now “eternal life’ is in this very chap- 
ter thrice ascribed to the Son, as the author of it, ver. 11, 12, 
13. He is styled ζωὴ, “life,” John i. 4, v. 26, xiv. 6, xvii. 
2; “our life,” Col. iii. 4. Christ is here also styled, ὁ d\n- 
Owds, “the true;” as also, Rev. iii. 7, xix. 11. And other- 
wise, the Greek should have been, ὦμεν, “that we may,” or 
“might be,” to answer to γινώσκωμεν, “that we might know ;” 
and not ἐσμὲν, “ we are,” in the true. 

16 Ver. 21. "And τῶν εἰδώλων, From the idols,] Or false 
gods of the heathens, among whom you live: so, 1 Thess. 
i. 9, “They turned ἀπὸ τῶν εἰδύλων, from idols, to the true 
and living God :” thus, “ An idol is nothing in the world,” 
i.e. no true god, because “there is but one true God,” 2 
Cor. viii. 4. Thus, to eat things offered to idols, συνειδήσει 
τοῦ εἰδώλου, with conscience of the idol,” is to eat it with 
apprehension that there was somewhat of power or virtue in 
that god to whom it was offered. Nevertheless, because 
these false gods were still represented by, and worshipped 
in, their images,*and they were thought necessary to the 
worship of their deities ; therefore the apostle useth here the 
word “idols,” and equally forbids that way of worshipping 
the true God. 


* Ut eos possimus coram et cominus intueri, affari de 
proximo, et cum presentibus quodammodo venerationum 
colloquia miscere; sub axe enim nudo, et sub ethereo teg- 
mine invocati nihil audiunt, &c. Ethnicus apud Arnob. lib. 
vi. p. 192. Ab idolis, id est, ab ipsa effigie eorum. Tertul- 
lian. de Cor. Mill. cap. 10. 


THE SECOND 


EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. JOHN, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Taar John the apostle was the author of the First Epis- 
tle, is confessed by all the ancients; and that the same per- 
son was the author of this epistle, is evident from the exact 
agreement of almost every word of this with the former, ex- 
cept the preface and conclusion. For, 

First, These words in the fifth verse, “I write no new 
commandment to you, but that which you have had from 
the beginning, That ye love one another;” are the same 
with those, 1 Ep. ii. 8, 10, iii. 10. 

Secondly, These words in the sixth verse, “ This is love, 
That we walk after his commandments,” are the same with 
1 Ep. v. 3, and the following words are in the sense the 
same with iv. 21. 

Thirdly, These words in the seventh verse, “ For many 
deceivers are gone out into the world, who confess not that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: he is a deceiver, and an 
antichrist ;” are in sense the same with 1 John ii. 18, 19. 26, 
iv. 1—3. 

Fourthly, These words, ver. 9, “δ that transgresseth, 
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God: he 
that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, hath the Father and 
the Son;” are in sense the same with | John ii. 24, 

Fifthly, These words, ver. 12,“ That your joy may be 
full-” are expressly found, 1 John i. 4. 

Moreover, the arguments which Grotius advances to the 

Vou. TV.—126 


contrary, as magna argumenta, are of no force against, but 
rather may be used as confirmations of, this assertion, That 
John the apostle was the author of this epistle. For whereas 
it is objected, that Eusebius puts this, and the following 
Epistle, among the “ doubtful epistles,” leaving it uncertain 
whether they were written by the apostle, or by John, pres- 
byter of Ephesus, to whom they were ascribed, saith Jerome; 
it is to be noted from Eusebius, that though by some they 
were doubted of, “ yet were they known to many of the an- 
cients:”* yea, this Second Epistle is cited twice by Irenzus, 
as the genuine epistle of John the apostle and disciple of our 
Lord, declaring, that “they who denied that Jesus Christ 
was come in the flesh, weret seducers and antichrists,” ver. 
7, 8, and “they who bid the heretic God speed, are par- 
takers of his evil deeds;’’} which are the words found, ver. 10. 


* Τῶν dé ἀντιλεγομένων, γνωρίμων δὲ ὅμως τοῖς πολλοῖς------- 
ἢ ὀνομαζομένη δευτέρα, καὶ τρίτη Ἰωάννου. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. 
cap. 29. 

+ Joannes, discipulus Christi, in predicta epistola fugere 
eos precepit, dicens, Multi seductores exierunt in hune 
mundum, qui non confitentur Jesum Christum in carne 
venisse; hic est seductor, et antichristus; videte eos, ne 
perdatis quod operati estis. Lib. iii. cap. 18, p. 278. 

+ ᾿Ιωάννης δὲ ὃ τοῦ Kupiov paSnris ἐπέτεινε τὴν καταδίκην αὐτῶν, 
μηδὲ χαίρειν αὐτοῖς ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν λέγεσθαι δουληθεὶς, ὃ γὰρ λέγων αὐτοῖς, 
φησὶ, χαίρειν, κοικωνεῖ τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτῶν τοῖς novrpots. Lib. i. cap. 
13, p. 94, A. 

412 


1002 


And in the council of Carthage, held A. D. 256, Aure- 
lius* cites the tenth verse, as the words of John the apostle 
of the Lord. 

Clement of Alexandria makes mention of “the larger 
Epistle of John;” which supposeth he had writ one or more 
shorter. 

And Epiphanius saith,+ that “the Alogi, who rejected 
his Gospel and Revelation, would perhaps reject his epistles 
also.” So that we have here the testimony both of the east 


* Joannes apostolus in epistola sua posuit dicens, Si quis 
ad vos venit et doctrinam Christi non habet, nolite eum in 
domum vestram admittere, et Ave ei ne dixeritis. Apud 
Cypr. p. 242. 

ἡ “Ῥαίνεται δὲ καὶ ᾿Ιωάννης ἐν τῇ μείζονι ἐπιστολῇ, τὰς διαφορὰς 
τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἐκδιδάσκων, ἐν τοῦτοις, Hav τις ἴδη τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ 
ἁμαρτάνοντα ἁμαρτίαν μὴ πρὸς θάνατον. Strom. il. p. 389. 

$ Τάχα δὲ καὶ ras ἑπιστολὰς, συνάδουσι γὰρ καὶ αὗται τῷ 
εὐαγγελίῳ καὶ τῇ ἀποκαλύψει. Heer. li. 8. 24. 


II. JOHN. 


and of the west, concerning the true author of this epistle, 
that it was John, the apostle and disciple of our Lord; which 
sure must be proof sufficient against a bare doubt, or the si- 
lence of some men about this matter, of which Origen* 
speaks. The other arguments of Grotius are so fully an- 
swered by Dr. Hammond, in his preface to this epistle, that 
it is superfluous to say any thing upon that subject. 

As for the name “ catholic,” that also seems to be given 
to this and the following epistle; not as being written to all 
in general, some of the ancients conceiving this was written 
only to one family, as was the other to one person, but, as 
Coteleriust notes, because they were admitted by many 
churches, and read as catholic epistles. 


* Concedamus et secundam et tertiam, ἐπεὶ οὐ πάντες φασὶ 
γνησίους εἶναι ταῦτας. Orig. apud Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vi. 
cap. 25, p. 227. 

7 Not. in Epist. Barnab. p. 6. 


1 ΤῊΕ ' elder unto the ? elect lady and her children, 
whom I love in the truth ; and not I only, but also all 
they that have known the truth ; 

2 For the truth’s sake, which dwelleth in us, and 
shal] be with us 3 for ever. 

3 Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God 
the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son 
of the Father, in truth and love (or, the true and beloved 
Son of the Father). 

4 1 rejoiced greatly that I found (those) of thy child- 
ren walking ‘in truth, as we haye received a com- 
mandment from the Father. 

5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I 
wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which 


we had from the beginning (of the gospel), that we love 
one another (see note on 1 John ii. 7). 

6 And this ts love, that we walk after his command- 
ments (v. 3). This is the commandment, That, as ye 
have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it 
(il. 24, ἐς 6. We should continue walking according to the 
truth of the gospel, which it concerns us now especially to 
be careful of ). 

7 For many deceivers are entered into the world, 
who confess not that Jesus Christ 5. is come in the 
flesh (or Jesus Christ coming in the flesh). This is a 
deceiver and an antichrist (see note on ii. 18. 22, iv. 
=a 

8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things 


ANNOTATIONS. 


1 Ver. 1. Πρεσβύτερος, The elder.] That the apostle should 
in this epistle conceal his name, as in the former he had 
done, is so far from being an argument to conclude he was 
not the author of it, that it proves rather the contrary ; he 
being, as it is observed by Dr. Hammond, the only apostle 
that affected to conceal his name, and who, in his gospel, 
scarce ever speaks of himself without some circumlocution. 

That he should call himself “elder,” and not apostle, as 
Peter also doth, is no more an argument against the apostle- 
ship of the one than of the other. The word “ elder,” being 
a name of honour and dignity belonging to the chief of their 
tribes, agrees very well with the office of apostles, set over 
the twelve tribes of the house of Israel. But if this epistle 
was written before the destruction of Jerusalem, as is pro- 
bably collected from that caution given in it, ver. 7, 8, to 
beware of “ the deceivers that were gone out into the world,” 
that they might not “lose the things which they had 
wrought;” the apostle could not then be so aged when he 
writ it as he is generally thought to have been, though he 
might be then seventy years old, and therefore aged (see 
note on Philem. 9). 

2"Exdexrp xvpia, To the elect lady.| That the apostle 
wrote this epistle to a single person, who was of honourable 
descent, and therefore styled “lady,” will not follow from 
the mention of her children, ver. 4, seeing that phrase is 
used both of the members of the Jewish and of the Chris- 
tian church (Isa. liv. 1, Gal. iv. 25. 27, 28. 31): not from 
the words, “I hope to come to you, and speak mouth to 
mouth ;” for so Paul did to the church of Jerusalem, when 
he declared to them what things God had wrought by him 
and Barnabas (Acts xv. 4): and so might John do to that, 
or any other church. It seems rather, from the words, “I 
have many things to write to you,” and from “the children 
of the elect sister,’ mentioned ver. 12, 13, that it should be 
some Christian church: and then I think there is great rea- 
son to conjecture it must not be that of Ephesus, but some 
Jewish church, and most probably that of Jerusalem, the 
mother of all churches. For, 


1. All the other epistles, excepting that one to Gaius, 
which pass under the name of “catholic,” were written to 
the Jews, and so this probably must be so. 

2. As other churches are styled συνεκλεκταὶ, “ elected to- 
gether with her,” 1 Pet. v. 13, so is the church of the Jews 
styled throughout the Old Testament “the elect ;” and the 
converts of them in the New, “the elect,” Matt. xxiv. 22, 
and “the election,” Rom. xi. 5. 7. 

3. The phrase, “‘The word that ye have heard, the truth 
you have received, dz’ ἀρχῆς, from the beginning,” seems 
most properly to agree to them, to whom it was necessary 
that the word of God should be first preached (Acts xiii. 
41). 

4. This church being that church from which the word 
came out to all other churches, who all received of her spi- 
ritual things, she may on that account, by the apostle of the 
circumcision, be well styled κυρία, as being the lady and mo- 
ther of all other churches: and so we find that anciently, 
both she and her bishops were at first preferred before other 
bishops and churches; whence the emperor Justinus,* in his 
epistle to pope Hormisda, saith that “all churches favour the 
church of Jerusalem, as being the mother of all churches.” 
But yet, if this epistle was written after the destruction of 
Jerusalem, this interpretation cannot stand. 

3 Ver. 2. Bis τὸν αἰῶνα, For ever.) This seems to assert 
the perpetuity and indefectibility of the church of God; for 
where the truth of the gospel is for ever, there must be a 
church for ever. 

4 Ver. 4. Ἔν ἀληθεία, In the truth.) i.e. In the doctrine 
of Christ, as the Father hath commanded, saying, “ ‘This is 
my beloved Son, hear him” (Matt. xvii. 5). 

5 Ver. 7. ᾿Ερχόμενον ἐν σαρκὶ, Coming in the flesh.) It ap- 
pears from the epistle of Ignatius to the church of Smyrna, 
that there were then heretics, or rather infidels,t who denied 


* Ad ecclesiam Hierosolymitanam precipué omnes favo- 
rem impendunt, quasi matri Christiani nominis. Vide Cote- 
ler. Not. in lib. ii. Recogn. p. 338, 339, 

} Οὐχ ὥσπερ ἄπιστοΐ τινες λέγουσι τὸ doxety αὐτὸν πεπονθέναι. 


§. 2. Μὴ ὁμολογῶν αὐτὸν σαρκοφόρον. 8. 5. Vide 5. 4, 7. 


Ἂ 


Ill. JOHN. 


which we have wrought, but that we receive δ a full 
reward. 

9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the 
doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that? abideth 
in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and 
the Son. 

10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this 
doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid 
him God speed (7. e. have no familiarity with him, and 
wish him no success in his enterprises) : 

11 For he that biddeth him ὃ God speed is partaker 


1003 


of his evil deeds (as showing friendship to him that does 
them, and wishing well to them ; for by this he shows he 
ts willing he should succeed in them). 

12 Having many things to write unto you, I would 
not write (them) with paper and ink (as J do this epistle) - 
but I trust (ἐλπίζω yap for I hope, say some capies,) to 
come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may 
be full. 

13 The children of thy elect sister greet thee. Amen. 
(See note on ver. 1.) 


that Jesus Christ had taken upon him true flesh, saying, he 
only had the appearance of it, and suffered only in appear- 
ance; and these are thought to be the followers of Simon 
Magus, who, taking upon him to be Christ, said that he* 
“appeared in Judea as a man, not being so, and seemed to 
sufler, when he did not 50." Saturninus,t one of his fol- 
lowers, taught that « Christ only appeared as a man, and 
suffered in appearance only.” But the apostle could not 
here put in this caution against him, because he was not yet 
in being when this epistle was indited. According to the 
other rendering of the words, ‘* Denying Jesus Christ, who 
is come in the flesh,” they will signify the same as denying 
him to be the Messiah, and so respect the unbelieving Jews, 
and be designed to establish them to whom he wrote against 
that apostasy which was then among the Jewish converts. 
6 Ver. 8. Μισϑὸν πλήρη, That we lose not—a full re- 
ward.] Hence it follows, that it is not only lawful, but is 
the duty of a Christian, to serve God, with respect to the 
recompense of reward. (2.) That they who once “ walked 
m the truth, as they had received a commandment” (ver. 4), 


* Καὶ φανῆναι ἐν ᾿Ιουδαία ὡς ἄνθρωπον, μὴ ὄντα ἄνθρωπον, Kai 
παϑεῖν, ἥκιστα πεπονϑότα. ‘Theod. Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1. 

+ Putativé visum hominum. Iren. lib. i. cap. 22. ᾿Εν σχή- 
ματι ἀνθρώπου ἐληλυϑέναι καὶ ἰδέα μόνη, τὰ πάντα dé ἐν τῷ oxetv 
πεποιηκέναι. Epiph. Her. xxxii. §. 1. 


had Christian charity (ver. 5), even that love which enabled 
them to walk according to God’s commandment (ver. 6), 
might “ lose those things which they had wrought.” 

7 Ver. 9. Ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ didaxy, He that abideth in the 
doctrine of Christ.] 'These words being in sense the same 
with those we find 1 John ii. 22—24, seem to show that 
“the doctrine of Christ” here mentioned is this fundamental 
doctrine, that “Jesus is the Christ:” and then the “not 
abiding in it” must be the apostatizing from it to Judaism; 
which Paul and the apostles of the circumcision so much 
laboured to prevent. 

8 Ver. 11. Χαίρειν αὐτῷ μὴ λέγετε, Bid him not God speed.) 
This precept seems to be taken from the Jews, who were 
forbid to say τῶν, “God speed,” to a man that was excom- 
municated, or was doing any evil action. Hence it is for- 
bidden by their canons,* to say “ God speed” to a man that 
is ploughing on the sabbath-day. ‘They also are forbid to 
come within four cubits of a heretic, or of a person excom- 
municated ; and much more to admit him into their houses. 
But yet this doth not forbid us to show humanity towards 
a distressed heretic (seeing he ceaseth not to be of the num- 
ber of those whom we should pity and pray for); but only 
is a prohibition from doing any thing which imports a con- 
sent to, or approbation of, his evil actions. 


* Light. Harm. p. 153. 


THE THIRD 


EPISTLE GENERAL OF ST. JOHN, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Tat this epistle was written by the author of the First 
and Second, and therefore by John the apostle, appears by 
the agreement of them in words and phrases. For, 

First, «The elder,” ver. 1 ; “I rejoiced greatly, that thou 
walkest in the truth,” ver. 3; “He that doeth good is of 
God; he that doeth evil hath not seen God ;” are the usual 
phrases of the First and Second Bpistles. 


1 Tue elder unto the well beloved ! Gaius, whom I 
love in the truth (7. 6. with sincerity). 


Secondiy, Those words, “I have no greater joy than to 
hear that my children walk in the truth,” are in sense the 
same with the fourth verse of the Second Epistle. The 
thirteenth and fourteenth verses are in words the same with 
the twelfth verse of that epistle. 

Thirdly, Those words, ver. 12, « And we bear witness, 
and ye know that our witness is true,” do characterize this 
apostle: for as they are words of confirmation, importing 
an apostolical authority, so are they twice used by this 
apostle, John xix. 35, xxi. 24, and by him only. 


2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou may- 
est prosper and be in health (περὶ πάντων, tn all things 


ANNOTATIONS. 


1 Ver. 1. Gaius.] This Gaius, who is here commended 
for his charity to, and entertainment of, both the brethren 
and strangers (ver. 5), and especially of those who went out | 
from the church of Jerusalem to preach the gospel among 
the gentiles, and who had given “testimony of his love be- 


fore the church,” seems to be Gaius of Corinth, styled by 
Paul, «Gaius, my host, and of the whole church,” Ron, 
xvi. 23; where there is intimation of his charity to the bre- 
thren and to himself, given by Paul to those at Rome; and 
so a testimony of it from one of them who “ went out to 
preach the gospel among the gentiles, taking nothing of 
them.” And indeed Paul and Barnabas went out upon this 


1004 


oe 


Ill. JOHN. 


temporal), even as thy soul prospereth (in all things | loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth 


spiritual ). 

3 For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came 
(out of Judea) and testified of the truth that is in thee, 
even as thou walkest in the truth (confirming their tes- 
timony by thy conversation). 

4 I have no greater joy * than to hear that my child- 
ren walk in (/he) truth. 

5 Beloved, thou doest faithfully (as becomes a faith- 
ful Christian) whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, 
and to strangers (whom thow receivest into thy house, 
Rom. xvi. 23) ; 

6 Which have borne witness of thy charity before 
the church: 5. whom if thou bring forward on their 
journey after a godly sort (7. e. with such charity and 
care, as become one who considers that he performs these 
things, not to men only, but to God and Christ, whose mi- 
nisters they are), thou shalt do well: 

7 Because that‘ for his name’s sake they went forth 
(lo preach the gospel, Acts xv. 26), taking nothing of 
the Gentiles (0 whom they preached the gospel without 
charge, 1 Cor. ix. 18). 

8 We therefore ought to receive such, that we 
(Christians who do not preach it) might (yet) be fellow- 
helpers to the truth (by helping them that do so). 

9 51 wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who 


us not. 

10 Wherefore, if I come, § I will remember his 
deeds which he doeth, prating against us (me and the 
other apostles, who thousht not fit to lay the burden of 
circumcision on the believing gentiles,) with malicious 
words: and not content therewith, neither doth he 
himself receive the brethren, and (but) forbiddeth them 
that would, and casteth them out of the church (as the 
Jews did the uncircumeised out of their sociely: see note 
on James ii. 12). 

11 Beloved, follow not that which is evil (after the 
example of Divotrephes), but that which is good (as De- 
metrius doth: for) he that doeth good is of God: but 
he that doeth evil hath not seen God (1 John iii. 
6. 10). 

To υὔεπσαν hath (a) good report of all men, and 
of the truth itself: yea, and we also bear record (of 
him); and ye know that our record is true (John xix. 
35, xxi. 14). 

13 I had many things (which ἐξ would be profitable) 
to write, but I will not with ink and pen write unto 
thee: 

14 But I trust 1 shall shortly see thee, and we shall 
speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends 
salute thee. Greet the friends by name. 


errand, first from Antioch, by the direction of the Spirit 
(Acts xiii. 4), then from Jerusalem, being sent by that church 
to Antioch (Acts xv. 30); and they went out, ὑπὲρ ὀνόματος 
αὐτοῦ, “ for the name of Christ” (ver. 26), «taking nothing 
of the gentiles” (1 Cor. ix. 5,6). So did also Titus and 
Timothy, and all that were sent by Paul to Achaia (2 Cor. 
xii. 17, 18): so did they at Thessalonica (1 Thess. 11. 9) ; 
and so did none of the rest of the apostles, or brethren of 
the Lord (1 Cor. ix. 5,6): so that we have no ground from 
scripture to refer this to any other. And whereas it is said 
that Gaius of Corinth was the convert of Paul, 1 Cor. i. 14; 
whereas this Gaius is here styled one of John’s children, and 
so must be supposed to have been the convert of John: to 
this it may be answered, that John calls all to whom he 
writes his “children,” 1 John ii. 1. 12. 18. 28, iii. 7. 18, v. 
21, and so the word “ children” signifies with him no more 
than the words “ Christian brethren ;” and the “ elders” and 
“fathers” being oft of the same import, he styling himself 
an “elder,” may well call them he writes to, “ children.” 

2 Ver. 4. "Iva ἀκούω, Than to hear.| This construction of 
the conjunction ἵνα, saith Betuleius, is sufficient to show that 
this is the epistle of John, it being almost peculiar to him to 
use this conjunction for ὅτε, or ὅταν, or ἢ wa: as, John xv. 8, 
«Tn this is my Father glorified, ἵνα, when you bring forth 
much fruit :” and ver. 13, “Greater love than this hath no 
man, i. 6. ἵνα, than that a man lay down his life for the bre- 


thren,” xvi. 2; “The time will come, ἵνα, when they will put | 
| the council at Jerusalem, John had done: and that there 


you out of the synagogues :” and, ver. 32, “The hour com- 
eth, ἵνα, when you shall be scattered” (see note on 1 John 
iv. 17). 

3 Ver. 6. Ols προπέμψας ἀξίως rod Θεοῦ, Whom if you 
bring forward, as is worthy of God.) i.e. As it is fit to 
receive the ministers of God: so to receive Phebe, ἀξίως τῶν 
ἁγίων, is to receive her “as becometh Christians” to receive 
the saints (Rom. xvi. 2). The word προπέμιψας is the word 
still used concerning them who are to be sent forward in 
preaching the gospel, or in their travels concerning the affairs 
of the church (see Acts xv. 3, xx. 38, xxi. 5, Rom, xv. 24, 
1 Cor. xvi. 6. 11, 2 Cor. i. 16, Tit. ili. 13). 

4 Ver. 7. “Ὑπὲρ yap ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ ἐξῆλθον, For his name's 
sake they went forth.| That is, saith one, “they were ex- 
pelled, or cast out ;” referring this to the Christians, who, by 
the persecution of the unbelieving Jews, were driven from 
Jerusalem (Acts viii. 1). But, first, the word ἐξῆλϑον, 
“they went forth,” is only used in the forcible sense, when 
inention is made of devils going forth from those they pos- 
sessed at Christ’s command, and never of any Christians 


expelled from any place for the profession of Christianity. 
Secondly, The apostle speaks manifestly here of those who 
went out as the apostles and ministers of Christ to preach to 
the gentiles ; whereas they of the dispersion, mentioned Acts 
vill. 1, went out to avoid persecutions, and preached to the 
Jews only, not thinking it lawful to converse with, or preach 
to, the gentiles (Acts xi. 19). 

5 Ver. 9. Ἔγραψα, I wrote.] “I had written,” so the 
Vulgar: “I would have writ,” so the Syriac: the Hebrews 
often use the preteritum for the plusquam-perfectum: and 
Vossius observes of the aorist, that it is so called because it 
is used sometimes for the perfect, sometimes for the preter- 
perfect tense; and then ἔγραψα may be rendered “I had 
written” (see examples of this nature, note on 1 Cor. v. 9). 
The apostle then seems here to obviate an objection, why 
he writes to Gaius, a single person, and not to the whole 
church ; declaring that he would have writ to the church, but 
then Diotrephes and his part} would have hindered the effect 
of his writing. Now who this Diotrephes was is wholly un- 
certain: I see no ground for the conjecture of Grotius, that 
he was a gentile convert, who would not admit those Jews 
who, professing Christianity, still observed the rites of the 
law, into the Christian assemblies. Esthius, on the con- 
trary, conjectures, that he was one of those Jewish zealots, 
who held it necessary that even the gentile converts should 
be circumcised and observe the law, and rejected those who 
had declared for the contrary, as we know from Paul, and 


were men in Corinth and Galatia, who upon this account 
opposed the apostles, we learn from those epistles ; but read 
not of any gentile converts who would not receive the weak 
Jews, or be hospitable to them, on the account of their ob- 
servance of the law, much Jess of any of them who opposed 
themselves to the apostles on this account. Moreover, the 
subject of the apostle’s writing being to exhort Christians to 
receive them who had gone out to preach the gospel among 
the gentiles, “taking nothing” of them; and all that did so, 
as far as we know any thing of them, being against these im- 
positions, the apostle could not fear they should not be 
received, because observers of the law ; but, on the contrary, 
because they were “dead to the law.” 

6 Ver. 10. Ὑπομνήσω, I will remember his works.] Pri- 
vate offences against ourselves must be forgiven and forgot- 
ten: but when the offence, εἰς τὴν πίστιν ἐμπόδιον φέρει, is an 


| impediment to the faith, and very prejudicial to the church, 


it is to be opposed, and openly reproved, 


A 


1005 


THE 


GENERAL EPISTLE OF ST. JUDE, 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


PREFACE. 


Havrne proved, note on ver. 1, that Jude the apostle was 
the author of this epistle, I have nothing more to add, by 
way of preface to it, but the words of the learned Dr. Light- 
foot, which are these: 

“As the Second Epistle of St. Peter and this of Jude are 
very near akin in style, matter, and subject, so it is fairly 
conjecturable that they were not far removed in time, speak- 
ing both of wicked ones, and wickedness, at the same height 
and ripeness. It may be Jude stands up in the charge of 
his brother James among the circumcision of Judea, and 
directs his epistle to all those who were ‘sanctified and pre- 
served’ in those apostatizing times, as his brother had done 
to all the twelve tribes in general. 

“Tn citing the story of Michael the archangel contending 
with the devil about the body of Moses, ver. 9, he doth but 
the same that St. Paul doth, in naming Jannes and Jam- 
bres, 2 Tim. iii. 8, namely, allege a story which was current 
and owned among that nation, though there was no such 


thing in scripture; and so he argueth with them from their 
own authors and concessions: for among the Talmudists 
there seems to be something like the relics of such a matter; 
viz. of Michael and the angel of death disputing or discours- 
ing about fetching away the soul of Moses. 

“ His alleging the prophecy of Enoch is an arguing of the 
very like nature, as reciting and referring to some known and 
common tradition that they had among them. To this pur- 
pose, the book Sepher Jesher, a Hebrew writer, speaketh of 
Enoch after such a tenor; and in both these he useth their 
own testimonies against themselves, as if he should have said 
at large, These men speak evil of dignities; whereas they 
have, and own a story for current, that even Michael the 
archangel did not speak evil of the devil, when he was striv- 
ing with him about the body of Moses: and whereas they 
show and own a prophecy of Enoch, of God coming to judg- 
ment, these are the very men to whom this matter is to be 
applied.” Which words give a sufficient answer to the only 
objection made against the authority of this book; viz. that 
it cites apocryphal writings. 


1 June, the servant of Jesus Christ, and ! brother of 
James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, 
and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called (Gr. to the 
called, who have been sanctified by God the Father, and 
preserved in (the faith of ) Jesus Christ) : 

eat unto you, and peace, and love, be multi- 
plied. 
_ 3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write 


unto you of the common salvation, it was needful 
for me (Gr. I thought it necessary) to write unto 
you, and exhort yow that ye should earnestly con- 
tend for 2 the faith which was once delivered unto the 
saints. 

4 For there are certain men crept in unawares (Gr. 
for certain men have entered, viz. into the church), who were 
before of old 3 ordained to this condemnation, ungodly 


ANNOTATIONS, 


VVer. 1. ᾿Αδελφὸς ᾿Ιακώβου, The brother of James.] This 
characteristic is sufficient to assure us, this epistle can belong 
only to Jude the apostle (distinguished from Judas Iscariot 
by this title, that he was “Judas the brother of James,” 
Luke vi. 16), and to confirm the title given to this epistle by 
the ancients, “The General Epistle of Jude the apostle:” 
this being a plain demonstration of the point, Grotius will 
have these words, “the brother of James,” to be an addi- 
tion of some transcriber; but this being said without any 
proof Jays the whole scripture uncertain, since every man 
may say, if that will be sufficient without proof, that what 
he dislikes is the addition of some transcriber. ‘Tertullian* 
is positive that Enoch, apud Judam apostolum testimonium 
possidet, “hath the testimony of Jude the apostle to con- 
firm his prophecy ;” and among the apostles of Christ, 
Origent reckons Peter, the writer of two epistles, and 
James and Jude. That in this epistle he doth not style 
himself an apostle, can be no argument to conclude he 
was not an apostle; since the same argument will prove, 
that James and John, and even Paul, were no apostles. 

2 Ver. 3. Τῇ ἅπαξ rapatoSeion πίστει, The faith once de- 
livered to the saints.| Here, saith Esthius, the apostle in- 


* De Hab. Mul. lib. i. cap. 13, 
} Hom. vii. in Josh. f. 156, 


sinuates that which the fathers teach ; viz. that nothing can 
be added to the faith, because it was delivered all at once 
as a depositum, so to be kept that nothing ought to be added 
to it, or taken from it. Whence it is evident to a demon- 
stration, that the new articles added by the Trent council 
to the Apostles’ Creed, can be no articles of the Christian 
faith, as being not delivered by Christ, or his apostles, to the 
world, nor known to the Christians for many ages after their 
decease. 

3 Ver. 4. Προγεγραμμένοι εἷς τοῦτο τὸ κρῖμα, Before or- 
dained to this condemnation.| Gr. “Of whom it was before 
written, that this should be their condemnation :” for, that 
this cannot be meant of any divine ordination, or appoint- 
ment of them to eternal condemnation, is evident, first, be- 
cause it cannot be thought, without horror, that God doth 
thus ordain men to perdition before they had any being. 
Secondly, the word κρῖμα here relates not unto sin, but 
punishment, the fruit of sin: so Mark xii. 40, “ They shall 
receive, περισσότερον κρῖμα, greater punishment;” “Thinkest 
thou this, O man, that thou shalt avoid, τὸ κρῖμα rod Θεοῦ, 
the judgment (or punishment) of God?” Now God or- 
daineth none to punishment but sinners and ungodly men, 
as these persons here are styled. And, thirdly, these were 
men of whom it was before written, or prophesied, that they 
should be condemned for their wickedness: for, ver. 14, 
“Enoch προεφήτευσε prophesied before to (or of) these men, 
saying, That God would come ποιῆσαι κρῖσιν, to do judgment 
upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly among them ;” and 


1006 


men, ‘ turning the grace of our God into lascivious- 
ness, and denying the only ὃ Lord God, and our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though 
ye once © knew this, how that the Lord, having saved 


the people (of Israel, of whom you are a part) out of the | 


land of Egypt, afterward destroyed 7 them that believed 
not. 
6 And the angels ὃ which kept not their first estate, 


JUDE. 


but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in ever- 
lasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of 
the great day. 

7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities 
about them in like manner, giving themselves over to 
® fornication, and going after strange (Gr. olher) flesh, 
are 10 set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance 
of eternal fire. 

8 Likewise also " these fillhy dreamers defile the 


in the parallel place of Peter (2 Pet. ii. 3), their punishment 
is styled τὸ κρῖμα ἔκπαλαι, “the punishment long ago de- 
nounced” against them; viz. that they should be « reserved 


unto the day of judgment to be punished” (ver. 9), that | 
(ver. 12), they | 


they should “perish in their corruption” 
being the men to whom “the blackness of darkness was 
reserved for ever” (ver. 13). And this is the very thing 
that both Peter, from ver. 4 to 13, and Jude, from this verse 
to ver. 16, set themselves to prove: and this also is the im- 
port of the word προ-γράφη, Rom. xv. 4, ὅσα προεγράῤη, “ What- 
soever things were before written, were written for our in- 
struction ;” and Gal. iii. 1 (sce the note there.) ‘He speaks 


this of them,” saith G&cumenius,* “because Peter and Paul | 
had before spoken of them, that in the last time there should | 


come such deceivers; and before them Christ himself, say- 
ing, Many shall come in my name, and deceive many.” 
And against this interpretation of G2cumenius and Dr. 
Hammond, there lies only this objection, that the judgment 
mentioned by Christ and his apostles, not long before, can- 
not so properly be called κρῖμα τὸ ἔκπαλαι, “the judgment 
long ago denounced ;” nor could these ungodly men be 
styled of πάλαι προγεγραμμένοι, the men prophesied of old,” 
on that account, so well as if this be referred to the pro- 
phecy of Enoch, Jude 14, or to the words spoken before by 
the holy prophets, 2 Pet. iii. 2. For ἔκ -αλαι and πάλαι joined 
with προγεγραμμένοι, ibid., seem plainly to import some an- 
cient time in which this judgment was denounced against 
these ungodly men. 

4 Μετατιθέντες, Turning the grace of God into lascivious- 
ness.| This agrees exactly with the lewd doctrines of the 
Nicolaitans, mentioned note on 2 Pet. ii., and as exactly 
with the doctrine of Simon Magus, that “they who believed 
in him and his Helena might freely do what they listed, 
secunditim enim ipsius gratiam salvari, sed non secundiim 
operas justas, men heing to be saved by his grace, and not 
by works” (Iren. lib. i. cap. 29, Theodoret. Her. Fab. lib. i. 
cap. 1). 

5 Kat τὸν μόνον δεσπότην Θεὸν, καὶ Κύριον ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοὺν Χριστὸν 
ἀρνούμενοι. These words may be thus rendered, “ And deny- 
ing Jesus Christ, our only master, God and Lord.” And 
that they ought to be thus rendered, is argued, (1.) because 
one article only is put before all these words, δεσπότης, Θεὸς, 
Κύριος, which shows they all belong to the same person. 
(2.) Because the person who is here δεσπότης Θεὸς, the only 
“master, God,” is by Peter, 2 Pet. ii. 1, styled τὸν dyopicavra 


αὐτοὺς δεσπότην, “the Lord that bought them:” now it is | 
Christ who bought us with the price of his own blood. To | 


the first of these arguments Grotius and Woltzogenius an- 
swer, That it is common in scripture to affix one and the 
same article to divers persons, and in particular to God the 
Father, and to Christ: as, v. g. “ No fornicator, or unclean 
person, shall have any inheritance in the kingdom, τοῦ 
Χριστοῦ καὶ Θεοῦ, of Christ and of God,” Eph. v. 5; “1 
charge thee, ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ Kupiov ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, before 
God and the Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Tim. ν. 21, which, 
2 Tim. iv. 1, is rod Θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ Κυρίου" and 2 Pet. i. 2, “In 
the knowledge, τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ᾿Ιησοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν, of God, and 
our Lord Jesus Christ” (see 1 Tim. vi. 13). ΤῸ the second 
argument it may be answered, That in scripture, not only 
Christ, but the Father, is said to have bought and purchased 
us, Acts xx. 28, 1 Cor. vi. 20, and that he is the person in- 
tended by Peter, see the note there. And seeing the word 
δεσπότης is never elsewhere ascribed to Christ, I think our 


* Προγεγραμμένους αὐτοὺς λέγει, ὅτι καὶ Πέτρος καὶ ἸΤαῦλος περὶ 


αὐτῶν εἴρηκαν, ὅτι ἐν ἐσχάτοις καιροῖς ἐλεύσονται πλάνοι τοιοῦτοι, καὶ | 
ai τ ΡΥ ς Se Saat aes ames Sie. 
πρὸ τούτων οὗτος ὃ Χριστὸς, φάσκων, πολλοὶ ἐλεύσονται ἐπὶ τῶ ὀνόματι | 


ἐμῷ, καὶ πολλοὺς πλανήσουσι. 


version, which puts the comma after God, is without just 
exception. Note also, that Simon Magus denied both the 
| God of Israel and Jesus Christ, declaring, that he himself 
was that* “infinite Power, which appeared to the Samari- 
tans as the Father, and to the Jews as the Son of God ;” 
and so he and his followers denied both the Father and the 
| Son. 

6 Ver. 5. Bidéras ὑμᾶς ἅπαξ τοῦτο. The Jews knowing 
the destruction which God brought upon the unbelieving 
Jews in the wilderness, as well when Jude writ, as before, 
| it seemeth not so proper to say to them, “ You knew this 
once,”’ as to say, “ You knew it before,” which seems to be 
the import of the word ἅπαξ, ver. 3, and in those words of 
Samson, Judg. xvi. 21, ἐξελεύσομαι ὡς ἅπαξ, “I will go forth 
as before,” and, xx. 31, “The Benjamites began to smite 
them, ὡς ἅπαξ καὶ ἅπαξ, saying, They flee before us, ὡς τὸ 
πρῶτον, as before.” Or, secondly, it may be rendered fully, 
plainly, or certainly, for τὸ ἅπαξ, saith Phavorinus, is put 
ἀντὶ τοῦ ὄντως, βεβαίως, © for verily ’and firmly ;? > and Suidas 
saith it is used ἀντὶ τοῦ διόλον ὁλοσχερῶς, “ for entirely and 
filly,” and so it answers to the Hebrew naw, or ans, which 
signifies (rudy, or certainly, and is rendered by the Septua- 
gint, ἅπαξ. 

7 Tod; μὴ πιστεύσαντας, Them that believed not 3] i.e. Saith 
Grotius, “Those that obeyed not, for such show they be- 
lieved not at all, or not aright.” But this note is needless 
here; for the scripture expressly saith, they perished in the 
wilderness, “ because they believed not in God, but tempt- 
ed,” i. e. distrusted, “him, ten times,’ Numb. xiv. 22, Ps. 
evi. 24, and Paul, “ We sce then they could not enter in 
because of unbelief,’ Heb. iii. 18, 19, Heb. iv. 2. 

5 Ver. 6. Ma τηρήσαντας τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἀρχὴν, Nol keeping their 
original estate, ἀλλὰ ἀπολιπόντας τὸ ἴδιον οἰκητήριον, but leaving 
their proper habitation.) ‘That which we are to enjoy for 
ever, is in the style of scripture called τὸ ἴδιον, “our own,” 
that which is proper to us; that which we are to leave to 
others, τὸ ἀλλύτριον, as in those words, “If you have been 
unfaithful in that which is another man’s, who will give you 
that which is your own?” (Luke xvi. 12.) ‘These angels 
being therefore primarily designed to live for ever in the 
highest heavens, the regions of light and bliss, they are here 
styled “their proper habitation” (see note on 2 Pet. ii. 4). 

9 Ver. 7. Τὸν ὅμοιον τοὔτοις τρόπον ἐκπορνεύσασαι, Iornicating 
| then, and going after the flesh in like manner,] As these do 
now. Of both these crimes the Nicolaitans were notoriously 
guilty: for, first, they held that matrimony was a mere hu- 
man institution, that obliged no man’s conscience; and so 
did indiscreté vivere, “live without making any difference” 
betwixt one woman and another. And, secondly, they prac- 
tised unnatural lusts, and Sodomitical copulations, as may 
be proved from the testimonies of Ireneus,t Clement of 
Alexandria, the Constitutions of the Apostles, Epiphanius, 
and others, 

10 Πρόκεινται δεῖγμα, πυρὸς αἰωνίου δίκην ὑπέχουσαι, Are set 
forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal 
Jire.| That this is spoken not of the cities themselves, but 
of the inhabitants which dwelt in them, i. e. of them, who 
had “given themselves over to fornication, and gone after 
flesh,” is evident ; but yet I conceive they are said to “suffer 
the vengeance of eternal fire,” not because their souls are at 


Theo- 


* Justin M. Apol. ii. p. 69. 
doret. Her. Fab. lib. i. cap. 1. 
ἡ Docuerunt ἀναίδην éxropvetew καὶ παραχρᾶσθαι τῇ σαρκί. 
Const. Apost. lib. vi. cap. 10, p. 397. ᾿Εκπορνεύουσιν dvaidny 
οἱ τὴν αἵρεσιν αὐτοῦ μετιόντες. Strom. p. 436, vide reliqua. Ἔν 
πολυμιξία γυναικῶν καὶ ἐν aicxporoiats ἀνηκέστοις ἀναστρέφεσϑαι 


ἐδίδαξαν. Epiph. Her. xxv. §. 1, 2. . 


Tren. lib. i. cap. 20. 


ἘΝ 


flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of digni- 
ties. 
9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with 


JUDE. 


1007 


the devil he disputed # about the body of Moses, durst 
not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, 
The Lord rebuke thee. 


present punished in hell-fire, but because they and their 
cities perished by that fire from heaven, which brought a 
perpetual and irreparable destruction on them and their 
cities: for, first, we have proved, note on 2 Pet. ii. 6, iil. 7, 
that even the devils themselves are not tormented at present 
in that infernal fire, but only will be cast into it at the day 
of judgment; and therefore neither do the wicked Sodom- 
ites yet suffer in those flames. Secondly, I would admonish 
you, saith the apostle, though you once knew this, that 
Sodom and Gomorrah thus suffered the vengeance of eternal 
fire. Now from the history of Genesis, and the writings of 


the prophets, they might know that these cities, and the in- | 
habitants of them, were overthrown, εἰς αἰῶνα, “ with a per- | 


petual desolation” (Zeph. ii. 9); but they could not know 


from thence that their souls were afterward cast into hell- | 
fire. Thirdly, τὸ δεῖγμα, “an example,” is to be taken 


from something visible to, or knowable by, all who were to 
be terrified by it, especially when it 15. δεῖγμα προκείμενον, 
“an example manifested,” and proposed: now such was 
not the punishment of their souls in hell-fire, but nothing 
was more known and celebrated among authors, sacred and 
profane, Jewish, Christian, and heathen writers, than τὸ πῦρ 
καταβάσιον ἐπὶ Ἰπενταπόλεως, “the fire that fell down upon 
Pentapolis,” or the five cities of Sodom, they being mentioned 
still in scripture as ‘the cities which God overthrew with a 
perpetual desolation ;” in the apocryphal writings, “the 
waste land that yet smoketh, and the plants bearing fruit 
that never come to ripeness,” being, saith the book of Wis- 
dom, μαρτύριον τῆς πονηρίας, “a testimony of their wicked- 
ness” (Wisd. x. 7), and of the divine vengeance on them for 
it. The author of the history of the Maccabees saith, that 
« God destroying them by fire and brimstone” (Mace. iii. 2. 
5), παράδειγμα τοῖς ἐπιγινομένοις κατέστησεν, “ left them an 
example to the ages to come.” Philo saith,* that “ the cin- 
ders, brimstone, and smoke, and the obscure flame as it 
were of a fire burning, yet appearing about Syria, are memo- 
rials of the perpetual evils which happened to them.” Jose- 
phus αὐ 5,7 that the things which are said of Sodom, ἔχει 
πίστιν ἀπὸ τῆς ὄψεως, “are confirmed by ocular inspection, 
there being yet visible some relics of the fire coming down 
from heaven, and the shadows of the five cities.’ ‘This re- 
gion, say Clemens Romanus,+ and other Christian writers, 
“being condemned by fire and brimstone, made it apparent 
that God reserves the wicked for punishment and stripes.” 
Even heathen writers§ do confess that it was traditionally 
received, “that formerly there were fruitful fields, and large 
cities, which were afterward consumed by thunder and 
lightning.” And, fourthly, this sense may be farther con- 
firmed from the parallel place of Peter, who saith that God, 
reducing the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, con- 
demned the inhabitants of them by that overthrow, pro- 
posing them for an example of his vindictive justice upon 
them who afterward should live ungodly: where plainly the 
τέφρωσις, the reduction of those cities with their inhabitants 
into ashes, or the burning them by fire and brimstone falling 
down from heaven, is mentioned as the thing which placed 
them as an example of God’s vengeance on the ungodly to 
all future ages; nor could any thing be a more fit example of 
it: for since Peter hath informed us, that “the heavens and 
the earth that now are, are reserved to fire against the day 


* Καὶ pexpi 
δείκνυται κατὰ 
612, Ὁ. 

ἡ Ἔστι γοῦν ἔτι λείψανα τοῦ θειοῦ πυρὸς, καὶ πέντε μὲν πόλεων 
ἰδεῖν σκιάς. De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 27. 

+ Πρόδηλον----ῦτι τοὺς ἑτεροκλινεῖς εἷς κόλασιν καὶ αἱκισμὸν 
τίϑησι, Epist. i. §. 11. Just. M. Apol. ii. p. 88. Tertul. 
Apol. cap. 40. Chrysost. in Ep. 1 ad Thessal. hom. 8. 
Μαρτυρήσατέ μοι ὑμεῖς of τοὺς τόπους ἑωρακότες, &e. 

§ Haud procul inde campi, quos ferunt olim uberes, ful- 
minum ictii arsisse; posted igne ccelesti flagrasse. Tac. 
Hist. 5, p. 618. De celo tactum testatur humus nigra et 
in cinerem soluta. Solin. cap. 6. Vid. Strab. lib. xvi. p. 
764, Diod. Sicul. lib. xix. p. 724. 


τοῦ νῦν μνημεῖα τοῦ συμβεδηκῦτος ἀλέκτου πάϑους 
Συρία ἐρείπια, &c. lib. ii. de Vita Mos. p. 


of judgment, and destruction of ungodly men, when the 
earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up,” 
what could be a more exact emblem of that day, “when 
God will come in flaming fire to take vengeance on the 
wicked,” and leave them burning with the earth for ever, 
than was this burning of the cities and the inhabitants of 
Sodom, by fire and brimstone falling down from heaven? 
Nor is there any thing more common and familiar in scrip- 
ture, than to represent a thorough and irreparable vastation, 
whose effects and signs should be still remaining, by the 
word αἰώνιος, which we here render “eternal:” “I will set 
thee, εἰς ἔρημον αἰώνιον, in places desolate of old,” Ezek. xxvi. 
20; «I will destroy thee, and thou shalt be no more, cis 
τὸν αἰῶνα, for ever,’ ver. 21; “I will make thee ἐρημίαν 
αἰώνιον, a perpetual desolation, and thy cities shall be built 
no more,” xxxv. 9 (see also Ezek. xxxvi. 2, Isa. lvili. 12) ; 
«They have caused them to stumble in their ways, to make 
their land desolate, and σύριγμα αἰώνιον, a perpetual hiss- 
ing,” Jer. xviii. 15, 16; “I will bring you, ὀνειδισμὸν αἰώνιοι, 
an everlasting reproach and a perpetual shame, which shall 
not be forgotten,” Jer. xxiii. 40, xxv. 9; “I will make the 
land of the Chaldeans a perpetual desolation, ϑήσομαι αὐτοὺς 
cis ἀφανισμὸν αἰώνιον, they shall sleep, ὕπνον aisvov, a perpetual 
sleep,” Jer. li. 39. And this especially is threatened, where 
the destruction of a nation or people is likened to the over- 
throw of Sodom and Gomorrah; thus, “ Babylon shall be 
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah; οὐ κατοικη- 
θήσεται cis τὸν αἰῶνα Χχρύνον, it shall never be inhabited,” Isa. 
xiii. 19, 20, and again, Jer. 1,40. The like is said of Edom, 
Jer. xlix. 17, 18, and of Moab, “Surely Moab shall be as 
Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, ἡφανισμένη 
εἷς τὸν αἰῶνα, a perpetual desolation,” Zeph. ii. 9. 

Ver. 7, 8.] The grammatical exposition of these words 
seems to be thus: Even as, ὡς καὶ, and as Sodom and Go- 
morrah, and the other cities who were like to them in forni- 
cation and unnatural lusts, were exemplarily punished ; 
ὁμοίως μέντοι καὶ of οὗτοι ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι, so likewise do these 
filthy dreamers act, defiling the flesh as they did: and as the 
men of Sodom contemned the good angels, which came to 
Lot’s house, and spake evil of them; so do these men con- 
temn and blaspheme the good angels, who are styled δόξαι 
καὶ κυριότητες, Eph. i. 21, Col. i. 16, and therefore shall also 
perish as they did (ver. 11). 

11 Οἱ ἐνοπνιαζόμενοι, These filthy dreamers.] These dream- 
ers of dreams, or vain imaginations: for I find not that the 


| word ἐνυπνιάζω bears any impure sense, as ὀνειρώττω Some= 


times doth. ‘The apostle therefore seems to refer to the de- 
lirious fancies of their filthy zons, Prunice and Calacauth, 
which gave the rise to all the filthiness the Nicolaitans com- 
mitted, and after them the Gnostics and the Carpocratians 
(see the note on 2 Pet. ii. 11). And therefore Clement of 
Alexandria* saith of these Nicolaitans, and their successors 
the Gnosties, and the Carpocratians, that Jude “speaks of 
them in these words prophetically,” the Nicolaitans being 
only then in being, and the Gnostics and Carpocratians suc- 
ceeding them. ᾿ 

2 Ver. 9. Περὶ τοῦ Μωσέως σώματος, About the body of 
Moses.) That the body of the Jews, and their service, 
should be here called the body of Moses, and that these 
words are to be referred to Zech. iii. 1, seems not very pro- 
bable, seeing in that prophet there is no mention of ~Mi- 
chael, or of the body, or the death of Moses: nor doth 
Onias speak of the body of Moses, 2 Mace. xv. 12, but περὶ 
παντὸς ᾿Ιουδαίων συστήματος, “of the whole Jewish nation.” 
Moreover, that Moses was not buried by the Jews, we leam 
from the scripture, which saith, “No man knoweth of his 
sepulchre unto this day,” Deut. xxxiv. 6, and therefore 
Philo saith,t he was buried χερσὶν οὐ ϑνηταῖς, ἀλλ' ἀϑανάτοις 
δυνάμεσιν, not by men, but angels: that there was an alterca- 
tion betwixt Michael the archangel, and Sammael the prince 


* Ἐπὶ τούτων οἶμαι καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων αἱρέσεων προφητικῶς ᾿Ιοῦδαν 
ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολὴ εἰρηκέναι, ‘Opoiws μέντοι καὶ οὗτοι ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι. 
Strom. lib. iii. p. 425. 

+ De Vita Mosis, lib. iii. p. 538, Ὁ), 


1008 


10 But these speak evil of 13 those things which 
they know not: but what they know naturally, as 
brute beasts, in those things they corrupt them- 
selves. 

11 Woe unto them! for they have gone ™ in the 
way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam 
for reward, and perished Κα in the gainsaying of Core. 

12 These are © spots in your ” feasts of charity, 
when they feast with you, feeding themselves without 
fear (of intemperance, or eating things offered to idols): 
clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; 
19 trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, 
plucked up by the roots ; 

13 ® Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their 


JUDE. 


own shame; 3: wandering stars, to whom is reserved 
the blackness of darkness for ever. 

14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, “ pro- 
phesied of (Gr. to) these, saying, Behold, the Lord 
cometh 53 with ten thousands of his saints, 

15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince 
all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly 
deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all 
their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken 
against him. 

16 These are * murmurers, complainers, walking 
after their own lusts ; and their mouth speaketh 5 great 
swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration 
38 because of advantage. 


of devils, about the body of Moses, we learn from the tradi- 
tions of the Jews ;* and it is most probable it was not only 
that his sepulchre might be unknown, lest the Jews, who 
were prone to idolatry, should worship him; but about the 
ascent of it inte heaven, he being taken away as Enoch and 
Elias were, and not dying the common death of all men 
(which Satan contended he ought to do,f διὰ τὸν τοῦ 
Αἰγυπτίου φόνου, “for killing the Egyptian”), but disappear- 
ing only. Hence the Jews say, Ascendit ad ministrandum 
Excelso, that “he ascended to minister to the Lord.”’ And 
Philo saith,+ “ God brought him πλησίον ἑαυτοῦ, near to him- 
self, saying to him, Stand with me,” and that “ by the Word 
of God, peravicrara:, he was translated,’ whence he was 
present with Elias at the transfiguration of our Lord. But 
see the note on Matt. xvii. 3. 

18 Ver. 10. The things they know not.] See note on 2 Pet. 
ii. 12. 

M4 Ver. 11. ᾽ν τῇ dda τοῦ Κάϊν, In the way of Cain.) Se- 
ducing their brethren, as he did, to their destruction, ἢ καὶ 
σπερμοφαγοῦντες τὸν δυνάμει ἀδελφὸν ἀπυκτίννυσιν, dv i) τοῦ 
σπέρματος τελεσφορία ἤνεγκεν ἂν εἰς βίον. C&cumenius. 

After the error of Balaam.] See the note on 2 Pet. ii. 15. 

15 Ty dvri\oyia τοὺ Kopi, And perished in the gainsaying 
of Core.) i.e. Saith Grotius, shall certainly perish in it: 
for as he, so they, being unworthy, usurp ὀιδασκαλικὸν, the 
dignity of teachers: being, saith Peter, ψευδοδιδάσκαλοι, 
“false teachers” (2 Pet. ii. 1), pretending to be inspired 
prophets, when indeed they are ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι, “ dreamers” of 
vain dreams: and to be apostles, when they are only false 
apostles, 

16 Ver. 12, Σπιλάδες, Spots.] Σπίλας πέτρα τις, “The word 
signifies a rock,” saith Phavorinus. They are hollow stones 
or rocks in the sea, against which ships split, say the Lexi- 
CONS ; σπιλάδες τοῖς πλέουσιν GAESptot ἀπροσδοκήτως ἐπιγενόμεναι, 
“rocks which are pernicious to navigators, who fall upon 
them unawares ;” to which these persons are compared, 
because ἀνέλπιστον κακὸν, “ they bring an unexpected mischief” 
upon them that feast with them. 

Ey ταῖς ἀγάπαις, In their feasts of charity.| 1 see no 
necessity of referring this to the Christians’ love-feasts, cele- 
brated after the holy sacrament. It is observed by Dr. 
Lightfoot, note on 1 Cor. x. 16, that in the evening of the 
sabbath the Jews had their κοινωνία, or “ communion,” when 
the inhabitants of the same city met together in a common 
place to eat together; and that they had near to their syna- 
gogues their ξενοδύγια, or places were strangers were enter- 
tained at the public charge, and where they had their 
dormitory ; these surely were more likely places for such 
persons to come to, and play their pranks in, than the love- 
feasts of the Christians. 

18 Νεφέλαι ἄνυδροι, Clouds without water, carried about with 
the wind.] Such clouds, saith GEcumenius, refresh no places 
with their showers, for they have no water in them, but they 
blacken and darken the places over which they hang: even 
so these men distil the waters of life upon none, but 
blacken them with their filthy practices, being moved to 
them by the impulse of Satan, as these clouds are moved by 
the winds. 

19 Sworwpwa, Trees without fruit, twice dead.) i. e. Saith 
QGicumenius, by casting their fruit and their leaves too, 


* Vide lib. de Morte Mosis, p. 161, et seq. 
7 Gicum. in locum. 
+ De Sacr. Abel et Cain, p, 102, C. 


which gave a beauty to them: and something like this, 
saith he, happens to these men, who twice die, casting off 
their fruit, διὰ τῆς σπερμοφαγίας, and putting away the beauty 
of a sober conversation; whence they are rooted up out of 
the garden of the church. 

20 Ver. 13. Kipara ἄγρια, Raging waves of the sea.) 'To 
which, saith he, they are likened for the instability of their 
life, καὶ «ἐκ τῆς εὐδιαλύτου αἰσχρύτητος" τοσοῦτος yap ὃ πρὸς ὃν 
παρεικάσϑησαν, ἀφρὸς τῶν κυμάτων. 

31 ᾿Αστέρες πλανῆται, Wandering stars.] The Jews, saith 
Grotius, were wont to call them who took upon them to be 
teachers, “stars ;’’ so the apostle calls these false teachers 
“wandering stars ;”’ because they kept not their station, but 
wandered from the truth, having no true light in them. 

2 Ver. 14. Προεφήτευσε, Prophesied.| From these words 
we learn, that Enoch was a prophet, which he showed even 
in the name he gave to his son Methuselah, by the spirit of 
prophecy, which signifies, saith Bochartus,* that when he is 
dead shall ensue an inundation of waters; whence that of 
Stephanus concerning Enoch or Hannoch, ἐδύθη. δὲ χρησμὸς 
ὅτι robrov τελευτήσαντος πάντες διαφϑαρήσονται, * There was an 
oracle given out, that when he was dead all men should be 
destroyed.” 

Προεφήτευσε τοῦτοις, He before prophesied to them.} This 
is said very appositely, the prophecy of Enoch being directed 
to them who, in like manner, had corrupted their ways by 
carnality or fornication (Gen. vi. 2), and by idolatry (iv. 26). 

38 Ἔν μυριάσιν ἁγίαις, With his ten thowsand saints.] i. 6. 
With his glorious attendance of myriads of angels; so called 
Heb. xii. 22. So was he present at mount Sinai when he 
delivered the law; whence the psalmist saith, “ The chariot 
of God is myriads of angels:’’ so the Chaldee; “ And the 
Lord is among them as in Sinai,” Ps. Ixviii. 18. So, Deut. 
xxxii. 2, The Lord cometh from Sinai with his myriads of 
holy ones:” “with myriads of holy angels,” say the Tal- 
mud of Jerusalem, and Jonathan; and Zech. xiv. 5, “The 
Lord my God shall come, and all his holy ones with him,” 
i. e. and all his guards of angels; those who attend him sit- 
ting on his throne (Dan. vii. 10), or coming to execute judg- 
ment (Matt. xvi. 27, xxv. 31, 2 Thess. i. 7). 

24 Ver. 16. Murmurers and complainers.) I find nothing 
of this nature applicable to the Nicolaitans and Gnostics in 
church history ; only the apostle having said, “ Be not idola- 
ters nor fornicators,” with respect to them, 1 Cor. x. 7, 8, 
adds, “ Neither be ye murmurers,” ver. 10. And the Pseud- 
Ignatius calls them συκοφάντας, malos calumniatores, Ep. ad 
Tral. §. 11. But the Jews, of whom the Nicolaitans were a 
part, were notorious for their complaints against that provi- 
dence, which seemed to neglect, and deal so hardly with sach 
zealots for God as they were, as you may see in Joseph. de 
Bell. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 34, p. 990, B. 

35 Ὕπέρογκα, Great swelling words.) This Dr. Hammond 
refers to Simon Magus, exalting himself above all that is 
called God; but ὑπέρογκα being only proud swelling words, 
called by Peter in the parallel place ὑπέρογκα ματαιότητος, 
“swelling words of vanity, by which they allured, through 
the lusts of the flesh, to lasciviousness, those who were clean 
escaped from them that live in error” (2 Pet. ii. 18) ; I think 
it may more probably refer to the words relating to their lusts 
mentioned in the note upon that place. 

% 'Qpedeias χάριν, Because of advantage.) See note on 
2 Pet. ii. 3. 14. 


* Phaleg. lib. ii. cap. 1. 


17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which 
were spoken before of (by) the apostles of our Lord 
Jesus Christ; 

18 How that they told you there should be mockers 
in the last time, who should walk after their own un- 
godly lusts (see note on 2 Pet. iii. 2, 3). 

19 These be they * who separate themselves, sen- 
sual, having not the Spirit. 

20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your 
most holy faith, praying in * the Holy Ghost, 

21 © Keep yourselves in the love of God, lookin 


for the merey of our Lord Jesus Christ unto etern 
life. 


JUDE. 


27 Ver. 19. Οἱ ἀποδιορίζοντες ἑαυτοὺς, Separating themselves.] 
Of the Jewish zealots we read, that they separated and with- 
drew from all who were not circumcised (Acts xi. 3, Gal. ii. 
12): but of the Nicolaitans and Gnostics we read no such 
thing, but rather that they assembled with the Christians or 
Jews in their feasts of love (ver. 12, 2 Pet. ii. 13). ᾿Αποδιορίζεσϑαι 
therefore, as it respects them, may rather signify that they 
distinguished themselves from others as more perfect, and as 
φύσει πνευματικοὶ, “ by nature spiritual,”* styling all other Chris- 
tians ψυχικοὶ, “animal men ;” which perhaps made the apostle 
return this character upon them, as being truly sensual per- 
sons. 

38 Ver. 20. Ἔν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, In the Holy Ghost.| The 
Holy Ghost, in the New Testament, always signifies some 
afflatus, or χάρισμα, of the Spirit; and seeing the person of 
the Holy Ghost cannot here well be understood, it seems to 
follow, that the apostle here speaketh of that gift of prayer, 
which by the Holy Ghost was conferred upon them in their 
public assemblies and Christian exercises, where they prayed 
by the Spirit (1 Cor. xiv. 15), and spake to one another 
“in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs,” being filled 
with the Spirit (Eph. v. 18, 19, Col. iii. 16): and so this 


- Seipsos πνευματικοὺς ἀνθρώπους, of τὴν τελείαν γνῶσιν ἔχοντες 
περὶ Θεοῦ, καὶ τῆς ἀχαμώθ. ψυχικοὺς ὑπὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ὑμᾶς λέγουσι. 
Tren. lib. i. p. 26, Ὁ. 'Ἑαυτοὺς δὲ ὑπερυψοῦσι τελείους ἀποκαλοῦντες, 
καὶ σπέρματα ἐκλογῆς. - P. 28, Β. 


1009 


22 And of some have compassion ™ making a dif- 
ference (belwixt the beguilers through subtlety, and the 
beguiled through simplicity) « 

23 And others save with fear, pulling ‘hem out of the 
fire; 8! hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. 

24 Now unto him that is able (and willing lo do his 
part, see note on Rom. xiv. 4,) to keep you from fall- 
ing, and to present you faultless before the presence 
of his glory with exceeding joy, 

25 To the only wise God (who alone is infinite in 
wisdom, and hath wisdom from himself, and who is) our 
Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power 
(ascribed), both now and ever. Amen. 


passage is interpreted by CEcumenius* and Dr. Hammond. 

39 Ver. 21. ‘Eavrovs τηρήσατε, Keep yourselves, &c.] Hence 
it is evident, that we are not so kept by the power of God, 
but that something must be done on our parts, to preserve 
ourselves in the divine favour. And also, that men once in 
this state may neglect to keep themselves in the love of God. 

30 Ver. 22. Διακρινόμενοι, Making, or putting, a differ- 
ence.] Discerning which of them are to be treated with this 
mercy, which of them with sharp reproof. hat this is 
the true sense of the word διακρινόμενοι, see note on Rom. 
xiv. 23. Cicumenius, and some manuscripts, read not 
ἐλεεῖτε, “Of some have compassion,” but ἐλέγχετε, “Some 
reprove, putting a difference betwixt them who are to be 
rejected, and them who only are to be reproved. 

31 Ver. 23. ᾿Εσπιλωμένον χιτῶνα, Hating even the garment.] 
To hate and fly the garments spotted with the flesh, is only 
to hate every thing that doth defile, though in the least de- 
gree, for so the leprous and unclean garment did. This text 
can therefore yield no argument against the use of our cere- 
monies, till it be proved there is some defilement or impurity 
in the use of them. 


* .* For Dr. Whitby’s Treatise on the true Millennium, 
&c., see the end of Lowman’s Paraphrase on the Revelation 
of St. John. 


* Touréort, κατὰ τὴν rod ἁγίου Πνεύματος διδασκαλίαν, τὰς ἑαυτῶν 
ἁθροίσεις ἐν ταῖς προσευχαῖς ὑμῶν ποιοὔμενοι. 


END OF DR. WHITBY’S COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPELS AND EPISTLES 


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PARAPHRASE 


ON THE 


REVELATION 


OFS T.. JOHN; 


WITH ANNOTATIONS. 


BY MOSES 


«Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words 
therein: for the time is 


TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 


SIR JOSEPH JEKYLL, 


MASTER OF THE ROLLS. 


I Bec leave to present to your Honour an attempt 
to give some light to the book of the Revelation, in 
order to make it more generally useful than we can 
hope it will be, while neglected, as too dark and diffi- 
cult to be understood. 

An honest endeavour of doing service to the public, 
will, I am persuaded, always meet with your counte- 
nance, who have the public good so much at heart. 
I shall esteem it a great happiness, if the execution of 
this design shall appear any way worthy your Honour’s 
approbation and patronage. 

Whatever difficulty there may be, in some particu- 
lar representation or expression in these prophecies, 
the chief intention of them seems sufficiently plain, 
as it is without question of great use. 

Warnings and cautions against prevailing corrup- 
tions; exhortations and encouragements to faithful- 
ness and constancy in the cause of truth and right- 
eousness, of virtue and piety, which abound in these 
prophecies, are lessons of great importance in them- 
selves, and, experience shows, are proper for every 
age. 

These prophecies describe a melancholy state of 
long and prevailing corruption; but it is the business 
of prophecy to foretell things as they shall really be, 
how afflictive soever: and when future times show an 
exact conformity between the prophetic description 
and the real state of the world and Christianity, for a 
series of many hundred years, and in a great variety 
of circumstances, beyond all reach of guess, it will 
greatly confirm the evidence of the Christian religion, 
and in particular the inspiration of this author, one 
of its principal witnesses. 

An accomplishment of prophecies to our own times, 
assures the accomplishment of what remains. Every 
new accomplishment gives 2 new attestation to the cre- 


LOWMAN. 


of this prophecy, and keep those things that are written 
at hand.”—Rey. τ. 3. 


dit and authority of Christianity, a new support to the 
faithfulness and constancy of good men, and a strong 
consolation, that though along and gloomy state of 
corruption is foretold, yet the same spirit of prophecy 
has assured us, that the cause of truth and righteous- 
ness shall be maintained during the most powerful 
prevalency of error and corruption, and that it shall 
finally and surely triumph over them in the end. 

The all-wise providence of God is used to fulfil 
these promises, by raising up persons at several times, 
though few in number, who shall espouse the cause 
of truth and virtue, and exert themselves in the pro- 
tection of it. 

When persons in eminent stations, of distinguished 
abilities and influence, shall act steadily from a disin- 
terested and wise concern for the good of the public, 
from principles of sincere piety, from unbiassed affec- 
tions for truth and virtue, and with unshaken con- 
staney in defence of impartial civil and religious 
liberty, we are directed by these prophecies to consi- 
der them as raised by God, the guardians of truth 
and virtue, and set up by his providence to prevent 
the total suppression of them, through the prevalency 
of error and iniquity. 

Such persons will be the delight of the wise and 
the good, as they are the happiness of mankind. Vir- 
tues so amiable will force applause, how much soever 
a greatness of mind, satisfied with virtue as its own 
reward, may choose to decline it. 

But I consider my duty to your Honour, and will 
not gratify my own desires, however pleasing to my- 
self, in what may be disagreeable to you; especially 
as Iam sure great and public virtues can never be 
unknown, though never pointed out to observation. 

I shall, therefore, only beg leave to express the 
great pleasure I have in this opportunity of giving a 
public testimony of that high esteem and respect with 
which I am, 

Your Honour’s 


Most faithful, and most humble servant, 


MOSES LOWMAN. 
(1011) 


1012 
PREFACE. 


Te book of the Revelation, notwithstanding the pains 
and application of many persons of great ability and learn- 
ing to explain it, seems yet, to the generality of Christians, 
very dark and obscure: many look upon it as a sealed book 
still, never to be explained to any certainty or satisfaction. 
No wonder, then, they account it Jost labour to read or study 
what they can never hope to understand. 

A great critic (Scaliger) was pleased to say, Calvin was 
wise, because he did not write upon the Revelation. And 
another, who has written with great reputation on the other 
books of the New Testament (Dr. Whitby*), confesses he 
did not do it, for want of wisdom ; that is, as he says, because 
«T neither have sufficient reading nor judgmentto discern the 
intendment of the prophecies contained in that book.” 

However, the book of the Revelation is, for very good 
reasons, received as one of the sacred books of the New Tes- 
tament; the reasons for which are to be seen in many au- 
thors, and are represented, with great evidence and strength, 
by Sir Isaac Newton,t who observes, he does not find any 
book of the New Testament so strongly attested, or com- 
mented upon so early, as this. 

Mr. Lardner has collected, with great care and faithful- 
ness, the testimonies of the most early Christian writers to 
the books of the New Testsment, in a late excellent treatise 
of the Credibility of the Gospel History. I shall just men-» 
tion the testimony of the most eminent, to the authority of 
this book as a part of the holy scripture. 

Tertullian wrote about the year of Christ 200, and so 
somewhat above a hundred years after the time in which 
John writ the revelation. He observes,+ “John, in his 
Apocalypse, is commanded to correct those who eat things 
sacrificed to idols, and commit fornication.” And again, 
«“ We have churches, disciples of John ; for though Marcion 
rejects his Revelation, the succession of bishops, traced to 
the original, will assure us that John is the author of it.” 
It is no wonder that Marcion should reject the Revelation, 
who rejected all the Old Testament, and of the New received 
only the Gospel of St. Luke, and ten epistles of Paul, which 
also he had corrupted and altered. 

Somewhat before this, Clement of Alexandria,§ quotes 
these revelations as John’s: “As John says in the Revela- 
tion.” And he refers to them as the words of an apostle, or 
having the authority of apostolical writings. 

Yet earlier, Theophilus of Antioch, in a book of his 
against the heresy of Hermogenes, makes use of testimonies 
from John’s Apocalypse. 

We have another witness of great character still nearer 
the times of John: Ireneus writ above A. D. 178, within 
seventy or eighty years of him. He expressly ascribes the 
Revelation to John, the disciple of the Lord. His testi- 
mony to this book, as Mr. Lardner observes,§ “is so strong 
and full, that considering the age of Irenzus, it seems to put 
it beyond all question, that it is the work of St. John the 
apostle and evangelist.” 

Still nearer the times of John, Mileto, bishop of Sardis,** 
one of the seven churches, writ a book on the Revelation of 
John. Some think it was an entire commentary ; however 
that be, it will show he esteemed it a book of canonical 
authority. 

Justin Martyr, a person of eminent name, about the year 
of Christ 140, and so about fifty or sixty years after the 
writing this book, expressly calls it a prophecy, and ascribes 
it to John the apostle ;++ “A man from among us,” says he, 
“by name John, one of the apostles of Christ, in the revela- 
tion made to him, has prophesied.” In fine, 

The church, nearest the times of writing this book, re- 
ceived it with so full a consent, that in very few years, as 
Dr. Mills++ observes, it was acknowledged and placed in the 


* Preface to his Treatise on the Millennium. 

+ Observations on the Apocalypse, p. 246. 

+ Lardner’s Credibility of Gospel History, vol. ii. p. 621. 
§ Ib. p. 514, 

|| Ib. vol. i. p. 424. 
** Tb. p. 329, 

Tr fb. 281. 


4 Ib. p. 382. 
++ Prolegom. No. 163. 


PREFACE TO 


number of apostolical writings, not only by the churches of 
Asia, but by the neighbour churches of Syria and Samaria, 


‘| by the more distant churches of Africa and Egypt, by Rome 


and the other churches of Europe. Such reasons there are to 
receive this as one of the books of the holy scriptures of the 
New Testament, that hardly any one book has more early, 
full, or authentic attestation given to it. 

Now all who thus receive it must acknowledge that it 
proceeds from a Spirit of prophecy ; and that Spirit itself de- 
clares, i. 3, “ Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear 
the words of this prophecy, and keep those things that are 
written therein.” 

If we suppose this of the book of Revelation, as we must, 
if we own it to be a book of holy scripture, we must acknow- 
ledge also, that how dark soever the words of this prophecy 
may be, they are yet sufficiently intelligible to be greatly 
useful. 

Obscurity of prophecy from the nature and design of pro- 
phecy.J]—Y et, considering the nature and design of prophecy, 
the style and manner of expression used in it, we are not 
to expect prophecies should be as easily understood, as doc- 
trines or precepts delivered in easy expression, plain argu- 
ment, and the common familiar forms of speech. The na- 
ture and intention of prophecy was not to gratify our curi- 
osity, to know future events, or, as it were, to tell the 
fortunes of the church and world, but to answer wise and 
good ends, to confirm our patience and constancy, to encou- 
rage our hope and trust in God, in assurance of his protec- 
tion of the cause of truth and righteousness, that is, of 
true religion, The design of prophecy is to answer these 
good ends, when we might be tempted to forsake true 
religion, by the power of prevailing error and reigning cor- 
ruption ; or when we might be greatly dejected, and despair 
of success, where opposition to true religion is so powerful 
and violent, as hardly to leave a reasonable prospect of bear- 
ing up against it. In such astate of things, which often has 
happened, it has been the use of prophecy, to keep up the 
hearts of good men with lively and affecting representations 
of the majesty, the power, and goodness of God, of God’s 
care to protect the cause of true religion, of the sure power 
of his providence to order all things in the world, and future 
course of things ; the providence of God being absolute over 
the greatest empires and most powerful kings, to raise them 
up or to cast them down, to direct them to fulfil his will, 
and appoint them to accomplish whatever he designs, for 
the safety of his people. And, finally, the design of pro- 
phecy is to represent these things in such a manner as shall 
fix our attention, and confirm our faith in the truth of God’s 
promises, and his faithfulness surely to accomplish his word 
in all things. 

When such events of future time are foretold as shall in 
their accomplishment confirm these sentiments of God, his 
goodness, power, and faithfulness, and in such strong and 
lively representations as shall engage the attention, and make 
deep impressions on the mind, they answer a very wise and 
useful design; and in a good sense, they are then of greater 
use than plainer precepts of constancy and perseverance, or 
plain promises of encouragement and reward, in more easy 
words and expressions. 

There is then a manifest advantage to the intention of 
prophecy, in the manner and style of foretelling things to 
come; from whence, however, it must come to pass, that 
prophetic writings will be somewhat more difficult to be un- 
derstood than others; and yet they are sufficiently plain to 
raise those sentiments of God, and his providence, and ex- 


| cite that faithfulness and constancy in true religion, they 


were designed for. : 

The prophecies of the Revelation of the same use with 
the prophecies of the Old Testament.|—Such was one great 
use of the prophecies of the Old Testament. They often 
spoke of the times of the Messiah’s first appearance in the 
world, in a manner very suitable to encourage the faith and 
constancy of good men, in the several states of the Jewish 
church and nation. 

They taught the church, that God would maintain his 
true religion, and protect his true worshippers, till the pro- 
mised Messiah should come: but these prophecies were 
delivered in a manner not so easy to be understood, as the 
precepts, exhortations, and reproofs, in the writings of the 


% 


‘ 


REVELATION. 


same prophets. However, they were still plain enough to | 


encourage the faith and patience of the church at those 
times, and particular enough to determine the person of the 
Messiah when he should appear, and to distinguish him suf- 
ficiently from every other person of the world, that should 
make pretensions to his character as the Christ. ‘The ends 
of ancient prophecy, as a very eminent and learned inter- 
preter of several prophets has observed,* were these: “ God 
still seeking their good, he sends his prophets to reprove 
them, and exhort them to repentance; and, for comfort of 


the godly among them, to give them the assurance of the | 


coming of the promised Messiah in his due time, to set all 
things right for their good.” 

In the first ages of Christianity, as well as in aftertimes, 
good men were apt to be greatly discouraged with an afflic- 
tive state of the church, and powerful opposition to religion ; 
they hardly knew how to reconcile such a state of provi- 
dence with what they hoped for in the kingdom of the Mes- 
siah, so kind and powerful a protector of his church. 

It is easy to see how much such thoughts might disturb 
their minds; they had a promise of Christ’s second coming, as 
the Jewish church had of his first appearance, but they were 
liable to many afflictive providences, as the former church 
was till the time of his appearance. It was wise and pro- 
per, by a prophecy in the Christian church, to support the 
minds of good men under these afflictions, with assurance 
of Christ's second coming, in its due time, and of the watch- 
ful providence of God over the cause of true religion in the 
mean time. Thus the prophecies of this book are to us 
in the Christian church, of the like use, that the prophecies 
of Christ's first appearance were to the ancient church. 

Obscurity of those prophecies from interpreters.) —T hough 
some obscurity arises from the nature and style of pro- 
phetical writings, yet, to speak freely, I conceive the ob- 
scurity of this book is not so much owing to any thing in the 
book itself, as to the methods taken by several to explain 
it, and that nothing has really so much darkened it as the 
common attempts made to interpret it. 

Some have been so over-curious to find some mystery in 
every word and every thing, that the plain and direct mean- 
ing of the Spirit of prophecy has been overlooked or removed 
out of sight; the pure imagination of interpreters, often 
very pretty and ingenious, but very foreign to the purpose 
of the prophecy, has frequently lost or set aside the true 
meaning of it. 

Others, having formed a scheme of prophecy to themselves, 
and fixed in their own opinions the events that were to ac- 
complish the several parts of it, contrive how to force all 
things to their scheme; which not perfectly agreeing with 
the design and order of the book itself, the interpretation 
must necessarily be attended with such intricacy in the order 
of the prophecy and such different and opposite application 
of the several parts of it, as must make it very dark, if not 
altogether unintelligible. And yet, where men of great 
name lead the way, they seldom fail of having many fol- 
lowers ; and the more men are engaged in supporting an 
imagination, or arbitrary scheme, without foundation from 
the prophecy itself, the more they lose sight of the real 
meaning and true intention of it. 

It is a very judicious observation of Mr. Calvin, concern- 
ing the interpretation of prophecy, “ Although the vision be 
obscure, the design of it is not uncertain; and, if we will 
be content with moderate understanding, there is nothing so 
intricate, but we may understand the sum of the prophecy ; 
but the curiosity of interpreters has done mischief, who, 
while they criticise upon every syllable, childishly trifle in 
many things. Nothing therefore is righter, than to attend 
carefully to the design of the prophet, to regard the circum- 
stances of the time, and to follow an analogy between the 
signs and the things signified by them.”} If to this we add 
such events in history, as sufficiently answer the predictions 
of prophecy, we have as much certainty as I think was de- 
signed by the prophecy ; I am sure, as much as is sufficient 
to edification. 

It is on this plan I propose to consider the prophecies of 
this book, to be content with a moderate understanding of 


* Pocock on Malachi i. 1. 
ἡ Calvin. Annot. on Zechariah i. 7, 8. 


1013 


the design of the prophecy and of the things revealed in it ; 
to take my scheme of the prophecy entirely from the book 
itself; to explain the meaning of the prophetic expressions, 
by a plain account of their use in the preceding prophets, from 
whom most of them are taken, and to verify the predic- 
tions by such known events in history as may fairly and 
without force be applied to them. 

This prophecy is a proper prediction of things future.|— 


| The author of this book himself declares, that it is a proper 


prophecy, or prediction of things future and to come, as well 
as a description of the present state and condition of the 
churches, i. 19, “ Write the things which thou hast seen, and 
the things which are, and the things which shall be here- 
after :” and iv. 1, John “heard a voice, which said, Come 
up hither, and I will show thee the things that must be 
hereafter.” 

Some of these predictions related to things not far off the 
time of the vision and prophecy, and which were soon to be 
accomplished : ‘The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God 
gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must 
shortly come to pass,” i. 1; and “ Blessed is he that read- 
eth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and 
keep those things which are written therein: for the time is 
at hand,” i. 3. 

What period of future time this prophecy regards.|—Y et 
as this revelation is designed also to show things that “ must 
be hereafter,” it will be of great help to the interpretation 
of it, to understand what period of time this prophecy re- 
gards. The book itself seems plainly to design a much 
longer period than many learned men have assigned it. 
Some have supposed such expressions as these, “ Which 
must shortly come to pass,” and “'The time is at hand,” 
and the like, point out a very short period; so that the 
whole prophecy should be accomplished in a few years after 
the vision. ‘hese expressions will indeed show the ac- 
complishment of the things foretold in this prophecy was 
soon to begin; but, I think, they can determine nothing at 
all concerning the time when it was to end, especially against 
full evidence in the same book of prophecy, that the period 
is much longer, and reaches from the time of the vision to 
the day of judgment. 

To omit more general reasons which yet have their de- 
gree of probability : in particular, the perpetual use of pro- 
phecy to the church in all ages, the wisdom and goodness 
of providing such support to the faith and constancy of the 
church, in every state of affliction, which seems to be the 
design, and therefore the true key, of the whole Revelation, 
makes it probable, that the spirit of prophecy did not de- 
sign this support for the church in a few of the first ages of 
Christianity only, but that it designed the same consolation 
and support for every after age; that the faithfulness and 
power of God would, in all times, verify these truths; that 
though the church and true religion should be opposed, af- 
flicted, and oppressed, yet it should be preserved and pro- 
tected, and prove in the end victorious. It is well observed 
of the scriptures in general, agreeable to the notions and ex- 
pectations naturally founded on the divine perfections, “« God 
did from the beginning make, and has all along continued 
to his church, or true worshippers, a promise, that truth and 
virtue shall finally prevail, shall prevail over the spirit of 
error and wickedness, of delusion and disobedience.”* How 
natural it is then to suppose, when a revelation is given to 
encourage the constancy of good men, in times of affliction, 
that it should reveal this protection of Providence, and as- 
sure a wise care of the cause of truth and religion in every 
age, that it should not be confined to a small proportion of 
that time, in which the church would have the same trials, 
and stand in need of the same encouragements. 

But there are two evidences in the prophecy itself which, 
as I apprehend, are so full to the point, that they are suffi- 
cient to determine it. 

First, The duration of the period of this prophecy is, in 
some places, marked out as well by numbers of years, as by 
prophetic descriptions. The time of the beast, for instance, 
is thus described: « And power was given unto him to con- 
tinue forty-two months,” xiii. 5. It is observed of the 
woman persecuted by the dragon, “ And to the woman were 


* Dr. Clarke, Connexion of Prophecy, p. 8. 
ἀκ 


1014 


given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the 
wilderness, unto her place, where she is nourished for a time, 
times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent,” xii. 14. 
The time in which the witnesses were to prophesy, clothed 
in sackcloth, is in like manner described: “ And I will give 
power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a 
thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sack- 
cloth,” xi. 3. 

This various computation of the same time, and so agree- 
able to the manner of expressing time in prophecy, suffi- 
ciently, I think, determines the duration of this period to 
one thousand two hundred and sixty years, which is itself a 
much longer continuance than these interpreters will allow 
to the accomplishment of the whole prophecy, who confine 
it to the most early times of the church, because it is said, 
«The time is at hand.” And it is farther to be observed, 
that this period, to which the prophecy assigns a duration 
of‘one thousand two hundred and sixty years, is not to com- 
mence from the time of the vision, but after a long series of 
prophecy had been previously fulfilled ; for the order of the 
prophecies of this book are thus represented: first, six seals 
are opened, to each of which a proper prophecy belongs, 
ch. vi.; upon opening the seventh seal, seven angels have 
seven trumpets given to them; six of these angels sound 
their trumpets, to each of which also belongs a distinct pro- 
phecy, viii. ix.; so that this period of one thousand two 
hundred and sixty years is the third period of prophecy ; 
and after two former periods have had their accomplishment, 
this must considerably lengthen the time to which the whole 
book of Revelation refers. 

I am sensible, that prophetic numbers do not always 
express a determinate duration or space of time, any more 
than they always express a certain number. Prophecy, I 
acknowledge, uses numbers sometimes, as other expressions, 
in a figurative meaning, as symbols and hieroglyphics. Thus 
the number seven sometimes does not denote the precise 
number of seven, but figuratively denotes perfection, or a 
full and complete number; and the number fen sometimes 
does not mean precisely ten in number, but many in general, 
or a considerable number, and frequency of action, or doing 
the same thing several times; as the use of those expres- 
sions in scripture plainly shows, and of which I have given 
some instances in the notes. 

Yet, the variety of computing the same duration, by days 
months, and times, and this in manifest allusion to the pro- 
phecies of Daniel, who thus reckons the time of the Mes- 
siah’s first appearance, and means a determinate number of 
years, will hardly admit of any other meaning as the inten- 
tion of the prophecy in that place, which I hope the reader 
will find fully proved in the annotations. 

Secondly, This observation will be farther greatly con- 
firmed, by considering how expressly the prophecy itself 
declares, that it reaches to the last times, and in which the 
mystery of God, or several dispensations of prophecy to- 
wards the church, should be fully accomplished. An “angel 
lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth 
for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that 
therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, 
and the sea, and the things that are therein, that there should 
be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the 
seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of 
God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants 
the prophets,” x. 5—7; or rather, as it should have been 
translated to the true sense of the original, “In the day 
of the voice of the seventh angel, when it shall sound, 
ὅταν μέλλη σαλπίζειν, and the mystery of God shall be 
finished,” καὶ τελεσϑῇ τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ Θεοῦ. That is, “In 
the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when it shall 
sound, and the mystery of God shall be finished ;” or “In 
the times and period assigned for the sounding of the seventh 
angel, time shall be no more, and the mystery of God shall 
be finished.” As if the angel had said, Though the time is 
not yet come, when the church’s trial by afflictions shall 
cease, yet the time of fulfilling that prophecy shall not long 
be delayed; then the happy state of the church shall begin, 
which shall finish the mystery of God. So that this period 
of prophecy will conclude with finishing the mystery of God, 
or dispensations of providence towards the church. 

It is farther to be observed, that the prophecy itself | 


PREFACE TO 


places at the conclusion of it the general resurrection and 
judgment. “And I saw the dead,’ says John, “small and 
great, stand before God: and the books were opened, and 
another book was opened, which is the book of life; and 
the dead were judged out of those things that were written 
in the books, according to their works ; and the sea gave up 
the dead which were in it, and death and hell delivered up 
the dead which were in them; they were judged every man ac- 
cording to their works, and death and hell were cast into the 
lake of fire; this is the second death,” xx. 12, &c. A series 
of prophecies, which reaches to the resurrection and last judg- 
ment, seems plainly designed to reach to the end of all time. 

Order of the several prophecies, and several periods.|— 
The book itself seems also to show farther very plainly, the 
order of the several prophecies, according to their several 
periods, as well as the whole duration, from the time of the 
vision, to the finishing the whole mystery of God’s provi- 
dence towards the church. 

There is a general distribution of these prophecies, into 
the things “which are,” and the things “which shall be 
hereafter,” i. 19, ἄ εἰσι καὶ μέλλει γινεσϑαι pera ταῦτα. “The 
things which are’ seem to refer to the then present state of 
the seven churches; which description, with the warnings, 
encouragements, and exhortations proper to it, is contained 
in epistles delivered to each of the churches, in the second 
and third chapters. 

The fourth chapter reveals a new state of things, in a new 
vision : a voice said unto John, “ Come up hither, and I will 
show thee the things that must be hereafter,” iv. 1, ἃ δεῖ yevé- 
oSa pera ταῦτα. I will reveal unto thee, what shall come 
to pass in aftertimes, and in successive order, after the things 
revealed in the foregoing part of the prophecy shall be ful- 
filled. 

These prophecies are again distributed into several periods 
plainly distinguished from each other, and manifestly suc- 
cessive to each other. 

One of these periods is distinguished by the opening of 
a book, sealed with seven seals; and at the opening of each 
seal, representing in a figure some event proper to each seal ; 
and ends with sealing of the servants of God to the number 
of one hundred and forty-four thousand, ch. vi. vil. 

Another period begins upon the opening of the seventh 
seal. This period is distinguished by giving seven trumpets 
to the seven angels that stand before God, viii. 1,2. Six of 
these trumpets are sounded in their order, as the seals were 
opened in the foregoing period, and each of them hath 
particular events proper to each, ch. viii. ix. This period 
ends with a new vision; an angel gives St. John a little 
book: he is ordered to measure the temple, and the seventh 
angel sounds, ch. x. 

There is a third period, called, “the days of the voice of 
the seventh angel, when he shall sound.” This period is re- 
presented as a time wherein the mystery of God shall be 
finished, at the end of which there shall be a new and very 
different state of things. It is to be a time in which the 
church shall long struggle with great afflictions and persecu- 
tions; yet, at the end of it, the dragon, the old serpent, 
which is the devil and Satan, shall be bound for a thousand 
years, that he may deceive the nations no more, till the thou- 
sand years shall be fulfilled, though after that he will be 
loosed again for a little season. 

This period seems to be described by several representa- 
tions; by measuring the temple, and giving part of it to be 
trodden under foot by the gentiles, by two witnesses pro- 
phesying in sackcloth, by a woman escaping into a wilder- 
ness, and by the rising of a monstrous wild beast. The 
events proper to the period, are represented by seven vials 
full of God’s wrath poured out on the earth. 

The duration of this period is exactly the same in the se- 
veral representations; the gentiles are to tread the holy city 
under foot forty and two months, xi. 2. The witnesses are 
to prophesy in sackcloth a thousand two hundred and three- 
score days, ver. 3. The woman which fled into the wilder- 
ness hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed 
her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days, xii. 
6. And power was given unto the beast to continue forty 
and two months, xiii. 5. 

These periods of prophecy successive to each other.|— 
As the book itself thus distinguishes these prophecies from 


74 


REVELATION. 


each other, so it seems plainly to show they are successive 
to each other. They seem ranked into such order, as to 
make this observation obvious and necessary, that they are 
not intended to describe contemporary events, but such 
events as should follow one another in order, as the periods 
themselves are represented to succeed each other. So that 
there is no ground, I conceive, to consider the prophecies 
which belong to these periods as synchronisms; on the con- 
trary, each of these prophecies seems fixed to that particular 
period of time to which it belongs; which periods are mani- 
festly represented, not as contemporary, but as an order and 
series of successive times and events. 

The order of succession in these three periods is very 
particular, as their distinction from each other is very mani- 
fest. 

As the first period is distinguished by seven seals, the 
second period by seven trumpets, and the third by seven vials, 
so the seven angels received the seven golden vials, after 
six of the trumpets had been sounded. The six trumpets 
were sounded, viii. 9, the seventh angel began to sound, ix. 
15, but the angels received not the seven golden vials, till in 
the days of the voice of the seventh trumpet, when the 
power and authority of the beast were established, and men 
had received the mark of the beast, and worshipped his 
image; for the plague of the first vial fell upon them, xvi. 
2. So that this period of the vials commenced after the 
period of the trumpets was over, and the events prophesied 
in it were fulfilled. 

The period of the trumpets, in like manner, plainly fol- 
lows the period of the seals. It is expressly said, when he 
had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for 
half an hour: “And I saw the seven angels which stood 
before God, and to them were given seven trumpets,” viii. 
rat 

This natural order will, I conceive, free us from that in- 
tricacy and difficulty which a supposition of synchronisms, 
and contemporary events in the different periods, have occa- 
sioned in the interpretation of this book: and it may greatly 
help us, in applying historical events to the several prophe- 
cies, to look only at such as fall within the time to which 
the period belongs. : 

The book itself will, moreover, I conceive, sufficiently de- 
termine the proper time to which each period belongs, and 
show to what period of history the period of prophecy refers. 
Tf the duration of each period can, in general, be very nearly 
determined, so that the beginning and ending of it can be 
reasonably fixed to any near time, the order and succession 
of the periods will point out the contemporary times of his- 
tory; and if the events of history shall sufficiently answer 
the descriptions of prophecy, it will make our application 
of them more satisfactory, and give greater weight to such 
interpretation. 

The proper time of each period sufficiently determined.) 
—The book itself seems plainly to make the general key of 
the whole revelation, the particular key of each period; so 
that one and the same wise and useful design is the general 
design of the whole, and the particular design of every part 
of it. So far is this book from being loose, uncertain, and 
immethodical, that it keeps always one and the same useful 
design in view, and carries it through every particular in the 
most exact order. 

The general design of this prophecy is to support the 
minds of faithful Christians, under all afflictions on account 
of religion, to teach them, that however true religion should 
be opposed, however they might suffer for the Christian faith 
and worship, they might assure themselves of God’s care 
aml protection. ‘Though God did not design to place his 
vliirch in such a state of outward power and prosperity, as 
to be free from afflictions and persecution (which therefore 
they were not vainly to promise themselves, and weakly to 
expect), yet they might promise themselves, and expect, 
that God would preserve the true religion, by the care of his 
providence, from being borne down by any power of opposi- 
tion; that he would often severely punish the enemies of 
true religion, and make known his judgments upon them, as 
heretofore on Egypt and Babylon; that he would give often 
to the faithful and constant, deliverance out of their dangers, 
success and victory over their enemies ; that he wonld often 
raise up eminent and powerful persons, who shall defend 


1015 


and encourage the Christian faith and worship, and that in 
the end truth and righteousness shall prevail over all opposi- 
tion from error and unrighteousness, and the patience and 
constancy of the faithful shall be finally crowned with a 
state of complete peace, perfection, and happiness. 

These were great encouragements, and consolations of 
very great use to the church at all times. It was not fit to 
dissemble the true state of providence with respect to the 
church ; for the state of the Christian church, whatever some 
might promise themselves, would often be afflictive; yet it 
was very fit to remind good men, in strong representations, 
for their encouragement and support, that God would main- 
tain the cause of truth against all opposition, often give evi- 
dent marks of a divine protection, for the safety of the 
church, and in the punishment of its enemies. 

“The church persecuted, afterward victorious, and in a 
peaceful state, is certainly the true key of the Revelation,” 
says a very learned interpreter.* 

This general key of the whole Revelation seems also the 
proper key of each particular period; the whole prophecy, 
after many intermediate dangers in a state of opposition and 
trouble, ends in the happiness of the holy city, “the new 
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.” In like 
manner, each particular period describes a state of danger, 
opposition, and trouble, and ends in a state of peace, safety, 
and happiness. 

Thus the first period of the seals enumerates great trou- 
bles and afflictions, but ends with sealing the servants of God 
in their foreheads, which was to be a time of peace and safety 
to the church: “ And I saw another angel ascending from 
the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried 
with a loud voice, to the four angels to whom it was given to 
hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, nei- 
ther the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants 
of our God in their foreheads,” vii. 2, 3. 

The second period in order, which is the period of the 
trumpets, describes also several heavy and severe judgments 
on the sounding of the several trumpets; so that an angel, 
flying through the midst of heaven, said with a loud voice, 
«“ Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth,” viii. 13; 
and yet, upon the sounding of the seventh angel, which be- 
gins the third period, there were great voices in heaven, say- 
ing, “ The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms 
of our Lord, and of his Christ,” xi. 15. 

The day of the voice of the seventh angel, which is the 
third period, describes again a time of trouble and affliction ; 
the dragon persecutes the woman, xii. 13; the persecution 
of the beast is of long continuance, for power was given him 
to continue forty-two months, xiii. 5; seven vials full of the 
wrath of God are poured out, attended with grievous plagues, 
yet in the end Babylon is destroyed, the old dragon bound, 
and they who had not worshipped the beast live and reign 
with Christ a thousand years, xx. 3. 

Tt is an obvious remark, that each of these periods are 
represented by the same number of seven; there are seven 
seals in the first period, seven trumpets in the second, and 
seven vials in the third. Seven is a sacred number in the 
Jewish church, and in the rotation both of days and years 
is made a time of religion and rest. It is not therefore an 
unfit emblem, that the church, after a time of labour and 
trouble, shall enjoy a time wherein it may serve God in 
peace and rest. However that be, and whether the Spirit 
of prophecy designed such an allusion or no, it is plain, that 
this scheme of the. different periods, as well as of the whole 
book, mentions a time of affliction and trial, which shall end 
in 4 time of safety, liberty, and peace. 

‘This observation, I conceive, will go a great way to fix the 
general duration of these three periods, and sufficiently de- 
termine, to a near time, the beginning and ending of each. 
As each must have, in its period, some remarkable opposi- 
tion to the Christian church, a trial of its faith and patience, 
by some great dangers and afflictions; so it must end in 
some remarkable deliverance out of those troubles, and some 
favourable providence to the church for its safety, peace, 
and liberty, in the profession of the Christian faith and reli- 
gion. 

To what historical period each period of prophecy be- 


* Calmet’s Preface to the Revelation. 


1016 


longs.] At the time of these visions, John was in banishment 
for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ ; 
and the church was under persecution so long as the empire 
continued heathen. Severe persecutions were almost per- 
petually renewed: a little before the times of Constantine 
they were so severe, that they seemed to threaten the utter 
destruction of all who could not be forced to renounce the 
Christian faith, and fall in with the idolatrous worship 
established in the empire. The last persecution under Dio- 
clesian destroyed incredible numbers, so that the persecutors 
boasted, they had effaced the name and superstition of the 
Christians, and had restored and propagated the worship of 
the gods: yet the divine providence, after several great re- 
volutions, made way for the authority of Constantine the 
Great, who put an end to a long persecution of ten years, 
gave freedom to the churches, and finally, when, upon the 
death of Liciniys, he obtained the sole authority, he gave all 
protection and countenance to the Christian church, and all 
assistance to promote the Christian faith and worship; so 
that the same power which before persecuted, now protected 
the Christian faith. 

Time of the first period.] The first period of prophecy 
then seems naturally to point out this period of history, which 
in general answers it with great propriety and exactness, and 
will, I think, direct us to look for the fulfilling the several 
parts of it, in some of the events of providence, between the 
time of the vision, and about the year of Christ 323, when 
the opposition of the idolatrous power of Rome gave way to 
the protection and favour of Christian emperors. 

Time of the second period.] Τὰ was not long the church 
enjoyed this peace: the Roman empire, in a short time, 
began to lose its power, and became unable to protect the 
peace and liberty of the church; a swarm of idolatrous 
nations from the northern countries, under several names, 
broke it upon the Roman empire, and divided the western 
empire into several separate and independent governments, 
or kingdoms; so that the Christian faith and worship were 
in as much danger from the idolatry of the northern nations, 
who had divided the Roman empire among themselves, as 
they were before in danger from the idolatry of the Roman 
empire itself. It pleased God, also, to permit that impostor 
Mahomet, and his successors, to gain so much ground, and 
spread that imposture so far, and so fast, that it seemed to 
threaten the ruin of the Christian name and religion in the 
east: yet the idolatrous northern nations were soon them- 
selves brought to the Christian religion, and to use all their 
power and authority to protect and promote it. And though 
the Saracens made great inroads for some time, yet was their 
progress stopped both in the east and west. Charles 
Martel,* by a memorable battle (A. D. 734), in which some 
authors account three hundred and seventy thousand slain, 
preserved the western parts of the Roman empire from their 
future incursions, and enabled the Christians in Spain to 
maintain themselves against them, and even oppose them 
with such power, as finally drove them quite out of their 
kingdom. And the Christian religion remained in all those 
places which the northern nations had formed into kingdoms 
out of the Roman empire. 

Here is now a period of history very naturally applicable 
to this second period of prophecy; it contains a very me- 
morable time of danger, and as memorable a deliverance in 
the establishment of the peace and liberty of the Christian 
church, and seems sufficiently to point out the time of this 
period, from about the year of Christ 323 to about 750, In 
which compass of time, therefore, we seem directed to look 
for the accomplishment of the several particular predictions 
contained in this period. 

Time of the third period.] The third period seems also 
determined to a near time both of its beginning and ending, 
hy the prophecy itself. 

The duration of this period is sufficiently determined by 
the time of the beast, the time of the woman’s being in the 
wilderness, the time wherein the holy city should be trodden 
under foot ; these times are variously expressed, but plainly 
in such manner as to express the same duration. It is said 
to be for forty-two months, xi. 2, xiii. 5, for a time, times, 
and half a time, xii. 14, And these ways of numbering 


* Mariana’s History of Spain, p. 105. 


PREFACE TO 


seem explained by another: the time of the witnesses pro- 
phesying in sackcloth is mentioned to be a thousand two 
hundred and threescore days, xi.3. And again, the time of 
the woman in the wilderness, where she hath a place pre- 
pared of God for her, is expressed by the same number, that 
they should feed her a thousand two hundred and threescore 
days. 

The difficulty, then, of assigning the historical time of this 
period seems to lie chiefly in this: At what time this thou- 
sand two hundred and threescore prophetical days, or years, 
are to begin; or, which will be the same, at what period in 
history we are to begin the power of the beast, the flying of 
the woman into the wilderness, and treading the holy city 
under foot: fer these are the calamities of this period, as the 
happiness with which it closes is the destruction of the beast, 
the binding of Satan, and the peaceful state of the church 
for a thousand years, till Satan shall be loosed again for a 
little season, xx. 3. 

Our chief inquiry then will be, When was this power given 
unto the beast, which was to continue for forty-two months? 
Let us see whether tne prophecy itself doth not sufficiently 
point out this time to us. 

The emblem of a beast, according to the use of it in scrip- 
ture prophecy, denotes an empire or government, as the four 
sayies denoted by the beasts in Daniel’s vision sufficiently 
show. 

In explaining the mystery of the beast, and the woman 
which carrieth her, the angel expressly declares, “ And the 
woman which thou sawest is that great city which reigneth 
over the kings of the earth,” xvii. 18. This seems suffi- 
ciently to direct our consideration of the beast as an empire or 
government, and that of the city of Rome, or Roman do- 
minion. It seems farther confirmed by the description of 
the beast, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his 
horns ten crowns, xiii. 1. We have these expressions yet 
farther explained ; “The seven heads,” says the angel, “are 
seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And they 
are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is 
not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a 
short space,” xvii. 9,10: again, ver. 12, “ And the ten horns 
which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no 
kingdom as yet ; but receive power as kings one hour with 
the beast ;” or, shall reign at the same time and period with 
the beast: as, in the following words, “ And these have one 
mind,” means, they have the same design and intention. 

The prophecy, then, seems to represent the beast as one 
empire, though in several different forms of government in 
succession, five of which were fallen or passed at the time of 
the vision ; one is, says the angel, or was the present form 
of government at that time; and the form of Roman govern- 
ment, at the time of the vision, was to be sure the imperial, 
which is therefore to be accounted the sixth. The next, or 
seventh form of government, was not yet come; and when 
it came, it was to continue but a short space. It follows, 
“ And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, 
and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” ‘The mean- 
ing of which remarkable expression is, I conceive, to this 
purpose: After the sixth head, or form of Roman govern- 
ment, which was then in being, there shall be another form 
of government, which on some accounts may be called a 
seventh; and, in that reckoning, the beast spoken of would 
be the eighth head, or form of government: yet, on some 
other accounts, that seventh could hardly be called a proper 
form of Roman government; so that in that reckoning, the 
beast spoken of might be accounted one of the seven, and so 
next in succession, in the proper government of Rome, to the 
sixth, or imperial form of government. This form of 
government is moreover to be set up in the same time or 
period with the ten kings or kingdoms, erected in the Roman 
empire, and by their assistance, giving their power to the 
beast, ver. 13. 

From these considerations, we have a period in history suf- 
ficiently marked out for. this period. of prophecy. 

Besides the order of the periods, this being the third, and 
not therefore to begin till the two former are finished, it can- 
not begin till the northern nations, who brake in upon and 
divided the empire, had established their respective king- 
doms, and were converted to Christianity, and gave their 
protection to the profession of it nor til] the imperial 


REVELATION. 


government was passed away, as the five preceding forms of 
government had before it; nor yet till another form of 
government, which in some sense might be called a seventh, 
though not strictly and properly, was also passed, to make 
way for this form of government in Rome, which on some 
accounts might be reckoned the eighth, and yet, for other 
reasons, was to be numbered among the seven. ΤῸ this, 1 
think, we may yet add another mark of this period, in which 
the beast is described; “The beast which was, and is not, 
and yet is,” ver. 8. Or, as John saw in the vision of this 
beast, xiii. 3, “I saw,” says he, “one of his heads, as it were, 
wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed, and all 
the world wondered after the beast.” And again, speaking 
of the second beast, he observes, ver. 12, “ And he exerciseth 
all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the 
earth, and them that dwell therein, to worship the first beast, 
whose deadly wound was healed.” These descriptions seem 
plainly to represent the Roman government, or empire, of 
which this beast is the symbol, as once in a state of great 
authority and power, afterward as having very much, almost 
quite, lost that power ; yet, in the end, recovering its power, 
and reviving its authority again: as one wounded unto death, 
but whose deadly wound was healed again, even to the won- 
der and astonishment of the world. 

This seems to describe to us a time, when Rome, once the 
mistress of the world, who reigned over the kings of the earth, 
should lose her power either altogether, or so far as to pre- 
serve but a very faint resemblance of it: yet afterward, not- 
withstanding such loss of power, it should recover to a very 
great degree of power and authority again. 

Here are a great many circumstances, which must concur 
in a period of time which can answer, with any propriety, 
this description of prophecy; and where so many circum- 
stances really concur in history, it is a very great evidence, 
such period of time is intended by the prophecy; and it is 
a great confirmation of the truth and authority of the pro- 
phecy itself, that predictions of a time, to be distinguished by 
so great a variety of circumstances and important events, 
should be so exactly accomplished. 

Now, the Roman history represents the state of the Roman 
empire, after the invasion of the northern nations, most agree- 
able to the description of this prophecy. 

After the northern nations had entirely subdued the power 
of the Roman empire, they settled themselves in the several 
parts of it, and erected several sovereign and independent 
dominions in France, Spain, Britain, and Italy itself. 

The Goths possessed themselves of the best part of Italy,* 
especially about Rome, and took at last the city of Rome, 
A. Ὁ. 476. Odoacer, king of the Heruli, obliged Momyllus, 
who was also called Augustulus, to abdicate the empire. He 
possessed himself of the government of Rome and Italy, but 
without the title of emperor of Rome, or any other title 
taken from Rome, or making the city of Rome the seat of 
his empire or residence. He was styled king of Italy, and 
Ravenna became under Theodoric and his successors, after 
ac defeat of Odoacer, the seat of the Gothic kingdom of 

taly. 

But, after some time, Justinian grew powerful in the 
eastern empire, or empire of the Greeks; and, after many 
victories in other parts, sends his victorious armies into Italy, 
under the command of the great generals Belisarius and 
Narses. They broke the power of the Gothic kingdom in 
Italy, and recovered the greatest part of Italy to the obedi- 
ence of the emperors of Constantinople. ‘The Greek em- 
perors administered their government of Italy by deputies or 
lieutenants, who were styled dukes of Italy, as a very emi- 
nent historian remarks,t Exactis autem Gothis, expulsor 
ipse, victorque Narses, ἃ Justiniano imperatore summ2 
rerum prepositus, titulo ducis Italie sumpto, Italiam, per 
hos provinciarum prefectos, pro suo arbitrio, adminis- 
trabat. 

But in a short time, the Longobards, or Lombards, in- 
vaded Italy, about the year of Christ 568.4 They make a 
very swift progress, insomuch that, in the third year of their 
invasion, they proclaim Albion king of Italy ;§ and, in effect, 


* Sigonius de Occident. Imperio, p. 251, 258. 

+ Sigonius, de Regno Italie, p. 3. 

+ Ib. p. 8. § Petavius, Rat. Temp. p. 371. 
Vor. IV.—128 


1017 


made themselves masters of all Italy, except Rome and 
Ravenna. At this time, though Rome was in the obedience 
of the eastern or Greek empire, yet still Rome was not the 
seat of the government; the chief governor resided at Ra- 
venna, with the title of exarch of Ravenna; and imperial 
Rome, once the mistress of the world, was fallen into the 
low condition of a small duchy, subject to the exarchate. 
These exarchs continued, and with them this low condition 
of Rome, about one hundred and eighty-five years, from 
Longinus, who was made first exarch, A. D. 568, to Euty- 
chius, the last exarch,* when Aistulphus, king of the Lom- 
bards, took Ravenna, A. D. 752. 

This conquest of Ravenna by the Lombards had very 
great consequences ; it at first gave Aistulphus an occasion 
of claiming Rome, as a part and parcel of the exarchate, 
which he had now annexed to his kingdom of Italy: for so 
he sets forth his title and pretensions to Rome, as part of his 
dominions: Quéd cum ipse exarchatum Ravennatem teneret, 
ex antiquo instituto, se tanquam exarchum, Romanis quoque 
imperare, equum esse, interpretabatur.t 

Aistulphus, to make good his claim upon the Romans re- 
fusing tribute, enters their territory, and prepares to besiege 
their city. The pope, alarmed, you may be sure, with so 
near danger, immediately sends to Pepin of France, to pray 
his protection and assistance. The popes had lately very 
much obliged Pepin, in confirming the deposition of Chil- 
deric, the last of the first race of the French kings, to make 
way for Pepin and his family to the crown. Pepin had 
many reasons to protect the pope against the growing power 
of the Lombards in Italy: he first then endeavours by am- 
bassadors to persuade the Lombards from committing hostili- 
ties against the city of Rome, and leave the pope in quiet ; 
but persuasions not prevailing, he enters Italy with an army, 
beats Aistulphus, forces him to a treaty, in which he obliges 
him not only to renounce his claim and pretensions to Rome, 
as part of the exarchate he had conquered, but, moreover, to 
surrender the whole exarchate to the pope, and gave the 
temporal government of Rome, and the exarchate, for ever, 
to the pope and his successors, as the patrimony of St. Peter. 

But the next year, Pepin being returned into France, 
Aistulphus, who could not think of performing so disadvan- 
tageous a treaty, again enters the Roman territory, and pre- 
pares for the siege of the city : Pepin returns into Italy with 
a powerful force; Aistulphus raises the siege of Rome, is 
himself besieged by Pepin, and finally forced to confirm and 
execute his treaty, and make over the whole exarchate to 
the church of Rome, or to St. Peter and his successors, for 
ever. Thus Pepin wrested the exarchate from the hands of 
the Lombards,; refused to restore it to the eastern empire, 
but confirmed it to St. Peter and his successors: the keys of 
the several cities belonging to the exarchate, together with 
the grant or charter, being with much solemnity laid on the 
altar of St. Peter, A. D. 756. 

Thus Rome, which had lost the imperial government, A. D. 
476, and had rather the show and appearance of a new form 
of government, than a real and proper government, under 
the Greek emperors, and their exarchs of Ravenna, for about 
one hundred and eighty-five years, obtained a perfectly new 
form of government, when it became the patrimony of St. 
Peter, and which has been the only form of government in 
Rome ever since. 

The power of Rome seemed quite extinguished, and the 
Roman authority and dominion received a deadly wound, 
when the Goths put an end to the empire; imperial Rome 
was then brought so low, that no ground of rational hope 
was left, it should ever recover its power and authority 
again ; and yet, after so many years, it revived once more, 
this deadly wound was healed, and it has continued a very 
long time: one of the most extraordinary forms of govern- 
ment the world ever saw. 

This new form of government was raised and conveyed to 
the popes, as successors of St. Peter, by one of the principal 
kingdoms founded by the northern nations, on the ruins of 
the Roman empire; and this authority and dominion of the 
popes have been preserved to them all along, by the help 


* Ib. p. 374. 
+ Sigonius de Regno Italiz, p. 76. 
+Ib. p. 80. Mezeray’s Hist. of France, vol. i. p. 216 


1018 


and assistance of the several kingdoms erected in like man- 
ner. 

In this history we may also see, on seme accounts, an 
eighth form of Roman government; or, as it may on other 
accounts be called, a seventh, according as the exarchate of 
Ravenna shall be accounted or not accounted a proper 
form of Roman government. This, though it can but 
improperly be called a form of Roman government, yet 
was the only government, from the destruction of the impe- 
rial power, A. D. 476, to the establishment of the temporal 
power of Rome in the papacy, A. D. 756, that is, for very 
near the space of three hundred years. 

It is farther worthy of observation, that the bare ecclesi- 
astical supremacy of the pope, how great soever under an- 
other civil government of Rome, would never have been a 
proper government of Rome; but the power of the supre- 
macy itself would have been bounded by it, and hindered 
from establishing an ecclesiastical monarchy. It is therefore 
very justly observed by one well skilled in history and poli- 
tics,* “ Though the church was never so abounding in riches 
and in great numbers of ecclesiastics, yet it was absolutely 
necessary, that the pope, if he intended to establish an eccle- 
siastical monarchy, should not be in any way dependent on 
any temporal prince, but that he should reside in a place 
which was free from all subjection to any civil power but 
himself, that he always should be possessed of such an estate 
as might be sufficient to maintain his grandeur, and not be 
liable to be taken away from him on any pretence whatso- 
ever; where also his adherents might find a safe retreat, 
whenever they should be pursued by the civil power.” 

In this period of time, then, which begins the last form of 
Roman government. and which perfected the papal supre- 
macy and spiritual monarchy, by a considerable independent 
temporal dominion, we have a very proper and natural agree- 
ment of history, with the description of this prophecy. ‘This 
may, I think, direct us to a surer method of fixing the date 
of it, than uncertain inquiries, when the papal supremacy 
was established; for I conceive the prophecy rather points 
out the temporal power of the pope, as the last form of the 
government of Rome, which was also what principally esta- 
blished his supremacy, and perfected the project of spiritual 
monarchy, 

Period 4.)—When this period shall have continued forty- 
two months, a time, times, and half a time, a thousand two 
hundred and threescore days, according to the style of pro- 
phecy, “the beast shall be destroyed, the dragon, that old 
serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, shall be bound a thou- 
sand years,” xix. 20, xx.2. This state of the church will be 
a fourth remarkable period. 

Period 5.1--- οἱ when these thousand years shall be ex- 
pired, Satan shall again be loosed out of his prison for a 
short time: this will make a fifth period, xx. 7. 

This shall, for once more, occasion a new attempt of error 
and wickedness against truth and righteousness; but this 
attempt shall end in the final ruin of all the enemies of reli- 
gion: fire shall come down from God out of heaven, to 
devour them ; and the devil, the deceiver, shall be cast into 
the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false 
prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night, for ever 
and ever, xx. 9, 10. 

Period 6.|—Upon this the prophecy represents, as the 
conclusion of all things, the general judgment, the second 
death and punishment of the wicked. 

Period 7.\—The happiness of the righteous and faithful 
servants of God and Christ, in a state of glorious immortality, 
make a seventh period, in an endless sabbath. 

This order of the prophecies is, I think, intelligible and 
natural; and, 1 believe, more agreeable to the important 
facts in history, than other systems: and yet it is the truth 
of history which alone can show us, what has been the pro- 
vidence of God towards the church and world, from the 
time of this vision of St. John to our own days. 

It is certain, such a plan of prophecy, and order of history, 
will well answer the useful designs of prophecy in general: 
to prepare the church to expect opposition and sufferings in 

his present world ; to support good men under all their trials 
of faith and patience ; to give encouragement to perseverance 


* Puffendorff, of the Spiritual Monarchy of Rome, 5. 19. 


PREFACE TO 


in the true religion, whatever dangers may attend it; to 
assure the attention of Providence, and the protection of 
God to his own cause, that no opposition shall finally prevail 
against it; that the judgments of God shall punish the ene- 
mies of true religion; that their opposition to truth and 
righteousness shall surely end in their own destruction; 
when the faithful perseverance of true Christians shall be 
crowned with a glorious state of immortal life and happiness. 

If, by explaining this book of Revelation upon this plan, 
we shall find these intentions answered, and these truths 
verified in history, and confirmed by experience, we shall 
attain what is worth aiming at, to make this book appear 
more intelligible, certain, and useful, than it is commonly 
thought to be. For which reason, as many good persons 
have not given that attention to it they ought, they miss that 
encouragement, hope, and improvement, they might receive 
from it, and, I think, with some greater advantages than 
from a plainer manner of delivering even the same truths in 
other books of the holy scriptures: for almost every thing 
that is sublime, lively, and moving in the law and the pro- 
phets, receives new force in the strong representations, figures, 
images, and expressions, of this book. 

The great truths concerning the majesty of God, the wis- 
dom and care of his providence, the dignity, authority, and 
power of Christ, the protection of the church, the restraint 


| and punishment of their enemies, and the final happiness of 


all who shall faithfully persevere in the true Christian faith 
and worship, are here delivered in such awful manner, such 
animated expressions, and such striking representations, as 
must greatly warm the spirits of good Christians. A regard 
to this book of Revelation, as a prediction of events by a 
Spirit of prophecy, which therefore will surely come to pass, 
and which cannot fail of their accomplishment, serves very 
wisely and powerfully to guard against the fears of men, by 
a full assurance of hope in God. _ It will animate every one, 
who looks upon the promises and threatenings of this book 
as a sure prediction of what shall come to pass, to resist 
every temptation of error and wickedness, with faithfulness, 
constancy, and zeal. The lake of fire and brimstone, and 
the terrors of the second death, the portion of the fearful and 
unbelieving, the glory and happiness of the holy Jerusalem, 
and a right to the tree of life, the portion of all the faithful, 
are represented in so strong and lively images, as are fit to 
fix the attention, and make way to the heart and affections, 
and engage them with zeal to follow the wise directions of 
understanding and judgment: and an exact conformity be- 
tween these prophetic descriptions, and the real state of the 
church and world, for a long series of some hundred years, 
continually gives new evidence to the truth of the Christian 
revelation, and to the authority of the books of the New 
Testament; it greatly confirms our faith in the promises, 
and thereby gives them their full force and influence upon us. 

As this seems to be the improvement the Holy Spirit of 
prophecy designed in this book of Revelation, let us consider 
whether a religious attention to these designs will not enable 
us tomake this very useful improvement of it. There is reason 
to hope it may : for it is one prophecy of this book, “ Blessed 
is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this pro- 
phecy, and keep those things that are written therein,” i. 3. 

Objections considered.|—Yet notwithstanding these rea- 
sons, to recommend to us the study and improvement of 
these revelations, it may be proper briefly to take notice of 
some common objections which too often prejudice the minds 
of many against them. 

Uncertainty of application.]—I have already observed, 
what I hope is sufficient to answer the charge of obscurity 
from the style of prophecy; but the objection goes farther 
than to the obscurity of expressions. This book of Revela- 
tion represents, some say, a great many persons and events, 
times and things, which men know not how to apply with 
any sufficient certainty. Hence we find so much diflerence 
between interpreters, and the same prophecy applied to a 
great variety of events ; times often fixed, and often mistaken ; 
that it should seem a point of plain wisdom not to be over- 
busy in such uncertain applications. 

It will ever be a point of wisdom not to be over 
busy, or over-confident in any thing, especially in fixing 
periods of time, or determining seasons, which it may be are 
not to be determined, it may be are not fit to be known. 


REVELATION, 


It is a maxim of greater wisdom than it is usually thought, 
“Seek not to know what should not be revealed.” Such 
are many future events. The precise time of our Saviour’s 
coming to judgment was not revealed, because not fit to be 
revealed : the uncertainty of his appearance was of greater 
service to preserve a care of religion, than the revelation of it 
would have been; for the uncertainty itself gives many use- 
ful exhortations: “ Watch, for ye know not at what hour the 
Son of man cometh.’ Suppose, then, some of the events 
described in this prophecy should be of doubtful application ; 
suppose the precise time of the downfall of the beast, the 
slaying and resurrection of the witnesses, and the beginning 
of the thousand years’ happy state of the church, should not 
so be determined, but it would admit of different calculations, 
may it not be wise, and therefore fit, it should be so?’ The 
certainty of those events in a proper time, though that time 
should not be precisely determined, will answer the greater 
ends of useful instruction ; and if the revelation should go no 
farther than this, it would yet be a revelation of great benefit 
and advantage, as the certainty of the day of judgment in its 
proper time surely is, though “ of that day and hour knoweth 
no man.” 

Besides, there is another wise reason, why the persons 
and events described in this prophecy should be express 
enough for the purposes of religious improvement, for the 
patience, hope, encouragement, and constancy, of the church, 
and yet remain with some uncertainty as to a particular ap- 
plication. It was no way fit, for instance, that the several 
woes and plagues prophesied to befall the Roman state and 
empire, should stand so plain in a book of Christian revela- 
tion, that every one could apply them to particular empe- 
rors, or any present administration of government. It was 
not fit, for instance, that Trajan, Hadrian, Severus, or Dio- 
clesian, should be so described, as that all men should pre- 
sently perceive they were personally pointed out. This 
might have rendered the sacred books of the Christian reli- 
gion suspected as treasonable libels against the peace, the 
power, and the very being of the Roman empire. ‘The per- 
secutors of Christianity might have made this a plausible 
pretence to justify their greatest severities against the Chris- 
tians, as enemies to the peace and government, as well as to 
the religion, of the empire. These are therefore uncertain- 
ties not to be complained of, because they are wisely fit and 

roper. 

Yet still the great descriptions of God and Christ, of their 
care and power; the description of the old dragon, and his 
opposition to the church; the dangers and afflictions of the 
church, from idolatrous persecuting enemies; the duty of 
the church in the hour of danger and temptation: the secu- 
rity of the church by divine protection; the sure victory 
and final happiness of the church in the end, which are the 
things of chief design and principal use: these are all ex- 
press enough, and none of these are either of doubtful or un- 
certain application. And even as to the other particulars, 
“he that hath an ear to hear,” that will carefully and mo- 
destly endeavour to find out the meaning of these prophecies, 
may, I think, attain to a good and useful degree of under- 
standing, in “ what the Spirit saith unto the churches ;” and 
may find the several particular events of these prophecies of 
as certain application, as it is convenient such prophecies 
should be. 

Danger of enthusiasm.]|—There is moreover another pre- 
judice against the careful study of this book. Some think, 
or at least pretend to think, that a regard to prophecies and 
predictions, and especially to the prophecies of this book, 
may have dangerous consequences. It may, as they say 
they fear, be an encouragement to enthusiasm, and become 
an occasion of great disorders in the world, which sure it is 
wisdom carefully to watch against. 

Enthusiasm, it is true, often has, and may again produce 
very mischievous effects. The church, at the time of this 
prophecy, saw one of the most memorable and fatal in- 


1019 


stances, in the rebellion of the Jews ; and the destruction of 
their temple, city, and nation, which followed upon it. But 
though enthusiasm may abuse the best and most innocent 
principles in the world, or at pleasure make what principles 
it pleases, and move men by unhallowed means to promote 
the holy kingdom of Jesus, as we have too many instances 
of it; yet sure I am, there is no encouragement to it in any 
part of the Christian religion, or in any part of these pro- 
phecies. Here are no directions, or the least encouragement 
given to the church, or Christians, as saints, but to patience 
and perseverance, in the faith and hope of the gospel, from 
the protection of God: no encouragement of sedition or mu- 
tiny, of violence or injustice, no, not to their greatest ene- 
mies, or in their greatest dangers. ‘The true means and 
methods of their safety will be found of a quite different 
nature. The time and way of the church’s deliverance is 
every where represented, as appointed and directed only by 
the orders of God and Christ. Angels are every where re- 
presented as the appointed ministers to execute these orders ; 
angels are to sound the trumpets of God’s judgments, and to 
pour out the vials of God’s wrath ; so that the whole repre- 
sentation seems as if designed to teach Christians, they were 
to be watchful against all manner of rash and mutinous at- 
tempts of their own, and not run into rebellion upon any 
pretence of religion, as the Jews did, and met their ruin in 
it. They are directed to wait the time God has appointed 
for their deliverance; hoping that God will, by his own 
hand of providence, execute his designs of their protection 
and deliverance, in the most fitting time, and in the fittest 
manner, and by the most proper means: so that, except the 
wisdom and prudence of their own conduct, which is the 
duty of all men at all times, and is the farthest thing in the 
world from enthusiasm, either in life or religion, the church 
has no other directions in these prophecies, but to “stand 
still, and see the salvation of God.” ‘The whole scheme of 
this prophecy then, is so far from being an encouragement to 
enthusiasm, that it is a wise preservative against it; for the 
general doctrine of the whole book is this,—that the patience 
of the saints is the way to their victory. 

Upon the whole, in these interpretations we are not to 
expect demonstrations, or such proofs as shall be liable to no 
manner of objections, or that some weak and warm heads 
may not wrest these prophecies as they do the other scrip- 
tures, and may do any principles whatsoever, to extravagant 
designs and actions: it should be sufficient to satisfy us, if 
we find a proper and likely sense of the prophetic expres- 
sions and descriptions, suited to the manifest wise design of 
the whole prophecy; and if these interpretations are sup- 
ported by an application of events in history, that are justly 
applicable both to the prophetic descriptions, and to the se- 
ries and order of the prophecies ; if they are events worthy 
a spirit of prophecy to reveal, and agreeable to the spirit and 
intention of this prophecy in particular, we may, without 
exposing ourselves to the charge of being over-credulous, 
reasonably rest satisfied with them. 

Then, we may represent these prophecies to ourselves 
in that noble and useful view in which a great author has 
placed them (Bossuet, Explic. of the Revelation, Pref.) : 

“In the Gospel of St. John we read the life of Christ on 
earth: a man conversing with men, humble, poor, weak, 
and suffering, we behold a sacrifice ready to be offered, and 
a man appointed to sorrows and death; but in the Revela- 
tion of St. John, we have the gospel of Christ now raised 
from the dead. He speaks and acts as having conquered the 
grave, and triumphed over death and hell, as entered into 
the place of his glory; angels, principalities, and powers, 
being made subject unto him, and exercising the supreme 
universal power he has received from the Father over all 
things in heaven and earth, as our Saviour, for the protec- 
tion of his church, and for the sure happiness of his faithful 
servants in the end.” 


1020 


SCHEME AND ORDER OF THE PROPHECIES IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION. 


CHAP. I. VER. 19. 


INTRODUCTION, A prophetic vision in the isle 
of Patmos, representing Christ, his care of the 
churches, promising a revelation, with cautions 
and exhortations suitable to the then present 
state of the church, and to the future state of 
the church in after-ages, to encourage patience 
and constancy in the faith- - - - - - - 


CHAP, II. 


Finst part or Revetatron, relating to the things 
that are, or the then state of the church: 

Seven Epistles. Seven Epistles to the seven prin- 
cipal churches in Asia, describing their present 
state, with cautions and exhortations suitable 
to it. 


CHAP, 111. 


Srconp pant or Reyexarion, relating to the things 
that shall be hereafter, or to the state of the 
church in the ages to come, after the time of 
the vision, with cautions and exhortations suit- 
able to it. 


CHAP. IV. 


Scene of the visions. The throne of God, the con- 
sistory above, and heavenly church, represent- 
ing God’s power, majesty, authority, provi- 
dence, and sure event of all his purposes. 

A sealed book, containing a revelation of the state 
of the church in after-ages, given to the Lamb 
to open, or to Jesus Christ te reveal, for the 
good of the church, by St, John: 


CHAP. VY. 


Chorus of angels and saints; or, the whole heavenly 
church sings a psalm of praise to the Lamb. 


CHAP. VI. 


The Revelation begins by opening the sealed book, 
which describes the future state of the church 
in seven successive periods. 

Sryvrn Pentops. 

First period, showing the state of the church un- 
der the heathen Roman emperors, from about 
the year 95, to about the year 323. The seals 
of the book opened in order - - - - - - 

Seven Seals. 

1, First seal represents a white horse, the rider 
with a crown, going forth to conquer; signify- 
ing the kingdom of Christ, or Christian religion, 
prevailing against the opposition of Jews and 
heathen. 

2. Second seal represents a red horse, power given 
to the rider to take peace from the earth; sig- 
nifying the first memorable judgment on the 
persecutors of Christianity, in the destruction 
of the Jews under Trajan and Hadrian - - - 

3. Third seal represents a black horse, the rider 
with a balance to measure corn; signifying 
great scarcity of provision, near to famine, in 
the time of the Antonines - - - - - - - 

4. Fourth seal represents a pale horse, the name 
of the rider Death; signifying a great mortality 
and pestilence, wherewith the empire was pu- 
nished in the reigns of Maximin and Valerian - 

5. Fifth seal represents the souls of the martyrs 
under the altar, their reward and deliverance in 
a short time; signifying the severe persecution 
in the reign of Dioclesian, with an encourage- 
ment to constancy, suitable to such times of 
difficulty: 20°. <= s ==) uss Ἐπ Ξ 

6. Sixth seal represents earthquakes, sun darken- 
ed, stars falling from heaven; signifying great 
commotions in the empire, from Maximian to 


A.D. 


95 


95- 
323 


100- 


138- 
193 


193- 
270 


270- 
304 


Constantine the Great, who put a period to the 
persecution of Rome heathen - - - - - - 


CHAP. VII. 


Interval between the first and second periods, repre- 
sents an angel sealing one hundred and forty- 
four thousand with the seal of the living God; 
signifying great numbers forsaking the idola- 
trous worship of the heathen Roman empire, 
and embracing the profession of Christianity. 


VER. 9, 


Chorus of the heavenly church blessing God for his 
salvation. One of the elders shows unto St. 
John the happiness of those who were faithful 
and constant to true religion, in the great trial 
of so grievous persecution. 


CHAP. VIII. 


Second period reveals the state of the church and pro- 
vidence in the times following the reign of Con- 
stantine, during the invasion of the empire by 
the northern nations; the rise and first progress 
of the Mahometan imposture, till the stop put 
to it in the western empire, which reaches from 
about the year 237 to the year 750 - - - - 

Seven angels receive seven trumpets to sound. 

Seven Trumpets. 

1. First trumpet represents hail and fire mingled 
with blood, cast on the earth; signifying great 
storms of war to fall on the empire, and the 
blood that was shed in the reigns of the Con- 
stantine family, and their successors, till things 
were settled under Theodosius - - - - - 

. Second trumpet represents a mountain burning 

with fire, cast into the sea, whereby it became 
blood ; signifying the invasion of Italy by the 
northern nations, and taking the city of Rome 
by Alaric--..- + + “=. << = = =.= "= 

3. Third trumpet represents a burning star falling 

upon the rivers, which became bitter; signify- 

ing the ravages in Italy, putting an end to the 

Roman empire, and founding a kingdom of 

Goths in Italy itself- - - - - - - = - 

4. Fourth trumpet represents a third part of the 

sun and moon darkened; signifying, the wars 

in Italy between Justinian’s generals and the 

Goths, whereby the exarchate of Ravenna was 

erected, and all the remaining power and au- 

thority of Rome quite suppressed - - - - 


w 


CHAP. IX. 


5. Fifth trumpet represents the bottomless pit 
opened, and locusts coming out of it; signify- 
ing, the rise of the Mahommedan religion and 
empire, and the great progress of both, till a 
stop was put to them by a contention for the 
succession - - - = = = = = = = = = 

. Sixth trumpet represents four angels loosed, 
which were bound in the river Euphrates; sig- 
nifying, the reunion of the divided Saracen 
power, the invasion of Europe by them, and 
threatening the conquest of it, till defeated by 
Charles Martel - - - - - - = = = = 

Third period of the vials reveals the state of the 

church and providence, in the times of the last 
head of Roman government, represented by the 
beast, for one thousand two hundred and sixty 
years, to its final overthrow, from about the year 
756, to about the year 2016 - - -- - - - 


a 


CHAP. X. 


An angel, or Nuntius, brings a little book, the re- 
mainder of the sealed book opened by the Lamb, 


A.D. 


304— 
323 


337- 
750 


337- 


379 


379- 
412 


412- 
493 


493- 
568 


568 


568- 
675 


635— 


PROPHECIES IN THE REVELATION. 


and gives it to St. John to eat; signifying, a far- 
ther revelation of what was to follow in order of 
time, to the end of the world. 


CHAP. XI. 


Three general descriptions of this period : 

1. First general description represents the temple 
measured: part given to the gentiles; two wit- 
nesses prophesy in sackcloth one thousand two 
hundred and sixty days; signifying, the corrupt 
state of the church, and the constancy of some 
faithful witnesses to the truth, though under 
severe persecutions during this whole period. 


CHAP. XII. 


2. Second general description represents a woman 
forced to fly into the wilderness for safety ; and 
protected there one thousand two hundred and 
sixty days; signifying, the persecution and pre- 
servation of the church during the same period. 


CHAP. XIII. 


3. Third general description represents a monstrous 
wild beast rising out of the sea, with seven 
heads, ten horns, as many crowns, and titles of 
blasphemy, who was to continue forty and two 
months; signifying, that new Roman power, 
which should use its authority to promote ido- 
latrous worship, and to persecute all who would 
not submit to it, and should be supported by 
another power like unto its own form and con- 
stitution, during the same period. 


CHAP. XIV. 


Chorus of the heavenly church celebrates in a hymn 
the happiness of those who remain faithful and 
constant. 


CHAP. XY. 


Nuntius, an angel, comes down from heaven to de- 
clare the certain and severe judgment of the ene- 
mies of truth and pure religion, in this period. 

Seven angels receive seven cups full of the wrath of 
God; signifying, that the enemies of truth and 
pure religion in this period, shall be severely 
punished in the course of it, as well as they 
shall be utterly destroyed in the end. 


CHAP. XVI. 


The oracle gives order to the seven angels, to pour 
out their vials or cups. 
Seven Vials. 

First vial poured on the earth; a grievous sore on 
the worshippers of the beast, signifying the 
great commotions throughout the whole empire, 
under the family of Charles the Great, by which 
that family becomes extinct, and by which both 
the empire and crown of France are transferred 
to other families - - - - - τ - - = - 

2. Second vial poured on the sea, it becomes as 
the blood of a dead man; signifying, the great 
bloodshed of the holy war, to recover Jerusalem 
from the Saracens - - - - - - - = = 

3. Third vial poured on the rivers and fountains; 
they become blood; signifying, the bloody civil 
wars between the Guelphs and Gibellines, the 
papal and imperial factions, when the popes 
were driven out of Italy into France- - - - 

4, Fourth vial poured on the sun, which has power 
given it to scorch men; signifying, the long 
wars in Italy, Germany, France, and Spain, oc- 
casioned by a long schism in the papacy. Turks 
take Constantinople, and put an end to the 
eastern empire. Pestilential diseases occasioned 
by intemperate heat- - - - - - = - 

5. Fifth vial poured on the seat of the beast, or his 
throne; signifying, the Reformation, and the 


A.D. 


830- 
988 


1040- 
1190 


1200- 
1371 


1378- 
1530 


confirmation of it by the principal states of 
Europe, notwithstanding all opposition from the 


pope, and in opposition to the papal authority - 1560- 
. Sixth vial poured on the river Euphrates, makes 1650 


i 


way forthe kings of the east. his seems,in the 
order of the prophecies, to be yet future; but may 
likely mean some invasion of the pope’s domi- 


nions from its eastern boundary, or the Adri- 1670- 
- 1850 


atic = - -)5 ει ον σὰ “ὐπὸ eyes 
7. Seventh vial poured on the air, the seat of Sa- 
tan’s empire, describes the utter ruin of this per- 
secuting idolatrous Roman government, or mys- 


tical Babylon, at the end of this period - - - 1850- 
2016 


CHAP. XVII. 


Nuntius, an angel interpreter, more fully explains 
the character of this idolatrous persecuting 
power, which should corrupt the church, and 
persecute the faithful during this period. 


CHAP, XVIII. 


Another angel sent from heaven, to confirm the utter 
and lasting destruction of this mystical Baby- 
lon, as a punishment for her idolatrous corrup- 
tion and persecution. 


CHAP. XIX. 


Chorus of the heavenly church sings the praise of 
God, for his righteous judgments. 

A vision of Christ, leading an army out of heaven, 
strongly represents the certain accomplishment 
of this prophecy. 


CHAP. XX. 


Fourth period. An angel sent from heaven to shut 
up Satan in the bottomless pit, as in a secure 
prison, for one thousand years, during which 
time there will be a happy state of the church, 
in purity, peace, and prosperity. 


VER. 7. 


Fifth period. After the thousand years of the church’s 
prosperity shall be expired, Satan will be loosed 
again for a little season, a new attempt will be 
made to revive the corruptions of the church, 
and a spirit of persecution, which shall end in 
the final destruction of Satan’s power, and of 
all the enemies of pure and true religion. 


ver, ll. 


Siath period. The general resurrection and final judg- 
ment; the everlasting destruction of the wicked. 


CHAP. XXI. 


The seventh period concludes the whole prophecy, 
in the vision of new heavens, and a new earth, 
Tepresenting, in strong images, the extent, secu- 
rity, riches, and grandeur of the heavenly Jeru- 
salem; signifying, the consummate happiness of 
the heavenly state. 


CHAP. XXII. 


Thus, the prophecies of this revelation issue in an 
eternal Sasnata: The sure reward of all who 
shall be found faithful and constant in the true 
religion of Jesus Christ. 

The Concxustoy confirms the truth and certainty of . 
these prophecies, warns against corrupting them, 
exhorts to hope the accomplishment of them; a 
useful spirit and temper, to give good men con- 
solation in all their present afflictions, and to pre- 
serve them from the corruptions of religion, how 
prevailing soever in their own times; which is 


CHAP. XXII. VER. 6. 


The useful moral and principal doctrine of these 
prophecies. 
4L 


1021 
A.D. 


1022 


CHAPTER I. 


SECTION I. 


1 Tue Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave 
unto him, to shew unto his servants things which 
must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified 
it by his angel unto his servant John: 

2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the 
testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he 
saw. 

3 Blessed zs he that readeth, and they that hear the 
words of this prophecy, and keep those things which 
are written therein: for the time zs at hand. 


Ver. (1.) This book contains a discovery or revelation of 
many secrets, which Christ made known concerning the pre- 
sent and future state of his church in this world ; and which 
the divine wisdom directed should be made known, by a re- 
velation from himself, to his faithful servants; containing an 
account of many things that should shortly begin to be ac- 
complished, and which he revealed by his ! angel to his ser- 
vant John, inthe following visions. (2.) Which revelations 
John has faithfully recorded, as they were revealed to him 
by Christ, even as he faithfully testified what he had seen of 
Christ’s actions on earth. And what follows is a true and 
faithful relation of what he saw in his prophetic visions. 
(3.) And they are of such use to the faithful Christian, that 
he will be truly blessed, who shall so read and attend to the 
words of this prophecy, as to follow the counsels and instruc- 
tions contained in it, who shall persevere in the faith, wor- 
ship, and patience, of the gospel ; for they are of immediate 
and constant use, as they will very soon begin to be accom- 
plished, and will be punctually fulfilled in their order to the 
end of time. 

4 Joun to the seven churches which are in Asia: 
Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and 
which was, and which is to come; and from the seven 
Spirits which are before his throne ; 

5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful wit- 
ness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the 
prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that 
loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own 
blood, 

6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God 

eand his Father; to him de glory and dominion for 
ever and ever. Amen. 

(4.) I John, therefore, who saw these visions, and record 
them for the benefit of the church, salute the seven churches 
which are in Asia, to whom I more immediately direct this 
revelation, wishing them all manner of spiritual happiness, 
from the eternal God, and from his 5 Holy Spirit; (5.) And 
from Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord, who is a faithful 


Witness, whom God raised from the dead, the first-fruits of 
our resurrection, and thereby gave us full evidence and rea- 
sonable assurance of our own resurrection from the dead, 
and has made him supreme head over all persons, of what 
authority, dignity, or power soever, to whom we have the 
greatest obligation, as he has so loved us, as to wash us from 
our sins in his own blood, (6.) and has sanctified us to the 
service of God, consecrating us as his church, a kingdom of 
priests, to honour God and his Father, and to give us the 
privilege of a near approach unto him, with assurance of 
acceptance and favour: to him let the churches ascribe glory 
and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen. 


7 Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye 
shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and 
all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. 
Even so, Amen. 

8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the 
ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and 
which is to come, the Almighty. 

(7.) This prophecy, which I now record, you may observe, 
is agreeable to former prophecies, concerning the power and 
majesty of Christ’s kingdom; Daniel prophesied of his 
coming with the angels of the host of heaven ;* 8 and Zecha- 
riah, that “they ‘shall look upon him whom they have 
pierced, and mourn;”} and our Saviour himself,} that « all 
the tribes of the earth shall mourn; for they shall see the 
Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and 
great glory.” Such manifestations then of his glory and 
power, the Christian church had all reason to believe and hope 
for. (8.) And we have the more reason to heed, and give 
credit to these predictions of prophecy, because they are, in 
effect, promises of the supreme Governor of the world ; whe 
is ever the same unchangeable being, able to accomplish all 
his purposes from the first beginning of time to the last con- 
summation of all things. 


SECTION II. 


9 I John, who also am your brother, and compa- 
nion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience 
of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, 
for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus 
Christ. 

10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard 
behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, 

11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and 
the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and 
send z¢ unto the seven churches which are in Asia; 
unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, 
and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Phila- 
delphia, and unto Laodicea. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. I. 


Contents.—This chapter is an introduction, or preface, to 
the prophecies contained in this book. It represents 
the first vision John saw ; the manner in which this reve- 
lation was made to him; and gives, in very lively figures, 
a view of the majesty, glory, and power of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, now in his exalted state: it teaches Christ’s care 
of his church, now he is sat down at the right hand of 
God, in very beautiful and strong expressions, taken chiefly 
from the ancient prophets; very proper to confirm the 
faith and patience of good Christians, and encourage their 
perseverance, under all their afflictions and fears: the 
principal doctrine and design of the whole book. 


1 Ver. 1. By his angel.) In the style of prophecy, from 
whence the expressions of this book are chiefly taken, 
every thing is called an angel, that notifies a message from 
God, or executes the will of God. A prophetic dream is an 
angel : 186 pillar of fire that went before the Israelites, is 
called God’s gngel. The winds and flames of fire are an- 


gels to us, when used by God as voices to teach us, or rods 
to punish us: so that God is properly said to reveal by his 
angel, what he makes known, either by voice, by dream, by 
vision, or any other manner of true prophetic revelation. 

2 Ver. 5. From his Holy Spirit.| The Holy Spirit, I 
think, is meant by the seven spirits which are before the 
throne. Seven, inthe language of prophecy, often expresses 
perfection, and may better be understood of the most per- 
fect Spirit of God, the author of all spiritual blessings, than 
of seven angels, as ἃ more natural interpretation of the ex- 
pressions in prophecy, as well as much more agreeable to 
the manner of the gospel-blessing, from Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost. 

3 Ver. 7. Angels of the host of heaven.] Rabbi Saadias 
Gaon observes the clouds of heaven, they are the angels of 
the host of heaven; this is the great magnificence and 
power, which God shall give unto the Messiah. (Vide 
Pearson on the Creed, art. 7, p. 293, and Bishop Chandler’s 
Defence of Christianity, p. 130.) 


* Dan. vii. 13. ἡ Zech. xii 10. + Matt. xxiv. 30, 


CHAPTER I. 


12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with 
me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candle- 
sticks ; 

(9.) Know then the time and occasion of these revelations 
I received from Christ, were thus: I who am a fellow-suf- 
ferer with you, on account of the gospel of Christ, was in 
banishment in the isle of Patmos, for my faithful adherence 
to the religion of Jesus Christ, and the truth of his gospel. 
(10.) There, on the day distinguished in the Christian church 
by the name of the Lord’s day, on which the church is used 
to assemble for religious worship, the spirit of prophecy came 
upon me, in like manner as upon the ancient prophets; and 
the first thing I perceived, was a voice, strong and loud as 
the sound of a trumpet, and, attending to it, 1 heard this 
voice from heaven, or oracle of God, distinctly saying unto 
me, (11.) Iam Alpha and Omega, I begin, and J finish all 
things, from the creation of the world, to the end of time, 
and the consummation of ages; regard the revelations thou 
shalt receive, as coming from me; write them down to pre- 
serve them for the use and benefit of the church, and send 
them in particular to the seven churches which are in Asia, 
who are concerned in the present use of them. (12.) This 
voice of the oracle called me to great attention, and made 
me turn to see whence this voice might proceed ; then the 
spirit of prophecy continued the revelation is a prophetic 
vision, 4 for I saw as before my eyes the following representa- 
tion: I saw seven golden candlesticks, or a lamp made of 
pure gold, having seven branches, like to the lamp in the 
holy place in the temple.* 


13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one 
like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment 
down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a 
golden girdle. 

(13.) And as the priests, when they dressed the lamps, 
stood in the midst, to light the middle and largest of the 
branches first; so I beheld a person in the midst of this 
lamp, as if trimming the branches, not in the appearance of 
an angel, but in an appearance of human shape as a man; 
he was dressed in the rich habit peculiar to the high-priest : 
he wore the robe of the ephod, girt with the curious girdle, 
of gold, blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine-worked 
linen. 

14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, 
as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of 
fire; Ε 

15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they 
burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of 
many waters. 

(14.) The appearance of his person was also very glorious, 
somewhat like the appearance of the Ancient of days, in 
Daniel.+ The upper part of his body, his head, and hair, 
were exceeding white, and of 5 great lustre; his eyes had 
a piercing brightness, (15.) and the lower parts shone like 
the finest amber, or a refined and polished metal, and his 
voice was strong and full, like the sound of the sea, or some 
very great water. 


4 Ver. 12. In a prophetic vision.] The Jews accounted 
all degrees of prophecy were included in dreams and visions ; 
In istis autem duabus partibus, somnio inquam et visione, 
continentur omnes prophetie gradus (Maimonides, More 
Nev. par. ii., cap. 26, p. 293); but yet the Jews were wont 
to make a vision superior to a dream; (vide Smith’s Se- 
lect Discourses of Prophecy, p. 175) so that this book is 
represented as the highest degree of prophetic revelation. 

5 Ver. 14. Of great lustre.) So λευκὸς, which we trans- 
late “white,” properly signifies. Thus, Rev. xx. 11, « And 
I saw a great white throne;” that is, a throne with a glo- 
rious lustre. Αευκὸν (candidum) hie intellige splendidum 
cum majestate. (Grot. in loc.) 

This being an appearance of the Shechinah, is to be con- 
sidered as that always was, a representation of the divine 
presence, uajesty, and glory; therefore the glory in which 


1023 


16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and 
out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: 
and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his 
strength. 


(16.) I perceived farther, that this venerable person held 
in his right hand, as it were, seven stars, and a sharp two- 
edged sword seemed to go out of his mouth, and his whole 
appearance was as glorious as if I had beheld the full lustre 
of the sun at noon-day, when shining in its greatest bright 
ness. 


17 And when I saw him, I fell at.his feet as dead. 
And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, 
Fear not; I am the first and the last: 

18 Iam he that liveth, and was dead ; and, behold, 
Τ am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of 
hell and of death. 

19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the 
things which are, and the things which shall be here- 
after; 

20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou saw- 
est in my right hand, and the seven golden candle- 
sticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven 
churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou 
sawest are the seven churches. 


(17.) The sight of such a person, with so majestic ap- 
pearance, struck me with great awe: insomuch, that, like a 
man in a swoon, J lost my senses for a time, but he raised 
me up, by laying his right hand upon me, and encouraging 
me, as the angel did Daniel;* and said unto me, Be not 
afraid, for though you may observe something in this vision 
of the majesty, power, and authority of my everlasting 
kingdom ; (18.) yet observe also, this vision represents the 
High-priest and Saviour of the church, who died to redeem 
it unto God, and consecrate it a peculiar people, and who 
now ever lives to protect and bless it; and who has all 
authority and power in this life, and in the separate state of 
departed souls, after this life, to save it for evermore. This 
I confirm as a certain truth. (19.) Therefore lay aside 
your fear, and attend to the design of this vision; write 
down, and keep on record, what this vision reveals concern- 
ing the state of the church, of my power, and care of it, 
which are things of great concern to the church, and regard 
partly the present state of the church, and partly the se- 
veral states of the church in future 5times. (20.) To begin 
then to explain the meaning of this vision, observe what is 
to be understood by the mystical representation of the seven 
stars, and the seven golden candlesticks, or branches of the 
lamp: the stars are intended to signify the angels, pastors, 
or bishops of the churches ; and the candlesticks to signify 
the churches themselves, consecrated to the service of God, 
following the instructions of their faithful bishops, in purity 
of doctrine, worship, and manners, shining as lights in the 
world, and honouring their profession of my gospel, and re- 
ligion, before men. 


the Shechinah appeared in ancient prophecy, is very pro- 
perly applicable to it. 

© Ver. 19.] This distinction of things relating to the pre- 
sent state of the church, and of things relating to the future 
state of the church in aftertimes, may direct to one observa- 
tion concerning this prophecy ; That this first vision should 
seem to relate to the present state of the church; the fol- 
lowing visions, to the future state of the church; which, I 
think, makes it more probable, to understand the epistles to 
the churches, as relating to the present state of the church 
in the days of the apostle, than to understand them as pro- 
phetic representations of the successive states of the church 
to the end of time: but I enter not into the opinions of 
learned men on that question, proposing to set the prophe- 
cies of this book in a plainer light if I can; not to make 
them darker, by new disputes, than they were before. 


* Exod. xxv.31.  { Exod. xxxix.5. ἐ Dan. vii. 9. 


* Dan. x. 10. 


1024 


CHAPTER II. 


SECTION III. 


1 Unro the angel of the church of Ephesus write ; 
These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in 
lis right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven 
golden candlesticks ; ! 

2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy pa- 
tience, and how thou canst not bear them which are 
evil: ? and thou hast tried them which say they are 
apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars : 

3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my 
name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.? 

4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, be- 
cause thou hast left thy first love. 


(1.) As the churches in Asia now labour under many 
discouragements and great trials of their faith and patience, 
write to them, as in my name, these directions and instruc- 
tions proper for their warning and encouragement; declare, 
as from the Holy Spirit of revelation, my care of them, and 
power to protect them. In particular, write after this man- 
ner to the church of Ephesus; Though I am in heaven, yet 
T am concerned for the protection of my religion on earth, I 
will protect my ministers, who are careful to enlighten the 
church with the knowledge of truth and righteousness, of 
peace and happiness, according to the revelation of my gos- 
pel; and I will give all encouragement to the churches, and 
assistance, proper to answer their character as lights of the 
world, to adorn the Christian religion by purity of doctrine, 
worship, and manners. (2.) And let the church of Ephesus 
farther know, in this solemn manner, that in my observation 
of its behaviour, I take a particular notice of what deserves 
commendation; that it is careful to preserve good works; 
that it is diligent and zealous in the duties of religion; that 
it has shown a patience and constancy, as well as diligence 
and faithfulness, and expressed them in a very proper man- 
ner; not bearing those evil persons who would have cor- 
rupted the purity of the church with wickedness of life, and, 
examining the doctrines of such who would have imposed 
their errors on the pretence of apostolical authority, pre- 
served the purity of faith and doctrine, as well as of life and 
manners. (3.) Let them know, I observe, that these things 


commendable in the church of Ephesus, are very eminent; 
they have borne great afflictions, they have long had patience, 
and, from a right principle of affection to my name and 
gospel, in which they have been very constant, as well as 
diligent, have not fainted under any difficulties or opposition. 
(4.) However, there are some things in the behaviour of 
this church that deserve reproof and censure, notwithstand- 
ing all that is commendable in it. 

Tell them in my name, You have suffered your former 
affection to abate and cool; your affections for the institu- 
tions of the gospel, your charity for each other as brethren, 
and members of the true church of the living God, are not 
so warm and lively as once they were. 


5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, 
and repent, and do the first works ; or else I will come 
unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out 
of his place, except thon repent. 

6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of 
the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.* 

7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will 
I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst 
of the paradise of God. 


(5.) Take notice then of this declension of thy love, as a 
miscarriage that calls for repentance and reformation; this 
can only consist in regaining your former warmth of aflec- 
tion, so as to excite you to your former eminent acts of 
love and charity; if you neglect this warning and advice, if 
you will not repent and do your first works, I will soon 
punish your negligence and disobedience, by depriving you 
of those privileges of the true church, for which you are 
losing your esteem and affection. (6.) Yet still there is 
this encouraging in you, that though your love and affection 
are cooler than they were, yet you highly disapprove and 
warmly condemn the idolatrous liberties and unclean prac- 
tices of the Nicolaitans, which I also highly disapprove and 
condemn. (7.) Let him therefore who is disposed to re- 
ceive useful instruction, attentively consider what the Spirit 
of wisdom and prophecy reveals to the church, and let him 
he encouraged to faithfulness, perseverance, and constancy, 
in the Christian religion, being assured, that whosoever shall 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. II. 


Coxtents.—In this and the following chapter, we have the 
prophecies which concerned the then present church, or 
«the things which are:” (i. 19) by which the state of the 
seven churches in Asia, at the time of the vision, seems 
to be described, in what was commendable, and deserved 
encouragement; in what was faulty, and called for re- 
proof and reformation. This part of the prophecy is de- 
signed to show the constant care of Christ over the church 
both in the punishment of apostasy, and in the blessings 
of faithfulness and constancy. Each of these epistles is 
then to be considered as proper directions and encourage- 
ments, cautions and warnings, in every state of the church, 
where there are like commendable things to be praised 
and encouraged, or like faults and miscarriages to be re- 
proved and amended; and it will represent the state of 
the church in every age, as, in every period of time, there 
will be some like things to be commefided, and to be 
blamed. ‘This is a representation of the state of the 
church, most proper to the design of the prophecy, to en- 
courage faithfulness, patience, and perseverance, under all 
the discouragements the church might meet with. Chris- 
tians were not to be discouraged on the one hand, because 
all things in the churches were not as they ought to be; 
nor yet, on the other hand, where they to neglect or over- 
look any miscarriage or imperfection, on pretence that 
the church in this world cannot arrive at perfection. They 
were to amend what was faulty, to improve what was im- 
perfect, and to remain constant in the purity of Christian 
faith, worship, and manners, when the protection of 


Christ their Saviour promises them victory in the end, 
and to crown that victory with the glorious reward of 
eternal life. 


1 Ver. 1. Walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks,] 
Is an expression taken from the oflice of the priests in dress- 
ing the lamps, which was to keep them always burning before 
the Lord. 1 conceive, therefore, “ walking” here may be de- 
signed to signify, not only a care to observe and know the 
true state of the churches; but moreover, to assist and pro- 
mote their improvement in religion, or to assist the churches 
in their proper character, as consecrated to the service of 
God, that they may shine as lights in the world, in the midst 
of a crooked and perverse nation (Phil. ii. 15). 

2 Ver. 2.] This observation of the commendable behaviour 
of the church of Ephesus, seems to direct us to observe how 
acceptable in the sight of God the care of the primitive 
churches was, to preserve purity by proper discipline, and a 
zeal against wickedness, as inconsistent with the profession 
of the gospel, as Mr. Waple well observes on the place. 

3 Ver. 3.] This third verse, as Mr. Waple observes, being 
much a repetition of what was said in the foregoing verse, 
seems to intimate that the sufferings, the diligence, and the 
patience of this church, were very eminent and remarkable, 
for so a repetition of the same thing sometimes signifies in 
scripture language. 

4 Ver. 6.) However antiquity differs concerning the origi- 
nal of the sect of Nicolaitans, it sufficiently agrees as to the 
libertine principles and impure practices they taught, used, 
and defended; insomuch that they allowed lewdness and 
adulteries, as well as idolatrous sacrifices, by placing them 


CHAPTER II. 


fight this good fight so as to overcome the enemies of truth 
and righteousness, so as not to be turned back from the holy 
commandment, by the temptation of an evil world, shall 
enjoy a state of full perfection and happiness in eternal life, 
as the first parents of the human race would have continued in 
the happiness of their paradisaical state, if they had not lost 
the privilege of the tree of life, being overcome by the temp- 
tation of eating the forbidden fruit. 


8 And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna 
write; These things saith the first and the last, which 
was dead, and is alive; 


(8.) Write also another epistle to the church in Smyrna, 
and give it to understand these things, as a revelation from 
a most powerful and affectionate Saviour, from him who was 
before all things, and of whose kingdom and power there 
shall be no end: As my obedience to death showed how 
one dearly beloved of God might be afflicted in this life; 
and as my death has obtained eternal redemption for my 
people, and the new covenant confirmed by it has called 
them to the hope of everlasting salvation, so I am also 
raised from the dead, and live for ever, and have entered 
into the glory, the reward of my sufferings, which may greatly 
encourage and support all who shall be partakers with me, 
in suffering for righteousness’ sake, that they shall also be 
partakers with me in glory. 


9 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, 
(but thou art rich) and 7 Anow the blasphemy of them 
which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the 
synagogue of Satan. 

10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suf- 
fer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into 
prison, that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have tribu- 
lation > ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and 1 
will give thee a crown of life. 


(9.) Let them know, I am not unacquainted with their true 
state and condition; I know their painful diligence in the 
good works of religion, and the many troubles they meet 
with on account of it; and, in particular, their low and 
poor condition, as to the riches of this world; though they 
have reason to account themselves rich, as they abound in 
good works, and enjoy the favour of God, with the hopes of 
the true religion ; let them farther understand, I am sensible 
of the opposition they meet with, from a party which boasts 
in the privileges of the true church, but whose pretences 
are false and blasphemous ; who are so far from being the 
true church of God, that they are a synagogue of Satan, by 
promoting error, superstition, and wickedness, the very 
things wherein the kingdom of Satan consists. (10.) Direct 
them, that they fear none of these sufferings, which such 
evil persons may inflict upon them; though God, for the 
trial of their faith and patience, may permit them to be cast 
into prison, and they may have great trouble for some con- 
siderable time, yet exhort them to be faithful even unto 
death, if their trial should reach to the danger of their lives; 
as well as of their liberty; assuring them, that their faith- 
fulness shall finally be rewarded, with a crown of infinitely 
more value than the corruptible crowns men have in so high 
esteem here, even with a state of perfection, happiness, and 
glory, for ever. 

11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
saith unto the churches ; He that overcometh shall not 
be hurt of the second death. 

(11). Let then every man attentively consider, what the 
Spirit of wisdom and revelation hereby teaches the church, 
and be encouraged to faithfulness and constancy, in the 


1025 


profession and practice of true Christianity: for whoever 
shall thus overcome the temptations of the world, shall not be 
hurt by the death of his soul in the world to come ; but shall 
be delivered from the punishment of the wicked and faith- 
less, when they shall be doomed to everlasting destruction. 


12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos 
write; These things saith he which hath the sharp 
sword with two edges ; 

(12.) Send also an epistle to the bishop of the church in 
Pergamos ; let them know these instructions and admoni- 
tions come from their Saviour; who, though he has a con- 
stant care of the churches, and their ministers, yet was re- 
presented in the vision you saw (i. 16), with a sharp sword 
going out of his mouth, to acquaint them, the power of the 
sword is an essential right of my government; that I shall 
be as ready to punish apostates and enemies of my kingdom 
as I am ready to protect and bless my people, in their per- 
severance and constancy, according to those rules I have 
settled, and declared in my word. 


13 I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, 
even where Satan’s seat 7s: and thou holdest fast my 
name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those 
days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who 
was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. 

(13.) Let them know, I consider what is commendable 
in them, every circumstance that makes their patience and 
constancy more eminent; I consider their good works, and 
I consider also, the temptations 6f the place where they 
live, where the powers of darkness and corruption have a 
numerous and powerful party. Yet, in this time of severe 
trial, when the evil spirit of persecution prevailed to put a 
faithful servant of my gospel to death in their city, so great 
was the power of Satan among them; yet they could not 
be prevailed upon to deny my name and religion. 


14 But I have a few things against thee, because 
thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, 
who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the 
children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, 
and to commit fornication. 

15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine 
of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate. 


(14.) Notwithstanding this exemplary constancy, let them 
also understand there are some things that deserve reproof, 
and require reformation ; they have some among them who 
have fallen into the prevailing corruptions. As the wicked 
advice of Balaam prevailed upon the children of Israel to 
commit fornication with the daughters of Moab, and so to 
join with them in their idolatry ; which trespass was punish- 
ed by a plague among the congregation of the Lord :* so 
there are some in the church of Pergamos, who give into 
the corruption of eating things sacrificed to idols, and allow 
themselves to commit fornication. (15.) There are some who 
go so far as to justify those miscarriages, by receiving the 
principles of the Nicolaitans, which I greatly disapprove, as 
most inconsistent with the purity of the Christian faith and 
religion, as revealed and taught in my gospel. 


16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and 
will fight against them with the ® sword of my mouth. 


(16.) Charge them therefore to repent of these miscar- 
riages, and to return to the Christian purity of doctrine and 
manners, by a thorough reformation: otherwise, as these 
sins were punished, in former examples, by a plague, I also 
will very soon punish them in such manner as shall show my 
high displeasure at so great miscarriages in my church. 


among things indifferent, and pleaded in justification of their 
own liberty in the use of both. And thus it seems to be 
explained in this very chapter (ver. 14), “ Teaching to eat 
things sar“/iced to idols, and to commit fornication.” 

5 Ver. 10. Ten days,] I conceive, is not to be understood 
literally ; a short time of affliction indeed! hardly agreeable 
to a description of that tribulation this prophecy seems to 
prepare the church for. In scripture language, “ten times” 
are many times, Gen. xxxi. 7. 41 ; “ten women” are many 
women, Lev. xxvi. 26 ; “ ten sons” are many sons, 1 Sam. i. 

Vor. IV.—129 


8; “ten men” are many men, Ecclus. vii. 9; and in com- 
mon speech, fen signifies many; as Mr. Daubuz has ob- 
served in several passages of Plautus (Symbolical Dict. p. 
96). 

ὃ Ver. 16. Iwill fight against them with the sword of my 
mouth,] Is, I think, an allusion to the sword, one of the 
ensigns of magistracy and government, to express the jus 
gladii, or the power of the sword, in the execution of justice 


* Numb. xxv. 1, 2, xxxi. 16. 
AL2 


1026 REVELATION. 


17 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the 
Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that over- 
cometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, 7 and 
will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new 
name written, which no man knoweth saving he that 
receiveth if. 


(17.) Let all who are disposed to receive useful instruc- 
tion, carefully attend to these encouragements and warnings 
given by the Spirit of prophecy. He who, from these en- 
couragements, shall overcome the temptations of the world, 
shall receive an abundant reward; I will bestow upon him 
all the rewards meant by the spiritual manna, the true 
bread of God, which came down from heaven ;* and I will 
give him a stone, with an inscription on it, not as a ticket or 
warrant, to receive such small rewards as are usually given 
to those who obtain a victory in the public games, or assem- 
blies; but such as shall be a warrant to receive so great a 
reward, that none can rightly comprehend the value of, but 
such who shall be possessed of it, and know, in experience, 
how great privileges, grace, favour, and happiness, it entitles 
them to, in the inheritance of the new Jerusalem. 


18 And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira 
write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath 
his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like 
fine brass; 

(18.) Write also to the bishop and church of Thyatira, 
as from me, who, though I wasa man, by my natural descent 
from the family of David, yet am also truly the Son of God, 
and was declared to be so by the power of the Spirit, who 
discern all the secrets of men’s hearts, how concealed soever 
they may be, whose ways will be found glorious in purity 
and upright judgment, who exercise loving-kindness, judg- 
ment, and righteousness, in the earth.t 

19 I know thy works, and charity, and service, and 
faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last 
to be more than the first. 

(19.) I observe and commend thy good behaviour in 
many things; all thy good works are remembered by me, 
which are done in my service, out of love to me, my name, 
and my gospel; as I approve thy faith, patience, and con- 
stancy in times of temptation and affliction, so I am pleased 
to find your affection and zeal in my service improving, that, 
after a long time of patience, your faith, affection, and con- 
stancy, appear more eminent than at the first. 


20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against 
thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, 
which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to se- 
duce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat 
things sacrificed unto idols. 

21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornica- 
tion; and she repented not. 

22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that 
vommit adultery with her into great tribulation, except 
they repent of their deeds. 

23 And I will kill her children with death; and all 
the churches shall know that Iam he which searcheth 
the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one 
of you according to your works. 

24 But unto you | say, and unto the rest in Thya- 
tira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which 
have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; 
I will put upon you none other burden. 

25 But that which ye have already hold fast till I 
come. 


(20.) Yet, observe, there are some things in your conduct 
I take notice of which deserve blame, and call for reforma- 
ticn; you give too much allowance and countenance to 
some evil persons, who, like that wicked woman Jezebel, 
who defiled Israel with her idolatrous and lewd practices, set 
themselves to teach, and, on wicked pretences to prophecy 
and revelation, to seduce my servants to commit fornication, 
and to eat things sacrificed to idols, both which are contrary 
to the truth and purity of the doctrine and worship of my 
gospel. (2l.) Though I have given these persons a long 
time to consider the evil of their behaviour, and to reform 
it, yet they are so corrupt in their minds, that they still re- 
main impenitent and obstinate, and give no signs or hopes 
of amendment. (22.) Know, then, I will take a time 
severely to punish these persons for their evil principles and 
wicked practices; and this punishment shall reach all who 
are partakers with them in their wickedness, as well as 
themselves; instead of ease and pleasure, they shall have 
sorrow and tribulation; and this threatening shall be ac- 
complished, as surely as the punishment was, which the pro- 
phet Elijah denounced in the name of the Lord against 
Jezebel,* except they repent of their evil deeds, and forsake 
them. (23.) Let them know, the punishment of the false 
teachers, and their followers, shall be so great, and so re- 
markable, that the churches shall observe a divine power in 
it, and learn to respect and honour the administration of 
my government; who, as I know the secrets of men’s 
hearts, and most concealed principles of action, so “I ex- 
ercise judgment in giving to every man according to his 
works.” (24.) But, as many have kept themselves from 
these evil doctrines, which the deceiving spirits have been so 
industrious to propagate; and which, though they boast in 
them as deep knowledge and wisdom, are indeed the deep 
arts of deceit and error in the kingdom of Satan, to bring in 
all sorts of corruption, by teaching to account things unlaw- 
ful and sinful, as indifferent and innocent : let all who have 
kept themselves from these pollutions be assured, my gospel 


shall impose no new burden upon them, nor lay any new 


restraints, as these false teachers would insinuate; but only 
confirm the laws of truth, righteousness, and goodness to 
make them free from sin, the truest and most valuable 
freedom and liberty. (25.) Let them be careful to hold 
fast to the end the doctrines and precepts they have already 
received from my gospel, as necessary to true religion, and 
to please God; and no other things that can affect their real 
liberty shall be imposed upen them. 


26 And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works 
unto the end, to him will I give power over the 
nations : 

27 And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as 
the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers : 
even as I received of my Father. 

28 And I will give him the morning star. 

29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
saith unto the churches. 


(26.) To encourage them farther in their faithful con- 
stancy, acquaint them in my name, if they overcome these 
temptations, and keep the faith and holy commandment of 
my gospel, so as to persevere unto the end in truth and 
righteousness, I will make good the promise made to the 
church in prophecy, that it shall prevail against the super- 
stition of the heathen world, whether maintained by the 
heathen nations themselves, or introduced by others into the 
Christian chureh. (27.) For truth and righteousness shall 
prevail against error and wickedness ; the church shall have 
a power, by my protection, like that I received from my 
Father ;{ however obstinate any man be in opposition to 


and punishments. But as the word of God is the measure 
by which he proceeds in punishment and protection, this 
being the declaration of his mind and will, the power of the 
sword, in the execution of justice, is ever to be considered as 
used agreeably to such measures as the word of God has 
declared, according to the promises and threatenings con- 


* John vi. ἡ Jer. ix, 24. 


tained in his revelation, or the word that goeth out of his 
mouth. 

7 Ver. 17. The hidden manna] May refer to the words of 
Christ, John vi. 51, “I am the living bread which cometh 
down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall 
live for ever.” A much greater instance of God’s favour 
and grace, than feeding the Israelites with manna from heaven, 


+ Ps. ii. 8, 9. 


* 1 Kings xxi. 23. 


CHAPTER III. 


truth and purity, my power shall break their obstinacy, and 
give success to a faithful defence of my gospel against all the 
idolatrous and immoral principles of the heathen nations. § 
(28.) I will yet farther reward the constancy of my faithful 
servants ; I will give them so clear understanding in the pri- 
vileges, promises, and blessings of my gospel, as if “a day- 
star arose in their hearts;"* they shall see with great clear- 
ness, as by a bright light, the great encouragement and 


1027 


certainty of their reward, and rejoice in hope that the end 
of their warfare shall be victory, and their victory shall be 
crowned with a glorious reward; for they themselves shall 
«shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as stars, for 
ever and ever.”* (29.) Let every one who is disposed to 
receive useful instruction attend to these directions, which 
the Spirit of revelation and prophecy designs to teach the 
churches. 


8 Ver. 27.) The kingdom of Christ, and his power over 
the nations, signify the success of his gospel, and of the true 
religion revealed and instituted by him, in opposition to the 


4.2 Pet. i. 19, 


errors, idolatry, and wickedness, which had corrupted the 
heathen world. 


* Dan. xii. 3. 


CHAPTER III. 


1 Anp unto the angel of the church in Sardis write ; 
These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of 
God, and the seven stars ; I know thy works, that thou 
hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. 

2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which re- 
main, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy 
works perfect before God. 


(1.) Write also an epistle to the bishop of the church in 
Sardis, to let the church know, as from me, who have all 
spiritual gifts in my power and disposal, and the bishops and 
pastors of the churches under my care and protection, that 
I know their behaviour and their state ; I know, that though 
they make a fair profession of the Christian faith, yet that 
they have very much lost the life and influence of true reli- 
gion; though they keep up a reputation among men, they 
have lost it in the sight of God, who regards the heart and 
inward temper. (2.) Exhort them, therefore, that they 
carefully watch over themselves ; and, in especial manner, to 
confirm those good principles and dispositions, which are 
grown so weak as to be near extinguished: for even the 
good things which still in part remain among them are very 
defective, and want much of that perfection which true re- 
ligion and my gospel require, to make them acceptable in 
the sight of God. Ἢ 

3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and 
heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou 
shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and 
thou shalt not know what heur I will come upon 
thee. 

4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which 
have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk 
with me in white: for they are worthy. 

5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in 
white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out 
of the book of life, but I will confess his name before 
my Father, and before his angels. 

6 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
saith unto the churches. 


(3.) Direct them, that they seriously call to remembrance 
what doctrines they received when my gospel was first deli- 


vered unto them, that they may closely adhere to the rule 
of faith, worship, and life, they were then taught; when they 
compare their present temper and actions with the purity of 
that rule, let them observe wherein they have departed from 
it, that they may be concerned for their miscarriage, and sin- 
cerely careful to amend it: for if they disregard this direc- 
tion, they are to expect some sudden and unforeseen judg- 
ment, which shall come upon them at unawares, as a thief 
is used to surprise a house in the night. (4.) But let them 
also know, for their encouragement, though this is the bad 
state of the greater part of their church, it is not of all; there 
are a few who have preserved themselves from the common 
corruption, who have kept their purity, and acted truly 
agreeable to their Christian profession; let them know I 
account them worthy of great honour and happiness, and I 
will confer distinguishing marks of honour and favour upon 
them.! (5.) Let them understand that this honour and 
favour shall be shown to every one who, by perseverance in 
faith and purity, shall overcome the temptations of this evil 
world ; his name shall remain secure in the register of those 
who are entitled to the promise of eternal life:? I will my- 
self own them to be my disciples, and acknowledge them 
true members of my church, in the presence of my Father 
and his holy angels at the day of final judgment, which shall 
confirm to them the inheritance of everlasting glory and 
happiness. (6.) And let every one who is sincerely con- 
cerned to improve by these useful instructions, carefully 
meditate on these directions which the Spirit of prophecy 
here sends to the churches. 

7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia 
write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is 
true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, 
and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man open- 
eth 5 

8 I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee 
an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast 
a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not 
denied my name. 

(7.) Write likewise to the church of Philadelphia, as from 
me, who am that Holy One whom the Father hath anointed 
with the Holy Ghost and with power to the holy office of 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. III. 


! Ver. 4.1 White or shining garments were marks of fa- 
vour and honour; under the law, they were the garments of 
the priests, and worn in the courts of princes. ‘Thus Pha- 
raoh honoured Joseph, by arraying him in vestures of fine 
linen, as well as putting a gold chain about his neck (Gen. 
xli. 42). A white garment is also an emblem of purity, and 
therefore interpreted in this prophecy (Rev. xix. 8), of the 
righteousness of saints, as well as a mark of honour : whence 
we see the propriety of this emblem, of white or shining gar- 
ments, to express the peculiar honour and favour God would 
show to them who remained constant and faithful in the 
purity of the Christian faith, worship, and life. 

2 Ver. 5.1 This book of life, is an allusion to some book 
or register, in which persons’ names were enrolled, and by 


which they had a claim to certain privileges. I think it is 
not material, whether it refer to the registers in which the 
genealogies of the priests were kept, in which, if a man was 
not registered, he was rejected, as not belonging to the fa- 
mily of priests; or whether it refer to the common registers, 
in which the names of free citizens were used to be enrolled, 
and by which they were to prove their right to the privileges 
of free citizens ; for either will sufficiently explain the mean- 
ing of the expression: and they who are written in the 
Lamb’s book of life, as it is called, Rev. xxi. 27, are some- 
times represented as priests, sometimes as fellow-citizens 
with the saints, and heirs of the kingdom of heaven. ‘The 
general meaning is, They shall have a sure evidence on re- 
cord, of their right to all the privileges and blessings of the 
true Christian church, included in the promise of eternal 
life. 


1028 REVELATION. 


mediator between God and men, whose doctrines and pro- 
mises are all true and faithful, who have received all power 
and authority in my spiritual kingdom, as the promised Son 
of David: so that none can exclude from the privileges of 
the kingdom of heaven those whom I shall receive into 
them; and none can bestow them upon those to whom I 
shall, by my word and judgment agreeable to it, deny them. 
Let them understand I know their state and condition ; 

have given them a great opportunity of propagating my 
gospel, and of improving themselves in holiness and com- 
fort, the true blessings of it, nor shall it be taken from 
them: but as they have been faithful to my religion, though 
in ἃ weak state of worldly power, greatness, and riches,? 
and have not given up my authority, or the obligation of 
my doctrines, to any of the prevailing corruptions ;— 


9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of 
Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do 
lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship 
before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. 

10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, 
1 also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, 
which shall come upon all the world, to try them that 
dwell upon the earth. 


(9.) I will therefore powerfully protect them against all 
those evil persons who boast themselves to be the true peo- 
ple and church of God ; but, by promoting the cause of error 
and wickedness, prove themselves by sure marks to be in 
the party of Satan: insomuch, that I will make those very 
persons, by whom they are now opposed and despised, to 
submit themselves to them, and honour them, as convinced 
that I favour them with particular marks of my affection ; 
and I will cause them, as disciples, to sit down at their feet, 
to learn the truth from their instructions.4 (10.) And en- 
courage them with this hope, that as they have hitherto 
faithfully followed my directions to patience and constancy 
in their present trials, I will give them farther gracious as- 
sistance to persevere in greater temptations and more gene- 
ral trials. When Christians every where shall have the 
sincerity of their faith and their constancy put to a new 
trial, theirs shall be approved and found sincere, even at 
that time when many shall fall from their constancy, and 
forfeit the blessings of true religion. 5 


11 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which 
thou hast, that no man take thy crown. 

(11.) Exhort them to continue in their good state and 
constancy, whatever trials they may still meet, for they 
will shortly meet with other trials; let them be careful, lest 
by yielding to any new temptations, they lose their hope, and 
their reward at last. 

12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the 
temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and 
I will write upon him the § name of my God, and the 


name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, 
which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and 
L will write upon him my new name. 


(12.) For he that endureth to the end, and so shall over- 
come, has a glorious reward prepared for him: he shall have 
a high degree of honour in the presence of God, which he 
shall securely enjoy, without fear of losing it: he shall enjoy 
the glory of God, in the true heavenly church ; and he shall 
be made a partaker of my own glory, in the perfection and 
full happiness of the heavenly state. 


13 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the 
Spirit saith unto the churches. 

(13.) Let every one who is desirous to learn the useful 
instruction of this encouragement to patience and perse- 
verance, diligently attend to what the Spirit of prophecy 
teaches the churches, and directs them to observe in this 
epistle. 


14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodi- 
ceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faith- 
ful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of 
God ; 

15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold 
nor hot: 7 I would thou wert cold or hot. 


(14.) Finally, direct also an epistle to the bishop of the 
church of the Laodiceans, as from their Saviour, whose cha- 
racter is the truth itself, whose word may be fully relied upon 
in all things, and what he bears witness to is faithful and 
true, and shall surely be performed, and who is able to ac- 
complish every thing he promises, as he was the author of 
the whole creation, and has supreme dominion over every 
creature. (15.) Acquaint them, I know their temper, how 
indiflerent they are in the cause of religion; they make 
some pretences to it, but with no sincere or affectionate zeal. 


16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither 
cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 

17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased 
with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest 
not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, 
and blind, and naked : 

18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the 
fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that 
thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy na- 
kedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with 
eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 

19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be 
zealous therefore, and repent. 

(16.) Let them know from me, such indifference in reli- 
gion is highly disagreeable to me, as lukewarm water to the 
stomach; and if they continue in this bad state, I shall 
surely reject and cast them off, as the stomach rejects what 


3 Ver. 8.] “By ‘strength’ here cannot be understood,” 
says Mr. Waple, on the place, “ inward and spiritual strength, 
or zeal and courage to propagate the truth; for that was 
great in them, and they have a high character and commen- 
dation given them for it by our Saviour : it means, that out- 
ward human strength, in which the might of the world con- 
sists, 1 Cor. i. 27.” It seems a commendation of their zeal 
and courage, that, without countenance and protection, and 
in an afflicted condition, they should yet show so much faith- 
fulness and constancy. 

4 Ver. 9.1 Some interpreters understand this expression 
“to worship before thy feet,” to denote submission and re- 
spect, instead of opposition and contempt; others, that it is 
an allusion to the Jewish custom, of disciples sitting at the 
feet of their teachers, to hear their instructions: I thought 
it therefore not improper to mention both in the paraphrase. 

5 Ver. 10.] This hour of temptation, which shall come 
upon all the world, seems to relate to the persecution under 
‘Trajan; which was greater and more extensive than the pre- 
ceding persecutions, either under Nero or Domitian. 

6 Ver. 12. Twill write upon him the name of my God, 
&c.] Is an allusion to inscriptions usual on pillars, which 
sometimes expressed the privileges granted to cities ; some- 
times the names of benefactors, in memory of privileges 


granted : the general meaning is, to show the great privileges 
and happiness of the faithful members of the church, in the 
constant favour of God. ‘Thus the happiness of the church 
is expressed in ancient prophecy, “ ‘The name of the city from 
that day shall be, The Lord is there,” Ezek. xlviii. 35; 
«“ And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed 
of the Lord,” Isa. ]xii. 12. This promise may well signify, 
that they who are faithful to God and Christ, to the end of 
this life, shall enjoy all the happiness of the church, in the 
heavenly state of perfection and glory. How great an en: 
couragement to preserve the purity of Christian faith and 
worship, against all corruption, and to promote a reforma- 
tion, wherever it is corrupted ! 

7 Ver. 15.] “I would thou wert cold or hot,” may be un- 
derstood as an expression of great dislike, not as a proper 
wish or expression of what men really desire; though, on 
some accounts, even no profession of religion is preferable to 
an insincere and unaffecting profession of religion. This dis- 
honours the profession of religion, which the other does not; 
and men are more likely to be brought to a sense of religion, 
when yet they have none, than when they satisfy themselves 
with a form of religion, without the power; which seems to 
be the temper Christ condemns in this church. 


CHAPTER IV. 


is greatly disagreeable to it. (17.) Show them their present 
duty, now they are so much mistaken in themselves; now 
they imagine themselves to be in so good a state as to want 
nothing; acquaint them, that indeed they are in want of all 
things truly good. They are in a wretched and miserable 
state, as they are poor in the fruits of righteousness, ignorant 
of the true perfection of religion, destitute of the righteous- 
ness which is of God by faith to forgive and cover their sins, 
and of the image of God to adorn their souls. 
them, that they be more zealous and careful to obtain the 
true riches, that they may be rich before God in good works, 
that the righteousness of God by faith may cover their sins, 
and the sanctification of his Spirit adorn their souls; and, by 
a true understanding in the nature and perfection of religion, 
they may see what they are to hope for, and to aim at. 
(19.) Then they will understand the wisdom of Providence 
even in their afflictions and trials ; they will then observe a 
kind design in them, and improve them as a wholesome dis- 
cipline of warning, correction, and amendment. 


20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any 
man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in 
to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 


(18.) Exhort | 


1029" 


| 21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with 
me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set 
down with my Father in his throne. 


(20.) Direct them to consider this present warning, as a 
| proper opportunity of improvement; which, if they shall 
mind, and faithfully comply with, as my church and people 
ought to do, they shall enjoy the comfort and blessing of my 
presence and favour; then their reward shall be great in the 
end, (21.) For he that shall overcome his temptations, 
shall as surely have all his sufferings rewarded, by a portion 
in the happiness and glory of my kingdom, as my sufferings 
have been rewarded, according to God’s promise, with 
supreme dominion, and universal authority over all things in 
heaven and in earth. 


| 


22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
saith unto the churches. 


(22.) And let every one who is well disposed to know his 
| duty and his happiness, carefully mind, and faithfully attend 
| to, these instructions, which by the Spirit of revelation and 
| propheey I send unto the churches. 


CHAPTER IV. 


SECTION ΤΥ. 


1 Arter this I looked, and, behold, a door was 
opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard 
was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which 
said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things 
which must be hereafter. 

2 And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, 
a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the 
throne.* 


(1.) After I had seen the foregoing vision, and writ down 


the directions I was ordered to send to the seven churches, | 


a new vision was represented to me, of another kind; I 
perceived a part of the heavens opened, through which, as 
through a door, I could behold what was done therein : and 
the first thing I perceived, was a strong and loud voice, like 
the sound of a trumpet.! This voice called upon me, say- 
ing, Come up hither, and the orders and decrees of Provi- 
dence in after-times shall be revealed unto thee. (2.) Im- 
mediately upon this, the Spirit of prophecy came upon me, 
and I had the following prophetic vision, strongly and dis- 
tinctly represented to me, as before mine eyes.2 ‘This vision 
I saw was like that of Ezekiel, when he saw the appearance 
of the likeness of the glory of the Lord ; for I beheld, as if a 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IV. 


Coxtrents.—The former vision which John saw, contained in 
the foregoing chapters, represented the state of the church, 
as I apprehend, at the time of the vision, or, in the words 
of the oracle, “the things that are” (i. 19), and gave suit- 
able directions to the churches, to encourage their faith 
and patience, and exhort their constancy and perseverance. 
Now John records a second vision, in which the oracle 
revealed to him “the things which shall be hereafter” 
(i. 19), or the things which were to come to pass, in suc- 
cessive order, from the time of the vision till the mystery 
of God should be finished. In order to raise the greater 
attention of the church, and to represent the certain event, 
and great concern, of the things revealed in this vision, 
God himself is represented as seated on his heavenly 
throne, in the midst of his angels and saints, and the whole 
general assembly of the heavenly church; in which the 
glorious majesty and almighty power of God, his faithful- 
ness to his covenant and promise, in the care of his 
churches, and favour of them, are described in very lively 
and beautiful images; together with the high regard the 
churches ought always to have for the counsels, designs, 


* Ezek. i. 


throne was sect up, and placed in heaven, and I beheld a 
person as sitting upon the throne. 3 


3 And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper 
and a‘ sardine stone: and /here was a rainbow round 
about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. 

4 And round about the throne were four and twenty 
seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders 
sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on 
theit heads crowns of gold. 


(3.) The person who appeared to sit on the throne, made 
a very majestic and glorious appearance, with a lustre that 
may be expressed to common conception, by the precious 
stones which the greatest princes of the world were wont to 
use as their ornaments, when they appeared in their highest 
grandeur and magnificence. ‘There was moreover, in this re- 
| presentation, a rainbow of a very beautiful colour, round 
about. the throne; so that I beheld a representation, ex- 
pressive of God's glory, majesty, authority, power, and faith- 
fulness to his covenant and promise. (4.) Round about 
this throne, on every side, at some distance from it, were 
placed seats for twenty-four persons, and twenty-four elders, 
or persons appearing with the habits and dignity of magis- 
trates and chief ministers, were seated upon them, so as to 
encompass the throne; they wore white and shining gar- 


and orders of Providence, declared and published in so 
solemn manner, in the general assembly of heaven, or, in 
the language of the Jewish doctors, in the consistory above, 
as Maimonides expresses it,* Non facit Deus quicquam, 
donec illud intuitus fuerit in familia superiori ; or, in another 
expression, Ipse et domus judicii ejus; asif it was an order 
or decree published and registered in the supreme consis- 
tory of heaven. A very proper and useful preface to the 
several revelations of the following visions. 


1 Ver. 1.] This may probably allude to the custom of the 
Jewish church, that upon opening the gates of the temple, 
the priests sounded their trumpets, to call the Levites and 
stationary-men to their attendance. 

2 Ver. 2.] We have before observed, that a vision was ac- 
counted the highest and most perfect kind of prophetic reve- 
lation, on i. 12. 

3 This representation of the throne of God is very agree 
able to several descriptions of the ancient prophets, as Isa. 
vi. 1—8, Ezek. i. 26, x. 1, Dan. vii. 9. 

4 Ver. 3.] Many interpreters have observed a mystical 
meaning in the colours and properties of the precious stones 
here mentioned ; thus in the jasper, which Grotius supposes 


* More Nevochim, par. ii. lib. vi. p, 200, 201. 


1090 


ments, proper to persons of high dignity and honour; and 
as persons of chief-distinction in the courts of the greatest 
princes: they wore also crowns or coronets of gold upon their 
heads. 


5 And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and 
thunderings and voices: and ¢here were seven lamps of 
fire burning before the throne, which are the seven 
Spirits of God. : 

(5.) From the throne itself, there came flashings of a 
bright flame, which darted round about like lightning; and 
it was attended with such loud sounds as very much resem- 
bled the noise of thunder, as it was usual in the divine ap- 
pearances to represent the awful majesty of the one true God, 
the King of Israel.5 And as in the holy place in the tem- 
ple, there were seven lamps continually burning before the 
presence, so here I saw, as the likeness of seven lamps burn- 
ing before the throne of God, to signify the seven Spirits of 
God, with what purity, constancy, and zeal, the spirits of just 
men made perfect serve God in the general assembly of the 
heavenly church. & 


6 And before the throne there was a sea of glass* 
like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and 
round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes 
before and behind. 


(6.) And as there was in the temple a large vessel, or 
laver of brass, called a sea, from the great quantity of water 
it held for the use of the priests, in the time of their service, 
that they might wash themselves, and be clean, and not die, 
for ministering before God under any pollution: so here I 
also beheld a vessel, much more glorious than the brazen 
sea; for it was made of transparent crystal, of great bright- 


REVELATION. 


ness and beauty.7_ And I saw moreover, in the middle of 
each side of the throne, in the whole circuit round about, 
four living creatures, 8 or cherubim of Ezekiel, which he saw 
in his vision ; they appeared full of eyes, not only before but 
behind, so that they had a direct and full view every way of 
all things round about them. 


7 And the first beast was like a lion, and the second 
beast like a calf,* and the third beast had a face 
as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying 
eagle. 


(7.) These living creatures had the same likeness and ap- 
pearance of the cherubim in former visions: for the first of 
these living creatures had a countenance or face as a lion, 
the second as a calf, the third as a man, and the fourth was 
in appearance like a flying eagle; to express the strength, 
firmness, and constancy, the understanding and good-will, and 
the ready activity, with which they serve God. 


8 And the four beasts had each of them six wings 
about him; and they were full of eyes within: and 
they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, 
Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to 
come. 


(8.) These living creatures were moreover represented as 
in Isaiah’s vision of the seraphim; they had each of them 
six wings, which they used in part to express their reverence, 
covering their faces and feet, in part to show readiness and 
expedition in performing the orders and commands of God; 
and every day and night they join in the adoration and wor- 
ship of God, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, 
who ever wast, and for ever wilt be, the one true God, the 
everlasting Lord, and supreme Governor of all beings. 9 


a diamond, he finds an emblem of the invincible power of 
God: Mr. Daubuz, who considers it only as a stone of a 
white and bright-shining colour, looks upon it as a symbol of 
good-will and favour. Thus, the sardine stone, which is of 
a red colour, with some signifies the active power of God; 
with others, it is a symbol of anger and displeasure in God, 
and therefore of destruction; to teach men, if they obey his 
oracle, he will show them the brightness of his countenance ; 
but if they despise it, he will at last show them the redness 
of it, or his fiery anger, in their destruction. And thus the 
beautiful green of the emerald is supposed to signify great 
good-will and favour: but as it does not appear to me, that 
the prophetic representation intended such mystical mean- 
ings, in the colour of the stones, I shall choose to omit them; 
especially, as all who have a mind to know them, may find 
them in almost every exposition. [ We may observe, I 
think, concerning the prophetic style of scripture, what the 
abbot Fleury has justly remarked concerning the poetical :— 
We are not ‘to imagine each word and circumstance has a 
particular application ; the whole figure generally tends to 
one point only, or directly means but one thing: the rest is 
added, not to make a part of the comparison, but to paint 
more lively the thing from whence the comparison is taken.” 
Calmet, Dissert. vol. i. p. 113.] But the rainbow we have 
reason to consider as a representation of God’s faithfulness 
to his covenant and promise, as God himself had appointed 
it a token of his covenant; and promised, that «when the 
bow shall be seen in the cloud, I will remember the cove- 
nant that is between me and you” (Gen. ix. 13—15). 

5 Ver. 5.1 There is an observable difference in the several 
descriptions of the throne of God, in the prophets, that it 
may be very proper to take notice of it: the glory, or She- 
chinah, in the temple, is represented as under the wings of 
the cherubim; for “the cherubim spread forth their two 
wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered 
the ark’’ (1 Kings viii. 6, 7). Jn Isaiah's vision, the glory 
of the Lord is represented, as “ sitting on a throne, and above 
it stood the seraphim” (Isa. vi. 1, 2); that is, above the 
place on which the throne was set, as attending ministers to 
him that sat upon the throne. In another vision, there is 
“the likeness of a firmament over the heads of the living 
creatures” (Ezek. i. 22), whom the prophet elsewhere calls 
“the cherubim” (Ezek. x. 20); or the cherubim were repre- 


sented, as bearing up a crystal vault or seat, on which the 
throne of Jehovah was placed over their heads, and which 
they supported with their wings. ‘This different description 
will be explained by an easy observation, that the Shechinah, 
or glory of the God of Israel, is represented in the temple, 
as the presence of a king in his palace; his throne is sup- 
posed seated in an-apartment of state, and the cherubim are 
so placed, as to form a sort of canopy of state, under which 
he sits. In the vision of Isaiah, Jehovah is represented as 
sitting on his throne, or bed of justice, held in open court, in 
the porch, or at the gate of his palace; then the cherubim 
appear as attending ministers of the court, to receive and ex- 
ecute the orders of it. In the vision of Ezekiel, Jehovah is 
represented as going forth in solemn procession, and having 
his throne, or chair of state, borne up on the wings of che- 
rubim, as the great kings of the east were used to be borne 
on the shoulders of their servants. 

6 The seven lamps, or candlesticks, are emblems of the 
church, and the Seven Spirits of God, of the all-perfect gifts 
and graces of the Holy Ghost. I have joined both senses 
together in the paraphrase, so as to unite both meanings into 
one; and to express what seems to be the principal inten- 
tion of the figurative expressions, with what purity and per- 
fection God is served by those who are wholly sanctified, and 
made perfect, in all grace and holiness, in the heavenly 
state. 

7 Ver. 6.] Several interpreters understand this crystal sea 
to be an emblem of the known rites of receiving converts into 
the Christian church by baptism, of the purity that sacra- 
ment signifies, and of the biood of Christ, by which they are 
washed and cleansed from their sins. To be sure, it has an 
allusion to that purity that is required in all persons, who 
have the honour and happiness of a near approach to the 
presence and throne of God. 

8 « Four living creatures : so they are interpreted, Ezek. 
i, and so they should have been translated here; “four 
beasts” is a very improper expression, and may much darken 
the meaning of the vision. 

9 Ver. 8.] Mr. Mede, and many who follow him, suppose 
this description of the living creatures to be taken from the 
standards of the camp of Israel: supposing the standard of 
Judah was a lion on the east side of the camp ; the standard 
of Ephraim an ox on the west side ; the standard of Reuben, 


* 1 Kings vii. 28. Exod. xxx. 18, &e. 


* Ezek. i. 10. { Isa. vi. 2, 3. 


CHAPTER V. 


9 And when those beasts give glory and honour 
and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth 
for ever and ever, 

10 The four and twenty elders fall down before him 
that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for 
ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, 
saying, 

11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and 
honour and power: for thou hast created all things, 
and for thy pleasure they are and were created. 


(9.) And when the cherubim, the representatives of the 
angels, who were nearest the throne, began their adoration 
and praise of God by a solemn thanksgiving, saying, Glory, 


a man on the south side; and the standard of Dan, an eagle 
on the north side; and that these ensigns or standards fign- 
ratively expressed the strength and power of a lion, the con- 
stant labour and usefulness of an ox, the reason and prudence 
of a man, the quick sight and activity of an eagle: so that 
this represented the Christian church and priesthood, and 
expressed the several qualities of courage, labour, prudence, 
and activity, with which the Christian church and ministry 
were to maintain the honour of God, and cause of true reli- 
gion in the world. But however ingenious and plausible 
this conjecture appears at the first sight, many learned per- 
sons, who have exactly considered it, find it has very little 
evidence or proof to support it. There is no mention of any 
such standards in Moses or the whole scriptures, in Josephus 
or Philo, or in any ancient writer, who can give any weight 
or authority to it. The reasons with which Aben Ezra en- 
deavours to support it, are so weak in the opinion of the 
learned Bochart, that he has not scrupled to call them ridi- 
culous: Sed hoe commento putidius nihil est (Hieroz. lib. iii. 
cap. 5, s. 8). There are, moreover, many reasons which 
make it highly improbable the Jews should use such stand- 
ards in their camp, it being the unanimous opinion of the 
Jews, that images, as military standards, were contrary to 
their law, which forbade the making of images. And it is 
very unlikely, that when that people had suffered so much 
for making a golden calf, Moses should immediately make 
not only the image of a calf, but several other images, as en- 
signs or military standards, for a people so prone to idolatry ; 
as the learned Witsius has more largely observed, Augyptia- 
corum, lib. ii. cap. 13. These living creatures seem much 


1031 


honour, and thanks, be to the living and eternal God, who 
sits upon the throne; (10.) they were immediately answered 
by the twenty-four elders, who were round about, the throne, 
at some farther distance; who, rising from their seats, and 
taking off their coronets, in the most humble posture of 
adoration, prostrated themselves before the throne, and wor- 
shipped the eternal living God who sat upon it; and joined 
in a doxology, saying, (11.) Thou, O Jehovah, art most wor- 
thy to receive the joint adoration of angels and saints, ascrib- 
ing all glory, honour, and power, unto thee: for thou art the 
supreme God of all, who hast created all things; to whose 
will and power they all owe their beings at first, and by 
whom they all still continue to be what they are. 


more likely to be taken from the cherubim, in the visions of 
Isaiah and Ezekiel, and in the most holy place, which are 
plainly designed as a representation of the angels, which are 
ever represented in scripture as attendant on the Shechinah, 
or glory of God, according to the psalmist, Ps. Ixviii. 17, 
«The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands 
of angels; the Lord is among them, as on Sinai, in the holy 
place.” The great use of angels in this vision, and their 
great number, so that John heard the voice of many angels 
round about the throne (v. 11), make it probable, that as the 
twenty-four elders are placed about the throne, as represen- 
tatives of the Jewish and Christian churches, now united into 
one, so the four living creatures, or cherubims, are alike re- 
presentatives of the angels, who are round the throne of God, 
and minister to him. And so, according to a great author, 
the form of the cherubim expresses the great understanding 
and power of the angels; Cherubim summam, secundim 
Deum, scientiam et potentiam angelorum indicdsse (Spencer, 
de Leg. Hebre, lib. iii. cap. 5, dissert. 5, p. 253). 

And this will also give a plain reason, which otherwise 
is not so easy to account for, why these living creatures, or 
cherubim, are nearer the throne than the twenty-four elders, 
and why they begin the worship of God before them; and it 
may also show, how proper this representation was of the 
cherubim, in the holy place, to show they are only to be 
considered as the servants and ministers of the one true God, 
and how improper to be made ensigns or standards, lest the 
people should esteem them as gods going before them, as 
they did account of the golden calf. 


CHAPTER V. 


1 Ann I saw in the right hand of him that sat on 
the throne a book written within and on the backside, 
sealed with seven seals. 


(1.) I farther beheld in my vision, and perceived, that the 
person who sat with such glorious majesty on the throne, in 
the midst of the cherubim and elders, the representatives of 
saints and angels, held in his right hand a roll of writing, 
but so rolled up, that what was written therein could not be 
read; nor could the volume itself be unrolled, to read it, it 
being sealed without, or on the backside, with seven seals, 
figuratively expressing, that the counsels of God, to be exe- 
cuted in their appointed time, though registered, as it were, 
and recorded, were yet, for the present, hid from the know- 
ledge of all; as none can tell what is contained in a writing 
closely sealed up. ! 


2 And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a 


loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to 
loose the seals thereof? 


(2.) And I beheld in my vision, an angel of chief power, 
as attendant of the heavenly court; making proclamation 
with a strong audible voice, Is any being able and fit to 
reveal, and make known, the counsels of God, registered in 
this book, and to bring them into execution? 


3 And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither un- 
der the earth, was able to open the book, neither to 
look thereon. 


(3.) And no being throughout the whole creation, neither 
of angels, nor saints in heaven, nor of men alive, nor of any 
departed souls, was able or sufficient to reveal these counsels 
of God, and to accomplish them; there was not one able to 
attain a clear understanding and knowledge of them for 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. V. 


1 Ver. 1.] This roll was not written on the backside, as 
well as within, as our translation seems to represent it, and 
as some interpreters have understood it: but, as Grotius has 
observed,* there ought to be a stop after the word “ within” 
(ἔσωϑεν), and it should be read, “ Written within, and sealed 
on the backside,” or, “on the backside sealed.” Ita hoc 

le οὐ τειν. 
* Jn loc. 


distinguendum, ut diximus; non enim dicit librum “intis 
et extra scriptum,” sed “intus scriptum, extra signatum.” 
And this much better agrees with the design of sealing the 
book so carefully, according to the interpretation of a sealed 
book, by the prophet Isaiah, “ And the vision of all is become 
to you, as the words of a book that is sealed, which men 
deliver to one that is learned ; saying, Read this, I pray thee: 
and he saith, 1 cannot, for it is sealed” (Isa. xxix. 11). 
And though there is a passage in the prophet Ezekiel, that 
speaks of a roll, or book written within and without (Ezek. 


1032 


themselves: so that the contents of this sealed book were 
known to no person whatsoever. 3 


4 And I wept much, because no man was found 
worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look 
thereon. 

5 And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: 
behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda,* the Root of 
David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose 
the seven seals thereof. 


(4.) This gave me a great concern, insomuch that it 
melted me into tears, being greatly affected with the thought, 
that no being whatsoever was to be found able to understand, 
reveal, and accomplish the counsels of God, fearing they 
would still remain concealed from the church, (5.) But I 
was soon relieved of my fears, and comforted by the voice of 
one of the elders, who bade me refrain from weeping: for 
though none was yet found able to reveal and execute these 
purposes of God, in the course of future providence, yet 
there is one person described in ancient prophecy, as the 
Lion of the tribe of Judah, and the Root of David, God’s 
anointed King and Saviour, the true Messiah, who has ob- 
tained power, and is sufficiently able, to reveal those counsels 
of God to the church, and assure their accomplishment, by 
bringing them into execution. 3 


6 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne 
and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, 
stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns 
and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God 
sent forth into all the earth. 

(6.) Upon this, I observed in my vision a new representa- 
tion, as of a Lamb that had been slain a sacrifice, standing 
just before the throne ; and nearer, as within the circles of 
the cherubim and elders, than either of them; this Lamb 
was nvt only represented as a sacrifice, but with seven horns 
and eyes, to express, figuratively, all-perfect power, wisdom, 
and goodness, whereby he was able to reveal the will of 
God, and direct all things, with respect to the world and 
church, according to it; and to accomplish all God’s designs 
of providence and grace. 4 

7 And he came and took the book out of the right 
hand of him that sat upon the throne. 

(7.) Being greatly comforted with this part of my pro- 


phetic vision, my hopes were farther raised, when I saw this 
person, so fully qualified to reveal and execute the purposes 


REVELATION. 


of God, actually undertake the performance of it: for I far- 
ther saw in my vision, this Lamb of God draw near, and 
receive the sealed book out of the right hand of the person 
sitting on the throne. 


8 And when he had 5 taken the book, the four 
beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before 
the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden 
vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. 

9 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art 
worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: 
for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by 
thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and peo- 
ple, and nation; 

10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests : 
and we shall reign on the earth, 

11 And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many 
angels round about the throne and the beasts and 
the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand 
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands ; 

12 Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb 
that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wis- 
dom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and bless- 
ing. 

(8.) No sooner had Christ received the book, and taken 
upon himself to reveal and execute the will of God contained 
in it, for the gracious protection of the church, and restraint 
of its enemies, but the whole consistory above, and heavenly 
church, joined in a solemn act of praise and adoration to the 
Lamb. I beheld the cherubim, in conjunction with the 
elders, prostrate themselves before him; each of them had 
harps, and golden censers with incense, fit representations of 
the prayers of the church, expressive of the most solemn 
worship ; as thus the priests and Levites in the temple were 
used to worship the God of Israel.6 (9.) They joined in 
praising the Lamb with a hymn, of a new composition, ex- 
pressive of his peculiar honour, and their peculiar engage- 
ments; saying, Worthy art thou, O Lamb of God, to under- 
take the revelation and the accomplishment of the designs of 
God’s providence towards the world, and of his grace towards 
the church : for thou wast slain a sacrifice of propitiation, to 
take away the sins of the world, and by thy blood hast re- 
deemed many unto God, not only of the Jews, but of all 
nations of the earth; (10.) and hast made thy church a king- 
dom of priests unto God, consecrated to his service, and ho- 
noured with a near approach to his presence, to offer up 


ii. 9, 10), itis to be observed, that roll was delivered open 
to the prophet, and spread before him, and not sealed at all; 
hut the case is very different in a book or roll so firmly 
sealed as this: so that it was not to be read by any, as 
appears by what follows. 

2 Ver. 3.] «No person whatsoever,” is the true meaning 
of the original, οὐδεὶς" man” is not in the original. 

3 Ver. 5.1 We may here observe, how expressly John 
confirms the application of these prophecies of Moses and 
Isaiah to Jesus, as the Christ and true Messiah. 

4 Ver. 6.) Horns are symbols of power and strength. 
Thus the psalmist calls Jehovah his “strength, and the horn 
of his salvation” (xvili. 2). They alsg signify a king, or 
monarch, a kingdom, or monarchy. Thus, in Zechariah, 
«The horns which scattered Judah” (i. 19. 21), are the 
kings or kingdoms of the heathen, who led the Jews into 
captivity at several times, and prevailed against the kingdoms 
of Judah and Jsrael. Eyes are a proper representation of 
observation, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and 
express fitly a wise direction and administration of 
government. Thus, Moses speaks of the knowledge and 
wise direction of Hobab, “ Leave us not, I pray thee; foras- 
much as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilder- 
ness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes” (Numb, x. 
31). “The seven Spirits of God,” we have already observed 
(on i. 4), signify the most perfect Spirit, the author and 
giver of all spiritual blessings: so that this description of 
Christ represents him invested, as Mediator, with all autho- 
tity, power, wisdom, and grace, able to reveal and execute 


the whole will of God, concerning the church and the world. 

5 Ver. 8.] Some interpreters understand the delivering 
of this book into the hands of Christ as an act of inaugura- 
tion, or investiture into his regal power and authority ; and 
that many of the expressions here used, are taken from the 
ceremonies of solemn investitures, in which, Mr. Daubuz 
observes, there are instances of several sorts of investiture by 
a book : but however ingenious this conjecture may be, it is 
supported, I think, only on a supposition, that the date of 
this vision begins at the ascension: and so with a solemn 
inauguration of Christ into his kingdom. But as this 
supposition does not so well agree with the time of the 
vision, when St. John was banished to Patmos, I only just 
mention it, and leave it to the reader's judgment. 

© Harps were a principal part of the temple-music ; vials 
were also of common use in the temple-service: they were 
not like small bottles, which we now call vials; but were 
like cups on a plate, in allusion to the censers of gold, in 
which the priests offered incense in the temple.* These 
censers were a sort of cups, which, because of the heat of the 
fire burning the incense, were often put upon a plate or 
saucer. The common custom of drinking tea, and other 
hot liquors, out of a tea-cup and saucer, will show the form 
of these censers. ΤῸ offer incense to God, or before his 
presence, in the temple, was an act of honour and religious 
worship, peculiar to the priest’s office; and the prayers of 
the church are often compared to it. Thus the psalmist, 
«Let my prayer be set before thee as incense” (cxli.2). So 
that these expressions well represent the whole heavenly 


* Gen. xlix. 9, 10, Isa. xi. 1. 10. 


* Reland, de Spoliis Templi Hierosolymitani, p. 105. 


CHAPTER VI. 


prayers, acceptable and well-pleasing in his sight; and 
therefore we may assure ourselves, from such grace and 
power, that thy kingdom and church shall be protected from 
the world, and finally prevail over it.7 (11.) When the 
cherubim and elders had thus expressed their adoration of 
the Lamb, in singing this new hymn to his praise, the whole 
assembly and congregation of heaven joined together with 
them ; a number of angels, not to be expressed, united their 
voices with the cherubim and elders ; (12.) saying, Worthy 
is the Lamb of God, who was slain, to redeem us unto God 
by his blood; to receive from his church an acknowledgment 
of his great power, and riches of grace, of his wisdom and 
strength ; to whom we ought to ascribe all honour and glory, 
with all the devotion of a grateful and thankful mind. 


13 And every creature which is in heaven, and on 
the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the 
sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, 
and honour, and glory, and power, le unto him that 


1033 


sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever 
and ever, 


(13.) I farther heard this act of praise, on so solemn an 
occasion, carried throughout every part of the creation, like 
the whole congregation of Israel, joining with the priests and 
Levites, in their worship: for every creature, with one voice, 
said, Let us ascribe all blessing, honour, glory, and power, 
to him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb of God, 
our Saviour, for ever and ever. 


14 And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four 
and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that 
liveth for ever and ever. 


(14.) This solemn act of worship, I perceived, was con- 
cluded by the cherubim, saying, Amen; and the twenty- 
four elders falling down, and prostrating themselves before 
the true God, who liveth and reigneth from everlasting to 
everlasting. § 


church of angels and saints, offering a very high act of reli- 
gious worship and adoration unto Christ. 

7 Ver. 10.) Christ and his church reign on earth, when 
the truth and purity of the Christian religion prevail against 
the opposition and corruptions of the world: it is thus only 
the kingdom of Christ, which is not of this world, is set up 
in it, and the spiritual powers of his throne established ; 


which lays no claims to any coercive powers of outward } 


force, inconsistent with a dominion, which alone consists in 
willing submission and voluntary obedience. 

8 Ver. 14.] It was the custom, in the temple-worship, for 
the singers to make pauses. In every psalm, say the Tal- 
mudists, the music made three intermissions; at these in- 
termissions the trumpets sounded and the people worshipped 
(vid. Lightfoot, Temple-Service, cap. 7). 


CHAPTER VI. 


SECTION V. 
FIRST PERIOD—OF THE SEALS. 


1 Anp I saw when the Lamb opened one of the 
seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one 
of the four beasts saying, Come and see. 


(1.) After I had beheld the sealed book delivered into 
the hands of the Lamb of God, that he might reveal the or- 
ders of God’s providence contained in it, for the consolation 
and encouragement of the church, I farther beheld in my 
vision that he proceeded to open the seals of the book in 
order; and when he had opened one of the seals, I heard 
one of the four cherubim, who were near the throne, call 
upon me with an audible voice, and strong as if it had been 
the sound of thunder, and he said unto me, Come up nearer 
unto the book, that you may see what appears in it, now it 
is opened. 


2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he 
that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given 
unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to con- 
quer. 


(2.) I immediately obeyed the voiee, and looking into 
that part of the book or roll that was unfolded, upon open- 
ing the seal, I saw a sort of hieroglyphic figure, with a 
motto. The picture was after this manner: there was 
drawn the figure of a person, sitting on a white horse, who 
had a bow in his hand, and a crown given unto him; so 
that he appeared as a prince riding in solemn procession, 


with his ensigns of state, as princes and generals were used 
to march, when setting out on some great expedition. He 
had a bow, an ensign of war; a crown, an ensign of com- 
mand and victory ; and he rode on a white horse, a symbol 
of joy and triumph. And, agreeable to this meaning, there 
was this motto, “Go forth conquering, and to conquer ;” a 
promise of success, victory, and triumph (see the history 
of the first seal at the end of this chapter). 


3 And when he had opened the second seal, I heard 
the second beast. say, Come and see. 


(3.) I farther saw, in my prophetic vision, when the 
Lamb opened the second seal, and so unfolded another 
part of the roll, or book, that what was contained in that 
part of the roll lay open to sight. Then the second of the 
cherubim called upon me, as the first had done before, say- 
ing, Come near the book, and look upon this description, 
which is designed to represent the state of the church and 
world, in the following period of providence. 


4 And there went out another horse that was red: 
and power was given to him that sat thereon to take 
peace from the earth, and that they should kill one 
another: and there was given unto him a great 
sword. 

(4.) And when I came near, and saw what was contained 
in that part of the roll, I perceived a description, as in a 
picture, or on a medal, of another horse, as in the foregoing 
representation, but of a different colour: for this horse was 
not white, but red, or of a bloody colour, ! a figure of great 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VI. 


Contents.—John had seen, in the former part of his vision, 
a representation of the majesty, glory, power, and supreme 
authority of God; and the sealed book, in which was 
contained the orders of divine Providence towards the 
church and the world, delivered to Christ, the Lamb of 
God, to open and reveal it, for the encouragement of the 
church to patience and faithfulness; together with the 
adoration of the church on this solemn occasion. Now 
this revelation of Christ begins with a prophetic repre- 
sentation of the future state of the church and world, 
so far as the wisdom and goodness of God thought fit 


to make it known, for the consolation of his faithful 
people. 
This chapter contains the first period of prophecy, and a 
description of the state of the church, under the hea- 
Vor. IV.—130 


then Roman empire, from the time of the date of the 
prophecy to about the year of Christ 323, as I have 
endeavoured to show in the preface. Each of the 
prophetical descriptions is, in part, some figurative or 
hieroglyphical picture and motto; or some represen- 
tation, in the style and figurative expressions of an- 
cient prophecy, describing some particular dispensation 
of providence, proper and peculiar to the several succes- 
sive states of the church and empire, during the space of 
time contained in this period: in which, therefore, we 
may hope to find both a wise and kind intention, in mak- 
ing known these dispensations of providence to the church, 
and a useful and profitable meaning of this first period of 
prophetical revelation. 


' Ver. 4.] When the Moabites saw the waters red by the 
shining of the sun upon re they said, “This is blood” 
4 é 


1034 


slaughter, by means of the person sitting on him; which 
the motto, or legend, explained accordingly ; “ΤῸ take peace 
from the earth, and that they should kill one another.” This 
meaning of the representation was farther confirmed, by 
another figure of a great sword, put into the hands of the 
rider, signifying such a state of providence, as that the ene- 
mies of the Christian faith should fall upon and destroy each 
other, and execute upon themselves, with their own hands, 
the judgments of God, which were due to their opposition 
to the truth, and their persecution of righteousness (see 
the history of the second seal at the end of this chapter.) 


5 And when he had opened the third seal, I heard 
the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, 
and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a 
pair of balances in his hand. 


(5.) I farther observed in my vision, that the Lamb 
opened the third seal; and I heard the third of the cheru- 
bim calling upon me, to come and see what was contained 
in that part of the roll now opened to sight. And looking 
upon it, I perceived another figurative representation ; for I 
beheld the picture of a person riding upon a horse, of a dif- 
ferent colour from both the former. ‘The horse on which 
this rider sat was of a black colour, expressive of a time of 
mourning and affliction ;2 and the person that sat on him 
had a pair of balances in his hand, but not as a common re- 
presentation of exact justice and righteous judgment, but to 
weigh corn and the necessaries of life, to signify great want 
and scarcity, and to threaten the world with famine, the 
next judgment of God to the sword. 


6 And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts 
say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three mea- 
sures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the 
oil and the wine. 


(6.) This meaning of the representation was confirmed, 
by a voice from the cherubim, saying, In the times of this 
prophecy, the price of a measure of wheat shall be a penny, 
and three measures of barley shall cost the same price; the 
whole wages of a man’s labour for a day shall only purchase 
so much corn as is a usual daily allowance: so that all he 
can get must be laid out on the very necessaries of life, 


REVELATION. 


without any provision of other conveniences for himself or 
family, and a scarcity of oil and wine will make exactness 
in their measures very necessary also4 (see the history of 
the third seal at the end of this chapter). 


7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard 
the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. 

8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his 
name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed 
with him. And power was given unto them over the 
fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with 
hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the 
field. 


(7.) I farther beheld in my vision, as the Lamb went on 
to open the seals, that he unfolded that part of the roll 
which was fastened by the fourth seal, and the last of the 
four cherubim, which were about the throne, called upon 
me, to observe what appeared upon the opening of it. (8.) 
I then beheld another figurative representation. I saw, as 
in a picture, a horse of a different colour from the three for- 
mer: this was a pale horse, an emblem of mortality and 
death.5 And the person who sat upon this horse had the 
name of Death given unto him; and to show that this was 
intended, not of any figurative death, but of a proper death 
of the body, a figure representing the grave, or hell, was 
made his attendant ;® and the meaning of this figurative 
description (see the history of the fourth seal at the end of 
this chapter) was explained by a motto, or inscription, “ Let 
them kill the fourth part of the earth,” intimating, they 
should destroy a very considerable part of the heathen Ro- 
man empire, hy the several judgments of God, the sword, 
famine, pestilence, and wild beasts. 7 


9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw 
under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the 
word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 

(9.) Upon opening the fifth seal, I beheld something new 
in my vision; I saw a great number of persons, who had 
been slain in the several persecutions of the church, who 
had persevered in the worship of the true God, according to 
the gospel of Christ, § lying at the foot of the golden altar of 
incense ;° intimating, that their constancy unto the death 


so naturally is the red colour a representation of blood (2 
Kings iii. 22, 23). 

2 Ver. 5.1 Black, in ancient prophecy, is an emblem of 
affliction; and, in particular, an affliction occasioned by 
famine: thus, in the expressions of Jeremiah, Lam. v. 10, 
« Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible 
famine.” 

3 Thus famine is expressed by the prophet Ezekiel, iv. 16, 
17, “ Moreover, he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will 
break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat 
bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water 
by measure, and with astonishment: that they may want 
bread and water, and be astonished one with another, and 
consume away for their iniquity.” 

4 Ver. 6.] The measure of wheat is a cheenix, and the 
price a Roman denarius, or penny; of which Grotius* ob- 
serves, the Roman penny was the daily wages of a work- 
man, and a cheenix the allowance of corn for his daily pro- 
vision: so that a penny for a measure of wheat, will in ge- 
neral appear a very excessive price ; since corn, for one day’s 
provision, would cost a whole day’s wages. In another way 
of computation, if we reckon the measure of the chenix to 
be about a quart English, and the Roman penny, or dena- 
rius, to be about eight-pence English,} the nearest a common 
computation of both, and there is no need here of more ex- 
actness, corn at that price will be above twenty shillings an 
English bushel; which, when the common wages of man’s 
labour was but eight-pence a day, showed a very great scarcity 
of corn, next to a famine. 

5 Ver. 8.] Pale is a usual epithet of death; Pallidam mor- 
tem, dicunt poete, says Grotius. 

6 It is not unlikely, that the figures representing death, 


* Tn loc. 
+ This is giving great advantage in the computation ; for 
the cheenix is not full a pint and half, 


and the grave, might have their names expressed by some 
motto, or inscription ; it was a thing so well known in the 
medals of those times, to write the names Pietas, Felicitas, 
Virtus, &c. under the figures designed to represent them. 

7 These are called the four sore judgments of God, in the 
ancient style of prophecy. Thus the prophet Ezekiel (xiv. 
21), “For thus saith the Lord God; How much more when 
I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, 
and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, 
to cut off from it man and beast?’ Or, as the same pro- 
phet expresses those judgments of God, which none should 
escape (xxxiil. 27), “ Say thou thus unto them, Thus saith 
the Lord God; As 1 live, surely they that are in the wastes 
shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field 
will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in 
the forts and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.” The 
meaning of which prophetic threatening is plain, that the 
judgments of God were to be so great, and so universal, that 
men should be able to find no place of security against 
them, but some one judgment or other should meet them 
every where. 

8 Ver. 9.] The word of God, and the testimony which they 
held, is a description of faithful Christians, who persevered 
in the Christian faith and worship, notwithstanding all 
the difficulties of persecution. They are called, “the rem- 
nant which keep the commandment of God, and have the 
testimony of Jesus Christ,” Rev. xii. 17, They are also de- 
scribed, as “the souls of them that were beheaded for the 
witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had 
not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had re- 
ceived his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands,” Rev. 
xx. 4, 

9 Many suppose the expression, “under the altar,” does 
allude to the ceremony of pouring out the blood, at the 
bottom or foot of the altar; but Dr. Hammond on the place 
has very justly observed, I think, that “this altar in St. 


CHAPTER VI. 


was an offering well received, and acceptable in the sight of 
God. 


10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How 
long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge 
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the 
earth ? 


(10.) And I heard these martyrs of Jesus expressing 
their faith in the promises of Christ, for whose religion they 
had suffered, by saying with united voices, O Lord God, 
thou art righteous in all thy ways, and faithful to all thy 
promises: now thy church has suffered a long time, and thy 
kingdom has been greatly oppressed by the kingdom of Sa- 
tan; when will it please thee to make way for the glorious 
state of thy kingdom, and peaceful state of thy church, by 
breaking the power of Satan, and of the idolatrous persecu- 
tors of it? 


11 And white robes were given unto every one of 
them; and it was said unto them, that they should 
rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants 
also and their brethren, that should be killed as they 
were, should be fulfilled. 


(11.) I farther beheld, that hereupon, unto each of these 
persons was given a white shining garment, a robe expressive 
of the favour and acceptance of God, and a mark of appro- 
bation, honour, and dignity. ° But, with respect to the judg- 
ments of God, which were to make way for the deliverance 
and peaceful state of the church, they were directed to wait 
a little longer; for though many had been slain already for 
the testimony of Jesus, yet there were other of their bre- 
thren, who should bear a like honourable testimony to the 
Christian faith and religion : however, this remaining time of 
trial should be short, for a little season only, when the testi- 
mony of the faithful martyrs of Christ should be completed ; 
and then God, according to their prayers, would make way 
for a peaceful and prosperous state of the church (see the 
history of the fifth seal at the end of this chapter). 


1035 


12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth 
seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the 
sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon 
became as blood; 

(12.) I farther beheld in my vision, when the Lamb pro- 
ceeded to open the sixth seal, there was represented to me 
a view of great disorder and confusion, of such changes and 
alterations, as if the world was about to be dissolved, and 
the order of nature to be set aside; for it seemed as if the 
earth was shaken with violent convulsions, as by a universal 
earthquake ; that the sun shined not with its usual lustre, 
but looked black and dark, as in a total eclipse; that the 
moon, instead of appearing with its usual brightness in the 
heavens, looked of a dusky red colour, as blood. 


13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even 
as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is 
shaken of a mighty wind. 

(13.) Even the stars also seemed to disappear out of their 
places in the heavens, and like meteors to fall down upon the 
earth, or as blasted fruit is blown down from the trees upon 
the ground by a violent storm. 


14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is 
rolled together; and every mountain and island were 
moved out of their places. 


(14.) Yet farther it was represented to me in my vision, 
as if the order of heaven and earth was to be totally changed, 
so as not to be restored again. ‘The alterations were so great, as 
if the heavens were no longer spread over the earth, but rolled 
up together as a ro!l of parchment, and the mountains and 
islands, the most secure from the danger of earthquakes, as 
having the firmest foundations, were not only shaken, but 
quite thrown down and destroyed, so as never to be restored 
again; to signify, |! according to the expressions of ancient 
prophecy, such a downfall of the empire and power of Rome 
heathen, as should never be recovered ; but the power of these 
idolatrous enemies of the Christian faith should cease and 


John’s vision, was not the altar of sacrifice in the court of 
the temple, but the altar of incense which was in the holy 
place; the whole scene of this vision being the sanctuary 
within the veil, where the altar of incense stood, the altar of 
burnt-offering standing without in the court.” The blood of 
the martyrs is not compared with the blood of propitiatory 
sacrifices, but with the offering of incense on the golden al- 
tar; which offering was accompanied with the prayers of the 
congregation, to recommend them to God, according to the 
observation of a very learned author ;* Cum enim suflimenta 
sacra ita populi preces adumbrarent, ut sacerdos altera Deo 
adolens, alteras etiam ritfi symbolico illi commendare, &c. 
A fit emblem of God’s gracious acceptance of the constancy 
and perseverance of the faithful. 

'0 Ver. 11.] When persons were approved, upon trial of 
their fitness for the priest’s office, they were clothed with 
white garments, the proper habit of the priests: and rich 
garments, which it was usual for princes to send as presents, 
according to the customs of the eastern nations, were public 
marks of the prince’s favour, and that he designed to confer 
honour on the persons to whom he presented them. This 
representation seems much to favour the immediate happi- 
ness of departed saints, and hardly to consist with that un- 
comfortable opinion, the insensible state of departed souls till 
after the resurrection. 

1 Ver. 14.] Great public calamities are described in the 
prophets, says a very celebrated author,} as if the order of 
nature was overturned, the earth quakes, the sun and moon 
are darkened, and the stars fall from heaven. This observa- 
tion will give a plain and just sense to this part of prophetic 
description. There is no need with some to understand these 
expressions of real earthquakes and eclipses, the prophetic 
style plainly shows they are figurative expressions, describ- 
ing great calamities and changes, which the judgments of 
God would bring upon the earth. The prophet Joel, de- 
scribing, in the beautiful images of prophetic style, a famine 
to be occasioned by a great number of locusts, which were 


* Outram, de Sacrificiis, lib. i. cap. 8, sect. 11. 
{ Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, on the place. 


to devour the whole fruits of the earth, thus expresses it 
(ii. 10), “The earth shall quake before them, the heavens 
shall tremble, the sun and moon shall be dark, and the stars 
shall withdraw their shining.” The prophet Isaiah, prophe- 
sying of a great destruction of God’s enemies, for their oppo- 
sition to his church, which he calls “the day of the Lord’s 
vengeance,” and “the year of recompenses for the contro- 
versy of Zion,” xxxiv. 8, thus describes it, ver. 4, “ And 
all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens 
shall be rolled together as a scroll, and all their host shall 
fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling 
fig from the fig-tree.” The general meaning of which ex- 
pressions is explained in the following verse, ver. 5, “ For my 
sword shall be bathed in heaven ; behold, it shall come down 
upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judg- 
ment.” In like manner the same prophet thus expresses the 
judgments of God in the punishment of sinners, xiii. 10, 
“ For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall 
not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going 
forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” 
The meaning of which is thus explained in the next words, 
ver. 11, “I will punish the world for their evil, and the 
wicked for their iniquity ; and I will cause the arrogancy of 
the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the 
terrible.’ ‘I'he prophet Ezekiel uses the same images, to 
express the downfall of oppressive empires and power. Thus 
in the prophecy of the destruction of the empire of Egypt 
by the empire of Babylon, Ezek. xxxii. 7, 8, “ And when I 
shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the 
stars thereof dark ; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the 
moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of hea- 
ven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy 
land, saith the Lord God.” As the prophecy contained in 
this revelation relates to the heathen Roman empire, and 
their punishment as persecutors of the true religion and 
Christian faith, there is a plain general meaning of these ex- 
pressions, applicable to those calamities and judgments, by 
which that persecuting power was to be destroyed. 

It is farther observed by many interpreters, that chief and 
principal persons, such as princes and rulers, are figuratively 


‘ 
1036 
be no more, as the power of the Assyrians and Babylonians, 


the ancient enemies of God’s people, was destroyed, and 
never recovered. 


15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, 
and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the 
mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, 
hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the 
mountains 3 


16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on. 


us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on 
the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: 


(15.) And so great was the punishment of these enemies 
of the Christian faith, that it reached persons of all ranks, 
states, and conditions, and filled their hearts every where with 
great apprehensions and fears ; so that even those who had 
the highest authority, and governed the world as kings, such 


REVELATION. 


as were invested with great power, such as had grown very 
rich, persons in command and authority, or famous for 
strength or valour, persons of every condition, whether bond 
or free, endeavoured to find out some hidden place of safety 
and retreat, if possible, to conceal themselves, that these 
judgments might not reach them. 2 (16.) Nay, they were 
so concerned and dispirited, that they were rather desirous 
to be buried under the rocks and mountains, than so exposed 
to such terrible judgments, from the anger and power of the 
great Lord of the world, whose religion they had long op- 
posed and persecuted. 13 


17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and 
who shall be able to stand ? 


(17.) Now the appointed time of his great wrath is come; 
they are made sensible, no room is left them either for de- 
fence or escape (see the history of the sixth seal at the end 
of the annotations.) 


expressed by sun, moon, and stars. It is an ingenious ob- 
servation of Mr. Daubuz,* «That by the sun may be more 
particularly meant the heathen emperors; by the moon, the 
powers next to the supreme ; by the stars, the less principal 
ruling powers of the idolatrous Roman empire; and farther, 
that by heavens may be meant the whole superior state of 
the Roman pagan world, civil and religious ; and, finally, that 
by mountains and islands may be meant the strength and 
riches throughout Rome and its provinces, especially the 
idolatrous temples, with their treasures and revenues.” 
These are ingenious conjectures, but I think not so plain 
and sure, as the general meaning fixed by the unquestion- 
able use of these images in the former prophets. 

2 Ver. 15.] Thus the prophet Isaiah describes the fears 


of idolaters, and their apprehensions of the judgments of | 


God, ii. 19, “ And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, 


* Explanation of seal sixth. 


HISTORY OF THE SEALS. 


First seal—The person who seems here represented, is 
Jesus Christ, who had received a kingdom from the Father, 
which was to rule all nations ; concerning whose kingdom it 
was foretold, that, all opposition notwithstanding, it should 
be preserved, and prevail; so that finally, all enemies to it 
should be subdued, and “the kingdoms of this world should 
become the kingdom of God, and of his Christ.” These 
figurative representations of authority, government, success, 
and triamph, may be properly applied to the Christian reli- 
gion, or kingdom of God and his Christ, now beginning to 
spread far and wide; and to comfort the faithful in Christ 
Jesus ; that however the Jews on the one hand, or the hea- 
then Roman empire on the other hand, greatly opposed and 
persecuted them, yet they should see the punishment of their 
enemies, both Jewish and heathen, and the cause of Chris- 
tianity prevail over both, in a proper and appointed time. 
These expressions, and the interpretation of them, may re- 
ceive some light from the style of the psalmist, Ps. xlv. 3, 
&c., “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with 
thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride pros- 
perously, because of truth and meekness and righteousness ; 
and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine 
arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby 
the people fall under thee. Thy throne, O God, is for ever : 
the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” We have 
farther reason for the application of this prophecy to Christ, 
and the success of his kingdom, from an after-passage in this 
Revelation, xix. 11, &c., “ And I saw heaven opened, and 
behold, a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called 
Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and 
make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head 
were many crowns, and he had a nume written which no 
man knew but himself. And he was clothed with a vesture 
dipped in blood, and his name is called, Tae Worn or 
Gon.” And again, xvii. 14, « These” (the kings that gave 
theit power and strength to the beast) “shall make war with 


and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for 
the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly 
the earth.” 

13 Ver. 16.] These expressions seem to be taken from the 
prophet Hosea, who thus describes the consternation of those 
who had fallen off to idolatry in Israel, when their idola- - 
trous places of worship should be destroyed, and they should 
be punished for their apostasy, x. 8, “The high places of 
Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thom and 
the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say 
to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us :” 
that is, according to a very learned interpreter,* such cala- 
mities shall befall them, as shall make their lives tedious to 
them, and worse than any kind of death; so that they shall 
wish to die, rather than live as they do. 


* Pocock on the place. 


the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is 
Lord of lords, and King of kings, and they that are with 
him are called, and chosen, and faithful.’”’ ‘Thus, with great 
propriety to the order and design of this Revelation, the dig- 
nity and power of Christ, the protection and success of his 
gospel, is the first part of prophecy, for the consolation of the 
faithful, as it is the chief end and design of this book. 
Second seal—According to the order we have observed in 
these prophecies, the several parts of each period being suc- 
cessive to each other, as well as the periods themselves, the 
events in history to answer this prediction are to begin in the 
first period of the heathen Roman empire, and nearest to 
the time of the vision; and then this prophecy will fitly re- 
fer to the mutual slaughters of the Jews and heathen, the 
common enemies of the Christian faith, and persecutors of 
the Christian religion ; thus taking peace from the earth, and 
killing one another. If this vision, as some learned men 
have thought, was in the time of Nero’s persecution, and so 
before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the dreadful 
slaughter of the Jewish nation in that war may be described 
by it; in which, according to some,* one million five hun- 
dred thousand, according to others, two millions of Jews 
were slain, besides the Romans slain by the Jews. But if 
this vision was in the time of Domitian’s persecution, as 
is the most common and likely opinion, it will refer to 
some event in history, after the destruction of Jerusalem ; 
for that slaughter being passed, can hardly be supposed 
the meaning of a prophecy, or prediction of a judgment to 
come. Now the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian will suffi- 
ciently verify this representation. In the latter end of the 
reign of Trajan,t the Jews rebelled in Egypt and Cyprus, 
and are reported to have put to death, with great marks of 
cruelty, four hundred and sixty thousand men; yet the Jews 
were every where subdued, and prodigious numbers slain by 


* Usher, Annal. 688. 
ἡ Xiphilin, ex Dione, Trajanus. 


CHAPTER VI. 


the Romans. Tusebius* remarks on this part of history, 
that “the doctrine and church of our Saviour daily in- 
creased; but the calamities of the Jews were aggravated 
with new miseries.” 

Not long after, in the reign of Hadrian, the Jews were led 
into a new sedition, headed by one who pretended to be 
the Messiah, who was called Bar Chocab, or «Son of the 
Star;” because he gave out, he was the Star foretold by 
Balaam. ‘he whole Jewish nation arose against the Ro- 
man government, and for some time did great mischiefs 
to the Romans; but at last they were entirely cut off by the 
Romans, though with great loss to themselves. In these 
wars, besides what was lost on the Roman side, the Jews had 
a thousand cities and fortresses destroyed, with a slaughter 
of above fivé hundred and eighty thousand men.t Thus the 
persecutors of the Christian faith and church perish by each 
other’s hands. ‘Che Romans, by their idolatrous worship of 
Jupiter Capitolinus, provoke the Jews to rebellion, and the 
Jews are destroyed following a false Messiah, as their leader, 
when at the same time they rejected the true Messiah, and 
persecuted his followers; and they fall by the hands of a 
heathen nation, which had joined with them in opposition to 
the Christian faith and profession : so that even the temporal 
evils the church was permitted to suffer by the persecution 
of its enemies, were not so great and dreadful as the cala- 
mities and judgments the providence of God permitted the 
persecutors themselves to bring upon each other, by their 
own hands: so that the faithful had no reason to complain, 
as if their afflictions were peculiar to themselves, or greater 
than what their enemies were corrected with. This period 
of history was about forty years after the vision. 

Third seal—According to the order of prophecy we have 
observed in this book, the events in history, to answer this 
prediction, are to be found in the next part of this period 
of the heathen Roman empire, or after the reigns of Trajan 
and Hadrian ; now Antoninus Pius succeeded Hadrian, A. D. 
138. Antoninus the philosopher, partly with Verus, and 
partly alone, and after them Commodus, governed the Ro- 
man empire, till within a few months of the reign of Severus, 
who began his empire, A. D. 193, a space of above fifty 
years. 

Let us then see what the history of those times affords us, 
agreeable to this prophetical descriptiou. I think the de- 
scription itself plainly expresses a great scarcity of provi- 
sion; and though it does not foretell such a scarcity of pro- 
vision as should amount to a famine, when no bread at all 
was to be had, which scarce ever happened in so many 
countries at once, as were subject to the Roman empire; yet 
it foretells that bread, the staff of life, should be so scarce 
as to be sold at an excessive price, so as to be a very heavy 
judgment on the greater part of mankind, who have their 
bread to get by their daily labour. 

The fourth general persecution was within this period, near 
sixty years after the third general persecution by Trajan, 
A. Ὁ. 107. For Antoninus the philosopher, notwithstand- 
ing his other good qualities, had a strong superstition and 
zeal for the heathen religion, and began a new persecution 
against the Christians, about the year 165. 

The state of the empire, under the reigns of this Antonine 
family, does properly and exactly answer this prophetic de- 
scription. 

But it will be proper to observe previously, that Mr. Mede, 
and after him, Mr. Waple, and others, seem to have been 
led into a great mistake, in their interpretation of this pre- 
diction, by a conjecture without reasonable foundation. 

The third beast, or living creature, according to Mr. 
Mede’st supposition of the standards of the camp of Israel, 
stood to the south; and therefore showeth, as he observes, 
“this seal beginneth at the coming of an emperor, from that 
quarter, viz. Septimius Severus, an African, an emperor out 
of the south.” 

But as there seems to be little foundation for supporting a 
prediction, from the bare situation of the beast, east, west, 
noth, and south, if they had really been taken from the 
standards of the camp of Israel, there is yet less foundation 
for that supposition, as it is very uncertain, and indeed very 


* Hist. Eccl. lib. iv. cap. 2. 


+ Xiphilin, ex Dione, Hadrianus, + On vi. 5. 


1037 


improbable, the camp of Israel had any such standards from 
whence they are supposed to be taken, as we have observed 
more at large, on iv. 8. There was no need therefore for 
Mr. Mede to reject the common interpretation, so natural 
and proper, because the event was not answerable in the reign 
of Severus, since it was on no good foundation he fixed it to 
the reign of Severus: for if the beasts were not taken from 
the standards of the camp, or if they did not answer the 
situation of the standards, east, west, north, and south ; or, 
finally, if standing to the south did not, in the intention of 
the prophecy, confine the time to the reign of an emperor 
born in Africa, there is no suflicient reason to confine this pro- 
phecy to the reign of Severus. 

It is, on the contrary, for considerable reasons, directed to 
that part of the period of the heathen Roman empire, next 
after the preceding prophecy, which referred to the reigns of 
Trajan and Hadrian ; and therefore may well be looked for 
in the reigns of the Antonine family: let us, then, see whe- 
ther, in those times, history does not take notice of famine, 
and scarcity of provisions, as worthy the honour of a charac- 
ter in Mr. Mede’s expression. 

The testimony of Tertullian,* who lived in those times, 
is very plain, and allowed by Mr. Mede; he mentions un- 
seasonable weather, and bad harvests, the judgments of God, 
for persecuting the Christians. Doleamus necesse est, quod 
nulla civitas impuné latura sit sanguinis nostri effusionem.— 
Are ipsorum non fuerunt, messes enim suas non egerunt ; 
cxtertim et imbre anni preteriti quod commeruit genus hu- 
manum, apparuit cataclysmum scilicet. 

But, says Mr. Mede, if the harvest failed in Africa some 
time, when Hilarianus was president, which he saith it did, 
it follows not therefore that this was general through the 
Roman empire, or in the age of Severus: whether it was 
in the age of Severus, is nothing material, but Africa was the 
granary of Italy, and a failure of harvest there must occasion 
a scarcity of provision in great part of the Roman empire: be- 
sides, it is observable, that Tertullian speaks of such a scarcity, 
as was felt in every city, and that the rains that occasioned 
it were so great, as to threaten the world with a second flood. 

But let us consider what the historians take notice of, with 
respect to a scarcity of provisions in Italy, and Rome itself, 
under the reign of the Antonines. 

Aurelius Victor, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, observes, 
that the scarcity of provisions occasioned such a tumult in 
Rome, that the common people attempted to stone him, 
which he chose rather to suppress by fair means, than by se- 
verity. +Usque eo autem mitis fuit, ut cium ob inopiw 
frumentarie suspicionem, lapidibus ἃ plebe Romana per- 
stringeretur, maluerit ratione expositd placare, quam ulcisci 
seditionem. 

Julius Capitolinus+ farther takes notice, that Antoninus 
Pius was fain to supply the scarcity of wine, oil, and corn, 
out of his own treasury; and that famine was one of the 
evils with which the empire was afilicted in his reign. Vini, 
olei, et tritici penuriam, per erarii sui damna emendo et 
gratis populo dando, sedavit—Adversa ejus temporibus hec 
provenerunt, fames de qua diximus, &c. 

In the reign of his successor, Antoninus the philosopher, 
we have a like account of scarcity of provision, to a famine ; 
Mr. Echard§ has thus expressed it: “The birth of this 
prince (Commodus) was signalized by many deplorable dis- 
asters, particularly the river Tiber, by an inundation, over- 
whelmed a considerable part of Rome, bore along with it a 
multitude of people and cattle, ruined all the country, and 
caused an extreme famine ; this inundation was seconded by 
earthquakes, burning of cities, and a general infection of the 
air, which immediately produced an infinite number of in- 
sects, who wasted all that the floods had spared.” This ac- 
count is taken, I suppose, from Capitolinus and Victor ; for 
Julius Capitolinus thus mentions these calamities: Dabat 
se Marcus totum philosophie, amorem civium affectans ; sed 
interpellavit istam felicitatem securitatemque imperatoris, 
prima Tiberis inundatio, que gravissima fuit; que res et 


* Tertullianus ad Scapulam, cap. 3, p. m. 92. 
{ Aurel. Vict. p.m. 446, : 
+ Jul. Capitol. Antoninus Pius, cap. 8. 
§ Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 315. 
|| Julius Capitol. Anton. Philos. cap. 8. 

M 


1038 


multa urbis edificia vexavit, et plurimum animalium in- 
teremit, et famen gravissimam peperit. 

Aurelius Victor thus:* Terre motus, non sine interiti 
civitatum, inundationes fluminum, lues crebre, locustarum 
species, agris infeste prorsts, ut propé nihil, quo summis 
angoribus atteri mortales solent, dici seu cogitari queat, quod 
non illo imperante sevierit. 

In the next reign, of Commodus, Xiphilin} observes from 
Dio, there was such scarcity of provisions, that the people 
of Rome rose, and actually killed Cleander, the emperor's 
favourite, in the sedition. Nam cum esset forté magna 
inopia rei frumentarie, eamque Dionysius Papyrius priefec- 
tus annone fecisset majorem, ut populus Romanus culpam 
in Cleandrum propter furta que faciebat, confiveret, habe- 
retque odio, eumque, id quod accidit, interficeret. 

The scarcity of provisions, in every reign of the Anto- 
nines, continued to the empire of Severus, who heartily set 
himself to remedy so great an evil, and make it the great 
care of his life: which plainly shows, it was a very pressing 
evyjl; and that, through frequent wars, bad harvests, and a 
mismanagement of the public stores, scarcity of provisions 
was a distinguishing judgment of those times. So #lius 
Spartian observes, in the life of Severus, Rei frumen- 
tarie quam minimam receperat, ita consuluit, ut exce- 
dens ipse vita, septem annorum canonem populo Romano 
relinqueret. 

And thus also the reign of Severus appears a proper end 
to the judgment of this prediction. 

Fourth seal—The period of history, which in order of 
time answers to this period of prophecy, is the state of the 
Roman empire, after Severus, which begins about the year 
211. In this time the persecution of the church was very 
severe: so that our ecclesiastical historians reckon four of 
the general persecutions, in the space of less than thirty 
years, under the reign of Maximin, Decius, Gallus and Vo- 
lusian, and Valerian. 

Tn this period of time, the several sore judgments of God 
were united, in the punishment of a persecuting empire, the 
sword, famine, and pestilence. The sword and famine, 
which were judgments of the foregoing seals, are continued 
in this, and the pestilence is added to them. The pestilence 
seems to be made the more distinguishing judgment of this 
seal. The name of the person sitting on the pale horse was 
Death,§ which is the proper expression in the scripture lan- 
guage for the plague, as the prophet Jeremiah used the word 
mp, “death,” for the plague; and the LXX. render 435, 
“pestilence,” by ϑάνατον, “death.” Accordingly, we find 
all these judgments, in a very remarkable manner, in this 
part of history. 

The state of the empire was very much disturbed both by 
fereign wars and intestine troubles; very few of the em- 
perors but met with a violent death; so that besides thirty 
persons, who all pretended to the empire at once, there were 
twenty acknowledged emperors in the space of sixty years, 
from Caracalla, A. ἢ). 211, to Aurelian, 270. These intes- 
tine divisions gave great heart and strength to the enemies 
of the Roman empire, and great advantages to the Persians, 
and northern nations, against it ; so that Valerian, in whose 
reign the persecution was very violent, was taken prisoner 
by Sapores (or Sha Pur), king of Persia, kept captive by 
him, and treated with great severity to his death. Famine 
and scarcity of provisions are the usual effects of war, espe- 
cially of civil wars. The spoil of armies, the fears of the 
country, and the want of hands for husbandry, hardly fail 
of producing scarcity, near to famine; especially when un- 
seasonable weather shall also spoil the fruits of the earth. 
Mr. Mede observes, from Dionysius of Alexandria, and 
Cyprian, that both war and famine were the judgment of 
these times. 

« After these things,” says Dionysius, speaking of the perse- 
cution of Decius, “ war and famine came upon us.”’|| Cyprian, 
in his Apology for the Christians, to Demetrius, proconsul of 
Afriea, takes notice of the more frequent wars and famines 


* Aurel. Vict. p. m. 446. 

+ Xiphilin, ex Dione, Commodus, 575. 

+ Cap. 8. § Vid. Grot. on Matt. xxiv. 7. 
| Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 22. 

4 Cypriani ap Demetrianum. p. m. 278, 


REVELATION. 


of those times, that they were falsely charged upon the 
Christians ; Sed enim ctim dicat plurimos conqueri, quod 
bella crebritis surgant, quod lues, qudd fames seviant, 
quédque imbres et pluvias serena longa suspendant, nobis 
imputari, tacere ultra non oportet. It is remarkable that 
Cyprian, in the same Apology, expressly declares his judg- 
ment, that these great calamities were according to former 
predictions, and brought upon the world, not because the 
Christians rejected the idolatrous Roman worship, but be- 
cause the Romans rejected the worship of the true God. 
Quod autem crebritis bella continuant, quod sterilitas et 
fames sollicitudinem cumulant, quod sevientibus morbis 
valetudo frangitur, quéd humanum genus luis populatione 
vastatur, et hoc scias esse predictum—Non enim, sicut 
tua falsa querimonia et imperitia, veritatis ignara, jactat et 
clamitat, ista accidunt, quod dii vestri ἃ nobis non colantur, 
sed quod a vobis non colatur Deus.* And, finally, he 
makes this the consolation of the Christians in their suf 
ferings, Certi et fidentes, quod inultum non remaneat 
quodcunque perpetimur; quantoque major fuerit persecu- 
tionis injuria, tanto et justior fiat, et gravior, pro persecu- 
tione, vindicta.t 

Pestilence seems designed the judgment of this predic- 
tion ; Mr. Mede observes,+ from Zonaras and Lipsius, that a 
pestilence, arising from Ethiopia, went through all the pro- 
vinces of Rome, and for fifteen years together incredibly 
wasted them. Neither did I ever read of a greater plague 
(saith an eminent man in our age), for that space of time 
or land. This pestilence is mentioned by Zonaras, in the 
reign of Gallus and Volusian, about the year 251.§ The 
words of Zonaras are so agreeable to the prophetic descrip- 
tion, that it may be useful to insert them :—* He (Gallus) 
was very severe to the Christians, many being put to death 
by a persecution, not less grievous than that of Decius; un- 
der him the Persians renewed their motions, and settled in 
Armenia ; an almost innumerable company of Scythians fell 
upon TItaly,|| and ravaged Macedonia, Thessaly, and 
Greece; a part of them, from the Palus Meotis, broke 
through the Bosphorus into the Euxine sea, and laid waste 
many provinces ; and many other nations rose against the 
Romans. Moreover, a plague then infested the provinces, 
which, beginning in Ethiopia, spread itself almost through 
the whole east and west, destroyed the inhabitants of many 
cities, and continued for fifteen years.” Zosimus,§ a hea- 
then historian, takes notice of the same calamity: « While 
war raged in every part, a pestilence spread through all 
towns and villages, and destroyed the remainder of man- 
kind; that so great a destruction of men had not hitherto 
ever happened in former times.” I shall only add the short 
character of Eutropius, of the times of these emperors, 
Gallus and Volusian; he observes, their reigns were only 
memorable for pestilence and grievous distempers: Sola 
pestilentid, et morbis, atque egritudinibus, notus eorum 
principatus fuit.** 

Fifth seal—The period of history which in order of time 
answers to this period of prophecy, is the state of the 
church and Roman empire, after the reign of Aurelian, 
about the year of Christ 275, which we have endeavoured to 
show was the period of the foregoing seal. 

This period is marked in the prophetic description, by a 
time of severe sufferings, in which many gave up their lives, 
in honourable testimony to the Christian faith and religion ; 
but it is also described but as a short time before their suf- 
ferings should end, and the church should enjoy a state of 
peace and prosperity, in a quiet and free profession of the 
Christian faith and worship. The seal then naturally leads 
us to consider the state of the church and empire, in the reigns 
of Dioclesian and Maximian. 

Dioclesian began his reign about the year 284, which he 
appointed the beginning of a new civil era; but which the 
Christians, on account of the heavy and grievous persecution 
in his reign, were used to call “the era of the martyrs:” 


* Ib. 279. t Tb. 282. 

+ Jos. Mede, of the fourth seal. § Lipsius. 

| Joan. Zonar. Annal. tom. ii. Imper. Galli et Volu- 
siani, p. m. 109. 

4 Zosimi Hist. Nove, lib. i. p. 24. 

** Eutropius, lib. ix. 


CHAPTER VI. 


this was indeed the last, but the most extensive and furious 
of all the persecutions. We have a large account of it from 
Eusebius and Lactantius, who were themselves witnesses of 
it. It may however be sufficient to represent it in the words 
of Mr. Echard,* who has well abridged the larger accounts: 
« As this was the last persecution, so it was the most severe 
of all others, like the last efforts of an expiring enemy, who 
uses his utmost power and strength to give a parting blow. 
It were endless, and almost incredible, to enumerate the 
variety of sufferers and torments; it is sufficient to observe 
in this place, that they were scourged to death, had their 
flesh torn off with pincers, and mangled with broken pots, 
were cast to lions, tigers, and other wild beasts, were burned, 
beheaded, crucified, thrown into the sea, torn in pieces by 
the distorted boughs of trees, roasted by gentle fires, and 
holes made in their bodies for melted lead to be poured 
into their bowels. This persecution lasted ten years un- 
der Dioclesian, and some of his successors; and the in- 
credible number of Christians that suffered death and 
punishment, made them conclude, that they had completed 
their work; and in an ancient inscription they tell the 
world, that they had effaced the name and superstition of 
the Christians, and had restored and propagated the worship 
of the gods. But they were so much deceived, that this has- 
tened the destruction of paganism, and shortly after, Christi- 
anity became victorious, and triumphant over all the powers 
and artifices of mankind.” Thus exactly does this period of 
history answer the description of prophecy, in a state of very 
great sufferings ; but which, for the consolation of the faith- 
ful, was very near its end. 

Sixth seal—tThe period of history, which in order of time 
answers to this part of prophecy, is after the heavy persecu- 
tion of Dioclesian. It was to be but a short time after, in 
the expression of the prophecy, “a little season,” when there 
should be a very great change and alteration in the 
heathen Roman empire, attended with great calamities 
brought on the persecutors of truth and righteousness ; 
even such as should break in pieces their oppressive 

wer. 

And the next state of the Roman empire will fully answer 
this description. 

Dioclesian and Maximian resigned the empire, and retired 
to private life, being both forced to it by Galerius, as Lactan- 
tius very particularly relates it Upon the death of Con- 
stantius, and the accession of his son Constantine to his 
part of the empire, Maxentius got himself declared em- 
peror at Rome; Galerius, to suppress this rebellion, per- 
suades Maximian to resume the empire, which he does; 
but, in a short time, has the mortification of being deposed ; 
and soon after, for attempting the life of Constantine,+ 
is forced to put an end to his own life, by an ignominious 
death. 

Galerius was smitten with a very loathsome and incura- 
ble distemper, attended with such insupportable torments 
that he often endeavoured to kill himself, and caused some 
of his physicians to be slain, because their medicines proved 
ineffectual: he at last began to think of the Christians ; he 
put an end to their persecution by a public edict, in which 
he in particular requires their prayers for his recovery, 
Unde juxta hanec indulgentiam nostram, debebunt Deum 
suum orare pro salute nostra, et reipublicee ac sui.g Yet 
soon after this public acknowledgment in favour of Chris- 
tianity, he died of his loathsome distemper, about the year 
311. 

Constantine, who became a great favourer of the Chris- 
tians, marches against Maxentius, who opposes him with a 
great army of one hundred and seventy thousand foot, and 
eighteen thousand horse; after a fierce and bloody battle, 
Maxentius was defeated by Constantine.| Upon this vic- 
tory, Constantine, who had secured by it the whole empire 
of the west, gives free liberty for the open profession of the 
Christian religion. 

In the east, Maximin revoked the liberties granted the 


* Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 533. 

+ Lactant. de Mort. Pers. cap. 18. 

+ Ib. cap. 29, 30. § Ib. cap. 34, 
] Echard, Rom. Hist. 547, 


1039 


Christians, makes war with Licinius; but being defeated, 
with great slaughter of his numerous army, puts many 
heathen priests and soothsayers to death, as cheats. Not 
long after," as he was endeavouring to try the event of a 
second battle, he was struck with a violent distemper, with 
intolerable pains and torments all over his body ; he wasted 
to nothing, became quite blind, and died raging and in 
despair; confessing upon his death-bed,f that all this was 
but a just punishment upon him, for his spiteful and viru- 
lent proceedings against Christand his religion. Lactantius 
has these remarkable words, Cum jam terrd marique perter- 
reretur, nec ullum supererat refugium, angore animi ac metil 
confugit ad mortem, quasi ad remedium malorum, que 
Deus in caput ejus ingessit.¢ And so, taking poison, he 
died in that miserable manner. 

Constantine in the west, and Licinius in the east, remained 
now sole emperors ; Licinius severely persecuted the Chris- 
tians in his part of the empire; a war breaks out between 
the two emperors; Licinius, notwithstanding a stout resist- 
ance, was overthrown, and forced to fly: but soon a second 
war began, which was carried on with greater fury than ever; 
Licinius is again defeated in a general battle,§ in which, it 
is reported, one hundred thousand men were slain. He is 
taken prisoner; and though his life was then spared, yet, 
upon new attempts against the life of Constantine, he is 
put to death, and with him ended all the heathen power of 
Rome. 

A little after this, Constantine removes the seat of the em- 
pire from Rome to Constantinople, forms a new model of 
the Roman government and empire, puts the administration 
of the government into the hands of four principal officers, 
called “ pretorian prefects,” abolishes all the power of pa- 
ganism, and establishes the Christian religion throughout the 
empire. 

Thus, by great and frequent calamities, in which so many 
emperors had their share one after another, this wonderful 
change was wrought in the heathen Roman empire: their 
power to oppress and persecute the Christian religion fell, 
like the Assyrian and Babylonian persecutors, never to rise 
any more. 

This part of history is so easily applicable to the prophetic 
description, that I shall only represent it in the words of Mr. 
Daubuz:| “From this account it appears, that the pagan 
Roman emperors were deprived of their government, and 
came to miserable ends:—that the pagan Roman Cesars 
fell in battle, or were put to death :—that the religion of the 
idolaters received a mortal wound, all the colleges of ponti- 
fices, augurs, vestals, in a word, all the pagan priests and reli- 
gious officers throughout the empire, being brought under 
the power and dominion of a Christian prince :—that many 
of the pagan officers, civil and military, were displaced, and 
Christians put in their room ;—that there was a thorough 
change in the government, and that paganism lessened by 
degrees, till it entirely disappeared :—that the greatest of 
the persecutors acknowledged and confessed the justness 
and cause of God’s judgments :—and, lastly, that upon this 
change, all the idolaters, upon account of their horrid cruel- 
ties and barbarities against the Christians, could not but be 
in daily expectation of the severest punishments.” 

To this I shall add but one remark, That this part of his- 
tory is very proper to the general design of the whole Reve- 
lation, to support the patience, and encourage the perseve- 
rance, of the church, in such an instance of God’s power 
and faithfulness in the protection of the Christian religion, 
and punishment of its enemies. We see, in this period, dur- 
ing the persecution of Rome heathen, the church in a state 
of trial and suffering, yet preserved and protected, and finally 
obtaining a state of peace and safety, when all the power 
of their persecutors was totally destroyed by God’s overrul- 
ing providence. This history verifies the general truth of all 
the prophecies, and the particular predictions of @ach of 
them severally. A strong encouragement to the patience 
and constancy of the true church! 


* Tb. 550. 

+ Lactant. de Mort. Pers. cap. 49. 
§ Zosimus, lib. ii. p. 100. 
Daubuz, Explanat. of Seal Sixth, 258. 


+ Ibid, 


1040 


CHAPTER VII. 


SECTION VI. 
INTERVAL BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND PERIODS. 


1 Ann after these things I saw four angels stand- 
ing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four 
winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on 
the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. 


(1.) Now after my former visions, which represented the 
providence of God towards the church and world, to the 
downfall of the heathen Roman empire, the state of the 
church and world next to follow, was also represented to me 
in another prophetic vision; in which I beheld four angels, 
representing the government of providence, as directed by 
God’s will and command, and executed by his messengers or 
ministers.! ‘Those angels were represented as placed at the 
four chief points from whence the winds are used to blow, 
to restrain them from blowing with violence on any part of 
the world: to show, God designed in his providence to put 
a stop to the tumults and commotions that had before so 
much disturbed the world, and to give the church and world 
a time of peace and rest 2 for a season. 


2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, 
having the seal of the living God: and he cried with 
a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given 
to hurt the earth and the sea, 

(2.) I farther beheld in my vision, another angel, as as- 
cending from the eastern point of the heavens, who appeared 
with the seal of God in his hand, as sent on some particular 
message; this angel, as he came on, made proclamation 
with a loud voice, that the commotions and disorders of the 
world should cease for a time ;— 


3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor 
the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God 
in their foreheads. 


(3.) That a state of peace and quiet should continue 
until he had sealed the servants of God, till many should 
receive the distinguishing mark or seal of the Christian 
church, the sign and testimonial of their Christian pro- 
fession, and consecration to the service of God, and of 
God’s peculiar favour to them, as his church and peculiar 
people. 3 

4 And I heard the number of them which were 
sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty 
and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of 
Tsrael. 


(4.) And the number of those who were thus sealed, and 
consecrated to God, as his church and peculiar people, was 
very great; a number that figuratively expressed many per- 
sons of all people and nations, professing the Christian faith, 
and serving God in the worship of the Christian church, now 
the true Israel of God, it being the square number of twelve, 
multiplied by a thousand. 4 

5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thou- 
sand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve 
thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve 
thousand. 

6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. 
Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thou- 
sand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve 
thousand. 

7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thou- 


sand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thou- 
sand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve 
thousand. 


8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thou- 
sand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve 
thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed 
twelve thousand. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VII. 


Contrents.—The former chapter concluded the first period, 
and the sufferings of the church under the persecution of 
the heathen Roman empire. The second period of pro- 
phecy begins with the opening of the seventh seal, and is 
contained in the events which attend the sounding of the 
trumpets; an account of which we have in the eighth and 
ninth chapters. In this chapter, I conceive, we have an 
account of a little pause, or interval, to describe the state 
of things, for a short time, between the two periods. After 
these things, that is, after the prophetic vision that repre- 
sented the first period, John saw, in other visions, what is 
related in this chapter. This seems a representation of a 
state of peace and quiet throughout the earth, especially 
in the Roman empire, and of the great number of persons 
in every nation, which came into the profession of Chris- 
tianity ; of the encouraging protection that was given to 
the Christian church, of thankful acknowledgments for 
the goodness and power of God and Christ, by the whole 
church, in such eminent instances of favour and protec- 
tion; and, finally, of the happy state of all the faithful 
confessors and martyrs, who, after a short time of tribu- 
lation, for the faith of Christ, and constancy in his reli- 
gion, have attained to a state of everlasting rest, in 
happiness and glory. 

Thus wisely does this part of prophecy promote the prin- 
cipalffesign of the whole, to encourage the faith and 
patience, the hope and constancy of the chnrch, under 
all opposition and sufferings. It seems designed to show, 
with the certainty of prophetic revelation, that as God 
directs all things in the world by his providence, so he 
will direct them to serve the designs of his goodness to 
the church; and that the great revolutions of the world 
shall often be in favour of true religion, and for its 
protection; and to assure the faithful, that all they 


suffer for the sake of truth and righteousness, shall soon 
be rewarded with a state of peace, honour, and happi- 
ness. 


1 Ver. 1.] An angel, in prophetic style, expresses every- 
thing that brings a message from God, or executes the will 
of God, as, a prophetic dream, a pillar of fire, &c. (see note 
oni. 1). 

2 Winds are emblems of commotions, and very properly, 
as they are the natural causes of storms. Thus this figura- 
tive expression is used, and explained by the prophet Jere- 
miah, xlix. 36, 37, “ And upon Elam will I bring the four 
winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter 
them towards all those winds; and there shall be no nation 
whither the outcast of Elam shall not come. For I will 
cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before 
them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, 
even by fierce anger, saith the Lord; and I will send my 
sword after them, till I have consumed them.”’ To hold the 
winds, that they should not blow, is a very proper prophetic 
emblem of a state of peace and tranquillity. 

3 Ver. 3.] Sealing has several intentions in the style of 
prophecy, which may be seen in Mr. Daubuz’s Symbolical 
Dictionary ; as, preservation and security, secrecy, confirma- 
tion, and authority. But, I conceive, the principal mean- 
ing here is to denote propriety, in allusion to the custom of 
sealing things, that it might be known to whom they belong. 
Now, as the sacraments of circumcision under the law, and 
baptism under the gospel, were used as public marks of con- 
secration to God, as his peculiar people, and of God’s favour 
to his church, as his peculium, this expression, of “ sealing 
the servants of God,” may well be understood, I think, of a 
great addition to the numbers of the Christian church by 
baptism; or receiving the seal of the Christian religion, the 
mark of God’s peculium. 

4 Ver. 4.] This singlé passage, says the Bishop of Meaux, 


CHAPTER VII. 


me This great number of people, which professed the 
faith and worship of the Christian church, were in propor- 
tion out of every place and nation, as if a proportional num- 
ber had been sealed out of every one of the tribes, into 
which the children of Israel had been divided, according to 
the number of their patriarchs, as if now all the nations of 
the earth who were to be blessed in the Christian church 
had succeeded in their room, as the true Israel of God; for 
it was represented to me in my vision, as if twelve thousand 
were sealed in the tribe of Judah, as many in the tribe 
of Reuben, and a like number in every one of the other 
tribes. 


9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, 
which no man could number, of all nations, and kin- 
dreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the 
throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, 
and palms in their hands ; 


(9.) After I had beheld this happy and prosperous state 
of the church, at the end of so many and grievous afflictions, 
I saw, in my prophetic vision, the whole church of heaven, 
joining in a solemn act of praise. The song of praise began 
with the united voices of an innumerable company of 
persons of all nations and countries, who were clothed in 
white garments, marks of piety, honour, and dignity; and 
they had palm-branches in their hands, emblems of joy and 
victory ;— 

10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation 
to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto 
the Lamb. 


(10.) And they said with a loud voice, Salvation be as- 
cribed unto our God, the supreme and sovereign Lord of all, 
who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb of God, 
who has all power to protect and save his faithful ser- 
vants. 5 


11 And all the angels stood round about the 
throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and 
fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped 
God, 


(11.) Then the angels of God, who stood round about the 
throne, and the twenty-four elders, with the four living crea- 
‘tures or cherubim, prostrated themselves before the throne 
of God, joining in the same act of worship and thanksgiving 
with the saints. 


12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wis- 
dom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and 
might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. 


(12.) For they said, Amen, to their hymn of praise ; and 


1041 


added, Let all, with a sincere and devout heart, ascribe unto 
God, blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honour, power, 
and might, for ever and ever. Amen. 


13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto 
me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes ? 
and whence came they ? 

(13.) To give me a more exact information concerning 
these persons who were clothed in the white robes of purity, 
honour, and dignity, one of the elders led me on by a ques- 
tion, to ask of him a fuller account of them. 


14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And 
he said to me, These are they which came out of great 
tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb. 


(14.) Whereupon he gave me this account of them: 
These persons whom you behold appearing in this state of 
honour and happiness, were very lately in a state of great 
afflictions and suffering for the sake of their faith and con- 
stancy; but having kept the faith, they have received the 


| blessings Christ obtained by his blood, for his church and 


faithful people; they are now cleansed from all impurity, 
adorned with all perfection, and advanced to this state of 
glory and happiness in which you see them. 


15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, 
and serve him day and night in his temple: and he 
that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. 


(15.) They are counted worthy to appear in the imme- 
diate presence of God, even here before his throne, and have 
obtained the honour and happiness of a constant attendance 
upon God; and, like his angels, cease not day or night to 
praise him: and the presence of God will be an everlasting 
spring of happiness and joy to them. 

16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any 
more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any 
heat. 

(16.) They shall no more be subject to any of their for- 
mer troubles or afflictions. None of the natural or common 
evils of the world below shall reach them any more. 


17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living foun- 
tains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears 
from their eyes. 

(17.) Forit shall be the care of the Lamb of God to bless 
them, who has all power to make them eompletely happy. 
He shall bless them with perpetual everlasting joys; and 
every sorrow, with every cause of sorrow, shall be fully taken 
away for ever.® 


may show the mistake of those who always expect the num- 
bers in the Revelation to be precise and exact: for is it to 
be supposed, that there should be in each tribe twelve thou- 
sand elect, neither more nor less, to make up the total sum 
of one hundred forty and four thousand? It is not by such 
trifles, and low sense, the divine oracles are to be explained : 
we are to observe, in the numbers of the Revelation, a cer- 
tain figurative proportion, which the Holy Ghost designs to 
point out to observation. As there were twelve patriarchs, 
and twelve apostles, twelve becomes a sacred number in the 
synagogue, and in the Christian church. This number of 
twelve first multiplied into itself, and then by a thousand, 
makes one hundred forty and four thousand. 
observes,* in the solid proportion of this square number, the 
unchangeableness of the truth of God and his promises: per- 
haps it may mean the beauty and stability of the Christian 
church, keeping to the apostolical purity of faith and wor- 
ship. 

5 Ver. 10.] This vision, especially when compared with 
the former in the fourth and fifth chapters, is to be under- 
stood, I conceive, of the church in heaven; as heaven seems 
to be the proper scene of the vision, so the innumerable 
company of saints with whom the angels join in the follow- 
ing words, in the presence of God and the Lamb, is meant 
naturally to be understood, I think, of those who, having 


* In loc. 
Vor. IV.—131 


The bishop | 


been faithful unto death, had received the crown of immor- 
tal life, in the state of heavenly happiness. And I question, 
whether the praises of the church on earth will answer the 
prophetic description, or the intention of the prophetic Spirit, 
in the great encouragement it designed to give to faithful- 
ness and constancy. I think, to understand it of the hea- 
venly church, is a natural sense of the expressions, a sense 
proper to the design of the prophecy, as it represents the 
faithful martyrs and confessors, once so great sufferers on 
earth, now blessed saints in heaven. 

δ Ver, 17.] Interpreters are not agreed in the proper 
meaning of this description. Some understand it of the 
peaceful and prosperous state of the church on earth. In 
some cases, very strong expressions of prophetic style, are to 
be softened to a sense that will agree to a happy state of 
the church in this world. Others, who observe the force of 
these expressions, and how mfich they agree with the de- 
scription of the new heavens and new earth, ch. xxi., under- 
stand it of the happy state of the church for one thousand 
years, which they also suppose a resurrection-state of the 
martyrs. I shall only observe, that as the time of the thou- 
sand years is, according to the order of this prophecy, very 
distant, I think, from the time to which this part of it refers, 
I can by no means suppose the Spirit of prophecy designed 
this description should be applied to the state of the millen- 
nium. And though the description may be softened to such 
a sense, as may represent the peaceful and prosperous state 


1042 


REVELATION. 


of the church under Constantine, yet, I think, the sense | when united together, are the surest rules of interpretation 
given in the paraphrase is more agreeable to the expressions | to follow. 


of this description, and to the design of the prophecy ; which, 


CHAPTER VIII. 


SECTION VII. 


SECOND PERIOD—OF THE TRUMPETS. 


1 Anp when he had opened the seventh seal, there 
was silence in heaven about the space of half an 
hour. 


(1.) After the space of time allowed for sealing the ser- 
vants of God, and a great addition was made to the Chris- 
tian church, which greatly lessened the power, and weakened 
the opposition of idolatry to Christianity, I had a farther 
revelation in my prophetic vision, to show what would be 
the state of the church and world, after so great a change in 
favour of the Christian faith and religion. I observed, that 
now the Lamb opened the seventh and last seal; and here- 
upon it was represented to me, as if there had been a state 
of silence in heaven for about half an hour, like the silence 
in the temple-worship, when the whole congregation was at 
private prayer and devotion. ! 


2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before 
God; and to them were given seven trumpets. 


(2.) I farther beheld, in my vision, seven chief angels 
standing before the throne of God, as attendants to receive 
his orders, and to execute them, after the manner of the 
great princes of the east, who were used to be so attended 
by the princes and chief officers of their court. And I be- 
held also in my vision, that seven trumpets were given to 
these seven chief angels, to each of them one. 


3 And another angel came and stood at the altar, 
having a golden censer; and there was given unto him 
much incense, that he should offer zt with the prayers 


of all saints upon the golden altar which was before 
the throne. 

(3.) Then I saw another angel, like the priest chosen to 
offer incense, by lot, standing at the golden altar, having a 
golden censer, and much incense, ? to offer with the prayers 
of the saints, who were at their private devotions in silence: 
this incense the angel offered at the golden altar, which was 
before the throne, there being in this representation of the 
heavenly presence no veil, and so no distinction between the 
holy and most holy place. 

4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with 
the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out 
of the angel’s hands. 

(4.) And I perceived the smoke of the incense, which the 
angel offered with the prayers of the saints, who were at 
their private devotions, ascended up before God. A testi- 
mony of God's gracious acceptance of their worship, and of 
the continuance of God's protection and blessing to his 
faithful worshippers. 


5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with 
fire of the altar, and cast ἐξ into the earth: and there 
were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an 
earthquake. 

(5.) [farther beheld in my vision, that the angel who had 
offered the incense took his censer; and going down from 
the golden altar to the altar of burnt-offering, he filled it 
with burning coals, and cast them down upon the earth: 
and immediately thereupon, there arose a terrible storm, 
with great noise, thundering, lightning, and earthquake, re- 
presenting new commotions in the world, and some great 
calamities by the righteous judgment of God.3 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. VIII. 


Conrents.—This chapter opens the second period of this 
prophecy, which begins upon opening of the seventh seal, 


and is distinguished by the sounding of seven trumpets. | 


This period of the trumpets contains a prophetic descrip- 
tion of the state of the world and church, for a consider- 
able space of time after the empire became Christian, dur- 
ing the continuance of the empire in the successors of 
Constantine. It describes the great devastation of the 
Roman empire, by the several nations that broke in upon 
it, and finally put an end to it. It describes a time of 
great calamity, a state of new trials. It shows the church 
what it was to expect in new dangers, and opposition, 
after it should be delivered from the persecution of the 
heathen Roman goyernment. And when the Christian 
religion should have the protection of the laws, and the 
favour of the emperors, the church would still have great 
need of caution, watchfulness, patience, and constancy ; 
and there would be still this encouragement to faithful- 
ness and perseverance, that though the opposition in this 
period of time would be very great, yet neither should 
this prevail against the cause of truth and righteousness ; 
the Christian faith and religion should be preserved, and 
in the end triumph over this opposition, as it had before 
over the former opposition, from the heathen emperors of 
Rome. And thus fully answers the general design and 
use of the prophecy, to direct and encourage the constan- 
ey of the Christian church in faith and patience, whatever 
opposition it may meet with from the world. 


1 Ver. 1.] Most interpreters agree, this silence in heaven 
for half an hour, is an allusion to the manner of the temple- 
worship, that while the priest offered incense in the holy 
place, the whole people prayed without in silence, or 
privately to themselves (Luke i. 10). On the day of expia- 
tion, the whole service was performed by the high-priest ; 


to which particular service Sir Isaac Newton* has observed 
an allusion: “The custom was, on other days, to take fire 
from the great altar in a silver censer; but on this day (of 
expiation), for the high-priest to take fire from the great 
altar, in a golden censer ; and when he was come down from 
the great altar, he takes incense from one of the priests, who 
brought it to him, and went with it to the golden altar; and 
while he offered the incense, the people prayed without in 
silence: which is the silence in heaven for half an hour.” 
It is true on the day of expiation, the high-priest did all 
the service himself; he used a golden censer, and took his 
hands full of incense: yet it may be a question, whether the 
mention of a golden censer, and much incense, may not 
refer to the great glory and perfection of the heavenly wor- 
ship, as well as the peculiar service of the*high-priest. On 
this supposition, a golden censer and much incense, will not 
require the hands of a high-priest ; for the offering of incense 
was usually assigned, by lot, to any one of the priests of the 
course: and this, I think, will be found more agreeable to 
the following parts of the prophetic description. 

2 Ver. 3.] ‘These censers were the same with the vials 
full of odours, mentioned v. 8: the offering incense on the 
golden altar, seems to determine this allusion to the con- 
stant offering of incense in the temple, and not to the ser- 
vice peculiar to the high-priest on the day of expiation; 
and fully shows the propriety of this vision, in not represent- 
ing the high-priest—which, in this prophetic vision, would 
have been the Lamb—as personally officiating in this act of 
worship. 

3 Ver, 5.] These voices, thunderings, lightning, and 
earthquake, seem to me to mean something very different 
from “an allusion to the voice of the high-priest reading 
the law to the people, and other voices, and thunderings 
from the trumpets and temple music, at the sacrifices and 


* On Apoc. p. 264. 


CHAPTER VIII. 1043 


6 And the seven angels which had the seven trum- 
pets prepared themselves to sound. 


(6.) This part of the vision having prepared my attention 
to observe what should be revealed at each angel’s sounding 
of his trumpet, as before upon opening the seals, in order, I 
perceived the seven angels preparing to sound their trum- 
pets. 

7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail 
and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon 
the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, 
and all green grass was burnt up. 


(7.) The first angel soon sounded his trumpet: upon 
which there followed a great storm of hail, and even of fire 
mingled with blood; which burned up and destroyed a 
great part of the trees, and green grass of this earth. A 
proper representation of great commotions and disorders 
in the world, attended with great bloodshed, and destruc- 
tion of many of the several ranks and conditions of men 4 
(see the history of the first trumpet at the end of this 
chapter). 


8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a 
great mountain burning with fire was cast into the 
sea: and the third part of the sea became blood ; 


(8.) I then perceived the second angel sounded his trum- 
pet; and I beheld, as if a great mountain, all on fire, had 
been cast into the sea; by which a very considerable part of 
the waters of the sea was turned into blood. 


9 And the third part of the creatures which were 
in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of 
the ships were destroyed. 

(9.) And a very great part both of the creatures which 
live in the sea, and the ships that pass on it for business or 
defence, was destroyed in great numbers. A proper figu- 
rative representation of a farther judgment, which should 
reach the capital city of the empire, and many of the pro- 
vinces; destroying their power and riches, dismembering 
them from the empire, and depriving it of all future sup- 
port and assistance from them (see the history of the 
second trumpet at the end of this chapter). 


10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a 


lightnings from the fire of the altar.”* Nor canI conceive 
that the voices, thunder, lightning, and earthquake, con- 
sequent upon the angel’s casting fire into the earth, show, 
«that during the offering of the incense, or at least imme- 
diately upon it, the voice of God was heard, his word was 
preached, and the gospel was spread to the enlightening of 
man.”+ ‘These expressions much rather denote some great 
judgment on the earth, or Roman empire. Thunders and 
lightnings, when they proceed from the throne of God (Rev. 
iv. 5), are fit representations of God’s glorious and awful 
majesty ; but when fire comes down from heaven upon the 
earth, it expresses some judgment of God on the world, as 
in this prophecy, xx. 9, “ A fire came down from God out 
of heaven, and devoured them:” and in like manner, when 
great Babylon “came in remembrance before God, to give 
unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath ;” 
xvi. 19, “there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings, 
and a great earthquake.” This being mentioned previous 
to the sounding of the trumpets, I think it may be under- 
stood as a general description of the many calamities of this 
period, notwithstanding the seeming secure prosperity of the 
Christian church. 

4 Ver. 7.) A thunder-storm and tempest, that throws 
down all before it, is a fit metaphor to express the calami- 
ties of war, from civil disturbances or foreign invasion, 
which often, like a hurricane, lay all things waste, as far as 
they reach. In the language of prophecy, this is a usual 
representation; so the prophet Isaiah expresses the inva- 
sion of Israel by Shalmaneser king of Assyria: “ Behold 
the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest 
of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters 
overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand” 
(Isa. xxviii. 2). And the same prophet in general thus ex- 
presses the judgments of God; “Thou shalt be visited of 
the Lord of hosts, with thunder, and with earthquake, and 
great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of de- 
vouring fire” (Isa. xxix. 6) : meaning likely the invasion of 
Sennacherib. The prophet Ezekiel expresses the judgments 
of God on the prophets who deceived the people, saying 
Peace, where there is no peace: “ Therefore thus saith the 
Lord God; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my 
fury, and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, 
and great hailstones in my fury to destroy it” (xiii. 13). 

It is likely here is also an allusion to one of the plagues 
of Egypt, which was a destroying storm or tempest: “ For 
the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon 
the ground, and the hail smote, throughout all the land of 
Egypt, all that was in the field, and brake every tree of the 
field” (Exod. ix. 23). 

It is a just observation of Sir Isaac Newton, that “in 
the prophetic language, tempests, winds, or the motions of 
ciouds, are put for wars; thunder, or the voice of a cloud, 
for the voice of a multitude; and storms of thunder, light- 

* Sir Isaac Newton, 265. t Daubuz, 274. 
eels. 


ning, hail, and overflowing rain, for a tempest of war, de- 
scending from the heavens, and clouds politic. In like 
manner® the earth, animals, and vegetables, are put for the 
people of several nations and conditions. ‘T'rees, and green 
grass, express the beauty and fruitfulness of a land; and 
when the earth is an emblem of nations and dominions, 
may signify persons of higher rank and of common con- 
dition.” 

“Trees here,’ says Mr. Waple,t “according to the pro- 
phetic scheme of speech, signify the great ones; and grass, 
by the like analogy, signifies common people ;” or, as Mr. 
Mede,+ “ From the analogy it is easily gathered, that green 
grass is taken for the common people, when, as here, it is 
joined with trees.” 

Whether it was the intention of the prophetic style to be 
so particular, I take not upon me to determine; but it 
seems plain, it is designed to express some great calamities 
brought on the empire, when it is represented as a storm 
that destroyed not only the green grass, which is more 
easily blasted, but which destroyed also a great part of the 
trees, which are supposed more likely to withstand the vio- 
lence of a storm ; and it seems to point out these calamities 
as the effect of wars and bloodshed throughout the Roman 
empire, in the beginning of this period. 

5 Ver. 9.] In the style of prophecy, a mountain signifies 
a kingdom and the strength of it, its metropolis, or capital 
city. Thus the prophet Jeremiah foretells the downfall of 
Babylon, li. 25, “Behold I am against thee, O destroying 
mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth; 
and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee 
down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.” 
The prophet himself explains the literal meaning of these 
figurative expressions, ver. 27, “ Set ye up a standard in the 
land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the Π8- 
tions against her, call together against her the kingdoms of 
Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz.” The plain meaning of the 
figure of a burnt mountain, seems also taught by the prophet 
ver. 30, &c., “They have burnt her dwelling places; her 
bars are broken. One post shall run to meet another, and 
one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon 
that his city is taken up at one end, and that the passages are 
stopped, and the reeds they have burnt with fire, and the 
men of war are affrighted.” ‘The general meaning of this 
prophecy is farther thus explained, ver. 58, “ Thus saith the 
Lord God of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be 
utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burnt with fire ; 
and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, 
and they shall be weary.” All efforts to preserve their city 
and empire, says Mr. Lowth on the place, shall be as in- 
significant, as if men wrought in the fire, which immediately 
destroys all the fruits of their labours : or, as the words may 
be better translated, “ And the people shall labour for a 
thing of nought, and the folks shall weary themselves for that 


* Ibid. p. 19. ἡ In loc. 
+ On the Revelation, p. 85, 


1044 


great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, 
and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon 
the fountains of waters ; 


(10.) And I farther perceived in my vision, that the third 
angel sounded his trumpet ; upon which I beheld a repre- 
sentation as of a large star, all on fire, which, like a flaming 
torch, fell down from heaven upon a great part of the rivers, 
and fountains of waters. 


11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood: 
and the third part of the waters became wormwood ; 
and many men died of the waters, because they were 
made bitter. 


(11.) Upon which, as if wormwood had been mixed with 
the waters, it made them so bitter, they were no longer 
wholesome to drink; but, like waters infected, they occa- 
sioned the death of many people. Denoting a farther judg- 
ments on the Roman empire, on the capital and seat of the 
empire ; signifying a thorough desolation and downfall, not 
only weakening it, by dismembering its provinces, but put- 
ting an end to all power and authority of the government it- 
self® (see the history of the third trumpet at the end of 
this chapter). 


12 And the fourth angel sounded, and the third 


REVELATION. 


part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the 
moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third 
part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for 
a third part of it, and the night likewise. 


(12.) I moreover beheld in my vision, when the fourth 
angel sounded his trumpet; and the events which were to 
follow upon it were represented by a very great and gloomy 
darkness; as if a thick cloud had so darkened the air, that 
neither the light of the sun, moon, or stars, could be per- 
ceived through it; so far was it from the brightness of a 
clear day, that there was not so much as the brightness of 
a clear night, but all around was cloudy and dark. A fit 
representation, to express the last desolation of the imperial 
city, which God’s*righteous judgments had doomed (as Ba- 
bylon heretofore) to a loss of all power, and of all authority 7 
see the history of the fourth trumpet at the end of this 
chapter. 


13 And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through 
the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, 
woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of 
the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, 
which are yet to sound! 

(13.) After this, I farther perceived in my vision, that an 


which shall be fuel for the fire ;” i. e. they shall not be able 
to preserve their city, but it shall be taken, and become a 
prey to the flames. 

Great disorders and commotions, especially when king- 
doms are moved by hostile invasions, are expressed in the 
prophetic style, by carrying or casting mountains into the 
midst of the sea. “Therefore we will not fear though the 
earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into 
the midst of the sea” (Ps. xlvi. 2). 

The sea, in the Hebrew language, is any collection of 
waters, as Mr. Daubuz* observes. Now as waters are 
expressly made a symbol of people in this prophecy, xvii. 
15, « And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, 
where the whore sitteth, are people, and multitudes, and na- 
tions and tongues,” the sea may well represent the collec- 
tion of many people and nations into one politic body or 
empire ; and when a sea is considered as an empire, or a 
collection of people into one body politic, the living crea- 
tures in that sea will be the people, or nations, whose union 
constitutes this empire. And the prophet Ezekiel, by a 
like figure, describes the destruction of the inhabitants of 
Egypt, by the death of all the fish of the rivers, xxix. 3, 
&c., “Thus saith the Lord God; Behold I am against thee, 
Pharoah king of Egypt. I will cause the fish of thy 
rivers to stick unto thy scales. I will leave thee thrown 
on the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers.” These 
expressions seem explained by the prophet to this meaning : 
«“ Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold I will bring a 
sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. 

Ships, from their use in trade, are a proper representation 
of the riches of a people; and as they are of use in war, 
especially to the maritime nations, they are proper emblems 
of strength and power. As ships were of both uses in the 
Roman empire, they may well be understood both of the 
riches and power of the Roman empire. 

Thus we have a description, in this part of the second 
period of prophecy, of a judgment to come on the empire, 
in which the capital should suffer much, many provinces 
should be dismembered, as well as invaded, and the springs 
of power and riches in the empire should be very much di- 
minished. Let us consider how the next period of history 
agrees with the description of prophecy. 

ὃ Ver. 11.] Stars, in prophetic style, are figurative re- 
presentations of many things; among others, they signify 
kings, or kingdoms, eminent persons of great authority and 
power. Thus, in the prophecy of Balaam, Numb. xxiv. 
17, “There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre 
shall rise out of Israel.” Thus the power of the horn of 
the he goat, prevailing over other powers, is represented in 
Dan. viii. 10, “And it waxed great, even to the host of 
heaven ; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars 


* Symbol. Dict. 


to the ground, and stamped upon them.” The downfall of 
the kingdom of Babylon is represented by a like figurative 
expression, the fall of Lucifer, or the morning-star, Isa. xiv. 
12, « How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning! 
how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken 
the nations !”” 'The most natural interpretation of this symbol 
seems to be this: That as the rising of a star denotes the 
rise of some new power or authority, so the fall of a star 
from heaven signifies the fall of some kingdom or empire. 

Rivers and fountains of waters may be considered as 
the source and spring of waters, which, running in a com- 
mon channel, make a sea. And then, asa sea, or collection 
of waters, denotes a collection of many people into one 
government, the rivers and fountains of waters may repre- 
sent the seat of the empire or people, which have enlarged 
their dominion, by reducing other nations into provinces ; so 
that, in this sense, rivers and fountains of waters may denote 
the original country or seat of the empire, in distinction 
from the provinces. 

Rivers, and fountains of waters to supply them, may also 
be considered as necessaries to the support of life. Drying 
up rivers and fountains of waters expresses a scarcity of 
things necessary : thus when Hosea prophesies that Samaria 
shall become desolate, he thus expresses it : “ Though he be 
fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the 
wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his 
spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: 
he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels” (xiii. 15). 
And thus the prophet Isaiah describes the destruction of 
Egypt, xix. 5, ‘‘ And the waters shall fail from the sea, and 
the river shall be wasted and dried up.” 

And, finally, there seems an allusion in this description to 
one of the plagues of Egypt. «And Moses and Aaron did 
so, as the Lord commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and 
smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pha- 
raoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that 
were in the river were turned into blood. And the fish that 
was in the river died ; and the river stank, and the Egyptians 
could not drink of the water of the river; and there was 
blood throughout all the land of Egypt” (Exod. vii. 20, 21). 
Here then, we have a prophecy which aptly expresses a 
judgment to come on the seat of the Roman empire, which 
should destroy the power of it in its spring and fountain, 
and cut off all its necessary supports; as when rivers and 
fountains, so necessary to life, are infected, and become ra- 
ther deadly than fit for use. 

7 Ver. 12.] Darkening, smiting, or setting of the sun, 
moon, and stars, says Sir Isaac Newton,* are put for the 
setting of a kingdom, or the desolation thereof, proportional 
to the darkness. And when darkness is opposed to light, 
Mr. Daubuz observes,} as light is a symbol of joy and safety, 


} Symbol. Dict. 76 


* Par. i. p. 18. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


angel flew, as it were, through the midst of heaven, and 
proclaimed, for the information of all, with an audible voice, 
Though the judgments signified by the four trumpets which 
have already sounded are very great and formidable, yet 


so darkness is a symbol of misery and adversity. According 
to the style of the prophet Jeremiah, “Give glory to the 
Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your 
feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look 
for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it 
gross darkness” (xiii. 16). The darkness of the sun, moon, 
and stars, is likewise observed to denote a general deficiency 
in government, as the prophet describes a day of severe judg- 
ment: “For the stars of heaven and the constellations 
thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened 
in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to 
shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the 
wicked for their iniquity ; I will cause the arrogancy of the 
proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the ter- 
rible” (Isa. xiii. 10, 11). And thus the prophet Ezekiel 
describes the destruction of the kingdom of Egypt, xxxii. 7, 
8, «And when I will put thee out,” or, as in the margin, 
“extinguish thee,” quite deprive thee of all authority and 
power, “I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof 
dark ; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall 
not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I 
make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith’ 
the Lord God.” As this is the meaning of these figurative 
expressions in general, it is also a good rule of interpreta- 
tion to apply the particular meaning of such descriptions, 
according to the subject, to the order and sense of action 
then referred to, and intended to be represented by such 
descriptions.* In this view, considering that the subject, 
order, and scene of action are the downfall of the Roman 


* Daubuz, Prelim. Disc. rule 1. 


1045 


greater judgments still remain to be inflicted on the earth, in 
the events that are to follow upon sounding the three trum- 
pets that yet remain. § 


empire, and of the power and authority of Rome, the im- 
perial city, it will very fitly and properly represent an en- 
tire extinguishing of all authority and power in Rome, 
once the seat of empire; putting out or extinguishing, in 
the language of Ezekiel, the splendour of authority and 
power, as well as taking away the full exercise of it. Not 
only the brightness of the day, and Ught of the sun, but 
the fainter light of the night and moon, nay, even the 
little glimmering light of the stars, shall be put out. 

8 Ver. 13.] Several interpreters suppose this part of the 
vision a representation of some faithful witnesses against 
the superstition, idolatry, and growing corruptions of those 
times. So Mr. Daubuz observes, preaching against errors 
is prophesying against them; and by that bringing down 
the judgments of God upon the impenitent, he supposes 
the dreadfulness of the woes of the three trumpets is pro- 
claimed to the corrupt members of the church; because, 
as they were endued by the divine revelation with more 
knowledge than before, being all Christians by name, they 
therefore deserve to suffer more for their crimes than plain 
heathens, such as were chiefly concerned in the former 
judgments. The greater guilt of a corrupt church is in- 
deed a good reason for severe punishment, and will justify 
the ways of Providence in these heavy judgments on the 
empire, now Christian, yet going fast into corruption of 
doctrine and manners, and even to incorporate the hea- 
then superstition and idolatry into the Christian worship ; 
but whether this part of the vision means any more than 
to raise attention to the following events, which were to 
be very calamitous and extensive, I shall leave to the judg- 
ment of the reader. 


HISTORY OF THE TRUMPETS. 


First trumpet.—Let us briefly consider how this prophe- 
tic representation was verified in correspondent history. 

The former period put an end to the persecution of hea- 
then Rome, by the empire of Constantine the Great, a 
Christian prince, and protector of the Christian religion, 
about the year 323. Then was a time of peace and rest to 
the empire, as well as the church; which answers well to 
the time appointed for sealing the servants of God in their 
foreheads: but this is represented as a short time; and the 
angels soon prepared themselves to sound, when there would 
be new commotions to disturb the peace of the empire and 
church. 

If we look into the history of the times which immedi- 
ately followed this great revolution of the Roman empire 
under Constantine, from heathen to Christian, we shall find 
it thus: Constantine came to the whole power of the empire 
about 323, and continued possessed of that power about fif- 
teen years, to the year 337, 

During all this time the empire had a state of tranquillity 
unknown for many years: there were no civil disorders; 


and though the Goths made some incursions into Mesia, the | 


most distant parts of the Roman dominions, they were soon 
driven back into their own country. The profession of 
Christianity was greatly encouraged, the converts to it from 
idolatry were innumerable; so that the face of religion was 
in a very short time quite changed throughout the Roman 
empire. Thus the providence of God, notwithstanding all 
opposition, brought the Christian church into a state of great 
security and prosperity. 

But on the death of Constantine the state of things soon 
altered again. He was succeeded by his three sons in dif- 
ferent parts of his empire ; by Constantine in Gaul, Constans 
in Italy, and Constantius in Asia and the east. Constan- 
tius, in a short time, sacrificed his father’s near relations to 
his jealousy of power :* differences arose between Constan- 


* Zosimus, lib. ii. 217. 


tine and Constans ; Constans surprised his brother Constan- 
tine, and put him to death. In a little time after, Constans 
himself is put to death by Magnentius, who assumed the 
empire. At the same time Constantius, in the east, was 
hard pressed by the Persians; but apprehending greater 
danger from Magnentius, marches against him: the war be- 
tween them was very fierce and bloody ; insomuch that Vic- 
tor* observes, it almost ruined the whole strength of the 
Roman empire: H6c tempore Constantius cum Magnentio 
apud Mursiam dimicavit; in quo bello pené nunquam am- 
plius Romane consumpte sunt vires, totiusque imperii for- 
tune pessumdate. 

A little after this bloody intestine war, all the Roman pro- 
vinces were invaded at once, from the eastern to the western 
limits,t by the Franks, Almans, Saxons, Quades, Sarma- 
tians, and Persians; so that, according to Eutropius,} cum 
multa oppida barbari expugndssent, alia obsiderent, ubique 
foeda vastitas esset, Romanumque imperium non dubia jam 
calamitate nutaret. 

It is a very remarkable part of this history, that this storm 
of wars fell so heavy on the great men of the empire, and in 
particular on the family of Constantine, though so likely to 
continue in so many of his own children and near relations ; 
and yet, in twenty-four years after his death, these commo- 
tions put an end to his posterity, in the death of his three 
sons; and in three years more extinguished his family, by 
the death of Julian, in a battle against the Persians. 

The following reigns of Jovian, Valentinian, Valens, and 
Gratian, to the time that Gratian nominated Theodosius to 
the empire, are one continued series of trouble, by the inva- 
sion of the several provinces of the empire, and bloody 
battles in defence of them, for about the space of sixteen 
years, from the year 363 to 379. Claudian has well ex- 
pressed the misery of those times to his son Honorius:§ 


* Aurel. Victor, p. m. 465. 

ἡ Zosimus, lib. iii, 137. 

+ Eutropius, lib. x. p. m. 617. 

§ Claudianus de iv. Consul. Honor. p, 123. 
4N 


1046 


Omnibus afflictis, et vel labentibus icti, 
Vel prope casuris, unus tot funera contra 
Restitit, extinxitque faces, agrisque colonos 
Reddidit, et leti rapuit de faucibus urbes. 
Nulla relicta foret Romani nominis umbra, 
Ni pater ille tuus jamjam ruitura subisset 
Pondera, &c. 


These great calamities, which in so short a time befell the 
Roman empire, now Christian, and in particular the family 
of Constantine, by whom the great change in favour of Chris- 
tianity was brought about, was a new and great trial of the 
faith, constancy, and patience of the church. As it became 
the wisdom and justice of divine Providence to punish the 
wickedness of the world, which caused the disorders of those 
times, the wisdom and goodness of Christ chose to forewarn 
the church of it, that it might learn to justify the ways of 
Providence, and not to faint under the discipline of afflic- 
tion, when the great misimprovement of the best religion 
had made it both proper and useful; and when likely such 
afflictions, so soon after their great deliverance from the 
opposition of Rome heathen, would be very unexpected, 
and the more discouraging. 

Second trumpet.—The former period of history was from 
the death of Constantine the Great to the reign of Theodo- 
sius; who for some time preserved the empire from inva- 
sion, and left it to his sons, Arcadius and Honorius, A. D. 
395. ‘ 

The youth and weakness of these princes, the intrigues 
and ambition of the chief ministers and governors of the 
eastern and western parts of the empire, the jealousies and 
contentions between Stilicho and Ruffinus, so weakened the 
empire, that it soon became ἃ prey to the northern nations. 
Sigonius,* who has given us an accurate history of these 
later times of the Roman empire, observes, that the empire 
itself began to shake on the death of Theodosius: Theodo- 
sio exempto, simul etiam robur ac dignitas ipsius titubare 
imperii ccepit. The chief men of the empire, to serve their 
private ambitions, excited Alaric, at the head of the Goths, 
to invade Greece; Alaric enters Greece, the straits of Ther- 
mopyle being purposely left open to him; he lays waste the 
whole country, destroys the cities, puts to death all the 
males grown up to age, and gives all the women and children, 
with the whole riches of the country, in plunder to his army, 
according to Zosimus.t 

The year 400, or five years after the death of Theodosius, 
is marked out as one of the most memorable and calamitous 
that had ever befallen the empire. Annus hic, says Sigo- 
nius,t ἃ Christo nato quadringentesimus, omnium, quos oc- 
cidens vidit, maximé memorandus extitit Neque 
enim ullum sive bellice calamitatis, sive barbarice feritatis, 
sive vesane cujusdam libidinis, excogitari exemplum po- 
tuit, quod non in ipsas provincias, civitates, agros, homines- 
que passim cum maxima atrocitate sit editum. Five years 
after, A. D. 405, Rhadagaise entered Italy with an army of 
two hundred thousand men ; and though he was defeated by 
Stilicho, yet he had ravaged the country before his defeat 
with such success, that the heathen Romans publicly de- 
clared Rome was given up to destruction because it had for- 
saken the worship of the heathen gods; and that the only 
way to restore the Roman fortunes, was to restore the an- 
cient Roman religion, or idolatry, as Sigonius§ observes. 

In the letter end of the year 406, the Alans, Vandals, and 
other barbarous people, passed the Rhine, and made the 
most furious irruption into Gaul, that had yet been known; 
passed into Spain, and from thence over into Africa; so that 
the maritime provinces became a prey to them, the riches 
and naval power of the empire were much diminished, and 
almost quite ruined. 

But the heaviest calamity fell upon the capital, and city 
of Rome itself: for Alaric enters Italy in the year 409, and 
after wasting all the country round about, oblata omnia 
oppida populans, ac miserabili strage vastans, says Sigonius, 
at length laid siege to Rome, which was then afflicted both 
with famine and a pestilential distemper. The city was 


REVELATION. 


forced to save itself from this danger, by all its riches, and 
purchased a peace of Alaric on very hard conditions. He 
raises the siege for awhile, but soon returns; is received 
into the city, and makes Attalus the governor of Rome em- 
peror. Soon after he deposes Attalus, and makes peace with 
Honorius, on condition he should be acknowledged his asso- 
ciate, and have Gaul given to him and to hisarmy. Feedus 
his conditionibus est percussum, ut Alaricus socius Honorii 
esset, atque in Gallia sedes sibi suisque locaret.* However, 
not satisfied with Honorius, and his performance of the con- 
ditions agreed between them, he continues the siege of Rome, 


| and at last takes it, and gives the plunder of it to his sol- 


diers, which also occasioned its being set on fire; so that 
Sigoniust represents it, on all those accounts, as a very 
great and memorable calamity. Insignis fuit calamitas, et 
rerum humanarum contemplatione memorabilis, quod urbs 
que de omnibus gentibus triumphaverat, tam facilé a bar- 
bara et adventitia gente, capta, spoliata, atque combusta sit. 

This calamity of the capital city of the empire was fol- 
lowed by the spoil of the greatest part of all Italy in like 
manner ; in which the Christian bishops, and their churches, 
were “principal sufferers. Alaricus, urbe capta et spoliata, 
egressus, animum inde ad ulteriorem populandam, vastan- 
damque Italiam contulit: itaque Latium, Campaniam, A pu- 
liam, Calabriam, ita cum toto exercitti peragravit, ut locum 
nullum intactum ἃ vexatione ac direptione reliquerit. Atque 
imprimis, quasi Romana victoria efferatus, in ecclesias, sa- 
cerdotes, episcoposque, extorquendi auri gratia, debacchatus, 
simul omnia humana divinaque jura polluerit.¢ 

It is worthy observation, that this great calamity which 
befell the Roman empire, both in Italy and in the capital 
itself, much increased the prejudice of the heathen Romans 
against the Christian religion; as if Rome had suffered 
greater calamities now it was Christian, than while it was 
heathen. A fit period of history, and becoming the Spirit 
of prophecy to reveal to the church, to confirm the faith and 
patience of the church, in such a state of providence, with a 
full persuasion of the justice and wisdom of it; and that still 
the cause of true religion should be supported even under 
so great calamities as these; but with an admonition, that 
the justice and wisdom of God would punish the sins of 
Christians, as well as of heathens; and that the outward 
profession of the best religion should not be a protection 
against those judgments they had deserved by their iniqui- 
ties; for God, the righteous governor of the world, is no re- 
specter of persons: “ Shall I not visit for these things? saith 
the Lord: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a na- 
tion as this?” says God to his own church of Israel (Jer. v. 
6—9), when “their transgressions were many, and their 
backslidings increased.” 

Third trumpet.—The last period of history, correspondent 
to the foregoing prophecy, ended in the peace which Italy 
and Rome enjoyed, after the taking of Rome by Alaric, and 
dismembering many of the provinces of the empire, when 
Athaulphus left Italy, and went to settle in Gaul. The em- 
peror Honorius returned joyfully to Rome, to the great sa- 
tisfaction of the city, in the year 412. Honorius Romam 
repetiit, ac letus, tanquam exonerata aliquando tandem 
incumbentium Gothorum mole Italia, secunda vicennalia 
ludorum apparatti magnifico edidit, populo Romano, post 
diuturnas tenebras lucem se tandem aliquam otii ac liberta- 
tis aspicere, gratulante.§ 

Yet, though Rome andItaly recovered themselves into a 
pretty good state of peace and liberty, many of the pro- 
vinces were quite dismembered from the empire. The Goths, 
Burgundians, Franks, Vandals, &c., possessed themselves of 
the better parts of France and Spain. 

Valentinian, son of Placidia, succeeded his uncle Hono- 
rius, about the year 425. In his time began those new in- 
vasions of the empire, which put an end to the imperial dig- 
nity and power of Rome, and founded a new kingdom in 
Italy itself. 

In the year 427, Genseric, with an army of eight thou- 
sand Vandals, seized on Africa, and founded’a kingdom there. 
The Romans had given up the defence of Britain, so that 


* De Occident. Imp. p. 155. + Zosimi Hist. lib. v. 293. 
+ De Occident.Imp. p. 161. 8. Occident. Imp. lib. x. 169. 
|| Zosimus, lib. v. 353. 


* Sigon. Occ. Imp. lib. x. 180. 
{ Idem, p. 182. 
§ Idem, lib. xi. 185. 


+ Idem, lib. xi. 183. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


the Britons were fain to call in the Saxons to their aid, in 
the year 449." Attila, though soundly beat at Chalons, in 
the year 451, so that one hundred and seventy thousand, or, 
according to some, three hundred thousand, fell in the battle ; 
yet, the next year, he marches with another numerous army 
into Italy, and destroys all before him. 


servitute, incendio, et desperatione repleta erant; nullaque 
mali facies aberat, nefaria per omnes ordines, sexus, et wtates, 
barbarorum avaritia, crudelitate, ac licentia pervagante.t 

Rome and Italy were scarce freed from these troubles, 
when new evils succeeded. 

Genseric is invited from Africa to revenge the murder of 
Valentinian: he lands in Italy in the year 455, marches di- 
rectly to Rome, takes the city, and plunders it, carries away 
all the public and private riches, makes an incredible number 
of the citizens captives, and takes the empress Eudoxia (who 
had desired his assistance to revenge the death of Valenti- 
nian), together with her daughters along with her, into 
Africa. 

The name of the Roman empire continued for a few years 


Jam omnia que | 
intra Apenninum et Alpes erant, fuga, populatione, cede, | 


longer, as in a dying condition, under several successors, till | 


the year 476. Odoacer, drawing together an army of the se- 
veral nations in Germany, enters Italy by the T’rrentin, sub- 
dues the whole country, takes the city of Rome, and in it 
the emperor Momyllus, or Augustulus, whom he deposes, 
and takes to himself the title of king of Italy.¢ Thus 
Italy, and Rome itself, became the possession of the con- 
querors; and the Roman nanie, power, and empire, were 
from that time extinct. Atque his quidem variis atque an- 
cipitibus rerum temporumque successibus, Roma, jam quar- 
tum, post Christi annum jam quadringentesimum, capta, 
Ttaliaque ἃ barbaris firmo tandem possideri imperio, coepta 
est.§ 

Odoacer did not indeed continue his kingdom long ; for The- 
odoric, at the head of the Goths in IIlyricum, attacked 
Odoacer’s new-founded kingdom in Italy ; and, according 
to Paulus Diaconus,| so fully with the consent of Zeno, 
then emperor of the east, that he made a grant of Italy to 
Theodoric. Italiam ei per pragmaticam tribuens, sacri etiam 
velaminis dono confirmavit. Theodoric engages Odoacer, 
overcomes him, and puts him to death; and so founded 
the Gothic kingdom of Italy, which continued many years 
under his successors, till it was subdued by Narses for the 
emperor Justinian, A. D. 553. 


Thus Rome itself, and Italy, the seat of the empire, ac- | 


cording to the prophetic description, became+a prey to the 
barbarous nations, and followed the fate of the provinces. 

However, even under the Gothic kingdom, Rome, though 
it lost the supreme authority of empire, was pexmitted to 
retain some appearance of its ancient form of government 
and magistracy. Theodoric made Ravenna the seat of his 
kingdom; yet Rome retained its senate and consuls, and 
the image of its former government. Jam verd nullum Ro- 
manum institutum mutavit; siquidem et senatum, et con- 
sules, patricios, prefectos pretorii, prefectum urbis—czxte- 
rosque qui fuerunt in imperio, magistratus retinuit.J 

Fourth trumpet.—This figurative representation will very 
properly express the following period of history, and the 
true state of the city of Rome, once the imperial city, and 
mistress of the world. 

We have seen, in the former parts of this period, the loss 
of the imperial authority, when Theodoric founded the Go- 
thic kingdom of Italy, and made Rome subject to it, A. D. 


* Petavii Rot. Tem. lib. vi. cap. 18. 

t Sigon. Occ. Imp. lib. xiii, 225. 

+ Paul. Diac. lib. xvi. Jornandes de Reg. Success. lib. i. 
§ Sigon. Oce. Imp. 251. | Lib. xvi. 

{ Sigon. Occ. Imp. 265. 


1047 


| 493. But it was observed, that he then left to the city 
of Rome some appearance and splendour of its ancient 
government, in a senate, consuls, and other magistrates. 

Now, in the reign of Justinian, emperor of the east, this 
new kingdom of Italy is overthrown, and new and great 
calamities befall that miserable country. Gothorum in Ita- 
lid imperium concidit, atque ipsa Italia omnis atrocissimarum 
calamitatum exempla persensit. 

In the course of this war, Belisarius, the imperial general, 
takes Rome, A. D. 536. The next year, Vitiges, king of 
the Goths, besieges it with an army of one hundred and 
| fifty thousand men. In this long siege, which continued 
above a year, the Romans were afflicted both with famine 
| and pestilence, and suffered extremely, though at length the 
Goths were fain to raise the siege. ‘Totilas, king of the 
Goths, afterward takes Rome, A. D. 546; it is retaken by 
Belisarius the next year, and again taken by Totilas about 
two years after. 
| During this war, which lasted for twenty years, Rome 
| was besieged and taken five times: the city and whole coun- 
try suffered all the evils of war in every place; and the 
event was, to reduce Rome to the lowest and meanest con- 
dition, in the loss of all authority and power, being made en- 
tirely subject to the exarchate of Ravenna. 

For Narses, having quite subdued the Gothic kingdom of 
Italy for the emperor of the east, was constituted governor 
of the whole country, with the title of Duke of Italy,* and 
all the governors of the several cities were only inferior of- 
ficers under him. 

A little after the exarchate of Ravenna was established 
by the emperor Justin II., Longinus is sent into Italy: he 
appoints a new form of government: the seat of govern- 
ment was from that time fixed at Ravenna, and every city 
of Italy entirely subjected to the exarch, both in things civil 
and military. Is (Longinus, says Sigonius,) primam Ra- 
venne, non Rome, prefecture sedem posuit; nec se ducem 
sed exarchum Italie, quemadmodum et Africe exarchus erat, 
vocavit: et provinciarum consularibus, correctoribus, presi- 
dibusque sublatis, singulis civitatibus singulos duces impo- 
suit, ac varios eis ad-reddenda jura judices assignavit.> 

Thus Rome lost all her dignity and authority, her senate 
and consuls, and was put upon a level with all the lesser 
cities and towns of Italy, and became also a small duchy of 
the exarchate. Parem itaque faciens urbem Romam aliis 


| Italie vel urbibus vel oppidis, hdc un in re illam honoravit, 


quod impositum tune magistratum presidem appellavit, sed 
| qui successerunt appellati sunt duces - ut postea per multos 
annos, sic Romanus appellaretur ducatus, sicut Narniensis 
Spoletanusque est dictus; neque post Basilium, qui cum 
Narsete consul fuit, vel consules Roma habuit, vel senatum 
legitimé coactum, sed ἃ duce, Greculo homine, quem exar- 
chus ex Ravenna mittebat, res Romana per multa tempora 
administrata est.¢ , 

This was a new form of government, altogether unknown 
before ; and though it might be called, in some sense, a form 
of Roman government, as the exarchs of Ravenna were 
lieutenants for the Roman emperors of Constantinople, yet 
it was such a form of government, by which Rome seemed 
to have received a mortal wound: for that imperial city was 
deprived by it of all authority and power, and seemed to 
have lost all hopes of ever recovering them again, when it 
was made a small duchy, entirely subject to another city, 
where the emperors, lieutenants, or exarchs, had fixed the 
seat of their residence and government of Italy; and this, 
by the appointment and constitution of the emperors of the 
| east, in virtue of their claim to the sole authority of the 
Roman empire. 


* Sigonius de Reg. Italie, 3. ἡ Ib. p. i 


+ Blondus, Decad. Prime, lib. viii. p. 102. 


1048 


CHAPTER IX. 


1 Ano the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall 
from ' heaven unto the earth: and to him was given 
the key of the 2 bottomless pit. 


(1.) On the sounding of the fifth angel which followed, I 
saw in my vision a star fallen from heaven, or an angel come 
down from thence, to whom was given the key of the abyss, 
or bottomless gulf; which fitly expressed a commission from 
God, to permit Satan, at the head of the kingdom of dark- 
ness, to infest the world with some new and great temptation, 
as if Satan, at the head of his apostate angels, was let loose 
to disturb the earth, and deceive the nations of it. 


2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose 
asmoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great fur- 
nace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason | 
of the smoke of the pit. 


(2.) And I beheld in my vision, that the angel who had | 
the key of the bottomless pit opened it, and immediately 
there seemed to break out of the pit a very thick and dark 
smoke, as if it had been the smoke of a burning furnace ; 
and the smoke was so thick, that it intercepted the light of 
the sun, and made the whole air dark round about. A very 
proper representation of great errors, darkening the under- 
standing, obscuring the truth, and attended with violence 


8᾽ 


and destruction. 3 


3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon 
the earth: and unto them was given power, as the | 
scorpions of the earth have power. 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. IX. 


1Ver. 1. A star fallen from heaven.| Stars, in the lan- 
guage of prophecy, signify angels. The angels of the hea- 
venly host, as well as the angels or bishops of the churches, 
seem to be called stars in scripture ; as when, at the creation, 
“the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy,” Job xxxviii. 7. In like manner, when 
this abyss, or bottomless pit, is shut up, it is represented in 
this prophecy to be done by “an angel coming down from 
heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit.” These ex- 
pressions are so nearly the same, as well as upon the same 
subject, that they may well be taken in the same sense, and 
so used to explain each other. It is a general expression of 
the Jews, concerning the works of God, that he sends an 
angel to do them: so that Maimonides* observes, Non enim 
invenies Deum ullum opus fecisse, nisi per manus alicujus 
angeli. And Hermas,t who lived very near the time of 
this revelation, and seems to have designed, in several pas- 
sages, to imitate it, speaks of the angel, appointed over the 
beasts, appearing for his preservation; Misit Dominus angelum 
suum, qui est super bestias, et obturavit os ejus, ne te dila- 
niaret. 

This expression then, “a star fallen from heaven,” or, “an 
angel come down from heaven, with a key to open the bot- 
tomless pit,” seems naturally to mean the permission of di- 
vine providence of these evil and calamitous events, which 
are described to follow upon opening the bottomless pit, 
which could not have happened but by the permission of the 
divine providence, and according to the wise and holy orders 
of the divine government: for the providence of God could 
as surely have prevented the temptations of Satan, and the 
powers of darkness, as if Satan and his angels had been fast 
locked up, and secured in a safe prison ; so that he sends an 
angel, his messenger, with the key of the bottomless pit, to 
open their prison, and permit them to go out, to teach, that 
they can only act so far as they have leave and permission, 
and can always be restrained and shut up again, at the good 
will and pleasure of the supreme Governor of the world. 

2'The abyss, or bottomless pit, is explained in the pro- 


* More Nevoch. par. ii. cap. 6. 
{ Herma Pastor, lib, i. vis. 4, 5. 2. 


(3.) I farther perceived this smoke out of the bottomless 
pit brought locusts along with it, and scattered them over 
the earth; and they had power given unto them, not unlike 
the natural power of scorpions, todo harm. A proper simi- 
litude to express a great multitude of people, marching with 
great speed and swiftness, to plunder and destroy their 
neighbours. 4 


4 And it was commanded them that they should 
not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green 
thing, neither any tree; but only those men which 
have not the seal of God in their foreheads. 


(4.) I observed one thing yery peculiar to these locusts, 
and different from what was to be expected from the natural 
locusts: they had an express direction, not to prey upon or 
destroy the grass, trees, and fruits of the earth, as natural 
locusts are used to do; but, as persons compared to locusts, 
for multitude, and swiftness to spoil, they were to hurt men, 
and yet to hurt only such as had not the seal of God on their 
foreheads. Which may properly mean, that these locusts 
are to be understood, figuratively, for a great number of 
spoilers ; as if Satan, at the head of the powers of darkness, 
was leading on a great company, both to corrupt and ravaze 
the world: yet, in this extraordinary judgment of God on a 
corrupt church, he would take care to preserve the interest 
of true religion and Christianity among a faithful people. 
He would protect them in such manner, that they should 
preserve their religion, and the profession of it, notwith- 
standing the great difficulties those enemies to Christianity 
should bring upon them. 


phecy itself, to be that place where the devil and Satan are 
shut up, that they should not deceive the nations (Rev. xx. 
1—3). The abyss seems also to be used in the like sense, 
when the devils besought Christ, that he “ would not com- 
mand them to go out into the deep ;” in the original, “into 
the abyss,” or bottomless pit (cis τὴν ἄβυσσον). ‘Vhe learned 
Grotius* observes, that this abyss, or bottomless pit, is the 
same with what Peter calls hell, or Tartarus: “ For if God 
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to 
hell, σειραῖς ζόφου ταρταρώσας, and delivered them into chains 
of darkness, to .be reserved unto judgment” (2 Pet. ii. 4). 

Now this prison of Satan, and of his angels, by a right- 
eous judgment of God, is permitted to be opened, for the 
just punishment of apostate churches, who would not repent 
of their evil works. We may then say, with an eminent in- 
terpreter,t ‘Behold something more terrible than what we 
have hitherto seen! hell opens, and the devil appears, fol- 
lowed by an army, of a stranger figure than St. John has 
any where described.’’ And we may observe from others, 
that this great temptation of the faithful was to be with the 
united force of false doctrine and persecution. “ Hell does 
not open of itself,” as the Bishop of Meaux observes; “ it 
is always some false doctor that opens it; by which means 
Satan is loosed to deceive the nations.” 

3 Ver. 2.] As great smoke hinders the sight, so do errors 
the understanding. He keeps to the allegory, says Grotius, 
for smoke takes from us the sight of the stars; smoke, espe- 
cially when proceeding from a fierce fire, is also a represen- 
tation of devastation. Thus, when Abraham beheld the 
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. xix. 28), “ Lo, 
the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of the fur- 
nace.” The great displeasure of God is represented by the 
same figurative expressions of smoke and fire. “ ‘Then the 
earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills 
moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There 
went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his 
mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it” (Ps. xviii. 
7, 8). 

4 Ver 3.] Locusts and grasshoppers are expressly made to 
signify both the multitude of the eastern nations invading 
Israel, and the swift progress and destruction they made: 


* On Luke viii. 31. + Bishop of Meaux on the place. 


CHAPTER IX. 


5 And to them it was given that they should not 
kill them, but that they should be tormented five 
months: and their torment was as the torment of a 
scorpion, when he striketh a man. 

(5.) And I farther perceived, they did not receive a com- 
mission to take away men’s lives, when they invaded and 
spoiled them; they were to torment them for a space of 
time, for five months: and their torment was resembled to 
the pains and uneasiness which men feel, when they are bit 
by a scorpion. 

6 And in those days shall men seek death, and 
shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death 
shall flee from them. 

(6.) Yet, though they had not a commission to take 
away men’s lives, they should make their lives so uneasy 
and miserable to them, that they would rather choose death 
than life, and desire to die rather than remain in their 
misery. ὃ 

7 And the shapes of the locusts were like unto 
horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were 


as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as | 


the faces of men. 


1049 


(7.) The appearance of these locusts was such, as in part 
resembled the locusts described in the ancient prophets ; but 
in part differed from those descriptions, as well as from the 
description of natural locusts. ‘hey were like unto horses 
prepared for battle ; but they seemed to have a sort of golden 
coronets on their heads, and to appear with the countenance 
and visage of men. © 


8 And they had hair as the hair of women, and 
their teeth were as the teeth of lions. 


(8.) Yet, with a manly countenance, they dressed their 
head and hair in an effeminate manner; and were as ready 
for rapine, and intent upon it, as if they had teeth hard and 
strong to devour, as the teeth of lions. 7 


9 And they had breastplates, as it were breast- 
plates of iron; and the sound of their wings was 
as the sound of chariots of many horses running to 
battle. 

(9.) As they were thus fitted to destroy, they were also 
well defended against opposition, as if they were armed with 
iron breast-plates; and they invaded their enemies with a 
great noise, as if many chariots and horses were rushing into 
battle. 8 


Judg. vi. 5, “For they came with their cattle and their 
tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude, for both 
they and their camels were without number: and they en- 
tered into the land to destroy it.” And thus also the locusts, 
in the prophet Joel, i. 6, are represented; “ For a nation is 
come upon my land, strong, and without number.” The 
same word in the original, >y5y, is, in the one place, trans- 
lated “ grasshopper,” in the other, “locust.” 

5 Ver. 6.] The time in which these locusts were to tor- 
ment men, seems an allusion to the time in which natural 
locusts are used to do harm, and after which they die. They 
are hatched, as Bochart observes, about the spring, and die 
at the letter end of summer; so that they do not live above 
five months. So that learned interpreter* of scripture un- 
derstands the expressions at the fifth and tenth verses; Ita 
quod, versti quinto et decem, nocent hominibus per quinque 
menses, videtur ideo dici, quia locuste veré nate, sub finem 
wstatis obeunt; nec supra quinque menses vivere solent. 

The time of five months may likely mean, that the inva- 
sions of this people meant by the locusts should be, after 
the manner of the locusts, during the summer months. This 
seems a more natural meaning than a certain number of 
prophetic years, during which space of time their power 
should continue, as some interpreters have thought. If any 
have the curiosity to see an interpretation of these five 


months, for one hundred and fifty years, at the proportion | 


of thirty days to a month, he may find it in Mr. Daubuz 
and Waple, or in Mr. Mede. 
pretation for three hundred years, because the five months 
are twice mentioned at the fifth and tenth verses; but as I 
see no reason for such interpretation, so I perceive no cer- 
tainty in the application. 

The torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man, is 
great and very painful, according to the learned Bochart. 
He observes, from Dioscorides, Cum quis 4 scorpione mor- 
sus est, locus quamprimtim inflammari incipit, durusque 


esse et ruber, et vehementi dolore affectus.; Inflammation | 


and violent pain are fit similitudes to express great uneasi- 
ness and torment. The same learned author farther ob- 
serves, that scorpions, as locusts, hurt only during the sum- 
mer months. Nec fustra est, quod mysticis locustis, que 
scorpionum caudas habent, non datur potestas nocendi ho- 
minibus, nisi per menses quinque: quippe ut locusts, ita 
nec scorpiones, diutius nocent, nam per frigora torpent, nec 
quidquam ex iis est periculi. Tertullianus, “T°amiliare 
periculi tempus estas.”+ 
6 Ver. 7.] Joel, speaking of the natural locusts, observes, 

“The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses, 
and as horsemen so shall they run” (ii. 4). This represen- 
tation of their swift motion, is supposed by some to be an al- 

* Bochart. Hieroz. lib. iv. cap. 8. 

+ Ib. lib. iv. cap. 29, v, 3, p. 640, 

+ Ib. lib. iv. cap. 29, 
Vor. IV.—132 


He may see another inter- 


| 


lusion to the form of their heads, as the head of a locust 
naturally resembles the head of a horse. Locuste, says 
Bochart,* ab Italis vocantur cavalette; hine Albertus, lib. 
xxvi., Caput habent figura equi. And Theodoret, on this 
passage of Joel, Si quis locuste caput diligentér consideret, 
persimilem equo inveniet. It is, to be sure, a beautiful repre- 
sentation of the swiftness and expedition with which an 
army, consisting principally of horsemen, invade and ravage 
a country. 

Some interpreterst understand these crowns of gold they 
wore on their heads, to represent the victories of this people, 
by faces as the faces of men, that they had seemingly rea- 
sonable and plausible pretences for their invasions. Others 
understand it a description of the proper habit of this peo- 
ple, that they should wear ornaments on their heads, like 
crowns or mitres. “The mitre of the high-priest was called 
by the ancient Greeks, ¢iara, cidaris, and sometimes diadema ; 
they were a sort of linen turban, commonly white: and 
such were the diadems of kings, which Ammianus calls 
fasciolam candidam, regiw majestatis insigne.”’+ This linen 
covering of the head, with the plate of gold, in which « Ho- 
liness to the Lord” was inscribed, is called the holy crown ; 
so that a turban, with a gold ornament, in the language of 
the scripture, is a crown of gold (Lev. viii. 9). 

7 Ver. 8.) By “hair, as the hair of women,” some under- 
stand, that their pretences should be insinuating and de- 
ceitful; but it seems rather to refer to some efleminacy in 
their dress, by which this people should be distinguished, 
probably such an appearance as Mr. Daubuz has described 
from Pliny,§ Arabes mitrati degunt, aut intonso crine, barba 
eraditur preterquam in superiore labro. So that the Ara- 
bians, though they affected to wear great moustaches, yet 
wore long hair, tressed and plaited after the manner of wo- 
men; and hereby, says Mr. Daubuz, is set forth, together 
with this their custom, their effeminacy and lust, to which 
they were extremely addicted. Servius, on Virg. “θη, lib. 
ix. ver. 616, “ Et habent redimicula mitre,’ Pilea virorum 
sunt, mitre fceminarum. Alii mitras meretricum 
esse voluerunt. 

« Teeth, like the teeth of lions,” is a description of locusts 
in the prophet Joel, “ Whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, 
and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion” (Joel i. 6), to 
express great rapaciousness, and how easily they destroy all 
before them. ; 

8 Ver. 9.] It is observed of the locusts, in Joel ii. 8, 
“When they fall upon the sword, they shall not be 
wounded.” And it is observable, says Mr. Daubuz, that 
the natural locust hath about its body a pretty hard shell, 
of the colour of iron. Armavit natura cutem, says Clau- 


* Tb. lib. iv. cap. 4. 

+ Waple on the place. 

+ Patrick on Exod. xxviii. 37. 

§ Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vi. cap. 28, 
ἀν 


| 


1050 REVELATION. 


10 And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there | 


were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt 
men five months. 


(10.) They had moreover this peculiar in their form, that 
they had tails as scorpions, and in them stings, by which 
they were able to do great hurt and mischief in the places 
which they invaded; and thus, though locusts, they were 
able to torment as scorpions do. 9 


11 And they had a king over them, which is the 


angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the He- | 


brew tongue 7s Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath 
Ais name Apollyon. 

(11.) Though the natural locusts have no king, yet 
these figurative locusts have one, who is the angel of the 
bottomless pit, that evil spirit, the prince of the power of 
darkness, who, from the constant evils he is designing and 
doing in the world, is called the Destroyer. 


12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two 
woes more hereafter. 


* (12.) Such woful judgments the church is to expect, when 
the righteous providence of God shall give permission to the 
destroyer to punish the sins of men; and even when this 
woe shall be passed, the church is to expect yet farther woes, 
when the sixth and seventh angels shall sound their trum- 
pets (see the history of the fifth trumpet at the end of 
this chapter. 


13 And the sixth angel sounded, and 1 heard a 


voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is 
before God, 


(13.) I farther perceived in my vision, when the sixth 
angel sounded his trumpet, a voice, as coming from the 
golden altar which stood before the presence of God, as in 
the temple, or from the altar of incense, the place of prayer 
and intercession ; where the angel having a golden censer 
offered incense with the prayers of all saints (viii. 3), to 
express that no intercession should avail to prevent any 
| longer the execution of the following woes. A just punish- 

ment of the world, for sins unrepented of, and of the church, 
| for great corruptions unreformed. !! 


14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trum- 
| pet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the 
| great river Euphrates. 


(14.) ‘This voice from the altar of incense was directed to 
| the sixth angel, who had*just sounded his trumpet, com- 
manding him to set the four angels at liberty, who, for the 
present, were restrained in and about the eastern parts; that, 
their restraint being taken off, they may again execute the 
judgments of God, by invading the several parts of it. 


15 And the four angels were loosed, which were 
prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a 
year, for to slay the third part of men. 


(15.) Accordingly, the restraint was taken off from the 
four destroying angels, and they were permitted to afflict 
the inhabitants of the earth for a determined time; their 
restraint was taken off but for a season, as if the very time 
was ascertained by years, days, months, and even hours, in 
which they have a permission to punish the world, by taking 
away the lives of a considerable number of the inhabitants 
thereof. !2 


dian ; so that herein the symbol of the breast-plate is ex- 
actly suited to the natural locust. The prophet Joel, ii. 5, 
also describes the locusts, “ Like the noise of chariots on the 
tops of mountains shall they leap———or, as a strong 
people set in battle array ;” to express the terror and con- 
sternation they shall occasion by their invasions. 

9 Ver. 10.] Whether these tails, and stings as scorpions, 
were designed to express, that these people should spread 
the poison of error and delusion where they come, or only 
to express the great pain and uneasiness their invasions 
should occasion, I leave to the judgment of the reader. 

1 Ver. 11.] It is an observation of Agur, “The locusts 
have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands” 
(Prov. xxx. 27). 

11 Ver. 13.] In this prophecy, as well as in other pas- 
sages of scripture, especially the prophetical, the several pro- 
vidences of God are represented by the ministration of an- 
gels, whom God sends as his messengers, to execute his will. 


It may be here understood, as a publication of the purpose | 


and design of Providence, from the horns of the altar of in- 
cense; so that no intercession should prevent it. 

2 Ver. 15.] It has been a question, why these angels 
are represented as four. Some interpreters have supposed 
the number fowr relates either to four princes, or four prin- 
cipalities. Hence some suppose the four angels to be one 
of the Turkish princes and his three sons, as Mr. Daubuz. 
Mr. Mede takes them to be the tetrachy, or four govern- 
ments of the Turks in Asia, Aleppo, Damascus, and An- 
tioch ; or, according to Sir Isaac Newton,* the four king- 
doms of the Turks seated upon Euphrates: that of Armenia 
Major, seated at Miyapharekin, Megarkin, or Martyropolis ; 
that of Mesopotamia, seated at Mosul; that of all Syria, 
seated at Aleppo; and that of Cappadocia, seated at Ico- 
nium. But as these governments were not erected till the 
death of Melech Shah, who died A. C. 1092, they far out- 
run the date of the present periud, even by some hundreds 
of years. ΄ 

Nor does there appear any necessity to understand the 
four angels, either of four princes, or of four governments; 
for the number four, as Mr. Daubuz+ observes, is often a 
number denoting a universality of the matters comprised, as 
in Jer. xlix. 36, the “ four winds” signify all the winds; in 
Isa. x1. 12, “the four corners of the earth,” denote all the 
parts of the earth; and in Ezek. vii. 2, “the four corners 


ἘΣ ἘΡ. 807. 


* P. 806. + Symb. Dict. Voc. Numb. 


of the land,” signify all parts of the land of Judea: and 
therefore, with Philo,* four is a number of universality in 
nature. Jt should seem then a very natural interpretation 
of the four angels, to understand them of the whole power 
of these destroyers, gathered together from the four corners, 
or every quarter of the land they dwelt in; and spreading 
themselves towards the four winds, or the several parts of 
the earth, without restraint. 

‘The time here spoken of, an hour, a day, a month, and a 
year, may also be understood in general for a limited time 
and season, as in this prophecy the ten kings are said to 
receive power, as kings, one hour with the beast, or at the 
same, and during the same time (Rev. xvii. 12). 

Mr. Daubuz} seems to have expressed the general mean- 
ing of these words very well; the aforesaid angels were pre- 
pared by God, for a year, month, day, and hour; namely, 
so as to be ready, upon any occasion of warning, to put this 
great event in execution: so that there seems no necessity 
of making this time three hundred and ninety-one prophetic 
days, denoting so many years. It rather seems to signify, 
that these incursions of the destroyer should be under a limi- 
tation, and like the inroads of an enemy, who in a short 
time are beaten back, or, at a set time, usually retire of 
themselves. 

Somet understand the third part of men, as a symboli- 
cal character of the Roman empire, as the Roman empire 
has been computed to be one-third part of the earth. And 
a very learned person§ supposes, that the trumpets princi- 
pally, if not solely, regard Europe, the famous τὸ τρίτον, or 
“third part” of the world, known in the days of the vision. 
But, I conceive, this expression is chiefly designed to sig- 
nify many, or a very considerable part; as in the fore- 
going parts of the vision (ch. viil.), the “third part” 
of trees was burnt up; the “third part” of the sea be- 
came blood; the “third part” of the creatures died; a 
| star from heaven fell upon a “third part” of the rivers ; and 
| a “third part” of the waters became wormwood ; a “third 
part’”’ of the sun was smitten; and “ the day shone not for a 
third part of it:” and afterward, “the tail of the dragon 
drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them 
to the earth” (xii. 4). A third part therefore seems most 
plainly and naturally to mean a considerable part of the 


* De Vita Mosis, lib. iii. p. m, 519. 
ἡ In loc. p. 327. 
§ Whiston on the Rev. p. 154. 


+ Waple on viii. 7. 


CHAPTER ΙΧ. 


16 And the number of the army of the horsemen | 
were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard | 
the number of them. 

(16.) I soon perceived in my vision a farther explication 
of these four destroying angels, let loose for a determined 
time, to slay a great part of the inhabitants of the earth; for 
there appeared a most numerous army of horsemen, too 
many to be expressed, almost, in plain numbers, being two 
hundred thousand thousand. 13 

17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and 
them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, 
and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the 
horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their 
mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. 

(17.) As these armies of invaders were represented very 
numerous, so both horses and riders appeared very terrible ; 
the horsemen appeared in bright and shining armour, having | 
breastplates as of fire, jacinth, and brimstone, which appeared 
like a mixture of fire and smoke ; and the horses they rode | 
upon had a terrible appearance, as well as their riders: for 
their heads looked fierce as lions, and they seemed to 
cast fire and smoke out of their mouths. '4 

18 By these three was the third part of men killed, 
by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, 
which issued out of their mouths. 

(18.) And by these terrible armies, a great part of the 
people whose countries they invaded was killed and slain ; 
so that the miserable inhabitants of those places suffered all 
the evils of slaughter and bloodshed, as well as of rapine 
and spoil. 

19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their 
tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had 
heads, and with them they do hurt. 

(19.) And the power of these formidable armies to do 


1051 


hurt was so great, that they were likened to those serpents 
of which naturalists speak, with two heads, one at each end 
of their body, capable therefore of doing harm, both with 
their mouths and tails: so that not only was their front 
terrible when they marched, but they did great mischief also 
in their rear, and wherever they left parties behind them, in 
the countries they had overrun. 15 


20 And the rest of the men which were not killed 
by these plagues yet repented not of the works of 
their hands, that they should not worship devils, and 
idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of 
wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: 


(20.) Yet, notwithstanding these severe judgments upon 
the world, for the corruption of true religion, they who 
escaped them were not reformed by them ; they still went on 
to corrupt the purity of religious worship, with downright 
idolatrous practices, as well as they gave themselves up to all 
unrighteousness and wickedness: for they worshipped devils, 
or demons; they made angels, and the souls of departed 
men, as well as the images of the saints, the object of their 
prayers and adoration. nd 


21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of 
their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their 
thefts. 


(21.) In such a general corrupt state of religious worship 
they continued, as might be expected, impenitent and un- 
reformed in tbe iniquities of common life: so that all the 
abominable iniquities of the heathen world were found 
among them; such as deceit, injustice, uncleanness and de- 
bauchery, poisonings, and open murders. Just reasons why 
they were visited with so awful judgments, and why the 
were given up to the farther punishment of that dreadful 
woe that follows under the next and last trumpet 16 (see 
the history of the sixth trumpet at the end of the annota- 
tions). 


whole; and “ to destroy a third part of men,” will then sig- 
nify, that the destroying armies, represented by the four 
angels, now loosed from the river Euphrates, which had 
been one of the great boundaries of the kingdom of the 
Jews, and was then of the Roman empire, should take away 
the lives of a great number of persons, whose countries they 
should, on this permission, invade. 

13 Ver. 16.] The number in the original is “ myriads of 
myriads,” which I suppose is to be understood of many my- 
riads ; as when we say, thousands of thousands, to express 
many thousands, or a company almost innumerable. We 
can hardly conceive this number was intended to be the real 
muster of any army whatsoever, which never was known to 
consist of any thing like two hundred millions of horsemen. 
It seems then to mean, that the armies of these destroyers 
should be principally horsemen; and that their numbers 
should be so great, that the report of them should be hardly 
credible. 

4 Ver. 17.] The colour of fire is red, of hyacinth blue, 
and of brimstone yellow: these are the colours of fire and 
smoke mingled together. The learned Dr. Hammond ob- 
serves,* these three colours may be used (as in prophetic 
style it is ordinary) to express a terrible appearance, which 
is commonly represented by a flaming fire. It is not indeed 
impossible, as the same learned interpreter observes with 
Grotius, that by fire, smoke, and brimstone, may be meant | 
fire-balls, or darts, with something burning at the end of | 
them, called falaricx, engines of known use, especially in 
sieges; but there is no sufficient reason, I think, to make it 
more than conjecture. ‘There is still less reason, I conceive, | 
to make these expressions signify cannon and gunpowder, 
the use of which was absolutely unknown, some hundreds of 
years after the time this prophecy was to be fulfilled, in the 


* In loc. 


successive order of the prophecies of this book. Besides, it 
is to be observed, this is a description of the breast-plates of 
the horsemen, not only of their weapons or engines of war ; 
and seems therefore to describe properly the terror of their 
appearance when marching to war. 

'5 Ver. 19.] The power in the mouth and in the tails, as 
serpents, is plainly an allusion to those serpents which are 
supposed to have two heads, one at each end of their body, 
as Pliny describes the amphisbena;* Geminum caput am- 
phisbene, hoc est ad caput, et ad caudam, tanquam parum 
esset uno ore fundivenenum. A proper representation of a 
furious and terrible invasion. 

Whether it be farther meant by these expressions, ac- 
cording to several learned interpreters, that they did not 
only do mischief by their conquests, but also by false doc- 
trines; that they should not only pull down the states, and 
destroy the people they invaded, but that they should also 
plant a false religion in the places they conquered. I shall 
leave entirely to the judgment of the reader. 

16 Ver. 21.] I have rendered the original Word, φαρμακειῶι, 
« poisoning,” rather than sorceries, or witchcrafts. Herein 
I have followed the learned Grotius, In eddem domo, alii 
alios veneno necabant. This wicked practice of poisoning 
grew general, especially in Italy, and, according to historians, 
in the church of Rome itself; but the reader is at liberty to 
prefer the other sense given by interpreters, and to under- 
stand by it witchcrafts, sorceries, charms, exorcisms, and 
pretended miracles, by which men are often seduced to ido- 
latry, and kept in idolatrous practices: or we may under- 
stand, with a learned author,t “the numberless artificial 
methods of making men very religious, without any virtue,” 
to be what the scripture calls sorceries. 


* Plinii Hist. Nat. lib. viii. cap. 23. 
ἡ Clarke’s Sermons, vol. vi. p. 352. 


1052 


HISTORY OF THE TRUMPETS. 
Fifth trumpet.—The foregoing prophecies of this period 


have brought us, by various steps, to an entire subversion of | 


the western empire, when Rome lost all its authority and 
power, was no longer a seat of government, but a petty 
duchy governed by an officer appointed by the exarch of 
Ravenna, and serving under him; who, as the emperor's 
lieutenant, had the chief command through all his domin- 
ions in Italy. This exarchate began, according to Sigonius, 
A. D. 566, according to Petavius, A. D. 568. 


The present prophecy describes a very remarkable judg- | 
It | 


ment, which should follow in the course of providence. 
is marked by peculiar circumstances of woe and afilictions, 


as if Satan, at the head of the powers of darkness, had broke 


the prison of the bottomless pit, and was come abroad into 


violence, spoil, and slavery, among men. 

There are many circumstances in this description, pecu- 
liar and distinguishing marks of this judgment: the igno- 
rance and error they should progagate, their number and 
hardiness, the customs, habits, and manners of this people, 
and of their invasions, the mighty progress they should 
make, and their different treatment of Christians and idola- 
ters, are sufficient to point out this memorable event of pro- 
vidence to our observation. This new trial of the faith and 
patience of the saints, and new judgment of God upon such 
Christians themselves, as corrupted the purity of Christian 
faith, worship, and manners, was worthy the Spirit of pro- 
phecy to reveal; and the protection of the church, so as to 
preserve the Christian faith and religion, in a time of so great 
danger, was a very wise and useful encouragement to the 
faith and constancy of the church, which is the general and 
immediate intention of all the revelations of this prophecy. 

The next scene of providence, which greatly surprised 
the whole world, as well as the Christian church, was the 
rise of Mohammed, and a more wonderful progress of a new 


religion, and a new empire, than the world had ever seen | 


before. 

About the year of Christ 606, Mahomet* (as his name is 
usually writ) began to pretend to revelation, and converse 
with the angel Gabriel, in a solitary cave near Mecca, in 
Arabia. In the year 608, which was the fortieth of his age, 
he began to take to himself the style of “the apostle of 
God;” and to propagate his imposture, he pretended not 
to deliver a new religion, but to revive the old religion God 
first gave to Adam :} and, by many other specious pretences 
of receiving his revelations from the angel Gabriel, he gained 
several proselytes. Yet the people of Mecca, where he 
lived, were so averse to his imposture, that they resolved to 
strike at the root, and prevent the spreading of farther mis- 
chief, by cutting him off who was the chief author of it ;+ 
so that he was forced to fly from Mecca to Medina, then 
called Yathreb. This was in the year 622, from which 
flight of Mahomet, the Hegira, or computation of time 
among the Mahkometans, begins. 

From this time he tells his disciples, his religion was not 
to be propagated by disputing, but by fighting.g 

Accordingly, the next year, 623, he fell upon the traders 
of Mecca, though guarded by one thousand men, and beat 
them ; and spent the rest of the year in robbing, plunder- 
ing, and destroying, all those who would not come in to him, 
and embrace his religion.§ 

The next year, he continued the same course, and fought 
a battle with a large number of his opposers, in which he 
was overborne, and himself grievously wounded. ‘To pre- 
vent the ill effect this disgrace might have on the minds of 
his followers, he taught them, that the time of life being de- 
termined by God, they who should be slain in battle died 
no sooner than they must otherwise have done; and as they 
died fighting for the faith, they gained the crown of martyr- 
dom, and the rewards of paradise.** 


* Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 12. 


+ Ib. p. 16. ¢ Ib. p. 62. 
§ Ib. p. 77. | Ib. p. 78. 
© Ib. p. 86. ** Ib. p. 88. 


REVELATION. 


In the year 627* he was attacked by an army of ten 
thousand men, from which danger he very dexterously ex- 
tricated himself; and, the same year, was inaugurated in 
the supreme authority, and made head in all things civil and 
religious. 

In the year 629 Mahomet had an army of ten thousand 
men ;+ so that he very soon brought most parts of Arabia 
into his power. 

In the year 630 he turned his arms towards Syria. In 
631 all the Arabs came in and submitted to him; and in 
the following year he himself died, being sixty-three years 
of age, according to the Arabian account, which make only 
sixty-one of ours;§ so that Mahomet, in the space of 
twenty-three years, founded a new religion, and a new em- 
pire, throughout the large country of Arabia, a country 


| bigger than Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Great Britain, 
the world, to spread all the evils of ignorance, error, deceit, | 


and Ireland, together: which, as Dr. Prideaux observes, 
“God has permitted, in his all-wise providence, to continue 
a scourge unto us Christians, who having received so holy 
and so excellent a religion, through his mercy unto us in 
Christ Jesus our Lord, will not yet conform ourselves to live 
worthy of it.” 

This new government and religion were in some danger, 
on the death of its founder, by a competition for the succes- 
sion; but Abubeker, who succeeded, soon suppressed se- 
veral rebellions, and in particular subdued Moseilam, who 
pretended himself a prophet, in opposition to Mahomet; 
and having settled his affairs pretty well at home, thinks of 
putting in execution Mahomet’s commission, of fighting for 
the religion of God.{ He therefore sends armies into 
Babylon and Syria, and summons his forces together, by 
this remarkable letter : 

“Tn the name of the most merciful God, Abubeker, &c. 
to the rest of the true believers, health and happiness, and 
the mercy and blessing of God, be upon you. I praise the 
most high God, and I pray for his prophet Mahomet.** This 
is to acquaint you, that I intend to send the true believers 
into Syria, to take it out of the hands of the infidels; and I 
would have you to know, that fighting for religion is an act 
of obedience to God.” 

In this short reign, which was but two years and a few 
months,j{ the Saracens made a great progress, beat the army 
of the Greek emperor, and slew, according to their own ac- 
count, fifty thousand men, took Damascus, and entered far 
into Syria. Omar, who immediately succeeded Abubeker, 
reigned ten years and a half, drove all the Jews and Chris- 
tians out of Arabia; subdued Syria, Egypt, and other parts 
of Africa, besides the greatest part of Persia; took the city 
of Jerusalem ; and in the battle of Yermouk, as Abu Obei- 
dah, the general, wrote to the caliph,++ they killed one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand, and took forty thousand prisoners ; 
and adds, “ As to those that fled into the deserts and moun- 
tains, we haye destroyed them all, and stopped all the roads 
and passages; and God has made us masters of their coun- 
try, and wealth, and children.” 

Othman continued the Saracen conquests; the whole 
Persian empire fell into their hands, in the year of the He- 
gira 31, A. D. 651, and Syria, with Egypt, were brought 
into full subjection. But, 

Upon the death of Othman, the quarrel about the suc- 
cession put a considerable stop to the Saracen arms. This 
seems to make the deat of Othman a proper period to the 
first progress of the Mahometan empire and religion, and a 
proper end of that part of history that is correspondent to 
this part of prophecy. 

To this account of the rise of the Mahometan religion and 
empire, it may be proper to subjoin some remarks on the 
customs of this people, the manner of their making war, 
and invading their neighbours. 


* Ib. p. 94. 

+ Ib. p. 104. ὃ 
|| Ockley, Hist. Saracens, vol. i. p. 10, 17, 
{ Al Koran, cap. 4, p. 70, cap. 9, p. 149, 
** Ockley, ib. p. 22. 

tt Abul Pharajii, Hist. Dynast. p. 90, 110. 
++ Ockley, Hist. Sarac. vol. i. p. 241, 242. 


CHAPTER IX. 


It was observed from Pliny, that the Arabians wore a 
sort of turbans, or mitres, on their heads; that they dressed 
and twisted their hair in a particular manner, so that one 
party of the Saracens was distinguished by it from another. 
«Tt is remarkable,” says Ockley,* “ the sect of Ali have not 
only a turban after a different fashion, but they also twist 
their hair after a manner quite different from the rest of the 
Massulmans.” 

They used also the custom of wearing beards: + Ebn 
Hannif, Ali’s governor of Basora, had his hair cut off, and 
his beard spoiled, in contempt. Ubi cium Ebn Haniffum 
ipst ab Hali prefectum prehendissent, crinibus avulsis et 
barbé depilaté demiserunt. At least, according to Pliny, 
they left some hair, like moustaches, on their upper lip: 
so exactly did their dress answer the description of crowns, 
faces of men, and hair as the hair of women. 

‘The care of the Arabians about their horses, and the ex- 
cellency of their breed, are taken notice of by all who men- 
tion them. 

It is well known, the manner of invading their neighbours 
was by sudden incursions during the summer months; re- 
tiring again, and dispersing themselves to their own homes, 
during the winter; and gathering together the next spring 
for a new summer's invasion. 

According to the military laws and constitutions of the 
Mahometans,} war was forbid during the sacred months, 
which were the two first and the two last: Aggredi bello 
hostes suos omni tempore fas esse pronunciavit (Moham- 
med), exceptis quatuor mensibus anni, duobus primis, et 
postremis ; qui propterea sacri appellantur. 

A sufficient number is appointed by the same constitu- 
tions,§ to be sent out yearly, as may make the Mahometans 
equal or superior to the enemy : Istiusmodi copiarum educ- 
tio singulis annis ad minimum semel fieri debet. 

Their military laws make also a great difference between 
those people they call Harbi, and the People of a Book. 
The Harbi were either atheists and persons of no religion, 
or idolaters, who did not worship the true God, according to 
any book of revelation; these were not tolerated in the 
Mahometan law, but they were to be prosecuted with war, 
till they embraced the religion of Mahoinet. But the Peo- 
ple of the Book were such as worshipped God, according to 
some book of revelation, as the Jews and Christians; these 
were to be prosecuted with war till they embrace Maho- 
metanism, or agree to pay a tribute: but then they were to 
be left in peace, and in the quiet use of their own religion, 
even where the Mahometan authority was fully settled.|| 
‘Thus the very laws of Mahomet made provision not to kill 
those who professed the worship of the true God, but only to 
torment them by their invasions, and making them tributaries. 

It was moreover a common injunction to spare, as much 
as possible, the countries they invaded: “ Destroy not 
palm-trees,” says Abubeker to Yesid, nor burn any fields of 
corn; cut down no fruit-trees, do no mischief to cattle, only 
such as ye kill to eat.” 

Yet the military laws adjudged so many persons to cap- 
tivity, and the condition of the women in particular was so 
deplorable, being so much in the power of persons who gave 
the greatest liberty to their lusts, that though their lives 
were spared, many were like to prefer death itself to the 
hard condition to which they were reduced. 

Upon the whole, the sudden invasion of the Saracens, the 
swift and almost incredible progress of their arms, many cir- 
cumstances peculiar to this people, and their invasions, 
which sufficiently distinguish them from all the invasions 
of the northern nations, very properly answer the prophetic 
description of these locusts out of the bottomless pit. 

Sixth trumpet——The period of history which corresponds 
with this period of prophecy, is determined by the succes- 
sive order of prophecies and events to the times soon fol- 
lowing the former history, which described the rise and 
amazing progress of the Saracen empire and Mahometan re- 
ligion ; which, like locusts out of a bottomless pit, spread 


* Hist. Sarac. vol. ii. p. 87. 

+ Abul Pharajii Hist. Dynast. p. 118. 

+ Al Koran, cap. 2, p. 22, cap. 9, p. 82. Reland, Dissert. 
de Jure Militari Mohammedanorum, p. 5. 

§ Ib. p. 10. ! Ib. p, 14. 4 Ockley, vol. i. p. 25. 


. 1053 


themselves in a very short time over a great part of the 
world. I shall not therefore take notice of Mr. Mede’s ap- 
plication of this prophecy to the rise and progress of the 
Turks, or Ottoman empire founded by them; though Mr. 
Mede’s great learning and reputation have caused many 
others to follow him, yet the rise of the Ottoman empire is 
so low, that it is by far too great a step from “A. D. 655, in 
which the former prophecy ended: for Othman, the founder 
of the empire, died in the year of the Hegira, 727, A. D. 
1326." This time will farther also fall far into the time of 
the next period of prophecy. ‘hese considerations make 
such application, I think, inconsistent with the order of the 
book itself, which it seems plainly to mark out to us in suc- 
cessive periods. 

Let us see, then, whether the history of the Saracen em- 
pire, in the times that soon followed after the foregoing 
prophetic description of the rise of it, does not answer this 
description, and is not most likely designed by it. 

One considerable mark of this period, is loosing the four 
angels which were bound in the great river Euphrates 
(ver. 14), signifying, that the providence of God had, for 
some time preceding this period, laid a restraint upon these 
furious invaders of their neighbours, and the progress of 
their imposture. 

Accordingly we find, that upon the death of Othman, 
about the year 655, there were great contentions concerning 
the succession ;+ Ali, Moawiah, Telha, and Zobier (or 
Azzobier), had each of them a considerable party to advance 
them to the caliphate, or succession in the Saracen empire. 
‘These pretensions occasioned several quarrels, which put a 
stop to the foreign conquests of the Saracens, and ended in 
the almost entire ruin of Ali’s family, and therein of Maho- 
met’s own; for Ali had married Mahomet’s daughter. 

At the death of Othman, Moawiah was governor of Syria, 
and Amrou of Egypt.+ Ali, at the first, obtained a com- 
plete victory over Telha and Zobier, two of his competitors ; 
yet Moawiah and Amrou resolved to stand it out to the 
last against Ali.§ These contentions occasioned the deaths 
of so many persons, that at last three men, zealous for the 
Saracen affairs, agreed to kill all the three pretenders to the 
caliphate: one of them struck Moawiah in the reins, but the 
wound proved not mortal :|| another of them, mistaking for 
Amrou a person whom Amrou, being indisposed, had ap- 
pointed to supply his place that day in the mosque, killed 
him dead on the spot; and going to execution, said, without 
any concern, “I designed Amrou, but God designed ano- 
ther.”§ The third of these conspirators had better success 
in the execution of his design against Ali; for he gave him 
a mortal wound in the head, as soon as he came into the 
mosque, of which he died ἴῃ ἃ few days.** The contention 
did not end with the death of Ali; it continued a long time 
between his family and the family of Moawiah: Hasan, 
Ali’s eldest son, was forced to abdicate in favour of Moa- 
wiah ;{+ Hosein, Ali's second son, with several of his 
family, was killed in the field: yet still many disturbances 
were occasioned by the friends of Ali’s family and the 
enemies of Moawiah’s. Almochter, pretending to avenge the 
death of Hosein,++ is made caliph by his party, A. D. 685: 
he pursued all who had a hand in the death of Hosein, and 
destroyed them with variety of deaths: he never pardoned 
any of those who declared themselves enemies of the pro- 
phet, nor those whom he could believe to have dipped their 
hands in Hosein’s blood, or that of his relations ;$§ so that 
it is said, that he killed near fifty thousand men of those peo- 
ple, without reckoning those who were slain in the battles 
which he fought. 

These intestine divisions and quarrels bound up the Sara- 
cens from their usual invasions and incursions,||| and kept 
them about the river Euphrates, near which most of their 
battles between each other were fought. Moawiah found it 
necessary to make a peace with Constantinus Pogonatus, 
emperor of Constantinople, and even agreed to pay him a 


* Petavii Rat. Temp. par. i, lib. ix. 

+ Ockley, Hist. Sarac. vol. ii. 

+Ib.p.43—47. §Ib.p.72. [Ib p.73. Tb. p. 74. 

**Tb.p.77. tfIb.p.95. ¢¢1b.p.301. §§Ib.p.315. 

{| Zonaras, Annal. tom. iii. Bizari Rerum Persicarum 
Hist. p. 168. Abul Pharajii Hist. Dynast. p. 128. 


1054 REVELATION. 


considerable tribute ; and Abdolmelic, one of his successors, 
was obliged to make a like peace, on promise of paying tri- 
bute to Justinian IJ. the Greek emperor. 

Thus were the destroying angels bound up for about 
fifty years, during the reigns of Ali, Moawiah the first, Ye- 
sid, Moawiah the second, Merwan, and Abdolmelic, caliphs 
of the Saracens. 

But then, these destroying angels were loosed again; the 
divine providence took off the restraint of the Saracen in- 
vasions. Walid united the power of the Saracen empire, 
and invaded the western parts of Europe with such nume- 
rous armies, and swift successes, as threatened the loss of 
all Europe, and even to extinguish the Christian name and 
religion. 

The Saracens passed over into Spain, A. D. 713. The 
next year, they obtained a complete victory over a nume- 
rous army of the Spaniards; they who speak the least, say it 
was an army of one hundred thousand fighting men: what 
number was killed, was not known; “I suppose,” says our 
historian,* “they were so many, it was hard to count them :” 
for this only battle robbed Spain of all its glory, and in it 
perished the renowned name of the Goths. After this bat- 
tle, the Saracens divided their forces, and soon overran the 
whole country; so that in three or four years, they were 
possessed of all Spain, except a few inaccessible places in 
the mountains, and which the Saracens slighted. The misery 
of this invasion, so agreeable to the prophetic description, is 
so well expressed by the historian,t that I shall give it in 
his own words: “Certain it is, Spain was now in a deplor- 
able condition, almost all brought under the dominion of 
the Moors; there was no sort of misery but the Christians 
endured; women were ravished from their husbands, child- 
ren from their parents, and all they possessed taken from 
them, without any redress to be hoped for. The country 
yielded not its usual product, both in regard of the unsea- 
sonableness of the weather, and for want of labourers; the 
churches were profaned and burnt; dead bodies lay about 
the streets and highways, and nothing was to be seen or 
heard, but sighs and tears; nor was there any calamity but 
what Spain groaned under, God permitting the innocent to 
suffer with the guilty, to punish the horrid wickedness of 
those times.” 

But the Saracens did not confine their ravages to Spain ; 
they soon passed the Pyrenean mountains into France. Af- 
ter many ravages in several parts of the country, they came 
to a decisive battle with Charles Martel, in which Abdirach- 
man was killed, with his numerous army. This victory se- 
cured the state of Christianity, which would likely have been 
the prey of those barbarous invaders, if they had then gained 
a victory over the French, and possessed themselves of their 
country, which was then the only rampart of Christianity, as 
a judicious historian observes.t The infidels, as another his- 
torian observes, advanced as to a certain victory ; whereupon 


* Mariana, Hist. Spain, lib. vi. cap. 9. 
T Ib. lib. vi. cap. 10. 
+ Mezeray, Hist. France, vol. i. p. 193. 


ensued one of the bloodiest battles, and most obstinate fights, 
that has been seen in the world: of the Moors, there were 
four hundred thousand, with their wives and children, as de- 
signing to dwell in France. ‘The slaughter was incre- 
dible; three hundred and seventy thousand Moors were 
killed, and among them their general. ‘This fortunate battle 
was fought, says Mariana,* in the year of our Lord 734, 
twenty-one after the conquest of Spain. It put a full stop 
to the farther progress of the Saracen armies in Europe, and 
gave courage and strength to the remaining Christians in 
Spain ; so that in time they drove the Saracens quite out of 
their country. 

There is another part of this prophetic description which 
deserves particular notice, and which seems to point out this 
period of history for the accomplishment of it: the rest of 
the men who were not killed by these plagues, yet repented 
not of their idolatry; the worship of saints and images, 
which so nearly resembled the heathen idolatry, had made 
great advances about this time. Leo Isaurus, emperor of 
the east, was much concerned at it; it gave great offence to 
the Mahometans, and often provoked them to persecute the 
Christians as idolaters. In the east, Leo Isaurus, and his 
son Constantius Copronymus,t at this very time endea- 
voured to put a stop to these idolatrous customs of wor- 
shipping images; and in order to prevent it, ordered all 
images to be taken out of the churches: but these endea- 
vours to preserve the church from idolatry, and remove this 
just prejudice against the Christian worship, were warmly 
opposed by the bishops of Rome. The emperor Leo had 
sent his orders into Italy, A. D. 702, to remove images out 
of the churches there: the then pope of Rome, Gregory IL. 
confirmed the worship of images by a synod, and rejected 
the order of the emperor, with severe reproaches on himself; 
and finally, according to Baronius’s own account, he excom- 
municated the emperor, and on that pretence, forbade all 
payment of taxes to him in Italy, and freed the people from 
all manner of obedience to him, as their prince. ‘Tandem 
et anathematis pcenam, ita quoque Baronius, eoque pretexta 
interdictum, quo tributa Italica sisteret, et obedientiam 
omnem, tam civilem quam ecclesiasticam, toto occidente, 
deinceps exhiberi Greco imperatori prohiberet.+ 

This defence of the idolatrous worship of images was so 
obstinate, that at length it prevailed to a solemn confirma- 
tion of it, by the authority of councils, both in the east and 
west : so far were they from repenting of their abominations, 

And this brings us to the end of the second period of pro- 
phecy, and within a very few years of the beginning of the 
third period, in the temporal power of the popes of Rome; 
which was, in some sense, the seventh, or, in another sense, 
the eighth head of Roman government, as we have before 
observed,§ to which the following visions of this Revelation 
relate. 


* Hist. Spain, lib. vii. cap. 2. 

Τ Spanhemii Hist. Eccl. secul. viii. cap. 7, p. 1304. 
+ Ib, and Mezeray, Hist. France, vol. i. p. 198. 

§ Preface. 


CHAPTER X. 


SECTION VIII. 
INTERVAL BETWEEN THE SECOND AND THIRD PERIODS. 


1 Anp I saw another mighty angel come down from 
heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon 
his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his 
feet as pillars of fire: 


(1.) After my former vision, related in the foregoing part 
of this prophecy, I beheld another vision, introductory to a 
farther revelation concerning the state of the church and 
world ; for I beheld a mighty angel coming down from hea- 
ven: he appeared as clothed with a cloud; a mark of great 
power and majesty : a rainbow, the symbol of God’s cove- 
nant and mercy, was on or round his head; and his appear- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. X. 


Coxrents.—The foregoing chapters have given us a prophe- 
tic description of the two first periods, or of the state of 
the world and church under the persecution of Rome 
heathen ; of the troubles occasioned by the invasions of 
the northern nations, which broke the power of the Ro- 
man empire, and divided it into several new governments ; 
and finally, of the rise and progress of the Mahometan 


religion and empire, which caused so many evils through- 
out the greatest part of the world, both in the eastern and 
western empires. 

This tenth chapter seems to be an interval between the se- 
cond and third periods, in which the scene of the vision 
alters, preparation is made for a new prophecy, represent- 
ing a new state of the world and church for a new period 
of “ forty-two months,” “a time, times, and half a time,” 
or “ twelve hundred and sixty days,’’ being « the days of 


CHAPTER X. 


ance was very glorious, for his face shone with a lustre like 
the brightness of the sun, and his feet with a splendour as if 
they had been a flame, or pillars of fire. ! 

2 And he had in his hand a little book open: and 
he set his right foot upon the sea, and Ais left foot on 
the earth, 

(2.) And the angel whom I beheld coming down from 
heaven, held a little book, or roll, open in his hand, the re- 
maining part of the sealed book, or roll, which the Lamb 
had opened ; and when he was come down to our globe, he 
stood upon it, having one foot on the sea, and the other on 
the earth, the chief parts of which it consists; the prophe- 
cies yet to be revealed out of the little book, or roll, relating 
to the greater part of the inhabitants of the world. 3 


3 And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roar- 
eth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered 
their voices. 

(3.) This mighty angel, standing on the earth and sea, 
made proclamation with a voice, loud, strong, and awful, as 
the roar of a lion. Upon which I heard several distinct 
voices, as from the clouds of heaven, and loud as thunder. 

4 And when the seven thunders had uttered their 
voices, 1 was about to write: and I heard a voice 
from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things 
which the seven thunders uttered, and write them 
not. 


the voice of the seventh angel, when the mystery of God 
shall be finished.” 

The scene of vision is represented different from the forego- 
ing ; it is not now before the throne of God in heaven, as 
in the fourth chapter, but on earth, as the first scene, ch. i. 
For John saw “an angel come down from heaven” (ver. 
1); the angel stood on the sea and on the earth, and he 
lifted up his hand to heaven” (ver. 5), when “ he sware 
that time should be no longer” (ver. 6). 

This introduction to the third period represents “an angel 
coming down from heaven, with a little book open in his 
hand.” A voice from heaven directs John to “ take the 
little book from the angel, and to eat it up;” because he 
was still to continue his prophecy, and to reveal many 
things contained in it: for he was to “prophesy again, 
before,” or “ concerning, many people, and nations, and 
tongues, and kings’ (ver. 11). Or he was to represent, 
in new prophetic descriptions, the state of the church and 
world in the period or times that should successively fol- 
low the former times, of which he had already prophe- 
sied, and which was to contain a prophecy, as is afterward 
declared, for the space of twelve hundred and sixty pro- 
phetical days. The meaning of which will be best ex- 
plained by a paraphrase upon the representations them- 
selves. 


1 Ver. 1.1 To come in the clouds, or with the clouds of 
heaven is, among the Jews, a known symbol of divine power 
and majesty.* It may refer to the expression of the psalm- 
ist, “Thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and 
majesty ; thou coverest thyself with light as with a garment” 
(Ps. civ. 1, 2): alluding to the bright and shining cloud in 
which the divine presence was used to appear. Grotius 
observes a like notion among the heathen, that they repre- 
sented their deities appearing covered with a cloud: 


‘Tandem venias, precamur, 
Nube candentes humeros amictus 
Augur Apollo.f 


A rainbow, by its natural properties, as a gentle rain while 
the sun shines, was a proper emblem of God’s covenant 
with mankind after the flood, and fit to be made a sign that 
God is always mindful of his covenant and promise. ‘The 
brightness and splendour of the sun and of fire were also 
proper figures to express the majesty of a divine appear- 
ance.t 

2 Ver. 3.1 It is an observation of a great author,§ that 


* Annot. on i. 7. 


+ Horat. Carm. lib. i. od. 2. 
+ Annot. on i. 7. 


§ Sir I, Newton, p. 269, 


1055 


(4.) AsI was avout to write down what was spoken from 
the seven thunders, I was forbid by another voice from hea- 
ven, saying unto me, Do not write down what the voices 
from the seven thunders have uttered, that they may not be 
publicly revealed in this prophecy. * 

5 And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea 
and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, 

6 And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, 
who created heaven, and the things that therein are, 
and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the 
sea, and the things which are therein, that there should 
be time no longer: 

7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, 
when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God 
should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants 
the prophets. 

(5.) But though I was not allowed to reveal what the 
seven thunders had uttered, yet the angel proceeded to give 
a farther revelation of the providence of God towards the 
world, and his church in general; and to confirm the truth 
and certainty of his revelation, he took his oath in the most 
solemn manner: for, lifting up his hand to heaven, (6.) he 
sware by the eternal God, the Creator of all things, that the 
time of the glorious state of the church, though sure to be 
accomplished according to God’s promise in its due time, 
4should not be as yet; (7.) but in the next period, or in the 
days of the voice of the seventh angel, who was yet to sound, 


this description of an angel coming down from heaven is in 
the form in which Christ appeared at the beginning of this 
prophecy ; and it may farther direct us to understand this 
mighty angel of Christ, that he appeared having a little 
book opened in his hand, ‘he same illustrious interpreter 
judiciously remarks, that “ this little book is the same that he 
had newly opened; for he received but one book from him 
that sat upon the throne, and he alone was worthy to open 
it.” It does not seem to be another book, as some have 
thought, but the remainder of the same book, or roll, which 
the Lamb took out of the right hand of him that sat on the 
throne (v. 7). It may be called “a little book,” or roll, 
being only the remainder of what had been opened or re- 
vealed already, the seventh and last seal, and so the whole 
book had been opened before (ch. viii.). ‘This seems the 
plainest and easiest account of the little book, as well as 
most agreeable to the order of the prophecies, this contain- 
ing what was to happen “in the days of the voice of the 
seventh angel, when he shall sound” (ver. 7). Earth and 
sea are, in scripture language, a description of our world, or 
this terraqueous globe, as the heavens and earth are a de- 
scription of the universe in general, or the whole visible cre- 
ation; and so the inhabitants of the earth and sea seem in 
this prophecy to mean the inhabitants of this world : « Woe 
unto the inhabitants of the earth and sea! for the devil is 
come down unto you” (xii. 12); that is, when the dragon 
was cast down unto the earth. 

By “the earth,” the Jews understood, as Sir Isaac New- 
ton observes (p. 276), the great continent of all Asia and 
Africa, to which they had access by land; and by “the isles 
of the sea,” they understood the places to which they sailed 
by sea, or the several parts of Europe: and hence, in this 
prophecy, the earth and sea are put, he observes, for the 
nations of the Greek and Latin empires: in this sense, the 
angel, putting his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on 
the earth, will represent him standing with one foot on Asia, 
and another on Europe; to signify the prophecies he was to 
reveal would relate to both the empires of the east and west : 
but I think the former sense the more natural. 

3 Ver. 4.) When a voice from heaven commanded the 
apostle not to reveal what was spoken by these voices, it 
would be ridiculous to go about to explain it. It is suffi- 
cient to observe, it was not proper to remain on record a 
public revelation to the church in general, however proper 
it was to be revealed to the apostle in particular, which 
might be for many wise reasons; though for what particular 
reasons must be as unknown to us as the revelation itself is. 

4 Ver. 6.] That “time should be no longer,” does not 
mean that time itself should be no more; in the original, 
χρόνος οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι, is literally, “The time shall not be yet.” 


1056 REVELATION. 


the mystery of God, in his providence towards the church, 
should be perfected; and then, as he had promised in the 
prophetic oracles, the glorious state of the church should be 
no longer deferred. 

8 And the voice which I heard from heaven spake 
unto me again, and said, Go and take the little book 
which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth 
upon the sea and upon the earth. 

(8.) I was then directed by another voice from heaven to 
go up to the angel who stood upon the sea and the earth, 
and receive from him the little book which he held open in 
his hand. 

9 And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, 
Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take 
zt, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, 
but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. 

(9.) I thereupon did as the voice from heaven commanded 
me, and desired the angel to give me the little book, which 
he did, saying unto me; Take this little book, consider it 
carefully, and digest it well in thy mind; and thou shalt 


find, in the events it shall reveal unto thee, an occasion for 
comfort and joy, for grief and sorrow. 


10 And I took the little book out of the angel’s 
hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet 
as honey: and as soon as 1 had eaten it, my belly was 
bitter. 

(10.) I accordingly took the little book out of the angel's 
hand, and deeply meditated on the contents of it; and 
found it to contain in part things of great consolation, and 
in part things that gave me great concern and sorrow. 


11 And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy 
again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, 
and kings. 

(11.) And the angel from whom I had received the little 
book, acquainted me that I was to consider the prophecies 
contained in it were not intended only for my private in- 
struction and meditation ; they were prophecies which con- 
cerned the public, many nations, and people, which I was 
to publish in farther revelations, for the public use and bene- 
fit of the church. 5 


Some understand it, that the time of fulfilling the prophecy 
should be no longer delayed; or, as Grotius on the place, 
Non diu erit quin arcanum Dei impleatur: but I think both 
the intention of the prophecy, and the more literal meaning 
of the expression, better agree with Mr. Daubuz’s interpre- 
tation :* “ The angel in the vision declares upon oath, that 
the glorious state of the church shall not be as yet; but 
that, however, it would not be long to it: for in the days of 
the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall sound (that is, 
in the period of prophecy to which the remainder of the 
book yet unrevealed relates, under the seventh trumpet), 
the mystery of God shall be perfected, as he had declared 
to his prophets.”’ This was a consolation proper to the ge- 
neral design of the prophecy, as there was but one period of 
time yet remaining, viz. during the voice of the seventh and 
last angel ; and then the accomplishment of the promises, in 
the happy and glorious state of the church, should be ac- 
complished and fulfilled, without any farther delay. This 


* On the place. 


was however attended with a most useful caution, that the 
church is to prepare, in this period, for new trials of faith 
and patience, though in the end the mystery of God shall 
be finished or perfected. 

5 Ver. 11.] «Τὸ eat,” says Mr. Waple, “ signifies to me- 
ditate and to digest divine truths.’ «Thy words were 
found,” says the prophet (Jer. xv. 16), “and I did eat 
them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of 
mine heart.” Our blessed Saviour uses the same metapho- 
tical expression, when he speaks of himself as “the bread 
of life,” in many passages of the sixth chapter of John. 
As this prophecy was to reveal the providence of God during 
the period of the seventh angel, in which, as there was a re- 
velation of great opposition to true religion, and persecution 
of the faithful professors of it, so was there also a revelation 
of divine protection during the time of trial, and of a sure 
accomplishment of the promised glorious and happy state of 
the church in the end. The meditation of such a state of 
providence might well occasion a mixture of joy and grief 
in the apostle’s mind, as it is like to do in the minds of all 
| who so understand it and consider it. 


CHAPTER XI. 
THE THIRD PERIOD. 


SECTION IX. 


f£1RST DESCRIPTION OF THE THIRD PERIOD. 


i Anp there was given me a reed like unto a rod: 
and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the 


temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship 
therein. 

(1.) After this, I beheld in the visions of prophecy, a 
new representation of the future providence of God towards 
the church and world; for there was a measuring rod put 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XI. 


Convrents.— We are now come, in this eleventh chapter and 
the following, to the third and longest period of this pro- 
phecy, distinguished by the seven vials, as the former were 
by seven trumpets and seven seals. As this is a period 
much longer than either of the foregoing, it seems to have 
a more full and copious description; and the state of it is 
represented by several prophetic images, as by measuring 
the temple; by the prophecy of two witnesses; by the 
vision of a woman flying into the wilderness; and the re- 
presentation of one wild beast rising out of the sea, and of 
another coming up out of the earth. 

So that here are two distinct representations of the state of 
the church during this period, and another representation 
of the persecuting power from whence the afflicted state 
of the church should proceed ; and in the end of this, as 
in each period, here is a representation of the church’s 
deliverance out of its afflicted state. And, in particular, 
the afflictions of the church are to end with this period, 
in the most happy and glorious state of peace and pros- 


perity, of truth, purity, and protection; and not to be 
succeeded in a very short time by a new period of troubles 
and afflictions, to try the faith and patience of the saints, 
as the former were. 

It appears that the representation of the two witnesses, of 
the woman in the wilderness, and of the beast, are several 
representations of the same time or period, in different 
views. The time for the witnesses to prophesy in sack- 
cloth is a thousand two hundred and threescore days (xi. 
3). The woman is nourished in her place in the wil- 
derness for a time, and times, and half a time (xii. 14), 
or three years and a half, equal to twelve hundred and 
sixty days, according to the ancient year of three hun- 
dred and sixty days. And so the prophecy itself inter- 
prets it, xii. 6, « And the woman fled into the wilderness, 
where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should 
feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore 
days.” It is farther observed concerning the period of 
the beast, that “power was given to him to continue 
forty and two months,” a time equal to “ three years and 
a half,” or “twelve hundred and sixty days.” They are 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


into my hand, with which I was directed to measure the 
temple, and the court wherein the altar stood, in which the 
priests worshipped God, and performed the duties of their 
office, and into which such as offered private sacrifices for 
themselves were admitted. A proper representation of the 
true worship of God, and of such as were true worshippers 
of him. 


2 But the court which is without the temple leave 
out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the 


1057 


Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under 
foot forty and two months. 

(2.) But as to the other court of the temple, the place 
where the Israelites were used to assemble when they come 
up to the temple to worship, I was directed not to measure 
it, for this reason, that it should become common and pro- 
fane, being permitted to be used and possessed by gentiles. 
A fit representation of great corruption in the common and 
usual worship of God, by heathen doctrines and idolatrous 


therefore to be looked upon as different descriptions of 
the same period, for the more distinct explication of the 
prophecy, and greater certainty of its true meaning. 

But before we enter upon the particular meaning of each 
representation, it may be proper to observe something as 
to the proper time of this period, as to its beginning and 
continuance. 

As interpreters, for very different reasons, have fallen into 
very different accounts of both, it has occasioned no little 
uncertainty and disorder in the diflerent interpretations 
given of it. 

The papists are very unwilling protestants should find any 
of the corruptions of the Roman church in this prophecy ; 
they have therefore used all their art and learning to 
finish all the prophecies in this book in much less time 
than twelve hundred and sixty years, in the downfall of 
Rome heathen, when the empire became Christian, under 
Constantine, A. D. 323. They must therefore make the 
time of this period no more than twelve hundred and 
sixty natural days, or three common years and a half. 
And in this the Bishop of Meaux* greatly triumphs over 
the protestant interpreters, that they should make a year 
not to signify one year, but three hundred and sixty years. 

There are also some learned interpreters among protestants 
themselves, who think the whole prophecy reaches but to 
a small period of time. Grotius,t and after him Dr. 
Hammond, in support of that opinion, make the duration 
of this period much less than twelve hundred and sixty 
years: for to understand the twelve hundred and sixty 
days, according to the style of prophecy, for so many 
years, is inconsistent with their favourite schemes, and 
must quite overthrow them. 

But it appears, [ conceive,+ from many reasons, that the 
opinion which assigns a short time to the whole prophecy 
is without all foundation, and expressly contrary to the 
intent of the prophecy, which is to extend to the day of 
judgment. 

It is also a considerable circumstance to strengthen the in- 
terpretation of days by years, that as it is agreeable to the 
style of prophecy, it is most agreeable to the plan of this 
prophecy, It is a good rule of Grotius,§ that the cir- 
cumstances of the subject ought to direct how we are to 
understand an expression: vox hebdomadis generalis est, 
et tam de annis quam de diebus rebusque aliis accipi po- 
test ; quomodo autem accipienda sit, docere nos debet loci 
cujusque materia. Let us then see how justly preferable 
the prophetic interpretation of a day for a year is in this 
place. 

It is agreeable to the ancient style of scripture, in the days 
of Moses, Numb. xiv. 34, « After the number of the days 
in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day 
for a year, shall you bear your iniquities, even forty years.” 
The punishment of the people was to be as many years 
as the days of their transgression ; so that “each day for 
a year” seems an allusion to some known method of 
counting, in which days were answered by years. 

The prophetic style of Ezekiel farther confirms it: Ezek. 
iv. 6, the prophet is directed to “Jie on his right side, 
and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days.” 
This is explained to signify, according to the style of pro- 
phecy, so many years: “I have appointed thee each day 
for a year,” or, as in the margin, “a day for a year, a 
day for a year.” So that in this figurative interpretation, 


In the prophecy of Daniel, this manner of prophetic ex- 
pression is used again; Dan. ix. 24, “Seventy weeks are 
determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to 
finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to 
make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlast- 
ing righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, 
and to anoint the Most Holy.” All who consider this a 
prophecy relating to the Messiah, for which there are 
abundant and unanswerable reasons, must consider the 
seventy weeks as so many times seven years, not as so 
many weeks of natural days. 

It is a criticism below such great men as Grotius and the 
Bishop of Meaux, that because hebdomas signifies a num- 
ber of seven, it may signify seven of any thing, according to 
the circumstance of the place; and therefore a week (heb- 
domas), which is so called because it contains seven days, 
may signify seven years. A week primarily signifies seven 
days, and properly nothing but seven days: a week (heb- 
domas) never did signify seven years, and only can do so 
as the figurative expression of prophecy puts a day to sig- 
nify a year. 

The particular circumstances of prophecy add a farther 
strength to this interpretation, that the twelve hundred 
and sixty days are to be understood of so many years. 

The order of the prophecies of this book shows, that these 
twelve hundred and sixty days contain the whole time of 
the third period; or all the time wherein the witnesses 
prophesy, the woman is in the wilderness, and the beast 
has power given unto him: that is, all the time of the 
last state of the church's sufferings, to that glorious state 
of the church, when Satan shall be shut up in the bot- 
tomless pit for a thousand years. In this period the 
seven vials of God’s wrath are to be poured out, and all 
the historical events that relate to them accomplished ; 
this period is to last till the mystery of God shall be 
finished. ‘These events are too many, and the times in 
which they are to be accomplished too long, to be com- 
prised within three years and a half, or twelve hundred 
and sixty natural days. 

The order of the periods shows this third is not to begin 
until the two former are passed; until the nations which 
had destroyed the Roman empire had divided it among 
themselves; till the imperial government of Rome was 
passed away,* as the preceding forms of government were 
before it; till another form of government should be es- 
tablished in Rome, which, on some accounts, should be 
called the seventh, and on other accounts the eighth form 
of government ; when Rome, once the powerful mistress 
of the world, after she had lost her dominion, and seemed 
to lose it without hope of recovery, should be restored to 
power and empire again, which was to continue during 
the twelve hundred and sixty days of this period, and 
then to be utterly overthrown, and never to rise again. 

Now, as a great variety of concurring circumstances shows 
the beginning of this period, about the year 756, when 
the popes were invested with the temporal dominion of 
Rome, in which only time the several descriptions of this 
period do all exactly agree, the twelve hundred and sixty 
days of this prophecy are to last so long as this power is 
to continue: which seems evidently to show that we are 
not to understand twelve hundred and sixty natural days 
the time of this period, but so many prophetic days, in 
which a day is given for a year. i 


each day, in th® prophetic representation, is to be an-| It being necessary to premise so much concerning the pro- 


swered by a year in the historical event. 


* Advertisement, p. 357. 
Vid. Preface. 
Vox. IV.—133 


{ On Rev. ii. 10. 
§ On Rev. ii. 10. 


phetic account of time in this period, I shall only farther 
* Vid. Preface. 
40 


1058 


modes of worship: which state of corruption, I was in- 
formed, was to continue for the space of forty-two prophetic 
months, or twelve hundred and sixty years. ! 


3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, 
and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and 
threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. 


(3.) Yet in this prevailing state of corruption, God will 
Taise up witnesses to the truth, who shall sufficiently testify 


against the prevailing false doctrines and idolatrous worship, | 


and denounce the judgments of God against the apostasy. 
These witnesses, like the prophets of old, shall prophesy in 
garments of mourning, and meet with great oppression ; yet 
they shall persevere with an immovable Christian courage 
to assert the truth, and oppose the corruptions of this period, 
during its whole continuance. 2 


4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candle- 
sticks standing before the God of the earth. 


(4.) This small church of faithful worshippers, who refuse 
to comply with the more general corruptions of faith and 
worship, shall be constantly supported and encouraged in the 
profession of true religion; faithful instructors shall excite 
them to constancy and perseverance, and they shall glorify 
God by a constant testimony of truth; as if a lamp was kept 
always burning, by a continual supply of oil from a living 


REVELATION. 


olive-tree, constantly feeding it with oil, that it may never 
go out.3 


5 And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth 
out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and 
if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be 
killed. 


(5.) Moreover, the judgments these witnesses to the truth 
shall denounce against such persons as reject their testimony, 
and persecute them for their sincere and faithful warnings, 
shall as surely be executed, as the judgments denounced by 
the former prophets were ; God will assuredly punish those 
who reject and despise their warnings, with many great and 
severe judgments. 4 


6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain 
not in the days of their prophecy: and have power 
over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the 
earth with all plagues, as often as they will. 


(6.) God will vindicate the honour of these witnesses, and 
the truth of their testimony, by as great and remarkable 
judgments in their times, as in the times of any of the 
ancient prophets ; as when, for instance, Elijah prayed, and 
it rained not on the earth; or, as when Moses turned the 
waters of Egypt into blood. God will surely avenge their 
cause as his own, and punish their enemies with all those 


observe, that we have three distinct representations of it 
in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth chapters. 

The first, by the figure of measuring the temple, and pro- 
phesying of the two witnesses. 

The second, by the figure of the woman in the wilderness. 
And, 

The third, by the power and persecution of the beast. 

I proceed to explain each of these, as they are severally re- 
presented, in their order. 


1 Ver. 2.] A measuring rod was a sort of pole about ten 
feet long, made of a kind of reed, which was both strong and 
light, such as was commonly used in measuring buildings 
and lands. Lightfoot* observes, “that (besides the priests 
who ministered in the court where the altar stood) persons 
offering a sacrifice came into the court of the altar to present 
their sacrifice before God, and lay their hands upon it.” 

This representation seems to be taken from the prophet 
Ezekiel’s vision (ch. xl.) in which he beheld a person with 
a measuring τοῦ, taking the dimensions of the buildings of a 
temple; showing the prophet, in vision, the model or plan 
of a new temple, to encourage the Jews to faithfulness in 
their religion, with the hopes of seeing the temple and true 
worship of God restored again. ‘The temple and temple- 
worship was a proper figure of Christ’s church, and of the 
spiritual worship instituted by him. It was, therefore, very 
proper to represent the state of the Christian church by like 
figures. What is peculiar in this, and wherein it differs from 
Ezekiel’s representation, is the direction to measure only the 
temple and inner court, where the altar stood, but to exclude 
the other court. his signifies plainly enough, that, in this 
period of the church, but a small part should be preserved 


in purity; that there would be some sincere and faithful | 


worshippers, but they would be few in comparison with a 
greater and more numerous part of the church, which should 
be corrupted with the doctrines of heathenism, and corrupt 
the worship of God with idolatrous customs; as if the out- 
ward courts had been given up to the gentiles to profane, 
while the few faithful worshippers of God, who adhere to the 
faith and worship taught in the word of God, shall be con- 
fined, as it were, within the inner court. 

One general representation of this period, then, is after 
this manner: God will preserve a church in purity of faith 
and worship, but it will consist only of a small number, 
when, at the same time, the greater part of the church shall 
fall into great corruptions; in particular, they shall corrupt 
the Christian faith and worship with many false doctrines 
and practices, taken from heathen superstition and idolatry. 

2 Ver. 3.] This representation shows in general, that as 
God raised up prophets in the ancient church, to witness 


* Temple Service, chap. 1. 


against the idolatrous corruptions of religion, and denounce 
the judgments of God against those who were guilty of them, 
so it should be in this corrupt state of the Christian church. 
It is a sufficient reason, why these witnesses are said to be 
two, as two was the legal number of witnesses, and as, in the 
times of the ancient prophets, on greater occasions, two 
were usually joined together, as Moses and Aaron in Egypt; 
Elijah and Elisha, in the apostasy of the ten tribes; Zerub- 
babel and Joshua, after the Babylonish captivity. As this 
testimony of the witnesses is to be of equal duration with 
the apostasy itself, it cannot well be meant of any two par- 
ticular persons ; nor is there, I conceive, any reason to under- 
stand it of any two particular churches, or bodies of men, in 
perpetual succession. It sufficiently answers the prophetic 
description, if there be, during the time of the apostasy, a suffi- 
cient, though small number, who, like Elias and Elisha, shall 
testify and declare against the idolatrous customs and prac- 
tices of their times. 

Calmet justly observes, “ These witnesses do not mean /wo 
particular persons, but all the martyrs in general.” ‘The 


| name of “ prophesying” here signifies persons full of the Spirit 


of God, preaching God’s word, and bearing witness to the truth. 

3 Ver. 4.] ‘This representation of the candlesticks and 
olive-trees seems taken from the prophecy of Zechariah 
(ch. iv.) in which Zerubbabel and Joshua are represented 
by two olive-trees on each side of the candlestick, which 
empty oil through two golden pipes out of themselves (ver. 
11, 12), to express, that Joshua and Zerubbabel should be 
protected by divine Providence, to go through all the diffi- 
culties which lay in the way of finishing the temple, and 
re-establishing the Jewish state, not indeed by human force 
and power, but by God’s protection, and his all-powerful 
providence ; “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
saith the Lord of hosts.” 

4 Ver. 5.) When Ahaziah sent companies to seize on the 
prophet Elijah, “ fire came down from heaven, and consumed 
them” (2 Kings i. 10). And God threatens those who re- 
jected the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. v. 12. 
14), «They have belied the Lord, and said, It is not he; 
neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword 
nor famine. ‘Wherefore, thus saith the Lord God of 
hosts, Because ye speak these words, behold, I will make 
my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it 
shall devour them.” ‘That is, God would certainly bring on 
Judah and Israel, all those judgments with which he had 
appointed to punish them for their obstinate apostasy. The 
certainty of these judgments is well expressed in these words, 
“ And if any man will hurt them, he Must in this manner 
be killed.” The enemies of truth and righteousness shall 
have no power to protect themselves against the judgments 
of God, or find any means to escape, when God decrees their 
punishment. 


CHAPTER ΧΙ. 


plagues, which, according to his direction, they shall denounce 
against them. δ : 

7 And when they shall have finished their testi- 

mony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless 


it shall make war against them, and shall overcome } 


them, and kill them. 
7.) Notwithstanding, during the time these witnesses 


shall faithfully bear their testimony to the truth, and against | 


the corruption of the Christian faith and worship, that per- 


secuting power, which, according to a following representa- | 
tion, is to arise in this period, out of the bottomless pit, shall | 


continually oppose these witnesses, and so far prevail, as to 
inflict many evils, even to death itself, upon them. ® 


8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the 
eat city, which spiritually is called Sodom and 
ee where also our Lord was crucified. 

8.) And these faithful witnesses shall be treated with 
such cruel severity by their persecutors, that they shall be 
denied the common decency of burial. Such persecuting 
powers may well be compared to Sodom or Egypt, for 
pride, wickedness, and cruelty, to those who put Christ him- 
self to death, for bearing testimony to the truth: yet, in all 
their distress, they may comfort themselves, that they suffer 
with Christ, and for his cause, and from persons whose idol- 
atry and cruelty make them as Sodom or Egypt.7 


9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues | 


and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and 
an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put 
in graves. 

(9.) The corruption in the days of this period shall be so 


very great, that the people in general, in all places, shall be | 


violently prejudiced against these faithful witnesses ; insomuch | 


that they shall, with great inhumanity, deny them the de- 


1059 


cencies of burial, and express the fierceness of their displea- 
sure and wrath, by all methods of public disgrace. 5 


10 And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice 
over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one 
to another; because these two prophets tormented them 
that dwelt on the earth. 

(10.) And the inhabitants of the earth shall greatly rejoice 
in this persecution ; they shall express it by sending gifts to 
one another, as a testimony of mutual congratulation, on 
oceasions of public joy. For now they hope to be delivered 
from the trouble and uneasiness, occasioned by the reproofs 
of these prophets, and the judgments they threatened them 
with, on account of their corruptions. 9 


11 And after three days and an half the Spirit of 
life from God entered into them, and they stood upon 
their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw 
them. 


(11.) Yet, notwithstanding the cruelty of these persecu- 
tors prevailed, while the beast was permitted to make war 
with the saints, and to overcome them, it shall be however 
but for a limited time; then the power of God shall be mani- 
fested, in a remarkable manner, for their deliverance: as if 
dead bodies were raised to life, and made to stand up on 
their feet, those faithful witnesses shall, with surprising suc- 
cess, maintain and propagate the true worship of God, to the 
great terror and amazement of their persecutors. 10 


12 And they heard a great voice from heaven say- 
ing unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended 
up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld 
them. 


(12.) As these witnesses were represented raised from the 
dead, in conformity to the resurrection of Christ; so farther 
in imitation of his ascension into heaven, they are repre- 


5 Ver. 6.] What God does, according to his word by his 
prophets, is, according to the style of prophecy, said to be 
done by them., “ Behold,” says God to the prophet Jere- 


miah, i. 9, 10, “I have put my words in thy mouth. See, | 


T have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to 
root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw 
down, to build and to plant.” In the prophet Hosea, “ There- 


fore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them | 
by the prophets of my mouth,” are observed by interpreters to | 


be equivalent expressions (Hosea vi. 5). 
brings those judgments upon the world, which he directed 
his prophets to declare in his name, they may be said, in the 
style of prophecy, to smite the earth with plagues, as they 
will; because God will accomplish what, according to his 
word, they shall denounce against the opposers and corrupters 
of true religion. 

8 Ver. 7.] What we render, “ When they shall have 
finished their testimony,” Mr. Daubuz renders, « While they 
shall perform their testimony.” The original may mean the 
time of their testimony, as well as the end of it; ὅταν τελέ- 
σωσι, aS, ὅταν παραδίδωσιν ὑμᾶς, “ When they deliver you up” 
(Matt. x. 19). And τελέω signifies to perfect and complete 
a thing, as well as to end or finish it: so Christ, upon account 
of his sufferings, is said to be “ made perfect through sufler- 
ings” (Heb. ii. 10). The most probable sense appears to be, 


that the witnesses are to meet with opposition and persecu- | 


tion, during the whole of this period; as the woman was to 
be in the wilderness, and the beast was to have power, twelve 
hundred and sixty days, so the witnesses were to prophesy, 
and to be persecuted, during the same time. They are not 
single persons, but a perpetual collective body of men, or a 
succession of witnesses, against the errors and false worship 
introduced into the church. 

7 Ver. 8.) “The great city,” is that city which “reigneth 
over the kings of the earth” (Rev. xvii. 18), or Rome, the 
empress of the world. “Streets” of the great city, are its 
public places throughout its dominions; for the great city is 
not considered so much in its buildings, as a seat of empire. 
It is Rome, and the Roman empire, says the Bishop of 
Meaux; and, taking the great city for Rome, and its empire, 
he adds, “It is literally true, that Jesus Christ was crucified 
there, even by the Roman power.” And it is moreover true 


Thus, when God | 


that the same Rome which crucified Christ in person, cruci- 
fied him also every day in his members. The general mean- 
ing of this passage is well expressed by Mr. Daubuz; « The 
dead bodies of the witnesses shall lie throughout the extent, 
in the most conspicuous places, or the chief and principal 
parts of the antichristian jurisdiction.” 

8 Ver. 9.] The time in which the people shall show this 
inhumanity to the witnesses, is said to be three days and a 
half, which is not to be understood literally for so many 
natural days only. “ Can any man believe,” says Mr. Mede, 


| “that the small space of three days and a half is sufficient 


either for spreading the fame of the death of the witnesses, 
or for sending the messenger with gifts to and fro among the 
nations ?”—« Yet the expression,” says Mr. Daubuz, “ is 
very suitable to the decorum of the symbol of a dead body, 
that will keep no longer unburied without corruption.” 
There seems, [ think, an allusion in the three days and a 
half, to the time of our Saviour’s lying in the grave. Such 
was the humanity of the times in which Christ suffered, that 
they permitted his friends to lay his body in the grave; but 
such shall be the inhumanity of these persecutors, as to 
deny the rites of burial. Why the time is signified by three 
days and a half, we shall see farther on ver. 11. 

9 Ver. 10.] The prophets, who reproved the corruption of 
their times, were used to be accounted disturbers of the pub- 
lic peace, and were often an uneasiness to persons, who, 
however corrupt they were, could not bear reproof. ‘Thus, 
when Ahab saw Elijah, he said unto him, “ Art thou he 
that troubleth Israel?”” ‘The prophets, who preach against 
the errors of the world, are treated as public enemies, seditious 
persons, and even as the cause of those public calamities, 
which they foretell as the punishment of a perverse genera- 
tion. 

‘0 Ver. 11.] A day sometimes signifies a season, or un- 
determined portion of time: “The day of temptation in the 
wilderness” was forty years (Heb. iii. 8, 9). Day and year 
are sometimes joined together, for season and time in gene- 
ral: Isa. xxxiv. 8, “For it is the day of the Lord’s ven- 
geance, and the year of recompense for the controversy of 
Zion.” So dies is used with elegance, by the best authors, 
for time in general: Opinionum commento delet dies. 

It is a good rule to judge what portion of time may be 


1060 


sented as ascending in a public manner, in the presence and 
to the great confusion of their enemies, who shall behold 
them, after all their oppression, exalted by the glorious power 
of God, to a state of great honour and influence, as well as of 
security and peace. !! 


13 And the same hour was there a great earth- 


quake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the | 


earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and 
the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the 
God of heaven. 


(13.) This great power of the witnesses, and prevalency 
of their doctrines, shall however be attended with great com- 
motions in the world, with great and signal calamities inflict- 
ed on that great city, which had for so long time opposed 
the truth, and oppressed the faithful. A very considerable part 
of its power shall be taken away, and many persons shall be 
cut off in her defence, and many others shall be affrighted with 
the judgments of God, and made sensible of the wickedness of 
oppressing truth and righteousness, and shall glorify the true 
God, by forsaking their idolatry, and assisting the cause of 
pure and true religion. ! 

14 The second woe is past; and, behold, the third 
woe cometh quickly. 

14.) Let not, however, any person imagine, that the 
church shall be free, in this third period, from opposition and 
persecution, and trials of their faith and patience, any more 
than in the two former periods; for a third woe is to follow 
upon the second, to try them that dwell upon the earth. 13 


15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there 


REVELATION. 


were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms 
of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, 
and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and 
ever. 

(15.) I then perceived in my vision, that the seventh 
angel sounded his trumpet, upon which proclamation was 
made with a loud voice in heaven, declaring, that the king- 
dom of God, and his Christ, the true Christian religion, 
should triumph over all opposition, and flourish with great 
success and prosperity throughout all the future ages of time. 


16 And the four and twenty elders, which sat be- 
fore God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and wor- 
shipped God, 

(16.) And the twenty-four elders, whom I saw in my 
first vision, representing the true church of God, as sitting on 
seats placed round about the throne of God, arose from their 
seats, and prostrated themselves before God, to worship him. 


17 Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Al- 
mighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; be- 
cause thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and 
hast reigned. 

(17.) And they worshipped God by a solemn act of praise, 
saying, We give thanks unto thee, O Jehovah the Almighty, 
and everlasting God, that it has pleased thee to show thy- 
self superior to all the opposition of the world, that thou art 
able to protect, and, according to thy promise, to exalt thy 
faithful servants in the end. 


18 And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is 
come, and the time of the dead, that they should be 


designed by such indeterminate expressions, to consider what 
is necessary or proportional to the season spoken of. In 
this place, as Mr. Waple observes, it seems to be necessary 
that “three days and a half” should be brought to comport 
with three times and a half, twelve hundred and sixty days, 
and forty-two months. Thus the time of the witnesses’ suf- 
fering will be in proportion to the time of their prophecy, 
which is to be a time of persecution. It willagree with the 
other representations of the same state of the church, by the 
woman in the wilderness, and the season of the beast, or time 
of his persecuting power, which relate to the same period, 
and help to explain it. 

1 Ver. 12.] To be exalted to heaven, or cast down to hell, 


signifies, in scripture language, the happy state of those who | 


enjoy the blessings of true religion, or the miserable condition 
of those who are deprived of them for despising them. Thus 
our Saviour speaks concerning Capernaum: “And thou, 
Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought 
down unto hell” (Matt. xi. 23). The destruction of Satan’s 
power by the kingdom of God, or the success of true religion 
by the gospel, against the idolatry and wickedness of the 
world, is expressed in the same figure, Luke x. 18, “I beheld 
Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” The pride of Babylon 
is, in like manner, described by the prophet Isaiah, xiv. 13, 
« For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into hea- 
ven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.” The 
fall of that haughty persecuting empire is described in the 
same figurative language, ver. 12, « How art thou fallen from 
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” In this sense, the 
ascension of the witnesses into heaven, will mean the great 
success of the doctrines of pure religion taught by them, and 
the mighty efficacy with which they shall prevail, in the 
reformation of the church from idolatrous and superstitious 
corruptions. 

12 Ver. 13.] Interpreters are much divided, as to the 
tenth part of the city which fell by the earthquake, whether 
it denotes Rome under the papacy, as Mr. Mede supposes 
Rome at present to be just the tenth part of ancient Rome ; 
or, whether it means some notable part of the ten kingdoms 
into which the Roman empire was divided in this period ; 
or suppose, with some, the kingdom of France, or, with 
others, the fall of the Greek church and empire of Constan- 
tinople, under the power of a Mahometan government, or 
whether it may not mean the whole papal jurisdiction, be- 
cause it is represented in prophecy under the figurative ex- 
pressions of “ten toes,” “ten horns,” “ten kings.” 


This diversity of opinion had its rise, it may be, from an 
endeavour to fix too particular a sense on a general expres- 
sion. We have already observed (ii. 10), that the numbers 
ten and seven are figurative numbers, denoting multitude, 
frequency, and perfection. A deliverance out of the many 
troubles of life, is expressed in the book of Job, by being 
delivered out of “seven troubles” (v.19). The seven Spirits 
of God figuratively express the perfect grace of God's Holy 
Spirit; the number ten, in like manner, is used to denote 
many or often. Jacob complained, that Laban had “changed 
his wages ten times,” or very ofien (Gen. xxxi.7). When 
Elkanah said to his wife (1 Sam. i. 8), “Am not I better to 
thee than ten sons?” the plain meaning is, than many sons. 
In like manner, Solomon observes of wisdom (Eccles. vii. 19), 
« Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men, 
which are in the city ;” or, than several mighty men. These 
instances, more of which may be seen in Mr. Daubuz,* are 
sufficient to show that the numbers seven and ten may be 
understood of many, or a sufficient number of any thing. 
The tenth part of the city falling by an earthquake, may 
then be understood very properly of some considerable part 
of the empire, the city being considered as the seat of empire 
and government; it may signify the downfall of some con- 
siderable supporters of the beast’s persecuting power. The 
slaughter of seven thousand men may, in like interpretation, 
mean, such as shall continue to support and assist the anti- 
christian power of this period, in opposition to the kingdom 
of God and Christ, to the cause of truth and righteousness. 

‘here seems to be a propriety, in these more general ex- 
pressions, in a general representation of this period, the more 
particular account being reserved for the after parts of the 
vision : so that this part of the prophecy seems to show, that 
judgment shall come on the persecutors of the true church, 
in full proportion to their iniquities, when the faithful wit- 
nesses to the truth shall be eminently protected, and their 
cause shall wonderfully prevail. i 

13 Ver. 14.] We have the mention of three woes, ix. 12, 
«“ One woe is past, and, behold, there come two woes more 
hereafter.’ This first woe was under the sounding of the 
fifth angel, when the bottomless pit was opened, with the 


| rise of Mahomet’s power and imposture; the second woe 


is reasonably understood to be during the sounding of the 
sixth angel, when the four angels were loosed to slay the 
third part of men (Rev. ix. 13—15), when the Saracens were 


* Symbol. Dict. v. Number. 


CHAPTER XII. 


judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy 
servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them 
that fear thy nate, small and great; and shouldest 
destroy them which destroy the earth, 


(18.) For though the nations of the earth have, with great 
fury, persecuted the true religion, now the day of thy wrath 
is come, to punish them in righteousness, and to vindicate 
the cause of thy servants, who have been faithful unto 
death: the time is come to finish the mystery of thy provi- 
dence towards the churches, and to give the reward promised 
to prophets, and confessors, and all true Christian worshippers, 
of every kind and degree: and to destroy them at the last, 
who, for so long time, by their false doctrine and persecu- 
tion, had corrupted and destroyed the greater part of the 
world. 


1061 


19 And the temple of God was opened in heaven, 
and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testa- 
ment: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thun- 
derings, and an earthquake, and great hail. 


(19.) Upon this, I beheld the temple of God in heaven 
opened, so that I could see the ark of the covenant, the 
mercy-seat, and place of God’s presence, for it was not hid 
behind a veil: representing not only a state of peace and 
liberty for the church, the place of worship being opened, 
but also that, in this state of the church, the true worship of 
God will be used in great perfection. ‘This happy state of 
the church shall be attended with great and heavy judgments 
on the enemies of true religion; a storm of vengeance shall 
come down from heaven on their heads, terrible as when 
earthquakes are joined to thunder and lightning. 5 


permitted to endanger the whole western empire, and the 
Christian name and profession every where ; the third woe, 
which was soon to follow the second, will begin its proper 
order, in the day of the voice of the seventh angel. It may 
be proper to observe, the woes are designed to represent an 
afflicted state of the church, rather than calamitous times to 
the inhabitants of the world in general: so that we are, I 
think, to consider it as a useful prophetic warning, that this 
third and last period would call for as much caution and 
constancy as either of the former. They who will faithfully 
adhere to the purity of true religion, must expect to find 
opposition, and meet with woe. 

4 Ver. 18.] Kpivew, judicare, sepe est vindicare, itaque 
ppy, quod est κρίνειν, vel δικάζειν, judicare, per ἐκδικεῖν, vindi- 
care vertitur, as Grotius* observes. So that, to judge, or try 
the cause of the dead, or of the martyrs for the truth of the 
Christian religion, may very naturally be understood to 


* In loc. 


mean, a vindication of their cause, by some eminent act of 
providence in favour of it; as to vindicate, is a proper sense 
of judging; and, I think, more proper to the order and 
intention of the prophecy, than to understand it of the 
general judgment, which, according to the order of these 
prophecies, is not to be till after the prosperous state of the 
church, in which Satan is to be bound for a thousand years. 

6 Ver. 19.) Grotius thinks, that the lightnings and 
thunderings belong to the next chapter, and refer to a new 
prophecy ; but we may observe, the end of this period is 
described in the same manner, xvi. 18—21. These voices, 
thunders, lightnings, and great hail, are interpreted expressly 
of an exceeding great plague, so that men blasphemed on 
account of it. ‘T’his is called, giving unto Babylon “the cup 
of the wine of the fierceness of God’s wrath;”’ to express the 
great calamities and desolation with which God, at the end 
of this period, will punish the obstinate persecutors of his 
pure worship and true religion, and publicly vindicate the 
righteous cause of his faithful martyrs. 


CHAPTER XII. 


SECTION X. 


SECOND DESCRIPTION OF THE THIRD PERIOD. 


1 Anp there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a 
woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her 
feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars : 

(1.) I beheld, in a second vision, another representation 


of this period: there appeared in heaven the figure of a 
woman, in the most glorious manner imaginable: she 


seemed to be surrounded with sun-beams, as with a glory ; 
to stand upon the moon, and to have a crown upon her 
head, in which twelve stars were set as so many diamonds, 
an image that strongly expressed a state of great dignity and 
honour. ! 


2 And she being with child cried, travailing in 
birth, and pained to be delivered. 


(2.) This woman was farther represented to me in the 
vision, as a fruitful mother, ready to be delivered of a child, 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XII. 


ConTEents.— We come now to a second representation of the 
same third period of prophecy, that is, the state of the 
church and world in the days of the voice of the seventh 
angel; or, while the woman who fled into her place in the 
wilderness was nourished there for a time, times, and half 
a time, or three years and a half, equal to forty-two 
months, which are equal to twelve hundred and sixty pro- 
phetical days, the exact time in which the witnesses were 
to prophesy. As the former representation showed, that 
true religion should be preserved among a few faithful 
confessors, though ina constant state of severe persecution, 
so this represents the state of the church, under the figure 
of a woman, persecuted so as to fly into desert places to 
hide herself; yet preserved and fed there, notwithstanding 
all endeavours of a furious serpent, ready to destroy her. 

This plainly describes an afflicted and persecuted state of the 
church in general, during this period ; in which false and 
idolatrous worship shall be in great power, and the faith- 
Tul profession of the true religion shall expose men to great 
danger: that, however, still the true worshippers of God 
shall be preserved, though in an obscure state, and be 
enabled, notwithstanding all opposition, to keep and main- 
tain the truth unto the end. 


1 Ver. 1.] It was a well-known custom, at the time of this 
prophecy, to represent the several virtues and public societies 


by the figure of a woman in some peculiar dress, many of 
which are to be seen in the Roman coins; in particular 
Salus, the emblem of security and protection, is represented 
as a woman standing upon a globe, to represent the safety 
and security of the world under the emperor's care, as in a 
coin of Hadrian’s: Globum pede calcans, significans, se im- 
perante, orbi salutem publicam datam.* The consecration 
of the Roman emperors is expressed in their coins by a moon 
and stars, as in two of Faustina, to express a degree of glory 
superior to any on earth.t 

Never was any image more expressive of honour and dig- 
nity than this in the vision. ‘Io stand in the midst of a glory 
made by the beams of the sun; and upon the moon, as 
above the low condition of this sublunary world: to wear a 
crown set with the stars of heaven, as jewels, is something 
more sublime than any thing whereby antiquity has repre- 
sented their societies, their virtues, or their deities. 

‘The reader may farther observe in this representation, if 
he please, with Mr. Daubuz, that the sun may signify 
Christ; the moon, the Holy Ghost; and the twelve stars, 
the twelve apostles. Or, he may understand it with Mr. 
Mede, of the church shining round about, by the faith of 
Christ, the Sun of righteousness, treading under foot the 
rudiments of the world, whether Jewish shadows or gentile 


* August. de Num. p. 30. 
+ Bizi Numismata, tab. 49, 23, 24. 
402 


1062 


and to bless the world with a fair and numerous poste- 
rity.2 


3 there appeared another wonder in heaven; | : : ? , 
ae PP 2 | divine Providence, during the time of this period: to inti- 


and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads 
and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 


(3.) Besides the figure of the woman, I beheld a repre- 
sentation of another nature: there appeared a great red 
dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and a crown on 
each of his heads, to show there was a fierce and powerful 
enemy of the church, intent to make use of all its power, if 
possible, to destroy it. 


4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of 
heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon 
stood before the woman which was ready to be deli- 
vered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 


(4.) The power of this dragon was represented so great, 
that he seemed, by his tail, to strike a great number of the 
stars out of their places in the heavens, and throw them 
down on the earth: he seemed to watch the woman with 
great attention, whom he perceived ready to be delivered, 
with manifest marks of a design to destroy the child, so soon 
as it should be born. A fit figure to express the great power 
of Satan, and his kingdom, their constant Opposition to truth, 
and unwearied endeavours to stop the progress and success 
of the gospel. 3 


5 And she brought forth a man child, who was tq 
rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was 
caught up unto God, and éo his throne. 


(5.) However, the woman ready to be delivered brought 
forth a man child, to intimate, that the Christian church 
should be continued by a constant succession of converts, 
notwithstanding all opposition. Thus Christ’s kingdom 
should prevail over all enemies, and break all opposition, as 
the ancient oracles prophesied concerning him, that he 
should “rule all nations as with a sceptre of iron.” Assoon 
as this child was born, I beheld it caught up to God and his 
throne, to intimate God’s care and protection of the true 
Christian church, and the safety of the church in God’s pro- 
tection. 4 


6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where 
she hath a place prepared of God, that they should 
feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore 
days. 


(6.) I perceived also, that the woman was preserved as 


REVELATION. 


well as the child she brought forth; but it was by flying into 
a wilderness, where she found a place provided for her re- 
treat, and where she was taken care of, by the protection of 


mate, the condition of the church would be difficult and dan- 
gerous in these times, like the Israelites, when they wandered 
in the wilderness ; or, as Elijah, when he fled from the per- 
secution of Ahab: yet a divine protection should preserve 
it, as the Israelites were fed with manna, and Elijah by 
ravens. 


7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his 
angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon 
fought and his angels, 

(7.) This state of the Christian church was farther repre- 
sented by a battle in the air, between Michael and his angels 
on the one side, and the dragon, or the devil, and his party, 
on the other. 


8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found 
any more in heaven. 
(8.) In the conclusion of which, the dragon and his party 


were so far from obtaining a victory, that they were totally 
defeated, and driven out of the field of battle. 


9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old ser- 
pent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the 
whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his 
angels were cast out with him. 

(9.) Thus the dragon, or old serpent, which in the scrip- 
tures means the Devil, and Satan, who had deceived the 
world into error, idolatry, and wickedness, was cast down, 
together with his party and followers : to intimate, that there 
should be a smart contention between faithful Christians, 
and the maintainers of error, idolatry, and wickedness, which 
should at the last end in a complete victory over the enemies 
of true religion.5 

10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now 
is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of 
our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser 
of our brethren is cast down, which accused them be- 
fore our God day and night. 

(10.) 1 perceived this blessing of the church was acknow- 
ledged in a public act of praise and thanksgiving unto God, 
who had thus manifested his power in the deliverance of his 
people, and the advancement of his own spiritual kingdom, 
by the profession and practice of Christianity. For now 


superstitions, and glorious with the ensigns of the apostolical 
offspring. Or, he may consider, with Mr. Waple, that the 
apostolical doctrine is the chief ornament, crown, and glory 
of the church. 

But, however he shall choose one or other of these more 
particular allusions, this will remain a sure general meaning, 
—that the blessings of true religion, in the revelation of Jesus 
Christ, as taught by his apostles, that is, of the true Christian 
religion, deserve the highest esteem and honour, however 
they may be despised by the world. 

2 Ver. 2.] The metaphor of a mother, blessed with a fair 
posterity, is very proper to represent the public happiness, 
by an increase both of numbers and strength. It is an easy 
figure to consider the church as a mother, and the converts 
to truth and righteousness, the true worshippers of God, as 
her children. The expressions which represent her as a 
woman in travail, may principally mean her fruitfulness, and 
denote the number of converts to true religion, rather than 
the afilictions of the church on account of her profession. 
The happiness of the empire in the fruitfulness of the impe- 
rial family, is often expressed in coins, Fcecunditas Auguste, 
seculi felicitas. 

5 Ver. 4.] The devil is often represented in scripture as a 
dragon, and the old serpent; and the prophecy itself so ex- 
plains it, ver. 9, “ And the great dragon was cast out, that 
old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the 
whole world.” He seems represented by a great, and red, 
or bloody-coloured dragon, to describe both his power and 
cruelty in opposing true religion. The seven heads and 
crowns, and ten horns, is a description so exactly agreeable 
to the description of the beast, in the thirteenth and seven- 


teenth chapters, that it may, I think, be justly understood 
as a limitation of the opposition here meant, to the times of 
the beast, or to that time when the Roman power was repre- 
sented by ten horns, as well as by seven heads and crowns; 
or not before ten kingdoms were erected by the nations 
which broke in upon the Roman empire, and divided it into 
many independent governments; that is, properly, during 
the time of this third period. 

4 Ver. 5.] Grotius supposes, I think with great probability, 
that these expressions, “ And her child was caught up unto 
God and his throne,” are an allusion to the preservation of 
Joash, in the time of Athaliah’s usurpation, when she put to 
death all the rest of the royal family (2 Kings xi. 2, 3) ; 
«“ Jehosheba took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him 
from among the king’s sons which were slain. And he 
was hid in the house of the Lord six years.” He was kept 
safe in one of the chambers of the temple, till he was 
brought out by Jehoiada the high-priest, and restored to the 
kingdom of David. Thus the true worshippers of God 
shall not all be destroyed by the enemies of religion ; some, 
like Joash, shall be kept safe, as if in heaven, the true tem- 
ple, till they shall appear publicly with victory over their 
enemies. 

5 Ver. 9.] Many interpreters understand this victory over 
Satan, in which he is represented cast down from heaven 
with his angels, to be intended of the heathen power of 
Rome ; so that idolatry had lost the advantage of the civil 
establishment throughout the Roman empire. In this period, 
the temporal power of Rome, as we shall hereafter see, was 
to be in the hands of one, who styles himself, “ The head of 
the Christian church.’ It was a great victory over Satan 


CHAPTER XII. 


Satan had lost the opportunity of accusing Christians as 
guilty of impiety, for refusing to conform to the religion of 
the empire and idolatrous worship of the gods of Rome, or 
censuring their zeal for the true Christian religion as insin- 
cere ; asserting, that they would soon renounce the profession 
of it, if they were to suffer on account of it.6 


11 And they overcame him by the blood of the 
Lamb, and by the word of their testimony ; and they 
loved not their lives unto the death, 


(11.) The patience, faith, and perseverance of the church, 
were sufficient to show Satan a false accuser, and obtained 
agreat advantage for them; as they were an eminent proof, 
that they preferred the cause of true religion to every thing 
else: and as their Saviour confirmed his doctrine with his 
blood, they were ready to confirm their testimony, by con- 
stancy unto death, according to the grace and spirit which 
the church should receive from Christ their Lord. 


12 Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell 
in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of 
the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having 
great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a 
short time. 

(12.) Let therefore angels and saints, and the whole 
church rejoice, and be thankfully sensible what salvation 
Christ has obtained for his people, and shall assuredly bestow 
upon them. Yet let all the inhabitants of the earth consider, 
that this victory over Satan notwithstanding, his power is not 
yet quite destroyed, he will still be able to do great mischief, 
and will attempt it with the more wrath, as the time of his 
opposition is much shortened. 


13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto 
the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought 
forth the man εὐ. 

(13.) The devil will show his wrath upon this great loss of 
his power, now the profession of Christianity so universally 
prevails against heathen idolatry, so long supported by the 
power of the empire; he will still find out new ways to per- 
secute the true church, and those who are careful to preserve 
the purity of true religion. 


1063 


14 And to the woman were given two wings of a 
great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into 
her place, where she Is nourished for a time, and times, 
and half a time, from the face of the serpent, 

(14.) However, the true church, represented by the wo- 
man, appeared to be assisted against the wrath of the devil; 
eagles’ wings were given unto her, that she might escape into 
a place of retirement and safety, which was provided for her 
during the time of this period. 7 

15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as 
a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be 
carried away of the flood. 

(15.) The devil, as the inveterate enemy of true religion, 
attempted, if possible, to prevent the escape of the church, 
into a place of safety, though in secret retirement; he cast 
out, as it were, a flood of waters, to destroy her, before she 
should be able to reach the wilderness. § 


16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth 
opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which 
the dragon east out of his mouth. 


(16.) But this danger of the church shall be prevented, by 
a remarkable protection of divine Providence, raising several 
of the inhabitants of the earth to help the escape of the 
faithful worshippers, as if the earth had been commanded to 
open itself and receive the flood, that it might not overtake 
them who were flying from it. 9 


17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and 
went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which 
keep the commandments of God, and have the testi- 
mony of Jesus Christ. 


(17.) It was moreover represented to me, that though this 
providential assistance of the church favoured its escape, it 
rather increased the rage of Satan: he continued with fresh 
fury, and in all possible methods, to excite and carry on the 
persecution of the true worshippers of God, according to the 
purity of the gospel, and revelation of Jesus Christ; who 
would not submit to the idolatrous doctrines and corrupt 
worship introduced into the church in this period. 


and his power, when Christianity had fully prevailed over 
heathenism in the empire; and we may add, it was also a 
considerable victory over Satan, when an effectual stop was 
put to the Mahometan imposture in these western parts : 
though, as we shall observe in the following parts of this re- 
presentation, the devil, notwithstanding this diminution of 
his power, is still to retain sufficient to do great mischief 
within this period, and will use it with much wrath, against 
the true worshippers of God and his faithful servants. 

5 Ver. 10.] “These expressions,” says Mr. Waple, “are 
taken from Job and Zechariah, where the scriptures, speak- 
ing after the manner of men, represent Satan as accusing 
good and pious men before God. This he does, by aggra- 
vating their faults and imperfections, and by exciting wicked 
men to raise false accusations against them, as was notori- 
ously done against the primitive Christians.” Mr. Daubuz 
observes, ‘ The accuser, according to the custom of the east- 
ern nations, and in some cases by the law of Moses, was ap- 
pointed to be the executioner (Deut. xiii. 9): so that when 
the church is no longer in danger of persecution for the pro- 
fession of Christianity, Satan is said to be thrown down, as 
having lost the power of accusing and executing such as 
make open profession of it.” 

7 Ver. 14.] To “bear on eagles’ wings,” is an allusion to 
the strength and swiftness of an eagle’s flight, and does well 
express the readiness and power with which God does often 
deliver his church out of its dangers; but whether the two 
wings of an eagle are here put to signify the eastern and 
western parts of the Roman empire, of which an eagle is the 
armorial ensign, I shall leave to the reader’s judgment. 

8 Ver. 15.] Floods and inundations often come so sud- 
denly, and with such violence, as todrown or carry away all 
things within their reach, and give no time for an escape. 
They are a proper figure to express some great and sudden 


danger. Nahum thus describes the judgments of God, which 
shall utterly destroy his enemies (i. 8), “ But with an over- 
flowing flood, he will make an utter end of the place thereof.” 
So that by this similitude, we may well understand some 
quick and smart attempt of the enemies of true religion, to 
cut off all hope of safety for the true worshippers of God, 
even in retirement. 

9 Ver. 16. And the earth helped the woman.] The figure 
in general is a natural representation of stopping the course 
of a flood, by receiving it into some great opening or gap in 
the earth; and earth, taken in its most natural interpreta- 
tion, for our habitable world, and the inhabitants of it, will 
fully answer the meaning of the figurative expression. ‘Thus, 
the general meaning will be to this purpose: The providence 
of God will raise up some persons, who shall aid and assist 
true Christians, notwithstanding the violence of persecution. 
I do not perceive there is need of a more particular applica- 
tion of the word “earth,” to the corrupt part of the church, 
and that it became master of its conquerors; the barbarous 
nations at length receiving the manners, religion, and the 
very name of Romans. 

It seems more agreeable to the design of the prophecy, 
and of this representation, to understand it of assistance from 
some persons of power and authority in the world, giving 
protection to the witnesses, against the growing corruptions 
of these times, not permitting the decrees and edicts for 
establishing idolatrous doctrines and worship to be immedi- 
ately executed, or so suddenly as to suppress all opposition, 
and not give time for a sufficient number of confessors to 
stand up in the cause of truth, and continue to maintain it. 


| The historical events, answering this prophetical description, 


which we shall afterward see, will, I hope, more clearly ex- 
plain it. 


1064 


CHAPTER XIII. 


SECTION XI. 


THIRD DESCRIPTION OF THE THIRD PERIOD. 


1 Anp [ stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw 
a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and 
ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon 
his heads the name of blasphemy. 


(1.) After the two foregoing visions, I beheld a third, far- 
ther to explain them: I seemed standing by the sea-side, 
when I perceived a wild beast rising out of the sea, of a very 
remarkable form. It had seven heads and ten horns, with 
a crown on each horn, and a blasphemous inscription on each 
of his heads, to denote a new form of government, that was 
to be erected in the city of Rome, by the great commotions 
of the world, after the imperial power had been destroyed, 
and the empire should be divided into ten distinct and inde- 
pendent kingdoms or sovereignties. ! 


2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leo- 
pard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his 
mouth as the month of a lion: and the dragon gave 
him his power, and his seat, and great authority.* 

(2.) The form of this wild beast, which I saw in my vi- 
sion, was made up of some likeness to the several beasts of 
prey, the leopard, the bear, and the lion; the persecuting 
empire, in Daniel’s vision, being represented by these beasts, 
famous for strength and rapaciousness, in seizing and devour- 
ing their prey. They were a proper figure to signify the rise 
of a new empire, powerful, tyrannical, and cruel: and that 
the old serpent, the devil, who had hitherto persecuted the 
true worshippers of God, by the several great monarchies of 
the world, would engage this new power, advanced in the 
seat of the last of these monarchies, the Roman empire, to 
use that power in the persecution of true religion, as the pre- 
ceding tyrannies had done before it. 2 


3 AndI saw one of his heads as it were wounded 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIII. 


Contents.—In this chapter we have a farther account of 
the state of the church and world, in this third period. 
The representation of the wild beasts in this vision, refers 
to the same times with the two former visions, of the wit- 
nesses prophesying in sackcloth, and the woman flying into 
the wilderness. Power is given unto the beast to continue, 
or to make war, and prevail forty-two months (ver. 5). 

This vision gives a more distinct account of the manner and 
means by which the true church and worshippers of God 
should be persecuted, and so greatly oppressed, as is re- 
presented by the woman’s flying into the wilderness, and 
slaying the witnesses. So that this representation, in con- 
junction with the two former, will afford us a sufficient 
description of the state of providence, and the church, 
with the useful lessons of caution, patience, and faithful- 
ness, in times of great corruption and great danger, which 
are the principal intentions of the Spirit of prophecy, in 
the whole of these revelations. 


1 Ver. 1.] A “beast,” Snpiov, signifies a wild savage beast. 
In the prophecies of Daniel, beasts are known symbols of 
the monarchies represented in his visions (ch. vii.). In the 
after parts of this prophecy, it is expressly interpreted by an 
angel to mean a king, kingly authority, or government; 
« And there are seven kings, five are fallen, and one is, and 
the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must 
continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, 
even he is the eighth (king or government), and is of the 
seven, and goeth into perdition” (xvii. 10,11). The horns 
are, by the same angel, interpreted to mean kings, or king- 
doms (ver. 12). And the ten horns which thou sawest are 
(or, signify) ten kings, which have received no kingdom as 
yet (at the time of the vision) ; but receive power as kings 
one hour with the beast :” μίαν ὥραν, in the same season or 
time with the beast. 

The rising of the beast, then, will signify, the rise of some 
new dominion or government; the rising of a wild beast, 
Snpiov, the rise of a tyrannical government; and rising out 
of the sea, that it should owe its original to the commotions 
of the people: so “ waters” are interpreted by the same 
angel, ver. 15. In the visions of Daniel, the four great 
beasts, the symbols of the four great monarchies, are repre- 
sented rising out of the sea in a storm: “I saw in my vision 
by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove 
upon the great sea, and four great beasts came up from the 
sea” (Dan. vii. 2, 3). 

“Seven heads” are interpreted by the angel to signify 
seven mountains, and seven kings (xvii.9,10). Hence, we 


| 


may sufficiently understand, that by this beast was meant a | 


Roman government, different from that in being at the time 
of the vision, and which was to arise after the imperial go- 
vernment should be passed away, as five other forms of go- 


vernment had passed before it. ‘That some form of govern- 
ment in the city of Rome is signified by it, seems very 
evident; for the seven heads are, in one figurative meaning, 
interpreted to signify seven mountains; and it is expressly 
called, “the great city, which reigneth over the kings of the 
earth,” xvii. 18. Urbs septicollis, orbis caput, and, orbis 
terrarum domina, are sufficient descriptions of Rome in Ro- 
man authors, and as well understood as if Rome itself had 
been expressly named. Upon the heads of this beast were 
names or inscriptions of blasphemy. ‘This government is 
elsewhere described as a mystical Babylon, full of names of 
blasphemy, xvii. 3—5, to signify, that it should establish and 
propagate idolatrous doctrines and worship; for, as idolatry 
is a reproachful contempt of the one true God, worshipping 
and serving the creature more than the Creator, it is called 
blasphemy in the style of the prophecy. ‘The idolatry of 
the Jews is called, “ burning incense upon the mountains, 
and blaspheming upon the hills,” Isa. Ixv. 7; so the prophet 
Ezekiel, xx. 27, “In this your fathers have blasphemed me;” 
that is, by offering their sacrifices on high places, and in 
groves, according to the rites of the heathen idolaters. 

This beast had also ten horns, and upon his homs ten 
crowns, or each of his horns was crowned. According to the 
interpretation of the angel, xvii. 12, «The ten horns which 
thou sawest are (or, signify) ten kingdoms which have re- 
ceived no kingdom as yet, but receive power one hour (or, 
in the same hour, at the same time,) with the beast.” 

This state of Roman government, then, as it was to be a 
new form of government, it was also to be contemporary 
with ten kings or kingdoms, which were to be so many dis- 
tinct governments, at the same time and in the same period 
with it. But neither of them was to receive his power till 
the king or form of government then in being, that is, the 
imperial, should pass away, and another was come, which 
was to continue a short space. 

These several descriptions together, all which must be 
united in the kingdom of the beast, seem plainly enough to 
denote a new form of Roman government, after the impe- 
rial government should cease, and after the exarchate of 
Ravenna should be suppressed, when the Roman empire 
should be divided into ten distinct governments or king- 
doms; which can be no other than the government of Rome 
in the hands of the popes. 

2 Ver. 2.] “From hence it appears,” says Mr. Waple, 
“that this was the fourth or Roman monarchy (in one form 
of it), because it is made up of the three former, whose peo- 
ple and nations it conquered, and out of whose ruins it grew ; 
and because it had all the qualities of subtlety and cruelty 
which are thought to be signified by these beasts.” It is ob- 
served by Mr. Daubuz, that the powers constituting the 
beast carried on the same design against true religion, though 
in another form, as the dragon did, when the empire was 


* Dan. vii. 4—6. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all 
the world wondered after the beast. 


(3.) I perceived also, that one of the seven heads of this 
beast appeared to have received such a wound as seemed to 
be mortal ; but this mortal wound was healed up, though | 
the scar remained as a mark of it. This cure was so remark- 
able, as occasioned wonder and astonishment in all who be- 
held it. ‘lo signify, that this new power arose in the Roman 
empire, after that empire had received such a blow in one of 
its heads, or forms of government, as left no human probable 
prospect that Rome should ever rise to power and empire 
any more; and it would be greatly to the astonishment of 
the world, to see the power of Rome revive again, in the new 
form of government represented by the beast. ὃ 


4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave 
power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, 
saying, Who 7s like unto the beast? who is able to) 
make war with him ἢ 

(4.) The world was generally seduced to comply with the | 
idolatrous practices the old serpent, the devil, introduced 
anew, by means of this new-erected power in Rome, the | 
greater part of the world acknowledged this authority, and 
submitted to it without opposition, as thinking it would be in 
vain to withstand it. 4 


5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking 
great things and blasphemies; and power wes given | 
unto him to continue forty and two months. 


1065 


.) The manner in which the beast exercised the power 
he had received was thus represented, that he greatly magni- 
fied himself above others, and claimed unlimited powers and 
authority to enforce what he required; and the time where- 
in the beast was permitted to establish idolatry, was the same 
with the term of the church’s state of persecution, repre- 
sented by the witnesses, and the woman flying into the wil- 
derness, or forty-two months, equal to twelve hundred and 
sixty prophetical days, or so many years. ° 

6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against 
God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and 
them that dwell in heaven. 


(6.) And this new-erected government of Rome used the 
authority it had attained, in making and publishing constitu- 
tions for the establishment of idolatry, in contempt of God 
and his true worship, and by all methods of oppression and 
persecution forcing the church to comply with them, and 
yield obedience unto them. ὃ 


7 And it was given unto him to make war with the 
saints, and to overcome them: and power was given 
him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. 


(7.) The power of this new Roman government became 
so great by divine permission, that it prevailed against the 
worshippers of God, either to force them to a compliance 
with the corruptions established by its authority, or to per- 
secute them for their constancy ; and this oppressive power 
was extended far and wide over many nations and people. 


pagan. The description itself naturally expresses a new 
power rising up in the Roman state, mighty and terrible, 
directed by the perpetual enemy of true religion, to perse- 
cute the faithful worshippers of God. The general meaning 
of this part of the vision is well expressed by Mr. Mede: 
«TJ saw, saith John, the type of the last state of the Roman 
empire, wherein, governing under the seventh head, it should 
be divided into ten kingdoms ; and yet, even as he had done | 
under his former heads, he should blaspheme the only true | 
God, by the worship of idols.” May we not here observe, 
that the prophecy speaks of the civil power of Rome? why | 
should we then search after it in an ecclesiastical supre- 
macy ? 

3 Ver. 3.] The seven heads being interpreted by the angel 
to signify seven kings, or forms of government, may well di- | 
rect us to understand this deadly wound of one of these 
heads to be the destruction of one of those forms of govern- 
ment, in such manner as to threaten the utter overthrow of 
all power in Rome, as in Babylon ; so that it should never 
rise to be the seat of empire again: therefore, they that 
dwell on the earth shall wonder, when they behold “the 
beast that was, and is not, and yet is” (Rev. xvii. 8). The 
most natural interpretation of which expressions seems to be, | 
that the world beheld with great wonder, a city once so 
powerful quite destroyed, for some time ceasing to be an 
empire, and deprived of all authority, yet rising again to em- 
pire, and regaining a great authority, in a very surprising 
manner. It seems also plain, by comparing this description | 
with the seventeenth chapter, that the head which was mor- 
tally wounded, was the sixth head or form of government, 
at the time of the vision; “ Five of the seven kings are 
fallen,” says the angel to John, ver. 10, “and one is, and the 
other is not yet come.” The form of government in being 
at the time of the vision was the imperial; and after the 
imperial government ceased in Augustulus, Rome was ποὺ 
seat of government during the exarchate of Ravenna, and | 
had no human prospect of being the seat of empire again, 
till this new power arose, when the exarchate was given to 
the popes, and Rome became the seat of their government, | 
and has continued so ever since. It seems also intended 
by the angel’s interpretation, that we should consider the 
city of Rome, as marked out in this prophecy for the seat of 
government, to prevent mistakes, that we should not under- 
stand this prophecy of an empire or government, in any 
other place than the city of Rome, though it should take 
the name and style of the Roman empire, as the Greek em- | 
perors, and the emperors of Germany, have severally done. 
This may give us a good reason, why the city of Rome, 
in this prophecy, is described by its natural situation, 

Vor. 1V.—134 


as well as by its government, and why seven heads are 
interpreted to mean seven mountains, as well as seven 
kings. 

4 Ver. 4.] “They did freely yield themselves in obedience 
to the beast,” says Mr. Mede, “ as to one who so far excelled 
in power, that none was able to make resistance.” “The 
admirers of the beast,” says Mr. Daubuz, “look upon him 
as superior to all other powers, and therefore obey his com- 
mands in committing idolatry ; and, in doing this, worship 
also the beast. For to commit idolatry, through fear of any 
power, makes that power his god, because master of his 
conscience: as to worship the beast, in the eastern style, 
was to be subject to it, so to be subject to it, in its idola- 
trous constitutions, or exercising the great authority and 
power which it had received from the dragon, may be said to 
worship the dragon in worshipping the beast, and yielding 
obedience to its idolatrous constitutions.” 

5 Ver. 5.] The “ mouth speaking great things,” seems to 
be taken from the description of the little horn in Daniel’s 
vision, vii. 8, and is explained, ver. 11, by “the voice of the 
great words which the horn spake ;” and yet farther, xi. 36, 
by the description of a king, who “shall do according to his 
will, and shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above 
every god, and shall speak marvellous things against the 
God of gods: this mouth, speaking great things, may then 
well signify claims of unlimited authority, a proud and se- 
vere execution of tyrannical power, “ We may here note,” 
says Mr. Daubuz, “that to speak great things and blasphe- 
mies, are put together, as the one signifies tyranny, and the 
other idolatry ; if we join both together, they will signify to 
establish idolatry by tyranny ;” or, according to Mr. Mede, 
he exercised his power in two things, in blasphemy against 
God, and persecution of the saints. Power was given to 
him (the beast) to continue (in the margin, “ to make war”), 
in the original, ἐξουσία ποιῆσαι" this seems well explained by 
a power to do what he pleased ; meaning either an authority 
to make what constitutions he should think fit, or power to 
put those constitutions into execution, by punishing every 


| one who should refuse obedience to them.* 


6 Ver. 6.] Any acts of idolatrous worship may well be ex- 
pressed by blaspheming God and his name, as they deny to 
the true God his distinguishing honour, and give it to crea- 
tures, whether to images, saints, or angels. The church, as 
it is called « the temple of God,” the place of God’s pre- 
sence, is properly also called his “tabernacle.” “They that 
dwell in heaven,” are understood by Grotius of all saints, all 
Christians, whose conversation is in heaven. This form of 


* Clarke, Connexion of Prophecy, p. 44 


1066 


8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship 
him, whose names are not written in the book of life 
of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 


(8.) Insomuch, that all the inhabitants of the earth, where 
this new power reached, were prevailed upon to receive his 
idolatrous constitutions, and yield obedience to his tyranni- 
cal authority ; such true and faithful servants of God only 
excepted, who were enrolled in the registers as heirs of eter- 
nal life, according to the promises of Christ’s gospel, who, 
from the beginning, was the true propitiation and mediator 
of acceptance and blessing. 7 


9 If any man have an ear, let him hear. 


(9.) And now let every good Christian, who is desirous 
to preserve himself in an hour of temptation, and preserve 
the hopes of eternal life, attentively consider the cautions, 
warnings, consolations, and encouragement, of this pro- 
phecy. 

10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into cap- 
tivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed 
with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith 
of the saints. 


(10.) For every one may be assured, that God, the right- 
eous governor and judge of the world, will finally render to 
every man according to his works, and punish the enemies | 
of his church in due time, with a punishment equal to their 
tyranny and persecution. This consideration may support 
the patience and faith of the saints: they shall triumph in 


REVELATION. 


the end over all their enemies, God shall vindicate their 
cause, and maintain his own honour, in the punishment of 
their oppressors. 


11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of 
the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he 
spake as a dragon. 

(11.) I farther beheld in my visions another appearance, 
as of a second wild beast, rising out of the earth, which had 
two horns, like the horns of a lamb, but his voice was like 
that of a dragon, to represent another persecuting govern- 
ment, exercising its authority with a show of meekness and 
charity, but carrying on the opposition of the devil, the old 
serpent, to pure religion, and promoting idolatry by persecu- 
tion. 


12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast 
before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell 
therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound 
was healed. 


(12.) And this second persecuting power had all the 
powers of the first or new-revived form of Roman govern- 
ment, and used its authority to spread the power of this new 
Roman government beyond the bounds of its own proper 
dominion, so as to oblige the several nations to yield obe- 
dience to the new authority revived in the city of Rome, 


| after it had been so long deprived of all authority, and 


seemed to have lost all hope of recovering it.§ 
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh 


expression seems to be taken from the prophet Daniel, viii. 
10, where it is said of the little horn which came up out of 
one of the four horns of the he-goat, or one of the princes 
which arose in one of the four kingdoms into which the em- 
pire of Alexander the Great was divided, that it “ waxed | 
great even unto the host of heaven, and it cast down some 
of the host, and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon 
them.” On these expressions, Mr. Lowth seems justly to 
observe, that as the faithful are heirs of the kingdom of hea- 
ven, so the names and titles of the heavenly church are 
sometimes given to that on earth; the Christian church is 
called, “ the Jerusalem which is above,” Gal. iv. 26, and the | 
governors of it are styled “angels,” Rev. i. 20. In like | 
manner, the host of heaven means here the Jewish church: 
“they which dwell in heaven,” especially when mentioned | 
with “the tabernacle of God,” may. be understood, accord- 
ing to the prophetic language, of the true church, and wor- 
shippers of God. Then to blaspheme them that dwell in 
heaven, will signify the contempt and injurious manner with | 
which this new government of Rome shall treat the true | 
worshippers of God, as well as God himself, and bis name. 
But as many interpreters of great judgment and learning, | 
Mede, Waple, Daubuz, &c., give another sense of “ the taber- 
nacle of God,” and “ them that dwell in heaven,” it will be 
fit to set it before the reader. By the tabernacle of God, | 
they understand the body of Christ, which is blasphemed by | 
the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the idolatrous prac- | 
tices consequent thereupon, adoring the bread, instead of 
Christ the tabernacle of God, and blaspheming the heavenly 
inhabitants, the angels and saints in heaven, by giving them 
worship and adoration; and, as Mr. Mede adds, disgracing 
the blessed spirits with contumelious and wicked fables and | 
miracles. Which of these the reader will prefer, must be 
left to his own judgment; the former seems to me the more 
probable, as well as the more natural and easy interpreta- 
tion. 

7 Ver. 8.] Perseverance in the faith of the gospel, and 
true worship of God, in this great hour of temptation, which | 
would deceive all but the elect, is very usefully represented 


as the character of those whose names are registered in the 
Lamb’s book of life; to show, that they who endure to the 
end shall be saved; and that the salvation of God, through 
Christ, belongs to none but those who shall persevere. A | 
powerful motive and encouragement to constancy, the great 
design of the whole revelation; and which is therefore most | 
properly kept in view, in every part of it. We have already | 
observed, “ to write names in the book of life,” is an allu- 
sion either to the registers in which the families of the 
priests, or freemen of cities, were used to be entered upon 
record (iii. 5). 


8 Ver. 12.] Interpreters differ very much as to the true 
intention of this prophetic description, and what is meant by 
this second beast coming up out of the earth. 

With some* it signifies philosophy, and, in particular, the 
Pythagorean, a great support of the Roman idolatry, with 
its pompous speculations and pretences to divination and 
miracles. 

Others suppose it means some one or more sorcerers, or 
magicians, who were heathen, and made use of by the devil, 
to support and advance heathenism and idolatry ; so that 
an author of great namej concludes, it is most reasonable to 
interpret this second beast of Apollonius Tyaneus, who is 
reported to have done such feats and miracles, as are com- 
pared by Hierocles to the miracles of Christ, and preferred 
before them. 

Others: understand this second beast of the pope with 
his clergy: they observe, “The pope himself, and alone, 
though he may be termed a false prophet, yet he maketh 
not up the beast, except his clergy be joined with him; 
since the beast doth signify a company of men, composed 
of a certain order of members, like as a beast hath, not one 
man alone.” 

Mr. Whiston’s§ notion seems much the same with this of 
Mr. Mede: he understands the second beast, of the rise of 
antichrist, strictly so called, the pope of Rome, and his sub- 
ordinate hierarchy. 

Mr. Waple|| observes, “ As by the former beast, the pa- 
pacy, as monarchic and imperial, was fitly represented ; so, 
in this type, there seems to be a representation of the apos- 
tate hierarchy, or of the whole body of the ecclesiastics, as 
antichristian; and a body politic (signified by a beast in 
prophecy ), under two co-ordinate powers or horns, by which 
the hierarchy of the eastern and western parts of the empire, 
before the pope came to be a horn, or to have his anti- 
christian supremacy, is very fitly typified.” 

Mr. Daubuz supposes “ the former wild beast consisted of 
the antichristian civil powers, which were to be in the Ro- 
man empire during the second period of the church, and 
that the Christian ecclesiastic powers, in the said empire, 
during the said space of time, are the beast which is here 
intended; and therefore, that the two horns are the succes- 
sive lines of the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, having 
under them the whole body of the corrupted clergy, as the 
former beast had that of the laity; both these bishops hav- 
ing pretended to be universal bishops of the church.” 

Finally, The illustrious Sir Isaac Newton{ observes, 
“The second beast which rose up out of the earth was the 


+ Mede. 
4 P. 283. 


+ Dr. Hammond. 
| P. 288. 


* Meaux, Grotius. 
§ P. 242. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight | 


of men, 


1067 


(13.) This persecuting power shall also promote idola- 
trous worship by pretended miracles, as if, with Elijah, they 


church of the Greek empire: for it had two horns like those 
of a lamb, and therefore was a church, and it spake as the 
dragon, and therefore was of his religion; and it came out of 
the earth, and by consequence in his kingdom.” 

To take off somewhat of the uncertainty so great a variety 
of opinions is apt to occasion, let us attend more closely 
to the prophetic description itself: it will, I apprehend, lessen 
the number of opinions, to show some of them inconsist- 
ent with plain and obvious circumstances of the prophetic 
description. 

It is an observation of consequence, that the vision of 
this second wild beast, arising out of the earth, was after the 
vision of the first beast which rose out of the sea, and can- 
not signify any power to arise in the Roman empire before 
that time. 

This second beast, moreover, exercised the power of the 
first beast before him, as a sort of lieutenant or deputy to 
him; in particular, to bring all persons, where his power 
reached, to receive the authority of the first beast, “to wor- 
ship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed,” says 
the prophecy expressly. So that this description is in- 
consistent with any power opposite to the authority of the 
first beast, as well as it is with any power that rose up 
before it. 

It seems also very probable, that this second beast, what- 
ever is meant by it, had a power and authority very like the 
power and authority of the first beast, and very nearly re- 
sembling it: “ He exerciseth all the power of the first beast,” 
ἐζουσίαν τοῦ πρώτου Snpiov πᾶσαν ποιεῖ. He had the exer- 
cise of the whole power; so that of what nature or kind 
the authority and power of the first beast were, the au- 
thority and power of the second beast were of the same 
kind. Hence this description will be also inconsistent with 
any supposition that makes the authority and power of the 
second beast contrary to, or different from, the power of the 
first. 

We have already observed, from many concurring cir- 
cumstances, that the first beast did not arise till the impe- 
rial government had passed away; till Rome seemed to 
have lost irrecoverably the seat of empire; till the Roman 
empire was divided into ten kingdoms; till the city of Rome 
should receive a new form of government, and become a 
seat of empire again; till a government should be erected 
in the city of Rome, in the days of the voice of the seventh 
angel, which was to persecute the saints one thousand two 
hundred and sixty years. All these considerations deter- 
mine the rise of the first beast out of the sea to be, when the 
exarchate of Ravenna was given to the papacy, when Rome 
was made the seat of the pope’s temporal dominion, and the 
last form of Roman government began, which has lasted 
ever since to this day. 

We fully know in history what this power of the papacy 
is: the popes claim the supreme authority, as heads of the 
church in things religious, and they have civil authority, as 
sovereign princes, in their own dominion, which is expres- 
sively called, “ the patrimony of St. Peter.” 

This plain account of the prophetic description, will much 
lessen, I think, the variety of opinions before mentioned ; 
not to remark, that the philosophy, or magic, of Apollonius 
Tyaneus, is no form of government, which is the true mean- 
ing of beasts and horns, in the language of the prophets. It 
may be sufficient to show, that the philosophy of the bishop 
of Meaux, that the magic and miracles of Apollonius Tya- 
nexus, with the learned Grotius and Dr. Hammond, are ab- 
solutely inconsistent with the time of this period, wherein 
the first beast rose up out of the sea, which yet was before 
the time when this second beast rose up out of the earth ; 
neither will the prophetic description, for the same reason, 
agree with Mr. Waple’s opinion, that this second beast 
means the hierarchy of the eastern and western parts of the 
empire, before the pope came to be a horn, or to have his 
antichristian supremacy. ‘he same reason holds against 
Mr. Daubuz’s opinion, that the first beast consisted of the 
antichristian civil powers; and the second beast of the anti- 
christian ecclesiastical powers, especially as he understands 


it, that, from the times of Leo, there was in the church a 
double ecclesiastical monarchy of two bishops cecumenical, 
who pretended to have all the power of the Lamb. For 
this dispute between the two sees of Rome and Constantino- 
ple was long before the city of Rome became the seat of 
empire in the papacy ; nor can a contest for a power between 
the two metropolitans of the eastern and western empire, be 
well understood of the power of the second beast, which was 
to exercise all the power of the first beast ; not to weaken 
or suppress it, but to promote the power of the first beast, 
and to force all persons to submit themselves to it. And 
this observation is also a considerable difficulty in Sir Isaac 
Newton’s opinion, that this second beust was the church of 
the Greek empire. We may observe, that to place the rise 
of the two beasts, at the division of the empire between 
Gratian and Theodosius, A. D. 379,* greatly antedates the 
true time of the last form of Roman government, and throws 
back the third period very far into the second, contrary to 
the order of the prophecy. It is farther to be observed, that 
the Greek church was so far from using its power and au- 
thority, to force all persons to submit to the papacy, that it 
was used in continual opposition to the authority of the Ro- 
man church; it not only denied the pope’s supremacy, but 
separated also, with great warmth, from its communion : and 
the Roman church is so far from esteeming the Greek church 
as a friend, that it treats it as an apostate church, in a state 
of schism and rebellion. 

Finally, Mr. Mede’s opinion, that the second beast is the 
pope with his clergy, has many difficulties attending it. 
The first beast is represented as distinct from the second, 
and from the ten kings or kingdoms, though they give their 
power and strength to the beast; and therefore cannot well 
be the whole state of the ten kingdoms growing up again 
into one Roman commonwealth, united with the pope as 
high-priest. Besides, if the power of the pope in Rome 
be the first beast, the same papal power can hardly be in- 
tended, with very little alteration, by the second beast. It 
must, in all likelihood, signify some distinct persecuting 
power, of like nature and kind with the first, supporting and 
advancing the authority of the first. Perhaps it may be 
said, these observations, by lessening the uncertainty 
occasioned by so many different interpretations, may make 
the matter worse, and leave no certain interpretation, 
at all. 

T hope not. Let us see, then, whether we cannot find out 
what will answer this prophetic description in all its cireum- 
stances. 

We are then to find out a power, which is to arise after 
the first beast, in which a supremacy in spirituals was 
united with the authority of a temporal prince,in the popes. 

We are, moreover, to find out a power, like that of the 
papal government, which is to execute all the power of the 
first beast; which seems to express a like power, in which 
civil and religious authority shall be united. 

We are also to find out such a power, as shall be used to 
support and advance the authority of the popes, and force 
obedience to it. ; 

We need not look far in history, I think, to find a power 
that fully answers all these characters. 

We have seen at large in the preface, how Pepin of 
France gave the exarchate of Ravenna to the church of 
Rome: this was the rise of the first beast, in the temporal 
dominion of the popes over Rome, and the countries that 
compose the state of the church, as St. Peter’s patrimony, 

A little after this time, the emperor Charles the Great, 
and his successors, endowed several churches in their states 
with large temporal estates, to which were annexed the 
jurisdictions and royalties which, in those times, were used to 
belong to the most honourable tenures, such as earldoms, 
duchies, and principalities; whereby they had a temporal 
authority added to their spiritual, very nearly resembling 
that of the church of Rome, in virtue of St. Peter's pa- 
trimony. 


* Sir I. Newton. p. 282. 


1068 


could cause fire to come down from heaven,* at whose 
prayer fire from heaven burned the sacrifice, and consumed 
those whom Ahaziah sent to seize him.{ 9 


14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by 
the means of those miracles which he had power to do 
in the sight of the beast ; saying to them that dwell on 
the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, 
which had the wound by a sword, and did live. 


(14.) The advantages these pretended miracles had ob- 
tained over a great part of the world, by their credulity 
and superstition, were artfully improved to deceive them 
yet farther, so far as to persuade them to deify the pope, 
or erect an idol to his honour; so that they were taught it 
was their duty to pay a religious obedience, in all things, 
to his authority and orders, as to God himself and his word. 


15 And he had power to give life unto the image 
of the beast, that the image of the beast should both 
speak, and cause that as many as would not worship 
the image of the beast should be killed. 

(15.) This image whereby the pope was deified, is not 
to be understood of a lifeless and dumb idol; but, like 
those statues of the heathen gods, which gave forth ora- 
cles, as if animated by an indwelling spirit: so the orders 
and constitutions of the pope were published to the world 
by the subordinate clergy, as oracles, obliging all nations to 
a religious obedience, and supporting their authority with 
all their power, treating all men as worthy of death, who 
should refuse an entire submission to them in any par- 
ticular. 


16 And he caused all, both small and great, rich 


REVELATION. 


and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their 
right hand, or in their foreheads : 


(16.) The obligation of this entire submission and obe- 
dience to the papal decrees was carried so high, that every 
person, of whatever rank or condition, was to make some 
public acknowledgment of it, as servants were used to be 
roarked by their masters, or as persons consecrated to some 
heathen deity were used to mark themselves with some 
figure, as a badge, denoting the deity to whom they were 
consecrated. 


17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that 
had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the num- 
ber of his name. 

(17.) It was made so penal, for any to omit this profes- 
sion of obedience to the papal constitutions, that no man 
was permitted to buy or sell, but was deprived of all com- 
merce with men, and civil privileges of life, if he did not, 
some way or other, make this profession. 10 


18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understand- 
ing count the number of the beast: for it is the num- 
ber of a man; and his number zs Six hundred three- 
score and six. 

(18.) It will be a considerable point of knowledge, in this 
mystical description, to find out, by a given number, the 
name of this beast, so as to know when this idolatrous tyran- 
nical power shall arise; and from thence know what power 
is meant by this prophetical representation. Now there is 
a certain number, which, in a way of reckoning usual among 
men, will teach it; that number is six hundred and sixty- 
six. lI 


These powers went on still increasing, till, in some short 
process of time, especially in the Germanic empire, they 
became to be real principalities. Several bishops of Ger- 
many have been, for many centuries, in the rank, and have 
enjoyed the full powers and authority of sovereign princes; 
some have attained the highest dignity, and chief adminis- 
tration of the empire, as electors, in all things equal, in some 
things superior, in dignity and authority, to the other princes 
of the empire, not excepting such electors of the empire as 
are kings. This has been long the fixed and settled consti- 
tution of that principal government of Europe, which now 
uses the style of “the sacred Roman empire.” 

It is easy to see how nearly this authority resembles the 
powers of the papacy, or first beast; and it is easy to ob- 
serve, in the constant course of history, that this authority 
has been used all along, to cause the earth, and them that 
dwell therein, to worship the first beast, or to obey his com- 
mands in all things. By this it is, that popes have had the 
power, as well as the insolence, to tread on the necks of 
kings and emperors. And it has been the great support of 
the idolatrous worship of that church, against all the power- 
ful and promising attempts of reformation. 

It is a just remark of Bishop Burnet,+ that this appeared 
so early as the days of Charles the Great himself. «He 
had raised the church so high, and given it such dominions, 
and had, by so many repeated laws, established their juris- 
diction and temporalities, that it was not perhaps in his 
power, chiefly in his old age, when the vigour and heat of 
his spirits had failed, to rectify what was amiss.” 

To this, I think, all the other parts of this prophetic de- 
scription will agree, as we shall more fully see hereafter. 
Nor does it much differ from the opinions of Mr. Mede, 
Waple, Whiston, and Daubuz. It supposes this description 
to mean the same body of men, the clergy, subordinate to 
the pope, promoting his power and authority ; it only takes 
in a point of view, and period of time, more agreeable to 
the order and circumstances of the prophetic description. 

9 Ver. 13.] The idolatry of the church of Rome has 
been greatly supported by a pretence to miracles, though 
the most of them have plain marks of falsehood and im- 
posture; yet the Roman church is so fond of a pretence to 


* 1 Kings xviii. 37, 38. 


ἡ 2 Kings i. 10. 12. 
+ Rights of Princes, p. 135. 


miracles, that it has made it one of the marks of the true 
church, and has persuaded the credulous, ignorant, and 
superstitious, to believe it, who are always the larger number 
of mankind. 

10 Ver. 17.] Many learned men have thought these ex- 
pressions relate to the manner in which Ptolemy Philopater 
persecuted the Jews; “He forbade any to enter into his 
palace, who did not sacrifice to the gods he worshipped : 
whereby he excluded the Jews all access to him, either for 
the suing to him for justice, or the obtaining of his protec- 
tion in what case soever they should stand in need of it.” 
He ordered by another decree, “'That all of the Jewish na- 
tion that lived in Alexandria should be degraded from the 
first rank of citizens, of which they had always hitherto 
been from the first founding of the city, and be enrolled in 
the third rank, among the common people of Egypt; that 
all of them should come thus to be enrolled, and at the time 
of their enrolment have the mark of an ivy-leaf, the badge 
of the god Bacchus, by a hot iron impressed upon them; 
and that all those who should refuse to be thus enrolled, and 
be stigmatized with the said mark, should be made slaves ; 
and that if any of them should stand out against this decree 
he should be put to death.” Thus the history is related by 
Dr. Prideaux,* from the third book of the Maccabees. 

11 Ver. 18.] The number six hundred and sixty-six is 
given as a number by which the name of the beast may be 
found out. The number is designed to have some sort of 
secrecy in it. The number itself is the same in all the 
places of units, tens, and hundreds, 666. This some have 
observed as a part of the mystery; but they should have 
observed, that though this is true in the English way of 
numeration, the original does not use three figures, but three 
different letters of the Greek alphabet, x ¢ s. Prophetic 
numbers will often require some skill in calculation; to find 
out, for instance, when days are to be taken for years, or 
from what time any particular calculation is to take its 
date. 

In the application of this number, some wisdom will be 
required ; perhaps it will principally lie in finding out after 
what manner the calculation is to be made. The exhorta- 
tion, “ Let him that hath understanding count the number 
of the beast,” seems to intimate, that if men hit on the right 


* Connex. par. ii. lib. ii, B. C. 216. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


way of counting or calculating, they will find the meaning 
of it; for “it is the number of a man,” a way in which 
men are used to number, says Mr. Waple, as the “ measure 
of a man,” is a measure in use among men (Rev. xxi. 17): 
and “to write with a man’s pen,” is to write with such a 
pen, and with such characters as are in use among men (Isa. 
viii. 1). 

The great authority of Irenwus, who wrote so near the 
time, within less than a hundred years of the Revelation 
itself, and whose master Polycarp was a disciple of St. John, 
gave great weight to his opinion. Many have taken his 
manner of counting for granted, that it must be some name, 
the letters of which will make the number six hundred and 
sixty-six. And many have been satisfied in the name he 
proposes to answer this number, which is the Greek word 
Aarewwos. 

There had been more reason to follow Irenmus, had Ire- 
neus himself been fully satisfied in his own interpretation. 

It is justly observed by the Bishop of Meaux,* that 
Trenwus does not propose his opinion with any authority as 
an interpretation coming from John, but as a conjecture of 
his own. Farther, Ireneus mentions two other names as 
answering this number, besides Lateinos ; Euanthas and 
Teitan. He expressly adds, that he is not positive in that 
matter ; and gives this reason for it, if it had been necessary 
to know the name exactly, John would himself have re- 
vealed it more clearly. Nec asseverantes pronunciabimus, 
hoc eum nomen habiturum, scientes quoniam, si oporteret 
manifesté presenti tempore preconari nomen ejus, per ipsum 
utique editum fuisset, qui et Apocalypsim viderat, neque 
enim ante multum temporis visum est, sed pené sub nostro 
seculo, ad finem Domitiani imperii.’ Thus expressly does 
Ireneust himself declare, that he delivers his opinion only 
as a conjecture of his own, and that he knew no particular 
interpretation of it from John. 

‘This number has been found out in so many other names, 
that this way of reckoning may seem at least very uncer- 
tain. ‘The Bishop of Meaux finds the number six hundred 
and sixty-six, in the words DloCLrs AVeVsrVs ; Grotius 
in the word ΟΥ̓́ΛΠΙΟΣ, Ulpius, the name of Trajan; Mr. 
Daubuz finds it in the Hebrew word np), or Roman ; and 
besides many other names F. Feuardentius} mentions, in 
his annotations on this passage of Ireneus, he finds the 
number six hundred and sixty-six, in the name of Martin 
Lauter, which, he says, was the original way of spelling the 
name of Luther. He farther finds the same number in the 
word Moamerts, as he chooses to spell the name of Moham- 
med. Many more instances may be seen in Calmet.§ 

Every one may be sensible, with Ireneus,|| there is much 
uncertainty in this way of reckoning; it is with him, suspi- 
cari et divinare nomina, quando multa nomina inveniri pos- 
sunt, habentia predictum numerum. And this makes him 
so cautious, not to appear positive in delivering his own 
opinion. 

Many learned persons have thought, that this way of 
counting the number of the beast, is not the true secret of 
calculation. They observe another method of calculation 
used in this prophecy. One hundred and forty-four thou- 
sand is the mystical number of Christ’s kingdom, or the true 
church. It is agreed by interpreters, this number is a square 
number, raised from twelve as the root; for twelve, multi- 
plied by itself, gives one hundred and forty-four. ‘Twelve 
is a remarkable number in the Christian church, on account 
of the twelve apostles, on whose doctrines the faith and 
worship of the church is built: as it was a remarkable num- 
ber in the Jewish church, on account of the twelve patri- 
archs, heads of the twelve tribes of Israel; and as the 
twenty-four elders seem to be these two numbers added 
together, Mr. Potter, therefore, and many who follow him, 


* Pref. p. 58. 

" ἡ Irenzus, adv. Hereses, lib. v. cap 30. 
+ Feuardentii Annot. in Tren. p. m. 486. 
§ Diss. sur. l’Antichrist, vol. i. p. 763. 
| Ireneus, ib. 


1069 


think this number of the beast ought to be calculated in 
like manner. They observe, this number of the kingdom 
of antichrist is to be raised from the number twenty-five, 
which is not an exact square root, but gives six hundred and 
twenty-five, near enough to six hundred and sixty-six, which 
is not a precise square number. ‘They farther observe, 
that twenty-five is a very remarkable number in the anti- 
christian Roman state, describing the papacy in many of 
its most essential parts, the particulars of which may 
be seen at large in Mr. Potter's discourse, and in other 
authors from him. But this way of calculation is not with- 
out its difficulties and uncertainty, any more than the former. 

May there not be another method of calculation, more 
natural and easy than either of the forementioned ? A num- 
ber that shall show the time of his becoming the beast, to 
use Mr. Waple’s words? The learned Grotius seems to 
have had such a method of counting this number in his 
view, when he explains the words of the prophecy by the 
time when idolatry shall revive, and recover strength: Qui 
sapit, notet tempus idololatrie, animos et vires resumentis ; 
ubi id evenerit, apparebit Christi prescientia. 

The number six hundred and sixty-six may then be a 
number, which, counted from a given period in prophecy, 
may very nearly point out the time when this wild beast 
shall arise, or when the forty-two months are to begin; in 
which period, power was given him to make war with the 
saints, and to overcome them. ‘Thus, the years in Daniel 
were to be computed “from the going forth of the com- 
mandment” (Dan. ix. 25), and the time of the coming of 
the Messiah was to be learned from that calculation. 

If we thus compute the number six hundred and sixty- 
six, from the time of this prophetic vision, we shall find it 
falls in exactly enough with the time wherein the papacy re- 
ceived the temporal power, and became the beast, or was 
constituted the last government of Rome, which is a prin- 
cipal character of the beast in this prophecy. 

The new government of Rome was erected A. D. 756: 
taking the general received opinion, that the time of this Re- 
velation was about A. Ὁ. 94, counting six hundred and sixty- 
six years from that date, will be A. D. 760, within four years 
of the time wherein the beast is supposed to rise. And this 
small difference will be easily accounted for, either by allow- 
ing some small uncertainty as to the time of vision, or some 
small variation from the precise year, for the sake of making 
the number of just six hundred and sixty-six, which has more 
of the air of a prophetical number than six hundred and 
sixty-two. Possibly this number may reach four years be- 
yond the investiture, to take in the full and actual posses- 
sion of what was granted to the church, as St. Peter’s 
patrimony. 

This way of counting is sufficiently certain to determine 
who the beast is, as it points out the time when he was to 
receive his power, with such certainty, that it cannot be mis- 
taken ; with as much certainty as Daniel's weeks pointed out 
the time of the coming of the Messiah. 

And it is a considerable part of knowledge in this pro- 
phecy, and would have prevented many mistakes, into which 
many good and learned men have fallen, with respect to the 
time when the power of the beast was to begin, and by con- 
sequence when it was to end, to have observed, that this 
number was to be a period of years, from the time of the 
vision, before which the beast was not to receive his power; 
and that from the end of that period, he was to continue one 
thousand two hundred and sixty years. 

Nor ought this method of calculation to be set aside, as 
new and singular; Grotius, we have already seen, seems to 
have had it in his thoughts. The very learned and industri- 
ous Calmet takes notice of this way of computation ex- 
pressly, that some have thought the number of the beast 
does not signify the cipher of the beast, but the time when 
he was to appear. Que le nombre de 666 ne marquait pas 
ici le chiffre de la béte, mais le tems auquel elle devait 
paraitre.* 


* Calmet, Annot. in loc. 


4P 


1070 


SECTION XII. 


HISTORY OF THE THIRD PERIOD. 


Tux three foregoing chapters, xi. xii. xiii., are a prophetic 
description of the third period: they represent the state of 
providence, and the church, in so many views, in which so 
many particulars are to concur, that if they shall be found 
to answer exactly, in time and circumstances, to real his- 
torical facts, it will add great weight to the prophecy, to 
the directions, exhortations, and encouragements, designed 
by it, to faithfulness and constancy in the Christian faith and 
worship, to patience in persecution, to hope and trust in the 
care and power of God, who will assuredly make good all his 
promises, and encourage us to consider all the prophecies of 
this book as such. 

The prophetic description of this period is the largest and 
most particular of any, and points out the time when it is to 
begin and when it is to end with greater exactness. The 
state of the church in this period is agreeable, in general, to 
the representation of the church in the foregoing periods; a 
state of danger and persecution, from the enemies of truth 
and righteousness, under the influence of Satan, endeavour- 
ing to deceive the world, and to corrupt it by idolatrous 
doctrines and worship. 

It is represented as a state wherein the number of faithful 
confessors shall be few, yet enough to bear testimony to the 
truth, and preserve it, though they shall be persecuted unto 
death for their testimony, which yet shall continue twelve 
hundred and sixty years, in spite of all endeavours to sup- 
press it; and, in that space of time, the providence of God 
shall often appear to vindicate their cause, by severe and 
heavy judgments on their enemies: and this afflicted state of 
the church shall end at the last, in victory, peace, and hap- 
piness, 

The church is farther represented in this period in a state 
of danger, like the Israelites in the wilderness, or like the 
Prophet Elijah in the persecution of Ahab ; that it will have 
no safety but in places of secrecy and retirement; or, as 
David was forced to fly for refuge to the wilderness, from the 
persecution of Saul, so the woman flies into the wilderness 
from the dragon, who was ready to devour her. In this re- 
tirement, the church shall be preserved ; so that no attempts 
of error to corrupt it, or of persecution to destroy it, shall 
prevail against it, But the prophetic description of this pe- 
riod is most particular, in the account it gives of the means 
by which the church, in this period, shall be brought into 
such danger, and the faithful confessors of truth be so op- 
pressed and persecuted. 

It describes therefore in this period the rise of a new 
idolatrous and persecuting power ; it describes it by so many 
and so particular circumstances, as distinctly show the time 
when it is to arise, the place where it is to have its seat of 
empire, the manner in which it shall use its authority, and 
how long it shall continue; and these are, on many accounts, 
s0 uncommon and extraordinary, that nothing but a true 
Spirit of prophecy could foresee or foretell: for it repre- 
sents this new idolatrous persecuting power in these re- 
markable particulars: 

It is a new government or dominion, arising out of the com- 
motions occasioned by the invasion of the Roman empire. 

It was a new government to arise after the imperial go- 
vernment had ceased, and Rome had been under another 
form of government, which was to continue for a short time. 

It was a new government to arise, after the Roman em- 
pire was cantoned and divided into several distinct kingdoms, 
or into ten independent royalties and dominions. It was a 
dominion to be erected in the city of Rome, so as to make 
the city founded on seven hills, and once mistress of the 
world, a seat of empire again in this new government. It 
was to be a new dominion arising in Rome, at a time when 
all human views represented the power of Rome so totally 
subverted, as not to allow any hope of its recovery. 

It was to be a government resembling the former Roman 
empire, in propagating idolatrous doctrines and worship, in 
opposing the truth, and oppressing all who should make pro- 
fession of it. 


REVELATION. 


The power and authority of this new Roman government 
were to be supported and extended by another power like 
unto it in nature and kind, by pretended miracles and 
wonders, and by outward force, obliging all people to sub- 
mit to the authority of this new erected empire in the city 
of Rome. This new dominion is to continue the persecution 
of the true church for the space of twelve hundred and sixty 

ears, 
i And it is a government which they, who have wisdom in 
the calculation of numbers, according to the usage of scrip- 
ture prophecy, may find out by the number 666. 

These several particulars appear in the description itself, 
as we have seen in the foregoing explanation of it. 

Are there then any real historical facts, that answer to all 
these various and circumstantial descriptions of prophecy ? 
If there are, they will greatly confirm the truth of the Reve- 
lation, and should awaken our attention to the design and 
meaning of it. 

The two former periods ended two states of danger to the 
Christian church; the first, from the opposition of the hea- 
then Roman emperors, by the conversion of Constantine, 
about A. Ὁ. 322. The second danger was from the heathen 
northern nations who invaded the Roman empire, but who 
were converted to Christianity themselves, and received it in 
their several dominions; and from a greater danger, by the 
surprising progress of the Mahometans, from which this 
western part of the world was delivered, by that memorable 
battle in which Charles Martel defeated their numerous 
army, and slew three hundred and fifty thousand of them, 
A. D. 734. 

About this time, several of the characters of the first 
beast which rose out of the’sea exactly fall in together. 

This is a period of time, when the imperial government of 
Rome entirely passed away. Momyllus, or Augustulus, the 
last of the Roman emperors, was deposed, and the kingdom 
of the Goths was established in Italy ; the exarchate of Ra- 
venna had taken from Rome all show of authority, and 
Rome had been governed, for some time, as a small duchy, 
in all things subject to it, as a parcel of the exarchate. 
This seemed a mortal wound to the city of Rome; so that 
when the exarchate was conquered by the Lombards, A. ἢ), 
752, Aistulphus claimed Rome, as belonging to the exar- 
chate. 

At this time, the Roman empire was cantoned out,* and 
divided into many separate and independent kingdoms; so 
that the ten kingdoms, in the prophetic description, were 
ready to support this new dominion of Rome with their 
power. 

About this time, the exarchate of Ravenna, which, for 
some years, kept up a show of Roman government in Italy, 
under the lieutenants of the Greek empire, was subdued by 
the kingdom of the Lombards, and that form of government 
was never revived again. 

These very remarkable circumstances, which were all to 
fall in together at this time, appear to agree very well with 
the known truth of history. 

And if we calculate the number 666 from the year 94, 
the time of the vision, it falls in with the time in which the 
order of the prophecies directs us to place the beginning of 
this period, 

But let us proceed, and farther consider some extraor- 
dinary events, which happened at the same time, and which 
answer to the most particular circumstances of the prophetic 
description. 

We find in history, that the exarchate of Ravenna was 
conquered by Aistulphus king of the Lombards, A. D. 752. 
Upon this conquest, he claims Rome as a part of it, marches 
to besiege the city; and Rome, which had been so long in 
subjection to the exarchate, was, in all human probability, 
like to remain in subjection to the kingdom of the Lom- 
bards: nor was there any reasonable prospect of defending 
itself, or preserving its own liberty, much less of rising to 
empire and dominion. 


* Vid. Preface. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


But the pope, who had lately obliged Pepin of France,* 
flies to him for protection. 

Pepin undertakes to support the pope, enters Italy, forces 
Aistulphus not only to quit all claim to the city of Rome, 
but to give up. the exarchate of Ravenna to Rome; which, 
afler some contest, was solemnly ratified, A. 1). 756. 

‘Thus Rome acquired a new state and dominion in this 
new patrimony of St. Peter, of which Rome became the 
seat and capital ; and thus, contrary to all expectations, a new 
form of Roman government arose, which has continued now 
for near a thousand years: so that this new unexpected go- 
vernment of Rome has already continued longer than any 
preceding form of government whatever, and has continued 
in this extraordinary form of government, without any alter- 
ation, when the several kingdoms of Europe, especially the 
several states of Italy, have often changed their masters, 
and altered the very forms and constitutions of their govern- 
ment. 

That this new Roman government has proved a perse- 
cuting power, promoting idolatrous doctrines and worship, 
will appear, with the plainest evidence, from history. 

About this time, superstition was running fast into idola- 
try ; the worship of images, the most common act of hea- 
then idolatry, though expressly forbid by the second com- 
mandment, began to be received among Christians. ‘The 
emperor Leo endeavoured to put a stop to it in the eastern 
empire ; he appointed, by an edict in the year 730, to take 
all images out of the churches, and burnt them, says Du- 
pin : an author whom I the rather choose to use in this 
historical account, because of his religion as a papist, that 
his testimony may be freer from all suspicion. 

His son Constantine Copronymus followed his father's 
example, called a council at Constantinople, A. D. 754, of 
three hundred and thirty-eight bishops, who made a decree 
against the worship of images. ‘This council, says Dupin, 
was not received in the church of Rome, but the emperor 
ordered his decree to be executed in all parts of the east. 

When Irene became mistress of the eastern empire, she 
resolved upon a new council at Nice, to which she invited 
pope Adrian, about the year 787. The pope’s legates had 
the first place; Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, the 
second; and the deputies of the bishops of the east, the 
third. The letters of pope Adrian were read, approving of 
the worship of images. ‘The council proceeded to decree, 
that the images of Jesus Christ, the holy Virgin, angels, 
and saints, were to be placed in churches, to renew their 
memory, and express the veneration men have for them ; 
and to salute, honour, and worship them, but not with that 
adoration which is peculiar to the divine nature.¢ 

Thus ready and zealous were the popes to promote the 
worship of images: as soon as the acts of the council were 
brought to Rome, the pope sent extracts of them to France ; 
Charles, then king of France, caused the extracts to be exa- 
mined by the bishops of his kingdom; they composed a 
treatise, which was publised in the name of Charles the 
Great, against the decision of the council at Nice; Charles 
sent this treatise to Rome, and presented it to pope Adrian 
by Engilbert; but the pope returned an answer, in which he 
maintained the decrees of the council of Nice, 

The authority of the pope could not however carry his 
point in France, at that time:§ a council was held at Frank- 
fort, in the year 794, in which the worship of images was 
debated, and the council condemned all sort of adoration or 
worship of images. France and Germany continued long to 
follow this council of Frankfort, in opposition to the council 
of Nice, and authority of the pope.| 

It may be of use to remark this opposition to the worship 
of images, at the beginning of it, for two reasons; the one, 
to show that it was all along supported by the authority of 
the popes, and at length established by their power. The 
other, to show in this memorable instance, that “the earth 
helped the woman ;” the western princes opposed themselves 
to the pope’s authority, gave time and opportunity to the | 


1071 


church to confirm the faithful worshippers of God, against 
this dangerous idolatry, which has been so much increased 
since, and so fully established by the popes in the councils 
of Lateran and Trent. 

The council of Lateran confirmed the doctrine of transub- 
stantiation, after it had been long contested and opposed in 
the church. Verum Christi corpus et sanguis, in sacramento 
altaris, sub speciebus panis et vini veracitér continentur, 
transubstantiatis, pane in corpus, et vino in sanguinem, po~ 
testate divina.* 

This doctrine being thus settled, the proper adoration of 
the sacrament of the altar was an easy consequence. The 
council of Trent therefore, over and above the adoration of 
images and invocation of saints, expressly requires the same 
adoration of the consecrated elements, as are due to the su- 
preme God himself. Nullus itaque dubitanda locus relin- 
quitur, quin omnes Christi fideles, pro more in catholic&d 
ecclesia semper recepto, la/riz cultum, qui vero Deo debetur, 
huic sanctissimo sacramento in veneratione exhibeant. 
Nam illum eundem Deum, presentem in eo adesse credimus, 
quem pater seternus introducens in orbem terrarum, dicit, Et 
adorent eum omnes angeli Dei.t 

Innumerable instances of history will farther show, how 
far this new Roman power has supported idolatry by perse- 
cution; which is a principal part of the prophetic descrip- 
tion. They have not only practised persecution on many 
occasions, but they have given it the solemn sanction of ge- 
neral councils. By the council of Lateran, all are declared 
heretics who oppose their decisions, which they call, “the 
holy, orthodox, and catholic faith ;” of which the doctrine of 
transubstantiation and the worship of the bread and wine 
were declared a part. They excommunicate and anathe- 
matize all whom they have thus made heretics, Thus con- 
demned, they are given over to the secular powers to be 
punished : and all the civil powers are obliged to take an oath, 
on pain of ecclesiastical censures, that they will endeavour 
to exterminate all who are declared heretics by the church, 
out of their dominions; and if any civil power shall refuse 
to do so, after admonition, it shall be certified by the pope, 
who shall declare all his subjects absolved from their alle- 
giance; and declare, it is free for any catholic to seize his 
dominions, and exterminate the heretics, to preserve it in the 
purity of the truth. Si vero dominus temporalis, requisitus 
et monitus ab ecclesia, forsan suam purgare neglexerit ab 
hic hereticd feeditate, per metropolitanum et comprovinciales 
episcopos excommunicationis vinculo innodetur, et si satis- 
facere contempserit intra annum, significetur hoc summo 
pontifici, ut ex tunc, ipse vassallos ab ejus fidelitate de- 
nunciat absolutos, et terram exponat catholicis occupan- 
dam ; qui eam, exterminatis hereticis, sine ull4 contradictione 
possideant, et in fidei puritate conservent.t 

We have a remarkable instance how this decree has been 
executed, in the case of the Count of Toulouse, for not sup- 
pressing the Albigenses in his dominions: an army of cross- 
bearers was raised against him by the pope’s means: it 
consisted, according to Mezeray,§ of five hundred thousand 
persons (though, he supposes, not all soldiers), among which 
were five or six bishops. They took the town of Beziers, 
and put all to the sword, to the number of sixty thousand 
persons; pursuing the war with like cruelty and fury in many 
other places. And Montfort, the general of this holy war, 
was rewarded with the greatest part of the Count of Tou- 
louse’s dominions ; having deposed him, as a favourer of here- 
tics, he was, for his good service, declared lord of all the 
countries he had conquered. 

Immediately after this famous decree of a general council 
for persecution, and as a comment upon it, the inquisition 
began :} Dominic was made first inquisitor by pope Inno- 
cent ΠῚ. This “holy office,’ in the style of the Roman 
court, has improved the methods of persecution far beyond 
what was known in the days of ancient Babylon and Rome, 
and has long been the most dreadful and barbarous tribunal 
the world ever saw, for all ensnaring arts of injustice in 


* Vid. Pref. 

{ Hist. de I’Eglise, viii. siécle, vol. ii. p. 540. 
+ Ibid. p. 547 

§ Ibid. p. 548, 

] Ibid. p. 550. 


* Concil. Lateran. can. i. de Fide Catholica. 
ἡ Concil. Trident. sect. xili. cap. 5. 

+ Concil. Lateran. can. iii. de Hereticis, 

§ Hist. de France, ad an. 1209. 

| Limborch, Hist. Inquisit. lib. 1, cap, 11, 


1072 


Persecution, all inhuman severity and cruelty in punishment; 
as is evidently proved at large, in Limborch’s History of the 
Inquisition. 

To show, in one instance more, how exactly this persecut- 
ing power answers every particular of the prophetic descrip- 
tion, I shall just mention the bull of pope Martin V. which 
directs the persecution of the followers of Wickliffe, John 
Huss, and Jerome of Prague. “ We will and command, that, 
by this our authority apostolical, ye exhort and admonish all 
the professors of the catholic faith, as emperors, kings, dukes, 
princes, &c. that they expel out of their kingdoms, provinces, 


cities, towns, &c. all and all manner of heretics, according to | 


the effect and tenor of the council of Lateran. That they 
suffer none such within their shires or circuits, to preach, or 
to keep either house or family, either yet to use any handi- 
craft or occupation, or other trades of merchandise, or else 
to solace themselves any ways, or frequent the company of 
Christian men. And furthermore, if such public and known 
heretics shall chance to die (although not so denounced by 
the church), yet in this so great-a crime, let him and them 
want Christian burial. ‘The residue let the foresaid tem- 
poral lords, é&c. take amongst them, with condign deaths, 
without any delay to punish.”* They are enjoined to pu- 
nish heretics with condign death ; that is, they were to com- 
mit them to the flames, and burn them. 

It is moreover to be observed, as a farther agreement with 
the prophetical description, that this tyrannical power, sup- 
porting idolatrous doctrines and worship by persecution, was 
greatly assisted by another like power, in which, as in the 
papacy, both spiritual and temporal authority were united. 

Many bishops, especially the bishops of Germany, had 
large temporal dominions bestowed upon them, in which 
they have regal and sovereign authority ; they receive ho- 
mage, and an oath of fealty, from their subjects; they have 
the supreme power of the sword, both in the punishment of 
their subjects, and in making war; they coin money, levy 
taxes, make treaties with the other states of the empire, and 
with foreign princes; and have all the rights of sovereignty, 
in as full manner as any of the secular electors or princes of 
the empire. 

A very great part of Germany is thus in the hands of ec- 
clesiastical persons, with temporal jurisdiction. It has been 
observed, that in about seventy years, from A. D. 936 to 
1002, the three Othos, who succeeded each other in the em- 
pire, gave two-thirds of the estates of Germany to ecclesi- 
astics ; as Heiss,t a Roman catholic historian, informs us, 
On remarque méme, que son grandpcre, son pére, et lui, 
ont donné aux ecclesiastiques les deux tiers des biens d’Al- 
lemagne. 

These ecclesiastical princes of Germany, notwithstanding 
their temporal sovereignty, have great dependence on the 
popes ; they are obliged to send immediately to Rome, for a 
confirmation of their elections; and to omit it, is a reason 
sufficient for the popes to set aside their election as defective; 
and to take care of the church, or present to it, in case they 
should find their elections uncanonical.+ 

Besides their dependence upon the popes, their interests 
were so mutually linked together, that they supported them 
as one common interest with all their joint powers. It would 
be tedious to enter into a detail of particular instances; I 
shall only mention one, in the warm contest between the 
popes and emperors, about investitures. 

Hildebrand, a man of business and intrigue, of a bold and 
pushing temper, was chosen pope about A. D. 1073, by the 
name of Gregory VII. He resolved to wrest out of the 
hands of the emperors the investiture of bishops, a power 
they had long been possessed of, to nominate the bishops in 
their dominions, and put them into the possession of their 
bishoprics and estates. The pope resolved to take this 
power from the emperors, as a thing unjust and sacrilegious ; 
but the true motive, as Mezeray§ honestly observes, was a 
design upon the empire of Italy, and to subject all princes 
to the power of the papacy. Son vrai motif était le desir 
de lempire d’Italie, et d’asservir tous les princes sous la 
puissance pontificale. 


* Fox, Acts and Monuments, vol. i. p. 738. 
T Hist. de l’Empire, lib. ii. cap. 5, an. 1002. 
+ Heiss, lib. v. cap. 2. § Hist. de France, A. D. 1095. 


REVELATION. 


The quarrel between the pope and Henry IV., then em- 
peror, ran so high, that the pope excommunicated and de- 
posed him; and procured Rodolf, duke of Burgundy and 
Swevia, to be chosen emperor in his place. Many of the 
ecclesiastical princes, with Sigifrid, archbishop of Mentz, at 
the head of them, abjured Henry, took up arms against him, 
and vowed perpetual enmity. Thus an historian of great 
reputation :* Atque hi omnes quos memoravimus, ad Saxones 
sine cunctatione, deserta Cxsaris optimatumque causa, defi- 
ciunt. Ad prztextum mutate voluntatis religionem obten- 
dunt, Henricum communi concilio abjurant, se perpetuo ejus 
fore hostes, quoad vita suppetet, jurejurando sanciunt; pos- 
ted arma capessunt, Cesari insidiantur ; ejus rebus studentes 
oppugnant; insontes, et qui neutri parti favebant, qui fidem 
regi servabant, rebellare recusabant, pacem et otium bello 
preferebant, armis se commiscere abnuebant, Simoniaci, 
Nicolaite, heretici appellabantur, proscribuntur, in scelera- 
torum numero habentur, aris, sacris, convivio, colloquio, sup- 
pliciis, ἃ conspectii conjuratorum arcentur. So zealous were 
they to cause all, both small and great, to submit to the de- 
crees and authority of the pope. 

After the death of Rodolf, the legate of the pope, then 
Pascal II., excommunicates the emperor again; upon which 
the diet deposed the emperor, and chose his son Henry 
(whom they had prevailed upon to rebel against his own father, 
and assist in dethroning him) for emperor in his room. The 
archbishops of Mentz and Cologne were deputed,t with the 
bishop of Worms, to take the crown and imperial ornaments 
from the emperor; which they executed accordingly. Sigo- 
nius himself, a very zealous papist, thus reports it: Henri- 
cum mox, Moguntinus, Coloniensis, et Wormaciensis, antis- 
tites, ἃ conventti missi, adierunt, eumque nomine omnium 
imperatoria insignia sibi reddere imperdrunt, quibus filium 
ejusinduerent. Then alleging some crimes against the church, 
in his appointment of bishops, said to be committed by him, 
they added, Ob has res, pontifici et principibus Germanie 
placuit, te non piorum communione solum, sed regni posses- 
sione etiam, deturbare.+ 

Henry V. having thus usurped his father’s empire, was 
very careful at first to please the court of Rome, and favour 
the ecclesiastical states in all things; but, in some time, con- 
sidering that the papal party only made use of him for their 
own ends, resolved to stand up for the honour and authority 
of the empire. The quarrel grew warm between him and 
pope Pascal.¢ ‘he emperor enters Rome, takes the pope 
prisoner, with several cardinals. The pope, in this distress, 
consents to yield the investitures, in great measure, to the 
emperor; and together with the sixteen cardinals, confirmed 
it by oath on the evangelists. The pope kept up appear- 
ances outwardly, but secretly managed by his legates to 
break his engagements. Hereupon, the better part of the 
ecclesiastical princes of the empire would not receive the 
agreement. Albert, who had been the emperor’s chancellor, 
and whom he had Jately made archbishop of Mentz, moved 
by the pope’s legates, who every where stirred up the bishops 
to arms against the emperor, as a person excommunicated, 
carried on such intrigues in the following diets of the empire, 
that they decreed, the pope had a right to revoke his agree- 
ment in a council.|| 

The pope accordingly assembled a council at Lateran, 
A. D. 1112, which burned the agreement between the pope 
and emperor, and excommunicated the emperor. Upon 
which the archbishops, bishops, prelates, and chapters, re- 
solved to maintain themselves, in disposing their vacant be- 
nefices, by their own election, without any regard to the 
emperor.{ Albert, or Adelbert, archbishop of Mentz, 
formed a powerful league against the emperor. Hee au- 
tem ubi trans Alpes perlata sunt (the decrees of the Late- 
ran council) archiepiscopus Viennensis grave in Henricum 
anathema explicuit, et Moguntinus, cum quibusdam prin- 
cipibus, apertam contra eundam conjurationem inivit.** 


* Aventini Annal. lib. v. p. 455. 

+ Heiss, Hist. de Empire, A. D. 1106. 

+ Sigon. de Regno Italie, p. 238. 

| Heiss, lib. ii. cap. 40, A. Ὁ. 1112. 

« Ibid. ee 

** Sigonius, de Regno Italie, p. 250. Aventin. lib. vi. 
p- 489. 


§ Ibid. p. 248. 


| 
: 


CHAPTER XIII. 


The infidelity of the archbishop of Mentz, against his 
former master and benefactor (as Heiss* himself, a Roman 
catholic, observes), was carried on under pretence of the 
interest of the church, and was supported by the intrigues of 
Rome; and proceeded so far, that armies on both sides took 
the field, and were near an engagement; when, to avoid the 
effusion of blood, and mischiefs of civil war, the emperor 
was forced to submit to the decision of another council at 
Rome. This council was held at Lateran, A. 1). 1122, and, 
as was to be expected from such a method of deciding a 
question between the emperor and pope, it was decided for 
the pope, in favour of the ecclesiastical elections, and against 
the emperor's right of nomination and investiture. 

Thus the great contested point was gained by the popes; 
in obtaining which, the ecclesiastical princes of the empire 
exercised the power of the ecclesiastical prince of Rome 
before him; and “caused the earth, and them that dwell 
therein, to worship him,” and submit themselves to his au- 
thority. 

There are two other considerable parts of the prophetical 
description, the historical accomplishment of which we are 
also to inquire after. They are the two witnesses, and the 
woman flying into the wilderness. 

Several learned persons have shown, at large, a continual 
succession of faithful witnesses to the truth of the Christian 
faith, and who have borne testimony against the usurped 
authority of the popes, their idolatrous doctrines and 
worship, which are the main points of the antichristian 
apostasy. 

A very great part of the church, from the beginning, op- 
posed the worship of images: the council of Frankfort 
solemnly declared against all manner of adoration. On 
condamna toute sorte d’adoration, ou de culte des images.t 

In every after age, some persons appeared in opposition 
to the idolatrous principles and practices countenanced in 
the church of Rome, and against the tyrannical persecuting 
power used in support of them. 

In the following age, between the years 800 and 900, 
Claude Clement, bishop of Turin, a disciple of Felix Urgel, 


opposed not only the worship of images, but all religious | 
use of them. And though Jonas, bishop of Orleans, and | 


others, wrote against Claude, as carrying the point too far, 
yet, as Dupin; observes, they disallowed all worship of 
images. 

In the same age, about A. D. 931, Paschase taught the 
real presence in the sacrament, a doctrine that soon became 
the foundation of another idolatrous practice, in the wor- 
ship of the consecrated bread and wine. No sooner was 
this doctrine published, but many found fault with it; par- 
ticularly Ratramne, a monk of Corbie, wrote a book on 
purpose against it. John Scott, being also consulted by the 
emperor Charles the Bald, opposed the explication of Pas- 
chase; and, Dupin§ allows, advanced propositions con- 
trary to the doctrine of the church, concerning the real pre- 
sence. Their opposition was not only to some expressions 
of Paschase, as the church of Rome would persuade, but to 
the doctrine itself, as it is received and taught in the church 
of Rome. 

In the next age, the tenth, there remained many disciples 
of Claude of Turin, who, in the parts about Piedmont es- 
pecially, preserved and maintained his doctrines against the 
worship of saints and images: or, as Aurelius Rorencus, a 
Piedmontese historian, observes, from the times of Claude 
of Turin, that heresy continued throughout the ninth and 

“tenth ages. 

There were many also in the same age who adhered to 
the doctrines of Ratramne, against the real presence, in the 
English church, as wellas others. Odo, archbishop of Can- 
terbury, about the year 934, found many who questioned it ; 
so that he was fain to cure their infidelity by miracles; for 
according to the tale, he actually changed the bread into 
flesh, and the wine into blood, and then turned them back 
again to their proper forms. Plurimos, de veritate Dominici 
corporis dubitantes, ita roboravit, ut panem altaris versum in 
carnem, vinum calicis in sanguinem propalim ostenderet, et 


* A.D. 1120. 

+ Vol. iii. p. 6. 

|| Spanheim, Hist. Eccles. p. 1472, 
Vor. IV.—135 


{ Dupin, Hist. de l’Eglise, vol. ii. p. 548. 
§ Vol. ii. p. 50, 51. 


1073 


denuo in genuinam speciem retorta, usui humano conduci- 
bilia faceret.* 

I mention this instance the rather, as it is not only a proof 
that the doctrine of the real presence was opposed, but as 
it also shows what use was made of pretended miracles, to 
deceive men; as it is one part of the prophetical descrip- 
tion, that the world should be deceived by such miracles “ to 
worship the beast.” St. Dunstan, his successor, took the 
same course of deceiving the world ; he was, in particular, 
famous for taking the devil by the nose, with a hot pair of 
tongs; a crucifix is said to have made a speech in favour of 
his zeal against the married clergy. Such mighty wonders 
as these had a great influence on men’s minds, in those days 
of darkness and superstition. 

And it may not be amiss to observe, once for all, that 
these miracle-stories are of such consequence in the Roman 
church,f that they are expressly made one of the marks of 
the true church. But to return: 

In the next age, the eleventh, besides the many who ad- 
hered to the doctrines of Claude of Turin, Ratramne, and 
Scott;+ Berenger, favoured by Bishop Bruno, publicly 
opposed the real presence, and had many disciples. He was 
excommunicated, and his writings condemned, together with 
Scott’s book, in a council held at Paris, about the year 
1050; and the doctrine of Berenger was condemned as he- 
retical. The council decreed the author of that heresy, and 
his followers, should be obliged to retract it, or be persecuted 
to death.§ 

How far soever Berenger might be prevailed upon by 
force to soften the doctrines he published, which is usually 
represented by papists as retracting them ; Dupin¢ acknow- 
ledges, that if he did really change his opinion, it could 
not be but a little before his death; that his doctrines occa- 
sioned a considerable controversy in his life, and many of 
his disciples continued firm to it after his death. 

In like manner, in the following twelfth age, Dupin§ ob- 
serves in general, “'There were many heretics (as he calls 
them), in many places, who openly attacked the sacraments 
of the church, and despised her most holy ceremonies ; that 
the severity with which they who were taken were punished, 
did not hinder the sect from increasing: that their doctrines 
spread through all the kingdom of France; many heretics 
appeared, whose chief view was to dissuade men from com- 
munion with the church in its sacraments, and to overturn 
its hierarchy, order, and discipline.” 

To omit particular persons, historians place in this age 
the Vaudois and Albigeois: the one so called from Peter 
Waldo, a merchant of Lyons; the other, from the city of 
Albi, in the diocese of Toulouse, to which a great number 
retired for safety from persecution. 

These Waldenses and Albigenses grew numerous and 
powerful in the following thirteenth age. Pope Innocent 
III. set himself to put a stop to them; he not only ap- 
pointed his legates to preach against them, but excited the 
secular princes and the common people to destroy them. He 
published a crusade against them, which occasioned a long 
war between Montfort, general of the cross-bearers, and the 
count of Toulouse, in which much blood was spilt, and 
many lives sacrificed to the support of the pope’s authority, 
and in defence of idolatrous doctrines and worship. 

In the next age, the fourteenth, the Vaudois continued 
in great numbers, and their opinions spread in almost every 
country: John Wickliffe, a man of great reputation in the 
university of Oxford, began in England to oppose the power 
and authority of the pope, as well as the real presence, and 
several particular corruptions of the Roman doctrines and 
worship. «He left many writings,” says Dupin,** “to sup- 
port his doctrines, and many disciples, who continued to teach 
hiserrors.” Wickliffe was supported during his life by many 
great men; but they who followed his doctrines after his 
death were very severely persecuted. This occasioned the 
spreading of his opinions in Bohemia ; for some of his writ- 


* Wilhelmus Malmsbur. de Gest. Pontif. p. 114, 
ἡ Bellarmin. tom. ii. lib. iv. cap. 14. 

+ Dupin, H. E. vol. iii. p. 146. 

§ Ibid. p. 148. 

ἢ Ibid. p. 151. 

** Tbid. p. 457—481, 


« Ibid. p. 231, 


4p2 


1074 


ings were carried thither by one of his disciples, Peter 
Payn ; so that, in a little time, the doctrine of Wickliffe 
corrupted, says Dupin,* many members of the university of 
Prague. It is also likely, that some of the Vaudois, who 
were in many parts of Germany, had also reached Bohemia, 
and had spread their doctrines there, at the same time that 
Wickliffe taught them in England. 

In the next age, the fifteenth, John Huss, a man of great 
consideration in the university of Prague, and with him 
Jerome of Prague, opposed the condemnation of Wickliffe’s 
writings. John Huss continued both to preach and write 
against the pope, and the corrupt usages of that church, till 
both were condemned by the council of Constance, and put 
to death. 

Their death greatly moved the Bohemians; many of the 
nobles of Bohemia and Moravia entered into a league, not 
to receive the decrees of the council of Constance, and to 
defend the memory of John Huss and Jerome of Prague. 
These were called, “the Bohemian brethren.” They were 
divided into Calixtins and Taborites; the Calixtins, more 
strictly following the opinion of John Huss, principally op- 
posed the corruption of the church of Rome in denying the 
cup in the sacrament to the laity. ‘The Taborites received 
the common principles of the Vaudois and Wickliffe ; de- 
nied the doctrine of transubstantiation, the pope’s authority, 
and most of the corruptions of the church of Rome. 

The next age, the sixteenth, brings us to the time of the 
protestant Reformation, by Luther, Calvin, and others; the 
history of which, and its opposition to the church of Rome, 
are so well known, that we need not enter into particulars. 

Thus we see how the providence of God raised up wit- 
nesses to the truth in every age, who appeared in a public 
manner to testify against the general corruption of the 
church, its idolatrous doctrines and worship, and its perse- 
cuting power, notwithstanding all the arts and cruelties 
used to oppress them. 

It may be proper to add a few remarks to this short ac- 
count of these faithful witnesses, concerning the doctrines 
they maintained, and concerning the number of those who 
thus gave testimony to the truth. 

Concerning the doctrines they maintained, it is evident, 
that Claude of Turin, and his followers in Piedmont, in the 
ninth and tenth ages, were express against all worship of 
images, one point with which the idolatrous corruption of the 
Roman worship began, and in which it still very much 
consists; and these idolatrous corruptions seem to be what 
the witnesses were chiefly to prophesy against. Now Claude 
of Turin believed, says Dupin,} as the Iconoclasts, « that 
images ought to be removed out of the churches. In defence 


of which doctrine, he opposed the authority of a council, and | 


of the pope, who confirmed it, and commanded that images 
should be every where received.” 

The doctrines of Ratramne, Scott, and Berenger opposed 
the doctrine of the real presence, as soon as it appeared ; 
which soon became another occasion of idolatrous worship : 
for the council of Trent, as we before observed, decreed the 
same worship to the consecrated bread, as is given to the true 
God himself. 

Τὴ this opposition to the doctrine of transubstantiation, 
the authority of the pope was directly concerned, as well as 
the truth of the question ; for both councils and popes had 
made use of their authority in it. 


Berenger was excommunicated by pope Leo IX.4 in a | 
council, condemned by the councils of Verceil and Paris, | 


and again by pope Victor II.: yet, in answer to pope Alex- 
ander II., who wrote to him to renounce his error, instead 
of obeying, says Dupin,§ he boldly acquainted him, he would 
do nothing; and remained in his opinions with obstinacy. 
It is worth remark, that this Alexander was predecessor to 
the notorious Hildebrand, who, when pope, by the name of 
Gregory VII., carried the authority of the popes to the 
highest pitch, and used it in the most tyrannical manner : 
yet this Hildebrand himself treated Berenger with great 
mildness, when he had prevailed upon him to make a con- 
fession, in words of ambiguous and doubtful meaning (often 


* Dupin, vol. iii. p. 484. 
+ Ibid. p. 6. 


- + Ibid. p. 147. 
§ P. 150. 


REVELATION. 


the case of subscriptions), though there was so much reason 
to believe he had not altered his opinion. ‘This seems to 
show, as Mr. Basnage* justly observes, “that they had 
a great regard for Berenger; that his doctrine made great 
progress; and that the Roman church itself was greatly 


| divided about it.” 


When we come to the times of the Vaudois and Albigeois, 
we meet with a great deal of unfair management, to misrepre- 
sent them and their opinions. They are charged by some 
popish authors, more especially by the Bishop of Meaux, 
with holding the doctrines of the Manichees. 

It is not to be dissembled, says Basnage,t that in-the 
many parties who opposed the errors and usurped authority 
of the popes, there were some Manicheans out of Bulgaria, 
who, when driven from thence, spread themselves in Italy, 
and the northern provinces of France; but these are in jus- 
tice to be distinguished from the Waldenses and Albigenses, 
and not confounded with them, as the learned Basnage has 
fully proved against the Bishop of Meaux. 

Dupin plainly distinguishes the Manichees from the Vau- 
dois, and assures us they were much worse heretics. “There 
arose,” says he, “at the same time, many particular sects of 
heretics worse than the Vaudois, who revived the ancient 
errors of the Manichees.” But he observes of the Vaudois,+ 
that “they greatly increased in the thirteenth age, notwith- 
standing the inquisition, and spread themselves into Arragon, 
and the valleys of Piedmont, where they continued still hold- 
ing the same doctrines, till they united, in the year 1536, 
with Gicolampadius, and the other sacramentaries.” 

The judicious French historian, speaking of the several 
sects of those times, observes, it would require a volume to 
mention all the sects, their several names and opinions, 
which were alike in some points, and different in others; but 
I think, says he,§ “they may be reduced to two, viz. the 
Albigeois and Vaudois; and that these had very near the 
same opinions with those whom we now call Calvinists.” 

He farther observes, speaking of the heretics in the pro- 
vince of Languedoc,|| that «there were two sorts; the one 
ignorant, given to dissolute manners, with very gross and 
foul errors; and these were a sort of Manichees; the other, 
more knowing, less irregular, and very far from such foul 
actions, held almost the same opinions with the Calvinists, 
and were properly Henricians and Vaudois.” 

De Serres,{ another French historian, though he warmly 
condemns the Albigeois for their separation from the church 
of Rome, yet acknowledges, “he hath seen the reasons of 
their separation in a very ancient manuscript, and that they 
were perfectly agreeable to those which Wickliffe and Luther 
renewed ; that they would not own the authority of the 
pope, nor acknowledge him to be universal bishop; that 
they rejected images, purgatory, the merit of works, indul- 
gences, pilgrimages, vows, celibacy of the clergy, invocation 
of saints, and trading with. sacred things.” 

A contemporary historian, Puy Laurens, has observed 
concerning these Vaudois, that “they disputed with great 
subtlety against the Manicheans. And, by many of their 
ancient writings, it appears they asserted Rome to be Baby- 
lon; that the mass was a pure human invention; that the 
prayers of the living are unprofitable for the dead; that the 
invocation of saints is criminal, and the adoration of bread, 
idolatry :” as may be seen at large in Mr. Basnage’s excel- 
lent History of the Religion of the Reformed Churches. As 
to the doctrines taught by Wickliffe in England, we. may 
take them from one of our own historians,** a great enemy to 
Wickliffe and his opinions, which he censures as erroneous, 
heretical, absurd, and contrary to the catholic faith. But he 
informs us they were such as these: “ That the sacrament is 
not the true body of Christ, but its figure; that the Roman 
church is not the head of all churches more than any other 
church, nor was greater authority given by Christ to Peter 
than to any other apostle; that the pope of Rome has no 
more power of the keys than any other priest; that the gos- 


* Hist. de la Religion des Eglises Reformées, vol. i. p. 
178. 

+ Ibid, p. 251. 

§ Mezeray, tom. ii. p. 656. 

4 Hist. in Basnage Hist. vol. i. p. 235. 

** Tho. Walsingham, Hist. Angl. p. 191. 


+ Vol. iii. p. 316. 
|| Ibid. p. 577. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


pel is a sufficient rule for every Christian in this life. These 
were the doctrines his followers publicly professed and 
taught.” 

Conceming the number of these faithful witnesses, who 
thus testified against the corruptions of popery, it appears to 
have been very considerable, although all methods of oppres- 
sion and persecution were used to destroy them. We have 
seen them arise in every age of the church, and appear in 
almost every place in Italy, France, Spain, England, Ger- 
many, and Bohemia. They were so many who protested 
against the corruptions of popery, that their persecutors were 
fain to raise numerous armies against them. The many 
thousands which perished by these armies, and the inquisi- 
tion, are a full evidence that they were in themselves a great 
number, and that they persevered with a surprising constancy 
in their testimony against the corruptions of the Roman 
communion, though they were persecuted to death with great 
cruelty, and after death treated with great inhumanity. 

So exactly does the general state of the church and world 
answer the description of prophecy, in a great variety of 


1075 


events, and for a long time together. We have already seen 
the prophetical description verified, in the history of near a 
thousand years, in so long a continuance of a tyrannical 
power, corrupting the faith and worship of the church, and 
persecuting the professors of the pure Christian faith and 
worship; who yet have continued, during all this time, faith- 
ful witnesses against these corruptions ; who have constantly 
persevered in their testimony, though under the most cruel 
sufferings on account of it. 

And what but a Spirit of prophecy could have drawn, so 
long beforehand, a description of so many concurrent events, 
so very unlikely to happen, and which were to continue for 
so long a time; and yet so exactly agreeable to historical 
truth, and the general state of the church and world, for a 
thousand years together, and yet which was not to begin till 
near seven hundred years after the prophecy was published ? 
These are strong marks of a real Spirit of prophecy in these 
revelations, which should greatly recommend them to us, and 
persuade our serious attention to “ what the Spirit saith unto 
the churches.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


SECTION XIII. 


1 Anp I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the 
mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four 
thousand, having his Father’s name written in their 
foreheads. 


(1.) After the very melancholy representation I beheld in 
the foregoing visions, of the state of the church and world, I 
saw a more comfortable and encouraging vision, in another 
figurative description of the state of the church. It was re- 
presented to me, as if a Lamb (which signified Christ in for- 
mer Visions) was standing on mount Sion, the place on which 
the temple stood, and therefore an emblem of the church ;* 
and having with him the symbolical number of a hundred 
and forty-four thousand, which before had represented the 
true church apostolical, consisting of faithful worshippers, 
who had the seal of God, the Father of Christ, represented 
by the Lamb, a mark of their consecration to God, and that 
they were owned of God as his chosen and favoured people. ! 


2 And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of 


many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: 
and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their 
harps: 

(2.) I observed farther in my vision, how this glorious 
heavenly church was employed ; for I heard the sound of a 
voice as from heaven, strong as the roaring of the sea, and 
loud as thunder, but musical and harmonious, as if a great 
number of voices were joined in full concert, with sympho- 
nies of musical instruments, as in the solemn worship of the 
temple. 2 


3 And they sung as it were a new song before the 
throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: 
and no tnan could learn that song but the hundred 
and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed 
from the earth. 

(3.) For they were engaged in a solemn act of worship 
before the throne of God, his most immediate presence, in 
company with those living creatures which represented the 
angels of God, and with the four-and-twenty elders, who 
signified the patriarchs and apostles,* as representatives of 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIV. 


Conrents.—The description of the melancholy state of the 
church and world, during this period, in the foregoing 
chapters, might be apt somewhat to discourage good Chris- 
tians and the faithful worshippers of God; for though 
God, by a Spirit of prophecy, had before revealed this suf- 
fering state to the church, and so it was represented, as 
what divine providence thought fit to permit, and what 
was therefore reconcilable to the goodness and power of 
the great Governor of the world ; yet it was a very useful 
design of these revelations, to subjoin proper principles of 
consolation and encouragement to such a melancholy re- 
presentation of temptation, danger, and suffering. 

This seems the intention of this fourteenth chapter, in which 
the scene of the prophetical vision is changed from earth 
to heaven, from a view of the church under the persecu- 
tion of the beast, to a view of the church in the presence 
of the Lamb; delivered from the state of corruption and 
oppression, so much to be expected from this evil world, 
aud arrived at a state of complete and perfect religion and 
happiness in the heavenly church. 

This vision then represents the sure destruction of the ene- 
mies of truth and righteousness in the end, however they 
may prevail for a time ; it shows the very great reward of 
the faithful, and dreadful punishment of the apostate, who 
shall fall from the faith and purity of Christian worship, in 
the day of trial. Thus, this part of the prophecy unites 
the strongest principles of warning, caution, encourage- 
ment, and hope, than which nothing could be more proper 


* Heb. xii. 22, 23. 


or useful for the church, in such a state of providence; or, 
to the general design of the whole prophecy, which is to 
exhort and encourage the constancy and patience of the 
saints, in all their trials. When we consider this chapter 
in this view, it will show a more easy, natural, and pro- 
per connexion between this vision and the foregoing, than 
is usually observed ; and make the whole plan and design 
appear more regular and exact than it is usually thought 
to be. 


1 Ver. 1.] Most of these expressions will be found ex- 
plained in the notes on vii. 10. ‘T'his seems farther to con- 
firm what we there observed, that we are rather to under- 
stand these praises of the heavenly church, than of the 
church on earth. ‘The plan of these prophecies often intro- 
duces the church in heaven as a chorus, with great propriety 
and elegance, as a noble and moving part of the drama. 
The church in heaven making suitable reflections on the 
events foretold in these prophecies, greatly serves to raise 


| the attention of good Christians, and teach the high concern 


they have in them. How wisely is the church on earth in- 
structed, animated, and encouraged, by the sentiments, tem- 
per, and devotion, of the church in heaven, in its most per- 
fect state of glory and happiness ! 

Some copies read, “ Having his name (the name of the 
Lamb) and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.” 
The sense will be much the same, which way soever we 
read it. 

2 Ver. 2.] These expressions are a plain allusion to the 
strength and harmony of the temple music, where so great 


* Rev. iv. 4, 6. 


1076 


the Jewish and Christian churches, now united into one. | 
The psalm of praise they sung was of a new composition ; 
the full knowledge and understanding of which was peculiar 
to those persons who had been truly consecrated to God, and 
had been delivered from the corruptions so generally prevail- 
ing in the world. 


4 These are they which were not defiled with wo- 
men; for they are virgins. These are they which | 
follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were | 
redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto 
God and to the Lamb. 


(4.) These persons were such as persevered in purity, not 
defiling themselves with any of those idolatrous corruptions, 
which are so properly called fornication and adultery in the 
ancient prophets. They did not forsake Christ and his true 
religion, to join in the service or worship of any idol. They 
were fixed in a constant purpose of following the directions 
of Christ, and the institutions of his gospel, in whatever they 
taught, though contrary to the principles and practices in 
fashion, though they were exposed to trouble and persecu- | 
tion on account of it. As the first-born and first-fruits under 
the law were holy and consecrated to God, so were these 
persons redeemed from the rest of mankind, freed from the 
antichristian corruptions of the church, to serve God accord- 
ing to the truth of the Christian religion, faith, and worship. 


5 And in their mouth was found no guile: for they 
are without fault before the throne of God. 

(5.) They were such as worshipped God in sincerity and 
truth; they were upright and honest in their profession, to 
hear and obey the voice of the Lord their God, not teach- 
ing the commandments of men for doctrines of divine au- 
thority, or by false traditions making the commandments of 
God of no effect. ‘They are accepted of God, however cen- 
sured or condemned by the world, and declared, by the su- 
preme Judge of all, members of his true church, which is a 
glorious church, holy, and without blemish. 


6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of hea- 
ven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them 
that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kin- 
dred, and tongue, and people, 

(6.) Asa farther motive to Christian patience and con- 
stancy, this vision of the happy state of faithful Christians 
was followed by another. I perceived an angel flying 
through the air, as a messenger of some important news 
from the upper to the lower world. This was to publish to 
all people the unchangeable constitution of the Christian 
religion, which should remain always the same, in the truth 
of its doctrines, the certainty of its rewards and punishments, 
to everlasting ages. 

7 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give 
glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: 
and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and 
the sea, and the fountains of waters. 

(7.) For the angel declared with a strong voice, to com- 
mand attention, that God would surely inflict a severe punish- 


REVELATION. 


ment on all manner of antichristian idolaters; the hour of 
his judgment should as certainly come as it was foretold. It 
greatly therefore concerned all to fear God, and give glory 
to him only; for this is the worship due to the Creator of 
all things, the only supreme Lord and Governor of the whole 
world. 3 


8 And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon 
is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all 
nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. 


(8.) This more general sentence of judgment against 
idolatrous corruptions of the Christian faith and worship, was 
applied more particularly to the antichristian corruptions of 
this period ; for the former angel was followed in the vision 
by a second, who very distinctly proclaimed, that Babylon 
was to be destroyed, that great city Rome, which had abused 
her latter as well as former power, in maintaining and pro- 
pagating idolatrous doctrines and worship. 


9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a 
loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his 
image, and receive Ais mark in his forehead, or in his 
hand, 

(9.) These two angels were followed in the vision by a 
third, to show the great importance of the message, and of 
attention to it. ‘This third angel declared the great danger 
of complying with the prevailing corruptions of those times ; 
and denounced a severe judgment against all persons who 
should submit to this antichristian power, or any ways pro- 
fess obedience to it, by any public act of acknowledgment or 
homage. 


10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath 
of God, which is poured out without mixture into the 
cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with 
fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, 
and in the presence of the Lamb: 

11 And the smoke of their torment ascended up for 
ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, 
who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever 
receiveth the mark of his name. 


(10.) For he declared every such person liable to the 
most severe punishment, to the most fearful plagues of divine 
vengeance, without hope of any mercy to soften or allay 
them; the wrath of God shall be as a cup of poison, com- 
posed of the strongest ingredients, without any mixture to 
weaken it: the deadly effects of which no antidotes can pre- 
vent. Such shall be the wrath of God, that even death itself 
shall not free them from it, but their torment shall be great, 
as if they suffered the pains of the fiercest fire; and they 
shall suffer this punishment, to their greater shame and con- 
fusion, in the presence of Christ and his holy angels. 
(11.) And their torments shall be endless, as well as most 
severe; the fire that torments them shall never be extin- 
guished, and the smoke of it, which shall ascend up for ever 
and ever, shall show it everlasting. Nor shall they have any 
time of respite or ease ; neither day nor night shall bring 
them any relief; their torments shall never cease, or their 
pains be lessened for ever. 4 


a number of voices and instruments were used, in singing 
psalms and praises to God in their most solemn acts of 
worship. 

3 Ver. 7.1 In the style of prophecy, to show the certainty 
of the prediction, things to be after accomplished are repre- 
sented as already done. This shows the propriety and ele- 
gance of the expression, that an angel should say, “ The hour 
of judgment is come,” so long before the accomplishment, as 
another angel, to foretell the future downfall of Babylon, fol- 
lowed, saying, “ Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” The record of 
this prophecy by John, is a constant preaching of the ever- 
lasting constitution of the gospel to men; whether it means 
any particular opposition to the corruptions of the church in 
this period, as several learned men have thought, whether it 
intimates by whom such opposition shall be made, wherein 
they much differ, I shall leave altogether to the reader’s 
choice. The certainty of the revelation thus solemnly deli- | 
vered by an angel, seems to me the chief, if not the only 
design of the prophecy. 


4 Ver. 11.] We have already seen, that to worship the ! 


beast and his image, to receive his mark, in the forehead or 
in the hand, mean a submission to the autherity of this wild 
beast, the persecuting power revived, in the last government 
of Rome, and so manifestly used to establish the idolatrous 
doctrines and worship of the Roman church. The wine of 
the wrath of God, and the cup of his indignation, are expres- 
sions taken from the language of the prophets. ‘The portion 
assigned by the providence of God to men, is called the “ por- 
tion of their cup.” It was not only customary to treat friends 
with a cup of wine, as a mark of affection, but to execute 
also the sentence of death on offenders, by making them 
drink a cup of wine in which some strong poison had been 
infused. Such was the noted execution of Socrates, by a cup 
of poison. The scriptures mention “a cup of blessing and 
consolation,” and “a cup of trembling and astonishment.” 
God speaks to the prophet Jeremiah, of « the wine-cup of 
his fury, which he was to cause the nations to drink,” Jer. 
xxv. 15, and ver. 18, this is explained by making them, “a 
desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse.” Gro- 
tius seems to give a just account of the expression “ withwut 


. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they 
that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of 
Jesus. 


(12.) In this the patience of the saints shall be manifested 


and perfected; herein their perseverance will consist, that | 
notwithstanding all the evils of persecution, they continue | 


constant in obedience to the commands of God, as the rule 
of their religion, and steadfastly maintain the truths of 
Christ's revelation, the rule of their faith and worship, in 
opposition to all doctrines and worship contrary to it, by 
what authority soever they shall be imposed on the church. 


13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto 
me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the 


Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they | 
may rest from their labours; and their works do fol- 


low them. 
(13.) Asa farther encouragement of faithfulness and con- 
stancy, I was directed by a particular voice from heaven, to 


declare the unspeakable blessing of all such who shall be | 


faithful; as they die in the faith, they die in the favour of | 


God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. ‘The Spirit of revelation 


assures them, not only of an end to all their afflictions in a | 


short time, but that all their patience and faithfulness, in the 
hour of temptation and persecution, shall be rewarded glori- 
ously in a state of perfect and unmixed happiness.® 


14 And I Jooked, and behold a white cloud, and 
upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, hay- 
ing on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a 
sharp sickle. 


(14.) The sure execution of the judgments denounced 
against the corrupters of the Christian religion, was farther 
confirmed by another vision. Christ himself was represented 
sitting upon a bright cloud, which was spread under him, as 
a seat of judgment. He appeared as a man, or like the Son 
of man, in the visions of Daniel,* with a golden crown on his 
head, the ensign of royalty and sovereign power ; and, to ex- 
press the meaning and design of his appearance to judgment, 
he bore in his hand a sharp sickle, wherewith men are used 
to cut down or to reap corn. 


1077 


15 And another angel came out of the temple, ery- 
ing with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, 
Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come 
for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. 


(15.) Soon after, I beheld an angel come out of heaven, 
the true temple and most glorious seat of God’s presence ; 
he came to bring order, or give the word, as from God, 
when the execution of his judgments should begin ; and 
spake with a very strong voice to him that sat on the bright 
cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap ; the appointed time of 
judgment is come, the world is ripe for it, let it be no longer 
delayed, but immediately executed. 


16 And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle 
on the earth; and the earth was reaped. 


(16.) Whereupon the order of God was immediately 
executed ; the inhabitants of the earth were cut off as corn 
is cut down with a sickle, at the appointed time of har- 
vest. ὃ 

17 And another angel came out of the temple which 
is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 

(17.) I farther beheld in my vision, another angel coming 
out of the true temple, which is in heaven; he also ap- 
peared with a sharp sickle in his hands, to assist in this 
execution, and finish the destruction of the enemies of true 


| religion. 


18 And another angel came out from the altar, 
which had power over fire; and cried with a loud ery 
to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in 
thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of 
the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 


(18.) And another angel came out from the altar, on 
which the fire was used to burn continually ; he was sent to 
bring orders to the angel that had the sharp sickle, which 
he delivered in a loud voice, saying, Begin to put in execu- 
tion the righteous judgments of God on this wicked genera- 
tion. ‘The time of God’s vengeance, his appointed time, is 
fully come, and the iniquities of the inhabitants of the earth 
have made them fully ripe for destruction. 7 


mixture,” κεκερασμένου ἀκράτου, to intimate, that the poison- 
ous ingredients were infused in pure unmixed wine, to take 
a stronger tincture, and become a more deadly potion. 


evils we feel in the present life, or fear after it, without ces- 
sation, and without end. A most useful warning, in an hour 
of so dangerous temptation ; a most powerful encouragement 
to undergo any sufferings in the cause of truth, when all who 
betray it, or forsake it, are sure to suffer so much more than 
any can suffer for their faithfulness and constancy in the de- 
fence of it. 

5 Ver. 13.] Some interpreters understand “dying in the 
Lord,” to signify being put to death for constancy in the 
true religion. Others think, to “die in the Lord,” may 
mean more generally to die in the faith and obedience of 
the gospel of Christ, as the Bishop of Meaux : Qui meurent 
dans 16 Seigneur, c’st en général tous les saints, et en par- 
ticulier les saints martyrs, qui meurent pour l'amour de 
lui. 

The expression “ from henceforth,” ἀπαρτὶ, may admit of 
different interpretations ; it will well mean, that as they who 
die in the Lord have, from that time, finished their state of 
temptation and affliction, and from thenceforth “rest from 
their labours,” in like manner “ their works follow them ;” 
and from that time they receive their reward. 

Mr. Daubuz’s observation seems natural and just: “The 
blessedness promised consists in their being happy in their 
separate intermediate state, and in their having at the re- 
surrection their full reward.” 

Every one will see, how great this encouragement is to 
patience and perseverance, the great intention and principal 
doctrine of all these prophecies. 

6 Ver. 16. The opinions of interpreters differ very much 
as to the meaning of this part of the vision. Many seem 
very wide of the purpose. “Harvest” may sometimes be 


* Dan, vii. 13 


The 
judgment itself may well be understood of all the heaviest | 


taken in a good sense, in some places of scripture, and may 
mean God’s bringing or gathering together his people ; or 
in particular, gathering together the saints departed in Christ. 
But as these expressions are plainly taken from the prophet 
Joel, iii. 13, “ Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: 
come, get ye down ; for the press is full, the fats overflow ; 
for their wickedness is great,” the harvest and vintage are 
expressive of judgment. “The harvest is ripe,” means the 
same thing as their wickedness is great, or their iniquity is 
fully ripe. This sense gives a proper and easy connexion 
to the several parts of this vision with each other. Accord- 
ing to the Bishop of Meaux, “ After the denunciation of 
the judgment of God, behold the execution.” The general 
ideas of a harvest and vintage, express the vengeance of 
God on the enemies of his people. ‘The person who ex- 
ecutes this vengeance is Jesus Christ, who himself comes to 
execute this judgment upon his enemies: so that we may 
here also observe, it is not an angel, as elsewhere, but the 
Son of man, Jesus Christ himself, who strikes this blow, 
who has the chief and principal hand in it, though angels 
are also sent to accompany him, and assist in the execution ; 
to show, that this stroke of vengeance on Rome is with all 
the force of a divine hand. It is executed on orders brought 
by angels from the temple, or presence of God, “out of the 
temple which is in heaven” (ver. 17). This may well mean 
that there is an appointed time, when the judgment of God 
shall come on his enemies, as there is in the course of 
natural providence, a time appointed for the season of har- 
vest. The one shall as surely come in its appointed time as 
the other. 

7 Ver. 18.] The “angel who had power over fire,” is an 
allusion, according to Mr. Daubuz, to the office of that 


| priest who was appointed by lot, in the temple-service, to 


take care of the fire upon the altar, and who was therefore 
called “the priest over the fire.”* Grotius, more simply, 


* Maimon. More Nevoch, p. 282, 


1078 


19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, 
and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast zt into the 
great winepress of the wrath of God. 


(19.) Immediately upon this order, the angel began to cut 
down those wicked persons, whose iniquities had made them 
ripe for destruction, and delivered them over to divine ven- 
geance, which should press them hard with grievous afilic- 
tions, as grapes are pressed in a wine-press. 


20 And the winepress was trodden without the 


REVELATION. 


city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto 
the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six 
hundred furlongs. 


(20.) The destruction of those enemies of God and true 
religion, the supporters and favourers of that tyrannical 
idolatrous power, which had so long and so cruelly perse- 
cuted the saints, was great beyond expression; as if their 
blood had been shed in such quantity, that it covered the 
earth for many miles, and yet was so deep, as to reach up to 
a horse’s breast. 8 


« Having the office of God’s vengeance ;” Habens potesta- 
tem supra ignem, habens ministerium ire divine. Accord- 
ing to the theology of the Jewish doctors, omnis virtus vel 
facultas, quam prefecit Deus alicui rei, vocatur angelus illi 
rei prefectus. 

8 Ver. 20.] “Το tread a wine-press, is a prophetic descrip- 
tion of destruction. The expressions of the prophet Isaiah, 
lxiii. 3, “I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the 
people there was none with me,” are thus explained by the 
prophet himself, “I will tread them in mine anger, and 
trample them in my fury ; and their blood shall be sprinkled 
upon my garments, and 1 will stain all my raiment.” The 
images in this vision are very strong and expressive; the 
largest wine-presses were used to be in some places out of 
the city. This is “the great wine-press of the wrath of 
God ;”’ and seems to intimate the great numbers that shall 
be involved in this general destruction. The great quantity 
of blood mentioned in the vision, is a strong image repre- 
senting some great slaughter of the enemies of God and true 
religion ; but what particular judgment this prophecy de- 
scribes, is not well agreed by interpreters. ‘The order of 
these prophecies, and the series of this part of them, will 
not, I think, allow us to understand it of any judgment on 
Rome heathen, or indeed of any judgment before the time of 
the third period, in which the beast arose; for before that 
time none worshipped the beast, or his image, or received his 
mark, but these are the persons to whom this prophecy 
plainly relates. 

Nor does there seem sufficient reason to understand the 
harvest of the reformation begun by Luther,* whereby the 
good corn was separated from the earth, or protestants from 
the idolatry of the Roman church: for the harvest, as well 
as the vintage, is designed to express an approaching 
day of great wrath. 


Nor did the state of Europe, during | 


the reign of Queen Anne,* so exactly answer, I think, 
to all the characters of this prediction, as some have ob- 
served. 

The order of these prophecies, and the more natural con- 
nexion of this part of them with the rest, direct, as I ap- 
prehend, with more propriety, to understand it of the great 
judgment to be inflicted at the end of this period, on the 
beast and his followers. It will then mean that great judg- 
ment which is more particularly and fully explained in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth chapters, and which is to make 
way for the happy state of the church, prophesied of in the 
twentieth chapter. 

This judgment then seems still to be future. It will be 
prudent therefore to leave the time of its accomplishment 
more fully to explain it. In the mean time, we may have, 
however, as much encouragement to patience and perse- 
verance, as awful warnings against apostasy, and yielding 
tothe common corruptions of the age, as if all circumstances 
of the judgments foretold had been more particularly re- 
vealed. We know, in the strong and lively images of the 
general description, that this judgment will as certainly come 
as the appointed time of the harvest; that in the appointed 
time it shall be executed by a hand which no power can 
resist, and from which none can escape ; that in this day of 
judgment, God’s wrath, and the destruction of his enemies, 
will be so great and terrible, that the boldest images can 
hardly represent to our imagination what the enemies of 
true religion shall feel them to be in reality. 

Mr. Waple observes upon this chapter, that a certain 
order of voices is plainly represented, which being also seven 
in number, and distinctly reckoned up, may very well be 
accounted the seven thunders, opened into loud and distinct 
voices. It is fit the reader should be acquianted with this con- 
jecture, and then that it should be left to his own judgment. 


* Daubuz, p. 449. 


* Daubuz, p. 456. 


CHAPTER XV. 


SECTION XIV. 


1 Anp I saw another sign in heaven, great and mar- 
vellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues ; 
for in them is filled up the wrath of God. 


(1.) I beheld another wonderful vision, which the Spirit 
of prophecy represented to me, as in heaven; seven angels 
appeared, agreeable to the number by whom God executed 
his judgments in the former periods, who were appointed 
for the execution of God’s last judgments, on the enemies 
of the Christian church, in which the wrath of God was to 
be finished, in the full and final destruction of his anti- 
christian enemies. 


2 And I saw as it were‘a sea of glass mingled with 
fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the 


beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and 
over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, 
having the harps of God. 

(2.) I moreover saw, as in my former vision of the di- 
vine presence,* that there was a large crystal vessel like 
the molten sea, in the temple, but far more glorious. It 
seemed more shining and lively than bare crystal, having 
the lustre of a red or fiery colour intermixed with it; round 
about the crystal vessel stood those happy servants of God, 
who, by their faith and patience, had preserved themselves 
from the antichristian apostasy; who had not acknow- 
ledged the authority of the beast, by an act of submission. 
They had, as in the temple-service, harps in their hands, 
to accompany their psalms of praise with symphonies of 
music. ! 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XV, 


Conrents.—The prophecy proceeds, in this and the follow- 
ing chapters, to open farther the appointed punishment of 
Rome, for her oppression of the truth, and persecution of 
the saints. This chapter represents the solemn manner 
in which preparation is made for the execution of these 
judgments, as the next describes the actual execution of 
them. The happy state of God’s faithful servants, and 


the joyful thanksgivings with which they celebrate the 
goodness of God in the protection of their cause, are very 
elegantly represented, to encourage their constancy and 
perseverance. 


' Ver. 2.] Interpreters are not agreed what is meant by 
this “sea of glass, mingled with fire.’ It is supposed by 


* Chap. iv. 6. 


| 
| 
| 
| 


CHAPTER XV. 


8 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of 
God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and 
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just 
and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. 

(3.) These happy saints, who had obtained the victory by 
their patience and constancy, were employed in a grateful 


acknowledgment of the goodness of God, from a joyful | 


sense of their former deliverance and present happiness, as 


the Israelites sang the praises of God for their deliverance | 


at the Red sea, in a hymn composed by Moses: so these 
saints, having obtained a greater deliverance and salvation 
by Christ, sang a psalm of praise, of the same spirit with 
that of Moses, but in a style suited to their deliverance and 
salvation by Christ; saying, Thy works, O Lord God Al- 
mighty, are most great and wonderful; thy ways, as the 
King of saints, are most righteous and faithful. 


4 Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy 
name? for thow only art holy: for all nations shall 


come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are | 


made manifest. 


(4.) What abundant reasons have all people, from what | 


thou hast done for us, to worship thee as God, and give 


honour to thy name, as glorious in holiness; so that none | 


among the gods is like unto thee! All nations shall ac- 
knowledge thee the one true God, by worshipping before 
thee; being convinced, by the judgments, that in the great- 
ness of thine excellency, thou hast overthrown them that 
rose up against thee; that thou art the strength of thy peo- 
ple, and their salvation. 2 

5 And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple 
of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was 
opened : 

(5.) When this hymn of praise was ended, the last judg- 
ments of God were farther represented to me in vision. I 
beheld, as if the most holy place, or inmost part of the 
temple, the seat of God’s glory and of the oracle, was 


1079 


opened, as when the high-priest went into the holy of 
holies. 3 


6 And the seven angels came out of the temple, 
having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white 
linen, and having their breasts girded with golden 
girdles. 

(6.) And I beheld seven angels appointed to execute 
these judgments, coming out from the most holy place, as 
having received their instructions from the oracle of God 
himself. ‘They appeared in habits like those the high-priest 
wore when he went into the most holy place, and consulted 
the oracle. _ 

7 And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven 
angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, 
who liveth for ever and ever. 

(7.) When these angels, having received their commis- 
sion, came out of the most holy place, the contents of their 
commission were revealed in the following prophetic re- 
presentation: One of the four living creatures, represen- 
tatives of the angels, gave to each of them a vial or cup, 
not with incense in it, as in the temple worship, but each 
of them was filled with ingredients of deadly qualities, by 
which were signified the wrath of God; who, as he is the 
everlasting God, is ever able to judge and to punish his 
enemies according to their works. 

8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the 
glory of God, and from his power; and no man was 
able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of 
the seven angels were fulfilled. 


(8.) Hereupon I farther beheld, as if the cloud of glory, 
the symbol of God’s presence and power, filled the whole 
temple, as when the presence of God entered the tabernacle 
of Moses, so that it was not to be approached till the judg- 
ments of God should be finished, to express that the glory 
of God’s justice, power, and truth, was highly concerned 
to see these judgments duly and fully executed. 4 


some* to signify the pure state of the church, and the fiery 
indignation to be poured out of the vials; or to denote a 
multitude of saints,} whose state is to be like a “ sea of glass,” 
a pure and holy life in a very unsettled condition, while 
they also endure the fire of persecution ; or it is supposed 
to denote, that God, the searcher of hearts, finds them pure 
as crystal, and warmed with the love of God,¢ as love is 
compared to fire, or a holy people, perfectly pure, and in- 
flamed with the love of God. It is also supposed,§ that it 
is an allusion to the deliverance of the Israelites from the 
hands of the Egyptians, when they had passed the Red 
sea; whereby is signified the preservation and security of 
the saints, during the pouring out of the vials upon the 
wicked. But as the scene of this vision is in heaven, and 
as the vision represents the happy state of those faithful 
servants of God, who had overcome the corruptions of the 
world, it does not seem so natural a description of their 
state in this life; it has a more easy allusion to the sea, 
or large vessel of water in the temple: but this being a 
crystal vessel, shining with rays of a lively red, as if fire 
or some bright light shone through it, it may well represent 
the more perfect purity and active zeal of the heavenly 
church ; and how much more glorious every thing is in the 
state of the church above, than the faint and typical repre- 
sentations of it were in the material temple. 

2 Ver. 4.1] The Bishop of Meaux justly observes, the 
song of praise, after the passage of the Red sea, agrees per- 
fectly well to the martyrs, after they had shed their blood, 
or to those who were passed through a state of persecution 
to a state of rest and happiness; that, by the song of Moses 
and the Lamb, we may understand two psalms of praise, or 
one and the same psalm, composed in imitation of the song 
of Moses. 

In fact, most of the expressions of this psalm, though not 
in the very same words, yet, in their plain sense and mean- 
ing, seem to be taken from the song of Moses, of which it is 
a sort of Christian abridgment. 


* Waple. 


{ Daubuz. 
+ Grotius, Meaux. 


§ Waple, Daubuz. 


3 Ver. 5.] “The temple of the tabernacle of the testi- 
mony,” seems plainly to be meant of the most holy place. 
The whole tabernacle was called, “the tabernacle of the 
congregation which is without the veil, which is before the 
testimony,’ Exod. xxvii. 21. It is also called, “ the taber- 
nacle of witness,’ Acts vii.44. In this tabernacle, there 
was the sanctuary, or holy place, without the veil, and ano- 
ther room within the veil, called the most holy place, in 
which was the visible testimony of God’s presence, and seat 
of the oracle, between the cherubim over the mercy-seat 
(Exod. xxv. 22). 

This prophetic representation seems intended to show 
these judgments of God, threatened, in these prophecies, to 
be inflicted on the enemies of truth and righteousness, were 
surely to be accomplished in their appointed time, as the 
oracle of God was a sure declaration of his will. It is pro- 
nounced as a decree from the throne of the great Lord and 
Sovereign of the whole creation, which he will certainly put 
into execution. 

4 Ver. 8.] The cloud of glory was the visible manifesta- 
tion of God’s presence in the tabernacle and temple; it ex- 
pressed the presence of God, for protection and for judg- 
ment. ‘The glory was a sign of protection, at erecting the 
tabernacle, and at the dedication of the temple: but in the 
judgment of Korah, the glory of the Lord appeared unto all 
the congregation, when he and his companions were swal- 
lowed up by the earth (Numb. xvi. 19). In like manner, 
when the congregation of the children of Israel murmured 
against Moses and Aaron (ver. 42), and were gathered to- 
gether against them, they looked towards the tabernacle of 
the congregation, and behold the cloud covered it, and the 
glory of the Lord appeared. This was the forerunner of 
judgment: for immediately Moses directs Aaron to go 
quickly and make atonement, because “wrath is gone out 
from the Lord, and the plague is begun” (ver. 46.) So pro- 
per is this emblem of smoke from the glory of God, or from 
the cloud of glory, to express the execution of judgment, as 
well as to be a sign of favour. Both proceed from the 
power of God, and in both he is glorious. 


1080 


CHAPTER XVI. 


SECTION XV. 


1 Ann I heard a great voice out of the temple say- 
ing to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out 
the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. 

(1.) All things being thus prepared, the angels having re- 
ceived their instructions from the oracle, and their vials full 
of the wrath of God from one of the cherubim, I heard the 
voice of the oracle give the word of command to the angels, 
to pour out their cups in their order; for the inhabitants of 
the earth were ripe for those judgments which the justice of 
God had appointed for their punishment. 


2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon 
the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore 
upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and 
upon them which worshipped his image. 

(2.) The first angel immediately obeyed the voice of the 
oracle, and poured out his cup upon the earth. This was 
followed with a grievous plague upon those who had fallen 
in with the corruption of the Christian faith and worship, 
or were assisting in the persecution of the faithful witnesses 
against the prevailing corruptions. ‘They were themselves 
punished with great afllictions, as if a noisome and painful 
ulcer had broken out on their bodies (see the history of the 
first vial at the end of this chapter). 

3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon 
the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: 
and every living soul died in the sea. 

(3.) After the judgments of God signified by pouring out 
the first cup on the earth, the second angel obeyed the com- 
mand of the oracle, and poured out his cup on the sea. 


Upon which the waters of the sea became as congealed 
blood, so that no creature could live in the sea, but died; 
to represent another great judgment, the effect of the wrath 
of God upon the promoters of the great apostasy, and per- 
secutors of God’s faithful servants and witnesses ! (see the 
history of the second vial at the end of this chapter). 


4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the 
rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood. 

(4.) After this I beheld the third angel poured out his 
cup full of the wrath of God, in its order. This cup was 
poured on the rivers and fountains of waters, so that they 
were changed into blood. An emblem of great bloodshed, 
the righteous punishment of those antichristian powers, for 
shedding the innocent blood of God’s faithful servants. 2 


5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou 
art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt 
be, because thou hast judged thus. 

(5.) The angel who ministered in the execution of this 
judgment of God on the kingdom of the beast, acknow- 
ledged the righteousness of God, and began his praise, say- 
ing, How does thy righteousness appear in thy ways of pro- 
vidence, O God, who art unchangeable in thy perfections, 
and constant to thy righteous administration of government, 
throughout all ages! How manifest hast thou made it to 
them who will attentively consider thy ways, by this judg- 
ment on the kingdom of the beast! 


6 For they have shed the blood of saints and pro- 
phets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for 
they are worthy. 

(6.) They have, with a cruel execution of tyrannical op- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVI. 


Contents.—This following chapter, contains the judgments 
themselves signified by the seven vials full of the wrath 
of God ; and gives us a prophetic representation of each 
of them in their order; and are an exact description of 
the greater and more eminent judgments of God on the 
inhabitants of the earth, for their enmity to true religion, 
and persecution of the saints, during this third and last 
period. 


1 Ver. 3.] “Earth and sea,” in scripture language, are 
a description of our habitable world, as “ heavens and earth” 
are of the universe in general; as we have observed in the 
note on x. 2. As by “earth” in the former vial, we un- 
derstood the countries, with their inhabitants, subject to the 
new western empire erected in this period, and owning the 
authority of the beast; so the sea will best be understood 
of the same persons, under a different figurative description. 
The difference between the expressions of earth and sea may 
very probably mean, that the former judgments were chiefly 
inflicted on the inhabitants residing in the inland provinces 
of the western empire; but that the judgments of this vial 
are chiefly inflicted on such of the subjects of this empire as 
went out by sea to foreign countries, and aboard fleets, es- 
pecially on the Mediterranean sea, which is used to be styled 
in scripture “ the sea,” and “the great sea.” 

The sea becoming “as the blood of a dead man,” so that 
“ every living soul died in the sea,” are descriptions which 
seem to be taken from the description of the plagues of 
Egypt; by one of which (Exod. vii. 20, 21), “ all the waters 
were turned into blood, so that all the fish that was in the 
river died, and there was blood throughout all the land of 
Egypt.” 

The general meaning of these figurative expressions seems 
to point out some very great mortality or slaughter, so that 
many persons shall perish in some undertaking, or lose their 
lives in some expedition, chiefly carried on by sea. Mr. 
Daubuz observes, from an expression in the prophet Daniel, 
vil. 2, that ««the four winds of the heavens strove upon the 
great sea,” that hereby is meant a comprehension of several 


kings or kingdoms in a state of war, fighting against each 
other to enlarge their dominions.* He applies this inter- 
pretation to our present prophecy. This vial has its effect 
in war, the sea being a symbol of a multitude in war. He 
adds, “It must be such a war, that all the corrupted church 
must be concerned therein; and it must also be on a reli- 
gious account: the corrupted Christians must, as it were, 
bring it upon themselves: and that the men concerned in 
the wars predicted should die therein.” 

2 Ver. 4.] It is observable, there is a great conformity be- 
tween these three first vials and the three first trumpets, 
ch. viii., especially as to the parts of the world on which 
these judgments were to come. In the first trumpet, hail 
and fire, mingled with blood, were cast upon the earth; at 
the sound of the second trumpet, a burning mountain of fire 
was cast into the sea, and the third part of the sea became 
blood; when the third angel sounded, a burning star fell 
from heaven upon the third part of the rivers and fountains 
of waters. Here the plagues of the first vial, in like man- 
ner, fall upon the earth; of the second vial, upon the sea ; 
and of this third vial, upon the rivers and fountains of 
waters. 

We have seen the general meaning of “ rivers and foun- 
tains of waters,’’ according to the style of prophecy, in the 
note on viii. 10. It may be sufficient just to mention here, 
that as the countries belonging to any state are divided into 
earth, sea, and rivers, so this distribution of the kingdom of 
the beast is an intimation, according to the figurative style 
of prophecy, that every part of that kingdom should, in 
proper time and order, receive the punishment due to its 
apostasy and wickedness. 

Dr. Hammond observes, that there is no reason to fix 
any new critical notion singly to either of these expressions, 
but to take them altogether for what was meant by the 
land : as when God is described, xiv. 7, as the Creator of hea- 
ven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water, the 
latter three are set to denote what is elsewhere ordinarily 
called the earth, and no more, in opposition to heaven, that 
is, this inferior terrestrial globe, and all in it. According to 


* Symb. Dict. Sea. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


pressive power, shed the blood of thy saints and prophets; 
and now thou hast inflicted on them the punishment they 
have so justly deserved, and given them blood to drink by 
a great effusion of their own. 3 


7 And I heard another out of the altar say, Even 
so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy 
judgments. 

(7.) This praise of God was continued by another angel, 
who stood by the altar, in the presence, to express the con- 
sent of the heavenly church, to praise the Lord God ΑἹ- 
mighty, and to celebrate his justice and faithfulness in 
punishing the enemies of truth and righteousness, and the 
persecutors of his faithful servants (see the history of the 
third vial at the end of this chapter). 


8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon 
the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch 
men with fire. 


(8.) I farther beheld in my vision, the fourth angel 
obeyed the voice of the oracle; he poured out his cup full 
of the wrath of God upon the sun, whereby the heat of it 
was so violently increased, that, like a burning season, it 
gave great uneasiness and pain to the inhabitants of the 
earth. 


9 And men were scorched with great heat, and 
blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over 
these plagues: and they repented not to give him 
glory. 

(9.) They were greatly afflicted, as in those violent heats, 
which are used to burn up the fruits of the earth, to produce 
scarcity and famine, with an unhealthful air, dangerous dis- 
tempers, great faintness, and pains. Yet these judgments 
of God, one after another, made no impression on their hearts, 
they were still hardened in wickedness; they even blas- 
phemed the name of God, who thus justly punished them, 
instead of repenting of those sins which had deserved these 
judgments, and so justly brought them upon them (see the 
history of the fourth vial at the end of this chapter). 


10 And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the 


1081 


seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of dark- 
ness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, 

(10.) I farther beheld in my vision, that the fifth angel 
poured out his cup in his order; in which period the wrath 
of God was more remarkably to affect the seat, or throne 
and kingdom, of the beast. The extent, authority, and 
power of his antichristian empire were to be greatly ob- 
scured, and the influence of his government much diminish- 
ed; so that they bit their tongues for vexation, as persons 
full of anguish and rage. 

11 And blasphemed the God of heaven because of 
their pains and their sores, and repented not of their 
deeds. 

(11,) Yet still these judgments had no effect to reform 
these enemies to the truth and purity of the Christian faith 
and religion ; they rather blasphemed the supreme Governor 
of the world, by accusing his providence, on account of the 
evils which came upon them, but had no thoughts of re- 
pentance for those evil actions, the true reason why they 
were punished (see the history of the fifth vial at the end 
of this chapter). 

12 And the sixth angel poured out his yial upon 
the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was 
dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might 
be prepared. 

(12.) The sixth angel poured out his cup also, in his 
order, immediately after the foregoing. ‘The punishment 
figuratively represented by it, was drying up the river Eu- 
phrates, so famous as a boundary against the invasions of 
the eastern nations, that they might have an easy passage 
to invade their neighbours; signifying, a way should be pre- 
pared for the enemies of this antichristian kingdom to break 
in upon it. 4 

13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come 
out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the 
mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false 
prophet. 


(13.) I farther saw, in my prophetic vision, another figu- 


this meaning of the expressions, these plagues will chiefly 
denote some judgments to be inflicted on the kingdom of 
the beast, and the more considerable parts of it. It is a 
judicious observation in general, that we should carefully 
avoid carrying any figurative expression of prophecy too far, 
which has often lost the true meaning in the end. 

Probable reasons are however alleged for a more particu- 
lar application of these expressions. “Rivers and fountains 
of waters” may not unfitly signify the original countries, or 
seats of empire, in distinction from the provinces, as foun- 
tains are the original of rivers, which run in one common 
collection of waters into the sea; and as waters are neces- 
sary for life, so, when they are infected and become deadly, 
they are an emblem of such judgments as should cut off the 
very supports of life. Finally, the waters becoming blood, 
so that God gave them blood to drink, because they shed 
the blood of his saints and prophets, seems farther to show, 
that this judgment was to consist in much bloodshed and 
slaughter ; as they persecuted the martyrs by shedding their 
blood, they should suffer in like manner, and their blood 
should be shed by each other’s hands, according to the ex- 
pressions of this prophecy, xiii. 10, “He that killeth with 
the sword must be killed with the sword;” or, in the words 
of the author of the Wisdom of Solomon, concerning the pun- 
ishment of Egypt, “That they might know that wherewithal 
a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished” (xi. 16). 

3 Ver. 6.] The remark of the Bishop of Meaux on-these 
words deserves to be taken notice of: “They have their 
bellyfull of blood, of which they are so greedy, especially in 
civil wars, where each one seems to drink the blood of his 
fellow-citizens.” 

4 Ver. 12.] The antichristian kingdom of the beast is de- 
scribed all along in expressions taken from the ancient pro- 
phets. It has, therefore, in prophetic style, its barrier, 
called Euphrates, in allusion to that river so memorable in 
the history of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, and so 
often represented in scripture as the frontier and boundary of 

Vor. [V.—136 


the holy land; great rivers, such as was Euphrates, being 
usually both boundaries and barriers; so that to dry up a 
river, or the waters of it, that the kings on the other side 
may pass over it, is a very natural figure to express the inva- 
sion of one kingdom by another, and that the usual boun- 
dary or barrier is not sufficient to prevent an invasion, or to 
keep the nations on each side within their own bounds. 

“The kings of the east,” in the language of scripture, 
were such as reigned to the eastward of Judea, or on the 
east side of the river Euphrates. These were, in their order, 
the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian, who all were to 
pass the river Euphrates when they invaded Judea. So 
that the expression of drying up the water of the river, that 
the way of the kings of the east might be prepared, will very 
properly signify such kingdoms or empires as shall border 
on the kingdom of the beast, especially to the east, or to the 
eastward of the boundaries and barrier of his dominions. 

Some interpreters consider this expression as a more par 
ticular allusion to the memorable taking of Babylon by Cy 
rus: for Cyrus took the city by night, having first dried up 
the stream of the river Euphrates, which ran through the 
city, by turning the channel into a lake, according to the 
account given both by Herodotus and Xenophon, as well as 
by the scriptures, as Dr. Prideaux observes.* 

The Turks are originally an eastern people; their domi- 
nions are the eastern boundaries of the pope’s territories, 
especially as Naples and Sicily are accounted fiefs of the 
Roman see. They may then be intended by the kings of 
the east, and the river Euphrates may signify the Adriatic 
sea, or gulf of Venice, which is the eastern boundary of the 
pope’s dominions, even of the exarchate of Ravenna, which 
is most properly the patrimony of St. Peter, in the style of 
the Roman court. As this sixth vial or cup is to be an- 
swered by some historical event, after the preceding weaken- 
ing of the papal power by the protestant reformation, it 


* Connex. par. i. lib. ii, B. C. 539. 
4Q 


1082 


rative representation, as if the dragon, or emblem of the 
devil, and the beast, the emblem of this antichristian power, 
and the false prophet, the emblem of those who, by false 
doctrines and all the arts of deceit, endeavoured to support 
and propagate these antichristian corruptions, sent forth 
unclean spirits resembling frogs; each of them one. 5 


14 For they are the spirits of devils, working mira- 
cles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of 
the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that 
great day of God Almighty. 


(14.) These three unclean spirits were a representation 
of persons who had the bad qualities of demons or devils, 
fully possessed with their bad temper, and engaged to op- 
pose the truth and power of religion, by all the deceitful 
arts of error and false reasoning, by imposing upon the weak 
and credulous, by pretences to wondrous and miraculous 
works. ‘These were employed to use all their evil arts and 
wicked policy, to excite the princes and great men of the 
world to unite more firmly against truth and righteousness, 
the cause of God and religion, and to make a new effort to 
establish error and corruption. 


15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed zs he that 
watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk 
naked, and they see his shame. 

(15.) When it was thus foretold that these evil agents 
would manage with great art and address in support of their 
bad cause, the Spirit of wisdom added a useful caution, 
that the faithful servants of God should use great care to 
preserve themselves from being deceived; they should re- 


REVELATION. 


member the warning of Christ their Lord, that his coming 
would be with surprise, as when thieves come unexpectedly 
in the night. Let all then who would faithfully persevere 
watch over themselves, to maintain their purity and inte- 
grity, lest, when Christ shall come, they be exposed to 
ΕΣ, and disgrace, without any covering for their sin and 
olly. 


16 And he gathered them together into a place called 
in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. 


(16.) For Satan, by these evil seducing spirits shall ga- 
ther many of all ranks of men into a place where they shall 
be destroyed, which may therefore, in the style of prophecy, 
be called the mountain of Mageddo, famous in the history 
of God's people for several memorable slaughters, and which 
became a proverbial expression for a place of destruction 
and mourning. © 


17 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into 
the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple 
of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. 


(17.) Upon this great and last effort of the antichristian 
powers to support the throne of the beast, the seventh angel, 
who had the last cup, full of the wrath of God to pour out, 
poured it into the air, the seat of Satan’s empire, and his 
residence. ‘The meaning of this judgment was explained by 
the oracle, for a voice from the throne of the temple in hea- 
ven declared, It is done, the mystery of God is finished ; 
and this last cup of God’s wrath has fully finished God’s 
judgments on the persecutors of his church,\in their final 
destruction. 7 


seems probable this prophecy is not yet accomplished; I 
shall not therefore attempt to apply any particular history 
to it, but shall leave a fuller explication of it to future times, 
and shall only make these general remarks upon it. 

First, That it seems to intend some farther judgment on 
the pope’s kingdom, and most likely by some invasion of 
his dominions; as it is pouring out a vial or cup full of the 
wrath of God, it must, I think, be understood of some pu- 
nishment inflicted on the beast’s kingdom, as all the former 
vials were ; and as it is preparing a way for the kings of the 
east, it most likely means some punishment to be inflicted 
by an invasion from some empire or kingdom on its eastern 
boundary. 

Secondly, This judgment most probably means some de- 
scent of the Turks, who are now the eastern neighbours of 
Italy, and may some time or other have an opportunity, as 
they always have an inclination, to break in upon a country 
that lies so near, and is so inviting ; or if any other nation 
should become the eastern neighbour of Italy, even the em- 
pire itself might not spare the Roman territories, the better 
to support its own pretensions and claims on the other 
kingdoms and states of that fine country. But this 1 pro- 
pose only as a probable conjecture. 

Yet I may observe, that I apprehend the order and series 
of those prophecies will not admit the interpretation of 
some authors, who understand it of the conquest of the 
eastern empire, by the taking of Constantinople. This would 
greatly confound the periods, and throw the prophecies out 


of all order. This period must, according to the series of the | 


vials, fall in, I think, within some time between the years 
1700 and 1900. 

Besides, the conquest of the eastern empire will not, as 
I apprehend, answer a particular judgment on the papal 
power and kingdom, which seems to be the plain and direct 
intention of the prophecy itself; so that, without saying 
what in particular, we may probably conjecture, it will be 
some future judgment on the papal power, by some future 
invasion of the pope’s dominions from the east. ‘Though it 
is proper to acquaint the reader farther, that some learned 
men understand a figurative Euphrates, some obstacles that 
stopped the princes of Europe from attacking directly the 
church-empire, especially in its ecclesiastical capacities; 
that this Euphrates will be dried up, or these obstacles re- 
moved, when the terror formerly arising from the bulls, 
edicts, and censures of Rome shall be shaken off, and the 
neighbouring princes and states shall attack the popes them- 
selves, if they shall either excite their subjects to rebellion, 
or disturb them in their government: or even, if they shall 


refuse what their powerful neighbours require and demand 
of them, of which we have some eminent instances in the 
chief Roman catholic powers, Spain and Portugal them- 
selves not excepted. 

5 Ver. 13.] ‘This is the first time in which « the false pro- 
phet” is mentioned. It is observable, he is always men- 
tioned together with the devil and beast, as one of the three 
principal enemies of pure religion; he is referred to as a 
known character taken notice of before; he is represented 
as one who wrought miracles before the beast (xix. 20). 
Now, in the description of the enemies of true religion 
(ch. xiii.), we have express mention of three chiefs: the 
devil; the first beast that rose out of the earth; the second 
beast, that rose out of the sea: this second beast was to “do 
great wonders, to cause them that dwell on the earth to 
worship the first beast.” ‘This agrees so exactly with the 
character of the false prophet here, that I think we may 
consider it as a different title of the second beast; for the 
meaning of which, see notes on xiii. 12. 

6 Ver. 16.] Mageddo, or Megiddo, was a city belonging 
to Manasseh, out of which they could not drive the Ca- 
naanites, when the kings of Canaan fought by the waters of 
Megiddo (Judg. v. 19). Jt was also famous for the defeat 
of Ahaziah and Joram, by Jehu, when both the kings of 
Judah and Israel were slain (2 Kings ix. 27). It was after- 
ward memorable for the death of king Josiah, slain by 
Pharaoh-necho, king of Egypt (2 Kings xxiii. 29). So 
that the “ mourning in the valley of Megiddo,” is used as a 
proverbial expression by the prophet Zechariah, for a great 
mourning (xii. 11, 12). 

Whoever the three unclean spirits are, whether, as Mr. 
Daubuz has hinted, the monks, the religious knights, and 
the secular clergy, of the Roman church, or, more at large, 
all who warmly engage in support of this antichristian throne 
and kingdom; they yet seem plainly to intimate some 
powerful league or confederacy, by which the principal 
popish powers shall be engaged with all their forces in some 
war, in which they shall be totally overthrown, and which 
shall end in their final destruction, as seems to be moce fully 
expressed in the description of the seventh vial, or last cup. 
So that we may conjecture, the fulfilling of this part of the 
prophecy is reserved for the times near the end of this 
period; the more full explication of which ought, as I ap- 
prehend, to be referred to those times themselves. 

7 Ver. 17.] Satan is represented in scripture, the god of 
this world, the chief director and agent of all the corruption 
in it, and is called “the prince of the power of the air,’ 
Eph. ii. 2. So that “pouring the vial into the air,” is ἃ 


CHAPTER XVI. 


18 And there were voices, and thunders, and light- 
nings ; and there was a great earthquake, such as was 
not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earth- 
quake, and so great. 

(18.) When the voice of the oracle had pronounced, It 
is finished, the air on which the vial was poured appeared 
in violent commotions; there followed thunders and light- 
nings, as if nature was in convulsions; there was such an 
earthquake as had never been before since God had placed 
man on the earth to inhabit it; to represent the very great 
and terrible commotions of the world, when God should ap- 
pear in so remarkable a manner, to destroy the powers of 
the prince of the air, with his associated antichristian powers 
of the earth. 

19 And the great city was divided into three parts, 
and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon 
came in remembrance before God, to give unto her 
the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. 

(19.) The effects of this tempest and earthquake reached 
the several cities of the antichristian nations, and the great 
imperial city itself. It quite threw down several cities to 
the ground, and split the city of Rome in several parts; to 
represent that this judgment should punish mystical Baby- 
lon with very great and exemplary severity. 

20 And every island fled away, and the mountains 
were not found. 


1083 


20.) This punishment was so general on all the anti- 
christian powers, that it reached every place, nor could men 
find protection against it any where; it was like a hurricane 
that reached islands and mountains, and utterly destroyed 
them, as well as it threw down cities and towns in valleys, 
and on the land. 


21 And there fell upon men a great hail out of 
heaven, every stune about the weight of a talent: and 
men blasphemed God because of the plague of the 
hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great. 


(21.) Yet farther to show how terrible this judgment 
should be, besides the representation of thunder, lightning, 
and an earthquake, by which cities and towns were thrown 
down and destroyed, there fell a great hail, with stones of so 
extraordinary weight, as were sufficient to kill all who fled 
into the open fields for safety; to represent that this severe 
and heavy judgment was general every where ; that none were 
able in any place to escape their share in the punishment: 
yet even these judgments could not overcome the obstinacy 
of the enemies of truth and righteousness. The anguish of 
their minds on account of these plagues made them more 
uneasy and discontented; they blasphemously censured 
God’s government of the world, which at once served to 
aggravate their guilt, and illustrate the justice of God, in 
the severity of his righteous judgments upon them. 8 


proper expression to point out the very seat and foundation 
of Satan’s power and authority, as god of this world, whereby 
he worketh in the children of disobedience. Satan is per- 
haps called “the prince of the power of the air,” to signify 
that his power is only in this lower world, or, in the language 
of scripture, over things done under the sun, where there 
are so many children of disobedience, whom he may work 
up to serve his evil purposes. And this representation 
seems to intend, that when this last vial should be poured 
out, Satan shall be bound up; his power shall be so re- 
strained, that he shall no longer be able to prevail, either to 
corrupt the truth of the Christian religion, or persecute the 
faithful professors of it. 

8 Ver. 21.] The fulfilling of this part of the prophecy is, 
according to the order and series, at so great distance, that 
we can only guess at the historical events which are to an- 
swer them, and even such conjectures will likely be very un- 
certain too: yet as these prophecies are designed for the 
benefit of the church in every age, to encourage patience 
and faithfulness, from hope in God's promises of protection 
and deliverance, we learn in general this useful and certain 
truth—that the remaining efforts of the antichristian 
powers against the truth and purity of the Christian faith 


and religion, whatever they may be, shall as surely be pu- 
nished in the times yet to come, as we have seen they were 
punished in the times already past. And farther, we may 
well be satisfied, that this plague, which will fall in with the 
times of the last period, at the end of it, suppose, from about 
the year 1900 to about the year 2016, shall quite destroy 
the tyrannical and persecuting power of the antichristian 
kingdom, and make way for the next period, the pure and 
happy state of the Christian church, which, in the order of 
these prophecies, is to follow upon the downfall of mystical 
Babylon, when the dragon, which is the devil and Satan, 
shall be bound and shut up in the bottomless pit (Rev. xx. 
2,3). This may then be looked upon as a sure word of 
prophecy, that this antichristian power must and shall cer- 
tainly fall in God’s appointed time, though all the powers 
of wickedness unite all their strength, and collect all their 
force together to defend it; the last vial shall have as sure an 
effect as all the former vials have already had. This 
should encourage the faith and patience of all saints, exhort 
them to “ be steadfast and unmoveable, always to abound in 
the work of the Lord; for his counsel shall stand for ever, 
and the thoughts of his heart unto all generations.” 


HISTORY OF THE VIALS. 


First vial—This plague of the first vial, or cup, seems to 
be an allusion to one of the plagues of Egypt, when Moses 
and Aaron took up ashes of the furnace, and sprinkled it up 
towards heaven, and it became “a boil breaking forth 
with blains upon man and beast” (Exod. ix. 10); or to the 
afilictions of Job, when Satan, by God’s permission, smote 
him “with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his 
crown” (Job ii. 7). 

Painful and noisome distempers of the body are very 
proper emblems of an afflictive condition of life; hence, 
for “ every man to know his own sore and his own grief,” 
are expressions of the same meaning in the language of 
scripture (2 Chron. vi. 29). 

Such general interpretations of these plagues would give 
usa very useful sense of this part of prophecy, if we were 
to understand no more of it than this—That the justice of 
God will, by a series of events in providence, to the end of 
the world, punish the enemies of true religion, and those 
who persecute his faithful servants. This would be an en- 
couragement to faith and patience; a reasonable warning 
not to be partakers in such guilt, lest we also be partakers 


of such punishments, even though we should be of the same 
opinion with an eminent author:* “ As to the vials, though 
they do plainly reach in a series to the end of the world, I 
am not satisfied with any exposition I have yet met with 
concerning their precise time or contents.” 

The plan of these prophecies, the order of the periods, 
the successive series of events, may, however, I conceive, 
give a farther light to the general expressions, and furnish 
us with particular facts in providence, important in them- 
selves, and properly applicable to the several prophetical 
descriptions ; such as may show, that the historical events 
of this period are as agreeable to the revelation of prophecy 
as any of the former. 

It is true, as the same ingenious author observes, “ mo- 
desty and sobriety are in all things commendable; and in 
nothing more, than in the explication of these sacred mys- 
teries.” I shall endeavour, therefore, τυ ἢ the modesty due 
to such inquiries, to mention such events in history as I 
think applicable both to the description and order of the 
prophecies; leaving it to the judgment of the readers, to 
give them what degree of evidence they shall think they de- 


* Burnet, Theory, lib, iii. cap. 5. 


1084 


serve: only premising this observation—there is a general 
use to be made of a more general meaning, for the encou- 
ragement of faith and patience, and to warn us against fall- 
ing in with the great apostasy of this period, though we 
should not be satisfied with the precise time or contents of 
each particular judgment signified by the several vials in 
their order. 

These vials, full of the wrath of God, seem plainly deter- 
mined as to their time, to this third period ; and this renders 
all expositions of them improbable, which refer them to any 
part of history before the period itself begins. This one con- 
sideration may set aside many of the expositions which 
learned men have given us of them: they are to be poured 
out upon those who had the mark of the beast, and who 
worshipped his image; they are therefore to be considered 
belonging to the fimes in which the beast reigns, and are to 
be looked for in the times after the popes were invested 
with the temporal power of Rome, which is evidently the 
last form of Roman government, and has now continued to 
be so for near a thousand years to our times, 

Tt seems farther a very natural rule of interpretation, to 
consider the vials in successive order, describing the events 
of providence, at proper intervals, one after another, during 
the twelve hundred and sixty years in which this third pe- 
riod of prophecy is to continue; so that the last plague is 
to end with the downfall of this mystical Babylon. Let us 
then see, whether, following this guide, we may not find out 
something concerning the times and contents of these vials, 
which may give us reasonable satisfaction. 

This plague of the first vial will then be the first in 
order, and in time; this will direct us, I think, to look for 
it in the times next to the rise of the beast; and, for its 


porters of this antichristian power. 

We have already seen, that the pope received the tem- 
poral power of Rome, together with the exarchate of Ra- 
venna, as the patrimony of St. Peter, about the year 756, 
by the assistance of Pepin, king of France. 

Charles the Great, son of Pepin, was proclaimed em- 
peror by the pope’s means, A. D. 800. This prince carried 
the French monarchy to a very large extent, having France, 
Germany, and Italy within the bounds of his dominion ; 
in quality of emperor, he confirmed the grant of the exar- 
chate to the popes, and enlarged the donation of his father 
Pepin.” 

Charles the Great, like another Constantine, seemed to 
have laid the foundation of a great and prosperous empire 
for his family, and a state of great outward prosperity for 
the church. 


But it appeared, in a very few years, that notwithstanding | 


all the care of Charles the Great, and his son Lewis, sur- 
named the Pious, that all sorts of corruptions gained ground, 
and continually prevailed both in church and state. The 


worship of saints and images, the doctrine of purgatory, and | 


masses for the dead, the doctrine of the real presence, and 
adoration of the consecrated bread, the perfection and merit 
of a monastic life, the superstitious and idolatrous worship 
founded on these doctrines, became the sum of religion. The 
state of the church in these times is not unfairly represented 
by ἃ very learned historian.~ Nimis increvit hoc seculo per 
civiles et bellicas calamitates, indulgentiamque principum, 
vitio cleri, ambitione pontificum, desidid monarchorum, 
fceda corrnptio et vere antichristiana, in doctrind, cultd, 
moribus, regimine. 

The doctrine of the pope’s supremacy and power over the 


whole church was in particular carried to a great height; | 


great indeed, as represented by the Roman writers; in par- 
ticular, that the imperial dignity was conferred, and the 
translation made of the empire from the Greeks to the 
French, by the proper authority of the Roman bishops; so 
that cardinal Baronius observes, that the title of the west- 
ern empire was taken from the Greeks, by the pope’s 
authority, for heresy: Jacuisse absque possessore titulum 
occidentalis imperii, ἃ Grecis ob hzreses, auctoritate pon- 
tificié, sublatum. This authority is asserted to be seated 
in the pope, and, by divine right, in him primarily: Ex 


* Heiss, Hist. de YEmpire, vol. i. p. 51. 
ἡ Spanheim, Hist. Eccl. secul. ix. cap. 5, p. 1343. 


REVELATION. 


insita ipsi Romano pontifici, concess& divinitus, auctoritate, 
ex potestate que in ipso primarid resideat. Hence the 
whole power of the emperors is said to be wholly from the 
grace of God, and of the apostolic see: Igitur Dei, et 
apostolice sedis gratia, totum hoc esse, quod consecuti sunt 
occidentalis orbis imperatores.* More may be seen to the 
same purpose in the learned Spanbeim. 

It would be too long to mention the intrigues by which 
the popes endeavoured to weaken the imperial power, and 
render the emperors odious and contemptible, as a noted 
French historiant observes. ‘Pope Gregory IV. had a 
great hand in the troubles of the emperor Lewis the Pious, 
gave secret encouragement to his sons, in their mutual re- 
bellion, and to Ebbo archbishop of Rheims, and the bishops 
of France, when they actually deposed him at Compeign, 
A.D. 833.” + Fovisse eum (Gregorium papam) nefario 
studio, rebellionem filiorum Ludovici, in optimum ac muni- 
ficum in Romanam ecclesiam principem, demerendo sibi 
Lothario, cujus rei non unum documentum est. Nec 
dubium est, quin clim ἃ pontifice inducti fuerint episcopi 
Gallicani, principibus Ebbone Rhemensi, et Agobardo Lug- 
dunensi, quum deposuére imperatorem, apud Compendium 
dieecesios Suessionensis, anno 833. This was so fully 
known, that many of the clergy of France publicly charged 
pope Gregory with it. Quare idem Gregorius pontifex ἃ 
Francie melioribus episcopis accusatus est, quod immemor 
esset pastoralis officii, moderationis, jurisjurandi facti im- 
peratori. Dupin] gives very near the same account with 
Spanheim. 

A little after this, pope John VIII. assumed the autho- 
rity of giving the empire to Charles the Bald of France, in 


| prejudice to the rights of Lewis of Germany, the elder 
contents, in the first remarkable punishment on the sup- | 


branch. Mortuo Ludovico :mperatore, in prejudicium 
Ludovici Germanorum regis, fratris natii majoris, ad imperii 
Romani sceptra provehit, ac coronam imponit, interpretatus 
sincerum beneficium, et jus apostolice sedis. “His holi- 
ness,” says a popish historian,** “with the other prelates, 
judging they had more to get by Charles than Lewis, gave 
him the preference, and crowned him emperor on Christmas- 
day, anno 875.” But Charles, as the same historian observes, 
obtained this favour of the pope, at the expense of the rights 
of his imperial crown and sovereign dignity ; insomuch that, 
of a superior, which he was before, he became a sort of vas- 
sal. He also gave up many of the rights of the Gallican 
church, and promised by oath to protect the pope against all 
persons.tf 

These ambitious views and growing power of the bishops 
of Rome,i+ greatly weakened the government and authority 
of that family, to which it owed its greatness and support. 
It proved a painful sore, and incurable ulcer, and was in 
great measure the cause of those many evils, which for so 
long a time afflicted the inhabitants of the earth, during the 
quarrels and contests between the successors of Charles the 
Great, which ended at last in their ruin, carried the crown of 
France to Hugh Capet, and transferred the kingdom to 
another family, and the imperial dignity to the Germans, 
another nation and people; and in these evils, Italy and 


_ Rome itself had their share, according to the righteous judg- 


ments of God. 

The sons of Lewis the Pious, among whom his empire was 
divided, could no more agree among themselves after their 
father’s death, than they could with him while he was living : 
their differences were only to be decided by the sword. The 
battle of Fontenay, A. D. 841, was obstinate and bloody; a 
hundred thousand men were slain in battle: a blow that so 
weakened the family of Charles the Great, that it could 
never after recover itself. Depuis le commencement de la 
monarchie Francaise jusqu’a ce temps que j’écris, says a ce- 
lebrated French historian,§§ il ne s’est point repandu tant de 
sang Francais en quelque journée que c’ait été; il y perit 


* Spanheim, ibid. p. 1348. 

ἡ Mezeray, vol. i. p. 292. 

+ Spanheim, ib. p. 1354. 

|| Dupin, Hist. de l’Eglise, vol. iii. p. 9. 
4 Spanheim, ib. p. 1359. 

** Heiss, Hist. de Empire, vol. i. p. 91. 
TT Ibid. p. 92. ++ Mezeray, vol. i. p. 347. 
§§ Ibid. vol. i. p. 314, 


§ Ibid. p. 1355. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


cent mille hommes, horrible plaie, et que affoiblit si fort la 
maison Carlienne, qu'elle ne s’en put jamais remettre. 
Cedes miserabilis facta, says another historian,* omnis 
prope nobilitas Francica cwsa, pertinaci inter se certamine. 

The emperor Charles, surnamed Le Gros, reunited most 
of the dominions of Charles the Great; he inherited Ger- 
many from his father, and upon the death of his cousin 
Lewis, succeeded him in the empire of Italy and kingdom 
of France. He was crowned emperor by the pope, A. D. 


880, and received king of France A. D. 884, the French | 


passing over Charles the Simple, as too young for govern- 
ment: but this prince was soon forsaken by his subjects, 


who chose in his room Arnold, his brother's natural son, | 


about A. D. S87. The defection was so general, that he was 
reduced to great misery and want; insomuch, that he had 
not a servant to attend him, nor a penny to buy him bread ; 


only Luitprand bishop of Mentz had any pity for him, and | 


at Jast kept him from starving. En sorte, says Mezeray,t+ 
quw’il ne lui resta pas un valet pour le servir, ni un seul 
denier pour vivre, il n’y eut que Luitperd evéque de Mayence, 
qui en eut pitié et lui donna ἃ manger. 

At the death of this Charles Le Gros, the family of 
Charles the Great was reduced to two princes, Arnold na- 
tural son of Carloman, and Charles surnamed the Simple ; 
but there were several persons of great power descended 
from some of the daughters of Charles the Great,; as Eudes 
earl of Paris and duke of France, Berenger duke of Friuli, 
and Guy duke of Spoleto in Italy. France chose Eudes 
for their king; this occasioned continual wars between him 
and Charles the Simple, till the death of Eudes, A. D. 898. 
But the differences between Berenger and Guy in Italy were 
much longer, and afflicted all Italy with great calamities, in 
which Rome itself could not avoid a considerable share. Hi 
summam sibi rerum haud malo consilio asciscere nixi, intes- 
tinis populorum discordiis Italiam perturbarunt, ac seipsos 
prorsus una cum ecclesia perdiderunt: ea tempora in rem- 


publicam inferentes, quibus nulla alia tetriora ac ftediora | 


fuisse, vel principum nequitid, vel populorum insania, in tota 
antiquitate inveniuntur.§ 

It is to be observed, that as the popes had themselves a 
very great hand in exciting these troubles, so they had a 
great share in them too. Major pars, licét Berengarii causa 
justior esset, pontificis credo auctoritate impulsa, ad Vidonem 
se contulit.| 

The quarrel soon spread itself into the Roman church. 
The parties of pope Formosus and Sergius raged against each 
other with uncommon fury; insomuch, that pope Stephen 
caused the dead body of Formosus to be dug out of its grave, 
and after condemnation to be thrown into the river Tiber; 
made all his acts null and void, and took care to make an 
emperor of his own party. Lambertum vero regem Italie, 
factionis sue partes, exemplo patris, foventem, inunxit im- 

ratorem.4 

It would be endless to mention all the calamities these 
civil contentions brought upon Italy, for near fourscore 
years, till pope John ΧΠ., A. D. 960, implored the assist- 
ance of Otho the Great, emperor of Germany, pro Christiane 
religionis, atque Italie salutis amore.** Who accordingly 
came, and put an end to the troubles of Italy ; in acknow- 
ledgment of which service, he received the imperial crown 
from the pope, A. D. 962. 

The forementioned calamities were great in themselves, 
and were also an occasion of many others: for these civil 
contentions had greatly weakened the western empire, so 
that the Normans were able to invade and ravage several 
parts of it; especially in France, where at last they forced 
a settlement, and erected a powerful dominion of Normandy, 
so called after their ownname. The mischiefs these Norman 
invasions caused in France, are not to be mentioned, says 
Mezeray,{{ without horror. Their desire of plunder brought 
them into the richest provinces, the false zeal for the reli- 
gion (they were then heathens) made them cruel and bloody, 
especially to churchmen. 


* milius de Rebus Gestis Francorum, p. 82. 

+ Mezeray, vol. i. p. 370, + Ibid. vol. i. p. 371. 
§ Sigonius de Regno Italia, lib. vi. p. 139. 

| {bid. p. 140. 4 Ibid. p. 144. 

** Ibid p. 166. tt Vol. i. p. 319, 


From sea to sea there was not a | 


1085 


| monastery that did not feel their rage, nor a town that was 
not ransomed, pillaged, or burnt, twice or three times; 
which, says our historian, made it sufficiently evident, it was 
| one of God's terrible plagues. 
| On the other hand, the Saracens ravaged Italy, fixed 
themselves at T'arento, made excursions to the very gates of 
Rome, and carried off the riches of the churches without the 
gates of the city. Saraceni pred libidine stimulati, ex 
Africa classem Romanis littoribus intulerunt, et procurs ad 
urbem facto, opimas apostolorum Petri et Pauli suburbanas 
basilicas, nemine vim propulsante, diripuerunt, ac pretiosis 
omnibus earum ornamentis ablatis, ipsas etiam basilice 
Vaticane valvas argenteas asportirunt.® 

About the same time the Hungarians, then a barbarous 
and brutal people, broke in upon the German dominions, 
and plundered Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia, and Saxony. 
They afterward marched into Italy, routed Berenger, cut his 
army to pieces,} and often renewed their incursions, to the 
great terror and ruin of the inhabitants of those countries 
which they invaded. 

This was the calamitous state of the western empire for 
above a hundred years from the death of Lewis the Pious, 
A. D. 840, to the settlement of the German empire in Otho 
the Great, A. D. 962; and well agrees to the prophetic de- 
scription, to the time and order of the prophecies, with re- 
spect to each other. By “the earth,” in the prophetic style 
of these revelations, is meant the Roman empire, or the 
countries, with their inhabitants, subject to its dominion. 
The calamities of these times, as they are related in history, 
may very properly be called a noisome and grievous sore, 
ἕλκος κακὸν καὶ πονηρὸν, “a painful malignant ulcer.’ 'The 
order of the prophecies shows what state of the empire is 
meant, that state of it which falls in with the beginning of 
the reign of the beast, or of the third period of one thousand 
two hundred and sixty years. It may therefore sufficiently, 
I think, point out to us on what earth this first vial was to 
be poured, on whom this plague was to fall, what was the 
time, and what were the contents of this vial. 

Second vial—Let us follow our guide in the order and 
series of prophecy and history, and see whether there are 
not some very memorable events in the series of providence, 
which are very properly applicable to this prophetical de- 
scription. 

The pouring out of the first cup, foretelling the judgments 
of God on the successors of Charles the Great, and the new- 
founded dominion of the papacy, principally occasioned by 
the pope’s ambition and intrigues, has brought us down to the 
latter end of the tenth century. Then the empire was fixed 
in Germany by Otho the Great, and the kingdom of France 
passed into the third race, the family of Capet, in which it 
still remains, about A. D. 987. 

Let us observe what was the next memorable part of his- 
tory, after these great revolutions in the western empire, and 
in the nations which owned the authority of the Roman 
popes; the order and series of the prophecies direct us to 
look there, as the proper time wherein to find the contents 
of the second vial. 

From A. D. 1000 to 1100 the corruptions of true religion 
were greatly increased. A prodigious superstition spread 
every where during the eleventh century, not only among 
the lower sort and common people, but among persons of 
the first rank, even emperors and princes themselves; pre- 
tended miracles, apparitions of departed souls, dreadful tales 
of the pains of purgatory, improved the people’s superstition, 
and enriched the church.+ ᾿ 

The whole of religion was placed in penances, masses, lega- 
cies to redeem souls from purgatory, pilgrimages, especially 
to the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem, which ended at last in 
the holy war.§ 

This gave a fair occasion to the popes to carry on their 
ambitious designs, and enlarge their authority in things tem- 
poral as well as spiritual ; the antichristian power began now 
to exalt iself above all that is called God, and to claim a 
power of choosing and deposing emperors, and to deprive 
princes of all civil rights by excommunication. Hildebrand 
was pope, by the name of Gregory VII., A. D. 1073; he ex- 


* Sigonius, ib. p. 120. 


+ Mezeray, vol. i. p. 384 
+ Spanheim, p. 1510. 


§ Ibid, p. 1518, 
4a2 


1086 


pressly claimed the authority of sovereign judge over all, of 
deposing emperors, and absolving subjects from their alle- 
giance. He actually used this power towards the emperor 
Henry IV. and other princes of Europe. In the year 1076, 
he held a council at Rome, of one hundred and ten bishops, 
who, after mature debate, concluded,* the pope had reason 
to deprive the emperor of his crown, and absolve the princes 
and members of the empire from their oaths. This resolution 
the pope put in execution, excommunicated the emperor and 
all his adherents. 

Farther, in the year 1080, he renewed his excommunica- 
tion against the emperor, declares he had forfeited the 
kingdoms of Germany and Italy, and all royal dignity, for- 
bid all Christians to obey him, gives the kingdom of Germany 
to Rodolf, exhorting all the princes to take arms against 
him.t 

What troubles, what unnatural rebellions, what bloody 
wars, this most extravagant claim of power occasioned, the 
historians of those times relate at large; they are such as in 
themselves might be esteemed justly a terrible judgment for 
this antichristian apostasy. 

This pope Gregory had other differences with almost all 
the other Christian princes ; he threatened to excommunicate 
Philip the First, king of France, and usurped a full authority 
over the bishops and ecclesiastical affairs of France, by his 
legates ; and, in a word, he did all that he could to become 
the only sovereign monarch of the universe: Enfin, il fit son 
possible, pour se faire declarer le seul monarque souverain 
de tout l’univers.+ Besides all these flames which the ambi- 


tion of the popes kindled in the western empire itself, it was | 


the occasion of another most remarkable judgment, which 
fell grievously on the zealous abettors of superstition and 
supporters of the papal authority. 

Pope Urban II., the next but one to this Hildebrand, 
continued the quarrel with the emperor, who supported Cle- 
ment, formerly called Guibert, as pope against him.§ 

Pope Urban went into France, A. D. 1096, and held a 
council at Clermont ; he proposed, with great earnestness, to 
raise an army, which should march into the holy land, to 
recover Jerusalem and the sepulchre out of the hands of 
Mahometans. Sacram Hierosolymorum expeditionem, in- 
credibili sententiarum gravitate, verborum copia, atque animi 
ardore suasit.| 

It is incredible what effect so romantic a project had on 
the minds of a superstitious people; they received it for the 


manifest will of God, and fell in with the pope’s proposal | 


with wonderful zeal. Postquam autem peroravit, universi 
qui aderant, divino quasi Spiritti concitati, bellum pro sepul- 
cro Christi recuperando ingentibus studiis animorum jusse- 
runt, atque in eo apertam se Dei voluntatem sequi velle, 
altissimis clamoribus responderunt.{ 

The pope, to encourage their constancy in such a resolu- 
tion, promises free indulgence for their sins, to take them 
into the church’s protection, both for their persons and for- 
tunes. Gratias ago Deo maximas, said the pope, quod vos 
tanta animorum consensione atque alacritate arma pro Christo 
redemptore vestro suscepturos esse ostenditis; neque tam 
repentina in tam diversis gentibus conspiratio, sine gravissi- 
mo ipsius esse impulsti potest. Nos autem ut studia vestra, 
quoad possumus, adjuvemus, misericordia Dei, et beatorum 
Petri et Pauli auctoritate confisi, omnibus qui ad hoc bellum 
prodierint, omnia pro delictis suis piacula relaxamus, eosque 
sub ecclesie tutelam, et beatorum Petri et Pauli clientelam, 
tanquam vere obedientie filios, suscipimus, et ab omnibus 
vexationibus corporum fortunarumque tutos esse statuimus.* * 

We here evidently see what hand the pope had in this 
enthusiastical expedition ; but we should observe, there was 
something deeper than superstition or enthusiasm in this 
project of the popes, which caused so much effusion of 
Christian blood. “These crusades and voyages beyond sea,” 
says a judicious historian of the Roman communion, “ oc- 
casioned the ruin of many great men, and a multitude of 
common people ; but the popes and kings had great advan- 


* Heiss, vol. i. p. 170. 

+ Dupin, Hist. de l’Eglise, vol. iii. p. 176. 

+ Ibid. p. 177. § Ibid. p. 182. 
| Sigonius, lib. ix. p. 234. 4 Ibid. 

** Ibid. 


REVELATION. 


tages from it, to render them absolute. These (the popes) 
because they took the authority of commanding these expe- 
ditions, of which they were the head; they had the persons 
and estates of those who took the cross in their protection. 
It made the use of indulgences and dispensations more com- 
mon than before; their legates had the management of the 
alms and legacies which were given for these wars; and it 
moreover gave the popes a pretence to raise the tenth on the 
clergy.”* In effect, no policy could have so well served the 
pope’s ambition, nor any means be better suited to render 
his authority supreme and absolute. 

We have an immediate instance of the truth of these 
observations. Clement, who disputed the papacy with Ur- 
ban, had possessed himself of Rome, but Urban, by the help 
of those who had listed themselves for this holy war, as- 
saulted Rome, and took it, and forced Clement to retire. 
Eo ardore, says Sigonius, quo bellum contra Saracenos sua- 
serat, arma paravit, ac propriis multorum, quos ad sacram 
expeditionem accenderat, auxiliis usus, urbem oppugnavit-> 

An incredible number of persons soon prepared themselves 
for this holy war. Pope Urban travelled through Italy to 
raise money; the people listed themselves so fast in this 
spiritual militia, that the countries seemed to be deserted, 
and all the coasts and havens filled with people setting out 
on their voyage to Asia. Ex toto occidente, principes, po- 
pulique adeo frequentes ierunt, ut crederes, vulgo urbes ab 
incolis deseri, agrosque incultos, solosque deseri ; Urbanus 
Calabriam, Apuliam, et Siciliam, quas Normanni amici tum 
ecclesie obtinebant, lustravit; atque ingentem pecunie sum- 
mam in commoda ecclesie, profundendam confecit: cruce 
signati, diversis itineribus, terra marique, ita ut omnes oras 
portusque complerent, trajecerunt.+ 

This first expedition is computed to consist of more than 
three hundred thousand men.§ They met with some suc- 
cess at first. Godfrey of Bouillon, their general, had the 
honour of receiving the title of King of Jerusalem, having 
taken it A. D. 1099,|| yet their victories were so bloody, 
that in a very short time there remained no more than five 
thousand horse and fifteen thousand foot of that numerous 
army. 

Yet the fire of enthusiasm still spread through the west ; 
another crusade was raised A. D. 1100. “This again con- 
sisted of above three hundred thousand more. In this ex- 
pedition my author{ observes, that not only several great 
princes, but moreover many prelates, and even many great 
ladies, resolved to undertake the voyage. Et plusieurs pre- 
lats, et quantité des dames illustres voulurent faire ce voyage. 

Thus, in about four years, six hundred thousand men 
were sent to perish, through the ambitious views of the popes. 
These expeditions continued for many years, with an incre- 
dible effusion of blood. According to some authors, there 
perished above two millions of these enthusiasts: others ob- 
serve, there were hardly any men left in the west, and 
almost no persons seen, but either infants or widows. 

In fine, about the year 1190, the emperor Frederic, our 
king Richard, Philip Augustus of France, and others, made 
another fruitless and inglorious expedition ; and, after the loss 
of the greatest part of their armies, were forced to leave what 
had been so long contended for, with so much bloodshed, in 
the hands of the Mahometans. 

This is a very remarkable part of history ; it falls in ex- 
actly with the order and series of the prophecies, and is so 
memorable a judgment on the supporters of the papal apos- 
tasy, that I shall leave it to the reader’s judgment, whether 
it does not give light to the time and contents of this second 
vial. 

Third vial—We have supposed the judgment of the fore- 
going vial, or cup, to have been the crusade or holy war, by 
which the ambition of the popes, and gross superstition of 
the people, had involved a great part of the church and em- 
pire in many grievous calamities, and many hundred thousand 
lives were sacrificed to a wild enthusiasm. 

The judgments signified by this third vial, or cup, then, 
according to the order of the prophecies, will be the next 
remarkable judgment upon the followers of the beast, which, 


* Mezeray, Hist. de France, vol. i. p. 510, ib. p. 664. 
+ Sigonius, p. 235. + Ibid. p. 235. § Mezeray, p. 512. 
| Ibid. p. 613. 4 Ibid. p. 514. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


according to the order of time, must be about A. D. 1200, for 
a proportional number of the twelve hundred and sixty 
years of this period. The contents of this vial, or nature of 
the judgments signified by it, is shedding of blood, in recom- 
pense for the blood of the saints shed by authority of the 
beast. This judgment is chiefly to fall on those parts of the 
western empire, which were the original seat of the beast’s 
residence and dominion.—Let us then inquire, whether we 
have not historical events in this period of time, which very 
properly answer to the prophetical descriptions, and suffi- 
ciently verify the truth of this prediction. 

We may observe, that the persecuting power of popery 
was fully established, and raged with greatest fury, during 
this period of time. It was in this time they were most emi- 
nently distinguished for shedding the blood of saints and pro- 
phets. 

The Albigenses became numerous and powerful;* they 
were spread through Languedoc, Provence, Dauphiné, and 
Arragon ; they were protected by persons in power, in par- 
ticular by Raymond count of Toulouse. Pope Innocent 
III. sent his legates to suppress them, about A. D. 1198. 
He gave them commission not only to preach against the 
Albigenses, but to excite princes and people to exterminate 
them by a crusade, in which he endeavoured to engage 
Philip Augustus, then king of France, and the great princes 
and lords of his kingdom. 

Besides all former methods of proceedings against heretics, 
which one would have thought were severe enough, this pope 
Innocent IIT. found out, and established, the new method of 
the inquisition.t Father Dominic was made inquisitor about 
A.D. 1216. When he received his authority from the pope, 
he declared that he was resolved to defend the doctrines of 
the faith, meaning the corruptions of the Roman church, 
with the utmost vigour; and that if the spiritual and ecclesi- 
astical arms were not suflicient for this end, it was his fixed 
purpose to call in princes to take arms against heretics, that 
the very memory of them might be destroyed. 

Thus, all the severe and bloody methods of persecution 
were set on foot; a vast army of cross-bearers was raised : 
Mezeray} says, they were not less than five hundred thousand. 
They besieged Beziers, took it, and put about sixty thousand 
to the sword, and proceeded with great cruelty, till they had 
ruined the count of Toulouse, and given his estate to 
Montfort, general of the crusade, as a reward for his services. 

The severest methods of persecution were established by 
the famous council of Lateran.§ The poor Albigenses were 
every where a sacrifice to the merciless rage of their enemies. 
The chief zeal of the church, in those times, consisted in 
putting those they called heretics to death in the most cruel 
manner they could invent. Thus they made themselves 
worthy of the judgment, that God should «“ give them blood 
to drink.” 

And we shall find this part of the prophecy as fully veri- 
fied in the events of providence as the former. 

There had been great contests between the emperors and 
popes for a long time about investitures, or the right of pre- 
senting to bishoprics and ecclesiastical preferments. The 
emperors claimed this right, as belonging to their regale, a 
royalty belonging to the crown; on the other hand, the popes 
claimed it, as an unquestionable part of the pontifical au- 
thority. This contention had occasioned great confusion 
and disturbance at various times; parties were formed on 
each side, distinguished by the names of Guelphs and Ghi- 
bellines: the Guelphs were the papal party, the Ghibellines 
the imperial. 

The emperor Frederic II. was excommunicated A. D. 
1227, for not going in person to the holy war. This so 
angered the emperor, that he endeavoured every way to 
mortify the pope. He engaged several of the powerful no- 
blemen of Rome against him; go that the pope was forced 
to leave Rome, and retire to Perugia. The Guelph and 
Ghibelline faction strove in every place to raise their own 


* Dupin, Hist. de I'Eglise, vol. iii. p. 318. 

+ Limborch, Hist. Inquisit. cap. 10, p. 61. 

+ Vol. ii. p. 219. 

§ Concil. Lateran. can. iii. de Hereticis, can, iii. de 
Inquisitionibus. 

§ Heiss, Hist. de |! Empire, vol. i. p. 270. 


1087 


party,” and to ruin the other; so that almost all the cities 
in Italy were in civil wars, and the blood of the citizens, in 
almost every place, shed by their own hands. 

However, the emperor embarked the next year for the 
holy land, but soon found the pope had sent him into Syria 
that he might make war against him the better in Italy. 
He therefore returned, recovered the places taken from him 
by the pope, ravaged all the pope’s dominions even to the 
gates of Rome. In the year 1237 he beat the army of the 
league formed against him, after a furious and bloody battle, 
and put the general and other chief officers to death by the 
hands of the common hangman. ‘The animosities of the two 
parties, the Guelphs and Ghibellines, were so outrageous, 
that not only the several cities of Italy were divided, but 
particular houses and families, so that they gave no quarter 
to each other. 

The death of the emperor Frederic II., A. Ὁ, 1250, left 
the empire in great confusion. Many pretended to the im- 
perial dignity. ‘These contests were sensibly felt in Italy ; 
such cities as held of the empire, either formed themselves 
into commonwealths, or were governed by princes of their 
own.t Pope Urban, jealous of the power of Manfred, who 
had possessed himself of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, 
and to recover the power of the Guelph party, which was 
almost ruined, made an offer of the kingdoms of Naples and 
Sicily to Charles earl of Anjou, brother to Lewis king of 
France, on condition he would bring sufficient forces into 
Italy, to support the almost ruined party of the Guelphs.+ 
Charles accepts the pope’s offer, was crowned by Clement 
IY. on condition to hold those kingdoms of the holy see, by 
homage, fealty, and an annual rent. His army was joined 
by the Guelphs, defeated Manfred’s army, and so got into 
possession of both the Sicilies. Upon this, Conradin duke 
of Suabia, son of the emperor Conrad, and last of the family, 
was encouraged to enter Italy by the Ghibellines, who were 
not able to endure the power of the Guelphs, so greatly 
strengthened by the protection of Charles. Both sides came 
to a battle, in which Conradin was beaten and taken prisoner, 
with Frederic of Austria who accompanied him, and both 
had their heads cut off; so that the two great families of 
Suabia and Austria became extinct, A. D. 1268. This dis- 
honourable execution was by the pope’s advice, who near 
his death gave it for a maxim, “ The life of Conradin is the 
death of Charles;” Conradi vita, Caroli mors; Caroli vita, 
Conradi mors.§ 

Rodolf of Hapsburg, afterward emperor, who, by 
transferring these inheritances into his own family, raised 
the grandeur of the present house of Austria, could not 
be persuaded to meddle with the affairs of Italy; so 
that the government of most cities fell into several hands, 
just as the contending parties could prevail over each 
other. 

The contest, upon the death of Rodolf, between his 
son Albert of Austria and Adolph of Nassau, kept the 
affairs of Italy in pretty much the same state. The feuds 
between the Guelphs and Ghibellines continued and in- 
creased: Jamais les deux partis des Guelphs et des Ghikel- 
lines ne fiirent si acharnées l’un contre l’autre, qu’ils etaient 
alors.|] 

Pope Boniface VIII. persecuted the Ghibellines and 
the cardinals Colonna with great severity. This more 
inflamed the parties against each other; so that the pope 
was taken prisoner by the Ghibellines, the grief of which is 
supposed to have hastened his end: Dolore animi confectus 
periit.** 

Pope Clement V., a little time after, consulted his own 
safety, and retired with the cardinals into France, where 
the court of Rome continued for above seventy years, 
in a sort of banishment from their own country and 
dominions; in all which time, the Guelphs and Ghibel- 
lines made war on each other, and Rome was in the great- 
est confusion. 

The emperor Henry VII. resolved to assert the rights 
of the empire in Italy. Pope Gregory, on the other 


* Heiss, Hist. de l’Empire, vol. i. p. 274. 
+ Ibid. p. 274. 

+ Ibid. p. 291. § Ibid. p. 297. 

§ Platina, Bonifac. VIII. p. 231. 


Ἰ Ibid. p. 324 
** Ibid. p. 233 


1088 
hand, by secret practices, raised a powerful league against 
him. He engaged the king of Naples, the cities of Flo- 
rence, Sienna, Lucca, Cremona, Padua, and others, to op- 
pose him. ‘he city of Rome was in great distraction. 
The Colonnas, at the head of the Ghibellines, seized on the 
Lateran, the amphitheatre, and other principal places of 
the city. 

John, brother of the king of Naples, at the head of the 
Guelphs,* possessed himself of the capitol, castle of St. 
Angelo, the mole of Adrian, and the Vatican. Platina has 
represented the disorders of these bloody civil wars, as if 
the Italians were in every place thirsting after each other's 
blood, without any bounds to their mutual rage and 
cruelty. Intestina mala quotidi¢, cum magna hominum 
cede, in unaquaque civitate, in quovis parvo etiam cas- 
tello, committebantur ; cedebantur cives, necabantur senes, 
allidebantur infantes, nec ullus crudelitatis modus inerat. 

Benedict XII., in order to make as many friends as he 


could, and keep up an interest in Italy against the emperor, | 


published an edict, whereby he confirmed to all persons, who 
had seized on the governments of Lombardy, that they 


should have a just title by that grant to what they had | 


usurped. Fece un decreto, che tutti i tiranni di Lombardia 
possedessero le terre, che se havevano usurpate, con giusto 
titulo.t 

Platina farther observes, he pretended a right to make 
such grants, because, during the vacancy of the empire, all 


the power of it resides in the pope, who is the only vicar on | 
Suo jure (ut ipse | 
dicebat) tribuit, quod vacante imperio, omnis ejus potestas | 


earth of Jesus Christ, the supreme King. 


in pontificem recidat, Jesu Christi, supremi regis, unicum in 
terris vicarium.+ 

The emperor, on the other hand, not to be outdone by 
the pope in liberality, presented all who had seized on 
any part of the estate of the pope or church, with a title 
to possess them as their own, by virtue of the imperial 
authority.§ 

Thus were the parties spirited up against each other. 
The contest continued for above a hundred years, spread 
itself throughout all Italy ; so that there was not a city, 
scarce a village or a family, in which they did not shed 
each other’s blood in this furious contention. It would be 
endless to mention particulars; I shall only take notice of 
one, the massacre in Sicily, usually called, “the Sicilian 
Vespers,” A. D. 1282. Pope Nicholas had the chief hand 
in the plot,| and managed the principal parts of it, though 
it did not break out till after his death, as Mezeray ex- 
pressly declares. 
the whole island; they massacred them at the very altars ; 
they ripped up the women with child, and dashed out the 


children’s brains against the stones: eight thousand were | 
_ of the earth, by their hot and burning passions of ambition, 


murdered in two hours, and they spared the life but of one 
single person. 

When we see in history such bloody contentions, for so 
long a time, occasioned by the popes’ ambition, to wrest the 
civil authority of the emperors out of their hands, and seize 
on it for themselves, we have evident proof of this righteous 
judgment of God, that he gave them blood to drink, as they 
had shed the blood of his saints. 


We see their ambition proved as bloody and destructive | 


to themselves, as to those whom they persecuted for their 
faithfulness in the cause of truth and righteousness. Here 
is a remarkable concurrence of persecution on the one hand, 
and of punishment, by civil contentions and bloodshed, on 
the other; which are the distinguishing marks of this vial or 
cup, as the time exactly answers to the series and order of 
the prophecies. 

Fourth vial—We may still observe a near resemblance 
between the prophecies of the vials and trumpets; on sound- 
ing the fourth trumpet, a third part of the sun was smitten ; 
this fourth angel pours out his vial upon the sun; there is 
however this difference, that on sounding the fourth trumpet 
the sun was darkened, and the day shone not—on pouring 


* Heiss, p. 325. 5 
+ Machiavel, Hist. Fioren. lib. i. p. 30. 
+ Platina, Vita Benedict. XII. 

§ Machiavel, p. 16. 

| Mezeray, vol. i. p. 674. 


The French were murdered throughout | 


REVELATION. 


out the fourth vial, the heat of the sun is so increased, as to 
become intolerable and painful. 

The sun, says an illustrious interpreter,* is put, in sacred 
prophecy, for the whole species and race of kings, in the 
kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, shining with regal 
power and glory. “ Darkening, smiting, or setting of the 
sun, is put for the ceasing of a kingdom, or for the desola- 
tion thereof, proportional to the darkness: and the scorch- 
ing heat of the sun, for vexatious wars, persecutions, and 
troubles, inflicted by the Κίηρ. 

Great troubles are often expressed in scripture, by burn- 
ing the inhabitants of the earth. ‘Therefore hath the curse 
devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate ; 
therefore are the inhabitants of the earth burned, and few 
men left” (Isa. xxiv. 6). The elegance and propriety of 
the expression, to “scorch men with the heat of the sun,” 
was well understood by the inhabitants of the hot eastern 
countries, who well knew what great mischiefs hot and 
burning seasons often occasioned. Our Saviour, when he 
had used the same figure of a scorching sun in the parable 
of the sower, Matt. xiii. 6—21, interprets it himself of tri- 
bulation and persecution. 

I think it is not material to inquire, what particular 
effects of a scorching sun are the precise meaning of this 
prophecy ; whether, for instance, famine, on burning up the 
fruits of the carth, or pestilential distempers, the effects of 
unwholesome seasons; or, more generally, some great and 
painful affliction, as the prophet explains a like expression, 
“Tn the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with 
destruction” (Isa. xxiv. 12). 

We may understand this “ scorching men with fire, so that 
they were scorched with great heat,” as a prediction, that 
the judgments of God should reach his enemies in every 
place ; for the host of heaven and seasons of the year should 
fight against them, and smite them with destruction, so that 


| they should find no room to escape. 


Let us then see whether, in the times which fall in with 
this vial according to the order of the prophecies, we shall 
not meet with such historical facts as will fully verify this 
prediction. 

The time answering to the foregoing vial brought us down 
to about the year 1371, when the factions were so weil 
quieted in Italy, that the popes returned to Rome, from 
their banishment at Avignon in France. As, in the style of 
prophecy,+ the sun is put for the whole species or race of 
kings, in the kingdom or kingdoms of the world politic, so 
the popes, as heads of this political state restored to the seat 
of their empire, will be most naturally meant by this figura- 
tive representation of the sun; so that the power given to 
the sun to scorch men with fire, will most probably mean 
some great and grievous evils brought upon the inhabitants 


envy, and covetousness, the causes of many mischievous 
disorders. 

Upon the death of pope Gregory XI., which happened 
soon after his return to Rome, there followed a great schism, 
which was the most memorable event, and of greatest con- 
sequence, in the history of those times, L”histoire du schisme 
des papes est le plus considerable événement de ce siécle, 
says the learned Dupin.§ 

The citizens of Rome, in order to fix the residence of the 
popes among themselves for the future, warmly pressed the 
choice of a Roman, at least of an Italian;, there were but 
four Italian cardinals among the sixteen then at Rome, the 
other twelve were Ultramontanes; so there was little ex- 
pectation of a plurality of votes in favour of an Italian. 
However, the multitude continually cried out, they would 
have a Roman pope, and threatened the French cardinals to 
cut them in pieces, if they did not choose a Roman, at least 
an Italian. At length the people broke into the conclave, 
and seized the cardinals, continually demanding a Roman 
pope. Some of the cardinals’ domestics having said to them, 
“Have you not the cardinal of St. Peter?” immediately, 
as if he had been duly elected, they clothed him in the pon- 
tifical robes, placed him on the altar, and proceeded to 


* Sir I. Newton on Dan. lib. ii. p. 17. 
ἡ Ib. p. 18. 
§ Hist. vol. iii. p. 401. 


+ Ib. p. 17. 
| Ibid. p. 403. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


adoration, notwithstanding his own declaration, that he was | 
not pope: yet the next day he caused himself to be pro- | 
claimed pope, by the name of Urban VI. The cardinals 
then publicly owned him, yet privately writ to the king of 
France, and other Christian princes, that it was a void and 
null election, which they did not intend should be acknow- 
ledged. 

Urban, trusting likely to his party at Rome, behaved 
with great pride and insolence, and very much disobliged 
the cardinals. ‘They retired from Rome to Fundi; there 
they chose another pope. The better to reconcile the dif- 
ference between the French and Italians, they chose a Ger- 
man, Robert, cardinal of Geneva, who took the name of 
Clement VII. 

Thus a schism began, which continued many years, and 
divided the several kingdoms and states of Europe; some 
supporting the cause of Urban, others the interests of | 
Clement, who left Italy, and placed his residence at Avi- 

on.* Urban left his seat vacant by death, A. D. 1389. 
The Italian cardinals proceeded to a new election, and 
chose Boniface IX., a Neapolitan. In like manner, upon 
the death of pope Clement, A. D. 1394, at Avignon, the 
cardinals of that party proceeded to another election, 
and chose Peter Luna, of Arragon, who was named 
Benedict. Many attempts were made to heal this breach, 
but all to no purpose; a renunciation or cession of both 
the popes was proposed, but that suited the ambition of 
neither. 

The Romans, after the death of Boniface IX., chose In- 
nocent VII., and after him Gregory XII., his successors. 
The mischiefs of these contentions were at last thought to 
want the remedy of a general council. A general council 
was held at Pisa, A. D. 1409. The council deposed both 
popes, Gregory and Benedict, and chose a new pope, who 
took the name of Alexander V. 

One would have thought this decision should have ended 
the dispute; here was the determination of a general 
council, in which there were twenty-two cardinals, twelve 
archbishops, sixty-seven bishops in person, eighty-five depu- 
ties, a great number of abbots, proctors of orders, and chap- 
ters, with sixty-seven ambassadors of kings or sovereign 
princes: and yet both the popes found means to support 
themselves, and keep up a party; the one chiefly in Italy, 
the other principally in Spain. Alexander V., chosen by the 
council of Pisa, was received as pope by the greater part of 
the nations. Upon his death, John XXIII. was chosen in | 
his place. 

There were now three successors to St. Peter, in three lines 
of succession, at the same time. John XXIII. appointed 
a general council to be held at Constance, A. D. 1414. ‘This 
council pressed him to resign, and declared he ought to do 
so, as well as Gregory and Benedict.t John did all he | 
could to avoid this ungrateful proposal, but finding he could | 
not gain his point in the council, he retired from it. The 
council notwithstanding continued, and cited John to appear. 
Upon his refusal, they declared him suspended from all go- 
vernment spiritual and temporal ; and, at last, by a decisive 
sentence, deposed him. Gregory renounced the papacy, and 
was confirmed a cardinal; but Benedict continuing to op- 
pose the council, was declared contumacious, a schismatic, 
and deposed. 

The next business was to choose a pope, to whom all 
would submit, now the former were deposed. The council 
unanimously chose Martin, anno 1417. This seemed to put 
an end to a long schism, and to restore the peace of the | 
church. But it soon appeared, the ambition of the popes 
was restless, and a continual source of disorders and mis- 
cuievous contentions. 

Pope Eugene IV., who succeeded Martin V., was greatly 
displeased with the council of Basil, for maintaining the 
authority of councils to reform the church both in head and | 
members. Therefore, A. Ὁ). 1432, he published an order to 
dissolve it. The council could not prevail upon the pope to 
revoke the decree, yet continued to sit notwithstanding.+ 
They cited the pope to appear before them; he was forced 
at last to revoke the dissolution, to allow and approve the 


1089 


continuation, with all that had been done by the council in 
that time; and the decree of the council of Constance was 
renewed for the confirmation of the authority of general 
councils. 

Yet still new differences arose: the pope translated the 
council from Basil to Ferrara, and opened a council there, 
Jan. 10, 1438. Yet many bishops continued still at Basil, 
and proceeded so far as to depose pope Eugene, and chose 
another pope, who was called Felix V. 

Thus the schism was renewed by two popes, each at the 
head of a council*—Pope Eugene presiding in the council 
of Florence, to which place he had translated the council 
from Ferrara; and pope Felix presiding in the council of 
Basil; and at the same time Germany proposed to call a 
third general council, to examine the rights of the other two. 
This schism continued to the death of Eugene, anno 1447, 
Felix then resigning all his pretensions to Nicholas V., his 
successor. 

From this time (though the schism was ended) the popes 
were more taken up with the wars of Italy, enterprises 
against the Turks, aggrandizing their temporal power, and 
establishing their own families, than in any care of religion ; 
which proved the occasion of great disorders. 

Alexander VI. was one of the worst of men; he disho- 
noured his dignity, says Dupin, by ambition, avarice, cruelty, 
and debauchery. According to Mezeray, he was one of the 
most impious and vicious of men; and if there was any one 
who exceeded him in abominable crimes, it was his own bas- 
tard son, Cesar Borgia.+ 

The disorders and calamities occasioned by these conten- 
tions, which the ambition, tyranny and cruelty of the popes 
were the sole cause of, appear every where in the history of 
these times ; neighbour princes and nations were divided by 
their quarrels, and they set the whole world about them in a 
flame, by the fire of their contentions: all the principal 
wars and quarrels of this age had their rise from the ambi- 
tious projects of the popes. 

This was the chief spring of those long and bloody wars 
about the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. Pope Urban, to 
revenge himself of Jane queen of Naples,§ offered the in- 
vestiture of that kingdom to Charles of Durazzo, and per- 
suaded him to attempt to dethrone her, though he was greatly 
obliged to her, and even designed by her for her successor. 
This ungrateful attempt, at the pope’s solicitation, made the 
queen change her mind, and adopt Lewis duke of Anjou for 
her heir. Charles of Durazzo was crowned at Rome, anno 
1380, took Naples without resistance, and put queen Jane to 
death, together with her husband Otho of Brunswick. 

Upon this success of Charles, the duke of Anjou was 
somewhat in doubt, whether he should pursue his claim ; 
but pope Clement, who had no other way to depose Urban, 
used all endeavours to press him to it, that it seemed, says 
Mezeray, he valued not the ruin of the church, both in tem- 
porals and spirituals, if he could but establish himself. 
Quw’il semblait qu’il ne lui importait pas de la ruine de 


| l'église, au temporel et au spirituel, pourvu qu’il pit procurer 


son établissement. 

As these wars began, so they were kept alive by the in- 
trigues of the popes for above a hundred years, in which 
France, Spain, and Germany had their share as well as 
Italy. 

But these evils, great as they were, were not the only mis- 
chiefs the ambition and contentions of the popes caused in 
these times. 

The council of Constance persecuted John Huss and Je- 
rome of Prague with great severity, and a dishonourable 
breach of faith; they were both burned by order of the 
council, notwithstanding the emperor’s safe conduct. Such 
an unjust and perfidious declaration, “that faith was not to 
be kept with heretics,” quite enraged the Bohemians. The 
emperor Sigismund, who succeeded his brother Wenceslaus 
in that kingdom, was fain to use the army he designed 
against the Turks to quiet the Bohemians.| The pope 
sent a legate to raise a crusade against them. There were 
many lesser skirmishes and battles with the Husite general 
Zisca. At length an army of forty thousand horse, and as 


* Dupin, vol. iii. p. 406. 
+ Ibid. p. 439. 


+ Ibid. p. 443, 449, 
Vor. IV.—137 


* Dupin, vol. iii. p. 452. Bs 


+ Ibid. p. 454, 
+ Mezeray. § Ibid. 


| Heiss, vol. i. p. 375 


1090. 


many foot, was sent against them, anno 1431, with the 
pope’s legate, and many princes of Germany, at the head 
of it. This great army was defeated by the Bohemians; and 
they were not at last subdued but with great difficulty, and 
by reason of differences among themselves, which were raised 
and managed by the pope’s agents, to weaken and destroy 
them. 

Nor were these all the fatal consequences of these ambi- 
tious contentions of the popes; they caused a schism be- 
tween the Greek and Latin churches, and a war between the 
Christians of the eastern and western empires, which greatly 
weakened the Christian interest against their common ene- 
mies, the Mahometan Turks. They kept up continual 
quarrels among the Christian princes, which the Turks, who 
were watching all opportunities, knew how to improve. 
Mahomet made great advances in Europe; and, A. D. 1453, 
put an end to the eastern empire, by taking the city of Con- 
stantinople, which has continued to be the seat and capital 
of the Turkish empire ever since. He soon passed over into 
Italy, took Otranto, left a garrison in it; and nothing seems 
to have saved Italy from the greatest danger, but the death 
of Mahomet, and a dispute between his sons about the suc- 
cession; for Mahomet was eagerly bent upon taking old 
Rome, as he had already taken new Rome, or Constanti- 
nople. But the providence of God cut off his power, and 
put an end to all his designs with his life. 

If now we consider the events of providence in this pe- 
riod, not only in a few particular instances, but in the gene- 
ral history and state of the Christian world, in the mischievous 
effects which the ambition and contentions of the popes 
caused every where, do they not very fully and properly an- 
swer the prophetic description ? 

The many evils caused by the hot and furious zealots for 
the pope’s ambitious views, were fitly represented by a hot 


and intemperate season, whereby men were scorched with | 


great heat. 

Some interpreters carry the meaning of these expressions 
yet farther, and conceive they are to be understood in a 
literal sense also, for intemperately hot and burning seasons, 
which should destroy the fruits of the earth, occasion famine 
and pestilential distempers ; and it is certain, in the history 
of this period, that the prophecy is fully verified in this mean- 
ing too. Not to enter into a particular detail of the nu- 
merous instances the history of this period furnishes us with, 
there is one so remarkable above others, and which falls out 
αἵ a time so proper to close this period, that I think it de- 
serves particular notice. 

A new kind of disease invaded Germany this year, A. D. 
1529, says a very judicious historian: « Men being taken 
with a pestilential sweating, either died in twenty-four hours ; 
or, if they sweated out the poison, they recovered by degrees 
their health again: but before any remedy could be found for 
it, many thousands perished. This distemper, in a very 
short time, spread itself from the ocean all over Germany ; 
and with incredible celerity, like a fire, raged far and near. 
It is commonly called, the sweating sickness of England ; 
for, in the first year of the reign of Henry VII. of England, 
which was in the year of our Lord 1486, the same plague 
infested that country: and, because there was no remedy 
known for such a new distemper, it swept away a vast num- 
ber of people. At this time also there was a great scarcity 
of corn and wine; so that all the judgments wherewith God, 
in his anger, uses to punish an unthankful people, as the 
sword, pestilence, and famine, fell upon Germany at one and 
the same time.”* 

It appears this was a new distemper, and but lately 
known, yet it was not the first time this period or age was 
punished with it: “There was a sweating sickness about 
eleven years before (A. D. 1517), being of that malignity, 
that it killed in the space of three hours; many persons of 


quality died of it: it was so mortal among the vulgar sort, | 


that in some towns it took away half the people, in others 
the third part.”} 

About thirty years before this, viz. the beginning of the 
reign of Henry VIL, “there reigned in the city, and other 


REVELATION. 


parts of the kingdom, a disease,” says the Lord Bacon, “then 
new, which, of the accidents and manner thereof, they called 
the sweating sickness; it was conceived to proceed from a 
malignity in the constitution of the air, and infinite persons 
died suddenly of it, before the manner of the cure and at- 
tendance was known.”* 

Here we see a new pestilential distemper returning three 
times in the space of about forty years, and the last time not 
confined to a particular country, but spreading itself through 
most parts of Europe. 

T cannot leave this part of history, without the account a 
French historian gives us of it in his own country; as, I 
think, it greatly illustrates the propriety and elegance of the 
prophetic description. 

“From the end of the year 1528 to the beginning of 
the year 1534,” says the historian, “ heaven was so angry 
with France, that there was a continual disorder of the 
seasons, or rather summer alone had taken all their places ; 
so that for five years there was not two days of frost to- 
gether. This intemperate heat enervated nature, if I may 
sO express it, and made it impotent; it brought nothing to 
maturity, the trees blossomed immediately after the fruit, 
corn did not increase in the ground for want of water; there 
was such a quantity of vermin, as eat up the young shoots ; 
the harvest did not produce sufficient for the next year’s 
seed. his scarcity caused a universal famine ; after which 
there appeared a distemper called frowssegaland, and then 
a furious pestilence ; by which three plagues, above a quarter 
part of mankind was carried away.” 

Thus literally, as well as in a figurative meaning, there 
was power given unto the sun to scorch men in this period. 

What little effect these judgments of God had on the 
world for their reformation, to abate their enmity to the 
truth, or cruelty to the faithful professors of it, we may learn 
from the infamous conduct of the council of Constance, 
which, in open violation of the public faith, burned John 
Huss and Jerome of Prague; and gave a public sanction to 
that scandalous doctrine, “that faith is not to be kept with 
heretics :” and we shall have yet farther instances of it in 
the following periods of prophecy and history. 

Fifth vial—This vial or cup is poured out on “the throne 
of the beast; so the word is in the original.” In the serip- 
ture language, throne, kingdom, government, authority, do- 
minion, and power, are of like signification; to “translate 
the kingdom from the house of Saul, and to set up the throne 
of David over Israel,” is to take the authority and power 
of government from the one, and give it to the other (2 Sam. 
iii. 10) ; to “establish the throne” is to confirm the kingly 
power and authority, as God promised David, « And thine 
house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before 
thee: thy throne shall be established for ever” (2 Sam. vii. 
16). An enlargement of the throne, signifies an increase of 
dominion and power, as, when “Solomon was set on the 
throne of the kingdom,” the court congratulated David, and 
wished prosperity to the new king, in these words, “ God 
make the name of Solomon better than thy name, and make 
his throne greater than thy throne” (1 Kings i. 47). 

The throne, then, of the beast, which our translation has 
rendered his “seat,” seems plainly to mean, his authority 
and power, rather than the city or seat of his residence. For 
the prophetic language puts a throne to signify, not the seat 
of a kingdom, but its power and authority. And so this 
very prophecy explains it; this angel “ poured out his vial on 
the seat of the beast, and his kingdom was full of darkness,” 

Darkness is an emblem of affliction; a kingdom full of 
darkness will then naturally signify a great diminution of 
power and decay of authority; so that the distinguishing 


| punishment of the beast in this period, that his kingdom 
| shall be full of darkness, will most properly mean some great 


and successful opposition to the papal power and authority, 
which shall much weaken and lessen it, and give such un- 
easiness to the supporters of it, as shall drive them into a 
rage, and make them bite their own tongues, as it were, for 
anger and vexation. 

Let us see, then, how this prophetic description is an- 


* Sleidan, Hist. Refor. lib. vi. p. 121. 
+ Lord Herbert, Hist. Hen. VIII. p. 69. 


* Lord Bacon, Hist. Hen. VII. p- 9. 
+ Mezeray, Hist. vol. ii. tom. iv. p. 570. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


1091 


swered by the events of providence, in the times which fall | between Spain and the United Provinces, the Spanish inva- 


in with this period of prophecy. 
The last vial brought us somewhat beyond the year 1500. 


We shall easily perceive the most memorable events of his- | 


tory which next followed in order of time, were those which 
prepared the way for the protestant Reformation, and at last 
fixed and settled it in many considerable kingdoms and states 
of Europe. 

‘The power and authority of the popes were attacked with 
success ; entire nations were cut off from the kingdom of the 
beast. A very considerable part of those who had been long 
subject to his authority renounced it, and have continued 
freed from it to this day: even the nations which still pro- 
fess obedience to the pope, have greatly abridged and re- 
strained his power. They have learned to oppose his 
extravagant claims, and have rendered impracticable any 
ambitious views of a supreme unlimited authority in tem- 
porals and spirituals, which the popes had often aimed 
at, and at some conjunctures had a fair prospect of establish- 
ing. 

The care of a wise and good Providence did not permit 
the kingdom of the beast to rise to such a degree of power, 
or even by the most cruel exercise of the power it had at- 
tained, to suppress altogether the cause of truth and Chris- 
tian liberty. The blood of the martyrs, instead of destroying 
their cause, helped to promote it; many were justly dis- 
pleased with so cruel usage of good men, pitied them for their 
sufferings, and began to have more favourable thoughts of 
their opinions. ‘The corruptions of popery grew daily more 
visible to the world; the scandalous use pope Leo X. made 
of indulgences, to raise money every where by them, provoked 
Martin Luther to preach against them. This so nearly 
touched the power and interest of the pope, that he resolved 
to put a stop to all such disputes, so dangerous to his autho- 


rity. He solemnly condemns the doctrine of Luther, and | 


engages the emperor Charles V. to see his bull put in execu- 
tion. Luther, under the protection of the elector of Saxony, 
not only continued to maintain his first doctrines, but openly 


declared himself farther against other corruptions of the | 


Roman church; in which he was followed by many princes 
and cities of the empire. ‘The doctrines of the Reformation 
spread so fast, and were propagated in so many places, that 
it was judged necessary to call a general council, as the only 
effectual means to put an end to those differences. So a 
council was appointed to meet at Trent, A. D. 1542, which, 


after many suspensions and intermissions, ended at last, | 


A. Ὁ. 1563. 

This council was so artfully managed by the popes, and 
ended so much to their advantage, so fully confirmed their 
corruptions, and condemned all doctrines tending to a re- 
formation, that it was unanimously rejected by all who main- 
tained the necessity of a reformation. Instead of proving an 
effectual remedy to restore peace, it greatly exasperated 
men’s tempers; for, by the decrees passed in the council of 
Trent, all hopes of reunion or accommodation were entirely 
cut off. The kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
the northern kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark, many states 
of the empire and cantons of Switzerland, and great numbers 
in France, Hungary, and Bohemia, firmly adhered to the 
Reformation, separated from the Roman communion, and 
absolutely renounced the papal authority. 

The popes, who were accustomed to use other arms be- 
sides spiritual, engaged the house of Austria, and several 
princes, by all possible means, to suppress the northern 
heresy, as they styled the Reformation ; and left no methods 
they could think of untried, by which they could hope to 
ruin it: so that wars, invasions, assassinations, massacres, are 
the principal parts of the history of these times, for above a 
hundred years. We need but just mention the many bloody 
wars in Germany, in which Charles V. was endeavouring to 
destroy the liberties of the empire, with the protestant Re- 
formation, the many civil wars in France, the long wars 


sion of our own kingdom, the massacre of Paris, the powder- 
plot in England, the many attempts against the life of queen 
Elizabeth, the actual assassinations of Henry III. and Henry 
IV., kings of France, and of the prince of Orange, founder 
of the Dutch commonwealth ; all which are recited at large 
in every history, and recorded as the most memorable events 
of those times. 

Yet the same histories also show us, that all these attempts 
in aid of the pope’s authority failed of success. Several 
kingdoms maintained the Reformation against all opposition, 
and, by full authority of the supreme civil powers, annulled 
and made void the usurped authority of the popes ; in many 
countries where yet the government continued in obedience 
to the pope, as supreme head of the church, the free posses- 
sion and exercise of the protestant religion was tolerated and 
indulged. 

At length, after many and great struggles, the chief de- 
fenders of the popes’s cause were brought to confirm and 
ratify the peace and liberty of the protestant states. The 
treaties of Westphalia, A. D. 1648, are well called “the 
basis of the religious liberty of the empire.” The treaty of 
Osnabruck, between the emperor and Sweden (art. v.), and 
the treaty of Munster, between the emperor and France (art. 
Xxxiii.), confirmed the protestant states in their religion, and 
quieted them in their possessions in the most solemn and 
authentic manner ;* and, what deserves observation, notwith- 
standing the public and vigorous protestations of the pope to 
the contrary. Pope Innocent X. had vehemently opposed 
these treaties in their progress, and no sooner were they con- 
cluded and ratified, but he solemnly protested against them, 
as highly prejudicial to the catholic religion and holy see. 
He declared them null and void, and freed all persons from 
any obligations to keep them, though they had sworn to the 
observation of them. Nous, de notre propre mouvement, et 
de notre certaine science, et mire deliberation, et de la ple- 
nitude de la puissance ecclesiastique, disons et declarons, par 
ces mémes presentes, que les dits articles ont été de 
droit, sont, et seront perpetuellement, nuls, vains, invalides, 
iniques, injustes, condamnés, reprouvées, frivoles, sans force et 
effet, et que personne n’est tenu de Jes observer, ou aucun 
d’eux, encore qu’ils soient fortifiés par un serment.f 

The great opposition made by the pope to these treaties, 
while they were negociating, gave the contracting powers 
reason to apprehend some such protestation at the conclusion 
of them. It was therefore inserted in the treaty itself, that 
these articles should be observed, any declaration made or to 
be made to the contrary notwithstanding, Sans s’arréter ἃ 
la contradiction, ou protestation, fait par qui ce soit, ecclesi- 
astique ou seculier, soit au dedans soit au dehors de l’empire, 
en quelque tems que ce puisse étre, toutes les quelles oppo- 
sitions sont declarées nulles, et de nul effet, en vertu des ces 
presentes.+ 4 

It is well known, these treaties of Munster and Osnabruck 
have continued an essential part of the constitution of the 
empire ever since ; they are generally made the basis of ali 
subsequent treaties, and have very frequently been confirmed 
by them. 

Thus the Reformation proved a great blow to the autho- 
rity of the popes; many nations withdrew altogether from 
his obedience, and such as remained to own him head of the 
church, yet evidently showed much less regard to his autho- 
rity than before; and, on some greater occasions, plainly 
appeared both to oppose it, and treat it with contempt. As 
this is a very remarkable event of providence in itself, it 
every way answers the prophetic description of this period, 
That the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat or 
throne of the beast ; and his kingdom was full of darkness. 


* Heiss, vol. iv. p. 146, art. v. ib. p. 87, art. xxxiii. 
ἡ Protestation du Pape, ib. p. 236. 
+ Traité d’Osnabruck, ib. p. 147. 


1092 


CHAPTER XVII. 


SECTION XVI. 


1 Anp there came one of the seven angels which 
had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto 
me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment 
of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters : 


(1.) After I had seen in vision the afflicted state of the 
church in this last period, and the punishment of its anti- 
christian enemies, by many strokes of divine vengeance, one 
of the angels appointed to pour out the cups of God’s wrath 
called me to him, to explain yet more particularly to me 
some things concerning these judgments, and the characters 
of the persons on whom they were to be inflicted, which 
should sufficiently mark them out to a careful observer, as 
an idolatrous power, ruling over many nations and people. 


2 With whom the kings of the earth have com- 
mitted fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth 
have been made drunk with the wine of her forni- 
cation. 

(2.) With whose idolatrous doctrines and practices the 
princes and rulers of the world, together with all sorts of 
people of every rank, had been greatly corrupted: so that 
they had been prevailed upon by this prostitute to join in 
polluting the worship of the Christian church, by abominable 
superstition and idolatrous practices. ἢ 


3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wil- 
derness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet 
coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having 
seven heads and ten horns. 


(3.) When the angel had thus informed me of the design 
of his message, the scene of the prophetic vision was changed 
to a wilderness, a place of retirement and secrecy; there I 
saw a new vision, a woman appeared riding on a beast, 
adorned with scarlet furniture; its form like that I saw 
rising out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, with 
many blasphemous inscriptions or titles, to show that this 
idolatrous persecuting power was the same antichristian 
Roman government, meant by the beast that I saw in a 
former vision rise out of the sea. 


4 And the woman wns arrayed in purple and scar- 
let colour, and decked with gold and precious stones 
and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of 
abominations and filthiness of her fornication : 


4.) This lewd prostitute, who sat on the beast, was her- 
self clothed in the imperial habit, wearing purple and scar- 
let robes; she was also very richly adorned with gold and 
jewels, to show her high quality and great riches ; she had 
also a golden cup in her hand, wherewith she intoxicated 
persons, and enticed them to join with her in her supersti- 
tions and idolatry. 3 


5 And upon her forehead was a name written, 
MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE 
MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINA- 
TIONS OF THE EARTH. 


(5.) This character of an idolatrous persecuting govern- 
ment, represented by this woman sitting upon a scarlet-co- 
loured beast, appeared manifest by an inscription on her 
forehead, to this purpose: This is a mystical or figurative 
personage, meaning, under the name and character of Baby- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVII. 


Conrents.—The former vision represented a very afflicted 
state of the church; the true worshippers of God, few in 


number, driven out from society, flying into a wilderness | 


and desert places for safety from persecution, prophesying 


in sackcloth, in a state of oppression and mourning, often | 


put to death for their testimony to the truth: yet the 
time of this afflicted state is limited to one thousand two 
hundred and sixty years, or prophetic days ; at the end of 
which period, this oppressive persecuting power shall be 
destroyed,—purity, truth, and righteousness, which were 
oppressed and persecuted, shall flourish in a state of great 
safety, peace, and huppiness. ἃ 

This is a much longer period of prophecy than either of the 
two foregoing. ‘To make the true intention and meaning 
of it more clear and evident, one of the angels who poured 
out the cups of God’s wrath, is sent to St. John as a nun- 
tius, more fully to explain it. 

A nuntius, angel, or interpreter, was a known part in the 
ancient drama. Here an angel is sent to interpret this 
part of the prophecy to us; and we may justly look upon 
the angel’s interpretation as a sure key, which will war- 
rant an application of the several representations ; and so 


far as an angel from heaven explains it, we may be satis- | 
fied we have the true meaning of it: so that by the help — 


of this explication in the prophecy itself, we have a sure 
interpretation of some of the more important parts of the 
vision, and of such as will make the interpretation of the 
rest very likely and probable. 


1 Ver. 2.] Idolatry, in the ancient prophecies, is fre- 
quently called whoredom and fornication ; the prophet Eze- 
kiel interprets, being “ polluted, after the manner of their 
fathers, and committing whoredom after their abominations,” 
by “ making their sons to pass through the fire, and polluting 
themselves with their idols” (xx. 30, 31). The prophet 
Isaiah, in like manner, describes the propagation of idolatry 
by Tyre, which was spread every where with their great 
trade and commerce, by these remarkable words, “ She shall 
commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon 
the face of the earth” (xxiii. 17). As it is agreeable to the 
prophetic style to represent cities in the figure of women, so 


it is to represent idolatrous and superstitious cities by pros- 
titutes and harlots; “ Seeing thou dost all these things, the 
work of an imperious whorish woman,” says the prophet 
Ezekiel to Jerusalem (xvi. 30). A fit expression to show 
the evil of idolatry and superstition, and how hateful in the 
sight of God. This was one distinguishing character of this 
antichristian power, which ruled over and corrupted so many 
nations and people. 

2 Ver. 3.] We have already seen, in the notes on xiii. 1, 
that the monstrous wild creature there described, having 
seven heads and ten horns, with titles of blasphemy, and in 
which the forms of a leopard, a bear, and a lion were mixed 
together, signified the last form of Roman government, con- 
temporary with the several new kingdoms erected on the fall 
of the Roman empire, after the form of government at the 
time of the vision, which was the imperial, should be passed 
away. The present representation of the great whore or 
prostitute, sitting upon this beast, signifies that the same 
state of Roman government is intended, which can be no 
other than the idolatrous persecuting power supported by 
the papal authority. This the angel-interpreter will show, 


| I think, with full evidence, in explaining the principal parts 


of this figurative representation. 

The beast seems to be called scarlet-coloured, because a 
scarlet covering, or rich cloth, was thrown over it: might not 
that rich horsecloth be embroidered with gold, and have 
heads and horns worked upon it, as emblems of power and 
authority, with proud mottoes, or titles, amounting to blas- 
phemy ? 

3 Ver. 4.] Purple and scarlet were the colours of the im- 
perial habit: the purple in times of peace, and the scarlet 
in times of war. It is well known these are the colours 
used by the pope and cardinals; so that to be raised to the 
purple, or to the scarlet hat, is used to express being made a 
cardinal. The use of jewels, for state and magnificence, is 
too well known to be insisted on. ‘The golden cup in her 
hand, full of abomination and filthiness of her fornication, 
may be an allusion to those philtres, or love-potions, which 
prostitutes and lewd women were used to prepare, to inflame 
the love of their gallants, but by which they often disturbed 
their senses, and made them run mad; or it may refer more 
simply to the common effects of drunkenness and debauchery. 
Babylon is represented as “a golden cup, that made all the 


CHAPTER XVII. 


lon, a power like that of ancient Babylon, a chief promoter 
of idolatry, by whose authority it was propagated among 
many nations. 4 

6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood 
of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of 
Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great 
admiration. 


(6.) When I perceived how cruel and outrageous this 
government was represented, so as to persecute the most 
faithful Christians to death, and shed their blood, as if drunk 
and mad with rage, it struck me with great wonder and as- 
tonishment, that a power, professedly Christian, should be 
80 intoxicated with pride and cruelty. ὅ 


7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst 
thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the wo- 
man, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the 
seven heads and ten horns. 

(7.) Then the angel-interpreter, who was sent to explain 
this vision to me, more distinctly informed me, that when I 
should more fully understand what this persecuting power 
was, how it came by its authority, how it abused it, how se- 
verely it should be punished for it in the end, my wonder 
would be much lessened : I will therefore, says he, give you 
a more distinct account of the original wickedness and pu- 
nishment of this mystical Babylon. 

8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and 
shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into per- 
dition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, 
whose names were not written in the book of life 
from the foundation of the world, when they behold 
the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. 

(8.) Know then, and understand, this persecuting power 
will be a revived authority in the same city of Rome, which 


earth drunken ; the nations have drunken of her wine, there- 
fore the nations are mad” (Jer. li. 7). ‘The disordered senses 
and understanding of a drunken man, the natural effects of 
a debauch, are a proper figurative representation of a disor- 
dered understanding and judgment of men, misled by any 
methods of infatuating deceit into idolatry and gross super- 
stition. 

4 Ver. 5.1 It has been observed by interpreters, that lewd 
women were used to have their names written over their 
doors, and sometimes on their foreheads; and that criminals 
among the Romans had an inscription of their crimes car- 
ried before them. In the first sense, as Mr. Daubuz ob- 
serves, “ this inscription will denote a public profession of 
what is signified by it, or a public patronage of idolatrous 
doctrines and worship.” In the second sense, it will denote 
the crimes for which she is condemned, and was punished 
by the foregoing plagues. Mr. Waple thinks “ this inscrip- 
tion is rather an allusion to the known inscription on the 
forehead of the high-priest, Holiness to the Lord; whereby 
is intimated, that this idolatrous persecuting government was 
an antichristian church, of a temper and spirit quite contrary 
to the true worship of the one true God.” 

The paraphrase of the Bishop of Meaux on these words 
deserves observation. “Babylon is meant by the name of 
the whore, and Rome by Babylon. This is the most natural 
sense.— We see then why St. John represents Rome in the 
name of Babylon, as she had all the characters of Babylon, 
an empire full of idols and divinations, and a’ persecutor of 
the saints, as she was.” Sous le nom de la prostituée c’est 
Babylon, et sous le nom de Babylon, c’est Rome, c'est le sens 
le plus naturel on voit done pourquoi Saint Jean repre- 
sente Rome sous le nom de Babylon, dont elle avait tous les 
caractéres, dominante comme elle, comme elle pleine d’idoles 
et de divinations, et persecutrice des saints, qu’elle tenait 
captifs. 

5 Ver. 6.] It has been observed, I think justly, that the 
persecution of Christians, at the time of the vision, was not 
likely to have occasioned such astonishment in the apostle ; 
but he might well greatly wonder, that Rome Christian, 
once so famous for purity of faith and patient suffering for 
the profession of truth, should become another Babylon for 
ilolatry and persecution. From hence, protestant interpre- 


1093 


was once before destroyed by the righteous judgment of God 
for persecutingy the truth; another perseculing power shall 
arise after it, which, by means of false doctrines, and those 
hellish principles by which Satan corrupts the world, and 
maintains a power over wicked men, shall greatly prevail ; 
a corrupt part of the church, who by their antichristian 
temper and actiens show they are not true Christians, shall 
be surprised and pleased with it, and the greater part shall 
rejoice in the revival of a power to promote their corrup- 
tions, and to persecute all who have conscience and integrity 
not to comply with them. ὃ 


9 And here zs the mind which hath wisdom. The 
seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman 
sitteth. 

(9.) Let them who have a mind to understand this pro- 
phecy, particularly attend to this key of explaining it, and 
it will give them a good degree of knowledge in the meaning 
of it; let them lay it down for a maxim, that this persecuting 
power is the city of Rome, so well known by its situation on 
seven hills. 7 


10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and 
one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he 
cometh, he must continue a short space. 


(10.) But, said the angel, observe farther, that seven 
kings are also signified, to express more distinctly under 
what state or form of government this persecuting power 
should arise in Rome. Observe then, that out of seven 
forms of government, five are already passed; the present 
that now is, at the vision, is the sixth; after this there shall 
be another, which is not yet come, and when it comes, is to 
continue but for a short time. All these are to be passed 
in their succession, before that form of Roman government 
shall arise which is meant by the beast in this prophecy. 


11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he 


ters may with reason infer, that this vision does not repre- 
sent the persecution of Rome heathen, but of Rome anti- 
christian. 

§ Ver. 8.] This description of the beast, that it was, and 
is not, and yet is, means, in a plain and easy sense, that this 
persecuting power once was, then ceased to be, but after- 
ward recovered itself again. Mr. Mede, following good 
authority, reads παρέσται, and renders it, “ The beast that 
was, and is not, and yet is to come, which at length shall 
ascend out of the bottomless pit.” The bottomless pit, gulf, 
or abyss, is mentioned as the prison of Satan, and his evil 
angels ; opening the bottomless pit, signifies a permission of 
those powers of darkness to deceive and corrupt the minds 
of evil-disposed and wicked men with false doctrines and 
principles of persecution, through their lusts of ambition and 
covetousness (vid. ix. 1). 

The expression, “ Whose names were not written in the 
book of life,” is intended to show, that this revival of a per- 
secuting power should be greatly owing to some members of 
the church itself, but such who had lost the spirit and tem- 
per of true Christianity, who were led by ambition and 
worldly interests, and were ready to fa!l in with any thing 
that seemed best to fall in with their inclinations and 
views. “The book of life” is an allusion to the registers in 
which the names of persons were enrolled to remain upon 
record, as members of a corporation, or freemen of a city ; 
to be registered in the book of life, is to be registered as true 
Christians, who have a right to the promise of eternal life 
(vid. iii. 5). 

Now this description most exactly agrees with the temporal 
power of the papacy, which arose by the means of false doc- 
trine, persecution, and assistance of a corrupt part of the 
church itself. Thus Rome, after it had lost all authority, 
ceased to be a seat of empire, was itself a small duchy, 
subject to the exarchate of Ravenna for many years; yet it 
revived again, recovered great power and authority, and has 
long continued the seat of the most extraordinary govern- 
ment the world ever saw. 

7 Ver. 9.1 This interpretation of the angel leaves no room 
to doubt, but that the persecuting power here prophesied of 
was to be some empire of which the city of Rome was to 
be the capital, or seat. ai was as well known by its 


1094 


is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into per- 
dition. ᾿ 

(11.) For the form of government here prophesied of 
may on some accounts be reckoned as an eighth, though yet, 
for other reasons, it may be accounted as a seventh, and 
shall in its due time be as surely destroyed, as the several 
forms of government in succession before it were. § 


12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten 


kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but 
receive power as kings one hour with the beast. 


REVELATION. 


(12.) More distinctly to show you the time of the beas 
in this prophecy, observe the ten horns, as designed to sig- 
nify several distinct kingdoms and governments, none of 
which are yet in being at this time of the vision, but which 
are to arise in or about the same time with this last form of 
Roman government; therefore you are to consider the time 
of this persecuting power contemporary with ten other king- 
doms, or governments, to be formed hereafter in the domi- 
nions of the Roman empire. ° 


13 These have one mind, and shall give their power 
and strength unto the beast. 


situation on seven hills, or montes, as by the name of | 
Rome itself; urbs septicollis was never mistaken for any | 


other city, Roman authors have so fully determined the 
sense of it. 


Que de septem totum circumspicit orbem 
Montibus, imperii Roma deimque locus.* 


8 Ver. 11.] This part of the angel’s interpretation de- 
serves particular attention. It has appeared ditlicult 
to most interpreters; so that there is great difference 
between them as to the precise meaning of the several 
expressions. 


The whole scheme and order of these prophecies will | 


by no means admit, that the seven kings should mean 


seven emperors, in immediate succession to each other ; | 
for then the text would make the then reigning emperor | 


the sixth, his immediate successor must be the seventh, 
the whole twelve hundred and sixty years of this period, 
with all the time of the two foregoing periods, would be 
comprised in the single reign of one man, and the whole 
prophecy would reach no farther than a very few years after 
the vision. 

It is to be observed, that, in the style of prophecy, kings 


means kingdoms, or states of governmeut. Daniel interprets | 
the beast in his prophecy to mean kings, that is, kingdoms, | 


empires, and distinct governments. 
which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the 
earth” (Dan. vii. 17). One of these kings the prophet ex- 
plains by a kingdom and distinct government, “ The fourth 
beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be 
diverse from all kingdoms” (ver. 23.) The prophecy before 
us points out the same interpretation, “The ten kings who 


“These great beasts, | 


have received no kingdom as yet” (xvii. 12), seem plainly | 


to mean, not so many particular persons, who reigned in 
succession one after another, in the same kingdom or empire, 
but so many kingdoms, or distinct states of government, 
contemporary with each other, and all of them contemporary 
with the empire of the beast. 

The angel-interpreter only observes concerning the first 
five, that they were fallen or passed away at the time of the 
vision, and, as Mr. Waple justly observes, without any dis- 
tinct account of them, their time, names, difference, or the 


order of their succession among themselves; for which | 


he gives this good reason, because they were of no farther 
use to this prophecy, than to show that the one head then in 
being was the sixth of the seven, after five already past. 
‘We have no need, then, to inquire, with great exactness, 
what these five forms of government were we may con- 
tent ourselves with a short account of a very eminent 
Roman historian, very near the time of this vision. “ Rome,” 
he says, “ was first governed by kings, then by consuls, by 
dictators, by decemvirs, by military tribunes with consular 
authority.” + 


The triumvirates were states of confusion, rather than | 


forms of government; and Augustus settled the imperial 
government, which was the sixth, the form of government 
at the time of the vision, and which long continued under 
his successors, to the time of the destruction of the Roman 
empire by the northern invasions. 

There appears no reason why the imperial government 
under Christian emperors should, or even can, be called a 
new form of Roman government: for all the powers of go- 
vernment were the very same under heathen and Christian 


* Ovid. Trist. lib. i. eleg. 4. 
{ Tacitus, Annal. lib. i. cap. 1. 


emperors. I cannot therefore apprehend, that Constantine 
and his successors, when the empire became Christian, can 
be meant by the seventh king, or the kingdom which was 
not yet come. It seems to me, that the angel-interpreter 
intimates plainly enough, that the seventh form of govern- 
ment was not to begin till the imperial power of Rome 
should be destroyed, in whose soever hands it should be. 
After the imperial power was destroyed, Rome was long 
subject to the kingdom of the Goths in Italy. It was reco- 
vered out of their hands, and continued for some time, 
during the exarchate of Ravenna, under the eastern empire, 
governed by a lieutenant, and a duke subject to the 
exarch, as we have observed more largely before, on 
ch. xiii. 

This state of Rome and its government answers well to 
the description of the beast, that was, and is not; and shows 
how this last government of the beast may, on some accounts, 
be called the seventh, and, for other reasons, the eighth 
head of government, as the exarchate of Ravenna was in 
some sense a new form of government, and yet hardly so 
distinct and proper a form of government, as to be reckoned 
a different head. 

9 Ver. 12.] What we translate “one hour,” μίαν ὥραν, 
ought to have been translated “the same hour” or point of 
time, as several learned interpreters have justly observed. 
We have the same expression in the next verse, piav 
γνώμην, wnich we have rendered “one mind,” meaning 
plainly the same mind. The beast, then, and the ten kings 
or kingdoms, are to be contemporary powers, or to reign at 
the same time. 

Horns are a usual symbol of strength, as the strength of 
some of the fiercest beasts lies in their horns. ‘This symbol 
of strength and power has been anciently used in the pro- 
phets, to signify the power of empire and government. 
‘Thus the prophet Jeremiah, concerning Moab, «The horn 
of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, saith the Lord” 
(xlviii. 25). The prophet Zechariah saw the kingdoms 
that oppressed Judah under the representation of horns: 
“Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and beheld four 
horns. And I said unto the angel that talked with me, 
What be these! and he answered me, These are the horns 
which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem” (i. 18, 
19). In the prophecy of Daniel, horns are most expressly 
designed to signify the empires of Media, Persia, and 
Greece; “The ram which thou sawest having two horns 
are the kingdoms of Media and Persia. And the rough 
goat is the king of Greece; and the great horn that is be- 
tween his eyes is the first king,” the founder ef that empire 
(viii. 20, 21). 

‘There were ten horns in the representation, to denote ten 
distinct kingdoms, which should arise in several parts of the 
Roman empire, which the northern nations should canton 
out among themselves, and erect into new and distinct 
kingdoms. 

I have before observed, that ¢en in prophetic language 
does not always mean a precise number, but is used 88 ἃ 
certain number for an uncertain, to express in general seve- 
ral or many; “ten times” is the same as many times, “ ten 


| women” the same as many women, “ten men” mean seve- 


] 


ral men, “ten sons” several sons, as we have observed in 
the annotations on Rev. ii. 10. 

So that there seems to be no necessity of finding a precise 
number of ten different kingdoms, or just so many different 
governments, neither more nor less, erected on the ruins of 
the Roman empire: in fact, in those times of disorder 
and confusion, they were shifting and variable; but that 


CHAPTER XVII. 


(13.) When these kingdoms shall be erected, as all had 
the same intention of cantoning out some part of the Ro- 
man empire a settlement for themselves, so they shall all 
join their authority and power (however they may be divided 


in their respective interests and ambition) to support this | 


antichristian persecution of the faithful servants of Christ. 


14 They shall make war with the Lamb, and the 
Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, 


and King of kings: and they that are with him are | 


called, and chosen, and faithful. 

(14.) They shall themselves join in this war with Clirist 
and his church, in persecuting all who should adhere to the 
purity of the Christian faith and worship; but though the 
faithful shall suffer much from them, they have this consola- 


tion in the same prophecy, that Christ, the King of saints, 
shall in due time overcome these powerful conquerors of the | 
Roman empire: for God has constituted him Lord of lords, | 


and King of kings; and God will assuredly defend and pro- 
tect those whom he has chosen and called to the privileges 
of his church, and who are faithful to the cause of God and 


religion, against the opposition of the world, how powerful | 


soever it may be. 


15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou | 


sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and mul- 
titudes, and nations, and tongues. 


(15.) The angel-interpreter farther informed me, that I 
was to understand by that part of the vision in which I saw 
the whore sitting on many waters, the great extent of that 
persecuting power over many nations and people, being sup- 
ported by the united force of the several nations that had 
settled themselves in the Roman empire. 12 


16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the 


1095 


beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her 
desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn 
her with fire. 

(16.) Yet, for the comfort of the faithful, it is revealed, 
that these very nations who will thus support the idolatry 
and persecution of the beast for a time, shall at length grow 
sensible of her extravagant claims and grievous oppressions, 
shall be highly displeased with them and resent them ; they 
shall not only withdraw their protection from her, but shall 
use their power against her ; shall strip her of her ornaments 
| and riches, expose her to shame, and bring her to destruction 
by fire and sword, and all the calamities of war. 11 


17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his 
will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the 
beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. 


(17.) For God, the supreme governor of the world, in 
whose hands the hearts of kings are, as well as the hearts of 
meaner persons, though he permits the kings of the earth 
to support the idolatry and persecution of the beast for a 
time, yet it is only for a limited time, during the period of 
this prophecy ; when this word of prophecy shall be finished, 
then he will put it into their hearts to fulfil his farther will, 
in the destruction of that power which they before sup- 
ported. 

18 And the woman which thou sawest is that 
great city, which reigneth over the kings of the 
earth. 

(18.) And finally, to understand this vision, observe that 
the kingdom of the beast is a kingdom in the same great 
city which you now see the empress of the world, which has 
subdued the other empires, and subjected so many kingdoms 
of the earth to its dominion. 12 


several new kingdoms were erected, when the northern 
nations divided the empire among themselves, is well known 
in history, and evident in the several distinct governments 
of Europe at this day. 

Several interpreters have reckoned up the number of ten 
precisely with the time when, and the place where, they 
were erected, from whom every one who pleases may sa- 
tisfy his farther curiosity. It may be sufficient here to 
mention the account given of them by the illustrious Sir 
Isaac Newton.* 


1. Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and 
Africa. 
. The kingdom of the Suevians in Spain. 
. The kingdom of the Visigoths. 
. The kingdom of the Alans in Gallia. 
. The kingdom of the Burgundians. 
. The kingdom of the Franks. 
. The kingdom of Britain. 
. The kingdom of the Huns. 
. The kingdom of the Lombards. 
10. The kingdom of Ravenna. 


Whether we reckon after this manner with our illustrious 
author, or in a somewhat different manner with others, yet 
in general, this division of the Roman empire into several 
distinct kingdoms, was a memorable event of providence, 
and distinguishing mark of this period of prophecy : so that 
we may observe with the Bishop of Meaux,—here, without 


ODDO ww 


the necessity of being more particular, is a character very | 


remarkable, that so many distinct kingdoms should be raised 
out of one and the same empire, in Spain, Gaul, Great 
Britain, Italy, Pannonia, and elsewhere. 
ter sufficient to distinguish this period, especially if we join 
to it the other parts of the description. 

10 Ver. 15.] This observation of the extensive authority 
or jurisdiction of the beast, or last government of Rome, 
over so many other nations and people, as well as the imme- 
diate subjects of its own government, is another very consi- 


* On Dan. vii. 


This is a charac- | 


derable mark of that persecuting power which the Spirit of 
prophecy here describes. It strongly points out one cir- 
cumstance peculiar to the papal government of Rome, and 
wherein it differs from all other governments in the world, 
| whose jurisdiction and authority are confined within the 
bounds of their own dominions ; whereas the authority of 
this government reaches all the nations settled in the Roman 
empire, and all the kingdoms erected by them. 

'! Ver. 16.] The description of this judgment may receive 
| light from a passage in the ancient books of Moses. “1 
says God, “1 whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take 
| hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to mine ene- 
mies, and will reward them that hate me. Iwill make mine 
arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh ; 
and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, 
from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy. My sword 
shall devour flesh” (Deut. xxxii. 41,42). The original ox 
properly signifies to eat, and figuratively to devour. In 
like manner, the expression of the prophet Jeremiah, xxx. 
16, « All that devour thee shall be devoured,” is literally, 
‘All that eat thee shall be eaten.” 

The nations of the earth, supporters of this tyrannical 
power, may resent any attempts made by it against their 
own authority, as the empire, France, Spain, and Portugal 
have often shown; and yet they may bewail her, and la- 
| ment for her, as it is represented they will do, xviii. 9, when 
her utter destruction shall take away a main support of their 
own superstition and tyranny. 

2 Ver. 18.] This is so plain a description of Rome, as 
must necessarily determine the meaning of this prophecy to 
some state or form of government in that city. What state 
or form of government it is, the other parts of the descrip- 
tion do, I think, sufficiently determine, to the reasonable 
satisfaction of all who are willing fairly to inquire into the 
true meaning of it : so wonderful agreement in the events of 
providence, to the prediction, in which so many things 
were to concur, and for so long a time, is a great evi- 
| dence of the truth of the prophecy, and a great encourage- 
| ment to faith, patience, and hope in God, the great and 
| useful design of it. 


1096 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


SECTION XVII. 


1 Anp after these things I saw another angel come 
down from heaven, having great power; and the earth 
was lightened with his glory. 


(1.) Now after the angel interpreter had so far explained 
the meaning of the vision and mystery of the woman, and 
of the beast with seven heads and ten horns which carried 
her, another angel was sent from heaven, to show the sure 
downfall of this antichristian power: to give weight to this 
message, it pleased God to send an angel from heaven, as 
from his court, to declare his decree, and an angel of high 
and superior rank, to show the importance of his commis- 
sion. ! 


2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, say- 
ing, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is be- 
come the habitation of devils, and the hold of every 
foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful 
bird. 


(2.) As the angel drew nearer, he proclaimed the decree 
of heaven with an audible voice, saying, Babylon is fallen ; 
this mystical Babylon shall as surely perish as ancient Ba- 
bylon formerly did, and become an equal example of ruin. 
As a city quite destroyed, where there is no more concourse 
of men, and which is utterly desolate, it shall be a place of 
resort for hateful birds and beasts of prey.? 


3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the 
wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth 
have committed fornication with her, and the mer- 
chants of the earth are waxed rich through the abun- 
dance of her delicacies. 


(3.) The angel declaring the judgment of Rome, shows 


at the same time the reason of so heavy and severe punish- 
ment, because she had not only been guilt of idolatry her- 
self, and with great wrath persecuted the true Christian faith 
and worship, but had also corrupted the princes and nations 
of the earth, as if she had given them a cup of poisonous 
composition, to disturb their understanding,sand heat them 
into rage and fury ; she had prevailed upon them to commit 
the same sins of which she was guilty, and to propagate her 
corruptions by ambitious views, incitements of luxury, and 
prospect of gain. 3 


4 And 1 heard another voice from heaven, saying, 
Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers 
of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 


(4.) When this angel had declared the punishment of 
Rome, a voice from heaven declared what use and im- 
provement good Christians were to make of such a revela- 
tion ; that they should most carefully keep themselves from 
falling in with these general corruptions, and no ways assist 
to support and propagate them. ‘They are warned, on the 
contrary, with faithfulness, constancy, and zeal, to attempt 
a reformation of them, at least among themselves, by an 
open and resolute separation. ‘This is their duty and con- 
cern; lest, by aiding or abetting these corruptions, they 
partake in that guilt, which will meke them liable to all 
the plagues and judgments with which they shall be pu- 
nished. 


5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God 
hath remembered her iniquities. 


(5.) For they may be assured, the time is coming when 
such sins as these, like the notorious sins of wicked nations, 
shall be found ripe for judgment; a decree shall be pro- 
nounced against them in heaven, and the execution of it 
shall visibly show, that God does not forget, as the workers 
of iniquity vainly imagine; but will surely remember, in a 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XVIII. 


Conrents.—In the former chapter, the angel interpreter, or 
nuntius, has given us a key to the meaning of the pro- 
phecy, which describes this third and most lasting period, 
in which the saints were to suffer for their faith and con- 
stancy; that they might expect a time of temptation 
and suffering; that they might be more careful to con- 
firm their faith and patience, and encourage their perse- 
verance. 

‘This chapter represents another angel sent from heaven, to 
reveal the sure judgments of God on these enemies of 
the pure Christian religion, to foretell their sure destruc- 
tion, and in as eminent a manner as God ever appeared 
to punish Babylon or Tyre, the ancient enemies of true 
religion. ‘This part of the prophecy is very fit and pro- 
per for the general design of it, to warn and caution good 


Christians against the corruption of the time and age in | 


which they live; to give them consolation in all their 
sufferings, through hope in the protection of God, of de- 
liverance in a proper time, and of a glorious reward in 
the end. 


1 Ver. 1.] The description of this angel, as an angel of 
reat power, “and the earth was lightened with his glory,” 
seems to allude to the vision of Ezekiel, xliti. 2, when he 
beheld the glory of the God of Israel; “the earth shined 
with his glory,” a bright and shining light usually attended 
the appearance of angels; and likely the splendour of the 
appearance was greater, as the angel appearing was more 
honourable. Sending an angel of superior rank, alludes to 
the custom of courts in employing persons of dignity, ac- 
cording to the weight and importance of the commission they 
were to execute. 

2 Ver. 2.) These expressions seem to be taken from the 
prophet Isaiah, in his prophecy against Babylon, xiii. 19, 
&c., “ And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of 
the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew 


Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither 
shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither 
shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shep- 
herds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert 
shall lie there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful crea- 
tures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance 
there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their 
desolate houses, and dragons in her pleasant places.” What 
we render, “ and satyrs shall dance there,” the Seventy render, 
δαιμόνια demons or devils; the Hebrew my νῷ signifies some 
hairy creature, as a goat. It was a vulgar opinion, as Bo- 
chart has shown, that demons, or evil spirits, were used of 
old time, to appear in the shape of goats, or in the form of 
some hairy creature, and that they were used to have their 
haunts in forlorn and desolate places;* on which ac- 
count, this word is sometimes translated “ demons,” or devils. 
The whole is a strong figurative description of utter de- 
struction. 

3 Ver. 3.] “The Romish clergy,” says Mr. Daubuz, “ by 
trading in spiritual matters, have gotten vast wealth; these 
are the merchants of the earth, who, by their popish tricks 
and trinkets, have gotten a good part of the wealth of the 
world into their hands. In short, Rome is a great mart,” 
adds our author ; “the Romish clergy are the merchants and 
factors, the secular inferior clergy, the monks and friars, are 
the pedlars and hawkers, which retail the merchandise. As 
for the luxury of Rome, procured by this trade, it needs no 

roof,” 
᾿ As the destruction of Rome is here compared to thé de- 
struction of Tyre, we easily see how proper it was to describe 
the sins of Rome, by figures taken from the sins of Tyre. 
The profit of the trade created a commerce between that 
city, then the chief mart of the world, and all nations: so 
that Tyre spread her luxury and superstition far and wide, 
through all parts of the world, with her trade. Rome, in like 
manner, corrupted distant and remote nations, by rewarding 


* Lowth, on Isa. xiii. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


proper time, to execute justice and judgment, when none | 
shall be able to escape. 4 


6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and dou- 
ble unto her double according to her works: in the cup 
which she hath filled fill to her double. 


(G.) Her punishment shall then be equal to her crimes ; 
she shall not only be punished with a full retaliation for all 
the injuries and evils with which she has oppressed the faith- 
ful servants of God, but she shall be condemned to double 
damages, and suffer whatever the laws of justice have made 
the punishment of so great offences. δ 


7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived 
deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: 
for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no| 
widow, and shall see no sorrow. 


(7.) When God shall thus arise to punish her, she shall 
receive sorrow and torment, in full proportion to her former | 
pride and luxury, though she greatly rejoice for the present | 
in her prosperity and glory, as securely settled in her power | 
and authority, without any prospect of danger, or fear of | 
losing it. 

8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, 
death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be 
utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God 
who judgeth her. 


(8.) Yet her pride and security shall hasten her downfall ; | 
it shall be one part of her punishment, and which shall | 
greatly aggravate her sorrow, that her plagues shall come 
upon her at once, in full extremity: all the calamities of 
famine, death, and utter destruction, shall at once come 
suddenly upon her; all her pride and power shall not be able | 
to secure her from the justice of God. God, the supreme 
Lord of the whole world, who judgeth her, is mighty to exe- | 
cute the vengeance he has decreed, with irresistible power. 


9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed 
fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail 
her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke 
of her burning, 


(9.) So that even the kings of the earth, and great powers 
of the world, who were formerly in league with her, support- 
ed her in her corruptions, and shared with her in the pomp | 
and luxury of her prosperous state, shall be able to afford 
her no support, no defence, in this day of God’s vengeance ; 
they shall be able to do no more than fruitlessly condole 
with her, and lament her sad condition, when they shall be- 
hold all these calamities come suddenly upon her. 


10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, 


1097 


saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty 
city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. 


(10.) Instead of being able to help her, they shall them- 
selves be astonished and confounded; like persons tho- 
roughly affrighted, they shall seek to get as far as they can 
out of the reach of danger, and only express their astonish- 
ment at so great and wonderful a revolution, so little thought 
of, so little expected; they shall only say with themselves, 
Alas, alas! what a dreadful judgment is come upon the 


| world, that so mighty a city should be so suddenly, so utterly 


destroyed ! 


11 And the merchants of the earth shall weep and 
mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise 
any more: 


(11.) Her men of business, and skilled in the affairs of 
life, who gained so much by her preferments, and by em- 
ployments under ber, the men of riches and credit in the 
several nations which she had corrupted, who were sup- 
ported in their pride and luxury by her means, shall not be 
able to help in this hour of her distress, any more than the 
kings of the earth; they can only weep and mourn for her 
misery, and for their own loss in her destruction, now all 
commerce with her shall be utterly cut off, and no man, 
by her means, shall attain wealth, credit, or power, any 
more. 

12 The merchandise of gold, and silver, and 
precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and 
purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, 
and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner ves- 
sels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, 
and marble, 

(12.) The destruction of Rome shall much resemble the 
destruction of ancient Tyre, when her great and extensive 
trade, the foundation of her riches, power, and pride, were 
totally stopped at once; when she lost all her merchandise, 
which consisted in all sorts of valuable commodities, such 
as gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, scarlet, and 
thyine-wood, all curious manufactures in ivory, precious 
wood, brass, iron, and marble. 


13 And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and 
frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and 
wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, 
and slaves, and souls of men. 

(18.) She shall trade no mofe in those things which pride 
and luxury have set such a value upon, as spices and _per- 
fumes, wine and oil, the finest flour and corn, nor shall she 
trade in beasts and sheep, in horses and chariots, in slaves 
and the souls of men.® 


her votaries with considerable wealth, encouraging their am- 
_ bition and luxury; and thus, like Tyre of old, made her 
corruptions general, and almost universal. 

4 Ver. 5.] When sins are ripe for judgment, they are said 
to reach unto heaven, or to come up before the face of Jeho- 
vah. So the angel sent to punish the sins of Sodom, “ We 
will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen 
great before the face of the Lord (Jehovah), and the Lord 
(Jehovah) has sent us to destroy it” (Gen. xix. 13). Thus 
the prophet Jonah was sent to cry against Nineveh, «for | 
their wickedness is come up before me” (Jonah i.2). James 
uses a like expression, “ The cries of them which have reaped, 
have entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.” It seems 
an elegant allusion to the methods of justice in human courts, 
when criminals are actually prosecuted, and their crimes are 
brought before the court for judgment. 

5 Ver. 6.] By the laws of the Jewish government, some 
offences were punished by retaliation, or inflicting on the 
offender, as a punishment, that evil which he had injuriously 
done to his neighbour, to his hurt and damage. It was 
therefore enacted by the Jewish law, “If men strive, and | 
any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for | 
eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Exod. 
xxi. 23,24). In other cases of damage, it was enacted, that 
the offender should pay double damages. 

Thus, in the case of theft, the law requires “the thief shall | 
pay double” (Exod. xxii. 4); it being just the thief | 

Vou. IV.—138 


should suffer for his offence, as well as make restitution for 
the damage he had done. In allusion to these laws of the 
Jewish government, the punishment of Rome for her idola- 
try and persecution, is represented as inflicting pains and 
penalties upon her as an offender, as the laws of justice di- 
rect, where injuries are so highly criminal. 

6 Ver. 13.] The several branches of trade here enume- 
rated, are taken from the prophecies of Hzekiel, ch. xxvii., 


| who thus describes the downfall of Tyre, by the loss of all 


the branches of her trade. ‘Tyre was the great mart of the 
world, where all things most valued and in highest price were 
to be bought and sold, to the great profit of that city, as well 
as of the merchants of the several nations who traded with it. 
Almost all the expressions in this prophecy are used by 
Ezekiel, and seem to be copied from his description; even 
that expression, that “she traded in the souls of men ;” ver. 
13, “Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants, 
they traded in the persons of men.” In the original, «thy 
merchants in the souls of men,’ pons Φ5)2 71995, οὗτοι 
ἐνεπορεῦοντό σοι ἐν Wuxais ἀνθρύπων, Septuagint. The Vulgar 
Latin renders it mancipia, or “slaves.” The Bishop of 
Meaux supposes, that by slaves are meant persons of servile 
condition ; by souls of men, or men in general, are meant 
free persons: to show, that Rome reduced persons of all 
conditions, not only bond but free, into some sort of slavery, 
by subjection to their dominion. I think the persons, or 
souls of men, in Ezekiel, do naturally mean the merchandise 
4n2 


1098 


14 And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are de- 
parted from thee, and all things which were dainty and 
goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them 
no more at all. 


(14.) So great shall the misery of Rome appear in this 
day of vengeance, that nothing shall be left her in which 
she was used to have pleasure and delight; she shall be 
spoiled of all things that served her former greatness or 
Juxury, nor shall she ever be able to recover them, or make 
up the loss of them. 


15 The merchants of these things, which were made 
rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her tor- 
ment, weeping and wailing, 

(15.) Her agents, by whose means she obtained her 
wealth, and was able to live in such pomp and luxury, and 
who served her with great zeal, as they shared in her riches 
and luxury, shall themselves be seized with fear, when they 
see her torments; they shall then forsake her, and fly as 
far as they can from her, lest they partake of her punish- 
ment, as they were partakers of her guilt; their joy shall be 
turned into weeping and wailing. 


16 And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was 
elothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and 
decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! 


(16.) They shall utter their sorrow in bitter complaints, 
saying, Alas, alas! what dreadful calamities have befallen 
this righty city, once so admired and adored, which shone 
a all the pride, and with all the pomp, of riches and gran- 

eur! 


17 For in one hour so great riches is come to 
nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company 
in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, 
stood afar off, 


(17.) But now is suddenly and unexpected!y spoiled of all 
its great riches, and fallen into the utmost distress of pover- 
ty; so that even the lower people, who used to express 
great reverence and zeal for her, who profited themselves in 
some inferior offices under her, shall be as useless to her as 
her greater and more powerful friends; they shall also for- 
sake her, and for their own safety shall get as far from her 
as they can. 


18 And cried when they saw the smoke of her 
burning, saying, What city is like unto this great 
city! 

tis) When they see her as a city burnt down to the 
ground, and her smoke ascending, as it were, from every 
part of her ruins; they shall cry out with astonishment, 
‘Was ever the condition of any city like this, formerly in 
greatness and glory, now in sudden ruin and misery !7 

19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, 
weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great 
city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the 
sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she 
made desolate. 


REVELATION. 


(19.) They shall, as is usual in cases of the deepest 
mourning and sorrow, put ashes on their heads, and cry out 
with great bitterness of heart, Oh the inexpressible misery 
of this great city ! she who was used to enrich al] who had 
dealings with her, wherever they were employed in her ser- 
vice; such was her interest, power, and wealth, they were 
sure to make their fortune by her countenance and favour: 
yet is she herself suddenly and unexpectedly made desolate, 
unable to help either herself or her friends. 


20 Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy 
apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you 
on her. 

(20.) But, added the angel, though this great event of 
divine justice will fill the hearts of many with concern and 
grief, it will be to the comfort and joy of sincere faithful 
Christians, for whose consolation these revelations are made. 
‘The apostles, prophets, and saints of God, will have reason 
to rejoice in so wonderful an instance of God’s protection 
and favour; for it is to avenge the cause of his church and 
faithful servants, God does so severely punish this perse- 
cuting city. 

21 And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great 
millstone, and cast ἐξ into the sea, saying, Thus with 
violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, 
and shall be found no more at all. 


(21.) Farther, to confirm the irrecoverable ruin of this 
persecniting city, another mighty angel appeared in my vision, 
who plunged a great stone, like a millstone, into the sea, 
and he explained the meaning of his action by these words: 
Babylon shall fall, this mystical Babylon shall sink never to 
rise again; as a stone thrown with violence into the sea 
sinks to the bottom, and never rises more. 


22 And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and 
of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at 
all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he 
be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of 
a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; 


(22.) So great and lasting will the ruin of this perse- 
cuting city be, that there shall be no more any entertain- 
ments of diversion or pleasure for the rich ; no more employ- 
ment for persons skilled in any trade or business; no, not 
even for the lowest sort of people, such as were used in the 
meanest services, in preparing corn for the daily food of the 
inhabitants, and providing the very necessaries of life for 
them. 


23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more 
at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and 
of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for 
thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by 
thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 

(23.) Nor shall the inhabitants of that ruined city be con- 
tinued by new marriages, and a succession of families; no 
bridal lamp, or songs, no ceremonies of nuptial joy, shall 
ever more be seen or heard in it; but it shall be quite deso- 
late, and without inhabitants, because it has been guilty of 


of slaves; but when slaves and souls of men are mentioned 
both together in this prophecy, may it not point out the na- 
ture of that slavery Rome should require of her servants, 
that they should become her slaves in soul as well as body? 
At least, it is true in fact, that her slaves lose all religious as 
well as civil liberty. 

It is plain, in general, this is designed to be a figurative, 
and not a literal description; therefore readers are, I think, 
at liberty to apply the figurative expressions to such literal 
meanings as will agree to the general certain intention 
of them. But whether each of these wares is designed to 
point out some particular gainful corruption of popery, 
may very well be questioned. It is sufficient to answer the 
general intention of the prophecy, to observe, that Rome 
shall be deprived of all her wealth, which she procured by 
her management and intrigues, in the several places where 
her agents resided, who continually made her returns of 
great riches, and plentifully supplied her excessive pride and 
luxury. 

It is a pretty observation of Mr. Daubuz, “ Rome receives 


all the luxurious wares mentioned, but she has so infatuated 
the world, that she pays nothing for them but trumpery 
her money are her enchantments and sorceries; her mer 
chants—her superior clergy, engross the real wealth of the 
world to bring it to her; and her returns and exportations 
are paper and bills, drawn upon heaven and hell, never to 


| be accepted ; however, they pass among the common people 


for payment, as if they were of real value. ‘Che merchant, 
who finds means to get shut of them, takes no care about 
their intrinsic value, finding gulls who take them off his 
hands for real wealth.” 

Whether these wares were designed to signify pardons, 
indulgences, dispensations, and the like trifles, with which 
Rome purchases gold, silver, and whatever ministers to 
pride and luxury, this is a plain and manifest meaning, that 
she shall be deprived of all her wealth and luxury at once, 
and of all the means by which she was used to procure 
them. 

7 Ver. 18.] This wailing of the sailors, by whom, in the 
allegory of trade, are meant persons inferior to merchants, 


CHAPTER XIX. 


so much pride, idolatry, and cruelty: sins, that God is used | 
to punish with exemplary severity, especially when persons 
abuse their riches and power, not only to corrupt themselves, 
but spread their corruptions every where, by their bad exam- 
ple and influence. 


24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, 
and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the 
earth. 


(24.) So great has been her superstition and cruelty, that 


1099 


she has outdone the severest persecutions ; she has wantonly 
spilt the blood of thousands, for being faithful to the truth 
and purity of the Christian faith and worship ; by approving 
the cruelty of former persecutors, she has involved herself 
in their guilt, as she is herself guilty of the innocent blood 
shed throughout the earth, subject to her authority, and in 
virtue of her canons and decrees: and now having filled up 
the measure of her own sins, it is righteous in God, so heavy 
a punishment should fall upon her. ® 


seems to be taken from the prophecy of Ezekiel, xxvii. 32, 
« And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for 
thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, 
like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?” | 
8 Ver. 24.] This description of the desolate state of 
Rome seems to be an imitation of some passages in the pro- 
phet Jeremiah, concerning the ruin of ancient Babylon. 
« And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading 
this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into 
the midst of Euphrates: and thou shalt say, ‘I’hus shall | 
Babylon sink, and shall not rise, from the evil that I will 
bring upon her” (li. 63, 64). ‘This was strictly true of an- 
cient Babylon, which remains a heap of ruins to this day ; 
» the city now called Babylon being built in a different place. 
This part of the prophecy seems strongly to intimate, that 
Rome shall in like manner be irrecoverably destroyed; a 
judgment which as yet has not been inflicted upon it. ‘There 
seems also, in these expressions, an allusion to another pas- 


| stones, and the light of the candle. 


sage of the same prophet: “ Moreover I will take from them 
the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the 
bridezroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill- 
And this whole land 
shall be a desolation, and an astonishment” (xxv. 10, 11). 
Music was the entertainment of the rich and great; trade, 
the business of men of middle rank; preparing bread, and 
the necessaries of life, the employment of the lowest people; 
marriages, in which lamps and songs were known ceremo- 
nies, are the usual methods of peopling cities, as new births 
supply the place of those that die. Now, the desolation of 
Rome is described in such manner, as to show, that neither 
rich nor poor, neither persons of middle rank nor of the 
lowest condition and employments, should be able to live 
there any more; it shall not be repeopled by new marriages, 
but for ever remain desolate and uninhabited, either by per- 
sons born in it, or resorting to it, on account of any busi- 
ness or employment whatsoever. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


SECTION XVIII. 

1 Ann after these things I heard a great voice of | 

much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia; Salvation, | 

and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our 
God: 


(1.) When I was thus distinctly informed by an angel, of 
the total destruction of that persecuting power, which was to | 
arise in this third period, and continue for so long a time, it 
was represented farther, as if the whole church was assem- 
bled together; which I heard, as a chorus, with united 
voices, begin a hymn of praise to God, saying, Alleluia, let 
us ascribe salvation, glory, honour, and power unto Jeho- 
vah, the only true God, who is our God. 


2 For true and righteous are his judgments: for he 
hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the 
earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood Ϊ 
of his servants at her hand. 


(2.) For his judgments show him to be just and righteous, 
faithful and true ; his punishment of Rome, in so exemplary | 
a manner, for her pride, superstition, idolatry, and persecu- 
tion, declares his righteousness; he has illustriously mani- | 
fested the truth and faithfulness of his promises, in aveng- 
ing the blood of his servants, on her who so cruelly put 
them to death for their faith in God, and constancy in his 
true religion. 


3 And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke 


rose up for ever and ever. 
(3.) And they ended their hymn, saying, Alleluia, let 


| God, our God, be praised, who in this last judgment has put 


an end to the power of persecution for ever. It shall not 
henceforth, as formerly, rise up again, to persecute the saints; 
this persecuting city shall lie waste, from generation to ge- 
neration, never to be restored. ! 


4 And the four and twenty elders and the four 
beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the 
throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia. 

(4.) After the chorus of the general assembly had ended 
their hymn, the twenty-four elders, representatives of the 
united church, the patriarchs and apostles, and the four 
living creatures, the cherubim, who were nearest the throne 
of God, prostrated themselves before Jehovah, and concluded 
the praises of the heavenly church, saying, Amen, Alleluia, 
so let Jehovah, our God, be praised. 


5 Anda voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise 
our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both 
small and great. 

(5.) When this hymn was finished, there came a voice 
from the throne itself; the oracle pronounced an order to 
all persons truly religious, to all the faithful servants of God, 
of whatever state or condition they might be, that they 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XIX. 


Coxrents.—The prophecies relating to this third period 
concluded with a severe punishment of Rome for her 
pride, luxury, superstition, and idolatry, and especially for | 
her cruel persecution of all who were found faithful to 
their duty, in preserving the purity of the Christian doc- 
trines and worship. When Rome thus fell, as ancient 
Babylon, to rise no more, the heavenly church is intro- 
duced as a chorus, or choir, to praise God for his right- 
eous judgments and faithfulness. ‘This excellent hymn 
of praise, sung by the united voices of angels and saints, 
the whole assembly of heaven, strongly represents to all 
Uhristians, and every church on earth, what grateful | 
sense they ought to have of God's faithfulness in their 
protection, and of his righteous judgments in punishing 
the persecutors of truth and religion. 


Though, for wise reasons, and for a limited time, God may 
permit the righteous and faithful to suffer many things 
from the enemies of truth and righteousness ; yet the end, 
and final event of things, shall surely show God's faith- 
fulness in the blessing of his people, and justice in the 
punishment of his enemies. A just reason for consola- 
tion, gratitude, and praise. 


! Ver. 3. The expression, “Her smoke rose up for ever 
and ever,” seems to be taken from the prophet Isaiah, where 
it is explained by the prophet to mean perpetual destruction. 
«Tt shall not be quenched night nor day ; the smoke thereof 
shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall 
lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever” 
(Isa. xxxiv. 10). 

Mr. Daubuz observes, the two allelwias in this part of the 
hymn correspond to the messages of the two angels, one of 


1100 


‘should heartily join in the praise of God, and exalt his name, 
so glorious in righteous judgment, and faithfulness to his 
promises. 2 

6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great mul- 
titude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the 
voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the 
Lord God omnipotent reigneth. 

(6.) Upon this voice of the oracle, the whole church, in 
obedience to it, began to celebrate the praises of God in 
another hymn; their united voices were strong, as the 
sound of innumerable people singing together, that it might 
be compared to the noise of the sea, or of thunder. 
began the praise of God, saying, Alleluia, for Jehovah, the 
one true God, whose almighty power and supreme dominion 
reach all creatures, appears to establish his own kingdom of 
truth and righteousness in the world. 


7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to 
him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his 
wife hath made herself ready. 

(7.) Let it fill the hearts of all who truly fear God, with 
gladness and joy, and dispose them to give all honour unto 
him, now he has so fully and so gloriously accomplished his 
promises ; for now the true church of Christ, his faithful dis- 
ciples, as his spouse, are appointed and prepared to receive 
public and eminent marks of his affection, in a state of hap- 
piness and dignity, suitable to their relation to him. 


8 And to her was granted that she should be array- 
ed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is 
the righteousness of saints. 

(8.) As it is usual for bridegrooms at their marriage to 
make presents to their brides, of rich ornaments and apparel, 
so, at this time, the church of Christ shall be presented with 
suitable ornaments; it shall be adorned with real righteous- 
ness and holiness, with a divine nature and godlike temper, 
in conformity to God’s own perfections: ornaments more va- 


They | 


REVELATION. 


Inable, and more honourable, than the most costly or honour- 
able habits of the eastern princes, or of the ancient priests. 


9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they 
which are called unto the marriage supper of the 
Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true say- 
ings of God. 

(9.) The angel then directing his speech in particular to 
me, bid me take notice of this part of the prophecy, and 
write it down as a maxim of great use to the patience and 
consolation of the saints, as they may rest satisfied in full 
assurance of hope, that all the promises in this prophecy 
shall be surely accomplished ; for they are the faithful, the 
never-failing word of God. 


10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he 
said unto me, See thow do it not: I am thy fellowser- 
vant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of 
Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is 
the spirit of prophecy. 

(10.) Upon this kindness and condescension of an angel 
conversing with me, I was going to express my thankfulness 
and respect, by prostrating myself at his feet; but he imme- 
diately stopped me, and informed me, that in this revelation 
he was employed as a servant of God, together with myself; 
that I was now to consider him, though an angel, as one of 
my brethren, whom God employs in revealing things relating 
to Christ and his church. The visions which revealed to me 
so many things concerning the future state of the church, 
proceed from the same Spirit of prophecy as all true revela- 
tion does. Worship not me, then, says the angel, but God, 
whose servants we both are in this revelation, and from whom 
we have both received the same Spirit of prophecy. 4 

11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white 
horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful 
and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and 
make war. 


which proclaims the fa//, and the other shows its perpetuity. 
This repetition may however be accounted for, as corre- 
sponding with the hymns of the ancient church, in which we 
may observe, that repeating the word alleluta, is used by 
the authors as an elegance in the composition. 

2 Ver. 5.] A voice “from the throne,” is from the glory, 


or the oracle ; thisshows thegreat authority and solemnity with | 


which this order was published. The praise of God, to which 
this oracle directs, seems somewhat different from that of the 
foregoing hymn; that hymn was to celebrate the praise of 
God, principally on account of his faithfulness and justice, 
in the punishment of a persecuting power, which had long 
oppressed the faithful servants of Christ. But this, as ap- 
pears by the following hymn, in obedience to the direction of 
the oracle, is principally to praise God for the happy and 


glorious state of the church, consequent upon this punish- | 


ment of their enemies; that happy and glorious state of the 
church, suppose, wherein it is said to live and reign with 
Christ a thousand years, and which is more largély described 
in the following chapter. For which great goodness of God, 
all good men are prepared, by this solemn thanksgiving, to 
express their hearty and grateful acknowledgments. 

3 Ver. 7.] The ancient prophets describe the favour of 
God to his people, by the affection of a bridegroom: “ For 
as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry 
thee ; and as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, so shall thy 
God rejoice over thee” (Isa. Ixii. 5). The church is repre- 
sented in the New Testament, in the same similitude of a 
bride: “ For I have espoused you to one husband, that I 
many present you asa chaste virgin to Christ’ (2 Cor. ii. 2). 
As marriages were used to be celebrated with great joy, the 
miarriage of the Lamb with his church is a fit emblem to 
show the state of prosperity aud happiness to which God 
will raise it, after all its sufferings for the sake of truth and 
righteousness. 

! Ver. 10.] It has been often questioned, how the apostle 
should ever think of worshipping an angel, as proper wor- 
ship and religious honour are expressly forbid to any crea- 
ture, and as idolatry is so great a sin, in account both of the 
Jewish and Christian religion; and as this answer of the 


angel did not so fully satisfy John himself, that what he of- 
fered was sinful, and of itself unlawful, for he offers to do 
the same thing again afterward (xxii. 8). Before we answer 
this question, we ought, I think, to answer a previous ques- 
tion: Whether the apostle did intend any proper religious 
honour or worship to the angel at all? The word which we 
render “ to worship” (προσκυνῆσαι), is used for civil respects, 
as well as for religious honour ; it properly means a known 
custom of the eastern people, of bowing down to the ground, 
and kissing the feet of persons of very superior rank. ‘Thus 
Ruth complimented Boaz: ‘Then she fell on her face, and 
bowed herself to the ground” (Ruth ii. 10). Thus Abigail 
also complimented David: “She fell before David on her 
face, and bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his feet’ 
(1 Sam. xxv. 23, 24). The apostle then, notwithstanding 
any thing in the expression, might mean no more than the 
most humble act of civil respect; the original word, mean- 
ing in general both civil respect and religious worship, must 
be determined to either, by the circumstances of the dis- 
course in which it is used. It will be sufficiently distin- 
guished, I think, by being referred either to the true God, or 
to a creature, 

The reason for which the angel forbids this high act of 
Tespect, seems to intimate, that he did not understand it as 
an act of religious honour ; he mentions nothing of the sin 
or danger of idolatry in it; he only shows it was improper 
the apostle should give such respect to him; not by showing 
it was unlawful to give such respect to any being whatsoever, 
but because he was fellow-servant with the apostle, and of 
his brethren the prophets, as it is more clearly expressed, 
xxii. 9. As if the angel had said,—I have but received the 
same Spirit of revelation from God, which you also have. 
The testimony of Jesus is the true Spirit of prophecy; in 
him the prophecies of the ancient prophets had their accom- 
plishment ; it is still the true spirit and proper intention of 
prophecy, to reveal things relating to Christ and his church. 
This is the spirit of prophecy in the vision you have seen; 
and if I have now explained any of those revelations to 
you, the honour is not due to myself, but to God, from 
whom I received it; let your acknowledgment and thanks 


CHAPTER XIX. 


(11.) The prophetic visions were continued ; a new seene 
was presented before me: the gates of heaven were set wide 
open for an army to march out in order. This army was 
led by a person riding on a white horse, such as generals 
were used to ride on solemn processions. He appeared to 
be the person to whom God had given all power, and com- 
mitted all judgment, who was to accomplish all the promises 


! 


of God in faithfulness, and to execute all his threatenings in | 


righteousness, for the protection of God's people, and for the 
punishment of their enemies. 


12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head 
were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no 
man knew, but he himself. 

(12.) He appeared with a noble aspect; his eyes were 
gloriously bright and piercing; his head, to show his 
numerous conquests and large empire, was adorned with 
many crowns: so great was the dignity and authority con- 
ferred upon him, that no person besides himself could fully 
comprehend it. 


13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in | 


blood: and his name is called The Word of God. 
(13.) He was dressed in a robe of deep red, as if it had 

been dipped in blood; to express, that Jesus, who, for his 

voluntary obedience unto death, when he shed his own blood, 


was highly exalted, and had a name given him which is 


above every name, should fulfil this prophecy, in the utter 


1101 


destruction of the enemies of his government: their slaugh- 
ter should be then so great, that their blood should, as it 
were, be sprinkled on his garments ; then he should be cele- 
brated under the glorious title of “the Word of God.” δ 


14 And the armies which were in heaven followed 
him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white 
and clean. 


(14.) The prophetic vision farther represented the gene- 
ral followed by the armies of heaven, which marched after 
their prince and chief commander in great state ; themselves 
richly clothed in splendid habits, wearing the finest linen: to 
signify, that now the church should attain a state of peace 
and triumph: their faith and patience should be highly τὸν 
warded ; their happiness and joy should be far above what 
Rome ever saw in the glory of a triumph. 7 


15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that 
with it he should smite the nations: and he shall 
rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the 
winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty 
God. 

(15.) The vision farther represented a sharp sword, 
coming out, as it were, of the mouth of Christ, to signify, 
that he had the full power of the sword; and that now he 
was about to use it, in a strict execution of justice on the 
enemies of truth and righteousness; that he would chastise 
them as with an iron rod, and punish them with the most 


be therefore given unto him. ‘This I take to be the plainest 
account ; though the reader should be informed, some learned 
interpreters understand this action as symbolical or figu- 
rative. “ΤῸ teach and represent unto us, under the person of 
the apostle himself,” says Mr. Waple, “ that the best men are 
very apt to be surprised and drawn by the example of others 
and by false pretences, into creature-worship ; and that such 


worship is unlawful, let the pretences be ever so plausible ; | 


and that the only way to prevent all manner of idolatry, is to 
keep to the precept here given, of worshipping God alone.”’* 

5 Ver. 12.] This expression seems to refer to the many 
characters given to Christ in prophecy, which are so great, 
that we cannot fully comprehend all that they mean. It 
has been probably thought by some interpreters, that this 
part of the description refers to the prophecy of Isaiah: 
«“ The government shall be on his shoulders: and his name 
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The 
everlasting Father, The Prince of peace. Of the increase of 
his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the 
throne of David and his kingdom, to order it, and to esta- 


blish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even | 


for ever” (Isa. ix. 6, 7). His person and government are 
represented wonderful and incomprehensible. 

6 Ver. 13.] This title, «The Word of God,” makes it 
evident, that the person designed in the vision is the same 
person whom John, in his gospel, calls by the same name; 
so that Jesus Christ himself is represented as riding at the 
head of an army, to take vengeance of the enemies of his 
religion, and faithful servants. 

Mr. Daubuzt observes, “ That λόγος, or word, has three 
several significations; it may signify words, actions, and 
commands. Christ is the Word of God in all these re- 
spects : 

«T, He is his Word, because, before his incarnation, and 
much more since, he has been the great angel of God, to 
bring messages, or the words of God, to men. 

“II. He is the Word of God, because he is the great mi- 
nister of God, to perform all his works of creation, preser- 
vation, and redemption. 

«JIT. As to the word signifying command, Christ is, in 
respect of that, two ways the word of God. 

“1, As he is the executor of all God’s commands. 

«2. As he is himself the chief commander, and even now 
joined with God sitting upon his throne at his right hand ; 
the Prince ἀρχὴ and ἄρχων of the creation, King of kings, 
and Lord of lords. This account not only shows,” our au- 
thor adds, « why Christ is called the Word of God in general, 
but why he is so called in this place. 


«JT. Being the Word, as he brings messages, and is the 
great angel of the covenant, he brings now the greatest er- 
rand, the perfection of the covenant in the resurrection, first 
of the saints, and then of all the dead. 

“II, Being the word of God, as he is the great minister, 
he now comes to perform the most magnificent of God’s 
works. 

“III. As he is the executor of God’s commands, and is 
to command and rule under the Father, he comes now to be 
King of kings, and Lord of lords.” 

It is observable, that in the temple, the Shechinah, or 
glory, the presence of God in the most holy place, was the 
oracle, and the /ebla, whence God gave forth his word and 
command, and towards which presence all the worship of the 
church was addressed. ‘The oracle was called -y35 from 
425, which is often translated λόγος, and “ word.” Another 
Hebrew word »px, which is rendered λόγος and “ word,” will 
properly also signify authority and command, and one vested 
with supreme authority and command. Thus amir, or emir, is 
a known title of magistracy in the east ; and emir al mumu- 
nin, is the prince or lord of the true believers, a well-known 
title of the successors of Mohammed.* Not only the title 
of emir in the east, but of dictator among the Romans, seems 
to have come from the same original, as persons whose 
word and command had sovereign authority. 

As in the temple, the Shechinah, or glory, was the oracle 
and mercy-seat, from which oracle God gave his commands 


| with supreme authority, and at which presence he graciously 


received the addresses of his church, may not an allusion to 
this very significant and principal part of the Mosaical in- 
stitution be one probable reason, why Christ is styled here 
“the Word of God?” 

7 Ver. 14.] «The armies of heaven,” in the language of 
scripture, often means the angels of God; which, as minis- 
tering spirits, who continually attend on his service, may be 
called the armies of heaven, probably in allusion to the cus- 
tom of princes, who keep the chief and best of their troops 
about their persons, as their guard, and in their capital city, 
the place of their residence; and have their principal and 
chief officers attending their courts. 

In this vision the faithful Christians, who persevered with 
constancy in the day of temptation, seem represented as re- 
ceived into heaven, and associated with the angels, into the 
hosts or armies of heaven, as well as in the praises of the 
heavenly church; so that these armies of heaven may be 
understood not only of the angels of God attending Christ, 
but also of such faithful Christians who had received their 
crown and reward : they are said to be clothed in fine linen, 


* Daubuz, Waple. ἡ On the place 


* Selden, Titles of Hononr, vol. iii. p. 194, 


1102 


severe vengeance of God’s wrath, which is, as his power, al- 
mighty, and able to punish his enemies with utter and ever- 
lasting destruction. § 


16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a 
name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF 
LORDS. 


(16.) Finally, I observed a motto, or inscription, on one 
part of his garment which covered his thigh, the place where 
the sword was usually worn; in which inscription he was 
styled « King of kings, and Lord of lords:” to signify, that 
he was really possessed of a just dominion over all the 
princes and kingdoms of the earth; a dominion which the 
eastern monarchs, and after them the Roman empire, un- 
justly attempted, a title which with great vanity they as- 
sumed themselves. 


7 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he 
cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly 
in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves 
together unto the supper of the great God ; 


(17.) As I beheld this general marching with his army in 
order, on this great expedition, the event of it, in the total 
overthrow and destruction of his enemies, was declared by 
the voice of an angel, who seemed to stand in the sun ; who, 
with a very audible voice, invited the birds of prey to the 
carcases of the slain, as to a great feast, which the vengeance 
of God on his enemies would soon provide for them. 


18 That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the 
flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and 
the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and 
the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small 
and great. 

(18.) In which feast, they should prey upon the dead 
hodies of a numerous army; many persons of the highest 
rank and character should remain dead and unburied on the 
field of battle; so that the birds of prey should feast them- 
selves on the flesh of kings, great captains, and of mighty 
men, as well as on the flesh of common soldiers, and their 
horses. 9 


19 And 1 saw the beast, and the kings of the 


REVELATION. 


earth, and their armies, gathered together to make 
war against him that sat on the horse, and against his 
army. 

(19.) I beheld also in my vision, another army appear to 
oppose Christ, and the army of heaven, which he led: the 
beast, which represented the persecuting power of Rome, in 
conjunction with the kings of the earth, who aided and sup- 
ported that persecuting power, gathered all his force together, 
and headed a numerous army: all the enemies of truth and 
righteousness combined to oppose a thorough reformation of 
their errors, superstition, idolatry, and persecution. 


20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false 
prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which 
he deceived them that had received the mark of the 
beast, and them that worshipped his image. These 
both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with 
brimstone. 

(20.) But Christ and his saints obtained a full and entire 
victory over them ; a victory so complete, as when the ge- 
nerals and all the chief officers are made prisoners of war, 
and the rest of the army is cut to pieces in the field of bat- 
tle. For the persecuting powers, represented by the beast 
and false prophets, the principal persons who had supported 
the apostasy by false doctrines, and imposed on the credulous 
by pretences to wonders and miracles, were made prisoners, 
to suffer a more exemplary punishment by the hands of jus- 
tice ; for these were afterward condemned to be burned alive, 
and had their sentence executed upon them, being thrown 
into a pit of burning brimstone. 


21 And the remnant were slain with the sword of 
him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded 
out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with 
their flesh. 

(21.) As to the rest, the persons of lower and inferior 
rank, who had abetted the ‘apostasy, and concurred in op- 
posing a reformation, they, like the common soldiers of an 
army, fell in the field of battle, and were left there unburied, 
as a prey for the fowls of the air to feed on: a very strong 
figurative expression of their full and complete destruc 
tion. 10 


white and clean; which is just before interpreted to mean 
“the righteousness of the saints.” 

They seem to be the same persons described before, xvii. 
14, “And they that are with him are called, and chosen, 
and faithful.” So that these armies in heaven, which fol- 
lowed their victorious general, seem to include, if not to 
mean principally, those Christians who had kept the faith 
against all opposition ; to express the high honour and hap- 
piness to which they are now advanced. 

8 Ver. 15.] Christ, in the first vision, is represented with 
a sharp two-edged sword (Rev. i. 16), to express one of the 
principal parts of government, the power of the sword; the 
jus gladii including the right of making war and inflicting 
punishments. 


To “rule with a rod of iron,” is an allusion to an expres- _ 


sion in Ps. 11. 9, in which it was prophesied, concerning the 
king whom Jehovah had set “ upon his holy hill of Zion,” 
that he should as easily break his enemies, and all their op- 
position, as a rod of iron could break in pieces an earthen 
vessel. 

To “tread the wine-press of the fierceness of the wrath 
of Almighty God,” is an allusion to a passage in the prophet 
Isaiah, Ixiii. 3, 4, usually understood of the Messiah: κα 
have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there 
was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and 
trainple them in my fury ; and their blood shall be sprinkled 
on my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the 
day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my re- 
deemed is come.” 

_ © Ver. 18.] This passage is imitated from the prophet 
Ezekiel, xxxix. 17, 18, “ And thou son of man, thus saith 
the Lord God; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every 
beast of the field. Assemble yourselves, and come; gather 
yourselves on every side to my sacrifice (or slaugher) that 
J do sacrifice for you upon the mountains of Israel, that ye 
may eat flesh and drink blood, Ye shall eat the flesh of 


the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth. 
‘Thus shall ye be filled at my table.” This is a strong 
description of a great slaughter and heavy judgment of God, 
when he shall come to punish his enemies. So it is ex- 
plained by the prophet, ver. 21, “I will set my glory (saith 
the Lord God) among the heathen, and all the heathen shall 


| see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that 


I have laid upon them.” 

10 Ver. 21.] ‘The general meaning of this strong and 
beautiful figure is sufliciently plain and intelligible, and suffi- 
cient to answer the design of the prophecy, to encourage 
constancy, faith, and patience; to give consolation and hope, 
under present oppression and persecution, for the sake of our 
religion and a good conscience. That the several particulars 
of this figurative description have themselves a farther par- 
ticular meaning, is not so plain and certain. It is, I think, 
a mark of right understanding, in the language of prophecy, 
and in the design of prophecy too, to keep to what appears 
the design and meaning of the prophecy in general, and 
what the whole of it, laid together, points out to us: and 
not to suffer a warm imagination to mislead us from the 
real intention of the Spirit of prophecy, by following uncer- 
tain applications of particular parts of it. Who can say, for 
instance, with any certainty, that the flesh to be eaten, and 
the birds invited to the feast, have each a particular mystical 
sense, or that they really mean any thing more than to de- 
scribe a great battle, defeat, and slaughter? 

However, there are, in most figurative descriptions, some 
particular parts of the representation, that seem, with great 
probability, designed to point out some chief circumstances 
to particular observation. 

Thus, in this description, the punishment of the beast 
and false prophet, who were taken prisoners, and condemned 
to be burned alive, being different from the punishment of 
the remnant which were slain by the sword, seems to intimate, 
that the chief and principal maintainers of the apostasy, they 


CHAPTER XX. 


who used all their power, and all the wicked arts of deceit, 
in opposition to true religion, shall be punished in proportion 
to their guilt, and shall suffer in a manner more terrible and 
exemplary than others. Burning alive is one of the most 
terrible executions; being cast into a lake or pit of fire, 
“ burning with brimstone,” images in the mind the destruc- 
tion of Sodom and Gomorrah, who are recorded as examples 
of perpetual destruction, from which they can never possibly 
recover themselves. 4 

Thus also, as the beast and false prophet do not mean 
private persons, according to this description, but the powers 
of bodies politic, in perpetual succession, this very naturally 
teaches us to consider their punishment in a double capacity ; 
or, to use the words of Mr. Daubuz,* « The design here is to 


* On the place. 


1103 


show us, that Christ will not only destroy at last the persons 
who at that time shall be in possession of what is signified 
by the beast and false prophet, but also utterly extirpate the 
succession of the tyranny and false prophecy for ever: so 
that the beast and the false prophet are persons in a double 
capacity, that is, persons in general, enemies to Christ, and 
also in possession of a power which is to be extinguished with 
them.” 

However, this I think we may take as the undoubted~ 
meaning of the prophecy in general, that now all the powers 
of the apostasy shall be destroyed ; no opposition shall remain 
to hinder that happy state of the church, which is to follow 
in the next period, and which the Spirit of prophecy describes 
in the following chapter. 


CHAPTER XX. 1—6. 


SECTION XIX. 
THE FOURTH PERIOD. 


1 Anp I saw an angel come down from heaven, 
having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain 
in his hand. 


(1.) After I had seen, in the former prophetic visions, 
the downfall and punishment of the last persecuting power 
of Rome, the state of the church which was to follow upon 
it was represented in a new vision; for I beheld an angel as 
descending from heaven, like one sent on a message from 
the throne of God : his commission was expressed by a dou- 
ble symbol: he had a key in his hands, which was the key 
of the great abyss, or bottomless pit; and he brought also 
with him a great chain, such as prisoners were used to be 
bound with to prevent an escape. 


2 And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, 
which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a 
thousand years, 


(2.) 1 soon perceived, in my vision, on what errand this 
angel was sent; for he seized on the dragon, the old ser- 
pent, by which the devil was signified, the great adversary 
of mankind, and enemy of truth and righteousness, the great 
seducer of the world into error and wickedness; the angel 
arrested him, bound him, and committed him to close custody 
for a thousand years. 


3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut 
him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should de- 


ceive the nations no more, till the thousand years 
should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a 
little season. 

(3.) The angel committed him to close custody in a 
strong prison, he locked him fast up in the bottomless pit, 
and put a firm seal upon it, that he might not escape, or go 
about as before, to deceive the nations. Thus was the 
devil to be confined for a thousand years, though, after that 
time should be expired, the wise and holy providence of God 
should take off this restraint, though it should be but for a 
very short space of time. ! 


4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and 
judgment was given unto them: and 7 saw the souls 
of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, 
and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped 
the beast, neither his image, neither had received his 
mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they 
lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 


(4.) When the church was thus delivered from the 
power of Satan, by his confinement, either to seduce or per- 
secute it, the happy state of the church was thus farther 
represented: I saw thrones erected, and persons sat on 
them, to whom the authority of government and adminis- 
tration of justice were committed, and such persons were 
entrusted with it, who had the constancy of martyrs, whom 
no fears of death could force into any compliance with the 
antichristian apostasy, but who persevered in the profession 
of the Christian faith, against all opposition, neither yielding 
to the general prevailing corruptions, nor making any ac- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 1—6. 


Conxtents.—This chapter represents a new state of the 
church, upon its deliverance from the persecution and cor- 
tuption of the third period, or during the reign of the two 
beasts, for twelve hundred and sixty prophetic days, or 
years. That long state of opposition is to be followed by 
a long continuance of peace and prosperity ; a fourth period 
is described, which, among other characters, is to last fora 
thousand years. The two first periods ended in a deliver- 
ance of the church, but those deliverances were of short 
continuance, and attended with considerable defects; but 
now, after the church shall have passed through this third 
trial of faith and patience, it is to attain a state of very 
great prosperity, and to remain in it for a very considera- 
ble length of time. This is that happy state of the church, 
which, from the continuation of it for a thousand years, 
is usually called the millennium. 

The description we have of it in this chapter is very short, 
contained within the first six verses; interpreters have, 
however, abundantly supplied what they thought wanting 
in the account of prophecy, out of their own invention, it 
is to be feared, rather than from sure or well-grounded 
principles of judgment. No wonder, then, they differ so 
much about the true meaning of a prophecy, in which 


they have mixed so many of their own imaginations; so 
that the disputes seem not so much what is the intention 
of the Spirit of prophecy, as which of the interpreters has 
the finest or the warmest imagination. 

Let us then carefully endeavour to distinguish what the 
Spirit of prophecy plainly intends, from what uncertain 
conjectures or doubtful reasonings may suggest to our 
minds, as a more distinct and particular account of it. 


1 Ver. 3.] The abyss or bottomless pit in which Satan is 
to be confined for a thousand years, during this happy state 
of the church, is explained on the first and second verses 
of the ninth chapter, where an angel is sent to open it, 
as here to shut up Satan a close prisoner in it. The shutting 
up of Satan in so close a prison as a pit or dungeon under- 
ground, so sure a confinement by locking it fast, and putting 
a seal upon it, may well be understood to mean, that for 
this space of time the devil, who is represented the first in 
the apostasy, and principal agent in the opposition to truth, 
righteousness, and religion, shall be fully restrained from the 
exercise of all influence and power, either to seduce men 
into error and wickedness, or to persecute men of conscience, 
constancy, and faithfulness. 

As the devil is represented the head or ruler of the evil 
spirits or angels, a restraint of their power seems also to be 


1104 


knowledgment of subjection to the authority and dominion 
of the antichristian power of the beast: such as these the 
Spirit of prophecy declared were the persons to reign with 
Christ for these thousand years..2 


5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the 
thousand years were finished. ‘This zs the first resur- 
rection. 


REVELATION. 


(5.) While this happy state of the church shall continue, 
the party of the beast, they who were united in opposition 
to pure Christianity, and in persecuting Chris ‘s faithful 
servants, the remnant who were slain with the syord of him 
| that sat on the horse (xix. 21) shall not revive, or recover 
any part of their former power, but remain altogether unable 
to disturb the peace or prosperity of the church, till the 
thousand years shall be accomplished. This happy state of 


intended, in the imprisonment of their chief or head ; so that 


in the general, this seems to be the meaning of the Spirit of | 


prophecy, in this figurative description, that during all the 
time of this period, that is, for a thousand years, “ the church 
of Christ shall enjoy purity of religion in peace, without any 
disturbance from those old enemies of mankind, working in 
the children of disobedience.”* 

« And this seems to imply,” adds our author, “that all shall 
be converted : however, if there be any that remain un- 
converted, they will, during the imprisonment of Satan, be 
in so small a number, and so feeble in comparison of the 
true Christians, that they shall neither dare, nor be able, to 
disturb the peace of Christ’s Moglop.'f 

It is not improbable, that shutting up Satan in the bottom- 
less pit or abyss may have a particular regard to a restraint 
on the power of Mohammedism, and effectually stop the 
prevalency of that imposture, as before opening the bottom- 
less pit had a principal regard to the rise and surprising pro- 
gress of it (ch. ix.). 


2 Ver. 4.1 This description of the thrones, and of them | 


that sat on them, is not, I conceive, to be understood, as if 
all who are afterward said to live and reign with Christ a 
thousand years, were set on these thrones. The expression, 
«1 saw thrones, and they that sat upon them,” may mean 
no more than that some sat on them, how few or how many 
soever they might be. Though all are said to “live and 
reign with Christ,” that may well be understood of a fiee 
and full enjoyment of the glorious blessings and happiness 
of this kingdom of Christ. 

The figurative description seems to intimate order and 
government in this kingdom of Christ, that some were to 
have judgment given unto them, or to be raised to the au- 
thority of magistrates in it. This, as all other governments, 
was to be made up of governors and governed; and this 
authority of magistracy was given to them that sat on the 
thrones, whoever they were, who were judged worthy of such 
honour and authority in this kingdom of Christ. The ex- 
pressions seem to be an allusion to the principal court of 
Israel, in which the members of the sanhedrin sat on raised 
seats, or thrones, on each hand of the prince, or president of 
the assembly. Nor would this representation be improper, 
though Christ himself should be supposed sitting on the 
principal seat or throne: for Christ himself, speaking to his 
apostles, says, “In the regeneration, when the Son of man 
shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit on twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. xix. 28). 
In like manner, this prophecy, “ And round about the throne 
were four-and-twenty seats, and upon the seats I saw four- 
and-twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they 
had on their heads crowns of gold.” 
seats are expressly four-and-twenty thrones, καὶ κυκλύϑεν τοῦ 
Spévov, θρόνοι εἴκοσι καὶ τέσσαρες. 

Thrones, then, as seats of dignity, are to distinguish those 
who have the administration of government committed unto 
them from the rest of the people, who are to be governed 


by them, and can in no propriety be applied to every mem- | 


ber of the kingdom who lives under the protection, and en- 
joys the blessings, of a government. 

It is a question of consequence to the true meaning and 
tight understanding of this prophecy, how we are to under- 
stand “ the souls of them who were beheaded for the witness 
of Jesus,” and who are the persuns who “had not worship- 
ped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his 
mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands;” or, which is 
the same, who are the persons whom the prophecy intends 


to represent as enjoying the blessings of that happy state of 
the church, 


* Daubuz, on the place, t Ibid. 


These four-and-twenty | 


Here interpreters differ widely in their opinion: some 
understand this description literally, to mean a real and 
proper resurrection of such persons who, in the former states 
of persecution, were put to death for their constancy in the 
profession of pure Christianity ; that is, the martyrs under 
the heathen empire, and those who were slain under the 
reign of the beast. It is supposed that all these saints and 
martyrs shall at this time be really raised from the dead, for 
a thousand years before the general resurrection; or, as a 
very ingenious author* represents it, ‘‘ Those who have suf- 
| fered for the sake of Christ and a good conscience, shall be 
raised from the dead a thousand years before the general 
resurrection, and reign with Christ in a happy state.” 

But there are others, who understand this description in 
a figurative sense; they suppose the prophecy intends such 
persons as have the true spirit and temper of martyrs, who 
have like faith, constancy, and zeal, with those whom no 
persecutions could prevail upon to deny the truth, “ make 
shipwreck of a good conscience,” or criminally comply with 
any of the corruptions of their times. 

They who are for a literal resurrection of the martyrs, in 
order to live and reign with Christ for these thousand years, 
principally insist on the direct meaning of the expressions, 
«The souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of 
Jesus ;” which they think must mean the martyrs under 
the heathen Roman emperors, as beheading was a Roman 
punishment, and as the very souls that were beheaded, or 
dead, live again in the millennial state. They farther ob- 
serve, This is the reward promised to the martyrs, to the 
souls who “cry for vengeance under the altar,” and who 
“‘overcome’’ by death, or by. resisting the enemies of Christ 
and his religion unto death. They observe, This is agreeable 
to the doctrine of Paul, 1 Thess. iv. 16, that “the dead in 
| Christ shall rise first; that is, they who died for Christ’s 
sake. his interpretation is confirmed, they think, by the 
following observation,—that the rest of the dead lived not 
| again till the thousand years were finished, and therefore 
this is properly a first resurrection. ‘This shows, they add, 
that the persons mentioned as dead and living, were once 
really dead. If they were not, what occasion was there 
to compare them with the rest of the dead? by which are 
| to be understood, all such Christians who are dead, or shall 
die, having no title to the first resurrection, as they were 
| neither actually martyrs nor confessors. 

These arguments are farther supported by several con- 
jectures, and by an application of some passages of scrip- 
ture that are supposed to favour them. 

But they who, on the other hand, understand this de- 
scription in a figurative sense, observe, that all the expres- 
sions will very well bear such an interpretation; that it 
will be more agreeable to the style of prophecy, in par- 
| ticular to the style of this book, which every where abounds 
in figurative descriptions ; that all these expressions are used 
in the ancient prophets in a figurative meaning, and that 
there are unanswerable difficulties attending a literal in- 
pretation of them. 
| Dr. Whitby, in a learned and judicious treatise of the 
millennium, has considered the whole argument at large, 
where the reader may find full satisfaction; I shall only 
set before him the sum of those arguments which seem 
greatly to confirm the figurative interpretation. 

It is observed, in the first place, that all these expres- 
sions may very well be understood in a figurative sense. 
“The souls of them which were beheaded for the witness 
of Jesus,’ and which “had not worshipped the beast,” 
may easily, according to the manner of prophetic language, 

* Burnet’s Theory, lib. iv. cap. 4. 
+ Waple, Daubuz. 


=< 


CHAPTER XX. 


signify persons of like spirit and temper with them, of like 
faith, patience, constancy, and zeal. John the Baptist was 
Elias, because he came “in the spirit of Elias.” “This is 
Elias,” says our Saviour, “which was for to come,” Matt. 
xi. 14. And Luke, speaking of John preparing the way 
for the appearance of the Messiah, thus explains it: “ And 
he shall go before him, in the spirit and power of Elias,” 
Luke i. 17. Thus a state of the church in which the spirit 
of the ancient martyrs and confessors, and the purity of 
those times, shall return, may be described as a church of 
martyrs, a church so nearly resembling them in temper, 
constancy, and zeal. 

It is a very easy and natural figure, as well as very com- 
mon in this book of prophecy, to describe persons by the 
names of such whose tempers and characters they imitate 
and follow. Thus the names of Sodom, Egypt, and Baby- 
lon are so often ascribed to Rome, on account she nearly 
resembled them in corruption, pride, and cruelty. 

The other expressions, of a “resurrection,” of “ living 
and reigning,’ were used before in ancient prophecy, to sig- 
nify the restoration of the church from a low and afflicted 
state. Thus the prophet Hosea, exhorting to “ return unto 
the Lord for he hath torn and he will heal; he hath smit- 
ten, and he will bind us up;” he adds, “ After two days 
will he revive us,” or make us live again, “on the third day 
will he raise us up, as from the dead, and we shall live in 
his sight” (vi. 1, 2). 

In this prophecy, when the two witnesses were slain, and 
“their dead bodies lay in the streets of the great city” (Rev. 
xi. 7,8), “ the spirit of life from God entered into them, and 
they stood on their feet” (ver. 11) ; or they are represented 
under the figure of being raised from the dead. 

It is moreover observable, that as all these expressions 
may well be understood in a figurative sense, agreeable to 
the language of prophecy, so it is more agreeable to under- 
stand them so in a book of revelations, delivered throughout 
in such a style. Every part of these prophecies is so to be 
understood, the book, the seals, the trumpets, the beasts, 
the witnesses, the dragon, and old serpent ; and why not the 
resurrection of the martyrs and confessors ! 

It is also very material, that these very expressions seem 
to be taken from some passages of scripture, in which they 
are plainly used in a figurative sense, and must be so inter- 
preted. There is a remarkable prophecy of Ezekiel, xxxvii. 
3, concerning the restoration of Judah, and her return out 
of the captivity: “And he said unto me, Son of man, can 
these bones live? and I answered, O Lord God, thou know- 
est.” It follows, ver. 5, “Thus saith the Lord God unto 
these bones ; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you,” 
that is, a spirit of life, or living spirit, “and ye shall live. 
And so I prophesied, as he commanded me,” says Ezekiel, 
ver. 10, “ and the breath,” or spirit of life, “came into them, 
and they lived, and stood up upon their feet.” ‘The mean- 
ing of these figurative expressions is thus explained, ver. 11, 
12, “Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are 
(or signify) the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, 
Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off 
for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus 
saith the Lord God ; Behold, O my people, I will open your 
graves, and cause you to come out of your graves, and bring 
you into the land of Israel.” Or, I will bring you out of 
your captivity, and into the enjoyment of your own country, 
liberties, laws, and religion. 

It is farther to be observed, “how fully the description of 
the conversion of the Jews answers to the millennium of St. 
John, who useth the very words by which their prophets had 
foretold their glorious conversion,” as Dr. Whitby has shown 
at large.* 

Now, as this happy state of the church may well be un- 
derstood of the fullest accomplishment of the prophecies, 


which speak of the conversion of the Jews, and receiving | 
them again into the church, which Paul calls “life from the | 


dead,” Rom. xi. 15, this interpretation will be the most easy 
and proper, as most agreeable to the sense in which they 
were used by the ancient prophecies, upon the like occasion. 

Yet farther, a literal and proper resurrection of the mar- 
tyrs and confessors, who suffered in the heathen Roman 


1105 


empire and reign of the beast, is attended with many diffi- 
culties, so great as render that interpretation very doubtful 
and improbable. 

Dr. Whitby* has remarked, that a proper and literal re- 
surrection is never, in the whole New ‘Testament, expressed 
or represented to us by the living of the soul, but by the 
living, raising, and resuscitation of the dead, the raising of 
the bodies of the saints, of them that slept in the dust, or in 
their graves, or sepulchres. 

The same learned author farther observes, this doctrine 
seems not well consistent with the happy state of souls de- 
parted or with the high prerogatives supposed to belong 
to the souls of martyrs that this doctrine does not well 
agree with the accurate description of the resurrection in the 
holy scriptures; for in all those descriptions there is no 
mention of a first and second resurrection, or that one of 
them is to be a thousand years after the other. ‘They de- 
scribe the bodies at the resurrection fit to live in heaven, and 
not on this earth; they represent the resurrection to be per- 
formed “ in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor. 
xv. 52). They represent, at that time, “ The dead in Christ 
shall rise first :Ὁ but then also, “we which are alive, and re- 
main, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, 
to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall be ever with the 
Lord” (1 Thess. iv. 16, 17). The scriptures speak con- 
stantly of the resurrection of all saints, as of a resurrection 
not to a temporal life on earth, but to an eternal life in hea- 
ven. Nor, finally, does the doctrine of a literal resurrection 
well agree, our author observes, with the genius of Christian 
faith, or with the nature of Christian hope, or with that free- 
dom and temper of spirit it requires from the professors of 
Christianity, who are taught not to “set their hearts and 
affections on things on earth, but on things above, where 
Christ sitteth at the right hand of God” (Col. ili. 1—3). 

To these observations of Dr. Whitby, let me add one or 
two observations which the prophecy itself seems naturally 
to point out to us. 

And, first, this prophecy seems to suppose such inhabit- 
ants of the earth, during the millennium, as were the inha- 
bitants of the earth when the beast was destroyed, or men in 
the usual state of natural succession ; not persons raised out 
of the grave, or fetched from the separate state of departed 
souls. 

Here is no intimation that all good and faithful Christians 
are to be slain at this time, together with the beast and his 
followers, to make room for martyrs, and persons who died 
some hundred of years before, to inhabit the earth in their 
room. Besides, they are represented in this state of the 
millennium, as liable to be misled by the deceitful arts of 
Satan, and the terrors of persecution ; for which reason, the 
safety and security of the church in this period is repre- 
sented by laying a restraint upon Satan, that he should not 
deceive the nations, or shutting him up in the bottomless pit, 
that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand 
years should be fulfilled. The inhabitants of the earth, 
then, are supposed in the prophecy capable of being de- 
ceived, and in danger of it, if the power of Satan had not 
been so fully restrained. ‘The order of the prophecy seems 
farther to confirm this observation; for when the thousand 
years shall be expired, Satan must after that be loosed for a 
little season, and he shall make so bad use of that little time, 
as to deceive many ; so far deceive them, as to gather a very 
great number of them together, to attack the saints and the 
beloved city. Must these new enemies of Christ and his 
religion be some of the old persecutors raised from the dead, 
or some of the martyrs after their resurrection, seduced by 
Satan into his party? or must they be, as the prophecy 
seems plainly enough to suppose, such a succession of men 
as now inhabit the earth? 

The prophecy itself gives us occasion to make this far- 
ther observation,—that this prophecy places the general 
resurrection after these thousand years are expired, after 
Satan shall have made a new attempt against truth and 
righteousness, and with very great numbers, as the sand of 
the sea; and after they shall be utterly destroyed by fire 
coming down from God out of heaven. Now the prophecy 
describes this resurrection, which is to follow the millennium 


* Whitby, Treatise of the true Millennium, ch. ii. §. 3. 
Vor. IV.—139 


* Ibid. ch. iii. §. 1. + Ibid. ch. iv. §. 1. 


48 


1106 


the church may well be called “life from the dead,” or a 
“first resurrection.” ὃ 


6 Blessed and holy 7s he that hath part in the first 
resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, 
but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and 
shall reign with him a thousand years. 

(6.) In this eminently glorious state of the church, happi- 
ness and holiness shall not be separate, as they now often 


and defeat of the last attempt of the enemies of truth, as a 
general resurrection of all persons, without any exception, 
without the least intimation of so considerable a resurrec- 
tion, above a thousand years before, as this resurrection of 
the martyrs must have been, if meant literally. “I saw 
the dead, small and great, stand before God—and the dead 
were judged out of those things that were written in the 
books, according to their works” (xx. 12). They who were 
judged, were the dead then raised to life: then the dead 
were all raised, small and great. 

It should seem, then, that a literal and proper resurrection 
of martyrs, to live on earth a thousand years befure the 
general resurrection and judgment, is not a necessary sense 
of this prophecy, nor so natural and probable a sense, as the 
figurative. It should seem, that the literal sense is liable to 
many difficulties, and hardly reconcileable to the other de- 
scriptions of the same prophecy, and to other passages of 
the scriptures. 

But the figurative interpretation, viz. that this prophecy 
should mean a happy state of the church on earth, well an- 
swers the whole design of the prophecy, and appears the 
easier and more probable meaning of the words. 

The church in peace, free from persecution, and all de- 
ceitful arts of Satan and wicked men, enlarged with the con- 
version of the Jews and “fulness of the gentiles,” serving 
God as a kingdom of priests, in the purity of Christian 
worship, and enjoying all the blessings of divine protection 
and grace, may well be expressed by “ living and reigning 
with Christ.” 

This short description will, then, allow a liberty to every 
one of applying to this happy state of the church whatever 
other prophecies he shall find relating to the peaceful and 
prosperous state of the church in the last times. If we take 
care to apply them in an easy and natural sense, agreeable 
to the true meaning of this prophecy, and true nature of the 
peace, purity, and happiness of the church, designed by it, 
we shall rectify the mistakes, and prevent the dangerous 
errors, that some have fallen into, by indulging too far an 
unreasonable fancy and ungrounded imagination; and the 
true millennium will be very far from an unreasonable doc- 
trine, or a dangerous enthusiasm. 

3 Ver. 5.] There is mention in this prophecy of two sorts 
of dead persons; those who were slain “ by the witness of 
Jesus,” and those who were slain “ by the sword of him that 
sat on the horse.” As here is an account of the death of 
faithful Christians by their persecutors, and of their perse- 
cutors themselves by Christ, these persecutors are called 
“the remnant,” the rest, of λοιποί. 


CHAPTER 


SECTION XX. 
THE FIFTH PERIOD. 


7 Anp when the thousand years are expired, Satan 
shall be loosed out of his prison, 

(7.) I was farther informed in my prophetic visions, that 
this happy state of the church was not to be perpetual, 
like the happiness of the heavenly state: for at the end of 
the thousand years, the extraordinary restraint laid upon 


REVELATION. 


are; then they shall be joined inseparably together ; they 
shall be free from all affliction, and from all fears of trouble; 
when the wicked shall be condemned to the lake which 
burneth with fire and brimstone, the second death shall not 
hurt them; they continuing faithful in the service of God, 
to which they are consecrated by the Christian profession, 
shall live as priests to God and Christ, and shall reign in a 
pure, peaceful, and glorious church-state, under Christ’s 
protection and favour. 4 


It is very agreeable to the design and connexion of this 
prophecy, to understand “ the rest of the dead,” who “lived 
not again till the thousand years were finishsd,” of the rest 
or remnant, viz. of those that were slain with the sword of 
him that sat on the horse. Thus, the dead church raised 
to life, and living and reigning for a thousand years, and the 
enemies of the church remaining dead, and not living again 
till the thousand years were finished, will exactly agree 
in the same figurative meaning. ‘his will be a sense 
consistent with the resurrection of the antichristian party 
again, for a little season, after the thousand years shall be 
finished, 

Dr. Hammond, though he refers this prophecy to a very 
different period, yet, from the connexion of the words, per- 
ceived this was the true meaning of “the rest of the dead.” 
Who “the rest of the dead” are is manifest, not all besides 
the martyrs, but those formerly named, ver. 4, that is, they 
who “worshipped the beast or his image, or received his 
mark in their foreheads or hands.” —And therefore these may 
well be the rest of the dead here, it being punctually said of 
them, xix. 21, of λοιποὶ, « The rest were slain;’’ and then, 
that they “lived not again till the thousand years were 
finished,’ must needs signify, that the church was now, for 
that space, free from such heathen persecutors, and puri- 
fied from such avowed mixtures of those vile unchristian 
practices, which is but the negative part annexed to the 
positive preceding: so that, to use the words of Mr. Baxter, 
“the rest of the dead, even the subdued pagans (or papists, 
say others), were kept as in a state of death, out of power, 
till the dragon revived their power again, a thousand years 
after.” 

4 Ver. 6.] To “reign with Christ” may well be under- 
stood in a figurative sense, as we are said to be “ crucified 
with Christ,” and to “live with him ;” or, as Christ himself 
is said to “live in us,” Gal. ii. 20. “Happy days of 
peace and righteousness, of joy and triumph, of external 
prosperity and internal sanctity, when virtue and innocency 
shall be in the throne, vice and vicious men out of power 
and credit, are prophesied of in scripture, and promised to 
the church of God.”* Such a kingdom, which shall be a 
kingdom of righteousness as well as peace, under a peculiar 
divine presence and conduct, may well be called “the king- 
dom of God, and of his Christ,” and they may be said to 
“reign with him,” who through his favour shall enjoy all 
the blessings of that happy state. 


* Burnet’s Theory, lib. iv. cap. 5. 


XX. 7—10. 


the enemies of truth and righteousness should be taken off, 
as if Satan was let loose out of his prison, to deceive the 
world into error and enmity against the professors of true 
religion. 

8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are 
in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to 
gather them together to battle: the number of whom 
zs as the sand of the sea. 


(8.) No sooner shall this restraint be taken off, but Satan 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 7—10. 


Contents.—The following verses of this chapter inform us, 
that the happy days of the church, prophesied of in the 
foregoing vision, will at length have their period, though 


they are to continue for a long time, and are not to expire 
till after a thousand years: yet, then, there shall be one 
attempt more against the purity of religion, and against 
the peace and prosperity of the Christian church. 

Satan is to be released for a little time, or season; but, in 


| 


ete πο τ Ὅ» 


CHAPTER XX. 


shall again attempt to form and head a party, by seducing 
men of weak and evil-disposed minds; and he shall find 
such persons in the several parts of the earth, who, like the 
descendants of Gog and Magog, the Scythians and Tartars, 
shall gather together in great numbers, in order to invade 
and ravage their neighbours, and disturb the peace and hap- 
piness of the church. 


9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, 
and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the 
beloved city: and fire came down from God out of 
heaven, and devoured them. 


(9.) They shall come, like the barbarous northern nations, 
described in foregoing prophecies; they shall make their in- 
vasion so suddenly, and with such numbers, that they shall 
spread far and wide over the peaceful habitations of the saints, 
and besiege them even in their camps, and capital cities, and 
threaten to spoil and subdue them. But this attempt shall 
not be like former invasions of the barbarous nations, who 
possessed themselves of the countries they invaded, in right of 


1107 


conquest over the former inhabitants; for God shall protect 
his faithful servants, and destroy their enemies in a very ex- 
traordinary manner: God shall send fire out of heaven to 
destroy them, as he did the wicked inhabitants of Sodom 
and Gomorrah (Gen. xix. 24), and as he threatened Gog and 
Magog in the ancient prophets (Ezek. xxxix. 1, &c.). 


10 And the devil that deceived them was east into 
the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and 
the false prophet ave, and shall be tormented day and 
night for ever and ever. 

(10.) And the devil, the principal and chief leader of this 
new apostasy and rebellion against God and the kingdom of 
his Son, shall then be punished suitably to the greatness of 
his crime. He shall not only be shut up, and put under 
restraint as before; but now he shall be cast into a lake of 
fire and brimstone, where he is to be punished with the beast 
and false prophet for ever; his power shall never more revive ; 
his anguish and torment shall be endless, without any hope 
of relief, to all eternity. 


that little season, he shall deceive many, and so far se- 
duce them, as to prevail upon them to join with him in 
his apostasy. 

This new attempt against truth and righteousness, shall end 
in the utter ruin of the enemies of Christ and his religion; 
they shall be totally defeated, and their obstinate wicked- 
ness punished with everlasting destruction. 

This state of the church and world, so different from the 
preceding, deserves to be considered as a new period, 
which will therefore be the fifth in order. 


This period, though it is represented very short, yet de- 
serves particular attention, on account of the circumstance 
of the time in which it is placed, between the end of the 
thousand years and the final judgment; and also, as it 
represents the state and condition of the earth to be much 
the same as at present, except an extraordinary restraint 
laid on Satan, and the extraordinary purity, peace, and 
happiness of the church, arising from a peculiar protec- 
tion and blessing of Christ. For we see, no sooner is 
Satan loosed, and his restraint taken off, but he finds great 
numbers of persons ready to be deceived, and to join in 
disturbing the peace, and corrupting the purity of the 
church. 

The theory of a very learned and ingenious author,* 
which supposes the happy state of the church for a thon- 
sand years, cannot be in this present earth, but must be 
after a conflagration, when it shall be first destroyed, and 
then restored to a paradisaical state, is attended with a 
very great, and, as I think, an unanswerable difficulty, from 
this state of the world, after the thousand years shall be 
finished. 

The ingenious author} is fain to suppose some persons, 
sons of the earth, generated from the slime of the ground 
and the heat of the sun, as brute creatures, he says, were at 
first. 

But as such an original of mankind is, I think, unac- 
countable ; so, I hope, the prophecy has no difficulty in it 
that stands in need of so strange a solution. For notwith- 
standing the general peace and purity of the church, the 
many converts to true religion, and the great number of 
persons truly religious, and who live up to the principles 
and in the practice of pure Christianity, there may be also 
some persons of evil-disposed minds, uneasy with the pu- 
rity of true religion, easily moved by the passions of envy, 
covetousness, and ambition, whenever an opportunity shall 
offer to gratify them. The prophecy says nothing to make 
this impossible, or improbable; this circumstance rather 
makes it a likely supposition, and certainly much more 
natural, than to raise a great number of wicked persons from 
the dead, or cause them to spring out of the slime of the 
earth, to revive a new persecution of the Christian faith and 
religion. 

The expressions of this prophecy seem to be taken from 
the prophet Ezekiel, in the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth 


t Ibid. p. 149. 


* Burnet’s Theory, lib. iv. cap. 10. 


chapters. The word of the Lord orders Ezekiel to “set 
his face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief 
prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him” 
(xxxviil. 2). 

Magog was a son of Japheth (Gen. x. 2), from whom the 
Scythians are generally supposed to be derived; the Mogul 
Tartars, a people of the Scythian race, are still so called by 
the Arabian writers, a people who, above all others, have 
best preserved the most ancient names, as well as the most 
ancient customs. The prophet Ezekiel* joins to Gog and 
Magog, “ Gomer and all his bands, the house of ‘Togarmah 
of the north quarters, and all his bands” (ver. 6). And 
(ver. 15), “Thou shalt come from thy place, out of the 
north parts, thou, and many people with thee.” This seems 
sufficiently to show, that Gog and Magog, with Gomer and 
Togarmah of the north quarters, were a northern people, 
some of the many nations who were comprehended under 
the general name of Scythians. These were people used 
to invade their neighbours in great numbers, to spoil their 
country, and rob them of whatever they could lay their 
hands on. So the prophet describes them, ver. 13, “ Art 
thou come to take a spoil? Hast thou gathered thy com- 
pany to take a prey ? to carry away silver and gold, to take 
away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?” 

I shall only add, that the very learned Bochart thinks it 
credible, that the names of Russians and Muscovites are 
derived from Rhos and Meshech, mentioned in this pro- 
phecy of Ezekiel. Credibile est ex 2x7, Rhos et wp, Me- 
sech, id est, Rhossis et Moschis, vicinis populis circa Araxim 
(de quibus Ezekiel) descendisse Russos et Muscovitas, gen- 
tes in Europea Scythia celeberrimas, queque latissimé 
patent. 

The punishment of these spoilers, viz. Gog and Magog 
and the bands joined to them, is thus described by the pro- 
phet, Ezek. xxxviii. 22, 23, « And I will plead against him 
with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, 
and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are 
with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, 
and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify 
myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, 
and they shall know that 1 am the Lord.” 

The nations then of Gog and Magog, were a very fit and 
proper figurative description of the enemies of true religion, 
and of the faithful professors of it, of their neighbours’ peace 
and prosperity. 

It may likewise be here, as Mr. Daubuz observes it is in 
many other places, that this event shall agree with the let- 
ter, as well as with the figurative expressions. “There may 
remain, according to Mr. Pyle, in the farther and more dis- 
tant parts of the world, much people still persisting in ig- 
norance and gross superstitions. ‘These rude nations, 
prompted by envy at the plenty and happiness of the 
Christian kingdom, and out of desire of riches, spoil, and 
plunder (which is the true spirit of Satan, the father of mis- 


* Lowth, on Ezek. xxxviii. 
} Bochart. Phaleg. lib. iii. cap. 13, p. 188. 


1108 


chief), will be permitted to invade the Christian territories 
in vast bodies and armies.” 

However it be, whether these expressions be only figu- 
rative, or whether they contain also something literal, the 
substance of the prophecy will be to this purpose: That 
after the thousand years of peace and purity, the church 
shall once more be disturbed by persons like the barbarous 


REVELATION. 


northern nations, who have often disturbed the peace of the 
world by their invasions. But it shall prove a fruitless at- 
tempt, and end in their complete and final destruction; a 
day of righteous judgment will come, when true religion, 
peace, and happiness, shall be united inseparably, without 
any future molestation, or disturbance, for ever. 


CHAPTER XX. 11—15. 


SECTION XXI. 
THE SIXTH PERIOD. 


11 Anp I saw a great white throne, and him that 
sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven 
fled away; and there was found no place for them. 


(11.) I farther beheld in another vision, what was to fol- 
low upon this full and complete destruction of the enemies of 
Christ and his religion. The general judgment was repre- 
sented to me after this manner: I saw in my vision a glo- 
rious shining throne erected ; I then beheld a person sitting 
on it; at his appearance, the whole frame and constitu- 
tion of the world altered and changed, and quite passed 
away; so that the present heavens and earth were found 
no more. ! 


12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand be- 
fore God; and the books were opened: and another 
book was opened, which is the book of life: and the 
dead were judged out of those things which were 
written in the books, according to their works. 

(12.) Hereupon I beheld in my vision, a general resur- 
rection of all the dead; all ranks and orders of men, the 
lowest as well as the greatest, appeared before this judgment- 
seat of God, and they were all judged according to the most 
impartial rules of justice and equity, as it should appear by 
their works, whether they were under the condemnation of 
sinners, or entitled to the mercies of God and promises of 
eternal life, that they were true and faithful Christians, to 


whom the salvation of God is promised according to the 
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.? 


13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; 
and death and hell delivered up the dead which were 
in them: and they were judged every man according 
to their works. 


(13.) This judgment was so general, that all the dead, 
without exception, were raised again to life, to be judged 
according to their works, whether they died in the sea, and 
were buried in the waters, or by land, and were buried in 
graves ; all in the invisible state of the dead were brought 
forth to this universal judgment. 


14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of 
fire. This is the second death. 


(14.) After this resurrection to judgment, there shall be 
no more natural death: they who are judged shall not re- 
turn to their graves again; for death and hades shall be de- 
stroyed. But there is a second death, the portion of all who 
shall be found guilty, and condemned in this day of righteous 
judgment. 


15 And whosoever was not found written in the 
book of life was east into the lake of fire. 


(15.) For as many as shall not then appear, before this 
impartial judge, to be true and faithful Christians, and as 
such registered in the rolls of the true church of Christ, 
shall be punished as the enemies of God’s government, and 
of true religion ; they shall be cast into a lake of fire, and shall 
suffer a second death, in a state of everlasting destruction. 3 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XX. 11—15. 


Conrents.—The course of these prophecies, after many im- 
portant visions describing the state of the church and 
world in this present life, brings us at last to the great and 
final judgment, when the whole scene and mystery of 
providence shall be finished. ‘Then the great doctrine, 
which runs through the whole of these prophecies, will be 
fully verified, That truth and righteousness shall surely 
prevail in the end against error and all iniquity ; eternal 
happiness shall be the reward of the faithful, and ever- 
lasting destruction the punishment of the wicked. ‘Then 
all shall be judged, “ every man according to his works.” 
This is represented as a sixth period of providence: 
after which there will be in the seventh period an ever- 
lasting sabbath, a state of eternal rest and happiness 
for all the righteous, and of the most perfect worship 
of God, in the praises and devotion of the heavenly 
church. 


1 Ver. 11.] This expression, «The earth and the heavens 
fled away, and there was found no place for them,” seems 
plainly to intimate such a change and alteration, as will 
well agree with Peter’s description, that then “all these 
things shall be dissolved,” 2 Pet. iii. 11. This dissolution 
the same apostle describes more particularly, as to the man- 
ner of it: “The heaven shall pass away with a great noise, 
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also 
and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (ver. 
10). At this “coming of the day of God, the heavens, be- 
ing on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat” (ver. 12). This great change of the pre- 
sent state of the world, is to make way for “new heavens 
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (ver. 13). 
Thus, “the heavens and earth shall pass away, and there 
shall be found no place for them.” 


2 Ver. 12.] This description of “opening the books, and 
judging out of the things which were written in the books, 
according to their works,” seems an allusion to the methods 
of human courts of justice. ‘There are stated laws, or rules 
of justice, by which all accused as criminals were to be tried, 
and according to which they were to be found guilty or 
acquitted. ‘These laws, collected into a body, were called 
the codex, or book of laws; and when any persons were 
accused, and found guilty, their actions must appear to be 
criminal, as against some of the laws in that book. Now 
the plain evidence of the laws of righteousness, the perfect 
knowledge God has of all men’s actions, the full conviction 
of every man’s own conscience, wherein he has transgressed 
those laws of righteousness, may sufficiently answer a legal 
accusation and proof. The sinner will be convicted by his 
works to have transgressed the laws of righteousness, whe- 
ther promulgated by the light of reason, or by the authority 
of particular revelation. 

In human courts of justice, it is allowed to every per- 
son to make his defence, and urge what he has to offer, 
either to prove himself innocent, or that he is entitled to 
favour or pardon. 

The book of life seems to allude more particularly to this 
plea of the person accused. The book of the Revelation 
of Jesus Christ has promised the pardon and forgiveness of 
sins, and the gift of eternal life, to all true and faithful 
Christians. The faith, the patience, the perseverance of 
true Christians will be proved by their works; these show 
them to be true Christians, and therefore that they are en- 
titled to the mercies of God, and the promise of eternal 
life, according to what is written in the book of life, the 
book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which has “ brought 
life and immortality to light.” 

3 Ver. 15.] Paul’s description may give some light to this 
vision of John, 2 Thess. i. 7, &c. The Lord Jesus shall be 
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙ. 


taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey 
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be 


1109 


the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall 
come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them 


punished with everlasting destruction from the presence ot | that believe, in that day.” 


CHAPTER XXI. ‘ 


SECTION XXIL. 
THE SEVENTH PERLOD. 


1 Anp I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for 
the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; 
and there was no more sea. 


(1.) After the foregoing visions, in which I beheld a re- 
presentation of the state of the church and world, to the 
consummation of all things, I had the final happiness of the 
true worshippers of God represented to me in a new vision; 
in which I beheld a perfectly new state of things: the hea- 
ven and earth in which we now live, being quite passed away, 


melted with fervent heat, and dissolved in fire; there was a 
new heaven and a new earth, in which I perceived one thing 
very remarkable, that there was no sea. ΤῸ signify, there 
should be no turbulent, unquiet spirits, to disturb the peace 
of that happy state, nor should a tyrannical or persecuting 
power ever arise in it. ! 

2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, 
coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a 
bride adorned for her husband. 

(2.) The blessedness of this state was farther represented 
to me, by the model of a noble city, as a new Jerusalem, 
which model seemed to descend leisurely out of heaven, as 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXI. 


Contents.—We are now come, in the course of these pro- 
phecies, to the end, the consummation of all things. 

This vision stands in the prophecy after the last attempt 
of the enemies of religion had been defeated ; after the 
dead, small and great, had appeared before God's judg- 
ment-seat, and were judged according to their works; 
after all the wicked were doomed to everlasting punish- 
ment, and all who were not found written in the book of 
life were cast into the lake of fire. 

This order of the prophecies seems to point out to us, that 
the new heavens and new earth, represented in this vision, 
signify that state of unchangeable perfection and hea- 
venly happiness to which the true and faithful servants 
of the living God shall be advanced, when all their trials 
and sufferings in this life shall be ended. 

Nothing could be more proper to the useful design of these 
revelations, than such a conclusion of them, with so af- 
fecting a representation of the final, complete, and ever- 
lasting happiness of the true worshippers of God, and 
faithful servants of Jesus. ‘T'his is a powerful motive to 
present patience, a firm foundation of present hope, a 
strong encouragement to zeal in the cause of true religion, 
and constancy in the uncorrupt faith of Jesus, when such 
a reward is set before us, and promised to all who shall 
be faithful to the end. 

It is a very ancient observation, which men of closer thought 
and better sense have long since made, that happiness is 
the reward of virtue inthe end. It is a memorable moral 
of Euripides,* 


Εἰς τέλος yap ot μὲν ἐσθλοὶ τυγχάνουσιν ἄξιον 


But here is a sure word of prophecy, which beforehand 
acquaints us what will be the last period and state of things. 
The present world, for a few years, a very few in com- 
parison of eternity, will be a state of various sorts of 
trials and troubles, of evils caused by wicked men, of evils 
wherewith the righteous Governor of the world punishes 
their wickedness; but the unchangeable purpose of God 
has appointed another state of things, when the dead shall 
be raised, and judged according to their works; all the 
faithful servants of God and Christ will enjoy a state of 
eternal life, in perfect peace and security, in complete 
prosperity and happiness. 

It is with great advantage this encouragement is given the 
church in such a prophecy. An observation of the faith- 
ful and punctual accomplishment of the former parts of 
this prophecy, in times past, for several hundreds of years, 
serves much to confirm our faith and hope, in as faithful 
and punctual performance of what remains. 

We may be well assured, that God will reward all the faith- 
ful with a state of perfect and endless happiness at the last, 


* Ton. ad finem. 


however he may permit error and persecution to prevail 
for a time, in this present state of life. 

It must be owned, several interpreters of good reputation* 
understand the following vision, a description of the 
happy state of the church during the thousand years in 
which it shall reign with Christ ; or to describe the full and 
complete reformation of the Christian church, during the 
last period upon earth. 

As I can see nothing in the prophetic description to confine 
it to this meaning, so I apprehend the order of the pro- 
phecies, the chief and principal design of them, and the 
description itself, greatly favour the judgment of those 
learned writers, who understand these last visions of the 
future state of happiness in heaven, after the general re- 
surrection and last judgment. 

Thus the seventh and last period concludes the whole plan 
of providence, and finishes it in an endless sabbatism. 


1 Ver. 1.] It is not very probable, the Spirit of prophecy 
should have a regard to the Theory of a late ingenious 
author, who has contrived, that there shall /iterally be 
no more sea in his new earth, after the conflagration: 
for however true we may suppose such a circumstance 
in theory, it could hardly be intelligible to any who 
should read this prophecy, at least till the theory had dis- 
covered it. 

We perceive all the other parts of this description are 
figurative. It is remarkable, that “the beast with seven 
heads and ten horns,” the author of all the calamities of the 
third long period, “rose out of the sea,” Rev. xiii. 1, and 
the same tyrannical oppressive power, under the figure of 
the great whore, is described as “ sitting on many waters,” 
Rev. xvii. 1, and in scripture, any great collection of waters 
is called a “sea;” and these waters are interpreted to sig- 
nify “people, multitudes, and nations, and tongues,” who 
were seduced to oppose the truth, and persecute the faithful 
servants of Christ. 

The sea, moreover, when raised into a storm, is a proper 
figure to express the rage, passion, and tumult, of unquiet, 
evil, and seditious minds. ‘Thus Daniel describes the rise of 
the four tyrannical empires: “I saw in my vision by night, 
and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove on the great 
sea: and four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one 
from another” (vii. 2, 3); to denote the commotions of 
the world, the unquiet troublesome state of affairs, out of 
which new tyrannies and oppressive powers usually have 
their rise. 

This circumstance, then, in the new heaven and new 
earth, that there was “no sea,” is very proper to express in 
prophetic language, that in this happy state there will be 
no turbulent, unquiet spirits, to be managed by the ambi- 
tious; and therefore no fear any beast should again rise 
out of the sea. The most judicious Jewish writers under- 


* Pyle; pee p- 22. 
s 


1110 


it were, and come nearer to mein the air, that I might 
observe it more distinctly : I perceived it was set out with 
all the splendour used at high festivals, or marriage-solem- 
nities. 2 

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 
Behold, the tabernacle of God zs with men, and he 
will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, 
and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 


(3.) Moreover, a voice from heaven attended my vision 
and explained the meaning of it more particularly ; for the 
voice from heaven declared, that God would fully accom- 
plish all that good to his faithful servants which his taber- 
nacle signified to them, as the seat of his presence, and 
testimony of his favour ; he would bless them as his favoured 
people, and as their God he would be their shield and 
their reward, and bless them with all protection and hap- 
piness. 

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sor- 
row, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: 
for the former things are passed away. 


(4.) For such shall be the blessed effects of God’s pre- 
sence with his people, and of his grace and favour to them, 
that they shall meet with no more troubles and afflictions, to 
draw tears from their eyes, as, in this present life, all do 
more or less. They shall no more be subject to death, as 
all, without exception, are in this mortal state. Every thing 
that can cause pain, or occasion sorrow, shall be far removed 
from this happy state. These were the afflictions of mortal 
life, but now death and the invisible state are no more; 
all former afflictions are passed away, and shall remain no 
longer. 3 


5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I 
make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: 
for these words are true and faithful. 


(5.) The happiness of this state was not only declared 
by a voice from heaven ; it was solemnly confirmed by the 
oracle from the throne: Take notice, God will make a full 
change of all things, in the form and state of the world; nor 
shall any of its former afflictions remain. Record this de- 
claration and promise: they contain nothing but what is 
most certainly true, and what in its due time shall be faith- 
fully and fully accomplished. 

6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha 
and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give 
unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water 
of life freely. 

(6.) And now shall be the consummation of all things; 
all God’s promises shall be accomplished in the full happi- 
ness of his servants and saints. God, who will execute all his 


REVELATION. 


purposes from the beginning to the end, will perfect the hap- 
piness of those who have been faithful to his cause. He 
will abundantly satisfy their hopes and desires of eternal life ; 
happiness shall ever flow in upon them, as water ever runs 
from a quick spring, or overflowing fountain. 


7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and 
1 will be his God, and he shall be my son. 


(7.) Let this be an encouragement to faithfulness, con- 
stancy, and perseverance ; they who shall resist and overcome 
the temptations of a corrupt world shall not lose their re- 
ward, God himself will be their God, their portion, and their 
happiness. He will receive them as his children, confirm 
their right, as the sons of God, to inherit all the blessings 
and happiness of eternal life. 4 


8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abomi- 
nable, and. murderers, and whoremongers, and sor- 
cerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part 
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: 
which is the second death. 


(8-) But the case shall be quite otherwise with all the 
enemies of true religion, who have either deserted it, or 
apostatized from it, or opposed it. ‘The cowardly and dis- 
trustful, who either had not faith in God’s promises, or cou- 
rage to persevere, on the encouragement of his promises ; 
all who indulged themselves in abominable vices, who, to 
gratify their lusts, were guilty of murders, whoredoms, de- 
ceit, idolatry, and lying ; all these shall have their portion 
with the devil, to whose party they joined themselves, and 
shall with him undergo the punishment of the second death, 
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. 


9 And there came unto me one of the seven angels 
which had the seven vials full of the seven last 
plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, 
I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. 

(9.) Besides this more general account of the final happi- 
ness of the faithful, an angel, as a nwntius, or interpreter, was 
sent to give me a more particular description of the glory of 
that blessed state. It was one of the seven angels who had the 
seven cups full of the last plagues, in the foregoing vision. 
He called upon me to come to him, and he would show me 
more distinctly the model of the holy city, the new Jeru- 
salem, adorned as the bride of the Lamb, on her marriage- 
festival. 

10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great 
and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, 
the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from 
God, 

(10.) Then the Spirit of prophecy changed the scene of 
my vision: I seemed to stand on a high eminence, from 
whence I could distinctly survey the whole model of this 


stand “new heavens and new earth” to mean a new state 
of happiness, in which former sorrows and troubles shall be 
remembered no more. So Maimonides,* Quod dixi, 
Creabo novos clos, &c. id ita intelligo, quod vos posi- 
turus sum in letitiam perpetuam, loco lucttis, et anxi- 
etatis prioris, neque illius lucttis prioris memoria sit 
mansura. 

2 Ver. 3.1 What John saw coming down from heaven, 
seems to have been the plan or model of the new Jerusalem, 
which proves nothing where this happy state of the church 
is to be enjoyed, much less will it determine it to be on 
earth, as some have argued, because it is said to come down 
from heaven; for the model in the vision might well do so, 
wherever it was that the church should enjoy the happiness 
represented by it. 

Besides, to “ come down from heaven,” or from God, in 
scripture language, means the divine original of a thing, 
or that God is the author of it. The baptism of John was 
“from heaven” (Mark xi. 30), because his authority was 
from God, and not from men. When the apostle mentions 
* the Jerusalem which is above” (Gal. iv. 26), or the super- 


’ 


* More Nevochim, par. ii. lib. xxix. p. 268. 


nal Jerusalem, he seems to mean a state of heavenly origi- 
nal and constitution. 

3Ver.4.] Such a state as is here described, free 
from all pain, sorrow, and death, seems a description 
of some better state than what this present life and world 
can afford. 

4 Ver. 7.] The expression, “He that overcometh shall 
inherit all things,” seems to refer to the promises made to 
them who overcome, in the epistles to the seven churches, 
and very strongly enforces them as motives and encourage- 
ment to patience and perseverance. “ΤῸ him that over- 
cometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the 
midst of the paradise of God. He that overcometh, shall 
not be hurt of the second death. ‘To him that overcometh, 
will I give to eat of the hidden manna. To him that over- 
cometh, and keepeth my words to the end, to him will I give 
power over the nations:” the same shall be “clothed in 
white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the 
book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, 
and before his angels: I will make him a pillar in the tem- 
ple of my God, and he shall go no more out.” Finally, 
“To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me on my 
throne, even as I overcame, and am sat down with my 


CHAPTER ΧΧΙ. 


heavenly city, which was let down from heaven, a model of | 


a divine plan and workmanship. δ 


11 Having the glory of God: and her light was like 
unto a stone most precious, eyen like a jasper stone, 
clear as crystal ; 


(11.) The first thing I observed in the model of this holy 
city was a most glorious brightness, like the shining light of 
the Shechinah, formerly the glory of God in the temple, and 
symbol of his gracious presence with men; so that the model 
shone as with the lustre of a diamond, to express a surpris- 
ing beauty and splendour. 


12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve 
gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names writ- 
ten thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes 
of the children of Israel : 

13 On the east three gates; on the north three 
gates; on the south three gates; and on the west 
three gates. 

12, 13.) I perceived also, that this city was walled about | 
with a very thick and high wall, to express the great safety | 
and security of the inhabitants, free from all danger or fear 
of any attempt or surprise by their enemies. It had twelve 
gates, three in each side of the wall, which stood towards the 
four points of the heaven, east, west, north, and south; and 
at each of the twelve gates stood an angel, as a sentinel or 
guard: each of the gates was named after the names of the 
twelve tribes, as appeared by an inscription over them, figu- 
ratively showing, who had a right to be admitted by the 
guard of angels, through the gates into the city, such as had 
been faithful members of the true church: and expressing 
also the great honour of that city, where angels were ap- 
pointed to do duty asa guard; an honour properly due to 
the majesty of God’s presence, and to the seat of it. 


14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, 
and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the 
Lamb. 


(14.) The foundations of the city wall were also adorned 
with inscriptions of the names of the twelve apostles of Christ, 
who had this honour as the founders of the Christian church, 
by Christ's immediate commission and authority ; figuratively 
showing, that they who shall build their faith on the founda- 
tion of apostolical doctrine and institutions, have a right to 
the blessings of this holy and happy state. 

15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed 
to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the 
wall thereof. 

(15.) And I perceived that the angel interpreter, who 
was sent to instruct me more fully in these things, appeared 
to have a golden measuring rod, with which he measured the 


Father on his throne.” 
med up and fulfilled in the inheritance of all things, or the 
complete happiness of eternal life. 

5 Ver. 10.] ‘The paraphrase expresses the sense of “ com- 
ing down from heaven,” as it is explained, ver. 2. 

6 Ver. 16.] They seem to have mistaken the proper 
meaning of these expressions, who understand the height 
of the city, whether of walls or buildings, to be equal to the 
length or breadth of it; according to which account, the 
houses and walls of a city would be out of all proportion. 
How large soever men may conceive the extent of a city, 
and of contiguous buildings, houses three hundred seventy- 
five miles high are beyond all propriety in the boldest 
figures. Some interpreters, to avoid this difficulty, have 
taken in the height of the mountain on which the city is 
supposed to stand: I say, supposed to stand; for the pro- 
phecy nowhere mentions it. John indeed was called up 
to a mountain, to view the model of the city; but it is 
not said, that the city itself was situated on a mountain: 
nor do I conceive what this supposition serves for, except 
to make the city a perfect cube, for which I see no reason, 


a perfect square answering all figurative meaning full out | 


as well. 
Grotius* justly observes, this equality belongs to the 


* In loc. 


All these promises seem to be sum- | 


| number of twelve, multiplied by a thousand. 


1111 


several parts of this holy city ; by which measure was un- 
derstood, the greatness and extent of the city, the exact or- 
der and just proportion of every part of it: to show figura- 
tively, that this city was prepared for a great number of 
inhabitants, how small soever the number of faithful Chris- 
tians may at any time appear; and that every thing relating 
to the happiness of that state was prepared with the greatest 
order, beauty, and exactness. 


16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length 


|is as large as the breadth: and he measured the 
| city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The 


length and the breadth and the height of it are 
equal, 

(16.) Upon measuring, it appeared that the city was an 
exact square, of equal length and breadth, and of a very 
great extent; for it appeared, upon measure, to be fifteen 
hundred miles in compass, each side three hundred seventy- 
five miles long. It was so regularly built, that all the build- “ 
ings were every where of the same proportions, of a very 
exact and uniform architecture. © 

17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred 
and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of 
a man, that is, of the angel. 

(17.) Upon measuring the height of the wall, I perceived 
it was one hundred forty-four cubits, of the common mea- 
sure among men; for it was such a measuring rod, that 
the angel made use of in measuring the height of the 
wall.7 


18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper? 
and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. 

(18.) The walls appeared to be built with unparalleled 
strength and magnificence, not of brick or squared stones, 
but of some precious stone, as solid, firm, and beautiful as a 


| jasper ; the city was every where adorned with pure gold, and 


shone with the brightness of crystal. 5 


19 And the foundations of the wall of the city 
were garnished with all manner of precious stones. 


|The first foundation was jasper; the second, sap- 


phire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an eme- 
rald; 
20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the 


| seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a 


topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a ja- 
cinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. 


(19, 20.) The lower parts of the wall of the city were in- 
laid quite round, and beautified with a great variety of pre- 
cious stones, such as were directed tobe set in the high-priest’s 
breastplate of judgment, where was the wrim and thummim, 
which are interpreted (ight and perfection ; and were a pro- 


walls and buildings, compared with each other, not with 
the length and breadth of the city. Non idem dicit quod 
modo, cm quadratam formam explicaret, sed aliud, nempé, 
quaqué iret, altitudinem et murorum et edificiorum fuisse 
equalem. - 

‘The numbers themselves are evidently typical: they are 
taken from twelve, the number of the apostles, multiplied 
by athousand. As before, the number of the members of 
the Christian church was represented by one hundred forty- 
four thousand, being one hundred forty-four, the square 
So that this 
manner of numbering will very properly signify a city, of 
whieh faithful Christians are to be the happy citizens, and 
settled inhabitants; a city which shall have incomparably 
greater extent, more strength and beauty, than ancient Ba- 
bylon, Rome, or any other seat of empire ever known in 
this world. 

7 Ver. 17.] This seems to be the measure of the height 
of the wall, in which we observe the prophecy still keeps 
to the mystical number of twelve, multiplied into itself. 
The height of the wall is represented about seventy-two 
yards high, according to the lesser cubit, or about eighty- 
six yards, according to the greater, sufficient to express 
great security against all attempts, and any surprise by an 
enemy, 

8 Ver. 18.] 1 conceive it is the city, and not the gold, 


1112 


per emblem to express the happiness of God's church in his 
presence, in the blessing of his oracle and protection. ‘The 
like ornaments on the foundation of the walls of this city 
may well express the perfect glory and happiness of all the 
inhabitants of it, from the most glorious presence and pro- 
tection of God. 


21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every 
several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the 
city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. 

(21.) Never was any city on earth so richly and so glo- 
riously adorned; for every gate of the city was made of one 
large entire pearl; and the public place of assembly in the 
city was paved with a rich stone, shining as crystal, and set 
in pure gold. 9 

22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God 
Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 


(22.) There was one thing I observed in this new city 
very remarkable; there was no temple in it, but the want 
of a temple was abundantly made up: for Jehovah, the 
Almighty God himself, and Jesus Christ the Lamb, were 
instead of a temple. They were present in this city in a 
much more glorious and perfect manner, than God was 
ever present in the temple of the earthly Jerusalem. 10 


23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of 
the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did 
lighten it, and the Lamb ‘s the light thereof. 

' (23.) Nor had this new Jerusalem any need of the sun 
to shine by day, or of the moon by night, to give it light, 
as in the present state of this world; the presence of God 
himself and the Lamb did enlighten it always without in- 
terruption, as the glory of God did the holy of holies in 
the temple. 11 


24 And the nations of them which are saved shall 
walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do 
bring their glory and honour into it. 


(24.) This glorious city shall be the residence of all who 


REVELATION. 


have believed with the heart unto righteousness, and made 
confession with the mouth unto salvation. All true Chris- 
tians, out of every nation and people, shall have their por- 
tion in this glory, which shall be much greater than the 
richest and most powerful princes ever enjoyed; greater 
than if we were to imagine all the princes of the earth col- 
lecting all the riches of the world together, to beautify and 
adorn one city. 12 


25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by 
day: for there shall be no night there. 


(25.) There will be no occasion to shut the gates of this 
city at any time; not by night, for there will be no night; 
the perpetual light of God’s glory will make perpetual 
day ; there will be no danger or fear of any enemy ; the 
inhabitants shall ever live in full safety and security, in an 
undisturbed possession of all peace, joy, and happiness. 


26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the 
nations into it. 

(26.) All that can contribute to make this new Jerusalem 
honourable and glorious, shall be found in it, as if all that 
was rich and precious throughout the world, was brought 
into one city, and all centred there. 


27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any 
thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomi- 
nation, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in 
the Lamb’s book of life. 


27.) Yet let it be carefully observed, though the gates 
of this city are always open, they are not open for every 
one to enter in; all who are unworthy of this happiness, 
and unmeet for it, will be refused entrance; all impure and 
vicious, all idolaters, hypocrites, and liars, aH men of false- 
hood and deceit, shall find no place in this holy city, and 
shall have no portion in this happiness; it is a blessedness 
peculiar to the saints, and appropriated to them only who 
have appeared true and faithful servants of God and Christ, 
and as such are registered among the true Christians, who 
are to inherit eternal life. 


which is represented shining as clear glass, or crystal. Our | 


copies which read ὁμοία, which agrees with πόλις, seems a 
truer reading than ὅμοιον. It is not so intelligible, how 
pure gold should be like crystal, but easy to conceive the 
city adorned with crystal set in gold. 

9 Ver. 21.] Grotius supposes, that the gates of the city 
were made of a fine marble, bright and shining as a pearl ; 
but may not the prophecy design a very strong figure, and 
suppose pearls in all their beauty, large and firm enough 
to make the frontispiece of agate? 'The “street of the city” 
seems well understood by Grotius of the forum, or place of 
public assembly, which is described as paved either with 
squares of gold, and crystals, or with crystal squares set in 
gold borders ; than which, imagination can conceive nothing 
more rich and magnificent. 

10 Ver. 22.] These expressions of this prophecy seem to 
point out to us, that all that was figuratively or spiritually 
meant by the temple of God, and his presence with his peo- 
ple, which was the great blessing and glory of Jerusalem of 
old, shall be fully accomplished, and perfectly answered, 
in this new Jerusalem; there shall be a fulness of joy and 
happiness, in this glorious state of the church, from the 
presence of the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb. 


Do not these characters describe something more than can | 


CHAPTER 


1 Anp he shewed me a pure river of water of life, 
clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God 
and of the Lamb. 


(1.) The angel directed me to observe farther in this plan 


be well expected from the best-reformed state of the church 
in this world ? 

1 Ver. 23.] This part of the prophetic description seems 
to be taken from the Shechinah, or glory of God, in the 
several divine appearances. his is represented as a bright 
and glorious light; the holy of holies, the seat of God’s pre- 
sence in the temple, had no other light than that of the 
Shechinah, or the glory, that shone over the mercy-seat, 
between the cherabim. How strong is this figurative repre- 
sentation, to show, that this happy state of the church shall 
be, without comparison, more glorious than any former 
state had been? The Shechinah, or glory of God’s pre- 
sence, shall not be shut up or concealed in one part of a 
temple, but shall be spread through the whole extent of this 
spacious city, and every inhabitant shall enjoy the full feli- 
city represented by it. 

2 Ver. 24.] ‘This part of the description seems to be an 
allusion to the passage of the prophet Isaiah, “" And the gen- 
tiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of 
thy rising” (Ix. 3). ‘This prophecy raises the idea yet higher, 
to show the perfect satisfaction and joy of all persons of 
every rank and quality, in this happy state, where every 
thing that can contribute to it shall be collected together, 
and severally contribute to complete the public happiness. 


XXII. 1—5. 


of the new Jerusalem, which I saw in my vision, that a pure 
river of water, perfectly fine and clear, perpetually issued 
out from the throne of God and the Lamb; to represent a 
constant provision for the comfortable and happy life of all 
the inhabitants of this city of God. 1 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII. 1—5. 


Contents.—The first five verses of this chapter are but a 
continuation of this prophetic description of the new Jeru- 


salem, and should have been part of the twenty-first 
chapter. 


1 Ver. 1.1 It is observed of the city of Babylon, that the 


CHAPTER XXII. 


2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side 
of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare 
twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every 
month: and the leaves of the tree were for the heal- 
ing of the nations. 


(2.) As this river of water of life ran through the chief 
street in the midst of the city, so there was planted on each 
side of the river a beautiful row of trees, not only to serve 
for ornament and refreshment, but which, like the tree of 
life in paradise, should make the inhabitants immortal. They 
yielded a great variety of pleasant fruits, and in such plenty, 
that they had ripe fruit every month, and so all the year 
round. Even the leaves of these trees had such healing vir- 
tues, that they were a sure remedy against all sorts of weak- 
ness and indisposition. 2 


3 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne 
of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his ser- 
vants shall serve him: 


(3.) So great will be the happiness of the saints, the 
faithful in Christ Jesus, that nothing shall break in upon it, 
or any ways interrupt it; nothing shall be done in this holy 
city to deserve the displeasure of God: nor therefore shall 
they be liable to any afilictions, either as punishments, or a 
useful discipline. ‘They shall continually enjoy the favour 
and grace of God and Christ, with the blessing and happiness 


1113 


of their presence ; they-shall serve God with all the gratitude, 
constancy, and affection, so great obligations require of them. % 


4 And they shall see his face; and his name shall 
be in their foreheads. 

(4.) For in that happy state they shall have so full com- 
munications of all grace, holiness, and happiness, from God’s 
immediate presence, that they shall be made like unto him, 
partakers of his perfections and glory ; like the high-priest of 
old, they shall have “ Holiness to the Lord” on their fore- 
heads, expressive of their entire devotion to God, and an in- 
delible mark of God's favour. 4 


5 And there shall be no night there; and they 
need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord 
God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever 
and ever. 

(5.) In this blessed state, there shall be no interruption of 
their happiness and joy ; there shall be no night, no state of 
darkness, between the end of one day and the beginning of 
another; their happiness proceeds immediately from God 
himself, from his constant and everlasting presence with 
them, and favour to them; so that they shall enjoy the same 
unspeakable happiness, without any interruption or diminu- 
tion, to all eternity. ‘Thus all the faithful servants of Christ 
Jesus shall reign with their God and Saviour for ever and 
ever. ὃ 


river Euphrates was let into it, and ran through it. The first 
paradise is represented as watered by a river; a river that 
went out of Eden, or had its course in that country, ran 
through the garden to water it (Gen. ii. 10). Ezekiel, in 
his prophetic vision of the new city and temple, has a like 
representation of waters in great plenty, flowing from the 
house or temple: “ Behold, waters issued out from under the 
threshold of the house eastward. And the waters came 
down from under, from the right side of the house, at the 
south side of the altar” (Ezek. xlvii. 1). These waters were 
in such plenty, that they were deep enough to swim in; “a 
river that could not be passed over” (ver. 5). These waters 
were of such excellent virtues, that they gave life to all who 
drank of them: “ Every thing shall live whither the river 
cometh” (ver. 9). 

Water, as necessary to the support of life, and as it con- 
tributes in great cities, especially in the hot eastern coun- 
tries, to the ornament of the place, and delight of the inha- 
bitants, is a very proper representation of the government of 
all things, both for the support and pleasure of life. « With 
God,” says the psalmist, “is the fountain of life ; thou shalt 
make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.’ The figure 
of a “river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the 
throne of God and the Lamh” (Ps. xxxvi. 8, 9), elegantly 
expresses the glorious and happy immortality which all 
faithful Christians shall enjoy in this state of perfect and 
endless happiness. 

2 Ver. 2.] Both “the waters of life,’ and “the tree of 
life,” are emblems of immortality: «They that eat of the 
tree of life shall live for ever’ (Gen. iii. 22). ‘The trees of 
life are so planted, in this description, that all the inhabitants 
may come at the fruit of them freely, and without hinder- 
ance. They yield their fruits so plentifully, and so con- 
stantly, that there can be no want in so large and populous 
a city; and even the leaves have a sovereign virtue against 
all sorts of indisposition. How elegantly does this represent 
a most happy state of immortal life ? 


3 Ver. 3.] This part of the description of the new Jerusa- 
lem seems to point out to us, how much greater the happi- 
ness of this state will be, than the happiness of the first pa- 
radise was. In this state, the faithful servants of Christ 
shall be in no danger of forfeiting their happiness, and losing 
paradise, as our first parents did. In their paradisaical state, 
they shall be a kingdom of priests unto God for ever. This 
seems to describe a state of happiness above the condi- 
tion of this world, and only to be enjoyed in the heavenly 
state. 

4 Ver. 4.) To “see the face of God,” and to “stand in his 
presence,” says Mr. Daubuz, implies the most perfect hap- 
piness, and is a blessing that only comes to the saints at the 
resurrection. It is the highest expression in the language of 
scripture, to describe the most perfect happiness of the 
heavenly state ; by most divines, the beatific vision is appro- 
priated to that meaning. 

5 Ver. 5.) Night and darkness, in the style of prophecy, 
signify often trouble and affliction; /ight, on the contrary, 
expresses prosperity and joy. “In thy light,” says the 
psalmist, “shall we see light” (xxxvi. 9) ; or, in the loving- 
kindness of God we shall find prosperity and happiness. In 
this state of perfect happiness, no trouble, no affliction, shall 
be intermixed with their peace and joy; God shall then be 
the everlasting happiness of all his saints. How fully, how 
gloriously, are all their afflictions, for his sake, rewarded ! 
What encouragement is this to the faithfulness and patience 
of the saints, when, whatever their sufferings may be, they 
shall work out for them a “far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory!’ Thus ends the doctrine of these revela- 
tions, in the everlasting happiness of all the faithful; the 
mysterious ways of Providence are cleared up; all things 
finally end in an eternal sabbath, in an everlasting state of 
peace and perfect happiness, reserved in heaven for all who 
shall persevere, against the temptations of the world, in the 
love of truth and righteousness. 


CHAPTER XXII. 6, &c. 


SECTION XXIII. 
CONCLUSION, OR EPILOGUE. 


6 Ann he said unto me, These sayings are faithful 
and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent 


his angel to shew unto his servants the things which 
must shortly be done. 

(6.) After this representation of the blessed state of the 
| faithful Christians, in everlasting happiness, the angel who 
had shown me the plan of the heavenly Jerusalem, con- 


ANNOTATIONS ON CHAP. XXII. 6, ἄς. 


Conrrents.—The prophetic part of this book ends in a per- 
fect happiness of the faithful, great above all imagination, 
certain as the word of prophecy, and lasting without end. 

Vor. IV.—140 


A powerful encouragement and persuasive to constancy in 
the profession and practice of pure Christianity, whatever 
difficulties or dangers might attend it. 

What follows, to the end, is the conclusion of the whole 
book, or a sort of epilogue, which confirms the truth of 


1114 


firmed to me the truth of these prophecies, and the faithful 
performance of all that had been represented to me in my 
visions. He assured me, they were not a groundless en- 
couragement to Christian constancy and faithfulness ; these 
promises are not like the deceitful promises of false prophets, 


or credulous enthusiasts; the same true God who inspired | 
the prophets of the ancient church, so punctually to foretell 


the circumstances of Christ’s first appearance, has sent his 
angel to support the faith and patience of the Christian 
church by these revelations, which shall soon begin to be ac- 
complished, and continue to be fulfilled, in a series of events, 
to the end of time. 


7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed 7s he that keep- 
eth the sayings of the prophecy of this book. 


(7.) Christ himself testifies to the truth of these promises ; 
he himself solemnly declares, he will come to accomplish all 
these things, which will be soon seen, as the events foretold 
will fall out in their order, and in the periods marked out for 
them. Blessed then will they be, who shall so attend to the 
prophecies of these revelations, as faithfully to follow their 
directions, who shall be excited to constancy in pure and un- 
defiled religion, by the great encouragements and glorious 
rewards they set before them. ! 


8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. 
And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to wor- 
ship before the feet of the angel which shewed me 
these things. 


(8.) And I John, who have committed these revelations 
to writing, for the constant use of the churches, do solemnly 
declare, they are no private fancy or invention of my own, 
but what I was an eye and ear-witness to, having really seen 
and heard these things in the visions of prophecy, as I have 
faithfully related them. And now, my visions appearing to 
be at an end, I bowed myself to the ground before the angel 
who had shown me these things, to express the great respect 
and gratitude I had for the person who had laid me under so 
great obligations. 


9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do τὶ not: for I 
am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the pro- 
phets, and of them which keep the sayings of this 
book: worship God. 

(9.) But the angel hindered me again, as he had done 
once before, informing me, that I should not consider him as 
the author of these prophetic visions, but as a fellow-servant 
of the prophets, and as such employed in the service of God 
with them ; all the praise of the church should therefore be 
given to God alone, who only is to be acknowledged the 
author of these revelations, who only gives the Spirit of pro- 
phecy for the encouragement and consolation of the faith- 
ful. 2 

10 And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of 
the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand. 


REVELATION. 


(10.) The angel then gave me a charge not to keep these 


| revelations private to myself, and concealed from the church: 


for the things revealed in them would soon begin to be ac- 
complished, and the cautions, directions, exhortations, and 
encouragements, contained in them, would be of great use to 
give the faithful comfort, hope, and constancy, in the succes- 
sive times of temptation and trial, that they might learn both 
to expect them, and to be prepared for them. 


11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and 
he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that 
is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is 
holy, let him be holy still. 

(11.) The providence of God will indeed permit things to 
continue in this world, just as these prophecies represent the 
state of them. Men of evil principles and corrupt hearts 
will continue in acts of injustice and oppression, and to pro- 
mote false religion and wickedness, notwithstanding all the 
cautions of religion or judgments of Providence. Yet the 
cautions, directions, encouragements, of these prophecies, and 
the judgments of Providence foretold in them, will have a 
better effect on good minds, to their perseverance in truth, 
righteousness, and holiness. 3 


12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward 
7s with me, to give every man according as his work 
shall be. 

(12.) And let all consider, how these prophecies repre- 
sent the promise and faithfulness of Christ, as well as how 
they represent the present state of the church and world; 
though the wicked will not be reformed, and the righteous 
shall suffer much from the unjust, yet they may depend 
upon it, that Christ Jesus will come according to the promise, 
as soon, and in such a manner, as these prophecies declare. 
Then he shall bring a glorious reward with him, for all his 
faithful servants who have endured unto the end; then he 
shall inflict a just punishment on the unjust and filthy, ac- 
cording to the guilt of their idolatry and persecution. 


13 Iam Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the 
end, the first and the last. 

(13.) For whatever the present appearances of things 
may be, how much soever error and wickedness may prosper 
in this world, and truth and goodness be oppressed, yet such 
are the characters of Christ, as assure the final events of 
things shall be as he has revealed them in these prophecies. 
He is the Lord of the whole creation, by whom all things 
began, and by whom all things are to be finished ; so that he 
will do all his pleasure through all ages of time, to the con- 
summation of all things, and nothing can prevent or hinder 
the sure and full accomplishment of his word. 


14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, 
that they may have right to the tree of life, and may 
enter in through the gates into the city. 


(14.) How unspeakably great then is the happiness of all 


the prophecies contained in these revelations, shows the 
importance and use of them, and is well fitted to leave 
them with strong impressions on the hearts of the readers, 
to preserve them from compliance with any corruptions of 
the Christian faith and worship, and encourage their con- 
stancy in the ways of truth and righteousness. 


1 Ver. 7.1 Here Christ himself speaks, says Mr. Waple, 
this being a sacred drama, in which, according to the nature 
of such representations, several persons are introduced.— 
The angel, sent to show these things, declares, in the person 
of Christ, says Mr. Daubuz, “ Behold, I come quickly.”— 
And I (said Christ from the throne) will see them all 
accomplished, according to Mr. Pyle. ‘The general meaning 
is determinate enough, that these revelations were really 
from Christ himself, and that he had undertaken to see them 
fulfilled. 

It is not improbable, this vision being in heaven, that the 
voice of the oracle from the throne might confirm the testi- 
mony of the angel. This sense is agreeable to a following 
expression (ver. 20), “He which testifieth these things saith, 
Surely I come quickly ; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” 

2 Ver. 9.] The prostration of the apostle, or bowing him- 
self to the ground before the angel, has been considered 


before (xix. 10), where we have more largely observed, that 
it may be understood of a high civil respect, short of proper 
religious adoration. 

3 Ver. 11.] Mr. Daubuz justly observes, that in the pro- 
phetical style, whether the thing be uttered in the past or 
future, or in the imperative, it is equal. So that to say, 
“He who is unjust, let him be unjust still,” is equal to say- 
ing, He that is unjust, will still be so, and will not be re- 
claimed, what persuasive reasons soever may be used for his 
recovery. 

Mr. Daubuz farther observes, He that wrongeth (or the 
unjust) denotes, in a peculiar manner, throughout this pro- 
phecy, the persecutor and murderer of the saints; as the 
saint that suffers is called δίκαιος, “the just,” because he is 
innocent, and will be justified in judgment, by the punish- 
ment inflicted on the unjust. “He which is filthy,” seems 
principally to denote those who shall be guilty of idolatrous 
worship. So that, on the one side, here are the persecutors 
and corrupters of pure religion, by idolatrous doctrines and 
practices; and, on the other side, the righteous, who keep 
their integrity, notwithstanding all they suffer for the sake 
of a good conscience; they remain holy, still will continue 
separate from the prevailing corruptions of the world, and 
undefiled by them. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


who shall believe the truth of these revelations, as to trust in 
the faithful performance of them, who shall be so directed 
by them as to persevere in the purity of Christian faith, and 
in the practice of undefiled religion, for such have a full 
assurance of hope, that they shall inherit eternal life, and 
be received into the blessed state of heavenly perfection and 
happiness. 4 


15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whore- 
mongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whoso- 
ever loveth and maketh a lie. 


(15.) The blessedness of these faithful Christians will 
appear yet the greater, because this hope and happiness are 
peculiar to them. The wicked have no right to it, no por- 
tion or share in it; all shall be for ever excluded, who, like 
dogs, bite and devour the innocent and righteous, or who 
indulge themselves in sins of uncleanness or deceit, who at- 
tempt to maintain corruptions of religion by falsehood or 
forgery. All these “shall have their part in the lake that 
burneth with fire and brimstone,” xxi. 8.5 


16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you 
these things in the churches. Iam the root and the 
offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. 


(16.) The Lord Jesus Christ himself finally confirmed 
the truth and importance of these revelations, by affirming, 
it was he himself who sent his angel, and who caused me to 
see the prophetic visions, in which the future state of the 
church and world was represented to me. The same person 
who was described in the ancient prophets, as the promised 
seed of David, the bright Star out of Jacob, and the Day- 
spring from on high, the true Messiah, or God’s anointed, 
confirmed the truth of all these revelations by his own testi- 
mony, therefore all Christians may safely rely upon the 
truth of them, and comfortably wait in hope of their faithful 
accomplishment. 


17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And 
let him that heareth say, Come. And Jet him that is 
athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the 
water of life freely. 


(17.) And now the prophecies of this book reveal truths 
of so much use and consequence to sincere Christians, and 
true lovers of pure religion; now these promises are so fully 
confirmed by the Spirit of prophecy, and the testimony of 
Jesus Christ—the true church of Christ, his spiritual bride, 
should greatly rejoice in them, and endeavour to confirm 
their faith and constancy by them. For every one who 
sincerely desires a portion in these blessings, and will seek 
for them, as the pure Christian religion directs, shall be sure 


1115 


to receive them, and freely, through the riches of God's 
grace, as he has promised them. δ 


18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the 
words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall 
add unto these things, God shall add unto him the 
plagues that are written in this book: 


(18.) And now I have faithfully and exactly related what 
I saw and heard in these visions of God, let me solemnly 
conjure every person into whose hands these revelations 
shall come, that they treat them with the reverence due to 
revelations from God; that they venture not to add any 
thing of their own imagination or invention to them; let 
them keep close, as far as they can, to the true meaning and 
intention of the prophetic Spirit; for let them be assured, 
God will severely punish such impious rashness by inflicting 
on them the curses denounced in these prophecies against 
deceivers, and false pretenders to prophecy. 


19 And if any man shall take away from the words 
of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his 
part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, 
and from the things which are written in this book. 


(19.) On the other hand, let no man dare to strike any 
prophecy out of this book; let no man set aside or discredit 
the authority of any of these revelations, as useless, danger- 
ous, or unworthy the Spirit of God; let no man endeavour 
to pervert their true meaning and intention, to serve any evil 
views of his own, to the ease, pleasures, or ambition of life. 
Such unworthy treatment of the word of prophecy will justly 
forfeit the blessings and happiness with which these prophe- 
cies encourage the faithfulness and constancy of sincere 
Chrisuians.7 

20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely 1 
come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. 


(20.) As then Jesus, the author of these prophecies, 
assures a certain accomplishment of them in their times and 
seasons, let the whole church join with me in saying, Amen, 
Let all faithful Christians, with joyful hope and hearty de- 
sire, continually say, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus, accom- 
plish thy promises in their order; and finally crown the faith, 
patience, and constancy of thy servants with eternal life. ® 


21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you 
all. Amen. 


(21.) In the meantime, may the favour and blessing of 
Jesus Christ our Saviour be with all true Christians; may 
his grace support and comfort all who suffer for his name, 
and keep them to the glory of his heavenly kingdom. Amen. 


These prophecies then will be of great use, as they shall 
contribute to the constancy of the righteous and the holy, 
though they should not effect a general reformation in the 
world, though men of evil principles and wicked hearts 
should still remain persecutors and idolaters. 

4 Ver. 14.] Some copies read,* “Blessed are they who 
wash their garments ;” to which some add, “ in the blood of 
the Lamb.” But the meaning of both expressions returning 
at last to much the same thing, the paraphrase will, I think, 
sufficiently take in both. 

5 Ver. 15.] The several works of iniquity here mentioned, 
may be understood more generally of all cruelty, unclean- 
ness, falsehood, and deceit ; yet they seem more particularly 
designed to point out idolatry and persecution: as an idola- 
trous corruption of the Christian doctrines and worship, aud 
a support of those corruptions by fraud and persecution, are 
the principal evils these prophecies warn us of, and are de- 
signed to guard us against. 

6 Ver. 17.] Mr. Pyle has well observed, that, according 
to the Hebrew style, which commonly uses a substantive 
for an adjective, “the Spirit and the bride,” mean «the 
spiritual bride,” or the true church of Christ, as glory and 
virtue is “ glorious virtue,” kingdom and glory, “a glorious 
xingdom.” Yet, as this has not been observed by many | 


* Alexand. Velast. Ethiop. Vul. Lat. 


interpreters, the reader ought to be informed, that some, by 
“the Spirit and bride,” mean persons endowed with spiritual 
gifts; others,* by “the Spirit,” mean the Holy Ghost making 
intercession for the saints. But Mr. Pyle’s interpretation 
seems the most natural, that it expresses the desire and care 
of the church, which is the spiritual bride of Christ. 

7 Ver. 19. Some interpreters understand these warnings 
as principally designed against all such persons who should 
venture at forging revelations in imitation of these, as there 
were many such false revelations given out in the first ages 
of the church; but others understand it as a direction to the 
church, to consider these revelations as the last authoritative 
prophecy from heaven, and to warn them of the great danger 
of infusing into men’s minds any other expectations than 
are agreeable to these visions, or of persuading men to any 
behaviour unsuitable to the directions of these revelations, 
by any wilful false interpretation of them. 

5 Ver. 20.] We may here observe, how John uses the 
expression, the “coming of Christ.” It seems to have a 
more general meaning, to denote any eminent instance of 
Christ’s power, in the blessings of the church, or punish- 
ment of its enemies, and that the style of scripture does not 
confine it to any one particular instance—as, his coming to 
judgment. 


* Grotius, Daubuz. 


END OF LOWMAN’S COMMENTARY ON THE REVELATION, 


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ΩΝ as : 


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of ns ‘id Ma +t ye 


Α 


TREATISE 


ON THE 


TRUE MILLENNIUM; 


SHOWING THAT IT IS NOT A 


REIGN OF PERSONS RAISED FROM THE DEAD, 


BUT OF 


THE CHURCH 


FLOURISHING GLORIOUSLY FOR A THOUSAND YEARS 
AFTER THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS, 


AND 
THE FLOWING IN OF ALL NATIONS TO THEM THUS CONVERTED 


TO 


THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


BY DANIEL WHITBY, Ὁ. Ὁ. 


PREFACE. 


Scauicer was pleased to say, Calvinus sapuit, quia 
non scripsit in Apocalypsin; ‘* Calvin was wise, be- 
cause he did not write upon the Revelation.” Iconfess, 
I do it not for want of wisdom; that is, because I nei- 
ther have sufficient reason nor judgment to discern 
the intendment of the prophecies contained in that 
book. But yet, conceiving that I have either found 


out the true sense of those words, xx. 4, which usually 
are alleged as the foundation of the supposed millen- 
nium, or resurrection of the martyrs to reign with 
Christ on earth a thousand years; or, at the least, 
have said what is sufficient to show, it is not necessary 
to understand them in a proper sense; I have com- 
prised my sentiments of that controversy in the ensu- 
ing treatise, which I submit to the judgment of the 
reader. 


4T 1117 


1118 
INTRODUCTION. 


Havre employed some thoughts upon the mystery of the 
conversion of the Jewish nation, mentioned by St. Paul, 
Rom. ix., and comparing the glorious things he there says of 
it, with what the prophets had foretold of the same thing in 
very high expressions; I began to compare them with what 
was written in the Revelation, concerning the new Jerusa- 
lem, the new heavens and new earth, and the bride of the 
Lamb made ready for a marriage with him ; and finding that | 
this bride was thought, by the best commentators, to be the 
Jewish church and nation, represented formerly by our 
Saviour, as “not having on her wedding-garment,” Matt. 
xxii. 12; that the new heavens and the new earth were the 
things promised to the Jews; that the new Jerusalem was 
described in the very words of the prophet and Jewish 
writers, speaking of that glorious state they expected to- 
wards the end of the world ; I was strongly inclined to con- 
ceive this glorious conversion, which St. Paul saith shall be, 
even to the gentile, ζωὴ ἐκ νεκρῶν, “life from the dead” 
(Rom. xi. 15), and which is by the prophets frequently re- 
presented as the ζωοποίησις, ἀνάστασις, i. 6. the new birth, 
reviviscence, resurrection of their dead church and nation, 
by the Messiah, so that 6 ϑάνατος οὐκ ἔσται ἔτι, “death shall | 
be no more” (Rev. xxi. 4), might be the very resurrection | 
intended by St. John; and the flourishing condition and 
union both of the Jewish and the gentile church thus raised 
from the dead, and so continuing in peace and plenty, anda 
great increase of knowledge and of righteousness, and a re- 
turn of the primitive purity of doctrine and of manners, 
might be the reign of the saints on earth a thousand years, 
which the apostle mentions: this naturally led me to a dis- 
course of the millennium; which being framed according to 
this new hypothesis, I shall now offer it to the consideration 
of the learned, in the following method. 

1. I shall state the true millennium of the ancients; 
showing how far it was received, and by whom opposed, in 
the first four centuries, and what were the particular opi- 
nions, which then obtained, concerning the millennium; and 
how far the modern patrons of the millenary state have dis- 
carded the received opinion of the ancients who embraced 
that doctrine. 

2. I shall show what reason 1 have to conceive that this 
millennium is to begin with the conversion of the Jewish na- 
tion; and doth indeed relate to the most happy state and 
flourishing condition the church of Christ shall at that time 
enjoy. 

3. I shall attempt to answer all that has been offered to 
prove a proper and literal resurrection of the martyrs, and 
other Christian sufferers, and saints, to reign on earth a 
thousand years; consider the pretences of them who placed 
this reign before the conflagration of the world, as most of 
the assertors of this doctrine do; and of the Rev. Dr. Bur- 
net, who makes it to begin after the conflagration of the 
world. And, 

4. I shall offer some arguments against this doctrine of 
the millennium, or of the literal resurrection of the saints 
and martyrs, to reign on earth a thousand years. 


CHAPTER I. 


§. I. That the doctrine of the millennium was never gene- 
rally received in the church of Christ, is proved, 1. From 
the testimony of Justin Martyr and Ireneus. §. II. 2. 
Of Eusebius, Origen, and Stephanus Gobarus, and the dis- 
tinction which then obtained betwixt the allegorists and 
the disciples of the latter. §. III. An answer to the pre- 
tended tradition of Papias, mentioned by Ireneus. §. IV. 
The millennium of the ancients differed from that which 
is now asserted by the most judicious of the modern mil- 
lenaries, in five particulars: (1.) The ancients generally 
held, that the temple or city of Jerusalem should be new- 
built. (2.) That all the just were then to rise, and not 
martyrs only. (3.) That Jesus Christ should then reign 


on earth. (4.) That they should fare deliciously, and 


A TREATISE ON 


enjoy corporal delights. (5.) That they should beget 
children : all which things are denied by the modern mil- 
lenaries. 8. V. The necessity of these doctrines, ac- 
cording to the letter of the scriptures, cited for the 
millennium, by those ancients who espoused that doc- 
trine. §. VI. This error of some of the fathers, as to the 
millennium, will not invalidate their authority as to any 
thing delivered by them as eye-witnesses, or which they 
deliver as the practice of the church of Christ in their 
days. 


Tue patrons of the millennium do usually say, their doc- 
trine was both generally received in the first three centuries, 
and was derived by tradition from the apostles ; and that the 
first man who opposed it was Dionysius, of Alexandria. In 
opposition to this pretence, I shall endeavour to make it 
appear ; 

I. That this opinion was never generally received in the 
church of Christ. 

II. That there is no just ground to think it was derived 
from the apostles, but rather from a mistake of the words of 
the author of tne Apocalypse; or from the notions of the 
Jews, and of the Sibylline author (see lib. ii—iv.). 

Ill. That the new patrons of the millennium differ in 
many things of moment from the ancient assertors of it, and 
have indeed scarce any suffrage of antiquity for that millen- 
nium which they do so stiffly maintain. And, 

§. 1. That this opinion was never generally received in 
the church of Christ, appears sufficiently from the confes- 
sions and very words of the two first assertors of it, whose 
writings are still extant, viz. Justin Martyr and Ireneus. T 
begin with Ireneus, because his words will justify the 
ancient reading of the words of Justin Martyr, against the 
criticism upon them, or rather the corruption of them, by 
Mr. Mede,* and Mr. Daillé} Ireneus therefore speaks 
thus ;+ “I am not ignorant, that some among us, who be- 
lieve, in divers nations, and by various works, and who, be- 
lieving, do consent with the just, do yet endeavour, trans- 
ferre hee, (Gr. yerapépew) to turn these things into 
metaphors,” or to carry them from their proper to an 
improper sense, as metaphors are wont to do: that this is 
the meaning, is evident from these words following, “ But if 
some have attempted to allegorize these things, they have 
not been found in all things consistent with themselves, and 
may be convinced from the words themselves.” Again, he 
complains, that§ “ the sentiments of some were carried away 
by the discourses of the heretics ; so that they were ignorant 
of the appointment of God, and the mystery of the resur- 
rection of the just, and the kingdom.” Here then we may 
evidently discern three sorts of men: 1. The heretics deny- 
ing the resurrection of the flesh, and the millennium. 2. 
The exactly orthodox, asserting both the resurrection and 
the kingdom of Christ upon earth. 3. The believers who 
consented with the just, and yet endeavoured to allegorize 
and turn into metaphor all those scriptures he had produced 
for a proper reign of Christ, and who had sentiments rather 
agreeing with those heretics who denied, than those exactly 
orthodox who maintained this reign of Christ on earth. 
Now these being almost a translation of the words of Justin 
Martyr,|| they vindicate the reading of all the manuscript 
copies of that writer, and exclude the bold criticism of 
Daillé and Mr. Mede. “Tell me truly,” says Trypho,] 


* P. 553, 534. 

+ De Penis Satisf. et Human. lib. v. cap. 7. 

+ Lib. v. cap. 33. 

§ Quoniam igitur transferuntur quorundam sententie ab 
hereticis sermonibus, et sunt ignorantes dispositiones Dei, 
et mysterium justorum resurrectionis, et regni quod est prin- 
cipium incorruptele, per quod regnum, qui digni fuerint, as- 
suescunt capere Deum. Liv. v. cap. 32, p. 495. 

|| Et rurstis, quoniam autem quidam ex his qui putantur 
recté credidisse, supergrediuntur ordinem promotionis justo- 
rum, et modiis meditationis ad incorruptelam, ignorant 
hzreticos sensus in se habentes, &c. cap. 31. 

4 Εἴπε δέ por ἀληθῶς, ὑμεῖς ἀνοικοδομηθῆναι τὸν τόπον ‘Iepou- 
σαλὴμ τοῦτον ὁμολογεῖτε, καὶ συναχθήσεσθαι τὸν λαὸν ὑμῶν, καὶ 
εὐφρανθῆναι σὺν τῷ Χριστῷ, ἅμα τοῖς πατριάρχαις, καὶ τοῖς 
προφήταις, καὶ τοῖς ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡμετέρου γένους, ἣ καὶ τῶν προσηλύτων 


THE MILLENNIUM. 


«do you [Christians] indeed confess, that Jerusalem shall 
be built again, and that your people shall be gathered toge- 
ther pbere); and rejoice with Christ, together with the pa- 
triarchs, and prophets, and those of our nation, or those 
who are made proselytes before the coming of your Christ, 
or before you expect your Christ shall come (to judgment) ? 
Or do you only confess this, that thou mayest seem to over- 
come us in questions ?” 

Here you see that Justin Martyr did before, ταῦτα 
ὁμολογεῖν, confess these things, as he doth plainly, p. 243, 
where T'rypho having put the question thus: “ What! do 
you say, that none of us shall have any inheritance in the 
holy mount of God?” Justin Martyr replies; “I say not 
so, but that the gentiles who repent, and believe in Christ, 
shall inherit (it), with all the patriarchs, and prophets, and 
the just which proceed from Jacob :” and therefore he here 
answers thus ;* “I have before confessed, that I and many 
others are of this mind, that these things shall happen. 
But then again, I have intimated to you, that many Chris- 
tians of a pure and pious judgment do not own this (J speak: 
of Christians of a pure and pious judgment) ; for as for 
those who are called Christians, but indeed are atheists, and 
ungodly, and heretics, I have told you already, that they 
teach things wholly blasphemous, atheistical, and absurd 
(and therefore are not to come into the account of Chris- 
tians). If therefore you have met with some of them who 
blaspheme the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and 
deny the resurrection of the dead, that confess not this, you 
are not to esteem them Christians (or to take an estimate of 
the doctrines of the Christians from them). They indeed 
deny the resurrection of the flesh, and the millennium ;7 but 
I, and all Christians, who are exactly and in all things or- 
thodox, know there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and 
a millennium in Jerusalem, built, adorned, and enlarged.” 
Here then, as in Ireneus, is a plain distinction of three sorts 
of men: 1. Of heretics, that were κατὰ πάντα βλάσφημοι, 
entirely blasphemers of the God of Israel, and deniers of 
the resurrection of the flesh, and consequently of the mil- 
lennium, which supposed this resurrection. 2. Of Chris- 
tians who were xara πάντα ὀρθογνώμονες, “in all things 
orthodox,” who owned both the resurrection of the flesh, and 
the millennium: and Justin Martyr being of this opinion, 
and declaring here, that he thought it a doctrine delivered 
by God: it could not be expected that he should affirm of 
them, that held it not, that they were of a right opinion in 
all things. 3. Of many Christians of a pure and pious 
judgment, who did not own this millennium. 

Obj. But “where,” saith Mr. Daillé, “had he made 
mention before of any such ?” I answer with another ques- 
tion, Where had he made mention before of the many who 
confessed the millennium, as he here saith he had? Mr. 
Daillé should have considered, that Justin’s memory could 
not serve him to write down all he had discoursed with 
Trypho, or that he might not think that part of his dis- 
course necessary to be afterward committed unto writing ; 
and then this objection would not have seemed of force 
sufficient to have authorized him to change Justin’s words 
without any consent of copies, into the direct contradictory 
words, and for Christians τῆς καθαρᾶς γνώμης, “of a pure 
judgment,” to read, Christians μὴ τῆς καθαρᾶς γνώμης, “of an 
impure judgment ;” since such bold criticisms will evacuate 
both the sense and force of any testimony. 

§. IL. 2. This is still farther evident from the ancient 
writers of the church, who plainly tell us, that this was a 
particular opinion of some doctors of the church, and never 
was received by all. “It had its rise,’ saith Eusebius, 


γενομένων, πρὶν ἐλθεῖν ὑμῶν τὸν Χριστὸν προσδοκᾶτε ; Dial. cum 
Tryph. p. 306. 

* 'Ωμολόγησα οὖν cot καὶ πρότερον, ὅτι ἐγὼ μὲν καὶ ἄλλοι 
πολλοὶ ταῦτα φρονοῦμεν, ὡς καὶ πάντως ἐπίστασθε τοῦτο γενησύ- 
μένον, πολλοὺς δ᾽ αὖ, καὶ τῶν τῆς καθαρᾶς καὶ εὐσεβοὺς ὄντων 
Χριστιανῶν γνώμης, τοῦτο μὴ γνωρίζειν ἐσήμαινά σοι. Dial. cum 
Tryph. p. 306. 

T ᾿Εγὼ δὲ, καὶ εἰ τινές εἰσιν ὀρθογνώμονες κατὰ πάντα “Κριστιανοὶ, 
καὶ σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν γενήσεσθαι ἐπιστάμεθα, καὶ χίλια ἔτη ἐν 
Ἱερουσαλὴμ οἰκοδομηθείση, καὶ κοσμηθείσῃ, καὶ πλατυνθείσῃ, p. 
307. - 


1119 


“from Ῥαρίαβ, ἃ man of slender judgment ;* but the anti- 
quity of the man prevailed with many of the ecclesiastics to 

be of that opinion, particularly with Irenwus, and if there 
| were any other of the same judgment with him.” Now he 
that confesseth that most of the ecclesiastics were of that 
opinion, plainly denies that all were of it. He that particu- 
larly speaks of Irenwus, adding, “ if there were any other of 
the same judgment,” seems to intimate, they were not 
many. Origen, in his Philocalia (cap. 26, p. 99), saith, they 
were only rwis, “some,” that held this doctrine, and that so 
clancularly, that it had not yet come to the ears of the hea- 
thens: and in his prolegomena to the Canticles (f. 69, B), 
that they were only simpliciores quidam, “some of the 
simpler sort” of Christians. Besides, of all the fathers of 
the Christian church, none have spoken more severely and 
more contemptibly of that doctrine, than Origen, who repre- 
sents it as a wicked doctrine, a reproach to Christianity ; the 
heathen, saith he, having better sentiments than these. He 
therefore being then the great doctor of the church, and con- 
tinuing in great authority amongst all churchmen for above 
a hundred years; his scholars being also the most celebrated 
doctors of that age, and one of them, viz. Dionysius Alex- 
andrinus, undertaking to confute this doctrine; and his 
Philocalia, where we find these severe sayings, being a collec- 
tion of the two great lights of the fourth century, St. Basil 
and Gregory the divine; it cannot be doubted but this opi- 
nion then lost ground daily, and was generally decried by 
the learned of those centuries. In a word, Stephanus Go- 
barus,f in his account of opinions in which the fathers dif- 
fered from each other, reckons this as the tenth, «That the 
just shall rise first, and live deliciously a thousand years, 
eating, drinking, and begetting children: and that there 
should be no precedence in the resurrection, no millenary 
delight, no marriage then.” 

3. This will be more evident, if it be considered, that as 
the doctors of the church were then of different opinions, so 
were they then distinguished by different names ; as they who 
denied the millennium, saith Irenzus, attempted to allego- 
rize the places produced by others for it, so had they upon 
that account the name of Allegorists ; and therefore Nepos, 
aman, saith Eusebius, from Dionysius of Alexandria, other- 
wise orthodox, but a writer for the millennium, styled his 
book Ἔλεγχον τῶν ᾿Αλληγοριστῶν, or “A Refutation of the 
Allegorists” (H. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 24). 

Accordingly, in Origen,+ they who deny the millennium, 
are of τροπολογοῦντες τὰ προφητικά, “they who interpret the 
sayings of the prophets by a trope ;” and they who assert it 
are styled, solius litere discipuli, “disciples of the letter of 
the scripture only ;” the first, saith he, assert, horum vim 
figuraliter intelligi debere, the passages which they produce 
from scripture “ought to be figuratively understood ;” the 
other, saith he, understand the scripture, Judaico sensi, 
“after the manner of the Jews.” Epiphanius,§ speaking of 
the millennium asserted by Apollinarius, saith, “There is 
indeed a millennium mentioned by St. John; but the most, 
and those pious men, look upon those words as true indeed, 
but to be taken in a spiritual sense.” 

And here it may deserve to be observed, by the by, That 
the primitive fathers derived almost all their considerable 
errors from the Jews: viz. that angels had to do with 
women, and begat giants of them; that the world was to end 
soon after the coming of the Messiah; that Elias was in per- 
son to usher in his second advent, &c. 

§. III. 2. As for the pretended tradition from the apostle 
John, touching this doctrine, it is only mentioned by 
Treneus, as received from Papias; and the words in which 
it is delivered are sufficient to demonstrate the incredibility 
| and the apparent folly of it: for these elders pretend to have 


* Πλὴν καὶ rots per’ αὐτὸν πλείστοις ὅσοις τῶν ἐκκλησιαστικῶν 
τῆς ὁμοίας αὐτῷ δύξης παραίτιος γέγονε, τὴν ἀρχαιότητα τ' ἀνδρὸς 
προβεβλημένοις, ὥσπερ οὖν Eipnvaiw, καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλος τὰ ὅμοια 
φρονῶν ἀναπέφηνεν. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 39. 

} Apud Photium, cod. 232, p. 894. 

+ Περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν, lib. ii. cap. 12, f. 135, B. col. 1, B. ce 

§ Τὴν δὲ Βίβλον ἀναγινώσκοντες of πλεῖστοι καὶ εὐλαβεῖς περὶ 
τῶν πνευματικῶν εἰδότες, καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ πνευματικῶς ἔχοντα λαμβά 
vovres, ἀληθῆ μὲν ὄντα, ἐν βαθύτητι δὲ σαφηνιζόμενα πεπιστεύκασιν. 


Hear. Ixxvii. §. 26, p. 1031, 


1120 


heard from St. John these romantic words;* “'The days 
shall come, in which there shall be vines which shall severally 
have ten thousand branches, and every of these branches 
shall have ten thousand lesser branches, and every of these 
branches shall have ten thousand twigs, and every one of 
these twigs shall have ten thousand clusters of grapes, and 
in every one of these clusters shall be ten thousand grapes, 
and every one of these grapes, being pressed, shall give 
twenty-five metretas (that is, according to the mildest com- 
putation, two hunded and seventy-five gallons) of wine; 
and when one shall take hold of one of these sacred bunches, 
another shall cry out, I am a better bunch, take me, and by 
me bless the Lord :” to omit what he says, from the same 
tradition, of every grain of wheat, and of apples, seeds, and 
herbs. Now can any man be so wholly bereft of sense, as to 
imagine this stuff could ever come out of the mouth of an 
apostle? 
Jews, in whose writings, some learned persons have informed 
me, the words cited by Ireneus from Papias are yet to be 
found. As for Papias, the only voucher of this tradition, 
Eusebius informs us, he was a man of a very slender judg- 
ment, as the story cited by Ireneus, from the fourth book of 
his discourse, may abundantly convince us, there being 
scarcely any things in the most infamous of Romish legends 
more fabulous, than, as Eusebius truly saith, his traditional 
telations were. 

§. IV. 3. That the new patrons of the millennium differ 
in many things of moment from the ancients, and have in- 
deed scarce any suffrage of antiquity for that millennium 
they maintain, will be apparent, from a just representation 
of the millennium of the ancients : for, 

1. The ancient millenaries generally held, that the temple 
or the city of Jerusalem should be rebuilt, and that the land 
of Judea should be the habitation of those who were to reign 
on earth a thousand years: so Justin Martyr (Dial. cum 
Tryph. p. 243, C) tells the Jews, that the believing gentiles 
should then dwell, ἐν τῷ ὅρει τῷ ἁγίῳ, “in the holy mount,” 
and that they should then acknowledge him (p. 259, E), év 


τῷ αὐτῷ τόπῳ τῶν ᾿Ἱεροσολύμων, “in the same place of Jerusa- | 


lem,”’ where they crucified him : he confesses also to Trypho 
(p. 336, B. 307, B), ἀνοικοδομηϑῆναι τὸν τόπον “Ἱερουσαλὴμ, “ that 
the place of Jerusalem should be built, and that the saints 
should spend a thousand years in Jerusalem, built, adorned, 
and augmented,” and that “all Christians entirely orthodox 
knew this would be so; and therefore they all,” (saith he, p. 
312, B) “expected τὸν Χριστὸν ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ φανήσεσθαι, Christ 
to appear in Jerusalem.” “In the times of that kingdom 
Jerusalem shall be built,” saith Treneus,t “and the Jews 
shall be restored to the land he gave to their fathers.” “He 
( 6. Christ) shall build the holy city,” saith Lactantius, 
“and there shall be the reign of the just for a thousand 

ears.” 
Bla which was destroyed by their enemies should be rebuilt 
gloriously.” “They feign to themselves,” saith Origen,| 
«that the terrestrial Jerusalem should be rebuilt with pre- 
cious stones, and that the aliens shall be their servants to re- 
build it.” Hence Dionysius§ of Alexandria, in his book 


* Quemadmodtm presbyteri meminerunt, qui Joannem 
discipulum Domini viderunt, audisse de eo, quemadmodim 
de temporibus illis docebat Dominus, et dicebat, Venient 
dies in quibus vinee nascentur singule decem millia palmi- 
tum habentes, et in uno palmite dena millia brachiorum, et 
in uno vero palmite dena millia flagellorum, et in unoquoque 
flagello dena millia botruum, et in unoquoque botrii dena 


millia acinorum, et unumquodque acinum expressum dabit | 


viginti quinque metretas vini, et cam eorum apprehenderit 
aliquis sanctorum botrum, alius clamabit botrus, Ego melior 
sum, me sume, per me Domino benedic. Lib. v. cap. 3. 

+ Restituet illos in terram quam dedit patribus ipsorum. 
Tren. lib. v. cap. 34, 35. Sed in regni temporibus revocata 
(1. renovata) terra ἃ Christo et reedificata Hierusalem. 

+ In terra cum his ipse regnabit, et condet sanctam 
civitatem, et erit regnum justorum mille annis. Epit. §. 11, 
p- 758. 

§ Kui αὐτοὶ of τῶν ἐλθρῶν ὑπηρέται ἁναικοδομοῦσι αὐτὸν, 
p- 16. 

[ Περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν, lib. ii. cap. 12. 

§ Adversus Ireneum Dionysius ecclesie Alexandrie pon- 


No, certainly, he had it only from the converted | 


St. Barnaby is very positive,§ that “the very tem- | 


A TREATISE ON 


writ against them, derides their golden Jerusalem upon 
earth, adorned with jewels, and the restoration of the temple. 
Whereas, scarce any of our new millenaries dare assert, that 
this shall be the place of the habitation of the raised saints, 
and one of them makes the whole earth to become a para- 
dise for the reception of them. 

2. They held this resurrection was not to be confined to 
the martyrs only, but that all the just were then to rise, and 
reign with Christ: this Justin Martyr confesses touching all 
Christian people, all the believing gentiles, and the just pro- 
geny of Jacob, in the forecited places. Irenzus frequently 
declares of the just in general, that they shall arise to inherit 
the promises. ‘Tertullian affirms,* that some shall rise 
sooner, and some later, but that all the just shall rise within 
the time of the millennium. “This millennium,” saith Lac- 
tantius,t “belongs to all the just which ever were from the 
beginning of the world :” whereas the millenaries of this age 
do generally, with Dr. Burnet,+ say, ‘‘ The first resurrection, 
and the reign of Christ, seem to be appropriated to the mar- 
tyrs” (Rev. xx. 4). 

Moreover, the ancients extended this reign, on earth, not 
only to the dead, but to the just also, who shall be then alive 
at this first resurrection ; this being a necessary consequent 
of the former doctrine, that this millennium belongs to all 
the just. Thus Ireneus,§ amongst those who are to enjoy 
the millennium, reckons “ those whom the Lord shall find 
in the flesh, expecting him from heaven, who, having suffered 
tribulation, did nevertheless escape the hands of the wicked.” 
Then “they that are found living shall not die,” saith Lac- 
tantius :|| whereas it is inconsistent with the hypothesis of 
Dr. Burnet, that any of the just should be then living, since 
this millennium only begins after the conflagration of the 
world, and the burning of all things that are in it. 

3. The ancients generally consent in this, that Jesus 
Christ shall then come down from heaven, and be seen on 
earth, and reign there with his servants. Papias, the first 
assertor of this doctrine, declares, that “it shall be a reign of 
Christ bodily upon earth.” Justin Martyr tells the Jews, 
that they should then see him whom they had pierced, and 
this in that very place of Jerusalem where they had crucified 
him, that both they and. Christians should then be gathered 
together, and rejoice with him. Victorinus saith,** “ This 
is that true sabbath, in quo Christus cum electis suis regna- 
turus est, in which Christ is to reign with his elect ;” and 
Lactantius saith expressly, that mille annos inter homines 
versabitur, “he shall be conversant with men a thousand 
years.” Treneus{{ seems not so clear as to this matter; 
yet he declares, the just shall reign on earth, increasing by 
the vision of Christ; for, saith he, “Christ will be every 
where seen, as men are worthy to see him:” that which 
seems most expressly in him to relate to this affair is this; 
that discoursing of our Lord’s promise, to drink new wine 
with his disciples in the kingdom of heaven, he declares,++ 


tifex elegantem scribit librum, irridens mille annorum fabu- 
lam, et auream atque gemmatam in terris Hierusalem, 
instaurationem templi, &c. Hieron. Prefat, in lib. xviii. 
Com. in Isaiam. 

* Lib. iii. contr. Mar. cap. ult. verba vide infra. 

+ Vertim ille cim deleverit injustitiam, ac justos qui ἃ 
principio fuerint, ad vitam restauraverit, mille annos inter 
homines versabitur, eosque justissimo imperio reget. Lib. 
vii. cap. 24, p. 722. 

+ Book iv. chap. 4, 151, 152. 

§ Et illos quos Dominus in carne inveniet expectantes 
eum de ceelis, et perpessos tribulationem, qui et effugerint 
iniqui manus. Lib. v. cap. 35. 

|| Tum qui erunt in corporibus vivi, non morientur, sed 
per eosdem mille annos infinitam multitudinem generabunt, 
et erit soboles eorum sancta. Lib. vii. cap. 24. p. 722. 

4 Χιλιάδα, φησὶν, ἐτῶν ἔσεσθαι pera τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν 
σωματικῶς τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ βασιλείας ἐπὶ ταυτησὶ τῆς γῆς 
ὑποστησομένης. Apud. Euseb. lib. iii. cap. 39, 112, Cc. 7 

** De Fabrica Mundi apud D. Doct. Cave, p. 104, Epit. 
Ρ. 772. i. 

+} In qua regnabunt justi in terra crescentes ex visione 
Domini. Cap. 35. Πανταχοῦ γὰρ ὃ σωτὴρ δρασθήσεται καθὼς 
ἄξιοι ἔσονται οἱ ὁρῶντες. Cap. 36. : 

++ Neque autem surstim insuper celesti loco constitutus 


THE MILLENNIUM. 


this “cannot be done by him whilst he remains in those 
celestial regions.” But Nepos was express in this, that, 
* «after this resurrection, the kingdom of Christ was to be 
upon earth a thousand years; and the saints were to reign 
with him in pleasures, or faring deliciously there :” and there- 
fore Dionysius saith of him, and the brethren that magnified 
his book, that {they had no sublime or magnificent 
thoughts of the glorious and divine advent of our Lord, or of 
our resurrection, and our gathering together, and assimilation 
to Christ; but hoped then for little and mortal things, and 
such as men now hope for, in the kingdom of God.” 

4. They all declare, they shall then fare deliciously, and 
shall enjoy the richest wines and most delicious fruits, build 
houses, plant vineyards, and eat the fruits of them: thus 
Justin Martyr} understands those words of Isaiah, Ixv. 21, 
of the millennium, viz. «They shall build houses, and in- 
habit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the 
fruit of them.” And Ireneus saith,§ “'They-shall have a 
table prepared for them by God, who shall feed them with 
dainties ;” adding, that “the promises he had cited, creature 
epulationem significant, do signify the banquets they should 
have upon the creature :” hence doth he tell us of the pro- 
digious clusters of grapes and ears of corn, the vines and the 
earth shall then bring forth. “The earth,” saith Lactan- 
tius,|| “shall open its fertility, and of its own accord produce 
fruits plentifully, the rocks of the mountains shall sweat with 
honey, wines shall run down with streams, and the rivers 
flow with milk.” Of this opinion, doubtless, was Tertullian, 
in his book De Spe Fidelium; and Nepos, who promised, 
saith Dionysius of Alexandria, “a thousand years of corpo- 
real delights on earth.” Accordingly Gennadius saith,§ “In 
the divine promises, we believe nothing concerning meat 
and drink, as Ireneus, Tertullian, and Lactantius teach 
from their author Papias, nor of the reign of a thousand 
years with Christ on earth after the resurrection, and the 
saints reigning deliciously with him, as Nepos taught.” St. 
Austin therefore saith of this opinion,** that “it might be 
tolerable, if they mentioned any spiritual delights which the 
saints might enjoy by Christ’s presence; but since they 
affirm, that they who then rise, shall enjoy carnal and immo- 
derate banquets of meat and drink without modesty, these 
things can only be believed by carnal men. And because 
all this plenty could not be procured and enjoyed, these 
houses could not be built, nor these vineyards planted, nor 
this wine brought into the fat, nor this corn into the barn, 
threshed, ground, and made fit for these new-raised inhabit- 


Lib. v. 


cum suis potest intelligi bibens vitis generationem. 
cap. 33. 

* Χιλιάδα ἐτῶν τρυφῆς σωματικῆς ἐπὶ τῆς ξηρᾶς ταύτης ἔσεσθαι 
ὑποτιθέμενος. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 24. 

ἡ Οὐδὲ ὑψηλὸν καὶ μεγαλεῖον φρονεῖν, οὔτε περὶ τῆς ἐνδόξου καὶ 
ἀληθῶς ἐνθέου τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ἐπιφανείας, οὔτε τῆς ἡμετέρας ἐκ 
νεκρῶν ἀναστάσεως καὶ τῆς πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐπισυναγωγῆς καὶ ὁμοιώσεως. 
Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 24, p. 271. 

+ Dial. cum Tryph. p. 308. 

§ Hec sunt in regni temporibus, hoc est, in septima die, 
que est verum justorum sabbatum, in qua non facient omne 
terrenum opus, sed adjacentem habebunt paratam mensam 
ἃ Deo pascentem eos epulis omnibus. Lib. v. cap. 33. "Ev 
τῇ χΧιλιονταετηρίδι τῶν φυσικῶν μεταλαμβάνομεν ἡδέων. Apol- 
linaris apud Epiph. Her. Ixxvii. p. 1032. 

| Cap. 34. Terra vero aperiet foecunditatem suam, et 
uberrimas fruges sud sponte generabit : rapes montium melle 
sudabunt, per rivos vina decurrent, et flumina lacte inunda- 
bunt. Lib. vii. cap. 24. 

“ Non quod ad cibum vel ad potum pertinet, sicut, Papia 
auctore, Ireneus, Tertullianus, et Lactantius acquiescunt, 
neque post (I. per) mille annos post resurrectionem regnum 
Christi in terra futurum, et sanctos cum illo in deliciis regna- 
turos speramus, sicut Nepos docuit, qui primam justorum 
resurrectionem, et secundam impiorum confixit. Eccl. 
Dogmat. cap. 55. 

** Sed ctim eos qui tunc resurrexerint, dicunt immodera- 
tissimis carnalibus epulis vacaturos, in quibus cibus sit tantus 
et potus, ut non soltim nullum modestiam teneant, sed 
modum quoque ipsius incredulitatis excedant, nullo modo 
ista possunt, nisi de carnalibus, credi. De Civ. Dei, lib. xx. 
cap. 7. 


Vor. IV. 141 


1121 


ants, without hands; the ancients have made provision for 
this also, telling us, “that they shall be κυριεύοντες ἐπὶ τῆς 
γῆς," such as lord it upon earth;” and therefore Irenmus 
saith,t that which was spoken to Jacob, “'The nations 
shall serve, and princes shall bow down to thee” (Gen. 
xxvii. 27, 28), ad tempora regni sine contradictione pertinet, 
quando regnabunt justi surgentes 4 mortuis, without all con- 
tradiction belongs to this millenary kingdom, “The nations 
shall not utterly be destroyed,” saith Lactantius,¢ “ but 
some of them shall be left to be triumphed over by the just, 
and subjected to perpetual slavery.” “They think,” saith 
Origen,§ “ that aliens shall be given them to be ministers 
of their delights, who shall either serve at the plough, or be 
their masons and carpenters to build up their fallen city, and 
they suppose they shall have of their provisions to eat, and 
have dominion over their riches, so that they shall come and 
offer to them gold, and frankincense, and precious stones.” 
Dr. Burnet must either produce these servile nations, as he 
hath done Gog or Magog, out of the mud, or his opinion 
must fall into it, unless he hopes to avoid this, by saying, 
that “in this state it will be part of their diversion and en- 
tertainment, to learn mechanics,” p. 213. 

And because men can hardly do this whole business with- 
out beasts, the ancients have made provisions of them also, 
subjecting to them not only sheep, and goats, and oxen, or 
bulls; but wolves, and bears, and leopards, and lions, “ which 
with all other animals,” saith Ireneus, “ shall be then sub- 
ject to man.” And that the doctor may not be at a loss for 
production of these beasts, Stephanus Gobarus§ informs 
him, the doctrine of the ancients was this, “That the just 
should rise first, καὶ σὺν αὐτοῖς ravra τὰ ζῶα, and all those 
living creatures with them.” Now the new millenaries, as 
they say little of these slaves, and these brute beasts, who 
are.so necessary for the enjoyment of the universal plenty, 
and the goods of fortune prepared in this state; so are they 
shy of owning futuras corporis voluptates et luxurias, such 
luxuries and bodily pleasures, as Origen saith** the mille- 
naries of his time did expect. 

For, 5, in their millennium, they were not only to feast 
and junket it, but also to beget children. «The virgins,” 
saith Ireneus,}} “shall rejoice in the assemblies of the young 
men; and they that are left shall be multiplied upon 
earth :” accordingly he speaks of some believers, whom God 
had prepared to multiply those who were left upon the earth, 
to be under the dominion of the saints, and minister to this 
Jerusalem. “ They shall beget an infinite multitude,” saith 
Lactantius,++ “and their seed shall be holy.” “To their 
other luxuries,” saith Origen,§§ “ they add, nuptiarum con- 
ventiones, et filiorum procreationes etiam post resurrectionem 
futuras ; the solemnities of marriage, and the procreation of 
children, even after the resurrection :” and again, “They 
think,” saith he,||\| “that after the resurrection we shall eat 


* Barnab. §. 6. { Lib. v. cap. 33. 

+ Gentes vero non extinguentur omnino, sed quidam re- 
linquentur in victoriam Dei, ut triumphentur ἃ justis, et sub- 
jungentur perpetuz servituti. Lact. lib. vii. cap. 24. Vide 
Epist. §. 11. 

§ Quinetiam ministros deliciarum harum dandos sibi 
alienigenas putant, quos vel aratores habeant, vel structores 
parietum, 4 quibus diruta ipsorum et collapsa civitas ex- 
truatur, et arbitrantur quod facultates eorum accipiant ad 
edendum, et in divitiis eorum dominentur, ut veniant et 
afferant sibi aurum, et thus, et lapides pretiosos. Περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν, 
lib. ii. cap. 12. 

|| Oportet subjecta esse omia animalia homini. Lib. v. 
cap. 33. 

§ Apud Photium, cod. 232, p. 894. 

** περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν, lib. ii. cap. 12, p. 235, 8, B. 

++ Ipsi sunt de quibus ait propheta, « Et derelicti multipli- 
cabuntur in terra,” et quotquot ex credentibus ad hoc pre- 
paravit Deus ad derelictos multiplicandos, in terra, et sub 
regno sanctorum fieri et ministrari huic Jerusalem. Lib. v. 
cap. 35. 

++ Qui remanserint, multiplicabuntur super terram. Lib. 
v. cap. 34, 

§§ Περὶ ᾿Αρχῶν, lib. ii. cap. 12. 

NY Οὕτως καὶ τὰ περὶ γάμων γεγραμμένα καὶ ἀνδρῶν καὶ γυ- 
ναικῶν, τηροῦντες ἐπὶ τοῦ ῥητοῦ καὶ οἱόμενοι συνουσίας fas καὶ 

AT2 


1122 


and drink corporeal meats, and shall use those conjugal du- 
ties by which our prayers are hindered, and which cannot be 
performed without some impurity :” and a third time, they 
believe,* “that after the resurrection, we shall, according 


to the promises of the gospel, eat and drink, and, as some of | 


them say, beget children; these things,” saith he, “ should 
they come to the ears of heathens, would lay a great impu- 
tation of folly upon Christianity, since many heathens have 
better opinions than these are:” so much are they mistaken 
who reckon Origen among the patrons of the millennium. 
Stephanus Gobarus gives us the opinion of the millenaries 
in these words,t “The just shall rise first, and for a thou- 
sand years shall fare deliciously, eating, and drinking, and 
getting children ; and after this shall be the general resurrec- 
tion.” Methodius is the only person who denies they shall 
be thus employed after the resurrection ; and with him doubt- 
less all our modern millenaries do agree, as knowing this 
unworthy to be the matter of the gospel promise. 

§. V. Moreover, if we consider the scriptures on which the 
ancients grounded this millennium, we shall perceive it neces- 
sary that all these doctrines should be maintained by them. 
For, 

1. That the temple or city of Jerusalem should be new- 
built, and that the land of Judea should be the habitation 
of those who are to enjoy this new heaven and earth, can 
never be reasonably denied by those who interpret the sayings 
of the prophets literally, since they so plainly and so fully 
speak of a “mount Sion, to be established upon the top of 
the mountains,” Isa. ii. 2, xxvii. 13, [ἵν]. 7, and of God’s 
promises “to beautify the place of his sanctuary, the house 
of his glory, and to make the place of his feet glorious,” Ix. 
7. 18, and of “all nations flowing in to her,” and being ga- 
thered to her, and of all « nations and tongues coming to see 
her glory,” Ix. 5, and Ixvi. 18, when God had brought them 
again into their own land. 

2. That this resurrection must belong to all faithful Chris- 
tians, and that they must all reign with Christ on earth, will 
follow from the literal interpretation of those words of St. 
John,§ “ Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of 
every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast 
made us to be kings and priests to God, and we shall reign on 
earth” (Rev. v. 9, 10), for, according to the import of these 
words, if, as Dr. Burnet saith, they belong to the first resur- 
rection, all that have been redeemed by the blood of Christ 
must reign on earth. This follows also from those words, “I 
saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of 
Jesus, and for the word of God, and (of them) which had not 
worshipped the beast, nor his image, and which had not re- 
ceived his mark upon their foreheads, nor upon their hands, 
and they lived and reigned with ‘Christ a thousand years” 
(Rev. xx. 4): for, “they who worshipped not the beast,” 
are all they “ whose names were written in the book of life” 
(Rev. xiii. 8, xvii. 8). This follows from St. Peter’s new 
heaven and new earth, if truly interpreted by Dr. Burnet of 
this resurrection; “for these,” saith he, “ we Christians do 
expect, and therefore are concerned to be found of him with- 
out spot, and blameless” (2 Pet. iii. 13, 14). This follows 
from the words of St. Paul, if they belong to the millen- 
nium, as he saith they do; for they introduce “ the whole 


τότε χρήσεσθαι, δι᾿ ἃς οὐδὲ σχολάζειν ἐστὶ ἐν rH περισευχὴ δυνατὸν, 
ἐν μολυσμῷ πῶς ὄντων καὶ ἀκαθαρσίᾳ τινι τῶν χρωμένων ἀφροδισίοις. 
Com. in Matt. ed Huet. p. 498. 

* Tits otovrat καὶ pera τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἐν ταῖς πρωτεΐαις 
ἐπαγγελείαις ἐσϑίειν ἡμᾶς μέλλειν τὰ τοιάδε βρώματα, καὶ πίνειν, 
τινὲς καὶ τεκνογονεῖν, ταῦτα δὲ φθάσαντα καὶ εἷς τοὺς ἀπὸ τῶν 
ἐϑνῶν μεγάλης εὐηθείας δόξαν ἀπενέγκασθαι ποιήσει τὸν Χριστιανισ- 
μὸν, πολλῳ βελτίονα δόγματα ἐχόντων τινῶν ἀλλοτρίων τῆς πίστεως. 
Philocal. cap. 26, p. 99. 

tT "Ort πρότερον of δίκαιοι ἀναστήσονται, kat σὺν αὐτοῖς πάντα τὰ 
ζῶα, καὶ ἐπὶ χίλια ἔτη τρυφήσουσι, καὶ ἐσθίοντες, καὶ πίνοντες, καὶ 
τεκνοῦντες, Καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο ἡ καθολικὴ ἐπιστῆσεται ἀνάστασις. Apud. 
Phot. cod. 232, p. 894. 

+ 'Esopévns yap καὶ μετὰ τοῦτον τὸν αἰῶνα γῆς, ἀνάγκη πᾶσα 
ἔσεσθαι καὶ τοὺς οἰκήσοντας, οὔκετι τεθνηξομένους, καὶ γαμήσοντας, 
καὶ γενησομένους, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἀγγέλους ἀμεταστροφῶς ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ τὰ 
ἄριστα πράζοντας. Apud Epiph. Her. Ixiv. 8. 32. 

§ Χίλια ἔτη ποιήσειν ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ τοὺς τῷ ἡμετέρῳ Χριστῷ 
πιστεύσαντας προεφήτευσε ᾿Ιωάννης. Just. M. Dial. p. 308, 


TREATISE ON 


creation groaning to be delivered from the bondage of cor- 
ruption, into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, and all 
that had the first-fruits of the Spirit, groaning for the adop- 
tion,” i. 6. for the redemption of their bodies from corrup- 
tion (Rom. viii. 16. 23). 

3. They must bring Christ from heaven to reign on earth, 
who contend that this reign is the very time of the “ restitution 
of all things” (Acts iii. 21): forthe heavens are only to contain 
him till that time; and who infer this reign of Christ from 
those words, “'They that have part in the first resurrection 
shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with 
him a thousand years;” for if they reign on earth without 
him, they do not reign there with him. Moreover, if he con- 
tinue still at the right hand of God, with what propriety is 
this resurrection called ἡ παρουσία, “the presence,” the ap- 
pearance of our Lord, and that from heaven ? 

4, That in this millennium they must fare deliciously, 
drink precious wines, and have those splendid banquetings of 
which the fathers often speak, must follow from the applica- 
tion of all those passages to this state, which say, « The 
meek shall inherit the earth,” that they shall “drink new 
wine with Christ in his kingdom,” that they shall receive* 
“a hundred-fold increase of goods and lands ;” that there 
shall be then a recompense of their alms given, and their 
feasts made for the poor; and from all that the prophets 
say, of the fruitfulness of the earth, and of the temporal 
blessings they shall then enjoy. 

5. That the nations shall then serve them, and even build 
up Jerusalem for them, cannot be denied by them who lite- 
rally interpret those words of the prophets, “The sons of 
strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall mi- 
nister to thee: the sons also of them that afflicted thee shall 
come bending unto thee, and they that despised thee shall 
bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet: and the na- 
tion and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish’ 
(Isa. Ix. 10.12, 13): “ And strangers shall stand and feed 
your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plough- 
men, and your vinedressers ; ye shall eat the riches of the 
gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves” (Ixi. 
5, see also xlix. 22, 23). And, 

6. They shall have wives and children, and, asIreneus saith, 
“shall be multiplied upon the earth,” must follow from the 
literal exposition of our Saviour’s promise, that they who 
have lost or forsaken wife or children for his sake, “shall re- 
ceive a hundred-fold:” for children cannot lawfully be be- 
gotten without wives, and the use of the marriage-bed. 
And, lastly, whereas the millennium of the reverend Dr. 
Burnet is to begin after the conflagration of the world, that 
of the ancients is still placed before it; “ We expect it,” 
saith Justin Martyr, “before Christ’s coming to judgment.” 
« After this,” saith Tertullian,+ “shall be the destruction of 
the world, and the conflagration at the day of judgment, 
and we shall be changed in a moment into an angelical sub- 
stance.” ‘God shall after this reign on earth a thousand 
years, and renew the world,” saith Lactantius.§ 

It therefore deserves to be admired, that learned men, with 
so much confidence, make use of these testimonies of scrip- 
tures, and these authorities of the fathers, to establish their 
millennium, and yet so stiffly should deny the consequences 
which flow so naturally from those scriptures, and reject 
what these ancients so generally delivered as a part of that 
doctrine. But, to insist no longer on these things, hence I 
suppose it evident, 

1. That the doctrine of the millennium was not the ge- 


* Que enim sunt in héc seculo centupla et prandia exhi- 
bita, et cen que redduntur pauperibus, hec sunt in regni 
temporibus. Tren. lib. v. cap. 33. 

ἡ Πρὶν ἐλθεῖν τὸν ὑμῶν Χριστὸν προσδοκᾶτε. Dial. p. 306. 

+ Hee est ratio regni terreni, post cujus mille annos, intra 
quam ‘tatem includitur sanctorum resurrectio pro meritis 
maturitis vel tardilis resurgentium, tune et mundi destruc- 
tiones, et judicii conflagratione commissa, demutati in atomo 
in angelicam substantiam, scilicet per illud incorruptel2 su- 
perindumentum transferrentur in celeste regnum. Contr. 
Marcion. lib. iii. cap. ult. 

§ Post hee renovabit Deus mundum, et transformabit 


justos in figuram angelorum, ut immortalitatis veste donati 


serviant Deo in sempiternum. Epit. cap. 11, p. 759. 


THE MILLENNIUM. 


neral doctrine of the primitive church from the times of the 
apostles to the Nicene council, as Dr. Burnet has asserted ; 
for then it could have made no schisms in the church, as 
Dionysius® of Alexandria saith it did, declaring how fully 


he confuted it, and reconciled the brethren that were con- | 


tending about it, and prevailed upon Coracius, the author 
and ringleader of this doctrine, to own he was convinced of 
his error, and promise he would no more embrace, or dis- 
course of it to the people. 

2. That the old doctrine of the millennium differed in 
many material points from that which is asserted by the new 
patrons of it. 

§. VI. If any man think it not safe to discover so much of 
the nakedness of the fathers as I have done in this chapter, 
I answer: 

First, That I think it more safe than to let it be confidently 
said and believed, that they were all millenarics from the 
first to the fourth century, seeing that shakes the foundation 


of episcopacy, and the translation of the sabbath to the | 
Lord’s day, and other constitutions derived from the apos- 


tles. 


Secondly, I answer, That this mistake of the fathers, in a 


matter which they received from the traditions and notions 
of the Jews, will not invalidate their authority in any thing 
delivered by them as witnesses of what they saw with their 
own eyes, or declared to have been then the practice of the 
church of Christ: nor will it affect their testimony in any 
other doctrine which they neither did nor could receive, only 
on the authority of the Jewish doctors. 


CHAP. II. 


§. I. How far I differ from the ancient and modern mille- 
naries, and in what I agree with them. The proposition 
that the true millennium is only a reign of the converted 
Jews, and of the gentiles Mowing in to them: Ibid. §. II. 
Where it is noted, 1. That all spiritual blessings have been 
still conveyed from the Jews to other nations. 2. That 
there will be a glorious conversion of the Jews to the Chris- 
tian faith. 8. ΠΙ. That the description of this conver- 
sion of the Jews, made by their own prophets and writers, 
answers fully to the millennium of St. John, which he 
speaks of in the very words of the said prophets. 8. IV. 
The characters which the patrons of the millennium give 
of those times, accord exactly with the characters given 


by the prophets of the conversion of the Jews. §. V. The | 


prophets seem to intimate, that this conversion shall be 
effected by a full influence of the Holy Ghost upon them. 
§. VI. All the passages cited to this effect, from the Jewish 
writers, speak only of the millennium, the resurrection, the 
new heavens and earth belonging to the Jewish nation. 


Havre thus given you a just account of the millennium 
of the ancients, and of the true extent of that opinion in the 
primitive ages of the church, I proceed now to show, 
in what things I agree with the assertors of that doctrine, 
and how far I find myself constrained, by the force of truth, 
to differ from them. 

§. I. I believe, then, that after the fall of antichrist, there 
shall be such a glorious state of the church, by the conver- 
sion of the Jews to the Christian faith, as shall be to it life 
from the dead ; that it shall then flourish in peace and plenty, 


in righteousness and holiness, and in pious offspring; that | 
then shall begin a glorious and undisturbed reign of Christ | 


over both Jew and gentile, to continue a thousand years dur- 


ing the time of Satan’s binding ; and that, as John the Bap- 


tist was Elias, because he came in the spirit and power of 
Elias, so shall this be the church of martyrs, and of those 
who had not received the mark of the beast, because of 
their entire freedom from all the doctrines and practices of 
the antichristian church, and because the spirit and pu- 
rity of the times of the primitive martyrs shall return. And, 
therefore, 


1. I agree with the patrons of the millennium in this, | 


That I believe Satan hath not yet been bound a thousand 


1123 


years, nor wiil he be so bound till the calling of the Jews, 
and the time of St. John’s millennium. 

2. I agree with them in this, That the true millennium 
will not begin till the fall of antichrist ; nor will the Jews be 
converted till that time, the idolatry of the Roman church 
being one great obstacle of their conversion. 

3. 1 agree both with the modern and the ancient mille- 
naries, That then shall be great peace and plenty, and great 
measures of knowledge and of righteousness in the whole 
church of God. 

I therefore only differ from the ancient millenaries in 
these things; 

1. In denying Christ’s personal reign upon earth during 
this thousand years; and in this both Dr. Burnet and Mr. 
Mede expressly have renounced their doctrine. 

2. Though I dare not absolutely deny what they all posi- 
tively affirm, that the city of Jerusalem shall be then rebuilt, 
and the converted Jews shall return to it, because this probably 
may be collected from those words of Christ, “ Jerusalem shall 
be trodden down till the time of the gentiles is come in,” Luke 
xxi, 24, and all the prophets seem to declare the Jews shall 
then return to their own land, Jer. xxxi. 38—40; yet dol 
confidently deny what Barnabas and others of them do con- 
tend for; viz. that the temple of Jerusalem shall be then 
built again: for this is contrary not only to the plain decla- 
ration of St. John, who saith, “I saw no temple in this new 
Jerusalem,” Rev. xxi. 22, whence I infer, there is to be no 
temple in any part of it, but to the whole design of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, which is to show the dissolution of 
the temple service, for the weakness and unprofitableness of 
it; for the Jewish tabernacle was only a figure of the true 
and “the more perfect tabernacle which the Lord pitched, 
and not man ;”’ the Jewish sanctuary only “a worldly sanc- 
tuary, a pattern, and a figure of the heavenly one into which 
Christ our high priest is entered” (Heb. yiii. 2, ix. 2, xi. 23, 
24.) Now such a temple, such a sanctuary, and such ser- 
vice, cannot be suitable to the most glorious and splendid 
times of the Christian church; and therefore the apostle 
saith, “The Lord God omnipotent, and the Lamb, shall be 
their temple.” ‘ 

3. I differ both from the ancient and the modern mille- 
naries, as far as they assert that this shall be a reign of such 
Christians as have suffered under the heathen persecutors, or 
by the rage of antichrist; making it only a reign of the con- 
verted Jews and of the gentiles then flowing in to them, and 
uniting into one church with them. This I believe to be in- 
deed the truth of this mistaken doctrine; and therefore I 
shall set myself more fully to explain and to confirm it, Let 
it be noted therefore, 

§. I. 1. That as the Jews were the first nation which 
were owned by God as his people, and therefore are styled 
“his first-born,’ Exod. iv. 22, “Israel his elect,” Isa. liv. 
4, “the children of Jacob, his chosen ones,” 1 Chron. xvi. 
13, Ps. cv. 6, God having chosen them “to be a peculiar 
treasure to himself above all the people of earth,’ Exod. 
xix. 5, Deut. vii. 6, so all nations of the world have ever 
since received the word of God and the true religion from the 
Jewish nation, and Jerusalem hath been still the mother of 
all other churches. Before the advent of our Lord and Sa- 
viour, to them alone, saith the apostle Paul, “belonged the 
adoption, the glory, and the covenant, and the giving of the 
law, and the service of God, and the promises” (Rom. ix. 3), 
and none then could be “joined unto the Lord” (Isa. Ivi. 3), 
and worship him aright, unless he joined himself to the Jews, 
and became a worshipper of the God of Israel, or a member 
of that church. 

After Christ’s coming in the flesh, the gospel was first sent 
to them, as being “ the children of the kingdom,” Matt. viii. 
12; our Lord exercised his ministry only among them, whence 
he is styled “ the minister of the circumcision,” Rom. xv. 8, 
and saith, he was not then sent to any but “only to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel,” Matt. xv. 24. And sending 
his apostles, he forbids them, whilst ke was on earth, “to go 
into the way of the gentiles, or to enter into any city of 
Samaria,” Matt. x. 5, but saith to them, “Go rather to tbe 
lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Arter his ascension, they 
were charged to begin their preaching at Jerusalem, Luke 


* Lib. v. cap. 6, p. 1713. 'Q; καὶ σχίσματα kai ἀποστασίας | xxiv. 47, as accordingly they did, “preaching the word to 


ὅλων ἐκκλησιῶν γεγονέναι. Euseb. lid. vii. cap. 24, 


| none but the Jews only,” Acts xi. 19. Paul, the apostle of 


1124 


TREATISE ON 


the gentiles, first offers his ministry to them, preaching | shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be 


Christ in their synagogues, “as his manner was,” Acts ix. 
20, xiii. 5, xiv. 1, xvii. 12. 17, xviii. 4, and declaring “it 
was necessary that the word of God should be first spoken 
to them,” Acts xiii. 46, the gospel being “the power of God 
to salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first,” 
Rom. ii. 10, and that through their fall and rejection of it, 
“the gospel came unto the gentiles,’” Rom. xi. 28, the halt, 
lame, and blind, being called to this feast, because those 
guests first bidden refused to come, Luke xiv. 21. 

Note also, that notwithstanding the infidelity of many of 
them, the first church that ever received the gospel, the 
doctrine, the sacraments of the New Testament, was the 
Jewish church, Acts ii. 42.47. All the churches of the gen- 
tiles received the gospel from them, they being “made par- 
takers of their spiritual things,” Rom. xv. 27, and the word of 
God coming out from them to other churches, 1 Cor. xvii. 36, 
they being all “grafted into their good olive-tree.” Hence, 
in the primitive times, the church of Jerusalem had the 
pre-eminence of all other churches ; to her they went for the 
decision of their controversies, Acts xv., and the bishop of 
Jerusalem is therefore styled by the ancients,* “the first 
bishop, the guide of priests, the top of the heads, the bishop, 
and chief of the apostles ;” and the church of Jerusalem is 
said to be the church, cui omnes favorem impendunt quasi 
matri Christiani nominis, “ which all favoured as the mother 
of Christians.” 

After the fall of antichrist, and before the second coming 
of our Lord to judgment, the Jews shall be converted, and 
become a most famous church again. For this mystery the 


apostle hath revealed, “ that blindness in part hath happened | 


to Israel until the fulness of the gentiles be come in, and so 
all Israel shall be saved, as it is written” in the prophet 
Isaiah, lix. 20, «There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, 
and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob ; for this is my 
covenant with them, saith the Lord, when I shall take away 
their sins.” ‘hese words are as a key to the great things 
said by Isaiah touching the Jewish nation, and teach us to 
interpret them of their glorious conversion to the Christian 
faith, and the gathering them “out of every kindred, and 
tongue, and nation, and people ;” that “at the blowing of 
the great trumpet they may come from the land of Assyria 
and Egypt, and may worship the Lord in the holy mount in 
Jerusalem” (Isa. xxvii. 13), and they may “fear the Lord 
from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun” (Isa. 
lix. 19). This is that day “when the Lord shall set his 
hand ;>:3y, a second time to recover the remnant of his peo- 
ple, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather to- 
gether the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the 
earth” (Isa. xi. 11, 12) ; when he will so “ bring again the 
captivity of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of 
Israel, as to leave none of them any more there, nor hide his 
face any more from them” (Ezek. xxxix. 25. 28, 29) ; when 
he shall so “plant them in their land, that they shall no 
more be pulled up out of the land, that he hath given them” 
(Amos ix. 14, 15): so Tobit saith, that “when πληρωθῶσιν 
of καιροὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος, the times of the age shall be accomplished, 
they shall return from all places of their captivity, and build 
up Jerusalem gloriously, and the house of God shall be built 
in it gloriously, as the prophets have spoken thereof,” Tobit 
xiv. 51, vi. 7. And when they shall be thus converted, and 
receive the gospel, then shall salvation be again derived from 
them to the gentiles, and they shall be the means of convert- 
ing such of them as still remain to be converted; and shall 
draw them to as great purity and zeal, and as great know- 
ledge of the truth, as ever the church enjoyed: for, saith 
the apostle, “if the fall of them be the riches of the world, 
and the diminishing them the riches of the gentiles, hew 
much more their fulness?” And “if the casting away of 
them be the reconciling of the world, what shall be the re- 
conciling of them but life from the dead,” to the same world ? 
Rom. xi. 12. 15. Of this the prophets speak very fully, 
saying, “In that day there shall be a root of Jesse which 
shall stand for an ensign to the people, and to it shall the 
gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious,” Isa. xi. 10. 
« Behold (saith God), I will then lift up my hands to the 
gentiles, and set up my standard to the people, and they 


* Gotel. Not. p. 138. 


carried upon their shoulders, and kings shall be thy nursing- 
fathers, and queens thy nursing-mothers; they shall bow 
down to thee with their faces towards the earth, and lick up 
the dust of thy feet,” Isa. xlix. 22, 23. « Behold, thou shalt 
call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that have 
not known thee shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy 
God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified 
thee,” Isa. lv. 5. «The Lord God that gathereth the outcasts 
of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him besides those 
that are gathered to him,” lvi. 8. “And the gentiles shall 
come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising: 
lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all they gather 
themselves together, they come to thee; thy sons shall come 
from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side; the 
abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces 
of the gentiles shall come to thee,” Ix. 3—5. “And the 
sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings 
shall minister unto thee: therefore thy gates shall be open 
continually, they shall not be shut day nor night, that men 
may bring unto thee the forces of the gentiles, and that their 
kings may be brought: for the nation and kingdom that will 
not serve thee shall perish, and shall be utterly wasted,” ver. 
10—12. “Thou shalt suck the milk of the gentiles, and 
shalt suck the breasts of kings,” ver. 16. “Ye shall be 
named the priests of the Lord: men shall call you the 
ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the gentiles, 
and in their glory shall you boast yourselves,” Ixi.6, ‘The 
gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory,” 
Ixii. 3. “ Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, 
and the glory of the gentiles like a flowing stream,” Ixvi. 12, 
«1 will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come 
and see my glory,” ver. 18. “And they shall bring-all their 
brethren for an offering to the Lord, out of all nations to my 
holy mountain Jerusalem ; and I will also take of them for 
priests and for Levites, saith the Lord : for as the new heavens 
and the new earth which I shall make shall remain before 
me, saith the Lord, so shall their seed and their name re- 
main,” ver. 20—22. ‘Many nations,” saith Tobit, «shall 
come from far to the name of the Lord God, with gifts in 
their hands, even gifts to the King of heaven, when his taber- 
nacle shall be built again with joy, and he shall make his 
captives joyful in Jerusalem; yea, all nations shall turn and 
fear the Lord God truly,” xiii. 10, 11. 

§. III. Now here it is easy to observe, how fully this descrip- 
tion of the conversion of the Jews, by their prophets, answers 
to the millennium of St. John, who useth the very words by 
which the prophets had foretold their glorious conversion, 
and saith, they shall be then accomplished. And, 

1, St. John speaks of a reviviscence of the church of the 
primitive martyrs, that suffered « for the testimony of Jesus, 
and for the word of God,” Rev. xx. 4 (see ch. ili. §. I.), and 
with them all the just. Now the very words ἀνάστασις and 
ἔζησαν, used by St.John, are very frequently used by the 
prophets, to express the glorious state of the Jewish church; 
and by St. Paul, to signify the flourishing condition of the 
gentiles then. St. John saith, they who enjoy this millen- 


| nium shall be “priests to God and Christ,” Rev. xx. 6, and 


the prophet Isaiah saith of the converted Jews, « Ye shall 
be named the priests of the Lord: men shall eall you the 
ministers of our God,” Ixi. 6, and of the gentiles that come 
to them, “I will take of them to be priests and Levites,” 
Ixvi. 21. This was the very thing proposed to. the Jewish 
nation when God entered into covenant with them, that they 
should be “a kingdom of priests,” Exod. xix. 6. Βασίλειον 
ἱεράτευμα, “a kingly priesthood,” saith the Septuagint, Ὁ. 
Dvn», i. 6. “kings and priests,” saith the Targum. This all 
Christians are already made, saith St. Peter, | Pet, ii, 5, and 
St. John, Rev. xvi. 5. 10. “ We are,” saith Justin Martyr,* 
“truly priests to God:” it therefore may be expected men 
should be more eminently so in that glorious state of the 
church. 

2. St. John speaks of a new heaven and a new earth that 
he saw, saying, “The former heaven and earth were passed 
away,” Rev. xxi. 1, and introduceth our Lord, saying, “ Be- 
hold, I make all things new,” ver. 5. And the prophet 


Dial. 


* 'Αρχιερατικὸν τὸ ἀληθινὸν γένος, γένος ἐσμὲν τοῦ Θεοῦ. 


cum Tryph. p. 334, 6. 


THE MILLENNIUM. 


Isaiah introduceth God, thus speaking at the conversion of 
the Jews, “ Behold, I create new heavens and new earth; 
and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into 
mind,” Isa. Ixy. 17. And again, “I have put my word in 
thy mouth, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foun- 
dations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my peo- 
ple,” li. 16. And, thirdly, in the very words of the author 
of the Revelation, “ Bebold, I make all things new,” xiii. 
18,19. Seeing then these new heavens and new earth must 
be contemporary wjth the conversion of the Jews, sure they 
must be before the conflagration of the world, i. e. before the 
Jewish nation be consumed to ashes; and therefore can be 
only a new heaven and new earth, in that moral sense in 
which Maimonides explains the phrase, when he says, “ It 
signifies, that God will place them in perpetual joy, in lieu 
of their former sorrow and anxiety; so that the memory of 
their former sorrow shall no more remain.’’* 

I confess there is this peculiarity in St. John’s new earth, 
that it is said of it, καὶ ἡ ϑάλασσα οὐκ ἔστιν ἔτι, “ And the sea 
is not yet,” because he had all along represented the beast 
as ascending out of the abyss, “and sitting upon many 
waters,” which were “the peoples, and multitudes, and na- 
tions, and tongues, that had submitted to her,” Rev. xvii. 1. 
15. Now because the beast was utterly destroyed, and Satan 
was bound up for a thousand years, and Gog and Magog 
were not to be gathered till then, nor were the armies of the 
beast which were slain to rise again till the thousand years 
were past (Rev. xix. 21, xx. 6) ; therefore the apostle saith, 
that in this new earth, “the sea was not yet.” 

3, St. John saith, “I heard a great voice from heaven, 
saying, The tabernacle of God is with men, and he willdwell 
with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself 
with them shall be their God,” Rev. xxi. 3. And Ezekiel, 
the other prophet who, by the ancients, is supposed to speak 
of the millennium, saith in like manner, “I will make a 
covenant of peace with them, and will place them and mul- 
tiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them 
for evermore; my tabernacle also shall be with them, and 
I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” Ezek. 
XXXVii. 26, 27. 

4, St. John saith, “God shall wipe away all tears from 
their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, 
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the for- 
mer things are passed away, Rev. xxi. 4; so also saith the pro- 
phet Isaiah of Jerusalem, that after the former heaven and 
earth were passed away, “the voice of weeping shall be no 
more heard in her, nor the voice of crying,” Ixv. 19, that 
“the Lord will wipe away tears from all faces,” xxv. 8, that 
“they shall not hunger, nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor 
sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them shall lead 
them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them,” 
xlix. 10, which words exactly answer to those of St. John, 
Rey. vii. 16, 17. 

5. St. John saith, “ The building of the wall of the city 
was of jasper, and the city was of pure gold like unto clear 
glass, and the foundations of the wall of the city were gar- 
nished with all manner of precious stones,” Rev. xxi. 18, 
19, and Isaiah saith, “I will lay thy stones with fair colours, 
and thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make thy 
windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy 
borders of pleasant stones,” liv. 11, 12; and Tobit saith, 
« Jerusalem shall be built up with sapphires, and emeralds, 
and precious stones; thy walls, and towers, and battlements, 
with pure gold; and the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved 
with beryl, carbuncle, and stones of Ophir,” xiii. 16—18. 

6. St. John speaks of “the tree of life planted there,” 
and of “a pure river of water of life, proceeding out of the 
throne of God, and the Lamb,” Rev. xxii. 1,2. And the 
prophet Zachary speaks of “living water going out of Jeru- 
salem,” xiv. 8. And he that passeth under the name of 
Esdras saith, “They shall have the tree of life planted for 
an ornament of sweet savour: for unto you,” saith he, “ is 
paradise opened, the tree of life is planted,” 2 Esd. ii. 12. 

7. St. John saith, “There shall be no night there, and 


* Quod dixi, Creabo novos ceelos, &c. id ita intelligo, quéd 
Vos positurus sum in Ietitiam perpetuam loco luctiis et 
anxietatis prioris, neque illius luctiis prioris memoria sit man- 
sura. More Nevoch. par. ii. cap. 29, p. 268. 


1125 


they need no candle, neither light of the sun,” xxii. 5. 
Isaiah saith the same, Ix. 19. And the prophet Zechariah 
saith, “It shall be one day which shall be known unto the 
Lord, not day nor night; and it shall come to pass, that at 
the evening-time it shall be light,” xiv. 7. 

Moreover, St. John so represents the scene of things fol- 
lowing the fall of antichrist, as plainly to inform us, that he 
is speaking of this glorious conversion of the Jewish nation, 
and God’s marrying her again whom he had formerly di- 
vorced; for as the church of Christ is represented as “ the 
Israel of God,” Gal. vi. 16, «the commonwealth of Israel,’ 
Eph. ii. 12, “the Jerusalem, which is above,” Gal. iv. 26, 
“the celestial Jerusalem,” Heb. xii. 22, so St. John repre- 
sents this new scene of things in the same language, saying, 
«TI John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down 
from God out of heaven,” Rev. xxi. 2. And again, “ He 
showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending 
out of heaven from God,” ver. 10. Now that this great 
and holy city, this new Jerusalem, is the Jewish church con- 
verted to God, the characters he gives of it will not suffer 
us to doubt; for, first, he saith, “The city had no need of 
the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it; for the glory of 
God did lighten it; and the Lamb is the light thereof,” Rev 
xxi. 23. So saith God of the conversion of the Jews: 
« They shall call thee, ‘he city of the Lord, the Zion of the 
Holy One of Israel,” Isa. lx. 14. “'Thou shalt call thy 
walls Salvation and thy gates Praise; the sun shall be no 
more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon 
give light unto thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an 
everlasting light, and thy God thy glory,” ver. 18,19. He 
saith, “The gates of this city shall not be shut at all by day, 
neither shall there be any night there, and they shall bring 
the glory, and honour, τιμὴν, the substance of the nations 
unto it,” Rev. xxi. 25, 26. Even as Esaias had said, “ Thy 
gates shall be open continually, they shall not be shut day 
nor night, that men may bring unto thee the wealth of 
the gentiles, and that their kings may be brought,” Isa. Ix. 
11. Lastly, he saith, “ The nations of them that are saved 
shall walk in the light of this city, and the kings of the 
earth do bring their glory and honour to it,” Rev. xxi. 24, 
which I have shown to be the very thing foretold by the 
prophets at the conversion of the Jewish nation. 

Add to this, that he introduceth this holy city, this new 
Jerusalem, “ prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” 
Rev. xxi. 2, and saith, “ Come hither, I will show thee the 
bride, the Lamb’s wife,” ver. 9,10, and then shows the great 
city, the holy Jerusalem ; and xix. 7, 8, he saith, he “ heard 
a voice saying, The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his 
wife hath made herself ready ; and to her was granted, that 
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for 
the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.” Now thus 
have the prophets represented the Jewish church converted 
to God: hence is she introduced speaking thus; “I will 
greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall be joyful in my 
God : for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, 
he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a ~ 
bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride 
adorneth herself with jewels,” Isa. Ixi. 10. And again, 
«Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall thy 
land any more be termed desolate: but thou shalt be called 
Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah; for the Lord delighteth 
in thee, ard thy land shall be married,” Ixii. 4, and ver. 5, 
“ For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons 
marry thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the 
bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.” 

§. IV. Add to this, that all the characters which the pa- 
trons of the millennium give of those times, exactly accord 
with the characters given by the prophets of the conversion 
of the Jews, and are many of them taken from the very 
words of the prophets, foretelling those times: for instance, 

1. “Indolence and plenty,” saith Dr. Burnet, book iv. 
ch. 7, p. 183, “seem to be two ingredients of this happy 
state.” Accordingly the prophets every where speak, how 
«the riches of the gentiles shall then flow in to them,” Isa. 
Ix. 5. 11, “and they shall eat the riches of the gentiles,”’ 
Ixi. 6, that ‘‘there shall be then no hunger nor thirst, no 
heat nor sun to smite them, no voice of crying or weeping” 
(see Isa. xxxv. 10). 

2. That it shall be “a time of universal peace, and free- 


1126 


dom from war and persecution” (ibid. p. 184); and this he 
proves from the words of the prophets declaring, that at that 
day, that time when God shall create new heavens and new 
earth, “the lamb and the lion shall lie down together, and 
the sucking child shall play with the basilisk, and they shall 
not hurt in all my holy mountain,” as it is written, Isa. xi. 
6—9, and Ιχν. 25, and saying, that “the nations shall beat 
their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into prun- 
ing-hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more,” Isa. ii. 4, Micah iv. 
3, as appears also from the promises, that God will then 
«make her officers peace,” Isa. Ix. 17, “and will extend 
peace to her as a river,” Ixvi. 12. 

3. That it shall be “a kingdom of righteousness” (ibid.). 
Accordingly of this holy city, Jerusalem, it is said, « There 
shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and un- 
clean,” Isa. li. 1; “ A highway shall be there, and it shall 
be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass 
over it,” xxxv. 8; which exactly answers to those words of 
St. John, “Into the holy city shall nothing enter that is 
polluted or unclean,” Rev. xxi. 27. And again, “Thy 
people shall be all righteous,” Isa. Ix. 21 (see Zeph. iii. 9, 
Zech. xiv. 20, 21). 

Moreover this, saith he (p. 185), will be “a state under 
a peculiar presence and divine conduct, because the taber- 
nacle of God will be with men, and he will dwell with them :” 
and this we see was promised at the conversion of the Jew- 
ish nation, Ezek. xxxvii. 27. 

“The last character,” saith he, “ that belongs to this state, 
or rather to those that enjoy it, is this, that they are kings 
and priests unto God ;” and this also we have shown to be 
promised to the converted Jews, Isa, Ixi. 6, Ixv. 20. 

I add, That as the ancient fathers generally held that the 
time would come when “all Israel shall be saved,” and be 
converted to the Christian faith; so did they as generally 
conceive that this should happen at the close of the world,* 
and about the time of our Saviour’s second coming ; and 
most of them speak of it as a branch of the millennium. 

So Justin Martyr says once and again, thatt “then the 
Jews shall see and shall acknowledge him whom they have 
pierced ;” and he confesses to Trypho,+ “ that Jerusalem 
shall be rebuilt,” and that §« Christians shall rejoice with 
Christ, together with the patriarchs and prophets, and with 
the Jews and their proselytes;” i. 6, the nations then flow- 
ing in to them before the coming of our Lord.” So Ireneus|| 
declares, that then “God will restore them to the land 
which he had promised, and given to their fathers, and they 
shall dwell in it in hope:” and Tertullian] saith, that « he 
will then own the circumcision, et Abrahe gentem, cum 
ultimo venerit, acceptatione et benedictione dignabitur, and 
at his last coming will vouchsafe to accept and bless the seed 
of Abraham.” And this is suitable to the ancient opinion 
of the Jews,** that, “in the end of the world, there should 
be to them a world full of joy and exultation, so that their 
heaven and earth should as it were be renewed, according to 
the words of Isaiah,” Ixv. 17. So the Targum upon those 
words of Hosea, “The children of Israel shall seek the 
Lord their God, and David their king, and shall fear the 
Lord and his goodness in the latter days.” 

§. V. Nor is it to be wondered that there should be then 
sucha glorious conversion of them, and such a flowing in of 
the nations to them, seeing the prophets seem to intimate 
there shall be then a full effusion of the Holy Ghost upon 
them, somewhat resembling that which was vouchsafed to 
the first ages of Christianity. So the prophet Isaiah speaks 
of the desolation of the city, ἕως ἂν ἔλθη ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς Πνεῦμα ἀφ᾽ 
ὑψηλοῦ, “ until the Spirit be poured upon them from on high,” 
Isa. xxxii. 15, which is the very phrase in which our Lord 
promiseth the Spirit to his apostles, Luke xxiv. 49. St. 


* «Tn the end of the world,” 2 Esd. ii. 34, vi. 15. 25. 

ἡ P. 232, D. Ὅτε ἐπι γνώσεσθε εἰς ὃν ἐξεκεντήσατε. 

ἘΡ, 249, C. 

§ “Apa τοῖς πατριάρχαις, καὶ rots προφήταις, καὶ τοῖς ἀπὸ τοῦ 
ἡμετέρου γένους, ἢ καὶ τῶν προσηλύτων γενομένων πρὶν ἐλθεῖν ὑμῶν 
τὸν Χριστὸν προσδοκᾶτε. P. 306. 

| Lib. ν. cap. 84. 

Ἵ Adv. Mare. lib. v. cap. 9, p. 472, Ὁ. 

** R. Saadias Gaon, Sepher Hemunot. 


| 


TREATISE ON 


Paul proves their conversion from those words of the pro- 
phet Isaiah, “The Deliverer shall come out of Zion, and 
shall turn away iniquity from Jacob:” with which these are 
immediately connected, “ And thisis my covenant with them, 
saith the Lord; My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words 
which I have put into thy mouth, shall not depart out of 
thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of 
the mouth of thy seed’s seed, from henceforth for ever,” lix. 
20, 21. And again, xliv. 3, “I will pour water upon him 
that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour 
my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing on thy offspring.” 
So Ezek. xxxvi. 24, “I will take you from among the 
heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will 
bring you into your own land.” And ver. 27, “I will put 
my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes.” 
And xxxix. 28, 29, “I have gathered them unto their own 
land, and have left none of them any more there: neither 
will I hide my face any more from them, for I have poured 
out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord.” 
And this seems plainly to be hinted in these words of St. 
Paul, 2 Cor. iii, 15—17, “Even unto this day, when Mo- 
ses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when 
it shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken away; for 
the Lord is (the giver of) that Spirit, (or οὗ δὲ) where the 
Lord is, there is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the 
Lord is, there is liberty,” from subjection to the law, and 
from that veil which hinders them from turning to Christ. 

To this Mr. Mede (p. 761. 767) conjectures there shall 
be added a vision of Jesus Christ to them; for, saith God 
by his prophet Zechariah, xii. 10, “I will pour upon the 
house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the 
Spirit of grace and of supplications, and they shall look 
upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn for him.” 
And Christ being asked, “ What shall be the sign of the end 
of the world?” Matt. xxiv. 3, saith, ver: 30, “Then shall 
appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and they 
shall see all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see 
the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power 
and great glory.” And he spake to the Jews thus, “ Verily I 
say unto you, Yet a little while, and you shall not see me 
till you say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the 
Lord,” Matt. xxiii. 39. 

Or, that according to the ancient and general doctrine 
both of Jew and Christian, they shall have an Elias sent to 
instruct them, a deliverer ἕνεκεν Siwy, “ for the sake of Zion,” 
as the Septuagint, Isa. lix. 20, for, saith he, “ It may be fit 
to conceive magnificently of so great a work of God, towards 
a people for whom he hath formerly shown so many won- 
ders; especially this being the greatest work of mercy and 
wonder that ever he did for them, far beyond the bringing 
them from Egypt, and leading them in the wilderness.” 
And to this he refers these words of Ecclesiasticus; “ Elias 
was ordained to turn the hearts of the father to the son, 
and to restore, καναστήσαι, the tribe of Jacob: μακάριοι of 
ἰδόντές σε, καὶ of ἀγαπήσει κεκοσμημένοι, καὶ yap ἡμεῖς ζωῇ ζησό- 
μεθα, blessed are they that see, and are adorned with love, 
for we shall surely live,” Ecclus. xlviii. 10, 11. Where note, 
that their conversion is again represented by a new life, 
and by the very word used concerning the souls of the 
martyrs which were slain, Rev. xx. 4. 

§. VI. Add to this, that as all the ancient millenaries held, 
that this reign on earth should be at Jerusalem,* and that 
the Jews converted then should reign together with the 
Christians; so all the passages, cited from Jewish writers 
concerning the millennium, speak only of the millennium of 
the resurrection, the new heavens and new earth the Jewish 
nation shall enjoy. ‘This is apparent from those words on 
which the Midrash Tehillim founds this millennium, viz. 
“ Comfort us, according to the days in which thou hast afflict 
sd us,” Ps. xe. 15, in Babylon, in Greece, in Rome: from 
the words cited by Galatinus, lib. xii. cap. 1, from R. Eliezer, 
cap. 34, “As I live, saith the Lord, I will raise you in the 
time to come, in the resurrection of the dead, and I will 
gather you, with all Israel, into the land of Israel:” from 
those cited from R. Saadias on Dan. vii. 18, «« Because the 
Jews rebelled against their Lord, their kingdom shall be 
taken from them, and given to the four monarchies who 


* Justin Martyr, Iren. Tertul. supra. 


THE MILLENNIUM. 


shall possess it in this world, and shall subdue and carry 
captive Israel, till the age to come, in which the Messiah 
shall reign:” from the Targum on Hos. xiv. 8, “They 
shall be gathered from the midst of their captivity ;” and 
on Ps. i. 4, from the passage quoted by Galatinus, lib. xi. 
cap. 1, from the book Beracoth, that “Israel shall no more 
make mention of their departure out of Egypt in the age to 
come, in the days of the Messiah:” and from the words 
cited by Mr. Mede, Luke xxi. 24, “The Jews shall be car- 
ried captives into all nations, till the times of the gentiles be 
fulfilled, and then they shall see the Son of man coming 
in the clouds:” from the words of Tobit, cited by Mr. Mede, 

. 579, «Then the children of Israel shall go into a very 
fe. captivity ; but the blessed God shall remember them, 
and gather them from the four corners of the earth.” Ac- 
cordingly, Mr. Mede sums up their opinion thus: “They 
expect their forefathers, at least such as were just and holy, 
should rise in the beginning of the same millennium, and 
reign in the land of Israel, with their offspring, under the 
Messiah :” and, saith he, “I can hardly believe that all 
this smoke of tradition could arise, but from some fire of 
truth anciently made known to them.” And this I freely 
grant, and do indeed suppose, by asserting a prediction of 
such a general call of the Jews, near the close of the world, 
as they styled ζωοποίησις, “a reviving,” and “a resurrection” 
of them. But how comes this tradition to relate to Chris- 
tian martyrs beheaded for the name of Christ, or to be ful- 
filled in the resurrection of them only who are chiefly 
Christians, not of the Jews, but of the gentiles? Mr. Mede 
solves the matter thus, p. 604, “Under the second sort 
of these reigners, I would in a particular respect understand 
the nation of the Jews then converted to the Christian faith, 
who, coming in towards the end of the day, may, above all 
others, be said to be those who had not worshipped the beast, 
nor his image, nor had received his mark upon their fore- 
heads or their hands.” And thus will truth prevail at last, 
but to the ruin of this literal resurrection : for how can they 
literally be said to “live again, and to have a part in the first 
resurrection,’ who were never slain for the faith? and who 
are not to be converted, say their own prophecies and tradi- 
tions, till God createth a new heaven and a new earth, and 
much less till the fall of Babylon? 


CHAPTER III. 


8,1. This chapter contains an answer to all the arguments 
produced from scripture, to prove this literal resurrection 
of the martyrs, and this reign of them on earth a thousand 
years, viz. 1. To the chief argument for this opinion, from 
Rev. xx. 4—6. §. II. To 2 Pet. iii. from ver. 5. 13. 
§. II. To Heb. ii. 5, compared with i. 6. §.1V. To Matt. 
y. 5, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” §. V. To Rom. 
viii. 19, 20, “The creature shall be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the 
sons of God.” §. VI. To Acts iii. 20, 21, “ The heavens 
must receive him, till the time of the restitution of all 
things.” §. VIL. To Matt. xix. 27—29, « Ye that have fol- 
lowed me in the regeneration shall sit upon twelve thrones. 
—And they shall receive a hundred-fold now in this life.” 


I proceep now to the arguments produced from scripture, 
for the doctrine of the millennium; to which I hope to re- 
turn a clear and satisfactory answer, beginning with those 
words of the Revelation in which all the assertors of this 
doctrine place their confidence. And they are these: 

§. I. Arg. 1. “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon 
them, and judgment was given to them; and I saw the 
souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, 
and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the 
beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon 
their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned 
with Christ a thousand years. 

« But the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand 
years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 


“ Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resur- | 


rection: on-such the second death hath no power; but they 
shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with 
him a thousand years,” Rev. xx. 4—6, 

1. Here, say they, is mention of a first resurrection, ante- 


1127 


cedent to the general resurrection of the just, who are not 
to live again, till they who first rise have reigned a thousand 
years on earth. 

2. This resurrection, say they, is proper to those who 
were “slain for the testimony of Jesus, and the word of 
God, and were not worshippers of the beast.” 

3. This resurrection, say they, is not a metaphorical, but 
a proper resurrection ; for the souls, i.e. the persons of them 
that were slain live again. 

4. They do “reign with Christ a thousand years,” and 
that reign, say most of them, is to be upon earth; therefore 
there is to be a reign of those martyrs who were * slain for 
the testimony of Jesus, and the word of God,” upon earth a 
thousand years. 

Now, in answer to this argument, let it be noted: 

Ans. 1. That it is not the bodies, but the souls of them 
that are beheaded, who are said to live. Now the word 
ψυχὴ, rendered “soul,” occurs six times in this book, this 
place excepted; and in all these places, it signifies either the 
soul in separation or distinction from the body, or the living 
soul; for, vi. 9, “the souls under the altar” not only “cry 
with a loud voice,” but they are “clothed with white robes,” 
ver. 10, 11. Which expressions cannot be well applied to 
dead bodies, viii. 9. The κτίσματα ἔχοντα ψυχὰς are “the 
creatures having (animal) souls,” by which they lived, xii. 
11. It plainly signifies their lives, i.e. the souls by which 
men live, xvi. 3. It is expressly ἡ ψυχὴ ζῶσα, “the living 
soul,” xviii. 13. It signifies the lives of men, or else the 
souls of men, which they did hunt for, or devour, as Ezek. 
xiii. 18, 20. 22. 25, and ver. 14, ἐπιθυμία τῆς Ψυχῆς is the 
desire, not of the body, but of the soul: why therefore must 
this word be here supposed to signify, not the soul, but that 
dead body opposite to it, which alone properly can be said 
to rise and live again? 

2. Let it be noted, that a proper and a literal resurrection 
is never, in the whole New Testament, expressed or repre- 
sented to us by the “living of the soul ;” but always by the 
living, raising, or the resuscitation of the dead, “ the raising 
of the bodies of the saints, of them that slept in the dust,” 
or “in their graves and sepulchres,” or who were “buried 
in the sea,” or “in the earth:” if then the Holy Ghost here 
meant a literal and proper resurrection, why doth he so 
much vary from the terms he constantly doth use elsewhere, 
whenever he discourseth of such a resurrection, and take up 
with the terms so oft applied in scripture to a moral and 
metaphorical resurrection, as we shall see hereafter ? 

Ans. 2. I grant that here is mention of a first resurrec- 
tion, an antecedent to the general and proper resurrection ; 
but then it plainly is a resurrection in which all that are 
“plessed and holy,” and over whom the “second death hath 
no power,” have a part, ver. 6; and they are all whose 
names are written in the book of life, ver. 14,15. It is a 
resurrection of all who had not worshipped the beast, ver. 4, 
and they are all the same persons, Rev. xiii. 8. It is a re- 
surrection of those who are made “kings and priests to God 
and Christ,” which all good Christians are, 1 Pet. ii. 5, 6, 
and therefore not of martyrs only. 

Again, it is a resurrection before the day of judgment, 
and before the sea, and death, and the grave deliver up their 
dead, as the words following intimate, ver. 12, 13, viz. «I 
saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the 
books were opened ; and another book, which is the book of 
life; and the dead were judged out of those things which 
were written in the books, according to their works. And 
the sea gave up her dead that were in it: and death and 
hades delivered up their dead that were in them: and they 
were judged, every man according to his works.’ Where 
note, that the dead delivered up were all that were “judged 
according to their works.” It also is a resurrection before 
Christ’s coming “to render to every man as his works shall 
be ;” for this he after promiseth to do, xxii. 12. Whereas, 
according to the doctrine of the millennium, Christ had al- 
ready given to them whom he had raised to reign with him 
on earth, the blessing promised “to him that overcometh,” 
Rev. ii. 26, 27, iii. 21, v. 10. 

3. The rest of the dead, that lived not again until the 
thousand years were finished, are not the just, but the syna- 
gogue of Satan, Gog and Magog, ver. 8. For St. John, ch. 
xix., represents the “King of kings and Lord of lords,” 


1128 


with “the armies which were in heaven, making war with 
the kings of the earth, and their armies,” and giving « their 
flesh to be meat” unto them; in which war “the beast was 
taken, and the false prophet, and cast alive into a lake of 
fire,” ver. 20. And then it follows thus, καὶ of λοιποὶ, * And 
the rest of them,” who were gathered together to make war 
with this King of kings, “were slain with the sword that 
came out of his mouth, and all the fowls were filled with 
their flesh,” ver. 21. Now, it being by the pagan emperors 
first, and by the beast afterward, that Satan, “the great 
dragon, made war with the seed of the woman which kept 
the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus 
Christ,” Rev. xii. 17, these instruments of Satan being thus 
slain, and overcome by Christ, Satan is bound a thousand 
years; i. 6. he is so long disabled from persecuting and mo- 
lesting the church of Christ: and during this space she is 
raised up to her primitive purity, and flourisheth gloriously, 
and so is represented as having a resurrection from the dead: 
this thousand years being ended, Satan is let loose again, and 
gathers again his instruments, i. e. “ the nations which are in 
the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to battle, 
and they compass the camp of the saints,’ Rev. xx. 8, 9. 
And this is the living of the rest of the dead again after the 
thousand years were ended, ver. 5. For it is only, of λοιποὶ, 
“the rest” that were slain, xix. 21, that lived again; it is 
only those who had no share in the first resurrection, and so 
were neither blessed nor holy, ver. 6, nor had their names 
written in the book of life; and consequently, those on which 
the second death had place, which death they suffered when 
“fire came down from heaven and devoured them,” and 
they were cast “into the lake of fire with the devil,” ver. 10. 
15. 

And that of λοιποὶ, “the rest,” xix. 21, xx. 5, should sig- 
nify the same persons, cannot seem strange, if we consider 
that only four verses intervene betwixt them. And that 
they must be the same persons, is evident from the connexion 
of the words, thus; “The rest of the dead lived not till the 
thousand years” of Satan’s binding, and the saints’ reign, 
were ended, ver. 5. And when those “thousand years were 
ended, Satan was loosed, and gathered them together against 
that church. of Christ which had thus reigned a thousand 
years,” ver. 7—10. 

And this interpretation of “the rest of the dead” rising 
again, gives a clear answer to the objection of Mr. Mede 
against the other senses commonly imposed upon these 
words, viz. “That it would be a most harsh and violent 
interpretation to say, The dead and the living again of the 
dead should not be taken in the same sense:” for, ac- 
cording to this exposition, they are exactly taken in the 
same sense: the dead church living again, in the same 
metaphorical sense in which the rest of the dead, the ene- 
mies of the church, live again at the end of the thousand 
years, when Satan is loosed, and gathers them to battle 
against the church. 

4, The souls of them who were “slain for the testimony 
of Jesus, and for the word of God,” are those Christians 


who were slain in the time of the ten persecutions ; and the | 


souls of them “who worshipped not the beast,” are those 
Christians who chose rather to die, or suffer persecution, 
than to be guilty of Romish idolatry: and they are said to 
live again, as the beast which had received τὴν πληγὴν ϑανά- 
του, “the wound of death, and one of whose heads was 
wounded to death, ἔζησεν, lived again,” Rev. xiii. 3, 12, viz. 
in the succession of the antichristian beast to him which 
exercised the power of the heathen emperors over the earth, 
and revived the idolatry of the heathen empire. And as 
the two witnesses, when slain, are said to live again, “the 
spirit of life from God entering into them,” Rev. xi. 7. 11, 
because a succession of men of the same faith, and the 
same opposition to the beast, revive and flourish after they 
were slain; some here reply, that “this was spoken of the 
two churches,” that they were slain, and lived again, not 
of the supposita. But why then may not the words of 
St. John be spoken of the church of Jew and gentile, then 
reviving, and not of the supposita? Moreover, these two 
witnesses are said to be slain, ver. 7, and their “dead bodies 
to lie in the streets of the great city,” ver. 18, to be seen 
tying there “ three days and a half,” and not to be suffered 
tu be put into their graves, ver. 9, and ‘after three days 


TREATISE ON 


and a half, the Spirit of God” is said to “enter into them, 
to make them stand upon their feet, and live again.” If 
therefore nothing of this be spoken of the supposita, why 
should those words, “I saw the souls of them who were 
beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and they lived again,” be 
spoken of the supposita, and not of the churches of the con- 
verted Jews and gentiles? This being the prophetic scheme 
by which the scripture still represents the glorious restora- 
tion of God’s church and people. For, 

1, The restoration of the church is sometimes represented 
as a resurrection of it from the dead. So saith the prophet 
Isaiah, ἀναστήσονται οἱ νεκροὶ, “'Thy dead shall arise, and be 
raised out of their tombs,” xxvi. 19, So God speaks to the 
Jewish nation by Ezekiel, saying, “ I will open your graves, 
and cause you to come out of your graves, and bring you 
into the land of Israel,” Ezek. xxxvii. 13, 14. The pro- 
phet Hosea speaks thus; “In three days, ἐξαναστησόμεθα, 
we shall rise up again, and we shall live before him,” Hos. 
vi. ἢ. And the apostle, speaking of this very matter, viz. 
the conversion of the Jews, saith, “It shall be even to the 
gentiles, ζωὴ ἐκ νεκρῶν, as life from the dead,” Rom. xi. 15. 
Here then is a resurrection of the church of God, agree- 
able to that which our interpretation of this passage of the 
Revelation doth import: nor is there any more reason to 
say the words of St. John respect the supposita, and not 
the churches, than to say the same of many of the places 
cited. 

Moreover, the scripture doth more frequently mention the 
restoration of the church, and her return from a low, cap- 
tive, and afflicted state, under the metaphor of “a new life, 
a life from the dead,” a reviviscence of God’s church and 
people. Thus when God moved the Persian kings to let 
the Jews return to their own land, he is by Ezra said to give 
them ζωυποίησιν, “a reviviscence,’ Ezra ix. 8, 9. The 
psalmist, speaking of himself, as the text, or of God’s peo- 
ple also, saith the marginal reading, useth these words, 
“Thou which hast shown me great and sore troubles, shalt 
quicken me (marg. ws) again, and shalt bring me up again 
(marg. us) from the depth of the earth,” Ps, Ixxi. 20. And 
the church speaketh thus to God, ζωώσεις, “Thou wilt 
quicken us,” and “we will call upon thy name,” Ps. Ixxx. 
18. And again, “Thou wilt retarn, καὶ ζωώσεις ἡμᾶς, and 
revive us, and thy people shall rejoice in thee,” Ps, Ixxxv. 
Ζήσονται οἱ τεθνεῶτές σου, “ Thy dead men shall live,” Isa. 
xxvi. 19, say Symmachus and Theodotion. Ζησόμεθα, “ We 
shall live in his sight,” saith the prophet Hosea, vi. 2, 3, and 
xiv. 17. “They shall live with their children, and return 
again,” saith the prophet Zachary, x. 8,9. The son of Si- 
rach saith, “ At the coming of Elias, ζωῇ ζησύμεθα, we shall 
live again,” xlviii. 11. But the chief seat of this metaphor 
is in the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel, where God is 
introduced inquiring of the Jews in Babylon, εἰ ζήσεται, 
“Can these bones live?” ver. 3, and promising to put into 
them πνεῦμα ζωῆς, “ the breath of life,” ver. 5, and saying, 
«JT will put my Spirit into you, καὶ ζήσεσθε, and ye shall 
live ;” and bidding the prophet blow upon them, καὶ ζησά- 
rwoav, “ that they may live,” ver. 9, and declaring that when 
he had done so, “breath entered into them, καὶ ἔζησαν, and 
they lived again, and stood upon their feet,” ver. 10; in all 
which places, the very word which St. John useth to express 
the first resurrection is here used to express the return of 
the church from her obscurity and thraldom to a glorious 
state. Why therefore may not the word in St. John bear 
that sense which it so often bears in the prophetic writings, 
and twice in the New Testament,* when spoken of the gen- 
tiles? It hence at last appears, that by this interpretation I 
put no force upon the words, but do expound them in the 
familiar sense in which they are still used upon the like oc- 
casion in the prophetic writings. 

Now it is generally agreed by those who own the conver- 
sion of the Jews, that it is not to commence till after the 
destraction of the beast, or the downfall of antichrist, men- 
tioned ch. xviii. And therefore in the next chapter he 
begins his discourse upon it saying, xix. 7, “The marriage 
of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready ;” 
i.e. she who was formerly put away, because she was not 


*'O ἀδελφός cov οὗτος νεκρὸς ἦν, καὶ ἀνέζησε, Luke xv. 32, 
Rom. xi. 15. 


THE MILLENNIUM. 


prepared* for the bridegroom’s coming, was now to be mar- 
ried to God again. And, ch. xxi., he reassumes this matter, 
and shows the bride, the Lamb’s wife, in such a description 
as will not suffer us to doubt she is the Jewish nation con- 
verted to the Christian faith: for he calls her the holy city, 
and the new Jerusalem; and tells us, in the very words of 
Tsaiah, Ix. 3. 10, that the “nations which shall be saved 
shall walk in the light of this city.” He calleth her also 
the bride to be married to the Lamb; which is the descrip- 
tion the prophets make of this converted nation, viz. as “ of 


a bride adorned with her jewels, and as one that is to be | 


married to the Lord” (Isa. Ixi. 10, Ixii. 4, 5). And he 
goes on in a continual description of this new Jerusalem, in 
the words of the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, speaking of 
the conversion of the Jewish nation. ‘The city also “ com- 
ing down from heaven,” ver. 10, is the new church of the 
converted Jews, said to come down from heaven, according 
to the Hebrew phrase; because of that divine wisdom, and 
those spiritual gifts and graces, with which she shall be adora- 
ed from heaven: for, as they were wont to say of one who 
treated of sublime heavenly things, that he did yypr aby, 
“ascend into heaven,” and speak as one who was admitted 
into the divine councils (Deut. xxx. 11, 12, Prov. xxx. 3), 
and of those who heard these things, that they were “ex- 
alted to heaven” (Matt. xii. 23); so the pouring down of 
these gifts and blessings is represented as “the opening of 
heaven,” and letting them down upon the earth. Thus 
when St. John receives his prophecy, he “sees a door 
opened in heaven,” and hears “a voice, saying, Come up 
hither, and I will show thee what shall be hereafter,” Rev. 
iv. 1. Where note, that the voice he heard then was “as 
the voice of a trumpet:” and so the very same voice he 
heard when he was “in the Spirit,” Rev. i. 10. The two 
witnesses also, when they live again, are “called up into 
heaven,” Rev. xi. 11, 12, as being filled with heavenly wis- 
dom. And since the spiritual gifts imparted to the church 
_ are said to come “from above, from the Father of lights,” 
James i. 7, and they who were made partakers of them, to 
have “tasted τῆς ὁωρεᾶς ἐπουρανίου, of the heavenly gift;” 
seeing the church of Christ “is the Jerusalem which is 
from above,” Gal. iv. 25, “the heavenly Jerusalem,” Heb. 
xii. 22, it is no wonder that she is represented here as com- 
ing down from heaven, when she was, as it were, to have a 
“new birth” which is “from above,” John iii. 3, and to be 
adorned with ‘spiritual blessings in heavenly things in 
Christ Jesus,” Eph. i. 3, and to be reduced to her primitive 
lustre and purity, for then shall the purity of the church 
return, and be as it was in the times of the first martyrs for 
the faith; and the gospel shall be professed, without any 
antichristian mixture; as they who opposed the beast en- 
deavoured to preserve it: and thus shall these martyrs and 
opposers of the beast live again. 

A reverend and worthy person, of more than ordinary 
skill in matters of this nature, is of opinion, 

First, “ That the first resurrection here mentioned, will be 
a literal resurrection of them that have lost their lives for 
the testimony of Christ, to enjoy eternal life in heaven a 
thousand years before the general resurrection, as the mar- 
tyrs of the Old Testament arose with the body of Christ,” 
Matt. xxvii. 52. “They shall reign,” saith he, “ with Christ 
not on earth, but in heaven, where Christ is, and shall be, 
till he come to judgment.” 

Secondly, He is of opinion, “that not only the martyrs 
shall then rise to heavenly bliss, but that their murderers 
shall then also rise to eternal punishment :” which he gathers 
from those words of Daniel, xii. 2, «And many of them 
that sleep in the dust shall arise, some to everlasting life, 
and some to everlasting shame and contempt.” Now, 

First, Against the doctrine of the first and second resur- 
rection, properly so called, I have offered some arguments 
in the annotations on 1 Cor. xv. and ch. iv. 8. I. I there- 
fore only farther note, 

First, That St. Matthew speaks not one word of any mar- 
tyrs that arose after Christ’s resurrection, but only of the 
arising of some saints that slept, and their going into the holy 
city, and appearing unto many ; which seems rather to make 


* Not froms, “ ready.” 
+ Buxtorf. Floril. p. 4. 
Vor. IV.—142 


1129 


it probable, they were saints who had lived in the memory 
ofthose to whom they appeared, and were known (see the 
note there). 

Secondly, St. Matthew doth not say, as St. John doth, 
that “many souls lived; but, that πολλὰ σώματα, “many 
bodies of those that slept arose out of their sepulchres:” his 
words must therefore be understood of a proper resurrection 
of the bodies of the saints: but it cannot be hence inferred, 
that the words of St. John bear the same sense. 

Thirdly, St. John doth not say, his martyrs shall reign 
with Christ a thousand years “ before the general resurrec- 
tion,” but only, that “they shall reign with Christ a thou- 
sand years;” which seems an odd expression, when applied 
to them who are raised to reign for ever with him: add to 
this, that after the resurrection of St. John’s saints to 
“reign with Christ a thousand years,” Satan is loosed, and 
raises his armies to fight against, and compass about τὴν rap- 
ἐμβολὴν τῶν ἁγίων, “the camp of the saints,’ ver. 7—9, 
which fairly intimates, that the saints, mentioned ver. 6, as 
partakers of the first resurrection, were still on earth, and 
not reigning with Christ in heaven. 

Lastly, he second part of this opinion seems to contra- 
dict many scriptures which expressly teach, that the time of 
the punishment of the wicked shall be after the sentence of 
absolution hath been passed upon the blessed, Matt. xxv. 
41. 46, when all the good have gone into everlasting life, 
John v. 28, 29, at the day of judgment, and when we shall 
appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, Rom. ii. 8, 9. 16, 
2 Cor. v. 10, and that they who have persecuted Christ’s 
members, shall be punished at “the revelation of Christ 


| from heaven,” 2 Thess. i. 6. 9, at “the conflagration of the 


world,” 2 Pet. ii. 9, ili. 7, at “the day of judgment,” Jude 
14, 15, “ when he cometh in the clouds,” Rev. i. 7, and that 
the crown of glory shall be given to the righteous at the 
same time (see note on 2 Tim. iv. 8). 

Obj. 2. Some refer to this millennium those words of 
Christ, Matt. v. 5, “ Blessed are the meek, for they shall in- 
herit the earth;” saying, that “neither David nor our Sa- 
viour could understand this otherwise than of a future state ; 
because it is not the meek, but the great ones of the world, 
that slice the earth among them, and court-flatterers that 


-scramble for preferment.” 


Ans. But it is evident to a demonstration, that David did 
understand this of the present earth, or of the land of Ca- 
naan; for the tenor of this whole thirty-seventh Psalm is 
designed to show, that wicked men shall, by God’s judgment, 
suddenly perish, whilst righteous men lived easily and quiet- 
ly in the land of Canaan: so ver. 9, “ Evil-doers shall be 
cut off: but they that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit 
the earth: for yet a little while, and the wicked shall not 
be, but the meek shall inherit the earth. They that are 
blessed of him shall inherit the earth; and they that are 
cursed of him shall be rooted out.’’ So ver. 34, “ Wait on 
the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee rod 
κληρονομῆσαι τὴν γῆν, to inherit the earth; when the wicked 
are destroyed, thou shalt see it” (see also ver. 14, 17. 19. 
23, 24, 25, 26). It is therefore unadvisedly said, the psal- 
mist “ could not understand this of the present earth,” and 
that upon a plain mistake of the import of the phrase; 
as if inheriting the earth was enjoying a vast fortune, or a 
great share of temporal enjoyments here: whereas, the com- 
fort of this life, as our Lord teacheth, Luke xii. 15, “con- 
sisteth not in the abundance of the things that we possess.” 
The phrase rather imports, that meekness is the best way to 
procure us a long and peaceable life on earth, Ps. xiv. 12. 
14, 1 Pet. iii. 10, and that the meek person shall ordinarily 
have the most sure enjoyment of these things, as far as they 
are needful: that he shall enjoy them with the greatest 
quiet and tranquillity, without the strife, debate, anxiety, and 
trouble, which embitter the enjoyment of these things to 
others, and with the truest comfort, satisfaction, and content- 
edness of mind. For, as Chrysostom well observes upon 
the place, because the Jews had been oft taught this lesson 
in the Old Testament, our Saviour addresses himself to them 
in the language they had been accustomed to; this Son of 
David repeateth and confirmeth to them the promise made 
by David. And this I judge to be the most natural and 
truest exposition of these words. 

Obj. 3. Our Saviour a to his disciples and follow- 

4 


1130 


ers, that for the losses they should sustain here on his ac- 
count, and for the sake of his gospel, they should reeeive 
there a hundred-fold, and sit upon thrones with him, judging 
the tribes of Israel. The words are these: “And Jesus 
said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have 
followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall 
sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” Matt. xix. 27, 
28. These thrones must, in all reason, be the same with the 
thrones mentioned, Dan. vii., Rev. xx. 4, and therefore mark 
the same time and state: and seeing, in those places, they 
plainly signify the millennial state, or the kingdom of Christ 
and his saints, they must here signify the same in this pro- 
mise of our Saviour to his suffering followers. And as to 
the word παλιγγενεσία, which is here translated “regenera- 
tion,” it is well known, that both the Greek philosophers 
and Greek fathers use that word for the renovation of the 
world, which is to be at or before the millennial state. 

Ans. In answer to this argument, I shall not take notice, 
that what the argument saith is promised to Christ’s disciples 
and followers in general, is indeed promised only to his 
twelve apostles, to them who had then lost all, “and fol- 
lowed him,” Matt. xii. 17, to them who had “continued 
with him in his temptations,” Luke xxii. 28. The thrones 
here mentioned, therefore, cannot be the thrones spoken of 
in Daniel and the Revelation ; for these thrones are peculiar 
to the twelve apostles: those in the Revelation are supposed 
to belong to all who have a share in the first resurrection : 
the apostles sit upon these thrones, only “to judge the 
twelve tribes of Israel ;”” but they “who sit on the thrones,” 
mentioned in the Revelation, are to “rule over the nations, 
and judge them,” Rev. ii. 26, 27, ili. 21, v. 10, xx. 4—6. 
But, 

Secondly, I grant, the παλιγγενεσία, or “regeneration,” 
here mentioned, may be referred to the consummation of the 
world, and to the new heavens and earth of which the pro- 
phets speak: but then I add, this παλιγγενεσία, or “ new 
birth,” is only that of the church of Christ, that ζωοποίησις, 
or “new life,” that ζωὴ ἐκ νεκρῶν, “ life from the dead,” she 
shall receive, when all Israel shall be saved, and the “ ful- 
ness of the gentiles” shall flow in to them. For, 

First, The persons here to be judged, are only the twelve 
tribes of Israel: which makes it more than probable that 
the whole promise made to the apostles respects their go- 
vernment over these tribes, coming in at the close of the 
world, after the fall of antichrist; and that not by a resur- 
rection of their persons, but by a reviviscence of that spirit 
which resided in them, and of that purity and knowledge 
which they delivered to the world; and chiefly by admission 
of their gospel to be the standard of their faith, and the di- 
rection of their lives. 

Secondly, It hath been observed already, that the delivery 
of the Jews from their former captivities and miseries, is 
always represented as a ζωοποίησις, “ἃ giving of life, and a 
resurrection to the Jews.” And thus may those words of | 
St. John be primarily referred to them; viz. “I saw thrones, 
and they sat upon them, and judgment was given to them” 
(xx. 4): though these things belong not to them only, but 
in general “to him that overcometh” (ii. 26, 27, ili. 1). 
Seeing then their return from their captivity, is, in the style 
of the prophets, usually represented as a παλιγγενεσία, “a 
reviving,” or “new life; why may not the time of their 
most glorious conversion, and collection from all the corners 
of the earth, be by our Saviour represented under that 
known metaphor? And this conversien of the Jewish na- 
tion, being by me placed in St. John’s epocha, viz. after the 
destruction of the beast, and the death and slaughter of the 
armies of them that fought for him, or worshipped his image ; 
and her converted members being, in my opinion, the very 
“bride of the Lamb, which had made herself ready,” and, 
after a long divorce, was now married to God again, I com- 
ply in this with all the ancient millenaries, and especially 
with Justin Martyr,*-when he saith, this παλιγγενεσία “ is 
the mystery of all that expect Jesus Christ to appear at 


* “Orep καὶ διὰ ᾿Ησαίου ἑκήρυκτο διὰ πλείονων, ἐν οἷς καὶ τὸ 
μυστήριον πάλιν τῆς γενέσεως ἡμῶν, καὶ ἁπλῶς πάντων, τὸν Χρισ- 
τὸν ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ φανήσεσθαι προσδοκώντων. Dial. cum Tryph. 
Ρ. 312, B, et p. 307. : 


TREATISE ON 


Jerusalem,” spoken of by Isaiah, ch. Ixvi., and that «all 
Christians entirely orthodox, expect to spend a thousand 
years in Jerusalem,’ as the prophet Isaiah hath foretold, 
saying, “ There shall be a new heaven and new earth:” for 
as these things are spoken by a prophet of the Jews (one 
sent to speak these things to them), so is it beyond dispute, 
that they chiefly and immediately concern that nation, and 
her zexvoyovia, new birth of a numerous offspring, after a long 
barrenness (Ixvi. 7—9), and her exaltation to a high estate 
of excellence and glory ; and that so visible to the gentiles 
that all nations and tongues shall see her glory. 

As for the following words, urged stifly by the ancient 
and some latter millenaries, viz. “« And every one that hath 
forsaken house, or brethren, or sister, or father, or mother, 
or wife and children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall 
receive a hundred-fold now in this time, houses, and brothers, 
and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands; and in 
the world to come, eternal life :” it is, in my opinion, 

First, Very unreasonable to interpret these words of bless- 
ing to be conferred on men after the resurrection; for they 
that are thought “ worthy to be the sons of the resurrection,” 
saith our Lord, “neither marry nor are given in marriage,” 
Luke xx. 35. Whence therefore should they have these 
mothers, and these children, not to add wives, a hundred- 
fold? They are made like to angels at the resurrection ; 
and what should such angelic persons do with, what advan- 
tage will they reap from, a hundred houses, or a like in- 
crease of land, in earth 1 

If you reply, that these words of our Saviour relate not 
to the first resurrection ; of which this text, which speaks of 
wives and children, is to be interpreted, but only to the 
second and general resurrection; I answer, that the words 
are general, and therefore must include all that are “sons 
of the resurrection.” Moreover, by admitting this double 
resurrection, the first, in which they that are raised might 
marry, or have wives and children, and the second, in which 
they could not, the objection or inquiry of the sadducees is 
partly left unanswered; for this distinction doth suppose a 
resurrection, in which the ground of their inquiry might 
take place. 

Secondly, This wonderful increase is promised, νῦν, ‘at 
present,” ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τούτῳ, “in this time of life,” Mark x. 
30, Luke xviii. 28, in opposition to what they shall receive 
“in the age to come.” Now the millennium is still placed, 
by Dr. Burnet, in the age to come after the conflagration of 
the world; this promise therefore cannot refer to his mil- 
lennium, nor yet to any other which begins after the resur- 
rection of these persons; for that time can with no propriety 
of speech be said to be now; nor can the blessings then 
received, be said to be received in this life. Moreover, these 
blessings are to be received, μετὰ διωγμῶν, “with persecu- 
tions;” it being the known observation of critics and gram- 
marians,* that pera with a genitive case, signifies “ with.” 
and denotes, τὸν αὐτὸν καιρὸν, “the same time;” and only 
with an accusative case signifies “ after,’ and denotes ὕσγερο- 
χρονίαν, “ a following time ;” so. that these persecutions must 
be contemporary with the enjoyment of these blessings; 
whereas a general peace, and freedom from all persecutions, 
is made a necessary character of the millennial state. 

Lastly, These words afford an argument against the doc- 
trine of the millennium; because, according to them, the 
only blessing to be received, ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι τῷ ἐρχομένῳ, “in the 
age to come,” is “life everlasting ;’’ which blessing is con- 
fined to heaven, and not to be enjoyed on the earth, our 
« house eternal being in the heavens” (2 Cor. v. 1), and-our 
“inheritance eternal reserved in the heavens for us:” and 
therefore, they to whom the promise is here made, are not 
in the world to come to live a thousand years on earth, or 
to enjoy the temporal blessings promised here ; because they 
are not to be enjoyed in the world to come, but now, in this 
present life; and because the only blessing promised in the 
world to come, is not to be enjoyed on earth, but is reserved 
in the heavens for us (1 Pet. 1. 4). 

Obj. 4. St. Peter, in his sermon to the Jews, after our 
Saviour’s ascension, tells them, that he wiil come again, and 
that there will be then a restitution of all things, such as was 
promised by the prophets: «‘ The heavens,” saith he, “must 


* Phavorinus. { Dr. Burnet, p. 185. 


THE MILLENNIUM. 


receive him till the time of restitution of all things, which 
God hath spoken by the mouth of all his prophets since the 
world began” (Acts iii. 20, 21). 

Ans. I answer, hat these words cannot be meant of a 
restitution of all things to their former state: for sure it is 
very improper to say, there will be a restitution of all things 
to their former state, which God hath spoken by the mouth 
of all his holy prophets ;” for since these things relate to the 
forerunner of our Lord, Christ’s coming in the flesh, his life, 
death, resurrection, and ascension, the preaching of the gos- 
pel to the gentiles, the reign of antichrist, the calling of the 
Jews, and the coming in of the fulness of the gentiles, these 
things may very well be said to be exhibited, performed, 
accomplished, and consummated: but I see not with what 
propriety or truth they can be said to be restored to their 
former states, or be renewed; and therefore ἄχρι χρόνων ἀπο- 
καταστάσεως πάντων, is, by the Syriac, rendered, ἐς Until the 
fulness of the time of all things ;” by the Arabic, « Till the 
time in which all things shall be perfected,” or « finished ;” 
by Tertullian,* Adusque tempora exbibitionis omnium; by 
Irenwus,t Usque ad tempus dispositionis omnium, i. e. “ Till 
the time of the exhibition, or disposal of all things;” by 
Gcumenius, “ Till the time that all things do εἰς πέρας ἐλθεῖν, 
come to an end.” And for the confirmation of this import 
of the word, we have the suffrage of Hesychius and Phavo- 
Tinus, that ἀποκατάστασις is τελείωσις, “the consummation of 
a thing.” Hence then I argue thus against this doctrine: 
Since Christ is to continue in heaven till the completion or 
consummation of all things, spoken by the holy prophets, 
if the millennium were any of them, Christ must continue in 
heaven till the consummation of that also, and therefore is 
not to come down from heaven to reign on earth till the 
millennium be ended ; nor can that be contemporary with 
our Lord’s second coming, which is from heaven. 

The arguments produced in favour of this millennium, from 
Rom. viii. 19—21, from 2 Thess. ii. 1, from Heb. i. 6, and 
ii. 5, and from 2 Pet. iii. 8—12, are sufficiently answered in 
the notes on those places. 


CHAPTER IV. 


§. I. This chapter contains arguments against the literal 
resurrection, and the reign of martyrs upon earth a thou- 
sand years. First, From the inconsistency of it with the 
happy state of souls departed. §. If. Secondly, From 
the accurate description of the resurrection in the holy 
scripture, without any mention of a first and second resur- 
rection, and with such descriptions of the qualities of the 
bodies raised, the efficient cause, of the time, circumstances, 
and consequents of it, which suit not with the doctrine of 
the millennium. §. III. Thirdly, From the inconsistency 
of it with the genius of the Christian faith, and the nature 
of the gospel promises. 


Havre thus shown, that scripture and antiquity afford 
no sure foundation for this supposed resurrection of the 
saints and martyrs to reign with Christ on earth a thousand 
years, I proceed now to show the inconsistence of this doc- 
trine with many things delivered in the holy scripture. 

§. I. First, This doctrine seems not well consistent with 
the happy state of souls departed, recorded In the sacred 
writings ; for can it rationally be supposed, that those “ spirits 
of just men made perfect,” which are now with Christ (Heb. 
xii. 23), and, being “absent from the body are present with 
the Lord” (2 Cor. v. 8, Phil. i. 23), should leave those 
blessed mansions, or quit that happy state, to live on earth 
again a thousand years? that they who are already “ entered 
into rest” (Luke xxiii. 43), and who enjoy all the delights 
and satisfactions which paradise itself affords, should quit that 
station to enjoy peace and plenty upon earth? can they ex- 
pect to be more righteous and holy, or to have more divine 
and heavenly speculations, or better company, or a more full 
fruition of their Lord on earth, than they enjoyed in paradise? 
if not, who can imagine that God should thus degrade them 
after so long enjoyment of those happy regions, or that they 
should voluntarily quit those mansions for any temporal 
enjoyments of the body, any meat or drink, or earthly plea- 
sures, which they had formerly denied themselves, and were 


* De Resur. Carn. cap. 23. { B. lib. iii. cap. 12. 


1131 


even dead to whilst they lived here; or for any temporary 
converse upon that earth in which they only lived as pilgrims 
and strangers, still “looking for a better country, that is, a 
heavenly ?” (Heb. xi. 13. 16.) And if this change seems 
not consistent with the state of happy souls in general, much 
less will it comport with those especial privileges and high 
prerogatives, supposed by some fathers to belong unto the 
souls of martyrs, viz. that they do instantly receive their 
crowns, and are admitted to a fuller vision, and a more inti- 
mate enjoyment of the God of heaven; for the higher their 
advancement, the greater must their degradation be, when 
they return again to live on earth. So that this doctrine 
seems least of all consistent with the state of those Christian 
sufferers, who are supposed to be the very persons for whom 
it chiefly was designed, and to whom it is chiefly promised. 

Secondly, Let us compare the resurrection mentioned by 
the holy scripture, with that supposed by the millenaries, and 
we shall easily discern, that no man reasonably can desire 
to enjoy the latter who can be made partaker of the former. 

They who believe the resurrection promised in scripture, 
expect our Lord “from heaven to change their vile bodies 
into the likeness of Christ’s glorious body” (Phil. iii. 21). 
The millenaries expect him to change or to restore them 
into such bodies, as shall be still mortal, corruptible bodies ; 
for else, what need of meat and drink, what pleasure can 
they reap from their plenty? The first expect “this cor- 
ruptible should then put on incorruption, this mortal put on 
immortality” (1 Cor. xv. 53). ‘The second, that it should 
do this only after a thousand years; for they suppose (book 
iv. ch. 9, p. 206), “that nature may be weak,” and they may 
be “desirous to be dissolved” in the millennial state. The 
first expect, that their “dishonourable bodies should be 
raised in glory” (ver. 43). ‘The second, that they be first 
raised with their dishonourable parts. The first, that the 
body should be raised ‘a spiritual and a celestial body,” 
bearing “the image of the heavenly Adam” (ver. 44. 48). 
The second, that it be first raised an earthly body, bearing 
the image of the earthly Adam. And oh! how inglorious, 
how despicable, is the resurrection which these men expect, 
compared with the resurrection promised in the holy scrip- 
ture! How much more happy would the saints and martyrs 
be, could they immediately enjoy the scripture resurrection, 
than by enjoying that which the millenaries have allotted 
to them? “And why should any one conceive they should 
not do it? Is it because there is a necessity they should 
first live on earth a thousand years,* to prepare them for 
heaven and eternal glory; ut paulatim assuescant capere 
Deum, as Ireneusy says,‘ that they may by degrees enlarge 
their capacities, fit and accustom themselves to receive God ;’ 
or, as he says in another place, that ‘they may become 
capable of the glory of the Father,’ that is, capable of bear- 
ing the glory and presence of God?” Sure this is not for the 
credit of the martyrs, that they should not be fit or capable 
to receive God, and enjoy the glory of the Father, without 
employing their contemplations and devotions upon earth a 
thousand years, when those holy persons, who rise not till 
the general resurrection, shall from that time be “for ever 
with the Lord” (1 Thess. iv. 17), and be immediately par- 
takers of the beatific vision. Moreover, what is it that 
must be thus fitted and capacitated by contemplation to re- 
ceive God, and to enjoy this blessed vision? Is it not the 
soul? and can she not as well contemplate him under the 
altar or the throne, or whilst she doth abide in paradise? Is 
coming down from those celestial regions to this dull earth, 
the way to elevate the soul to heaven? Will putting ona 
corruptible body, a body needing plenty of earthly things, 
and finding pleasure in them, be the way to quicken and 
invigorate her heavenly flights and aspirations? Or, is there 
no true friendship,; no ingenuous conversation to be had in 
paradise, that the soul must descend to earth to enjoy it? 
Or, is it necessary as Tertullian§ and others] argue, by way 


* Dr. Burnet, book iv. ch. 9. 

+ Lib. v. cap. 32. + Dr. Burnet, p. 293. 

§ In compensationem eorum que in seculo vel despexi- 
| mus, vel amisimus: siquidem et justum, et Deo dignum, 
illic exaltare famulos ejus ubi sunt afilicti in nomine ipsius, 
| Tertull. adv, Marcion. lib. iii. cap. 23, p. 412. 

| In qua enim conditione Jaboraverunt, sive afflicti sunt 


1132 


of retribution, “that the body which hath suffered, may be 
rewarded in like kind;” i.e. that it may be now gratified 
with bodily delights, the pleasures of the throat and palate, 
fine clothes, and innocent diversions here on earth? As ifa 
« change of this vile body into the likeness of Christ’s glorious 
body,” were not a better and far more glorious reward of all 
its sufferings. 

Arg. 2. §.II. A second argument against this doctrine, of 
a proper resurrection to reign with Christ a thousand years 
on earth, is taken from the accurate description of the resur- 
rection contained in the holy scripture. For, 

Tirst, In all the descriptions the Holy Ghost so largely gives 
us of the resurrection, and the future judgment, in the evan- 
gelists and the epistles, there is no mention of a first and 
second resurrection, or of any prerogative of some saints 
above others in it, or of any precedence of any before others, 
as to the resurrection of their bodies; which might have 
reasonably been expected, had this doctrine been then re- 
ceived, in some of those places where the thing is so largely 
and critically discoursed on, as to inform us twice, that the 
order of the resurrection shall be this, “that the dead in 
Christ shall rise first” (1 Thess. iv. 16, 17), and then, “ we 
that are alive shall be changed,” and that Christ is raised “as 
the first-fruits,” and that “afterward they that are Christ's” 
shall be raised “at his coming:” here, I confess, is mention 
made of an order in the resurrection; for it is said, “In | 
Christ shall all be made alive, every man in his own order,” 
1 Cor. xv. 33, but then the order is expressed thus, “ Christ 
the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's. Whereas, 
according to the millennial hypothesis, the words should 
rather have run thus, “ Christ the first-fruits,’’ then the mar- 
tyrs, and a thousand years after the residue of the just: in 
the Epistle to the Thessalonians also, there is no order of 
the resurrection of the dead mentioned; but of them altoge- 
ther, and without distinction, it is said, «Them that sleep in 
Christ will God bring with him, and the dead in Christ shall 
rise first.” 

In answer to this argument, we have been told, that “as 
the scripture speaks of the resurrection in gross, without | 
distinguishing first and second, so it speaks of the coming of 
our Saviour, without distinction of first and second.” But 
this is a great oversight; for the scripture gives express no- 
tice of Christ’s coming ἐκ δευτέρου, “a second time,” for the 
salvation of his servants, Heb. ix. 20, and of his “ coming | 
again,” to receive them into those mansions he is gone to 
prepare for them, John xiv.3. There being therefore equal 
reason to expecta like distinction betwixt the first and second 
resurrection properly so called, the constant silence of the 
scriptures, as to that matter, is no small prejudice against that 
hypothesis, which doth suppose a first and second resurrec- 
tion. 

Secondly, The scripture in those places containeth many 
things which seem most plainly inconsistent with that doc- 
trine ; for either in those places the scripture speaketh only 
of the second resurrection exclusively of the first, and then 
it is not true which Mr. Mede asserts, that “ the day of judg- 
ment, and the time of the resurrection, include both the 
millennium and the general resurrection ;” or, that “ the scrip- 
ture speaks of the resurrection in the gross, without distin- 
guishing betwixt the first and second ;” for, if it speaks only 
of the second exclusively of the first, it must speak of it dis- 
tinctly from the first, or it must in those places intend to 
speak of both conjunctly and without distinction ; and then 
what is said in them must be applicable to them both without 
distinction. 

Again, The scripture in those places speaketh many things: 
first, as to the nature of the resurrection, and the qualities of 
the bodies raised. Secondly, as to the efficient cause of the 
resurrection, our Lord Jesus. Thirdly, as to the time of the 
resurrection. Fourthly, as to the circumstances, and the 
immediate consequences of that resurrection, which are by 
no means applicable to the first and the particular resurrec- 
tion supposed by the millenaries, but only to the general 
resurrection, which all Christians own. And, 

First, That which the scripture saith of the nature and the 
qualifications of the bodies raised, is this, that they shall be 


vmnibns modis, probati per sufferentiam, justum est in ipsd 
recipere eos fructus sufferentie. Iren. lib. v. cap. 32. 


TREATISE ON 


raised “glorious, spiritual, immortal, and incorruptible 
bodies ;” for then “this corruptible must put on incorrup- 
tion, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. xv. 
42.49); then shall we bear “the image of the heavenly 
Adam,” or of that Lord from heaven who shall « change our 
vile bodies into the likeness of his glorious body” (Phil. iii. 
21); then shall we “be clothed upon with our house from 
heaven, and death shall be swallowed up in victory” (2 Cor. 
v. 1,4). Now, can a body raised in glory, i. e. in clarity 
and in splendour, shining like the sun, and made “like to 
Christ’s glorious body,” and “like unto the angels,” as they 
shall be, saith Christ, who are “ thought worthy of the resur- 
rection,” have any need of all the plenty which Dr. Burnet 
hath prepared for it on earth ?”’* Can it feed upon or relish 
any of the banquets which God, saith Ireneus, and all the 
ancient millenaries, hath prepared for it? Can a body raised 
in power, i.e. free from all renitency, all pain and lassitude, 
continue still, as Dr. Burnet (book iv. ch. 9, p. 206), makes 
the bodies of his raised millenaries to do, under such weak- 
ness of nature as “ will not suffer them to continue long under 
strong passions, or intenseness of mind?” Can a spiritual 
body, free from grossness and ponderosity, from needing rest, 
sleep, clothing, sustenance, receive advantage from that uni- 
versal plenty (ch. 7, p. 184. 186), or need those goods of 
fortune, that external felicity, that temporal happiness, he 
hath provided for it upon earth? Can these men, raised 
with immortal and incorruptible bodies, which have already 
“swallowed up death in victory,” wish to be dissolved, as he 
saith they will? (p. 206.) Can the devil, when loosed, be 
so foolish, as to summon up his armies to fight against and 
kill them who are immortal, and can die no more? Can 
Gog and Magog, with all their numerous host, hope to pre- 
vail against them, or even dare to assault such shining radiant 
bodies as they then will have? “In a word, can such bodies 
need or receive any farther exaltation to fit them for heaven, 
or for their elevation into the clouds, to be for ever with the 
Lord? If not, why should they live a thousand years on 
earth after God had thus fitted and prepared them for their 
habitation in the highest heavens? I therefore do imagine, 
that when the patrons of this millennial resurrection find 
themselves thus pressed, they will assign to their new-raised 
inhabitants of the earth, a body capable of enjoying the good 
things on earth and taking pleasure in those goods of fortune 
they have there provided for them, and leave their bodies to 
be changed after the millennium, “ into the likeness of Christ’s 
glorious body,” and to suffer then another change into celes- 


| tial and spiritual bodies, though not another resurrection : 


and it seems necessary for them to admit of the forementioned 
absurdities, or to admit of this hypothesis; for when the 
apostle saith, “« The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we 
shall be changed,” their new-raised inhabitants must belong 
to the dead, and so be raised incorruptible, and so incapable 
of those earthly goods they mentioned, as their reward on 
earth; or to the living, and then they must be changed. 
And yet the shift is plainly contrary to the account St. Paul 
hath given us of the resurrection of the body; for he ex- 
pressly saith, that when this corruptible, weak, dishonoura- 
ble, earthly body, shall be raised, it shall be raised in incor- 
ruption, glory, power, and be a spiritual body; that to the 
natural succeeds the spiritual body, to the earthy the hea- 
venly body (1 Cor, xv.43, 44), to the body bearing the image 
of the earthy, the body bearing the image of the heavenly 
Adam: whereas this shift must infer a body raised not in 
glory, or in incorruption, not a spiritual and a heavenly 
body, and so make these martyrs twice bear the image of the 
earthy Adam, or at least at their resurrection not to bear the 
image of the heavenly. Again, they who are then alive, and 
shall be changed, saith the apostle, are only those who never 
slept in the grave (ver. 51, 52). Now this cannot be true 
of martyrs raised from the dead, and so the change here 
mentioned cannot belong to them. 

Secondly, This doctrine seems inconsistent with what the 
scripture most plainly hath delivered concerning our Lord 
Jesus, the efficient cause, as. well as the exemplar, of the 
resurrection of those that are Christ's: for he that is the 
author of this-resurrection, is ὃ Κύριος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, “the Lord 
coming down from heaven,” to effect this, 1 Cor. xv. 47, our 


* Dr. Burnet, book iv. ch. 10, p. 217. 


" 


THE MILLENNIUM. 


Lord descending down dr’ οὐρανοῦ, “from the heavens,” 
1 Thess. iv. 16. ‘he time when God shall give to those 
that have been persecuted and afflicted, rest with the apos- 
tles, who sure will have a share in the first resurrection, is 
the time “of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ from 
heaven,” 2 Thess. i. 7. The time of this millennium, say 
the patrons of it, is the time of the “restitution of all 
things.” Now et that time, saith the apostle Peter, our 
Jesus is to be “sent down from the heavens” (Acts ili. 20, 
21), they being only to contain him till that time. And one 
would think, that if the saints must reign with Christ on 
earth a thousand years, he must be with them on the earth: 
but this the patrons of the millennium will by no means 
own, but look upon it as a great absurdity. For, that 
« Christ should leave the right hand of his Father, to come 
and pass a thousand years here below, living upon earth in 
a heavenly body ; this, I confess,” saith Dr. Burnet,* “is a 
thing I never could digest.” And “I dare not imagine,” 
saith Mr. Mede,+ “ of this presence of Christ in his kingdom, 
that it should be a visible converse upon earth; for the 
kingdom of Christ ever hath, and shall be reznum ecelorum, 
a kingdom whose throne and kingly residence is in heaven.” 
Here then the scripture account of the resurrection, that it 
shall be effected by the Lord Jesus coming down from 
heaven, and the millennium of the ancients, is at once re- 
jected; for, as Lactantius} saith, “'The Son of God shall 
come, and be conversant among men a thousand years, and 
tule them with a righteous empire; he shall reign with them 
upon earth;” so was this the avowed doctrine of all the 
ancient millenaries: for they not only did assert his reign on 
earth, but assigned Jerusalem as the peculiar place of his re- 
sidence, whilst he reigned upon it. 

Thirdly, This doctrine is still more evidently repugnant to 
the time assigned for the resurrection of the just; for they 
are to be raised, saith the apostle, “in a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump (1 Cor. xv. 52); for 
the trumpet shall sound, and (then) the dead shall be raised 
incorruptible, and we” that are alive, and have not slept, 
«shall be changed ; for the Lord himself shall descend from 
heaven with a shout, and with the voice of the archangel, 
and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first.” Here we are taught, that the dead in Christ, and so 
the martyrs, shall not be raised till our Lord’s descent from 
heaven ; that then they shall be raised in a moment, in the 
twinkling of an eye; that, immediately upon their being 
raised, they that are then alive shall be changed. St. Jerome§ 
therefore said, with good ground, that the apostle by these 
words, cunctam prime et secund@ resurrectionis excludit 
fabulam, “destroys the fable of the first and second resurrec- 
tion ;” by asserting that the resurrection of all that are dead 
in Christ, and sleep in him, shall be performed “in a 
moment,” and “in the twinkling of an eye, at the sounding 
of the last trump,” and “ at the shout” or voice “ of the last 
angel:” which leaves no room for a whole thousand years 
betwixt the first and second resurrection, unless the angel 
should be supposed to shout, or the trump sound, a thousand 
years. “The hour cometh” (saith our Lord, John v. 28) 
‘when all that are in their tombs shall hear my voice, and 
shall come forth.” And sure that must bea long hour which 
lasteth a full thousand years. Again, there shall be pious 
persons living and unchanged, when all the pious that were 
dead are raised ; “for the dead in Christ shall rise first, then 
we that are alive shall be changed” (1 Thess. iv. 16, 17), we 
that have not yet slept, saith the apostle. Place now the 
millennium after the conflagration of the world, and all things 
in it, and where will you find these pious men alive, or how 


* Book iv. chap. 10. 

t Mr. Mede on some passages of the Revelation, p. 603. 

+ Filius hominis veniet, et mille annos inter homines ver- 
sabitur, eosque justissimo imperio reget. Lib. vii. cap. 24. 
Jn terré cum his ipse regnabit. Epit. cap. xi. p. 758. De 
millenariis in genere tradit Hieronymus, quod post resurrec- 
tionem aiunt in carne Dominum cum sanctis regnaturum. 
Tn yoce Papias. Sanctos cum Christo in terra regnaturos 
docuit Nepos. Gennad. cap. 55, Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. 
cap. 22. 

§ Ep. tom. iii. f. 66, A 


1133 


will you preserve them from those flames? Dr. Burnet* 
finds a great difficulty, not common to all, as he imagines, 
but peculiar to his own invention of a millennium after the 
conflagration of the present earth; viz. “how Gog and 
Magog should get into this new earth, the wicked being all 
consumed in those flames.” He is not hardy enough to say 
that this is the poetic tale of the giants, though he saith 
(p- 219) it hath great affinity with it. And therefore he 
produces these men, according to the philosophy of Lucre- 
tius and Mr, Hobbes (p. 220), “ from the slime of the earth, 
and the heat of the sun, as brute creatures were at first :” 
but whence come these pious men that have not yet slept, 
into this new earth, is a fresh difficulty ; and to this the doc- 
tor hath yet nothing to say, for he either thought not of 
them, or was unwilling to take up with the rabbinical notion, 
that they had eagles’ wings given them to mount up into the 
air, whilst the earth was on fire. 

Fourthly, This doctrine seems inconsistent with many cir- 
cumstances of the resurrection mentioned in the holy scrip- 
ture, for that speaks constantly of the resurrection of all 
saints, as of a resurrection not to a temporal life on earth, 
but to an eternal in the heavens. «They shall come forth 
out of their tombs to the resurrection of life,” John v. 28. « He 
that seeth and believeth in me, he that eateth my flesh, hath 
eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day,” vi. 54. 
That teacheth us, that when Christ comes again, they shall 
be received into the heavenly mansions prepared for them, 
John xiv. 2, 3, and xvii. 24, “and shall be with him where 
he now is; that when Christ, who is their life, shall appear, 
they shall appear with him in glory,” Col. iii. 14, that « when 
he doth appear, they shall be like him, and see him as he 
is.” Whereas, according to the hypothesis of the millena- 
ties, when Christ appears, and when he comes again, they 
who have been his choicest and most faithful servants shall 
not immediately be raised to eternal life, but first to that 
life which is but temporal; they shall not be received into 
heavenly, but into earthly mansions; they shall not be glo- 
rified with him, appear with him in glory, be like him in his 
glory, or “see him.as he is,” till they have spent a thousand 
years on earth to fit them for those blessed mansions, and to 
prepare them for this beatific vision. Moreover, it is said of 
all the dead in Christ, of all that slept in Jesus, that they 
shall be raised first, and that then immediately we “ that are 
alive shall be snatched up with them in clouds to meet the 
Lord in the air, and then we shall be for ever with the 
Lord.” Nowif this be so, surely we cannot expect afterward 
to live on earth a thousand years; for, as Nyssen puts the 
question, τί ἐστι χρεία τῆς κάτω γῆς οἷς ἢ μετάρσιος ζωὴ ἐν 
ἐλπίσιν ἐστίν; “ What need is there that they should live 
below on earth, who hope thus to live in heaven,” and to be 
“ever with the Lord?” Especially since these words plainly 
seem to speak not of a temporal, but an eternal life with 
Christ, not by enjoyment of him upon earth, but by transla- 
tion from it to heaven? Again, when the same apostle 
saith, “ This I say, brethren, that flesh and blood shall not 
inherit the kingdom of God, neither shall corruption inherit 
incorruption” (1 Cor. xv. 20), and thence concludes, “ that 
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be 
changed ;” does he not sufficiently insinuate that we shall be 
raised not to enjoy an earthly but a heavenly kingdom, and 
that our raised bodies, being glorified, shall not consist of 
flesh and blood? And what then will they do with all that 
plenty, and that great affluence of the goods of fortune, 
which the millenaries do so highly value? In a word, the 
comfort which the apostle gives the Thessalonians concern- 
ing their departed friends,+ who had suffered much affliction, 
persecution, tribulation, and doubtless many of them death, 
for Christ’s sake, is only this, that they who remained alive 
should not prevent them in the enjoyment of the happiness 
promised to the body, but “the dead in Christ should rise 
first,” and then the living should be changed; not this, that 
these sufferers for the sake of Christ should rise a thousand 
years before the rest to reign with Christ on earth, which yet 
is by the millenaries deemed great matter of their consola- 


* Book iv. chap. 10, p. 218, 219. 

+ Caten. in Mat. v. p. 119. 

+1 Thess. i. 6, ii. 14, 15, iii. 3, 2 Thess. i, 4—7. 
402 


1134 


tion, and so was very proper to have been mentioned there, 
had it been any article of Christian faith. 

Arg. 3. §. III. This reign of Christians upon earth agrees 
not with the genius of Christian faith, or with the nature of 
Christian promises, or with that frame and temper of spirit 
it requires from the professors of Christianity. For, 

1. The Christian is represented as one who is entirely 
dead to the world, and to the things of the world; one who 
is not to love it, or the things of it, who is to use it as if he 
used it not, as one “ whose conversation is in heaven”’ (Phil. 
iii. 19), and it is made the character of one who is an enemy 
to the cross of Christ, that he minds earthly things ; whereas, 
if this be a true gospel promise made to Christians for their 
consolation and encouragement, under the troubles of this 
present world, that they shall, after this life is ended, live 
again on earth a life of indolence, and peace, and plenty, in 
the enjoyment of the goods of fortune: if this be one great 
part of the reward which God hath promised to those that 
suffer for his name, sure it becomes them to have their minds 
and their affections set upon it, and to live in expectation of 
it, and to desire to enjoy these goods of fortune, this peace 
and plenty upon earth; and it would rather be the charac- 
ter of those who bear the cross, in prospect of these blessings, 
to mind earthly things. That, saith St. Paul, which makes 
the sufferings of this present world so light unto us, is this 
consideration, “that we look not at the things which are 
seen, but which are not seen,” not at things temporal, but 
eternal (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18), even at “a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens” (v. 1). Whereas if this be 
one of the great and precious promises contained in the gos- 
pel, and made for the encouragement of Christians to suffer 
for Christ’s sake, they must then look not only at things 
eternal, but things temporal; or for a temporal house on 
earth, as well as one eternal in the heavens, for their sup- 
posed reign on earth will be but temporal. 

Again, the exhortation of our Lord, in his admirable ser- 
mon on the mount, runs thus: “ Lay not up for yourselves 
treasures upon earth, but lay up treasures in heaven ; for 
where your treasure is, there will your hearts be also” (Matt. 
vi. 19—21). And again, “ Provide yourselves bags that wax 
not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not” (Luke 
xii. 53, 54). St. Paul exhorts all that are risen with Christ 
to “set their hearts and their affections not on things on the 
earth, but on things above, where Christ sitteth at the right 
hand of God” (Col. iii. 1—3), and that because they are 
dead with Christ unto these worldly things, “and their life is 
hid with Christ in God ;” so that when « Christ, who is their 
life, shall appear, they shall appear with him in glory.” And 
yet if our Lord Christ, in that very sermon, as the millena- 
ries suppose, encouraged them to suffer with patience and 
meekness upon this consideration, that they “ should inherit 
the earth,” and had pronounced them blessed upon this 
account, surely they might have suffered upon this very pros- 
pect of laying up for themselves treasures upon earth in this 
millennium, and might have had their hearts and affections 
placed upon them: for wherefore are they bid to lay up 
treasures in heaven, and to set their affections on things 
above, but because these are the blessings promised as the 
reward of Christian piety and patience? If, then, these 


TREATISE ON THE MILLENNIUM. 


great part of the reward which God hath promised to the 
piety and patience of the Christian, what reason can be given 
why he should not seek and set his heart upon them also? 
If it be so great a privilege to have a part in the first resur- 
rection, to enjoy this indolency, peace, and plenty upon 
earth, that the apostle styles them blessed who have a part 
in it, should they not seek and set their hearts upon that 
very thing in which their happiness consists? And yet the 
comfort which our Lord and his apostles do afford these 
Christian sufferers, is only this, that “great is their reward in 
heaven” (Matt. v. 12, Luke vi. 23); that “when they are 
tried, they shall receive a crown of glory” (James i. 12) ; 
and that they “have in heaven a better and a more enduring 
substance’’ (Heb. x. 34) : which as it placeth the reward and 
comfort of Christ’s suffering members not on earth, but in 
the heavens, and so gives us just reason to conclude our 
Lord and his apostles knew nothing of this reign on earth, or 
thought it no great matter of their consolation; so did it give 
occasion to the ancients to conclude thus,* “If the inherit- 
ance of martyrs be in heaven, their reign on earth can be no 
better than a fable.” 

Moreover, it is evident that all the ancient patrons of the 
millennium held that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the 


patriarchs and prophets, were to be sharers with the Chris-- 


tians in this reign on earth, and that then would the pro- 
mised Canaan be made good to them; whereas the apostles 
plainly tell us, that they expected no reward on earth, nor 
did they mind that Canaan where they dwelt, but only 
waited for a heavenly country: “ They confessed,” saith the 
apostle, “ that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth,” 
that “they were not mindful of that country whence they 
came out, but sought a better country, that is, a heavenly” 
(Heb. xi. 13.16). Since, then, these holy patriarchs and 
choice friends of God, not only sought not after, but even 
disdained any inheritance on earth; seeing the only country 
they did expect and look for was a heavenly country ; see- 
ing this only was the inheritance God, as their God, provided 
for them, and therefore that only which they were to enjoy 
at their resurrection, when they completely were to be made 
and treated as the sons of God: surely in vain must Chris- 
tians hope for any reign on earth with them, who, professing 
themselves pilgrims and strangers in it, declared they were 
not mindful of such a habitation in the land of Canaan, and 
who are at the resurrection to be made like the angels, and 
to enjoy not any earthly, but that heavenly country, which 
God hath graciously prepared for them. 

In a word, to foretell times of peace and plenty to suc- 
ceeding ages, to raise the expectation of a people whose 
backs are bowed down, and have been long enslaved and 
afflicted, is very suitable to this divine economy ; but to pro- 
mise plenty, and the goods of fortune, as the reward of Chris- 
tian piety and patience, and let them know that if they suffer 
for the sake of Christ, he will be sure to raise them up to 
plentiful enjoyments of the goods of fortune, this is too mean, 
too much beneath the sublime spirit of Christianity, to be 
one of her great and precious promises. 


* El ἐν οὐρανοῖς ἢ κληρονομία, μυϑώδης ἡ χιλιοέτης ἀποκατάσ- 


blessings to be enjoyed on earth after the resurrection be one | τασις. C5cum. 


HXAMEN 


VARIANTIUM LECTIONUM 


JORANN ES) ΓΙ 


IN 


NOVUM TESTAMENTUM. 


I. Lectionum harum fundamenta incerta plane esse, et ad lectionem textus hodierni convellendam protinus 
inidonea. 

II. Lectiones variantes que sunt momenti alicujus, aut sensum textus mutent, paucissimas esse, atque in iis 
omnibus lectionum textus defendi posse. 


Ubi ostenditur 
III. Lectiones variantes levioris momenti, quas latius expendimus, tales esse in quibus a lectione recepta 
rarissime recedendum est, 
IV. Millium in hisce variantibus lectionibus colligendis sepius arte non ingenua usum esse, falsis citationibus 
abundare, et sibimetipsi multoties contradicere, 


OPERA ET STUDIO 


DANIELIS WHITBY, §. T. P. 


ET ECCLESIZ SARISBURIENSIS PRECENTORIS, 


« Justus videtur qui primus est in causa sua, sed venit socius ejus, et investigabit eum.”—Pnoy. xyu11. 17, 


(1135) 


BAA HON, 


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1137 


EX A 


VARIANTIUM 


MEN 


LECTIONUM 


JOR ANNES MiG, s.0..2. 


IN 


NOVUM TESTAMENTUM. 


BENEVOLO LECTORI PREFATIO. 


PREFATIONIS CAPITA. 


§. 1. In hac prefatione proponitur, 1. Ecclesie Anglicane 
de regula fidei sententia. §. 2. 2. Ostenditur hance re- | 
gulam a Millio labefactari, partim multiplicando lec- 
tiones variantes sine ratione, sine modo, et contra om- 
nium fere codicum, versionum, patrum et scholiorum 
antiquorum fidem, in unius Vulgate, Coptice, aut Ethi- 
opice versionis gratiam; et partim agnoscendo corrup- 
telas, interpolationesque haud paucas, ab ipsis Ecclesie 
Christiane incunabulis, evoque pene apostolico, sanctis 
scripturis accidisse. §. 3, 4. Elucidantur hee ex ortho- 
doxorum de hereticis querelis, et ex iis que ethnicis, 
et hreticorum antesignanis sacrorum codicum fidem 
sugillantibus, respondent patres. 5. 5. Objectioni ex 
verbis Origenis περὶ τῆς τῶν ἀντιγράφων διαφορᾶς responsum 
datur. §. 6. De Millii prolegomenis notandum, 1. Male 
illum asserere patrum haud paucos codices mirum in 
modum vitiatos habuisse. 2. Patres diversis exempla- 
ribus usos esse, et subinde unius, subinde alterius tex- 
tum, prout ferebat animus, usurpasse. 3. Ea de scholiis, 
glossisque marginalibus que privatorum libros respici- 
unt, ad codices Grzcorum patrum perperam a Millio 
applicari, in quorum ecclesiis, fatente eodem Millio, libri 
emaculati, integri, et a scholiis fere liberi permanserunt ; 
quod etiam testimoniis, et argumentis e patrum scriptis 
deductis, confirmatur. 8. 7. Denique agitur de regulis 
in varia lectione discernenda observandis, et quid a nobis 
in tribus his libris actum sit, ostenditur. 


Tanvem aliquando improbo labore pensum hoc arduum 
absolvi, de quo pauca dicenda habeo. 

1. De operis totius momento. 

2. De Millii prolegominis. 

3. De iis que in hoc opere a me sunt prestita. 

§. 1. Ea est constans ecclesie Anglicanz, et omnium | 
evangelicorum, seu protestantium sententia, “sanctam 
scripturam regulam perfectam, satisque perspicuam con- | 
tinere, ex qua omnes fidei articuli creditu necessarii, om- | 
nesque morum regule ad salutem obtinendam requisite, | 
dignoscantur.” Hane normam qui destruit, aut huie saluti 
obtinende minus idoneam reddit, eo ipso fidei nostre fun- 
damentum subruit, et protinus evertit. 

Et quanquam id certum esse fateor, non ita divinam 
Providentiam sanctis scripturis invigilasse, ut nulla in eas | 
menda irrepserint, est tamen rationi consonum existimare, 
eum, qui sanctas scripturas pro sola ecclesie regula per 
omnia secula instituerit, ita huic regule prospexisse, ut 
fini suo obtinendo nunquam impar esset, aut inhabilis. 
Nec enim infinita sapientia consilio suo cadere unquam 
potest, nec bonitas summa, nedum justitia exigere ut vitam 
suam ad eam normam, sub pena gravissima, componerent 
Christiani, que huic officio prestando, ob corruptelas ei 
admistas, sit minus idonea. 

Est tamen certum hanc fidei nostre regulam ab iis plane 
subverti, qui negant textum originalem adeo purum et in- 

Vor. IV.—143 


corruptum ad manus nostras pervenisse, ut inde fidei arti- 
culos, aut morum regulas ad salutem necessarias, certo et 
explorato dignoscamus. 

§. 2. Doleo igitur, et moleste fero, tam multa me in Mil- 
lii_prolegomenis invenisse, que hujus fidei normam vel 
plane labefactare videantur, vel saltem aliis ansam nimis 
speciosam prebeant de ea dubitandi; aut demum pontifi- 
clorum, aliorumque contra hance regulam ratiunculis robur 
adjiciant et firmamentum. 

1, Etenim ipsa variantium lectionum immensa moles 
multoram animos suspensos reddit, iisque suspiciones haud 
parvas injiciet, parum quid certi ex libris in omni com- 
mate, immo in omni fere commatis parte variantibus, ex- 
pectari posse. Depravationem illam textus Greci, que 
ejus auctoritatem Jabefactet, ex magna illa lectionum va- 
rietate, quam in exemplaribus Grecis R. Stephani invenit, 
arguit Morinus; quantos igitur de textu eodem triumphos 
agent pontificii, cum viderint eas lectiones a Millio, per 
sex lustra in eo opere sudante, quadruplo auctiores factas et 
demum appendice copiosa locupletatas ? 

Id insuper cause nostre haud parum officere existimo, 
quod corruptelas, interpolationesque haud paucas, ab ipsis 
ecclesie Christiane incunabulis, evoque pene apostolico 
sanctis scripturis accidisse fidenter Millius pronunciet. De 
exemplari, quo usus est Clemens Alexandrinus sic loqui- 
tur, “Tllud nonnihil passum esse ex incertis notulis mar- 
ginalibus, nimirum ab initio fere canonis Novi Testamenti 
scholiaste (μετατιθέντας τὰ εὐαγγέλια quos vocat Clemens 
noster, Stro. iv. p. 490) ad oras codicum explicatorias 
stricturas apposuerunt; ex his autem, textu ad quem 
spectabant, clarioribus scilicet, scribe, pro arbitrio, alias 
atque alias intromiserunt in corpus libri, etiam genuine 
lectionis loco, modo obscura ea esset, aut (quod nonnun- 
quam) in speciem absurda; admisse vero in plurima mox 
apographa transierunt, auctoque post a lectoribus glossa- 
Tum marginalium, adeoque et lectionum interpolatarum 
numero, factum ut posteriores libri fuerint fere prioribus 
hac in parte maculatiores. Hujusmodi scholia aliqua irrep- 
serunt in Clementis codicem,” Prol. p. 61, col. 1. 

Quorsum hee tendunt unico exemplo demonstrabo, 
hereseos Artemonis fautores, qui Ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν σωτῆρα 
γίνεσθαι, i. 6. Christum merum hominem fuisse, acriter con- 
tendebant, affirmabant “priscos quidem omnes, ipsosque 
apostolos ταῦτα παρειληφέναι, καὶ δεδιδαγέναι ea que ab ipsis 
dicuntur-et accepisse, et docuisse ad Victoris P. R. tem- 
pora, a Zephyrini autem temporibus, qui Victori successit, 
παρακεχαράχθαι τὴν ἀλήθειαν, adulteratam fuisse veritatem,” 
quibus respondet Anonymus apud* Eusebius, jv δ᾽ ἂν 
τυχὸν πιθανὸν τὸ λεγόμενον, εἰ μὴ πρῶτον piv αντέτιπτον αὐτοῖς 
ai Seta: γραφαὶ, “Hoe forte credibile videretur, nisi iis 
repugnarent primo quidem sancte scripture, deinde fra- 
trum quorundam scripta Victoris etate superiora, nempe 
Justini, Miltiadis, Tatiani, et Clementis.”” Si autem sancte 
scripture, prout hic Millius dicit, interpolate fuissent, 
scribisque, et scholiastis tune permissum fuisset pro arbi- 
trio in corpus textus adulterinas lectiones pro genu- 


* Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 38. 


1138 


inis admittere, anonymi hujus adversus hereticos defensio 
rem adhue dubiam reliquisset. Porro Clemens, in loco 
allegato, ne verbum quidem habet de scholiis marginalibus, 
aut stricturis ad oram librorum positis, et postea in textum 
admissis, sed tantum περὶ τινῶν μετατιθέντων τὰ εὐαγγέλια, 
i. e. qui unum pro alio ponentes sententiar evangelicam 
mutabant, v. g. textus hee verba, ὄτι αὐτοὶ υἱοὶ Θεοῦ κλη- 
θήσονται ; alii sic exprimebant, ὅτ: αὐτοὶ ἔσονται τέλειοι ; alii 
sic, ὅτι αὐτοὶ ἔζουσι τόπον ὅπου οὐ διωχθήσονται, hoc autem ab 
hereticis, de quibus ibi loquitur Clemens in scriptis suis, 
factum esse nullus dubito. Hc autem inter variantes 
hujusce textus lectiones locum unquam obtinuisse prorsus 
nego, nec vel uno testimonio probavit Millius. 

8. 3. Preterea laudabili opera passim in prolegomenis 
suis ostendit Millius, nihil detrimenti sacros codices ex 
hereticorum corruptelis accepisse. Immo plane asserit, 
proleg. p. 75, col. 1, “Sententiam hanc de adulteratione 
sacri textus ab hereticis in presidium dogmatum suorum 
facta, merum somnium esse, si unius fere Marcionis, ejus- 
que sequacium corruptelas excipiamus, e quibus tamen 
ne una quidem aliqua invasit in exemplaria Catholicorum.” 
Quid vero hinc emolumenti nobis accedit, quidve cause 
nostre ex eo subsidium, quod hee ab hereticis facta non 
fuerint, que Millius ipse a Catholicis factitata esse non 
tantum lubens agnoscit, sed multitoties asserit! Rem uno 


exemplo elucidabo: Objiciunt Marcioni Tertullianus, οἱ 


Auctor Dial. contra Marcion. p. 151, eum loco ἄνθρωπος, 
1 Cor. xv. 47, substituisse Κύριος, quibus in variis lectioni- 
bus accedit Millius. 
Catholicorum libris, in quos irrepserit, Marcionem in suum 
Catholicon recepisse” dicit, atque ita Catholicos incu- 
sando hereticum absolvit. Hoc exemplo premisso audi- 
amus quid patres de hereticorum Bibliis, sacrique ecodicis 
corruptelis pronunciant. 

Primo negabant patres hereticos eosdem habere codices, 
easdemve scripturas cum orthodoxis, idque hac potissimum 
ratione moti, quod in dogmatum suorum defensionem scrip- 
turarum verba corrupissent: Salvianus nempe, quibusdam 
dicentibus, “eadem illos legere que nos legimus, eosdem 
apud illos prophetas Dei, eosdem apostolos, eosdem evan- 
gelistas esse,” ad hunc modum respondet,* “ Quomodo 
eadem qu ab anctoribus quondam malis, et male sunt 
interpolata, et male tradita; ac per hoc non jam eadern, 
quia non possunt penitus dici ipsa, que sunt in aliqua sui 
parte vitiata—Nos ergo tantum scripturas sanctas plenas, 
inviolatas, integras habemus, qui eas vel in fonte suo bibi- 
mus, vel certe de purissimo fonte per ministerium pure 
translationis haurimus.” Sin vero idem sanctis scripturis 
que apud orthodoxos recepte, et in ecclesiis continuo 
lecte essent, contigisset, quod Millius toties ingeminat, si 
patres s. codices, quarto et quinto seculo, mirum in mo- 
dum interpolatos in medium attulissent, eosque pro genu- 
inis scripturis accepissent, easdem ipsas scripturas que 
primitus ecclesie sunt tradite, haudquaquam habuisse 
fatendum est; si demum “interpolationibus, glossematis, 
scholiis ad marginem adscriptis” bis millies, ut tradit 
Millius, vitiati essent ii, quos nos habemus, codices, idem 
utique de nobis judicium ferendum est. 

Preterea scripturas incassum ab hereticis vitiatas esse 
monet Epiphanius, atque in ipsorum tantum perniciem, 
quod ew adhuc in ecclesia orthodoxa salve, et integr2 re- 
servate essent; sic enim Marcionem alloquitur, “ Licet ea 
que scripta sunt, non ea fide referas, qua salvatore pronun- 
ciata sunt,t ἀλλ᾽ odvye σώζονται of τόποι Ev τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τῆς ἁγίας 
ἐκκλησίας. Loca tamen in evangeliis sacre ecclesie inte- 
gra servantur; que item de evangelio Luce detruncasti 
pudore te afficiant,t ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀντιγράφου τοῦ κατὰ Λουκᾶν 
εὐαγγελίου τῶν τόπων εὑρισκομένων, in exemplari evangelii se- 
cundum Lucam inventa cum fuerint, utque imperatoris 
edicta si qui corrumpere et depravare conentur, prolata in 
archivis exemplaria fidelissima, insanos illos redarguant,§ 
οὕτως Kat ἀπὸ τοῦ βασιλικοῦ οἴκου, τουτέστι τῆς ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ 
ἐκκλησίας προσφερόμενον εὐαγγέλιον, ἐλέγχει τοὺς ἀφανιστὰς τῶν 
καλῶν ἐνδυμάτων μῦιας, ita etiam evangelium prolatum ex 
sancte Dei ecclesie archivis, vestium pulchrarum arrosores 


At proleg. p. 35, et 139, “hoc e | nomine insignita ipsius, cum ejus fide non congruant, pre- 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


mures detegit. Denique, πάσης piv τόλμης καὶ πονηρίας ὑπό- 
δειγμά ἔστι, τὰ μὲν γεγραμμένα παρακόπτειν, ἃ δὲ μὴ γεγραμ- 
μένα προστιθέναι, μάλιστα ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ ἀκαταλύτῳ ὄντι εἰς 
τοὺς αἰῶνας, SumMe®,” inquit, “audaciz, et flagitii est delere 
que scripta sunt, que nusquam scripta sunt addere, pre- 
sertim in evangelio quod in #ternum stabile-est.” Teste 
autem Millio, adeo in evangelia hee grassati sunt scribe 
et librarii, ut sex centum supra mille varias lectiones. se 
notasse asserat; immo multoties ait codices seculi quarti, 
quo Epiphanius floruit, omnes ‘interpolatos, ipstusque 
Epiphanii codicem, maculatum fuisse, ut czteri istius 
zwtatis sequentiumque, adeo omnium, scholiis, insititiisque 
vocabulis,” ut frustra esset, cum Epiphanio, ad evangelia 
in sancta ecclesia servata, aut exemplaria ejus etatis pro- 
vocare; immo quod “ultime temeritatis, summique flagi- 
tii” loco ponit Epiphanius, id eo seculo a scribis et libraniis 
factitatum esse fidenter pronunciat. Vide Proleg. p. 75, 
col. 2. 

§. 4, Restat ut que ab ethnicis et hereticorum antesig- 
nanis, contra sacrorum codicum fidem, olim objiciebantur 
inspiciamus. Objecit hoc olim Christianis Celsus, « Fide- 
lium quosdam in sanctas scripturas multum sibi ipsis indul- 
sisse, lis enim (inquit) usitatum fuit,* πολλαχῆ peraxapar- 
πρώτης γραφῆς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, καὶ μεταπλάττειν, 
varlis modis transformare evangelium, et ab eo quod primo 
scriptum érat, in aliud transferre’’ Eandem calumniam 
renovans Faustus Manicheus,t “ Multa (inquit) a majori- 
bus nostris eloquiis Dei nostri inserta verba sunt, et que 


Tew ἐκ τῆς 


sertim qnhia nec ab ipso hee sunt, nec ab ejus apostolis 
scripta, sed, multo post eorum assumptionem, a nescio 
quibus; et ipsis inter se non concordantibus.” Celso 


| respondet Origenes protinus negando id unquam a fideli- 


bus factum fuisse, 
fuisse, viz. peraxe 
ecg Ka 

οἶδα, i) τοὺς 


Christiani crimen hoc uspiam 


ἀπὸ Mapxtwvos, καὶ τοὺς 
καὶ τοὺς Gd Λουκιάνου, 1. e. a nemine alio mutatum evan- 
gelium scio preterquam a Marcionis, Valentini, et forte a 
Luciani discipulis,” qui, monente: Epiphanio, per omnia 
κατὰ Μαρχίωνα sentiebant. De his autem Marcionis et 
aliorum hereticorum corruptelis, “ne una quidem,” inquit 
Millius, “invasit in exemplaria Catholicorum,” Prol. p. 
75, col. 1, c. 6. Fausto Manicheo respondet Augustinus, 
“Quis tandem tanto furore cxcatur, qui dicat hoe mereri 
non ‘potuisse apostolorum ecclesiam, tam fidam, tam nume- 
rosam fratrum concordiam, ut eorum scripta fideliter ad 
posteros trajicerent, cum eorum cathedras, usque ad pre- 


| sentes episcopos, cerlissima successione servarat; cum 


hoe qualiumeunque hominum scriptis, sive extra ecclesiam, 
sive in ipsa ecclesia, tanta felicitate proveniat.”- Porro 
nullo modo potuisse Manichxos, “qui jam in manibus es- 
sent omnium codices Christianorum” falsare, hoc argu- 
mento probat Augustinus, “quia mox ut facere cpissetis, 
vetustiorum, exemplarium veritate convinceremini; qua 
igitur,” inguit, “causa a vobis corrumpi non possunt, 
hac causa a nemine potuerunt: quisquis enim hoc primi- 
tus ausus esset, multorum codicum vetustiorum autoritate 
confutaretur, maxime quia non una lingua, sed multis 
eadem scriptura contineretur.” 

At vero liberius multo cum sanctis scripturis agit Mil- 
lius. Is enim summo studio, parique arte, bis mille locos 
invenit, in quibus exemplaria, ab ecclesia ad nos trans- 
missa, corruptelis obnoxia fuisse, fidens pronunciat, quo- 
rum non pauca textui originali ab ipsis ecclesie primordiis 
inserta esse lubens agnoscit: v. g. annotatis in Matth. iv. 
10, ὀπίσω pov, inquit, MSS. cod: plurimi non agnoscunt, 
“et licet jam olim ab apostolorum fere evo in exemplari- 
bus nonnullis lectum constet, aliunde tamen assutum 
videtur ex Matth. xvi. 23, vel Luc. iv. 8, a scriptore 
memori, scioloque, quod in plurimis aliis locis factum vide- 
mus.” Ad cap. quinti v. 22, hee habet, “ τὸ εἰκῆ, videtur 
omnino scholion esse e margine alicujus libri in textum 
admissum, vetustum’ tamen, et quod apostolicorum fere 
temporum codices invasit.” Ad v.27 hee apud Millium 
nota occurrit, “rots ἀρχαίοις, additum videtur ex v. 21, 


* De Gubern. Dei, Ed, Oxon. lib. v. p. 151, 152. 
+ Her. 42, p. 334. + P. 333. § P. 336, 341. 


* Apud Orig. lib. ii. p. 77. + Her. 43. 
+ Apud August. lib. xxii. contra Faust. cap. 3 et 6. 


Seo 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


idque jam olim a primis Christianismi seculis, habent enim 
Treneus, et Vulgatus.” Multa his similia passim observa- 
bit sedulus lector tam in prolegomenis, quam in variis 
lectionibus ejusdem Millii. Id denique animadversione, 
immo reprehensione dignum existimo, quod eodem judice 
“sciolus lector, adnotator quispiam,’ plus millies origi- 
nalem textum interpolationibus suis foedavit, maculavit, 
corrupitque ; et quod prius “marginale scholion” fuit, 
haud rarius, inquit, “in textum irrepsit, omnesque codices 
continuo pervasit:” hoc enim fieri minime potuisse sine 
summa ecclesiw Christiane incuria, et prepositorum, in 
quorum manibus essent hi codices, mira oscitantia et so- 
cordia, manifestum est; multoque minus hee scholia ima- 
ginaria in omnes codices per totum Christianum orbem 
sparsos, et in alias linguas translatos pervaserint, nisi ex 
composito res ageretur. Dum enim hi codices sacri omni- 
bus in locis continuo legerentur, et exemplaria originalia, 
aut ex originalibus fideliter conscripta, in manibus fide- 
lium quorumcunque, et in ecclesiarum omnium scriniis 
conservata essent, nemo sanus existimabit he aliter nisi 
ex mutua eorum conspiratione fieri potuisse. Adeo ut 
mihi temperare vix possim quin que Fausto Manichxo, de 
s. scripturarum corruptelis loquenti, * Augustinus respondet, 
ea Millio regererem, “ Videris id agere ut omnis de medio 
scripturarum auferatur autoritas, et suus cuique animus 
autor sit quid in quaque scriptura probet, quid improbet; 
id est, ut non autoritate scripturarum subjiciatur ad fidem, 
sed sibi scripturas ipse subjiciat, non ut ideo placet illi 
aliquid, quia hoc in sublimi autoritate scriptum legitur, sed 
ideo recte scriptum videatur, quia hoc illi placuit.” 

§. 5. Objectio. Dicat tamen aliquis non frustra laborare 
cum Epiphanio et Augustino contendentes exemplaria s. 


codicum in ecclesiis fidelium pura, atque integra asservata 


esse; is enim ipse Origenes qui ea ab hereticis solis cor- 
rupta fuisse pronunciat, alibi contrarium disertim asserere 
videtur his verbis, {πολλὴ γέγονεν ἡ τῶν ἀντιγράφων διαφορὰ, 
tire ἀπὸ ῥαθυμίας τινῶν γραφέων, εἴτε ἀπὸ τόλμης τινῶν μοχθηρᾶς 
τῆς διορθώσεως τῶν γραφομένων, εἴτε καὶ τῶν τὰ ἑαυτῆς δοκοῦντα ἐν 
τῇ διορθώσει προστιθέντων, ἢ ἀφαυρούντων, i. 6. “Magna ex- 
emplarium existit discrepantia, sive ob quorundam scrip- 
torum socordiam, sive ob audaciam aliorum, perverse que 
scripta sunt emendantium, sive ob eos qui qu ipsis viden- 
tur in emendatione adjiciunt, aut subducunt.” Hee qui- 
dem Veter. Testamenti exemplaria Greca potissimum re- 
Spicere ex verbis immediate sequentibus manifestum est, 
τὴν μὲν οὖν ἐν τοῖς ἀντιγράφοις τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης διαφωνίαν 
Θεοῦ διδόντος, εὕρομεν ἰάσασϑαι, “ Discrepantie que est in 
Vet. Testamenti exemplaribus, Deo dante, remedium adhi- 
buimus.”’ Est tamen ingenue fatendum eundem Originem, 
eodem in loco, occasione verborum Christi (ad divitem 
profitentem se mandatum illud, “ Diliges proximum sicut 
teipsum,” a juventute sua observasse) dicentis, “ Vende 
omnia que habes,” futili plane ratione adductum suspicari 
hee verba, “ Diliges proximum sicut teipsum,” a Servatore 
cum non essent dicta, ab aliis προσεῤῥίφθαι, i. 6. inserta 
esse, et in suspicionis istius subsidium hee verba addu- 
cere, καὶ εἰ μὲν μὴ καὶ περὶ ἄλλων πολλων διαφονία ἥν πρὸς ἄλ- 
ληλα τῶν ἀντιγράφων ὥστε πάντα τὰ κατὰ Νατθαῖον μὴ συνάδειν 
ἀλλήλοις, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ εὐαγγέλια, καὶν ἀσεβῆς τις ἔδοξεν 
εἶναι ὃ ὑπονοῶν ἐνταῦθα προσεῤῥίφθαι, οὐκ εἰρημένην ἀπὸ τοῦ Σωτῆ- 
pos πρὸς τὸν πλουσίον τὴν ἀγαπῆσεις τὸν πλησίον ὡς σεαυτὸν ἐντο- 
λήν, 1. e. “ Nisi de aliis multis diserepantia esset exempla- 
rium inter se, adeo ut omnia que a Matthwo sunt dicta non 


consonent ceteris evangeliis, et similiter se res haberet in | 


reliquis evangeliis, forte impius esset qui suspicaretur hee 


verba, Diliges proximum tuum sicut teipsum, a Servatore | 


erga divitem, cum non sint dicta, a quopiam inserta esse.” 
Respondeo primo. Homiliam octavam in Mattheum a 

veteri translatione per Merlinum editam, Grecis que in 

hac sectione de divitis et Christi interloquio occurrunt, 


plane respondere, in ea tamen hec ultima verba que ex | 


Origenis Grecis citavimus, omnino pretermissa esse, ex 
quibus suspicandi ratio oritur ea, que jam in Grecis On- 
genis occurrunt, olim in iis inventa non esse, sed ab aliis ea 
postea ejus textui addita fuisse. 

Respondeo secundo. Nihil aliud hic adducit Origenes 
preter suspiciones iniquas, et minime necessarias. Suspici- 


* Lib. xxxii. cap. 19. { Com. in Matt. p. 381. 


1139 


ones, inquam, non necessarias; fatetur enim in eadem 
homilia Origenes ita hee verba intelligi posse, ut nullus 
suspicioni sux sit locus relictus: iniquas dico, nec enim 
ad exemplaria Matthei emendatiora, aliave hie provocat, 
sed primo suspicandi hane causam ducit ex ratione plane 
futili et inepta; nmempe quod ei qui hoe preceptum, 
“Diliges proximum sicut teipsum,” servasset, non potuit 
Christus dicere “Si vis perfectus esse, vende que habes,” 
quasi qui sensu Judaico proximum suum, i. e. Judeum 
dilexisset, eo ipso perfectus haberetur. Secundo, “quod 
ipsum locum Marcus et Lucas exponentes, neuter hoc ad- 
didit,” quasi in Matthwo nihil dici potuisset, quod non 
pariter eadem verborum plenitudine in Marco et Luca 
poneretur. Ex quibus constat nullam prorsus rationem 
habuisse Origenem suspicandi hee verba in Matthwi ex- 
emplar inserta fuisse. 

Tertio respondeo, Arapwviav τῶν ἀντιγράφων “ discrepan- 
tiam exemplarium” quam in hoe loco Origenes recenset, 
non esse discrepantiam exemplarium in eodum textu, ne- 
dum in eodem evangelio, sed tantum discrepantiam textus 
unius evangelii a verbis alterius evangelii, nec enim dicit 
omnia que sunt in Matthwo, pn συνάδειν ἑαυτοῖς “ sibimet- 
ipsis non consentire,” sed ἀλλήλοις ‘reliquis evangelistis 
consona non esse; neque hoc probat, sive ex aliis verbis 
sive codicibus Matthwi, sed ex eo tantum quod hee verba 
Matthwi apud Marcum et Lucam desiderantur; denique 
coronidis loco hee addit, “Quod in Greecis feci, in exem- 
plariis Novi Testamenti hoc ipsum me facere posse sine 
periculo non putavi; tantum suspiciones exponere me de- 
bere, rationesque et causas suspicionum non esse irration- 
abile existimavi.” Percurrat jam lector integras duorum 
tomorum in evangelia expositiones, et mecum inveniet eas 
totas in evangeliorum inter se διαφωνίαις enumerandis im- 
pendi, de commatis cujusdam variante lectione ne verbum 
quidem proferre. Id ergo tantum hie dicit Origenes quod 
apud patres alios non tantum in confesso est, sed tanquam 
indicium sinceritatis evangelistarum in evangeliis suis con- 
scribendis adducitur, et presertim a Chrysostomo* his 
verbis, πολλαχοῦ διαφωνοῦντες ἐλέγχονται, ‘ Swpe discrepantes 
inveniuntur evangeliste, hoc autem (inquit) maximum 
veritatis indicium est, aliter enim rem ex composito se 
egisse suspectam esset, νυνὶ δὲ καὶ ἡ δοκοῦσα ἐν μικροῖς εἶναι 
διαφωνία, nune autem hee que videtur esse in minutioribus 
discrepantia omni eos suspicione liberat.” 

§. 6. Secundo, de Millii prolegomenis id certum esse 
judico, ubi de lectionibus genuinis agant, ea vitiis, rapep- 
μηνείαις, conjecturis, ab omni veritatis specie abhorrentibus, 
nimium scatere; de patrum Grecorum scriptis, de versi- 
onibus aliis antiquis, ibi judicium fere continuo ferre Mil- 
lium non prout res exigat, aut veritas exposcat, sed prout 
cum veteri illa Italica versione, quam sibi pro veritatis 
norma constituit, conveniant, aut ab ea dissentiant; “spu- 
tiis, interpolatis, scholiisque insititiis,” mirum in modum 
“vitiatis codicibus,” sunt usi, qui ab hac imaginaria ver- 
sione fere continuo divorsim abeunt, inter quos Theodore- 
tus, et CEcumenius, qui editis pre aliis consentiunt, enu- 
merantur; en ergo Millii de iis judicium, Proleg. p. 89, 
«“Theodoreto ad manum fuisse recentioris calami exemplar, 


| et quidem graviter interpolatum,” et (p. 102) « Interpolati- 


ones (Ecumenii, quod omnium fere codicum, plurim.” 
Chrysostomus, quo in exegeticis nemo laxior, is, inquit 
Millius, “exemplar nactus est ex accuratioribus istius 
mvi, genuinam apostolorum scripturam cum alias, tum et 
in locis ubi ab ea descitum in excusis nostris, ut plurimam 


| referens,” sepius nimirum quam alii cum Italica sua versi- 


one hallucinatur, et tamen post exantlatos omnes Millii la- 


| bores, nulla alia comparuit versio vetus Italica, nulla unquam 


comparebit, ab ea quam Hieronymus ab infinitis «“mendis, 
defectibus, additamentis, et confusionibus,’’ Simonio teste, 
liberavit; de ea quam Millius sibi per somnium creavit, ope- 
rosius egimus libro primo, eamque tam multis argumentis 
convellendo, integrum pene prolegomenon opus diruimus. 
Id etiam in Millii prolegomenis advertendum est, nempe 
male illum colligere ex eo quod Epiphanius, Basilius, alii- 
que patres interdum loquuntur περὶ ἀντιγράφων ἀκριβεστάτων 
seu ἀδιορϑώτων, Γ “eos exemplaribus diversis usos fuisse, et 


* Pref. in Mat. tom. ii. ed. Sav. p. 3. 
ἡ Prol. p. 76, col. 2. 


1140 


subinde unius, subinde alterius textum, prout ferebat ani- 
mus, usurpasse.” Quis enim exemplaribus iis uteretur, 
que ipse minus correcta, aut accurata pronunciat, cum ei 
ad manus essent emendatiora? id forte fieri potuisset ab 
Origene ex tempore perorante, id inter Latinos ab Hiero- 
nymo factnm esse aliquando contra adversarium pugnante, 
ex ejus operibus, et verbis liquet; ab aliis hoc factum esse 
nego. Nec unquam de iis exemplaribus verba faciunt 
patres Greci, nisi ubi de lectione vera controversia oritur, 
aut inter se variant exemplaria, ex eorum igitur verbis id 
tantum constat, quod doctioribus notum est, habuisse eos 
ad tempora Tertulliani exemplaria primeva apostolorum 
manibus exarata, a tempore Origenis, et Eusebii exempla- 
ria accurata, ad que, cum opus esset, provocare solebant, 
certaque media ex quibus emendatiora a non correctis, ac- 
curata ab inaccuratis, ab interpolatis genuina distinguere 
potuerunt, que quidem omnia non ad confirmanda, sed 
potius ad refutanda Millii prolegomena multum valeant. 

Est insuper illud ex ipso Millio in Prolegomenis, p. 33, 
col. 1, imprimis observandum, “Inter codices ecclesiarum 
et privatorum hominum hoc fere interfuisse, quod ἰβίϊ, 
prout e librariorum manibus exierunt, emaculati, notulisque 
marginalibus liberi, fere integri in ecclesiarum tabulariis 
remanserint, hi vero ab ipsis, in quorum gratiam fuerant 
conscripti, statim fere inter lineas, aut ad marginem, glossis 
scholiisque fuerint conspersi, maximopere in id incum- 
bentibus s. literarum studiosis ut textum s. quem apud 
se habebant, explicatiorem, suisque usibus magis indies 
et magis idoneum redderent.” Ex quibus duo duco poris- 
mata. 

Primo, ex codicibus vetustissimis occidentalis ecclesiz, 
et presertim Cant. Clar. Ger. parum subsidii ad lectionem 
genuinam dignoscendam expectari posse ; ii enim, monente 
Simonio, oculari teste, ejusmodi scholiis, glossis, et emen- 
dationibus nune eadem manu, qua libri ipsi, nune alia con- 
scriptis undique-referti sunt: cum enim a scribis origina- 
lis textus plane insciis conscripti essent, aliorum manu, qui 
Grece sciebant, aut exemplaria Latina proprius et ac- 
curatius inspexerant, nunc ocius nunc serius fuerant 
emendati. 

Secundo, id serio animadvertendum est male a Millio 
hee, que privatorum tantum libros respiciunt, applicari ad 
codices Grecorum patrum, in quorum ecclesiis, fatente 
Millio, libri emaculati, integri, et a scholiis fere liberi, re- 
manserint. Et precipue ad codices episcoporum orienta- 
lium, quibus tam ante quam post Origenis, Pierii, Pam- 


phili, et Eusebii diligentiam, exemplaria ἀκριβέστερα de- | 


fuisse nemo sanus existimabit; is enim* Eusebius, Ori- 
genis, Pierii, Ammonii, et aliorum codicum lectissimorum 


usuram cum nactus esset, “inde quinquaginta volumina | 


Novi Feederis, ad Constantinum M. transmisit, ecclesiis 
Constantinopoli et alibi agentibus ideo mittenda, quod 


earum usum ecclesiis maxime necessarium esse intellige-_ 


bat, queque idcirco ab antiquariis vetustissimis, et exacte | 


scribend peritissimis, describi fecit.” 
ecclesia, s. literarum sede nobilissima, non defuisse lectissi- 
ma exemplaria agnoscit Millius, Prol. p. 71, unde Athana- 
sius Constantis Aug. literis rogatus, transmisit ipsi πυκτία 
τῶν ϑείων γραφῶν, 5. scripturarum volumina. 


qui post eorum obitum “salutaris regni cclestis semina 
spargebant ἀνὰ πᾶσαν εἰς πλάτος τὴν οἰκουμένην, per univer- 
sum terrarum orbem, munusque evangelistarum obibant 
jis qui fidei sermonem nondum audivissent,” et qui prieci- 
pue hoc in animo habuerunt τὴν τῶν θείων εὐαγγελίων παραδι- 
ἑόναι γραφήν, 4. ἃ. “evangeliorum scripturas tradere ;” que 
si quis animo expenderit, ei haud parum verisimile cense- 
hitur hos omnes ecclesie antistites libris interpolatis, scho- 


Alexandriz etiam in | 


Idem Euse- | 
biust nos docet plurimos fuisse apostolorum successores, | 


liis et marginalibus notis vitiatis, s. scripture textum pos- | 


teris tradidisse, aut omnia exemplaria seculi istius in quo 
florebant, utut id Millius ubique pronunciat, interpolata et 
Vitiata fuisse. Nec enim de iis tam aspere judicare par 
est, quibus in promptu esset exemplaria ἀκριβέστερα adire, 
et quibus nee ingenium defuit textum ab his glossematis 
et scholiis marginalibus discernendi, nec erga s. scripturas 


* Hist. Vite Constant. lib. iv. cap. 35, 36. 
+ Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 37. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


ea reverentia, que ipsos ad istam discretionem faciendam 
sedulo moveret. 

Respiciamus titulos illos, quibus 5. scripturas adorna- 
bant primorum seculorum patres; ab iis etenim βιβλία 
Seta, “libri deifici, verba divina,”’ ϑεῖαι γραφαὶ, καὶ ϑεύ- 
mvevoror, sepius dicebantur. An ergo paterentur manus 
sive sacrilegas, sive temerariis divina hee Dei eloquia in- 
terpolationibus suis corrumpere, et depravare? certum est 
apud nos, inquit* Josephus, has nostras scripturas divinas 
esse, unde a tempore prophetarum, οὔτε xpocSetvai ris οὐδὲν, 
οὔτε μεταϑείναι τετόλμηκεν, “nemo ausus est iis addere 
quidpiam, aut detrahere:” cum ergo eadem fuerit Christi- 
anis erga scripturas s. reverentia, nonne jure merito ex- 
pectandum fuisset eos pari diligentia curasse, ne quid hu- 
jusmodi, in Novi Federis norma et regula contingeret. 
Expendamus denique quanto studio providerent, ne eorum 
scripta vel a librariis negligentius transcriberentur, vel ab 
aliis mutarentur. Priscos enim illos, et sanctissimos ec- 
clesie antistites, tanquam pulcherrimum exactissime in his 
rebus diligentia exemplum posteris proponenst Eusebius, 
dicit primo ‘“ Irenzum adversus eos qui τὴν ὑγιῆ τῆς ἐκκλησίας 
ϑεσμὸν, sinceram ecclesie legem adulterabant, varias episto- 
las conscripsisse.” Secundo, in finem libri sui de octonario, 
sive Valentinianorum Ogdyade, hane eum clausulam adje- 
cisse; ὁρκίζω ce τὸν μεταγραψάμενον τὸ βιβλίον τοῦτο, “« Ad- 
juro te qui conscripseris hune librum, per Dominum 
nostrum Jesum Christum—ut conferas quod transcripseris, 
et diligenter illud emendes ad exemplar ex quo transcrip- 
sisti, atque adjurationem hanc similiter describas, et ex- 
emplari tuo inseras;’’ qui autem tantam diligentiam adhi- 
buerunt in scriptis suis integris conservandis a librariorum 
negligentia, et aliorum quorumcunque corruptelis, et de- 
pravationibus, eos de sanctis et ϑεοπνεύστοις scripturis in 
eadem integritate sancte ecclesiz reservandis non minus 
sollicitos fuisse merito existimandum est. ε 

§. 7. Nostra quod attinet, in primo libro satis monstrasse 


| 3 es 3 
| me puto harum lectionum variantium fundamenta incerta 
| esse, et penitus inidonea ex quibus hodierni codices in 


dubium vocentur: ne tamen me lector hic nimium presti- 
tisse existimet, aut media omnia sustulisse ex quibus de 
lectione genuina certum, vel saltem idoneum, in quo acqui- 
escat judicium, feratur; dico, 

Primo, id certum, et extra dubium esse videatur, ubi 
patres in his rebus versati variasse lectionem textus pro- 
nunciant, variantem ibi lectionem ante eorum tempora 
obtinuisse, de qua non aliter judicium fieri potest, ubi in 
neutram partem aliquid pronunciant, quam ex priorum 
patrum lectione, versionibus antea conceptis, aut textus 
ipsius circumstantiis. Ex. gr. dicit Origenes; quosdam 
Hebr. ii. 9, legisse non prout textus habet χάριτι Θεοῦ, sed 
χώρις Θεοῦ, lectionem tamen hodiernam huic praponendam 
esse non tantum ex eo constat, quod versiones omnes et 
patrum plerique cum ea consentiunt, sed quod de gratia Dei 
in eo manifesta quod filium suum dilectum morti pro nobis 
tradidit, s. scripture passim loquuntur; de Christo “sine 
Deo,” sive seposita quasi Deitate, patiente, prorsus nihil. 

Secundo, ubi patrum multi, nullo refragante, cum ver- 
sionibus antiquis, et codicum manuscriptorum majori parte, 
in una lectione conveniunt, eam lectionem certo genuinam 
pronuncio; hic enim locum obtineat illud Tertulliani 
“Quod apud omnes unum invenitur, non est erratum, 
sed traditum;” cum vero in diversa abeunt, ea lectio, 
ceteris paribus, verisimilior censenda est, que potiori 
autoritati innitatur. 

Tertio, in epistolis, in quas extant quatuor Greca scholia 
cum totidem versionibus antiquis, ubi Greca scholia cum 
versionibus universim in una lectione conspirant, id vere 
lectionis indicium existimo minime respuendum; hine 
Millium in eo potissimum culpandum existimo, quod 
sexcenties (ut in variarum ejusdem lectionum diligenti 
examine probatum dedimus) ab hisce omnibus, aut fere 
omnibus, unius Italice, thiopice, aut Coptic versionis 
gratia, in vera lectione assignanda, deviaverit. 

Quarto, ea lectio que sensum integrum relinquit, ceteris 


* Lib. primo contra Apion. p. 1037. 
ἡ Eccl. Hist. lib. v. cap. 20. 
+ Com. in Joh. p. 38, et p. 362. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


paribus, ei praferenda est que sensum mutilum et imper- 
fectum exhibet, eumve interrumpit; eique multo magis 
que sensum penitus corrumpit: nec enim concedendum 
est in scriptis ϑεοπνεύστων virorum vel sensum_ prorsus 
defuisse, vel verba quibus integrum eum exhiberent: ex- 
cipiendi sunt hic defectus ex idiomate linguw profluentes, 
ut “Descendebat in domum suam ὀεδικαιωμένος, ἤ éxetvos,”” 
Luc. xviii. 14, aut ex contextu facile supplendi, ut 2 Thess. 
li. 7, μόνον ὃ κατέχων, ἄρτι (sup. καθέξει) ἕως ἐκ μέσου γένηται. 
His adde, 

Quinto, regulam Waltoni tertiam; viz. “Lectio que, 
ceteris paribus, sensum fundit clariorem, et cum ante- 
cedentibus et 8, scripture analogia magis congruentem, 
contraria preferenda est.” Antecedentium enim, et con- 
sequentium consideratio, et locorum similium collatio ad 
veram lectionem eruendam plurimum conducunt. Exemplis 
paucis hance regulam elucidabo. Contendit Millius his 
verbis, ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται, Heb. x. 38, addendum 
esse pod post τὸ ἐκ πίστεως, sic enim textum hunc patres 
quidam allegant: sic LXX. Interpretes legunt, Hab. ii. 
4. Obstat tamen preter Grecorum scholiorum omnium 
cum textu consensum, id quod hunc locum idem apostolus, 
Rom. i. 17, Gal. iii. 11, eodem prorsus modo allegavit. 
Contendit acriter idem Millius, Gal. ii. 5, in his verbis, 
οἷς οὐδὲ mpis ὥραν εἴξομεν τῇ ὑποταγῇ, τὸ οὐδὲ tollendum esse, 
in annotatis ibi ad Millium id perperam dictum esse proba- 
vimus, ex antecedentibus, et consequentibus, et integro 
apostoli scopo. 

Ex operis hujus secundo libro ediscat primo lector, id 
quod caput rei est, textum Novi Feederis salvum, et satis 
integrum ad nos pervenisse, nec potuisse Millium in opere 
triginta annorum labore assiduo, industria summa, arteque 
non exigua, et sepe non ingenua, versatum, variasque 
lectiones suo marte, et aliorum adminiculo undique colli- 
gentem, ejusdem αὐθεντίαν convellere, nedum labefactare. 

Secundo, varias lectiones que morum regulam, aut fidei 
articulum vel unicum respiciant, vix ullas esse ; que sensum 
verborum in re momenti alicujus mutent, paucissimas. Hoc 
ultro fatetur Millius, Prol. p. 142, col. 2, his verbis. ‘In 
his codices omnes conveniunt, et si forte locus aliquis qui 
summi momenti esse videtur, uni, alteri, seu etiam quam- 
plurimis codicibus exciderit (id quod non nisi in uno loco 
factum est, quod viderim, nempe 1 Joh. v. 7), idem tamen 
quoad sensum alibi inculcatus occurrit, ut proinde neutiquam 
inde periclitetur Christiana veritas.” In hoc nobiscum con- 
veniunt pontificiorum critici probatissimi. Ita* Dupinius, 
“Esse varias lectiones haud paucas ex editione Novi Fe- 
deris Oxoniensi etiam oculis pateat, eas autem omnes parvi 
sane momenti esse, et ex parte potissima vel librariorum 
vitia, vel minutissima παροράματα.᾽ Idem agnoscit Si- 
monius infra citandus; sed testimoniis non est opus: 
inspiciat aliquis loca omnia a nobis diligenter collecta, 
percurrat exempla omnia insigniorum s. scripture locorum, 
a Morino recte, vel perperam adducta, ex oculari inspec- 
tione inveniet ea nec morum regulam ullam, vel fidei 
articulum uspiam respicere, nedum labefactare. 

Tertio, ex nostra variantium lectionum uberiori discussione 
in capitibus ejusdem libri sequentibus, liquido constabit, nec 
in minutioribus istis, et pene frivolis, deesse nobis, potissi- 
ma saltem ex parte, testimonia, quibus hodierni textus lectio 
stabiliatur, quod etiam ultra constabit ex diligenti examine 
Jocorum fere omnium, quos ex Vulgate, seu potius Italice 
versionis autoritate, pro genuinis nobis obtrudit Millius. 
Id enim in iis omnibus vel gratis, atque ex mera ipsius 
conjectura, dictum esse, et contra majorem testium molem 
probavimus, vel ipso Millio teste, contra omnem MSS. codi- 
cum, et excusorum fidem, quo nihil fortius dici potuit ad 
fidem istarum lectionum minuendam. 

De tertio libro id tantum dico, brevem esse, at forte, 
epilogi saltem et appendicum gratia, non contemnendum. 


OPERIS TOTIUS PARTITIO. 


§. 1. Opus D. Millii suis laudibus exornatur, et in quibus 
deficiat, aut operis instituto minime satisfecerit, indi- 


* Hist. Can. Vet. in N. Test. vol. 2, sect. 5, p. 110, 


1141 
catur. §. 2. Operis nostri suscepti ratio redditur. §. 3. 
In Milli collectaneis multa inter lectiones variantes 


immerito locum obtinere ostenditur. 
variantes ad tria genera reducuntur. 


§. 4. Lectiones 


Quam propositam sibi in magno suo opere rationem habuit 
Cl. Millius, eam nemo satis Jaudare potest: Jn animum 
enim suum induxit Novum Testamentum pristine suw 
restituere integritati, fidam ex criticorum arte exhibendo 
regulam qua ab emunctioris naris hominibus inter varias 
lectiones vere a falsis discernerentur, atque ex hac statuit 
genuinam firmare lectionem “in locis circiter mille,” Ber- 
nardi sui judicio, Jewsam et interpolatam, atque “atheis 
hoc pacto, cwterisque religionis nostra hostibus cavillandi 
occasionem precidere; cum e lectionibus ipsis variantibus, 
ex quibus omnia in libris nostris incerta esse arguunt, 
egregie stabiliilum viderint 5. codicis textum.” Quod 
quidem manus in se susceptum si feliciter absolvisset, 
nulli dubium est quin ille “theologorum commodis egregie 
inservisset, operamque navasset ecclesie Christiane longe 
gratissimam, atque utilissimam.” 

§. 1, Quanquam autem eruditus vir, cujus mortem, ut 
spero, gloriosa immortalitas consecuta est, de ecclesia 
optime sit meritus, dum locos consimiles inter se compa- 
raret (quos si propius inspicias, ex iis fructum haud 
parvum recipies), dum ex patrum scriptis lectissimos flores 
decerpsit, et aliquoties dum textum annotatis illustrare 
conatus fuit, tametsi genuinam lectionem egregie firmarit 
omnibus fere in locis in quibus Sociniani, Erasmus, 
Grotius, sensum orthodoxum labefactare maximo opere 
nisi sunt; tametsi etiam ad auctoritatem 5. codicis stabi- 
liendam permagnum pondus attulerit, nec in hac parte 
operis sul peccarit unquam, nisi quod inscriptionem Epis- 
tole ad Ephesios immerito repudiarit; quod tamen ad 
susceptum operis consilium attinet, a scopo suo plurimum 
aberrasse visus est. Tantum enim abest ut fidam regulam 
constituerit, unde genuina lectio a spuria dignoscereter, ut 
in plerisque incertiores nos plane reliquerit; imo tantum 
abest ut atheis silentium imposuerit, ut lectionum varie- 
tatem magno cumulo augens, et a seipso dissidens, more 
hominum conjecturam modo hue modo illue ducentium, 
hostibus religionis nostre nova ministrarit arma, pontifi- 
clisque simul novam ansam dederit objiciendi, nihil nos 
certi de s. codice habere posse, nisi ex testimonio ecclesiz, 
quod tamen aliis in causis respuimus, et aspernamur. 

§. 2. Grave quidem onus in me ante recepi quam aut 
de magnitudine rei, aut de grandi appendice, et prolego- 
menis autoris ipsius magis quam textus menda corrigen- 
tibus, aliquid possem suspicari. Pollicebar enim olim, 
parum cautus expectatissimum illud opus editum modo 
esset me in vivis agente, eo consilio expensurum me esse, 
ut multitudo variarum lectionum ad compendiolum, si fieri 
posset, redigeretur. Jam vero annos septuaginta natus, 
acie etiam oculorum obtusiore facta, rudem meruisse 
videar. At cum promisso meo nihil sit mihi sanctius, 
aut antiquius, impedimentis hisce omnibus susque deque 
habitis, improbo labore libellum tandem confeci, qui Deo 
gloriam, commodum ecclesie, s. textui plus roboris ex- 
hibeat, benevolique lectoris exspectationi, ut spero, satis- 
faciat. 

In prolegomenis et appendice multum discrepat Millius 
a collectaneis que textui subjiciuntur, secum igitur sepis- 
sime pugnat, et non modo non coherentia inter se dicit, 
sed maxime disjuneta, atque contraria. IJtaque si inter 
vivos numeraretur, ipsi forsan non ingratum foret, quod 
videret se a seipso vindicatum, suumque maturum judicium 
subitis ejusdem cogitationibus anteponi. Quod si falso 
aut male allegatorum locorum reum fieri graviter moles- 
teque ferret, ego etiam ad illa* παροράματα proferenda 
invistisimus accessi. Cum vero ingens odus suscepisset 
quod non nisi junctis, ut ait, plurimorum laboribus confici 
potuit, facile credam non ipsi integritatem, sed accuratam 
aliis diligentiam defuisse. 

§. 3. De instituti mei ratione sciat lector me in prime 
libro illius vestigiis acriter institisse: cum enim mgentem 
hune cumulum coacervasset aggregando lectiones variantes 
partim patrum Grecorum versionumque orientalium, alia- 


* Proleg. p. 154, col. 1. 
ΑΥ 


1142 


rumque vetustate insignium, ex quibus, inquit, eluceant 
Greca primeyorum codicum e quibus effluxerint, partim 
versionis Italice, et patrum Latinorum, qui Italicum in 
scriptis suis, ut ait, adhibent, partim quoque MSS. magne 
et venerande antiquitatis, sub iisdem capitibus quam parum 
ei profuit impensus labor, indicavi; ostendens insuper 
nullam textus corrigendi causam fuisse, nisi cum ad unum 
omnia, vel saltem major pars eorum inter se convenissent, 
quod non ultra viginti locis, idque levioris momenti, un- 
quam accidit. Cum ergo totius operis Milliani hoc sit 
fundamentum, primus liber in eo labefactando totus ver- 
sabitur. 

In chartis suis valde laboriosis tantam rerum sylvam 
congessit Millius, quantam nec enumerare velim; nec de 
singulis judicium ferre, si vellem, possem; sigillatim enim 
cuncta persequi, et aliis molestum, et mihi ad munus 
nostrum obeundum haud esset necessarium. Licet etenim 
he varie lectiones molis permagne fuerint, sunt tamen 
dimidia ex parte eo nomine protinus indigne; ex reliquis 
earum pauce recepte lectionis sensum afliciunt, mutantve. 
In his tamen levioris momenti expendendis haud parum 
Jaboravi. Et ubi textum interpolatum esse Millius con- 
tendit, aut παρεμβλήσεως incusat, judicium meum inter- 
posui, textumque pro modulo meo, vindicavi. Ordinis 
autem gratia has quas appellat varias lectiones ad tria 
genera reduxi. 

Primo, sunt ergo multa que inter variantes lectiones 
locum tenent, et tamen in numero earum sunt minime 
reputanda, nam ut preteream ea que de initio, defectu, 
sine manuscriptorum in Greca aut Latina lingua scripsit. 

Primo non illz variantes lectiones merito dicende sunt, 
que ex oscitantia, incuria, inscitia, aut ignorantia scriptoris 
aut librarii evenerunt: eadem enim opera que in Bibliis 
Anglicanis mende occurrunt typographice, pro variis 
lectionibus habeantur: vix tamen caput occurrit in quo 
non aliquid hujus generis reperias. 

Secundo, neque ille inter variantes lectiones recensende 
essent que a MSS. codicibus fere omnibus, et antiquis 
versionibus, plenoque omnium patrum cunsensu dissenti- 
unt, et discrepant; has enim si admiseris, quenam ullibi 
rejiciende forent? Sexcentis autem in locis lectionem 
quandam ex fide solius Italice, Coptice, Athiopice, &e., 
genuinam esse asserit, contra omnium codicum, aut fere 
omnium fidem, contra versiones omnes, reclamantibus etiam 
istis patribus qui locum illum allegarunt ad unum omnibus. 
Vide Proleg, a p. 42 ad 48. 

Tertio, multo minus pro variis lectionibus habende 
sunt que adulterinis evangeliis, aut hereticorum pravitati 
ortum suum debent; quanta autem profert ille ex evange- 
lio Nazareorum, aut Ebionitaram! quam frequenter nos 
monet, hunc vel illum versiculum ab his aut illis here- 
ticis repudiatum* fuisse! Longa Epiphanii narratio de 
locis a Marcione corruptis sparsim huic operi inserta est, 
ut moles in immensum cresceret. Et demum in prolego- 
menis circiter viginti ex depravatis illis archetypum ipsum 
fideliter exhibuisse, acriter contendit, p. 36, col. 1. 

Est, quarto, valde incongruum patrum glossemata, aut 
interpretamenta pro variis lectionibus exhibere; eadem 
enim de causa patrum scrinia compilasse potuit, centies 
tamen, imo bis centies, illi in confesso est, hoc vel illud 
quod a recepta lectione variat, natum fuisse ex interpre- 
tamento, ex glossemate, atque ex altera parte sublatum 
fuisse aliquid quod offenderit. 

Quinto, tollenda sunt denique errata ipsius autoris, 
cujus generis copiam non minimam annotata exhibent, 
atque ita acervo multum decrescente, onereque sublevato 
ad reliqua progredior. 

§. 4. Secundo, ex variis lectionibus occurrunt quedam 
majoris momenti et ponderis utpote que aut sensum 
verborum adeo mutent ut textum vere alium exhibeant, 
aut que doctrinam morum normamque vivendi respiciant, 
aut que ad veritatem confirmandam, nodosve expediendos 
felicius inserviant; has autem modicas (Deo sint gratie) 
et paucas, excutio diligenter, atque in textu corroborando, 
et diluendo que contra adducantur, enitor sedulo, atque 
hoc pensum absolvo in libri secundi capite primo. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Supersunt adhuc variantes lectiones innixe quidem auc- 
toritati patrum quorundam, aut versionum, aut manuscrip- 
torum cod. venerande antiquitatis. Sicut tamen textus sig- 
nificationem aut non omnino, aut leviter saltem immutant, 
ita textus ipse pari auctoritate, atque exemplarium copia, 
plerumque nititur. Quoniam autem hujus generis pene 
innumere sunt, partitionem quandam earum feci. 

Primo, que in quatuor evangeliis, atque Actis Aposto- 
lorum continentur, illas in quinque species divisas, in capite 
secundo libri secundi edissero. 

Secundo, que ad epistolas spectant, eas pariter eundem 
in modum ad rationem revoco capite insequente. 

Tertio, inania et levia, que numerum plane superant, ad 
capita quedam reduxi, ad singula eorum digitum libro 
tertio intendens, et specimen aliquale exhibens, ex quo 
studiosus lector de reliquis conjecturam faciat. Porro, in 
hujus libri et operis totius epilogo, id paulo diligentius 
curavi, ut pontificiis, aliisque religionis nostre hostibus 
solide responderem; nempe iis qui objiciunt quod variantes 
tot lectiones textum suspectum reddant, aut saltem in 
dubium adducere videantur, ideoque quod sacra Biblia 
nullo modo sufficere valeant, ut nos in iis omnibus que 
ad salutem creditu factuque necessaria sunt, erudiant. 


CAPITIS PRIMI LIBRI PRIMI. 


ARGUMENTUM. 


§. 1, Ex patrum scriptis, aut s. scripture allegationibus 
non posse certo colligi eos aliter quam hodiernus textus 
se habet legisse. Adstruitur primo ex eo, quod sepe 
allegarint s. scripture τμήματα, non ex textu inspecto, 
sed ex memoria. §. 2. Secundo aliquoties summatim, 
et quoad sensum tantum, verborum nulla ratione habita. 
§. 3. Tertio, quia multa textui sepe adjiciunt. §. 4. 
Quarto, verba multa, imo periodos, non raro omittunt. 
§. 5. Quinto, quia patres iidem qui interdum aliter 
citant, cum editis, in aliis locis, conveniunt. §. 6. 
Sexto, quia multas scripturarum περικοπὰς frequenter 
congerunt, que in diversis locis, quoad sensum, occur- 
Tunt, nec ρητῶς alicubi inveniuntur. Hee omnia ex- 
emplis plurimis confirmantur, ibid. 


SECTIO PRIMA. 


Ur de his variis lectionibus rectius judicemus, opere 
pretium duxi in earum fontes inquirere, atque utrum 
firmum exhibeant lectionis variantis fundamentum sedulo 
investigare, quod quidem prstare conabor, Millium κατὰ 
πόδα sequendo per omnia illa capita, ex quibus has lectiones 
se collegisse profitetur. Dico igitur primo sanctos patres 
apud scripturam s. alia legisse olim verba, quam que nos 
jam legimus; aut exemplaribus usos fuisse diversis ab iis 
quibus nos jam utimur, male colligi ex eo quod e Novo 
Feedere passim testimonia citant, editis nostris parum 
congruentia. Est enim criticorum omnium, et speciatim 
P. Simonii* judicium, citationibus patrum, raro scilicet 
accuratis, non temere credendum esse, nec ad earum fidem 
Greca exemplaria corrigenda, “Hoc enim,” inquit Simo- 
nius “sine magno s. scripture detrimento fieri non potest.” 
Grotius etiam vir magni judicii, et emuncte naris, idem, 
vere et libere pronunciat. <« Veteres,” inquit, “scriptores 
sepe utuntur testimoniis ex scriptura, sed ita ut appareat 
codicem ab illis non inspectum.” Quare non est quod eo 
nomine suspecta nobis sit recepta lectio. “Non raro pa- 
tribus usitatum,” inquit Heinsius, prolegomenis in Exer- 
citationes S., “ut intenti rebus, sensum potius quam verba 
spectent, neque raro pretermittunt aliquid, vel addunt, sed 
et voces alias reponant, de memoria ne dicam, cui tribuisse 
plusculum nonnunquam videntur. Primo autem quid tam 
sibi proprium, aut quasi suum patres esse volunt quam ut 
ταυτοδυναμοῦντα, sive alia que idem notant, aut notare 
existimant, in adducendis locis, vera, aut vocabula re- 
ponant. Tidem nonnunquam quod desiderari credunt, ipsi 
adjiciunt. Nihil eque usitatum iis quam ut alios, atque 
alios conjungant locos, sepe qu in medio sunt, aut prece- 
dunt, pretermittunt: libenter enim dicuntur, contrahunt, 


* Her. 42. 


* Crit. Hist. Text. N. T. cap. 31, p. 151. 


hee autem patrum citationibus contigisse dicit ex eo quod 
ἐκ προχείρου, hoc est e memoria, ex tempore, et inconsulto 
codice, eas adducerent.” Horumque omnium exempla in 
medium se protulisse ait, “ne quis temere ex iis Grecum 
textum emendandum esse existimet.”” 

Imprimis autem allegasse swpissime patres τμήματα 
quedam s. scripture non e textu, sed ex memoria, que 
licet thesaurus, rerumque custos sit, eas tamen, sine 
scripto, verbis semper iisdem reddere non valet, ex- 
emplis, et criticorum fide dignorum testimoniis, probatum 
dabimus. 

Exempli gratia, apud Apologiam Justini M. ed. Oxon. a 
sectione 18 ad 24, occurrunt citationes bene longe de- 
sumpte ut plurimum ex concione Christi in monte habita, 
et ex sermone ejus non dissimili apud Lucam cap. sexto 
memorato, sed plereque omnes variunt a textu quem 
agnoscunt Biblia nostra, Greci scriptores, et versiones 
antique. Idcirco D. Grabii in citationes e Matt. v. 28, 
xviii. 9, hee est annotatio, Martyri commodum visum fuit 
tum hic, tum in sequentibus, non ipsa Christi verba, prout 
in sacro evangelii codice extant, exacte omnia recitare, 
seu sententiam aliquando eorum imperatoribus ethnicis 
tradere. 

Cum* Ireneus phariseorum questionem citet ad hunc 
modum, ev ποίᾳ δυνάμει τοῦτυ ποιεῖς 3 ἐξουσίᾳ, inquit Grabius, 
habent omnes tres evangeliste (adde etiam ταῦτα, Matt. 
xxi. 23, Marc. xi. 28, Lue. Xxx. 2) sed Treneus, aut Mar- 
cosii, ex memoria ‘allegarunt. Cum in eodem capite 
Treneus citet hee verba, Luc. xix. 42, ci ἔγνως καὶ σὺ 
σῆμερον τὰ πρὸς εἰρῆνην, ἐκρύβη dé cov, teste Grabio, hec 
iterum ex memoria citata esse patet. 

Origenes contra Celsum, 1. 2, p. 58, et I. 4, p. 193, et 
Gal. iv. 21, hwe profert, Aéyeré μοι of τὸν νόμον ἀναγινώσκοντες, 
textus, of ind τὸν νόμον Sédovres εἶναι, p. 65, legit ἥμαρτον 
παραδοὺς αἷμα δίκαιον, textus, ἀθῶον, Matt. xxvii. 4, p. 68, 
κηρυχθήσεται τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦτο ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κύσμῳ, textus, ἐν 
ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ, Matt. xxiv. 14, p 71, ἰδόντες ὅτι ἐξέπνευσεν, 
textus, αὐτὸν ἤδη τεθνηκότα, Toun xix. 14, pro his, et innu- 
meris ejusdem generis hanc apologiam facit Huetius: Ori- 
genes nimirum in referendis a scriptura locis tam sepe ab 
exemplari recessit, quod inconsultis libris festinatione 
impeditus, et memorie confisus ea recitaret. Not. in 
Ong. p. 61, 76, et Origenianorum lib. iii. cap. 1, §. 6, 
scripture testimonia ab eo sepenumero aliter relata re- 
peries ac in editionibus concepta sunt que hodie circum- 
feruntur, quod et ex memorie perfidia aliquando contigit ; 
par in evangeliorum depromptis ab eo locis discrimen 
occurrit; nam preterquam quod variantes suas lectiones 
Novi quoque Testamenti codices habebant, ut hodieque 
habent, utebatur ad hee sepenumero Adamantius Evan- 
gelio secundum Hebrzos, ut tradit Hieronymus in_ libro 
de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, cap. iv., atque inde discre- 
pantiam illam extitisse conjicio. 

Denique de Grecis Irenxi hee dicit Millius, proleg. 
pag. 40, col. 2. Ea maxima ex parte intercidisse, et in eis 
que supersunt, Epiphanius, aliique, quibus ea debemus, 
haud semper citarunt loca Nov. Test. ad textum Irena- 
num, sed nonnunquam ad codices suos posteriores, seu 
etiam ex memoria, unde sequitur nihil certe ex iis de 
codice Irenxi colligi posse. De Latinis Tertulliani hee 
pronunciat, ibid. p. 49, Millius “In eo citatasunt s. codicis 
loca negligentius, ex memoria, contracte, ad sensum, haud 
sine levicula aliqua subinde mutatione.” Et in variis suis 
lectionibus sepissime monet, hec et illa a patribus ex me- 
moria recitata esse. 

Unum adhuc restat quod patrum saltem homilias, con- 
cionesve eo minus idoneas reddat, ex quibus recepta s. 
textus lectio sollicitetur, nempe constat a tempore Origenis 
homilias eorum, conciones, et sermones, habitos fuisse 
αὐτοσχεδιαστικῶς, Sive ex tempore, eosque excepisse nota- 
rios, qui arte quadam, et celeritate scribendi, non verba 
solum insigniora, sed integras periodos exhibuerunt. Hic 


igitur errandi duplex causa, primo etenim cum in extem- | 
poraneis hisce declamationibus exemplaria ipso inspicere | 


neutiquam potuerint patres, perfrequens necessario fuit 
lapsus eorum memoriz. Secundo, fac in hoc patres rarius | 


* Lib. i. cap. 17, p. 87. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


1143 


errasse, quid tamen verisimilius est, quam in tot minutis 
patrum verbis exscribendis crebro lapsos fuisse notarios ἢ 
Atque his duabus causis, ut conjicere licet, debetur 
magna pars variantium istarum lectionum, quas Millius 
industria singulari, nec sine artificio quodam, coacervavit. 


SECTIO SECUNDA. 


Usrrarissiem porro est apud patres, presertim primi 
seculi, allegare commata quedam s. scripture juxta sensum 
eorum, aut summatim, nulla adhibita ratione ipsorum ver- 
borum; id unum vero imprimis lectorem moneo, ut in 
locupletissima hac rerum sylva colligenda, et sub capitibus 
suis reponenda, accuratam diligentiam que tedium pareret, 
non expectet; nec mihi vitio vertat quod in hac rerum 
partitione, non omnia inveniat adeo exacte, aut juxta regu- 
larum logicalium normam disposita, ut capiti huic potius 
quam alteri instantia queque respondeat. His pr#libatis, 
ad patres ordine procedo. 

Ignatius raro aliquid citat prout jam illud apud evan- 
gelia, epistolas, aut ullam ex antiquis versionibus occurrit, 
sed que in mentem itineranti venerunt, additis, subductis, 
aut immutatis quibusdam adduxit; v. g. in Epistola ad 
Ephesios, sic 

8. 2, Scriptum legimus, ἵνα ἐν μιᾷ ὑποταγῇ ἦτε κατηρτισμένος 
τῷ αὐτῷ νοῖ, καὶ τῇ αὐτῇ “γνώμῃ, καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ λέγητε πάντες περὶ 
τοῦ αὐτοῦ, sc. Si margini sit fides, ex 1 Cor. i. 10, hic vero 
sicut καὶ μὴ ἢ ἐν ὑμῖν σχίσματα omittit, ita etiam addit ἐν μιᾷ 
ὑποταγῆ, et περὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ, et transponit τὸ αὐτὸ λέγητε πάντες. 
In Constitutionibus Αροϑβί. lib. ii. cap. 44, verba sic se habent, 
Gras μὴ ἣ ἐν ὑμῖν σχίσματα, ἦτε δὲ ἕν σῶμα καὶ ἕν πνεῦμα Karnp- 


τισμένοι τῷ αὐτῷ νοῖ, καὶ τῇ αὐτῇ γνώμῃ κατὰ τὴν κυριακὴν ϑέσιν, 
ubi addita sunt textui verba quibus linea subducta est. 
Quid ad hee Millius notat, sc. desse ἐν ante τῷ vot, et τῇ 
airy γνώμη ; de reliquis prorsus silet. 

§. 4, In eadem epistola habes φανερὸν τὸ δένδρον ἀπὸ τοῦ 
καρποῦ αὐτοῦ, et in margine Matt. xii. 33, cujus verba sunt, 
ἐκ yap τοῦ καρποῦ τὸ dévdpov γινώσκεται" §. 8, hee reperies, ποῦ 
σοφύς ; ποῦ συζητήτης ; ποὺ KadXnats τῶν λεγομένων συνετῶν. 1 
Cor. i. 20, ubi ut omittit ποῦ γραμματεὺς, et τοῦ αἰώνος τούτου, 
sic posteriorem clausulam de suo addit. In Epist. ad Rom. 
§. δ, desumit hee verba ex 1 Cor. iv. 4, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ παρὰ τοῦτο 
aa Textus legit ἐν τούτῳ. In Ep. ad Eccles. 
Smyrn. §. 6, legit 6 χωρῶν χωρείτω, Matt. xix. 12. Textus 
vero ὃ Spveueiao χωρεῖν. Atqui in omnibus his locis nulla 
ex Ignatio adhibetur varians lectio. 

In Polycarpi Epistola nihil fere occurrit, cui tanquam 
stabili fandamento varians lectio innitatur; de verbis Petri 
1 Pet. i. 18, actum est alibi: §. 2, hee habet διὸ ἀναζωσά- 
μενοι τὰς ὀσφύας, δουλεύσατε τῷ Oecd ἐν φύβῳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ, et in 
margine legas, 1 Pet. i. 13, et Ps. ii. 11, quasi hec loca in 
unum confudisset Polycarpus, cum revera in neutro hee 
verba reperias. Ibidem legimus, μὴ ἀποδιδόντες κακὸν ἀντὶ 
κακοῦ, ἢ λοιδορίαν ἀντὶ λοιδορίας, ἣ γρόνϑον ἀντὶ γρόνϑου, ἢ κατάραν 
ἀντὶ κατάρας, postrema addit Polycarpus de suo. Ita Millius 
in 1 Pet. iii. 9, §. 5, πᾶσα (φησὶ) ἐπιθυμία κατὰ τοῦ πνεύματος 
στρατεύεται, ex 1 Pet. ii. 12, κατὰ τῆς ψυχῆς. Petrus ipse, 
§. 8, in citando v. 24 ejusdem capitis, omittit αὐτὸς, et pro 
ἐν τῷ σώματι αὐτοῦ legit τῷ ἰδίῳ σώματι, atque hee Polycarpi 
solius autoritate inter varias Millii lectiones locum obtinent, 
sicut etiam ex 8. 7, πᾶς ὃς ἂν μὴ ὁμολογῇ τὸν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν 
σαρκὶ ἐληλυθέναι, ἀντιχριστός ἐστι. Sed CEcumenius et versiones 
omnes editis congruunt, sc. πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ-πτἐληλυθότα ἐκ τοῦ 
Θεοῦ οὔκ ἐστι, καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου, Vide locum hune 
excussum 1 Joh. iv. 3. 

Idem dicendum est de locis a Justino Martyre ex me- 
moria, ut dixi, citatis, a 5. 18 ad §. 26, que speciatim 
jam attingo, v. g, Matt. v. 28, ὃς ἂν ἐμβλέψη γυναικὶ, Just. 
πᾶς 6 βλέπων γυναῖκα, textus, ἤδη ἐμοίχευσε τῇ καρδίᾳ παρὰ τῷ 
Θεῷ, Just. ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ, text. v. 46, ἐὰν 
γὰρ ἀγαπῆσετε ὑμᾶς, τίνα μισϑὸν ἔχετε; οὐχὶ καὶ of τελῶναι τὸ 
αὐτὸ ποιοῦσι; ita Mattheus: τί καινὸν ποιεῖτε; καὶ γὰρ εἰ 
πόρνοι τοῦτο ποιοῦσιν, Just. cap. vi. 215 ἐκεῖ ἔσται καὶ καρδίᾳ 
ὑμῶν, text.; καὶ ὃ νοῦς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, Just. cap. v. 16; λαμπάτῳ 
δὲ ὑμῶν τὰ καλὰ ἔργα ἐμπροσϑὲν τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἵνα βλέποντες 
Ραμ ΩΣ, τὸν πατέρα ὑμῶν ἵνα ἰδόντες, δοζάσωσι, text. 8. 

» legit οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ μόνος Θεὸς ὃ ποιῆσας τὰ πάντας 
| Matt xix. 17, §. 26, e Matt. x. 28 aut Luc. xii. 34 legit 


1144 


μὴ φοβεῖσθε τοὺς ἀναιροῦντας, φοβεῖσϑε δὲ τὸν μετὰ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν 
δυνάμενον, ὅτο. ubi textui adduntur verba μετὰ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν, 
§. 48, allegat hec verba tanquam dicto a Judxis Christo in 
cruce suflixo, νεκροὺς dvayeipas, ῥυσάσϑω ἑαυτὸν, ubi Grabius 
nos refert ad Matt. xxvii. 39, 40, qui versiculi verbis 
Martyris parum conveniunt. In Dialogo cum Tryphone, 
p- 235, habet hee verba a Luc. xi. 52, “ Ve vobis scribis,” 
ὅτι κλεῖδας ἔχετε. Textus, ὅτι ἤρατε τὴν κλεῖδα τῆς γνώσεως. 

Lue. xii. 50, dicit Christus “Baptismum habeo bap- 
tizari,” καὶ πῶς συνέχομαι ἕως οὗ τελεσϑῆ, hanc clausulam sic 
exhibet Ireneus, lib. i. cap. 18, p. 89, καὶ πάνυ ἐπείγομαι εἰς 
αὐτὸ, Epiphanius, Her. Arian. p. 784, καὶ τί ϑέλω, εἰ ἤδη 
ἐβαπτίσϑην 5 

Clemens Alex. ait, Pedag. lib. i. cap. 6, p. 82, cum 
Dominus noster baptizatus esset, ecce vox e cclis dicens, 
“Hic est filius meus dilectus,” ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε, et 
lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 45, allegat verba apostoli, 1 Cor. viil. 6, ad 
hunc modum, ἀλλὰ μόνος ὄντως ἐστὶν εἷς ἡμῶν ὃ Θεὸς ἐξ οὗ τὰ 
πάντα, wbi textus sic, ἀλλ᾽ ἡμῶν εἷς Θεὸς 6 πατὴρ, &c. Hane 
insignem mutationem preterit Millius; notat autem omitti 
verba sequentis, καὶ ἡμεῖς eis αὐτὸν. Ubi Sanctus Judas 
scripsit δεσμοῖς ἀϊδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον τετήρηκεν, ibi Clemens habet 
ὑπὸ ζόφον ἀγρίων ἀγγέλων, Stro. iil. p. 4675 ὃ Κύριός [φησιν] ὃ 
γῆμας μὴ ἐκβαλλέτω, καὶ ὃ μὴ γαμήσας, μὴ γαμείτω, que ut vide- 
tur citare non ex evangeliis, sed ex 1 Cor. vii. 27, ita neque 
verbis, neque sententie apostoli satis apte respondent. Stro. 
iv. p- 488, sic verba Zacchei profert, ἡμίση τῶν ὑπαρχόντων pov 
δίδωμι ἐλεεμοσύνην τοῖς πτωχοῖς, et deinde addit, ἐφ᾽ οὗ καὶ 6 
σωτὴρ εἶπεν, ὃ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐλθὼν σῆμερον τὸ ἀπολωλὸς εὖρεν, 
quod multum discrepat a Luc. xix. 8—10. In eadem 
pagina hee verba desumit, vel e Matt. xii. 42, vel e Mare. 
ix. 41, καὶ ὃς ἂν δέξηται ἕνα τῶν μαθητῶν τούτων τῶν μικρῶν, 
μισϑὸν οὐκ ἀπολέσει, que recepte lectioni parum congruunt. 
Eodem libro, p. 529, his verbis, tanquam a Christo dictis 
φησὶν affigit, ἐὰν ποιήσης ἐλεημοσύνην, μηδεὶς γινωσκέτω, καὶ ἐὰν 
νηστεύσης ἀλεΐφω" ἵνα ὃ Θεὸς μόνος γινώσκη, ἀνθρώπων δὲ οὐδέ εἷς, 
ubi certe nihil sibi statuit preterquam Christi dicta, Matt. 
vi. in epitomen redigere. Stro. vi. p. 662, parabolam, 
Matt. xiii. 47, 48, sic recitat, ὁμοία ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν 
ἀνθρώπῳ σπγήνην eis ϑάλασσαν βεβληκότι, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πλήθους 
ἑαλωκότων ἰχθύων τὴν ἐκλογὴν τῶν ἀμεινόνων ποιουμέῳ, Sensum sic 
afferens, non verba Christi; pariter ac Stro. iil. p. 440, ubi 
illo teste, Christus ait, Luc. xii. 58, pera τοῦ ἀντιδίκου βαδίζων 
φίλος αὐτοῦ πειράθητι ὑπαλλαγῆναι. Ex his et iis que dicentur 
infra, facile discamus, in judicio quod de patrum citationi- 
bus fecit, longe aut falli, aut prejudiciis abreptum, a veritate 
multum aberrasse Millium. Clemens enim, eo teste, in 
adducendis N. Test. locis creber est, et cautus raro, 
quicquam ingerens, seu etiam pretermittens. rol. p. 60, 
col, 2. 

De Origenis in scripturis citandis licentia, aliquid supra 
diximus, locisque in precedente sectione notatis. Sexcenta 
nullo negotio addere possim. Sed ne in iis proferendis 
nimius sim, pauca ex innumeris depromam, v. g. pro τί 
ϑέλω εἰ ἤδη ἀνήφθη ; Luc. xii. 49, Orig. in Exod. ed Huet. 
to. 1. p. 22, legit, εἴτε δὲ ἐκάη. Com. in Matt. p. 463, verba 
apud Lucam, cap. xiv. 28, 29, sic representat, ris ἐξ 
ὑμῶν βουλόμενος πῦργον οἰκοδομῆσαι οὐχὶ ψηφίζει, εἰ δύναται 
ϑεῖναι. ϑεμέλιον καὶ ἑκτελέσαι, ἵνα μὴ ἄρξωνται οἱ ϑεωροῦντες 
ἐμπαίζειν τῷ μὴ τελέσαντι; ubi sensum Christi retinens, in 
verbis plurima mutat, hee tamen sic introducit, περὶ τοῦ 
τοιοῦτου νομίζω λελέχϑαι πύργου ὑπὸ τοῦ σωτῆρος τύ, Com. in 
Matt. p- 3075; pro τότε συνῆκαν οἱ paSnrat, Matt. xvii. 13, 
habet Origenes οἱ συναναβάντες τρεῖς paSnrai, ibid. p. 489; 
ita allegat, 1 Tim. ii. 3, σωθήσεται δὲ διὰ τῆς rexvoyoviac, ἐὰν 
τὰ τέκνα μείνῃ ἐν πίστει, immutans μείνωσι in μείνη, et simul’ 
addens τὰ τέκνα explicandi gratia. Et pro ἐν ποίᾳ παραβολῇ 
παραβάλωμεν αὐτὴν ; Orig. in Matt. p- 208, legit, ἐν τινὶ αὐτὴν 
παραβολῇ ϑῶμεν 5 

Athanasius in scriptis suis genuinis receptam lectionem 
plerumque retinet, et de via raro aliter quam addendo 
pauca declinat, v. g. 2 Cor. v. 15, hee reperias, ὅτι εἰ εἷς 
ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀπέθανεν, “utique omnes mortui sunt, et pro 
omnibus mortuus est,” ἵνα of ζῶντες οὐκέτι ἑαυτοῖς ζῶσιν, ἀλλὰ 
τῷ ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν ἀποθανόντι καὶ ἐγερθέντι, at vero illud de In- 
carn. Verbi, p- 62, sic legit, ὅτι εἷς ὑπὲρ, &e. ἵνα ἡμεῖς 
μηκέτι ἑαυτοῖς (. ἐμαυτοῖς) ζῶμεν, ἀλλὰ τῷ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπο- 


θανόντι ἀναστάντι ἐκ νεκρῶν, τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῶν ubi 
de defectu ci, et de posteriori additamento, mentionem | 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


facit Millius, de reliquis variationibus nullam. In secunda 
oratione contra Arian. p. 351, παρὰ τοῦ Πέτροῦ (inquit) 
λέγεται ὅτι ἐπειδὰν Θεὸς ὧν γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος, Nec tamen ex- 
istimabat verba hee ῥητῶς in Petri epistolis inveniri, sed 
tantum virtute in 1 Pet. iv. 1 contineri. Nam orat. iv. 
p- 483, sic suam ipse sententiam aperit. Postquam enim 
hec attulisset verba, Χριστοῦ οὖν παϑόντος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν σαρκὶ, 
addit, hoc autem est ἴσον τοῦ φάναι Θεὸς ὧν, ἴδιον ἔσχε σῶμα, 
καὶ τοῦτο) χρώμενον ὀργάνῳ, ἄνθρωπος γέγονε δι᾿ ἡμᾶς. 

Cyrillus Hierosol. sic loquentem introducit Paulum, μὴ 
ἐξίστασϑε, ἐγὼ oida ὅτι σκληρόν poi ἐστι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν, 
Catech. 10, p. 90, et Catech. 5, ρ. 45, pro τιρῆσαί σε τὴν 
ἐντολὴν, 1 Tim. vi. 14, legit τηρῆσαι ταύτην ὑμᾶς τὴν παρα- 
δεδομένην πίστιν. 

Producit sepissime in scenam Epiphanium, ut lectionis 
non tantum varie, sed genuine testem idoneum (quod 
non modo ex annotationibus, sed ex prolegomenis, p. 75, 
col. 2, et p. 76, col. 1, 2, apparet). Fatetur tamen ipse 
Millius ibidem ab Epiphanio plerumque negligentius, et 
ad sensum allegata esse 5, codicis testimonia, quorum 
falsa et vera inter se numero non distinguuntur, v. g. in 
Anchorato hee depromit, p. 26, e Joh. xii. 35, οὐκ ἔστε 
ἐν νυκτὶ, ἵνα ἡ ἡμέρα ἐν σκότει ὑμᾶς καταλάβῃ, que a textu, aut 
verbis Christi, pro quibus adducuntur, adeo longe discre- 
pant, ut licet forte videantur additamentum e 1 Thessal. v. 
4, neutiquam tamen dicenda sint legitima explicatio. In 
Anacephalzosi, p. 156, sic legit, 1 Cor. xv. 42, τὰ viv σπει- 
ρόμενα ἐν ϑανάτῳ, ἐγείρονται ἐν ἀϑανασία. Textus autem ἐν 
φθορᾷ, ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ. In Panario, i. e. volumine Adv. Her. 
quinquies vel sexies legit, Joh. vili. 44, καὶ 6 πατὴρ αὐτοῦ 
ψεύστης ἦν, Viz. p. 279 bis; 295, 297, 676, 677, qua ex lec- 
tione originem suam duxit absurda illa quorundam Chris- 
tianorum de patre diaboli opinio. Interdum quedam 
Christi aut apostolorum adducit testimonia, que nusquam 
sunt gentium. Ita, p. 690, post verba, quibus Christus 
alloquitur suos discipulos, “ Attendite a fermento phari- 
seorum quod est hypocrisis,” addit, καὶ ἐν ἄλλῳ τόπῳ ἥ ἔστι 
φιλαργυρία, forsan alludens ad Luc. xvi. 14, ubi pharisei 
φιλάργυροι appellantur. Et p. 751, 754, 917, dicit, 6 Κύριος 
εὐλογῶν τοὺς μαθητὰς, en, πάτερ, δὸς αὐτοῖς ζωὴν ἔχειν ἐν ἕαυ- 
τοῖς" at vero neque hee verba apud 5. scripturam occurrunt, 
neque perfectio illa divina hominibus communicari potest. 
Supervacaneum autem est, post Heinsii labores, plura hic 
adducere, cum enim multa hujusmodi in medium protulerit, 
orationem sic claudit, “ Cujusmodi si singula vel ex solo 
hoe adducerem autore, in quo miram ubique licentiam no- 
tavi, quis futurus finis esset?” 

Sanctus Basilius, tom. ii. 664, verba Pauli, Eph. iv. 2, 
sic exhibet, ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων ἐν ἀγάπη Χριστοῦ, non quia 
ibi reperisset Χριστοῦ, sed explicationis gratia, vel forte 
eX Cap. V. 2, περιπατεῖτε ἐν ἀγάπῃ, καθῶς καὶ ὃ Χριστὸς ἡγάπησεν 
ἡμᾶς. 

Cyrillus Alex. recitat verba Luc. xi. 11, sic, δότε é\en- 
μοσὔνην, καὶ ἰδοῦ πάντα ὑμῖν εὔοδα ἔσται, De Ador. Sp. p- 272. 
Pro ταῦτα γράψειν, Phil. iti. 1, sepius habet ταῦτα λέγειν, 
in Hos. p. 1, in Amos. p. 285, in Joel, p. 381. Allegat 
verba Jacobi c. v. 20, ad hune modum σώσει ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ, in 
Min. Proph. p. 494. 

Sanctus Chry sostomus sic Agrippe regis verba profert, 
κινδυνεῦεις με ἐν ὀλίγῳ ποιῆσαι χριστιανὸν, ed Mor. to. i. p. 669, 
sed in commentario editis congruit. Sic etiam Christi 
verba refert, Luc. xiii. 2, 4, doxetre ὅτι ἐκεῖνοι ἁμαρτωλοὶ 
ἦσαν μόνον, ubi recepta lectio habet παρὰ πάντας τοὺς Γαλιλαί- 
ovs, παρὰ πάντας ἀνθρώπους, vide to. ν. p. 74, 75. Hee etiam 
Rom. ix. 32, tanquam ipsissima textus verba recitat, ὅτι 
οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἐξ ἔργων νόμου ἠθέλησαν δικαιωθῆναι- 
Omnia percurrere infinitus esset labor; ecce autem 6 
grandioribus exemplis, Matt. xxv. 34—36, sic textum ex- 
hibet, καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἀποδέξεται ὅτι πεινῶντα αὐτὸν ἔθρεψαν, καὶ 
διψῶντα ἐπότισαν, καὶ ξένον ὄντα συνήγαγον, καὶ γῦμνον ὄντα περι- 
ἔβαλον, καὶ ἀσϑενοῦντα ἐπεσκέψαντο, καὶ ἐν φυλακῇ ὄντα εἶδον, 
καὶ δώσει τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῖς, ubi si sensum spectes, nihil 
deest; si verba, in omnibus deficiunt. 


SECTIO TERTIA. 
Sr singula enumerare velim, que textui de suo adjece- 


runt patres Greci, in molem immensam cresceret oratio: 
ut igitur pauca de multis attingam. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Primo hoc in genere Clemens Alexandrinus centies ad 
minimum peccat, nec enim fides adhibenda est Millio di- 
centi raro ipsum quicquam ingenere, Frustra enim verbis 
asseritur quod re ipsa falsi arguatur. Ex. gr. Protrept. 
p- 3, Tit. iii, 2 sic recitat, ἦμεν μὲν ἦμέν ποτε καὶ ἡμεῖς 
dvénroxr, non quod τὸ ἦμεν bis ibi legeret, sed vocem rhetorum 
more ingeminat. Padag. lib. i. cap. 4, p. 14, Luc. xx. 34 
sic exhibet, ἐν γὰρ αἰῶνι τούτῳ φησὶ (sc. 6 Χριστὸς) γαμοῦσι 
καὶ ἐκγαμίσκονται, ἐν ᾧ δὲ μόνῳ τὸ ϑῆλυ τοῦ ἄῤῥενος διακρίνεται, 
ἐν ἐκείνῳ δὲ οὐκέτι" cap. 5, p. 85, Matt. xix. 13, 14. sic legit, 
προσήνεγκάν τε αὐτῶ, φησὶ, παιδία εἰς χειροθεσίαν εὐλογίας" κωλυ- 
ὄντων δὲ τῶν γνωρίμων, εἶπεν ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς, et post decem lineas, 
Matt. xxi. 9 sic, εὐλογημένος ὃ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Kupion, 


φῶς, καὶ dofa, καὶ αἶνος, μεθ᾽ ἱκετηρίας τῷ Κυρίῳ" cap. 6, p. 97, | 


sic allegat 1 Cor. iii. 11, ὅτε ἤμην νήπιος ὡς νήπιος ἐφρόνουν, 
ἐκειδὴ εἰκόμην τῷ νομῷ" Ep. p. 88, hee habet, 5 ἀπόστολος ἐπί- 
στέλλων πρὸς Κορινθίους, φησὶν, 1 Cor. xi. 2, ἡρμοσάμην γὰρ 
ἡμᾶς ἐνὶ ἀνδρὶ παρθένον ἁγνὴν παραστῆσαι τῷ Χριστῷ, εἴτε ὡς 
νηπίους, καὶ ἁγίους, πλὴν ἀλλὰ τῷ μόνῳ Κυρίῳ" ibid. p. 99, his 
verbis, 1 Cor. iii. 3, ἐπεὶ yap σαρκικοί ἐστε, addit, τὰ τῆς 
σαρκὸς φρονοῦντες, ἐπιθυμοῦντες, ἐρῶντες, ζηλοῦντες, pnvecivres, 
φθονοῦντες" cap. vii. p. 112, hwc habet, διὸ φησὶν ἡ γραφὴ 
(Joh. 1.17) ὃ νόμος διὰ Μώσεως ἐδόθη, οὐχὶ ὑπὸ Μώσεως, ἀλλὰ 
ὑπὸ μὲν τοῦ Λόγου, διὰ Μώσεως δὲ τοῦ ϑεράποντος αὐτοῦ, διὸ καὶ 
πρύσκαιρος ἐγένετο, ἡ δὲ ἀΐδιος χάρις, καὶ ἀλήϑεια, διὰ ᾿Ιησοῦ 
Χριστοῦ ἐγένετο, cap. 9, p. 125, ex Matt. iii. 12, τὸ γὰρ πτῦον 
ἐν τῇ χειρὶ rod Κυρίου, Qo ἀποκρίνεται rod πυροῦ τὸ ἄχυρον τὸ ὀφει- 
λόμενον τῷ πυρί. Lib. ili. cap. 12, p. 263, inter apostoli pre- 
cepta enumerat hoc, Eph. v. 1, γίνεσθε οὖν φρόνιμοι, καὶ μιμη- 
ταὶ Θεοῦ ὡς τέκνα ἀγαπητὰ (ubi τὸ φρόνιμοι inter variantes 
lectiones locum obtinet, licet omittat vocabulum_ illud 
idem Clem. Stro. iii. p. 431), et post sex lineas sequitur 
hoc preceptum ex v. 28, aut 33, ἀγαπάτωσαν οὖν ἀλλήλους 
of συνεζευγμένοι ὡς τὰ ἴδια σώματα, de quo altum est apud 


Millium silentium. Lib. ii. cap. 1, p. 141, 6 Κύριος λέγει yoov, | 


Luc. xiv. 13, ὅταν ποιῆς δοχὴν, κάλει τοὺς πτωχοὺς, ἐφ᾽ ᾧ 
μάλιστα δεῖπνον ποιητέον. Cap. ii. p. 156, εἰκότως οὖν ὃ ἀπόστο- 


λος ἐπιστέλλει, μὴ μεθύσκεσθε ἐν οἴνῳ, ὦ ἐστιν ἁσωτία πολλὴ. | 


Eph. v. 18, ubi variantes lectiones notat Millius, cap. 10, 
Ῥ. 197, ὡς φησὶν ὁ Παῦλος ᾳ Cor. vi. 15) οὐ χρὴ πύρνης 
μέλη ποιεῖν τὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ μέλη, οὐδὲ μὴν νεὼν τῶν παθῶν τῶν 
αἰσγρῶν, τὸν νεὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ ποιητέον, Ibid. p. 201, ἐν τῷ εὐαγ- 
γελίῳ λέγει (Matt. xi. 8) tod of ἐν τῷ ἱματισμῷ ἐνδόξῳ, καὶ 
ἐν τροφῇ διάγοντες, ἐν τοῖς βασιλείοις εἰσὶ ἐπιγείοις. Stro. i. 
Pp. 280, 5 Κύριος μόνος γινώσκει τοὺς διαλογισμοὺς, ex 1 Cor. 
iii. 20: p. 289, εἴ τις μὴ προσέρχεται ὑγιαίνουσι λόγοις, φησὶ 
(1 Tim. ix. 2), διδασκαλία δέ τινι τετύφλωται, &c.: p. 296, ex 
Col. ii. 8, βλέπετε μή τις ἔσται ὃ συλαγαγὼν ἀπὸ τῆς πίστεως 
τῆς cis τὸν Χριστὸν, διὰ τῆς φιλοσοφίας, p. 313, ᾿Ιουδαῖοί φησι 
[6 Cor. i. 22), σημεῖα αἰτοῦσι πρὸς πίστιν, ubi observat Mill. 
σημεῖα esse pro σημεῖον, sed de additamento nihil, Stro. iii. 
Ρ. 471, sic recitat Gal. ii. 20, ζῶ δὲ οὐκ ἔτι ἐγὼ, ds ἔζων 
κατὰ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας, ζῆ dé ἐν ἐμοὶ Χριστὸς διὰ τῆς τῶν ἐντολῶν 
ὑπακοῆς, ἁγνῶς, καὶ μακαρίως" et Stro. iv. p. 379, “Mihi enim 
crucifixus est mundus, et ego mundo,” βιῶ δὲ ἤδη ἐν σαρκὶ 
ὧν, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ πολιτευόμενος. Vide bina additamenta ad 
Eph. iv. 21, 22, Ped. lib. iii. cap. 3, p. 224, addit ad 2 
Cor. xiii. 5, p. 225, ad Matt. v. 29, p. 251, ad 1 Pet. i. 17, 
p- 258, ad Hebr. xii. 6, Stro. ii. p. 360, ad 2 Cor. v. 12, 
Stro. iii. p. 452, ad Luc. xix. 8, Stro. iv. p. 488, ad 1 Cor. 
ix. 12, p. 513, ad Matt. xviii. 3, p. 538, ad Luc. viii. 8, 
Stro. v. p. 545, ad Joh. x. 16, Stro. vi. p. 668, denique ad 
1 Cor. viii. 4, p. 695, 

Origenes in Celsum, lib. vi. p. 278, sic ait, καὶ ᾿Ιωάννης 
λέγει ὅπερ φῶς ἀληθινὸν φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν 
ἀληθινὸν καὶ νοητὸν κόσμον, καὶ ποιεῖ αὐτὸν dads roy κόσμῳ. Lib. ii. 
p. 61, sic Christi verba refert, Luc. xxii. 27, ἐγὼ δὲ ἐγενύμην 
ἐν μέσῳ ὑμῶν, οὐχ ὡς ὃ ἀνακείμενος, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς 6 διακονῶν. Lib. i. 
Ῥ. 44, exemplum licentie quam sibi sumpsit tum in mu- 
tando, tum in addendo verba Dei. Sic, inquit, loquitur 
Gamaliel, Act. v. 38, ἐὰν ἡ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἡ βουλὴ αὕτη, καὶ ὁ 
λόγος οὗτος (text. καὶ τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο), καταλυθήσεται" ὡς καὶ 
ἐκείνων κατελῦθε ἀποθανόντων, ἐὰν δὲ ἐκ Θεοῦ (text. εἰ δὲ ἐκ Θεοῦ 
ἐστιν) οὐ δυνήσασθε (text. δύνασθε) καταλῦσαι τὴν rotrov διδασ- 
καλίαν (text. αὐτό). 

Athanasius Alex. Hom. in “Omnia mihi tradita,” p. 
150, ad verba Matt. cap. xi. 28, addit tanquam Christi 
verba, “Venite ad me omnes——reficiam vos, παρεδόθη 
γάρ μοι ἵνα κοπιώσαντας ἀναπαύσω, καὶ νεκρωθέντας ζωοποιήσω.᾽ 


Vor IV —144 


| κοινωνίαν σαρκικὴν, dotX\evcov τῷ Θεῷ. 


1145 


Ad 1 Pet. i. 14, addit cum multis aliis, τὸ τῆς δυνάμεως. 
Epist. ad Serap. p. 200, Orat. ii. contra Arianos, p. 310, 
allegatis Judworum verbis sub formula interrogandi, “ Cur 
tu, homo cum sis, facis te Deum?” addit καὶ λέγεις, ἐγὼ 
καὶ ὃ πατὴρ fv ἐσμέν. Ibid. p. 314, verba, 1 Tim. iv. 1, sic 
recitat, “In novissimis temporibus ἀποστήσονταί τινὲς τῆς 
ἰδίας πίστεως τῆς ὑγιαινούσης," et p. 303, τῆς dying πίστεως, et 
Ρ. 367, Joh. iii. 17 sic legit, “Non enim misit Deus filium 
suum in mundum ut judicet mundum,” ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα πάντα 
λυτρώσηται. Orat. iv. p. 478, his verbis, Rom. xi. 29, dyera- 
μέλητα yap τὰ χαρίσματα τόδ Θεοῦ, subjungit καὶ ἡ χάρις τῆς 


| χκλήσεως. Ibid. p. 480, questioni, Joh. vi. 42, « Quomodo 


ergo dicit quod de calo descendi?” premittit πῶς λέγει 
πρὶν ᾿Αβραὰμ γενέσϑαι ἐγώ ci, Orat. iv. p. 552, adducit 
tanquam verba Christi, Joh. xv. 22, εἰ γὰρ οὐκ ἦλθον----νῦν 
δὲ πρόφασιν οὐκ ἔξζουσιν (supple περὶ τῆς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν) φησὶ 
ἀκηκοότες pov τῶν ῥημάτων ὀι᾿ ὧν σωτηρίαν καρπίζονται οἱ φυ- 
λάσσοντες. In sermone de Salut. Adventu Christi, p. 640, 
sic recitat 1 Pet. iii, 195 ἐπορεύθη rots ἐν φυλακῇ κατακε- 
κλεισμένοις πνεύμασιν εὐαγγελίσασϑαι τὴν ἀνάστασιν. Thid. p. 646, 
legit Joh. xvii. δ, dégacév pe πάτερ τῇ ἀϊδίῳ δόξη. Serm. de 
Sabbato, et Circumcisione, p. 968, post συνταφέντες αὐτῷ ἐν 
βαπτίσματι addit εἰς τῆν ἄδην. 

Cyrillus Hierosol. citans 1 Cor. xii. 28, post γένη γλώσσων 
addit καὶ πάσης ἀρετῆς ἅπαν εἶδος. Catech. xviii. p. 222. 

Apud Epiphanium sepe Christum audias dicentem, Joh. 
v. 23, “ Qui non honorificat filium sicut honorificat patrem, 
ἡ ὀργὴ rod Θεοῦ én’ αὐτὸν μένει. Τίὰ Panar. p. 377, 884, 
977: p. 516, iisdem verbis subjungit hee, οὐκ ἔχει ζωὴν ἐν 
ἑαυτῷ. Ad 1 Joh. ii. 22, addit, p. 878, 6 ὑμολογῶν τὸν υἱὸν, 
καὶ τόν πατέρα ὁμολογεῖ. Addit Philip. ii. 11, καὶ πᾶσα γλῶσσα 
ἐξομολογήσηται ὅτι ὃ Κύριος, id est Χριστὸς, ὃ οὐκ ἀλλότριος Θεοῦ 
ὧν, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς δύξαν Θεοῦ πατρὸς, Ὁ. 972: p. 880,1 Cor. ii. 17, 
pro ἃ καὶ λαλοῦμεν legit, ἐν ᾧ καὶ λαλοῦμεν, et deinde, ἐν ᾧ 
καὶ λατρεύομεν, καὶ προσκυνοῦμεν. Post τὰς χεῖράς μου καὶ τοὺς 
πόδας μου, Luc. xxiv. 39, addit, p. 1003, καὶ τοὺς τύπους τῶν 
ἥλων. Et p. 1055, 1 Tim. iv. 1, addit ἔσονται γὰρ νεκροῖς 
λατρεύοντες, at p. 296, et alibi, recitat eundem versiculum 
absque illo additamento. 

Sanctus Basilius his verbis, εἷς Θεὸς 5 πατὴρ, καὶ εἷς Κύριος 
Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς, dt' οὗ τὰ πάντα, addit καὶ ἕν Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐν ὦ 
τὰ πάντα. Lib. ii. de Spiritu Sancto, cap. 2, tom. ii. p. 
294, et tom. i. Hexam. p. 6, col. i. 16, addit εἴτε δυνάμεις, 
εἴτε ἀγγέλων στρατιαὶ, etre ἀρχαγγέλων émoraciat, forsan inter- 
pretamento horum verborum, τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ 
γῆς, que omittit. 

Macarius ‘Egyptius in his additamentis pre ceteris 
abundat. Hom. ix. p. 5, 1 Cor. ii. 15, ὁ πνευματικὸς (φησὶ) 
γινώσκει ἕκαστον πύθεν λαλεῖ, ποῦ ἕστηκε καὶ ἕν ποίοις μέτροις 
ἐστίν, Hom, xii. p. 73, Martham introducit sic Christum 
alloquentem, Luc. x. 40, ἐγὼ κάμνω εἰς πολλὰ, καὶ αὐτὴ 
παρακαϑέζεταΐ σοι. Hom. xiv. p. 75, legit 1 Cor. ix. 10, καὶ 
6 λαμθάνων γυναῖκα ἐπὶ ἐλπίδι τοῦ ἔχειν κληρονόμους. Matt. 
xix. 21, his verbis, “ Vende que habes,” addit μίσησον τὴν 
Ep. p. 211, addit Gal. 
iv. 2, ὑπὸ ὑποτρύπους καὶ οἰκονόμους τῶν πονηρῶν πνευμάτων. Vide 
similia ed. Paris. p. 88, 202, 236. 

Theodoretus, Her. Fab. p. 309, ad 1 Cor. vii. 7, ϑέλω γὰρ 
πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἶναι ὡς καὶ ἐμαυτὸν ἐν éyxpareia, ita enim 
explicat hee verba in commentario suo. Idem eadem de 
causa fecit Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. iii..p. 12 et 385, 
et tom. iv. p. 539. Cum vero tantum legimus, Acts xiii. 
46, στρεφόμεϑα εἰς τὰ ἔϑνη, Theodoretus in Isa. xi. et orat. 
10 adv. Gr. p. 639, legit xaSapot ἠμεῖς, ἀπὸ τοῦ viv cis ἔϑνη 
πορευσύμεδα. Cum editis tamen congruit Comment. in Jer. 
p- 170, legendo ἑδοῦ στρεφόμεϑα εἷς τὰ ἔθνη. 

Denique verbis Christi, Matt. xix. 17, εἰ μὴ εἷς 6 Θεὸς, ad- 
jiciunt patres primevi nunc 6 ποιήσας πάντα, Just, M. Apol. 
2, p. 63, alias 6 πατήρ μου ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, Dial. Cum Tryph. 
p- 328, Clem. Alex. Pedag. lib. i. cap. 8, p. 118, et Iren. 
lib. i. cap. 17, alias simpliciter ὁ πατήρ. Orig. Exhort. ad 
Martyr. p. 169, Com. in Joh. p. 38, et p. 60, et contra 
Cels. lib, v. p. 238. 


SECTIO QUARTA. 


Mvtra verba swpe et periodos omittunt patres, aut 
saltem contrahunt reclamantibus suis exemplaribus, ex eo 
quod forsan quibusdam illa locis superflua videbantur (sicut 

ἀν 


1146 


Millio centies in ore est) vel nihil ad rem facere, vel quod 
posita essent in parenthesi, vel quod bis in eadem reposita 
periodo, vel propter aliam quamlibet causam. V. g. 
Clemens Alex. Pedag. lib. ii. cap. 8, p. 158, legit Matt. 
xi, 19, ἦλθεν 6 υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, καὶ λέγουσιν, preterito 
ioSiwv, καὶ πίνων, sed Stro. iii. p. 448, legit hee verba; 
Stro. ii. p. 368, habet hee verba, moréov τῇ γραφῇ, S. 
Matt. xix. 24, Sarrov κάμηλον διὰ τρυπήματος βελόνης διελεῦ- 
σεσϑαι, ἢ πλούσιον φιλοσοφεῖν. Ibid. p. 381, sic recitat Matt. 
Xvii. 20, ἐὰν ἔχητε πίστιν ὡς κόκκον σινάπεως, μεταστήσετε τὸ 
ὅρος. P. 389, ὃ γὰρ ἐπιϑυμήσας, ἤδη μεμοΐχευκε, φησίν. Matt. 
v. 38, p. 391, ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν (Joh. xv. 11) ἵνα ἡ 


χαρὰ ἐμὴ πληρωϑῆ, mediis, ἐν ὑμῖν μείνῃ καὶ ἡ χαρὰ ὑμῶν, Stro. | 


lil. p. 438, Πᾶς γὰρ ὃ ἁμαρτάνων δοῦλός ἐστιν, ὃ ἀπύστολος 
λέγει, nimirum, opinor, ex Rom. vi. 16, ubi sensus fere 
idem est, verba tamen diversa. P. 440, sic se habet Luc. 
xii. 58, μήποτε παραδῶ σε κριτῆ, 6 κριτὴς δὲ τῷ ὑπερήτη τῆς 
ἀρχῆς διαβόλῳ. Stro. iv. p. 480, 6 Κύριος ἐν εὐαγγελίῳ φησιν 
(Mare. x. 29) ὃς ἂν καταλείψη πατέρα ἕνεκεν εὐαγγελίου, 
καὶ τοῦ ὀνόματός pov, μακάριος οὗτοσί. Vide etiam Stro. iv. 


p- 529, vi. p. 644, 662. Ecce hominem qui Millio judice | 


Taro quicquam pretermittit. 

Cyrillus Hieros. Joh. i. 3, omittit 3 γέγονεν. Catech. vi. 
p- 50, et Lue. ii. 11, σωτὴρ ὅς ἐστι, Catech. x. p. 86. 

Epiphanius in Anchorato, p. 61, legit Act. xxvii. 37, ὡς 
ὀγδοήκοντα ψυχαὶ, et Ὁ. 83, ὡς ψυχαὶ ἐβῥομήκοντα. Textus 
autem αἱ πᾶσαι ψυγαὶ διακόσιαι ἑβδομήκοντα ἐξ, numerum sc. 
majorem pretermittit, et in minori a se ipso dissentit. In 
Heresi Manichzorum, p. 679, parabolam zizaniorum recitat 
ex Matt. xiii. a v. 24 ad 31, ubi ut missa faciam minutiora 
illa a Millio notata, primo pro ἀνθρύπῳ σπείροντι καλὸν σπέρ- 
μα ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ αὑτοῦ, habet ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοδεσπότῃ ὃς ἔσπειρε τὸν 
ἀγρὸν αὑτοῦ καλὸν σπέρμα. Secundo omittit, ἄνα μέσον τοῦ 
σίτου καὶ ἀπῆλθεν, ν. 25, una cum toto versiculo sequenti. 
Tertio, v. 27, addit, 6 dé ἔφη vai, sc. pro “non,” in quo sensu 
nunquam occurrit apud 5. scripturam. Quarto, Christum 
introducit messoribus dicentem, δήσατε δεσμὰς, καὶ ἑτοιμά- 
Gere τὰ ζιζάνια εἰς κατακαῆναι πυρὶ ἀσβέστῳ. In Her. Catha- 
rorum, p. 494, recitat, Heb. vi. a v. 4 ad 8, ubi deest, v. 7, 
ἀπὸ Θεοῦ, ait Millius, et v. 6, εἰς μετάνοιαν, et v. 4, γευσαμένους 
τῆς δωρεᾶς τοῦ ἐπουρανίου, καὶ μετόχους γεννηϑέντας Πνεύματος 
ἁγίου, de quibus nihil Millius. 

Sanctus Basilius ter repetit verba Christi, Matt. xxviii. 
19, ad hunc modum, zopevSévres βαπτίζετε εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ 


πατρύς, viz. lib. i. contra Eunom. p. 714, lib. iii. p. 752, 758, | 


sed quater cum excusis convenit, legens, ropevSévres paby- 
τεῦσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς, &c. viz. tom. i. Ρ. 
549, 560, tom. ii. p. 423, 479. 

Hoc swpissime accidit cum eadem verba bis in eadem 
periodo reperiuntur. Ita Origenes, hom. 11, in Jer. p. 
113, verba Christi sic profert, Matt. x. 34, μὴ νομίζετε dre 
ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην-τ-----ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν, preterita, posteriori 
illo ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην. Com. in Joh. p. 169, omittit ἐν 
ὀνόματι Kupiov, Marc. xi. 10, quia occurrit in fine versiculi 


precedentis. Cyrillus Alex. sic allegat 2 Cor. ν. 15, εἰ 
εἷς ὑπὲρ. πάντων ἀπέϑανεν, ἄρα of πάντες azéSavor ἵνα ot 


ζῶντες, OMisso, καὶ ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀπέϑανεν quod dictum fuit 
prius Thesaur. 278. Et de Ador. Sp. p. 351. Chrysos- 
tomus, ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 10 et 19, citat Lue. vi. 36 sic, 
γίνεσϑε οὖν οἱκτίρμονες ὡς ὃ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὃ ἐν τοῖς obpavots, eX 
Matt. iv. 48. Sie Act. vi. 13, omittit βλάσφημα in commen- 
tario suo quia lectum est, v. 11. Hujus generis exempla 
multa occurrunt apud ipsius Commentaria in Psalmos, et 
apud Millii prolegomena, et varias lectiones. 

Frequenter etiam omittuntur verba que in parenthesi 
collocantur, sic Act. xii. 3, a Chrysostomo omissa sunt 
ἦσαν δὲ ἡμέραι τῶν ἀζύμων. Sie 1 Cor. xv. 3, 3 καὶ παρέλαβον, 
ab Ιτρῆφο, lib. iii. cap. 20, p. 246, a Tertulliano, Jib. iii. 
contra Marcion, cap. 8, et Hilario P. omittuntur. Quan- 
quam ergo agnoscant hee verba versiones, Grecique scho- 
liaste ad unum omnes, utpote ἐμφατικώτερα, 5] Millium 
tamen audias, Prol. p. 47, col. 2, commentarius est ex v. 1, 
et p. 81, col. 1, vox explicatoria de margine est mixta cum 
Italice genuinis. 

Nihil etiam apud patres usitatius quam in citandis scrip- 
turis, que procemii aut prefationis loco habentur preter- 
mittere. Ita Origenes, περὶ Εὐχῆς, p. 87, 88, omittit ἀμὴν, 
ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, Joh. vi. 53, incipiens ab ἐὰν μὴ φάγητε, 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 756, in unum confundit 
Col. iv. 4, Eph. vi. 20, quod tamen in utraque epistola est, 
ὡς δεῖ pe λαλῆσαι, negligit. 

Hoc etiam crebro contingit in clausula periodi, ubi patres 
decurtant, et amputant verba que ad rem suam minime 
pertinent. V.g. Cyrillus Alex. Thes. p. 163, ut probaret 
secundam in sancta Trinitate personam meram creaturam 
non fuisse, citat Eph. ii. 10, αὐτοῦ γάρ ἐσμὲν ποίημα κτισ- 
ϑέντες ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, abscissis ἐπὶ ἔργοις ἀγαϑοῖς, utpote ad 
argumentum nihil facientibus. Et p. 169, filium non esse 
creaturam probat ex 1 Cor. vili. 6, εἷς Ἰζύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς 
δ οὗ τὰ πάντα, pretermittens καὶ ἡμεῖς δι᾿ αὐτοῦ, utpote in 
prioribus inclusa. Chrysostomus, ed. Morel. tom. iii. p. 
41, sic allegat Eph. iv. 13, μέγρι καταντήσωμεν of πάντες εἰς 
ἄνδρα τέλειον eis μέτρον ἡλικίας, preteritis rod πληρώματος τοῦ 
Χριστοῦ in fine, et duabus pericopis in medio versiculi. 

Non raro etiam omittunt que superflua illis videbantur, 
presertim cum sint idiotismi Hebraici in usu frequenti 
apud LXX. Interpretes. Ita Joh. vi. 2, “Sequebatur eum 
multitado magna, dre {pay αὐτοῦ τὰ σημεῖα ἃ ἐποίει, αὐτοῦ, 
deest in versionibus antiquis, Chrysost. Cyril. Chron. Alex. 
nempe quia superfluum videbatur. Esse tamen pleonas- 
mum Hebraicum constat. Vide Buxtorf. Gram. p. 412. 
Sic 1 Pet. ii. 24, od rod μύλωτι αὐτοῦ ἰάϑητε, τὸ od deest. 
Sic Joh. vi. 9, παιδάριον ἕν ὧδε, deest ἕν quia παρέλκει. Sic 
v. 15, deest πάλιν MSS. quibusdam et versionibus, Chry- 
sostomo, et Nonno: res tamen ipsa minime dubia est, si- 
quidem subiit in eundem montem Jesus, v. 3. Sic v. 22, 
«“ Navicula alia non erat ibi nisi una εἰ μὴ ἕν ἐκεῖνο, ubi a 
Chrysost. et MSS. aliquibus ἐκεῖνο omissum existimat Lucas 
Brug. quod in eis ὃ quod sequitur, satis significetur. Sic 
Joh. vii. 3, “Ut videant discipuli tui τὰ ἔργά cov ἃ ποιεῖς," 
omittunt cov Chrysost. Cyril. Theophyl. ob eandem causam. 
Act. iv. 17, ἀπειλῆ ἀπειλησώμεϑα, quo idiotismo vehemen- 
tiam exprimunt Hebrei. Qui hoe non intelligebant, ἀπειλῇ 
omiserunt. Luce. 1. 75, πάσας ras ἡμέρας τῆς ζωῆς ἡμῶν, Vulg. 
et Syr. omittunt τῆς ζωῆς, utpote in reliquis inclusum. 
Cap. Xiv. 18, ὅταν κληϑιὶς εἰς yapars, ὑπὸ τινος omisso, qui 
enim invocatus fuerit ad ccenam, ab aliquo ut vocetur ne- 
cesse est. Cap. xix. 2, ὁ ἀνὴρ ὀνόματι καλούμενος Zaxxatos, 
deest καλούμενος. Hine ipse Millius agnoscit hoc vel illud 
vocabulum crebro omitti ut supervacaneum. 

Denique, contingit nonnunquam, ipsis patribus id indi- 
cantibus, quod quidam inter eos dedita opera omiserint 
verb aliqua ex vano timore, ne san doctrine obesse, aut 
heretice pravitati patrocinari videantur: sic quoniam 
quidam sentiebant, fletum, cum singultu, Christi persone 
haud bene convenisse, et tamen flevisse eum, cum vide- 
ret Hierosolymam, legimus, Luc. xix. 41, et post mortem 
Lazari, Joh. xi. 35. “Hee loca,” inquit Grotius, “ male 
olim solicitata ab iis qui Christum nobis stoicum effingere 
voluerunt.” Sit autem hoe incertum, utpote quod fidei 
unius Epiphanii innitatur, cujus verba in alium sensum 
trahit Grabius, et post illum Millius, quem ἕστο, me ju- 
dice, ferunt.- Certo tamen certius est totum illud. Lue. 
xxii. 43, 44, ab orthodoxis quibusdam omissum fuisse, me- 
tuentibus ne in malam illud partem heretici interpretaren- 
tur, aut quia pusilli videbatur animi in tanta fuisse agonia 
Christum formidine mortis, ut sudor ejus esset sicut gutte 
sanguinis. Hine Hieronymus, lib. 11. adv. Pelagian, f. 
103, lit. F, hee habet, “In quibusdam exemplaribus 
PN B. tam Grecis, quam Latinis,) invenitur, scribere 
vucam, Apparuit illi angelus de ceelo confortans eum, et 
factus in agonia, prolixius orabat, et factus est sudor ejus 
sicut gutte sanguinis decidentis in terram.” “In quibus- 
dam,” inquit, “invenitur,” in multis ergo defuit. Hilarius 
de Trin. lib. x. p. 253, in eandem sententiam loquitur his 
verbis, “ Nec sane ignorandum a nobis est, et in Grecis et 
in Latinis codicibus quampluvimis, vel de adveniente angelo, 
vel de sudore sanguinis nil scriptum reperiri.” Epipha- 
nius hoe plenius agnoscit, in Anchorato; cum enim dix- 
erit, corpus suum dedit Christus percutientibus, et faciem 
suam non avertit a conspuentibus, addit, p. 36, ἀλλὰ καὶ 
ἔκλαυσε, κεῖται ἐν τῷ μετὰ Λοῦκαν εὐαγγελίῳ, ἐν τοῖς ἀδιορϑώτοις 
ἀντιγράφοις, καὶ κέχρηται τὴ μαρτυρίᾳ ὃ ἅγιος Elpnvatos Ἐν τῷ 
κατ᾽ Αἱρέσεων πρὸς τοὺς δοκήσει τὸν Χριστὸν πεφηνέναι λέγοντα,» 
“Sed in Evangelii Luce exemplaribus non correctis habe- 
tur quod flevit, eoque testimonio utitur Ireneus contra eos 


et v. 53, ἐγώ εἰμι ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆς, absque εἶπε dé αὐτοῖς, et | qui Christum specie tantum apparuisse dicebant,” épS6dozot 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


δὲ ἀφείλοντο τὸ ῥητὸν, φοβηϑέντες, καὶ μὴ νοήσαντες αὐτοῦ τὸ τέλος, 
καὶ τὸ ἰσχυρότατον, καὶ γινόμενος ἐν ἀγωνίᾳ ἴδρωσε, καὶ ἐγένετο ὃ 
ἱδρὼς αὐτοῦ ὡς ϑρύμβοι αἵματος, καὶ cipSn ἄγγελος ἐνισχύων αὐτόν. 


Vide Millium, Proleg. p. 101, col. 2. 


SECTIO QUINTA. 


QurNro, innumere e patribus Grecis deprompte cita- 
tiones, in quibus a recepta lectione aliquantulum discedunt, 
ad mutandam receptam lectionem eo minus autoritatis ha- 
bent, quod iidem alias aliter legunt, et plerumque cum editis 
conveniunt. Ex. gr. 

Clemens Al. Christi verba, Matt. vi. 33, Stro. iv. p. 488, 
sic recitat, ζητεῖτε πρῶτον τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ τὴν 
δικαιουσύνην, καὶ τὰ περὶ βίον προστεϑήσεται ὑμῖν, Pedag. lib. 
il. cap. 10, p- 198, Sic, ζητεῖτε τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ τὰ 
τῆς τροφῆς, ὅζο., cap. 12, p. 207, ζητεῖτε πρῶτον τὴν βασιλείαν 
τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ ταῦτα πάντα, ubi in prima οἱ tertia citatione 
habet βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, in secunda, rod Θεοῦ juxta tex- 
tum, in tertia retinet πάντα ταῦτα, in prima οἱ secunda 
mutat in τὰ περὶ βίον, et τὰ τῆς προφῆς. In secunda deest 
πρῶτον, in secunda et tertia δικαιοσύνην, que tamen apud pri- 
mam occurrunt. Hee ipsa verba ‘Theodoretus decies ad 
minimum repetit editis congruentia, at Comment. in Ps. cii. 
Teperias, καὶ ταῦτα πάντα ἐκ repiocod πρ'στεθήσεται, hine autem 
constat, immerito a locis ad hunc modum citatis receptam 
lectionem solicitari. 

Verba Matthwi, cap. xi. 27, sic se habent, « Nemo novit 
filium nisi pater, οὐδὲ τὸν πατέρα τις ἐπιγινώσκει εἰ μὴ ὃ υἱὸς," 
que verba cum allegaverit Marcion sic, οὐδεὶς ἔγνω, judice 


Trenwo, lib. i. cap. 17, p. 88, et lib. iv. cap. 14, legen- | 
dum fuit οὐδεὶς γινώσκει, ut lectum est a Justino, Dial. p. 


326. Is tamen, in Apol. 2, ed Ox. §. 82, 83, legit οὐδεὶς 
ἔγνω τὸν πατέρα, unde Grabius, notis in Iren. p. 300, ait, 
“Mirum autem quod Justinus, Apol. 1, p. 122, verba Christi 
citaverit perinde ac heretici legerunt;” sed decrescet mi- 
randi causa si recordemur hee ad eundem modum citata 
esse a Clem. Alex. Protrept. p. 8, Pedag. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 
89, et Stro. i. p. 355, ab Orig. Com. in Joh. p. 264, 416, et 
contra Cels. lib. ii. p. 104, et lib. vii. p. 361. Eusebius 
contra Marcel. Ancyr. lib. i. cap. 12, p. 72, habet μηδεὶς 
ἔγνω τὸν πατέρα, εἰ μὴ ὃ vids, ὅτε. 15, p. 76, οὐδεὶς οἷδε, et in 
eadem pagina οὐδεὶς ἐπιγινώσκει. Et cap. 16, p. 77, οὐδεὶς 
ἔγνω. Et p. 78, οὐδεὶς οἷδε. Sicut etiam Basilius, tom. i. 
contra Eunom. p. 714,770. Similiter Epiphanius in An- 
chorato, p. 16, 25, 71, legit οὐδεὶς οἷδε, sed p. 78, οὐῤεὶς ἔγνω, 
L. de Heres. p. 466, 532, 613, 766, 891, 943, 977, legit 
οὐλεὶς οἷδε, sed p. 898, οὐδεὶς ἔγνω. Clemens Al. Pedag. lib. 
i. cap. 5, p. 88, verba Pauli, Eph. iv. 13, sic refert, μέχρι 
καταντήσωμεν οἱ πάντες eis τὸν Evérnra τῆς πίστεως, καὶ ἐπιγνώ- 
σεως Θεοῦ, ubi, adnotante Millio, deest rod υἱοῦ, Sed Stro. 
iv. p. 527, diserte dicit, καὶ τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως τοὺ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, 
Origenes contra Cels, lib. v. p. 273, legit 1 Tim. iv. 2, 
κεκαυτηριασμένων τὴν οἰκείαν συνεΐδησιν, que inter variantes 
lectiones locum occupat. Idem tamen, Com. in Matt. p. 
357 et 400, legit τὴν ἐδίαν συνείδησιν», juxta textum, lib. i. 
contra Cels. p. 2, legit Rom. viii. 35, * Quis nos separabit 
ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Θεοῦ :᾽ sed Com. in Matt. p. 357, 358, 
ἀπὸ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ut se habet textus. Ibid. p. 40, 
sic recitat Matt. xxviii. 13, εἴτατε ὅτε of paSnrai αὐτοῦ, 
ἡμῶν κοιμωμένων νυκτὸς, ἔκλεψαν αὐτόν. Sed Com. in Joh. Ρ. 
357, ἐλθόντες νυκτὸς ἔκλειψαν αὐτὸν, ἡμῶν κοιμωμένων. Lib. 1. 
Ρ. 47, Joh. xviii. 36, νυνὶ δὲ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τοῦτον» ἡ 
βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ, sed Com. in Joh. p. 21, ἐντεῦϑεν perinde ac 
in textu. Lib. ii. p. 56, legit Act. x. 9, ἀνέβη 6 Πετρὸς eis τὸ 
ὑπερῶον, sed Com. in Jer. p. 177, εἰς τὸ ἑῶμα ut edit. Ibid. 
p- 58, legit Gal. iv. 21, Aéyeré μοι of τὸν νόμον ἀναγινώσκοντες, 


sed Philoc. p. 10, et Com. in Joh. p. 428, of ὑπὸ τὸν νόμον. 


ϑέλοντες εἶναι ut ibi apostolus: omittit 1 Cor. viii. 6, καὶ 
ἡμεῖς εἰς αὐτόν. Lib, viii. contra Cels. sc. ibi, p. 381, uncis 
hee inclusa sunt, sed reperies illa verba absque uncis, lib. 
ἦν. p. 179. Orig. contra Celsum, inquit Millius, legit 2 
Thess. ii. 3, ἄνθρωπος ἀνομίας, p. 98, nempe quia sic scrip- 
tum est in margine, sed legit ἁμαρτίας, lib. vi, p. 307, et 
Com. in Matt. p. 347, et in Joh. p. 76. Legit, inquit Mil- 
lius, οἶδα, lib. vi. p. 307; at hoc factum est oscitantia libra- 
tii. Legit enim οἴδατε, lib. ii. p. 89. Legite quidem. πέμπει 
p- 307, sed πέρψει p. 90. Legit ἅπαντες p. 307, ubi in 
margine adnotantur novem variantes lectiones, sed Com. in 
Joh. p. 76, πάντες. Com. in Joh. p. 135, legit Joh. vi. 50, 


1147 


ζήσει εἰς αἰῶνα, sed Com. in Matt. p. 254, ζήσεται. In eo- 
dem versiculo omittit ὃν ἐγὼ δώσω, ex more patrum, ubi ea- 
dem verba bis occurrunt, sed eadem legit bis περὶ Εὐχῆς, p. 
88. Com. in Joh. p. 164, legit Joh. vi. 55, ἡ σάρξ μον ἐστὶ 
ἀληθῶς βρῶσις, τὸ αἷμά pov ἀληϑὴς πόσις, sed Com. in Matt. 
417, ἀληθῶς utrobique. Com. in Matt. p. 291, legit ἐν τῇ 
βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ τῇ δόζῃ αὐτοῦ, sed p. 294, absque illo 
additamento. Utque hujusmodi multa intacta preteream, 
| Com. in Matt. p. 324, legit Mare. ix. 36, ἕν τῶν παιδίων, sed 
intra paucas lineas ὃν τοιούτων παιδίων. Matt. xi. 22, legit 
ἀνεκτότερον ἔσται ἣ ὑμῖν, Philoc. p. 109, et Com. in Ex. tom. 
i. p. 25, sed Com. in Matt. p. 327, addit ἐν ἡμέρᾳ τῆς κρίσεως. 
Com. in Joh. Ρ. 259, legit Joh. 1. 33, οὗτος ἔστιν ὃ υἱὸς τοὺ 
Θεοῦ, sed commentario eodem, p. 58, 76, 93, 133, οὗτός ἐστιν 
ὃ βαπτίζων Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, juxta textum. 

Ad bunc modum sepissime a seipso differt Epiphanius. 
V.g. in Her. Nazar. p. 114, legit Gal. ν. 4, οἵτινες ἐν νόμῳ 
καυχᾶσϑε, cum in Her. Cerinth. p. 113, legisset δικαι- 
οὖσϑε, ut etiam infra, Heres. Dimer. p. 1032. Anchor. 
p- 8, bis legit Joh. ν. 31, “Si ego testimonium perhibeo 
| de meipso,” ἡ μαρτυρία οὐδέν ἔστιν, sed Her. 65, p. 614, 
οὐκ ἔστιν ἀληθὴς, pariter ac in textu. Anchor. p. 22, legit 
1 Cor. xii. 8, ὁ λόγος διδασκαλίας, et Her. 69, p- 782, διδασ- 
καλία, sed Anchor. p. 77, legit 6 λύγος γνώσεως, juxta το- 
ceptam lectionem. Anchor. p. 67, legit Tit. ii. 11, ἐπεφάνη 
ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ σωτήριος ciddcxovsa ἡμᾶς, sed p. 74, legit 
ἡ χάρις τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡ σωτήριος παιδεύουσα ἡμᾶς, ut textus se habet. 
Anchor. p. 75, legit Rom. ix. 20, σύ τις ef 6 avrideySpevos τῷ 
Θεςῦ, alibi vero cum textu ἀνταποκρινόμενος. 

Gregorius Nyssenus, hom. vii. in Eccles. p. 444, re- 
cilat Joh. xiv. 30, ἐν ἐμοὶ εὑρίσκει τῶν ἰδίων οὐδέν" sed alibi 
omittit τῶν iiiwy, hom. i. in Cant. p. 492. Paulo de seipso 
| fatenti quod blasphemus fuit, et persecutor, et contume- 
liosus, addit, καὶ μέλας, explicans sc. illa verba, Cant. 1.5, 
μέλαινά εἶμι, καὶ καλὴ, sed eadem omittit, hom. xiii. p. 669. 
Sic tom. i. p- 856, allegat Rom. viii. 29, πρωτότοκος, dved 
σπορᾶς, ἐν τοῖς πολλοῖς ἀδελφοῖς, Sed tom. ii. Ρ. 24 et 213, addi- 
tamentum illud non agnoscit. 

Cyril, Alex. addit 1 Cor. viii. 7, καὶ fv Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐν a 
τὰ πάντα, de Ador. Spir. p. 185, sed crebro etiam cum 
divinam Sancti Spiritus naturam asserebat, versiculum 
absque illa clausula allegat, scil. lib. v. par. 11. p. 117, 169, 
in Isaiam, p. 539, de Recta Fide, p. 47. In libro de 
Ador. p. 26, sic citat 1 Cor. xii. 3, “Nemo dicit Jesum 
anathema nisi in Βεελζεβούβ." Et sic passim alibi, ut in 
Thesauro suo, p. 346, et lib. de Recta Fide, p. 64, legit 
cum textur οὐδεὶς ἐν Πνεύματι Θεοῦ λαλῶν. De Ador. Sp. p. 
359, legit 1 Cor. ix. 8, μὴ στρουϑίων μέλει τῷ Θεῷ, sed p. 
99, 130, 247, habet τῶν βοῶν, sicut textus. P. 404, legit 
Jacob. 1. 17, πᾶν δώρημα dyaSév, καὶ πᾶσα εὐλογία, ἄνωξέν 
ἦστι κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον" sed de Recta Fide, p. 76, Glaph. 
in Gen. p. 205, Com. in Amos. p. 315, cum editis congruit. 
Lib. ix. contra Julianum, p. 319, D, Petri verbis, Act. x. 
14, addit οὐδὲ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς στόμα μου πᾶν κρέας βέβηλον, sed 
receptam lectionem exhibet, Com. in Hos. p, 12. In Hab. 
Ρ- 568, recitat Matt. xiii. 52, «Similes est” ἐνϑρώπῳ πλουσίῳ, 
‘et sic alibi: sed Glaph. in Exod. p. 292. Com. in Zech. 
Ρ. 745, 781, ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοὐεσπότη. Com. in Zech. p- 669, 
| legit μέλη ἐκ μέλους, 1 Cor. xii. 21, sed Ρ- 692, ἐκ μέρους. 
Questio Christi ad divitem, Matt. xix. 17, sic allegatur, 
Thes. p. 310, τί pe ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαξοῦ 5 sed p. 346, ri με 
Aeysis dyaSév; Glaph. in Gen. p. 8, citat Joh. vii. 39, οὔπω 
yap ἦν Πνεῦμα ἅγιον, ut jam in impressis: sed p. 145, habet 
οὔπω yap ἦν Πνεῦμα, sicut plerique veterum. 


SECTIO SEXTA+ 


Ostrsuir etiam mos iste inter primevos patres, ut 
plurimas 5. scripture portiunculas, diversis temporibus, 
| diversis de causis, et a diversis evangelistis memoratas, 
tanquam a Christo simul prolatas congererent, idque iis 
[SUP verlis que ῥητῶς nullibi apud N. Test. occurrunt. 

+2 

Clemens Rom. Ep. 1 ad Cor. §. 48, hee habet, “ Re- 
cordamini verborum Jesu Domini nostri, εἶπε yap οὐαὶ τῷ 
ἀνθρώπῳ ἐκείνῳ, καλὸν ἣν αὐτῷ εἰ μὴ ἐγεννήϑη, ἢ Eva τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν 
μου σκανδαλίσαι, κρεῖττον ἣν αὐτῷ περιτεθῆναι μῦλον, καὶ κατα- 
ποντισϑῆναι εἰς τὴν ϑάλασσαν, ἣ ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν. μου σκανδαλί- 
ca,” ubi, teste Cotelerio, notis in Ep. Clem. p. 98, multa 
‘ testimonia in unum conjungit, nempe Matt. xxvi. 24, Luc 


1148 


xvii. 2, Matt. xviii. 6, quod antiquis non insolens fuit. 
Si quis autem inspiceret locos a Cotelerio citatos, inter 
Clementem R. et evangelistas permultum interesse dis- 
criminis comperiet. Preterea hee ipsa verba a Clemente 
Al. citantur, Stro. iii. p. 472, parvo admodum facto discri- 
mine, nempe, pro ἕνα τῶν μικρῶν pov σκανδαλίσαι, legit ἕνα 
τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν pou διαστρέψαι. In Dialogo contra Marcion. 
§. 1, p. 25, sic legimus, “Christus ipse in Judam senten- 
tiam tulit, dicens, οὐαὶ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ dt’ οὗ ὃ vids τοῦ ἀνθρώπου 
παραδίδοται" συμφέρει αὐτῷ εἰ μὴ ἐγεννήϑη, ἢ γεννηϑέντα μύλῳ 
ὁνικῷ προστεϑῆναι, καὶ καταποντισϑῆναι ἐν τῷ βάϑει τῆς Sa- 
λάσσης.᾽ ὗ 

In eadem epistola §. 13, “Memores sitis,” inquit Cle- 
mens R. “sermonum Domini Jesu—oirws yap εἶπεν, ἐλεεῖτε 
ἵνα ἐλεεϑῆτε, ἀφίετε, ἵνα ἀφεϑὴ ὑμῖν, ὡς ποιεῖτε οὔτω ποιηϑήσεται 
ὑμῖν, ὡς δίδοτε οὕτω δοθήσεται ὑμῖν, ὡς κρίνετε οὕτω κριϑήσεται 
ὑμῖν, ὡς χρηστεύεσϑε οὕτως Χχρηστευϑήσεται ὑμῖν, ubi mar- 
gini inscribit Cotelerius, Luc. vi. 56. Sed sicut ibi, ὡς 
et οὕτως non extant, ita per totum illud caput nihil ex- 
tat quod quibusdam ex his similitudinibus apte respon- 
deat. Hane tamen sententiam paululum immutatam re- 
perias in Polycarpi Ep. ad Philip. §. 2da, et in Clemente 
Al. Stro. ii. p. 399, mutato tantum ἐλεεῖτε in ἐλεᾶτε. Idem 
Clemens Al. Stro. i. p. 295, tres scripture locos in unum 
confundit, iva μὴ πεποιϑύτες ὦμεν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τῷ 
Θεῷ τῷ ἐγείροντι τοὺς νεκροὺς, ὃ ἀπύστολός φησιν, ὃς ἐκ τηλι- 
καύτου ϑανάτου ἐῤῥύσατο ἡμᾶς (2 Cor. i. 9, 10), ἵνα ἡ πίστις 
ἡμῶν μὴ ἢ ἐν copia τῶν ἀνδρώπων, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν δυνάμει τοῦ Θεοῦ qd Cor. 
li. 15), 6 yap πνευματικὸς dvaxpiver πάντα, &c. (v. 15). 

Onigenes in Mattheum, p. 357, 359, et in Joh. p. 402, 
Judwos dicit εἰρηκέναι ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ de Christo dixisse, aipe 
ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς τοιοῦτον, σταυροῦ, σταυροῦ αὐτόν, de quibus confer 
Act. xxii. 22 cum Lue. xxiii. 18, et Joh. xix. 15. In 
Philoc. p. 2, citat e Matt. vii. 22 hac, πολλοὶ ἐροῦσί μοι---- 
οὐ τῷ ὀνόματί cov ἐφάγομεν, καὶ τῷ ὀνόματί cov ἐπίομεν, Kai 
τῷ ὀνόματί σου δαιμόνια ἐξεβάλομεν, καὶ ἐρῶ αὐτοῖς, ἀποχω- 
ρεῖτε ἀπ' ἐμοῦ οἱ ἐργαζύμενοι τὴν ἀνομίαν. Lib. ii. contra 
Cels. p. 88, addit post ἐξεβάλομεν, καὶ δυνάμεις πολλὰς ἐποιή- 
σαμεν, καὶ ἐρῶ αὐτοῖς ὅτι ἐστὲ ἐργάται ἀδικίας. Com. in 
Joh. p. 293, iisdem verbis adjicit, οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς, καὶ 
τὸ οὐκ olda néSev ἐστὲ, conjunctis sic Matt. vil. 22, 23 cum 
Lue. xii. 26, 37, quoad sensum, non quoad verba. Tom. 
i. p. 38, sic recitat Luc. xi. 52, “Ve vobis jurisperitis 
ὅτι ἤρατε τὴν κλεῖδα τῆς γνώσεως, αὐτοὶ οὐκ εἰσήλθδετε Kai τοὺς 
εἰσερχομένους οὐκ ἀφίετε eice\Setv,” periodum claudens cum 
verbis Christi, Matt. xxiii. 13, sed Philoc. p. 8, editis 
congruit Sic Com. in Joh. p. 30, Christum allegat di- 
centem, Joh. xv. 15, οὐκέτι ὑμᾶς λέγω δούλους, ὅτι ὃ ὁὀοῦλος 
οὐκ οἷδέ τι τὸ ϑέλημα τοῦ κυρίου αὐτοῦ (text. τί ποιεῖ 6 κύριος 
αὐτοῦ) ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ ὑμᾶς φίλους λέγω (text. ὑμᾶς δὲ εἴρηκα φίλους.) 
ὅτι διαμεμενήκατε per ἐμοῦ ἐν πᾶσι πειρασμοῖς μου, que occurrunt 
Lue. xxii. 21, absque πᾶσι. Ita Com. in Joh. p. 413, con- 
jungit Colos. i. 20, 11. 15. 

Cyrillus Alex. sic recitat 1 Pet. 11. 5, καὶ ὑμεῖς ὡς λίϑοι 
ζῶντες ἐποικοδομεῖσϑε οἶκος πνευματικὸς, addens ex Eph. ii. 21, 

2, εἰς ναὸν ἅγιον, εὶς οἰκητήριον τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν Πνεῦματι. In 
lib. primo de Sancta Trin. ait, “Cum Christus in forma 
Dei esset, formam servi accepit, wa 
πάντα, κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον, εἰρηνοποιῆσας διὰ τοῦ cravpov, τὰ 
ἐν οὐρανοῖς, τά τε ἐπὶ γῆς, μεσιτεύων καὶ ἀνθρώποις, δεόμεθα 
γοὺν ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ, καταλλάγητε τῷ Θεῷ," ubi coacervantur 
Phil. ii. 6, 7, Colos. i. 20, 1 Tim. ii. 5, 2 Cor. v. 10. 
Quod si hoe pro prudentia sua diligentius animadvertisset 
Millius, non ita preter modum crevissent variantes iste 
lectiones, quarum trecente non aliud sunt quam voces 
sacre scripture ab uno evangelista aut apostolo in alterum 
a patribus translate. 

Denique plurima que a patribus primorum seculorum 
tanquam e s. scriptura recitantur, desumpta reperias aut 
ex adulterinis evangeliis, aut ex apocryphis: ita de Cle- 
mente R. qui post apostolos primus aliquid literis manda- 
vit, ingenue fatetur Millius, Proleg. p. 16, col. 2, quod in 
Epistola prima ad Corinthios, et posterioris, si quidem 
ejus sit, fragmento, nonnulla adducit ex evangellis, que 
jam ante nostram editionem Christianis in usu fuerant, 
nonnulla et e nostris, ut apparet, sed omnino mixtim, et 
confuse, ita ut vix, ac ne vix quidem, noris ex verbis 
ejus ad quodnam e nostris potissimum respexerit. Paucis 
exemplis satis hoc confirmare possumus. V. g. 


ἀποκαταλλάξη τὰ 


EXAMEN ΜΙΗΠΠΠ1|. 


Clemens R. Ep. 3, 8. 4, Christi verba, Matt. vii. 21, 
ad hune modum recitat: “Non omnis qui dicit mihi, 
Domine, σωϑήσεται, ἀλλὰ ὃ ποιῶν δικαιοσύνην." Nam εἶπεν 
ὃ Θεὸς (ν. 23, aut Luc. xiii, 17) ἐὰν ἦτε per’ ἐμοῦ συνηγ- 
μένοι ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ μου, καὶ μὴ ποιεῖτε τὰς ἐντολάς μου, ἀπο- 
βαλῶ ὑμᾶς, καὶ ἐρῶ ὑμῖν, ἀἁπάγετε ἀπ' ἐμοῦ, καὶ τὰ καϑ' ἑξῆς. 
Sect. quinta, miram quandam Petri responsionem narrat 
ad Christi verba: “Ecce ego mitto vos, sicut oves in 
medio luporum. ᾿Αποκριϑεὶς δὲ & Térpos αὐτῷ λέγει, ἐὰν οὖν 
διασπαράζωσι οἱ λῦκοι τὰ ἀρνία, Quid si lupi agnos discerpse- 
Tint? εἶπεν 6 Ἰησοῦς τῷ Πέτρῳ, μὴ φοβείσθωσαν τὰ ἀρνία τοὺς 
λύκους μετὰ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν αὐτὰ, καὶ ὑμεῖς μὴ φοβεῖσθε τοὺς 
ἀποκτείνοντας ὑμᾶς, καὶ μηδὲν ὑμῖν δυναμένους παιεῖν,᾽" &c. Luc. 
xii. 4, 5. “Hee,” ait Cotelerius, “deprompsit ex apo- 
cryphis.” 8. 8, hee habet, λέγει yap ὃ Κύριος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγέλιῳ, 
εἰ τὸ μικρὸν οὐκ ἐτηρήσατε, τὸ μέγα τις ὑμῖν δώσει; Treneus 
pariter, lib. ii. cap. 64, p. 199, “Similiter Dominus dixit 
ingratis in eum existentibus, ‘Si in modico fideles non 
fuistis, quod magnum est quis dabet vobis?’” ubi vide 
Grabii conjecturam hee ex Evangelio ad M®gyptios de- 
prompta esse. Sectione duodecim, interrogatus a quodam 
Dominus quando venturum esset regnum ejus, εἶπεν, ὅταν 
ἔσται ra δύο ἕν, καὶ τὸ ἔξω, ὡς τὸ ἔσω, τὸ ἄρσεν μετὰ τῆς ϑηλεΐας, 
οὔτε ἄρσεν, οὔτε θῆλυ. Quod desumptum fuit ex apocryphis, 
juxta Cotelerium, juxta Clementem Al. Stro. ili. p. 465, ex 


| Evangelio 4igyptiorum. 


Ignatius in Epistola ad ecclesiam Smyrnensem Christum 
introducit, qui Petrum, c#terosque qui presto erant, sic 
alloquitor, \a@3ere, ψηλαφήσατε, καὶ Were ὅτι οὐκ εἰμὶ δαιμόνιον 
ἀσώματον, Luc. xxiv. 39, quod juxta Hieronymum desumi- 
tur ex Evangelio Nazarenorum,—juxta Cotelerium ex 
apocryphis, juxta Origenem dictum fuit a nullo qui Spi- 
rita Dei inspiratus fuit. Et tamen locum obtinuit, Luc. 
xxiv. 39, inter variantes lectiones apud Millium. 

In codices Origenianos admissas fuisse ῥήσεις aliquas ex 
Evangelio secundum Hebreos, aliove aliquo apocrypho, 
ostendit ipse Millius, Proleg. p. 66. Plura hujusmodi 
reperiat lector in Epist. Barnabe, §. 7, in Just. Με Dial. 
cum Tryph. p. 267, in Iren. lib. v. cap. 33, p. 454, 455, 
in Orig. Com. in Matt. p. 308, sed lectorem non tenebo 
pluribus. Ponam tandem judicium Millii de Epistola 
Clementis R. aliorumque ejusque temporis scriptorum, 
Proleg. p. 16, col. 2, his verbis editum: “ De qua, ut et 
aliis opusculis, sub hoc tempus conscriptis, notandum 
quod ex evangeliis et epistolis nullam unquam pericopen 
citant accurate, et ad fidem exemplarium, et cum ad evan- 
gelii cujusvis aut epistola clausulam aliquam respiciant, 
neque libri, ubi extet, neque scriptoris nomen proferunt, 
et quidem loci ipsius diserta verba raro admodum propo- 
nunt, sed sensum fere, ac sententiam, ex memoria tradunt, 
quin et ab apocryphorum testimoniis haud abstineant, sed 
ea promiscue cum apostolicis ipsis ϑεοπνεύστοις, pro re nata, 
citent, allegentque.” 


CAPUT SECUNDUM. 


§. 1. Monstrat lectionem variantem non posse certo colligi 
ex codice Latino, aut versione Latina Greci scriptoris, 
aut demum e loco a Latinis patribus citato. Primo, 
quoniam quomodocunque se habeat textus archetypus, 
mos est interpretum ut ad Vulgati versionem verba ac- 
commodent. §. 2. Secundo, quod parum idonei in hac 
re sint arbitri patres Latini, nec feliciter de Grecis 
criticen exerceant. §. 3. Tertio, ex Millii ipsius de 
patribus Latinis sententia idem colligitur. 


SECTIO PRIMA. 


Ur varians lectio nascatur e codice Latino, aut ex ver- 
sione Greci alicujus patris, aut ex citatione a Latino patre 
desumpta, que Greco exemplari non congruit, mibi qui- 
dem valde importunum, et iniquum, videtur. Hoc enim, 
ut cum Hieronymo loquar, nihil aliud est quam ccnosos 
rivulos adire, ut fons purgetur. Hine tamen ortum suum 
debet fere dimidia pars earum variarum lectionum que in 
epistolas adnotantur, ubi Latinus interpres Irenwi, Ori- 
genis in Romanos, Didymi de Spiritu Sancto, Tertullianus, 


EXAMEN ΜΙΠΠΠ. 


Cyprianus, Ambrosius, Hilarius Diac. Hilarius Pictav. 
Augustinus, Pseudo-Hieronymus, sive Pelagius, magnam 
voluminis partem implent, quod quam absurdum sit, ex 
his rationibus colligere possis. 

Primo quod quomodocungue se habeat archetypus, mos 
est interpretum ut ad Vulgati Latini arbitrium, et quasi 
nutum totos se fingant, et accommodent. Ex. gr. Ori- 
genes, Com. in Joh. p- 115, legit ἀξίους καρποὺς τῆς μετανοίας, 
interpretes e Vulg. “fructum dignum.”—P. 339, legit Joh. 
Vii. 39, οὔπω yap ἣν Πνεῦμα, Lat. “ Nondum erat Spiritus 
datus,” ut Vulg.—In Commentario in Rom. Ruffinus in 
textu fingendo veterem Vulgatam secutus est, fatente 
Millio, ubi verus Origines eidem contradicit. Cyrillus 
Hieros. cat. xii. p. 119, et xvii. p. 195, legit τὸ γεννώμενον 
ἅγιον, sed Latina vulgati vestigia sequuntur, “Quod nasce- 
tur ex te Sanctum.” Gregor. Nyssenus, tom. ii. ed. Paris. 
1615, p. 734, legit Rom. i. 32, otrwes τὸ δικαίωμα Θεοῦ ἐπι- 
γνόντες, absque οὐκ ἐνόησαν, interpres autem “Qui cum jus- 
titiam Dei cognovissent, non intellexerunt.” Ita Chrysos- 
tomus, hom. 12 ad Pop. Antioch. ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 145, 


οὐκ μόνον αὐτὰ ποιοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ Kal συνευδοκοῦσι τοῖς πράσσουσι, 


Lat. cum Vulg. “Non solum qui ea faciant, sed etiam qui | 


consentiunt,” &c. Quater habet Chrysos. πογήριον ψυχροῦ, 
Matt. x. 42, toties Lat. “Aqu frigide.” Sanctus Basi- 
lius, tom. i. lib. vy. contra Eunom. p. 376, et Cyril. Al. de 
Recta Fide, p. 66, de Ador. Sp. 494. Hom. Pase. p. 246, 
311, 334, legunt τὰ διὰ τοῦ σώματος, 2 Cor. v. 10, Lat. 
semper “Propria corporis.” Cyril. Al. legit οὔπω γὰρ ἣν 
Πνεῦμα ἅγιον, Lat. “Spiritus datus.” Luc. ii. 15, legit, 


ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία, Hom. in Div. p. 380, Lat. « Hominibus 


bone voluntatis.” Lue. i. 35, τὸ γεννώμενον ἅγιον, hom. in 
Divers. p. 383, de Recta Fide, p. 88, Lat. “Quod ex te 
nascetur Sanctum.’ Matt. vii. 13, στενὴ δὲ ἡ πύλη, He 
Pasch. p. 156, Lat. “Quam angusta porta.” 1 Joh. iv. 3, 
πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ, Lat. “Qui solvit Jesum.” 1 Tim. 
lil. 16, ὁ Θεὸς ἐφανερῶϑη ἐν σαρκὶ, de Recta Fide, p. 124, 
Lat. “Quod manifestatum est in carne.” 
bus his locis Vulgati plus valebat auctoritas quam ipsorum 
patrum; sed cum hoe sexcenties apud Latinos interpretes 
evenerit, speciatim in commentariis Origenis et Theo- 
doreti commemoratio plurium testimoniorum supervacanea 
est. 


SECTIO SECUNDA. 
Hoc etiam luce clarius fiet, si modo quam parum idonei 


in hac re arbitri, et quam infeliciter de Grecis criticen ex- 
ercuerint Latini, lector mecum recognoscat. Cum in 


Grecis exemplaribus suum tulisset judicium Hilarius | 


Diac. ait Millius, ita cecus de coloribus. Nihil de codi- 
cibus Grecis novit Ambrosiaster, Prol. p. 139, col. 2, nec 
iniquum de eo tulit judicium. Is enim Com. in Rom. v. 14, 
veram lectionem esse ait, “In eos qui peccaverunt,” absque 
negationis particula, scilicet, ex fide cod. Latinorum quos 
incorruptos simplicitas temporum servavit. Atqui etiam 
illi fluxerunt ex veteribus codicibus Grecis. Quod si 
Millium audiamus, codices Greci hodieque omnes, tem- 


pore Augustini omnes, aut pene omnes, etiam Irenzus, si | 


interpreti ejus credimus, legebant cum negatione, quod 


idem de prestantioribus Latinis dicendum, Prol. p. 75, | 


col. 1. De vero Ambrosio dicit Millius, Prol. p. 78, col. 
2, eum pium magis quam doctum fuisse, cum enim Mare. 
xiii. 32, sic legimus, “De die autem illo aut hora nemo 
scit, neque angeli in ceelo, οὐδὲ ὁ vids,” Ambrosius de Fide, 
lib. v., cap. 8, hec habet, “Codices Greci non habent 
«quod nec filius scit.’””. “Certe nulli sunt,” inquit ibi- 
dem Millius, “nec opinor unquam fuerunt libri Greci a 
quibus abesset οὐδὲ 6 vids.” Idem lib. iii. de Spiritu Sancto, 
cap. 11, clausulam hanc, Joh. iii. 6, sic exhibet, « Quod 
natum est de Spiritu, spiritus est, quia Deus Spiritus est ;” 
ubi queritur hee verba eo quod Spiritus Sancti divinitatem 
abstruere videantur, ab Arianis sublata esse, et tamen, 
judice Millio, Prol. p. 79, col. 1, haud alia erat hee par- 
ticula que erasa videbatur, quam lectoris cujuspiam scho- 
lion. 
col. 2, 79, col. 1. Denique dicente Augustino, Retract. 
lib. i. cap. 19, “ Codices Greci Matt. v. 22 non habent sine 
causa,” Hieronymo in locum his verbis adstipulante, “In 
quibusdam codicibus additus sine causa, ceterum in veris 


Vide exempla plura a Millio congesta, Prol. p. 78, | 


Nimirum omni- 


1149 


tollitur,’ hoc tamen non obstante, P. Simonius vere dicit, 
obtinuisse hanc lectionem que εἰκῆ exhibet non modo 
apud Syrum, sed etiam apud patres antiquissimos, tam 
Grecos quam Latinos; “est ergo (inquit) in Vulgato resti- 
tuendem, qui in eo omittendo antiquitati repugnat, multis- 
que exemplaribus,” Hist. Crit. in N. Test. lib. ii. cap. 32. 
Plura his addere facillimum esset, sed compendio rem 
agere consultius visum est, instantias enim passim dabunt 
tum Millii prolegomena, tum lectiones variantes. 


SECTIO TERTIA. 


Tenrro, ita Latinorum plerosque patram depingit Mil- 
lius, ut, se judice, citationes ex iis desumpte exiguam 
mereantur fidem. 

Agmen ducit Tertullianus, de quo ecce sanum et sub- 
tile judicium Millii: “In eo citata sunt loca s. codicis fere 
neglectius ex memoria, contractim, ad sensum, haud sine 
levicula aliqua subinde mutatione, ipsisque porro allegatis 
ab eo testimoniis immista sunt nonnunquam aliqua a stylo 
Vulgati interpretis* diversa, Africane φράσεως, et voca- 
bula mire barbara. Immo penes se habebat Italice ex- 
emplar haud parum maculatum, certe si quid de c#teris 
ejus partibus conjectare liceat ex Evangelii Luce codice 
quo usus est in libro quarto contra Marcionem. Denique, 
alia (inquit) loca sumpta videntur ex variis versionibus 
que tempestate ista ferebantur. Nempe preter Italicam, 
innumeras alias primis seculis (de suo tantum  seculo 
dictum fuisset) extitisse notat Augustinus.” Et tamen non 
tantum de varia lectione Tertullianum, velut testem ido- 
neum, producit ; sed etiam in prolegomenis sepius lectionis 
que apud Vulgatum prius obtinebat. Ita, p. 105, col. 2, 
“Vulg. ut apparet ex Tertulliano.” Miror hie quo critico 
naso tam accurate discernere potuerit inter tot varias ver- 
siones quid a Vulgato prodierit, aut cur tam fidenter pronun- 
tiarit virum Grece doctissimum, loca a se citata ex Latinis 
versionibus produxisse; Pamelio etiam contradicente eum 
non tam Latinis translatis, quam Grecis codicibus veteribus 
usum esse. 

De Cypriano hee dicit Millius, «Nempe ex citatis ab 
ipso N. Test. pericopis abunde constat Italicam (hanc 
enim unam in usu ei fuisse ex allatis ab ipso N. Test. 
pericopis manifestum est) temporis tractu magis magisque 
fuisse interpolatam.’ Veruntamen vitiatis hujusmodi 
lectionibus non parvo numero premissis, p. 67, col. 1, 2, 
hee habet, «Restant lectiones quedam quas ex Africanis 
aliisque quibusdam profectas probabile est.” Tria hic 
notanda veniunt. Primo criticorum divortium. Quod 
enim hie Millio de Italica manifestum est, Simonius mani- 
festo falsum pronuntiat in locis infra adducendis. Secundo, 
Millium sibimetipsi contradicere, dum ait unam, i. 6. so- 
lam, Italicam Cypriano in usu fuisse, et tamen eundem ex 
Africanis aliisque quibusdam versionibus quedam protu- 
lisse. Denique ex codice hoe Cypriani tractu. temporis 
magis magisque interpolato, non tantum varias lectiones 
plus centies exhibet, sed vulgate lectionis Italice argu- 
mentum non semel. 

De Hilario Pictavorum Episcopo mentionem faciens, 
Prol. p. 72, nihil ex eo profert nisi lectiones interpolatas, 
quasi nec unam genuinam habuisset, h. e. cum versione 
Italica sua consentientem. Lucifer Calaritanus, judice 
Millio, vitiis misere scatet, nec s. codicis loca integra 
producit, Prol. p. 73, col. 2. Testimonia nimirum protulit 
ad MS. exemplar unum, idque perperam descriptum, 
adornata, unde lectionum ejus interpolatarum catalogum 
tantum exhibet. Victorinum Afrum, et Zenonem Vero- 
nensem Latina secutos esse nonnullis in locis interpolata 
pronuntiat: locum unicum in quo additamentum, Joh. iv. 
56, occurrit, genuinum pronuntiat, refragante Simonio, 
Grecis scholiis, et versionibus universis. Optati citationes 
fere omnes interpolatas fuisse asserit, p. 74, col. 1, 2. 

Hilarium Diaconum quod attinet, «Is certe (inquit Mil- 
lius) cum scripta sua testimoniis s. codicis passim tessel- 
laverit, tum in commentariis in epistolas ἢ. Pauli ex 
Italice versionis textu, qualis tum temporis ferebatur, 
exhibuit,’ Prol. 74, col. 3. Quanquam ergo interpolatas 


* Pro]. p. 59, col. 1, 2. 


1150 


ex eo lectiones ibi produxerit, sexcenties tamen Ambrosias- 
trum hune pro ver@ lectionis teste idoneo profert, ejus- 
que textum ceu genuine lectionis Italice certissimum 
argumentum exhibet. Quam falso, et in cause sue prie- 
judicium, ex lectionum ejus appendice quam infra dabimus, 
judicabit lector. 

Porro id ex Millio discimus patres Latinos fere omnes 
post ortam Arii heresin, id semper Arianis objecisse quod 
scripturas s. corrumpere, pericopas ex iis eradere, mutilare 
solerent, adeo ut eadem nobiscum hereticos habere biblia 
vix agnoscerent. Objiciunt hee illis Hilarius Pict. Hi- 
larius Diaconus, Ambrosius, Salvianus; que omnia, Mil- 
lio judice, frustra, et sine causa hereticis objiciebantur, 
cum rari essent qui scripturis temerarias manus intulere. 
Vide loca omnia in quibus hoc factum esse clamitant, a 
Millio bene vindicata, Prol. p. 78, col. 2,79, col. 1. Qui 
autem de Grecis codicibus tum falso-et imperite judica- 
bant, qui de Latinis ea sublata esse existimabant que alii 
ex ipsis 5. codici adjiciebant, eorum de lectione genuina 
judicium non magni xstimandum esse «equus lector cen- 
sebit. 

Sed de his plura dicere eo minus necessarium videtur, 
quod sepius videamus Millium integrum patrum Latinorum 
consensum rejicientem. Ex. gr. Gal. iv. 14, pro πειρασμόν 
pov, ὑμῶν, inquit, legunt Vulg. Clar. Lat. Ger. Lat. Hieron. 
Hilarius D. Latini omnes, teste Esthio, quod sane sensum 
parit duriusculum ac coactum nimis quam ut probem. 1 
Pet. i. 12, sic legimus, εἰς ἃ ἐπιϑυμοῦσιν of ἄγγελοι παρακῦψαι, 
in quem, inquit Millius, legunt Vulg. et ita fere Latini | 
codices, reclamantibus Grecis ad unum onmibus, et quidem 
Treneus, cujus Latine licet versioni Vulgate congruant, 
lib. ii. cap. 24, lib. v. cap. 36, advertenti tamen seriem 
contextus manifestum est Irenwi Greca fuisse, εἰς ἃ, quo- 
modo quoque se habent Latina ejus, lib. iv. cap. 67. 
Plura ejusdem generis occurrunt a nobis observata anno- 
tatis in varias lectiones Millii. 


CAPUT TERTIUM. 


§. 1. Ostendit ex codicibus MSS. ecclesie occidentalis non 
posse certo colligi, textum hodiernum corrigendum esse, 
primo ex P. Simonii testimonio, ex librariorum igno- 
rantia; et ex erroribus quibus abundabant ipsa exem- 
plaria. 8. 2. Secundo, ex Millii ipsius sentontia. 


SECTIO PRIMA. 


Qvanava™ ultra mille variantium lectionum ex unico 
MS. vel binis fortasse, aut tribus depromat Millius (atque 
illam lectionem genuinam esse asserit quam duo aut tres 
agnoscunt codices, reclamantibus reliquis omnibus), non 
tamen hine sequitur quod ad eorum normam textus corri- 
gendus sit. In promptu ratio est, si enim que variant 
exemplaria sint pauca, certo certius est majorem partem 
eorum cum editis congruisse. 

Hoc etiam magis constabit ex animadversionibus quibus 
in codices quosdam MSS. usus est Simonius, vir sat acris 
in his rebus judicii, si Millium audimus; nam in Critica 
N. Test. Historia, parte secunda, cap. 30—32, in codices 
quosdam MSS. censoria animadversione utitur ad hune 
modum. Primo, “Quod, teste Hieronymo, magnus in 
codicibus (hisce) error inolevit, dum quod in eadem re 
alius evangelista plus dicit, in alio quia minus putaverint, 
addiderunt, vel dum eundem sensum alius aliter expressit, 
ille qui unum e quatuor primum legerit, ad ejus exemplum 
ceteros quoque existimaret emendandos; unde accidit ut 
apud nos mixta sint omnia, et que singulis propria sunt, 
in aliis inveniantur.” 

Secundo, “Quod Greci librarii, ut evangeliorum atque 
epistolarum voces magis  perspicuas redderent, unum 
evangelium ex alio, planum fecerint, et quia multa obscura 
videbantur, aut ambigua, verbis clarioribus explicarunt, et 
pro more suo, apostolorum scripta ad puritatem Greci 
sermonis revocare studuerint,” atque hance verissimam esse 
zausam summo judicio asserit, qaamobrem codex Cantabr. 
plures suppeditat variantes lectiones quam reliqui omnes | 
in unum collecti. “Quicunque enim in Beze exemplar | 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


oculis castis inspexerit, haud illum preteribit quod scriba 
textum, propter elegantiam Grace lingue, sepissime cor- 
rexerit, et nova, que synonyma visa sunt, interserit verba, 
ut res involute apertiores fierint, et faciles explicatus 
haberent. Hance sibi, tum temporis, licentiam N. 'T. ape- 
riendi causa, sumpserunt scribe, de vocabulis utrum arche- 
typum fideliter exhiberent parum solliciti, modo a sensu 
eorum non deflexerint.” 

Tertio, “ Qui hos codices, (inquit Simonius,) ad examen 
revocarunt, non aliud sibi statuerunt quam ut clariora 
fierent omnia, adeoque a genuina evangelistarum atque 
apostolorum Jectione multum aberrarunt, paraphrasin ad- 
hibendo, intricatiora subducendo, recidendis superfluis, 
plurimisque inter se, claritatis gratia, transpositis, atque 
hoc semel monere satis est, absque longa enumeratione 
exemplorum, quorum amplam sylvam codex Cant. sub- 
ministrat, speciatim in Actis Apostolorum, nam in eccle- 
siastica primi seculi historia emendanda plurimum. sibi 
indulserunt librarii”’ Hae Simonius, qui tamen consolandi 
nos, ut ita dicam, causa, hee subjicit, “ Quamcunque 
mutationem passi sint hi codices, et’ licet apostolorum et 
evangelistarum verba non retineant, discrepantiam tamen 
in sensu diligentissimus lector reperiet nullam.” He 
Simonii observationes planum faciunt quod parvam illi 
codices mereantur fidem, nec ad eorum fidem receptam 
lectionem emendandam esse. Simonium laudibus suis in 
celum sustulit Millius, Prol. p. 166, col. 1, “Vir erat 
(inquit) in hac rei biblice parte singularis plane eruditionis, 
acerrimique, si quis unquam, judicii.” Quod si judicio 
illius libenter obsecutus esset, variantes e Cant. Ger. et 
Clar. lectiones, parcius deprompsisset, nec volumen suum, 
absque causa, in -immensam magnitudinem excrevisse 
passus fuisset. 

Auctoritati enim horum codicum multum detrahitur ex eo 
quod exemplaria Greca transcripta sint ab hominibus 
Latine ecclesiw, qui nec ipsi exemplaria optima nacti 
sunt, nec Grecam linguam optime calluerunt, sed eo 
consilio in hoc munere fungendo versati sunt, ut Greci 
Vulgati erroribus magis faverent, et patrocinarentur. 
“ Quod scribe fuerint Latini, (inquit Simonius,) constat 
quia utraque lingua non modo eundem scriptorem agnoscit, 
sed etiam quedam e Latinis literis sunt pure pute Grece, et 
quedam e Grecis pariter Latine (verius dixisset Gothice) ; 
ad summam, errata pene innumera, que in Greco codice 
occurrunt, satis sunt argumenti exaratum eum fuisse ab 
homine istius lingue prorsus imperito. Nee enim in 
orthographia sola, sed etiam in vocabulis ipsis sepissime 
peccatur.” Idem Simonius, p. 147, sic pergit, “Tot menda 
in Greea parte codicis Clar. ubique reperies, ut exscriptum 
fuisse ab homine indocto quis non plane sentiat?” Et cap. 
32, p. 156, “In nostris bibliothecis,” inquit ille, “ex- 
emplaria quamplurima Greca extant, que, ut e Grecis 
exarata, ita apud illos communi quodam in usu erant, atque 
hee quidem inter se discrepant in rebus parvi momenti, 
sed mire conveniunt in eo quod longissime distant ab iis 
codibus quos Latini exscripserunt.” P. 157, hee verba 
habet notatu dignissima, “ Mihi quidem dubitationis nihil 
est quin Cardinalis Ximenius Complutensem editionem 
paraturus, quamplurimos codices eximie vetustatis, et 
spectate fidei corrogaverit: suspectam tamen habeo illam 
aliquando reliquis antelatam esse lectionem, que Vulgato 
cum interprete maxime concordat. Fieri etiam potest, 
(inquit) ut Stephani editio, quam cum Graecis MSS. in 
Italia contulit, non paucas in se receperit lectiones. ad 
Vulgate versionis normam expressas. Idem dicendum est 
de variis lectionibus sedecim MSS. codicum quas Marchio 


| Velesius collegit, et que editioni nostre Vulgate mirifice 


favent.” Hee quidem adversante et renitente animo con- 
fitetur ipse Millius. V.g. Matt. xvii. 2, legimus λευκὰ ὡς 


φῶς, sed Steph. B. Cant. Vulg. ὡς χιών, e Marco, quibus hee 
sequuntur, “ De varietate hac aliud dicere nequeo,” inquit 
Lucas Brugensis, “quam quod Stephanus B. Latine 
editioni sepe consonet, et aliquando potius erroribus ejus 
editionis inolitis, quam germane lectioni. Quod idem 
omnino dicendum videtur de Cant.” Ita Millius. Sic 1 
Pet. ii. 6, textus habet ἐν τῇ γραψῆ, MSS. aliqui ἡ γραφὴ, 
ubi annotatio, “ Vereor ne locus studio sit efformatus, ut in 
aliis quibusdam factum, ad versionem Latinam,” inquit 
Esthius. Ita 1 Pet. iii, 19, post ἐν φυλακῇ addit Steph 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


κατακλεισμένοις, “ad exemplar fidei non magne, quod 
existimetur ad codices Latinos esse efformatum,” inquit 
Esthius. Vide similes annotationes in Mare. vi. 32, ix. 21, 
xv. 8, et passim. 

Hine liquet causam nullam esse quare recepta lectio | 
emendetur ad exemplar eorum codicum, quos (primo) | 
Hieronymus adeo contempsit, ut teste Simonio, necesse 
sibi habuerit Latinam ipsam versionem, ad codices, ex 
oriente petitos, exigere et reformare. ae. Codicum 
qui exarati fuerunt a librariis Greece lingu® miserum in 
modum ignaris, quique plurima menda non modo in or- 
thographia, sed in ipsis dictionibus contraxerant. (‘Tertio) 


Codicum qui licet inter se conveniant, a Grace ecclesiz | 


codicibus ita sunt diversi ut vix speciem eorum gerant. 
Seeanbieg Codicum qui dedita opera immutati fuerunt ut ad 

atinam versionem efformarentur. (Quinto) Codicum qui 
Vitia retinent, quibus Italica versio scatebat ante castigatio- 
nem Hieronymi, ut inquam, editi nostri ad horum codicum 
regulam, ac normam corrigerentur, nemo sanw mentis 
unquam judicabit. 

Hee quidem, et presertim que de Cant. Ger. et Clar. 
MSS. dicta sunt Dupinio mecum conveniunt, nam observa- 
tionibus suis, in quibus Simonium potissimum consecutus 
est, absolutis, hee infert, “Et eis observationibus con- 
jectura non levi ducor ad suspicandum Grecum textum 
horum codicum a librario ad Vulgatam versionem, quam 
simul exaravit, accommodatum, vel saltem ex alio exemplari 
ad hune modum efformato desumptum fuisse ; quo dato et 
concesso, varietas istorum codicum (ait ille) neutiquam 
censenda est tanquam tot variantes lectiones Greci ex- 
emplaris, sed solummodo tanquam castigatio, seu potius 
depravatio facta ex ista versione, que archetypum parum 
fideliter representabat.” Hist. de Canone Vet. et N. 
Test. vol. ii. p. 106. De antiqua Latinorum versione, qua 
occidentales ecclesie utebantur, et ad quam hi codices 
Greci, Simonio judice, confirmabantur, vide dissertationem 
nostram de Vulgato interprete, et Italica translatione, capite 
subsequenti. 

Coronidis loco notatu non indignum est quod cum MSS. 
codices, quos contulit Millius, sint fere nonaginta, quando- 
cunque viginti, vel triginta ad summum, varianti cuidam 
lectioni favent, sequitur vel curam et diligentiam in Millio 
desiderari, vel plures saltem codices congruere cum editis, 
quam ab illis discrepare. 

Veniam mihi dabit candidus lector, quod ab aliis hic 
testimonia, et rerum confirmationem sumpserim, cum enim 
codices ipsos MSS. evolvendi neutiquam mihi facultas data 
sit, id feci quod potui. 


SECTIO SECUNDA. 


Hoc etiam δέ multo evidentius ex confessionibus Millii, 
et ex exemplis que ab illo mutuari possumus. V. g. Matt. 
iii. 11, deest καὶ πυρὶ 25 MSS.: sed, ut recte idem Millius 
asserit, de recepta lectione minime dubitandum est. Matt. 
iv. 10, ὀπίσω pov retinetur apud MSS. 36, juxta tamen ibi 
annotata, MSS. plurimi non agnoscunt, aliunde assutum 
videtur, a scriptore memore scioloque. Matt. v. 47, apud 
amplius quam triginta cod. MSS. φίλους occurrit, cui tamen 
ille lectionem in textu ἀδελφοὺς merito anteponit. Matt. 
XXvil. 42, καὶ πιστεύσομεν αὐτῷ, MSS. fere quinquaginta 


habent ἐπὶ vel εἰς" illo tamen judice, prefixum fuit ἐπὶ vel | 


cis ex loco male intellecto. Mare. vi. 6, textus habet ὅτι, 
quod et sensus videtur postulare: at omittunt illud plus 
quam viginti cod. et septem habent ἵνα: sed ὅτι, rectius 
inquit Grotius, cui Millius astipulari videtur, utut, pro 
more suo, sibimetipsi contradicat, Prol. p. 115.131. Lue. 


iii. 2, ἀρχιερέως agnoscunt triginta MSS., sed ex illius | 


sententia ἀρχιερέων recte. Lucas enim etiam annum, utpote 
semel functum pontificatu, congrue satis vocat ἀρχιερέα. 
Luce. vi. 26. 28, omittunt πάντες circiter viginti MSS.; 
sed “omnino legendum arbitror,” inquit ibi Millius, utut a 
sententia sua in prolegomenis temere recesserit: Proleg. 
p- 126, col. 2. 

Preterea tanquam pretor de tribunali sepius pronunciat 
hoc vel illud vocabulum, commentarium, irreptitium, ad- 
jectitium esse, quod, eodem fatente, in plerisque omnibus 
jam codicibus aut extat, aut occurrit: Prol. p. 133, col. 2. 
156, cel. 1 163, col. 2. 165, col. 2. Crebro etiam ait “ vix 


1151 


ac ne Vix obstat codicum omnium consensus,” p. 163, col. 
2 bis, et “ shaque codicum omnium consensu,” p. 154, 
col. 2, 155, col. 2. Quinetiam de Italicis genuinis lecti- 
onibus, que ex ipsius cerebro irrepserunt, et quibus Grecis 
Latin iste responderint, acturus, ad hune modum pre- 
fatur. Greca vero hee cum ob oculos positurum me dico, 
“Partem illam hic duntaxat intelligo, que a MSS. nostris 
fere omnibus, et excusis discrepat.”” Ut vero se hominem 
ostenderet, hance aut illam germanam et veram lectionem 
| esse ἰδὲ affirmat ex auctoritate unius, aut duorum, aut trium 
exemplarium, et aliquando ex plurimorum MSS. codicum 
| fide: Proleg. a p. 41, ad p. 50. 


CAPUT QUARTUM. 


§. 1. Versionum fere omnium in una lectione consensus 
non est, vel Millio judice, lectionis genuine certum 
indicium. Speciatim agitur primo de versione Coptica. 
§. 2. De versione A®thiopica, et Millii de hac versione 
judicio. §. 3, De versione Syriaca, ex Simonii sententia 
et ex iis que Millius de hac versione pronunciat. §. 4. 
De versione Arabica, ex qua nullas lectiones variantes 
exhibent Millii prolegomena. §. 2, 3, De versione 
veteri Vulgata, sive Italica latius agit sectio quinta, 
in qua evincitur primo incerta esse que de hac versione 
Millius certissima ducit, puta eam prie ceteris ad optimos 
codices adornatam fuisse. In ea omnia de textu arche- 
typo optime et juxta genuinum verborum sensum reddita 
fuisse. Et demum versionem veterem Italicam ante 
tempora Hieronymi miris modis interpolatam, pristine 
sue integritati restitui posse, et ejus industria restitutam 
esse. §. 4. Frustra id Millium aggressum esse ostendi- 
tur, primo ex codice Cantab., omnium quos unquam 
viderit corruptissimo, aut ex Germ. et Clarom. codicis 
ejusdem parte secunda. §. 5. Secundo ex scriptis patrum 
Latinorum, qui ante etatem Hieronymi vixerunt. 


SECTIO PRIMA. 


Venstonvm fere omnium in una lectione consensus, et cvp- 
πνοία, non est, Millio judice, genuine lectionis certum 
indicium; is enim ipse agnoscit Hebr. xii. 7, Vulg. Syr. 
Arab, thiop. legisse εἰς παιδείαν vel ἐν παιδείᾳ" editum 
tamen, inquit, εἰ παιδείαν ὑπομένετε, preter exemplaria 
plurima, et Grecorum commentarios, affirmant ea que 
sequuntur versu proximo, εἰ di χωρίς fore παιδείας. Sed 
non est hisce immorandum, cum tam in Millii prolego- 
menis, quam in nostris ad varias ejus Jectiones annota- 
tionibus, sexcenta occurrant loca, in quibus versionibus 
omnibus repugnet. 

Superest, ut de versionibus hisce, separatim sumptis, 
breviter agamus. 

Et primo de versione Coptica, sive AEgyptiaca, hec habet 
Millius, Proleg. p. 152, “Mirum certum est bibliorum 
multilinguium editores de Coptica nihil cogitasse, maxime 
cum non tantum profluxerit ex fonte Greco, sed etiam 
| expressa fuerit ad exemplar optimum, unumque e pri- 
mevis, aut certe ex ejusmodi aliquo, ut apparet ex 
variantibus ipsius lectionibus.” Vin’, lector, scire ra- 
tionem cur a Millio hee versio, quam Waltonus ὁ πάνυ 
| neglectam habuit, has laudes obtinuerit? Eam exhibet 
Simonius his verbis, “Coptica exemplaria multis in locis 
| conveniunt cum editione Latina, ubi Greco textui con- 
formis non est,’’ Crit. Hist. cap. xvi. p. 142. Porro ex 
variantibus ejusdem lectionibus, id tantum constat ver- 
| sionem ipsam haud esse flocci faciendam; quod ut lectori 
manifestum appareat, pre oculis cjus ponam illam ipsam 
variarum lectionum συλλογὴν, quam nobis hic Millius ex- 
hibuit. 

Matt. xx. 34, Καὶ εὐθέως ἀνέβλεψαν αὐτῶν of ὀφθαλμοὶ, ad- 
jectitium est. 

xxi. 2, Kai cipiicare, τὸ εὐθέως insertum est, statim. Vulg. 
xxv. 16, “ Qui quinque talenta acceperat,” ἐποίησε ἄλλα πέντε 
τάλαντα, additum est ex superioribus. 

Marc. xiii. 11, Mederdre irreptitium est. Vide hic ay 
notata. 


1152 


Xiv. 27, Σκανδαλισϑήσετε ἐν ἐμοὶ est Matthexi, immé Vulg. 
et Hieron. Theoph. Syr. Arab, 

Luc. vi. 45, Λαλεῖ τὸ στόμα αὐτοῦ, addititium est. 

Vill. 9, ᾿Επερώτησαν αὐτὸν of μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ, λέγοντες, adjecti- 
tium est, xviii. 20, cov addititium est. 

XXili. 23, Κατίσχυον ai φωναὶ αὐτῶν καὶ τῶν ἀρχιερέων, de 
margine irrepsit. Agnoscunt Theophylactus, et versiones 
orientales omnes. 

Act. iii. 13, 'O Θεὸς ᾿Αδραὰμ, Θεὸς Ἰσαὰκ, καὶ Θεὸς Ἰακὼβ, 
retento, Θεὸς, quod in aliis deest. 


xv. 17, 'O ποιῶν ταῦτα, πάντα irrepsit e margine. Agnos- 
cunt Chrysost. GEcumen. Syr. Arab, 
xix. 3, Εἴπετε πρὸς αὐτοὺς, injectitium est. Agnoscunt 


Chrysost. CEcum. Syr. Arab. AEthiop. 
XX. 32, Παρατίθεμαι ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοὶ, τῷ Oecs,— Αδελφοὶ Insertum 
de margine. Agnoscunt Chrysost. cumen. Arab. Zthiop. 
2 Cor. 1. 17, Τοῦτο οὖν βουλευόμενος. Βουλευόμενος fecit 
lector ex βουλόμενος. Cum textu legunt Theodoretus, CEcu- 
menius, et hance lectionem firmant verba sequentia, ἢ ἃ 
BovNetopat κατὰ σάρκα βουλεύομαι. 


SECTIO SECUNDA. 


Szcunno, de versione Aithiopica en P. Simonii judicium, 
viz. “ Versio hee Rome impressa, et in Bibliis Polyglottis 
de novo edita, adeo parum accurata est, ut ampliori con- 
sideratione sit protinus indigna,” Hist. Crit. ver. cap. xvii. 
Ῥ. 145. Ipse* Millius in prolegomenis sententiam suam 
de hac versione his verbis indicat: “In evangeliis plerum- 
que satis accurata est, rarius paulo abit a verbis s. textus, 
et ubi in paraphrases excurrit, et commentarios, vestigia 
haud obscura videris Greece, que interpreti ob oculos 
fuerat, lectionis. In Actis Apostolorum secus aliquanto se 
res habet, laxiora his pleraque, omissa hine inde varia, 
alia perperam, ac preter sensus Greci textus reddita, ne 
quid dicam de exemplari, quod nacti fuerunt Althiopes in 
nonnullis hujus libri locis lacero, et lacunoso: unde factum ut 
ne quidem integra ad nos devenerit versio, sed partim mutila 
manserit, partim suppleta fuerit hic illic ab his editoribus ex 
lingua Greca et Romana, ut loquuntur, hoc est, ex Vulgata 
versione, et codicibus Vaticanis Grecis, quos cum Vulgata 
Latina consentientes deprehenderant. In epistolis D. Pauli 
major paulo adhuc apparet laxitas, et immanis nonnunquam 
a litera textus aberratio, interprete verba, que ob oculos 
habebat, adeo non numerante, ut ne ad ipsorum quidem 
sensum, seu etiam significationem in locis nonnullis quid- 
quam attenderit. Sed neque in epistolis catholicis et 
Apocaly psi res multo melior ; utcunque enim hic ad literam 
Grecam propius fere nonnihil accedatur, in ipsis tamen 
haud raro translatoris curam et diligentiam desideramus.” 
Hine toties apud eum occurrunt hee versionis hujus epi- 
theta, “turbida, et obscura versio;” querele he,t “ Hine 
omnia turbavit Ethiops.” Et tamen post hec omnia, mirum 
dictu, “ Codex ille optimus est, et aut unus e primevis, aut 
ad primarium expressus est, et archetypum textum retinet 
in locis nonnullis, ubi ab eo ceteri abierunt.” En quibus 
versionibus originarii textus emendationem Millianam debe- 
mus, iis nimirum, ex quibus, aliis judicibus, vix aliud quam 
corruptelas expectare fas sit, presertim cum hance longam 
genuinarum, si Millio fides, lectionum syllogen hoc epilogo 
absolvat. +‘ Dolendum interea, turbidam hanc, confusam, 
et a textus non verbis tantum, sed et sensu nonnunquam 
toto ccelo aberrantem versionem intercepisse nobis con- 
spectum plurimarum lectionum Greci, ad quem facta erat, 
codicis, quas alias notasse licuisset.” Dolendum potius 
virum doctum ex hac turbida, confusa, obscura versione, 
in qua, evangeliis exceptis, laxiora pleraque, omissa hine 
inde varia, alia perperam, et preter sensum Greci textus 
reddita, quatuor paginas implevisse lectionibus suis ge- 
nuinis, sunt enim omnes quas congessit (paucis tantum 
exceptis, quas examini subjicimus) adeo frivole, inepte, 
notatu protinus indigne, ut magno opere in iis colligendis 
nihil egisse videatur. Aperiendus est denique fons hujus 
sententia Milliane, nempe congruentia versionis hujus 
cum fictitia illa versione Italica, quam tanquam genuine 


* Proleg. p. 121, col. 1. ἡ Prol. p. 154. ¢ P. 125. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


lectionis normam, et regulam fidissimam ubique nobis 
oggerit. Nimirum agnoscunt versionis hujus editores se 
multa, que in Actis Apostolorum in hac versione deerant, 
ex codicibus Latinis, Grecisque cum iis consentientibus 
supplevisse, “ verendumque est (inquit Ludolphus) ne idem 
in ceteris N. Testamenti libris fecerint, quippe thiops 
meus in multis eos differre aiebat ab exemplaribus MSS. 
patrie sue;” nec aliud expectandum fuit a versione 
Rome concinnata: si enim Rome fueris, non tantum 
Romano more vivendum est, sed etiam scribendum. 


SECTIO TERTIA. 


De Syriaca versione Millius sententiam suam his verbis 
exhibet. “(Primo) Syriace quod attinet, haud ea Grecis 
suis adeo accurate semper, et velut ad amussim con- 
veniunt, ut ex iis intelligi possit, quid legerit interpres. 
(Secundo) Quod in nonnullis pro versione exhibeat Syrus 
commentarium. (‘Tertio) Quod in aliis omittat non tantum 
textus Greci partes quasdam minutiores, sed insigniora 
quoque vocabula, seu quod ea superflua judicaverit in 
versione, aut quod etiam ipsa non intellexerit. (Quarto) 
Quod in aliis inserat, addat, mutet varia uberioris sensus, 
et claritatis gratia, ut in versione sepius videre est. 
(Quinto) Quod in aliis Greca reddat omnino perperam, 
et preter sententiam loci. (Sexto) Accedunt que ex 
divisione versionis in lectiones additu, seu quovis modo 
mutata sunt, ad initia lectionum. iS non mirum 
esse (ait) si pro temporum istorum dyaSia, textus ejus 
aliquantulum hinc inde passus est a librario.”” He omnia 
habes, Proleg. p. 128. “Cetera,” inquit, “forte accurata 
erant, et quidem textus, quem exhibebant in plerisque adeo 
mirifice cum Greco vulgari congruebat, ut uterque ex uno 
et eodem codice descriptus prima fronte videatur. Collatis 
certe his invicem (viz. codicibus Syri et Vulgati) convenisse 
hune cum altero deprehendimus, in lectionibus etiam que 
ab excusis variant sexaginta supra mille, e quibus quadra- 
ginta (quadringenta) septuaginta octo genuine sunt.” Huic 
Millii sententi opponimus, (primo) Simonii critici si non 
acrioris, «quioris certe judicii testimonium, “ convenire 
nempe frequentius hanc Syriacam versionem cum Grecis 
exemplaribus, ex quibus Hieronymus Italicam castigavit, 
quam cum ipsa versione Italica,” Crit. Hist. ver. cap. xv. p. 
119. Porro ex iis que Millius annotavit, hee plane 
sequuntur. (Secundo) Sexcentis fere locis codicem tam 
Syrum quam Vulgatum spurium esse; ea enim versio, 
que in lectionibus in quibus ab excusis variat plus 
sexaginta supra mille, 478 tantum genuinas lectiones 
habet, in reliquis 582 eam non genuinas habere necesse 
est. (Tertio) Ex eo quod versio hee cum Greco vulgari 
adeo mirifice congruit, eam mirum in modum vitiis scatere, 
ex iis que de Greco vulgari ex Simonio notavimus, 
liquido constabit. (Quarto) Ex eo quod versio adeo 
obscura sit, et a Greco exemplari eo usque aliena, ut ex 
ea intelligi non possit, quid legerit interpres, in quibusdam 
pro versione exhibeat commentarium, in aliis omittat 
insigniora textus Greci vocabula, in aliis inserat, mutet, 
addat varia, in aliis Greca reddat perperam, et preter 
sententiam loci, aut tanquam superflua in versione rejiciat, 
et demum pro temporum istorum dyaSia a librariis hine 
inde passus sit, incertum sane relinguitur utrum in iis 
locis quos pro genuinis ostentat Millius, idem factum non 
fuerit. Contra antiquitatem hujus versionis objicitur, 
quod Matt. v. 22, εἰκὴ retinet: Matt. vi. 13, δοξολογίαν in 
fine orationis Dominice exhibet, et Luc. xi. tertiam et 
quintam ejusdem orationis petitionem ; respondet Millius 
in textum hee postea inserta fuisse, et accidisse versioni 
Syriac, quod Italic, quod aliis, ut longo temporis tractu 
mutatus et correctus fuerit textus ejus ad codices posterio- 
rum temporum. Hoc cum ab eo sine teste, adeoque sine 
ratione dictum fuerit, quid impedit quominus idem a nobis 
dicatur in omnibus iis locis, quos pro genuinis nobis ob- 
trudit Millius? Nihil certe, nisi quod hoc Milli κρησφυ- 
yérw nobis non opus sit, utpote qui lectiones hasce ima- 
ginario genuinas, ubi res postulare videbatur, diligenter ex- 
cusserimus, easque fere semper nihil minus quam genuinas 
deprehenderimus, 


ΓΠΈΧΑΜΕΝ MILLII. 


SECTIO QUARTA. 
De Versione Arabica. 


Ex versione Arabica nullas lectiones genuinas vel inter- 
polatas notavit Millius. Quanquam enim, eodem fatente, 
ea hinc inde emendatior, et ad pleraque Greciw exemplaria 
conformatior sit, quam Syriaca, eo tamen remotior fuit a 
Millii Italica, eique ut plurimum repugnat. Visum est 
ergo illi melius eam missam facere, quam de eadem, quod 
verum esse ex annotatis nostris constabit, agnoscere. 
“Facile tamen est (teste Simonio) cernere versionem hanc 
minime puram esse, sed aliquibus in Jocis ad Latine 
versionis normam emendatam fuisse:” Crit. H. ver. cap. 
Xvili. p. 158, 


SECTIO QUINTA. 
De Versione veteri Vulgata, sive Italica. 


§. 1. De versione Italica qualem hic nobis eam ex suo 
cerebro confinxit Millius, fusius agendum est. Hoc enim 
ipsius commentum penitus destruendo integrum prolego- 
Menon opus, in quantum lectiones genuinas respicit, cum 
illo loco cedere necesse est. Igitur observandum (primo) 
quod in eo potissimum se ostentet et immodice se efferat 
Millius, quod ex hac unica versione loca N. T. plus du- 


centa, que solitaria intercedebant absque omni codicum, | 


patrum, versionum comitatu, et gue jam a plurimis seculis 
interpolata fuerant, originarie sue puritati restituerit. 
Harum lectionum inter alia longe plura συλλογὴν satis 
prolixam exhibet a pag. proleg. 41 ad 58, in quibus hoc 
potissimum notandum venit, quod exempla multa coiligens 


ex libris fere omnibus totius N. Feederis, hac tamen | 


prefatione utatur: “Hee que a MSS. codicum fere om- 
nium, et impressorum lectione differunt, videntur tamen 
genuina.” 

Cui id primo respondeo, quod Helvidio Hieron. cap. 
primo adv. Helv. t. 4, lit. D, «Licet tu mira confidentia 
hec in Grecis codicibus falsata contendas, que non solum 
omnes pene Grwciw tractatores in suis voluminibus reli- 
querunt, sed nonnuli quoque e Latinis ita ut in Grecis 
habentur assumpserint; nec (non tamen) necesse est de 
exemplarium varietate tractare, cum omne et Veteris et 
Nove Scripture instrumentum in Latinum sermonem 
exinde translatum sit, et multo purior manare credenda 
sit fontis unda, quam rivi.” 


§. 2. Respondeo secundo, me diligenter locos omnes, , 


exceptis plane frivolis, expendisse, et vix unum invenisse 
vel solitarie incedentem, vel cum exiguo illo quem adjecit 
comitatu, qui genuine lectionis speciem exhibeat, certumve 
indicium, aut ubi pro lectione Grecorum codicum recepta 
non sit par ratio, versionum et antiquorum patrum aucto- 
ritas vel equalis, vel multo superior. 

Secundo, cum id pro certo atque indubitato spius 
assumit Millius, Vulgatam Latinam, seu versionem Ita- 
licam, ab ipsis propemodum apostolorum temporibus 
adornatam fuisse ad codices optimos “solisque forte 
apostolorum ipsorum authenticis dignitate inferiores ;” 
Proleg. p. 162, col. 1; “Eamque ab hodiernis quidem 
nostris codicibus nonnunquam recedere, a Grecis autem 
primorum temporum nusquam adeo recedere ut necessario 
sit deserenda,” Proleg. p. 138, col. 1, 2—Ut multa alia 
ejusdem confidentie hic missa faciam, aliud tamen peri- 
tissimos Romane ecclesiz criticos de hac versione sensisse 
et docuisse, ex eorum verbis et testimoniis luce clarius 
patebit. 

Nam primo Dupinius, etiamsi pro pontifice 
steterit, Italicam versionem ab origine sua 
forsan maculis inquinatam fuisse, aperte et 
fatetur. “Primo enim, interpres qui potuit falli ut 
humanus, hallucinatus forte est, et textum male reddidit; 
aut secundo, nactus fuit codicem mendosum; aut tertio, 
sui codicis parum fidus anagnostes; aut quarto, cum 
scriptum esset ambiguum, et duplicis sensus aut inter- 
pretamenti capax, interpres fortasse minus commodam 
secutus est sententiam, et in dictione aliqua aut idiomate 
Hebraico multum aberravit. Quinto, de suo etiam ad- 
jecisse potuit plurima, aut claritatis gratia, aut ut unus 

Vou. [V.—145 


Romano 
plurimis 
ingenue 


1153 


evangélista cum altero melius concordaret” (atque etiam 
subtraxisse, et rejecisse quedam tanquam superflua, ut 
asserit Millius de Syro). “Sexto, multa forsan addita- 
menta deprompsit ex apocryphis (prout Clemens Rom. in 
| Ep. ad Corinthios).” Ἠώς ille de vetere interprete N. T. 
cap. iii. §. 4, p. 109.—Simonius, cap. vi. p. 50, “ Multum 
(inquit) debemus sancto Hieronymo, qui Italicam versionem, 
locis pene innumeris mancam et imperfectam, 885 in- 
tegritati restituit. Optima Greca exemplaria plerumque 
secutus est, prieteritisque iis, que ad Vulgatam de industria 
conformabantur, et multis que apud orientales ecclesias 
perlegebantur, commodissimum quodque elegit; atque hinc 
est, quod illi cum Grecis scholiastis omnia fere conveniunt. 
Admodum antiqui fuerunt codices, quos mutilos in editis sui 
temporis Hieronymus deprehendit, et ab ipsis Christianismi 
primordiis originem suam traxerunt. Unde inducor ad 
credendum veterem versionem Latinam a MSS., ad hune 
modum mutilatis, ab initio traductam fuisse, quam tamen 
totam rejecisse, aut In novam penitus effinxisse formam, 
criticorum ille prestantissimus nequaquam ausus est.” 
Adeo in re Biblica peritissimi Simonius et Dupinius a 
Millio quam longissime dissentiunt ! 

§. 3. Secundo, sicut nec ipse Millius diffitetur versionem 
istam tractu temporis valde corruptam fuisse, ita res nota 
ac manifesta erit e crebris Simonii confessionibus, qui, cap. 
iii. p. 20, ait, “Omnibus apertum est miserandum fuisse 
| statum illius ante castigationem Hieronymi;” et cap. iv. 
p. 24, “Latinam ecclesiam summo beneficio sibi devinxit 
| Hieronymus, cum ad optima Greca exemplaria Vulgatam 
versionem pessime ab aliis habitam (ut testatur ipse in Ep. 
ad Damasum) correxerit;” et cap. vi. p. 50, “Innumeros 
pene locos, hiantes olim et Jacunosos, reduxit ille ad 
sanitatem ;”’ et p. 52, “Vetustissimi cod. Vulgati multa 
παρεμβεβλημένα, Verbis passim immutatis, retinent, que in 
editione nostra Hieronymus acri judicio perpendit, et 
emendavit, cap. xii. p. 115.” Si Zegerum ipsum audias, 
“hee ipsa versio multis in locis noscitur vitiata, mutilata, 
et aucta.” Atqui versio in statu isto miserando, utpote 
que locis innumeris vitiata, mutilata, et aucta fuerit, minime 
quidem digna fuit, ut pre ceteris palmam ferret, suamque 
archetypo puritatem restitueret. “Hine est, quod (teste 
Simonio) post castigationem Hieronymi de Italica versione 
in antiquum statum restituenda nemo unquam vel per 
somnium cogitaverit, sed (hac ad Millium ablegata pro- 
vincia) codices suos ad Hieronymi editionem conformarunt, 
ex omnium confessione optimam et accuratissimam, adeo ut 
post aliquos annos vetus Italica versio, cum in extremis 
esset, vel sublata penitus fuerit vel sub nomine et titulo 
Hieronymiane versionis delituerit. Hanc enim Cassio- 
dorus monachis suis regulam prescripsit, ut codices suos 
ad Hieronymianos audacter corrigerent;” et cap. vii. p. 59, 
“Non aliud occurrit nomen in vetustissimis, que jam 
extant, Latinis Bibliis, quam Hieronymi, nec ποία aliqua, 
qua distingueretur Hieronymiana a vetere ista, quam 
occidentales ecclesie usurparunt, versione. Hee ergo 
que olim Vulgata et Italica dicebatur, post Hieronymi in 
Novum Testamentum labores, sensim evanuit, cum enim 
| Hieronymiana magis quam Italica versio plerisque 

arriserit, scrinia, in bibliothecis illius nomine prefixo, 
occupavit, Italica penitus neglecta, quam omnes minus 
accuratam esse crediderunt;” et cap. ix. p. 83, ex per 
vetusto codice in bibliotheca Sancti Germani repusito, 
| hee citat verba, “ Hieronymi presbyteri Bethlem secun- 
}dum Grecum ex emendatissimis libris conlata:” unde 
_constat, quod ex pervulgata illoram temporum opinione, 
Hieronymus integrum Novum Testamentum castigaverit 
| ex emendatissimis Grecis manuscriptis: “Nulla tum de 
| Italica versione mentio facta est; librarii enim non aliam 
quam Hieronymi editionem transcripserunt, quod szpissime 
disertis verbis in fine libri adnotarunt.” Ad hune modum 
illa ipsa versio, quam ad celum sustulit Millius, et cujus 
beneficio loca Novi Testamenti plus ducenta, a plurimis 
seculis interpolata, restituere conatus est originaria 50: 
puritati, illa ipsa, inquam, versio ex judicio et consuetudine 
occidentalis ecclesiw, pretermissa, spreta, et repudiata 
fuit. Postremo, cum in ea prope sententia Millius asse- 
cutum se esse ex Latino Irenwo, Tertulliano, Cyprianu, 
Hilario Diacono, codicibus Cant. Clar. et Ger. que in 
plerisque N. T. fuerint res Italice genuina, et quibus 


1104 


Grecis Latina ista responderint. Quam commentitia futi- 
lisque sit illius sententia, mecum paucis recognoscite. 

§. 4, Primo etenim codicem Cant. ad hance rem minime 
aptum esse, patet ex testimonio tam Millii, quam Simonii, 
Ad Morini argumentum, qui trecentis fere in locis ex 
codice Cant. confirmatam esse ait Vulgatam ecclesie 
versionem, respondet Millius (Prol. p. 141, col. 1), “Ex- 
emplar hoc Cantabrigiense omnium quotquot unquam ad 
wtatem nostram devenire, interpolatissimum fuisse;” et 
annotatis in Luce caput tertium, “Omnium quos unquam 
viderim, non uno nomine, corruptissimum. Unde et mu- 
tata ad hujus generis codices Latina corrupta in plurimis 
fuerint necesse est.” Atqui de hoc ipso codice, ait 
Simonius, cap. vi. p. 51, “Greca istius codicis ad 
Italicam versionem per omnia respondisse; unde sequi- 
tur ipsam Italicam versionem, omnium quotquot unquam 
ad xtatem nostram devenere, interpolatissimam fuisse:” 
et p. 52, Codex Cant. a reliquis Grecis exemplaribus et 
Vulgatis ita longe “abest, presertim in Actis Apostolorum, 
ut videatur esse codex novus.” Immo, dicente Millio, 
annotatis ad Luce caput tertium, “ Hujus codicis scriba in 
evangeliis finita, pro arbitrio, addere, detrahere, mutare 
ausus est, et Luce denique evangelium adeo misere 
passim interpolavit, ut Monotessaron quoddam fere, magis 
quam ipsius Luce Evangelium dixeris.” At vero cum 
Clar. et Ger. sint solum ejusdem exemplaris partes 
secunde, illos quoque codices a reliquis Grecis et Vul- 
gata ad eundem modum discrepasse, rationi haud absonum 
est conjicere; et Ὁ. 52, “Vetustissimi (Lat.) codices 
additamentis mendisque innumeris abundant, que sustulit 
Hieronymus, correxitque ad normam eorum exemplarium, 
que suo tempore prestantissima habebantur, et que cum 
nostris propius consentiunt. Inter libros, qui apud Grecos 
et orientales ecclesie prolegebantur, sunt alique quidem 
varietates et discrepantie, non tamen ejusdem nature cum 
variantibus istis lectionibus, que in Cant. et quibusdam 
aliis, et Vulgata vetere versione ad eos codices conformata, 
facile deprehendas. Constat quidem eos codices temerariam 
librariorum manum sepius fuisse passos, qui multa addi- 
derunt claritatis gratia, atque ordinem verborum immuta- 
runt, ut oratio fieret concinna, accurata, et polita.”’ Unde 
colligere licet, quam falsas rationes inferat Millius dicendo, 
ita Cant. ita Ger. ita Cler. adeo vetus Italica. 

§. 5. Secundo, alterum quod jacit fundamentum Millius, 
sc. testimonia patrum, qui ante tempora Hieronymi vixerunt, 
Simonio jndice, parum stabile et firmum est. Nam in Cri- 
tica de Versionibus Historia, cap. iii. p. 22, “Monet nos 
Sanctum Cyprianum non ad amussim exhibuisse Vulgatam 
editionem sui temporis, sed aliquando ad sensum verborum 
respexisse, potius quam ad textum veteris interpretis;” et 
p. 21, “Cyprianus et coztanei illius locos 5. scripture non 
ex publica aliqua versione deprompserunt, sed ipsi eos e 
re nata interpretati sunt.” Atque iterum, “Tertullianus et 
Cyprianus potestatem sibi permiserunt adeundi fontes, ac 
Grecum sermonem pro libitu suo vertendi. Hinc Pame- 
lius in vita Tertulliani ait non tam Latinis translatis, quam 
Gr. cod. veteribus usum esse auctorem Grece doctissimum, 
mallet nempe ex fontibus bibere, quod aiunt, quam ex 
Jacunis.” De Cypriano idem dignoscitur ex locupletissimo 
indice locorum Nov. Test. in edit. Oxon. collectorum. Ex 
his Simonius recte colligit falli Zegerum, qui additamenta 
in Lat. MSS., seculo Irenzi aut Cypriani pauciora fuisse, 
quam reliquis deinceps seculis existimat. “Siquidem 
major pars antiquissimorum codicum additamentis ac 
varietate innumera gaudet, et tantum abest ut nostra Vul- 
gati interpretis editio ad Ireneum, Tertullianum, Cyprianum, 
aliosque scriptores venerande antiquitatis corrigi debeat, 
ut tutius foret testimonia eorum ad editos nostros, seu 
Grecos seu Latinos, emendare. Hoc quibusdam forsan 
mirum videbitur, (ait ille) et inauditum, sed de rei ipsius 
veritate satis liquet;” et p. 53, “Haud tutum semper est 
ecclesiasticos scriptores, qui antiqui merito audiunt, tan- 
quam duces nostros sequi, cum e certis argumentis dignos- 
catur codices, quos nacti erant Nov. Test. presertim Latinos, 
misere confusos et turbidos fuisse.” 

His etiam subjungit, p. 54, “Scripta Latinorum patrum, 
qui Hieronymi versionem tate precesserunt, crebram 
mutationem passa esse. Editores enim, qui typis illa 
mandari curarunt, citationes eorum ad nostram Vulgatam 


EXAMEN MILLII. ° 


sepius accommodabant, nec melius factum est Hilario 
Diacono, qui ex omnibus Latinis cum vetere Italo inter- 
prete maxime congruit.” Turrianus, cum apostolorum 
canonum defensionem susceperit, “ meminisse (se ait) non 
ita pridem cum esset Cyprianus Rome imprimendus, 
fuisse qui judicarunt tune in testimoniis Veteris Scrip- 
ture, que sunt omnia apud Cyprianum ex interpretatione 
LXX., pro interpretatione LXX. interpretationem Hiero- 
nymi, substitui debere.” Quid multa? Teste Dupinio, si 
Epistolarum Paulinarum Latinam versionem in Clarom. 
et Germ. codicibus, cum textu in commentariis Ambro- 
siastri et Pelagii diligenter conferas, miram ubique discre- 
pantiam facile reperies: Hist. 5, et N.'T., vol. ii. p. 115. 
Quibus ex argumentis in unum collatis satis constat vanum 
fuisse Milli inceptum, dum e scriptis patrum veterem 
Italicam versionem eruere conatus est, neque illum aut 
criticum aut dialecticum bonum egisse, cum in prolego- 
menis toties dixit, “Ita Ireneus Lat. ita Tertullianus aut 
denique ita Cyprianus, adeoque vetus Italica.” 


CAPUT QUINTUM. 


§. 1. Exhibet uberiorem dissertationem de hac versione 
Italica, in qua primo sententia Millii proponitur. 8. 2. 
Secundo, patres Latinos existimasse versionem Italicam 
ex Grecis exemplaribus corrigendam fuisse ex  testi- 
moniis Ambrosii, Hieronymi, Damasi P. et Augustini 
probatur. §. 3 et 4. Unde sequitur primo ex patrum 
horum sententia non defuisse tunc Grecos codices puros 
et incorruptos, ex quibus versionis Italice σφάλματα 
corrigerentur. Secundo, patribus hisce nullam tune 
cognitam fuisse versionem Italicam, ex qua aliorum 
Latinorum codicum varietas aut dissonantia tolleretur, 
Ibid. Frustra tentasse Millium versionem hance integri- 
tati sue restituere ex Tertulliano, Cypriano, Hilario 
Diac. et Augustino, aut ex codicibus manuscriptis, os- 
tenditur. - 


Qvuanaquam ea que de hac versione jam diximus, aliis 
sufficere videantur, quoniam tamen controversie cardo in 
hoc potissimum versatur, opere pretium esse duxi Millii 
de hac versione sententiam plenius refutare. 


SECTIO PRIMA. 


Imacinartem scilicet hanc versionem* ‘ adornatam fu- 
isse ad optimos codices, solisque forte apostolorum au- 
thenticis dignitate inferiores’’ censet Millius. Immo non 
patitur Boisium nostratem supponeret “ipsam a Grecis 
alicubi sic recedere, ut necessario sit deserenda.’ “ Re- 
cedit,” inquit, “nonnunquam ab hodiernis hisce nostris, 
non vero a Grecis primorum temporum.” Et Prol. p. 
142, col. 1, hee habet, “ Veterem Jalicam, ceu ad ex- 
emplaria primeva compositam, summa veneratione pro- 
sequimur, ejusque vel semesa MSS. fragmenta quelibet 
auro cariora, non cara duximus. Optandam equidem foret 
ut Hieronymus, ex collatione prestantissimorum, qui tate 
ista comparari poterant, codicum Latinorum, restituere 
studuisset Italicam originarie sux puritatii Cum autem 
ex Grecis suis eam castigare ipsi visum sit, ex animo 
certe gaudemus quod in hac re parum sibi permiserit, ac 
pauca duntaxat immutarit; hoc siquidem pacto manet 
etiamnum haud exigua pars Italice, textusque adeo pri- 
mevi originarii vestigia passim haud obscura videre est, 
que ex morosiori ejus ad Grecos codices qui tum fere- 
bantur confirmatione, pleraque prorsus periissent. Hee 
nostra est de Vulgata versione sententia.” 


SECTIO SECUNDA. 


Oper pretium esset dignoscere unde hee versio men- 
dis libera, et a Grecis primorum temporum nusquam re- 
cedens, adeo comparanda esset, ut pro certo haberetur nos 
ipsissimam versionem Italicam, qualis a prima origine 


* Proleg. p. 162, col. 2. 
7 P. 138, col. 1, 2. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


1155 


extabat, puram putamque possidere. Mirum certe, fatente* | ceteris preferatur, nam est verborum tenacior, cum 
Millio, quanta jam ab ipso fere initio licentia textum hujus | perspicuitate sententia.” Ut autem hie de judicio Au- 


yersionis interpolarint Latini veteres. Quero qua certe 
et explorata methodo, pura ab his interpolationibus et 
integra ad Millii manus pervenisset? Versionem Italam 
aut Vulgatam continuo ingeminat; ex hoc rivulo fontes 
ipsis Grecos purgandos esse existimat; Clementem, Ori- 
genem, Eusebium, Grecos fere omnes coram hoc tribunali 
sistit: quicquid in iis a suo Vulgato dissentit, incusat 
παρεμβλήστως, irreptitium, interpolatum esse, aut marginale 
scholion fidenter pronunciat; quicquid eidem consonat 
est plane genuinum. Qumrimus tandem unde hee rara 


avis pervenerit, quibusque machinis e clo devoluta ad | 
Millium descenderit, et quibus indiciis, post longum and 
Ex 


temporis intervallum, id nobis denuo innotescat? 
Millio id luce clarius ediscas, cujus ipsissima verba in me- 
dium jam adducam. 

“Versionem ipsam quod attinet, adeo mire tractu tem- 
poris interpolata erat a librariis, aliisque, ut ipsius textum 
genuinam haud alias investigare liceat quam partim ex 
fragmentis patrum Latinorum, partim ex MSS. exempla- 
ribus translationis Italicw, qualis jam incedebat ante casti- 
gationem Hieronymi, adhibita in consilium hodierna Vul- 
gata, que quantumcunque vitiata, haud exiguam certe 
partem retinet veteris genuine. Hujusmodi quidem 


monumentorum accurate inter se, et cum textu Greco | 


(N. B.) commissorum, adminiculo, revocari etiamnum 
posse videtur maxima ex parte Itala hec, qualem eam 
dederint primi interpretes.”+ 

Prodisse apud Latinos innumeras s. scripture interpre- 
tationes testis est Augustinus, et inter reliquas unum apud 
Afros, quinto jam seculo speciatim Italam dictam, quod 
ab Italia ad ipsos pervenerit. Quis hodie fidem dabit 
versionem Jtalam primevam, seu Pii Secundi temporibus 
dicente Millio, adornatam ex apostolorum autographis, 
immo apographis desumptam fuisse? Unde nimirum 
habuissent Epistolam ad Hebreos, et Johannis Apoca- 
lypsin a Romana ecclesiv nondum agnitas? Unde Epistolas 
Catholicas, quarum alique in dubium ideo vocabantur, 
quod earum parcior fuisset mentio in primevis Christian- 
ismi seculis? In versione Syriaca, iisdem fere temporibus 
adornata, Petri Epistolam Secundam, Johannis Secundam 
et Tertiam, Judam, Apocalypsin, Historiam Adultere 
defuisse agnoscunt eruditi: securos quis nos faciat eas in 
versione Italica non pariter defuisse? Aut quo indicio 
certo constabit Italum hunc interpretem lingue Hebraice 
idiomata moresque Judaicos adeo ad unguem calluisse, ut 
in iis vertendis nunquam a vero aberraverit? Quis dabit 
denique Italam versionem, de qua unus loquitur Augus- 
tinus, eam ipsissimam fuisse que primo ab Italis concin- 
nata fuerit? Immo post miseram illam corruptelam, quam 
multo ante Augustini tempora in hance versionem irrepsisse 
ultro fatetur Millius, quis certiores nos reddet eam in Afro- 
rum manus incorruptam pervenisse? Si certum id esset, 
quod summa confidentia certissimum pronunciat Millius, 
Ttalam hance olim puram, et autographis apostolicis digni- 
tate tantum inferiorem extitisse, mendisque nullis ob- 
noxiam, et a qua nunquam necessario recedendum esset ; 
eamque a bibliothecis Hieronymi etate salvam et integram 
comparari potuisse; quanta ecclesie Latine incuria, im- 
mo socordia factum est, ut nova Hieronymi emendatio ci 
prevaluerit, ita ut, ea insuper habita, Hieronymi versio 
Vulgata apud omnes ubique obtineret, et pro authentica 
haberetur. Isidoro etenim monente + “ Hieronymi editione 
generaliter omnes ecclesie usquequaque utuntur pro eo 
quod veracior sit in sententiis, et clarior in verbis;” et 
§ Gregorio P. apud Millium eadem his verbis dicente, 
“Nova hee translatio cuncta verius transfudisse perhi- 
betur, et credendum est quicquid in ea dicitur.’” Cur 
demum id eo tempore dictum esset, cum eodem| Gregorio 
fatente, sedes apostolica utraque utebatur, se tamen novam 
translationem disserente? Quid tandem dicat Augustinus 


audiamus, § “In ipsis (inquit) interpretationibus Ttala | 


* Prol. p. 58, col. 2. 

+ Lib. de Div. Officiis. 

! Ep. ad Leand. sect. ult. 
§ De Doct. Christ. lib. ii. cap. 15, Vide etiam cap. 11, 12. 


ἡ Prol. p. 41, col. 2. 
§ Prol. p. 98, col. 2. 


Ϊ 


gustini, Latini hominis in Grecis minime instructi, ta- 
ceam, Italam versionem ad aliarum multitudinem com- 
paratam, “verborum pr@ aliis tenaciorem et in sententiis 
magis perspicuam (pronunciat) eam tamen quantumlibet 


/emendatam Grmcis cedere oportere haud dubium est.” 


Ait idem Augustinus,* “lJisque potissimum qui spud 
ecclesias doctiores et diligentiores reperiuntur, Latinis 
quibuslibet emendatis Greci,” inquit, “adhibeantur, sunt 
enim Grecorum auctoritate adhuc emendandi, duabus enim 
aliis linguis δὰ scripturarum divinarum  cognitionem 
opus est, Hebrea sc. et Greca, ut ad exemplaria prece- 
dentia recurratur, si quam dubitationem attulerit Latinorum 
interpretum varietas.” En Augustinum non Millio adsti- 
pulantem, sed plane adversantem ; lectorem nempe Latinum 
titubantem non versioni Italice, sed Grecis exemplaribus 
stabiliendum mittit; immo haud dubium esse ait, Lati- 
nam quamlibet versionem, adeoque Italam, Grecis cedere 
oportere. 

Cum Augustino consentiunt ecclesie Latine patres ad 
unum omnes, qui de his rebus verba fecerunt, unoque ore 
asserunt textus Grecos N. Testamenti semper fuisse et 
adhuc esse authenticos, ad quos omnes versiones probari 
et examinari debent. Constans hee erat, juxta Walton- 
um, veteris ecclesie sententia: Ambrosiust hee habet, 
«Si quis de Latinorum codicum varietate contendit, quo- 
tum aliquos perfidi falsaverunt, Grecos inspiciant codices.” 
Et libro de Incar. Dom. Sacramentis; “Ita,” inquit, “in 
Grecis codicibus invenimus, quorum potior est auctoritas.” 
Proximus illi Augustinus¢ ita loquitur, “ Recte fieri nullo 
modo dubitaverim ut, cum diversum aliquid in duobus 
codicibus invenitur, quandoquidem ad fidem rerum gesta- 
rum utrumque non potest esse verum, ei lingue potius 
credatur, unde est in aliam, per interpretes, facta trans- 
latio.” “Hoc ipsum,” inquit ibi Vives, “Hieronymus 
clamat, hoc ipsa dicit ratio, et nullus est saniore judicio 
qui repugnet.”” Hieronymus epistola ad Suniam et Fre- 
tellam rem sic expedit: “Si quando apud Latinos in N. 
Testamento questio exorta est, et inter exemplaria varie- 
tas, recurrimus ad fontem Greci sermonis quo novum 
scriptum est instrumentum.” Idem Ep. ad Licinium hee 
habet, “Ut veterum librorum fides de Hebreis volumini- 
bus examinanda est, ita novorum veritas Greci sermonis 
normam desiderat :” que verba a Gratiano in jus canoni- 
cum a pontifice probatum relata sunt, dist. 9, cap. Ut 
veterum agmen claudat Damasus Papa, cui sic scribit 
Hieronymus, “Novum opus facere me cogis ex vetere, 
ut post exemplaria scripturarum toto orbe dispersa, quasi 
quidem arbiter sedeam, et quia inter se variant, que sunt 
illa que cum Greca consentiunt veritate decernam.” Ex 
his satis constat quantum veteres fontes pretulerint ver- 
sionibus, iis vero qui versiones preferunt dico cum Hiero- 
nymo, quibus displicet fontis unda purissima, ccenosos 
rivulos bibant. Ex hac autem veteris ecclesie sententia 
duo, coronidis loco, plane concludi videntur. 

Primo, non defuisse, horum patrum etate, fontes ex 
quibus purissima hee unda biberetur, i. e. non defuisse 
Grecos codices puros, et incorruptos, ex quibus Latino- 
Tum, adeoque ipsius versionis Italice σφάλματα corrigeren- 
tur, quibusque Latina omnia exemplaria cedere oportere 
haud dubium tune esset. Quorsum enim Grecos codices 
inspicere, ad fontem Greci sermonis recurrere, ei lingue 
potissimum credere unde est in aliam facta translatio, et 
cum Latina exemplaria varia esse contigerit, que sint illa 
que cum Greca veritate consentiunt decernere, nos toties 
monerent, nisi puri hi fontes adeundi, codices hi Greci in- 
spiciendi essent, unde decerni potuisset Greca veritas? 
Frustra ergo decies ad minimum in prolegomenis suis as- 
serit et contendit Millius, Greca exemplaria misere cor- 
rupta et vitiata fuisse, interpretationibus, et scholiis e 
margine in textum irrepsentibus undique scatere, foedata, 
polluta, nec unum inter Grecos codicem extitisse Italo 
suo vetustiorem, qui archetypam apostolorum et evange- 
listarum scripturam ipso fidelius expresserit. Hoc enim 
* Cap. 15. { Lib. ii. de Sp. Sancto, cap. ἢ 
+ De Civ. D. lib. xv. cap. 13. 


1186 


si patrum atque ecclesia antique judicio ita fuisset, ad 
eum certe aliquando, et non ad Grecorum exemplaria, pro 
veritate dignoscenda continuo provocassent, nec in hujus- 
modi verba toties irrupissent. Latinorum* codicum viti- 
ositatem, que ex diversitate librorum omnium comproba- 
tur, ad Grecam originem. unde et ipsi translatam esse non 
denegant revocandam fere, ex puris fontibus potius quam 
ex ccenosis rivulis bibendum esse. Et veritatem queren- 
dam esse ad Grecam originem revertendo. 

Secundo, hine constat patribus hisce nullam tune cogni- 
tam fuisse versionem Italam, aliamve quamlibet, vel in 
bibliothecis, ut putat Millius, extantem, vel aliunde com- 
parandam, ex qua aliorum codicum Latinorum varietas aut 
dissonantia, tolli posset, aut N. Testamenti versio Latina 
ad integritatem suam restitui. Id liquet ex patrum om- 
nium in hac ipsa questione alto silentio. Ad Greca ex- 
emplaria provocant omnes. Ad ea quoties in Latinis du- 
bium aliquod occurrat, recurrendum esse uno ore pronun- 
ciant, Italam quandam versionem Latinis ceteris preferen- 
dam esse unus, quod sciam, Augustinus pronunciat, ex ea 
reliquas emendandas esse ne unus quidem. Audi Hiero- 
nymum clara voce sciscitantem, “ Si Latinist exemplaribus 
fides est adhibenda, respondeant quibus? Tot enim sunt 
exemplaria pene quot codices: sin autem veritas est que- 
renda de pluribus, cur non, ad Grecam orijginem revertentes, 
ea que vel a vitiosis interpretibus male reddita, vel a 
presumptoribus imperitis emendata perversius, vel a libra- 
riis dormitantibus aut addita sunt, aut mutata, corrigimus? 
De N. Testamento nune loquor quod (excepto apostolo 
Matthzo) Grecum esse non dubium, hoc certe cum in 
nostro sermone discordat, et in diversos rivulorum tra- 
mites ducit, uno de fonte querendum est.’ Latuit ergo 
Hieronymum Rome degentem, et Damaso P. familiarem, 
ea que Millio, post longum hoe etatis intervallum com- 
pertissima (si fides ei sit adhibenda) fuit versio pura Ita- 
lica, ad optimos codices adornata, solisque apostolorum au- 
thenticis dignitate forte inferior. Latuit Hieronymi ad- 
versarios studiose de illo detrahentes, quod quedam in 
evangeliis emendare tentaret, et Latinorum codicum viti- 
ositatem ad Grecam originem revocaret. Latuit denique 
Damasum P. id Hieronymo in mandatis dantem, ut “ex 
Latinorum exemplaribus variantibus que sint illa, non que 
cum versione Italica, sed cum Greca consentiant veritate, 
decerneret.” 


SECTIO TERTIA. 


An Millium jam redeo, qui excussis aliquot ex modo me- 
moratis atque antiquissimis codicibus, ut et allegationibus 
patrum¢ vetustissimorum Latinorum, in ea prope fuit 
sententia assecutum se esse que in plerisque N. Test. locis 
fuerunt ipsius Italice genuina, et quibus Grecis Latina ista 
Tesponderint. 

Quero ex quibus patrum veterum monumentis id con- 
secutus sit; an ex Irenzi Latinis, ad quos in lectionibus 
ejus variantibus sepius nos mittit? Nihil minus, ipso 
enim Millio§ monente, paucis in locis, necnon ex con- 
textu orationis satis haud assequi possis quenam fuerit co- 
dices Trenzwi lectio; et in hac, inquam, interpretatione La- 
tina ex adductis per omnem fere paginam locis N. Test. 
pro seculo isto haud facile credibilis apparet Italici textus 
interpolatio. 

An ex Tertulliano ad quem sepe provocat? Nec id 
quidem; fatente enim eodem Millio,|} ‘in eo citata sunt 
s. codicis loca fere negligentius, ex memoria, contracte, ad 
sensum, haud sine levicula aliqua subinde mutatione; ip- 
sisque porro allegatis ab eo testimoniis, immista sunt non- 
nunquam aliqua a stylo Vulgati interpretis diversa, A fri- 
cane φράσεως, et vocabula mire barbara; immo penes se 
habebat Italice] exemplar haud parum maculatum certe:” 
adeo ut hoc patre uti in scripturis ad originalem Grecum 
emendandis, esset plane otio et opera abuti. 

De Cypriano idem est** Milli judicium, “ex allatis ab 


* Hieron. Ep. ad Marcellam. 
+ Epist. ad Damasum. 

+ Prol. p. 41, col. 2. 

ἢ Ibid. p. 49. 

** Jlid. p. 67. 


§ Prol. p. 58, col. 2. 
4 Ibid. p. 59. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


illo N. T. pericopis manifestum esse Italicam tractu tem- 
poris magis magisque fuisse interpolatam,” adeo ut in illo 
nihil fere notatum videam, nisi lectiones vitiosas, aut ex 
Africanis aliisque versionibus profectas. 

Denique, aliis Latinis patribus sepositis, in uno Ambro- 
siastro, unoque Augustino tandem acquiescit. Hilarius 
enim, qui sub Ambrosii titulo diu latuit, Romanus diaco- 
nus cum esset, ab eo spes erat versionem Italam, si que 
tum purior extitisset, castius et sincerius exhibendam. 
Sunt autem de hoc Diacono observanda tria, primo eum 
nimirum,* ipso teste, hos commentarios edidisse, cum 
ecclesie Romane rector esset is ipse Damasus, qui Hie- 
ronymo invidiosum illud munus imposuerat de Latinis 
codicibus dissidentibus ex Greca veritate decernere, ade- 
oque eo ipso tempore quando remedio isto, Damasi saltem 
judicio, indigebant Latini codices universi. Secundo, ex 
utriusque inspectione pro compertissimo habebit lector vel 
Hieronymi Vulgatam vel Hilarii valde corruptam prodiisse, 
quod ex variantibus Hilarii lectionibus ad calcem hujus 
operis conjectis, oculari demonstratione constabit. Tertio, 
« Prescribitur nobis (inquit Hilarius) de Grecis codicibus 
quasi non ipsi invicem discrepant. Constat autem quos- 
dam Latinos, porro olim de veteribus Grecis translatos 
codicibus, quos incorruptos simplicitas temporum servavit 
et probat.” “Ita,” inquitft Millius “Latinus de Grecis, 
cecus, ut aiunt, de coloribus, nihil de codicibus Grecis 
novit Ambrosiaster.” Somnium ejus de Latinis codicibus 
incorruptis ipsius Hilarii textus refutabit. 

Ad Augustinum jam venio. Is autem Grecam linguam 
suis Latinis necessariam pronunciat; ut “ad exemplaria 
precedentia recurratur, si quam dubitationem  attulerit 
Latinorum interpretum infinita varietas ;’ et quod in Lati- 
nis codicibus titubat, Grecis haud dubio cedere oportere 
ail, adeoque codices Grecos Italice sue versioni eundem 
pretulisse res ipsa loquitur. Adeo ut si verum id esset, 
quod pro vero, contra experientiam, nobis obtrudit+ Mil- 
lius, “Augustini, nempe, opera portionem bene magnam 
versionis Italic, qualis in codicibus illius τοῖα 15 ferebatur, 
exhibuisse,” nihil inde profecerit Millius, partim quod 
codices, ante xtatem istam, fatente eodem Millio, misere 
interpolati essent; partim quod ipse Augustinus codices 
istos qualescunque fuerint, et Grecis corrigendos esse 
asserat. Denique ad Augustinum provocat Millius contra 
Augustini ipsius ad Hieronymum verba, que ad hunc mo- 
dum se habent:§ “Proinde haud parvas Deo agimus 
gratias de opere tuo, quod evangelium ex Greco interpre- 
tatus es, quia pene in omnibus nulla offensio est, cum 
scripturam Grecam contulerimus, unde si quispiam veteri 
falsitati (N. B.) contentiosus fuerit, prolatis collatisque 
codicibus, vel docetur facillime, vel refellitur; et si que- 
dam rarissima merito movent, quis tam durus est qui labori 
tam utili non facile ignoscat, cui vicem laudis referre non 
sufficit?” Quibus adjicias Hieronymi his verbis respon- 
sum; “Si me, ut dicis, in N. Testamenti emendatione 
suscipis, exponisque causam cur suscipias, quia plurimi 
linguez Grece habentes scientiam, de meo possint opere 
judicare, eandem integritatem debueras etiam in Veteri 
credere Testamento.” Hine verisimile est Dupinium recte 
contra Millium dicere “ Augustinum ex instituto versionem 
ab Hieronymo reformatam” in operibus, post eam editis, 
allegasse. 


SECTIO QUARTA. 


Surrrsunt jam codices MSS. iique, si Millio fides, ante 
castigationem ab Hieronymo conceptam exarati; Codices 
nempe Cant. Clarom. Germ. qui omnes unum tantum volu- 
men N. Testamenti constituunt. “Hi,” inquit Millius, 
“Jtalicam versionem qualis existebat ante Hieronymi 
tempora, nobis exhibent:” hoc est Hieronymo| judice, 
“yitiis undique scatentem, iisque adeo multis, ut ea tan- 
tum corrigere instituerit que sensum videbantur mutare ; 
reliqua manere passus sit, ut fuerunt,” ne multum a Lati- 
nz lectionis consuetudine discreparent. Magnus siqui- 
dem error in nostris codicibus inolevit (inquit Hierony- 


* Com. in Tim. 
+ Ibid. p. 80, co]. 1. 
| Prefat. ad Damasum. 


+ Prol. p. 139, col. 2. 
§ Ep. 10, p. 44. 


EXAMEN ΜΙΠΠΠ. 


| in N. T. merito laudat Millius, id fieri non posse contendit 


mus), et apud nos mixta sunt omnia.” Non alium de hac 
controversia judicem desideramus quam Hieronymum, 
ocalarem codicum tam Grmcorum quam Latinorum inspec- 
torem. Quid hic Millius? Hieronymum mendacii incu- 
kat, immo contra constare dicit* “haud alterius generis 
vitia versionem hanc Italam contraxisse, quam que exteri 
pmnes codices, tractu temporis, incuria, et licentia libra- 
tiorum. Codices vero Grecos ad quos revertendum cen- 
tebat Hieronymus, in multis abiisse a primevis illis e 
quibus Latina hee profluxere. Verbo dicam,” inquit, 
“libri qui hac state ferebantur, etiamque prestantissimi 
quique, interpolati erant et mixti, ne Origeniani quidem, 
et cxteri probatiores, ad quorum fidem ex occasione pro- 
vocat Hieronymus, ab assumentis aliisque vitiis vacabant, 
soli puri et immaculati erant qui ex autographis apostolo- 
rum manabant, proximi istis, licet haud ita puri, quos 
aliquanto post constitutionem canonis N. Test. describi 
contigerit, et ex horum aliqua expressa erat versio Italica, 
adeo ut, ad ipsam emendandam ex Greco, consulendi fo- 
rent codices, si qui extarent, similes istis ad quorum tex- 
tum erat composita. Quod autem hos una cum aliis isto- 
rum temporum interpolarint magis magisque librarii ante 
seculum Hieronymi, frustra ex temporum posteriorum 
Grecis institui ejus in integram restitutionem: cum enim 
a lectione quam referebat hee versio, abierint haud raro 
libri recentiores, certe quo propius in ea recensenda ad hos 
acceditur, eo magis Italicam a primogenia sua scriptura 
reddes alienam; nec reformabis ipsam, sed transformabis 


in novam nescio quam, a genuina vet Italica plurimum | 
| codices ita, Hieronymi zxtate, interpolati fuissent, ut nul- 


discrepantem.” 

Putares, lector, te audire Morinum aliquem, aut Amelo- 
tium, pro Latinis codicibus, tanquam pro aris et focis con- 
tendentem, potius quam protestantem, aut ecclesie Angl. 
filium. Ut autem hic mittam ea que hic Millius de ver- 
sione primeeva Italica tam fidenter asscrit esse gratis dicta, 
cui unquam persuadebit, Origenis temporibus, hoc est, 
dum exemplaria in ecclesiis suis archetypa consulenda 
essent, ejusque Pamphili et Pierii opera tam egregie la- 
boratum est, ut integre conservarentur, vitiis ita scatuisse, 
ut non ex iis, sed Italica nescio qua versione, per Millium 
tandem forent emendanda. Aliud certe existimavit Augus- 
tinus, qui pro versione Hieronymi Deo haud parvas egit 
gratias, eamque eo nomine precipue suscepit, quod viri 
in Grecis versati de ea judicare potuissent? Quis ferat 
Millium tam audacter pronunciantem Grecos codices, ὁ 
quibus Hieronymus Latinorum sphalmata emendavit, ante 
seculum Hieronymi a librariis adeo magis magisque in- 
terpolatos fuisse, et operam in iis consulendis plane inserit 
Hieronymus, nec Vulgatam ex eorum collatione emendatam 
nobis exhibuerit, sed potius in novam transformatam, et 
a genuina veteri Italica, quam sibi per somnium excogita- 
vit Millius, plurimum discrepantem? Denique cum dicit} 
“Tn saniora consilia reversum esse Hieronymum, dum ita 
calamo temperavit, ut iis tantum que sensum mutare vi- 
debantur correctis, reliqua manere pateretur ut fuerant,” 
quid aliud agit quam insanie Hieronymum arguere, codi- 
cum Latinorum sphalmata ex Greca veritate corrigentem, 
insanie Damasum id munus eidem imponentem, insanie 
Ambrosium potiorem illius auctoritatem concedentem, in- 
sanie Augustinum de libris Grecis apud ecclesias doctiores 
et diligentiores loquentem, e quibus Latini codices corrige- 
rentur, iisque Latinos codices cedere oportere pronuncian- 
tem? insanivisse demum universam ecclesiam existimare, 
quam in hance sententiam concessisse monet ὃ πάνυ Walto- 
nus? Verbo dicam, aut in his tam audacter, et quasi de 
tribunali pronunciatis, ipse Millius, aut totus mundus in- 
saniit. 

Porro in consilium adhibuisse se dicit Millius,+ “ Vul- 
gatam hodiernam que quantumcunque vitiata, haud exi- 
guam certe partem retinet veteris genuine.” Frustra, se 
judice. “Jam,” enim inquit, “quando Latina nostra lon- 
go seculorum tractu misere corrupta sunt, vix illi libri 
sunt minus probati quam qui maximam preferunt cum 
Latinis nostris consonantiam.” Simonius, cujus criticam 


1157 


hoc argumento, quod multa in veteri Vulgata menda intac- 
ta reliquerit Hieronymus, ne Latinorum suorum aures of- 
fenderet. Ex libro autem mendis quamplurimus adhuc 
scatente, et in paucis non semper.recte, si Millio* fides, 
mutato, nihil certo colligi posse quo vetus Italica ad suam 
integritatem restituta esset, nemo non videt. 

Horum, inquit Millius,f “mediorum cum textu Greco 
commissorum adminiculo, sive excussis antiquissimis codi- 
cibus, et allegationibus vetustissimorum patrum Latinorum, 
exactisque iis singulis ad fontem Grecum, assecutum me 
esse confido, que in plerisque Nov. ‘lest. locis fuerint ip- 
sius Italiee genuina.” 

Juvat hic Millium Millio committere. Hieronymum a 
Millio reprehensum audivimus, quod ad hos fontes, libra- 
riorum interpolationibus, ejus tate magis magisque vitia- 
tos, provocaverit. Id Millius post mille et ducentos an- 
nos, se felici opera prestitisse existimat, quod frustra 
Hieronymus, cum suis interpolatis Grecis aggressus est. 
An id Hieronymo accidit codicum Latinorum vetustissimo- 
rum, aut patrum Latinoram inopia? Mirum contingere 
id potuisse Latino Rome id temporis agenti, cum opus 
illud concinnasset, et de scriptis Latinorum patrum usque 
ad suam 2xtatem in catalogo suo judicium proferenti. Id 
unum dicendum superest, Hieronymo judicium, vel criti- 
cum illum nasum in genuinis decernendis defuisse, qui 
Millio tandem in eadem opera versanti contigit, aut juxta 
Augustinum, “operam omni laude majorem in veteri falsi- 
tate corrigenda Hieronymum prestitisse.” Porro si Greet 


lum ex iis certum judicium de Latinis codicibus ferre po- 
tuerit Hieronymus,t unde est quod Codicem Alexandrinum 
inter exemplaria Vet. Test. non tantum toto orbe vetustis- 
sima, sed et probatissima ponat Millius, “ita ut certe ab 
ipsis fere canonis incunabulis,” inquit, “vix extitisse cen- 
seam qui archetypam evangelistarum et apostolorum scrip- 
turam fidelius expresserit?” An codicem hunc Hiero- 
nymo, qui ad Pierii et Origenis exemplaria in bibliotheca 
Alexandrina conservata toties provocat, ignotum fuisse 
existimandum est? Codicem ex quo versio Athiopica§$ 
prodit, unum e primevis, aut ad primevum aliquem ex- 
pressum esse censet Millius, quo jure videmus. Idem de 
versione Coptical| pronunciat, eam nempe ex fonte Greco 
profluxisse, exemplari optimo, unoque e primevis, aut 
certe ex hujusmodi aliquo descripto. Inter codices Millio 
jam notos, ex quibus Novum Testamentum mendis bis 
mille purgatum se nobis exhibuisse pre se fert Millius, 
Hieronymo in Palestina versanti, bibliothece Alexan- 
drine scrinia pervestiganti, Antiochiam, Constantinopolin, 
vatiasque Asie provincias perlustranti, immo dum in 
Agypto ageret monasteriorum Nitriensium codices evol- 
venti, ne unum quidem ex tot Grecis codicibus primevis 
contigisse, ex quo Latinos suos emendaret, quis sanus 
judicaverit ? 


LIBRI SECUNDI CAPITIS PRIMI. 
ARGUMENTU™M. 


Continet vindicationem locorum quorundam insigniorum, 
in quibus lectiones variantes majoris momenti esse vi- 
deantur, viz. τὸ εἰκῆ, Matt. v. 22; dofodoyia, Matt. vi. 13; 
νεκροὺς ἐγείρετε, Matt. x. 8; que omnia adjectitia esse con- 
tendit Millius. Ἢ ἕως τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὑψωϑεῖσα, var. lect. μὴ 
ἕως, Matt. xi. 29 ; τί με λέγεις ἀγαϑόν Χ.}. τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ 
τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, Matt. xix. 17; τὸ γεννώμενον ἅγιον, ν. ]. ἐκ σοῦ 
ἅγιον, Luc. i. 35; καδϑαρισμοῦ αὐτῶν, Vv. ]. αὐτῆς, Lue. ii. 225 
γενηϑήτω τὸ ϑέλημά σου-------ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ, 
Luc. xi. 2. 4; adjectitia hic censet Millius, οὐδὲ ὃν δ γέγονεν, 
Joh. i. 3, 45 ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, ν. 1. οὐδὲ ἕν, v. 3, ὃ γέγονεν ἐν 
αὐτῷ, ὅζο. ν. 4; εἰ πιστεύεις ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας ἔξεστι, desunt 
Act. viii. 37; οὐκ ἐνόησαν, addit Millius, Rom. i. 32, τῷ 
Κυρίῳ δουλεύοντες, Vv. 1. τῷ καιρῷ, Rom. xii. 11 ; ταῖς χρείαις τῶν 


* Prol. p. 81, col. 2. 
Ὁ Ibid. p. 81, col. 2, et p. 82, col. 
+ Ibid. p. 117, col. 2. 


+ Ibid. p. 41, col. 2. 


* Ibid. p. 82, col. 1. 
§ Ibid. p. 124, col. 1. 


+ Ibid. p. 143, col. 2. 
Ι P..152, col. 1. 
4w2 


1158 


ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες, V. 1. rats μνείαις, Ibid. v. 133 οἷς οὐδὲ πρὸς 
ὥραν εἴξαμεν, V. 1. οἷς πρὸς ὥραν, Gal. ii. 5; ἐπιφαύσει σοι ὃ 
“Χριστὸς, Vv. 1. ἐπιψαύσει σου, et ἐπιψαύσεις τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Eph. 
ν. 14: ἡ πρώτη σκηνὴ, V. 1. διαϑήκη, Heb. ix. 1. 


Lecrrones variantes a MSS. desumptas, quas nec anti- 


qui patres, nec Greci commentatores, nec versiones ve- | 
tustissimz agnoverunt, jure optimo rejiciendas esse nemo | 


inficiabitur. Ex iis lectionibus, quas agnoverunt, que- 


dam magni momenti sunt, ideoque majorem disquisitionem | 


postulant, et merentur; alie minoris, aut nullius momenti, 
quas accurata consideratione indignas quis non putat? 
Hac presertim de causa, quod licet ex patribus non pauci, 


2—5, 8, volumini exararint, raro Millius paginam caput | 


aut librum indicet, ubi variantes suas lectiones reperire 


possimus; et licet in plurimis patrum editionibus scrip- | 


turaram, que ab iis citantur, occurrant indices, adeo ta- 
men manci et imperfecti sunt, ut vix dimidiam partem 
earum exhibeant, et in hac dimidia parte ex mendis libra- 
riorum mire sint tenebre. Ne tamen aliquid notatu dig- 
num preteriisse videar, mihi molestum non erit in hanc 
rem aliquid temporis et laboris insumere. 

1. Variarum lectionum que notabiles sunt, primam in- 
venies, Matt. v. 22, πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ εἰκῆ, 
“Vox εἰκῆ," ait 116, “videtur omnino scholion esse, e 
margine codicis alicujus in textum admissum:” ego qui- 
dem hujusmodi conjecture parum faveo, nec in textum 
ecclesiis Christianorum publice recitatum insolens aliquod 
irrepsisse facile credam, nisi ex causa graviori, quam hic 
loci nullo modo invenio. Vulgate enim versioni, patri- 


busque Latinis, habeo quod opponam, testimonium Justini | 


M. Nec quis mihi merito objiciat, quod vocem εἰκῆ pre- 
terierit Justinus* secunda sua apologia his verbis, ὃς ὁ ἂν 
ὀργισθῇ, ἔνοχύς ἐστιν εἰς τὸ wip. Periodus enim ista omnibus 
suis numeris non expleta est, atque jaca aliquis et μωρὲ 
pari jure ac εἰκῆ textu depellat. Idem de Irenzo dicen- 
dum est, qui Christi precepta summatim enumerans ait,t 
“Dominus pro eo quod est non occides, neque irasci qui- 
dem precepit;” sed+ tribus aliis locis hunc ipsum textum 
proferens, diserte addit, “sine causa.” Ita Cyprianus, lib. 
lil. p. 64, Apost. Constitutiones, lib. ii. cap. 58. Ita Chry- 
sostomus, Euthymius, et Theophylactus in locum. Ita 
Basilius M. tom. ii. p. 447, Greg. Nyssen. de Beatit. or. 5, 


p- 818, et tom. ii. p. 791, Theodoretus, orat. 9, adv. Gre- | 


cos, p. 621, et in Ps. p. 443, Ita Cyrillus Alex. in Zach. p. 
768, Chrysostomus, hom. 6 in Divum Paulum, ed. Sav. tom. 
Vili. καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς πάλιν, ὃ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὑτοῦ εἰκὴ οὐκ 
ἄλλως ὀργιζόμενος. Et edit. Mor. tom. iii. p. 25, εἶδες παν- 
ταχοῦ μέτρα, ὀργίζεσϑε, καὶ μὴ ἁμαρτάνετε, ὃ ὀργιζόμενος εἰκῆ" 
ἔστι γὰρ καὶ δικαίως ὀργίζεσϑαι, et tom. iv. p. 84. Vide ibi 
Fr. Duceum; et p. 114 et 116 bis; et tom. v. p. 345. 
Syrus autem et Copt, vocem hanc ita propriam hoe loco 
putarunt, ut retinere eam maluerint quam interpretari. 
Cum vero “vox εἰκῆ," ex Millii sententia, “necessario 
adhibenda videretur, ad emolliendum sc. quod aliqui durius 
dictum putarent;” ex ea sententia recte colligimus, quod 
vocem illam nemo quidem de industria omiserit; potuit 
tamen omitti ex oscitantia librariorum, quod aliis locis ac- 
cidisse ipsi sepissime in confesso est. 

2. Ex insignioribus variantium lectionum secunda est, 
ea que dominicam orationem claudit doxologia, ὅτι cod 
ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία, καὶ ἡ ὀὔναμις, καὶ ἡ δόξα eis τοὺς αἰῶνας, Matt. 
vi. 13, “quam Grecis liturgiis ortum suum debuisse” 
Millius multique critici judicant, quoniam sicut non re- 
peritur apud Lucam xi. 4, ita neque apud patres Latinos; 
preterea deest apud Grecos, Origen. Cyprian. tertio se- 
culo; Cyrillum Hierosol. Gr. Nyssen. quarto seculo; etiam 
ubi dominicam orationem ex professo interpretantur: zgre 
tamen in animum inducam meum precationi ab ipso Do- 
mino nostro composite commentitium aliquod adjecisse 
sanctos patres: quod sic hic loci factum esset, cur non 
etiam pari temeritate apud Lucam? Reperies quidem 
hane clausulam in omnibus orientalibus versionibus, e 
quibus Syriaca, Waltono judice, apostolorum fere tempori- 
bus confecta est, et apud eruditos haud paucos, ait Mil- 


* P. 63. 


Τ Lib. iv. cap. 27. 
+ P. 189, 314, 320. 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


lius,* “convenit ipsam seculo apostolico proxime sequente 
a viris apostolicis fuisse concinnatam;” legas eam apud 
Chrysostomum, Euthymium, Theophylactum, i. e. apud 
omnes Grecos commentatores in locum; Chrysostomus 
explicat eam, et explanat ad hune modum, ταῦτα γάρ 
φησιν, αἰτῶ παρά σον, ὅτι οἷδά of βασιλέα πάντων, αἰώνιον κεκτη- 
μένον κράτος, καὶ πάντα δυνάμενον ὅσαπερ ἂν ϑέλης, καὶ ἑόξαν 
κεκτημένον ἀναφαίρετον. Isidorus Pelusiota, Ep. lib. iv. ep. 
24, dominicam orationem interpretatus est, atque ibi asse- 
rit, si recitaret aliquis hec verba, ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία, 
καὶ ἡ δύναμις, Kai ἡ δύξα, καταφρονεῖν δὲ τοῦ πᾶσαν dtvapw καὶ 
ἑόξαν πηγάζουτος, fontem interim omnis potestatis et glorie 
sperneret illum, quicunque sit criminis irremissibilis se 
reum facere; eosque solos eadem verba sincere proferre, 
qui ad singula Dei jussa toto corpore contremiscunt. 
Apostolic Constitutionest hane precationem bis exhibent 
pariter ac in textu, minime mutilam et decurtatam, eamque 
appellant nomine precationis, ἣν 6 Κύριος ἡμῖν ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ 
Denique cum Lucianus Philopatrim suam ab- 
solvens ait, τὴν εὐχὴν ἀπὸ πατρὸς ἀρξάμενος καὶ τὴν πολυώνυμον 
ὡδὴν εἰς τέλος ἐπιθεὶς, illum dominice orationis initium, ac 
finem perstrinxisse censet Cotelerius. Originem+ in hac 
re parvi facio, cujus testimonio si fides adhibenda esset, 
tum γενηδήτω τὸ ϑέλημά cov, ὡς ἐν οὐραυῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς» 
item ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ, de Luce textu, tanquam 
de loco non suo, tollenda sunt; temerarium facinus ac 
valde periculosum: ad summam, Gr. Nyssen et S. Ambro- 
sius hane clausulam non (prout innuit Millius) penitus 
omiserunt, sed more Grecarum quarundam liturgiarium 
hane una cum doxologia Filii et Spiritus Sancti simul pro- 
tulerunt. Gr. Nyssen enim suam dominice orationis ex- 
plicationem peragit his verbis:§ “Quin stantes Deum 
precemur, Ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a 
malo, a quo liberet nos gratia Christi, ὅτι αὐτῷ ἡ ὀύναμις» 
καὶ ἡ ὀύξα, ἅμα τῷ Πατρὶ καὶ τῷ ᾿Αγίῳ Πνεύματι, νῦν καὶ act, 
καὶ εἷς τοὺ; αἰῶνας τῶν aiduwn, ἀμήν. Ad eundem modum 
Pseudo-Ambr. lib. vi. de Sacram. ec. ult. Denique cum 
hee δοξολογία, testibus Drusio et Lightfooto, saltem quoad 
sensum, in publicis Judeorum liturgiis obtinuerit, et in 
versionibus Syrorum et Arabum, in confiniis gentis Judaice 
degentium, atque adeo ex iis hance formulam recipientium, 
inveniatur, cumque apud patres Grecos invaluerit mos 
mentione Patris facta ei adscribere μεγαλοσύνην καὶ défay εἰς 
αἰῶνας, ἀμήν, vide Clem. R. Epist. ed. Junii, p. 29, et in 
fine, verisimile est eam locum hic suum obtinere, potius 
quam manu aliena et temeraria huic s. orationi additam 
fuisse. 

3. Matt. vi. 32, mentio facta est de additamento quo- 


διετάξατο. 


| dam ab Origene et Clemente Alex. haud semel citato; viz. 


αἰτεῖτε τὰ μεγάλα, καὶ προστεδήσεται" καὶ 
αἰτεῖτε τὰ ἐπουράνια, ἐπίγεια ὑμῖν προστεϑήσεται. 
“Tta tamen (ait 1116} ut tricesimi tertii commatis loco po- 
situm haud putem; sed appositum potius interpretamenti 
gratia:” quod luce clarius fiet ex ipso Clemente, Strom. iv. 
Ρ. 488, cum enim Christi verba citasset, ζητεῖτε πρῶτον τὴν 
βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην, addit, ταῦτα yap 
μεγάλα, et deinde sequitur, τὰ δὲ μικρὰ, καὶ περὶ βίον ταῦτα 
προστεϑήσεται ὑμῖν. 

4. Cap. x. 8, νεκροὺ; ἐγείρετε, “ Probabile est adjectum hoc 
aliunde (ait Millius) et quidem ab ipsis pene Christianismi 
primordiis (cum id Syrus, Vulg. et Cant. legant) quoniam 
omittunt MSS. triginta amplius,|| Basilius, Chrysostomus, 
Euthymius, et heophylactus in locum.” Sed extant hee 
verba apud Hilarium canon. 9, apud Cant. et Alex. 
MSS. apud Cyrillum Alex. Is. p. 862, Glaphyr. in Deut. 
p- 426, et de Sancta Trinitate, lib. iii. p. 494. Cur autem 
omissa fuere ratio probabilis a Millio redditur, nempe, 
quod neminem ante Christi resurrectionem ab apostolis 
vite redditum legimus; qui maximam hujusce capitis 
partem ad secundam missionem Christo demum e mortuis 
suscitato respectum habuisse parum animadverterunt; hac 
forsan ex ratione ad illa omittenda facile adduci potuerunt: 
cur autem adderentur, ne color quidem, aut pretextus est, 


τὰ μικρὰ ὑμῖν 
καὶ τὰ 


* Proleg. p. 127. 
{ Lib. iii. cap. 18, lib. vii. cap. 24. 
+ Not. in Con. Apost. p. 216. 


§ Orat. 5, tom. i. p. 761. ] Tom. ii. p. 462. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


cum novam afferant difficultatem, nulla adhuc mentione 
facta de mundatis leprosis pariter ac mortuis suscitatis. 


Tta cap. xi. 5, χωλοὶ περιπατοῦσι, νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται desunt (ait 
ille) in Origene in Joh. sc. p. 103. Sed longe fallitur | 


Opinione; primam periodi partem agnoscit Origenes, et 
alteram absque ulla variante lectione reperies Luc. vii. 22, 
ideoque utrum sint Christi verba, in dubium venire non 
potest. 

5. Cap. xi. 23, καὶ σὺ Καπερναοὺμ, ἡ ἕως rod οὐρανοῦ ὑψω- 


ϑεῖσα" μὴ ἕως ποῦ οὐρανοῦ ὑψωδήση, MSS. quedam, Ireneus, ] 


lib. iv. cap. 70, p. 571. Sed ex annotationibus doctissimi 


Grabii_constat, quod illa lectio non ipsius Irenwi, sed | 


solius Latini interpretis sit: “ Nam in nallo (ait Grabius) 
Grecorum patrum hune locum ita allegatum reperio: 
Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Arabica, Syriaca, Persica 
vers. textui assentiuntur.” 

6. Cap. xix. 17, τί pe λέγεις dyaSév; in annotationibus 
Millii Mattheus, inquit Origenes, ὡς περὶ ἀγαϑοῦ ἔργου 


ἐρωτηϑέντος τοῦ σωτῆρος. ἐν τῷ τί dyaSdv ποιήσω; ἀνέγραψεν | 
τί μὲ ἐρωτᾷς περὶ rod ἀγαθοῦ; ὃ δὲ Μάρκος καὶ Λουκᾶς φασὶ. 
τὸν σωτῆρα εἰρηκέναι, τί pe λέγεις ἀγαθόν: Sed Justinus M. 


in Dial. cum Tryph. p. 328, Ireneus, lib. cap. 17, Ori- 
genes contra Celsum, lib. v. p. 238, cum textu congruunt. 
De altera hac lectione venerande antiquitatis, silentium 


est apud Millium, viz. Oeds ὃ πατὴρ, vel, πατὴρ ὁ ἐν oipavois, | 


vel πατήρ pou ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. 
tino M. p. 328, Clemente Alex. Pwdag. p. 118, Origene, 
ubi supra, Exhort. ad Mart. p. 160, Comment. in Joh. p. 
38, et lib. 1. de Principiis, cap. 3. Placuit forte Millio 
hance lectionem pretermittere, quoniam, Ariana exorta 
controversia, vocem πατὴρ in evangelio scriptam fuisse 
precise negarunt. 
Epiphanius.* Et orthodoxus in primo Dial. de Trin. 
(quem nonnullif Athanasii fuisse putant) οὐκ ἐΐρηται (ait) 
οὐδεὶς dyaSds εἰ μὴ εἰς ὃ πατὴρ, ἀλλὰ εἰ μὴ εἷς ὃ Θεὸς. Vox 
quidem πατὴρ nec apparet jam in nostris MSS., nee agnita 
olim fuit a vetustis interpretibus. Cum vero Valentiniani, 


Marcionite, aliique heretici hac voce causam suam fulcire | 


putentur, sanctos patres hoc usurpasse verbum, reclamanti- 
bus MSS. suis quis credat? Hine constat quam parum 
fidei et auctoritatis variantes ex iis desumpte lectiones 
mereantur. 

7. Matt. xxvi. 28, τὸ περὶ πολλῶν ἐκχυνόμενον, “ Qui 
effundetur,” Vulg. “ Futurum se (ait ille) quod futuri loco; 
nec enim illis vinum hoe ipse sanguis Christi erat jam 
effusus, sed ejusdem mox effundendi symbolum.” Sed 
N. B. (1.) quod omnes evangeliste et apostoli cum de 
institutione sacramenti corporis Christi loguantur, dicunt 
τὸ διδόμενον, τὸ κλύμενον, Luc. xxii. 19, 1 Cor. xi. 24, et 
de sanguine Christi, τὸ ἐκχυνόμενον, Mar. xiv. 24, Luc. 
xxii. 20, verbum in presenti tempore usurpantes, quo- 


niam ex hac institutione facta est representatio corporis | 


Christi quod mox frangendum, et sanguinis Christi qui mox 
effundendus erat; per quam illos Domini mortem annun- 
clare oportet, donec veniat. (2.) Quod eadem figura 
dlicendi de ambobus sacramentis veteris feederis utitur 
sacra scriptura; de circumcisione enim ante dicit quam 
Abraham circumcideretur, “ Hoc est pactum meum, αὐτὴ ἢ 
διαϑήκη, quod observabitis inter me et vos,” Gen. xvii. 10. 
Et de agno paschali ante dicitur, πάσχα ἐστὶ Κυρίῳ, “ Vie- 
tima transitus Domini est,” Exod. xii. 27, quam transivit 
Dominus super domos filiorum Israel, percussit autem 
omne progenitum in terra Dgypti. Vide annotata mea 
in hune locum. 

8. Marc. i. 2, ἐν τοῖς προφήταις, hane lectionem pro 
virili parte jamdudum tubear; cui defensioni adjunge 
testimonium Hieronymi in Matt. iii. f. 8, lit. C. Nos autem 
nomen Isaiw putamus additum scriptorum vitio. 

9. Mare. xv. 25, “Erat autem τρίτη ὥρα, tertia hora, et 
crucifixerunt eum,” Joh. xix. 14, ὥρα ὡσεὶ tern. 
ἐναντιοφανὲς, conciliatum in annotatis nostris ad hune locum. 
Lectio τρίτη ad Johan. librariorum sine dubio est, non 
evangeliste, inquit Millius. 

10. Lue. i. 35, διὸ γεννώμενον ἅγιον. 
Nesque versiones, et plurimi e patribus, post γεννώμενον 
addunt ἐκ σοῦ, quam lectionem versio Anglicana probat et 


Adjecta erat a Marcionitis, inquit | 


Vide hoc 


Hic loci MSS. om- | 


Occurrit hee lectio in Jus- | 


1159 


firmat, dicendo “ quod nascetur ex te ;”” nec injuria; id hune 
enim modum legunt Iren:eus, lib. iii. cap. 26, ‘I'ert allianus 
é Ἧς: 
contra Prax. cap. 26, Novatianus de 'I'rin. cap. 19, Ori- 
genes, Dial. contra Marcion. p. 121. Evutropio enim pos- 
tulante ut ex scripto recitentur verba, recitantur τὸ γεννώς 
μένον ἐκ cod, hac simul nota adnexa, quod evangelista non 
dicit διὰ σοῦ ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ σοῦ" ad eundem modum autor Ques- 
tionum et Respond. ad Orthod. qu. 46, p. 430, Epiphanius, 
Anch. p. 69, Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 476. Quibus 
comites adjungit Millius Athanasium, Greg. Thaumatur- 
gum, Titum Bost. et Hesychium. Videtur tamen_ illi 
quod hee lectio orta sit ex interpretamento, ἵνα φύσει γεν- 
νώμενον ἐκ Μαρίας πιστευϑείη. Pace tua dicam, docte editor, 
inter illas quas germanas esse acriter contendis, non una 
ex sexcentis pari atque he lectio auctoritate innititur. Vide 
Proleg. p. 72, col. 1. 

11. Lue. ii. 22, af ἡμέραι τοῦ καϑαρισμοῦ αὐτῶν. Vulg. 
et Arab. αὐτῆς" veram et antiquam lectionem textui con- 
venisse ex his Origenis verbis, hom. 14 in Lucam, f. 100, 
D, discimus; “Si scriptum esset ‘propter purgationem 
ejus,’ i. e. Marie, nibil questionis oriretur, et audacter 
diceremus Mariam, que homo erat, purgatione indiguisse 
post partum; nune vero in eo quod ait ‘dies purgationis 
eorum,’ non videtur unum significare, sed alterum, sive 
plures.” Vide hie Millium textum confirmantem, Prol. 
p. 64, col. 2. p. 72, col. 1. p. 80, col. 2. Corrige igitur an- 
notata nostra in hune locum. 

I2lues Xi. γεννηξήτω τὸ ϑέλημά σου, ver. 4y 
DAL ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοὺ πονηροῦ. Utraque petitio, 
ait Origenes,* explicans hance precationem, παρὰ Λουκᾶ 
σεσιώπηται. Notat et Augustinust “quod evangelista Lu- 
cas in oratione dominica petitiones non septem, sed quin- 
que complexus est, Ostendens ergo Lucas  tertiam 
petitionem duarum superiorum esse quodammodo repeti- 
tionem, magis eam pretermittendo fecit intelligi. ‘ Et libera 
hos a malo’ iste non posuit, ut intelligeremus ad illud 
superius, quod de tentatione dictum est, pertinere.” δοκεῖ 
ὁξ μοι (inquit Origenes) 6 Λουκᾶς διὰ του, μὴ εἰσενέγκης ἡμᾶς 
εἰς πειρασμὸν, δυνάμει ὀεδιξαχέναι καὶ τὸ ῥῆσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ 
πονηροῦ. Omittuntur in Vul. et in plerisque exemplarium 
Latinorum, ait Maldonatus; quem tamen habemus ingenue 
confitentem, quod extent in omnibus fere MSS. Grecis. 
Agnoscunt has petitiones, et interpretantur, Euthymius et 
Theophylactus, et singule versiones orientales. Origeni 
quos opponam habeo Sanctum Cyprianum, Cyrillum Hieros. 
Gr. Nyssenum, Chrysostomum, in quorum commentariis 
de insigni hac omissione altum silentium est: Augus- 
tino Augustinum oppono, qui in tractatu de verbis Domini 
secundum Lucam universas septem petitiones diserte 
enumerat; et S. Ambrosius hance precationem e Luca 
textui congruentem depromit. Vulgatam minoris facio, 
que in Luca sic exorditur, “Cum oratis, dicite, Pater, 
sanctificetur,” ec. at vel ipse Origenes ait, τοῦ δὲ Λουκᾶ 
vires, Πατὴρ ἡμῶν ὃ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. Unde cogitur Millius 
dicere irrepsisse hee ante tempora Origenis, Prol. p. 44, 
col. 1. Postremo etiam quod inter omnia exemplaria 
Greca, Millio teste, bina sola his petitionibus careant, 
quod si olim defuissent he petitiones tum in Grecis tum 
in Latinis MSS., eas tot Grecos librarios dedita opera ad- 
jecisse quis sibi unquam persuadere potest ? 

13. Luc. xi. 13, δώσει Πνεῦμα “Aysov τοῖς airotow atrév. 
“«ἸΑγαθὸν diya, Cant. (et Origenes, ut opinor, qui tamen 
bonum illud interpretatur Πνεῦμα τῆς υἱοθεσίας) ‘Spiritum 
bonum,’ Vulg. cum quatuor MSS. ‘magno consensu 
exemplarium; quibus ego sane magis assentior,’ inquit 
Erasmus.” Hee Millius. Erasmi autem verba sunt, 
“Greci codices, qui tum aderant, legebant Πνεῦμα "Αγιον" 
sed magno consensu reclamantibus exemplaribus Latinis 
etiam vetustis.”” Cecidit belle quod dixerat Latinis: om- 
nia enim exemplaria Greca, Athanasius de Humana Na- 
tura Suscepta, p. 607, Theophylactus in locum, textui 


9 
oot} 


| consentiunt, et explicantes versiculum nonum,—* Querite 


et invenietis ;’—ex his verbis recte colligunt, quod Pater 
sit daturus Spiritum Sanctum petentibus. Denique om- 
nes orientales versiones reddunt Πνεῦμα ἽΑγιον, sicut Chry- 
sostomus, hom. 1 de Precatione, ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 747. 


* Har. slii. p. 339. { Ath. tom. ii. p. 169. 


* Περὶ Evxiis, p. 23. { Ench. ad Laur. p. 118 


1160 


14. Joh. 1. 3, οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν. 4, ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν. Tot 
hic loci variantes lectiones quot nec ipse Millius enume- 
rare potuit. Apud commentatores plena errorum sunt 
omnia, adeo inter se invicem, et etiam a subimetipsis dis- 
sident, atque discordant, ut quicunque scripta eorum per- 
yolutabit, ne incertior ille fiat multo quam dudum, 1. 
Quidam ex antiquis legunt, δ᾽ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν. Ita 
Clemens Alex. Ῥιάαρ. lib. ii. cap. 9, p. 186. Origenes 
Com. in Joh. p. 63 et 66, φησὶ γὰρ καὶ ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ 
ζωὴ ἦν. Alios quamplurimos hance lectionem retinuisse 
ex eo colligitur, quod apud illos hujus versiculi clausula 
est, ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. Sed Maldonatus ait, «Non enim quia 
hee tantum verba citare solent, continuo putandum est, 
ibi eos punctum finite sententie posuisse, sed ea tantum 
protulisse verba, que ad probandum id quod agebant satis 
erat, quod nos etiam sepe facere solemus.” Certum in- 
dicium quod Ambrosius, qui lib. iii. de Fide, cap. 3, fine, 
“Tpso factum esse nihil quod factum est,” legendum esse 


contendit, vel potius apud plerosque obtinere, ait, ali- | 


quando non nisi hee legat verba, “ Omnia per ipsum facta 
sunt, et sine ipso factum est nihil,” ut sermone 20 in Ps. 
cxviii.* 
esse dicit, “Sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est in 
ipso;” sepe tamen in eodem libro non nisi hee verba 
citat, “Omnia per ipsum facta sunt,” aliquando hee sola, 
“Sine ipso factum est nihil.” Quod si hic Maldonati 
sermo ad Hilarium non exquisite quadraret, certo tamen 
certius est quadrasse illum cum omnibus fere Graecis 
patribus, qui textum ipsum firmant et corroborant. Altera 
autem lectio olim fuit Valentinianorum, Iren, lib. i. p. 
39; Arianorum, Ambrosius, lib. iii. de Fide, cap. 3; 
Epiphanius, Anchor. p. 80, Eunomianorum et Macedonian- 
orum; unde Chrysostomus in locum, οὐδὲ yap τὴν τελείαν 


στιγμὴν τῷ οὐδὲ ἕν ἐπιθήσομεν κατὰ τοὺς αἱρετικοὺς, ἐκεῖνοι yap | 


Θουλύμενοι τὸ Πνεῦμα κτιστὸν ποιεῖν, φασὶν ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ 
ζωὴ ἣν" similiter Euthymius et Theoph. Secunda lectio, 
quam memoratu vix dignam afferunt Epiphanius et Hila- 
rius, cum quibusdam aliis, hee est: “ Nihil factum est 
quod factum est in ipso.” ‘Tertia est ipsius textus lectio, 
quam apud plerosque obtinuisse merito asserit Ambrosius. 
Nam ut silentio transeam supra memoratos, qui primam 
lectionem veluti hereticam adjudicarunt, Cyprianus, lib. 
ii. contra Jud. §. 2, Hilarius de Trin, lib. i. p. 6, Epistola 
ad Antiochenos Jgnatio ascripta, p. 298, Epiphanius, Her. 
51, p. 434, Hieronymus in Isa. xliv. et in Amos vi., lec- 
tionem in textu retinent; et licet Millius Gr. Nazianzenum 
prime lectionis patronum adoptarit, in ea tota quidem re 
erravit: cum enim heretici, qui Spiritum Sanctum crea- 
turam esse contendebant, opinionem suam confirmarint ex 
eo quod dictum est de Christo, “ Omnia per ipsum facta,” 
et per consequentiam Spiritum simul Sanctum; hance ob- 
jectionem flocci facio, inquit Nazianzenus,t πάντα γὰρ 
Goa γέγονεν εἴρηται, οὐχ ἁπλῶς ἅπαντα. Preterea in’ hac 


: : Ε “ἢ 
lectione conveniunt omnes versiones, et quod germana sit | 
1. Quod vox ἕν postulare videatur, 


lectio, colligi potest. 
vel ὃ γέγονεν, vel saltem τῶν γεγεννημένων χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο 
οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν, quod “absque illo factum est ne unum 
quidem eorum que facta sunt.” 2. Si hee lectio retine- 
atur, sensus verborum erit perspicuus, alius obscurus, et 
explicatu perquam difficiliss Cum autem reduplicatio, 
figura dicendi apud Hebrwos usitatissima, latuerit quon- 
dam patres, factum est quod alteram lectionem facilius 
admiserint, v. g. Isa. xxxix. 4, πάντα τὰ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ μου, 
Ita v. 
20 hujus capitis, καὶ ὡμολόγησεν, καὶ οὐκ ἠρνῆσατο, καὶ ὧμο- 
λόγησεν. Quid multa? hoe potius inter varias ejusdem 
periodi puncturas, quam inter variantes lectiones annume- 
randuim est. 


εἴδοσαν, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ μου, ὃ οὐκ εἴδοσαν. 


15. Act. vill. 37, εἰ πιστεύεις ἐξ ὅλης τὴς καρδίας, ἔξεστι. | 


Desunt hee in Syr. Aithop. MSS. 20: unde pro com- 


mate παραβεβλημένῳ habet hic Millius,t a primis Chris- | 


tianismi seculis injecto, ut et alia in libro Actorum 


Apostolorum haud pauca; legunt siquidem Vulg. (Arab.) ] 
Treneus, lib. iii. cap. 12, lib. iv. cap. 40 (unde, notante 


Grabio, apparet Ireneum hee verba in suo codice legisse), 
Tertullianus de Bapt. cap. 18, Cyprianus ad Quirin. lib. 


Ὁ ΤΩ ν. 4. + Orat. 37, p. 599. 


+ In locum, 


Et quod magis mirum est, Hilarius, qui legendum | 


EXAMEN MILLIL. 


iii. §. 33, GEcumenius in locum, Hieronymus, tom. iv. 
f. 46, lit. I, Augustinus de Fide et Operibus, cap. 9 et 
12.—Idem tamen Millius, Prol. p. 40, col. 2, iisdem fere 
testimoniis adductus contrarium plane dicit, nempe, « Hune 
versiculum pro injectitio olim a nobis habitum, lectum ab 
Irenxo constat, lib, ii. cap. 12, p. 229, et ad αὐθεντίαν ejus 
stabiliendam, haud parum conferunt Vulg. Tertullianus, 
Cyprianus.” Nec difficile est rationem assignare vero 
proximam, cur egre a quibusdam sequioris «vi scriptori- 
bus hac verba retinerentur; objici nempe ea solent in pra- 
judicium discipline et πράξεως ecclesiastice in restringendis 
tamdiu a baptismo catechumenis, ac tot iis fidei capita 
discenda proponendi more, priusquam ad salutare lavacrum 
admitterentur. Constat hoc ex illatis Tertulliani, Hiero- 
nymi, Augustini locis, in quibus huic objectioni responsum 
quale quale exhibent. Hine denique presul doctissimus 
hane Cypriano notam appouit, “ Leges ecclesiastice, que 
cavebant ne Judzi, vel gentiles, aliique indigni prepropere 
admissi, Christiano nomini dedecus inurerént, nec debent, 
nec possunt gratie divine prejudicare.” 

16. Rom. i. 32, οἵτινες τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐπιγνόντες (ὅτι οἱ 
τὰ τοιαῦτα πράασοντες ἄξιοι ϑανάτου εἰσὶν) οὐ μόνον αὐτὰ ποιοῦσιν, 
ἀλλὰ καὶ συνευδοκοῦσι τοῖς πράσσουσι. Integra hee lectio (ait 
Millius) sic se habebat, οἵτινες τὸ δικαίωμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐπι- 
γνόντες, οὐκ ἐνόησαν, ὅτι οἱ τὰ τοιαῦτα πράσσοντες ἄξιοι ϑανάτου 
εἰσὶν, οὐ μόνον δὲ οἷ ποιοῦντες αὐτὰ ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ συνευδοκοῦντες τοῖς 
πράσσουνσι. Hine ex una parte sunt Vulg. et Latini patres 
qui Vulgata versione usi sunt, Cyprianus, Lucifer Calari- 
tanus, Gildas, Hesychius Latine ab Hesychio Salonitano 
(inquit Cavius nostras) ad Vulgatam versionem adaptatus, 
Ambrosius, Pseudo-Hieronymus, Salvianus, Augustinus; 
atque his palmam defert Millius: ex altera parte sunt non 
omnes modo versiones orientales, sed etiam Chrysostomus, 
Theodoretus, C2cumenius, Theophylactus in locum, qui 
conantur rationem reddere cur συνευδοκοῦσι postponatur 
ποιοῦσιν, et sic textus lectioni robur addunt et firma- 
| mentum. Vide Chrysost. Hom. ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 145, 
tom. il. p. 1023, tom. iii. p. 618, Epiphan. Her. Orig. 
p- 585, Basil. tom. i. in Isa. p. 160, tom. ii. Mor. p. 450, 
Reg. Brev. p. 632, Greg. Nyssen. tom. ii. p. 734, et 
Theologium Diaconum ubi ad suas illum partes trahit 
Millius. Questio enim erat, ait Isidorus,* τί ἐστι τὸ οὐ 
μόνον αὐτὰ ἀλλὰ καὶ συνευδοκοῦσι τοῖς πράσσουσί 5 
respondet Isidorus, of μὴ νοήσαντες τὸ εἰρημένον putant 
περιπεποιῆσθαι τὰς λέξεις τὰς ἀποστυλικὰς, et legendum ar- 
bitrantur οὐ μόνον οὐ ποιοῦντες αὐτὰ, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ συνευδοκοῦντες, 
i. e. cum Millio αυϊάαπη sentiebant. Mihi autem non 
videtur, ait ille, ἡμαρτῆσϑαι ἐν τούτῳ τὰ ἀποστολικὰ βιβλία;,---- 
et deinde ad recitandam et explicandam textus lectionem 
progreditur. N.B. Quod hee Isidori verba citentur etiam 
ab Gicumenio in locum. Quod ad Clementem Rom. attinet 
in binis ad Corinthios Epistolis, scito illum perpaucos Novi 
Feederis locos juxta textum allegasse ; adeo ut in parag. 45, 
idcirco solum posteriorem versiculi partem ad hune modum 
citasse videatur, quo facilius illam ad precedentia verba 
acommodaret, ταῦτα γὰρ πράσσοντες στυγητοὶ τῷ Θεῷ ὑπάρ- 
χουσιν, καὶ οὐ μόνον of πράσσοντες, &e. 

17. Rom. vii. 26, εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Θεῷ διὰ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, v. 1. 
χάρις τῷ Θεῷ, 56 Origenes, Exhort. ad Mart. p. 164, 
| Cyrillus Alex. contra Anthropomorph. p. 178. Omnia 
autem Grecorum scholia textum referunt, (fallitur enim 
| Millius cum Theodoretum excipit, qui in commentario 
suo alterius cujuscunque lectionis ne suspicionem quidem 
affert) et Sanctus Basilius, tom. i. p. 551. Utraque lectio 
idem significat, viz. gratia agenda est Deo. Tertia lectio, 
“gratia Dei,” soli Vulg. auctoritati innititur, ejusque etiam 
depravate ; Hieronymus enim uno loco legit, “ Gratias ago 
Deo,” ait Esthius in locum. Vide tamen Millium, Prol. p. 
65, col. 1. 

18. Rom. xi. 6, εἰ δὲ ἐξ ἔργων οὐκ ἔτι ἐστὶ χάρις, ἐπεὶ τὸ 
ἔργον οὐκ ἔτι ἐστὶν ἔργον. Cum desint hee verba quatuor 
MSS. Vulg. et per consequentiam Ambrosio et Latino 
Origenis interpreti, proinde subdititia summo consensu 
tradunt Erasmus, Zegerus, Esthius, Grotius, et Millius: 
enuina autem esse asserunt auctoritate graviores viri, 
Photius, CEcumenius, Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Theo- 
| doretus, qui his non solum verbis utitur, sed in com- 


ποιοῆσιν, 


| Ξ 
| * Isidor. lib. iv. ep. 60 


EXAMEN MILLI. ᾿ 


mentario observat suo, quod apostolus in eandem sen- 
tentiam Joquatur, Rom. iv. 4, “Ei autem qui operatur, | 
merces non imputatur secundum gratiam, sed secundum 
debitum.” His adde Chrysostomum, qui, tom. v. ed. 
Morel. p. 718, et citat textus verba et explicat: 6 yap 
ἐξ ἔργων νομικῶν σωθῆναι φιλονεικῶν οὐδὲν ἔχει κοινὸν πρὸς τὴν 
χάριν, ὅπερ οὖν καὶ Παῦλος αἰνιττύμενος ἔλεγεν, εἰ χάριτι, ὅτε. εἰ 
δὲ ἐξ ἔργων οὐκ ἔτι ἐστὶ χάρις, ἐρεὶ τὸ ἔργον οὐκ ἔτι ἐστὶν ἔργου. 
Adeo longe fallitur opinione Millius, cam Chrysostomum ac 
Theodoretum hee verba in commentariis suis non attigisse 
indicat. 

19. Rom. xii. 11, τῷ Κυρίῳ δουλεύοντες, sic legunt e MSS. 
plus viginti, omnes versiones, Clemens Alex. Piedag. lib. 
ili. cap. 12, Basilius tom. ii. p. 474, omnia Grecorum 
scholia, Hieronymus Ep. ad Marcel. tom. ii. fol. 33, lit. 
D; cujus hee sunt verba, “Illi legant, spe gaudentes, 
‘tempori’ servientes; nos legamus ‘Domino’ servientes; 
illis placeat humanus sermo; nos cum Grecis, i. e. cum 
apostolo, qui Grece locutus est, erremus.” “ Latini 
omnes, excepto Ambrosio,” inquit Esthius; qui tamen 
non potest non confiteri quod in Greco dicatur sic habere 
“Domino” servientes. Atque ad hanc lectionem stabi- 
liendam non leve momentum affert dictio ipsa ὀουλεύειν, 
nam δουλεύειν τῷ Θεῷ, Κυρίῳ, Χριστῷ alibi occurrunt in Novo 
Feedere; quod si δουλεύειν τῷ καιρῷ in toto sacro codice 
queras, frustra suscipiatur labor. Millius tamen tum hie 
tum in proleg. suis, p. 61, 84, 117, 140, «Facile 
crediderim (ait) cum Erasmo τῷ καιρῷ esse germanam 
lectionem.” 

20. Rom. xii. 13, rats χρέιαις τῶν ἁγίων κοινωνοῦντες. 
Mveias genuinum, ait Millius locis pluribus. Lectioni 
tamen isti nemo favet preter Latinos patres quarti et 
quinti seculi, postquam -celebrandi memorias martyrum, 
sepulchraque eorum prava superstitione frequentandi mos 
et consuetudo increbuit. Omnia autem Grecorum scholia, 
omnes versiones, ne ipsa quidem Vulgata excepta, et 
Sanctus Basilius, tom. ii. p. 474, χρείαις retinent. Esthius 
Ruffino astipulatur, eamque censet veriorem que Greco- 
rum erat codicum, “quandoquidem eam (unum Ambro- 
siastrum cum Sedulio si demas) concorditer in textu 
habent, et exponunt, quotquot tam Latine quam Grece 
in hanc epistolam commentatos novimus, nec in ullo, 
vel Latino vel Greco, exemplari, quod hodie extat, 
diversa lectio repiriatur,’ existimatque non male, istud 
lectionis dissidium olim accidisse ex vicinitate Gracarum 
vocum χρείαις et μνείαις. Hoc autem mendum simul ac a 
librariis factum fuit, cupidis ulnis amplexi sunt e Latinis 
isti, qui superstitiosa sollicitudine et zelo sepulchra 
martyrum coluerunt, utpote quod consuetudini sue ali- 
quibus suspecte, et a multis reprehense, majorem in 
modum patrocinari putarent. Hilarius, in sua ad Con- 
stantinum epistola, sic eum  alloquitur, “ Apostolus 
communicare sanctorum memoriis nos docuit, tu eas 
negare coegisti.” Pro eo quod proferunt MSS. libri 
plerique et excusi omnes (ait Millius, Prol. p. 17, col. 1) 
videtur certe legisse Clemens Rom. in archetypo suo, 
ταῖς μνείαις τῶν, &e. et locum hunce interpretatur Clemens, 
“inopum, vel afflictorum Christianorum procul a nobis 
degentium memoriam habere yer’ oixripadv, seu ita ἈΠ] 
ipsorum necessitates sublevemus.” In hac Milli sen- | 
tentia οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς, sed purum ipsius commentum, sine ullo 
indicio B. Clementem de his verbis vel per somnium 
cogitasse. Sic enim incipit hee sectio, “Oremus pro | 
eis qui in aliquod peccatum lapsi sunt, ut detur illis 
ἐπιείκεια mansuetudo, et humilitas, quo non nobis, sed 
voluntati Dei cedant;” et deinde sequuntur verba a 
Millio citata, οὕτως yap ἔσται Eyxapros, καὶ τελεία ἡ πρὸς τὸν 
Θεὸν, καὶ τοὺς ἁγίους per’ οἰκτιρμῶν μνεία, i, 6. “sic enim 
memoria ipsorum cum commiseratione utilis ipsis et 
perfecta erga Deum, et sanctos erit.”’ Judicent jam 
eruditi, utrum hic sit vola vel vestigium sublevationis 
inopum vel afflictorum Christianorum procul ἃ nobis | 
degentium, sive τῆς κοινωνίας τῶν ἁγίων, de quibus Millius | 
tam fidenter agit. Judicent etiam utrum aliqua sit ratio | 
existimandi Clementem hune D. Pauli locum in animo 
habuisse: rogo denique, ubi facta est apud scriptores 
primorum ecclesiw seculorum mentio τῆς κοινωνίας τῶν 
ἁγίων; Tas τῶν ἁγίων μαρτύρων μνήμας ποιεῖν, τῆς pveias 
μαρτύρων τελεῖν, Sunt phrases que apud canonum scriptores 

Vor. [V.—146 


1161 


sepius occurrunt. Sanctorum adhue viventium, ταῖς μνείαις 
κοινωνεῖν nusquam. Frustra ergo ἐκ μνείαις factum esse 
| χρείαις a scriba quodam eruditulo pronunciat Millius hic, 
et Prol. p. 46 et 82. 

| 21. 1 Cor. x. 3, 4, τὸ αὐτὸ βρῶμα τὸ αὐτὸ πόμα, deest 
τὸ αὐτὸ Alex. ADthiop. inquit Millius. At retinent Greca 
scholia, Vulgata, cwtereque versiones ad unum omnes, 
| Irenius, lib. iv. cap. 45, p. 347, Origenes in Matt. p. 414, 
in Joh. p. 134, contra Celsum, p. 197, in Num, hom. 7, 
f. 101, B. Basilius, tom. ii. p. 422, Macarius Aigypt. hom. 
4, ΕΣ Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 196, Cyrillus 


. A, 
Alex. Glaph. in Exod. p. 314, et de Recta Fide, p- 39. 
Grave hoe quidem contra transubstantiationem argumentum 
ut e manibus nostris extorqueret, summam contulit diligen- 
tiam Esthius, non tamen vel unum e Latinis patribus τὸ 
αὐτὸ omiserint allegare potuit. 

22. 2 Cor. x. 12, οὐ συνιοῦσιν. Omittunt Vulg. Clar. Gr. 
Lat. Ger. Lat. retinent igitur omnia (preter Clar.) Greca 
exemplaria et scholia. Ne tamen Vulgate sum aiSevria 
diminuta esset, de Grecis, tanquam grammatiee construc- 
tionis insciis, fidenter pronunciat Millius* in hune mo- 
dum: “ Greci, quibus apostoli ista paulo preruptiora visa 
sunt, sumptis αὐτοὶ, ἑαυτοὺς, ἑαυτοῖς, In tertia Persone; sup- 
pleverunt orationem istam per marginale scholion, οὐ συνι- 
οὔσιν, quod irrepsit mox in contextum libri.’ En_ testes 
omni exceptione majores, quibus pudore suffundantur 
Greci, Ambrosiastrum qui hic omittit; nos autem, teste 
Esthio, contra fidem omnium exemplarium tam Latinorum 
quam Grecorum; Pelagium hereticum, seu potius Pseud. 
Hieronymi commentarios, nullo judicio (teste Usseriot) a 
posteriore aliquo compaginatos ; et Luciferum Calaritanum, 
cui opponimus D. Augustinum cum Grecis sepius consen- 
tientem, scil. Comment. in Psal. xxxiv. exviil. cxli. 1. 22, 
contra Faustum cap. 27, et alibi. 

23. Gal. ii. 5, οἷς οὐδὲ πρὸς ὥραν etfapev τῇ ὑποταγῇ, “Εἰχ- 
pungendum porro est, (ait Millius}) τὸ οὐδὲ, et legendum 
‘quibus ad horam cessimus subjectione:’” quam tamen 
Hieronymus ait solam esse lectionem quorundam Latinorum 
codicum, viz. Iren. lib. iii. cap. 13, p. 234, Tertul. contra 
Mare. lib. v. cap. 3, Ambrosii, reclamantibus quod fatetur 
Grecis. Greca scholia et singule vetustissime versiones, 
inter quas Vulgata, textui fidem faciunt, atque illius verita- 
tem satis firmant. Sed conjectura auguratur Millius in 
ipso codice, quo usus est Vulg. interpres, defuisse negatio- 
nem οὐδὲ, credo quod eam haudquaquam ferre videtur apos- 
tolice dictionis tenor, nedum ipsa rei veritas. Pace autem 
illius dicam. 1. Tenor apostolice dictionis postulat nega- 
tionem: sermo enim erat de iis que acciderunt postquam 
ascendisset Hierosolymam Paulus; ubi “neque Titus (ait 
ille) qui mecum erat, cum esset gentilis, compulsus est cir- 
cumcidi” (nam Millii forsan solius opinio est cessisse tan- 
dem Paulum permittendo ut circumcideretur Titus)... Nun- 
quam igitur iis Judwis cessit, qui circumcisionem gentili- 
um necessariam ad salutem judicarunt. 2. Noluit Titum 
circumcidi, ea potissimum de causa, ut opponeret se falsis 
fratribus, qui κατελθόντες ἀπὸ τῆς "Iovdaias subintroierunt 
explorare libertatem quam habuerunt in Christo Jesu, ut 
eos in servitutem redigerent ; quibus zelotis acriter resis- 
' tendum esse duxit, ut veritas permaneret apud Galatas, sc. 
| ut permanerent in libertate a jugo circumcisionis quam illis 
] dedit evangelium Christi: hinc est quod capite quinto sic 
hortatur Galatas, “ State, et nolite iterum jugo servitutis 
contineri; quoniam si circumcidamini, Christus vobis ni- 
hil proderit, evacuati estis a Christo, a gratia excidistis,” 
1, 2,4. Quicquid igitur Morinus et Millius e contra liti- 
gent, certo certius est tum ipsam rei veritatem apostolice 
dictionis tenorem postulasse negationem. 

24. Gal. ii. 11, ὅτε dé ἦλϑε Πέτρυς, et v. 14, εἶπον τῷ Terpeds 

Κηφᾶς Κηγᾶ, sic Alex. (ait Millius, Prol. p- 70), aliique 
codices, Vulg. Euthalius, sed omnia Greca scholia et 
Arab. textum praferunt. De altera autem lectione in 
textum admissa in excusationem Petri, ut obviam irent 
blasphemiis Porphyrii, ad hune modum judicium suum 
tulit Hieronymus. “Quibus primo respondendum, Alte- 
rius nescio cujus nescire nos nomen, nisi ejus qui in evan 


* Prol. p. 48, col. 1. 
+ Vide D. Cave, Hist. Lit. p. 292. 
+ In locum. 


1162 


gelio, et in aliis Pauli epistolis, et in hac ipsa, modo Ce- 
phas, modo Petrus scribitur; non quod aliud Cephas, 
aliud significet Petrus, sed quod, quem nos Latine et 
Grece Petrum vocemus, hune Hebrei et Syri, propter lin- 
gue inter se vicinam, Cepham nuncupent. Deinde totum 
argumentum quod oblique de Petro, Johanne, et Jacobo 
dicitur Παῖς intelligentie repugnare.” Vide Cotelerii notas 
in Constit. Apost. p. 99, 100. 

25. Ἢ πρὸς ᾿Εῤεσίους émoro\j. Hane inscriptionem hic 
clanculum, sed in Prol. p. 9, col. 1, ex professo et palam 
rejicit. In prefatione mea ad hance epistolam, locisque 
citatis ab eo ad paradoxum suum: stabiliendum, argumenta 
illius dilui, simulque ostendi, quod ab initio agnita fuerit 
tanquam Epistola ad Ephesios, ex testimoniis Ignatii in 
principio, Irenei in medio, Clementis Alex. in fine seculi 
secundi, Origenis etiam et Tertulliani dicentis, lib. v. con- 
tra Mare. cap. xi. “Epistolam hance nos ad Ephesios 
prescriptam habemus, heretici vero ad  Laodicenos.” 
Vide etiam cap. xvii. quibus adde e tertio seculo S, Cypri- 
anum, item Paulum ad Ephesios, Test. ad Quirin. lib. ii. 
§. 28, p. 48, lib. ili. 5. 7, p. 64, §. 11, p. 66, 8. 13, Ρ. 67, 
8. 41, p. 77, §. 70, p. 85, §. 72, 73, ibid. 117, p. 90. Illud 
ipsum ostendo ex testimoniis in seculo quarto Athanasii, 
orat. 3 adv. Ar. ὁ δὲ Παῦλος ἐν τῇ πρὸς ᾿Εφεσίους, Ρ. 416, at- 
que iterum p. 445, Epiphanii τῆς πρὸς ᾿Εῤεσίους, Her. Mar- 
cion. p. 147, 372, Greg. Nysseni, φησὶ γὰρ πρὸς 'Epsotons 
yeapov, in Cant. p. 596, διὰ τῶν πρὸς Ἐφεσίους λύγων, orat. 
prima de Resur. tom. ii. p. 828. Tametsi vero Basilium et 
Hieronymum allegat Millius asserentes quod hee verba 
ἐν 'Epéow (in quibus cardo controversiw vertitur) omisga 
fuerint quibusdam in exemplaribus, vel decipitur ipse, vel 
nos arte quadam fallere conatur. Testimonium Basilii oc- 
currit, tom. i. p. 743, ubi se probaturum esse confidit, quod 
gentes utpote separate a Deo denominentur, μὴ dvres,— 
illi autem qui uniuntur Deo, οἱ ὄντες. Apostolus enim (ait 
1116) τοῖς "Epectors ἐπιστέλλων, ὡς γνησίως ἠνωμένοις τῷ ὄντι dt! 
ἐπιγνώσεως, ὄντας αὐτοὺς ἰδιαζόντως ὠνόμασεν, εἰπὼν τοῖς ἁγίοις 
τοῖς οὖσι, καὶ πιστοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ" οὕτω γὰρ of πρὸ ἡμῶν 
παραδεδώκασι, καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐν τοῖς παλαιοῖς τῶν ἀντιγράφων εὑρῆκα- 
μεν. Hee disserit Basilius* contra Marcionitas, et alios 


qui depravarunt scripturas, τὰ μὲν, inquit, τῶν θείων ἐξαί- | 


povres, τὰ δὲ παρεγγραφέντες" et consilium illi fuit firmare ve- 


ritatem hujusce lectionis, τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν ’Epéow, quam expunx- | 


erunt Marcionite, cum hance epistolam ad Laodicenos da- 
tam contendissent. 
tilitatem exagitat Hieronymus; “Quidam (inquit) curio- 
sius quam necesse est, putant ex eo quod Moysi dictum sit, 
‘Qui est misit me,’ etiam eos qui Ephesi sunt sanctos et 
fideles, essenti vocabulo nuncupatos ;” quibus verbis_pari- 
ter ac prefatione illius docemur, hane epistolam ad Ephe- 
sios scriptam fuisse. 

26. Eph. v. 4, ἐπιφαύσει σοι 6 Χριστός. Ita legunt Greca 
scholia, et versiones omnes. Ita Clemens Alex. Protrept. 
Ρ. 54, Athanasius, or. quarta contra Arianos, p. 427. Ait 
tamen Millius, Prol. p. 48, col. 2, ἐπιψαύσει σου “ lectionem 
fuisse, que in codicibus Grecorum jam tempore Chrysos- 
tomi et Theodoreti extabat.” Verba Chrysostomi sunt hec, 
ot μὲν ἐπιψαύσεις φησὶ rod Χριστοῦ, ot dé ἐπιφαύσει σοι ὃ Χριστὸς, 
μᾶλλον δὲ τοῦτό ἐστι. Theodoretus, καὶ τοῦτο μάλιστα τῇ 
ἀκολουϑίᾳ τῶν εἰρημένων πρόσφορον. En utrosque lectionem 
hance plane rejicientes; quibus accedit Hieronymus, cujus 
in locum hee sunt verba, “Scio me audisse quendam de 
hoe loco in ecclesia disputantem, et non ut legimus 
ἐπιφαῦσει σοι ὃ Χριστὸς, i. 6. orietur tibi Christus, 
ἐφάψεται, i. 6. continget te Christus recitantem, sed cum 
loci istius interpretatione ac contextu sensus ‘iste non 
convenit:” ubi fontem lectionis hujus aperit, nempe 
fabulam de Adamo, in loco Calvarie ubi Christus cruci- 
fixus est sepulto, et tactu corporis et sanguinis Christi 
vivificando, 


27. Heb. ix. 1, εἶχε οὖν καὶ ἡ πρώτη σκηνῆ. Σκηνὴ omittunt 


Chrysostomus, Theodoretus, Vulg. et MSS. quamplurima. 
y 3 4 P | : 5 2 2 
| nempe, orientalibus, que textui Greco Hebraicum, et 


Subaudiendum διαϑήκη monent Chrysostomus et Photius. 


Atque hance nimiam de voce ὄντες sub- 


sed | 


“Trrepsit igitur (ait Millius in locum) editum σκηνὴ, ut | 


videtur, ex proxime sequentibus, in quibus tabernaculi 
Gescriptio.” Sed extat σκηνὴ apud Chrysostomum de Die 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


Natali Domini, ed Mor. tom. v. p. 472, apud Theodoretum, 
et CEcumenium. In annotationibus meis in locum probavi 
quod hee sit germana lectio; quam quidem scquentia 
verba, viz. σκηνὴ γὰρ κα-εσκευάσϑη ἡ πρώτη extra omnem 
omnino dubitationem ponunt. 


LIBRI SECUNDI CAPUT SECUNDUM 


Continet Examen variantium Lectionum in Evangelia 
Matthei, Marci, Luce, Johannis, et in Acta Apos- 
tolorum. 


SECTIO PRIMA—IN MATTHEUM, 


Car. i. 6. Δαβὶδ δὲ ὃ βασιλεύς. Deest ὁ βασιλεύς, Syr. 
Arab. Pers. Habent Hieronymus, Vulg. Theophylactus, 
et verba immediate precedentia, “Jesse autem genuit” τὸν 
Δαβὶδ τὸν βασιλέα, satis indicant quod vocabulum illud hic 
retineri oporteat. 

V.18. Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἢ γέννησις οὔτως Iv.) Vulg. 
Pers. et Lat. Ireneus omittunt Ἰησοῦ, quod tamen agnoscunt 
Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Syrus, et Arabs. Inconsulte 
igitur ac temere suspicatur Erasmus additum ex consue- 
tudine recitationis ecclesiastice; male etiam rejicitur a 
Millio, Prol. p. 40, 42, 103. 

Cap. ii. 1. "Ev ἡμέραις Ηρώδου τοῦ Bacthéws.] Hee verba 
diserte habent Hieronymus, Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, 
et venerande antiquitatis versiones omnes. Quod si desint 
forte illa in quatuor MSS., retinentibus amplius quam 
quadraginta, hoc non modo non labefactat lectionem, sed 
potius multo plus firmamenti et roboris ei dat. Sed “ sus- 
pecta mihi fere sunt παρεμβλήσεως (inquit Millius*), quis 
verba tam insignia absque omni erroris occasione preter- 
miserit?”’ Quasi scribe oscitantes nihil hallucinarentur! 
Sed ut fiigido huic argumento responsum ex Millio demus, 
animum adverto, quod contendat is ipse “insignem illum 
locum Johannis de testimonio Patris, Verbi, et Spiritus ex 
Grecis ferme omnibus, ex MSS. permultis excidisse ;” 
quid ἰδίας igitur tam mirum, si hane pericopen, parvi 
momenti, alteraque multo breviorem, pre incuria ac so- 
cordia sua quatuor forsan librarii pretermiserint? Verba 
etiam Joh. vi. 56, καθὼς ἐν ἐμοὶ 6 πατὴρ, κἀγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρί. 
᾿Αμὴν, ἀμὴν, λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν μὴ λάβετε τὸ σῶμα τοῦ υἱοῦ rod 
ἀνθρώπου ὡς τὸν ἄρτον. τῆς ζωῆς, οὐκ ἔχετε ζωὴν ἐν αὐτῷ" verba, 
inquam, tam insignia, ac numerosa, neutiquam interpolatis 
lectionibus adnumerari vult Millius; sed “pro genuina 
pericope, multis retro seculis omissa, habendo” arbitratur, 
Prol. p. 74, col. 1. Vide etiam Append. p. 32. 

V. 4. Map’ airdv.] Ita Greca scholia, versionesque. Ita 
Hieronymus; ita etiam, demptis quatuor, codices universi, 
et absque his verbis sensus non plenus est. “ Nescio 
tamen (ait Millius) an irrepserint παρ᾽ αὐτῶν jam olim ex v. 
7 hujus cap.” Prol. p. 154, col. 2. 

V. 11. Et magi intrantes domum εὗρον τὸ παιδίον. 
Origenes in Matt. p. 374, Chrysostomus, Euthymius. 
Theophylactus, MSS. plura, thiop. Syr. Arab. Pers. 
legunt εἶδον. Hieronymus vero, Vulg. Epiphanius, εὗρον. 
Quod si magi Christum oculis adspexerint suis, invenerint 
certe illum quem querebant, et si invenerint, hoc non 
aliter quam videndo illum, et aspiciendo contigit: non in 
re igitur, sed in verbo controversia est; cum vero Herodes 
dixerit, ἐπὰν δὲ εὕρητε, ἀπαγγείλατέ por, Υ. 8, si legas cipov, ex- 
trema primis optime respondebunt. 

V. 18.] Desunt Spivos καὶ Hieronymo, Justino M. Dial. 
p- 304, versionibusque cunctis. Sed adsunt in Jer. xxxi. 
15, unde, teste Hieronymo, citantur hec verba, et cum 
Justinus M. diserte dicat Sanctum Spiritum locutum esse 
hee verba dia ἹἹερεμίου οὕτως, citans illa a propheta, non ab 
apostolo, satis magno argumento esse debet, quod citationi- 
bus illius parum fidei adhibendum sit. Versionibus autem, 


Latinis, que Hieronymum pretulerint, facile opponam 
Chrysostomum, Theophylactum, et LXX., qui cum editis 
congruunt. 


. * P. 436. 


* Prol. 162, col. 2. 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


1163 


Cap. iii. 8. Ποιήσατε οὖν xaprods ἀξίους ris μετανοίας. Kaprdy | Constit. Apost. lib. iii. cap. 14, Basilius, tom. ii. p. 429, 


ἄξιον, magis probat Millius; nimiram quia codices plurimi, 
Lat. Ireneus, lib. ii. p. 212, Vulg. Arab. Copt. Ethiop. sic 
legunt. Πρὸς τοὺς φαρισαίους καὶ σαδῥουκαίους, inquit Ori- 
genes,* Comm. in Joh. p. 119, ποιήσατε, ἑνικῶς, καρπὸν 
ἄξιον τῆς μετανοίας" πρὸς δὲ rods ὄχλους παρὰ Δουκᾶν πλη- 
θυντικῶς καρποὺς ἀξίους. Nulla hic in sensu diversitas; con- 
stat enim moneri pharisewos et sadducwos ut digna vere 
penitentie opera facerunt. Lectionem autem in textu 
tuentur ac defendunt Syr. Chrysostomus, et ‘Theophylactus 
in locum; Basilius, tom. ii. p. 425, qui citat hee verba 
nominatim ex Mattheo in numero plurali; Cyrillus Alex. 
qui sic legit in Matthwo, Comm. in Isa, p. 315, in Mich. p. 
408, et Hom. Pasch. 5, p. 43; immo et ipse Origenes, qui 
eodem in commentario, p. 115, habet hme verba, ποιήσατε 
οὖν καρποὺς ἀξίους μετανοΐας" ταῦτα γὰρ ὑπὸ τοῦ Βαπτιστοῦ 
εἴρηται παρὰ τῷ Νίατϑαίῳ, N. ΒΒ. ἰδόντος πολλοὺς τῶν φαρισαΐων 
καὶ caddovxaiwy ἐρχομένους πρὸς τὸ βάπτισμα. 


Origenem, qui loco prius dicto forte mysterium quoddam 
pro more suo celavit, quod explicatu difficile est. 

Cap. iv. 12.] 'O "Ingots deest in duobus MSS. Athiop. ; 
sed Grmca scholia, Hieronymus, et antique versiones 
preter Ethiop. omnes retinent illud vocabulum; nec 
injuria, absque enim illo claudicaret periodus; sed judice 
Millio “subintellectum 6 ᾿Ιησοῦς scribe jam olim in textum 
introduxere,” Proleg. p. 148, col. 2. 

Cap. V. 27. ᾿Εῤῥέδη. τοῖς ἀρχαίοις.) Tots ἀρχαίοις, Millio 
additum videtur, quanquam Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, 
Cyrillus, Alex. in Julian. p. 9, et Theodoretus in Psal. ix. 
p- 433, e Grecis; et Lat. Ireneus lib. iv. cap. 27, p. 314, 
Hieronymus, et Vulg. τοῖς ἀρχαίοις agnoscant. Cum igitur 
nemo dubitet quin hoe dictum fuerit antiquis, et allegatum 
sit a tot patribus, nulla cujuscunque variantis lectionis 
mentione facta, cur rejiciant, cause nihil est. 

V. 32. Καὶ ὃς ἐὰν ἀπολελυμένην γαμήσῃ μοιχᾶται. Deest 
hie pericope in Cant. cod. aliis, teste Augustino, ait Millius. 
Sed extat apud versiones omnes, Basilium, tom. ii. p. 494, 
Hieronymum, Chrysostomum, Theophylactum, et quod 
caput est infra cap. xix. 7, et Luc. xvi. 18, ubi eadem 
loquendi se obtulit occasio. 

V. 44. Bidoyetre τοὺς καταρωμένους ὑμᾶς, καλῶς ποιεῖτε τοὺς 
μισοῦντας ὑμᾶς. “Chrysostomo (quantum ex commentariis 
assequor) Copt. Vulg. Fulgentio, Salviano, Hieronymo ;” 
sic Millius. Sed totam hane pericopen neque mutilam 


re cg es el al faces canoe oe μὲ | esse e Luca idque a primis pene seculis; sed cum ra 
sse 6 , 3 is 


lactum, atque omnes orientales versiones; et tam Hierony- 
mus quam Vulg. legunt, “Benefacite his qui oderunt 
vos.” 

Cap. vi. 1. Προσέχετε τὴν ἐλεημουσύνην ὑμῶν. Plerique an- 


tiquorum patrum legunt δικαιοσύνην, inquit Junius, teste | 


Millio. Ex libris tamen impressis ne unus quidem ab illo 
coram productus est, neque ego unum aliquem e patribus 
adhuc reperire potui qui habeat δικαιουσύνην. Origenes in 
Matt. p. 255, Greg. Nyssen. tom. ii. p. 743, Basilius, tom. 
ii. p. 416, Chrysostomus, Theodoretus, et Theophylactus, 
Tetinent ἐλεημοσύνην. “Nec dubito (sic pergit Millius) 
quin Matthei pps, δικαιοσύνην reddiderit hoc loco Grecus 
interpres.” Ego vero imprimis nego Matthei Greca esse 
interpretis, et non ipsius apostoli. Vide dissertationem 
nostram de hac questione. Secundo, quero cur idem in- 
terpres eodem modo idem vocabulum non reddiderit v. 2 
—4, ubi eadem de re agitur; “Attendite ne faciatis 
ἐλεημοσύνην ὑμῶν coram hominibus, alioquin mercedem non 
habebitis apud patrem vestrum:” per modum illationis se- 
quitur v. 2, “Cum ergo facis ἐλεημοσύνην, ne facias sicut 
hypocrite, ut honorificentur ab hominibus.” Dein per 
modum consilii, “Te autem faciente ἐλεημοσύνην, nesciat 
sinistra tua quid facit dextra,” ν. 3. Quorum ratio sequi- 
tur his verbis, v. 4, “Ut sit ἐλεημοσύνη tua in abscondito.” 
Quis jam non videt ἐλεημοσύνην pro genuina lectione haben- 
dam esse ? 

V. 4. Ἔν τῷ gavep.] Desunt hee apud Origenem in 
Joh. p. 238, Hieronymum, Vulg. Augustinum, qui notat 
se in Grecis non invenisse, sed tantum in Latinis aliquot. 
Agnoscunt nihilominus Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, 


* Lib. ii. cap. 2, sect, 2. 


Nota etiam | 
quod τὸ παρὰ Λουκᾶν, utut citatur a Millio, non est apud | 


| 


| 


Syr. Arab. Pers. Legenda esse constat ex antithesi in pro- 
patulo. Ita Maldonatus. 

V. 21. Ὅπου yap ἐστιν ὃ ϑησαυρὸς ὑμῶν, ἐκεῖ tora καὶ ἡ καρ- 
dia ὑμῶν.) Hic Chrysostomus legit ὅπου 6 ϑησαυρὸς ἀνθρώπου, 
ἐκεῖ ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ. Basilius, tom. i. p. 340, cod pro ὑμῶν 
utringue, sicut etiam Hieronymus; et Vulg. parvo admo- 
dum discrimine. Sed Theophylactus versionesque orien- 
tales ab excusis non dissentiunt; et verba illa, ϑησαυρίζετε 
ὑμῖν, v. 19, 20, et Sanctus Lucas, qui hee ipsa Christi 
verba citat, cap. vi. 34, lectionem textus firmant. Vide 
tamen Millii Proleg. p. 42, col. 1. 

V. 25. Kai τί πίητε. “Desunt hee (inquit Millius) 
apud A8thiop. Vulg. Arab. Epiphanium, Basilium, Chry- 
sostomum, Euthymium, Hilarium, Hieronymum.” Habent 
autem Theophylactus, Syr. Pers. et pace doctoris, Arabs. 
Quod si cum repetantur hee verba, v. 31, recte legamus, 
μὴ οὖν μεριμνήσητε λέγοντες τί φάγωμεν, ἤ τι πίωμεν 5 mihi 
quidem argumento est etiam hic recte legendum esse, τί 
πίητε. 

V. 34. Τὰ ἑαυτῆς. Ita Basilius, Moral. tom. ii. p. 451, 
et Theophylactus. Chrysostomus vero περὶ ἑαυτῆς, quod in 
idem recidit. 

Cap. vii. 2. Καὶ ἐν J μέτρῳ μετρεῖτε, ἀντιμετρηθήσεται ὑμῖν. 
Allegantur hic codices plurimi, Theodoretus, et ‘Theophy- 
lactus, qui legunt μετρηθήσεται. Quibus opponere possem 
Polycarpi Epistolam ad Philip. §. 2, Clementem Alex. 
Strom. ii. p. 399, Origenem, Comm. in Matt. p. 335, et in 
Joh. p. 396, qui legunt ἀντιμετρηϑησέται (Origenes autem 
in Jer. p. 161 habet μετρηϑήσεται) sicut et Chrysostomus, 
ut et Vulg. et Hieronymus, qui habent “remetietur:” sed 
hoe atque illud idem valet. 

Cap. viii. 8. Εἰπὲ λόγον, v. 1. λόγῳ. V. 18. ἐν τῇ ὥρᾳ ἐκεῖ- 
vn, δ΄. 1. ἀπὸ τῆς ὥρας ἐκείνης. Absque discrepantia que sen- 
sum afficiat. 

V. 25. Καὶ προελθόντες of μαϑηταὶ αὐτοῦ. Desunt of μαϑη- 
ταὶ αὐτοῦ apud Hieronymum et codices quosdam Latinos: 
agnoscunt autem Theophylactus et versiones antique 
omnes. 

V. 41. ᾿Απόστειλον ids.) Desunt Vulg. Arab. A&thiop. 
sed Syr. Chrysostomus, et Theophylactus, et Luc. viii. 32, 
habent pariter ac in textu drérpspou ἡμᾶς. 

Cap. ix. 7.] Hieronymus, Vulg. Syr. ἐψοβήϑησαν, sea 
Theophylactus et Arab. ἐθαύμασαν: v. Mar. ii. 12. 

V. 14. Non veni vocare justos ἀλλ᾽ ἁμαρτωλοὺς eis μετά- 
vorav.] Millius fidenter asserit εἷς μετάνοιαν traductum hue 


tiones expectemus, spe in earum locum confidentia suc- 
cedit: quod Christus enim hc verba protulerit, locuples 
testis est Lucas, cap. v. 32. Et prime illius concionis ex- 
ordium fuit, “Pcenitentiam agite, appropinquavit enim 
regnum cclorum,” Matt. iv. 17. Quare igitur cis μετάνοιαν 
non hie censenda sunt ipsissima Christi verba? Retinen- 


| tur apud Barnabam, §. 1, apud Justinum M. Apol. ed. Ox. 


§. 18, apud Iren. lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 207 (quanquam illius 
testimonium in contrariam partem trahat Millius, Prol. p, 
38), apud Origenem in Joh. p. 366, apud Chrysostomum 


| in locum, et ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 348, tom. iv. p. 175, apud 


Cyrillum Alex. in Hose. p. 158, in Soph. p. 627, apud Theo- 
phylactum et Arabem. Ad pauca ut redeam, cum Christus 
vocarit peccatores, illos eum vocasse ad peenitentiam luce 
clarius est, ideoque τὸ cis μετάνοιαν, Si non retineatur, sal- 
tem subaudiendum est. 

V. 35. Τὰς πόλεις πάσας. Sic Hieronymus, Greci, cxte- 
rique interpretes omnes. Ἔν τῷ λαῷ omittunt quidem 
Hieronymus, versionesque antique; sed agnoscunt illa 
Chrysostomus et Theophylactus, et necessario subaudienda 
sunt; cujus enim, preterquam populi, languores et infir- 
mitates curavit Christus? 

V. 36. ᾿Εκλελυμένοι.1 Enervati, debilitati, membra soluti, 
languescentes. V. 1. ἐσκυλμένοι, vexati, disjecti, divulsi. 
Sic Hesychius, ἐσκυλμένοι, διασκεδασμένοι εἰσίν. Ita sub di- 
versis verbis sensus non multum diversus est. 

Cap. x. 3. Kat Λεββαῖος ὃ ἐπικληθείς. Desunt hee juxta 
Millium, apud Vulg. et Hieronymum; agnoscunt Chrysos- 
tomus, Theophylactus, orientales versiones omnes; et fa- 
tente Millio, “ Hieronymus alibi lectum ait, ipseque lib. 
de Hebraicis nominibus explicat.” Millius, Prol. p. 42, 
col. 1, “"Iaxwfos & τοῦ ᾿Αλφαίου καὶ Θαῤδαῖος, et sic Origenes 


1164 


qui notat Levi, sive Lebbeum, non fuisse numero aposto- 
Joram, nisi apud Marcum duntaxat: omnino recte. λεβ- 
βαῖος ὃ ἐπικληθεὶς Insertum non aliud est quam scholion 
marginale.’ E contra Cotelerius in hec verba, Const. 
Apost. lib. viii. cap. 25, p. 319, *MarSaios ὃ καὶ Λουκᾶς 
hec habet, consentiunt antiqui, et recentiores, id recte ex 
evangelii comparatione colligentes.” Origenes in prefa- 
tione explanationis in Epistolam ad Rom., “ Mattheus in 
catalogo apostolorum dicit Jacobus Alphzi et Lebbzus; 
Marcus, Jacobus Alphei et Thaddeus; Lucas vero ita 
posuit, Jacobus et Judas Jacobi. Igitur eundem quem 
Mattheus Lebbeum, Marcus Thaddewum dixit, Lucas 
Judam Jacobi scripsit. Certum est autem evangelistas 
non errasse in nominibus apostolorum, sed quia moris erat 
binis vel ternis nominibus uti Hebreos, unius et ejusdem 
viri, diversa singuli nominum vocabula posuere.” Hiero- 
nymus in locum, “ Thaddeus apostolus ab evangelista Luca 
Judas Jacobi dicitur, et alibi appellatur Lebbeus.” « Cre- 
dendumque est eum fuisse trinomium:” ad locum Orig. lib. 
i. contra Cels. p. 48. Vide responsum Cotelerii, not. in 
Constit. Apostol. p. 315. 

V. 28. Μὴ φοβεῖσθε.) MSS. Justinus; sed Chrysosto- 
mus, Theophylactus, Luc. xii. 4, habent cum textu μὴ 
φυβηθῆτε. 


V. 29. Οὐ πεσεῖται ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν, ve 1]. εἷς τὴν rayida.] | 


Chrysostomus, et interpretamento; Origenes utroque 


modo; sed Theophylactus et versiones omnes textum se- | 


quuntur. 

V. 42. M6vov-—od μὴ ἀπολέση. Deest μόνον MSS. 
Athiop. ἀπολέσει MSS. utrumque legunt cum textu Chry- 
sostomus, Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Origenes in Matt. p. 
346, Basilius, tom. ii. p. 444, Cyrillus Alex. tom. i. p. 356. 


Nihilominus τὸ μόνον irrepsit e margine, Proleg. p. 121, 
| 


col. 2. Vide etiam Proleg. p. 42, col 1. 
Cap. xi. 2. δύο τῶν μαϑητῶν.] Syr. διὰ τῶν, sed Origenes 


in Matt. p. 229, Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. | 


textui consentiunt. Vide tamen Millium pro διὰ conten- 
dentem, Proleg. p. 42, col. 1. 

V. 5. Χωλοί περιπατοῦσι 
prima pericope in Origene,” ita Millius. Male; agnoscit 
enim eam Comm. in Joh. p. 103. Secunda ibi deest: legit 
autem Clemens Al. Pedag. lib. i. cap. 10, p. 129. Utram- 
que legunt versiones omnes, Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, 
Cyrillus Alexan. de Recta Fide, p. 89, D. Lucas, cap. vii. 
22. Vide e contra Millii Proleg. p. 42, col. 1. 

V. 21. Οὐαί σοι Βηθσαϊδάν. Legendum vult Millius καὶ 
Βηθσαϊδά, Prol. p. 42; renitentibus Origene in Ex. p. 25, 
Chrysostomo, Hieronymo, Theophylacto, et versionibus an- 
tiquis universis. 

Cap. xii. 8. Κύριος yap ἔστι καὶ τοῦ σαββάτου. Quanquam 
καὶ agnoscatur a solo Vulg., cum tamen id reperias apud 


Mar. ii. 28, et Luc. vi. 5, et per consequens Christi ipsius | 


sit, et vocabulum admodum elegans, quod vim plurimam 
argumento affert, mihi quidem retinendum videtur. 

V. 32. Ἐν τούτῳ τῷ aidve.] MSS. ἐν τῷ νῦν αἰῶνι, quod 
idem est. 

V. 35. Ἔκ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ϑησαυροῦ τῆς καρδίας. Deest τῆς 
καρδίας, Vulg. Syr. Arab. sed adest apud Athanasium tom. 
ii. p. 169, Basilium, tom. ii. p. 634, Chrysostomum in lo- 
cum, et apud Lue. vi. 45; et verba immediate precedentia, 


“Ex abundantia τῆς καρδίας os loquitur,’ hance lectionem | 


stabiliunt et firmant. 

V.47. Ζητοῦντές σοι λαλῆσαι. Ita Chrysostomus, The- 
ophylactus, Syr. Origenes in Matt. p. 238, Vulg. Arab. 
Ethiop. “Znrodvrés σέ, σοι λαλῆσαι ex v. 46 desumptum 
videtur ;”’ ita Millius.* 


enarrator potuit quam foris stant ζητοῦντές σοι λαλῆσαι. 

Cap. xiii. 14, “Αναπληροῦται ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς. Theophylactus, et 
codices plurimi, habent solummodo αὐτοῖς. Sed Chrysosto- 
mus, versionesque antique omnes, vel legunt ἐπ᾿ vel ἐν αὐτοῖς, 
quod in idem recidit. 

V..27. Ἔν τῷ σῷ ἀγρῷ. Ab aliquot MSS. et unico Epipha- 
nio, omissum est oj. Bene autem habet, quod non nobis 
narret Millius quo Epiphanii in loco hoe factum sit. Per- 
volventi enim eum contra Her. p. 679, occurrebant mihi 
plurime lectiones insigniter variantes, una cum additamento 


* Prol. p. 42, col. 1. 


νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται.Ἶ “ Deest | 


Et sane cum foris starent mater et | 
fratres querentes λαλῆσαι αὐτῷ, v. 46, nil verius dicere 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


in fine, καὶ ἑτοιμάζετε τὰ ζιζάνια κατακαυθῆναι 
ἀσβεστῷ. 

V. 35. Διὰ τοῦ προφήτου" ᾿Ησαίου τοῦ προφήτου. “ Plerique 
codices olim, teste Hieronymo; qui et pro ᾿Ασὰφ τοῦ npog. 
positum dicit vitio librarii;” ita Millius: neutrum autem 
hodie legitur vel in Grecis patribus vel in MSS. aut ver- 
sionibus. Vide annot. nostras in hunc locum. 

V. 51. Λέγει ἃ ᾿Ιησοῦς" συνήκατε ταῦτα πάντα. “ Premissa 
hee sunt lucis causa. jam ante Chrysostomi tempora,” 
Millius, Prol. p. 42, col. 1. At agnoscunt Chrysostomus, 
Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers.; esseque verba hxc neces- 
sario intelligenda constat ex sequentibus, λέγουσιν αὐτῷ, vat 
Κύριε. 

Cap. xiv. ᾿Ὡσεὶ πεντακισχίλιοι. Sic Chrysostomus, The- 
ophylactus, 4thiop. et in annotationibus variantis alicujus 
lectionis nulla est mentio. Dicit tamen Millius, Prol. p. 
127, col. 1, “'Qsei quod in MSS. plerisque omnibus, Luce 
est, non Matthzi.” 

V. 33. ᾿Ελθόντες.] Sic Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, 
Vulg. Syr. Arab. Pers. Deest tantum ASthiop.; “ est tamen 
intrusum uberioris explicationis gratia,’ Proleg. p. 161, 
col. 1. 

Cap. xv. 4. Τίμα τὸν πατέρα σου. “ Deest cov in MSS. 
pluribus, Ireneo, Chrysostomo;” ita Millius. Deest qui- 
dem apud Lat. Treneum pariter, ac apud Vulg. sed Chry- 
sostomus deserte ait, τίμα γάρ φησι τὸν πατέρα cov, similiter 
Origenes in Matt. p. 244, et Theophylactus. Hoc certo 
mandatum ad uniuscujusque proprium parentem pertinet, 
et seq. καὶ μὴ τιμήσῃ τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ, cov retinendum esse 
ostendunt. 

V. 8. ᾿Εγγίζει por ὃ λαὸς οὗτος τῷ στύματι αὐτῶν, καὶ τοῖς 
χείλεσί pe τιμᾶ. Prol. p. 34, col. 2, et 42, col. 1, asserit 
Millius genuinam lectionem esse, ὃ λαὸς οὗτος χείλεσί pe τιμῇ. 
Cetera nempe desunt in Cant. Copt. Vulg. Syr. Pers. 
Ethiop. ut et apud Esaiam, Cod. Alex. et Marc. Qui- 
cunque hic apud LXX. defectus fuit, clam quidem erat 
Origene, qui Comm. in Matt. p. 247, loquitur ad hunc mo- 
dum: “Propheta Isaias dicit, ἐν αὐταῖς λέξεσιν, ἐγγίζει por ὃ 
λαὸς οὗτος ἐν στόματι αὐτῶν. 

V. 26. Οὐκ ἔστι καλόν. Sic Chrysostomus, Theophylac- 
tus, Vulg. Syr. Arab.: est tamen adjectitium καλὸν, Prol. p. 
42, col. 2. 

V. 30. Κωφοὺ;.1 Deest, et v. 31, deest κυλλοὺς ὑγιεῖς, Te- 
fragante ipso textu utrinque. Nam si τὸ κωφοὺς non esset 
in v. 30, unde κωφοὺς λαλοῦντας, ν. 31. Quod si τὸ κυλλοὺς 
recte ponatur v. 30, idcirco etiam τὸ κυλλοὺς ὑγιεὶς ponendum 
est, v. 31. Sed Prol. p. 42, col. 1, interjecta sunt ad absol- 
vendam sententiam κυλλοὺς ὑγιεῖς. Idem de voce κωφοὺς, 


τῷ πυρὶ 


| Prol. p. 133, col. 2. 


Cap. xvi. 3. 'Yroxprrai.] D. Chrysostomo, Vulg. Agnos- 
cunt Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Lucas xii. 56; quin igitur 
hoe vocabulo usus sit Christus nemo dubitet. 

Nota etiam quod in binis postremis versiculis variantes 
lectiones satis refutentur testimonio Origenis, qui cum editis 
congruit, Comm. in Matt. p. 290, 291—294. 

Cap. xvii. 14.] Tres hic variantes lectiones, sed nullius 
momenti, et textum ipsum exhibet Origenes, p. 308, 309. 
Ita etiam v. 21—23, Origenes ab impressis ne transversum 
quidem digitum discedit, p. 313, 315. Quod autem 
ἐλθόντων αὐτῶν, v. 14, “ recte mutatum esse ab Arabe et Vul- 
gato in ἐλθόντος," ait Millius, Prol. p. 42, col. 1, “ex his- 
torie circumstantiis manifestum esse: non enim venisse 
Christum simul cum discipulis suis ad multitudinem, sed 
venisse eum solum, et aliquanto post discipulos quos turba 
jam circumfusos, et cum scribis disputantes offendit ;” in eo 
mirum in modum falli Millium ex historie circumstantiis 
certissimum est; commate enim decimo interrogant eum 
discipuli ex monte cum eo descendentes, “ Quid ergo scribe 
dicunt quod Eliam oportet primum venire?’’ et commate 
decimo tertio ex Christi ad hance questioneim responso, “ in- 
tellexerunt discipuli quod de Johanne Baptista dixisset eis ;” 
veniebant ergo cum eo hi tres discipuli et cum reliquis dis- 
putantes scribas invenit. 

V.21.] Deest versus totus Coll. et thiop. “Neque qui- 
dem hujus evangeliste est, licet hic sedem occupet in omni- 
bus propemodum libris nostris, sed Marci solius, quod 
ostendit canon Eusebianus: “ Sic Millius in Appendice, p. 7. 
Sed reperias illum apud Origenem in Matt. p. 313, apud 
Syrum et Arabem interpretem, qui omnes ante vixerunt 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


quam canon iste conficeretur; agnoscit etiam Hieronymus, 
quanguam canonem istum Matthwo prefixerit, sicut etiam 
agnoscunt eundem versiculum Grca scholia et relique ver- 
siones. 

V. 23. Kat ἐλυπήϑησαν σφόδρα. Desunt hee verba in binis 
MSS. Sed retinent illa Origenes in Matt. p. 315, Graci, 
ewterique interpretes omnes: et tamen in Prol. p. 165, col. 
2, “ commentarius est, non textus.” 

Cap. xviii. 29.] Omittunt πάντα codices plurimi: sed 
sequitur ex v. 26, quod retinendum sit. 

Cap. xix. 19. Kai ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον---ἼὮ Agnoscunt 
hane periodi partem Greca scholia, versionesque universim, 
et quod contra illam ex Origene affert Millius, valde leve 
est ac nugatorium. Nam si quis stricte acciperet ac servaret 
mandata secunde tabule tali modo ac more quali ea Judi 


observarunt, non ille quidem dicendus est prestitisse univer- | 


sam legem, que ad proximum suum pertinet, et multo 
minus que ad Deum. Vide Luc. x. 29, 30. Nota etiam 
quod ἐκ νεότητός μου, v. 20, retinetur apud Greca scholia 
versionesque omnes. 

Cap. xx. 15. Οὐκ ἔξεστί μοι ποιῆσαι ὃ ϑέλω.] Seq. ἐν τοῖς 
ἐμοῖς, “quod est in nostris commentarius est, non textus.” 
Ita Millius cum suo Vulgato, Prol. p. 42, col. 2; repugnan- 
tibus reliquis versionibus, Chrysost. Theophyl. et Orig. in 
Matt. p. 407. 


V. 22. Potestis bibere calicem quem ego bibiturus sum? | 


καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα, ὃ ἐγὼ βαπτΐίζομαι βαπτισϑῆναι 1] “ Posterior 
pars commatis (judice Millio) non Matthwi, sed Marci est,” 
sc. ex fide quatuor MSS. Hieronymi, Vulg. Ambrosii, et 
speciatim Origenis in Matt. p. 415, qui postquam dixerat, 
δύνασϑε πιεῖν τὸ ποτήριον ὃ ἐγὼ μέλλω πίνειν, addit ἢ ὡς ὁ Μάρκος 
ἀνέγραψε------δ ἐγὼ πίνω, καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα, καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. 
Quis autem satis certo scit utrum Origenes Marcum allega- 
rit, ratione habita ad posteriorem partem commatis, vel ad 
levem illam discrepantiam que intercedit inter 3 μέλλω 
πίνειν, et & ἐγὼ πίνω: sed demus hec Millio. Constat ex 
Marco x. 38, 39, periodum hane Christum protulisse omni- 
bus suis numeris expletam; cur non igitur Mattheus 
periodum hance plenam ac perfectam citasse censendus est ἢ 
cum testes ejus rei fidos habeamus Chrysostomum, The- 
ophylactum, et Basilium Seleuciensem, hom. 24, p. 134, 
vel quonam id, queso, sacre scripture dispendio sit, si pos- 
trema illa verba apud unicum Marcum reperiantur ? 
hoc, ut opinor, obviam it sexcentis variantibus lectionibus : 
que enim a diversis memorantur evangelistis, cum ea semel 
tantum locutus sit Christus, si ab uno aliquo literis manden- 
tur memoria eorum nunquam obliterabitur. 

Cap. xxi. 4. Τοῦτο καὶ ὅλον yéyovev.] Deest ὅλον, Cant, Arab. 
Ethiop. Copt. Origene in Joh. p. 161. At agnoscunt τὸ 


ὅλον Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. nec magni, | 


quod Origenes hic habeat, refert; nam ibid. p. 174, omittit 
v. 5, cod post βασιλεῖς, et καὶ post xpais: sed p- 169, et 
Comm. in Matt. p. 432, utramque vocem retinet: post 
πῶλον Omittit υἱὸν, p. 169, quod tamen habet p. 174; omittit 
hee verba, v. 8, ἄλλοι δὲ ἔκοπτον κλάδους ἀπὸ τῶν δένδρων, καὶ 
ἐστρῶννυον ἐν τῇ bdo. Sic v. 12, τοῦ Θεοῦ deest Orig. sc. 
Comm. in Joh. p. 175, sed commentarius ejus in locum 
Matt. Ρ. 439, sic se habet, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν b ᾿Ιησοῦς εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν τοῦ 
Θεοῦς 

V. 19. Κτῆσασϑε.] Ed. Ox. Polyg. Hic ergo Millius, Prol. 
65, col. 1, pro varia lectione, ipsum textum, « possidebitis” 
exhibet. 

Cap. xxii. 39.] “ Diliges proximum tuum ὡς σεαυτόν." MSS. 
ἑαυτόν. Ita Rom. xiii. 9, Gal. v. 14, “ Dicisne hoc ag’ ἑαυτοῦ, 
a temetipso?” Joh. xviii. 34, et σεαυτὸν, Jac. ii. 8. Vide in 
his locis Millium, et nos in Rom. xiii. 9. 

V.40. Ἔν ταύταις rats δυσὶν ἐντολαῖς ὅλος ὃ νόμος. Omit- 
tunt ὅλος Syr. codex unus, Copt. et Arab. Habent autem 
illud &thiop. Vulg. Chrysostomus, et Theophylactus, Hila- 
rius, et Hieronymus in locum; Clemens Alex. Pidag. lib. 
iii. cap. 12, p. 260, Irenzus lib. iv. cap. 25, p. 312, Ori- 
genes hom. 23 in Matt. f. 42. Atque tamen hanc lectionem 
simplicem (sc. absque ὅλος) ipsius evangeliste fuisse haud- 
quaquam dubito, Prol. p. 129, col. 2. 

Cap. xxiii. 4. Καὶ δυσβάστακτα.Ἵ Omiserunt Copt. Syr. 
Pers. Vulg. Ireneus. At agnoscunt Chrysostomus, The- 
ophylactus, Hieronymus, Vulg. 

V. 5. Τῶν ἱματίων αὐτῶν.] Desunt Vulg. 2thiop, At 
legunt Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. 


Atque | 


1165 


V.8. Els yap iorw ὑμῶν καθηγητῆς.Ἶ MSS. plurima, Ori- 
genes in Joh. p.5, hom. 10 in Jer. p. 107, et Chrysostomus, 
legunt 6 διδάσκαλος. Cum vero tum καθηγητὴς, tum διδάσκαλος, 
sit interpretatio ejusdem vocis Hebraicw, nempe rabbi, ex eo 
facile intelligitur, verbis illos, non re dissidere. 

V. 14. Obui ὑμῖν γραμματεῖς καὶ φαρισαῖοι, ὑποκριταί. 
τε Ἰβία non agnoscunt Origenes et Eusebius; traducta puto e 
Marco aut Luca,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 42. Id autem 
agnoscunt Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, et versiones uni- 
versim. 

V. 19. Μωροὶ καὶ τυφλοί. ““Μωροὶ καὶ preefixum est ex v. 
17,” ita Millius Prol. p. 42. Agnoscunt autem Theophylac- 
tus, et versiones orientales omnes. 

« Non dubium est quin v. 13 e Marco et Luca hue trans- 
miserint librarii,” ait Millius in locum. Quod si fuissent 
verum nec additur quidquam, nec subducitur de verbis 
Christi: versiculum tamen hune agnoscunt Chrysostomus, 
Theophylactus, Hieronymus, versionesque. Crit. Hist. N.'T’. 
p- 171, ipse illum inveniat apud Greca exemplaria satis 
multa, versu quidem isto et subsequente transposito, sicut in 
pluribus Millii MSS. contigit. 

V. 26.] Deest in Clemente Alex. Irenwo, lib. iv, cap. 34, 
p- 326. Habent autem illud Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, 
versiones antique omnes. 

Cap. xxv. 1.] Licet a commate primo usque ad decimum 
tertium viginti variantes afferantur lectiones, Sanctus tamen 
Basilius, dum hance parabolam explicat, a textu ne latum 
quidem unguem discedit. Nam tametsi, tom. ii. p. 412, 
habeat tantum πέντε, tamen p. 425 habet αἱ πέντε. 

V. 13. Ἔν 7 ὃ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔρχεται. “ Deest in MSS. 
aliquot, nec occurrit apud probatissimos prime @tatis inter- 
pretes; ex cap. precedente sumitur,” ita Millius hic, sed 
inter hee atque illa verba plurimum interest: cum vero 
precesserit, “ Vigilate itaque, quia nescitis diem neque ho- 
ram,” aliquid hujusmodi addendum est, ne claudicet sensus; 
quidni igitur hee ipsa verba? qui agnoscit heophylactus, 
et que optime respondent illis que concludunt caput pre- 
cedens, viz. si malus servus non vigilet, “ veniet Dominus 
illius in die qua non sperat, et hora qua ignorat;” atque 
istiusmodi homines, fatuarum ad instar virginum, a nuptiis 
clausa janua excludentur. “ Vigilate igitur,” &c. 

V. 33. Kai στήσει τὰ μὲν πρόβατα. Deest μὲν Cant. Syr. 
Quod tamen postulant seq. ri dé ἐρίφια, satisque firmant 
Theophylactus, Vulg. et exemplar Alexandrinum. 

V. 41. Tov ἡτοίμασμένον, v. 1. ὃ ἡτοίμασεν ὃ πατῆρ pov.] 
Ita Ireneus, Cyprianus, Augustinus, adde Justinum M. Dial. 
p- 301. Origenes autem in Joh. p. 426, Greea scholia, 
versiones antique omnes legunt cum textu. 

Cap. xxvi. 1, Πάντας rots λύγους τούτους. Deest πάντας 
Chrysost. Pers.: habent Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. Syr. 
ZEthiop. 

V. 8. Kat of γραμματεῖς. Desunt hee apud Vulg. 
Arab. Ethiop. At retinent Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, 
Syr. 

. 42. Τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον. Deest τὸ ποτήριον, Chrysostomo ; 
legunt Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. ‘Ax’ ἐμοῦ deest 
Vulg. Agnoscunt Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. 

V. 44. Ἔκ τρίτου. Deest in Alex. At illud habent The- 
ophylactus, et versiones antique universim. 

V. 59. Kai of πρεσβύτεροι. Deest in Vulg. sed illud reti- 
nent Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. 

V. 74. Ἤρξατο καταναθεματίζειν. Ita Chrysostomus et 
Theophylactus; καταθεματίζειν, quod habent codices MSS, 
in N. T. nusquam occurrit, at genuinum censet Millius, 
Prol. p. 109, col. 2. 

Cap. xxvii. 13. “Ὥστε ϑαυμάζειν τὸν ἡγεμόνα λίαν. Ita 
Hieronymus, Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. ait tamen Millius, 
“ex Syri solius auctoritate addebat codicum vulgus ex pre- 
cedentibus, τὸν ἡγεμόνα, Pro}. p. 129, col. 2. 

V. 24. ᾿Απὸ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ dixaiov.] Τὸ τοῦ δικαίου agnos- 
cunt Hieronymus, Theophylactus, versiones omnes: “sed 
(ait Millius) insertum in reliquis τοῦ δικαίου, irrepsisse vide- 
tur ex Actis, aliisve locis,” Prol. p. 133, col. 2. 

V. 35. Ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθέν" καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. Cum omittatur 
hee periodus a Grecis, interpretibusque cunctis, sia Vulg 
et Hieronymo discesseris, simile vero videtur desumptam 
eam fuisse ex Joh. xix. 24, utrum vero hic, an illic legenda 
sit, eadem sane, qua relique scripture partes, veneratione a 
nobis afficienda est. 

4X 


1166 


V. 37. Ἰησοῦς 6 Βασιλεῦς.] ᾿Ιησοῦς omittunt MSS. Copt. 
Retinent Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. 

V. 43. Niv.] Hic agnoscunt Theophylactus, et versiones 
omnes, estque emphaticum in ore Judzorum. 

Υ. 55. ᾿Απὸ μακρόθεν ϑεωροῦσαι.] Deest in Vulg. sed habent 
Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. 

V. 64. Nv«rés.] Deest in Chrysostomo, Vulg. Arab. at 
illud legunt Theophylactus, et Syr. 

Cap. xxvili. 9. ‘OQ; δὲ ἐπορεύοντο ἀπαγγεῖλαι τοῖς μαθηταῖς 
αὐτοῦ.] Desunt hec apud Chrysostomum, Hieronymum, Au- 
gustinum, Vulg.Syr. Agnoscunt tantum Theophylactus et 
/Ethiop. Saxpe hoc contingit cum eadem verba repetuntur; 
videntur tamen hic necessario intelligenda. 


SECTIO SECUNDA—IN MARCUM. 


Car. i. 2. Qui preparabit viam tuam ἔμπροσϑέν σου. 
Desunt hee in Irenzo, lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 217, Origene 
in Joh. p. 117, Syr. Copt. Pers. #thiop.; sed agnoscunt illa 
Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. et Origenes in Joh. p. 3, et 
citat illa nominatim ex Marco, lib. ii. contra Cel. 60, et si- 
quidem Christus diserte ait Baptistam eum esse de quo 
scripta est prophetia his ipsis verbis, Matt. xi. 10, de veritate 
eorum non est ambigendi locus, licet in autographo ipsius 
Marci non inventa fuissent. 

Tribus versiculis, sc. 5, 11, et 13, tres sunt variantes lec- 
tiones, sed nulla in sensu diversitas. 

V. 16. Περιπατῶν δὲ παρὰ τὴν θάλασσαν. Ita Theophylac- 
tus, Cod. Alex. παράγων: Vulg. Arab. “ Fuit ambulando per- 
transiens,” sine discrimine. 

V. 42. Εἰπόντος αὐτοῦ.] Deest in Cant. Syr. agnoscunt 
Theophylactus, Vulg. Cod. Alex. 

V. 44. μηδενὶ μηδὲν] Deest μηδὲν, MSS. Sed habet 
Theophylactus. 

V. 45. Πολλὰ. Deest in Vulg. 
lactus. 

Cap. ii. 1. Ac’ ἡμερῶν. « Octo, Latini codices aliqui; citra 
non Grecorum modo fidem sed et Latinorum plerumque 
omnium ;” ita hic Millius. Sed Proleg. p. 44, col. 1, « Greca 
procul dubio erant δι ἡμερῶν, et sic evangelista.” 

V. 4. Μὴ δυνάμενοι προσεγγίσαι. Vulg. προσενέγκαι: Theo- 
phylactus et relique versiones cum textu. 

V. 7. Bi μὴ els 5 Qc6s.] Deest εἴς, Cant. Sed retinet Theo- 
phylactus, et relique versiones antique omnes. 

V. 15. “Αμαρτωλοί.] Occurrit in Theophylacto et in ver- 
sionibus Polyg. omnibus. «Mihi tamen (inquit Millius) 
vehemens est suspicio, ex v. 16 huc traductum esse.” Ap- 
pend. p. 12, col. 1. 

V.18. Οἱ τῶν φαρισαίων.] Theophylact. et versiones omnes: 
Vulg. “ pharisei.” 

V. 20. Ἔν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις. Ita Theophylactus, Vulg. 
Lucas v. 35, ἐν ἐκείνη τῇ ἡμέρᾳ. Syr. Zthiop. MSS. sine 
discrepantia. 

V. 22. Oivos ὃ νέος. Habent ὃ νέος, Theophylactus, Lucas 
v. 35. Deest in Cant. Vulg. Syr. Verba autem preceden- 
tia et sequentia lectionem textus genuinam esse indicant. 

Cap. iii. 5. Καὶ ἀποκατεστάϑη ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ ὑγιὴς ὡς ἡ ἄλλη. 
Deest ὑγιὴς MSS. versionibusque: retinet heophylactus, 
occurrit apud Matt. xii. 13, et Luc. vi. 10, interpretes hoc 
forte quasi minus necessarium omiserunt ; cum enim manus 
arida restituatur, et fiat alteri similis, non potest non esse 
ὑγιής. 

V. 29. Alwviov κρίσεως. Codices pauci habent ἁμαρτίας, 
seu ἁμαρτήματος. Vulg. et Cyprianus “ delictum,” et exinde 
Greca quedam exemplaria ad Latinos conformata, ἁμαρτίας" 
sed Syr. Arab. Theophylactus, Greci patres legunt κρίσεως, 
τς ae oceurrit dictio qualis aisvos ἁμαρτία per totum 

V. 32.) Addit hic C. Alex. καὶ dde\pat σου" repugnantibus 
omnibus versionibus, Hieronymo, Theophylacto, verbisque 
immediate prmcedentibus, of ἀδελφοὶ, καὶ ἡ μητὴρ αὐτοῦ 
ἀπέστειλαν πρὸς αὐτόν. 

Cap. iv. 4. Τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ. Deest τοῦ οὐρανοῦ in 
MSS. et versionibus quibusdam: agnoscunt Vulg. et Theo- 
phylactus; et cum aves per Vetus Testamentum sepissime 
vocitentur, vel volucres aeris, vel volucres cceli, τοῦ οὐρανοῦ 
videtur subaudiendum ubi non exprimitur: rejicit autem 
Mill. Prol. p. 109, col. 2. 

7. 11. Γνῶναι τὸ μυστήριον. Deest γνῶναι in MSS. sed ha- 


Sed leget Theophy- 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


bent Theophylactus et versiones omnes, eoque dempto sen- 
sus deficit; et tamen medium γνῶναι Matthei est aut Luce 
Proleg. p. 161, col. 1. Cur non et Marci? 

V.18. Kai οὗτοί εἰσιν of εἰς τὰς ἀκάνϑας σπειρόνενοι, οὗτοί 
εἰσιν.1 Deest secundo loco οὗτοί εἰσιν apud Theophylactum, et 
MSS. nec mirum; Hebraismum quippe non intelligebant; 
habent Vulg. Syr. nec deesse videntur apud Arab. «“ Re- 
petitio hee vocum οὗτοί εἰσιν non est aliena ab Hebraismo, 
quod ejus insolitis mutandi causam dedit, idque non uno 
modo; quod hujus lectionis veritatem ostendit;’ ita 
Grotius. 

V. 20. et v. 8. “Ev μὲν τριάκοντα, ἕν ἑξήκοντα, ἕν Exarév.] 
V. 1. ἕν, ἕν, ἕν, MSS, sed preter MSS. codices plurimos, 
fatente Millio, ἕν legunt heophylactus, versiones omnes, 
Syr. v. 8, et lectionem hanc comprobat locus parilis Matt. 
xii. 8. 23, ubi occurrit par distributium, 6 μὲν ἑκατὸν, &e. 

V. 24. “Ὑμῖν τοῖς ἀκούουσιν. Tots ἀκούουσιν, desunt in Vulg. 
Arab. sed illa habent Theophylactus et Syr. 

V. 31. ‘Qs κόκκῳ] MSS. κόκκος aut κόκκον, sine discrimine 
et sine causa; ὡς hic παραδειγματικὴν significationem habet, 
“nempe ;” ita Schmidius: seu potius est signum dativi casus, 
ut 5 apud Hebrwos sepius. 

Υ. 33. Πολλαῖς.] Deest in Syr. Pers. Arab. sed illud ha- 
bent Theophylactus et Vulg. 

Cap. v. 11. Πρὸς τὰ dpn.] V. 1. πρὸς τῷ ὄρει, quod in idem 
recidit. Ib. Μεγάλη deest in Cant. Eph. Copt. Goth. Pers. 
sed habent Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. 

V. 12. Πάντες of δαίμονες. Cant. τὰ δαιμόνια, Syr, “Illi 
dzmones,” quod idem valet; soli enim demones, qui tunc 
adfuerunt, hoc a Christo petere potuerunt: denique cum 
textu legunt Theophylactus et Arab. 

Cap. vi. 11. ᾿Αμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν: ἢ τῇ πόλει ἐκείνη.] “Ex 
Vulgato, et Ammonii Monotessaro apud Zach. Chrysopoli- 
tanum recte notat Zegerus hec Marci non esse, sed ex Mat- 
theo huc transponi quemadmodum et alias alia ;” ita Millius 
hic. Agnoscunt vero Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers. 
Hthiop. “Hee periodus (inquit Betuleius) in omnibus 
nostris exemplaribus legitur, exceptis tantum duobus, et in 
vetustissimo meo apud Matt. x. 15 et Luc x. 12 occurrit~” 
quidni apud Marcum? 

V. 15. Ἢ ὡς εἷς τῶν xpopnrav.] Vide annotata nostra in 
hune locum. 

V. 16. Οὗτός ἐστιν, Deest in Vulg. sed habent Theophy- 
lactus, et quoad sensum, omnes antique versiones. 

V. 28. 'O δὲ ἀπελθὼν: Τὸ ἀπελθών omittit Vulg. 
Theophylactus, et versiones orientales omnes. 

V. 33. Προῆλθον airois:] Deest in MSS. binis, Cant. et 
Laud. sed retinetur apud Theophylactum: atque hec lectio 
non est obscura, sed facilem explicatum habet: Christus, et 
discipuli ejus ascendentes in navim abierunt in desertum 
locum seorsim ; sed multi viderunt eos abeuntes, et cognove- 
runt quo cursum tenebat navis, itaque pedestres prevenerunt 
eos, et accesserunt ad Christum. Clara hic, et perspicua 
omnia, neque quicquam mutandi causa levissima est: vult 
tamen Millius “76 καὶ προῆλθον αὐτοὺς scholion esse, καὶ 
συνῆλθον πρὸς αὑτὸν, veram lectionem ;” quam queritur omis- 
sam fuisse, Proleg. p. 43, et ejus loco, καὶ προῆλθον πρὸς αὐτοὺς 
retentam esse, 

V. 36. ᾿Αγοράσωσιν ἑαυτοῖς ἄρτους" τί yap φάγωσιν μὴ ἔχουσι. 
Contendit Millius, Proleg. p. 45, “veram lectionem hanc 
esse, ἀγοράσωσιν ἑαυτοῖς τί φάγωσιν" reliqua irrepsisse ex cap. 
viii. 2 hujus evangelii :” quod prima fronta est parum vero- 
simile, presertim cum textui consentiant Theophylactus, 
versiones orientales omnes, et Codex Alex. 

V. 44. Kai ἦσαν of φάγοντες τοὺς ἄρτους ὡσεὶ πεντακισχίλιοι. 
Deest ἄρτους, sed habent Theophylactus, Syr. et E&thiop. 
Deest etiam ὡσεὶ in MSS. aliquot, Theophylacto, et versioni- 
bus: sed occurrit Luc. ix. 14 et Joh. vi. 10, ex quorum 
auctoritate vocem illam, utut parvi momenti, retinendam ta- 
men quis non censet? Nota etiam quod licet Matt. xiv. 21, 
de variantibus lectionibus altum sit silentium illic, tamen 
perinde atque hic ὡσεὶ omittunt versiones omnes. # 

V.51. Kai ἐθαύμαζον. Irrepsit ex margine, ita Millius, 
Proleg. p. 43, ex fide Copt. Agnoscunt autem Codex 
Alex. Theophylactus, et versiones orientales universim. — 

Cap. vii. 2. ᾿Ἐμέμψαντο.] Deest apud solum Athiop. 
Agnoscunt Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. id Millio frustra 
inficiante. “Importune tamen injecit quispiam in textum,” 
Prol. p. 122, col. 1. 


Habent 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


V. 5. 'Avinros.] Theophylactus, Syr. J8thiop. κοιναῖς, 
Vulg. Arab. eodem sensu juxta Judwos. 

V.16. Εἴ τις ἔχει ὦτα ἀκούειν, ἀκουέτω. Suspectum hune 
versum habet Millius παρεμβλήσεως, Proleg. p. 162, col. 1, 
repugnante Theophylacto, et versionibus universim. 

V. 14. Καὶ προσκαλεσάμενος πάντα τὸν ὄχλον. Ita Theo- 
phylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers. Vulg. et JEthiop. addunt πάλιν, 
quod probat Millius, Proleg. p. 43. 

V. 31. Ἔκ τῶν ὁρίων Τύρου καὶ Σιδῶνος" Tta Theophylactus, 
Codex Alex. Syr. Pers. “sed διὰ Σιδῶνος ἦλϑε, lectio germana 
est,” Millius, Ib. Vulg. Cant. Copt. Arab. Aathiop. 

Cap. viii. 2. "Hyépas τρεῖς προσμένουσί por.) 1. 6. Δι᾿ ἡμέρας, 
ita Theophylactus et versiones: ἡμέρας MSS. ad eundem 
sensum. 

V. 22. Kai ἔρχεται. Jesus nempe, Theophylactus, Syr. 
ἔρχεται, Vulg. Arab. “Jesus cum discipulis.” 

Υ. 94. ᾿Οπίσω μου ἐλθεῖν.] V. 1. ἐκολουδεῖν. Nullo sensus 
discrimine. 

Cap. ix. 10. Ti tore τὸ ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀναστῆναι" Τα Theophy- 
lactus, Arab. Vulg. et Syr. “Quid esset cum e mortuis 
resurrexerit?” perperam haud dubito, nec enim querunt 


τί εἴη, Sed τί ἐστι, nec quid post mortem Christi esset futurum, | 


non existimabant Christum moriturum: vide annotata nostra 
ad hune locum. 

V. 13. Kat πῶ; γέγραπται. Ita Theophylactus et Vulg. 
MSS. καϑὼς, vide iterum annotata nostra. 

V. 16. Kat ἐπηρώτησε τοὺς γραμματεῖς. Ita Theophylac- 
tus, Syr. Arab. Vulg. αὐτοὺς male iterum, nec enim turbe, 
sed scribe tantum cum iis disputabant: vide v. 17. 

V. 33. Πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς diadoyiSecSe.] Πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς, desunt in 
Vulg. Arab. retinent Theophylactus, Syr. Pers, Athiop. 
estque necessario intelligendum. 

Y. 34. "Ev τῇ 6d03.] Ita Theophylactus, et versiones omnes : 
et tamen Millius Proleg. p. 143, col. 2, “Nemo non videt 
repetita ex proxime precedenti versiculo ;” immo nemo non 
videt repeti debuisse. 

V. 38. Ὅτι οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ ἡμῖν. Desunt Vulg. Copt. 
bent Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers. thiop. 

Cap. x. 2. Καὶ προσελθόντες of gapicator.] Ita Theophy- 
lactus, et versiones omnes ; sic vero Millius, Proleg. p. 133, 
col. 2, “ Προσελθύντες ante of φαρισαῖοι, quod in nostris jam 
omnibus, Matthei est.” Quero cur non et Marci? 

V. 21. “Atpas τὸν σταυρόν. Deest Clem. Alex. Vulg. 
Augustino: retinent Theophylactus, et versiones orientales. 

V. 47. Υἱὲ Δαβὶδ Ἰησοῦ. Deest ᾿Ιησοῦ, Syr. Pers. Agnos- 
cunt Theophylactus, Vulg. Arab. Zthiop. Luc. xviii. 38. 

Cap. xi. 1. Eis By6payi.] Deest in Cant. Origene in Matt. 
p- 431. Habent autem Origenes in Joh. p. 169, Theophy- 
Jactus, orientales versiones omnes: irrepsit tamen e margine, 
Proleg. p. 42, col. 2. 


Ha- 


V. 10. Ἢ ἐρχομένη βασιλεία. Deest ἐρχομένη in MSS. 4, | 


sed habent Origenes in Joh. 169, Theophylactus, versiones 
omnes. Ib. ἐν ὀνύματι Κυρίον, deest in Origene, ib., et versio- 
nibus antiquis. Sed habent Theophylactus, Matt. xxi. 9. 
xxiii. 39. Ps. Ixx. exviii. 26. Ib. ὡσαννὰ, v. ]. εἰρήνη, Origenes, 
inquit Millius, ubi nescio; habet ὡὥὡσαννὰ, Com. in Joh. p. 
162, cum Theophylacto, et versionibus omnibus. 

V. 29. AnexpiSnré po.] Deest in MSS. quibusdam: sed 
agnoscunt Theophylactus, et versiones omnes. 

V. 31. διατί οὖν.] Deest οὖν in MSS. Pers. Zthiop. sed 
habent Theophylactus. Vulg. Syr. 

V. 32. ᾿Αλλ᾽ éav.] Deest ἐὰν in MSS. multis; agnoscunt 
Theophylactus, et versiones orientales. 

Cap. xii. 4. Αιθοβολήσαντες.] Deest in Vulg. Arab. retinent 
Theophylactus et Syr. 

V. 27. Οὐκ ἔστιν ὃ Θεὸς νεκρῶν, ἀλλὰ Θεὸς ζώντων. Deest 
Θεὸς secundum in Vulg. Arab. Habent Theophylactus, Pers. 
/Ethiop. optime meo judicio. Origenes, οὐκ ἔστιν ὃ Θεὺς, Θεῦς 
νεκρῶν, ἀλλὰ ζώντων, Com. in Matt. p- 499, ita Matt. xxii. 32: 
est tamen hic repetendus ὁ Θεός. 

Cap. xii. 29. 'O Θεὺς ἡμῶν.) Ita Theophylactus, C. Alex. 
Syr. Pers. Deut. vi. 4, Θεός cov, et Vulg. Arab. ASthiop.: 
ἡμῶν emendatio est, ex Deut. vi. 4, Prol. p. 122, col. 1. 

V. 32. Ὅτι cis ὃ Θεὸς. Deest Θεὸς in MSS. retinent Vulg. 
Arab. et Theophylactus; addit eum etiam Syriaca versio 
tanquam necessario intelligendum. Rejicit tamen Millius, 
Prol. p. 109, col. 2. 

Cap. xiii. 11. Μηδὲ μελετᾶτε. Deest in Vulg. Copt. 
Ethiop. Sed habent Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. 


1167 


V. 14. Τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ Δανιὴλ τοῦ προφήτου. Desunt hee in 
MSS. Vulg. Augustino. Habent Theophylactus, Cod. Alex. 
versiones orientales omnes: est tamen Matthei, Proleg. p. 
43, col. 2. 

V. 18. Ἢ φυγὴ ὑμῶν. Deest in Vulg. et MSS. ταῦτα, sed 
Theophylactus, et versiones orient. textui consentiunt. 

V. 33. Καὶ προσεύχεσθε. Habent omnes; “ mihi tamen 
vehementer suspectum est rapey/3\joews,"’ Millius Proleg. p. 
133. Deest Cant. 

Cap. ‘xiv. 15. 'Avdyeov, ἕτοιμον.Ἷ Deest ἕτοιμον in MSS. 
Vulg. retinent Theophylactus, et versiones orientales omnes. 

V. 19. Καὶ ἄλλος μήτι ἐγὼ. Desunt hee in versionibus ; 
sed illa agnoscunt Theophylactus et Origenes Com. in Joh. 
p- 404. 

V. 22. Λάβετε, φάγετε. Deest φάγετε in versionibus; sed 
habet Theophylactus, “ Et sumebant ut comederent.” 

V. 27. "Ev τῇ νυκτὶ ταῦτη.] Ita Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. 
Arab. Millius autem Proleg. p. 162, “Ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ratrn, 
Matthmi esse vix dubito.” 

V. 67. Μετὰ τοῦ Ναζαρηνοῦ "Incod.] Ita omnes scholiaste et 
versiones. 

V. 70. Καὶ λαλιά cov ὁμοιάζει. Desunt hee in Vulg. 
Copt. sed habent ‘Theophylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers. Athiop. 
frustra ergo sunt qui hoc adjectitium censent. 

Cap. xv. 12. “Ov λέγετε βασιλέα. Vulg. Cant. βασιλεῖ, 
regni Judworum; sed Theophylactus et versiones textui 
consentiunt. 

V. 10. Αὐλῆς τοῦ xpatrwpiovr] Ita legendum inquit Millius, 
Proleg. p. 43, fide Vulg. Goth. Pers. At textus 6 ἐστι πραι- 
τώριον, sic et 'I’heophylactus, Syr. Arab. 


SECTIO TERTIA—IN LUCAM. 


Cap. i. 12. Kat ἐταράχϑη, καὶ φύβος ἐπέπεσεν én’ αὐτόν. 
Vana est hic Millit suspicio (App. p. 20), “versum hune 
fictum esse a quopiam,” ob similia que ad Mariam dicuntur 
vy. 29. Constat hoc ex Chrysostomo, ed. Mor. tom. v. p. 475, 
Theophylacto in locum, et versionibus omnibus excepta 
4Ethiop., a quibus omnibus hic versus pro genuino habetur; 
constat insuper ex verbis sequentibus μὴ φοβοῦ, Ζαχαρία. 

Cap. ii. 14. "Ev ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία.) “ Exdoxias eae Mil- 
lius), Alex. Cant. Vulg. Goth. Sax. Ireneus Lat. lib. iii. 
cap. 11, p. 216 (ubi Grabius, ‘Multum vereor ne Grecus 
Irenwi textus habuerit εὐδοκία in nominativo’), Hieronymus, 
Ambrosius, Augustinus (quibus adde Cyrillum Hieros. Ca- 
tech, 12, p. 120), sed codicibus MSS, ferme omnibus con- 
sentiunt Syr. Copt. Arab. Pers. thiop. Origenes (in Joh. 
p- 14, contra Cels. lib. i. p. 46), εὐδοκίας enim quod legunt 
Homiliis in Lucam interpretis est non Origenis; Eusebius, 
Chrysostomus (ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 261, 385, et tom. iii. p. 
1044), Theophylactus, alii (nempe Epiphanius, Her. Ebion. 
p- 154, Constit. Apost. lib. vii. cap. 47, p. 327. lib. viii. cap. 
13, p. 352, Theodoretus in Deut. qu. 42, et in Psalmos p. 
786), qui rectam lectionem amplectuntur;” ita Millius in 
locum. Nihilominus Proleg. p. 64, col. 2, ““ Ἔν ἀνθρώποις 
εὐδοκίας, ita legisse Origenem constat ex Latinis Hierony- 
mianis, hom. 13 in Lucam, omnino recte; ἄνθρωποι εὐδοκίας 
Hebraismus est, significat homines erga quos Deus se insigni- 
ter benevolum ostendit, seu quos peculiari quadam graita 
complectitur, hic autem sensus cum latuerit veteres Grecos, 
factum est jam olim ut in codicibus εὐδοκίας mutaretur in 
εὐδοκία." Quis teneat semper mutantem Protea vultum ? 

V. 33. Kai ἦν Ἰωσὴφ. Vulg. “ pater ejus:” sed Theophy- 
lactus, Syr. Arab. textui patrocinantur. 

V. 40. 'Exparatotro πνεύματι. “ Πνεύματι adjectum est ex 
hujus evangelii cap. i. 80,” sic Millius, Prol. p. 44, col. 
1. Habent autem Theophylactus, et versiones orientales 
omnes. 

Cap. iii. 19. Περὶ "Hpwdiddos τῆς γυναικὸς Φιλίππου. Deest 
Φιλίππου apud Theophylactum, et Vulg.: retinent versiones 
orientales omnes, et firmant hance lectionem loca parallela, 
Matt. xiv. 3, et Mare. vi. 17. 

V. 21. Ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ βαπτισϑῆναι. Deest ἐν τῷ in MSS. 
Habet Theophylactus, et versiones omnes legunt “Cum 
baptizaretur.” 

Cap. iv. 7. Ἔσται cov πάντα. Ita Matt. iv, 9, Vulg. Syr. 
Theophylactus πᾶσα, nimirum gloria et potestas de quibus 
locutus est, v. 6, in idem recidit. 

V.&. Ὕπαγε éricw pov, Σατανᾶ. Desunt hee apud MSS 


1168 


Origenem, Ambrosium. Beda notat, et Grotius, « neminem 
Grecorum Theophylacto antiquiorem ista verba hoc loco 
agnoscere, et quidem post additum ibi ὀπίσω μοῦ, quod in 
primis et vetustissimis codicibus, teste Origene, locum non 
habebat ;” sic ille. Sed pace utriusque legimus apud Justi- 
num Dialect. p. 331, hee verba, ἐν τοῖς ἀπομνημονεύμασι τῶν 
ἀποστύλων γέγραπται, προσελθὼν αὐτῷ καὶ πειράζων μέχρι τοῦ 
εἰπεῖν αὐτῷ πρυσκύνησόν μοι, καὶ ἀποκρίνεσϑαι αὐτῷ τόν Χριστὸν, 
ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου, Σατανᾶ: apud Athanasium, orat. 1, in Arian., 
ἤλεγξε αὐτὸν ὃ Κύριος ἐν τῷ λέγειν, trays ὀπίσω pov, Σατανᾶ" p. 
283, C, et or. 3, p. 440, ἀκούσας ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου, Σατανᾶ, et 
or. 4, p. 492, αὐτὸς μὲν γὰρ ἐπετίμα δι᾽ ἑαυτοῦ, Σατανᾶ, λέγων, 
ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου, Σατανᾶ: apud Chrysostomum, Matt. iv. 10, 
et Theophylactum in locum: utrum hee Matthei solius 
fuerint an etiam Luce, opere pretium non est investi- 
gare. 

V. 18. "IdcacSat τοὺς συντετριμμένους τὴν xapdiav.] Desunt 
hee verba in duobus MSS. Origene in Joh. p. 12, Copt. 
Ethiop. Augustino, Ambrosio. Fidem iis faciunt Ireneus 
lib. iv. cap. 40, p. 340, Theodoretus in Isa. Ixi. v. 1. LX-X. 
ib., Vulg. Syr. Arab. Pers. Porro evangelista dicente Chris- 
tum aperuisse librum, et locum invenisse ubi hee verba tam 
in Hebreo textu quam in LXX. Interpretibus scripta erant, 
multo magis verisimile est Christum hee ipsissima verba 
legisse, quam alium nescio quem verbis evangeliste ea adje- 
cisse: quod ab Origene omittuntur tanti non est; omittit 
enim, pariter cum Irenwo, verba sequentia, ἀποστείλαι τοὺ; 
teSpavopévous ἐν ἀφέσει. 

V. 33. Ἔχων πνεῦμα δαιμονίου ἀκαθάρτου, καὶ ἀνέκραξε φωνη.] 
Vulg. “demonium immundum,” MSS. φωνῇ μεγάλη omit- 
tunt: utrumque agnoscunt autem Theophylactus, Syr. Ori- 
genes in Joh. p. 158. Irrepserunt tamen, judice Millio, Prol. 
p. 44. 

Cap. v. 36. Οὐ συμφωνεῖ ἐπίβλημα. Ita Theophylactus et 
versiones omnes: et tamen Prol. p. 184, col. 1,  irrepsit ex 
priore parte hujus versiculi.” 

Cap. vi. 26. Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν Grav καλῶς ὑμᾶς εἴπωσιν πάντες. 
Deest hic ὑμῖν in Theophylacto; habent versiones omnes, 
sicut et versus precedentes: πάντες deest in MSS. versioni- 
busque multis; occurrit apud Theophylactum, Chrysosto- 
mum, hom. 23 in Gen. ed. Mor. tom. ii. p. 265, 266. tom. 
iii. p. 305, tom. iv. p. 575, atque hic ait Millius, “Omnino 
legendum arbitror, addendi causa nulla est, tollendi aliqua:” 
et tamen Prol. p. 126, col. 2, “ὑμῖν et πάντες irreptitia 
sunt.” 

V. 34. Ἵνα ἀπολάβωσι τὰ ἴσα.] Desunt τὰ ἴσα Cant. 
Agnoscunt Theophylactus et versiones antique universim: 
nihilominus Prol. p. 133, col. 2, “7a ica interpretamentum 
marginale videtur.” 

Cap. vii. 11. Of μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἱκανοί. Deest ἱκανοί, Vulg. 
Syr. Habent Theophylactus, et Arab. « Omissum hic primum 
ni fallor ex industria ab iis, qui per μαθηταὶ hic apostolos in- 
tellexere, non autem assiduos quosvis Christi sectatores :” at 
Prol. p. 44, col. 1, “ixavoi irrepsisse videtur ex y. 12: certe 
discipulos duodecim neutiquam μαθητὰς ἱκανοὺς vocasset hic 
evangelista, scriptor imprimis accuratus, qui nusquam voce 
ista utitur nisi de magna multitudine” (quasi non legisset in 
eodem de 120 discipulis, Act i. 15) ; “hos (inquit), duode- 


cim discipulos intelligit D. Lucas, ut colligere est ex Matt. | 


xi. 1; non autem, quod nos olim putavimus, Christi sec- 
tatores in genere.” 


quo minus Christus civitates Galilee et Judeorum pertran- 
siens, lisque evangelii doctrinam enuntians, sectatores multos, 
quales in Galilea haud pauci, post se traheret: sed non est 
Millio insolitum levi de causa a se divorsum ire. 

V. 24. τῶν ἀγγέλων ἸΙωάννον.] MSS. μαϑητων, discipuli, 
nimirum quos misit, erant ipsius nuncii. 

V. 28. Μείζων προφήτης. Deest in MSS. male: vide v. 
26. 

V. 46. Ἤλειψέ pov τοὺς πόδας. Desunt pov τοὺς πύδας in 
Cant. Ush. 2. Agnoscunt Theophylactus et versiones ; ait 
tamen Millius, Prol. p. 156, col. 1, “Modo extitissent in 
Luce authentico, nemo sanus pretermiserit.” 

Cap. viii. 8. Ταῦτα λέγων ἐφώνει ὃ ἔχων ὦτα ἀκούειν, ἀκουέτω. 
Agnoscunt hee verba Theophylactus, et versiones antique 
universim: et tamen dicente Millio, “in excusis ac MSS. 
fere adjecta sunt ista e Matthxo, aut Marco, e lectionariis, et 


Est certe locus Matthwxi dzpocdibvvaos, | 
loquitur enim ΤΠ). Lucas de ingressu Christi in urbem Naim, | 
de quo apud solum Lucam fit mentio, nec impedit aliquid | 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


posita sunt loco non suo, neque enim hic finitur lectio,” 
Prol. p. 155, col. 2: finitur tamen hic parabola. 

V. 34. ᾿Απελθόντες.] Deest apud MSS. Theophylactum, 
versiones :—sed subaudiendum est hoc vocabulum; qui 
enim pastores factum hoc nunciasse poterant in civitatem et 
in villas, nisi paullo ante discessissent a monte, ubi grex 
poreorum pascebat ? 

V. 54. ᾿Εκβαλὼν ἔξω πάντας. ‘Marci sunt;’’ agnoscunt 
autem Theophylactus, Cod. Alex. Syr. Arab. Pers. 

Cap. ix. 1. MaSnras αὐτοῦ. Desunt apud MSS. Theophy- 
lactum, et Dial. contra Marcion. p. 58.—Theophylactus vero 
paullo post agnoscit hec verba, sicut etiam dialogus iste in 
margine: Vulg. Arab. Syr. “duodecadem suam;” et cum 
οἱ δώδεκα essent Christi discipuli, deficientibus illis verbis non 
deficit sensus. 

V. 3. Mire ῥάβδους. V. 1. ῥάβέον, ut Mattheus ;—male. 
Marc. vi. 8, precepit eis ne quid tolerent in viam εἰ μὴ ῥάβδον 
μύνον" vide de his ἐναντιυφάνεσι annotata nostra ad Matt. x. 
10. 

V. 10. Πύλεως καλουμένης Βηϑσαϊδά.] Ita Theophylactus et 
Joh. i. 45, e versionibus non pauce omittunt πόλεως καλου- 
μένης, de veritate rei forsan sollicite ; nam Chrysostomus in 
Orat. contra Gentiles, ed Mor. tom. i. p. 653, Petrum hu- 
jus urbis incolam vocat τὸν πόλεως ἀσήμου πολίτην, μᾶλλον ὁ' 
οὐδὲ πόλεως, ἀλλὰ τῆς κώμης τῆς ἐσχάτης" et teste Josepho, 
Philippus tetrarcha condidit muroque cinxit τὴν κώμην 
Βηϑσαϊδὰν, tribuens illi τῆς πόλεως ἀξίωμα, appellans simul 
nomen illius Julias, in honorem sc. Julie Augusti filie, Ant. 
lib. xviii. cap. 3. 

V. 23. KaS’ ἡμέραν. Desunt hee in MSS. 25, Origenis 
Exhort. ad Martyr. p. 173.—Retinent Cyrillus Alex. tom. i. 
Ῥ. 597, Theophylactus, ed. Rom. 1542, versiones antique 
omnes. 

V. 54. ‘Qs καὶ ᾿Ηλίας ἐποίησε. Hee omittit Vulg—Habent 
vero (fatente hic Millio) Graca exemplaria fere omnia, Syr. 
Arab. Pers. thiop. Theophylactus, Chrysostomus de Peenit. 
hom. 1, ed Mor. p. 747. Nihilominus “ irrepsisse ex mar- 
gine” dicit Millius, Prol. p. 44. 

Cap. xi. 18. Πνεῦμα ἅγιον.) Vulg. ἀγαϑὸν, repugnante 
Theophylacto, et versionibus omnibus, 

V. 29. ᾿Ιωνᾶ τοῦ rpopijrov.] Ita Theophylactus et versiones 
omnes:—sed Prol. p. 152, “ τοῦ προφήτου Matthei esse non 
est quod dubitemus.” 

V. 38. Ὃ. δὲ φαρισαῖος ἰδὼν ἐθαύμασεν. Ita Theophylactus, 
et versiones omnes orientales: Vulg. ἤρξατο διακρινύμενος ἐν 
ἑαυτῷ γέμειν" ὅτι οὐκ, et hanc lectionem esse germanam pro- 
nunciat Millius, Prol. p. 133, col. 2. 

V. 44. Τραμματεῖς καὶ Φαρισαῖοι, ὑποκριταί. Desunt hee in 
Vulg. et duobus MSS. addititia videntur, inquit Lucas 
Brugensis, id quod ex sequenti commate satis clare colligi 
posse putat Grotius: non esse adjectitia patet ex Theophy- 
lacto, Arab. ‘Ethiop. Pers. ex commate 43, οὐαὶ ὑμῖν φαρι- 
σαῖοι, et ex commate 45, droxpScis ris τῶν νομικῶν, est enim 
νυμικὸς γραμματεὺς (vide annotata nostra in Mar. xii. 28) et 
professione phariseus. 

Cap. xii. 14. Ἢ μεριστὴν. Ita Theophylactus et versiones ; 
hoc autem cum Marcione insititium esse vult Millius, Prol. 
Ρ. 33, col. 2, p. 44, col. 1. 

V.18. Τὰ ἀγαϑά pov.] “ Sequentia καὶ τὰ ἀγαϑά pov ad- 
scripta primum ad marginem e versu proxime sequente, 
irrepsere mox in contextum, et codices jam universim occu- 
pant;” hee Millius Prol. p. 106, col. 2. Ex mero de Vul- 
gato suo somnio, ut liquet ex his verbis ita simpliciter Lin. 
Cant. et Vulg. initio ut videtur. Agnoscunt enim hee verba 
versiones omnes, C. Alex. Basil. tom. ii. p. 452, Euthym. 
Theophylact. Hieronymus, postulantque verba sequentia, v. 
19, « Dicam anime mew, ἔχεις πολλὰ dyaSa-” denique tripli- 
citer peccasse hunc divitem volunt Basilius, Chrysostomus, 
alii; (1.) Quod vera bona divitias suas existimavit, (2.) 
Quod bona sua, (3.) Quod bona anime, v. 19. 

V. 31. Καὶ ταῦτα πάντα προστεθήσεται tyiv.] Deest πάντα 
Tertulliano, Marcioni. Habent Theophylactus et versiones 
omnes; non videtur omittendum, inquit Lucas Brugensis ; 
et tamen Prol. p. 33, “ medium hoc πάντα Matthzi est.” 

V. 38. Ἔν τῇ τρίτη φυλακῇ.] Ἕσπερινὴ φυλακή posuit Mar 
cion pro τρίτη, Epiphanius; et tamen ait Millius; “« Hec 
genuina esse Luce non dubito, Epiphanium in errorem, ut 
alia non semel, seduxit vitiosum exemplar,” Prol. p. 33, 
col. 2. Seduxit cum eo Basilium, lib. ii. p. 44, Theophy- 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


lactum, et versiones universim; unde quod Marcioni “hic 
dicit Epiphanius, p. 335, Millio dictum putes, ἐλήλεγται 
μεταστρέψας τοὺς θείους λόγους ἀνοῆτως πρὸς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ὑπονοίαν. 
“Ἑσπερινὴ φυλακὴ in evangeliis nusquam occurrit, sed δευτέρα, 
τρίτη, τετάρτη tantum. 

V. 49. Ei ἤδη ἀνήφθη. Origenes εἴτε δὲ ἐκάη, Philoc. p. 106, 
et Hom. in Ex. ed. Huetii, tom. i. p. 22, Cyrillus autem 
Hieros. Catech. 17, p. 195, Chrysostomus, ed Mor. tom. iii. 
Ρ. 216, et Theophylactus, textum sequuntur. 

Cap. xiii. 21. Eis ἀλεύρου σάτα pia.) Ita ‘Theophylactus, 
et versiones omnes; “Ambrosius non legit sata tria, in 
Mattheo (inquit) legitur tribus mensuris.” 

V. 35. Ὃ οἶκος ὑμῶν ἔρημος. “Deest ἔρημος apud MSS. 
codices, Euthymium, nec agnoscunt Latini quidam, teste 
Grotio ; adjici videtur huc ex Matt. xxiii, 38,” Lucas Brug. 
Ex quo loco potius stabilitur; habent enim hic 'Theophylac- 
tus, et versiones omnes, et ad sensum complendum est vox 
plane necessaria. 

Cap. xiv. 5. Tivos ὑμῶν ὁ ὄνος ἣ Bois.) Millius, Prol. p. 44, 
col. 2, “"Οἵς ἢ Cant. ut liquet ex ejus Latinis, ‘Cujus ex vobis 
ovis aut bos,’ verum diu est cum originaria ἰδία Grea per- 
ierunt, ex dis factum a posterioribus Gracis vids ita quidem 
legunt C. Alex. Theophylact. Syr. tandem vero a quopiam 
mutatum vids in ὄνος, maxime quod alias in evangelio con- 
junctim legantur, cap. xii. 15.” Quod quidem cum factum 
fuerit a Christo in priore capite, eademque instantia, satis ex 
co liquet quod iisdem asini et bovis exemplis et hic usus sit. 
Porro asinum hic legunt Hieronymus, Vulg. Arab. ADthiop. 
Beda dis Cant. solus, patre nullo, versione nulla suffraganti- 
bus, immo utrum ipse δὲς legerit necne, vel Millio teste, in- 
certum est, is enim notis in hunc locum sic, “ Cant. πρόβα- 
τον ἢ, prout Christus ipse Matt. xii. 11.” 

Cap. xvi. 8. "Ore φρονίμως ἐποίησεν. “ Deest Theophy- 
lact. :” ita Millius festinanter ; legit enim Theophylactus. 

V. 12. Τὸ ὑμέτερον. V. 1. τὸ ἡμέτερον. Ita Theophylac- 
tus, et Origenes, hom. 7, in Jer. ed. Huetii, tom. i. p. 94; 
sed versiones omnes editis congruunt: plurimas variantes 
lectiones affert ex Dial. contra Marcion. p. 55, 56, quod si in 
editione Aldina oram libri inspexisset, plerasque carum 
cum textu convenientes reperisse potuit, speciatim v. 22 et 
23. Variationes etiam quasdam minutulas profert ex 
Clemente Alex. Pedag. lib. ii. cap. 10, p. 199, sed omittit 
Millius posteriorem clausulam, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν ἐκολάζετο ἐν ἀὁη ὑ 
πλούσιος μετέχων τοῦ πυρὸς, ὃ δὲ ἀρέϑαλλεν ἐν κόλποις τοῦ πατρός" 
que clausula satis est argumenti quod Clemens Al. se illic 
textus verbis astringi noluerit. De Tertulliano, qui solus 
legit “ Quod meum est,” nihil dico. 

Cap. xvii. 10. Δοῦλοι ἁγρεῖοί ἐσμεν. Ita Theophylactus, 
Vulg. Syr. Arab. et Lat. Origenes, Hom. in Jos. f. 163, D. 
“Servi supervacui,” Cyprianus ad Quirin. lib. iii. §. 51, et 
ep. 33, Hieronymus, Epist. ad Ctesiph. contra Pelagium, tom. 
ii. f. 91, A, Chrysostomus de Peenit. hom. 10, ed. Mor. tom. 
i. p. 636, hom. 4 in Gen. tom. ii. p. 39, tom. iii. p. 858, 
872. tom. v. p. 378. Desunt tantum in vers. Athiop. unde 
Millius ἄχρεῖοι, quod jam est in omnibus codicibus, “ Vereor 
ne irrepsit e margine,” Prol. p. 124, col. 1. 

Cap. xviii. 14, Descendit hic justificatus in domum suam 
ἢ ἐκεῖνος. Origenes in Cels. lib. iii. p. 150, legit ἢ yap ἐκεῖνος, de 
qua lectione Erasmus ait, “In plerisque non invenio:” alii 
zap’ ἐκεῖνον, quod Grotio placet: Basilius, tom. ii. p, 461, et 
Chrysostomus, ed. Mor. tom. i. p. 349, ἤπερ ἐκεῖνοι, quod in 
omnibus ad idem recidit; mihi pre ceteris placet lectio tex- 
tus ut Hellenistico idiomati magis consona, ubi ἢ pro μᾶλλον 
ἢ multoties occurrit: vide annotata nostra in locum, vide 
etiam Phavorinum et alios exempla ex Homero addu- 
centes,. 

Cap. xix. 25.] Hune versum agnoscunt Theophylactus, 
et versiones universim: “ Lubens nisi repugnarent omnes 
fere codices pro irreptitio habuerim,” ait Millius, Prol. p. 155. 

Cap. xx. 1. διδάσκοντος αὐτοῦ τὸν λαὸν ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ. Deest ἐν 
τῷ ἱερῷ, Iren—Habent omnes scholiastes, et versiones, nec 
invenio ubi desit apud Irenzum; codices tantum MSS. ap- 


pellat Millius, Prol. p. 162, col. 2, quorum fide irreptitium | 


esse putat. 

V.19. ᾿Ἐῤοβήθησαν τὸν λαόν. Ita Theophylactus et versi- 
ones omnes: deest τὸν λαὸν tantum apud codices MSS. et 
famen “ τὸν λαὸν haud dubie adjectum est ex aliis locis evan- 
gelii,” Prol. p. 33, col. 2, frustra Matt. xxi. 46, Mar. xii. 12, 
legunt τὸν ὄχλον. 

Vor. IV.—147 


1169 


Cap. xxi. 24. "Axpe πληρωθῶσι καιροὶ ἐθνῶν. Ita Theophy- 
| Jactus et versiones omnes: legendum simpliciter vult Millius 
ἄχρις οὗ πληρωθῶσι,  atque ita se habuisse arbitror airéypapov 
hujus evangeliste; qui paullo clarius explicata hee vole- 
bant, addebant in margine καιροὶ ἐθνῶν," Prol. p. 133, col. 2. 
—Vide locum, lector, ut scias quam precaria, quam ἁμάρτυρα 
sint omnia, et pene dixerim absurda, frigida, et jejuna. 

Cap. xxii. 36. Καὶ 6 μὴ ἔχων πωλησάτω τὸ ἱμάτιον αὐτοῦ, 
καὶ ἀγορασάτω μάχαιραν MSS. quidam codices habent 
πωλήσει et ἀγοράσει" atque ita lectum in multis wtatis sue ex- 
emplaribus testatur Basilius: fidem textui faciunt Origenes 
Matt. p. 368, Theophylactus, versiones omnes; immo quod 
mireris, ipse Basilius in Asceticis de priori commate hee 
habet, ὁ ἔχων βαλάντιον ἀράτω ἣ ἀρεῖ, οὕτω yap τὰ πολλὰ τῶν 
ἀντιγράφων ἔχει" p. 510, πωλησάτω καὶ ἀγορασάτω cum textu 
legit: boc tantum adjiciens quod ex multis locis constat 
κεχρῆσθαι τὸ προσταττικὸν εἶδος τοῦ λύγου ἀντὶ προφητικοῦ. 
Nihil hice verius quam quod a Grotio annotatum est; viz. 
imperativum hoc loco in futurum vertisse quosdam, qui of- 
fensi erant precepti sibi non intellecti novitate: ἀπολεῖται 
μὲν inquit Origenes, qui horum verborum sensum non 
capiens emit sibi gladium; et Basilius in modo allatis re- 
spondet iis qui hee pugnare existimabant cum hoe dicto 
Christi, “ Omnes qui acceperint gladium, gladio peribunt.” 

V. 42. Ei βυύλει παρενεγκεῖν τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο dm’ épod.] 
MSS. codices legunt παρελθεῖν, παρανέγκη, παρανέγκαι, παρ- 
ανέγκη" Origenes et Epiphanius παρελθέτω, hoc autem ab iis 
factum esse censet Grotius ob hoc loquendi genus, non in- 
tellectum est enim εἰ βούλει, &c., “ Utinam velles auferre.” 

Cap. xxiii. 43. Λέγω σοι σήμερον per’ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ iv τῷ παρα- 
δέισῳ.] Millius hic Origenem citat, qui Com. in Joh. p. 
421, quosdam #tatis sue memorat adeo perturbatos dicto 
hoc (partim quia opinioni eorum de Christi in inferos de- 
scensu adversari, partim quia penitentiam quam quis ferme 
moriens ageret, nimium probare visum est) ut suspicarentur 
προστεϑεῖσθαι τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ. 

V. 40. Eis χεῖρας cov παραθήσομαι τὸ πνεῦμα μοῦ. Hie 
Justinus, Dial. cum Tryph. p. 333, et Origenes in Mattheum, 
Ρ. 422, legunt παρατίθεμαι voce media, alii παρατίθημι “ com- 
mendo:” textus tamen convenit cum versione LXX. et voce 
Hebraica προ. Sed parvi res, siquidem, ut notat Grotius, 
“futurum hic more Hebreo pro presenti est.” Sequitur καὶ 
ταῦτα εἰπὼν ἐξέπνευσεν. Hee agnoscunt C. Al. Theophylact. 
versiones universim. Et tamen Millio suspecta sunt rapep- 
βλήσεως, Prol. p. 160, col. 2. 

Cap. xxiv. 1. Kat τινὲς σὺν αὐταῖς. “ Commentarius est,” 
Millius, Prol. p. 44. Retinent autem Codex Alex. Theo- 
phylactus, Syr. Arab. Pers. 

V. 46. Καὶ οὕτως ἔδει.1 “Sumpta sunt (inguit Millius ib.) 
ex. v. 20. Agnoscunt tamen Codex Alex. ‘Theophylactus, 
Vulg. Spr. Pers. 

V. 47. ᾿Αρξάμενον.Ἶ Vulg. ἀρξαμένων, « χρείο Millius, ibid. 
Viz. ἀρξάμενόν ἔσται τὸ κήρυγμα, ἢ ἀρξαμένων τὴν κήρυξιν τῶν 
ἀποστόλων. 

V. 52. Προσκυνήσαντες αὐτόν. Ita Theophylactus et versi- 
ones omnes: nihilominus Prol. p. 44, col. 2, lector quis- 
piam huc traduxit ex Matt. xxviii. 17. 


SECTIO QUARTA—IN JOHANNEM. 


Cap. i. 16. Καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ. MSS. ὅτι et Orige- 
nes in Joh. p. 82. Greca scholia, et versiones omnes textui 
consentiunt, contextu id exigente, nec enim rationem hee 
verba exhibent prioris commatis, sed pergunt in beneficiis 
explicandis a Christo provenientibus: et tamen, Prol. p. 87, 
col. 1, “ pro ὅτι notatum ab aliquo καὶ, quod mox transiit in 
contextum.” 

V.18. 'O μονογενὴς vids.] Treneus, lib. iv. cap. 37, p. 355, 
legit “unigenitus Deus,” et in eodem cap. p. 333, “unige- 
nitus filius,” et lib. iii. cap. 11, p. 219, “ unigenitus filius 
Dei ;” Origenes semper ὃ μονογενὴς Θεῦς, sc. Com. in Joh. p. 
| 82, ὃ μονογενὴς υἱὸς Θεὸς, p. 94, μονογενῆς ye ὧν Θεὸς, lib. ii. 
contra Cels. p. 104, Syr. “unigenitus ille Deus:” antiqua 
ergo fuit hee lectio facili errore legentium Yc pro Gc: pa- 
tres enim sequentium etatum, contra Arium militantes, tex- 
tum continuo sequuntur. Puta Athanasius, tom. i. p. 270, 
Epiphanius, Anchorat. p. 7, Eusebius de Eccles. Theol. lib. 
i. cap. 20, §. 7. lib. ii. cap. 23, p. 142, Basilius de Spiritu S. 
cap. 6, p 302, 


4x2 


1170 


V. 27. Ὃς ἔμπροσϑέν pov yéyorey.] Ita Greca scholia, et 
versiones omnes; firmante hance lectionem v. trigesimo et v. 
15. Et tamen ex fide Nonni et #thiop. “ irrepsisse viden- 
tur ex v. 15, et v. trigesimo,” Prol. p. 87, col. 1. 

V. 28. Ταῦτα ἐν Βηθαβαρὰ ἐγένετο. Hanc lectionem firmant 
Epiphanius, Her. li, p. 434, Origenes in Joh. p. 130, 131, 
Theophylactus, Chrysostomus, et Suidas; de quibus vide lu- 
culentam Millii annotationem, atque Prol. p. 101, col. 2. 

V. 52. An’ ἄρτι. Desunt hee in Vulg.Copt. Agnoscunt 
Theophylactus, Chrysostomus, Syr. Arab. Pers. 

Cap. li. 16. Τοῖς τὰς περιστερὰς πωλοῦσι. Ita Theophylac- 
tus, et versiones universim; Cod. Cyprius πωλοῦντι. « Fac- 
tum jam olim videtur plurale ob sequentia ἄρατε, ποιεῖτε, 
Millius, Prol. p. 87, col. 1. 

V.17. Karépayé pe.) Theophylactus, Chrysostomus, ver- 
siones omnes, p. 70. Inter Ps. Ixix. 9. Καταφάγεται inquit 
Millius MSS. cod. Origenes in Joh. p. 183. Perfida fide, 
legendum ibi xarépayé, ob sequentia, οὕτω yap κεῖται ἐν τῷ 
προφήτῃ, καὶ οὐχὶ καταφάγεται, quo non obstante “ genuinum 
Johannis est καταφάγεται," Prol. p. 127, col. 1. 

V. 19. Λύσατε τὸν ναὸν τοῦτον. Origenes addit Θεοῦ, in Joh. 
Ῥ. 149; τοῦτον autem legit, p. 183, 4, 6. 

Cap. iii. 25. Facta est autem questio ex discipulis Johan- 
nis μετὰ ᾿Ιουδαίων.1 Ita Origenes in Joh. p. 151, MSS. cod. 
et Chrysostomus, μετὰ Ἰουδαίου, Theophylactus textu, μετὰ 
᾿Ιουδαίων, Com. πρὸς 'Τουδαῖόν τινα, plures nempe aderant, unus 
questionem movebat ventilabatque. 

Cap. iv. 3. ᾿Απῆλθε πάλιν. Deest πάλιν in MSS. aliquot. 
Habent Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. Ethiop. Cum 
vero Christus in Galilza ante id tempus versatus fuerit, et ex 
ea Hierosolymam ascenderit ad celebrandum pascha, recte 
dicitur abiisse iterum in Galileam. 

V. 35. Τετράμηνον.] Origenes in Joh. p. 230, 232, legit 
τετράμηνος sub. χρόνος. Chrysostomus et ‘Theophylactus re- 
τράμηνον substantive. Vide Budeum. 

Cap. ν. 2. Ἐπὶ τῇ προβατικῇ κολυμβήθρα. Προβατικὴ κολ. 
Ita Vulg. Arab. Althiop. Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, 
Theodorus Mopsuest. ac Ammonius in Catena, Hieronymus, 
Beda, perperam trahentes ad piscinam quod de urbis porta 
dicitur, cujus in s. literis mentio non semel: corrige ergo 
annotata nostra in hunc locum, nos enim cum iis erravimus. 

V. 4.] Agnoscunt hune versum Greca scholia et versiones 
omnes: C. Alex. Hieronymus, August. tom. viii. in Ps. 
Ixxxiii. p. 922. “Veruntamen mihi (inquit Millius) vehe- 
mens suspicio est irrepisse jam olim Evangelio ad Hebreos,” 
Prol. p. 45. 

V. 9. Kai εὐθέως ἐγένετο ὑγιὴς ὃ ἄνθρωπος. Agnoscunt etiam 
hee Greca scholia, et versiones omnes. Nihilominus utcun- 
que in plerisque al. cod. locum habent, quoniam in Codice 
Trit. desunt, “desumpta videntur ex v. 4 hujus cap. quem 
voSeticews suspectum habeo,” Prol. p. 154, col. 2. 

V. 16. Καὶ ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν ἀποκτεῖναι. Desunt hee Vulg. 
Habent Greea scholia, et versiones orientales, et v. 18 firmat 
hanc lectionem: “sunt tamen huc traducta ex v. 18,” Prol. 
p- 45, col. 1; ita Millius. 

V. 27. Kpiow ποιεῖν ὅτι vids ἀνθρώπου ἐστί. V. 28. Μὴ θαυ- 
μάζετε τοῦτο.] Theodoretus, orat. 11 adv. Gent. p. 657, hee 
verba ita conjungit versu 27, ὅτι vids ἀνθρώπου ἐστὶ, μὴ Sav- 
μάζετε τοῦτο. Chrysostomus et Theophylactus vulgatam lec- 
tionis distinctionem ceu Pauli Samosatensis commentum im- 
probant, et locum hoc glossemate explicant, μὴ ϑαυμάζετε 
ὅτι vids ἀνθρώπου ἐστὶ, καὶ yap καὶ vids Θεοῦ ἐστι" ita pariter 
Syr. Origenes autem in Joh. p. 334, Cyrillus, Augustinus 
hic, Vigilius contra Eutych. lib. v. et versiones relique om- 
nes, legunt cum texftu: et hanc lectionem Maldonatus genu- 
inam esse probat his verbis: “Si ‘filius hominis est? et cum 
sequentibus jungenda essent, non dixisset Christus ‘ Quia 
filius hominis est nolite mirari,’ perversa et inusitata verbo- 
rm collocatione, sed ‘Nolite mirari quia filius hominis 
est,’ hic enim naturalis est verborum fluxus: preterea quid 
fuceret pronomen illud τοῦτο additum ad finem? si enim su- 
periora verba ad verbum ‘mirari’ referantur, jam verbum 
saum habebit accusativum, nec alterum poterat admittere.” 

Cap. vi. 11. Διέδωκε τοῖς μαϑηταῖς, of δὲ paSnrai τοῖς dva- 
κειμένοις. Ex aliis evangelistis adjecta esse ista, τοῖς paSn- 
ταῖς, ot dé paSnrai, notarunt jam olim, teste Millio, Eras- 
mus, Zegerus, Grotius, viz. quia omittuntur a MSS. aliquot, 
versionibus, Nonno, et Augustino: sed occurrunt non modo 
apud Theophylactum, sed et apud Matt. xiv. 18, Mar. vi. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


41. ἄσυο. ix. 16. Verissimum igitur est Christum distribu- 
isse panes discipulis, ut illi ponerent ante discumbentes ; 
similiter se gessit Christus, cum payisset quatuor millia ho- 
minum, Matt. xv. 36. Mar. viii. 1. Et receptam lectionem 
genuinam esse res ipsa indicat; Christum enim sua ipsius 
manu absque ulla discipulorum ope, panes et deinceps pis- 
ces distribuisse inter quinque millia hominum, totidemque 
forsan mulieres et parvulos, incredibile quidem videtur, et 
quod fere fieri non potuit. 

Ν. 14. Οὗτός ἐστιν ἀληϑῶς ὃ προμήτης.] Τὸ ἁληϑῶς habent 
Greeca scholia, et versiones omnes, veruntamen, dicente Mil- 
lio, “interjectum est ἀληθῶς ex cap. vil. v. 40,” Prol. p. 133, 
col. 2. 

V. 32. Εῤγαριστήσαντος τοῦ Knpion.] Desunt hee in Chry- 
sostomo et Syr. Retinent Theophylactus et versiones reli- 
que: “irrepserunt tamen e margine.” Ibid. 

V. 39.] Deest πατρύς in MSS. et versionibus aliquot, 
Chrysostomo et Cyrillo. At cum pater miserit Christum, 
vox illa necessario subaudienda est. 

V. 581. Σὰρξ ἣν ἐγὼ δώσω. “ Hee verba irrepsere e margine 
ad supplendam sententiam,” Millius, Prol. p. 45, col. 1. 
Agnoscunt autem Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, et versio- 
nes universim. 

V.55. Ἢ σάρξ pow ἀληϑῶς ἐστι βρῶσις, καὶ τὸ αἷμά μου ἀληθῶς 
ἔστι πόσις.) MSS. aliquot, Arab, Chrysostomus, Cyrillus, et 
Origenes, in Joh. p. 164, legunt d\n3js. Sed Origenes in 
Matt. p. 417, et Gregorius Nyss. hom. 8 in Eccl. p. 457, 
legunt ἐληϑῶς, et sic Theophylactus, Vulg. Syr. 42thiop. 

Ad finem v. 56, Stephanus et Cant. addunt καϑὼς ἐν ἐμοὶ 
ὃ πατὴρ, κἀγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρί" ἀμὴν, ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν μὴ λάβητε 
τὸ σῶμα τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ὡς τὸν ἄρτον τῆς ζωῆς, οὐκ ἔχετε 
ζωὴν ἐν αὐτῷ. “Hee ipsius Johannis verba esse” asserit 
Millius in appendice, ex fide sc. Cant. (de quo tamen co- 
dice “mirum in modum interpolato” vide judicium Milli, 
Prol. p. 132, col. 2.) Agnoscit illa nullus pater, nulla ver- 
sio, nullus commentator; atque iis omissis citat hoc caput a 
ν. 53 ad v. 58 Origenes, περὶ Εὐχῆς, p. 88, 89. Nec Chris- 
tus per totum hoc caput vocabulum σῶμα usurpat, nec lo- 
quitur de corpore suo sacramentaliter capiendo, ut alibi 
fusius ostensum est: nihilominus “ restituta” vult Millius, 
Prol. p. 74. 

V.58.] Τὸ μάννα, et v. 64, of μὴ πιστεύοντες, agnoscunt 
Greci reliquique interpretes omnes: omittit τοῦ ζῶντος, v. 
69, unicus Vulg. Sed Prol. p. 164, col. 2, “expressum in 
margine τὸ μάννα in omnes mox codices manavit:” et Prol. 
p- 88, col. 1, “insertum in posterioribus μὴ ex priore parte 
versiculi:” et Prol. p. 45, col. 1, “τοῦ ζῶντος adjectum ex 
Mattheo.” 

Cap. vii. 1. Οὐ yap ἤϑελεν ἐν τῇ ᾿Ιουδαία περιπατεῖν. Ita 
Theophylactus, et versiones, codicesque MSS, omnes, nec 
enim unum producere potuit Millius qui aliter legerit, ita 
Chrysostomus in textu, Comm. autem οὐ γὰρ εἶχεν ἐξουσίαν. 
Nihilo secius dicit Millius “ οὐκ ἤδελεν insertum est in genui- 
ne (εἶχεν) locum ut congruentius,” Prol. p. 84, col. 1. Mil- 
lio nimirum ad novam lectionem in textum introducendam 
autor satis est unus, immo satis est nullus. 

V. 8. Ἐγὼ οὔπω ἀναβαίνω. Hanc lectionem satis stabilivi 
in annotatis meis, quibus subjunge (1.) Millius ait οὐκ dva- 
Batvw ex Chrysostomo, Cyrillo (Cyrillus ille est Clicthoveus 
quidam, homo nuperus) esse legendum; Chrysostomus ta- 
men habet (quod Millium parum ingenue id celantem, non 
fugit) οὐκ ἀναβαίνω ἄρτι, et deinde addit, Christus non locutus 
est καϑάπαξ οὐκ ἀναβαίνω, ἀλλὰ viv, τοὔύτεστι μεϑ' ὑμῶν, Ego 
jam non ascendo, i. 6. non vobiscum. (2.) Porphyrius non 
calumniatus est Christum de mendacio, sicut Grotius et Mil- 
lius opinantur, sed solummodo condemnavit eum inconstan- 
tie et mutationis: Hieronymus adv. Pelag. tom. i. f. 103, G. 

V. 21. Kai πάντες ϑαυμάζετε διὰ τοῦτο. 22. Μωσῆς.] Ita 
Theophylactus. Sed versiones omnes, et Cyrillus Al. tom. 
iii. p. 521, ponunt stigma post Savpdtere. Corrige ergo 
annotata mea in hunc locum. Non enim interpunctionem 
hane cum Millio genuinam existimo, Prol. p. 105, col. 2. 

V. 26. Μήποτε ἀληθῶς ἔγνωσαν of ἄρχοντες ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν aAn- 
θῶς ὃ Χριστός. MSS. plura, Syr. Copt. Pers. thiop. omit- 
tunt posterius ἀληθῶς, et sic Origenes in Joh. p. 161, 162. 
Retinent autem Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Cod. Alex. 
sensu quidem commodo: “ Nunquid certis indiciis cognove- 
runt principes quia hic vere est Christus ?” 

V. 35. "Ore ἡμεῖς οὐκ εὑρήσομεν αὐτὸν. Desunt hec apud 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


1171 


Chrysostomum et Nonnum. Agnoscunt Theophylactus, et | bant vel πάντα, vel ἅταντα : judice tamen Millio, “ πάντα 


versiones omnes; suntque plane necessaria ad complendum 
sensum. 

V. 45. Kai φαρισαίους.1 Ita Greca scholia, et versiones om- 
nes. Nihilominus, Prol. p. 87, col. 1, “xat φαρισαίου;, quod 
amplius in nostris, vix obstat codicum consensus quo minus 
translatum hue putem ex. v. 47 hujus capitis.” 

Cap. viii. 1—8.] Quod ad historiam de muliere in adulte- 
rio deprehensa attinet, vide annotationem Milli, ubi illam 
tuetur ac defendit. Vide etiam P. Simonii Crit. Hist. N. T. 
lib. i. cap. 13. 

Υ. 14. Ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐκ οἵδατε πόθεν ἔμχομαι, καὶ ποῦ ὑπάγω. Τα 
Greca scholia et versiones omnes. 

Ver. 34. Δουλός ἐστιν τῆς ἁμαρτίας. “Apaprias agnoscunt 


Grea scholia, versiones omnes, et Origenes in Matt. p. 317. 


“« Adjectum esse” censet Millius, Prol. p. 133. 

V. 52. Eis τὸν aidva.] Ita Origenes in Joh, p. 336, The- 
ophylactus, et versiones universim. 

V. 53. Μὴ σὺ μείζων εἶ τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ᾿Δβραάμ Kai οἱ 
προῤῆται ἀπέϑανον.Ἷ Ita Origenes in Joh. p. 336, Theophylac- 
tus, versiones omnes. Nihilominus dicente Millio, τοῦ πατρός 
ὑμῶν, Prol. p. 133, καὶ of προφῆται ἀπέϑανον, Prol. p. 162, irrep- 
serunt ex precedentibus. 

Υ. 517. Πεντήκοντα ἔτη οὔπω Exets.] Recepta est hee lectio 
Nonni, Theophylacti, Irenei, omnium denique exemplari- 
um: Chrysostomus tamen legit τεσσαμάκοντα, tom. i. ed. Mor. 
Ῥ. 364, et in locum ἐγγὺς τεσσαράκοντα. 

Cap. ix. 8. "Ori rvgAds iv.] Ita Theophylactus ; προσαίτης, 
Chrysostomus, et versiones omnes, parvo discrimine, “ men- 
dicus” nimirum, quia cecus. 

V. 31. Τούτου ἀκοῦει.} “ Addita hee omnino videntur ad 
supplendam sententiam,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 154, col. 2. 
Sed agnoscunt hee verba C. Alex. Theophylactus, et versi- 
ones omnes. 

Cap. x. 8. Πάντες ὅσοι πρὸ ἐμοῦ ἦλϑον.] Deest πρὸ ἐμοῦ Ba- 
silio, et Chrysostomo. Verum cum codices plurimi etiam 
Cant. Alex. Cypr. ac Clemens Alex. (adde Origenem in 
Matt. p. 220, in Joh. p. 41, Hieronymum, lib. ii. adv. Pe- 
lag. f. 103, I.) lectionem receptam preferant, “crediderim 
a librariis olim expuncta ista, seu auctoritati prophetarum 
adversantia, scilicet, certe Manichwos ex his verbis collegisse 
prophetas non esse missos a Deo, auctor est Theophylac- 
tus:” ita Millius; immo Chrysostomus iisdem respondens 
ait hee non de prophetis, sed de Juda et 'Theuda intelligen- 
da esse. 

Cap. Xii. 32. Πάντας ἑλκύσω πρὸς ἐμαυτόν. Codices MSS. 
quidam, Vulg. Ireneus, Hieronymus, Augustinus, Justus 
Urgelit. Gaudentius legunt πάντα: Origenes autem Com. 
in Matt. p. 283, in Joh. p. 412, Chrysostomus, et Theophy- 
lactus legunt cum textu. Vid. plures apud Millium, Prol. 
p- 66, col. 1, suntque hee verba de hominibus tantum intel- 
ligenda. 

V. 42. "Iva μὴ ἀποσυνάγωγοι γένωνται. Ita Greca scho- 
lia et versiones omnes: omittit Nonnus, carminis forte 
gratia. 

Cap. xiii. 19. Πρὸ τοῦ γενέσϑαι. Legunt hee verba Ori- 
genes in Joh. p. 394, 395, 398, Theophylactus, antique 
versiones universim: non obstante tamen codicum hodierno- 
rum suffragio, “inter scholia marginalia omnino posuerim,” 
inguit Millius, Prol. p. 160, col. 1. 

V. 31. "Ore οὖν ἐξῆλθε. Si subjungantur ista verba com- 
mati tricesimo, omittendum est οὖν, quod agnoscunt MSS. et 
textus. Quod si, pariter ac editio Oxoniensis ac versio An- 
glicana, claudas comma illud cum his verbis ἦν δὲ νὺξ, recte 
lezas in commate sequenti Gre οὖν ἐξῆλδε, λέγει, &e. et sic 
Origenes in Joh. p. 410, Vulg. aliique. 

Cap. xiv. 30. Kai ἐν ἐμοὶ οὐκ ἔχει οὐδέν] Epiphanius, Her. 
Manich. p. 180, §. 64, legit οὐδὲν τοῦ αὐτοῦ εὑρίσκει, Gregorius 
Nyss. hom..7 in Eccles. p. 444, εὑρίσκει τῶν ἰδίων οὐδὲν" hee 
autem παραφραστικῶς tantum ab iis dicta esse videantur; alibi 
enim Gregor. Nyss. Jegit cum textu: atque ita Chrysos- 
tomus et Theophylactus, Origenes in Joh. p. 330, et p. 323, 
et hom. 21 in Lucam, et versiones omnes: Athanasius, tom. 
i. p. 440, et Basilius, tom. ii. p. 106, legunt οὐδὲν εὑρίσκει ἐν 
ἐμοὶ" inter autem τοῦ ἔγειν et τοῦ εὑρίσκειν οὐδὲν scilicet, quod 
culpari possit, parum est discriminis. 

Cap. xv. 11. Ἐν ὑμῖν μείνη. Utrum hic legas ἢ cum versi- 
onibus, an μείνῃ cum scholiastis, nihil interest. 

V. 21. Tavra πάντα.] Greci, reliquique interpretes, lege- 


irrepsit e margine,” Prol. p. 162, col. 2. ; 

Cap. xvii. 1. ᾿Ελήλυϑεν ἡ Spa.) Ita Origenes in Joh, p. 21, 
Greca scholia, et versiones universim, et tamen Prol. p. 155, 
col. 2, medium, “ ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα videtur aliunde irrepsisse ex 
cap. xii. 23.” 

V. 11. Καὶ τήρησον αὐτοὺς; ἐν ὀνόματι σοῦ ols ἔδωκάς μοι. Οἷς 
hic legunt Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Athanas. orat. 4, 
contra Arian. p. 470, Her. 38, p. 279, Vulg. thiop. Et 
hance lectionem certam reddunt verba sequentia, v. 12, que 
apud omnes versiones et scholiastas eadem sunt, viz. ἐγὼ 
ἐτῆρυυν αὐτοὺς" ἐν ὀνόματί cov obs ἔδωκάς μοι ἐφύλαξα. Millius 
tamen, Prol. p. 120, col. 1, “ἐν ὀνόματί cov ῳ δέδωκάς μοι, oM- 
nino recte; ‘serva eos per nomen tuum,’ sive potestatem 
qua dedisti ut eandem inter se, quam nos, habeant unio- 
nem.” 


| V. 12. Ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. Desunt hec in Vulg. Agnoscunt 


Greea scholia, et versiones omnes: et tamen Prol. p. 45, 
col. 1, “iv τῷ κόσμῳ accessit ν. 11.” 

Cap. xviil. 29. Πάντοϑεν.} γ΄. 1. πάντες, sine discrimine ; 
ubi enim Judei ab omni loco conveniunt, conveniunt 
omnes. 

V. 23. Τί pe δέρεις 3] Δαίρεις, quomodo hic, et in similibus 
locis, legendum comtendit Nansius in Nonnum; dépw enim, 
inquit, est excorio, dafpw cedo, verbero; ita etiam Suidas. 
Est tamen certum τὸ dépew tam apud sacros scriptores quam 
apud profanos, verberandi sensu aliquoties occurrere; ita 
Lue. xxii. 63, viri qui tenebant velaverunt eum, dépovres, “in 
faciem percutientes ;” ἄερα δέρων, “ aerem verberans,” 1 Cor. 
ix. 26. Eis πρόσωπον δέρειν, “in faciem cwedere;” ita δέρεσθαι 
καὶ δέρειν δι᾿ ἡμέρας est “indies verbera dare, et pati,” Aris- 
toph. Vesp. p. 463. 

Cap. xix. 31. "Hy γὰρ μεγάλη ἡ ἡμέρα ἐκείνου τοῦ σαββάτον. 
MSS. plurima, Cyrillus, Theophylactus, ἐκείνη, sic editic 
Oxon. i. e. “ Dies ille sabbati erat magnus dies,” vel dies 
istius sabbati, utpote triplici ex ratione festus, maximo in 
honore habendus fuit. Vide Lightfoot. in locum. 

Cap. xx. 29. Dixit ei Jesus quia vidisti me Θωμᾶ. Theo- 
phylactus, Cyrillus, Augustinus omittunt Θωμᾶ: Origenes 
autem legit Com. in Joh. p. 195, et verba precedentia λέγει 
αὐτῷ Ἰησοῦς lectionem hance certam reddunt. 

Cap. xxi. 12. Οὐδεὶς dé ἐτόλμα τῶν μαϑητῶν ἐξετάσαι αὐτόν. 
Deest τῶν μαϑητῶν apud Chrysostomum in textu, in Com- 
mentario tamen addit οὐκέτι yap τὴν αὐτὴν παῤῥησίαν εἶχον. 
Agnoscunt Theophylactus, et versiones orientales omnes: 
Vulg. “discumbentium,” quod in idem recidit. Et tamen 
Millius, ““Commentarii loco fuisse probabile est τὸ τῶν 
paSnrav,” Prol. p. 45, col. 1. 


SECTIO QUINTA—IN ACTA APOSTOLORUM. 


Car. i. 16. Aa στόματος Δαβίδ. Desunt hee Vulg 
Ethiop. Origeni, Athanasio, Didymo de Spiritu Sancto. Sed 
contra habent Vulg. Origenes bis in Acta Apost. ed Huetii. 
to. il. p. 422, 423, icumenius, Chrysostomus in Commenta- 
tio, Syr. Arab. In genuinis Athanasii scriptis non invenio 
ubi desint. Didymum habemus tantum Latine ad Vulgati 
exemplar compositum. 

V. 22. “Esrncav déo.] “Augustinus et Arab. <statuit’ 
numero singulari contra omnium codicum fidem,” inquit 
Millius, forte ob Petri prerogativam stabiliendam. 

Cap. ii. 3. ᾿Εκάϑισέ re.) V. 1. ἐκάϑισάν τε, Cant. Sy. Arab, 
Athanasius, Cyrillus. Hic autem Jectori fraudem fecit in 
utrusque; Athanasius enim in hom. de Hum. Nat. Suscepta, 
p- 606, legit ἐκάϑισέ re, in ep. dubie fidei ad Serap. p. 179, 
καὶ ἐκάδισαν. in Cyrillis sine discrimine et solo nomine 
citandis Jatere potuit, sed ita res evenit ut in utrisijue fallat: 
Cyrillus enim Hieros. Catech. 17, p. 199, legit καὶ ἐκάϑισεν, 
Cyrillus Alex. Glaph. in Gen. p. 45, ἐκάϑισέ τε, quomodo 
legunt Chrysostomus et Cicumenius: Vulg. “sedit,” sc. 
γλῶσσα, aut πῦρ. 

VY. 24, Λῦσας τὰς ὠδῖνας τοῦ θανάτον.Ἶ V.. 1. αὐτοῦ" Vulg. 
Syr. Arab. Polycarpus, Ireneus ; utroque modo Epiphanius; 
Chrysostomus et G2cumenius, ϑανάτου, que lectio est prorsus 
necessaria. Esto enim Christum in infernum descendisse ; 
est tamen certissimum nullos illum cruciatus aut dolores ibi 
tulisse a quibus solvendus esset. 


V.30. Τὸ κατὰ σάρκα dvacricew Χριστόν. Desunt hee 
| Vulg. Syr. ZEthiop. Irenzo, lib. iii. cap. 12. Agnoscunt 


1172 


Chrysostomus, Gicumenius, Arab. et notante Lorino, nostri 
codices omnes ea habent. 

V. 31. Οὐ κατελείφϑη ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ εἰς adov.] Deest ψυχὴ 
αὐτοῦ, Tren. lib. iii. cap. 12, p. 229, Vulg. Syr. C. Alex. 
«Tnsertum (inquit Millius) haud dubito, ex v. 26,” Prol. p. 
122, col. 2. Sed agnoscunt hee verba Arab. Chrysost. et 
CGcumen. in locum, Origen. in Reg. p. 32, ubi notat in 
Psalmis hee legi, Ps. xv. (al. xvi-) 10, et ab apostolis in 
Actibus interpretata. 

V. 47. Ti ἐκκλησίᾳ. “Irrepsisse e margine,” Millius, 
Prol. p. 122, fide Vul. Aithiop. C. Alex. Agnoscunt autem 
Chrysostomus, (cumenius, Syr. Arab. 

Cap. ili. 4. Σὺν τῷ ᾿Ιωάννη.] Ita Chrysostomus, Ccumenius, 
versiones omnes. Nihilominus Prol. p. 163, col. 2, « Vix 
impedit summus codicum nostrorum consensus, quo minus 
sequens σὺν τῷ ᾿Ιωάννῃ, licet in solo hoe codice, quod sciam, 
haud jam extet, e margine irrepsisse censeam.” 

V. 12. ᾿Ιδία δυνάμει, ἢ εὐσεβεία.) Ita CScumenius, et 
Chrysostomus tam textu quam commentario; et tamen 
Millius, Prol. p. 45, col. 2, “Ἰδίᾳ δυνάμει, ἢ ἐζουσία, habet 
Chrysostomus non semel.” 

V. 20. Τὸν προκεκηρυγμένον Χριστόν. MSS. plurima, Syr. 
Arab. Chrysostomus, Theophylactus, Tertullianus, Chron. 
Alex. legunt προχειρισμένον. Vulg. et cumenius textui 
assentiuntur. Inter utramque lectionem parvi interest, qui- 
cunque enim a propheta predictus, et predicatus fuit 
hominibus, idem certe predestinatus fuit a Deo: verba 
autem προκατήγγειλε, V. 18, et προκατήγγειλαν, v. 24, recepte 
lectioni favere videntur. 

V. 22. Πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας. “Translata huc videntur ex 
v. 25,” Millius, p. 144, col. 1. Agnoscunt Chrysostomus, 
Ccumenius, C. Alex. Arabs. 

Cap. iv. 12. Kat οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἄλλῳ οὐδενὶ ἣ σωτηρία. Tta 
legunt Chrysostomus et G2cumenius in locum, Cypr. ‘Test. 
lib. ii. n. 16, versiones antique, Vulg. Syr. Arab. 

V. 25. Ὁ διὰ στόματος AaBid τοῦ παιδός cov εἰπών. MSS. 
aliquot et Latini patres addunt ἐν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ: Vulg. Syr. 
Arab. “ Spiritu Sancto,” forte ex Mar. xii. 36. Nam neque 
Chrysostomus, aut G2cumenius, neque Arab. Grabioque teste 
in Ireneum, p. 226, hee verba textus Actorum Apostolico- 
Tum agnoscit. 

V. 27. Συνήγϑησαν γὰρ ἐπ' ἀληθείας MSS. plurima, 
Chrysostomus, Cyrillus, Ireneus, et quidam e Latinis patri- 
bus, Vulg. et Syr. addunt ἐν τῇ πόλει ταύτῃ, que omittunt 
Gicumenius et Arabs; neque placent Millio, qui hic 
“Chrysostomum, et Vulg. interpolatos esse” dicit, Prol. p. 
85, col. 3, Grabius in Ireneum, p. 226, inquit, “ Glossema 
est, non ipsius Luce dictum.” 

V. 32. Ἣν ἡ καρδία καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ μία. Cyprianus et bini 
codices MSS. addunt καὶ οὐκ ἣν ἐν αὐτοῖς διάκρισις οὐδεμία. Sed 
Origenes in Matt. p. 382, 383, editis congruit, et ex antiquis 
scholiastis atque interpretibus, qui hee verba agnoscurt, 
hominem arbitror fuisse neminem. 

Cap. v. 15. Kara ris πλατείας. Deest in ZBthiop. Ag- 
noscunt Chrysostomus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. Veruntamen Prol. 
p- 124, col. 1, medium, “κατὰ τὰς πλατείας adnotatoris 
cujusdam est, non evangeliste.” 

V. 34, Τοὺς ἀποστόλους ἔξω ποιῆσαι MSS. duo, Vulg. 
Chrysostomus, legunt ἀνθρώπους, “quam lectionem ger- 
manam arbitror,” inquit Millius; at immerito. Nam tametsi 
Gamaliel jusserit foras homines secedere, Divus tamen Lucas, 
qui eos Christi apostolos esse probe novit, vocabulum illud 
recte usurpare potuit ; perinde ac Cicumenius, Syr. Arab. et 
Bthiop. Ν 

Cap. vi. 8. Στέψανος δὲ πλήρης πίστεως. Millius hic, Prol. 
Ῥ. 78, col. 1, hee habet; “Χάριτος omnino recte, ita enim 
Vulg. Aithiop. Syr. Asterius, Proclus, Euthalius, Chrysos- 
tomus:” C&cumenius autem et Arab. immo Chrysostomus 
legunt πίστεως: doctorem fefellit in Chrysostomo, forte in 
aliis, mos apud scripturas et patres loquendi de fide miracu- 
losa τῷ τῆς χάριτος ὀνόματι. Lectionem textus mihi firmam 
reddunt verba, com. 5, “ Elegerunt Stephanum virum πλήρην 
πίστεως. 

Cap. vii. 37. Κύριος ὁ Θεὸς buGv—aibrod ἀκούσεσϑε. Desunt 
verba notata Arab. et Chrysostomo. Agnoscunt Cicumenius, 
Vulg. Syr. 48thiop. evangelista, cap. lil. 22, 23. Millio 
tamen judice, “« αὐτοῦ ἀκούσεσϑε, addita ex Deut. xviii. 15, 
sunt verba Mosis, non evangeliste,”’ Prol. p. 110. Quasi 
religio esset Judwo verba Mosis citare prout in textu Hebreo 
et LXX. Interpretum inveniebantur. 


{ 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Cap. viii. 10. Οὖτύς ἔστιν ἡ δύναμις Θεοῦ ἡ μεγάλη.] Vulg. 
et Irenzus, lib. i. cap. 20, “Que vocatur magna:” Chry- 
sostomus, Cicumenius, Syr. Arab. legunt cum textu: nec 
dicerent Samaritani eo cui fidem adhibebant ἡ καλουμένη, sed 
ἡ ὄντως μεγάλη. 

V. 39. Πνεῦμα Κυρίον ἥρπασε τὸν ΦῬίλιππον.] Hieronymus, 
Dial. adver. Lucifer. dicit codices quosdam legisse Πνεῦμα 
ἅγιον ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὸν εὐνοῦχον, Kai ἄγγελος ἥρπασε τὸν Φϑίλιππον. 
Sed hanc lectionem Chrysostomus, GScumenius, et versiones 
antique non agnoscunt. 

Cap. ix. 5. Σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν" Vv. 6.—Kat ὃ 
Κύριος πρὸς αὐτὸν. “ Hee in contextum transtulisse librarios 
ex Act. xxii. 10, et xxvi. 14,” vult Millius, atque hanc esse 
germanam lectionem, ἐγώ εἰμι ᾿Ιησοὺς ὃν σὺ διώκεις" ἀλλ᾽ ἀνά- 
στηϑι καὶ, ὅο. Sed in locis citatis non hee verba αὐτολεξεὶ 
reperies ; non enim occurrunt τρέμων καὶ θαμβῶν, neque ri pe 
θέλεις ποιῆσαι; sed solummodo τί ποιήσω; preterea σκληρόν 


jot πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν hic agnoscunt (Βουπιρηΐαβ, Vulg. 


Arab. «ἜΠδῖορ. quorum auctoritas ad hance lectionem pro- 
bandam valet plurimum. 

V. 20. ᾿Εκήρυσσε τὸν Χριστὸν, ὅτι οὗτός ἔστιν ὃ vids τοῦ Θεοῦ.} 
Τὸν Χριστὸν, Chrysost. G2cumen. Arab. τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν, C. Alex. 
Vulg. Syr. 4ithiop. eodem sensu, idem nempe est in ore 
apostolorum κηρύττειν τὸν Χριστὸν, et dicere Jesum quem pre- 
dicabant esse Christum. Hoc sensu Philippus ἐκήρυσσεν τὸν 
Χριστὸν Samaritanis, Act. viii. 5; et falsi fratres ex invidia 


| erga Paulum τὸν Χριστὸν κηρύσσουσιν, Phil. i. 15. Quod 


autem addit Millius, Prol. p. 93, col. 2, “ Pauli scopo accom- 
modatam magis esse vocem Ἰησοῦν, cujus non erat demon- 
strare Christum seu Messiam esse Dei filium (id enim 


| Judeis maxime in confesso erat) sed probare Jesum Naza- 


renum fuisse Dei filium, sive Messiam,” in eo longe fallitur. 
“Ego enim (inquit Origenes) cum multis Judwis, iisque 
sapientibus habitis, conflictatus, οὐδενὸς ἀκήκοα ἐπαινοῦντος τὸν 
Λόγον εἶναι τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ, lib. ii. contra Cels. p. 79. Et 
clarius adhue, lib. iv. p. 162, “Illud quoque ignorat Celsus, 
Judgos non admodum hoe asserere Christum illum quem 
etiamnum expectant adventurum, Θεὸν ὄντα, ἢ Θεοῦ υἱὸν, Deum 
esse, aut Dei filium.” Hine Hieronymus in hee verba, Jer. 
xvii. 4, “ Maledictus qui spem ponit in homine,”’ maledictos 
pronunciat Judzos qui spem habent in homine Christo, viz. 
suo, quem non filium Dei, sed purum hominem putant esse 
venturum, unde Christum blasphemie ream pronunciant 


| Judwi, quia dixit se filium Dei esse, Joh. v. 18. x. 34, 35. 


V.31. Αἱ μὲν οὖν ἐκκλησίαι xaS’ ὅλης τῆς ᾿Ιουδαίας, καὶ 
Γαλιλαίας καὶ Σαμαρείας, εἶχον εἰρήνην, οἱκοδομούμεναι.] V. 1. ἡ 
ἐκκλησία, Vul. Syr. ZEthiop. Sed Chrysostomus, C&cume- 
nius, et Arab. textum sequuntur, et mentio trium ecclesiarum 
sub diversis provinciis agentium firmat hance lectionem. 

Cap. x. 6. Οὗτος λαλήσει cov τί ce δεῖ ποιεῖν.] Quod cum 


| desit in MSS. pluribus, “glossema videtur additum ex Act. 


x. 32, et xxii. 10,” Millius hic et Prol. p. 93, col. 1. Pos- 


| terior locus nihil ad rem facit, et v. 32, repetit tantum quod 


hic dictum est, sic etiam cap. xi. 14, quod hanc lectionem 
satis firmat; presertim cum hee verba agnoscunt Chrysos- 
tomus, Gicumenius, et Vulg. qui plerumque plus ponderis 
apud Millium habet quam codices MSS, universi. 

V.21. Τοὺς ἀπεσταλμένους ἀπὸ τοῦ Κορνηλίου πρὸς αὐτόν. 


| * Additam nullus dubito ex xi. 11, claritatis gratia,” inquit 


Millius hic, nempe quia deest circiter in viginti MSS. et ver- 


ie a = . 
| sionibus, sed (1.) si desumatur hoc ex cap. xi. 11, cur non 


hic etiam addatur ἀπὸ Καισαρείας, quod occurrit illuc? (2.) 


| Extat apud exemplar G&cumenii, apud marginem Chrysos- 


tomi, atque apud comma 17 hujus capitis; itaque vero mihi 


similius videtur omisisse quosdam hice verba ex eo quod post 


τοὺς ἄνδρας Supervacanea ea esse existimarint. 
V. 32. “Ὃς παραγενόμενος λαλήσει cor.) “ Accessere com- 
ie pay eel £2 
mentarii loco ex v. 22.” Sed agnoscunt Chrysost. acumen. 


| C. Alex. Syr. Arab. 


Cap. xi. 12. Μηδὲν διακρινόμενον. Ita Greca scholia et ver- 
siones omnes; nihilo secius hee Millius, Prol. p. 45, col. 2, 
«Sequens μηδὲν διακρινόμενον nemo sustulerit, huc traductum 
est ex cap. x. 20.” Hoc res omnino postulat ut vere Petrus 
repeteret que ei a Spiritu Sancto dicta esse refert ibi evan- 
gelista, suntque tanti ponderis ad Petrum a crimine ipsi im- 
putato vindicandum, ut sine summa ἀβλειψίᾳ, in hac rerum 
gestarum enarratione omitli non potuerint. 

V. 6. Eldov τὰ τετράποδα τῆς γῆς, καὶ ra Snpia.] “ Omittunt 
Syrus et Epiphanius, Her. Cerinth. p. 112, καὶ τὰ Snpia.” 
Observasse autem debuit Millius omissa pariter ibi esse ra 


= 


5». 


EXAMEN MILLII: 


πετεινὰ rod οὐρανοῦ" idem tamen Epiphanius disputando con- 
tra Ebionitas, p. 146, mentionem facit τῆς ὀϑόνης τῆς ἐχούσης 
πάντα ἐν αὐτῇ ϑηρία re, καὶ κτήνη, ἑρπετὰ καὶ πετεινὰ, unde certum 
est eum legisse id quod antea omisit. 

Cap. xiii. 18. ᾿Ετροποφόρησεν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ. “᾿Ετροπο- 
φόρησεν errore scribarum manifestissimo, pro ἐτροφοφύρησεν, "ἢ 
inquit Millius: sed Chrysostomus, Gicumenius, et Vulg. ab 
impressis non dissentiunt: érporopdpnoev vero “a librariis ex 
margine translatum fuisse in contextum” probare conatur 
Millius his argumentis. (1.) Quia desumpta sunt ἰδία ex 
Deut. i. 31, ubi versio LXX. legit érpopopépncev. Sed 
quater citat hee verba Origenes, sc. lib. iv. contra Cel. p. 
210, hom. 18 in Jer. ed. Huetii, p. 169, Comm. in Matt. p. 
459 et 475; et ubique habet érporopdpncev. Sic etiam Atha- 
nasius, ut in contrariam partem trahatur a Millio; sic eniin 
testimonium illius recte allegatur in Heeschelii notis in 
Origenem, tom. i. p. 977, ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον αὐτοὺς οὗτος ἔφερεν ὡς εἴ 
τις τροφὸς τροποφυρήσειε τὸν ἑαυτῆς υἱὸν, “ Cum fecerint sibi 
Israelite vitulum ex auro conflatilem (ait Athanasius) cum 
pane et aqua deficientibus murmuraverint, mores eorum 
sustinuit Deus, pariter ac nutrix filiolo suo flenti aut leviter 
irascenti adblanditur; sed cum versa et mutata in pejorem 
partem essent omnia, supplicio eos aflecit maximo.” Legit 
etiam ἐτροποφύρησε Codex Vaticanus, teste Huetio. (2.) 
“Moses (inquit Millius) ad fortia queque hortatur; quod 
facere non potuit ex eo quod Deus eorum mores in eremo 
per quadraginta ennos sustinuerit.” Respondeo, potuisse 
tamen populum hunc ad fortiter agendum incitare ex eo quod 
idem Deus pro iis pugnaturus esset, de cujus potentia et 
voluntate singulari dubitare, tot conspicuis prodigiis ab eo in 
sui gratiam editis tum in Algypto, tum etiam in Arabie 
desertis, ubi paterna benevolentia eos prosecutus erat, sum- 


mum nefas esset; hoc autem plane est commatis 30 et 31 _ 


argumentum.—Pergit Millius dicere, “ Deum eorum mores 
per quadraginta annos in eremo sustinuisse incongruum est, 
imprimis, ac fortasse ne verum quidem; quomodo enim 
eorum mores per annos quadraginta in deserto pertulit Deus, 


quos omnes preter unum, et alterum prostravit in deserto !” | 


Respondeo, (1.) Si Mosi sit fides adhibenda, hac -verba dicta 
fuerunt ante hance stragem; “Tum (enim inquit Moses) 
vobis dixi ne terreamini neve timeatis eos (v. 29). Jehova, 
Deus noster, qui nobis preit, is pugnabit pro vobis, pro om- 
nibus que fecit erga vos in oculis vestris in Algypto (v. 30). 
Et que vidistis in hoe deserto, ubi vos tulit Deus vester 
quemadmodum quisque filium suum bajulare solet, per om- 
nem viam quam confecistis, donee ad hune locum per- 
veneritis.” Resp. (2.) Argumentum hoc supponere τὸ zpo- 
ποφορεῖν idem hic tantum valere quod “ mores eorum ferre,” 
hoe autem negant insignes critici, Gatakerus, Douseus, 
Boisius. Audi Boisium, ἐξ ἐτροποφύρησεν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, 
i. 6. ἦρε καὶ ἐβάστασεν αὐτοὺς ὡσεὶ τροφὺς τὸν υἱόν" tulit labores, 
molestias populi hujus. Moses nimirum dixerat, v. 9, ‘Non 
possum solus pxw ferre hunc populum; et v. 12, « Quomodo 
solus x» ferrem molestiam quam creatis mihi?’ et bie ‘Je- 
hovah ἼΝΦΣ tulit te:’ in quibus locis Chaldeus utitur voce 


320d ‘ bajulavit ;’ seu ergo legas érporopdpnaev sive éxpopoipncev, | 
J : Peco 9 ᾿ ? | Gangrense, can. 2. 


utraque sensu βαστάζειν accipienda sunt, ut textui originall 
respondeant.” Claudo hee verbis Boisii ; Porro τροποφορέω 
multo magis mihi placeat quam τροφοφορέω, non modo 
euphonie gratia, sed etiam quia libri plerique omnes in ea 
consentiunt lectione.” 


V. 19. Κατακληροδότησεν αὐτοῖς τὴν γῆν. MSS. plura, 
Chrysostomus et Cicumenius, habent κατακληρονόμησεν, et 
“sic legendum constat ex Deut. i. 58, ubi LXX., quos se- 
quitur Lucas, voce hac utuntur,” ita Millius: sed utram 
vocem legas, Grotio judice, nihil refert, nam $a) in Piel et 
Ssayn in Hiphel modo vertitur κατακληρονομεῖν, ut Deut. iil. 
28. Josh. xiv. 2, et alibi κληρούοτεῖν, ut Deut. i. 38, apud 
Kircherum, sic Josh. xix. 51, edit. Complut.; et 1 Mace. iii. 
36, κληροδοτεῖν est “ terram sorte dividere.” 


V. 23. “Hyewe τῷ Ἰσραὴλ σωτὴρα ᾿Ιησυῦν.] Codices plurimi, | 


@écumenius, Chrysostomus in Com. Athanasius, tom. i. p. 
553, legunt ἤγαγε, et quidem σωτηρίαν vitio librarii. Quod 
vero ἤγειρε sit germana lectio, probabilis ratio reddi potest, 
viz. quod τὸ suscilare semen nunquam vertitur a LXX. ἄγειν 
σπέρμα, sed semper ἀναστήσειν σπέρμα" et in loco parallelo, 
Act. ii. 30, legitur ἀναστήσειν τὸν Χριστόν. Vide cap. ili. 26, 
et Luc. i. 69, καὶ ἤγειρε κέρας σωτηρίας ἡμῖν ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ τοῦ παι- 


1173 


δὺς αὐτοῦ, et sic se habet Dei promissum, ἀναστήσω τῷ Δαβίδ, 
Jer, xxiii. 5. xxx. 9. 

V. 33, ‘Qs καὶ ἐν τῷ ψαλμῷ τῷ δευτέρῳ γέγραπται. "Ev 
Wars τῷ “πρότῳ genuinam esse lectionem’’ acriter con- 
tendit Millius, ex auctoritate G2cumenii, Hilarii, et Origenis, 
Cat. in Ps. ii. 7, teste cl. Huetio, ἘΣ contrario notatu dignum 
est, quod Tertullianus, contra Marcion. lib. iv. cap. 22, et 
Cyprianus, libro i. et Quir. §. 13, habent diserte “ Psalmo 
secundo,” et Chrysostomus, versionesque omnes, editis con- 
gruunt: in Hebrea, Chaldwa, et Graca lingua atque apud 
interpretes orientales hi psalmi in unum neutiquam confun- 
duntur. S. Hilarius in Ps. ii. verbis luculentis declarat, quod 


| regnante Ptolemwo LXX. senes psalmos in hune ordinem 


redegerint, numerosque affixerunt spirituali et ccelesti scientia 
psalmorum virtutem intelligentes: ex Spiritu igitur, et man- 
dato Dei secundum Hilarium, psalmus hie secundum locum 
longe ante obtinuit, dictusque fuit secundus, priusquam Acta 


| Apostolorum literis a Luca consignata essent; Hieronymi 


testimonium hic allatum, ut subdititium, respuunt critici: 
idem autem Hieronymus, cum Hebraice psalmos in lucem 
ediderit, hee verba a Luca allegata, sub secundo psalmo col- 
locavit: major Origeni ex Catena adhibenda esset fides, nisi 
dixisset idem Huetius, sublata est Catenarum fides. Ad 
summam. Si psalmi ἀνεπίγραψοι fuerint, cur diceret Athana- 
sius hwe verba desumpta esse ἐκ τοῦ δευτέρου ψαλμοῦ ; ad ar- 
gumentum® Millii (mutandi δευτέρῳ in πρώτῳ nulla omnino- 
causa fuerit, legendi deurépw pro πρώτῳ longe maxima, ne 
discederet sc. Lucas a codicibus Hebraicis, ac Grecis Veteris 
Testamenti) respondeo, mutandi forte causam fuisse ut 
textus conformaretur exemplaribus illis Latinis que a Beda 
et Erasmo memorantur: quid multa? cum hee locutus sit 
Paulus, apud psalterium vel numerorum erat distinctio aliqua, 
vel nulla; si nulla fuerit, cur psalmum Paulus aut primum aut 
secundum nominat? Sin autem reliqua, cur non ille Hebraus 
ex Hebreis receptum numerum et ordinem amplecteretur ? 

V. 45. ᾿Αντιλέγοντες καί. Deest in MSS. quibusdam, ver- 
sionibusque: quod tamen agnoscunt Chrysostomus, et Gicu- 
menius, atque idcirco solum omitti videtur, quia precesserat 
ἀντίλεγον. 

V. 48. ᾿Εὐύζασαν τὸν λόγον rod Kupiov.] Sic Chrysostomus, 
QGcumenius, Vulg. Arab, Sed “Syr. et Aithiop. τὸν Θεὸν, 
recte,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 129, col. 2. 

Cap. xv. 20 et 29. Kai τοῦ πνικτοῦ.] Πνικτοῦ omittunt, teste 
Millio, Ireneus, Cyprianus, Tertullianus, Hieronymus, Au- 
gustinus, Ambrosius, Eucherius, Latini omnes: c#terum 
retinent Greca que vidimus omnia (excepto uno Cant.) ver- 
siones omnes, etiam Vulgata, Origenes, lib, viii. contra Cels. 
p. 396, “patres ac tractores Greci universim, ut proinde 
minime sollicitandum arbitrer:’”’ idem vero Millius, Proleg. 
p. 45, col. 2, “Tisdem Latinis patribus cum Paciano et Ful- 
gentio in medium prolatis, hee habet, certe medium καὶ τοῦ 


| πνιντοῦ ipsius Lucz non est, sed Christianorum veterum,” &c, 


Agnoscunt τὸ πνικτὸν, ante Origenem, Clemens Alex. Pedag. 
lib. ii. p. 172; post Origenem, Cyrillus Hieros. Catech. 4, p. 
34, Cyrillus Alex. tom. i. p. 153 et 575, Constit. Apost. lib. 
vi. cap. 12, Epiphanius Her. Naz. §. 8, p. 124, Concilium 
Quid ad hee Millius ? « Nempe ista καὶ 
τοῦ πνικτοῦ, que ipsius Luce non fuisse supra notavimus, in- 
troduxerunt ante Clementis tempora librarii in textum,” 
Prol. p. 61, col. 2. Vulgatum cur hic _respuit si queras, 
“addidit ex Grecis suis quartum ‘suffocati’” sc. Hiero- 
nymus, Prol. p. 82, col. 1. Et tamen, p. 61, col. 2, “ Lege- 
bant exemplaria aliqua Italice versionis ante castigationem 
Hieronymi;” fefellit hpminem mos Latinorum, immo Gre- 
corum, suffocatum sub interdicto sanguinis contineri existi- 
mantium, adeoque tria tantum hic prohiberi putantium; ita 
Tertullianus, Apol. cap. 9, “ Propterea quoque suffocatis et 
morticinis abstinemus, ne quo sanguine contaminemur vel 
intra viscera sepulto;” Chrysostomus, hom. 27 in Gen., τί 
ἔστι xpéas ἐν αἵματι ψυχῆς, τοῦτ᾽ ἔστι πνικτὸν, τοῦ γὰρ ἀλόγου ἡ 
ψυχὴ τὸ αἷμα τυγχάνει. Adjiciunt his Ireneus, lib. ii. cap. 
12, Cyprianus ad Quir. lib. ii. cap. 119, MSS. codices qui- 
dam, hee, καὶ ὅσα ἂν μὴ ϑέλωσιν ἑαυτοῖς γίνεσξαι ἑτέροις μὴ 
ποιεῖν. Qu quoniam non agnoscunt Chrysostomus, Gcu- 
menius, Vulg. Syr. Arab. nee Clemens Alex., Origenes, nec 
Constitutiones Apostolicx, nec patres reliqui ante citati, ea 
cum Spencera#ejicienda esse, Millio non invito, existimo. 


* Proleg. 


1174 


Ver. 23. Οἱ πρεσβύτεροι καὶ of ἀδελφοί. Ita Chrysost. (συμ. 
Syr. Arab. πρεσβύτεροι ἀδελφοὶ, C. Alex. Vulg. Cant. 
Barb. 1. 

Cap. xvi. 7. Kat οὐκ εἴασεν αὐτοὺς τὸ Πιεῦμα"7 MSS. aliquot, 
Vulg. Syr. Hthiop. Cyrillus Alex. addunt Ἰησοῦ, sicut etiam 
Hieronymus, Jib. 111. contra Pelag. cap. 6, qui et hee addit; 
“nota (inquit) quod Spiritus Jesus Spiritus Sanctus sit ;” et 
Cyrillus, Thes. p. 298, similem affert notam. ἸἸησυῦ vero 
additamentum esse primo aspectu dignoscitur ; nam licet dic- 
tiones he Πνεῦμα Κυρίου Χριστοῦ, τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ interdum 
usurpentur in N. T., dictio tamen Πνεῦμα "Incod Nunquam 
solitaria incedit; Epiphanius, Anchor. p. 72, Chrysostomus, 
et Gicumenius cum textu legunt; alteram lectionem natam 
suspicor ex controversia, que post exorta est de processione 
Sancti Spiritus a Filio. Millio tamen est « genuina lectio,” 
Prol. p. 71, col. 1. 

V. 14. Προσέχειν τοῖς λαλουμένοις ὑπὸ τοῦ Παύλου: Hee 
verba agnoscunt Chrysost. Gicum. C. Alex. versiones omnes, 
excepto unico Althiope: et tamen, Prol. p. 124, col. 2, 
“scholion hoc adjecit Jibrarius quispiam in corpus historiz.” 

Cap. xvii. 23. Ὃν οὖν ἁγνοῦντες εὐσεβεῖτε, τοῦτον. Vulg. et 
Origenes in Joh. p. 155, legunt ὅ et τοῦτο" Chrysestomus, 
Ccumenius, et Clem. Alex. Strom, i. p. 314, et Strom. v. p. 
588, Syr. Arab. lectionem textus retinent : sensus in utrisque 
idem est. 

V. 28. Τίνες τῶν καϑ' ὑμᾶς ποιητῶν. Deest ποιητῶν Ireneo, 
Lat. Augustino, Ambrosio, agnoscunt Clemens Alex. Strom. 
i. p. 415, Origenes, Com. in Joh. p. 155, Chrysost. Gicume- 
nius : hine observatio illa frequens Clementis, Origenis, Chry- 
sostomi, Paulum prudenter et opportune, profanis verba 
facientem, poetarum testimonia laudasse. 

Cap. xvili. 5. Zuvetxero τῷ πνεύματι ὁ Tados.] ve 1 τῷ 
Noy. Basilius, Theodoretus, Vulg. Syr. 4thiop. “ instabat 
sermoni :” sed Chrysost. CEcumenius et Arab. cum excusis 
consentiunt; neque enim recte vertitur συνείχετο, active 
“jnstabat,” sed passive “tenebatur,” constrictus, coarcta- 
tus erat, Matt. iv. 24, Luc. iv. 38, viii. 37, xii. 50, Philip. 
1. 23. 

V. 9. Ἐν νυκτί. Ita Chrysostomus, Gicumenius, Vulg. 
Arab. apud Syrum tantum deest; Millio tamen videtur “a 
librario aliquo additum de margine,” Prol. p. 130, col. 1. 

V.10. Ἐγώ εἷμι μετὰ σοῦ, καὶ. Desunt hec tantum apud 
A®thiop. versionem nullius fidei : « Media tamen hee suspecta 
habeo παρεμβλήσεως," inquit Millius, Prol. p. 124. 

V.17. Πάντες of “Ἕλληνες. Desunt οἱ “Ἕλληνες, Vulg. unde 
Millius, Proleg. p. 144, “Insertum est in nostris perperam :” 
agnoscunt autem Chrysostomus, Cicumenius, versiones ori- 
entales omnes. 

ΣΙ Aer pe πάντως τὴν ἑορτὴν τὴν ἐρχομένην ποιῆσαι εἰς 
“Ἱερουσαλήμ. “ Hee (inquit Millius) aliunde sunt ex Act. xx. 
6. Act. xix. 21.” Habent autem Chrysostomus, Gicumen. 
Syr. Arab. 

V. 27. Διὰ τῆς χάριτος. Ita Chrysostomus, (απ. ver- 
siones orientales omnes: desunt hee apud Vulg. Bedam, 
Basilium Seleuc. forte quia non existimarunt dona eximia et 
divina in hune hominem collata fuisse, qui sciebat tantum 
baptisma Johannis. 

Cap. xix. 16. Κατακυριεῦσας airav.] Vulg. et codices MSS. 
quidam ἀμφοτέρων. cum textu legunt Chrysostomus, C&cu- 
menius, Syr. Arab. sine discrepantia. 

Cap. xx. 24. Meri χαρᾶς. Desunt hec in MSS. quibus- 
dam, Vulg. Syr. Retinent Chrysostomus, Gicum. Arab. 

V. 28. Τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ.] Lectionem hanc probat et 
egregie firmat Millius. 

Cap. xxi. 7. ᾿Απὸ Tipov.] Ita omnes, excepto Cov. 3, sic 
tamen Millius, “dé Τύρου licet jam in nostris omnibus locum 
habent, ex versiculo tertio hujus capitis initio huc traducta 
arbitror.” Prol. p. 163, col. 2. 

V. 8. Οἱ περὶ τὸν Παῦλον. Desunt hec Chrysostomo, Vulg. 
Syr. Agnoscunt Cicumenius et Arab.: et res ipsa postulat 
ut qui cum Paulo Ptolemaiada conveniebant, inde cum eo 
egrederentur. 

V. 13. Eis Ἱερουσαλήμ.] Omittunt hee Basilius, tom. ii. 
p- 429, et Cyrillus, tanquam non ad eorum propositum: 
agnoscunt Chrysostomus, CEcumenius, et versiones omnes: 
et tamen Prol. p. 164, “ medium eis ᾿Ιερουσαλήμ est insertum 
νυν. 12,” cur non et 132 ν 

V. 22. Act πλῆθος συνελθεῖν. Desunt hee apud Syrum 
solum: agnoscunt Chrysostomus, Gicumenius, Vulg. Arab. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


| “Introducta sunt (inquit Millius) ubi ipsa adscripserat scho- 
liastes quispiam ex infra dictis v. 27. 30.” Prol. p. 150, 
60]. 1. 

Cap. xxii. 12. ᾿Ανὴρ εὐσεβὴς vel εὐλαβὴς,] Chrysostomus, 
CGEcumenius, Syr. Arab. Hee tamen Millius, “ Qui hic nescio 
quid deesse putarunt, interserebant alii εὐσεβὴς ex cap. x. 2, 
alii εὐλαβὴς, Prol. p. 144, col. 2. 

V. 20. Τὸ αἷμα Στεφάνου τοῦ μαρτυρός σου. Ita Greca 
scholia et versiones omnes: deest Στεφάνου in Codice Alex. : 
unde “ vix est, ut unius codicis hujus testimonio lectionem 
hane germanam existimem, quis Στεφάνου vocabulum tam 
insigne pretermiserit?’’ Prol. p. 124. 

V..21. Καὶ συνευδοκῶν τῇ ἀναιρέσει αὐτοῦ. Ita Chrysosto- 
mus, (ΕΠ οαπηρηΐαβ, Syr. Arab., Vulg. solo renitente ; et tamen 
Millius, “explicatoria τῇ ἀναιρέσει αὐτοῦ alterius loci sunt, 
nempe cap. vill. 1.” Ibid. 

V.29. Kai ὅτι ἣν αὐτὸν dsdexis.] Ita omnes excepto thiop. 
Et tamen Prol. p. 124, col. 2, “ Vereor ut hac: adjecerit 
scholiastes aliquis ad plenitudinem historic.” 

Cap. xxiii. 9. Si spiritus locutus est ei aut angelus, μὴ 
ϑεομαχῶμεν. llud μὴ βεομαχῶμεν adscriptum putat Eras- 
mus ex cap. v. 39: et “quidni (inquit Millius hic) et hoc 
scholion adnotatum putemus ad marginem libri a studioso 
quopiam, ac cum sensum commodum efficeret, arreptum 
mox in contextum a librariis!” Habent tamen hee verba 
Chrysostomus et CAcumenius, qui phariswos introducit hee 
loquentes, αὐτοῦ ἀποστῶμεν, μὴ αὐτοῦ πολεμοῦντες ϑεύμαχοι εὖ- 
ρεθῶμεν, et Arab. et sensus 115 sublatis deficit. 

V. 30. Ὑπὸ τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων τὰ πρὸς αὐτὸν. Desunt hee 
omnia apud Vulg.: agnoscunt Chrysostomus, 2cumenius, 
Syr. Arab, Nihilominus, Pro]. p. 145, col. 1, “ medium ὑπὸ 
τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων, quod est in editis, irrepsit ex v. 27.” 

V. 85. ᾿Εκέλευσέ τε αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ npatrwpi τοῦ ᾿Ηρώδου φυλάσ- 
σεσθαι.] Ita Greca scholia et versiones omnes: et tamen 
Millius, Prol. p. 91, col. 2, «Ego quidem totum hoc pro 
scholio marginali habeo, quo lector quispiam adauctam 
voluit hance historiam.” 

Cap. xxiv. 15. ᾿Ανάστασιν μέλλειν ἔσεσθαι νεκρῶν.] Deest 
νεκρῶν in Vulg. Agnoscunt Chrysostomus, (2cumenius, ver- 
siones relique ; at judice Millio, “ insertum est in editis clari- 
tatis gratia,” Prol. p. 94, col. 1. 

V. 16. ᾿Απρόσκοπον συνείδησιν Exec διαπαντὸς. Habent 
τὸ διαπαντὸς Greca scholia et versiones omnes: et tamen 
Millius Prol. p. 110, col. 1, «*Mihi fateor διαπαντός istud 
vehementer suspectum est παρεμβλήσεως, irrepsisse videtur e 
margine in locum non idoneum.” 

V. 18. Τίνες ἀπὸ τῆς Ἀσίας ᾿Ιουδαῖοι.} Ita Greca scholia οἵ 
versiones universim vel toe versu vel initio sequentis; et 
tamen “adscripta fuerint ab aliquo ad marginem ex Act. 
xxi. 26. 37, explicationis causa, irrepsere demum in textum,” 
Prol. p. 94, col. 2. 

Cap. xxv. 16. Χαρίζεσθαί τινα ἄνθρωπον εἰς ἀπώλειαν. Desunt 
hee apud quosdam MSS. cod. Athanasium, Basilium, Theo- 
doretum : “ Adjectum jam olim arbitror interpretamenti στὰς 
tia:” agnoscunt autem Chrysostomus, Cicumenius, Syr. 
Arab. respondentque egregie clamoribus Judzorum non 
oportere eum vivere amplius, cap. xxiv. 24. 

Cap. xxvi. 7. Ἔν éxreveia.) Desunt hee tantum in Vulg. 
et thiop. Nihilominus, Prol. p. 45, 60]. 2, “ commentarius 
est, non textus, sed qui semel admissus, non mirum si in 
infinitos postea codices manarit.” 

Cap. xxvii. 28. Kai πάλιν βολίσαντες. Desunt hee Vulg. 
Syr. Habent Chrysostomus, Gicumenius, Arab. suntque ne- 
cessario intelligenda, 

Cap. xxviii. 1. Καὶ διασωϑέντες.] Desunt Syr. agnoscunt 
reliqui omnes: et tamen “lectionarium est ex versu ultimo 
capitis precedentis, non Divi Luce,” Prol. p. 130, col. 1. 

V. 16. 'O ἑκατόνταρχος παρέδωκε τοὺς δεσμίους τὠ στρατου 
πεδάρχη.] “Desunt hee verba (ait Millius) Vulg. Syr 
Chrysostomo, et tribus MSS.” Ergo occurrunt apud reliqua 
exemplaria omnia, ut et apud Gicumenium et Arabem; 
“ Recte viri docti interpretantur (inquit Grotius).‘ prefectum 
pretorio,” nam a Tiberii temporibus pretorianus miles in 
castris habitus, teste Tacito Annal. 4: et sub ejus cura fuisse 
reorum custodias multis ejusdem Taciti locis evineitur ;” quid 
ergo impedit, quo minus hxc Lucas referret, saltem ad indi- 
candam singularem gratiam D. Paulo hic concessam ? 

V. 29.] Agnoscunt hune versiculum τοὶ scholiaste, in- 
terpretesque omnes, a Syro si discesseris. Pro]. tamen p. 


= 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


130, col. 1, “ versiculum hune injectitium videri supra nota- 
vimus, p. 94." 


LIBRI SECUNDI CAPUT TERTIUM 


Examen continet variantium lectionum in epistolas D. Pauli, 
et in epistolas catholicas. 


SECTIO PRIMA——EPISTOLA AD ROMANOS. 


Ur ratione, et methodo proposita, procedat susceptum 
opus, de variantibus in epistolis lectionibus jam dicendum 
est; et hic jucundum mihi et gratum est, quod exemplaria 
nostra ab illis Theodoreti, G2cumenii, Theophylacti raro, 


idque in rebus nullius fere momenti dissideant, neque etiam | 


ab illis Chrysostomi que κατ᾽ ἀκρίβειαν scripta sunt, et non 
κατὰ τὸ αὐτοσχέδον τῆς λέξεως. Interea tamen mihi perquam 
molesta fuit frequens illa introductio patrum Latinorum, et 
versionum quorundam Grecorum patrum in Latinam lin- 


guam; que quidem parum ponderis et auctoritatis habent. | 


Grecorum quidem testimonia apud Millium parum valent, 
nam si illi fides adhibenda sit, exemplaria eorum misere de- 
pravata erant, atque ipsius, tanquam (2dipodis, judicio opus 
est, ut a textu glossema, a vera lectione interpolatio, seu 
scholion marginale, a genuinoirreptitium dignoscatur. Errare 
autem malumus cum Origene, Athanasio, Basilio, Theodo- 
reto, et CEcumenio, quam cum Italis, et sede apostolica, 
pene dixeram, vera sentire. 

In Grecis patribus pervolvandis quarundam ex epistolis 
tota pene capita totidem verbis quot in textu citata interdum 
reperimus. Ex. gr. a versu 1 capitis i.ad Rom.ad quam ita 
legit Origenes, Com. in Joh. p. 55 et p. 266, ita etiam ab 18 
ad 24: similiter Greg. Nyssen, tom. ii. p. 734, Basil. tom. ii. 
p- 632, a 28 ad finem capitis. Non leve hoc indicium est, 
quod in his locis varians unaqueque lectio nihil aliud sit, 
quam textus genuini depravatio. 

Cap. i. 16. Τὸ εὐαγγέλιον Χριστοῦ. Deest Χριστοῦ Vulg. 
Tertul. Ruffino, Hilario Diac. Syr. Athiop. Retinent Theo- 
doretus, CEcumenius, Theophylactus, et licet a textu Chry- 
sostomi exciderit, eum tamen ita legisse constat ex eo quod 
mirum illi sit visum apostolum qui alibi dixit, « Glorior in 
cruce Christi,” hic solum dixisse “ Non erubesco εὐαγγέλιον 
Χριστοῦ," Cumque evangelium, de quo loquitur apostolus, 
Christi pro certo evangelium fuerit, quidni hance vocem hic 
adhibuisset pariter ac cap. xv. 19, 29, et ad eundem sensum 
hic v. 9? Ibid. ᾿Ιουδαίῳ πρῶτον. To πρῶτον agnoscunt Gr. 
scholia, C. Alex. Hilarius 1). et versiones omnes. Et tamen 
dicente Millio, ex fide unius Tertulliani, “irrepsit ex aliis 
locis hujus epistolw,” Prol. p. 46, col. 2. 

V. 17. Ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται. Vulg. Hilarius Diac. aliique 
Latini legunt “vivit.” Sed liquet Ireneum, lib. iv. cap. 37, 
Ρ. 365, legisse “ vivit,” postquam enim hee allegasset verba, 
addit, “Hoc autem quod justus ex fide vivet, per prophetas 
predictum fuerat.” Ipse Hieronymus, C. Alex. et omnia 
Gr. scholia legunt ζήσεται, Esthius etiam, spreto hic Vulgato 
interprete, ait “ rectius in futuro vivet,” sic enim multi iique 
meliores habent codices, Grecis etiam Syrisque adstipulanti- 
bus; nam et apud prophetam Hab. iii. 4, ipsum futuri tem- 
poris verbum habetur. Et LXX. quoque Interpretes futuram 
reddiderunt, eademque lectio est in Grecis, Gal. iii. 11, et ad 
Heb. x. 38, quibus locis eadem scriptura citatur. 

V. 18. Τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ἀδικίᾳ xarexévrwv.] Vulg. Hilarius 
Diac. Orig. Lat. Pseud-Hieronymus, Latini alii, legunt « ve- 
ritatem Dei,” reclamantibus Grecis omnibus, versionibus 
orientalibus, et C. Alex. et vero Origene contr. Cels. lib. vi. 
p- 276. Hic autem nobis odiose obtrudit « Pseud. Hierony- 
mum, sive Pelagium, opus, Usserio judice, posterioris evi, 
quod a viro nullius judicii compaginatum fuit,” et tamen 
gratum Millio, quia cum Vulgata, que ipsi est in deliciis, 
multoties consentit. 

Cap. ii. 1. Πᾶς ὃ xpivwy.] Tta omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. 
Vulg. Hilarius Diac. Ruffin. Arab. “ πᾶς tamen (inquit 
Millius) explicatoris alicujus esse puto, non apostoli, ita Syr.” 
Prol. p. 230, col. 1. Syr. autem ibi legit, “Omni excusa- 
tione cares, o homo.” 

V.5. In die ire καὶ ἀποκαλύψεως δικαιοκρισίας τοῦ Θεοῦ.} 
Vulg. Hilarius Diac. Iren. lib. iv. cap. 71, p. 375, et Syr. 
legunt cum textu. Omnia autem Gr. scholia cum aliis 


} 


1175 


addunt καὶ ante δικαιοκρισίας" hoc tamen, juxta Grotium, est 
tantum ἕν ὀιὰ ὀνοῖν, quod sensum non mutat. 

V. 7. Kad’ ὑπομονὴν ἔργου ἀγαθοῦ. V. 1. δι’ ἔργων ἀγαθῶν, 
Theophilus Antioc. ed. Paris. lib. i. p. 19, Millii hic me 
miseret; nam ex septem variantibus lectionibus unicam 
hane in lucem profert, reliquas silentio premit, nempe pro 
κατὰ ra ἔργα αὐτοὺ legit Theoph. καὶ ἀξίαν τῶν pioSav- post 
ἀγαθοῦ Omittit ὀύξαν καὶ τιμὴν" ante ζωὴν αἰώνιον addit δωρήσεται" 
et denique χαρὰν, εἰρήνην, ἀνάπαυσιν, καὶ πλήθη ἀγαθῶν" pro 
τοῖς dé ἐξ ἐριθείας legit τοῖς δὲ ἀπίστοις, καὶ xarappovnrais, ut 
reliqua missa faciam. Nec sane constat consilium ei fuisse 
ut certum aliquem locum allegaret, sed potius ut ex uni- 
versa scriptura Autolyco statueret ante oculos premia, que 
bonis tribuet Deus, et poenas quibus improbos afficiet. Multe 
ejusmodo variantes lectiones occurrunt, que nomen istud 
neutiquam merentur: Gr. scholiis omnibus, C. Alex. et Hi- 
lario Diac. hic repugnantibus. 

V. 17. '1éé] “Ecce tu Judeus cognominaris,” v. 1, εἰ δὲ, 
“si autem,” Vulg. Hilarius Diac. Clem. Alex. Stro. i. p. 
353, Theophyl. Syr. Sed Chrysost. Theodoret. G3cum. 
C. Alex. textui adstipulantur; atque hc, secundum Eras- 
mum, est verior et antiquior lectio; alioquin non satis co- 
heret ordo: ex v.31 confirmatur 6 οὖν ὀιδάσκων, nec enim 
τῷ οὖν εἰ δὲ, sed idé apte respondet. 

V. 26. Eis περιτομὴν λογισθήσεται. Hic in textu Chry- 
sostomus legit περιτραπήσεται, et deinde addit οὐκ εἶπε λογισ- 
ϑήσεται, ἀλλὰ τραπήσεται, ὕπερ ἐμφατικώτερον ἦν" aiunt autem 
CEcumenius et Theophylactus, οὐκ εἶπε τὴν περιτομὴν νικᾶν 
ἀλλὰ εἰς περιτομὴν λογισϑήσεται, ila enim legunt Theophylac- 
tus, Cyril. Alex. to. iii. p. 781, C. Alex. Hilarius Diac. et 
omnes versiones que textum ab unico Chrysostomo, sibimet- 
ipsi parum constanti, abunde vindicant. 

Cap. iii. 2. Πρῶτον piv yap ὅτι ἐπιστεύϑησαν τὰ λύγια τοῦ 
Θεοῦ. Ita Theodoret. Qicumen. Theophyl. C. Alex. Hilarius 
Diac. versiones omnes. “ Origenis tamen in Catena MSS. 
(ait Millius) istud perinde interpretatur ac si scriptum esset 
ὅτι πρῶτον. Idem innuit Com. in Matth. p. 209, dicendo 
hee erant λόγια ἃ πρῶτον ᾿Ιουδαῖοι ἐπιστεύϑησαν, et p. 462, 
“ Vinea illis credita erat, lex et prophetw προτέροις μὲν τῷ λαῷ 
ἐκείνῳ, primum quidem populo isti, καὶ yap πρῶτοι ἐπιστεύϑησαν 
τὰ λόγια τοῦ Θεοῦ, iis enim primum commissa sunt eloquia 
Dei, δευτέροις dé τῇ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐθνῶν ἐκκλησίᾳ" sed hine non se- 
quitur aliquid illum a textu diversum legisse, ut constat ex 
his verbis in locum, “ Quid autem multo sit amplius sub- 
jungit:” “ Primo, inguit, quia credita sunt illis eloquia Dei, 
quamvis enim et gentibus nunc creduntur eloquia Dei, sed 
illis, ait, primo sunt credita.” Quod si piv yap omittat 
Chrysost. id nullius momenti est, exhibent enim ea reliqui 
omnes citati. 

V. 9. Προητιασάμεϑα.} Ita Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. et 
versiones orientales: quibus posthabitis, “ προητιασάμεϑα 
(inquit Millius) alicujus scholiaste est,” Prol. p. 46, col. 2, 
airtacdpeSa legendum vult cum Vulg. Hilario Diac. Ger. 
Clar. 

V. 25. Διὰ τῆς πίστεως.) “Deest Alex. Chry. in Com.” 
ita Millius; sed fallitur, Chrysost. ibi id solum dicit, “ addi- 
disse apostolum ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ, ut sanguis Christi hostiis 
Judaicis opponeretur.”’ Cum textu legunt omnia Gr. scholia 
et versiones antique, inter quas Vulg. Orig. Com. in Matt. p. 
285, in Joh. p. 22, et in locum. Hance ergo levem dissimili 
tudinem, ut et Θεοῦ pro Ἰησοῦ, commate sequenti, Milliique 
judicium hie parvi facio, qui Prol. p. 66, col. 1, ait “Illud 
διὰ πίστεως ivrepsisse non dubito.” 

Cap. iv. 12. Τοῖς οὐκ ἐκ περιτομῆς μόνον. Theodoret. hic 
legit οὐ rots, sensu eodem; Chrysost. autem, Cicumenius, 
Cyril. Al. Glaph. in Gen. p. 66, et Theophyl. legunt cum 
textu : ex eo autem quod in commentario dicit Theophylact. 
οὕτως det ἀναγνῶναι, καὶ πατέρα τῆς περιτομῆς, οὐ τοῖς ἐκ περι- 
τομῆς μόνης, ὑμοιωμένοις αὐτῷ, NON magis sequitur eum in textu 
legisse οὐ rots quam μόνης ὁμοιωμένοις. 

V. 19. Οὐ κατενόησε. “Non consideravit corpus suum 
emortuum ;” vi. 1. ἃ. οὐ, C. Alex. Chrysost. ed. Mor. tom. i. 
Ῥ. 311,eTheodoret. ὡς κατενόησε, sed Chrysost. Gicum. 
Theophyl. in locum, Basil. to. ii. p. 418, Vulg. Hilarius 
Diac., retinent οὐ, Altera etiam lectio sensum non mutat, 
cum unicum hoc significet, quod licet Abraham consideravit 
corpus suum mortuum, et emortuam vulvam Sare, non ta- 
men infirmatus sit fide. 

V. 20. Οὐ διεκρίϑη τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ. Ita legunt omnia Gi 


1176 


scholia, Vulg. Hilarius Diac. Syr. Arab. et C. Alex. Est, 
tamen, dicente Millio, ex fide Mthiop. rj ἀπιστίᾳ arreptum 
de margine, Prol. p. 124, col. 2. 

Cap. v, 1. Eipivny ἔχωμεν. Agnosco hic omnia Gr. scholia 
legisse ἔχωμεν, Vulg. Hilarium Diac. et quosdam Latinos 
«“habeamus:” sed monente, Erasmo, in plerisque Grecorum 
codicibus scriptum habetur ἔχομεν, et sensus hic non patitur 
imperandi modum (nisi ἔχωμεν reddas, “retineamus,” quam 
significationem obtinet, Hebr. xii. 28, aliisque in locis) 
apostolus siquidem loquitur de justificatis per fidem qui 
pacem jam habent cum Deo, et subsequentia “ per Dominum 
nostrum Jesum Christum” eundem sensum plane indicant ; 
“Justificatis enira ex fide in Christum,” recte dicit apos- 
tolus, “ pacem habemus per fidem in Christo,” parum recte 
autem dixisset, “ habeamus” per eum pacem illam, que iis 
a longo jam tempore acquisita fuit. 

V. 2. Τῇ πίστει. Deest Ath. MSS. quibusdam,’ Hilario 
1). Sed extant verba hec in omnibus Gr. scholiis, Vulg. Arab. 
Syr.: “est tamen (judice Millio) commentarius importune 
satis intrusus in textum,” Prol. p. 46, col. 1. 

V. 5. Τοῦ δυϑέντος ἡμῖν.] Ita Gr. scholia, versiones omnes, 
C. Alex. Hilarius Diac.: “et tamen (dicente Millio) τοῦ 
δοθέντος ἡμῖν assumentum ex fide Vulg. nescio cujus,” Prol. 
p- 46, col. 2. 

V. 12. 'O θάνατος διῆλϑεν.] "O ϑάνατος hie occurrit vel ante 
vel post d:j\Sev apud Gr. scholia, et versiones universim, et 
C. Alex. ; ex fide tamen Ruffini, et Hilarii Diac. « irrepsit 
ex priore parte versiculi,” Prol. p. 46, col. 1. 

V.17. Kai τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης. Deest τῆς δωρεᾶς, 
Tren. lib. iii. cap. 18, p. 242, Orig. Com. in Joh. p. 334, 
August. lib. i. de Bapt. cap. 13: sed omnes versiones, et 
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. et Hilarius Diac. hane vocem retinent, 
quam tametsi Origenes loco dicto omittat, ait tamen p, 338, 
clam Judeos fuit, ὅτι of τὴν περισσείαν τῆς χάριτος, καὶ τῆς 
δωρεᾶς λαμβάνοντες βασιλεύσουσι, διὰ τοὺ ἑνὸς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. 
Treneum et Origenem non legisse, ait Grabius, forte quod he 
due voces ob recurrentem particulam τῆς per negligentiam 
scribe omisse essent. Asserit quidem Millius “ Origenem 
legisse βασιλεύουσι,᾽ sed emendatur hec lectio p. 338; et 
marg. 334, adscribitur yap βασιλεύσουσι, quod in Chrysostomo 
etiam potuit reperire Millius, si commentarium illius dili- 
gentius excussisset, ubi in clausula ἐν ζωῇ βασιλεύσουσι, usque 
adeo in citationibus suis dormitat Millius, sicut etiam Prol. 
p- 46, ubi « τῆς δωρεᾶς irrepsisse”’ ait, 

Cap. vi. 4. Ati τῆς δόξης τοῦ πατρὺς.] Desunt hee Iren. 
lib. iii. cap. 18, Tertul. de Resur. 47. In textu autem re- 
tinent omnes cod. MSS. Gr. scholia, versiones, C. Alex. 
Hilarius Diac.: Prol. tamen p. 74, cap. 2, “διὰ δόξης τοῦ 
πανμὸς scholiaste est, non apostoli.” 

V.10. Ὃ γὰρ ἀπέϑανε, τῇ ἁμαρτία ἀπέϑανε, et τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ 
ἡμῶν. Orig. in Matt. p. 417: ita Millius; textum tamen ip- 
sum exhibet Origenes, Com. in Joh. p. 11. Hypostigme 
postea ad vocem ἁμαρτία, et p. 204, et lib. ii. contra Cels. 
yp. 102, immo eodem in loco et linea immediate sequenti 
1ationem affert quare dum loqueretur de remissione peccato- 
rum facta per Christi baptisma addidisset ἡμῶν, viz. διόπερ ὃ 
ἀπέθανε τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ἡμῶν, ἐπεὶ αὐτὸς ἀπέϑανε τῇ ἁμαρτία οὐ τοῦ 
ἑαυτοῦ, ἀλλὰ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ. Crebras ejusmodi a Millio cita- 
tiones, ut res postulat, invitus refero. Porro Prol. p. 124, 
col. 2, hee habet, “ τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, quod in ceteris fere omnibus 
(excepta ithiop.) irrepsisse ex hujus cap. v. 2, omnino sus- 
picor:” ex suspicionibus tam iniquis tota scripture fides pe- 
riclitatur. 

Y. 12. Non ergo regnet peccatum in vestro mortali corpore 
eis τὸ ὑπακούειν αὐτῇ ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις αὐτοῦ. Verba sub- 


notata desunt Iren. lib. v. cap. 14, p. 421, Tertul. de Resur. 
cap. 47. Retinent autem ea Orig. περὶ Εὐχῆς, p. 79, C. 
Alex. Hilarius Diac. Gr. scholia, versionesque ad unum 
omnes; perperam igitur Millius hec veluti commentarium 
rejicit, non textum, Prol. p. 46, col. 2. p. 66, col. 1. 

V. 16. Ἤτοι ἁμαρτίας εἰς ϑάνατον.] Eis θάνατον agnoscunt 
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Hilarius Diac. Vulg. Arab. στ ῃΐορ. D. 
Syr. Clar.: “unde adjectum videtur (inquit Milfius) an- 
titheseos causa,” Prol. p. 46, col. 1. 

V. 23. Ἐν Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ τῷ Κυρίῳ iyav.] Ita Gr. scholia, C. 
Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. Syr. Arab.; sed quoniam apud 
“Ethiop. desunt hee, Millio videntur esse veteris cujusdam 
gdnotatoris: Prol. p. 124, col. 2. 

Cap. vil. 2. ᾿Ανὸόρὶ δέδεται νόμῳ. Fatemur Origenem, in 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Matt. p. 268, legisse ὄντι νόμῳ, sed Gr. scholia, et vetuste 
versiones, C. Alex, Hilarius D. lectionem textus sequuntur. 

Cap. vill. 1. Tots μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσι ἀλλὰ κατὰ 
Iveta.) Desunt hee Dial. contra Marcion. p. 146, Athanas. 
Ep. ad Serap. p. 18. Existimo autem verba ista eos missa 
fecisse ex more perusitato patrum, qui quicquid instituto 
suo alienum est, silentio transeunt; prima enim pars eorum 
occurrit apud omnia Gr. scholia, Hilarium D. et vetustissi- 
mas versiones, atque apud Cod. Alex. quocum Athanasius 
arch. Al. plerumque conspirat.. Postrema pars etiam repe- 
ritur apud Theodoretum, Gicum. Theophylactum, et Arab. 
Retinendum esse autem constat ex mutua inter se verborum 
connexione ad hunc modum: “« Nihil damnationis est iis 
qui ambulant κατὰ τὸ Πνεῦμα" ὃ γὰρ νόμος τοῦ Πνεύματος libe- 
ravit me, et omnes qui sunt in Christo Jesu, a lege peccati, 
qua ad mortem fuimus damnati.” 

Cap. ix. 10. “Ρέβεκκα ἐξ ἑνὸς κοίτην ἔχουσα Ἰσαάκ. “Εἰχ uno 
concubitu,” patres Latini aliqui. Hc, et plura hujusmodi 
non tam dicenda sunt variantes lectiones, quam Greci ser- 
monis interpretationes. Rectius reddas, “ Ex uno Isaac con- 
cubitum habens,” i. e. copulationem : κοίτη enim hoc sepius 
significat, Lev. xviii. 20. xxx. 13. Numb. xxxi. 17, 18; vel 
“semen habens,” adstipulantibus C2cumenio et Lev. xviii. 
23. Numb. v. 2. 20: sepissime autem occurrit κοίτη σπέρματος. 

V. 18. Ὃν ϑέλει σκληρύνει.) Agnoscunt τὸ Sé\er Gr. scholia 
omnia, Origenes in Ex. ed. Huet. p. 22, C. Alex. Hilarius 
Di. versiones omnes: censet tamen Millius irrepsisse ex 
margine explicationis gratia, Prol. p. 156, col. 2. 

V. 24. Ois καὶ ἑκάλεσεν ἡμᾶς.] Τὸ ἡμᾶς habent C. Alex. 
Hilarius 1). Gr. scholia, et versiones omnes. Male ergo 
Erasmus additum censet explicationis gratia. 

V. 28. Λόγου yap συντελῶν καὶ συντέμνων ἐν δικαιοσύνῃ ὅτι, 
λόγον συντετμένον ποιήσει ὃ Ἰζύριος ἐπὶ γῆς. Legendum vult 
Millius λύγον συντελῶν καὶ συντέμνων ποιῆσει ὃ Κύριος, mediis 
intermissis ; quum vero textus exhibeat ipsissima verba τῶν 
LXX. Interpr., approbantibus Chrysostom. Gicum. Theo- 
phylacto, Vulg. Arab. Hieron. Hilario Di., ne uno com- 
mentatore, in quantum scio, partem adversam defendente, 
Millii sententia et lectio respuende jure optimo videntur. 

Cap. x. 1. Ὑπὲρ τοῦ Ἰσραήλ.) Chrysost. Vulg. Ruffin. 
Hilarius D. legunt αὐτῶν, quod idem significat ac τοῦ ᾿Ισραήλ" 
ratione sc. habita ad Israel, de quo mentio cap. ix. 31: 
unde Chrysostomus in Ps. xlviii. ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 270, 
ὃ Παῦλος περὶ ᾿Ιουδαίων ἐθρήνει λέγων ἡ δέησις ἡ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν περὶ 
αὐτῶν ἐστιν eis σωτηρίαν. Sed Theodoretus et (ΕἸ οατηθηϊα5 
tum in textu, tum in commentario legunt ὑπὲρ Ἰσραήλ. 

Υ. 5. Τὴν διχαιοσύνην τὴν ἐκ τοῦ νόμου. Totum illud omittit 
/Ethiop.: habent autem Gr. scholia Hilarius D. versiones, 
“sed inseruit quispiam,” Prol. p. 141, col. 1. Mirum certe 
est, si in libros omnes istos inseruisset. 

'O ποιήσας αὐτὰ ἄνθρωπος ζήσεται ἐν αὐτοῖς. “ Deest αὐτὰ 
Chrysost:” ita Millius; sed reperies tam in Chrysostomo 
quam in ceteris Gr. scholiis, et in Hilario Di., sicut etiam 
ἐν αὐτοῖς que desunt in solo Vulgato, iisque Latinis qui Vul- 
gati vestigia premunt. Erratur etiam in testimonio Clem. 
Als: non enim verba hujus epistole citat Stro. ii. p. 281, 
sed ille Lev. xviii. 5, ad hune modum, ὃ ποιῆσας αὐτὰ ἄν- 
ϑρωπὸς ζήσεται ἐν αὐτοῖς" non esse mutandum ἐν ἑαυτοῖς in 
ἐν ἑαυτῇ, suadent Clem. Al. versio τῶν LXX. omniaque 
Grecorum scholia, contra Millium, Prol. p. 129, col. 1. 

Cap. xi. 13. Τὴν διακονίαν pov ἑοξάζω.] Vulg. Ruffin. Hila- 
ius Diaconus, videntur legisse δοξάσω: sed omnia Gr. 
scholia, C. Al. legunt cum textu in presenti tempore, quod 
est ad scopum apostoli accommodatius, Millio incassum 
renitente. 


V. 21. Μήπως οὐδέ cov φείσηται. Non diffitemur Chrysos- 
tomum et Theodoretum legisse φείσεται. Vulg. “ parcat.” 
Sed Cicumenius, Theophylact, C. Alex. habent φείσηται 
pro σωθήσεται, v. 26. Vulg. Hilarius, et Arab. legunt “sal- 
vus fieret” σωϑήσηται" sed Tren. lib. iv. cap. 5, p. 278, “sal- 
vabitur.” Orig. in Matt. p. 360, in Jer. p. 74, et omnia Gr. 
scholia, legunt σωϑήσηται. 

V. 30. “Ὥσπερ καὶ ὑμεῖς. Deest καὶ apud Chrys. et Theo- 
phylact.; habent Theodoret. Gicum. C. Alex. Vulg. Syr. 
Arab. atque hic καὶ ὑμεῖς proprie significat vox etiam Anglice, 
“even you,” vel “you also,” 

V. 32. Conclusit Deus τοὺς πάντας.] Vulg. Ruffinus, Hi- 
larius D. Hieron. legunt τὰ πάντα, forte quoniam ita se 
habet’ Gal. iii. 22. Sed Gr. scholia legunt τοὺς πάντας" 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


utraque lectio eundem sensum exprimit, hominibus enim 
tantum hee gratia concessa est. 

Cap. xii. 3. Dico enim διὰ τῆς χάριτος τῆς doSefons por.) 
Ita legunt Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. 
Syr. Arab. “Sed tamen quia in vers. A2thiopica desunt 
verba subnotata, τῆς ὀοθείσης pot adjecta censuerim ex 1 
Cor. iii. 10.” Prol. p. 124, col. 2. Porro Millius hic verba 
Chrysostomi sic exhibet, οὐκ εἶπε, διὰ τῆς σοφίας, ἑιὰ τῆς vopo- 
θεσίας, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς χάριτος Θεοῦ, Chrysost. ut nempe faveret 
lectioni A2thiop. et Theophylacti διὰ τῆς χάριτος Θεοῦ" verba 
tamen Chrysostomi hee sunt, οὐκ εἶπε λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν διὰ τῆς 


σοφίας τοὺ Θεοῦ, διὰ τῆς vopoSecias τοὺ Θεοῦ, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς Naptros, | 


ubi Θεοῦ cum apostolo relinguit intelligendum; non prout 
Millius, apposuit. 

Cap. xiil. 1, 2.] Omnes variantes lectiones ab A. ad I. re- 
futantur a pleno consensu omnium Gr. scholiorum, et Ori- 
genis ipsissima textus verba exhibentium; quamvis enim 
Hilarius Diac. et Iren. Lat. legerint, « Omnibus potestatibus 
superioribus subditi estote,” Grabius, not. in Iren. lib. v. 
cap. 24, hec hubet, « Non ab ipsius Irenwi manu, sed inter- 
pretis hee lectio profluxisse videtur.” Orig. C. Alex, Au- 
gust. tom. x. de Verbis Dom. serm. 6, Syr. Arab. Gr. scholia 
omnia legunt πᾶσα ψυχὴ ὑποτασσέσϑω. (2.) Chrysostomus 
(inguit) et Gcum. legunt ὑπὸ, non ἀπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ, CMcum. 
tamen, Origenes, Theodoret. Theophylact. omnes versiones, 
et Latini omnes legunt “a Deo.” Chrysost. cum apostolo, 
aliquando ἀπὸ, aliquando ὑπὸ. (3.) Dicit « Origenem Com. 
in Rom. omisisse hee verba, αἱ δὲ οὖσαι éfovsiar ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ 
τεταγμέναι εἰσιν." Stat contra Orig. contra Cels. lib. viii. 
p- 421, ubi postquam citasset hwe ipsa verba, continuo addit, 
ἐν piv τοΐίγε rots πρὸς τὴν els Ρωμαίους ἐξηγητικοῖς, ὡς δυνατὸν 
ἣν ὑμῖν ἐπὶ πλεῖον, καὶ ταῦτα τὰ ῥήματα ποικίλως ἐξετάσαμεν. 


Extant etiam apud Tren. C, Alex. apud Gr. scholia, et | 


versiones omnes: nihil igitur est cause, cur adjectum ab 
interprete quodam censeret Erasmus. 
“70 ἐξουσίαι deesse apud Vul. Hilarium D. August. Authiop. 
Orig.” in Origene fallitur. Retinent etiam Gr. scholia omnia, 
Syr. Arab. preponderant Latinis legentibus, “Que autem 
sunt, a Deo subordinate sunt,” ubi vox “potestates,” que 
in priori parte commatis agnoscitur, necessario subintelli- 
genda est: tamen Prol. p. 134, col. 2, “medium ἐξουσίας 
irrepsit ex priori parte versiculi.”” 

V. 9. Οὐ ψευδομαρτυρήσεις. Deest MSS. plurimis, Hilario 
Diac. C. Alex. Theodoreto, Basil. tom. ii. p. 471. Sed 
retinent Iren. lib. iv. cap. 26, p. 313, Chrysost. Gicum. Vulg. 
Arab. Aithiop. Porro usitatissimum apud patres est in 
notissimis rebus, iis presertim, quas verba sequentia (et si 
quod aliud mandatum est) satis indicant, mutila quedam 
exhibere, et quasi decurtata. V. g. Orig. in Matt. p. 380, 
Clem. Alex. Strom. p. 478, ita hunc textum citant, οὐ 
φονεύσεις, οὐ μοιχεύσεις, οὐ κλέψεις, cetera desunt. Et p. 381, 
Origenes allegat unicum hoc οὐ φονεύσεις, καὶ εἴ τις ἑτέρα 
ἐντολὴ, et Theodoretus in commentario pretermittit οὐκ ἐπι- 
ϑυμήσεις. 

V. 18. Μὴ κώμοις. Syr. Arab. “non cantu,” quod non est 
varians lectio, sed explicatio vocis, ita enim Phavorinus et 
scholiastes Aristoph. κῶμοι, ἀσελγὴῇ ἅσματα πορνικὰ, συμ- 
ποσιακοὶ «dal, ὀρχήσεις κατὰ μέϑης" vide apud Aristoph. p. 
162, 708, 772, ubi scholiastes observat hos cantus composi- 
tos fuisse εἰς δαιμόνων τιμήν. 

Cap. xiv. 6. Καὶ 6 μὴ φρονῶν τὴν ἡμέραν, Kupio οὐ φρονεῖ. 
Parum refert Latinos omnes hee omisisse, cum retineant 
Basil. tom. ii. p. 456, et Gr. scholia, vide Prol. p. 125, 
col. 1. 

V.9. Eis τοῦτο yap Χριστὸς dréSave, καὶ ἀνέστη, καὶ ἐνέζη- 
σεν. ᾿Ανέστη suspectum habet Esthius occupati loci alieni, 
sed immerito; reperias enim vocem illam apud Iren. lib. ii. 
cap. 20, p. 245, Orig. in Joh. p. 126, 317, et contra Cels. 
lib. ii. p. 110; apud Hilarium D. Gr. Arab. Gr. scholia 
omnia, ne Chrys. quidem excepto, apostolus addit vocem, 
ἀνέζησεν vel ἔζησεν, ut respondeat voci ζώντων, et vocem 
ἀπέϑανε ut respondeat voci νεκρῶν, atque hine fortasse fuit 
quod has solas explicavit Chrysost. Rejicit tamen hanc 
lectionem Mill. Proleg. p. 72, col. 1. 

V. 21. Ἢ σκανδαλίζεται, ἢ doSevet.] Habent hee Gr. 
scholia omnia, Hilarius D. Vulg. Arab. Est tamen, juxta 
Millium, hoc scholion marginale, quod scriba aliquis in 
corpus epistole transmisit: Prol. p. 123, col. 1. 

V. 22. ᾿Ενώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ.] Desunt hee marg. Chrysost. 

Vor. [V.—148 


Denique cum dicit | 


ΤΠ 


Habent Theodoret. cum. Vulg. Syr. Arab. Hilarius Diac, 
C. Alex. 

Cap. xv. 4. “Ὅσα yap προεγράψη. Hane lectionem retinent 
omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Syr. Arab. et postulat ipsa mens 
sensusque apostoli; loquitur enim de s. scriptura Vet. ‘l'es- 
tamenti: dicente autem Millio, Prol. p. 135, col. 1, “muta- 
vit quispiam simplex ἐγράφη in mpoeypapn.” 

V. 12. Πάλιν.) Deest Ath. Chrysost. Habent relique 
versiones, et scholia, et C. Alex. : et tamen Prol. p. 124, col. 
1, medium “ πάλιν insertum videtur ex superioribus.” 

V. 13. "Ev τῷ πιστεύειν. Desunt hee Clar. Ger.: agnoscunt 
Gr. scholia omnia C. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. Arab. “ Vereor 
tamen (ait Millius, Prol. p. 135), ne sit scholion.” 

V. 14. “Ὅτι καὶ αὐτοὶ μεστοί ἔστε τῆς dyaSwotvns.] Ita Gr 
scholia omnia, Cod. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. Syr.: sed quia 
καὶ αὐτοὶ deesse videntur Arab. Aithiop. “media καὶ αὐτοὶ 
(inquit Millius, Proleg. p. 135), adscripta puto ad marginem, 
indeque irrepsisse in corpus libri.” 

Ὑ. 19. "Ev δυνάμει Πνεύματος Θεοῦ. Millius, p. 46, “Θεοῦ 
studiosi alicujus est,” sed agnoscunt Gr. scholia omnia, et 
versiones orientales. 

V. 24. ᾿Ελεύσομαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς. Desunt hee Chrysost. Vulg. 
et Latinos qui Vulgatum sequuntur. Explicantur a Theo- 
doreto, G2cum. Theophylacto, atque ideo solum omitti 
videntur, quia providentia Dei iter illud intervertit. Vide 
annotata nostra in locum. 

V. 27. Etdéxnoav γάρ. Desunt hec apud Hilarium, et duo 
MSS. Agnoscunt Gr. scholia, Vulg. Syr. Arab.: ait tamen 
Millius, “ Repetitum omnino fuisse suspicor ex versu pre- 
cedente,” Prol. p. 135, col. 1. 

V. 29. Τοῦ εὐαγγελίου. Deest in Clem. Alex. Hilar. Diac. 
Cod. Alex.: interpretantur tamen hance vocem, Gr. scholia, 
Syr. Arab. Proleg. p. 60, “ Commentarius est, non textus.” 

Cap. xvi. 5. ᾿Απαρχὴ τῆς ᾿Ασίας,} V.1. τῆς ᾿Αχαίας, recte. 
Vide com. nostra in locum. 

V. 6. Que multum laboravit εἰς ἡμᾶς. V. 1. ὑμᾶς, quam 
lectionem ut firmaret, adducit testimonium Chrysost. hic, et 
Prol. p. 104, Theophylacti, sed utriusque perperam: etsi 
enim Chrysost. in textu legit ὑμᾶς, in commentario habet 
ἡμᾶς, quam vocem exponit de labore a Maria suscepto πρὸς 
τοὺς ἀποστόλους" ‘heophylact. ed. Ox. non modo legit jyas 
in textu (sicut etiam Theodoretus et G&cum. sed etiam 
addit, laborasse illam εἰς ἡμᾶς ἀποστόλων πληροῦσα τάξιν.) 

V. 16. ᾿Ασπάζονται ὑμᾶς αἱ ἐκκλησίαι. V. 1. add. πάσαι, 
ita Theodoretus, Vulg. et e Latinis plurimi, sc. omnium illo- 
rum locorum ecclesie, i. e. pauce ecclesie, vel fortasse unica : 
rectius ergo omittunt Chrysost. cum. Theophylactus. 

V. 18. Καὶ evdoyias.] Desunt hee in 4 MSS. Agnoscunt 
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Hilarius Diac. et versiones omnes: 
habet tamen Millius, τὸ εὐλογίας pro interpretamento margi- 
nale τῆς χρηστολογίας, Pro]. p. 135, col. 1. 


SECTIO SECUNDA—EPISTOLA PRIMA AD CORINTHIOS. 


Car. i. 1. Παῦλος κλητὸς.] Deest κλητὸς in tribus MSS. 
Agnoscunt ergo reliqui, pariter ac Gr. scholia, Hilarius Diac. 
et versiones antique: et licet non nominatim prefigitur 
ceteris epistolis, hune tamen quasi proprium locum sibi 
vindicat, propterea quod scribit jam ad eos qui de ipsius 
apostolatu paululum dubitasse videbantur, Hine est quod 
ipse ad hune modum loquitur de seipso, “ Ego plantavi vos,” 
iii. 6, “In Christo Jesu per evangelium ego vos genui,” iv. 
15, « Nonne opus meum vos estis in Domino?” ix. 1. Pre- 
terea voce κλητῦς utitur Paulus ad Rom. i. 6, 7. Unde 
Millius, Prol. p. 135, « Medium κλητὸς insertum videtur jam 
olim ex primis verbis precedentis epistole.” 

V.18. Tots μὲν ἀπολλυμένοις --------σωζομένοις δὲ ἡμῖν, Ita 
Hilarius Diac. scholia Gr. et versiones omnes, οἱ C. Alex.: 
Millio tamen μὲν et ἡμῖν videntur injectitia, fide nescio cujus 
Vulgati, Prol. p. 46, col. 2. 

V. 28. Καὶ τὰ μὴ ὄντα.) V. 1. deest καὶ. Agnoscunt 
autem Gr. scholia, et versiones omnes, Orig. Com. in Matt. 
Ρ. 258, 374. Contra Cels. lib. iii. p. 140. Quia tamen in 
Hilario Diac. deest, “lectoris alicujus esse videtur, non apos- 
toli,” Prol. p. 164, col. 2. 

Cap. ii. 4. Καὶ δυνάμεως.1 Omittit Athiop. Agnoscunt 
Greca scholia, et versiones omnes, C. Alex. Hilarius Diac. 
Orig. lib. i. contra Cels. p. 5, in Joh. p. 10 et 88, in Matt. p. 
354. Millio ergo dicenti, Prol. p, 124, « Adjectum credibile 
est,” deest parum. 

4Y 


1178 


Υ. 18. 'Ev διδακτοῖς Πνεύματος ἁγίου.] Deest ἁγίου apud 
Clem. ΑἹ. p. 557, Origenem in Matt. p. 353, 381, et Philoc. 
Ῥ. 27. Millio ergo adjectum videtur Prol. p. 60. Occurrit 
vero apud omnia Gr. scholia, et constat quod Spiritus quater 
in hoc capite vocatur Spiritus Dei, nempe com. 10—12. 14. 
Et tametsi dicat Millius defuisse τοῦ Θεοῦ apud Iren. p. 38, 
et Clem. Al. p. 557, et Chrysostomum, adeoque addititium 
esse, Prol. p. 70, lectoris alicujus esse, non apostoli, p. 
46, legas tamen Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ hic in Clem. Al. Stro. i. p. 
297, Orig. in Jer. hom. 12, p. 117, in Joh. p. 68, C. Alex. 
Hilario Diac. Theodoreto, Gicum. et Theophylacto, Vulz. 
Arab. atque adeo frustra rejicitur. 

Cap. iii. 8. Καὶ διχοστασίαι.] Deest in 3 MSS. Vulg. 
Ethiop. Clem. Al. Stro. v. p. 558, add. Cod. Alex. Orig. in 
Cels. lib. iii. p. 140. Unde Millius dicit irrepsisse e margine, 
Prol. p. 94, col. 2. Agnoscunt tamen hane vocem omnia Gr. 
scholia, Iren, Gr, lib. iv. cap. 75, p. 379, Basilius tom. ii. p. 
395, Syr. et Arab. 

Cap. iv. 14. ‘Qs τέκνα pov ἀγαπητὰ vouSera.| MSS. cod. 
quidam, C. Alex. νουθετῶν. “ Recte (inquit Grotius) ut cohe- 
reat cum illo ds,” at male, si Hilario D. Gr. scholiis, et versi- 
onibus cunctis major sit adhibenda fides. 

Cap. v. 1. Οὐκ ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσι ὀνομάζεται. Deest ὀνομάζεται 
in sex MSS. Epiphanio, p. 706, Tertul. de Pud. cap. 14, 
Hilario 1). cxterisque Latinis, qui Vulgatum preferunt. Ag- 
noscunt autem C. Alex. Syr. Arab. omnia Gr. scholia, expli- 
cantque fusius tanquam verbum insigne et ἐμψατικώτατον. 
zap’ ἐκείνοις οὐ μόνον οὐ τολμᾶταί τι τοιοῦτο, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὀνομάζεται. 

V. 8. Τὸν οὕτω τοῦτο κατεργασάμενον ἐν ὁνύματι τοῦ Kupiov, 
&c.] Sic codices nonnulli testibus Chrysostomo et Gicume- 
nio, ὑποστίξαντες ad vocem Χριστοῦ, ut intelligatur ὃ εἰς τὸ ὄνομα 
τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐνυβρίσας" sed sicut hanc expositionem improbat 
Chrysostomus, ita insulsum, et pene ridiculum est dicere ali- 
quem aliquid operatum fuisse mali in nomine Domini nostri, 
Jesu Christi. 

V.4. Χριστοῦ. Deest in Vulg. thiop. sed retinetur 
apud Greeca scholia, Orig. in Jer. p. 119, Syr. Arab.—Prol. 
tamen p. 69, col. 2, “addititium est.” 

V. 6. Οὐ καλὸν τὸ καὔχημα ὑμῶν. Ita uno ore omnia Gr. 
scholia, et versiones, C. Alex. et Hilarius Diac.: “Sicut 
autem omittunt negationem, et Latini quidam, sic nullus 
dubite apostoli ipsius exemplar.” Ita Millius Prol. p. 46, 
col. 2, qui, argumento vix rationis speciem habente motus, 
hoc “ frigidum”’ vocat. 

Μικρὰ ζύμη ὅλον τὸ φύραμα Svpot.] V. 1. φϑείρει. Sed dodot 
germanam esse lectionem acriter contendit Millius. Rectius 
autem Cotelerius de hoc textu sic: “ Certum est antiquissima 
exemplaria cum ab interpretibus et patribus tractata, tum 
que ad nos usque pervenerunt, habuisse aut habere, aut 
φϑείρει, aut ζυμοῖ, aut door. Ireneus videtur legisse φϑείρει, ait 
enim ‘corrumpit,’ lib. iv. cap. 46, sic Vulg. illiusque fautores 
Apostolice Constitutiones ὅολοῖ. Sed adnotatur in margine 
Anastasium legisse ζυμοῖ in locum. Lectiones posthac in 
usu quotidiano erant vel φϑείρει, vel ζυμοῖ, ut apparet ex 
epistola Michaelis Cerul. ad Petrum Antioch. scripta post- 
quam orta fuit controversia inter occidentalem et orientalem 
ecclesiam de pane fermentato, viz. καλῶς δὲ, καὶ τὸ ἀποστολι- 
κὸν ἐκεῖνο ῥητὸν λαμβάνοντες τὸ φασκὸν, μικρὰ ζύμη ὅλον τὸ φύραμα 
ζυμοῖ, οὕτως ἐκεῖνο γεγραμμένον ἔχουσι φϑείρει. Tum 
vero ζυμοῖ jure optimo alteri eum anteposuisse exinde liquet, 
quod hee sit lectio ipsius apostoli Gal. v. 9, atque hic et illic 
orientales versiones, C. Alex. et Gr. scholia omnia retinent 
τὸ ζυμοῖ, ne ulla quidem alterius cujuscunque lectionis men- 
tione facta; preterea hxc lectio innititur testimonio Hiero- 
nymi, quod plus valet quam Latinorum, qui φϑείρει potius 
quam. ¢o\ot interpretantur. Is enim non solum in versione 
suu utitur voce “fermentat,” Gal. v. 9, sed etiam addit 
“Male in nostris codicibus habetur corrumpit, et sensum 
potius interpres suum quam apostoli verba transtulit.’ Non 
leve firmamentum lectioni huic addit Buxtorfius, qui apud 
Hebreos de originali corruptione loquens, vetus esse adagium 
ait “fermentum in massa,” sicut enim parum fermenti fer- 
mentat ingentem massam, eamque corrumpit, ita concupis- 
centia mala totum corrumpit hominem: Floril. Hebr. p. 43, 
Notandum denique quod Prol. p. 46, 47, Iren. Tertul. Basil. 
M. nempe Lat. tom. il. p. 631, Hilarius Diac. Lucifer Calarit. 
Pelagius, omnes Latini qui legunt “corrumpit” (i.e. φθείρει). 
[Producti sunt tamen ac si certo legissent δολοῖ. 

Y. 17. ᾿Εκκαϑάρατε otv.] V. 1. deest οὖν in MSS. multis, 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Vulg. et Hilario D. Chrysost. Qicum. Agnoscunt autem 
Theodoretus et Theophylactus: ita etiam, ait Esthius, que- 
dam vetustissima Latina exemplaria plerisque Grecis suflra- 
gantibus, illationis omittende fuit causa quod sine ea legere- 
tur hee scriptura in s. paschali officio: caterum optime 
quadrat hec illativa particula. 

Ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν.) “ Explicatio est,” Mill. Prol, Ρ. 72. Αρποβ- 
cunt autem Gr. scholia omnia, Syr. Arab. Deest in Vulg. 
teste Erasmo, reclamantibus libris omnibus nostris, quibus in 
hac parte, ut dicam ingenue, magis accedo. 

V.8. ᾿Αλλ' ἐν ἀζύμοις εἰλικρινείας, καὶ ἀληϑείας. Desunt 
hec apud Athiop. Habent Hilarius Diac. Hieron. lib. i, 
contra Pelag. f. 97, Orig. in Jer. p. 143, in Matt. p. 270, in 
Joh. p. 163, 372, in Hom. in Num. decies, Greea scholia, et 
relique versiones. Hac tamen sola auctoritate fretus, “ adjecta 
(ait Millius) jam olim opinor que in nostris omnibus,” Prol. 
Ρ. 124, col. 2. 

Cap. vi. 5. Οὐκ ἔστιν σοφὸς, οὐδὲ εἷς. Prol. p. 135, col. 
1, “interjectum est οὐδὲ εἷς jam olim emphaseos causa,” ex 
/Ethiop. solius auctoritate, repugnantibus Gr. scholiis omni- 
bus, et Cod. Alex. immo Vulgato, Hilario D. et Latinis om- 
nibus legentibus “ Nonne est inter vos sapiens quispiam ?” 
Hac confidentia videtur mihi Millius labefactare loca pene 
omnia, in quibus divinitas Christi contra Photinianos adstrui- 
tur; ii enim, pari de causa, nempe codice uno vel altero 
aliud legente, dicere possunt “ Hc vel illa addita esse jam 
olim emphaseos causa.” 

V. 8. Kai ταῦτα ἀδελφοῦς.] C. Alex. cum aliis legit τοῦτο, 
ταῦτα omittit Clem. Al. (si Millio fides) scholia autem Greca 
universim, Vulg. Hilarius D. legunt cum textu ; Prol. tamen 
Ρ. 60, col. 2, hec habet, “ Vix aut ne vix est quin lectionem 
hance genuinam esse censeam esse unius nostri, quod video 
Clementis.” Ο quam pulchrum est habere nasum criticum! 
defuit is, Millio hic fatente, Grecis omnibus, et Latinis; nec 
minus absona sunt que sequuntur, “Eis verbis inserta est 
emphatica particula, varia tamen, quod indicium παρεμβλή- 
σεως in al. τοῦτο, in aliis ταῦτα" quorsum enim tot variantes 
lectiones congessit, si varia lectio sit certum παρεμβλήσεως 
indicium ? 

V.19. Οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι τὸ σῶμα ὑμῶν. V. 1. τὰ σώματα, C. 
Alex. Vulg. Hilarius D. Theophylactus. Sed Origen. contra 
Cels. lib. iv. p.177, Chrysostomus, Theodoretus, GEcumenius, 
Syr. Arab. legunt σῶμα. Et quanquam idem sit utriusque 
sensus, lectionem in textu lectioni Vulg. anteponit Esthius, 
“quod (inquit) in pluribus est Grecis τὸ σώμα ‘corpus,’ con- 
gruit cum eo quod proxime precessit, ‘eum qui fornicatur, 
peccare in corpus suum.’” 

V. 20. Δοξάσατε δὲ τὸν Ocdv.] Vulg. Hilarius Ὁ. Tertul- 
lianus, Cyprianus, Chrysostom. August. legunt καὶ ἄρατε, 
“ Glorificate, et portate Deum :” ita Millius. Sed observan- 
dum hic primo Vulg. Hilarium 1). Tertullianum, Cyprianum 
hic legere, “ Empti estis pretio magno,” refragantibus Grecis 
scholiis, C. Alex. et versionibus orientalibus universis: 
Chrysostomus hic habet dpa τε" lege, ait Daneus, δὴ ἄρα. 
Idem ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 370, in Ps. exii. et Ps. exlv., legit 
dofacare δὴ τὸν Θεόν. Ireneus, lib. v. cap. 13, p. 419, legit 
solummodo “ Glorificate Deum in corpore vestro:” et simili- 
ter August. de Trin. lib. ii. cap. 13, tom. iii. p. 273. Quibus- 
cum consentiunt Greca scholia, versiones orientales, C. Alex. 
Cyril. Al. de Recta Fide, p. 63. Pergit sic Millius, Prol. p. 
153, col. 1, “Sequentia καὶ ἐν τῷ πνεύματι ὑμῶν ἅτινά ἔστι 
τοῦ Θεοῦ, Non occurrunt in Alex. aliisque probatioribus cod. 
uti neque apud Epiphan. Euthal. Vulg. #thiop.” Ea tamen 
agnoscunt Greca scholia omnia, Syr. et Arab. et “sensum 
(inquit Esthius) clarum exhibent, iisque admonemur glorifi- 
care Deum in utroque et corpore et in spiritu, quia utrum- 
que Dei est, atque proinde utrumque suo famulari debet 
auctori et Domino. Respicit enim ad illud, ‘ Pretio empti 
estis, et non estis vestri,’ estque tacita probatio a partibus, 
‘Corpus vestrum, et spiritus vester Dei est, ergo non estis 
vestri; immo utrumque pretio emptum est, utrogue igitur 
glorificandus est Deus.’” 

Cap. vii. 3. ᾿Οφειλομένην εὐνοίαν.] V. 1]. ὀφειλομένην τιμὴν 
hic Chrysost.: sed tom. v. ed. Mor. p. 279, legit cum textu 
ὀφειλήν, Orig. in Matt. p. 363, Vulg. Hilarius D. e Latinis 
alii; sed Theodoret. CEcum. Theophylact. Syr. Arab. textui 
assentiunt. Utriusque lectionis eadem est interpretatio. 

V. 5. TH νηστεία, καὶ προσευχῇ] Desunt τῇ νηστεία καὶ, in 
Orig. Clem. Al. Cyprian. Hieron.: sed agnoscunt Syr. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


1179 


Arab. Gr. scholia, Cod. Alex.: et cum Chrysost. et Theo- | “ Quod si magnus hic vir omnes dixit, cum Paulus multos 


hylact. de extraordinaria precatione in commentariis suis 
oquantur, aperte satis indicant jejanium simul adhibendum 
esse, quod plerumque talem precationem comitatur; id- 
circo ut probaret Chrysostomus quod det τῇ νηστείᾳ τὴν προσ- 
εὐχὴν συνέζευξεν ἡ γραφὴ, hee ipsissima verba adducit, iva 
σχολάζητε τι νηστείᾳ, καὶ τῇ προσευχῇ. Com. in Ps. exlv. ed. 
Mor. tom. iii. p. 829. 

V. 34, Μεμέρισται ἡ γυνὴ, καὶ ἡ rapSévos.] Ita Grieca scho- 
lia omnia, C. Alex. Basil. tom. i. p. 635, tom. ii. p. 499, 
Theodoret. Her. Fab. p. 306. Nota etiam, Hieronymo 
adversarium pulsanti non esse nimium fidendum; in pole- 
micis enim est magis sollicitus de victoria, quam de veritate : 
aliter enim in hoc loco legit, lib. i. contra Helvid. f. 6, ubi 
hec habet, “*‘ Divisa est mulier et virgo,’ quid oblatras, quid 
repugnas? Vas electionis hwc loquitur, ‘Divisa est (di- 
cens) mulier, et virgo.’”’ liter autem lib. i. contra Jovin. 
f. 20, ubi sic legimus, “Nune illud breviter admoneo in 
Latinis codicibus sic legi, ‘ Divisa est virgo et mulier,’ quod 
non est apostolic veritatis; siquidem apostolus ita scripsit, 
‘Solicitus est vir que sunt mundi, quomodo placeat uxori, 
et divisus est,’ et hac sententia definita, transgreditur ad 
virgines, et continentes, et ait « Mulier innupta, et virgo.’” 

V, 39. Γυνὴ δέδεται νόμῳ. Orig. in Matt. 358, 363, 364, 
plurimique e Latinis omittunt νόμῳ. Sed Vulg. Hilarius D. 
Gr. scholia, et versiones, item Basil. de Virgin. tom. i. p. 


650, habent νόμῳ (utut Millius ab Esthio deceptus, contra- | 


rium asserat) nec ulla alia hominis, quam ex lege oritur 
obligatio. Millius tamen fidentur “ τῷ νόμῳ quod additum 
in nostris, haud dubio translatum ex Rom. vii. 2:’’ ita con- 
tinuo confidentia supplet locum rationis. 

Cap. viii.) Nota quod a versiculo 3 ad finem hujus capi- 
tis, licet afferantur viginti quatuor lectiones, et amplius, 
Basilius, tom. ii. p. 438, 439, textum presse et κατὰ πόδα 
insequitur, nisi quod ἕτεροι v. 4, omittat, et ἀπόλλυται legat, 
v.-1l. 

V.4. “Erspos.] Habent Gr. scholia omnia, Syr. Arab.: 
juxta tamen Millium, irrepsit e marg. Prol. p. 95. 

V.10. Eri τῇ σῇ yo.) “Non agnoscunt Hilarius D. 
Pelag.” Mill. p. 47, cap. 1. Agnoscunt autem Theodoret. 
GEcum. Theophyl. Cod. Alex. Vulg. Syr. Arab. et, quod 
mirum dictu, ἐπὶ τῇ σῇ γνώσει agnoscunt Hilarius D. et 
Pelagius. 

Cap. ix. 2. "Ev Κυρίῳ. Ita Origen. in Joh. p. 399, Theo- 
doret. C&cum. Theophylactus, Hilarius D.: et tamen, juxta 
Millium, Prol. p. 95, col. 1, irrepsit e margine. 

V. 7. Καὶ ἐκ τοῦ γάλακτος τῆς ποίμνης οὐκ ἐσθίει. Ita Theo- 
doret. GEcum. Vulg. Syr. Arab. Chrysost. et Theophylact. 
mutant substantivum in relativum, legendo αὐτῆς loco ποί- 
uns, sensu eodem salvo ; Millio tamen judice, Prol. p. 69, 
col. 2, “et ποίμνης et αὐτῆς adjectitia sunt,” quanquam una 
earum vocum subaudiatur necesse est. 

V.18. Τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ Χριστοῦ. Ita Gr. scholia, Syr. 
Arab.: sed Vulg. et Hilarius D. omittant τοῦ Χριστοῦ" “ ac- 
cessit ergo in nostris ex interpretamento,” Prol. p. 95, 
col. 1. 


V. 20. 'ως ὑτὸ véyov.] Addunt cod. MSS. 7, Vulg. Chry- | 


sost. Hilatius D. August. μὴ ὧν αὐτὸς ὑπὸ τὸν νύμον, sed hoc 
additamentum agnoscunt neque Origen. in Joh. p. 155, 


neque aliquis alius e Grecis commentatoribus, nec versiones | 


orientales; et cum scripta sit hee epistola ad Corinthios, 
inter quos versabantur plurimi Judworum fidelium, qui 
emulatores fuerunt legis, hec verba os corum querelis im- 
plevisset, quod Paulus discessionem docuisset a Moyse; hoc 
enim leviori de causa factum vidimus, Act. xxi. 21, et falsi 
crimen illi impegissent, eo quod dixisset se neque in legem 
Judeorum peccasse, Act. xv. 8, nec adversus mores pater- 
nos, Act. xxviii. 17. 

V. 22. "Iva πάντως τινὰς σώσω. Hie Millius; Prol. p- 47, 
col. 1, ait “xepdjew mutatum in σώσω ad evitandam ejusdem 
vocis crebram repetitionem,” et p. 123, dicit “ πάντως τινὰς 
irrepsisse, loco genuinw lectionis πάντας." Sed omnia Gr. 
scholia legunt πάντως τινὰς, et miram simul Pauli caritatem 
laudant, qui se aliis dedidit, ἵνα καὶν τοὺς ὀλίγους σώσω" cum 
jis consentiunt C. Alex. Arab. immo Paulus ipse, Rom. xi. 
14, εἴπω; σώσω τινὰς ἐξ αὐτῶν, In Clemente Al. et Gregorio 
Naz. mire hallucinatur; uterque enim, in his verbis, ἵνα 
πάντας κερδήσω, respicit non hune, sed v. 19, ubi apostolus 
legit ἵνα πλειόνας xepéiiow. Ita Elias Cretensis de Greg. Naz. 


dixit, haud mirum id videri debet; Paulus enim ad id quod 
eventurum erat orationem conformans, sic locutus est, «ut 
multos lucrifacerem.’ Hic autem divinus magister ad Pauli 
studium, animique promptitudinem.” Com. in Orat. 1, p. 
163; vide etiam Clem. Al. p. 177. 

V. 23. Τοῦτο δὲ roid.) Τοῦτο legunt Theodoret. Ccum. 
Theophyl. Syr. Arab. πάντα Vulg. C. Alex. Hilarius 1). 
Chrysost. unde mutatum πάντα in τοῦτο vult Millius, Prol. 
p- 77, “ndvra (inquit) in τοῦτο mutandi causa aliqua; nec 
enim omnia fecit, nec facere potuit Paulus propter evange- 
lium (quidni facere potuit omnia hic loci memorata, eaque 
in hune scopum dirigere?) mutandi autem τοῦτο in πάντα 
omnino causa nulla;” sic ille. Sed nee Millius in se reci- 
peret onus reddendi rationem de unaquaque variante lectio- 
ne per totum librum suum. 

Jap. x. 5, Eidéxnoev 6 Oe6s.] Sic Gr. scholia, et versiones 
omnes. Sed Marcion omittit ὁ Θεὸς, “omnino recte,” Mil- 
lius, Prol. p. 34, col. 1.—“appositum erat in posterioris wvi 
libris,” Prol. p. 47, col. 2. 

V. 19. “Ὅτι εἴδωλον τί ἐστιν. Ita Gr. scholia, et versiones 
omnes, et Hilarius 1). : rejiciuntur tamen hee fide C. Alex. 
Prol. p. 35, col. 1. Et v. 20, τὰ ἔϑνη, quod agnoscunt 
Greea scholia, et versiones omnes, est “ scholion marginale 
assumptum ex Ps. xcvi. 5,” Prol. p. 47, col. 1. 

V. 23, "Exacros.] Habent Gr. scholia omnia, et versiones 
orientales, et C. Alex. D. Vulg. et MSS. quibusdam: 
“scholion ergo est,” Prol. p. 60, col. 2. 

V. 28. Τὸ γὰρ Kupiov ἡ yh, καί τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῆς. Desunt 
hee, secunda vice, Vulg. Hilarius D. Pseud-Hieronymus, 
Syr. Arab. “ Vix est quam ut hoc transcriptum credamus 
ab oscitante quodam librario;” ita hie Millius; reperias 
tamen hee verba apud Arab. C. Alex. et omnia Gr. scholia, 
adeoque causa major est cur retineantur. Ita providi olim 
et negligentes fuerint Christiani, si s. codices in omnibus 
ecclesiis publice recitatos repositosque in ecclesiis, ab osci- 
tantibus librariis misere depravari passi fuissent. Quod 
tamen plusquam centies factum esse contendit Millius. 
Adde quod in his verbis, ἐὰν δέ τις εἴπη ὑμῖν, ὑμῖν “scribe 
esse, (ait) non Pauli,” fide Vulg. et Hilarii, contra Gr. 


| scholia, C. Alex. Syr. Arab, thiop. Prol. p. 47. 


V. 31. Mara.) Habent Gr. scholia, Vulg. Syr. Arab. D. 
ZEthiop. ergo “vix est quin non obstante codicum con- 
sensu censeam πάντα uberioris explicationis gratia 
insertum,” Prol. p. 159, col. 1. 

Cap. xi. 15. Ἢ κόμη ἀντὶ περιβολαίου δέδοται αὐτῇ. Deest 
αὐτῇ in MSS. plurimis, Theodoreto, et CEcumenio. Quid 
ἰδίας. tam mirum voculam pretermitti, quam unusquisque 
lector subaudiendam esse continuo existimaret, vel enim 
mulieri dantur comm ejus pro velamine, vel nemini pre- 
terea? Reperitur vox αὐτῇ apud Chrysostomum, Theophy- 
lactum, C. Alex. Hilarium D. et versiones omnes: adjectum 
est tamen, juxta Millium, ad absolvendam sententiam, Prol. 
p- 89, col. 1. 

V.19. Δεῖ γὰρ καὶ αἱρεσεῖς ἐν ὑμῖν εἶναι. Deest ὑμῖν apud 
patres Latinos, atque adeo, juxta Millium, Prol. p. 47, 
“traductum est ex posteriori parte hujus versiculi.”  Atqui 
agnoscunt C. Alex. Gr. scholia omnia, et versiones orien- 
tales. Est etiam observatu non indignum, quod in citandis 
scripturis, patribus usilatum fuerit, ex precepto alique 
demere particulam specialem, ut fiat preceptum generale: 
ex gr. in cap. xiv. 34, αἱ γυναῖκες ὑμῶν ἐν ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτω- 


| σαν, multi omittunt ὑμῶν, ut fiat mandatum generale. 


V. 24. Λάβετε, φάγετε.) Desunt hec in 5 MSS et in 
Hilario D. atque hine Mill. Prol. p. 95, reclamantibus Gr. 
commentatoribus, Cod. Alex. et vetustissimis versionibus, 
dicit, “ Hee verba que jam in libris fere omnibus inserta 
sunt, provenire ex formula institutionis, Matt. xxvi. 26.” 
At si hee ibi sint verba Christi, sequitur ea hic loci genuina 
esse, et ex evangeliis ab apostolo desumpta, utpote qui di- 
serte narrat se accepisse a Domino quod habiturus erat 
illis. 

Cap. xii. 3. Οὐδεὶς ἐν Πνεύματι Θεοῦ λαλῶν λέγει ἀνάϑεμα 
ἸΙησοῦν.] “'Ev Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, Orig. περὶ Εὐχῆς, et commen- 
tario in Joh. non semel,” ita Millius, sed in utrisque peccat. 
Com. enim in Joh. p. 359, 390, 422, posterior pars hujus 
versus, in quo hee verba ἐν Πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, continuo citatur ; 
prior in quo τὸ Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ Nunquam, lib. περὶ Εὐχῆς, p. 66. 
Mirum est illum non vidisse σφάλμα γραφικὸν nempe legens 


1180 


dum ibi secunda vice prout translatum est, non Πνεύματι 
ἁγίῳ, sed Θεοῦ, quod ex verbis immediate sequentibus per 
modum illationis dictis τὸ αὐτὸ ὀνομάζων ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, καὶ 
Πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ luce clarius est. 

Ὑ. 11. Διαιρυῦν ἴδια ἑκάστῳ. Deest ἴδια apud Vulg. Hi- 
larium D. Syr. Epiphanium. Retinent Clem. Al. Strom. 
iv. p. 527, C. Alex. Gr. scholia omnia. 

V. 26. Kai μέλη ἐκ pépous.] “Membra de membro,” ἐκ 
μέλους, Vulg. Hilarius Ὁ. Clar. Ger. Epiph. Her. Manich. 
§. 86, p. 707; pro qua lectione contendit Mill. Prol. p. 47, 
col. 1, At Orig. in Matt. p. 357, Basil. tom. ii. p. 305, 
Syr. Arab. C. Alex. et Gr. scholia legunt cum textu. Nec 
multum discriminis est inter membra particularia ejusdem 
mystici corporis, et membra inter se pendentia. Quod in 
patribus hic Millius pronunciat « frigidum, et extra scopum 
apostoli,” nempe Corinthios qui partem ecclesie tantum 
constituebant, eam reliquis Christi ecclesitis concordare de- 
bere, est ipsius apostoli argumentum, cap. xi. 16. cap. xiv. 
33, et post multa vix aliud dicit ab his verbis Chrysostomi, 
τοσαύτην ἀπὸ γνώμης ὀφείλομεν ἔχειν ὁμόνοιαν, ὅσην ἀπὸ φύσεως 
ἐκεῖνα. 

Cap. xiii. 2. Καὶ ἐὰν ἔχω πάσαν πίστιν. “ Medium πάσαν 
irrepsit ex priore parte vers.:” Ita Mill. Prol. p. 47, col. 
1. Agnoscunt tamen Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. Vulg. 
Syr. Arab. 

Cap. xiv. 9. Ἔσεσϑε γὰρ εἰς ἀέρα λαλοῦντες. Deest yap apud 
Syrum. At habent Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. Vulg. 
Arab. Hilarius Ὁ. Et tamen fide Millii « interjectum est 
a lectore aliquo connexionis causa,” Pro]. p. 130, col. 1. 

V. 16. ᾿Επεὶ ἐὰν εὐλογήσης τῷ Τινεύματι.] Ita Greea scholia, 
versiones omnes, C. Alex. Hilarius Ὁ, Deest Πνεύματι in 
com, 3, “nee dubium (inguit Millius) quin ita apostolus,” 
Prol. p. 163, col. 2. 

V. 25. Καὶ otrw.] Omittunt hee verba MSS. cod. quidam, 
Vulg. Hilarius D. Junilius. Agnoscunt autem Gr. scholia 
omnia, C. Alex. Arab, ait Millius, “Desumptum nemo non 
videt ex posteriori parte versiculi.” 

V. 32. Kai πνεύματα προφητῶν. Werk ψυχαὶ, Orig. Hom. 
in Matt. p. 306. Hee sunt Origenis verba, πνεύματα προ- 
φητῶν προφήταις ὑποτάσσεται, οὐχὶ καὶ at ψυχαί: sed Millius 
crebro oscitanter legit. 

V. 33. Οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀκαταστασίας ὃ Θεὸς.] Sic Gr. scholia, 
C. Alex. versiones omnes, sed placet Millio lectio Hilarii D. 
“non enim dissensionis res, sed pacis,’ Pro]. p. 47, col. 2. 

V. 37. Ὅτι τοῦ Κυρίου εἰσὶν ἐντολαί.} “Scholion est évro)ui,” 
Prol. p.47. Agnoscunt autem Gr. scholia, et versiones om- 
nes, C. Al. Θεοῦ ἐντολῆ. 

Cap. xv. 10. Eiyi 6 εἰμι. Ex ®thiop. solius auctoritate 
rejicitur 6 εἰμι, contra Vulgat. Hilarium 1). Syr. Arab. C. 
Alex. et Gr. scholia omnia. 

V..15. Εἴπερ νεκροὶ οὐκ éyeipovra:.] Hee verba omittunt 
Tren, lib. v. cap. 13, Hilarius D. Syr. Theodoret.. Retinent 
autem Chrysost. cum. Theophylact. Vulg. Arab. C. Alex. 
“et si non exprimerentur, debent intelligi, (ait Esthius) 
quod subsequentia indicant, per modum illationis, εἰ γὰρ 
νεκροὶ, &C.” t 

V. 20. ᾿Απαρχὴ τῶν κεκοιμημένων ἐγένετο. Ita Syr. Arab. 
Theodoret. Theophyl. Sed deest ἐγένετο, Tren. lib. v. cap. 
13, p. 420, Chrysost. Vulg. Orig. in Matt. p. 284, sine sen- 
sus discrimine. 

V. 28.] “Omittit ὃ υἱὸς Ireneus,” ita Millius. Sed pace 
Millii retinet Iren. lib, v. cap. 36, p. 461, Orig. etiam in 
Joh. p. 146, Athanas. de Hum. Nat. p. 600, bis, Cod. Alex, 
Ambros. verus, lib. v. de Fide, cap. 7, Basil. adv. Eunom. 
lib. iv. tom. i. p. 769, Greg. Nyssen. orat. in hee verba, 
tom. i. p. 838, Gr. scholia, et versiones omnes: atqui non 
obstante hac nube testium, fidenter pronunciat Mill. Prol. p. 
47, “medium ὃ υἱὸς irrepsisse ex margine.” 

V. 29. Ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν. V. 1. ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν, MSS. Dial. 
contra Marcion. p. 124, Orig. in Matt. p. 487, qui idcirco 
solum habet αὐτῶν, quia preecessit τῶν νεκρῶν, que retinent 
omnia Gr. scholia, et versiones, ipso Vulgato legente, (quod 
Millius negat) “pro mortuis ;” “irrepsit tamen ex priore 
parte versiculi,” Mill. Prol. p. 65. 


V.31. Ἣν ἔχω ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ Kupteo ἡμῶν.] Hee pro | 


assumento habet Mill. fide Ger. Clar. Hilarii D. Ρ. 47. 
Agnoscunt autem Theodoret. Gicumenius, Theophylact. C. 
Alex. versiones omnes. Chrysost. legit ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. 

ι V 44. Ἔστι σῶμα ψυχικὸν, καὶ ἔστι σῶμα πνευματικόν. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Habent hee verba omnia Gr. scholia. C. Alex. omnesque 
versiones, cum levi discrimine MSS. quedam addunt εἰ, 
Vulg. et Latini st. “Hac tamen (inquit ille) a quodam 
scholiasta adnotata ad oram libri, retulere scribe in contex- 
tum.” Prol. p. 95. 

V.47.'O Κύριος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. V.1. ὁ Ἰκύριος omittunt Origen. 
Hippolytus, Athan.: est Athanasius ibi spurius, Hippolytus, 
Lat. Agnoscunt omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Syr. Arab. 
Dial. contra Marcion. p. 150. Et cum primus homo de 
terra terrenus, secundus homo quidni sit Dominus de celo 
celestis? sed cum ex fide Tertulliani et Epiphanii Marcion 
substituisset Kipros, quid mirum si illam ob rationem quidam 
omiserint? Vide Mill. p. 47. 

V. 54. Τὸ φθαρτὸν τοῦτο ἐνδύσεται ἀφθαρσίαν.) Retinentur 
hee apud omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Syr. Arab. Asserit 
tamen Millius “huc translata esse ex versiculo proxime 
precedente,” Prol. p. 47. 

Cap. xvi. 1. Περὶ δὲ ris λογίας.1 Sic non solum legunt 
Greca scholia, sed λογίαν uno.ore interpretantur τὴν συλλογὴν 
τῶν χρημάτων, et Phavorinus ait, λογία, ἡ συλλογὴ, παρὰ τῷ 
ἀποστύλῳ, καὶ τὸ. ἐκ πυλλῶν συνεισψέρομενον, λέγει δὲ ἐλεημο- 
coun. 


Z 1 
SECTIO TERTIA—EPISTOLA SECUNDA AD CORINTHIOS. 


Car. i. 2. Πατρὸς ἡμῶν, καὶ Kupiov Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.) Agnos- 
cunt hee verba Gr. scholia omnia et versiones, C. Alex. et 
Orig. in Matt. p. 500.“ Irrepsere tamen ex aliis epistolis,” 
Mill. Prol. p. 47, col. 2. 

V. 10. Καί ῥύεται. Desunt Chrysostom. Hilario Diac. Syr. 
sed extant apud reliqua Gr. scholia et versiones, Et tamen 
“hee ad marginem adscripta scriba textus partem esse 
putans, transtulit in corpus epistole,” in Mill. Prol. p. 129, 
col. 1. 

Cap. ii. 16. Kat πρὸς ταῦτά τις ixavés.] Ita Greca scholia 
omnia, C. Alex. Hilarius Ὁ. Syr. Arab. Observant autem 
Gr. scholia Paulum hic μετριάζειν agnoscere “ τὸ ὅλον τῆς 
χάριτος, totum gratia esse, et imbecillitatem humanam ad 
hee minime suflicere, εἰ μὴ ἣν ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ δύναμις" ἐκείνου γὰρ τὸ 
πᾶν, καὶ οὐδὲν τὸ ἡμέτερον, illius enim est totum hoc quod agi- 
mus nihilque nostrum.” Sed Vulgati absurdam lectionem, 
viz. “ Ad hee quis tam idoneus?” (i. 6, quam ego) hic pro- 
bat Millius, Prol. p. 47, 48, meris somniis, et vitilitigationi- 
bus fidens, quibus responsum e patrum scholiis adduximus. 
Objicit (1.) “Apostolos qui evangelium per totum orbem 
predicassent, non potuisse vere dicere, se huic quod tam 
preclare obiissent muneri, inidoneos fuisse.” Respondeo, ex 
seipsis inidoneos se fuisse disertim asserunt, cap. 111. 5. (3.) 
“Quomodo, (inquit) speciatim D. Paulo quadraret, «Ad 
hee quis idoneus”’ qui aperte hic asserit seycaterosque apo- 
stolos idoneos fuisse ministros N, ‘Testamenti,” cap. iii. 6. 
Quis hic satis mirari potest hominis confidentiam, qui verba 
hee, “ Non quod sumus sufficientes ex nobis ipsis, sed suffi- 
cientia nostra ex Deo est, qui idoneos nos fecit ministros N. 
‘Test.,” in subsidium cause quam plane destruit, adducit, 


| queque insuper ostendunt D. Paulum non dicere cum Mil- 


lio, «se fuisse idoneos,”’ sed tantum “a Deo factos esse ido- 
neos ministros N. Testamenti ?” 

V.17. Οὐ γάρ ἐπμεν ὡς of πολλοί. Chrysost. et Theodoret. 
et Syr. legunt of λοιποί, Sed Vulg. Hilanus D. CEcumenius, 
Theophylactus textum firmant. Ireneus hee habet, οὕτω 
Παῦλος, οὐ γάρ ἐσμεν ὡς of πολλοὶ, lib. iv. cap. 44. Et quan- 
quam Esthius dicat “dictionem, οἱ πολλοὶ, nec veritati con- 


| gruere, nec modestie Pauli,” id hic nullius momenti est; 
| alibi enim apostolis de Judaicis zelotis et pseud-apostolis ait 


πολλοὶ περιπατοῦσιν, “ Multi ambulant, &c. de quibus dixi 
vobis inimicos eos esse crucis Christi,” Phil. iii. 19. Est 
tamen hoc apud Millium, Prol. p. 139, “ marginale scholion,” 
ob rationem plane frigidam et ineptam. . 

Cap. iii, 1. Ἢ ἐξ ἡμῶν συστατικῶν ἢ Ita Chrysost. Cocum. 
Theophylact. Syr. Arab. Deest crorariav Vulg. Hilarius 
Diac. Theodoret.: hoc tamen ex eo accidit, quod he verba 
συστατικῶν πρὸς ἡμᾶς immediate precesserint: ideoque poste- 
rius συστατικῶν utpote necessario intelligendum, superfluum 
videretur. 

V.17. οὗ δὲ τὸ Πνεῦμα Kvpiov.] “Κυρίου quod insertum est 
in reliquis jam omnibus, irrepsisse videtur ex proxime se- 
quenti versiculo,” ita Millius, Prol. p. 166, col. 2. Agnos- 


| cunt tamen Greea scholia, et versiones omnes, C. Alex. et 


Hilarius D. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Cap. iv. 6. Τοῦ Ocod.] Ita Orig. in Matt. p. 252, Graca | 
scholia universa, C. Alex. Syr. Arab. Atqui “ τοῦ Θεοῦ expli- 
catio est,” Prol. p. 34, ex auctoritate Ethiop. Tertull. Clar. 
Vulg. apud quem legimus “ claritatis Dei,” apud Hilar. D. 
« glorie sue.” 

Cap. v. 3. Biye καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι. Legendum hie vult Mil- 
lius ἐκδυσάμενοι, reclamantibus Grecis scholiis, que legunt 
ἐνδυσάμενοι. Tta etiam Macarius, hom. 5, p. 35, 36, Chrysost. 
ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 340, tom. v. p. 520; neque in commen- 
tario notat exemplaria hic variare, sed ejusdem verbi variam 
esse expositionem. Ita etiam Clemens Al. Stro. iv. p. 541, 
Vulg. Hilarius D. C. Alex. Atque he interpretatio, « si- 
quidem induti, non nudi reperiemur,” clara, et perspicua est, 
viz. “In hoe ingemiscimus, habitationem nostram que de 
ceelo est superindui, siquidem eo tempore induti inveniamur 
immortali corpore, et non nudi, sicut alli qui vestitu carebunt.” 

V.10. Ta διὰ τοῦ σώματος. Agnoscunt hee verba omnia 
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Athanas. de Incarn. tom. i. p. 110, 
Cyril. Al. de Rect. Fide, p. 66, et Thesaur. p. 276, de Ador. 
p. 494. Origenes semel quidem legit τὰ ἴδια, Hom. in Jer. 
p- 187, sed Philac. p. 65, in Matt. p. 291, 335, 346, τὰ διὰ, 
‘Theodoret. τὰ ἴδια, ep. 91, et serm. 12 adv. Gr. 604, sed Com. 
in Ps. xevii. p. 791, et Her. Fab. lib. v. cap. 30, p. 297, ra 
διὰ, quod potiori auctoritati innititur. 

V. 15. Ei εἷς ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀπέθανεν. Retinent ci Chrysost. 
CEcumen. Theophylact. C. Alex. Hilarius D. Vulg. Arab. 
Rejicit τὸ εἰ Millius, Prol. p. 71, col. 1, fide ‘Theodoreti, 
Theophylacti, @2cumenii, et Hilarii in commentaris (quos si | 
inspicias, ne verbum quo id probetur, invenies) Clar. adeo- | 
que Vulg. initio (nulla prorsus consequentia) his artibus 
variantes suas lectiones stabilire solet Millius: magis ingenua 
est Esthii sententia, viz. “ Verisimile est a Paulo scriptam 
fuisse particulam εἰ, quod et sermonis connexioni inseruit, et 
in plurimis legitur MSS. qui hodie extant: ansam preter- 
mittendi incauto lectori dedisse potuit similitudo dictionum 
εἰ et εἷς, ut in hujusmodi contingit.” 

V.17. Kawa τὰ raévra.] Ita Hilarius D. C. Alex. Gr. 
scholia, et versiones omnes; et tamen “τὰ πάντα vix puto 
esse ipsius apostoli,” Prol. p. 135. 

V. 20. Ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ οὖν πρεσβεύομεν. “ Valebat in omni- 
bus sed perperam οὖν, οὗ ὑπὲρ πρεσβεύομεν, Ambrosiast. omnino 
recte,” Prol. p. 48, col. 1. 

Cap. vi. 16. Καϑῶς εἶπεν ὁ Θεός. Deest ὁ Θεὸς unico inter- 
prete Syro, et necessario subauditur ; at Prol. p. 130, col. 1, 
“lectoris est, non D. Pauli.” 

Cap. vii. 12. Τὴν σπουδὴν ὑμῶν τὴν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν. Vel: ἡμῶν 
τὴν ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, que quidem lectio mihi genuina videtur, auc- 
toritate Vulg. Chrysost. Theodoreti, Theophylacti confirmata, 
et tum πρὸς ὑμᾶς, quod Greea scholia omnia agnoscunt, 
minime insulsum erit. Vide hic Millium nobis consentientem. 

Cap. Vili. 12. Kafé ἐὰν ἔχη τὶς.} Deest τὶς, inquit Mill. in 
MSS. 8, Vulg. Ambrosiast. Clar. Ger. Lat. Cyprian. ad Qui- 
rin. lib. iii. §. 2, Clem. Al. nescio ubi, Theodoreto, Chrysost. 
textu et comment. Agnoscunt autem Gicum. Theophylact. 
C. Alex. Arab. et tam in textu quam in commentariis Chry- 
sost. (ubi deesse hane vocem dicit Millius) expressim adhi- 
betur. “Mandat (inquit) Deus, ut caritatem exerceamus 
κατὰ dovayty καὶ καθὸ ἔχη ris,” tanta est Millio circa citationem 
suam incuria. Porro, “οὐ καθὸ οὐκ ἔχει adjecta videntur ex- 
plicationis gratia,” inquit Millius, Prol. p. 124, col. 2, repug- 
nantibus omnibus Grecis scholiis, C. Alex. et versionibus, 
excepta Aithiopica. 

Cap. ix. 10. Χωρηγῆσαι, καὶ πληθῦναι τὸν σπόρον ὑμῶν. 
Millius, Prol. p. 88, col. 1, ““χωρηγήσειν καὶ πληϑυνεῖ, καὶ 
αὐξήσει, Clar. Cod. Al. GEcumen. Syr. Vulg. et Latini recte, 
et apostoli scopum accommodate.” Sed C. Alex. scholia 
Gr. omnia, et precipue C&cumenius, non retinent tantum, 
sed simul notant, ut cum C&cumenio loquar, ἐν εὐχῆς τάξει 
αἱνίττεσϑαι, “ad modum voti innuere, apostolum nullo modo 
metuendum esse, ne indigens inveniretur qui caritate abun- 
daret,” πῶς ἂν ἀμελήσειε τοῦ τὸν πνευματικὸν σπείροντος oxbpov 
ὃ Θεὸς χωρηγῆσαι, πληϑῦναι, αὐξήσαι τὰ γεννήματα, tam levis in 
plerisque est Millii fides. 

V. 12, Διὰ πολλῶν εὐχαριστιῶν τῷ Oecd.) Mill. Prol. p. 48, 
« Ambrosiast. ἐν Θεοῦ omnino rete,” repugnantibus Gr. scho- 
liis, et versionibus oriental. et C. Alex. 

Cap. x. 7. "Ore καϑὼς αὐτὸς Χριστοῦ, οὕτω καὶ ἡμεῖς Χριστοῦ. 
Posterius Χριστοῦ deest in MSS. et versionibus aliquibus, 
hrysostomo, textu et comment. juxta Millium, Theodoreto, | 


1181 


Theophylacto, rettnentibus solum C. Alex. Arab. @2cumenio: 
sed hoc nullius momenti est, nihil enim frequentius, quam 
omittere vocem, que in una periodi parte expressa, in altera 
subaudienda est. Et nota insuper quod hi tres commenta- 
tores hane vocem in commentariis suis vel exprimunt ut 
Chrysost. ; sic ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνος Χριστοῦ, οὕτω καὶ ἐγὼ Χριστοῦ, vel 
intelligenda esse indicant. 

Cap. xi. 8. Kai ὑστερηθείς.Ἴ V. 9, “ἐ καὶ τηρήσω irrepsere in 
textum,” Prol. p. 124, col. 2, 130, col. 1. Agnoscunt autem 
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. versiones omnes. 

Cap. xii. 19. Ἔν Xpir.] Interpretantur versiones omnes, 
Theodoretus, Theophyl. retinentur in textu G2cumen.: sed 
adjectitium esse vult Millius, Prol. p. 48, col. 2. 

Cap. xiii. 2. Ῥράψω. Agnoscunt Gr. scholia, Syr. Arab. 
Sed quia omittunt Vulg. Hilar. D. C. Alex. Clar. “ insertum 
est ad absolvendum sententiam,” Prol. p. 123, col. 1. 135, 
col. 2. 

V.4. Bis ὑμᾶς. “Irrepsit (inquit Millius) explicationis 
gratia ex v. 3. Agnoscunt autem Theodoret. Theophylact. 
(Ecum. C. Alex. Hilarius D. et versiones omnes. Vide 
Prol. p. 48, col. 2, ubi deest in Clar. Ger. Chrysost. 


SECTIO QUARTA—EPISTOLA AD GALATAS. 


Cav. i. 4. Qui dedit scipsum ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν. MSS. 
Orig. περὶ Εὐχῆς, et Cicumen. in textu legunt περὶ, que tamen 
duo unum sonant, nam sicut LXX. interpr. cum loquuntur 
de sacrificiis Vet. Test, modo περὶ ἁμαρτίας, seu ἁμαρτιῶν, 
modo ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτίας seu ἁμαρτιῶν indiscriminatim utuntur, 
ita scriptores etiam N. Feederis, 1 Pet. iii, 18, “Christus 
mortuus est περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν," et Rom. viii. 3, sed hic et 2 Cor. 
v. 21, ὑπέρ. Hine est quod licet Gacumenius habeat περὶ in 
textu in commentario legit ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, pariter ac 
ewtera Gr, scholia. Vide com. nostr. in 2 Cor. v. 21. 1 Pet. 
iii. 18. 

V. 6. Ἔν χάριτι τοῦ Χριστοῦ.] Theodoret. et G2cumen. in 
textu legunt Θεοῦ: Chrysost. et Theophylact. omnesque ver- 
siones antiqu@ Χριστοῦ, et CEcumen. in Com. τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ, 
et tamen Prol. p. 48, “Χριστοῦ post additum videtur.”’ 

V. 10. Ἢ ζητῶ ἀνθρώποις ἀρέσκειν. Hee (inquit Millius) 
ad marginem adscripta, mox irrepsere in textum,” p. 124, 
col. 2. Habent autem Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. Hilarius 
D. Hieronymus, Vulg. 

V. 15. "Ort εὐδόκησεν ὃ Θεός. Deest ὁ Θεὸς apud Theodoret. 
in Isa, xi. Hilarius D. Vulg. Hieronymus. “ Accessit ex 
margine,” p.48. Sed agnoscunt omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. 
Arab, Iren. lib. v. cap. 12, p. 417, «Cum autem placuit Deo” 
(et tamen p. 423, « Cum autem placuit ei”), Auctor Dial. in 
Marcion. p. 108, Orig. in Joh. p. 123, in textu ὅτι δὲ εὐδόκη- 
σεν, In marg. 6 Θεὸς, cum igitur Deus separavit Paulum ex 
utero matris, constat eos qui legunt, “Cum autem placuit 
ei,” cum textu sentire. 

V. 23, "Hv ποτε ἐπόρθει.) Desunt Athiop. Habent Gr. 
scholia, C. Alex. Hilar. D. Hieronymus, versiones relique ; 
ast, Mil. judice, Prol. p. 124, col. 2, “traducta sunt ex su- 
perioribus.”” 

Cap. ii. 1. Πάλιν ἀνέβην. Deest πάλιν Tren. lib. iii. cap. 
13, p. 234, et “in textu Chrysost. irrepsit ex predictis,” 
ait Millius, Prol. p. 48, sed ascensionem hance τὴν δευτέραν 
ἀνάβασιν vocat Chrysost. Reliquaque Gr. scholia, C. Alex. 
Hilarius D. Hieronymus, cunctwque versiones habent πάλιν, 

V. 6.1 Omittunt of δοκοῦντες cod. aliqui apud Curcelleum. 
Agnoscunt Gr. scholia omnia, C. Alex. Hilar. D. Vulg. 
Hieronym. “ Irrepsit tamen ex vers. 2,” Prol. p. 130. 

V.9. ᾿Ιάκωβος καὶ Πέτρος. Hilar. D. ponit Πέτρος ante 
Ἰάκωβος, sed Gr. scholia C. Alex. versionesque omnes, ne 
Vulgata quidem excepta, primum locum tribuunt Jacobo. 

Cap. iil. 1. Τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μὴ πείθεσθαι. “ Videtur omnino 
(ait Millius) Πὰς adscriptum ad supplendum sensum ex cap. 
v. 7 hujus epistole,” nimirum, quia “ apparet ex Chrysost. 
Theophyl. et C2cum. commentariis defuisse illis hee verba, 
que August. Ambrosiast. Sedulius, et Primasius non agnos- 
cunt, et qu ideo pretermittenda duxit Hieronymus, quod in 
exemplaribus Adumantii non haberentur.” At extant in 
Vulg. Hilario D. Arab. Theodoreto, et in textu CEcumenii 
et Theophylacti: quod si non attingunt in commentario, non 
hine sequitur eos hwc verba non legisse. Et cum rei pro 
posite apta sint, et concinna, et absque illis sensus claudi~ 
caret, hoc satis argumenti est, cur sint retinenda 

4x2 


1182 


V.12. ᾿Αλλ᾽ ὁ ποιήσας αὐτὰ ἄνθρωπος. Omittunt ἄνϑρωπος 


| scholia et versiones omnes, 


MSS. plur. Chrysostom. Vulg. Hilar. 1). Hieronymus: re- | 


jicit ergo hanc vocem Mill. Prol. p. 84. Sed habent Theodo- 
ret. GEcumen. Theophylact. et C. Alex.: et cum necessario 
subaudiatur et extet tum in Hebreo sermone, tum in ver- 
sione τῶν LXX., et sic citetur, Rom. x. 5, quin hic etiam 
retinendum sit nemini dubium esse potest. 

V. 14. "Ev Χριστῷ "Inood.] Non legebat Chrysostomus, ut 
liquet ex Comment. sed legebant scholia Gr. reliqua, C. 
Alex. Hilar. D. et versiones omnes. 

V. 17. Διαθήκην προκεκυρωμένην ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ εἰς 
Omittunt εἰς Χριστόν, C. Alex. Vulg. Hieron. MSS. 
exempl.; unde inter scholia docti alicujus a Millio 
tur: sed reperitur apud omnia Gr. scholia, Syr. Arab. et 
Hilarium D.: nec omittendum censeo, siquidem sensum 
commodum parit, nempe “testamentum factum in Christo, 
et confirmatum a Deo, irritum a lege fieri non posse.” 

Cap. iv. 26. Ἥτις ἐστὶ μήτηρ πάντων ἡμῶν. Deest. πάντῶν 
Vulg. Syr. Origen. in Jer. p. 84, contra Cels. lib. iv. p. 193, 


Χριστόν. 
quedam 
numera- 


Com. in Matt. p. 432, Euseb. de Martyr. Palest. lib. viii. | 


cap. 11, p. 337, Chrysostom. ed. Mor. tom. iii. p. 747: sed 
idem, p. 886, legit πάντων ἡμῶν. Tren. lib. v. cap. 35, p. 459, 
“omnium nostrorum,” Euseb. contra Marcel. lib. i. cap. 2, p. 
10, ἡμῶν ἁπάντων. Ita etiam Theodoret. Gicumen. Hiero- 
nym. in locum, et Orig. in Num. ho. 8. f. 102, H. ho. 26, f. 
143, F. Et siquidem omnibus veris Christi discipulis con- 
gruat zque ac Galatis, ratio est cur retinenda sit vox πάντων. 

V. 31. Non sumus ancille filii, ἀλλὰ τῆς ἐλευθέρας. Qui- 
dam fini hujus capitis adnectunt τῇ ἐλευθερία ἡ ὃ Χριστὸς ἡμᾶς 
ἐλευθέρωσε, et exorditur subsequens caput sic, στήκετε οὖν" ita 
Tertullianus Hieron. Hilar. D. August. Sed omnia Gr. scho- 
lia, C. Alex. Vulg. Syr. legunt cum textu. Argumentum 
Esthii subaudiendo ἐν ante τῇ ἐλευθερία, facile diluitur. “ Male 
in quibusdam (inquit Grotius) hee sunt divulsa, ita ut pars 
horum capiti precedenti adhereat,” Com. in Gal. v. 1. 

Cap. v. 3. Μαρτύρομαι δὲ πάλιν. Deest πάλιν Arab. Chry- 
sost. Hilar. 1). Hieron.; sed Theodoret. GScumen, C. Alex. 
Vulg. Syr. retinent πάλιν. Ansam omittendi fortasse prebuit 
quod quibusdam videretur ad prius aliquod testimonium, quod 
illos fugit, apostolum respexisse, cum revera ad solum versi- 
culum proxime precedentem respiciat, “Ego Paulus dico 
vobis.” “‘ Testificor autem rursus,’ est tamen cujusdam stu- 
diosi additamentum,” Prol. p. 48, col. 2. 


V. 14. Ἐν ἕνι λόγῳ. Epiphanius, Tertul. Hilar. D. lezunt | 


ἐν ὑμῖν πληροῦται. Sed omnia Gr. scholia, Hieron. Vulg. C. 
Alex. Syr. Arab. ἐν ἔνι λόγῳ, sed dicit Mill. Prol. p. 34, col- 1, 
« éy ὑμῖν veram esse lectionem, et apostoli genuinam,” addit- 
que, “certe D. Pauli est, Ep. ad Rom. xiii. 9;” cum tamen 
ibi apostolus legat, ἐν τούτῳ λόγῳ, nulla mentione habita τοῦ 
ἐν ὑμῖν. Nota etiam quod μοιχεία et φόνοι retineantur apud 
Gr. scholia, et versiones omnes. 

Cap. vi. 15. Ἔν yap Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ οὔτε περιτομῆ re ἰσχύε Ὁ] 
Desunt priora apud Hilar. 1). legendumque vult Millius οὖς 
γὰρ περιτομή τί ἐστιν" Cum vero ipsissima textus verba Halls: 
antur cap. v. 6, hoc unicum ad priorem lectionem firmandam 
satis est. Lectiones pro quibus Millius contendit, profluxisse 
videntur ex 1 Cor. vii. 19, ubi sine clausula hic premissa 
legimus ἡ περιτομὴ οὐδέν ἐστιν, est tamen ἰσχύει juxta Millium 
interpretatio, Prol. p. 135, et “prior clausula irrepsit ex cap. 
y. 6,” Prol. p.48. Porro extant hxc verba in Vulgato, Arab. 
Theodoreto, GEcumenio, Theophylacto. 


SECTIO QUINTA—EPISTOLA AD EPHESIOS, 


Car. i. 10. Ἔν Χριστῷ.} “*In Christo per Deum,’ Iren. 
(¥. p. 18)” ita Millius ; sed ibi solam nobis lectionem Valen- 
tinianorum exhibet, ipse autem legit simpliciter «in Christo,” 
lib. v. cap. 20, p. 431. 

V.18. Τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς διανοίας ἡμῶν. Ita jaxta Theo- 
doret. Gicumen. et vetustissimas versiones; sed MSS. quam- 
plurima Chrysost. et Theophyl. τῆς καρδίας nullo sensus dis- 
crimine Nam s.scriptura alibi habet διάνοιαν τῆς καρδίας et 
Hebraicum 35 sepius idem valet ac φρὴν, νοῦς, διάνοια. 

Cap. iii. 1. “Ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν τῶν ἐθνῶν. Τῶν ἐθνῶν desunt apud 
Tertullian. “scholiastarum esse” dicit Millius, Prol. p. 110, 
139, repugnantibus C. Alex. versionibus universim, et scho- 
his Gr. omnibus, quorum judicio πολλὴ ἡ ἔμφασις τοῦ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν 
τῶν ἐθνῶν" τοῦτο γὰρ ἐνέφηνεν ὅτι οὐ μόνον ὑμᾶς οὐ βδῥελλυττόμεθα, 
ἀλλὰ καὶ δεσμούμεθα δι᾿ ὑμᾶς. 

V. 8. ᾿Ἐμοὶ τῷ ἐλαχιστοτέρῳ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων.] Ita Greca 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Orig. in Matt. 338, C. Alex. et 
Hilar. D. “᾿Ελαχιστοτέρῳ πάντων scripsisse apostolum non 
dubito. Emolliens illud τῶν ἁγίων ut et τῶν ἀποστύλων scho- 
liastarum sunt de veritate, et congruentia sermonis Paulini 
solicitorum,” Prol. p. 139, col. 2, et p. 110. 

V. 9. Tis ἡ κοινωνία. V. 1. οἰκονομία, quam genuinam esse 
lectionem a Gr. scholiis et versionibus confirmatam agnosco, 
sed parum interest inter communicationem et dispensationem 

mysterii de vocandis gentibus, ejusdem κοινωνίᾳ factum. 

Ta Θεῷ τῷ τὰ πάντα κτίσαντι dt’ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ]. Hee 
ultima verba non solum agnoscunt Gr. scholia omnia, sed 
etiam notant ὅτι καλῶς ἐμνημόνευσε τῆς κτίσεως δι᾿ Ἰησουὺ Χριστοῦ" 
sunt tamen “commentarius sumptus ex Col. i. 16,” Prol. p. 
123, col. 1; eadem licet habeamus, cap. ii. 10, his verbis, 
αὐτοῦ γάρ ἔσμεν roinua κτισϑέντες ἐν Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ. 

Cap. iv. 9. τὸ δὲ ἀνέβη, τί ἐστι εἰ μὴ ὅτι καὶ 
εἷς τὰ κατώτερα μέρη τῆς γῆς. “Deest hic καὶ 
cap. 31; ita Mill. sed fallitur. Ibi enim sc. p. 451, legit 
“et descendit,” sicut etiam omnia Gr. scholia. Deest πρῶτον, 
CGicum. sed non deest reliquis omnibus Gr. scholiis. et ver- 
sionibus. Deest etiam μέρη apud quosdam, unde Mill. « me- 
dium μέρη lectoris est, ad supplendam sententiam,” Prol. p. 
41. Agnoscunt autem Greca scholia omnia, et C. Alex. 


κατέβη πρῶτον 
Tren. lib. v. 


| - . . . - 
| nec usitatius quicquam quam omittere verbum aliquod, quod 


unusquisque lector adjiciendum esse ex se agnoscit. 

V. 17. KaS8as καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ἔθνη. Desunt τὰ λοιπὰ, Clem. 
ΑἹ. Protrept. p. 54, Vulg. ΗΠαγ, 1). Hieronym.: unde, di- 
cente Millio, Prol. p. 60, col. 2, “medium λοιπὰ irrepsit ex 
cap. ii. 3 hujus epistole.’ Agnoscitur tamen ab omnibus 


| Gr. scholiis, Syro, Arabe. 


V. 23. ᾿Ανανεοῦσϑαι. 24. "EvdioacSa.] V. 1. ἀνανεοῦσϑε, 
ἐνδύσασϑε. “Sic Chrysost. Theophyl. Vulg. Hieronym. Hila- 
rius D. infinitiva hee postea facta sunt ob pracedens ἀποθέσ- 
Sai,” Prol. p. 84, col. 2. Sed Clem. Alex. p. 437, C. Alex. 
Theodoret. et GEcumen. legunt cum textu, et ἀποθέσθαι, 
“deponere,” Latini retinent, quod hance lectionem satis ad- 
struit. 

V. 28.] Agnoscunt hic τὸ ἀγαθὸν Greca scholia, et versi- 
ones omnes, C. Alex. et Hilar. D.: et tamen Prol. p. 160, 
col. 1, “vir est quin medium ἀγαθὸν pro scholio marginali 
habuerim, sumpto ex Gal. vi. 10.” 

V. 29. ΤΙρὸς οἰκοδομὴν τῆς χρείας. V. 1. τῆς πίστεως, quam 
lectionem interpretamenti causa additam hic censet Mill. et 
in Prol. p. 55, col. 1, propugnat, sed repugnantibus Gr. 
scholiis universim, C. Alex. Hilario D. et Hieronymo his 
verbis; “ Pro eo autem quod nos posuimus ‘ ad edificationem 
opportunitatis,’ hoc est quod dicitur Grace τῆς χρείας ‘in 
Latinis codicibus propter euphoniam mutavit interpres et 
posuit ad wdificationem fidei.’” 

V. 32. Καξὼς καὶ 6 Θεὸς ἐν Χριστῷ ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν. «Ἔν 
Χριστῷ (inquit Millius, Prol. p. 89, col. 1) irrepsit e margine 
ex Col. iii. 13, raro enim patitur apostolum bis idem de eo- 
dem dicere.” Agnoscunt autem versiones omnes, Chrysost. 
Ccumen. C. Alex. Hilar. D.: et quanquam dicat Mill. 
«“deesse Theodoreto et Theophylacto,” Theophylactus tan- 
tum ordinem verborum invertit, legendo ἐχαρίσατο ὑμῖν ἐν 
Χριστῷ, Theodoretus sic, ὁ τῶν ὅλων Θεὺς ἐχαρίσατο ἡμῖν διὰ τοῦ 
Δεσπότου Χριστοῦ. 

Cap. v. ὅ. Τοῦτο γάρ ἐστε γινώσκοντες. Plurimi cod. MSS. 
Clem. Al. p. 437, Chrysost. GEcum. legunt ἔστε" ad eandem 
interpretationem afferunt ac illam Theodoreti et Theophy- 
lacti, qui habent ἔστε, ita etiam Hieron. et omnes Latini, qui 
legunt “ scitote,”’ lectio Vulg. “ scitote intelligentes,” absona 
est, et absurda. 

V.9. 'O yap καρπὸς rod Mveiparos.] “Ve 1. τοῦ φωτὸς, Vulg. 
Hilar. D. e Latinis multi, Theophylacti :” ita Millius. Sed 
Theophylactus et Gr. scholia non modo legunt, sed fusius 
explicant vocem “ spiritus,” quibuscum consentit Arabs. 

V.21. Ἐν φοβῳ Θεοῦ. V. 1. Χριστοῦ, Chrysost. Vulg. Syr. 
Ambrosiast. sed Θεοῦ Theodoret. CEcum. Theophylact. Arab. 
Nota quod v. 20 καὶ πατρὶ omittatur ab unico thiope, et 
tamen Prol. p. 124, «irrepsit e margine.” 

V. 27. Ἵνα παραστῆση αὐτὴν. V. 1. αὐτὸς, Theophylact. 
Vulg. Hilar. D. Hieronymus. Sed Chrysost. Theodoret. 
Qicumen. Arab. αὐτὴν, quam lectionem etiam sensus postu- 
lat. Nota autem quod licet in omnibus legatur vel αὐτὴν vel 
αὐτὸ, Millius tam αὐτὴν quam αὐτὸ pro injectitiis habeat, Prol. 
p- 105, col. 1. 

V. 31. Καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ. Waben 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


hee verba scholia Gr. omnia, C. Alex. Hilar. D. versiones | 
omnes, aliunde assumpta tamen disertim asserit Hieronymus. | 
Ratio in promptu est; iniquus conjugio fuit Hieronymus. 

Cap. vi. 1. Ev Κυρίῳ.) Sic omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. 
Hieron. et versiones antique. “Est tamen commentarius,” 
Prol. p. 48, col. 1. 

V. 10. ᾿Αδελφοΐ μου. Desunt tantum /&thiop. habent Gr. 
scholia, et versiones omnes: at Prol. p. 48, col. 2, “ irrep- 
sisse videtur ex lectionariis.” 

V. 18. Eis αὐτὸ τοῦτο ἀγρυπνοῦντες. Deest τοῦτο Vulg. 
Arab. Hilar. D. Hieron. Basil. Sed agnoscunt τοῦτο omnia 
Gr. scholia, et δέξασθε Chrysost. Theodoret. Gicumen. Vulg. 


Syr. Arab. “Utraque tamen τὸ τοῦτο et défacSe non sunt 
D. Pauli sed lectoris,” Pro]. p. 135, col. 2. 


SECTIO SEXTA—EPISTOLA AD PHILIPPENSES. 


Car. i. 1. Σὺν ἐπισκόποις. V. 1. συνεπισκόποις, © co-episco- 
pis,” Hilarius D.: sed quanquam prepositio σὺν adjunga- 
tur ἐπισκόποις secundum veterem scriendi consuetudinem, 
constat tamen Grecos omnes cum textu concordare: non 
enim notarunt quod Paulus apud Philippenses mentionem 
fecerit co-episcoporum nec querunt quamobrem id fecerit, 
sed cum Hieronymo dicunt eos, qui hic dicti sunt episcopi, 
presbyteros fuisse. Denique nec id dicit Hilarius, sed hoc 
tantum, “ Cum episcopis et diaconis, hoc est, cum Paulo et 
Timotheo, qui episcopi erant,” mirum quam frigide et in- 
epte. 

V. 18. Χριστὸς καταγγέλλεται. V. 1. καταγγελλέσθω, Eu- 
seb.; non Eccl. Hist., ut Millius hic hallucinatur, sed de 
Vita Const. lib. iii. cap. 58, et Prol. p. 102, col. 2. In utris- 
que autem lectori imposuit Millius, nam εἴτε προφάσει εἴτε 
ἀληθείᾳ Χριστὸς καταγγελλέσθω, sunt ibi verba imperatoris, 
μονονουχὶ, καὶ παραπλησίως fere inquit Eusebius, propemodum 
aut tantum non cum Paulo loquentis. Adde quod Gr. scho- 
lia et versiones omnes legant cum textu. 

Cap. ii. 4. Μὴ τὰ ἑαυτῶν ἕκαστος σκοπεῖτε. Cod. plur. Ba- 
silius, Hilar. D. legunt σκοποῦντες, Vulg. “ considerantes :”’ 
ast omnia Gr. scholia, Syr. Arab. σκοπεῖτε, “quod scholias- 
ta est,” Prol. p. 71. 

V. 11. Πᾶσα γλῶσσα ἑξομολογήσηται. MSS. quedam, Orig. 
in Joh. p. 134, et Theophylactus, ἐξομολογήσεται, * unde mu- 
tavit quispiam (inquit Mill. Prol. p. 160), futurum im aoris- 
tum ob precedens κάμιψη." Sed Chrysost. Theodoret. acum. 
C. Alex. Hilarius D. Iren. lib. i. cap. 2, p. 45, Gr. legit ἐξο- 
μολογήσηται et Athanas. orat. 2 contra Ar. p. 346, et hanc 
lectionem firmant primo, τὸ ἵνα, 2, τὸ κάμψη precedentia, 
nam ubi occurrit, Rom. xiv. 11, ἐξομολογήσεται sine ἵνα pre- 
cedente sequitur κάμψει. 

V. 15. "Ev μέσῳ. Ita omnia Gr. scholia, Vulg. Hilar. Ὁ. 
prefert ἀνὰ μέσον Millius, Prol. p. 163, col. 2. 

V. 30. Παραβουλευσάμενος τῇ ψυχῇ. V. 1. παραβολευσάμε- 
vos, Vulg. Hilar. D. Pseud-Hieron. Sed omnia Gr. scholia, 
C. Al. et Photius legunt παραϑουλευσάμενος, i. 6. ut aiunt 
Phavorinus, et Hesychius, εἰς θάνατον ἑαυτὸν διδοῦ," male igi- 
tur Mill. ait Prol. p. 48, “Ignoratio sensus τοῦ παραβουλευ- 
σάμενος occasionem dedit huic mutationi.” 

Cap. iii. 9. Ἐτὶ τῇ πίστει.] Deest unico Syro. Sed Prol. 
p- 130, col. 1, « vix quidem obstat summus codicum, quos 
jam habemus, consensus, quo minus ἐπὶ τὴ πίστει pro inter- 
pretamento, eoque minus opportune hic injecto, habeam.” 

V. LL. Εἰς τὴν ἀνάστασιν τῶν νεκρῶν. V. ]. τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν, nul- 
lo sensus discrimine. 

V. 15. Ted αὐτῷ στοιχεῖν κανόνι.] Agnoscunt vocem κανόνες 
Greci scholiaste interpretesque omnes, ne hodierno quidem 
Vulgato excepto; sed rejicitur tanquam “interpolatio,” 
Prol. p- 55, col. 2, et p. 135, col. 2, “irrepsit ex Gal. vi. 
16.” 

V. 21. Qui transformabit corpus humilitatis nostra, εἰς τὸ 
γενέσθαι αὐτὸ ctypoppov.] Bis τὸ γενέσθαι αὐτὸ desunt Vulg. 
Hilar. D. Tren. lib. v. cap. 13, p. 419, Tertulliano. At re- 
tinent ea Greca scholia omnia, Syr. Arab. 

Cap. iv. 3.1 Legas καὶ épwrd vel vai ἐρωτῷ nihil inte- 
Test. 

V.4. Χαίρετε ἐν Κυρίῳ πάντοτε. Τὸ πάντοτε deest in solo 
Hthiope. Agnoscunt omnes scholiaste, C. Alex. Vulg. Syr. 
Arab.: sed Prol. p- 124, col. 2, “irrepsit ex 1 Thess. v. 16.” 


V.13. Ἔν τῷ ἐνδυναμοῦντί με Χριστῷ. Deest Χριστῷ in 
MSS. quibusdam, Vulg. Hilar. D. Zthiop.: ergo Prol. p. 


1183 


123, “adjectitium est:” sed habent Syr. Arab. Greci scho- 
liast omnes. 

V. 18. Παρὰ 'Exappodtrov.] Sic Gr. scholia, Hilar. D. ver- 
sionesque omnes : dicente tamen Millio, Prol. p. 145, col. 1, 
“παρὰ “Exappodizov, quod habent jam omnes, scholion initio 
erat sumptum ex cap. ii. 25.” 

V. 23. Mera πάντων ὑμῶν. Ita omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. 
Syr. Arab. Sed MSS. quedam, Vulg. Hilar. 1), Pseud- 
Hieronymus legunt μετὰ rod πνεύματος ὑμῶν.  Recte,” inquit 
Millius, Prol. p. 123. 


SECTIO SEPTIMA—EPISTOLA AD COLOSSENSES. 


Cav. i. 2. Kat Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ Xporod.] Omittunt hee 
verba 4 MSS. Hilar. D. Syr. et ‘Theophylact. et licet repe- 
rias in textu Chry sostomi in Com. tum ille, tum ‘Theophy- 
lactus, ait ἐν ταύτη τοῦ Χριστοῦ οὐ τίϑησι dvoua, “ lectoris ergo 
sunt, non D. Pauli,” Mill. Prol. p. 84. Sed agnoscunt C. 
Alex. Vulg. Arab. GEcumen. Theodoretus; solum enim in- 
spexerat Millius versionem Latinam, cum ‘hee verba Theo- 
doreto defuisse affirmavit. Et siquidem in reliquis epistolis 
omnibus Paulus eadem loquendi formula utitur cum ad has 
vel illas ecclesias, tum ad hos vel illos homines, quid obstat 
quo minus hee verba hic etiam usurpasse videatur? non 
ille Colossis error obtinuit ut pularent Christo supplicandum 
esse mediantibus angelis, sed ὅτι dt’ ἀγγέλων προσάγεσϑαι ᾧον- 
τὸ τῷ Qed, οὐ διὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ, quod rationem omittendi hee verba 
a Theophylacto allatam prorsus evertit; cum enim apostolus 
Deum patrem nullo internuncio comparato precetur his ver- 
bis, χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ Ocod πατρὸς, he preces falsam 
istam ex animis hominum satis evellunt opinionem. 

V.6. Καί ἐστι καμποφορούμενον. MSS. plur. Vulg. Hilar. 
D. Syr. Chrysost. Theodoret. et 'Theophylact. addunt καὶ 
αὐζανόμενον (quod tamen, pace Milli dicam, deest Gicumen. 
textu et com.): in Grecis non legi, ait Erasmus, illud at- 
ζανόμενου; non adesse in MSS. ait Grotius. Desumptum 
videtur ex his verbis, v. 10 hujus cap. xapropopotvres καὶ ai- 
ξανύμενοι. 

V. 10. Ut ambuletis ἀξίως τοῦ Kupion.] Vulg. Lat. Didy- 
mus, Hilar. Ὁ, Pseud-Hicron. Θεοῦ" sed omnia Gr. scholia, 
Clem. Al. p. 576, C. Alex. textui assentiuntur. 

V.14. Τὴν ἀπολύτρωσιν διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ. Omittunt 
hee postrema verba Syr. Chrysost. Theophylact. Athanas. 
tom. i. p. 466: sed agnoscunt Arab. ee Theodoret. 
Iren. li v. cap. 2, p. 395, Paulus ipse, Eph. i. 7. 

V. 18, Τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἐκκλησίας.) Retinent τοῦ σώματος 
Greci scholiaste, C. Alex. interpretesque omnes, dempto 
-Ethiope, qui tamen reliquis omnibus anteponitur, Prol. p. 
124, col. 2. 

V. 24. Nune gaudeo ἐν παθήμασί pov.] In MSS. Vulg. 
Hilar. D. Syr. Theodoreto, deest μου. Habent Chrysost. 
(Ecumen, Theophylact.: et cum loquatur apostolus de af- 
flictionibus quas in carne sua passus est, vox pov vel legatur, 
vel subaudiatur necesse est: tamen est “addititium,’” Pro]. 
p. 89. 

Cap. 1. 4. Ma τις. «Vel μηδεὶς, Clem. 
Millium patet; vide Stro. vi. p. 645. 

V. 7. Καθὼς ἐδιδάχϑητε περισσεύοντες ἐν αὐτῇ. Kai additur 
post καϑὼς, et ἐν αὐτῇ desunt in quibusdam MSS. sed Graci 
scholiaste textui consentiunt, 

Υ. 9. Plenitudo divinitatis σωματικῶς. “Deest σωματι- 
κῶς, Tren. lib. i. cap. 1, Cyprian. lib. de Bono Patientie ;” 
ita Millius, sed reperies verbum illud apud Orig. in Jer. p. 
56, Hilar. D. Greea scholia, et versiones omnes. Quod ad 
Ireneum attinet loco citato, p. 18, ex Grabii sententia non 
habemus verba Irenzi, sed Valentinianorum; legerunt ta- 
men (ait ille) σωματικῶς Greci patres omnes, et de Latinis, 
Hilarius, Augustinus, pluresque alii. 

Ψ.11. Ἔν ry azexdicee τοῦ σώματος τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν τῆς σαρ- 
κός. Omittunt τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν MSS. aliqua, Hilar. Diac. Clem. 
Al. Stro, iii. p. 444, Pseud-Hieron. (de quo vix unquam 
sum adeo solicitus ut queram quid dixerit, senseritve) : sed 
Basil. Prol. p. 61, tom. ii. p. 447, et Greca scholia textus 
lectionem exhibent, et contra Millii, “de schelio in textum 
introducto” sententiam corroborant. 

V.18. "A μὴ ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων. Deest μὴ in MSS. qui- 
busdam, Orig. contra Cels. p. 236. Sunt Calar. Hilario D. 
et cod. Lat. teste Augustino Ep. ad Paulinum: sed Greca 
scholia, versiones omnes, et teste Esthio, Grmca omnia, et 


Al.” sed falli hic 


1184 


Latina que nunc extant, negationem habent, et in margine | 
Origenis adnotatur μὴ. Habent libri editi. 

V. 20. Ei οὖν dzsSavere.] Deest οὖν in MSS, Theophylacto, 
Cypriano, quod retinent Chrysost. Theodoret. Gicum. Vulg. 
Hilarius D. Syr. 

Cap. iii. 12, Σπλάγχνα οἰκτιρμῶν. Origen. in Matt. 473, 
Clem. Alex. Chrysost. Vulg. legunt οἱκτιρμοῦ, nullo sensus 
discrimine, sed ad oram Origenis adscribitur. Cod. Reg. οἱκ- 
τιρμῶν, et sic ‘Theodoret. GEcumen. et ‘Theophyl. « Muta- 
tum tamen οἰκτιρμοῦ in oixripyav” ait Mill. Prol. p- 61, col. 1. 

V. 18. Τοῖς idiots ἀνόράσιν.] Deest ἱδίοις in cunctis versioni- | 
bus, Clem. Al. Stro. iv. p. 499, Hilar. D. Pseud-Hieron. : | 
Theophylactus legit ἀνόράσιν ὑμῶν. Vel legendum vel intel- | 
ligendum esse constat, pro certo enim monentur hic uxores 
et suis, non aliarum mulierum maritis, subditi sint. Vide | 
Paulum Eph. v. 24. 

V. 20. Hoe est εὐάριστον τῷ Κυρίῳ. MSS. exempla pluri- 
ma, Theodoret. Theoph. et Vulg. legunt ἐν Κυρίῳ. Atqui 
Clem. Al. Stro. iv. p. 499, Chrysost. Gicum. multi Greci 
Latinique codices, teste Esthio, sine prepositione, atque eo 
modo plenior est sermo. 

V. 22. Οἱ δοῦλοι ὑπακούετε κατὰ πάντα τοῖς κατὰ σύρκα κυρί- 
os.) Ita Greca scholia, versionesque, dempto Adthiope, 
omnes. Sed Millio, Prol. p. 124, col. 2, “intermedium 
κατὰ πάντα, ut et κατὰ σάρκα, videtur marginalis explicatio 
ex Eph. vi. 5.” Consultius esset recepte potius lectioni 
acquiescere, quam /Hthiope duce ab aliis omnibus deviare. 

Cap. iv. 2. ‘Ev εὐχαριστίᾳ. Sic Gr. scholia, C. Alex. 
versionesque omnes. Sed Prol. p. 49, col. 1, “irrepsit ex 
cap. ii. 7, aut etiam ex Phil. iv. 6.” 

V. 3. Θύραν τοῦ λύγον.] Hic iterum Millius ϑύραν simplici- 
ter (utcumque ϑύραν τοῦ λόγον, sit jam in omnibus codicibus), 
pro genuina vix est quin habeat, Prol. p. 61, col. 1. 

V. 10. 'Apicrapxos ὃ συναιχμάλωτός pon.] “Ὁ συναιχμάλω- 
τός μου, irrepsisse videntur ex Ep. ad Philem. v. 23, 24;” 
ita Millius Prol. p. 124, col. 1. Agnoscunt tamen Greci 
scholiaste, C. Alex. Hilarius D. interpretesque omnes pre- 
terquam unus ASthiops. 

V. 13. Ζῆλον πολύν.] V. 1. πόθον πολὺν, πολὺν κόπον, ἀγῶνα 
πολὺν, “multum laborem,” Vulg. Hilar. D. Sed Gr. scholia, 
Syr. Arab. textui consentiunt. 


SECTIO OCTAVA—EPISTOLE AD THESSALONICENSES, 


1 Tuess. i. 1. "Ard Θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ Κυρίου ᾿Ιησοῦ 
Χριστοῦ.) Desunt hee verba in Vulg. Syr. Arab. Aithiop. 
Hilario D. Pseud-Hieron. Retinentur autem Chrysost. 'The- 
odoret. Gicumen. C. Alex. et ob id solum omitti videntur, 
quod precesserint ἐν Θεὼ πατρὶ, καὶ Κυρίῳ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστῷ. 

V. 7.] Parvi refert utrum legas τόπον, an cum textu τύπους, 


| presentis, et vice versa. 


quam lectionem amplectuntur Greci scholiaste omnes. 

Cap. ii. 7. "ANN ἐγενήθημεν ἥἤπιοι.Ἶ V. 1. νήπιοι Vulg. Hila- | 
tius D. Gicumen. in textu jjros, in com. ἢ νήπιος. Orig. 
Com. in Matt. p. 375, νήπιος, sed ἤπιος, p. 421. Syr. et Arab. 
“mitis, mansuetus,” Chrysost. C. Alex. ΟἹ. Al. Pwd. lib. i. p. 
84, Stro. i. p. 272, Basil. tom. ii. p. 462 et 570, legunt iirc, | 
quod simillimum veri videtur. Apostolus enim in hac simi- | 
litudine non infantis, sed nutricis personam sustinct, que | 
puerorum leves iras et infirmitates placide fert. 

V. 8. Ἱμειρόμενοι ὑμῶν. Decem MSS. et Theophylactus | 
in textu legunt ὁμειρύμενοι, “ constricti vobis :” unde Millius 
Prol. p. 95, col. 1, “ Usitatius ἱμειρόμενοι in alterius locum 
suffecerunt scribe ;” sed versiones omnes, Chrysost. Theo- 
doret. C. Alex. Hilar. D. GEcumenius, legunt cum textu, 
quam lectionem interpretatur Theophylactus, utraque vox 
idem valet δμειρόμενοι ὑμείρονται, i. 6. ἐπιθυμοῦσιν, Hesychius 
et Phavorinus. 

V. 15. Τοὺς ἰδίους προφῆτας.1 Deest ἰδίους in MSS. quibus- 
dam, Vulg. Hilario D. Pseud-Hieron. Orig. de Mart. p. 
224, adde et Com. in Matt. p. 224. “Scholiaste cujusdam 
est,” Mill. Prol. p. 65, col. 2. Sed omnia Greca scholia, | 
Basil. tom. ii. p. 429, Syr. Arab. retinent ἰδίους, vide Act. 
vii. 52; et quosnam queso alios prophetas occidissent Ju- 
dei circa annum ere Christiane 51 1 

Cap. iii. 2. Kai συνεργὸν ἡμῶν. “Recte hic omnia, nihil 
mutandum,” Mill. in locum: sed Prol. p. 123, col. 2, 
“Media καὶ συνεργὸν ἡμῶν itrepsere e margine,” contra fidem 
vmnium Grecorum scholiorum, Syr. et Arab. 


Cap. iv. 11. Καὶ ἐργάζεσϑαι ταῖς ἰδίαις xepotv.] Ita Theo- 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


doretus, Cicumenius, Theophylactus; “manibus vestris,” 
Vulg. et Hilar. D.: et cujusnam manibus operari potuerunt 
nisi suis, at Prol. p. 84, “irrepsit ex 1 Cor. iv. 12.” 

V.13. Οὐ ϑέλω Suds dyroetv.] Se. “Ego Paulus nolo,” 
v. 1. ϑέλομεν, Nos Paulus, Sylvanus, et Timotheus nolumus:” 
plurali etiam numero szpe utitur Paulus, cum solam sui 
ipsius mentionem faciat. 

Nota insuper quod licet in versiculis 15B—17 afferantur 
decem variantes lectiones, Orig. in Joh. p. 317 a textu in 
nihilo discedit, et legit φθάσωμεν non φθάσυμεν, prout Millius 
hic lapsus est per errorem. 

Cap. v. 13. Εἰρηνεύετε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς. MSS. Vulg. thiop. 
Chrysostomus, et Theodoretus, legunt ἐν αὐτοῖς, τουτέστι 
διδασκάλοις. Sed Hilarius Ὁ. C. Alex. Gcumenius, Theo- 
phylactus, ἐν ἑαυτοῖς. Et hanc lectionem, quam posteriorem 
vocat, ita firmat Esthius: * Posterior lectio que admonet 


| Thessalonicenses ut inter se pacem habeant, magis genuina 


videtur, tum quia novum preceptum est nulla conjunctione 


| ef cum precedentibus coherens; tum quia prioris lectionis 


sensus in superioribus satis includitur, velut minus in majore, 
ne dicam quod nec Greca, nec Hebraic proprictatis est, ita 
loqui ἐν αὐτοῖς, i. 6. σὺν αὐτοῖς, cum iis, sed inter illos, ut Marc. 
ix. 50, εἰρηνεύετε ἐν ἀλλήλοις, ‘Pacem habete inter vos.’ ” 

Ψ. 15. Καὶ εἰς ἀλλήλους, καὶ εἰς πάντας. Deest καὶ in Vulg. 
Arab, Sed retinent prius καὶ Greca scholia omnia, atque 
cam Greci sermonis elegantia postulat. ‘Sc. quod bonum 
est, sectemini tam erga Christianos, quam extraneos, seu non 
modo inter vos ipsos, sed in omnes.” 

V. 97. Πᾶτι τοῖς ἁγίοις added οῖς.} Agnoscunt ἁγίοις Greci 
scholiaste, C. Alex. interpretesque, dempto ®thiope, 
omnes. Millius tamen ait Prol. p. 150, col. 2, “Nisi 
obstaret codicum consensus, medium ἁγίοις pro insititiis 
haberem.” 

In Secunde Epistole ad Thessalonicenses capite primo 
vix aliqua varians lectio expectatione aliorum digna occurrit. 
V.8 et 12, ἃ. Χριστοῦ post “ Jesum” apud codices aliquos et 
Grecos scholiastes, cujus quidem vocis subductione sive 
additamento nihil usitatius est; et cum Ἰησοῦ vel Κυρίου re- 
tineatur, si subducas vel addas nomen Χριστοῦ, nullo modo 
in sensum peccatur. Similiter loco πιστεύουσιν cod. MSS, 
plur. et onmia Greca scholia legunt πιστεύσασιν, i. 6. non iis 
qui credunt, sed qui crediderunt. At grammatici sciunt 
quam frequentur omnis sermo utatur aoristo loco temporis 
Vide Glass. lib. iii. tract. 3, can. 
46, 47. 

Cap. ii. 2.] CEcumenius Χριστοῦ, i. 6. Κυρίου, cui lectioni 
cum patrocinantur Greci patres omnes, Vulg. et Syr. quin 
genuina sit nullus dubito: cum autem utriusque vocis eadein 
sit compendiosa scriptio Χοῦ, atque ambx eandem personam 
denotent, quid ἰδέας tam mirum si promiscue usurpentur? 

V. 3. Ὃ ἄνϑρωπος τῆς ἁμαρτίας. Cyril. Hieros. p. 161, 
Orig. MSS. contra Cels. p. 89, legunt ἀνομίας, sed scholiaste 
Greci, C. Alex. interpretesque veteres, Iren. lib. v. cap. 25, 
p- 438, Orig. ibid. in textu, et contra Cels. p. 307, in Matt. 
p- 347, in Joh. p. 76, legunt ἁμαρτίας, Hilarius D. “ pec- 
cati:” que huic lectioni satis firmamenti addunt, nec re 
dissident hee verba ἁμαρτία yap ἔστιν ἀνομία, Joh. iii. 4. 

V. 4.] “ Omittit λεγόμενον Origenes,” ita Mill. festinanter : 
habent enim πάντα λεγόμενον Θεὸν non modo Cyril. Hieros. p. 
161, Cyril. Alex. de Ador. Sp. p. 309, Greci scholiaste 
omnes et Hilarius D.; sed Orig. etiam contra Cels. p. 89 et 
307, in Matt. p. 242. 

‘Qs Θεόν. Deest MSS. quibusdam, Iren. lib. v. cap. 25, 
Orig. contra Cels. locis jam dictis, Cyril. Hieros. C. Alex. 
Vulg. “Insertum in contextum nullus dubito,” ait Millius 
Prol. p. 65, col. 2. Sed agnoscunt ὡς Θεὸν omnia Greca 
scholia, Cyril. Alex. Glaph. in Gen. p. 178, Theodoret. Her. 
Fab. lib. v. cap. 23, Syr. Arab. Ita eorum qui huie dictioni 
suffragantur major est numerus, quam qui adversantur. 

V. 8. "Ov ὃ Κύριος ἀνελώσει.) Orig. Cyril. Hieros. Constit. 
Apost. lib. vii. cap. 72, legunt ἀνελεῖ, fortasse ex eo quod 
versio τῶν LXX. ita se habeat Isa. xi. 4. Utram harum 
vocum legerint patres Latini nemo pronunciare potest, sed 
lucem his dabunt Chrysostomi hee verba in Psal. xliv., καὶ 
ἄλλος προφήτης φησὶ, πατάξει τὴν γὴν λύγῳ τοῦ στύματος αὐτοῦ, 
καὶ πνεύματι χειλέων ἀνελεῖ ἀσεβῆ, τὰ αὐτὰ τῷ Παύλῳ φϑεγγή- 
μενος" λέγοντι ὃν Κύριος ἀνελώσει τῷ πνεύματι στύματος αὐτοῦ, 
tom. iii. ed. Mor. p. 214; ita legunt reliqui Greci scho- 
liaste, 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


V. 11. Διὰ τοῦτο πέμψει. Orig. contra Cels. p. 307, Iren. 
Cyril. Hieros. p. 166, legunt πέμπει, sed Greca scholia, 
Orig. ibid. p. 90, Iren. lib. v. cap. 28, legunt πέμψει, et 
Cyrillus ait, rd δὲ πέμπει ἀντὶ τοῦ συγχωρεῖ γίνεαϑαι. 

V. 13.] Omnia Greea scholia, et C. Alex. legunt, non 
εἴλατο, sed εἵλετο, pariter ac textus. 

Cap. iii. 4. "A παραγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν. Greci scholiaste, C. 
Alex. interpretesque omnes, si a Vulgato discesseris, agnos- 
cunt ὑμῖν" at Prol. p. 49, “accessit ad absolvendam senten- 
tiam.” 


SECTIO NONA—EPISTOLA AD TIMOTHEUM. 


Car. i. 4. Οἰκοδομίαν Θεοῦ. Ita Vulg. Hilarius D. patres 
Latini, Syrus. Ireneus his verbis, αἵτινες ζητήσεις μᾶλλον 
παρέχουσι, καθὼς ὃ ἀπόστολός φησιν, ἢ οἰκοδομὴν Θεοῦ τὴν ἐν πίστει, 
Lat. “quam edificationem Dei que est in fide,” p. 1; sed 
Greca scholia, et codices MSS. habent οἰκονομίαν, nec ab hac 
mutatione sensus multum patitur, cum edificatio sit hujus 
οἰκονομίας fructus genuinus. 

V. 14. ῬὙπερεπλεόνασε, et 16, πρώτῳ. Τὸ πρώτῳ habent 
Greea scholia, C. Alex. versionesque Vulgata et Arab. et 
v. 18, ἐν αὐταῖς, agnoscunt Greca scholia omnia, C. Alex. 
Vulg. Syr. Hilar. D. et tamen Millius, “trip pro more e 
margine transtulerunt librarii in textum,” Prol. p. 160, et 
“ἐ πρώτῳ valde suspectum est παρεμβλήσεως,᾽" p. 49, et reji- 
citur p. 139, col. 2, et “é αὐταῖς scholiaste cujusdam est, 
non apostoli,” Prol. p. 124, nimirum /Ethiops hic “ arche- 
typum textum retinet, licet ab ipso cxteri, quod video, 
abierint,” Ibid. col. 1. 

V.17. Μόνω σοφῳ Occ.) Deest cof in C. Alex. Clar. 
Vulg. Syr. 2Ethiop. Tertulliano, Novatian, Hilario D. 
August. Pseud-Hieron. nee attingunt in Com. Chrysost. 
Theodoret. cumen. « Suspicatur Estbius, id quod res est, 
ex Rom. xvi. 27 hoc a Grecis quibusdam, diversa loca 
confundentibus, adscriptum esse, sicut et in Epistola Jude :” 
Hec Millius. Atqui non Arabs modo, sed omnia Greca 
scholia habent σοφῳ in textu, et satis attingunt in commen- 
tariis. Nempe secundum Theodoretum hee exclamatio est 
ὕμνος τῇ τριάδι, secundum Chrysostomum et Cicumenium 
ταῦτα περὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, rationemque reddit Theophylactus 
αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστι ἡ σοφία τοῦ πατρὸς, Theodoretus in lib. v. de 


Her. Fab. cap. 1, p. 251, hwc habet verba, βοᾷ δὲ καὶ δ᾽ 


ἀπόστολος ἀφθάρτῳ, ἀοράτῳ, μόνῳ coped Oca, et in dial. 2 de 
Trinit. quem illi attribuit Garnerius, eadem reperias, tom. ¥. 
p- 300. Maximus confessor in eodem dialogo illa ipsa verba 
bis recitat, p. 410, 422. “ἐν 

Cap. ii. 7. ᾿Αλήθειαν λέγω ἐν Χριστῷ. Desunt ἐν Χριστῷ 
MSS. plur. vetustis versionibus, Chrysost. Theophyl. 
Habent autem Theodoret. et GEcumen. 

Cap. iii. 3. Μὴ aioxpoxepij-] Non habent cod. MSS. multi, 
Vulg. Hiiarius D. Syr. Arab. Theodoret. et Theophylact. 
“Trrepsit ex Ep. ad Tit.’ Prol. p. 89. Habent autem 
Chrysostomus, Gicumen. C. Alex. 8. Basil. tom. ii. p. 476, 
477. Et vocem hance postulant sequentia ἑιακόνους ὡσαύτως, 
N. B. μὴ αἱσχροκερδεῖς, et Tit. i. 7, ubi eadem res agitur. 

V. 6. Θεὸς ἐφανερόθη ἐν σαρκί.) Hance lectionem contra Vul- 
gatam suam et Hilar. D. pulcherrime propugnat Mill., in eo 
solo lapsus quod ait “ Greg. Nyssenum primum fuisse omni- 
um luculentum hoe apostoli testimonium usurpasse video.” 
Eodem enim antea usi sunt Athanas. de Incarn. Verbi, tom. 
i. p. 592, atque Orig. contra Cels, lib. iii. p. 129. 

Cap. iv. 16. 'Exiyeve airots.] Ita Greca scholia, Vulg. 
Hilar. D. Syr.: dicente autem Millio, Prol. p. 124, col. 2, 
“medium ἐπίμενε αὐτοῖς, adscripsit jam olim ad marginem 
scholiastes aliquis, unde irrepsit in textum.” 

Cap. v. 4. Καλὸν cai.) Desunt in MSS. plurimis, Grecis 
scholiis, et versionibus cunctis; fortasse, eo quod supervacanea 
hee verba putarint: quod enim acceptum est coram Deo, 
id non potest non esse bonum et honestum. Similiter v. 5, 
καὶ ταῖς προσευχαῖς omittunt, ut superfluum credo, cod. 
Latini plurimi, : 

V.16. Et τις πιστὸς 3) πιστή. Sic Greea scholia omnia, 
Hilar. D. Syr. Arab. sed “ preefixit πιστὸς lector quispiam,” 
ita Mill. Prol. p. 71. 

V.19. "Exrds εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ δῦο ἢ τριῶν μαρτύρων. Ita versiones 


omnes, C. Alex. Theodoret. GEcum. et Theophylact. Ait | 


tamen Millius, Prol. p. 49, “ Vulg. Hilarii lectio, que est 
simpliciter μὴ xapadéxov, omnino genuina est, qui expressiora 
Vor. [V.—149 


1185 


| et clariora hic volebat, adjecit ad marginem Zerds εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ 
δῦο ἢ τριῶν μαρτύρων: quod quidem mox ut in textum irrep- 
serit, nil mirum si in omnes demum codices invaserit.” 

| V.21. Μηδὲν ποιῶν κατὰ πρύσκλισιν Quedam exempla 
| MSS. Chrysost. et C&cum. legunt πρόσκλησιν, Basilius et 
Theodoretus πρύσκλισιν, sicut etiam Theophylactus, hac simul 
adhibita observatione, καν διὰ τοῦ ἢ γράφεται, τὸν αὐτὸν νοῦν 
onpaivet. 

Cap. vi. 5. ᾿Αφίστασο ἀπὸ τῶν τοιούτων. ἢ Agnoscunt hee 
verba omnia Grieca scholia, Hilarius D. Syr. Arab. et sensus 
sine his non plenus est: male igitur putat Grotius ob hanc 
solam rationem ea addita fuisse, et post illum Millius, «a 
lectore addita ad complendum sensum,” Prol. p. 123, 
| praesertim cum Greci scholiaste et patres diserte notent 
quod apostoli mandatum non sit, “Disputa cum,” sed 
“Segrega te ab illis.” 

V. 9. Eis ἐπιθυμίας ἀνοήτους. Ita Syr. C. Alex. et omnia 
Greca scholia in textu, Chrysost. in margine commentarii, 
Basilius, tom. ii. p. 450; sed Vulg. &c. ἀνονήτους, quod fere 
idem sonat; quecunque enim cupiditas stulta et temeraria 
est, eam quoque inutilem et nocivam esse, quis dubitat 1 

V. 20.] Chrysostomus et Theophylactus hic παρακαταθήκην 
lezunt, sed Theodoretus et G2cumenius, παραθήκην, sine dis- 
crimine, teste Phavorino, παραθήκη λέγε καὶ παρακαταϑῆκη, 
οὕτω γὰρ καὶ ἀρχαιοὶ λέγουσι" παραϑήκη, παρακαταθήκη. Hesy- 
chius. 


SECTIO DECIMA—-EPISTOLA SECUNDA AD TIMOTHEUM. 


Car. i. 11. Ἐθνῶν. Habent Gr. scholia, versiones, Hilarius 
D. exemplaria, si bina excipias, omnia, sed Prol. p. 145, col. 
1, “éS:av est Ep. ad Timotheum prioris;” cur non eadem 
sententia etiam posterioris ? 

Cap. ii. 19. Τὸ ὄνομα Χριστοῦ. MSS. plurimi, scholiaste, 
interpretesque omnes legunt Κυρίου, hee ergo est germana 
lectio: cum vero eadem persona sit tum Christus, tum 
Dominus, idem utriusque sensus est. 

V. 21. ᾿Απὸ τούτων.] Occurrunt hee verba apud Orig. 
contra Cels. lib. iv. p. 210, in uncis. Desunt Philoc. p. 65, 
66, idque ob rationem non cognitu difficilem; verba enim 
hee vel referuntur ad profana, et inaniloguia Hymenzi et 
Phileti, vel ad vasa in contumeliam facta ; ideoque, detractis 
jis, fit sententia generalis, «Si quis emundaverit se, erit vas 
in honorem,” sed retinent Greci scholiaste, C. Alex. Hilar. 

. et versiones omnes. 

Cap. iii. 3. *Acropyot, ἄσπονδοι. Agnoscunt hee verba C. 
Alex. scholiaste, et versiones. Grotius autem, “Forte huc 
| Inserta sunt ex Rom. i. 31.” Cum vero desint in unico 
Syro, si conjecturis et suspicionibus bujusmodi coarguantur 
tot testimonia, quid certi de textu habere possumus ? 

V. 16. Θεύπνευστος, καὶ &pédpos.] Ita scholiaste, C. Alex.: 
Hilarius autem D, et versiones omittunt «ai. 

Cap. iv. 8. Πᾶσι τοῖς jyazyxéot.] Omnia Greea scholia, et 
C. Alex. legunt πᾶσι, quod satis est ad firmandam hance 
lectionem. Deest πᾶσι apud Ger. Vulg. Hilarium D. Pseud- 
Hieron.: unde Millio “injectum in nostris πᾶσι explicatio 
est,” Prol. p. 49. 


SECTIO UNDECIMA—EPISTOLA AD TITUM. 


Car. i. 4. Χάρις, ἔλεος, εἰρήνη. Deest ἔλεος apud Latinos, 
Syr. Chrysost. Orig. (seu Ruffinum) ad Rom. cujus hee sunt 
| verba ad Titum, “ Vero gratia et pax a Deo patre.” Sed 
Arab, C. Alex. Theodoretus, textui assentiuntur. C&cume- 
|nius et Theophylactus rationem afferunt quare apostolus 
voce ἔλεος hic utitur. Millius tamen ait, “ Medium ἔλεος 
assutum hue haud dubito ex Epist. ad Timotheum,” p. 84. 

Versum quintum pariter ac in textu recitat Orig. in Matt. 
Ρ- 362: sie etiam Greci scholiaste omnes, nisi quod Theo- 
| phylactus legat non λείποντα sed ἐλλείποντα : unde de quatuor 
variis lectionibus, quas hic congessit Millius, fiat judicium. 

Cap. ii. 7.’ Ag@apotav.] Deest Vulg. Chrysost. Theophylact. 
“Explicatorium erat (inquit Millius Prol. p. 123) τοῦ 
ἀδιαφθορίαν, ac postea irrepsit e margine in contextum.” 
Agnoscunt Theodoret. GEcumen. C. Alex. Arab. 

Cap. iii. 3. μεν γάρ ποτε. Clem. Alex. p. 3, ἦμεν yap 
jiuév ποτε, more sc. rhetorum, Orig. lib. i. contra Celsum, p. 
50, in Jer. hom. 5, p. 75, Greca scholia, et versiones omnes 
| legunt cum textu. 


1186 


V. 10. Κατὰ μίαν καὶ δευτέραν vovSectav.] Tren. lib. iii. cap. 
3, Tertull. de Prescript. cap. vi. 16, Cyprian. Ep. 59, et ad 
Quirin. lib. iii. 5. 78, Ambrosiaster et Ambros. lib. ii. de 
Abrahamo, cap. 6, et teste Hicronymo, quidam Greci co- 
dices, omittunt καί δευτέραν. Sed agnoscunt hee verba Gr. 
scholia, et versiones omnes, Cod. Alex. et ipse Hieronymus, 
Orig. in Cels. lib. v. p. 273, Athanas. ad Adelph. p. 156, ad 
Maximum, p. 163, Basil. tom. p. 491, Cyril. Alex. de Ador. 
Sp. p. 486. Porro hic loci plura sunt testimonia incaute, 
pene dixerim falso, citata. Nam Iren. lib. 111. cap. 3, ed. 
Ox. p. 204, habet μετὰ μίαν καὶ δευτέραν νουϑεσίαν παραιτοῦ. 
At, lib. iii. cap. 13, p. 78, ots ὃ Παῦλος ἐγκελεύεται μετὰ μίαν 
καὶ δευτέραν νουθεσίαν παραιτεῖσθαι, Lat. “post primam et 
secundam correptionem devitare,” Cypr. ad Quirin. lib. ii. 
§. 78, ad hune modum legit ad Titum, « Hereticum homi- 
nem post primam aut secundam correptionem devita.” Et 
Hieronymus non asserit Gr. codices omisisse, καὶ δευτέραν, sed 
loco correptionis, rectius legendum esse νουθεσίαν “ commoni- 
tionem.” 


Ver. 15. Xapis μετὰ πάντων ὑμῶν. “Gratia Dei,” ita Vulg. | 


Hilar. D. Pseud-Hieronym. 


“ Gratia Domini nostri,” Clar. 


Ger. Lat. sed Greca scholia, Syr. et Arab. textum sequun- | 


tur, et monente hic Hieronymo, “nec nostri,” in libris 
feruntur authenticis. 


SECTIO DUODECIMA—EPISTOLA AD PHILEMONEM. 


V. 2. ᾿Απφίᾳ τῇ dyarnry.| Sic Gr. scholiaste, Syr. Arab. 
Sed Millius ex nimia in Vulgatum indulgentia, magis probat 
ἀδελφὴ, Quam, inguit, mutavit quispiam in ἀγαπητὴ, Prol. 
Ρ. 135. 

V. 6. ᾿Ενεργής. V. 1. ἐναργὴς evidens, cui astipulantis 
Esthii testimonium profert, reclamantibus non tantum om- 
nibus Gr. scholiis, C. Alex. Syro, et Arabe, sed etiam Hila- 
rio D. et Hieronymo qui ait in Greco melius ἐνεργὴς etiicax, 
unde a Vulgato suo invitissimus dissentit. 

Τοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν.] Sic Vulg. Hieron. Theophyl. Esthiusque ait, 
«Hance esse veram lectionem ipse orationis contextus os- 
tendit.” Sed Chrysostom. Theodoret. Gicum. legunt ἐν ἡμῖν, 
«in nobis Christianis,” omni in sensu discrimine remoto. 

V. 20. Ta σπλάγχνα ἐν Kupio.] V. 1. ἐν Χριστῷ, Syr. Hilar. 
D. Chrysost. Theophylact. Sed Theodoret. Gicumen. Arab. 
ἐν Κυρίῳ, atque “he (ait Esthius) est verior lectio,”’ quan- 
quam in sensu non est diversitas. 


SECTIO DECIMA TERTIA—EPISTOLA AD HEBRZZOS. 


Car. i. 1. Ex’ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων. MSS. quidam 
Orig. in Joh. p. 56, Theodoret. in Isa. ii. et. Her. Fab. lib. 
v. cap. 2, et Athanas. legunt ἐπ᾿ ἐσχάτου. Sed Greci 
scholiaste omnes textum preferunt, et in synopsi quadam, 
quam spuriam esse omnes fatentur, ac in Disp. de Nicen. 
Concil. Decretis, de qua critici certant, Athanasius legit 
ἐσχάτου" sed orat. 2 contra Arian. p. 36, et de Hum. Nat. 
Suscept. p. 605, bis legit ἐσχάτων, quam genuinam esse lec- 
tionem nullus dubito; his enim verbis LXX. Interpr. fere 
semper Hebraica illa ἘΞ Ὁ) ny ΠΝ interpretantur. 

V. 3. A’ Eavrod καθαρισμὸν ποιησάμενος. Agnoscunt δι᾽ 
ἑαυτοῦ Gr. scholiaste omnes, preterquam Theodoretus, qui 
tamen habet αὑτοῦ cum spiritu aspero, quod in idem recidit. 
Frustra igitur dicit Mill. Prol. p. 95, “dc ἑαυτοῦ insertum 
esse claritatis gratia.” idem etiam scholiaste retinent hic 
ἡμῶν, quamquam forte desit apud Cyril. Al. Apostolus 
enim Hebrazos alloquitur, ille autem neminem; at Prol. p. 
49, «ἡμῶν injectitium est.” 

V. 12. ‘Qoet περιβόλαιον ἑλίξεις αὐτοὺς, Kat ἀλλαγήσονται.ἢ 
Bina exampl. Gr. et Vulg. legunt ἀλλάξεις, sed Gr. scholiaste 
C. Alex. Syr. Arab. et versio τῶν LXX. Ps. cii. 26, ἑλίζεις. 
Vulg. “ Mutabis eos,” non ex Graco, sed Hebreo Dpyynn- 

Cap. ii. 7. Kat κατέστησας αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὰ ἔργα τῶν χειρῶν σου. 


Desunt hee verba in MSS. plurimis, adde in GEcumenio et | 


Theophylacto. Sed retinentur apud C. Alex. Chrysost. 
Theodoret. et versiones antiquas omnes. 

V. 9. Χάριτε Ocod.] Quidam codices, teste Orig. in Joh. 
Ρ. 38, et 362, et Theodoret. in locum legebant χωρὶς Θεοῦ, 
sed, teste Millio, editis certe congruit quicquid uspiam est 
hodie librorum MSS. Gr. et Lat. Vide prefationem nostram 
in hoe opus. 

Cap. ili. 6. Μέχρι τέλους βεβαίαν. Agnoscunt hee verba 
Gr. scholia, C. Alex. versiones omnes, uno excepto #thiope, 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


quem sequens Mill. ait “ Hc ad marginem adposita in tex- 
tum posuit scriba perperam, et eadem verba, v. 14, irrepsere 
ex vers, 6,” Prol. p. 124, col. 1. 

V.9. οὗ ἐπειρασάν με. Deest pe in 4 MSS., sed adest in 
versionibus, et Gr. scholiis omnibus, in Cyril. Al. Glaph. in 
Num. p. 393, ubi a v. 7 usque ad finem hujus capitis editis 
congruit, nisi quod v. 11, pro ὡς legit ois, et v. 16, pro οὐ, 
οὐχί. 

Cap. iv. 2. Μὴ συγκεκραμμένος τῇ πίστει τοῖς ἀκούσασιν. 
MSS. plurima, Theodoret. (σαι. Theophylact. legunt 
συγκεραμμένους. Sed Vulg. Syr. Cyril. Al. Glaph. in Num. 
p- 394, textum ipsum exhibent, atque hanc lectionem ver- 
borum constructio videtur postulare. Prebent enim sensum 
planum, viz. Et sermo Moysis de promissione a Deo facta 
introducendi eos in terram Canaan iis non profuit, quia 
fidem ei non dabant; altera lectio difficilis, et subobscura est, 
nimirum, Sermo additus iis non profuit, quia Calebo et 
Joshue ei auscu!tantibus admixti nun erant. 

V. 15. Πεπειρασμένον.] Sic GEcumen. Orig. in Joh. p. 37, 
38, et 323, et Theodoretus. Sed Chrysost. ‘Theophylact. et 
Orig. περὶ Εὐχῆς, p. 50, cum textu πεπειραμένον, eodem 
sensu. 

Cap. v. 12. Διδίσκειν ὑμᾶς τίνα τὰ στοιχεῖα τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν 
λογίων rod Θεοῦ.] Chrysost. ho. 17 in Matt. et Vulg. legunt 
διδάσκεσϑαι, sed Orig. in Joh. p. 18, C, Alex. Gr. scholia, ab 
excusis non recedunt, et legunt etiam λογίων pariter ac Eu- 
seb. contra Marcel. lib. i. cap. 1, p. 3, Cyril. Al. de Ador. 
Sp. p. 359. 

Cap. vi. 8. Kai τοῦτο ποιήσομεν. MSS. quidam et Gicum. 
legunt ποιήσωμεν" reliqui scholiaste et versiones cum textu. 

V.10. Kat rod Kérov τῆς ἀγάπης. Deest κύπου in MSS. 
Vulg. et Syr. sed quicquid Millius in contrarium dicat oc- 
currit apud Chrysost. in Comment. et apud reliquos inter- 
pretes Griecos: ait tamen Mill. Prol. p. 84, col. 1, “ τοῦ 
κύπου irrepsere ex 1 Thess. i. 3,” quasi non potuerit aposto- 
lus bis idem dicere de eadem re. 

Cap. vii. 11. Καὶ od κατὰ τάξιν ᾿Ααρὼν λέγεσϑαι. Sic 
omnia Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Vulg. Syr. Arab. At quoniam 
hee verba desunt apud 2thiop. ita Mill. « Commentarium 
marginalem primitus fuisse puta, non textum,” Prol. p. 84, 
col. 2. 

V. 17. Μαρτυρεῖ γάρ.) Ita Theodoret. Gicumenius; μαρ- 
τυρεῖται Chrysost. Theophyl. 

Cap. viii. 4. Τῶν ἱερέων. Sic omnia Gr. scholia, Syr. 
Arab.: sed quia deest in 8 MSS. et Vulg. “ adscripsit quis- 
piam ad oram libri, unde mox irrepsit in contextum,”’ ita 
Mill. Prol. p. 145, col. 1. 

V.9. Οὐ κατὰ τὴν διαϑήκην ἣν ἐποίησα. Chrysost. Theodoret. 
Theophyl. legunt ἣν διεϑέμην, ex vers. τῶν LXX, Jer. xxxi- 
32, sed Gicum. C. Alex. Cyril. Al. de Ador. Sp. p. 3, 
Vulg. Syr. Arab. ἐποίησα. 

V.11. Kat οὐ μὴ διδάξωσι ἕκαστος τὸν πλησίον.] Triginta 
fere MSS. Theodoret. August. Syr. Arab. legunt πολίτην, 
ex vers. J,XX. Interpr.: sed Vulg. Chrysost. Gicum. Theo- 
phylact. πλησίον. 

V. 12. Kai τῶν ἀνομιῶν αὐτῶν. Desunt in Vulg. Syr. « Vi- 
deri possunt irrepsisse ex glossemate,” inquit Grotius, 1e- 
clamantibus C. Alex. Arab. Grecis scholiis omnibus; apos- 
tolus ipse etiam iisdem verbis utitur infra cap. x. 17, ubi 
nulla varians occurrit lectio. 

Cap. ix 2. “Hrs λέγεται ἁγία. Quanquam omnia Greca 
scholia legunt ἅγια προπαροξυτύνως, danda illis venia est qui 
nec linguam Hebraicam, nec tabernaculi structuram recte 
intelligebant: asserit Capellus ἁγία cum acuto in penultima ve- 


| riorem esse lectionem (cui fidem adstruit vox ἥτις), propterea 
| quod ἅγια plurali numero dicitur potius de intimo sanctuario: 


pluralis enim numerus apud Hebreos sepe vim habet super- 
lativi. 

V. 9. Ἥτις παραβολὴ εἰς τὸν καιρὸν τὸν ἑνεστηκότα, καϑ' ὅν. 
γ. 1. καϑέστηκε" nulla scholia Greca agnoscunt καϑ᾽ ἣν" adest 
in solo Vulg. et (Πσαπιθηϊο. Reliqui interpretes, et scho- 
liaste, habent καϑ᾽ ὃν, sub. καιρὸν, sicut Cyril. Alex. de Ador. 
Sp. p. 347, qui et ibi retinet κατὰ συνείδησιν, una cum Grecis 
scholiis omnibus, Syro, Vulg. et Arabe. Millio tamen judice, 
Prol. p. 102, col. 2, “xaS’ ἣν omnino recte,” et p. 124, col. 
2, « κατὰ συνείδησιν accessit aliunde.” 

V. 10. Δικαιώμασι.] Est lectio illa quam probant omnia 
Greca scholia, Vulg. Arab. 

Υ. 14. Διὰ Πνεύματος aiwviov.] Vulg. Chrysost. Cyril. ΑἹ, 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


de Recta Fide, p. 73, legunt ἁγίου" Syr. Arab, C, Alex. 
Theodoret. Gicum. Theophylact. Athanas. Ep. ad Serap. 
p- 180, Ambros. de Sp. Sane, cap. 8, αἰωνίου. 

V. 22.) Agnoscunt oxedov Vulg. Arab. C. Alex. Greca 
scholia omnia. Deest tantum in Syro, et Athiope. “ Nec 
dubito (inquit Millius) quin hwe sit genuina leetio, σχεδὸν 
insertum erat postea ab aliquo lectore de apostolice sen- 
tentiw veritate sollicito si placet,” Prol. p. 130, col. 1. Vide 
rationem τοῦ σχεδὸν in annotatis nostris ad locum. 

Cap. x. 1. Οὐδέποτε δύναται. Sic Chrysost. Vulg. C. Alex. 
Arab. respectu habito ad vocem νόμος" reliqui autem Greci 
scholiaste et Syrus legunt divavra, respicientes ad vocem 
ϑυσίας quod verisimilius est, quanquam nulla sit in sensu di- 
versitas. 

V. 6. Kat περὶ ἁμαρτίας οὐκ εὐδόκησας. Sic Greca scholia 
omnia, que satis firmant hanc lectionem. 

V.9.] Retinent 6 Θεὸς C. Alex. Greci, ceterique inter- 
pretes omnes, si Zthiopem excipias: sed Prol. p. 139, col. 
2, “accessit ex v. 7 hujus cap.” 

V. 11. Καὶ πᾶς μὲν ἱερεύς. MSS. Syr. thiop. Theodoret. 
Cyril. Al. de Ador. Sp. p. 348, legunt ἀρχιερεὺ," sed Chry- 
sostom. CEcumen. Theophylact. Vulg. et Arab. ἱερεῦς, 

V. 29. Ἔν ᾧ ἡγιάσϑη.] Desunt hee in C. Alex. Chrysost. 
Habent Orig. hom. 13 in Jer. p. 130, contra Cels. p. 385, 
Athanas. ad Serap. p. 180, Cyril. Al. de Recta Fide, p. 74, 
de Ador. Sp. p. 196, Greca scholia, et versiones omnes. 

V. 34. Γινώσκοντες ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς κρείττονα ὕπαρξιν ἐν οὐρα- 
νοῖς. Quoniam Clemens ΑἹ. 4 MSS. et Vulg. omittunt τὸ ἐν 
οὐρανοῖς, “ irrepsisse puto hwc (ait Millius) e margine in con- 
textum,” sed retinentur apud Syrum, Arab. Greca scholia 
omnia, Orig. Exhort. ad Martyr. p. 210: quod si una cum 
C, Alex. MSS. aliquibus, Vulg. Syr. Arab. et Clem. Al. le- 
gendum censeamus ἑαυτοὺς, quis est cui nec sententia non 
sit clara et perspicua? 

V. 38. 'O δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται. Cl. Al. et Vulg. 
hic legunt δίκαιός μου" colligit hinc Esthius additum hic olim 
fuisse pronomen μου post δίκαιος. Eusebius Demonst. Evang. 
lib. vi. cap. 14, tres affert lectiones, unam sc. editorum; 
alteram cum pov post δίκαιος, que est lectio τῶν LAX. Hab. 
ii. 4, et Theodoreti, Ep. 122; tertiam μου post πίστεως, que, 
juxta Millium, est lectio Cypriani ad Quirin. lib. i. §. 5, et 
lib. iii. §. 42, ubi Cyprian. non citat Epistolam ad Hebrzos, 
sed prophetam Habbacuc: aitque Millius, Prol. p. 89, col. 
2, “Perperam μου additur post δίκαιος, recte post πίστεως. 
Sed cum apostolus citet hec ipsa verba absque pov, Rom. 
1. 17. Gal. iii. 11, cur sententiam suam hic variarit causa 
nulla est, presertim cum lectionem in textu firment omnia 
Greca scholia. 

Cap. xi. 4. ᾿Αποϑανὼν λαλεῖται.] Chrysostom. in textu, 
Photius, et GEcumenius. Sed λαλεῖ, Chrysost. in Comment. 
Theodoret. Theophylact. qui diserte ait τίνα τῶν ἀντιγράφων 
λαλεῖται ἔχουσιν, οὐ καλῶς οἶμαι. Sed hee est vocum discre- 
pantia sine sensus discrimine; sciebant enim, ait Capellus, 
λαλεῖσϑαι pro λαλεῖν sumi posse: hinc Beza reddit λαλεῖται, 
“adhuc loquitur.” Et Anglicana versio, “yet speaketh.” 

V. 9. Πίστει παρῴκησεν. MSS. aliqui habent καὶ παρῴκησεν, 
omissa πίστει, repugnantibus vero Grecis scholiis et ver- 
sionibus universis. Sed Prol. p. 160, col. 1, “vereor ut il- 
lud πίστει jam olim irrepserit ex albo libri.” 

V. 31. "Erexev.] Omittunt Vulg. ZEthiop. Agnoscunt Syr. 
Arab. Gr. scholia universim. 

V. 13. Kai πεισθέντες. Hoc licet in se certum fuerit, et 
teste Erasmo, in cod. Gr. inventum, textui additum esse 
probant Greca scholia, et versiones omnes, sed sine textus 
prejudicio; quod enim fide videbant et salutabant, de eo 
eerte persuasi fuerint, necesse est. 

V. 23.] Versum inter hune et sequentem, a Latinis qui- 
busdam interjectum (sc. “ Fide magnus factus Moses occidit 
Zgyptium, considerans dolorem fratrum suorum”) nulla 
agnoscunt Greca scholia, versiones null. Sed Prol. p. 49, 
col. 2, “vix est quam ut cum Zegero sententiam ipsius 
apostoli fuisse, lapsa ab initio fere e codicibus.” 

V. 29. Karex6$ncav.] Sic C, Alex. GEcumen. et Theophy- 
lact.: κατεποντίϑησαν alii, eodem sensu: καταπίνω enim, teste 
Grotio, pluribus in locis valet et vertitur καταποντίζω. 

V. 40. Προβλεψαμένου. Ita C. Alex. Orig. in Matt. p. 
405, Gr. scholia omnia: quod vero apud Clem. Al. p. 515, 
ἃ. οὗτοι, v. 29, et προειδομένου legitur, nullius momenti est; 
omittit enim ibi ἐπρίσϑησαν, v. 37, addit de suo, v. 39, 


| fratres mei.” 


1187 


post ἐπαγγελίαν, τοῦ Θεοῦ, post προειδομένου, ἀγαθὸς yap ἦν, et 
cap. xii. 1, post νέφος, ἅγιον καὶ διειδές" “est tamen Clemens 
ille (Millii judicio, Prol. p, 60, col. 2) in adducendis N. 
T. locis castus, raro quidpiam ingerens, seu etiam prie- 
termittens:” quod quidem falsissimum esse multis indiciis 
libro primo probavimus. 

Cap. xii. 10.) Addunt hie Vulg. Syr. Althiop. ἡμᾶς" sed 
non agnoscunt Gr. scholia, nec Arabs: Vulg. et Athiop. 
legunt τὸν Θεὸν, sed Gr. scholia, Syr. et Arabs, τὸν Κύριον cum 
textu. 

V. 15, 'Evoy)7-] Ita MSS. cod. summo consensu; hic Mil- 
lius, ita etiam Gr. scholia, C. Alex. Clem. Alex. Stro. iv. 
p- 525, Cyril. Hieros. p. 2, Vulg. Syr. Arab. sed, dicente 
Millio, “hie vetustissimo certe, et ab ipsis rei Christiane 
primordiis inolito errore vera lectio est apud LXX. Inter- 
pretes, Deut. xxix. 18, ἐν χολῇ." Hi tamen ibi habent 
ἔστιν, et καὶ πικρίᾳ, que verba apostolus hic omittit. 

V. 20. Ἢ Bodide κατατοζευϑήσεται.ἢ Cum desint hee verba 
in MSS. plurimis, Grecis scholiastis, excepto G2cumenio, 
versionibusque cunctis, probabile est ea addita fuisse ex 
Exod, xix. 13, a quodam, qui extra culpam se esse arbitra- 
batur, licet expleverit quod, loco e 5, scriptura desumpto, 
defuit. 

V. 28. "Exwpev, darpedwpev.] Sic legunt omnia Greca 
scholia, et C. Alex. ἔχωμεν, unde constat quod apostolus non 
hic laudet Hebrxos, sed moneat, et terreat, cui voci optime 
respondet λατρεύωμεν, licet Arabs et Theophylactus legunt 
λατρεύομεν, repugnantibus cxteris interpretibus: sed Prol. p. 
71, “indicative ἔσχομεν et λατρεύομεν recte.” 

Cap. xiii. 9. Μὴ περιφέρεαθε.) V. 1. MSS. aliqui, Chry- 
sost. Theodoret. Gicumen. legunt παραφέρεσϑε" utrumque vo- 
cabulum satis quadrat, inquit Erasmus. 

V. 10. Οὐκ ἔχουσιν ἐζουσιαν.] Gr. scholia, C. Alex. ver- 
siones omnes habent ἐξουσίαν. Sed tamen “Cod. Clar. Ger. 
Cod. Al. teste Esthio, omittunt ἐξουσίαν, omnino recte; in 
ceteris plerisque omnibus accessit explicationis gratia,” Prol. 
p- 135, col. 3. 

V. 20. Ἔκ νεκρῶν. V. 1. ἐκ τῆς γῆς, Chrysost. Cyril. Hier. 
Catech. 14, p. 152, Didymus Lat. : reliqui autem interpretes 
et C. Alex. editis congruunt. Cyril. citat Isa. x]. 11, et 
Chrysost. ait παρὰ τῆς ἀναστάσεως τοῦτο εἴρηται. Vide Prol. 

. 73. 
κ V. 21. Ἔν παντὶ ἔργῳ ἀγαθῷ. Sic Greci omnes, et inter- 
pretes orientales; Vulg. solus “in omni bono,” unde Millius, 
Prol. p. 135, col. 2, medium ἔργῳ irrepsit ex 2 Thess. ii. 
WG 


SECTIO DECIMA QUARTA—EPISTOLA JACOBI. 


Car. i. 3.] Desunt in Barb. 1 τῆς πίστεως, habent autem 
Ccumenius, C. Alex. et versiones omnes: “nihilominus 
(dicente Millio, Prol. p. 49, col. 2) lectioni huic simplici 
(se. absque τῆς πίστεως) favet v. 12.” Inspice queso, lector, 
locum, ut scias viri acumen, et nasum criticum. 

Υ, 19. Ὥστε ἀδελφοί pov.] Vulg. Beda, August. ἴστε, “ Scitis, 
Sed Syr. et G2cumenius, legunt cum textu; 
“iors (inquit Erasmus) in Gr. codicibus non reperio:” huic 
loco non admodum congruit juxta Esthium. Hic tamen 
Millius, Vulgati in gratiam, “ Qui sensum apostoli non ca- 
piebant, rem expedisse putabant mutando ἴστε in dors,” 
Prol. p. 145, col. 1. 

V.25. Οὗτος οὐκ ἀκροατὴς ἐπιλησμονῆς γενύμενος-------οὗτος 
μακάριος. Deest hic οὗτος primus apud Vulg, et Syr. secun- 
dus apud Cant. ob pleonasmum Hebraicum non intellectum. 


| Sunt autem in Arabe, et GEcumenio, estque, dicente Grotio, 


pulchra ἀναφορὰ in pronomine οὗτος" et tamen, Prol. p. 129, 


| col. 1, “ οὗτος primum insertum puto ex posteriori parte ver- 


siculi hujus.” 

V.26. Εἴ τις doxet ϑρῆσκος εἶναι ἐν ὑμῖν. “Duo MSS. legunt 
ϑρησκὸς, Nescio an rectius,” Millius. Ccumenius autem 
ϑρῆσκος, quod etiam agnoscunt Hesychius et Budeus: “ ἐν 
ὑμῖν quod deest Vulg. Syr. merito videtur adjectum,” ita 
Millius hic, et Prol. p. 123, col. 1: est tamen in CEcumenio, 
et, teste Erasmo, in Grecis. 

Cap. ii. 24. ‘Opare roivw.] Vulg. et Syr. “vides,” omit- 
tentes τοίνυν, et mutantes numerum verbi: cum textu legunt 
Q2icumenius, et Arab.; et conclusio ab exemplo Abrahami 
ducta postulare videtur τοίνυν, “ igitur.” 

Cap. iii. 3. Idod.] V. 1. CEcumenius, et Vulg. εἰ δὲ “si 


1188 


autem ;” cod. MSS. quidam ἰδέ. Syr. autem “ecce,” et ἰδοὺ 
subsequens, v. 4, 5, lectionem textus adstruit. 

V. 5. 'Ολίγον πῦρ.] V. 1. Alex. Vulg. Gicumen. ἡλίκον πῦρ. 
Sed versiones orientales omnes textum sequuntur, et simili- 
tudo ducta a nave que circumfertur ὑπὸ ἐλαχίστου πεδαλίου, 
et μικρὸν μέλος, quod hic de lingua dicitur, et Hebraicum 
adagium a Ben Syra ad πο modum allatum, “ut parvus 
ignis magnum rogum conficit, ita mundum nihil eque vastat 
ac lingua,” lectionem textus firmare videantur. Vid. Floril. 
Hebr. voce Lingua. 

Cap. iv. 4. Μοιχοὶ καὶ porxadides.] Ita CEcumenius, C. Alex. 
Arab: sed Vulg. et Syr. omittunt καὶ μοιχαλίδες, et “sic 
absque dubio apostolus,” Mill. p. 49, col. 2: sequitur ἔχθρα, 
“jnimicitia,” sic Gicumenius, Syr. Arab. Sed Vulg. et Beda 
legunt ἐχθρὰ, “inimica:’’ vide Rom. viii. 7. 

V.12. Els ἔστιν ὃ vouobérns.] Addunt καὶ κριτὴς, MSS. 
quidam, Vulg. Syr. Cyril. Alex. de Recta Fide, p. 57; sed 
juxta Esthium, et Erasmum, illud non agnoscunt Greca ex- 


emplaria: “irrepsit e margine,” Mill. p. 145. Non agnoscit | 


Cicumenius. 

V.17.] Deest ποιεῖν in Syr. sed habent Gacumenius, Vulg. 
C. Alex. Arab. thiop.: at “accessit forsan e margine,” 
Prol. p. 164, col. 1. 

Cap. v. 5. ᾿Ὡς ἐν ἡμέρᾳ σφαγῆς. Desunt hee /Bthiop. 
Agnoscunt Gicumenius, Cl. Al. Vulg. Syr. Arab. dicente 
tamen Millio, “commentarius est, non textus,” Prol. p. 
124, col. 2. 

V. 7. Ἕως ἂν λαβῃ ὑετὸν πρώϊμον καὶ ὄψιμον. Ita CEcume- 
nius, C. Alex. versiones orientales omnes. Deest ὑετὸν apud 
Vulg. solum, “omnino recte,” Millius: en rationem plane 
commentitiam ; “rpipov καὶ ὕψιμον in 5. scripturis etiam de 
fructu terre dicitur ; id in hoc loco lector quispiam hoe igno- 
rans, ne sententia laboraret, adjecit ὑετὸν," Prol. p. 123, col. 
2. Locum scripture postulo. Adducit hic Mill. Deut. xi. 
14. Jer. v. 24, Hos. vi. 3. Joel. ii. 23. Zech. x. 1, in quibus 
omnibus de pluvia matutina et serotina disertim sit mentio. 
Ad textum hunc provocando petit id quod probandum est; 
contrarium potius suadet hic locus, nempe fructus terre mes- 
semque a pluvia matutina et serotina pendere, Deut. xi. 14. 
Jer. v. 25, adeoque agricolam hance pluviam patienter ex- 
pectare, ut fructus terre colligat:—sed aliquid dicendum 
erat in gratiam Vulg. 

V. 20. Σώσει ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ. Vulg. Syr. Arab. Cyril. Al. de 
Recta Fide, p. 63. Sed “ αὐτοῦ occurrit in paucis exem- 
plaribus,” inquit Esthius, neque vera lectio est, plurimi 
enim ad aliorum salutem multum conferunt, qui ipsi nequa- 
quam salutem obtinebunt. 


SECTIO DECIMA QUINTA—EPISTOLA PRIMA PETRI. 


Cap. i. 8. “Ov οὐκ εἰδότες. V. 1. iddvres, quod etiamsi verbo 
discrepet, re tamen idem est; sed in citando Polycarpo 
labitur hic Millius, non enim ait Polycarpus ὃν οὐκ ἰδόντες 
ἀγαπᾶτε, sed εἰς ὃν οὐκ ἰδόντες (text, ὁρῶντες) πιστεύετε, lectionis 
varietate facta in voce ὁρῶντες, in vocem εἰδότες. Nota insu- 
per quod non modo C&cumen. C. Alex. sed. Clem. Al. Stro. 
iv. p. 575, per totum hoc comma editis congruant. 

V. 16. “Αγιοι γένεσϑε. Ita (συμ. Syr. Arab. “estote,” 
sed MSS. quidam, Vulg. Clem. Al. Stro, p. 473, LXX. 
Interp. Lev. xi. 44, xix. 2, legunt écscSe levi discrimine, 
sive enim dicat Deus “Sancti estote,” vel “ eritis,” utraque 
lectio mandati vim habet. Vide precipue Orig. in hom. 11 
in Num. f. 111, C, D. 

V. 22. Aca Πνεύματος. Desunt in 3 MSS. Vulg. Syr. 
Hieron. : sed reperias in GEcumenio, Arab. et, teste Erasmo, 
in Grecis. 
(cumenius, versiones orientales omnes. Sed desunt in 
Vulg. et idcirco “commentarius est.” Prol. p. 49, et 124, 
col. 2. 

V. 24. Πᾶσα δόξα ἀνθρώπου. Syr. Vulg. et (ait ille) Orig. 
legunt αὐτῆς, unde “dvOparov pro αὐτῆς est explicatio mar- 
ginalis,” Pro]. p. 123, col. 2; sed G&cum. Arab. et versio 
τῶν LXX,. Isa. xl. 7, ab excusis non discedunt. 

Cap. ii. δ. Πνευματικὰς ϑυσίας.] Sic CEcumen. Vulg. Arab. 
ZEthiop. nec ulla hic varians lectio: at Prol. p. 130, col. 1, 
ex fide Syri, ait Millius, “ πνευματικὰς, quod est in Grecis 
omnibus nostris, e margine omnino videtur irrepsisse.” 

V. 7. Λίϑον ὃν ἀπεδοκίμασαν of οἰκοδομοῦντες, οὗτος ἐγενήθη εἰς 


Sequitur εἰς φιλαδελφίαν ἀνυπόκριτον, ita C. Alex. | 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


κεφαλὴν ywvias.] Quanquam agnoscunt hee verba Vulg. C. 
Alex. Gicumenius textu et commentario, Grotio tamen ad- 
stipulatur Millius, atque ait, «'Traducta sunt πὰς ex Matt. 
xxi. 42. Consule GEcumenium in locum:” en ergo CEcu- 
menii verba, ἔσται οὖν ὅλον οὕτως, ἰδοὺ τίθημι ἐν Σιὼν λίθον ἀκρογω- 
ναῖον καὶ ὃ πιστεύων ἐπ' αὐτῷ οὐ μὴ καταισχυνϑῇ, ἔντιμον 
ὑμῖν τοῖς πιστεύουσιν, ἀπωθοῦσι δὲ, λίϑον προσκόμματος, ὃν λίϑον 
ἀπεδοκίμασαν μὲν οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες, οὗτος ἐγενήϑη εἰς κεφαλὴν τῆς 
γωνίας" συνάγων μὲν τοὺς πιστεύοντας εἷς αὐτὸν" imo textum 
ipsum διαῤῥήδην legit cum editis. 

V. 18. ᾿Αλλὰ καὶ τοῖς σκολιοῖς.] Ita C&cumenius, et C. 
Alex. sed δυσκόλοις dyscolis, Vulg.: unde “hance Jectionem 
genuinam esse arbitror, utut e MSS. omnibus libris sit jam 
extrusum,” Prol. p. 49, reclamantibus Esthio et Erasmo, 
porro Hesychius et Phavorinus σκόλια interpretantur δυσχερῆ, 
ὑύσκολα" sed Mill. pro Vulgato stat. 

V. 24. Οὐ τῷ μώλωπι atrod.] Pleonasmus est Hebreis 
familiaris, ac proinde noster interpres neglexit:” Esthius in 
locum. 

Cap. iii. 


5. Αἱ ἐλπίζουσαι ἐπὶ τὸν Θεόν. Omittit hee 
Ethiops. Habent CGicumen. Vulg. Syr. Arab. “Suspec- 
tum habeo παρεμβλήσεως. Quis talia pretermiserit?” Ita 
Mill. Prol. p. 124, col. 1. Respondeo, Turbida versio 
Bthiopica, ut eam vocat Mill., in qua apparet immanis 
nonnunquam a litera textus aberratio, Prol. p. 121, col. 1. 

V.7. Εἰς τὸ μὴ ἐκκύπτεσϑαι.} V. 1. Vulg. Syr. Arab. ZEthiop. 
legunt ἐγκόπτεσθαι, “que videtur vera lectio,” ita Millius 
hic. Sed pace illius dicam, Gicumenius legit ἐκκόπτεσθαι, 
nec cognitu facile est quid Grece legerint Syr. et Arab.: 
cum enim de junctis precibus habeatur oratio, utrum dicas 
“jmpediatur,” an “ intercidatur,” parvi refert. 

V.15. Airotvrt ὑμᾶς λόγον περὶ τῆς ἐν ὑμῖν ἐλπίδος. Orig. 
contra Cels. lib. vii. p. 339, legit ἡμᾶς et ἡμῖν, sed antiqui 
omines interpretes, Basil. tom. i. p. 549, et Chrysost. ed. 
Mor. tom. iv. p. 70, editi congruunt. 

V. 16. 'Q5 κακοποιῶν. Desunt hec apud Vulg.: habent 
Gicumen. C. Alex. versiones orientales omnes: atqui Prol. 
p- 49, col. 2, “accedunt hee commentarii loco, ex cap. ii. 
12.” 

V.18. Περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν ἔπαθε. V. 1. ὑπὲρ ἁμαρτιῶν ἀπέϑανε, 
absque sensus discrimine: quod autem ἔπαϑε, in quo Cicu- 
menius et Arab. textui conveniunt, sit vera lectio apparet 
ex illatione facta, cap. iv. 1, Χριστοῦ οὖν xaSévros, Nota 
etiam quod Orig. in Joh. p. 126, et GEcumen. legunt v. 18, 
ζωοποιηϑεὶς Πνεύματι, et v. 19, τοῖς ἐν φυλακὴ πνεύμασιν, et Vv. 
20, ἅπαξ ἐξεδέχεται, ut et Cyril. Alex. de Recta Fide, p. 20, 
quorum auctoritas contrariarum hic lectionum idonea confu- 
tatio est. 

Cap. iv. 1. Ὃ παϑὼν ἐν σαρκὶ. Prepositio ἐν que deest in 
5 MSS. retinetur apud Gicumenium, versionesque omnes: 
male ergo rejicitur a Grotio, et Millio, Prol. p. 94. 

Υ. 3. ᾿Αρκετὸς yap ἡμῖν ὃ παρεληλυθὼς χρόνος τοῦ Biov.] Desunt 
ἡμῖν et τοῦ βίου, Vulg. et Clem. Al. Ped. lib. iii. cap. 17, p. 
258. “Injecte sunt claritatis gratia,” inquit Millius, Prol. 
p- 123, col. 2: sed Gicumen. legit, et agnoscunt Erasmus 
et Esthius hanc esse lectionem Grecorum codicum, eamque 
lectioni Vulgate anteponunt. 

V. 14. Kara μὲν αὐτοὺς βλασφημεῖται, κατὰ δὲ ὑμᾶς δοξά- 
ζεται. Desunt hee verba in 4 MSS, Vulg. et Syr. sed ex- 
tant apud C&cumen. C. Alex. Cyprian. Ep. ad Martyr. Ed. 
Ox. p. 175: et tamen Prol. p. 67, col. 2, “injecta videntur 
ex scholio quopiam.” 

V. 16. Ἐν τῷ μέρει τοὔτῳ.] Gcumen. Vulg. Syr. ZEthiop. 
ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοὕτῳ, quod si dicas “in hac parte,” vel “eo 
nomine,” idem valet ac “ea gratia.” 

Cap. v. 2. ᾿Επισκοποῦντες.] Ita ens C. Alex. in- 
terpretes omnes: sed Prol. p. 166, col. 1, “unus obstat 


| codicum consensus, et vix quidem obstat quo minus inter- 


medium ἐπισκοποῦντες marginale scholion ob pleniorem loci 
explicationem esse censeam.” 

Οὐκ dvayxacrds ἀλλ᾽ éxovcias.] Vulg. Hieronym. et MSS 
aliqui, addunt κατὰ Θεὸν, sed verba ista non reperiuntur in 
Ccumenio, Syro, Arabe, nec, teste Erasmo, in codicibua 
Grecis. 

Υ.5. “Ὑποτασσύμενοι.} Deest Syr. : habent GEcumenius, Vulg. 
Syr. thiop.: quod si Millium auscultes, Prol. p. 166, col. 
1, “lector quispiam adjecit ὑποτασσόμενοι ad marginem, in sen- 
tentiz supplementum, quod irrepsit postea in textum.” 


EXAMEN ΜΙΠ1Π1Π. 


ΒΕΟΤΙΟ DECIMA SEXTA——EPISTOLA SECUNDA PETRI. 


Car. i. 3. Διὰ δόξης καὶ ἀρετῆς. V. 1. ἰδίᾳ δόξη καὶ ἀρετὴν 
Vulg. Cyril. Al. de Trin. p. 604: sed αὔουμ. Syr. Arab. 
cum textu legunt. 

V.9. Kai πλεονάζοντα. Desunt hee in unico Athiop. Ag- 
noscunt Gicum. C. Alex. versiones: “addita tamen sunt a 
quopiam adnotatore,” Prol. p. 125, col. 1 

Cap. ii. 11. Οὐ φέρουσι κατ᾽ αὐτῶν παρὰ Κυρίῳ βλάσφημον 
κρίσιν. Desunt παρὰ Κυρίῳ, in Vulg. Syr.: “unde scholion 
est non textus,”’ Prol. p. 76. Habent autem G2cum. Arab. 
et teste Esthio, quidam e vetustioribus codicibus, recte; 
boni enim et mali angeli adstant coram Domino, et ab eo 
mandata recipiunt, Job. i. 6. ii. 1 

V. 12. ΓῪεγενημένα.) Agnoscunt hane vocem C&icum. C. 
Alex. Vulg. Arab. Cur autem pro additamento habeatur, 
causa nulla est. 

V. 17. Οἷς ὃ ζόφος τοῦ σκότους εἰς αὐἶνα τετήρηται. Desunt 
eis αἰῶνα in Vulg. Syr. Sed habent Gicum. C. Alex. Arab. 
et Jud. v. 18. “Insertum esse,” hariolatur Mill. Prol. p 
50, col. 1. 

V. 18. Τοὺς ὄντως ἀποφυγόντας.) MSS. quidam, Vulg. Syr. 
legisse videntur ὀλίγον, vel ὀλέγως, sed CEcum. Arab. et major 
pars Gr. codicum, teste Esthio, textui assentiuntur. 

V. 20. Ei yap ἀποφυγόντες. Οἱ yap 3 MSS. vera lectio, in- 
quit Grotius, ut series sequentium indicat, sed GEcumen. C. 
Alex. versiones omnes editis congruunt, et pace Grotii, ipsa 
apostoli verba. 

Cap. iii. 2. “Ὑπὸ τῶν ἁγίων προφητῶν. Medium ἱγίων, quod 
jam locum habet in codicibus fere omnibus “ initio scholion 
marginale fuisse suspicor, ex cap. iv. lib. i.) 21 hujus ep.” 
Mill. p. 156, col. 2. 

Kai τῆς τῶν ἀποστόλων ἡμῶν ἐντολῆς τοῦ Κυρίου. Non video, 
cur constructio vers. Angl. i. 6. τῆς ἐντολῆς ἡμῶν τῶν ἀπο- 
στόλων τοῦ Kvpior, Millio displiceat ; quid enim huic loco ma- 
gis aptum quam certiores facere Judwos, quod qui hee illis 
mandata tradiderunt, apostoli fuere Domini nostri et salva- 
toris. Vide 1 Pet. i. 12 

V. 6. Ac dv.) Arab. legit, δι᾿ 4, “per quam aquam,” δι᾽ 
ὄν, August. nempe, λόγον" sed CEcumen. C. Alex. Vulg. Syr. 
é ὧν, 56. ὑδάτων, per aquas illas que ex ceelo et terra pro- 
yenerant: atque hance esse veram lectionem liquet, non tan- 
tum ex eo quod rei geste respondeat, sed etiam ex igne ei 
opposito, quo mundus demum conflagrabit. 

V. 11. ‘Qs κλέπτης ἐν νυκτί. Desunt ἐν νυκτὶ in Vulg. et 
Syr. sed CEcum. et Arab. retinent hec verba: et cum ad- 
jungantur hee νοοῖ κλέπτης omnibus aliis in locis, in quibus 
istius diei fit mentio, viz. Matt. xxiv. 23. Luc. xii. 39. 
1 Thess. ν. 3, cur hic a se invicem separentur, causa nulla 
est. 

V. 12. Παρουσίαν τῆς rod Θεοῦ juépas.] Vulg. Arab. Au- 
gust. τοῦ Κυρίου: CEcum. C. Alex. Syr. Θεοῦ. 
dem que Christi,” Grot. in locum. 


SECTIO DECIMA SEPTIMA—EPISTOL® JOHANNIS. 


1 Ep. cap. i. 7. Tod υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ. Omittit unicus thiops, 
reclamantibus (Ecumenio, C. Alex. et reliquis Grecis La- 
tinisque omnibus: “ addititium tamen videtur,” Prol. p. 125. 

Cap. ii. 5. Αὐτοῦ τὸν λόγον.} “ Verbum ejus,” Vulg.: ex 
hac autem non dicenda est lectio varians, sed Gr. sermonis 
vera interpretatio. 

V. 7. ᾿Αδελφοί.} V. 1. ἀγαπητοὶ, hee vocum harum variatio 
sepius accidit in scholiis tam Grecis quam Latinis, ex eo, ni 
fallor, quod sancti patres in suis homiliis posterius vocabulum 
priori anteposuerunt ἀπ᾿ ἀργῆς. Deest hic in Vulg. Syr. 
Ethiop. Sed retinetur apud Arab. et Gicumenium. 

V. 18. Kai καϑὼς ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἀντίχριστος ἔρχεται. Deest 
ὅτε in C. Alex. ZSthiop. “non male,” Grotius: immo male; 
habent enim Iren. lib. iii. cap. 18, p. 241, Orig. in Matt. p. 
402, GEcum. Vulg. Arab. 

V.19. Οὐκ tist πάντες ἐξ ἡμῶν». Deest πάντες in Syr. 
Tren. lib. iii. cap. 18, habont CEcum. C. Alex. Vulg. Arab. 
«Ex memoria videtur allegasse Ireneus:” Grabius in 
locum. 

V. 23. Πᾶς ὃ ἀρνούμενος τὸν υἱὸν, οὐδὲ τὸν πατέρα ἔχει. Ad- 
dunt cod. MSS. multi, Vulg. Syr. Orig. de Martyr. p. 206, 
Cyril. lib. ix. in Joh. cap. 40, Cyprian. Hilar. August. hee 
verba, καὶ ὁ ὁμολογῶν τὸν υἱὸν, καὶ τὸν πατέρα ἔχει. Hee au- 


“ Dei dies ea- | 


1189 


tem non agnoscunt Cicumenius, aut Arab. “In Grecis non 
reperio,” inquit Erasmus. Et quod hue transferuntur ex 
Evang. Joh. cap. viii. 19, εἰ ἐμὲ ἡ δειτε, καὶ τὸν πατέρα μου 
ἢ δειτε ἂν, conjectura colligo, primo, quia Origenes in Joh. p. 
261, citat verba ex Johan. Evangelio jam allata, et deinde 
hee verba ex ep. cath. et ex utrisque concludit, εἰ yap ὃ 
dpvotpevos τὸν πατέρα, καὶ τὸν υἱὸν (SUP. dipvetrar) καὶ 6 ὁμολογῶν 
ἔχει, διλον "Tepwaod optrar 
dyrotuevor τόν πατέρα, dpvodvrac τὸν vidi. Secundo, quia in his 
verbis citandis multum a se invicem discrepant patres. De 
Augustino hoc testatur Millius hic. Hilarius de τίη. lib. 
vi. p. 124 sic legit, “ Qui confitetur filium habet et patrem.” 
Cyprianus de Exhort. ad Mart. p. 173, “et filium et patrem 
habet:” Cyril. Alex. hes. 301, ante hme verba addit, ὃ 
dpvotp-vog τὸν πατέρα, καὶ τὸν υἱὴν ἀρνεῖται. 

Cap. iii. 2.] Octo hic variantes lectiones habemus: sed 
versionibus pretermissis, Orig. in Matt. p. 476, et CEcume- 
nius impressis congruunt, nist quod Origenes omittit δὲ, et 
CEcumen. legit dri ἐσόμεθα. Sic etiam ν. 8—10, licet sex 
afferantur varie lectiones, G2cum. et Origen. Joh. p. 299, 
nullibi discedunt, nisi ubi loco ὁ ποιῶν δικαιοσύνην, Orig. legit 
ὃ dw δίκαιος, quod idem valet. 

V. 14. Ὃ μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφόν. Deest ἐδελφὸν in Vulg. 
et 4 MSS. : unde “ lectoris est, non apostoli,” Mill. Prol. p. 
145, col. 2, sed habent GScum. Syr. Arab. ASthiop. aposto- 
lus, cap. ii. 10. 

V. 20. “Ore ἑὰ 


τὸν υἱὸν καὶ τὸν πατέρα ὅτι 


ὅτι μείζων ἐστὶν ὃ Θεός. Deest ὅτι in 2 
MSS. Vulg. Arab.: κ ἔτι legi vult Stephan.” sic Mill. Sed 
ὅτι agnoseunt cod. plurimi: Arab. reddit “ profecto,” quam 
interpretationem veram esse existimo; Hebraicum enim »3, 
quod primario significat nam et exponitur a LXX. per ὅτι, 
alio sensu significat cer/e, et in versione Anglicana ex ponitur 
per voces que idem valent, “ surely, certainly :” ita Gen. xliit- 
10, “Si non intercessisset dilatio, +3, jide ἂν, sane, jam vice 
latera venissemus;” Ex. iii. 10, ὅτι, « Certo ego ero tecum ;” 
1 Reg. i. 13, ὅτι, * Procul dubio Solomon regnabit post me ;” 


| Josh. ii. 24, ὅτι, “ Profecto tradidit Dominus omnem terram 


hane in manus nostras:” ita Ps, Ixxvii. 12. exii. 6. Ex. iv. . 
25. Numb. xxii. 23. Jud. vi. 16. Ruth i. 10. Isa. vii. 9. 

Cap. iv. 3. Πᾶν πνεῦμα ἐ μὴ ὁμυλογεῖ τὸν ᾿Ιησοὺν Χριστὸν ἐν 
capri ἐληλυϑότα,) “ Pro istis codices antiqui (inquit Socrates, 
H. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 32), habebant ὃ λύει τὸν ᾿Ιησοὺν." Sed, 
Milliogteste, in hodierna lectione conveniunt exemplaria 


| Greca omnino omnia, ita etiam omnes Greca patres; nam 


utcunque Millius, Cyril. Al. in contrariam partem adducat, 
Japsus est in hoc, dum Latine interpretationi, “ solvit Je- 
sum,” nimium credidit: nam tom. i. p. 397, et de Recta 
Fide, p. 8 et 94, Greca Cyrilli cum textu consentiunt. 
Porro, “ Non dubito (inquit Mill.) quin autographum ipsius 
Johannis habuerit ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθέναι, se. ex fide Polycarpi, 
et Vulg.” Prol. p. 33. Sed Cyril. de Recta Fide, ibid. et 
GEcumen. legunt ἐληλυϑότα, quod si Vulg. habeat, “in carne 
venisse,”” non inde sequitur illius Greca ab hodierna lec- 
tione discrepasse. Siquidem Beza per eadem verba Latine 
reddidit ἐληλυϑότα, et cum, ex sententia Millii, citationes 
Polycarpi, pro more istorum temporum, negligentius sint 
prolate, quidni in hac etiam citatione Polycarpus eadem 


_incuria laborasse censeatur ? 


Ver. 3. Kai νενικήκατε αὐτούς. Vulg. 2thiop. et August. 
αὐτὸν, “omnino recte,” Mill. Prol. p. 50. Sed cum textu 
legunt GEcumen. C, Alex. Syr. Arab. Nec obstat Millii ratio, 
quod “de Antichristo loquatur ;” sunt enim πολλοὶ ἐντίχριστοι. 
(2.) Sequuntur commate proximo hee verba in plurali, αὐτοὶ 
ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου εἰσὶ, que textus lectionem corroborant. 

V. 10. Μένει ἐν τῷ Θεοῖ, καὶ ὃ Θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ . Posterior hujus 


| periodi pars retinetur apud C&cum. C. Alex. Vulg. Arab. 


/Ethiop. et ver. 15. Sed “absque Grecorum unanimi con- 
sensu foret crediderim huc traductum ex v. 15,” Mill. Prol. 
Ρ. 130, col. 1. 

Cap. v. 10. 'O μὴ πιστεύων τῷ Oe.) MSS. αἰΐφοι, Valg. et 
Arab. τῷ vied, rectius, inquit Grotius. Sed Gicumen. et 
Syrus textui assentiuntur. et sequentia, “ Quia non credi- 
derit in testimonium quod testificatus est 6 Θεῦς περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ 
αὐτοῦ," hane lectionem firmant. Sed Prol. p. 125, col. 1, 
“6 Geds, quod in nostris omnibus adscriptem est, claritatis 


| gratia a lectore quopiam indeque irrepsit in contextum.” 
Mirum est ineptias hasce placere potuisse viro sano! quis 


ergo de FIL10 svo testimonium perhibere, nisi ὁ Ged, potuit 1 
V. 12. Ο μὴ ἔχων τὸν υἱὸν rod @eod.] Mill. p. 50, col. ! 
4Z 


1190. 


“τοῦ Θεοῦ repetitum est e superioribus.” Vane iterum. 
Agnoscunt Gicumen. C. Alex. Syr. Arab. Athiop. 

V.13. Ἵνα εἰδῆτε ὅτι ζωὴν ἔχετε αἰώνιον, καὶ ἵνα πιστεύητε. 
C. Alex. sic legit, αἰώνιον οἱ πιστεύοντες εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ. 
Ita etiam Vulg. Syr. Arab. sic, “ He scripsi vobis, ο qui 
creditis in nomen filii Dei, ut sciatis quod vitam habetis 
zternam, quamdiu creditis in nomen filii Dei.” 

Ver. 20. Ἔν τῷ vied αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. Millius 1. « Χριστῷ 
scribarum est, non apostoli; non habet Vulg.” Prol. p. 72, 
col. 1, quod ei certum est indicium παρεμβλήσεως. Habent 
nihilominus Cicum. Syr, Arab. Athiop. Cyril, Al. de Tr. 
p. 484. 

Cap. ii. 8. Ἵνα μὴ ἀπολέσωμεν ἃ ἐργασάμεϑα ἀπολή- 
βωμεν.] Sic Arab. et G&cumenius, qui alterius cujuspiam 
lectionis nullam facit mentionem, nisi quod in commentario 
mutat personam, ut verba ejus melius cohereant cum pre- 
cedentibus. Sed Vulg, Syr. Iren. Lat. p. 242, et C. Alex. 
legunt ἀπολέσητε, ἐργάσησθε, ἀπολάβητε, nullo sensus discri- 
mine. 

Cap. iii. 7. “Ὑπὲρ γὰρ τοῦ ὀνόματος. Omittunt pronomen 
αὐτοῦ C&cum. et MSS. quidam. Sed agnoscunt illud versi- 
ones antique omnes. 


SECTIO DECIMA OCTAVA—JUDZ EPISTOLA. 


View Ἐν Ged πατρὶ Hytaspévors.) V. 1. ἡγατημένοις, Orig. in 
Matt. p. 332, Cicumen. Vulg. Syr. sine magno discrimine, 
sanctificatos enim solos Deus diligit. 

V. 6. 'Y76 ζόφον τετήρηκεν. Clem. Al. Peed. lib. iii. cap. 
8, p. 239, post ζόφον addit ἀγρίων ἀγγέλων, reclamantibus 
MSS. versionibus, et patribus. Lucifer Calaritanus, teste 
Millio, legit ἁγίων. 

V.14, Ἐν ἀγαλλιάσει. Sic GEcumenius et versiones omnes. 

V. 25. Μόνῳ cops Occ5-] Ita 2cumenius, Syr. Desunt in 
Vulg. Arab, ZEthiop. “Irrepserunt ut videtur ex Rom. 
xvi. 27,” Prol. p. 94, col. 2. Vide hic annotata in 1 Tim. 
1.17. 


LIBER TERTIUS. 


§. 1. Continet specimen variantium lectionum paryj mo- 
menti, puta additionem aut subtractionem articuli, 8. 2. 
Permutationem nominis unius pro altero ejusdem signifi- 
cationis, vel pronominis relativi in nomen substantivum, vel 
yocum Θεοῦ, Χριστοῦ. §.3. Adjectivorum permutationem, 
sine sensus discrimine. ὃ. 4. Pronominum ἡμεῖς, ἡμῶν, 
ἡμῖν, ἡμᾶς, in ὑμεῖς, ὑμῶν, ὑμῖν, ὑμᾶς, permutationem, et 
defectus eorundem, ubi si revera deessent, sunt necessario 
intelligenda: pronominis etiam αὐτὸς defectum, vel addita- 
mentum ubi est intellectu necessarium ; mutationem deni- 
que pronominis αὐτὸς in otros et αὑτὸς cum aspirato in ξαυτὸς. 
§. 5. Verborum et prepositionis verbi mutationem sine 
sensus. discrimine, item verbi simplicis in compositum, et 
vice versa; mutationem etiam persone, numeri, temporis, 
modi, conjugationis, vocis. §. 6. Participiorum ejusdem 
sensus invicem permutationem, simplicis pro composito, 
et eorundem tempore discrepantium sine sensus discrimine. 
§. 7. Adverbiorum defectum ubi sunt plane necessaria, 
aut permutationem, sensu non variato. 8. 8. Prepositio- 
num permutationem. ὃ. 9. Conjunctionum mutationem, 
et defectum. §. 10. Porro multa que inter lectionis 
variantes N. Test. recenseatur, sunt tantum patrum cita- 
tiones ex versione τῶν LXX. §. 11. Multa etiam que 
in alio evangelio, aliave epistola, verbis diversis exprimun- 
tar, variantem lectionem constituunt. 8, 12. Objectioni- 
bus Romanensium et scepticorum contra textus Greci 
aifevriav respondetur. 


SECTIO PRIMA—DE ARTICULIS. 


Accepo jam ad ultimum, longeque facillimum laboris nos- 
iri pensum; nempe ad reducendum sub propriis quibusdam 
capitibus lectiones variantes parvi momenti, ut ex instan- 
liis paucis sub capite quolibet assignatis, lector intelligat, 
quam operose nihil egisse videatur Millius in hisce minutiis, 
que sensum verborum neutiquam afficiunt, coacervandis. 
Hec quidem omnia sigillatim enumerare idem pene esset 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


ac Millii varias lectiones transcribere; breviter ergo quedam 
earpendo, lectori reliqua relinquo ex ingenti hoc penu colli- 
genda. Et, 

1. Plus centum ex variis hisce lectionibus id tantum mo- 
nent articulum quendam deesse, vel superaddi, quo tamen 
addito, idem adhue manet sensus, eandemque versionem 
verba exigunt. 

Ab additione articuli incipio, ita Matt. i. 17, ἕως Δαβίδ, 
v. |. τοῦ Δαβίδ. Rom. xiv. 7, Θεοῦ, v. 1. τοῦ Θεοῦ. 1 Cor. vii. 
34, σώματι καὶ πνεύματι, Ye 1. τῷ σώματι καὶ τῷ πνεύματι. 
1 Cor, xi. 3, κεφαλὴ δὲ Χριατοῦ, ν. 1. τοῦ Χριστοῦ" ita etiam 
cap. Xv. 24. 1 Cor. xi. 23, ἄρτον, v. 1. τὸν ἄρτον. V. 27, αἵματος, 
v. 1. τοῦ αἵματος. 1 Cor. xii: 21, ὀφθαλμὸς, v. 1. ὁ ὀφϑαλμὸς. 

2. Sepius indicat varia lectio articulum deesse in codice 
aut patre quodam, v. g. Matt. xxv. 2, “" Quinque autem ex 
iis erant prudentes,”’ καὶ αἱ πέντε μωραὶ, v. |. d. αἱ Chrysost, 
Basil. MSS. (in Basilio tamen falli Millium, vide tom. ii. p. 
425). Mare. v. 13, ἡ ἀγέλη, ν- 1. deest ἡ in Pers. Syr. (ha- 
bet vero Syrus “ille grex). Matt. iv. 21, τὰ dixrva, v. ]. deest 
ra. Luce. vi. 45, ἐκ τοῦ περισσεύματος τῆς καρδίας, ν. |. desunt 
roi et τῆς. Act. v. 24, ὃ τε ἱερεὺ,, deest ὁ, Rom. iv. 4, κατὰ τὸ 
6peidnua, deest τὸ. Rom. xiii. 2, ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ, deest τοῦ, Rom. 
xiv. 15, τὰ ἔϑνη, deest ra. 1 Cor. iii. 11, ὃ Χριστὸς, deest ὅν 
V. 19, παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ, deest τῷ» Cap. iv. 15, ἀπὸ τοὺ Θεοῦ, deest 
τοῦ, Vil. 24, παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ, deest τῷ, 1 Thess. iv. 1, τὸ λοιπὸν, 
deest τὸ, Jud. 13, εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, deest τὸν, Gcumen, 


SECTIO SECUNDA—DE NOMINIBUS. 


Pus centies varia lectio exhibet tantum mutationem no- 
minis unius substantivi pro altero ejusdem significationis, 
eandemque versionem in alias linguas postulante. Ita Matt, 
ii. 1], τὸ παιδίον, v. 1. τὸν παῖδα" et similiter, v. 13, 14. 
V. 16, πάντας τοὺς παῖδας, v. 1. πάντα τὰ παιδία, Mare, v. 2, 
mansit demoniacus ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις, ν. 1. ἐν τοῖς μνήμασι, “in 
monumentis.” Matt. xi. 16, παιδαρίοις, v. 1. παιδίοις. Lue, 
xiv. 16, “Beatus est ὃς φάγεται ἄρτον," v. 1. ἄριστον, idem 
nempe in scripturis valet edere panem, et prandere. Vide 
Gen. xxxi. 54. xxxvii. 25. xiii. 15. Exod. ii. 20. 1 Sam. ix. 
7,10. Act. xv. 2, συζητήσεως, v. 1. ἐπιζητήσεως. Rom. i. 27, 
ἄῤῥενες, Ve 1. ἄρσενες. Rom. ix. 27, κατάλειμμα, v. 1. ἐγκατά- 
Nema, ὑποκατάλειμμα, 1 Cor. 1. 13, "Ἕλλησι, v. 1. ἔϑνεσι. 
2 Cor. iii. 3, πλαξὶ, v. 1. wavzi. 2 Cor. vill. 2, τὸν πλοῦτον, 
v. |. τὸ πλοῦτος, quod sepius occurrit. 

2. Discrepant aliquoties casu tantum. Joh. i. 42, « Inve- 
nimus. Messiam, quod est interpretatum 6 Xpicrds,” v. 1. τὸν 
Χριστὸν. Act. xix. 35, τίς γάρ ἐστιν avSpuros, ν: 1. τῶν dvS- 
pinay. 2 Cor, ili. 12, cis τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, V. 1. διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου. 
Cap. iii. 13, ἐπί τὸ πρόσωπον, v. 1. τοῦ προσώπου, τῷ προσώπῳ. 
Cap. iv. 16, ἡμέρα καί ἡμέρα, v. 1. ἡμέμαν καϑ᾽ ἡμέραν. vi. 14, τίς 
ἡ κοινωνία φωτὶ, Vs 1. φωτός. Vill. 2, κατὰ βάϑους, Vv. 1. βάϑος. 

3. Aliquoties discrepant numero. Joh. ii. 15, “ Et cum 
fecisset flagellam ἐκ cyowtewv,” v. 1. σχοινίου. Luc. xiii. 8, καὶ 
Bidw κοπρίαν, Vv. 1. κόπρια. Α΄. 15, ἀπεκρίϑη αὐτῷ ὑποκριτὰ, 
nempe archisynagoge, v. |. ὑποκριταί, 2 Cor. i. 10, τηλικούτου 
Savarov, ν. 1. τηλικούτων ϑα:ἄτων. Cap. ili. 7, ἐν γράμμασι, v. 1. 
γράμματι. vi. 15, μετ' ἀπίστου, 
v. 1. per’ ἀπίστων, et πρὸς ἄπιστον. ix. 6, ἐπ᾽ εὐλογίαις, Vv. |. 
εὐλογία ἐξ εὐλογίας. ᾿ 

4. Plus centies mutatur pronomen relativum in nomen 
substantivum, aut in ipsam personam, et vice versa. Ita, 
“ Angelus Domini apparuit in somno air,’ Matt. i. 20, v. 1. 
τῷ ᾿Ιωσήῆφ. Ita enim cap. ii. 14. Marc. i. 16, ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ, 
v. 1. Ζίμωνος. Joh. x. 38, ὅτι ἐν ἐμοὶ πατὴρ, κα γὼ ἐν αὐτῷ, 
v. L. ἐν τῷ πατρί. 1 Cor. i. 29, « Ut non glorietur omnis caro 
ἐνώπιον adroi,” v. 1. τοῦ Θεοῦ, Cap. vii. 13, μὴ ἀφιέτῳ αὐτὸν, v. 1. 
τὸν ἄνδρα. 

Vice versa Matt. viii. 5, εἰσελϑόντι δὲ τῷ "Incod, Vv. 1, αὐτῷ. 
Lue. ii, 21, περιτεμεῖν τὸ παιδίον, v. 1. αὐτόν. Joh. iii, 2, “ Hie 
venit πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν, v. 1. πρὸς αὐτόν. Act. xii. 13, κρούσαντος 
δὲ Πέτρου, v. 1. αὐτοῦ. Cap. xx. 7, συνηγμένων τῶν μαθητῶν, 
v. 1, αὐτῶν. Cap. xxii. 16, τὸ ὄνομα Ἰζυρίο», v. ]. αὐτοῦ. Rom. i. 
25, τὴν ἀληϑείαν rod Θεοῦ, ν. ]. αὐτοῦ. 2 Cor. ν. 7, τῆς δόξης τοῦ 
Θεοῦ, V. |. αὐτοῦ. 

Sexcenties permutantur vocabula Θεοῦ, Knpiov, Χριστοῦ, 
quoniam, notante P. Simonio, contractim: in antiquis MSS. 
scripta inveniuntur ad hune modum, Θοῦ, Kov, Xo3. Exempli 
gratia, Act, xvi. 10, 5 Κύριος, v- 1.6 Θεός. Act. xxi. 20, ἐδόξασαν 
τὸν Κύριον, v. 1. Θεόν. Rom. i. 4, τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν, ν. 1. rov Θεοῦ, 


iv. 10, σώματι, v. ]. σώμασι. 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


Cap. x. 13, Κυρίου, v. 1. Θεοῦ, Rom. xi. 34. 1 Cor. iii. 5. 10. 
vi. 13, 

Et vice versa Ocdg, v. 1. Κύριος, Rom. vii. 22. viii. 8, xiv. 6. 
11, εἰς δόξαν Θεοῦ, V. 1. Kupfov. [ta 1 Cor, xi. 21. Denique Képios, | 
y. 1. Χριστός. Rom. xiv. 14, ἐν Kupiq, v. 1. Χριστῷ. 1 Cor. iii. 5, 
ὡς ὃ Κύριος, v. 1. Χριστός. Cap. vii. 12. xii. 19, et passim. 

2. Θεός. Rom. x. 17, διὰ ῥήματος Θεοῦ, v. 1. Χριστοῦ. xv. | 
32, διὰ ϑελήματος Θεοῦ, v. 1. Χριστοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ. 1 Cor. i. 18, δύνα- 
pts Θεοῦ, V. 1. Χριστοῦ. ii, 1, μαρτύριον Θεοῦ, v. 1. Χριστοῦ, iv. 1], 
uvornpiov Θεοῦ, V. 1. Χριστοῦ, vii. 40, Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ, v. |. Χριστοῦ. 
Aliquando Κύριος. Rom. vii. 22, τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ν, lL. Kupiov, | 

3. Χριστός. Rom. viii. 9, Πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ, v. 1. Θεοῦ. V. 35, 
τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ Χριστοῦ, v. 1. Θεοῦ. cap. xiv. 18, δουλεύων τῷ 
"Χριστῷ, V. 1. Occ Κυρίῳ, cap. XVi. 26, ἐκκλησίαι τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ν. 
1. Θεοῦ. 1 Cor. 1. 6, μαρεύριον Χριστοῦ, v. 1. Θεοῦ, 2 Cor. xii. 9, 
δύναμις τοῦ Χριστοῦ, V. 1. Θεοῦ. Sape Κύριος. Rom. viii. 11, 6 
ἐγείρας τὸν “Χριστὸν, V. 1. τὸν Ἰζύριον. xvi. 9, ἐν Χριστῷ, Vv. I. ἐν 
Κυρίῳ. Ita 1 Cor. ii. 16. x. 16. 

Nee rarius inveniatur horam vocabulorum Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 
Κυρίου ἡμῶν omissio, cum enim de eadem persona dicta essent, 
uno eorum posito, reliqua superflua videbantur. 2. Additio, 
utpote que alibi simul occurrebant; vel permrutatio, utpote 
quibus mutatis persona adhuc eadem intelligebatur. 

1. Omissio sive defectus, v. g. Matt. xvi. 20, αὐτός ἐστιν 
ἸΙησοῦς ὃ Χριστὸς. v. 1. d. '᾿Ιησοὺς. Act. xix. 10, τὸν λόγον Kupiov 
Ἰησοῦ, ἃ. ᾿Ιησοῦ. 2 Cor. xiii. 5, 'Ineois Χριστὸς, ἃ, ᾿Ιησοῦς. 1 Cor. 
i. 2, Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἃ. Χριστοῦ. cap. v. 4, ἐν dvépart τοῦ Kupiov 
ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἃ. Χριστοῦ, 2 Cor. 1. 2, 6 Θεὸς, καὶ πατὴρ 
τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοὺ Χριστῦν, ἃ. Domint nostri Jesu Christi, 
Ambrosiast. 

2. Additio. Act. xxiv. 24, περὶ τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως, ν΄ 1. 
εἷς ᾿Ιησοῦν, Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν. 1 Cor. i. 24, κηρύσσομεν Χριστὸν, ν΄. 1. | 
Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν. cap. iv. 17, τὰς ὁδούς μου, τὰς ἐν Χριστῷ, v. 1. 
ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. Post Κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν, addunt Χριστὸν. Rom. 
x. 9.1 Cor. vi. 11, ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Kvpiov ᾿Ιησοῦ, v. 1. ᾿Ιησοῦ 
Χριστοῦ, Kupiov ἡμῶν Ἰησυῦ Χριστοῦ. xii. 3, Κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν, v. |. 
Dominum Jesum Christum. Ad Jesum Christum addunt 
Κύριον ἡμῶν. Rom. il. 16, διὰ "Incod Χριστοῦ, v. 1. τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν. 

Denique sexcenties, Millio judice, ex evangeliis tollenda 
est vox Ἰησοῦς, cum sit vox plane necessaria, et nominandi 
casum supplere debeat. Matt. iv. 18, περιπατῶν dé "Inoviis, | 
deest 'Incots. cap. viii. 3, ἥψατο αὐτοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦς, d. ᾿Ιησοῦς. Mare. | 
1. 17, καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ Ἰησοῦ, ἃ. ᾿Ιησοὺς. cap. Vili. 1, προσκαλισά- | 
μενος ὃ Ἰησοῦς τοὺς μαϑητὰς αὑτοῦ, d. ᾿Ιησοῦς et abrov. Vide 
Matt. xiii. 36. xiv. 14. xv. 16. Mare. xi. 11. 14. xii. 41. 
Luc. vii. 22. ix. 16. xiii, 2. Johan. i. 44. iv. 46. v. 1. vi. 
14. 70. 


SECTIO TERTIA—DE ADJECTIVIS. 


Apsecrrva sepius permutantar, sine ulla mutationesensus. 
Exempli gratia, Matt. vi. 25, πλεῖον, v. 1. πλείων, ut conveniat 
genere cum Ψυχὴ. cap. ix. 17, ἀμφότερα, v. 1. ἀμφότεροι, 
Nempe ἀσκοὶ καὶ οἶνος. cap. X- 32, τῶν μικρῶν τούτων, v. |. τῶν 
ἐλαχίστων. cap. xi. 29, πρᾶος, Vv. l. πραύς. Mare. v. 40, firav- | 
“ras, V. |. πάντας. Ita etiam Lue. vii. 16. Luc. xix. 7, ἅπαν- 
tes, V. 1. πάντες. cap. Χχὶ. 3, πάντων, Vv. 1. ἁπάντων. Vide 
etiam v. 12. Act. xxii. 12, ἀνὴρ εὐσεβὴς, v. 1. εὐλαβής. 


SECTIO QUARTA—DE PRONOMINIBUS. 


Noranpvum primo de pronominibus primitivis ἡμεῖς, ἡμῶν, 
ἡμῖν ἡμᾶς, ea sexcenties mutari in ὑμεῖς, ὑμῶν, ὑμῖν, ὑμᾶς, et 
vice versa,—librariorum, inquit P. Simonius, sive vitio, sive 
incuria. Hoc autem fere continuo accidit, sensu haud alicubi 
mutato: cum enim de re omnibus communi sive Christianis, 
sive ethnicis agitur, vix aliquod discrimen intercedit inter 
“nos Christianos,” et “ vos Christianos,” “ vos gentiles,” et 
“nos de gentibus.” Exempli gratia, Luc. xii. 32, « Nolite 
timere, pusillus grex ; qui complacuit patri vestro δοῦναι ὑμῖν 
τὴν BactXetav,” ν. |. ἡμῖν, 1. 6. nobis qui sumus, aut vobis qui 
estis, de hoc pusillo grege. Act. iii. 25, “ Vos estis filii pro- 
phetarum, et testamenti quod disposuit Deus, πρὸς τοὺς 
πατέρας ὑμῶν," Vv. 1. ἡμῶν, ubi Judeus Judeos alloquitur. 
Sic νυ. 23, ὁ Θεὸς ὑμῶν, v. 1. ἡμῶν, cap. xiv. 17, “Implens 
cibo et letitia τὰς xapdias ἡμῶν," v. 1. ὑμῶν, nimiram omni- 
bus dat cibum. Et rursus eodem commate. Cap. xv. 7. | 
ὁ Θεὸς ἐν ἡμῖν ἐζελεξάτο, V. 1. ὑμῖν, 1. e. in vobis, aut nobis | 
apostolis. Cap. xvi. 17, “Isti homines καταγγέλλονσιν ἡμῖν 
viam salutis” v. |. ὑμῖν, i. e. vobis aut nobis apud Philippos 
agentibus. Cap. xxviii. 25, « Bene locutus est Spiritus sanctus | 


1191 


πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας ἡμῶν," Vv. 1. ὑμῶν. Ita Paulus Judeus 
Judwis, 1 Pet. i. 4, εἰς ἡμᾶς, v. 1. ὑμᾶς, et v. 12, ἡμῖν, v. 1. 
ὑμῖν, i. 6. nobis, aut vobis Christianis:—plara exempla da- 
bunt annotata libro secando passim. 

Porro deficiunt juxta varias lectiones hee pronomina, ubi 
si revera abfuissent, necessario intelligenda essent. Ita 
v. g. ἀφίεται ὑμῖν, “ Reliquitur vobis domus vestra deserta,” 
v. 1. ἃ. ὑμῖν. Tis tamen solis relinqui potuit hee domus de- 
solata. Luc. vi. 25, οὐαὶ ὑμῖν, “ Ve vobis qui saturati estis,” 
v. 1. deest ὑμῖν. Male procul dubio, eo enim desiderato sen- 
sus deficit. Joh. iii, 12, ἐὰν εἴπω ὑμῖν τὰ ἐπουράνια, v. 1. deest 
Quis autem non videt pronomen ibi prorsus necessari- 
Joh. xvi. 4, ὅτι ἐγὼ εἶπον ὑμῖν ταῦτα, deest ὑμῖν. 


Luc. xii. 22, 


ὑμῖν. 
um esse? 
Male; precedunt enim raira λελάληκα ὑμῖν. 
μὴ μεριμνᾶτε τῇ ψυχὴ ὑμῶν, ν. 1. ἃ. ὑμῶν. 

Adduntur insuper, ubi sunt plane superflua—Ita Lue. 
xxiii. 2, “Invenimus hunc hominem diacrpépovra τὸ ESvo0¢,” 
add. v. |. ἡμῶν, nec enim de alia natione loqui potuerunt. 
Joh. viii. 5, ἐν τῷ νόμῳ, add. v. 1. ἡμῶν" non enim de alia 
lege loqui potuissent scribe et phariswi. Act. xxvi. 6, πρὸς 
τοὺς πατέρας, V. 1. ἡμῶν. 

2. Pronomen relativam αὐτὸς in his variis lectionibus sepe 
deesse dicitur, cum plane necessarium sit. Ex. gr. Matt. vi. 
4, “Pater meus videns in occulto αὐτὸς ἀποδώσει cor,” ἃ, 
αὐτὸς. Cap. vill. 21, repos δὲ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ, ν. 1. ἃ. αὐτοῦ. 
Cap. xii. 9. ὅτι ἐπείνασεν αὐτὸς, v. 1. d. αὐτὸς. Matt. xviii. 32, 
προσκαλεσάμενος αὐτὸν ᾧ ἸΚύριος αὐτοῦ, λέγει αὐτῷ, d. αὐτὸν et 
αὐτῷ. V. 34, πᾶν τὸ ὀῤειλόμενον αὐτῷ. ἃ. αὐτῷ. Lue. xiv. 16, 
6 δὲ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Ve 1. d. αὐτῷ. XY. 26, τὸν παῖδα αὐτοῦ, deest 
αὐτοῦ. XVil. 9, τὰ διαταχθέντα αὐτῷ, d. αὐτῷ. ΧΧΙ͂Ι. 57, 6 δὲ 
ἠρνήσατο αὐτὸν, deest αὐτὸν.---ἰ τὰ sexcenties. 

Sepe etiam in variis hisce lectionibus adjicitur, ubi est pa- 
riter intellectu necessarium. Luc. xviii. 1, ἔλεγε δὲ καὶ rapa~ 
βολὴν αὐτοῖς παρὰ τὸ δεῖν πάντοτε (V. Ἰ. add, αὐτοὺς) προσεῦχεσ- 
θαι, quod tamen satis comprehenditur in αὐτοῖς. xxill. 35, 
ἐξεμυκτήρισαν, V. 1. αὐτόν. Joh. iv. 17, ἡ γυνὴ εἶπεν, v. 1. add. 
αὐτῷ. χὶ. 8, λέγουσιν αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταὶ, v. ]. add. αὐτοῦ, Et v. 
12, εἶπον οὖν, v. 1. add. αὐτῷ of μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ, Act. ii. 40, 
παρεκάλει, add. αὐτοὺς. Mare. li. 8, ἐπιγνοὺς ᾿Ιησοῦς ὅτι οὕτως 
διελογίζοντο ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, Ve 1. ὅτι αὐτοὶ οὕτως. 

Idem obtinet in pronominibus possessivis: ita Matt. xx. 
Ql, εἷς ἐκ δεξιῶν cov, καὶ εἷς ἐξ εὐωνύμων, MSS. 25 add. σου 
Mar. x. 37, εὐωνύμων σου. d. σου. V. 40, εὐωνύμων μον, ἃ. 
pon. Matt. xv. 4, τίμα τὸν πατέρα σου, v. 1. ἃ. σου. Mare. 
Vii. 10, καὶ τὴν μητέρα σου, ν. 1. ἃ. σου. Vid. Joh. xiv. 12. xvi 
10. xviii. 11. Act. xx. 23, 24. 

Porro nihil frequentius est quam permutatio horum pro- 
nominum sensu non permutato; ita Matt. ili. 3, οὗτός ἐστιν 
ὃ ῥηθεὶς ὑπὸ ᾿Ησαΐου", ν. Ἰ. αὐτᾶς. ν. 4, αὐτὸς δὲ ὑ ᾿Ιωάννης, v. L 
οὗτος. 1. Cor. vii. 13, καὶ αὐτὸς συνευδοκεῖ οἰκεῖν per’ αὐτῆς, Ve 
1. οὗτος. cap. Xvi. 17, ὅτι τὸ ὑμῶν ὑστέρημα οὗτοι ἀνεπλήρωσαν, 
v. 1. αὐτοῦ" est enim αὐτὸς juxta grammaticos modo relativam, 


_ modo demonstrativum, idemque περὶ τοῦ οὗτος pronunciant. 


Invicem pariter mutantur αὑτὸς et ἑαυτός. Tta Matt. vi 
16, ἀφανίζουσι τὰ πρόσωπα αὑτῶν, V. 1. ἑαντῶν. Mare. 1. 27, 
ὥστε συζητεῖν πρὸς αὐτοὺς, v. |. πρὸς ἑαυτοὺς. Vv. 26, δαπανήσασα 
τὰ παρ᾽ ξαυτῆς πάντα, ν. 1. παρ᾽ αὑτῆς" cum enim reperiantur αὑτὸς, 
αὑτοῦ, αὑτὸ, aspirata, apheresis est τοῦ é juxta grammaticos. 


SECTIO QUINTA—DE VERBIS. 


Ter mille hic veniunt adnotanda, ubi 

1. Verba mutantur sine ullo fere sensus discrimine. V. g. 
Matt. ii. 13, futurum est ut Herodes querat puerum dro\é 
σαι αὐτὸν, V. 1. ἀποκτεῖναι αὐτὸν. Matt. iii. 9, μὴ δόξητε λέγειν 
ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, Ve 1. μὴ ἄρξητε. Matt. xxii. 37, 6 δὲ ᾿Ιησοῦς εἶπεν 
αὐτῷ, MSS. 28, ἔφη. Mare. i. 30, ἀπῆλθον ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ, v. ]. 
ἠκολούϑησαν αὐτώ. Pariter vill. 34, ὅς γὰρ ἂν ϑέλει ὑπίσω pou 
ἐλϑεῖν, v. 1. ἀκολουϑεῖν, Til. 4, ψυχὴν σῶσαι, ἣ ἀποκτεῖναι, v. ]. 
ἀπολέσαι. Luc. vi. 9, ἢ ἀπόλεσαι, Vv. 1. ἀποκτεῖναι. XXi. 22, 
τοῦ πληρωθῆναι πάντα τὰ γεγραμμένα, Vv. 1. πλησϑῆναι. Joh. 
Vili. 5, Μωσῆς ἡμῖν ἐνετείλατο τὰς τοιαῦτας λιϑοβολεῖσϑαι, v. 1. 
λιθάζειν, λιθάζεσϑαι. V. 26, ταῦτα λέγω, v. |. λαλῶ, Rom. 
xv. 18, λαλεῖν τιν V. 1. τὶ εἰπεῖν, λαλεῖσαΐ τι. 1 Cor. ix. 8, ταῦ- 
ra λαλῶ, V. |. λέγω. Vide Rom. ix. 20. 1 Cor. xiii. 8. 

2. Mutatur sepe prepositio verbi. sensu integro manente. 
Lue. ii. 20, ἐπέστρεψαν, v. 1. ὑπέστρεψαν. Act. xv. 42, ém- 
μένειν, V. 1. προσμένειν. Joh. xxi. 3, ἀνέβησαν εἰς τὸ πλόϊον, v. L 
ἐνέβησαν. 2 Cor. iv. 16, ἑκκακοῦμεν, v. 1. ἐγκακοῦμεν. ν. 6 
ἐκδημοῦμεν, V. 1. ἀποὐημοῦμεν. 


1192 


3. Sexcenties varia lectio mutat verbum simplex in com- 
positum sensu non lwso. Ita Matt. vi. 3, «Te faciente elee- 
mosynam, μὴ γνώτω ἡ ἀριστέρα oov,” ν. 1. ἐπιγνώτω. x. 25, εἰ 
ἐκάλησαν, ν. 1. ἐπεκάλησαν. XV. 14, els βόθυνον πεσοῦνται, ν. 1. 
ἐμπεσοῦνται. Luc. iv. 42, ἐζήτουν αὐτὸν, v. |. ἀνεζήτουν. Act. 
Xvili. 7, ἦλϑεν εἰς οἰκίαν, ν. 1. εἰσῆλθεν. Xvili. 16, ἤλθομεν εἰς 
'Ρώμην, ν. 1. εἰσήλθομεν. 

Et vice versa, pro composito exhibetur simplex. Matt. 
xiii. 40, καὶ πυρὶ κατακαίεται, MSS. 40, καίεται. xix. 5, mpoo- 
κολληθήσεται τῇ γυναικὶ, Vv. 1. κολληθήσεται. Mare. i. 38, εἰς 
τοῦτο ἐξελήλυϑα, ν. ]. ἐλήλυϑα. Luc. ΧΙ. 21, ἐνέκρυψεν, v. 1. 
ἔκρυψεν. XX. 24, ἐπιδείξατε μοι δηνάριον, ν. |. δείξατε. V. 34, 
ἐκγαμίσκονται, V. 1. γαμίσκονται. Act. xi. 20, εἰσελθόντες, ν. ]. 
ἐλθόντες. Rom. iii. 9, προητιασάμεϑα, Vv. 1. ἠτιασάμεϑα. 1 Cor. 
v. 2, ἐξαρθῆ, v. 1. ἀρθῆ. 2 Cor. iv. 14, ἐγερεῖ, παραστήσει, v. 1. 
ἐζεγερεῖ, στήσει. 

4, In verbis sepenumero contingit, primo, mutatio nu- 
meri. Matt. i. 21, καλέσεις, v. 1. καλέσουσι. (1.) Contingit 
hoc plus centies ubi nomina multitudinis, aut neutrius ge- 
neris occurrunt, que utrumque numerum admittunt. Ita 
Matt. x. 21, παραδῦσει dé ἀδελφὸς, V- 1. παραδώσουσι. Mare. iii. 11, 
πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα προσέπιπτεν αὐτῷ, ν. 1. προσέπιπτον. Joh. xii. 8, 
ὄχλος ἤκουσε, ν. 1. ἤκουσαν. Act. 11. 3, ἐκάθησέ τε, V. 1. ἐκάϑησάν 
τε. Rom. ii. 14, φύσει τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιῆ, Vv. |. ποιῶσει. 2 Cor. ix. 
3, ἔπεμψα, ἐπέμψαμεν. V. 4, λέγομεν, λέγω. 

(2.) Mutatio persone, et numeri. Ita Act. xix. 13, ὀρκί- 
ζομεν, v. 1. ὁρκίζω, male, preecedunt enim τίνες, et λέγοντες. 
XX. 28, οὗ ἦσαν συνηγμένοι, nempe Troades, v. |. ἦμεν, nos cum 
lis, xxi. 8, ἐξελϑόντες οἱ περὶ τὸν Παύλυν ἤλϑομεν, Vv. 1. ἦλϑον. 
XXii. 25, ὡς δὲ προέτεινεν, αὐτὸν τοῖς ἱμᾶσιν, Nempe centurio, 
προέτεινον προσέτειναν, centurio Cum ministris ejus. xxvii. 29, 
μῆπως ἐκπέσωσιν, viz. naute, v. |. ἐκπέσωμεν, NOS in nave. 
Rom. vi. 3, ἐβαπείσθημεν, nos Christiani, ἐβαπτίσϑητε, VOS 
Romani. 2 Cor. ii. 4. ἔχω, ν. 1. ἔχωμεν. ve 11], ἐλπίζω, ἐλπίζο- 
μεν, Paulus solus, vel Paulus et ‘Timotheus, i. 1. 

(3.) Mutatio temporis, ut, lmo, presens pro futuro, et, 
contra, sexcenties, ita Matt. vi. 19, Snoanpitere, v. 1. Snoanpi- 
vere. Vii. 15, ἔργεται, V |. ἐλεύσεται. XXi. 3, ἀποστέλλει, ν. 1. 
ἀποστελεῖ. Ita etiam, Mare. xi. 3. Joh. iii. 36, “Ira Dei” 
μένει én’ αὐτὸν, ν. 1]. μενεῖ. Joh. xvi. 33, ἕζετε, v. 1. ἔχετε. 
Rom. xi. 13, δοξάζω. v. 1. ὁοξάσω. 2 Cor. iii. 9, περισσεύει. 
vy. |. περισσεῦσει. Matt. ili. 10, ἐκκόπγεται καὶ εἰς mip βάλλεται. 
v. 1. ἐκκοφθήσεται, βληϑήσεται. v. 10, ἔστι, ν. |. ἔσται. x. 8, 
Sepanciere, καθαρίζετε, éyeipere, V. 1. Sepazetoare. Ita passim. 
2do. Presens pro preterito et vice versa. Ita Joh. vi. 63, 
τὰ ῥήματα ἃ ἐγὼ λαλῶ, V. 1]. λελάληκα. Joh. xiv. 9, ἑώρακε ἐμὲ 
ξωρακὼς, V. 1, ὁρῶν pe δρᾶ. 8110. Presens aut imperfectum 
pro aoristo primo aut secundo. Ita Joh. iv. 27, ἐθαύμασαν, 
v. ]. ἐθαύμαζον. Act. iv. 35, éridovy, v. 1. ériSncav. Matt. 1. 18, 
Epave τῷ ᾿Ιωσὴῤ, V. 1. φαίνεται. 

(4.) Matatio conjugationis aut vocis passim. Matt. xi. 23, 
ἐγένοντο, V. |. ἐγενήϑησαν. Heb. xi. 4, λαλεῖται, v. 1. λαλεῖ. 
Matt. vil. 24, ὁμοιώσω αὐτὸν, ν΄. ik ὁμοιωθήσεται, Luc. vi. 7, 
παρετηροῦν, V. 1, παρετηροῦντο. Luc. iv. 14, ἀνταποδοθήσεται, ν. 1. 
ἀνταποδώσουσι. Joh. ii. 17, xarépayé μέ, ν. 1. κατεφάγεται. 

(5.) Mutatio modi. Contigit hoc in numeris in locis sen- 
su utringue integro; indicativus nempe mutatur aliquoties in 
imperativum. Matt. xx. 26, “Qui major erit inter vos,” 
ἔστω ὑμῶν διάκονος, ν. ]. ἔσται. V. 27, ἔσται ὑμῶν δοῦλος, v. ]. ibid. 
ἔστω. xxiil. 11,“ Qui major est vestrum” ἔσται ὑμῶν διάκονος, ν. 
1. ἔστω. Mutatio in imperativum futuro, interpretamenti causa. 
Millius, Matt. v. 37, ἔστω δὲ ὃ λόγος ὑμῶν, vai vai, Vv. 1. ἔσται. 

In subjunctivum frequentissime, et vice versa. Matt. ν, 
25, μήποτέ σε παραδῷ, Υ. 1. παραδώσει. Bis Lue. iii. 10, τί 
οὖν ποιήσομεν. V. ]. ποιήσῶμεν. Joh. ν. 47, πῶς τοῖς ἐμοῖς ῥήμασι 
πιστεύσετε, πιστεύσητε. XV. 8, γενήσεται γένησθε. V. 16, δώ 
ὑμῖν, ν. |. δώσει. Act. xxviii. 26, βλέψετε, βλέψητε. Y. 27, 
ἐάσωμαι, ἰάσομαι. Rom. iii. 8, τὴν πίστιν rod Θεοῦ καταργήσει, 
ita Chrysost. Theodoret. Photius, cum. Theophylact. MSS. 
καταργεῖ, xarapyijon. Vi. 1, ἐπιμενοῦμεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, ν. 1]. ém- 
μένωμεν. Rom. x. 11, πῶς δὲ πιστεύσουσιν----ἀκούσουσι, Υ. 1. πισ- 


τεύσωσιυ---- ἀκούσωσιν. 

Est denique notandum verbum substantivum in lingua 
Hebraica presens tempus non admittere, unde in versione 
nostra Anglicana τὸ “is,” in versione LXX. τὸ ἔστι, sepis- 
sime additur: hine fere centies notatur τὸ ἔστι apud Novi 
Feederis scriptores, quibus Hellenistica lingua in usi fuit: 
v. δ. 1 Thess. ii. 10, ὑμεῖς μάρτυρες, ve 1. ἐστέ. Vide 1 Cor. 
vii. 16. viii. 7. xi. 11. xiv. 10. 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


SECTIO SEXTA—DE PARTICIPIIS. 


1, Parrrerera ejusdem sensus spe invicem permutan- 
tur: v. g. Matt. iv. 18, τὸν λεγόμενον Πέτρον, v. 1. τὸν καλού- 
μενον. 1x. 18, ταῦτα αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος, V. ]. λέγοντος. Joh. xix. 28, 
εἰδὼς Ἰησοῦς, ὅτι πάντα ἤδη τετέλεσται, V. 1. ἰδών. Act. xviii. 8, 
ϑεασάμενος, V. 1, ἰδών. Xvil. 13, cadedovres τοὺς ὄχλους, V. 1. τα- 
ράσσοντες. 1 Cor. v. 2, ὁ τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο ποιῆσας, V. 1. πράξας. 
2 Cor. ill. 7, ἐν γράμμασιν ἐντετυπωμένη, V. 1. ἐγγεγραμμένη. 

2. Centies tempore differunt sine sensus discrimine: ex 
gr. Matt. x. 28, μὴ φοβηθῆτε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτεινόντων τὸ σῶμα, 
v. 1. ἀποκτενόντων. Xili. 24, σπείροντι, σπείραντι. XVI. 27, τὸν 
ἀναβάντα, ν. 1. ἀναβαίνοντα. Joh. vi. 45, πᾶς ἀκούσας, v. lL. 
ἀκούων. Act. ii, 44, πάντες of πιστεῦοντες, V. ]. πιστεύσαντες. 
Xxviii. 5, ἀποτινάξας τὸ Snpiov eis τὸ πῦρ, V. 1. αποτινασσόμενος, 
ἀποτιναζάμενος. 2 Cor. i. 17, τοῦτο οὖν βουλευόμενος, ν. 1. βουλό- 
μενος, βουλευσάμενος. V. 5, κατεργασάμενος, κατεργαζόμενος,---- 
ἐγείροντι, ἐγείραντι, 2 Cor. i. 9. 

3. Multoties participium simplex occurrit pro composito, 
et vice versa, v. g. Matt. vii. 13, πολλοί εἰσιν οἱ εἰσερχόμενοι dv’ 
αὐτῆς, V. 1. ἐρχόμενοι. Luc. xvii. 7, εἰσελθόντι, ἐλϑόντι. Joh. 
xii. 2, els τῶν συνανακειμένων αὐτῷ. v. ]. ἀνακειμένων σὺν αὐτῷ. 
Act. xxi. 4, καὶ ἀνευρόντες, ν. 1. καὶ εὑρόντες. 2 Cor. iv. 9, ἐγκατ- 
ταλειπόμενοι, Ve ]. λιμπανόμενοι, λιπόμενοι. 


SECTIO SEPTIMA—DE ADVERBIIS. 


Norant, primo, varie lectiones deesse multoties adverbia, 
ubi sunt plane vel intellectu necessaria, vel sensu non leso 
deesse possunt. Lue. vi. 10, ἔκτεινον τὴν χεῖρά σου----ὃ ἐποίησεν 
οὕτω. ν. 1. ἃ. οὕτω. Mare. i. 13, τὸ πνεῦμα ἐκβάλλει αὐτὸν εἰς 
τὴν ἔρημον καὶ ἣν ἐκεῖ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, deest ἐκεῖ, Et Act. xiv. 28, 
“ Navigarunt Antiochiam” διέτριβον δὲ ἐκεῖ, d. ἐκεῖ, male Ῥτο- 
cul dubio. Joh. iv. 3, ἀπῆλθε πάλιν εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν, recte: 
nam e Galilwa ascendit Jesus Hierosolymam ad pascha, ii, 
11. 13. At v. 1. ἃ. πάλιν. Joh. xviii. 33, εἰσῆλϑεν εἰς τὸ πραιτώ- 
ριον πάλιν ὃ Πιλάτος, ἃ. πάλιν, male, egressus enim est e pre- 
torio ad Judzos, ver. 29. V. 38, πάλιν ἐξῆλθε 6 Πιλάτος πρὸς 
τοὺς ᾿Ιουδαίους, v. 1. ἃ. πάλιν, male iterum. Vide v. 29. Act. 
V. 23, εὕρομεν τοὺς φύλακας ἔξω ἑστῶτας πρὸ ϑυρῶν. MSS. 30 
deest ἔξω, qui tamen pre foribus stabant, ii certe extra 
stabant. 

Speciatim observandum est de εὐθὺς, et εὐθέως, quod 
quadragies inveniuntur in uno Marci Evangelio, adeo ut 
mirum non sit ea multoties ibi deesse, in MSS. exemplis; 
puta i. 10. 29, 30. ii. 2. viii, 14. xliii. 45, Ubi Millius, 
«Deest Cant. Vulg. Syr. ut fere semper.” Matt. iv. 20, of 
δὲ εὐθέως ἀφέντες τὰ δίκτυα, Ubi “ εὐθέως insertum est ex evan- 
geliis aliis;” ita Millius, Prol. p. 64, col. 2. Habent autem 
Chrysost. in Com. Theophylact. versiones omnes, Origenes 
in Matt. p. 389. 

2. Mutantur invicem sepius adverbia sensu minime mu- 
tato. Luc. v. 35. rére νηστεύσονσιν, Vv. 1. ἀπὸ τότε. Xvi. 26, οἱ 
Sédovres διαβῆναι ἐντεῦθεν, v. 1. MSS. 23, ἐκεῖθεν, Joh. xviii. 20, 
πάντοτε ἐδίδαξα ἐν τῇ συναγωγὴ ὅπου πάντοτε ot Ἰουδαῖοι συνέρχον- 
rat, V. |. παντοθέν, omnes nimirum in solennitatibus ex lege 
adire Hierosolymam tenebantur, adeoque undique convenire 
illic. xix. 27, ἰδοὺ ὃ υἱός cov, v. 1. ἴδε. Act. xxii. 1, viv, v. Ε νυνί, 
2 Cor. ii. 47, κατενώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ, V. ]. κατέναντι. iii. 10, ἕνεκεν 
v. 1]. εἵνεκεν. iv. 16, 6 ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος, v. 1. ἔξωθεν. 


SECTIO OCTAVA—DE PREPOSITIONIBUS. 


Ixrrnirum esset observare loca omnia ubi prepositiones 
ejusdem potestatis, eundemque sensum exhibentes, inter se 
permutantur. 

Ut, primo, διὰ pro ὑπὸ, et vice versa. Matt. ii. 23, τὸ ῥηθὲν 
διὰ τῶν προῤητῶν, V. |. ὑπὸ, iti. 8, “ Hic est qui dictus est” ὑπὸ 
᾿σαίου, ν. 1. διὰ, Vulg. et Iren. In utrisque autem inveni- 
mus per. Act. xii. 9, τὸ γενόμενον διὰ τοῦ ἀγγέλου, V. Ἰ. ὑπό... 

2. ᾿Απὸ, pro ὑπὸ, et contra. Rom. xiii. 1, οὐκ ἔστιν ἐξουσία εἰ 
μὴ ἀπὸ Θεοῦ, v. 1. ὑπὸ. Gal. v. 18, οὐκ ἐστὲ ὑπὸ νόμου, v. 1. ἀπὸ 
νόμου. 

"And pro παρὰ, et contra. Act. xxvi. 22, ἐπικουρίας τυχὼν 
τῆς παρὰ τοὺ Θεοῦ, V. 1. dnd. 1 Cor. xi. 19, ἀπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου, v. 1. 
παρὰ τοῦ. 

"Ard pro ἐκ, et ἐν, ἐκ. pro ἀπὸ. Matt. viii. 34, ἀπὸ τῶν ὁρίων 
αὐτῶν, Vv. 1. ἐκ. 1 Cor. vii. 7, ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, v. ]. ἀπὸ, Matt. viii. 
13, « Sanatus est” ἐν τῇ ὥρα ἐκείνῃ. v. 1. ἀπὸ τῆς, ὅζο. 


που δ. δ 


EXAMEN MILLI. 


2. Ὑπὲρ pro περὶ, et contra. Rom. i. 5, ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος 
αὐτοῦ, V. 1. περὶ. V. 8, ὑπὲρ πάντων ὑμῶν, v. 1. περὶ. 2 Cor. 1. 
8, ὑπὲρ τῆς ϑλίψεως ἡμῶν, v. 1. περὶ. χὶΐ, 5, ὑπὲρ ἐμαυτοῦ, v. ]. 
περὶ. 2 Cor. i. 13, ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, v. ]. περὶ. Gal. 1. 4, ὑπὲρ τῶ; 
ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν, v. 1. περί. Pro παρὰ, 2 Cor. i. 1, ὑπὲρ ὀύναμιν, 
v. 1. napa. 2 Cor. xii. 13, “ Quid est enim quod minus ha- 
buistis” ὑπὲρ λοιπὰς ἐκκλησίας, v. I. παρά. 

_Sexcenties ἐπὶ pro eis, aut ἐν, vice versa: Matt. iii. 13, ἐπὶ 

» Ιορδάνην, V. 1. dis. XVili., 6, ἐπὶ τὸν τράχηλον αὐτοῦ, ν. 1. eis, 
ἐξ περὶ. Thee τὴν 8, ἐπὶ τὴν γὴν τὴν ἀγαθὴν, Vv. Ἰ. εἰς, Joh. vi. 
10, κατέβησαν ἐπὶ τὴν ϑάχαξύαι. v. |. εἰς. Act. iv. δ, συναχθῆναι 
τοὺς ἄρχοντας εἰς ἹἹερουσαλήμ, Vv. 1. ἐν, Rom. x. 11, 6 πιστεύων 
ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ, V. ]. εἷς αὐτὸν. Gal. ν ᾿ ἐλευθερίᾳ. 

Item ἐπὶ, εἰς, pro πρὸς, et vice versa. Act. xvi. 40, εἰς τὴν 
Αυδίαν, v. |. πρὸς. Rom. x. 21, πρὸς λαὸν ἀπειθοῦντα, v. |. 
Gal. i. 12, πρὸς τοὺς πρὸ ἐμοὺ ἀποστόλους, V. 1. εἰς. 

4, Aliquoties mutatur tantum casus quem regit praepo- 
sitio, sensu minime mutato. Ex. gr. Mare. v. 11, “ Erat ibi 
grex porcorum πρὸς τὸ ὅρος, circa montem,” Vulg. πρὸς τῷ ὄρει, 
“apud montem,” MSS. 40, Euthym. Vulg. Syr. ‘Arab. 
Bthiop. Joh. xx. 11, Μαρία δὲ ciarixee πρὸς τὸ μνημεῖον, v. |. 
τῷ μνημείῳ, Gal. iv. 12, ἐπ᾿ ἐλευθεμίᾳ, v. 1. ἐπ᾿ ἐλευθερίαν. Matt. 
ἯΙ. 7, ἐπὶ τὸ βάπτισμα αὐτοῦ, V. ]. ἐπὶ τῷ βαπτίσματι. 

5. Swpius deficiunt aut adjiciuntur sensu adhuc salvo. 
V. g. Mare. v. 6, ἀπὸ paxpéSev, v. 1. ἃ, ἀπὸ. Luc. xxii. 30, ἐν 
τῇ βασιλείᾳ pov, ν. 1. ἃ. ἐν. XXiv. 18, σὺ μόνος παροικεῖς ἐν Ἱερου- 
σαλήμ, MSS, 32 ἃ. ἐν. Joh. xiii. 23, εἷς τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ, v. 
Ἰ. εἷς ἐκ τῶν. XIX. 36, ὀστοῦν οὐ συντριβήσεται αὐτοῦ, ν. 1. ἀπ᾽ 
αὐτοῦ. V. 40. ἔδησαν τὸ αὐτὸ ὀϑονίοις, MSS, ἐν ὀϑονίοις. 


ν 


SECTIO NONA—DE CONJUNCTIONIBUS, 


Panrcivs hic agendum: bis millies in variis lectionibus 
hisce occurrunt, sive mutatio conjunctionum idem valen- 
tium, vel earundem defectus ubi in textu adsunt, vel additio 
ubi librariis deesse videbantur, id autem fit sensu vel semper 
salvo, vel leviter tantum Immutato, 

1, Observat imprimis P. Simonius multitoties accidere per- 


mutationem particularum γὰρ et δὲ, tam in Grecis exempla- | 


ribus quam in antiquis versionibus. Rom, xiv. 15, εἰ δὲ διὰ 
βρῶμα, v. 1. yap. V. 23, ὁ δὲ διακρινύμενος, v. 1. yap. Vid. 
Rom. viii. 28. 1 Cor. ii. 10. vii. 40. ix. 16. x. 1. xi. 3. xv. 1. 
xiii. 50. xvi. 7. 8. 

1 Cor. x. 26, rot yap Κυρίου ἡ γῆ, v. I. dé. 
παρέλαβον, ν. 1. ci. V. 31, ci yap ἑαυτοὺς drexpivopev, V. 1. δὲ, 
xiv. 5, μείζων yap ὃ προφητεύων, Vv. 1. δὲ, V. 14, ἐὰν yap προσεῦ- 
χωμαι, V. 1. δέ. 

2. Notat secundo idem Simonius frequentem esse muta- 
tionem conjunctionis copulative καὶ in disjunctivam ἢ, et 
vice versa. 
ἄρτον τοῦτον, ἣ πίνη τὸ ποτήριον, V. |. καὶ. Exempla multa con- 
gessimus annotatis in hunc locum. 

3. Sexcenties occurrit mutatio καὶ in di, et vice versa, 
presertim vero in evangeliis. Ita Matt. xx. 2, cuppwvioas δὲ, 


v. 1. καὶ συμφψωνῆσας. V. 10, ἐλθόντες δὲ, ν. 1. καί ἐλθόντες. XXi. | 


30, καὶ προσελϑαν, v. ]. προσελϑὼν di. XXIL. 7, ἀκούσας di, ν. ]. 
καί ἀκούσας. Mare. i. 6, ἤν δὲ ᾿Ιωάννης, v. |. καὶ ἣν. V. 16, 
περιπατῶν δὲ, ν. 1. καί παράγων. V. 28, ἐξῆλθε δὲ, ν.]. καὶ ἐξῆλθεν. 
ii. 5, ἰδὼν δὲ, V. 1. καὶ ἰδὼν. 111. 7, καὶ ὃ ᾿Ιησοὺς, v. ]. ὁ ἐὲ. iv. 
10, ὅτι δὲ, v. 1. καὶ ὅτι. ν. 14, οἱ δὲ βόσκοντες, ν. ]. καὶ of. Ita | 
v. 19. 40. vi. 8, ἀδελφός δὲ, v. 1. καὶ ἀδελφός. V.4, ἔλεγε δὲ, 
Ψ. 1. καὶ ἔλεγε. Ita v. 21, 22. 24. 29. 35. 37, 38. 

Est autem frequens mutatio τοῦ καὶ ἐγὼ, ἴῃ κἀγὼ. 1 Cor. 
ii. 3. iii. 1. xvi. 10. 2 Cor. ii, 10, ᾧ dé τι χαρίζεσϑε, καὶ ἐγὼ, 
v. 1. κἀγὼ. (2.) ὡς, et δ᾽ ὅσπερ, SEU ὥσπερ, Sepe inter se invicem 
permutantur. 2 Cor. ix. 5, μὴ ὥσπερ πλεονεξίαν, V. 1]. ὡς. 1 Cor. 
X. 7, ὡς γέγραπται, V. 1. ὥσπερ. Ita 2 Cor. ii. 17. iii. 1. 

Porro innumeris in locis varia lectio exhibet tantum de- 
fectum, aut redundantiam δὲ vel καὶ sensu vix ullibi mutato. 
Et Imo, deest δὲ, v. g. ἐν ἐὲ rats ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, v. 1. ἃ, δὲ. 
Luc. xix. 22, λέγει de αὐτῷ, v. 1. ἃ. δὲ, Joh. i. 40, ὥρα δὲ ἦν 
ὡς δεκάτη, ἃ. δὲ in MSS. 35, et v. 43. Ita Joh. vii. 9. 12. 19. 
38. Acts xi. 17, ἔγὼ δὲ ris ἤμην, v. 1. ἃ, δὲ, Ita xiii. 1. xxiv. 26. 
Alias additur ubi deest. Luc. xi. 24, ὅταν τὸ ἀκάθαρτον πνεῦμα, 
v. 1. ὅταν δὲ. Joh. ix. 9, ἐκεῖνος ἔλεγεν, Vv. 1. ἐκεῖνος δὲ. Act. xvi. 
7, ἐλθόντες κατὰ τὴν Μυσίαν, v. |. ἐλθόντες δέ. 

Frequentius accidit defectus τοῦ καὶ, ubi vel etiam de- 

Vor, I1V.—150 


xi. 23, ἐγὼ yap | 


Ita Joh. vill. 14, καὶ ποῦ ἐπάγω, v. 1.3}. 1 Cor. | 
Xili. 1, ἢ κύμβαλον ἀλαλάζον, v. ]. καὶ. ΧΙ. 27, ὃς ἂν ἐσϑίη ray | 


1193 


| notat, vel ad connexionem videtur plane necessarium. Matt. 
xiv. 19, Et jubens turbam discumbere super gramen, καὶ 
λαβὼν, et accipiens quingue panes benedixit eis,” v. 1. ἃ, 
καὶ. Luc. xv. 19, « Peccavi in ccelum, et coram te, καὶ οὐκέτι 
εἰμὶ ἄξιος," &e. v. 1. ἃ, καὶ, et V. 21, et cap. xix. 15. cap. 
xxiil. 24, “Et dies erat parasceues καὶ σαββάτων," ἃ. καὶ, 
| MSS. 32, et V. 52. 55. Joh. xx. 14, καὶ ταῦτα εἰποῦσα, ἃ, 
καὶ, Tta cap. xi, 57. cap. xix. 35, Act. xiv. 3, “Domino 
testimonium perhibente verbo gratiwe καὶ δόντι σημεῖα,᾽ ἃ, καὶ. 
Ita cap. xiii. 9, et 1 Cor. x. 9, et x. 12. xii. 14, 19.  Adji- 
citur sine causa: Rom. xiv. 6, ὁ ἐσϑίων, v. lL. καὶ 6,—in evan- 
geliis passim. 

“On sepissime in his variis lectionibus deest, ubi denotat 
quod, v. g. Matt. ix. 33, λέγοντες ὅτι, ἃ, ὅτι. Luce. iv. 11, καὶ 
ὅτι ἐπὶ χειρῶν αἱροῦσί σε, V. 1. ἃ. ὅτι. Ita cap. xvii. 10, xix. 
| 9. Joh. vii. 31, ἔλεγον ὅτι. X. 7, λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι, ἃ. ὅτι, cap. xii. 
| 34. 1 Cor. iv. 9. Quandogue adjicitur: ita, Luc. xix. 34, 

of δὲ εἶπον ὃ Κύριος, V. 1. Gre ὁ Κύριος. V. 46, γέγραπται, ὃ οἷκός 
1 Cor. vii. 29, 6 καιρὸς συνεσταλμένος, v. L 


μου, ν-.. 1. ὅτι ὃ. 
ὅτι ὁ. 

Deest denique γὰρ, Luc. iv. 8. Act. xviii. 15. οὖν, Joh. 
vill. 42, ix, 25. Act, xviii. 14. xx. 28, et in mulltis aliis. 


SECTIO DECIMA. 


| His adde quod multa inter varias lectiones enume- 
| rentur, que tantum exhibent loca in Novo Feedere laudata, 
prout a patribus, aut ex LXX. Interpretum versione, alle- 
gantur, v. g. 

Matt. i. 23. Pro ἕξει, Iren. λήψεται. Pro καλέσουσι, Buseb. 
Epiph. p. 427, καλέσεις, ex Isa. vii. 14. Cap. 11. 6, ἐκ cod yap, 
v. 1. ἐκ cod γάρ μοι, ex Mich. v. 2, vide v. 17. 

Mare. i. 3. Etseias ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ, Tren. τοῦ Θεοῦ 
ἡμῶν, ex Isa. xl. 3. 

Joh. xix. 36. ‘Osroiv οὔ συντριβήσεται αὐτῷ, ν. 1. εἰ συν- 
τρίψετε dn’ αὐτοὴ, ex Ex. xii. 46, 

Act. i. 20. Γενηϑήτω ἡ ἔπαυλις αὐτοῦ, Vulg. al. αὐτῶν, ex Ps. 
Ixix. 25. 

Rom. ix. 25. Kat τὴν οὐκ ἡγαπημένην, ἡγαπημένην" Tren. lib. 
| iv. cap. 37, Hieron. in cap. i. Hos. τὴν οὐκ ἠλεημένην, ἡλεημέ- 
γὴν, ex Hos. il. 23, ubi utraque lectio. 

V. 33. Οὐ καταισχυνϑήσεται, V. 1. οὐ μὴ καταισχυνϑῇγ ex Tsa. 
xxviii. 16. 

Cap. xi. 9. Γενηϑήτω ἡ τράπεζα αὐτῶν. 
αὐτῶν, ex Ps. Ixix. 22. 

1 Cor. ii. 9. “A ἡτοίμασεν ὃ Beds τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτόν, Clem. 
R. ὑπομένουσιν, ex Isa. vi. 4. 
| Gal. iv. 30. Ἔκβαλε τὴν παιδίσκην, v. 1. add. ταύτην----μετὰ 

τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς ἐλευϑέρας, Hieron. μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ pov ᾿Ισαὰκ, ex Gen, 
xxi. 10. 

2 Thess. ii. 8. Ὃν 6 Κύριος ἀνελώσει, patres multi ἀνελεῖ, ex 
Isa. xi. 4. 

Heb. x. 6. ᾿Ολοκαυτώματα, v. 1. ὁλοκαύτωμα, ex Ps. xl. 6. 
᾿ς, 38. Ὃ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται. Theodoret. ἐκ πίστεώς 
μου, ex Hab. ii. 4. ὰ 

1 Pet. i. 16. “Λγιοι γίνεσϑε, Clem. Al. Vulg. &c. ἔσεσθε, ex 
| Levit. xi. 44. xix. 2. 

[ V. 25. To de ῥῆμα Κυρίου. Syr. Θεοῦ ἡμῶν, ex Isa. xl. 7. 

| Swepe addunt he varie lectiones, ex versione LXX. Inter- 
pretum, ea que textui in N. 'Testamento allegata desunt, 
ν. δ. 

Lue. iv. 19. Κηρύξαι ἐνιαυτὸν Kopiou δεκτὸν, add. Tren. Vulg. 
“et diem retributionis,” ex Isa. Ixi. 2. 

Rom. x. 8. "Eyyis cov ῥῆμά ἐστιν, add. Orig. ofédpa, ex 
Deut. xxx. 14. 

»  V. 16. Tis ἐπίστευσε τῇ ἀκόη ἡμῶν, add. καὶ βραχίων rod Κυρίου 
τίνι ἀπεκαλύφθη, ex Isa. lili. 1. 

Cap. xv. 19. ᾿Εζομολογήσομαί σοι ἐν ἔθνεσι. add. Κύριε, Chry- 
sost. Vulg. ex Ps. xviii. 49. 

2 Cor. ix. 9. Ἢ δικαιοσύνη αὐτοῦ μένει cis τὸν αἰῶνα, Vulg. 
add. τοῦ αἰῶνος, ex Ps. exii. 8. 

Aliquando in his variis lectionibus desunt quedam que 
in N. Test. occurrunt, quia apud LXX. Interpretes non ex- 
tant, ex. gr. 

Rom. xi. 34. Tis yap ἔγνω νοῦν Κυρίου, d. yap, Clem, Al. ‘Tta 
Isa. x]. 13. 

Cap. xv. 11. Kai ἐπαινέσετε αὐτὸν, ἃ. καὶ, Chrysost. Ita. Ps. 
exvii. 1. 


Theodoret. ἐνώπιον 


422 


1194 


1 Pet. i, 34. Καὶ ὁ ἄνθος αὐτοῦ, d. αὑτοῦ, (Πουπηθη. 
Isa. xl. 7. 

Insigne hujus rei exemplum exhibet Basilius, is enim 
post hee verba Dom. Joh. xii. 39, “ Propterea non poterant 
eredere, quia iterum dixit Isaias,” ea que sequuntur allegat 
non prout apud Johannem extant, active rerdjAwxev καὶ mem 
ρωκεν, sed passive τεγύφλωνται αὐτῶν of ὀῤϑαλμοὶ καὶ πεπώρω- 
rat ἡ καρδϊα, ex Isa. vi. 9, tom. i. contra Eunom. lib. v. p. 
782. 


Ita 


SECTIO UNDECIMA. 


In quod, in alio evangelista, aliis verbis exprimitur, sex- 
centies in locis pro varianti Jectione proponitur: hic autem 
observatu dignum videatur, 

1. Multoties rem plane incertam esse, nulloque niti solido 
fundamento Millii de hisce conjecturam, v. g. Marci vi. 12. 
Sed apud Millium legimus “Ex Ammonii Monotessaro 
apud Zacharium Clirysopol. (seculi 12mi monachum, potius 
quam episcopum, recte notat Zegerus) hee Marci non esse, 
sed ex Matthezo huc transponi, quemadmodum alias alia;” 
quo Monotessaro non obstante, agnoscunt hee verba Hie- 
ronymus, ‘I‘beophylactus, versiones ad unam omnes. Et 
quanquam Millius bis centies pronuntiaverit “hac et illa 
alterius esse, non ergo hujus evangelii, non tamen video 
quid impediat quo minus eadem in duobus aut tribus evan- 
geliis obtineant, immo ex Eusebii canone id usitatius con- 
ligisse certissimum est. 

2. Observandum id quod patres, librarii, ac scriptores, ex 
aliis evangeliis adjecerunt, sepius additamenti potius quam 
varie lectionis speciem adhibere. 

Observandum, tertio, hee, si ex aliis evangeliis certo cer- 
tius adjecta essent, nihil de s. scripturis inde minui, nec iis 
quicquam adjicere, sed tantum ea que in evangeliis certo 
certius conscripta sunt, eundemque plerumque sensum exi- 
gunt, locis non suis apponere; quibus premissis, exemplum 
unum aut alterum in medium adducam. 

Matt. iii. 11. Οὐ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἱκανὸς τὰ ὑποδήματα βαστάσαι, V. 
1. ἄξιος τὸν ἱμήντα τοῦ ὑποδήματος λῦσαι. “E reliquis evan- 
gcliis,” hic Millius: in quorum tamen nullo hee verba ῥήτως 
inveniuntur. Vide Mare. i. 7. Lue. iii. 16. Joh. i. 27. 

V.17. Φωνὴ-τελέγουσα οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ υἱὸς, V. 1. λέγουσα πρὸς 
αὐτὸν, σὺ εἰ 6 υἱὸς, Mare. i. 12. Lue. iii. 22. 

Sed non est cur in hisce immoremur, in quibus ipse Mil- 
lius, in capite fere quolibet, exempla perhibet. 

Porro permulta inter variantes lectiones congessit Millius, 
que tantum unius epistole verba ad alteram adjiciunt, adeo- 
que assumenta verius quam varie lectiones dici possint. 
Ostensum enim est libri primi sectione sexta, familiare nimis 
patribus fuisse loca multa, presertim sensu et scopo conve- 
nientia, in unum congere: v. g. 

Rom. xii. 2. Eis τὸ δοκιμάζειν ὑμᾶς τι τὸ ϑέλημα Θεοῦ, 
Chrysost. (ξουιη. post ὑμᾶς addunt τὰ διαφέροντα, ex Phil. 
i. 10. 

Ὑ. 17. Προνοσημένοι καλὰ ἐνώπιον πάντων ἀνθρώπων. Poly- 
Carp. ἐνώπιον Θεοῦ, καὶ ἀνθρώπων ,---οὐ μόνον ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ, 
ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀνθρώπων, multi, ex 1 Cor. viii. 21. 

Cap. xiv. 11. "Eyot κάμψει πᾶν γόνυ, v. 1. add. ἐπουρανίων, 
καὶ καταγείων, καὶ ἐπιχθονίων, ex Phil. ii. 11. 

Cap. xvi. 26. Post διὰ γραφῶν προφητικῶν, addit Origenes, 
καὶ τῆς ἐπιφανείας τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ex 2 Tim. i. 
10. Mill. vel ex 2 Thess. ii. 1 

1 Cor. i. 23, Ἡμεῖς δὲ κηρύσσομεν “Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, Orig. 
lib. 1 contra Cels. p. 12, Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν, καὶ τοῦτον ἐσταυρωμένον, 
ex cap. il. 2. 

Cap. iv. 16. Μιμηταΐ μου γίνεσθε, Vulg. Chrysost. alii καϑὼς 
ἐγὼ Χριστοῦ, ex cap. xi. 1. 

iii. 18. Μηδεὶς ἑαυτὸν ἐξαπατάτω, v. 1. add. κενοῖς λόγοις, eX 
Eph. v. 6. 

xiv. 33. 'Qs ἐν πάσαις rats ἐκκλησίας τῶν ἁγίων, ν. 1. add. 
διδάσκω, EX cap. iv. 17. 

xvi. 15. Οἴδατε τὴν οἰκίαν 
«Ῥουρτουνάτο», καὶ ᾿ΑΧχαικοῦ. 

2 Cor. iv. 4. "Os ἔστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ, v. 1. add. τοῦ ἀοράτου, 
ex Col. i. 15. 

Cap. xii. 3. "Ews τρίτου οὐρανοῦ. 
παράδεισον, ex v. 4. 

V. 14. ᾿Ιδοὺ τρίτον, addunt multi τοῦτο, ex cap. xiii. 1. 

Eph. iii. 8. "Ἐμοὶ τῷ ἐλαχίστῳ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων, Vv. 1. add. 
εἰποστόλων, ex 1 Cor. xv. 9. 


Στεφανᾶ, add. v. |. ex ν. 17, καὶ 


Clem. Al. κἀκεῖϑεν εἰς 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Cap. iv. 17. Μαρτύρομαι ἐν Κυρίῳ, v. 1. add. ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ, 
ex 2 Tim. iv, 1. 

Col. 1. 23. Ἐγὼ Παῦλος διάκονος, add. Alex, κῆρυξ καὶ ἀπό- 
στολος, ex 1 Tim. ii. 7. 

Cap. iii. 10. Οὐκ ἔνι “Ἕλλην καὶ geen vy. 1. add. ἄρσεν καὶ 
Sdn, ex Gal. iii. 28. 

V. 17. Add. ex Eph. v. 21, ἜΡΕΥΝΑ ἀλλήλοις ἐν φύβῳ 
τοῦ Θεοῦ. 

V. 23. Ὡς 
vi. 7. 

Phil. iii. 6. 
ex bat i. 13. Ξ 

1 Thess. iv. 16. Ἔν σάλπιγγι, add. CE alii, τῇ ἐσχάτη, 

ex 1 Cor. xv. 52. 

1 Tim. ii. 8. Χωρὶς διαλογισμοῦ, iCica Al. 
πονηρῶν, ex Jac. ii. 4. 

vi. 12. ‘Quod6ynoas τὴν καλὴν ὁμολογίαν, add. Chrysost. én’ 
ἐλπίδι ζωῆς αἰωνίου, ex Tit. i. 2. 

2 Tim. i. 7. Οὐ yap ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν 6 Θεὸς πνεῦμα δουλείας, add. 
Clem, Alex. πάλιν εἰς φόβον, ex Rom. viii. 15. 

Cap. iv. 5, Κακοπάθησον, add. Cod. Alex. ὡς καλὸς στρατι- 
rns Νριστοὴ Ἰησοῦ, ex cap. th Ds 

Tit. i. 10. ᾿Ανυπότακτοι v. 1. add. ἐργάται δόλιοι, ex 2 Cor. 
xi. 13, 

Cap. ii. 5. “Iva μὴ 6 λόγος Θεοῦ βλασφημῆται, ν. 1. καὶ διδασ-- 
καλία, ex 1 Tim. vi. 1. 

V. 15. Ταῦτα λάδει, v. 1. καὶ δίδασκε, ex 1 Tim. iv. 11. 

Heb. iv. 10. Κατέπαυσεν ἀπὸ τῶν͵ ἔργων αὐτοῦ, Chrysost. add. 
πάντων, ex ν. 4. 

Cap. ix. 14. Θεῷ ζῶντι, Chrysost. C. Alex. καὶ ἀληϑινῷ, ex 
1 Thess. i. 9. 

1 Pet. v. 6. 
ex cap. li. 12. 

Pauca his adde in quibus textus ex aliarum epistolarum 
lectione aliquantulum mutatur. 

Phil. ii. 14. Χωρὶς yoyyvopar, Vv. Ib ὀργῆς, eX 1 Tim. ii. 8. 

Col. iii. 9. Πάλαιον ἄνϑρωπον σὺν ταῖς πράξεσιν, Clem. Al. 
ἐπιϑυμίαις αὐτοῦ, ex Eph. iv. 22. 

Cap. i. 18. “Ὃ ἐστιν ἀρχὴ, Chrysost. alii, ἀπαρχὴ, ex 1 Cor. 
xv. 20. 

2 Tim. ii. 22. Μετὰ τῶν ἐπικαλουμένων τὸν Κύριον, v. 1. 
πάντων τῶν ἀγαπώντων, eX Eph. vi. 24. 

Heb. x. 1. Οὐδέποτε δύναται, Theodoret, δύνανται, ex v. 11. 

Jac. ii. 25. ᾿Αποῤεξαμένη τοὺς ἀγγέλους, V. 1. κατασκόπους, EX 
Heb. xi. 31. 


τῷ Κυρίῳ, Clem. Alex. dovdevovres, ex Eph. 


Κατὰ ζῆλον διώκων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, Vv. 1. add. Θεοῦ, 


διαλογισμῶν 


Ἵνα ὑμᾶς ὑψώσῃ ἐν καιρῷ, v. 1. addunt ἐπισκοπῆς, 


SECTIO DUODECIMA. 


Untcum jam superest quod me ad operis hujus finem per- 
ducet, nempe ut respondeam objectionibus pseudo-catholic- 
orum textus Grieci aiSevriav ex variis hisce lectionibus im- 
pugnantium, et scepticorum qui s. scripture certitudinem 
eadem de causa diminutam, et pene nullam esse pronun- 
ciant. 

Decrevit Synodus Tridentina, ut ea ipse vetus et Vulgata 
editio, que longo tot seculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata 
est, in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, pradicationibus, 
et expositionibus, pro authentica habeatur, et ut nemo illam 
Tejicere quovis pretextu audeat, vel presumat. In hujus 
decreti subsidium, longo bene procedunt pontificii, pro 
editionis Vulgate pra Grecis N. Foederis codicibus authen- 


| tia, tanquam pro aris et focis, militantes (quod tamen hoc 


synodi decretum minime postulare discernunt peritiores pon- 
tificii). Palmam ceteris preripuit Morinus, is enim Exer- 
citationum Biblicarum parte secunda, summa contentione, 
omnibusque ingenii viribus illud molitur, ut labefactata N. 
Feederis originalis textus auctoritate, sola versio Vulgata, 
utpote ad codices Grecos hodiernis nostris meliores com- 
posita, pro vera et authentica habeatur. Huic Millius, qui 
in priore Prolegomenwn parte Morini causam adstruxisse 
yideatur, hic strenue eidem semet opponit. 

Argumento etenim primo Morini ex patrum Latinorum 
et Grecorum testimoniis deducto, accurate Millius respondet, 
testimonia in medium producta non tantum diligenter ex- 
pendit, lisque responsum plenum justumque adhibet ; sed 
etiam insuper agnoscit, Prol. p. 139, se, cum Morino, folie 
errasse ; et p. 140, Morino duce, hallucinatum esse: “ verum 
in aliam sententiam (inquit) me duxit longior dies, eamque 
plane contrariam,” 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


Secundum argumentum depravationis Greci textus col- 
ligit Morinus ex magna lectionum varietate, quam in ex- 
emplaribus Grecis observarunt H. Stephanus aliique here- 
tici, quas ad bis mille sexcentum sexaginta, iniquo calculo, 
extendit. Respondet Millius: « Varietates hasce lectionum, 
quibus auctoritatem Graci textus tantopere labefactatam 
ait, istas, inquam, quas ex sexdecim exemplaribus extraxit 


H. Stephanus, aliasque multo adhue plures, quas alii post | 
} ἢ 1 


eum ex impressis pariter, et MSS. libris coacervarunt, adeo 
non eripere Greco textui suam certitudinem, ut contra, 
haud certius ad genuinam et archetypam apostolorum dic- 
: 8 eke dibs : 

tionem perveneris, quam ex hujusmodi collationum συλλο- 
yais sive collationibus Grecorum codicum.”’ His autem 
pro instituti sui ratione prelibatis, sic pergit ; “ Providen- 


tia Dei hactenus invigilatum est, ne in articulis fidei, aliis- | 


que ad summam fidei facientibus laberentur librarii. In 
his enim codices omnes conveniunt, et si forte locus aliquis, 
qui summi momenti esse videtur, uni, alteri, seu etiam plu- 
ribus codicibus exciderit (id quod non nisi in uno loco fac- 
tum est quod viderim) idem tamen quoad sensum alibi in- 
culeatus occurrit; ut proinde nusquam inde periclitetur 
Christiana veritas: in locis autem, qui in articulis fidei om- 
nibus plene conveniunt, certe ex qua de iisdem articulis ju- 
dicetur, regula deesse non potest.” * 

Porro de variantibus hisce Stephani Bezeque lectioni- 
bus, id imprimis notatu dignum est, eas fere omnes ex 
Grecis occidentalis ecclesie codicibus depromptas esse, 
quos quidem a scriptoribus lingue originalis insciis conscrip- 
tos fuisse, et juxta versionem veterern Vulgatam emendatos, 
seu verius mutatos, fuisse ex Simonio didicimus, eosque 
adeo inidoneos prorsus esse ex quibus codices primevi, 
Adamantii, Pierii, Pamphili, Eusebii, cura ad codicum pro- 
batissimorum et forte originalium textum emendati, et in 
bibliothecis diligenter custoditi, ut textus hodiernus cum iis 
codicibus potissimum consentiens corrigeretur. 

3. Ex argumentis hisce aliisque pontificiorum mediis, 
quibus Vulgatam versionem integritati suse restituere Sixti 


Quinti, Clementis Octavi, Lovaniensium, Luce Brugensis, | 


et aliorum opera aggressi sunt, de codicum multorum colla- 
tione, multa,—de ecclesia testimonio ne verbum quidem 
occurrit; unde pronum est colligere haud alia media ad 
Vulgate versionis aifevriay stabiliendam pontificiis superesse, 
quam que nobis pariter cum illis conveniunt ad textus ori- 
ginalis integritatem stabiliendam, nullumque in his emenda- 
tionibus ecclesie sive testimonio sive judicio locum esse 
posse, sed eriticorum studio, et industrie in codicibus com- 
parendis, in versionum collatione, patrumque scriptis evolv- 
endis, rem totam committendam esse. 

Denique argumentum Morini bene impugnat Millius, com- 
paratione adhibita inter textum Grecum et versionem Vul- 
gatam. “Cum enim ob lectionum varietatem, textum Gre- 
cum incertitudinis postulaverit Morinus, annon expectares 
(inquit) jure merito ut versionem,quam in hujus locum sub- 
stituit, ab eadem lectionum varietate, pura, et integra con- 
servata esset? et tamen eadem illa in exemplaribus Vul- 
gate, que in Grecis nostris apparet lectionum varietas, ut 
liquet ex Stephanicis et Plantinianis Latinorum Bibliorum 


editionibus, immo etiam post recognitam jussu Sixti Quinti, | 


et Clementis Octavi, versionem hanc, Lucos Brugensis con- 
scripsit libellum variantium ejus lectionum. Hine autem 
manifesto sequitur Vulgatam versionem pro authentica 
haberi non posse, nisi textui Greco eadem authentia con- 
cedatur. 

« Ex iis insuper que in secundo libro scripsimus, et que 
non modo ab evangelicis, sed etiam a pontificiorum doctissi- 
mis, et in his rebus maxime versatis, in confesso sunt, 
nempe in hoc variantium lectionum cumulo inveniri nihil, 
quod vel articuli ullius fidem, vel morum regulam corrum- 
pat mutetve, certum atque exploratum est, contra sceptico- 
rum strepitus, lectiones hasce variantes non posse s. scriptu- 
re regulam vel imperfectam relinquere, vel dubiam. Rem 
paucis expediam lectiones hasce, que etiam levioris momenti 
esse videbantur, ea, qua potui, diligentia excussi, et examini 
subjeci: ostendant, si possint, aliquid, quod hanc fidei nostre 
normam, aut dubiam, aut suspectam reddat: hoc autem si 
fieri nequeat, desinant tandem aperte, et pre oculis eorum 
posite, veritati repugnare, et vanis clamoribus aures nostras 
obtundere.” 


1195 
APPENDIX. 


ConTINENS : 
1. Catalogum variantium locorum ipsius Millii. 
2. Specimen Italie versionis, qualis, ante Hieronymo 
] castigationem, extabat, ex lectionibus ΒρΡΌΓΙΒ, deficienti- 
bus, aut redundantibus, que in Hilarii Diac. commen- 
tariis in epistolas 1), Pauli adhue reperiuntur. 


Millius ἑαυτὸν τιμωρούμενος" sive Specimen quorundam locorum 
| ἡ , μωροῦμ ς ἰ ΟΟΟΥΌΙΩ; 
in quibus Millius sententiam suam mutat, et sibi ipse 
contradicit. 


«Marv. iii. 11, καὶ τῷ πυρὶ, constat patres Hieronymum, 
| Hilarium, Cyprianum, Theodorum Heracleot. Macarium 
/Egyptium, Cyrillum, Origenem, Justinum M. (adde Atha- 
nasium, tom. i. p. 606, Basilium, tom. i. p. 790, Cyrill. 
Alex. tom. i. p. 197), interpretes Arab, Pers. Aathiop. etiam 
vetustiss. Copt. ac Syr. exemplaria quamplurima MSS, an- 
tiquiss. Cant. Vulg. denique versionem, sub apostolicis fere 
temporibus concinnatam, agnovisse καὶ myi, ut de recepta 
lectione minime dubitandum sit:” ita Millius hie. Atqui 
Prol. p. 65, col. 2, “ Ilud καὶ πυρὶ utcungue lectum in Vulg. 
jam olim ante tempora Cypriani, Syri, item nescio an (et 
fere ab initio) et citatum ab Origene, tanquam Matthei, 
irrepsit ex evangelio Luce, seu etiam in textum tam Luce, 
quam Matthei.” 

«Matt. v. 4, εὐλογεῖτε τοὺς καταρωμένους ὑμᾶς, καλῶς ποιεῖτε 
τοὺς μισοῦντας ὑμᾶς, ista omissa initio forte quod superflua 
visa sunt.”’ Ita Millius in locum, ergo Matthwi verba hic 
omissa sunt. Sed Prol. p. 42, col. 1, “ Luce sunt non ergo 
Matthei.” Vide Append. p. 2, col. 2. 

Matt. xiv. 3. διὰ ‘Hpwdiida τὴν γυναῖκα Φιλίππου. Deest 
Φιλίππου, Cant. Vulg. “Sed cum hic exemplaria MSS. uni- 
versim (una cum versionibus vetust. Syr. et Copt.) proba- 
tiora pleraque apud Lucam, apud Marcum omnia (immo 
ipsum Cant. ut et Vulg. Goth. Copt. Syr.) nomen hoc reti- 
neant, non est quod expungatur.” Ita Millius hic. At Prol. 
p- 42, col. 2, “Interjectum «Φιλίππου Marci est, cui moris, in 
historiolis ipsi cum Matthewo communibus, circumstantias 
quasdam insigniores, ab altero isto haud memoratas, adjicere, 
quomodo hic nomen mariti Herodiadis.” 

Cap. xv. 4. ᾿Ενετείλατο λέγων. V. 1. εἶπε, Cant. Copt. Syr. 
Bthiop. Vulg. Tren. e Marco. Ita hie Millius—Sed Prol. 
p: 42, col. 1, “Scholion ἐνετείλατο λέγων εἶπε, diu est cum 
genuinam extrusit lectionem suspectainque ipsam reddidit, 
seu ex Marco sumptam, quod et nos olim putavimus.” 

Cap. xviii. 35. Ta παραπτώματα αὐτῶν. Desunt in Cant. 
Barb. Vulg. Hieron. Arab. Aithiop. “ Sed cum plerique omnes 
cod. Greci, Chrysost. Theophylact. Syr. Pers. retineant, non 
est quod omittatur.” Ita Millius hic. Sed Prol. p. 121, seq. 
“ἐ τὰ παραπτώματα αὐτῶν irrepserunt e margine,” fide Authiop. 
Cant. Arab. Vulg. Hieron. Luciferi Calarit. 

Cap. xxv. 1. Eis ἀπάντησιν rod νυμφίον. V. 1. τοῦ νυμφίου, 

καὶ τῆς νύμφης, Cant. Vulg. Syr. Pers. “Sed cum nec exem- 
| plaria MSS. nec e patribus Hieronymus, Hilarius, Chrysost. 
aut Orig. quantum ex commeutariis assequi licet, agnoscant, 
pro additamento plane habendum est.’—Ita hic Millius. 
Sed Prol. p. 133, col. 2, “00 νυμφίον», καὶ τῆς νύμψης, Cant. sic 
et Vulg. Syr. ac Latini (N. B.). Nec dubito quin ita Mat- 
thei interpres. Sed quod infra de sponsi solius occursu fit 
mentio, neque nisi sponsi duntaxat occursus memoretur, in 
posterioribus cod. delebant illud καὶ τῆς νύμφης Greci cen 
| perperam ab antiquis additum.” 
Ibid. cap. xxviii. 9. 'Q; δὲ ἐπορεύοντο ἀπαγγεῖλαι rots μαθηταῖς 
| αὐτοῦ.} “ Desunt hee Vulg. Chrysost. Hieron. August. incuria 
scribarum, inguit Erasmus, sed corum licentie potius dandum 
forte, quod cum sequentia a conjunctione incipiant, totum 
hoe quod interjicitur, ceu non necessarium pretermiserint.” 
Sunt ergo hee Matthsi sive incuria sive licentia scribarum 
pretermissa. Sed Prol. p. 83, col. 2, “τὸς omnia scholiaste 
alicujus sunt de sermonis cohzrentia plus satis soliciti.” 

Mare. ii. 1. Ac’ ἡμερῶν. “Octo legunt Latini codices 
aliqui, citra non Grxcorum modo codicum fidem, sed et La- 
tinorum plerumque omnium.” Ita Millius hic. Sed Prol. 
p- 44, col. 1, “Greca_procul dubio erant δι᾿ ἡμερῶν, et sic 
evangelista.” 


1196 


Mare. v. 1. Fis τὴν χώραν τῶν Ταδαρηνῶν.) ν. 1. Τερασηνῶν. 
«Sed cum Cod. Alexandrinus et Syr. receptam lectionem 
retineant, et Lucas, cui in describendis historiis noster evan- 
gelista fere consonat, Gadarenos vocet, Γαδαρηνῶν hic omnino 
legendum arbitror.” Sed Prol. p. 95, col. 1, inter genuinas 
lectiones Γεργεσηνῶν enumeratur. 


Mare. xi. 10. 'ωῶσαννὰ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις. « Orig. cipivn, me- | 


morie lapsu, ut opinor, et cui Marci verbis Luce ἰδία con- 
fundens, cap. xix. 38, εἰρήνη ἐν οὐρανῳ, καὶ δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις.ἢ" 
Ita hic Millius. 


memorize, quod nos olim putavimus, sed ad fidem codicis 
probi: hinc Lucam, qui ad Marci verba se fere accommodat, 
traduxisse puto suum illud εἰρήνη ἐν οὐρανῶ. 

Lue. ii. 14. Ἔν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία. “ Qui sic legunt, rectam 
lectionem amplectuntur.” Ita hic Millius. Sed Prol. p. 
64, col. 2, «ἐν ἀνθρύποις εὐδοκίας Omnino recte.’ Vide anno- 
tata nostra in Millium hic. 

Cap. vi. 26. Οὐαὶ ὑμῖν ὅταν καλῶς ὑμᾶς εἴπωσιν πάντες. “ Τὸ 
πάντες omnino legendum arbitror, addendi causa nulla est, 
tollendi aliqua:” et tamen prol. p. 126, col. 2, “ὑμᾶς et 
πάντες irreptitia sunt.’ Vide hic etiam annotata nostra in 
Millium. 

Lue. vii. 11. Kai συνεπορεύοντο αὐτῷ of μαϑηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἱκανοί. 
« Deest ἱκανοὶ Vulg. Syr. omissum primum, de industria, ni 
fallor, ab iis qui per μαθητὰς hic apostolos intellexere, non 
item assiduos quosvis Christi sectatores.” Ita hic. Sed 
Prol. p. 44, col. 1, “icavoi irrepsisse videtur ex v. 12, certe 
discipulos duodecim neutiquam μαθητὰς ἱκανοὺς vocasset evan- 
gelista, scriptor imprimis accuratus.” 
nostris hic ad Millium. 

Cap. ix. 54. ‘Os καὶ ᾿Ηλίας ἐποίησε. Desunt hee in Barb. 
1, Eph. Vulg. “sed habent, preter exemplaria Greca fere 
omnia, Syr. Arab. Pers. thiop. Goth. et ‘Tertull. (N. B.) 
ut credibile sit in Latinis ab aliquo expunctum, qui verebatur 
ne locus hic Marcioni faveret, inquit Grotius.” Ita Millius 
hic. Sed Prol. p. 44, col. 1, “Sequentia ὡς καὶ ᾿Ἡλίας ἐποΐησε, 
que sententiam Jacobi et Johannis tam insigniter illustrant, 
ad marginem libri a studioso quopiam adscripta fuisse com- 
mentarii loco, indeque transisse in corpus textus, res ipsa 
clamat. Czxterum a Tertulliano lecta fuisse hec, quod 
olim in notis nostris affirmavimus, non ita liquidum.” 

Cap. xix. 41. ἔκλαυσεν én’ αὐτῇ. “Non extitisse verba 
ista suo tempore in publice receptis exemplaribus testatur 
Epiphanius. 
tius,’ &c. Ita hic. 
αὐτῇ notat (Grotius) (quod et nos in editione nostra ipsius 
vestigia intrepide secuti) Epiphanii tempore comma hoc haud 
extitisse in publice receptis exemplaribus, verum ad _peri- 


copen de sudore sanguineo, cap. xxii. 43, 44, respicit Epi- | 


phanius.” Vide de his plura, Prol. p. 76, col. 1, « Act. ii. 


AT, ὃ δὲ Κύριος προσετίθει τοὺ; σωζομένους καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, 


sic Alex. Barb. 1, Vulg. et certe D. Lucas supra dicit πισ- | 


τεύοντας fuisse ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, hic Dominum addidisse quotidie 
σωζομένους ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ," Pro). p. 158, col. 2. At vero Append. 


p- 37, col. 2, “Ilud ἐτὶ τὸ αὐτὸ δὲ (quod revera capitis se-_ 


quentis est) capiti huic adnexum arbitror, quod in plurimis 


MSS. libris post verba ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ δὲ notetur minio ἀρχὴ, seu | 


principium lectionis: hac enim de causa factum videtur, quod 
ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, quod initium lectionis precedebat, in capitis 
precedentis finem conjecerint scribe, dele ergo Alex. Barb. 
1, Vulg.” Vide etiam annotata Millii in locum. 

Act. viii. 37.] “Deest comma 37 in MSS. fere viginti, 
certe pretermissum in exemplaribus tot MSS. probatis 
ac vetustissimis ex incuria vel etiam fraude scribarum, plane 
incredibile est: dicendum potius in supplementum historia 
adnotatum primum hoe, ut et alia in libro Act. Apost. haud 
pauca, a studioso quopiam ad marginem libri, ac assumptum 
mox in contextum a librariis, idque sane a primis Christian- 
ismi seculis, legant siquidem Vulg. Iren. Cyprian.” &c. Ita 
hie Millius. Sed Prol. p. 40, col. 2, “etiam hunce versiculum 
pro injectitio olim a nobis habitum, lectum ab Irenzo con- 
stat, lib. 111. cap. 12, et ad αὐθεντίαν ejus stabiliendam haud 
parum conferunt Vulg. Tertull. (nam et hunc, contra quam 
antehac sentiebam pericopen hanc legisse) Cyprian.” quibus 
antea non obstantibus, comma hoc pro injectitio habuit. 

Cap. v. 36. "am προσεκολλήθη. “V. 1. προσεκλίθη, Alex. 
Pet. Cyril. προσεκλήθη, quod ex priore lectione natum suspi- 
cor, librariis, quod passim fit, ἡ pro « scribentibus.” Sed Prol. 


Sed Prol. p. 101, col. 2, Apud Marcum | 
εἰρήνη ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις, legebat Origenes, idque non ex lapsu | 


Vide reliqua annotatis — 


Verba ejus digna sunt que notentur, ait Gro- | 
Sed Prol. p. 146, col. 2, “ ἔκλαυσεν én’ | 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


| p. 120, col. 1, ᾧ προσεκλήθη inter genuinas lectiones ponitur, 
| cujus explicatio est προσεκολλήθη. 

Cap. xv. 20. Τοῦ πνικτοῦ.}  Desunt Iren. Tertull. Cyprian. 
| Hieron, August. Ambros. Eucherio: cxterum retinent Greca 
| que viderimus omnia, excepto uno Cant., versiones omnes, 
etiam Vulg. Origenes, patres, ac tractatores Greci universim, 
ac proinde minime solicitandum arbitror.’ Idem vero 
Millius, Prol. p. 45, col. 2, iisdem Latinis Pacatiano et 
Fulgentio in medium prolatis, hec habet, “certe medium 
vx<7od Ipsius Luce non est, sed Christianoram vete- 
rum,” & 

Cap. XVill. 7. Eis οἰκίαν τινὸς ὀνόματι ᾿Ιοὔστου. V. 1. Τίτου. 
App. p. 42, “ Lectionem istam quod attinet Τίτου genuinam 
esse arbitror, ᾿Ἰούστου vero additum ex interpolatis Latinis 
interpretis Vulg.’’ Sed Prol. p. 44, col. 2, “Studiosus ali- 
quis ex fide, vel traditione istius seculi viri hujus cognomento, 
indeque enim aliud Ἰοῦστος nomen ipsum adposuit ad mar- 
ginem, nempe Titum, quod quidem admisit haud zxgre inter- 
pres in suam versionem.” 

Rom. i. 31. ᾿Ασπόνδους.] “ Deest Clar. Ger. Colb. 7, Luci- 
fer Calarit. Hilar. Gilde, pretermissum ideo putarim, quod 
precedat vox ejusdem, ut putabant, significationis dcvrAérous.” 
Sed Prol. p. 46, col. 1, “intrusum videtur in hunc locum ex 
2 Tim. iii. 3.” 

1 Cor. xv. 47. 'O Κύριος ἐξ otpavot.] “Imprudentes libra- 
rii vocem hance ὃ Κύριος, e codice Marcionitarum in exempla- 
rium aliquorum marginem clam transfusam, in contextum 
admisere, idque jam olim ante tempora Tertulliani tum enim 
manavit, uti videtur, corruptela hee paSsim in cod. Grecos.”” 
Sed Prol. p. 139, col. 2, hec habet, “ Auctoritate ‘Tertulliani, 
probat Morinus in Grecis nostris, 1 Cor. xv. 47, irrepsisse 
vocem Κύριος, ex Marcionis heretici ἀποστολικῶ, quod idem 
et nos affirmavimus in adnotatis in hunc locum. Verum in 
aliam sententiam traxit Jongior dies, eamque plane contra- 
riam, nempe in ἀποστολικὸν illud introductum fuisse Κύριος ex 
libris catholicorum.” Vide supra, p. 36: 

2 Cor. ix. 4. Ἔν τῇ ὑποστάσει ταῦτῃ τῆς καυχήσεως. “Ἔν 
τῇ ὑποστ. ταὔτη, codex mendosus quem secutus est ΠΟ Ρ5, 
omisso τῆς καυχήσεως. Sed Prol. p. 48, fide mendosi hujus 
cod. inter alios hic memoratos “ris καυχήσεως, accessit com- 
mentarii loco ex cap. xi. 17 hujus epistole.” 
| Gal. iv. 14. Kai τὴν πειρασμόν pov.] “Latini omnes, teste 
Esthio, legunt ὑμῶν, quod sane sensum parit duriusculum ac 
coactum nimis quam ut probem.” Ita hic Millius. Sed 
Append. p. 53, col. 1. “ Pro istis lege atque hance lectionem 
(ut et duriusculas, et in speciem absurdas, plerasque omnes 
N. B.) genuinam esse censeo.” 

Eph. iii. 14. Πρὸς τὸν πατέρα τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ. 
Rejicit hic Millius testimonium Hieronymi dicentis “hee 
subnotata esse additamentum codicum Latinorum.” “ Nimi- 
| rum cum a patre denominatam velint interpretes fere omnes 
πατριὰν istam ἐν οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς, de qua apostolus in 
versu prox. hinc omittendi ista τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησυῦ Χριστοῦ, 
arreptam primam occasionem arbitror, ne sc. admissis iis, ad 
Christum πατριὰ ista, seu ad originem referri forte intellige- 
retur.” Sed idem Millius, Prol. p. 84, col. 2, inter genuinas 
Chrysost. lectiones recenset πρὸς τὸν πατέρα simpliciter, reli- 
qua habet pro additamentis ex fide Hieronymi, Hilarii D. 
ABthiopis, Chrysost. Theophylacti, quos omnes hic rejicit. 
| Cap. v. 30. "Ex τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ. 
“Desunt in Alex. thiop. At vero cum in aliis omnibus 
extent, non est quod de textus sinceritate hoc loco dubite- 
mus.” Ita hic. Sed Prol. p. 69, col. 2, “Methodius qui 
codice usus est probo, hec omittit. Ita Alex. Athiop. 
Que ad marg. adscripta, ut videtur, ex Gen. il. 23, in textum 
intruserunt scribx.”” 

1 Thess. iii. 2. Καὶ συνεργὸν ἡμῶν. “Recte hic omnia, 
nihil mutandum.” Ita hic Millius. Sed Prol. p. 123, col. 
2,“ Media καὶ συνεργὸν ἡμῶν irrepsere e margine, ubi posuerat 
ista adnotator quispiam, ex Rom. xvi. 21, Vulg. Alex.” quos 
utrosque antea rejecit. 

1 Tim. vi. 5. Παραδιατριβαί. “Cod. plurimi, C. Alex. 
Clem. Al. Gr. scholia omnia legunt διαπαρατριβαί. Sed 
placet Vulgatam παραδιατριβαὶ, et in Append. p. 54, col. 2, 
lege quod “ omnino placet, non aliter legebat in codice suo 
Vulg. interpres.” Sed Prol. p. 61, col. 1, “placet διαπαρα- 
zp:Bai,” ob eosdem auctores, et παραδιατριβαὶ, inquit “ notatum 
forte ab aliquo ad marg. animi causa, ceu elegantius transiit 
in alterius locum.” 


καὶ τοῦ 7 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


19. Τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς.} “V. 1. τῆς ὄντως, Vulg. Syr. ASthiop. 
Hilarius D. Hieron. (ὦ, Nyssen. interpretamentum vetus,” 
quo vita eterna describitur, sed Prol. p. 77, col. 1, eosdem 
auctores allegans, ait “ αἰωνίου in editis irrepsit ex v. 12 hujus 
Fg 

2 Tim. ii. 10.) “Mera δόξης aiwviov, ccelesti, Vulg. et 
ex eo Latini, ex errore Gr. exemplaris cujusdam, ut videtur, 
in quo pro αἰωνίου scriptum erat contractim ovviov.” Sed 
Prol. p. 49, col. 1, “ἐ μετὰ δόξης οὐρανίου, nescio an recte, contra 
quam olim putaveram facili mutatione οὐρανίου, quod in MSS, 
libris contractim fere scriptum οὐνίου, sciolus fecerit quispiam 
αἰωνίου." 

Heb. x. 2. ᾿Επεὶ οὐκ ἂν. “V. 1. ἐπεὶ ἂν, Vulg. Syr. 
Ethiop. Theodoret. Photius: mihi quidem illud ἐπεὶ ἂν 
maxime arridet, aoe σοῖς apostoli scopo omnino congruum.” 
Sed Prol. Ρ. 131, col. 2, “ ἐπεὶ οὐκ ἂν utpote obscurum max- 
ime probo.” 

Cap. xit. 18. ψηλοφομένῳ ὄρει. “ Omittunt ὄρει Syr. Anthiop. 
Clar. Ger. Sed cum retineant plerique omnes codices 
Greci, et vero antithesin que accedit inter montem Sina et 
montem Sion, hic pre oculis habeat apostolus, necesse est 
legamus.” Sed Prol. p. 105, col. 2, « Desunt Alex. Syr. 
Xthiop. Chrys. et Vulg, et certe ὄρει quod positum est jam 
post ψηλαφομένῳ, in plerisque cod. vix est ut olim preter- 
miserint scribe; longe magis suspectum, immo probabile 
videtur, lectorem quempiam maxime cum hic agatur de 
sensibili, ac ardenti igne, qui visus erat in monte Sina, 
posuisse ad oram codicis, seu inter lineas ὄρει, ut esset quod 
alteri ὄρει, v. 22, responderet.” 

2 Pet. i. 12. Διὸ οὐκ ἀμελήσω.} “ Ὑ. 1. μελλήσω οὐ μελλήσω, 
mihi omnino placet lectio que in impressis.” Ita hic. Sed 
Prol. p. 101, “did μελλήσω, ita Suidas, codices probi aliqui: 
fecit phrasis paullo durior, ut a nonnullis mutaretur in od 
μελλήσω, ab aliis in οὐκ ἁμελήσω, quod jam locum habet in 
longe majori parte codicum.” 

Cap. ili. 3. Ἔπ᾽ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν éunaixra.] “Ὁ, 1. 
ἐμπαιγμονῇ ἐμπαῖκται. Ita MSS. multi, Vulg. Syr. Arab, 
S8thiop. August. Hieron. et quidem omnino Esthio assen- 
tior ita a Petro scriptum esse.” Sed Prol. p. 88, col. 2 
“Mihi quidem ipsius Petri fuisse videtur ἐν ἐμπαιγμονῃ, sim- 
pliciter; quod autem hiare videretur oratio, additum a 
quopiam, ex Epistola Juda ἐμπαῖκται. 

Jud. 6. Ὑπὸ ζόφον. “ Clem. Al. Peed. lib. iii. cap. 8, add. 
ἀγρίων ἀγγέλων, codex quem secutus est Lucifer Calaritanus 
pro ἀγρίων corrupte legit ἁγίων. Sed Prol. p. 62, col. 1, 
“ ἀγρίων perperam pro ἁγίων." 

Unicum addo in quo ipsa Millii interpretatio contradic- 
tionem involvit, viz. in hee verba συνήχθησαν ᾿Ἡρύδης τε, καὶ 
Πόντιος Πιλάτος σὺν ἔθνεσι καὶ λαοῖς ᾿Ισραὴλ. Act. iv. 27. Inter 
alia plane ridicula, hee habet Millius, Prol. p. 104, col. 2, 
“Certe per vn hic intelligi Judos (i. e. populum Israeli- 
ticum, quibuscum he gentes consilium inibant de morte 
Christi) constat ex v. 25. Nempe respondet hoc loco ἔϑνεσι 
καὶ λαοῖς ad illud Davidis sg citatum ἐῤρύαξαν ἔϑνη, καὶ 
λαοὶ ἐμελέτησαν κενὰ, Psal. ii. 1.) Hic autem observandum, 

1. Millium fere continuo sententiam suam mutasse Vul- 
gate versionis gratia. 

2. Non multum tribuendum esse judicio viri adeo a 
semetipso dissidentis, et de his ipsis variantibus lectionibus 
sententiam suam postea mutantis, idque aliquoties ob ipsis- 
sima illa testimonia, et rationes, quibus antea non obstanti- 
bus, se ita sensisse indicaverat. 


De lectionibus Hilarii Diaconi in Epistolas Paulinas Rome 
receptas, et primo de lectionibus variantibus. 


Er. ad Rom. Observandum hic procemii loco notasse Eras- 
mum “scribam pro suo arbitratu lusisse, non tantum in 
argumentis epistolarum exhibendis; sed, uti suspicatur, in 
ipsis commentariis ;” additque Simonius eos qui Latinos 
patres, qui ante Novi Faderis librorum emendationem ab 
Hieronymo adornatam vixerunt, typis mandarunt, scripturas 
ab iis citatas sepius editione Hieronymiana adaptasse, nec in 
hac parte Hilario Diacono pepercisse ; unde haud raro con- 
tingit ut commentario textus adversetur: cujus indicium 
sentire mihi videor in capitis hujus primi commate ultimo, 
ubi textus ita se habet, prout in Vulgato Hieronymi, « Qui 
cum justitiam Dei cognovissent, non intellexerunt, quoniam 
qui talia agunt, digni sunt morte; commentarius vero 
sequitur in hune modum, “ Usque adeo justitiam Dei cogno- 


1197 


verunt, ut non negent hee omnia que faciunt, peena digna 
et morte,” 

Cap. iii. 1. Quid enim amplius est Judo, Gr. τί οὖν, Vulg. 
quid ergo. Centies in Hilario occurrit enim pro ergo, et 
vice versa; ita v. 4, est enim Deus verax, Gr. yevéoSw dé 

V. 25. Quem proposuit Deus propitiatorem fidei, Vulg. 
propitiationem per fidem, Gr. ἱλαστήριον διὰ τῆς πίστεως, Ibid. 
propter propositum precedentium delictorum. Gr. διὰ τὴν 
πάρεσιν, Vulg. propter remissionem. 

V. 26. In patientia Det, ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ. 
tione. 

Cap. iv. 16. Ideo ex fide secundum gratiam, ut sit, Gr. 
διὰ τοῦτο ἐκ πίατεως, ἵνα κατὰ χάριν, Vulg. ideo ex fide, ut 
secundum gratiam. 

V.17. Ante eum cui credidisti Deo, Gr. κατέναντι οὗ 
ἐπίστευσε Θευῦ, Vulg. ante Deum qui (p. cuz) credidit. 

V. 21. Quia qui promisit, Gr. dre 6 ἐπήγγελται. 
quia quecunque prornisit. 

Cap. v. 6. Ut quid enim; ita et Vulg. Gr. ἔτι yap, ib. 
peccatores, Gr. ἀσϑενῶν, Vulg. infirmi. 

Cap. vi. 4. Per virtutem patris, Gr. διὰ τῆς δόξης, Vulg. 
per gloriam. 

Cap. vii. 5. Hine vitia peccatorum que per legem osten- 
duntur, Gr. τὰ παθήματα τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν τὰ διὰ τοῦ vopov, Vulg. 
passiones peccatorum que per legem erant. 

VY. 13. Quod ergo bonum est mihi, mors est 2. Gr. τὸ οὖν 
ἀγαθὸν, ἐμοὶ γέγονε Savaros ; Vulg. quod ergo bonum est mihi 
factum est mors? 

V. 25. Gralia Dei, ita et Vulg. quod Millius in locum 
rejicit, Gr. εὐχαριστῶ τῷ Gea. 

Cap. viii. 23. Nos’ qui receptaculum Spiritus habemus, 
Gr. ἀπαρχὴν, Vulg. primitias. 

V. 26. Spiritus adjuvat infirmitatem orationes nostrx, 
Gr. ταῖς ἀσϑενείαις ἡμῶν, Vulg. nostram. 

V. 28. Procedunt, Gr. συνεργεῖ, Vulg. co-operantur. 

V. 30. Quos justificavit, hos et magnificavit, Gr. ἐδόξασε, 
Vulg. glorificavit. 

V. 38. Confido, Gr. πέπεισμαι, Vulg. certus sum. 

Cap. ix. 6. Non enim excidit verbum Dei, Gr. οὐκ οἷον dé 
ὅτι ἐκπέπτωκεν, Vulg. non autem quod exciderit. 

V. 10. Isaac patrem nostrum, Gr. ἐξ ἑνὸς---- Ἰσαὰκ τοῦ 
πατρὸς ἡμῶν, Vulg. patris nostri. 

Cap. xi. 1. Nunquid Deus repulit hereditatem suam? 
Gr. τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ, Vulg. populum suum. 

V. 25. Obtusio quxdam ex parte Israel facta est, Gr. 
πώρωσις, Vulg. cecitas. 

Cap. xii. 2. Que sit voluntas Dei, quod bonum, Gr. τὸ 
ϑέλημα rod Θεοῦ τὰ ἀγαθὸν, Vulg. bona. 

V. 11. Tempori servientes, Gr. τῷ Κυρίῳ, Vulg. Domino. 

V.13. Memoriis sanctofum communicantes, Gr. ταῖς 
χρείαις, Vulg. necessitatibus. 

Cap. xiii. 1. Omnibus potestatibus sublimioribus subditi 
estote, Gr. πᾶσα Ψυχὴ ἐξουσίαις ὑπιρεχούσαις ὑποτασσέσϑω, Vulg. 
omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdita sit. 

Cap. xiv. 14. Ex plane qui existimat, Gr. εἰ μὴ τῷ λογιζο- 
μένῳ, Vulg. nisi ei qui existimat. 

V. 23. Qui autem discernit quid ederit, Gr. ἐὰν φάγῃ, 
Vulg. si manducaverit. 

Cap. xv. 4. Ad nostram confirmationem, Gr. διδασκαλίαν, 
Vulg. doctrinam. 

V. 30. Ut solicitudinem impertiamini mihi, Gr. συναγω- 
vioasSai μοι, Vulg. ut adjuvetis me. 

V.351. Per voluntatem Jesu Christi, Gr. Θεοῦ, Vulg. Dei. 

V. 32. Munerum meorum oblatio, Gr. ἢ διακονία μου, 
| Vulg. obsequii mei oblatio. 

Cap. xvi. 2..In quibuscunque desideraverit, Gr. ἐν ᾧ ἂν. 
ὑμῶν χρήζη, Vulg. vestri indiguerit. 

V. 5. Et domestica eorum ecclesia, Gr. καὶ τὴν κατ' οἶκον 
αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν, Vulg. domesticam. 

V.17. Contra disciplinam, Gr. παρὰ τὴν διδαχὴν, Vulg. 
preter doctrinam. 

V.19. Volo vos projicere ut erudili sitis, Gr. ϑέλω δὲ 
ὑμᾶς σοφοὺς εἶναι, Vulg. sapientes esse. 

V. 24. Ponitur in fine epistole, Gloria Domini nostri, 
Gr. Ἢ χάρις, Vulg. Gratia. 


Vulg. in sustenta- 


Vulg. 


Epistola Prima ad Corinthios. 


Cap. i. Ita ut nobis nihil desit. Gr. ὑμᾶς, Vulg. vobig 
V. 16. Czterorum, Gr. λοιπὸν, Vulg. ceterum. 


1198 


Cap. ii. 1. Mysterium Dei, Gr. τὸ μαρτύριον, Vulg. testi- 
monium. 

V. 4. In persuasione sapientiz, Gr. ἐν πειθοῖς ἀνθρωπίνης 
σοφίας λόγοις, Vulg. in persuasibilibus humane sapienti verbis. 

V. 11. Que in Deo, Gr. τὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, Vulg. que Dei sunt. 

Cap. iii. 4. Nonne homines estis. Ita etiam Vulg. Gr. 
οὐχὶ σαρκικοί ἐστε, et Greca scholia omnia. 

V. 13. Qui facit hoc opus manifestus erit, Gr. ἑκάστου τὸ 
ἔργον φανερὸν γενήσεται, Vulg. uniuscujusque opus manifestum 
erit. 

Cap. iv. 21. In carilate spiritus et mansuetudinis, Gr. ἐν 
ἀγάπη; πνεύματί τε πραότητος, Vulg. in caritate et spiritu man- 
suetudinis. 

Cap. vi. 2. In vobis judicabitur hic mundus, indigne ergo 
sunt hujusmodi, Gr. καὶ εἰ ἐν ὑμῖν κρίνεται ὃ κόσμος, dvazwi ἔστε, 
Vulg. et si in vobis judicabitur mundus, indigni estis. 

Cap. vii. 20. Frater in quo vocatus, Gr. ἕκαστος ἐν τῇ κλήσει 
ἡ, Vulg. unusquisque in qua vocatione. 

Cap. ix. 16. Non est mihi gratia, Gr. καύχημα, Vulg. 
gloria. 

Cap. xi. 2. Quod omnia mea memoria retinetis, Gr. πάντα 
μου μέμνησϑε, Vulg. per omnia mei memores estis. Ibid. et 
quomodo whique trado, Gr. καὶ καθὼς παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, Vulg. et 
sicut tradidi vobis. 

V. 14. Nec natura, sic etiam Vulg. Gr. ἢ οὐδὲ, an ne ὃ 

Cap. xii. 2. Simulacrorum forma euntes, Gr. πρὸς τὰ εἴδωλα 
τὰ ἄφωνα ἀπαγύμενοι, Vulg. ad simulacra muta euntes. 

V. 13. Potavimus, Gr. ἐποτίσϑημεν, Vulg. potati sumus. 

V. 23, At que, Gr. καὶ ἃ, Vulg. et que. Ib, inferiora, 
Gr, τὰ ἀσχήμονα, Vulg. inhonesta. 

V. 25. ᾿Αλλὰ τὸ αὐτὸ, sed ipsa, Vulg. sed id ipsum. 

Cap. xiii. 1. Unum sum velut eramentum resonans, Gr. 
γέγονα χαλκὸς ἡχῶν, Vualg. factus sum. 

V. 4. Caritas magnanima est, jucunda est, Gr. μακροθυμεῖ, 
Xpnoreverat, Vulg. patiens, benigna. 

Cap. xiv. 12. Prophetetis, Gr. ἵνα περισσεύητε, Vulg. ut 
abundetis. 

V.16. Quis supplet locum idiote? Gr. 6 ἀναπληρῶν, Vulg. 
qui supplet. 

V. 19. Volo quinque verba loqui per legem, Gr. διὰ τοῦ 
γνούς po», Sensu meo, 

V. 20. Ut sensibus perfecti sitis, Gr. rats dé φρεσὶ τέλειοι 
γίνεσϑε, Vulg. sensibus autem perfecti estote. 

V. 21. Et rondum, Gr. καὶ οὐδ᾽ οὕτως, Vulg. et nec sic. 

V. 25. Et dune, Gr. καὶ οὕτω, Vulg. et ita. 

V. 27. Ut unus, Gr. καὶ cis, Vulg. et unus. 

V. 34. Esse in silentio, Gr. ὑποτάσσεσϑαι, Vulg. subditas esse. 

V. 33. Non est enim dissensiones res, Gr. ἀκαταστασίας 6 
Θεὸς, Vulg. Deus. 

Cap. xv. 2. Quod sermone annunciavi vobis debetis tenere, 
Gr. τίνι λόγῳ εὐηγγελισάμην ὑμῖν εἰ κατέχετε, Vulg. qua ratione 
predicaverim vobis si tenetis. 

V. 5. Tilis undecim, et sic Vulg. Gr. τοῖς δώδεκα. 

V. 10. Pauper, Gr. κενὴ, Vulg. vacua. 

V. 20. Si enim, Gr. νυνὶ δὲ, Vulg. nune autem. 
initium, Gr. ἀπαρχὴ, Vulg. primitie, et sic v. 23. 

V. 31. Pro gloria vestra, Gr. νὴ, Vulg. per gloriam. 

V. 84. Vigilate, juste estote, Gr ἐκνήψατε δικαίως, Vulg. 
evigilate justi. 

V. 51. Omnes quidem resurgemus, non omnes immuta- 
bimur ; et sic Vulg. sed non omnes im. Gr. πάντες μὲν οὐ 
κοιμηθησόμεθα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα. 

Cap. xvi. 6. ist vos me deducatis, Gr. ἵνα ὑμεῖς, Vulg. ut vos. 

V. 9. Magnum et evidens ; ita etiam Vulg. Gr. ἐνεργής. 

V. 23. Gratiam, Gr. ἡ χάρις. 


Tbid. 


Epistola Secunda ad Corinthios. 


Cap. i. 6. Sive exhortationem consequimur, pro vestra 
exhortatione, Gr. εἴγε παρακαλούμεθα ὑπὲρ ris ὑμῶν παρακλήσεως, 
Vulg. sive consolamur, pro vestra consolatione. 

V.7. Quod si socii estis, Gr. dre ὥσπερ, Vulg. quod sicut. 

V. 19. Qui in vobis est, gui per nos predicatus est, Gr. | 
ὃ & ὑμῖν de ἡμῶν κηρυχθεὶς, Vulg. qui in vobis per nos predi- 
catus est. V. 21. Christus Dominus, Gr. cis Χριστὸν, Vulg. 
in Christo. 

Cap. ii. 10. Ut ne posstdeamur a Satana, Gr. ἵνα μὴ 
πλεονεκτηθῶμεν, Vulg. ut non circumveniamur. 

Cap. iii. 5. Non quod sufficientes sumus xstimare aliquid, | 
Gr. λογίσασθαι, Vulg. cogitare. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


V. 14. Velamen manet dum non revelatur, Gr. μὴ 
ἀνακαλυπτόμενον, Vulg. non revelatum. 

Cap. iv. 4. Ut non pervideant lumen evangelii, Gr. εἰς τὸ 
μὴ αὐγάσαι αὑτοῖς, Vulg. ut non fulgeat illis. 

YV. 8. Inopiam passi, sed non destituti, Gr. ἀπορούμενοι, 
ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἑξαπορούμενοι, animi pendentes, sed non animo conci- 
dentes. 

V. 11. Si ergo nos qui vivimus, Gr. ἀεὶ yap ἡμεῖς, Vulg. 
semper enim nos. 

V. 16. Licet si exterior noster homo, Gr. ἀλλὰ εἰ καὶ, Vulg. 
sed licet. 

Cap. v. 4. Nam cum, Gr. καὶ γὰρ ὄντες, Vulg. nam: et V. 
8, ad Deum, Gr. πρὸς Κύριον, V. ac Dominum. 

V. 21. Ut nos essemus justitia Dei, Gr. γινώμεθα, Vulg. 
efficeremur. 

Cap. vii. 2. Capaces estote nostri, Gr. χωρήσατε ἡμᾶς, reci- 
pite nos, Vulg. capite. 

V. 6. Qui consolatur, homines, Gr. rarewois, Vulg. hu- 
miles. 

V. 14. In quibuscunque pro vobis gloriatus. Gr. εἴ τι, 
Vulg. si quid. 

Cap. viii. 4. Cum multis precibus orantes nos/ram gra- 
tiam, et communionem ministerii quod est in sanctos, 
δεύμενοι ἡμῶν τὴν χάριν, καὶ τὴν κοινωνίαν τῆς διακονίας τῆς εἰς τοὺς 
ἁγίους δέξασθαι ἡμᾶς. Vulg. obsecrantes nos gratiam, et com- 
munionem—recipere. 

V.8. Vestre caritatis bonwm comprobans, Gr. γνήσιον 
δοκιμάζων, Vulg. ingenium bonum comprobans, potius since- 
ritatem explorans. 

V. 13. Aliis refrigerium, Gr. ἄνεσις, Vulg. remissio. 
ex axquitate, Gr. ἰσότητος, Vulg. equalitate. 

V. 17. Consolationem accepit, Gr. παράκλησιν, Vulg. ex- 
hortationem. 

V. 29. Per Domini gloriam, Gr. πρὸς, V. ad ib. solicitu- 
dinem nostram. Gr. προθυμίαν ὑμῶν, Vulg. destinatam volun- 
tatem nostram, Gr. vestram. 

V. 23. Sive per Titum qui est socius, Gr. εἴτε ὑπὲρ Τίτου, 
sive de Tito (queritur) est socius, super fratres nostros 
apostolos ecclesiarum, gloria Christi, Gr. εἴτε ἀδελφοὶ ἡμῶν ἀπό- 
στολοι ἐκκλησιῶν, δόξα Χριστοῦ, Vulg. sive fratres nostri (in 
quzstionem veniunt) sunt apostoli ecclesiarum, gloria 
Christi. 

Cap. ix. 3. Ne gloria nostra qua vos preeferimus, Gr. τὸ 
καύχημα ἡμῶν τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, Vulg. ne quod gloriamur de vobis. 
V. 11. Si quis operatur, Gr. ἥτις κατεργάζεται, Vulg. que. 

V. 12. Officii eyus, Gr. ταύτης, Vulg. hujus. 

Cap. x. 5. Adversus cogitationem Dei, Gr. κατὰ τῆς γνώσεως, 
Vulg. adversus scientiam. 

V.6. Cum impleta fuerit abauditio nostra, Gr. ὑμῶν ἢ 
ὑπακοή. Vulg. vestra obedientia. 

V. 7. Se esse servum Christi, Gr. Χριστοῦ εἶναι, Vulg- 
Christi se esse. 

Cap. xii. 1. Gloriari oportet, sed non expedit mihi, Vulg. 
si gloriari, Gr. Καυχᾶσθαι ch οὐ συμφέρει por, gloriari quidem 
non expedit mihi. 

V. 11. Nihil minus feci, Gr. οὐδὲν ὑστέρησα, Vulg. nihil 
minus fui. / 

V. 18. Nunquid avarus in vos fuit Titus, Gr. ἐπλεονέκτησεν 
ὑμᾶς, Vulg. circumvenit vos. 


Epistola ad Galatas. 


Car. i. 7. Et volunt convertere evangelium; ita etiam 
Vulg. Gr. μεταστρέψαι, pervertere. 

V. 10. Modo enim hominibus satisfacio, Vulg. suadeo, 
Gr. πείθω, obtempero, vide notas nostras. 

Cap. ii. 20. Vivit qui in me est Christus, Gr. 7 δὲ ἐν ἐμοὶ 
Χριστός. Vulg. vivit vero in me Christus. 

V. 11. Quia reprehensus erat, Gr. κατεγνωσμένος ἣν, Vulg. 
reprehensibilis erat. ᾿ 

Cap. iii. 7. Cognoscelis, Gr. γινώσκετε, Vulg. cognoscite. 

V. 14. Benedictionem Spiritus, Gr. ἐπαγγελίαν, Vulg. pol- 
licitationem. 

V. 15. Tamen hominis testamentum; et sic Vulg. Gr. 
ὅμως, certe, utique. 

Cap. iv. 6. In corda nostra, Gr. ὑμῶν, Vulg. vestra. 

V.7. Non est servus; et sic Vulg. οὐκ ἔτι εἶ. 

V. 18. Bonum zmulamini semper, Gr. καλὸν δὲ τὸ ζηλοῦσ- 
θαι ἕν καλῷ πάντοτε, Vulg. bonum autem xmulari in bono 
semper. 


Ib. 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


V.21. Legemnon legistis? Ita etiam Vulg. ἀκούετε, auditis. 

V. 28. Vos—filii estis, Gr. ἡμεῖς τ ἐσμὲν, Vulg.nossumus. 

V. 30. Cum filio meo Isaac, Gr. τῆς ἐλευθέρας, Vulg. libere. 

Cap. v. 8. Suasio hee non est a Deo qut vocavit vos, Gr. 
ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦντος, Vulg. ex eo qui vocat. 

V. 20 ad 23. intel. multa mutantur. 
tis, Gr. κατεσϑίετε. Vulg. comeditis. 

Cap. vi. 1. Humilitate hujusmodi, Gr. καταρτίζετε τὸν 
rowirov, Vulg. instruite. 


Epistola ad Ephesios. 


V. 15. Et crimina- 


Cap. i. 6. In laudem claritatis sux, Gr. ὀόξης τῆς Χάριτος | 


αὐτοῦ, Vulg. gloria gratie sue. 

V. 10. ΕἾ dispensationem, Gr. cis οἰκονομίαν, Vulg. in dis- 
pensationem. 

V. 11. Secundum propositum Dei qui universa creavit, 
Gr. τοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐνεργοῦντος, Vulg. ejus qui omnia operatur. 

V. 19. In vos qui-creditis, Gr. cis ἡμᾶς τοὺς πιστεύοντας, 
Vulg. nos. 

Cap. ii. 3. Voluptates carnis, Gr. τὰ ϑελήματα, Vulg- vo- 
luntatem. 

V. 4. Qua misertus est nostri, Gr. ἣν ἠγάπησεν, Vulg. qua 
dilexit nos. 

V. 11. Memoria retinentes vos qui, Gr. διὸ μνημονεύετε ὅτι 
ucts, Vulg. propter quod memores estote, quod vos. 

V. 19. Et incolx, Gr. καὶ πάροικοι, Vulg. et advene. 

Cap. iii. 1. Pro vobis fratribus, Gr. τῶν ἔθνων, Vulg. gen- 
tibus. 

V. 13. In gloria vestra, Gr. ἥτις ἐστὶ δόξα ἡμῶν, Vulg. que 
est gloria vestra. 

V. 16. Virtutem confirmari in Spiritu suo, in interiore 
homine habitare Christum per fidem, Gr. δυνάμει κραταιωθῆναι 
διὰ τοῦ Πνεύματος αὐτοῦ cis τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον. V. 17, κατοικῆσαι 
τὸν Χριστὸν διὰ τῆς πίστεως, Vulg. virtute corroborari per Spiri- 


tum ejus in interiorem hominem. V. 17, Christum habitare | 


per fidem. 
Cap. iv. 14. Ad remedium erroris, Gr. πρὸς τὴν μεϑοδείαν, 
Vulg. ad circumventionem. 


V.19. Et avaritie, Gr. ἐν πλεονεξίᾳ, Vulg. etiam in avaritiam. | 


V. 24. In veritate et justitia, Gr. ἐν δικαιοσῦνη καὶ botérnre τῆς 
ἀληθείας, Vulg. in justitia et sanctitate veritatis. 

Cap. v. 4. Que ad rem non pertinent: sic etian Vulg. 
τὰ μὴ ἀνήκοντα. 

V. 13. Omnia autem cum objurgantur: Gr. ἐλεγχόμενα, 
Vulg. que arguuntur. 


V. 14. Et continges Christum. Gr. ἐπιφαύσει σοι ὃ Χριστὸς, 


Vulg. illuminabit te Christus. 
V. 28. Suum diligit corpus, Gr. ἑαυτὸν, Vulg. seipsum. 
Cap. vi. 11. Stare adversum nationes, Gr. πρὸς τὰς μεϑοδεΐας 
rod διαβόλου, Vulg. insidias diaboli. 
V. 14. Loricam fidei, Gr. τῆς δικαιοσύνης, Vulg. justitin. 
V. 22. Ut cognoscat que circa vos sunt, Gr. va γνῶτε τὰ 
περὶ ἡμῶν, Vulg. ut cognoscatis que circa nos sunt. 


Epistola ad Philippenses. 


Car. i. 2. Gratias ago Domino, Gr. Θεῷ pov, Vulg. Deo 
meo. V. 16. Simpliciter, Gr. ἁγνῶς, V. sincere. 

V..20. Secundum contemplationem meam. Gr. droxapa- 
δοκίαν, Vulg. expectationem. 

Ibid. Et in omni ex cerfa fiducia, Gr. ἀλλ᾽ ἐν πάσῃ παῤῥησία, 
Vulg. sed in omni fiducia. 

V. 26. Ut gloria vestra abundet, Vulg. gratulatio, Gr. 
καὔχημα, gloriatio. 

V. 27. Pariter cum fide evangelii certantes, Gr. συναθλοῦν- 
τες τῇ πίστει, Vulg. collaborantes fidei. 

V. 28. Vobis autem salutis. Et hoc quia a Deo donatum 
est vobis: Gr. ὑμῖν δὲ σωτηρίας καὶ τοῦτο ἀπὸ Θεοῦ. 29. Ὅτι 
ὑμῖν ἐχαρίσϑη, Vulg. vobis autem salutis, et hoc a Deo. 
29. Quia vobis donatum est. 

Cap. iii. 16. Ut in eo ambulemus. Gr. τῷ αὐτῷ στοιχεῖν 
κανόνι, Vulg. in eadem permaneamus regula. 

V. 21. Qui transfiguravit, Gr. μετασχηματίσει, Vulg. re- 
formabit. 

Cap. iv. 8. Quecunque magnifica, Gr. σεμνὰ, Vulg. pudica. 

V.11. Cognovi, Gr. ἔμαθον, Vulg. didici. V.13. In eo qui 
me confortat; sic et Vulg. Gr. ἐν Χριστῷ. 


Epistola ad Colossenses. 


Cap. i. 12. Qui vocavit vos, Gr, τῷ ἱκανώσαντι ἡμᾶς, Vulg. 
qui dignos nos fecit. 


Ve 


1199 


V. 21. Et vos inimicos consiliorum ejus, Gr. ἐχθροὺς τῇ 
διανοίᾳ ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς πονηροῖς, Vulg. inimici sensu in ope- 
ribus malis. Ibid. nunc autem reconciliatos, Gr. viv δὲ ἀπο- 
κατήλλαξεν, 

V. 25. Ad implendum verbum Dei in mysterio, Gr. πληρῶσαι 
τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ. V. 26. τὸ μυστήριον τὸ droxexp μμένον, Valg. 
verbum Dei. V. 26. Mysterium quod abscond. 

V. 27. Divitiw majestatis mysterii Dei, Gr. μυστηρίου rot- 
του, Vulg. hujus. 

Cap. il. 2. Mysterii Dei in Christo, Gr. rot Θεοῦ καὶ Πατρὸς 
καὶ τοὺ Χριστοῦ, Vulg. Dei Patris, οἱ Jesu Christi. 

V. 5. Et supplens id quod deest udilitati fidei vestre, Gr. 
καὶ τό οτερέωμα τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως ὑμῶν, Vulg. et firma- 
mentum ejus, que in Christo est, fidei vestre. 

V.8. Ambulantes in illa, Gr. περισσεύοντες, Vulg. abun- 
dantes. 

V. 15. Ostentavit in auctoritate ; Vulg. traduxit confiden- 
tur; Gr. ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παῤῥησία, aperte. 

V. 18. Nemo vos devincat, Gr. καταβραβευέτω, Vulg. sedu- 
cat—et superstitione angelorum, Gr, Spnoxeia, Vulg. reli- 
gione. Ib. Ea gue υἱοί, extollens se frystra, inflatus mente, 
Gr. ἃ μὴ idpaxev ἐμβατεύων εἰκῆ φυσιούμενος ὑτὸ τοὺ vods, Vulg. 
Que non videt ambulans, frustra inflatus sensu. Υ, 22, Et 
corruptionem per abusionem, Gr, τῇ ἀποχρήσει. Vulg. ipso usu. 

V. 23. In simulatione religionis—ad vexationem corporis 
Gr. ἐν ἐθελοθρησκείατττεκαὶ ἀῤειδίᾳ σώματος, Vulg. in supersti- 
tione—et non ad parcendum corpori. 

Cap. iii. 24. Retributionem hereditatis Domini Christi, 
cui servitis, Gr. τὸ yap Κυρίῳ Χριστῷ δουλεύετε, Domino enim 
Christo servitis, Vulg. servite. 

Cap. iv. 12. Ut sitis, Gr. στῆτε, Vulg. sitis. 


Epistola Prima ad Thessalonicenses. 


Car. i. 3. Et eapectationis spei, Gr. ὑπομονῆς, Vulg. sus- 
tinentiz. 

Cap. ii. 2. Ex cerla libertate ausi sumus, Gr. ἐπαῤῥησιασά- 
μεθα, Vulg. fiduciam habuimus. 

V. 6. Cum possemus honori esse, Gr. ἐν βάρει, Vulg. oneri 
esse. 

Cap. iii. 2. Et deprecetur pro fide vestra, Gr. παρακαλέσαι 
Spas περὶ πίστεως ὑμᾶν, consolari vos de fide vestra. 

V. 8. Si steteritis in Christo, Gr. ἐὰν ὑμεῖς στήκητε ἐν Κυρίῳ, 
V. Si statis in Domino. 

Cap. iv. 1. Sicut et ambulatis, Vulg. sic et ambuletis. 

Cap. v. 5. Filii Dei, Gr. ἡμέρας, Vulg. diei. V. 20. Pro- 
phetas, Gr. προφητείας, Vulg. prophetias. 


Epistola Secunda ad Thessalonicenses. 


Cap. ii. 1. Et nostre congregationis in idipsum, Gr. én’ 
αὐτὸν, ad ipsum, Vulg. in. 

V. 2. Ut non facile moveamini, Gr. rayéws, Vulg. cito. 

V. 13. Quia assumpsit vos Deus, Gr. Gre cidero, Vulg. 
quod elegerit. 

Cap. iii. 16. Pacem semper in omni /oco, Gr. διὰ παντὸς ἐν 
παντὶ τρόπῳ, Semper, in omni modo, Vulg. pacem sempiternam 
in omni. 

Epistola Prima ad Timotheum. 


Cae. i. 15. Humanus sermo, et sic cap. iii. 1, Gr. πιστὸς, 
Vulg. fidelis. 

Cap. iii. 3. Non aspersum, Gr. ἀφιλάργυρον, Vulg. non cu- 
pidum, sc. nummi. 

V. 14. Quod declaratum est in carne, Gr. Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη, 
Deus manifestatus est. 

Cap. iv. 10. Persecutiones patimur, Gr. ὀνειδιζόμεθα, Vulg. 


| maledicimur. 


Ib. Qui est salutaris omnium, Gr. 6 ἐστι σωτὴρ, Vulg. qui 
est salvator. 8 

Cap. vi. 4. Superbus autem, Gr. τετύφωται, Vulg. super- 
bus est. 

V. 10. Abundantur ad fruendum, in voluntate bonorum 
operum, Gr, claudit versiculum in verbis cis ἀπόλαυσιν. Va 
18. ἀγαθοεργεῖν, et sic Vulg. v. 18, Benefacere. 

V. 11. Tranquillitatem animi, Gr. πραότητα, Vulg. man- 
suetudinem. 

V. 19. Veram vitam, Gr. τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς, eternam, Vulg. 
etiam veram. ¢ 

Epistola Secunda ad Timotheum. 


Cap. i. 6. Ut recrees donum, Gr. ἀναζωπυρεῖν, Vulg. ut 
resuscites. V. 9, merita, Gr. ἔργα, Vulg. opera. 


1200 


V. 20. Per tlluminationem adventus, Gr. διὰ τῆς ἐπιφανείας, 
per apparitionem. 

Ib. Illuminavit vitam exfernitale, Gr. φωτίσαντος ζωὴν, καὶ 
ἀφθαρσίαν, qui in lucem produxit vitam et incorruptionem, 
V. 14. Custodire, Gr. φύλαξον, Vulg. custodi. 

V. 18. Det idlis invenire misericordiam, Gr. αὐτῷ, Vulg. illi. 

Cap. ii. 9. Quasi latro, Gr. ὡς κακοῦργος, Vulg. quasi male 
operans. 

V. 14. Noli verbis pugnare, Gr. μὴ λογομαχεῖν, Vulg. con- 
tendere (de) verbis. 

V. 15. Probabilem exhibere Deo; ita et Vulg. Gr. δύκιμον, 
probatum. 

V. 16. Proficiunt ad inanitatem, Gr. ἀσεβείας, Vulg. im- 
pietatem. 

V. 19. Novit Deus quz sunt ejus, Gr. τοὺς ὄντας, Vulg. qui. 


V. 25. Modestum, corrigentem, Gr. ἐν πραύτητι παιδεύοντα, | 


Vulg. cum modestia corripientem. 

Cap. iii. 9. Ignorantia enim eorum, Gr. ἄνοια, Vulg. in- 
-sipientia. 

Cap. iv. 1. Et adventwm ejus, et regnum ejus Gr. κατὰ τὴν 
ἐπιφάνειαν, in adventu. 

V. 2. In omni magnanimitate, Gr. paxpoSvpia, longani- 
‘mitate, Vulg. patientia. 

V. 5. Sobrius esto, in omnibus patiens, Gr. νῆφε ἐν πᾶσι, 
κακοπάθησον, patiens esto mali. 

V. 18. Liberavit me Dominus; sic etiam Vulg. καὶ ῥύσεται, 


» vet liberabit. 


Epistola ad Titum. 


Car. ii. 3, Anus pari modo in statu religione digno, Vulg. 
in habitu sancto, Gr. ἐν καταστήματι ἱεροπρετεῖς. 

V. 9. Servos: in omnibus optimos, Gr. εὐαρέστους, Vulg. 
placentes. 

V. 13. Adventum glorie beati Dei, Gr. τοῦ μεγάλου, Vulg. 
magni. 

V. 14. Populum abundantem, Vulg. acceptabilem, Gr. 
περιούσιον, peculiarem. 

Cap. iii. 8. Ut soliciti sint ad affectum bonorum operum, 
Gr. ἵνα φροντίζωσι καλῶν ἔργων προΐστασθαι, ut curent bonis ope- 
ribus praesse. 

V. 10. Hereticum hominem post primam correptionem 
devita, Gr. μετὰ μίαν καὶ δευτέραν, Vulg. post unam et secundam. 

V. 11. Quod perversus est hujusmodo, Gr. ὅτι ἐξέστραπται, 
Vulg. quia subversus est. 


Epistola ad Philemonem. 


Ven. 2. Et domestice ejus ecclesiw, Gr. τῇ κατ᾽ οἶκόν σου, 
Vulg. que in domo tua est. 

V. 6. Ut communicatio/ua accepta fiat, Gr. ὅπως ἡ κοινωνία 
τῆς πίστεώς σου ἑνεργὴς γένηται, Vulg. ut communicatio fidei 
‘tue evidens fiat. 


ADDITIONES. 
Epistola ad Romanos. 


Car. ii. 16. Per Jesum Christum, add. Dominum nostrum. 

iv. 5. In fine additur secundum propositum gratize Dei, 
et sic etiam Vulg. 

ν. 8. Quoniam si cum adhuc. 

vi. 18. In fine credentes autem in Christo, servi facti su- 
mus justitie. 

vii. 2. Allegata est lege, add. virt. 

ix. 7. Omnes filii Dei. 

x. 11. Dicit enim scriptura per Esaiam. 

V. 21. Ad Israel autem gurd dicit? 

xii. 6. Habentes autem donationes Det. 

xiv. 10. Tu quare spernis fratrem tuun in edendo ? 

xv. 19. Repleverim evangelium Dei, ef jilii ejus Jesu 
Christi. 

Epistola Prima ad Corinthios. 

Car. i. 19. Scriptum est enim in Esaia. 

ii. 4. Sed in ostensione Spiritus et virtutis Dez. 

vi. 2. Judicabitur Aic mundus, V. pretio magno, Ib. glo- 
ulicate ef portate, sic Vulg. V. 7. quis pascit gregem 
cvium. V. 15. Dominus Jesus ordinavit. 

vi. 21, 20, vel 21. Cum ipse non sim sub lege ; sic etiam 
Vulg. Vide que ad locum diximus. 

xi. 7. Et gloria Dei est, Dei enim gloria videtur in viro, 
VY. 27. Indigne Domino. 

xiv. 29. In fine vel interrogent. 


EXAMEN MILLIL. 


xv. 1, Qui evangelium. V. 9. Apostolorum omnium. 
xvi. 18. Et vestrum spiritum caritate, 


Epistola Secunda ad Corinthios. 


Car. vi. 5. In carceribus spe. V.6. In scientia legis et 
evangelit. 
vill. 18. Fratrem nostrum. 
videre vos. 
- xii. 15, Et superimpendam, et ipse impendar. Cap. xiii. 
4. Ex infirmitate noslra. 


Epistola ad Galatas. 


Car. ii. 2, Qui videbantur sidi aliquid esse. 
tiam Dei. V.10. Ut énopiis pauperum. 

iii. 19. Lex factorum posita est. V.29. Ergo vos omnes 
unum estis in Christo. 

iv. 3. Sub elementis hujus mundi. V. 6. Estis filiis Dei. 

ν. 14. Omnis lex in vobis. V. 13. Per caritatem Spiritus 
servite invicem; sic eliam Vulg. 


Epistola ad Ephesios. 
Cav. ii. 12. Testamentum et promissionis eorum. V. 16. 
Ut exhiberet et reconcilaret. 
iv. 7. Domini nostri Jesu Christi. 


Epistola ad Philippenses. 


Cap. ii. 8. Obediens patri. V.15. Simplices, steut filii Dei. 

iii, 12, Aut jam justificatus sum. V. 13. Non arbitror 
me adhuc comprehendisse. 

iv. 8. Si qua laus discipline ; sic etiam Vulg. 


Cap. ix. 14. Desiderantium 


Vv. 9. Gra- 


Epistola ad Colossenses. 
Car. ii. 23. Ad saturitatem et diligentiam catnis. 
Epistola ad Thessalonicenses Prima. 

Cap. iv. 1. Et placere Deo, sicut et ambulatis, Vulg. sic. 
et ambuletis. v. xvi. Semper gaudete in Domino. V. 24. 
Fidelis est Deus qui. 

Epistola ad Thessalonicenses Secunda. 

Car. i. 10. In die illa adventus Domini. Cap. ii. 15. 
Tenete traditiones nosiras. 

iii, 16. Dominus cum vobis omnibus semper. 

Epistola ad Timotheum Prima. 

Car. i. 16. Omnem magnanimitatem ; et ii. 6. Cujus 
testimonium datum est. 

Epistola ad Timotheum Secunda. 

Car. iii. 2. Sui ¢antwm amatores. Cap. vi. 5. Pietatem, 
et Dei culturam, discede ab hujusmodi. 

Epistola ad Philemonem. 


V. 1. Dilecto fratri. 


QU DESUNT. 
Epistola ad Romanos. 


Cav. i. 31. Absque fadere, Gr. ἁσπόνδους. 
Naturaliter ea que legis sunt, Gr. ra τοῦ νόμου. 

ν. 2. Habemus accessum per jidem. V. 12. Et sic in 
omnes homines mors pertransiit. 

vii. 16. Consentio legi, gue bona est. Cap. viii. Si autem 
Christus in vobis est. ὃ 

viii. 23. Adoptionem filiorum Dei. Y. 38. Neque prin- 
cipatus. ai 

xii. 14, Benedicite persequentibus vos, Cap. xiii. 6. Ne- 
cesstiate subditi estote. 

xiv. 6. Domino manducat, gratias agit enim Deo. 

xv. 2. Unusquisque vestrum. V. 9. In gentibus Domine. 
V. 12. Et rursus Isaias ait. 

V. 20. Sed sicut scriptum est. 
teriens videam vos. 

V. 27. Placuit enim eis. V. 29. In abundantia benedic- 
tionis evangelit Christi. : 

xxiii. 9. Non falsum testimonium reddes. V. 10. Pleni- 
tudo /egis est dilectio. : 

Epistola Prima ad Corinthios. 


Cav. iv. 11. Et colaphis ceedimur, et instabiles sumus. 
V. 16. Imitatores mei, sicut et ego Christi. ‘ 

vi. 3. Quanto magis secularia. V. 12. Non omnia ex- 
pediunt. 


Cap. ii. 14. 


V. 21. Spero quod pre- 


-ιουννυν δ oo τ τ ϑϑἕ 


EXAMEN MILLII. 


vii. 36. Et quod pole prebeat sine impedimento 
Dominum observandi 

viii. 4. Nihil est idolum in mundo. Y,5. Siquidem sunt 
dii multi, et domini multi. 

ix. 5. Mulieris sororis cireumducend. 

x. 24. Nemo quod suum est querat, sed quod alterius. 

V. 27. Nihil interrogantes propler conscientiam. YV. 28. 
Propter illum qui indicavit, et— 

xi. 3. Volo autem vos scire. 
manducate. 

V. 26. Quoties enim manducatis panem hunc et calicem 
bibitis. 

xii. 3. In Spiritu Dei Joguens. V.21. Unumquodque eorum. 

xiii. 3. Caritatem autem non habuero. Υ. 18. Nune 
autem manent. 

xiv. 5. D. in fine, ut ecclesia xdificalionem acciprat. V.10. 
Tam muita, ut puta sunt. 

xiv. 17. Tu quidem dene gratias agis. V. 23. Idiote, aut 
infideles. V.25. Et ita occulta. 

V. 31. Potestis enim omnes. V.37. Quod Domini sunt 
mandala. 

xv. 3. Quod et accepi. 
mortui non resurgunt. 

V. 17. Vana est fides vestra. V.18. Ergo et qui. 

V. 27. Sine dubio preter eum, sic Vulg. Gr. ὀῆλον ὅτι, 
manifestum est quod. 

V. 31. In Christo Jesu Domino nostro. 
quidem caro. 

V. 44, Est corpus animale, est et spirituale. V.51. Ecce 
mysterium vobis dico. 

V. 52. Canet enim tuba. V. 58. Fratres mei dilecti. 

xvi. 6, Apud vos autem forsitan manebo, aut etiam hy- 
emabo. V.11. Ne quis ergo. 


V. 24. Et dixit, accipile et 


V. 15. Quem non suscitavit, si 


V. 39. Sed alia 


Epistola Secunda ad Corinthios. 


Car. i. 2. Et Domino nostro Jesu Christo. 

pter Domini Nostri Jesu Christi. 

V. 4. In omni pressura. V. 5. Nos eripuit, ef eruit— 
quoniam et adhue eripiet. 

V. 12. Et sinceritate Dei. V.18. Sermo noster qui fuit 
apud vos. YV.23. Non adhue veni. 

ii. 3. Ne tristitiam super tristitiam habeam—confidens in 
omnibus vobis. 

V. 9. Ut cognoscam experimentum vestrum. 

iv. 3. In his qui pereunt opertum est. 

viii. 1. Ab omni inquinamento carnis εἰ spiritus. V. 14. 
Et si quid apud illum gloriatus sum. 

ix. 13, Communicationis in illos, ef iz omnes. Cap. x. 18. 
Ile probatus est, Gr. ἐκεῖνος. 

xii. 9. Virtus mea in infirmitate perficitur. V. 10. In 
contumeliis, in necessitatibus, in persecutionibus in angus- 
tits pro Christo. 

V. 19. Coram Deo in Christo loquimur. 


Epistola ad Galatas. 


Car. i. 6. Quod non est aliud. V. 22. Ecclesiis Judee 
que erant in Christo. 

ii. 3. Cum esset gentilis. V.4. Quibus neque ad horam. 
V. 14. Et non Judaice. 

iii. 1. Quis vos fascinavit mon obedire veritati2? V. 16. 
Abrahe autem, Gr. τῷ δὲ ᾿Αβρᾷ. 

V. 18. Abrahe autem per promissionem. 

V. 19. Propter transgressiones posita est. 

V. 21. Adversus promissa Dei. 

iv. 8. Qui natura non sunt αἰ, V. 21. Istud enim 
Agar Sinai mons est. 

v. 11. Quid adhuc persecutionem patior. 

vi. 15. In Christo enim Jesu neque circumcisio. 


V.3. Et 


Epistola ad Ephesios. 


Car. i. 3. Ὁ. in fine, in celestibus in Christo. V.10. Et 
que in terra sunt, ἃ. in ipso. V.13. In quo et credentes. 
V. 22. Et ipsum dedit caput. Ὁ 

ii. 3. In quibus et nos omnes. V.5. Et cum essemus 
mortui peccatis. 

iii. 2. Audistis dispensationem gratie Dei. 
potestis apuies intelligere. 

V. 5. Revelatum est sanctis apostolis ejus, 

V. 8. Investigabiles divitias Christi. 

Vor. IV.—151 


V. 4. Prout 


1201 


V.9. Illuminare omnes. Tb. Qui omnia creavit per 
Jesum Christum, Gr. διὰ "Inood Χριστοῦ. V. 1]. ἀμ ΕΣ ΠΣ, 

propositum quod fecit. V. 12. Fiduciam et accessum. 

V. 13. Pro vobis. 

iv. 19. Descendit primum. V. 16. Secundum opera- 
tionem in mensuram uniuscujusque membri. 

v. 13. A lumine manifestantur. V. 14. Propter quod 
dicit. V.19. Canticis spiritualibus. V.20. Domini nostré 
Jesu. V.24. Sed sicut ecclesia. V. 28. Uxores suas ut 
corpora sua. . 

vi. 1. Obedite parentibus in Domino. V.6. Quasi homi- 
nibus placentes, sed ut servi Christi. V.10. De cxtero 
fratres mei. V.13. Resistere in die malo. V. 14, Stale 
ergo succineti. V. 19. Notum facere mysterium evangelii. 


Epistola ad Philippenses. 


Cap. i. 6. Qui ccepit in vobis bonum opus. 
ii. 25, Fratrem et cooperatorem et commilitonem. 
iii. 14. Vocationes Dei in Christo Jesu. 
iv. 7. Custodiat corda vestra, et intelligentias vestras. 
V. 8. Quecunque justa, quecunque sancta. 
V. 14. Veruntamen benefecistis communicantes tribula- 
tioni mex. 
Epistola ad Colossenses. 


Car. i. 3. A Deo patre nostro et Domino Jesu Christo. 
V. 12. Gratias agentes Deo patri. 

V. 14, Inquo habemus redemptionem per sanguinem ejus. 
iii. 6. Ira Dei super filios incredulitatis. 

iv. 2. Vigilantes in ea in gratiarum actione. 


Epistola Prima ad Thessalonicenses. 


Car. i, 2. Et pax a Deo patre nostro et Domino Jesu 
Christo ; deest etiam in Vulg. 

ii. 9. Predicavimus in vobis evangelium. 

V. 12. Et testificantes ut ambularetis. 

iii. 2. Fratrem nostrum et ministrum Dei. 

Cap. iv. 15. Qui relinquimur. V.27. Omnibus sanctis. 


Epistola Prima ad Timotheum. 


Car. i. 16. Ut in me primo ostenderet. 

V. 17. Soli sapienti Deo; deest etiam in Vulg. 

ii. 7. Veritatem dico in Christo ; d. et in Vulg. 

iii. 5. Quomodo ecclesie Dei. V. 5. Instet obsecrationi- 
bus et orationibus. V. 19. Nisi sub duobus aut tribus testibus. 

vi. 3. Aliter docet et non acquiescit. V.8, Alimenta e¢ 
quibus tegamur. 


Epistola Secunda ad Timotheum. 


Car. ii. 11. Fidelis sermo. 

iii. 15. Instruere ad salutem, per fidem que est in Jesu 
Christo. 

iv. 2. Argue, increpa, obsecra. 
vobiscum. 


V. 22. In fine, Gratia 


Epistola ad Titum. 


Cap. ii. 5. Domus curam habentes, bonas ; deest etiam in 
Vulg. 


Epistola ad Philemonem. 


V. 4. Gratias ago Deo meo. V.26. Ut communicatio 
Jidei tux evidens fiat. 


Videbit sedulus lector nos in collectanes hisce multa, mmo- 
ris momenti, pretermisisse, ex iis autem que hic congessi- 
mus, constat, 

Vulgatam versionem Italicam ante Hieronymi castiga- 
tionem, lectionibus a textu originali multum variantibus, 
additamentis, et defectibus pene innumeris abundasse, adeo- 
que verissimam fuisse Hieronymi de versionis hujus corrup- 
telis ad Damasum Papam sub quo hee scripsit Hilarius, 
querelam. 

2. Codices Cant. Ger. Clar. eodem fere tempore conscnp- 
tos iisdem vitiis et corruptelis obnoxios fuisse, nec enim 
existimandum est Latinos eorum codices versionem hance 
Italicam fidelius exhibuisse, quam hunc Romane ecclesiz 
diaconum. 

3. Hine sequitur Millii conatus de versione Italica ad 
textum originalem Grecum ex hisce potissimum scriptis 
reducenda, frustraneos plane fuisse, 

5A 


1202 


Α 


CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX 


The year | Luke ii. 6. 


before 
Christ. 


The year 
after 
Christ. 


8. 
14. 
26. 
27. 


30. 


31. 


92. 


21. 
Matt. ii. 1. 12. 
14, 
16 
20. 


Jos. Ant. |. xvii. c. 10. 


Matt. 11. 21. 23. 


Luke ii. 46. 


Jos. Antiq. lib. xviii. 


cap. 3. 
Matt. iii. 1. 
Mark i. 2. 
Luke iii. 3. 
John i. 7. 
Isaiah xli. 1. 
Matt. iii. 13. 
Mark i. 13. 
Luke iii. 32. 


John i. 34, 


Matt. iv. 1. Mark i. 12, 


Luke iv. 1. 
14. 
John i. 35, 47. 


ii. 1. 


13. 


Matt. xiv. 3. 

Mark vi. 17. 

Luke iii. 19. 

John iv. 7. 42. 
Luke iv. 43. v. 27. 


John νυ. 1. 


Luke vi. 13. 
Matt. v. vi. vii. 
Luke vi. 10. 


ix. 1. Mark vi. 7. 


Matt. x. 1. xix. 6. 


TO THE 


NEW TESTAMENT. 


Cunist our Lord and Saviour, in the fulness of time, is born of the blessed Virgin 
Mary at Bethlehem, and laid in a manger. 

On the eighth day after his nativity he is circumcised, and named Jesus. 

The men of the east bring presents to the new-born King of the Jews. 

Joseph flies into Egypt with the child Jesus, and Mary his mother. 

Herod commands the infants in and about Bethlehem to be slain. 

Herod dieth, and his son Archelaus is by Cesar made tetrarch of Judea; other 
dominions which belonged to Herod are divided among his sons. 

Christ, by God’s appointment, is brought back out of Egypt into Nazareth. 


The first year of the vulgar Christian era begins here. 


By occasion of the passover, our Lord goes up with his parents to Jerusalem, and 
there disputes with the doctors in the temple. 

Augustus dies, and Tiberius succeedeth him. 

Josephus, called Caiaphas, is made high-priest of the Jews, by the favour of Valerius 
Gratus, the Roman governor. 

Towards the end of this year, Pontius Pilate is sent to be procurator of Judea, in 
the place of Valerius Gratus. 

John the Baptist begins to preach and baptize in the deserts of Judea, thereby pre- 
paring the way of the Lord, and doing his endeavour that Christ’s coming after him 
may be made known unto Israel. Unto John God gives a sign whereby he may 
know the Lord is Christ, that upon whom he shall see the Spirit descending, and 
remaining on him, the same is he that shall baptize with the Ho!y Ghost. 

Jesus, entering upon the thirtieth year of his age, comes from Galilee to Jordan, 
and is baptized of John: at which time a most illustrious manifestation is made of the 
blessed Trinity ; for the Son of God ascending out of the water, and praying, the 
heavens are opened, and the Spirit of God, in the shape of a dove, descends upon 
him, and the voice of the Father is heard from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” 

John sees it, and bears record that this is the Son of God. 

Jesus, full of the Holy Ghost, returns from Jordan, and is led of the Spirit into the 
wilderness, where he fasted forty days and forty nights, and is tempted by the devil. 

After this our Lord returns into Galilee. 

John gives testimony to our Saviour, passing by him; Andrew, Peter, Philip, and 
Nathanael, acknowledge him to be the Messias, and become his disciples. 

Christ, at a marriage in Cana of Galilee, turneth water into wine: this was his first 
miracle. 


The first passover of Christ's public ministry, from which the first year of the seven- 
tieth and last of Daniel’s weeks begins: in which “the covenant is confirmed with 
many,” Dan. ix. 27, compared with Matt. xxvi. 28. 


Jesus cometh to Jerusalem at the time of the passover, and entering into the temple, 
scourgeth out those that sold and bought there: the Jews require a sign of his autho- 
rity ; Christ bids them destroy the temple (understanding the temple of his body), and 
in three days he will raise it up. 

Herod the tetrarch casteth John the Baptist into prison, for reprehending the incest 
with his brother Philip’s wife, and other evils done by him. 

Christ discovers himself to the woman of Samaria. 

He goes throughout all Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, and working miracles. 

Matthew called to be a disciple. 


The second passover of Christ’s ministry, John v. 1, compared with iv. 3. 5, from 
which the second year of the seventieth week of Daniel begins. 


Jesus comes up to Jerusalem at the time of the feast, and heals on the sabbath-day 
a man that had an infirmity thirty-eight years, lying at the pool of Bethesda. He 
makes a most divine apology to the Jews that sought to kill him, because he said that 
God was his Father. 

Christ, out of the multitude of his disciples, chooseth twelve, whom he calleth 
apostles; namely, Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, 
Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, Simon called Zelotes, Judas the brother of 
James, and Judas Iscariot. To these our Saviour chiefly directs his discourse in that 
glorious, full, and admirable sermon on the mount. 

Jesus sends his twelve apostles, by two and two, to preach, and heal the sick. 

John the Baptist is beheaded in prison by Herod’s command. 


The year { Mark vi. Luke ix. 12. 


after 
Christ. 


32. 


33. 


34. 


John vi. 1. 15. 


Matt. xvii. 1. 


Mark ix. Luke ix. 28. 


Matt. xvii. 24, 
Luke ix. 51. 


47. 
Luke xix. 1. 
Mark x. 46. 
John xii. 3. 


Matt. xxi. 

Mark xi. 

Luke xix. 

John xii. Isa, ii. 
Zech. ix. 9. 
Matt. xxi. 17. 


Matt. xxvi. 
Mark xiv. 
Luke xxii. 
John xii. 
xviii. 


Matt. xxvii. Mark xv. 
Luke xxiii. John xix. 


Pes xxin 

Matt. xxviii. 

Mark xvi. 

Luke xxiv. John xx. 
Acts i. 


Matt. xxviii. 


Acts ii. 


Acts viii. 


CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX. 1203 


Jesus feeds five thousand men besides women and children, with five barley loaves, 
and two little fishes. He refuses to be made a king. 


The third passover of Christ's ministry, John vi. 4, from which the third year of the 
seventieth week of Daniel begins. 


Jesus is transfigured on the mount ; Moses and Elias are seen to talk with him, and 
a voice from heaven is heard a second time, saying, “This is my beloved Son, hear 
him.” Christ payeth tribute to Cesar. 

A certain village of the Samaritans refuseth our Saviour entertainment in his way 
to Jerusalem: the disciples desiring to call for fire from heaven to consume them, are 
severely reprehended. 

The seventy disciples are sent out, by two and two, to work miracles, and to preach. 

Christ teacheth his disciples to pray. 

Christ raiseth Lazarus, that had been buried four days 

Caiaphas, high-priest of the Jews, prophesieth concerning the death of Christ. 

Zaccheus, a publican, converted. 

Christ restores to blind Bartimeus his sight. 

Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anoints our Saviour’s feet with costly spikenard, and 
wipeth them with the hair of her head. 

Christ rideth in triumph to Jerusalem: the multitude spread their garments in the 
way, and cry, “ Hosanna to the Son of David.” 

Coming near the city, he weeps over it, and foretells its destruction: he enters the 
temple, and casteth out those that bought and sold there, and heals the blind and lame. 

He curseth the fruitless fig-tree, and the next morning it is found dried up and 
withered: thence he taketh occasion to show the power of faith. 


The fourth passover, in which Christ our passover was sacrificed, 1 Cor. v. 7, and so 
an end put to legal sacrifices prefiguring this great expiation: the fourth or middle 
year of Daniel’s week begins, Dan. ix. 27. 


On the first day of unleavened bread, when the passover of the Jews was to be 
slain (April 2), in the evening, Jesus eateth the passover with his disciples, and insti- 
tutes the sacrament of his body and blood in bread and wine. 

Christ washeth his disciples’ feet, and exhorteth them to humility and charity. 

In the selfsame night Christ is betrayed by Judas, mocked, buffeted, and spit upon 
by the soldiers. 

Next day he is condemned by Pilate, and crucified: the sun, during the crucifixion, 
is darkened, and the veil of the temple rent in the midst. Christ, praying for his ene- 
mies, gives up the ghost. Joseph of Arimathea begs the body, and lays it in a new 
sepulchre. 

On the third day, the next after the Jewish sabbath (April 5), Christ riseth from 
the dead: his resurrection is declared by angels to the women that came to the sepul- 
chre. Christ first appeareth to Mary Magdalene, and afterward to his disciples, and 
dineth with them. 

Christ bringeth his apostles to mount Olivet, commanding them to expect in Jeru- 
salem the sending down of the Holy Ghost. 

Sends them to teach and baptize all nations, and blesses them; and while they 
behold, he is taken up, and a cloud receives him out of their sight. After his ascen- 
sion, the disciples are warned by two angels to depart, and to set their minds upon his 
second coming: they accordingly return, and, giving themselves to prayer, choose 
Matthias to be an apostle in the place of Judas. 

On the day of Pentecost (May 4), the Holy Ghost descendeth on the apostles, in 
the form of cloven tongues, like as of fire, and enableth them to speak all languages. 
Peter, the same day, preacheth Christ and the resurrection, and about three thousand 
believers are added to the church. 

Peter, by faith in Christ’s name, healeth a lame man. 

The rulers of the Jews, offended at Peter’s sermon, and his miraculous cure of the 
lame man, cast both him and John into prison: upon their examination, they boldly 
avouch the lame man to be healed by the name of Jesus, and that by the same Jesus 
we must be eternally saved. After this, the Jews forbid them to speak any more in 
that name: but the apostles answer, that it is fit they should obey God, rather than 
men. ‘hey are threatened, and let go. 

Ananias and Sapphira, for their hypocrisy, are suddenly struck dead. 

The apostles are again cast into prison by the high-priest; but an angel sets them 
at liberty, and bids them preach the gospel to the people without fear: being taken 
again teaching in the temple, they are brought before the council, where, by the advice 
of Gamaliel, a pharisee and doctor of the law, they are delivered. 

The number of believers increasing at Jerusalem, the apostles ordain seven deacons, 
who should distribute the alms of the whole church to the widows and poorer sort of 
believers. 

Stephen, one of these deacons, having confounded some that disputed with him, is 
by them falsely accused of blasphemy, and brought before the council, where he repre- 
hends their rebellion, and murdering of Christ: whereupon they cast him out of the 
city, and stone him; he, in the meantime, praying for them. 

A great persecution of the church at Jerusalem follows after the death of the first 
martyr Stephen. 

Philip, one of the seven deacons, preacheth at Samaria, and converteth many ; 
working miracles, and healing the sick. 

Simon the sorcerer, seeing the wonders that are done by Philip, believeth, and is 
baptized. 


1204 


". 
The year 


after 


Christ. 


94, 


35. 


38. 


38. 


41. 


44, 


46. 


σι 
cs) 


53. 


15. 


26. 
ix. 1. 


23. 
2 Cor. xi. 32. 


Gal. i. 28. 


Acts xxii. 17, 


Acts ix. 30. 
Gal. i. 21. 
Acts ix. 32, 36. 


xX. 


xi. 


xii. 


xiv. 


2 Cor. xi. 5. 
2 Cor. xii. 


2 Tim. i. 2. 5. 


Acts xv. 


36. 


CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX. 


The apostles at Jerusalem, hearing that Samaria had received the faith, send thither 
Peter and John to confirm and enlarge the church. ‘The apostles, by prayer and im- 
position of hands, confer the Holy Ghost on all believers. Simon Magus offers them 
money, that he may receive power of conferring the same; whose impiety is sharply 
reproved by Peter. 

Having completed their ministry in those parts, they return to Jerusalem. 

An angel sendeth Philip to teach and baptize the Ethiopian eunuch. 

Saul, a violent persecutor of all that call on the name of Jesus, and one who con- 
sented to the death of Stephen, goes now towards Damascus, with commission from 
the high-priest and the council, to apprehend all Christians in those parts, and to 
bring them bound to Jerusalem; on the way he is miraculously converted, by a voice 
from heaven; and three days after, baptized by Ananias at Damascus, where he 
preacheth the gospel of Christ with great boldness, to the astonishment of those that 
knew upon what design he was sent thither. - 

Saul, having preached the gospel at Damascus a long time, the Jews lay wait to kill 
him; but he escapeth from thence, and comes to Jerusalem; there he sees Peter, and 
James the brother of our Lord, and abides with them fifteen days: here he speaks 
boldly in the name of Jesus, and disputes with the Grecians, or rather Jews that used 
the Greek tongue. These also consult how they may kill him. 

While Saul prays in the temple he is in a trance, and the Lord appears unto him, 
and bids him depart from Jerusalem, because they will not receive his testimony ; add- 
ing, that he will send him to the gentiles. 

Saul, leaving Jerusalem, goes to his own country Tarsus, and from thence travels 
into Syria and Cilicia. 

Peter visits the churches of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, &c. At Lydda he cureth 
/Eneas of the palsy, and at Joppa restoreth Tabitha to life. 

At Cesarea, Cornelius, a centurion, by prayer and alms finds favour in the sight 
of God, and is commanded by an angel to send for Peter now at Joppa. God, by a 
vision, teacheth Peter not to despise the gentiles; and being sent for by Cornelius, he 
goes and preacheth Christ to him, and a great company that were met at his house: 
while Peter preacheth, the Holy Ghost falls upon them all, and immediately the apos- 
tle baptizeth them. 

Peter, at his return to Jerusalem, is accused by those of the circumcision for convers- 
ing with the gentiles ; but he declares to them his vision, and the whole matter concern- 
ing Cornelius; and they glorify God, for granting to the gentiles also repentance unto life. 

The believers, who, ever since the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution there- 
upon ensuing, had been dispersed throughout all Phcenice and Cyprus, come now to 
Antioch, and preach the gospel to the Greeks there, having before preached to none 
but the Jews. The church at Jerusalem understanding this, and that the number of 
believers increased exceedingly, sends Barnabas thither to confirm them: he goes to 
Tarsus, and takes Saul along with him to Antioch, where they continue a whole year, 
converting multitudes to the faith. Here the disciples were first called Christians. 

About this time, James the brother of John is beheaded, by the command of Herod 
Agrippa: he also imprisoneth Peter, whom an angel delivers, upon the prayers of the 
church. This same Herod not long after speaking to the people at Cesarea, some of 
them cry out, “It is the voice of God, and not of man;” and immediately an angel 
of the Lord smites him, because he gave not the glory to God, and he is eaten of 
worms and dieth. 

Barnabas and Saul set forward in their preaching of the gospel: they plant the 
Christian faith in Seleucia, Cyprus, and other places. At Paphos they preach the 
gospel to Sergius Paulus, governor of that country; Elymas the sorcerer withstand- 
ing them, and endeavouring to turn away Sergius from the faith, is, at Saul’s rebuke, 
struck blind. From this time Saul is always called by his new name, Paul: he 
preacheth at Antioch; the gentiles believe, but the Jews gainsay and blaspheme; 
whereupon he and his assistants turn to the gentiles, and come to Iconium. 

At Iconium they are persecuted, and ready to be stoned: from hence they fly to 
Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia. At Lystra, Paul healing a cripple, the multitude 
cry out, that the gods are come down; and call Barnabas, Jupiter, and Paul, Mercu- 
rius: and would have sacrificed to them, had not the apostles, with clothes rent, run 
in amongst them, and assured them, that they were men like themselves. Soon after 
there came Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who excite the people against them. Paul 
is by the furious multitude stoned, and drawn out of the city as dead; but whilst the 
disciples stand about him, he riseth up, and the next day departs with Barnabas to Derbe. 

In this year, perhaps at this very time, Paul was caught up into the third heaven, 
and heard unspeakable words, fourteen years before he wrote his second epistle to the 
Corinthians. 

About this time Timothy, though a child, with his mother Eunice, and his grand- 
mother Lois, embrace the Christian faith preached by Paul. 

Certain Judaizing Christians come from Judea to Antioch, and teach, that the gen- 
tiles ought to be circumcised, and observe the law of Moses: these Paul and Barna- 
bas oppose; and a council is held by the apostles and others at Jerusalem to deter- 
mine this controversy. The decrees of the synod are sent to the churches. 

Paul and Barnabas, thinking to visit the churches together, fall at strife, and part 
asunder: Barnabas and Mark go into Cyprus; Paul and Silas into Syria and Cilicia. 

Paul coming to Derbe, finds there Timothy, whom (because his mother was a believing 
Jew, though his father a gentile,) he caused to be circumcised, and takes along with him. 

He is, by a vision, admonished to go into Macedonia: coming to Philippi, the chief 
city of that part of Macedonia, he converts Lydia ; casteth out of a certain maid-servant 
a spirit of divination, whose master, losing a considerable gain thereby, brings Paul and 
Silas before the magistrates: these cause them to be whipped, and imprisoned ; but at 


The year 
after 
Christ. 


54, 


55. 


56. 


57. 
58. 
59. 


60. 


61. 


63. 


65. 


66. 


67, 


Acts xvii. 


xviii. 


18. 


xix. 


1 Cor. i. 11. 
xvi. 8. 
Acts xx. 
2 Cor. viii. 1, 2. 6.19. 
1 Cor. xvi. 5. 


Acts xx. 3, 4. 


Xxi. 


XXii. xxiii. 


XXiv. 


Χχν. 


XXVi. 


XXviii. 


Heb. xiii. 24. 


Tit. i. 5. 


Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. 
ii. cap. 24. 
Luke xix. 43, 44. 


CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX. 1205 


midnight, Paul and Silas singing psalms, the doors of the prison fly open, and their 
bonds are loosed : the jailor, ready to kill himself, is converted to the faith and baptized 
the same night, with his whole family. Next day the magistrates come themselves, 
and pray them to depart the city. 

From Philippi, Paul takes his journey through Amphipolis and Apollonia, and 
comes to Thessalonica, where he finds a synagogue of the Jews; there he preacheth 
three sabbath-days; some believe, others persecute him: leaving Thessalonica, he 
comes to Berea, and soon after arrives at Athens, disputes with the philosophers, and 
declares unto them, that “unknown God” whom they had ignorantly worshipped. 
He converts Dionysius the Areopagite, and thence passeth to Corinth. 

Paul at Corinth meets with Aquila and Priscilla, not long before banished from 
Rome by the decree of Claudius. Here he continues a year and six months, and 
thence writes to the Thessalonians. 

Paul is accused by the Jews, and brought before Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, who 
refuseth to be a judge in a controversy about religion, and so drives them away from 
the judgment-seat. 

Paul departs from Corinth, and passeth to Ephesus ; thence he sets out towards Jeru- 
salem, that he may be at the feast ; he lands at Cxsarea, goes down to Antioch, and comes 
into the regions of Galatia and Phrygia, confirming the disciples in all those places. 

Paul returns to Ephesus, disputes daily in the school of ‘Tyrannus, and continues 
preaching there, and in the parts thereabouts. He writes his Epistle to the Galatians. 

At Ephesus, Demetrius, a silversmith, jealous of his gain, raiseth a tumult against 
Paul, which is appeased by the town-clerk. 

About this time a schism ariseth in the church ‘of Corinth, which causeth Paul 
(now in or about Ephesus) to write his First Epistle to the Corinthians. 

Paul departs from Ephesus, and comes into Macedonia, and gathers a contribution 
for the relief of the saints at Jerusalem. 

The apostle, having learned from Titus the success of his First, writes now his 
Second Epistle to the Corinthians: out of Macedonia he goes into Greece, and comes 
to Corinth, where he writes his Epistle to the Romans. 

Paul purposing to go directly from thence into Syria, that he may carry the collec- 
tions to Jerusalem, the Jews lay wait for him: he, understanding this, thinks it best 
to return into Macedonia the same way he came, and thence to pass into Asia. 

After the days of unleavened bread, Paul sails from Philippi, and comes to Troas; 
there he restores Eutychus to life. Having passed through several cities of Greece, 
he arrives at Miletus; from thence he sends to call the elders of the church of Ephe- 
sus, whom he earnestly exhorts to the performance of their duty. 

Paul comes to Jerusalem, is apprehended in the temple, and secured in the castle; 
he claimeth the privilege of a Roman, and escapeth scourging. 

Paul pleads his cause before Ananias the high-priest. The chief captain, under- 
standing that above forty Jews had bound themselves under a curse neither to eat nor 
drink till they had killed him, sends him to Felix the governor of the province, by 
whom he is imprisoned at Cwsarea. 

Paul is accused before Felix, by Tertullus the orator. Felix goes out of his office, 
and, to gratify the Jews, leaves Paul in prison. Portius Festus succeeds him in the 
government. 

The Jews come to Cesarea, and accuse Paul before Festus. He answers for him- 
self, and appeals to Cesar. King Agrippa comes to Cesarea, and Festus opens the 
matter to him. 

Paul makes his defence in the presence of Agrippa, who thereby is almost per- 
suaded to be a Christian; and the whole company pronounce him innocent. 

Paul comes to Rome, is a prisoner at large, and preacheth there two years. 


Here ends the history of the Acts of the Apostles, written by St. Luke, St. Paul’s 
beloved companion in his travels. 


Sr. Paul, from Rome, writes his Epistles, 
To the Philippians ; 
To Philemon; 
To the Colossians; 
To the Ephesians. 

About the latter end of this year, St. Paul is set at liberty; and a little before his 
departure out of Italy into Asia he writes his Epistle to the Hebrews. 

He preacheth the gospel in the isle of Crete, and leaves Titus there, to set things 
in order, and ordain elders in every city. 

St. Paul writes his Epistle, 

To Timothy I.; 
To Titus; 
To Timothy II. 

About this time, the Epistles of St. Peter, St. John, and St. Jude, seem to be written 

St. Peter and St. Paul are said to have suffered martyrdom at Rome, towards the 
latter end of Nero’s reign. 

This year, Jerusalem (according to Christ’s prophecy) is besieged, taken, sacked, 
and burnt by Titus, eleven hundred thousand of Jews perish, ninety-seven thousand 
are taken prisoners, besides an innumerable company that in other places of Judea 
killed themselves, or perished through famine, banishment, and other miseries. 

St. John is banished into the isle of Patmos, by Domitian, and there receives and 
writes his Revelation. 

After the death of Domitian, St. John returns to Ephesus, and at the request of the 
church writes his Gospel. 

542 


1206 


AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE 


OF 


ALL THE PLACES 


MENTIONED IN THE GOSPELS, ACTS, OR THE EPISTLES, 


Asitentz is one of the four tetrarchies, mentioned Luke 
iii. 1. It fell, say St. Luke and Josepbus,* to the share of 
Lysanias : it was so named from the city Abila in Celosyria, 
mentioned by Pliny,t and from the tetrarch of it bore his 
name; for, saith Ptolemy, ἼΑβιλα ἐπικληθεῖσα Λυσανίου, 
« Abila bears the name of Lysanias.” 

Acuata, in the largest sense, comprehends Greece pro- 
perly so called, and so is bounded on the west by Epirus, on 
the east by the Augean Sea, on the north by Macedonia, on 
the south by Peloponnesus; and so it seems to signify, when 
St. Paul, according to the Roman acceptation, mentions « all 
the regions of Achaia,” and directs his Second Epistle “to 
all the saints in Achaia,” 2 Cor. xi. 10. Thus what is 
« Achaia,” Acts xix. 21, is “ Hellas,” 1. 6. Greece, Acts xx. 
2, and so Mela speaks of it. Secondly, Achaia, strictly so 
called, is the northern region of Peloponnesus, bounded on 
the north by the gulf of Corinth, on the south with Arcadia, 
on the east with Sicyonia, on the west with the Ionian 
sea. 

AcELDAMA was a place without the south wall of Jerusa- 
lem, beyond the river of Siloam, and was called “the pot- 
ter’s field,” Matt. xxvii. 7. 10, because they dug thence the 
earth of which they made their pots ; and “ the fuller’s field,” 
because they dried their cloth there; but being afterward 
bought, by that money by which the high-priest and rulers 
of the Jews purchased the blood of the holy Jesus, it was, 
by the providence of God so ordering it, called Aceldama, 
that is, “the field of blood,” Acts i. 19, Matt. xxvii. 7, 8. 

AvramyTTium (mentioned Acts xxvii. 2, where it is said, 
that St. Paul entered into a ship of Adramyttium) is, by St. 
Jerome} and others, said to be a city of Egypt, built by 
Alexander as a monument of his triumphs, at the Can- 
opic mouth of the river Nile, from which it received its 
water, and is by Livy, the old Etymologus, and Phavorinus, 
made to be§ the same with Thebes ; but it was rather Adra- 
myttium in Mysia, mentioned by Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 417, 
by Pliny, lib. v. cap. 30, p. 298, and by Mela, lib. i. cap. 18. 
lib. xvii. For in this ship, St. Paul and his company sailed 
from Cmsarea to Myra in Lycia, the direct way to Adra- 
myttium in Mysia, ver. 5, whither she being bound, and not 
to Italy, they there quit her, and “ finding a ship of Alexan- 
dria sailing to Italy,’ went aboard her, ver. 6. 

Ἄνπια is mentioned Acts, xxvii. 27, where St. Paul saith, 
that they were tossed in Adria : he saith, not in the Adriatic 
gulf, which ends with the Illyrican sea, but in the Adriatic 
sea, which, saith Hesychius, is the same with the Ionian 
sea. And therefore to the question, How St. Paul's ship, 
which was near Malta, and so either in the Libyan or Sici- 
lian sea, could be in the Adriatic? it is well answered, That 
not only the Ionian, but even the Sicilian sea, and part of 
that which washeth upon Crete, was called the Adriatic. 
Thus Ptolemy saith, that Sicily was bounded on the east,|| 
ὑπὸ τοῦ ’Adpiov, “ by the Adriatic ;” and that Crete was com- 
passed on the west,J ὑπὸ rod ᾿Αδριατικοῦ πελάγους, “by the 
Adriatic sea;” and Strabo saith,** that the Ionian gulf, 
μέρος ἐστὶ τοῦ νῦν ’Adpiov λεγομένου, “is a part of that which in 
his time was called the Adriatic sea.” 


Hixon, or Enon, signifies the place of springs, which made 
it a convenient place for St. John’s baptism, John 111. 23 ; it 
is uncertain where it was, whether in Galilee, or Judea, or 
Samaria, where Lubin places it, viz. in the half tribe of 
Manasseh, within Jordan. 

ALEXANDRIA, that noble mart, whence merchandises were 
carried through all the world, was, after the destruction of 
Carthage, the chief city in the world, next to Rome, and 
was therefore called emphatically,* πολίς, as that was called 
urbs ; and Athens, ἄστυ. The Ptolemies of Egypt, choosing 
it as their seat, beautified it to that degree, that it gave place 
to Rome only ; and the Romans, when they had taken it, 
were careful to preserve its splendour, divers emperors add- 
ing new ornaments to it, and confirming its privileges. It 
was a large city, saith Josephus,j in length thirty furlongs, 
in breadth ten, which provided Rome with four months’ 
corn; and paid as much tribute to it in a month, as Jerusa- 
lem did in a year. Here was a celebrated academy, which 
bred famous physicians and philosophers, as Philo the Jew, 
and historians; and a great library, collected by Ptolemy 
Philadelphus, containing five hundred thousand volumes, 
and consumed in the wars betwixt Cesar and Pompey : near 
to it is the island of Pharos, where some deceitful Jews 
showed Justin Martyr the remains of the cells, where the 
the Seventy-two interpreters translated the Hebrew Bible 
into Greek, apart, and yet in the same words; of which see 
the preface to St. Matthew. Here dwelt the Jews in vast 
numbers ; Alexander, for the service they did him in his 
wars, permitting them to dwell there, and giving them equal 
privileges with the gentiles ; here they had many synagogues, 
a famous cathedral of seventy stalls, and afterward a temple 
built by Onias ; but they found the Alexandrians their con- 
stant enemies, they cruelly murdering many thousand of 
them in the time of Caius, of which Philo gives a large ac- 
count in his embassy to him; and fifty thousand of them 
in the time of Nero, saith Josephus de Bell. Jud. lib. ii. 
cap. 36. 

#rutorta is only mentioned in the history of the bap- 
tism of the eunuch, Acts viii. 27, where I have shown, the 
evangelist speaks not of Althiopia in Arabia, where the 
queen of Sheba dwelt, but of Aithiopia in Africa, under 
Egypt, where Candace had been long the name of their 
queen; whence Strabo} makes mention of a Candace, ἡ καθ᾽ 
ἡμᾶς Apte τῶν Αἰϑιόπων, “who in his time was queen of 
Ethiopia,” and Dio§ of the same Candace living in Authio- 
pia under Egypt. See the note on Acts viii. 27. 

Ameurprotts, mentioned Acts xvii. 1, is a city of Macedo- 
nia, in the confines of Thrace, so called, saith Thucydides, 
because the river compasseth it about. Suidas, who places 
it, as others do, in Thracia, says it was also formerly called 
“the nine ways.” See Mr. Well’s Geogr. p. 134, and Ste- 
phanus de Urbibus. 

Antrocura, the metropolis of Syria, was built, say some, 
by Antiochus Epiphanes; say others, by Seleucus Nicanor, 
the first king of Syria after Alexander M., in memory of his 
father Antiochus, and was{ the royal seat of the kings of 
Syria, or the place where the palace was; for power and 


* Λυσανίου δὲ αὐτὴ ἐγεγόνει rerpapxia, Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 
5, Luke iii. 1. 

{ Lib. v. cap. 19. 

§ Θῆδαι ἡ viv ᾿Αδραμύττειον. 

4 Cap. 16. 


+ In locis Act. 
|| Geogr. lib. iii. cap. 4. 
* Lib. vii. p. 219. 


* Steph. de Urbibus. 

+ De B. Jud. lib. 11, cap. 28, p. 807, 808. 

+ Lib. xvii. p. 564. § Lib. liv. p. 599. 
|| Lib. iv. p. 321. 

4 Τὸ βασιλεῖον ἐνταῦθα ἵόρυτο rots ἄρχουσι τῆς χώρας. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


dignity, saith Strabo,* it is not much inferior to Seleucia, 
or Alexandria: it was, saith Josephus,t the third great city 
of all that belonged to the Roman provinces; it was called 
Antiochia apud Daphnem, near Daphne, i. e. the village 
where her temple was, to distinguish it from the other four- 
teen mentioned by Stephanus de Urbibus, and by Eustathius 
in Dionys. p. 170, or, as others, and among them Appianus 
in Syriacis, sixteen cities in Syria, and elsewhere, which bore 
that name. It was celebrated among the Jews for the jus 
civitatis, which Seleucus Nicanor had given to them in that 
city with the Grecians and Macedonians, and which, saith 
Josephus,+ they still retained; and for the wars of the 
Maccabeans with those kings: among Christians, for being 
the place where they first received that name, and where 
both St. Luke and Theophilus were born, and inhabited. 
There was also another Antioch in Pisidia, mentioned Acts 
xiii. 14. 

Antipatnis; this place was formerly called Capharsalama, 
1 Mace. vii. 31, and was of little repute till it was rebuilt by 
Herod in the plain of Capharzaba, which, saith Josephus,§ 
was watery, and fit for plants, with a river, and a grove com- 
passing the city; it was eighteen miles from Jerusalem, and 
in the way to Cesarea Palestine, Acts xxiii. 31, and within 
the borders of Samaria, and the half tribe of Manasseh. 

Arottontra was a city of Macedonia, lying betwixt Am- 
phipolis and Thessalonica : for, saith Luke, «« When we had 
passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, we came to 
Thessalonica.” Geographers say there were fourteen cities, 
and two islands of that name, and Stephanus reckons twen- 
ty-five. 

Anazta is only mentioned by Paul, saying, that after his 
conversion he went first in Arabia, Gal. i. 17, where some 
make him to have staid three years, without any business 
he did there that they knew of, and without any ground; 
for both the design of Paul, which was to prove that he re- 
ceived not his gospel from man, but from the immediate re- 
velation of Jesus Christ, and his declaration, that he preached 
first at Damascus, and then at Jerusalem, Acts xxvi. 20, 
seem to make it no improbable conjecture, that as Christ, 
after his baptism, went immediately into the wilderness of 
Judea, so did Paul, after his baptism, go into Arabia De- 
serta, where he received his knowledge of that gospel which 
he preached by revelation from Christ Jesus, and thence re- 
turning to Damascus, Gal. i. 17, he straightway preached 
Christ at Damascus, Acts ix. 20, and so continued to do 
many days, or a considerable time, ver. 23. We read also 
of Cretes and Arabians, Acts ii. 11, where by Cretes some 
think we are not to understand the inhabitants of Crete, that 
island being far from Arabia, but the Cherithim, a Philistine 
nation and country, rendered Κρῆτες by the Septuagint, Ezek. 
xxv. 16, Zeph. ii. 5, 6. But Libya and Rome, mentioned 
ver. 10, were at a greater distance. The Arabians were an- 
ciently called Ishmaelites and Hagarenes, the first from Ish- 
mael the son of Hagar, the second from mount Hagar in 
Arabia (see note on Gal. iv. 25). This large country, reach- 
ing from Euphrates to Egypt, was divided into three parts ; 
Arabia Deserta, so called probably from the word Araba, 
which signifies desert, which lay full east of Judea, and is 
called by Strabol] Schenitis, by reason of the tents in which 
that wandering nation dwelt; and the inhabitants of it are 
in scripture called the men of the east, Gen. xxv. 6, Judg. 
vi. 3, having Syria on the west, Mesopotamia on the north, 
Arabia Felix on the east, and Petrea on the south. 2. Pe- 
trea, so called from the rockiness of it, or from the strong 
city Petra, built on a rock, whence the Soldans keep their 
treasure in it; and in this Arabia was mount Sinai, where 
the law was given. 2dly, It hath Palestine and Arabia 
Deserta on the north, on the east and south Arabia Felix, 
on the west part of Egypt and the Arabian gulf. 3dly, 
Arabia Felix, lying betwixt the Persian gulf and the Red 
sea, a fertile country, producing Jaudanum, myrrh, cassia, 
and many other drugs and spices, celebrated on that account 
not only by the poets (see Lloyd’s Dictionary), but by Dio- 
nysius P. and Eustathius{ upon him, by Strabo, Pliny, 


* Lib. xvi. p. 517. 
+ Antiq. lib. xii. cap. 13. 
§ Antiq. lib. xvi. cap. 9. ] Lib. xvi. p. 528. 
4 Λέγει δὲ "Hpédoros ἐν μόνῃ τὴ ᾿Αραβία φύεσθαι λιβανωτὸν καὶ 


{ Lib. iii. cap. 1, p. 832. 


1207 


Herodotus, and Q. Curtius; and that part of it especially, 
saith Strabo, p. 535, which is the most happy nation of the 
Sabeans, and where is gold, which the Arabian magi brought 
with them when they came to Christ. See the note on 
Matt. ii. 1. 

Asra, as it is mentioned by ancient geographers, is one of 
the largest divisions of the world into three parts; but in 
the New Testament it is taken for Asia Minor only, as it 
contains the Proconsular Asia, consisting of four regions, of 
Phrygia, Mysia, Caria, and Lydia, saith Cicero :* of which 
see Bishop Usher in his treatise of the Lesser Asia. In 
this Proconsular Asia were the seven churches mentioned in 

Assos, Acts xx. 13, is a town in Troas; for Paul went 
from Troas to it. It is memorable, saith Pliny,t for the 
lapis sarcophagus, which burns up and consumes flesh; of 
which see Vossius in P. Melam, p. 88, 89. Besides this, 
there seems to have been another Assos, in Crete, of which 
see the note on Acts xxvii. 13. 

Avruens was a city of Greece properly so called, and of 
the subdivision of it named Achaia; it was so called from 
᾿Αθήνη, 1. 6. Minerva, to whom it was consecrated. In it was 
a celebrated academy, which, saith Cornelius Nepos,+ for 
antiquity, humanity, and learning, made it excel all the 
cities of the world; whose inhabitants, saith Cicero,§ were 
the inventors of all learning, the men who invented and 
perfected eloquence, and from whom humanity, learning, 
religion, and laws were dispersed through the whole world; 
but then to qualify these commendations, he adds, they only 
knew what was right, but would not do it; they were, saith 
Plutarch,|| suspicious and vain-glorious ; they were, saith the 
apostle, δεισιδαιμονέστεμοι, “ very superstitious,” and great 
worshippers of idols, and so were vain in their imaginations, 
and their foolish heart was darkened. See the note on Acts 
xvii. 16. 22, and Dr. Hammond there, and Lloyd in voce. 

Arratta was a city of Pamphylia, built by king Attalus, 
whence St. Paul goes from Perga in Pamphylia to it, Acts 
xiv. 25. It was a sea-port, and the chief residence of the 
prefect. Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 459. 

Azotus, the Ashdod of the Philistines, where the ark of 
God triumphed over their Dagon, 1 Sam. v. 2, and where 
Jonathan,{ having routed the army of Apollonius, burnt 
both their god and their temple, and all who fled to it for 
refuge. It lay about thirty miles distant from Gaza towards 
Joppa, so that the angel, when he caught up Philip, Acts 
vill. 40, carried him so many miles. It was in the tribe of 
Dan, and lay in the middle between Acaron and Geth. 


Banytox. By Babylon, the Jews understand not only 
Chaldea, but also Mesopotamia, Assyria, and even all those 
kingdoms to which they were carried in the Babylonian cap- 
tivity: and for this they have ground from the scriptures of 
the Old Testament, which extend that name to the whole 
empire of Babylon; as when the destruction of Babylon is 
represented as the destruction, ὅλης τῆς οἰκουμένης, of the 
whole empire,” Isa. xii. 9. 11, and from the use of the word 
among the heathens: for Pliny saith, Babylon, of the Chal- 
daic nation, had long the eminency over the whole world,** 
on which account the rest of Mesopotamia and Assyria was 
reckoned a part of it. I have shown, note on 1 Pet. v. 13, 
that, according to the fathers, the name of Babylon was 
given to Rome by Peter, and, according to the same fathers, 
the name of mystical Babylont}{ was given to her also, partly 


σμύρμην καὶ xaciav, κινάμωμον καὶ λήδανον, in Dionys. a v. 927 
—935. Herodot. lib. iii. cap. 112, 113, Plin. lib. v. cap. 
11, lib. xii. cap. 17—19, Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 532, Q. Curt. 
lib. v. 

* Asia vestra constat ex Phrygia, Mysia, Cana, Lydia. 
Orat. pro Flacco, n. 51. 

{ Lib. ii. cap. 96. + In Vita Atuen. 

§ Omnium doctrinarum inventrices Athenas. Lib. de Orat. 
n. 7 Adsunt Athenienses, unde humanitas, doctrina, reli- 
gio, jura, leges orte. Orat. pro Flacco, ἢ. 48. 

| De Polit. Precept. p. 799. 

© Jos. Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 8, p. 436. 

** Propter quam reliqua pars Mesopotamiw Assyrieque 
Babylonia appellata est, lib. vi. cap. 26, p. 356. 

tf Sic et Babylon, apud Johannem nostrum, Romane ur- 


1208 


for her greatness, pride, and oppression of God’s people, and 
partly for her resemblance of it in idolatry, that kingdom 
so fully representing the idolatry of the church of Rome, in 
the description given of it in the sixth chapter of Baruch, 
that scarce any real difference betwixt them can be observed. 

Benea, mentioned Acts xvii. 10, is a city of Macedonia ;* 
a great and populous city, saith Lucian. This was the city 
to which Paul and Silas fled from Thessalonica, and where 
they found a synagogue of the best-natured Jews and prose- 
lytes they met with; for they received the word with all 
readiness, and examined it by the best test of truth, the 
scriptures; and so the converts there were many of both 
sorts, ver. 11, 12. 

Brruynta is a region of Asia Minor,t bounded on the 
north with the Euxine sea, on the south with Phrygia, on 
the west with the Propontis, on the east with Galatia. It 
was anciently called Bebraica and Mygdonia, say Servius,+ 
Solinus, and Mart. Capella, and afterward Bithynia, from 
Bithynus, the king of it, say most geographers; from 7123, 
the belly or interior parts, saith Bochart; both Pliny§ and 
Mela representing them as possessing the inward parts of 
that region only. The old Geographer, published by Gotho- 
fred, styles them|| “the greatest and most happy nation,” 
in which the first general council of Nice was held. 

Beruasana signifies a place or passage. It was a water 
distinct from Jordan, and removed somewhat from it, John 
i. 28, x. 40, to which men passed over Jordan; the town 
was out of the precincts of Judea, in the Scythopolitan coun- 
try, where the Jews dwelt among the Syro-Grecians, and 
was over against Galilee: so Dr. Lightfoot; over against 
Jericho, Josh. iii. 16. 

Betuany took its name from a tract of ground so called 
from Athene, which signifies the dates of palm-trees, which 
grew there plentifully : the town of Bethany where Lazarus 
dwelt, and where he was raised from the dead, was fifteen 
furlongs from Jerusalem, John xi. 8, but the tract of ground 
that bore that name reached within eight furlongs of Jeru- 
salem, it being only a sabbath-day’s journey from it, Luke 
xxiv. 50, Acts i. 12, and then began the tract called Beth- 
page, from the phagi ; i. e. the green figs which grew upon 
it, which ran along so near to Jerusalem, that the outmost 
street within the walls was called by that name. St. Jerome 
saith there was villula, a little village there, of the same 
name. 

Bern-renem, “the house of bread,” was the place where 
Christ, “the bread of life,” was born, as the Jerusalem Ge- 
marists confess: it was a city in the time of Boaz, for he 
styles it “the city of his people,” Ruth iii. 11, and goes up 
to the gates of it, iv. 1. It was a city fortified by Reho- 
boam, 2 Chron. xi. 6. It is called David's city, 1 Sam. xx. 


6.29; and therefore when every tribe and family went up | 
to their respective cities to be taxed, Luke ii. 3, Joseph goes | 
up to this city of David, ver. 4. Though therefore it be | 
or “ village,” John vii. | 
42, that only signifies, that, being one of the least cities, it | 


” 


called by the Jews κώμη, a “ town, 


might comparatively be called so, as Nain is by Josephus, 
vide Nain; and the Hebrew -yy, a city, is often rendered 
by the Seventy κώμη, where our translation speaks of cities, 
as Joshua x. 37, xv. 9, 1 Chron. xxvii. 25, Isa. xlii. 11. It 
might be, after the destruction of Jerusalem, a village, as it 
is twice called by Justin Martyr.§ In St. Jerome it is 
sometimes a city, and sometimes a village, but then, that he 
styles it only comparatively a village, may be gathered from 
his own words** on Micah vy. 2. 

Berurspa. The pool of Bethesda is the same with the 
pool of Siloam, of which see there, and notes on John ν. ! 2 
It was a pool in Jerusalem, saith Jerome, and had the 


bis figuram portat (figura est) proinde et magne et regno 
superbe et sanctorum debellatricis. 
cion. lib. iii. cap. 13, adv. Jud. cap. 9, p. 193. Vide Dow- 
nam de Sede Antichristi, lib. i. cap. 7. 

* Μεγάλη καὶ πολύανδρος. De Asino, p. 639, D. 

ἡ Ortel. + Bebraica ipsa est Bithynia. Amn. v. p. 373. 


§ Tenent oram omnem Thyni, interiora Bithyni. Plin. | 


lib. v. cap. 32. Interius Bithyni. Mela, lib. i. cap. 10. 
ἢ Meyiorn καὶ βελτίστη. 4 Dial. Ρ- 303, 304. 


** Minima quidem es in civitatibus Jude, et tantis milli- | 


bus comparata, vix parvus est viculus. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


name of προβατικὴ, “the sheep-pool,” from the sacrifices 
washed there by the priests; he adds, that there is yet a 
lake there,* whose waters are very red, as if mixed with 
blood, giving testimony of what was done there of old. 
Dr. Lightfoot saith these sacrifices were washed elsewhere, 
and that the unclean washed in this pool, and whilst they 
did so, laid up their clothes in one of the porches. Of the 
miracles wrought there by the angel descending, and of the 
miracle wrought by our Lord, see the note there. 

Berusarpa, saith Bochart, is a place of fishing, as it 
might be called, because situated, saith Pliny,t on the east 
of the lake Gennesareth ; in Batanea, and the lower Gau- 
lonitis, saith Josephus,+ at the beginning of the mountain- 
ous country. It is a place of hunting, saith Dr. Lightfoot, 
so called because it stood near Naphtali, where there were 
store of deer, Naphtali abounding in venison, Gen. xlix. 21. 
It was raised by Philip from a village to the honour of a 
city, and called Julia, in honour of the emperor’s daughter. 
It was one of the cities against which Christ denounced a 
woe, Matt. xi. 21, for her impenitence and infidelity, after 
the mighty works he had done in her: it also was the city 
where three apostles dwelt ; viz. Philip, Andrew, and Peter, 
John i. 45. 


Cana. There were two Canas besides Galilee; one in the 
tribe of Asher, Josh. xix. 28, called by Jerome, “ Cana the 
great ;” another in the tribe of Ephraim, Josh. xvi. 8, xvii. 
9, and two in Galilee, the one in the north part of the lower 
Galilee, and dividing it from the upper; and Cana of Gali- 
lee, or the less, situated over against Julius Betharampta, 
on the west of Capernaum, whence Christ, after he had 
wrought his first miracle there, went down to Capernaum, 


| John ii. 12, and when he was returned thither, the noble- 


man comes from Capernaum to him there, John iv. 46, 47. 
Of this Cana Josephus speaks, saying, ἐν κώμη τῆς Γαλιλαίας 
ἣ προσαγορεύεται Kava,§ “In a village of Galilee which was 
called Cana.” 

Cayaan was twofold ; the larger terminated on the south 
part with the desert of Sin or Cades, on the north with 
mount Libanus and Antilibanus, on the east with the river 
Euphrates, and with the Mediterranean sea on the west: so 


| Deut. xi. 24, Josh. i. 3, 4, “ Every place that the sole of 


your foot shall tread upon, that have I given you: from the 
wilderness (of Paran) and (or, even to) Libanus, and to the 
great river Euphrates, and to the great sea shall your coast 
be ;” accordingly Joshua saith, “ God gave to Israel all the 
land which he sware to give to their fathers, and they pos- 
sessed it and dwelt in it,” Josh. xxi. 43. 45, and xxiii. 14, 
“There failed not any good thing which the Lord had 
spoken to the house of Israel ; all came to pass.” How this 
could be said by him who had left so much of the seven 
nations unsubdued, Judg. i., and who divided not to them 
the whole land of Canaan, but only that part of it which 
was possessed by the seven nations, is a great question ; to 
which the usual answer is, that he gave them a right to the 
whole country, dividing it among them by a lot ordered and 
directed by him, and he gave them the actual possession of 
the greatest part of it, with power to subdue the rest if they 
continued obedient; and more was not intended presently, 
the Lord not having promised to give them the whole land 
at once, they being not sufficient to people the whole coun- 
try, but by degrees, as their increase should make them 


| ready for, and their obedience should continue their right to 


it: for thus saith God by Moses, Exod. xxiii. 29, «T will 
not drive them out before thee in one year, lest the land 
become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against 
thee ; but by little and little I will drive them out before 
thee, until thou be increased to inherit the land.” To 


_ which may be added, that Joshua gave them all the land 
Tertull. contra Mar- | 


their feet had trod on, and more God did not promise to 


| them in the words cited from him. 


Canaan the less is extended from the wilderness in the 


* Mirum in modum rubens quasi cruentis aquis antiqui 
operis signa testatur, nam hostias in eo lavari ἃ sacerdotibus 
solitas fuerunt, unde et nomen accepit. De Locis Heb. f. 4, C 

ἡ Lib. v. cap. 15. 

+ De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 13, lib. iv. cap. 27. 

§ De Vita Sua, p. 1003. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE, 


south to Libanus in the north, and from Jordan on the east 
to the Midland sea on the west, the length of it being one 
hundred and sixty miles, the breadth of it only fifty ; and it 
is thus described, Gen. x. 19, “ The borders of the Canaan- 
ites (i. e. the seven nations of them voted to destruction) 
were from Sidon (i. e. the country of Sidon, which extend- 
eth itself east as far as Jordan), as thou comest to Gerar 
unto Gaza; and (the southern border is) as thou goest to 
Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, even unto La- 
sha,” i. δ. the Adooa in Josephus,* towards Arabia Petra. 
See Bochart. Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 37. 

Carrennaum was a city seated near to the sea of Galilee 
at the bottom of the lake of Gennesareth; for Christ’s dis- 
ciples came from the wilderness of Bethsaida over the lake 
to the land of Gennesareth, Matt. xiv. 34, Mark. vi. 46, 
and yet to Capernaum, John vi. 16. 24. It was in the 
borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim, Matt. iv. 13, renowned 
on the account of Christ’s habitation and his many mira- 
cles, which brought woe upon them for their infidelity, 
Matt. xi. 23. Near this town was the mountain where 


Christ preached his excellent sermon, for coming down | 


thence he went to Capernaum, Matt. viii. 5, i. e. a jour- 


ney of ten miles, if ‘Thabor was that mount, as it is con- | 
jectured by Jerome on the place; and near it also was the | 


custom-house, at which Matthew the publican sat when 
Christ called him, for he called him “as he passed from his 
own city,” Matt. ix. 1. 9. 

Carpapocra was a kingdom bounded on Pl a with 
Armenia, on the west with Paphlagonia and Galatia, on 
the north with the Euxine sea, on the south with that 
part of mount Taurus which looks towards Cilicia: it was 
famed for} mules and horses, of which it gave yearly to 


the Persians, horses one thousand five hundred, mules two ] 


thousand. It was a nation so servile, saith Strabo,§ that 
when the Romans offered them their freedom to live by 
their own laws, they said they could not endure liberty : 
they were, saith Cicero, de grege venalium. Orat. post 
Red. in Senat. n. 12. 

Cxsanra Patestryg, so called, as being the metropolis 
of Palestine and the seat of the Roman proconsul, was 
formerly named the Tower of Strato; but being a mart- 
town, whose haven was very incommodious, Herod the 
Great built there a large city with many| stately marble 
buildings, a theatre of stone, and a most capacious amphi- 
theatre (where Herod Antipas was smitten by an angel of 
God; see the note on Acts xii. 23), and an admirable haven, 
with marble edifices and towers, the greatest of which he 
called Drusus, in honour of the emperor's son; the city 
Caesarea, in honour of Cesar; it was situated between 
Doron and Joppa, thirty-five miles from Jerusalem, and 


was inhabited partly by the Jews, who had their schools | 


there; but chiefly by the Greeks or Syrians, betwixt whom 
there were feuds, περὶ τῆς ἱσοπολιτείας, “concerning equal 
privileges,” the Cesareans killing about one thousand two 
hundred Jews, when Florus was procurator of Judea. 
Here Peter converted Cornelius and his kinsmen, the first- 
fruits of the gentiles, Acts x. ; here lived Philip the evangelist, 
Acts xxi. 8; and here Paul defended himself against the 
Jews and their orator Tertullus, Acts xxiv. 

Cxsanea ῬΗΤΙΤΡΡΙ, mentioned Matt. xvi. 13, Mark viii. 
27, was first called Lais or Lashem, Judg. xviii. 7, and 
when subdued by the Danites, Dan, v. 29. It was built by 
Philip the tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis, Luke iii. 1, 
who made it the place of his residence, as being conveniently 
seated between both. He built it, saith Josephus,** at Pa- 
neas, by the springs of Jordan, and called it Cxzsarea Philippi, 
and also Nerodiada in honour of Nero. It was seated at 
the springs of Jordan the less, not far from Libanus in the 
midland Pheenicia, saith Ptolemy, and was a Decapolitan 


* Antiq. lib. xiv. cap. 2. 

+ Strab. lib. xii. p. 367. 

§ Lib. xii. p. 372. 

Ι Jos. Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 13. 

J ᾿Ιουδαίας πόλιν καὶ τὸ πλεὸν ὑφ᾽ ᾿Ἑλλήνων ἐποικουμένην. Jos. 
de Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 28. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 6, lib. 
li. cap. 30. 

** Πρὸς ταῖς Ιορδάνου πηγαῖς, ἐν Wavedde πόλιν κτίζει Καισά- 
par. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 3, lib. xx. cap. 8. 

Vor. IV.—152 


+ Lib. xi. p. 362. 


1209 


city called Cwsarea-Panias, or Sub-Panio ; not because of 
the worship of Panius Philostorgius, or by reason of the 
springs of Paneas, as Pliny,* but by reason of the mountain 
Panius mentioned by Josephus and Eusebius, under which 
it lies. What Busebius saith of the two statues of Corin- 
thian brass, erected here by the woman cured at Capernaum 
of the bloody flux, see confuted in the note on Mark 
v. 26. 

Crprox. Of the brook Cedron, which our Lord passed 
over to go into the garden where he was betrayed, John 
xviii. 1, mention is made when David fled from Absalom, 
for he passed over the brook Kidron, 2 Sam. xv. 23, and 
when king Solomon saith to Shimei, “In the day that thou 
passest over the brook Kidron thou shalt surely die.” See 
also Jer. xxxi. 40, where the Septuagint always speaks of 
Késpwv, or τῶν Kédpov, in the plural; it was, saith Jerome,f 
a torrent or valley near to Jerusalem, on the east side be- 
twixt it and mount Olivet; a deep valley, saith Josephus :+ 
and into this valley was conveyed the blood poured out at 
the foot of the altar, which because it made the river look 
black, some think it was called Cedron from the word 
kiddar, which signifies blackness; others from the cedar- 
trees planted on each side, whence, say they, it is still named 
in the plural, τῶν Κέδρων, from these cedar-trees. 

Cuatnea is only mentioned in these words, Acts vii. 4, 
« And Abraham came out of the land of the Chaldeans, and 
dwelt in Charran,” where, by the land of the Chaldeans, we 
are not to understand the country so named in Asia Major, 
which was in the plain, but a mountainous country, which 
is part of Mesopotamia, as appears from these words ; “ God 
appeared to Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia, before 
he dwelt in Charran; then came he out of the land of the 
Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran.” That both this Charran 
and Chaldea lay in Mesopotamia, see Bochart, Phaleg, lib. 
ii. cap. 6, and the note on Acts vil. 4. 

Cencurea was the isthmus of Corinth, distant seventy 
furlongs from it, where were celebrated the Isthmian games ; 
whence the apostle, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, speaks 
so oft in allusion to these games: see notes on 1 Epist. ix. 
89 10 2 Epist. iv. 7—9. Hence he tells them of a corrup- 
tible crown for which they wrestled, their coronets being 
either of the σέλινον, “ parsley,” which quickly withered, or 
of πίτυς, “ the pine-tree,” which soon decayed. 

Cravna, Acts xxvii. 16, was an island near Crete, situ- 
ated at the meeting of the southern and the western sea, of 
which geographers say nothing, unless it be the Gaudus 
mentioned by Pliny, lib. iv. cap. 12, and by Mela, lib. ii. 
cap. 7. 

Cutos, Acts x. 15, is an island of the gean sea, betwixt 
Lesbos and Samos, celebrated by Horace§ and Martiall for 
the wine and figs that came from thence, and also by Pliny, 
lib. v. cap. 31, and Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 444, for its marble 
and white earth. 

Cirrera, a country of Asia Minor, betwixt Pamphylia on 
the west and Pieria on the east, the mount Taurus on the 
north, and the Cilician sea on the south, celebrated on the 
account of Cicero, proconsul there, but more on the account 
of St. Paul’s birth at Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, Acts xxi. 15. 

Coxossr was a city of Phrygia Major, built by the river 
Lycus, near the place, saith Herodotus,{ where it begins to 
run under ground, as it doth for five furlongs before it rises 
again, and slides into Meander. To this city, situated at an 
equal distance betwixt Laodicea and Hierapolis, mentioned 
Col. ii. 1, came Xerxes in his expedition against Greece, and 
to this city Paul writ an epistle. All these three cities 
perished by an earthquake, saith Eusebius,** in the tenth of 
Nero, that is, but two years after St. Paul’s epistle was 
sent to them. 

Coos, Acts xxi. 1, was an island in the gean or Icarian 
sea, near Mindus or Cnidus, which had a city of the same 


* Lib. v. cap. 15.—De Bell. Jud. lib. i. cap. 16, Hist. Eccl. 
lib. vii. cap. 17. 

+ In Locis Hebr. f. 5. 

+ De Bell. Jud. lib. v. cap. 8. 

§ Serm. lib. i. sat. 10. 

! Mart. vii. 25. 31. 

J Els πόλιν μεγάλην τῆς Φριγίης, lib. vii. cap. 30, p. 396 

** Chron. ad an. Neronis 10, 


1210 


name, from which Hippocrates the celebrated physician, 
and Apelles the famous limner, were called Coi; here was 
a large temple of A®sculapius, and another of Juno: it 
abounded in rich wines, and here were made those Cow 
vestes which were transparent, and are so often mentioned 
by the poets. 

Cuorazin, saith Jerome, is a town in Galilee, which our 
Lord deplores for her incredulity, Matt. xii. 22. Dr. Light- 
foot wonders how such a woe should be denounced against 


it, when we read not, in the whole New Testament, that our | 


Lord had ever been there ; but that our Lord was frequently 
at Bethsaida and Capernaum, copartners in that woe, we 


read: now Chorazin being by Dr. Lightfoot placed betwixt | 


them, and being, saith Jerome,* but two miles distant from 
Capernaum, and in many maps but little distant from Beth- 
saida, and it being said expressly, that “ mighty works were 
done in her,’ doubtless Christ must have been often 
there. 

Cyinvs, mentioned Acts xxvii. 7, was a city and promon- 
tory in the peninsula of Paria, celebrated for the worship of 
Venus, hence called Venus Cnidia; whence Horace} sings 
thus, O Venus regina Cnidi; and for the statue of Venus 
made by Praxiteles, and by Pliny} reckoned among the 
admirable works of that artificer. 

Corin was a most noble city of Achaia Propria, called 
anciently Ephire, saith Pliny ;§ and after Corinth, from 
one Corinthus, who took and rebuilt it. It was considerable 


among heathen authors for its citadel Acro-Corinthus, built 


on a very high mountain, and for its|| insolence against the 
Roman legates, which caused L. Mummius, thence styled 
Achaicus, to destroy it; in the conflagration of which city 
so many statues were melted down, that the remains of 
them made that famous Corinthian brass which was es- 
teemed above gold or silver; and of which, saith Josephus, 
the Beautiful gate of the temple of Jerusalem was made (see 
the note on Acts iii. 2). The Corinthians were noted for 
their wisdom, hence styled by Cicero,§ “the light of all 
Greece ;” by Florus, decus Greciz, “the glory of Greece ;” 
and for their riches, for, saith Strabo** m\ovoia διαπαντὸς 
ὑπῆρξεν, “it was always rich.” They were filled with ora- 
tors and philosophers; and from them, say the fathers, 
came the contentions and false doctrines which sprang up 
in that church, on the account of which Paul speaks thus to 
them, “ Ye are rich, ye are wise, ye are honourable,” 1 Cor. 
iv. 9, 10. They also had a temple of Venus, to whom, 
saith Strabo,t{ “one thousand whores were consecrated,” 
whence they became infamous to a proverb for that vice, 
and for all kind of lasciviousness, which caused the apostle 
in his epistles to them to speak so much against it: see the 
preface to the First Epistle. Lastly, there was a great re- 
sort of the Jews to this city, who, saith Philo, « inhabited 
KopivOov, καὶ πλεῖστα καὶ ἄριστα Πελοποννήσου, Corinth, and the 
chiefest and best parts of Peloponnesus,” and had one or 
more synagogues there, Acts xviii. 8, whence came those 
Judaizers and false apostles, so often mentioned in the epis- 
tles to those churches. 

Cyrrrus, so called from the flower of the cypress-trees 
growing there, as Pliny++ speaking of the kinds of cypress, 
and Eustathius§§ say, was an island, having on the east the 
Syrian, on the west the Pamphylian, on the south the Phe- 
nician, on the north the Cilician sea: it was celebrated 
among the heathens for its fertility, as being, say Strabo|| 


* De Locis Hebr. f. 4, C. 

7 L. Carm. 30. 

+ Lib. vii. 38, 36, 5, Athen. lib. xiii. p. 591. 

§ Lib. v. cap. 4. 

| Vel. Patere. lib. i. cap. 13. 

§ Legati quod erant appellati superbius, patres vestri 
Corinthum, totius Grece lumen, extinctum voluerunt. 
Orat. pro Leg. Manil. n. 6. 

** Lib. ii. cap. 16, lib. viii. p. 263. 

ἦτ Ibid. 

ἫΝ Tertium Cypro insula, odoris suavitate. Lib, xii. cap. 

§§ ᾿Απὸ ἄνθους ἐκεῖ πολλοῦ φνομένου κύπρου λεγομένου. 
Dionys. p. 110. 

il] Lib. xiv. p. 468, 469. 
prum. Virg. n. i. 625. 


In 


Belus opimam—vastabat Cy- 
Eustath. in Dionys. p. 100. 


| miraculous conversion of Paul. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


and Ammianus Marcellinus, sufficiently provided of all 
things within itself, et nullius externi indigens; whence it 
was also called the rich and happy island, but was very* 
infamous for the worship of Venus, who had thence her 
name Κύπρις, and her title Venus Cypria; that demon, saith 
Eustathius, delighting in that island for their adultery and 
proneness to venery, they consecrating their women to 
whoredom, and by a law compelling them to lie with stran- 
gers, as the Babylonians did. It was memorable among the 
Jews for being an island in which they so abounded, that at 
one time they slew, saith Dio,t two hundred and forty thou- 
sand of the inhabitants, and were on that account forbid to 
come afterward to that island; and among Christians for 
being the place where Joses, called Barnabas, had the land 
he sold, Acts iv. 36, and where Mnason an old disciple lived, 
Acts xxi. 16. 


Datmanuraa, vide Magdala. 

Damascus, a most ancient city, where Eliezer, the servant 
of Abraham, dwelt; built, saith Josephus,+ by Uz the son 
of Aram, mentioned Gen. x. 23, and situate in the valley 
betwixt Libanus and Antilibanus, watered by the rivers Ab- 
ana and Pharphar, 2 Kings v. 12, one of which is by 
Pliny,§ Strabo, and others, called Chrysorrhoas, by rea- 
son of its golden sands: it was made tributary to David, 2 
Sam. viii. 6, afterward it was the capital city of the kings of 
Syria, Isa. vii. 8. It is a city famous for its antiquity, and 
for being still one of the richest and most magnificent cities 
of the Levant, but most of all for being the place of the 
Here the Jews had their 
synagogues, and converted to their religion} most of the 
women of the place, but the men entirely hated them, and 
killed at one time twelve, at another eighteen thousand of 
them, and their families, 

Decarotts, saith Jerome, was a country of ten cities, be- 
yond Jordan, which all do not reckon alike, saith Pliny,** 
who places them all beyond Jordan, except Scythopolis : 
Josephus{} saith, that Justus of Tiberias ras ἐν τῇ Συρίᾳ Ac- 
καπόλεις ἐπολεμεῖτο, “fought against the cities of Decapolis 
in Syria,” and that when Vespasian came to Ptolemais,++ 
οἱ πρῶτοι τῶν τῆς Συρίας Δεκαπόλεων, “the chief men of the 
cities of Decapolis in Syria” complained to him against 
Justus upon that account; and of these cities§§ he saith, 
that Hippo and Gadara were two: whence it is evident 
Bochartus must mistake, when he places all these cities in 
Galilee, and makes Tiberias to be one of them, it being Jus- 
tus of Tiberias that fought against them. They were all 
cities inhabited chiefly by the gentiles, though some of them 
might be within the region of Judea. 

Dense was a city of Lycaonia near Isauria, mentioned 
Acts xiv. 6. It was the seat of Antipater Derbeus, and the 
country of Timothy. 


Ecyer was bounded on the north with the Mediterranean ; 
on the east by Arabia Petrea, and the Red sea: on the 
south by Ethiopia and Nubia; on the west by Libya, and 
the desert of Barca. It is divided into the upper Egypt, 
through which Nile runneth with a single stream; and into 
lower Egyyt, which begins where Nile divides, and so makes 
the island, from its resemblance of the Greek A, called Delta, 


* *ASuppa γὰρ ἦν ἡ νῆσος τὴ δαίμονι ἀφ᾽ ἣς καὶ Κύπρις παρω- 
νόμασται, τοῦτο δὲ διὰ τὴν τῶν ἐκεῖ μαχλοσύνην καὶ τὸ ἐπαφρόδι- 
Eustath. ibid. p. 99. Τῶν περὶ Κύπρον ἁπλῶς τῶν ἕται- 
ρισμῶν τὰς ἑαυτῶν κόρας ἀφοσιοῦντων. Athen. lib. xii. Ρ. 516. 
Τῆς Κύπρου ἐστὶ παραπλήσιος τοὔτῳ νόμος. Herodot. lib. i. cap. 
199. 

ἡ Καὶ ἀπώλοντο καὶ ἐκεῖ μυριάδες τέσσαρες καὶ εἴκοσι, καὶ διὰ 
τοῦτο οὐδενὶ ᾿Ιουδαίῳ ἐπιβῆναι αὐτῆς ἔξεστι. Epitome Trajani, 
Ρ. 255. 

+ Antiq. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 15. 

§ Lib. v. cap. 18. 

| Lib. xvi. p. 539. 

4« Jos, de. Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 31, 7, 34, p. 992. 

** Jungitur ei lateri Syrie Decapolitana regio, ἃ numero 
oppidorum, in quo non omnes eadem observant. Lib. v. 10. 

tt De Vita Sua, p. 1025, A. 

++ Ibid. p. 1030, 

§§ P. 1001, A. 


TOV. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


and then runs down to the Mediterranean shore, whence it 
is also called AZgyptus Maritima. Of the river Nile, the 
pyramids, their mummies, cities, customs, see geographers. 
Of the names it hath in the Old Testament, see Bochart. 
For explication of some passages in the New, consider, 

Ist, The Egyptian language, which differed from the 
Greek, as Bochart* proves against Kircher, and from the 
Hebrew, whence the Jews in it are said to have “heard a 
strange language,” Ps. Ixxxi. 6, and coming from it, to have 
come “from a barbarous people,” Ps. cxiv. 1 (see the 
note on 1 Cor. xiv. 11). Hence Joseph, representing an 
Egyptian, speaks to his brethren by an interpreter, Gen. xlii. 
23, and it is prophesied by Isaiah, xix. 18, that five Egyp- 
tian cities should speak the language of Canaan, i. e. of 
those who lived there. Hence Chiun, which in the He- 
brew is put for Saturn (as also it signifies among the Per- 
sians and Ishmaelites), is, by the Septuagint, who made 
their translation in Egypt, turned into ‘Pawav, Amos ν. 26, 
which in the Egyptian language is put for Saturn, and 
is cited by Stephen, ᾿Ῥεμφὰν, Acts vil. 43 (see the note 
there). 

2ndly, The Egyptian learning, which, had it not been 
considerable, sure we should not have heard of Homer, So- 
lon, Museus, Dedalus, Pythagoras, Plato, Democritus, and 
others, going thither to learn wisdom, and bringing to their 
respective countries the learning they had there acquired. 
Egypt would not have been called by Horus in Macrobius,t 
“the mother of arts:” nor the inhabitants, “the parents of 
all philosophy :” nor would Atheneus} have told us, that 
both the Greeks and baZarians had all their learning from 
the Alexandrians. But of this see more in the commentary 
upon these words, “ And Moses was learned in all the wis- 
dom of the Egyptians,” Acts vii. 22. 

3dly, Egypt is by profane authors, as well as by the 
fathers, said to be guilty of most vile idolatry. Herodotus§ 
informs us, they first made altars, images, and temples for 
the gods, and that almost all the names of the gods came 
from Egypt] into Greece. And Jupiter in Lucian{ con- 
fesses, that the Egyptian gods were aicxpa καὶ γελαιότερα, 
« filthy and more ridiculous” than those of other nations: 
their gods were called, not only by the** fathers, but even 
by the poets,t} portenta magis quam numina. 
also noted in scripture for afflicting, persecuting, and de- 
stroying the people of God; upon both these accounts the 
great city Rome is by John styled spiritually Egypt, 
Rev. xi. 8. 

4thly, That Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, 
is attested by many profane authors ;++ and that he led 
them through the sea, and that the Egyptians following after 
them were drowned, is owned by Artabanus;§§ Diodorus 
Siculus adds, that the fame of this drying up of the Red 
sea was preserved till his time among the Ichthyophagi,||\] 


* Phaleg, lib. i. cap. 15, p. 68. 

{ Cum Egypti matris artium ratione consentit. Saturn. 
i. cap. 15. Plato gyptios omnium philosophie discipli- 
narum parentes secutus est. De Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. 19. 

+ “Ore ᾿Αλεξανδρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ παιδεύσαντες πάντας τοὺς Ἕλληνας, 
καὶ τοὺς βαρβάρους. Deipnos. lib. iv. cap. 184. 

§ Lib. ii. cap. 4. 

|| Ibid. cap. 50. 

§ De Concil. Deorum. 

** Lact. cap. 20, Minut. &c. 

Tf Quis nescit qualia demens gyptus portenta colat? 
Juvenal. sat. 15. 

4+ Just. ex Trogo Pompeio, lib. xxxvi. cap. 2, Artabanus 
apud Euseb. Prepar. Evang. lib. ix. cap. 27, p. 436, Mane- 
tho apud Joseph. lib. i. contra Apion. p. 1042, 1052, Che- 
remon et Lysimachus, ibid. 1057, 1085, Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 
523, Tacitus, Histor. lib. v. p. 615. 

§§ Dicunt Heliopolitani, τὸν Mwiiomw ἐπιϑιγεῖν τῇ ῥάβδῳ τοῦ 
ὕδατος, καὶ οὕτω τὸ μὲν νᾶμα διαστῆναι, τὴν δὲ δύναμιν διὰ ξηρᾶς 
bdod πορεύεσθαι" συνεμβάντων δὲ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων, καὶ διωκόντων, 
ὑπό τε τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ τῆς πλημμυρίδος πάντας διαφϑαρῆναι, ibid. 

ΕΠ Παρὰ δὲ τοῖς πλησίον κατοικοῦσιν ᾿Ιχϑυοφάγοις παραδέδοται 
λόγος ἐκ προγόνων, ἔχων φυλαττομένην τὴν φήμην ὅτι μεγάλης τινὸς 
γενομένης ἀμπώσεως, ἐγενήϑη τοῦ κόλπου ξηρὸς πᾶς ὁ τόπος, μετα- 
πεσούσης τῆς θαλάττης eis τ᾽ ἐναντία μέρη, lib. iii. p, 122. 


They are ] 


1211 


who lived near to it: and Origen* informs us, that it was 
common among the heathens, “to exorcise demons by that 
God who did καταποντίσαι ἐν τῇ ἐρυθρᾷ Saddoon τὸν Αἰγυπτίων 
βασιλέα, καὶ τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους, overthrow the Egyptians and 
their king in the Red sea,” according to these words of 
Paul, “By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry 
land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned,” 
Heb. xi. 29. 

Examires are only mentioned in these words, Acts ii. 9, 
«Parthians, Medes, and Elamites;” where Luke goes from 
east to west, the Elamites lying west of the Medes; for the 
Susians are joined to the Blamites, saith Strabo, and to them 
the Medes. Elam and Madai are also mentioned in scrip- 
ture together, Isa. xxi. 2, Jer. xxv. 25. ‘They were so 
called from Elam the Son of Sem, Gen. x. 22, and their 
capital city was Elymais: they were a warlike people living 
by rapine, and fighting with bows and arrows, Isa. xxii. 6, 
Jer. xlix. 35, as the Susians and Persians did, but were a 
different people from them; for they were joined to Susia, 
saith Strabo,t and there was an ingress to them from Persia, 
and the Susians and Elamites are mentioned apart, Ezra iv. 
9, though they are both comprehended sometimes under the 
name of Elam. See Dan. viii. 2. 

Emmaus, saith Luke, xxiv. 15, and Josephus,} in his 
book of the Wars of the Jews, was a village distant sixty fur- 
longs from Jerusalem; it was after made a city, and a 
Roman colony, and called Nicopolis. 

Eruesvs, the metropolis and noble mart of the Procon- 
sular Asia, situated upon the river Cayster, was famous for 
the temple of Diana, one of the stateliest structures in the 
world: it was, as Pliny§ saith, the wonder of magnificence, 
built at the common charge of all Asia, properly so called, 
and was two hundred and twenty years in building; it was 
four hundred and twenty-five feet long, two hundred and 
twenty broad, and supported by one hundred and twenty- 
seven pillars sixty feet high, and was generally accounted one 
of the seven wonders of the world: it was burnt the same 
day that Socrates was poisoned, four hundred years before 
Christ ; and again, the same night that Alexander the Great 
was born, but rebuilt and adorned by the Ephesians, whence 
that city is styled νεωκόρος, Acts xix. 35, “an adorner of the 
temple of the goddess Diana,” which, say the scholiasts upon 
Aristophanes, and Suidas, signifies to adorn and beautify 
(see note there). The Ephesians were noted for their skill 
in the art of magic: see the note on Acts xix. 19, and for 
their luxury and lasciviousness: see the note on Eph. v. 5. 
The Jews dwelt here in abundance, having obtained the pri- 
vilege of citizens, saith Josephus :§ but this city was chiefly 
celebrated among Christians for Paul’s stay here almost three 
years, Acts xx. 31, his mighty miracles done there, Acts 
xix. 11, 1 Cor. xvi. 9, and the opposition he met with from 
the Jews, Acts xx. 19 ; for Timothy, made bishop there ; for 
the beloved apostle who governed the Asiatic churches ; and 
for being one of the seven churches to which Christ sent in- 
structions, Rev. ii. 1. 

Erurarm. We read in John xi. 54, that Christ went from 
Jerusalem to a country near the wilderness, and to a city 
named Ephraim: now Ephraim and Bethel, saith Josephus,** 
were πολιχνία, “ little cities” situated in the land of Benjamin, 
near the wilderness of Judea, in the way from Jerusalem to 
Jericho. 


Ganana was, according to Josephus,t{ the metropolis of 
Perea, or the region beyond Jordan: it is now called Hip- 
podion, saith Pliny,++ and hath the river Hieramax, or Jar- 
moc, flowing by it; both make it a Decapolitan city,§§ and 
so of heathen jurisdiction, whence perhaps it was destroyed 


* Lib. contra Cels. p. 184. 

ἡ Lib. xvi. p. 512. 

+ Lib. vii. 27. 

§ Lib. xxxvi. cap. 14. 

|] Kopetv yap λέγουσι τὸ καλλύνειν. 
λωπίζειν, ὅϑεν νεοκόρος. Ned. Ὁ. 125, 

“ Contra Apion. lib. ii. p. 1063. 

** De B. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 33. 

tt Lib. iv. cap. 24, 

§§ V. Decapolis. 


Suidas. Κορεῖν yap xa) 


++ Lib. v. cap. 18. 


1212 


py the Jews, but was rebuilt by Pompey in favour of Deme- 
trius Gadarensis, his manumitted servant, saith Josephus.* 
The inhabitants of this city, being rich, sent legates to Ves- 
pasian coming against Judea, and gave up this strong city to 
him; both the city and villages belonging to it lay within the 
region of the Gergesenes, whence Christ going into the coun- 
try of the Gadarenes, Mark v. 1, is said to go into the 
region of the Gergesenes, Matt. viii. 28. 


Gaxattra is a province of the lesser Asia, so called from the | 


Gauls, who, saith Strabo,t seated themselves there under 
their captain Leonorius; it was bounded on the west by 
Phrygia, on the east by the river Halys, on the north by 
Paphlagonia, and on the south by Lycaonia; its chief cities 
were Ancyra, Tavium, and Pessinuntum, whence Grotius 
saith Paul, writing to the churches of Galatia, writ to these. 
They worshipped the mother of the gods, and especially they 
of Pessinuntum, and so, as Paul saith, Gal. iv. 8, “they 
knew not God.” Callimachus in his Hymns, and Hilary, 
who was himself a Gaul, represent them ast a very foolish 
people ; whence Paul saith, iii. 1, « O foolish Galatians, who 
hath bewitched?” This church was so dangerously per- 
verted, and almost overturned by the Judaizers there, that 
the apostle, in his epistle to them, doth not call them 
saints. 

Gaxttex contained the tribes of Issachar, Zabulon, Naph- 
thali, Asher, with part of Dan, and Perea, beyond the river ; 
it was bounded on the north by Lebanon and Syria, on the 
west by Pheenicia, on the south by Samaria, on the east 
mostly by the river Jordan, and the sea of Galilee. It is 
divided, by Josephus,§ into the upper and the lower Galilee : 
but Dr. Lightfoot divides it into three parts; the upper 
Galilee, so called, because it abounded in mountains; it was 
eminently called “Galilee of the gentiles,” Matt. iv. 15, 
because it abounded with them, being partly inhabited, saith 
Strabo,|| by Egyptians, Arabians, and Pheenicians ; this con- 
tained the tribes of Asher and Naphthali: the lower, which 
contained the tribes of Zabulon and Issachar, because it was 
champaign, was called “the great field;” and, thirdly, the 
vale, which is the border of Tiberias. It was, saith Josephus, 
very populous, containing two hundred and four cities and 
towns, the least of which towns had πεντακισχιλίους ὑπὲρ τοῖς 
μυρίοις οἰκήτορας, “above fifteen thousand inhabitants.” It 
was also a very rich country, as paying for its tribute, saith 
he, two hundred talents: they were, saith he, a warlike 
people, defending themselves against all the assaults of their 
enemies round about; and their wealth and prowess made 
them a seditious people, and prone to rebel against the 
Romans. 

Gaza, or Azza, was a city in the tribe of Judah: it was 


taken by Judah, Judg. i. 18; but because they destroyed | 


not the inhabitants, as they should have done, but only made 
them tributaries, ver. 28, it was regained by them, after the 
time of Jephthah, when “the children of Israel did evil 
again, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the 
Philistines,” xiii. 1. It was one of the five satrapies of the 
Philistines, which offered their golden emerods to the God 
of Israel for a trespass-offering, 1 Sam. vi. 17, and the city 
whose gates Samson took away, Judg. xvi. 2, and whither he 
was carried when taken, ver. 22,and where he pulled down 
the house of their god Dagon upon the lords of the Philis- 
tines, ver. 30. This old town was destroyed by Alexander, 


and so “made desolate,” as the prophet had foretold, Zeph. | 


ii. 4, and is therefore called, saith Strabo,** a continued desert 
(see the note on Acts viii. 26). For whereas this old city 
was seven furlongs from the bay, the new, built by Constan- 
tine, was, saith Jerome,{} in another place near to it. 
GenNESAReET was a region thirty furlongs in length, and 


* De B. Jud. lib. i. cap. 5, p. 720. 

ἡ Lib. xii. p. 390. 

+ Αφρονι δήμω, in Delum, V. 184. Gallos indociles. 
Hymn. Hieron. Prefat. ii. in Ep. ad Galat. 

§ De Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 4. | Lib. xvi. p. 523. 

4 De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 9. 

* Κατεσπασμένη ὑπὸ ᾿Αλεξάνδρου καὶ μένουσα ἔρημος. 

Xvi. p. 552. 

tt Antique civitatis locum vix fundamentorum prebere 
vestigia, hanc autem que nunc cernitur in alio loco pro illa 
que corruit edificatam. De Locis Hebr. f. 6, D. 


Lib. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


in breadth twenty ; a very pleasant and fruitful place, abound- 
ing in the gardens of great men, whence it had its name from 
12 and ἢν, as being the garden of princes; it lay at the bot- 
tom of the lake of Gennesaret, and gave that name to it, 
Luke v. 1. The celebrated city of Tiberias was built close 
by it on the east, and gave it the name of “the sea’ of 
Tiberias,” John xxi. 1. And it was called “the sea of 
Galilee,” John vi. 1, as being situated in Galilee, in the 
tribe of Naphthali, saith Dr. Lightfoot; of Zabulon, say 
others: it was, saith Josephus,* forty furlongs in breadth, 
and a hundred in length; saith Pliny,} sixteen miles long, 
and six in breadth: its waters were sweet and pleasant ; 
and, as the Jews say, that God loved this more than all the 
other seas, so did our Saviour much frequent it, and after his 
resurrection appeared to his disciples at it, John xxi. 1. 

Genrcesa was a town near Gadara, so called either from 
the Gergesites, the posterity of Canaan; for neither did 
Zabulon nor Naphthali drive out all the Canaanites, Judg. 
i. 30. 33, or from Gergishta, signifying clay, the soil being 
clay : it gave name to a region so called, which comprehended 
in it Gadara, Hippo, and Magdala. See Gadara. 

GrruseManeE was a garden beyond Kedron, at the foot of 
mount Olivet, so called from the wine-presses in it. 

Goteorna signifies a skull, from the rolling of it; as we 
read, Luke xxiii. 33, “ The place was called the place of a 
skull,” Matt. xxvii. 33, Mark xv. 32, John xix. 17, of which 
St. Cyrilt gives this very improbable reason, that it was 
called so prophetically, because Christ, our head, was cruci- 
fied there; he being not κράνιον, our “skull,” but ἡ κεφαλὴ, 
our “ head :”’ others think it was so ealled, from the head of 
Adam, buried there ; this we have received by tradition, say 
Origen,§ Cyprian, Athanasius, St. Basil, Epiphanius, Am- 
brose, Chrysostom, Augustine: whereas they could receive 
no such tradition from the Jews, who taught, that Adam 
was buried at Kiriath-Arbe, or Hebron ; whence Jerome, on 
the place, says, this tradition is pleasing, but not true: he 
therefore saith, it was so called, as being a place full of skulls, 
by reason of the malefactors executed and buried there. 
Against which opinion it may be objected, that it is never 
called “the place of skulls,” but, “ of a skull:” others there- 
fore say, it was so called, because it was a little hill in form 
like to a man’s skull. 

Greece, called also Hellas, was celebrated throughout the 
world for learning and wisdom: it was that little part of 
Europe, saith Cicero, “which flourished in fame, glory, 
learning, and in most arts.” Hence Tatian§ saith, “« They 
divided wisdom among themselves,” and said, “it belonged 
to them alone ;” and to this the apostle seemeth to refer, 
when he saith, “I am debtor to the Greek and to the bar- 
barian, to the wise and to the unwise,” Rom. i. 14, they call- 
ing all other nations barbarians (see the note on 1 Cor. xiv. 
11): because, saith Strabo,** τὸ παιδείας καὶ λόγων οἰκεῖον, 
“earning and reason obtained among them, but was ne- 
glected by other nations,{+ who the more they were distant 
from them, the more they were ignorant:” but when the 
apostle also adds, that which all the apologists; for the 
Christian faith observe, that, “professing themselves wise 
they became fools,” by their idolatry, Rom. i. 21, 22; none 
being more addicted to it than the Grecians and the Athen- 
ians (see there), who were esteemed as the eye of Greece ; 
Tatian saith,§§ “They rather chose to have more demons than 
one God.” Their gods, saith Cicero,|\\] were first men,” and 


* De Bell. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 35. 

+ Lib. v. cap. 5. 

+ Catech. xiii. p. 133. 

§ Apud Maldon. in Matt. xxvii. 33. 

| Que fama, que gloria, que doctrina, que plurimis 
artibus floruit. Orat. pro Flacco. 

4 Φάσκετε σοφίαν εἶναι wap’ ὑμῖν. 
Μερίζοντες τὴν σοφίαν. Ibid. 

** Lib. i. p. 46. P. 114. 

++ Justin. Cohort. ad Grecos, p. 21. Athenag. p. 13, 14. 
Theophil. ii. ad Autol. p. 85. Clem, Alex. Admon. ad 
Grecos, p. 25. 

§§ Orat. contra Gree. sect. 23. 

ἢ] Jam veré in Grecia multos habent ex hominibus deos. 
De Nat. Deorum, lib. iii. n. 27. Totum pené ccelum nonne 
| humano genere completum est? Tusc, Qu. i. n. 24, 


Orat. ad. Gr. sect. 43. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


with these, we, saith he, and they “ have filled the heavens :” 
and yet it is, with the highest reason, said, in the same 
author, that nothing can be more absurd, quim homines 
morti deletos referre in deos, “than to make gods of dead 
men,” De Nat. Deorum, lib. i. n. 29. Note also, that 
Greece, in its largest acceptation, comprehended all Mace- 
donia, Thessaly, Epirus, Achaia (i. 6. Greece properly so 
called), Peloponnesus, and the circumjacent islands; and so 
was bounded on the north with the Scardian mountains, on 
the west with the Ionian, on the south with the Cretian, and 
on the east with the gean seas: hence in Daniel, viii. 22, 
x. 20, xi. 2, it is used, in the largest acceptation, to denote 
Macedonia, as well as the more southern parts of Greece ; 
whereas, in Acts xx. 2, it is used exclusively of Macedonia, 
when it is said that Paul, going through the parts of Mace- 
donia, came to Greece. 


Farr-waven, Acts xxvii. 8, styled by Stephanus, καλὴ 
ἀκτὴ, “the fair-shore,” is a part of Crete, where, saith he, 
was a city, or great village: but whereas it is there styled a 
part, ᾧ ἐγγὺς ἡ πόλις Αασαῖα, “near to the city of Laswa,” 
that troubles the commentators, who can find no city in Crete 
of that name, besides one mentioned by Pliny, which he 
places in the continent. Jerome, and from him other 
geographers, speak of it as civitas littoralis, “a city by the 
shore: moreover, Dr. Lightfoot shows that ἐγγὺς, and οὐ 
πόῤῥω, are sometimes used by geographers of places distant 
almost one hundred miles. 


Hrenrarotts, mentioned Col. ii. 1, is a city of Phrygia, as 
appears from its nearness to Laodicea, celebrated by Strabo,* 
for its hot lapidific waters; and for a hollow place called 
Plutonium, not much exceeding a man’s length, whose 
noisome exhalations suffocate every thing that enters into it, 
except a capon: it was so called, saith Stephanus, ἀπὸ τοῦ 
ἱερὰ πολλὰ ἔχειν, “from the many temples it had in it.” 


Icox1u™ was a city of Lycaonia, the chief of the fourteen 
belonging to that tetrarchy, saith Pliny,t a well-built city in 
the richest part of Lycaonia, saith Strabo. Here was a 
synagogue of Jews and proselytes, to whom Paul and 
Barnabas preaching, and confirming their doctrine by mira- 
cles, made many proselytes, Acts xiv. 1—3, and where the 
unbelieving Jews and gentiles made an assault upon them, 
to “use them despitefully, and to stone them,” ver. 5. 

Ipumea, Mark iii. 8, is not the region of Syria, in which 
the Edomites, or the posterity of Esau, dwelt, but the Jew- 
ish Idumea, or the south part of Judea; and hence, in 
Diodorus Siculus, the seat of Sodom, which is the south of 
Judea, is said to be, κατὰ μέσην τὴν σατραπείαν τῆς Idupaias,§ 
“in the midst of the province of Idumea:” in the book of 
Maccabees are many places mentioned, as in Idumea, which 
were almost in the middle of Judea; v. g. Bethoron is κώμη 
᾿Ιδυμαίας, “a village of Idumea,” 1 Mace. iv. 29; it is κώμη 
τῆς Ιουδαίας, “a village of Judea,’ saith Josephus; and 
ver. 61, Bethsura, near to Jerusalem, is fortified to be a 
defence against the Ilumeans. Josephus adds, that Judas 
and his brethren left not off fighting with the Idumeans, but 
fell upon them every where,{ taking the cities of Hebron, 
Merissa, and Azotus, which were all in the land of Judah. 
It therefore is conjectured, that in the time of the captivity 
of the Jews in Babylon, the Edomites had invaded their 
possessions, and fixed their tents there; though afterward, 
by the powerful arms of the Maccabees and Asmoneans, they 
were either rooted out, or constrained to embrace Judaism: 
thus Josephus informs us, that when Hyrcanus had taken 
Sechem and mount Gerizim, and the country of the Cutheans, 
or Samaritans, he proceeds to take the city of Idumea, 
Adore, and Marissa, both in Judea; and having subdued all 
the Idumeans, he declares he would expel them from their 
seats, if they would not be circumcised, and submit to the 
Jewish laws: and that hereupon, they, out of love to their 
country,** καὶ τὴν περιτομὴν καὶ τὴν ἄλλην τοῦ βίου δίαιταν 
ὑπέμειναν τὴν αὐτὴν Ἰουδαίοις ποιήσασθαι, “received circumci- 


* Lib. xiii. p. 433. 
+ Lib. xii. p. 391. 
|| Antigq. lib. xii. cap. 10. 
** Thid. lib. xiii. cap. 17. 


+ Lib. v. cap. 27, p. 288. 
§ Lib. xix. p. 724. 
q Ibid. lib. xii. cap. 12, p. 418. 


1213 


sion, and conformed to the same course or diet with the 
Jews,” and styled themselves their domestics and com- 
patriots. De Bel. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 16, 17. 


Jenicno was a wealthy city in Benjamin, which Joshua 
destroyed, with a curse upon him that should rebuild it, 
vi. 26. Nevertheless, Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt it, in the 
days of Abab; and the curse pronounced upon him by 
Joshua for so doing was punctually fulfilled, 1 Kings xvi. 94, 
After its restoration, it was ennobled by the schools of the 
prophets ; near to it was a large spring, but unwholesome, 
and making the land unfruitful, till Elisha cured it, 2 Kings 
y. 21, and from that time it produced fruitfulness in abun- 
dance. ‘The country, saith Josephus," was seated in a 


| plain, narrow, but long; for it runs out northward to the 


country of Scythopolis, and southward to the land of Sodom, 
being one hundred and fifty miles in length, and fifteen in 
breadth: opposite to it lay a mountain beyond Jordan; and 
this great plain is, by Matthew, styled ἡ περίχωρος τοῦ ᾿Ιορδάνου, 
“the region about Jordan,’ Matt. iii. 5. It was planted, 
say Strabo and Pliny, with a grove of palm-trees (whence 
the city of palm-trees, Deut. xxxiv. 3, Judg. i. 16, is, by 
the Targum, called Jericho), and well watered with springs, 
and fruitful with balsam, which, saith Josephus,t is the best 
commodity of the place. Under the second temple, it gave 
place to no city of Judea but Jerusalem; had at royal 
palace in it, where Herod ended his days; a hippodromus, 
where the Jewish nobility, being imprisoned by him, were to 
be slain after his death; and an amphitheatre, where his 
will was publicly opened and read: it was distant from 
Jerusalem almost nineteen miles; but the way from Jerusa- 
lem to it being desert and rocky, it was infested with thieves 
(see the note on Luke x. 30. 32) ; and Jericho having twelve 
thousand priests and Levites which served at the temple, it 
is no wonder that a priest and Levite should pass by that way. 

Jenvsatem may be considered, either (first) as the capital 
city of Judea, in compass six miles and a quarter, standing 
in the two tribes of Benjamin and Judah, and built upon 
three mountains; mount Zion, on which the upper city, 
which was-on the north of Jerusalem, was built; Acra, on 
which stood the lower city, properly called Jerusalem; and 
mount Moriah, “ the mountain of the Lord’s house,” which 
was compassed about by the city, as a theatre, and walled 
round: it was a perfect square of five hundred cubits on each 
side, and two thousand in the whole: and as the city of 
Jerusalem is called “the holy place,” Matt. xxiv. 15, and 
“the holy city,’ Matt. iv. δ, and was so esteemed by the 
Jews, 1 Macc. x. 31, so this mountain was called “holy 
ground,” to which they who had issues, or were menstruous, 
or women in child-bed, during the time of their uncleanness, 
might not come. Or, 

(Secondly) It may be considered as the place where 
our Lord was crucified, where the gospel was first preach- 
ed, and where it found the greatest opposition: and in 
reference to this it hath been shown, 

Ist, That before Christ’s passion, the scribes and phari- 
sees were the great enemies to our Lord’s person, and his 
doctrine: but when the apostles began to assert his resur- 
rection, and the resurrection of believers, by his power, 
the sadducees also were vehement opposers of his doctrine: 
see the note on Acts iv. 2. 

2ndly, That they not only persecuted the Christians in 
Judea, and throughout all the synagogues of the Jews, but 
instigated all heathen governors where they had any foot- 
ing; they persecuting and killing them with their own 
hands, where they had power, and persuading others so- 
to do, where they had an interest sufficient, Acts xiii. 50, 
xiv. 2. 5, xvii. 5. 13. See the note on Gal. iii. 4, and the 
preface to the Epistle of St. James. 

3dly, That for their infidelity and opposition to the gos- 
pel, “the kingdom of God was taken from them,” Matt. 
xxi. 43, they were blinded, and “given up to a spiritual 


* De Bell. Jud. lib. iv. cap. 27. 

ἡ Ὃ τοῦ βαλσάμου παράδεισος, lib. xvi. p. 525, lib. v. cap. 
14. Φέρει δὲ καὶ ὁποβάλσαμον ὃ δὲ τιμιώτερον τῶν τῇδε καρπῶν. 
De Bell. Jud. lib. xvi. 

+ Joseph. Antiq. lib. xvii. cap. 8, et de Bell. Jud. lib i. 
cap. ult. 

5B 


1214 


slumber,” Rom. ix. 7, 8, were “rejected and broken off,” 
ver. 15. 17, “ for their unbelief,” ver. 20. Or, 

(Thirdly) We may discourse of it as it was the city 
which, with the temple, and the inhabitants, was therefore 
to be “destroyed, laid waste, and trodden down by the gen- 
tiles : and here observe, 

1st, That both our Lord and his forerunner declared 
their ruin was at hand, if they would not repent, and be- 
lieve the gospel: that “the axe was then laid to the root 
of the tree,” Matt. iii. 10, that Jerusalem should be “left 
desolate,” and “all the blood of the prophets, shed from 
Abel, should be required of that generation,” Matt. xxiii. 
35. 38, that all he had foretold concerning the destruction 
of the temple, the city, and the people of Jerusalem, should 
be fulfilled, before that generation passed away, Matt. 
xxiv. 84. See Matt. xvi. 28, xxvi. 64, Luke xix. 41—43, 
and the notes there. 

2ndly, That this was the constant doctrine taught in 
most of the epistles, and the continual expectation of the 
believing Jews and Christians, that wrath was coming 
upon that nation for their infidelity, and persecution of the 
Christians; and that Christ would shortly come to de- 
stroy them for those sins. See Rom. xi. 22, 1 Thess. 
ii. 15, 16, v. 9, 2 Thess. ii. 8, Heb. x. 36, James v. 8, 1 
Pet. iv. 17, 18, and the notes on those places, and Gal. 
iv. 20, vi. 12, Phil. iii. 18, 19. 

3dly, That Josephus speaks frequently of the répara «ai 
σημεῖα, “the signs, wonders,” and certain indications then 
given of their approaching ruin, De Bell. Jud. lib. i. cap. 
1, lib. iv. cap. 17, lib. vii. cap. 30, 31, as also doth the hea- 
then Tacitus.* Josephus adds, that God* was now ἀπε- 
στραμμένος καὶ ra ἅγια, “rejecting their holy things,” and 
would have both their “temple and city purged by fire:” 
that he “in vain attempted to save, τοὺς ὑπὸ Θεοῦ κατακρί- 
τους, them whom God had condemned,” and that their ruin 
was foretold by their own prophets, and not to be avoided, 
τὸ yap τὸ τέλος εἶναι τοῦ Θεοῦ. Eleazar,t from what was 
done, takes notice, that all might thence know, that once 
beloved nation, now ἀπωλεία κατέγνωστο, “ was condemned 
to destruction ;” and even Titus: says, their actions showed 
their destruction was wrought, Θεοῦ μένει, by the anger of 
God,” and that they prospered in their attempts against 
them, Θεοῦ συνεργείαις, “by the divine assistance: in a 
word, the history of these wars, composed by that Jewish 
priest, is the best comment on, and the greatest confirma- 
tion of, the truth of Christ’s predictions of all the circum- 
stances of their ruin, as is shown on Matt. xxiv. 

Jopra, Acts ix. 13, was a famous port town betwixt 
Cesarea and Azotus, so called, as some think, from Ja- 
pheth the son of Noah, who built, or rather rebuilt it, after 
the flood; for Solinus§ and Melal| say, it was built before 
the flood: it was famous among the heathens for the fable 
of Andromeda and Perseus; among the Jews, for being a 
port town from whence they went up to Jerusalem, which 
they might see, saith Strabo, from Joppa, though it were 
above a day’s journey: and for the miserable** shipwreck 
of the Jews, when Vespasian took it; and among the 
Christians, for Tabitha, there raised from the dead by 
Peter, Acts ix. 

Jorpan is a river arising in the region of Daphne, 
near to Libanus, not out of two fountains or rivers, Jor and 
Dan, as Jerome and Suidas say; but from one that is in 
the cave called Phanium, as Pliny saith,j{ and Josephus 
often: though in his third book of the Jewish wars, he 
says, that it was found out by Philip the tetrarch to have 
its rise from the springs of Phiale, which run under ground 
twenty-six furlongs, and appear only at the cave of Pha- 
nium, which therefore is assigned for its apparent rise. It 
is called Jordan the less, till it falls into the lake Samocho- 
nitis, whence coming forth augmented, it is called Jordan 
the greater, and falling into the lake of Gennesaret, it 
passes through it, and ends in the Dead sea: it is famous 


* Hist. lib. v. p. 621. Lib. ii. cap. 39, p. 820, lib. iv. cap. 
18, p. 833, C. lib. vii. cap. 8, p. 948, 957, U. p. 887, A, B. 
ἡ Lib. vii. cap. 31, p. 990. + Lib. vii. cap. 4, p. 944. 

§ Cap. 47. ) Lib. i. cap. 11, et Voss. ib. p. 63. 
q Lib. xvi. p. 522. ** Jos, de B. Jud. lib. 111, cap.29. 
tf Lib. iii. cap. 35. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


among the Jews, for being dried up at a time when it 
overflowed all its banks, to give a passage to the children 
of Israel into Canaan; and among Christians, for being the 
place of our Lord’s baptism by John. 

Irurea, mentioned as part of the tetrarchy of Philip, 
Luke iii. 1, was so called, from Jethur the son of Ishmael, 
Gen. xxv. 15, and lay edging upon Arabia, but was in or 
bordering upon Ceelosyria: it was part of the tribes of Dan 
and Gad, and made a tetrarchy by Tiberius, and was part- 
ly the same with Puronitis, in Josephus;* for whereas 
Luke saith, “ Philip was tetrarch of Iturea and Trachoni- 
tis;” Josephus says, Batanea, Trachon, and Puronitis, 
were assigned to him by Cesar. Moreover, Ishmael being 
a skilful archer, Gen. xxi. 20, the Itureans are celebrated, 
by poets and historians,t for their skill in fighting with 
bow and arrow. 

Jupza, as it signifies the whole land of promise, is by 
Tacitus said to be terminated with Arabia on the east, 
Egypt on the south,+ Phenicia on the west, and Syria on 
the north: as it is distinguished from Galilee and Samaria, 
and contains the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Simeon, and 
Dan, the§ bounds towards the north are the village An- 
nach, or Dorceus; on the south, it reaches to a village 
called Jarda in Arabia, and its breadth is from the river 
Jordan to Joppa, and Jerusalem is in the centre of it. It 
is divided into the mountains, the plain, and the south; 
the south lay towards Seir and Amalek, from the inlets 
into the land at the utmost part of the Dead sea, and 
reached to the rising of the mountains not far below He- 
bron: the mountains began near Hebron, and ran along 
northward to and beyond Jerusalem, having the plain of 
Jordan skirting on the east, till you come to the borders of 
Samaria: hence the blessed Virgin, going to visit her 
cousin at Hebron, a city of the priests, is said to go into 
the hill country, Luke i. 99. The plain joins to the moun- 
tainous country on the east, and though more level than 
that, yet hath its hills: to the plain eastwardly joins a 
valley lower than the plain, which is the coast of Sodom, 
and at length that of Jordan. The wilderness of Judea, 
where John first taugh, Matt. iii. 1, and Christ was 
tempted, lay betwixt Jericho and Jordan, and from Jericho 
towards Jerusalem both of them were comparatively desert 
(whence Strabo] saith, Jerusalem was a place not to be 
envied by any one, as having about it χώραν λυπρὸν καὶ ἄνυ- 
ὅρον, “a dry, barren country”), although both these deserts 
are also populous and had many towns. 


LaoprceEa, mentioned Col. ii. 1, was that which Stepha- 
nus calls Laodicea ad Lycum, by the river Lycus, which 
Ptolemy{ and Philostratus say, was a city of Caria; it 
was ruined by an earthquake in the tenth of Nero, and was 
rebuilt, saith Tacitus,** by its own wealth. 

Lrsya was so called from the Arabic word Lud, which 
signifies thirst, as being a dry, thirsty earth, and therefore, 
by some grammarians, said to have its name, ἀπὸ rod λείπειν 
καὶ ὕειν, “from its want of rain;” among the Greeks, it is 
used as another name for Africa, as it imports a part of it; 
it was divided into Libya,{{ interior and exterior: but the 
Libya mentioned by Luke, Acts ii. 10, is that which is by 
Ptolemy called Libya Cyrenaica; and by Pliny,+;+ Penta- 
politana Regio, from its five cities, viz. Berenice, Arsinoe, 
Polemais, Apollonia, and Cyrene, as appears from these 
words, “ Egypt, and ra μέρη τῆς Λιβύης τῆς κατὰ Κυρήνην, the 
parts of Libya about Cyrene.” It is noted, in the Old 


* De B. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 9. 

+ Itureis cursus fuit inde sagittis. Lucan. lib. vii. Vir- 
gil. Georg. ii. v. 448. Habes sagittarios Itureos. Vopiscus 
in Vita Aurel. cap. 11. Cur Itureos cum sagittis seducis 
in forum? Cic. Orat. Philip. 2. 

+ Hist. lib. v. p. 617. 

§ Jos. de B. Jud. lib. iii. cap. 4, p. 433. 

|| Lib xvi. p. 527. 4 See Berk. in Steph. 

** Laodicea tremore terre prolapsa, nullo a nobis reme- 
dio, propriis opibus revaluit. Annal. lib. xiv. cap. 27. 

{7 Παρὰ γοῦν τοῖς παλαιοῖς εὑρίσκομεν καὶ τριχῶς τὴν Διβύην 
λέγεσϑαι τήν τε ὅλην χώραν, καὶ μέρος τί αὐτῆς εἰς δύο Λιβύας 
ὑποδιαιρούμενον. Eustath. in Dionys. ed. Lond. 1688, p. 32. 

++ Lib. v. cap. 5. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


Testament, for its chariots and horses used in fight, 2 
Chron. xvi. 8, whence it is styled, by Dionysius Perie- 
getes,* Κυρήνη εὔιππος, and by Strabo,t ἱπποτρύψος, “the 
country that bred the best horses :’”’ of which, see Bochart, 
Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 33, but it is mentioned by Luke, on 
account of the Jews, who, living in such vast numbers in 
Alexandria, that fifty thousand of them were slain at 
one time, may well be thought to have had some colonies 
and proselytes in this neighbouring country. 

Lycaonta. The Lycaonia mentioned Acts xiv. 6, was 
not that which is called Arcadia, but a province in the 
lesser Asia, accounted the southern part of Cappadocia, 
having Isauria on the west, Armenia Minor on the east, 
and Cilicia on the south; its chief cities are all mentioned 
in this chapter, viz. Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. “They 
spake (ver. 10) in the Lycaonian tongue,” i. e. in some 
proper dialect of the Greek tongue. 

Lynppa, saith Josephus, was a village} not yielding to a 
city for greatness; it was a part of Judea, not far from 
Joppa, Acts ix. 38, eminent for its schools of Jews and 
learned men: see the note there. 


Josephus§ elsewhere | 


styles it a city, and saith it was burnt by Cestius, whilst | 


the men were gone from it to Jerusalem, to celebrate the 
feast of tabernacles; God, after they had crucified our 
Saviour, not taking that care of these times as formerly. 
It is now called Diospolis, saith Jerome. 

Lystra was a city of Lycaonia, chiefly celebrated for 
the cure done there upon the Jame man, which made the 
Lycaonians think “the gods were come down to them in 
the likeness of men,” Acts xiv. 10, 11, and for the cireum- 
cision of Timothy, xvi. 1. 


Macrponta was a vast province of Greece, formerly 
called Emathia; and from the kings of Macedon, Mace- 
donia: it was bounded on the north by the mountains of 
Hemus, on the south by Epirus and Achaia, on the east 
by the Afgean, on the west by the Ionian and Adriatic 
seas, celebrated in all histories for being the third king- 
dom, that under Alexander the Great obtained the empire 
of the world, and had under it{ one hundred and fifty 
nations. To this country, whose metropolis was then 
Thessalonica, St. Paul was called by a vision, Acts xvi. 9, 
and the churches planted by him in it are celebrated for 
their great charity, and ready contribution to the distressed 
Jews in Judea, 2 Cor. viii. 9, when they themselves lay 
under the most extreme poverty ; and both in Thessalonica 
and Macedonia, saith Philo,** lived a great number of 
Jews. 

Macpara was a city and territory beyond Jordan, on 
the bank of Gadara; it reached to the bridge above Jor- 
dan, which joined it to the other side of Galilee, and con- 
tained within its precincts Dalmanutha: whence Matthew 
saying, xv. 39, “Christ came into the coast of Magdala,” 
Mark saith more particularly, viii. 10, “He came into the 
parts of Dalmanutha.” 

Mevra, mentioned Acts ii. 10, in these words, “ Par- 
thians, Medes, and Elamites,” was a vast region, having 
on the north the Hyrcanian sea, on the west Armenia and 
Assyria, on the south Persia, on the east Hyrcania and 
Parthia: it had its name from Madai the son of Japheth, 
mentioned Gen. x. 2, and advanced into the second monar- 
chy, styled the monarchy of the Medes and Persians, un- 
der Darius the Mede, son of Astyages: of the riches of 
this country, and of the vastness of its chief city, Ecbatan, 
see Bochartus.t¢ In the Babylonian captivity, the Jews 
were carried captive into Assyria, and placed in the cities 
of the Medes, 2 Kings xvii. 6, xviii. 11. Hence we find 
many of them and their proselytes at Jerusalem, when the 
jtoly Ghost fell on the apostles. 

Metre, the island of Malta, where St. Paul was ship- 
wrecked : of which, see the note on Acts xxviii. 1. 

Mesororamra is a country in Asia Major, between the 


* V.-213. ἡ Lib. xvii. p. 576. 

$ Πόλεως τὸ μέγεϑος οὐκ ἀποδέουσα, Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5. 

§ De B. Jud. lib. ii.cap. 37. || De Nom. Hebr. f. 11. 

§ Centum quinquaginta populorum duobus inclyta le- 
gibus quondamque terrarum imperio. Plin. lib. iv. cap. 10. 

** Leg. ad Caium. p.978. Τ{ Phaleg, lib. iii, cap. 14. 


1215 


rivers Euphrates and Tigris, as the Greek word imports ; 
hence it is styled in the Hebrew, Aram Narajam, i. e. 
“ Syria of the rivers,” and the inhabitants,* of ἐκ μέσης τῶν 
ποταμῶν, “they who dwell in the midst of the rivers;” but 
that in scripture and profane authors it is sometimes used 
in a Jarger sense, see the note on Acts vii. 2. 

Mrpran, the land into which Moses fled from the Egyp- 
tians, Acts vii. 29. It was the place where Jethro lived, 
Exod. xii. 11, and the people came from} Madian, the son 
of Abraham by Keturah, Gen. xv. 2, whence we have rea- 
son to believe they still retained the worship of the true 
God. It was in Arabia Petra, whence, Philo¢ saith, 
“Moses fled, εἰς τὴν ὅμορον 'ApaBiav.” 

Mixervs, a port town of Asia Minor, and a city of Ionia, 
where, saith Jerome, “Paul, majores Ephesi alloquitur, 
speaks to the elders of Ephesus,” taking no notice of any 
other bishops there convened: it was the city where 
Thales,§ one of the seven wise men, Anaximander his 


| disciple, Timotheus the musician, and Anaximenes the 


philosopher, were born. There was another Miletus in 
Crete, mentioned by Pliny, and by Homer,§ where St. 
Paul left Trophimus sick: see the note on 2 Tim. iv. 20, 
and the preface to Titus. There was also, saith Eusta- 
thius in Dionys. P. Κρητικὴ νῆσος, an island of that name 
in Crete. 

Mirytene, corruptly Mytilene, saith** Vossius, was a 
large and beautiful city of the island Lesbos, where Pit- 
tacus one of the seven wise men, Aceus the poet, Dio- 
phanes the orator, and Theophanes the historian, were 
born. The whole island was also called byt} that name; 
as also Pentapolis, from the five cities in it, viz. Issa or 
Antissa, Pyrrha, Eressos, Arisba, Mitylene. If it had that 
name in St. Luke’s time, you may understand either the 
island, or the city, when he saith, Acts xx. 14, “ We came 
to Mitylene.” 

Myra was one of the six great cities of Lycia, saith 
Strabo,++ and it lay nigh the sea, saith Pliny ;§§ whence 
Luke saith, Acts xxvii. 5, that “sailing over the sea of 
Cilicia and Pamphylia, they came to Myra in Lycia.” It 
had its name, say Stephanus de Urbibus and Porphyroge- 
netes, lib. i. them. 14, ἀπὸ τῶν μύρων, “from the ointments 
made there,” and is by both of them called a city of Lycia. 
The Latin copies, instead of Myra, read Lystra in Lycaonia, 
far distant from these seas, against the Greek, and the au- 
thority of Jerome and Chrysostom. 

Mysra, mentioned Acts xvi. 7, 8, was bounded on the 
north with Bithynia, on the east with Phrygia Minor, on 
the west with Troas, on the south by the river Hermus; 
there, perhaps, Paul attempted not to stay; because, as 
Cicero notes,|\| in his Oration for Flaccus, they were a 
people despicable and base to a proverb. 


Nary, mentioned Luke vii. 11, 12, was a city in the ex- 
treme borders of Issachar, towards Samaria, two leagues 
from Nazareth, and not much more from Tabor, saith Bo- 
chart, at the gates of which our Lord restored the widow’s 
son to life; it was so called from the pleasantness of the 
place. If Josephus§{ speaks of the same place, and not 
rather of Nain, a village in Samaria, he thrice calls it a 
village, and saith, it was walled about by Simon son of Gejo- 
rah the robber; but Luke assures us, it had gates in our 
Saviour’s time. 

Nazanreta was a city of the lower Galilee, in the con- 
fines of Issachar and Zabulon, but within the latter: here 
the blessed Virgin was born, and lived: it was of ill fame 
in our Saviour’s time, as appears from the question of Na- 
thanael, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” 
John i. 47. Whence Christ was, by contempt, called a 


* Arrian. lib. iii. + Jos. Antiq. lib. ii. cap. 5, p. 59. 

+ De Vita Mosis, p. 473. § Mela, lib. i. cap. 17. 

|) Lib. iv. cap. xii. p. 113, 290. 4 Iliad. B. 

** In Melam, p. 201. 

Tf Strabo, lib. xiii. p. 424, Mela, lib. ii. cap. 7. 

++ Lib. xiv. p. 457. §§ Lib. xv. cap. 27, p. 290. 

||| Quid porro in Greco sermone tam tritum atque cele- 
bratum; quam si quis despicatui ducitur, ut Mysorum ulti- 
mus esse dicatur? N. 51, 52. 

47 Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 5, De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 21, 30, 


1216 


Nazarene, and Christians, Nazarenes. 
Matt. ii. 23. 

Nryeyen was the chief city of Assyria, by the Greeks 
called Ninus, from the builder of it, named in scripture, 
Nimrod, and by the Greeks Νίνος, which some think to be 
hinted in the name, as being Nin-nave, the habitation of 
Ninus, who came from Shinar to Assyria, and built it, Gen. 
x. 10 (see the Bishop of Ely there). It is called in the 
Scriptures, πόλις μεγάλη τῷ Θεῷ, Jonah i. 2, iii. 3, i. e. 
‘“‘a very great city” (as Moses was ἀστεῖος τῷ Θεῷ, “very 
fair,’ Acts vii. 20, see the note there) ; as well it might, 
being, saith Diodorus Siculus,* in length one hundred 
and fifty stadia, 1. 6. almost nineteen miles; in breadth 
ninety stadia, i. 6. twelve miles and a half; in circuit four 
hundred and eighty stadia, i. e. sixty miles; and so count- 
ing twenty miles for a day’s journey, as the Greeks used to 
do, a city of three day’s journey, not in length, but in cir- 
cuit, say Jerome, Cyril, and Theodoret, upon the place, 
Jonah iii. 8. Strabot says it was larger than Babylon, 
which contained in circuit three hundred and fifty stadia: 
Eustathiust on Dionysius Periegetes, adds, that in the 
building of it one hundred and forty thousand men laboured 
eight years. It was famous for being the city in which 
the first monarchy was erected, and which repented at the 
preaching of Jonas, and so, it seems, owned the God of 
Israel as the true God; as generally those eastern king- 
doms did, though they had topical gods of their own (see 
the note on Luke i. 76). It was taken fifty-eight vears 
after the time of Jonas, by Arbaces rebelling against Sar- 
danapalus, and destroyed one hundred and eighty-two 
years after by Nabuchodonosor and Assuerus, Tobit xiv. 
15; or, according to others, by Nabopolassar and Astyages, 
and was never built again: whence Strabo§ saith, ἡ μὲν οὖν 
Nivos πύλις ἠφανίσϑη παραχρῆμα pera τὴν τῶν Σύρων κατάλυσιν, 
and Lucian|| to Charon, ἢ Νίνος μὲν ἀπόλωλεν ἤδη, καὶ οὐδε 
ἴχνος ἔτι λοιπὸν αὐτῆς, “ Ninus was so destroyed, that no 
footsteps of it now remain ;” God having said, by his pro- 
phet Nahum, i. 8, that he would make “ an utter end there- 
of.’ As for its situation, it is commonly said, that it was 
built on the west side of the river Tigris ; but, as Bochartus 
shows, historians and geographers differ so much as to the 
situation of it, that they seem thereby to confirm the words 
of the prophet Nahum, iii. 17, “It shall be as the locusts, 
who, when they flee away, their place is not known where 
they were.” 


See the note on 


Mount Ottver, mentioned Acts i. 12, had its name 
from the multitude of olive-trees that grew upon it; whence 
at the foot of it was Gethsemane, Matt. xxvi. 26, “the 
place of oil-presses,” derived from gath, a press, and 
shemen, oil. It was distant from Jerusalem, saith Luke, 
“a sabbath-day’s journey,” that is, a mile. It lay over 
against the city, saith Josephus,** that is, the east part of 
it, and was distant from it five furlongs; he speaking only 
of the foot of mount Olivet, which was no further dis- 
tant from the city; whereas Luke speaks of the place 
whence Christ ascended, which was three furlongs farther ; 
whence he informs us that Christ led his disciples out, 
ἕως eis Βηθανίαν, “even to the borders of Bethany ;” but to 
that tract of the mountain where the name of Bethphage 
ceased, and that of Bethany began, Luke xxiv. 50, 51. 


Pampnyxra is a province of Asia Minor, having to the 
south the Pamphylian sea, mentioned Acts xxvii. 5, Cili- 
cia to the east, Pisidia to the north (whence we find Paul 
passing through Pisidia to Pamphylia, Acts xiv. 24, and 
from Pamphylia to Pisidia, Acts xiii. 14) and Lycia to the 
west. The cities mentioned in the scripture as belonging 
to it are Perga and Attalia, Acts xiii. 13. Here also the 


Jews dwelt, saith Philo;{+ whence they of Pamphylia are | 


mentioned among those who appeared at Jerusalem at the 
day of Pentecost, Acts ii. 10. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


Papuos was a city of Cyprus, Acts xiii. 4. 6, the metro- 
polis of that island, and the place where the proconsul had 
his residence: and Venus, saith Tacitus, had the most an- 
cient temple,* which he describes more largely in the be- 
ginning of his second book of histories; whence it became, 
saith Arator,t lascivus ager, sacrilegeque libidinis antrum, 
being the place where the virgins prostituted themselves 
before marriage, to get a dowry, as we learn from Justin¢ 
and Herodotus. Here Paul struck blind Elymas the 
sorcerer, and converted Sergius the proconsul. That the 
Jews dwelt here in abundance, we learn from Elymas a 
Jew, ver. 6. See Cyprus. 

Of Parrura we have only mention indirectly, in these 
words, Acts ii. 9, “ Parthians, Medes, and Elamites.” It 
lasted an empire for four hundred years, and disputed for 
the empire of the east with the Romans: they were cele- 
brated for the] veneration of their kings, and for their 
way of fighting by flight, and shooting their arrows back- 
wards. They are not mentioned in scripture, say Ethicus 
and Orosits, save under the name of Medes. They dwelt 
between Media and Mesopotamia; in all which Transeuphra- 
tensian places, except some little parts of Babylon, and of 
some other little prefectures, the Jews, saith Philo,{ 
abounded, and so were at Jerusalem when the Holy Ghost 
fell on the apostles. 

Prner, or Penea, is a city of Pamphylia, Acts xiii. 13, 
memorable among the heathens for a temple of Diana 
built there; whence she was called, saith Mela,** Diana 
Pergea, Περγασία ἤΑρτεμις, saith Stephanus; among the 
Christians, for the departure thence of John Mark from 
Barnabas and Paul, to Jerusalem, which occasioned the 
rupture betwixt them “ for a season,” Acts xv. 37. 40. 

Pua@nicta was a province of Syria, divided into two 
parts ; Pheenicia Maritima, which reached from Tripolis to 
Ptolemais, say some; to Pelusium in Egypt, say others; 
and Midland Pheenicia, of which Damascus was the metro- 
polis. They had their names, saith Bochart, ἀπὸ τῶν φοινί- 
κων, “from the palm-trees” growing in their land, not 
from the Red sea; nor a puniceo colore, “from their pur- 
ple colour;” nor ἀπὸ τοῦ φόνου, “ from the slaughters” they 
made where they-came, but from their rise, they being 
beni ynak, “son of the Anakims” in Canaan; whence being 
beaten by Joshua, they fled to the side of the Mediterranean 
sea, where, saith Procopius,{} they erected pillars with this 
inseription, ἡμεῖς ἐσμεν οἱ φεύγοντες ἀπὺ προσώπου ᾿Ιησοῦ τοῦ ληστοῦ 
viod Ναύη, “ We are they who fly from the face of Joshua, the 
son of Nave, the robber.” They were celebrated for their 
navigations, of which, saith Bochart, they have left indica- 
tions in all places; and for the invention of letters, for from 
them, saith Herodotus, letters were brought by Cadmus into 
Greece, and were thence called dowixia γράμματα, “ Phe- 
nician letters,” Herodot. lib. v. cap. 58, Tatian. ed. Oxon. 
p. 3, Euseb. Prep. Evang. lib, x. cap. 5, and they had 
them, saith Eupolemus, from the Jews, Clem. Alex. Strom. 
i. p. 343. 

Puritert was a city of Macedonia, so called from Philip 
king of Macedon, who repaired it, whence it lost its former 
name of Dathos; it is called by Luke, ἡ πρώτη τῆς μερίδος 
τῆς Μακεδονίας πύλις, not because it was the metropolis of 
it, for that was hessalonica (see note on Phil. i. 1); but 
because it was “the first city” belonging to it, which 
they who came from Neapolis in Thrace, as Paul did, 
Acts xvi. 11, or from the gulf of Strymon, touched at 
(see the note on Acts xvi. 12). It was celebrated among 
the Romans for being a Roman colony, Acts xvi. 21, and 
for the campi Philippici, where Cesar and Pompey first, 
and afterward Augustus and Mare Antony fought with 
Cassius and Brutus; and among Christians, for their con- 
version by St. Paul, and the liberal contribution they, and 
they only, sent him in his necessity, by Epaphroditus, 
Phil. iv. 15. 18, and for his epistle directed to them. 

Pisrpra, mentioned Acts xiv. 24, was a country in Asia 


Meyiorny τῶν τότε οὐσῶν κατὰ πᾶσαν τὴν οἰκουμένην, lib. 
ii. p. 65. 
7 Lib. vi. p. 507. 
§ Lib. xvi. p- 507. || ᾿Επισκοποῦντες, p- 180. 
4 Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 20. ** Antiq. lib. xx. cap. 7. 
Th Διῳκισμένας Παμφυλίαν καὶ Κιλικίαν, Legat. p. 798. 


* 


+P. 125, 


* Cyprii tribus templis quorum vetustissimum Paphie 
Veneris. Annul. lib. iii. p. 128. 7 Carm. lib. ii. 

+ Lib. xviii. cap. 5. § Lib. i. cap. 190, p. 84. 

|| Bochart. Phaleg, lib. iii. cap. 14, p. 25, 

4 Leg. ad Caium, p. 798. ** Lib. i. cap. 14. 

tt De Vandalicis. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


Minor, having Pamphylia on the south, Galatia on the 
north, Isauria on the east, and Phrygia on the west; its 
chief city was Antioch in Pisidia, Acts xiii. 14, so called 
to distinguish it from Antioch in Syria: its inhabitants are 
commended by Livy,* for their skill in war above other 
Asiatics, and were anciently, saith Pliny,t called Solymi, 
who were compared to lions, for their courage. 

Ponrvs, a province in Asia Minor, bounded on the north 
with the Euxine Sea, on the south with Cappadocia, on 
the west with the river Halys, on the east with Chalcis ; 
celebrated among the heathen poets for its poisonous herbs, 
and therefore called by Virgil,t virosa Pontus, and hence 
Medea is said to have had her poisons from thence ; 
among the Jews, for the dispersions of that nation through 
Pontus, &e., 1 Pet. i. 1, Philo§ declaring, that they sent 


their colonies ἄχρι τῶν rod Πόντου μυχῶν, “to the utmost | 
among Christians, for the birth of | 


bounds of Pontus ;” 
Aquila, Acts xviii. 2, and for the name of an epistle ad 
Ponticos, given to the First Epistle of Peter, as being 
sent unto them (see Tertul. Scorp. cap. 12, Cyprian. 
Testim. lib. iii. cap. 36, 37). 

Punyara is a province of Asia Minor, divided into the 
greater, which had Bithynia on the north, Galatia on the 
east, Pamphylia and Lycia on the south, Lysia and Mysia 
on the west, and was called in the Notitir,|] Pacatiana, 
where the chief cities, mentioned in scripture, Col. ii. 1, 
are Laodicea and Hierapolis; and of this Luke seems to 
speak, Acts ii. 10, because he joins it with Pamphylia be- 
low it; and Phrygia Minor, of which he speaketh, Acts 
xvi. 6. 18 and 22, when he saith, “They passed through 
Phrygia and Galatia.” ‘Che inhabitants were a servile peo- 
ple, kept in their duty best by stripes,J and made wise 
only by sufferings, saith Cicero.** In all these parts of 
Asia Minor, even to Bithynia and the Euxine Sea, the 
Jews abounded, saith Philo, in the place forecited. 

Protemats was a city of Galilee by the sea side, dividing 
the upper from the lower Galilee, and the land of Israel 
from Pheenicia ; it was seated in a plain compassed about 
with mountains, having on the east the mountainous part 
of Galilee, on the north the Scale Tyriorum, on the south 
Carmel. 
of Memnon, and the vale of sand that turns into glass; 


the fragments of which glass being brought back to the - 
| thence by the sea; of which, see Cluverius de Italia 


place, will return again into sand.” It was memorable 
among the Jews for the coming of Petronius thither to set 
up the statue of Caius Caligula, which, at the entreaty of 


the Jews, declaring that their law admitted no images | 
either in their temple, or profane places, he deferred to | 


“ Near to it,” saith Josephus,{} “is the sepulchre | 


execute, till he had writ to Cesar, whoi+ died before his | 


answer came to the hands of Petronius; and also for the 
slaughter of two thousand Jews by the inhabitants of Pto- 
lemais ; and among the Christians, for Paul’s journey in 
a ship of Pheenicia to Tyre, where the ship “ unladed her 


burden,” Acts xxi. 3, from Tyre to Ptolemais thirty-two | 


miles on foot; from thence to Czsarea, ver. 7, 8, and 
from Cesarea to Jerusalem, ver. 15. See the note on Acts 
Po vr A 

ῬυΤΈΟΙΙ, a famous mart town in Italy, having a com- 
modious haven for ships, made, says Strabo,$§ by art and 
labour. It was built, say Jerome and the epitomator of 
Stephanus, by the Samians;|| and called Puteoli, saith 


* Feroces ad bellandum. Lib. xxviii. cap. 13. Longe 
optimi bello. Cap. 15. 

+ Pisidie quondam Solymi appellati. Plin. lib. v. cap. 
27, p. 228, Bochart, Canaan, lib. i. cap. 6, p. 393. 

+ Eclog. viii. 95, Georg. i. 58. 

§ Leg. ad Caium, p. 798, cap. 12, p. 273, 274. 

| Ita Carolus ἃ Sancto Paulo, p. 214. 240, 241. 

“ Sero sapiunt Phryges. Erasm. Adag. cent. i. p. 30. 

** Vetus proverbium, Phrygem plagis fieri solere meli- 
orem. Cic. Orat. pro Flacco, n. 51. 

tt De Bell. Jud. lib. ii. cap. 17. 

++ Ibid. cap. 20. 

§§ Lib. v. p. 169. 

ΕἸ Samii Dicearchiam condiderunt, quam nunc Puteolos 
vocant. Chron. Olymp. 64. Ποτίολοι κτίσμα Σαμίων ἥτις 
καὶ Δικαιάρχεια, Dein Puteoli colonia Dicwarchia dicti. 
Plin. lib. iii. cap. 5, Ρ. 146, 

Vor. IV.—153 


1217 


Varro,* from the pits of hot and cold water; by the Greeks 
it was called Dicwarchia: here Paul, by the favour of the 
centurion, staid seven days. See more, note on Acts 
Xxvill. 13, 


Rama, Matt. ii. 18, was a city in the tribe of Benjamin, 
distant from Jerusalem, saith Josephus,t forty furlongs ; 
saith Jerome,t six miles: and being on a hill, as the 
word Rama signifies, might be within sight of Jerusalem, 
as may be probably collected from Judg. xix. 13. It was, 
saith Dr. Patrick, late bishop of Ely, northward of Jeru- 


| salem; and not far from it, as appears from the Levite 
| going from Bethlehem-Judah to Jebus or Jerusalem, and 


being benighted when he came there, and not able to reach 
Shiloh, whither he was going, consulted with his servant, 
whether they should lodge at Rama or Gibeah, Judg. xix. 
11. 13. 18, and truly, being the place to which he might 
divert when he was on the west of Jebus, in his way to 
Shiloh, after the sun went down, and being near to Gibeah, 
Judg. xix. 13, 1 Sam. xxii. 6, Hos. v. 8, it must lie some- 
what ‘north-west of Jerusalem, and yet not far from it, and 
so the coasts of Rama might be at a less distance. But 
others, to avoid this difficulty, how the coasts of Bethle- 
hem could reach Rama in the tribe of Benjamin, and the 
children slain in those coasts could cause a weeping in 
Rama, give us Ramah near Gibeah, north of Jerusalem, 
and at a greater distance from it on that side, than Beth- 
lehem was on the south, and place another Rama near 
Bethlehem, and south of it; but it is certain, from 1 Sam. 
x. 2, that Rachel’s sepulchre was in the border of Ben- 
jamin, and only in the way from Bethel to Bethlehem, 
Gen. xxxv. 16. 20, and so the voice of Rachel weeping at 
Rama, must refer to Rama in Benjamin: either then their 
territories, or the villages belonging to them, must be near, 
or the words of Matthew must be construed thus, καὶ ἀπο- 
στείλας (sub. ἀπὸ τῆς ἸΙερουσαλὴμ), “And sending from Je- 
rusalem, he slew all the children in Bethlehem, καὶ ἐν πᾶσι 
τοῖς ὑρίοις αὐτῆς, and in all the coasts of Jerusalem ;” it 


| being ordinary for pronoun relatives to refer to a remoter 


antecedent, as is shown, note on Luke v. 17, and for nouns 
to be included in a verb relating to them. 

Raecrem is a port town in Italy, opposite to Sicily, so 
called by the Greeks, as judging it was broken off from 


Antiqua, lib. i. p. 276. Here Paul staid but one day, 
Acts xxviii. 13, and did nothing which Luke thought fit 
to mention; but in that day, say the fabulous writers of 
the church of Rome, he converted some of the inhabitants 
and strangers that were there, by burning a large stone 
pillar with a little candle; preached to the fishes of the 
sea; and commanded the grasshoppers, which with their 
noise disturbed his preaching, to be silent, from which 
time they left the land. See Lorinus on the place. 

Ruopes was an island in the Carpathian Sea, so called, 
say the Greeks, ἀπὸ τῶν ῥόδων, “from the roses” grow- 
ing there: it is accounted, for dignity, among the Asiatic 
islands, next to Cyprus and Lesbos: it was of so clear an 
air, that Solinus saith, there was not a day in the year in 
which the sun did not shine upon it; whence it is styled 
by Horace, clara Rhodus. ‘Tiberius, saith Suetonius,§ 
sailed thither, amcenitate et salubritate insule captus, “ be- 
ing taken with the pleasantness and healthiness of the 
island ;’ which was therefore, by the Roman nobility, 
made a place for their recess; on the north-west of it 
were Coos and Cnidus, on the east Patara, whence Paul 
sails from Coos to Rhodes, and thence to Patara, Acts xx. 
1. It was famous for a college, in which the students 
were eminent for eloquence and mathematics; for a colos- 
sus of the sun, which passed for one of the wonders of the 
world, it being seventy cubits high, and falling by an 


* A puteis oppidum Puteoli, quod sint apud eum locum 
aque frigid et calide multe. Varro de L. C. lib. iv. 

+ Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 6, p. 284, Josh. xviii. 25, 

+ Hieron. de Loc. Hebraic. lit. R. 

§ In Vita Tib. cap. 11. 

|| Dandus est locus fortune, cedendum ex Italie, Rho- 
dum migrandum. Brutus Ep. Fam. 11, c. Quod reli- 
quum est vite, in otio Rhodi degam. Ib. ep. 50, 

532 


1218 


earthquake ; but chiefly for the expertness of the inhabit- 
ants of that city and island in the art of navigation, which 
made them sovereigns of the sea: their constitutions also, 
and judgments in affairs relating to the sea, being withal 
so just, as to become incorporated afterward into the Ro- 
man Pandects. See Strabo, lib. xiv. p. 448. 

Rome. Of this city, because I can never say enough, I 
will say only that which some way tends to the interpreta- 
tion or the illustration of something contained in the New 
Testament. And, 


Ist, 1 have observed already, that it was the seat of the | 


fourth empire, and was therefore called orbis terrarum, 
mundi caput, regina, domina, dea; “the lord of the whole 
earth, the head and queen of it” (see Lloyd de Roma) ; 
and in scripture, πᾶσα οἰκουμένη, “the whole world,’ Luke 
jii. 1. See the note on Heb. ii. 5. 

2ndly, That being so, all the Roman provinces, styled 
“the world,” of necessity repaired to it, not for religious 
causes, but on civil accounts, ob potentiorum principalita- 
tem; see the note on Acts xxviii. 15, it being an* old law, 
that all other cities should follow the custom of Rome, the 
head of the world. 

3rdly, That the Epistle to the Romans, though it was 
written after the Epistles to the Thessalonians and Corin- 
thians, was placed first in order, as some of the fathers 
conjecture, by reason of the dignity of that city (see the 
preface to that epistle): to which add that it was called 
urbs septicollis, and ἑπταλόφος, from the seven hills on 
which it was built, and was celebrated on this account, 
when John wrote his Revelation, not only by her famous 
poets, Virgil, Horace, Martial, Ovid, Propertius, but by 


her orator Cicero,t and many others; which makes it rea- | 


sonable to conceive John points to this city, when he 
speaks of the woman sitting upon seven hills,” Rev. xvii. 
9; there being then no other city to which the character 
of that woman could agree; none drunk “with the blood 
of the saints and martyrs of Christ Jesus,” as she was, or 


“having seven heads and ten horns,” or “making kings | 


of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication.” 
Athly, That the beast sitting upon these hills would 


“suffer no man to buy or sell who had not his name or | 


mark upon him,” Rev. xiii. 17. Now this agrees exactly 
with the church of Rome, which hath, in three several 
councils,+ decreed, that none of her members should sell 
any thing to, or buy any thing of, heretics, or have any 
commerce, or merchandise, or any dealings with them. 
Add to this, 

5thly, That the name of the beast, who made all men, rich 
and poor, great and small, free and servants, to take his 
character upon them, Rev. xiii. 16, 17, was the number of 
a man whose name contained six hundred and sixty-six, as 
Ireneus says§ the name Aaretvos, given to the Latin 
church, did; but as for the name Evanthus and Teiton, 
which, saith he, contains the same number, and other 
names added by Feuardentius, who can apply any thing of 
the characters belonging to this beast, to them? whence I 
conclude, this beast must certainly be Rome; and that 
not Rome heathen, which made no such decrees, and 
had many more than ten kingdoms under her, but Rome 
Christian. 


Saramis, mentioned Acts xiii. 5, was a city in the 


* Secundum Salvii Juliani scr turam, que indicat debere 
omnes civitates consuctudinem Rome sequi, que caput 
est orbis terrarum. Justin. Prefat. ad Digest. sec. Sed 
et si. 

Ti ἜΣ doréws ἑπταλύφου. Οἷς. ad Attic. Ep. lib. vi. ep. 
5. Vide Lloyd in voce Septicollis. 

+ Sub anathemate prohibemus, ne quis negotiationem cum 
eis exercere presumat. Concil. Lateran. G. iii. sub Alex. 
30, A. Ὁ. 1179, can. 27, Bin. t. vii. p. 662. Ne quis—— 
contractus inire, negotiationes, aut mercaturas quaslibet 
exercere permittat. Concil. Constant. sess. 45, Bin. tom. 
vii. 1121. 

§ Sed et Λατεῖνος nomen habet sexcentorum sexaginta 
sex numerum, et est valde verosimile, quoniam novissimum 
regnum hac habet vocabulum, Latini enim sunt qui nunc 
regnant. Lib. v, cap. 30, p. 449, col. 1. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


eastern part of Cyprus, where was a synagogue of the 
Jews, and where the Jews, in the time of Trajan, destroyed 
the city, and -killed all the inhabitants (see Cyprus). 
The city was famous among the Greek writers, for the 
story of the dragon killed by Chycreas their king, and for 
the death of Anaxarchus,* whom Nicocreon the tyrant of 
Cyprus pounded to death with iron pestles, he crying out, 
Tundis Anaxarchi vasculum, Anaxarchum non tundis: 
the body being styled both by the scriptures and _phi- 
losophers, σκεῦος, the “ vessel,” θύλακος, the “ repository,” of 
the soul: see 1 Thess. iv. 4. It is also the name of an 
island in the Saronic gulf, Strab. lib. ix. p, 271. 

Sazem, famous for being the seat of Melchisedec king of 
Salem, is, by Josephus,} called Solyma, and said to be the 
place which afterwards was called Jerusalem: that, by the 
psalmist, being called Salem, in these words, “ At Salem 
is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Sion,” Psal. 
Ixxvi. 2. But St. Jerome saith,+ it was a village ofthe 
Sichemites, and lay in the vale betwixt Sodom and Damas- 
cus, eight miles from Scythopolis, or Bethshan: so the 
Septuagint must understand the word, when they say, Gen. 
xxxiii. 18, “Jacob went down, εἰς Σαλὴμ, to Salem, a city 
of Sichem;”’ and then it must be the place mentioned 
John iii. 23, when it is said, “John was baptizing in 
Enon near Salem,” both these places being in the tribe of 
Manasseh. 

Satmone is only mentioned by the bye, Acts xxvii. 7, 
and is, say Pliny, lib. iv. cap. 12, p. 231, Mela, lib. 11. cap. 
7, and Dionysius, v. 110, an eastern promontory of Crete, 
where also was a city of that name. 

Samanta, as it was the capital city of the ten tribes, 
belongs to the history of the Old ‘Testament: as it is 
mentioned in the New, it comprehends the two tribes of 
Ephraim and Manasseh within Jordan, lying in the middle 
betwixt Galilee and Judea, John iv. 3, 4, see the note 
there. It began at Ginea, lying in the great plain, saith 
Josephus,§ and ended at the toparchy of the Acrobateni: 
it was destroyed by Hyrcanus, but was rebuilt and much 
augmented by Herod the Great, and by him called Sebaste, 
in honour of Augustus; but it still retained the name of 
Samaria, Acts viii. 5, and Sichem; and by the Jews, in 
derision, Sychar ; see note on John iv. 5. ‘The Samaritans, 
though in our Saviour’s time and long before they owned 
the true God, were circumcised, and owned the five books 
of Moses (see the note in John iv. 22); yet were they 
much hated by the Jews, by reason of the controversy 
betwixt them, concerning the place where they were to 
worship, and to which they were to bring their sacrifices ; 
they saying it was mount Gerizim, the Jews, mount Zion, 
where the temple stood (see the note there). Hence, saith 
the son of Sirach, « My soul abhorreth them who sit upon 
the mountain of Samaria, and the foolish people that dwell 
at Sichem,” 1. 25—27 (see the note on John iv. 9). But 
our blessed Lord did not hate them; for as they expected 
the Messiah, so he declared to them, that he was that 
Messiah who was to come, John iv. 25, 26, and at his 
ascension, commanded his disciples to go through Judea 
and Samaria, and then to the gentiles, Acts i. 8; which 
they did with good success, both in the city and the 
villages about it, Acts viii. 5. 25; though Justin Martyr 
doth inform us, that through the delusions of their two 
famous magicians, Simon Magus and Dositheus, they 
became the worst of Christians, Apol. ii. p. 88. 

Samos was an island in the Icarian sea, of which the 
scripture only saith, that Paul passed by Chios to Samos, 
and thence to Miletus, Acts xx. 15. It had its name, 
saith Bochart,| from the high rocks there, named »pw, 
and was famous among the heathens for the worship of 
Juno, and for the earthen vessels there; for Pherecydes, 
the master of Pythagoras, who foretold an earthquake that 
happened there, by drinking of the waters; for the birth 
of Pythagoras, who was vir ort Samius, saith Ovid,{ 


* Bochart, Canaan, lib. i. cap. 2, Laert. lib. ix. p. 579. 
7 Antiq. lib. i. cap. 12. 

+ Ep. ad Evag. tom. iii. f. 14, D. 

§ Jos. Antiq. lib. xiii. cap. 18. 

|| Canaan, p. 406. 408. 

| Metam. lib. xv. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE, 


and for one of the Sibyls, called Sibylla Samia, and for a 
place called by Plutarch Samiorum Flores, where they 
did xa9’ ὑπερβολὴν τρυφᾶν," commit all manner of lewd- 
ness” with women. 

Samoraracra, an island in the #gean Sea, near Thracia, 
where Hebrus falls into the sea, was so called, saith 
Eustathius,f πρὸς ἀντιαστολὴν, “by way of distinction” 
from the Ionian Samos, and from another mentioned by 
Homer, and called Cephalonia. Here the Dii Cabiri,+ 
or great gods, mentioned in the scholiast upon Apollonius, 
were worshipped, into whose sacred ceremonies they who 


were initiated were esteemed more holy and just, and even | 


secure from shipwreck, as also of preservation in all 
dangers whatsoever. See Bochart’s Canaan, lib. i. cap. 
12, and Lloyd in voce. 

Sanerra, Luke iv. 26, was a city of Sidon, betwixt that 
city and Tyre; it had the name Zarephath, as being a 
conflatory for the boiling of metals; it was the place where 
Elijah dwelling, was preserved by the widow's cruse of 


oil and barrel of meal, that wasted not, 1 Kings xvii. 9. 


Josephus§ saith, the three years’ drought which occasioned 
his going thither was mentioned by Menander. 

Sanon, mentioned Acts ix. 35, was a spacious, cham- 
paign, or fertile vale, betwixt Lydda and the sea, having 
several villages in it; it was so called from sharra, “to let 
loose,” because there they turned out their cattle, and is 
famous among the rabbins for its wines. 

Serevcra, a city, not of Mesopotamia, Cilicia, or Pisidia, 
but of Syria, was the first city to which Paul and Barnabas 
came, when they were sent on a peculiar temporary mis- 
sion, by the direction of the Holy Ghost, Acts xiii. 3, 4. 

Sicarm was, saith Josephus,|| the metropolis of Sa- 
maria, built at the foot of mount Gerizim; on which 
mount, hanging over Samaria, they had a temple at which 
they offered all their sacrifices. This temple was§ there 
built by Sanballat, for his son Manasseh, chased away by 
Nehemiah, because he would not put away the daughter 
of Sanballat. ‘This temple was, after it had stood two 
hundred years, destroyed by Hyrcanus, and never was 
rebuilt in the same place; but that which they called the 
“holy mount” remaining, and being in their Pentateuch 
(here differing from the Hebrew text) the place where 
God commands the Jews to set up an altar (not on mount 
Gerizim, as the Samaritan copies have it, but on mount 
Ebal, Deut. xxvii. 4, 5): this they allege to justify their 
building a temple there; and here they had still their 
altar for sacrifice, which made the schism betwixt them 
and the Jews. ‘his controversy scems to be decided by 
the psalmist, saying, “He chose not the tribe of Ephraim 
(where that mountain was), but he chose the tribe of 
Judah, and the mount Zion which he loved, and there he 
built his sanctuary,” Ps. Ixxviii. 67, 68; and is more 
certainly decided in favour of the Jews by Christ, John iv. 
22. It was built in a valley betwixt mount Gerizim and 
Ebal, in the tribe of Ephraim; was eight miles distant 
from Samaria, had its name from Shechem the son of 
Gilead, Numb. xxvi. 31, and was after called Neapoli, 
Plin. lib. v. cap. 13. 

Siow is, by Josephus,** thought to have had its name 
from Sidon the son of Canaan; but Trogus saith, it had its 
name a piscium ubertate, “from the abundance of fishes,” 
the sea upon which it lay, say the Hebrews, abounding 
with them: accordingly the Hebrew said from which 
it is derived, signifies fishery, or fishing; and Bethsaida is 
a place of fishing, and it was afterward called Saida: «I 
came to Saida, the greatest of cities,” saith Benjamin in 
Itinerario. The men of Sidon being great shipwrights, 


* Athen. lib. xii. p. 528. 

ἡ In Dionys. p. 108. Vide Bochart. Canaan, lib. i. 
cap. 8. 

+ Strabo, lib. x. p. 325, from -y33, validus. Diod. Sic. 
lib. v. p. 224. Marsham, p. 123, et p. 35, 36. 39. 

§ Lib. viii. cap. 7, p. 286. 

᾿ Lib. xi. cap. 8, p. 386. 

4 ᾿Επὶ rod Xapaliv ὅρους rod κατὰ τὴν Σαμαρίαν, ὃ τῶν ἄλλων 
ὁρῶν ἔστιν ὑψηλότατον. Ἀπίϊᾳ. lib. xi. cap. 8, p. 383—385, 
Nehem. xiii. 28. 

** Antiq. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 14, lib. xviii. cap. 3. 


1219 


were famous above other nations for hewing and polishing 
timber, there being “none who were skilled how to hew 
timber like the Sidonians,” 1 Kings v. 6. One of the gods 
of the Sidonians, mentioned in scripture, is Ashtaroth 
Judg. ii. 18, 1 Kings xi. 5, a goddess, by Philo Diblius, 
Theodoret, Nicetas, and Procopius Gazeus, called Venus ;* 
as also say the Greeks and Cicero. Hence she had her 
whores to minister to them who committed whoredom in 
her service. 

Of the tower and pool of Srroam. The fountain of 
Siloam, saith} Josephus, was a sweet and large fountain on 
the west of Jerusalem, without the wall, and its waters 
bending towards the south, ran all along the south of 
Jerusalem without the wall, but at the east side came 
within the lower Jerusalem, and made the pool of Siloam 
or Bethesda, mentioned John v. 2. 9. 11, and near it, 
towards the west, stood the tower of Siloam, which fell 
upon the eighteen persons, Luke xiii. 4; so proper was 
the mention of men, slaughtered whilst they were offering 
sacrifice in the court of the temple, and in the lower city, 
by a tower falling on them, to the very same thing befall- 
ing the Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem. See the note 
there. 

Sryar was a mountain in Arabia Petrma, where the law 
was given; it had two tops, the one lower, called Horeb, 
or “the mount of God,” Exod. iii. 1, where he appeared 
to Moses in a flame of fire in a bush; this Horeb is there- 
fore, by St. Stephen, Acts vii. 30, and by Josephus, called 
Sinai, who also saith, δόξαν ἔχειν ἐνδιατρίβειν αὐτι τὸ Θεῖον, * it 
was believed the Divinity resided there,"§ and therefore 
other shepherds durst not feed upon it: the other top of 
Sinai, where the law was given, was a very high mountain, 
saith Josephus, to the top of which one could scarce see, 
and was accounted religious, it being thought that the 
Divinity dwelt there also. That here, afterward, dwelt 
the Hagarenes, and had houses cut out of the rock, see 
Bochart, Phaleg, lib. iv. cap. 27, p. 312, and the note on 
Gal. iv. 25. 

Sonom was the chief of the Pentapolitan cities, and 
therefore gave the name to the whole land; it was burnt, 
with three other cities, by fire from heaven, for their Un- 
natural lusts; of the truth of which we have, from the 
heathens, the testimonies of Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, 
Tacitus, Solinus; from the Jews, the testimonies of 
Josephus, Philo, and the book of Wisdom; of which, 
see the note on Jude, ver. 7. 

Synacuse was a city seated on the east side of the 
island of Sicily, built by Archias the Corinthian, saith the 
scholiast upon Pindar,{ out of four cities which he over- 
threw, and turned into one: it is called by Pindar, μεγάλα 
πόλις Συράκουσαι, it being the most noble city, not only of 
Sicily, but of all Greece; six miles in compass, saith 
Strabo ;** it is called by Ausonius quadruplex Syracuse, 
as being divided into four parts, Acradina, Tyche, Nea- 
polis, and the Island; to which Strabo adding Epipolus, _ 
calls it Pentapolis; the first of these contained in it the 
famous temple of Jupiter; the second was called Τύχη, 
because it had the temple of Fortune in it; and surely 
fortune favoured them, since when the Romans took the 
city, they found, say Livyt} and Plutarch,++ more riches 
in it than they did in Carthage. In that part called 
Neapolis was a great amphitheatre, and a wonderful 
statue of Apollo, in the midst of a large square. In 
the isle of Ortygia was Hiero’s palace, two temples of 
Diana and Minerva, and the famous fountain of Arethusa; 


* Ὄνομα δὲ τοῦτο τῆς ᾿Αφροδίτης, αὐτὴν yap καλοῦσιν 'Acraprnr. 
Q. 5, in 4 Reg. Procop. in 2 Kings xiii. 7. Nicet. in Gre- 
gor. p. 483. ᾿Αστάρτη ἡ rap’ Ἕλλησιν ᾿Αφροδίτη. Suid. Venus. 
4ta Syria Tyroque concepta, que Astarte vocatur. De Nat. 
Deorum, lib. iii. n. 41. 

ἡ De Bel. Jud. lib. vii. cap. 13. 

+ Antigq. lib. ii. cap. 5, p. 60, B. 

§ Ibid. C. 

| Thid. lib. iii. cap. 4. 

** Lib. vi. p. 168. 

ti Capta Syracuse in quibus prede tantum fuit quantum 
vix capta Carthagine, &c. Lib. xxv. cap. 31. 

++ In M. Marcello, p. 308, E. 


q Pyth. 2, 1. 


1220 


and this, saith Strabo, was the only part which Augustus 
rebuilt, after it had been destroyed by Marcellus. Archi- 
medes, who, by his mathematical engines, had much 
galled the Romans, was slain in the storming of it, 
while he was intent upon his figures, as Livy, and Plu- 
tarch say. Ibid. 

Synzia, among the ancients, viz. Justin, Herodotus, and 
Strabo, was as large as Assyria, they being after called 
Syri; but Syria,* properly so called, is either taken 
largely, so as to comprehend Pheenicia, and the Holy 
Land, and so it is bounded on the west with the Sicilian 
sea, on the east with the Euphrates and Arabia Deserta, on 
the north with Cilicia, and on the south with Arabia 
Petrea, and had, in ancient times, for its capital city, 
where the president resided, Damascus, and afterward 
Antioch of Syria. In the New Testament it always seems 
to signify Syria in the stricter sense, as it is distinguished 


from Judea, Matt. iv. 24, 25, and from Pheenicia, Acts | 


xxi, 2, 3, in which sense it is also used by Ptolemy, who 
divides Palestine from it; by Strabo,f saying, ἐντεῦθεν 
Συρία καὶ Φοινίκη, “then comes Syria and Pheenice;” by 
Pliny,¢ who saith, Syriam circumfundi Phenice, “Syria 
is surrounded by Pheenice;” and by Dionysius, P. v. 904, 
905, who places Syria, properly so called, in the continent, 
and Pheenicia in the tract along the sea: hence the proverb 
in Suidas, Σύροι πρὸς Φοίνικας, i. 6. “One deceitful nation 
against another.” 

Syno-Pua:nrcra is only mentioned in the history of the 
woman’s daughter, called “a woman of Canaan,” Matt. 
xv. 22, but “a Greek and a Syro-Phenician,” Mark vii. 
26, a Greek because she was of their religion, and used 
the Greek tongue; the Greeks being mingled with the 
Syrians, saith Josephus;$ a woman of Canaan, because 
Pheenicia was also called Canaan (see the notes there); a 
Syro-Pheenician, as being of that part of Phcnicia, which 


lay betwixt Syria properly so called and Phenicia by the | 


sea-side; and which was called also, saith Bochartus,|| 
Ceelosyria, and contained Heliopolis, Chalcis, and the tract 
of Marsya, Damascus, and Alala. Hence of Damascus, 
Justin Martyr] and Tertullian** say, that it belonged to 
Syro-Pheenice. 


Tres Tanernm. Of these, and of Appii Forum, not 
before mentioned, see the note on Acts xxviii. 16. And 
that they are not ill translated taverns, or places of recep- 
tion, I gather not only from Isidore Pelusiota,t} and Gicu- 
menius,++ who call them πανόοχεῖα ἢ καπηλεῖα, but also from 
Zosimus,§§ when he saith, Severus was strangled at the 
place called the Three Taverns, by men placed there by 
Maxentius for that purpose. 

TIBERIAS was a οἰ} built by Herod the tetrarch, in 
Galilee, near the lake of Gennesaret, and so called in 
honour of Tiberius Nero: Hegesippus says it was but 
two miles from Magdala,{§ and was the same with 
Cinnereth: the privileges he gave to the inhabitants of 
the place made it grow to be one of the prime cities of 
the lower Galilee, where were thirteen synagogues, and 
an academy; here was the last session of the sanhedrin, 
and here the Talmud was collected. Of the sea of 
Tiberius, see in Gennesaret. 

Tarsus was a city of Cilicia, Acts xxi. 39, the metro- 
polis, and most renowned city, which, saith Josephus,*** 
gave name to the whole country; the mother of cities, 


* See Bochart, Phaleg, lib. ii. cap. 3, p. 81. 

} Lib. ii. p. 81. + Lib. v. cap. 12. 

§ Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 12, p. 649. 

|| Bochart. Canaan, lib. i. cap. 1, p. 365. 

{| Δάμασκος viv προσνενέμηται τῇ Συροφοινίκη λεγομένη, Dial. 
cum Tryph. 905. 

** Descripta est in Syrophcenicen ex distinctione Sy- 
riarum. Lib. adv. Jud. cap. 9, et contr. Marcion. lib. 11]. 
cap. 13. 

TT Isid. lib. i. ep. 337. ++ CEcumen. in locum. 

Ν Ὦ Τρία Καπηλεῖα ἡ προσηγορία, Hist. lib. ii. ed. Steph. 
Ῥ. 47. 

1 Jos. Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 8. 

{4 See Berkel. in Steph. 

*** Antiq. lib. i. cap. 4, p. 18. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


saith Solinus ;* celebrated among the Romans, for being, 
saith Pliny, libera civitas, and having the freedom of 
a Roman colony, or the highest privileges, under Julius 
Cesar and Octavian, and the very name of Juliopolis: 
see the note on Acts xxii. 28. Among the Jews, it was 
famous for being the place whither Jonas designed to fly, 
and the metropolis of that country, where many of them, 
saith Philo, dwelt; among the Christians, for being the 
place where St. Paul was born: in fine, it was a city very 
rich and populous, where was an academy furnished with 
men so eminent, that, as Strabot saith, they excelled in 
all arts of polite learning and philosophy ; even those of 
Alexandria and Athens, and Rome itself, were beholden 
to it for its best professors. 

TueEssatontca was the metropolis of Macedonia; see 
the note on Phil. i. 1; a noble mart and a city, which, 
saith Strabo,+ is the most populous of all Macedonia: it 
is, saith Pliny,§ a free city, and had in it a synagogue 
of the Jews, they living, saith Philo, in Macedonia and 
Thessaly. ‘The inhabitants of Thessaly, saith Atheneus,J 
were given to luxury and dissoluteness, and by their 
luxury invited the Persians into Greece: their maidens 
and women also danced naked, as their custom was: 
which things might give occasion to those instructions 
of the apostle to them, to “avoid fornication,’ and to 
‘possess their vessels in sanctification and honour, and 
not in the lusts of concupiscence, as did those nations 
which knew not God,” 1 Thess. iv. 3—5. To this church 
Paul wrote his two first epistles. 

Troas was a country and city in lesser Asia, where St. 
Paul came to preach Christ’s gospel, and had “a door 
opened to him of the Lord,” 2 Cor. ii. 12. Strabo** and 
Ptolemy place the city in Phrygia Minor. It is, by Je- 
rome, said to be the same with Troy celebrated in the 
works of Homer. It was, saith Pliny,t{ a Roman colony. 

TRacnoNrtis was a region and tetrarchy, or rather part 
of a tetrarchy, in Syria, anciently called Argob, Deut. iii. 
14. It lay north of Perea, and east of Batanea, and was 
so called, saith (ἃ, Tyrius, from dragons, or secret lurking 
places, in which this country abounded, the inhabitants 
living upon robbery,+ till they were restrained by Herod. 

Trosytirem, Acts xx. 15, is a promontory, saith Stra- 
bo,§§ as it were the foot of mount Mycale, opposite to, and 
five miles from, Samos; to which Paul coming, goes on to 
Trogyllium, to harbour there: there was also a town there 
of the same name, mentioned by Pliny, lib. v. cap. 29, p. 
295. 

Tyne and Srpox. These two places being so often 
mentioned in scripture together, and lying but two hun- 
dred stadia, saith Strabo,|\\| that is, twenty-five miles, asun- 
der, I shall speak of them both together. And, 

Ist, As to antiquity, though it be certain that, as Strabo 
saith,{§ both these cities were πάλαι ἔνδοξοι καὶ λαμπραὶ, “ of 
old illustrious and renowned cities,” insomuch, saith he, 
that they were incomparable for greatness, splendour, and 
antiquity ; though Tyre be styled by Dionysius the Ogy- 
gian, and by the poets, the Cadmean Tyre; and by the 
prophet, the city “whose antiquity is of ancient days,” 
Isa. xxiii. 7, yet was Sidon much the elder: for, (1.) 
though Homer*** mentions Sidon, and speaks of the Si- 
donians as πολυδαίδαλοι, “excellent artificers,” he hath not 
one word, saith Strabo,t{} of Tyre or the Tyrians. (2.) 
Trogus, in Justin,;++ saith, that after many years, the Si- 
donians being overcome by the king of Ascalon, and beaten 
to their ships, built Tyre the year before the ‘Trojan war, 
i. e. saith Josephus,$§§ two hundred and forty years before 


* Cap. 47. + Cap. 14, p. 463. 
+'H νῦν μάλιστα τῶν ἄλλων εὐανδρεῖ. Lib. vil. p. 223. 
§ Libera conditionis, lib. iv. cap. 10. 
|| Leg. p. 798. 
4 Lib. xiii. p. 607, xiv. p. 663. 
** Lib. xiii. p. 400. tt Lib. v. cap. 30. 
$+ Ἔν ἔθει τὸ ληστεύῦειν πεποιημένους, καὶ βίον οὐκ ἄλλοθεν EXov= 
τας. Joseph. Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 13, p. 539, E, F. 

§§ Lib. xiv. p. 438. ΠῚ Lib. xvi. p. 521. 
44 Ibid. p. 520. “πὲ Thy. 

Ibid. +++ Lib. xviii. cap. 3, 
§§§ Antig. lib. xviii. cap. 5, p. 259. 


GEOGRAPHICAL TABLE. 


Solomon began to build the temple; hence most interpret- 
ers conceive that Tyre is called “the daughter of Sidon,” 
Isa. xxiii. 12, (3.) We read of Sidon, the first-born of 
Canaan, Noah’s grandson, who was the builder of Sidon, 
as Josephus* saith; see Gen. x. 15, and read of Sidon as 
“the border of Canaan,” ver. 19, but we read nothing of 
Tyre, at least till it be mentioned by Joshua, xix. 29. 

2ndly, Sidon, at least for a long time, excelled Tyre in 
greatness, whence it is styled Sidon Rabba, “the great,” 
Josh. xi. 8, and xix. 28. Mela saith, that before it was 
taken by the Persians, it was maritimarum urbium maxi- 
ma, “the greatest of maritime cities.” Diodorus Siculus,t 
having made mention of the city of the Arvadians, the Si- 
donians, and T’yrians, i. e. Arvad, Sidon, and ‘Tyre, as the 
Phenician Tripolis, he adds of Sidon, that πλούτῳ δὲ καὶ 
ταῖς ἄλλαις Xopynyelats ἢ πόλις πολὺ προεῖχε τῶν κατὰ τὴν Φοινίκην 
πόλεων, “for riches, and other provisions, it far exceeded 
the other cities of the Pheenicians,” that city having long 
quietly enjoyed that trade which brought in these riches ; 
whence, to live quietly and securely, is to live “after the 
manner of the Sidonians,” Judg. xviii. 7. Moreover, in 
skill in astronomy and arithmetic, and all the arts of mer- 
chandise, in philosophy and philosophers, Strabo§ makes 
them ἐνάμιλλοι, “ emulous,” or equal in comparison, and saith 
the Greeks had their philosophy from them. Hence both 
of them, in scripture, are represented as “very wise,” 
Zech. ix. 2, Ezek. xxvii. 8,9. But then, 

3dly, Tyre is to be preferred before Sidon for strength, as 
being built in the sea, four furlongs from the land, till 
Alexander joined it to the continent, whence it is called 
“ the strong city,” Josh. xix. 29, and after Sidon suffered by 
the Persians, it excelled in riches, it being styled “the 


* Antigq. lib. i. cap. 7, p. 14. 


{ Lib. xvi. p. 531. + P. 533. § Ibid. 


1221 


crowning city,” as sending crowns of gold to kings, and 
being the city “whose merchants were princes, and whose 
traffickers were the honourable of the earth,” Isa. xxiii. 
8. Hence Q. Curtius saith,* that in the time of Alexan- 
der, it was memorable above all other cities of Syria and 
Pheenicia, for splendour and greatness. ‘hey are mention- 
ed in the New Testament, as places to whose coasts Christ 
resorted, Matt. xv. 21; sometimes as people who resorted 
to him from their coasts, Mark iii. 8; and sometimes to 
upbraid the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, lying east- 
ward of them, as being more incredulous, Matt. xi. 21, 22. 

‘To speak something of Tyre in particular, it is to be ob- 
served, that there wast Old and New Tyre; the Old 
Tyre, mentioned Josh, xix. 29, and called Paletyrus, was 
built upon the continent; whence they of New Tyre tell 
Alexander, that there was a place without the city called 
Paletyrus where he might sacrifice to Hercules; it was, 
saith Strabo,+ distant thirty furlongs from the other 
Tyre, which was four furlongs within the sea; hence saith 
God to her, by the prophet, “Thy borders are within the 
sea,” Ezek. xxvii. 4. She sent colonies, saith Curtius,§ 
pené orbe toto, “ almost through the world,” viz. to Car- 
thage, Utica in Africa, to Thebes in Beeotia, and Gades in 
Spain, whence it was accounted the mart of the world. 
They also worshipped, besides Hercules, the goddess As- 
tarte at Memphis; whence Herodotus saith, the Tyri- 
ans had there the temple ξένης ’Agpodirnc, “of Venus the 
stranger,” to distinguish her from that Venus whom the 
Egyptians worshipped. 


* Claritate et magnitudine ante omnes urbes Syri@ 
Pheenicesque memorabilis. Lib. iv. cap. 2. 

ἡ Q. Curt. lib. cap. 2, Justin. lib. xi. cap. 10. 

+ Lib. xvi. p. 521. § Lib. iv. cap. 4. 

| Lib. ii. cap. 112. 


AN INDEX 


OF 


GREEK WORDS AND PHRASES 


EXPLAINED IN THE 


COMMENTARY ON THE FOUR GOSPELS AND THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


A 


"ATAGO'S, Matt. xix. 17. 
ἄγγελος αὐτοῦ, Acts xii. 15. 
dyopator ἄγονται, Acts xix. 38, 
ἀδικία, John vii. 18. 

ἀδύνατος, Acts xiv. 8. 

αἵρεσις, Acts xxiv. 14. 

ἀκούειν, Acts ix. 7. 

ἀκούοντες οὐκ ἀκοῦειν, Matt. xiii. 10. 
ἀκρίδες, Matt. iii. 4. 

ἀλαλάζω, Mark ν. 38. 
ἀλεκτρυοφωνία, Matt. xxvi. 34, 
ἀληθῶς, John vi. 55. 

ἀλλὰ, immo, John xvi. 2. 

τὰ ἀλλότρια, Luke xvi. 12. 
ἁμαρτωλὸς, Matt. ix. 13. 
ἀνάγκασον εἰσελϑεῖν, Luke xiv. 23. 
ἀναιδεία, Luke xi. 3. 


dvagavévres τὴν Κύπρον, Acts xxi. 3, 


xxiv. 1. 
καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως, Acts ili. 19. 
dveratew, Acts xxii. 24. 


ἀντιλαμβάνεσθαι, Luke i. 54. 
ἀντοφθαλμεῖν, Acts xxvil. 15. 
ἄνωθεν, Luke i. 3, John iii. 3. 
ἀπαιτεῖν, ἀπαίτησις, Luke vi. 30, 
ἀπαχθῆναι, Acts xii. 19. 

ἀπελπίζειν, Luke vi. 35. 

ἀπέστειλεν, miserat, John xviii. 24. 
ἀποκαθιστανεῖς, Acts i. 6. 


χρόνοι ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων, tempora eX- 


hibitionis omnium, Acts iii. 21. 
ἀποκριθεὶς, Luke xiv. 3. 
ἀποκρίνομαι, Acts iii. 12. 
ἀπολύειν, Luke ii. 29. 
ἀποστερεῖν, Mark x. 19. 
ἀποστοματίζειν, Luke xi. 53. 
ἀρνέομαι, Acts iii. 14, © 
dg’ ἡμερῶν, ἀρχαίων, Acts xv. 7. 
τὴν ἀρχὴν, John viii. 25. 
ἄρχομαι, Mark ii. 13. 
ἀσιαρχαὶ, Acts xix. 31. 
ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, Acts ii. 1. 44. 
κατὰ τὸ αὐτὸ, Acts xiv. 1. 
δι αὐτοῦ pro ἐν αὐτῷ, Acts iii. 16. 


dz’ αἰῶνος, Luke i. 70. 


B 
Βάρβαροι, Acts xxviii. 2. 
βασανίζω, Matt. viii. 29. 
Βεελζεβοὺλ, Luke ix. 15. 


Tr 


Tap, autem, Acts viii. 40. 
γένεσις, Matt. i. 1. 
γυμνὸς, John xxi. 7, Matt. xiv. 51. 


A 


Δεισιδαιμονία, Acts xvii. 22. 

defia τῆς δυνάμεως, Matt. xxvi. 64. 
διακρίνειν, Acts xv. 8. 

διανύσαντες τὸν πλοῦν, Acts xxi. 7. 
διασείειν, Luke iii. 14. 

διασπορὰ "Ἑλλήνων, John vii. 35. 
διχοτομεῖν, Matt. xxiv. 51. 

δοκέω, Matt. iii. 9. 


ἐδοξάσθη pro δοξασϑήσεται; aorist pro futuro, 


John xiii. 31. 


1222 


μὴ δύνασϑαι, Mark ii. 19. 
εἰ δυνατὸν, Matt. xxiv. 24. i 
δύσουσι, impersonaliter, Luke vi. 38. 


E 


"Ea, quando, John xii. 32. 

εἰ, quod, John ix. 25. 

εἰ, formula jurandi, Mark viii. 12, 
optandi, Luke xii. 49. 

els pro ἐν, John i. 18. 

ἐκκακεῖν, Luke xviii. 1. 

ἐκλείπειν, Luke xvi. 19. 

προσευχὴ éxrevis, Acts xii. 5. 

ἐν ἐμοὶ, me, Luke xii. 8. 

ἐνέχω, Mark vi. 19. 

τά évévra, Luke xi. 41. 

ἐντὸς ὑμῶν καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν, Luke xvii. 21. 

ἐξέστη, Mark iii. 21. 

ἔζοδος, Luke ix. 31. 

ἐξορκίζω, Matt. xxvi. 63. 

ἐζουσία, John i. 12. 

ἑζουσίαν ἔχειν, John xix. 11. 

ἐξωμολόγησε, Luke xxii. 6. 

ἔπειτα, idcirco, Matt. vii. 5. 

ἐπενδύτης, John xxi. 7. 

ἐπιβαλὼν ἔκλαιε, Mark xiv. 72. 

ἔρημος, Matt. iii. 1. 

ὃ ἐρχόμενος, Matt. xi. 3. 

ἔχω, Matt. xiii. 12. 


Z 


Ζωὴ, John x. 10. 
λόγια ζῶντα, Acts vii. 38. 


Η 


Ἢ pro μᾶλλον ἢ, Luke xviii. 14. 
οὐκ ndew, Acts xxiii. 5. 
τί ἡμῖν καί σοι, Matt. viii. 29, Mark ν. 7. 


8 


᾿Αστεῖος τῷ Θεῷ, Acts vii. 20. 
ἀγνώστῳ τῷ Θεῷ, Acts xvii. 23. 


I 


“λεώς cot, Matt. xvi. 22. 
ἵνα, quando, John xvi. 2. 
K 

Kai, duplex, John ix. 37, καὶ, quia, xv. 
6, sed, John vii. 11, καὶ, tunc, Mark 
iv. 13, ideo, Luke ix. 33. 

καλέσουσι, personale pro impersonali, 
Matt. i. 23. 

καταδιώκειν, Mark i. 36. 

κατακυριεύειν, κατεζουσιάζειν, 


Matt. 


xx. 
καταμόνας, Luke ix. 18. 

κατήχησις, Luke i. 4. 

κατείδωλος, Acts xvii. 16. 

κερδῆσαι τὴν ὕβριν, Acts xxvii. 21. 
κεφαλαιοῦν, Mark xii. 4. 


INDEX. 


κεχαριτωμένη, Luke i. 28. 

xowetv, Acts x. 15, 

κρίνω pro xaraxpivw, John vili. 15, 
κωμοπόλεις, Mark i. 8. 


A 


Πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν, Acts ix. 5. 
λατρείαν προσφέρειν, John xvi. 2. 
λειτουργεῖν, Acts xiii. 2. 


M 


Μάγοι, Matt. ii. 1. 

μακάριος, Acts xxvi. 2. 

μᾶλλον, sensu negativo, Mark xv. 11, 
John iii. 9. 

μεθύειν, John ii. 10. 

τὸ μεταξὺ σάββατον, Acts xill, 41. 

μετεωρίζεσϑαι, Luke xii. 29. 

μήποτε, Matt. xxv. 9. 

μῦλος ὀνικὸς, Matt. xviii. 6. 


N 


Nai, particula obsecrandi, Matt. xv. 27. 
νεωκόρος, Acts xix. 35. 
νομίζεσϑαι, Acts xvi. 13, 


Ξηραίνεσϑαι, Mark ix. 18. 


oO 

Οἴδαμεν, John iii. 2. 

οἰκουμένη, Luke ii. 1. 

ὀνόματα, Acts i. 15. 

ὅτι, sed, Matt. vii. 14; pro διότι, Mark 
ix. 11. 

ὅτι, non causam, sed consequentiam 
indicat, Luke vii. 47. 

οὐ yap, John x. 26. 

ἐξ οὐρανοῦ, pro ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, Luke xi. 13. 

οὕτως, John iv. 6. 

ὀφειλέτης, Luke xi. 5. 

ὀφθαλμὸς ἁπλοῦς, Matt. vi. 22, Luke xi. 34. 

dia διττὴ, Matt. xiv. 23. 


Tl 


Παλιγγενεσία, Matt. xix. 28. 

παραβιάζειν, Luke xxiv. 29. 

παραβιάζεσϑαι, Acts xvi. 15, 

παραβολῆ, Luke xiv. 7. 

παρθένος, Matt. 1. 23. 

παροικεῖν, Luke xxiv. 18. 

ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρύς μου, Luke ii. 49. 

περίεργα, Acts xix. 19. 

πλήρης», nom. pro genitivo, John i. 

πληροφορία, Luke i. 1, John i. 16. 

ὅπως πληρωθῆ, App. to Matt. ii. 

ποιεῖν, Matt. xx. 1. 

πρὸς, contra, Mark xii. 12. 

πρὸς τὰς περὶ Μάρθαν καὶ Μαριὰμ, John 
xi. 19. 

προσευχὴ, locus orationis, Luke vi. 12. 


14, 


πρώτη, prior, Luke ii. 2. 

πρωτότοκος, de unigenito, Matt. i. 25. 
πτῦξαι καὶ ἀναπτύξαι, Luke iv. 17, 
πυγμῆ νίψασϑαι, Mark vii. 3. 


Ῥ 


‘Piya dpyov, Matt. xii. 96, 


phocew, Mark ix. 18. 


= 


Σάββατον δευτεροπρώτον, Luke vi. 
σκανδαλίζεσϑαι, Matt. xviii. 6. 
σπαράττειν, Mark ix. 20. 
σπερμολύγυς, Acts xvii. 18. 
ornpivew πρόσωπον, Luke ix. 51. 
ovkopavricat, Luke iii. 14. 
συμβιβάζων, Acts 11, 22. 
συμπληροῦσϑαι, Acts ii. 1. 
συναλιζόμενος, Acts i. 4. 
συνεκόμισαν, Acts viii. 2. 
συνιέναι, Matt. xiii. 9. 

συντρίβω, Mark xiv. 3. 

τοὺς σωζομένους, Acts ii. 47. 
σώζειν, σώζεσϑαι, σωτηρία, Acts iv. 12. 


1, 


T 


Ταπείνωσις, Luke i. 48. 

τέλειος, Matt. xix. 21. 

τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα, Acts ii. 19. 

τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον, Acts xiii. 48. 
τηρεῖν λόγους pov, John xv. 20. 

τί pro διά rt, Mark ii. 16. 

τί ἐμοὶ καί σοι, John ii. 4. 

τιμὴ, Acts xxviil. 12. 

ἐτροποφόρησεν, Acts xiii. 18. 


x 


Τὸ ὑμέτερον, Luke xvi. 12 
ὑπερῷον, Acts i. 13. 


Φ 


Οἱ φοβούμενοι τὸν Θεὸν, Acts x. 1. 
φωνεῖν, John ii. 9. 
φωνὴ, Acts ix. 7. 


x 
Χάρις ἀντὶ χάριτος, John i. 16. 
ἐπιβάλλειν χεῖρας, Acts xii. 1. 
χωρεῖν, John viii. 37, xxi. 25, 
χωρὶς ἐμοῦ, John xv. 5. 


Ψ 


Ψυχὴ et ψυχὴν σῶσαι, Matt. Xvi. 25. 
τιθέναι τὴν Ψυχὴν, John x. 18, 


Q 
᾿Ανθ᾽ ὧν, eo quod, Luke xii. 2. 
ἡ ὥρα, Matt. xiv. 15. 
ὡς οὐχ ὁμοιώσεως ἀλλὰ βεβαιώσεως, Matt. 
xiv. 5, John i. 14. 
ὡσεὶ, Luke iii. 23, 


1223 


A TABLE OF PHRASES 


EXPLAINED IN THE 


COMMENTARY ON THE FOUR GOSPELS AND THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 


A 
Tue soul carr ed into Abraham’s bosom, Luke xvi. 22. 
The angels ascending and descending on the Son of man, 
John i. 52. 
As the face of an angel, Acts vi. 15. 
B 
The Beautiful gate of the temple, Acts iii. 2. 
To become as little children, Matt. xviii. 3. 
In the beginning was the Word, John i. 1. 
To believe in, and come to, Christ, is the same thing, John 
vi. 37. 
Born not of blood, &c. John i. 13. 


σ 


He came out from God, and went to God, John xiii. 3. 

Sit in the chair of Moses, Matt. xxiii. 2. 

The children of the prophets, Acts iil. 25. 

If I will that he stay till I come, John xxi. 22. 

The Son of man coming in the glory of the Father, Matt. 
Xvi. 27. 

Coming in his kingdom, ver. 28. 

The Consolation of Israel, Luke ii. 15. 


D 
To enter in at the door, John x. 3. 
What it is to be drawn of God, John vi. 44. 
To drink of my cup, Matt. xx. 22. 


E 
Eating and drinking used in the spiritual sense by the east- 
ern nations, John vi. 27. 
Their eyes were held, Luke xxiv. 16. 


F 
His face was to go to Jerusalem, Luke ix. 53. 
Faith as a grain of mustard-seed, Matt. xvii. 20. 
Call no man father, Matt. xxiii. 9. 
Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee, Matt. xvi. 17. 
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, John iii. 6. 
My flesh is meat indeed, John vi. 55. 
To be born of fornication, John viii. 41. 
Full of grace and truth, John i. 14. 


G 
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it, Matt. xvi. 17. 
The gift of God, John iv. 10. 
It is a gift by which thou mightest be profited, Matt. xv. 5. 
What it is to be given of the Father, John vi. 37. 
If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be 
done in the dry? Luke xxiii. 31. 
H 
There shall not one hair of your head perish, Luke xxi. 18. 
The hand of the Lord was with him, Luke i. 66. 
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, Matt. xiii. 9. 
To be ny ee to heaven, and brought down to hell, Matt. 
xi. 23. 
[ have sinned against heaven, and before thee, Luke xv. 21. 
Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, Acts ii. 26. 
A horn of salvation, Luke i. 69. 
To hunger and thirst after righteousness, Matt. v. 6. 


ΠῚ 
Zam in the Father, and you in me, and I in you, John xiv. 


20. 
A sabbath-day’s journey, Acts i. 12. 
K 
‘You have taken away the key of knowledge, Luke xi. 52. 


The kingdom of God, and of heaven, Matt. iii. 2. 
I know mine, and am known of them, John x. 14. 


L 


The east in the kingdom of heaven, Matt. v. 19. 
The /eaven of the pharisees, Matt. xvi. 6. 

In him was /ife, John i. 4. 

To have /ife in himself, John v. 26. 

The light of the world, Matt. v. 14. 

Lights burning, Luke xii. 35. 

They all dive to him, Luke xx. 38. 

Lovest thou me more than these? John xxi. 15. 
Let your Joins be girt about, Luke xii. 35. 


M 


The mammon of unrighteousness, Luke xvi. 9. 
To give the Spirit by measure, John ili. 34. 
It is meat and drink to me, John iv. 28. 
A millstone hanged about the neck, Matt. xviii. 6. 
Then shall they say to the mountains, Fall upon us, Luke 
xxiii. 30. 
N 
Your names are written in heaven, Luke x. 20. 
One thing is needful, Luke x. 42. 
I can do nothing of myself, John v. 19. 
O 
He opened their understandings, Luke xxiv. 45. 
To open the heart, Acts xvi. 14. 
He came to his own, John i. 11. 
Ὁ 
We have piped to you, and you have not danced, Matt. xi. 17. 
To go to his own place, Acts 1. 25. 
The poor in spirit, Matt. v. 3. 
To preach the gospel to the poor, and the acceptable year 
of the Lord, Luke iv. 18, 19. 
To put his hand to the plough, and look back, Luke ix. 62, 63. 
R 
Whose sins you do remit, they are remitted, &c., John xx. 
23. 
A righteous person that needs no repentance, Luke xv. 7. 
More joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, ibid. 
Sons of God, sons of the resurrection, Luke xx. 36. 


5 


The salt of the earth, Matt. v. 13. 
Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt, Mark ix. 49. 
Sanctifiy them by thy truth, John xvii. 17. 
I beheld Satan falling from heaven, Luke x. 18. 
Whom Satan hath bound, Luke xiii. 16. 
Satan entered into Judas, Luke xxii. 3. 
Satan hath desired to winnow thee, Luke xxii. 31. 
That seeing they may not see, Luke viii. 10, 
As my Father hath sent me, so send I you, John xx. 21. 
Shake off the dust from your feet, Matt. x. 14. 
To shut up the kingdom of heaven, Matt. xxiii. 13. 
The sign of the Son of Man, Matt. xxiv. 30. 
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak, Matt. xxvi. 41. 
Her spirit returned, Luke viii. 55. 
The stones shall cry out, Luke xix. 41. 
To strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel, Matt. xxiii. 24. 
The sun shall be darkened, and the moon not give her light, 
Matt. xxiv. 29. 
A sword shall pass through thy soul, Luke ii. 34. 
ΕΝ 
What it is to be taught of God, John vi. 45. 
They were always in the temple, Luke xxiv. 53. 
To dempt the Lord is to distrust him, Matt. iv. 7. 
For a destimony to them, Matt. viii. 3. 
To lay up treasures upon earth, Matt. vi. 19 


1224 
Vv 


Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain be made 
low, Luke iii. 5. 
The violent take it by force, Matt. xi. 12. 


W 
To be born of water, John iii. 5. 
Wisdom is justified of her children, Matt. xi. 19. 
He that is not with me is against me, Matt. xii. 30. 


INDEX. 


Filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb, Luke i. 
15. 

By every word of God, Luke iv. 4. 

His word was with power, Luke iv. 32. 

The Word was with God, John i. 1. 

The Word was made flesh, John i. 14. 

The world cannot contain the books, John xxi. 25. 

Their worm dieth not, Mark ix. 44. 

To worship God in spirit and in truth, John iv. 23. 


A. TABLE OF MATTERS 


CONTAINED IN THE 


COMMENTARY ON THE FOUR GOSPELS AND THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES 


A 


Tux history of the woman taken in adultery defended, 
John viii. 9. 

How they that went into Egypt were seventy ; how seven- 
ty-five, Acts vii. 14. 

By what authority Moses slew the Egyptian, ibid. ver. 25. 

Alms are instrumental to procure the pardon of sins, Luke 
xi. 41. 

What anger is, and in what cases it is justifiable, Matt. v. 22. 

How Annas and Caiaphas were styled high-priests together, 
Luke ii. 3. 

Wherein consisted the sin of Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 


v. 1. 

Apostles, when they were called, Matt. iv. 18. 21. 

Their commission, Matt. x., chiefly respected their second 
mission, ibid. ver. 8. 

The infirmity of their faith before Christ’s resurrection 
and ascension, John xx. 9. 

They had equally the power of the keys, Matt. xviii. 18. 

They only gave the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands, 
Acts viii. 15. 

The Acts of the apostles of unquestionable credit, and a 
strong confirmation of the Christian faith, Preface to the 
Acts. 

What were the curious arts, Acts xix. 19. 


B 


Baptism may be administered to a person incapable of some 
ends of baptism, provided he be capable of some other 
ends for which it also was designed, Matt. iii. 16. 

Baptism was pertormed to the Jews and proselytes, who 
believed already in the Father and the Holy Ghost in the 
name of Christ ; to the heathens, in the name of the Fa- 
ther, Son, and Holy Ghost, Acts viii. 57. 

See Christ’s baptism, C. Baptism by the Holy Ghost, H. 
By John, I. f infants, ibid. 

What binding and loosing imports, Matt. xviii. 18. 

Why all the d/ood, from the blood of Abel to that of Bara- 
chias, was to fall on that generation, Matt. xxili. 35, 36. 

Why Booz, Obed, and Jesse, begat sons when they were a 
hundred years old, Matt. v. 1. 

What bread signifies in the Lord’s Prayer, and why all are 
to ask it day by day, Matt. vi. 11. 

The breaking of it in the sacrament necessary, Matt. xxvi. 
26. 

The brethren of the Lord were truly so, as being Joseph’s 
children by another wife, Matt. xiii. 55. 

God himself was present with Moses at the bush, as well as 
the angel, Acts vii. 30, 38. 53, 


Cc 
Why Azariah, Joash, and Amaziah, are left out of the cata- 
logue of the kings of Judah, Matt. i. 8. 
The omissions in the genealogy of St. Matthew, ought not 
to be imputed to a defective catalogue. 
We are not forbid, Matt. vi., to do public acts of charity, 


nor to do them so as to be exemplary to others; or that 

others seeing them, may glorify God; but only not to do 

them from a desire of being praised by men, ver. 1. 

The Divinity of Christ proved, 

1. From John i. 1—3, v. 21—23, viii. 56, x. 30, xii. 41, 
xvi. 14, 15, xvii. 5, xx. 28, Luke i. 43, 

2. From these words, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy 
God, and him only shalt thou serve, Matt. iv. 10, com- 
pared with John v. 25, and Heb. i. 6. 

Christ was always religiously worshipped by all Chris- 
tians, Acts vii. 59. 

3. From prayer made to him by all Christians, Acts ix. 
14, 


4. From his power to raise himself, John ii. 19, x. 18. 
5. From his omniscience, John ii. 25, xxi. 17. 

Answer to the objections, 

1. From the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him, Matt. 
ili. 16. 

2. From his temptation by Satan, Matt. iv. 3. 

5. From these words, Why callest thou me good? Matt. 
xix. 17. 

4. From those words, To sit on my right hand, &c. is not 
mine to give, Matt. xx. 23. 

5. From those words, Of that day and hour knoweth no 
man, no, not the Son, Mark xiii. 32. 

6, From those, I speak not of myself, John v. 19, and, 
My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me, vii. 16. 

7. From those, My Father is greater than I, John xiv. 28. 

Lastly, From those, This is life eternal, to know thee the 
only true God, John xvii. 3. 

Christ calls God his Father, with respect to his divine na- 
ture, John v. 19. 

Why he is called the Son of man. How the Son of man is 
said to ascend into, and come down from heaven; or 
come forth from God, John iii. 13, vi. 62, viii. 42, 
xiii. 3. 

How his body is styled a temple, and how it was raised by 
himself, John ii. 19. 

Christ’s prescience, Matt. xxi. 4. 

Christ preached not before, but after his baptism, and then 
not four, but three years and a half, postscript to Preface 
to St. John. 

Christ was baptized in his thirtieth year, Luke iii. 23; by 
immersion, Matt. iii. 11. 

Christ’s sermon on the mount, not the same with that Luke 
vi., Matt. v. 1. It was spoken to the whole multitude, ibid, 

Whether in it he adds to the precepts of the moral law, 
Appendix to chap. v. 

Why Christ spake in parables, Matt. xiii. 10. 

Why Christ was tempted, and that he really was so, Matt. 
ivielse: 

Christ acted upon earth in the delivery and confirmation of 
his message, as a prophet anointed with the Spirit of God, 
Preface to St. John, 8. 5. 

Why he spake to those that were healed to conceal his mi- 
racles, Matt. ix. 30. 


INDEX. 


His prophetic office proved from his miracles and predic- 
tions, confirmed, General Preface, and Matt. xxiv. 2. 

Priestly office : 

‘The reasons of his sorrow in his agony, Matt. xxvi. 38. 

He died for all; see Ὁ: and would have saved them who 
would not be saved ; see S. 

How he was three days and three nights in the heart of the 
earth, Matt. xii. 40. 

His satisfaction proved, from Matt. xxiii. 28. 

The arguments against it, from Matt. xviii. 23, John iii. 16, 
fully answered, ibid. See App. vi. to Matt, xxvi. 

Regal office : 

The import of Christ’s session at the right hand of God, 
Acts ii. 33, 

Arguments for the truth of the Christian faith, Preface to 
the Acts; and from the power delegated by Christ to his 
apostles and the seventy, to heal diseases, cast out de- 
vils, and confer the Holy Ghost, Matt. x. 1, From his 
coming at the time when he was expected by all nations, 
Luke ii. 38. 

How the first Christians had all things common, Acts ii. 
44, iv. 32. 

They must be charitable to their fellow Christians in 
tress, Acts xi. 30. 

Circumeision, why not performed till the eighth day, Luke 
i. 59. 

Communion in both kinds necessary, Matt. xxvi. 27. 

Auricular confession is not proved from the confession of 
sins, mentioned Matt. iii. 6. 

Signs of covetousness, Luke xii. 15. 

General councils have no right to say, It seemed good to the 
Holy Ghost, and us, Acts xv. 28. 


D 


The psalms of David were written by a prophetical afflatus, 
Acts iv. 25. 

How Christ was three days and three nights in the heart of 
the earth, Matt. xii. 40. 

The seven deacons, Acts vi., were not only civil, but sacred 
officers, ver. 6. No argument from the choice of them, 
that the laity might have right to choose sacred officers 
in the church, ibid. 

Sins not so properly styled debts, seeing by sinning we ra- 
ther contract a guilt than a debt, Luke xi. 5. 

The demoniacs were truly possessed with evil spirits, and 
not diseased persons only, Matt. viii. 31. That there 
were many such among Jews and gentiles, ibid. 

The Jews did cast out devils, Matt. xii. 27. 

All that Christ saith, Matt. xxiv., relates to the destruction 
of Jerusalem, ibid. ver. 3. 34. 

The determinate counsel of God laid not Judas under a ne- 
cessity of sinning, Luke xxii. 22. See Acts xxii. 23, 

Christ’s disciples were seventy, Luke x.1 They were in- 
ferior to the twelve, as presbyters are to bishops, they 
not having the power to confer the Holy Ghost by impo- 
sition of hands, ibid. 

How Christ came not to dissolve, but to fulfil the moral and 
ceremonial law, Matt. v. 17. 

An instance of divine appointment without any necessity 
laid upon the will, Acts xxiii. 11. 

Divorces practised by the Jews for any cause, Matt. xix. 1. 
God permitting them to the Jew in some cases rendered 
him free from guilt who did it in those cases, and this 
permission was a dispensation with his original law, ver. 
1. 7,8) 

Christ’s coming, the doors being shut, how to be understood, 
John xx. 12. 

Christ died for the whole world, John iii. 17. 

An objection answered, John xvii. 9. 


E 


Christ speaks of eating his flesh and drinking his blood 
spiritually and not corporeally, John vi. 53, 54. 
The necessity of ecclesiastical government and censure, 
- Matt. vii. 1, xx. 25, 
Elders not fixed bishops, Acts xiv. 19, xv. 2. 
Christians, not Jews, are styled the elect, Mark xiii. 20. 
That John Baptist was the Elias which was to come, and 
that no other is to be expected, Matt. xi, 14. 
Vox. [V.—154 


dis- 


1225 


The word Emmanuel, Isa. vii. 14, truly belongs to Christ, 
but doth not necessarily prove his divinity, Matt. i. 23. 
Christ’s words and actions, Matt. ix. 24, Mark vi. 48, Luke 

xxiv. 28, afford no argument for eguivocation or dissimu- 
lation. 
The effect of excommunication according to the Jews, John 
ix, 22. 
F 


Signs of little faith, Matt. viii. 26. 

False Christs and false prophets, according to our Lord’s 
prediction, Matt. xxiv. 5, 24, 

Christ’s fasting forty days makes nothing for our Lent-fast, 
Matt. iv. 2, Luke iv. 2. 

Fasting on Wednesday and Friday, why, Matt. xxvi. 14. 

Signs of having the devil for our father, John viii. 44. 

Why Felia trembled at St. Paul’s discourse, Acts xxiv. 25. 

What fig-tree it was that Christ eursed, and why he did so, 
Mark ix. 13. 

The /irst shall be last, and the last first, relates to the call- 
ing of the gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews; and 
the murmuring against them that received a penny and 
wrought but one hour, is the murmuring of the Jews 
against the gentiles, Matt. xx. 1. 

The story of the two brazen statues erected by the woman 
who had the γα; of blood, is improbable, Matt. v. 26. 
What the prayer for forgiveness of sins supposes, and what 
forgiveness of our brother’s trespasses is required, Matt. 

vi. 12. 14. 


G 


That St. Matthew had his genealogy from the authentic re- 
cords of the Jews, Matt. i. 14. 

Nothing in scripture is absolutely, and in the singular num- 
ber, called God, to which the divine nature doth not be- 
long, John i. 1. 

The God of Israel was owned by the heathens, as a God 
above all others, Luke i. 76. 

God gives men their good things, in which they place their 
happiness, and so it is not of God, but of themselves, that 
they have no other happiness, Matt. vi. 2. 

Civil government not forbid to Christians, Matt. xx. 25. 

Guardian angels not proved from Matt. xviii. 10, or Acts 
xii. 15. 


H 


God’s hand oftentimes refers not to his power, but to his 
wisdom and providential dispensations, Acts iv. 28. 

The Jews not commanded under the Old Testament to hate 
their enemies, Matt. v. 43. 

The heart is said to be hardened when it yields not to suffi- 
cient evidence, and this is oftentimes only a sin of in- 
firmity, Mark viii. 17, Acts xix. 9. 

The heathens held the gods to be of human shape, Acts xiv. 
10, xvii. 24, and that they were to be worshipped in 
images, ibid. They crowned their gods and their sacri- 
fices, Acts xiv. 44, God left not himself without a wit- 
ness that he was the author of their blessings, and was 
placable to them that turned to him, Acts xiv. 17, xvii. 27. 
They allowed no strange gods, but required all men to 
worship the gods of their own country, and after their 
manner, Acts xvi. 21, xvii. 6. They allowed self-murder, 
ver. 27. 

Who were the Hellenists, Acts vi. 1, xi. 20. 

Why Herod slew the children from two years old and un- 
der, Matt. ii. 16. 

The judgments of God upon Herod, Herodias, and her 
daughter, Matt. xxii. 16. 

The Holy Ghost was promised, but not given, before Christ's 
ascension, Luke xi. 18, 

To what end he was given to the holy apostles, Acts i. 5. 

All the hundred and twenty received the Holy Ghost, Acts 
ii. 1, iv. 31. 

How the Holy Ghost made overseers of the flock, Acts xx, 
28 


The divine essence of the Holy Ghost, Acts v. 4. 

Baptism of the Holy Ghost, what, Acts i. δ, 

The three hours of prayer among the Jews, and the cano 
nical hours of the as τὰ Acts iii. 1, 


1226 


yd) 

Jechonias, Matt. i. 11, is not the same person with Jecho- 
nias, ver. 12, but is Jehoiakim, Matt. i. 11. 

The Jews did cast out devils, Matt. xii. 27, they used magic 
and sorcery, Acts xiii. 6, xix. 13. 

How far they had the power of life and death in Christ’s 
time; see L. 

They had good ground to hope for a resurrection of the 
body ; see ἢ. 

They expected the kingdom of heaven as having Abraham 
for their father, Matt. iii. 9. 

The doctrine of the Platonists and Pythagoreans concerning 
the pre-existence of souls obtained among the Jews, John 
ix. 2. 

Some Jews held circumcision necessary to the salvation of 
the gentiles, others not, Acts xv. 1. 

Why Claudius commanded the Jews to depart from Rome, 
and when, Acts xviii. 1. 

The reason of the zeal even of the Jewish converts for the 
law, Acts xxi. 20. 

Their disciples sat at the feet of their masters, Acts xxii. 3. 

Their bloody zeal, Acts xxiii. 12, xxv. 3. 

The worship of the true God by an image, is idolatry, Acts 
vii. 41. 

The infallibility of the church not proved from Matt. xvi. 
18, xviii. 15. 18, xix. 19, absolutely condemned from 
those words, Call no man rabbi, father, guide, on earth, 
Matt. xxiii. 8—10. 

St. John the apostle, and not Cerinthus, was the true author 
of the gospel that bears that name, Preface, when and 
why it was written, §. 3, 4. 

The last chapter of St. John’s Gospel was written by him- 
self, John xxi. 24, xx. 23, 

John the Baptist, 

That Elias who was to come, nor is any other to be ex- 
pected, Matt. xi. 14. 

How he knew Christ before the descent of the Holy 
Ghost upon him, Postscript to the Preface to St. John. 

His baptism was not for substance the same with that of 
Christ, Matt. iii. 11. 

They who had been baptized by him, were baptized again 
in the name of Jesus, Acts xix. 6. 

The joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner, not the joy 
of the blessed spirits or of angels, but of God before the 
angels, Luke xv. 10. 

Why St. Matthew gives the genealogy of the Holy Jesus 
from Joseph, Matt. i. 16. 

The tribe and family of Joseph and Mary were the same, 
ibid. 

Why Joseph did not proceed against Mary as an adulteress, 
but put her away privately, Matt. i. 19. 

What judgment is forbid, Matt. vii. 1. 


K 


Lhe import of that phrase, the Aingdom of heaven, Matt. iii. 
2, and the keys of that kingdom, Matt. xvi. 19. 


L 


Lawyers were also scribes, Mark xii. 28. 

The /aw, the prophets, and the psalms, comprehend the 
whole Old Testament, Luke xxiv. 44, 

Laying on of hands for confirmation and ordination, to con- 
fer the ordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, belongs to bi- 
shops, as the laying on of hands, to give the extraordinary 
gifts of the Holy Ghost belonged only to the apostles, 
Acts viii. 15. 

Dives and Lazarus are mentioned not as a history, but a 
parable, Luke xvi. 19. 

Why the history of Lazarus is mentioned only by St. John, 
Xie 

Levi the same with Matthew, Luke v. 57. 

The synagogue of the libertines, Acts vi. 9. 

How far the power of /ife and death was taken from the 
Jews, John xviii. 31. 

The Lord’s-day observed by Christians, Acts xx. 7. 

The measures of love, 

To God, Matt, xxii. 37. 
To our neighbour, ver. 39. 
St Luke was one of Christ’s seventy disciples, and might 


INDEX. 


have personal knowledge of what he writ, Preface and 
note on Luke i. 1. 
His Gospel contains all things necessary to be believed, 
i. 4. 
M 


Three Maries anointed Christ, John xii. 3. 

Mary Magdalene came twice from the sepulchre; to Peter 
and John, before she knew that Christ was risen; to all 
the apostles, with a message from the angels and Christ, 
that he was risen, John xx. 2. 

Most of the apostles were married, Matt. viii. 14. 

The distinction of clean and unclean meats separated the 
Jews from all other nations, Acts x. 15. 

The precept, not to meditate beforehand what we shall speak, 
makes nothing for the infallibility of councils, or the ex- 
temporary effusions of quakers and anabaptists, Matt. x. 
19, 20. 

The millennium not proved from Matt. xix. 28. 

The miracle of the pool of Bethesda was done by an angel, 
and not by the warm entrails of beasts, John v. 4. 

No miracles were wrought for the merits of saints, Acts iii. 12, 

Who are the mourners, Matt. v. 4. 

Who the meek, ver. 5, the merciful, ver. 7. 


oO 


Our Lord, Matt. v. 53, 34, forbids not all oaths as absolutely 
evil, not all promissory oaths, not all judicial oaths, but only 
voluntary oaths in common conversation and discourse. 

The forms of swearing forbidden, ver. 34. 36, were usual 
among the Jews, and not looked on as binding oaths, ibid. 

Obedience to the moral law was to the Jew a condition of 
obtaining life eternal, Matt. xix. 19. 

That they may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in 
thee, is meant of the union of the Spirit, John xiv. 20, 
xvii. 28. 

Not divine ordination to, but being disposed for, eternal 
life, made men believe, Acts xiii. 48. 

The Jews anointed the sick with oz/, Mark vi. 13. 


Ῥ 


The patriarchs were buried in Sychem, Acts vii. 16. 
St. Paul, his conversion an evidence of the truth of Chris- 
tianity, Acts xxii. 6. 
Why he circumcised Timothy, Acts xvi. 1. 
He sent not from Miletus to all the bishops of Asia, nor 
to them only, but also to the presbyters, Acts xx. 17. 
His preaching at Damascus, and going thence to Jerusa- 
lem, rightly stated, Acts ix. 23. 
He preached every where to the Jews, as well as to the 
gentiles, Acts xvii. 1. Y 
Why only on the sabbath-days in the synagogues, ibid. 
Why he had on him a temporary vow of Nazaritism, and 
consented to join with others in it, Acts xviii. 19, xxi. 
26, 27. 
He neither sinned, nor confessed his sin, in saying, God 
shall smite thee, &c. Acts xxiii. 1. 5. 

How Christ’s sheep shall never perish, John x. 28. 

Persecution on the account of religion, is contrary to Chris- 
tian faith, Luke ix. 55, 56. 

Who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, Matt. v. 
10. 

Examples of dreadful judgments on the perseculors of the 
church, Acts xii. 23. 

Those words, Thou art Peter, respect his person, Matt. 
xvi. 18, and the following words contain a promise that 
he should lay the first foundation of a church among the 
Jews and gentiles; but in this he can have no successor, 
ibid. 

Why Cornelius sends for Peter, Acts x. 5. 

Why Peter goes up to the housetop to pray, ver. 9. 

He was no monarch of the church, or judge of controversies, 
Acts viii. 14, xv. 19. 

The protestant doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture stated, 
Acts viil. 31. 

The pharisees are accounted, and seem to have been, the 
best sect of the three, Acts xxvi. 5. 

The scribes and pharisees held it unlawful to eat with un- 
washen hands, and that this was necessary that they 
might be holy, making this precept of theirs equal to 


INDEX. 


God’s commands, and so teaching for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men, Matt. xv. 1. 9, 

Polygamy is consequently forbid by Christ’s discourse of 
divorces, Mark x. 11. 

Why we are to pray to him who knows our wants before 
we pray, and what is the much speaking forbid in prayer, 
Matt. vi. 8. 3 


~ Our Lord does not only give the heads of things we are to | 


pray for, but a form of prayer; which not only his disci- 


ples then, but Christians are now, to use, Matt. vi.9. The | 


import of the preface to the Lord’s Prayer, ver. 10. 

The conditions of an acceptable prayer as to matter, man- 
ner, and the person praying, Matt. vii. 7. 

I pray not for the world, is no argument that Christ died 
not for the world, John xvii. 20. 

The prediction of the event hinders not the sinfulness of the 
action, Matt. xxvi. 234. 

Pronouns oft refer to the remoter noun, Luke v. 17. 

A prophet in the scripture is either a foreteller of things 
Peace or a revealer of the will of God, Luke i. 67. 

Prophets and teachers were not fixed bishops, Acts xiii. 1. 

False prophets may be known by their works, Matt. vii. 15, 
16. 


The proselytes of the gate came to the Jewish synagogues, 
Acts xvil. 4. 

Publicans were generally men of ill fame for rapine and 
extortion, Matt. ix. 11, joined with heathens, and despised 
by the Jews, Luke xv. 1, 2. 

Purgatory not proved from Matt. xii. 31, 32. 

The law of purification belonged only to the mother, Luke 
ii. 22. 

What was the spirit of Python, Acts xvi. 16. 


R 


God’s counsel concerning men’s salvation may be rejected, 
Luke vii. 30. 

What is required that we may go on steadfastly in the ways 
of religion, Luke xiv. 28. 

What are the fruits meet for repentance, Matt. iii. 8. 

Death-bed repentance invalid, Matt. xxv. 1, Luke xxiii. 40, 

What is the battology, or vain repetitions forbidden by 
Christ, Matt. vi. 7. 

It is not probable that the relics of St. Stephen cured dis- 
eases, Acts viii. 2. 

The pharisees owned only the resurrection of the just, Acts 
xxiv. 15, 


Christ's argument against the sadducees to prove the resur- | 


rection, cleared, Matt. xxii. 23. 32. 
Wherein our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes 
and pharisees, Matt. v. 20. 


5 


All the arguments by which our Lord justifies himself and 
his disciples from violating the sabbath, considered, Matt. 
ΧΗ, Ἐς 

The sacramental elements do not sanctify the body by the 
touch, but the soul only of the person disposed to receive 
them, Matt. xv. 11. 

The sacramental bread is not substantially turned into 
Christ’s body, Matt. xxvi. 11, nor the wine into his blood, 
Mark xiv. 25. 

The absurdity and blasphemy of that opinion truly mani- 
fested, Matt. xxvi. 26. 

The sadducees after Christ’s resurrection were the great 
enemies to Christianity, as the pharisees were before, 
Acts v. 17, in what sense they denied angels and spirits, 
Acts xxiii. 7, Matt. xxii. 32. 

The Samaritans worshipped the true God, though not ac- 
cording to his will, John iv. 24, 

fiow we are to sanclify God’s name, Matt. vi. 10. 

Christ was truly willing to save them who would not be 
saved, Matt. xxiii. 57, Luke xix. 42. 

Scandal, though only received, not given, when to be avoid- 
ed, Matt. xvii. 27. 

The rules of self-denial, Luke ix. 23, the doctrine destroyed 
by Mr. Hobbes, Luke xii. 8, 9. 

The sin of Simon Magus consisted in supposing that the 
apostles conferred the Holy Ghost by some art of magic 
superior to his own, Acts viii, 20. 


1227 


Simony, so called with analogy to his offering money for 
spiritual things, ibid. 

That the soul dies not with the body, but continues in a 
state of sensibility, proved from Matt. x. 28, Luke xxiii. 
43, Acts vii. 59. 

What the s/ar was which conducted the wise men, Matt. ii. 9, 

No works of merit, or supererogation, Luke xvii. 10. 

The supper, mentioned John xiii. 2, was not the paschal 
supper. 

The president, or head of the synagogue, beating offenders, 
usual, Mark xiii. 9. 


| Christ frequented the synagogue-worship, though it was cor- 


rupted: and conformed to their ceremonies, Luke iy. 16. 
T 

The law of talio, how to be understood, Matt. v. 38, 39. 

Tarsus, an eminent academy, Acts xxii. 3. 

The taxing mentioned by St. Luke was before that made 
by Cyrenius, Luke ii. 2. 

The captain of the temple, who, Luke xxii. 52. 

Herod’s temple was building forty-six years, and not then 
finished, John ii. 20. 

What is the import of the word temptation in the Lord’s 
Prayer; what it is to enter into temptation; how God 
cannot, and how he may be said to lead us into tempta- 
tion, Matt. xvi. 13. 

Why Christ was tempted, Matt. iv. 1. 

He was really tempted, and not only in a vision, Matt. iv. 8. 

There was a Theudas before Christ, and after him another 
of that sect, Acts v. 36. 

Examples of transposition of words in scripture, Mark ix. 
13, Luke i. 27. 

Christ decides the question about paying dribute to Cesar 
from their own rules, Matt. xxii. 17. 


U 


Unwashen hands. See pharisees. 

The Christians represented as unlearned, Acts iv. 13. 

The blessed Virgin was of the house of David, Luke i. 27, 
ii. 25. She vowed not virginity, ver. 34. Her womb was 
opened at the birth of Christ, Luke ii. 23. Her perpetual 
virginity not proved, or disproved, from scripture, Matt. i. 
25, no article of faith, nor was it always deemed heresy 
to question it, Matt. xili. 55. 

Jr of Chaldea was in Mesopotamia, Acts vii. 1. 


WwW 


The man not having on the wedding-garment, respects the 
Jews, Matt. xxii. 11. 

The punishment of the wicked in Gehenna will be eternal, 
Mark ix. 43, 44. 

Whited sepulchres, what, Matt. xxiii. 27. 

How to do God’s will on earth, as it is done in heaven, 
Matt. vi. 10. 

The wise men not kings, Matt. ii. 1, not from Chaldea, but 
from Arabia, ver. 2, how they knew a king of the Jews 
was to be born, C, when they came to Jerusalem, ibid. 
why they presented him with those gifts, ver. 11. 

What hinders the word from being profitable, Matt. xiii. 
20, 22. 

When our affections are inordinately set on this world, Matt, 
Xvi. 22, what solicitude for it is allowed, and what for- 
bidden, ver. 25. 

How we must worship God in spirit, John iv. 24, 

God accepts of no worship as done to him, which is not 
done to him alone, and according to his will, Acts vii. 41, 
xxii. 17. 

Religious worship refused by St. Peter, Acts x. 25, 26. 

Some dispositions are required in men to render them 
worthy of the gospel, and the grace of God, Matt. x. 2 


Ὗ 
The command to sell all, was directed to the young man in 
particular, and binds not others, Matt. xix. 21, 
Z 


Zorobabel in scripture, and the Jewish writers, is often 
mentioned as the son of Shealtiel, and not of Pedaiah, 
Matt. i. 12, 


1228 


AN INDEX 


OF THE 


GREEK WORDS AND PHRASES 


EXPLAINED IN THE 


COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES. 


A 


"ATAOO'S, Rom. v. 7. 

τὸ ἀγαθὸν ὑμῶν, Rom. xiv. 16. 

ἄγαμος, 1 Cor. vii. 8. 

ἅγιοι, Rom. xvi. 15, 1 Cor. vii. 14. 

ἁγιάζειν, Heb. ii. 11, ix. 13. 

ἀδιαλείπτως, 1 Thess. v. 17. 

ἀδικία, 1 Cor. xiii. 6, 2 Tim. ii. 19. 

ἀδόκιμος, 2 'Tim. iii. 8, Heb. vi. 8. 

ἄθεοι, Eph. ii. 12. 

& ἐλθὼν dv αἵματος, 1 John v. 6. 

αἵρεσις, 1 Cor. ix. 19. 

αἱρετεκὸς, Tit. iti. 10. 

aicxpodoyia, Col. iii. 8. 

αἴσθησις, Phil. i. 10. 

αἰὼν, 2 Tim. iv. 10. 

κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα, Eph. ii. 2. 

κατὰ πρόθεσιν αἰώνων, Eph. ii. 11. 

αἰώνιος, Philem. 15, Jude 7. 

πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων, 2 Cor. i. 7. 

αἰῶνας, Heb. i. 2. 

αἰὼν μέλλων, Heb. vi. 5. 

ἄκακος, Rom. xvi. 18, Heb. vii. 26. 

ἀκάθαρτος, 1 Cor. vii. 14, 

ἀκροθίνια, Heb. vii. 4. 

ἀκούειν, Eph. i. 7. 

ἀλλὰ, Rom. x. 19. 

ἁμαρτία, ἥμαρτον, ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν, 
Rom. v. 19. 

ὃ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, 1 John iii. 8, 9. 

τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν ἁνήνεγκεν, 1 Pet. 11. 24. 

περὶ ἁμαρτίας, Rom. viii. 3, 1 Pet. iii. 

ἁμαρτωλοὶ, Gal. 11. 15. 

ἀνάθεμα εἶναι, Rom. ix. 3. 

ἀνακεφαλαιώσασϑαι, Eph, i. 10. 

avaxpivw, 1 Cor. ii. 15. 

ἀναλογία τῆς πίστεως, Rom. xii. 6. 

kar’ ἄνθρωπον λέγω, Rom. iii. 5, 1 Cor. 
ix. 8. 

ἀνθρώπινον λέγω, Rom. vi. 19. 

6 ἀντιτασσόμενος τῇ ἐζουσίᾳ, Rom. xiii. 2. 

ἀπόδειξις τοῦ Πνεύματος, 1 Cor. ii. 4. 

ἀποδῴη, 2 Tim. iv. 14, 

ἀποκαταλλάξαι, Eph. ii. 16. 

ἀπόστολος, Rom. xvi. 7, Phil. ii. 25. 

ἀπόχρησις, Col. ii. 22. 

οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο, Phil. ii. 6. 

ἀρετὴ, 1 Pet. 11, 9, 2 Pet. i. 5. 

dx’ ἀρχῆς, 1 John i. 1, ii. 7. 

ἀσέλγεια, Rom. xiii. 13, 

ἀσθενὲς, ἀσθενέω, ἀσθένεια, Rom. v. 6, 
xiv. 21. 

dowria, Eph. v. 18. 

ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ, Eph. vi. 24. 

ἄφρονες, Rom. ii. 20, 

ἀφαΐρειν ἁμαρτίαν, Heb. x. 4. 

κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐϊουσίας τοῦ dépos, 


Eph. ii. 2. 


B 


Τὴ Βάαλ, Rom. xi. 4. 

Βαβυλὼν, 1 Pet. v. 13. 

Βαλαὰμ τοῦ Βοσὸρ, 2 Pet. ii. 15. 

ἐν βάρει εἶναι, 1 Thess. ii. 6. 

νόμος βασιλικός, James ii. 8. 

οἱ βουλύμενοι πλουτεῖν, 1 Tim, vi. 9. 


Ln 
Τὸ λογικὸν γάλα, 1 Pet. ii. 2. 
κενῶς ἡ γραφὴ λέγει, James iv. 5. 
ἔγραψα, scripseram, 1 Cor. ν. 9, John 
iii. 9. 
γεγραμμένα ἐν βίβλω ζωῆς, Phil. iv. 3. 
γαστριμαργὸς, Tit. i. 12, 
γενηθήτω, Rom. xi. 10. 
ἡ γλῶσσα πῦρ, James iii. 6. 
γυνὴ, 1 Cor. vii. 84. 
γυναῖκα ἀδελῴην, 1 Cor. ix. 5. 


Δ 


Δαιμόνιον, 1 Cor. x. 20. 

δὲ, Rom. vi. 17. 

δέησις ἐνεργουμένη, James ν. 16. 

δεήσεις, προσευχαὶ, ἐντεύξεις, 1 Tim. 11. 2. 

διὰ, cum genitivo, per, Heb. i. 2, 1 
Tim. ii. 15. 

διαθήκη, Heb, ix. 20. 

διακονία, Rom. xii. 6. 

διάκρισις διαλογισμῶν, Rom. xiv. 1. 

διακρινόμενος, Rom. xiv. 23, James i. 8. 

δίδωμι, ἔδωκε, Rom. xi. 8. 

ἔδωκε δόματα, Eph. iv. 8. 

δίκαιος, Rom. iil. 26. 

δικαιοσύνη Θεοῦ, Rom. i. 17, 

δικαιώματα, Rom. ii. 26. 

δίψυχος, James i. 8. 

doza, Rom. iii. 26. 

δοξάζειν, Rom. viii. 33. 

δογματίζεσθε, Col. 11. 20. 

δοκιμάζετε, 1 Cor. xi. 28, Gal. vi. 4. 

δοκέω, 1 Cor. vii. 40, 1 Tim. ii. 15, 
Heb. iv. 1. 

δουλεία τῆς φϑορᾶς, Rom. viii. 21. 

δωρεὰ ἐπουράνιος, Heb. vi. 4. 

δύναμις, 1 Cor. v. 5. 

δυνατὸς, Rom. xi. 13, xiv. 4, Heb. ii. 18. 


E 


"Bay, postquam, quando, Heb. iii. 7. 

ἐγγὺς, Eph. ii. 17. 

ἀπὸ παντὸς εἴδους πονηροῦ, 1 Thess. v. 22. 

ἔθνος ἅγιον, 1 Pet. ii. 9. 

ἐθελοθρησκείᾳ, Col. ii. 23. 

ei, quod, 1 Tim. v. 10. 
randi, Heb. iii. 11. 

εἴ ye, siquidem, Eph. iii. 2. 

εἰ μὴ, 1 Cor. vii. 17. 

eis pro ἐν et dé, Col. 1. 20, 1 Pet. i, 11. 


Formula ju- 


εἰκὼν rod Θεοῦ, Heb. vii. 15. 

ἐκλογὴ χάριτος, Rom, xi. 5, 28. 

ἐκλεκτὸς ἐν Κυρίῳ, Rom. xvi. 13. 

γένος ἐκλεκτὸν, 1 Pet. ii. 9. 

ἔμφυτος λόγος, James i. 21. 

ἐν pro διὰ, 1 Cor. vii. 13. 

ἐνεργεῖν, 1 Thess. ii. 13, Phil. ii. 13. 

Ἶ 5 ὑπὲρ ᾿ 

ἐντυγχάνειν, § cae ¢ Rom. xi. 2. 

ἐξαγοραζόμενοι τὸν καιρὸν, Eph. v. 16. 

ἐζήγειρά σε, Rom. ix. 17. 

ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξῆλϑον, 1 John ii. 19. 

τοῦς ἐζουθενημένους, 1 Cor. vi. 4. 

ἐξουσία, 1 Cor. ix. 9. 

ἐπιθανάτιοι ἔσχατοι, 1 Cor. iv. 9. 

ro ἐπιεικὲς, Phil. iv. 5. 

ἑἐπερώτημα, 1 Pet. iii. 21. 

ἐπικαλέσηται τὸ ὄνομα Κυρίου, 1 Cor. 1. 2 

ἐπιλαμβάνεσϑαι, Heb. ii, 16. 

σὺν ἐπισκύποις καὶ διακόνοις, Phil. i. 1. 

ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις, Eph. iii. 10, Heb. 
vi. 4. 

ἔργον dyaSév, Rom. ii. 7. 

οἱ ἐξ ἐριθείας, Rom, ii. 8. 

ὃ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος, Rom. vi. 22. 

repos, Rom. xiii. 8. 

εὐλάβεια, Heb. v. 7. 

εὐλογία πνευματικὴ, Eph. iii. 1. 

εὐσχημόνως, Rom. xiii. 13, 1 Cor. xiv. 


εὐτραπελία, Eph. v. 4. 
ἔχειν χάριν, Heb. xii. 28. 


Z 
Ziv, 1 Thess. iii. 8. 
ra ἄνω ζητεῖν, Col. iii. 1. 
λίθοι ζῶντες, 1 Pet. ii. 5. 
λόγος ζῶντος Θεοῦ, Heb. iv. 


H 


Ἢ pro καὶ, 1 Cor, ix. 27. 
ἡμέρα, 1 Cor. iii. 13. 

ἡμέραι πονηραὶ, Eph. v. 16. 
ἡμέρα κρίσεως, 2 Pet. iii. 7. 

ὃ ἥλιος μὴ ἐπιδυέτω, Eph. iv. 26. 


8 


Θάνατον ἀποκύειν, James i. 15. 
ἐθανατώθητε τῷ νόμῳ, Rom. vii. 4. 
ϑέλειν, Col. 11. 18, 

ϑεοδίδακτοι, 1 Thess. iv, 9. 

Θεὸς εὐλογητὸς, Rom. ix. 5. 
ϑεμέλιος rod Θεοῦ, 2 Tim. ii. 19. 
ϑλίψεις rod Χριστοῦ, Col. i. 24. 
ϑρησκεία τῶν ἀγγέλων, Col. 11, 18. 
ϑυσία ζῶσα, Rom. xii. 1. 

ϑυσίαι πνευματικαὶ, 1 Pet. ii. 5. 


I 
᾿ἸΙδίας ἐπιλυσέως, 2 Pet. i 79 


ὃ ἀναπληρῶν τὸν τόπον rod ἰδιώτου, 1 Cor. 
xiv. 16, 

ἱερουργοῦντα τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, Rom. xv. 16. 

ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον, 1 Pet. ii. 9. 

ἱλάσκεσϑαι τὰς ἁμαρτίας, Heb. ii. 17. 

ἱλασμὸς περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, 1 John ii. 2, 
iv. 10. 

ἱλαστήριον, Rom. iii. 25. 

ἵνα pro Grav, 1 Cor. iv. 13. 

ἴσα Oecd, Phil. ii. 6. 


K 


Kai, id est, Col. i. 2, idcirco, Heb. iii. 
19, tune, Gal. ii. 2. 

καθὼς, quando, 1 Cor. i. 6. 

καθαρίζειν, καθαρισμὸς, Heb. i. 3, ix. 14. 

καθολικαὶ ἐπιστολαὶ, James i. 

ἐντολὴ καινὴ, 1 John ii. 7, 8. 

καλὰ ἔργα, Tit. iii. 8. 

xara Θεοῦ, per Deum, 1 Cor. xv. 15. 

καταβραβεύετω, Col. ii. 18, 

κατακυριεύοντες τῶν κλήρων, 1 Pet. v. 3. 

μὴ καταλαλεῖτε, James iv. 11. 

καταλλαγῆναι, καταλλάσσειν, Rom. v. 10. 

καταλλαγὴν λαμβάνειν, Rom. v. 11. 

ὃ κατασκευάσας, Heb. iii. 3. 

καταστρηνιᾷν, 1 Tim. v. 11. 

καταφάγεται αὐτοὺς πῦρ, James v. 3. 

καταχρώμενοι, 1 Cor. vii. 31. 

εἰς τὰ κατώτερα μέρη τῆς γῆς, Eph. iv. 9. 

ὃ κληρονόμος τοῦ κόσμου, Rom. iv. 18. 

κοινωνία, 1 Cor. x. 16. 

ἐγκομβώσασϑε, 1 Pet. v. 5. 

ἐν παντὶ τῷ κόσμῳ, Col. i. 6. 

περὶ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου, 1 John ii. 2. 

κρίμα, Rom. v. 16, xiii. 2, 1 Cor. xi. 29. 

οἷς τὸ κρῖμα ἔκπαλαι οὐκ ἀργεῖ, 2 Pet. 
ii. 3. 

κριθῆναι τὴ σαρκὶ, 1 Pet iv. 5, 

κρίνεσϑαι, Rom. iii. 4. 

κριτήρια, 1 Cor. vi. 2. 

ἵνα μὴ ὑπὸ κρίσιν πέσητε, James v. 12. 

πάσα κτίσις, Rom. viii. 19. 22. 

ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου, Rom. i. 20. 

ἀνθρωπίνη κτίσις, 1 Pet. ii. 18. 

& Κύριος ἐγγὺς, Phil. iv. 5. 

Κύριον ἁγιάσατε, 1 Pet, iii. 15. 

κυριότητος καταφρονοῦντες, 1 Pet. ii, 10. 

κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, 1 Tim. iv. 2. 


A 


Kai τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας, Col. iv. 17. 

λαὸς περιούσιος, Tit. ii. 14, 1 Pet. ii. 19. 
λανϑάνει yap αὐτοὺς, 2 Pet. iii. δ. 

λίθος προσκόμματος, Rom. ix. 33. 
λογίζεσϑαι, Rom. v. 14. 

λόγος, 1 Cor. i. 5, Heb. iv. 13. 
λυπεῖσθαι, Rom, xiv. 15. 


M 


Μᾶλλον, non comparativum, sed nega- 
tivum, 1 Tim. i. 4. 

μάταια ἀναστροφὴ, 1 Pet. i. 18. 

μεγαλαυχεῖ, James iii. 5. 

zeyadonpenis δόξα, 2 Pet. i. 17. 

ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς, Col. ii. 16. 

ἀπὸ μέρους, Gal. 11, 5. 

εἰς τὴν μερίδα τοῦ κλήρου τῶν ἁγίων, Col. 
1.12. 

μεσίτης, 1 Tim. ii. 5. 

μεσότοιχον τοῦ φράγμου, Eph. ii. 14. 

μετεσχημάτισα, 1 Cor. iv. 6. 

μέτρον τῆς πίστεως, Rom. xii. 3. 

μῆποτε, si forte, 2 Tim. ii. 25. 

κατὰ μίαν σαββάτων, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. 

Θεοῦ, Phil. ii. 6. 

μορφὴ tel v7 

μωρολογία, Eph. v. 4. 

περὶ τοῦ Μωσέως σώματος, Jude 9. 


INDEX. 


N 


Nai, verbum obsecrandi, Philem. 20. 

vai καὶ ot, 2 Cor. i. 17, 18. 

ὃ ναὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, 1 Cor, vi. 19. 

νεκροὶ, de mortuis spiritualiter, 1 Pet. 
iv. 6. 

νεκροὶ, de uno, 1 Cor. xv. 30. 

eis vixos, 1 Cor. xv. 54. 

βασιλικὸς, James ii. 8. 

ἐλευθερίας, James i. 25. 

ἡ νὺξ προέκοψεν, Rom. xiii. 12. 

τὸν νῶτον αὐτῶν σύγκαμψον, Rom. xi. 10. 


νόμος 


Ξένοι, Eph. ii. 19, 
ο 


*Oydoos, 2 Pet. ii. 5. 

οἰκοδομὴ, Rom. x. 19, xv. 2. 

οἰκοδομεῖ εἰς τὸν ἕνα, 1 Thess. v. 11. 

ἡ κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησία, Rom. xvi. 5, 
1 Cor. xvi. 19. 

οἰκουμένην μέλλουσαν, Heb. ii. 5. 

ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπου, Phil. ii. 7. 

τὰ μὴ ὄντα, Rom. iv. 17. 

ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου, Col. iii. 17. 

καινοὶ οὐρανοὶ, 2 Pet. iii. 13. 

ὁρᾶν, 1 John i. 1. 

ὀργίζεσϑε καὶ ph ἁμαρτάνετε, Eph. iv. 26. 

ὀρθοτομεῖν τὸν λόγον, 2 Tim. 11. 15. 

δρκίζω ὑμᾶς, 1 Thess. ν. 27. 

ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες μὴ δρᾶν, Rom. xi. 8. 

ὀσμὴ ζωῆς καὶ Savarov, 2 Cor, il. 16. 


II 


Πάντα, Rom. viii. 28. 

οὐ πάντως, Rom. iii. 9. 

ἡ πανοπλία τοῦ Θεοῦ, Eph. vi. 13. 

παραβουλευσάμενος, Phil. ii. 30. 

παραδόσεις, 1 Cor. xi. 2, 2 Thess. 11. 15. 

ἡ παρακαταθήκη, 2 Tim. 1. 12. 

παῤῥησία, Heb. iii. 6. 

παραῤῥυῶμεν, Heb. ii. 1. 

παρηκολούθηκας, 2 Tim. iii. 10. 

παροξύνεται, 1 Cor. xiii. 5. 

ἡ παρουσία rod Κυρίου, 2 ‘Thess. ii. 1, 

ὃ πατὴρ, 1 Cor. iv. 15. 

πᾶσα πατριὰ, Eph. iii. 15, 

παρθένος, 1 Cor. vii. 36. 

παρέδωκεν, Rom. i. 34. 28. 

παρὼν τῷ Πνεύματι, 1 Cor. v. 5, 

πείθειν, Gal. i. 10. 

πέμψει ὃ Θεὸς, 2 Thess. ii. 11. 

πεπραμένος ὑπὸ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, Rom. vi. 14. 

πειράζειν, Heb. ii. 18, iii. 9. 

πειρασϑῆναι, Gal. vi. 1. 

ἐπειράσϑησαν, Heb. xi. 37. 

περικάϑαρμα, περίψημα, 1 Cor. iv. 13, 

περιποίησις, περιποιεῖν, Eph. i. 14. 

περιτομὴ ὀκταήμερος, Phil. iii. 5. 

περπερεύεται, 1 Cor. xiii. 4. 

πλεονεξία, πλεονεκτεῖν, 1 Thess. iv. 6. 

πλεονεξία, ἥτις ἐστὶν εἰδωλολατρεία, Col. 
lii. 5. 

πιθανολογία, Col. ii. 8. 

πίστις, pia πίστις, Eph. iv. 5. 

ὃ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως, Rom. xiv. 23. 

ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν, Rom. i. 17. 

πίστις ἅπαξ παραδοθεῖσα, Jude 3. 

τὴν πίστιν τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ 
τῆς δύζης, James ii. 1. 

πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν, Rom. xi. 12. 

πᾶν πλέρωμα τῆς ϑεότητος, Col. ii. 9. 

πᾶν πλήρωμα τοῦ Θεοῦ, Eph. iii. 19. 

πληροφορία, Rom. xiv. 5. 

τὸ Πνεῦμα, Rom. viii. 27. 

τὸ πνεῦμα pov, 1 Cor. xiv. 14. 

πνεῦμα dovdcias, Rom. viil. 15, 


1229 


πνεῦμα τῆς d6Ens, 1 Pet. iv. 14. 

πνευματικὸς ἄνθρωπος, 1 Cor. ii. 15, v. 5, 
Gal. vi. 1. 

ποιμένες, Eph. iv. 11. 

τὸ πολίτευμα ὑμῶν, Phil. iii. 20. 

προέγνω, ἔγνω, Rom. viii. 29, xi. 2. 

προεγνωσμένος, 1 Pet. i. 20. 

ἐν τῷ πονηρῷ, 1 John v. 19. 

πρᾶγμα, 1 Thess. iv. 6. 

πρεσβύτης, Tit. ii. 2, Philem. 9. 

of πρισβύτεροι τῆς ἐκκλησΐας, James Ve 
14. 

πρεσβυτέρους τοὺς ἐν ὑμῖν, 1 Pet. v, 1. 

πρὸς, de, Heb. i. 7. 

προσαγωγὴ, Eph. iii. 12, 1 Pet. iii. 18. 

κατὰ πρόϑεσιν αἰώνων, Eph. iii. 11. 

πρύσκομμα τιθέναι, Rom, xiv. 13, 21, 1 
Cor. viii. 13. 

προσφορὰ καὶ ϑυσία, Eph. v. 2. 

προφήτης, Tit. i, 12. 

προφητεία, 1 Cor. xiv. 6. 

rip αἰώνιον, Jude 7. 

ὡς διὰ πυρὸς, 1 Cor. iii. 15. 

προσωποληψία, James ii. 1. 

πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, Col. i. 15, 


Ἐν 


Ἔν ῥάβδῳ, 1 Cor. iv. 21, 
ῥαντισμὸς, Heb. xii. 24, 
ῥῆμα καλὸν, Heb. vi. 5. 


>>) 


Σαρκικὸς, 1 Cor. iii. 4. 

κατὰ σάρκα, Rom. iv. 1. 

ἐληλυθότα ἐν σαρκὶ, 1 John iv. 2, 3. 

ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀστέων, 
Eph. v. 30. 

ὃ Σατανᾶς, Rom. xvi. 20. 

σημεῖον, 1 Cor, i. 22. 

σημεῖα, τέρατα, καὶ δυνάμεις, Heb. 11. 4. 

σκάνδαλον, σκανδαλίζεσϑαι, Rom. xiv 

σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων, Col. ii. 17, 

σκότος, Rom. xiii. 12, 

σοφὸς, 1 Cor. i. 20. 

σπαταλάω, 1 Tim. v. 6. 

σπένδομαι, Phil. ii. 17. 

σπιλάδες, Jude 12. 

καλὴν στρατείαν, 1 Tim. i. 18, 

στοιχεῖα, 2 Pet. iii. 10. 

στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου, Gal. iv. 3. 

συναγωγὴ, 2 Thess. ii. Ὁ James ii. 4, 

σχίσματα, 1 Cor. xi. 18. 

τὸ σῶμα νεκρὸν, Rom. viii. 10. 

τὸ σῶμα τῆς ταπεινώσεως ὑμῶν, Phil. iii 


σῶμα κατηρτίσω μοι, Heb. x. 5, 


T 


Kara τάξιν, 1 Cor. xiv. 20. 

ὃ ταπεινὸς, James i. 9. 

ταρταρώσας, 2 Pet. ii. 4. 

τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς, Eph. ii. 3. 

διὰ τεκνογονίας, 1 Tim. ii. 15. 
τέλειος, 2 Cor. i. 6. 

τελειῶσαι, Heb. 11. 10, ix. 10, x. 1. 
εἰς τέλος, 1 Thess. ii. 15. 

τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων, 1 Cor. x. 11. 
τὸ τέλος ἤγγικε, 1 Pet, iv. 7. 

τιμὴ, 2 Tim, v. 3. 

εἰς ὃ καὶ ἐτέθησαν, 1 Pet. ii. 8, 
τινὲς, Heb. iii. 16. 

ἐμπλοκὴ τριχῶν, 1 Pet. iii. 3, 
τρυφᾷν, 2 Pet. ii. 13. 

τυφλοὶ, Rom. ii. 19. 


τς 


Δι᾿ ὕδατος, 1 John v. 6. 
υἱοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ, Rom. viii. 14, 
δος 


1230 


υἱοθεσία, Rom. viii. 23. 

ὑπὲρ, in gratiam, 1 Cor. xv. 30. 

ὑπερβαίνειν, 1 Thess. iv. 6. 

ὑπέρογκα, 2 Pet. ii. 18. 

ἐξ ὕπνου ἐγερϑῆναι, Rom. xiii. 11. 

ὑποδησάμενοι τοὺς πόδας ἐν ἑτοιμασίᾳ τοῦ 
εὐαγγελίου, Eph. vi. 15. 

ὑποστείληται, Heb. x. 38. 

ὑπόστασις, Heb. xi. 1. 

ὑστερηκέναι ἀπὸ, Hele xii. 15. 


Φ 
᾿Ἐὰν φανερωϑη, 1 John iii. 2. 
φέρων, Heb. i. 3. 
φίλημα ἅγιον, Rom. xvi. 16. 
φιλόξενος, 1 Tim. iii. 2. 
τὸν φύβον αὐτῶν μὴ φοβηθῆτε, 1 Pet. iii. 14. 
τὸ αὐτὸ φρονεῖν, Phil. iv. 2. 
τὰ ἄνω φρονεῖν, Col. iii. 1, 2. 


INDEX. 


rats δώδεκα φυλαῖς, James i. 1. 

τοῖς ἐν φυλακὴ πνεύμασι, 1 Pet. ili. 19. 
φύσις, 1 Cor. xi. 14, Eph. ii. 3. 

Seias φύσεως κοινωνοὶ, 2 Pet. i. 4. 
φωσφύρος ἀνατείλη, 2 Pet. i. 19. 
φωτισϑέντες, Heb. vi. 4. 

εἶναι ἐν τῷ φωτὶ, 1 John ii. 9. 


x 


Χαίρειν αὐτῷ μὴ λέγετε, 2 John 10. 
χάρις, 2 Cor. vi. 1. 

ἐν χάριτι, Col. iii. 16. 

χάριτί ἐστε ceowopévor, Eph. ii. 8, 
ἵνα δῷ χάριν, Eph. iv. 29. 

χάριαμα πνευματικὸν, Rom. i. 12. 
Χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως, Heb. i. 3. 
χειρόγραφον rots δόγμασιν, Col. 11. 14. 
χειροποίητα ἅγια, Heb. xi. 24. 

χίλια ἔτη, 2 Pet. iii. 8, 


ἐν Χριστῷ εἶναι, Rom. viii. 1. 

τὸν Χριστὸν ἐνδύναι, Rom. xiii. 14, 

τὰ εἰς Χριστὸν παθήματα . 

Πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ, ‘ 1 Pet. i. 11. 
χρόνοι αἰώνιοι, Rom. xvi. 25. 

πρὸ χρύνων αἰωνίων, 2 Tim. i. 9, Tit. i. 2, 
περίθεσις χρυσίων, 1 Pet. ili. 3. 


¥ 
ψαλμοῖς καὶ ὕμνοις, Eph. ν, 19, Col. 
lii. 16. 
ψευδώνυμος γνῶσις, 1 Tim. vi. 20. 
ψηλαφᾷν, 1 John i. 1. 
ψυχὴ, 1 Thess. iii. 8. 
ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος, 1 Cor. ii. 14. 


2 


"Qs οὐχ ὁμοιώσεως, ἀλλὰ βεβαιώσεως, Rom. 
ix. 82. 


A TABLE OF PHRASES 


EXPLAINED IN THE 


COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES. 


A 


Abstain from all appearance of evil, 
1 Thess. v. 22. 

The adoption of sons, Rom. viii. 23, 
Eph. i. 5. 

Affections set on things above, Col. 
iii. 2. 

The affections of Christ, Col. ii. 24. 

All are yours, 1 Cor. iii. 22. 

To be anathema from Christ, Rom. 
ix. 3. 

Be angry, and sin not, Eph, iv. 26. 

The whole armour of God, Eph. vi. 13. 

To awake out of sleep, Rom. xiii. 11. 


B 


That which was from the beginning, 
1 John i. 1. 

The breastplate of faith, 1 Thess. v. 8. 

To be in bondage to corruption, Rom. 
viii. 21. 

To the first-born from the dead, Col. 
19: 

To bow down the back, Rom. xi. 10. 

To do our own business, 1 Thess. iv. 11. 


σ 


To heap coals of fire upon the head, 
Rom. xii. 20. 

To be in Christ, Rom. viii. 1. 

To be with Christ, Phil. i. 24. 

His commandments are not grievous, 
1 John v. 3. 

The coming of our Lord, 2 Thess. ii. 1. 

Our conversation is in heaven, Phil. 
iii. 20. 

To be conformed to the world, Rom. 
xii. 2. 

The course of this world, Eph. ii. 2. 

The whole creation, Rom. viii. 22. 

To corrupt the temple of God, 1 Cor. 
ul. 17, 


D 
Darkness, Rom. xiii. 12, 


The day of Christ, 1 Thess. v. 2. 

Dead in sins, Eph. ii. 1. 

Dead to the law, Rom. vii. 4. 

Without the law, sin was dead, Rom. 
vii. 8. 

A door of utterance, Eph. vi. 19. 

Not to doubiful disputations, Rom. 
xiv. 1. 

He that dowbteth is damned if he eat, 
Rom. xiv. 23. 

The doubtful and double-minded man, 
James i. 8, 


E 


Edification of God, 1 Tim. i. 4. 

Election of grace, Rom. xi. 5, 1 Pet. 
ii. 9, 

To esteem others better than ourselves, 
Phil. ii. 3. 

Evil days, Eph. v. 16. 

Eye hath not seen, 1 Cor. ii. 9. 

To have eyes and see not, Rom. xi. 10. 


F 


From faith to faith, Rom. i. 17. 

Whatsoever is not of faith is sin, 
Rom. xiv. 23. 

The whole family in heaven and 
earth, Eph. iii. 15. 

To deny the Father, 1 John ii. 23. 

The feet shod with the preparation of 
the gospel of peace, Eph. vi. 15. 

There is no fear in love, 1 John iv. 18. 

Flesh and blood, Gal. i. 6. 

Foolish talking and jesting, Eph. v. 4. 

Whom he did foreknow, Rom. viii. 29, 
xi. 2. 

The form of God, a servant, Phil. ii. 
6, 7% 

The fruits of righteousness, James 
iii. 18, 


G 
To gather together in one, Eph. i. 10. 
Our gathering together in Christ, 2 
Thess. ii. 1. 


He gave gifls to men, Eph. iv. 8. 

The glory of God, Rom. i. 23, Phil. 
li. 6, Heb. i. 3. 

Them he also glorified, Rom. viii. 30. 

God over all, blessed for ever, Rom. 
ix. 5. 

That God may be all in all, 1 Cor. xv. 
28. 

To groan one against another, James 
v. 9. 

The gospel preached to the dead, 1 

Pet. iv. 6, 


H 


The handwriting of ordinances, Col. 
ii. 14. 

To be heir of the world, Rom. iv. 13, 
of righteousness, Heb. xi. 7. 

Damnable Aeresies, 2 Pet. ii. 1. 5 

Higher than the heavens, Eph. iv. 10. 

Double honour, 1 Tim. v. 17. 

The first-fruits holy, Rom. xi. 16. 

To be clothed with humility, 1 Pet. 
νυ. 5. 


I 


Faith is imputed for righteousness, 
Rom. iv. 5. 

Not to impute sin, Rom. v. 13. 

The inward man, Rom. vii. 22. 

To intercede for and against, Rom. 
xi. 2. 

The saints shall judge the world and 
angels, 1 Cor. vi. 2, 3. 


K 


To know as we ought to know, 1 Cor. 
Viii. 2. 

The Lord knoweth who are his, 2 Tim. 
ii. 19. 


L 


A lamb without blemish, 1 Pet. i. 10. 

The last times, 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2 Tim. 
iii. 1. 

The Jaw of liberty, James i. 25. 


The royal Jaw, James ii. 8. 

The length, &c. of the love of Christ, 
Eph. iii. 19. 

The old leaven, 1 Cor. v. 7. 

In the likeness of man, Phil. ii. 7. 

A living hope, 1 Pet. i. 4. 

Living stones, 1 Pet. ii. 5. 

The Lord is at hand, Phil. iv. 5. 

The lower parts of the earth, Eph. iv. 9. 


M 


Man, old and new, Eph. iv. 23. 

The measure of faith, Rom. xii. 3. 

T will have mercy on whom I will have 
mercy, Rom. ix. 15. 

The middle wall of partition, Eph. ii. 
14. 

To mind the same thing, Phil. iv. 2. 

To be of the same mind, 1 Cor. i. 10. 

To mortify our earthly members, Col. 
iii. 5. 

N 


To call upon the name of the Lord, 
Rom. x. 13, 1 Cor. i. 2. 

To do allin the name of the Lord, Col. 
iii. 17. 

By nature children of wrath, Eph. 
ii. 3. 

A new commandment, 1 John ii. 7. 

Brought nigh to God, Eph. ii. 13. 

The night is far spent, Rom. xiii. 12. 


oO 


To be offended, Rom. xiv. 21. 
If I be offered upon the sacrifice and 
service of your faith, Phil. ii. 17. 


P 


Partaker of the divine nature, 2 Pet. 
i. 4. 

The peace of God, Phil. iii. 15. 

A peculiar peace, 1 Pet. ii. 9. 

A perfect man, Eph. iv. 13, Phil. iii. 15. 

Let every man be fully persuaded in 
his own mind, Rom. xiv. 5. 

Give place to wrath, Rom. xii. 19. 


INDEX. 


Give not place to the devil, Eph. iv. 
27. 

To present our bodies a living sacrifice, 
Rom. xii. 1. 

The prince of the power of the air, 
Eph. ii. 2. 

The children of the promise, Rom. 
ix. 8. 

The proportion of faith, Rom. xii. 6. 

A holy priesthood, 1 Pet. ii. 5. 

To put on Christ, Rom. xiii. 14. 

To perfect according to the conscience, 

eb. ix. 10, 


R 


For this cause have I raised thee up, 
Rom. ix. 17. 

To reconcile things in heaven and earth, 
Col. i. 20. 

To redeem the time, Eph. v. 16. 

The redemption of the body, Rom. viii. 


23. 

The redemption of the purchased pos- 
session, Eph. i. 14. 

Reprobate concerning the faith, 2 Tim. 
lii. 8, to every good work, Titus 
i. 16. 

The righteousness of God, Rom. i. 17. 

He thought it not robbery to be equal 
with God, Phil. ii. 6. 


5 


To deliver to Satan, 1 Cor. v. 5. 

Spiritual sacrifices, 2 Pet. i. 5, 

A shadow of things to come, Col. ii. 17. 

The day-star rise in your hearts, 2 Pet. 
i. 19. 

To be scandalized and to scandalize, 
Rom. xiv. 20. 

In whom all have sinned, Rom. vy. 12. 

Many are made sinners, Rom. v. 19, 

Sold under sin, Rom. vii. 14. 

The sons of God, Rom. viii. 14. 

The revelation of the sons of God, Rom. 
viii. 21, 

Bid him not God speed, 2 John 10, 11. 

I speak as a man, Rom. iii. 5. 


1231 


The spirit of Christ, 1 Pet. i, 11. 

The spirit of slumber, Rom. xi.°10. 

With your spirit, Gal. vi. 18. 

The spirit of bondage, Rom. viii. 15. 

Comparing spiritual things with spiri- 
tual, 1 Cor. ii. 12. 

A stone of stumbling, Rom. ix. 33, 1 
Pet. ii. 6. 

To put a stumbling-block in your bro- 
ther’s way, Rom. xiv. 13, 20. 

To be subject to vanity, Rom. viii. 20, 

The sufferings of Christ, 1 Pet. i. 12. 

To let the sun go down upon your 
wrath, Eph. iv. 26. 


T 
Temptation in the flesh, Gal. iv. 14, 


Taught of God, 1 Thess. iv. 9. 
Turned aside after Satan, 1 Tim. ν. 15. 


U,V 
Subject to vanity, Rom. viii. 20. 
Our vile bodies, Phil. iii. 21. 
The day of visitation, 1 Pet. ii. 12. 
An unction from the Holy One, 1 John 
ii. 20. 
An inheritance undefiled, 1 Pet. i. 4. 
To eat and drink unworthily, 1 Cor. 
xi, 29. 


WwW 


The wages of sin is death, Rom. vi. 23. 

To ΤΣ the light, 1 John i. 7. 

To walk by the same rule, Gal. vi. 15, 
Phil. iii. 16. 

To waa wanton against Christ, 1 Tim. 
v. 12. 

To be weak, Rom. v. 6, xiv. 2. 

To be made weak, Rom. xiv. 20. 

It is not of him that welleth, Rom. ix. 


16, 
Whom he will he hardeneth, Rom. ix. 
18. 
The husband of one wife, 1 Tim. iii. 2. 
The ingrafted word, James i. 21. 
The living word of God, 1 Pet. i. 25. 
Faith working by love, Gal. v. 6. 


A TABLE OF MATTERS 


CONTAINED IN THE 


COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES. 


introduced among the Jews by Philo and the Alexandrian 


How Abraham’s body was dead, when afterward he begat 
six children, Rom. iv. 19. How his faith was without 
doubting, Rom. iv. 20. 

Some actions eminently good, and therefore generally com- 
manded, Phil. iv. 8, are not particularly commanded, 1 
Cor. ix. 17. 

Adoption includes a blessed resurrection, Rom. viii. 23, Gal. 
iv. 7, Eph. i. 4. 

ihe angels, mentioned 1 Cor. xi. 10, are angels that seduced 

ve. 

The page that fell have their habitations in the dark air, 
and do not at present suffer the torments of infernal 
flames, Eph. ii. 2, 2 Pet. ii. 4. 

The worship of angels forbidden, as not holding the head. 
The foundation of it was laid in the Platonic philosophy, 


Jews, Col. ii. 18, iii. 17. 

The anointing with oil, why used in healing the sick, James 
v. 14, 

It affords no foundation for the sacrament of extreme unc- 
tion, ibid. 

Antichrist was in being in the time of the apostles, 1 John 
ii. 17. 

Men are by God appointed to punishment for falling into 
sin, but not to fall into it, 1 Pet. ii. 8. 

The apostles taught not that the resurrection might be in 
their time, 1 Thess. iy. 15. 

The whole armour of God explained, and shown to consist, 
not so much in any immediate influx of the power of God, 
as in such things as either are in us, or are to be used by 
us, Eph. vi. 14, 


1232. 


Divine assistance necessary to the performance of our duty, 
Phil. iv. 13, James i. 5. See the Appendix to 2 Cor. vi. 


B 


Balaam was a prophet of the true God, 2 Pet. ii. 15, 16. 

Baptism is styled the laver of regeneration, Tit. iii. 5. 

Baptism is a rite of initiation to Christians, as circumcision 
was to the Jews, Col. ii. 12. 

The baptism of infants, proved from 1 Cor. vii. 14, Col. 
ii. 12. 

An answer to the objections from the faith, Gal. iii. 26, 27, 
and the answer of a good conscience, 1 Pet. iii. 21, re- 
quired to baptism. 

Bishops and deacons, Phil. i. 1. 

Three senses of the word bishop, given by the ancients; all 
confuting the presbyterian hypothesis, 1 Tim. iii. 1. See 
the Preface to the Epistle to Titus. 

A bishop, how to be the husband of one wife, 1 Tim. iii. 2, 
a lover of hospitality, Tit. 1, 8, not immersed in secular 
affairs, 2 Tim. ii. 5. 

Boasting is excluded, though good works are made the con- 
ditions of salvation, Eph. ii. 10. See 1 Cor. ix. 17. 

None are members of Christ's body, who are not sincere 
Christians, united to him by the Spirit, Eph. iv. 4. 

In what sense he that is born of God sinneth not, or doth 
not commit sin, 1 John iii. 6. 8. 


Cc 


What charily requires us to do to all; what it permits us 
not to do to any, what it requires or permits us not to 
do to our offending brother, 1 Cor. xiii. 7; spiritual gifts, 
alms-deeds, martyrdom, may be separated from charity, 
1 Cor. xiii. 3. 

Cerinthus was contemporary with the apostles; was an 
enemy to St. Paul, for teaching that circumcision and 
the observation of the law were not to be imposed upon 
the gentiles. He was instructed in philosophy, and set 
up in Asia; was zealous for the observation of the law. 
He held that the world was made by angels, and Jesus 
to be born of Joseph and Mary as other men, Col. ii. 10. 

The divine nature of Jesus Christ is proved ; 

From his titles, he being 

Jehovah, Rom. x. 13. 

God, Rom. xiv. 12, 1 Cor. x. 9, Heb. i. 8, iii. 4, 

The true God, 1 John v. 20. 

God manifested in the flesh, 1 Tim. ii. 13. 

The great God, Tit. ii. 13. 

God over all, blessed for ever, Rom. ix. 5. 

The Lord of all, Rom. x. 12. 

One in whom dwells the fulness of the Godhead, Col. 
ii. 9, and who was in the form of God, before he was 
made man, Phil. ii. 6. 

2. From the divine worship ascribed to him, he being the 

object of religious adoration and invocation, Rom. x. 
13, Col. iii. 24, 2 Thess. iii. 16. 
3. From the divine actions and attributes ascribed to him, 

he being 

The Creator of all things, Col. i. 16, Heb. i. 2. 10. 

The searcher of all hearts, 1 Cor. iv. 5. 

Omnipotent, and the raiser of the dead, Phil. iii. 21, 
Col. i. 19. 

Endued with divine knowledge and wisdom. 

The objections of the Socinians are answered ; viz. 

That there is one God the Father of all, and one Lord 
Christ, 1 Cor. viii. 1, Eph. iv. 6. 

That the head of Christ is God, 1 Cor. xi. 3. 

That Christ is distinguished from God in these words, 
Christ is of God, 1 Cor. iii. 23, The God and Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, Col. ii. 2. 

That by him we believe in God, 1 Pet. i. 20. 

That he is the first-born of every creature, Col. i. 15. 

That were he God, we would not be called to imitate 
him, 1 John iii. 3, 

Christ died for all, 1 Tim. ii. 26. 

For every man, Heb. ii. 9. 

For the whole world, 1 John ii. 2. 

F ee hem ithe perish, Rom. xiv. 15, 1 Cor, viii. 11, 2 

et. ii. 1, 


INDEX. 


The churches of Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica, when the 
apostle writ to them, had no settled pastors, 1 Thess. v. 
13. See the General Preface. 

Circumcision was esteemed by the Jews as their righteous- 
ness, Rom. ii. 13, iii. 1. 

Circumcision on the eighth day only regular, Phil. iii. 5. 

The cloud, not only a pillar going before, but a covering 
over the Jews, 1 Cor. x. 1. 

The coming of our Lord, when mentioned absolutely, refers 
to his final advent, 2 Thess. ii. 1. When said to be at 
hand, to his coming to take vengeance on the unbelieving 
Jews, Phil. iv. 5, James v. 8. 

Contentment, in what it consists, 1 Tim. vi. 8, and what 
exercise it requires, Phil. iv. 13. 

What things ought not to be’ matters of contention among 
Christians, 2 Tim. ii. 14. 

Arguments against the vow of continency, 1 Cor. vii. 5. 9.25, 

Covetousness is properly idolatry, Col. iii. 5. 

The cup of blessing, how the communion of the blood of 
Christ, 1 Cor. x. 16. 21. 

The cup is to be received by the laity, 1 Cor. xi. 25. 

The custom of the church is a rule in matters of indiffer- 
ency, 1 Cor. xi. 16, 

D = 

The effect of Christ’s death is double, 1. Freedom from 
condemnation, or justification. 2. The vouchsafement 
of the Holy Spirit, Rom. viii. 4. 

We became all obnoxious to death, by one sin of Adam, 
Rom. v. 12. 

The devils are not to be cast into hell-fire, till the day of 
judgment, 2 Pet. ii. 4. 

One man makes himself differ from another in spiritual, or 
virtuous habits acquired, though not in spiritual gifts im- 
mediately infused, 1 Cor. iv. 7. 

The gift of discerning spirits was exercised in choosing 
persons meet to do God service in the ministry, 1 Tim. 
i. 18. 

Divorces common on the woman’s side, among Jews and 
gentiles, 1 Cor. vii. 11, 1 Tim. v. 10, not permitted in the 
Christian law, except in case of fornication, 1 Cor. vii. 
10. 13. 

We must die to sin once for all, Rom. vi. 10, 11. 


E 


Edification, respects the knowledge of our duty, faith, love, 
union, Rom. xv. 2. 

Elders among Jews, of two sorts; the ruling and teaching 
elders, both ordained, 1 Tim. v. 17. 

Election, in the scripture phrase, is not of private persons to 
salvation, but of nations and churches to enjoy the means 
of grace, Rom, ix. 11, 12, Col. iii, 12, 1 Thess. i. 4, 
1 Pet. ii. 9. 

Election to salvation, is not absolute, or to the means, but 
conditional, upon performance of the means prescribed as 
necessary for the obtainment of salvation, and is made 
sure by good works, 2 Pet. i. 10. 

Catholic Epistles, when, and why so called, Preface to them. 

The Epistle to the Romans, placed first, as being writ to 
the imperial city: St. Peter was not at Rome when it 
was written, Preface. 

The First Epistle to the Corinthians was written by St. 
Paul, when he was at Ephesus, A. D. 57. The Second 
Epistle the year following. St. Paul writ no third epistle 
to them. See the Preface and note on 1 Cor. v. 9. 

The Epistle to the Ephesians was writ to them, not to those 
of Laodicea: the objections to the contrary are answered, 
Preface and notes oni. 15, iii. 2. It is the epistle from 
Laodicea, mentioned Col. iv. 16, and was writ, not against 
the Gnostics, but the Judaizing Christians. 

The Epistle to the Philippians was written when St. Paul 
was prisoner at Rome, to warn them, not against the 
Gnostics, but the Judaizing Christians. 

The Epistle to the Colossians was written when St. Paul 
had not seen them, against the Judaizers, who endea- 
voured to impose the observation of the law upon the 
gentile converts, Preface. 

The First Epistle to the Thessalonians was writ, not from 


INDEX. 


Atheor, but from Corinth, after the council at Jerusa- 

lem. 

The Second was not writ before the First. 

The First Lpistle to Timothy was writ after St. Paul's en- 
largement from his bonds at Rome. 

The Second, at the close of St. Paul's life, and was the last 
of his epistles. See the Preface and notes on chap. iv. 

The Epistle to Titus was writ after St. Paul's bonds. 

The Epistle to Philemon contains very useful matter. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul to the 
Jews in Judea, to prevent their apostasy from the faith, 
and that not in Hebrew, but in Greek, Preface. 'The ob- 
jections of Mr. Clerc are answered, Heb. ii. 3, ix. 2. 

The Epistle of St. James was writ by the apostle James, 
the same with James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem, to the 
twelve tribes, to correct the errors which had obtained 
among the Jews, and to comfort the believing Jews, 
under the persecutions they then suffered, Preface. 

The First Epistle of St. Peter was not written in the forty- 
fourth year of Christ, but towards the close of St. Peter’s 
life; not to the dispersion of the believing Jews men- 
tioned Acts viii. 1, but to the great dispersion of the Jews 
throughout Asia, to encourage them to persevere in the 
Christian faith, and to prevent their siding with the Jews 
in their rebellion, Preface. 

The Second Epistle was writ by St. Peter, a little before 
the destruction of Jerusalem, to arm the believing Jews 
against that fiery trial which was come upon them, and 
against those scoflers which questioned the promise of 
Christ’s coming, Preface. 

The First Epistle of St. John was written before the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, Preface. 

The Second and Third Epistles, by the same author. 

The Epistle of St. Jude was written by Jude the apostle, 
and brother of James. 

The Essenes abstain from flesh, wine, and women, and this 

they did through philosophy, as did the Pythagoreans, 
Col. ii. 21. 

They had the names of angels in veneration, and would 
not touch any unclean thing, Col. ii. 21—23, 

The eternity of future punishments is shown to be well consist- 
ent both with the justice and goodness of God ; and the ob- 
jections to the contrary are answered, Appendix to 2'Thess. 

The efernity of future punishments fully asserted by the 
primitive Christians, Heb. vi. 2. 

Both Jews and Christians mourned at the excommunication 
of their members, 1 Cor. v. 2. 

How far the laity were concerned in the excommunication 
and absolution of offenders, 2 Cor. ii. 6. 


F 


What is the gift of faith, 1 Cor. xii. 9. 

Of the nature of faith, and of justification by faith alone, 
Preface to the Epistle to the Galatians. 

Faith doth oblige us to, but doth not formally include obe- 
dience, Rom. vi. 1, x. 9, Preface to the Epistle to the Ga- 
latians, 8. 1. 3, 4. 

It is the act of faith that justifies, Rom. iv. 25, Gal. iii. 6. 

Faith in Christ raised from the dead, is justifying faith, 
Rom. iv. 25, x. 9. 

The faith once delivered to the saints, admits of no addi- 
tion, Jude 3. 

What is the one faith, mentioned Eph. iv. 5. 

Faith, how made perfect by works, James ii. 22. St. Paul 
and St. James reconciled, ibid. 

God, why styled the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Col. i. 2. 

The whole family of God includes the angels, and the 
blessed above, and the saints on earth, Eph. iii. 15. 

The foreknowledge of God, discovered in prophetical predic- 
tions, 1 Pet. i. 2. 

Fornication is a work of the flesh, against the moral law, 
excluding us from God’s kingdom, rendering us obnox- 
ious to his wrath, and fit to be cast into hell-fire, Preface 
to the First Epistle to the Corinthians. 

What doctrines are fundamental, 1 John ii. 5. 

It may be a fundamental error, to teach that, in the name 
of Christ, as necessary to salvation, which he hath not 
taught by himself, or his apostles, Gal. i. 9. How far the 
church of Rome is guilty of this, ibid. 

Vor. IV.—155 


i 


1233 


G 


The gentiles, how without the knowledge of God, and with- 
out hope, Eph. ii. 12. See Heathens. 

Revealed before the calling of the gentiles, how far, and not 
revealed, Eph. iii. 6. 10, 

Why the Holy Ghost is not mentioned in the Prefaces to 
the Epistles, Col. i. 2. 

The gifts mentioned 1 Cor. xii., severally explained, 1 Cor. 
xii. 12. 

The Gnostics 
Held it lawful, in times of persecution, to deny the faith, 

2 Pet. ii. 1. 
They blasphemed the angels, note on ver. 10. 
They taught that believers might live as they would; they 
being saved by grace, and not by good works, Jude 4. 
And yet they called themselves the spiritual men, ver. 19. 
They were never persecuted, 2 Pet. 11. 4. 
They despised not governments, but flattered them, note 
on ver. 10. 

God would have all men to be saved, 1 Tim. ii. 4, and would 
not that any should perish, 2 Pet. iii. 9. 

God gives men up to their lust; 1. By leaving them desti- 
tute of those providential dispensations which might re- 
strain them: 2. By permitting Satan to delude, and to 
provoke them to the commission of them, Rom. i. 24. 

He sends among them strong delusions: not by inspiring 
into them any evil, not by inclining or exciting them to 
it, not by necessitating them to sin; but by permitting 
Satan to do it, 2 Thess. ii. 11. 

The gospel, emphatically styled, the Truth, Rom. ii. 8. 
How preached to all the world, Col. i. 6. 

Those who are not gods by nature, are not to be worshipped, 

Gal. iv. 8. 
Nor owned to be gods by Christians, 1 Cor. viii. 5. 
In what sense we are saved by grace, Eph. ii. 9, Tit. ili. 5. 


H 


Pure hands, are hands free from blood and cruelty, from in- 
justice and bribery, and from filthiness and impurity, 
1 Tim. ii. 9. 

How God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, Rom ix. 17. 

The Jews, Greeks, and Romans prayed with their heads co- 
vered; and their women with their hair loose, 1 Cor. xi. 5. 

Heathens believe not the resurrection of the body, 1 Thess. 

iv. 14. 

They had no firm belief of a future life, 2 Tim. i. 10. 

Their philosophy, and vain deceit, Col. ii. 8. 

They counted simple fornication no sin, Eph. v. 6, 1 
Thess. iv. 5. 

Their secret mysteries were full of impurity, Eph. v. 12. 

They held drunkenness a duty in the solemnities of Bac- 
chus, ver. 18. 

They practised unnatural lusts, 1 Thess. iv. 5. 

They were addicted to lying, Eph. iv. 25, and to stealing, 
ver. 28. 

The heathens’ creed, Heb. xi. 6. 

They lay under two infecilities; 1. The want of a cove- 
nant-relation to God, 2. Subjection to the delusions of 
evil spirits, Col. ii. 15. 

How far we may allow that heathens, acting according to 
the law of nature, and owning the true God, may be ac- 
cepted and rewarded by him, Rom. ii. 15. 

A heretic is one who maintains some doctrine or opinion 
subverting the faith; acting, in so doing, against the con- 
victions of his own conscience, ‘Tit. iii. 10. 

The duties of husbands and wives, Col. iii. 18, 19. 

The holiness of God, in scripture, what it signifies, 1 Pet. 
i. 16. 

I,J 

The apostle speaks not of Jacob and Esau personally, but 
nationally considered, Rom. ix. 13. 

The Jews dispersed through Asia, Africa, and Europe, 1 

Pet. i. 4. 

They had many proselytes, 1 Pet. i. 1. 

Are styled the twelve tribes after their dispersion, James 
il. 

They thought God framed the world with a particular 
regard to them, 1 Cor. 111, 22. 


1234 


They apostatized from the Roman government; 1. From 
desire of freedom from tribute; 2. Of dominion over 
other nations; and, 8. From an opinion that they ought 
to own no other lord or master but God only, 1 Pet. ii. 
16, 1 Tim. vi. 2. 

Their corrupt manners rendered them as bad as heathens, 

Rom. ii. 1, xiii. 22. 

Unbelieving Jews, 

Their loose doctrines: Ist. That no circumcised Jew went 
to hell. 2dly, That the hearing of the law rendered 
them acceptable to God, without the doing of it. 3dly, 
That the doing some precepts would atone for the ne- 
glect of others, Rom. ii. 13, James ii. 11. 

How grievously they persecuted the Christians, and espe- 
cially the believing Jews, Gal. iii. 4, Preface to the 
Epistle of St. James. 

They, in many cases, thought themselves obliged to ab- 
stain from all flesh, Rom. xiv. 2. 

They suffered from the Romans, not only in Judea, but 
in all places where they were seated, Preface to the 
Epistle of St. James. 

That there shall be a general conversion of the unbelieving 
Jews, Rom. xi. 24. 36. 

The words of the apostle cannot be expounded of the spiri- 
ritual Israel, i. 6. the then believing Jew and gentile, Ap- 
pendix to Rom. xi. 

Nor be applied to any conversion of the Jews, from the 
writing that epistle, till the times of Constantine, ib. 

This hath been the constant doctrine of the church, ib. 
The prophecies touching the calling of the Jews are not yet 

fulfilled, ib. 

The believing Jews, 

Their apostasy, and the causes of it, 2 Thess. ii. 3. 

They knew not that the gentiles should be made heirs of 
the same body, and enjoy the same privileges with 
them, Eph. ii. 6. 

The image of God in man consists not primarily in holi- 
ness, but in dominion, 1 Cor. xi. 7, James iii. 9. 

How Christ is the zmage of God, Col. i. 15. 

What the imitation of God and Christ requires, 1 John 
iii. 3. 

Imposition of hands in ordination, an apostolical tradition 

derived from the Jews, 1 Tim. iv. 14. 

Of his laying-on of hands the apostle speaks, 1 Tim. v. 22. 
Imposition of hands after baptism, apostolical, Heb. vi. 2. 
The necessity of an infallible guide, not proved from Eph. 

iv. 11, 14, 1 Tim. iii. 15. 

The book of Job, a history and not a parable, James v. 11. 

Justification, in St. Paul, implies only the absolution of a 
sinner from his past sins: this justification is necessarily 
by faith alone, Preface to the Galatians. 

The doctrine of justification by faith, in opposition to the 
works of the law, is fundamental, Gal. i. 9. 

A double justification is mentioned in scripture, Rom. ii. 13, 
Gal. iii. 14. 

Good men under the law were justified by faith, Gal. iii. 14. 

Quest. Whether all that is necessary to be believed for jus- 
tification be this single proposition, that «Jesus of Naza- 
reth was the Christ?” Preface to the First Epistle of St. 
John. 

The apostles neither taught, nor believed, that they might 
live till the day of judgment, 1 Thess. iv. 17. 

K 

Tn what sense Christ's mediatory kingdom is to last for ever, 
1 Cor. xv. 28. 

Prayers for kings were used constantly by Jews and Chris- 
tians, 1 Tim. ii. 2. 

God’s knowledge sometimes includes his power and will, 
2 Pet. ii. 9. 

L 

The epistle from the Laodiceans is the Epistle to the Ephe- 
sians, Col. iv. 16. 

The Jast times were in being when the apostles writ, 1 Tim. 
iv. 1. 

The /aw was given by angels, as God’s ministers, Heb. ii. 2, 
for the extirpation of idolatry, Gal. iii. 19. 

The apostle, Rom. vii., speaks not of a regenerate man, but 
of a man under the Jaw, before grace, Rom. vii. 25. 


INDEX. 


The whole duty of man is, to Jive soberly, righteously, and 
godly, Tit. ii. 13. 

The Jove of God signifies God’s love to us, our love to him, 
and how it is perfected in us, 1 John ii. 5, iv. 12. 17. 
The freedom and greatness of God's Jove to us, 1 John iv. 

10, and of the love of Christ, Eph. iii, 19. 
Love is the fulfilling of the law to God and man, Rom. xiii. 10. 
Obedience to God’s commands the test of Jove, 1 John v. 3. 
The Justings of the sensual appetite are temptations to sin, 
and the root of sin, but not sin imputed, till consented to, 
James i. 4. 


M 

The whole man consists of spirit, soul, and body, 1 Thess. 
v. 23. 

The man of sin, not Mahomet, not the papal hierarchy, not 
C. Caligula, not Simon Magus and the Gnostics, Preface 
to the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians; 

But the Jewish nation, with their sanhedrin, scribes, and 
pharisees, ib. 

The objections against this opinion answered, ib. 

His coming was to be attended with an apostasy from 
the Roman government, or from the faith. 

His characters,—opposition to God and his church, his 
exalting himself above all that is called God, his sitting 
in the temple of God, his coming with lying wonders,— 
agree exactly to the Jews. See notes on ch. ii. 

The 5 κατέχων, or he which letteth, Claudius, ib. 

Manna was spiritual food to the Jews, 1 Cor. x. 3. 

Marriage allowed to the clergy, Tit. i. 6, Heb. xiii. 4, no 
hindrance to prayer, 1 Cor. vii. 5, when seasonable, ver. 
36, it ought to be in the Lord, i. 6. of one Christian with 
another, 1 Cor. vii. 39, 1 Pet. iii. '7, rejected by some 
heathens, upon several accounts, 1 Cor. vii. 1. 

‘The pretended sacrifice of the mass refuted, Heb. x. 18. 

Christian matrons are to be grave in apparel, not costly in 
attire, nor much concerned about it, as becometh women 
professing godliness, 1 ‘Tim. ii. 10, J Pet. iii. 4. 

The duty of masters towards their servants, Eph. vi. 9. 

Melchisedec, a man, not an angel, not Sem, not the eternal 
Aéyos, how without father and without mother, Heb. vii. 3. 

Ministers’ maintenance, a standing ordinance of Christ, 1 
Tim. v. 18. 

The necessity of the ministerial function, notwithstanding 
the unction from the Holy One, 1 John ii. 27. 

The millennium not proved, 

From Christ’s appearance and kingdom, 2 Tim. iv. 1. 

From the thousand years as one day, 2 Pet. ii. 8. 

From the new heavens and new earth, ver. 13. 

Confuted, note on 1 Cor. xv. 22. 52, Col. iii. 4. 

This is a great mystery, relates not to common matrimony, 
but only to the marriage of Christ with his church, Eph, 
v. 32. 


N 
The heresy of the Nicolaitans, 
Was in the time of the apostles, 2 Pet. ii. 1. 
They deceived many, caused Christianity to be blas 
phemed, note on ver. 2. 
They were most impious in their principles, and lascivi- 
ous in manners, ibid. 
They practised their impurities in the day-time, ver. 13. 
They blasphemed, and spake evil of angels, ver. 10. 
They spake swelling words of vanity, ver. 18. 
oO 

All oaths not unlawful, Gal. i. 20, 1 Thess, v. 27, Heb. 
vi. 16. 

Where the offence being scandalous, hath incurred the cen- 
sure of the church, the pardon of the church is necessary 
for the comfort of the offender, 2 Cor. ii. 7. 

The offerings of Christians were employed to purchase the 
freedom of Christian servants from their heathen masters, 
1 Cor. vii. 23. 

Ordination is not therefore a sacrament, because it was at 
the first attended with a χάρισμα, 2 Tim. i. 6. 

None were admitted to it without trial, 1 Tim. ili. 10, 


P 


Pastors and teachers were men endowed with spiritual gifts, 
Eph. iv. 11, 


INDEX. 


Patience under sufferings, gives experience of the sincerity 
and constancy of our faith, James i. 3. 

Perfect patience shows us to be entire in faith, trust in, de- 
pendence on God, in resignation to his will, in Christian 
fortitude and temperance, as to the pleasures, honours, 
and concernments of this world, in love to God, and to 
our brother, James i. 4. 

Motives to it, from these considerations, 
1. That we only suffer, if need be, 1 Pet. i. 6, 
2. The loss of fading and unsatisfactory things, James 
Pie 
And are assured of, 
3. Divine assistances and consolations under sufferings, 
1 Pet. iv. 14. 
4. A glorious reward of all our sufferings, James i. 12. 

St. Paul did indeed fight with beasts at Ephesus, 1 Cor. 
Xv. 32. 

What it is to be perfect, 1 Cor. ii. 6, Phil. iii. 18. 

Perseverance of true believers to the end, confuted, note on 

Col. i. 23, 1 Thess. iii. 5, Heb. x. 28, 2 Pet. ii. 20, 21, 
Second Epistle of St. John, ver. 8. 
Not promised, in these words, 
“He shall confirm you to the end,” 1 Cor. i. 8. 
“He that hath begun a good work will perfect it,” 
Phil. i. 6. 
“Faithful is he that hath called you, who also will do 
it,” 1 Thess. νυ. 24. 
«Who are kept by the power of God through faith to 
salvation,” 1 Pet. i. 5. 
«They went out from us, but they were not of us,” 
1 John ii. 19. 
St. Peter had not been at Rome when St. Paul writ or came 
to Rome, Rom. i. 15. 
Nor was he there when he writ his Epistles from Rome, 
Preface to the First Epistle of St. Peter. 
He could be only bishop of the Jewish church at Rome, 
Rom. i. 15. 
He had no supremacy over the apostles, Gal. ii. 10. 

The heathen philosophers were vain-glorious, mercenary, 
and wicked, 1 Thess. ii. 9. 

Polygamy is forbidden, 1 Cor. vii. 4. 

How the powers that be are of God, Rom. iii. 7. 

The words there said, relate to the false and pernicious 
opinions of the Jews, ibid. 

What resistance of them is forbidden, Rom. xiii. 2, 3. 

This place declares not how far man is the higher power, 
or when he ceaseth to be so, and therefore reacheth 
not our controversy, Rom. xiii. 2. 

We own him as the higher power, to whom we pay tribute, 
Rom. xiii. 6. 

Prayer must be performed in faith, James i. 6. 8, without 
wrath, 1 Tim ii. 9. 

The prayer of faith, mentioned by St. James, was miraculous, 
James v. 15. 

What it is to pray without ceasing, 1 Thess. v. 17. 

το τεὸς ἜΘΗ departed, was not practised by the apostles, 

ol. iv. 4. 

Prayer for the dead, cannot be proved from the apostle’s 
prayer for Onesimus, 2 Tim. i. 18, or from Rom. xv. 30. 

The pre-existence of souls confuted, Rom. ix. 13. 

Christ was consecrated to his priesthood by his sufferings, 
Heb. ii. 10, and therefore did not properly exercise his 
sacerdotal function till after death, Heb. v. 5. 10, by offer- 
ing his blood in the heavens, Rom. iv. 25. 

Three sorts of promises mentioned in the New Testament ; 
the promise of the Messiah, of the Spirit, of an eternal 
rest, Gal. iii. 27. 

The gift of prophecy, 1 Cor. xii. 10. 

Purgatory cannot be proved from 1 Cor. iii. 15. 


Q 
How the Spirit may be quenched, 1 Thess. v. 19. 


R 
Reconciliation and access to God, is only through Christ’s 
7 eal for us, Eph. ii. 18, the reason why it must be so, 
ibid. 
Redemption is double. 
From the guilt of sin, by the remission of it ; 


1235 

From death, the punishment of sin, by the redemption of 

the body from it, Eph. i. 14, the’ necessity of this re- 
demption, ver. 6. 

Remission of sins, by a free act of grace and mercy, is 
absolutely necessary to our access to God, and relation 
to him, Eph. i. 7 The wisdom of this dispensation, 
ver. 8. 

A three-fold rest,—of the Jews in the land of Canaan, a 
rest after the example of God, a perpetual sabbatism, 
Heb. iv. 3. 7. 10. 

The rest, mentioned by the apostle, Heb. iv. 16, relates not 
to the millennium. 

Christians had no rest from persecution, after the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, Heb. iv. 3. 

Respect of persons, wherein it consists, James ii. 1. 

That the resurrection was past already, was the doctrine of 
Menander, 2 ‘Tim. ii. 18. 

The Jews held, that the Messiah was to raise the dead, 
1 Cor. xv. 22. 

The Holy Spirit the principal, or the efficient cause, of the 
resurrection, Rom. viii. 11. 

The resurrection of the same body, which was laid down 
in the earth, asserted and proved, and the objections to 
the contrary are answered, Preface to the First Epistle 
to the Corinthians. 

The philosophers opposed and derided the resurrection of 

the body, 1 Cor. xv. 33. 

It is to rise clothed upon, 1 Cor. xv. 30. 54, and with 
such qualities as the philosophers gave to that body 
which they styled the vehicle of the soul, ver. 44. 

The apostle seems to say, that when it enters into heaven 
it will be no longer flesh and blood, ver. 50. 

The revelation of Jesus Christ, double, by the preaching of 
the gospel to the world, by his glorious descent from 
heaven, 1 Pet. i. 5. 

Revelation of salvation, double, by the gospel bringing life 
and immortality to light; at Christ’s second appearance, 
without sin, to salvation, ibid. 

Rewards, not of strict justice or merit, but of grace and pro- 
mise, 2 Thess. i. 7. 

The righteousness of Christ imputed, not proved, from Rom. 
v. 18, 1 Cor. i. 30, Phil. iii. 9. 

Rome, why called Babylon, 1 Pet. ν. 13. 


5 


The sabbatarian doctrine, confuted, Col. ii. 16. 

The Christian sabbath confirmed, 1 Cor. xvi. 2. 

Sacrifices of a sweet odour, were also expiatory sacrifices, 
Eph. v. 2, Heb. ix. 19. 

What it is to sanctify God in our hearts, 1 Pet. iii. 15. 

They who were delivered to Satan, were punished with 
bodily diseases, 1 Cor. v. 5, 1 Tim. i. 20. 

The scriptures were written by the assistance of the Holy 
Ghost, 1 Pet. i. 12, though not always dictating the very 
words; but so presiding over the apostles, as to preserve 
them from error, General Preface. 

They contain all things requisite to salvation, 2 Tim. iii. 17. 

And were written with sufficient clearness, 2 Cor. iv. 3. 

No places are cited by the apostles, as out of scripture, which 
were not in scriptures of the Old Testament, James iv. 6. 

Justice due to servants, 

How they are to be treated, Col. iv. 1. 
How to demean themselves to their masters, Col. iii. 
22—24, 

Every deliberate and wilful sin, committed against the 
convictions of the conscience, is mortal, and deserveth 
death, as being a breach of the gospel covenant, requir 
ing sincere obedience, James i. 15, iv. 17. 

The sins of good men, are not included in those words, “ All 
things shall work together for good to them that love 
God,” Rom. viii. 28. 

God cannot necessitate or excite to sin, or infuse any evil 
into us, 2 Thess. ii. 11. 

How we all sinned in Adam, Rom. v. 19. 

Only personal sin is imputed; and that is not imputed 
when it is not punished, Rom. v. 14. 

What is the siz unto death, 1 John v. 17. 

The words, “ Those that sleep in Christ,” are not to be re- 
strained to the martyrs, 1 Thess. iv. 14. 


od 


« 


1236 


The souls of the wicked shall not be annihilated, Appendix 
to 2 Thess. i. §. 6. 

Good sou/s departed hence, are with Christ in a far better 
state, and therefore not in a state of insensibility, Phil. 
1.24. 

But not admitted into heaven, or enjoying the vision of God, 
till the day of judgment, 2 Tim. iv. 8. 

The Holy Spirit is, 

The object of religious worship, Rom. ix. 1. 
Omniscient, is with God, and is God, 1 Cor. ii. 11. 
A person uncreated, 1 Cor. xii. 11. 

The spirit of man, 

Derived not from the parents, but from God, Heb. xii. 9. 

The spirit of man hath a capacity of understanding, when 
separated from the body, 2 Cor. xii. 3. 

All proselytes to the Jewish religion, or to the worship of 
the God of Israel, are by them styled strangers, Eph. 
ii. 19. 

Christ suffered in our stead, to bear the punishment of our 
sins, and to reconcile us to God, Rom. ii. 26, v. 10, 2 Cor. 
v. 21, Gal. iii. 18, Eph. ii. 18, v. 2, 1 Tim. ii. 6, Heb. i 
4, ii. 17, 1 Pet. ii. 34, iii. 18, 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10. 

Why it was meet he should thus sw/fer, Eph. i. 8, Heb. ii. 
10, x. 14. 

The gift of discerning spirits, 1 Cor. xii. 10. 


T 


Two things requisite to a temple; 1st, That it be a place 
appropriated to God’s use; 2dly, That he should dwell 
in, or be present with it, 1 Cor. vi. 19. 

That our bodies are thus the temples of the Holy Ghost, and 
therefore to be kept holy, ibid. 

Temptations, are either to sin, or for trial of our faith; these 
latter only are matter of our joy, and why they are so, 
James i. 2. 

Thanks due to God for all things, Eph. v. 20. 

Timothy and Titus were not bishops fixed to a diocese ; but 
yet they had episcopal jurisdiction over presbyters. 
Hence it follows, 

Ist, That this superiority cannot be contrary to the 
gospel rule. 

2dly, That it is not repugnant to the constitution of 
churches in the apostles’ times, for men to have juris- 
diction over more than one particular congregation. 

3rdly, That the apostolical power of governing churches 
might be committed to others whom they would en- 
trust with it. 

Athly, That they did commit this trust to others, is 
proved from scripture, tradition, and reason, Preface 
to the Epistle to Titus. 

Traditions extra-scriptural, not proved from Rom. xvi. 17, 
nor from 1 Cor. xi. 2, nor from 2 Thess. ii. 14, 

The church no sure keeper of traditions, 2 Thess. ii. 14. 

Oral tradition disproved, 2 Pet. i. 15. 

The gift of tongues, imparted per modum habitus. 


INDEX. 


He that spake with them, understood himself, 1 Cor. xiv. 
2A”. 


His crime was this, that he chose to show his gifts in un- 
known words, when he might have spoken intelligibly, 
ver. 18. 
What it is to ¢ry the spirits, and how they might then be 
tried, 1 John iv. 1. 
Transubstantiation refuted, 1 Cor. xi. 24, 1 Pet. ii. 12. 


U 


The unity of the catholic church, wherein it consists, Eph. 
iv. 4. 
Universal grace taught, 2 Pet. iii. 9. 


WwW 


The ministerial function, is styled a warfare, 1 Tim. i. 18. 
The wicked are to be punished, 

At the day of judgment, 2 Pet. ii. 9. 

At the conflagration of the world, iii. 7. 

God will execute the punishments threatened to the wicked, 
in the life to come, Appendix to 2 Thess. i. §. 4. 

Widows, of four kinds, 1 Tim. v. 3. 

Who are widows indeed, ver. 5. 
What widows are to be chosen deaconesses, and when, 
ver. 9, 10. 

How it is, not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, 
Rom. ix. 16. 

God worketh in us to will and to do, not by such a physical 
operation as makes it necessary for us to will and do 
what he would have us; but by a moral operation excit- 
ing us to will, and suggesting to us what we ought to do, 
Phil. ii. 13. 

Freedom of will is put in opposition to necessity, 2 Cor. ix. 
7, Philem. ver. 14, 1 Pet. v. 2. 

The word of God, heard, read, and preached, is the ordinary 
means of conversion, James i. 18, 1 Pet. i. 25. 

The Holy Spirit concurs with it, not by a physical, but 
moral operation, ibid. 

The word of wisdom and of knowledge, 1 Cor. xii. 9. 

The working of miracles, ibid. 

In what sense the woman shall be saved by child-bearing, 
1 Tim. ii. 15. 

The world to come, either the age of the Messiah, or the 
kingdom to be erected after the four monarchies, styled 
οἰκουμένη, Heb. ii. 5. 

Writing is more effectual to convey the truth to posterity, 
than oral tradition, Phil. iii. 1. See oral Tradition. 

What it is fo write the law in our hearts, Heb. viii. 10. 


Z 


The zeal of the Jews was full of bitterness, James iii. 14. 
And of ignorance in the things they were zealous for, 
1 Tim. i. 7. 
The Jewish zealots, of what temper they were, James iv. 2, 
3.17. 


1237 


: AN 


INDEX 


TO 


SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL EXPRESSIONS, DESCRIPTIONS, AND REPRESENTATIONS, IN THE 
BOOK OF THE REVELATION, EXPLAINED IN THE PARAPHRASE OR ANNOTATIONS. 


A 


Anyss, or bottomless pit, what, ch. ix. ver. 1. 

Air, vial of God’s wrath poured on it, xvi. 17. 

Alpha and Omega, first and last, i. 11. 

Angel, the general meaning of the word angel in the style 
of prophecy, i. 1. 

Angels of the churches, i. 20. 

Angel who had power over fire, xvi. 18, 

Angel of the waters, xvi. 5. 

Armies of heaven, xix. 14. 

Armageddon, xvi. 18. 


B 


Beasts, the four round about the throne, rather the four 
living creatures, iv. 6. 
Not taken from the standards of Israel, seem to represent 
the principal angels, attendants on the throne of God, 
iv. 8. 
Beast, wild beast, signifies an idolatrous persecuting power, 
xiii. 1. 
First wild beast rising out of the sea, xiii. 1. 
Second wild beast rising out of the earth, xiii. 12. 
Blasphemy, names of blasphemy upon the heads 
beast, xiii. 1. 
To blaspheme God, his name, and tabernacle, xiii. 6. 
Book of life, what, iii. 5. 
Bride, the Lamb’s wife; vid. Church, xx. 12. 
Book, how written within and without, sealed with seven 
seals, v. 1. 
Little open book given St. John, what, x. 2. 
Book, to eat it, what it signifies, x. 9. 
Books opened at the judgment, what, xx. 11. 


σ 


Candlesticks, what they 5 gnify, i. 20. 
To walk in the midst of the golden candlesticks, ii. 1. 
Christ, description of his appearance in the first vision, i. 12. 
Description of his appearance in the vision of the hea- 
venly throne, v. 6. 
His title, the Word of God, xix. 13. 
His promise of coming quickly, what, xxii. 20. 
Description of his appearance leading the armies of hea- 
ven, xix. 11. 
Church, description of the church in heaven, or consistory 
above, iv. 
Christian, represented as a woman clothed with the sun, 
ἄς. xii. 1. 
Christian, represented by a woman flying into a wilder- 
ness for safety, xii. 6. 
Its happy state for a thousand years, xx. 4. 
Its happy state in the heavenly Jerusalem, as the bride, 
the Lamb’s wife, xxi. 9. 
City, great, that ruleth over the kings of the earth, xvii. 18. 
Great, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from 
God, its description, xxi. 20. 
Cloud, to come with clouds, what, i. 7. 
To be clothed with a cloud, what, xx. 1. 
Cloud or smoke from the glory of the Lord, xv. 8. 
Cloud of smoke from the bottomless pit, ix. 2. 
Cups, or vials, what their form, v. 8. 
Golden cup full of abominations, xvii. 4. 
Cup of God’s indignation, xiv. 10. 


D 
Day, in general, an undetermined time, xi. 11. 


of the 


Days, three and a half, how to be understood, xi. 11. 
Ten days, what proportion of time, ii. 10. 
Day, in the style of prophecy, signifies a year, xi. Contents. 
Darkening the sun, moon, and stars, vill. 12. 
Death, the second death, what, xx. 14. 
Dead, the rest of the dead, who, xx. 5. 
Devils, or demons, worshipped, who ix. 20. 


E 


Earth, helping the woman, xii. 16. 

Earth and sea, what, x. 9. 

Earthquakes, what they signify, xi. 19. 

Eat, to eat flesh, what, xvii. 16. 

To eat a book, x. 9. 

Epistles, to the seven churches, regard principally the state of 
the churches in Asia at the time of the revelation, i. 19. 

Euphrates dried up, xvi. 12. 

Eyes, seven, what they signify, v. 6. 


E 


False prophet, who, xvi. 13. 

Flood, cast out of the serpent’s mouth, after the woman fly- 
ing into the wilderness. xii. 15. 

Fornication, in the style of prophecy, what, Xvii. 2. 

Fountains of water, what meant by them, vill. 10. 

Four angels bound in Euphrates, ix. 14. 

Frogs, out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the 
false prophet, xvi. 14. 


G 


Garments not defiled, iii. 4. 

God, description of his heavenly throne, iv. 3. 
Glass, vid. Sea of glass. 

Gog and Magog, xx. 8. 

Grass, vill. 7, ix. 4. 


H 


Hail, great, xi. 19. 
Harvest of the earth, ripe, xiv. 15. 
Heads, seven of the beasts, their double meaning, xvii. 9, 10. 
Heaven, the scene of St. John’s vision, iv. 1, xil. 1. 
To ascend to heaven, or fall from it, xi. 12. 
Model of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, 
xxi. 2. 
Horns, seven horns of the Lamb, v. 6. 
‘Ten horns of the beast, xvii. 12. 
Horses, and their riders, vi. 2. 
Hour, one, or at the same time, xvii. 12. 


15 


Jerusalem, nei, its description, xxi. 9. 
Image of the beast, whereby he was worshipped, xiii. 14. 
Judgments of God to be certainly inflicted on the corrupters 
of religion, and persecutors of the faithful, xviii. 1, 2. 
On mystical Babylon, their description, xviii. 6, &e. 
Praise of the heavenly church, for the righteousness and 
faithfulness of God’s judgments, xix. 1, 2. 


K 


Keys of hell, and of death, i. 18. 

Kings, ten, who reign at the same time with the beast, 
xvii. 12. 

Kings, seven, or seven forms of government in the Roman 
empire, xvii. 10. 

Kingdom of God, and power of his Christ, xii. 10. 


1238 


L 


Lake, that burneth with fire, xx. 14, 15. 
Lamps, seven burning before the throne of God, iv. 5. 
Light, xxii. 4. 
Light of the new Jerusalem, xxi. 11. 
Lightning, viii. 5, xi. 19. 
Locusts, ix. 3. 
M 

Man child, caught up to God, and his throne, xii. 5. 
Months, five, ix. 10. 
Moon, third part darkened, viii. 12 

Under the feet of the woman clothed with the sun, xii. 1. 
Mood, imperative, in prophecies, denotes future events, 

xxii. 11. 

Mountain, burning with fire, cast into the sea, viii. 8. 


N 


Name of the beast, xiii. 17. 

Night, xxii. 4. 

Numbers in prophecy, not always to be interpreted literally, 
but have sometimes a figurative or mystical meaning, 


vii. 4, 
O 
Olive-trees, description of the two witnesses, xi. 4. 
P 


Palms, emblems of joy and victory, vii. 9. 
Part, third part of men, ix. 15. 
Peniops. 
First, of the seals, vi. 1. 
Second, of the trumpets, viii. 
Third, of the vials. 
First description, xi. 
Second description, xii. 
Third description, xiii. 
Successive judgments of God in the third period, xvi. 
Fourth, or happy state of the church for a thousand 
years, xx. 1. 
Fifth, Satan loosed for a little season, xx. 7. 
Sixth, general resurrection and final judgment, xx. 11. 
Seventh, eternal sabbath, everlasting peace, perfection, 
and happiness of the faithful, xxi. 
Prophet, false, xvii. 13. 
R 
Raiment, white, iii. 5. 
Rainbow, round about the throne, iv. 3. 
On an angel’s head, x. 1. 
River of water of life, xxii. 1, 2. 
Resurrection, first, xx. 5. 
General, to judgment, xx. 12. 


5 
Sea, creatures in it, died, viii. 9... 


INDEX. 


Angel setting his foot on the sea, and on the earth, x. 2. 
No sea in the new Jerusalem, xxi. 1. 
To rise out of the sea, xiii. 1. 
Sea of glass mingled with fire, xv. 2. 
Seals, seven, opened, show the successive judgments of God, 
in the first period, vi. 
Sealing the servants of God in their foreheads, vii. 3. 
Spirits, seven, before the throne of God, i. 4. 
Smoke, from the glory of God, xv. 8. 
Out of the bottomless pit, ix. 2. 
Stars in the right hand of Christ, i. 20. 
Burning star falling from heaven on the rivers, viii. 10. 
Star falling from heaven, having the key of the bottomless 
pit, ix. 1. 
Sorceries, ix. 21. 
Sun, moon, and stars, smitten and darkened, viii. 10. 
To be clothed with the sun, xii. 1. 
Sword, sharp, out of the mouth of Christ, in the first vision, 
i. 16, xix. 15. 


th 


Ten days, ii..10. 

Tenth part of the city, xi. 13. 

Time present, in the style of prophecy, expresses certainty 
of future events, xiv. 7. 

Time, expressed by an hour, a day, a month, and a year, 
ix. 15. 

Time shall be no longer, x. 6. 

Trumpets, seven, show the successive judgments of God in 
the second period, viii. 


i 


Vials, mark the successive judgments of God in the third 
period, xvi. 

Vintage, xiv. 18. 

Vision, the highest degree of prophetic revelation, i. 12. 


WwW 


Walls of the new Jerusalem, their height, xxi. 16, 17. 
Waters, fountains of waters, viii. 10, 11. 

On which the whore sitteth, xiii. 15. 
White, or of a great lustre, i. 14. 
Winds, holding the four winds of the earth, vii. 1. 
Wine-press of the wrath of God, to tread it, xiv. 19, 20. 
Witnesses, two, prophesying in sackcloth, xi. 3. 
Whore, judgment of the great whore, xvii. 1, 
Woe, the three woes, what, xi. 14. 
Woman, carried by the beast, xvil. 18. 

Clothed with the sun, xii. 1. : 

Flying into the wilderness, xii. 6. 
Word of God, xix. 13. 
Worship, offered to the angel by St. John, xix. 10. 


Z 
Zion, Lamb standing on mount Zion, xiv. 1. 


THE END. 


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Β5490.0934 1845 ν.4 
A critical commentary and paraphrase on 


Princeton Theological Seminary—Speer Library 


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